Nicht Ihr Computer? Dann konnen Sie fur die Anmeldung ein Fenster zum privaten Surfen offnen. Weitere Informationen , . What to know about this year's Covered Bridge Festival in Parke County FRIDAY Junior livestock show HASKELL The Haskell County Junior Livestock Show will continue at 9 a.m. at the Haskell County Show Barn. 'HSU Rocks' The Hardin-Simmons University College of Fine Arts will present a variety of rock music at 'HSU Rocks' at 7 p.m. in Behrens Auditorium on campus. Admission is $10 for adults and $5 for students. 'Shrek, The Musical, Jr.' A production of "Shrek, The Musical, Jr." will be presented at 7:30 p.m. at the Paramount Theatre, 352 Cypress St. For tickets or for information, go to www.paramount-abilene.org. Other ... Blood drive, 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Holland Medical High School. Overeaters Anonymous, noon, Hinds Square Building, 100 Chestnut St., Room 112. Abilene Chinese Corner, 5:30-6:30 p.m., Abilene Christian University library. lld09a@acu.edu. Mid-City Al-Anon, 7 p.m., First Christian Church. 325-670-4304. SATURDAY Junior livestock show HASKELL The Haskell County Junior Livestock Show will conclude with a livestock sale at 11 a.m. at the Haskell County Show Barn. Zoo volunteer meeting A meeting for people interested in volunteering will begin at 2 p.m. at the Abilene Zoo administrative building. Volunteers will help with education, administration and plant and animal care. For information, go to www.abilenezoo.org, call 325-676-6451 or go to Abilene.zoo@abilenetx.com. 'HSU Rocks' The Hardin-Simmons University College of Fine Arts will present a variety of rock music at 'HSU Rocks' at 7 p.m. in Behrens Auditorium on campus. Admission is $10 for adults and $5 for students. 'Shrek, The Musical, Jr.' A production of "Shrek, The Musical, Jr." will be presented at 7:30 p.m. at the Paramount Theatre, 352 Cypress St. For tickets or for information, go to www.paramount-abilene.org. Other ... Overeaters Anonymous, 10 a.m., Shades of Hope, 402A Mulberry St., Buffalo Gap. 800-588-4673. Big Country Chapter American Association of Medical Transcriptionists meeting, 10 a.m., Arbec Room, first floor, Texas State Technical College, East Highway 80, Abilene. For medical transcriptionists or anyone interested in becoming one. 325-698-8898. Abilene Society of Model Railroaders, 10 a.m. to noon, 2043 N. Second St. SUNDAY 'Shrek, The Musical, Jr.' A production of "Shrek, The Musical, Jr." will be presented at 2 p.m. at the Paramount Theatre, 352 Cypress St. For tickets or for information, go to www.paramount-abilene.org. By Loretta Fulton As unlikely as it may sound, the Venerable Maitri Avalokita is a native Abilenian. He will return to his hometown Jan. 23 to present the monthly program of the Abilene Interfaith Council. His talk will begin at 2 p.m. at Unity Spiritual Living Center, 2842 Barrow St. The program is free and open to the public. Avalokita's talk will be on "Living as a Buddhist Monk in the West." He now lives in Dallas and is affiliated with the Sarvastivada Buddhist Order in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He was ordained as a Buddhist minister in 2002 and now supports himself as a healing arts teacher. Shawna Mitchell is a member of the local interfaith council and an acquaintance of Avalokita. The two met about 14 years ago at Cassy's Multicultural Gifts and Healing Centre when Avalokita returned to Abilene from Dallas to teach at a commercial college. He later moved, eventually teaching spirituality classes all over the world before settling in Dallas. Mitchell said in an email that Avalokita occasionally comes to Abilene to visit family. During one visit in December 2013, he donated his time to lead Buddhist meditation sessions on Fridays at Cassy's. According to an online biographical sketch of Avalokita, he "hopes to set the record straight about the true work of Siddhartha Gautama, the historical human being we now know as 'the Buddha' and clear the air and confusion about this great humanitarian, activist, teacher, psychologist and human service worker." IF YOU GO: Share your grief Pioneer Drive Baptist Church will begin a 13-week GriefShare program Tuesday. The program will be held 5:30-7:30 p.m. in Room 114 of the church, 701 S. Pioneer Drive. Facilitators will be Omer Hancock and Jana Williams, who held the inaugural GriefShare last fall. Cost is $15, which includes a workbook. The course is for anyone age 18 or older who has lost a loved one. It doesn't have to be a recent loss. For more information contact 692-6776. Registration can be done by phone or at the door. Drop-ins are welcome at any time during the 13-week period. Church to honor pastor's 28 years The Rev. A. L. Penns, pastor of Valley View Missionary Baptist Church, 3564 Clinton St., will be honored for 28 years of service at an appreciation service at 3 p.m. Sunday. Guest minister will be Pastor Demotis Sherman of the Mt. Zion First Baptist Church. His topic will be "A Vessel Unto Honor, Prepared Unto Every Good Work" (2 Timothy 2:20-23). Unitarian Universalists The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Abilene, 1541 Sayles Blvd., welcomes people of all religions, nonreligions and all ages. Sunday's service continues with The Great Courses DVD "How Jesus Became God." Bart D. Ehrman, professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, delivers the 21st lecture, "The Arian Controversy," at 11 a.m. For more information on the fellowship, visit www.uuabilene. Send news of your religious organization or group to Religion Editor, Abilene Reporter-News, P.O. Box 30, Abilene, Texas 79604; fax it to 325-670-5242; or email it to jan.woodward@reporternews.com. Deadline is noon Monday. Eastland The First Baptist Church of Eastland has various activities planned: The church will celebrate Sanctity of Life Sunday on Sunday. The Eastland Band presents the Stacy Blair Day Celebration featuring the Legacy Brass Quintet, a professional brass quintet from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, in a free public concert at 2 p.m. Sunday at First Baptist Church. In the spirit of local legend Stacy Blair, the quintet will be playing joyous jazz, classical and spiritual music. Send news of your religious organization or group to Religion Editor, Abilene Reporter-News, P.O. Box 30, Abilene, Texas 79604; fax it to 325-670-5242; or email it to jan.woodward@reporternews.com. Deadline is noon Monday. Texas Tech University regent Tim Lancaster, president and CEO of Hendrick Health System, was selected Thursday to chair the university's presidential search committee. In addition, former regent Scott Dueser, president and CEO of First Financial Bankshares, was named to the committee. The 12-person committee made up of representatives from various campus constituencies, including students, deans, faculty and alumni was named to find a successor to Duane Nellis, who announced Jan. 8 that he was stepping down after less than three years in office. Also on Thursday, regents named John Opperman as interim president. Opperman currently is vice chancellor of academic affairs for the Texas Tech University System and has two decades of higher education leadership experience. He will not be a candidate for president. The action came after the regents met with Texas Tech University System Chancellor Robert Duncan. Opperman begins his new duties Jan. 22. Lancaster has been a Board of Regents member since 2013 and chairs the Academic, Clinical and Student Affairs Committee. Dueser was a member of the Board of Regents from 2005 to 2009 and chairman from 2008 to 2009. The Abilene City Council on Thursday approved the purchase of a new public safety communications system for the fire and police departments. It will mark the first upgrade of the equipment since 2006, said Assistant Police Chief Doug Wrenn. The price tag for upgrading both software and hardware is more than $1.3 million, most of which will be paid for through an interfund loan. The city allocated only $500,000 for the purchase in this year's budget. The remainder of the cost will be covered through a loan from the city's fleet replacement fund, said City Manager Robert Hanna. The city will take the money needed for the communications system from the fleet replacement fund and repay that amount over a period of three years, Hanna said. Ideally, the city would repay about $200,000 each year, starting next year, until it replenishes the fleet fund. It will take roughly 12 months for the fire and police departments to convert to the new system, Wrenn said. The city will acquire the system from Spillman Technologies, based in Salt Lake City. In addition to the upfront costs, the company charges for yearly system maintenance, but upgrades to the system are free, Wrenn said. For example, after the first year the system is in place, Spillman will charge $149,350 for second-year maintenance, according to the contract. Wrenn said the price was worth it because the police and fire departments would be able to stay up to date as technology progresses for years to come. The new software should allow police officers to complete incident reports faster and for detectives to receive reports more quickly, as well. "We've certainly done our due diligence to assure ourselves that we're making the right decision," he said. A committee of fire and police department representatives formed last year to analyze the city's options in upgrading its public safety technology by evaluating various vendors based on price and technological advancement. The committee recommended Spillman Technologies. In other business, the City Council confirmed Hanna's selection of Larry Bell as fire chief to replace Ken Dozier, who retired last week. Bell had been a deputy fire chief. Hanna visited each Abilene fire station in November to introduce himself to the firefighters. He said every firefighter he spoke to said Bell would be the right man for the job of chief. Additionally, the council approved a series of water supply contracts with the cities of Buffalo Gap, Tuscola and Lawn. Twitter: BrookeCrum_ARN GLENDORA, CA - APRIL 22: Solar panels cover the roof of a Sam's Club store that was toured by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Wal-Mart officials before their press conference on Earth Day, April 22, 2009 in Glendora, California. Following the tour, the governor and Wal-Mart officials announced that Wal-Mart will expand its solar power programs by adding solar panels on 10 to 20 additional Wal-Mart facilities to generate up to 32 million kilowatt hours of renewable energy every year, the equivalent of powering more than 2,600 homes. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images) SHARE Friday to be sunny with a high near 58 and a nightly low close to 36. This week, the highs are expected to stay in between the 40s and high 50s. The nightly lows this week most likely will stay around the 30s. There is a 20 to 30 percent chance for showers nearly every day this week. Your seven day forecast: Friday: Sunny, with a high near 58. West northwest wind 5 to 10 mph. Friday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 36. South wind around 5 mph becoming east after midnight. Saturday: A chance of rain and snow after 7am. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 45. North northeast wind 5 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Saturday Night: A chance of rain and snow before 7pm. Partly cloudy, with a low around 31. North wind 5 to 10 mph becoming south after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Sunday: Partly sunny, with a high near 56. South southwest wind 10 to 15 mph becoming west northwest in the afternoon. Sunday Night: A slight chance of rain and snow after 7pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 29. North wind 10 to 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. M.L.King Day: A slight chance of rain and snow before 7am. Mostly sunny, with a high near 51. North wind 5 to 10 mph becoming south in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 20%. Monday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 39. South wind 10 to 15 mph. Tuesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 62. Tuesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 38. Wednesday: Partly sunny, with a high near 58. Wednesday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 41. Thursday: A 20 percent chance of showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 57. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below This just in... Taiwan voters go to the polls on Saturday to elect a new president and parliament, as polls predict the democratic island could get its first-ever female leader amid growing public fears surrounding closer ties with Beijing. The ruling nationalist Kuomintang (KMT)'s incumbent president Ma Ying-jeou will step down at the end of a second term in office, and the embattled party is fielding Taipei mayor and party chairman Eric Chu as presidential candidate in the wake of disastrous results in local elections last year. Meanwhile, opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairwoman and presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen showed a strong lead against Chu when the last electoral opinion poll was released earlier this month, despite having lost the presidential race to Ma in 2012. The political landscape has shifted considerably since Ma's victory, however, with a student occupation of parliament in 2014 highlighting growing popular concern over the KMT's policy of ever-closer ties with the Chinese Communist Party on the mainland, analysts told RFA. The Chinese Communist Party and the KMT nationalist party were bitter foes during a civil war that flared up after the defeat of Japan in World War II, and the KMT government fled to the island from Chongqing after losing to Mao Zedong's Soviet-backed communist forces. The Taipei government sees itself as the legal continuation of the KMT regime that began with Sun Yat-sen's 1911 revolution and the fall of the Qing dynasty, while Beijing sees Taiwan as a renegade province awaiting reunification, and has threatened to use military force if the island seeks independence. According to Liu Bing, Washington correspondent for Taiwan's China Times newspaper, the DPP's Tsai has strong support among younger people, the main force behind the 2014 Sunflower Movement that occupied parliament and other official buildings in protest at a proposed trade deal with Beijing. "For many Taiwanese, it's not such a glorious thing to be Chinese," Liu said. "Perhaps if the political system on the mainland were to change one day, then maybe it would become so." "But right now that seems like a very distant possibility." 'Not Chinese' Many of Taiwan's 23 million residents identify as Taiwanese rather than Chinese, and there is broad political support for de facto self-rule, if not formal independence. Taiwan was governed separately from mainland China throughout the Japanese occupation (1895-1945) and since 1949, and has never formed part of communist China. But Beijing is keen to preserve a 1992 consensus agreed between the KMT and Beijing that sees both political entities as part of "one China," and that policy is also a key plank in the KMT's election platform. "On cross-straits relations, Eric Chu is continuing the current policies of the KMT, which is basically the One China policy with each side sticking to its own interpretation of that," Liu said. A historic meeting between President Ma and Chinese President Xi Jinping last year sealed the KMT's commitment to that consensus, but is unlikely to have helped the party's election hopes, he said. "What that meeting did was to set a certain direction for cross-straits ties," Liu said. "What it means is that the two leaders will continue to hold meetings in the event that there are further concessions in cross-straits ties." Voters worried However, DPP candidate Tsai Ing-wen's approval ratings rose the day after the presidential meeting in Singapore, leading many to predict that the island's voters are too deeply worried by the prospect of closer ties with the mainland to vote KMT on Saturday. Kuo Pao-sheng, a political and religious affairs commentator, said the 1992 consensus implies an eventual future for Taiwan as part of a unified China, with Beijing promising a "one country, two systems" framework similar to that operating in Hong Kong since the former British colony reverted to Chinese rule in 1997. But recent developments in Hong Kong, including Beijing's refusal to allow fully democratic elections and the apparent arrest of a bookstore manager by Chinese agents within the city's jurisdiction have made that prospect less appealing to Taiwanese. For its part, Beijing has pulled out the economic stops in a bid to swell popular support for closer ties, inviting Taiwan companies to set up shop in the mainland and investing billions in the island's economy through its state-run and state-invested companies. The DPP's Tsai has hit out at recent plans for China to invest some U.S.$2.6 billion via state-owned company Tsinghua Unigroup as a threat to the island's semiconductor industry. Growing influence According to Xie Tian, professor at the University of South Carolina, Beijing has already extended its political and economic influence well within Taiwan's borders. "The Chinese Communist Party has already managed a certain economic penetration in Taiwan, and its spies are extremely active on the island," Xie said. "They are using their representatives and agents to exert political influence on the Taiwan elections," he said. "They have invited large numbers of Taiwanese businesses to invest in the mainland, and many Taiwan businesses have made a lot of money out of that." "They have also been busy investing in Taiwan through private channels." For most Taiwanese, closer ties with Beijing can only lead to a similar situation to Hong Kong's, given that the 1992 consensus assumes eventual reunification under a "one country, two systems" model, analysts said. Losses feared According to Kuo: "That means that Taiwan would basically turn into something like Hong Kong, so Taiwanese people are very afraid of this outcome," he said. The KMT has tried to present itself as the party of unity with the historic meeting between the two presidents taking place as campaigning began, but that approach may have backfired, Kuo said. "That meeting was an endorsement for the consensus that there is only one China, interpreted differently by the two sides. But ultimately, in Taiwan, it largely had a negative effect [on the KMT's campaign]," he said. According to Liu, the KMT is also worried about retaining its majority in the island's Legislative Yuan. The party, which currently holds 65 out of 113 seats, needs to retain 57 of them to form a majority government. "The KMT doesn't just fear losing the presidency. It fears losing seats in the Legislative Yuan as well," Liu said. "And we're not just talking about losing its overall majority; it could be left with just a quarter of the seats, and then where would it be? If that happens, the DPP could even proceed with constitutional reforms [towards formal independence], and the KMT is extremely worried about that eventuality," he said. According to former 1989 student leader Wang Dan, who fled China after the 1989 pro-democracy movement on Beijing's Tiananmen Square, Taiwan's democracy is now entering a new phase of pressure groups and grass-roots activism. "Taiwan's political direction will no longer be decided by political parties or personalities, but civic groups and ordinary people acting via the Internet," Wang said in a recent interview. "If Tsai Ing-wen is elected with a huge mandate, then I think her main challenge will come from civil society groups," he said. Reported by Chang Li and Tang Qiwei for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Wen Yuqing for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie. North Korea takes great pains to prevent its people from watching film, TV and music from South Korea, such as KPOP idol band "Crayon Pop," seen performing on television, April 9, 2014. North Korean leader Kim Jong Uns attempt to crack down on illegal videos appears to be more successful at filling the pockets of corrupt law enforcement officials than preventing the totalitarian nations people from watching forbidden material, according to sources inside the country. Kim Jong Un issued a directive to each judicial agency on Dec. 19 of last year that -- regardless of the reason -- anyone caught watching illegal video material will be sentenced to more than five years in jail, a source in Yanggang province told RFAs Korean Service. In addition, their families will be exiled to isolated, rural areas. A source in North Hamgyong confirmed the substance of the government decree. The central government has notched up the level of punishment of those residents watching illegal video material to try to root out their viewing habit, the source said. On Dec. 26 last year each provincial government held a Peoples General Meeting (generally considered a kangaroo court), where those arrested on charges of watching illegal video material such as South Korean movies or music videos are sentenced to more than five years in jail. While Kims decree was aimed at curbing North Koreans appetite for South Korean videos, it has really whetted judicial officials appetite for a quick payoff with a bribe that locals call a samcheonmutong, North Korean sources explain. According to one source, samcheonmutong means three thousand Chinese yuan a sum that will solve everything. Certainly 3000 Chinese RMB is big bucks for those arrested, but compared with their long jail terms and the deportation of family members to the remote countryside, its still a bearable burden, the source said. Despite such a miserable situation, judicial officials talk as if theyre making a big concession. The source added: They even go to the trouble of persuading arrested residents to donate the bribes, with an excuse like: We are human beings too, and we dont want to give you such a harsh punishment. But, we need to bribe our bosses with money in order to condone your illegal activities as well as save our own lives. Despite the continuing crackdown, there has been a gradual increase in the number of North Koreans watching illegal video material, North Korean sources say. Draconian steps The increase comes as the North Korean government takes ever more draconian steps to reign in the practice. In addition to the jail terms and exiles, three women were secretly executed in a northern city for illegally using their cell phones to distribute copies of a popular South Korean television drama, sources inside the country said. RFAs Korean Service reported on Sept. 8 that the three housewives were executed in Hyesan city in Yanggang province for distributing the South Korean television drama Until the Azalea Blooms about an actress from the North executed by former leader Kim Jong Il, who ruled from 1994 until 2011. Produced in South Korea as an eight-part series in 1998, Until the Azalea Blooms portrays North Korean society and artistic circles under national founder Kim Il Sungs regime (1948-1994), based on accounts by citizens who had defected to the South. Kim is the grandfather of current leader Kim Jong Un. In June, RFA reported that North Korean authorities made college students perform forced labor and denied them academic diplomas for watching the soap opera. Authorities have long tried to block South Korean soap operas, movies and music from entering the country in an attempt to keep unwanted foreign influences from seeping into the isolated nation. Seoul's pop culture output has a wide following in Asia and a growing global fan base. North Korea imposes a strict ban on foreign media, and harsh punishments, including execution, can be handed down to those caught watching South Korean TV dramas smuggled into the country on DVDs and other electronic storage devices. Nevertheless, many North Koreans watch foreign programs saved on USB devices, which are compact and easy to conceal from government inspectors. Reported by Sung-hui Moon. Translated by Changsop Pyon. Written in English by Brooks Boliek. About 200 Myanmar farmers intent on protesting land abuses tied to the Chinese-owned Letpadaung copper mine were halted by police short of their goal on Thursday as local people continue to push authorities on issues related to the controversial project. Police stopped the protesters at around 2 p.m. as they were marching from Mogyopyin Ale Ville to the Wanbao Mining Companys offices in the Sagaing region to protest a decision by the company to forego compensation for crops that have been destroyed or displaced by the controversial mine. While the farmers received compensation last year, they say a payment hasnt been forthcoming this year. We sent request letters three times this year asking for crop compensation ... but we havent received any response, Ma Mar Cho, a protester from Ton Village, told RFAs Myanmar Service. We protest today because they didnt pay us this year. Chinas Myanmar Wanbao Mining Copper Ltd. and its partner, the military-backed Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd. operate the controversial mine that has been the scene of violent protests. On Dec. 22, police shot and killed villager Khin Win, who had joined other protesters to try to prevent Wanbao employees from fencing off land for the mining project. Dozens were injured during two days of clashes between police and farmers. Farmers near the Letpadaung mine and the mine's owners have long been embroiled in a dispute over land taken over for the mines operation. Wanbao and Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings have said they will pay farmers the highest market rate for crops at the site, but locals have rejected the offer and demanded the return of their land. Recommendations ignored In 2014, National League for Democracy (NLD) leader Aung San Suu Kyi accused the government of ignoring recommendations by a parliamentary inquiry she had led that sought to improve conditions at the mine. It is something to question why they [authorities] didnt implement the inquiry commissions recommendations, she told reporters in December 2014 [The protest] erupted because they didnt do what they had to do to put the recommendations into practice. The panel had called for more transparency in the projects land appropriation process and for police riot control training in the wake of a violent raid on protesters at the mine site in 2012. Myanmar's government rejected her claims in August 2015 when Tin Myint, secretary of the Implementation Committee, told reporters: We are doing everything the report called forin fact, we are doing more than what it recommended. Government action hasnt stopped unrest near the mine, and in September 2015 a court in Myanmar on Friday imposed additional jail terms on two activists imprisoned for protesting the shooting death of an unarmed woman outside the mine. Nay Myo Zin and Naw Ohn Hla now face jail terms of five years and six years and five months, respectively, for violating the Act on the Right to Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession. Reported by Kyaw Lwin Oo for RFA's Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Brooks Boliek. Myanmar's parliamentary speaker Shwe Mann delivers a speech during the opening ceremony of the Union Peace Conference in Naypyidaw, Jan. 12, 2016. The powerful speaker of Myanmars lower house of parliament on Friday chided a lawmaker from the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party for targeting the long-ruling armys involvement in key economic sectors during debate over a draft bill on national plans for the upcoming fiscal year. Speaker Shwe Man interrupted NLD lawmaker Aung Moe Nyo as he discussed the militarys Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings, Ltd. (UMEHL), an army-owned conglomerate that includes garment factories, copper mines in Mount Letpadaung in northern Myanmars Sagaing region, Myawaddy Bank, and the shipping firm Myanma Five Star Line, and suggested it only benefited military officers, not rank-and-file soldiers. In my constituency, soldiers are extremely poor because they dont have enough clothing and food, he said. It shouldnt be that way. If high-ranking officers are excessively rich while ordinary soldiers are deprived, ... But Shwe Mann, a member of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), interrupted him and said: Dont use words that damage the dignity of the organization [army]. This should be the last warning. Aung Moe Nyo, however, continued his comments about the government army and its grip on the economy, strengthened over decades of unchallenged military rule. According to the findings of foreign researchers, the Myanmar army, police force and judiciary system are the institutions that people have the least trust in, he said. We should really emphasize that these institutions need to be trustworthy to meet our goals. The verbal exchange underscores the power that the government army wields in both business and parliament, where a quarter of the seats are appointed to military officers. The army will maintain its proportion of representatives in parliament when a new NLD government and leader assumes power before March 31, the date on which the current government will be dissolved. Myanmars Ministry of Defense runs the UMEHL and another large conglomerate, Myanmar Economic Corporation. Although the United States suspended sanctions against the country in 2012, it has maintained sanctions against both firms because of their military affiliations. Holding the country back After hearing about the exchange between Shwe Mann and Aung Moe Nyo, some observers suggested that the armys business interests were holding the country back. The army has largely been involved in politics and the economic sector in Myanmar, said Pyi Thway Naing, editor of Khit Yanant monthly magazine. Now everyone is watching to see the transfer of power to the new government and how it will deal with crony businessmen and the army-owned UMEHL. If the new government doesnt abolish the UMEHL, Myanmars economy will not improve. He also pointed out that Shwe Mann used to be the No. 3 leader of the former military regime that ruled the country prior to 2010, the year that the USDP came into power, and that his family continues to control a huge business empire in the country. I think thats why Shwe Mann tried to cut off the MPs discussion, he said. Kyaw Yin Mying, a Mandalay-based writer, told RFA that Shwe Mann warned Aung Moe Nyo because the speaker believes now is not the right time to raise the issue, given that many other priorities must be addressed during a delicate political transition. This issue is one of the issues that should be discussed on another day, he said. The army itself will become aware of it and step back from the business sector one day as the Chinese army did. NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party swept the Nov. 8 elections, has made nationwide peace that would end decades of civil wars between the army and various armed ethnic rebel groups her governments first priority. Shwe Mann has met several times with Aung San Suu Kyi since the elections and agreed to work towards national reconciliation in the new parliament, which will convene on Feb. 1. In the meantime, the government army continues to be involved in ongoing clashes with certain armed ethnic groups in various part of the country, including Shan and Kachin states in northern Myanmar and Rakhine state in the western part of the country. Government representatives, military officers and leaders from the armed ethnic groups have been engaged in political dialogue this week at the Union Peace Conference in the capital Naypyidaw. Reported by Thinn Thiri for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Kyaw Kyaw Aung. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. Tibetan villagers assigned to guard wildlife in a Tibetan prefecture in northwestern Chinas Sichuan province have taken into custody four Han Chinese caught poaching endangered animals in protected areas, sources said. The four were detained at around 2:00 a.m. on Jan. 9 near Basu village in Dzoege (in Chinese, Ruoergai) county in the Ngaba (Aba) Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture and were quickly handed over to local officials, a resident of the area told RFAs Tibetan Service. The Tibetans confiscated two rifles and a jeep, along with the carcasses of 12 animals the poachers had hunted, RFAs source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The animals they had killed included musk deer, wild sheep, wolves, and rabbits, according to photos circulating on the social media platform Weibo and obtained by RFA. Sichuans provincial government website later confirmed the detentions, adding that the accused poachers are now under investigation by Dzoege county police. Snow leopards killed In a separate incident, official sources reported on Jan. 12 that five Chinese nationals of unknown ethnicity were taken into custody for alleged poaching near Hetita village in Qinghais Tsonub (Haixi) Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. No date of detention was reported, but the suspects were found with the carcasses of two snow leopards and several vultures and wild sheep. The alleged illegal hunt occurred in a Tibetan nature reserve in Qinghai and is thought to have been a part of wider poaching activities in the area beginning in October. The suspects have not admitted guilt in the case but face ongoing investigation by the authorities, sources said. China is one of the worlds largest consumers of wildlife products, and snow leopards are prized by poachers because of their beautiful fur, though their bones and other body parts are frequently used in traditional Asian medicine. An estimated 6,000 snow leopards remain in the wild, though their numbers are dwindling and are difficult to pin down because of the animals shy nature and rugged habitat. Directives from Chinas central government urging protection of the vulnerable environment of Tibetan areas are often flouted at the local level by Han Chinese migrants to the region, experts say. Reported by Guru Choegyi and Chakmo Tso for RFAs Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Brooks Boliek and Richard Finney. Vietnam released a prominent female human rights activist today after she served a five-year prison sentence for violating the countrys law aimed at stopping dissent. Ho Thi Bich Khuong was released from Thanh Xuan prison in Hanoi after serving a prison sentence for conducting propaganda against the government, but it is unclear where she will go since the Vietnamese government has confiscated her house and land. Police and thugs came to the villages cultural house, and told me that this house is not for me to stay, she said in an interview with RFAs Vietnamese Service from the Nam Anh village. They assaulted me and threw my stuff out. While her sister Ho Thi Lan offered to let her stay for the night, she told RFA that it was up to the government to find the activist a place to stay. This morning they summoned me to the villages office to receive Khuong, Ho Thi Lan said. I told them, as a sister I am willing to help Khuong, but I cant do the hand-over procedure because the village took all her land and her house. Now they have to help her to settle down. I dont know what might happen to her if she stays in my house. Multiple human rights awards Ho Thi Bich Khuong is one of a rapidly expanding group of activists who use the Internet to defend their rights. She publishes detailed accounts of the repression and harassment she, her family and others have faced. She is author of My Journey of Struggle for Justice and Democracy, a book about her experiences. In 2011 Ho Thi Bich Khuong received a Hellman/Hammett award from Human Rights Watch. In 2015 The Vietnam Human Rights Network gave her its human rights award Born in 1967, Ho Thi Bich Khuong has been arrested and imprisoned several times for her human rights activities. A widow and mother of a teenage son, she was held incommunicado for almost a year after she and pastor Nguyen Trung Ton were arrested in Jan. 2011 while copying the film Loss of the Country - A Great Disaster. According to a U.N. report on torture she was repeatedly beaten in prison and denied medical care. In April 2007, police arrested her in an Internet cafe in Nghe An province for reading information on foreign-based websites. In 2008, the Peoples Court of Nghe An sentenced her to two years in prison for abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state. In May 2005, the authorities arrested her in Hanoi, where she went to file a grievance with the central government over the confiscation of her property by local authorities. The Peoples Court of Ba Dinh district in Hanoi sentenced her to six months in prison for disrupting public order under article 245 of the penal code. Reported by RFA's Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Brooks Boliek. My name is Zhang Dongcui. I am from Pingyang county in China's Zhejiang province, where I was employed as a teacher at the Qiancang Town Center Primary School in February 1974. I used to live in Qiancang township, but later I moved to Changda near Beijing, where I lived for more than 30 years. Now I and the other two members of my family live in the United States. My father was a Protestant missionary; he died in 1992. I still have my mother, who is 98 years old now, and five brothers and a sister. We all come from farming stock. Two of my brothers were in the military, but they have been demobilized now. That is our family's situation in a nutshell. There were only 54 teachers in Qiancang, and nine of us were humiliated, beaten up and otherwise injured, one of us twice. I started petitioning because of this incident. I was among those who were pretty badly injured. It was about 6 a.m. on June 24, 1982. I was on duty that morning, and I was heading for the school to teach class. As I walked past the gates of my attackers' home, they grabbed my hair, held my hands and beat me until I was severely injured, with blood coming out of my mouth. I fell to the ground in a daze. This was because when my brothers were in the army back in 1960, my dad was a missionary, and so our lives were very difficult. My brothers and sisters were still very young, and they had to go to school. The local government allocated some work in the firewood market, right next door to my attackers' home. Their father was a member of the Communist Party, as well as head of the supply and marketing cooperative, so he was the head honcho in those parts. Because of this, his nephew was head of the local police station, and his old friend, who had been in the police force for 28 years, was deputy chief of police. The county party committee and the complaints department were all filled with their friends. He used to like to beat people up on a regular basis. He told some neighbors ... to take away my mother's weighing scale [which she needed for her work] and to throw it in the river, the counterweight too, and then they beat my mother and injured her. She was old then, 65 at the time. None of us was there at the time. After some negotiations with the township and village officials, my mother's medical expenses were reimbursed ... But this was just a show, so that other people would think that they had resolved this affair ... by apologizing and admitting they had done wrong. Nobody powerful to back us up Little did I imagine that the next day they would attack me as well not the exact same guy but someone else from his clique. He would have told him to do it. Our family is from a farming background, and we had nobody powerful to back us up. My brothers tried to lodge complaints, but they weren't accepted by anyone at any department, because they were all within the same network of relations. They stopped my salary and they took away [more than a third of] my ration tickets [necessary to buy basic foodstuffs]. I couldn't afford the medical bills at the hospital where I was being treated in Wenzhou. The municipal leader said he would take the case because he knew the head of the hospital, who knew I was an innocent person who had been beaten up. He agreed to take the case. They issued an arbitration decision ordering the education authorities to pay my medical bills and hoped I would carry on with my work ... and focus on carrying out my teaching profession. But my lawsuit was [rejected], and ... I never received the 750 yuan [U.S. $114] I was promised. I took the case to Beijing in May 1985, and then ... it was a long, long process during which I was in Beijing the whole time. I was 26 or 27 then, and I remained in Beijing for 30 years. I was told at the education ministry that they could do nothing about attacks on teachers, and that I should go to the police. "Go home!" they said. Later, there were so many petitioners that you couldn't even squeeze in by the door. The place was packed with people who had started lining up in the early hours of the morning. Back in 1985, 1986, you didn't have the land grabs, the forced evictions and demolitions. When that happened, all the farming communities started to petition en masse. It's not often that a teacher gets beaten up, but while I was in the education ministry I ran into many teachers who had been framed because of corruption in their schools, which accused them of raping a student and then helped the student bring a court case [against them]. There were a lot of cases like that, and they were frightening. Reported by Zhang Min for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie. BAKU -- An activist from Azerbaijan's opposition Popular Front Party (AXCP) has been sentenced to seven days in prison. A court in Baku sentenced Turan Ibrahim on January 14 after finding him guilty of using vulgar words in public, resisting police, and disrupting public order. He was detained near his house late on January 13. Ibrahim's relatives say he hasnt had any conflicts with police, suggesting that his arrest and sentencing might be linked to his recent postings on Facebook criticizing Azerbaijani officials. His arrest came as protests broke out in a handful of districts across Azerbaijan on January 13 in the latest sign of mounting frustration over joblessness, price hikes, and other economic woes in the oil-rich Caucasus country. Ibrahim is a member of the AXCP's youth committee. His father, Mammad Ibrahim, who is an adviser to the AXCP chairman, has been in custody since late September on hooliganism charges. Mammad Ibrahim rejects the charges as politically motivated. QUBA, Azerbaijan -- Security forces have dispersed a protest in Azerbaijan's northeastern Quba district, using water cannon and tear gas and detaining several people amid a national outbreak this week of unrest over worsening economic conditions. Some 1,000 people had gathered for the January 15 demonstration in the district capital to protest unemployment, and demanded that overdue social allowances be paid off and bank loans recalculated. The local currency, the manat, has seen a drastic depreciation brought on by a drop in world oil prices. Quba district chief Yashar Mammadov met with protesters at a location called the Old Bus Station and said he was ready for talks to address their problems. But an RFE/RL correspondent on the scene said demonstrators dismissed Mammadov's promises and continued the protest, prompting the security forces to use water cannon and tear gas. Security forces made several arrests before protesters dispersed, the correspondent reported. The city is now under the authorities' full control. It was not immediately clear whether more protests were planned for January 16. There was no immediate official reaction to the protest in Quba, the RFE/RL correspondent said. Earlier in the day, demonstrators attempted to block access roads leading toward the capital, Baku. The RFE/RL correspondent said police subsequently established checkpoints on all major roads in the Quba district. Quba was the scene of violent protests in 2012 that resulted in a number of convictions after windows were broken at government buildings and a home belonging to the local governor was set alight. In the latest unrest, authorities on January 15 deployed a large number of security forces -- police officers and Interior Ministry special forces -- to Quba, saying they had information that a bomb had been placed in a mosque in the city center. But officials later said no explosive had been found at the site. Scores of protesters and several opposition activists have been detained this week since protests broke out, sparked mainly by price hikes on staples such as flour and bread. Moving rapidly to stifle protests and prevent further discontent, authorities have cut the price of flour and imposed controls over the price of bread. The Economy Ministry said it was waiving value-added taxes on the import of wheat and the production and sale of flour and bread as of January 15. The ministry said the decision should reduce the wholesale price for flour, and listed the prices at which bread should now be sold. "Anyone who sells flour and bread at higher prices will be held to account in the most serious way," the statement said. Energy makes up the vast majority of Azerbaijan's exports, and plummeting global oil prices have drastically reduced state revenues. Last month, the situation led authorities to float the national currency, the manat, after using up a large part of its currency reserves to prop it up. Since it was floated, the manat has depreciated by one-third against the U.S. dollar, prompting the Central Bank on January 14 to ban independent currency-exchange outlets from operating. The government said the latest measures intended to regulate the price of bread were meant to protect citizens from the economic fallout of the oil and currency crisis. "This decision has been made on the instructions of President Ilham Aliyev to strengthen the social protection the population, in particular poor families, from the change in the rate of the manat," the statement said. The rising price of flour has been a lightning-rod issue during the protests that have taken place this week in several districts -- Fizuli, Aqsu, Aqcabardi, Siyazan, and Lankaran. Scores of people were arrested on January 13 after taking part in the protests, which authorities labeled "illegal" and which they accused the opposition Popular Front (AXCP) and Musavat parties of staging. Three opposition activists were arrested during the protests. Two of them -- local AXCP and Musavat leaders Nazim Hasanli and Iman Aliyev, respectively -- were detained in Lankaran, while AXCP youth activist Turan Ibrahim was arrested in the capital, Baku. Hasanli and Aliyev were each sentenced to one month in jail for taking part in an unsanctioned protest. Both pleaded innocent, saying they had nothing to do with the rallies. Ibrahim was found guilty of using vulgar words in public, resisting police, and disrupting public order, and was sentenced to seven days in prison on January 14. Aliyev's government has faced increased criticism about rights abuses. Several journalists and rights activists have been jailed over the past year on charges such as hooliganism, tax evasion, and illegal business activities. Rights groups say the charges are often trumped up and leveled in retaliation for opposition activities and criticism of senior government officials. Azerbaijani officials have denied the allegations. PHOTO GALLERY: Azerbaijan Under Pressure Photo Gallery: Azerbaijan Under Pressure Protests in Azerbaijan have been met with a heavy security response. In a nation that depends on oil to keep the economic wheels turning, the continued slump in crude prices, along with the recent drop in value of the national currency, is putting enormous pressure on ordinary people. In recent years President Ilham Aliyev has spent billions on glittering vanity projects, especially in the capital, Baku. But with a government known for corruption and brutality, many Azeris are unimpressed with state spending on the capitals skyline and the caviar diplomacy that has earned the country several recent sporting and cultural events. As the protests continue to simmer, theres concern that a perfect storm of discontent may be brewing. Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Email to a Friend Share on LinkedIn The Power Vertical is a blog written especially for Russia wonks and obsessive Kremlin watchers by Brian Whitmore. It offers Brian's personal take on emerging and developing trends in Russian politics, shining a spotlight on the high-stakes power struggles, machinations, and clashing interests that shape Kremlin policy today. Check out The Power Vertical Facebook page or Follow @PowerVertical BRUSSELS -- Kyiv has touted the promise of a visa-free regime for Ukrainians traveling to the European Union as evidence of its success in carrying out reforms, but behind the scenes several key EU member states are bemoaning the country's slow progress of implementation and lack of engagement both with its citizens and with Brussels. A discussion paper supported by nine EU member states and seen by RFE/RL declares that the government and parliament in Kyiv "urgently need to respond to public demands and reinforce their efforts to adopt and implement effective reforms, in particular in the area of anticorruption." The paper suggests that the establishment of a deputy prime minister for European integration could foster the creation of a "transparent and effective coordination structure for reforms." The document acknowledges that substantial progress has been made as regards the passage of new laws but highlights the many problems still facing the country. "In some areas the actual implementation of reforms lags behind and is hampered by vested interests and lack of capacity," the paper said. "The complex processes of change and perceived lack of tangible results create disappointment and frustration among Ukrainians." The document is backed by EU heavyweights Germany and the United Kingdom; the Netherlands, which is the current EU holder of the rotating EU Presidency; and Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Sweden, countries that are generally supportive of the European Union's Eastern Partnership. The discussion paper emerged as President Petro Poroshenko boasted to journalists on January 14 about Ukraine's implementation of a wide range of reforms in 2015, the success of which was evidenced by the EU's executive backing visa-free travel to Ukrainian citizens. The European Commission backed Ukraine's bid for visa-free access to the European Union in December, citing the country's implementation of reforms as a reason. The commission must now formally recommend granting visa-free status, which will then be subject to approval by EU governments and the European Parliament. Poroshenko on January 14 also vowed to continue the reform process and said that new, corruption-free law-enforcement and judicial structures would be established. The EU document suggested that if the Ukrainian government demonstrates a new push toward carrying out reforms, the "EU should respond to Ukrainian demands for assistance and assist Ukraine in overcoming the current obstacles in the reform process." No concrete monetary figures were mentioned regarding assistance, but the document specified that Brussels should step up its "communication efforts and enhance its visibility in Ukraine" by way of regular visits to Kyiv at the highest political level. It also said that more attention could be paid to Ukraine's regions by sending various EU representatives on joint trips to cities beyond Kyiv. Another suggestion is that the bloc might consider selecting "a few flagship projects in key areas that could demonstrate short-term tangible results, including in the regions, and improve the visibility of the EU." The issues presented in the document will be discussed on January 18 when EU foreign ministers assemble in Brussels for the years first EU Foreign Affairs Council. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin is scheduled to be in the EU capital that day and is expected to meet several of his EU counterparts. On January 14, EU diplomats opened discussions on prolonging asset freezes and visa bans against former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and 16 of his associates, as well as an additional list of restrictive measures targeting 149 individuals and 37 entities that violated the territorial integrity of Ukraine during Russia's seizure of Crimea. Both lists are up for renewal in March, and it is expected that they will be carried over for one more year. Russian President Vladimir Putin has introduced martial law in four of Ukraine's regions, parts of which are under the control of Russian troops, as Ukrainian forces continue liberating occupied territories in the country's east despite another barrage of air attacks across the country. Putin said at an online session of the Security Council on October 19 that he signed a decree declaring martial law in Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhya -- all of which Russia illegally annexed last month. Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, Russian protests, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here. He didnt immediately describe the steps that would be taken under martial law but said his order was effective starting at midnight on October 20. His decree gives law enforcement agencies three days to submit specific proposals. The package of moves, which come nearly eight months into the war launched by the Kremlin in late February, marked the latest escalation by Putin to counter a series of defeats to Ukrainian forces since the start of September. By extending the decree to regions beyond Ukraine, the move ensures that more Russians, already angered by a military mobilization announced last month, will more deeply feel the consequences of the war in their own lives. Mykhaylo Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian presidential office's head, called Putin's move "a pseudo-legalization of looting of Ukrainians' property." "This does not change anything for Ukraine: We continue the liberation and deoccupation of our territories," Podolyak tweeted shortly after Putin announced martial law in the four Ukrainian regions. U.S. President Joe Biden, speaking at the White House, said Putin is trying to get Ukraine to give up. "I think that Vladimir Putin finds himself in an incredible difficult position and what it reflects to me is it seems his only tool available to him is to brutalize the individual citizens in Ukraineto try to intimidate them into capitulating. They are not going to do that," Biden said. U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel said earlier the declaration of martial law was a desperate tactic and any claim by Russia over the regions was "illegitimate." Putin's move came as the Russia-installed leader of Ukraine's southern Kherson region said the evacuation has started of tens of thousands of civilians and Moscow-appointed officials in the face of a Ukrainian military advance. Vladimir Saldo said 50,000-60,000 civilians would leave four towns on the west bank of the Dnieper River in an "organized, gradual displacement" over the next five or six days. All of the Moscow-installed administration in the city of Kherson would evacuate, too, Saldo said. Russian television showed footage of a number of people queuing for boats on the Dnieper River bank although it was not immediately clear how many were leaving. The forced transfer or deportation of the civilian population by an occupying power from the territory under its control is considered a war crime. Saldo's statements came after General Sergei Surovikin, the new commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, said the situation in the southern city of Kherson is "difficult" and residents facing Ukrainian bombardment are to be evacuated. WATCH: Ukrainian forces first got their hands on FH70 155-millimeter howitzers courtesy of Italy in May and received training in Estonia. RFE/RL journalists met with a frontline FH70 crew and watched them in action against Russian forces. "The Russian Army will above all ensure the safe evacuation of the population" of Kherson, Surovikin said. But Kyiv on October 19 accused Russia of staging a propaganda show in an attempt to "scare" the Kherson residents. "Russians are trying to scare the people of Kherson with fake messages about the shelling of the city by our army and are also staging a propaganda show with evacuation," the Ukrainian president's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, wrote on Telegram. Kherson was the first big city to fall to the Russian forces in February after the start of Moscow's unprovoked invasion, but Ukrainian forces have been steadily retaking nearby territory in recent weeks. They have pushed as far as 30 kilometers south along the Dnieper River, threatening to trap Russian troops. Meanwhile, fresh explosions were heard in Kyiv and other areas on October 19, with a missile strike hitting a major thermal power station in the city of Burshtyn in western Ukraine. The coal-fired Burshtyn plant in the region of Ivano-Frankivsk, which supplies electricity to three western regions and to five million consumers, was hit and on fire, according to Svytlana Onysshchuk, the regional governor. There were no casualties in the strike at the plant, which was hit by four missiles nine days earlier as well. Serhiy Borzov, governor of the Vinnytsya region in western Ukraine, said Russia had also carried out attacks on energy facilities in his region. Russian bombardment also cut power and water in some parts of Enerhodar in the Zaporizhzhya region on October 19, said Dmytro Orlov, the mayor of the southern city located near the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant that's been a flashpoint of the nearly eight-month conflict. A power plant in Kryviy Rih, a city in south-central Ukraine, was also seriously damaged by Russian shelling, leaving villages, towns, and a city district without electricity, the regional governor reported. Russian forces also targeted Ukraine's southern Mykolayiv region again with kamikaze drones early on October 19. The Ukrainian military's southern command said in a statement on October 19 that its forces shot down 12 drones overnight. More than a week of air attacks has destroyed almost one-third of Ukraine's power stations and cut electricity in more than 1,000 settlements. With Ukraine gaining momentum in the war that is now nearly eight months old, European lawmakers on October 19 recognized the country's "brave" citizens by awarding them the 2022 Sakharov Prize. "This award is for those Ukrainians fighting on the ground. For those who have been forced to flee. For those who have lost relatives and friends. For all those who stand up and fight for what they believe in. I know that the brave people of Ukraine will not give up and neither will we," European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said in the statement. The annual prize is named after the Soviet physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov and was established in 1988 by the European parliament to honor individuals and organizations defending human rights and fundamental freedoms. With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP The White House says it is waiting for international experts to verify Iran's compliance with a deal to curb its nuclear program before Washington's possible suspension of economic sanctions on Tehran. "We want to make sure they don't cut any corners," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told a January 15 briefing. His comments came ahead of an announcement later in the day by the U.S. State Department, which said Secretary of State John Kerry would meet EU foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Vienna the following day to discuss the nuclear deal. "All parties have continued making steady progress towards Implementation Day of the [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Iran nuclear deal], which will ensure the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement. Reuters and AFP quoted unidentified diplomatic sources as saying that the UN's atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is likely to issue a report on January 16 confirming that Tehran has complied with the terms of the deal. Earnest said that while the Islamic republic is making important progress in implementing the July deal with world powers, Iran will not get any sanctions relief until the IAEA has independently verified that it has completed all necessary steps under the agreement. He added that there is ample reason to distrust Iran and that the IAEA's role in verifying compliance is not a mere "technicality." "When this agreement was being negotiated, the important, independent work of the IAEA was considered to be much more than a technicality," Earnest said. "We're going to continue to apply pressure on Iran," he added. Earnest said that because the United States was in "ongoing communications" with the IAEA about its verification work, he did not anticipate that a U.S. review of its findings would result in a "significant delay in moving forward" with the deal. Iran and the so-called P5+1 group of world powers -- Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States, plus Germany -- reached the agreement in Vienna on July 14, 2015. Tehran has long maintained that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, while the West has accused Iran of pursuing an atomic weapon. Earlier in the week, U.S. officials said that "implementation day" for the deal could occur within days. Tehran is set to receive billions of dollars in economic sanctions relief in exchange for curbs to its nuclear program spelled out in the agreement. With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP Iraqs autonomous Kurdish region is calling on the United States to help it ease a budget crisis caused by the fight against the Islamic State (IS) extremist group, people displaced by the war in Iraq and Syria, and slumping oil prices. Falah Mustafa Bakir, head of the Kurdistan regional government's foreign relations department, told the Associated Press on January 14 that without help from the U.S. or its allies, the Kurds' fighting force will be hampered in their fight against IS militants. Bakir, who is visiting the Unites States along with other Kurdish officials, said he was asking the Pentagon to help cover expenses of the Kurdish fighters. The officials also hope that the State Department or USAID could offer the Kurdish government money to provide assistance to the 1.8 million people who have fled fighting. "They are taking this issue seriously, trying to see how and what kind of help they will be able to offer," Bakir said. Based on reporting by AP The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) has found the deprivation of liberty of Turkmen journalist and activist Saparmamed Nepeskuliev to be arbitrary. The WGAD opinion was issued on December 2, 2015 in response to a petition filed by Alternative Turkmenistan News (ATN). ATN claimed that the criminal case against Nepeskuliev was fabricated and was directly related to his work as a reporter. Nepeskuliev, who contributed video reports to RFE/RL's Turkmen Service and worked as a correspondent for ATN, went missing in July, 2015. In communicado for several weeks, he was eventually located in a detention facility in Turkmenistan's western Balkan province and sentenced to three years in prison on narcotics charges on August 31. taking into account all the circumstances of the case, the adequate remedy would be to release Mr. Nepeskuliev In its ruling the Working Group found that Turkmenistan had violated international norms during Nepeskuliev's arrest, detention, and subsequent trial, and expressed grave concern that he may have been subject to mistreatment and torture. It also cited efforts by Turkmen authorities to defame Nepeskuliev, intimidate members of his family, provoke confusion, and silence inquiries about his whereabouts. The WGAD concluded that Nepeskuliev has been deprived of liberty for having peacefully exercised his right to freedom of expression as guaranteed by article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 19 of the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights. The Working Group concluded its findings with the opinion that, "taking into account all the circumstances of the case, the adequate remedy would be to release Mr. Nepeskuliev and accord him an enforceable right to compensation." The findings were communicated to the Turkmen government, which responded with a brief statement that the WGAD said lacks sufficient documentary evidence to challenge its claims. In addition to calling for Nepeskuliev's release, the WGAD stated that its allegations of torture were of sufficient concern to be referred to the UN Special Rapporteur on torture for appropriate action. ATN's statement on the Working Group's opinion is here. A Kyrgyz government official has said that more than 30 Kyrgyz nationals were killed while fighting with Islamist militants in Syria and Iraq last year. Stalbek Rakhmanov of the Interior Ministry said on January 15 that 508 Kyrgyz citizens had joined various Islamist militant groups in Syria and Iraq in 2015, including 387 men, 121 women, and 83 people younger than 18. According to Rakhmanov, 40 Kyrgyz citizens returned from Syria and Iraq last year, while 33 were killed in clashes. Authorities in Kyrgyzstan and other mainly Muslim former Soviet republics in Central Asia say hundreds of their citizens have fought alongside Islamic State militants and other extremists in Syria and Iraq. The IS group seized large swaths of Iraqi and Syrian territory in a lightning offensive in June 2014. Based on reporting by KyrTAG and Kabar U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said a navigation error -- not equipment malfunctions -- caused the crews of two Navy boats to stray into Iranian waters, where they were detained overnight by Iran and released. "The information that they have given us, and through their commanders, is that they did stray accidentally into Iranian waters due to a navigation error," Carter said in an interview with Fusion network in Miami on January 14. "They did not report this navigational error" to Navy commanders at the time the incident occurred on January 12, Carter added. "It may be that they were trying to sort it out at the time they encountered Iranian boats... e don't know that fully yet," he said. The day of the incident, U.S. officials had said mechanical problems had caused the boats to stray into Iranian waters. That was given by the United States as the reason that it did not need to apologize for the incident as demanded by Iran, since the crew could not be blamed for equipment failures. But defense officials now say the central cause for the crews' entering Iranian waters was the navigational slip, which apparently was caused by human error rather than by an equipment malfunction. The navigation error was compounded by some sort of engine trouble aboard one of the boats, defense officials said. The engine problem did not cause the boats to go off course but apparently prevented them from evading the Iranians once the crews realized they were inside Iran's territorial waters. The boats, known as riverine command boats, were not on a covert mission and were simply making their way from Kuwait to Bahrain, Carter said. The 10 U.S. sailors who were detained are now back with their American fleet and are getting debriefed and undergoing what the military calls "reintegration," a series of interviews and physical and mental health examinations to ease their return to duty. A Navy investigation will follow. General Lloyd Austin, head of U.S. Central Command, said the equipment on the boats is being inventoried but nothing at first look appeared to be missing. Iranian state television has released footage of the arrest, showing the sailors as they knelt down with their hands behind their heads and their two vessels being surrounded by several Iranian military fast boats. It also released footage of one of the detained men, identified as a U.S. Navy commander, apologizing for the incident. Carter acknowledged that the images made him feel uncomfortable, but he urged against a rush to judgment. "Obviously, I don't like to see our people being detained by a foreign military," Carter told a news conference at Central Command in Tampa. "I think we need to give these guys the opportunity to tell us what was really going on and what the overall context [was]." With reporting by Reuters and AP Oil prices have slipped below $30 a barrel for the second time this week, amid concerns that Iran could restart exports soon. Iran could restart exports if the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports Tehran has complied with the terms of a July deal with world powers aimed at curbing its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions. Reports said the IAEA could publish its report as early as January 15. Global oversupply has led to a more than 70 percent collapse in oil prices over the last 18 months, dramatically affecting Russia and other energy-dependent nations. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev ordered the government on January 15 to decide which spending could be significantly cut, saying, "The dramatic move in the oil prices which we see over recent weeks creates highly serious risks for budget fulfillment." Russias 2016 budget is based on an oil price of $50 a barrel. Meanwhile, the Moscow stock exchange dropped by 5 percent as the ruble stood at a level last seen in December 2014. Based on reporting by Reuters, AFP, and the BBC Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has vowed to eradicate honor killings in Pakistan as he congratulated director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy on her Oscar nomination for a documentary film on the practice. A Girl In The River: The Price Of Forgiveness, which tells the story of a survivor, was nominated on January 14 in the documentary short category at the Academy Awards. Hundreds of women and girls are murdered by their relatives in Pakistan each year on the grounds of defending family honor. Honor killings "afflict several segments of Pakistani society," a statement from the prime minister's office said. Sharif also "expressed the government's commitment to rid Pakistan of this evil by bringing in appropriate legislation," it continued. In 2012, Chinoy won Pakistan's first Oscar for a documentary exposing the horrors endured by women who survive acid attacks. Based on reporting by AFP and tribune.com.pk Pakistani authorities say they have shut down several religious schools run by the extremist Jaish-e-Mohammed group. They also said on January 15 that more than a dozen people were arrested in a police raid on a mosque and seminary near the city of Daska. The closures follow arrests this week of several members of the banned Jaish-e-Mohammed group, including its leader, Maulana Masood Azhar. India says the group was behind a January 2 attack against its Pathankot air base, close to the Pakistani border. Seven Indian soldiers and all six attackers were killed in the assault. After the attack, India and Pakistan postponed talks scheduled for January 15. Islamabad said it would take action against Azhar's group, which is based in Punjab Province. Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, and the BBC India and Pakistan postponed talks scheduled for January 15 after a fatal attack on an Indian air base waged by a banned extremist group based in Pakistan. Islamabad announced the arrest of several Jaish-e-Mohammed militants on January 13 in an apparent effort to mollify New Delhi, but nevertheless said that the talks between the two nations' foreign secretaries would be rescheduled. Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said the talks would be rescheduled in the "very near future," but neither side specified a date. There had been fears that the January 2 assault on the Pathankot air base, in which seven Indian soldiers were killed, would derail the talks. The attack came just days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi became the first Indian leader to visit Pakistan in 11 years, raising hopes of an improvement in relations between the nuclear-armed rivals. Swarup at a news briefing said the two foreign secretaries had spoken by phone on January 14 and would meet again soon. The foreign secretaries may have felt it would be better to have wide-ranging talks "slightly away" from the shadow of the Pathankot attack and its aftermath, he said. He quoted a Hindi expression -- "When the husband and wife are willing, who is the priest to interfere" -- indicating the talks would go ahead. Swarup welcomed Pakistan's arrests in raids across the country and said India would work with a team of investigators Pakistan is sending to Pathankot, near the border between the two countries. "Pakistan is on the right path...We hope Pakistan will take the right steps," Swarup said. India had provided Pakistan with "actionable evidence" and was waiting for Pakistan's response, he said. Jaish-e-Mohammed has been fighting Indian rule in Kashmir for decades. Pakistan banned the group in 2002, the year after it was blamed for an attack on the Indian parliament that took the two neighbors to the brink of war. It arrested the group's leader in the wake of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, but he was later released. The fight over Kashmir has been a principle cause of troubled relations between the two regional powers, having provoked two wars between them. With reporting by AFP and dpa An independent local legislator in Siberia's Krasnoyarsk Krai has crossed swords with the powerful head of Russia's Chechnya region in the North Caucasus. But just one day after lawmaker Konstantin Senchenko posted a scathing attack on Ramzan Kadyrov on social media, he apologized "profoundly" following a mysterious conversation with a representative of the Chechen community whom he refused to name. However, the incident has sparked a social-media debate over Kadyrov, who has been widely accused of gross human-rights abuses and is believed by many to have overseen the assassination of political opponents both in Russia and abroad. The cross-country dust-up began on January 12 when Kadyrov posted an official statement accusing anyone who opposes the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin of trying to foment unrest during Russia's current trying economic times. "Some people who no one had ever heard of before are climbing out of their skins in order to get attention for opposing Russian President Vladimir Putin," Kadyrov is quoted as saying. "The representatives of the so-called nonsystemic opposition are trying to benefit from the country's complicated economic situation. Such people should be treated as enemies of the people, as traitors. There is nothing good about them." "These people do not care about the fate of Russia or the peoples of Russia," he added. He also said they were "playing a game that was invented by the Western secret services and dancing to their tune." 'Killing Our Boys' Senchenko, an independent deputy in the Krasnoyarsk city assembly, took Kadyrov's comments personally and on January 14 he posted a scathing response on Facebook addressed directly to the controversial Chechen leader. "Ramzan, you are a disgrace to Russia," Senchenko wrote. "You have discredited everything it is possible to discredit." Senchenko added that Kadyrov's statement was particularly unbecoming for a man who holds Russia's highest honor, Hero of Russia, and who is a member of the country's Academy of Sciences. "I remember a time when we here in Krasnoyarsk were collecting aid for our troops who were being sent to fight in Chechnya," Senchenko wrote about the war in the mid-1990s in which Kadyrov fought on the side of Chechen separatists. "At that time you were running around in the mountains and killing our boys. Now they are lying in the ground and you are a Hero of Russia." Senchenko also criticized Kadyrov for the fact that Chechnya's budget consists overwhelmingly of "subsidies from Moscow," some of which come from the oil-rich Krasnoyarsk region. When you take money from state-sector workers and build palaces for yourself, you are already beyond the boundary of good and evil. So, get out of here, academic and hero, and stop preventing normal, honest, working people from building up their beloved Russia." In comments to RFE/RL's Russian Service the same day, Senchenko said "I absolutely don't care whether there is any reaction or not. I wrote the post mostly for myself and for my friends." "When I discussed Ramzan Kadyrov's statement with my friends I could hear fear in their voices," Senchenko continued. "People are afraid and they don't understand how they should proceed -- whether they should leave the country or not. That is why I took this role on myself and publicly said what many people are thinking but are afraid to say in public. Maybe my action will serve as a stimulus for some kind of change and more normal, sensible people will decide to stay and help develop our country instead of leaving." Later on January 14,state-controlled Grozny TV broadcast a nearly seven-minute story on the incident including audio the channel said was Senchenko apologizing for his remarks. The pro-Kremlin LifeNews and Zvezda television channels also reported the apology. In the comments broadcast by Grozny TV, Senchenko says "I apologize for any incorrect and offensive words," adding that the "situation was emotionally tense and complicated." The broken and difficult-to-understand audio was, Senchenko wrote on Facebook on January 15, taken from a private conversation he held with "a respected person" representing the Chechen community in Krasnoyarsk. Senchenko declined to identify the person and did not say if he was aware he was being recorded. He called his post about Kadyrov a "gesture of despair because my nerves are stretched to their limits, the economic situation is getting worse, and I see no prospects for improvement." He said he had "become convinced of the authority of the leader of the Chechen Republic," adding that many Chechens "really respect Ramzan Kadyrov and are very offended by statements against their leader." 'A Lesson To Everyone' In an interview with local VK radio on January 15, Senchenko said he may have spoken overly harshly and that he did not mean to offend the people of Chechnya. He said he has been upset in the past hearing national politicians saying that anyone who disagreed with the government is an "enemy of the people," and Kadyrov's declaration was "the last drop that overflowed the cup of my patience." He said that if he had known his statement would attract so much attention, he would have "written more correctly, more formally." On January 15, Kadyrov posted on his Instagram page a short video clip showing Senchenko, likely from the same conversation with the unnamed representative of the Chechen community, apologizing to Kadyrov and saying that he had acted "emotionally." Kadyrov wrote on the post: "I accept." Prominent opposition politician Aleksei Navalny posted on Facebook that he regrets that Senchenko walked back his criticism of Kadyrov. "This is a lesson to everyone not to say things that you are actually afraid to say," Navalny said. Krasnoyarsk journalist Anton Andreyev quickly wrote on Senchenko's Facebook page that "maybe now they won't kill you." By contrast, Putin's human rights ombudswoman, Ella Pamfilova, told journalists on January 15 that she will not apologize for her criticism of Kadyrov's statement, which she called "a disservice to the president and a shadow over the country." After Duma deputy Shamsail Saraliyev advised her to "take a sedative and apologize," Pamfilova said: "If I, as the human rights ombudsman, start apologizing to every high official for my criticism of them when they violate the constitution or overstep the law, then I might as well resign." Meanwhile Senchenko's feeling that he was saying "what many people are thinking" could be correct. His original Facebook post has prompted something of a social-media flash mob around the slogan of "Kadyrov Is A Disgrace." Yekaterinburg journalist Aleksei Shaburov wrote on Facebook: "Let every honest person write that Ramzan Kadyrov is a disgrace to Russia. They can't force everyone to apologize." Leonid Volkov, an assistant to Navalny, joined the criticism, accusing Kadyrov of establishing a "feudal, medieval dictatorship with a personal army that holds his 2 million domestic serfs in fear and boldly, publicly terrorizes 140 million people outside his territory by dispatching murderers." Duma Deputy and former Krasnoyarsk Krai Governor Valery Zubov wrote on Twitter: "I consider what [Senchenko] has done a strong, courageous beginning. His action is politically and economically justified." Ekho Moskvy Deputy Editor Vladimir Varfolomeyev wrote on his Twitter page: "I don't understand those who today are writing "Kadyrov is a disgrace to Russia." "On the contrary, he is a fairly accurate reflection of it, its very essence," he wrote. "This is what our country is like." Russian officials say alleged armed militants have been blockaded inside a house during a counterterrorism operation in the country's volatile southern Kabardino-Balkaria region. Officials in the North Caucasus republic said on January 15 that the suspected militants were holed up in a private home in Kabardino-Balkaria's capital, Nalchik, and exchanging fire with law enforcement officers. Residents in nearby houses were evacuated as the operation continued. The mostly Muslim regions of Russia's North Caucasus are plagued by attacks and fighting between security forces and militants in an Islamist insurgency stemming from two post-Soviet separatist wars in Chechnya, east of Kabardino-Balkaria. Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax WASHINGTON -- Shortly before noon on May 26, 2015, the Russian political activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, Jr., left his apartment in central Moscow for a typical workday: huddling with colleagues to discuss challenging President Vladimir Putin's authoritarian rule. He took the tram to a nearby restaurant, where he met a fellow member of RPR-Parnas, the liberal opposition party founded by slain Putin critic Boris Nemtsov. He ate a buffet-style lunch, washed down with a glass of cranberry juice. He appeared "energetic and happy," his dining partner recalled two days later. The activists parted ways at around 1 p.m. near the central Park Kultury metro station, where Kara-Murza met fellow political operative Mikhail Yastrubitsky. The two men took a short walk to the massive Soviet-era office complex that houses state media behemoth Rossiya Segodnya for a meeting with a former colleague. The get-together remained uneventful -- and Kara-Murza's mood buoyant -- for about two hours, during which time the three men had nothing to eat or drink. Suddenly, Kara-Murza began sweating profusely, his heart racing and his body hit by waves of nausea. "Within the space of maybe 10 to 15 minutes I went from feeling normal to feeling really sick," he told RFE/RL in a recent interview at a cafe in Washington's Georgetown district. Kara-Murza rested his head on the table in the conference room, using his arms as a pillow, and appeared to be losing consciousness, Yastrubitsky recalls. "I went to take him out into the hallway to put him on a small couch there. We didn't even make it to the couch. He began vomiting," he said. Yastrubitsky hitched the rapidly weakening Kara-Murza to his shoulder and dragged him to the bathroom to wash up, but the vomiting persisted. Kara-Murza asked Yastrubitsky to call an ambulance, which arrived around 30 minutes later. "He was limp and was speaking very slowly. He basically couldn't move his legs or arms. He would close his eyes periodically, and we kept talking to him to keep him conscious," Yastrubitsky told RFE/RL. "I thought it was just food poisoning," he added. "It happens." The ambulance shuttled Kara-Murza to City Hospital No. 23, where doctors diagnosed him with a cardiac defect. Shortly before midnight, they transferred him to one of Russia's leading heart clinics, where doctors considered operating on his heart, according to medical documents seen by RFE/RL and interviews with those who were with Kara-Murza at the time. But when his family and friends arrived the next morning, a surgeon greeted them and said the surgery had been canceled, according to Kara-Murza's lawyer, Vadim Prokhorov. "He said there's no heart problem here, that it's some kind of severe poisoning," Prokhorov told RFE/RL. The diagnosis immediately triggered fears of foul play among Kara-Murza's friends, family, and supporters both in Russia and in Washington. At age 33, he was already a veteran of opposition politics. The son of a prominent Russian journalist, also named Vladimir, who hosts a talk show on RFE/RL's Russian Service, Kara-Murza mounted an unsuccessful bid for a seat in parliament in 2003 with the backing of the country's two leading liberal parties. He also served as a key liaison between the Russian opposition and officials in the U.S. capital, where he had worked as journalist for nearly a decade before joining projects backed by former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a Putin adversary who is now trying to mobilize political opposition forces from exile in Europe. Three months before Kara-Murza fell ill, Nemtsov, a former Russian deputy prime minister who became one of Putin's most prominent opponents, was shot dead 100 meters from the Kremlin. Kara-Murza and Nemtsov had been close friends and allies. Nemtsov was the godfather to his younger daughter. And both men had lobbied vigorously in Washington for the Magnitsky Act, a U.S. law imposing sanctions on Russians deemed complicit in human rights abuses that infuriated the Kremlin after it was signed by President Barack Obama in December 2012. Kara-Murza had also served as a coordinator with Khodorkovsky's nongovernmental organization, Open Russia, since its relaunch in September 2014, crisscrossing the country to meet with opposition activists and conduct seminars. With heart surgery off the agenda, Kara-Murza was transferred from the cardiac center to the intensive care unit at the nearby Pirogov clinic, a top medical facility in Moscow, where his condition worsened. Over the next 72 hours, his brain swelled and his major organs -- lungs, heart, kidneys, liver, intestines -- proceeded to fail. Yastrubitsky recalls his doctors saying: "We see from all the symptoms that this is a poisoning, but we don't understand the nature of this poisoning. And we don't know where the source of the poisoning is." Suspecting The Worst Several Kremlin antagonists, both at home and abroad, have died or become violently ill in suspected deliberate poisonings during Putin's 16 years in power. Most famously, former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer Aleksandr Litvinenko died in November 2006 after ingesting the rare radioactive isotope polonium-210 in London. British authorities accuse fellow ex-FSB officer and current Russian lawmaker Andrei Lugovoi of delivering the poison over tea at a London hotel, an allegation Lugovoi denies. Ukraine's former pro-Western president, Viktor Yushchenko, was left with a disfigured face due to dioxin poisoning during his 2004 presidential campaign against Kremlin ally Viktor Yanukovych. Yushchenko implied his poisoning was a state-sponsored attack and accused Russia of impeding efforts to investigate it. That same year, Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya was severely sickened after drinking a cup of tea on an Aeroflot flight from Moscow to southern Russia during the Beslan school-hostage crisis. Her editor at the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Dmitry Muratov, said at the time that he believed Russian authorities poisoned Politkovskaya but were trying to "incapacitate" her, not kill her. Two years later, she was shot dead in her apartment building in Moscow. Another Novaya Gazeta journalist, prominent anticorruption crusader and liberal parliamentarian Yury Shchekochikhin, died in July 2003 following a painful, weeks-long battle with a mysterious illness that his colleagues are convinced was a deliberate poisoning. Muratov and fellow Novaya Gazeta editor Sergei Sokolov have long accused authorities of stymieing the investigation into Shchekochikhin's death. When Kara-Murza's doctors returned with the poisoning diagnosis, "of course we suspected the worst," Prokhorov told RFE/RL. "Three months earlier Nemtsov was murdered, and Shchekochikhin 12 years before that," he said. After Kara-Murza was first taken to the hospital, Yastrubitsky phoned Kara-Murza's wife, Yevgenia, in Centreville, Virginia, a Washington suburb where she lives with the couple's three children. She was frightened and perplexed to learn that her husband, who splits his time between Centreville and Moscow, was diagnosed with a faulty heart. "But it was something I could digest, at least," she told RFE/RL. Yevgenia says she was making childcare arrangements and preparing to fly to Moscow for the surgery when she was informed that the diagnosis had been changed to acute poisoning "of an unknown origin." "It was a much worse prognosis," she recalled. "It's something you can't wrap your head around." Diplomatic Pressure With Kara-Murza in critical condition, Yevgenia began frantically seeking help from influential friends, colleagues, and supporters of her husband. She spoke to Khodorkovsky, who would ultimately pay Kara-Murza's medical bills, as well as Bill Browder, the U.S.-born British financier who was the driving force behind the Magnitsky Act. In 2012, Browder and Kara-Murza testified together in the Canadian parliament, urging lawmakers to adopt similar legislation imposing sanctions on alleged Russian rights abusers. WATCH: Vladimir Kara-Murza, Jr. In The Canadian Parliament "It was clear to me that if this was an act of deliberate poisoning, then the Russian authorities weren't going to do much to help him," Browder told RFE/RL. Kara-Murza's contacts in the U.S. Congress, where he had testified about human rights in Russia under Putin, began raising his plight among State Department officials and the American media in the hopes that publicity and diplomatic pressure could help facilitate his medical evacuation from Russia and independent toxicology testing abroad. "Since the doctors cannot come up with a definite source of his intoxication, we do not know how safe he is there," Yevgenia told The New York Times a day after her husband fell ill. "That's why we are trying to attract as much attention to his condition as we can." Yevgenia appealed to U.S. State Department officials for help, though Kara-Murza would not be entitled to formal consular assistance from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow: She and her husband hold U.S. green cards but, unlike their children, are not American citizens. As a teenager, however, Kara-Murza went to live with his mother in Britain, where he graduated from Cambridge University and acquired British citizenship before returning to Russia in 2003. This raised the prospects of securing support from British diplomats in the Russian capital. Browder, who is based in London, reached out to the British Foreign Office, which in the days after Kara-Murza was hospitalized publicly confirmed it was "providing consular assistance to a dual British national taken ill in Moscow." Behind the scenes, the Foreign Office informed the Russian government of its interest in Kara-Murza's case and authorized the British Embassy in Moscow to provide consular support on an exceptional basis in light of the fact that he was a Russian citizen on Russian territory, according to a document seen by RFE/RL. U.S. diplomats in Moscow coordinated on the matter with the British Embassy, which took the lead given Kara-Murza's dual citizenship. In Washington, meanwhile, the State Department remained tight-lipped about its involvement, saying it was "following developments closely" and that Kara-Murza "is in our thoughts and we expect he'll receive the best medical care possible." Word of his case reverberated among the upper echelons of the Obama administration. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken monitored developments in Kara-Murza's illness. Also briefed on the matter were Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland and Celeste Wallander, senior director for Russia and Central Asia on Obama's National Security Council, RFE/RL has learned. Senior members of Congress, meanwhile, voiced alarm for the ailing political activist's well-being. "I am deeply concerned about the mysterious illness of Vladimir Kara-Murza, especially given the recent murder of Boris Nemtsov and the number of Putin's opponents who have been poisoned," U.S. Representative Chris Smith (Republican-New Jersey), the chairman of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, said in a May 28 statement. "I strongly urge the Russian government to guarantee Mr. Kara-Murza's safety and facilitate his transfer to a hospital outside of the Russian Federation for further evaluation and care." The same day, Yevgenia Kara-Murza sent an email to RFE/RL and other media outlets saying the hemodialysis that her husband was undergoing "has not had any effect." She urged his evacuation "to a medical center in Europe or Israel where full toxicology testing and treatment can be done." The British Foreign Office told RFE/RL at the time that it does not offer medical evacuation as part of its consular services and advised "people to follow the advice of medical professionals." By the time Yevgenia arrived in Moscow on May 29, the question of evacuation was already obsolete. Kara-Murza's Russian doctors and an Israeli specialist hired by Khodorkovsky to monitor his care estimated that he had about a 5 percent chance of survival, and that moving him was simply too dangerous. Antidepressant Enigma On the day of her arrival, Yevgenia says, her husband's doctors informed her of a preliminary diagnosis: poisoning by citalopram, a widely prescribed antidepressant that Kara-Murza had been taking for several years. The diagnosis was first picked up in the media by the sensationalistic pro-Kremlin website LifeNews, setting the tone for the narrative about the cause of his illness that would prevail in the Russian press in the ensuing weeks: that Kara-Murza poisoned himself with antidepressants, most likely accidentally. The theory struck Yevgenia as strange. She says her husband had never experienced any problems with citalopram, which belongs to a class of drugs known as selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRI) and is considered very safe. He never exceeded his prescribed dosage, she adds. Kara-Murza's doctors, Yevgenia says, suggested that he may have suffered from an undiagnosed kidney problem that could have allowed the drug to build up to a dangerous level in his system. Yevgenia says the doctors also posited that the citalopram may have had a dangerous interaction with his allergy medicine, the nasal spray Flonase. However, several toxicologists told RFE/RL that the active ingredient in Flonase, fluticasone propionate, does not interact with citalopram. Nor does ranitidine hydrochloride, the active ingredient in Zantac, a common antacid he was taking, the toxicologists said. Eran Segal, an Israeli doctor brought in by Khodorkovsky to monitor Kara-Murza shortly after his hospitalization, also cast doubt on the theory that citalopram had something to do with his illness. "It is not the usual picture, whether an overdose is deliberate or inadvertent," Segal told the BBC in June. "It could be a severe infection or maybe some other toxin we are not aware of. But there is no evidence of the cause," Segal added. Yevgenia pressed the doctors for a more exhaustive analysis of the potential source of her husband's poisoning but said that "basically they kept saying that the cause didn't matter for the treatment, that the treatment would have been the same in any case of intoxication." She made a snap decision and demanded that the doctors take blood, urine, hair, and nail samples for an independent toxicological analysis. She says, however, that "for some reason the Russian doctors were very much against it" but "didn't say why." "They started talking about his nasal spray. That sounded ridiculous to me, and I requested samples for analysis. Basically I said: 'Well, if you don't want to do it here, I want to do it elsewhere, because I'm not satisfied with your answer,'" Yevgenia says. "With some difficulty, but we managed to get the samples." Matters Of Substance Aleksei Svet, the chief doctor at the Pirogov clinic, rejected accusations that his medical team did not try hard enough to determine the cause of Kara-Murza's illness. "If that's what they say, let that be on their conscience," he told RFE/RL. "Because during treatment, all the toxicology was taken." With the samples in hand, the search began for a laboratory -- in Russia or abroad -- that could provide a thorough and independent toxicological assessment. Browder told RFE/RL that he contacted the Foreign Office, which he says initially agreed to help transport the samples to Britain. He suggested using diplomatic pouches to get the samples out of the country, with the plan to have them analyzed at the same laboratory that tested Litvinenko's blood. The Foreign Office, however, said this would not be possible, citing the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which states that such packages "may contain only diplomatic documents or articles intended for official use." Ultimately, Browder says, British diplomats provided the contact information for international couriers DHL and FedEx in Moscow. A Foreign Office spokesman told RFE/RL this week that "unfortunately" the Vienna Convention prevented it from meeting "a request for retrieval and transfer of items in the diplomatic bag." The spokesman added it that it had "a dedicated team working on the case in London and at the British Embassy in Moscow" at the time. "Embassy staff attended the hospital where Mr. Kara-Murza had been admitted and were in contact with his family," the spokesman said. "We provided support, including offering details of medical assistance companies." Within hours after collecting the samples, Yevgenia says, they found someone who agreed to take them to France on short notice to be analyzed at the laboratory of Pascal Kintz. A renowned forensic and analytical toxicology expert based in the town of Oberhausbergen, Kintz had previously analyzed samples from Shchekochikhin's exhumed corpse that were smuggled out of Russia by his editors at Novaya Gazeta. Kintz's analysis of Kara-Murza's blood, hair, urine, and nail samples did not offer any firm conclusion about what may have poisoned the activist. He found a normal level of citalopram in Kara-Murza's blood if the patient's last exposure to the drug occurred on the same day his blood was collected. But because the blood sample was taken three days after Kara-Murza became sick -- and assuming that he did not ingest citalopram after his symptoms began -- Kintz calculated that the drug's blood concentration may have greatly exceeded the recommended dosage on the day he fell ill. In a healthy individual, this could indicate the ingestion of a toxic amount of the drug. But citalopram is eliminated by the liver and the kidneys, both of which failed in Kara-Murza after his hospitalization. Kintz noted in his report, dated June 15 and seen by RFE/RL, that his calculation "is only valid in case there is no defect in metabolism (liver failure) or elimination (kidney failure)." Bruce Goldberger, chief of the Toxicology Division for the Department of Pathology, Immunology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Florida's College of Medicine, concurred. "If [Kara-Murza] was in liver failure and kidney failure, [Kintz's] calculation would be off," Goldberger told RFE/RL. "In the case of organ failure, his body would have a difficult time eliminating the drug, which could, a few days later, give an elevation of the blood-drug concentration. So you have to be really cautious." Michael Whitekus, a Pennsylvania-based toxicologist and drug-safety expert, said Kara-Murza's "kidney dysfunction probably contributed to" an increased level of the citalopram in his blood. "Everything you're seeing is probably secondary to what the primary toxin was," Whitekus said. If Kara-Murza had ingested an excessive amount of citalopram, the symptoms would have presented themselves within 30 minutes or an hour, Goldberger added. But Kara-Murza says he never exceeded his prescribed dosage and did not take his medicine with him when he left his apartment that morning. Furthermore, he had been in a meeting for two hours when he suddenly fell ill. Goldberger and Whitekus echoed the assessment by Segal, the Israeli doctor who observed Kara-Murza in Moscow, that his symptoms did not appear consistent with citalopram poisoning. "When you talk about major organ failure, you have to think something more [like] a poison that causes widespread effects on body than what the citalopram would," Goldberger said. Whitekus added: "It doesn't make sense to me." Svet, the chief doctor of the Pirogov hospital in Moscow, alluded to Kintz's report in defending his medical team's primary diagnosis of citalopram poisoning. "The results came back: absolutely the same as our findings," he told RFE/RL. "So this question is not for me. I understand, of course, it's frustrating that things didn't turn out so heroically. But maybe it's for the best." "Believe me, everything is much more prosaic and has nothing to do with a bloody regime," Svet added. He quoted a line from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland -- "If you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison,' it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later" -- and that "certain" beverages may have played a role in Kara-Murza's illness. "Certain medications taken together with certain types of beverages, consumed unchecked, in general became the reason for this story," Svet told RFE/RL. He declined to elaborate, citing doctor-patient confidentiality. Goldberger, the toxicologist at the University of Florida, said in an e-mail that "acute (recent) alcohol intoxication" plus citalopram ingestion could be responsible for the rapid onset of severe symptoms, including major organ failure. "Citalopram is a very safe drug, even when co-ingested with alcohol -- unless too much of one or both are ingested," he said. He added: "However, I'm still not convinced that a mix of alcohol and citalopram was responsible for Mr. Kara-Murza's illness. Alcohol alone could be if he ingested too much." Kara-Murza told RFE/RL that he had not drunk any alcohol the day he was taken ill -- only "water and cranberry juice." "This is probably stating the obvious, but it was the middle of the day, and I was at a work meeting," he said. Several medical records related to Kara-Murza's illness -- from both Russian and foreign specialists -- reviewed by RFE/RL make no mention of alcohol in his system. Yevgenia said his doctors "were not even considering alcoholic intoxication" and that none of her husband's medical records indicate the presence of alcohol in his blood. 'Miracle' Recovery While Kara-Murza's family and friends were frustrated with what they considered his doctors' lackluster efforts to determine the source of his poisoning, they had only praise for the medical treatment he was receiving. On May 31, a day after Kintz analyzed Kara-Murza's biological samples, Yevgenia arrived at the hospital and was told by Segal, the Israeli doctor, that his condition had improved "like a miracle." Over the next several days, Kara-Murza was able to open his eyes and recognize his relatives. His condition steadily improved, though he says he does not remember his time in intensive care at all. The last thing he remembers before his coma was being prepped for heart surgery. The first thing he remembers after regaining consciousness is being moved to a neurology department one month after he collapsed. He remained hospitalized in Moscow until July 5, when a medical evacuation plane paid for by Khodorkovsky flew him to Washington to be closer to his family. He spent three weeks in a hospital outside the U.S. capital, where he says he "basically learned to walk again." Kara-Murza told RFE/RL that he has nothing but gratitude for his Russian doctors for saving his life, but he dismisses their diagnosis of citalopram poisoning. "I hadn't taken any new medicines in years," he said, adding that the Russian doctors had ruled out the possibility of food poisoning. "I hadn't changed my routine of my medicines in years." Nearly eight months after being struck by a near fatal illness, Kara-Murza still suffers from nerve damage on the left side of his body, though he says his doctors expect him to fully recover this year. In the meantime, he walks with the help of a cane, which he clutches in his right hand. His left hand is too weak to grip the handle. 'Deliberate Poisoning' On December 11, Kara-Murza and Prokhorov, his lawyer, submitted a request to the Investigative Committee, the powerful Russian analogue of the FBI, to investigate his poisoning as attempted murder. "I have no doubt for a second that this was deliberate poisoning, that this was deliberate poisoning aimed to kill, and that it was motivated by my political activities," said Kara-Murza, whose fluent English is tinged with a British lilt. "I was a healthy 33-year-old man. Suddenly, when all of your major organs shut down within 24 hours, one after another -- that doesn't just happen." He says he faced no specific threats prior to his illness but that he suspects he may have been targeted due to his work for Open Russia, in order to send "a message" to Khodorkovsky. Khodorkovsky spent a decade in prison on financial crimes convictions that he and his supporters say were engineered by top officials as retribution for his failure to toe the Kremlin line. He was pardoned by Putin, freed, and immediately flown out of Russia in December 2013, and has become increasingly active in his opposition to the Kremlin since then. The Investigative Committee last month formally charged him in absentia with ordering the 1998 killing of the mayor of the oil town Nefteyugansk. Kara-Murza also believes his poisoning may have been an act of revenge for his lobbying for U.S. sanctions against Russian officials under the Magnitsky Act, named for Sergei Magnitsky, a whistleblowing Russian lawyer who died in a Moscow jail in 2009 after accusing officials of large-scale fraud. A month before his illness, Kara-Murza and opposition politician Mikhail Kasyanov, Putin's former prime minister, met with U.S. lawmakers in Washington to request that the United States impose Magnitsky Act sanctions on Russian television "propagandists" they accuse of leading a media vilification campaign that helped lead to Nemtsov's slaying. Whether his illness will ever be definitively established as the result of an attack, an accident, or something else remains unclear. By the time Kintz conducted his analysis of Kara-Murza's biological samples, his blood had already undergone purification with hemodialysis. The hair samples are more promising, but only to a point. "If it's in the blood, it's going to be in the hair," said Whitekus, the Pennsylvania-based toxicologist. "The problem is you have to know what to look for. And once you evaluate those hair samples for compound A and you don't find it, you're done, because you've got limited resources. You almost have to know ahead of time what you're looking for. And that's the needle in the haystack. "Whatever it is, I don't think it's the citalopram," he said. Back To Russia Whether the Investigative Committee will ultimately open a formal criminal case in connection with Kara-Murza's poisoning remains unclear. Judging by committee spokesman Vladimir Markin's dismissive comments, it appears unlikely. Reached by RFE/RL on January 12, Markin chided a reporter for asking "provocative questions" and "worrying" about a single case of poisoning when "sometimes people are poisoned by shoddy food and beverages" imported from the West. "People are sickened and even die from Scotch whiskey," he said. "Why are you worried about this one specific poisoning of a single person who survived?" He added: "Who is Kara-Murza, and who are the thousands of people that die daily in the world for various reasons, in England, in America, in Europe? Why are you not worried about the issue of German police not resisting violence against women?" But on January 15, investigators from a Moscow branch of the Investigative Committee asked to meet with Kara-Murza to discuss his request for a criminal case, his lawyer, Prokhorov, told RFE/RL. He added, however, that the fact that he was contacted by the agency's local branch in the Russian capital's Khamovniki district indicates that authorities are not taking the request for an investigation seriously. "The fact that they gave this, in my opinion, very important matter to the lowest level possible...probably shows that they're not terribly interested in it," Prokhorov said. Kara-Murza said he welcomes the development and plans to meet with investigators when he travels to Moscow next week to "give them all the necessary information." "However, the fact that it took them more than a month to begin the check, and that the case was transferred to the district level, points to a lack of priority," he said. He noted that criminal cases against foes of Putin are often handled by more senior investigators. He said this shows that "politically motivated cases against Kremlin opponents are of much greater interest to the Investigative Committee than an attempted murder of an opposition member." If authorities ultimately declined to launch a formal investigation, Kara-Murza says he still believes that one day evidence will emerge that his poisoning was an attempt on his life. "Maybe one day well find out, when the archives are opened or when somebody talks once the regime changes, he said. During his forthcoming trip to Russia, he plans to continue his work for Open Russia, including preparations for September parliamentary elections, a test of Putin's grip and a chance for his embattled opponents to attempt to pose a challenge. "Probably every single person that I spoke to since my poisoning advised me not to return to Russia and not to resume my work," he said. "But for me this is a question of principle. It is my country, I think we're doing the right thing. And I'm not going to run away. I'm not going to hide." Yevgenia paused when asked about her husband's plan to continue working in Russia. "It's hard to say. We have three kids, and he's the man of my life. But on the other hand, he is the person I married many years ago, and he was the same back then," she said. "Nothing has changed in that regard. And we've always known that there were risks, and after Boris [Nemtsovs] death in February, these risks became more tangible. But Vlad really believes in what he's doing." With reporting by RFE/RL's Tom Balmforth in Moscow Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Kremlin aide Vladislav Surkov met behind closed doors in Russia's western exclave of Kaliningrad on January 15, the latest talks in a flurry of recent diplomacy to broker an end to the bloody 20-month-old war in Ukraine's east. The meeting, held at a state residence outside Kaliningrad, focused on "the situation in eastern Ukraine and the need for full implementation of the Minsk agreements," State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters in Washington, referring to measures signed in February to resolve the war between Kyiv's forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. In a statement earlier in the day, Kirby said the meeting was part of "our continued efforts to work with Russia to ensure full implementation of the Minsk agreements, in close coordination with the other Normandy powers -- Ukraine, Germany, and France." Kyiv and the West accuse Russia of supplying weapons, personnel, and money to separatists that have fought Ukrainian forces in the conflict, which has killed more than 9,000 people since April 2014. Russia rejects the accusation despite significant evidence of such support. The United States and the EU have both imposed sanctions on Russian officials, businesspeople, and companies in response to the Kremlin's interference in Ukraine, including its annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in March 2014. The AFP news agency cited an unidentified source familiar with the matter as saying that the meeting was held on Russian territory because Surkov, widely credited as the mastermind behind Russian President Vladimir Putin's consolidation of political power at home, is among the Russian officials hit with Ukraine-related sanctions. Surkov was quoted by Russia's state-owned RIA Novosti news agency as saying that his talks with Nuland were "constructive and useful." "It was a kind of brainstorm session in search of compromises for the fulfillment of the Minsk agreements," he told reporters. The bilateral meeting follows a fresh bid by negotiators this week to enforce a shaky cease-fire in eastern Ukraine. Martin Sajdik, the envoy for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), said following a January 13 meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group, which is brokering a settlement to the conflict, that negotiators had agreed to make a renewed effort to maintain the truce. Sajdik said the parties agreed to try again to fully halt fighting between the two sides and discussed new efforts to exchange war prisoners. U.S. President Barack Obama also discussed Ukraine with Putin in a telephone call this week, and Secretary of State John Kerry is set to meet his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in Switzerland for talks on the Ukrainian and Syrian conflicts on January 20. With reporting by AFP and TASS When a friend in Kyiv called Israeli-American filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky in November 2013 and convinced him to drop everything and take his cameras to Ukraine because "something was happening" there, he had no idea what he was getting himself into, let alone that it would lead to an Oscar nomination. "Sometimes you need to be crazy, and I think we filmmakers are crazy," he told RFE/RL shortly before the resulting movie, Winter On Fire, was short-listed for an Academy Award for best documentary on January 13. "I came initially for two weeks, and that's how long we planned to be there. But literally after eight, nine days things changed." Angered at President Viktor Yanukovych's abrupt rejection of stronger ties to the European Union in favor of Russia, tens of thousands of Ukrainians had gathered to vent their frustration on the capital's Maidan square, the site of the Orange Revolution nine years previously. What started as a peaceful movement quickly spiraled out of control as the authorities became increasingly brutal in their attempts to suppress the unrest and, in turn, antigovernment activists attacked police lines and occupied public buildings. Some three months later Yanukovych had fled into Russian exile, and scores of demonstrators had died in the process. And Afineevsky was there to film it all, capturing the stories of people from all walks of life who took to the streets to steer Ukraine away from Russian influence. TRAILER: Winter On Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom While the gripping story of the Maidan unfolds before their eyes, viewers get to meet enthusiastic activists, wizened soldiers, distressed medics, local pop stars, and even a young Romany boy, who all spend months in atrocious weather facing down police bullets and batons as they fight for sweeping reform and a more westward orientation. Having originally taken only two cameras to Ukraine, Afineevsky soon realized that he would have to call in reinforcements as events began to evolve rapidly. "We realized that history was happening here and we started to get more and more filmmakers involved...because the movement was growing so we needed to have more and more eyes on the ground," he says. Eventually, Afineevsky had 28 cameramen risking life and limb to record in minute detail those tumultuous days from November 2013 to February 2014, when the Yanukovych regime was toppled. They ended up compiling an incredible 15 terabytes of footage that was then supplemented with material from news organizations, including RFE/RL. Not surprisingly, editing this work proved to be a tortuous process, with Afineevsky and his team feverishly working "day and night" to knock it into shape. After five long months, they eventually honed their story into a compelling, visually spectacular narrative that has been captivating audiences since the movie was released in October. One thing that proved crucial to the process was Afineevsky's decision to focus solely on the people on Kyiv's Independence Square and to tell their stories without overburdening audiences with too much background or context. The director did not want to take the audience "out of the Maidan" and he therefore eschewed any detailed explanations of the corruption and political tensions that brought people out onto the streets in the first place. "I tried to find interesting human stories that could be related to by a lot of people across the globe," Afineevsky says, explaining how he brought together a motley collection of individuals who recount on camera why they decided to unite in their fight for a better Ukraine and spent months in winter weather facing down riot police to do so. By far the most captivating interviewee is Roma Saveliyev, a 12-year-old boy with a troubled background who leaves home to join the Maidan and comes of age among the barricades, not unlike Gavroche from Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. His wide-eyed conviction is among the highlights of a film that is fast becoming a runaway success with international audiences, even though not everyone is pleased. Afineevsky, who was born in the U.S.S.R., says a number of Russians have left nasty comments on his Facebook page, but he is not too worried. "You always have haters in this world," he says. Oscar nomination notwithstanding, some critics have also taken issue with the film's "one-sided" narrative, which omits alternative viewpoints such as those of Ukrainians in the east who are now pushing to secede from the country and move closer to Russia. Afineevsky gives such reproaches short shrift, however, saying that he is, first and foremost, a filmmaker not a journalist. He also dismisses claims that he oversimplified the narrative and glossed over some of the Maidan's more unsavory elements, such as the involvement of the nationalist Right Sector movement, which has been accused of fascist leanings. (Afineevsky points out that insignia of the far-right group can be clearly seen on one of the interviewee's clothes.) In any event, Afineevsky argues, the presence of Right Sector at the Maidan does not detract from the fact that this genuinely popular movement succeeded in bringing down a corrupt regime and effecting change in Ukraine. "You know what? Right Sector, they actually fought for everything like everybody else. They were a part of these people," he says. "At the end of the day, it was people who came out, who stood for what they believed in, and who achieved [something]." Since the Maidan, Ukraine has become embroiled in conflict following Moscow's opportunistic annexation of Crimea and the seizure of swaths of Donetsk and Luhansk by Russian-backed separatists in the east. With the country's economy now in tatters as a result, Ukrainians face other obstacles as well. But Winter On Fire serves as a timely and often poignant reminder of the passion that led many Ukrainians to take a leap of faith on the streets of Kyiv two years ago. Winter On Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom is available for streaming here. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Zurich on January 20 to discuss the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria. During a phone call on January 14, Lavrov and Kerry scheduled the meeting "on the instructions of the Russian and U.S. presidents" after Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama spoke by phone on January 13, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. The top diplomats in their conversation "continued examining ways to resolve the Syrian crisis and the conflict in Ukraine," the ministry said. In Washington, State Department spokesman John Kirby confirmed the meeting and said the U.S. side had raised concerns about Russia's tactics in the conflict in Syria. "The secretary again expressed his concern -- deep concern -- over attacks on civilians by Russian and regime military forces," he said. Kerry called on Russia to pressure its Syrian allies into allowing "humanitarian aid to the Syrian people, particularly in besieged and hard-to-reach places." In their call, Putin and Obama discussed the effort "to bring about a political transition inside of Syria," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. Based on reporting by AFP and TASS More than two dozen current and former Petersburg police officers have filed a class-action lawsuit against the city seeking to recover overtime wages that they claim have been routinely unpaid in violation of the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act and Virginia law. In a complaint filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Richmond, the 28 police officers and detectives of the 140-member department said they and similar employees were regularly required to work in excess of their regularly scheduled hours but were not receiving compensation for all the extra time or at the required overtime scale of 1 times their regular pay. Defendants current pay plan is such that plaintiffs are automatically paid for 80 hours in a 14-day cycle, the suit says. In order for plaintiffs to receive pay for any hours worked above 80, they must turn in a handwritten overtime slip. However, even if plaintiffs turn in an overtime slip, they are not always paid time and a half for all hours worked over 80 or 86 in a 14-day period. Further, the department has a policy or practice or paying a straight rate for certain types of overtime, the suit says. For instance, plaintiffs regularly work past the end of their regularly scheduled shift, the suit says. These hours are designated as end-of-shift hours. Plaintiffs also regularly spend time in training outside their regularly scheduled shift. Upon information and belief, (the department) only pays a straight rate for end-of-shift hours and training, regardless of whether these hours are over 40 in a week, 80 in a 14-day period, or 86 in a 14-day period. Petersburg City Attorney Brian K. Telfair said the city was made aware of the lawsuit Thursday morning and received a copy of it about noon. Were still in the process of evaluating the complaint and as well as performing our initial investigation, he said. The suit comes at a difficult time for the department, which already is under scrutiny for allegations of officer misconduct and corruption. Last week, Petersburgs chief prosecutor announced that she has asked Virginia State Police to investigate city police issues that have come to her attention. They include at least $13,356 in missing cash from the departments evidence room and serious officer misconduct allegations raised by the citys Public Defenders Office. The overtime lawsuit also alleges that the departments payroll system is in disarray and the agency does not employ a dedicated worker to administer its payroll. That function is currently assigned to a secretary, the suit says. Defendants pay records are nearly impossible to decipher and are written in such a way that conceals the number of hours that plaintiffs work and the number of hours plaintiffs are being paid, the suit says. The nature of these pay records prevent plaintiffs from identifying any discrepancies in their pay. The suit also claims the department fails to pay overtime compensation for the week that it was earned. The department often pays overtime on the next pay period or even several pay periods after it is earned, the suit says. This further prevents plaintiffs from identifying discrepancies in their pay, according to the suit. The complaint says federal law requires the department to provide overtime to its employees for all hours worked that exceed 86 in a 14-day period, assuming the department meets the law enforcement exemption set by federal statute. If the department cannot claim the exemption, officers are entitled to overtime pay for all hours worked beyond 40 per week. In addition, Virginia law was amended in 2005 to require law enforcement agencies with more than 100 employees to pay overtime compensation for the difference in the regularly scheduled workweek and the federal maximum by law. The department has had knowledge of Virginias law enforcement overtime provisions, as local news media outlets have widely reported on similar police officer lawsuits against, and settlements paid by, the city of Richmond, Henrico County, the city of Norfolk, the city of Hampton and other Virginia localities with at least 100 law enforcement employees, the complaint says, which provides a link to a 2011 Richmond Times-Dispatch story on the issue. The suit was filed on behalf of the officers by attorneys Craig J. Curwood and Philip J. Dean of the Curwood Law Firm, and attorney Ryan H. Ash of Blackburn, Conte, Schilling & Click. The suit seeks to recover unpaid overtime pay, liquidated damages and attorneys fees. The battle over the removal of press seating on the floor of the Virginia Senate escalated on Thursday, as state and national media organizations denounced the surprise move as a blow against public transparency, an accusation a spokesman for the chambers Republican majority dismissed as absurd. The Society of Professional Journalists issued a statement by its national office that compared the decision by Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr., R-James City, to a similar move last week by members of the Missouri Senate that the organization called an infringement on the publics right to know how its legislators operate. At a time when journalists are calling for more transparency from the federal government down, these actions at state legislatures are very disturbing, said SPJ President Paul Fletcher. Its time for elected officials to stop these ridiculous attempts to ignore the First Amendment and silence the press. Separately, the Virginia Pro Chapter of the organization, the Virginia Press Association and the Virginia Coalition for Open Government issued a statement that said the decision to end decades of precedent symbolically removes open government and public oversight from the legislative process. A lawmaking group that pushes the press away to arms length also pushes away public scrutiny, they said. Jeff Ryer, spokesman for the Senate Republican Caucus, called the medias reaction a little bit over the top and denied any harm to the medias ability to cover actions in the chamber. There is no reduction in transparency of any kind, Ryer said. Assertions along those lines are absurd. But a recently retired Republican senator took a contrary view. Times like these require more transparency, said Sen. John Watkins, R-Powhatan, who ended a 34-year legislative career on Wednesday. This is moving in the wrong direction. Senate Clerk Susan Schaar said the two press tables that had long flanked the well of the Senate chamber were removed at 5 p.m. Tuesday, the day before the General Assembly convened, following a conversation I had with Senator Norment. The Virginia Capitol Correspondents Association delivered a letter to Norment objecting to the move. You have said often that transparency is a hallmark of Virginias political system, the letter said. We feel this move is at odds with that laudable premise, especially in Mr. Jeffersons Capitol. The association offered to meet with Norment and Schaar to discuss the concerns behind the rule change. The association asked the Senate to restore floor privileges to reporters so they could better inform the public on how the chamber conducts legislative business. Richmond Times-Dispatch political reporter Jim Nolan is president of the Virginia Capitol Correspondents Association. Instead of sitting at the tables across from the senators, the press was relegated to a section of the Senate gallery overlooking the floor under the rule change proposed by Norment and approved on a 21-19 party-line vote. The seats of the press corps have been moved from one part of the chamber to another part of the chamber, Ryer said. Theyre still in the chamber. Sen. Ryan T. McDougle, R-Hanover, chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus, deferred to Norment on the reasoning for the move, but noted that the Senate chamber is clearly smaller than the chamber for the House of Delegates, where press are seated in chairs at the back. That poses some challenges for us, McDougle said. The statement by the state SPJ chapter, the press association and the open-government coalition said the move directly affects the presss ability to tell the public what their elected officials are doing. The press serves as the publics eyes and ears in General Assembly proceedings, they said. The public isnt allowed on the floor, where the action is happening. By banishing the press from the floor, it is harder to hear what is being said, and some of the members cant be seen from the new vantage point, they said. By being on the floor, reporters can get a better, fuller sense of what is happening. The state press organizations also pointed out that at the same time the Senate reduced press access to the floor, the House was ending its practice of impromptu and largely unrecorded meetings at members desks, a practice the Senate has not ended. They asked that Norment and other lawmakers immediately allow the press to return to its normal working conditions and show their commitment to transparency and open government. It looks like nothing was found at this location. Maybe try a search? Search for: Search A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind. This Position Is Closed to New Applicants This position is no longer open for new applications. Either the position has expired or was removed because it was filled. However, there are thousands of other great jobs to be found on Rigzone. UPDATED 2/1/16 11:43 A.M.: The hours for the Student Project Forum have been changed to 2:30 to 4 p.m. to accommodate students who are taking the ACT on Saturday morning. The awards ceremony will begin at 4:30 p.m., and the silent auction will run from 1:45 to 4 p.m. UPDATED 1/27/16 12:15 P.M.: The Student Project Forum has been postponed this weekend due to recent inclement weather. It has been rescheduled for Saturday, Feb. 6. On Saturday, Jan. 30, 270 gifted and talented students from across the Roanoke Valley will participate in Roanoke Valley Governors School for Science and Technologys annual Student Project Forum. Public viewing of the student research projects will be from 1:30 to 3 p.m. in the Patrick Henry High School cafeteria in Roanoke. The awards presentation will follow at 3:30 p.m. in the Patrick Henry High School auditorium. Silent Auction live bidding will take place from 12:45 to 3 p.m. in the school library. All events are free and open to the public. The science fair competition will represent several scientific disciplines, such as biochemistry, computer and mathematics, medicine and health, physics and engineering. This years project titles include "Network Topology and Recovery Phenotype Effects on Social Media," "The Effect of Various Fracking Chemicals on the Growth of Vigna Radiata," "Finding an Optimal Armature Material for a Permanent Magnet Rail Gun," "The Development of Machine Learning Algorithms to Diagnose Eosinophilic Esophagitis" and "The Effect of Parental Alcohol Consumption on Anti-Social Behavior in Drosophila." A diverse and accomplished panel of over 60 judges will evaluate the projects and determine scores based on the strength of presentation, comprehension of subject matter and depth of research. Cash prizes will be awarded to outstanding participants, and the top-placing students will have the opportunity to advance to a variety of local, regional, state and international science fair competitions. Over 100 Governors School parents, local businesses and community supporters have donated items, services and cash for Project Forums Silent Auction and the schools Annual Appeal. Submitted by Regina Carson Jeremy Ruch, an assistant in the office of Del. Greg Habeeb, shares this weekly update from the delegate regarding the first week of the 2016 General Assembly legislative session: "Happy New Year! I hope you are having a wonderful start to 2016. The Virginia General Assembly convened earlier this week for the 2016 legislative session. Over the next 60 days, we will consider several thousand bills and resolutions. While I will miss Christy and the kids, I am honored to represent the Roanoke and New River Valleys in Richmond. "As my office begins our work during this legislative session, we encourage you to fill out our pre-session survey. Many of you should have received it by way of e-mail. If you did not receive the survey, you can access it by going to www.greghabeeb.com. Hearing from you about your priorities for state government is critical for us as we seek to improve life for all Virginians. Please make sure you complete and submit your survey by Monday, January 18. "Crafting the next two-year budget will be one of the most important issues of the General Assembly this year. The goal of the House is to craft a responsible, conservative budget that invests in the core functions of government while protecting taxpayer resources. The Governor has, unfortunately, raised expectations and overpromised. His budget includes over $3 billion in new initiatives. We must be very careful about how much Virginia spends and borrows on behalf of you, the taxpayer. "There are many issues that the General Assembly will address this session that we know are very important to you and our region. We will continue to fight for conservative values. We will continue to fight to make Virginia the greatest place to live, work, and play. "My office will be providing weekly updates during the 2016 General Assembly Session. As always, wed love to hear from you on the issues that matter to you and your family. Please do not hesitate to contact us. You can call the office at (540) 915-2962 or email greg@greghabeeb.com. Or, you can use Facebook and Twitter. I consider it a high honor to represent you in Richmond." A former Christiansburg police officer will serve a year in jail for embezzling close to $34,000 from the nonprofit Virginia Bloodhound Search and Rescue Association, according to special prosecutor Eric Branscom. Stephen Lane Kilby pleaded no contest to seven counts of embezzlement in August. On Monday, he was sentenced to serve two years on each count, consecutively. All but one year of his sentence was suspended, and he will be put on supervised probation for five years following his release. Kilby has already repaid about $11,000 to the organization. He still owes another $22,713.85 in restitution, Branscom said. Branscom, Floyd Countys commonwealths attorney, handled the case after the Montgomery County commonwealths attorney office recused itself from the case because of Kilbys former association with the town of Christiansburg. The prosecution had asked for a four-year prison sentence, since Kilby was actively serving as a police officer at the same time he was taking money from a police charity. But Branscom said Judge Robert Turk told the court during the sentencing hearing on Monday that he was treating Kilby like anyone else facing similar charges police officer or not. Kilbys crime was a level of betrayal that you hardly ever see on a daily basis, thankfully, Branscom said Thursday. Kilby had been a member of the search and rescue association for years, but the embezzlement didnt begin until 2010 the same year he was appointed treasurer of the nonprofit that helps train handlers of bloodhounds who assist in missing-person operations. Branscom said Kilby had access to debit cards linked to the organizations bank account, and he used the money to supplement his income between October 2010 and May 2014. In addition to larger cash withdraws, Kilby used the cards to pay for things such as gasoline, hotels, fast food and a $1,350 diamond ring. He just treated it as his own account for whatever he needed to get, Branscom said. Branscom added that the embezzlement went undetected for longer than usual because Kilby was a police officer and had an air of trustability. The association eventually started to catch on in 2014, and asked Kilby to bring the associations ledgers to a meeting to review the accounts. Kilby attended one meeting, but then said he couldnt go to any more because he had hurt his back in a car wreck. State police eventually got involved and called in forensic accountants to go through records. Investigators determined Kilby had taken about $34,000 out of the account, just $1,000 of which were authorized purchases, Branscom said. Kilby didnt take the stand, but he did apologize for letting down the people of Montgomery County when given an opportunity to speak during sentencing. Kilby has been in law enforcement since 1998, according to his profile previously on the VBSRAs website. He worked at the Pulaski County Sheriffs Office before he became a patrol officer with Christiansburg police in July 2005. He stayed with Christiansburg police until September 2013, town spokeswoman Becky Wilburn has said. During his time with Christiansburg police, he was a K-9 handler, Wilburn has said. Representatives from the VBSRA and Kilbys lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday. RICHMOND The Virginia House of Delegates passed emergency legislation Friday to make a widely supported fix to prevent some small businesses from facing higher costs for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. In a 97-0 vote, the House approved a bill to stop businesses with 51 to 100 employees from facing higher premiums by being moved this year into the small group insurance market, which currently applies to businesses with up to 50 employees. Federal lawmakers had already approved the tweak, which President Barack Obama signed into law last year. House Bill 58, patroned by Del. Kathy Byron, R-Bedford, was supported by both the Virginia Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation for Independent Businesses. At a time when so many small businesses are struggling, we have to do everything we can to provide relief and certainty, Speaker of the House Bill Howell, R-Stafford, said in a written statement. This bipartisan bill will protect small businesses from another premium spike and will ensure their employees can keep their healthcare plans. Before the vote, House Minority Leader David Toscano, D-Charlottesville, rose to voice his support. It does prove again that occasionally Congress and the president can work together to fix some things that need to get fixed, Toscano said. When we focus on trying to fix things as opposed to trying to repeal things willy-nilly, we can get some good things done. Other states have been able to enact the fix through executive action. Legislation was required in Virginia because the implementation of the health care law is overseen by the Bureau of Insurance. The House adjourned for the weekend late Friday morning. RICHMOND Health Secretary Bill Hazel outlined the arguments for closing Catawba Hospital to a panel of state lawmakers Thursday but faced some skeptical questions. Shuttering the 110-bed psychiatric hospital in Roanoke County, one of the oldest in the state, would allow Virginia to pour more money into expanding the type of community services that have become the nationwide standard for care, Hazel said. I think what weve learned over time is that individuals with mental health needs do better when they can stay in the support of the community, in their home, and take advantage of mental supports, he said. Wed like very much for the group to be persuaded that where we need to invest is in building community capacity. The move to close the state-run hospital, which employs more than 300 people and is the largest employer for Craig County residents, has been met with alarm in the Roanoke Valley. Some three dozen people including mental health professionals, law enforcement and Catawba residents went to a state budget hearing last week to protest the proposal. Catawba Hospital offers both acute care beds and a unit specializing in geriatric care. It is the only state psychiatric hospital between Marion in Smyth County and Staunton in Augusta County. If the hospital closes, some of the lost beds are expected to be offset by a 56-bed expansion of Western State Hospital in Staunton. Gov. Terry McAuliffes new budget proposal earmarks $1 million to start preparing to shut down the local facility by 2018. It directs Hazels staff to spend the next year developing a transition plan that would be presented to the General Assembly in 2017. Hazel spoke to the issue Thursday while making a wide-ranging presentation on state initiatives to the Senate Education and Health Committee. During the briefing, Sen. Bill Carrico, R-Grayson County, asked if officials had considered the burden that families and law enforcement could face if patients have to be taken to Staunton, located some 90 miles away from Roanoke. Travel times would be even longer for those farther out west if their loved ones have to be redirected to Staunton, he noted in an interview afterward. I think closing this is going to be very detrimental to the service we provide in Southwest Virginia, Carrico said after the meeting. Carrico, who also sits on the Senates budget committee, added he understood the arguments about funding and community services, but questioned whether the state should be talking about closing a hospital before its put all the necessary community services in place. I think youre putting the cart before the horse, he said. Sen. Amanda Chase, R-Chesterfield County, also raised questions about what the state would do with the considerable property that Catawba Hospital occupies and whether it could end up incurring unnecessary costs if it closes the site without a plan in place. Hazel stressed that the administrations proposal is to take time to develop a plan and map out how it will beef up the regions community services. There is a vision for what this future should look like, he said at one point, adding nationwide a push is being made sometimes under federal mandate to move away from institution-based models of care. Sen. David Suetterlein, whos starting his first term in office and serves on education and health, said its encouraging that representatives from other regions are questioning the states proposal. You see youve got a lot of folks from outside of the Roanoke Valley who recognize what this could do and the significant questions that havent been answered by this administration, said Suetterlein, R-Roanoke County. Education and Health Committee Chairman Sen. Steve Newman, R-Bedford County, agreed there are many unresolved questions about the proposal. But in an interview, he said he was willing to give the administration time to put together the answers, provided that no work is done to close the hospital until the General Assembly has a chance to weigh in. Weve got to know upfront, in a plan or a study, where would you send these patients, how would they perform and what would be the wraparound network of services in the system, said Newman, who also serves on the Senate budget committee and represents Craig and Botetourt counties. Newman said hed support a limited directive allowing Hazel to assemble information and recommendations for the legislatures consideration. Thursdays committee presentation came on the second day of the new General Assembly session and covered a broad range of state health programs and priorities. A federal judge in Richmond on Thursday denied a motion by supporters of Donald Trump for a preliminary injunction to block the so-called statement of affiliation in Virginias March 1 Republican presidential primary. Later Thursday, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied an emergency motion, filed by the three black pastors who brought the suit, seeking an injunction. The rulings mean that unless the plaintiffs win a reprieve in court, or state GOP officials reverse course, anyone who wants to vote in the Republican primary must sign a statement that says: My signature below indicates that I am a Republican. In a four-page order, U.S. District Court Judge Hannah Lauck said, The limited record before the court does not support the extraordinary remedy of a preliminary injunction against mailing absentee ballots for the Republican presidential primary that contain the statement. The judge wrote that the plaintiffs did not present evidence to show a likelihood of success on the merits of their constitutional claims. But the judge said the plaintiffs case raises matters of significant concern as to the State Board of Elections duties to avoid voter confusion and to preserve the integrity of, and order in, the electoral process. The judge said the in-person voting procedure remains in flux to a noteworthy degree. In December, the board approved the requirement at the request of the Republican Party of Virginias State Central Committee. As we noted earlier yesterday, political parties have a right to determine how they nominate the candidates who represent them, said John Findlay, executive director of the state GOP. The Republican Party of Virginia has a duty to defend its First Amendment right to free association and we are very pleased that the court has denied the preliminary injunction, as we expected. Trumps campaign was not involved in the suit, but supported its aims. Last month, the Republican front-runner criticized the requirement in a series of tweets. Obviously, its a legal win for the Republican Party of Virginia, but a big loss for the long-term prospects for Republicans in Virginia, said Corey Stewart, chairman of Trumps Virginia campaign. Stewart, chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, said that if the requirement withstands the court challenge, Trumps campaign will urge his supporters to go to the polls, sign the statement and vote anyway. Our first line of defense is to win regardless of this ridiculous pledge. Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said, The standard for granting a preliminary injunction is very high. He said that while the judge found that the plaintiffs have not satisfied that high bar, the concerns the judge expressed about potential irregularities in the process, including exactly what the oath will say and how it will be implemented to protect the election process, suggest that she might be more amenable to some of the plaintiffs claims at trial. The three Richmond-area pastors filed the suit last week against the State Board of Elections. The judge added the state GOP as a second defendant. The pastors assert that the statement, which they deride as an unlawful oath, would disproportionately harm minority voters. For example, they say it would sow confusion at the polls and create long lines. The pastors asserted in the suit that minority voters disproportionately earn lower wages and dont have the luxury to wait in long lines. The pastors also argue that the statement amounts to a literacy test in disguise because it would apparently only be available in English in most jurisdictions. State elections officials are mailing absentee ballots this week ahead of Virginias presidential primary. Absentee ballots are shipped to a rather small percentage of voters, Tobias said. In short, I dont think that letting the absentee ballots ship dictates the result on the merits and may not even suggest the outcome of the case. Dominion Virginia Powers plan to drain water from its coal ash ponds into the James and Potomac rivers won state approval Thursday despite opposition from environmental groups, a state senator and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Virginias seven-member State Water Control Board, with only member Roberta Kellam dissenting during the all-day meeting, signed off on the utilitys permits to drain its coal ash ponds at Possum Point Power Station in Prince William County and Bremo Power Station in Fluvanna County. The permits pave the way for Dominion Virginia Power to dump up to 8.9 million gallons of treated ash water into the James River daily and up to 2.88 million gallons a day into Quantico Creek, which feeds into the Potomac. More than 100 opponents of the plans filled the boards meeting room in a Henrico County office park. The pair of permits drew more than 1,100 written statements, most in opposition, during a public comment phase in November and December. They are the first of several permits Dominion Virginia Power needs as it works to close 11 ponds at four power plants across the state. The planned closures are in response to new federal regulations for coal ash ponds. Coal ash, the potentially toxic remnants of burned coal, has been a controversial topic, especially since 2014 when a Duke Energy site in North Carolina spilled thousands of tons of the material into the Dan River upriver of several Virginia communities. Officials from the Department of Environmental Quality and Dominion Virginia Power assured the water control board that permit requirements would ensure that the water from the ash ponds is treated and safe to dump into the bodies of water. The utility plans to build temporary water treatment plants at Bremo to clean the water to DEQ standards before dumping it in the river. Dominion Virginia Powers process will be fully protective of water quality, human health and aquatic life, said Cathy Taylor, its director of electric environmental services. But the flood of opponents at the meeting said they were not convinced. A woman who regularly swims the river and a man who organizes fishing trips from Richmond upstream toward the Bremo Plant said the coal ash drainage worries them so much they may stop using the river. Many were particularly worried about the use of a 2,000-foot-long stretch of the James River as a so-called mixing zone, which means the water dumped from Dominions Bremo ash ponds will not meet safety standards until it is diluted along that stretch. Mixing zones create a high hazard area for fish and wildlife, said Bill Street, CEO of the James River Association. There are permits in North Carolina with lower limits. Wed ask that you make sure the James River is equally protected rather than relying on dilution to meet standards. Brandon Kiracofe, a regional water permitting and compliance manager for the Department of Environmental Quality, said the state uses conservative estimates that take into account worst-case scenarios when deciding on the levels of heavy metals that are acceptable during the drainage. In response to the hundreds of public comments on the Bremo Power Station upriver of Richmond, the DEQ revised the utilitys permit to include stricter pollution standards. Those changes were applauded by some opponents during Thursdays meeting who went on to say they do not believe the DEQ went far enough. Marylands Department of Natural Resources, in an eight-page letter to Virginias Department of Environmental Quality, raised numerous questions about whether Virginias standards for levels of heavy metals would do enough at Possum Point to protect human and aquatic life in the Potomac River. In addition, state Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, asked the board to delay its decision to give the public more time to study the potential harm of water from the ash ponds entering the creek and river. Quantico Creek is already considered impaired because of such issues as high levels of nickel in the sediment. My concern, which Ive heard from many constituents about this, is they want to make sure were not retrograding, were not backsliding, were not making things worse than they are today, Surovell said. Youre not just hearing concerns from the environmental community. Youre hearing concerns from major institutions saying lets slow this down, lets get this right. Kellam, the dissenting water control board member, asked whether the board could delay its vote on Possum Point and allow more time for public comment and review. The boards attorney said extending public comment was outside the boards authority. The DEQ last month rejected multiple requests, including from state lawmakers, to extend the public comment period and delay the vote. Later, during the discussion of the Bremo permit, Kellam said the topic is so complex and expansive that she had not had time to fully wrap her mind around the issues. Im having the same problem with this that I had in the last permit we looked at, Kellam said. Its very complicated, and weve never dealt with this before. Board Chairman Robert Dunn declined to answer questions about the boards decision immediately after the second vote. Permits for draining the ponds at the Chesterfield Power Station and the Chesapeake Energy Center will be decided this year. Of the four plants, only the one in Chesterfield still burns coal. Once the ponds are drained, they will be sealed and covered with soil and grass. That final step of the process will require a separate solid waste permit. High school student Brynnan Grimes was appalled when she learned last August that shed have to skin and dissect a cat during her anatomy class at Culpeper County High School. I never imagined ever having to face the choice to dissect something that I view as my child, Brynnan, 16, explained on Wednesday. And something that would mean so much to me. It just blew me away. I was so surprised. Just a few weeks into the school year, Brynnans mother, Tamira Thayne of Amissville, said she emailed her daughters teacher, asking why the high school instructed the students to dissect cats. I told her that I didnt agree with it and she never responded to me, so thats when we decided to do a petition because basically we felt that our concerns were ignored, said Thayne, who withdrew her daughter from Culpeper County High School at the beginning of the school year. Cats are companion animals and the thought of doing that to them is horrifying. I cant get over the fact that they do this and are very blase about it. In December, Thayne started an online petition Dont force our children to skin cats on the Change.org website. As of Thursday, Thayne collected more than 103,000 signatures toward her 150,000 goal. Before Culpeper, Brynnan attended Altoona, Pennsylvania Area High School . These days, she takes online classes in addition to her mother homeschooling her. The animal-loving family has five cats. In an email received Wednesday, Rob Hauman, executive director of curriculum and instruction for Culpeper County schools, wrote that the divisions high school level science courses have used laboratory specimens for dissection for many years. Recent inquiries related to the honors human anatomy and physiology courses have focused mainly on the use of cats for dissection as part of the lab experience, Hauman said. Culpeper schools have used cats for these labs for at least 10 to 12 years without documented complaints from students or parents. The practice in these elective courses is to follow the guidance provided by the Virginia Department of Education, which requires the use of alternatives for students who do not wish to participate. Hauman added that classroom materials and resources in Culpeper are evaluated annually. The recent attention to this issue of dissection may impact discussions within our school division, the region and perhaps across the state. Culpeper schools will continue to offer alternatives to dissection and follow guidance from VDOE, Hauman wrote. Cat dissection is common in other Northern Virginia public school divisions, including public schools in Fauquier and Loudoun counties. All school systems provide alternatives for students who chose not to participate in the activity. Laura Byram, administrative assistant to the Orange County schools superintendent, said while Orange County High School science teachers dont dissect cats, they do primarily dissect chickens, sheep parts, squid and crayfish in their biology and anatomy and physiology classrooms. These specimens are food grade and purchased primarily from grocery stores and are a by-product of the food production process. We also use virtual dissections, Byram said. Liz Patterson, executive assistant to the Madison County schools superintendent, said Madison County High School does not use cats for dissections. Hauman said the school division purchases the cadaver cats from Carolina Biological Supply and Bio Corporation of Minnesota. Based in Burlington, North Carolina, Carolina Biological Supplys website says it gets euthanized cats from animal shelters, which would otherwise be destined for the landfill where we wouldnt be able to utilize them for science classrooms. The VDOEs definition of dissection involves the manipulation of properly preserved animals or animal parts for scientific study, which includes incising and may be followed by inspecting, touching and handling. According to state school officials, dissection specimens across Virginia range from sheep hearts to fetal pigs, chicken wings, cow eyes and rats. Hauman also confirmed that Culpeper County students are sometimes assigned to skin a cat. Some years they may skin the cat to view the epithelial tissue and associated structures. Other years they may not and only focus on the cardiovascular, digestive, urinary, respiratory and reproductive structures, Hauman said. So what happens when Thayne and Grimes reach their online goal of 150,000 signatures? Change.org spokesman Max Burns said Thursday that sometimes an online petition can spark a discussion in a community and/or it can invite the petitioners target to respond to their concerns. People start petitions for a wide variety of reasons, but the common thread is that theyre looking for a place to make their voice heard on an issue that matters to them. People turn to Change.org because of its effectiveness as a means of empowering individuals and bringing concerns (local, national, even international) to the attention of those with the power to make a change. EDEN, N.C. The good news Thursday at the shuttered Dan River Steam Station was that in just a few months, Duke Energy has dug up 66,000 tons of coal ash and sent it to a lined landfill in Virginia for safe disposal. These days, the ash leaves town several times a week on 30-car trains that each carry about 3,000 tons of polluted material. We want the world to see that we are following through on our commitment, Duke Energy spokesman Jeff Brooks said Thursday during a media tour of the Rockingham County, North Carolina work site. Whats less encouraging is that all the progress so far still leaves about 1 million tons of the potentially toxic pollutant in this one, huge stack of ash and dirt, even though it is being gnawed at every work day by a small brigade of earth movers, 30-ton dump trucks and front-end loaders. Theyll be gnawing away there for at least another year on that stack alone. And thats before they start disposing of the other 2 million or so tons that make up the rest of whats stored underwater and elsewhere at this site of the February 2014 spill that catapulted coal ash to the top of North Carolinas environmental to-do list. The overall plan at Dan River calls for excavating all ash from the dry stack and sending it by train to privately owned Maplewood Landfill near Jetersville, Virginia. Duke then plans to build its own lined landfill atop the excavated land where it can bury the rest of the Dan River ash, now mainly in a storage pond and in a former pond that has been mostly drained. The 2014 ash spill of 39,000 tons from that former pond, through a broken pipe and into the nearby Dan River, triggered a new state law, the Coal Ash Management Act. The law requires Duke to move Dan Rivers ash reserves and those at several other priority plants to safe, lined storage by August 2019. We will meet that deadline, Brooks said of Dan Rivers expiration date. All of Dukes submerged ash at a total of 14 active and retired power plants statewide about 111 million tons must be closed out safely by the end of 2029 under the act. Brooks said he did not know how much Duke Energy has spent so far on Dan River ash removal or what the utility expects to spend, because parts of the plan still need final approval by government officials. Estimates for complying with the law at all 14 sites range as high as $10 billion, although $6 billion to $7 billion is considered more likely. James Raymond "Jim" Holdren, 78, of Bedford, passed away Wednesday, January 13, 2016 at Centra Lynchburg General Hospital after a very short bout with cancer. He was a beloved husband, dad, granddaddy and father-in-law and a true friend to many.Jim led a full and industrious life, enjoying business, civic and family success. He retired from Holdren, Eubank, Stanley Insurance and Real Estate after more than four decades of leadership, after starting his career serving the youth of his native Bedford via the Virginia Cooperative Extension Agency. His community engagement activities included serving as Chairman and Trustee of the Bedford Community Health Foundation and President of the Board of Directors of Bedford Memorial Hospital, amongst others. Faith played a major role in Jim's entire life and he proudly served as Chairman of Main Street United Methodist Church's Administrative Board, and in other capacities. He was a 1960 graduate of Virginia Tech and nobly rooted for his Hokies through thick and thin, always with respect and honor.He is preceded in death by his father, William H. Holdren; his mother, Madeline S. Holdren and his sister, Betty Gaye Holdren. He is survived by his loving wife of forty-nine years, Sue W. Holdren; his son, Jay of Richmond, his son, Courtney of Bedford and their wives, Moira and Sara, and grandchildren, Madeline, Parker, Will and Lila as well as special friend, Persell Brown.Gift of remembrance can be offered to Main Street United Methodist Church, 212 East Main Street, Bedford, VA 24523.Funeral services will be held at 2 p.m. on Saturday, January 16, 2016 at Main Street United Methodist Church with the Rev. Richard Ecklund officiating. Interment will follow in Greenwood Cemetery. The family will receive friends on Friday from 5 to 7 p.m. at Updike Funeral Home & Cremation Service, Bedford. With all the uproar over the saving of Civil War slave quarters at Greenfield Plantation in Botetourt County, in the name of historical significance, why not an outcry for that part of the white heritage that is being removed from history - the Confederate battle flag. The flag is as much a part of heritage to white Virginians as is a standing slave dwelling to the black community. I understand their concern but come on now - history is history - why keep some ethnic heritage and suppress others their heritage? Seems to me that those that want to wipe out others heritage are not so quick to give up a piece of heritage that is directly linked both in era and issue. I am in favor of keeping the slave dwellings but at the same time let history speak for itself! History is what it is. Don't deny me what you reserve for yourself. DICK GRUBB DALEVILLE Obituaries 10-7-22 Advisory: Obituary information will only be accepted if sent through a funeral home or cemetery. The Wave does not assume responsibility for any incorrect information that is printed in the obituary section John F. Keane... Obituaries 9-30-22 Advisory: Obituary information will only be accepted if sent through a funeral home or cemetery. The Wave does not assume responsibility for any incorrect information that is printed in the obituary section Patricia A. Smith... This is morally wrong and politically stupid, said Donohue, whose $300 million group doesnt endorse presidential candidates but will weigh in on their policy proposals. In congressional races, Donohue said, the chambers priority is to protect the gains we made in 2014 when Republicans took control of the Senate and added seats for the largest House majority since the Truman administration. Donohue also unveiled during his annual state of American business speech a legislative agenda that reflects the groups expectation that election-year politics will consume much of Capitol Hills attention. Many of the business communitys top policy priorities passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and overhauls to immigration and tax laws are unlikely to move on Capitol Hill before the November elections. But, he said, the chamber would use all of our tools to challenge new Obama administration labor, health, financial and environmental regulations, including using the congressional appropriations process and the courts. It is not a bad thing for us, that the route known as the Goldene Strae or the Golden Road as we will get to know it- has escaped the attention of so many. It has been spared being overrun by hordes of tourists and as you will discover the BUSINESSES will be taught about the warning signs of child sexual exploitation (CSE) at a series of workshops. South Yorkshire Polices Operation Makesafe training will host a workshop in Sheffield this month and another in Doncaster in February. At the workshops, specialist police officers will teach the warning signs of CSE, how to spot potential perpetrators and how to report suspicions to police. The workshops are aimed at businesses across the region, including hotels and bus companies. They will be hosted by the HR Exchange Yorkshire and delivered by Brewster Pratap recruitment group and Bhayani HR and Employment Law. Sgt Katherine Wallis, who delivers the Makesafe training, said: Everyone has a role to play in safeguarding children and vulnerable young people, which is why Im pleased we have another opportunity to deliver this training to businesses across South Yorkshire. I hope that the attendees find this session useful and informative as we work together to prevent young people from harm. Counter terrorism information and advice will also be given to businesses at the events. Attendees will be shown a DVD on staying safe in the event of an attack, as well as receiving advice about how they can help raise awareness within their own company around protective security. Cando Rail Services is expanding into British Columbia with the recent purchase of an 89-acre parcel of land in Kamloops for a new rail terminal. The terminal will have the capacity for 1,000 railcar storage spots, in addition to providing transloading, material handling, engineering and track and mechanical services. Our long-range plan is to build an extensive rail terminal at the location that includes 80,000 feet of track, transload areas, as well as engineering and mechanical servicing areas, said Brian Cornick, chief executive officer of Cando Rail Services. Well start with storage tracks first building to have the first 250 spots ready by this June. This is an important step for us as we expand into the British Columbia market. The company currently operates railcar storage at six other Canadian locations across Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. The new Kamloops terminal will serve as the companys headquarters in British Columbia. The property, the former Weyerhaeuser Co. sawmill site, located at Mission Flats Road approximately 10 minutes from Kamloops city center, was chosen by Cando for its ready access to mainline traffic from Canadian National and Canadian Pacific running through Kamloops. It is a prime location as the last major center before heading west into the Port of Vancouver. It also provides access to the growing Port of Prince Rupert. We recognize Kamloops already has a sizable amount of rail traffic. It makes sense for us to build our regional hub here as we expand our services right across the country, said Cornick. Were excited to move to the community of Kamloops. We cant wait to get started. Texas light sweet grade of crude oil, also known as the West Texas Intermediate crude, has once again sneaked below a psychological barrier of $30-a-barrel, 3 days after it breached this level for the first time in 12 years. WTI crude is currently trading at $29.72 a barrel, down $1.48 from the previous session's close. Last Tuesday, oil fell to $29.93 a barrel before recovering and holding above the $30 mark. Brent crude, the benchmark used to price 2/3rd of the World's internationally traded crude oil supplies, is also below $30 and is currently down $0.89 at $29.99. Oil is hit by the double whammy of muted demand outlook, as the world economies slow, and oversupply fears. China, considered a driver of commodity demand, has seen its slow substantially. Reacting to the grim outlook, the nation's key stock market gauge, the Shanghai Composite Index, is on a free fall and has entered bear market territory by virtue of a 20 percentage plus drop from a recent low. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Market Analysis The New Zealand dollar extended its decline against the U.S. dollar and the euro in European trading on Friday. The kiwi declined to a 3-month low of 1.7075 against the euro and a 3-1/2-month low of 0.6391 against the greenback, from its early highs of 1.6719 and 0.6491,respectively. The next possible support for the kiwi is seen around 0.62 against the greenback and 1.72 against the euro. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Forex News The United States has transferred 10 Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay to Oman, bringing down for the first time in 13 years, the population of the US detention camp in Cuba to less than 100. The Pentagon announced Thursday the transfer of Fahed Abdullah Ahmad Ghazi, Samir Naji al-Hasan Muqbil, Adham Mohamed Ali Awad, Mukhtar Yahya Naji al-Warafi, Abu Bakr Ibn Muhammad al-Ahdal, Muhammad Salih Husayn al-Shaykh, Muhammad Said Salim Bin Salman, Said Muhammad Salih Hatim, Umar Said Salim al-Dini, and Fahmi Abdallah Ahmad Ubadi al-Tulaqi to the Gulf country. The inter-agency Guantanamo Review Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of their cases, including security issues. All the 10 detainees were unanimously approved for transfer by the six departments and agencies comprising the task force, the Department of Defense said. In accordance with statutory requirements, US Defense Secretary Ash Carter informed Congress of the US Government's intention to transfer these individuals and of his determination that these transfers meet the statutory standard. The United States expressed gratitude to the Government of Oman for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The United States coordinated with the Government of Oman to ensure these transfers took place consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures. U.S. President Barack Obama has been under pressure to fulfill the promise he made after assuming power in 2009 to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and to commit the U.S. to releasing the detainees or bringing them to fair trial during his second term. But he later acknowledged that the deadline will likely be missed because of political and diplomatic hurdles. After releasing more than 600 detainees, currently, 93 men are held at the U.S. naval base in southeast Cuba. The military jail was set up in 2002 by former president George W. Bush to hold terror suspects from around the world who are suspected of committing terrorist activities against the United States. Five men charged with involvement in the 9/11 attacks are currently facing the death penalty after trial by military commission. The government is also seeking capital punishment for a sixth Guantanamo detainee in another trial. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News During a recent rally, Presidential candidate Donald Trump received a warm welcome from a patriotic girl group called "USA Freedom Kids." "The Freedom Kids," three kids dressed in American flag-inspired costume, danced to a song in support of Trump's presidential bid. They danced to a song that highlighted Trump's controversial campaign words. A sample lyrics: "Cowardice Are you serious? Apologies for freedom. I can't handle this. When freedom rings Answer the call! On your feet stand up tall!" For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com More Political Blogs Rawlins Cross sails into the Sunrise on new album, tour around the East Coast Rawlins Cross has been on hiatus before, once for nearly a decade after a successful run during the 1990s as one of Atlantic Canadas most popular modern Celtic bands, but never one that was imposed by an outside force of nature. In the spring of ... By SA Commercial Prop News Org Geldenhuys, Managing Director of Abacus Divisions Concerns are growing over the City of Tshwanes plans to build the tallest building in Afrca situated in Centurion when the council has been in the press over concerns that it is getting deeper into the red, and is not controlling its finances properly - besides concerns that this project would be a flagrant waste of money. Adding his concern, Org Geldenhuys, managing director of property development and management company, abacus DIVISIONS which is active in the area said that there is currently a high rate of office vacancies in the Centurion area, which should first be tackled by the council. On top of that and the risk of arguably building on dolomite why would a cash-strapped council want to spend such a huge amount of money on a brag item when there are so many other projects that need more urgent attention.? Why do we need to construct the highest building in Africa, for what purpose? Negative feedback from many quarters comes after a recent press announcement by Mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa that the centurion symbol-city project will consist of two offices and one residential tower, including office and retail facilities. Besides pondering what this would cost the tax payer and would the pivotal need for this project is centurion already has a very large retail centre which ably suits the approximately 300 000 residents. With this centre and the other retail outlets in the area- what need is there for this hybrid office and retail development? It makes no sense whatsoever expect, perhaps, for council members to leave a mark on their office tenures by leaving some kind of legacy? But, in all earnest, do we need a legacy such as this the largest building in Africa when the council needs to look at more pressing social and infrastructure issues? Geldenhuys said the powers that be should rather use the money to reduce office vacancies in the area, upgrade area infrastructure, improve security, and fund fibre optic projects to boost efficiencies - and to make it more attractive for people to move businesses to the Centurion node. Centurion has also been made more accessible than other business nubs such as Sandton because of its easy access via the Gautrain. This is something that can be capitalised on. The really is no need to embark on such a massive and wasteful project. Gerhard Marais, the chairman of the Centurion Business Chamber, said organized business has not been consulted over the project, with the chamber first hearing of the plans through the media. Geldenhuys also pointed out that the Centurion Mall, near the problematic and putrid Centurion Lake- which has been a headache for many years should first be the beneficiary of the councils attention as it was continually causing concern for businesses in the area. Meanwhile, the Centurion Business Chamber is concerned about the impact the proposed development will have on existing investors who have sunk large amounts of money into retail and office space and into the surrounding hospitality industry. Currently the office vacancy in recently-built office parks in the district is standing at 40 000 square metres. Given this information, alone, what purpose does this mammoth project serve? asked Geldenhuys. He said estimates reveal that office rent will be around R250m2 in order to make the project viable, when businesses can currently find office space at prestigious office parks in the area, such as Highveld Techno Park, starting at R80 per square metre. Besides the over-riding worry that the building might be constructed in a dolomite-ridden area, which business person would want to pay R250 per square metre when he can get the same benefits from R80 per square metre? Based on some of these facts, this project if it goes ahead is doomed to failure. It will also serve to upset the financial dynamics of the area which will also have a material knock-on effect. Indeed, said Geldenhuys, some people suggest that controversial government leases are as high as this R250 per square metre figure that has been mooted for the project. Prudent business managers know that, in the economic times we live in, one needs to look at value for money. This makes this project ludicrous if you simply consider the comparison of paying rentals for up market office space of around R80 per square metre in office parks such as Highveld Techno Park, which has even better access than the planned project with access directly from the N1 highway with the newly constructed Witch-Hazel off ramp. A first-of-its-kind journey along India and Pakistan border What binds the two most talked about nations - India and Pakistan together? What makes the I give my consent to Sakshi Post to be in touch with me via email for the purpose of event marketing and corporate communications. Privacy Policy SNc Channels: Search About Salem-News.com Jan-15-2016 00:18 TweetFollow @OregonNews America to Improve Bilateral Relations with Sudan It is anticipated that opening of an Israeli Embassy in Khartoum will be US precondition to remove all sanctions against Sudan Courtesy: en.wikipedia.org (SALEM, Ore.) - Sudan maintained good relations with America after Saudis paid Omar al-Bashir $10 billion for the form of economic, cultural and religious developments. During the past two years Riyadh and Khartoum relations have grown to such an extent that it can be claimed that Khartoum has become Saudi Arabia's colony and insiders say Omar al-Bashir is obliged to completely obey King Salman. Omar al-Bashir, in his recent visit to Riyadh and during his meeting with King Salman, formally requested Saudi Arabia to mediate between Sudan and the United States. According to leaked reports in the political circles of America, Saudi's demand to lift sanctions against Sudan was reviewed in the U.S. State Department and America officially reflected its conditions to Khartoum to lift sanctions against Sudan. The US Government has officially asked Sudan to meet US demands to lift sanctions and initiate friendly bilateral relations. The most notable demand is the closure of all official or unofficial Palestinian factions agencies and banning the presence of Palestinians affiliated with Palestinian factions in Sudan. Khartoum officials reportedly expressed their readiness to implement the provisions but asked US to take basic steps to lift sanctions against Sudan that Sudanese officials could rely on that to prepare public opinion for the expulsion of Palestinian groups. Also through mediation of Saudi Embassy in America, secret meetings with officials from the CIA & U.S. Department of State with Sudanese officials are supposed to be held in Ethiopia. It is anticipated that opening of an Israeli Embassy in Khartoum will be US precondition to remove all sanctions against Sudan and in case America guarantees it Khartoum should not have any obstacle in this regard. _________________________________________ Foreign-affairs | Human-rights | Military | Business | Most Commented on Articles for January 14, 2016 | Articles for January 15, 2016 | Articles for January 16, 2016 England Formally Bans Europe Union from Supporting Yemenis The world may be tiring of the endless aggression. Federica Mogherini Photo courtesy: ec.europa.eu (SALEM, Ore.) - The EU foreign affairs spokesman revealed that England formally urged Federica Mogherini, the current High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, to refrain from exercising any stance on Saudi aggression against Yemen. EU representative Katherine Ray, in a circle meeting with a group of reporters at the headquarters of the Union of Europe said that the UK government formally urged EU, Mogherini in particular, to refrain from taking any stance on Saudi aggression against Yemen. The UK representative in the EU at the interior meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Committee has requested that no statement should be published against Al Saud indicating Saudi illegal aggression or killing of civilians.... in the press conference or on the EU official websites. _________________________________________ Judge denies conspiracy-laden effort to stop Kansas ballot drop boxes A federal judge in Kansas Wednesday denied a conspiracy-laden effort to stop the use of ballot drop boxes and electronic voting machines. This post is outside my normal realm of attention, but I think it is nonetheless important for us to consider. For those of us who are... 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Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe Obituaries Mary (Milly) Catherine Sorensen Milly Sorensen, born in Dublin Ireland, August 13, 1936, went to be with the Lord December 25, 2015. Raised in Ireland she attended Loreto Catholic School for Girls where she made lifelong friends. After marrying an American serviceman she left Ireland and eventually settled in Santa Paula where she raised her family and met new friends she cherished for a lifetime. Milly became very involed in Saint Sebastians Church and Saint Sebastians School where her three children attended. It was during this time that she and other parents gathered support to open a small library in a space that was once an old storage room. Milly had a special love of books and reading her entire life. She often told her children why are you buying that book, go to the library. Her love of books eventually led her to a job at the Santa Paula High School Library in 1977. Working under the school Librarian, she learned all she could about running a library and eventually took over as supervisor of the library. She took great pride working with teachers, students and especially knowing every book on the library shelves. Milly also took a part time position in 1994 at Thomas Aquinas College Library and assisted with the move to the new St. Bernardine of Siena Library. She retired from the High School Library in 1994 and just after a few short months of retirement she was asked to work part time at the Blanchard Community Library January 1995. When out and about she was often greeted by past High School students and Blanchard Community Library patrons as The Library Lady which always made her smile. During her tenure, Milly spreaheaded successful fundraisers known as Swing for the Seats where supporters of the library came to bid on numerous items donated for auction and enjoyed a good meal then danced the night away by a local Swing Band. Milly worked at Blanchard Community Library until her health forced her to retire March 2014. Milly is proceeded in death by her mother Lena Kennedy Woods, father, Harry Woods, brothers, Cyril and Eamon Woods all of Dublin Ireland. She is survived by her three children, son and daughter in law, Sean and Robin Sorensen of Anchorage, Alaska, daughters Lisa Sorensen of Santa Paula and Maureen Sorensen of Ventura. Four grandsons, also known as her greatest joy, Zachary Sorensen of San Francisco, California, Andrew Sorensen of Anchorage, Alaska, Matthew Sorensen of Oakland, California, and Kevin Sorensen of Anchorage, Alaska. She is also survived by her brother Andrew Woods of Lewes England, and sister Carmal Cardinale of Devon England. We wish to thank caregivers at The Palms at the Boneventure and her hospice team of caregivers at Assisted Hospice Care of Ventura. We especially want to thank her in home caregivers Sherrie Foley and Melissa Patterson. You are all truly special individuals and there are no words to express how much we appreciate the care provided to our mother. By Peggy Kelly Santa Paula News Public safety responders throughout Ventura County, the Fillmore community and residents throughout the Santa Clara River Valley are mourning the unexpected death of Fillmore Fire Chief Rigo Landeros, who passed away January 7 at age 51. According to a release by Fillmore City Manager David Rowlands, Chief Landeros was widely known and respected throughout Fillmore and the County of Ventura as an energetic and forward thinking public official who was always upbeat with a love of family, community and public service. He was instrumental in helping Fillmore work its way through the recent recessionary period and return the citys financial picture to full solvency. Rigo, said Mayor Diane McCall, was a friend to us all and his death is a shock to so many in our community. Our council all knew Rigo personally and professionally and Rigos city family is truly in mourning today. Landeros and the Fillmore Fire Department worked closely with the Santa Paula Fire Department with mutual aid including supporting the fundraisers of each others departments, making the loss a mutual one. Said Santa Paula Fire Chief Rick Araiza Monday, We worked extremely close together, and we basically handled and covered for each other. Araizas son Austin, who wants to follow his father in a firefighting career, was a Reserve at the Fillmore Fire Department. Rigo was instrumental in getting Austin started. And, Rigo and I routinely covered each othernot only did we work together but he was a very good friend, we vacationed together, with an upcoming fishing trip planned. Added Araiza, Rigo was involved in so many things in both the Fillmore and Santa Paula communities, its just a tragic loss The Ventura County Fire Department mourns at the passing of Fillmore Fire Chief Rigo Landeros, read just one of the tributes posted on Facebook. Chief Landeros was a committed public servant and a steadfast partner to Ventura Countys first responders. And that included needs other than fires and disaster: a former butcher, Landeros was always at the grill during community events including the annual barbecue staged last year to benefit the Christmas Toy Drive where a gift for a child was the price of dinner. Landeros started with the FFD Fire as a volunteer firefighter in 1998 and was appointed Fire Chief in May 2009. At Ganghwa Peace Observatory (c) JC Cerico View from the lookout point at the first floor of Ganghwa Peace Obervatory Reading the messages of peace and unity at Ganghwa Peace Observatory (c) JC Cerico More telescopes at the third floor of Ganghwa Peace Observatory Shrine outside the Ganghwa Peace Observatory The Dolmen Site at Ganghwa One of the many dolmens in the site A type of house in the prehistoric era Lets go toI was taken aback when our Pastor said that during our late breakfast on New Years day.I thought it was way too-spur-of-the-moment but it didnt take me 48 years to say. OK!Some other 8 members of our church congregation also decided to go with us. When we were preparing to go, it dawned on me that we had roughly 4 hours of sleep. We tried to rejuvenate some energy that we lost last night to the parlor games we played in celebration of the New Years day. Thanks to the delicious food we prepared, we feasted on the left over from last nights celebration and it somehow perks us up. Pastor said thatis just about an hour drive from the Vision Center in Seoul where we stayed overnight to celebrate 2016. I was so excited because it was my first trip of the year. I have no idea about the place, I havent read anything about it too, so I thought discovering new places is such an exciting thing to do.Since it was holiday, traffic was pretty horrible, and it was foggy too. I was hoping for a better weather on New Years day but the odd was against us. Plus it was windy and cold, like its below zero I guess.After about one and a half hour, we finally arrived at Ganghwa County. I didnt know that its located in Incheon. All I know about Incheon is that the airport of Korea is located there plus its a home of several other tourist spots such as the Wolmidong and Chinatown. I never heard of Ganghwa before.We went directly to, the only place in the island where you can get a glimpse of North Korea. I suddenly remembered our trip to DMZ last year, in fact the topic about DMZ inspired this particular trip.The observatory is located inside the Civilian Control Zone which is just 1.8 kilometer away from North Korea. It used to be a military lookout and eventually turned into a tourist spot. Apparently, the observatory starts accepting visitor since 2008, before that, entry to the area was strictly prohibited.On the first floor of the observatory building, there are some lookout points where we can see the North Korean village. As Ive said, it was foggy that day, so we cant see much of that village. Through the help of the binoculars which are readily available in the lookout point, our eyes tried to brave the fogs. We only saw the nearby village of North Korea but not the mountains.On the second floor, we enjoyed the photo and video exhibition about Korean War. Not that we enjoyed the war scenes, we liked how they preserved these important pictures and videos for educational purposes. Foreigners like us and Korean visitors too can just imagine the war that had transpired through the exhibits.I also liked the idea of putting up a paper tree made of memos. These memos contain the messages of hope for reunification. I also saw this during our trip to DMZ. Koreans have a way of expressing their thoughts in a very creative manner.On the third floor, there are more telescopes available so people can view North Korea in detailed. We tried to get a glimpse of North Korea through these telescopes but it was really too foggy. Thankfully, they have posted photos of what you supposed to see in a particular angle, at least we were able to check out North Korea through the high definition photos they posted.Outside the observatory, you can see the Shrine where people remember their families in North Korea.Aside from the Peace Observatory, Ganghwa has more to offer to its visitors. Theres a museum nearby which shows the history of Ganghwa and the comparison of its past and present status. However, we were amazed by the number of boulders that have been raised up in the area near the Ganghwa History Museum. These uncut boulders are called dolmens. It is believed that these dolmens were used as a tomb during the 1st millennium BC.The place is called, one of the most important treasures of South Korea, in fact this place was designated as a. After looking at the hundreds of stone dolmens in the site, I realized the weight of the site to the country, or rather the world. These boulders are actually sacred because accordingly, during the Megalithic Culture era, they used these as grave markers and for ritual purposes.We just actually witnessed a parcel of history right at that moment. As we looked at every dolmen in the site, we have somehow connected to the social and political systems, beliefs and rituals, arts and ceremonies of the prehistoric people.There are a lot more to visit in, but we had already consumed the whole day to tour around the area. We were already tired coming from the New Years celebration, so we decided to go home after we had a sumptuous dinner in one of the restaurants in the area. We were all sleepy on our way home but our first day of the year worth that memorable trip. Deerfield Beach, FL -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/15/2016 -- 2015 Global Thermal Magnetic Ticket Industry Report is a professional and in-depth research report on the world's major regional market conditions of the Thermal Magnetic Ticket industry, focusing on the main regions (North America, Europe and Asia) and the main countries (United States, Germany, Japan and China). Access full report with TOC at http://www.9dresearchgroup.com/market-analysis/thermal-magnetic-ticket-market-2015-global-industry-size.html The report firstly introduced the Thermal Magnetic Ticket basics: definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain overview; industry policies and plans; product specifications; manufacturing processes; cost structures and so on. Then it analyzed the world's main region market conditions, including the product price, profit, capacity, production, capacity utilization, supply, demand and industry growth rate 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.) the Asia Thermal Magnetic Ticket industry; 3.) the North American Thermal Magnetic Ticket industry; 4.) the European Thermal Magnetic Ticket industry; 5.) market entry and investment feasibility; and 6.) the report conclusion. Access request sample @ http://www.9dresearchgroup.com/report/38739/request-sample Table of Content Part I Thermal Magnetic Ticket Industry Overview Chapter One Thermal Magnetic Ticket Industry Overview 1.1 Thermal Magnetic Ticket Definition 1.2 Thermal Magnetic Ticket Classification Analysis 1.2.1 Thermal Magnetic Ticket Main Classification Analysis 1.2.2 Thermal Magnetic Ticket Main Classification Share Analysis 1.3 Thermal Magnetic Ticket Application Analysis 1.3.1 Thermal Magnetic Ticket Main Application Analysis 1.3.2 Thermal Magnetic Ticket Main Application Share Analysis 1.4 Thermal Magnetic Ticket Industry Chain Structure Analysis 1.5 Thermal Magnetic Ticket Industry Development Overview 1.5.1 Thermal Magnetic Ticket Product History Development Overview 1.5.1 Thermal Magnetic Ticket Product Market Development Overview 1.6 Thermal Magnetic Ticket Global Market Comparison Analysis 1.6.1 Thermal Magnetic Ticket Global Import Market Analysis 1.6.2 Thermal Magnetic Ticket Global Export Market Analysis 1.6.3 Thermal Magnetic Ticket Global Main Region Market Analysis 1.6.4 Thermal Magnetic Ticket Global Market Comparison Analysis 1.6.5 Thermal Magnetic Ticket Global Market Development Trend Analysis Chapter Two Thermal Magnetic Ticket Up and Down Stream Industry Analysis 2.1 Upstream Raw Materials Analysis 2.1.1 Upstream Raw Materials Price Analysis 2.1.2 Upstream Raw Materials Market Analysis 2.1.3 Upstream Raw Materials Market Trend 2.2 Down Stream Market Analysis 2.1.1 Down Stream Market Analysis 2.2.2 Down Stream Demand Analysis 2.2.3 Down Stream Market Trend Analysis Contact Us Joel John 3422 SW 15 Street, Suit #8138, Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442, United States Tel: +1-386-310-3803 GMT Tel: +49-322 210 92714 USA/Canada Toll Free No. 1-855-465-4651 Email: sales@9dresearchgroup.com Web: http://www.9dresearchgroup.com Miami, FL -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/15/2016 -- The new Hochman & Goldin website features a new contemporary design with the latest web standards, ensuring that all clients can visit and use the website regardless of their preferred operating system or modern web browser of choice. 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The Miami traffic ticket lawyers have handled more than 180,000 traffic citations in the courts of Miami-Dade and Broward Counties and also represent clients on misdemeanor criminal cases. They are also experienced Miami expungement attorneys and are ready to assist clients. Call 305-515-5045 for more information. Boston, MA -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/15/2016 -- The global aviation industry is expected to post good growth in 2015 which can be attributed to several factors such as stronger global economic prospects, high load factors, and lower fuel prices. North America, which is largely dominated by the US, a market where legacy carriers significantly dominate, is expected to contribute more than half of the cumulative profit. Key Findings -The top-three leading full service carriers in the US (United Airlines, Delta Airlines, and American Airlines) have accused the state-owned Middle East full service carriers that the subsidies (US$42 billion over the last decade) received by them from their governments are enabling them to charge lower prices to customers. The move is aimed to prevent competition from the Gulf carriers on transatlantic routes. The three US carriers called for talks between the US and their governments (UAE and Qatar) to end the alleged subsidies or to prevent more flights from these Middle Eastern carriers from arriving in the US. However, the Middle East carriers denied the allegations and in turn made a statement that leading US-based full service carriers received benefits (US$70 billion since 2000) in the form of bankruptcy protection and pension guarantees -Globally FSCs have been facing a threat from low-cost carriers (LCCs) over the past few years but the affect has been most felt in Asia-Pacific. Due to this, FSCs capacity in Southeast Asia increased only by 43% during 2004-2014 and this expansion in capacity is largely contributed by Gulf carriers as many flag carriers in the region are restructuring their operations to face LCCs. Major airlines including Singapore Airlines, Philippine Airlines, Garuda Indonesia, Thai Airways, and Malaysia Airlines have cut down their expansion plans on long-haul routes and are focusing on Asia-Pacific -As the Middle East carriers strengthened their presence by offering one-stop services from Europe to various markets including Southeast Asia, Australia and India, the European FSCs such as Air France have diverted their capacity to more attractive markets, particularly the North Atlantic region Get More Details on this Report and a Full Table of Contents at The Global Full-Service Airline Market to 2019 Synopsis Canadean's report - The Global Full-Service Airline Market To 2019 - provides detailed information on global full-service airlines industry, analyzing market data and providing insights. What else does this report offer? -Historic and forecast revenue of global full service airlines market covering 40 countries -Detailed region-wise (Americas, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Middle East and Africa) of full service airlines' key performance indicators such as the number of seats available and seats sold, load factor, average revenue per passenger, total revenues, revenue generating passenger kilometers and passenger kilometers available for the historic (2010-2014) and forecast (2015-2019) periods -Brief analysis of global full service airlines market and the present scenario -Detailed analysis of the markets trends in key full service airlines' markets Reasons to Get This Report -Make strategic business decisions using historic and forecast market data related to global full-service airlines industry -Understand the demand-side dynamics within the industry to identify key market trends and growth opportunities Companies Mentioned in this Report: Deutsche Lufthansa AG, United Continental Holdings Inc., Emirates Group, Air France-KLM, Delta Air Lines Inc., China Southern Airlines Company Limited, Qantas Airways Limited, British Airways Plc, Cathay Pacific Airways Limited, South African Airways SOC Limited and Ana Holdings Inc About Fast Market Research Fast Market Research is a leading distributor of market research and business information. Representing the world's top research publishers and analysts, we provide quick and easy access to the best competitive intelligence available. Our unbiased, expert staff is always available to help you find the right research to fit your requirements and your budget. For more information about these or related research reports, please visit our website at http://www.fastmr.com or call us at 1.800.844.8156. Browse all Consumer Goods research reports at Fast Market Research You may also be interested in these related reports: -Stationary Cycles Market - Global Forecast to 2019 -Global General Lighting Market 2015-2019 -Global Pharmacy Information System Market - Global Forecast to 2019 -Global Bacterial Biopesticides Market - Analysis and Forecast to 2019 -Global Fire Sensors and Detectors Market - Analysis & Forecast to 2019 Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/14/2016 -- With the introduction on Visa on Arrival services for people staying at Hong Kong, http://www.visa-vietnam.hk/ has become popular amongst travelers from across the world. They are believed to be reliable and offer a number of services that can be used effortlessly. All that Hong Kong citizens need to know about their Vietnam visas is available to be perused at the aforementioned website. Visa on Arrival has caught up with the citizens of many countries who wish to visit Vietnam. It is easier than the conventional method of applying for the same with the Embassy and waiting for a few weeks before it is granted. This new method saves a lot of time and is ideal for anyone who is faced with any emergencies. It is believed that the entity has a money back policy in case their customers are not 100% satisfied with their services. Most of their reviews have mentioned the ease with which the whole process can be carried out. There is no need to visit the Hong Kong Embassy and chase them in order get the Visa. The 'Rush' service is also said to be quite popular. The website says, "There are certain people who believe that people in Hong Kong do not need a visa to travel to Vietnam. However, it is mandatory for all such travelers. With the help of our entity, you can apply for the same online and get an approval letter to travel to the country without any delays. Ours is a certified travel agency that is well versed with the regulations in this regard and we ensure that our customers do not encounter any issues." To obtain more information about the services, visit http://www.visa-vietnam.hk/. About visa-vietnam.hk The website claims that theirs is a comprehensive platform that has useful information on any visa types for people visiting Vietnam. They are believed to have a stringent privacy policy and a convenient payment gateway. People from several countries can check their services and save time in getting approvals for travel. They even offer discounts to corporate and frequent travelers. Media Contact: Address: Room A2, 64 Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street Dakao Ward, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Contact Number: (00) (+84) 8 5404 3118 Email: info@visa-vietnam.org URL: http://www.visa-vietnam.hk/ When Filippo Grandi was sworn in as the new UN high commissioner for refugees this week, even his departments chief spokesperson tweeted that he was embarking on one of the most difficult jobs in the world. Grandi takes the reins amid record human displacement and turmoil across the Middle East. In his first press conference, he stressed the urgency of protecting refugees and ending conflicts, such as Syrias, that drive displacement. But he also called for more support for Syrias neighbours. Four of these Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey together host almost 4.5 million refugees. Grandi cited Lebanon as one example of a host country desperately looking for solutions. As debate rages about the shape of these solutions, an op-ed by two academics at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom has attracted attention. They propose a strategy that could benefit both refugees and host countries: special economic zones (SEZs) designed to drive industry and technological development. The countries could benefit by tailoring the zones to boost the industries they most need, while drawing on a Syrian workforce skilled in fields from manufacturing to engineering; and refugees, for whom employment is currently highly restricted, would get to earn a proper living. To find out more, I rang Alexander Betts, director of Oxfords Refugee Studies Centre, whos been working on this idea with economist Paul Collier. The challenge is: how do we enable refugees not to be perceived as a burden, but as a benefit and an opportunity for the host country? he says. Almost all of Syrias neighbours have high youth unemployment rates and limited public funds, so relaxing labour laws for refugees is a hard sell. SEZs could be a route out of this quagmire. Over the past few decades, Jordan has set up several such state-backed zones: business parks that offer incentives such as tax breaks and trade concessions to attract firms. In Betts and Colliers vision, refugees would be allowed to work for SEZ businesses alongside local people, and the growth of industry would generate further jobs. They hope the idea will be piloted in Jordan, where an existing but underused industrial zone lies 15 kilometres from the countrys Zaatari refugee camp, home to around 80,000 Syrians. Betts says the government has invested 100 million dinars (US$140 million) in the King Hussein Bin Talal Development Area so it requires little fresh funding or infrastructure, but it lacks businesses and workers: currently its running at just a tenth of capacity. It seems a crazy thing to have a space with economic opportunities so close to where there are refugees with so few economic opportunities, he says. By employing Syrians in the zones, Jordan could give its manufacturing sector a much-needed lift. So far, this goal has been partly thwarted by Jordanians tending to aspire to service rather than manufacturing jobs. In contrast, Syrias economy traditionally had a deeper manufacturing base, Betts says. Jordan could also use the zones to attract green technology firms that could help the desert country achieve its aim of improving water management. Finally, the zones could provide training opportunities for young Syrians whose education has been disrupted by the war Not everyone is a fan of SEZs: critics say some projects fail to get started due to poor infrastructure or red tape, or can remain isolated pockets within a countrys economy. But Betts is upbeat. It is not the perfect solution; it is a pragmatic step, he says. He hopes the pilot will begin this year: the World Bank and United Kingdoms Department for International Development have visited the proposed site, and the Jordanian government has shown interest. If successful, the idea could be rolled out to countries such as Lebanon and Turkey, and then further afield, with each SEZ tailored to meet specific needs. Shyamantha Asokan is a journalist and photographer based in the United Kingdom, where she covers migration and diasporas. She has previously worked as a correspondent in India, Nigeria and the United States. Contact her on @shyamantha A new tool developed by the JRC provides for the first time detailed maps of high intensity fisheries areas in 2014-2015 in Europe. Thanks to tracking data of fishing vessels, it is possible to derive information about the fishing habits of coastal communities and to know, for example, which are the areas where they fish more frequently. This information is crucial to tailor policy and management strategies to boost blue growth, the EU strategy for a more profitable and sustainable exploitation of marine and maritime resources. The new tool "Mapping fishing activities" (MFA) uses for the first time tracking data from the Automatic Identification System (AIS) -- used worldwide to identify and locate vessels thorough data exchange with other nearby ships, AIS base stations, and satellites -- to analyse the relations between fishing communities and fishing areas at high level of geographical detail at EU-wide scale. The data used in this tool consists of around 150 million positions from EU fishing vessels above 15 m in length in the period between September 2014 and September 2015.The MFA includes several layers of geographical information and a high-resolution map of fishing intensity covering all EU waters. Information on the position of vessels in relation to areas of high fishing intensity and in the surrounding of ports is aggregated into a dependency index which represents the gravitation of coastal communities towards specific fishing grounds and other ports. Until recently such analyses have been based on highly aggregated figures from administrative sources such as the logbooks and the Vessel Monitoring System (VMS), which have been introduced to control fishing. The MFA relies on open source data from the AIS which, while not suitable for a systematic control of potentially illegal fishing, is more accessible and offers new possibilities for research. Policy makers, scientists, experts can use this detailed data on fishing activity for fisheries management and fisheries research both from an environmental and a socio-economic perspective. By knowing where fishing activities are more intensive, it is possible for example to assess the impacts from trawling on the seabed floor and derive the indicators on fishing pressure envisaged by the Maritime Strategy Framework Directive. Moreover, this information allows understanding which coastal communities would be most affected in economic and employment terms if restrictive measures on fishing activities are set in a specific area. To preserve confidentiality all the information is aggregated from individual vessels to the level of ports and figures of dependency are presented only for ports with more than five vessels in the AIS data set. The tool and method developed by the JRC shows the potential of AIS data to support fisheries management. The MFA spatial layers can be easily incorporated in other platforms that regularly disseminate marine data. While scientists have known for years that African trypanosomes cause sleeping sickness, they've been left scratching their heads as to how these tiny single-celled organisms communicate. A University of Georgia study, published Jan. 14 in the journal Cell, helps solve this mystery. The UGA researchers discovered that long filaments -- that look like beads on a string -- form by budding from the flagellum of African trypanosomes and then release pieces of the parasite into the host. This causes anemia and influences the outcome of infection leading to human African sleeping sickness and the cattle disease nagana. The UGA researchers theorize that the extracellular vesicles, as the free-floating beads are scientifically known, are being used by the parasite to communicate with each other and with the host's body. Even before they pop off into vesicles, the nanotubes extending from the flagellum help the single-celled parasites talk to each other. The severe anemia caused by the parasites may be an accidental side effect of the extracellular vesicles fusing with host red blood cells. There were 6,314 new cases of African sleeping sickness in 2013. The disease, fatal if left untreated, threatens millions of people annually in the 36 countries in sub-Saharan Africa where the parasite-transmitting tsetse fly lives, according to the World Health Organization. The research findings provide another clue to how African trypanosomes infect humans. It may also lead to improved therapies to fight sleeping sickness; current medications used to combat the disease have improved over the past decade but still include an old arsenic-based drug that kills between 5 and 10 percent of the people receiving treatment, said the study's senior author Stephen Hajduk, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. The parasite also causes major economic losses by infecting and killing between 5 million and 7 million cattle each year through nagana, he said. advertisement The research into trypanosome nanotubes and extracellular vesicles started as a side project in Hajduk's lab about two years ago. As the study's lead author Tony Szempruch spent more time peering into a microscope, the tiny, wiggly organism revealed its cellular communication potential. "What you see here," he said, pointing at the flagellum, "is that you can get that synthesis of the nanotube, but then it will quickly break down into what appears to be free vesicles that float out of focus." Szempruch, a doctoral student in the biochemistry and molecular biology department, developed a 3-D reconstruction of the nanotubes budding at the flagellum membrane. He was then able to look at the relationship of the flagellum, nanotubes and extracellular vesicles. "The whole project developed out of our interest in how trypanosomes interact with one another," Hajduk said. "Traditionally, people didn't think of a single-celled organism needing to communicate with each other. But it has become more and more clear that they do. "They're actually able to sense when they're at a certain level in the mammalian host in the bloodstream and then are able to respond to that in some way. As it turns out, a lot of this came together in looking at these extracellular vesicles that we've identified." Hajduk first noticed the nanotubes in 1978 when he was a doctoral student at the University of Glasgow, and they were first noted in a scientific publication in 1912. advertisement "Even back then, we saw a lot of these extensions coming off the posterior end of the cell," he said. "I think everyone has seen them, and, until now, everyone has ignored them. The parasite world -- and trypanosome world -- has largely lagged behind." Their findings -- that nanotubes and vesicles are an important part of the communications process -- show that the extracellular vesicles contribute to the complexity of African trypanosomiasis through the transfer of virulence factors between parasites and inadvertent interaction with host cells, which has a profound effect on disease, the study notes. More research is needed into nanotubes in particular, Hajduk and Szempruch said. There's also a great deal of interest in using the structures for non-invasive diagnostics and for targeted therapeutic use. "The whole signaling thing, people are very excited about that," Hajduk said, "whether it's infectious disease or cancer or specific therapeutic development" to treat sleeping sickness. "The fact that these vesicles are fusing with other host cells presents an interesting target for a therapeutic approach," Szempruch said. "Perhaps treatment wouldn't kill the parasite, but it would stop severe pathology associated with the parasite infection." UGA study co-authors included Steven Sykes, Rudo Kieft, Lauren Dennison, Allison Becker, Anzio Gartrell and William Martin, with John Harrington as a co-corresponding author, as well as Ernesto Nakayasu at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Igor Almeida at the University of Texas. The study, "Extracellular vesicles from Trypanosoma brucei mediate virulence factor transfer and cause host anemia," was supported by the National Institutes of Health under grant numbers AI039033, AI060546 and 2G12MD007592. A recently released study from WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) details a new method using "detection dogs," genetic analysis, and scientific models to assess habitat suitability for bears in an area linking the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) to the northern U.S. Rockies. The method, according to the authors, offers an effective, non-invasive approach to the collection of data that could play a vital role in the further recovery of grizzly bears during the coming decades. "The use of detection dogs allowed us to quantify and map key areas of habitat for black bears in the Centennial Mountains located along the Idaho-Montana border west of Yellowstone National Park," said Jon Beckmann, WCS Scientist and lead author of the study. "Black bears are a proxy species useful for predicting likely grizzly bear habitat. With recovery, a larger grizzly bear population needs room to roam and to reconnect with other populations. The Centennial Mountains region of the U.S. northern Rockies can provide room and safe linkages -- critical to connecting the bear population in the GYE area to others further north and west." During the study, two Labrador retrievers and two German shepherds owned and trained by Working Dogs for Conservation, located 616 scat samples of black bears and 24 of grizzly bears (identified by DNA extraction and analysis) in the 2500 square kilometer (965 square mile) study area. "Dogs excel at searching for multiple scents at once, even if one is far more common than the other," according to Aimee Hurt, Working Dogs for Conservation co-founder. "In this case, the dogs easily alerted us to a multitude of black bear scat, while also readily locating the rare grizzly bear scat, resulting in a multitude of data points and a robust model." "We recognize that black bears do not always utilize the landscape in precisely the same manner as grizzly bears," said Beckmann. "But given the paucity of grizzly bears in the study area -- especially during the years of our study -- our approach, data, and model have value to grizzly bear conservation and management. This is especially true given that black bears and grizzly bears in the GYE are known to utilize very similar habitats spatially, but at different times." Plugging the scat sample location data into their scientific model, the scientists examined the landscape with respect to habitat parameters, private lands, public land management and human activity in the area. Results of modeling provided insight into bear habitat use and resource selection patterns. Among the findings it was determined that distance to roads matters; bears use habitat that is farther from roads, and when road density increased within 4 kilometers of a location bears used that habitat less. Bears also used a habitat less if it were high elevation, or privately owned. With this information land managers, land trusts, and others will be better informed to make bear habitat management and conservation decisions. This study may also inform human-bear conflict avoidance, and so help people and bears better co-exist. "Using Detection Dogs and RSPF Models to Assess Habitat Suitability for Bears in Greater Yellowstone," appears in the current edition of Western North American Naturalist. Co-authors include: Jon P. Beckmann of WCS; Lisette P. Waits of the Department of Fish and Wildlife, University of Idaho; Aimee Hurt and Alice Whitelaw of Working Dogs for Conservation; and Scott Bergen of Idaho Department of Fish and Game. WCS's work in this region is supported by the Turner Foundation, Wilburforce Foundation, Brainerd Foundation, The New York Community Trust, and the Bureau of Land Management-Dillon, Montana office. Astronomers using the Nobeyama 45-m Radio Telescope have detected signs of an invisible black hole with a mass of 100 thousand times the mass of the Sun around the center of the Milky Way. The team assumes that this possible intermediate mass black hole is a key to understanding the birth of the supermassive black holes located in the centers of galaxies. A team of astronomers led by Tomoharu Oka, a professor at Keio University in Japan, has found an enigmatic gas cloud, called CO-0.40-0.22, only 200 light years away from the center of the Milky Way. What makes CO-0.40-0.22 unusual is its surprisingly wide velocity dispersion: the cloud contains gas with a very wide range of speeds. The team found this mysterious feature with two radio telescopes, the Nobeyama 45-m Telescope in Japan and the ASTE Telescope in Chile, both operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. To investigate the detailed structure, the team observed CO-0.40-0.22 with the Nobeyama 45-m Telescope again to obtain 21 emission lines from 18 molecules. The results show that the cloud has an elliptical shape and consists of two components: a compact but low density component with a very wide velocity dispersion of 100 km/s, and a dense component extending 10 light years with a narrow velocity dispersion. What makes this velocity dispersion so wide? There are no holes inside of the cloud. Also, X-ray and infrared observations did not find any compact objects. These features indicate that the velocity dispersion is not caused by a local energy input, such as supernova explosions. The team performed a simple simulation of gas clouds flung by a strong gravity source. In the simulation, the gas clouds are first attracted by the source and their speeds increase as they approach it, reaching maximum at the closest point to the object. After that the clouds continue past the object and their speeds decrease. The team found that a model using a gravity source with 100 thousand times the mass of the Sun inside an area with a radius of 0.3 light years provided the best fit to the observed data. Considering the fact that no compact objects are seen in X-ray or infrared observations, Oka, the lead author of the paper that appeared in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, explains as far as we know, the best candidate for the compact massive object is a black hole. If that is the case, this is the first detection of an intermediate mass black hole. Astronomers already know about two sizes of black holes: stellar-mass black holes, formed after the gigantic explosions of very massive stars; and supermassive black holes (SMBH) often found at the centers of galaxies. The mass of SMBH ranges from several million to billions of times the mass of the Sun. A number of SMBHs have been found, but no one knows how the SMBHs are formed. One idea is that they are formed from mergers of many intermediate mass black holes. But this raises a problem because so far no firm observational evidence for intermediate mass black holes has been found. If the cloud CO-0.40-0.22, located only 200 light years away from Sgr A* (the 400 million solar mass SMBH at the center of the Milky Way), contains an intermediate mass black hole, it might support the intermediate mass black hole merger scenario of SMBH evolution. These results open a new way to search for black holes with radio telescopes. Recent observations have revealed that there are a number of wide-velocity-dispersion compact clouds similar to CO-0.40-0.22. The team proposes that some of those clouds might contain black holes. A study suggested that there are 100 million black holes in the Milky Way Galaxy, but X-ray observations have only found dozens so far. Most of the black holes may be dark and very difficult to see directly at any wavelength. Investigations of gas motion with radio telescopes may provide a complementary way to search for dark black holes said Oka. The on-going wide area survey observations of the Milky Way with the Nobeyama 45-m Telescope and high-resolution observations of nearby galaxies using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have the potential to increase the number of black hole candidates dramatically. The observation results were published as Oka et al. Signature of an Intermediate-Mass Black Hole in the Central Molecular Zone of Our Galaxy in Astrophysical Journal Letters issued on January 1, 2016. The research team members are Tomoharu Oka, Reiko Mizuno, Kodai Miura, Shunya Takekawa, all at Keio University. This research is supported by the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) No. 24540236. A new study has revealed a belief among pharmaceutical industry personnel that greater involvement of patients and the public could improve medicines research and development (R&D). The study, which is one of the first of its kind and part of the wider European Patients' Academy (EUPATI) project, was published today in the BMJ Open. Patients have become increasingly involved in managing their own health over recent years. Although still an emerging area, patient involvement in medicines R&D -- in which patients are actively involved in research projects and in research organisations -- is most visible in public research environments (e.g. the UK's National Institute for Health Research) and areas where existing treatment options are limited (e.g. rare diseases). Researchers interviewed 21 pharmaceutical industry professionals, representing 11 companies, from the UK, Spain and Poland, with diverse professional roles including pan-European roles, about their attitudes regarding Public and Patient Involvement (PPI) in medicines R&D. Most of the professionals had positive beliefs about PPI, and many were optimistic that greater involvement of patients and the public would contribute positively to the medicines R&D process. However, those in Spain and Poland expressed more uncertainty about the benefits and value of PPI than those in the UK or with pan-European roles. The interviewees also highlighted potential barriers to further PPI activity within the sector, including a sense that the concept was too intangible at the moment to persuade industry leaders of its importance and benefits; that organisational codes of practice currently represent obstacles to PPI; and that it may be difficult to engage public and patients if they have negative views of the sector. As a result of the study, the EUPATI project is discussing the potential for a new direction towards PPI in industry-led medicines R&D and has identified examples of patient/industry partnerships in this area. Suzanne Parsons, Health Researcher at the Public Programmes Team at Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CMFT) and The University of Manchester, said: "We recommend the provision and wide communication of strong case studies to improve awareness of PPI and its benefits among industry professionals. To do this, we need to identify what constitutes good practice, as it is still a relatively new field. "It would also be useful for industry to revisit codes of practice to ensure they do not serve as barriers against greater PPI activity." Key outputs of the project are the EUPATI Patient Expert Training Course and the EUPATI Toolbox for Medicines R&D to be launched later this month. These are for patients who are interested in learning more about the medicines R&D process and can help both patients and industry professionals implement patient involvement in medicines R&D, in order to address some of the aforementioned barriers to PPI identified in this study (i.e. patient education and industry regulatory worries). "For different reasons, including cultural conservatism and concerns about regulatory barriers, industries have been somewhat reticent to engage directly with patients in clinical development. This approach is changing as we seek to understand and integrate patients' views, and EUPATI is supporting patients with tools and knowledge for their meaningful involvement. Patients should be a partner in drug development, not just the subjects of studies," explained Jane Griffiths, EMEA Company Group Chairman, Janssen Europe, Middle East & Africa. The study was performed as part of EUPATI, a patient-led project, which involves a unique European team of academia, patient advocacy organisations and the pharmaceutical industry. The bad news is that more Chinese shipyards, in particular privately-owned enterprises, are expected to go bankrupt or shut down due to debts or simply having no new orders to sustain operations. With more than 3,000 shipbuilding enterprises, mostly speculative yards, counted at the start of 2010, that number has drastically dwindled to only around 300 today, and only a little more than 100 yards have active day-to-day operations. Ren Yuanlin, executive chairman of Yangzijiang Shipbuilding, which remains profitable despite the challenging market, has predicted that China will eventually be left with 20 to 30 shipbuilding companies after the severe consolidation period for the industry is over, and it could still be a few years away. Chinas shipbuilding statistics reveal an ominous sign that Ren could be right. In the first 11 months of 2015, China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry (Cansi) reported that 54 of the countrys leading shipyards received 92.5% market share the countrys newbuilding tonnage, meaning that easily a few hundred other yards from among the estimated 300 have gotten zero new orders for the entire year. Last year alone, Seatrade Maritime News reported that four Chinese shipyards filed for restructuring, namely Jiangsu Eastern Heavy Industries (JEHI), Zhejiang Judger Shipbuilding, Wenzhou Yuandong Shipyard, and Zhenghe Shipbuilding. In addition, Nantong Mingde Heavy Industry and government-backed Wuzhou Shipyard were declared bankrupt, STX Dalian Shipbuilding was liquidated, and Rongsheng Heavy Industries now renamed China Huarong Energy is hanging on by a thread from bankruptcy. Another yard Sainty Marine is also on the verge of bankruptcy, and only a miracle could save it going by its problems of order cancellations, frozen bank accounts, resignation of key executives, lawsuits, unpaid debts, and suspension of shares trading. The outlook for Chinas shipbuilders is further shadowed by the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) consistently setting new lows since the start of this year. And with bulk carriers accounting for 41.6% of Chinese shipyards $26.6bn orderbook as of 1 December 2015, according to Clarksons data, their exposure to this particularly weak shipping sector will have a negative knock-on effect. But what of the good news? With industry observers always citing that shipping, including shipbuilding, is a cyclical market, the upturn for Chinas shipbuilders when it eventually comes, is anticipated to see a reformed, leaner and more competitive shipbuilding industry. Chinas state-owned shipbuilders and China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), for instance, have responded to the declining new orders by consolidating its various yard subsidiaries so as to streamline operations and maximise facility utilisation. With state-owned corporations undergoing reform to tighten operations and the weeding out of speculative yards and the bottom-rung private enterprises, the survival of the handful of shipyards is not by chance. Owners, who are themselves cash-strapped and cautious with placing new orders, are not about to approach unknown and less reputable yards to construct their new ships, and they would also require the vessels to be more technologically advanced and energy efficient. This goes back to answer why more than 90% of new orders are concentrated in the handful of supposedly better Chinese yards. It is easy to see the obvious woes for Chinese shipyards, but there is always two sides to a story. And when the unforgiving consolidation is over possibly leaving less than 30 shipyards in China, the country could well be a shipbuilding powerhouse boasting of price competitiveness and quality. Press Release January 15, 2016 Cayetano to lead veto override to give SSS pensioners 2000 peso pension hike Vice Presidential bet and Senate Majority Floor Leader Alan Peter Cayetano said that he would initiate the call to legislators to end the executive branch's legacy of vetoing important laws and make history by overriding the veto President Benigno Simeon Aquino III made on a bill which seeks a P2,000 across-the-board increase in Social Security System (SSS) monthly pensions. "It is time for Congress to stand up for our millions of pensioners and give them the pension that they need. We must stand up against the executive's awesome powers and ensure the passage of important laws that will help alleviate the lives of our people and show that we are the people's voice and not just a rubber stamp of Malacanang," Cayetano said. Cayetano said social security is meant to help pensioners after their retirement cope with the costs of living without their regular salaries. "But what good is social security if what they get is so low that it cannot even meet their barest needs?" It was reported that Aquino has vetoed or blocked several social legislation such as the Magna Carta for the poor and the lowering of income tax rates for working Filipinos. "Wala pong personal o pulitika dito. Pinaglalaban po namin ang milyong milyong pensioners na kailangang kailangan itong 2000 pesos na ito para sa pang araw araw nilang pamumuhay." Cayetano added. The senator vowed to lead the charge in mobilizing the legislature to override Aquino's veto. He said the legislative will require two-thirds vote of the House and Senate, voting separately. "For the sake of our struggling people, I will do everything in my power to counter this veto. It is an uphill battle but a fight that must be waged nonetheless. We owe it to the people especially the vulnerable such as the elderly, the sick and the unemployed who are at the bottom barrel. Sobra-sobra na ang hirap nila," Cayetano said. In his veto message, Aquino explained that the stability of the entire benefit system will be 'seriously compromised' if the proposed pension hike is implemented. Cayetano, however, said Aquino's fear was based on wrong assumptions. The senator explained that the SSS should institutionalize long overdue reforms like increasing its rate of contribution collections and expanding its investment reserves. Cayetano said if elected in the 2016 polls, he and his running mate, presidential candidate and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo "Rody" Duterte will prioritize the pension hike of SSS members and look into the Government Service and Insurance System (GSIS) and Pagibig to upgrade and improve welfare of members and also exempt workers earning 20,000 pesos and below from income taxes. "Ang kailangan ng mamamayan ay tunay na pagbabago na nakabatay sa matapang na solusyon at mabilis na aksyon. As part of our platform to promote equality under the law and genuine inclusive growth, we will work to substantially increase the people's benefits to give them a better quality of life. We will provide the working people with a living wage and guarantee that the government promotes the welfare of the population through sustainable assistance measures," Cayetano concluded. Press Release January 15, 2016 Cayetano calls on Congress to override Aquino's veto of SSS pension hike bill Vice Presidential bet and Senate Majority Floor Leader Alan Peter Cayetano today called on his fellow legislators to override President Benigno Simeon Aquino's veto of a bill which seeks a P2,000 across-the-board increase in Social Security System (SSS) monthly pensions. "It is incumbent upon the legislative branch, particularly to all those who supported and signed the bill, to override the president's veto. We must demonstrate our strong resolve in advancing the welfare of ordinary people and show that we are the people's voice and not just a rubber stamp of Malacanang," Cayetano said. "Social security is meant to help our pensioners after their retirement cope with the costs of living without their regular salaries. But what good is social security if what they get is so low and cannot even meet their barest needs," Cayetano added. Cayetano said that in order to override the veto, the legislature will require two-thirds vote of the House and Senate, voting separately. On January 12, 2016, Aquino vetoed House Bill No. 5842, or the SSS pension hike bill. In his veto message, Aquino explained that the stability of the entire benefit system will be 'seriously compromised' if the proposed pension hike is implemented. Cayetano, however, said that they already made the necessary computations and concluded that the pension hike is possible. "The SSS can absorb the pension hike. Based on its yearly reports, SSS is profitable. It has more funds that it is investing and disbursing, and it has investments in various large companies. Moreover, it is enjoying a continuing rise in membership, which also increases revenues generated from members' contributions," Cayetano explained. "That's why I don't understand the reason behind the veto. Instead of helping our people especially the vulnerable such as the elderly, the sick and the unemployed get out of the bottom barrel, they want to keep them there. Sobra-sobra na ang hirap nila," Cayetano said. Cayetano said if elected, he and his running mate, presidential candidate and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo "Rody" Duterte will prioritize the pension hike of SSS members. "Ang kailangan ng mamamayan ay tunay na pagbabago na nakabatay sa matapang na solusyon at mabilis na aksyon. As part of our platform to promote equality under the law and genuine inclusive growth, we will work to ensure that ordinary people enjoy the full benefits from government. We will provide working people with a living wage, double their benefits and guarantee that the government promotes the welfare of the population through sustainable assistance measures," Cayetano concluded. Press Release January 15, 2016 Sen. Marcos Says SWS Survey Result "Encouraging", Vows To Work Harder Vice Presidential candidate, Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" R. Marcos, Jr. today said the result of the latest Social Weather Station pre-election survey was "encouraging" and will certainly inspires him to work harder. The SWS survey conducted from January 8-10, put Marcos in second place with 25% of the respondents picking him for Vice President, or up by 6 percent from 19% last December and gaining on leader Sen. Francis Escudero with 28% compared to his 30% in December. "The SWS survey results are encouraging. I am deeply grateful to our countrymen for their support and confidence that I am presenting a viable platform to truly uplift their lives and the capability to do it," said Marcos. Despite this, Marcos said he remains cautious against becoming over-confident and instead he would redouble his efforts to inform the Filipino people of his plans to help effect the change that every Filipino dreams of. "It is January and the election is still in May. In Philippine politics four months is a very long time. So we have a long way to go," Marcos clarified. He said that while the surveys provide an accurate picture of the public's sentiment at a given time, it should be taken in its proper context and utilized as a valuable guide in implementing campaign plans based on the factual situation in the ground. Marcos was in Tacloban City on Thursday to greet his cousin, Tacloban City Mayor Alfred Romualdez, on the latter's birthday. The Senator took the opportunity while in Tacloban to meet with the city's barangay officials and report to them what he did in the Senate for their cause, particularly the recent approval of his bill providing retirement benefits to barangay officials and workers. In addition, Marcos also assisted in the city's medical mission and in providing assistance to victims of a fire that broke out in the city during the New Year celebration. Marcos was also Guest Speaker during the First Division Conference of Leyte's Public School Teachers held at the Leyte National High School. Assemblyman David Chiu, seeking to strengthen the states ban on assault weapons, brought two semiautomatic rifles to San Francisco to show how quick and easy it is to load a clip full of bullets legally and illegally. It took him about two seconds to change clips on an illegal assault rifle. And it took him about three seconds using the bullet button loophole in existing law to change the clips on a legal semiautomatic rifle, the kind available for sale throughout California. The demonstration in a conference room in the State Building was the opening salvo in the campaign by Chiu, D-San Francisco, to ban detachable clips from semiautomatic rifles sold in California. His bill, introduced Thursday, would require the magazines on such weapons to be permanently attached. Chiu intended his demonstration to show how easy it is to stay within the law while quickly changing ammunition clips the same action that gunmen have performed during recent mass killings in San Bernardino; Newtown, Conn.; Aurora, Colo.; and elsewhere. Detachable magazines cost lives, Chiu said. We must close the loopholes in our assault weapons ban. A similar bill to ban detachable clips was vetoed last year by Gov. Jerry Brown. Chiu said he hoped that modifications in the new bill would meet with the governors approval this time. The proposed law, AB1663, was co-written by Democratic Assemblymen Phil Ting of San Francisco, Rob Bonta of Alameda and Marc Levine of San Rafael, and was endorsed by state Attorney General Kamala Harris. Mass shootings have become routine, Ting said. Shooters use military-style weaponry because it enables them to kill as many innocent people as fast as they can. Gun safety advocates have long complained that gun manufacturers exploit loopholes to circumvent the intent of laws such as Californias assault weapons ban, passed in 1989 following a shooting in a Stockton schoolyard. Among the supporters of the bill at Chius demonstration were pastor Arelious Walker of True Hope Church in San Francisco, who said gun violence affects all of us, but especially communities of color. Calls to the National Rifle Association and the California Rifle and Pistol Association seeking comment on the proposal were not returned. Chiu borrowed the two weapons used for the demonstration from the state Department of Justice. Afterward, a chaperone took them back into custody, returned them to Sacramento and locked them up. Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SteveRubeSF Just one day after a 5-year-olds wheelchair disappeared from the front of his Oakland home, it turned up at a local hospital, allowing the stranded kindergartner to go back to school. It appears an anonymous person dropped the chair off at UCSF Benioff Childrens Hospital Tuesday morning, said Megan Cody, whose son Joaquin uses the chair. Im very grateful, Cody said. It was in perfect condition. Around 8:30 a.m. Monday, Cody was carrying her son to his wheelchair after leaving it outside her home for about 10 minutes and saw it was missing. Even worse, a bag with a medication pump for Joaquins seizures was also attached to the chair. For the rest of the day, she reached out to neighbors and called the Oakland Police Department to no avail. But by Tuesday, Cody said, she received a call from UCSF Benioff someone had anonymously dropped off the sparkly blue chair that had her sons name embroidered on it. A Good Samaritan found it on the street, said Melinda Krigel, a spokeswoman for the hospital. Joaquins medical bracelet was on the wheelchair, which allowed staff to contact Cody with the news, Krigel said. He was unable to attend school Monday because the portable pump was needed when he travels, but now he is back in class at Bella Vista Elementary. When word surfaced of the missing chair, several people offered to pay for a replacement or set up a GoFundMe account for the family, but the gestures wont be necessary. Im really grateful for all the incredible community outreach, Cody said. Now, Cody says she wont leave the wheelchair unattended outside anymore not even for the few minutes it takes to go back inside and carry her son to the chair. Ill have to figure out a new way to get him out onto the street, she said. Jenna Lyons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jlyons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JennaJourno Planned Parenthood and its California affiliates filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against antiabortion activists, accusing them of secretly filming staff members to appear as though they were illegally trafficking fetal tissue to advance a larger goal to end womens access to legal abortions. The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, is Planned Parenthoods first legal action against the conservative Center for Medical Progress in Irvine and alleges the group violated numerous state and federal laws and put patients, health providers and others at risk. Its time to hold these antiabortion extremists accountable for the laws they have broken and the harm they have caused, said Beth Parker, chief legal counsel for Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, in a call with reporters. The filing comes six months after the Center for Medical Progress released covertly recorded videos that purported to show Planned Parenthood officials seeking to make money from the sale of tissue from aborted fetuses to medical researchers, which is against the law. The controversy triggered a series of hearings led by Republicans in Congress and a failed attempt to end federal funding to Planned Parenthood. Program defended Planned Parenthood officials have said the videos were deceptively edited and vehemently defended the fetal tissue program. Stem cells derived from fetal tissues have been instrumental in creating various vaccines, including those for measles and polio, and hold great promise in developing treatments for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimers and Huntingtons as well as spinal cord injuries and blindness. Planned Parenthood provides high-quality, compassionate care and does nothing wrong, said Kathy Kneer, president of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California. California features prominently in the controversy because it is one of just two states involved in Planned Parenthoods fetal tissue donation program, which procures tissue from aborted fetuses for stem cell research. The other state is Washington. Planned Parenthood has accused the defendants including the centers leader, David Daleiden, and five others in the organization of engaging in a three-year complex criminal enterprise that involved setting up a sham tissue procurement company called Biomax. The suit says members used fake identities, even going as far as creating bogus drivers licenses, to gain access to private conferences. Numerous claims The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, claims the defendants violated federal racketeering laws and engaged in wire fraud, mail fraud, invasion of privacy, illegal secret recording and trespassing. Officials from the Center for Medical Progress called the lawsuit frivolous, saying it was filed in retaliation for the groups First Amendment investigative journalism. This last-ditch move of desperation is going to expose all of the sordid dealings of the California Planned Parenthood affiliates to the light of the legal system, and the public will see them for the corrupt abortion and baby body parts profiteers that they really are, the group said. Planned Parenthoods Bay Area affiliates stopped donating aborted fetal tissue after the videos surfaced because it lost its contract with the agency that processed the specimens as a result of the controversy. The agency, StemExpress, has since filed a state lawsuit against the Center for Medical Progress, accusing the group of violating Californias wiretapping laws. In October, Planned Parenthood decided to stop accepting any compensation related to the administration of its fetal tissue donation program in an attempt to eliminate monetary concerns. Since the videos were released, Planned Parenthood officials said its employees have received death threats, been forced to move or go into hiding. In November, a gunman attacked a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, killing three people and injuring nine. Victoria Colliver is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: vcolliver@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @vcolliver A Sacramento man who emigrated from Syria was indicted on federal charges Thursday after prosecutors said he lied about returning to the country two years ago and fighting on the side of extremist groups. A grand jury returned an indictment that charged Aws Mohammed Younis Al-Jayab, 23, whose arrest was announced last week, with one count of making a false statement involving international terrorism, said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John P. Carlin and United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner. During an Oct. 6, 2014 interview with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Al-Jayab allegedly denied that he had once belonged to a rebel group or militia or provided material support for any person or group engaged in terrorist activity. He also allegedly lied when telling officers he traveled to Turkey in late 2013 and early 2014 to visit his grandmother. In reality, he traveled overseas to fight alongside terrorist organizations and lied to U.S. authorities about his activities, said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Carlin. FBI officials said Al-Jayab was a Syrian refugee with Palestinian roots who was born in Iraq. After arriving in the U.S. in 2012, Al-Jayab communicated with more than 15 people around the world while living in Arizona and Wisconsin, indicating he wanted to fight for Syrian terrorist organizations, FBI officials said. On April 13, 2013, he wrote, O god, grant us martyrdom for your sake while engaged in fighting and not retreating, according to an FBI affidavit by Special Agent Elizabeth Buckmiller. Al-Jayabs social media posts claim that he was in Syria from November 2013 to January 2014, fighting with militant organizations including Ansar al-Islam, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization since 2004. Officials said he returned to the U.S. and settled in Sacramento on Jan. 23, 2014. Prosecutors also said Al-Jayab was communicating with Omar Faraj Saeed Al Hardan, a 24-year-old Houston man and refugee of Palestinian ancestry who was indicted on charges of attempting to support the Islamic State. Al-Jayab faces eight years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted. Chronicle Staff Writer Evan Sernoffsky contributed to this report. Jenna Lyons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jlyons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JennaJourno This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate W. Bruce Seaton, who transformed Oaklands American President Lines into a major intermodal transportation company, died Dec. 26 at Marin General Hospital in Greenbrae. He was 90. Mr. Seaton was chief financial officer at the Natomas Corp. when he was appointed president and chief operating officer of APL in 1977. At the time, the firm was a traditional ocean transportation company operating ships in the Pacific Ocean and in around-the-world services. Appointed CEOin 1983, Mr. Seaton refocused the company so that it concentrated on the Pacific market and expanded into rail services, combining sea transportation with transcontinental railroad operations to offer seamless carriage of freight cargo in containers across the Pacific and the United States. APL also invested in inland terminals and in information technology. The company also ordered larger ships for APL on the theory that they would be more efficient, although most of them were too large to transit the Panama Canal. During his years with the company, the largest APL ships could carry up to 4,300 containers. Now, the newest and largest mega-ships can carry 18,000 containers. Mr. Seaton retired from the company in 1993. Seven years after his retirement, APL was acquired by Singapores Neptune Orient Lines, which used the APL brand for its worldwide shipping operations. Neptune Orient Lines and its APL brand were purchased by French-owned CMA CGM Group late last year. Wilbur Bruston Seaton Jr. was born in Philadelphia in 1925. After service as a Navy officer in World War II, he graduated from UCLA and began his financial career in the oil and gas business. After his retirement, he served as chairman of the Bay Area United Way and chairman of the board of visitors at UCLA. He was also on the governing board of Marin General Hospital. He is survived by his wife, Joyce; and three stepsons, Fred, Rick and Greg Barbaria. Private services have been held. Carl Nolte is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: cnolte@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @carlnoltesf Recommendations of recent books from the staffs of a rotating list of Bay Area independent bookstores. This weeks list is from BookShop West Portal, 80 West Portal Ave., San Francisco. (415) 564-8080. www.bookshopwestportal.com. The Geography of Genius: A Search for the Worlds Most Creative Places From Ancient Athens to Silicon Valley, by Eric Weiner: Weiner is a funny and personable guide through the often counterintuitive world of creativity and genius. Sailor and Fiddler: Reflections of a 100-Year-Old Author, by Herman Wouk: A glorious read for fans of the author or those seeking life lessons from a true mensch. The Idealist: Aaron Swartz and the Rise of Free Culture on the Internet, by Justin Peters: Opening with information on everything from the history of U.S. copyright law to Project Gutenberg, Peters provides context for the short and tragic life of activist Aaron Swartz. We Have the Technology: How Biohackers, Foodies, Physicians, and Scientists Are Transforming Human Perception, One Sense at a Time, by Kara Platoni: Platoni has crafted a work of popular science that reads like science fiction. Sometimes shocking, sometimes disgusting, this book is consistently fascinating. FICTION My Name Is Lucy Barton, by Elizabeth Strout: A protracted hospitalization reunites a woman with her estranged mother in this slender and beautiful novel. Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist, by Sunil Yapa: Set during the 1999 Seattle World Trade Organization protests, Yapas gripping novel views this recent history through the eyes of protesters, law enforcement and delegates, all of whom have their own baggage and agendas. The Bone Labyrinth, by James Rollins: In this, the 11th book of his Sigma Force series, Rollins again proves that hes a pro. Youll fly through the pages and wonder: Can that possibly be right about the moon? Beatlebone, by Kevin Barry: In 1978, a burnt-out John Lennon seeks solitude on his private island off the coast of Ireland. Tasked with getting him there is Cornelius, his expansive Irish driver. The events that follow are equally heartbreaking and hysterical. Airbnb is adding engineers, product designers, data scientists and researchers to its Portland call center, the first time those positions will be stationed outside the companys San Francisco headquarters. The positions will be added to an office that now houses about 200 customer service employees. You're about to be burrito-blocked. Chipotle announced Thursday it will close all of its stores for a few hours Monday for a company-wide meeting about food safety. Following successive food poisoning outbreaks last year, spokesman Chris Arnold, told The Chicago Tribune the meeting Feb. 8 will cover a range of issues. Cost Plus World Market, known for its kitschy knick knacks, furniture and international food items, is moving its headquarters from Oakland to Alameda. The transition, expected to happen by fall, will bring about 400 jobs to the island city, the company told The Chronicle Friday. It will allow the retailer to consolidate corporate operations, currently spread across four buildings near Oaklands Jack London Square, into a central location at an Alameda business park, said spokeswoman Jill Osaka. As the company grows and opens new stores, we have found the need to increase our office space, Osaka said in an e-mail. Cost Plus had considered other cities, including Emeryville and Oakland, but ultimately decided on Alameda, said Debbie Potter, Alamedas community development director. One of the companys office buildings was going to be turned into a housing development, forcing Cost Plus to look for new space. The company didnt want to be too disruptive to its employees commutes, Potter said. Alameda was attractive to the company because of its proximity to Oakland and San Francisco, its ample space and the fact that the business park provides a free shuttle to and from the Oakland 12th Street BART Station, Alameda officials said. It all added up to a nice package, Potter said. Cost Plus signed a long-term lease for roughly 107,000 square feet of space in Marina Village. The office park, purchased by Brookfield Property Partners in 2014, has struggled for the past decade or so, as it lost tenants, including Roche Molecular Systems, city officials said. Cost Plus is a good name, and it hopefully will entice others to come as well, said Frank Matarrese, vice mayor of Alameda. Cost Plus said it has had offices on Fourth St. in Oakland for more than 15 years. In the meantime, Oaklands real estate market has been heating up. Downtown Oaklands office vacancy rate dropped to 3.9 percent in the third quarter, down from 7.3 percent in the previous quarter, according to a report by Colliers International. Uber announced in September that it plans to bring 2,000 to 3,000 employees to Uptown Station on the other side of downtown in 2017. That will have a transformative impact on the market, Colliers said. "If Oakland wants to remain the center of relocation, the area will need to see cranes filling the sky, in the near future, to meet the demand," Colliers said in its report. " There is no doubt the fundamentals have changed in Oakland." Average asking rents for office space are also more expensive in Oakland compared to Alameda. At Oaklands Jack London Square area, the average ask is $2.14 per square foot, Colliers said. In Alamedas Marina Village area, it is $2.09 per square foot, the firm said. Cost Plus, which has 278 stores nationwide, is owned by Bed Bath and Beyond Inc. In Alameda, Cost Plus will become one of the citys largest employers. Other businesses with headquarters in the city include medical device firm Penumbra Inc., which has roughly 1,000 employees. Wendy Lee is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: wlee@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @thewendylee Social networks are one of the first places people turn to for updates in the wake of tragedies. But Safety Check, a much touted Facebook tool designed to make it easier to tell friends and family members youre OK during a crisis, was not turned on after an apparent terrorist attack struck the capital of one of Facebooks largest markets Thursday. Jakarta, Indonesia, was rocked by militants who staged suicide bombings and opened fire in what may have been an attempt by the Islamic State to wage a Paris-style attack in the city. But while Facebook quickly activated Safety Check during the Paris attacks, the Menlo Park company didnt activate it in the hours following the violence in Jakarta, which raises questions about what it takes to turn on the tool. Facebook is huge in Indonesia: In 2014, it said it had nearly 70 million users in the country. In the absence of the official Safety Check after the Jakarta attacks, some hacked together their own version of the of the feature by sharing #SafetyCheckJKT on Facebook and other social networks like Twitter. Engineers at Facebook came up with Safety Check as a response to natural disasters like the 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan and unveiled it in 2014. The Paris attacks were the first time it was activated in response to a terrorist attack and 4.1 million users checked in with the tool in the 24 hours after the attack, according to Facebook. But some people raised questions about why Safety Check wasnt activated for bombings that occurred in Beirut the day before the Paris attacks. Alex Schultz, Facebook vice president for growth, addressed the concerns in a post on the social media site: During an ongoing crisis, like war or epidemic, Safety Check in its current form is not that useful for people: because there isnt a clear start or end point and, unfortunately, its impossible to know when someone is truly safe, he wrote. But the Paris attack activation, he said, would mark a change in the companys approach to Safety Check. We want this tool to be available whenever and wherever it can help, Schultz said. A week after the Paris attacks, Facebook used the tool after a bombing in Nigeria. Were now working quickly to develop criteria for the new policy and determine when and how this service can be most useful, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the time. But the exact scope of that policy remains unclear, and Facebook did not immediately respond to an inquiry about why it did not turn on Safety Check for the attack in Jakarta. Indonesia ranked much lower than Nigeria on the Institute for Economics & Peaces latest Global Terror Index and, in fact, lower than France. So its hard to argue the country is a place where this kind of violence is so commonplace that Safety Check wouldnt be helpful. But one big difference between the attacks in Jakarta and terrorist attacks where Safety Check was used is the body count. Seven deaths have been reported so far in Jakarta and five of them were attackers. The Paris shootings left some 130 dead, and the Nigerian bombing killed at least 34 people. In his earlier post, Schultz said the company applied a set of criteria including the the scope, scale and impact when deciding if it should use Safety Check during natural disasters. And, sadly, when it comes to violent attacks, scope, scale and impact almost by definition comes down to how may people were hurt or killed. Counting bodies can sound like a gruesome way to measure the importance of an attack. But in the precious minutes and hours after an attack, when a feature like Safety Check can do the most good, Facebook may be taking those numbers into account along with other factors, such as expert feedback and the chatter seen on its own platform, so it can gauge when to use the tool. Unfortunately, that means Facebooks efforts to provide help for people in a time of crisis have put it in the unenviable position of deciding what counts as a tragedy. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate With General Electric responsible for some 25 to 30 percent of its funding, the local chapter of the United Way is reeling over the companys planned departure from Connecticut. Its not just us; the whole not-for-profit community is suffering an enormous blow, said Merle Berke-Schlessel, president and CEO of United Way of Coastal Fairfield County. Nearly every local charitable organization has a General Electric employee on its board of directors, she said, and the company matches 50 percent of employees individual contributions to charity. I dont think most folks understand the scope of what they do, Berke-Schlessel said. They have employees that are enormously generous, both in the money they give and in terms of volunteering. GE announced Wednesday it would leave its Fairfield headquarters after 42 years for a new home in Boston. In addition to the loss of hundreds of highly-paid executives and the income taxes they pay, the region is bracing for an equally painful hit to local philanthropy. Everyone will be feeling it, Berke-Schlessel said, adding that it will take time to determine exactly how much could be lost with the companys exit. The GE Foundations charitable donations cover a broad spectrum globally, ranging from $20 million for maternal and child health care programs in a half-dozen African countries to a gift of $1.25 million to health centers in Fairfield County. The Stamford Public School District has received $35 million in GE Foundation funds since 2006, and GE since 1981 has given close to $1.5 million to hospitals in the Western Connecticut Health Network, including Danbury Hospital. And three months after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in 2012, GE donated a team of three executives to help Newtown manage the aftermath of the tragedy, in addition to a $15 million gift. Development help When Bridgeport was mired in the depths of the Great Recession, an abandoned office building at 333 State St. and a residential development on Lafayette Circle, representing some of the first new neighborhood construction in decades, stood empty with every sign they could stay that way for years to come. Funding from General Electric helped get them back on track. GE entered into a partnership with the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority to provide financing to encourage downtown development based on the citys master plan. The $25 million infusion provided funds no bank was willing to risk. At that point, 2008 to 09, the financial world in a great deal of turmoil, and financing of any kind was difficult to find, said Bob Carlson, developer of 333 State St. Without GE financing our project, it would have been very difficult to have pulled it off. Today that property and the Bijou Square development, at 323 Fairfield Ave., have a combined 149 apartments full of residents leading a downtown resurgence. That became a vital part of being able to be put together our total mortgage, said Phil Kuchma, whose project received $14 million in GE funds. Generous employees GE ranked second in the state in charitable giving in 2013, the most recent year for which statistics are available, according to the Connecticut Council for Philanthropy. According to the GE Foundations website, the company was responsible for $6.2 million in charitable donations that year, both from the corporation and individual employees and retirees. Thats in addition to $3.5 million in donations to the United Way. The potential loss of those employees, whether they move with the company to Boston or lose their jobs, raises many concerns. It will have a huge philanthropic impact both in the sense of the companys corporate engagement and that of the high-net-worth employees, who are deeply engaged in the communities where they live, said Maggie Gunther Osborn, president of the Connecticut Council for Philanthropy. GE has said an unspecified number of employees from Fairfield will move into space the company leases at the Merritt 7 office complex in Norwalk. Osborn said large corporations like GE can come to see themselves as larger than their home communities and be more apt to give globally, while individual employees often contribute close to home. Corporations real connections come from employees in the community, and those high-net-worth individuals tend to be higher givers, putting dollars into the local community, she said. The real loss for Fairfield County and Connecticut is the loss of those employees. Its Saturday night in the Mission District. Two women stand outside a dive bar in the winter chill, looking at their phones. Two Toyota Priuses pull up to the sidewalk. Yo, you Kelly? a driver yells to the taller of the women. No, she says, glancing up from her phone. Im Kelly! the other woman calls out. Yo Kelly, Im your Uber! The taller woman walks to the door of the other Prius. Are you my Lyft? You Rachel? the driver says. Yes! The women climb into their respective rides. The Priuses pull away. A year ago, Uber dominated San Francisco. As in many cities, Uber had become a verb for ride-hailing apps. But today, youre as likely to spot a Lyft as an Uber in the city. Those who thought on-demand transportation was a winner-take-all market that Uber would crush competitors in ride-hailing the way Facebook crushed competitors in social media are being forced to change their tune. Not winner-take-all It turns out that the winner-take-all phenomenon that drives so much of the Internet a theory also known as network effects may not be as relevant to the transportation industry. Last month, Sidecar pulled out of the ride-hailing business. But Lyfts business continues to improve, and it remains an investment magnet. This month, the San Francisco company announced a new $1 billion funding round, led by General Motors, which invested $500 million. Since shedding its clownmobile front-grille mustache in favor of a more discreet windshield sticker a year ago, Lyft, ride-hailings second-largest company, has captured 40 percent market share in San Francisco, and in newer markets, such as Austin, Texas, it nearly matches Uber with 45 percent market share. Lyft declined to reveal its market share in other markets. From January 2014 to January 2015, the company grew fivefold in rides and revenue. Its on track for $1 billion in gross revenue by October this year. Which isnt to say Lyft is about to eclipse Uber. Lyft is valued at $5.5 billion. Ubers most recent valuation is $62.5 billion. Lyft has 315,000 drivers. Uber has more than 400,000 in the U.S. alone. Uber is available in 68 countries. Lyft operates only in the U.S.; its international expansion into Asia through partnerships isnt due to begin until next year. Despite the gulf in resources between the industrys Nos. 1 and 2, Lyft continues to grow. People thought that this was a winner-takes-all market, and I think everyones realized thats not the case, said Lyfts co-founder and president, John Zimmer. Pundits got it wrong, he believes, because winner takes all is such a common scenario in tech. In social media, Facebook came out on top because of the network effect: The more of your friends are on it, the better it gets. That naturally lends itself to one player. But in a transportation business, specifically our business, there are very strong network effects, but only to a point, Zimmer said. Initially, it was thought that whichever service had more drivers would also have more passengers; more drivers meant shorter waits, more passengers meant more fares. A monopoly would emerge. But once you hit three-minute pickup times, theres no benefit to having more people on the network, Zimmer said. Network effects In fact, according to economist W. Brian Arthur, a prime theoretician behind network effects, if all services are equal, then network effects may not be so advantageous. For example, Uber might have a strong network advantage in an area, but if Lyft comes in and offers a much better product, it can dislodge a company, network effects and all, Arthur said. Network effects are a dynamic idea. Theyre not frozen in time. They do exist, but it doesnt mean someone cant come along and just leapfrog that. Zimmer likes to compare the dynamic between Uber and Lyft to AT&T and Verizon. When both cell networks hit three bars of coverage, people start to see them as equivalent, and base their spending decisions on other factors, such as brand values and customer experience. Thats what Lyft has spent the last year doing: building the ride-hailing equivalent of cell towers to get pickup times down to three minutes or less. With that out of the way, its out to capture market share, by attracting passengers who want an alternative to Uber and tapping into the ocean of people who have never used a ride-hailing service. Internationally, Lyft has teamed up with incumbents in Asia, so when U.S. Lyft customers open the app overseas, they can hail a ride from local operators such as Didi Kuaidi (China) and Ola (India), and vice versa. The company will tackle each geography differently. But Lyfts domestic strategy interests big investors the most, with activist billionaire Carl Icahn investing $100 million, telling the New York Times in May: Theres room for two in this area. Scott Weiss, a Lyft board member and partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, echoed a similar sentiment, comparing the on-demand transportation market to airlines, with the potential for growth. There are probably 10 to 12 airlines that have multibillion-dollar valuations, and every country has one or two flagship carriers, Weiss said. We always bet the market is humongous. What's probably an expected sight for even a late-night trip to a Waffle House, a Georgia woman stripped off her clothes and tried to start a melee inside the popular 24-hour diner chain. Jennifer Mary Nicholson allegedly broke a womans nose and smashed a window after throwing punches and tossing Waffle House platters at patrons and workers late last Friday in Kennesaw, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported. She did all this while in the nude. The Obama administration Thursday announced plans to pour nearly $4 billion into developing self-driving cars over the next decade, touting the technologys potential to prevent accidents and save lives. And, in a nod to Google, federal officials hinted that they may not require autonomous cars to have a human driver behind the steering wheel. Or even have a steering wheel at all. We are on the cusp of a new era in automotive technology with enormous potential to save lives, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and transform mobility for the American people, said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, speaking at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Flanked by representatives from Google, Tesla Motors and other automakers, Foxx said the money would pay for real-world testing of Internet-connected vehicles in several designated corridors throughout the country. More importantly, he said that federal officials would work with industry and state regulators to create uniform policies that can guide the rollout of robot cars nationwide. For the companies involved both established automakers like General Motors and newcomers like Google thats key. They dread facing a patchwork of state-level regulations with different requirements. Googles complaints They also want room to experiment. Late last year, California proposed requiring autonomous cars to have a licensed driver behind the wheel, even when the car is driving itself. That drew complaints from Google, whose bubble-shaped, prototype robot car didnt even include a steering wheel or brake pedal until state regulators insisted. Federal officials appear to be more open to Googles approach. On Thursday, transportation officials said they would work to ensure that autonomous cars, including those designed without a human driver in mind, can be deployed en masse once proven safe. Fully autonomous vehicles have the potential to save lives, so we welcome the secretarys commitment to removing barriers that may prevent them from sharing the roads when theyre ready, Google spokesman Johnny Luu said. The company has been testing its robot cars on the streets of Mountain View and Austin, Texas, for years, logging more than 1.3 million miles of autonomous driving. Tough state rules Of course, some California regulations are tougher than their federal counterparts meaning steering wheels and brake pedals may have to come standard in Googles bubble cars. But Foxx appears to be trying to negotiate a unified approach that will satisfy state regulators and automakers alike. Theres no guarantee that Congress will approve the money President Obama wants. And whoever succeeds him in office may not embrace self-driving cars. But Foxx has thrown his departments weight behind the new technology. He has repeatedly insisted that the federal government should speed up deployment of autonomous vehicles or at least not get in their way. He touts them as a means to ease traffic, cut fuel use, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent accidents. And he wants them built in the United States. On Thursday, Foxx said the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration would propose model state regulations within the next six months. His staff will also work with automakers to reinterpret existing regulations that could impede autonomous car tests or grant exemptions to those regulations where appropriate. In plain English, this means we are going to do everything we can to advance safe, smart and sustainable transportation innovations like vehicle automation, Foxx wrote on the departments blog. This is an exciting time in vehicle innovation, and we will be working hard to make sure we protect Americans safety while supporting innovators. Although some drivers view self-driving technology with suspicion, early versions are already filtering into the marketplace. Tesla Motors luxury electric cars feature an Autopilot mode that can steer itself at freeway speed and, with updates introduced this week, park the car in a garage after the driver has already stepped out. Teslas capable of driving themselves across the country and recharging themselves along the way may be two years away, CEO Elon Musk said. System bugs But the technology is not yet foolproof. Google this week reported that since September 2014, drivers in its test fleet of autonomous cars have had to take control of the vehicles 341 times, either because the vehicles programming detected a problem or because the drivers feared a possible collision. David R. Baker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: dbaker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @DavidBakerSF A little less than a year ago, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh made his employees a deal. If they couldnt get behind the online retailers radical new management system called holacracy which doesnt have traditional managers or job titles he would give them at least three months severance to leave. By May, the company said that 210 people, about 14 percent of the workforce, had left. And now, the company has updated that number, saying in a recent post on its website that 260 people, 18 percent of the workforce, have headed for the exits. In the post, Chief Operating Officer Arun Rajan said the percentage grew after about 50 employees from a tech group decided to take the company up on its offer. While we have lost a number of folks, it is important to note that we have a significant group of highly talented individuals who will be staying to help move Zappos forward, Rajan wrote in the post. But whether these workers left because they couldnt pledge allegiance to holacracy or because they recognized that their jobs were out of favor is unclear. The publication Quartz reports that Rajan said in an interview that the majority of the recent group who left are managers who didnt fill critical roles in a company that no longer has traditional supervisors. He also said that Zappos might have had to lay off workers if there werent enough people who took the buyout offer. (An e-mail to the company to confirm details was not immediately returned.) The recent post updating employees on the departures includes the sort of obscure language that can make the system challenging to learn or even understand. The no-bosses, no-titles concept at Zappos, which has garnered continued attention from news media trying to examine how its working, replaces the traditional corporate hierarchy with a series of overlapping, self-governing circles. The post suggests that people direct any questions to one of these circles rather than an individual, and also discusses the buyout offer, part of Hsiehs goal of reaching a state of self-management and self-organization advocated in the book Reinventing Organizations. Employees had to read the book to be eligible for the buyout. The concept of such a voluntary buyout is not a new one for Zappos. Hsieh famously offers new employees $2,000 to leave if they realize theyre just not that into the companys zany culture. (Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos began doing something similar for some of his employees after Amazon acquired Zappos in 2009.) Hsieh appears willing to lose employees who arent a good fit because he sees self-management as a strategy, rather than simply an experiment in radically extreme management. In a recent Washington Post story about Hsieh and his effort, he described the restructuring as a way to help Zappos expand beyond online shoe and clothing retailing and into new industries. Taking away bosses, he said, is a way to really just have everyone at Zappos act like an entrepreneur, busting up the bureaucracy that can frustrate and drive out a companys most innovative employees. His intention, he said, is to make Zappos customer service the brand hallmark that helps him expand into other industries, much like the way Virgins hip and cool brand led it beyond music and into other fields. Among the ideas that have been brainstormed: a Zappos hotel, an airline, and even crazy stuff, like Porta-Potties. For now, at least, such brainstorming may be happening with fewer people. MEXICO CITY Drug lord Joaquin El Chapo Guzman was eager to set up a face-to-face meeting with Mexican actress Kate del Castillo, and had apparently never heard of Sean Penn, according to transcripts of over a month of text messages exchanged between the two. The transcripts published Wednesday by the newspaper Milenio and confirmed as authentic by a federal official showed that Guzman was less interested in making a movie about his life than he was in flirting with the actress. Whats that actors name? the account identified as Guzmans writes in one message to del Castillo. He later asks his lawyers to tell him what movies Penn has appeared in. Even when Guzman dedicated a video statement as an exclusive for del Castillo and Penn, the drug lord stumbles over Penns first name, pronouncing it SAY-ahn. Penn has acknowledged that he tagged along for the controversial Oct. 2 meeting at a mountain hideout originally set up by del Castillo. The U.S. actor wrote a lengthy article for Rolling Stone magazine that recounted the secret trip to meet Guzman, who was recaptured by Mexican marines on Friday after six months on the run. The federal official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he or she was not authorized to be quoted by name, said the dozens of texts were authentic. Many expressed admiration and a longing for the next meeting, more than concern about the purported movie project. Ill tell you, I am more excited about you than the (movie) script, Guzman wrote to del Castillo. He identified her in his chat or text account as ermoza, a misspelling of the Spanish word for beautiful. Ill take care of you, he adds. Another text from the drug lord reads: How is the best and most intelligent woman in the world, who I admire a lot? At one point, Guzman who is reportedly married to former beauty queen Emma Coronel, and has had children with her and several other women writes My mother wants to meet you. I told her about you. I want you with all my heart, he wrote. Del Castillo responds in kind. Apart from our (movie) project, I am very excited about seeing you eye to eye, in person, she wrote, adding later we will embrace each other soon! Del Castillos representatives did not respond to e-mail requests to comment on the texts. Connor Radnovich/The Chronicle A man riding a bicycle was killed in San Jose Friday morning after the driver of the a pickup truck hit him once, then backed up and hit him again before fleeing the scene, police said. The first reports of the crash came in around 4:50 a.m. near the intersection of West Santa Clara Street and Delmas Avenue, said Officer Albert Morales, a police spokesman. A Palo Alto elementary school teacher was arrested this week on charges he repeatedly molested a child more than a decade ago, authorities said Friday. Michael Christopher Airo, 34, a teacher at Ohlone Elementary School, turned himself in on Wednesday at the Santa Clara County main jail in San Jose after a warrant was issued for his arrest, police said. He was accused of repeatedly molesting the daughter of a former girlfriend over a three-year period that started in 2002 when the victim was 11 years old, police said. The sex crimes occurred before Airo became a teacher, police said, although he was working as an aid at an after-school program at El Carmelo Elementary School in Palo Alto when he began dating the accusers mother. The girl was a student at the school at the time. Police were notified after the accuser, now in her 20s, told a psychologist she had been molested as a child by her mothers former boyfriend, Airo, police said. An investigation was launched when police received a mandatory report of the alleged child abuse from the psychologist. Airo was charged with four felony counts, including continuous sexual abuse of a child and lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14. He was released from jail after posting $500,000 bail. Palo Alto School Superintendent Glenn Max McGee sent a letter on Thursday evening to parents of Ohlone students informing them of the arrest and that Airo, who teaches fourth and fifth grades, was placed on unpaid compulsory leave. While police searched for other victims at Ohlone and El Carmelo elementary schools, none have been found. Authorities asked that any parent who suspects their child was victimized by Airo to contact detectives at (650)383-8984. Bill Hutchinson is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: bhutchinson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @bill_hutchinson A cable-car gripman who suffered a traumatic brain injury when he was hit by an alleged drunken motorcyclist earlier this year died this week and prosecutors are considering bringing new charges against the man suspected of crashing into him, officials said Thursday. Reynaldo Morante, a 51-year-old San Francisco resident, died on Tuesday at Laguna Honda Hospital where he had been on life support since the June 11 wreck, the medical examiner said. Morante was struck from behind as he was getting off the Powell-Mason cable car at the end of the line. William Makepeace, 22, was arrested nearby a short time later and charged with two felony counts of driving under the influence of alcohol and causing bodily injury. Makepeace appeared in court Thursday for a scheduling hearing in the case. Max Szabo, a spokesman for the San Francisco District Attorneys Office, said Morantes death has prompted prosecutors to consider filing additional charges, possibly manslaughter, against the suspect. We are in the process of evaluating what additional charges may be appropriate in the wake of the victim's death, Szabo said in a statement. Our thoughts are with the family. After the crash, John Haley, director of transit operations for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, said the incident highlighted the risks cable-car operators face everyday. Our cable car system is a national treasure, but the nearly 150-year-old system is challenging and difficult to operate, he said in a statement. Despite these obstacles, our conductors and gripmen venture into mixed traffic conditions while exercising extreme vigilance in protecting their passengers and themselves. Makepeace was released from custody on $100,000 bail shortly after his arrest and is due to return to court Feb. 1, Szabo said. Kale Williams is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: kwilliams@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfkale This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate BARTs longtime practice of relying primarily on decoy surveillance cameras inside trains appears to be unusual among major city transit agencies and prompted criticism Thursday from a Bay Area congressman who has long fought to steer federal funding to the agency to beef up security. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Dublin, said he was surprised to learn that the vast majority of ceiling-mounted surveillance units in BART rail cars are dummies with no cameras inside. The Chronicle revealed the decoy program after BART failed to capture video footage of a killing last weekend on a train, even though the attacker opened fire just feet from what appeared to be cameras. I look at those cameras myself. I had assumed that every time I got on BART those cameras were rolling and someone was watching, said Swalwell, who sits on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, in a phone interview from Los Angeles. I think with the technology we have today and knowing transportation systems are not just targets for criminals but for terrorism we would be well served to improve security on trains and what we are able to see, Swalwell said. BARTs on-train security may get an upgrade before the agency begins transitioning to a new fleet of cars in 2017. Spokeswoman Alicia Trost said Thursday that BART will in the coming year outfit a select number of train cars with cameras that can be monitored remotely in real time. No video of shooting On Saturday night, the gunman fired multiple shots at his victim from close range on a crowded BART car as it pulled into the West Oakland Station. The suspect was recorded entering the Pittsburg/Bay Point Station and fleeing the West Oakland Station images that BART police circulated in hopes of tracking the man down. But investigators lost a chance to view the killing and what may have immediately precipitated it. As of Thursday, the victim had not been identified and the killer remained on the loose. A motive is unknown. Swalwell, a former member of the Homeland Security Committee who represents much of eastern Alameda County, has been instrumental in winning funding for BART security projects. In June, he and five other Bay Area members of Congress signed a letter urging the Department of Homeland Security to fund patrol teams and security cameras at the West Oakland Station. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, BART has received $200 million in federal and state security funds, with most of the money designated for specific projects, officials said. Swalwell said he would have helped petition for more federal cash for the train cameras if he knew most were fakes. He said he also wasnt aware that none of the onboard devices there are four in each car can be monitored remotely in real time, which would allow BART to better respond to unfolding emergencies. Whether its protecting passengers from a violent crime or a terrorist incident, making sure you have cameras that work and are seen by a live person is important, Swalwell said. BARTs police chief, Kenton Rainey, said Thursday that the pictures the agency released of the suspect taken by more modern station cameras prove the security system functioned as intended. He acknowledged some of the cameras were decoys, but said, Im not going to say how many. Chronicle reporters walked the length of several BART trains and found that roughly three-fourths of the cameras appeared to be dummies. But even some of the actual cameras in many BART trains dont work, according to two police sources familiar with the matter. We have a layered security system, and it worked, Rainey said. We captured images of the suspect. We know where he entered and exited the system, and we got a very clear image. Meant to stop minor crimes Decoy surveillance cameras are common in private security across the country, used by construction firms and businesses and advertised online in a variety of models. A former BART police sergeant who consults with agencies on police tactics and security said they can serve a purpose. I think the benefit is that is if somebodys going to do a minor crime, its going to deter them from doing that, said the consultant, Don Cameron of Martinez. But if a guy is going to shoot someone, it doesnt matter. BART officials said every car in the new fleet will be equipped with cutting-edge cameras producing footage that can be watched live from a central monitoring station. Those cars are expected to arrive between 2017 and 2021. A lot has changed in the way cameras are designed and used since BART began installing them inside trains in 1998, an effort aimed chiefly at stopping vandals and other low-level criminals. Eighty were initially installed in a pilot program. and more were added in 2000. According to BART Director Tom Radulovich, board members were told at the time that many of the cameras were not real. Rainey said Wednesday that he did not know any other jurisdiction that has a robust system like this. However, BART seems to stand out from other major metropolitan transit agencies in deploying decoy cameras. The Chicago Transit Authority recently used federal grant money to outfit all of its trains and buses with security cameras none of which are decoys, officials said. Our more than 23,000 cameras are across all of our rail cars, buses and stations, all of which are equipped and fully functional, said an agency spokesman, Jeff Tolman. New York steps up effort Officials with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which manages New York City subways, trains and buses, have said they are installing hundreds of cameras aboard new buses and trains. A spokesman for New Yorks transportation workers union said there are no dummy cameras on trains or buses. The same goes for San Franciscos transit system. Paul Rose, a spokesman for Muni, said all of the agencys vehicles buses, rail and cable cars are outfitted with cameras. We dont have any decoy cameras, he said. Theyre all active. Evan Sernoffsky and Michael Cabanatuan are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. E-mail: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com, mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky @ctuan "Well, I used to have a lot of dandruff," is not the line that typically leads to a date, but for 17-year-old Mike Sugerman, it was enough to briefly win a woman's heart on a 1972 episode of "The Dating Game." For years Sugerman has been the newsman most likely to make you laugh out loud during the KPIX evening broadcast. He has also built a reputation for covering the Bay Area's quirks on for KCBS (yes, he was the guy that tried to interview you on Hippie Hill during your 4/20 smoke-out). But 44 years ago he was a student of the news and "a little league umpire" just looking for a date on a show hosted by Jim Lange, a famed Bay Area broadcaster in his own right. "Yes, I was on 'The Dating Game.' Yes, I was 17. Yes, I won," Sugerman admitted to friends via Facebook late last week. "I was a freshman at UCSB. My best friend really wanted to go on the show. I had a car; he didn't. We drove down in my 1968 VW bug. They needed an extra person for a mock game. I was picked to go on the show. He wasn't." As it turns out, the dandruff line was the least of his problems. He couldn't make it through the first question without insulting his mother's intelligence, or his own. Take a look and marvel at all that hair: "I had no clue what she was thinking and, looking at the other two guys who were really good looking, I didn't think had a chance (even though I knew she couldn't see them). Sugerman's charm - and ability to avoid jokes about fertilizing a love garden - were enough to land him a date, and create these sensationally awkward moments: "We met and instantly disliked each other. She was a spunky high school senior on her way to become a college sorority girl. I was an anti-establishment anti war long haired hippie jerk," Sugerman recalled. "We hardly talked during the four days in Mexico. There was a female chaperone who tried to make things less awkward. I sat out by the hotel pool with them, ordered drinks (ok for 17-year-old in Mexico) and studied for finals." Sugerman ended up moving to the Bay Area in 1979. A year later he did find a love connection, in the form of fellow journalist Janice Wright. Their initial meeting was no game. They were assigned to cover the same murder. Mike and Janice now live in San Francisco, where they raised two boys. Olympus Corp. voluntarily recalled its troubled medical scopes Friday on the same day it received federal approval for a redesigned device the company and regulators hope will end outbreaks of deadly drug-resistant infections linked to the recalled scope. Olympus announced the recall just two days after a U.S. Senate health committee criticized the device makers, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and hospitals for being slow to report the infections and alert the public. A committee report cited 25 recent infections in patients worldwide, including two in Los Angeles, that it linked to the devices. In the past three years, at least 250 patients in the U.S. and Europe have been infected, some of whom have died, after undergoing procedures in which a scope called a duodenoscope was used to identify and treat conditions of the pancreas and bile duct. Olympus is by far the largest manufacturer of duodenoscopes for the U.S. market, although Pentax and Fujifilm also make the device. FDA officials said the modifications in the new design approved Friday are intended to reduce the chance of any future infections. We have made it a top priority to improve the safety of duodenoscopes and help protect patients from bacterial infections associated with these medical devices, said Dr. William Maisel, chief scientist in the FDAs Center for Devices and Radiological Health. Duodenoscopes are most commonly used in a minimally invasive procedure called a ERCP, or endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography. About 500,000 U.S. patients undergo the procedure annually. The device, a flexible scope with a tiny camera attached, is inserted down a patients throat using a tiny elevator that allows doctors to maneuver into a patients ducts. Fluid has been found to leak into the elevator chamber, and the intricate design has proved difficult to fully sterilize. That has allowed bacteria to grow, leading to the infections. Olympus officials said Friday they would immediately notify hospitals that use the device about the change to the forceps elevator mechanism and detail how the hospitals can exchange the old devices for the modified version free of charge. The company estimates it will be able to correct all 4,400 models in use by August. In California, infections linked to the device have been reported only at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, both in Los Angeles. Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, whose Los Angeles County district was hit by the outbreaks, has called for continued federal investigations into the problems. He characterized Olympus recall as belated and said the new design needs to be carefully monitored. He urged Pentax and Fuji to follow suit. Had Olympus initiated this recall sooner rather than blaming hospitals, numerous patients would not have been infected with antibiotic-resistant superbugs, and less people would have died or been seriously injured, he said in a statement. Victoria Colliver is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: vcolliver@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @vcolliver Growing in popularity over the last decade, tiny houses are popping up around the country as more people decide to downsize their lives. While the structures often measure less than 300 square feet, the tiny house movement isn't necessarily about sacrifice. With thoughtful, innovative designs, some homeowners have discovered a small house actually leads to a simpler yet fuller life, connecting them with family, friends, and nature while freeing them from mortgages, wastefulness, and an urge to keep up with the Joneses. Check out these impressive tiny houses that maximize both function and style to see if the lifestyle could be right for you. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Everyone's moving to Oakland ... Last year, Uber announced it's expanding its headquarters on the other side of the bay. Earlier this month, the longtime San Francisco art supply store Flax announced that it's heading east (and keeping its small Fort Mason outpost in the city). Now, fashion retailer Jeremy's is "consolidating its Berkeley and San Francisco locations" into a historic church in Uptown Oakland, according to a press statement. The discount designer apparel store founded by Jeremy Kidson closed its San Francisco location in South Park in August and sent its stock to the Berkeley branch. "We found that the technology demographic doesn't really shop as much at Jeremy's as the more creative types that used to live in South Park when we started," Kidson told SFGate's Unzipped blog at the time. The Berkeley shop on College Avenue will soon be shutting its doors too, and the retailer known for discounts on high-end designer threads will reopen in the First Church of Christ Scientist Oakland at 1701 Franklin St. in May 2016. Kidson had been searching for a property in Uptown Oakland for a year and recently purchased the church for $2.6 million. He'll be renovating the 10,000-square-foot interior and turning it into a retail space that will be Oakland's largest designer apparel and shoe store since I. Magnin closed in 1995. "We see it as an honor and a privilege to be entrusted with the restoration and preservation of this amazing building," Kidson said in the statement. "We are so respectful of the congregation for selling us this beautiful building." Ruthie Gasser of the First Church of Christ Scientist told the San Francisco Business Times the church decided to put the prime piece of property on the market after membership went down. The church is looking for a new location. 1. Picture: The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, The Revenant, Room, Spotlight 2. Actor: Bryan Cranston, Trumbo; Matt Damon, The Martian; Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant; Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs; Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl 3. Actress: Cate Blanchett, Carol; Brie Larson, Room; Jennifer Lawrence, Joy; Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years; Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn 4. Supporting actor: Christian Bale, The Big Short; Tom Hardy, The Revenant; Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight; Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies; Sylvester Stallone, Creed 5. Supporting actress: Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight; Rooney Mara, Carol; Rachel McAdams, Spotlight; Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl; Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs 6. Directing: The Big Short, Adam McKay; Mad Max: Fury Road, George Miller; The Revenant, Alejandro Inarritu; Room, Lenny Abrahamson; Spotlight, Tom McCarthy 7. Foreign language film: Embrace of the Serpent, Mustang, Son of Saul, Theeb, A War 8. Adapted screenplay: The Big Short, Brooklyn, Carol, The Martian, Room 9. Original screenplay: Bridge of Spies, Ex Machina, Inside Out, Spotlight, Straight Outta Compton 10. Animated feature film: Anomalisa, Boy and the World, Inside Out, Shaun the Sheep Movie, When Marnie Was There 11. Production design: Bridge of Spies, The Danish Girl, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, The Revenant 12. Cinematography: Carol, The Hateful Eight, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant, Sicario 13. Sound mixing: Bridge of Spies, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, The Revenant, Star Wars: The Force Awakens 14. Sound editing: Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, The Revenant, Sicario, Star Wars: The Force Awakens 15. Original score: Bridge of Spies, Carol, The Hateful Eight, Sicario, Star Wars: The Force Awakens 16. Original song: Earned It from Fifty Shades of Grey; Manta Ray from Racing Extinction; Simple Song #3 from Youth; Til It Happens to You from The Hunting Ground; Writings on the Wall from Spectre 17. Costume design: Carol, Cinderella, The Danish Girl, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant 18. Documentary feature: Amy, Cartel Land, The Look of Silence, What Happened, Miss Simone?, Winter on Fire: Ukraines Fight for Freedom 19. Documentary (short subject): Body Team 12, Chau, Beyond the Lines, Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah, A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, Last Day of Freedom 20. Film editing: The Big Short, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant, Spotlight, Star Wars: The Force Awakens 21. Makeup and hairstyling: Mad Max: Fury Road, The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared, The Revenant 22. Animated short film: Bear Story, Prologue, Sanjays Super Team, We Cant Live Without Cosmos, World of Tomorrow 23. Live action short film: Ave Maria, Day One, Everything Will Be Okay (Alles Wird Gut), Shok, Stutterer 24. Visual effects: Ex Machina, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, The Revenant, Star Wars: The Force Awakens This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate HALEIWA, Hawaii Two Marine Corps helicopters carrying six crew members each collided and went down off the Hawaiian island of Oahu while on a nighttime training mission, and rescuers searched choppy waters Friday where debris was sighted, military officials said. There was no immediate word on the fate of those aboard or what caused the accident. The transport helicopters known as CH-53Es crashed just before midnight Thursday, officials said. A Coast Guard helicopter and C-130 airplane spotted a debris field 2 miles offshore early Friday. The debris covered an area of 2 miles, Marine Capt. Timothy Irish said. The choppers are part of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing at Marine Corps Base Hawaii. Known as Super Stallions, they are the U.S. militarys largest helicopter, capable of carrying a light armored vehicle, 16 tons of cargo or a team of combat-equipped Marines, according to a Marine Corps website. Elaray Navarro, a retiree who lives across the street from the beach, said she heard two booms late Thursday that were loud enough to shake her house. I threw my blanket off, put my slippers on and ran outside thinking it was a car accident, she said. She expressed concern for the crew as she watched the pounding surf from a beach in Haleiwa. I pray to the man upstairs to help them. To bring them home safely, she said. The search included Air Force units, as well as a Honolulu Fire Department rescue boat and Coast Guard cutters, officials said. Two Navy ships, the John Paul Jones and the Gridley, were also participating, along with a Navy squadron of SH-60 helicopters, Navy spokeswoman Agnes Tauyan said. About two dozen Marines gathered Friday morning on the beach at Waimea Bay, a popular surfing spot a few miles from the rescue operation. A steady rain was falling on the North Shore just before daybreak, and rough water conditions were forecast. A swell approaching the area was to bring dangerous 30- to 40-foot waves to beaches and 10- to 20-foot seas near the rescue operation, National Weather Service meteorologist Matthew Foster said. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate With the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary just weeks away, the GOP presidential hopefuls who met in Thursday nights debate saved their harshest words for one another. President Obama and Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton took their expected slams, but the seven candidates on stage in North Charleston, S.C., each knew that only the first-place finisher at the end of the primary season will have to worry about who theyll face in November. Hot-button topics like immigration, the military, the Mideast and gun control brought general agreement, with each candidate trying to be more conservative than the others, but few passed a chance to attack their opponents. Businessman Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who are leading the GOP polls, tangled early over the question of Cruzs birth in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father. Since the Constitution says the president must be a natural-born citizen, Trump has suggested in the past couple of weeks that Cruz might not meet that definition. More for you Cuomo to Cruz: You insulted 18M people and should apologize Cruz, riled by the question from the Fox Business Channel moderators, said that last September my friend Donald said there was no issue there. Since September, the Constitution hasnt changed, but the poll numbers have, said Cruz, more aggressive than he has been in past debates. I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling in Iowa. While Trump admitted Cruzs run-up in the polls played a role in his birthplace question, he argued that Democrats could make the concern a real problem. Theres a big question mark on your head, and you cant do that to the party, Trump said. You cant have a question. A little later on, it was Florida Sen. Marco Rubio going on the attack, saying that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was little more than a Democrat in disguise. Rubio jabs Christie We cant afford to have a president of the United States that supports gun control, Rubio said. Unfortunately, Gov. Christie has endorsed many of the ideas that Barack Obama supports, such as the Common Core education standards, the appointment of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Planned Parenthood. Christie quickly denied the various charges, saying that two years ago Rubio called me a conservative reformer that New Jersey needed. That was before he was running against me. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush took on Trump over the question of tariffs on Chinese goods, with Trump saying that China has cost the United States millions of jobs and billions of dollars with its unfair trade policies. Im totally open to tariffs, Trump said. If they dont treat us fairly, hey, their whole trade is tariffed. But Bush who is stuck low in the polls and turned in another flaccid performance had said that Trump was unhinged with his call for a complete ban on Muslim immigration, said the businessman wasnt thinking the problem through. If the U.S. imposes tariffs, there will be retaliation, Bush said, hitting things like soybean exports from Iowa and Boeing jetliners being built just outside of Charleston. This would be devastating for the economy, he said. We need someone with a steady hand being president of the United States. The nastiest spat came near the end of the two-plus-hour debate, when Cruz went after Rubio for the Florida senators early support of a bipartisan immigration bill. Rubio first said that he had dropped his support because two years ago national security become the most important concern in immigration. First and foremost, this issue has to be now more than anything about keeping Americans safe, he said. So our No. 1 priority must now become ensuring that ISIS cannot get killers into the United States. Radical Islamic terrorism wasnt invented 24 months ago, Cruz shot back, charging that the immigration bill Rubio backed expanded Barack Obamas power to let in Syrian refugees. Rubio then accused Cruz of changing his vote on issues like crop insurance and ethanol, both important subjects for Iowa voters. That is not consistent conservatism, thats political calculation, Rubio said. Pair of peacemakers Ohio Gov. John Kasich and neurosurgeon Ben Carson were left to play the peacemakers, with the barely present Carson suggesting that the countrys most important concern should be restoring its values and principles and Kasich saying that while Ive heard a lot of hot rhetoric here tonight, its important for a president to bring people together. While the tightening battle between Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side is getting a lot of coverage nationally, the GOP candidates already have made their bet on who the Republican winner will face in November. If Sanders is the Democratic nominee, Were going to win every state, Kasich said. I know Bernie, and I promise you hes not going to be president of the United States. Clinton and Obama also were the evenings targets. If youre worried about strengthening our military and youre worried most of all about keeping your homes and your families safe and secure, you cannot give Hillary Clinton a third term of Barack Obamas leadership, said Christie, who also called the president a petulant child for his attempt to use executive orders when he couldnt get the cooperation of Congress on issues like immigration and gun control. The ever-shrinking, not-ready-for-prime-time debate was down to three candidates Thursday, with former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and businesswoman Carly Fiorina meeting for an hour-long warm-up for the main event. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who along with Fiorina lost his place in the primary debate because of low standing in the polls, refused to appear in the undercard debate, charging that the Republican Party establishment wanted him excluded from the main event. NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. A smaller cast of Republican presidential candidates took the debate stage Thursday night, with Ted Cruz under new scrutiny for a big loan from Goldman Sachs and Donald Trump labeled by his main rival as embodying New York values. The prime-time showdown in South Carolina highlighted a race that has cleaved into two distinct and increasingly heated contests, with time dwindling to sway voters before the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses. The debate came after the revelation that Cruz failed to disclose on federal campaign fundraising reports some $1 million in loans used to help finance his 2012 Senate run. The funds included money from Goldman Sachs, the investment banking firm where his wife, Heidi Cruz, serves as a managing director. The Texas senators campaign called failure to report the loans a mistake. Cruz had previously said that he and his wife liquidated our entire net worth to finance his underdog Senate bid. After months of civility toward Cruz, front-runner Trump is now targeting the Texan. I know nothing about it, but I hear its a very big thing, Trump said of the loan in an interview with Bloomberg Politics posted online Thursday. I think hes a nice guy, and I hope he gets it solved. Trump is also suggesting the Canadian-born senator may be challenged by Democrats as ineligible to be president. Cruz was born to an American mother, and most legal scholars agree that makes him a natural born citizen a requirement by the Constitution for people to be U.S. president. Trump insists thats not been settled and says Democrats are likely to file a lawsuit over the matter should the GOP nominate Cruz. The Texas senator, a constitutional expert, says theres little danger of that because the law is clear. Cruz has a little problem, Trump told a crowd in Pensacola, Fla., Wednesday night. Im sure theyll get into it tomorrow night. After saying for months that he didnt want to get into a cage match with Trump, Cruz on Tuesday tried out a series of attacks on the billionaire developer, casting him as a less-than-pure conservative who is poorly prepared for the challenges facing the U.S. from abroad, and has New York values. Its unclear whether the Texas senator will keep up the barrage or back off and refuse to engage Trump before a national audience. Cruz has given him a pass before. While those two antiestablishment candidates battle each other, four other candidates are fighting to become the more mainstream Republican alternative. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is seen by some as having a slim edge in that group, opening him to criticism from his rivals about his immigration views as well as the 44-year-olds youth and relative inexperience. He presents himself as an appealing alternative to Trump and Cruz for the wide swath of undecided Republican voters in Iowa. The national stage gives him a platform to show off his foreign policy and national security expertise and appeal to more moderate Republicans in New Hampshire and the GOP establishment nationally. The divide between the anti-Washington and establishment candidates has given definition to a race that has been otherwise unwieldy and chaotic. Trump has led for months in national polls. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has been among the few establishment Republicans jabbing Trump in recent weeks. In a likely preview of his debate tactics, Bush sharply criticized Trump on Wednesday for holding positions on taxes, guns and health care that he said were out of step with conservatives. Hes not a conservative, Bush said. For a conservative party we need to elect a conservative. For us to fix the mess in Washington, D.C., we have to apply conservative principles. Christie is enjoying a burst of support in New Hampshire, where hes devoted significant time to courting the states blend of moderate and libertarian voters. Hes had strong debate performances in the past and is likely to face heightened scrutiny from his rivals as a result of his rise in the first-in-the-nation primary state. To qualify for the main debate, a candidate had to place in the top six in an average of recent national polls, or in the top five in an average of recent Iowa or New Hampshire polls. For Thursday nights debate, host Fox Business Network tightened the qualifying rules, resulting in the smallest group of candidates in the headline event to date. Also on the main stage were New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who are battling Rubio and Bush for the establishment vote, as well as retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, whose standing in the race has steadily fallen. Onstage in the earlier debate were former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul refused to appear after being dropped from the main debate. The revolution will not be televised, Paul tweeted. Turn off your TV, watch the real discussion. Fiorina came out blazing in her opening statement, delivering backhanded compliments to her two male rivals and a not-subtle swipe at Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton for her husbands infidelities. She first said she is honored to be onstage with Huckabee and Santorum, two former Iowa caucus winners. The clear implication: Neither mans presidential ambitions have survived the nomination process, leaving them on the 2016 undercard stage in the lower tier of candidates. Then she took a shot at the only other woman in the race, Clinton, the former secretary of state and wife of former President Bill Clinton. Fiorina sniped, Unlike another woman in this race, I actually love spending time with my husband. Republicans have one more debate scheduled before voting begins in Iowa, a Jan. 28 event in Des Moines. NEW MILFORD Three grants will soon help one agency increase its staff to better combat the areas growing heroin epidemic. The Midwestern Connecticut Council on Alcoholisms New Milford outpatient clinic recently received $22,500 in grants to improve the facilitys opiate treatment. Union Savings Bank and the Dirk Foundation each contributed $10,000 and Cowles Foundation gave $2,500. The heroin epidemic has been sweeping across the state and New Milford has been hit particularly hard, said MCCA president and CEO Joe Sullivan. MCCA is pleased to receive this funding to treat those individuals struggling with opiate addiction. These funds will help us to increase staffing in our outpatient facility in New Milford at a critical time. The New Milford facility comprises five staff members, including a program director, three clinicians and an administrative supervisor. The third clinician was recently hired, and a recovery support specialist will soon join the staff to collaborate with local hospitals in getting clients who have overdosed into treatment. Heroin-related deaths have skyrocketed in Connecticut from 174 in 2012 to 325 in 2014, according to a report by the state medical examiner. Nationwide, heroin-related deaths nearly tripled from 2002 to 2013, according to the federal National Vital Statistics System. Two Americans die each day of overdoses, according to NVSS. There were three arrests in New Milford in 2015 for heroin sales that resulted in the overdose deaths of two young residents. Christopher DeFino, 25, was found dead in his bedroom at his parents home in June and Robin Thibodeau, 27, died in his parents home in September. Both men died from heroin overdoses, according to the states medical examiner. The deaths were the latest in a series of drug-related overdoses that claimed the lives of New Milford residents in recent years. Eight people died of opiate overdoses in 2013, including four where heroin was a factor, according to data provided by the states Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Four more New Milford heroin-related deaths occurred in 2014 and four others were charged with heroin sales. The state is expected to release 2015 statistics in February. About 80 percent of our clients in intensive outpatient groups are opiate dependent, and 45 percent of our overall clients are being treated for opiates, said Rick Dable, program director for MCCAs New Milford outpatient clinic that serves 73 clients at its facility at 50 Bridge St. New Milford Police have been trained to use and are carrying Narcan, which can immediately reverse an opiate overdose. Police Chief Shawn Boyne lauded the MCCA donors for taking action to address the towns drug epidemic. This looks like a positive step to seeing a very necessary service is available in our community, Boyne said. Mayor David Gronbach said the grants are a step in the right direction. What I would like to see is more of a coordinated, comprehensive way of addressing the problem with a number of different agencies, Gronbach said. The grants are a great thing and will help MCCA in our community. But what Im working on is coordinating our efforts to address the problem. MCCA is one of the largest providers of substance abuse treatment in Connecticut and has been actively involved with New Milfords Substance Abuse Prevention Council. Over the past four months, MCCA and the council co-sponsored two Narcan trainings. Conducted by Joanne Montgomery from the AIDS Project of Greater Danbury, the trainings were free and open to the public. Each attendee was given a free Narcan kit. All of the MCCA staff have been trained to administer Narcan. The staff is also trained to provide the community with information on prevention and intervention resources. stuz@newstimes.com; 203-731-3352 This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Mark Anthony Gonzalez, who killed Bexar County Sheriffs Sgt. Kenneth Vann seemingly on impulse as both stopped at a traffic light more than four years ago, was sentenced Friday to die by lethal injection. A jury in October found Gonzalez guilty of capital murder and recommended the death penalty, but sentencing was delayed so another jury could weigh his lawyers argument that he had not been competent to understand what was happening to him at various phases of his trial. The new jury found him competent on Monday. Gonzalez will now be sent to death row. Gonzalez fired dozens of rounds at Vann with an AR-15 rifle equipped with a high-capacity magazine while their cars were stopped at the intersection of Rigsby Avenue and Loop 410 on the East Side early on the morning of May 28, 2011. Authorities said Vann was hit 26 times and died immediately. I thought to myself, I'm not going to get to see my husband ever again, he was taken from me, his widow, Yvonne Vann, said in a victim impact statement, describing the night she was notified of the death of her husband. That was when cold reality set in. The feeling of helplessness and hopelessness set in as I went into the bedroom, she told the packed but quiet courtroom after state District Judge Mary Roman passed the sentence. Gonzalez, 46, regarded the proceedings with his eyebrows cocked but otherwise showed no expression throughout it. Prosecutors have never described a motive for the killing. Gonzalezs attorneys have said he was addled by drugs and alcohol that night. In 2011, Gonzalez was removed from a court hearing after an outburst over sealed letters he wanted to release to the press, which were later confiscated by his lawyers. Investigators were able to build a case against Gonzalez partly with phone calls, including ones made between him and others while at the Bexar County Jail, in which he admitted to killing a cop. Read more at ExpressNews.com or in Saturdays Express-News. jbeltran@express-news.net This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 3 1 of 3 Ravi Deepres Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Ravi Deepres Show More Show Less 3 of 3 The name is new, but the mighty surge of energy, the superb dancing, the theatrical flair and the philosophical aspirations are still there. Company Wayne McGregor, known as Random Dance during its last visit here in 2014, returned to Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater on Thursday evening, Jan. 14, with the West Coast premiere of Atomos (2014), and the performing by the nine dancers delivered 69 minutes of thrills. But what do they all mean? The finale of San Francisco Performances dance season is an enigma. However, this is the most gripping of the four McGregor works that I have seen with the British choreographers own company. McGregors uninhibited movement style always seems a mite cautious when he makes dances for a ballet troupe (perhaps for fear of inflicting permanent injury), but here on home ground, the results are disarming. In earlier encounters, Ive often felt that McGregor was imposing meaning. Here that meaning strives at times to arise from the choreography. Whitechapel, Martin Cates new bar in the Tenderloin, exists in the same sphere as his other bar, Smugglers Cove. Both are studies in a single spirit: Smugglers Cove is a shrine to rum; Whitechapel, to gin. And both are method actors, cloaked in period-authentic costumes and living their parts in every nook and cranny. In the case of Smugglers Cove, that character happens to be a recognizable genre of watering hole a tiki bar, elaborately decked out as if it were a pirate ship but Whitechapel plays the role of something more esoteric and, consequently, more jaw-dropping in its execution: an abandoned London Tube station, circa 1890, transformed by squatting bootleggers into a secret gin clubhouse. Oh, right, that. In content and form alike, Whitechapel is designed to be exhaustive: a complete time-capsule artifact, down to every crack in the vaulted train platform ceiling; a 400-plus-selection gin list, the largest in North America; and, if you choose to accept it, a rigorous educational mission in the history and nature of the great juniper-inflected spirit. Research for the bars decor involved visiting Victorian-era sewer facilities in England. Air-freighting the tiles was a nightmare, says Cate, who purchased from the same British company, Fired Earth, that reproduces period-authentic tiles for the London tube. Its easy to say steampunk, but thats not what I was going for, Cate says. I was more interested in how the Victorians actually did valves than in a baroque fantasy of that era. The bar feels baroque nonetheless, its three rooms taking you from a train platform to a distillery featuring astonishing copper-tube lights coursing with water and gin botanicals to an ornate Victorian gin palace. John Storey/Special to the Chronicle Cate seems devoted here to both theatricality and verisimilitude in conveying the true visual intensity of his chosen setting. The layers go deep, and you wont have to encounter them if youd rather just order a G&T and be done with it. Everyone gets the one-page menu, but you dont encounter the 19-page cocktail list (featuring 100-ish gin cocktails) or that behemoth 400-odd-selection gin list unless you ask. The house G&T ($11) flows from a tap, and its clean and balanced, but there are also Scotch, Spanish, French and Italian riffs on the G&T ($12-$13); the Spanish versions brassy, nutty oloroso mingles beautifully with the Fever Tree Mediterranean Tonics bitter bite. The martinis evolution from the 1840s to 1993 is offered in 28 installments ($11-$18). Gin concoctions gone extinct are revived; some, like the 1930s-era Broken Spur (gin, vermouth, white port, anisette, egg yolk; $13), perhaps should not have been. The Classy Lassy (credited to Aviation Gins Brooke Arthur; $12) was recommended to me each time I visited, and with good reason: Its dreamy and rich, the gin in quiet harmony with orange flower water, lime and a drop of bitters, its top layer of egg white thick like a cappuccino. Id steer clear of the Hippie Wallbanger ($12), whose herbal Galliano liqueur and patchouli tincture were drowned out by too much orange juice. John Storey/Special to the Chronicle The culinary allusions are no less elaborate: how to characterize dishes from the kitchen that include brain & toast ($14), farmers cheese & naan ($15), mussels vindaloo ($19) and the now-ubiquitous bitterballen ($9)? Turns out, the neighborhood in which the actual Whitechapel tube station stands has been a Bangladeshi community since World War II. We use Bangladeshi spices as a jumping-off point, Cate says. And the Dutch (bitterballen) vibe? Thats because gin was born in the Netherlands as genever before it migrated to the United Kingdom and became dry London-style gin. If youre thinking right now that you wish you knew something about gin, Whitechapel wants to help. Led by resident ginneseur Keli Rivers are the Polk Street Irregulars, a gin-education club (like the rum-centric version at Smugglers Cove) that involves downloading a dossier, authored in large part by Cates wife, Rebecca. The chapters begin with a primer on the juniper berry and conclude with the spirits modern resurgence; each chapter implores you to order a certain set of educational drinks at Whitechapel. You may not ever care that the first Gin Act was repealed in 1733 (not going to explain it here), but the curriculum is fun to read and will probably help you be a more careful gin taster. Pro tip: Complete your missions on Wednesdays, when Rivers works the floor, sommelier-style, and administers quizzes to her students. At Whitechapel there exists the possibility of having a gin epiphany. Guided by the staff, over one visit or many, you just may have a breakthrough moment of discovering the intricacies of gin, of entering some deeper chamber of flavor awareness, of eventually getting all of the geeky inside jokes and winks in the setting, the menu, the dossier. You may be lucky enough to catch Rivers when shes decanting a rare, aged gin and snag a taste (price not disclosed). You may, with enough time and enough of a liver, work through a tasting catalog to the point where it feels like sheer accomplishment. But are people given the chance to appreciate all of this? Problem is, on many nights, Whitechapel, burdened by the weight of its success, behaves as if it were a high-volume, bro-packed bar in the Marina. Theres an incongruity between the exhaustively informative aim of the place the sense that youre in a museum and the frequent difficulty of even getting through the door. On a recent Thursday night, the line to get in stretched so far down the block that the bouncer, estimating a wait of over an hour, advised us to cut our losses. Busy nights like these make it hard enough to flail for the bartenders attention, let alone ask her about the significance of the kopstoot. (Its a head-butt shot that youre meant to pick up with your mouth; a sufficiently difficult and awkward activity that youll need a bartenders coaxing to do it.) In those cases, you might end up feeling lost in a sea of gin. But then again, there are worse afflictions. Esther Mobley is The San Francisco Chronicles wine, beer and spirits writer. E-mail: emobley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Esther_mobley To order: Classy Lassy ($12), Spanish G&T ($12), bitterballen ($9). Where: Whitechapel, 600 Polk St., S.F. (415) 292-5800, www,whitechapelsf.com. When: 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. Sunday to Wednesday; 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. Thursday to Saturday. Fitch Ratings has stated that the recently adopted changes to the Ukrainian tax regime for agricultural producers are neutral for Kernel Holding S.A.'s and MHP S.A.'s 'CCC' ratings, reads a report on the website of the rating agency. "The finally approved amendments to the Tax Code were more favorable for the companies than Fitch assumed in its conservative forecasts in September 2015, but the ratings are unchanged as they are constrained by Ukraine's Country Ceiling of 'CCC'," according to the document. "On December 24, 2015, Ukraine's government approved a number of amendments to the Tax Code, including the taxation regime for agricultural producers, effective from 2016. The main changes are the partial cancellation of previous preferential treatments under the special VAT regime for agricultural companies, the reinstatement of VAT refunds on grain export and an increase in fixed agricultural tax," Fitch stated. "The changes affect MHP and Kernel differently. As a result of the new legislation, MHP's poultry and grain divisions will retain only 50% and 15% of VAT, respectively, versus 100% previously. However, the company will benefit from the reinstatement of VAT refunds on grain exports. Nevertheless, this will be insufficient to offset the contraction in income from the special VAT regime (18% of EBITDA in 2014) and the overall impact on MHP's cash flows will be negative. For Kernel, the new tax regime will be positive as the benefits from VAT refunds on grain export will more than compensate for lower VAT retention in its farming segment (15% vs. 100% previously)," according to the statement. "The approved changes in the tax regime are more favorable for both companies than the assumptions factored into Fitch's previous projections. In its forecasts, Fitch conservatively assumed full cancellation of the special VAT regime for agricultural producers from 2016 without subsequent reinstatement of VAT refunds on grain exports. We now estimate that compared with our original forecasts, which projected that MHP's funds from operations adjusted leverage would peak at 3.8x in 2016-2017 and Kernel's would remain at 3.0x over the medium term, the new tax regime will enable MHP's and Kernel's 2016 operating cash flows to improve by around $40-50 million and their leverage to decrease by around 0.3x-0.5x," the agency experts said. Poroshenko says visa liberalization for Ukraine with EU must go on Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says he will do his utmost to prevent the blocking of visa liberalization for Ukraine with the European Union. "We should not cut down momentum, and I'll be warding off such initiatives I won't let this process be stalled," Poroshenko said at a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday. In his words a system for electronic income declaration should be launched. "This is in our interests, and the visa-free regime is only a reason for us to accelerate that process," he said. The second issue mentioned by the president concerned the National Agency for Recovery and Management of Stolen Assets. "We cooperate both with Americans and Europeans to return the assets stolen from Ukraine, and that agency should work efficiently. Why haven't we submitted that bill [to parliament] yet? This is because we're jointly with our partners analyzing the efficiency of building that legislative initiative," he added. The president said he hoped that the parliament would be able to support early in February all the initiatives that are Ukraine's commitments to the EU that are related to visa liberalization. McDonald's invests over UAH 25 mln in reconstruction of restaurant near Darnytsia subway station in Kyiv Company with foreign investment McDonald's Ukraine Ltd. (Kyiv), developing the American fast food chain McDonald's in Ukraine, has finished reconstruction of its restaurant on 27A, Brovarsky Avenue in Kyiv, the company's press service reported on Thursday. "Total investment in reconstruction of the restaurant exceeded UAH 25 million," the company said, citing McDonald's Commercial Director Yevhen Kochetov as saying. According to the report, equipment of the restaurant was partially replaced by modern and energy efficiency equipment, a heating pump and a waste heat exchanger were installed. The building's facade was insulated. The company said that this would allow consuming 66% less electricity to heat water and save up to 70,000 kWh of electricity a year. The company said that the decoration of the restaurant was changed during its reconstruction. The company said that among over 36,000 McDonald's restaurants no more than ten restaurants have this new design. A children's room was also equipped. The working hours of the restaurant are from 06:00 until 23:45 every day. It has 300 seats for visitors. The restaurant will be able to service up to 8,000 people every day. McDonald's Ukraine Ltd. was founded in 1995. The first McDonald's restaurant in Ukraine opened in Kyiv on May 24, 1997. WASHINGTON: Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has donated 290,000 shares of Facebook stock a market value of roughly $31 million to a myriad of different charities, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission document filed. The shares were technically transferred to the Sheryl Sandberg Philanthropy Fund, a donor-advised fund that will take control of the stock from Sandberg but allow her to advise/steer the money toward charities she cares about. In this case, Fidelity controls the fund. The stock was actually sold on November 20, but disclosed for the first time. The money is earmarked for the kinds of charities Sandberg has donated to in the past. The majority of the $31 million will go to womens empowerment groups and Lean In, the nonprofit founded by Sandberg to help support women in the workplace, according to a source familiar with Sandbergs plans. She also plans to give money to education groups and anti-poverty efforts. (Sandberg is co-chair of the Stand Up for Kids Campaign for Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara & San Mateo Counties.) Sandberg has donated in the past, of course, but most of it has gone under the radar. The donations should keep coming though. Sandberg signed The Giving Pledge back in 2014, the commitment by the worlds hyper-wealthy to dedicate the majority of their wealth to philanthropy over their lifetime. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan have also signed the pledge, and made headlines last month after promising to give away 99 percent of their Facebook stock over their lifetimes. Sandberg should enjoy some tax benefits, too. Donors who transfer shares to a donor-advised fund are not subject to capital gains taxes on those shares, and they receive an income tax break, too. Also Read: Delhi Govt Plans to Run Buses On Biogas Govt To Carry Out Security Audit Of Vulnerable Installations Coal stocks at warehouses of thermal power plants (TPPs) in Ukraine as of January 15, 2016 reached 2.7 million tonnes, which is larger than the preliminarily planned volumes, Energy and Coal Industry Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Demchyshyn said at a meeting at the cabinet of minister on Friday. "Today we have over 2.7 million tonnes of coal at warehouses this is more than we planned as of January 1, 2016," he said. Demchyshyn said that coal supplies from South Africa have been ordered: one vessel is on the way to Ukraine and another one is approaching Ukraine. NEW DELHI: Ahead of Republic Day, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, NSA Ajit Doval and other top officials reviewed the security situation in the country as Delhi and many other places continue to be on high alert in the wake of Pathankot terror attack. During the hour-long meeting presided by Singh, the top brass of the country's security apparatus took stock of various aspects of internal security and analysed intelligence inputs received in recent past, official sources said. Necessary instructions have been given to ensure security in all sensitive locations, border areas and major urban centres, including Delhi where the Republic Day's main function will be held with French President Francois Hollande as the chief guest. Chiefs of Intelligence Bureau and Research and Analysis Wing shared various inputs gathered by the two organisations while chief of National Investigation Agency briefed about the ongoing probe into the terror attack on Pathankot air base, the sources said. Recent intelligence inputs have suggested that there could be 6 to 10 Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists who had crossed over to India from Pakistan through Punjab in recent past. Six suspected JeM terrorists were killed in the Pathankot air base after three days of fierce gun battle but there is a possibility of a few remaining at large, the sources said. Besides, according to a Punjab Police input, there could be 15 terrorists who have breached the International Border and had entered India from Pakistan. An additional 10,000 paramilitary personnel have already been deployed in Delhi to ensure greater security cover ahead of the Republic Day celebrations. Security has been beefed up in Delhi's IGI airport too after another input suggested that terrorists may try to create a hostage-like situation. Both domestic and international flights have been asked to upgrade the scale of security, with some passengers being made to undergo 'secondary ladder checking' in some flights. A 'secondary ladder checking' is conducted just when the passenger is about to enter the aircraft with an aim to ensure that he is not carrying any weapon or chemical. Today's meeting came a day after India and Pakistan deferred the Foreign Secretary-level talks and India gave the go-ahead to the visit of a Pakistan SIT on Pathankot attack. Army chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag had said on Wednesday that the security environment facing the nation is becoming more "complex and dynamic" and that at least 17 terror training camps continue to be active in Pakistani Occupied Kashmir compared to 42 earlier. Parrikar recently has said that there was a need to give back pain inflicted on India by organisations and individuals in the same coin. Also Read: Delhi's Odd-Even Scheme to Be Decided Next Week India to Pitch for Hosting G20 Meet in 2016 1.jpg Nick, Kristina, Claire and John Porcello, stand in their Charleston home with childhood friend, Rob Stroh, and a framed photo of Joey Porcello, who died in 2013 from a heroin overdose. Kathleen Masinski was only 33 when she died on October 2014, after using heroin and Xanax in the bedroom of her Great Kills home. And Johnathan Charles Crupi, 21, also of Great Kills, overdosed in July 2012. (Staten Island Advance) STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- An average of nearly two people are arrested each day with heroin on Staten Island, a sign for law enforcement officials of the drug's frightening and often fatal pervasiveness, according to data obtained by the Advance. An internal NYPD report revealed that arrests where heroin was involved rose about 30 percent, to more than 650 in 2015, up from roughly 500 the previous year. Prescription pill-related arrests, meanwhile, have steadily declined over the past two years, following a period of aggressive growth that reached its peak in 2013, when police made about 600 arrests involving painkillers. But over the past five years, the combined total of arrests involving either pills or heroin has spiked tenfold, from roughly 100 to more than 1,000, the data shows. NEW LAW IMPACTS PILL MARKET Police made less arrests involving pills partially because the supply began to dry up after laws passed in 2013 created a statewide database program that allows physicians and pharmacies to track over-prescribing and doctor-shopping, once a common practice where addicts would see multiple physicians a month to get 30-day supplies of the same or similar drugs. With blackmarket painkillers now harder to find, many opiate addicts turned to heroin, a cheaper and more widely-available alternative to pills. Powerful batches of high-quality heroin flooded the borough's streets, claiming more lives on the Island -- 42 in 2014 -- than anywhere else in the city. As heroin exploded, NYPD officers and Drug Enforcement Administration agents began cracking down, seizing larger quantities around the city than ever before. One-fifth of Staten Island's narcotics arrests were linked to heroin in 2015, the highest rate in all five boroughs, according to the NYPD. At the same time, the DEA's New York division confiscated about 1,951 pounds of heroin, a roughly 70-percent increase from the previous year. In 2009, the DEA seized just 189 pounds of heroin. Police have had success taking down some big drug rings on the Island, including 14 suspects indicted as part of the 15-month "Operation Lost Boys" probe, but it hasn't stemmed the tide of heroin from reaching the streets. A PHONE CALL AWAY One recovering opiate addict, Brittany Salinari, 24, had said that buying heroin on the Island is as simple as ordering a pizza -- "I didn't have to leave my house to ever get heroin -- people would come here and sell it to me," she said. When police do manage to arrest one dealer, another is usually not far behind to take their place, creating a burden on law enforcement. "We're in the middle of a crisis ... it's not the kind of problem you can fix with arrests," said Chief Edward Delatorre, Commanding Officer of Staten Island. The larger issue, he noted, has to do with the families of addicts not tackling the issue head-on. "Bigger than that is the lack of willingness of parents to confront the problem and try to do something about it before it's too late," Delatorre said. While the stigma of addiction still persists, many Islanders have bravely pushed back by sharing their stories of recovery at public forums and in numerous Advance stories on the topic. Still, staying sober and out of trouble poses a constant challenge for any addict. James Brenker, 22, who has struggled with opioid addiction for years, met with Mayor Bill de Blasio and his wife, first lady Chirlane McCray, in December at his family's New Springville home, talking openly with both them and Borough President James Oddo about his newfound sobriety. Sadly, Brenker was arrested about a month later on misdemeanor drug charges. "Recovering from the disease of substance dependency is hard work and a complex process of life changes. James attested to that when he generously shared his story in the effort to lead others toward life-saving resources," McCray had told the Advance after learning of Brenker's arrest. Officials have launched several outreach initiatives with the hope to make a dent in the Island's drug epidemic. The Ad Hoc Mayor's Heroin and Prescription Opioid Public Awareness Task Force said more providers will be trained and authorized to prescribe buprenorphine, a medication that treats opioid use, and pharmacies across the city will offer naloxone, which can reverse the effects of opioid overdose, without a prescription. NYPD officers on the Island have also saved dozens of lives using naloxone -- 18 in 2015, and 21 in the previous year. SOME SIGNS OF PROGRESS On the Island, an anti-drug task force consisting of the borough president, Chief Delatorre and several local counseling service providers and community leaders has worked to raise awareness of the issue. Oddo's "Too Good for Drugs" pilot program, which will expand to 47 Island schools thanks to $70,000 from the mayor, brings a Department of Education approved curriculum that puts an NYPD officer in fifth-grade classrooms to help teach students about the dangers of drugs. "You've got to get to the children and convince them that this is not a good way of life," Delatorre said. "You've got to get to the dealers...they certainly need to go to prison; And we have to do the best we can to help the people who are already sick," he added. Staten Island District Attorney Michael E. McMahon, who took office this year, has also vowed to address the troubling drug epidemic. "It's unfortunate to say, but virtually no one who lives here has been left untouched by this crisis," said a spokesman for McMahon. "With that said, District Attorney Michael E. McMahon is committed to putting his prosecutors on the front lines of this fight, joining with the brave men and women of the NYPD and working together to put the dealers behind bars." (Editors note: The NYPD report referred to in this article includes any arrest where heroin or pills are also found. It was commissioned by Staten Island police officials, and is only an estimate of arrests. The actual number might be slightly higher or lower.) STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.-- The man whose claim to the late Staten Island real estate developer Roman Blum's $29 million fortune was dismissed two months ago could be investigated for forgery. In a decision filed this week, Surrogate Robert J. Gigante wrote there were allegations regarding the genuineness of the signature on the purported will and recommended that the district attorney's office investigate the execution of the document. Attorney Richard LaRosa, who represents Public Administrator Gary Gotlin, said he was satisfied with the decision, and alleged Blum's signature on the will filed by Anthony J. Allegrino was a forgery. The public administrator is currently in charge of the estate. A forensic expert had determined the signature was fake in September 2014. Allegrino, a disbarred attorney, also signed an affidavit saying he was related to Blum, but provided no proof of the connection, the lawyer said. "I think there should be an investigation, which I think will lead to prosecution," LaRosa said. "I hope D.A. McMahon calls me and hope this case doesn't fall through the cracks." In November, Allegrino, who filed a will in August 2013 saying he was entitled to Blum's estate, had his petition dismissed. He can still file an appeal, LaRosa said. Blum, a Holocaust survivor from Poland who lived in Annadale, died in 2012 at the age of 97. His wife died before him and they were childless. Blum appeared to have no written will. His connection to Allegrino is unknown. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Training at Mount Loretto helped prepare NYPD K-9 unit members for the rescue of a wheelchair-bound woman trapped in an ambulette during a crash. Emergency Services K-9 Unit officers Benny Colecchia of Staten Island, Danny Rich of Long Island and Matthew Wicelinski of Queens and their K-9 partners happened upon the accident at about 8:30 a.m. Thursday on Interstate 80 near Clarion, Pa. The officers and their canine partners were en route to a final tribute for a police dog killed in the line of duty in Ohio. "He was protecting our vehicle for us," Colecchia said of Timoshenko, who lives with Colecchia and his family. Timoshenko participates in the training in evidence recovery, tracking and other essential skills that the Emergency Services K-9 unit practices nearly every day at Mt. Loretto. Colecchia said that he and the other officers were waved down by a stranger because an older woman with the first name of Josephine was trapped inside an overturned ambulette. Despite icy road conditions that likely contributed to the accident, the officers stopped to assist the woman, who was in a wheelchair. Colecchia said he and his partners used a "life hammer" to break glass on the ambulette and a knife to free the woman from her wheelchair. The officers assisted in lifting the woman, who might have suffered a broken ankle, onto a stretcher and into an ambulance. "By doing our K-9 rescue training in Mt. Loretto, were were prepared to render first aid to Josephine," Colecchia said. Timoshenko has been something of a celebrity on the NYPD Twitter feed as he was pictured doing cold-weather training and also wearing a festive mask to ring in the New Year in Times Square. Trump _ Cruz.jpg Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump speaks as Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, looks on during the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, in North Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt) STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Don't mess with New Yorkers. When Sen. Ted Cruz made his disparaging comment about "New York values" during Thursday night's Republican debate, he probably had no idea the storm what would come his way, including the immediate tongue-lashing that Donald Trump was about to deliver. "I think most people know exactly what New York values are," Cruz said, initially joking with moderator Maria Bartiromo, who is from New York. The exchange initially got applause from the crowd, but then it turned ugly. "There are many, many wonderful working men and women in the state of New York, but everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal, are pro-abortion, are pro-gay marriage, focus around money and the media. And I guess I can frame it another way: not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan. I'm just saying." Trump responded to the "very insulting statement" with a detailed and heartfelt account of what average New Yorkers went through after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, sifting through the rubble, "the smell of death." "When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York," Trump said. Cruz applauded to Trump's comments at one point. New York-area, and specifically Staten Island, elected officials immediately took to social media to defend their home city and state. Borough President James Oddo took to Twitter for some New York attitude, posting photos of "New York values," including people cleaning up after Hurricane Sandy, Mets third baseman David Wright making a bare-handed catch and photos of the NYPD and FDNY seals. In a press gaggle Friday morning, Mayor Bill de Blasio first addressed the Cruz statement before taking any questions. "I am disgusted at the insult that Ted Cruz threw at this city and its people, and the bottom line is, he does not understand in the least New York values," the mayor said, adding "For once, I agree with Donald Trump." He said Cruz owes an apology to first responders and New Yorkers, and called it "ironic" that the senator fundraises in New York City but insults its people. Think @tedcruz criticizes #NYvalues when he asks Goldman for massive loans or when he comes here to gobble up cash? https://t.co/KQETccX1zY Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) January 15, 2016 In a phone-in interview with NY1 Friday morning, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said sarcastically, "First of all, I'm sure Ted Cruz was very negative about New York money. I'm sure he's not going to accept any money from any New Yorker. I'm sure if he has, he's going to return all of those contributions." He added, "I'm always open to give him an education on what New York values are all about. And if he had any class, he would apologize to the people of New York. Not that I believe they need it or they want it. But if he had any class, he would apologize." State Sen. Diane Savino (D-North Shore/Brooklyn) posted on Facebook, "A note to Sen Cruz: as we speak, around the country and the world, people get up every day and dream of the chance to come to NY, to make their way and their fortune. They dream of the opportunities in the Big Apple. They yearn for the chance to make it here. We welcome all of them. We are New Yorkers, we are farmers and financial wizards, butchers, bakers and bottle makers, we are tough, and strong, kind, compassionate, generous, multifaceted folks. So next time you show up with your hat in hand seeking campaign contributions from NY fatcats, I will pick you up at the airport and give you a tour." Rep. Daniel Donovan (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn) said in a statement, "Contrary to Mr. Cruz's assumptions, the values of New Yorkers are strength, compassion, hard work, family and generosity. Not only was it on display in the aftermath of Sept. 11 and Hurricane Sandy, but we encounter it in our everyday lives. The next time Sen. Cruz is fundraising in Manhattan, I invite him to come to my district where he can meet real New Yorkers, and maybe then he will think twice about wrongly insulting the integrity of the people I am so proud to call my fellow citizens." One usually vocal Staten Island elected official said he's not insulted by Cruz's comments. Councilman Joe Borelli (R-South Shore) said in an Advance editorial board meeting Friday morning, "Ted Cruz used imagery to paint a picture of Donald Trump as sort of a New York City Republican, who we can objectively say is more liberal than a Texas Republican." Borelli has been supportive of Cruz on social media, and said Friday that he would back whomever is the Republican nominee. "I'm not personally insulted by it, because as someone who sits here and believes that Staten Island is not like people from Manhattan, it doesn't insult me. I don't want to be lumped in with that the majority of the country believes are New York City political values." Anna Sanders contributed reporting. STATEN ISLAND -- District Attorney Michael E. McMahon attended the Staten Island Immigrants Council annual dinner at Temple Israel in West Brighton Thursday. Attendees raised fears of deportation by federal agents who they said were targeting Mexican and Central American immigrants. They also brought up frustrations regarding the court stoppage of President Obama's executive order, which would've allowed millions of immigrants to stay and work legally in the United States. McMahon gave his assurance that he'd work with those immigrants and keep an open door policy as district attorney. To close out the night, a candle-light vigil took place that called upon the Supreme Court to conduct a review of the president's executive orders on immigration before session ends in June. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The NYPD is probing the shooting of a 30-year-old man on Friday morning. The victim arrived by private means at Staten Island University Hospital with a gunshot wound to the shoulder after the shooting at around 1 a.m., an NYPD spokesman said. The spokesman said the location of the shooting has yet to be determined. The victim is in stable condition, police said. Police radio transmissions indicate that an evidence search related to the shooting is ongoing at Dinsmore Street and Victory Boulevard in Bulls Head, but a police spokesman was unable to verify that information. However, NYPD officers and vehicles were spotted in the vicinity of Dinsmore Street and Victory Boulevard, close to Nansen Park. Blood was seen on the console and other parts of a Honda sedan that was being towed by police from Dinsmore Street around 8 a.m. on Friday. Lighting up the American flags When Simi Valley resident Hayden Kelly was in elementary school, she learned the proper etiquette when it comes to the American flag. She enjoyed looking at flags around town and... Local racer makes a winning pass at auto championship Storied track pushes drivers to their limits James Landry of Simi Valley., won the Honda Challenge 4 class championship Sept. 18 at the 2022 National Auto Sport Association Championships. Landry captured the title by making a pass... Fall is a festive time of year at the farm READY FOR AUTUMN At right, 7-year-old Martin Segura of South Gate, drives a peddle tractor Oct. 9 during the Fall Harvest Festival at Underwood Farms in Moorpark. The festival runs... Prost to the good times and fundraising Rotary Club of Simi Sunrise recently held Oktoberfest on Oct. 8 at Lemon Park (Rancho Tapo Community Park) in Simi Valley, More than 1,200 attendees spent an afternoon with music,... Astelit LLC (the life:) brand), the mobile communications operator, will carry out a large-scale rebranding and change its brand to lifecell which is consonant with the name of its owner Turkcell. "The company operated on the Ukrainian market under the life:) brand for over 10 years. The company will continue working under the new brand as a mature, experienced and multi-service operator," the operator said in a press release. The operator said that in 2015, NYSE-listed Turkcell became the full owner of Astelit. Turkcell is one of the largest telecommunications companies in Europe and a leading provider of the telecom communications and solutions in Turkey. As part of the rebranding the corporate colors of the parent company will be used blue and yellow. The company also said that at present, it is developing the 3G+ communications network and provides mobile Internet services to 5.4 million subscribers. "Improving itself as a multifunctional and universal operator for all subscribers we will position the lifecell as the effective data operator providing as many as possible opportunities for communications via high-speed mobile Internet, connecting as many as possible Ukrainian consumers," the company said, citing lifecell CEO Burak Ersoy. According to the Ukrainian Intellectual Property Institute (Ukrpatent), in September 2015 the operator submitted an application to register the lifecell brand for goods and services. If Done Correctly, Refuting Climate Myths can be an Effective Educational Strategy Posted on 15 January 2016 by ProfMandia I have been teaching MET103 Global Climate Change to undergraduate liberal arts students for five years. The course description appears below: The impact of global climate change is far-reaching, both for humanity and the environment. This course will provide students with the scientific background to understand the role of natural and human-forced climate change so that they are better prepared to become involved in the discussion. Students will learn how past climates are determined and why humans are causing most of the observed modern day warming. The technical and political solutions to climate change will also be discussed. It is pretty much a given that most young people today are aware that humans are causing the planet to warm. That was not true when I first began teaching this course in 2010. Anonymous surveys revealed there were still some students who either thought global warming was not happening or if it were, humans were not responsible. The biggest surprise for students now is how sensitive the planet and its species are to even small temperature increases. They are also surprised that there are still those who do not believe humans are causing climate disruption and they feel empowered to challenge those individuals who are often older family members. One requirement of the course is to visit Skeptical Sciences Global Warming & Climate Change Myths a collection of the most often propagated climate science myths and misinformation, and write a term paper that summarizes the myth in a way that will convince a doubter to change his or her position. About mid-way into the semester, I use one lecture period to discuss why misinformation exists and how to properly debunk that information. I present a talk I gave at the 2015 Geological Society of America (GSA) Annual Meeting as well as Cook and Lewandowskys The Debunking Handbook in order for students to learn how to avoid the various backfire effects that can occur when debunking misinformation. Students also have access to a grade rubric to understand what is expected for top marks. Students are taught that the most effective myth refutation strategy includes: Lead with the facts Keep arguments simple and few Warn listener before stating myth Provide a more credible alternative Message must align with persons cultural world-view The paper below is from the Fall 2015 semester and represents the success of this approach. The author has given Skeptical Science permission to post his term paper. Why the Time to Act on Climate Change is Now by Trevor Lipp I also recommend reading Raising Climate Literacy Through Addressing Misinformation: Case Studies in Agnotology-Based Learning by Cook, Weber, and Mandia (2014) for more examples of effective refutation techniques. Abstract: Agnotology is the study of how and why ignorance or misconceptions exist. While misconceptions are a challenge for educators, they also present an opportunity to improve climate literacy through agnotology-based learning. This involves the use of refutational lessons that challenge misconceptions while teaching scientific conceptions. We present three case studies in improving climate literacy through agnotology-based learning. Two case studies are classroom-based, applied in a community college and a four-year university. We outline the misinformation examined, how students are required to engage with the material and the results from this learning approach. The third case study is a public outreach targeting a climate misconception about scientific consensus. We outline how cognitive research guided the design of content, and the ways in which the material was disseminated through social media and mainstream media. These real-world examples provide effective ways to reduce misperceptions and improve climate literacy, consistent with twenty years of research demonstrating that refutational texts are among the most effective forms of reducing misperceptions. [DOI: 10.5408/13-071.1] The takeaway here is that we should not be afraid to address myths in the classroom because if we do so using effective refutation strategies, climate science literacy can be improved. You too can also learn to make sense of the science and to respond to climate change denial by enrolling in the MOOC Making Sense of Climate Science Denial. This Massive Online Open Course taught by 13 experienced scientists and professors is produced by The University of Queensland, Australia. You can take the course for free or for a small fee take the course and receive a certificate. Successful completion of this course will equip you to effectively respond to climate misinformation and debunk myths. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said the visit by two Communist parliamentarians from the Czech Republic to Donetsk was not authorized by Ukraine, and took place in breach of the Ukrainian legislation. "The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry protests the illegal entry of the territory of Ukraine and visit to the temporarily occupied Donetsk by Zdenek Ondracek and Stanislav Mackovik, members of the Czech Communist Party faction of the lower chamber of the parliament of the Czech Republic. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry points out that this visit was not authorized by Ukraine and breached the norms of the Ukrainian legislation governing the procedures for entering Ukraine. Restrictions envisaged by the law will be imposed on the violators," the Foreign Ministry said in a commentary released on Friday. The Foreign Ministry called on the government, parliamentary and public circles of the Czech republic to "publicly distance themselves from such provocations, which Kyiv sees as a manifestation of disrespect of Ukraine's sovereignty and contempt of the official position of the Czech Republic and the EU on the condemnation of Russia's aggression against Ukraine." Two Communist parliamentarians from the Czech Republic, Zdenek Ondracek and Stanislav Mackovik, arrived in Donetsk from the territory of Russia on January 14. According to Interfax-Ukraine, the purpose of their three-day visit to the DPR was to become familiar with the consequences of the military action, the humanitarian situation, and meetings with civilians. PJSC Ukrnafta will repay tax debts to the national budget of Ukraine after debts for gas, debtor indebtedness to the company are repaid. Company CEO Mark Rollins told Interfax-Ukraine that he expressed the corresponding position at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk in Kyiv. "I did not refuse to pay tax debts, but the company now has no money. Have you seen the price of oil today ?! Ukrnafta will be able to repay the debt if the debts for gas and debtor indebtedness are repaid to the company," he said. At the same time, Rollins refuted media reports that he refuses to raise the issue of covering debtor indebtedness to Ukrnafta until gas debts are settled. "No, I said [at the meeting] I will do everything possible to return debtor indebtedness to the balance sheets of Ukrnafta within the maturity term," the official said. By clicking Agree, you consent to Slates Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and the use of technologies such as cookies by Slate and our partners to deliver relevant advertising on our iOS app to personalize content and perform site analytics. Please see our Privacy Policy for more information about our use of data, your rights, and how to withdraw consent. Agree Ukraine will continue moving towards de-oligarchization by removing the possibility of political influence on the management of state companies and oligarchs' involvement in corruption schemes, the country's president Petro Poroshenko has said. "The goal is to separate oligarchs from state money, from power, from politics, so that they turn into ordinary entrepreneurs and work in a competitive environment. In my view, we have come most of the way," the president told a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday. Already practices have been improved at Ukrnafta and within the coal mining sector and the country has introduced transparent rules for price-formation and competition-based appointment of managers, said Poroshenko, adding that 2016 will also see the introduction of independent directors. A special role in this de-oligarchization process will be played by the new anti-corruption bodies which were formed without political influence, the president said. Best Canadian Blog 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 About Kate Why this blog? Until this moment I have been forced to listen while media and politicians alike have told me "what Canadians think". In all that time they never once asked. This is just the voice of an ordinary Canadian yelling back at the radio - "You don't speak for me." (goes to a private mailserver in Europe) I can't answer or use every tip, but all are appreciated! Katewerk Art Support SDA I am not a registered charity. I cannot issue tax receipts. Reconnaissance Man Economics for the Disinterested ...a fast-paced polar bear attack thriller! Want lies? Hire a regular consultant. Want truth? Hire an asshole. Weather Shop Click to inquire about rates. Dow Jones What They Say About SDA "Smalldeadanimals doesn't speak for the people of Saskatchewan" Former Sask Premier Lorne Calvert "I got so much traffic after your post my web host asked me to buy a larger traffic allowance." Dr.Ross McKitrick Holy hell, woman. When you send someone traffic, you send someone TRAFFIC. My hosting provider thought I was being DDoSed. - Sean McCormick "The New York Times link to me yesterday [...] generated one-fifth of the traffic I normally get from a link from Small Dead Animals." Kathy Shaidle "Thank you for your link. A wave of your Canadian readers came to my blog! Really impressive." Juan Giner - INNOVATION International Media Consulting Group I got links from the Weekly Standard, Hot Air and Instapundit yesterday - but SDA was running at least equal to those in visitors clicking through to my blog. Jeff Dobbs "You may be a nasty right winger, but you're not nasty all the time!" Warren Kinsella "Go back to collecting your welfare livelihood."Michael E. Zilkowsky Intelliweather Seismic Map Comments Policy Read this Best Of SDA Hide The Decline The Bottle Genie (ClimateGate links) You Might Be A Liberal Uncrossing The Line Bob Fife: Knuckledragger A Modest Proposal (NP) Settled Science Series Y2Kyoto Series SDA: Reader Occupation Survey Brett Lamb Sheltered Workshop Flakes On A Plane All Your Weather Are Belong To Us Song Of The Sled The Raise A Flag Debacle (Now on Youtube!) (.mwv Video) Abuse Ruins Life Of Girl Trudeaupiate Kleptocrat Jeans Child Labour I Concede Small Dead Feminist Protein Hoser: THK Interview The Werewolf Extinction Dear Laura (VRWC) We Wait Blogging The Oscars Jackson Converts To Islam Just Shut The HELL Up Manipulating Condi Gay Equality Rights Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed a decree dismissing Anatoliy Pushniakov from the post of commander of the Ukrainian Ground Forces. The presidential decree was posted on the official presidential website on Thursday. On December 24, 2015, Ukraine's Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak accepted a report on Pushniakov's dismissal from the post of commander of the Ground Forces. It was earlier reported that Pushniakov was being examined by military doctors. In addition, Poroshenko sacked Oleh Miasnykov as Deputy Commander of the National Guard of Ukraine. "To dismiss Oleh Miasnykov from the office of the Deputy Commander of the National Guard and place him at the disposal of the National Guard Commander," reads the decree. Thank you for visiting the Daily Journal. Please purchase an Enhanced Subscription to continue reading. 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! Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin during his visit to Vienna has discussed with OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier a situation in Donbas and the work of OSCE SMM in Ukraine. As the ministry reported on its website, Klimkin stressed on a necessity to strengthen technical and operating capabilities of the SMM for an efficient monitoring and verification of the implementation of Minsk Agreements focusing on the necessity to reinforce SMM monitoring functions in Donbas. He also has said that a granting of the full access of the SMM monitors to the whole territory of Donbas, including frontier part, along with considerable extension of the OSCE monitoring on Russian-Ukrainian border remains crucially important issues. The ministry said that Klimkin thanked for a practical assistance in mine clearing and called to an extension of the project activities in this sector taking into account the needs of the respective state government agencies of Ukraine. 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:948 /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/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 125 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 157 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612eed43800)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 948 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f027eca8)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612eed43800)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1302 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 955 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f027eca8)') 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 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612efe23340)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1300 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 433 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f027eca8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f027eca8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612ee5145e0)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f0286d18)') called at (eval 592) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f0286d18)') 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:948 /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/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 125 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 157 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f0258dd8)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 948 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0129a68)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f0258dd8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1302 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 955 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0129a68)') 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 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f013c200)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1300 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 433 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0129a68)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0129a68)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612ee5145b0)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f0129e70)') called at (eval 592) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f0129e70)') 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:948 /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/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 125 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 157 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f01b00f0)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 948 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0112428)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f01b00f0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1302 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 955 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0112428)') 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 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f0197620)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1300 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 433 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0112428)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0112428)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612ee5141d8)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f0089c10)') called at (eval 592) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f0089c10)') 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:948 /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/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 125 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 157 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f011f6a8)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 948 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0241eb0)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f011f6a8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1302 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 955 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0241eb0)') 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 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f02210e0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1300 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 433 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0241eb0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0241eb0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612eac2ff38)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f02456a8)') called at (eval 592) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f02456a8)') 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:948 /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/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 125 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 157 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f02ace18)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 948 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0293758)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f02ace18)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1302 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 955 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0293758)') 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 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f02936c8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1300 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 433 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0293758)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0293758)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612ee50afd8)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f02c2f50)') called at (eval 592) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f02c2f50)') 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:948 /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/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 125 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 157 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612efe588d0)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 948 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612efc14308)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612efe588d0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1302 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 955 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612efc14308)') 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 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612efe2ed60)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1300 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 433 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612efc14308)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612efc14308)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612ee515da8)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612eed4d328)') called at (eval 592) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612eed4d328)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 BHP Billiton has once again dramatically reduced the book value of its controversial United States shale division, with the company announcing a $US4.9 billion ($7 billion) after-tax write-down on Friday. The impairment charge amounts to $US7.2 billion before tax, and takes the total impairments against the division past $US12 billion (on a before-tax basis) over the past three years. The division was put together for $US20 billion in 2011, but that acquisition now appears to have failed. The new impairment is a response to the dramatic fall in oil and gas prices over the past 18 months. The government's proposed cuts to paid parental leave face an uncertain future in the Senate with the crossbench concerned for low-income families and frustrated by the Turnbull government's attitude to negotiations. Independent senators have criticised the Turnbull government for not taking on board their advice when creating a compromise on the original Abbott cuts, with one calling it another "mean and stupid" policy. Senator John Madigan said the government was shown to be "short-sighted and heartless" thanks to new modelling, which suggests parents in low-paid jobs stand to lose between $3900 and $10,500 as a result of the latest proposals. "This study highlights the practical implications of the government's repeated attempts to achieve savings at the expense of those who can least afford it." Public joint-stock company Ukrtelecom initially was privatized in the interests of Dmytro Firtash and Serhiy Liovochkin, MP Serhiy Leschenko claims. Leschenko said at a press conference on Thursday that during an investigation conducted by him earlier some evidences of the involvement of these persons in the privatization of the largest telecommunications company in 2011 have appeared. In particular, ESU, which was the only bidder in the tender and eventually acquired Ukrtelecom, two weeks before the tender changed the owner to EPIC Investment. Leschenko said that later the company was renamed Raga Establishment and as the parliamentarian learnt directors of the company are two citizens of Cyprus Audriana Pias and George Heorhiou. Leschenko revealed that Pias and sister of George Heorhiou Xenia Heorhiou are affiliated with the top managers of the companies via which Firtash and Liovochkin own undeclared property on the French Riviera. Leschenko saw an internal document of SCM holding with description of reputation risks of the holding if it acquires Ukrtelecom. "In the document Firtash is named as a seller," Leschenko said. The parliamentarian intends to forward all the documents to the Prosecutor General's Office and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NAB). In summer 2015, Leschenko said that Liovochkin and Rinat Akhmetov were involved in the privatization of Ukrtelecom. Ukraine's State Property Fund in 2011 sold 92.79% of Ukrtelecom's shares to ESU LLC, the Ukrainian subsidiary of Austrian-based EPIC, for UAH 10.575 billion. The deal was closed in May 2011. SCM Holding and Austria's EPIC Group on October 4, 2013, finalized a deal on the sale and purchase of 100% of the shares in UA Telecominvest Limited, which holds 100% in ESU LLC, which in turn holds 92.79% of the shares in Ukrtelecom. Tony Abbott meets Barack Obama in June 2014. Credit:Andrew Meares This relationship is widely understood to have been forged in the bloody carnage of September 11, as Howard happened to be visiting Washington, DC, when the attacks occurred, a coincidence that had a deep impact on the Prime Minister and arguably on Australia's response to the attack. But Green notes that equally important was the length of time they both spent in office getting to know each other. He says their first meeting was a little stiff given their differences in age and experience, but that it rapidly evolved. Barack Obama with Julia Gillard in 2011. This is important in bilateral relationships, he says, because leaders are more naturally inclined to pick up the phone and talk to counterparts they like and trust. He believes the relationship between the US and Japan was significantly debilitated by the rapid succession of nine leaders in Tokyo since 2000. Kevin Rudd meets Barack Obama at the White House in 2009. With fewer cultural and language barriers, and bipartisan support for the relationship in both nations, the impact on the relationship with Australia has suffered less. The foreign policy inclinations of both Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd were considered by American observers to be near identical, which allayed concerns about the instability in Australian governance. While it is well understood on this side of the Pacific that Labor and the Coalition are broadly in line on foreign policy, the ideological gulf between Barack Obama and Tony Abbott was clear. During their first meeting in the Oval Office both leaders focused on areas of agreement rather than difference. One observer reports that the President was disarmed by Abbott, who requested little and offered broad Australian support of America's own diplomatic and strategic interests. But twice during his leadership Abbott was blindsided by the Obama administration once when the Australian government was not warned about embarrassing leaks from Edward Snowden, and again when Mr Obama gave a speech in Brisbane during the G20 summit that was widely seen as critical of Mr Abbott's stance on climate change. The former United States Ambassador to Australia, Jeffrey Bleich, says he believes Turnbull and the President will find it easy to get on well. He describes them as sharing "big, curious minds" as well as confidence and an easy demeanour about themselves. Officials from both nations consider the two to share very similar world views. Indeed modern Democratic Party orthodoxy is closely aligned to that of the moderate wing of the Australian Liberal Party. It is also significant that the two leaders have already broken the ice during bilateral talks in the Philippines in November, when Mr Obama extended an invitation to visit DC to Turnbull. "It's not surprising that we had an excellent meeting. This typically is how Americans and Aussies get along. And we are incredibly grateful for their friendship and their partnership, and it's one that extends regardless of party and whoever has occupied respective seats in our countries," the President said at a joint press conference. But as one observer puts it, offshore bilateral meetings are the speed dating of diplomatic world, while a formal visit is dinner and drinks or in this case a working lunch after an Oval Office meeting. It is worth noting too that the White House has gone to some trouble when it comes to this date. Turnbull has been invited to stay at Blair House, the President's guesthouse. Such an invitation is not quite a rarity, but is certainly a gesture of warmth. Similarly Turnbull's visit to Arlington National Ceremony is expected to be marked by a military salute another honour that is not extended to a visiting leader as a matter of course. But Green warns that despite the very close relationship between the two nations no Australian leader should go into the Oval Office and expect to walk away with what they came for. And there are significant items on the agenda. The two leaders are expected to discuss progress in the American-led effort to contain and destroy the Islamic State and efforts to forge a political solution to the Syrian civil war. The related areas of cyber security, counter-terrorism and intelligence gathering and sharing will be on the agenda, not only in the White House, but in meetings with US security and intelligence chiefs. Australian officials are understood to be keen to ensure that the United States maintains a more consistent line in the face of China's determined efforts to gain greater control over the South China Sea. Similarly Australia is concerned that the rebalance to Asia and the Pacific authored by the former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton and embraced by President Obama, has withered in Mr Obama's second term under Secretary of State John Kerry. The Trans Pacific Partnership will also be a focus of discussion. Though the agreement has been successfully negotiated it has still not been approved by Congress. Both leaders enthusiastically support the deal, and Mr Turnbull could lend significant assistance to the President by lobbying for the agreement in separate meetings with Congressional leaders. Despite the vast power imbalance between the two nations, Australian leaders have some leverage they can employ in talks with US presidents, says Green. As with Great Britain, Australia's reliability as an ally is significant to this end, he explains. Congress notices if either of these two nations hesitates to support US action, as was the case when David Cameron lost a House of Commons vote on joining US airstrikes in Syria. The flood watch over the Queanbeyan and Molonglo Rivers was lifted on Thursday night, with emergency services reporting only a slight increase in river levels after a small amount of rain. Queanbeyan SES public information officer Brent Hunter said 10 volunteers worked for nearly 12 hours into Thursday night, while a flood rescue crew was on standby. The two main storm fronts in the area didn't merge completely, preventing the Queanbeyan River from flooding. Credit:Jeffrey Chan Two millimetres of rain fell in the Canberra area overnight, according to the Bureau of Meteorology. The SES received one request for assistance during the day, from a nursing home, and volunteers laid 80 sandbags around the property to prevent damage from any flash flooding. A Wanniassa man allegedly found with a stash of drugs and weapons in his home has been denied bail. Nathan Davidson, 32, was arrested after a police raid that allegedly uncovered cash, more than 75 grams of drugs, and guns about 9am on Thursday. Drugs, cash and firearms seized from a home in Wanniassa. Credit:ACT Police Documents tendered in the ACT Magistrates Court on Friday morning said officers seized during the raid trafficable quantities of suspected methylamphetamine (9.035 grams), cocaine (39.72 grams), MDMA (33.75 grams in both powder and pill form), two .22 calibre rifles, including one with a shortened barrel and stock, ammunition, and $44,000 in Australian currency. Most of the suspected drugs were found in a room at the rear of the Wanniassa property. A search of the roof cavity also allegedly located pills suspected to be MDMA, two guns, and ammunition, while the wardrobe of the master bedroom allegedly held the $44,000 in cash. The increasing competition between airlines to fill seats on international flights is proving positive for consumers. A review by Flight Centre of the lowest discount fares to popular destinations has revealed an average 14 per cent fall over the last 12 months amid capacity increases on many of the routes. The lowest airfare between Sydney and Honolulu has fallen 40.3 per cent to $511 return over the past year. Tom Walley, the general manager of Flight Centre's Australian leisure business, said Hawaii was the standout for bargain hunters, with the cheapest return Sydney-Honolulu fare having fallen 40 per cent from $856 to $511 due to competition between Jetstar and Hawaiian Airlines. The cheapest return Sydney-Bali fare has fallen 27.5 per cent to $391 as a result of Indonesia AirAsia X's entry to the route as well as lower bookings after volcanic eruptions disrupted flights last year. "Those environments absolutely still exist and the party boys out there are usually sitting in trading seats," says one former broker, who wished to remain anonymous, as did most people quoted in this story. Former ANZ markets trader Etienne Alexiou's $30 million case against the bank for condoning a rampant culture of sex, drugs and alcohol has dramatised what young traders on the floor say is now becoming outdated behaviour. Like the way of the corner office, neat white lines on top of brokers' notes and the 5am binges synonymous with wired traders may be nearing their expiry date. "But retail broking, I mean they're so far behind the ball. And there's still people trying to live those days and you can't do it. You can try, waiting for the bull market to come back, but you're just going to go broke." 'Guys who've risen through the ranks in Australian banks tend to have that go hard or go home mentality.' There seems to be a disconnect between those who started in banking before the global financial crisis and those who've come into the industry afterwards. One former equities trader recalls monthly trips to Sydney's Longrain restaurant, where an open bar tab enticed them to beat their previous record of how many caprioskas they could drink. By some standards, this was a tame activity. "It's the guys pre-GFC who see it as a badge of honour. If you can't come out and get messy with us at least once every couple of months we don't want anything to do with you," the caprioska-participant says. National Australia Bank's new chairman, Ken Henry, says high volatility in equity markets is not likely to derail the initial public offering of Clydesdale Bank in the first week of February. A collapsing start to the year on markets could be seen as a final headache for NAB's board and management as they seek to break free from the shackles of banking in Britain, which has destroyed billions of dollars in value for investors over the past decade. How will the political donation ledger look next year now that Ken Henry is NAB chairman? Credit:Andrew Meares NAB shareholders will vote on the demerger of Clydesdale Bank on January 27. The deal will see 75 per cent of the British small business and retail bank go to NAB shareholders in the form of new shares, while the remaining 25 per cent will be offered to institutional investors via an IPO on the London and Australian stock exchanges. Clydesdale's IPO price will be announced on February 2. "It will be a considerable relief to everybody on the board and also to management to have the demerger executed," Dr Henry said, while emphasising that NAB remains intensely focused on execution. Hoodlum Entertainment's Tracey Robertson at the company's Brisbane offices: 'I'm a producer, that's what we do. We just make things happen from nothing.' Credit:Glenn Hunt Within a year of Robertson's punch-the-air-at-the-acupuncturist's moment, Hoodlum had achieved a first of its own when Secrets & Lies became the only Australian drama format to get a second US network series. Hoodlum then topped that by scoring a "first-look" development deal with ITV Studios America in April 2015. Cannes-do attitude Screen Producers Australia chief executive Matt Deaner says the firm is one of a number of "innovative and nimble" Australian screen businesses that have broken onto the global stage. Prime suspect: The US version of 'Secrets and Lies' stars Ryan Phillippe as Ben Crawford. "They were given the chance to succeed through a number of well-conceived Australian programs and policies, and took the opportunity with both hands a credit to their drive and tenacity. This is exactly the kind of business the Turnbull government should be encouraging through its innovation agenda," he says. The story of how Hoodlum pulled it off is one of Aussie-battler chutzpah and says something about the dizzying pace of change in the television industry and the risks of getting swallowed by the Hollywood machine. Martin Henderson starred in the original version, 'Secrets & Lies', on Ten. Credit:Channel Ten I was going to move over there and make it. I had said to myself, 'I am never going to learn by being on the phone in Brisbane.' Tracey Robertson Scottish-born Robertson and her business partner and fellow film-maker Mayfield founded Hoodlum in 1998, in Brisbane, where there was, she recalls, "no TV industry". "We were trying to be a TV production business and I really struggled with the model of it because I didn't understand too much about it. I also knew it was really hard work to make money out of it." Tracey Robertson (right) with Hollywood star Juliette Lewis, who plays Detective Andrea Cornell in the US adaptation. Hoodlum's long journey to Hollywood started in 2000 when the duo won a grant to go to MIPTV, the international television and digital content market, in Cannes. "We just thought: 'Let's do it. Let's go overseas.' Over 15 years of going to Cannes, sometimes twice a year, the people you meet get put into jobs in which they can actually start making decisions," she says. BAFTA on board Hoodlum won its first overseas commission in 2006, a digital campaign to promote the Christmas special for the long-running British soap Emmerdale. Robertson persuaded the TV network ITV to let Hoodlum write 20 weeks' worth of digital, interactive content to accompany the TV series. Despite or perhaps because of its prescience, the campaign didn't make money with advertisers. But it led Hoodlum onto a similar project for the BBC, which was expanding rapidly online. Hoodlum and co-producers Kudos Film and Television (UK) created a 10-week narrative online accompaniment to series six of the BBC's flagship spy drama, Spooks. It won Hoodlum two BAFTA Television Awards, which did it no harm when Robertson and Mayfield came to LA in September 2007, two weeks before the Hollywood writers' strike. Robertson recalls their marketing expedition to the US ABC network.The network's forthcoming season of the global hit show Lost had been pushed back six months to March due to the looming strike but it still needed a marketing campaign to be prepared and there were no writers available. On the strength of a screening of Hoodlum's Spooks showreel, Robertson and Mayfield were escorted across town to Lost's key writers, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof. "They were packing up their office, they were all going picketing, and they said [of Spooks]: 'Did you write this? It looks amazing.'" Hoodlum got the job, which included a six-week online interactive prequel for Lost's voracious fans. "Because Lost was based on a plane crash from Sydney to LA, we resurrected the company that owned the plane because it had gotten over the crisis and it was going to come back," Robertson says. Twelve billboards from Sunset Boulevard to Hong Kong via London were sprayed with Find815.com (a reference to the downed flight's number) in a global campaign which sent fans to a website created by Hoodlum. The project went on to win a prime-time Emmy. Green but growing The global financial crisis would send Hoodlum back to its TV roots as networks cut digital budgets. In 2011, it produced the FOX8, multi-platform, 10-part TV drama series SLiDE (which was nominated for an International Emmy), followed by horror comedy The Strange Calls for the ABC, which led Robertson back to Hollywood. Hoodlum's US agent believed he could sell the format to a US network. Robertson, who had "no idea" about the format market, admits her main thought was: "Great, America's buying my stuff, I'm in the money." But while the agent did a good deal 20th Century Fox Studios bought the format then sold it to the ABC (US) the network ultimately shelved it. "They didn't make it. It was the first road to learning everything," says Robertson, who admits she was green about the US system. After Ten bought Secrets & Lies for the Australian market in late 2012, Hoodlum was determined to do things differently when it came to its attempts at selling the format to the US. Robertson and Mayfield flew to LA in October 2013 with the DVDs and the ABC network was quick to snap it up. But Robertson made something very clear: "I was going to move over there and make it. I had said to myself, 'I am never going to learn by being on the phone in Brisbane'." Husband Bob was up for it and the promise of Disneyland trips sold the idea to the kids. Hoodlum also secured a so-called "penalty", which meant it got some money even if the show didn't make it beyond pilot. This time, the ABC network asked Hoodlum to go straight to ABC Studios part of a growing trend for vertical integration that reflects the decline of the studios' once-lucrative output deals with overseas networks. Show time on Madison Avenue Robertson landed on January 15, 2014, with three kids, 20 suitcases, Bob on a shoot in China, and three days to get the children into their new school before her next plane trip left for North Carolina to start the pilot's month-long shooting schedule. "I'm a producer, that's what we do!" she laughs. "We just make things happen from nothing. It was pretty funny." The "complete celebration" that followed the series getting commissioned took Robertson to New York for a three-day party at the annual "upfronts", where the networks show off their forthcoming shows to Madison Avenue's advertising agencies. The icing on the cake, she says, was watching her screen on the plane back to LA and seeing Hollywood star Juliette Lewis being interviewed at the upfronts. "She was the lead in our show and she was like: 'I'm doing a new show, it's called Secrets and Lies, it's fantastic.' I was sitting in the back of the plane going 'that's my show!' " Her show to some extent. Another learning curve was seeing other Hollywood producers come in and do their thing on Secrets and Lies. "It's kind of like letting your baby go and hoping that they don't f--- it up," she says. "And the fact that it got picked up for a second season means they didn't. It is the best outcome." With Hoodlum's six other staff in Brisbane and now with her own office in Sherman Oaks, Robertson feels like she's running a start-up again, and the challenges never end. "It is much easier to go in to see people and say you've got a show on second season on a network. And to have a studio deal [with ITV] where someone is paying your overheads is great, too. The axe has been swung at Clive Palmer's Townsville nickel refinery, with 237 workers made redundant on Friday. The move by Mr Palmer's company, Queensland Nickel, came after the Palaszczuk government refused a request in December to act as guarantor for a $30 million loan. Queensland Nickel's 550 remaining workers will lose their jobs at the close of business on Friday. Credit:Glenn Hunt At the time, Queensland Treasurer Curtis Pitt said Queensland Nickel was an "undue risk" for taxpayers and said it was up to Mr Palmer's company to take responsibility for its workers' welfare. On Friday, Queensland Nickel managing director Clive Mensink, Mr Palmer's nephew, put the blame for the 237 job losses firmly on the state government. "It must be a priority for the state and federal governments to ensure the workers who have been made redundant receive their full entitlements and the support promised includes financial advice and employment support," she said. "The state government has said it would provide support packages for the employees of QNI. I will be writing to the Premier to ensure this priority support is put in place. "We need a coordinated effort to get these people back into employment as quickly as possible." That was a view echoed by Australian Workers' Union state secretary Ben Swan, who said the state government had been a "passive, reactive" player "The state government has to actually do something to live up to the expectations people have of a Labor government," he said. "That is getting in and doing everything they can to make sure we retain jobs in this state, that we support them and we support key regional economies such as Townsville. "I'm not sure that's been done to date." Queensland Employment Minister Grace Grace said Queensland Nickel was a private company that made its own commercial decisions. State Development Minister Anthony Lynham said the government had put a rapid response team on the ground to connect affected workers with support services. "These are tough times for these workers and their families, but there is help at hand and we're on an all-out effort to give those affected the support they need," he said. "There are a range of services available to affected workers from the Queensland and Australian governments as well as Townsville City Council. "Whether it's putting people in touch with counselling services, helping them secure financial advice or assisting them to secure their entitlements, we're here to help." Mr Swan said the affected workers had been shaken by the news. "If you lose your job, it's just completely devastating it's shattering," he said. "I know the phones for our Townsville officials have been running hot over this. Ukraine in 2015 moved forward on the way of reforms, and the positive decision of the European Commission on the visa free regime for Ukrainians and the launch of the EU-Ukraine Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) are evidences of this, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said. "Despite fierce counteraction of Kremlin, DCFTA with the EU entered into full force on January 1. Unprecedented migration crisis did not hinder the decision of the European Commission on the completion of the assessment mission on the implementation of the Visa Liberalization Plan of Actions and we obtained the decision on the visa-free regime though several months ago few people believed in that inside and outside the country," Poroshenko said at a first press conference in 2016 in Kyiv on Thursday. The positive decision of the European Commission on the visa-free regime "is the indicator of positive assessment of reforms in Ukraine by the EU and the world," he said. Poroshenko said that reforms in 2015 were launched in various spheres, but not all of them have yielded results yet. "Nowhere and never did the war lead to thriving of the country. We are now facing military aggression against our country, military actions on our land. It is not just a military aggression. Since January 1, a powerful large-scale economic aggression has been started imposing embargo on a great range of Ukrainian goods," he said. Commenting on the achievement of Ukrainian authorities in 2015, Poroshenko said that the country "ensured the activity and capability of the international coalition in support of Ukraine." "A very bright demonstration of this fact was the vote of 177 UN countries electing Ukraine a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council," he said. "When you come to Yavoriv training center [Lviv region], you will see dozens of flags of our allies. These flags are a symbol of our military-technical cooperation with various countries of the world," the head of state said. "Last year ended with a decision of all 28 EU members on the prolongation of sanctions against Russia for its continuous aggression against Ukraine and non-fulfillment of the Minsk agreements. I guess you all know that it required certain efforts from our Ukrainian team. Increasing economic crisis of Russia is a price for aggression against Ukraine," Poroshenko said. Within days of the receivers taking control of the Dick Smith electronics chain last week, Nick Abboud confided in a colleague that he planned to quit the retailer. It was an ignoble end for the ambitious chief executive, who rode the wave of optimism that engulfed Dick Smith and its stellar sharemarket listing all the way into the shore, where it crashed, leaving employees, shareholders, suppliers and even gift card holders grasping for a piece of the wreckage. In early December there was talk the embattled chief executive had retreated to his harbourside home. Telephone calls from friends went unanswered, fuelling speculation Dick Smith's troubles were taking a personal toll on the boss. Retail has been Abboud's life. The western Sydney boy worked his way up from Myer's shop floor, where he also met his wife, to the executive level and a role that put him in charge of 12,000 staff. It has prompted the most recent conundrum for American women; how to argue for the importance of digging up decades-old allegations against Bill Cosby while downplaying similarly aged charges against the husband of the woman likely to be America's first female president. Here's the difference: Bill's have been thoroughly aired and raked over. But more importantly, they are not Hillary's peccadilloes. (Carl Bernstein claims Bill was lying to Hillary about his infidelity; can she really be blamed for this deception?) As a presidential candidate who has been making a strength of her gender, and her non-threatening grandmotherly status, Hillary should expect that her past treatment of all women, including those linked to her husband, will be scrutinised. It's true that while today Clinton encourages women to speak up when abused, decades ago she sided with and publicly supported her husband against charges of abuse and harassment and helped cast doubt on and worse, slur his accusers. Monica Lewinsky was unfairly, callously, continuously slammed as crazy by the Clinton camp. Again, while this was ultimately Bill's affair, Hillary too showed a political ruthlessness. The question is, how much weight will be given to what she has accomplished since and what she promises to be to women if she wins. At a recent New Hampshire rally, Hillary said: "If it's all the same to you, Mr Trump, I'd rather you stopped cherishing women and started respecting them." (A Fox news poll released last weekend found half of respondents found Bill Clinton more respectful of women than Trump.) Hillary has a commanding gender- gap lead over Trump, even though much of this is due to the male-skew among Republicans. The women's vote matters less to Trump now: he is currently relying on less educated, working class men for his currently polling high. Women will only begin to matter when the field thins; as reported by Politico, at the general election women are predicted to form about 52-54 per cent of the votes. In 2008, Barack Obama got 55 per cent of the female vote, while Mitt Romney lost with 44 per cent. So Trump slights women at his peril. The speed with which ACT Attorney-General Simon Corbell reacted this week to calls for increased penalties for the perpetrators of one-punch attacks, such as occurred on New Year's Eve, suggests a degree of vulnerability. The potentially devastating, tragic effects of such violence is not in doubt and it's unsurprising people are concerned. The increasing prevalence of such attacks is not simply a frenzied storm whipped-up by the media; the problem is working out how to curb them. The problem is that Corbell's response sounds a great deal like inaction. The calls for increased penalties have come into this vacant space. Doing nothing is not an option. It should be possible to safely enjoy a simple night out in Canberra without wondering if someone will suddenly strike you from behind, leaving you stretched out on the ground, insensible to what's occurred and possibly brain-damaged or dead. The vicious and final nature of the so-called "coward's punch" is reverberating through society. We have always had assaults and fist-fights and these can be deadly too. What's new is the nature of this particular attack. It's unexpected. A fist comes flying out-of-the-blue, from behind, and that's one reason why it is so very terrifying. The other is its finality. It's just a matter of chance how the victim's head hits the ground. It was just pure luck that the attack in Civic the other day wasn't fatal. If there is a one theme that defines Mike Baird's premiership to date it would have to be the desire for consensus. From his election as Premier by colleagues when he cut a deal for a unity ticket with Gladys Berejiklian to the Martin Place siege after which he urged the community to come together, Baird has pursued a largely conciliatory path. NSW Premier Mike Baird: "We are now at a fork in the road". Credit:Steven Siewert It was there in his greatest political achievement to date convincing the electorate to go with him on electricity privatisation. It was the approach he took in response to the grumbling about the disruption to people's lives from infrastructure projects like the Sydney light rail. Many will sympathise with the former Abbott government ministers Kevin Andrews and Eric Abetz in their comments on Australia's decision not to expand its forces in Syria. First Mr Andrews and now Mr Abetz have called for Australia to send troops there in response to the US request for a greater effort in the fight against Islamic State. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull meets President Barack Obama in Washington next week. Credit:Susan Walsh With IS now claiming responsibility for Thursday's terrorist attacks in Jakarta, some in this country will be alarmed at the way its toxic ideology and its murderous politics are spreading outwards from Syria in all directions, not least into our region. The Jakarta attacks were deadly enough, but they appear to have been poorly planned and executed; they could have been a lot worse. Turning a blind eye? At last year's CES, Netflix chief product officer Neil Hunt assured me that it wouldn't step up efforts to keep Australians out of the US library after the local launch. It was a smart move because, at the time, many Australian subscribers would have abandoned their US accounts and turned back to BitTorrent rather than pay for the inferior Australian service. Now that Netflix plans to launch in practically every country, it's talking about yet another geo-blocking crackdown to stop Netflix subscribers sneaking across borders. In theory it shouldn't cost the service any paying customers, as they can sign up for Netflix in their own country. It continues to ramp up Netflix Originals content such as Daredevil and House of Cards, which should be available on the same day around the world, and this might be enough to appease some subscribers locked out of the US library. The big question is whether Netflix's latest geo-blocking crackdown will be yet another token effort to appease the movie studios and local services like Foxtel. History suggests that it's likely to be another half-hearted attempt aimed a few high-profile geo-dodging services which will soon find a workaround lest they lose their own paying customers. Other video services have tighter geo-blocking restrictions than Netflix and people still defeat them. The only way to effectively combat geo-dodging is for content owners to stop treating Australians as second-class citizens there to be fleeced. To Netflix's credit it's doing a lot to break down these barriers, but it knows that it will never keep us out of the US library as long as the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. GENIALE DILLETANTEN: SUBCULTURE IN GERMANY IN THE 1980s While the presentation of this shrewd, research-based exhibition assumes a guise uncomfortably similar to that of a high school staffroom, Geniale Dilletanten: Subculture in Germany in the 1980s proves to be the pithy exploration of radical countercultural activity that its title promises. Exhibitions of this kind, with their heavy focus on social circles and cultural implications, offer particular rewards. Rather than fawning over the atonal, electronic art punk of Der Plan and D.A.F. let alone the more sonically abrasive outfits featured here, such as F.S.K., Ornament und Verbrechen, Einsturzende Neubauten and others we're led, quite willingly, to reflect on the rippling social fabric and desperate want for redefinition in a divided Germany. Importantly, the exhibition which was curated by the Goethe-Institut's Mathilde Wey and utilises photographs, record covers, posters, listening rooms, documentary films and ephemera draws important connections to visual artists of the time, the Neue Wilde, with protagonists Martin Kippenberger, Albert and Markus Oehlen all offered dues. Industrial design and fashion also feature, though only in part. The overwhelming pulse is from the makeshift band venues, exhibition halls and junk-strewn studios. An adjunct exhibition looks at the Melbourne scene of the same era, with key protagonists including Nick Cave and photographer Peter Milne taking centre stage. Until February 27; RMIT Gallery, 344 Swanston Street, city, 9925 1717, rmit.edu.au/rmitgallery Der Plan's Kubistischer Schlagzeuger, 1987. DAREBIN ART PRIZE 2015 Prize shows can often prove a bust, chiefly because the kind of works that win prizes are, more often than not, of a particularly virtuosic ilk. When artists are given the rare chance to throw their hat in the ring for $10,000, they're going to come out guns blazing. The subtler works are often left by the wayside. One doesn't get any such sense from the 2015 Darebin Art Prize exhibition, which spans multiple gallery and public spaces at the stunning Bundoora Homestead building. Judged by MUMA's Charlotte Day, artist Nick Selenitsch and Bundoora Homestead curator Claire Watson, the prize exhibition is arranged with a thematic and formal sensitivity, and features a surprising number of quieter works. A gallery on the top floor is a favourite, with a layered, abstract photograph from Vivian Cooper Smith bouncing off an elusive sculptural image by Petra Nicel and a sombre video work by Rushdie Anwar, which sees him desecrate and reconstruct an image of Saddam Hussein. Other highlights include Damiano Bertoli's poster drawing, which layers radical Italian political messages over patterns designed by the Memphis Group, and the apt winner, Melbourne collective DAMP's sculpture Victoria's Secret an angelic statuette comprising a patchwork of patterned, painted and scrawled surfaces that wryly reconfigure art history. Until February 21; Bundoora Homestead Art Centre, 727 Snake Gully Drive, Bundoora, 9496 1060, bundoorahomestead.com He recognised it was part of the job but was still wary about all the palaver of a red carpet and endless photos. Alan Rickman shows his prickly persona in Galaxy Quest. Credit:AP And he was definitely uncomfortable about a pack of whacky fans shrieking at him at the cinema door for autographs for Die Hard posters and Harry Potter DVDs, which he knew would be sold online. During a question-and-answer session on stage, Rickman revealed how they shot villain Hans Gruber falling to his death at the end of Die Hard. In an age before digital effects, they just put him in a harness and dropped him from a height. Alan Rickman at his satirical best in A Little Chaos. Credit:Alex Bailey But in case it all went wrong, they told him they were leaving it till the last day of filming. Another surprise: he admitted having to work hard to get that famous sonorous voice after being told at drama school that he sounded like he was delivering lines from down a drainpipe. Given Rickman's screen persona was often somewhere between prickly (Galaxy Quest, Love Actually) and downright malicious (Robin Hood, Harry Potter), it would be easy to imagine him being tetchy. While there was a little of that initially "oh god, journalists always ask that question," he moaned at one stage he became more comfortable and charming as he settled in. On the second night, with no red carpet, photographers or professional autograph hunters, he was more relaxed. Over Thai food and wine in a room behind the stage while A Little Chaos screened, he and wife Rima Horton, who has stood for election as a Labour candidate and lectured in economics, chatted thoughtfully about politics in Britain and wanted to know how Australia compared. When I mention I'd be asking entirely different questions on stage having taken his "journalists always ask that" comment on board he winced and said that wouldn't be necessary. He'd quite liked the old ones. Alan Rickman talks on stage during the Spectrum Now festival in Sydney in March last year. Credit:Christopher Pearce When questions did vary, he skilfully worked his way around to telling the same guaranteed-to-get-a-laugh anecdotes. After a young audience member mentioned he was her first crush, Rickman's response was brutally self-deprecating: "I'm old enough to be your grandfather!" While he had the bearing and voice of a classically-trained Shakespearean actor, a delicious sense of humour was never far away. "I got a lot of laughs when I played Hamlet," he told the Herald just before arriving in Australia. "It's not about gags. If you can get people to smile or laugh through recognition something recognisable about human nature then I think any part is fair game. But I'm not above a custard pie in the face or a pratfall, I mean, if it works." That planned 45-minute question-and-answer session stretched to an hour, getting warmer and looser and funnier as it went on. And when he finally left the stage, to another standing ovation, Alan Rickman was genuinely moved. The Revenant and Mad Max: Fury Road both stories of endurance and revenge, filmed under gruelling circumstances dominate the 88th Academy Awards this year, with 12 and 10 nominations respectively. Mad Max: Fury Road has scored the highest number of nominations for an Australian film since Moulin Rouge! was nominated for eight in 2002. Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant. This is the fourth Mad Max movie, but the first to be in Oscar contention. George Miller who co-wrote and directed the original Mad Max in 1979 is up for two Academy Awards. As well as receiving his first nomination for best director, he is also a nominee for best picture as one of the producers of Fury Road. He has previous nominations for Babe, Lorenzo's Oil and Happy Feet, winning best animated feature for Happy Feet. Margaret Sixel, Miller's wife, has been nominated for best editor for Fury Road. Other Australian Fury Road nominees include veteran cinematographer John Seale (his fifth nod, with one win); production design team Colin Gibson and Lisa Thompson; make-up and hairdressing team Damian Martin, Lesley Vanderwalt and Elka Wardega; Dan Oliver (visual effects) and Ben Osmo (sound mixing). Fury Road's English costume designer, Jenny Beavan, is also nominated. The captives detained by illegal armed formations to be liberated in the east of Ukraine in next few days, said German Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Thursday. "The OSCE Council is running in Vienna, for the first time under residency of one of the key states of the 'Normandy format' Germany. German Foreign Minister and Chairperson-in-Office Mr. Steinmeier yesterday was optimistic regarding Russian statements in Minsk about ceasefire and the statements of the militants on the release of the hostages that is to be held the other day," wrote Ukraine's envoy for humanitarian issues in Trilateral Contact Group MP Iryna Heraschenko on Facebook on Friday. She said that Ukrainian party already handed the lists with the names of captives on January 6, backed them up during the last meeting in Minsk and until now is waiting for the response. Besides, the Ukrainian parliamentarian stressed that after Russia declared ceasefire, "shell attacks in Donbas even increased", and the OSCE monitors stated about numerous registered facts of hampering to their activities. "Russia is completely responsible for the actions of the militants. This is clearly understood both in Germany, OSCE and in the whole world. And their failure to implement the given in public promises will be in complete responsibility of Kremlin itself, which now is represented in Minsk by one of the leaders of Yedinaya Rossiya [United Russia] party, acting member of Russian Security Council and their puppets of certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions," she said. As reported, in the morning of January 6, LPR leader Igor Plotnitsky said he intends to release all captured Ukrainian military, who are on the territory of the LPR as a good will gesture. Award winning Blacklist Coffee Roasters is served here and this is a chance to try a couple of different brew methods with their coffee-tasting board. The Asian-inspired menu is quite extensive and well thought out for a cafe with only a small kitchen. Having a sous vide machine with a swag of creamy eggs ready to go is just brilliant. There's a decent sized kids sourdough toastie on the menu, but if you have a couple in tow, the brightly coloured pandan waffles would be perfect to share or even as a breakfast for just mum or dad. Ootong & Lincoln 258 South Terrace, South Fremantle http://www.ootongandlincoln.com.au Breakfast served daily 6.30am 1pm You've had that early wake up from the kids and you're wondering where you can go out for a coffee and breakfast. Look no further than this Freo favourite. They start serving breakfast super early at 6.30am and there's even an app where you can pre-order your takeaway coffee and food great if you want to grab something quickly and then head to the beach. There's a little play area inside the cafe for the kids with plenty of tables around for parents to keep a watchful eye. Their breakfast needs are taken care of with a few choices like milo maize porridge, a toastie or egg on toast. For the adults, your needs are well and truly looked after with Crema coffee on the go as well as a menu that caters for all from vego through to gluten free and everything in between. Yes of course there is still bacon. Oh and an Elderflower and basil slushie that is pretty much life changing it's so good. Cheeky Cafe 160 Scarborough Beach Road, Scarborough http://www.cheekycafewa.com Breakfast served daily 6am 11am Don't let the fact that this place is attached to a laundromat turn you off. Cheeky Cafe is a popular haunt for the locals who know they serve great coffee, food and the kids can be entertained. Their fantastic play area comes with a big blackboard, toys and a TV playing cartoons. Perth fave Five Senses coffee is on the grind and there are little people-sized milkshakes if you want to give them a treat. There isn't a specific kids menu, but there are options like toast or banana bread that parents may find suitable. For the rest of us, the pint-sized menu is full of all the well-loved breakfast options and the display fridge loaded with brekky wraps. Cheeky Cafe will also host kids parties. How great is that!? Feast Cafe 363A Cambridge St, Wembley http://feastcafe.com.au/ Breakfast served: Mon, Wed Sun, 7am to 11.45am (Closed on Tuesdays) Parents in the western suburbs are lucky to have this cafe so close by and it's one I constantly recommend to my friends who have kids. Not only does Feast have a huge kids play area but it's also glass enclosed! They can happily scream and yell and bang toys as loudly as they like without any dirty looks from the childfree patrons. The menu is filled with meals that show how serious they take breakfast here. There's not a tired old breakfast dish in sight! Slow-cooked beans with mantou buns is one dish that keeps me coming back. The kid's menu is one of the best I have seen, with plenty of choice and healthy options. There's Five Senses coffee here and they've got sparkling by the glass too. Great if you fancy a champagne breakfast with your mothers group! The Sorrento Beach Shack Shop 57, Sorrento Quay, Hillarys Boat Harbour http://www.sorrentobeachshack.com.au Breakfast served daily until 11.30am There's so much to love about this cafe overlooking the little beach at Sorrento Quay. They have cleverly put the colourful kids play area safely up the back of the cafe with plenty of spacious tables around for parents to park up. This leaves the front for those who just want a peaceful table for two and view to the water. The coffee here is well made creamy and on-point for temperature. A hefty breakfast menu means that there is guaranteed to be something for everyone. I love a menu that has a few of the old faves as well as interesting choices for those who aren't satisfied with some sort of bacon-and-egg jobby. The kids have their own menu with options suitable for the older kids who might need more than one pancake. After everyone's breakfast has settled, how about a swim? Finlay & Sons 917 Beaufort St, Inglewood Facebook Page Breakfast served daily from 8am (coffee from 7.30am) 2pm This Inglewood cafe stormed onto the scene last year and, judging by the crowds, it still fills the tables every day - its popularity has not waned. The coffee here is by local roaster, Twin Peaks. Made with Bannister Downs milk, this creamy brew is so good it could see you ordering a second maybe a third. There's colouring-in to keep the littl'uns entertained and, whilst there is no kid's menu, they do get their own colourful plastic cups and there are kid-friendly options including a "petite sized" waffle served with the best caramelised banana I have ever tasted. That waffle is also available in adult-friendly sizes and the rest of the all-day breakfast menu is filled with options that will bring you back again and again just to try. The sticky, sweet thick-cut bacon here is legendary! Some of the retirement calculators on the websites of the largest super funds are misleading fund members and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) needs to take action. In 2005, ASIC granted super funds regulatory relief on their calculators. That meant the funds have been allowed to put calculators onto their websites without fear of running foul of the regulator so long as the assumptions are "reasonable". The online calculators on some super funds' websites are shoddy. Credit:Erin Jonasson There are, however, calculators on the websites on major super funds that have not even been updated to account for the deferral in the increase in the superannuation guarantee. When providing estimates of how long retirement savings will last, some calculators, as well as not having accurate projections of compulsory super, do not even take into account the age pension. Thinking of getting off the booze for a month to take part in FebFast or Dry July? You might want to listen to a mental health expert who claims it could do you more harm than good. Ian Hamilton, a lecturer at York University in the UK, said that while most people can stop drinking alcohol without any immediate harm, heavy drinkers risk withdrawal and serious symptoms such as seizures which should be managed by health professionals. Writing in the British Medical Journal, the substance abuse expert said there was also no reliable evidence that anyone would derive long-term benefit from a month of abstinence. People may even think a month off gives them permission to indulge in dangerous binges when they've completed the challenge, he said. Defence Department public servants walked off their "safety-critical" jobs at military air bases around NSW this week as the bitter public service pay dispute rumbles on. Civilian technical officers at two RAAF air bases, a Navy airfield and an explosives testing range walked off the job on Monday, protesting against what they called the government's "draconian bargaining policies". The department has played down the impact of the actions, saying that only four workers took part in the stop-works but their union says each of the technicians plays a vital safety roles in already diminished Defence workforce. The department will sit down with unions next week to continue its wage talks, nearly two-and-a-half years since its public servants last had a pay rise. A Chinese university student has been banned from owning animals for five years after a neighbour recorded him violently hitting and kicking his pet dog on the balcony of a unit block in Wollongong. Xudong Zhang, 25, was captured on camera repeatedly beating his white Samoyed with a thick, plastic-coated metal clothes hanger causing it to yelp in pain on the afternoon of July 31 last year. The footage, released to the Illawarra Mercury by Magistrate Mark Douglass, shows Zhang hitting the animal three times while it is unrestrained on the balcony, then putting a collar around its neck, some material over its muzzle and tying the dog to the balcony handrail with a chain. He then grabs the animal by its fur, manoeuvres it to lie in front of him as he crouches over the dog and heavily whips it seven times around the back and head with the coat hanger. A new-year crackdown on deceptive price advertising by real estate agents following the passage of new laws has revealed the practice remains widespread, particularly in Sydney's west. The compliance operation carried out by the Department of Fair Trading between January 4 and 8 detected 176 "cases of non-compliance" with the new advertising laws introduced from January 1 as part of legislation to deter under-quoting. Under the new rules real estate agents are banned from advertising property prices using the terms "offers above", "offers over" or similar phrases. The investigation found agents still using the terms "offers above" and "offers over" but also variations including "starting from" and "expected bidding from". The officer told the man to hand over the phone he was recording with but he refused and reached into his car, police said. The video shows the Victorian man saying he isn't doing anything illegal, to which the police officer replies, "You don't have to be, mate." The Facebook post alleged four police officers strip searched the man and the officer made a deal that the man delete the footage or get his phone and his partner's phone confiscated for 28 days. The man deleted the video, but it had already been backed up. News Corp reported there were allegations video footage of the incident from a police-worn body camera had been deleted. The video caused a stir online, racking up almost 3.4 million views on Facebook to date, and the officer faced a storm of criticism but a police investigation found the officer's actions were lawful and reasonable. "When this gentleman unexpectedly reached into the car, the officers immediately feared for their safety and drew the Taser as a precaution," Gold Coast Inspector Shane Holmes said at the time. More than 3700 Queensland public servants were contacted by unions between July and September last year under a Labor Party policy to encourage public service unionism. But the LNP opposition believed "north of 5000" public servants had been approached, because the figures do not include Queensland Health, which has previously indicated more than 2417 new employees. Unions have approached more than 3700 potential new members. Credit:Chris Hyde The union approaches to new public servants were part of the Labor's widely-promoted union encouragement policy to overtly encourage public servants to become members. Shadow Attorney-General Ian Walker described it as "an invasion of privacy" and a "rolled gold union recruitment drive" which should not occur. An angry, tailgating driver shouting abuse at another motorist has triggered a head-on smash on the Monash Freeway, a witness says. The multi-car crash closed three outbound lanes near Wheelers Hill on Friday morning after the car crashed through a wire barrier and hit another car in on-coming traffic, police said. Three people were treated by paramedics following the collision, but no one was seriously injured. A driver in a red car had been yelling abuse at another motorist just before the crash in the freeway's outbound lanes near Springvale Road, witnesses said. Ukrainian citizens have not been injured in a terrorist attack organized in the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta, on January 14, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry reported. "According to Ukraine's Embassy in Indonesia, no citizens of Ukraine among killed registered," ministry's spokesman Yevhen Ihnatovsky told Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday. Meanwhile, Ukraine's Embassy in Indonesia on its page in Facebook called the citizens of Ukraine, who now stay in the country, to be especially vigilant and careful in light of the recent attacks in Jakarta. As earlier reported, seven people including five terrorists were killed as explosions and gunfire hit central of Indonesian capital Jakarta on Thursday in an attack later claimed by jihadi militant group ISIS. Al-Qaeda-backed Islamist insurgents claimed to have killed 63 Kenyan soldiers in an attack on an African Union military base in southwestern Somalia and captured the town of El-Adde near the border with Kenya. Sheikh Abdulaziz Abu Musab, a spokesman for the military wing of al-Shabab, made the claim on Radio Andalus, a pro- militant station that broadcasts via the internet in the capital, Mogadishu. The attack is the biggest assault on an African Union base since a raid on an installation at Janaale in southern Somalia on September 1. A Kenyan army soldier carries a rocket-propelled grenade launcher as he patrols Tabda, Somalia. Credit:AP The African Union Mission in Somalia "can confirm that there was an attack on our troops in El-Adde" and more details will be released later, it said on Friday on its Twitter account. Kenya Defence Forces spokesman David Obonyo said the militants attacked a Somali National Army camp close to a Kenya Defence Forces camp at 4am on Friday. The number of casualties is unknown, he said. Al-Shabab has waged an insurgency in Somalia since 2006 to impose its version of Islamic law. It's used the country as a staging ground to carry out attacks in Kenya, East Africa's largest economy, and Uganda. While the militant group has lost territory since being driven out of Mogadishu in 2011 by government and African Union forces, it continues to stage deadly gun and bomb attacks, including in the capital. Jakarta: Seven years ago, Bahrun Naim was quietly running an internet cafe in the small Indonesian city of Solo. On Thursday he was identified by police as the mastermind behind the deadly attack on Jakarta claimed by Islamic State, pulling the strings from Raqqa, the radical group's de facto capital in Syria. In between, Naim was arrested in 2011 for illegal arms possession and jailed for three years, and police say that since then he has emerged as a key player in militant networks that have sprouted around Solo and across Central Java. He confirmed Bahrun Naim, who is fighting in Syria with Islamic State, was behind the attacks. Jakarta football club supporters sing while holding letters saying "kami tidak takut" ('We are not afraid') at an anti-terrorism rally outside Starbucks where a suicide bomb was detonated. Credit:Amilia Rosa "He arranged and financed the act but how he did it technically we don't know yet," he said. Cirebon Police Chief Sugeng Hariyanto said an IS flag was found during a raid conducted after the attacks on Thursday night in Cirebon on the north coast of Java. A police officer gives a hand signal to a squad mate as they search a building near the site of an explosion in Jakarta, Indonesia on Thursday. Credit:AP He said three men were arrested based on preliminary investigation linking them to the Sarinah attacks. "How they are linked we are still investigating," Mr Hariyanto said. An electronic screen above the Starbucks cafe where the attack took place displays the message "#prayforjakarta". Credit:Dita Alangkara "We found cut up plastic pipes, (similar to those used in the Jakarta attack), an ISIS flag, a paper for a baiat (the ceremony of the appointment of a leader), a laptop and several other items." At least one arrest was also made on Friday in Bekasi in West Java. A bouquet of flowers is placed in front of the explosion site in the centre of Jakarta. Credit:Getty Images National Counter Terrorism Agency (BNPT) director Brigadier-General Dr Hamidin said there would have been more victims if the terrorists had been better armed, and he noted the bombs they carried were all low explosive. "Quality and quantity wise the attack was nothing like the Marriott hotel or Bali bombings. But they chose a soft target, the public, in a crowded area and selected Starbucks to aim at foreigners," he said. "It may not be as big as before but the effect was just as big." John Coyne, a senior analyst at ASPI, said the attack was a strategic victory for ISIS. "It has raised the global profile of ISIS in Asia; and it has smashed the public's illusion that Indonesian intelligence collection against terrorism is omnipresent it can be defeated," he wrote in the Strategist. Mr Coyne said the police-to-police relationship between POLRI (Indonesian police) and the Australian Federal Police had been in a steady state of decline for a number of years. "To successfully respond to the Jakarta attacks, the AFP, amongst other national security agencies, will need to work with the Jakarta national security community to strengthen the close personal relationships vital to cooperation in the region," he wrote. The day after terrorist attacks rocked Jakarta it was defiantly business as usual in the sprawling metropolis. All Starbucks outlets other than the one targeted by a suicide bomber reopened, with Starbucks Director, Mr Anthony Cottan, tweeting a selfie of himself "enjoying the first coffee". The nearby Sarinah mall was also open, although Devianti, who worked on the eighth floor of the building confessed to a few nerves. "We work normally today from 9am to 6pm. Of course I'm a bit nervous, but it's OK," she said. Jakartans expressed their defiance in a typically Indonesian way via social media with hashtags including #Jakartaberani (Jakarta is brave) and #KamiTidakTakut, (We are not afraid). Many posted photographs of street vendors, who resumed selling food at the site of the killings on busy Thamrin Road within hours of the attacks. "Keep calm and bakar sate" (Keep calm and barbecue satay) was one meme, the Indonesian take on the stiff upper lip deployed by the British in World War II. Hundreds also held a vigil on Friday night at the sight of the terrorist blasts. "I think this terrorist attack has had the opposite effect of what was intended," said protester Romo Mangnis Suseno. "People in Jakarta are rejecting this terrorism very clearly." Ms Jones said the attacks could have been a lot worse if Indonesian police had not made a series of arrests of suspected terrorists in the lead up to the Christmas and new year holiday period. "One of the characteristics of groups here from the beginning has been that their competence level isn't matched by their ambition." A suicide bomb and a model of an Indonesian government building that terrorists were allegedly planning to target were among the items seized by police at the time. "The fact we had all these arrests in December was certainly an important means of weakening the group. If they hadn't been arrested we might have seen a larger group of people involved in the attack," Ms Jones said. "One of the things I am concerned about is that this will be portrayed as a failure of police in a way that will encourage the military to be given a larger role. "With the level of activity going on in and around Jakarta area as well as Solo it was almost inevitable something would happen. All the vigilance in the world wouldn't have prevented it." Adhe Bhakti, a researcher at the Centre for Radicalism and De-radicalisation Studies in Jakarta, said in the view of the extremists, a successful attack was when a suicide bomber killed 10 enemies. "So I consider this attack was not successful." Mr Bhakti said the terrorists appeared amateurish, as they all died and did not appear to have made an escape plan or been in a war zone. "Although we must admit that they are able now to make bombs," he said. Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said the international response to the Jakarta terror attacks had been positive, with countries extending their sympathies and asking what the international community could do. She said President Joko Widodo would soon receive a phone call from Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Early on Friday police said they had arrested three terrorist suspects in Depok, West Java. However, Jakarta police spokesman Muhammad Iqbal later said they were not terrorists and the arrests were unrelated to the Sarinah terror attack. Beijing: Taiwan's voters go to the polls on Saturday in a historic vote widely expected to see opposition candidate Tsai Ing-wen become the island's first female president. It may also signal the end of an uneasy eight-year rapprochement with mainland China. Ms Tsai, the 59-year-old leader of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, holds such a sizeable lead over rival Kuomintang candidate Eric Chu pre-election polls have had her consistently ahead by at least 20 percentage points that her party's victory is barely considered in doubt. While the election campaign has largely been fought on domestic issues how to revitalise Taiwan's back-peddling economy, and provide better starting wages and employment prospects for university graduates Ms Tsai has found it hard to shake the view, particularly from overseas, that a DPP win could reintroduce uncertainty into the often fraught ties with Beijing. "I have made it clear that, once elected, I would immediately start communicating with our diplomatic allies and with China," Ms Tsai said during a campaign rally in Kaohsiung this week. "I know that stability across the Taiwan Strait is in our shared interests. I would do my best to maintain that stability." Female passenger released --- two of the suspects are minors. PHILIPSBURG:--- Police arrested three male suspects in the Simpson Bay area Wednesday night confirmed Police Spokesman Ricardo Henson. SMN News contacted the police spokesman for confirmation after the Gendarmes issued a press release on the arrest of the suspects they believed committed at least two robberies on the French side on Tuesday and Wednesday. Henson said four persons, three males and one female were in a vehicle at the time of the arrests and they are suspected of committing armed robberies both on the French and Dutch sides of the island. The police spokesman said that the suspects were taken to the Philipsburg Police Station where they were interrogated and later police released the female passenger since there is no evidence at the time that showed she was involved in the armed robberies. Henson further explained that the vehicle has been confiscated for as the investigation continues. He said he does not have any details as to who the suspects are neither their ages but promised to release more information on Friday. SMN News tried to reach Chief Prosecutor Ton Maan on Thursday for comments regarding the international cooperation that led to the arrests of the suspected culprits but the countrys Chief Prosecutor could not be reached while the press prosecutor Karola van Nie was unavailable on Thursday afternoon. In an invited comment Prosecutor Gonda van der Wulp said the suspects were arrested on the request of the French Prosecutor since the same suspects committed at least two robberies on the French side. Van der Wulp said the suspects were apprehended on Wednesday night and while they were being interrogated it turned out that the suspects are also suspected of committing at least three armed robberies on the Dutch side of the island. She said when that information became available she conveyed the information to the French Prosecutors and it was decided that the suspects will stand trial on the Dutch side of the island for the crimes they committed on the Dutch and French side of the island, while the identity of the suspects were not readily available Van der Wulp said that two of the three suspects in custody are minors. Four suspects arrested in armed robbery investigations. On Wednesday at approximately 07.20 P.M. four persons were arrested by police in the Simpson bay area suspected of being involved in several armed robberies which recently occurred on the French and the Dutch side of the island. The arrests took place based on information that came in from the French gendarmes after a robbery on the French side on Wednesday evening. These suspects are three men and one woman. They were taken to the Philipsburg Police Station and put into custody for further investigation. The follow-up investigation done by detectives indicated that the suspects in question are most probably responsible for at least four recent armed on the Dutch side. The female suspect was released on Thursday January 14th. Two of the suspects are 17 years of age and one is 18 years old. There was also an outstanding arrest warrant for one of these suspects. All three suspects remain in custody for further investigation. The vehicle the suspects were driving at the time of the arrest has been confiscated for further investigation. KPSM Police Report Cogeco Inc. Announces Voting Results on the Election of Directors Held During its Annual Shareholders Meeting MONTREAL, QUEBEC (Marketwired) 01/14/16 Cogeco Inc. (Cogeco) (TSX: CGO) is pleased to announce that each of the nominees as directors for Cogeco listed in the Corporations information circular dated November 13, 2015 was elected as director of Cogeco during its annual shareholders meeting held on January 13, 2016 in Montreal, Quebec (the Meeting). Detailed voting results on the election of directors are as follows: Results on all matters voted at the Meeting are available on SEDARs website (.) including, for information purposes, the voting results for the subordinate voting shares only. ABOUT COGECO CABLE CANADA Cogeco Inc. is a diversified holding corporation which operates in the communications and media sectors. Through its Cogeco Communications Inc. subsidiary, Cogeco provides its residential and business customers with video, Internet and telephony services through its two-way broadband fibre networks. Cogeco Communications Inc. operates in Canada under the Cogeco Connexion name in Quebec and Ontario, and in the United States under the Atlantic Broadband name in western Pennsylvania, south Florida, Maryland / Delaware, South Carolina and eastern Connecticut. Through Cogeco Peer 1, Cogeco Communications Inc. provides its business customers with a suite of information technology services (colocation, network connectivity, managed hosting, cloud services and managed IT services), through its 21 data centres, extensive FastFiber Network and more than 50 points-of-presence in North America and Europe. Through its subsidiary Cogeco Media, Cogeco owns and operates 13 radio stations across most of Quebec with complementary radio formats serving a wide range of audiences as well as Cogeco News, its news agency. Cogecos subordinate voting shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: CGO). The subordinate voting shares of Cogeco Communications Inc. are also listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: CCA). Contacts: SOURCE: Christian Jolivet Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary Cogeco Inc. 514-764-4700 INFORMATION: Rene Guimond Senior Vice President, Public Affairs and Communications Cogeco Inc. 514-764-4700 Shaw Announces AGM Vote Results CALGARY, ALBERTA (Marketwired) 01/14/16 Shaw Communications Inc. (Shaw) (TSX: SJR.B)(NYSE: SJR) announced that, at its annual general meeting held earlier today, the resolutions proposed in Shaws proxy circular were carried. The detailed results from the annual general meeting are as follows. About Shaw Communications Inc. Shaw Communications Inc. is a diversified communications and media company, serving 3.2 million customers through a reliable and extensive fibre network. Shaw serves consumers with broadband Internet, WiFi, Digital Phone and Video products and services. Shaw Business Network Services provides business customers Internet, data, WiFi, telephony, Video and fleet tracking services. Shaw Business Infrastructure Services offers North American enterprises colocation, cloud and managed services through ViaWest. Shaw Media provides Canadians with engaging programming content through one of Canadas largest conventional television networks, Global Television, and 19 specialty networks including HGTV Canada, Food Network Canada, HISTORY and Showcase. Shaw is traded on the Toronto and New York stock exchanges and is included in the S&P/TSX 60 Index (TSX: SJR.B)(NYSE: SJR). For more information, please visit . Contacts: Shaw Communications Inc. Investor Relations Two Ukrainian sailors freed in Tripoli after year in captivity Two Ukrainian sailors, who were held by a Libyan armed group, have been released in Tripoli and are expected to return home on Friday, January 15, the press service of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said. "Thanks to the efforts made by Ukrainian diplomats, two citizens of Ukraine crewmembers from the Sun Oil I vessel, who had been held by one of the armed groups in Tripoli since January 2015, were freed on January 14, it said. They are expected to return to Ukraine on January 15. The Ukrainian Embassy in Libya has also helped secure the release of the ship's other crewmembers citizens of Bulgaria and Romania. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry has, once again, urged Ukrainian citizens not to travel to Libya, and for Ukrainians currently in Libya to leave the country. 'It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown' won't be on TV this year: How to see it Militants opened fire on Ukrainian army positions in Donbas on more than 60 occasions from 6:00 a.m. on Thursday to 6:00 a.m. on Friday, the press center of the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) in the south-east of Ukraine reported on Friday. Brief and random strikes were recorded in the Donetsk airport area, and to the north of Horlivka at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, the press center said on its Facebook account. Militants' units fired small arms and, occasionally, grenade launchers in the direction of Ukrainian military positions in Pisky, Opytne, to the south of Avdiyivka and Novhorodske. Militants also used large-caliber submachine guns against Ukrainian army positions in Pervomaiske, Troitske and near the village of Luhanske. An anti-tank missile system was also fired at a Ukrainian checkpoint in the vicinity of Luhanske. Militants' forces used small arms and grenade launchers on a number of occasions near Maryinka, where a sniper was operating as well. According to the press center, militants' units staged more than five armed provocations against the Ukrainian Armed Forces after midnight. Small arms and grenade launchers were used near Pisky, Opytne, Luhanske and, most frequently, in the Maryinka area. Militants did not use any heavy weapons overnight, the headquarters said. No ceasefire violations have been recorded in Luhansk region and near the city of Mariupol. The Main Intelligence Department of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry has characterized the situation in the area of the anti-terrorist operation in Donbas as difficult, accusing the enemy of reinforcing its units and hiding weapons prohibited by the Minsk agreements. "Representatives of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission have been provided with information on the presence in the Khartsyzsk area of 122 mm systems Grad, which are prohibited by the Minsk agreements," a report posted on the Main Intelligence Department website says. Suburban schools grow slightly, or lose less than state average Numbers from the state Department of Public Instruction show that in suburban Milwaukee, about 27 school districts grew last year, or lost fewer students than average. Welcome to SwanseaOnline - your home for the best news, sports and what's on coverage of the city. Never miss a Swansea story with our daily newsletter Sign up to comment on our stories here Follow us on Facebook and Twitter | Swansea City news | Ospreys news | InYourArea Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has discussed the fulfillment of the Minsk agreements with OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry press service said on Friday. The meeting took place on January 14, during a working visit of Klimkin to Austria, the report said. The Ukrainian side presented evidence "of the systematic flagrant violation of the Minsk agreements" by militants, including the use of heavy weapons which were compelled to be withdrawn to weapon storage sites. "It noted the need for full and unhindered access of the OSCE SMM to the entire territory uncontrolled by the Ukrainian government, including the territory along the Ukrainian-Russian state border," the report said. The sides decided that the settlement of the Donbas conflict would be a major priority of the German chairmanship of the OSCE in 2016. "They declared the need for stepping up the OSCE assistance to the resolution of the conflict and for efficiently pooling efforts with other international organizations, which possessed relevant experience and resources," the ministry said. Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser space plane, seen in this artists illustration, is one of three vehicles that NASA has chosen to fly cargo to the International Space Station from 2019 through 2024. NASA has selected SpaceX, Orbital ATK and Sierra Nevada Corp. to fly cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) starting in 2019, the agency announced today (Jan 14). Between 2019 and 2024, NASA will purchase a minimum of six uncrewed cargo missions from each of the three companies, agency officials said in a media briefing today. The space agency has the option to purchase additional re-supply missions from any of the three providers, and will likely do so, said Kirk Shireman, program manager for the ISS. SpaceX and Orbital ATK were selected as cargo providers in NASA's first round of Commercial Resupply Services contracts, known as CRS1; both companies have flown multiple re-supply missions to the ISS using a capsule called Dragon (SpaceX) and a spacecraft named Cygnus (Orbital ATK). [Space Station's Robotic Cargo Ship Fleet: A Photo Guide] The new round of contracts is referred to as CRS2. Dragon and Cygnus will keep flying in the CRS2 missions, but Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser will join them. This space plane is capable of landing on a runway, as NASA's now-retired space shuttles did; this ability will provide some unique science opportunities, NASA officials said. Shireman said the details of why these three candidates were selected will be released soon. At least two other companies, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, had submitted proposals for the CRS2 contract as well. NASA officials did not say how much each mission would cost, but Shireman said the maximum total value of all the CRS2 contracts is $14 billion. This number, however, was set as part of a government requirement, Shireman said, adding that the actual cost of "the mix of flights that we're looking at will be nowhere near that value." SpaceX, Orbital ATK and Sierra Nevada will each offer NASA slightly different cargo mission capabilities, Shireman said. Options from those companies include pressurized or unpressurized cargo (the former can support living scientific samples), return-cargo vehicles that either burn up in the atmosphere (Cygnus) or return to Earth for retrieval (Dragon and Dream Chaser), and vehicles that can either dock directly with the station or be grappled and berthed using the orbiting lab's robotic arm. (Berthing ports have larger openings for larger cargo, NASA officials said.) Dragon and Dream Chaser both return to Earth after each mission is done. However, Dragon experiences "hard landings," which usually mean parachuting straight down into the ocean, whereas Dream Chaser will land more gently on a runway. Runway landings tend to have a lower physical impact on the return cargo, and they allow for something called "accelerated pressurized return," which means the cargo can be retrieved within 3 to 6 hours after landing, said Julie Robinson, chief scientist for the ISS. This is beneficial for experiments that include live animals or other living samples, Robinson added. When scientists want to test the effects of gravity on biological samples, for example, it is often crucial to examine the samples as soon as they return to Earth, before they start to readapt to gravity, Robinson said. In addition, gentle landings can be better for preserving delicate samples, such as crystals grown in microgravity. Both Orbital ATK and SpaceX suffered launch failures during NASA CRS1 missions in the last 15 months, resulting in the loss of NASA cargo intended for the orbiting outpost. Orbital's Antares rocket exploded shortly after pushing off the launch pad in October 2014, and SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket disintegrated just over 2 minutes after liftoff in June 2015. Those setbacks did not pose a threat to the lives of the crewmembers aboard the station. But NASA officials said that having a third cargo supplier available was a factor in its CRS2 decision. "One of the considerations from an operational standpoint on the ISS, it's really important to have more than one supply chain," Shireman said. "If you lose one, you have the ability for another one being [implemented] right after it from a similar redundancy or a similar supplier." SpaceX, along with Boeing, has also been selected by NASA to supply crew transportation to the orbiting outpost, with the first astronaut-taxi flights beginning as early as 2017. Follow Calla Cofield @callacofield.Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com. Adam Hadhazy, writer and editor for The Kavli Foundation, contributed this article to Space.com'sExpert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. A collage of the 29 new gravitational lensing candidates discovered by volunteer citizen scientists using Space Warps. (Image credit: Space Warps, Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey) Astronomers are increasingly enlisting volunteer "citizen scientists" to help them examine a seemingly endless stream of images and measurements of the universe, and their combined efforts are having a powerful impact on the study of the cosmos. Just last November, a citizen science project called Space Warps announced the discovery of 29 new gravitational lenses, regions in the universe where massive objects bend the paths of photons (from galaxies and other light sources) as they travel toward Earth. As cosmic phenomena go, the lenses are highly prized by scientists because they offer tantalizing glimpses of objects too distant, and dim, to be seen through existing telescopes, and information on the objects that are acting as lenses. The Space Warps' haul of lenses is all the more impressive because of how it was obtained. During an eight-month period, about 37,000 volunteers individually combed more than 430,000 digital images in a huge, online photo library of deep space. Automated computer programs have identified most of the 500 gravitational lenses on astronomers books. However, computers failed to flag the 29 lenses the Space Warps volunteers spotted, speaking to unique skills we humans possess. From right to left, Aprajita Verma, Chris Lintott and Anupreeta More, Kavli roundtable participants The Kavli Foundation spoke with three researchers, all co-authors of two papers published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (SPACE WARPS I. Crowdsourcing the discovery of gravitational lenses SPACE WARPS II. New gravitational lens candidates from the CFHTLS discovered through citizen science) describing the Space Warps findings. In our roundtable, the researchers discussed the findings and the critical role citizen science is playing in furthering astronomical discovery. The participants were: Anupreeta More is a project researcher at the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) at the University of Tokyo. More is a co-principal investigator for Space Warps, a citizen project dedicated to identifying gravitational lenses. Aprajita Verma is a senior researcher in the department of physics at the University of Oxford. Verma is also a co-principal investigator for Space Warps. Chris Lintott is a professor of astrophysics and the citizen science lead at the University of Oxford. Lintott is a co-founder of Galaxy Zoo, a citizen science project in which volunteers classify types of galaxies, and the principal investigator for the Zooniverse citizen science web portal. The following is an edited transcript of the roundtable discussion. The participants have been provided the opportunity to amend or edit their remarks. The Kavli Foundation: Anupreeta and Aprajita, where did you get the idea along with your co-principal investigator Phil Marshall of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) at Stanford University to put volunteers to work on identifying gravitational lenses starting back in 2013? Anupreeta More: A few years ago, Chris Lintott gave a talk on citizen science at the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics in Chicago, where I was working at the time. It got me thinking about a lens search by citizen scientists. Aprajita Verma: For Phil Marshall and I, Space Warps grew out of Galaxy Zoo. Soon after Galaxy Zoo launched, I started to look at some of the galaxies that were being posted on the Galaxy Zoo user forum that had potential lensed features surrounding them. This was a great by product of the core Galaxy Zoo project. However, we realized that to find these incredibly rare sources, which are often confused with other objects, we really needed a tailored interface to efficiently find lenses. This grew into Space Warps. TKF: Chris, Galaxy Zoo itself was inspired by Stardust@home, the first astronomy-based citizen science project in which people played an active role. Until then, citizen scientists were often computer owners who offered up free processing power on their devices to aid in machine-driven data analysis. Were you concerned when you started Galaxy Zoo in 2007 that it would be hard to attract volunteers? Chris Lintott: Since Stardust@home involved people looking at images of a comet's dust grains brought back by NASA's Stardust space probe, we thought "Well, if people are willing to look at dust grains, then surely they'd be happy to look at our galaxies!" But that turned out to be almost beside the point. As we've done many of these citizen science projects over the years, we've discovered it's not the quality of the images that matter. After all, our galaxies aren't typically beautiful. They are not the Hubble Space Telescope shots that youd expect to find on the front page of the New York Times. Our galaxies are often fuzzy, little, enigmatic blobs. The Space Warps images are pretty, but again they're not the kind of thing you would sell as a poster in the gift shop at the Kennedy Space Center. It's actually the ideas that get people excited. I think Space Warps and Galaxy Zoo have been successful because they have done a great job of explaining to people why we need their help. We're saying to them: "Look, if you do this simple task, it allows us to do science." This idea is best shown by Planet Hunters, a citizen science project that searches for exoplanets in data from NASA's Kepler spacecraft. Users are looking at graphs for fun. But because the idea is the discovery of exoplanets, people will put up with looking at data. TKF: What sort of unique science is made possible because of Space Warps? Verma: Gravitational lenses allow us to look at objects, such as very distant galaxies, that are fainter and in much more detail than with the telescopes we have now. It's enabling the kind of science we'll be routinely doing with extremely large telescopes in the future. More: That's right. Something unique about gravitational lensing is that it acts like a natural telescope and allows us to study some really faint, distant galaxies which we wouldn't get to study otherwise. We're seeing these distant galaxies in the early stages of their life cycle, which helps us understand how galaxies evolve over time. Also, in a gravitational lens system, it's possible for us to study the properties of the foreground galaxies or galaxy groups that are gravitationally lensing the background sources. For example, we can measure the mass of these foreground galaxies and also study how mass is distributed in them. TKF: Space Warps and other citizen science projects flourish because computer programs sometimes struggle at identifying features in data. Why do computers have trouble spotting the characteristic arc or blobby shapes of gravitational lenses that humans can? More: The problem is that these arc-like images of distant galaxies can have very different shapes and profiles. The process of lensing magnifies these galaxies' images and can distort them. Also, these distant galaxies emit light at different wavelengths and can appear to have different colors. Furthermore, there are structures in these galaxies that can change the shape of the arcs. Verma: Also, lots of spiral galaxies have bluish spiral arms that can look like lenses. We call these objects "lens impostors" and we find many more of these false positives compared to rare, true gravitational lenses. More: All these differences make it difficult to automate the process for finding lenses. But human beings are very good at pattern recognition. The dynamic range that our eyes and our brains offer is much greater than a computer algorithm. Lintott: Another thing to bear in mind in astronomy, particularly in Space Warps, is that we're often looking for rare objects. A computer's performance depends very strongly on how many examples you have to "train" it with. When you're dealing with rare things, that's often very difficult to do. We can't assemble large collections of hundreds of thousands of examples of gravitational lenses because we don't have them yet. Also, people unlike computers check beyond what we are telling them to look for when they review images. One of the great Space Warps examples is the discovery of a "red ring" gravitational lens. All the example lenses on the Space Warps site are blue in color. But because we have human classifiers, they had no trouble noticing this red thing that looks a little like these blue things they've been taught to keep an eye out for. Humans have an ability to make intuitive leaps like that, and that's very important. Verma: I echo the point that it's very difficult to program diversity and adaptability into any computer algorithm, whereas we kind of get it for free from the citizen scientists! [Laughter] TKF: Aprajita and Anupreeta, whats the importance of the red ring object Chris just mentioned that the Space Warps community discovered in 2014 and has nicknamed 9io9? Verma: This object was a really exciting find, and it's a classic example of something we hadn't seen before that citizen scientists quickly found. We think that inside the background galaxy there's both an active black hole, which is producing radio wave emissions, as well as regions of star-formation. They're both stretched by the lensing into these spectacular arcs. It's just a really nice example of what lensing can do. We're still putting in further observations to try and really understand what this object is like. More: In this particular case with 9io9, there is the usual, main lensing galaxy, but then there is also another, small, satellite galaxy, whose mass and gravity are also contributing to the lensing. The satellite galaxy produces visible effects on the lensed images and we can use this to study its mass distribution. There are no other methods besides gravitational lensing which can provide as accurate a mass estimate for galaxies at such great distances. TKF: Besides 9io9, citizen astrophysicists have turned up other bizarre, previously unknown phenomena. One example is Hannys Voorwerp, a galaxy-size gas cloud discovered in 2007 in Galaxy Zoo. More recently, in 2015, Planet Hunters spotted huge decreases in the starlight coming from a star called KIC 8462. The cause could be an eclipsing swarm of comets; another, albeit unlikely, possibility that has set off rampant speculation on the Internet is that an alien megastructure is blocking light from the star. Why does citizen science seemingly work so well at making completely unexpected discoveries? Lintott: I often talk about the human ability to be distracted as a good thing. If we're doing a routine task and something unusual comes along, we stop to pay attention to it. That's rather hard to develop with automated computer systems. They can look for anomalies, but in astronomy, most anomalies are boring, such as satellites crossing in front of the telescope, or the telescope's camera malfunctions. Arguably the most famous citizen astrophysicist discovery, Hanny's Voorwerp Dutch for Hanny's Object is seen here by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2011. The Voorwerp is a gas cloud the size of a galaxy and appears green due to glowing oxygen. A Dutch schoolteacher, Hanny van Arkel, spotted the object while volunteering for Galaxy Zoo. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, W. Keel (University of Alabama), and the Galaxy Zoo Team) However, humans are really good at spotting interesting anomalies like Hanny's Voorwerp, which looks like either an amorphous green blob or an evil Kermit the Frog, depending on how you squint at it. [Laughter] The point is, it's something you want to pay attention to. The other great thing about citizen science is that the volunteers who find these unusual things start to investigate and become advocates for them. Citizen scientists will jump up and down and tell us professional scientists we should pay attention to something. The great Zooniverse discoveries have always been from that combination of somebody who's distracted and then asks questions about what he or she has found. TKF: Aprajita and Chris, you are both working on the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). It will conduct the largest-ever scan of the sky starting in 2022 and should turn up tons of new gravitational lenses. Do you envision a Space Warps-style citizen science project for LSST? Verma: Citizens will play a huge role in the LSST, which is a game-changer for lensing. We know of about 500 lenses currently. LSST will find on the order of tens to hundreds of thousands of lenses. We will potentially require the skill that citizen scientists have in looking for exotic and challenging objects. Also, LSSTs dataset will have a time dimension. We're really going to make a movie of the universe, and this will turn up a number of surprises. I can see citizen scientists being instrumental in a lot of the discoveries LSST will make. Lintott: One thing that's challenging about LSST is the sheer size of the dataset. If you were a citizen scientist, say, who had subscribed to receive text message alerts for when objects change in the sky as LSST makes its movie of the universe, then you would end up with a couple of billion text messages a night. Obviously that would not work. So that means we need to filter the data. We'll dynamically decide whether to assign a task to a machine or to a citizen scientist, or indeed to a professional scientist. TKF: Chris, that comment reminds me of something you said to TIME magazine in 2008: "In many parts of science, we're not constrained by what data we can get, we're constrained by what we can do with the data we have. Citizen science is a very powerful way of solving that problem. In this era of Big Data, how important do you all see citizen science being moving forward, given that computers will surely get better at visual recognition tasks? Lintott: In astronomy, if you're looking at things that are routine, like a spiral galaxy or a common type of supernova, I think the machines will take over. They will do so having been trained on the large datasets that citizen scientists will provide. But I think there will be citizen involvement for a long while and it will become more interesting as we use machines to do more of the routine work and filter the data. The tasks for citizen scientists will involve more varied things more of the unusual, Hanny's Voorwerp-type of discoveries. Plus, a lot of unusual discoveries will need to be followed up, and I'd like to see citizen scientists get further into the process of analysis. Without them, I think we're going to end up with a pile of interesting objects which professional scientists just don't have time to deal with. Verma: We have already seen a huge commitment from citizen scientists, particularly those who've spent a long time on Galaxy Zoo and Space Warps. For example, on Space Warps, we have a group of people who are interested in doing gravitational lens modeling, which has long been the domain of the professional astronomer. So we know that there's an appetite there to do further analysis with the objects theyve found. I think in the future, the citizen science community will work hand-in-hand with professional astronomers. TKF: Are there new citizen astrophysicist opportunities on the horizon related to your projects? Lintott: Galaxy Zoo has a new lease on life, actually. We just added in new galaxies from a telescope in Chile. These galaxies are relatively close and their images are beautiful. It's our first proper look at the southern sky, so we have an all-new part of the universe to explore. It gives users a chance to be the first to see galaxies if they get over to Galaxy Zoo quickly! Verma: For Space Warps, we are expecting new data and new projects to be online next year. More: Here in Japan, we are leading an imaging survey called the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) survey and it's going to be much larger and deeper than what we have been looking at so far. We expect to find more than an order of magnitude increase in the number of lenses. Currently, we are preparing images of the candidates from the HSC survey and hope to start a new lens search with Space Warps soon. If you're a topical expert researcher, business leader, author or innovator and would like to contribute an op-ed piece, email us here (Image credit: SPACE.com) TKF: Is it the thrill of discovery that entices most citizen scientist volunteers? Some of the images in Galaxy Zoo have never been seen before because they were taken by a robotic telescope and stored away. Volunteers therefore have the chance to see something no one else ever has. More: That discovery aspect is personal. I think it's always exciting for anyone. Lintott: When we set up Galaxy Zoo, we thought it would be a huge motivation to see something that's yours and be the first human to lay eyes on a galaxy. Exploring space in that way is something that until Galaxy Zoo only happened on "Star Trek." [Laughter] In the years since, we've also come to realize that citizen science is a collective endeavor. The people who've been through 10,000 images without finding anything have contributed to the discovery of something like the red ring galaxy just as much as the person who happens to stumble across it. You need to get rid of the empty data as well. I've been surprised by how much our volunteers believe that. It's a far cry from the traditional, public view of scientific discovery in which the lone genius makes the discovery and gets all the credit. Verma: We set out with Space Warps for citizen scientists to be part of our collaboration and they've really enabled us to produce important findings. They've inspired us with their dedication and productivity. We've learned from our analysis that basically anyone who joins Space Warps has an impact on the results. We are also especially grateful for a very dedicated, diligent group that has made most of the lens classifications. We look forward to welcoming everyone back in our future projects! Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates and become part of the discussion on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Space.com. NASA astronaut Tim Kopra and European Space Agency astronaut Tim Peake will work outside the International Space Station today (Jan. 14). Here, Peake is undergoing his final suit check Jan. 11. NASA astronaut Tim Kopra and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Tim Peake will take venture outside the International Space Station on a spacewalk today (Jan. 15) to repair one of the station's eight vital power channels. Peake is the first British astronaut to visit the International Space Station, and this will be his first spacewalk. Kopra, who has flown once before, went on a spacewalk with NASA astronaut Scott Kelly in December. This is his third spacewalk. You can watch the spacewalk live here beginning at 6:30 a.m. EST (1130 GMT), courtesy of NASA TV. The two spacewalking Tims are expected to exit the station by about 7:55 a.m. EST (1255 GMT). Peake and Kopra plan to spend about 6.5 hours working outside the space station during today's repair spacewalk. On Friday, Nov. 13, the space station lost one of the eight channels bringing power from the outstretched solar panels to the station itself. While it can function with only seven, any additional failure would be a problem so station officials scheduled a spacewalk to replace the shorted-out voltage regulator responsible for the failure. The astronauts will rush to replace it during one of the space station's 31 minute "nights," when the station is shielded from the sun by the Earth's shadow, NASA officials said during a news briefing. [Amazing Space Photos by Astronaut Tim Peake] Kopra will command the mission, so he'll head out first after Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov help the astronauts don their spacesuits. The duo will make their way all the way out along the arm of the station almost as far on the space station as one can go from the airlock, NASA officials said. Caption: Astronauts Tim Kopra and Tim Peake will take this route on their spacewalk today (Jan. 15) to replace a failed voltage regulator on one of the space station's eight power lines. (Image credit: NASA) The mission is also a time trial: the failed voltage regulator can only be replaced when the space station is in shadow, just in case it harbors any remaining power. The replacement process takes about 15 minutes, if all goes well, but NASA officials have developed contingency plans if they need to stop work in the middle and come back to it once the surroundings darken again. (NASA astronauts completed similar regulator replacement mission in 2014.) Afterward, the spacewalkers will work their way through some other tasks outside the space station including laying a long communications cable this part could take more than three hours, ESA officials said in a blog post add back a valve and release a bolt. Kopra, Peake and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko arrived at the space station in December, and they're joined by Kelly, Volkov and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko. Kelly and Kornienko will finish a one-year stay in space in March; Volkov will return then as well, leaving Kopra, Peake and Malenchenko to complete their six months in orbit. The lead spacewalk officer on the ground, Paul Dum, narrated an animated walkthrough of the spacewalk here, capturing the mission's complex choreography: Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her @SarahExplains. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com. The mock space shuttle Inspiration is set to move from the former U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in Florida to be prepared to go on tour along the waterways of the United States. A full-size model of a NASA space shuttle may soon journey on the waterways of the United States, embarking on a mission of education and "Inspiration." The mock-up orbiter "Inspiration,"which for two decades sat parked outside the Astronaut Hall of Fame in Florida, west of NASA's Kennedy Space Center, will depart on its first move as soon as Saturday morning (Jan. 16) to begin its transformation into an educational outreach tool and the showpiece for a company developing new communications technologies for future missions into deep space. "It is kind of an educational and promotional thing," stated John Pederson, the chief executive officer of LVX System, which has an agreement with NASA to study applications for visual light communication using LED light to stream data for missions to Mars and other destinations. Pederson envisions outfitting the Inspiration with a state-of-the-art theater and touring it, atop a barge, up and down America's rivers to bring the 120-foot-long (40 m) mock-up to areas where people may have never seen a shuttle up-close and in-person. [NASA's Space Shuttles: Where Are They Now?] "To allow people to see this, take pictures and experience it," he told collectSPACE.com on Tuesday (Jan. 12). "I was told by astronauts that 'When it comes to my state, I would like to be there.'" Before that can happen though, LVX first has to save the Inspiration. Installed outside the former Space Camp Florida and U.S. Astronaut Hall of Famein 1992, the Inspiration debuted on display as the "Shuttle To Tomorrow." Installed in its cargo bay was a 72-seat theater wherein the public experienced their own astronaut adventure through a 12-minute, multi-sensory video presentation that featured the rumbling of a launch, a simulated spacewalk and more. Space Camp trainees also used the full-size space shuttle to stage simulated missions inside its detailed crew cabin (markings still faintly visible on its right, or starboard, wing show the name of another orbiter, Endeavour; a carryover from its use by the camp). Despite an upgrade and repairs made about 10 years ago, exposure to the elements and recent years of disuse left Inspiration in very poor condition. "It was so far gone it needed to be destroyed," Pederson explained. "When we [initially] expressed interest, we were denied its use because really, it was virtually condemned and it was set for destruction." Pederson pledged to NASA that if LVX could take control of the mock-up, they'd spend "a whole bunch of money on it and bring it up to its former glory" and then some. [Space Shuttle Atlantis on Display: Museum Photos] "We have already probably spent in excess of half a million dollars fixing it up," he revealed. "We will probably spend in the neighborhood of $5 million when it's all finished." Work has been underway to fortify the Inspiration so that it could survive even its initial move. Some 20,000 lbs. (9,100 kg) of steel and thousands of welds were added to the structure to ensure that it holds together. Beyel Brothers Crane and Rigging of Cocoa, Florida has been conducting the repairs and will be responsible for the move. The company earlier transported another full-scale mock space shuttle, the Independence (formerly Explorer), which is now at Space Center Houston in Texas. In 2012, Beyel was also tasked with the final move of NASA's real space shuttle Atlantis, which is displayed at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. The mock space shuttle "Inspiration," previously named the "Shuttle to Tomorrow," housed a mul-ti-sensory theater and detailed crew cabin at the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in Florida. (Image credit: Beyel Brothers Crane and Rigging/ Julian Leek) Pending the weather, as well as possibly-needed permits and "politics," the Inspiration is targeted to start moving at 7 a.m. EST (1200 GMT) on Saturday for the 10 to 12 hour trip to Beyel's repair and upgrade facility on Merritt Island, located south of the space center. After exiting the property where it has sat for 20 years and clearing an overhead power line, the model orbiter will be moved by multi-wheeled transporter about half a mile (0.8 km) to the shore of the Indian River, where a crane will be used to lift and load the shuttle onto a barge. From there, it is expected to take about four hours for Inspiration to cross the river. Pederson estimates that it may take upwards of a year to develop the plan for the Inspiration's tour and complete the work to upgrade it accordingly. "We want to bring the flight and mid-deck to a very realistic and workable level," he said. The payload bay will also be completely renovated to be an "immersive environment" where the floor, ceiling and walls envelop guests in a movie where the bay doors appear to open into space. Ultimately, Pederson hopes the Inspiration can deliver just that inspiration for both the public's and his company's benefit. "What LVX looks to get out of this are two things," he said. "First, the satisfaction of just doing it, because I own LVX System and I love NASA." "Secondly, the credibility of having done this and bringing it to people," Pederson stated. "Of course, every corporation likes to have those kinds of things. That will be the fun part of it bringing it to a lot of people who have probably never had the chance to see the space shuttle and giving them the chance to see one." Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2016 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved. NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, bottom, and cosmonauts Yuri Malenchenko and Sergey Volkov help NASA astronaut Tim Kopra out of his spacesuit on Jan. 15, 2016. Kopra's spacewalk with ESA astronaut Tim Peake (still in airlock) was terminated early due to a droplet of water forming in his helmet (visible top left). For the second time in less than three years, a spacewalk outside of the International Space Station has been cut short because of a water leak in an astronaut's helmet. A spacewalk involving NASA astronaut Tim Kopra and British colleague Tim Peake was called off about 2 hours early today (Jan. 15) when Kopra noticed some water inside his helmet. The incident was reminiscent of a similar one involving Italian spaceflyer Luca Parmitano in July 2013, but was not nearly as dramatic or severe, NASA officials said. Parmitano noticed a significant buildup of water in his helmet the result of a problem with his spacesuit's water-circulating cooling system, investigators later determined whereas Kopra dealt with a much smaller amount. [How NASA Spacesuits Work: EMUs Explained (Infographic)] "The crew is not in any danger whatsoever, but the decision was made, playing it safe, to get the crew back inside and to get them in a safe configuration," NASA commentator Rob Navias said during the spacewalk. Kopra and Peake began the spacewalk, or extravehicular activity (EVA), at 7:48 a.m. EST (1248 GMT) today, and were scheduled to be outside the orbiting lab for about 6.5 hours. They accomplished their main goal replacing a failed voltage regulator in efficient fashion, then set to performing some secondary tasks. Astronauts Tim Kopra and Tim Peake were directed to return early from their spacewalk on Jan. 15, 2016 after Kopra noticed a water bubble in his helmet. Before that, they completed their major objective of replacing a failed voltage regulator for one of the space station's eight power lines, following this route from the airlock. (Image credit: NASA) Kopra noticed a small bubble of water inside his helmet at 11:56 a.m. EST (1656 GMT), and shortly thereafter spacewalk controllers on the ground decided to terminate the EVA as a precaution, NASA officials said. The two astronauts were back inside the International Space Station, safe and sound, by 12:31 p.m. EST (1731 GMT). "I could definitely tell the sides were swollen," Kopra said after getting back to the space station, referring to the water-absorbing pad inside his helmet. "The first time I noticed it was probably just about the same time that I saw the water start to come down from the top, and it was fairly noticeable. The difference between nominal and what I initially felt was pretty small." The next step is figuring out what exactly happened. "Commander Scott Kelly will assist the crew members with an expedited removal of their spacesuits and helmets," NASA officials wrote in an update today. "Once they have removed the spacesuits and helmets, the astronauts will use a syringe to take a water sample and retrieve the helmet absorption pad to determine what may have prompted the water to form inside Kopra's helmet." Before noticing the leak, Kopra had also reported a higher-than-normal carbon dioxide reading, which was traced to a faulty sensor in his spacesuit. Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com. NASA is about to get up close and personal with Earth's corals: The space agency will use airplanes and water instruments to survey these delicate structures and capture the most detailed views ever of the planet's corals. Corals are crucial to Earth's ecosystem, but they are typically studied only occasionally, during diving expeditions. This means that many of the world's reefs have never been surveyed. Yet coral reefs host one-quarter of all ocean fish species, shelter shorelines from storms and are a source of food for millions of people. The new NASA campaign is aptly named CORAL (short for COral Reef Airborne Laboratory), and aims to assess the condition of these vulnerable ecosystems and to collect data on the size and quality of the reefs. [Images: Colorful Corals of the Deep Barrier Reef] "Right now, the state of the art for collecting coral-reef data is scuba diving with a tape measure," Eric Hochberg, CORAL principal investigator and a scientist at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences in St. George's, said in a statement. "It's analogous to looking at a few trees and then trying to say what the forest is doing." As part of the campaign, CORAL researchers will visit the Great Barrier Reef and other reefs in Australia, as well as reefs in Florida, Hawaii, Palau and the Mariana Islands. The scientists will use an airborne instrument called the Portable Remote Imaging Spectrometer (PRISM), which was created at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The spectrometer will be used with on-site instruments in the water to monitor the reef's condition. One of PRISM's tasks will be to record the ratio of algae to reef on a coral. When corals die, algae numbers typically increase, and the spectral signatures of corals and algae show up differently in the spectrometer, NASA said. Based on the limited data available so far, scientists think 33 percent to 50 percent of Earth's coral reefs are degraded or dead. Some reef scientists think that reefs could all but vanish by the middle of the century. Though it will be comprehensive, the three-year CORAL campaign will cover only 3 percent to 4 percent of the world's reefs. "Ideally, in a decade or so, we'll have a satellite that can frequently and accurately observe all of the world's reefs, and we can push the science and, most importantly our understanding even further," Hochberg said. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science. Ukraine has thanked Germany for opposing Russia's attempts to change the borders in Europe by force, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said. "We appreciate a firm stance of Germany according to which Russia's attempts to change the borders in Europe by force are unacceptable," the minister said during a special meeting of OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna on Thursday. Moreover, the minister also welcomed statement of German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier that Germany during its presidency would focus on the peace settlement of the crisis in Ukraine as one of the priority issues. According to Klimkin, a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Donbas depends on Russia's and its proxies' implementation of the Minsk Agreements. Klimkin also reminded the audience that restored honoring of the principles of Helsinki Final Act remains critical for restoration of trust to OSCE. Optimization Are you frustrated with a slow pc or a hard disk not performing as it should? Try SLOW-PCfighter to speed up boot time on a slow PC, or try a free scan of FULL-DISKfighter to recover space on a full disk. The latest offering is DRIVERfighter to update your driver updater. Get complete PC optimization and extend the life of your PC with these must-have software tools. A total of 178 military service members of the Ukrainian National Guard have been killed since the authorities in Kyiv launched the anti-terrorist operation in Donbas, said Valeriy Shandursky, who is in charge of personnel at the National Guard. Also, 735 national guards were injured, 24 went missing, and six are being held captive by militants, he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Friday. A total of 158 families of the dead soldiers were paid lump-sum compensations totaling UAH 95,562,000; those with injuries and heavy injuries have been paid in total UAH 25,571,000. "There are no arrears on the payouts," the National Guard official stressed. Around 400 military service members of the National Guard have undergone rehabilitation, Shandursky said. "With the assistance from public organizations and embassies, 48 military service members underwent rehabilitation abroad," he said. All military service members who lost limbs have received prosthetic ones, three more are expected to receive prostheses before the middle of 2016, he said. The status of a combatant has already been assigned to 18,818 military service members. "That is 84.1% of the entire military personnel of the National Guard," he said. In March 2014 Verkhovna Rada passed a law creating the National Guard of Ukraine as a military branch of the Interior Ministry with law enforcement duties. The anti-terrorist operation in eastern Ukraine began in mid-April 2014. The police protocol notes that the Turkish tour guide heard "a clicking sound" shortly before the blast. She spotted a man wearing Western clothes and a goatee in the middle of the group who didn't belong. The police report says she thought he was a Turkish man. She screamed in German: "Run away!" -- and then the bomb went off. Were Germans Deliberate Targets? Perhaps greater clarity isn't necessary to send out the disturbing message: that no country, no place where Europeans go on vacation, is safe. That it doesn't matter who is hit, because everyone is an enemy -- and thus, a target -- for the terrorists. Even retirees from Germany. It is thus far unclear whether the attack was specifically intended to target Germans as a response to the country's military involvement in the airstrikes being carried out against Islamic State in Syria. It was only a few days ago that German Tornado reconnaissance planes began taking off for Syria from the Turkish military base in Incirlik. German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere quickly sought to dismiss such concerns. "I don't see any reason to avoid traveling to Turkey," he said. But German security officials have a different view. "Those who say there are no indications that Germans were the target of the attack should also be honest enough to say that there are no indications that they weren't," says one high-ranking government official. De Maiziere's words are thus better interpreted as an attempt to reassure the Germans and as a courtesy to the Turks. Berlin, after all, is more dependent than ever on goodwill from Ankara, particularly when it comes to solving the refugee crisis. The European Union recently promised Ankara 3 billion and the easing of visa requirements if Turkey makes an effort to prevent refugees from embarking on the journey to Europe. In addition, the Chancellery has for weeks refrained from criticism when it comes to authoritarian tendencies exhibited by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ankara's aggressive policies toward the Kurds and the country's approach to fighting terrorism. Berlin is now hoping that the shock from the attack will help heal the growing split in Turkish society. And that Erdogan will finally focus his attentions on IS now that it's not just Kurds who are dying, but also German tourists. Perhaps, though, that is a bit too much to hope for. This week, at least, there was little evidence that introspection was on the agenda. Turkey Long Underestimated Extremist Threat The government has presented the attack in Istanbul as a conspiracy, with Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu saying that "secret powers" had used IS as a "subcontractor." The tabloid Star, which is closely linked to the state, accused Russia of having orchestrated the attack. Just as it did following the attack in Ankara, the Turkish government is attempting to use conspiracy theories to distract from its own failures. Turkey, after all, long underestimated the danger presented by Islamist extremists and thus helped their ascent. When the insurgency in Syria began, Erdogan hoped to finally be able to topple Bashar Assad with the help of Syrian fundamentalists. He ignored -- or perhaps simply accepted -- who exactly he was supporting in the effort. And he ignored the fact that IS was becoming ever stronger. Whereas Jordan's security services prevented foreigners from traveling onward to Syria, making it unattractive for jihadists, Turkey basically welcomed them. Jihadists from Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, the Caucasus and Western Europe were neither intercepted nor prevented from traveling onward to the warzone. And they weren't difficult to spot: At the airport of Hatay, a city in southern Turkey, bearded men would check in for their flights home wearing battle fatigues and with mud on their shoes. For years, IS was able to maintain apartments, warehouses and even military training camps in Turkey. The group was also able to organize supplies of weapons, munitions, food and medicines via Turkey. Islamic State sent its fighters to Turkish hospitals near the Syrian border for treatment. Dubious companies issued certificates of employment so that foreign jihadists were able to get year-long residency permits with no trouble at all. Islamic State was also able to recruit new followers with virtually no fear of interference -- and officials simply ignored information provided by Turkish parents whose children had joined the extremists. As recently as 2014, IS was able to openly recruit new followers in Istanbul, Ankara and other cities. Young men and women from around the world only had to visit the teahouses neighboring certain mosques to join the group, while shops openly sold IS souvenirs, such as banners, stickers and flags. Concern Came Too Late This laissez-faire approach was slowly replaced by concern in 2014, but by then it was too late. So many IS supporters and fighters were active in Turkey that they had become a danger to the country's security. Yet instead of doing something about it, the decision was apparently made to avoid putting pressure on them in the hopes that Turkey wouldn't become a target as well. An unofficial member of the Turkish secret service MIT said in mid-2014 that he had never seen officials so nervous. "They are really afraid of IS because they know that their cells are everywhere in the country and could perpetrate attacks," he said. Initially, though, the jihadists refrained from carrying out attacks so as not to endanger their bridgeheads elsewhere in the world. That changed last summer with the attack on Suruc, which is thought to have been carried out by IS, likely to fan the flames of Turkey's conflict with the Kurds. The Kurds, after all, are Islamic State's largest and most powerful enemy in both Syria and Iraq. The shock over the 34 people killed in the attack -- in addition to added pressure from the US and Europe and the negative headlines about their lax approach to IS -- moved Turkey to finally intensify its pursuit of the jihadists. Checks at borders and airports were increased and suspects were arrested -- more than 400 of them in 2015, according to the think tank Crisis Group. After initial hesitation, Ankara joined the international coalition against the terror militia and provided the Americans with access to military bases. At least since then, Islamic State has seen Turkey as an enemy. In an IS propaganda video, Erdogan was cursed as the "devil" and calls were made for the "conquer of Istanbul." Recently, IS issued warnings in Turkish-language videos of an impending attack. The Turkish daily Hurriyet also reported on two tips that Turkey's MIT intelligence service allegedly passed along on Dec. 17 and Jan. 4. In its tips, the intelligence service reportedly warned that suicide attackers in Ankara and Istanbul were awaiting deployment. On New Year's Eve, two Turks were arrested who had allegedly admitted a short time before they intended to carry out an attack in the capital city. A Shift in IS' Strategy Whereas previous attacks had targeted Kurds, Washington-based terrorism expert Aaron Stein argues the latest attack indicates a shift in IS strategy, showing it now seeks to inflict damage on the Turkish economy by attacking tourists. Terrorism researcher Peter Neumann of King's College in London believes the Istanbul attacker was part of IS and that he was not acting alone. Neumann says he is unaware of any case in which someone has built a suicide belt of their own accord and then successfully deployed it. In addition, IS supporters cheered the attack in social media and the group still has an excellent infrastructure in Turkey. Even if Turkey has stepped up its fight against IS, the terror militia is still active in the country. Only a short time ago, IS murdered two Syrian journalists in Sanliurfa, a city in southeastern Turkey. And just to the west, in Gaziantep, a Syrian documentary filmmaker was shot dead in front of a shopping center. Plus, figures circulated by the Turkish government claiming 3,000 arrests in connection with anti-IS operations should also be viewed critically, warns a German intelligence source. Few of those arrested remain in detention, the source says, with the majority getting released quickly afterward. Turkey's MIT secret service plays a particularly ambivalent role in anti-terror efforts. There are some indications suggesting MIT may have worked together with IS -- at least in the past. A weapons delivery in 2014 also raised suspicions that MIT may have been providing Syrian extremists with direct support. At the time, an informant alerted Turkish security forces about a weapons delivery heading for Syria and a public prosecutor had the transport -- which was being accompanied by MIT agents -- searched. The Turkish government banned any news coverage and spoke of an "aid delivery" to Turkmen in the northwest of Syria. Video recordings, however, suggest they were carrying munitions. Government critics claim they were being sent to IS, but there is no evidence to prove that. Can Turkey Be Trusted? This puts Western intelligence services in a difficult position: Can the Turks be trusted? Still, European diplomats in Turkey take information provided by MIT about potential IS terrorists seriously. For example, MIT has provided concrete information about possible terrorist attackers who are making their way to Europe or are already there. One diplomat, an expert on security issues, notes that Turkey maintains a "network of informants in Syria and Iraq that should not be underestimated." Few other intelligence agencies have such good sources in the region. The source says the Turkish government has in fact "perceptibly increased" its efforts to combat IS during the last six months. Still, the source adds, doubts persist when it comes to Ankara's political agenda. "There's always a residual risk about whether Ankara is truly interested in fighting IS, or if it actually has secret sympathies -- either because it wants to use it as a means to weaken Assad or because, they feel closer to their fellow believers for religious reasons (as predominantly Sunni Muslims)," the source says. Other experts draw a less flattering comparison to Pakistan's ISI intelligence service. With ISI, too, they say, you never know which side it is actually on -- whether it is combatting or supporting the Taliban or doing both at the same time. European diplomats also find it problematic that MIT was given additional responsibilities in 2014 such that it can now be used as a "domestic policy instrument." The secret service now has much greater access to data from companies, banks and their customers. "It is making life difficult for all people who are unpopular with the government," the diplomat says. He says this has also resulted in further incursions into press freedoms. Journalists who report on the intelligence agency's activities can now be subject to prosecution and stiff prison sentences because it can be claimed that they threaten security. A Country with Ubiquitous Challenges On top of all this is the fact that Turkey is simply overwhelmed. In southeastern Turkey, the army is fighting what is essentially a civil war against members of the Kurdish opposition and the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has attacked and killed security forces multiple times. The country has taken in millions of refugees from Syria. It is participating in the international alliance against IS. It has a 900-kilometer (559-mile) long border to Syria it has to guard. Add to all this the fact that it has to observe hundreds and perhaps even thousands of jihadists inside its own borders. If it didn't sound so cynical, one could almost say: What has happened was inevitable. And those who wanted to could have seen it coming long ago. A little over a year ago, political scientist Behlul Ozkan of Istanbul's Marmara University predicted rather precisely what might happen in the event of an attack. "A few tourists die and that's the end of tourism, one of the most important pillars of our economy," he said. At the time, he was warning of the possibility of a single bombing attack at a hotel along the Mediterranean coast. Now, in winter, it appears that Istanbul's historical center made a more suitable place for targeting foreign tourists. Turkey is dependent on tourism. Last year, the industry had just under $31 billion in revenues, with the greatest numbers of visitors coming from Russia and Germany. If vacationers were to avoid the country in the future, in addition to harming the tourism industry, it could also create tumult for a Turkish economy that is already experiencing difficulties. Which helps explain why the country is now doing all it can to demonstrate strength. The army has begun shelling dozens of IS positions in Syria and Iraq with tanks and artillery, and it has arrested 74 suspected Islamic State members in Turkey. But swift success against the terrorist militia is unlikely. Security forces carried out raids against IS supporters right after the attack in Ankara as well. The state succeeded in disrupting the group's operations, but it didn't manage to destroy its structures. "After years in which IS was able to build up a network in Turkey unhindered, the confrontation now will be protracted and difficult," predicts Turkey expert Stein. Political Consequences for Germany The attack in Istanbul could also impact refugee policy and, as such, have enormous political consequences for Germany. Just a few days ago, Ankara announced it would issue work visas to some of the 2.2 million Syrian refugees who have entered into the country since 2011. It's a step that would improve living conditions for refugees in Turkey and presumably help stem the flow to Germany. Now, some politicians in the Turkish government are questioning whether the step should be reversed. But restrictions and animosity towards refugees in Turkey might intensify the exodus to Europe. And the Turkish government might be even less inclined to try to stop them from making the crossing to Greece. Against that backdrop, the German government will have to cooperate even more closely with Erdogan in the future, closing its eyes or looking the other way when it comes to critical questions about democracy, rule of law and the free press. More than a hundred civilians have again perished in southeastern Turkey in recent weeks, curfews have been imposed in many cities and tens of thousands of Kurds have been expelled. The renewed escalation in the decades-long conflict has intensified polarization, opening a window of opportunity for the jihadists to play different ethnic groups off against each other and to exploit the anger of the oppressed and the marginalized. Unfortunately, it looks as though Erdogan is going to grant them exactly the favor they would like to see. Following Tuesday's attack in Istanbul, the president gave a speech to Turkish diplomats. He thundered for a half an hour over an open letter signed by academics calling for peace in southeast Turkey -- and arrested several of the signatories on Friday -- and he lashed out against the PKK and the political opposition. And Erdogan also spoke about what happened in Istanbul. But just briefly. He only spent a little less than a minute talking about the attack. Apparently that's all he thought it was worth. By Maik Baumgartner, Jorg Diehl, Hasnain Kazim, Martin Knobbe, Juliane von Mittelstaedt, Maximilian Popp, Christoph Reuter, Sven Robel, Fidelius Schmid, Charlotte Schmitz, Christoph Schult and Antje Windmann California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment evaluated air samples collected by SoCal Gas in the Porter Ranch neighborhood between Nov. 1 and Jan. 9. The analysis included an assessment of benzene and other toxic chemicals and concluded that "available Porter Ranch neighborhood air sample data does not indicate that an acute toxicity health hazard exists in the Porter Ranch neighborhood as a result of the Aliso Canyon natural gas leak." The agency said the symptoms reported by many Porter Ranch residents can be attributed to mercaptan, an odorant added to the otherwise odorless natural gas. Mercaptan smells like rotten eggs and helps in leak detection. "These odors can evoke physiological responses (e.g. nausea, headaches) without inducing more serious or longer-lasting health effects, such as eye, or respiratory system damage," the office said. Independent scientists, however, questioned those findings. The "acute" guideline is "the most cautious interpretation you could take," Michael Jerrett, the chair of the UCLA Department of Environmental Health Sciences, told the Los Angeles Daily News . Acute guidelines focus on health effects from breathing significantly elevated levels of benzene over a short period but don't assess the health effects of inhaling lower levels over a longer time. "There's a potential here for health effects that could be experienced long term," Jerrett told the paper. Phillips made the same point. "We are going in for a half hour at a time to check out the plume, but if I had that as a constant condition in my place of work or home, I would definitely be concerned about it," Phillips said. The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment's analysis was based on measurements that were collected twice daily. "One thing I was most struck by was the inadequacy of once or twice a day sampling stations," said Robert Jackson, an earth system science professor at Stanford University who joined Phillips and Ackley in taking methane readings over the weekend. "There is an array of a dozen sampling stations that sample gases once or twice a day," Jackson said. "The area needs more real-time continuous sampling." There should also be additional sampling locations outside the Porter Ranch neighborhood, he said. The South Coast Air Quality Management District has taken 24-hour readings on six days in Porter Ranch since Dec. 21. "The benzene levels are actually on the low side of what we see typically in the LA area," said Sam Atwood, spokesman for the air quality district. "They were all 0.1 parts per billion with the exception of one, which was 0.2 parts per billion. Typically we would see anywhere from 0.1 to 0.5 parts per billion. That's good news. We're not seeing elevated levels, at least in these continuous 24-hour samples." Phillips disputed the characterization of low levels of benzene and other toxic compounds. "They are documented carcinogens," Phillips said. "You really can't say there is a safe level." #Sheep365 made its debut on Twitter many months ago the brainwave of two sheep farmers who met as part of the NSA Next Generation Ambassador programme. But it is now a popular movement showcased on the @LoveBritishLamb Facebook and Twitter pages by Rachel Lumley, the woman behind #BritishLambWeek last autumn. @LoveBritishLamb is posting a daily image of sheep farming and encouraging other social media enthusiasts to generate their own posts, as well as liking and sharing #Sheep365 content. Volunteers can also take a guest spot for a week, with their posts being showcased across both social media channels. Hannah Park, NSA Communications Officer, says: Sheep content, and particularly photos, are really popular on Twitter and Facebook. NSA supports #Sheep365 and encourages producers who use social media to remember the hashtag and even volunteer to take a guest spot for a week. The interest in #Sheep365 reveals an appetite from the general public in the role of sheep farming, but is also creating an enthusiastic community of farmers who are looking to do something positive for the industry in what has been a difficult time for many. It has got people talking and can only be going the right way in terms of raising awareness and helping to underpin and support our home market. KYIV. Jan 15 (Interfax-Ukraine) On Saturday, January 16, Kyiv will host an evening to commemorate the last defenders of the Donetsk airport, namely 59 'cyborgs', who died while defending this airfield in January, 2014. "On January 16, at 1500, the House of Officers will host an event to commemorate the last defenders of the Donetsk airport. They are the last because around 60 volunteers who stepped forward to defend this area died on January 19-20, 2014, after militants blew up the columns which supported the concrete slabs of the building," Board Chairman of the All-Ukrainian Alliance of ATO Fighters and Volunteers Oleksiy Kopyshynsky said at a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine news agency. He said that after militants blew up the columns, the negotiations as to the possibility for Ukrainian search groups to enter the territory of the airport had lasted for two months. The groups have worked for six months and as of today the remains of 59 of the Donetsk airport defenders have already been identified. As reported, the search for those killed at the Donetsk airport was conducted in the presence of representatives of the OSCE, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Joint Center for Control and Coordination overseeing the ceasefire and stabilization of the contact line. "Relatives of those killed have put forward an initiative to hold a remembrance evening. And we want to appeal to authorities to declare January 20 the National Day of Remembrance of the Legendary 'Cyborgs'," Kopyshynsky said. In his turn, head of the NGO 'NAPALM' Association of ATO Participants Myroslav Farfaniuk urged the public and the authorities to do their best to honor all the fallen defenders of the Donetsk airport. "Relatives of the victims should receive all the attention, all the benefits, the land plots everything that the government has promised," he said. The program of the evening to commemorate the Donetsk airport defenders includes the following events: a ceremony to award the families of the killed solders with decorations, a video story about lives of each of the 'cyborgs', and a concert-requiem. Besides, an evening to honor the fallen defenders of the Donetsk airport and pay tribute to those who survived, as well as a funeral march will take place on Mykhaylivska Square on January 22. Autumn Driscoll / Hearst Connecticut Media In the midst of a lingering crisis over food-borne illnesses, Chipotle Mexican Grill on Friday said its stores will open several hours later than normal for one day next month so it can hold a meeting following a series of food scares. The Denver-based chain says all its stores will open at 3 p.m. local time on Feb. 8, four hours later than usual. Redirect ginormous conglomerate to industrial roots? Check. Find new home for headquarters in a tech-rich city to attract future leaders? Check. Set a date to celebrate the big 6-0? Check. Will Jeff Immelt be checking out? Coming off a frenetic two-year stretch in which the General Electric chairman and CEO has largely exited myriad GE Capital financial services units, made the largest acquisition in company history with Alstoms power business and reshuffled its executive ranks, Immelt is nearing completion of a fundamental rethinking of GE that has extended right to the Boston location of his corner office. With Immelt turning 60 next month, it is a fair question to ask: how long does Immelt plan to occupy the Fairfield-based companys new offices in Boston after moving the rest of his staff north? Or put another way, what is possibly left for him to accomplish as an encore? Over the past 20 months, the question of GEs CEO succession has been posed in the Wall Street Journal and Forbes, among other outlets including Fortune, which last June posted a video of Immelt reflecting on his tenure and answering the question of whether hes been in the job too long. Im the ninth chairman in a 140-year-old company do the math, Immelt said in the forum recorded by Fortune. Its a belief that, in order for companies to be successful, you need a horizon that allows you to make big changes when thats required, like what weve done the last decade. GEs biggest change under Immelt the breakup of GE Capital was mostly accomplished in fewer than 12 months. As GE assimilates its $9.2 billion acquisition of Alstoms power business and sets about building its software capabilities against a vision of an industrial Internet, the success of those endeavors will depend much on the lieutenants who are driving the company to execute Immelts grand plan. The nameplates on the doors nearest Immelts office have changed dramatically the past few years. John Rice, a vice chair who oversees global operations from Hong Kong, is joined in New York City and Fairfield by Beth Comstock, who leads GE Business Innovations; and Daniel Heintzelman, who has responsibility for services and operations across GEs industrial subsidiaries. Other senior leaders Immelt has put into place in the past few years include Alex Dimitrief, who replaced longtime general counsel Brackett Denniston in November; Auditing head Jamey Mock; Chief Technology Officer Victor Abbate; Philippe Cochet, who returned to GE from Alstom as chief productivity officer; John Flannery, CEO of GE Healthcare; GE Capital Chief Operating Officer Tom Gentile; and Bill Ruh, chief digital officer. And leading the massive divestment of GE Capital was unit CEO Keith Sherin, whom Immelt shifted from his role as GE chief financial officer and placed Jeff Bornstein in the job as Sherin focused on finding buyers. The companys stock (NYSE: GE) peaked above $31 in December, compared with less than $25 in 2014. GE has not made clear what Sherins role will be once the company has sold the few remaining GE Capital assets. Running the companys remaining financial arms focused on niche sectors like transportation and health care would seem a small role for an executive who has led what was one of the worlds biggest lenders. GE has traditionally has found its next CEO from within its own ranks Immelt himself was part of a three-way race to succeed the legendary Jack Welch taking the reins less than a week after the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York after beating out Robert Nardelli, who went on to lead Chrysler and Home Depot and Jim McNerney, who became CEO of 3M and later, Boeing. Waiting game As calculated in the simplest metric possible compensation Rice and Sherin were the second and third most-valuable GE executives in 2014, earning $15.2 million and $11.9 million exclusion pension values, with Immelt earning $18.9 million. Nardelli himself described the waiting game in a Bloomberg TV segment in 2014 speculating on the eventual process for finding Immelts successor. When Jeff and Jim and myself were all hoping to get the nod, the timeline for that was relatively close, so you kind of hang in there, Nardelli said. You spend 30 years training to move into the position, so you want to see the race through. If Rice or Sherin are GE lifers, the man they work for is more than that. In Cincinnati, where Immelt was raised before attending Dartmouth College and Harvard Business School, his father Joseph was an engineer at the predecessor company to GE Aviation. In the Fortune forum from June, Immelt said he has never seen the job as his by figurative birthright. Were a performance (driven) company nobody has a legacy for anything, Immelt said. Its not like people say, Hey, dont worry about it youve got another five years or three years. Im paranoid everyday about where the company is. But theres not one customer in the world that I dont know better than any of my competitors. I probably personally know inside (GE) 5,000 or 10,000 people. I have an incredible access and connection with people that work inside the company (and) thats important. GE itself has noted that all of its business units take responsibility for grooming their most promising staffers to take over the top leadership roles. The Conference Board, in an annual study of CEO changes among companies listed in the S&P 500, found the succession rate for those aged 64 or older was 29 percent in 2014, the highest level of the past few years and almost three times the average succession rate for the entire S&P 500 that year. In public appearances, the ever-affable Immelt projects an image of genuinely loving his job, and it is possible he will stay in the C-suite office long enough for his new local legacy as the man who took GE out of Fairfield to fade. In his 15th year leading GE, Immelt has given little indication for how long he plans to stay in the role, and the company is not saying anything on that front either, with spokeswoman Deirdre Latour offering a succinct answer to a Hearst query about the New Canaan residents succession plans. Hes the CEO of GE, she said. To the editor, The announcement that GE is leaving the state, which represents yet another big company moving out, can serve as a positive turning point, but only if our representatives in state government react accordingly. The time has come to focus efforts on making Connecticut a state supportive of all businesses vs. just the largest ones. Policies that those on both aisles have passed in recent years have sent a message to the largest population of businesses namely small ones that operating in Connecticut means having to deal with over-regulation, anti-business policies and laws, and a generally negative environment. The days of luring big companies to Connecticut seem to be over, as is evident by a 30 percent-plus vacancy rate in commercial real estate in the county . . . and growing, made up mostly of huge vacant campuses and structures. The sooner state government starts to reflect true support toward business the sooner we can recover from yet one more company moving out of the state. David Lewis of Stamford is CEO of OperationsInc, a 15-year-old Norwalk-based human resources consulting practice in Norwalk that supports hundreds of Fairfield County-based clients. He is also president and co-founder of The CEO Roundtable, a membership group of 30 area small business owners. For eight months, the Stamford Board of Education has put off discussing its policy governing educators suspected of sexual misconduct with students. But board members wont be able to delay much longer. Last month, President Barack Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act, which includes a mandate that school districts establish policies prohibiting administrators from ridding their systems of such educators by helping them obtain jobs in other districts. Details for implementing the law have not been finalized, but school districts may have only until October to prohibit the practice. Districts that dont comply risk losing their federal funding. Known as passing the trash, the practice has been longstanding nationwide. School administrators strike confidential deals with suspect employees who, if they agree to resign, are paid some portion of their salary and given a letter of recommendation so they can seek work in another district. Stamford did it in 2012. The confidential deals are called separation agreements. Rippowam Middle School Assistant Principal Michael Rinaldi has been calling for a ban on separation agreements since June. The new school board leader, Geoff Alswanger, mentioned last month during his first meeting as president that there is a need to resolve this, Rinaldi said. Many new board members spoke about it on the campaign trail leading up to the November election. I cant emphasize enough how encouraged I am about the new board and their public positions so far. But now its time to act. I look forward to seeing whether they will put separation agreements on the agenda for their Jan. 26 meeting. Alswanger said in an email that, with a nearly all-new school board and Congress taking the lead, Stamford can begin to take action. We will share an overview of this legislation with all board members at the next regular board meeting, and we intend to begin public discussion by our Policy Committee in February, Alswanger wrote. We will work with our collective bargaining units as well as our state legislators to come up with a policy that helps ensure the safety of students in all districts. He hopes to have a policy before October, making Stamford a leader by going beyond the requirements of the law, Alswanger wrote. Rinaldi became concerned about passing the trash in 2011, when he was one of four Stamford High School assistant principals who tried to get district officials to take action in a case in which a freshman girl reported that a male teacher had touched her breast. Administrators determined that the touching was accidental and the teacher returned to his classroom. After the assistant principals who raised other concerns as well spoke out, three, including Rinaldi, were transferred out of Stamford High. Within a year the same teacher was discovered inside his locked classroom, lights out, with a different female student. Administrators suspended him for two days without pay and sent him back to his job. Eight months after that, in late 2012, the same teacher sent an inappropriate text message to a third female student. The girls father reported it to school administrators and the teacher was not seen at Stamford High again. But the teacher wasnt fired. The Advocate learned last year that district officials allowed him to leave with his $80,000 annual salary, though hed worked only two months, gave him a letter of recommendation and agreed that, should a prospective employer contact them, they would say hed resigned in good standing. Then-Superintendent Winifred Hamilton told The Advocate last year that such agreements are not uncommon in school districts throughout the state, as a way to resolve employment situations. Not any more. Terri Miller is president of a nonprofit group, Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct and Exploitation, that pushed for the new legislation. Miller said it is a huge breakthrough. Passing the trash has created a pool of mobile molesters in the nations schools, Miller said. We dont find out about them until they offend again. The new law means its mandated that an offender be stopped from the first incident. School districts are not going to be able to cover it up, Miller said. It means children will be better protected and the people in our classrooms will be better vetted. SESAME still has work to do, Miller said. The group also pushed for a mandate that all school systems conduct nationwide background checks on new hires, and repeat checks on employees. But Congress left that out. I dont understand why, she said, because Congress recently passed such a mandate for day-care centers and preschools. Stamfords interim superintendent, James Connelly, said he will do everything he can to ensure Stamford bans separation agreements. From my own experience, I have been very disheartened about districts, and superintendents in particular, who are not honest about some of the people they give references to, said Connelly, who was longtime superintendent of Bridgeport schools and has spent the last 15 years as an interim, most recently in Norwalk. I have been a victim as a superintendent where people who shouldnt be in education were given a general and sometimes very positive reference, and these people have been involved in behaviors that should keep them out of education, Connelly said. In the last 10 years I would say I have run into it half a dozen times. If there is a problem with a teacher in a district he supervises, he acts quickly, Connelly said. A lot of districts wait for (the state Department of Children and Families) or the courts before they start the process of revoking a teachers certification. They can stay on paid leave for months or years, Connelly said. I dont agree with that. If I know I am on sound legal grounds I initiate revocation proceedings. I dont wait for DCF or police to give me cover. That is different from what has been happening in Stamford. Im probably more aggressive than others, but I feel very strongly about it, Connelly said. School districts know when a behavior is against its policies and regulations. When you see it, you have to act. angela.carella@scni.com; 203-964-2296; stamfordadvocate.com/ angelacarella T wo former senior bosses at the Co-op Bank have been fined and barred from ever working for a bank again for their roles in its near-collapse in 2013, saying they posed an unacceptable threat to the safety of the business. Barry Tootell, who was first finance director and then chief executive of the bank between January 2009 and late 2013, has been fined 173,802 by the Prudential Regulation Authority. His former colleague Keith Alderson, then managing director of Co-op Banks Corporate and Business Banking division, has been fined 88,890. Both have been barred from working for PRA-authorised firms in any significant role. The fines are the first the PRA has imposed on individuals and follow its censure of Co-op Bank, which needed a 1.5 billion bailout, last August. The PRA said that Tootell had been centrally involved in a culture which encouraged prioritising the short-term financial position of the firm at the cost of taking prudent and sustainable actions to secure the firms longer-term capital position. The regulators head Andrew Bailey said: The actions of Tootell and Alderson posed an unacceptable threat to the safety and soundness of the Co-op Bank, which is why we have decided a prohibition is appropriate in these cases. H arold Tillman, the former owner of Jaeger and Aquascutum, bought the rights to some of the most famous pictures of David Bowie just weeks before the rock stars death on Sunday. His company Global Rebels USA bought the licence rights to print the Bowie images (shot by photographer Terry ONeill and including David Bowie Scissors, 1974, above, on clothes and accessories. The plan was to put together a whole collection to be sold through a couple of top retailers internationally. Obviously we had no idea of the tragedy that was about to happen, Tillman said. Global Rebels will now accelerate the creation of the ranges to get them on the shelves in about six weeks with most of the proceeds going to cancer charities. Bowie's death from liver cancer was met with shock and an outpouring of grief from fans around the world. He had released his final album, Blackstar, just days earlier. It emerged on Thursday that he was secretly cremated in New York with no family or friends present. A s possibly one of the most highly educated segments of the public sector, I think it is a safe to assume the junior doctors clearly know that Jeremy Hunts proposal is a bad deal, resulting in more hours of work and less pay for them. Or does Mr Hunt and the rest of the Government think they are stupid? My wife had the misfortune of needing urgent medical attention on New Years Day and, as we all take for granted, she received excellent and prompt care, including ambulance services, CT scans in the early hours and a major operation, followed by care during recovery. This was given by a fantastic team of specialist doctors and nursing staff at the neurosurgery department of University College Hospital in Queen Square all working over that holiday weekend. People need to wake up and realise that the NHS is under pressure from this stupidly dogmatic Government. These doctors and medical staff have fantastic devotion to their calling and the only person jeopardising anyone is Mr Hunt while this blatant attack on the NHS escalates. David Reed I think that while your editorial on the doctors dispute attempted to be impartial, it was fundamentally mistaken [January 12]. The proposal to have a 24/7 NHS service is attractive but it is also totally unrealistic without a substantial increase in the NHS budget. The extra costs are not just for extra medical time but for all the extra support services that would be needed. Unwisely, the Government has refused to define what it meant by a round-the-clock service. An aim that superficially appeals, but on close examination proves to be simplistic. The remarkably strong support for withdrawal of medical labour needs to be taken very seriously. The people who are at the sharp end have voted almost unanimously. The Government is good at PR but not at sound policy development. The Evening Standard needs to support sound policy. Dr Peter Draper It is not acceptable for the UK to have a system in place which allows peoples lives to be put at risk due to strike action. Workers in certain industries such as our emergency services should be able to strike but only once all other avenues have been explored. Employees and their companies should be able to find a way to negotiate with their employers without holding each other to ransom. It is not right, no matter what the grievances are, to use striking as a first choice or even at all when it puts peoples lives at risk. The system needs to be changed so that employers and employees cannot take advantage of each other, otherwise we risk leaving the public open to suffering as a result of these conflicts. Aloytia Ross Farewell to one of our greatest actors I was saddened to hear of Alan Rickmans death after he lost his battle with cancer, especially so soon after David Bowie passed away. I remember watching him in Love Actually when I was growing up and featuring as Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films, which were such a fond part of my childhood. While I never knew him personally, I know many people such as me will feel like they did because of how many lives he touched. J Curton As Dumbledore said in Harry Potter: To the well-organised mind, death is but the next great adventure. Thank you, Alan Rickman for bringing the brilliant Snape to life. This is a sad day indeed and I will always remember him fondly. Priyanka Mitra Alan Rickman was a great actor both on screen and stage. He was probably the only actor who could play a villain with such vulnerability that you would still end up loving him anyway. I will miss him dearly. Linda Willis Overground service fails south London I am curious as to how the Centre for London think-tank can argue that London Overground could boost capacity and improve rail services in south London. The lines are already running at capacity and are subject to perpetual delays and cancellation due to signal failures and passenger incidents. London Overground also seems to think that providing less seating on its trains is the way to deal with overcrowding. It is high time Transport for London and London Overground acknowledge that they are not fit for purpose in handling Londons train services and that the efforts of the train operating companies, who consistently endeavour to bring in new trains and technology, be more recognised. Ian Roberts Firms need help to tackle cyber crime Anthony Hilton is correct to point out that cyber crime is a threat British businesses cant afford to ignore [Comment, January 13]. But in order to counter cyber crime effectively, the UK must devote more resources to help companies navigate an increasingly complex web of organisations, initiatives and statutory guidance that might support them. Organisations are often told they must do more to protect themselves but this public-private cooperation will also be key improving the UKs cyber security. Dr Hugo Rosemont, Centre for Defence Studies, Kings College London Dont miss chance to have your say Amidthe busy festive period and with major flooding in parts of UK, many people in local government may have missed recent Government consultations on local authority spending and council tax reductions. Despite only being launched on December 17, the consultation closes today, meaning it may have been missed by those with responsibilities in London authorities. A case can certainly be made for an extension; however there is also a need for the public to pay attention, especially as it could mean facing further cuts in local spending. Alan Murdie Review at a glance T he seventh instalment in the Rocky franchise has been almost universally acclaimed as a fresh take on the formula, lit up by a heartrending turn from Sylvester Stallone. Hes actually been Oscar-nominated for his efforts, though in my humble opinion hes bog-standard throughout. I suspect what his fans find truly impressive is that in the last third of this reboot he walks around with grey hair and skin the colour of a turbot. Though this seems like an un-vain performance, its not the real deal. Compare it to the incredible work Stallone did in the original movie and youll see how the mighty have fallen. In 2013 African-American director Ryan Coogler made Fruitvale, a sweet, angry little film about institutional racism. Here, doubling as the films scriptwriter, he demonstrates a lovely feel for place (check out Rockys achingly drab home) and casts excellent amateurs in key parts (fighter Tony Bellew, as a chippy Scouser, is especially magnetic). Theres also a nice bit where young hero Adonis (the supremely talented Michael B Jordan) insists on doing an unscheduled shit right before a match. Unfortunately, such surprises are rare. Ring masters: Sylvester Stallone and Michael B Jordan Adonis is the rich but illegitimate son of Apollo Creed, the boxer whose life Rocky failed to save in Rocky IV. The kid has two modes: angry and cheekily enthusiastic and his central issue is crudely spelled out: he wants to feel connected to his father, not indebted to him. Is he selling out by using the surname Creed? Talk about a First-World problem. Meanwhile, Rocky does his modest macho-man shtick. The section where Adonis tries to convince Rocky to become his trainer is particularly tedious (Rocky, naturally, puts up a fight). Just for once, Id love a grizzled geezer to respond to a youngsters job offer with the words, Sounds great. By the way, Im definitely in the market for a son-substitute. Lets race to the gym and start bonding! The boxing scenes, in case youre wondering, are expertly done and involving. Creed is a sure-fire hit thats impossible to hate but I may have to punch the next person who tells me it made them cry. Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout Review at a glance A man kidnaps a 17-year-old girl, keeps her as a sex slave and becomes the father of her son. Yet when we meet the sallow, somewhat spotty Joy (Brie Larson) she doesnt feel like a victim. By turns mischievous, Machiavellian and morose, her personality cant be contained. Larson is up for a Best Actress Oscar and, last Sunday, won a Golden Globe for her performance. What a shock. Gushing at the podium, Larson was super-nice, too nice, a dead ringer for Marcia from The Brady Bunch. In the flesh she seems a tad 2D but Joy one of the best film heroines of the decade is solid to the touch. Room is based on Emma Donoghues best-selling novel (narrated by five-year-old Jack who, initially, thinks the shed is as wide as the world gets). Brilliant books can spawn forgettable movies. Take Beloved, Toni Morrisons pioneering study of motherhood, slavery, anger and guilt, adapted for the big screen in 1998. Morrison let Hollywood scriptwriters dilute her material; Donoghue, wisely, refused to relinquish control. TODO: define component type brightcove True, she has made changes. Edgy details either underplayed or missing from Donoghues script include the death of Joys first child; Jacks encounter with a hairless vagina; a shove from Joy that leaves Jack feeling that his head is broken, and an incredible speech in which Joy talks, without shame, about an abortion she had as a teen, before railing against the casual horrors of the modern world. Theres also less of Jacks narration. Luckily whats left is still bruisingly raw (Donoghues script earned her a place on this years shortlist for Best Screenplay at the Evening Standard British Film Awards). Larson delivers every line to perfection and, as it happens, theres not one weak link in the cast. As Jack, Canadian newcomer Jacob Tremblay has an open book of a face. He never mugs for the camera, just effortlessly cavorts and (aptly, given his name) trembles in a way that suggests everything from alarm to saucy joy. Nor should we overlook the work of William H Macy (as Joys anguished father) or Sean Bridgers (her self-pitying abductor). The films biological fathers are shadowy figures yet they ground Room almost as much as the leads. Irish director Lenny Abrahamson has made a film that fans of his earlier work (Adam & Paul, Garage, What Richard Did, Frank) may find conventional. The music is definitely heavy-handed. Ditto the use of slo-mo. Still, hes done himself proud. Rooms central characters almost function like conjoined twins. Love tears them apart and I guarantee you wont be able to look away. Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout Review at a glance A confession: I didnt even like Birdman, which won Best Picture at the Oscars last year and best director for Alejandro G Inarritu. Despite the wizardry of the unbroken shooting and the bravura performance by Michael Keaton it was all about theatricality and that jazz drumming soundtrack? Yet here is Inarritu back, with the same director of photography, Emmanuel Lubezki, who has himself taken the last two Oscars for cinematography, for Birdman and Gravity and The Revenant is surely going to sweep all before it in this years Academy Awards, including Best Actor for a brutally powerful performance by Leonardo DiCaprio. For this is a frontier story made as no other has been before. Its immense. Its based on a true story. In 1823 a scout called Hugh Glass, then about 50, signed up for an expedition to explore the Missouri river for fur-trapping, in the Rocky Mountains country held by Native American peoples. In what is now South Dakota he was savagely mauled by a grizzly bear and left for dead by the expedition, led by Captain Andrew Henry. But somehow he survived his terrible injuries and made his own way back, hundreds of miles, to the base near St Louis. A film has been made before of this story. Man in the Wilderness (1971) starred Richard Harris as Glass, was shot in Spain and is now forgotten, possibly for the best. More importantly, a fine and deeply researched novel about it, called The Revenant, was published in 2002 by Michael Punke, an historian and US government staffer, currently US Ambassador to the World Trade Organisation. TODO: define component type brightcove The film states itself to be based in part on the novel; in fact, the screenplay by Inarritu and Mark L Smith, previously known for horror thrillers such as Vacancy and Vacancy 2, significantly alters the story both in its origins and its ending to heighten its impact. Glass had spent some time with the Pawnee, who gave him both the wilderness survival skills and the knowledge of Native American people that helped him no less. Here, he has a Native American wife and a son with her, Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), with him now on the expedition. In the prologue to the film, back in the past, they are cradled together after their village has been attacked. Im right here, says Glass, you dont give up, you hear me, as long as you can still grab a breath, you keep breathing. That will become his own challenge in his epic trek back to life. And then we are straight into present action. We see the fur traders camp by the river lethally attacked by the Arikara tribe, a terrifying scene of confused violence, arrows suddenly piercing men through, replied to with the relatively unsophisticated guns of the time, knives and clubs. The randomness of death or survival in such a melee has never been better conveyed, largely due to the camerawork of Lubezki. Kinetic isnt word enough. Our viewpoint is never still, always moving, always right in there, so that you too are an actor in it all, not a safe observer, the long, amazingly fluid shots, achieved by some combination of cranes, hand-held work and Steadicam, and the latest digital cameras. This camerawork doesnt follow, it leads. Inarittu and Lubezki chose to shoot the film chronologically, to make the journey more real, and to rely entirely upon natural light, even in wintry Calgary and high Argentina. The result is almost hypnotic. TODO: define component type brightcove Lubezki, like the production designer Jack Fisk and costume designer Jacqueline West, has worked extensively with Terrence Malick, including on his masterpiece about a first encounter between Europeans and Native Americans 200 years earlier, The New World and The Revenant is in many ways a Malick film adjusted by another hand, full of passionate commitment to nature and spirituality, albeit driven by Inarritus relentlessness, rather than succumbing to reverie and whimsy as Malick himself increasingly seems to do. But then he began his career by combining those tendencies with genre adventures, if never quite with such ferocity. Ten or so men out of 45 escape the attack, reaching the temporary safety of their boat. They include Glass, Hawk, Captain Henry (played with unexpected authority by Domhnall Gleeson), a boy called Bridger (the excellent young British actor Will Poulter) and a thug called Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), whom we have already seen abusing Glass and his half-breed son a savage is a savage, he sneers. He is ruthless and dishonest and Hardy gives him scary substance with a most peculiar mumbling accent, again, but never mind. Glass tells the party their best chance of making it back is on foot, abandoning the boat and stashing the bundles of pelts that are the only real motive of their expedition. Then we follow Glass as he ventures alone into the deep coniferous forest, looking for game. He hears and sees a pair of bear cubs and then the gigantic mother bear rushes him, mauling his back with her claws, biting his throat, savagely tossing him about, crushing him, all of this filmed continuously and utterly persuasively. She then wanders off to her cubs and Glass, despite his injuries, gets to his gun before she returns. Savage beauty: Leonardo DiCaprio as Hugh Glass, a fur trapper abandoned for dead in the wilderness / Twentieth Century Fox/Supplied by LMK But a single shot is not enough to stop a second attack of equal horror, the bear sniffing Glasss face intimately. He gets to his knife and they roll down a slope together, the massive beast ending up on top of him. Its an astonishing sequence, giving the viewer no chance to think its a construct. When the rest of the party come to the sound of the shot, one of them vomits at the sight of Glasss injuries. The proper thing to do would be to finish him up quick hell be dead in an hour, says Fitzgerald. But another begins roughly to sew his gaping wounds back together. The party tries to take him with them on a rough stretcher but in this snowy, mountainous country it proves impossible. Captain Hardy offers a bounty for three men to remain with him and give him a proper burial Hawk and Bridger volunteer but the third man, bribed to stay, is the pitiless Fitzgerald. Savage wilderness: the film tells of a gruelling endurance test / Twentieth Century Fox/Supplied by LMK Glass ends up abandoned, bereaved, buried alive, but sustained by the will to take another breath, to return, to take vengeance. He crawls to his sons body and the camera comes so close the lens is fogged by his gasping breath, an effect that in other films might seem merely a technical mistake but given the role the camera plays here, the emphasis on having breath, it is far from that. The film, incidentally, has a tremendous soundtrack too, composed both of natural sounds and disciplined, inventive music by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto. And so Glasss journey begins. Swaddled in hair and fur though he is, this is an absolutely magnificent performance by Leonardo DiCaprio, putting himself through it all in these huge wildernesses with implacable will, strength and resistance to pain and cold. Hes a beast himself. The film does deviate at times into spiritual visions of his lost family (his Pawnee wife is played with a kind of wild joy by Gracey Dove) that seem a little over the top but it is otherwise so grounded in its location shooting and its dedication to telling the story of the Native American people as accurately as possible, alongside that of the invasive trappers, that these fantasy sequences can be allowed (as not in Birdman). For The Revenant is not only the story of one mans search for revenge but it is also fiercely about that little-told part of American history that ruined its native populations, well before the setting of Westerns as we usually know them. To be sure, it is a gruelling endurance test for the viewer too, alongside Glass in a world full of fur, meat and blood, as well as flowing water, wondrous skies, ice, snow and towering trees. But there we are: its a masterpiece, unmissable. Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout Review at a glance I t's not wrong, that title. From the moment the lights go up we know that something awful is waiting to happen on this fiercely dilapidated farm, whose isolation is almost tangible. The late South African playwright Reza de Wet offers a metaphor about Afrikaner society with this 1986 drama and its not one that bodes well. The farm belongs to grime-encrusted, deeply disturbed, grown-up siblings Sussie (Janna Fox) and Frikkie (Oliver Gomm), who live a warped fantasy life out in the middle of nowhere. Their fiercely religious parents died terrible deaths and the family money is long gone. A lawyer (Adam Ewan) arrives with news that might help, if only the pair would break off their reminiscences of childhood long enough to listen. Ive never seen white people living like this, the lawyer remarks, in the plays most telling line. Its undoubtedly a fruitful set-up, Athol Fugard ramped up several notches, but it gradually gets bogged down in repetitiveness. It ends much as we fear from the start that it will; large chunks of the second half of Roger Mortimer and Deborah Edgingtons production could easily be excised. Fox has the volatile Sussie teeter perpetually on the brink of hysteria; her wailings tend to drown out other peoples conversations and its a tactic that wears thin. Rather like the play itself, in fact. Until January 23, Park 90 (020 7870 6876, parktheatre.co.uk) Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout M el Giedroyc is returning to the theatre after almost a decade away and with weeks to go, she is already having nightmares. The Great British Bake Off host plays the mother of a terror suspect in the UK premiere of Luce at Southwark Playhouse. It is her first theatrical role since she played a character she described as a slightly over-sexed French teacher, alongside Nicholas Hoult in New Boy at the Trafalgar Studios in 2008. The comedian and actress, a regular on TV with Sue Perkins, said: I havent done an actual play since then but it is something Ive always loved. The Playhouse is one of the homes of new writing. Its a fun place to be and this play is a total page-turner. I just feel lucky to get the chance to do this dialogue. She admitted she would have to restrain her natural tendency to stray off script, and conquer her nerves before the first night in March. She said: Ive already started dreaming about it. I was in the Playhouse, didnt know my lines and was naked from the waist down. I always have this dream. Im just hoping it doesnt become a reality. Forgetting your lines is the classic performers dilemma, though God knows where the naked from the waist down bit comes from. Giedroyc must also cope without Perkins. She said: Ive spent the best part of 25 years with her to my right she always stands on my right knowing there is someone there with a quicker brain than me and if I mess it up she will pick it up, so this will be good for me. Luce, by J C Lee, centres on Giedroycs character and her adopted son, who comes under suspicion when explosives are found in his locker. Giedroyc said: It throws up a hell of a lot of interesting stuff about the expectations parents have of their children and the pressure children can feel, and also looks at the fear of homegrown terrorism. Hopefully it will get people talking which is what it is all about isnt it? Luce runs at Southwark Playhouse from March 9 to April 2 @RobDexES Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout Tis officially the season to get hitched. And step one for any bride is the dress. Wherever you are based in London there are reams of bridal boutiques and dedicated stylists to help you put your best foot forward down the aisle. Whether that means a traditional duchess satin, floor length frock, or something a little more bohemian and free flowing, here are our top picks to help you get started. Phillipa Lepley / Phillipa Lepley Do not let initial appointment fees put you off, more often than not these are redeemable when you come to order your dress. Also, gowns costing thousands can be alarming. These are custom, however, and many boutiques will have a range of samples at lower price points as well. This is what to expect from each: The best bridal boutiques in Central London Halfpenny London Halfpenny London You will find yourself in safe hands at Halfpenny London, which was set up in 2005 by stylist and designer Kate Halfpenny. Having trained at Central Saint Martins, her designs span from fun fringed, twenties inspired looks though to boned corseting and whimsy boho chic lace. Something for everyone. Appointments: Monday-Friday, 30. After 5pm and weekends, 45. Dresses from: 1,500 10 Woburn Walk, London, WC1H 0JL, halfpennylondon.com Lovely Bride This bridal shop pushing body positivity and self-love is an import from New York Citys West Village. Founded by Lanie List in 2010, it has since been franchised with outposts across the States, and landed in London in February 2020, where you can find a range of designers counting Prea James and Alexandra Grecco. They pride themselves on self-love, so head there for a heart-warming experience. Appointments: Wednesday Sunday, 30 Dresses from: 1700 18 Cleveland St, London W1T 4HZ, lovelybride.com Pronovias Pronovias / Pronovias If youre in need of a bit of bubbly to calm your nerves, head down to Pronovias on New Bond Street where youll be greeted with a glass of prosecco. Delicate lace, corsets and show-stopping trains are plentiful here. Appointments: Monday Friday, 30; Saturday Sunday, 40 Dresses from: 1500 94 New Bond St, London, W1S 1SH, pronovias.com Browns Bride One for brides after a fashion statement. This industry favourite is home to many show stoppers. They stock big name designers like Valentino and Vera Wang, but also boast a few niche names, if you want to make your day even more unique. Appointments: Monday - Friday, 30; Saturday, 50 Dresses from: Around 4000 12 Hinde St, London, W1U 3BE, brownsbride.com Alice Temperley Bridal Alice Temperley / Alice Temperley For those wanting designer flair on their wedding day, Alice Temperley is a sure bet. Believing that each dress has to be the perfect blend of functionality and fantasy, they come chic but importantly comfortable. The designer started her bridal line in 2007, so is well versed in getting it right. Appointments: Monday Saturday, 30 Dresses from: 2,500 17-18 Margaret St, London W1W 8RP, temperleylondon.com The best bridal boutiques in West London Phillipa Lepley Phillipa Lepley / Phillipa Lepley If you are after uber-luxe, look no further. Shop in high style at this indulgent boutique on the Fulham Road, where you will have your own floor and plenty of refreshments to make for a relaxing experience. Lepley gowns are custom-made to enhance and flatter the brides figure, so you can expect a flawless dress and a memorable day. Appointments: Monday Saturday, free Dresses from: 8000 Find it: 48 Fulham Rd, London SW3 6HH, phillipalepley.com The Mews Bridal Mother daughter team Gail and Lauren began their boutique in the mews of Bristol, before setting up shop in Notting Hill as well. The Mews is the bridal destination for unique, French style boho chic and exclusively stocks Parisian designers, including sought after names Delphine Manivet, Laure de Sagazan and Rime Arodaky. Appointments: Tuesday Sunday, 30 Dresses from: 2000 202 Kensington Park Rd, London W11 1NR, themewsnottinghill.co.uk Sassi Holford Sassi Holford Sassi Holford has been designing wedding dresses for 35 years, with every gown handmade in England. Her charming shop is home to a sleek range of frocks, which typically cinch at the waist. The best come in creamy satin, with covered buttons down the front. Appointments: Tuesday Saturday, 30 Dresses from: 2,500 82 Fulham Rd, London SW3 6HR, sassiholford.com Eponine London Eponine London / (c) Chris Allerton If you are after the best of the best, 2011 founded Eponine London works with couture techniques to perfect custom gowns. After making up the frock in calico first, to ensure a seamless fit, they will cut it in the fabric of your choice. Appointments: Monday Friday, free Dresses from: 8000 33a Adam and Eve Mews, London W8 6UG, eponinelondon.com Le Spose di Gio Le Spose di Gio / Le Spose di Gio This Italian designer, with boutiques across Italy, has set up shop in Belgravia. It is the place to go for light and understated glamour. They have a huge range of styles from Kate Middleton-style long sleeve lace to classic, puffy duchess satin styles. With their European focus, they also know a thing or two about weddings abroad. Appointments: Tuesday Saturday, 30 Dresses from: 3,500 81 Ebury Street, London, SW1W 9QU, le-spose-di-gio.it The Wedding Club Welcome to a trusty club to be a member of while planning your big day. Founded in 2001, The Wedding Club has made it their mission to cater for all, with two spate focussed London stores. For the luxury edit think Vivienne Westwood, Carolina Herrera and Zuhair Murad head to the Knightsbridge outpost, or find their more boho styles in South Kensington. You can expect the whole store for yourself, on arrival. Appointments: Monday Sunday, 30 Dresses from: 2000 Luxury edit, Knightsbridge Store, 10 Yeomans Row, London, SW3 2AH; Boho edit: South Kensington Store, 37 Thurloe Street, London, SW7 2LQ , thewedding-club.co.uk The best bridal boutiques in North London Mirror Mirror Mirror Mirror / Mirror Mirror This boutique has its own couture dresses, designed by charming owners Maria Yiannikaris and Jane Nicolls, as well as an impressive array of other labels including Nicole Milano, Pronovias, and Gemy Maalouf. With their in-house atelier, all of their own creations are finished in house. They also offer alterations, and can customise to you hearts content. Look forward to service with a smile. Appointments: Monday Saturday, 30 Dresses from: 1850 Find it: 56 Penton Street, London, N1 9QA, mirrormirror.uk.com Lace & Button Founder Irina Merkulova trained up working in various design houses around Dublin, before launching her own bridal and alterations venture, Lace & Button. As well as her own designs, the shop stocks designers like the tulle-centric Ange Eteiles, and slick silhouette gowns by Rima Lav. Appointments: Tuesday Saturday, 20, evenings 30; Sunday, 30 Dresses from: 700 90-93 Plender Street, Camden, NW1 0JL, laceandbutton.co.uk Angelica Bridal Angelica Bridal / Angelica Bridal This family fun shop, set up by two sisters in 2009, is set on dressing the modern bride, and has a key focus on complimenting every body type. As well as their initial Camden venture, 2021 saw them expand with a secondary outpost on Liverpool Road, Islington, which caters specifically for curves, and stocks sizes 16 to 22. We believe that finding your dress should be honest and fun, not stuffy and serious! says Dora van Niekerk, Director. Appointments: Monday Friday, free, evenings 30; Saturday Sunday 30 Dresses from: 850 18 Camden Passage, London N1 8ED; 255-257 Liverpool Rd, London N1 1LX, angelicabridal.co.uk Joyce Young Scottish designer Joyce Young, OBE, offers a range of services and classic, formal gowns for you to browse. You can pick from the rail, or have a one-on-one consultation for your very own couture frock. And for anyone looking to add some flair, she also has a Tartan Spirit line, which incorporates the fabric into a wedding dress to match a grooms kilt if applicable. Appointments: Monday Friday, free; Saturday, 25 Dresses from: 1800 79 Haverstock Hill, London NW3 4SL, joyceyoungcollections.co.uk Morgan Davies Morgan Davies One for the girly-girls, this blush pink walled, exposed wooden floor boutique has a strong collection of sleek and Instagram friendly gowns. Starting in Hitchin, Morgan Davies expanded with a London shop in March 2020 and have informative videos online for you to get a sense of what is on offer. Appointments: Monday Friday, 15, evenings 30; Saturday, 30 Dresses from: 1000 312-314 Essex Road, Islington, London, N1 3AX, morgandaviesbridal.co.uk The best bridal boutiques in East London The Own Studio OWN Studio This is the hot spot for It-brides London-wide, majoring in cool 90s slips, luxe tailoring and statement party dresses with bridal twists. Designers Rosie Williams and Jess Kaye opened the doors to their new uber-chic concept store in April 2022. You can find their made-to-measure and made-to-order gowns, plus a new bridal ready-to-wear selection there now. Appointments: Tuesday Saturday, 20 Dresses from: 420 The OWN Studio, 374-378 Old Street, EC1V 9LT, theownstudio.com Davids Bridal A bridal boutique that means business, Davids houses a selection of designers, including Vera Wang, Galina Signiture and their very own DB main line collection. A spacious dressing room gives you room to try out your aisle walk, and with a size range from UK4 to 34, most body types will be catered for. Walk ins are taken, but booking is preferred to ensure you are paired with a suitable stylist. Appointments: Monday Sunday, free Dresses from: 395 Ground Floor, The Street, Westfield Stratford City, London E20 1EN, davidsbridal.co.uk Grace Loves Lace Grace Loves Lace This Pinterest favourite (some dresses get 2.5 million pins) make their own, made-to-measure gowns, and tend to be sleek, strappy and sexy. The Aussie brand, which also has boutiques across the US and Canada, caters for the confident bride and is especially good for any warm weddings abroad. Appointments: Monday Sunday, free Dresses from: 1200 58, 59 Charlotte Rd, Hackney, London EC2A 3QT, graceloveslace.com Heart Aflutter This spot is hidden away in a second floor, private studio and works towards fuss-free glamour. They swerve traditional billowing gowns, instead catering for brides wanting a floaty, bohemian look. It is appointment only, and they cannot offer in-house alterations but can recommend places that can help you out. Appointments: Monday Friday, 20; Saturday Sunday, 35 Dresses from: 1,600 Cremer Business Centre, 37 Cremer St, Hackney, London E2 8HD, heartaflutterbridal.co.uk The Fall Bride The Fall Bride / The Fall Bride One for the modern brides, this boutique founded in 2019 is all about offering relaxed, delicate and different gowns for those after a contemporary look. The space is stripped back and bright, and will make for stress free, low-key fittings. Appointments: Wednesday - Sunday, 30 Dresses from: 300 Studio 201 Permanite Building, 451 Wick Lane, London E3 2TB, thefallbride.com The best bridal boutiques in South London Indiebride London Indiebride London This Brixton based boutique was formed when dressmaker Miina Laitsaari merged two existing bridal brands into one that mixed vintage and bohemian aesthetics. The hybrid store is a hotspot for the environmentally conscious, and has won the Best Bridal Dress award at PETAs Vegan Wedding Awards. Appointments: Wednesday Sunday, 20 Dresses from: 1500 90 Brixton Rd, Vassal, London SW9 6BE, indiebridelondon.co.uk Blackburn Bridal Tucked away in Blackheath, just below Greenwich Park, you can find Blackburn Bridal. Founder Russell Blackburn, a South East London local, travels across Europe and the US to source predominantly bohemian style gowns. Custom will take six to eight months to produce, and the option for VIP appointments with Blackburn himself are available. Appointments: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday 30 Dresses from: 1,600 6 Tranquil Vale, Blackheath, London SE3 0BD, blackburnbridal.co.uk N icholas Hawksmoors brooding Baroque churches have come to dominate the imaginative topography of the East End: St George-in-the-East with its giant keystones like childrens coffins; Christ Church Spitalfields beneath a vaguely pagan pyramidal spire; St Annes Limehouse, whose crowning golden ball was a signal to sea captains setting off down the Thames into the heart of an immense darkness. A sense of mystery prevails in contrast to the rational works of Hawksmoors architectural master Sir Christopher Wren. Even in his own later life, low-born Hawksmoors suspect architectural creed was under attack. The acolytes of Protestant Palladianism led by fancy Lord Burlington were intent on dislodging him from his official positions. And in From the Shadows: The Architecture and Afterlife of Nicholas Hawksmoor, Owen Hopkins charts how Hawksmoors eccentric aesthetic has had to crawl its way back from an almost immoral reputation then obscurity, after his death to cult status in the post-war period. The conventional story is that Hawksmoors journey into the modern critical light began in the Fifties and Sixties with scholarship by architectural historian Kerry Downes at the Courtauld, was then galvanised by the growing conservation movement seeking to save Christ Church Spitalfields, and crowned by Nicholas Serotas seminal 1977 Hawksmoor exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. During the same period, leading practising architects such as James Stirling, Robert Venturi and Denys Lasdun became captivated by Hawksmoors massing and geometries with even, as Hopkins contends, a certain affinity between the chamfers of Lasduns National Theatre and the Baroque facets of St Anne Limehouse. Finally, the fictional speculations of Peter Ackroyd and psycho-geography of Iain Sinclair delivered Hawksmoor, somewhat mangled, back to the mainstream. Hopkins seems to accept this narrative arc but at the same time demonstrates, almost against his own thesis, that Hawksmoor was never really quite forgotten even if he was sometimes noticed only to repel. By the 19th century his architecture was beginning to be respected once more. Certainly between the 1860s and 1920 there were outcries in Parliament when his City of London church St Mary Woolnoth came under repeated threat of demolition, in part from the building of the Underground (by way of compromise, Bank stations ticket hall was eventually sandwiched into its crypt). More book reviews 1 /24 More book reviews Recovery by Russell Brand Will Russells brand of self-help prove quite so addictive? By Nicholas Lezard. Read review A Life in Questions by Jeremy Paxman Paxo refuses to answer all the really good questions, says David Sexton. Read review Politics: Between: The Extremes by Nick Clegg The basis of this book makes it impossible not to warm to Clegg, says Melanie McDonagh. Read review Serious Sweet by A L Kennedy Thank heavens for London in this tale of self-obsessed lovers. Read review The Last Royal Rebel: The Life and Death of James, Duke of Monmouth by Anna Keay Born a kings b****** and destined for a traitors death. Read review Man Up: Boys, Men and Breaking the Male Rules by Rebecca Asher Getting to the bottom of why boys will be boys. Read review The Course of Love by Alain de Botton A philosophical novel that does run smooth, says Johanna Thomas-Corr. Read review The Tree Climbers Guide: Adventures in the Urban Canopy by Jack Cooke How I gave this book a proper test and ended up with a broken ankle. Read review Reader, I Married Him: Stories Inspired by Jane Eyre Brontes classic tale in the imaginations of other writers, says Claire Harman. Read review Moranifesto by Caitlin Moran Caitlin comes clean about politics the world according to our funniest feminist. By Rosamund Urwin. Read review Spark Joy An Illustrated Guide to the Japanese Art of Tidying by Marie Kondo Theres no messing wih Marie, says Katie Law. Read review Cockfosters Stories by Helen Simpson After 50, a womans life gets better not worse. By Katie Law. Read review Stalins Englishman: The Lives of Guy Burgess by Andrew Lownie Joker in the spying pack. By Richard Bassett. Read review Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin The darkness that lies at the heart of the novel is offset by a lightness of touch, says Mark Sanderson. Read review Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello Elvis proves not quite so lyrical on the page, says Nick Curtis. Read review The Importance of Elsewhere: Philip Larkins Photographs by Richard Bradford His poetry paints better pictures than any camera, says David Sexton. Read review Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith Morality wins out over macabre murders, says Melanie McDonagh. Read review The Grownup by Gillian Flynn Calling all Flynnies: the con girl whos like gone girl. Read review As far back as the Regency period though, a rarified trio of Royal Academicians (an institution where Hopkins himself works) had exhibited varying degrees of fascination: J M W Turner sketched Hawksmoors buildings while the architects C R Cockerell and Sir John Soane studied his churches. One could claim an unconscious linking chain between Hawksmoor and Soanes own sometimes nervy Classicism, despite Soane mistakenly giving the credit for the design of the mausoleum at Castle Howard (a masterpiece of 1729) to Hawksmoors collaborator Vanbrugh. But this is not a debt Hopkins acknowledges. The book outlines how, in the early 20th century, Hawksmoors inventive spires found their way into T S Eliots The Waste Land and the writings of the influential London architect and writer Goodhart-Rendel. Post-Lutyens and the Edwardian Wrenaissance, he was swept up admittedly as something of a bit player into the then fresh realisation that England had actually had a Baroque period after all. Hopkinss book is fascinating in this reconstruction of Hawksmoors reputational afterlife. And it rolls along in lively fashion despite a dusting of infelicitous metaphors, sometimes challengeable judgements and far too many repetitions that a better editor would have cleaned up. It confirms the verdict that while Wren incised a bright, intellectual stateliness on Londons skyline, Hawksmoor a great architectural tragedian gave it its mood music, its architectural emotion. Fiction, more than any other written form, explains and expands life, says Julian Barnes in his introduction to his essay collection Through the Window. Novels tell us the most truth about life: what it is, how we live it, what it might be for, how we enjoy and value it, how it goes wrong, and how we lose it. Not always, though. The Noise of Time, Barness first novel since his Man Booker-winner The Sense of an Ending, is a brief novelised account of the life of the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich. It is arranged into three sections. The first is set in 1936 after his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtensk was, once Stalin had seen it, denounced in an article in Pravda as Muddle instead of Music. At the height of the Great Terror, he was summoned to the Big House, the headquarters of the NKVD (later KGB). He did not expect to survive but it seems his chief inquisitor fell victim to the Terror first himself. Shostakovich kept his head down and in 1937 his Fifth Symphony was welcomed by a journalist as a Soviet artists creative reply to just criticism. Shostakovich says he never felt safer than during the Great Patriotic War. But in 1948 he and other composers were again denounced for formalism, most of his works banned and his life threatened again. However, he was partially rehabilitated again when, in 1949, the setting of the second section, he was ordered by Stalin to represent the USSR at the Cultural and Scientific Congress for World Peace in New York, and he wrote a grovelling letter of acceptance (please accept my heartfelt gratitude). As a nervous and vulnerable person, he was humiliated there by being forced to read Soviet speeches written for him and was publicly challenged by the emigre composer Nicolas Nabokov as to whether or not he personally subscribed to the Soviet condemnation and banning of Western music, including Stravinsky. He said he did. The final section describes his life after Stalins death in 1953, in the Khrushchev years when he no longer feared execution but continued to defer to Power, as Barnes roundly calls it. Before, they had tested the extent of his courage; now, they tested the extent of his cowardice. In 1960 he submitted to pressure to join the Communist Party. He suffered depression, ill-health, self-contempt and fear of death but he continued to compose, increasingly using the marking morendo in his string quartets: dying away, as if dying. Barnes concludes: What he hoped was that death would liberate his music: liberate it from his life. More book reviews 1 /24 More book reviews Recovery by Russell Brand Will Russells brand of self-help prove quite so addictive? By Nicholas Lezard. Read review A Life in Questions by Jeremy Paxman Paxo refuses to answer all the really good questions, says David Sexton. Read review Politics: Between: The Extremes by Nick Clegg The basis of this book makes it impossible not to warm to Clegg, says Melanie McDonagh. Read review Serious Sweet by A L Kennedy Thank heavens for London in this tale of self-obsessed lovers. Read review The Last Royal Rebel: The Life and Death of James, Duke of Monmouth by Anna Keay Born a kings b****** and destined for a traitors death. Read review Man Up: Boys, Men and Breaking the Male Rules by Rebecca Asher Getting to the bottom of why boys will be boys. Read review The Course of Love by Alain de Botton A philosophical novel that does run smooth, says Johanna Thomas-Corr. Read review The Tree Climbers Guide: Adventures in the Urban Canopy by Jack Cooke How I gave this book a proper test and ended up with a broken ankle. Read review Reader, I Married Him: Stories Inspired by Jane Eyre Brontes classic tale in the imaginations of other writers, says Claire Harman. Read review Moranifesto by Caitlin Moran Caitlin comes clean about politics the world according to our funniest feminist. By Rosamund Urwin. Read review Spark Joy An Illustrated Guide to the Japanese Art of Tidying by Marie Kondo Theres no messing wih Marie, says Katie Law. Read review Cockfosters Stories by Helen Simpson After 50, a womans life gets better not worse. By Katie Law. Read review Stalins Englishman: The Lives of Guy Burgess by Andrew Lownie Joker in the spying pack. By Richard Bassett. Read review Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin The darkness that lies at the heart of the novel is offset by a lightness of touch, says Mark Sanderson. Read review Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello Elvis proves not quite so lyrical on the page, says Nick Curtis. Read review The Importance of Elsewhere: Philip Larkins Photographs by Richard Bradford His poetry paints better pictures than any camera, says David Sexton. Read review Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith Morality wins out over macabre murders, says Melanie McDonagh. Read review The Grownup by Gillian Flynn Calling all Flynnies: the con girl whos like gone girl. Read review Barnes has long been interested in Shostakovich as both a composer and a brooder on death, discussing him in that context in Nothing to Be Frightened Of (2008). And much of his best work has been biographical, playing with life-facts. Here he acknowledges his two main sources to be Elizabeth Wilsons essential anthology, Shostakovich: A Life Remembered (revised edition, 2006) and Testimony: The Memoirs of Shostakovich as related to Solomon Volkov (1979), a book whose legitimacy has been disputed but which is devastatingly powerful and clearly conveys the voice of the man himself. Barnes has condensed a short, elliptical life of Shostakovich from these sources, adding touches such as recurring Russian proverbs and mini-essays about the permanent value of art and music. What could be put up against the noise of time? Only that music which is inside ourselves the music of our being Yet to compare Barness versions of the key events of Shostakovichs life to those in his sources is to be dismayed. I gave up after checking 15 or so instances Shostakovich saying he was a worm in comparison to Stalin; Shostakovich confessing to his acquaintance with the disgraced Marshal Tukhachevsky; Shostakovich explaining his hatred of Picasso and Shaw as fellow travellers They are not only verbally derivative at a level that disgraced the journalist Johann Hari, they are, though briefer, less powerful than the originals. The novel simply doesnt do what Barnes himself says a novel should (and which is done so well in its main literary influence, Jean Echenozs Ravel of 2006, about that composers last 10 years.) Perhaps some readers will now discover Shostakovich? The music of his being can found in his recordings of the 24 Preludes and Fugues (Op 87), which he wrote in 1950/51 in tribute to Bachs Well-tempered Clavier. Start there, not here. Two boots make a pair. (Russian proverb.) O n a grey January afternoon in Kentish Town, the actor Gary Kemp, the designer Oliver Spencer and the photographer Rankin are debating the merits of worsted versus herringbone. Were far ahead in menswear compared with any other capital, says Spencer, 47. He should know he once sold second-hand clothing on Portobello Road before setting up formalwear company Favourbrook in 1990 and his eponymous line a decade later. Not that the others are slouches: Kemp, 56, is known for his dapper tastes and is one of 11 pals Spencer has featured in his latest campaign, which Rankin, 49, has shot. So what does mens style mean today? To celebrate London Collections Men fashion week, we invited the three to discuss just that. How did the collaboration come about? Oliver Spencer: Rankin had been a customer of mine for a couple of years and we were waiting to work on something together. Gary just walked into the shop one day and we hit it off. Hes an absolute legend and what London is all about. Working with someone like him is amazing. Gary Kemp: When you get to my age [56] and youre being asked to model clothes, youre just grateful. I couldnt quite believe it OS: I really dont care if youre 18 or 80. I want a point of view, someone whos got an eccentricity about him and wears clothes beautifully. Rankin: It was a meeting of two minds. I like shooting interesting people, especially with menswear their personalities come through. What sparked your interest in menswear? GK: Growing up, I was always really drawn to the Mod look. My bedroom window in the 1960s used to look out on to the Duke of Clarence pub in Islington Mods would arrive every Thursday on these beautiful scooters, and immaculately dressed men and women would sashay across the street. For me it was about being British whether it was emulating the Mods, glam rock, punk or soul boys through to the New Romantics. I grew up in the glam rock period and idolising [the late] David Bowie was my first foray into being outrageous. What was exciting for us was that there were no high-end clothes to buy. It was always about going to Oxfam or the high street to find anything and working with that. The capitals mens fashion week London Collections Men has more than doubled in size since it was established by the British Fashion Council in 2012 and the menswear industry is booming. Why do you think that is? Rankin: When Jefferson Hack and I started Dazed & Confused magazine in the 1990s [below, cover star Damon Albarn photographed by Rankin in 1999], the menswear scene in London wasnt anything like it is now. There are so many young designers who have been given the opportunity to grow because of the platform LCM offers them. Its incredible how much menswear has developed. OS: Dylan Jones has done an absolutely amazing job of managing LCM. He grabbed the bull by its horns and steered it in the right direction. We should have done that years ago. What do you think makes London unique compared with other fashion capitals? GK: Youth culture and fashion go hand in hand and theyve made London far superior. Weve also got both street fashion and Savile Row tailoring and they come very close to each other sometimes to create something unique. When we combine the two were unbeatable. Europe and America look up to us. OS: Were also not afraid of getting it wrong. So many European brands are economically tethered, theyre too afraid to shake things up, but we dont do that, we get on with it. If you dont go far enough, then youre not testing boundaries, youre not getting anywhere. The same can be said for the art and music scenes, too. Weve also got an exciting new generation of designers showing alongside the old lot. On top of that, brands such as Burberry and Alexander McQueen came back home after showing in Milan. How has mens attitude to fashion and style changed in the past few years? GK: There is a real interest among British men in looking good and looking interesting. I love the fact that we see young men and women brave enough to experiment with fashion. What you see on the street every day in London is extremely exciting. We have a bravery here and we have an acceptance of it. When we dressed up to go to the Blitz club in the late 1970s wed be chased down the street. Do you pay attention to trends? OS: What I love is beautiful clothing. I follow trends and I like movements, but its all about lifestyle for us. GK: My style of fashion is much more working class. My hero is still Bowie and hes a man who is still being emulated today in fashion and music. I f celebrities like Emma Stone, Julianne Moore and Gisele Bundchen hadnt convinced you that freckles can look beautiful, this might just do the trick. A London-based photographer has shot a collection of stunning portraits showing the innate beauty of people who have been naturally blessed with a dusting of freckles over their faces. Brock Elbank is perhaps best known for his #Project60 Beard series which was exhibited in Somerset House last year, but is now gaining attention for his photoseries #Freckles, which aims to showcase the skin feature in all their glory. So far, Elbank has captured closeups of 90 beautifully bespeckled individuals, and he hopes to reach 150 before the collection is exhibited at the Michael Reid galleries in Sydney and Berlin in 2017. Sean Conway (Image: Brock Elbank) / Brock Elbank He says he was inspired to start the project after shooting a friends son who had, what he describes as, a face full of freckles like Id never seen before." Leah Sheehan (Image: Brock Elbank) / Brock Elbank When we moved back to the UK, I had to put the series on hold while I shot my #Project60 idea for Beard Seasons melanoma charity, he told The Evening Standard, but now Im in full production of #Freckles and luckily Im receiving the same feedback as #Project60 through Instagram and other social media, with subjects travelling from all over, including Switzerland, Sweden, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy and Norway amongst others. The British photographer says that he finds his diverse models on social media. Discussing his scouting efforts, he says: When I shoot a new series, I always start off on Instagram. I offer followers to email in their submissions of a recent clear, colour photo and word spreads. The series grows with each portrait until its kind of running itself. I love watching the series grow, people from all walks of life jumping on board, tagging me in their photos. Elbank says he thinks people see freckles like Marmite - you either love or hate them, although feedback towards his portraits has largely been positive: Ninety-nine per cent are really positive emails from freckled people loving that Im flying the Freckle Flag I suppose. Elliott Brown (Image: Brock Elbank) / Brock Elbank If youre a freckled person interested in taking part in the London-based project, simply send a recent colour photo to Brock at studio@mrelbank.com. Those of us who arent naturally blessed with freckles, however, can still enjoy the project see the latest portraits on Brocks Instagram. Follow us on Twitter: @eslifeandstyle L ondoners have been warned to immediately call the police if they spot a deadly black mamba snake feared to be on the loose in north London. The highly venomous snake was reported missing on January 5 as posters appeared on trees and signposts in Camden. The black mamba can kill victims within hours if it bites them. It is renowned as one of the fastest snakes in the world, but the RSPCA said the recent cold snap should make the fugitive "sluggish". Alexandra Jones, the RSPCA's scientific officer for exotics, said: The snake is unlikely to present a danger to the public as it is likely to be sluggish due to the cold weather. "The most likely cause of any snake bite is when somebody attempts to handle or kill one. "If anyone does find this snake, or any snake in unusual circumstances, they should keep at a safe distance and call the police." Experts have raised questions over whether the missing posters are real or a hoax. WC1 snake update - @accordiongirl40 rang the number and it's a dead line so maybe hoax? pic.twitter.com/JCDj91c5qo Prof Sophie Scott (@sophiescott) January 12, 2016 Ms Jones added: We are unsure whether this advert for a missing snake is legitimate or some sort of prank. "Mambas are considered a dangerous wild animal and so require a licence to be kept. Part of the licensing process is ensuring the animal cannot escape. The posters say the missing snake is named Rosie and has escaped from the owner's home. They ask people living nearby to look in their homes for the snake, which may seek out warm hiding places in the cold winter weather. A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: The police would attend to any call but would refer the capture and removal of the snake to trained experts. P olice have launched a search for a mother who vanished after leaving her two children outside a primary school. Michaela Oberhorner, 47, has not been seen since around 3.30pm on Wednesday, January 13 when she left her children with a friend at Woodside Primary Academy in Walthamstow. Police say she claimed to be going to the bank but never returned and they are growing increasingly concerned for her safety. The German, who lives in Walthamstow, has no other family in the United Kingdom and has not been seen at her Edmonton workplace since that morning. Anyone with information should call Waltham Forest CID via 101 or the charity Missing People on 116 000. A martial arts enthusiast convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend in a frenzied attack has been jailed for a minimum of 23 years. Laura Davies, 21, died after the attack at the Essex Horse and Pony Protection Society base in Basildon, Essex, where she lived and worked as a groom. Chelmsford Crown Court heard she suffered at least 80 stab wounds and the attack was so forceful that the knife used was bent to a 45-degree angle. Unemployed Jordan Taylor, 22, of Basildon, had denied the murder on July 3 last year but was found guilty by a jury on Thursday. Facing life: Jordan Taylor / Essex Police On Friday, Judge Charles Gratwicke, who described the killing as "brutal", jailed Taylor for life with a minimum tariff of 23 years. The court heard Miss Davies ended their relationship moments before her death. She had cooked a meal for Taylor in the flat they shared and told him that although the relationship was over, he could continue living there as she did not want to make him homeless. Prosecutors said the attack began in the flat, then continued outside as she fled in her pyjamas. Bent: The weapon used in the brutal attack / Essex Police CCTV footage showed the defendant attempting to hoist Miss Davies's near-lifeless body over a hedge out of view. Her family said she had been unhappy after he had begun telling her what to wear, prevented her going out and had taken control of her bank account. Giving evidence, her mother Dyanne Lambert said he would not allow her to wear short-sleeved or low-cut tops and they would often argue. Ms Lambert added: "She became very quiet and didn't want to talk about what was going on." Giving evidence on the third day of his trial, Taylor - who was born in Carlisle before moving to Annan in Scotland and then Swindon - described the moment he "stupidly" grabbed the knife he alleged his partner of six months had lunged at him with. He denied purposefully making "disfiguring" cuts to Miss Davies's face and left breast as "punishment" for trying to end the relationship before eventually killing her. Punam Malhan, senior district crown prosecutor for East of England Crown Prosecution Service, said: "This was a vicious and sustained attack involving 80 separate wounds. "Jordan Taylor's actions were a result of a jealous rage after Laura ended their relationship. His actions have needlessly ended a young woman's life and robbed her of any future." Additional reporting by the Press Association. A minicab driver was sent on a back-and-forth journey through south London before being ambushed by a gang of thugs assembled by his passenger. Police said the driver and the passenger became embroiled in a series of arguments during the bizarre journey on December 12. Having been driven through south-east London for almost an hour, the customer asked to be returned to the original pick-up point of Invermore Place, close to the garages near Walmer Terrace. On the way there the passenger made a call, and the driver heard him asked the person on the other end of the line to meet him at the garages. As the cab arrived at its destination the driver noticed five men waiting in the area. He was then dragged from his silver Skoda and brutally assaulted, leaving him with head and hand injuries. The attackers are then said to have made off with 30 they stole from his car. Graphic footage of the assault was later uploaded to social media after the incident was filmed on a mobile phone. Police today issued an appeal to trace a man in his 20s in connection with the incident. The suspect is a slim black man, with a beard, who spoke with an African accent, police said. Detective Constable Danny Banks, from Greenwich CID, said: "We want to urgently speak with anyone who saw this vicious robbery and assault, or who is aware of this incident and can assist with our ongoing investigation." Anyone with information should contact police via 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. Calls to Crimestoppers are free. T his is the moment a would-be burglar uses a sledgehammer to try and smash his way into a home in east London. CCTV footage captured the man in a high-vis jacket repeatedly smashing his way through a glass door. Police were called to Parmiter Street, Bethnal Green, at around 10am on November 16 to a report of an attempted burglary. The attempted break-in was reported to have occurred between 6.45am and 8am. Tower Hamlets detectives said they believed the same man gained entry to the home late on November 7. Wanted: Police have released an image of a man they would like to speak to / Met Police The suspect is described as a man in his 40s with short hair. He is seen wearing a high visibility hooded jacket and dark coloured trousers. Police are keen to hear from anyone who may recognise the man shown on CCTV. Anyone with information should contact police via 101 quoting reference number 200281 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. A pedicab rider has been jailed for breaching a Criminal Behaviour Order (CBO) just three days after it was issued against him. Juris Briedis, 21, was initially given a five-year CBO and a conditional discharge for 12 months on Thursday, January 7, after he was found guilty of failing to comply with a Community Protection Notice. He was given the notice for obstructing the highway after he repeatedly used his pedicab in an anti-social manner. The CBO was handed to down to Briedis and four other drivers who also appeared in court alongside him: Kristaps Lapins, 21, of Wells House Road, NW10; Elvis Bergins, 21, of Edgware Road, W2; Elviss Krauklis, 23, Edgware Road, W2; and Ivo Laskovs, 25, of Clarendon Court, NW2. All five men were made subject to the same conditions for five years, which banned them from riding a pedicab in the W1, SW1, W2 and WC2 postcode areas. However, Briedis was arrested just three days later when officers on patrol in Bird Street spotted him within the area he was banned from riding in. The pedicab driver attempted to run away, but he was caught and detained by police. Briedis of Edgware Road, W2 was found guilty of contravening the order and sentenced to 24 weeks imprisonment at Westminster Magistrates Court. Inspector Guy Ellwood, of the Mets Oxford Street, Regent Street and Bond Street team, said: "These results demonstrate our commitment to tackling the anti-social and criminal behaviour of some pedicab riders in Westminster. This should send a clear message to riders who persistently engage in disruptive, criminal and anti-social activity that they will face significant consequences." Steve Burton, TfLs Director of Enforcement and On-Street Operations, added: "We work closely with the police and officers from Westminster to stop Pedicabs from being an anti-social menace in central London, so this sentencing is welcome news. "We will continue to support the officers on the ground, and push for the toughest penalties, while continuing to lobby Government over the legislation of Pedicabs in the Capital." Steven Medway, Managing Director Trading Environment, New West End Company, said he was pleased with the conviction. He said: "We are dedicated to maintaining a safe and welcoming destination for our millions of shoppers here in the West End. "Anyone who is prepared to behave in a way that breaks the law and detracts from peoples enjoyment of the area has no place on our streets, and we welcome the news that the Metropolitan Police are having such success in tackling these offences." T he trial of an alleged serial killer accused of drugging and murdering four men he met on gay websites has been delayed because of the "large amount of outstanding work" in the case, a court has heard. Stephen Port, 40, appeared via prison video link at Kingston Crown Court in Surrey charged with four counts of murder and four counts of administering a poison with intent to endanger life or inflict grievous bodily harm. He allegedly met the men on gay websites and invited them to his house where he is said to have poisoned them with the party drug GHB. After suffering from overdoses, the men, in their 20s, were dumped in or near a churchyard in east London. Wearing a light pink shirt, bald-headed Port spoke only to confirm his name during the brief 15-minute hearing. He was due to enter pleas but the case was adjourned for a hearing at the Old Bailey in April. A provisional trial date was fixed for October 4. Prosecutor William Emlyn-Jones said: "There is a very large amount of outstanding work given the scale of this inquiry." Mr Justice Singh extended the custody time limit for Port ahead of the trial which is expected to last eight to 10 weeks. The judge said: "Given the unusual circumstances of this case I'm satisfied the criteria for extending custody is met in this case." Port, of Cooke Street, Barking, in east London, will next appear at the Old Bailey at 9.30am on April 15 for a plea and case management hearing. Detectives launched an investigation after four men died over a period of 14 months. The first, Anthony Walgate, 23, was found dead on Cooke Street on June 19 2014. He was a fashion and design student at Middlesex University who was originally from Hull but living in Barnet. Gabriel Kovari, 22, was found by a dog walker near St Margaret's churchyard on August 28 2014. He was originally from Slovakia but lived in Lewisham, south London. Just under a month later, on September 20 2014, the same dog walker discovered the body of Daniel Whitworth, 21, from Gravesend, Kent, near the same churchyard. Then on September 14 last year, Jack Taylor, 25, a forklift truck driver from Dagenham, was found dead near the abbey ruins close to North Street. The deaths were not initially linked but after further investigation they were referred to the Metropolitan Police homicide and major crime command on October 14 last year. The force has referred its handling of the case to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). Additional reporting by the Press Association. A young man who left his impoverished homeland to build a better life in London was found dead in his bed the day after being attacked on a busy high street. Edgaras Kondrotas, 28, left Lithuania for the capital eight years ago and had recently told his family he was planning to marry his long-term girlfriend and start a family. He was found dead at his home in Forest Gate on Tuesday afternoon. Detectives believe he died from injuries sustained when he was beaten by a group of up to six men in Leyton High Road the previous evening. Eli Norvilas, 24, a cousin who grew up with Mr Kondrotas in Klaipeda on the Baltic coast before moving to the USA, said his close-knit family were desperate for answers. Killed: Edgaras Kondrotas was set upon in the street / Elias Norvalis He told the Standard: We just want to know what happened. Without that all we can do is fantasise and be driven crazy. He said: Ergaras came to London because he wanted to make a better life for himself. Big heart: Edgaras Kondrotas was murdered in east London / Elias He told family back home he wanted to start a family. From what I heard he wanted to marry his girlfriend and have kids. His life was stopped way too early. He said he had last seen Mr Kondrotas six years ago on his 18th birthday, when the family all flew back to eastern Europe. He said: Its just sad, especially the past couple of years I didnt stay in touch with him as much as Id like to. We were living our own lives, through Facebook he looked happy in his photographs. I wish Id not taken it for granted. Police believe Mr Kondrotas was assaulted at 11.30pm on Monday and travelled home by public transport back to a house in Forest Gate, around a mile away. A post mortem gave the cause of death as blunt force trauma to the abdomen. Shocked: Edgaras Kondrotas' family has been left devastated by his death / Elias Norvalis Two men have been arrested on suspicion of murder and were today being questioned by police. Detective Inspector John Marriott, who is leading the investigation into Edgaras' death, said: "I am appealing for any witnesses who may have seen a group of men who were involved in a disturbance in Leyton High Road, at about11.30pm on Monday, January 11. "I believe that Edgaras was assaulted during this altercation and then travelled back to an address in Sebert Road, where he was found dead. "If you saw the incident in Leyton High Road or have information about what sparked the altercation, or know who may have been part of that group of six men then please call the incident room." Anyone with any information is asked to contact the Incident Room on 020 83453985, or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. T he UK's former highest-ranking soldier has been told he will face no further action after being interviewed by police in connection with historic child sex abuse. Lord Bramall described the past year as "really awful", since he was interviewed under caution last April at a police station close to his home near Farnham, Surrey. The 92-year-old peer, a Normandy veteran, was informed on Friday that he will face no further action as part of the Metropolitan Police's Operation Midland The pensioner, who was not arrested, had always categorically denied the allegations. He told the Times newspaper it had been an "awful" experience. He said: "I think it's a terrible thing for someone of my age, with an impeccable record of public service ... Only now, very grudgingly, do they (the police) say they don't propose to take any action. "To have these awful, entirely untrue allegations hanging over one's head, without the police saying there is not a grain of truth in them, is really awful." Lord Bramall, as Field Marshal Edwin Bramall, was head of the British Army during the Falklands War before being promoted to the top military post. Operation Midland is part of a wider umbrella of investigations by Scotland Yard, dubbed Operation Fairbank, into allegations of abuse involving senior politicians and high-profile figures The Met released a statement saying: "Following a thorough investigation officers have concluded there is insufficient evidence to request the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to consider charging the man with any offences. "Operation Midland will continue to investigate allegations of historic child sexual abuse and homicide which involves a number of potential locations over a period of several years. It is right that such grave allegations are thoroughly investigated." A jealous and controlling martial arts enthusiast has been convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend in a brutal attack at a horse sanctuary. Laura Davies, 21, suffered at least 80 stab wounds and the attack was so forceful that the knife used was bent to a 45-degree angle, Chelmsford Crown Court heard. She died on July 3 last year after the attack at the Essex Horse and Pony Protection Society base in Basildon, Essex, where she lived and worked as a groom. Unemployed Jordan Taylor, 22, of Basildon, had denied the murder but was found guilty by a jury on Thursday. He is expected to be jailed for life. Facing life: Jordan Taylor / Essex Police Judge Charles Gratwicke warned Taylor he would face a lengthy minimum tariff of a life term when he is sentenced for the "brutal crime" on Friday. The court heard Miss Davies ended their relationship moments before her death. She had cooked a meal for Taylor in the flat they shared and told him that although the relationship was over, he could continue living there as she did not want to make him homeless. Prosecutors said the attack began in the flat, then continued outside as she fled in her pyjamas. Bent: The weapon used in the brutal attack / Essex Police CCTV footage showed the defendant attempting to hoist Miss Davies's near-lifeless body over a hedge out of view. Her family said she had been unhappy after he had begun telling her what to wear, prevented her going out and had taken control of her bank account. Giving evidence, her mother Dyanne Lambert said he would not allow her to wear short-sleeved or low-cut tops and they would often argue. Ms Lambert added: "She became very quiet and didn't want to talk about what was going on." Giving evidence on the third day of his trial, Taylor - who was born in Carlisle before moving to Annan in Scotland and Swindon - described the moment he "stupidly" grabbed the knife he alleged his partner of six months had lunged at him with. He denied purposefully making "disfiguring" cuts to Miss Davies's face and left breast as "punishment" for trying to end the relationship before eventually killing her. Punam Malhan, senior district crown prosecutor for East of England Crown Prosecution Service, said: "This was a vicious and sustained attack involving 80 separate wounds. "Jordan Taylor's actions were a result of a jealous rage after Laura ended their relationship. His actions have needlessly ended a young woman's life and robbed her of any future." Additional reporting by the Press Association. P olice were called after a man allegedly assaulted a woman with a kebab following a night out in Manchester. The takeaway favourite struck the victim after being hurled across the street at about 3am on Thursday. She dialled 999 to report the kebab attack and that she had then been assaulted, police said. But she rang back soon afterwards and told officers she did not want to make a complaint. Greater Manchester Police had originally tweeted the incident, saying: "999s today include report of assault with a kebab at 3am on Whitworth St West." Additional reporting by PA D octors are issuing free syringes to gay men who use the sex drugs GHB and GBL amid mounting concerns at the number ending up in A&E after life-threatening overdoses. The initiative comes as emergency doctors at St Thomas hospital the nearest A&E to the Vauxhall gay scene revealed they were treating one patient a day who has taken the illegal substances, dubbed G or liquid ecstasy. The Burrell Street sexual health centre in Southwark is providing one-millilitre syringes to prevent users exceeding a normally safe dose of the class-C drugs. The liquids are normally mixed in drinks, making it harder to measure the dosage. Robert Palmer, lead adviser and specialist psychotherapist in the Guys and St Thomas sexual health department, told the Standard: We have had a large number of presentations, particularly at weekends but also throughout the week, of young gay men in A&E who have collapsed with coma associated with the use of G, which they are not measuring properly. We have become very concerned about this. Not only does it mean that other patients wont get these beds, we are aware there have been a number of deaths across the country due to G. The use of GBL (gamma-butyrolactone acid) and GHB (gamma-hydroxybutyrate) is increasingly common in the chemsex scene. So-called slamming parties, or gay orgies, can last for the entire weekend. The drugs lower inhibitions, leading users to have multiple partners and unprotected sex. Side effects of the drugs can be exacerbated when mixed with alcohol or other stimulants. Clinicians hope that users will obtain the safe syringes, which do not have a needle, when they visit Burrell Streets counsellors, psychotherapists and health advisers. Mr Palmer said it was vital to adopt a non-judgmental approach to helping G users. What we are seeing at the sexual health department is the fallout from using the drug, he said. People come and see us once they have come down and started to feel more normal. They are concerned about the sex they have had or, if they have blacked out, are concerned what might have happened to them. If you tell somebody not to do something, they generally become more likely to do it. We are trying to find ways to help them consider safer ways of using the drugs. You are more likely if you are using these drugs, which are disinhibiting, to have the kind of sex you wouldnt have if sober condoms not used or more sexual partners. Dr David Wood, consultant physician and clinical toxicologist at Guys and St Thomas, said: Between October 2013 and September 2014 we saw nearly 300 GHB/GBL overdose-related presentations in our emergency department. Its crucial that if anyone is concerned that someone they are with may have overdosed, that they call an ambulance to bring them to A&E for urgent medical attention. H arry Potter fans are paying tribute to Alan Rickman by turning Platform 9 3/4 into a shrine. The Kings Cross station exhibit, which marks the departure point of the Hogwarts Express, is often busy with queues of Potter fans wanting to take pictures. And following the announcement of Rickmans death yesterday, tributes are being left for an actor known to a generation of movie fans as Professor Severus Snape. Messages and flowers have been slowly building up on the luggage trolley and beside the platform wall. Alan Rickman's Most Iconic Film Roles Twitter user J Fernandez posted a picture of the growing tributes yesterday afternoon, writing: Here was King's Cross Platform 9 3/4 a few minutes ago. So much love for our Snape. Here was King's Cross Platform 9 3/4 a few minutes ago. So much love for our Snape. pic.twitter.com/Xzp3oTOfnD J Fernandez (@imjfernandez) January 14, 2016 Via @dave_spice at Kings Cross, little Alan Rickman memorial pic.twitter.com/1LZS5JbPhd Bro Zwetsloot (@RobThez) January 15, 2016 Rickman, 69, died in London surrounded by family and friends after a battle with cancer, it was announced yesterday. Potter author J.K. Rowling said of him: There are no words to express how shocked and devastated I am to hear of Alan Rickman's death. He was a magnificent actor and a wonderful man. A n interior design shop has been mocked online for selling painted logs at 10 each to north London customers with money to burn. The timber at Sally Bourne Interiors in affluent Muswell Hill has just a splash of brightly coloured paint on one end but is still commanding a sky-high price. Punters can buy the logs for 10 a pop, 15 for two or stump up 50 for the whole lot. Locals on Twitter likened the offer to something from Harry Enfield's I saw you coming sketches about a pricey Notting Hill antiques dealer. Alan Robbo wrote: Only 10?? Bargin, I was gonna get some from the park but I'll buy these now. Stephen Mogridge tweeted: WTF I've got a garage full of logs and old tins of paint, I must be worth a fortune? Lorraine Leheny wrote: Well, so long as the paint doesn't produce toxic fumes when I burn them in my designer fireplace!! And Maria Wylie pointed out: One of them doesn't even have any paint on it. A shop worker told The Sun: The logs were part of a Christmas display. We had so much interest we decided to sell them. They have done better than expected. The shop has not responded to requests from the Evening Standard for comment. P lans for Londons first underground hotel, 50ft below the surface with windowless rooms, have been rejected by councillors who warned it would be a minus-five star destination. Criterion Capital applied to convert a below-ground NCP car park in Bloomsbury into a 166-room Tokyo-style pod hotel. The LDN hotel would be artificially lit and have no restaurant and bar. It would be on the fourth and fifth floors beneath a commercial block in Great Russell Street, near Tottenham Court Road Tube station. It was touted as budget accommodation for tourists and business travellers. But Camden council turned down the scheme last night. Councillor Stephen Stark said: With no windows in the rooms, its not a zero-star rating for the hotel but probably minus five stars. Colleague Adam Harrison said: We need to ensure its safe staying five storeys underground in a part of London with some of the worst air quality in Europe. Criterion argued it would have much benefit to the area and create 24 jobs. S adiq Khan plans to set up the first City Hall team to promote workers rights and union membership if he wins the mayoral race. Critics accused Labours candidate of preparing to bring the unions, which have funded and endorsed his campaign, into the heart of London government. Tories cited a recent memo from Mr Khan to Unison which they said raised questions about the influence the transport unions might have at City Hall. London Underground unions are currently planning three days of crippling strikes over the proposed Night Tube and working conditions. In his memo, Mr Khan pledged to be a collective bargaining mayor and to set up a dedicated team to work with unions for the benefit of employees. He also agreed to promote union membership. Tory MP Bob Neill, a former local government minister, said: Weve heard it loud and clear, Sadiq Khan would bring the unions into the heart of decision-making at City Hall meaning no Night Tube and agreement to union demands for more money. Just like the hard-Left has infiltrated Labour, Khan will bring the unions into City Hall and Londoners will pay the price. However, Mr Khan said the unit would concentrate on promoting fairness by boosting the number of Londoners paid the living wage, and preventing bad employment practices. A spokesman for the Tooting MP said: Unsurprisingly the Tories show themselves to be against tackling discrimination and inequality in the workplace. Sadiqs Low Pay Unit will work at City Hall with all sides and will have a relentless focus on tackling low pay and in-work poverty. All four main mayoral candidates have promised to name and shame bad employers who do not pay the minimum wage or fail to honour basic rights such as holiday pay or maternity leave. The Employment Legal Advice Network contacted the Tory, Labour, Lib-Dem and Green candidates after evidence emerged of a rise in the number of employers, often in the hotel, catering and cleaning industries, flouting the law. G eorge Osborne watered down his flagship bank levy under pressure from giant financial companies, some of which admit to paying no UK corporation tax, it is revealed today. Documents obtained by the Standard show the worlds biggest banks pushed the Treasury to weaken Mr Osbornes plan to claw money back from the financial sector after the 2008 crash. It has since emerged that several banks involved in successfully lobbying for a less burdensome levy paid no corporation tax in 2014. The revelation that Mr Osborne altered his levy in line with what the banks wanted today led shadow chancellor John McDonnell to claim he dances to the tune of whatever the bankers call for. Mr McDonnell said: Customers and taxpayers who bailed out the banks and continue to pay the price for their past actions and excesses will see this as yet more proof that George Osborne is on the side of those who run the banks. Mr Osborne introduced the levy after the Government spent billions of pounds bailing out banks. However, documents obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request by the Standard show that big finance groups pushed for the levy to be weakened when it was formulated in 2010. Among those who replied to the Governments consultation and called for changes were the CBI, Standard Chartered, Santander, HSBC and RBS. The British Banking Association said the levy would hit banks with huge costs, have a detrimental effect on the industry and deter investment. It also raised concerns that banks would be charged on liabilities outside the UK and called for ministers to set out when the levy would end. The bank levy rose after 2010, but last July Mr Osborne announced changes in line with what the banks wanted, including that it would be tapered and by 2021 only hit UK balance sheets. He did raise corporation tax for banks to eight percentage points above the standard rate but a Reuters investigation last week revealed that in 2014 some of the largest banking groups all represented by the BBA paid no UK corporation tax, including Credit Suisse, JP Morgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Nomura and Citigroup. The banks declined to comment at the time although their filings noted that they followed all tax rules and that tax payments can be volatile. Citigroup and Nomura wrote letters to the 2010 consultation, calling for the proposed policy to be weakened. Both declined to comment. A BBA spokesman said the sector had contributed an estimated 31.3 billion across all taxes to UK coffers in 2014. He said: Banks should pay their fair share to finance public services. But it is also crucial that the tax system provides long-term certainty so that banks can create jobs, invest and spread prosperity across the UK. A Treasury spokeswoman said reforms made to the levy and corporation tax would create a fair regime and rake in a further 2 billion. She said: Any suggestion of undue influence is wrong. The Financial Conduct Authority recently shelved a bank mis-selling probe. It decided against action against HSBC over claims its private banking arm helped rich clients avoid tax and ditched plans for an investigation into pay and behaviour in the industry. A deal paving the way for Britains historic in-out referendum on the European Union is just five weeks away, Jean-Claude Juncker revealed today. The European Commission President said he is quite sure that David Cameron will strike a permanent agreement with the other 27 leaders at a summit due to start on February 18. A key breakthrough at Brussels is said to involve new German proposals to curb the rights of European workers to claim in-work welfare benefits like tax credits for four years. However there could be a row in the UK Cabinet if, as ministers suspect, it means stopping benefits from young Britons as well. I am quite sure that well have a deal not a compromise, a solution, a permanent solution in February, said Mr Juncker, the executive head of the 28-nation club. Skirmishing ahead of the referendum, which could be held in September, intensified as confidence grew in Downing Street of a breakthrough. Chancellor George Osborne threw out Boris Johnsons suggestion that there could be two votes in quick succession, by stressing it will be a once in a lifetime decision. Several ministers have argued against any compromise that would see UK school-leavers denied welfare support. C rimewatch staff have issued a new appeal - to find some jewellery that has gone missing from their own studio. Two necklaces, a bracelet, a broach and a pair of earrings, which were in supermarket carrier bags, disappared from the BBC Crimewatch studio in Cardiff. The police have not been informed about the missing costume jewellery, but security staff at the building have been told. An email entitled "CRIMEWATCH - MISSING PERSONAL ITEMS" has been sent to BBC staff pleading for the return of the gems. The missive, sent to 1,200 staff members at the BBC Wales studios, read: "We have mislaid some personal jewellery that never made it into our van before filming, and unfortunately now they have disappeared from the BBC Broadcasting House basement area by these double doors." A BBC spokesperson said: It's simply some prop costume jewellery which has been mislaid. T he Duchess of Cambridge is to become an online journalist to highlight childrens mental health issues. Kate will be guest editor of the Huffington Post UK for a day next month and turn Kensington Palace into a news room to champion youngsters in need of help. The Duchess, who will make the sometimes taboo subject one of her major work focuses, last year vowed to set out her ambition to help the one in 10 children with mental health disorders in Britain. She said she is determined to give children combating mental issues the secure childhood she enjoyed. The Duchess will invite journalists from the HuffPost UK online newspaper into Kensington Palace in mid-February. She will commission articles from experts, parents and youngsters to highlight the importance of mental health issues. A Kensington Palace statement said today: The Duchess of Cambridge will continue her work to highlight the importance of childrens mental health when she serves as guest editor of the HuffPost UK for a day in mid February. The Duchess will use the opportunity to highlight the inspiring work being done by parents, teachers, researchers and mental health professionals around the country. A spokesman added: The Duchess of Cambridge has made the mental health of young children a key focus of her work in recent years. She is delighted that the Huffington Post will help put a spotlight on the important issue." The Duchess will invite contributions from leading figures in the mental health sector as well as from young people, parents and teachers. The spokesman added: We look forward to inviting the Huffington Post team to Kensington Palace next month. Stephen Hull, Editor-in-Chief of HuffPost UK, said he was thrilled that the Duchess had agreed to be guest editor for the day. He added: Dealing with mental health issues has been a major editorial focus for us and I am very excited to be working together on such an important project. The Duchess has decided mental health issues of children will be one of her major work focuses. In a rare public speech at a headteachers' conference in London last November she made the case for early intervention to help vulnerable young people and prevent problems in later life. The 34-year-old Duchess, recalling her own childhood in Berkshire, admitted she was lucky to have had such supportive parents and teachers but stressed that even those who come from stable, happy homes can suffer from emotional issues that blight them later in life. She told the headteachers' conference, entitled My Head is Too Full and run by charity Place2Be at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch in the City: "I often get asked why I decided to spend time highlighting the mental health of children. I imagine my answer might be similar to many of yours. "I know that I was lucky. My parents and teachers provided me with a wonderful and secure childhood where I always knew I was loved, valued and listened to. "As today's theme reminds us, many children even those from stable, happy homes are finding that their heads are just too full. It is our duty, as parents and as teachers, to give all children the space to build their emotional strength and provide a strong foundation for their future." Many of Britain's children are suffering emotional or mental health problems because of family breakdown, addiction problems or abuse but the government spends only six per cent of the mental health budget on children, despite evidence childhood problems cause much bigger ones in adulthood. H ouseholders can use "disproportionate force" against intruders in their homes as long as they reasonably believe it is necessary, the High Court has ruled. Senior judges ruled the so-called "householder defence", which was strengthened by the Coalition Government, was not incompatible with European human rights laws. They stressed in a landmark ruling they were not giving individuals "carte blanche" to use any degree of force to protect themselves and their loved ones. However, the said force was not necessarily unreasonable and unlawful "simply because it is disproportionate - unless it is grossly disproportionate." The judges rejected a human rights challenge brought by the family of an alleged intruder who was left in a coma after being confronted by a householder in Gillingham, Kent, in the early hours of December 15, 2013. Police investigators found "householder B", had used a headlock to restrain Denby Collins, but the householder was not charged with any offence. The Collins family believe that had the incident occurred before the recent change in the law, B and possibly other members of his family, would have been charged and prosecuted for unlawful wounding or another offence of violence. President of the Queen's Bench Division Sir Brian Leveson and Mr Justice Cranston used the case to give guidance to judges and juries throughout England and Wales on how to deal with similar cases. The householder defence was introduced by Parliament under the Crime and Courts Act 2013. Peter Collins, Denby's father, argued that the new law was incompatible with Article 2 (1) of the European Convention on Human Rights which protects the right to respect for life. However, both judges rejected his application. In a ruling on Friday, Sir Brian declared: "In the circumstances I conclude that the criminal law of England and Wales on self defence in householder cases, taken as a whole, fulfils the framework obligation under Article 2(1). But the judge warned: "The headline message is and remains clear: a householder will only be able to avail himself of the defence if the degree of force he used was reasonable in the circumstances as he believed them to be." Agreeing with the president, Mr Justice Cranston said the "plain words" of the section read in their legal context "mean that in householder cases the force used in self-defence is not unreasonable simply because it is disproportionate - unless, of course, it is grossly disproportionate". The Ministry of Justice welcomed the ruling. A spokesman said: "Being confronted by an intruder in your own home can be a terrifying ordeal. "That is why the last Government strengthened the law to give householders greater protection to defend themselves from intruders. "We welcome this judgment, which confirms that the provisions under the Crime & Courts Act 2013 are compatible with our obligations under human rights legislation." Later the Collins family said they were "disappointed" by the ruling, and were considering an appeal against the decision. In a statement released by their solicitors, Hickman & Rose, they said: "Denby Collins has been in a coma since December 2013, having been put in a neck lock and restrained on the floor by a householder who claimed to believe that Denby was an intruder into his home. "Denby's parents are confident that, had the incident in which Denby was subjected to life-threatening force occurred nine months earlier, then the householder - and quite possibly at least one of the other four persons involved in the restraint - would have been charged and prosecuted for unlawful wounding or another offence of violence." The statement added: "Denby's family continue to believe that the current law insufficiently protects a member of the public from extreme violence being used in self-defence where, for example, the person is left in a coma or is killed because they're treated, rightly or wrongly, as an intruder into someone's home. "They continue to hold the view that it should be sufficient for the CPS to prove that force used by anyone in self-defence is disproportionate for a person to be convicted for an act of violence of this type." Additional reporting by Press Association A stronaut Tim Peake has described the moment he became the first Briton to walk in space as a "real privilege". The 43-year-old, from Chichester, West Sussex, ventured out of the International Space Station on Friday to help repair a broken power unit. A live feed on the Nasa website showed the moment Major Peake tentatively emerged from the ISS with the Union flag on the shoulder of his space suit. As he prepared to exit the air lock, one of his colleagues, Commander Scott Kelly, told Major Peake it was "really cool" to see the Union flag outside. Mr Kelly said: "The Union Jack has explored all over the world, now it's exploring space." Major Peake replied: "It's great to be wearing it. A privilege, a proud moment." Before the pioneering moment he was pictured with his Nasa colleague Colonel Tim Kopra arranging his tools and getting into the airlock. The first British spacewalk in numbers Prime Minister David Cameron said on Twitter hours before the spacewalk: "Good luck to @astro-timpeake on today's #spacewalk." He added: "The country will be watching you make history." Major Peake said he was "exhilarated" by the thought of walking in space, which will take longer than six hours. On his blog he wrote: "Although I am exhilarated by tomorrows spacewalk I have no time to dwell on these emotions. "The six hours and thirty minutes we will work on the Space Stations hull are meticulously planned and Tim and I need to execute each step methodically. Tim Peake set to venture out of the International Space Station / NASA "Spacewalks, like many critical operations, operate on the buddy-buddy system. "Tim and I will constantly be checking each other and relying on each other for assistance if something should go wrong." Tim Peake preparing for his spacewalk / @astro_timpeake The European Space Agency (ESA) said every detail of the spacewalk was "choreographed minutely". Major Peake began to breathe pure oxygen two hours beforehand, because the pressure inside their suits is lower than that of the ISS. The pair then entered an airlock before opening its hatch and heading outside. Like rock climbers, the astronauts must always be tethered to Space Station supports. Tim Peake on his favourite Star Wars moment They successfully restored full power to the ISS after replacing a broken electronic box, working in darkness to avoid an electric shock from the solar power system. However the space walk was terminated early after four hours and ten minutes for safety reasons, after Colonel Tim Kopra reported a small amount of water and dampness in his helmet's absorption pad. Major Peake arrived at the ISS on December 15 and will stay for six months. T he alleged victims of the late Lord Janner were devastated today after all criminal proceedings against him were dropped. The peer had faced accusations of 22 sexual offences dating back to the 1960s against nine people, mostly under 16, when he died last month. At a hearing today prosecutor Richard Whittam QC revealed there had been plans to bring fresh charges. But the Old Bailey was told that the death of the 87-year-old former MP last month means there will be no criminal trial. A full investigation into Janners alleged campaign of abuse will be carried out in the independent inquiry led by Justice Lowell Goddard. Some alleged victims are also bringing claims for damages from the Janner estate in the High Court. Six men are thought to be claiming of up to 2.5 million for alleged abuse. Mr Justice Openshaw, due to preside over the criminal trial, ruled today that Janners death is the end of the matter theres nothing more to be said. Mr Whittam said the prosecution had considered a directive from the European Parliament and the code of practice for victims of crime and added:However significant as both those documents are they do not provide the court with jurisdiction to proceed against a defendant who is dead. Andrew Smith QC, defending, said he agreed with the analysis and I have nothing further to add. The judge made his decision via a videolink to Leeds Crown Court where he was hearing another unrelated trial.Janner had already been declared unfit to stand trial due to his deteriorating and irreversible dementia and a trial of the facts was scheduled for April. Following his death, the Crown Prosecution Service hinted at the possibility of pressing ahead with legal proceedings in what would be a highly unusual move. In a statement the CPS said: When a defendant dies during criminal proceedings, it is usual that the case no longer goes ahead...however, we are considering the procedural implications of this specific case. Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders had originally decided that Janner should not be charged with alleged child sex crimes because of his ill-health. But that was overturned by an independent review last April. In a trial of the facts, the jury would have considered the evidence against Janner but would not return a verdict and the court could not pass a sentence.All it could do was make a hospital order, a supervision order, or an order for his absolute discharge. Former DPP Lord Macdonald had suggested the trial of the facts could go ahead, although he expressed opposition to such a move because of Lord Janners death. Lawyer Liz Dux, who represents six of Lord Janners alleged victims, said they are obviously devastated and added: Many gave their statements decades ago and have been denied justice through a failure to prosecute earlier when Janner was alive and well. The family of Lord Janner, MP for Leicester West for 27 years, have said he was entirely innocent. D ozens of activists have gathered outside the Northern Irish office in London to protest against the decision to prosecute a young woman for attempting to bring about an abortion. The 21-year-old woman from County Down, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is facing life in prison if she is found guilty of the offences. She faced two charges at Belfast Magistrates Court on Monday; one being unlawfully taking poisonous substances, namely the drugs Mifepristone and Misoprostol, to terminate the pregnancy, and the second supplying or procuring a poison, knowing that it was to be used to induce a miscarriage. The offences are alleged to have taken place in June and July 2014. The case is the first prosecution against a woman in 40 years for procuring an abortion for herself. The 1967 Abortion Act, which makes abortion legal in the UK up to 28 weeks, does not apply in Northern Ireland. Lindsay Stronge, 29, from Ealing, organised the London protest. She told the Standard: "I lived in Northern Ireland until I was 18. Its awful to live with oppressive laws that say you dont control your own body the fear of an unwanted pregnancy is terrible. "The legislation in both the North and South of Ireland leaves women, particularly those with a low income, in a bad position find the cash to travel to England or risk prosecution or unsafe backstreet abortions back home. Protest: pro-choice campaigns gathered outside the Northern Ireland Office in Horse Guards Road / Daisy Veitch "Its gone on far too long and these arrests and prosecutions in Northern Ireland are the final straw. I called this demonstration to show our support for the 21-year-old woman being prosecuted. "Shes not a criminal, shes been failed by the state. She should be able to access safe and legal abortion at home. "We are out across four cities tonight standing with that woman and showing our resistance to the outdated and oppressive legislation on both sides of the Irish border." Similar protests calling for abortion laws to be reformed also took place on the streets of Belfast, Dublin, Galway and Cork, and hundreds around the world have supported the woman on Twitter, using the hashtag #NotACriminal. This young woman may be waiting months or years for trial. This is gender terror against women of NI. #notacriminal #extendthe67act Lucy Michael (@lucy_s_michael) January 15, 2016 Solidarity w. #NotACriminal rallies. Speechless with rage that women are being hauled in front of judges in 2016 for controlling our bodies kylie renogue (@ThatMichelleWan) January 15, 2016 RT if you're Mortified to be from N Ireland on days like this!!! #NotACriminal #HerBodyHerChoice pic.twitter.com/5DqwWK5DyR SisterSupporter (@SisterSupporter) January 15, 2016 Amnesty Internationals Northern Ireland programme director Patrick Corrigan said: Making abortion illegal does not stop women in Northern Ireland needing or seeking terminations. Those who can afford it travel to England for the treatment they need - over a thousand women make that journey from Northern Ireland every year. Those that cant afford it may take medication in an attempt to terminate their pregnancy without medical supervision or support. A woman who needs an abortion is not a criminal. The law should not treat her as such. By denying access to healthcare services, Northern Ireland is violating women and girls' human rights, as has now been established in Belfasts High Court. Instead of sanctioning women and girls for seeking the healthcare they need, the Northern Ireland Executive should lead the way in reforming abortion laws to bring them into line with international standards. D onald Trump has accused Republican rival Ted Cruz of not being eligible to become US president because he was born in Canada. The gloves came off in the race for the presidential nomination as the two frontrunners traded blows less than three weeks before voters go to the polls in the first round of the state-to-state polls. Neither candidate could land a knock-out punch at the televised Republican debate in North Charleston, North Carolina, but it was not for the want of trying. The fragile truce between the bombastic billionaire property mogul and the sharp-tongued Texas senator that had led some pundits to speculate Trump was lining up Cruz as a potential White House running mate collapsed in a flurry of ferocious jabs over their credibility for the Oval Office. Trump insisted there was a big question mark over whether Canadian-born Cruz was even eligible to serve as Americas Commander-in-Chief. Although the senator was born in Canada, his mother is American, which legal scholars agree fits with the US Constitutions provision that only a natural born citizen may be president. If you become the nominee, who the hell knows if you can even serve in office? said Trump. Cruz blasted Trump for only bringing up the matter because his poll numbers had fallen in Iowa, where the first nomination vote will be held on February 1. The Constitution hasnt changed but the poll numbers have, and I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling in Iowa, he said. But Trump claimed even a slight doubt could throw the election fight into chaos. You cant do that to the party, he said. Cruz - who is still marginally behind in the opinion polls - then drew his rivals ire by criticising New York values, referring to Trumps brand of conservatism reflected the more liberal leanings of the Big Apple, where he lives. Unusually emotional, Trump hit back by reminding the audience of the citys battle back from the trauma of 9/11. No place on earth could have handled that more beautifully, more humanely than New York. That was a very insulting statement that Ted made, he said. At times, the back-and-forth between the main contenders descended into farce. The row over Cruzs birthplace ended with the slick-haired senator telling Trump: Im happy to consider naming you as V.P. and so, if you happen to be right, you can get the top job at the end of the day. He claimed that if his opponents claims about his eligibility to be president proved accurate, then Trumps own credentials would also be suspect, as his mother was born in Scotland. But I was born here - big difference, retorted Trump. The other candidates, particularly Senator Marco Rubio and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, grew increasingly frustrated by the bickering and sought to land some blows of their own. Trump took flack from every other candidate on the stage over his controversial call for a temporary ban on all Muslims entering the United States, but the tycoon remained unbowed, noting that his popularity in the country rose after announcing the plan. As expected, all the Republican hopefuls took potshots at President Obama and the likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton on a range of issues. A mal Clooney said today that being married to one of Hollywoods biggest stars has helped shine the spotlight on to some of her human rights cases. The barrister, 37, who married George Clooney in 2014, appeared on Americas NBC News in her first solo TV interview to discuss human rights issues in the Maldives. While she did not speak directly of her husband, she said: I think its lovely that celebrities would choose their time and energy and the spotlight to do something worthwhile. I am still doing the same jobs as I was doing before. If there is more attention being paid than there was before, then thats good. Power couple: Amal says George's star power helps her causes / Dave Benett I think there is a certain amount of responsibility that comes with that and I think Im exercising it in an appropriate manner by continuing to do this kind of work. She discussed the situation in the Indian Ocean islands, saying: Democracy is dead in the Maldives. She added: Literally, if there were an election now there would be no one to run against the president. George Clooney tequila launch 1 /6 George Clooney tequila launch Loved up George and Amal Clooney are still in the honeymoon phase Dave Benett In support Founder of Casamigos Tequila Rande Gerber and his wife Cindy Crawford Dave Benett Double date Amal and George Clooney pose with Rande Gerber and Cindy Crawford Dave Benett Leading ladies Cindy Crawford, Charlotte Tilbury and Amal Clooney pose up a storm Dave Benett Date night Sofia Wellesley and James Blunt look loved-up on the red carpet Dave Benett "Every opposition leader is either behind bars or being pursued by the government through the courts. Mrs Clooney, currently in Washington DC, this week met Senator John McCain and other lawmakers in a bid to lobby Congress to impose sanctions on the Maldives unless political prisoners are freed, including ex-president Mohamed Nasheed, who she is representing. Nasheed is six months into a 13-year jail term on a terrorism charge relating to the arrest in 2012 when he was still leader of the Maldives of an allegedly corrupt judge. Mrs Clooney said: I thought to myself, the world needs more Nasheeds. Nasheed began negotiating with the islands government in June and his lawyers believed his sentence had been reduced to house arrest. But he was sent back to jail after eight weeks, the government claiming the house arrest had only been a temporary measure due to his ill health. Nasheed ended 30 years of autocratic rule in the Maldives in 2008, when he became the countrys first democratically elected president. He quit in 2012 after losing the support of the military and police. He stood for re-election in 2013 but lost to current President Yameen Abdul Gayoom, half-brother of the Maldives former autocratic ruler. T he nominees for the 2016 Oscars were revealed yesterday and as usual there are plenty of favourites, surprises, controversies, and omissions. Whats received the most nods? Will Leonardo DiCaprio finally get that elusive Academy Award? And how has Fifty Shades of Gray been nominated? Take a look at David Sextons cheat sheet for the biggest talking points from this year. 1. All white on the night? #OscarsSoWhite was trending straightaway on Twitter once again there was nothing for Idris Elba for Beasts of No Nation or Michael B Jordan or Ryan Coogler for Creed. All 20 actors nominated are white. The big hope, Straight Outta Compton, was listed for Original Screenplay but its writers Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff turn out both to be white too. When Chris Rock presents the Oscars, hes most likely going to be the only black person on stage most of the time unless he brings a friend whats he going to say? The Oscars diversity problem explained There wasnt much give for diversity in general either, although director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is Mexican, so far as that goes. Carol is a lesbian romance, The Danish Girl a trans game-changer, Emma Donoghue a proudly lesbian writer. But there is just one woman film-maker nominated, Turkish-born and French-raised director Deniz Gamze Erguven, for Mustang, a little-seen autobiographical work about five orphaned sisters in a remote Turkish village and in any case the Foreign Language category is a shoo-in for the powerful Hungarian film, Son of Saul, about the Sonderkommando at Auschwitz. 2. Respect for The Rev The biggest shortlist scorer is not always the biggest winner in the end but this year The Revenant with 12 noms will probably sweep the board in the big awards best director, best film, best actor, best cinematography, for starters and the technical ones. Its even slightly surprising that, though its in for sound editing and sound mixing, its brilliant music score by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto didnt make the cut. Perhaps the Academy had already been too blown away by the film to take it in? Is The Revenant no film for women, though? Depends on the woman. It is a great film for Native Americans, however. Oscar nominations 2016 1 /13 Oscar nominations 2016 The Martian Matt Damon in The Martian. He plays a stranded botanist who must fend for himself on the Red Planet 20th Century Fox The Revenant Leonardo DiCaprio as Hugh Glass in The Revenant Carol Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara in Carol Bridge of Spies Tom Hanks in Bridge of Spies, the Spielberg film based on Charmans script Brooklyn Saoirse Ronan and Emory Cohen Steve Jobs Kate Winslett and Michael Fassbender in Steve Jobs Joy Jennifer Lawrence as a mum on a manufacturing mission Room Ma (Brie Larson) and her 5-year-old boy Jack Jacob (Tremblay) Mad Max: Fury Road Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron Warner Bros Spotlight This photo provided by Open Road Films shows, Michael Keaton, from left, as Walter "Robby" Robinson, Liev Schreiber as Marty Baron, Mark Ruffalo as Michael Rezendes, Rachel McAdams, as Sacha Pfeiffer, John Slattery as Ben Bradlee Jr., and Brian d'Arcy James as Matt Carroll, in a scene from the film, "Spotlight." 3. Its womens hour Its really a joy to see Charlotte Rampling recognised for her searingly powerful performance as a woman realising that her whole life and marriage have been hollow in 45 Years, ridiculously snubbed by our very own Baftas. But she faces incredibly tough competition in the strongest and most open of the big categories, going up against Cate Blanchett for Carol, Brie Larson for Room, Jennifer Lawrence for Joy (a record fourth nom at just 25) and Saoirse Ronan for Brooklyn. Lets hope Rampling gets it: she deserves it absolutely for this performance and has never previously been nominated even while the others either already have won an Oscar or have many more chances ahead of them (Saiorse is 21, Brie knocking along a bit at 26). Oscar nominations announced 4. No Joy for Inside Out No category-jumping allowed? Many people think Inside Out should be a contender for Best Motion Picture of the Year but it remains stuck in Animated Feature Film alongside Charlie Kaufmans brilliant study in alienation, Anomalisa, which therefore wont win anything, and Shaun the Sheep Movie. And yet it moves. As Galileo said. 5. NFI: this years snubs Carol got the fourth-most noms in total (6) but not for the key categories of film or director. Bridge of Spies made it into the Best Film shortlist but Spielberg didnt into Best Director. Although The Martian did darn well overall, its director Sir Ridley Scott didnt make the cut either. In the screenplay categories, neither Aaron Sorkin for Steve Jobs nor Quentin Tarantino for The Hateful Eight got anything, perhaps a punishment for showing off. The much vaunted Johnny Depp gangster flick Black Mass was completely ignored but so, sadly, was one of the funniest and yet most horrifying and original films of the year, The Lobster, by Yorgos Lanthimos. People who thought Star Wars: The Force Awakens stood a chance for Best Picture need their heads examined, preferably with one of those blasters. 6. Stories of survival What do the three frontrunners have in common? Easy. They are all tales of an individuals survival against all the odds in atrociously harsh environments: in the Rocky Mountains in 1823, attacked by Native Americans and a bear in The Revenant; in irradiated, drought-stricken, post-apocalyptic Australia in Mad Max: Fury Road; and stranded for years on Mars without enough food or contact with Earth in The Martian. So, one set well in the past, the other two in the future. The Academy voters evidently like survival against the odds stories, one way or another. Wonder why? Nothing to do with 94 per cent of them being white, 76 per cent of them men, with an average age of 63, Im sure. Leo: Oscar nod 'feels great' 7. Nominated to the Max Biggest surprise winner overall in the nominations: definitely Mad Max: Fury Road, coming second with 10. To be sure it got seven nods in the Baftas but they were all in technical categories, whereas in the Oscars its up for Best Picture and so is former doctor, now 70, George Miller, who made his directorial debut with the original Mad Max back in 1979, up for Best Director. Aw! Both Mad Max: Fury Road and The Martian have been films hugely enjoyed by audiences while being pettishly underestimated by certain critics. 8. Fifty Shades of Wrong Most annoying Oscar nom: Earned It by The Weeknd is up for Original Song, meaning that Fifty Shades of Grey author EL James can now truthfully claim that her film has been Oscar-nominated! Girl youre perfect/Youre always worth it/And you deserve it/The way you work it/Cause girl you earned it. In a sense, I suppose. 9. The Irish are coming What about the Brits? Theres Charlotte Rampling, although in a film otherwise sorely under-recognised, 45 Years. Theres a slightly surprising entry into Best Supporting Actor for Tom Hardy in The Revenant, to go alongside Mark Rylances rather mannered turn as the English-educated Soviet spy Rudolf Abel in Bridge of Spies and Christian Bales nomination for The Big Short. Theres Kate Winslet in her first non-starring role for a while, as the put upon PA in Steve Jobs. Theres Shaun the Sheep. Theres Nick Hornby for his masterful recension of Colm Toibins novel Brooklyn and its pretty impressive that 36-year-old Londoner Matt Charman has got an Original Screenplay nomination, in company with the Coen brothers, for the original idea behind Bridge of Spies, his first ever attempt to break into Hollywood. There is brilliant cinematographer Roger Deakins (from Torquay!) who does such great work in Sicario that in any other year any non-Lubezki year hed be a shoo-in. Theres Asif Kapadia for his hugely emotional documentary, Amy. Theres costume designer Sandy Powell, nominated for both Carol and Cinderella. Theres Tom Hoopers regular production designer Eve Stewart for her fine work on The Danish Girl; theres the Ex Machina visual effects team And, after all, theres Eddie Redmayne, up for Best Actor again, for his turn as trans pioneer Lili Elbe. So were not doing too badly. Mind you, thanks to Brooklyn and Room, and, as ever, Michael Fassbender (sadly not made British by living in Hackney and spending half his time in Broadway Market), the Irish are punching above their weight too. 10. No more navel-gazing Missing this year? Mercifully, films all about acting and film-making itself, apart from Bryan Cranstons nom for his performance as the blacklisted Communist screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who bravely beat off the McCarthyites. Perhaps Hollywood is looking outwards at last? Or are they all just giving themselves a brief rest? A lan Rickman was hailed as a great man of the British theatre at a West End performance of the play that made him a star. Fellow actor Janet McTeer paid tribute to the star of Harry Potter and Die Hard whose death from cancer aged 69 was announced yesterday after the final curtain of Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Donmar Warehouse. She is appearing in a new production of the play alongside Dominic West in the role of the seductive aristocrat Le Vicomte de Valmont, played by Rickman 30 years ago. It was his performance in that play, with the Royal Shakespeare Company in the West End and on Broadway, that made him a star and led to him being cast as the villainous Hans Gruber in Die Hard opposite Bruce Willis. Alan Rickman - in pictures 1 /21 Alan Rickman - in pictures Alan Rickman as Professor Snape in Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire Alan Rickman at 14th Marrakech International Film festival, Marrakesh, Morocco in 2014 Rex Alan Rickman in Die Hard Rex Alan Rickman and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio in Robin Hood : Prince of Thieves Alan Rickman and Johnny Depp in 'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street' Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman in 'Judas Kiss' - 1998 Rex Kate Winslet with Alan Rickman at 'A Little Chaos' film premiere, Toronto International Film Festival, Canada Rex Juliet Stevenson and Alan Rickman in Truly, Madly, Deeply Alan Rickman at 44th Giffoni Film Festival in Italy Rex Heike Makatsch and Alan Rickman in Love Actually Emma Thompson with Alan Rickman in Sense And Sensibility, Alan Rickman and his wife Rima Horton at Goodwood Festival in 2015 Rex Alan Rickman in Galaxy Quest Alan Rickman at the 1996 EMMY Awards in Pasedena Getty Images Alan Rickman at 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2' Film Premiere, New York, America in 2011 Rex Alan Rickman pictured in London on 08 Dec 2008 Rex The Donmars artistic director Josie Rourke said: Janet knew Alan. She just stepped forward and said a few words and dedicated the performance to him. "It seemed fitting to remember him as a great man of the British theatre. Ill remember Alan for when I was at the Bush Theatre and we wanted to put on Nick Paynes debut play If There Is I Havent Found It Yet. "Our budget was committed and he was one of the people who helped us find the money to make sure it happened. He did it without fanfare simply because he loved the theatre. He was a very kind and generous man. Among tributes by other actors to London-born Rickman, Kate Winslet called him the best of men and Emma Thompson praised his humour, wisdom and kindness. Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe said Rickman Severus Snape in the film series was one of the greatest actors I will ever work with. Potter fans have left flowers at Kings Cross station, the location of platform 9 in the movies where the wizard boards the train taking him to Hogwarts. Rickman revealed last year that he had married his partner Rima Horton in 2012. They had been together since he was 19. | By David Glance The UK government is proposing to follow Australia with the introduction of their version of data retention legislation called the Investigatory Powers bill. This will require Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to maintain records of web addresses customers visit for a period of 12 months (in Australia it is 24 months). The legislation has been opposed by much of the tech industry including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter and Yahoo acting as the Reform Government Surveillance alliance. Companies are largely concerned that anything that diminishes their customers trust in the companies ability to protect a users privacy will diminish their trust in the companies concerned. A survey released this week from Broadband Genie, a UK ISP, suggests that the public may have changed its mind about the importance of government surveillance. 63% of the respondents said that they supported the changes to surveillance laws to protect the country. 27% of those who supported the proposed legislation had changed their minds as a result of recent terrorist attacks such as the one in Paris. Unfortunately, those surveyed were less convinced that ISPs could be trusted with the job of storing the retained data securely. Only 33% believed that their ISP could store users data securely. It is worth being cautious about over-interpreting one survey, especially when it is not known if those answering really understood the full ramifications of the proposed legislation. They may not be aware of the arguments for, and against, data retention, and certainly have little means of assessing the relative risks of any of the potential pitfalls of storing this type of data. The publics perceptions of the importance of privacy changes however when it comes to smart home devices known generally as the Internet of Things. In a large, world-wide survey of 28,000 consumers, Accenture has reported that 47% of respondents reported concerns over security and privacy as a major barrier to purchasing Internet of Things devices and services. Of those people who owned or were planning to buy devices, security concerns resulted in 79% deciding to postpone purchase of devices (24%), be more cautious in their use of the devices (37%) or stop using them altogether (18%). Interestingly, governments are sending very mixed messages when it comes to privacy and security. When it comes to the Internet of Things, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been very vocal about the importance of protecting the privacy and security of Internet of Things users. This would necessarily involve end-to-end encryption, a feature that the UKs Investigatory Powers Bill seeks to curtail, or at least make its override a feature available to the Government. The general public could be forgiven for being confused given the contradictory messages coming out of different parts of government organisations. The other complicated factor is that it may not be possible to guarantee privacy and security for consumers whilst at the same time allowing government agencies unrestricted backdoor access to communication. The truth however is that neither side can really say with any certainty what is the best path to take. There is merit to both sides of the argument in terms of what possibly might happen if this legislation gets put in place. On the one hand, it is possible that it will make it easier to deal with terrorist threats or events. On the other, it may just force the terrorists to use custom encryption tools that are not subject to any restrictions and worse, result in those same terrorists being able to undermine the security of the very public the governments seek to protect. In amongst all of this are the attitudes of the public which in the absence of real understanding and evidence, will be swayed by events. Terrorist attacks like the one in Paris or in Jakarta will sway more of the public to agree that governments need to be able to intercept and disrupt terrorists networks using everyday secure communications. Events like the shutting down of power plants in Ukraine by hackers will push the public the other way into wanting more security of internet-connected devices - especially those controlling key national infrastructure. There is little doubt that legislation like that proposed in the UK will become law. Neither side will get what it really wants, and the public is likely to stay confused. David Glance, Director of UWA Centre for Software Practice, University of Western Australia This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. This page is archived. Data published after 5 April 2022 can be found on the renewed website. Go to the new statistics page Published: 15 January 2016 Turnover in manufacturing contracted by good 7 per cent in August to October According to Statistics Finland, turnover in manufacturing in the August to October period was 7.2 per cent lower than in the corresponding period of the year before. Domestic sales contracted by 3.8 per cent and export turnover by 9.7 per cent from one year ago. Three months' year-on-year change in turnover in manufacturing (C) sub-industries (TOL 2008) Turnover went down from the corresponding period of the previous year in nearly all. The decline was fastest in the electrical and electronics industry, 18.5 per cent, in the chemical industry, 16.6 per cent, and in the textile, clothing and leather industry, 10.6 per cent. In the forest industry, turnover remained almost unchanged, the drop only amounted to 0.1 per cent year-on-year. Three months' year-on-year change in turnover in main industrial categories (TOL 2008) The turnover of thealso declined. Turnover in water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation activities contracted by 1.5 per cent and that of electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply by 4.8 per cent from one year before. Turnover contracted most in mining and quarrying, by 7.9 per cent from the corresponding period in the year before. The index of turnover in industry describes enterprises whose main industry is manufacturing. The calculation of the indices is based on the Tax Administrations value added tax data which are supplemented with data obtained with Statistics Finlands sales inquiry. The monthly turnovers of manufacturing enterprises can vary considerably, especially in the metal industries. The variation is mainly due to invoicing practices. The final invoice for major machinery deliveries and projects may be recorded in the sales of one month, even if the delivery had required the work of several months or years. Source: Index of turnover in industry 2015, October, Statistics Finland Inquiries: Atte Lintila 029 551 2914, Kirsi-Maaria Manninen 029 551 2681, myynti.teollisuus@stat.fi Director in charge: Mari Yla-Jarkko Publication in pdf-format (346.4 kB) Updated 15.1.2016 Referencing instructions: Official Statistics of Finland (OSF): Index of turnover in industry [e-publication]. ISSN=1798-596X. October 2015. Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 20.10.2022]. Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/tlv/2015/10/tlv_2015_10_2016-01-15_tie_001_en.html Beijing aims to play bigger rule-setting role ahead of Hangzhou summit, observers say multimedia-container State Councilor Yang Jiechi (front, third from left) joins other officials from G20 economies at the First G20 Sherpa Meeting in Beijing on Thursday. The three-day gathering forms part of the runup to the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. FENG YONGBIN / CHINA DAILY China aims to contribute more to setting global economic rules as it prepares to host the G20 summit in September, according to observers. They made the observation as the First G20 Sherpa Meeting began in Beijing on Thursday. The three-day gathering is being attended by senior officials as part of the run-up to the summit in Hangzhou, Zhejinag province. State Councilor Yang Jiechi, addressing Thursday's opening session, said China has several goals for hosting the summit this year. One of these is to enhance the role of the G20 from being a mechanism to tackle crises to one exercising long-term, effective management. Yang said whether the G20 realizes this successful transformation and sees achievements in addressing new global economic challenges "concerns the overall development of all the member states and influences the very interests of all countries in the world". He said the G20 will play a leading role, showcase ambitions and outline directions for world economic development and international economic cooperation. The G20 is expected to draw up rules and indicators and inspect their implementation, providing benchmarks for assessing cooperation, Yang said. Chen Fengying, a senior researcher of the world economy at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said such a shift in the G20's role will help to "address both root causes and symptoms". The G20 represents nearly 90 percent of the global economy's volume and 80 percent of international trade. China, in addition to making its voice heard on the global stage, has begun to offer more initiatives, Chen said. "The G20 is still irreplaceable because of its important role in leading the world economy toward robust and balanced growth," Chen said. Huang Wei, a researcher of global economic governance at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that behind China's latest initiatives and proposed measures lies its unique philosophy and its own "rhythms of exercising economic governance". "Given the global governance interest ... the developing countries including the emerging economies have received some response to their pursuits, but this is far from enough. So we need to do more in this regard," Huang said. This page may have been moved, deleted, or is otherwise unavailable. 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As of the end of 2015, when it was formally established, a total of 57 countries had signed inter-governmental agreements, and the first batch of loans is expected to be approved by the middle of this year. The AIIB, the first multilateral financial institution launched by China, will provide new opportunities for countries inside and outside of Asia. Government officials and economic experts expressed confidence that the AIIB is going to play an active role in international economic governance, global financing and regional economic cooperation. Among the 57 founding members, 19 are Asian countries. Backward infrastructure hinders economic development of this region. Data from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) projects that, from 2010 to 2020, Asian countries will need $800 billion to invest in infrastructure construction every year. The current international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the ADB cannot meet the huge demand for infrastructure investment in developing Asian countries. Indonesia is the largest economy in Southeast Asia, but its seriously outdated infrastructure greatly impairs its international competitiveness. In an exclusive interview for Peoples Daily, Li Zhuohui, chairman of the ASEAN Foundation, said that the country is in urgent need of a partner such as the AIIB, and he believes the AIIB will contribute heavily to new construction and stimulate the economic potential of many countries in this region. Similarly, Central Asian countries are in bad need of an infrastructure upgrade, but they lack sufficient funding. Many expect the AIIB to help to solve this problem, including the President of Kazakhstan via the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies, who offered this opinion to People's Daily. The AIIB will also play an important role in poverty reduction in Asia. World Bank President Jim Yong Kim has said that anyone concerned about issues of poverty and inequality should welcome this kind of bank, which will help developing countries develop their economies and create new jobs. The AIIB will boost economic growth, infrastructure development and investment throughout Asia, which will undoubtedly play a role in poverty alleviation, said the chief researcher of the Korea International Trade Association. Along with the One Belt, One Road initiative, the AIIB will have a far-reaching impact on the economic development of involved countries. Senior researcher Chen Gang, with the East Asia Institute at the National University of Singapore, believes that the AIIB will improve the interconnectedness of ASEAN countries and help accelerate the pace of ASEAN integration. Dr. Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a lecturer in the Department of European and International Studies of King's College in London, holds the view that few countries like Britain can get so big an opportunity from the AIIB. The Russian Far East and Siberia region will also benefit from the regional infrastructure construction, said the chief researcher at the Institute for Fiscal Science of the Russian Ministry of Finance. China proposed the creation of the AIIB back in 2013 and it was formally approved last year. A ceremony to inaugurate the new lending institution will be held in Beijing on Jan. 16. Friday, 15 January 2016 23:33:51 (GMT+3) | Sao Paulo As the outlook for the Brazilian economy worsens, the nations central bank (BCB) has reviewed once again its forecast for the nations GDP in the on-going year. In a report called Focus, BCB said the countrys GDP should decline 2.99 percent in 2016, up from a 2.95 percent decline estimate. As for 2017, BCB forecasts growth of 0.86 percent, compared to the previous estimate of a 1 percent growth. The nations forecasts for GDP have been downgraded throughout 2015. In August 2015, for example, the central bank said GDP should decline 1.97 percent in 2015 and see no growth in 2016. Now the central bank is expecting a nearly 3 percent decline in the economic indicator. Friday, 15 January 2016 16:30:28 (GMT+3) | Istanbul Turkish wire rod offers to the export markets have remained unchanged over the past week in the range of $350-360/mt FOB. Foreign buyers are still putting downward pressure on Turkish wire rod prices due to slack demand, but Turkish steel producers are unwilling to reduce their wire rod export offers amid the increases seen in raw material costs. In the US, Turkey's most important wire rod market, local producers have increased their wire rod prices during the past week. Buyers within the US domestic wire rod market are not convinced such an increase is realistic. However, the rises seen in local wire rod quotations have provided support for increases in import wire rod offers to the US, including offers from Turkey. Additionally, US buyers are in no rush to conclude new deals as they believe the upward movement of local prices is temporary and will be short-lived since demand has failed to improve in the same period. Romania's cyber security system still has weaknesses, but the authority in charge has some proposals for improving it, Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos said on Friday, after the meeting with Communications and Information Society Minister Marius Raul Bostan. "We also had a discussion on the cyber security system, where Romania still has weaknesses, so to say. We have this authority in charge with cyber security and we shall see what relevant measures we can take this year. This authority has a set of proposals to improve Romania's cyber security environment," Dacian Ciolos said.Communications and Information Society Minister Marius Raul Bostan pointed out that Romania needs a cyber security law and that this piece of legislation will be submitted to public debate.He added that there are IT malfunctions on a governmental level, but that they are going to be fixed. AGERPRES MOSCOW, Jan. 14 -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday agreed to meet on Jan. 20 in Zurich, Switzerland, over international issues including Syrian crisis. The two made the arrangement in a conversation over the phone in the day. "Lavrov and Kerry agreed to meet on January 20 in Zurich," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in an online statement. "In accordance with orders by the Russian and U.S. presidents, who discussed urgent global issues in a phone call yesterday, the top diplomats continued the discussion of Syrian crisis settlement as well as the conflict in Ukraine." Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said at a news briefing Thursday that a considerable part of the meeting would be dedicated to issues of Syrian settlement. "We are proceeding from the assumption that the topic will be discussed in the most active way," Zakharova said. "We hope that the meeting will add constructiveness to the general process of Syrian settlement." The tripartite Russia-U.S.-UN consultation was held Wednesday on peace settlement in Syria, the ministry said, noting that opinions were exchanged in details on issues related to the intra-Syrian peace talks scheduled for Jan. 25 in Geneva, Switzerland. "The Russian side stressed the need for unfailingly honoring the provisions of the Vienna documents and UN Security Council Resolution 2254 on establishing an inclusive delegation of Syrian opposition that would include all influential forces committed to resolving the crisis through political means," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a press release. In particular, the list of terrorist groups should be coordinated jointly as soon as possible, while possible humanitarian measures were discussed so as to mitigate the "plight of civilians," the ministry said. In meetings held in Geneva Wednesday and Thursday on Syrian crisis, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov also met with several leaders of influential Syrian opposition groups over the organization of the planned intra-Syrian peace talks. "They pointed out that the intra-Syrian talks must be attended by delegates from the large opposition forces that are interested in finding a political solution to the Syrian crisis, so that the interests of all segments of Syrian society are represented at these talks," said the press release for the meetings. Russian President Vladimir Putin also stressed Thursday the urgent need for all interested states to consolidate actions and confront the Islamic State the extremist group and other extremist groups. In another development, Russian government earlier in the day released the full text of the agreement with Damascus, signed by the two countries in August 2015, on the deployment of a combat air force in Syria. The Russia air forces started airstrikes against IS positions in Syria on Sept. 30, 2015, with Russian aircraft deployed at Syria's Hmeimim airbase. BEIJING, Jan. 15 -- For many Chinese fans, British actor Alan Rickman's passing was the second time they bid farewell to their favorite character Professor Snape, this time, however, he's gone forever. The heartbreaking news on Thursday evening saw many Chinese take to microblog Sina Weibo to mourn the great actor. By Friday noon, a hashtag relating to Rickman's death had been used more than 39,000 times, with 40.9 million views of posts relating to the news. From a sharp-tongued terrorist in "Die Hard," a ghost in "Truly, Madly, Deeply," or the Sheriff of Nottingham in "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," of all the roles Rickman played in his long, varied acting career, Snape was to be the one that would cement him in the hearts of his Chinese fans. Perhaps inspired by his sensitive portrayal of the potions professor, many chose to pay online tributes in language imbued with the magic world. One Weibo user, "Mengmiandechuan," said, "he didn't die, he just passed into the moving pictures." In the world of Harry Potter characters live-on in photographs or paintings after death. "Farewell, Professor Snape, you are the most exceptional wizard in my heart. Tonight every wizard will light up their wands for you," said another post on Weibo. Written by British author J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels set in a world where magic exists. As all the novels have been translated into Chinese and the films screened across the country, many children of the 1980s and 1990s are avid fans as it has such close links with their childhoods. WASHINGTON Macy's, Urban Outfitters, Bed Bath & Beyond and others this month reported ringing up weak sales during the holiday shopping season, capping a tepid year that many in retail attributed to cautious consumers who are not ready to forget the lessons of the last recession. And yet look beyond the mall, and there's a different dynamic: Spending on air travel hit record levels last year, even as the average price of an airline ticket dropped. Restaurant sales were up a robust 8 percent in the first 11 months of 2015, easily outperforming the 2 percent increase seen in the overall retail industry. Millennials were on track to spend an average of $750 each in 2015 on media, including video games and streaming services such as Netflix and Spotify. In other words, consumers are plenty willing to open their wallets, but what they choose to buy reflects a fundamental shift: Increasingly, shoppers are passing up the cashmere sweaters or leather handbags and instead shelling out for experiences such as a beach vacation, a dinner out on the town or a concert. "People are saying, 'I've got enough stuff. I want to pamper myself a bit and do something that makes me feel good,' " said Steven Kirn, executive director of the University of Florida's retail education and research center. That's been the approach of consumers like Mary Kate Allen-Mehryar of Arlington, Va., who is headed next month on a vacation to Key West to celebrate her 30th birthday and has recently dropped money to dine at upscale D.C. restaurants Rose's Luxury and Makoto. "I will literally say, 'I don't want to spend $150 on this dress but let's go to this awesome sushi restaurant where I'll spend $200,'" Allen-Mehryar said. "I don't get buyer's remorse when I buy food," she added, because dining out is something she gets to share with friends and family. That mind-set has made for a tough environment for many retailers, who now must not only duel with one another for business but must try to persuade legions of consumers to essentially make a lifestyle change: trade filling up their calendar with activities for filling up their closets with stuff. Executives of some of the biggest names in retail say these spending habits are weighing on their businesses. Macy's chief executive Terry Lundgren has said he believes his company's sales have struggled because customers these days are willing to pony up for things such as autos and technology but just aren't buying what Macy's sells. The department store this month announced that its sales plummeted during the holiday shopping season and that it would be closing stores and cutting thousands of jobs in 2016. At Ascena Retail Group, the parent company of Ann Taylor and Dressbarn, chief executive David Jaffe has said sales have been hurt in part as a result of their shopper "spending more money on her experiences." Nordstrom, too, alluded to this issue in explaining disappointing sales. "It's a traffic thing," James F. Nordstrom Jr., president of stores, said on a conference call with investors. "We've got less people buying clothes this quarter than we expected, and there's really nothing else to point to." In this climate, retailers and shopping centers are trying to better compete for consumers' attention and dollars by jazzing up their stores. If people are looking for an experience, they reason, they need to give that to them when they visit the mall. Nordstrom, for example, has begun adding counters to its women's shoe department in which shoppers can customize their footwear. Women can check out fabric samples and various design details such as heel height and toe shape and then create their own shoe. Lululemon, meanwhile, is offering a concierge service at its flagship store in New York's Flatiron District to help shoppers book a spot in an exercise class or find a running route in the city. Urban Outfitters has sought to adapt to this new reality by investing in a company that is far away from its core business of selling hipster clothes to the college set. The company recently bought a pizza chain called Pizzeria Vetri, saying that it saw big opportunity to expand the chain in a moment of strong spending on casual dining. Experts say millennials may be an important driver of the spending-on-experiences trend. In a survey conducted by the consultancy PwC last year, millennials said some 52 percent of their holiday spending would be on experience-related purchases, compared with 39 percent for older consumers. "The trend will only accelerate as they continue to have more and more of an ability to pay" for such purchases, said Sarah Quinlan, who studies consumer spending patterns as the head of market insights for MasterCard Advisors. Vacations and dining out are each projected to see a 27 percent increase in consumer spending between 2015 and 2019, according to a study conducted by market research firm Mintel. That is the strongest growth of any spending category. Malls and shopping centers are also moving to configure themselves for an experience-seeking consumer. Tom McGee, the chief executive of the International Council of Shopping Centers, said restaurants, theaters and gyms are now taking up a greater share of such properties. "I think the owner-developer community has recognized the need to evolve," McGee said. "You're going to have [design] reconfigurations, more open-air, more experiential aspects." To be sure, a small set of retailers have managed to deliver robust sales growth despite these head winds. TJX, the parent company of T.J. Maxx and HomeGoods, has been on a hot streak, with sales leaping 5 percent last quarter. L Brands, which owns Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works, saw its quarterly sales jump 7 percent. On Thursday, the company said sales were up an eye-popping 8 percent in December at its stores open more than a year. But overall, many chains, especially apparel sellers, are struggling to find their footing in this environment. "I think they're having a hard time," said Randy Allen, a senior lecturer at Cornell University who studies retailing. "They know that they need to [change] and they're experimenting, but I think the jury is out on how well they're adapting." To an American auctioneer, the art of the sell is in the chant. I got 20. Gimme five. Gimme five more. Give me 25. Twenty-five there! The rat-a-tat chant, delivered rhythmically with a booming voice, feeds the tension in the room and gets the adrenaline flowing. The auctioneer points at bidders one then the other, then back to the first daring them to go higher and higher. Bids come in seconds. Theres no time for thought. Gimme five. Gimme five more. Gimme 30. Gimme 30. Gimme 30? Sold for 25! If the auctioneer is really good, bidders may find themselves going higher than they ever intended. Its theater. Its understanding and reading the crowd, and rewarding certain behavior, said Richard Jeff Jeffers, a long-time art dealer and CEO of Selkirk Auctioneers and Appraisers in the Central West End and Garths Auctioneers of Ohio. Im really a marketer and a psychologist. Theres an art to auctioneering, and students from across the country came to St. Louis to learn it this week, paying $1,000 for a multiday course from the Missouri Auction School. The students are an eclectic bunch. Royce Edwards of Fond du Lac, Wis., clerked at an auction when he was a teenager. He caught the auction bug, but his wife didnt want to be married to an auctioneer. So he spent his career as a state employee. She divorced me three years ago. It was the best thing that ever happened to me, he said. Now Im 71 and Im going back to auction school. I always wanted to do it and Im doing it. Several of the students have rural roots and grew up going to auctions for livestock and farm equipment. Its always fascinated me the rhythm of the delivery, the sound, said Jeff Lucas, a farmer and landlord from southern Indiana. Peggy Ladd of south St. Louis grew up on a farm but became an engineer. Through her volunteer work, she heard that a woman-oriented charity couldnt find a woman auctioneer. Ladd plans to fill that void at charity auctions and galas around St. Louis. It is, indeed, a male-dominated business. There were 12 men and four women at the class at the Selkirk gallery, where they learned about auctioning and art. Auctioneers are people persons, said Paul Dewees, president of the Missouri Auction School, which has been training auctioneers since 1905. They are outgoing and good at sales. And theyre very good talkers. Auctioneers develop their own chants with their own words and patterns, but with one thing in common. When the bidding is going, the chant never stops. The chant is mainly two words the last bid, and the bid theyre seeking. Between that there are filler words, Dewees said. It sometimes turns into a countrified rap song with a toe-tap beat: Im at one dollar, bidding now, two now two, will ya gimme two. Sometimes its melodic, pleasant sing-songy almost nursery rhymey, he says. Or, it can sound like a verbal machine gun, words flying so fast that its nearly unintelligible to auction newbies. The aim is to create auction fever, a psychological urge to bid. Its a quick-decision business. We want to create that sense of urgency, Dewees said. By the pace of the auction, by the rhythm of the chant, we can sometimes draw those people in so theyre continually bidding. In the heat of the auction, there are five people wanting the same thing, and the sense of competition is a very funny thing, Dewees added. When a bidder bids, for that instant, unconsciously, he thinks he owns the item. Youre thinking, I know what Im going to do with that, Dewees said. That makes it hard to see another bidder take it away. QUESTIONS OF FAIRNESS Being an auctioneer isnt hard. Its uncomfortable, Jeffers said. The salesman is rapping the chant, scanning the audience, doing math in the brain to calculate the next bid. Hes carrying the show, with money at stake, and thats an uneasy feeling. The auctioneer surveys the audience. Im seeing facial expressions. Im seeing body language, Jeffers said. Sometimes I see a couple and theyre discussing whether to bid a piece. Shell say no, and the other one will bid anyway. When a bidder looks down, hes done, and the auctioneer knows to look elsewhere. He watches out for sniping an Internet auction term that applies to live auctions as well. A bidder stays silent to the last instant before the hammer falls, before turning in the high bid. They auction cattle. They auction cars. They auction fine paintings and sculpture. The auctioneers dress may differ cowboy boots in the barn, jacket and tie in the gallery. They make subtle allowances for the ambience. The rap at a cattle auction is a tad softer than when selling fine art especially when the paintings cost lots more than a cow. My chant might sound slower, more conversational, said Jeffers, but it still has a beat to it. Ill sell 85 lots an hour, said Jeffers. If you sell slow, they become disinterested. Twenty-three lots an hour doesnt cut it. There are strategies to consider, as well as questions of fairness. At art auctions, bids come in over the Internet and by phone to employees behind the audience. Some buyers leave their maximum bid with the auction house, and an employee places them during the auction. That leaves the auctioneer with a choice. Some will start the bidding at the top bid they have in their pocket. After all, the house makes the most money when prices are high and thats certainly what the objects owner wants. Most auctioned objects are sold on consignment with the house getting a percentage. But Jeffers doesnt think its fair to the bidder who named his top price. Auctioning is a trust business. If I go right to that top number, that does not elicit trust, Jeffers said. So, he starts the bidding lower, and his employee ups the ante in time with other bidders. Often that means the bidder gets the object below his maximum price. Jeffers opinion on that subject isnt unanimous. You have a lot of auctioneers who will tell you youre silly. You just lost money, he said. At other auctions, there are no bids in pocket and no moral dilemma to the choice. The auctioneer may start the bidding high, and then drop the price if no one bids. If thats the tactic, dont be too quick to lower, Jeffers tells his students. Linger a little to see if somebody speaks up. If you drop now, theyll make you drop again and again, Jeffers told the class. Experienced auction buyers psych out the auctioneers. If they know that a particular auctioneer likes to start high, theyll sit back and wait for the price to drop. The other option is to start low to encourage bidding, then hope that auction fever drives the price up. Auctioneers are largely entrepreneurs hiring themselves out to auction houses, lawyers selling off estates, farmers selling the farm and looking to retire, or family selling off the possessions of deceased relatives. Good ones might make $50,000 to $100,000 per year, Dewees said. Most of the work is done offstage, dealing with sellers. Getting the auction in order. Sometime the task requires sympathy. Sellers are often at a transition point, Dewees said. It may be Mom and Pop moving to a smaller home and getting rid of things that wont fit. Sometimes the sellers are relatives selling off a deceased persons estate. Its an emotional day. All their friends and family are there, Dewees said. Theyll say, I have memories of Grandma rocking me in that rocker. Missouri is moving forward with plans for another new state park, this one along the scenic Eleven Point River near the Arkansas border, despite an outcry from local officials and state legislators. Almost $11 million from settlements with lead mining companies will fund the purchase of about 4,200 acres on the Eleven Point River in Oregon County, which will be deeded to the Department of Natural Resources for use as a new park. The park includes a portion of a ranch where the Beatles stayed during their first U.S. tour. The money will also cover the purchase of about 1,100 acres near Johnsons Shut-Ins State Park and several smaller parcels totaling 200 acres, as well as fund native plant and stream restoration. Legislators have already filed bills that would force the state to sell back the land and be more open about future real estate purchases. Local officials, too, have argued the money should be saved for cleanups in southeastern Missouri communities impacted by lead mining. Since 2009, environmental damage settlements with lead mining companies gave the state and federal government about $49.3 million to put toward restoration projects in southeastern and southern Missouri. The DNR, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Forest Service are trustees for the money. Oregon County officials opposed a new park. But Gov. Jay Nixon has called buying the Oregon County land an outstanding opportunity, and DNR Director Sarah Parker Pauley has said opportunities on the Eleven Point dont come along every day. DNR spokesman Tom Bastian didnt respond to questions about what the park would be called, how much it would cost to maintain and whether any capital improvements were planned there. Oregon County Commissioner Patrick Ledgerwood said the purchase amounted to the loss of more property tax revenue. The U.S. Forest Service already owns 106,000 acres in Oregon County, and Ledgerwood doesnt expect any tourism benefits from the new park. This place is out absolutely in the middle of nowhere, nowhere near any of our towns, Ledgerwood said. Rep. Linda Black, R-Desloge, said that the lead settlement money was never going to be enough to pay for centuries of lead mining damage and that the Oregon County park would divert valuable resources from the communities most affected. Now, with the pot dwindling, the hopes of the impacted area actually being restored and remediated seem to be slipping away, she said. But John Weber, who heads the project for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said there was still $35.6 million left for southeastern Missouri restoration projects. Projects in areas such as St. Francois and Madison counties have been delayed because the Environmental Protection Agency still has to do big lead cleanups in the areas. The money overseen by the trustees is supposed to supplement that work. Weber is hopeful the trustees can fund projects in those areas within the next year and get started by 2017. Weve been working very closely with EPA to determine which remedial projects are next and how we can complement their efforts, he said. The state of Missouri and the Fish and Wildlife Service are really focused on site restoration for our next goals to try and be responsive to the public comments we received. In November, Nixon toured several sites in the Lead Belt where local officials said they had lead cleanup projects ready to be funded. Nixon spokesman Scott Holste said in an email that the governors office was working to finalize those projects. Nixon officials and DNR staffers have held numerous follow up meetings with local officials to develop and advance potential projects, Holste wrote. We also continue to urge the EPA to expedite remedial activities so as to allow restoration activity to occur. St. Francois County Commissioner Patrick Mullins said that although he was disappointed to see $11 million sent to southern Missouri, he was hopeful his county would win funding in the next round of projects. The EPA had told him we are high priority for cleanup, and state and federal officials had indicated there were other projects in his county that would be funded, though he didnt want to say more yet. The trustees are extremely interested in this, Mullins said. AWARDS The Fenton Area Chamber of Commerce announced the following awards: Karen Fox of Karen The Connector and Tracy Dickey of American Eagle Credit Union, 2015 Ambassadors; Kristie Gabel of Elite Cuisine, Rising Star; Thad James of Sammy J Balloon Creations, Chamber Spirit; Greg Bresler of Andres Banquet Facilities and Catering, 2015 board member of the year; and Diane Bade of UniQue Ideas N More, Norma Radeackar Lifetime Achievement. Ken Kranzberg, chairman of TricorBraun, and Judy Jones were named 2016 Man and Woman of the Year by Variety the Childrens Charity of St. Louis. W. Dudley McCarter, a principal of Behr, McCarter & Potter, received the 2015 Knox College Service Award. DEALS Manna Pro Products, which produces animal nutrition and care products, has acquired Tennessee-based Harris Farms, which caters to raisers of backyard chickens. DAS Acquisition Co. acquired Providence Home Lending, which has four offices in Wisconsin. EXPANDING Byrne & Jones Construction opened its new headquarters in Bridgeton and expanded operations with a new office in Gretna, Neb. HELPING OUT Amy J. White, an attorney with Jackson Lewis, was elected to the board of directors of Presbyterian Childrens Homes and Services of Missouri. Variety the Childrens Charity installed the following new board members: Amy Best, private client advisor at U.S. Trust; Bill Menke, executive vice president and COO of Wehrenberg Theaters; Bob OLoughlin, chairman and CEO of Lodging Hospitality Management Corp.; Paul Shaughnessy, president of BSI Constructors; Jackie Yoon, market president of Bank of America; and business adviser Joe Castellano. The St. Louis Chapter of the International Facility Management Association donated $1,000 to Heat Up St. Louis. Coldwell Banker Gundaker sales associates and employees donated holiday gifts for more than 60 children in the St. Charles Division of Family Services foster care program. First Bank employees donated 175 new electric blankets and raised $5,200 on behalf of EnergyCare. OPENINGS Park Avenue Coffee opened a new location: 4240 Duncan Avenue, St. Louis, 63110 PARTNERSHIPS Show Me Sounds & Wheels is now a U-Haul neighborhood dealer. PROJECTS Impact Strategies was awarded a $3.5 million expansion project at Christ United Methodist Church in Fairview Heights, Ill. RECOGNITION Signature Medical Group CEO Jan Vest was recognized as the 2015 Medical Honoree by the Arthritis Foundation of Eastern Missouri. Big River Running Co. was honored with the Ubuntu Award for community service by Balega, a leading performance sock brand in the running and outdoor specialty markets. The business was also recognized as one of the 50 Best Running Stores in America by Running Insight and Competitor Magazine. Twin Oaks at Heritage Pointe in Wentzville was selected as a 2016 Best of Assisted Living award winner from SeniorAdvisor.com. Stephen Sharpe received Northwestern Mutuals Pacesetter 40 award. LOS ANGELES It's official: Fox is bringing back "Prison Break" as an event series, programming chairmen Dana Walden and Gary Newman told TV critics meeting Friday in Los Angeles. No date is set, but the original team is on board, including stars Wentworth Miller (Michael) and Dominic Purcell (Lincoln). A challenge will be finding time to shoot, with Miller and Purcell on the CW's "DC's Legends of Tomorrow" and Sarah Wayne Callies, who played Sara and was not mentioned in the announcement, on USA's new "Colony." Schedule conflicts have already led to one delay. Fox also announced: "Scream Queens" has been picked up for Season 2. It's a huge hit in delayed viewing and on-demand, the network says. S.2 will take place in a hospital. No surprise: "Empire" also gets early renewal for Season 3. A pilot has been ordered for "24: Legacy," described as "a new series set in the world of '24.'" It's described as a reboot and has an entirely fresh cast. Trisha Yearwood will play Mary in Fox's biblical musical "The Passion," produced by Tyler Perry. It's "Jesus' last day presented through contemporary music." Tim Curry will narrate Fox's "Rocky Horror Picture Show" remake. He was Dr. Frank N Furter in the original. Gail Pennington is attending the Television Critics Association press tour in Los Angeles. Follow her at stltoday.com/tubetalk, facebook.com/tubetalkpd and on Twitter at @gailpennington. The General Office of the State Council, China's Cabinet, has issued a new document set to ensure every Chinese citizen is able to be legally registered in the permanent household registration system, known as "hukou." According to the new document, a hukou is a basic right for all citizens since it's linked with social welfare as well as a variety of other rights, thus it should be protected. The guidelines require the improvement on current household registration policies, including the elimination of the restrictions on citizens' rights to a hukou. Huang Shuangquan, vice head of the security administration bureau of China's Ministry of Public Security, says the document clarified two bottom lines which cannot be negotiated. "For local authorities or specific government departments, they should immediately start to revise relevant policies on household registration, with those obstructing citizens access to a hukou abolished. This is our first bottom line. The second one is that the legal rights for citizens to register for a hukou should always be protected and never be harmed under any circumstances." Unregistered citizens in China, also known as the "black" population, include those born illegally under the one-child policy. Local authorities may have refused to register children born in breach of the family planning policy, or parents of such children may have not registered them out of fear of punishment. The "black" population also includes people without a birth certificate, children born out of wedlock, orphans adopted outside the official system, and people pronounced missing or dead. Huang noted that they will open "green channels" so as to improve the efficiency of their work. "We will assign specific police staff who are familiar with household registration systems to handle citizens' applications. If an applicant brings complete reference files and meets all the demands, the police will handle his or her applications right on the spot. Otherwise, the applicant will be immediately informed with the materials he or she still lacks." The Public Security authorities will later launch an investigation into each specific situation regarding whether the local citizens are legally registered or not. Meantime, one of the new documents' highlights is that it also rules out helping those children under a "de facto adoption", meaning they are adopted without required registration but already live as foster-children of their adopters. Without a hukou, these kids encounter a series of obstacles while applying medical or educational welfare. Gan Weiwei from China's Ministry of Civil Affairs says the new document could be quite beneficial to those children. "I think the release of this new guideline could effectively solve those children's problems brought by a lack of legal household registration, for them it's good news. The Ministry of Civil Affairs will further cooperate with other relevant departments to solve their issues." According to the National Population Census in 2010, there are 13 million unregistered people in China, accounting for 1 percent of its population. Over the last few months, rhetoric by a few politicians against minorities have sown and inflamed the seeds of intolerance and ignorance. It also has shown a not very complimentary side of some of our citizens. Politicians are fueling the sentiments to gain votes, not realizing nor caring how it will change the fabric of our country. The country which is built on immigration and whose diversity is the envy of the world is being divided into us and them. Hateful remarks by Donald Trump and Ben Carson has caused much anguish for many minorities, especially American Muslims. Islamophobia is on rise and many incidents have been reported over the many parts of the country. In St. Louis, usually we see less overt hostility against Muslims. I give credit to the strong interfaith relationships in Greater St. Louis area to combat intolerance and foster respect for different faiths. After the painful violence in Paris and San Bernardino, faith leaders stood together against Islamophobia. They categorically rejected the notion that the actions of few fanatics who happen to be Muslims represent the faith of over 1.5 billion Muslims. The Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis had an open house last weekend for the community at large. More than 300 guests from different churches, synagogues, Bhai temple and many other organizations came to know more about Islam. Some of the friends have been to the mosque before and brought their friends to interact and gain insight into the world's second largest faith. Speakers from Jewish, Christian and Bhai faith addressed the crowd and stressed on the need to know each other, respect everyones faith, fight bigotry and stand together to serve the community. David Oughton, from St. Louis University's department of theology, eloquently described the relationships among different faiths at five levels. 1. Tolerance Reject the belief that only my religion is good and true and all others are bad and false. There are many examples of intolerance between different religions: crusades, the Inquisition, the Holocaust, and Bosnian genocide 2. Understanding similarities and differences among different faiths Those include the Golden Rule, common commandments, teachings of virtue and compassion, and a striving for self-improvement, justice, and self defense. Those similarities extends to armed or military conflict and the shared belief that any individual or group that uses violence against civilians is perverting religion. That's true of the KKK or the IRA as they relate to Christianity, as well as Al-Qaeda or ISIS as they relate to Islam. 3. Cooperation This can be manifest in a shared interfaith effort to combat Islamophobia. 4. Appreciation We can develop an appreciation of what is valuable in others religion. Gentiles do not have to become Jews to appreciate Sabbath rest. Non-Christians do not have to become Christians to appreciate Jesus call for building the reign of God on earth as it is in heaven. Non-Muslims do not have to become Muslims in order to appreciate the importance of prayer five times a day or fasting for a month. 5. Commitment to the process of creative interchange This process of learning from each other, improving each other, and correcting each other is what makes a good marriage, good family, and good friendship. People of different religions need to make this same kind of commitment in order to learn from each other, improve each other, and correct each other. Maharat Rori Picker Neiss, executive director of Jewish Community Relations Council, traced the roots of intolerance and bigotry to be stoking fears. She referenced the story of the enslavement of the Israelite people in the ancient land of Egypt. It is a noteworthy story, she said, because that enslavement began out of fear. When faced with a group of people who saw a foreign group of people living in their midst, the Egyptians turned to one another and said, Let us oppress them, lest they grow too big, and they take over our country. It is a rhetoric that is shockingly familiar to us today, Picker Neiss said. But what is even more striking is how the story begins, she said. The Israelites go to ancient Egypt because of Joseph. Joseph, who rises to be the second in command to Pharaoh. Joseph who single-handedly saves the entire Egyptian people and the surrounding lands from a debilitating famine. Joseph who collects the food and rations it out to the people so that they can survive over the seven years of scarcity. The Torah tells us, Vayakam melekh khadash al Mitzrayim A new king arose over Egypt, asher lo yada et Yosef who did not know Joseph. Is it really possible that there was a king who did not know Joseph? Picker Neiss said the rabbis offer two potential ways to read this verse. The first is that there was, in fact, a new king. But the second reading that the rabbis offer is that this king was not a new king. He was the same king who had ruled before. But he made new decrees. So what does it mean that this king did not know Joseph? The rabbis teach, Asa atzmo keelu lo yada He made himself as if he did not know. It is in this not knowing, that the fear was allowed to take over, Picker Neiss said. It is in not knowing someone, in not learning about them or interacting with them that we set ourselves as others from them. Picker Neiss offered a moving call to action. But let us always remember that the knowing is a choice. It is a choice to get to know someone. And it is a choice not to know someone. And it is a choice to not want to know someone. Billie Mayo quoted from Bhai scripture the importance of understanding, compassion and cooperation. Later, guests visited the mosque, asked questions, networked and left with hopes and promises to continue the positive relationships. Many guests mentioned I will speak up when I see Islamophobia or intolerance towards any group. The interaction has strengthened my belief that the moderates are the majority, are peace loving, accepting of diversity but not vocal enough. The voices of hatred are from a minority group and loud. I am also a strong believer that with collective efforts we can reject prejudice towards any group. The ecumenical theologian Hans Kung, writing in Global Responsibility, stated "there will be no world peace without peace among the religions; there will be no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions; there will be no dialogue among the religions without investigation into common theological and philosophical foundations; and there will be no world peace without a common global ethic." Hayat sits on the public relations committee of Islamic foundation of Greater St. Louis. She is a contributor to STLtoday.com/religion. That two St. Louis County civic leaders would write letters to a federal judge to vouch for a convicted drug dealer should surprise nobody familiar with the long history of connected families in this region living under different rules than the rest of us. The letters in question were written by St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger and county Police Chief Jon Belmar on behalf of Michael Saracino II. Saracino, 27, was sentenced in December to 24 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to possession and intent to distribute more than 1,000 kilos of marijuana. He had been arrested in 2014 as part of a federal and local drug sting in a massive drug dealing operation that included airplanes and spanned several states. Evidence in the cases included at least one firebombing, beatings and a kidnapping. This was not some rich kid growing doobie in his dads basement. Prosecutors sought a sentence about twice that long. Saracino, though, knows people. His uncle is a former county police board member who is now Stengers right-hand man, earning $130,000 a year. His family owns three St. Louis area restaurants, including Bartolinos South. The restaurants are popular with cops, offering plenty of free meals over the years. And Stenger once represented the young Saracino after he refused to take a breath test after a traffic stop. So that the two men would write letters that would end up in the hands of U.S. District Court Judge Catherine Perry shouldnt shock the senses. In fact, the very namesake of the building where Saracino was sentenced once did a similar thing. It was the summer of 1983, and a politically connected St. Louis lawyer with ties to the mob was awaiting sentencing from a federal judge in Nevada after being convicted of tax fraud. The feds said Sorkis J. Webbe Sr. filed false tax returns to help cover up a kickback scheme involving the Aladdin Hotel and Casino. The federal investigation tied the scheme to mob figures in Chicago, Kansas City and Detroit, including Joey the Clown Lombardo and Tony the Ant Spilotro. None of that seedy background mattered much to the politicians in St. Louis most of them Democrats who were connected to the Webbe family, which wielded quite a bit of labor and South Side political influence. This was a different time. Among those writing letters asking for leniency? U.S. Sen. Thomas F. Eagleton. Insofar as such contacts I had with Mr. Webbe, he conducted himself honestly, wrote Eagleton, whose name now adorns the federal building where Saracino was sentenced. I never observed, nor did I know of, a thing which would cause me to be dubious of his integrity. Forty-one such community leaders wrote letters mentioning nothing of Webbes mob ties. Only one of them truly came to regret it: Col. John A. Doherty, who was then the chief of detectives for the St. Louis Police Department. That one of the citys top cops, whose job it was to put away mobsters at a time in which there were car bombings galore in St. Louis, as rival Syrian and Lebanese gangsters fought over labor power, didnt sit well with law-and-order types. In fact, the federal prosecutor was so upset he subpoenaed Doherty to appear at the Nevada sentencing. You should advise the chief (of police) not to allow these kinds of letters on department stationery and to rid the department of these connections, special U.S. attorney Marvin L. Rudnick told a police board attorney at the time. Belmar would have been wise to think of Doherty before doing the same thing more than three decades later. Both the chief and Stenger said they were asked to write the letters by John Saracino, according to Post-Dispatch reporters Christine Byers and Robert Patrick, who broke the story on Thursday. The St. Louis County police union official told the reporters that rank-and-file officers were upset about the letter, because it was such a major drug bust and county police officers were involved in the investigation. The police union is considering a no-confidence vote in Belmar. I believe I have a good track record of law and order, Belmar said. Indeed, so many years ago, Doherty offered a similar defense. The federal government should know how I cleaned up the hoodlums in this town, he said. But I feel like Im the one on trial. Fair or not, he was. A month after Webbe was sentenced, Doherty was censured by the police department. A year later, the man who many thought would rise to be the next chief retired. One year after that, the owner of a popular south St. Louis restaurant was sentenced in a completely unrelated tax fraud case. His name was Bartolomeo Saracino. His grandson, Michael Saracino II, was not yet born. Prosecutors recommended a lengthy sentence for Saracino. The judge gave him three months in work release. Eighty civic leaders in St. Louis wrote letters to the judge vouching for his character. You might call it the St. Louis Way. JEFFERSON CITY Eight months after the 2015 legislative session ended under a cloud of scandal, Republicans who lead the Missouri House moved quickly Thursday to try to clean up the tainted culture of politics under the statehouse dome. On a vote of 141-16, the House approved legislation that would require members of the Legislature to wait a year after their terms end before becoming lobbyists. They also took action on changes designed to increase transparency when it comes to receiving freebies and whether they have financial conflicts of interest that could affect their votes on state policies. Our constituents sent us here to get things done. We are in our fifth day of session and thats what were doing. Our constituents want a government that works, said state Rep. Caleb Rowden, R-Columbia. But the fast-track maneuvering raised questions of whether the politically calculated changes go far enough as most members of the Legislature head into the 2016 election season. Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, and Democratic lawmakers say the absence so far of a plan to put limits on campaign contributions is a disappointment. Missouri has had no caps on contributions since 2008, resulting in big-money donations flowing into the campaign accounts of everyone from state representative to officials running for statewide office. We are representatives of the people, and it is very clear the people want us to clean up our act, said state Rep. Stacey Newman, D-Richmond Heights. Could we have done something better? Yes, said state Rep. Lauren Arthur, D-Kansas City. House Speaker Todd Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff, lashed out at Democratic critics, saying their opposition was politically motivated. I am tired of us talking about these things and never getting them done, Richardson said. The action follows the resignations of two lawmakers last year after revelations that they had inappropriate relations with college interns who served in the Capitol when the Legislature was in session. The cooling-off period for lawmakers looking to cash in as lobbyists attempts to address situations in which lawmakers are writing legislation one day and then lobbying on behalf of clients the next. Last year, then-Senate President Pro Tem Tom Dempsey, R-St. Charles, abandoned his seat before his term ended to become a lobbyist. A Post-Dispatch tally found at least 50 former lawmakers populating the lobbying ranks. We are taking definite concrete steps to make our process better, said Rowden, who sponsored the revolving-door ban. Some Democrats complained that the cooling-off period was too short. This is not what I want. Id like a longer period and Id like it to apply to all of us today. This isnt enough for me, said state Rep. Bill Otto, D-Maryland Heights, who voted yes for the measure. The proposals now move to the Republican-controlled Senate, where they could be debated as early as next week. Senate Majority Leader Mike Kehoe, R-Jefferson City, acknowledged that the bills might not be strong enough for everyone. But if we start moving down the field, well be in a better position than where we are now, Kehoe said. If approved by the Senate and signed into law by Nixon, Missouri would end its status as one of at least 17 states without a revolving-door ban. The proposal exempts current members of the Legislature, but supporters say it would still affect most of them because the majority of House members will be running for office in the fall. It applies to every member of this body running for re-election, said state Rep. Jay Barnes, R-Jefferson City. In addition to the revolving-door ban, lawmakers approved a ban on lawmakers and statewide elected officials serving as paid political consultants. The package also includes a provision requiring House and Senate members to file financial disclosure reports twice a year, rather than just once. State Rep. Gina Mitten, D-St. Louis, complained that the proposals fell short of making significant changes in addressing the image of lawmakers in Jefferson City. It is a baby, baby, baby step, Mitten said. The House also approved House Bill 1575, which boosts reporting requirements for officials who receive hotel stays and other travel expenses. State Rep. Gail McCann Beatty, D-Kansas City, said the added paperwork might become burdensome on politicians. Im very much open to transparency, but we need to be careful about how much of this we do, McCann Beatty said. WASHINGTON A potpourri of political news from the St. Louis-area delegation in the nation's Capital: Republicans denounced a decision Friday by the Obama administration to temporarily prohibit new coal mining leases on federal lands. Several delegation members, pointing out Missouri's high dependence on coal for electricity production, decried it as another blow against an industry they say that President Obama has been out to get since taking office. Obama, in his State of the Union message, touted his push toward renewable and cleaner energy as an economic, as well as environmental, boon. But some St. Louis area politicians said the coal industry's problems have hurt job-holders and companies that have offered thousands of jobs. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said that Obama "is once again taking aim at one of our most abundant and lowest cost energy sources, at the expense of Missouri families and small businesses." Rep. John Shimkus, R-Collinsville, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said that "it's not only economically foolish to keep those resources locked away, its morally wrong to deprive Americans of the benefits they hold. And Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Ballwin, earlier this week blamed the Obama adminstration's policies for forcing Creve Coeur-based Arch Coal into bankruptcy. Expect Blunt to make a formal announcement he is running for re-election in late February, around the Feb. 23 filing opening, said his campaign spokesperson, Burson Snyder. That will be virtually a year after Secretary of State Jason Kander, a Democrat, announced he would challenge Blunt this year. Year-end campaign financial disclosures by both men showed Blunt with a $5 million to $2 million cash-on-hand advantage leading into 2016. The U.S. Mint just announced it will offer a commemorative $5 gold coin honoring author Mark Twain. who grew up in Hannibal, Mo., and was one of the 19th Century's most popular writers. A silver coin commemoration of Twain, born Samuel Clemens, will be offered later. JEFFERSON CITY Gov. Jay Nixon on Friday asked the federal government to declare 41 Missouri counties eligible for disaster assistance because of the recent floods. His request includes the metro-area counties of Jefferson, Franklin, Lincoln, St. Charles and St. Louis; and the neighboring counties of Crawford, Gasconade, Pike, Ste. Genevieve and St. Francois. Cape Girardeau County also is on the list, as well as many counties in central and southwestern Missouri. "This was historic flooding with devastating impacts on many Missourians, and it will be a long recovery process," Nixon said in a statement. "A major disaster declaration will help in that effort." Three days of record rainfall that began after Christmas caused flooding along the Missouri, Mississippi, Meramec, Big and Bourbeuse rivers, among others. Record flood crests along the tributaries, especially in the suburban communities along the Meramec, damaged many homes and businesses. Nixon said emergency inspectors continued gathering information on the extent of the losses and estimated value. If President Barack Obama approves Nixon's request, individuals could apply for federal help in home repairs, temporary housing and replacement of personal goods. Businesses could apply for loans. ST. LOUIS Missouri businessman John Brunner, who spent $8 million of his own money in his unsuccessful attempt to win a U.S. Senate seat in 2012, has donated or loaned to his current campaign for governor more than $3.6 million in the past few months, records show. In fact, with a few pen strokes, Brunner, one of four candidates seeking the Republican nomination for governor this year, has become by far the best-funded among them though he has actually raised, by far, the least amount of money from donors other than himself. Brunner's not-entirely-unexpected self-funding aside, the new records show that Eric Greitens has emerged as the fundraising leader in both parties, easily besting all his fellow Republicans put together and even out-pacing the fundraising juggernaut of the lone Democrat in the race, Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster. Greitens, a former Navy SEAL-turned-author who has never held public office, raised more than $1.5 million between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, according to records filed Friday with the Missouri Ethics Commission. That's more than Koster's $1.35 million, and far more than the GOP challengers: Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder ($300,000), former Missouri House Speaker Catherine Hanaway ($137,000), and Brunner ($81,000, not including the money donated or loaned from Brunner's own fortune). But Greitens' big numbers contain what has become a familiar caveat: almost two-thirds of his money was donated by wealthy contributors who don't reside in Missouri, but live in California and other states. That has spurred critics to question in the past where his loyalty would lie as governor. Missourians will choose their party nominees in the Aug. 2 primaries, with the winners facing off in the Nov. 8 general election. The four-way race for the GOP nomination has been contentious, and has included a bitter personal argument during a phone conversation between Greitens and Brunner that Brunner secretly recorded and which was later aired publicly. Brunner's records, eye-popping at first, show he raised more than $682,000 in donations during the three-month period, and is currently sitting on more than $3.6 million. But the details in the records bear out what observers have been expecting for awhile: Brunner, who also has never held office, is starting to sift his fortune into his campaign, as he did in his failed attempt to win the GOP nomination to the U.S. Senate in 2012. He lost that primary to U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, who went on to lose to incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. In the current campaign, records show, Brunner donated slightly more than $600,000 of the $682,000 he reported having raised in the last three months of 2015. The remaining $3 million in his campaign fund is from a single loan to himself. In a statement, Brunner's campaign said the numbers show Brunner "can't be bought by special interests." Kinder, a three-term lieutenant governor and the only candidate among the Republicans with a statewide electoral record, raised a little over $300,000, an improvement from the previous quarter but still modest against Greitens. In a written statement to supporters, Kinder pointed out that most of his money has come in the form of small donations of under $5,000 each. We're successful because of the contributions of hard working Missourians so I'm beholden only to you my supporters, he wrote. Hanaway, a frontrunner early in the race, logged another poor fundraising showing, bringing less than $138,000 for the quarter. Her remaining cash level is at a respectable $1.5 million, mostly because of about $1 million she received early on through St. Louis retired businessman Rex Sinquefield. That money came with controversy because of claims that she would be beholden to the activist multimillionaire. In a statement, Hanaway put the best face on the numbers while taking a subtle jab at Greitens by pointing out that she has raised 95 percent of her fund from "Missouri donors." As in previous cycles, Greitens got the bulk of his money from well-heeled donors from other parts of the country giving five and even six figures per donation including a California-based venture capitalist who gave $500,000 at the end of the year. In all, just a little over $600,000 of the roughly $1.5 million the campaign raised came from Missourians. Greitens' campaign pointed out Friday that, though the out-of-state dollars were big, the number of Missouri sources giving money is substantial some 440 out of the total of 745 donors. The wish of 8-year-old cancer-stricken American boy Dorian Murray to be famous in China and see the Great Wall has triggered strong response inside China where countless netizens posting pictures of themselves standing on the Great Wall in Beijing and holding signs reading "#D-Strong". The news has also drawn the attention of a group of Chinese children only 370 miles away from Dorian's home in Westerly, Rhode Island. Outside the Chinese embassy in Washington on Thursday afternoon, 9-year-old Lv Yige said she wants to tell Dorian to hold on and get well soon so they can climb the Great Wall together. "The structure which resembles the Great Wall is splendid. It will bring him good luck," Lv said, pointing to the embassy building. Designed by noted Chinese American architect I. M. Pei, the huge embassy structure looks just like the beacons on the Great Wall. Lv is one of some 20 students of the embassy's Sunshine School who gathered outside the embassy to send their best wishes to Dorian. They are all children of diplomats and staff working at the embassy. "Dorian, we all love you, we love you, stay strong," the students, holding a painting of dragon-shaped Great Wall with the hashtag "D-Strong," shouted their greeting. Chinese Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai joined the students in extending the best wishes. "It is quite moving to see Dorian being optimistic and strong. I sincerely hope he defeats the disease and realizes his wish of seeing the Great Wall," said Cui, who also asked his staff to send a greeting card and a photo album of Great Wall to Dorian. Dorian had told his parents that his wish "before going to heaven" was to be famous in China and to see the Great Wall, which he called "kind of a bridge. People walk on it." The message, which was posted by his parents on Facebook, has spread fast in China. Rui Yiwei, also from the Sunshine School, said she hopes Dorian will stay strong and live happily. "Miracle will happen," said the 11-year-old. Wilson Wang, who is 8-year-old same as Dorian, said he got the news from his mom's iPhone and he wanted to tell Dorian that the Great Wall is really cool. "I'm Wilson, so stay strong and get well, we two can climb the Great Wall together," he said. Qi Mutong, 10, said she wants to tell Dorian not to give up and get well soon. "Though he might not be able to get to the Great Wall, we all could help him to see the Great Wall, and other attractions in China," Qi said. She hopes more people will show their love to Dorian such as by sending him pictures so he can travel around the world. "I want to tell him that the Great Wall is significant and it takes stamina to climb it. You have to persevere to climb the Great Wall and never give up, otherwise you won't see the most beautiful scene from the top," Qi said. COLUMBIA Gov. Jay Nixon's final budget recommendations as the head of the state's executive branch will include significant investments in developmental disabilities. Nixon, a Democrat, announced Friday he is recommending lawmakers drop $131 million of state and federal funds into the Department of Mental Health's Division of Developmental Disabilities for the 2017 budget year that begins July 1. On Wednesday, the governor will present his budget recommendations to the Legislature at the annual State of the State. It will be Nixon's eighth and final time recommending a state budget because he is termed out as governor. This increase includes $5 million to expand the University of Missouri's Thompson Center to allow for 2,000 more visits each year and the training of 100 more providers over the next five years. "Here in Missouri, we believe that all children -- including those with autism -- deserve the opportunity to live up to their God-given potential," Nixon said Friday at the center. His recommendations also include $1 million to launch an autism clinic at Truman State University and $500,000 to expand services at the Mercy Kids Autism Center in the St. Louis region. It also includes $14 million to keep the waiting list for in-home Medicaid services for developmentally disabled individuals at zero. Nixon already has proposed a $55.7 million increase for colleges and universities across the state. Lawmakers will have to sign off on all of Nixon's budget recommendations for them to become a reality. ST. LOUIS A low-level bust almost three years ago has now led to a federal indictment against a cocaine trafficking ring believed responsible for as many as 17 homicides here in the past five years, law enforcement sources told the Post-Dispatch on Thursday. The indictment, unsealed Wednesday, describes a ring rooted in St. Louis, Texas and Mexico. It cites a connection to four murders since 2012 including a grandmother hit in her home by a stray shot. But the sources say the actual tally is much higher, and more indictments are likely. The original case was filed in August against one St. Louis-area man, Anthony Jordan, now 29. Additional defendants were arrested Wednesday on a 20-count superseding indictment delivered Jan. 7. In all, 18 men and women now face charges. Fourteen were in custody. U.S. Attorney Richard Callahan declined to comment on the number of murders. Obviously, I cant go beyond the indictment, he said. But I think this indictment shows a continuing concerted effort to go after some of these drug killings that have plagued St. Louis over the last decade. He also said that the SAVE initiative, which partners federal and local officers, represents a new commitment of additional resources to combat the violent crime in our area. With the organization dismantled, St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson said Thursday he hopes the citys violence will slow. While the indictments focus on cocaine, Dotson said it was a poly-drug outfit that varied its products to meet demand. This is one of the biggest roundups of violent offenders in the city of St. Louis, he said. As we kept peeling away at it, we kept finding there was more and more to it that ultimately connected St. Louis to Texas and Mexico. Im hoping to see a reduction in the amount of narcotics coming into the city and a slowing in violence in the citys crime rate overall. This is a great case with great arrests but theres still a lot more work to do. St. Louis police announced earlier this week that reported violent crimes were up 7.8 percent in 2015 over the year before, and homicides were up 18.2 percent. Some of those connected to the drug ring are associates of former city police officer Don McGhee, Dotson said. McGhee, 28, nearly killed in an off-duty shootout a year ago, pleaded guilty in April of conspiracy for providing a shotgun to someone he knew to be a drug dealer. He was since resigned from the department, and is serving two years in prison. He was never involved with any violence that were aware of except for the day he was shot, although our investigation continues around this criminal enterprise, Dotson said. In that incident, McGhee was wounded Dec. 19, 2014, in the 3800 block of North 25th Street after a car drove past. He returned fire, killing Terrell Beasley, 28, whose body was found a few hours later in a burning vehicle. McGhees attorney, John Bouhasin, said his clients ties to the organization are not deep. Its a misconception that Don has anything to do with anything thats organized, he said. Unfortunately he has known at least one of the associates in this organization since childhood. Its an association that is not appropriate for a police officer, but it doesnt go any further than that. Dotson said agents from the FBI, DEA, ATF and Homeland Security worked alongside city intelligence detectives in a 2-year investigation. They rounded up suspects here and in Texas earlier this week. Dotson said the intelligence unit has seized 65 guns so far from members of the organization. The indictment alleges that beginning at least as early as 2012, Jose Alfredo Velazquez, 55, of Texas, and Adrian Lemons, 37, of the St. Louis area, operated a criminal enterprise to import bulk shipments of cocaine from Mexico. Velazquez was the primary supply source for Lemons, it says. The indictment also accuses Lemons, Jordan and Maurice Woodson, 29, of the St. Louis area, of a role in the fatal shooting of Byron Earts Sr., 40, on Dec. 5, 2013, at North Grand Boulevard and Kossuth Avenue. The indictment says that Jordan was also responsible for the murders of Robert Parker and Clara Walker on Dec. 29, 2013. Parker was shot from a vehicle that pulled next to his in the 4000 block of Peck Street. Walker, a mother of nine and grandmother to eight, was hit in her nearby apartment by a stray bullet. Jordan was accused of a role in three murders in the original indictment, but prosecutors have since also blamed him for a new one. The indictment says that Jordan and Gloria Ward, 27, were involved in the Jan. 21, 2014, murder of Michail Yellow Mack Gridiron, who was shot at Rolla Place and Ashland Avenue. Lemons lawyer Michael Fagras said Thursday that he had not yet seen the indictment. Jordans lawyers could not be reached for comment. The others either hadnt been arrested or had not yet retained lawyers. During the course of the investigation, police and federal agents reported seizing more than $1 million in cash, a BMW and a Chevrolet pickup. UPDATED at 11:30 a.m. Friday ST. PETERS St. Peters city officials say the maker of Lysol and other consumer products plans to put up a 714,780-square-foot warehouse in the citys long-struggling, levee-protected Premier 370 business park in the Mississippi River flood plain. This is a positive boost for the area, City Attorney Randy Weber said Thursday. City Administrator Bill Charnisky said the new warehouse for RB, formerly known as Reckitt-Benckiser, would bring with it about 300 new jobs. The British company also has tentative plans to expand its current manufacturing plant in another part of St. Peters, adding jobs there as well. The $31.5-million RB warehouse would be the second major business facility in Premier 370. A Dayton Freight truck terminal opened there in 2011. At its current St. Peters plant, RB makes products such as Lysol and Lysol wipes, Woolite and Resolve stain remover, plant manager Ryan Richter said. The plant currently employs about 200 full-time workers and it hires as many as 250 part-time workers, depending on product demand. The possible expansion would add 50 full-time employees and 100 part-time workers, Richter said. He said tentative plans were to produce additional products there. That expansion would cost $25.5 million, according to city documents. Charnisky said the RB warehouse in Premier 370 would be built on about 40 acres of the 900-acre business park. He said it would be near the same area for which the owner of that portion of the park Duke Realty Corp. announced last year plans for a 500,000-square-foot warehouse and office building to be built on spec. With such projects no tenants are lined up in advance. That building has been put on hold, Charnisky said, while Duke works with RB. Efforts to attract business to the massive development were stalled for years by a legal fight with an environmental group and St. Charles County. The court battle ended in 2012 when the Missouri Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal of lower-court rulings upholding the citys plan to use a tax-increment financing subsidy for the business park. However, leaders in the group the Great Rivers Habitat Alliance have remained critical of such flood-plain development. The project also was hindered by the effects of the 2007-2009 recession. In 2012, one of the developments primary developers Lakeside 370 LLC, a firm tied to Gundaker Commercial Group withdrew. Because of Lakesides withdrawal, a levee district protecting the business park had failed to make all regular interest payments to owners of bonds sold to buy the four-mile levee built by the city and to maintain it. Last year, a debt restructuring agreement for the levee district was completed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in St. Louis, Charnisky said. As a result, he said, this land now has become free and clear. Its on the market now. Charnisky said the recent Mississippi River flooding didnt touch the 500-year levee protecting the business park. The water did get near but not into the smaller 40-year levee around the citys 370 Lakeside Park, a nearby recreational area, he said. Regarding the RB projects, city aldermen approved last month a resolution supporting the issuing of $57 million in industrial revenue bonds to finance construction. Some property tax abatement for the company is included in the plan. Meanwhile, city officials say they have not yet convinced St. Charles County to lift a ban on housing at the site so they can pursue mixed-use projects with both residential and commercial components. (Mark Schlinkmann) HOT LINKS: This report was compiled by Post-Dispatch political reporter Kevin McDermott. Three men robbed an ancient tomb in Xianyang, northwest China's Shaanxi province on Wednesday. Two of the men died from a lack of oxygen. The third man surrendered to the police. According to preliminary investigation, three men, surnamed Shi, Guo and Lu, had planned to rob an ancient tomb. They began digging the hole to the tomb on Tuesday night. After a whole nights work, Shi and Guo suffocated. Lu was unable to pull them out of the hole by himself, so he called some friends to come help. However, when Shi and Guo arrived at the hospital, they were found to be already dead. Police said that Guo had been punished for robbing the grave before. The case is still under investigation. The current condition of the tomb remains to be further verified by local cultural relics experts. According to local villagers, this is not the only case of grave robbing in the area since several ancient tombs were found near the village. LONDON MARKET CLOSE: Stocks pull back as pressure on BoE to hike rates Wednesday, October 19, 2022 - 17:20 The optimism in equity markets in London faded on Wednesday, with stocks pulled back as consumer inflation in the UK was hotter than expected. The FTSE 100 index closed down 11.75 points, or 0.2%, at 6,924.99. The FTSE 250 ended down a heftier 281.76 points, or 1.6%, at 17,247.55. The AIM All-Share lost 9.51 points, or 1.2%, at 785.97. The Cboe UK 100 closed 0.2% lower at 692.60, the Cboe UK 250 fell 1.5% to 14,806.44, and the Cboe Small Companies closed 0.7% lower at 12,369.96. In European equities on Wednesday afternoon, the CAC 40 in Paris lost 0.4%, and the DAX 40 in Frankfurt gave back 0.2%. The pound fell to $1.1242 Wednesday evening from $1.1291 late Tuesday. New data showed consumer inflation in the UK was shoved back into double digits in September, which turns the spotlight firmly onto the Bank of England. The consumer price index rose by 10.1% in September from a year before, according to the Office for National Statistics. The inflation rate picked up from 9.9% in August and returned to the same rate as recorded in July. The latest figure came in marginally hotter-than-expected, with a reading of 10% expected, according to FXStreet. AJ Bell's Danni Hewson said stretching household budgets to cover the "basic necessities of life has become harder and harder". "Cutbacks have already been made. Big name brands ditched for value lines in the weekly food shop, thermostats have been dialled down, non-essential journeys put off or abandoned altogether," she continued. "The fact that food and energy costs were the main drivers for September As we have since July 2006, each Friday well post a mixed bag of quick cigar news and other items of interest. Below is our latest Friday Sampler. 1) Embattled second-term Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has proposed a new tax hike on cigars, which is intended to pay for orientation programs for public school students. Emanuels new tobacco tax package will be introduced to the City Council this week. It calls for a 15-cent tax per little cigar [and] a 90-cent tax on larger cigars, reports the Chicago Tribune. Emanuel has frequently targeted tobacco when he wants to raise revenue, trying in the process to position himself as a crusader against youth smoking and the evils of Big Tobacco. In a separate editorial, the Tribune criticized Emanuels proposal: Chicagoans see their city mired in scandal and dysfunction, yet hear their mayor constantly looking for ways to change the subject and declare victory: Sure, your beyond-broke school system may collapse, but want to see my new transition program for freshmen? 2) For the first time since General Cigar began selling Macanudo in 1968, the brand is getting a makeover. Beginning on January 15, 2016, Macanudo Cafe, Macanudo Maduro, Macanudo Cru Royale, and Macanudo 1968 and will feature the brands new look, reads a press release. The Macanudo logo has evolved to a more contemporary design, and packaging has been updated for visual consistency throughout the portfolio, said Alan Willner, vice president of marketing for General Cigar. The changes will make Macanudo even more appealing on the shelf and more relevant to current and new cigar smokers. The Macanudo blends are not expected to change. At the China-Myanmar border in Ruili, southwest China's Yunnan province, a village of Dai ethnic minority is divided by the border line. The side on Chinese territory is called Yinjing; the side on the Myanmar territory is called Mangxiu. As the border line in the village is often marked by scaffolding, village road, ditches or soil ridge, one will not be surprised to see that vegetables growing on Chinese side fruit in Myanmar or chicken raised in Myanmar lay eggs at home of Chinese residents. Villagers in the two countries, speaking the same language, sharing the same costume, have got along in harmony for generations. The village became a tourist attraction recently. A lot of visitors have come to witness the special border village linking two countries. As part of the current reorganization of the Chinese military the Second Artillery Corps, which consists largely of short range ballistic missiles plus fewer than a hundred longer range (strategic) missiles, is being upgraded to the new Rocket Force. That means this organization goes from being part of the army to being a fourth branch of the military (along with the army, navy and air force). Because the Rocket Force controls Chinas nuclear weapons it has the most firepower of any branch but the fewest personnel. This combining ballistic missiles under one organization is similar to what the Russians did throughout the Cold War. The Russians, like the Chinese now, made their nuclear missile force a brach of the armed forces. The Rocket Force is spread over most of China, has about 100,000 personnel and is organized into six Missile Divisions which have between them over 30 missile brigades. The most common ballistic missile is the DF-21 and the ten DF-21 brigades each have up to six missile battalions (with two mobile launchers each), two maintenance and repair battalions, a site management battalion, a signal battalion and an electronic countermeasures (ECM) battalion. The basic DF-21 is a 15 ton, two stage, solid fuel missile that is 10.7 meters (35 feet) long and 140cm (4.6 feet) in diameter. Range varies (from 1,700-3,000 kilometers) depending on model. These missiles are carried and launched in TELs (transporter erector launcher vehicles). The Second Artillery Corps also controls most of Chinas nuclear weapons, although many of the smaller ballistic missiles also have non-nuclear warheads available. The Rocket Force also controls the new ballistic missiles for nuclear submarines. In 2014 China revealed (apparently by accident) the existence of the DF-26 IRBM (Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile.) This one appears to have a range of 3,500 kilometers and based on the earlier DF-21. There have been reports of such a missile since 2007 and the DF-26C appears to have been in service for several years. The DF-26C is notable because it has the range to hit American military bases on the Central Pacific island of Guam. China tends to keep a lot of military data secret, even after foreigners have discovered the new items via satellite photos or curious Chinese taking cell phone photos and posting them. That was how the existence of the DF-41 missile became known in the last few years. In 2012 China tested the DF-41 ICBM equipped with a final stage containing multiple warheads. The U.S. announced the test and had apparently monitored it with satellites and other air, land, and sea based sensors. It was not revealed how many warheads were involved, although it was earlier mentioned that China could put 3-10 warheads in the DF-41 final stage. The DF-41 has not been displayed publicly but thanks to cell phone there are photos of the DF-41 available. The DF-41 appears to have had a lot of development problems because few have been built and fewer (less than a dozen) put into service. The DF-41 is the only Chinese ICBM that can reach all of the United States. China is believed to have over 400 nuclear warheads. Only a few dozen of these missiles can reach the United States. These include the older (and about to be retired) DF-5, plus the newer DF-31A and DF-41. About two thirds of Chinese nuclear warheads are believed to be in missile warheads, most of them DF-21s and these will be replaced by DF-26Cs. Normally the nuclear warheads are stored separately and mated to the missiles only for actual use or the occasional training exercise. In 2009 China announced that its nuclear armed ballistic missiles were not aimed at anyone. Like most countries, China has long refused to say who its nuclear armed missiles are aimed at. Most of those missiles only have enough range to hit Russia or India, or other nearby nations. For a long time most were very definitely aimed at Russia, which had rocky relations with China from the 1960s to the 1990s. But after the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, the new and much smaller Russia became friendlier with the wealthier (more capitalist but still run by communists) China. Relations between China and India also warmed up, then went into a deep freeze during the past decade. Since the 1990s China has had about two dozen DF-5 ICBMs nominally in service because they can reach the United States. Few of these are believed to be operational because of reliability and maintenance problems. The U.S. has since installed 18 ICBM interceptor missile systems in Alaska. These are to deal with North Korean missiles but could also destroy most Chinese missiles headed for the western United States. Thus it makes sense for China to simply say that it is not aiming any of its missiles at anyone. Modern guidance systems can be quickly (in less than an hour) programmed for a new target, so it doesn't really matter that, normally, the missiles have no target information in them. The DF-5s, moreover, are liquid fueled and the considerable activity required to ready them for launch can be detected by spy satellites. The DF-5s are being replaced by the solid fuel DF-41s, which can be moved, erected, and launched from a special truck. With a 15,000 kilometer range they can reach all of the United States. The third stage multiple warheads each with an explosive yield of at least 100 KT. The DF-41s appear similar to the American 36 ton Minuteman III (a 1960s design that has been much upgraded since then). India is of growing concern to China but there are shorter range ballistic missiles, like the DF-21, to deal with that threat. The Chinese introduced the DF-21 in 1999, and now has over a hundred in service. Many have non-nuclear warheads. This missile has a range of over 1,800 kilometers and can haul a 300 kiloton nuclear warhead. It's a two stage, 15 ton, solid fuel rocket. Launched from Tibet, the DF-21 can reach most major targets in India. In the early 1990s China put the larger DF-31 into service, sort of. This was China's first solid fuel ICBM (and had a range of over 8,000 kilometers) and roughly equivalent to the U.S. 30 ton Minuteman I (entered service in 1962 with a range of 9,900 kilometers). The DF-31 weighs about 41 tons and is 20 meters (62 feet) long and 2.25 meters (7 feet) in diameter. It was designed for use on submarines, land silos, and mobile launchers (which would halt at those "parking lots in the middle of nowhere" visible in satellite pictures of Qinghai province). The DF-31 has been shown stored in a TEL (transporter, erector, launcher) vehicle. Driving these vehicles along special highways in remote areas provides more protection from counterattacks than using a reinforced silo. Later, the improved DF-31A appeared, with multiple warheads and more range (up to 12,000 kilometers, which could cover most of the United States). The DF-31 was in development for over twenty years and only had its first successful launch in 2000. It's now believed to have a reliable and accurate guidance system, as well as a third stage that carries three 50 kiloton warheads. Only about a dozen DF-31s are in service, plus about a dozen DF-31As. Many of these appear to be aimed at European Russia. Then there is a submarine launched missile the JL (Julang) 2 SLBM (Sea Launched Ballistic Missile). This missile has had a lot of problems as have the SSBNs (ballistic missile carrying nuclear subs) that carried them. The 42 ton JL-2 has a range of 8,000 kilometers and would enable China to aim missiles at any target in the United States from a 094 class SSBN cruising off Hawaii or Alaska. Each 094 boat can carry twelve of these missiles, which are naval versions of the existing land based 42 ton DF-31 ICBM. The JL-2 was supposed to have entered service in 2009 but kept failing test launches. No Chinese SSBN has ever gone on a combat cruise because these boats have been very unreliable. In January 2015 Russia sold Egypt 46 Ka-52K attack helicopters to equip the two Mistral-class helicopter carriers recently purchased from France. The Russians had developed the Ka-52K for use on the Mistrals but after sanctions were imposed on Russia (for aggression in Ukraine) France cancelled delivery of the ships. Russia was left with some helicopters that had lost their customer. To solve this they got France to agree that anyone who purchased Mistral would be obliged to buy these helicopters as well. It took many months to work out that agreement. The Egyptian deal will include 46 helicopters as well as weapons, ammunition, spares and training for pilots and ground crews. The helicopters are to be delivered by the end of 2017. The Kamov Ka-52 is a two-seat version of the earlier Ka-50. It is a reconnaissance and attack helicopter. Its development started in 1994 while the first flight was conducted in 1997. Till now only Russia had been using it and in small number due budget restrictions. The helicopter design is pretty unique because it uses two coaxial contra-rotating main rotors in caparison to typical one main rotor and second small on tail which is responsible for flight stabilization. Egypt will receive the K version which differs from the standard Ka-52 by having folding rotors and folding stub wings. The Ka-52 has a side-by-side seat cockpit rather than typical tandem-seat design. This change is expected to make it easier for the helicopter crew to perform battlefield observation and coordination roles but on the other hand is worsening helicopter aerodynamics thus fuel consumption and speed is negatively affected. The Ka-52 armor is said to withstand 23mm rounds. Pilots have ejection-seats and can also fly when one engine is damaged. For situational awareness Ka-52 can use various passive or active optical and radar detection systems. The helicopter is powered by two 2400 horsepower engines, weighs about 8 tones empty and has nearly 11 tones maximum takeoff weight.Ka-52 has a top speed of 350 kilometers an hour and can carry up to two tons of weapons or additional fuel. Normal operating range is 260 kilometers, but with additional fuel tanks it can stay in the air for up to four hours. Ka-52 armament consist of a side-mounted 30-mm cannon with a capacity of 240 rounds, the six wing-mounted external hardpoints which can carry anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM), unguided rocket pods, 23mm gun pods, SA-18 Igla air-to-air missile or AA-11 Archer. Furthermore is said that even Kh-35 medium-range anti-ship missiles or even supersonic Kh-31s can be carried. This is first export sale of this quite unique design. Egypt has been forced to buy these helicopters because they were part of mistral deal however it is not a bad thing because this version was developed precisely for these ships. -- Przemysaw Juraszek One little noticed success in Pakistan was the sharp reduction in Islamic terrorist and gangster violence in Karachi. This is the largest city in the country (14 million people, eight percent of the population) and produces a quarter of the GDP. But since 2001 violence there has gotten out of control. In 2013 the government and military agreed to cooperate in pacifying Karachi. Military involvement in policing cities has always been contentious in Pakistan but the situation in Karachi is considered a special case. The offensive against Islamic terrorists in the northwest, begun in mid-2014, uncovered (via prisoners and captured documents) plans by several Islamic terror groups to carry out a major expansion into Karachi. In response the army shifted forces to Karachi in 2015. As a result in 2015 major crime (murder, kidnapping, extortion and grand theft) were all down more than 60 percent. Murders were reduced to 943, half the number in 2014. Thats still 6.7 murders per 100,000 population. But in 2012 the murder rate was 15 per 100,000 which was very high for areas outside the tribal territories. In 2013 the rate went up to 18. For comparison purposes, the murder rate for all of Pakistan is 7.8, while its 3.5 in India and 2.4 in Afghanistan. In the Western hemisphere its about 8 while in Europe it is between 3 and 4. Middle Eastern nations have rates of between 5 and 10. The United States rate is about six per 100,000 and even lower (4.4) in the largest American city (New York), which has eight million people. There are other parts of the world that are more violent. In Africa, especially Congo, Sudan and South Africa, you very high murder rates. Only South Africa has a sufficiently effective government to actually keep accurate track of the murder rate, mostly from crime, but it's over 50 per 100,000. In Karachi the Islamic terrorists had some unique disadvantages. Many Taliban fled the fighting in North Waziristan and went to Karachi, which has a large Pushtun population. Actually the population of Karachi has doubled since 2001 in large part because so many Pushtuns (Afghan and Pakistani) have moved in to Karachi to get away from the tribal feuds and Islamic terrorists in the northwest. So when the Taliban show up in a Pushtun neighborhood they are often quietly reported to the police. Cell phones make this easy, and unlike the tribal territories, the Taliban cannot shut down cell phone service, even briefly, in Karachi. Despite the Taliban connection the main goal of the security operations in Karachi is to shut down (or greatly reduce) the criminal activities of the Islamic terrorists and their political allies. These groups need money and they find it easy to use extortion and kidnapping to raise cash. The dozens of separate crews (often part of a larger Islamic terror group) have been identified pursued and killed or captured. Another target is the many religious schools that are actually bases and training centers for Islamic terror groups. Dozens of illegal religious schools in Sindh province (where Karachi is) were found to have links with Islamic terror groups. Most of those religious schools are in Karachi and the government went after all the illegal (refused to register and be monitored) religious schools, starting with those know to be used by Islamic terrorists. The most difficult foe in Karachi has been the many gangs (some Islamic radicals, many not) with connections to the two feuding political parties in Karachi and the surrounding Sindh province. It was the violent practices of these two political parties in Karachi that made military intervention there acceptable. Even many leaders of these two parties quietly went along with the Karachi operation, in the hope that it would break an escalating cycle of violence. In contrast during 2015 India suffered 722 deaths from Islamic terrorism and rebels (communist and tribal). Thats down 26 percent from 2014. The biggest source (35 percent of deaths) was communist rebels in eastern India. Islamic terrorism accounted for only 24 percent, most of them in Kashmir. This violence has been declining for years while Islamic terrorism in Pakistan only began to shrink after the army attacked a notorious Islamic terrorist sanctuary in North Waziristan (on the Afghan border) and cracked down on Islamic terrorists in Karachi. January 13, 2016: In southwest Pakistan (Quetta) an Islamic terrorist suicide bomber attacked police gathering to escort polio vaccination teams to work. The attack killed 13 police, a soldier and a civilian. So far this year polio cases In Pakistan are down 70 percent compared to 2014 and thats mainly because there have been fewer Islamic terrorist attacks on vaccination teams, especially in the northwest. Such attacks still occur throughout the country but with less frequency and impact. For years these attacks killed polio vaccination workers who were treating children. Vaccinations had to be halted temporarily so police could search for the killers and determine when it was safe to resume. These killing usually occur in the tribal territories, where opposition to vaccination is more widespread and effective. This has led to a large number of polio cases (303 in 2014, the highest since 1998), mostly in the tribal areas. Among the refugees from the North Waziristan fighting are over 200,000 children who have never been vaccinated. Some of those refugees fled to Karachi where over a million people from the tribal areas have settled in the last decade. Some 80 percent of recent polio cases in Pakistan still occur in the tribal territories of the northwest. Now the vaccination teams are able to vaccinate most of the North Waziristan children in safety in the refugee camps and in relative safety in Waziristan. This reduced the expected high number of polio cases for 2015 and makes the total elimination of polio a possibility once more. The Taliban, and many other Islamic terrorist groups believe polio vaccinations are a Western plot to poison Moslem children. Since 2012 67 polio vaccination workers in Pakistan have been killed by Islamic terrorists. The most recent attack was claimed by one of the smaller Pakistani Islamic terrorist groups (Jundullah) but no vaccination workers were killed. That, in Pakistan, is progress. In Afghanistan (Jalalabad) ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) attacked the Pakistani consulate. Three attackers and seven security personnel died. This was the first time ISIL went after a Pakistani government target. Apparently four suicide bombers were involved in this attack and the fourth one got away. January 12, 2016: The U.S. Congress has halted the sale of eight F-16 fighters to Pakistan in an effort to get Pakistan to reduce its support for Islamic terrorism. January 11, 2016: Officials from Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and the United States met in Pakistan to try and restart the peace talks with the Taliban. But it soon became clear that the real problem was not Taliban peace talks (not likely because of factionalism within the Afghan Taliban) but the growing hostility between Pakistan and its neighbors Afghanistan and India. Pakistan is accused of harboring Islamic terrorists who make attacks on Afghanistan and India. Officially Pakistan denies any involvement but unofficially Pakistan says it tolerates Islamic terrorists who help it deal with Indian threats, especially those done via a growing alliance with Afghanistan. India insists, and the historical record backs them up, that they have no such designs on Pakistan. A perusal of Indian media over the last half century confirms that. Indians dont really care what happens in Pakistan as long as it does not hurt India. Thus Pakistani Islamic terrorists who attack the few Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan is an issue inside India, but a minor one. The dispute over Kashmir is a bigger deal in Pakistan than in India but there is nothing to indicate Indian enthusiasm for war with Pakistan over Kashmir. Then there is Afghanistan, where Pakistan has been meddling for decades. Many Pakistanis openly declare this to be a Pakistan right and obligation because Pakistan considers Afghans incapable of governing themselves and in need of Pakistani guidance. This view is not appreciated in Afghanistan and bothers India as well. A growing number of Pakistanis complain that this constant state of tension is caused by the Pakistani military, which needs this imaginary threat to justify a bloated military budget and hide corrupt and illegal behavior by military leaders. China is concerned because all this Islamic terrorist violence is bad for business and China does not care of Pakistan demanding that China block UN efforts to crack down on Pakistan based Islamic terrorist groups that target India. But in order to get Pakistan to suppress Chinese Islamic terrorists based in Pakistan China had to help out Pakistan in the UN. January 9, 2016: In northwest Pakistan (North Waziristan) an American UAV missile attack killed five members of the Pakistani Taliban. Just across the border in Afghanistan a similar attack killed at least twenty members of ISIL. January 8, 2016: In the Pakistani capital nearly two thousand Pakistani Shia demonstrated against Pakistan joining a Saudi led anti-terrorist organization. Shia believe this effort is directed against Iran and Shia Moslems in general. Most of the demonstrators specifically condemned Saudi Arabia for the recent (January 2nd) execution of a Saudi Shia cleric who was accused of encouraging Shia violence in Saudi Arabia. The Pakistani decision to not send troops to help Saudi Arabia fight Shia rebels in Yemen was, in part, to avoid problems with Pakistani Shia. Pakistan points out that over 20 percent of Pakistanis are Shia, Iran is a neighbor and trading partner and Pakistan is heavily involved with battling local Islamic terrorists. Off the record Pakistanis point out that most of this Islamic radicalism began in Arabia, financed by Islamic charities sponsored by Arab oil money (from governments and wealthy individuals). The oil rich Gulf Arabs are angry with what is perceived as ingratitude and betrayal after years of generous financial support. Pakistan made matters worse by announcing it would cooperate with Iran to try and solve the Yemen unrest (where Iran admits it backs the Shia rebels) peacefully. That was seen as insulting to Saudi Arabia, which had publicly asked Pakistan to join the Saudi led coalition (Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, Egypt, Sudan, Bahrain, Morocco, Jordan, and Egypt) fighting Shia rebels in Yemen. At the same time Pakistan assured Saudi Arabia that Pakistan would provide military assistance if the territory of Saudi Arabia were invaded. That would only happen if Iran attacked, although Pakistan refused to elaborate on that possibility. January 7, 2016: In southwest Pakistan (Quetta) an Afghan Taliban leader was killed by a gunmen from a dissident Afghan Taliban faction. January 5, 2016: After years of trying Pakistan and China finally got commitments from two customers (Nigeria and Sri Lanka) for the JF-17 jet fighter. This is a largely Chinese effort but Pakistan is a major investor and also assembles it in Pakistan. The two customers are ordering eleven JF-17s (eight for Sri Lanka) at a very attractive price. January 3, 2016: Afghanistan accused Pakistan of organizing the attack on the Indian consulate in the north Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif. The attack failed, but only after a 25 hour siege of a building near the consulate that the attackers were firing from. The attackers were heard speaking Urdu (the language of Pakistan) rather than the languages common in Mazar-e-Sharif (Dari or Pushtu). The attackers also displayed a discipline and tactical skill lacking in the usual suicidal Islamic terrorist attacks in Afghanistan. One reason the attack failed was the Afghanistan allows India to bring in highly trained security personnel to guard diplomatic facilities and major Indian aid projects. This discourages most Islamic terrorist groups and explains why the Pakistanis sent in four professionals for this attack. Apparently one of the reasons for this attack was the successful Indian crackdown on Pakistani sponsored Islamic terrorism in Kashmir. All four attackers and an Afghan policeman were killed while four civilians were wounded during the operation. January 2, 2016: In northwest India (Punjab, just south of Kashmir and on the Pakistani border) six Islamic terrorists attacked an Indian air base and disrupted base operations for three days until the last of them could be hunted down and killed. The attackers dressed in Indian Army uniforms and entered the base by getting over a wall without being seen. Despite warnings that such an attack was coming (and sending some commandos to the base in anticipation) the attackers were not detected until they entered some buildings. At that point a siege began because the six attackers had brought plenty of weapons, ammo and explosives with them. By the 5th is was all over, with all six attackers dead along with one civilian and seven security personnel. India blamed Pakistan and many in both countries saw the Pakistani military as responsible because only they gain from more hostility between the Indian and Pakistani governments. December 31, 2015: Pakistan established a hotline with Afghanistan so officers can use it to contact each other quickly when there are border incidents that could escalate into more violent incidents. The hotline was tested today and worked. At the end of 2015 a number of very senior Indian officials went to Russia to meet with their counterparts and one items at the top of the agenda was the continued reliability problems with the Su-30MKI jet fighters. Fifty of these Russian designed aircraft were built in Russia for India and the rest of the 272 aircraft order is being assembled locally. Deliveries should be complete by 2019 and at the moment India is not keen on ordering any more. There is a reason for that. India has been complaining out about these reliability problems since 2010 and the most telling statistic is the percentage of Su-30MKIs out of service for maintenance or repairs. Russia promised that this would only be about 25 percent, which is competitive with similar Western aircraft. India points out that in reality between 40 and 45 percent of the Su-30MKIs are out of service, many for reliability problems that Russia assured India would not happen. The impact of this lower availability means that of the 210 Su-30MKIs India has only about 126 are available to fight rather than the 157 Russia promised. That means 31 fewer Su-30MKIs available to use in wartime. That is a significant loss and India is demanding a solution. Most of the problems are related to engines and Russia says it has narrowed most of the problems down to difficulties related to ball bearings. The engines are also assembled in India, using Russian and Indian made parts. Russia has devised several fixes for the engine problem but the readiness (for combat) rate of the Su-30MKI has not changed. India is demanding that Russia allow Indian firms to manufacture many more spare parts. Russia does not like to do that because spare parts are more profitable than the aircraft. December 30, 2015: In northwest Pakistan (Khyber) a Taliban suicide bomber attacked a government compound and killed 26 people, mostly civilians there to get identity cards. The bomber was from a Taliban faction which was fighting the main Pakistani Taliban as well as the Pakistani government. December 29, 2015: In Kashmir there has been peace on the Pakistani border for fifty days, which is unusual and largely attributed to high level diplomacy by the Indian leader and reciprocity by elected politicians in Pakistan. Less discussed is the Pakistani effort to curb the political power of their military, which is responsible for continued violence on the Indian border. Elected leaders in Pakistan have struggled for decades to control their military and have been more successful at it lately in large part because most Pakistanis are fed up with the violence generated inside Pakistan by Islamic terror groups backed by the military. Since 2001 over 47,000 Pakistanis have died because of Islamic terrorist violence, most of it the result of the Pakistani military sponsoring Islamic terrorist groups since the late 1970s. The military did this discreetly but year-by-year it became more of an open secret. The military always blamed the Islamic terrorist violence in Pakistan on India, but few Pakistanis believe that anymore. More Pakistanis note that India, with six times the population, had 22 percent fewer terrorism related deaths than Pakistan since 2001. Moreover the biggest source (76 percent) of terrorism related deaths in India is secular (communist and tribal) rebels. In Pakistan over 90 percent of terrorism related deaths are related to Islamic terrorists. December 28, 2015: In Bangladesh commandos killed two members of Islamic terrorist group JMB (Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh) in the capital. Actually the two blew themselves up when cornered, wounding one soldier. In the last week three other members of JMB have been arrested and a large cache of JMB weapons (including suicide bomb vests and bomb components) was seized with the help of tips from the public. JMB has been around since 1998 and wants to turn Bangladesh into a religious dictatorship. JMB turned to violence in 2005 and has been at war with the government ever since. Bangladesh had 42 Islamic terrorism related deaths in 2015, down from 60 in 2014 and a record 379 in 2013. The 2013 surge was 69 percent of all Islamic terrorist deaths since 2005 and a sign that Islamic terrorism continues to have a difficult time getting a foothold in Bangladesh. Actually most of the terrorism related deaths were political rather than religious but in the last few years Islamic terrorism has gotten a lot more attention in the news. December 24, 2015: In Nigeria pirates released five Indian sailors they had taken from a ship offshore on the 11th. It was unclear if ransom was paid. Piracy remains a problem although off Nigeria is means pirates sneaking on big ships at night, stealing portable items of value and perhaps taking a few key personnel to hold for ransom. Dirty Little Secrets DLS for 2001 | DLS for 2002 | DLS for 2003 DLS for 2004 | DLS for 2005 | DLS for 2006 DLS for 2007 | DLS for 2008 The Saudis Strike Back At Everyone by James Dunnigan January 14, 2016 On December 15 th Saudi Arabia announced the formation of an anti-terrorist organization (the Islamic Military Alliance or IMA) composed of 34 (so far) Moslem nations. This includes Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Chad, Comoros, Cote dIvoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Gabon, Guinea, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Maldives, Mali, Malaysia, Morocco, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Qatar, the Palestinians, Pakistan, Senegal, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Togo, Tunisia, Turkey, the UAE (United Arab Emirates), and Yemen. Indonesia, largest Moslem nation on the planet, is considering. The nation with the largest number of Moslems, India, was apparently not invited to join. All the current members are largely Sunni. Many people in Pakistan, Afghanistan Lebanon and Malaysia objected to their nation joining the IMA. Three of these nations have large Shia minorities while Malaysia has many non-Moslems, including Hindus. Some nations are not welcome, like Iran, Syria and Iraq. This is because the Sunni Gulf States (led by Saudi Arabia) are at war with Iran, which considers Syria and Iraq allies. A growing number of Moslem nations are openly complaining that Saudi Arabia is the source of most of the Islamic conservatism that propelled al Qaeda and ISIL, the Taliban, Boko Haram and many other Islamic terrorist groups into existence. Many IMA members are the recipients of Saudi financial assistance, so refusing to join the IMA was not considered fiscally prudent. The only specific terrorist organization IMA is at war with is ISIL (al Qaeda in Iraq and the Levant). Saudi Arabia also considers Iran a terrorist organization, especially when Sunni nations are concerned. To many Saudi the Western nations are terrorists and many Arabs believe (and say so) that ISIL and al Qaeda were created by the United States and Israel. Saudi Arabia formed IMA to deal with a plague of Islamic terrorism that it played a major role in creating. While the Saudis never officially supported Islamic terrorism they were, at the same time, very much responsible for the increase in Islamic terrorist activity since the 1970s. Thats because in Arabia (where Islam first appeared in the 7th century) the locals believe they are more Islamic than other Moslems. After all, the Koran was written in Arabic and all the founders of Islam were Arabs. Yet for over a thousand years there has been a tradition of different factions in Arabia trying outdo each other to prove who is more Islamic than the other. This led to constant fighting and suppression of new ideas. One of those fanatic factions is the Wahhabi form of Sunni Islam in what is now Saudi Arabia. Wahhabis, who first appeared in the 18th century, are very conservative and very hostile to non-Moslems and Moslems who are not Sunni. This meant little to the non-Moslem world until lots of oil wealth appeared in Arabia after World War II. Suddenly it became possible for Saudis to show how pious they were by funding Wahhabi missionaries who went to other Moslem (and many non-Moslem) nations to preach, establish Wahhabi religious schools and mosques and create the current Islamic terrorism problem. Billions were (and still are) spent on this and the policy of getting the young boys into these free religious schools and turning many of them into hateful (towards anyone not like them) Islamic religious fanatics led to a major outbreak of Islamic terrorism in the late 20th century. Yet many Moslem nations resisted this as did many Moslem nations (like Iraq, Libya and Syria) resisted the Wahhabi missionaries and money. The Wahhabi problem is most obvious in Saudi Arabia, which practiced what it preached. Saudis comprise the largest faction of ISIL and al Qaeda recruits because so many Saudis have been educated in Wahhabi run schools. The Saudi rulers control the clergy, to a point, and do not allow public expressions of anti-Saudi Islamic radical ideas. But many Saudis back ISIL goals (which include replacing the Saudi monarchy), even is many of them do not wish to live under ISIL rule. This ideological mess is something Arab rulers, particularly in Saudi Arabia, have been dealing with since Saudi Arabia was formed in the 1920s. Change comes slowly in religious matters but meanwhile religious zealots that Arab oil wealth paid to create threaten us all. After September 11, 2001 the Saudis reluctantly began cracking down on the Islamic terrorist monster they had created. This was difficult to do but the Saudis were largely persuaded by the growing number of Islamic terrorist groups that wanted to kill the Saudi royals and run all of Arabia as a religious dictatorship. Messing with religion is one thing but if you really want to get someones attention threaten to take away their wealth and power. OKINAWA, Japan (Jan. 12, 2016) Construction Mechanic 2nd Class Shawn P. Conley assigned to Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 3, traverses a mud-filled trench during jungle warfare training evolution hosted by Marines with the Jungle Warfare Training Center (JWTC). The JWTC endurance course tests the Seabees' will, stamina and the ability to work together as a team. NMCB 3 is deployed to several countries in the Pacific area of Operations conducting construction operations and humanitarian assistance projects. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Michael Gomez) X 0 20 Help Keep Us Soaring We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling. We need your help in reversing that trend. We would like to add 20 new subscribers this month. Each month we count on your subscriptions or contributions. You can support us in the following ways: Up north Tuareg rebel group MNLA, which signed a peace deal in June 2015, is still at war with its former ally Ansar Dine and AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb). MNLA and Ansar Dine are largely Tuareg but Ansar Dine refuses to make peace and continues fund Islamic terrorist operations with drug smuggling profits. MNLA gave up drug smuggling and cooperation with Islamic terrorists when it agreed to the peace deal. The continued smuggling explains Ansar Dine involvement with the new Islamic terror group FLM (Macina Liberation Front). This group claimed involvement in the November 2015 hotel attack in the capital. FLM openly identifies with the Fulani (Macina are the local branch of the Fulani) tribe. There are some twenty million Fulani living in the Sahel and some of those in northern Nigeria have become involved in Islamic terrorism via the local Islamic terror group Boko Haram. There are over two million Fulani in Mali and FLM became active in early 2015 and has claimed responsibility for several attacks since. Some FLM were formerly with Islamic terror group MUJAO (basically a Mauritanian faction of AQIM). FLM started out with calls for Fulani people to live according to strict Islamic rules. That in turn led to violence against tribal and village leaders who opposed this. That escalated to attacks on businesses and government facilities. FLM is composed mostly of young Fulani men and is associated with Ansar Dine. That probably means some association with AQIM as well because AQIM is still something of an umbrella organization for Islamic terrorists in the region. Although most Malians are Moslem, few want anything to do with Islamic terrorism and Boko Haram is seen as a major mistake and not welcome at all in Mali. But the Fulani have always seen themselves as a people apart, an attitude common with the nomadic peoples of the Sahel. The Fulani believe they originally migrated from North Africa and the Middle East. Fulai have lighter skin, thinner lips and straighter hair than other black Africans in sub-Saharan Africa and are Moslem as well in a region where most of the locals are Christian or follow ancient local religions. Fulani have also been involved with smuggling for a long time, in large part because many are still nomadic and the Fulani dont really believe in borders. Although the government has peace deals with all the Tuareg rebel groups in the north there are still a lot of unresolved differences between the many pro-government and former rebel tribes and clans up there. These feuds are proving more difficult to solve and are causing enough anarchy to give the Islamic terrorists opportunities to move around and carry out attacks and keep their drug smuggling enterprise running. The local squabbles also interfere with the peacekeepers and French counter-terror forces, which also aids the Islamic terrorists and smugglers. January 12, 2016: Mali officials believe AQIM affiliate al Mourabitoun was mainly responsible for the November hotel attack. Al Mourabitoun and AQIM continues to survive in Libya because of the chaos there. Using bases in southern Libya Al Mourabitoun carries out operations in Mali and Niger. The U.S. is offering a $5 million reward for information that would lead to the death or capture of Al Mourabitoun founder and leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar. The government also revealed that it had identified (using surveillance video) two men associated with the November 20 hotel attack and arrested them in December. These two have now been indicted for assisting the attackers. It was also revealed that one of the two known attackers who were killed inside the hotel carried a piece of paper with the names of two al Mourabitoun men who are in prison (one in Mali and one in Niger). It is believed that the two gunmen hoped to take hostages and hold out in the hotel long enough to demand and obtain the release of these two men. That did not happen because troops were sent in immediately to protect the guests and staff and that resulted in the two gunmen quickly being killed. So far it appears that this was an AQIM operation carried out by al Mourabitoun with the help of some local Islamic terrorists. January 8, 2016: In the north (Timbuktu) a Swiss missionary was kidnapped, apparently by Islamic terrorists. The woman (Beatrice Stockly) was a longtime resident of the area and had been kidnapped in 2012 but released a week later. This time it is believed that Islamic terrorists will try to get a multi-million dollar ransom for her. January 5, 2016: Germany has agreed to send over 600 combat troops to Mali to serve as peacekeepers in the north (near Gao). The main job of the German troops will be reconnaissance and surveillance. This will involve patrols on the ground as well as extensive use of UAVs. Gao has been quiet recently and the Germans are to keep an eye on the situation and provide some advance warning of trouble returning. There has not been any violence in the area since May 2015. December 31, 2015: The government extended the state of emergency for three months. This makes it illegal for crowds to assemble and demonstrations to take place without permission. The security forces can ignore some legal procedures when making arrests and holding people in custody. The state of emergency was first enacted, for ten days at a time, after the November 20 attack in the capital. December 25, 2015: In the north (Kidal) Ansar Dine Islamic terrorists ambushed a convoy of MNLA gunmen and killed four of them. The MNLA was moving in reinforcements to help find the Ansar Dine men who attacked an MNLA facility in the area two days ago and killed six men. That attack was to free several Ansar Dine men being held captive. Tinsley won the under-10 race, while Spencer, who still qualifies for the under-10 section, triumphed in the under-12 event. Tinsley also took part in the under-12 race, finishing fifth overall. It was the first time Stratford CC have had winners at the event, emphasising how much the clubs youngsters are going from strength to strength. The club also had a good showing in the senior event, with Nigel Jones claiming fifth in the 50+ category, while Mark Ellis was 23rd in the 40+ event. Wellesbourne Airfield Dr John Linnane, director of public health for Warwickshire County Council said: Make sure you have sufficient supplies of food for hot meals, plenty of drinks and your regular medications. Stocking up on tinned and frozen food is a good idea. Please check in on neighbours who are elderly, vulnerable, or less mobile, and make sure that their house is adequately heated, that they have enough supplies and that they have an emergency contact telephone number. Make sure you seek medical help if you are concerned about someone. You can ring NHS 111, speak to a GP or pharmacist, attend a walk-in-centre, or if more serious it may be necessary to attend A&E or alert the emergency services. Cllr Les Caborn (Cons, Bishops Tachbrook), the county councils portfolio holder for health, said: Make sure that you stay warm. If going outside make sure you dress appropriately. If indoors, make sure that you keep your heating to the right temperature; heating your home to at least 18C is important for your health and make sure you are wearing suitable clothing several thin layers is better than one thick layer. Cllr Maggie ORourke (Lab, Lawford and New Bilton) the county councils chair of the overview and scrutiny committee for adults, health and social care said: If there is anyone you know who might be at particular risk, for example, an older person living on their own, make sure they know what to do to stay warm and are well stocked with food and medications. If you are concerned about somebody who is unable to adequately heat their home for advice about keeping energy bills down, benefits entitlements and qualification for loft and cavity wall insulation and other heating measures: In Warwickshire, residents can call The Act on Energy helpline 0800 988 2881. For more tips and advice, please visit www.nhs.uk/staywell Wellesbourne Airfield Results show that in 2014, Warwickshire County Council paid out 8,424 in compensation claims to drivers, as a result of damage to cars due to road surface defects, compared to 27,377 in 2013. The council spent 6 million on capital projects to resurface worn out roads in 2013, and increased that spending to 7.68 million in 2014. In 2013, the council spent 290,000 on fixing potholes and road surface defects, and increased that spending to 320,000 in 2014. The IAM said it appeared that many county councils across England had responded to criticisms about failing to make pothole repair and road maintenance a top priority, with increasing spending across the country. Sarah Sillars, IAM chief executive officer said: We are very pleased that our calls for greater investment in local roads appear to be having some effect. We hope this trend continues. People can comment, share and even report potholes to the real-time live pothole reporting system on the internet by visiting http://streetrepairs.co.uk/national-pothole-day-2016 as well as view a heatmap of reported potholes. Where are some of the worst potholes in the Stratford-on-Avon District? Let us know and send us a photo to news@stratford-herald.com Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai (C) and children of Chinese diplomats send their best wishes to Dorian Murray, an American boy suffering from cancer, at Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C., capital of the United States, Jan. 14, 2016. (People's Daily Online/Zhang Penghui) Chinese ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai and children of the diplomats at the Chinese embassy joined the #D-STRONG campaign, sending their best wishes to an American boy suffering from cancer on Thursday. The #D-STRONG campaign was initiated after the father of Dorian Murray, of Westerly, Rhode Island, in the United States, posted on Facebook the boys wish of being famous in China and seeing the Great Wall, which he called "kind of a bridge. People walk on it." Tens of thousands of people from China, America and the rest of the world have participated in this activity in support of the 8 years old boy. Many Chinese Internet users posted pictures of themselves standing on the Great Wall in Beijing and holding signs reading "#D- STRONG ". Dorian has been fighting rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare pediatric cancer, since he was 4. In early January, doctors found cancer cells had spread to his spinal cord and brain, and the family decided to stop the treatment. However, Dorian has always been strong and optimistic in fighting against the disease. "Dorian, we all know you. We love you. Stay strong," Cui and children of Chinese diplomats in Washington shouted their greeting at the gate of the embassy. Designed by noted Chinese American architect I. M. Pei, structure of the embassy complex looks just like the beacons on the Great Wall. "It is quite moving to see Dorian being optimistic and strong. I sincerely hope he defeats the disease and realizes his wish of seeing the Great Wall," said Cui, who also sent the boy a picture album of the Great Wall and a card with best wishes. The picture album of the Great Wall that Ambassador Cui sent to Dorian. (People's Daily/Zhang Penghui) The children, who are students of the embassy's Sunshine School, prepared a painting of dragon-shaped Great Wall with the hashtag "D-Strong". Outside the Chinese embassy, the children extended their wishes: Dorian, stay strong and live happily. Miracle will happen." You need persistence to climb the Great Wall, you also need it in fight against disease. Carry on. Dorian is not afraid of disease. He is brave. I want to learn from you. My best wishes. In the past, the Great Wall was used to guard against the enemy. Now you are guarding against disease. Go on. Wellesbourne Airfield The RADA Summer School provides young actors with an experience of a leading British drama school and illuminates the distinction between drama as it is taught at school and as a vocational training. Cara hopes to do a university degree in drama/English before applying to attend RADA full-time. She said: Its been my ambition to get into the RADA Summer School and Im really happy to have the privilege of being able to go in 2016. Sibfords head of drama, Neil Madden, added: There was very stiff competition for this placement, therefore we are delighted that Caras application was successful. It will be a great opportunity for her to learn more about the craft of acting and will be a good preparation for her future plans. This year promises to be an exciting year for Cara. "Next term she is starring as The Wicked Witch of the West in Sibford Schools production of The Wizard of Oz, on from 9th to 11th February. By Claire Milhench LONDON (Reuters) - Investors' exodus from equity funds continued in the second week of January, wiping $5.7 trillion off global stocks in the first nine trading days of 2016, Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML) said on Friday. Some $11.9 billion was pulled from equity funds, the largest outflow in 18 weeks, but the bank, which also uses data from the EPFR Global fund research house, said redemptions were not yet big enough to indicate "true capitulation". Over the last two weeks, some $21 billion has been pulled from equity funds, compared with $36 billion during the August 2015 sell off, and a whopping $85 billion during the 2008 global financial crisis. The bank also noted that some of its U.S. East Coast clients were "not yet willing to accept that we are already well into a normal, cyclical recession/bear market". The S&P 500 has lost almost 6 percent since the start of the year, with $12.5 billion of outflows from U.S. equity funds over the week to Jan. 13. Investors have been panicked by wild swings in Chinese mainland stocks, and a general deterioration in the outlook for commodity producers, as oil prices have tumbled to 12-year lows. But selling has not been limited to energy and materials stocks. The bank said there had been "carnage" in technology stocks, with $1.1 billion of outflows, and in financials, which suffered redemptions of $700 million -- the largest in 20 weeks for both sectors. It also noted the selling had spread to European equity funds, which chalked up their first net outflows in 15 weeks, albeit a modest $100 million. Emerging equity funds suffered $1.6 billion of outflows, the largest in five weeks. Japanese equity funds bucked the trend, attracting $2 billion, their largest inflows in 17 weeks. For the most part, investors sought safety in bond funds, which attracted $2.3 billion, and money-market funds, which took in $24 billion. That marked a clear rotation out of high yield and emerging market debt into the safer havens of treasury, investment grade and municipal bonds. High-yield bond funds lost a chunky $4.1 billion while emerging market debt funds lost a more modest $500 million. On the flip side, government and treasury bond funds attracted $3.4 billion, their largest inflows since February 2015. Commodities also attracted $1.5 billion of inflows, the largest in 12 months, suggesting the heavy selling of the last two weeks, which has seen Brent crude crash below $30 a barrel, has attracted some bargain hunters. [O/R] (Editing by Catherine Evans) By Devika Krishna Kumar NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices crashed 6 percent on Friday to close below $30 a barrel for the first time in 12 years, resuming this year's breathtaking rout as Chinese stock markets fell further and traders braced for an imminent rise in Iran's exports. After closing higher for the first time in eight sessions on Thursday, U.S. and Brent crude futures plumbed new lows, taking this year's losses to more than 20 percent, the worst two-week decline since the 2008 financial crisis. The slump was not over yet, some analysts warned, as the lifting of sanctions on Iran opens the door to a wave of new oil. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is expected on Saturday to issue its report on Iran's compliance with an agreement to curb its nuclear program, potentially triggering the lifting of Western sanctions. Shares in China, the world's No. 2 oil consumer, tumbled on Friday, with the Shanghai index ending down 3.5 percent to its lowest close since December 2014 and the yuan weakening sharply offshore. Adding to fuel demand concerns, U.S. data showed retail sales fell and industrial production weakened in December. Brent settled down $1.94, or 6.3 percent, at $28.94 a barrel, sticking below the pivotal $30 a barrel mark after briefly dipping below that level in the previous two days. It fell as far as $28.82, the lowest since February 2004. U.S. crude ended $1.78, or 5.7 percent, lower at $29.42, after hitting a contract low of $29.13, its lowest since November 2003, earlier in the session. The oil market is oversold after two weeks of almost unrelenting selling, some traders said. The relative strength index (RSI) fell this week to below 30, a technical level often regarded as signaling a market that has fallen too far. Bearish traders may rush to take profits on short positions next week. Short positions in the U.S. contract rose to a record of more than 200 million barrels in the week to Jan. 12, according to U.S. data. "I think we will see a hard bounce in crude oil - two, three, four dollars back up into the mid 30s," said Phillip Streible, senior market strategist at RJO Futures in Chicago. Even before Iran's sanctions are lifted, Iran's oil exports were on target to hit a nine-month high in January. Tehran is expected to target India, Asia's fastest-growing major oil market, as well as its old partners in Europe with increased exports once sanctions are lifted. Despite oil prices hovering around new multi-year lows, analysts say that prices have not hit the bottom just yet, with demand likely to ease in coming weeks, especially with refiners beginning to shut for routine spring maintenance. A further fall in prices "cannot be excluded", said Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch told Reuters Global Oil Forum. He warned that $25 a barrel "is quite possible, but not much lower than that." (Additional reporting by Libby George in London and Aaron Sheldrick in Tokyo; Editing by Marguerita Choy) Ball Corporation (NYSE: BLL) today announced that the European Commission has granted conditional regulatory clearance in Europe of its proposed acquisition of Rexam PLC. As part of the conditional clearance, the European Commission is requiring Ball to divest eight of its existing European metal beverage can manufacturing plants and two end plants, along with two of Rexam's metal beverage can manufacturing plants. The European Commission is also requiring Ball to divest certain European innovation and support functions in Bonn, Germany, Chester, U.K. and Zurich, Switzerland. Upon closing the proposed offer for Rexam PLC, the combined company will operate Rexam's remaining 13 European beverage can manufacturing plants and two end plants, as well as three Rexam can plants and one end plant in Russia, and Ball's Bierne, France, Belgrade, Serbia, and Lublin, Poland, manufacturing plants. In addition, Ball plans to move its European regional support office to Rexam's Luton, U.K., location and will retain Rexam's Tongwell, U.K., research and development center. On Dec. 29, 2015, Ball announced receipt of conditional regulatory approval in Brazil. As part of the Brazilian conditional clearance, the company agreed to divest its plants in Alagoinhas and Jacarei. The combined company will operate Ball's remaining beverage can and end manufacturing plant in Tres Rios and end plant in Simoes Filho, as well as Rexam's 12 existing metal beverage manufacturing plants in South America. Ball expects to obtain the remaining regulatory clearances to enable the proposed acquisition of Rexam PLC to close during the first half of 2016. Following closing of the transaction, Ball will remain a New York Stock Exchange listed company domiciled in the U.S. and headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado. Gran Tierra Energy Inc. (NYSE: GTE) announced that today the Company entered into an agreement with PetroGranada Limited to acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of PetroGranada Colombia Limited ("PGC") (the "Acquisition"). Subject to approval by the Agencia Nacional de Hidrocarburos of Colombia ("ANH"), PGC holds a full 50% undivided working interest in the exploration and production contract for the Putumayo-7 block ("PUT-7 Block"), in the Putumayo Basin of Colombia. Consideration for the Acquisition is $19 million, subject to customary adjustments, to be paid on the closing of the Acquisition. In addition, the Company has agreed to pay an additional $4 million to PGC if the cumulative production from the PUT-7 Block plus gross Proved plus Probable reserves under the PUT-7 Block meet or exceed 8 million barrels ("MMbbls"). As a result of its previous acquisition of Petroamerica Oil Corp., the Company already holds the rights to the other 50% undivided working interest of the PUT-7 Block, which is subject to ANH approval. Upon receiving ANH approval with respect to both interests, the Company will hold a 100% undivided working interest and be the operator of the PUT-7 Block. The Acquisition will be funded with cash-on-hand, and the Company will remain debt free with an undrawn $200 million credit facility. STRATEGIC RATIONALE The PUT-7 Block is highly prospective in the Company's view. Based on an NI 51-101 independent report prepared by GLJ Petroleum Consultants Ltd., as of December 31, 2014, there were 1.9 MMbbls of Proved plus Probable reserves with respect to the 50% undivided working interest of Petroamerica Oil Corp. In addition, the Company believes there are multiple seismically identified drill ready exploration prospects on the PUT-7 Block, including the emerging N Sands play. "This acquisition is strategic to the Company in consolidating reserves and high potential exploration opportunities in the Putumayo Basin, and throughout the hydrocarbon producing basins in Colombia. This operated block will provide a focal point for potential new infrastructure in the southern Putumayo as we begin the exciting exploration and development programs in this region," commented Gary Guidry, President and Chief Executive Officer of Gran Tierra. SUMMARY OF THE ACQUISITION The Acquisition has the following characteristics and metrics: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total consideration $19 million(1) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total net acres of undeveloped land (50% of block) 65,093 acres ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Working Interest Proved plus Probable reserves 1.9 MMbbls(2) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Consideration paid for barrel of 2P reserves $10.00/bbl ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Gran Tierra has agreed to pay an additional $4 million to PGC if cumulative production from the PUT-7 Block plus gross Proved plus Probable reserves under the PUT-7 Block meet or exceed 8 MMbbls. 2. Based on NI 51-101 independent report prepared by GLJ Petroleum Consultants Ltd. as of December 31, 2014, with respect to the 50% undivided working interest of Petroamerica Oil Corp. There are commitments to drill two exploration wells on the PUT-7 Block during 2016, after which there will remain a commitment to perform approximately 167 square kilometers of 3D seismic. The Company considers the drill ready prospects on the PUT-7 Block to be in the top quartile of its exploration portfolio. BlackRock (NYSE: BLK) reported Q4 EPS of $4.75, $0.05 worse than the analyst estimate of $4.80. Revenue for the quarter came in at $2.86 billion versus the consensus estimate of $2.84 billion. AUM was $ 4,645,412 at the end of Q4, versus $ 4,651,895 in the same period last year. Our full year 2015 results once again demonstrate that in times of global macro-uncertainty and market volatility, BlackRocks diverse business model can generate strong and consistent financial results, commented Laurence D. Fink, Chairman and CEO of BlackRock. Annual long-term net inflows of $152 billion, representing 4% organic asset growth, drove year-over-year increases in revenue, operating income and earnings per share, and reflected positive flows across the breadth of our active and index & iShares platform, including flows of more than $1 billion into 65 distinct Retail and iShares funds. BlackRock is differentiated by its ability to provide active and index strategies, alternative investments, factor-based and hybrid client solutions through a single platform. These broad-based capabilities, supported by consistent investment performance and Aladdin risk management and technology, uniquely position BlackRock to help our clients solve their increasingly complex investment challenges and build upon our position as an industry thought leader. In 2015, consistent alpha generation at BlackRock drove both retail and institutional client engagement across our active platform, generating $61 billion of active net inflows. At December 31, 2015, 91% of our active taxable fixed income assets and 90% of our scientific active equity assets were above benchmark or peer median for the 3-year period and we continue to improve our fundamental active equity performance with 76% of fundamental active equity assets above benchmark or peer median for the 1-year period. BlackRocks iShares franchise generated $130 billion of net inflows during the year and captured the #1 share of flows globally, in the US and in Europe in 2015. iShares led the industry with $50 billion in fixed income ETF flows, as clients increasingly recognize that the benefits of ETFs including liquidity, low cost and tax efficiency apply to fixed income products just as they do to equities. Anticipating change, and having the willingness and ability to adapt and invest for the future, is a crucial part of meeting our fiduciary commitment to our clients. Despite the volatile market environment, our financial resilience allowed us to make significant long-term investments in our business to position us for future growth. These investments included building out capabilities in alternatives, factor-based strategies, big data and retail technology, as well as in areas like infrastructure and impact investing, where we are working with our clients to create positive societal outcomes. BlackRocks 2015 results reflect the strength of our differentiated business model and the ability of our team to execute in a challenging market environment. The leadership enhancements we announced earlier this week once again demonstrate the deliberate approach that BlackRock and its Board take to develop our talent regularly evolving the organization to broaden the teams experience, to anticipate the needs of clients and to position us for future growth. I want to thank all BlackRock employees for their unwavering dedication to creating better financial futures for our clients and continuing to create long-term value for our shareholders. For earnings history and earnings-related data on BlackRock (BLK) click here. A Bitcoin sign can be seen on display at a bar in central Sydney, Australia, September 29, 2015. REUTERS/David Gray By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin slid by 10 percent on Friday after one of its lead developers, Mike Hearn, said in a blogpost that he was ending his involvement with the cryptocurrency and selling all of his remaining holdings because it had "failed". Hearn, one of five senior developers who has spent more than five years working on the web-based currency, said he would no longer be taking part in development. "Despite knowing that bitcoin could fail all along, the now inescapable conclusion that it has failed still saddens me greatly," Hearn said in his post on blog-publishing platform Medium. Along with Gavin Andresen, who was chosen by bitcoin's elusive creator Satoshi Nakamoto as his successor when he stepped aside in 2011, Hearn has been locked for months in a battle with the other lead developers over whether the "blocks" in which bitcoin transactions are processed should be enlarged. Each block currently has a capacity of one megabyte, which Hearn says is "an entirely artificial capacity cap", and allows a maximum of just three payments to be processed per second. In August, Hearn and Andresen released a rival version of the current software, called Bitcoin XT, which would increase the block size to 8 megabytes, allowing up to 24 transactions to be processed every second. While that is still a fraction of the 20,000 or so that Visa can process, it would increase every year, so that bitcoin could continue to grow. But the new software has not been adopted by the "mining" computers that secure the network, the majority of which are in China, according to Hearn. Hearn says the bitcoin network is about to run out of capacity as the volume of transactions increases. And when that happens, the network will become unreliable, with payments unable to be processed and vulnerable to fraud. "If an IT system runs out of capacity like that then all kinds of things go wrong all hell breaks loose," he said in an interview with Reuters in late December. Hearn reckons the bitcoin community has "failed" in its governance of the crytocurrency's code. "What was meant to be a new, decentralised form of money that lacked 'systemically important institutions' and 'too big to fail' has become something even worse: a system completely controlled by just a handful of people," he wrote. SUDDEN DEPARTURE Just months ago, in August, Hearn told Reuters that whether or not Bitcoin XT was adopted, the crypocurrency would live on. "If we thought it might be the end of bitcoin, we wouldn't do it," he said then. Bitcoin was trading at around $390 on the itBit exchange by 2000 GMT, down from $430 before Hearn's blog post was published. In his December interview, Hearn said that when people realised that the bitcoin network was at breaking point, the price would fall. "The current price of bitcoin is supported almost entirely by people speculating on its future, in the assumption that this could be the money of tomorrow," he said. "So if the network starts to collapse, then a lot of people are going to look at it and say: well maybe we've miscalculated (its) future value." Hearn is now working for the R3CEV consortium of banks working on using the blockchain technology that underpins bitcoin in financial markets. Stephan Tual, the former chief operating officer of blockchain firm Ethereum, who now works at blockchain-based app developer Slock.it, also reckons bitcoin's future looks shaky. "Bitcoin is outdated technology - almost prehistoric by crypto standards," he said. "It's because of petty quarrels such as these that it hasn't been able to evolve in five years." Others were more upbeat. "I'm not ready to declare that Bitcoin has failed," wrote U.S. venture capitalist Fred Wilson. "Sometimes it takes a crisis to get everyone in a room... So if we are going to have a crisis, let's get on with it. No better time than the present." (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Ruth Pitchford) A Conversation with Aaron Levie and Jeetu Patel, Co-Hosted by Bank of America Merrill Lynch REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Box (NYSE: BOX) announced today that Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO, and Jeetu Patel, SVP of Platform and Chief Strategy Officer will participate in a webcast hosted by Bank of America Merrill Lynch on Thursday, January 21, 2016 at 9:30 AM PT/12:30 PM ET. Aaron Levie will provide an introduction and company overview, followed by a discussion of the Box Platform offering by Jeetu Patel and a Q&A session. Joyce Yang and Kash Rangan of Bank of America Merrill Lynch will co-host the call. Webcast and Conference Call Information A live audio webcast of the call and accompanying slides will be available through Boxs Investor Relations website at www.box.com/investors and will be available before being archived for a period of 90 days. The access details for the live conference call are:+ 1-800-967-0627, (U.S. and Canada), confirmation code: 970127+ 1-913-312-9323 (International), confirmation code: 970127 A telephonic replay of the call will be available approximately three hours after the call and will run for one week. The replay can be accessed by dialing:+ 1-888-203-1112, confirmation code: 970127 About Box Founded in 2005, Box (NYSE: BOX) is transforming the way people and organizations work so they can achieve their greatest ambitions. As the world's leading enterprise content management and collaboration platform, Box helps businesses of all sizes in every industry securely access and manage their critical information in the cloud. Box is headquartered in Redwood City, CA, with offices across the United States, Europe and Asia. To learn more about Box, visit www.box.com. Safe Harbor for Forward-Looking Statements During the course of the event, Box will make forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance and plans of the company. Statements including words such as "anticipate", "believe", "estimate" or "expect" and statements in the future tense are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or actual future results to differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. Please refer to Box's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended July 31, 2015 for a discussion of important factors that could cause actual events or actual results to differ materially from those discussed during this event. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of the event; Box assumes no obligation to, and does not necessarily intend to, update these forward-looking statements. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160115005162/en/ Investor Relations Contact: Box Alice Kousoum Lopatto, 650-209-3467 [email protected] or Media Contact: Box PR Denis Roy, 650-543-6926 [email protected] Source: Box LOS ANGELES, Jan. 15, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- City National Bank today announced that senior banker Scott Witter has been promoted to serve as executive vice president of the companys Core Banking Division. He will succeed Kevin Dunigan, who has announced his retirement. Witter will be responsible for the strategic direction, business development and client service within the banks small business, consumer and preferred banking lines of business. In this capacity, he will oversee more than 500 colleagues in California, Nevada and New York. Were deeply grateful to Kevin for all that he has contributed to City Nationals success, and were delighted that Scott will lead our Core Division going forward, said bank President Christopher Warmuth. He is an outstanding banker with a solid track record of achievement and a strong commitment to premier client service. Witter has more than 30 years of financial services experience and most recently served as senior vice president and manager of City Nationals Private Client Services in New York. He joined City National in 2008 and before that held senior positions in consumer and premier banking, corporate treasury, regulatory reporting, compliance, accounting, corporate relations and government affairs. When he moved to New York, Witter retired from a 27-year career with the Azusa Police Department as a reserve police officer. Witter is a graduate of California State University, Los Angeles, where he earned a bachelors degree in finance and business administration. A certified financial planner, Witter is a registered securities representative and holds Series 6, 7, 24, 26, 63 and 65 securities licenses, as well as a life and disability insurance license. Dunigan joined City National in 1999 and has led its Core Banking Division for 17 years. During that time, the bank has grown from 35 branches to 75, and it has introduced both Business Banking and Preferred Banking to its clients. Dunigan also is the banks Orange County regional executive, and will continue to serve in that capacity until a successor is named. He is active in the community and serves on the board of the Argyros School of Business and Economics at Chapman University. Replacing Witter in New York will be Brandon Williams, formerly an executive vice president of Wealth Management at TD Bank in Manhattan. Williams joined TD Bank in 2001 and led the successful launch of its U.S. wealth business. City National merged with Royal Bank of Canada on November 2, 2015, and the Los Angeles-based bank continues to grow. The company hired more than 100 new colleagues in 2015 and plans to add at least as many this year, eventually expanding into new communities. About City National With $35.6 billion in assets, City National Bank provides banking, investment and trust services through 75 offices, including 16 full-service regional centers, in Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area, Nevada, New York City, Nashville and Atlanta. In addition, the company and its investment affiliates manage or administer $59.4 billion in client investment assets. City National is a subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), one of North Americas leading diversified financial services companies. RBC serves more than 16 million personal, business, public sector and institutional clients through offices in Canada, the United States and 38 other countries. For more information about City National, visit the companys website at cnb.com. Media Contact: Debora Vrana, City National Bank, 213.673.7631 [email protected] Source: City National Bank NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Fitch Ratings affirms all ratings of the outstanding student loan notes issued by Navient Private Education Loan Trust 2015-A (Navient 2015-A). The Rating Outlook remains Stable. A detailed list of rating actions follows at the end of this press release. KEY RATING DRIVERS Collateral Quality: The trust is collateralized by approximately $797.20 million of credit-tested private student loans originated by Navient Corp. The projected remaining defaults are expected to range between 9%-11%. A recovery rate of 11% was applied, which was determined to be appropriate based on data provided by the issuer. Credit Enhancement (CE): Transaction credit enhancement is sufficient to provide loss coverage for the class A and B notes at each respective rating category. CE is provided by a combination of overcollateralization (the excess of the trust's asset balance over the bond balance), excess spread, and subordination for the class A notes. Funds cannot be released from the trust unless the OC builds up to greater of 30% of the outstanding pool balance or 10% of the initial pool balance. The total parity ratio as of the most recent distribution period is 139.47%. Liquidity Support: Liquidity support is provided by a reserve account sized at approximately $2.22 million. Servicing Capabilities: Day-to-day servicing is provided by Navient Solutions Inc., which has demonstrated satisfactory servicing capabilities RATING SENSITIVITIES As Fitch's base case default proxy is derived primarily from historical collateral performance, actual performance may differ from the expected performance, resulting in higher loss levels than the base case. This will result in a decline in CE and remaining loss coverage levels available to the notes and may make certain note ratings susceptible to potential negative rating actions, depending on the extent of the decline in coverage. Fitch will continue to monitor the performance of the trust. DUE DILIGENCE USAGE No third party due diligence was provided or reviewed in relation to this rating action. Fitch affirms the following classes: Navient Private Education Loan Trust 2015-A: --Class A-1 at 'AAAsf'; Outlook Stable; --Class A-2A at 'AAAsf'; Outlook Stable; --Class A-2B at 'AAAsf'; Outlook Stable; --Class A-3 at 'AAAsf'; Outlook Stable; --Class B at 'AAsf'; Outlook Stable. Additional information is available at www.fitchratings.com. Applicable Criteria Counterparty Criteria for Structured Finance and Covered Bonds (pub. 14 May 2014) https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/reports/report_frame.cfm?rpt_id=744158 Counterparty Criteria for Structured Finance and Covered Bonds: Derivative Addendum (pub. 14 May 2014) https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/reports/report_frame.cfm?rpt_id=744175 Global Structured Finance Rating Criteria (pub. 06 Jul 2015) https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/reports/report_frame.cfm?rpt_id=867952 U.S. Private Student Loan ABS Criteria (pub. 31 Jul 2015) https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/reports/report_frame.cfm?rpt_id=868836 Related Research Navient Private Education Loan Trust 2015-A -- Appendix https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/reports/report_frame.cfm?rpt_id=851169 Additional Disclosures Dodd-Frank Rating Information Disclosure Form https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/press_releases/content/ridf_frame.cfm?pr_id=997956 Solicitation Status https://www.fitchratings.com/gws/en/disclosure/solicitation?pr_id=997956 Endorsement Policy https://www.fitchratings.com/jsp/creditdesk/PolicyRegulation.faces?context=2&detail=31 ALL FITCH CREDIT RATINGS ARE SUBJECT TO CERTAIN LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS. PLEASE READ THESE LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS BY FOLLOWING THIS LINK: HTTP://FITCHRATINGS.COM/UNDERSTANDINGCREDITRATINGS. IN ADDITION, RATING DEFINITIONS AND THE TERMS OF USE OF SUCH RATINGS ARE AVAILABLE ON THE AGENCY'S PUBLIC WEBSITE 'WWW.FITCHRATINGS.COM'. PUBLISHED RATINGS, CRITERIA AND METHODOLOGIES ARE AVAILABLE FROM THIS SITE AT ALL TIMES. FITCH'S CODE OF CONDUCT, CONFIDENTIALITY, CONFLICTS OF INTEREST, AFFILIATE FIREWALL, COMPLIANCE AND OTHER RELEVANT POLICIES AND PROCEDURES ARE ALSO AVAILABLE FROM THE 'CODE OF CONDUCT' SECTION OF THIS SITE. FITCH MAY HAVE PROVIDED ANOTHER PERMISSIBLE SERVICE TO THE RATED ENTITY OR ITS RELATED THIRD PARTIES. DETAILS OF THIS SERVICE FOR RATINGS FOR WHICH THE LEAD ANALYST IS BASED IN AN EU-REGISTERED ENTITY CAN BE FOUND ON THE ENTITY SUMMARY PAGE FOR THIS ISSUER ON THE FITCH WEBSITE. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160115005788/en/ Fitch Ratings Primary Analyst Charlene M. Davis Director +1-212-908-0213 Fitch Ratings, Inc. 33 Whitehall Street New York, NY 10004 or Committee Chairperson Kevin Corrigan Senior Director +1-212-908-0156 or Media Relations: Sandro Scenga, +1 212-908-0278 [email protected] Source: Fitch Ratings Report: More than 70% of overseas students want to return to China Due to a good entrepreneurial environment and sound economic development, China is seeing an increasing number of Chinese students returning home after studying abroad. The number of Chinese students studying abroad in 2014 totaled nearly 460,000, and over 360,000 of those students returned home after finishing their studies, according to statistics from the Chinese Ministry of Education. Over 70 percent of Chinese students studying abroad express their desire to return to China after completing their studies, according to the 2014 Blue Book of Global Talent released by the Chinese Service Center for Scholarly Exchange. Some experts predict that China will see more students returning from overseas than going abroad in the next five years. Moreover, instead of being a country with a talent deficit, China is expected to become one of the countries to which most overseas students choose to return. The Blue Book also points out that most of the returning overseas students earn less than 10,000 yuan per month. For 32.8 percent of overseas students with doctoral degrees, 40.86 percent of overseas students with masters degrees, and 47.74 percent of overseas students with bachelors degrees, monthly pay is below 5,000 yuan. These salaries indicate that they have few advantages over local graduates. WASHINGTON, Jan. 15, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On the heels of President Obama's State of the Union Address (SOTU) and under the leadership of USCM Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, nearly 300 of the nation's mayors will convene in Washington, D.C. at the Capital Hilton Hotel to engage with Administration officials, Congressional leaders business leaders to ensure the health and economic recovery of America's cities. The nation's mayors will also hold a press conference to unveil their urban agenda The 2016 Compact for a Better America: A Call to Action -- which calls on the Presidential candidates and Congress to INVEST in and PROTECT America's cities and metro areas. With more than 85% of people in the United States living in our nation's cities and metro areas, mayors clearly understand how urban issues impact everyday Americans and are calling on candidates to focus on these issues. Mayors are convinced that despite their geographic location, cities large and small across the country are plagued by the same challenges including crumbling infrastructure, community/police relations, job creation, education, affordable housing, immigration and trade. Highlights of the three-day session include: Wednesday, Jan 20: Plenary Session Panel on Reducing Violence and Strengthening Police/Community Trust feat. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, NUL President & CEO Marc Morial and St. Louis Police Chief Colonel Dotson; U.S. Senator Inhofe (OK); U.S. Senator Ed Markey (MA); U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp (ND); Criminal and Social Justice Committee w/ DOJ COPS Office Director Ron Davis; U.S. Trade Rep. Michael Froman; Mayors Water Council; Veterans Affairs Task Force; Release of Boston University Survey of Mayors' Policy Priorities; Cal Ripken, Jr. re Play Ball Program Anncmnt; Release of Mayoral Survey on New Energy Technologies; Acting Education Secretary John King; Mayors and Police Chiefs Task Force re responding to the mentally ill; Substance Abuse Task Force feat Boston Mayor Martin Walsh; Mayors & Metro Univ. Task Force re. Dealing with Campus Unrest & Violence feat. Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer Thursday, Jan 21: Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti; Kansas City Mayor Sly James to receive Business Leadership Award; U.S. Senator James Inhofe (OK); Labor Secretary Thomas Perez; HUD Secretary Julian Castro; Acting Commerce Secretary Jay Williams; Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, Amtrak President & CEO Joseph Boardman; 2020 Census Task Force; U.S. Manufacturing Innovation Fund Awardees Announced; Childhood Obesity Prevention Awardees Announced; Special Session on youth unemployment & tech education; President Barack Obama to Deliver Remarks to Mayors at White House Friday, January 22: Leadership in the Arts Awards feat R&B, Jazz Recording Artist Ledisi; Update on Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture; Food Policy Task Force feat DC Mayor Bowser; Immigration Task Force re refugee resettlement; Ports and Exports Task Force re The Trans Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement; Energy & Climate Protection Task force; My Brother's Keeper Task Force; Special Recognition of retiring Charleston Mayor Joe Riley; Dollarwi$e Financial Literacy Awards Press Guidance: Press MUST register to attend the meeting at http://usmayors.org/84thWinterMeeting/press_registration.asp. On site-registration will also be available with the current press credentials at the Capitol Hilton 2nd Floor in the New York Room. All business/day sessions are OPEN to the press unless otherwise indicated (ALL EVENING EVENTS ARE CLOSED). A draft AGENDA and list of PRE-REGISTERED MAYORS are available at www.usmayors.org. WHAT: OPENING PRESS CONFERENCE OF THE 84th Winter Meeting of The U.S. Conference of Mayors: Baltimore, MD Mayor Stephanie Rawlings Blake, USCM President (D) Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett, USCM Vice President (R) New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, USCM Second Vice President (D) Tom Cochran, USCM CEO and Executive Director + U.S. Mayors from across the country WHEN: Wednesday, January 20th at 11:15am 12:00pm WHERE: 2nd Floor Foyer outside Presidential Ballroom, Capital Hilton, 1001 16th St, NW, Washington, D.C., 202-393-1000 The U.S. Conference of Mayors is the official nonpartisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more. There are nearly 1400 such cities in the country today, and each city is represented in the Conference by its chief elected official, the mayor. Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/usmayors, or follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/usmayors. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110125/MM36443LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/president-barack-obama-to-deliver-remarks-to-mayors-next-week-300205338.html SOURCE The U.S. Conference of Mayors CHICAGO, Jan. 14, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Virgin Hotels is thrilled to announce that Virgin Hotels Chicago, the brand's first property, has achieved LEED Gold Certification, a nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings. Today, the hotel and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) celebrated the achievement with a hosted panel discussion surrounding reducing carbon, reaching net zero and greening supply chains in the hospitality industry. "Our goal as a company is to have all our properties achieve LEED Silver, so we are ecstatic to have exceeded that benchmark in Chicago," said Raul Leal, CEO of Virgin Hotels. "As we continue to open additional properties, we have aspirational goals of moving towards a net zero carbon footprint across the board." Virgin Hotels Chicago is located at 203 N. Wabash in the former Old Dearborn Bank building, a property built in 1928, and designated in 2003 as a Chicago Landmark. Through an extensive restoration and renovation process, Virgin Hotels reconditioned much of the building's interior to its original form, including the lobby desk and ornate plaster ceilings. Modern updates were installed to meet LEED certification standards, utilizing green strategies respectful of the building's historic content. "While keeping the historic elements of the existing building we creatively were able to do a good amount of work, such as adding a roof deck terrace expanding the existing penthouse with a new green roof above," said Jefferson Thomas, Director of Architecture for Virgin Hotels. "We are also using technology such as smart thermostats and occupancy sensors as a way to save energy when guests are not occupying the hotel guestrooms." Additional highlights include high-performance windows and sensor lighting that reduce energy use, water-efficient toilets and aerated lavatory faucets that assist with water conservation, and high insulation walls and roofing that reduce heating and cooling costs, to name a few. And now, guests can do their part to make the world a little greener. Beginning Monday, January 18, guests will be able to donate $.75 per night to offset their carbon footprint while staying at Virgin Hotels Chicago. "Chicago is one of the great global cities, setting a high bar for sustainability across its iconic skyline," said Rick Fedrizzi, USGBC's CEO and founding chair. "From The Loop to Lakeshore Drive, from McCormick Place to the Merchandise Mart, so many of the city's great buildings proudly display their LEED plaques as a symbol of their environmental commitment. We're excited to celebrate Virgin Hotels Chicago as the latest addition to this prestigious list of Chicago LEED buildings. Virgin Group's environmental leadership is legendary, and this remaking of a Chicago landmark into a 21st century model of energy and water efficiency, waste reduction, and human health enhancement is a significant achievement and sets a high bar for the global hospitality sector." Virgin Hotels Chicago is now open and accepting reservations at www.virginhotels.com, with Nashville, Dallas and New York properties slated to open next. Virgin Hotels continues to explore properties in cities such as Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, Austin, Seattle, San Francisco, Washington DC, and London, locations where it is pursuing hotel and office conversions and ground-up development. About Virgin Hotels: Virgin Hotels is a lifestyle hospitality brand that combines heartfelt service, straightforward value and a seamless, personalized hotel experience with the track record of innovation and smart disruption that Sir Richard Branson's global Virgin Group has pioneered for over 40 years. Each property will intermix a passion for food and beverage with music and culture, fusing with the local landscape and providing a vibrant and inclusive environment for travelers and locals alike. Virgin Hotels Chicago is now open, with Nashville, New York and others to follow. For more information, please visit www.virginhotels.com. About Virgin Hotels Chicago: Virgin Hotels Chicago is the first property to open in the Virgin Hotels portfolio with 250 Chambers including 38 Grand Chamber Suites and two Penthouse Suites. The hotel is located in the former Old Dearborn Bank building, built in 1928, at 203 N. Wabash in The Loop. The property offers four dining and drinking outlets including the flagship space The Commons Club, Cerise our rooftop bar and lounge, Miss Ricky's and Two Zero Three, plus a live music venue named Upstairs and The Spa. Each space intermixes a passion for food and beverage with nightly music and programming, fusing with the local landscape and providing a vibrant, inclusive environment for travelers and locals alike. Known for championing the customer, Virgin Hotels has eliminated nickel and diming tactics by offering high-speed Wi Fi at no cost, no penalty for early check-in or late check-out and mini bar options at street prices. For more information, please visit www.virginhotels.com. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160114/322505 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/virgin-hotels-chicago-achieves-leed-gold-certification-300204985.html SOURCE Virgin Hotels A customer gets the tank of her car filled at a Sinopec gas station in Qingdao, Shandong province September 11, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer By Jonathan Leff (Reuters) - Chinas state-run oil refiner Sinopec Corp <0386.HK> has purchased its first ever batch of U.S. crude oil for export, a source told Reuters on Thursday, a landmark transaction after the ending of a four-decade ban on domestic exports. The cargo, due to be loaded from a Gulf Coast port in March, may mark the start of a sustained flow of U.S. oil to China, the worlds second-largest buyer, which is eager to diversify its energy sources. Unipec, its trading arm, also has the advantage of leased oil storage tanks in the Caribbean, which could allow it to blend U.S. shale with cheap, heavy Latin American crudes for a bespoke mix ideally suited to its plants back home. While the first unfettered exports of domestic crude have already set sail to Europe, those cargoes are generally seen as one-off shipments by companies eager to make a point after fighting for two years to end the ban. Based on current U.S. and world prices, the cargoes do not appear profitable, traders said. With China, the calculations are less straightforward. As the world's second-biggest oil refiner, Sinopec buys more crude oil than almost any other company, and has worked to improve its supply security by seeking out diverse sources. U.S. crude oil exports are positive news for the global market, and make it possible for Asia-Pacific refiners to diversify their supply if the crude is economically competitive," a company source said. "Our upcoming storage capacity in the Caribbean is well-suited to this development. The source declined to comment on any further details of the transaction, including the variety of crude, price or supplier. A Sinopec Corp representative said the company does not comment on specific deals. Due to shipping limitations along the Gulf Coast, it is likely to be around 600,000 barrels, a relatively tiny sum equivalent to about two hours' worth of China's overall imports. That would make it worth about $20 million, too small to put a serious dent in a $30 billion a month trade deficit with China. But it carries symbolic significance as the United States enters a new era of free oil trade after Congress moved with surprising speed and success last month to scrap the longstanding ban on most overseas shipments. A handful of companies including producer ConocoPhilips (NYSE: COP) and Swiss trader Vitol SA [VITOLV.UL] raced to ship the first cargoes, which sailed in recent weeks from Gulf Coast ports. But with benchmark U.S. crude oil futures trading at a premium of over $1 a barrel versus global market Brent, traders said most buyers are better off shopping overseas than shipping U.S. crude abroad. BUY AND BLEND? This shipment is set to flow directly to China, said the source, but future cargoes may go instead to St. Croix, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. A shuttered refinery in St. Croix was rescued from bankruptcy in December and is being reborn as a large oil storage hub. At the St. Croix site, Sinopec agreed to lease 10 million barrels worth of crude tank capacity for 10 years as part of a revival led by U.S. private equity firm ArcLight Capital and Connecticut-based commodity trader Freepoint. It is not expected to be ready for use until later in the year, however. The St. Croix base would give Sinopec the ability to blend close to the source and save on shipping costs back to China. While a landmark shipment, it will not be the first time China has bought crude from the United States, data show. Two unusually small cargoes of around 200,000 barrel each were shipped to China from the San Francisco Bay area in April and May last year, according to U.S. and Chinese trade data. The content of those cargoes could not be verified, and it is possible they were trans-shipments of foreign crude. Apart from such sporadic shipments, China has imported almost no U.S. crude outside of a brief space of cargoes from Alaska in the late 1990s, when Alaskan North Slope crude was exempted from the ban at a time of surging output. (Reporting by Jonathan Leff in New York; Additional reporting by Chen Aizhu in Beijing; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) An AT&T Logo is pictured on the side of a building in Pasadena, California, January 26, 2015. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni By Liana B. Baker and Malathi Nayak (Reuters) - Spanish telecommunications company Telefonica SA has expressed interest in buying AT&T Inc's pay TV assets in Latin America, which could be valued at around $10 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. AT&T bought the Latin American assets as part of its acquisition of DirecTV last year. The business includes satellite and cable television services in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina and several other countries. The U.S. telecoms company has yet to decide if it will explore a deal with Telefonica or another company, the people familiar with the matter said. Other parties are interested in AT&T's assets in specific countries, and the company may choose to run several sale processes, one of the people said. One potential buyer could be Liberty Global Plc, that person added. The sources asked not to be identified because the deliberations are confidential. Telefonica and AT&T declined to comment. Liberty Global could not immediately be reached for comment. AT&T has about 19 million pay TV subscribers in Central and South America, making it the biggest player in the region. But profits have been pressured by depreciating currencies in Brazil and other Latin American countries. Chief Executive Randall Stephenson said at an industry conference in December that AT&T would consider selling the Latin American business, but that the company was patient. "So if somebody were interested in talking about a strategic combination of those assets with a different product, we would have to look at it. Would we consider selling them? Yes, but we are in no rush," Stephenson said. Telefonica, which has debt of about 50 billion euros ($54 billion), has been shuffling its portfolio in recent months. It agreed to sell its O2 UK business to CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd for 10.3 billion pounds ($15 billion). It is also planning to sell or spin off its Spanish infrastructure unit, including wireless towers, later this year, Reuters previously reported. The Spanish company is a major wireless player in Latin America under the brands Movistar in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Mexico; it also owns Vivo in Brazil. Telefonica's regional pay TV operations, however, are smaller, and trail AT&T and American Movil's Claro. AT&T owns about 93 percent of Sky Brasil, the largest satellite provider in the region's biggest economy. It owns PanAmericana, which offers satellite TV services under the DirecTV brand in countries including Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Puerto Rico. It is also a shareholder in Sky Mexico, which is controlled by Mexico's Grupo Televisa. (Reporting by Liana B. Baker and Malathi Nayak in New York; Additional reporting by Andres Gonzalez in Madrid; Editing by Tiffany Wu) By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican-led Congress and President Barack Obama's administration, often at odds over Iran policy, are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to let the families of Americans killed in the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut and other attacks collect nearly $2 billion in frozen Iranian funds. The Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear arguments in an appeal by the Iranian central bank, Bank Markazi, to reverse a 2014 lower-court ruling that said the money should be handed over to plaintiffs representing hundreds of Americans killed or injured in attacks blamed on Iran. They won a $2.65 billion judgment against Iran in U.S. federal court in 2007. The money is currently held in New York in a trust account at Citibank, part of Citigroup Inc. At issue before the justices is whether Congress violated the separation of powers principle enshrined in the U.S. Constitution by passing a 2012 law that specified the funds held in the trust account go toward paying off the judgment. Bank Markazi contends the legislative branch of the U.S. government improperly sought to dictate the outcome of a specific case handled by the judiciary branch. The families accused Iran of providing material support to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shi'ite Islamist political and military group responsible for the 1983 truck bomb attack at the Marine compound in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. servicemen. They are also seeking compensation on behalf those killed or injured in other attacks they linked to Iran, including the 1996 Khobar Towers truck bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. service members. The lead plaintiff in the case is Deborah Peterson, who originally sued in 2001 on behalf of the estate of her brother, Marine Lance Corporal James Knipple, who was killed at age 20 in the Beirut bombing. The high court's action comes at a delicate time in U.S.-Iranian relations. The United States and five other world powers reached a deal with Iran last July to lift certain American, European Union and U.N. sanctions in exchange for Iran accepting limits on its nuclear program. Congressional Republicans strongly opposed the nuclear agreement championed by Obama. In the Supreme Court case, the Obama administration, the Senate and a legal group representing leaders of the House of Representatives all filed court papers backing the plaintiffs. The unity shown by the White House and Congress might normally carry significant weight with the justices, said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Irvine School of Law. But because the case raises a question of the relationship between Congress and the courts, it could have "less effect than in other contexts," he said. A ruling is due by the end of June. (Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham) The ticker symbol for United Technologies is displayed on a screen on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange July 20, 2015. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid By Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin is committed to the commercial helicopter market despite shrinkage in the sector due to the slide in oil prices since it took over Sikorsky Aircraft from United Technologies Corp (NYSE: UTX) last year, a senior executive told Reuters on Thursday. Some analysts and industry executives have suggested Lockheed, the Pentagon's No. 1 supplier, could sell off Sikorsky's commercial helicopter business and focus solely on its military division. But Steve O'Bryan, head of business development for Lockheed's mission systems and training business, said the downturn was affecting all helicopter makers active in the oil and gas exploration sector. "Lockheed Martin has a steadfast commitment to the commercial helicopter market," O'Bryan told Reuters at the annual Surface Navy Association conference. He said the company saw opportunities for sales of commercial search and rescue helicopters and VIP transports, which would help offset sales to the oil and gas sector, as well as continued domestic and international military sales. Sikorsky helicopters continue to be utilized at a very high rate in the oil and gas sector, he noted, with low idle time. Demand for military helicopters remains strong in the Middle East and Asia, as well as in eastern Europe, where countries are seeking to replace Soviet-era equipment, O'Bryan said. He said Lockheed was ready to support the new Polish government as it revisits a decision by the previous government to buy utility helicopters built by Airbus Group (NYSE: AIR). The government last month said it would review the helicopter decision, and a separate decision to buy Patriot missile defense equipment from Raytheon Co (NYSE: RTN). O'Bryan cited demand for a range of Sikorsky helicopters, including workhorse H-60 Black Hawks, which he described as "a very mature product with relatively low cost," as well as the marine version of the helicopters, known as Sea Hawks. The new heavy-lift CH-53K helicopter that Sikorsky is building for the U.S. Marine Corps was also drawing some interest, he said. The CH-53K completed its first test flight in October, marking a major milestone for the program. The Marine Corps expects to spend $29 billion to buy 200 of the new helicopters, with an initial squadron slated to be ready for combat use by 2019. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Dan Grebler) Customers of United wait in line to check in at Newark International airport in New Jersey, November 15, 2012. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz (Reuters) - United Continental Holdings Inc (NYSE: UAL) said on Friday Chief Executive Oscar Munoz is headed home after a heart transplant last week and is recovering well. Munoz, 57, has been on medical leave since suffering a heart attack in October. United said last week that his previously expected first-quarter return may be delayed until the beginning of the second quarter, raising concerns about how long the second-largest U.S. airline by capacity might be without its top executive. "I feel great, and it won't be long before we are working side by side again. Until that time, I expect to participate in key meetings and be involved in strategic planning," Munoz said in a letter addressed to employees released by the airline. Munoz said he was headed to his Chicago home after his treatment at the Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Brett Hart, the carrier's general counsel, has run the airline in the interim. For months, United has aimed to allay concern that management shake-ups had left an inexperienced team of executives running its business. In Munoz's absence, the airline has pursued the agenda he outlined in his month on the job. It struck tentative contract deals to rebuild workers' morale and improved on-time performance to boost customer satisfaction, lowest among rivals in J.D. Power's 2015 ranking. (Reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in New York and Radhika Rukmangadhan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila) SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549 FORM 6-K REPORT OF FOREIGN PRIVATE ISSUER PURSUANT TO RULE 13a-16 OR 15d-16 UNDER THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 January 15, 2016 Commission File No.: 1-34455 Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV (Translation of registrants name into English) Belgium (Jurisdiction of Incorporation ) Brouwerijplein 1, 3000 Leuven, Belgium (Address of principal executive offices ) Indicate by check mark whether the registrant files or will file annual reports under cover of Form 20-F or Form 40-F: Form 20-F u Form 40-F Indicate by check mark if the registrant is submitting the Form 6-K in paper as permitted by Regulation S-T Rule 101(b)(1): Indicate by check mark if the registrant is submitting the Form 6-K in paper as permitted by Regulation S-T Rule 101(b)(7): Indicate by check mark whether by furnishing the information contained in this Form, the registrant is also thereby furnishing the information to the Commission pursuant to Rule 12g3-2(b) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Yes No u EXHIBIT INDEX Exhibit Number Description 99.1 Press release issued on 15 January 2016 SIGNATURE Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned, thereunto duly authorized. ANHEUSER-BUSCH INBEV SA/NV (Registrant) Dated: January 15, 2016 By: /s/ Jan Vandermeersch Name: Jan Vandermeersch Title: Senior Legal Counsel Corporate Exhibit 99.1 PRESS RELEASE Brussels, 15 January 2016 NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, IN OR INTO ANY JURISDICTION WHERE TO DO SO WOULD CONSTITUTE A VIOLATION OF THE RELEVANT LAWS OF SUCH JURISDICTION OR REQUIRE ANHEUSER-BUSCH INBEV SA/NV TO TAKE ANY FURTHER ACTION THIS ANNOUNCEMENT DOES NOT CONSTITUTE OR FORM A PART OF ANY OFFER OR SOLICITATION OR ADVERTISEMENT TO PURCHASE AND/OR SUBSCRIBE FOR SHARES IN ANY JURISDICTION, INCLUDING AN OFFER TO THE PUBLIC FOR THE SALE OF, OR SUBSCRIPTION FOR, OR THE SOLICITATION OR THE ADVERTISEMENT OF AN OFFER TO BUY AND/OR SUBSCRIBE FOR, SHARES FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ANHEUSER-BUSCH INBEV LISTS ON THE JSE Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV (AB InBev) (Euronext: ABI) (NYSE: BUD) (MEXBOL: ABI) announces its secondary inward listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), effective today, 15 January 2016. The secondary inward listing on the mainboard of the JSE was completed by way of introduction (Listing) and consists of all of AB InBevs issued ordinary shares without nominal value (Ordinary Shares), totaling 1 608 242 156. The shares trade in the Consumer Food & Beverages Beverages Brewers sector of the JSE, under the abbreviated name AB InBev, JSE share code ANB and ISIN BE0003793107. The Ordinary Shares are tradable by South African resident investors without reference to their foreign portfolio allowances and have been classified as domestic for exchange control purposes. Carlos Brito, Chief Executive Officer of AB InBev, said: We are delighted to be listing on the JSE today. We were keen to do so as soon as possible as part of our commitment to investing in South Africa, and we appreciate the support we have received from the JSE, South African Reserve Bank and local investment community to make this happen. We look forward to welcoming new shareholders to AB InBev. English, Dutch and French versions of this press release will be available on www.ab-inbev.com. PRESS RELEASE Brussels, 15 January 2016 About Anheuser-Busch InBev Anheuser-Busch InBev is a publicly traded company (Euronext: ABI) (MEXBOL: ABI) (JSE: ANB) based in Leuven, Belgium, with American Depositary Receipts on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: BUD). It is the leading global brewer and one of the worlds top five consumer products companies. Beer, the original social network, has been bringing people together for thousands of years and our portfolio of well over 200 beer brands continues to forge strong connections with consumers. This includes global brands Budweiser, Corona and Stella Artois; international brands Becks, Leffe, and Hoegaarden; and local champions Bud Light, Skol, Brahma, Antarctica, Quilmes, Victoria, Modelo Especial, Michelob Ultra, Harbin, Sedrin, Klinskoye, Sibirskaya Korona, Chernigivske, Cass, and Jupiler. Anheuser-Busch InBevs dedication to quality goes back to a brewing tradition of more than 600 years and the Den Hoorn brewery in Leuven, Belgium, as well as the pioneering spirit of the Anheuser & Co brewery, with origins in St. Louis, USA since 1852. Geographically diversified with a balanced exposure to developed and developing markets, Anheuser-Busch InBev leverages the collective strengths of its approximately 155 000 employees based in 25 countries worldwide. In 2014, AB InBev realized USD 47.1 billion revenue. The company strives to be the Best Beer Company Bringing People Together For a Better World. Learn more at ab-inbev.com, at facebook.com/ABInBev or on Twitter through @ABInBevNews. PRESS RELEASE Brussels, 15 January 2016 DISCLAIMER This announcement does not constitute or form a part of any offer or solicitation or advertisement to purchase and/or subscribe for shares in any jurisdiction, including an offer to the public for the sale of, or subscription for, or the solicitation or the advertisement of an offer to buy and/or subscribe for, shares. If you are in any doubt about the contents of this announcement or the action you should take, you are recommended to seek your own independent financial advice immediately from your stockbroker, bank manager, attorney, accountant or independent financial adviser or from another appropriately authorised independent financial adviser. IMPORTANT NOTICES RELATING TO FINANCIAL ADVISERS Deutsche Bank and Standard Bank are the joint financial advisers and transaction sponsors in respect of the Listing, Lazard is the financial adviser to AB InBev, and Webber Wentzel is the South African legal adviser to AB InBev. The financial advisors listed below are acting in the context of the recommended acquisition of the entire issued and to be issued share capital of SABMiller by AB InBev (the Transaction). Lazard & Co., Limited (Lazard) is acting exclusively as financial adviser to AB InBev and for no one else in connection with the Transaction and is not, and will not be, responsible to anyone other than AB InBev for providing the protections afforded to clients of Lazard, or for providing advice in connection with the Transaction or any other matters referred to in this announcement. Neither Lazard nor any of its affiliates owes or accepts any duty, liability or responsibility whatsoever (whether direct or indirect, whether in contract, in delict, in tort, under statute or otherwise) to any person who is not a client of Lazard in connection with this Transaction, any statement contained herein or otherwise. Lazard is authorised and regulated in the United Kingdom by the Financial Conduct Authority. Deutsche Securities (SA) Proprietary Limited, a non-bank member of the Deutsche Bank Group (Deutsche Bank), is acting for AB InBev and no one else in connection with the Transaction and will not be responsible to anyone other than AB InBev for providing the protections afforded to clients of Deutsche Bank or for providing advice in relation to any matter referred to herein. Without limiting a persons liability for fraud, neither Deutsche Bank nor any of its subsidiary undertakings, branches or affiliates nor any of its or their respective directors, officers, representatives, employees, advisers or agents owes or accepts any duty, liability or responsibility whatsoever (whether direct or indirect, whether in contract, in delict, in tort, under statute or otherwise) to any person who is not a client of Deutsche Bank in connection with this announcement, any statement contained herein or otherwise. The Standard Bank of South Africa Limited (Standard Bank) is authorised under South African banking law and regulated by the SARB. Standard Bank is acting as financial adviser and joint transaction sponsor to AB InBev in relation to this announcement. Standard Bank is not acting for anybody else in connection with the matters referred to in this announcement. Standard Bank is not and will not be responsible to any person other than AB InBev for providing any of the protections afforded to clients of Standard Bank, nor for giving any advice in relation to any matter referred to in this announcement. Neither Standard Bank nor any of its subsidiary undertakings or affiliates (including the subsidiary undertakings and affiliates of its holding company), nor any of its or their respective directors, officers, representatives, employees, advisers or agents owes or accepts any duty, liability or responsibility whatsoever (whether direct or indirect, whether in contract, in delict, in tort, under statute or otherwise) to any person who is not a client of Standard Bank in connection with this announcement, any statement contained or referred to herein or otherwise. PRESS RELEASE Brussels, 15 January 2016 NOTES UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549 FORM 8-K CURRENT REPORT Pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 Date of Report(Date of Earliest Event Reported): January 14, 2016 SHIKA DAM (Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter) NEVADA (State or other jurisdiction of incorporation) 0-55520 47-41185384 (Commission File Number) (IRS Employer Identification No.) 6754 W. Hinsdale W. Hinsdale Place, Littleton, Colorado 80120 (Address of principal executive offices and zip code) (303) 885-5501 (Registrant's telephone number including area code) 275 Palm Beach Drive, PO Box 203, Jolly Harbour, Antigua (Registrant's former name or former address, if changed since last report) Check the appropriate box below if the Form 8-K filing is intended to simultaneously satisfy the filing obligation of registrant under any of the following provisions: [ ] Written communications pursuant to Rule 425 under the Securities Act (17 CFR 230.425) [ ] Soliciting material pursuant to Rule 14a-12(b) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14a-12(b)) [ ] Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 14d-2(b) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14d-2(b)) [ ] Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 13e-4(c) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.13e-4(c)) 1 Forward Looking Statements This Form 8-K and other reports filed by Shika Dam from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission (collectively the Filings) contain or may contain forward-looking statements and information that is based upon beliefs of, and information currently available to Shika Dams management, as well as estimates and assumptions made by management. When used in the Filings the words anticipate, believe, estimate, expect, future, intend, plan or the negative of these terms and similar expressions as they relate to us or our management, identify forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect our current view with respect to future events and are subject to risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors relating to industry, our operations and results of operations. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may differ significantly from those anticipated, believed, estimated, expected, intended or planned. Except as required by applicable law, including the securities laws of the United States, we do not intend to update any of the forward-looking statements to conform these statements to actual results. The following discussion should be read in conjunction with the periodic reports, including the audited and unaudited consolidated financial statements therein, of Shika Dam as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In this Form 8-K, references to we, our, us, or the Company refer to Shika Dam and its subsidiaries and controlled companies. Item 5.01 Changes In Control of the Registrant In an 8-K dated December 1, 2015, the Company reported as follows: A change of control took place on December 1, 2015 from Jehu Hand, the former officer and director of the Company. On December 1, 2015, Mr. Hand sold his interest in the controlling shareholder, Jackson Clearing Corporation, to John Ballard. As a result, Mr. Ballard beneficially owns 714,981 shares, or 71.1%, of the outstanding 1,006,087 shares. Mr. Ballard had agreed to pay to Mr. Hand the amount of $150,000 in exchange for his interest in the Company. However, this was on the assumption that FINRA would approve the Companys pending corporate action (name change from Mabcure, Inc. and 1-for-1000 reverse stock split). Because the corporate action was denied on appeal to FINRAs UPCC on December 30, 2015, Mr. Ballard has requested that the transaction be rescinded. Accordingly, all of the 714,981 shares of the Company have been returned to Mr. Hand and Mr. Ballard has no more financial obligation to Hand, and no further affiliation with the Company. 2 Item 5.02 Departure of Directors or Principal Officers; Election of Directors; Appointment of Principal Officers. In an 8-K dated December 1, 2015, it was reported as follows: On December 1, 2015, Jehu Hand resigned as officer and director. He appointed John Ballard as Director, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer on December 1, 2015. Mr. Hand did not furnish any statement regarding his resignation. Due to the events set forth in Item 5.01, Mr. Ballard resigned all positions with the Company as of January 14, 2016. Item 8.01 Other Events. Due to the denial of the Companys corporate action by FINRA, and the consequent inability of the Company to raise funds to continue its business, the Board of Directors has determined to liquidate the Companys primary asset, sailing vessel Azzurra. This asset was recorded at the value of $316,710 on the Companys financial statements set forth on its Form 10. It is unknown at this time at what price Azzurra may be sold, nor the time frame. In addition, due to the denial of the corporate action, the Company is concurrently filing a Form 15 to suspend its obligation to report under Section 12(g) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. SIGNATURES Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned thereunto duly authorized. Date: January 15, 2016 SHIKA DAM By: /s/ Jehu Hand Name: Jehu Hand Title: Chief Executive Officer 3 UNITED STATES* SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION Washington, D.C. 20549 SCHEDULE 13G Under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Amendment No. __1__)* Cray Inc ------------------------------------------------ (Name of Issuer) Common Stock ------------------------------ (Title of Class of Securities) 225223304 -------------- (CUSIP Number) December 31, 2015 ------------------------------------------------------- (Date of Event Which Requires Filing of this Statement) Check the appropriate box to designate the rule pursuant to which this Schedule is filed: [ ] Rule 13d-1(b) [ X ] Rule 13d-1(c) [ ] Rule 13d-1(d) *The remainder of this cover page shall be filled out for a reporting person's initial filing on this form with respect to the subject class of securities, and for any subsequent amendment containing information which would alter the disclosures provided in a prior cover page. The information required in the remainder of this cover page shall not be deemed to be "filed" for the purpose of Section 18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 ("Act") or otherwise subject to the liabilities of that section of the Act but shall be subject to all other provisions of the Act (however, see the Notes). CUSIP No. 225223304 1. Name of Reporting Person: Division of Investment, Department of Treasury, State of New Jersey 2. Check the Appropriate Box if a Member of a Group: (See Instructions) (a) [ ] (b) [ ] 3. SEC Use Only 4. Citizenship or Place of Organization of each Reporting Person: U.S.A. Number of 5. Sole Voting Power: 2,221,000 Shares Bene- ficially Owned by Each 6. Shared Voting Power: 0 Reporting 7. Sole Dispositive Power: 2,221,000 8. Shared Dispositive Power: 0 9. Aggregate Amount Beneficially Owned by Each Reporting Person: 2,221,000 10. Check if the Aggregate Amount in Row (9) Excludes Certain Shares: (See Instructions) 11. Percent of Class Represented by Amount in Row (9): 5.47% 12. Type of Reporting Person: (See Instructions) OO The Division of Investment is a government entity which manages and invests the monies of the Consolidated Police & Firemen Pension Fund, the Judicial Retirement System, the Police & Firemen Retirement System, the Prison Officer Pension Fund, the Public Employee Retirement System,the State Police Retirement System and the Teacher Pension & Annuity Fund, the State of New Jersey Cash Management Fund, Supplemental Annuity Collective Trust (a 403b plan), a portion of the NJBEST Fund (a 529 college savings plan) as well as several funds under the New Jersey State Employees Deferred Compensation Program (a 457 plan). ITEM 1. (a) Name of Issuer: Cray Inc (b) Address of issuer's Principal Executive Offices: 901 Fifth Avenue Suite 1000 Seatle, WA 98164 USA ITEM 2. (a) Name of Person Filing: Division of Investment, Department of Treasury, State of New Jersey (b) Address of Principal Business Office: 50 West State Street, 9th Floor PO BOX 290 Trenton, NJ 08625-0290 (c) Citizenship of each Reporting Person: U.S.A. (d) Title of Class of Securities: Common Stock (e) CUSIP Number: 225223304 ITEM 3. If this statement is filed pursuant to Sec. 240.13d-1(b) or 240.13d-2(b) or (c), check whether the person filing is a: (a) Broker or dealer registered under section 15 of the (15 U.S.C. 78o). (b) Bank as defined in section 3(a)(6) of the Act (15 U.S.C. 78c). (c) Insurance company as defined in section 3(a)(19) (15 U.S.C. 78c). (d) Investment company registered under section 8 of the Investment Company Act of 1940 (15 U.S.C. 80a-8). (e) An investment adviser in accordance with Sec. 240.13d-1 (b)(1)(ii)(E). (f) An employee benefit plan or endowment fund in accordance with Sec. 140.13d-1(b)(1)(ii)(F). (g) A parent holding company or control person in accordance with Sec. 240.13d-1(b)(1)(ii)(G). (h) A savings associations as defined in Section 3(b) of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (12 U.S.C. 1813). (i) A church plan that is excluded from the definition of an investment company under section 3(c)(14) of the Investment Company Act of 1940 (15 U.S.C. 80a-3). (J) A non-U.S. institution in accordance with Rule 240.13d-1(b)(1)(ii)(J). (k) Group, in accordance with Sec. 240.13d-1(b)1(ii)(J). ITEM 4. Ownership Provide the following information regarding the aggregate number and percentage of the class of securities of the issuer identified in Item 1: (a) Amount beneficially owned: 2,221,000 (b) Percent of class: 5.47% (c) Number of shares as to which the person has: (i) Sole power to vote or to direct the vote: 2,221,000 (ii) Shared power to vote or to direct the vote: 0 (iii) Sole power to dispose or to direct the disposition of: 2,221,000 (iv) Shared power to dispose or to direct the disposition of: 0 Instruction. For computations regarding securities which represent a right to acquire an underlying security see Sec. 204.13d-3(d)(1). ITEM 5. Ownership of Five Percent or Less of a Class If this statement is being filed to report the fact that as of the date hereof the reporting person has ceased to be the beneficial owner of more than five percent of the class of securities, check the following [ ]. Instruction: Dissolution of a group requires a response to this item. ITEM 6. Ownership of More than Five Percent on Behalf of another Person. Not applicable. ITEM 7. Identification and Classification of the Subsidiary Which Acquired the Security Being Reported on By the Parent Holding Company. Not applicable. ITEM 8. Identification and Classification of Members of the Group Not applicable. ITEM 9. Notice of Dissolution of Group Not applicable. ITEM 10. Certification By signing below I certify that, to the best of my knowledge and belief,the securities referred to above were acquired and are held in the ordinary course of business and were not acquired and are not held for the purpose of or with the effect of changing or influencing the control of the issuer of the securities and were not acquired and are not held in connection with or as a participant in any transaction having that purpose or effect. SIGNATURE After reasonable inquiry and to the best of my knowledge and belief, I certify that the information set forth in this statement is true, complete and correct. Date: January 15, 2016 By: /s/ Christopher McDonough ------------------------------ Christopher McDonough Director Division of Investment, Department of Treasury, State of New Jersey Police will question the suspicious behavior of a driver in Beachlands. Auckland police are investigating after a male driver approached several children in his car on Friday. Police received three separate reports from concerned residents in the Beachlands area of a male who approached children from within a vehicle. A mother in the Beachlands area who claimed her daughter was approached, took to social media to warn other parents. "There is a real danger about abduction presently. Please take it seriously," she said. Counties Manukau Police spokeswoman Shelley Nahr said 14-year-old girl who was approached had been identified and further enquiries would continue. Nahr said police had located the man on Friday afternoon and were speaking to him. Mother of two Jo Pert was 41 years old at the time of her death. A group of Auckland women will "reclaim the streets" on Saturday morning in a memorial run for Jo Pert who was murdered while jogging in Remuera. The group, organised by Nike NZ's Running Co-ordinator Lydia O'Donnell, will start in Victoria Park at 11am and will snake 5kms along the waterfront and through Westhaven. As an elite runner, O'Donnell said that she has had a lot of girls approach her and say they're scared to run alone. According to O'Donnell, the run is designed to eliminate fears in the community. "I'm out running in the streets every day. Yes, what happened to Jo is a terrible tragedy but we can't let a one-off like that stop us from doing what we love," she said. The event "Run for Her", which has been organised largely through Facebook, has snowballed in popularity, with over 130 registered, and about 400 interested. "I'll be stoked if five people turn out, and I'll be happy if 500 turn out too," O'Donnell said. "It's all about making those connections and getting to know one another and support each other when we're out on the streets," she said. Victoria Park New World are getting behind the cause and will supply runners with apples, bananas, Powerade and water after the run. Stuff reporter Alice Peacock will be running in the event. Peacock said she thought it was a great way to pay her respects to what had happened and eliminate people's fears. "I have definitely been more cautious and I have been avoiding running in the dark and less well-known routes." An undischarged bankrupt is alleged to have won $19 million gambling at Sky City Casino, but hid it from creditors. An Auckland businessman who claimed bankruptcy has been accused of hiding $19 million won at SkyCity casino. Li Dong Xie,48, appeared in the Auckland District Court facing 10 charges laid by the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment. Xie, an undischarged bankrupt who sometimes goes by the name of Frank, was accused of hiding millions of dollars from the official assignee, who is tasked with distributing bankrupt's assets to creditors. $19,007,897 won from gambling at SkyCity Casino was said to have been hidden from the assignee, as well as other sums nearing $1.5 million. The Papatoetoe man was also charged with failing to file a statement of affairs, obtaining credit fraudulently, increasing solvency by gambling, and acting as a director of a business, with the offending alleged to have occurred between 2010 and 2015. Records show he is the director and shareholder of New Home Town Construction, a business which was struck off in August 2015. Xie was declared bankrupt in 2010. At his first appearance on Tuesday Xie entered no plea and will reappear in court later in January. The charge of hiding the gambling proceeds carries a maximum penalty of three years in jail or a $10,000 penalty. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Island Bay residents air their views on the new cycleway in December. Despite still being under construction, a new $1.7 million cycleway through Wellington's southern suburbs appears destined for a return to the drawing board after cyclists added to the chorus of concern over its safety. Critics of the Island Bay cycleway have been calling it an accident waiting to happen for years, and last week voted to approach Wellington City Council with a request to halt its construction and hold a referendum on whether it should be redesigned. Supporters of the cycleway along The Parade still believe it will be a fantastic new facility that will make life safer for cyclists. MAARTEN HOLL/FAIRFAX NZ Wellington city councillor for the southern ward Paul Eagle says he will support calls for a referendum on the Island Bay Cycleway's design. But Cycling Advocates Network spokesman Patrick Morgan said on Friday that concerns about the road now being too narrow for buses and unsafe for people backing out of their driveways were valid and needed fixing quickly. "Frankly, I think [cyclists] could live with a narrower cycleway along some parts if it will fix things," Morgan said. READ MORE * Island Bay cycleway leaves residents confused and angry * Controversial Island Bay cycleway is going ahead * Wellington cycleway debate turns nasty * Court action looms over Island Bay cycleway ROBERT KITCHIN/FAIRFAX NZ Reporter Amy Jackman road-tests the Island Bay cycleway, shortly after it was opened. The past few months has seen the undercurrent of unhappiness with the cycleway's design grow as more and more people have seen it take shape. The cause of anxiety is its design. The cycleway sits between the footpath and off-street parking, which has reduced the road space and given the appearance of cars sitting about 1.5 metres out from the kerb. Morgan said the new parking layout was confusing some people and had caused them to accidentally park across access to residents' driveways. "The cycleway is a massive improvement on what we had before ... and we don't want to see work halted on it. But there are some valid safety concerns." The "gold standard" for a kerbside cycleway was to have no off-street parking at all, so cyclists and motorists had no limits on their visibility, he said. The council could consider repositioning some parking in addition to reducing the width of the cycle lane to improve visibility, he said. ROBERT KITCHIN/FAIRFAX NZ The Island Bay Cycleway is being constructed along The Parade, with cycle lanes next to the kerb on both sides of the road. Car parks have been moved about 1.5 metres towards the middle of the road. Wellington City councillor Paul Eagle, who opposes the cycleway's design, welcomed Morgan's suggestion but said it did not go far enough. He would be meeting with council chief executive Kevin Lavery on Monday to push the Island Bay Residents' Association's call for the council to fund a binding referendum at the October local body elections on whether the cycleway should be re-configured. "It's time some power was handed back to the community. There cannot be any more blindness [from council] to these issues." HAYDEN COMPTON This picture of the half-finished Island Bay cycleway posted on Wellington City Council's Facebook page in December with the comment: "Who signs this off to be built?" was 'liked' more than 1000 times and prompted 245 people to join the debate. Residents Association president Vicki Greco agreed, saying the fate of the cycleway should be decided by a majority of Island Bay's 4500 residents. "The cycleway is an absolute nightmare. I hate driving along The Parade and will avoid it at all costs now." Councillor Andy Foster, chairman of the Transport and Urban Development Committee, said the council would perform a safety audit once the cycleway was finished, and would "tweak" the design to alleviate safety issues. That could involve removing car parks to improve visibility and painting yellow lines to stop people from parking over driveways, he said. Halting construction and having a referendum would require a special council vote, and that was unlikely to happen before the cycleway was finished. A new fence is on the wish list for a Foxton family who looked after missing Waikanae cat Milo during her disappearance. The Benfell family - Luke, Jenny and children Bailey Sherwood, 11, Summer Sherwood, 9 and Noah Benfell, 4, were presented with a $510 reward after they returned the chocolate-coloured burmese cat to her Waikanae owners on Thursday. Jenny, who had not known of Milo's celebrity status in Waikanae, said the family were "blown away" by the attention her disappearance received. "She's a very loved cat and it's nice for her to be returned to her family and a whole community that loves her. "We're overwhelmed by everything that came from it. I don't think anyone expects this type of thing when they look after a stray cat." Jenny said Luke wanted to put the reward money towards a new front fence for their property. "We've been in our house for three years and money's tight, so having money to do new things is hard to do." Milo, who was well-known for wandering through the Waikanae town centre, went missing from the home of owners Greg Caldwell and Chanel Chapman, and their three children, on December 27. On Monday morning , she turned up collar-less at the Benfells, whose property backs onto Manawatu College. Jenny said the cat had a few fleas and looked a bit slim and hungry, but was otherwise well. She made herself at home, sleeping and playing with the children. "Children can swarm an animal and love it too much but she was completely content." Not knowing where she had come from, the couple let Milo go, believing she would go home. She returned and spent the night sleeping on Bailey's bed, then the next night with the couple. On Wednesday , they took Milo to a vet who identified her through her microchip. Jenny said before Milo arrived she knew little about burmese cats except they were of value, but said it was clear she belonged to someone. "She was an absolute darling of a cat and we told the kids we'd do everything possible to find their owners." Initially Jenny believed Milo's owners must have moved to Foxton recently or been there on holiday. It remained a mystery how the cat made it from Waikanae to Foxton. She said the three-day lodger's affectionate temperament had left an impression on her family. "I think after she was here for a few days we'd quite like to buy one [a burmese]." The reward for Milo's return was originally $500, offered by Artel gallery and Destination Waikanae, but Artel owner Maude Heath said a member of the public had added to it. "A dear pensioner called Norman donated $10 to help find her." A man appeared in Wellington District Court on assault charges after trying to make a woman taste his blood and not letting her close the toilet door. A man who tried to force his ex-partner to drink his blood has been ordered to "leave her alone" by a judge. Thomas Francis Knudsen, 28, appeared for sentencing in the Wellington District Court on Friday after admitting to four counts of assaulting a woman and possession of an offensive weapon. In sentencing, Judge Josephine Bouchier said the facts of the case were "unusual", different from the many thousands she had seen. According to the police summary of facts, Knudsen's former partner broke up with him, and he took it badly. But instead of moving on, he visited her house and forced her way into the house. Once inside, he pushed her onto the bed where he sat on her for about two hours, pinning her arms above her head. She was allowed to go to the bathroom, but was made to leave the door open. Later, Knudsen got a large knife and cut himself, saying he wanted the woman to drink his blood "so they could be part of each other". "He grabbed the complainant by the wrist and attempted to force his bloody wrist to her mouth," the woman told police. In sentencing, Bouchier said the infringement on personal privacy made the offending worse. "He made her keep the toilet door open so he could see her, and was going through her text messages and prevented her from calling police," she said. The other issue was the "cruelty and deprivation" of trying to force his bloody wrist into the victim's mouth. Crown prosecutor Kathy Scott Dowell said the act was "particularly grotesque and manipulative". The victim had been receiving messages from strange Facebook accounts during the summer, which she believed to be from Knudsen, but police could not prove, Scott Dowell said. Bouchier also granted the victim a protection order from Knudsen. The judge told Knudsen this meant was not to contact the victim "by any means whatsoever". "Leave her alone. I trust I make myself clear?" In his defence, Knudsen had no previous convictions, pleaded guilty and had some mental issues. Knudsen's defence lawyer Paul Surridge said his mother, father and three siblings appeared at court with him. They were a loving family, who were willing to drive him from Blenheim to Nelson on a weekly basis for treatment. "They don't agree with what he's done, but they still love him and support him as best they can," Surridge said. The Crown's recommended starting point for sentencing of up to three-and-a-half years in prison, but Bouchier settled for six months of home detention and 100 hours of community service. Knudsen was also ordered to do counselling. One of New Zealand's most decorated World War 2 flying heroes has died, aged 94. Christchurch-born Keith Thiele awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and three Distinguished Flying Crosses (DFC), one of only three New Zealand aircrew to be so honoured, and was the only Kiwi flier to win a DFC on both bombers and fighters. His funeral was held in Sydney this week. During missions in 1942 and 1943, Thiele twice brought damaged Lancasters home on two engines after the aircraft were badly damaged by enemy fire. Fellow flier Sergeant R J Campbell referred to Thiele as "the best little bomber pilot in the whole RAF and every one of us looks up to him as a little tin god". He became legendary in his squadron for weaving his cumbersome bomber through German searchlight and flak barrages as shells burst all around. All the time, Thiele would be singing some New Zealand song over and over, Campbell said in a US magazine interview. "I would not like to go out in any kite now that did not have Keith at the controls," Campbell said. Thiele flew 56 bomber missions before converting to fighter planes. He wrote himself once that "Hitler came to [his] rescue" in 1939 as he had achieved nothing at school and was heading for an aimless existence. In early 1945, he was given command of 3 Squadron, flying Tempests from Holland. He destroyed two enemy fighters before he was shot down by flak while attacking trains in Germany, narrowly escaping lynching after landing by parachute. Slightly wounded, he was taken prisoner but was only held captive for a few weeks before escaping from a hospital and getting back to Allied lines to rejoin his squadron. Post-war, Thiele flew as a senior captain for Qantas and later established the marina at Spit Junction. He sailed his own yacht to New Zealand several times. Thiele is survived by his daughter, Jo, and grandchildren. Hinga Harris' photos from the evening the SRC Gloria arrived at Port Taranaki are similiar to the ones found on the "mystery film roll." Hinga Harris said she had always meant to reply to a letter sent to her by one of the recruits but never got round to it and subsequently lost the letter. Sailors of the ARC Gloria sing as they stand on the rigging upon arrival in Port Taranaki. The ARC Gloria arrived on it's own power after a four day battle with strong winds and high seas. Hinga Harris, 80 could not stop thinking about the ARC Gloria saying it brought back so many beautiful memories for her. Sail training ship ARC Gloria of the Colombian Navy, on arrival at dawn in Wellington Harbour. Photograph taken 22 July 1988. A chance photographic discovery has left Hinga Harris wondering whatever happened to the Columbian navy recruits she looked after nearly 30 years ago. Earlier this week (Wednesday January 13) Stuff published an article on a roll of film left for decades in an old camera and developed by one of our photographers, Charlotte Curd, after she bought it in the hospice shop. A whole roll of scenes from the mid-to-late 1980s came to light, some taken in New Plymouth, although nobody could say who was behind the lens. CHARLOTTE CURD/Fairfax NZ The ARC Gloria, a Columbian naval training ship arrives in Port Taranaki in July 1988, taken from a roll of film found in an old camera and developed by Taranaki Daily News photographer Charlotte Curd. But New Plymouth resident Hinga Harris did recognise a sailing ship in some of the photos - and even recalled looking after some of the recruits. Harris, now 80, said 27 years ago she heard on the news that a Columbian Naval ship, the ARC Gloria, would be coming into port and, as she lived nearby on Paritutu Rd, she went down to see what all the fuss was about. READ MORE: *The search for the story behind the old images "I was so fascinated I just rushed down to the wharf," she said. "I could see it coming into port and the sailors were all up in the rigging. "They were singing this beautiful Spanish song and the sound just wafted over." The ARC Gloria was a Columbian Navy vessel used to train young recruits, and she was heading to Wellington when one of her sailors became seriously ill and the captain was forced to dock in New Plymouth. Wellington paper The Dominion reported on July 20, 1988 that the ship had battled strong winds and high seas for four days before arriving safely in Taranaki during its tour of the pacific basin, having left Columbia on March 19. Bystanders were allowed a tour of the ship after which some of the sailors were billeted at homes in New Plymouth. Three of them, Francisco Aguilera, John Augusta Chady and Herman Benavides, stayed with Harris for the night. "I cooked them a meal and a traditional boil up. They loved it, even eating it with their fingers," she said. "I had a letter from them but I lost it...and with it the address." Harris has several photos matching the ones discovered in the mystery roll of film. "I'm surprised no one in New Plymouth has come forward about it because lots of people billeted them for the night," she said. "The photos [from the mystery roll] must have been taken just when they came in because they're still up in the rigging. Harris said one of the boys wrote to her but she never got round to replying and had since lost his letter. "Hinga," he wrote, "do you have children overseas?" "If they ever landed in Columbia they would be welcome to stay at his home," she said "I've always thought about them all those years, I've never forgotten them, I just regret that I never answered the letter. "If I ever won the Lotto I would go and track them down." Celebrity Solstice and Voyager of the Seas berthed in Wellington Harbour Friday morning. Six thousand cruise passengers will disembark in Wellington and stretch their sea legs when two royal caribbean cruise ships arrive into port today. The army of holidaymakers will sail into the harbour aboard Royal Caribbean International's Celebrity Solstice and Royal Caribbean's megaliner Voyager of the Seas. The Celebrity Solstice has a capacity of 2850 guests while Voyager of the Seas carries up to 3114 guests. Celebrity Solstice, left, and Voyager of the Seas in Wellington Harbour in 2014. Many of the passengers will experience a taste of what the Wellington region has to offer. READ MORE * 16 best locations visited by ocean cruises in 2016 * Longer 'world cruises' gaining appeal with travellers * Diary of a cruise rookie Tony Petrie, managing director of Renaissance Tours which organises all of Royal Caribbean's onshore activities, said Wellington was a popular stop. About 1300 people had booked to go on fixed tours while on board the cruise liners. More than 50 buses and other tour vehicles have been booked by the ships, he said. A flotilla of 20 shuttle buses were ready to get independent guests into the city. The tours booked ranged from cycle tours of Martinborough's vineyards to 4WD tours of the rugged south coast. More than 500 guests were pre-booked to go to experience New Zealand's wildlife at Zealandia and foodies would take walking gourmet tours of the cafe district. Already before passengers disembarked more than $200,000 in tour bookings had been made on board. Royal Caribbean spokeswoman Pauline Ray said on average passengers spent about $120 per day when they went on shore. This meant the dual visit could amount to a more than $700,000 windfall for Wellington shopkeepers and tourism operators. "This current 2015-2016 cruise season is a bumper season with Cruise New Zealand estimating it will add $543.3 million in value to the New Zealand economy, a nearly 25 per cent increase on the 2014-2015 season," Ray said. Both ships will spend the day in the Wellington before Celebrity Solstice departs for Tauranga while Voyager of the Seas makes its way across Cook Strait to double Picton's population the following day. CRUISING IN NUMBERS Celebrity Solstice: * Launched in late 2008, Celebrity Solstice measures 122,000 tonnes and is 317 metres long. * Solstice can accommodate up to 2,850 guests. * She was the industry's first cruise ship to use solar energy and is fitted with 216 solar panels. * Celebrity's Solstice Class features its "Lawn Club" - an outdoor, country club-like venue featuring a half-acre of real growing grass where guests can practise their putting, play lawn games like croquet and lawn bowling, or simply relax under the sun and stars. * Other unique features include a glass blowing studio and the Molecular Bar, featuring the art of molecular mixology think edible rose petals and liquid nitrogen. Voyager of the Seas: * Voyager of the Seas measures 310.9 metres in length and weighs a whopping 137,276 tonnes. * Voyager can carry a total of 3,114 guests. * The Voyager class of ships was the first to introduce the active cruise holiday and the ship continues to host popular guest favourites such as the Royal Promenade an interior boulevard that runs nearly the length of the ship flanked by restaurants, lounges and boutiques. Spectacular parades and evening dance parties line the strip, where evening dance parties bring the ship to life. * She features a FlowRider surf simulator, a rock-climbing wall, an ice-skating rink, jogging and in-line skating tracks, the ever-popular Ben & Jerry's Scoop Shop and the exclusive DreamWorks experience at sea, with special parades and events featuring famous DreamWorks characters. 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. Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz The year ahead is looking bright and breezy for Sun readers. We know this because we are psychic. Over the holidays my mates and I figured out how to read the future. Im looking forward to making some stunning revelations throughout the new year, so all of our faithful readers will be forewarned of impending future things. One of my first predictions for the new year, is foreseeing the return of that blockbuster tellie series, Sensing Murder. I just had this feeling that the programme was coming back on our screens, and besides, Gwyn Brown told me it was. Hes also psychic and I predict hell tell you more. Our psychic powers are running hot this summer. As Gwyn so rightly points out: Not one crime will be solved, not one body will be found, and more victims who are sadly left grieving for their missing loved ones will be lied to, by charlatans who prey on them at their weakest. See, Gwyn is psychic, too. Sensing Murder will again likely become one of the highest rating shows in New Zealand, gaining more viewers than even some rugby test matches. Yet the office of the police commissioner confirms that no psychic information has ever been instrumental in solving a case in New Zealand. Following that series will air the latest RR production, Sensing Codswallop. Its a one-part series because thats all it will take to expose fakes. Meanwhile, read Gwyns take on the Sensing Nonsense saga, here. Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce today launched a second round of the Unlocking Curious Minds contestable fund, offering up to $2 million for successful projects. Applications are now open for the fund, which supports innovative projects that will excite and engage young people, in particular those who have fewer opportunities to become involved in science and technology. Science and technology open the door to a huge variety of careers. They are fundamental to ensuring New Zealanders are equipped to take advantage of the economic opportunities that we have over the next decade, Mr Joyce says. Its important that we spark the interest of our young people in these areas and build New Zealands strength in science, technology and engineering to match our traditional strengths in social sciences and the humanities. The Unlocking Curious Minds contestable fund was successfully piloted in 2015, with more than 50 projects receiving funding totalling almost $1.9 million. There has been a lot of interest from research institutes, iwi, community groups, educational organisations, and businesses around New Zealand, Mr Joyce says. We have seen some fantastic projects under way. For example in the Hutt Valley, primary students made their own fossils and learnt about dinosaurs, volcanoes, earthquakes and New Zealands unique geological resources. In Otago and Southland, a shipping container has been converted into a mobile science lab. It is touring rural schools, where local scientists are helping kids learn about the effect of artificial light on moths to expand their understanding of nocturnal biodiversity in the region. Maori teenagers from across Nelson and Tasman visited local science organisations, orchards and vineyards to see what careers in science are really like and how horticultural research can be applied. The fund offers two levels of grants: up to $30,000 for local projects, and up to $150,000 for regional or national projects. Applications are sought from individuals and organisations. The Unlocking Curious Minds programme is part of the Governments strategic plan to encourage all New Zealanders to become engaged with science and technology. It ties in with the innovation and skills streams of the Business Growth Agenda, and the National Statement of Science Investment. For more information, visit www.curiousminds.nz/ucm Source: Office of Serene Ambler. Archaeologists believe that remains found during the construction of social housing in Malaga city may once have been the Alcazar of Al-Mamun Archaeologists work on the zone where remains have been found. :: F. GONZALEZ Archaeologists in the city of Malaga are very excited. The remains of a mediaeval building have been found during the construction of social housing in the Martiricos area, and experts hope this may once have been the Qasr al-sayyid palace, which was said to have been built in 1226 by the caliph Al-Mamun, and for which they have been searching for the past 20 years. Virgilio Martinez Enamorado, a doctor in Mediaeval History and lecturer at the University of Malaga, explains that the existence of that palace has been known since 1995, and that experts have not been able to find its exact location. It was ordered to be built by the Almohad caliph when he was still the governer of the city and Nasrid burials may have taken place there. This could be the palace of Qasr al-sayyid, similar to the one in Granada, which is mentioned in writings by Moorish sources. All that we know is that it was by the river, he explained. Nobody will know for sure until the Taller de Investigaciones Arqueologicas company completes its work at the site. Other experts like archaeologist and researcher Manuel Munoz Gambero, believe these remains could once have been second homes belonging to wealthy citizens. In 1960 a villa was discovered beside La Rosaleda shopping centre, with some very valuable ceramics inside. There were plots of land in La Palmilla area; it was almost like the country cottages people have today, he says. He explains that several tombs have been found in the area and that it is even believed that the remains of the patron saints of the city, Ciriaco and Paula, were buried in the Martiricos area. The name Martiricos comes from the fact that this was a place of martyrdom, so it will be very interesting to see what was built in this area after the Roman period. Although we know a great deal about the Nasrid era, there are still some very important details to discover, he said. Pedro Rodriguez Oliva, an Archaeology professor at Malaga University, also thinks it more likely that these remains are of suburban houses rather than a Moorish palace. Although he has not seen the remains, he explains that outside the city wall there were usually country houses on large plots of agricultural land. The excavations began at the end of December and not all the discoveries have yet been documented, but the findings so far have been from the 13th and 14th centuries. Elias Bendodo says employment increased by over six per cent in a year which was positive for all aspects of the local economy Passengers waiting to check in at Malaga airport. :: F. GONZALEZ 2015 was the best year ever for tourism on the Costa del Sol, and the destination can take the credit for a large proportion of the 11.5 billion euros the tourist industry contributed to the province. This week, the president of Costa del Sol Tourism, Elias Bendodo, presented a report which shows that this sector, for which 2014 was also a record year, is in an excellent state of health. However, another very important aspect is that on the Costa del Sol there was positive news from all sides, including some of the most controversial such as employment, business creation and hotel profits. In terms of income from travellers, companies which offer tourism services played an important part and there were nearly 800 new businesses of this type compared with 2014, bringing the total to around 13,000. In addition, the numbers of tourists and overnight stays continued to rise, by 4.5 and 3.7 per cent respectively. However, Bendodo was keen to stress strongly that tourism had been a motor for employment and that there had been 6.4 per cent more new jobs than in 2014. This industry employs on average 143,000 people. If we look back at 2008, before the crisis, employment in tourism has risen by 20 per cent. That is an outstanding figure at a time when the main concern is to reduce unemployment, he said. In 2014, the Costa del Sol reached the landmark figure of 10 million visitors in one year. In 2015 this increased to 10.6 million, of whom 4.2 million stayed in hotels. This is 4.3 per cent more than in the previous year. Altogether, tourists made 17 million overnight stays, which was an increase of 3.6 per cent. The Costa del Sol has positioned itself as the third coastal tourism area of Spain in terms of visitors and the fourth in volume of overnight stays, behind only Barcelona, the island of Mallorca and Tenerife, explained Bendodo, who also pointed out that there had been an increase in tourists from countries which have traditionally been connected by air with Malaga. This has all meant that the average occupancy rate in hotels has increased and their profitability has also risen by 10.6 per cent. Malaga is now the leading province on the Mediterranean coast of Spain in terms of income per hotel room, second only to Barcelona, said the president of the Tourist Board, who also indicated that forecasts for the first quarter of this year show that the number of visitors and overnight stays is expected to be even higher than last year. Malaga airport ends the year with a record 14.4 million passengers This week Malaga airport announced that 2015 had been a record year and for the first time ever it had handled more than 14 million passengers. In fact, the number of travellers using the airport rose by 4.8 per cent compared with 2014, to 14,404,170. Sources at Aena, the aviation authority, say that December 17th was a day to note, because on that day passenger numbers for the year exceeded 13 million. Larger aircraft which can seat more people have meant that the number of flights did not increase along with the numbers of passengers. In fact, there were 108,897 flights from Malaga last year, which was only 0.6 per cent more than in 2014. International flights played a key role, but there was also a noticeable recovery in the domestic sector. Of the total number of passengers, 12,325,874 were on international flights, while 2,040,335 came from or went to another city in Spain. There were 5.1 per cent more passengers on international flights, says Aena. The British market continued to be vital for the airport, as more visitors came from or flew to the UK than anywhere else, followed by travellers within Spain. Domestic flights played a major contribution to last years figures, with 3.4 per cent more passengers despite competition from high speed rail connections. Another record was also broken at Malaga airport last year: the amount of baggage handled rose to 4,784,736 items. August was the busiest month, with a total of 626,115. In the month of December, 10.2 per cent more passengers used Malaga airport than in the same month in 2014, to a total of 754,336. Of these, 752,394 were on commercial flights. NEW_court_icon.jpg SYRACUSE, NEW YORK - A Canadian man has been sentenced to prison for the rest of his life for running a marijuana ring that sold more than $10 million worth of the drug a year for four years. U.S. District Judge Norman Mordue imposed the mandatory life sentence Thursday on Michael C. Woods, 45, known by members of the ring as "Big Boss Man." The life sentence was mandatory because a jury convicted Woods in August of being one of two kingpins in a continuing criminal enterprise that had revenues of more than $10 million a year. Woods' co-defendant, Gaetan Dinelle, is scheduled to be sentenced next week. They're both from Cornwall, Ontario, Canada. Woods' lawyer, Albert Millus, argued in court papers that the sentence was unfair and amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. He cited the nation's changing attitude toward marijuana. "The country is in the midst of a national movement involving the legalization of marijuana," Millus wrote in a sentencing memorandum. He noted that 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized the drug in some way. "A life sentence for marijuana distribution, in light of these trends, unaccompanied by violence, would be patently cruel and inhuman," Millus wrote. The ring moved marijuana from Canada through the Akwesasne Mohawk Indian reservation in northern New York, down Interstate-81 through Syracuse and into wide distribution across the east coast, Assistant U.S. Attorney Carl Eurenius said. The ring moved more than 22,000 pounds of marijuana from April 2005 to February 2008. Much of the marijuana went to a distributor in Boston, who testified that he bought $20 million of it and re-sold it mostly to the student and art community, according to court papers. During the trial, witnesses testified that Woods got marijuana from people in Canada and with Dinelle smuggled across the border where the drug was stored at Akwesasne before being driven by couriers selected and supervised by Woods. Before the trial, the U.S. government extradited 15 people, including Woods and Dinelle, from Canada in the largest use of the extradition treaty between the two countries in a single case, according to federal prosecutors. The case was investigated primarily by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, but also by Homeland Security, Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, New York State Police, Massachusetts State Police, Warren County Sheriff's Office, New Hampshire State Police Laboratory, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. 2016-01-15-mjg-GunLeg1.JPG U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand holds a roundtable discussion on her proposed gun trafficking legislation at the Southwest Community Center in Syracuse. (Michael Greenlar | mgreenlar@syracuse.com) SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- It's called the Iron Pipeline, straight up Interstate-95. Illegal gun traffickers buy firearms in southern states with lax restrictions, such as Georgia, for about $150 per gun. The buyers only have to show ID, undergo a quick background check and they walk out a dealer's door with their weapons. Then they drive a few hundred miles to states with strict gun laws, such as New York, where they find eager customers willing to pay $300 or $400 per handgun, Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Southwick said. That's a mark-up of 100 percent or more. Southwick was at a firearms roundtable Friday when he pointed out the ironic fallout of New York's rigorous gun laws. "It's become a magnet for a black market of firearms," Southwick told the roundtable, organized by U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. New York's gun laws make it tougher for criminals to buy firearms, Southwick said. To get a pistol permit, they have to undergo an extensive background check, provide references, endure a waiting period and have a judge approve it, he said. Of the 8,539 guns recovered in New York state in 2013, 70 percent came from other states, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Gillibrand has been trying since 2009 to pass a law that could dry up the black market by making gun trafficking a federal crime. She hopes to get it passed by the end of the year. But she needs two more senators to vote for it. The law would allow FBI agents to go after the people who buy guns in one state and transport them to another, where they're sold to criminals. It would be a federal felony for someone to sell two or more firearms to someone the seller knows is prohibited by law from owning a gun. And it would be a federal crime for a prohibited person, such as a convicted felon, to buy two or more firearms. Gillibrand called it absurd that there's no such federal law on the books. "It shouldn't be this easy" to traffic illegal guns, she said. "We at least want to plug this one hole then go after others." Syracuse police recovered 299 guns last year, which was 64 more than the year before, Police Chief Frank Fowler told the roundtable. HIs officers made 220 arrests for illegal gun possessions last year -- 87 more than in 2014, he said. Gillibrand's proposed law would allow police to go after illegal gun traffickers in other states, including the kingpins. "I love the fact that this would give us the opportunity to go after the head," Fowler said. Most of the recovered guns that Syracuse police can trace to other states come from Georgia, Mayor Stephanie Miner said. "We've just seen it become a flood, and it needs to end," she said. carrasquillo.JPG Eddie Carrasquillo (center) is sentenced in Onondaga County Court today. He stands with his lawyer, Don Kelly (right) and a court interpreter, while a sheriff's deputy stands guard. (Douglass Dowty | ddowty@syracuse.com) Eddie Carrasquillo Syracuse, NY -- A Syracuse man who sprayed a Skunk City house with bullets during a drive-by shooting will spend 50 years to life in prison for murdering one man and injuring his brother. Eddie Carrasquillo, 30, was found guilty in December of murdering Jose Rebollo-Andino, 34, and assaulting his brother. Both were standing on the porch. Because there were two victims, the punishment could be added up: 25 years to life for murder and another 25 years for assault. Senior Assistant District Attorney Melinda McGunnigle said Carrasquillo's daylight rampage in August 2014 riddled the 102 Holden Street house with bullets, hitting both brothers. The girlfriend of Rebollo-Andino's brother remains terrified - she was standing between the two brothers when they were shot, McGunnigle said. Rebollo-Andino's brother was not in court today due to an unrelated arrest. Neighbors' security camera footage showed the drive-by shooting and McGunnigle successfully linked the car to Carrasquillo. Defense lawyer Don Kelly argued that adding up the prison sentence wasn't fair because it was essentially one act to fire repeatedly at the house. He did admit that, under law, it could be considered two different crimes and counted separately against Carrasquillo. County Court Judge Thomas J. Miller disagreed with Kelly, imposing the extra 25 years for the brother's injury. He didn't add any more time for illegal weapons possession, saying that 15-year sentence would be served at the same time as the murder sentence. Carrasquillo maintained his innocence at sentencing, saying that the jury "declared (me) guilty unjustly. The evidence was not sufficient." There was evidence that a second man was also in Carrasquillo's vehicle at the time. But a second man originally charged along with Carrasquillo was cleared after cell phone records pointed to him being in Buffalo at the time. Carrasquillo fled to Massachusetts after the shooting. The murder was the second of three within 48 hours in what was Syracuse's deadliest weekend of 2014. SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Two women were shot Thursday evening in a possible drive-by shooting, police said. At 4:10 p.m. officers responded to the 400 block of Cortland Avenue for several reports of shots being fired. When they arrived, the officers found an 18-year-old woman shot in her left leg and a 19-year-old woman shot in the right side of her abdomen, police said. Both woman were rushed to Upstate University Hospital by Rural Metro Ambulance. Witnesses reported seeing suspects who were possibly driving a black or dark gray vehicle when, police said. The suspects are believed to have fired at the women from that vehicle. Police did not say if they had a motive for the shooting. The women were treated at the hospital for injuries that were not life-threatening. Police said they are both listed in stable condition. Syracuse police asked anyone with information about the shooting to contact 315-442-5222. Tips can also be given using the SPD Tips application. Contact Ken Sturtz: 315-766-7833 | Email | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ 121300 Powerex cw.JPG The GE/Powerex plant just west of Auburn as seen in this file photo. The old Powerex plant on W. Genesee St. in Auburn. In the foreground are monitoring wells in front of the plant. (Photo By C.W. McKeen) Vegetable oil is great for frying chicken, but what about cleaning up a Superfund hazardous waste site? The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation wants to inject emulsified vegetable oil into the ground at the old GE/Powerex plant in the town of Aurelius, just west of Auburn, to clean up hazardous chemicals there. The DEC plans to use the vegetable oil to encourage microorganisms in the soil to eat the contaminates. The state plans to mix the vegetable oil with water, inject it into the soil or rock where it will encourage microorganisms in the soil to grow. The microbes eat the contaminates in the soil and the contaminants are broken down into harmless byproducts. The DEC says the vegetable oil presents no danger to humans or animals. The technology has been used nationwide to address similar contamination at other sites, such as contaminated soil at the Dover and Travis Air Force bases. GE/Powerex is one of 14 sites in New York using this technology, the DEC said. The cleanup will cost about $13 million for the infrastructure, such as drilling wells, to treat the soils, shallow rock and deep rock. The DEC is taking the public's comments on its proposal through Feb.11. If the remedy is chosen, the department said it will approach GE to implement it. Work could begin later this year. The old electronics factory on West Genesee Street made semiconductors used in everything from televisions to military equipment from 1952 to until it closed in 1990. The plant used a variety of degreasers in the process. Samples from the site have shown high concentrations of volatile organic compounds--such as vinyl chloride, trichloroethylene (TCE), 1,2-dichloroethene, methanol and acetone, in the soil and groundwater. A colorless chemical, TCE was widely used as a solvent and cleaner. In large amounts, TCE vapors can cause difficulty breathing, damage to the central nervous system and death. It has also been linked to cancer. In the plant's early years contaminants were held in two unlined ponds. Later they were stored in underground tanks. Tests conducted after the plant closed found contaminants in the groundwater about a mile from the 55-acre site. Contaminated groundwater has been traced in an almost 5 square-mile area south and west of the plant. About 50 private wells to the south and west were contaminated, with the groundwater plume extending through bedrock into the towns of Aurelius, Fleming and Springport and into the village of Union Springs. The Environmental Protection Agency installed filters in the water systems of homes with the worst contamination and at three farms. Federal money later funded public waterlines to serve homes with contaminated wells. In 2012, the EPA identified the plant as a major source of contamination. It recommended a $24 million cleanup. The DEC will hold a public meeting on the plan at 7 p.m. on Jan. 27, at Memorial City Hall, 24 South Street, Auburn. The project's documents are available at the Seymour Public Library, 176-178 Genesee St., Auburn. Andrew Cuomo New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo delivers his State of the State address and executive budget proposal at the Empire State Plaza Convention Center on Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2016, in Albany, N.Y. (Mike Groll / AP) By Melinda Johnson and Marie Morelli | Syracuse.com New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo delivered his sixth State of the State address Wednesday in Albany. At the same time, he released his proposed 2016-2017 budget. A political speech - even one that goes on for almost two hours - leaves little room for context or explanation. For a deeper dive, you can go to Cuomo's 504-page "policy book'' and its 25 pages of footnotes. Syracuse.com looked into a handful of the governor's statements for accuracy and context. GUN DEATHS AND THE SAFE ACT "And remember this, since Sandy Hook, when we passed our gun control law, we have had fewer gun deaths in the state of New York thanks to your good work.'' True, with a caveat. Weeks after 20 schoolchildren and six adult staff members were killed by a mass shooter Dec. 14, 2012, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, the governor rammed through a package of gun and ammunition restrictions known as the NY SAFE Act. The governor did not specify what kind of gun deaths he was talking about. If he was referring to homicide by firearm, it's true that those numbers declined after Sandy Hook, from 412 in 2012 to 367 in 2013 and 349 in 2014, according to data from the state Division of Criminal Justice Services provided by his office. Counting all gun deaths - including suicides and accidents - the trend also is down. In 2012, the year before the SAFE Act, there were 977 firearm deaths in New York. That number declined to 863 in 2013 but creeped up to 875 in 2014, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Graphic: Firearm deaths in NY Here's the caveat. With only two years of data since the SAFE Act was passed, it's not possible to know whether it is responsible for the decline in gun deaths, said Robert J. Spitzer, a political science professor at SUNY Cortland and an expert on gun policy. Other factors could be at work, including the long-term decline in crime over the past 20 years, he said. It will take a few more years to accurately assess the impact of the law, Spitzer said. JOBS AND THE ECONOMY "Unemployment is down from 8 percent to 4.8 percent and today New York State has more private sector jobs than ever before in the history of the state of New York- 7.9 million. From Montauk to Niagara Falls, the New York economy is on the rebound." The numbers are accurate. Whether you think the economy is on the rebound depends on what part of the state in which you live. The average unemployment rate in 2011, the year Cuomo took office, was 8.3 percent. In November 2015, the statewide unemployment rate was 4.7 percent, according to the state Labor Department. This is a statewide average. At the county level, unemployment is 5 percent or above in 33 of New York's 62 counties, and above 6 percent in six counties. The November 2015 count of private-sector jobs is indeed a record. According to the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, New York has added 886,100 private-sector jobs since the 2010 recession. If the New York economy is on the rebound, it's rebounding faster in some places than in others. The recent competition to award $1.5 billion in economic aid to three Upstate regions, including Central New York, is a forthright acknowledgment that the Upstate economy is still struggling. M&T Bank regional economist Gary Keith, speaking Wednesday in Syracuse, said Central New York's economy is improving, but it could be doing better. REGIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COUNCILS AND JOBS "The Regional Councils are producing dividends. Today there are more than 4,000 economic development projects underway thanks to their work. I propose another round of REDCs - our sixth - for $750 million - to keep the momentum going. Our REDC partnerships have created or retained 165,000 jobs." Maybe. First, the governor's figures were not up to date. The more recent count is even rosier. REDC partnerships had 4,100 projects that created or retained 200,000 jobs, according to the Empire State Development (2015) Consolidated Funding Application Database. Second, few of the state's economic development councils have been providing information on jobs. In November, the Citizens Budget Commission released a study of performance reporting by REDCs. The watchdog and research organization in the state reviewed priority projects of 2012 and the reporting for 2013. "We found only 19 percent of the projects had any actual job results," said senior research associate Tammy Gamerman. "We found, by and large, the councils were not reporting on performance. We couldn't get a sense of how effective the councils have been." It's also hard to know whether REDC money is responsible for keeping or creating every last one of those 200,000 jobs. It's likely at least some of those companies would have stayed or expanded anyway, though they're happy to take taxpayer money to do so. FAST-FOOD SUBSIDY "Companies that pay the minimum wage - like a McDonald's - have full time workers who are still below the poverty level and since they are below the poverty level they still qualify for welfare and food stamps. That costs taxpayers, on average, $6,800 per worker. So McDonald's is paying $18,000 and we are paying $6,800 to subsidize that worker. ... In New York State, we spend $700 million a year subsidizing workers just to McDonald's and Burger King.'' True, with a side of hyperbole. The $700 million figure may sound ridiculously high, but it is the calculation contained in a 2013 study, "Fast Food, Poverty Wages: The Public Cost of Low-Wage Jobs in the Fast-Food Industry,'' by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of California at Berkeley. The authors calculated the total cost of public benefits to 104,000 front-line fast-food workers in New York to be $708 million. This includes the Earned Income Tax Credit, Medicaid for adults, the Children's Health Insurance Program and food stamps. In a rhetorical flourish, the governor singled out McDonald's and Burger King as recipients of more than $700 million in subsidies. The total is for all fast-food workers in the state. But you get the point. Cuomo's argument that government safety net programs amount to a subsidy to private business is not universally accepted. Michael R. Strain of the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in The Washington Post that wages are largely set by market forces. He argues it is the government's responsibility, not the employer's, to make sure no one working full time and heading a household is living in poverty. "That some low-wage workers receive government assistance isn't a bug in the system; it's a feature,'' he writes. "The government isn't subsidizing Wal-Mart; it's not exclusively Wal-Mart's responsibility to make sure that Wal-Mart's workers bring in enough cash every week. Instead, the government is helping workers who can't command adequate wages to make ends meet.'' 2013-01-02-jb-backus1.JPG Oswego County Clerk Michael Backus says he will not launch a campaign for the 22nd Congressional District seat that will open when Rep. Richard Hanna retires at the end of the year. Two other Republicans have started campaigning for the post. (John Berry| The Post-Standard) Oswego County Clerk Mike Backus said Friday he will not be a candidate for the Republican designation to succeed Rep. Richard Hanna in the 22nd Congressional District. Backus, 32, of Mexico, said he will instead seek a second term as Oswego County clerk in November. He is the youngest county clerk in New York. Backus, who served until this year as chairman of the Oswego County Republican Committee, said he's not ready to spend time away in Washington from his two young children. "I felt comfortable I could raise the money, and I had a good amount of support throughout the district," Backus said in an interview. "But it came down to the fact that my kids are ages 3 and 11 months." Backus made his decision only a day after Broome County Republican George Phillips launched his campaign in what will likely be a GOP primary in the eight-county congressional district. State Assemblywoman Claudia Tenney, R-New Hartford, announced in November that she planned to challenge Hanna in a primary. Tenney lost a primary election to Hanna in 2014. Hanna, 64, of Oneida County, said last month he will retire after his third-term in Congress at the end of the year. Phillips, a high school history teacher from Endwell, formally launched his campaign Thursday with a seven-county tour in the 22nd District. Phillips narrowly lost a 2010 race against former Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-Saugerties, in the old 22nd District before district boundary lines were redrawn. Several other Republicans are considering whether to enter the race, including Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente and state Sen. Joe Griffo, of Rome. On the Democratic side, former Oneida County Legislator David Gordon, of Utica, is the only announced candidate to date. State Assemblyman Anthony Brindisi, D-Utica, is also considering whether to make a bid for the congressional seat. The 2016 congressional primaries in New York state will be June 28. The 22nd Congressional District covers all of Chenango, Cortland, Madison and Oneida counties and part of Broome, Herkimer, Oswego and Tioga counties. Contact Mark Weiner anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751 GOP 2016 Debate Donald Trump speaks as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, looks on during the Fox Business Network 2016 Republican presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, in North Charleston, S.C. The two battled for several minutes about whether Cruz is a natural-born U.S. citizen. (AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt) (Rainier Ehrhardt) WASHINGTON, D.C. - Who do you think won the Republican presidential debate on Thursday night? Seven GOP presidential candidates battled each other for more than two hours in a prime-time debate carried live by Fox Business Network from North Charleston, South Carolina. Among the highlights was an exchange that lasted several minutes between frontrunners Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on the issue of whether Cruz, born in Canada to an American mother, is a natural-born citizen and eligible to run for president. Cruz said Trump, who has raised the issue, had dismissed it earlier in the campaign when he had a comfortable lead in the polls. "The Constitution hasn't changed," Cruz said, saying there is no question about his eligibility. "But the poll numbers have. And I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling." Later, Cruz was asked by Fox Business Network moderator Maria Bartiromo to explain his comment that Trump represented "New York values." "I think most people know what New York values are," Cruz said, telling Bartiromo, "You're from New York so you might not, but I promise you they know in South Carolina." Cruz went on to explain that he views New York values as socially liberal, pro-gay marriage, and tied to money and the media. "Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan," he said. Trump responded: "Conservatives actually do come out of Manhattan, including William F. Buckley and a lot of other conservatives." Trump talked about how New Yorkers came together in the wake of the World Trade Center attacks and added, "Let me tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made." It was sixth Republican debate of the 2016 presidential election, and the first of the year. This time, the undercard debate at 7 p.m. had only three candidates -Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, whose polls numbers were too low to be included in the main event. A fourth candidate, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, declined to participate in the undercard. In the prime-time debate, the candidates fielded questions about issues that included jobs and the economy, gun control, foreign policy, Syrian refugees, the Iranian capture and release of 10 American sailors, and the battle against the Islamic State. Cruz was asked about a New York Times report that he failed to disclose up to $1 million in personal loans from Goldman Sachs and Citibank during his 2012 campaign for the U.S. Senate. "Well, Maria, thank you for passing along that hit piece on the front page of the New York Times," Cruz said before adding, "The New York Times and I don't have exactly the warmest of relationships." Related: Washington Post transcript of who said what, and what it meant Cruz said he disclosed the loans on disclosure reports with the Senate, but mistakenly failed to report the loans to federal elections officials: "Yes, I made a paperwork error in disclosing it on one piece of paper and not the other," he said. The next presidential debate is Sunday, Jan. 17, when the Democratic candidates take the stage in South Carolina. The Republican candidates will return Jan. 28 on Fox News for the final GOP debate before the first primary elections. In the end, who do you think won Thursday's Republican debate? Please vote in the informal, unscientific poll above. Related: Gov. Cuomo says Ted Cruz offended 18 million New Yorkers Contact Mark Weiner anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751 The first Republican presidential debate of 2016 hit on topics ranging from national security and gun control to the economy and beating Hillary Clinton. And, with seven instead of 10 candidates on the main stage, the South Carolina showdown highlighted the growing divide between those who are emerging as main contenders and those who are being left behind. And, as we've seen as the Republican campaign rolls along, the real showdown is increasingly becoming the Donald Trump vs. Ted Cruz show with a dose of Marco Rubio throw in. This debate also marked the first time that almost all the candidates took direct aim at Democrats - namely presidential contender Clinton. We're dividing the field into 2 groups - the first tier and the second tier. The main contenders are Trump, Cruz and Rubio. The second tier are Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush and John Kasich. First tier Donald Trump - Trump went after Cruz for the simple reason the Texas Senator is the only one who is challenging the business mogul in the polls. Sometimes it was successful, sometimes it wasn't. His answers on gun control were his best of the night and it's a topic he seems to feel comfortable talking about. And his simple "no" when asked if he wanted to take back his comments regarding keeping Muslims from coming to the U.S. won over even the Trump-hostile crowd. Bottom line: Trump voters love Trump no matter what, so don't expect the debate to hit his approval ratings at all. Ted Cruz - Cruz was hit with just about every negative question possible, including ones about a recent New York Times report about an unreported campaign donation, and inquiries about whether he can run for president since he was born in Canada. Cruz handled the questions well and positioned himself as the person who can challenge Trump. He tripped up, however, when he attacked Trump on being from New York, only to have the front runner cite the reconstruction following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It was a rare earnest moment from Trump and a ding on Cruz. Marco Rubio - Rubio is the most obvious beneficiary if Trump and Cruz continue to battle each other. His strongest moment came when he addressed gun control, with his passionate defense of the Second Amendment playing well with Republican voters. He gambled by attacking Cruz and we'll have to see if that pays off in the long run. Who won? Trump's supporters will say he won but he didn't. It was Cruz's night though Rubio's comments related to the Texas Senator's policy flip flops revealed a vulnerability. Second tier Ben Carson - Carson has seen his surging campaign falter in recent weeks. He's soft-spoken demeanor can come across as too timid but it was a good debate for the retired neurosurgeon. The question remains, however, is he too nice to be president? Maybe so. But he was pretty direct with his comments related to bombing ISIS and that's a welcome change. Jeb Bush - Bush's campaign is struggling but the former Florida Governor had a fairly strong debate, due in part to Trump (mostly) turning his attention to Cruz. His answers on gun control were on point and he had more energy than in previous debates. But while his rebuttal to Trump's "no Muslims" ban were reasoned and sensible, it also showed the divide between himself and the rest of the GOP field. Chris Christie- Christie's campaign has not caught on with voters, including people in his own state of New Jersey. Christie can contribute to the Republican party in many ways but it's not as a presidential candidate. John Kasich - The always-vocal Kasich tends to dominate the debates and then disappear from the scene. His poll numbers are low and don't seem to be changing. It would be good for Republicans if he bowed out at this point. couplepromo.jpg Jennie McCarthy, left, and the former Melisa Erwin filed a discrimination complaint with the New York Division of Human Rights after they say they were turned away from a potential wedding site because they are gay. The owners of Liberty Ridge Farm north of Albany, which refused to host the 2013 wedding, lost in court Thursday, Jan. 14, 2015, their appeal of a $13,000 state fine for their action. (AP, file) ALBANY, N.Y. -- The owners of an Upstate New York wedding venue who refused to host a lesbian wedding and were fined $13,000 for violating the state's anti-discrimination law had their appeal rejected by a state court on Thursday. Robert and Cynthia Gifford cited their conservative Christian beliefs in refusing to host the 2013 wedding of Melisa and Jennie McCarthy at , north of Albany. They from the state's Division of Human Rights, asserting their rights to free speech and religious exercise. The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, in a 5-0 ruling, said the Giffords are free to express their religious beliefs but rejected their argument that their rights were being violated. "The Giffords are free to adhere to and profess their religious beliefs that same-sex couples should not marry, but they must permit same-sex couples to marry on the premises if they choose to allow opposite-sex couples to do so," Judge Karen Peters' decision said. The Giffords were represented by an attorney for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian organization that says "a thriving culture upholds the value of life, marriage, and religious freedom." The attorney, Caleb Dalton, said on the that the court "should have rejected this unwarranted and unconstitutional government intrusion." He said an appeal would be considered. The New York Civil Liberties Union, which represented the McCarthys, said the ruling affirms that all state residents deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. The McCarthys married at another Upstate farm. Gay marriage became legal in New York on July 24, 2011. It became legal nationwide on June 26, 2015, following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Governor Cuomo talks Upstate in Syracuse visit New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks at the Holiday Inn in Liverpool Wednesday January 6, 2016. ( Michael Greenlar | mgreenlar@syracuse.com) ALBANY, N.Y. -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo thinks Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz should apologize to New Yorkers for comments he made deriding New York values in a televised debate Thursday night. While attacking opponent Donald Trump, Cruz said he viewed New York values as socially liberal, pro-gay marriage, and tied to money and the media. "I think most people know what New York values are," Cruz said, telling Fox Business Network moderator Maria Bartiromo, "You're from New York so you might not, but I promise you they know in South Carolina." Cuomo suggested Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, should return any money he has received from donors in New York. "And if he had any class, he would apologize to the people of New York," Cuomo said. "I don't believe that it's just New Yorkers who aren't going to have a good reaction. I don't believe Americans are going to have a good reaction. We're not judgmental, negative and hostile the way Cruz was. In one 30 second soundbite, he was offensive to gays, he was offensive to women, he offended 18 million New Yorkers, one of the largest Congressional delegations, by the way, in the country, and you can't govern that way and it's not who we are," said Cuomo, a Democrat. "He said, 'I don't know what New York values are.' He doesn't know what New York values are because New York is in many ways the epitome of what formed this nation and what keeps it strong. The Statue of Liberty is in our harbor. We do believe in immigration, we do believe in acceptance. We do believe in community. We do believe in E Pluribus Unum, out of many one and his rhetoric is the exact opposite. That's the politics of division. That's separate. That spreads fear and it's not who we are as New Yorkers and hypocrisy." Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, left, speaks as Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks during the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, in North Charleston, S.C. "I mean this is a man who in many ways, the only reason he's here is because New York is what New York is and America is what America is. This is a man from Canada of Spanish, Irish decent. In many ways he represents or should have represented the beauty of New York and the acceptance of New York, the capital of immigration. The place on the globe that said you can invite people from all over and if you're not judgmental and you're not divisive you can forge them into one state, one family, one country," Cuomo said. Cruz's presidential campaign has received $71,947 from 165 people who live in New York state, according to Federal Elections Commission records through Sept. 30. Related story: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and 'New York values': What others are saying Poll: Who won Thursday's Republican presidential debate? Contact Mike McAndrew anytime | email | Twitter | 315-470-3016 A car that got trapped in a thick coating of ice while parked on the shores of Lake Erie made it through the ordeal unscathed. Justin Yelen's 2010 Mitsubishi Lancer became trapped in the ice when he parked it on the shore of Lake Erie in Hamburg, near Buffalo, on Sunday night. A combination of high winds, freezing temperatures and spray from the lake turned it into an ice sculpture. The car was encased for more than two days before a towing crew freed it using bags of calcium flakes. It left behind a massive standing shell of ice. Crews from Lake Erie Towing & Recovery broke car free from its Ice encasement leaving part of the icy shell behind pic.twitter.com/7VEUG5JE25 John Hickey (@jhickeyBN) January 13, 2016 The Buffalo News reported that the car was left under a heat lamp overnight, and still had ice on it the next morning. But it turned over and ran fine when a worker at the collision shop put the key in on Thursday. "The amount of ice on the vehicle weighed it right down to the ground," Nick Ortwein, collision estimator at West-Herr Collision in Hamburg, told The Buffalo News. "The suspensions on the cars are only meant to handle a certain amount of weight as far as any springs and the ride height of the vehicle." The car didn't appear to have any real damage, however. "I never had a doubt," Yelen told the Buffalo News. Yelen was planning on paying to have the car towed out of the ice, but contacted his insurance company at his family's insistence. The company paid for the vehicle's retrieval. "We just brought it inside and put it under the heat overnight," Ortwein told the Buffalo News. "I was surprised because I figured the ice would be gone in the morning. But even though it was under heat all night - a good 75 degrees - the car still had a good chunk of ice on the windshield up past the roof. Even the sides of the car had five or six inches of ice. But it runs and drives. We've even pulled it out and had it detailed." Watch KFOR-TV's video from the car's extraction below. A new dinosaur is on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and it dwarfs any other dinosaur the museum has ever exhibited. The animal is a titanosaura gigantic group of four-legged dinosaurs known for long necks, whip like tails and small heads, according to CNN. The group's name literally means "titanic lizard," but this specimen is so new it doesn't even have an official species name yet. The titanosaur was unveiled at a preview event on Thursday. The skeleton measures 122 feet long and 20 feet tall, according to the New York Post. Its thigh bone alone is eight feet long, and the full skeleton dwarfs the museum's famous blue whale by about 30 feet. It was discovered in Argentina in 2014 by a farmer who alerted local officials. "We realized this was something big," Diego Pol, one of the paleontologists who helped excavate the fossils, told the New York Post. The team unearthed the remains over an 18-month excavation. Scientists estimate the herbivore weighed about 70 tonsas much as 10 African elephants. It lived 95 to 100 million years ago during the cretaceous period. This specimen is believed to have been a young adult when it died. Pol told the Wall Street Journal that the titanic animal, which stretches across its entire gallery, likely hatched from an egg the size of a volleyball. "Titanosaur fossils have been unearthed on every continent, and an abundance of discoveries in recent years has helped us appreciate the deep diversity of this group," Michael Novacek, the museum's senior vice president and provost for science, told CNN. The skeleton, on display on the museum's fourth floor, is not actually made of bones, but was 3D-printed in fiberglass based on detailed laser scans taken at the excavation site. The titanosaur is on display to the public now. SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Shoppers in grocery stores see countless packages of food that's labeled "all natural," "hormone free," or "no antibiotics added." But those terms can mean whatever the food producer wants because there's no government standards defining them, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in his State of the State speech. So Cuomo has proposed launching a food labeling initiative to help consumers and the food industry by combining new food safety standards with a marketing strategy to boost healthy food products made in New York. "...there is a growing health concern among consumers about the food we eat -- what is in it and how it was grown. There is a burgeoning market for safe, healthy food. However, consumer confidence is lacking. Many of the labels that are on those products are virtually meaningless and they have no standard and they have no legal definition. Labels like "all natural" or "no antibiotics" actually have no legal definition," Cuomo said Wednesday in launching the proposed program. "To reassure and inform consumers - and provide an opportunity for New York farms - we will initiate the first program to certify the bona fides of natural products," he said. He tasked the state Departments of Health and Agriculture to establish standards defining the buzz words found on food labels and to conduct inspections at farms to certify those standards are being met. "Labels like "all natural" will mean something. "No pesticides" will mean something. "Hormone free" will actually mean something," Cuomo said. New York food producers who voluntarily participate in the program and meet the new standards will be permitted to add a "New York State Certified High Quality" seal on their food labels, the governor said. And New York will help market to the rest of the nation the products that earned the state seal of approval, he promised. "We are going to call it the 'NY Certified High Quality' program. It will be voluntary for our farmers to participate but we will advertise this program and its products nationwide and we think there is a significant marketing asset for the farms that participate. It's an exciting opportunity. It can help grow our farms. Better products for our consumers," Cuomo said in his State of the State speech. The governor included in his proposed 2016-17 state budget $2 million to help farmers meet the new standards, which have yet to be drafted, said his spokesman, Richard Azzopardi. Highlights of Cuomo's proposed state budget The state will use existing funds and resources to market products with the "New York State Certified" seal and inspect food producers for compliance, Azzopardi said. Cuomo's administration is still working out the program details and the state Legislature would have to approve funding for it. It's unclear if the labeling standards, inspections and potential enforcement actions will affect food producers who aren't voluntarily participating in the state's marketing campaign. In his speech, Cuomo said the state Department of Agriculture and Markets will inspect farms to make sure food producers are meeting the standards. And the state attorney general will be responsible for enforcement "so consumers will know when they buy that product, they are getting exactly what that product says it is," Cuomo said. How initiative started The initiative grew out of a two-page letter that an official with Consumers Union sent to the governor's office 16 days before the State of the State speech, Azzopardi said. "Consumers are increasingly bombarded with labeling phrases that may not be accurate, truthful or meaningful," Chuck Bell, a Yonkers-based program director for Consumers Union, wrote to the governor. In an interview, Bell said he believes the food labeling rules would apply to both New York farmers and food processing companies, and that the attorney general may enforce new labeling standards on New York food producers who aren't involved in the "New York State Certified" marketing program. "We are in the early stages. They've got different ideas they are pursuing. There's a voluntary marketing proposal. But there's also binding regulatory elements. New York could refer cases to the Attorney General if food labeling is believed to be deceptive. The AG has broad authority to go after deceptive claims," Bell said. The Consumers Union, which is the policy arm of Consumer Reports magazine, Bell said had previously asked the federal Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture to ban food producers from using the term "natural" on food labels. "The 'natural' claim on labels in particular is confusing. Consumers think it means more than it does," Bell said, adding that some so-called natural foods contain synthetic ingredients that may not be healthy. He said the federal government has general standards for food labeling claims, but Consumers Union thinks they are insufficient. California has been issuing its own state regulations, like requiring producers to identify on labels any carcinogenic ingredients in their food. But he said the initiative Cuomo proposed is "not something we've seen in many states." A worker picks a tomato at Hartwood Farm in Fenner, N.Y. Agriculture is one of Upstate New York's biggest industries. Farm Bureau reaction The New York Farm Bureau, the state's largest organization representing the agriculture community, with more than 20,000 members, frequently calls on the state to reduce the regulations on farmers. The bureau sees great potential in having the state market New York farm products through this initiative, said spokesman Steve Ammerman. But he said he hopes the new standards will be voluntary. "With certain words on labels, like certified organic, there are set standards. But there are a lot of buzz words in marketing today that can be confusing for consumers and may not best represent what is or isn't in a product. I think the governor is trying to provide clarification," the farm bureau spokesman said. "We are in the process of looking into it, trying to get a better understanding of what farmers will have to do to participate in the program, and what kinds of products will be able to use the 'New York State Certified' label. Anytime our farmers have the ability, with the state's help, to promote and market themselves, that's worthy of exploring," Ammerman said. Contact Mike McAndrew anytime | email | Twitter | 315-470-3016 Brazil Zika Birth Defects In this Dec. 23, 2015, file photo, 10-year-old Elison nurses his 2-month-old brother Jose Wesley, who was born with microcephaly, at their house in Poco Fundo, Pernambuco state, Brazil. (Felipe Dana | The Associated Press) RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) -- Researchers have found the strongest evidence so far of a possible link between a mosquito-borne virus and a surge of birth defects in Brazil, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday. The health agency said evidence of the dengue-like Zika virus was found in the placentas from two women who miscarried and the brains of two newborns who died. Those who were born had small heads, a rare condition known as microcephaly. "The evidence is becoming very, very strong of the link between the two," said Dr. Lyle Petersen, director of mosquito-borne diseases at the CDC. Finding the virus present in brain tissue is "very significant," he said. Petersen warned that the link is not yet definite and said that a team of CDC investigators is traveling to Brazil in a few weeks to conduct more studies and learn what risks face pregnant women. "It's possible that there may be some other co-factors involved." Zika is spread by the same Aedes mosquito that can carry dengue and chikungunya. There are no known cases of people contracting the virus in the U.S. mainland, though it has been seen in retrning travelers. Puerto Rico reported its first case of Zika two weeks ago, and 13 countries in Latin America have also seen infections. The virus is related to dengue but until recently was thought to have only mild symptoms. It was first detected in humans in Uganda decades ago, but there had never been reports of links between the virus and brain malformations until recent months. However, Brazil is experiencing the largest known outbreak of Zika, so it's possible that a rare birth defect simply didn't appear in previous smaller outbreaks, Petersen said. "This is quite unique for this type of virus," Petersen said. Mosquito-borne viruses generally don't lead to neurological problems. "I don't think anybody has any idea how Zika is crossing the placenta into these fetuses, or why Zika is doing it and other closely related viruses like dengue don't," said Scott Weaver, director of the Institute for Human Infections and Immunity at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas. Dr. Ernesto Marques, an infectious diseases researcher at the University of Pittsburgh who is also studying Zika and the birth defects outbreak in Brazil, said he is finding so far that a very small percentage of pregnant women who reported Zika symptoms gave birth to babies with microcephaly. He said a problem facing epidemiologists is the lack of labs that are able to test for Zika. Marques said estimates that the country had between 440,000 and 1.3 million cases of the virus in 2015 are not reliable. "It needs to be better diagnosed. We don't know many, and we need a better response," he said. Brazilian health authorities have said there's no question Zika is behind the birth defects. The Health Ministry said late Tuesday that 3,530 babies have been born with microcephaly in the country since October. The number was less than 150 in 2014. Now the government finds itself with a growing number of children with mental retardation concentrated in one of the poorest regions of the country in the northeast. On Wednesday, Alberto Beltrame, national secretary of health care, said the government would invest $163 million to provide care and physical and speech therapy to those babies through the first three years. Beltrame said the government wants to train more than 7,500 physical therapists, doctors and psychologists in techniques to help develop motor and language skills in infants and toddlers with microcephaly. 1976-01-15-Civic1.JPG Opening night gala for the Onondaga County Civic Center, Syracuse, NY. (Dick Blume / The Post-Standard) SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Forty years ago today, the building Ella Fitzgerald called beautiful opened its doors for the first time. The First Lady of Song headlined a night of jazz, classical music and champagne at the opening of the Onondaga County Civic Center, a night former County Executive John Mulroy called "the most significant date in my life." More than 2,000 people paid between $25 and $35 for a seat in the 2,117-seat theater that took 10 years and $24 million to complete. "Welcome to the premiere of the Concert Theater," Dr. Joseph Golden, then-executive director of the Cultural Resources Council, said in a Jan. 16, 1976 Post-Standard story. "You don't know how beautiful you look out there, or how long it took to get you here." Click the headlines to read the full newspaper stories: (App users CLICK HERE) Christopher Keene, who would later become general director of the New York City Opera, led the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra in a performance of the "Star Spangled Banner" to kick off the night. The symphony then played two Samuel Barber works before Charles Strouse took the stage. The Tony Award-winner, best known for composing Broadway musicals such as Annie and Bye Bye Birdie, conducted "What is There to Sing About?", a work the CRC commissioned. Notable attendees included Henry Steinway, president of Steinway & Sons piano makers; Fazlollah Reza, then Iran's ambassador to Canada and former Syracuse University professor; Joan Davidson and Arthur Bloom from the New York State Council on the Arts and former State Senator Tarky Lombardi Jr. They all watched as Ella Fitzgerald, adorned in "flowing black chiffon with a touch of white at her bodice," took the stage. In his review for the Herald-Journal, Earl George noted that Fitzgerald sung works by Duke Ellington and George Gershwin, but it was her rendition of "How High the Moon" that left the audience "with pleasure--and wonder." "It was an important night for the town's music," George wrote. "It will never be the same again. And it's nice to report that it can only be better...and better." Fitzgerald closed out the concert around 11:45 p.m. to a standing ovation. A champagne reception was held after the concert. In his story for the Jan. 16, 1976 Herald-Journal, Dick Case, who was still went by Richard G. Case at the time, noted that hundreds of concert-goers lingered past 1 a.m., sipping champagne and reflecting on the night that was. This feature is a part of CNY Nostalgia, a section on syracuse.com. Send your ideas and curiosities to Jacob Pucci: Email | Twitter | 315-766-6747 C&R opens up in Fujairah Cambiaso & Risso Group has strengthened its presence in the UAE with the opening of an office at Fujairah. Following on from the inauguration of the Dubai office last July, Cambiaso & Risso said that these moves continue its international strategic growth, which includes the Gulf region. We are investing in an area that represents the commercial crossroads between Europe and Asia and where an intensive renovation of the infrastructures, including ports, is underway. The development of the ports is generating an increasing request of services in the whole maritime sector, from the cruising field, to the tanker and container one,said Giovanni Paolo Risso, president and CEO of Cambiaso & Risso International. This Page Is Under Construction - Coming Soon! Why am I seeing this 'Under Construction' page? A Chorus Line performs Jan. 5-24 at The Riverside Theatre in Vero Beach. Until last week at Riverside Theatre, I had seen "A Chorus Line" only on the big screen, and that was many years ago. The storyline is just as fascinating to this non-performer now as it was then, so I'm going to risk writing a little bit of a spoiler here, trying not to give anything away. MORE | "A Chorus Line" performers recall memorable auditions Watching the film, I didn't get that Tony Award-winning director and choreographer Michael Bennett's purist goal was to graphically illustrate the nitty-gritty of the life and trials of chorus line dancers, their hopes realized or dashed with every audition. They generally aren't the performers who take the bows and bask in the glory of standing ovations. Those perks go to the stars. So here's the spoiler: If you want to applaud and whistle for the terrific cast, do it as they tap their way on stage for the big finale. Or, do what I did and resort to hollering hurrahs out your car window as they leave the theater. MORE | Read Angela Smith's review of "A Chorus Line" I went to the first matinee and the house was just about packed on a rainy Wednesday afternoon before word had a chance to get around. It's a good thing for Riverside Theatre when a production has to add performances even before opening night but not so good for those who tend to procrastinate when it comes to buying tickets. Get the updated schedule online at www.riversidetheatre.com. "Over the River and Through the Woods" opens Feb. 2. FREE CONCERT It came to my attention through a chance mention from a friend that gospel vocalist Judy Peterson will appear at First Presbyterian Church at 520 Royal Palm Blvd. in Vero Beach at 3 p.m. Jan. 17. Peterson is a local who has appeared in some of Tyler Perry's productions. Information: 772-562-9088 TIDBITS This is the final weekend for "Social Security" at Vero Beach Theatre Guild (www.verobeachtheatreguild.com). Florida Humanities Council's program at the Emerson Center at 7 p.m. Jan. 21 is Tom Berson's "Transparent Waters: The History and Significance of Florida Springs" (www.theemersoncenter.org). Indian River Symphonic Association brings the Polish Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra to Community Church Jan. 22 (www.irsymphonic.org). Ballet Vero Beach is at VBHS Performing Arts Center Jan 22-23 with Pastoral Symphony and Museum Pieces (www.balletverobeach.org). Willi Miller writes about things to do in Indian River County for #TCPalmSocial. Contact her at caribsea@bellsouth.net. Watch for my live coverage of the event, starting at 6:30 p.m. #TCPalmSocial pic.twitter.com/By9ZF7zGhp Lisa Broadt (@TCPalmLisa) January 20, 2016 MORE | Scroll down for live updates At a time when Marty Baron's name recognition is at an all-time high, The Washington Post editor will return to the city where he was a rookie reporter with an all-but-unknown byline. Baron one of the journalists portrayed in the Oscar-nominated film "Spotlight" will appear Wednesday at the Rappaport Center at Temple Beit HaYam in Stuart to speak about democracy and freedom of the press. It's a topic that has driven Baron's career as he ascended from the Miami Herald's Stuart reporter to top positions with the Herald, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe and the Post, according to Jerome and Phyllis Rappaport, sponsors of the event and friends of Baron's. While Baron ran The Boston Globe newsroom, for instance, the newspaper won six Pulitzer Prizes, including one for its dogged investigation of sex abuse in the Catholic Church, the subject of "Spotlight." Democracy and freedom of the press is not only appropriate for Baron, but also a topic the Rappaports hope will bring together a wide swath of Treasure Coast residents and form the foundation for an ongoing speakers series. "What exists here in Stuart, in a remarkable way, is that everybody lives within their islands. So many live in gated communities and they don't get out of the gated communities," Jerome Rappaport said. "We felt if we had the right kind of speakers on the right kind of subjects we could increase our respectful dialogue on important issues. Marty is an attempt to see if we can establish this in the Stuart community." The part-time Sewalls Point residents come from Boston, where Jerome Rappaport made his fortune as a real estate developer, and as a political activist and philanthropist undertook a variety of efforts to better the community. The Rappaports' most notable achievement, perhaps, is creation of the The Phyllis & Jerome Lyle Rappaport Foundation, which supports emerging leaders interested in public-policy solutions, breakthroughs for neurological and mental illnesses and world-class art, according to its website. A shared interest in the arts as well as commitment to improving the community brought together the Rappaports and Baron, then managing editor of The Boston Globe. The couple had hoped to bring Baron to Stuart long before "Spotlight," according to Phyllis Rappaport. "He's one of the premiere journalists in the country in fact, some people think he's the premiere journalist so we just thought he'd be a good speaker," she said. "The timing worked out." Past speakers at the center include Elie Wiesel, Ted Sorensen, Arthur Levitt and Alan Dershowitz. IF YOU GO WHAT: Marty Baron, Washington Post editor, speaking on democracy and freedom of the press WHERE: Temple Beit HaYam, 951 S.E. Monterey Commons Blvd., Stuart WHEN: 6:30 p.m. Wednesday COST: $20 RESERVATIONS: Limited seating, reservations required. Pay online at www.tbhfl.org or send a check payable to the temple. MORE INFORMATION: 772-286-1531 Tweets by @TCPalmLisa Kimberly Bergalis, center, grimaces as her parents George and Anna escort her to a train bound for Washington, D.C., Sept. 24, 1991 in Okeechobee, Fla. Bergalis is scheduled to testify before Congress about mandatory AIDS testing for health care workers. Bergalis contracted AIDS from her dentist. (AP Photo/Ray Fairall) SHARE By Eve Samples of TCPalm In life and in death, mystery shrouded Dr. David Acer. More than two decades after six of the Jensen Beach dentist's patients were infected with HIV, it's still not clear exactly how he passed the virus on to them. Perhaps Acer cut his fingers, which reportedly had lost feeling because of AIDS-related neuropathy. Perhaps his dental tools were not sterilized properly. Some believed Acer intentionally infected his patients ? a theory repudiated by both victims and prosecutors. Whatever the exact method of transmission, it took the lives of at least four who sat in his chair. Acer's story made headlines across the country for years after his 1990 death from AIDS, but it had faded into the background over time. Now, his name is resurfacing. Again, the circumstances are mysterious. A small advertisement that recently appeared in the local "Coffee News" circular shows a picture of a young, smiling Acer. "Looking to talk with friends, co-workers, neighbors, acquaintances and patients of dentist Dr. David Acer," it reads. The phone number listed on the ad is for Steven Reigns, a Los Angeles-based poet and educator. When I contacted Reigns, he declined to elaborate. "I appreciate your interest in my research, but right now there is nothing newsworthy," he wrote in an email. Reigns' ad has piqued the interest of longtime Treasure Coast residents and triggered memories for some of Acer's former patients. For families who lost loved ones, it is a devastating subject to revisit. "The pain, the hurt never goes away, the loss never goes away," said George Bergalis, whose daughter Kimberly died of AIDS in 1991 at age 23. "You learn to live with it, and time has a miraculous way of distancing ourselves from all these things. But it's still there." All five members of the Bergalis family were patients of Acer, a dentist covered by CIGNA Dental Health of Florida whose office was on U.S. 1 north of Jensen Beach Boulevard. Kimberly was the only one in the family to get infected with HIV, and she became a national figure during the final years of her life as she crusaded for mandatory HIV testing for health care workers. Two months before she died, she testified before Congress. She was rail thin and wheelchair-bound. "She weighed maybe 46 pounds when she died, couldn't walk for maybe the last six to eight months of her life," said George Bergalis, who now lives in Sewall's Point with his wife Anna. "It was terrible. It was actually worse than terrible, as a parent watching your child slowly waste away and die, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it." The worst part, he said, is that he feels it could have been prevented with more stringent testing and disclosure requirements for health care workers ? a stance that stirred national resistance. To this day, he is not satisfied with the progress on that front. Kimberly paid dearly for being vocal about the issue. She faced accusations that she was promiscuous (she and her family have always maintained she wasn't). Some alleged she was a drug user who acquired HIV from needles (also untrue). "People don't realize what that young lady went through for two years," George Bergalis said. "Not only dealing with this horrible disease and knowing she was going to die a terrible death ? but also with all of the criticisms and vile phone calls and letters and just nasty, nasty stuff." Within days of her death he received an anonymous note in the mail celebrating the loss, George recalled. One of Acer's surviving victims, Lisa Shoemaker of Michigan, remembers similar attacks. She was infected with HIV after going to Acer in 1988. She chose him after receiving a refrigerator magnet that advertised him as "The Painless Dentist." After becoming infected, Shoemaker's personal life was scrutinized by those who doubted a dentist could transmit the disease. For the past 19 years, she has been an HIV and AIDS activist. Medication has kept her alive, but it is not without side effects. "I want people to know that nobody's exempt," said Shoemaker, now 55 and a regular speaker at high schools. When I spoke to her Friday, she recalled Acer rather sympathetically. "I didn't see him as a monster or a serial killer," she said. "I just think he got too sick and, in his own mind he was trying to help people even though he was sick." In addition to Bergalis, the Acer patients who succumbed to AIDS were: Richard Driskill of Indiantown, who died in 1993 at age 33; John Yecs of Akron, Ohio, who died in 1993 at age 36; and Barbara Webb, a former Martin County High School teacher, who died in 1994 at age 68. Shoemaker has not talked to the other surviving patient, Sherry Johnson, for several years. She thinks Johnson moved out of Florida. "I hope she's doing well. I've just respected her choice of being quiet," Shoemaker said. After learning about the recent ad, Shoemaker planned to call Reigns to inquire about his project. "If there's anything I can help him with, I'd love to ? but I don't want to be attacked," Shoemaker said. "I've been there, done that, and it's not fun." Eve Samples is a columnist for Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers. This column reflects her opinion. Contact her at 772-221-4217 or eve.samples@scripps.com. VERO BEACH A Vero Beach woman whose 3-year-old son wandered off and drowned after falling into the family's murky backyard pool must serve 10 years in prison for his death, a judge ruled Friday. Summer Stiles, 34, of the 700 block of 18th Street Southwest, had been convicted by a jury Sept. 29 of felony aggravated manslaughter in the death of her son, Dakota Stiles. In addition to the manslaughter charge, the jury in the Indian River County courtroom of Circuit Judge Robert L. Pegg also convicted her of one count of child neglect. "This is one of the saddest cases I have had," Pegg said Friday in handing down the sentence. "This was the grossest of negligence. There have to be some consequences." Stiles, who did not speak at Friday's sentencing hearing, faced up to 35 years in prison for conviction on both counts, and Assistant State Attorney Brian Workman asked the judge to impose a 15-year term. Pegg sentenced Stiles to a five-year sentence on the second count, to run simultaneously with the 10-year manslaughter sentence. Assistant Public Defender Michelle Rhodeback asked the judge to render a probationary sentence, largely because Stiles would be separated from her other two children. Rhodeback cited two court cases in which defendants received one- and two-year jail terms, including one in which a mother left her child in a bathtub while she answered the door, and the child drowned. But Workman argued Stiles was far from merely careless, pointing out Stiles was arrested and booked into Indian River County Jail for child neglect because the boy also had wandered away from home two days before he drowned. "After she was taken into custody, she posts bond and two days later, Dakota is in the pool," Workman said of the boy's death on July 25, 2013. "This was not a lapse in judgment, this was an ongoing course of conduct," Workman told the judge. "The evidence is that she was derelict in supervising this boy. This little boy should be in school right now, he should be playing Little League." At trial, Workman pointed out that on four occasions the state Department of Children and Families investigated possible abuse or neglect of Dakota Stiles. Before the boy drowned, DCF investigators counseled Stiles on rendering better care for her son because neighbors had previously reported finding the boy wandering alone for more than an hour. "When the police asked her where her son was, she didn't know," Workman said. An Indian River County Sheriff's toxicology report determined Stiles had taken hydrocodone. In defending Stiles, Rhodeback told the judge Stiles left her son in his room, but he wandered off because his bedroom window was covered with cardboard. "DCF didn't see the cardboard on the window," Rhodeback said. "This case is about punishing someone for an accident." Before Stiles was sentenced, Dr. Theodore Williams, a forensic psychologist in Stuart, testified Stiles suffered from anxiety disorder, depression and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. Williams testified Friday Stiles needs treatment for her mental disorders that is not easily available in prison. But Workman asked the doctor: "Aren't there many people in prison who have those disorders?" "A lot of them are sad and melancholy," the doctor replied. "But isn't it the mere fact of being incarcerated that causes their anxiety and depression?" Workman asked. Christopher Boyer, 18, 3600 block of Gatehouse Circle, Stuart; warrant for failure to appear, sale, manufacture or deliver drugs with intent to sell. Jonathan Eckerd, 35, 1800 block of College Street, Stuart; aggravated battery; fleeing/attempting to elude a police officer. Justin Melso, 37, 1000 block of Haleyberry Avenue, Port St. Lucie; uttering a false bank bill, note, check or draft. Derek Odell, 34, 11000 block of Apple Blossom Trail, Port St. Lucie; possession of a controlled substance. Beth Ostmann, 50, 8100 block of Kenwood Road, Fort Pierce; warrant for violation of probation, grand theft. Mark Vincent, 38, Boynton Beach; warrant for violation of probation, driving while license suspended, possession of oxycodone. Foster Wooten, 40, Lake City; warrant for violation of probation, dealing in stolen property. Susan Dodson, 53, 5300 block of Schooner Oaks Way, Stuart; DUI, alcohol or drugs, fourth or subsequent offense. Arrested in St. Lucie County. Bryan Ranken, 35, 100 block of Warner Drive, Jensen Beach; re-admit, possession of buprenorphine. Arrested in St. Lucie County. FILE PHOTO SHARE Brett Barker, 43, no street address, Fort Pierce; possession of marijuana over 20 grams. Susan Dodson, 53, 5300 block of Schooner Oaks Way, Stuart; DUI, alcohol or drugs, fourth or subsequent offense. Julius Belle, 21, 500 block of Bethany Court, Fort Pierce; warrant for court order to revoke bond, attempted first-degree murder. Foy Hardwick, 32, 1800 block of Success Street, Port St. Lucie; carrying a concealed weapon. Shelby Scott, 24, 8500 block of U.S. 1, Port St. Lucie; larceny/grand theft; fraud illegal use of a credit card to obtain goods or money; fraud impersonation misrepresent self. Tess Simpson, 40, 2200 block of Cooks Court, Vero Beach; possession of a controlled substance (Xanax) without a prescription. Martin Brown, 47, 900 block of 14th Street, Fort Pierce; warrant for failure to appear, driving with license suspended. Courtney Buccieri, 26, 500 block of Badger Terrace, Port St. Lucie; warrants for grand theft, resisting an officer without violence. Alicia Stonesifer, 19, 600 block of Nichols Terrace, Port St. Lucie; warrant for court order to revoke bond, possession of marijuana over 20 grams. Larry Ciaccio, 54, 900 block of Curtis Street, Port St. Lucie; warrants for failure to appear, failure to register vehicle/driving while license suspended. Jonathan Diaz, 33, 1600 block of Angelico Lane, Port St. Lucie; warrant for court order to revoke bond, possession of marijuana over 20 grams. Carmen Huffman, 35, 100 block of 13th Street, Fort Pierce; out-of-state warrant, Colorado, fugitive from justice, violation of parole, escape and possession. Jason Rao, 41, 10000 block of Indian River Drive, Fort Pierce; driving while license suspended, third or subsequent offense. Tracey Durant, 47, 300 block of 30th Street, Fort Pierce; warrants for burglary, property damage, trespassing, family offense, assault, failure to appear, petty theft. Breann Sommer, 23, 3500 block of Old Dixie Highway, Fort Pierce; possession of a controlled substance (xanax) without a prescription. Arrested in Indian River County. Justin Melso, 37, 1000 block of Haleyberry Avenue, Port St. Lucie; uttering a false bank bill, note, check or draft. Arrested in Martin County. Derek Odell, 34, 11000 block of Apple Blossom Trail, Port St. Lucie; possession of a controlled substance. Arrested in Martin County. Terry Palmer, 24, 2800 block of Avenue B, Fort Pierce; child abuse intentional act domestic; domestic violence, tampering with a witness, victim or informant. Bryan Ranken, 35, 100 block of Warner Drive, Jensen Beach; readmit, possession of buprenorphine. Antonio Palma, 30, 2400 block of Cortez Boulevard, Fort Pierce; readmit, possession of cocaine. Jonathan Olivera, 19, 2100 block of Shipping Road, Port St. Lucie; readmit, giving false information to a pawnbroker, dealing in stolen property, burglary of a dwelling, hold for Department of Corrections. Carl Anderson, 49, 2600 block of Avenue N, Fort Pierce; readmit, resisting an officer with violence, possession of 29 grams or less of marijuana. Beth Ostmann, 50, 8100 block of Kenwood Road, Fort Pierce; warrant for violation of probation, grand theft. Arrested in Martin County. The Legacy Florida bill filed by Rep. Gayle Harrell, R-Stuart, would secure 25 percent or $200 million annually whichever is smallest from money available through Amendment 1 for projects that clean and restore the greater Everglades and Lake Okeechobee, including the C-44 Canal reservoir in Martin County shown in this picture. (FILE PHOTO) By Isadora Rangel of TCPalm TALLAHASSEE The House gave final passage Thursday to a bill that changes how Florida regulates pollution in Lake Okeechobee and the St. Lucie River. The Senate passed the bill Wednesday and sponsors were determined not to allow changes that could delay passage or risk one of Republican Speaker Steve Crisafulli's priorities in 2016. This is one of the first bills the Legislature sent for Gov. Rick Scott to sign into law. The 134-page legislation covers a lot of ground, from water supply to springs. One of its most controversial parts changes the way the state regulates pollution in farm runoff flowing into Lake Okeechobee, from permitting to a cleanup plan that requires farmers to follow so-called "best management practices," such as reducing fertilizer use. Critics complain the practices aren't strictly enforced. There are cleanup plans following the same guidelines for the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers. Several lawmakers who voted against the bill last year supported it this time because sponsors added enforcement to those cleanup plans and now require the Department of Environmental Protection to enforce the best management practices and change them if they aren't reducing pollution. Among those who changed their mind are Rep. Larry Lee Jr., D-Port St. Lucie, and Senate President-elect Joe Negron, R-Stuart. House Minority Leader Mark Pafford, D-West Palm Beach, proposed four failed amendments, including ones seeking enhanced monitoring on groundwater withdrawals by businesses; requiring water districts to set a maximum allowed amount of groundwater that can be taken out of springs; and requiring a study on water consumption in the state. He voted against SB 552, saying it benefitted farmers and didn't go far enough. Rep. Jose Javier Rodriguez, D-Miami, also voted against it. Audubon Florida, which lobbied against the bill last session and worked to improve it, praised the Legislature's work. The next battle will be to lobby lawmakers to add money to the state budget to hire eight full-time employees at the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to enforce the best management practices, Audubon executive Director Eric Draper said. He's also pushing for a bill filed by Negron and Rep. Gayle Harrell, R-Stuart, to set aside $200 million for Everglades restoration. Follow Isadora Rangel, Arek Sarkissian and Tampa news partner Jeff Schweers for updates on all the legislative action. Tweets about from:IsadoraRangel2 OR from:ArekSarkissian OR from:jeffschweersTBO SHARE By Paul Ivice STUART Liberator Medical Holdings stockholders who have sued to block the Stuart-based company's sale to a New Jersey firm will have to pin their hopes on the outcome of similar suits proceeding in Nevada. During a hearing Tuesday, Circuit Judge F. Shields McManus ruled against Liberator in the company's motion to dismiss five lawsuits, which were consolidated into one, filed by Liberator stockholders from across the nation. The consolidated complaints were filed in Circuit Court in Martin County between Nov. 30 and Dec. 18, five days after a similar number of lawsuits were filed in Nevada by other Liberator shareholders. McManus, however, did agree with Liberator's alternate request that he freeze the Florida suits from advancing while the earlier lawsuits in Clark County, Las Vegas, proceed. Some lawsuits were filed in Martin County because Liberator's headquarters are in Stuart, but other suits were filed in Clark County, Las Vegas because the company is incorporated in Nevada. The stockholders who have sued allege Liberator founder and CEO Mark Liberatore, who controls 37 percent of the company's stock, negotiated a sale that undervalues the stock but provides him special benefits. Carl Stine, lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the Florida cases, said the deal with medical technologies firm C. R. Bard Inc., not only would allow Liberatore to cash out the stock he holds that he is restricted from selling in the market, but provides for continuing employment for himself, his sons and a niece. The deal is valued at about $181 million, or about $3.35 for each of the estimated 54 million outstanding shares of Liberator, which first began public trading in 2007 on the Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board before moving to the New York Stock Exchange in 2013. Liberator's stock price peaked at $5.94 in January 2014, shortly after the stock moved to the Big Board, but fell to $2.08 in August. Liberator's stock price was around $2.50 shortly before the deal with Bard was announced Nov. 20. On that day it jumped to $3.34 on the strength of 9.6 million shares traded, compared with a prior average daily volume of about 230,000 shares, according to the New York Stock Exchange. Though the stock price has remained within a few cents of that price since Nov. 20, trading remained hot for the next three days, averaging more than 1 million shares traded a day, before settling back to a volume of about 200,000 shares a day. So while the Bard deal would pay stockholders about one-third more than the stock's price before the announcement, stockholders suing say they need more information to make an informed decision about whether to approve the sale. Stine, with the New York City-based Wolf Popper law firm, said the plaintiffs also believe Liberatore should have delegated negotiations with Bard to an independent committee, as is typical in such deals, to avoid any conflict of interest and that he should not vote his shares in the proxy vote to approve the sale. McManus on Tuesday agreed to put a hold on the cases before him after getting assurances from Liberator's lead attorney, Amiad Kushner of the New York firm Lowenstein Sandler, who appeared via speakerphone from Las Vegas, that the judge in Nevada would allow the Florida plaintiffs to participate in the case there. Stine meanwhile, said he would consider refiling the lawsuits in Nevada, "but not before the deal closes." New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, left, speaks about fellow candidate Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., during the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum on Thursday in North Charleston, South Carolina. (RAINIER EHRHARDT/ASSOCIATED PRESS) SHARE By Arek Sarkissian, Naples Daily News TALLAHASSEE U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio defended attacks against fellow GOP presidential candidates Thursday, as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush made a plea for Republicans to rally around a conservative as their nominee. After swipes from candidates including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Rubio stayed focused in most of his answers to denounce President Barack Obama and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. He said the country's election of Obama in 2008 brought a president who did not want to fix America and that he did not believe in the U.S. Constitution. "This election is about reversing all of that damage," Rubio said. "That's why I'm running for office." One of the sharpest attacks of the night against Rubio came from Christie, who has railed against negative campaign ads released by Rubio linking Christie to Obama. Christie has said Rubio "won't be able to slime your way to the White House" with the attacks, and he reminded Rubio that he called out Bush in an earlier debate for attacks. Rubio told Bush then that he shouldn't listen to advisers urging him to go negative. "It appears that the same someone has been whispering in old Marco's ear, too," Christie said. Rubio shot back, arguing that Christie has supported some of Obama's policies, such as Common Core education reforms. "I like Chris Christie, but we cannot have a president of the United States who supports Common Core," Rubio said. "Our next president has to be someone who undoes the damage Barack Obama has done to this country." Christie also said, contrary to Rubio's claims, Common Core was eliminated in New Jersey in May. However, like Florida, the state still holds on to Common Core-style testing standards. "This is the difference between being the governor and being a senator," Christie said. "When you're a senator, what you get to do is talk and talk, and you talk so much that no one can keep up with what you're saying and figure out whether you're accurate or not. "When you're a governor, you're held accountable for everything you do and the people of New Jersey have seen it," Christie said. The exchange prompted Bush to interrupt, urging Republicans to remember that even as they argue during the primary campaign, they must be ready to unite against a Democratic opponent. In earlier comments, Bush has stressed the need for a more conservative GOP candidate who can unite the party, a jab at Trump without naming him. "We need to have a compelling conservative agenda that we present to the American people in a way that doesn't disparage people, that unites us around our common purpose," Bush said. Rubio also came under fire for his past support for immigration reform by Cruz, who has said that stand with some Democrats put Rubio in a position of favoring leniency for undocumented immigrants over national security. Rubio said Thursday that he has changed his focus on immigration, now believing national security issues promoted by ISIS terrorists change the dynamic of the immigration debate. "This issue is about keeping America safe," Rubio said. "Our No. 1 priority should now become ensuring that ISIS cannot enter the U.S." Earlier in the debate, Rubio outlined his stance on immigrants entering the country. "If we do not know who you are and we do not know why you are coming, when I am president you are not getting into the United States of America," he said. Bush once again took Trump to task for proposing a ban on Muslims entering the country. He asked Trump to reconsider it. "Sending that signal makes it impossible for us to be serious about taking out ISIS and Syria," Bush said to Trump. "I hope you reconsider this." Bush said he was not opposed to stopping refugees from coming to the United States, but Trump's plan was unrealistic. "We don't have to have refugees come to our country. But all Muslims? Seriously?" Bush said. On the topic of guns laws, Bush praised South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haiey for her leadership during the June 2015 shooting in a Charleston church that left nine people dead. He said the FBI made a mistake in failing to conduct a timely background check of suspected gunman Dylann Roof, which is where the next president should focus. "We don't need to add more rules, we need to make sure the FBI is doing its job, because that person should not have gotten a gun," Bush said. "He would have not passed the background check." Bush said Obama and Clinton would take away the rights of citizens who have done nothing wrong. Instead, Bush pointed to a Florida statute he signed into law in 1999 known as the 10-20-life law. "In Florida, if you commit a crime with a gun, you're going away. You're going away for a long, long time," Bush said. "With the violence in our communities, target the efforts toward the people committing crimes with guns." Bush also brought up mental health as another solution to gun violence. Rather than issuing executive orders, Bush said Obama should have gone to Congress with a bipartisan plan to create mental health programs. Cowboy Dwane Ehmer, of Irrigon, Ore., a supporter of the group occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, walks his horse near Burns, Ore., on Jan. 7. The group has said local people should control federal lands, but critics say the lands already are managed to help everyone from ranchers to recreationalists. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) Eve Samples Columnist SHARE Members of the group occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters stand guard near Burns, Ore on Jan. 4, 2016. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File) My mother-in-law is one of the most independent people I know in terms of politics and in terms of self-sufficiency. To know where she grew up is to understand why; she spent most of her childhood at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon. Yes, that Malheur. For 11 years in the 1950s and early 60s, my husband's mother, Cheryl Samples, lived with her parents and brothers on the same expanse of federally owned wilderness that armed militants seized early this month. Cheryl's father worked for U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and moved the family to Malheur after accepting a clerical job there. It was a beautiful place to grow up 188,000 acres of big-sky landscape blanketed with sagebrush. It's been surreal for Cheryl to watch it at the center of a national standoff. "My view of living there was that it was a peaceful place," she told me by phone from her home in Bend, Oregon, a three-hour drive from Malheur. Cheryl remembers rock-hopping on the refuge, trying to make it to a friend's house without ever letting her feet touch the earthen ground. When dark fell, she would sprint home. "The reason I ran so fast is there were coyotes on the hill, and they would scare the bejesus out of you," she recalled. She and her brothers went to a one-room schoolhouse near the refuge property. They had no television. The refuge museum was a place that inspired childhood lore filled with mounted animals, including some of the 320 species of birds that live at the refuge. President Theodore Roosevelt founded Malheur in 1908, designating it "a preserve and breeding ground for native birds." It was the 19th of 51 wildlife refuges he created as president (the first was Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge near Sebastian). Today, Malheur remains a destination for tens of thousands of migratory birds, including sandhill cranes. Cheryl's late father, Eugene Heath, was a loyal employee of the Fish & Wildlife Service who stood behind the federal government's mission to protect the land. "He believed in saving the beauty, all the birds and the animals," Cheryl explained. "He wanted his kids to be able to hunt and fish and be able to enjoy the outdoors." In the decades since then, some federal land-use rules have grown more stringent. The federal government controls more than half the land in Oregon, and environmental regulations have made it increasingly difficult for residents to get permits for logging, cattle grazing and mining, The Washington Post reported. Cheryl sympathizes with those concerns (some of the men in her family, including her late husband and father-in-law, made their living as loggers). But she is strongly opposed to the methods the militants, led by former rancher Ammon Bundy, are using to voice their grievances. "They're destroying federal property, they're trespassing. How long can you let something like that go on?" Cheryl said. She and her brothers used to climb the refuge watchtower at Malheur. As of this writing, it was occupied by the armed militants. The house where Cheryl and her brothers grew up was destroyed several years ago in a flood. The protesters seized control of many of the remaining refuge buildings, along with a firefighter bunkhouse and volunteer-operated museum. "There is a problem that needs to be addressed," Cheryl said, "but not that way." She hopes for a peaceful resolution on the land that was her childhood home. Drivers make their way around the roundabout at the intersection of Colorado Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Stuart. An email from Ken Philbrick of Jensen Beach: "Mr. Smart could do an article about roundabouts in regard to the proper road rules for using the circle." And I'd love to help. I really would. But someone's going to have to explain it to me first. I come from Pennsylvania, where you don't see many roundabouts. There's one in Gettysburg; in retrospect, it's a wonder Robert E. Lee ever made it, rather than taking the wrong exit and winding up in back in Virginia. My first "real" roundabout experience came on Grand Cayman Island a few years ago. You think "Confusion Corner" in Stuart is bad? Try it at night, in the rain, in a car where the steering wheel is on the opposite side of the dashboard, in a country where they drive on the opposite side of the road. But as Mr. Philbrick suggests, I'm not alone in my confusion. Looking back through our archives, we periodically get letters complaining about the clueless drivers who menace roundabouts. Curiously, many of those letters appear just as winter is beginning. I wonder why that might be ... So here's my question: Is it just snowbirds and newbies like me gumming up the works? Or do roundabouts perplex the locals, too? Confused as people may be, wrecks appear to be fairly rare in roundabouts. For example, according to Port St. Lucie Police, there were just nine accidents in the city's nine roundabouts in 2015. In Martin County, there were more: 21 wrecks at five county roundabouts, including seven at the Cove Road/Southeast Dixie Highway circle. Is this better or worse than "regular" intersections? Port St. Lucie Sgt. Frank Sabol said the department doesn't really compare them, but nationally there are plenty of studies showing that intersections converted to roundabouts see big reductions in injury crashes; because traffic's moving only one direction, you basically eliminate the possibility of a head-on collision or a "T-bone" crash. But there's also research showing circles can lead to more fender benders. The (Albany, N.Y.) Times-Union dug into crash statistics and found "Crashes increased at 15 of the 20 roundabouts built where a previous intersection existed, with fender benders even more likely to rise, sometimes dramatically, at two-lane rotaries." The reason: aggressive drivers speed through and won't yield the right of way. In a video on roundabouts posted on the Port St. Lucie YouTube channel, Officer John Fazio says, "People are in such a hurry and they don't want to take the time to slow down and actually yield to the traffic inside the circle, so they try to beat that traffic and a lot of times, because everything's happening so quickly, their depth perception isn't that (good), they can't judge speed and distance that well, creating a crash circumstance." You have to wonder about a road design that everyone agrees would be awesome if people actually knew how to use it. Nonetheless, the roundabout revolution (see what I did there?) continues. The Florida Department of Transportation recently revised its traffic engineering policy to encourage roundabouts. Stuart has talked about building more roundabouts; Port St. Lucie has two in the design process. There are, for the record, no roundabouts on public roads in the unincorporated areas of Indian River County. Lucky them. But I'm not even safe if I go back to Pennsylvania: Roundabouts "will multiply across Pennsylvania if transportation officials have their way, so much so that you could find one on your regular route in the not-too-distant future," reports the Allentown Morning Call. Great. That means I, and you and Mr. Philbrick have no choice: we must learn the rules of the circular road. So as a public service, and cribbing liberally from an FDOT brochure on traffic circles and Port St. Lucie's video, I present to you: the official Smart guide to navigating those stupid roundabouts: The basic rule of thumb is: Yield. Yield like crazy. If there's already a car in the circle they have the right of way, and you yes, you, Mr. Impatient need to wait. Also, if it's a two-lane roundabout, the rule is: If you're making a right turn, keep right; if you have to go around the circle to find your exit, keep left until you find your street, then use your right-turn signal to merge into the right lane, then exit. Simple, right? Or maybe not. "If you miss your street," advises the FDOT brochure, "simply travel around the roundabout again and exit at the desired street." And try not to think of that scene in "European Vacation" where Clark Griswold makes endless loops around that London circle: "Look kids, there's Big Ben and there's Parliament ... again." Also: Never stop in a roundabout except to avoid a collision. Never turn left as you enter the circle. Go slow. Look out for pedestrians and bicyclists. And make sure your insurance is paid up. Just kidding on that last one. Well, maybe not. But you get the idea: Relax and follow these simple Smart rules of the road and you, too, can negotiate a roundabout without having a nervous breakdown or causing a cataclysmic wreck. And if all else fails: Take the bus. Gov. Rick Scott (AP Photo/Steve Cannon) SHARE By Paula Dockery How ridiculous is it for a sitting governor to use money raised from special interests to campaign for tax cuts from the Legislature controlled by his own party? That's what Florida Gov. Rick Scott is doing. Scott doesn't have a particularly effective strategy of working with the House and Senate, despite both legislative chambers being controlled by members of his own party. But he does have a PAC. His political action committee, Let's Get to Work, takes contributions from many special interest groups, lobbyists and corporations that do business with the state. In 2015 alone, Scott collected $4.5 million for his PAC. Scott can't run for re-election, but he continues to raise money from those with a stake in state government. Perhaps he is eyeing the 2018 U.S. Senate seat. How else to explain why he uses PAC money to run the governor's office like a campaign? Scott has a limited agenda for the 2016 legislative session but if passed, it would permanently reduce the state treasury by $1.25 billion with $1 billion in tax cuts and $250 million for corporate welfare. Instead of working with the 160 members of the Legislature to craft a negotiated tax package, he chose instead to spend $1 million from his PAC to buy ads statewide to back legislators into a corner. His campaign-style, nine-city bus tour is designed to rally voter support and encourage voters to lobby their legislators. Scott sought tax cuts for each of the six years he's been in office. The Legislature has always obliged. Of course, there were differences. Last year, Scott requested $673 million in cuts; the Legislature cut $429 million. The year before, Scott wanted $500 million in cuts and got $121 million. In Scott's first three years, 2011-2013, the cuts were more modest, as we were coming out of a recession. Tax cuts are not a rarity in Florida. Under Jeb Bush's eight years as governor, there were tax cuts every year as well. It's estimated those cuts totaled at least $13 billion in reduced tax revenue. Do Floridians realize how many tax cuts there have been? Do they feel they personally benefitted from them? One cut that took more than $200 million out of the budget might have resulted in an average savings of $20 per taxpayer. Did they notice? History shows the Legislature loves giving tax cuts as much as the governor does, so they are not a tough sell particularly in an election year. But it's the Legislature that must balance the state's checkbook. The Legislature estimates the revenue and determines how much to spend, how much to save and how much to return to the taxpayers. Since the state is not permitted to run a deficit, funds are placed in reserve in case the revenue projections are higher than actual collections. Scott's lofty request is based on an increased revenue estimate of $1.3 billion far higher than the $635 million predicted by the Legislature's economists. The money may not be there to fund the cuts this year, let alone for every year thereafter. Scott wants permanent tax cuts that would limit the ability to address future needs. Cutting taxes on a yearly basis allows for unforeseen fluctuations in revenue. Instead of broad-based cuts, the bulk of Scott's proposal is aimed at business. He eliminates corporate income taxes for manufacturers and retailers ($770 million), permanently cuts sales tax on manufacturing equipment ($77 million) and reduces the state's sales tax on commercial rents. Will the average Floridian see any savings? Scott boasts of increasing education funding by $507 million, but he does that by using $427 million from local property taxes. For homeowners, as the value of their homes goes up, so do their property taxes. Why not cut property taxes if the goal is to put more money into people's pockets? Money should be returned to taxpayers after essential services and infrastructure are funded. Unfortunately, we have many unmet needs in our growing state of 20 million people. One million working poor are without health insurance. Our per capita spending for mental health ranks 49th nationally. Our schools, prisons and government buildings are in disrepair. Our troubled prison system is underfunded and understaffed. The list goes on. Shouldn't we fund our needs before giving tax cuts? Florida spends less per capita ($3,697) than any of our neighbors Alabama ($4,927), Georgia ($4,098), Mississippi ($6,237) and South Carolina ($4,436). Voters shouldn't be fooled into jumping on the billion-dollar tax-cut bandwagon without understanding who benefits and who does without. Paula Dockery is a syndicated columnist who served in the Florida Legislature for 16 years as a Republican from Lakeland. She can be reached at PBDockery@gmail.com. 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. NASA last week announced that it has established thePlanetary Defense Coordination Office to formalize its efforts to detect and track near-Earth objects. The PDCO will supervise all NASA-funded projects to find and characterize asteroids and comets that pass near Earths orbit around the sun. It will issue notices of close passes and warnings of any detected potential impacts, and will work with the Department of Defense, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and other U.S. agencies and their international counterparts to respond to potential impacts. About 1,500 near-Earth objects are detected each year, and more than 13,500 NEOs of all sizes have been discovered since NASA began funding surveys in 1998. Weve found about 92 percent of objects larger than a kilometer in size out of an estimated population of a little over 1,000, said Lindley Johnson, planetary defense officer at NASA. Our goal was updated in 2005 to find those 140 meters and larger, and weve found about 7,000 of those out of an estimated population of 25,000 to 26,000, he told TechNewsWorld. An NEOs size is measured by its longest axis. Not So Far Away Potentially hazardous objects the PDCO tracks are asteroids and comets measuring 30 to 50 meters whose orbits are predicted to bring them within 0.05 astronomical units of Earth. An AU is about 93 million miles. Now, 0.05 AUs translates to 4.65 million miles, which may seem a tad too far for concern, but this is based on definitions of the astronomical community that go back 20 years, Johnson explained. Anything that comes within a few million miles of the Earth would be affected by the Earths gravitational pull. NASA is continually assessing what weve learned and may modify the definition of potentially hazardous objects over time as it learns more about them, he said. The PDCO will prepare notification messages to be sent to the Executive Office of the President, Congress and other government organizations if a potentially hazardous object has a more than 1 percent chance over the next 100 years of impacting Earth. We want to be seriously tracking an object that has that great a chance of an unwanted impact, Johnson remarked. Also, NASA wants to ensure that it has plenty of time to determine a potential response, which will depend on the objects size and how far ahead in the future its impact could be. The Tracking Process NEOs are detected using ground-based telescopes around the world as well as NASAs space-based NEOWISE infrared telescope. Tracking data is sent to a global database maintained by theMinor Planet Center, which has been sanctioned by theInternational Astronomical Union. Once an NEO is detected, the Center for NEO Studies at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory predicts and monitors its orbit. Select NEOs are further characterized by NASAs Infrared Telescope Facility, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and interplanetary radar operated by NASA and the National Science Foundation. These efforts are coordinated and funded by NASAs long-established NEO Observations Program, which will continue as a research program under the PDCO. Unseen Dangers Even though weve been attempting to map the really big objects that come close, there are approximately 10 percent that could be classified as civilization-enders that we dont know about, said Mike Jude, a research manager at Frost & Sullivan. Your best bet is to detect these things early and then deflect them, he told TechNewsWorld. NASA is working on the Asteroid Redirection Mission concept, which would use the mass of an object to pull a potentially hazardous object slightly out of its original orbit. This leverages the gravitational force all objects have in space. Some of the technologies required for this are already under development in other NASA missions such as the one to Mars, Lindley said, and the redirection mission will pull all these technologies together in Phase A while contracts are being released for other parts of the mission. Combining human and computer intelligence could help solve the worlds most vexing problems, researchers envisioned in an article published Monday in the journal Science. Researchers fromCornell University and theHuman Computation Institute want more humans to help out in accelerating research and finding solutions to lifes most difficult problems, such as cancer, HIV, climate change and drought. Crowdsourcing analysis of research materials isnt new. There are already games with a purpose that offload some of the work of analyzing data to humans, who receive the tasks packaged as games. When the purpose of those games involves forwarding science, its called citizen science, said Pietro Michelucci, director of the Human Computation Institute. New tools and infrastructure have made it easier to combine various methods of crowdsourcing and create more complex and sophisticated systems, he told TechNewsWorld. So this means, instead of creating just one-off human computation systems from scratch each time, we now have the ability to connect different methods of engagement and have real-time access to crowds, Michelucci said. Citizen Science The discovery of an HIV-related finding, which had eluded researchers for a decade and a half, took only 10 days for citizen scientists to reach. The crowd experts were manipulating 3-D models in protein folding game Foldit. If you could create an expert by combining people in the crowd, then you have access to a lot more crowd experts, said Michelucci. So we use the wisdom of the crowd method to combine contributions from the general public. For a smartphone app called Malaria Spot, researchers found that every 23 diagnoses from members of the general public were as accurate as one diagnosis from a certified pathologist. But 23 might not be the right number for Michelucci and companys WeCureAlz initiative for researching Alzheimers disease, and it may be the wrong number of crowd experts for many other systems. We have to figure out how many members of the public it takes to analyze a certain amount of data before that analysis is as accurate as the one from the trained scientist working in the lab,he said. When we can make that work, we have this force multiplier. If we have 30,000 people in the general public and it takes 30 people, then we have 1,000 crowd experts, Michelucci added. Crowd experts could fix problems of all sizes someday, according to Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. For example, human computation can impact litigation, both case law and discovery, primary research on trends and causes, he told TechNewsWorld. Politics would be timely, for instance. Man and Machine Human computation is far from humans doing the bidding of machines. It is about leveraging humans in areas where machines fall short, according to Michelucci. Another way of looking at it is, if machines could do everything humans could do, we wouldnt need AI researchers anymore, he said. For example, in chess, humans still have the edge in being able to focus on only the logical moves, Michelucci pointed out. Computers are good at chess because they consider every possible move, including the ones that clearly make no sense. Even if machines can evaluate millions of moves per second, they waste most of their time on moves that wont be successful, Michelucci said. Whereas human abilities like abstraction, complex pattern recognition, imagination and creativity those kinds of things make it possible for people to find solutions quickly that machines cant because there are too many possibilities to search through. A study titled "Earliest hominin occupation of Sulawesi, Indonesia" published in the journal Nature on Jan. 13 reveals that the stone tools excavated two kilometers east of Talepu in Sulawesi Island, Indonesia can be dated to between 118,000 to 194,000 years ago. This dates the tools to around the time of the Homo Floresiensis, a hominid species dubbed as "hobbits" roughly three and a half feet tall. The study was published by Gerrit D. van den Bergh from the University of Wollongong (UOW) in Australia and his team of archaeologists. It includes the findings of archaeologist Michael Morwood, also from UOW, who passed away in 2013. The findings and successful dating of the tools lead to the question of whether the Homo floresiensis were the makers and users of the tools or if there were other hobbit-like hominids that inhabited other parts of the island. The team is looking into the possibility of other dwarfish humanoid species existing in isolation at around the same time as the Homo floresiensis instead of giving the full credit to the hobbits. The paper listed early members of modern humans, homo floresiensis, homo erectus and Denisovans as the possible early toolmakers and users in Sulawesi. Van den Bergh, however, is betting on homo erectus as the toolmakers since they are found in other parts of South East Asia. "We now have direct evidence that when modern humans arrived on Sulawesi, supposedly between 60,000 and 50,000 years ago and aided by watercraft, they must have encountered an archaic group of humans that was already present on the island long before," van den Bergh said. The "hobbits" of Indonesia were most likely closest in appearance to J.R.R. Tolkien's Harfoots hobbits who had brown skin, smaller build and shorter height, but closer in lifestyle to the Stoors hobbits who preferred flat lands and riversides, considering the tools were excavated near the Walanae River at Paroto. "Like on Flores, where Homo floresiensis evolved under isolated conditions over a period of almost 1 million years, Sulawesi could also have harbored an isolated human lineage. And the search for fossil remains of the Talepu toolmaker is now open," van der Bergh added. So what does this mean for the history of human habitation? Researchers believe that early hominin may have reached the shores of Australia by going through Sulawesi some 50,000 years ago. In addition, they also supposed that the size of homo floresiensis is an evolutionary trait that occurred due to scarcity of food sources in the island. The hypothesis backs the idea that the hobbits descended from a smaller stature pre-homo erectus hominin since no test supports that idea that homo floresiensis descended from homo erectus. Furthermore, it supports the idea that the homo erectus is not the first hominin species that migrated out of Africa. As to how they reached the Sulawesi island, van den Bergh could only surmise that a tsunami had something to do with it. That is, the inhabitants were washed up on the shores of Sulawesi after a tsunami carried them away. For now, archaeologists can only hypothesize on which hominin specie really made the tools but, so far, the biggest bet is still on homo erectus. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. YouTube has launched homepages for its users in Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, with each homepage featuring a localized languages and domains. While the video-sharing website has already been previously available in Nepali, Sinhalese and Urdu, the dedicated homepages will be bringing the most relevant videos of the website as tailored to the country's users. Google announced the launch of the three new localized homepages through a post in the Google Asia Pacific Blog, written by YouTube Asia Pacific director of operations and content Gautam Anand. The post also stated that with the initiative, the company is hoping that more local creators, musicians and personalities from the three countries would be given the chance to reach out to audiences through YouTube. In addition, the blog post also took a look at the top watched videos for each country. Among the top watched YouTube videos in Nepal is the third part of the musical series "Nai Nabhannu La," which follows the journey of Rhythm, a young and talented musician, and his relationship with his mother who adopted him. For Sri Lanka, Australia-based YouTuber Gappiya has risen in popularity among the viewers of the country. One of Gappiya's most watched videos is the "Sri Lankan Spider Man," which provides a humorous take on the everyday life of Sri Lankans. In Pakistan, the people seemingly enjoy the music offerings of the video-sharing website the most, with one of the most popular YouTube channels being that of Coke Studio. The channel uploads videos of studio-recorded live music performances by Pakistani artists, with the tribute of Atif Aslam to the Sabri brothers' "Tajdar-e-Haram" being one of its most watched videos with 11 million views so far. YouTube's decision to provide a homepage for users in Pakistan is interesting, to say the least, as the website has been banned in the country since 2012. The move was even reinforced early last year in February when the country's government said that the ban on YouTube would remain indefinitely. The launch could be a positive action towards the removal of the ban, which was enforced after the American-made video entitled "Innocence of Muslims" emerged on YouTube. The film painted the Prophet Mohammed in a negative light, which triggered massive protests among the Muslim community, including within Pakistan, where demonstrations led to the deaths of 20 people. YouTube.com.pk, the URL of YouTube Pakistan's homepage, is currently not accessible within the country. To access the website, users in Pakistan are required to utilize proxies to bypass the ban. This could change within weeks, however, as the country's Supreme Court is preparing for a decision regarding the return of Google and its YouTube service. The removal of YouTube's ban in Pakistan will depend on how well Google complied with the requests that were made by the telecommunications authority of Pakistan for the removal of objectionable content. It would seem that Google has acceded to the requests, though a spokesperson revealed that each request made will need to go through a review process. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Since the most vulnerable people to the new Zika virus are pregnant women, health officials may warn them against traveling to countries with known cases of the disease. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that certain birth defects like microcephaly may be linked to the mosquito-borne illness. Though the warning may be the first time that the CDC is advising pregnant women to avoid specific regions during an outbreak, infectious specialists say that the warning is warranted. The warning may take a toll on tourism and travel. In light of the outbreak and the United States' first case of the disease, the agency may issue the final warning in the next couple of days. In its latest update, it released [PDF] a report on the possible link between Zika virus and birth defects with a warning for pregnant women to take caution when traveling to outbreak hot spots. Zika virus disease is a mosquito-borne illness caused by a virus transmitted through a vector of Aedes mosquitoes. Though most people infected recover in matter of days or weeks, pregnant women are susceptible to detrimental effects. Recent evidence shows that pregnant women, especially on their first trimester, are more likely to have children with small heads, damaged brains and neurological problems, called microcephaly. Zika virus is a relatively new mosquito-borne disease first reported in Brazil in May 2015 and has spread to neighboring Latin American countries since then. Estimates of 440,000 to 1.3 million people have been infected by the virus. In Brazil, during the outbreak, a sudden increase of babies born with microcephaly was reported. More than 2,700 babies were born with birth defects and neurological issues from the expected 147 recorded in 2014. That is around 10 times higher than what the country sees each year. Health experts are still investigating the association between the virus and birth defects. Since there is still no vaccine available for Zika virus, prevention is needed to avert infection. CDC recommends using insect repellants, protective clothing and using screen windows to prevent mosquitoes from coming inside houses and establishments. Photo: John Tann | Flickr 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A team of archeologists exploring an almost 2,200-year-old tomb of a Chinese emperor of the Han Dynasty found the world's oldest tea. That's probably been brewing for a long time. This discovery sheds light on the new evidence that proves that ancient Chinese royalty were tea drinkers. The team discovered the tea leaves in the Han Yangling Mausoleum, a special tomb built for Emperor Jing Di. He is thought to have died around 141 BCE. The 1,250-year-old tea was one of the many ancient items discovered when the tomb was evacuated in the '90s in Tibet. Some of the artifacts are pottery figures, weapons and even chariots with horses. At the time, the box was filled with an unidentified type of leaves. With the expertise of scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, mass spectrometry was used to identify the nature of the leaves. After thorough investigation, the leaves were proven to be real tea leaves. Findings show that the leaves are similar to modern green tea leaves that the world enjoys today. It was also found to contain high amounts of caffeine. "Our study reveals that tea was drunk by Han Dynasty emperors as early as 2100 yr BP and had been introduced into the Tibetan Plateau by 1800 yr BP. This indicates that one branch of the Silk Road passed through western Tibet at that time," the study said. The researchers added that identifying the tea through modern methods has provided a unique view on Chinese mysteries in terms of culture, beliefs and practices. The origin of the beverage was a controversy, but this time, the study shows that it originated in China. Tea was then one of the most popular drinks around the world, and have been so up to the present. "Our data indicate that the plant residues unearthed at both the Han Yangling Mausoleum and Gurgyam Cemetery are the earliest physical evidence of tea in the world. These data indicate that tea was part of trade of luxury products, alongside textiles, that moved along the Silk Road around 2,000 years ago, and were traded up into Tibet," the researchers added. The study was published in the journal Nature's Scientific Reports. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Low sperm motility is one of the top causes of infertility. To help couples conceive, scientists created motorized "spermbots." This mechanism helps poor swimmers reach an egg. Researchers from the Institute for Integrative Nanosciences at the Leibniz-Institut fur Festkorper- und Werkstoffforschung or IFW Dresden wanted to create a new method to help couples conceive. The research team included Mariana Medina-Sanchez, Oliver G. Schmidt, Lukas Schwarz and several colleagues from IFW Dresden. Using past research on micromotors, the researchers have developed small metal helices that will fit around a sperm's tail. A rotating magnetic field is used to control the helices' movement. Based on lab tests, the micromotors can be coaxed to attach itself around a sperm and help drive the poor swimmer into an egg before releasing it. The research is still in its early stages and further study is needed before they can conduct clinical tests. However, the debut demonstration already seemed promising. The research team also noted that the metal helices do not harm the sperm cell. Other existing methods included artificial insemination, which is a simple and straightforward technique wherein a sperm is directly introduced into a woman's uterus using a medical instrument. According to Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority of the United Kingdom, this inexpensive technique has an average success of less than 30 percent. A more effective and expensive process is called the in vitro fertilization or IVF. This complicated method involves removal of a woman's eggs from her ovaries using a needle. The retrieved eggs are fertilized in a lab and the embryos will then be transferred back to the uterus. Since each step in the two methods carries risk of failure, the researchers wanted to create a simpler and better option. "Our results indicate that metal-coated polymer microhelices are suitable for this task due to potent, controllable, and nonharmful 3D motion behavior," the researchers wrote. "We manage to capture, transport, and release single immotile live sperm cells in fluidic channels that allow mimicking physiological conditions." The research was published in the American Chemical Society's journal Nano Letters. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Mild traumatic brain injury or mTBI among combat veterans have long been linked to explosive blasts. However, it is only now that experts found where exactly in the brain the harm occurs as well how it happens. A research team from the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System and the University of Washington (UW) analyzed brain scans of combat veterans. They also conducted similar research in mice to see where and how mTBI occurs. The team has found that the cerebellum is highly susceptible to the recurring explosive blasts. The cerebellum is a brain part responsible for coordinating balance and movement as well as several cognitive skills. Among former soldiers in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, mTBI is referred to as the "signature injury" due to it prevalence. Across the world, there are about 250,000 to 500,000 U.S. military members diagnosed with this signature injury. Lead author James S. Meabon expressed that these TBI types are rarely heard of because most people dismiss these milder types if they are not suffering from a more severe form of brain injury. Meabon is a geriatrics and psychiatry expert at VA Puget Sound and UW. More than 40 former soldiers suffered an average of 21 mTBIs due to explosions in the recent wars and some even exceeded 100 brain injuries. The higher the blasts encountered, the lower the glucose metabolism levels get in the cerebellum. Glucose metabolism is a brain activity marker. In the animal lab test, the same damage was found in the cerebellums of mice exposed to repeated blasts via the "shock tubes." In this particular study, the blasts damaged some parts of the blood-brain barrier. This resulted in death of several neurons in the cerebellum and protein buildup, a marker of Alzheimer's disease and dementia. Brain scans of both mice and human subjects revealed further structural damages in the fibers that connect brain regions together. "We need to pay more attention to the cerebellum," said VA scientist David Cook, who is also a research associate professor of medicine in pharmacology at UW. The findings could help the scientific and medical communities deal with mTBI's effects on the cerebellum among former soldiers. It can also aid in better understanding of the emotional challenges former soldiers face. The study was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine on Jan. 13. Photo: The U.S. Army | Flickr 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A chemical banned more than 30 years ago but persisting in the environment is threatening killer whales and dolphins living in ocean waters around Europe, a study suggests. Polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, once used in the production of paints, flame retardants and electrical equipment, were banned in the U.S. in 1979 when they were found to be highly toxic. The UK followed with a ban in 1981. However, PCBs are long-lasting and still linger in the environment and have an impact on the entire marine food chain, researchers at the Zoological Society of London say. They may be harming Europe's orcas and dolphins, they warn. ZSL scientists studying more than 1,000 orcas, also known as killer whales, and dolphins and porpoises that were either stranded or that were biopsied reported finding dangerously high levels of PCB. Such elevated levels can damage the marine mammals' immune system and interfere with breeding, they explain. "Few coastal orca populations remain in western European waters," says says Paul Jepson, a wildlife veterinarian with the zoological society and leader of a study appearing in Scientific Reports. Those that are still there are very small and exhibiting low or zero rates of reproduction, he says. Long-living top predators like killer whales would be exposed to PCBs in the marine food chain, they say, with the toxic chemicals settling in the animals' fatty tissues. "The long life expectancy and position as apex or top marine predators make species like killer whales and bottlenose dolphins particularly vulnerable to the accumulation of PCBs through marine food webs," Jepson says. Around 300,000 tons of PCBs were produced in Europe between 1954 and 1984, he says, and is slowly leaching out of landfills and into rivers and estuaries, and from there, eventually into the marine environment habitats of whales and dolphins. Levels found in cetaceans orcas, dolphins and porpoises around Europe may be higher than elsewhere in the world because PCBs were banned there later than in other parts of the globe, researchers say. "Our findings show that, despite the ban and initial decline in environmental contamination, PCBs still persist at dangerously high levels in European cetaceans," Jepson says. A large part of the problem is that PCBs were specifically designed to be resistant to heat and chemicals and to not degrade with time. "They were designed to last a very long time, so it is incredibly hard to destroy them," Jepson says. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Microsoft is trying really hard to boost the success of its Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL and it's now offering a free one-year subscription to Office 365. The Microsoft Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL are the company's current flagship smartphones, rocking Windows 10 Mobile out of the box and boasting high-end specs and features all around. Both handsets stirred plenty of interest upon their debut, but may not be selling as well as the company likely hoped. Microsoft slashed the prices of the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL on several occasions, spicing things up with a few freebies as well, and it's now at it again with a new attractive offer. Microsoft now wants you to "be productive like a boss," and it's bundling its latest flagship smartphones with free access to Office 365 Personal good for one year. This subscription normally costs $69.99, so this deal allows for significant savings. The new bundle deal applies to both new and recent buyers of the Lumia 950 or Lumia 950 XL. "If you've recently purchased a new Lumia 950 or Lumia 950 XL or if you purchase one soon, claim your one-year subscription to Office 365 Personal," Microsoft notes. The company further touts that its Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL are the most powerful smartphones it's ever made. In addition to powerful specs, both handsets also offer neat features such as Cortana and Continuum, allowing users to work like they do on their PC. The free subscription to Office 365 aims to empower users to make the most of Windows 10. The new one-year Office 365 Personal bundle is a limited-time deal available only in select markets, which include the U.S., the UK, France, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Sweden. "Valid with the purchase of new Lumia 950 or 950 XL and offer registration from November 20, 2015 to June 30, 2016, or while supplies last," Microsoft further explains on a dedicated page. With this subscription, users will also be able to access the latest Office apps on a second device, be it a PC, Mac or tablet, so they can easily work on their documents across devices. Lastly, it's also worth pointing out that the Microsoft Lumia 950 XL also comes with a free Display Dock when purchased unlocked. This offer is available until Jan. 31, or while supplies last. For more information about the devices themselves, check out our Lumia 950 review roundup or our Lumia 950 XL review roundup. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The New York State Senate has began to re-analyze a bill which aims to eliminate strong smartphone encryption for all devices sold or leased in the Empire State. If the encryption bill gets the green light, smartphones sold within New York could have more exposure to hacking than those in the rest of the United States. The bill wants OEMs and OS providers to embed backdoor in their smartphones, so that the items could be easily unlocked by law enforcement officers and other state authorities if necessary. "Encryption threatens to lead us all to a very, very dark place. The place that this is leading us is one that I would suggest we shouldn't go without careful thought and public debate," James Comey, FBI Director declared back in 2014. The bill states that it aims to tax electronics manufacturers $2,500 per rogue device. As it is expected, members of the New York State Assembly are citing public interest as the bill's raison d'etre. They point out that terrorist threats and criminal activities could be easily contained, should the legal initiative pass. Members of the Assembly note that criminals will take every chance to hide evidence from police officers and smartphone encryption gives them ample opportunity to do so. In the opinion of some legislators, password-protected devices "encourage criminals." Currently, the New York State Assembly is still debating the bill in committee, and the next procedural step is to have it on the floor calendar. Following this step, the senate and state assembly members will vote on the double-edged bill. The assembly bill was drafted earlier last year and should be passed in 2016. The changes could take effect starting Jan. 1, 2017 or 2018. No official information exists on the level of political or public support for the new legislation. Three years ago, whistleblower Edward Snowden unveiled the staggering level of surveillance that the National Security Agency (NSA) exposed its citizens and non-citizens to. Since then, a big segment of the American population started backing mobile encryption. Both Google and Apple upped the security and encryption levels on Android and iOS, catering to the privacy of their customers. Apple CEO Tim Cook lashed out against encryption on several occasions, firmly opposing back doors. If the New York bill passes and mobile device manufacturers still refuse to remove the encryption from their handsets, their profits in the state could plunge. However, New Yorkers could simply shop for their favorite Android or iOS in Philadelphia or Ohio, meaning that the OEMs such as Apple could stick to their principles and keep their sales numbers undented. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Thousands of common murres have been washing up dead along the beaches of the Alaska Gulf since last summer and the worst is not yet over. With the North Pacific Ocean pounded by storms, the birds are finding themselves far away from their natural habitats, losing the battle to survive. In Whittier, Alaska, about 8,000 dead murres have been recorded, while popular tourist destination Homer also reported thousands of seabird deaths. No one knows just how many carcasses litter the remote and rarely visited beaches that run along the coast of the Alaska Gulf. This isn't the first murre die-off Alaska has seen but what's different this time is that the seabirds were forced inland by an oscillating jetstream that has been wreaking havoc on the state's weather for two winters in a row. Some blamed climate change but experts say it is difficult to determine if what Alaska is experiencing is a short-term, but strange, anomaly or a long-term shift. Murres lucky enough to be found alive are taken to rehabilitation centers but the sheer number of seabirds needing rescue has taxed resources. Additionally, rescuers are worried that rehabilitated seabirds would just end up starving in the wild. The common murre, in particular, needs to eat small fish around a fiftieth of its body weight each day to live. While the weather is a big factor in the present die-off, there is also clearly a problem relating to the seabird's food supply. "We know they are starving. Their stomachs are empty. But we don't yet know what the mechanism is," said Robb Kaler, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife seabird biologist in Anchorage. One possible reason why murres are not getting the food they need is that the number of herring and other small fish may be lower than usual or they may be behaving differently because of the unusual weather in the region. Thousands of dead murres may seem like a drop in the bucket considering the 2.8 million seabirds scattered around Alaska across 230 primary nesting grounds, but local officials are saying the current die-off is exceptional. As horrible as a die-off is, there is some good to come out of it, like leaving eagles, ravens, coyotes, magpies, minks, weasels, foxes and other animals happily fed. Photo: Ron Knight | Flickr 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Audi is venturing into a mission to the moon, working alongside Google Lunar XPRIZE participant Part-Time Scientists to develop a moon rover. Called the Audi lunar quattro, the moon rover is made of high-strength aluminum and weighs 77.2 pounds. It will be shaving off some of that weight, however, as it continues development and integrates the use of magnesium. Some of its features include a swiveling solar panel and four wheels that can rotate 360 degrees, as well as two stereo cameras capable of 3D imagery. A third camera will be in place for studying materials and producing high-resolution panoramic photos. The Audi lunar quattro is rated with a theoretical maximum speed of 2.2 mph, which doesn't sound at all impressive but when you're up on the moon, safe navigating abilities and off-road qualities will be of better use to you than speed. A team of 10 Audi employees from across different technical departments have been assigned to assist the Part-Time Scientists, sharing their expertise on the electrical e-tron drive system and the quattro permanent all-wheel system. Their goal is to further enhance the rover's performance by improving its battery, power electronics and electric motors. Additionally, Audi will be providing assistance for tests and quality assurance. According to Google Lunar XPRIZE requirements, the rover must be able to drive at least half a kilometer across the moon and beam back high-resolution video footage and images to Earth. It must also be launched in space by 2017 on a rocket traveling 236,121 miles to the moon and land in a target zone north of the equator of the moon, close to where the Apollo 17 landed in 1972. The trip to the moon is estimated to take about five days and cost some $26.2 million. So far, the Part-Time Scientists are doing well in the competition, winning two Milestone Prizes, each worth $750,000. They were given the award for developing the rover and its accompanying optical system. Founded by Robert Bohme, Part-Time Scientists is made up of more than 70 members across Austria and Germany. They are one of 16 groups (down from 34) remaining in the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition. Aside from Audi, the German Aerospace Center, the Austrian Space Forum, the Technical University of Berlin, NVIDIA and former NASA employee Jack Crenshaw also support the Part-Time Scientists. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Facebook's friend-finder feature is used daily all around the world. Well ... not in Germany, anymore. Reuters is reporting that Germany's Federal Court of Justice has deemed the social media network's feature unlawful due to the way it garners information from users' email lists and solicits those people who aren't a part of Facebook to join. In other words, the ruling essentially likens Facebook's friend-finder feature to spam and online advertising harassment, adding that the company didn't efficiently inform its members about how their information was being used. According to Reuters, this court case dates back to 2010 from the Federation of German Consumer Organizations. This week, the court agreed with the complaint, ruling that the feature is a deceptive manner of marketing. Prior to this, two lower courts in Berlin in 2012 and 2014 ruled that the social media network violated German regulations about data protection. A spokesperson for Facebook in Germany told Reuters that its social media company has "to assess any impact on our services" in the country. This decision could also pave the way for the Federation of German Consumer Organizations to clamp down on other online networks that use this form of marketing. "What the judgment means exactly for the current Friends Finder, we now have to find out," Klaus Mueller, head of the group, told Reuters. "In addition to Facebook, other services use this form of advertising to attract new users. They must now probably rethink." 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. One of the biggest complaints about services like Uber is that they increase traffic in the locations in which they operate. A recent study, however, suggests that such complaints may not actually be true after all. It examines traffic in the increasingly-congested streets of Manhattan. The study has been long awaited and was expected to be released in the next few days. It was prompted by a disagreement between the New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, and Uber last summer, when the mayor suggested that it would be appropriate to cap the growth on Uber in the area. de Blasio backed away from Uber after the company went after him and City Hall in response to his comments, after which the study was ordered. It was conducted by consulting firm McKinsey & Co. It's likely that the release of the study will prompt a new round of debates over what to do about traffic in New York, especially when it comes to the growth of Uber. Once the full study is released, it's expected that it will look at how Uber's growth has changed traffic congestion in New York. While it is expected that the study will reveal that Uber has had a significant impact on traffic in the city, it seems like the company has not contributed to congestion there after all, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. Of course, the study could still cause complications for services like Uber and Lyft, which have been marketing their services as a way to help reduce congestion in cities like New York. However, depending on how many people take advantage of the carpooling service rather than the single-passenger service that both companies offer, they could end up having little to no impact on traffic. Via: Wall Street Journal 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Here are the 5 reasons why some Google employees live in parking lots Google Inc. is the worlds largest search engine site that specializes in Internet-related services and products. Constantly ranked as the best company to work for, Google employees are among the highest-paid in the world. The benefits and care of employees is obviously world class, and compensation is almost unmatchable. But the company attracts some of the best talent and best people to work with in the world, which is the most important bit. Google Program Manager (San Francisco, CA). To stay at the top, the company requires their employees to put in extra hours. As a result, you would reportedly find employees spending long hours at Google quite common. It turns that out some employees almost never leave the campus and start living in the parking lot! Theres even a Quora thread about it. Heres a look at 5 reasons Google employees prefer to live in parking lots and how easy it is High rents As the rent in South Bay area was too high, Ben Discoe decided to live at the Google campus, as he already had a house payment and alimony to pay. Hence, he stayed at the Google campus for a period of 13 months October 2011 to November 2012. It turned out that living in a parking lot was more suitable. When he started living on the campus, the security team at Google used to keep a watch on him. However, they left him alone once they were convinced that he was just an eccentric Googler. To save money Brandon Oxendine, a 23-year-old for the period June 28, 2013 to September 22, 2013 lived in a Google parking lot. He bought a station wagon, decorated it with two mattresses and put up curtains on the windows. According to Oxendines blog, 20s for him is the time to save some money and reach financial freedom. Hence, he chose to live in the parking lot. If I do plan on traveling the world, Ill need to be comfortable with unconventional living situations, and this is certainly a good place to start, he says. Another Google employee, whose name was not cited in the Quora thread, stayed like a camper in the tent on campus. He saved up enough in 2-3 years to buy himself a house. On a challenge Matthew J Weaver started living in a Google parking lot on a challenge and says it was excellent for my career. According to Fox News report, although Google does not have a policy of permitting employees to sleep in campus, the security team even kept a lookout on Weavers mobile home when he was away. When weather conditions were suitable, he would even hold parties in his RV on Thursdays wrote Weaver. However, he says that it was a little tough for him to provide explanation to women he was dating as to why he lived in a parking lot. Could not find accommodation One Googler could not find a place to stay who had shifted to the London office from the Mountain View headquarters. He decided to stay at the office till a permanent residence could be organized. However, he slept under his desk for a duration of one week, instead of staying in the parking lot. Not too difficult to stay Living in a Google parking lot, or somewhere else for that matter, turns out is not really difficult. Those employees who stayed at the campus for extended periods said that they showered at the gym and ate their meals at the office (Google provides free meals for all employees). Even laundry is not a problem, as employees can do their laundry on campus. Also, anytime you feel the need to use the restroom, just walk the short distance to the nearest Google building and badge in, writes Discoe. Horrifying moment for Briton as hoverboard catches fire with him on it In December last year, we had reported how the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) are looking into the safety of the popular toy hoverboard, after the commission had received several reports of the motorized, self-balancing scooters bursting into flames. In the increasing list of incidents is a recent instance of the hoverboard going up into flames while the owner was still on it. Kevin MacLeod, a British hoverboard owner says that he had charged his brand new hoverboard overnight and wanted to film his first attempt on the device in the video. He said, I thought i would end up falling over and wanted to catch it on video. The video shows that as soon as he takes the device outside to ride, it blows up in flames. To make matters worse, everything happens dangerously fast, giving MacLeod barely enough time to escape being burned by the fire. I started to stand back and look hesitant because I started to hear a kind of faint hissing sound just before the smoke I stood back to look down as to what it was. Before I could really react to that it was smoking then just went up in flames, he wrote in the comments. As he watches the hoverboard burn, McLeod says, No wonder youre not allowed to bring them on [airplane] flights. This one unlike other hoverboard burning videos doesnt continue to burn and shoot out batteries, maybe because the device was quickly extinguished with water by McLeod. However, the device still smoulders as smoke puffs from its insides even after throwing a good amount of water on the device. The YouTube user does not mention the brand name of the hoverboard; however, he did mention that he purchased it from a seller on eBay. Over the last two months, stories of hoverboards bursting into flames have been widely reported. In December, Amazon pulled many popular hoverboard models from its website after authorities around the world issued warnings about the safety of the devices. Many airlines, including Air Canada, have barred travelers from bringing them on board planes. The White House today appointed Sonus President and CEO Raymond Dolan to the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC). Dolan will sit on the committee with twenty other tech, aerospace, telecommunications, and development figures, including Chairs Mark McLaughlin of Intel and Renee James of Palo Alto. The NSTAC is an advisory council to Homeland Security, a branch of the Executive Office. The group convenes to address telecommunication concerns of national interest. Specifically, the committee is tasked with ensuring the availability and reliability of telecommunications during times of emergency. The council provides industry advice, recommendations, and reports on how to keep lines of communications open during worst-case scenarios. The NSTAC most recently began an initiative to analyze big datas effects on National Security/Emergency Preparedness (NS/EP). In March, 2015, the NSTAC formed the NSTAC Big Data Analytics Subcommittee, and plans to put out their findings by May, 2016. It is not immediately clear whether Dolan will sit on, consult, or weigh in on this initiative. The governments current relationship with telecommunications and big data is, to say the least, strained. After the Snowden leaks (which the administration refers to as the Snowden disclosures), the American people have championed privacy and decried the metadata collection efforts of the NSA. After the uncovering of the Prism project, in which citizens learned that corporations disclosed personal information to the government, many grew suspicious of the cozy relationship between tech companies and surveillance agencies. Now, the passing of CISA has legalized and extended the relationship between business and national security agencies. And although CISA has been largely absent from the presidential campaign rhetoric, potential candidates have begun a public debate about encrypted services. Candidates who favor strong security measures want to be granted backdoor access to encrypted services, while privacy advocates claim the government has no right to citizens communications. NSTAC gives leaders in the telecom field a vantage point through which to express their concerns, opinions, and ideas. In addition to their NS/EP initiatives, it would be nice to see the committee come to some agreement on national security, privacy, and industry concerns. Perhaps newcomer Dolan could chair that subcommittee? Edited by Maurice Nagle Spamhaus is an organization dedicated to fighting spam. This international not-for-profit organization compiles block lists with the IP addresses of known spammers. The information and spammer names are collected by volunteers around the world. In an interesting report that emerged this week, the Spamhaus pointed its finger squarely at Verizon as an unwitting aid to cybercriminal organizations. Spamhaus called out the company in reports that say the internet service provider is routing as many as four million stolen IP addresses through its networks. This is significant because cyber criminals use stolen IP addresses in order to spam people from an ever-evolving base of sources and evade spam protections. Heres how it should work: organizations that are found to be spammers are supposed to be kept from obtaining new IP addresses to spam from. This is a sort of sanctity mechanism that is supposed to be in place. Unfortunately, the reality is that cybercriminals circumvent many of the elements that are put in place to deter their efforts, including IP address banning. The accusation is that the stolen IP addresses are acquired through maneuvering around the information validation that should stop the registration of these IP addresses. The ruse is being executed through a registration system that is autonomous in nature, and apparently Verizon is not properly checking out the information that comes through it. According to Spamhaus, registration information that is coming through should have raised suspicions based on a number of factors. At the top of the list of red flags are the source the source of the stolen IP addresses. Some come from the United States, but others come from Hong Kong, Korea, and China. Verizon has reportedly been assigning IP address blocks on a regular basis to Asia Pacific regions, which has raised great concerns in the spam community. 4 million IP addresses are nothing to sneeze at. It is interesting that Verizon is the source for one of the industrys biggest cybersecurity reports yet they may be unknowingly contributing to some of these issues. As a leader in the cause of security issues, these accusations, if true, hopefully are no more than an egregious oversight. Spamhaus has reportedly been informing Verizon of these issues since July of 2015. Apparently little has been done to allay these concerns, but various statements put out by Verizon in response to the Spamhaus accusations reinforce Verizons commitment to combat internet abuse. Edited by Kyle Piscioniere Import.io, whose technology enables businesses to convert websites into usable data, has nabbed a $13 million Series A round of funding. The company is riding the wave of Big Data analytics demand, targeting the vast amount of data housed within informational and service Websites, among others. In an example of how it works, Import.io recently helped the San Francisco Chronicle determine the impact of services like Airbnb, Homeaway and Flipkey on the real-estate market in that city. The journalist working on the piece wanted data (price, region, landlords name, number of bedrooms etc.) on all the rentals in San Francisco from Flipkey and Homeaway. Import.io was able to build an API that extracted the links for each houses profile page on those sites, and then another API to get the actual data out of the profile pages, like the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, property types and rental rates. From there, it was able to dedupe properties across websites and begin combing the data for insights into the rental market. It was able to determine that: On average SF properties rent for between $282 $302 per night The Noe Valley has the most properties available to rent Some owners (with multiple properties) earn up to $10,000 per day from renting And, because the analysis was done using APIs, its possible re-extract the data at any time for comparative analysis on seasonal changes and the like. "The Web contains a wealth of business data and intelligence that can be used to inform decision-making -- and gain competitive advantage -- but most of that data is locked in an unusable format," said David White, founder and CEO at Import.io. Websites are designed for human consumption: like reading pages or watching videos, not for computer-driven data analysis. Our vision is to create technology that makes it easy for businesses to translate the Web into data that they can actually use. The new funding comes after a year of growth for the company: in 2015, users of Import.io created more than one million Web APIs and extracted data from over 5.5 billion Web pages. The company will use the funds to further develop its data extraction technology and expand its ecosystem of analytics and visualization partners. "This new round of funding represents the biggest investment ever in Web data extraction, and we are thrilled to partner with investors who think just as boldly and creatively as we do about delivering on our vision, White said. The new investment was led by Imperial Innovations, with participation from Wellington Partners, Oxford Capital, Open Ocean, Delin Capital and AME Cloud Ventures. Gary Read, formerly president and CEO at Boundary and Nimsoft, will join the board of directors as chairman; also joining the board are Martyn Holman of Oxford Capital; Mario Branciforti of Imperial Innovations; and Jonathan Hay of Delin Capital. Import.io previously raised $4.5 million in seed and angel funding, bringing the total raised to date to $17.5 million. "Import.io has developed a completely new way of extracting, processing, and delivering Web data, solving an increasingly urgent need for data-driven businesses around the world," said David Axmark, founder of MySQL and an angel investor in Import.io. "They are uniquely positioned to be the preferred provider of valuable Web intelligence for companies large and small." A 40 anos de Malvinas "Revisar el pasado es pensar el futuro". La frase de la presidenta de Telam, Bernarda Llorente, resume el espiritu del documental coproducido entre la agencia de noticias y el canal publico de TV sobre la cobertura que los medios de comunicacion hicieron del conflicto, plagada de censura y mentiras. Una autocritica necesaria para mirar hacia adelante en un (ya viejo) contexto de fake news y negocio informativo. There was a similar case in West Yorkshire in 1975. Stefan Kisko was arrested and convicted for the abduction and murder of an 11-year-old girl, Lesley Molseed. He confessed and served 16 years in prison, until developments in forensic science showed that it couldnt possibly be him. In 1992, when he was 40, he was freed on appeal and died a year later of a heart attack. There had been a long campaign by family suggesting he was innocent. The three senior officers and a forensic man were charged with suppressing evidence but this was never pursued because the lead detective died. The suggestion was that the detectives had bullied a confession out of him. Even when Kisko was released the detectives insisted he must have been there, and he must have had an accomplice. These days admissions alone would not be sufficient to convict anyone of a crime. There is a need for other irrefutable evidence, such as DNA or fingerprints. Both Brendan and Steven have very low IQs. How is a suspects IQ considered in questioning? Q I left the UK 14 years ago, and never filed any tax exemption forms or notified the tax authorities that I was leaving. I didnt know at the time that I should, and had no sense that I would be gone so long. Since, I have been travelling nonstop to multiple countries but never staying long enough to be required by their laws to pay tax, or in certain cases taxes have been waived as I work for an non-profit organisation. I have no financial ties to the UK, my mother and sisters are there, and my income is from an American firm sent to my UK bank. I have never overstayed 60 days a year. Now that I am planning to buy UK property in the next few years, and potentially wish to move back one day, do I need to notify the tax office now? Can I expect to pay any penalties? I don't even know what my tax number is. Dina Prior A. Howard Bilton, chairman, The Sovereign Group (www.sovereigngroup.com) Tracey Emin remembers a time, about 15 years ago, at the point when her life was starting to change extreme wealth from international shows and collectors all over the world giving her a rock-star fame beyond the art world that she told her then boyfriend what really pushed her on was "a mad desire to be more human, to be more normal". "Trace, youre going to have to face facts," he told her, "you and normal parted a long, long time ago." "He was right," Emin says today. "Its not going to happen. I have a different way of looking at things, a different way of living, a different attitude. I dont do what many other people believe in and have to do to be part of what is considered society. I live outside society and I enjoy that, but I should have been enjoying it a long time ago But maybe I didnt have the independence or confidence to know that I could." It's just not going to be the same. #alanrickman #platform934 #kingscrossstation #professorsnape #london #sadness #ripalanrickman A photo posted by Tedjakumala (@tedjakumala) on Jan 14, 2016 at 1:50pm PST Since the blockade began in the 1960s, the United States has harmed Cuba for US$154.2 billion at current prices. | Read More Construction has begun on the new $300 million USD (11 billion THB) SUPERNAP Thailand, located in Hemmaraj Industrial Estate in Thailands eastern province Chonburi. SUPERNAP Thailand will be the first Uptime Institute rated Tier IV Gold data center in Asia, as well as the largest data center in the Kingdom. The facility, which is expected to open in the first quarter of 2017, will have capacity for more than 6,000 data server racks. SUPERNAP Thailand Will Be The Most Advanced Data Center In Asia Pacific And The Largest In The Kingdom The SUPERNAP Thailand data center is a mirror of Switch SUPERNAP U.S. facilities, which are the first Tier IV Gold carrier-neutral colocation data centers on the planet. This cutting-edge data center will meet the global demand for innovation in Asia Pacific, said CEO of SUPERNAP International Khaled Bichara. With the emergence of the AEC and with Thailands focus on digital growth, this data center will set a new precedent for quality, security and innovation in Asia Pacific. We look forward to working with Thailand to attract more investment and more growth to the Thai digital economy. SUPERNAP International is developing the project in partnership with a group of leading Thai organizations, including CPB Equity, Kasikorn Bank, Siam Commercial Bank, and True IDC. Executives from Kasikorn Bank and Siam Commercial Bank say the development of the SUPERNAP Thailand data center will enhance the banks use of technology to better serve their customers and provide a homegrown solution for Thai companies that seek to expand their IT capabilities. SUPERNAP Thailand aims to generate significant benefits for Thailands economy. This unique data center design will not only bring innovative technology to the Kingdom, but will also attract international investors. The facility will play an important role to support the countrys business development by showcasing Thailand as a regional hub for data centers, said Siam Commercial Bank Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and SUPERNAP Thailand Chairman Deepak Sarup. Siam Commercial Bank is proud to be part of Thailands first state-of-the-art and purpose-built data center development project. With the SUPERNAPThailand data center we are confident of the use of scalable, efficient and secure IT infrastructure facilities that will have 100% availability. The new SUPERNAP Thailand data center will cover an area of nearly 75 rai or 12 hectares and will be strategically built outside the flood zone, 110-meters above sea level and only 27 kilometers away from the international submarine cable landing station, which links the facility to national and international telecoms and IT carriers. Not only will SUPERNAP Thailand help grow Thailands digital economy, but it will also support Thai companies that seek to expand their offerings to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) sector, said Somkid Jiranuntarat, Vice Chairman of Kasikorn Business-Technology Group. We know that ultimately this will support our customers and enable us to do more for the Thai business community and public. Having a world-class data center is truly a competitive advantage for Thailand. The data center will be supported by two separate and newly-installed power sub-stations in order to provide additional redundancy and resilience to the facility. This is insane, said Chen Gang, chief investment officer for Shanghai Heqi Tongyi Asset Management, on Jan. 7, the day stock trading in China lasted only 29 wild minutes before market circuit breakers shut it down. Unlike some would-be sellers that day, he says he unloaded all his firms equity holdings by the time the exit door closed. The circuit breakers, put in place just a few days before, called for an all-day trading halt if shares dropped 7 percent. Those rules have taken much of the blame for Chinas latest market chaos. The China Securities Regulatory Commission said they had a magnet effectas shares fell, people may have rushed to get sell orders in while they still could, pulling prices down to the trigger point even faster. (Announcing last call to a bar full of drinkers tends not to encourage moderation, either.) The focus on poorly designed trading curbs may, however, distract from a less exotic source of risk: speculation. The median stock on mainland exchanges still trades at about 57 times earningsat least twice as expensive as any other major market. (Leading China stock indexes dont look nearly so pricey but are weighted to financial companies, which tend to carry lower valuations.) In spite of currency instability and concerns about slowing economic growth, investors are treating the typical Chinese company as if its potential is somewhere between that of Google and Facebook. A boom in initial public offerings made parts of the stock market look more like a lottery. Shares of Beijing Baofeng Technology, a developer of online video players, soared 4,200 percent in 55 trading days after going public on the Shenzhen stock exchange in March. (The stock then dropped 31 percent before suspending trading in October.) With the market crowded with novice retail investors, other companies simply renamed themselves to look like tech stocks, recalling the 1960s tronics and 1990s dot-com booms in the U.S. There are stocks that are basically junk, but theyre trading at outrageous valuations because theres a lot of market manipulation, says Jian Shi Cortesi, a money manager at GAM Investment Management in Zurich. The way down is always very volatile. Chinas stock market didnt used to be so exciting. Under President Xi Jinpings administration, articles in state-run media encouraged people to invest, fostering a belief that the government would make sure everyone profited. The benchmark CSI 300 index climbed 150 percent in the 12 months before the market slide that began in June, and its still up 53 percent from the start of that run. The nation has more than 90 million individual investors, compared with 87.8 million members of the Communist Party. Now retail investors are having doubts. Hua Jie, a 56-year-old retiree in Sichuan province, says she hasnt been this downbeat on the nations stock market since she began investing more than a decade ago. I no longer want to play this game, says Hua, a former saleswoman at a consumer electronics store in Chengdu. Ive lost faith in the regulators. Many institutional investors, too, have been quick to bail as markets turn south. Hedge funds often have agreements with investors requiring liquidation if their holdings drop below a certain value. That may have helped accelerate the early January rout. Chinas securities commission suspended the circuit breakers after the Jan. 7 shutdown. Policymakers need to gradually explore, gain experience, and make adjustment to the system, commission spokesman Deng Ge said in a statement. Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady, whos credited with implementing circuit breakers in the U.S., says the problem is that China didnt allow stocks to fall enough. In the U.S., trading is halted temporarily after declines in the Standard & Poors 500-stock index of 7 percent and then again at 13 percent; trading is suspended for the day only if losses reach 20 percent. The right thing to do is widen their band, says Brady. So the circuit breaker part of the problem seems reassuringly fixable. Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz, called the turmoil in Chinas markets self-inflicted wounds, arguing in a Bloomberg View editorial that there are steps the Chinese government can take to ensure that the pain is temporary. Eugene Fama, the Nobel prize-winning economist at the University of Chicago, says theres little evidence that rules like circuit breakers either prevent or cause volatility. In panic selling, prices go down, and they bounce back up. I dont even know that you would want to get around that, he says. Xis administration is likely to keep trying. The state-controlled investment funds that the government directed to buy shares last summernicknamed the National Teamprobably spent more than $200 billion on equities in three months, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs. Officials even bought stocks to project stability in the days before a planned 12,000-soldier parade in September to commemorate Japans World War II surrender, according to people familiar with the matter. Market interventions resumed in January, with buying focused on shares in companies with large weightings in benchmark indexes, the people say. Regulators also extended restrictions, which were just about to expire, on share sales by major stockholders. Even so, on Jan. 11, with the circuit breakers removed, stocks plunged an additional 5 percent. Theyre trying to prop the market up above sustainable valuations. Thats the fundamental problem, says Patrick Chovanec, New York-based chief strategist for Silvercrest Asset Management Group. The unruly stock market seems to be giving the Xi administration second thoughts about its plans to loosen the reins throughout the economy. The government hasnt yielded control of the state-run companies that led Chinas boom or forced them to reduce their debt. That system is going to have to change dramatically, and I dont know if the government is going to let it, Fama says. The bottom line: Circuit breakers may have made Chinas market crash move faster, but fixing them wont put an end to the volatility. Dr. Roberto De Castro, a famous Italian specialist in pediatric genital reconstruction, is in Hanoi to provide free examination for 86 Vietnamese child patients with genital deformities. After arriving in Hanoi on Tuesday, Dr. De Castro has been examining child patients at the Hanoi Medical University Hospital, Nguoi Lao Dong newspaper reported. He will select the most severe cases for free surgeries scheduled in November. The Italian doctor also plans to train Vietnamese doctors to perform genital reconstruction surgeries. Dr. De Castro's visit is part of the "Regeneration of Genital Organs for Vietnamese Children" program launched by Greig Craft, President of the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation, and Tran Mai Anh, the adoptive mother of Phung Thien Nhan, whose savaged penis was successfully recreated by Dr. De Castro last January. In 2006, Nhan was discovered 72 hours after being abandoned at birth by his teenage mother in a jungle in central Vietnam. The newborn was mauled by a wild animal, most likely a dog, which chewed off his right leg and badly savaged his genitals. After being found by villagers, he was rushed to the nearest hospital and saved. Nhan was then adopted by Tran Mai Anh and Phung Quang Nghinh, a Hanoi couple, both journalists, who spent the ensuing years raising donations for reconstructive surgeries and prosthetics to make the boy whole again. In April, 2008, Nhan's adopted mother took him to a major children's hospital in Thailand. Doctors there said reconstructing his penis was impossible and recommended that Nhan undergo a transgender surgery. At the end of 2009, Anh and her adopted child flew to a hospital in Texas where doctors said they hoped to recreate his penis only when he reached puberty. Anh's hopes of helping Nhan determine his gender before entering school at age six seemed lost, until Anh was introduced to Dr. De Castro who told her of a new, experimental procedure. Dr. De Castro believed that Nhan's sex organs could be recreated using skin taken from his belly. The Italian physician seemed sure the penis would grow along as Nhan's body developed. Anh and Greig Craft, Nhan's godfather, flew to Blogana to meet Dr. De Castro some time last year. Surgery was set for January 29, 2011 at half the normal cost. We want to hear from you. Please choose from the following: Do you need help regarding your subscription? customer.care[a]theafricareport.com Do you need to reach a journalist or ask a question about content? editorial[a]theafricareport.com Do you want to subscribe or buy the magazine? sales[a]theafricareport.com Do you want to contact our commercial department? advertising[a]theafricareport.com The Africa Report 57 bis, rue dAuteuil 75016 Paris France Phone: +33 1 87 64 05 68 We live in an increasingly dangerous world, with political, economic and environmental threats piling up, according to experts polled by the World Economic Forum. Ahead of its annual meeting in Davos next week, the group's 2016 Global Risks report on Thursday ranked the migrant crisis as the biggest single risk in terms of likelihood, while climate change was seen as having the greatest potential impact. Economic fears, particularly for Chinese growth, and increasingly frequent extreme weather events are further red flags, resulting in a greater breadth of risks than at any time in the survey's 11-year history. Credit:Tamara Voninski Around 60 million people have been displaced by conflicts from Syria to South Sudan, pushing refugee flows to record levels that are some 50 per cent higher than during World War II. Coupled with attacks such as those on Paris last year and geopolitical fault lines stretching from the Middle East to the South China Sea, the world is today arguably less politically stable than at any time since the end of the Cold War. The current stream of oversensitive and meaningless Gen Y material is numbing. The internet is saturated in its white noise. Our news feeds are victims to the "outrage" that now define my generation. We interpret "freedom of speech" as "indulgence of speech". Importantly, as a result of the constantly reinvented hysteria it creates, Gen Y stymies its ability to actively debate and critically assess important issues. Why does the material pumped out by my generation have this common stink? Tim Urban, writer of renowned blog Wait But Why, has labelled our overly vocal mob "GYPSYs": Gen Y Protagonists and Special Yuppies . Urban explains that bolstered by the promises of the most successful surviving generation, the Baby Boomers, Gen Y is deluded as to its uniqueness and its potential for wonder. Unrealistic expectations minimise the capacity to accept critical feedback. Couple this with a platform to connect to other like-minded souls (the internet), and you begin to see why our voice is so clearly the loudest. Self-justified in having a voice and the right to speak our mind, we hound anyone who steps outside the impossibly narrow grounds of what we deem as acceptable. Credit:Frank Maiorana It is this ill-fitting combination of ultimate self-belief and dependence on social media approval that engenders the outrage, often on somebody else's behalf, that is the stimulus for the content we produce. Self-justified in "having a voice" and "the right to speak our mind", we hound anyone who steps outside the impossibly narrow grounds of what we deem as acceptable. His heavily-forested kingdom, Tigiria, in the eastern Indian state of Orissa had been just 11,650 hectares, the smallest princely state in India. But according to LEB Cobden-Ramsay, in his book Feudatory States of Orissa (1910), "thanks to the good governance of its kings [it] had a high population density". In his regal prime, Brajraj Mahapatra lived the life befitting an Indian king. He bought cars by the dozen, hunted big game, smoke and drank only the best of brands. But in his ageing 90s, Mahapatra was a pauper living in a mud hut with a leaking roof and plastic chairs. Brajraj Mahapatra, last Indian king from the old British Raj era. Credit:Ranjit Patnaik As well as building and maintaining a network of schools, the rulers of Tigiria were remarkably lenient in matters of law and order. Tigiria's "jail" consisted of a small roof with four pillars but no walls. The real punishment lay in regal ostracism the king would refuse to speak to a convicted felon. Brajraj, who has died aged 94, was the last surviving king from the days of the British Raj. His full name was suitably imposing Brajraj Khyatriya Birabara Champati Singh Mahapatra. He was the son of Sudarshan Kshatriya Birbar Chamupati Singh Mahapatra, Raja of Tigiria. After taking a diploma from Rajkumar College in Raipur in 1940, he married Rani Rasmanjari Devi, a princess of Sonepur, with whom he had six children. He came to the throne in 1943 and became known for his hedonistic lifestyle. "I would often visit Calcutta with my friend, the former king of Puri, and stay at the Majestic and Great Eastern Hotel there," he recalled in an interview with the Indian Expressin 2013. "I would drink to my heart's content and have a good time. I liked Black Label, White Label and smoked 999 and State Express 555 brand of cigarettes. If a new car model came on to the market, I had to buy it. I owned 25 cars and jeeps, including a Roadmaster, Chevrolet and a Packard. We had 30 servants." He was also known as a keen shikari a big game hunter and claimed to have shot 13 tigers, 28 leopards and a "tusker" (elephant) which was eating villagers' crops. In 1947, however, along with other heads of princely states of Orissa, Brajraj signed the instrument of accession to an independent India and, deprived of his state's tax revenues, his fortunes began to decline. In 1960 he sold his palace to the state government for 75,000 rupees ($1490) on condition that it be turned into a school. Later he separated from his wife. Too many lives have been lost in recent years in the 2009 Black Saturday fires, the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires and more for any one of us to be complacent about the risks that arise on days of extreme temperatures and high winds. To that end, it is fair, appropriate and necessary to challenge authorities about their firefighting strategies, logistical preparations and on-ground responses. We are entitled to expect that emergency services authorities will apply the best possible fire prevention and containment practices to suit the circumstances, although we recognise that extreme weather conditions and difficult terrain can impair the best-laid plans. In the aftermath of a fire as devastating as the one that roared through Wye River and Separation Creek on Christmas Day, all Victorians are entitled to know the facts about what occurred to ensure the prospect of similar infernos are, as best as possible, minimised. They are also entitled to transparency and accountability on the part of fire officials because occasionally, despite the best intentions, a particular course of action can have terrible consequences. Revelations in The Age this week about backburning operations conducted around Wye River just before Christmas operations that were intended to help fight, contain, or at least provide better access to a problematic lightning-strike fire in the Otway Ranges have highlighted just how difficult fire-management decisions can be. Terror attacks in Jakarta should not be seen as a direct threat to Australia but could inspire similar attacks across south-east Asia, experts on the region say. Australian National University's Associate Professor Greg Fealy told Fairfax Media that a wide range of expatriates frequent the area of Central Jakarta where explosions occurred on Thursday, with no obvious signs that attackers had intended to target Australian hostages. "I don't think Australians should see this as an attack on Australia or Australians," he said, noting no symbolically Australian site had been targeted. When it comes to organ donation in Australia, sex matters Statistics from the Department of Human Services show there are more than 1.1 million women on the organ donation register compared with slightly more than 713,000 men. DonateLife Victoria's State Medical Director, Dr Rohit D'Costa, said research suggested men and younger people were less likely to have decided about or registered their decision to donate. Chief executive at Transplant Australia Chris Thomas said all the evidence as to why women are more likely to register is highly anecdotal and points to particular female characteristics. "We certainly recognise that when you're promoting a message to donate to families in general, the mothers have a tendency to be more receptive but our campaigns still target men, a well as people from different ethnicities," he said. A Brisbane motorcyclist is in hospital after crashing into a taxi while riding away from a police intercept in far north Queensland, police say. The Queensland Police Service's ethics body is looking into the crash. A motorbike rider allegedly crashed into a taxi while evading Cairns police. Credit:Rebecca Hallas About 12.40pm Thursday, police tried to stop the bike on Anderson Street in inner-Cairns but said the rider evaded their attempt and continued down neighbouring MacDonnel Street and smashed into a taxi. The 33-year-old rider from Brisbane was taken to Cairns Base Hospital with serious injuries. EXCLUSIVE Tonnes of rubbish and possessions hoarded in high-rise units are threatening the structural integrity of Melbourne apartment buildings, putting them in danger of collapse. Hoarding in a high-rise unit in Melbourne's south eastern suburbs. The owner was an elderly person who used a mobility aid to climb over a thick layer of rubbish, paper, clothing, boxes and bags. Credit:Metropolitan Fire Brigade It is suspected there is hoarding in most large residential buildings in Victoria. This has prompted growing concerns about the threat to public safety through fires, vermin and building damage. Experts are now calling for a national hoarding and squalor taskforce, saying many people living with hoarding disorder, or in extremely unsanitary conditions, are not getting the professional help they need. Up to 30 cars were smashed as a man allegedly drove erratically across Melbourne's north-east and inner-north on Thursday afternoon. Police received a deluge of calls to triple zero as a car drove erratically between 4.30pm and 5.10pm across the city. Police believe the white Holden Astra crashed into dozens of parked cars, as well as cars stopped in traffic, while driving through Templestowe, Eltham, Lower Plenty, Yallambie, Viewbank, Rosanna, Heidelberg, Ivanhoe, Alphington, Fitzroy, North Carlton and Parkville. A 23-year-old man from Wonga Park was arrested in Princes Park, Fitzroy North. He was interviewed, but released pending further inquiries. A Victoria Police spokeswoman said it was "too early to say" if charges would be laid against the man. Chicago: A federal judge on Thursday ordered the release of a video of another police shooting here this one left a 17-year-old African-American dead and raised new questions about the city's handling of litigation resulting from officer-involved shootings. The video, from a 2013 shooting, is the latest to draw notice in Chicago since November, when images of another teenager, Laquan McDonald, being shot 16 times were released after months of resistance from city officials. That graphic video raised questions about other police shootings, the system of discipline for Chicago police and about other videos the city has opted to keep private. In the latest case, city lawyers on Wednesday the eve of a federal hearing on the issue announced that they were reversing course and dropping their longstanding request to keep private videos from the 2013 death of Cedrick Chatman. Chatman, who was behind the wheel of a car that had been reported carjacked, was shot when he ran from the police on the South Side. Before ordering the video's release, Judge Robert Gettleman of the US District Court here criticised city lawyers for their last-minute change of heart. Paris: A Belgian-Moroccan man has been identified as one of the group involved in the terror attacks in Paris and its suburbs in November. The militant was identified as Chakib Akrouh by the prosecutor, who said he had been the third person who shot and killed patrons at cafes and bars in Paris on the evening of November 13, the night 130 people were killed in three co-ordinated attacks in and around the city. He has not been identified previously. A bullet hole adjacent to the La Belle Equipe cafe in Paris following the attacks on November 13. Credit:Andrew Meares Akrouh, 25, blew himself up in an apartment on Rue Corbillon in Saint-Denis during a police raid five days later, the office of Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said in a statement. Orban and Kaczynski seem to disagree on just one thing. Orban and Russian President Vladimir Putin are mutually admiring: Kaczynski holds Putin's regime responsible for the death of his twin brother, Lech, then Poland's president, in a plane crash in Russia. Orban was once a close ally of Antall in bringing democracy to their country. Yet, since his first election victory in 2010, he has successfully cowed the leftist opposition, suppressed the media, packed the constitutional court with his loyalists, made the electoral system more friendly to his party and clamped down hard on the activities of civil society. In this quest, he sees a model in nearby Hungary. He has a close relationship with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, huddling with him for six hours of talks on January 6. The Czech Republic isn't authoritarian: but the promise Havel held out for it to be the heart of Europe, a lighthouse of freedom, civility and diligence has been frittered away. Its president, Milos Zeman, has appeared drunk several times at televised events, and he joined a virulently anti-Muslim rally in Prague last year. More like Orban than Kaczynski, he's a fan of Putin not a popular position with those Czechs who remember the Soviet era. Those, for whom Havel was a hero and a model, despair of a country whose political and business elite, including many media owners, are in and out of each others' pockets. Istvan Leko, editor of the daily Lidove Noviny, told me at a recent talk in Prague that "we did not grasp what was happening. We saw ourselves as on the same side as the new politicians and as Havel; and we wrote about the Communists, and the STB [secret police], and the past. Meanwhile, the relationships between the politicians and the new business people were being quickly formed and the new time of corruption was beginning." It's corruption, the scrambling after political power to benefit one's own or allies' business, which corrodes civic behaviour and trust. It never seems to be vanquished. Waves of new (or old) politicians come to power on an anti-corruption ticket, and too many of them stay to discover and enjoy the fruits of power. Romanian prime minister Victor Ponta resigned last year with numerous charges of corruption and abuse of office hanging over him. He's not alone, in the former communist world. These governments, all members of the European Union, feel less and less loyalty to it. What little they had has been strained by the stream of refugees that has flooded the continent. Most of them have followed the early example of Slovakia, and shut their borders. The Germans have threatened legal action to reopen borders, but mass attacks near Cologne's main train station on New Year's Eve by young men of Middle Eastern appearance have weakened its moral authority. With police and politicians apparently attempting a cover-up, it has raised the level of anger at the mass acceptance of migrants in Germany itself. In regaining autonomy with the Soviet collapse, the Central Europeans first reached gratefully for Europe and its panoply of rights. Now, they recoil from its responsibilities. Instead, they seek a patriotic spirit impatient of liberal opposition and what they see as immoral or alarming innovation from abroad, such as gay rights. Grant advances CSUCI research Cal State Channel Islands assistant professor of computer science Scott Feister and assistant professor of mathematics Alona Kryshchenko recently received $112,480 from the National Science Foundation to continue a grant to support their research project, Enhancing Laser Based Ion Sources... Healthcare agency recommends flu shots The Ventura County Health Care Agency offers options for the community to receive flu shots through its Ambulatory Care Clinic system, public health clinics and pop-up clinics. Although seasonal influenza viruses are detected year-round in the United States, they are... Early detection is the best way to survive breast cancer Every October, we celebrate those men and women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer. But what is breast cancer and how can it be diagnosed and managed? There are five basic warning signs that breast cancer may be present:... Cal Lutheran University hosts Heart Walk The American Heart Association will host a Heart Walk Sat., Oct. 8 at Cal Lutheran University, Thousand Oaks. The event is expected to draw hundreds of people. Activities include a 2-mile walk, drum circle performances, Zumba demonstrations, live music and... January 15, 2016 Family Film Blogging (Oscar Edition): Brooklyn Posted by Christine Hurt I actually saw Brooklyn in December when it was first released, but missed blogging about it during the crush of finals, travel, etc. I saw this movie with my law school colleagues, not my kids, but I think at least the teenage daughter might enjoy it. Now, of course, it has been nominated for several Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay), so I thought I would dust off my opinions of it and write a review. Eilis (sounds like A-liss), a young woman in Ireland living with her widowed mother and older, unmarried sister, sets off for America for a chance at life away from her small village. Eilis is tired of the small-mindedness of the people, particularly the young men, and looks forward to her new life where she might find a career. However, she is unprepared for the homesickness she feels living in a boarding house, taking bookkeeping classes and working in a department store. Eventually, her fog lifts as she makes friends and even meets a young Italian man, Tony Fiorello. Tony and his raucous family have great dreams beyond Brooklyn, planning on building homes on a plot on Long Island. Eilis is very happy with her prospects until her sister suddenly passes away, sending Eilis back to Ireland for an extended visit. Strangely, things have changed in her hometown, and she suddenly is presented with a better life wrapped up in a nice bow, forcing her to decide whether her home is in New York or Ireland. To the ending, I believe that we are supposed to see that Eilis is evolved and now must make an informed, grown-up choice among her two options. However, at the end of the movie, I would argue that one choice is foreclosed to her, making her "choice" not as voluntary as it may seem. However, she embraces her choice whole-heartedly, which I suppose is almost as meaningful. The movie is a great vehicle for a strong actress, and we all become great fans of Eilis. The movie is not a gritty depiction of Irish immigrants in New York; Eilis is very fortunate to have her way paved for her by a compassionate Catholic priest and a network of helpful parishioners. She lives in a lovely house with a kind but strict housemother of sorts; the girls in the house are catty but kind enough; her retail clerk job at a fancy store seems to pay handsomely; her efforts to educate herself at night school are rewarded; she goes to a dance and an outsider Italian man walks her home and he proves a cuddly gentleman with a family that embraces her despite her Irishness. The film is beautifully made with a sweet story. I loved the costumes and of course, Eilis. I'm not sure if I would vote for it for Best Picture (I loved The Martian and The Big Short. I will not be seeing The Revenant), but it made for a nice afternoon. Film | Bookmark You know the story about Richard Nixon and Pauline Kael? Heres the gist: Kael, The New Yorkers film critic, is said to have expressed disbelief that Nixon had won the presidency because she didnt know anyone whod voted for him. It probably never happened but it sticks around, particularly in the minds of conservative pundits, because its a clear illustration of what the right thinks of as elite disconnect from the lives of everyday Americans. Worldly, affluent, well-educated urbanites like Kael live in a tiny, isolated social bubble, making them much less knowledgeable about American life and culture than they think they are. That bubble may have something to do with why so few reporters and pundits saw Donald Trump sticking around. Things inside the bubble, where plenty of journalists reside, are comfortable; much of the rest of the rest of the country, meanwhile, seems to think America is dying. And so here we find ourselves, just a couple weeks from Iowa, with Trump still the runaway frontrunner. Far from watching his support dissolve as the first primary contests near, its actually solidifying, and hes improving as a debater and a candidate. The only other candidate making waves is Ted Cruz, another guy a lot of us sort of wrote off some months ago as too divisive and off-putting to win, and he had a very good night Thursday. I still hear people say that Marco Rubio is destined to have a big bounce, or that Jeb, with his resources, can somehow mount a comeback. And I guess they could. The only problem with these theories is that, right now, theres approximately zero evidence to back them up. Weve entered, it seems to me, a two-man race for the GOP nomination. There is Trump, there is Cruz, and then theres a bunch of guys who just wont win. Lets talk about those other guys, the four Republican establishment hopefuls: Jeb, Marco, John Kasich, and Chris Christie. Actually, its probably a little misleading to even pretend that there are four Republican establishment hopefuls. Kasich has barely made an impression and is despised by much of the conservative activist class who see him as a smug crypto-liberal. Jeb has spent many, many millions and its done nothing but make him more and more unpopular. And the fact that were even talking about the scandal-plagued, squishy, and deeply unpopular governor of New Jersey just highlights how profoundly weak this field turned out to be when faced with Trump. This is all to say that if youre a Republican who doesnt like Trump or Cruz you have one real option left, and thats Rubio. Rubio is, at least in a traditional sense, the best politician in the whole bunch. Hes the most articulate, which he showed again at the debate on Thursday, another in a series of strong performances. He knows policy, and how to talk about it. Hes young and attractive. But the best candidate on paper isnt working out in real life, at least not in any meaningful sense. He hasnt been able to capitalize on Bushs utter and ongoing collapse. And of course his back-and-forths on immigration over the years have done him considerable damage. The only plausible path to victory for him Ive seen, via the conservative Twitter pundit Dan McLaughlin, presupposes both a Trump collapse and Rubio losing the first three contests before racking up enough delegates in blue states to narrowly overcome Cruz. Maybe Rubio gets that last-minute surge. But I really doubt it. Plenty has been written on why Trump has owned the polls for such a long time (the best explanation, to my mind, was from David Frum in The Atlantic). So without delving into the psychology of the Trump supporter, lets just take a look at why hes still looking so hot, and why we shouldnt get optimistic about the Jebs and Marcos of the race. First, there are too many of these establishment-type candidates, and they spend all their time bashing each other. (For a particularly embarrassing example of this kill the other electable guy-ism, go here.) But even if this crowd suddenly thins out, Im still skeptical that anyone is going to be able to stop Cruz or Trump. More on that in a moment. But for now, lets look at the early states, particularly New Hampshire, which is long-fetishized by establishment GOP consultants because its supposed to be where all the nice, moderate Republicans are, the ones who always go for the Romneys and McCains after some crazy person wins Iowa. This time around, however, Trump is by all accounts running away with New Hampshire, with the rest of the field stuck squabbling over a distant second-place finish. That probably has to do with the fact that Trump does quite well with those nice, moderate Republicans. In fact, theyve been an important part of his coalition all along, which belies the idea that hes filling the role of right-wing radical weve seen rise and fall in previous years. And thats an important point, because the theory of someone overtaking Trump and Cruz depends a lot on the idea that theres a natural order to GOP primaries. The base spouts off, various unelectable candidates rise to the top of the polls, and then the moderates turn out to crown their champion, the eventual nominee, while conservatives fall in line because they want someone who can beat the Democrat. You know, someone like Romney. And here we are, with Trump looking like he could potentially do as well with moderate-to-liberal Republicans as good old Mitt. Thats not to say that Trump will definitely be the Republican nominee. Charlie Cook thinks that Republican voters will eventually sour on Trump after theyve finished venting their spleens, start taking The Donalds unpresidential temperament into consideration, and settle on another candidate, most likely Cruz. Ross Douthat, who is as pessimistic about Trumps chances as anyone on the right, recently suggested a rather similar theory and also identified Cruz as a major beneficiary of a late-stage Trump collapse. Both of these scenarios are, at the very least, plausible, and underscore why Cruz still has a real shot at the nomination. Plus, a Cruz victory would likely keep the party more or less intact, while a Trump win at least raises the prospect of a split. Preventing the all-out dissolution of the GOP may, in the end, prove to be a powerful motivator among Republican voters, and Cruz could at least promise to keep the party united through the election. Thats a strange place to be in, with Cruz as the peacemaker in a party that looks increasingly open to nominating a liberalish reality show star with an authoritarian streak. As much as weve become inured to the idea of Donald Trump transforming himself into a political figure of real consequence, picturing him giving a State of the Union address is still almost too absurd to comprehend. How could America elect such a man, and how could someone as profoundly unlikeable as Cruz really emerge as the sensible alternative, the last hope for keeping the GOP at least somewhat recognizable? For many of the people in my profession, thats going to take some time to absorb. A large portion of that America outside the bubble is lashing out against its elites and the institutions they run, from the major parties to big business, from the media to the federal government. The reasons for this are too many to flesh out here, but after decades of stagnant wages, pronounced economic inequality, crumbling infrastructure and a series of lost and unnecessary wars, the people who have run our political system, and that included the press that covers it, have invited a populist revolt. And I suspect the political medias inability to understand and anticipate the appeal of Trump and Cruz in part stems from the role we played in the destabilization that produced them. Were all Pauline Kael now. It took seven months of campaigning to prove it, but Donald Trump is a human being. The Republican debate-viewing public learned this Thursday night, when Ted Cruz was asked to explain what he meant when he said, on Tuesday, that Trump embodied New York values, as if thats a bad thing. When the Texas senator said that, he was responding to Trump playing Bruce Springsteens Born in the USA at campaign rallies in an effort to needle Cruz for being born in Canada. Cruz said that perhaps Trump should play Frank Sinatras New York, New York instead, a wink-wink to the folks in Iowa, no doubt, where Cruz briefly overtook Trump in the polls before the real estate magnate regained his lead this week. I think most people know exactly what New York values are, Cruz told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, who replied that she is a New Yorker, and she doesnt know what that means. Listen, there are many, many wonderful, wonderful working men and women in the state of New York, Cruz explained. But everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro-gay marriage, focus around money and the media. At the end of the day, Cruz smirked, Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan. Candidates pettily attacking each other over things that dont matter in the grand scheme of things is the definition of the modern debate. Candidate A takes dig at Candidate B, who uses his or her speaking time to recite Talking Point A, which is unrelated to the topic at hand, but who cares? Rinse, repeat. The race for the Republican nomination has, in recent weeks, seemed to narrow down to Trump and Cruz, with the other candidates fading into the background. And as Trump has begun to feel threatened by his former friend (Cruz was for a time the only candidate who refused to criticize Trump; conventional wisdom said it was because he planned to inherit Trumps voters when he inevitably bowed out), Trump has ginned up controversy over Cruzs place of birth. The man who once sent private investigators to Hawaii to search for President Obamas birth certificate is now loudly wondering whether Cruz is really eligible to be president. It seemed like a given that, in response to Cruzs slight, Trump might call him a maple syrup-guzzling loser who cant stay on top of the polls in Iowa and would never make America great again like The Donald will. But when the attention turned to Trump, something unexpected happened. First, he corrected CruzManhattan produces conservatives, he said, including William F. Buckley and others (and what kind of Democrat would name-drop William F. Buckley?), and then he seemed to stand up taller. He insulted a lot of people, Trump said of Cruz. New York is a great place. Its got great people, its got loving people, wonderful people. When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York. The crowd applauded and, as if to admit defeat, so did Cruz. You had two 110-story buildings come crashing down, thousands of people killed, and the cleanup started the next day, and it was the most horrific cleanup probably in the history of doing this, and in construction. I was down there, Trump said. Ive never seen anything like it, and the people in New York fought and fought and fought, and we saw more death and even the smell of deathnobody understood it, and it was with us for months. The smell, the air. And we rebuilt downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched, and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers, and I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made. Cruz just looked at the camera with a nervous smile. Suddenly his suit seemed too tight. The day before the Academy announced its all-white lineup of acting nominations, The Nightly Shows Larry Wilmore had no doubts in his mind about what was coming. Joined by head writer Robin Thede, Wilmore presented A Preview of Upcoming Black Oscar Snubs, because the only black people in Hollywood getting any love are the ones Sandra Bullock keeps adopting. Each and every one of the shows predictions came true, including snubs for Will Smith in Concussion (Only white actors can win Oscars for a movie nobody saw) and Michael B. Jordan in Creed (Hes a black man that punches people. Does that sound like acting to you?) In what was perhaps an optimistic move, The Nightly Show did not predict that the Oscars would also snub Idris Elba for his supporting performance in Beasts of No Nation. The British star was expected to be the only black acting nominee this year, but even he didnt make the cut, with an unexpected nod in that category going to The Revenants Tom Hardy instead. Americas hottest new girl group dances for Donald Trump. President Donald Trump knows how to make America great, deal from strength or get crushed every time! sang the USA Freedom Kids, three young girls wearing American flag dresses, at a Trump event in Pensacola, Florida, on Wednesday night. Manager Jeff Popick said the girls, including his daughter, like Trump because he makes them feel very safe. For our group and for me, and I do have obviously quite a bit of influence in the direction that this is going, its all 100 percent about freedom, about American freedom, Popick told The Daily Beast over the phone. And I think Donald Trump is going to be the best person far and away, to protect that freedom. That is where we are aligned 100 percent. Popick, a real estate manager by day, drives the USA Freedom Girls to events in a pink stretch Hummer limo, as pictured on the groups website. Popick said the group had been in discussion with a number of presidential candidates about performance opportunities but Trump was the most responsive. Popick declined to say how much money he made from booking the Trump event. You know, without sounding like I have an attitude, if I wanted to interview you and ask you what your salary iscertain things are just beyondwhat does it matter? Popick said the girls are doing a show for Memorial Day that may be broadcast on a national network. This isnt just a small thing. USA Freedom Kids are going to be a national brand. And its a great thing for the country. From the husband of an NYPD police officer who died on 9/11 comes an invitation to Sen. Ted Cruz. Senator Cruz, I was disappointed by your disparaging remarks about New York values somehow being different from Iowa and New Hampshire values, read a Facebook post by retired NYPD Police Officer Jim Smith, husband of fallen Police Officer Moira Smith. I invite you to come to the National 9-11 Memorial and Museum and see for yourself, and perhaps learn something about, the values of New Yorkers and the Heroes who defended American values on September 11th, 2001. The remarks in question accompanied Cruzs suggestion that Donald Trump play New York, New York rather than Born in the USA at campaign rallies. Because Donald comes from New York and he embodies New York values, Cruz then said. Should Cruz now accept the invitation, he will see the name Moira Smith among those of hundreds of others who truly did embody New York values and therefore American values. A famous photograph taken on 9/11 shows Moira Smith leading a bleeding executive to safety from the South Tower. The 38-year-old cop then returned to direst danger and is credited with saving hundreds of lives. Another surviving executive would remember the evenness of her voice and the steadiness of her eyes as she kept people moving when they otherwise would have frozen at the sight of the horrendous carnage in the plaza. Dont look, keep moving, she said again and again. She was still there, urging others to safety, when the tower came down. Her 2-year-old daughter, Patricia, later accepted the NYPD Medal of Honor on her behalf and stood with the emerald green ribbon around her neck, the eight-pointed gold star hanging just above her knees. Moira Smiths battered shield, number 10467, was recovered from the ruins. Jim Smith would be sure to show it to Cruz on display along with her gun belt at the September 11 museum. When Cruz emerges from the museum to stand where Jim Smiths wife died, the Texas senator will be able to look across West Street from the memorial to the headquarters of Goldman Sachs, his own wifes employer. As has been reported in The New York Times, Heidi Cruz borrowed as much as $500,000 from the Wall Street mega-firm where she is a managing director to help bankroll her husbands 2012 run for Senate. A Cruz spokeswoman says his failure to disclose the Goldman Sachs loan was inadvertent. The spokeswoman could not explain how the half-million from the vampire squid jibes with the touching tale Ted Cruz has told of telling his sweetheart that he wanted to liquidate our entire net worth, liquid net worth, and put it in the campaign. Now running for president, Cruz has an even bigger need for money. And when he came to New York in December, it was not to visit the 9/11 Memorial. The man who talks about carpet-bombing ISIS in fact skipped a Senate hearing on ISIS to attend a Madison Avenue fundraiser. A $2,700-per-person VIP reception was followed by a $1,000-a-plate luncheon. The event was hosted by Joseph Konzelmann, a managing director at what else but Goldman Sachs. Whatever values all that embodies, they certainly are not American values or, for that matter, natural born Canadian values. If Cruz does come back to New York for a tour of the sacred ground across from prodigiously profane Goldman Sachs, he will find that Jim Smith is nobodys liberal and not the least bit afraid to be politically incorrect. Smith proved that last November, after Glamour magazine named Caitlyn Jenner its 2015 Woman of the Year. Fourteen years before, Glamour had posthumously named Moira Smith its 2001 Woman of the Year. Jim Smith now returned the award to the magazine in protest. He explained on Facebook that he was not acting out of some transgender phobia, as more than a few people assumed. As a police officer in NYC, my precinct covered a shelter for transgendered youth, Smith wrote. On several occasions I responded there to take reports or give aid to suicidal youths. I listened to their stories of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Young people thrown out of their houses or fleeing from unlivable conditions. They didnt have the luxury of being part of the Kardashian circus. They werent living in a Malibu Barbie beach house surrounded by what passes for family in Hollywood. They were truly brave people fighting hourly for existence. When Mr. Jenner said the hardest part about being a woman was deciding what to wear, he proved to me he was not truly a woman. Smith noted that the previous years honoree was transgender actress Laverne Cox. It was a good choice, Smith continued. If you dont know who she is, look her up and contrast her story to Jenners. I truly believe Jenners award was a publicity stunt and cheapened a once prestigious award. He concluded, Moiras actions cannot be cheapened, but I feel the award was. On Thursday, the unfailing champion of Moira Smiths memory took to Facebook again. And this time Jim Smith invited Cruz to come to Ground Zero and learn something about the many heroes who had died defending the values they themselves embodied. Those values were so manifestly all-American that all of America was united in the aftermath. Then came the politics and the politicians. They now include Cruz and Trump, who said at Thursday nights Republican debate that he was offended by the Texas senators earlier remarks about New York values. Trump spoke with seemingly real emotion about watching the towers come down. He said he had visited Ground Zero following the attacks, and by all reports he had. The cleanup began the next day, he now said as a proud New Yorker. But in his choice of words, Trump was Trump, whose values are only his own. What began even before the second tower came down was the rescue effort, followed not by a cleanup but a months-long recovery effort, the soul-wrenching search for the remains of the murdered thousands, including Moira Smith, wife of Jim, mother of Patricia, hero for us all. If only we had a candidate who is anywhere near her equal. ROME It is increasingly difficult to report the details of the death of American Ashley Olsen without sliding into the dangerous territory of victim-blaming. The 35-year-old Florida native was found dead on Jan. 8 in her studio apartment in Florence, Italy, purportedly at the hands of a man she met at a nightclub and brought to her home. The two had consensual sex, the prosecutor said Thursday, and they werent exactly lucid. Her funeral was held in Florence on Friday afternoon at Santo Spirito church, where she was often seen sitting on the steps with her dog. Yet as the gory details of Olsens senseless death emerge, the local press in Italy have started slut-shaming her corpse, implying that she was as much to blame for her death. Headlines about cocaine-fueled sex and Olsens habits of the night and preference for Africans have replaced those about what a nice, sweet person she was. And the photos of her sitting with her beloved beagle, Scout, have been replaced by those with her in lacy black dresses. Lets be clear: She may have made a series of seriously questionable decisions the night before she died, but even if she did consent to sex, as the prosecutor believes, she does not deserve this slut-shaming and certainly did not deserve to die. Authorities have said Olsens official cause of death was strangulation with something other than bare hands. She also suffered two cranial fractures that the prosecutor suggested were serious enough to kill her. A 27-year-old Senegalese man named Cheik Diaw, who is an undocumented immigrant in Italy, was picked up as the prime suspect after the two had been seen together on surveillance footage leaving the members-only Montecarla nightclub early last Friday morning. Investigators say DNA tests confirmed his presence in her apartment from a condom and a cigarette butt found at the scene. When announcing the arrest Thursday, lead prosecutor Giuseppe Creazzo said the pair hooked up at a nightclub and she had invited him home. There was no sexual aggression, he said. The sex was consensual. Diaw has not been charged with a crime. Diaws lawyer, Antonio Voce, told The Daily Beast that the two also drank and did cocaine during their encounter. Toxicology reports from Olsens autopsy are not yet available. Because Olsen is dead, Diaws version of events is the only one we have. His lawyer says that after the two had sex, Olsen told him to go away out of fear her boyfriend would return. He was offended, Voce says. Florences La Nazione newspaper, citing a transcript from Diaws initial interrogation that has apparently been leaked, reported that Diaw said they snorted cocaine that Olsen had in her house. Those press reports indicate he says he left her apartment to buy cigarettes and then returned and the two had consensual sex. After that, Diaw reportedly told authorities, Olsen demanded that he leave. She treated me like a dog. She pushed me and hit my side, he told investigators, according to the leaked transcript. I pushed her back and hit her in the neck. The two then apparently pushed each other around, with Diaw admitting to pushing her hard onto the tile floor, where she hit her head, according to the transcripts. He then lifted her by the neck up to her bed on a mezzanine loft in the studio apartment and left. Voce maintains that his client had no intention to kill her or hurt her. He says Diaw told him Olsen was alive when he left the apartment with her cellphone, which he was using at the time of his arrest after replacing her SIM card with his. Even if the prosecutors theory results in a guilty verdict against Diaw, no one will ever know what truly transpired between the pair because Olsen took her version of events to the grave. Thats why victim-shaming her, even if we dont agree with the behavior, isnt fairbecause she will never get the chance to speak for herself. Making a blanket statement that Olsen consented, based on one-dimensional forensic evidence, silences the victim. One might wonder what Olsen might say in court if she had survived. What was she doing with Diaw? Who can possibly say? Did she really want to die? Most certainly not. The pastor of a reclusive upstate New York church incited her flock to brutally beat two teenage brothersone to deathby claiming they practiced witchcraft, new court filings allege. Tiffanie Irwin told members of the Word of Life Christian Church that Lucas and Christopher Leonard used voodoo dolls, sexually fantasized about her, and plotted to kill their own parents, according to documents first published by the Utica Observer-Dispatch. Those accusations turned deadly the night of Oct. 11, 2015, when members of the Chadwicks church savagely pummeled Lucas Leonard, 19, and Christopher Leonard, 17kicking, punching, and whipping them with extension cords over a stretch of 14 hours, after they refused to repent for their sins, authorities say. Lucas Leonard died of his injuries Oct. 12 after relatives rushed him to a hospital. An autopsy revealed he suffered multiple contusions to the torso and extremities. His brother survived and is now under the care of the state. About a week after the assault inside the sanctuary, Christopher Leonard testified that he tried to save his brothers life using CPR. He had watched Lucas moan and collapse to the ground following the spiritual counseling session, he said. The deadly beatdown, allegedly carried out by eight church members, came hours after Irwin allegedly confronted Lucas Leonard over his desire to leave the parish, which operates out of a sprawling former high school building that is gated off from the rest of New Hartford, New York. Irwin goaded congregantsincluding the Leonards own parentsinto beating the teens after hurling a string of accusations that also included watching pornography and sexually abusing children, court papers allege. (Police have said they found no evidence of sexual abuse or witchcraft.) Such allegations were brought by [Irwin] with the intent to enrage and infuriate the teens parents, Bruce and Deborah Leonard, and Sarah Ferguson, their half-sister, the documents state, or under circumstances that rendered such emotional responses a reasonable possibility. The court papersreviewed by The Daily Beastpaint a horrific picture of how church members whipped, punched, and kicked the helpless brothers to the point of gruesome and lethal injury. The district attorney alleges that during the assault, Lucas Leonard's penis was lacerated. As a result of this injury ... he lost a significant about of blood that ultimately saturated the crotch area and left leg of the pants he was wearing. After the deranged worshippers beat Lucas within inches of his life, they left him to die, the court documents state. As a result of the totality of injuries inflicted upon Lucas Leonard ... and the failure of [Irwin] and co-defendants to provide and/or seek medical attention for Lucas Leonard, a vulnerable victim, such actions and inactions caused his death, the document continues. Christopher was also lashed with a power cord in the groin area. The DA charges that the church members intentionally struck him with the intent to cause serious and protracted disfigurement ... or impairment of the function of any bodily organ. The documents, provided by the Oneida County district attorneys office, indicate churchgoers believed Irwin was a prophet and had ultimate authority within the sect, which neighbors have long considered a cult. According to the court papers, the Leonard family was forced to stay at the facility and engage in a counseling session conducted by Pastor Irwin. Indeed, Deborah Leonard described Irwin as a prophet during a December court appearance. The mother took a plea deal to reduced charges of first-degree assault and will serve five years in state prison, CNY Central reported. She is expected to testify against her husband, Bruce, and fellow members. In court, Deborah Leonard cried as she described using an extension cord to whip both of her sons in their upper chests, the TV station reported. She said Lucas had begun secretly attending services at another church in August 2015two months before he was beaten to death. His mother told prosecutors that Irwin was a prophet who was in charge of the counseling session. If the pastor had said stop, the fatal beating would have stopped, Deborah Leonard said, according to Syracuse.com. On Monday, Irwin rejected a plea deal of 18 years to life in prison, and so far most of her flock has followed suit. Oneida County district attorney Scott McNamara said he requested a sentence of no less than 18 years for Irwin. We havent made them offers that, in my opinion, would entice people to take a plea deal, McNamara told The Daily Beast. All these offers include a life sentence on the end. Based on what happened here, the offer is the least amount of time they should do for what they did to Lucas and Christopher, he added. McNamara said he anticipates two trials: one with two defendants, and another with the remaining six accused. We have a deceased young man that shouldnt be dead, and it is a murder, it is a homicide. With that should come a certain level of punishment, especially when you look at the way were alleging he died, McNamara said. The DA told The Daily Beast that observers should wait for the trial to determine whos culpable and at what level. The FBI and U.S. Attorneys Office have contacted the district attorney about prosecuting the case, according to the Observer-Dispatch. The feds may also eye civil rights violations, the paper reported. Authorities have charged Tiffanie Irwin and her mother, Traci Irwin, 49, deemed the flocks spiritual leader; her brother Joseph Irwin; members David Morey, 26, and Linda Morey, 54; Bruce Leonard, 65, and Sarah Ferguson, 33. Seven of the eight remaining suspects are facing second-degree murder charges and are heading to trial. All eight are charged with manslaughter, kidnapping, assault, and gang assault for the brutal episode. The teens father, Bruce, is slated to appear in court Jan. 19 to accept or decline a plea deal from prosecutors, though details of the offer havent been released. Once she gets that Bernie Sanders guy out of the waya task that is becoming much, much harder than she ever imaginedHillary Clinton is ready to take the gloves off with Donald Trump. If the reality show billionaire manages to win the Republican presidential nomination, and if Im fortunate enough to be the Democratic nominee, Clinton declared on Thursday night s installment of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, itll be quite the showdown. Yeah. The real estate mogul, in fact, had been Fallons guest on Mondays program, so the late-night comic favored the former first lady, New York senator and secretary of state with his patented Trump impression, along the Republican frontrunners saber-rattling remark that I havent even started on Hillary yet. Does he intimidate you? Fallon asked. Clintonwhose celebrity status is at least the equal of The Donaldswaited a beat, flashed her eyes dismissively and answered with a barely audible No that produced the looked-for laugh from the studio audience. Tell you whathes a lot more obsessed with me than I am with him, Clinton addeda comment no doubt designed to provoke a Twitter tirade from the thatch-roofed, tough-talking tyro politician. (Earlier, Fallon had joked during the monologue: There are four stars in the universe named after Donald Trump. A burning ball of hot air has stars named after him.) As with her last appearance with Fallon in Septemberalso, by no coincidence, on the night of a Republican presidential debate, a bit of calculated counterprogrammingClintons mission was to present herself as likable enough, especially now that the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary are mere days away. She laughed and laughed at Fallons impression of her husband Bill, shared her techniques for staying awake when she hasnt been given time to sleep (I dig my fingernails into my palm), confided her granddaughter Charlottes fixation on the Sesame Street character Elmo (and did a pretty fair impression of the Elmo doll that she gave Charlotte for Christmas), and even sat for a few selfies with Fallon, which the talk show host immediately posted on the candidates Snapchat account (one with animated cartoon-character springs sprouting out of his eyeballs). At one point, Fallon was so close to Clinton during a selfie pose that he practically sat in her lap. If you recognize the cologne, its the Axe Effect, he lewdly advisedprompting a fusillade of Clintonian giggles. Clinton, 68, continues to suffer from a trust deficit with voters who read daily about her email troubles and the FBI investigation of same, and are put off by her ideological flexibility and air of perpetual premeditation. Fallon couldnt resist a gentle jape about Clintons troubles in the monologue: Backstage she told me shes a huge fan of the show and I told her, Yeah, I know, I read it in your emails. Recent polls show that 74-year-old Vermont senator Sanders, an avowed socialist with a Brooklyn accent and crazy white hair, is within striking distance in Iowa and beating her soundly in New Hampshirean unimaginable circumstance and potential catastrophe, if realized, that seems to be scaring the bejeezus out of Clintons combat-hardened campaign operatives. In a display of either admirable grit or virtuosic insincerity, maybe a bit of both, Clinton affected not to be rattled when Fallonwho was polite enough to introduce her as the leading candidate and Democratic frontrunnerasked about her rapidly shrinking advantage in the race for the White House. Were in a tight race, Clinton said, adding that she never really credited those early pollsthats really artificialthat had her running with seemingly insurmountable double-digit leads over Sanders and former Maryland governor Martin OMalley. Im excited, she added brightly, grinning an electric grin. This is not a job they give away. You really have to work hard for it. OMalley, poor man, is so far behind that hes barely a speck in the rear-view mirror; Fallon mistakenly suggested that it would only be Clinton and Sanders facing off in Sundays Democratic debate in Charleston, South Carolina, to be carried on NBC, and Clinton was compelled to correct him. Governor OMalleys there too, she saida comment that inspired cruel laughter among a group of political reporters who were screening a live feed of the taping a few floors above the Tonight Show studio in Rockefeller Center. Just like Trump on Monday, Clinton ended her appearance by submitting to a mock job interview, with Fallon firing questions that he read off of a clipboard. How did she hear about the position? Fourth Grade social studies. Why is she suited for the job? I think I have the experience, the qualifications to tackle the range of challenges this job presentsAnd I have references. Why does she want it? I really care what happens to our country, and so on and so forth. What are her strengths? Im tenacious. Im determined. Ive gotten results. At which point Fallon demanded: Can you type? Amid the audience laughter, Clinton said, I can in a pinch, and then embarked on a lengthy disquisition about typing on a keyboard versus an iPhone and her frustration with the annoying autocorrect feature that overrides eccentric spellings and produces words that have zero to do with anything. Were interviewing you, Fallon interrupted. Youre chatty, he added, to more laughter. Youre Chatty Cathy! Describe yourself in two words, he instructed. Strong. Focused, she answered after some thought. And lastly, Fallon declared, is there an email address where we can reach you? Clinton chuckled gamely and slapped her hand several times on Fallons desk. One had to wonder if there was any place else she might have wanted to wield it. The State Department put up virtually no resistance when Hillary Clintons private lawyer requested to keep copies of her emailseven though those emails contained classified information, and even though it was unclear whether the attorney was cleared to see such secrets. Experts on the handling of classified information tell The Daily Beast that the seemingly chummy arrangement between Clintons lawyer and her former State Department aides was quite unusual. Newly released documents, obtained by The Daily Beast in coordination with the James Madison Project under the Freedom of Information Act, include legal correspondence and internal State Department communications about Clintons emails. Those documents provide new details about how officials tried to accommodate the former secretary of state and presidential candidate. In May 2015, a senior State Department official informed Clintons lawyer, David Kendall, that government reviewers had found at least one classified email among the messages she sent using a private account, which she used exclusively while in office. That email was only part of the first tranche of the review, a State Department employee noted at the time, leaving open the possibility that more classified information would be found, which it was. Patrick F. Kennedy, the undersecretary of state for management, who had worked under Clinton, asked Kendall to delete all electronic copies of the message in his possession. (Copies were sent to the State Department.) But Kendall resisted, saying he needed a full record of his own of the 55,000 pages of emails Clinton had sent, in order to respond to information requests from a House committee investigating the 2012 attacks on U.S. officials in Benghazi, Libya, and from the inspectors general of the State Department and the intelligence agencies. I therefore do not believe it would be prudent to delete the email from the master copies that Kendalls firm was maintaining, he wrote. There is no indication that Kennedy, who oversees physical and information security for the State Department, protested the private lawyers position or tried further to persuade Kendall to delete the classified email. The message had been forwarded to Clinton by one of her senior aides, Jacob Sullivan, in November 2012 and contained references to the attack in Benghazi two months earlier. Rather, within a few days, State Department employees were told to develop a system that would let Kendall keep the emails in a State Department-provided safe at his law firm in Washington, D.C., where he and a partner had access to them. The arrangement with Kendall was far from the norm, Steven Aftergood, an expert on classification and security policy at the Federation of American Scientists, told The Daily Beast. There are a number of attorneys around who handle clients and cases involving classified information. They are almost never allowed to retain classified material in their office, whether they have a safe or not. Sometimes they are not even allowed to review the classified information, even if they are cleared for it, because an agency will say they dont have a need to know. In any event, the deference shown to Mr. Kendall by the State Department was quite unusual. As early as May 2015, Kendall had been made aware that at least one email in Clintons archives included classified information. But that didnt become public knowledge for some time, and when the Clinton campaign became aware of it is unclear. As late as July 1, Clinton campaign spokeswoman Karen Finney was pushing back against the notion, telling MSNBC that the assumption that there was classified information being communicated on this BlackBerry I think has been shown in these emails to just be simply untrue. Kendall did not respond to requests for comment. Brian Fallon, a Clinton campaign spokesman, noted that Kendall had an obligation to retain the former secretarys emails in order to respond to various government inquiries. David Kendall was adhering to a preservation request from the FBI, State Department inspector general, and the House Select Committee on Benghazi, Fallon told The Daily Beast. State Department spokesperson John Kirby defended the governments actions. The State Department takes the protection of sensitive information seriously, Kirby told The Daily Beast, noting that Kendal had told the department that her emails were still subject to preservation requests. Accordingly, the department provided Secretary Clintons lawyers with instructions on physically securing the documents while additional options were under discussion. But a spokesperson for the committee investigating the Benghazi attacks was unpersuaded that the arrangement was appropriate. Perhaps if Secretary Clinton had turned her server over to an independent, neutral third-party, such as the State Department Inspector General or the Archivist of the Unites States as the Benghazi Committee suggested when it first uncovered her unusual email arrangement, perhaps the damage to our national security would be less than it is now, Jamal Ware, a spokesperson for the committee, told The Daily Beast. The FBI, not the Benghazi committee, is examining the classification issues related to Clintons personal email account. The arrangement with Kendall has been previously reported. But the documents reveal new details about what was happening inside the State Department as officials moved ahead with the unorthodox setup. At one point, a State Department lawyer questioned whether Kendall or one of his associates, Katherine Turner, was qualified to receive and maintain classified information. Do any of the lawyers have TS [top secret] clearances, Sarah Prosser, a legal adviser at State, asked colleagues in an email in August 2015, after more classified material had been found in Clintons emails. Its not clear from the emails, portions of which are heavily redacted, what the answer was, but Kendall later said he and Turner did have a top secret-level clearance, given to him previously by the State Department as part of his work representing Clinton before the Benghazi committee. Theres no indication of what legal review State undertook to verify that or determine whether the arrangement was acceptable. Top secret clearances dont necessarily entitle someone to all classified information. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) later questioned whether there may have been information in the emails for which Kendall and Turner didnt have the appropriate clearances, including so-called compartmented information that is derived from some of the most highly classified intelligence-collecting systems in the U.S. government. The internal State Department correspondence also shows that security officials intended to install a safe and records-keeping system that was suitable only up to the secret level, a lower designation than top secret. Kendall has long argued, particularly in correspondence with lawmakers, that the emails in his possession were not originally classified and were only deemed so after they were reviewed by government auditors. One internal email shows that the State Department shared that assessment. In the first tranche of emails there was one that was subsequently classified, an executive assistant at State told Gregory Starr, the assistant secretary for diplomatic security, in an email recounting the exchanges between Kennedy and Kendall. Starr was asked to appoint someone from States diplomatic security bureau to go to Kendalls law firm, Williams & Connolly, to do a thorough security review to include physical security of area/safe in which document/electronic versions are being kept, who has access to the area/safe, do those individuals have appropriate clearances Its not clear from the documents what reviews took place. The question of whether Kendall should be allowed to keep classified email received new scrutiny in July 2015, after investigators found additional Clinton emails that they thought contained classified information. At the time, Grassley said that at least two emails contained top secret, sensitive compartmented information. Investigators found that Clintons emails contained information from at least five intelligence agencies. Kendall gave the thumb drive to the Justice Department on Aug. 6 and gave copies to the FBI. The internal State Department emails show employees reacting to news that the FBI had taken possession of the thumb drive as well as a server in Clintons home in Chappaqua, New York, and that some of the emails were said to contain classified information . On Aug. 11, a State press officer sent around clips of news articles, noting that this is breaking widely and providing a brief summary. The nearly 20 recipients included press staff, a senior attorney, and Kennedy. Prosser, the State Department attorney whod asked whether Kendall and Turner had proper security clearances, forwarded the email to other attorneys and department security personnel, including some of those shed been corresponding with about the clearance question. While State Department officials initially may have felt that non-government lawyers were qualified to maintain classified emails at their office, they changed their tune as investigators began to discover more top secret information among Clintons communications. In late July, as the FBI was preparing to take possession of the thumb drive, Kennedy wrote to lawyers for three of Clintons top aidesSullivan, Philippe Reines, and Huma Abedinasking them to turn over all copies of potential federal records in their clients possession. Kennedy acknowledged that the aides (like Kendall) might need access to the records in order to respond to congressional inquiries and other investigations. The State Department was more than happy to give them access, Kennedy said. They just had to show up at department headquarters during normal business hours and read them there. Updated 12:00 p.m. Jan. 15 to add comments from The State Department. Elite U.S. commandos are now in position in Iraq, northern Syria and beyond, ready to raid against the so-called Islamic State just as the White House has nominated a top special operations general to take charge of the ISIS fight. Gen. Joseph Votel, who now heads American special operations forces, will take over U.S. Central Command, replacing Gen. Lloyd Austin if confirmed by the Senate. Votel, 57, previously ran the Joint Special Operations Command, the elite counterterrorist unit behind the new U.S. strike force in Iraq. Those JSOC operators are also working with rebel forces in Syria, as part of their widening footprint across the Mideast and Africa. Votels appointment and the deployment of JSOC to spearhead the ISIS campaign shows that President Barack Obama is entrusting his national security legacy to the same elite group that killed Osama bin Ladenan achievement he made sure to mention in his last-ever State of the Union address. The Obama administration is counting on the units stepped-up operations over the next year to turn around largely negative public opinion of his track record against ISIS. Its a perception reinforced by jihadist-inspired attacks in Paris, San Bernardino, Jakarta, and Istanbulnot to mention the terror groups ongoing hold on major cities like Mosul, Iraq and Raqqa, Syria. A December Quinnipiac University poll that found 57 percent of Americans surveyed thought the U.S. and its allies are losing the fight against ISIS. In response, JSOCs counterterrorist operations have thickened in places like Libya, where a sizeable team of operators work in parallel with French and British special forces, three senior U.S. officials tell The Daily Beast. They focus on tracking and sometimes striking key figures with raids and airstrikes, like the November strike that killed ISIS leader Abu Nabil. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The officials predict the JSOC team in Iraq will enable a stepped-up campaign against ISIS in a matter of weeks, working in coordination with the Iraqi government and with Kurdish forces, raiding alongside them inside Iraq and staging unilateral raids into Syria. The strike forces other major role is to feed intelligence from the CIA, NSA, and other agencies to Iraqi and Kurdish forces to sharpen their anti-ISIS campaign. The special operations mission inside Syria is at a more embryonic stage, a long way from giving new intelligence and targeting information to rebel troops, according to a senior U.S. official who had been briefed this week on the operations. There are multiple complexities driving the assessment. Its figuring out who is supporting who, and who are we going to be able to work with, and who will we not be able to, the official said, speaking anonymously as a condition of describing the briefings. U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter insisted this week that they are already helping. These forces have already established contact with new forces that share our goals, new lines of communication to local, motivated, and capable partners, and new targets for airstrikes and strikes of all kinds, Carter said in remarks Wednesday. They are generating new insights that we turn into new targets, new strikes, and new opportunities. The Syria-based special operations team has already started feeding important information to the White House. We do think we have begun to identify some places where we can have an impact in the shaping operations for Raqqah, ISISs de facto capital, an administration official said. That can include identifying the routes ISIS uses to resupply its weaponry for targeting, or even identifying segments of the city that might welcome liberation from an outside force. The White House would not comment on special operations outside Iraq and Syria, but confirmed Obamas heavy reliance on the elite units in the ISIS fight. We have chosen special operations as one of the best ways to support our local forces on the ground to make sure the victories against ISIS will be locally earned and locally sustainable, the anonymous senior administration official said of the ISIS fight. We are deploying them in a tactical, targeted and limited way, in small enough numbers that we deny ISIS the opportunity to talk about a foreign occupation and use them as a recruiting tool, the official added. The White House has also endorsed a special operations takeover of another part of the ISIS fight by putting former Navy SEAL and current head of special operations at the Pentagon, Michael Lumpkin, in charge of a revamped State Department effort to counter ISIS propaganda. Previous iterations of States social messaging campaign included engaging in a public Twitter war with ISIS trolls, considered a mistake by many who practice the dark art known as psychological operations. Lumpkin is expected to leverage his background and relationships to step up the ISIS social media fight by taking it underground. Lumpkin understands that ISIS wants a co-dependency with the U.S. government, so to deny them that diminishes their strength, said a former senior strategist for special operations, speaking anonymously to describe policy debates. He predicted Lumpkin will build a campaign that includes finding ways to enable local voices who are already denouncing ISIS to speak more loudly, while keeping the U.S. government in the background. The [Twitter hashtag] in London, You aint no Muslim, bruv, got more traction than any of the PSAs [public service announcements] that her majestys government aired, and Lumpkin knows that, the former official said. Presidents in need have frequently turned to special operations when faced with intractable problems. President John F. Kennedy supported expanding the U.S. Armys Special Forces Green Berets during the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Their primary mission was to train local forces for proxy fights against Communist-backed forces. President Jimmy Carter turned to special operations forces to rescue U.S. hostages held by Iran in 1980, an attempt that failed, but led to Congresss creation of the U.S. Special Operations Command. The force grew under President George W. Bush after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, spearheading the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, and later against the insurgent remnants of Saddams forces and al Qaeda in Iraq. Special Operations Command has grown to nearly 70,000 troops, deployed in more than 70 countries worldwide, with a tempo that has barely slowed even as the Obama administration declares an end to combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. On Thursday, Votel was quick to point out that his special operations forces were one element in a larger U.S. government fight against ISIS. Special Operations forces arent in this by ourselves, he said. But senior administration officials concede that they have been an overused tool in the Obama national security toolbox, and may need to expand in size to meet the growing demand. The frequent refrain from senior special operations commanders is that the force is frayed, beset with high rates of suicide, divorce, and signs of combat stress like sleep disorders and heavy alcohol use. Part of the reason they are so popular is the effectiveness of JSOCs intelligence-driven operations, working the CIA and other agencies with what CIA chief John Brennan has called scalpel-like precision. But most of the missions involve training and working with local forces at the invitation of foreign governments, which fits with the Obama administrations goal to stop being the worlds policeman by enabling other forces to lead the charge in their regions. From Green Berets to Marine Raiders to Navy SEALs, small teams of U.S. operators are engaged in slow, grinding regional campaigns like the drug war in Latin America or the decades-long fight against Islamic militants in the Philippines. I think that President Obama appreciates the unique capabilities and approach that SOF [special operations forces] offers, one senior special operations official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe senior policy discussions. He has been a strong supporter of SOF and indeed all of our services, the official said. Theres been no shortage of grumbling at the Pentagon that the White Houses focus on special operations has created an impression that the U.S. can get by with a smaller army. U.S. decision-makers have often preferred deploying special operators because of the ability to keep their missions secret, as designed by the laws that created them. Thats attractive to foreign governments that dont want to reveal to their own people their reliance on foreign forces, and its attractive to U.S. administrations that dont want to be accused of mission creep or an expansion of combat operations in countries where theyve declared wars ended. The emphasis on more clandestine operations makes it more challenging for human-rights groups and aid agencies because its harder to figure out who to call when they find evidence of civilian casualties or wrongdoing. A light footprint makes it more challenging for us because we dont have as many counterparts to talk to on the ground, said Dominik Stillhart, director of operations for the International Committee of the Red Cross. During U.S. combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, there were large forces and commanders based in country that ICRC officials could meet face-to-face. We provide confidential reporting on conditions and treatment of detainees, at U.S. facilities the Red Cross is allowed to visit, Stillhart said, or local villager accounts in the aftermath of U.S. special operations raids that help U.S. military chiefs police their ownreports he said that Special Operations Command and JSOC have both welcomed in Iraq and Afghanistan. With the expansion of more secretive U.S. operations worldwide, local ICRC officials in countries like Libya and Somalia find it more challenging to identify who to call. Fewer U.S. boots on the ground also means that there arent always enough U.S. forces to monitor the behavior of those they trained, to make sure they are conforming to international laws of war and respect of human rightsa problem that cropped up in Afghanistan with Afghan local police who went rogue after their special operations trainers had departed the area. The secrecy also ties the U.S. militarys hands when an operation is exposed to the public, captured on video thanks to the ubiquitous use of smart phones, and propagated on the Internet, or when special operations missions go sideways. A Green Beret was killed this month in southern Afghanistan, leaving behind a 3-month-old son. A member of the Armys elite Delta Force was slain during a hostage rescue mission in Iraq this fall. And most disturbingly, an American gunship guided by U.S. special operators responding to a request from local forces hit a hospital in northern Afghanistan, killing 22 people. All of the incidents are reminders that Obamas commando-driven plan to save his legacy may not put thousands of American troops in harms way, but still come with heavy risksand heavy costs. Having ruled Los Angeless groupie scene in the late 60s and early 70s, Pamela Des Barres scoffed at the feminist outrage over David Bowies tryst with another famous groupie, Lori Mattix, who was only 15 when Bowie allegedly deflowered her. Its just ridiculous, Des Barres, now 67a supergroupie turned journalist and memoiristtold The Daily Beast. Yes, she was a young girl. A lot of people think thats wrong and let them, but this was a very specific time. Lori is 60 years old now and has no regrets or remorse. Shes told her story a million times before! One of those times is recorded in Des Barress fourth book, Lets Spend the Night Together (2008), which features interviews with other prominent rock star groupies. (The interviews were filmed for a VH1 documentary of the same name.) Des Barres never knew Bowie, though she and Mattix were both in and out of bed with Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin. Affectionately known as Miss Pamela from her days as a groupiea nickname that stuck when she became the leading member of the groupie band Girls Together Only, or the GTOsDes Barres had her fair share of rock star lovers. She made out with Jim Morrison while huffing Trimar; lost her virginity at 19 to Nick St. Nicholas, the bassist in Steppenwolf. She had affairs with Noel Redding, Chris Hillman, Waylon Jennings, Keith Moon, and Mick Jagger, among others. Des Barres recounted these free-love escapades vividly and lovingly in her 1987 debut, Im With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie, a best-selling tell-all that was critically praised for capturing the innocent hedonism of the era. The New York Times declared it the brightest, sexiest, funniest among the deluge of groupie memoirs in the late 80s. She went on to write four more books and is working on a fifth, Let It Bleed: How to Write a Rockin Memoir. Speaking on the phone while driving to a gig in Houston, Texas with her ex-boyfriend Mike Stinson (hes a genius), Des Barres confessed that Mick Jagger was the first androgynous guy I was attracted to. She said she has remained friends with all of her exes, including her ex-husband, the rock star Michael Des Barres, whom she split from in 1991 after 14 years of marriage. The two have a son together, Nicholas Dean Des Barres. Jagger was dangerous and safe all at once, she told me. It was like hanging out with one of the girls, someone you could confide in. The GTOs were all making out with each other, and while I never had sex with a girl, I loved kissing and cuddling with them. Jagger was a combination of a sexy, funky man and a sweet girl. The fact that he was petite was part of the attraction, she said. It was like, Wow, this person is right on my level. Was she jealous of other women when she was dating these rock gods? We didnt date back then, she said, cutting me off. But it wasnt just sex either. I was in love with Chris Hillman. At one point I thought Jimmy Page might be the one. She did get jealous, of course, when they left her bed and jumped into someone elses. But I realized that was the world I was living in, she said. You had to accept it or go home, and I wasnt about to go home. Des Barres was in her twenties by the time Lori Mattix came along, part of a new crop of nubile baby groupies. They did everything they could to push Miss Pamela and the other GTOs out of the picture. It was like junior high, she said. They were just mean. They made themselves available to the guys and they loved it! Des Barres has been determined to reclaim the term groupie ever since Im With the Band came out and women attacked her for writing about her promiscuity from a place of empowerment and pleasure. She recalled an old, blustering woman shaking her finger at her in the audience when she was promoting the book on Phil Donahues talk show. I said, Im really sorry you didnt get to sleep with Mick Jagger and I did. And that always shut them up. AIDS was rampant at the time so there was this how dare you attitude, she continued. I had to remind everyone that I was a groupie in the 60s and early 70s. I never even got a transmittable disease from a rock star. So people can just go fuck themselves about that. Groupies are synonymous with star fuckers. But for Des Barres, being a groupie was more about the music than anything else. The music made me happy to be alive, she told me. As for rock legends sleeping with young girls, Des Barres said she understands the urge to protect children. I was underage when I first started giving head to rock stars. That would be called statutory rape, I assume. But myself and a lot of these girls, like Sweet Connie [from Littlerock] who got so much shit because she serviced the whole band, we just wanted to show our respect and love to these people for their music. Hamzie was another infamous groupie whose diaries were published in a 1992 article for Penthouse. (She claimed Bill Clinton made a pass at her in 1984.) I point out that groupies still have a reputation for being hangers-on. And so what? What is wrong with some girl getting her kicks for an hour with someone who shes listened to on her headphones for years on end? Is she hurting anyone? No one was raped by these rock guys. People get all up in their high fucking horse. It was a time when women were on the birth control pill and could own their own bodies. Thats why I get so angry at feminists who cast aspersions on me and say I was submissive to rock stars, which is such bullshit. I was doing exactly what I wanted to do. Americas Sweethearts have broken up. And like most celebrity splits, it was messy. I guess the bromance is over, Donald Trump concluded in an interview on CNN after the Republican debate, reflecting on a relationship that might never be the same again. Before things fell apart for the star-crossed candidates, Ted Cruz and Trump long had a non-aggression pact. It was sweet; Cruz defended Trumps outlandish statements when no other Republican would, and Trump staunchly refused to target Cruz because of that goodwill. Trump has started to question whether the Canadian-born Cruz is constitutionally eligible for the presidency, but even that attack was delivered much more politely than anything hes said to someone like Jeb Bush. But now whatever alliance Cruz and Trump had has been replaced by all-out war. In fact, the exchanges between the two rivals did what many thought to be impossible: Cruz made Trump look reasonable and Trump made Cruz look likeable. It started out with a protracted back-and-forth over Cruzs birthplace. I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling in Iowa, Cruz said in response to a question about the new Trump attack. But the facts and law here are really quite clear. Under longstanding U.S. law, the child of a U.S. citizen born abroad is a natural born citizen. If a soldier has a child abroad, that child is a natural born citizen. Trump doubled- and tripled-down on his charge that Democrats would use the fact that Cruz was born in Canada to challenge his eligibility. Dont blame me, he argued; Im just the bad-news bearer, the teller of tough truths, the keeper of real. You saw the numbers yourself, NBC/Wall Street Journal came out with a poll headline, Trump way up, Cruz going down, Trump said to boos from the crowd. They dont like NBC, but I like the poll, he said trying to hush the crowd and project the vitriol elsewhere. And frankly it just came out and, in Iowa now, as you know, Ted, in the last three polls Im beating you. So you shouldnt misrepresent how well youre doing with the polls. Trump glowered throughout their birth certificate back-and-forth, citing Harvard professor Laurence Tribes recent Boston Globe op-ed questioning the senators eligibility, and noting that other legal scholars had expressed skepticism about it as well. Cruz sounded eager to laugh off the criticism. Im not gonna be taking legal advice from Donald Trump, he said, grinning. But Trump didnt crack a smile. Trumps demeanor seemed different from how its been past debates, where hes made goofy faces, rolled his eyes theatrically, and made jokes about his Republican rivalsespecially when that rivals name is Jeb. But at the Thursday debate, that affability was nowhere to be found. Later, though, the tension got even worse. Cruz has recently taken to joking about the fact that Trump is from New York, suggesting that his New York values mean he cant be a good conservative. The issue arose again, and Cruz looked to keep things light. Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan, the senator said. Im just saying! Trump didnt look amused, and immediately suggested Cruzs criticism meant he was being glib about the 9/11 attacks. Ive never seen anything like it, Trump said, describing the attacks aftermath. And the people in New York fought, and fought, and fought, and we saw more death and even the smell of death, nobody understood it, and it was with us for months, the smell, the air, Trump continued. And we rebuilt downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched, and everybody in the world loved New York, and loved New Yorkers, and I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made. As Trump monologued, Cruz looked on in silence, wincing. And he didnt attempt any retort. It takes a lot to silence a star college debater like Cruz, but Trump got it done. Back in September, the pair teamed up for a Capitol Hill rally about their shared opposition to the Iran deal. And this summer, sources told The Daily Beast that Cruz was deliberately wooing the real estate mogul. In terms of Trumps civility, if youre nice to him, hell be nice to you, one source said. And Cruz has been nice. Cruz is playing the long game and hopes that if he survives and Trump doesnt, the billionaire will swing to him. Trump, in turn, treated Cruz with condescending kindness. In December, Trump even issued an extremely rare retraction after describing Cruz as a maniac. The backlash from conservative talk radio was swiftand Trump quickly relented on his attacks. He has a wonderful temperament, Trump said at the December Republican debate in Las Vegas when moderators pressed him on that criticism. Hes just fine, dont worry about it. Trump gave Cruz an amicable pat on the back. But that was before Cruz rose past Trump in Iowa and became a threat to the dominance in the polls that Trump boasts about at every campaign rally. If Cruz lost one friend at this debate, his relationship with another frenemy somehow got worse as Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio continued their feud over their legislative records. I hate to interrupt this episode of Court TV, Rubio quipped as he interrupted the Cruz-Trump exchange over Cruzs citizenship and launched into his platform. Later, the two launched into a full Itchy and Scratchy routine over whether Rubio was telling the truth about Cruzs tax plan as well as whether Cruz had flip-flopped over crop insurance. I saw you on the Senate floor flip your vote on crop insurance, because they told you it would help you in Iowa, Rubio charged. Cruz smiled and then retorted, I appreciate you dumping your oppo [opposition] research on the debate stage At least half the things Marco said were false. As the crowd bood Cruz, Trumpever the opportunist, saw an opening. You think they like each other? he said. with additional reporting by Gideon Resnick Grunge is still alive and well in Ethiopia. Students of Yechila Secondary School sent a birthday tribute to Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl after learning the lyrics of his former bands hit Smells Like Teen Spirit to practice their English. As learning English is a prerequisite for getting into college in Ethiopia, Peace Corps volunteer Matt Westerberg decided to teach his students through alternative-rock songs. Westerberg told NME, at first it was all just a joke, but after awhile, the students began to really build confidence through learning the song. Check out the video below. RABINAL, Guatemala On March 13, 1982, Carlos Chen Osorio, in hiding, watched from the mountains above his hometown in Rio Negro while the military massacred 177 women and children, including Osorios pregnant wife and their children. Even though he has told the story for three decades, tears often come to his eyes when he remembers. As long as God lets me, I will continue telling my story so that what happened is never repeated, Osorio told The Daily Beast in this predominantly Mayan town in mountainous Baja Verapaz, Guatemala. Osorio, like many others seeking justice, thought that he would find some at the genocide trial of former Guatemalan President Efrain Rios Montt, who was once the darling of politically active conservative Evangelical Christians in the U.S. (hed been born again, after all), and of the Reagan administration. (While Montt waged a campaign to obliterate Mayan villagers who might support a guerrilla insurgency, Reagan made the now infamous remark that hed been given a bum rap. As it happened, Rios Montt only held office for 17 months, from 1982 to 1983, but during that time he intensified what had already been a ferocious counterinsurgency campaign waged by his predecessors. In May 2013 Rios Montt was sentenced to 80 years for genocide and crimes against humanity. But the verdict was overturned by the constitutional court just 10 days later. And now the hope for justice further dwindles at the news the trial will be postponed because of the 89-year-old Rios Montts deteriorating health. Whatever the verdict, the trial exposed the brutal murders, sexual violence, and pillaging of Guatemalan villages under Rios Montt. Classified documents and forensic science have exposed his orders to carry out massacres, U.S. complicity in his tactics, and the horrific results. Trials are really good for bringing out a true historical narrative, said Pamela Yates, a documentary filmmaker who has covered the Rios Montt trial and the Guatemalan Civil War that ended in 1996. Many Guatemalans only started to accept this harsh truth from the countrys past when evidence was presented in court. Osorio relives the genocide almost every day. But some days he pretends it never happened and instead imagines a peaceful, normal life in his house that was burned down. There, he sits with his wife of nearly 40 years as they watch their grandchildren play. It is an imaginary world he has createda world where his family fled to the mountains with him, where he didnt see his wifes hair ribbon in a heap of indistinguishable dead bodies, where his children grew up to be successful young professionals. Then he snaps back to reality. How is it possible to accuse children of being guerrillas? Osorio said. If there were guerrillas [in Rio Negro], there would have been a confrontation. Genocide is the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group through various types of physical repression. A 1998 truth commission in Guatemala, looking at the evidence, decided genocide was the right word to categorize the ethnically motivated massacres against Mayans during the civil war. Yates exposed the widespread and systematic nature of violence in a 1983 documentary, When the Mountains Tremble. In the film, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Rigoberta Menchu Tum, a Mayan woman, narrates the story of abuse and survival of indigenous groups in Guatemala, a story that the government repressed through political terror. The mainstream media in Guatemala was silenced, Yates said. It was not reporting what was happening in the highlands. It couldnt. It wouldnt. Through interviews and visits to predominantly indigenous areas, Yates documented evidence of brutal massacres against an unarmed civilian population. Military forces often conflated civilians with communists in areas marked as red zones where guerrillas had control, Yates learned by going on military patrols. Classified military documents later confirmed these attacks were part of systematic violence against indigenous Mayans, ordered by the highest commanders. As Washington looked at these developments, the brutality was shrouded by Cold War rhetoric that presented the war as nothing more or less than a conflict between Cuban-backed leftists and a democratic government. The national security of all Americans is at stake in Central America, Reagan said in a 1983 speech asking Congress to reopen aid to the region so the people of Central America can hold the line against externally supported aggression. Jimmy Carter had previously cut off military to Guatemala in 1977 for serious human-rights violations. But Reagan bypassed congressional restrictions to send aid to Rios Montt as early as December 1982. The Reagan administration continually petitioned Congress to reopen aid to Central America, including Guatemala. Even without congressional approval, the U.S. covertly sent military supplies, most importantly helicopters to carry out a scorched-earth policy, through proxies such as Israel and other allies. When the U.S. government sends aid to Guatemala, whether its military aid, advisers or economic aid, they must understand that they are contributing directly to a worsening bloodbath, said Menchu in When the Mountains Tremble. Under Rios Montts counterinsurgency plan, Operation Sofia, the Guatemalan army attacked more than 600 villages and an estimated 70,000 people were killed or disappeared. The army general studied at the notorious School of the Americas, considered by some as a U.S.-led training ground for Latin American dictators. The United States was complicit with the genocide. Im not sure if they knew that it was genocide, but they knew that the Guatemalan military was killing civilians, targeting civilians and targeting the militarys political opposition, including unarmed civilians, Yates said. That kind of complicitysilence and President Reagans support for General Rios Monttis a big burden that Americans have to bear. U.S. involvement in the genocide has been largely brushed over in the Rios Montt and other human-rights trials in Guatemala. However, former president Bill Clinton previously attempted to atone for past errors in a 1999 visit to Guatemala when he apologized for the U.S. involvement in the conflict. An apology is a beginning, but I dont think its enough, said Yates. How can you bring back people who were killed? How can you bring back land that was stolen? I think reparations are in order. Since losing his entire family at the hands of the armed forces, Osorio is now remarried with children and grandchildren. He helped found a genocide survivor organization in Baja Verapaz to raise awareness of crimes of the past and pass on Mayan culture to the younger generation. Osorio and other activists will continue their work with or without justice for Rios Montt and other military officers. Just last weekend, survivors organized a march through Guatemala City for genocide awareness. Steven Spielbergs Shoah Foundation and the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation recently launched a project to collect survivor testimonies. Its not one or two people that they killed, but they wanted to end [the Mayan people], Osorio said. They werent criminals. They werent guerrillas. They were women and children, and why did they kill them? We hope that the law applies to [those responsible] so that we dont repeat what happened. When Neal Elementary School fifth-graders Darrius Smith and Ambrose Arevalo unveiled their science fair project Thursday night, it went beyond an experiment involving balloons or plants. Instead, the two studied the effects of mirrors on refracting LED lights and were supervised by a Texas A&M professor as part of a U.S. Department of Education federal STEM grant. A&M professors received the $1.3 million federal grant to work with students at Neal Elementary for the 2015-16 school year and get them engaged in math and science. About 30 students from third through fifth grade shared science projects at the school Thursday. Since September, 124 students in six different classes at the school have received several weeks of instruction from their teachers with the assistance of various A&M professors, who collaborated with the teachers to integrate the federal STEM ideals and concepts into everyday curriculum. STEM stands for "science, technology, engineering and math," and is a national program initiated by the Obama administration to help raise American children's competitiveness and success in these industries by means of merging science and math into everyday learning experiences, making the fields more applicable to real life and attainable as career goals for children. "Today, few American students pursue expertise in STEM fields -- and we have an inadequate pipeline of teachers skilled in those subjects," states the Department of Education's website. "That's why President Obama has set a priority of increasing the number of students and teachers who are proficient in these vital fields." Since the beginning of the school year, Texas A&M faculty have taken time to work with Neal Elementary students to create up to eight projects per class that combine language arts and other nonscientific, nonmathematical fields with science and math. This plan has been named "Making the Makers" by the National Science Foundation, the group that provided the grant, which will extend the professors' work through 2018. "With this, the students are learning differently," said Bryan Independent School District Superintendent Tommy Wallis. "Here, they take all the different senses of learning and implement them to the projects. The kids are taught presentation skills, collaborative learning and problem-solving skills. Nothing about this science fair tonight is not 21st-century learning. We've just made science fun." Students were taught to work with circuits, creating robots, ice-melting devices, quiz boards and more, as well as how to use storytelling elements in their projects. A team of nearly a dozen A&M professors of varying specialties have instructed the students on their projects, and have studied for their own research purposes how the opportunities affect the students' dispositions. "I like to say we're planting a seed in their self concept," said A&M associate professor of psychology Rebecca Schlegel. "Maybe down the line, these kids will want to be scientists." Sharon Lynn Chu, assistant professor of visualization, said she and her colleagues have been observing over the past few months how putting together these projects has affected students' self-esteem, and though no conclusive data has been put together yet, she noted, the professors have noticed a difference in the children. "It did increase these kids' enthusiasm in science and they've shown interest in scientific careers," Chu said. Smith and Arevalo are students in Rita Gamache's fifth-grade class, admitted they liked using the mirror reflection and refraction concepts they learned to pretend to be Marvel superheroes shooting off beams of light. For the moment, the boys said, they feel like they'd both rather be athletes than scientists, but aren't going to let their scientific abilities go to waste, they said. "Our predictions we had at first turned out wrong," Smith said, "but that's what it's all about -- getting it wrong a few times until you finally get it right." Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 By Vagif Sharifov - Trend: There was a recovery in oil price this week, though it has remained relatively low since early January 2016 - at an average of $33 per barrel of Brent, compared to $38 in December and to $49 in the same period January 2015. Brent spot price has been falling from Jan. 11 through Jan. 14, but the amplitude of the price fluctuations is calming down with each passing day - something that hasn't been seen for a very long time. For instance, there was a $1.9 per barrel drop in Brent price Jan. 8 as compared to Jan. 7, which is a record figure since October 2015, whereas yesterday, on Jan.14, the price fell only by $0.05 per barrel compared to Jan. 13. Below are the prices for Brent Dated spot and dynamics of price changes. Date Prices, shown in USD per barrel +/- compared to the day before Dec. 31, 2015 36.61 0.96 Jan. 4, 2016 36.28 -0.33 Jan. 5, 2016 35.56 -0.72 Jan. 6, 2016 33.89 -1.67 Jan. 7, 2016 33.57 -0.32 Jan. 8, 2016 31.67 -1.9 Jan. 11, 2016 30.14 -1.53 Jan. 12, 2016 29.25 -0.89 Jan. 13, 2016 28.89 -0.36 Jan. 14, 2016 28.84 -0.05 Data from EIA Bloomberg has talked to 40 economists, who believe that by late 2016, oil prices will reach almost $60 per barrel versus $52 per barrel in 2015. Meanwhile, some experts have said that if Iran and Saudi Arabia start open hostilities, oil prices will go up and reach $250 or $300 per barrel. But such a situation, if it indeed happens, can last for quite a short period. Over the last 30 years the oil price reached its highest level in 2008 when a barrel of Brent oil was worth of $144. Here are the six factors that will greatly affect oil price in 2016: 1. The conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and its escalation, including the potential risk of failure in crude supplies through the Strait of Hormuz. One-third of the global maritime oil supplies pass through exactly this strategic strait 2. Increase in Iran's oil export and production against the backdrop of the upcoming removal of international sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Tehran has already said it is ready to use its tanker fleet for crude transportation globally, while the American investment banking firm Goldman Sachs predicts that Iran's oil production will rise to 3.133 million barrels per day in 2016, as compared to 2.847 million barrels per day in 2015. 3. Saudi Arabia's continuing to increase its oil supplies to the global market with an intention to expand its own market share. Riyadh, by increasing the oil export and simultaneously dumping prices, is trying to reduce Russia's market share, and meanwhile is waiting for the US oil companies go bankrupt. Experts believe the Saudis are ready to tolerate the low oil price for a long time. They intend to partially compensate the budget deficit through Saudi Aramco's IPO. 4. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) has predicted that the world oil supplies will grow to 95.93 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2016. Over 40 percent or 39.16 million of this figure will account for OPEC countries. The EIA has also forecasted that the oil consumption in 2016 will stand at 95.19 million bpd. 5. Macroeconomic indexes and trends in the Chinese market will be of utmost importance for determining the world oil prices in 2016. China bought the first-ever batch of the US oil on Jan. 15. The purchase allowed the US to test the logistics after the recent oil supply to Europe. 6. An OPEC meeting in March, offered by the cartel's head, where investors will wait for new decisions on quotas, can be another factor affecting oil price in 2016. Meanwhile, I don't see any desire in the majority of the OPEC member states to change anything in the current situation. Previously, in my article titled Global redistribution of oil market, I predicted that, "The situation [on the market] will lead to an unplanned meeting of OPEC in the first six months of 2016, where the countries will blame each other of deliberately glutting the market. But no decision will be taken to cut the production..." Aside from that, Iran and Saudi Arabia are unlikely to agree on anything within OPEC amid the deterioration of their relations. --- Vagif Sharifov is an analyst and expert in oil and energy markets. Follow him on Twitter: @VagifSharifov In his final State of the Union speech, President Barack Obama stated that 200 nations agree that global warming is a problem and they intend to solve it, presumably by the recent Paris COP21 accord. This agreement intends to limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius (3.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. Among its provisions is the requirement to transfer $100 billion per year from developed to developing countries. Unfortunately, the history of climate change agreements -- Rio, Kyoto, Copenhagen -- is a history of failure. Signatories simply are unwilling to burden current economies with costs that address a distant problem. But is the problem really distant? Without significant changes to our energy infrastructure, the targeted temperature rise will occur in about 30 years, which is just around the corner. Unlike information technologies, changing energy technologies take decades the capital costs are simply too large. To replace the entire fossil fuel infrastructure with clean technology -- and to accommodate growth -- we must spend about $2 trillion annually for the next 30 years. Although daunting, this expenditure is only about 2.5 percent of current global GDP, and on a percentage basis is less than U.S. defense spending. Although this expenditure can be mandated by governments, ultimately the technical community must develop and implement profitable clean energy technologies. Only then will political opposition cease. As a member of this community, I am convinced that such technologies exist. We already have started implementing clean-energy technologies. For example, renewable electricity is 30 percent in Germany and 7 percent in the United States. To speed displacement of well-entrenched fossil fuels, renewable technologies generally are introduced through various mandates, taxes, and subsidies. This approach, however, depends upon political will, which is affected strongly by economic prosperity. For example, to become more economically competitive, Australia repealed its carbon tax in 2014. Rather than rely on government regulations, the preferred approach is to develop practical clean energy technologies that compete strictly on economics without market-distorting legislation. A recent success is light-emitting diode (LED) lighting. Compared to traditional incandescents, LEDs are 10 times more efficient and last 40 times longer. The case for LEDs can be made strictly on economics and requires no mandates. In the future, with sufficient investment, we will have economical clean energy technologies, such as automobiles that are two to three times more efficient, buildings that consume two to four times less energy, and economical electricity storage. A particularly fascinating possibility is Hyperloop, a "pod" that travels at 575 miles per hour in an evacuated tube. A trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco would require only 40 minutes, similar to a commercial airliner. Per person, this one-way trip requires only $0.50 of electricity compared to $30 of jet fuel. Furthermore, the "pods" would leave approximately every two minutes, providing much more convenience than air travel. The Texas economy depends heavily on the oil and gas industry, which represents 23 percent of our GDP. As global economies shift away from fossil fuels, the Texas economy is under severe risk, unless we adapt and embrace clean energy. To address global warming, British leaders have proposed the Global Apollo Program, a 10-year publicly funded clean-energy initiative. As a private initiative, Bill Gates has pledged $2 billion and has joined more than 20 other billionaires to form the Breakthrough Energy Coalition. Although this level of funding seems large, in fact it is small relative to the challenge. Therefore, it is imperative that Texas investors follow their lead. We simply do not have time to waste. Mark Holtzapple is a professor of chemical engineering at Texas A&M University. Dear President Obama, We call on you to order the Department of the Interior to undertake immediately a programmatic environmental impact study of the climate impacts of the federal onshore oil and gas program, and to place on hold all, new federal leasing until that study is complete. The Department of the Interior has sold leases to dirty energy companies to drill and frack one to two million onshore acres of our public lands in each year of your presidency. These leases include the right to drill lands in our National Forests and National Wildlife Refuges and lands many consider sacred. For some auctions, commercial interest was so low the Department of the Interior could not find a single bidder. In other cases, it sold the rights to our lands for as little as $1.50 per acre annual rental fee. Just as your Administration appears poised to take long overdue steps to review the federal coal leasing program, review of oil and gas leasing is also essential. In all, private industry now holds more than 34 million acres of oil and gas leases on our public land. Conservation of natural resources and public recreation have been pushed aside in these public places in favor of industrial development and private profit. More than three million of these acres are being held by dirty energy companies in a suspended lease state that does not require any payment for the privilege of open-ended, private speculation on public land into perpetuity. Companies are only developing about one-third of the federal leases they hold. In other words, the US oil and gas industry already has more rights to exploit our public lands than they are willing or able to use for decades to come. Bureau of Land Management step up on climate change The federal onshore oil and gas program has never been comprehensively studied for its impacts to our climate, despite the fact that this federal program is responsible annually for emissions of more than 200,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, or 4% of all U.S. emissions from all energy sources. Five years ago, the Council on Environmental Quality published draft guidance on evaluating the climate change impacts of federal programs. The guidance makes clear that climate impacts from the federal oil and gas program must be studied on a programmatic level through an environmental impact statement. The CEQ guidance has never been finalized and the climate impacts of the federal oil and gas program have never been studied. In defiance of governing statutory mandates and the urgent interest in addressing climate change, state offices of the BLM continually and consistently refuse to quantify climate emissions from oil and gas development activities, ignore the climate costs from these activities to society, and, as recently as this year, have even gone so far as to deny the basic scientific consensus that human activity is causing climate change. Yet UK energy policy has displayed a sustained preference for nuclear power, even though this is now revealed to require reliance on foreign involvement - including a need for controversial strategic infrastructure reliance on France and China. It's the military, stupid! In the absence of other satisfactory explanations for this curious pattern of developments, we present a very particular new hypothesis. This is, that it is strong UK government commitments to maintaining specific military nuclear capabilities, that are interacting with many other complex aspects to sway decisions so strongly in favour of nuclear power. Of course, the idea of connections between civil and military nuclear technologies is not new. In the UK as elsewhere, many links have been documented in past flows of fissile isotopes and other key nuclear materials. But much of the historical importance of these material flow connections are now widely recognised to have been eclipsed by developments like the UK's vast accumulation of military plutonium stockpiles. It is true that there are still important questions to be asked regarding supplies of other important materials for the functioning of nuclear weapons, particularly in relation to tritium as recently discussed in The Ecologist. But this does not seem to implicate the UK civil nuclear industry, so does not itself appear to link civil and military nuclear policy. What we believe is distinctive and novel about our hypothesis, is that the dependencies we envisage between key current UK civil and military commitments play out at the level of innovation and industrial systems. And above all, it's the nuclear submarines Specifically, we hypothesise that it is serious concerns over the maintenance of UK capacity for manufacturing nuclear reactors for submarine propulsion - well documented in specialist military literatures - that are having the effect of reinforcing commitments to nuclear reactors for civilian power production. Despite international legal undertakings and massive shifts in the global security landscape, UK adherence to nuclear weapons remains remarkably intense at the highest levels of Government, deep in Whitehall and throughout much wider political culture. Yet without nuclear propulsion, it is widely argued that submarines would not perform in such a way as to make nuclear delivery systems militarily credible. So, without nuclear powered submarines, a very particular elite version of UK national identity would arguably not be sustainable on the world stage. The central point that arises from this, is that there is seen to exist in influential quarters, a very powerful imperative for the UK to maintain the ability to build nuclear-powered submarines. But with each vessel being one of the most complex technological artefacts ever produced, this is not easy. And without the requisite highly specialized capabilities, it is quite simply impossible. The scale of the associated industrial infrastructure makes this arguably even more intractable than producing - and certainly than maintaining - the nuclear weapons themselves. Thus the need for a nuclear industrial sector So what this means, is that the UK must under this view maintain a significant domestic role in dedicated supply chains and industrial infrastructures around civil nuclear power. Viewed this way, the UK needs to maintain within its own borders, the requisite specialist production facilities, supply capacities, design capabilities, training infrastructure, and regulatory and consulting organisations and expertise. This in turn requires the sustaining of a wider industrial sector at a sufficient scale. It is not necessary for this, that the UK lead on supplying entire civilian power stations. All that is needed, is simply that sufficient spill-over and trickle-down be redirectable to sustaining the basis for the producing nuclear submarines. Without 'masking' this military dependence in the enormity of a civilian nuclear supply chain, UK leaders who are so disposed, might fear that what they seem to cherish as crucial national military capabilities, might end up being lost. In investigating this, a key part of our analysis centers around a unique period in UK energy policy: when UK decision-making on energy fleetingly escaped its normal institutional straightjacket during the 2002 Energy Review and subsequent 2003 White Paper. This unusual institutional innovation led to a brief switch of government support away from civil nuclear power and towards renewable energy. Despite the substantive conclusions drawn from this government energy review and the dire economic circumstances of UK nuclear at the time, UK energy policy had within a few years undergone a remarkable volte face. In a further Energy Review, hastily organised in 2006 after an unprecedentedly short interval and with no relevant developments in the wider strategic scene that might explain it, the UK declared a renewed commitment to new nuclear power. It is in exactly this period, 2003-2006, that our research documents a remarkable pattern of intensified policy activity around submarine nuclear capabilities - including white papers, parliamentary select committee reviews, major studies for the Ministry of Defence and prominent think tanks, a major campaign by unions and the development of entire new organisations and institutions linking civil nuclear infrastructures and the capabilities to build nuclear powered submarines. It is this conjunction of events that circumstantially supports our hypothesis of a link between energy policy and military nuclear commitments. The harder you look, the more sense it makes Over the past few months we have received much support for this new hypothesis - especially among researchers and journalists who have been following UK nuclear policy in the greatest detail. But we have encountered considerable difficulty in gaining interest from otherwise prominent critically-minded newspapers and journals. Several editors have dismissed any need for attention, simply on grounds that they "do not understand" the idea. This seems odd. There may be justification for not covering this idea on grounds that it is wrong ... or boring. There are no obligations to be interested. But readers can judge for themselves whether the issues involved really are "too complicated" for leading journalists to understand. More importantly, two other key concerns have also been repeatedly raised about this hypothesis. These have emerged in private conversations, 'below the line' in the blogs themselves, and in responses from leading academic commentators in the energy policy field. One concern relates to the crucial current Chinese and French involvement in UK civil nuclear power. Here, foreign dependency (especially from a nation that many in the West are deeply suspicious of) has been treated as if refuting our hypothesis concerning any role for strategic security imperatives. The question posed by such criticism, is why it should be that security priorities related to (the maintenance of nuclear-propelled submarines), would lead to such a counterproductive end, as dependence on a potential adversary? But the above research actually deals quite directly with this point. In order to resolve the capability problem for nuclear submarine reactors, it is not necessary for UK firms to become first tier civil nuclear suppliers. Key roles in civil supply and value chains are sufficient. Here, a potentially significant development after our initial article, is that a 100 million deal was confirmed with submarine reactor manufacturers Rolls Royce for heat exchangers and for the design and procurement of systems for the treatment and disposal of reactor coolant for Hinkley C. This occurred at a point immediately before finalisation of crucial Chinese negotiations, when it was still possible to defend a juicy slice of the pie for this crucial part of the submarine manufacturing sector. This cannot be dismissed as mere 'conspiracy theory' With regard to the possible strategic concerns over dependence on the Chinese, it has to be recalled that the UK is caught between a rock and a hard place on this. The lack of any other credible current backers for UK civil nuclear investments, means that the choice may look like one between losing a capability altogether, or maintaining it with careful safeguards. After all, the nature of this business means that it might still be hoped that UK submarine production capabilities might benefit indirectly from Chinese investment in indigenous UK skills, training and basic engineering supply, without any direct links of a kind that might compromise the particular - and closely guarded - submarine design details. The strategic vulnerability of critical UK civilian energy infrastructure is of course another issue. But it does not seem unreasonable under a narrow nuclear-focused notion of security, that a kind of trade-off might be envisaged between what could be seen as an acceptable strategic concession on civil infrastructure, in order to retain a perceived crucial military capability. Another frequently encountered criticism of our hypothesis is that it amounts to a 'conspiracy theory'. Of course it is very clear that were our hypothesis true, it would entail a significant level of secrecy in UK nuclear policy. We refer to this implication, by making a connection with an established academic literature concerning the phenomenon of a 'deep state'. This involves the identification within and beneath the visible processes of government, of a deeper set of interests and relations that intervene in order to help determine particular outcomes on crucial issues. The dynamics of a deep state are, of course, by nature secretive. But we are explicit in repeatedly noting in our analysis that our hypothesizing of this possibility, should not be seen to imply a conspiracy theory in any simplistic sense. It is not necessary to envisage events being driven by deliberate plotting in smoke-filled rooms. Like iron filings in a magnetic field, what would be involved instead, would simply be the aligning of different flows of power, in order to respect the underlying gradients in deeply structured interests. In other words, all that is needed in order to at least consider our hypothesis, is a realistic and open - rather than romantic and closed - view of the routine dynamics of power. To anyone familiar with the workings of Whitehall, this view does not seem so eccentric! UK (non-)compliance with Non Proliferation Treaty To add to this, there are some further very particular reasons why the UK Government might be circumspect about any links of this kind between civil and military nuclear activities. For instance, this is a very sensitive point under the terms of the international Nuclear Non Proliferation regime. With plans for Trident renewal already putting the UK in a very tricky international legal position under this treaty, it would be entirely understandable that strong efforts might be made not to broadcast such policy links if they did exist. So, it is in this light neither fair nor (more importantly) reasonable, to dismiss the hypothesizing of any kind of concealed political pressure - as a number of commentators have done - as a 'conspiracy theory'. Indeed, such a reaction might in itself help explain why what should be rather obvious hypothesis, has not been raised before. In the end, any hypothesizing over elite policy processes entails the threat of conspiracy theory objections. It is hardly a surprise, after all, if military links bring some correspondingly intensified level of secrecy. The only sure way to avoid risk of conspiracy theory accusations, is to avoid critically researching such issues at all. This said, to put conspiracy theory accusations in this light, certainly does not prove anything. But it does urge caution at simply rejecting the hypothesized dynamics simply because no part of the UK Government or associated institutions are readily acknowledging them. So, this is where things stand in this strand of research at the moment. We are busy researching a number of further interesting threads in the more detailed background. And we would be very interested in any further substantive evidence - or counter-evidence - that might help cast light on the doubtless very complex realities behind this picture. Now is the time for an open and honest debate In the meantime, the Hinkley C saga continues and the debate around Trident comes ponderously to a head. With all this unfolding, the implications of our own tiny strand of work for this potentially momentous double turning point in UK politics, remains far from clear. With investigations continuing, we are at the moment very far from 'proving' this hypothetical link between nuclear submarine interests and commitments to civil nuclear power. In any it is rare indeed, that social science is ever in a positon to 'prove' anything. And even if our suspicions of links were confirmed, a reaction by proponents of nuclear weapons, might be that the additional burdens in electricity supply are well worth the cost! The significance of this work lies rather in the fact that these issues have been so entirely neglected over the years. And animated 'conspiracy theory' accusations serve only to threaten further suppression of attention. Whichever side one might be on, the implications extend far beyond research. The inexplicable and under-justified persistence of such deep nuclear commitments in the UK raises deep questions about the health of British government policy debates on these issues - and so to this extent, British democracy as a whole. Now is the time for more open, robust and substantive discussion. Andy Stirling is Professor of Science & Technology Policy, Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) and co-director of the ESRC STEPS Centre, University of Sussex. Phil Johnstone is a Research Fellow at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), working on the ESRC funded Discontinuity in Technological Systems (DiscGo) project led by Professor Andy Stirling. Also on The Ecologist "I had no carpentry or sailing experience, and this was a job that could mean sink or swim if I got it wrong. But people trusted me, believed I could do it, and I learned then and there that you can be more than what a piece of paper says you can be." Jennifer Morgan, organisational leader, US-born, German resident Jennifer has walked the corridors of power. As Global Director of the Climate Program at the World Resources Institute she's dealt with heads of state and CEOs. She's been a leader of large teams at major organisations, a climate activist, and a constant innovator. Her other ports of call have included the Worldwide Fund for Nature, Climate Action Network, and E3G. Jennifer Morgan was born in the US, lives in Germany, and got her masters degree in International Affairs at American University. She remembers clearly the day she found a slim book, Fighting for Hope, by Petra Kelly, founder of the German Green Party, in the student lounge. "I didn't move for the next several hours. I read the entire thing in one sitting. Kelly linked systemic problems and the need for new ways of thinking, she talked about the role of violence in society and the importance of reconnecting with nature as if someone had written down everything in my heart and mind that I hadn't been able to express. I found her incredibly courageous, and she became a role model for me in a way that changed my life." "I know this sounds corny, but coming to Greenpeace feels like coming home. I've been out in the world, I've walked among government leaders and the halls of the corporate world. Greenpeace is much closer to my roots, and has this incredible advantage in its independence: the policy of refusing government or corporate donations means there's no need pull punches for fear of offending anyone." Jennifer has been described as an 'anti-bureaucrat', building nimble teams within large structures. "It's about the right people, matched to the right goal, rather than structures or organograms. And it's about building a vision together, step by step, rather than having it imposed." Meeting for the first time during the recruitment Ana introduced the two through a series of meetings beginning in October, where Jennifer and Bunny have gotten to know each other and found their visions, their ideas about leadership, and their people-centered styles compatible: their ease with one another is obvious. "We're both trust-builders. We both encourage respectful challenge cultures. We both believe you create highly effective teams by harnessing diversity of thought and approach", said Bunny. "What we need is to make the creative space and find the confidence to figure out how we combine and aggregate the power of everyone who believes in 'Greenpeace the idea' - not 'Greenpeace the organisation'. Not the bricks and mortar, but the idea. "How do we combine our rebellious creativity with the rebellious creativity of the millions of people and organisations around the world who believe a better world is possible. How do we empower and accelerate that with humility and urgency?" "This whole approach is new and I'd be worried if we weren't both excited and a little scared by this", Bunny continues. "But in a sense, shared leadership isn't just about me and Jennifer splitting the job of International Executive Director between us: it's about sharing leadership among Greenpeace's worldwide offices, it's about sharing leadership with our supporters. "This arrangement is an evolutionary reflection of Greenpeace International's entire approach: it's all about sharing - globally - the power, the responsibility, and the challenge to rise, to become the best we all can be in a time of environmental threat and existential opportunity." "If we bring out the best in each other, we get a better organisation. If we can bring out the best in humanity, we get a better world." Speaking truth to power Jennifer notes that women are particularly good at sharing power. "We're good at bridging diversity. We're good at focusing on outcomes and a cause. And while there are plenty of men who could share the helm of Greenpeace, there is something that Bunny and I can do through our leadership to empower young women to dream about their futures - that they can do anything and rise to anything, be it the head of Greenpeace or a head of state." She adds that Greenpeace must keep on finding its 'new edge' that will inspire and engage new generations of environmental campaigners. "People are hungry for a new story that they can believe in, one with a better take on the nature of humanity, the fate of our future, and our connection to the earth and the air and the oceans. "Greenpeace is so well positioned to deliver that - you're genuinely working across global divisions of North and South, your commitment to civil disobedience and nonviolent direct action gives you unique credibility in speaking truth to power that few institutions enjoy." "Neither of us knows what that new edge looks like yet. And it may look different in different places. But if there's a single mission that will mark our leadership, it's finding that, it's trying new things and working together through the entire organisation to find it." Principal source: Greenpeace. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 Trend: Azerbaijani Defense Ministry accused Armenia of spreading disinformation. "The message of Armenian side about the alleged sabotage of the Azerbaijani army on the contact line of Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, as well as losses, does not correspond to reality, and aimed at deceiving the public and preparing ground for future diversions," ministry's press service told Trend Jan. 15. Azerbaijani Armed Forces fully control the situation on the contact line of troops, said ministry. 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 two countries signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia, France and the US are currently holding peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented the UN Security Council's four resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions. --- The town of Boones Mill is moving forward with efforts to turn the remains of the defunct North American Housing manufacturing complex into a home for new businesses. The town recently put out a request for qualifications for renovation of a two-story industrial building known as Building No. 2. This is the next step in helping to develop the towns identity, which began with the preservation of its old train depot relocated to the same property. The town purchased the North American Housing Corp. complex in 2011, after it had been sitting vacant for several years. The property had been valued at more than $2 million, and the town purchased it for less than $400,000. It was a controversial decision at the time. A lot of people didnt think the town needed all that space, said Councilman Mike Smith, but Boones Mills problem is that it has nowhere to expand and grow because so much of the area is in a floodplain. The property gives them a space to do that. Smith said he thinks people in town are realizing that it was a good deal. Still, it was a big price tag for the small town. When you go into an amount of debt thats larger than one years town budget, yeah, thats a risk, Town Manager Matt Lawless said. But its one hes glad Boones Mill was willing to take. And if the towns vision for the property comes to fruition, Lawless said, he thinks the risk will have been justified. Given that the mixed-use facility is town-owned, the project thrusts the town into the role of landlord. There are benefits to that namely that the town has flexibility in what kind of incentives it will offer, since it controls the lease, and that the property is tax exempt, Lawless said. Thats why you see industrial park developments run by local governments, is those two tools, he said. But on the downside, this isnt the towns area of expertise. Theyre not real estate experts, Lawless said. The town will have to find a balance between its goals and responsibilities as a council and as a landlord. Lawless described it as a strategic tension between profit-maximizing and community service. Were acting as a landlord and we have to think not only about what brings the most rent revenue, but whats best for the long-term vision of the town, he said. The towns new comprehensive plan, which was adopted in December, will help to guide such decisions. Though steps are being taken to push the renovation project forward, several elements like funding are still up in the air. Lawless hesitates to make too many promises, as the town is still working to secure funding. Right now, about $238,000 of state tobacco commission money has been allocated for the project. Lawless hopes the rest of the funding will come from an Industrial Revitalization Fund grant. The town is seeking $600,000. He expects the grant recipients will be announced this month. If the town doesnt get the grant, it will have to reconsider its plans for the building, Lawless said, possibly putting the project off, scaling it back or taking out a loan. Its also possible that the proposals will come in higher than anticipated and cause the town to change its plans for the building. Im excited and hopeful, but theres certainly the modesty that comes with its not set yet and we dont have all the money in the bank and we dont know exactly how much it costs and we dont know what businesses are going to be in here, Lawless said. The town does, however, have two tenants secured for the first floor of the building. And its actively recruiting others to occupy the remaining 25,000 square feet on the second floor. One of the tenants is Titan Trains, which manufactures and sells 1/8-scale trains. The business, which recently changed its name from Mountain Car Company, is currently based in Salem. But, if things go according to plan, it will move to Boones Mill. Owner Jim Humphrey said he was interested in moving into the building largely because the town has showed so much enthusiasm for a train-related business, given the proximity of the train depot. The location could give Humphreys business more exposure, since the depot will attract train enthusiasts. It makes us more of a destination, Humphrey said. Its also much closer to an operational track for the trains, which Humphrey said are about half the size of what Mill Mountain uses. The Boones Mill site also provides an opportunity to put down a test track or operational track, Humphrey said. Lawless has a few ideas for other businesses that could be a good fit for the building: medical offices, a compact grocery store, restaurants, a library, work space for artisans, or a brew pub. Lawless envisions businesses that either provide a service to local residents or can serve as a tourist attraction. The county has discussed opening a library branch in the northern part of the county, so this could be a possible location. Renting would be cheaper than building something new, Lawless said, and its something the county has done successfully with its Westlake branch. The town is also interested in creating jobs. The factory used to be one of the biggest employers in town, Lawless said. Lawless said the town isnt seeking a specific number of tenants in theory, one business could occupy the entire top floor, but more likely there will be several, and the top floor will have a mall space layout. The plan is to keep things flexible, Lawless said, playing to who shows up. RICHMOND Del. Joseph Yost and Sen. John Edwards are renewing efforts to repeal a controversial 2004 law at the center of a heated debate about pipelines and property rights. Yost, R-Pearisburg, introduced a bill Wednesday to scrap Code Section 56-49.01 a law that allows natural gas pipeline companies to do surveying and other initial work on private land without the owners consent provided that advance notice is given. For me, its a property rights concern, Yost said. Saying no to somebody coming onto your property and then having that overruled, I think that leaves a bad taste in a lot of folks mouths. Landowners along the routes of both the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline and the nearby Atlantic Coast Pipeline project have protested the law and tried unsuccessfully to fight it in court. Edwards, D-Roanoke, said he has a repeal bill coming in the Senate. The measures may be in for an uphill climb in the General Assembly. A bid to repeal the law was made last year by Sen. Emmett Hanger, R-Augusta County, whose district lies in the path of the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline. His proposal was scuttled in committee. The same year, Del. Dickie Bell, R-Staunton, sponsored a narrower measure that would have required more public disclosure of pipeline company records on projects in which eminent domain could be invoked. His bill, which Yost co-sponsored, also died in committee. On Wednesday, Bell said he had not yet reviewed Yosts latest proposal, but he agreed the legislature should rein in the surveying law. He was hopeful the two regions could join forces to advocate for the issue. If were going to get anything passed in terms of changing these eminent domain laws, were going to have to have a coalition, he said. Its going to be a very difficult thing to do against a very strong lobby. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is a 564-mile proposal put together by a partnership led by Dominion. The approximately 300-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline proposal is a multi-partner venture whose majority owner would be EQT Midstream Partners. In a statement Wednesday, Mountain Valley Pipeline spokeswoman Natalie Cox said the 2004 state law allows for the timely surveying of property for gas pipeline projects, which is a critically important step in the planning and development phase as it assists in preserving and protecting the environment, sensitive species, and cultural and historic resources. Mountain Valley Pipeline believes the current law is accomplishing the intended purpose by allowing gas pipeline companies to assess the feasibility of various routes in order to evaluate and define a route that has the least overall impact to landowners, community members, and our natural resources, she said. Edwards said Wednesday that private property rights should be carefully guarded. But he noted state action alone wont halt the pipelines and urged opponents to continue making their case to federal regulators as well. The real emphasis needs to remain on convincing FERC, he said, referring to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which will ultimately decide the fate of the pipeline proposals. MIKE LAWRENCE / THE GLEANER Bennie Stone Jr., a volunteer with Henderson Christian Community Outreach for the last 10 years, helps Alice Austin as she gathers grocery items, Thursday morning, in the organizations food pantry. SHARE MIKE LAWRENCE / THE GLEANER Henderson Christian Community Outreach Director Mary Dunham (right) talks with volunteer Wendy Coy on the organizations first day in their new office space in the former Barrys Pharmacy building on North Green Street, January 14, 2016. MIKE LAWRENCE / THE GLEANER Henderson Christian Community Outreach Director Mary Dunham greets clients Thursday morning in the organizations new office in the former Barrys Pharmacy space next to D&M Foods at 700 N. Green St., and has doubled its space. MIKE LAWRENCE / THE GLEANER Volunteer Joseph Andrecht stocks pantry shelves with bread Thursday, the first day in their new office space for the Henderson Christian Community Outreach. MIKE LAWRENCE / THE GLEANER Fresh fruit and vegetables in the food pantry at the Henderson Christian Community Outreachs new office space in the former Barrys Pharmacy on North Green Street. By Donna B. Stinnett There's nothing like gaining a little elbow room to give you a fresh, new outlook for a new year. And that's exactly what Henderson Christian Community Outreach Director Mary Dunham got for 2016. The office that offers a self-serve food pantry for the community's needy and commodity supplements for qualifying senior citizens has moved to the former Barry's Pharmacy space next to D&M Foods at 700 N. Green St. and has doubled its space. "That little building (where they were previously located on Seventh Street) was so loud," she said. "There was no privacy when interviewing potential clients." Now, she said, the food pantry is more spread out and well-organized so clients feel no time pressure when shopping for food. "We had about 50 volunteers who worked hard to get it set up," said Dunham, noting that the agency is typically closed between Christmas and New Year's Day anyway. This year the time period was designated for moving. "It's just better all the way around," she said. "We couldn't be happier." Dunham said the food pantry is open from 9 to 11 a.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, and will continue to offer its Senior Service Day for commodity food distribution and special programming at Community Baptist Church once a month. The self-serve food pantry is available to clients every 30 days, and clients are interviewed at each visit before receiving a shopping list based on family size. Clients also must participate in the United Way's Bank On Henderson, a financial literacy program. She said that in 2015, the agency distributed 4,823 boxes of food that fed 8,940 adults and 5,018 children. Dunham said that when the food pantry opened in its new location, the shelves were full. "In December we had so many wonderful donations," she said, adding that about 30 of the community's churches "faithfully fund us," providing support on a monthly basis. Sometimes it's in the form of a cash donations, and sometimes a church selects a set list of items for its members to gather or organizes a general shelf-stable food drive. "We're still part of Walmart's 'Feeding America' program," she said, which provides them 7,000 to 10,000 pounds of food each month. "There's no way we could do the self-serve pantry list without Walmart. No way." Walmart's contributions include bread, meat, sweets, canned goods, boxed food and other items. Dunham said Christian Community Outreach provides other types of assistance in addition to food. Last year they provided: Utility assistance to 322 families Rent assistance to 226 families Prescription assistance to 26 clients Emergency gasoline for out-of-town doctor visits to 67 clients Other assistance (including obtaining birth certificates, driver's licenses and furniture) to 45 clients. This year it's observing its 30th year in operation. SHARE By Jack Brammer Senate Majority Caucus Chairman Dan Seum, R-Louisville, has said he was so frustrated with the escalating cost of university tuition and fees that he wants to freeze them for four years and then let state lawmakers decide if they should be changed. In a Capitol news conferenceearlier this week, Seum claimed that universities are turning "into castle building" and are doing so "on the back of kids." He chided university officials and the media for saying that universities must raise tuition because the state legislature has not been providing sufficient funds for them. Since 2008, said Seum, lawmakers have cut university budgets by $165 million. But Seum said universities in that time have increased tuition by $582 million. The state Council on Postsecondary Education now oversees university tuition rates. Sue Patrick, a spokeswoman for the council, said it has no immediate comment because it has not had time to review Senate Bill 75. Jay Blanton, spokesman for the University of Kentucky, said ensuring that students can afford to attend the university is "one of our top priorities." "To that end, we welcome the discussion about how we can all work together to make college even more affordable and accessible," Blanton said. Blanton noted that UK is investing a record $103 million in institutional scholarships and financial aid this year, nearly double what was provided in 2011. He also said the number of first-generation college students has increased, as has the number of students eligible for federal Pell grants. "More than half of UK students continue to graduate without debt," he said. "Without question, we are steadfastly committed to ensuring access to higher education for Kentucky families and their children and we look forward to discussing how we can continue to make progress in this most important of priorities." UK's tuition has risen 85 percent since 2005, and there is plenty of new construction on campus. But most of those projects a $65 business school renovation, a $100 million science building, and a $200 million student center are being paid for with donations. Most recently, the state agreed to fund half of a $265 million research building. About $500 million in new dorms are being built by a private developer. Seum noted that he has a granddaughter who graduated from Western Kentucky University with a $40,000 debt. He said she is dating a man who also has a $40,000 debt from WKU. "It borders on criminal what these universities are doing to kids," he said. The average tuition rate in Kentucky is $5,440 a semester or $10,880 a year, said Seum. "These universities see these students as nothing more than a cash cow," he said. Seum also said he is asking the Legislative Research Commission to conduct a study of university salaries. His bill, said the lawmaker, is in "an uphill battle." He said he expects the state's higher education council and university presidents to strongly oppose it. Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, said he talked earlier in the day with university presidents. He said Seum's bill is an opportunity for universities and the legislature to examine university costs. "Are we getting the best value of our dollars," he asked. Stivers also said the Council on Postsecondary Education "has failed to do its job" in regulating university tuition rates. SHARE Jordan Summerfield By Gleaner Staff A Henderson teen is competing in the Miss Kentucky pageant this weekend. Jordan Summerfield, 17, was crowned Miss Henderson County Fair in June. She received a $500 college scholarship from sponsor Independence Bank. The Henderson County High School senior traveled to Louisville on Friday to compete in the two-day Miss Kentucky pageant for the state crown. Interviews were Friday and the opening numbers, swimsuit and evening gown categories were slated for Saturday. The winner will be crowned Saturday night at The Galt House. Summerfield is the daughter of Terry and Charlene Summerfield. She is on the cheerleading team at HCHS and also does peer tutoring. She has been accepted to five colleges, according to her mother. Her first choice is the University of Kentucky, where she has a spring tryout for the cheerleading team. SHARE By Adam Beam Some convicted felons could have their records expunged in Kentucky under a bill that cleared the state House of Representatives on Friday. The House voted 80-11 to allow people convicted of class D felonies to have their record expunged. A class D felony is the lowest level felony in Kentucky, punishable by up to five years in prison. Felons would have to wait at least five years after the completion of their sentence or their probation, whichever is later. And it does not apply to people convicted of sex crimes, child pornography, human trafficking, public corruption and crimes against children or the elderly. Similar bills have passed the House in the past, only to die in the Republican-controlled Senate. But as baby boomers continue to retire in record numbers in Kentucky, business leaders have bemoaned the shortage of qualified workers for skilled manufacturing jobs, particularly in the state's growing automotive industry. That prompted the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce to endorse the expungement bill, arguing it would give companies more people to hire without taking on the liability associated with a felon. The Kentucky State Police estimates the 10-year average number of cases for class D felonies is 15,800. In addition, officials said another 174,068 would be eligible for retroactive expungement. "A felony on a person's record is an economic death sentence for life," said Democratic state Rep. Daryl Owens of Louisville, the bill's primary sponsor. Even new Republican Gov. Matt Bevin has enthusiastically endorsed the bill, going so far as to publicly challenge Senate Republicans to pass it. Despite that, strong Republican opposition remains. State Rep. Robert Benvenuti of Lexington argued the bill was too broad, encompassing a host of violent offenses including arson, domestic violence, assaulting a police officer, fleeing from police and wanton endangerment, which he said includes firing a weapon into someone's home or "pointing a gun in somebody's face." Benvenuti noted the bill would cause records of a person's crime to be destroyed, robbing police officers of vital information when they make a traffic stop or detain someone. "You can expunge somebody's record but you can't expunge facts. You can't expunge behavior. That's the reality," he said. The bill requires judges to expunge someone's record if they meet all of the requirements, but only once. If someone who has already had a felony expunged tries to have a second felony expunged, the judge has discretion to decide. The bill now heads to the Senate, where Republican President Robert Stivers has said he has some concerns about the bill. SHARE Larry P. Totten, Frankfort As members of the General Assembly return to Frankfort for the 2016 Regular Session, they will find themselves facing a multitude of challenges, one of the more critical being pension funding. Legislative action in the 2013 Regular Session provided the framework for funding the plans managed by the Kentucky Retirement Systems (KRS). Public employee (and teacher) pensions will require tens of millions of new dollars in the budget simply to stem the erosion of funding levels. These higher funding levels will do little to improve the financial condition of these plans. Only through additional funding, possibly from a dedicated revenue source, will KRS have adequate resources for investing, the source of 60-70% of funds from which benefits are paid. The KERS Non-Hazardous plan, likely the worst plan in the country with a funding level of 17.7%, is in critical need of new money to stave off insolvency. Kentucky Public Retirees (KPR) is a statewide membership group dedicated to protecting the pension benefits earned by public government employees. Our members have met face-to-face with many legislators during 2015 expressing their concern over the situation in which the pension plans find themselves. We urge retirees to contact their legislators themselves at www.lrc.ky.gov to express their concerns. KPR will be staying atop legislative action affecting pension funding. KPR is also sponsoring a Rally in the Capitol Rotunda at 1 p.m. Jan. 27 to express our concerns to the governor and legislators. Those wishing to add their voices to the message are invited to attend. Public retirees and those now eligible to retire are urged to visit our webpage, www.kentuckypublicretirees.org, and consider joining. 2016 membership is free and dues are but $15/year thereafter. We are responsible for advocating for the pensions we earned. The time is now to do so. Larry Totten is the legislative chair of the Kentucky Public Retirees organization. NORWALK -- In the latest of Mayor Harry RIlling's weekly Small Business Spotlight visits, he praised second and third-generation Commerce Packaging Corporation owners for the company's 61-year history as a family-owned business. Rilling was given a tour of the packaging company's Wilson Avenue warehouse by Mickey Alexander, the son of the company's late founder Stanley Alexander and Mickey's son, Jeffrey Alexander. While there Rilling learned about the company's long history, and the challenges and rewards inherent in a family-owned business. "My father Stanley started the business in 1954. At the time he was in charge of the spare parts department for a defense contractor. Those parts had to be shipped and he discovered that there was a need out there for contract packaging," Mickey Alexander said. "I've been at the company since 1967. There's nobody that really does everything that we do." The Alexanders' product is boxes -- thousands of them in all shapes and sizes that line the 70,000-square-foot warehouse along with crates and packing materials that are used by commercial, industrial and military customers. The company is well-versed in specialized military specification packaging standards. "Our customer base is diverse," Mickey said. "We are the primary supplier to the UPS locations in the area. We have packed some high-profile things such as the optics of the Hubble telescope, we have had military contracts with Sikorsky. Our clients are both large and small companies." With "We sell service," as a company slogan, Mickey Alexander said that their commitment to their customers that sets the company apart from other packaging companies. "What we pride ourselves on, in addition to a quality product, is our commitment to service. If we make a delivery commitment, we stick to it," he said. "Take a military government contract for example. If there are glitches, it just means that our window gets smaller. The only thing that doesn't change is the shipping date." The company offers more than 15,000 products for purchase from brands such as 3M, Tape Logic and Rubbermaid with a mission to be the single source answer to their customers packaging needs. The company also specializes in designing and manufacturing custom crates and containers to ship everything from artwork to industrial equipment. "I've been visiting local businesses and the common theme in service businesses is that no matter what your product, if you know your customer base and go above and beyond in customer service you will succeed," Rilling said. "There's no magic to success and longevity, other than doing it right and doing it well." The company employs 30 people, many of whom have been with them for decades. "Our foreman has been here for 53 years, He opens up for us every morning," Mickey Alexander said. With regard to challenges in business ownership Mickey Alexander recalled a time when Connecticut was a booming manufacturing hub and lamented the challenges faced by those in the realm of manufacturing. "One of our biggest challenges is what's going on in the state with manufacturing. This area used to be saturated with manufacturers and military contractors, that's changed a lot," Mickey Alexander said "Anything that can help manufacturing in the area is good for us. We serve customers in the tri-state area-the majority of them are in Connecticut -- and we need to be close to our customers, because if you add shipping, we won't be competitive." The business was originally housed in two locations -- one in Stamford on Canal Street and the other on Taft Street in Norwalk. In 2000, Jeffrey said the business decided it was best to consolidate operations and settled on moving to its current space on Wilson Avenue. "Norwalk opened its arms to us," Mickey Alexander said. "Stamford did not want any more manufacturing in that area, but in Norwalk they were nothing but accommodating. We are very happy about this location." In spite of challenges, the Alexanders said there are a number of rewards to owning a business. "Running your own business is its own reward," Jeffrey Alexander said. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 Trend: Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has signed a decree Jan.15 on merging the State Flag Square Complex Department and the Baku Boulevard Department under the country's Cabinet of Ministers. The decree said that from now on, the state control over the condition of the complex, the implementation of measures to ensure the activity, long-term development, protection of the State Flag Square Complex, maintenance of activity of the complex, including the organization of work for forecasting and planning, prospective development of the complex will be carried out by the Baku Boulevard Department under the country's Cabinet of Ministers. Duties and rights of the State Flag Square Complex Department, as well as public property owned by the complex, are transferred to the management of the Baku Boulevard Department under the country's Cabinet of Ministers. President Ilham Aliyev, by his decree, has also appointed Ilgar Mustafayev to the post of head of the Baku Boulevard Department under the Cabinet of Ministers of Azerbaijan. By another decree, Afgan Shahmarov has been dismissed from the post of head of the Baku Boulevard Department. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate WASHINGTON (AP) -- For diplomats from countries without diplomatic relations, Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif sure are doing a lot of diplomacy. As Iran races to satisfy the terms of last summer's nuclear deal and the U.S. prepares to suspend sanctions on Tehran as early as Friday, Kerry is talking to Zarif more than any other foreign leader. Those talks included several emergency calls Tuesday to secure the release of 10 U.S. sailors after Iran detained them in the Persian Gulf. Since the beginning of the year, Kerry and Zarif have spoken by phone at least 11 times, according to the State Department. They've focused on nuclear matters, Iran's worsening rivalry with Saudi Arabia and peace efforts in Syria. By contrast, America's top diplomat has talked to Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir only twice. He has consulted once each with Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Jordan's King Abdullah and the foreign ministers of Britain, Egypt, France, Germany, Russia and the European Union. Kerry left Washington Wednesday evening to meet al-Jubeir in London. He may extend the trip to see Zarif, too, elsewhere in Europe. Not everyone is happy with the new friendship between the once hostile foes. But the White House, Pentagon, Kerry and Zarif are all crediting the relationship forged over two-and-a-half years of nuclear negotiations with quickly resolving the detention of the sailors, which could have been a new crisis just as President Barack Obama delivered his final State of the Union speech to Congress. "We can all imagine how a similar situation might have played out three or four years ago, and the fact that today this kind of issue can be resolved peacefully and efficiently is a testament to the critical role diplomacy plays in keeping our country safe, secure and strong," Kerry said Wednesday. Denis McDonough, the White House chief of staff, said the open lines between Kerry and Zarif are "extraordinarily important." Defense Secretary Ash Carter thanked Kerry for his efforts. And in Tehran, Zarif tweeted that he was "happy to see dialogue and respect, not threats and impetuousness, swiftly resolved the sailors episode. Let's learn from this latest example." For the Obama administration, the budding Kerry-Zarif relationship offers opportunities and pitfalls. As negotiations with Tehran accelerated in 2013, U.S. officials insisted the diplomacy concerned only ending the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran and shouldn't signal a strategic realignment that would forsake longstanding U.S. allies like Israel or the Gulf state Sunni monarchies. As the deal came together last July, Obama and his top aides vowed to "double down" on Iran's activities like its support for Syrian leader Bashar Assad's government and anti-Israel and anti-U.S. groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. The record, however, has been mixed. The U.S. has modestly expanded sanctions on Hezbollah, but hasn't followed through on pledges to impose penalties after a recent ballistic missile test by Iran that violated a U.N. Security Council ban. Washington also offered no response to an Iranian navy rocket fired near a U.S. warship in the Strait of Hormuz. At the same time, the U.S. has expanded outreach efforts to Iran. The Obama administration included the Iranians for the first time in international mediation efforts to secure a cease-fire between Assad's government and rebel groups. Echoing Saudi and Israeli concerns, Republican lawmakers say they're unsettled by the warming ties. They say the nuclear deal that they opposed is preventing Obama from dealing assertively with Iran, because he is more concerned with protecting his signature foreign policy achievement. Conscious of these perceptions, the administration moved warily into the Saudi-Iran spat that erupted over New Year's weekend. The U.S. did not want to play mediator between a longtime ally in Riyadh and a government that, at least officially, remains hostile to the United States some three-and-a-half decades after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and U.S. Embassy hostage crisis. But the U.S. has a lot at stake in calming tensions. Saudi Arabia and Iran already are backing opposing sides in Syria and refusing to cooperate against the Islamic State. They're trading accusations over the war in Yemen, where a Saudi-led intervention hasn't uprooted the Iran-backed Houthi rebels. If the Saudi-Iranian crisis escalates, diplomats fear the newest stab at Syria peace talks could unravel before the scheduled start later this month. And unlike previous efforts, Washington now believes uniting Assad and rebels in a unity government is critical for defeating the Islamic State. The U.S. is banking on its new dynamic with Iran, and particularly Kerry's relationship with Zarif. The secretary of state is trying to "de-escalate the tensions, restore some sense of calm, encourage dialogue and engagement between these countries bilaterally, but also to make the point that there are other pressing issues in the region," State Department spokesman John Kirby said. He spoke last week after the Saudis executed a leading Shiite cleric, an Iranian mob stormed the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, and the Saudis and some other Sunni countries severed diplomatic ties with Iran. For Zarif, the regular exchanges with Kerry are something of a liability at home. Iranian hardliners have criticized him for overstepping his limited mandate to speak with Kerry about nuclear matters. While he and Kerry exchanged a "few words" about the Saudi-Iranian dispute, Zarif said last week, "it does not mean that we have launched negotiations with the U.S." The conversations are likely to broaden, even though the U.S. still considers Iran the leading state sponsor of terrorism and Iranian officials routinely denounce a nation they sometimes call "the Great Satan." Tehran is set to satisfy its obligations from July's nuclear accord in the coming days, diplomats reported Wednesday, obliging Washington to open up lucrative oil, trade and financial opportunities for the Iranians. As they make good on their promises, both Kerry and Zarif have raised the prospect of even more engagement to come. A day after Afghanistan Police named Pakistan for the Mazar-i-Sharif attack, a blast took place in Jalalabad, nearly 200 meters away from the Indian consulate in Afghanistan. Four Afghan policemen were reportedly killed in the [] The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for an attack on a Pakistani consulate in eastern Afghanistan today, which Afghan officials said left at least seven members of the security forces dead. In a statement translated by [] Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 Trend: President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has signed an order changing the name of the country's ministry of economy and industry to the ministry of economy. The president tasked the Cabinet of Ministers to prepare proposals on bringing the presidential acts and normative legal acts of the Cabinet of Ministers into conformity with the current order within three months, and present them to the head of state. Cabinet of Ministers was also tasked to prepare proposals on bringing the normative legal acts of central executive bodies into conformity with the order within five months, and present them too to the president. The Cabinet of Ministers should also settle other issues arising from the order. Azerbaijani ministry of justice was instructed to bring the normative legal acts and normative acts of central executive bodies into conformity with the president's order and inform the Cabinet of Ministers about it. By another presidential order, Shahin Mustafayev was appointed minister of economy of Azerbaijan. Research into the effects of e-cigarettes lags behind their popularity. But ready or not, the era of e-cigarettes is here. How E-Cigarettes WorkThey look like the real thing. The end glows as you inhale. As [] MADISON, AL (TIP): An India-born businessman is planning to run for the post of mayor of a city in Alabama, saying he has the vision to help make the city among the best in the [] MADISON, AL (TIP): A federal Judge Madeline Haikala has thrown out the case against Eric Parker, thereby acquitting the former policeman charged with the serious assault on Sureshbhai Patel. The decision comes as Parkers previous [] Payton Muth stars on the field now, but plans to be on the sidelines later Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Thu, January 14, 2016 The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), essentially the economic integration of the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, officially commenced on the final day of 2015. All the necessary agreements and supporting legal umbrellas for its implementation are already in place, and the process for economic cooperation and integration in the region is underway. Yet, the majority of its member countries, including Indonesia, are still looking for the best approaches to perfectly match the agreed-upon system. The Jakarta Post's Imanuddin Razak and Margareth S. Aritonang take a close look at the new regional arrangement. The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) ' one of the three pillars of ASEAN alongside the ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC) and the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) ' has its roots in the ASEAN member countries' commitment to creating a single market across the ASEAN nations. The initial blueprint for its establishment (2008-2015) was adopted on Nov. 20, 2007, during the 13th ASEAN Summit in Singapore. It was meant as a master plan to guide the establishment of the AEC 2015, the official reference for the regional economic cooperation after its original implementation date was brought forward from 2020 to Dec. 31, 2015. The AEC Blueprint 2025, which succeeded the 2007 blueprint and is the current official reference for the implementation of the regional economic cooperation, was adopted by ASEAN leaders at the 27th ASEAN Summit on Nov. 22, 2015 in Kuala Lumpur. It provides extensive directions through strategic measures for the AEC from 2016 to 2025. The AEC has four key characteristics: (1) It is a single market and production base, (2) It is a highly competitive economic region, (3) It is a region of fair economic development and (4) It is a region fully integrated into the global economy. Cooperation activities among member countries include human resources development; recognition of professional qualifications; closer consultation on macroeconomic and financial policies; trade financing measures; enhanced infrastructure and communications connectivity; development of electronic transactions through e-ASEAN; integrating industries across the region to promote regional sourcing; and enhancing private sector involvement. The AEC recognizes the free movement of skilled labor, goods, services and investment within the grouping's member countries. By doing so, ASEAN is expected to rise globally as one market with each member gaining from each other's strengths, thus increasing its competitiveness and opportunities for development. If ASEAN were a single entity, it would rank as the 7th largest economy in the world, behind the US, China, Japan, Germany, France and the UK. The launch of the AEC is apparently part of a strategic move by ASEAN leaders to get Southeast Asian countries to stay on a collective path of peaceful and sustainable development and make the regional grouping attractive as a viable political and economic partner for external powers. Pundits and analysts have even associated the establishment of the AEC with the European Union, which came into action in 1993. However, a new beginning is never a smooth and easy process. A majority of countries in the region still have doubts, particularly regarding their own people's capacity to compete in such a common regional market. That doubt, if not dismay, felt by ASEAN member countries in response to the common market establishment was aired by Indonesian President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo himself. 'I have met with leaders of ASEAN [on several occasions]. They expressed their anxiety over the [potential] inflow of Indonesian products and skilled manpower to their countries,' the President said while addressing the opening of the national congress of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) in Jakarta on Sunday. He called on nation members, particularly the business community and the Indonesian labor force, not to get trapped in pessimistic semantics but instead get prepared for the ASEAN common market system. 'They are afraid of our products and skilled manpower. Why should we be equally afraid of them?' Jokowi said. 'It is an era of globalization, regionalism ['] We must not avoid, but face it.' Earlier, the President asked the country's business community and labor force not to attempt to deal with all sectors, but to focus on the sectors that the Indonesian business sector and labor force were good at. Analysts and experts have indicated a number of sectors in which Indonesian companies and workers have a competitive advantage in compared with other ASEAN member countries. They include the tourist industry, including hotel services, and the creative industry, including engineering and IT technologies. The President's optimistic stance has apparently also been shared by many other government officials. Indonesian Ambassador to Thailand Lutfi Rauf, for instance, said last October that according to the AEC Plan of Action scorecard, Indonesia's readiness stood at 94 percent, higher than the ASEAN average of 92 percent. 'Various sectors in Indonesia have been made aware of and are ready for the AEC,' he said after a discussion at the ASEAN Business Forum 2015 organized by the Thailand Management Association (TMA) and the Thailand Board of Trade, in Bangkok. The AEC scorecard is a monitoring mechanism established by ASEAN to ensure a timely implementation of AEC initiatives. The scorecard reports progress in implementing various AEC measures and identifies gaps and challenges faced by each member country. Lutfi expressed optimism about the potential of Southeast Asia's largest economy, thanks in particular to its developed human resources, strategic geographical location between two oceans, which makes the country an international hub, and relatively stable political situation. In response to the common market implementation, Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said that his ministry had prepared to welcome the advent of the AEC this year. He said he was optimistic that in the AEC era, business players in Indonesia's tourism sector could compete with their competitors from other countries, and could derive great advantage from the new community. 'One of the measures taken has been the establishment of 28 tourist-business standards; seven were established through a ministerial decree, while the remaining 21 standards are still being drafted,' the minister said earlier this month. 'We have also prepared 1,500 auditors to monitor tourism-business standards,' he added. In an attempt to improve the country's tourism workers' skills and capacity, the Tourism Ministry is currently facilitating a competency certification process for them and aiding the establishment of 12 professional certification institutions for the sector. The regional common market has begun. It depends entirely on all of us ' the government, the Indonesian business community and the labor force ' to collectively respond to and succeed in the new mechanism. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 State-owned airport operator PT Angkasa Pura II has said that it has strengthened security at 13 airports under its control, including Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, the country's main gateway, following the terrorist attack in downtown Jakarta that killed at least seven people on Thursday. PT Angkasa Pura II president director Budi Karya Sumadi stressed that after the terror attack on Jl. M.H. Thamrin, the main thoroughfare in the capital city, security officers had intensified patrols around airports. 'PT Angkasa Pura's [security officers] have started to check all the public facilities at the airports, including the parking lots. They are randomly checking vehicles entering the airports,' said Budi as reported by tribunnews.com on Thursday. According to Budi, his company had coordinated with the Indonesian Military and the National Police since December to strengthen security at airports after security officers warned of possible terror attacks over the Christmas and New Year's Eve period. Budi also said that more security officers had been deployed to airports, including to Soekarno-Hatta. Airport management at Soekarno-Hatta is also operating some 1,500 CCTV cameras on a 24-hour cycle to monitor all corners of the airport. Thursday's explosions and gunfire in Jakarta resulted in the deaths of five terrorists and two civilians. President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo condemned the attack and instructed security officials to immediately uncover the terrorist network involved in the attack. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 All Starbucks cafes in Jakarta have been closed until further notice following explosions in Central Jakarta on Thursday. Seven blasts occurred near Sarinah shopping center in Central Jakarta, including one inside the Starbucks cafe located in the Skyline building across the road, also known as the Djakarta Theatre building. The cafe as well as other Starbucks' establishments in Jakarta will reportedly remain closed, out of an "abundance of caution", until further notice, according to an official statement on the Starbucks global website. The American coffee franchise stated that one customer sustained injuries and was treated at the scene, while all employees were confirmed safe. "We are deeply saddened by the senseless acts that have taken place in Jakarta today; our hearts are with the people of Indonesia," the statement said. Aghnia, an employee at one of Starbucks' branches in Kuningan, South Jakarta, confirmed that the place where she worked, located in the Cyber Building 2, was immediately closed following the blasts. (liz/kes) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin David Bauder (The Jakarta Post) Pasadena, California, United States Thu, January 14, 2016 The Al Jazeera America cable news network said Wednesday it will shut down two and a half years after its launch, a victim of a rough business environment and political headwinds it could not conquer. The channel, an offshoot of the Qatar-based Al Jazeera cable network, had trouble persuading cable and satellite companies to carry it, and viewers to watch. It failed despite a promise to offer serious-minded journalism and some award-winning work. The cable network will shut down on April 30. It launched in October 2013. Al Anstey, CEO of Al Jazeera America, said the economic climate for media forced the decision. "Al Jazeera America is committed to conducting this process in a way that is consistent with its respect for colleagues," Anstey said. Al Jazeera will expand its international digital news operations so they will be available in the United States, Anstey said, adding that details will be available in the next few months. "I'm not sure it was inevitable, but it's certainly not surprising," said Philip Seib, a University of Southern California journalism professor and author of the book "The Al Jazeera Effect." ''In the news environment today there is so much competition that it is virtually impossible for a new company to get any traction." Anstey had taken over last spring after the news network's CEO, Ehab Al Shihabi, was dismissed. The company was the target of lawsuits from former employees who had complained about a culture of fear, and anti-Semitic and sexist behavior among executives. Al Jazeera also could not overcome suspicion among some potential viewers about its motives bred in the years after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Last month, Al Jazeera America was honored with an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University journalism award for a documentary that depicted the lives of working class Americans. (kes)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Khoirul Amin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 14, 2016 A number of sectors within tourism and the creative economy are to open up to foreign investors, signaling the government's renewed commitment to welcoming overseas investment, a top official has said. Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) head Franky Sibarani revealed on Wednesday that the government expected to finalize a new negative investment list (DNI) of between six and seven industrial sectors in the next two weeks as part of the first phase of the new DNI announcement. 'I hope that the [DNI revision relating to] tourism and the creative economy will be announced soon. Among businesses in the [creative economy] sector are film distribution, film production houses and cinema operators. In the tourism sector are hotel chains, tourist attractions and cruises,' he said. Franky told reporters that the new DNI would raise foreign ownership caps in the two industries to more than 50 percent or up to 100 percent. At present, foreign direct investment is allowed to account for a maximum 49 percent stake in companies providing technical assistance in movie-related production, including film production, production houses, film distribution and movie promotion. However, foreign investors can still buy shares in cinema operators listed on the stock exchange, according to capital market regulations. Publicly listed Graha Layar Prima, known for its Blitzmegaplex cinema chain, is partly owned by a South Korean company. Meanwhile, the cap on foreign ownership in tourist businesses like hotels and restaurants currently ranges between 49 and 51 percent. Accommodation services with foreign ownership currently limited to 49 or 51 percent are two-star hotels, three-star hotels, non-star hotels, homestays and motels, with ASEAN investors allowed up to 70 percent-ownership in motels, according to the current DNI regulation ' Presidential Decree No. 39/2014. Alongside tourism and the creative economy, another 15 industrial sectors are also 'open with requirements' to foreign investment at present. Among the sectors are agriculture, forestry, maritime affairs and fisheries, public works and commerce. The government has previously announced that it will announce a new DNI for the 16 industrial sectors, with a number of business sectors to be opened to foreign direct investment. Separately, Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association (PHRI) head Cyprianus advised the government to maintain ownership of local businesspeople in hotel chains. 'Instead of opening up foreign ownership to 100 percent for two-or-three star hotels, I think the government needs to provide soft loans for locals who have land to develop good-quality hotels,' he said. Voicing similar concerns, Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) chairman Tulus Abadi said that while the rising cap on foreign ownership in cinemas and accommodation services would give consumers more options, he argued that local ownership should still be maintained. He added that many joint ventures in tourism and the creative economy formed by local and foreign investors already met most consumers' demands. In contrast, the Creative Economy Agency (Bekraf) has previously stated that the country needed more foreign direct investment in cinemas, as there was still a wide gap between the number of cinemas and the number of viewers. There was, the agency claimed, only one screen for every 237,000 Indonesian viewers, a stark contrast with Malaysia, where each screen caters to between 39,000 and 40,000 people. _______________________________________ To receive comprehensive and earlier access to The Jakarta Post print edition, please subscribe to our epaper through iOS' iTunes, Android's Google Play, Blackberry World or Microsoft's Windows Store. Subscription includes free daily editions of The Nation, The Star Malaysia, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Asia News. For print subscription, please contact our call center at (+6221) 5360014 or subscription@thejakartapost.com Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Raras Cahyafitri (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 14, 2016 With global oil prices continuing their plunge ' falling below US$30 on Wednesday ', small and locally owned oil and gas companies are at great risk of closure or 'bleeding' operations, according to the Upstream Oil and Gas Regulatory Special Task Force (SKKMigas). 'There is a field that has closed, namely Tonga. There are many others, mostly small local firms, that are seriously struggling, such as Tiarabumi Petroleum in South Sumatra,' said SKKMigas spokesperson Elan Biantoro, referring to Jakarta-listed Energi Mega Persada's Tonga PSC oil block and Tiarabumi Petroleum's West Air Komering PSC. In Indonesia, the average cost per barrel is $22, according to figures from SKKMigas. However, there are numerous fields recording higher costs, particularly those located in remote areas with poor infrastructure and offshore operations. US oil stumbled below $30 per barrel on Wednesday, compared with over $100 in mid-2014, on global glut and concerns over weakening demand from slowing-down China, making it a lot more difficult for companies across the world to operate at a profit. The oil price plunge has forced global giants to slash jobs and cut spending plans; on Wednesday, BP Plc cut an additional 5,000 jobs, Petroleo Brasileiro SA slashed its spending plans and Petrolian Nasional Bhd. warned it faced several tough years ahead. In Indonesia, the Tonga oil block mentioned by SKKMigas bears production costs of $40 per barrel, largely because of high transportation costs under a tracking system, according to Elan. Figures from the company showed that Tonga PSC's net production was at 19 barrels of oil per day (bopd) as of the end of the first nine months of last year. Other small and local firms are currently suffering, including Sumatera Persada Energi (SPE), which operates the West Kampar PSC. 'They are trying to survive, but they're currently bleeding,' said SKKMigas deputy for operation Muliawan. Some international companies are also struggling amid current plunges in the world benchmark. 'They include ConocoPhillips' operation in Natuna [South Natuna B], where the offshore and remote location leads to high costs. Production is actually still good and therefore, they intend to farm out some shares. Chevron is currently also concerned with its operation in Kalimantan because it is offshore,' Elan said. He was referring to a recent report that South Natuna B's contractors ' namely ConocoPhillips with 40 percent ownership, Chevron with 25 percent and Inpex with 35 percent ' were seeking to release part of their stakes to new partners. ConocoPhillips' and Chevron's representatives in Indonesia declined to comment. Chevron's operation in East Kalimantan covers three main areas, namely North Area, South Area and West Seno. Business players and global analysts have predicted that the oil price is unlikely to rebound any time soon because the global surfeit is expected to continue rising. Meanwhile, major producers are maintaining oil production, as any reduction will hit their market shares. Goldman Sachs earlier estimated that the oil price would touch as low as $20 per barrel. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that the commodity price could reach $5 to $15 per barrel, driven by the lifting of international embargoes against Iran, which is also a significant oil producer in terms of volume. The current low oil price is not unprecedented, having dropped to $5 per barrel prior to the 1973 oil crisis. However, the sharp drop of over 60 percent since mid-2014 remains a source of major concern, especially for producers. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 Trend: Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed an order establishing the National Commission of the Republic of Azerbaijan for Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) Jan. 14. Set up with the aim of coordinating fruitful cooperation with ISESCO, the National Commission will include 10 people, chaired by Minister of Culture and Tourism Abulfaz Garayev. Azerbaijan holds a three year presidency of ISESCO General Conference. In the order, the president hailed the announcing of Baku and Nakhchivan as the capital of the Islamic culture in 2009 and 2018 respectively as the Muslim world`s recognition of "rich historical and cultural legacy of the people of Azerbaijan". Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 14, 2016 The all-round musician and artist David Bowie, who died from cancer on Monday, left not only a vast musical legacy but also a story of his love for Indonesia. The Englishman Bowie, born David Robert Jones, died at the age of 69 in his home in New York just two days after his birthday, an occasion that he marked by releasing his 28th album, titled Blackstar on Jan. 8. 'David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family after a courageous 18-month battle with cancer. While many of you will share in this loss, we ask that you respect the family's privacy during their time of grief,' a message from all of his social media accounts said on Monday. Bowie, often dubbed one of the most influential musicians of his era, was a great admirer of Indonesia, as could be inferred from his life work and story. He and musician Iggy Pop collaborated and released a song in 1984 titled 'Tumble and Twirl' that told a story about their journey exploring Indonesia. It was after Bowie's longest and most successful Serious Moonlight Tour ended in 1983, which did not visit Indonesia, although it went to Singapore and Thailand. I've seen the city, I took the next flight for Borneo They say it's pretty, I like the T-shirts in Borneo Some wear Bob Marley others in Playbos or Duvalier Make the last plane come, let me rise through the cloudy above With a book on Borneo So went the first verse of the song. Bowie and his then girlfriend supermodel Iman also attended a Surononan ceremony, locally known as Malam Satu Suro, in Mangkunegaran Palace in Surakarta, Central Java, in 1991. The ceremony observes the Islamic New Year and the first day of the Javanese month of Sura. In an old black and white photo released by the royal family, Bowie and Iman are seen to be accompanied by businessman turned musician Setiawan Djody, and Yapto Soerjosoemarno, both part of the Mangkunegaran family. Bowie's love for Indonesia was also shown in the song titled 'You Belong in Rock n' Roll' that his band at the time, Tin Machine, released in August 1991. Bowie and fellow member Reeves Gabrels created the song and even made an Indonesian version of it called 'Amlapura', the name taken from a city in Karangasem, Bali. Bowie sang the first verse: Hey, hey it's the tall sail on a beach reach for Java Make way for to Java watching for boogies Hey, hey it's a dreaming I would burn you if you should die Hey, hey I would burn too if you should lie upon that bamboo pyre Bowie also made an Indonesian version of his song 'Don't Let Me Down & Down' in his 18th studio album Black Tie White Noise, released in 1993. The song title was translated into Jangan Susahkan Hatiku and Bowie sang half of the song in Indonesian. The Architectural Digest magazine published a story in 1992 displaying Bowie and wife Iman's villa on the exclusive Caribbean island of Mustique. The villa was heavily inspired by the traditional architecture of Bali and Java. Balinese carved doors stood strong in the living room. Teakwood from Kudus, Central Java, was used for the veranda, adorned with Sumbawa-inspired carvings. The roof design of the dining pavilion took its inspiration from Joglo, Javanese traditional housing. Bowie even proudly posed with a Balinese sarong for the magazine. Bowie and Iman got help creating their getaway villa from Arne Hasselqvist, a Swedish architect who pioneered villa architecture in Mustique. New Yorker Robert J. Litwiller and Ubud-based Irish designer Linda Garland designed the interior while Michael White, an Australian born Balinese man who later used the name Made Wijaya, designed the villa's landscaping. ''Look, you've obviously been to the East, Arne. Have you ever been to Indonesia?' He'd had a romp through there, so he knew what I was talking about. He had an idea for water running into the pools and into the swimming pool. And then I brought in Robert Litwiller to start constructing, in a vaguely Indonesian style, a potpourri of all the islands of Indonesia, running the whole gamut, the ring of fire,' Bowie told the magazine in the interview for its September issue. The writer is a reporter at www.thejakartapost.com Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Niniek Karmini (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 14, 2016 A massive explosion rocked downtown Jakarta in front of a popular shopping mall on Thursday and an Associated Press reporter saw at least one dead body. Gunshots were heard after the midmorning explosion in front of the Sarinah shopping mall and a police station. The area also has many luxury hotels, and offices and embassies, including the French. It was not clear who was shooting but police had cordoned off the area, preventing reporters from going near the scene. Witnesses said the explosion was caused by a suicide bomber, but there was no immediate confirmation of the claim. Indonesia has been a victim of several bombing attacks in the past, claimed by Islamic militant groups. The country has been on high alert after authorities said they had foiled a plot by Islamic militants to attack government officials, foreigners and others. About 150,000 police officers and soldiers were deployed during New Year's Eve to guard churches, airports and other public places. More than 9,000 police were also deployed in Bali, the site of Indonesia's deadliest terror attack, which killed 202 people in 2002. National Police spokesman Maj. Gen. Anton Charliyan said security is focused on anticipating attacks in vulnerable regions, including Jakarta. On Tuesday, the jailed radical Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir appealed to an Indonesia court to have his conviction for funding a terror training camp overturned, arguing that his support for the camp was an act of worship. The 77-year-old leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah militant network filed a judicial review of his 2011 conviction, when he was sentenced to 15 years in jail for setting up the camp in Aceh province. A higher court later cut the sentence to nine years. (kes) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Aya Batrawy (The Jakarta Post) Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates Thu, January 14, 2016 France's former President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday called on Arab governments to deploy troops to Syria to fight the Islamic State group, describing the conflict against extremism as a "Third World War". Sarkozy's tough talk comes as the political survivor sets his eyes on another bid for the presidency in 2017. Sarkozy, who leads the conservative party The Republicans and was France's president in 2007-2012, is considered among the favorites to win the party's primary in November, his main rival being former Prime Minister Alain Juppe. Speaking at a policy center in the United Arab Emirates, Sarkozy said the Nov. 13 attack on Paris that killed 130 people and was claimed by the Islamic State group showed "there can be no such thing as a compromise between us and them." "I would describe this as a Third World War," he said before adding there can be nothing short of a "total annihilation of extremists, jihadists and terrorists." "We have to wage a total war and wage it now," Sarkozy said. "We need to wipe these savages from the face of the earth." Sarkozy spoke in front of a packed audience in the UAE, which has helped lead a crackdown against opposition Islamists throughout the region and is part of the Saudi-led war in Yemen against Iranian-allied Shiite rebels and a member of the U.S.-led coalition striking IS fighters in Syria and Iraq. France has been one of the most active members of the American-led coalition striking the IS where it holds territory in both Iraq and Syria. But Sarkozy said airstrikes against extremist groups in Syria and Iraq are not enough. "We need to strike from the air, but also occupy from the soil," he said and urged "Arab powers" to stage a ground intervention. He also lauded France's close business, military and strategic ties with Gulf Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Sarkozy, who staunchly opposes Syrian President Bashar Assad remaining in power and who rallied NATO into aiding the overthrow of Libya's longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, said conflicts in the Middle East are "very much" Europe's concern. "There will be no peace north of the Mediterranean if there is no peace south of the Mediterranean," said the former French president, who has also been known for his tough anti-immigration stance. (kes)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Farida Susanty (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 14, 2016 The government's plan to kick off the construction of the country's first high-speed rail link later this month is on track as all the preparations except some paperwork have been completed, transportation officials have said. Transportation Minister Ignasius Jonan said Wednesday that the Indonesian-Chinese joint venture PT Kereta Cepat Indonesia China (KCIC), which would build and operate the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway, had fulfilled all requirements, including getting recommendations from the regional administrations of the areas passed by the train. Because of such progress, he had issued a permit for the train routes, which are mostly located in West Java, Jonan said. 'The next step for the joint venture is to request the operational permit,' he said, adding that the company would be unlikely to face problems obtaining such a permit because it had already fulfilled the minimum capital requirement of Rp 1 trillion (US$72.3 million). KCIC has already obtained as much as Rp 1.18 trillion for the required capital, sourced from an Indonesian state enterprises consortium and China Railway. 'I only need a statement letter from the firm that the capital will not be retrieved, but I think it's just an administration thing; no problem,' Jonan said, adding that he would sign the permit on Thursday if the joint venture could make such a statement. Jonan revealed that the only document still being awaited by the ministry was the Environmental Impact Analysis (Amdal), an important requirement for the approval of the joint venture's engineering design for the high-speed train project. Jonan also said that the company needed to first acquire the approval for its engineering design before breaking ground, which is expected to take place on Jan. 21. The ministry's director general for railways, Hermanto Dwiatmoko, separately said that the ministry would assist the approval process. 'We will work on it as long as they have completed the requirement. We'll see how it goes,' Hermanto said. Construction for the high-speed train service, which will run at more than 250 kilometers per hour on a 142-kilometer-long track, is supposed to begin in 2016 and be finished by 2018. It is set to start operations in early 2019. It will serve four stations between Jakarta and Bandung in its first phase: Halim, Karawang, Walini and Tegalluar. KCIC has been chosen to build the high-speed train project, which it is estimated will cost about US$5.5 billion. KCIC itself is a joint venture between Indonesian state firms PT Wijaya Karya, PT KAI, PT Jasa Marga and PT Perkebunan Nusantara VIII with the China Railway International Co. Ltd. China secured the project in Southeast Asia's largest economy after Indonesian officials rejected Japan's requirement for the government to guarantee loans. The project was deemed significant for President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo who pledged to improve the country's infrastructure to boost the economy. The government has also issued Presidential Regulation No. 107/2015 on the acceleration of infrastructure for the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway project, in its bid to expedite the process. The President's meeting about the project on Jan. 4, which was also attended by Vice President Jusuf Kalla and West Java Governor Ahmad Heryawan, among others, scheduled the groundbreaking ceremony for Jan. 21. Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung said he also hoped that the approval for the project's engineering designs could be issued on Jan. 14 or Jan. 15 so that the groundbreaking could be carried out according to schedule. 'Everything is still under process, but it is on the right track,' KCIC president director Hanggoro Budi Wiryawan said in a text message. Voicing a similar optimism, PT KAI president director Edi Sukmoro said that he expected that the train would start operations on time. 'I still expect it to operate in 2019,' Edi said. He said that the Amdal document was currently handled by an independent consultant and would finish soon. KAI contributed Rp 125 billion of the required capital, according to Edi. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Fedina S. Sundaryani, Ina Parlina and Tama Salim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 14, 2016 Law enforcement agencies are closely monitoring the Fajar Nusantara Movement (Gafatar) after President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo instructed the National Police and the Home Ministry to investigate reports of possible criminal activity linked to the group. 'We have been asked by the President to monitor Gafatar in light of public concerns,' Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung said on Wednesday. 'If any kind of legal violation is unearthed, action will be taken.' Meanwhile, Home Minister Tjahjo Kumolo said his ministry, through the directorate general for political affairs and general administration, had listed Gafatar as an illegal organization after it rejected three chances to register since November 2011. In April and November 2012, the directorate general told local authorities not to register any proposals filed by Gafatar and to monitor its activities, Tjahjo said. The government, however, cannot disband Gafatar without assistance from the Attorney General's Office (AGO). 'According to the Mass Organization Law, a mass organization must promote norms, ethics and culture, as well as national unity. Therefore, in this case, we must also discuss whether or not Gafatar's activities violate such principles,' Tjahjo said. Separately, Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin urged members of the public not to join Gafatar. 'In terms of religious teaching, they have nothing to do with Islam, Judaism and Christianity; clearly, then, it is not a suitable organization for people to join,' Lukman said. Gafatar recently came into the spotlight after the disappearance of physician Rica Tri Handayani and her child from Yogyakarta on Dec. 30. Rica was suspected of being recruited by the organization before police in Pangkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan, came across her on Monday. Since then, a number of missing people reports have been filed to the police, and so far at least 16 people are believed to have joined Gafatar, according to Yogyakarta Police spokesperson Adj. Sr. Comr. Anny Pudjiastuti. Following the disappearances, the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) made an announcement saying that Gafatar was in fact an incarnation of Al-Qiyadah Al-Islamiyah, a syncretic sect synthesizing the Koran, Bible and Torah. Gafatar leader Mahful M. Tumanurung, however, claims on the group's website that it is not a religious group. The current media attention is not the first time that Gafatar has been dragged into the spotlight; last year, the Banda Aceh District Court sentenced six Gafatar leaders to prison sentences of between three and four years for defaming Islam by claiming local preacher Ahmad Musadeq was a prophet. Musadeq, who founded Al-Qiyadah Al-Islamiyah, was himself sentenced to four years in prison in 2008 by the South Jakarta District Court for declaring himself a prophet. Meanwhile, National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Anton Charliyan said on Wednesday that two people, one a cousin of Rica, had been named suspects for abduction. 'We are still looking for a motive because [Rica] is not being up front. She claims her cousin asked her to open a business,' Anton said. The AGO's junior attorney for intelligence, Adi Toegarisman, said that the AGO had discussed the issue with the Home Ministry, Religious Affairs Ministry, National Police and Indonesian Military (TNI) and concluded that the organization's teachings were outside those of the six established religions recognized by the government. 'Based on our information, Gafatar is an outgrowth of certain religious sects. Their officials include someone who was once a leader of Al-Qiyadah [Al-Islamiyah],' he said. When asked about disbanding the organization, Adi said such a decision had to be jointly made by the home minister, the attorney general and the religious affairs minister based on the 1965 Law on blasphemy. Separately, House deputy chairman Fahri Hamzah, who claims to have once been approached by the group, called on the government to regulate the establishment of civil society groups. 'The government must gauge whether [such groups] have a reason to exist,' Fahri said. _____________________________________ To receive comprehensive and earlier access to The Jakarta Post print edition, please subscribe to our epaper through iOS' iTunes, Android's Google Play, Blackberry World or Microsoft's Windows Store. Subscription includes free daily editions of The Nation, The Star Malaysia, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Asia News. For print subscription, please contact our call center at (+6221) 5360014 or subscription@thejakartapost.com Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Liza Yosephine (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 14, 2016 Young Indonesian entrepreneurs must be prepared to grab the baton as future leaders, a private lender executive has said. The CEO of Indonesia's largest private lender Bank Central Asia (BCA), Jahja Setiaatmadja, said it was important for all parties to give the country's younger generation a chance to develop their skills. 'The potential of these young people lies in their creativity and innovative skills, consistent with the changing times,' said the BCA president director. In an attempt to encourage leadership skills in the young generation, BCA invited established and aspiring entrepreneurs to discuss the challenges and potentials of youth entrepreneurship at an event in Jakarta on Wednesday. Jahja said the rising trend in youth entrepreneurship across a variety of sectors, including service excellence, personal development and life quality improvement, signaled a positive direction for the future. He further said that young entrepreneurs were not only profit-oriented but were also 'socialpreneurs'. Yenny Wahid, director of the Wahid Institute, a civil society group that promotes pluralism and a peaceful Islam, encouraged the development of financial consciousness from a young age, which she said should be established as a lifelong habit. The daughter of former president Abdurrahman 'Gus Dur' Wahid told the young audience that such financial awareness would help them to form personal goals to keep track of their finances. 'Keep savings in separated categories, such as one account for education and another for personal expenses,' Yenny said at the event. To inspire the young people, BCA invited several entrepreneurs to share their experiences at the event. Yasa Paramita Singgih started his fashion business Men's Republic at the age of 16, borrowing initial capital from vendors at the Tanah Abang textile market and promoting his products through the Blackberry Messenger service. Yasa has now expanded his business, with consumers spanning Malaysia, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Meanwhile, Elihu Nugroho runs an environmentally friendly business that offers water-free car washing. (ebf)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya, Marguerite Afra Sapiie, Ayomi Amindoni & Erika Anindita (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 Blasts struck at the heart of Jakarta on Thursday, leaving at least seven people dead and 19 injured after suicide bombers and a group of armed men attacked Indonesia's capital city. The deadly blasts and gun attacks took place in Jl. MH Thamrin, one of Jakarta's busiest main streets in Central Jakarta, located not far from government ministries and the State Palace. The National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Anton Charliyan said on Thursday that all five terrorists died in the attack: two were suicide bombers and the rest died during a shoot-out with the police. "All perpetrators are Indonesians and are dead," he told journalists. There were four blasts recorded in the area, commonly known as Sarinah, where Jakarta's oldest shopping mall is located. Civilians and police officers are among the 19 people injured and they were taken to several hospitals in Jakarta. At least five police officers are in critical condition from the blasts and gunshots. Anton explained that the first bomb was detonated by a suicide bomber in the US-based Starbucks coffee shop at 10:50 a.m. Not long after, there was a man riding a motorcycle approaching a police post in the Thamrin intersection who later detonated a bomb on himself. Then, police officers surrounded Starbucks where two terrorists held two men as hostages and brought them to the parking lot, a Canadian and an Indonesian. Under siege, the terrorists released random shots into Starbucks that killed the Canadian. The Indonesian hostage managed to escape although he suffered from injuries. The terrorists also shot police officers and threw grenades that lead to a shoot-out at noon. Police found five bombs with bigger impact believed to be exploded by the group. "We suspect that the first bomb was for fishing for a bigger explosion," he said. Anton said the perpetrators are believed to be related to the radical Islamic State (IS) group as there were warnings from the group after the attacks that killed 130 people in a string of attacks in Paris in November. "There were warnings two months ago. An IS leader said there would be a concert in Indonesia and Indonesia would be in international news from terrorist attacks," he said. "It seems like they have one ideology [as IS], which is to establish the Islamic State of Indonesia." He went on saying that the perpetrators could be affiliated with past terrorism groups in Indonesia. Police and foreigners became the target of the group, seen from the choice of the location of the Starbucks coffee. Police are on the hunt for the alleged related groups. Police also searched footage from closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras spread throughout the area and also took clues from the bullets used by the terrorists. There are 1,085 radical groups working underground as recorded by the National Police, Anton added. Still, police would focus in their investigation on which group was linked to the attacks. Security measures Anton said the current situation is under control as police officers and the Indonesian Military (TNI) tightened security across the country, especially in Jakarta. The capital city is now under alert status following the attacks. He refused to say that police were negligent in not anticipating the attacks. "We have given our maximum efforts. If people think we don't work hard enough then we apologize. We are not perfect. Police are humans too," he said. Anton claimed that police had arrested 16 people in December following security operations before the Christmas and New Year's Eve celebrations. (rin) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Dylan Amirio (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 14, 2016 As part of its efforts to encourage customers to shift to the 4G/LTE network, telecommunications company PT Indosat Ooredoo plans to bundle packages to make it easier for users to migrate to high-speed broadband. The head of the company's data services division, Sharif Mahfoedz, explained that the packages, such as the Freedom Combo, would allow users to decide when they can use their data quotas, thereby abolishing time limits featured on some data deals. The new package would also eliminate 'unnecessary tariffs', such as increased fares when users use their data quotas in a different region of Indonesia. In some cities and towns, data fares tend to be higher than in others due to such factors as mediocre infrastructure. 'This new bundle is our way of providing our users with a simple and transparent solution to their anxieties about unnecessary tariffs and time limits,' Sharif told reporters at the package's launch ceremony on Wednesday. The Freedom Combo package will provide users with unlimited call and SMS options as well as a 1GB + 1GB bonus quota on the 4G network, in line with the company's efforts to encourage its users to migrate to the newly installed network. In order for users to take full advantage of the combo package, Sharif added that the company would stress the importance of educating the public further on the terms and conditions. Indosat Ooredoo currently operates 4G/LTE services in 27 cities nationwide. The company said it would expand to 14 more cities throughout 2016, with an announcement of the specific cities coming sometime soon. Indosat Ooredoo chief marketing officer Andreas Gregori said the company would likely cover most of the Java region by the end of 2016. Andreas expressed his hope that by offering bundled packages that eliminate tariffs and by providing incentives for users, more of the companies current customers would be attracted to shift to the faster network. 'We need to focus on how people can easily access gaming and streaming services, for example, through the Indosat Ooredoo network. Providing them with [easy access], would attract them to migrate to the network,' he said. Previously, Indosat Ooredoo CEO Alexander Rusli said the company was targeting to extend its coverage to 5 million new people per month throughout 2016. In the third quarter of 2015, the company saw data usage traffic grow by 155 percent from the same period in 2014. Indosat Ooredoo has a total of 69 million users nationwide as of the third quarter of 2015, 50 percent of whom already actively use data services on the 2G, 3G or 4G networks. Indosat officially launched its new 4G network in December. The company will also focus more on its retail services in 2016, after pairing up with cellphone distributor Erajaya Group, which will involve opening an additional 40 to 60 Indosat Ooredoo retail outlets across the nation, as well providing services in Erajaya's existing outlets. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Juan A. Lozano (The Jakarta Post) Houston Thu, January 14, 2016 An Iraqi refugee who had settled in Texas has pleaded not guilty to charges he tried to help the Islamic State group. Omar Faraj Saeed Al Hardan appeared at a court hearing Wednesday. Al Hardan, who came to Houston from Iraq in 2009, was indicted last week on three charges, including attempting to provide support to a designated terrorist organization. The 24-year-old Al Hardan pleaded not guilty to all three. Prosecutors allege Al Hardan was coordinating efforts with another Iraqi refugee living in California to get weapons training and eventually sneak into Syria to fight alongside the terrorist group. Al Hardan's brother has said his sibling has denied any wrongdoing. (ags) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Haeril Halim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 14, 2016 The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has expressed optimism that it will still win the corruption case against Democratic Party politician and former minister Jero Wacik, despite Vice President Jusuf Kalla's plan to testify for him. Jero is accused of having been involved in multiple graft crimes while serving as culture and tourism minister and then later as energy and mineral resources minister under former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Democratic Party patron. KPK deputy chairman Alexander Marwata, who previously worked as an ad hoc judge at the Jakarta Corruption Court, said that the antigraft body respected Kalla's decision to defend Jero. The Vice President is scheduled to deliver his testimony in a hearing at the Jakarta Corruption Court on Thursday. 'It's not a problem because every citizen has the same position in law. In any legal case, defendants have the right to defend themselves,' Alexander said. A fair trial, said Alexander, should hear arguments both from defendants and prosecutors, before the panel of judges makes a final ruling in a graft case. Kalla, who served as vice president in the first term of the Yudhoyono administration, has received criticism from antigraft activists for his decision to accede to Jero's request to testify on his behalf. They said that Kalla's status as the current vice president, a symbol of state, makes it unethical to defend a corruption suspect. Last year, Kalla also helped former Indramayu regent Irianto Syafiuddin, a fellow Golkar Party member, in another case at the Bandung Corruption Court. Irianto was later acquitted in the case. Between 2008 and 2011, Jero allegedly misused Rp 10 billion of operational funds while serving as culture and tourism minister, using the money to pay for personal expenses amounting to Rp 7.3 billion and giving another Rp 1 billion to his family members. When serving as energy minister between 2011 and 2014, Jero is accused of having continued the same offences in his new post. He allegedly instructed his subordinates to collect Rp 10 billion from the ministry to pay for his personal activities. Jero finally turned to seek help to Kalla after his repeated calls for help to Yudhoyono remained unanswered. 'I am thankful that Kalla agreed to testify for me,' Jero said on Monday. Kalla is known for his attendances at graft trials as a defending witness for graft suspects. Aside from the Irianto case, the former Golkar Party chairman defended former foreign ministry secretary-general Sudjadnan Parnohadiningrat in April 2014, while he was not holding any public office. Sudjadnan was later sent to prison after KPK prosecutors managed to build strong arguments to win the case despite Kalla's alleviating testimony. 'What we're seeing is the use of the presence of a state symbol in court as a form of defense. This is a trick increasingly used by graft suspects to attempt to dodge a guilty verdict,' Erwin Natosmal Oemar of the Indonesian Legal Roundtable said. 'Kalla has the right to reject Jero's request. Accepting it means that the move defies Jokowi's campaign to fight against the country's rampant corruption,' Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) researcher Lalola Ester said. _______________________________________ To receive comprehensive and earlier access to The Jakarta Post print edition, please subscribe to our epaper through iOS' iTunes, Android's Google Play, Blackberry World or Microsoft's Windows Store. Subscription includes free daily editions of The Nation, The Star Malaysia, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Asia News. For print subscription, please contact our call center at (+6221) 5360014 or subscription@thejakartapost.com Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 By Samir Ali - Trend: Some 16 senior officials were detained on corruption charges in Azerbaijan in 2015, Kamran Aliyev, the Azerbaijani Deputy Prosecutor General, said at a press conference Jan. 15 devoted to the activity of the Main Department for Combating Corruption in 2015. Aliyev said that these individuals were arrested following 14 operational measures carried out by the department in 2015. "Some 169 more officials were brought to the disciplinary responsibility," Aliyev said. "The Main Department received 22 statements on the investigative files and 49 - on the criminal cases during the reporting period," he said. "Some 42 out of 169 officials brought to the disciplinary responsibility worked at the ministry of health, 28 officials - the ministry of labor and social protection, 13 officials - the ministry of education, 48 officials - the interior ministry." Aliyev said that the Main Department submitted 200 criminal cases concerning 295 people to the courts in 2015. He said that of 144 manat counted in damages for these criminal cases, some 37 million manat were reimbursed. Aliyev also said that upon completion of the criminal cases, the arrest of property in the amount of 44 million manat was issued. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Su Zhou (The Jakarta Post) Thu, January 14, 2016 The spending power and keen interest in travel by those in China's well-heeled LGBT community are attracting growing attention from tourism startups and investors. Wang Zhao, CEO and co-founder of GLOW Travel, an acronym for Gays and Lesbians On the Way, had been a travel consultant for years when his gay friends said he should be providing services tailored for people like them. In November 2014, Wang organized a trip for a group of 11 gay travelers to the island of Bali, Indonesia. Its success confirmed his decision to start a company focusing exclusively on such services for China's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. "People like us have totally different interests and demands when traveling abroad. We want to explore local communities that are friendly to homosexuals instead of pure sightseeing," said Wang, 35. "Additionally, LGBT people have strong demands for acceptance during their trips. Travel is also a good way for them to make friends." Another startup, CandyCANer, also is trying to optimize regular travel services for the LGBT community. Its website is expected to launch at the end of the month. "A tiny detail will make them feel welcome and comfortable. Take bathrobes, for example. A regular hotel will provide bathrobes for a man and a woman in the room. The hotels we arrange would provide a pair of men's or women's bathrobes for a gay or lesbian couple," said Xiao Haisheng, co-founder of CandyCANer. "Our ambition for the future is not only providing travel services, but creating a cultural space for LGBT people to socialize with each other." Although there are no official statistics, it is estimated that China has 50 million to 70 million people who identify as LGBT, based on typical numbers in other countries. A report from WorkForLGBT, a nonprofit business network in Beijing, said those they surveyed in China's cities are not only doing well financially, they also enjoy traveling. The survey said 75 percent of its respondents traveled within the Chinese mainland over the past year and a quarter traveled overseas. A 28-year-old Shanghai fashion designer surnamed Gao said he travels about five times a year. "We don't book trips from travel agencies, which provide few attractive products," Gao said. "I plan most of my trips on my own, based on information I collect from social media." The gap in the market provides opportunities for startups like GLOW, and also for overseas travel service providers who want to serve China's LGBT market but have little experience identifying clients and business partners in China. "I thought it would be difficult for startups like us to explore overseas LGBT travel sources," Wang said. "But when I started doing this, many of the mature LGBT travel service providers overseas came to us." Business growth may come from providing services instead of resources as the understanding of the consumption and traveling habits of the LGBT population deepens, said Xiao of CandyCANer. In China, service providers expect the industry to develop as more people feel comfortable being open about their sexual and gender orientations. WorkForLGBT's report found only 3 percent of surveyed men and 6 percent of surveyed women are completely open about their orientation. Xiao said this is true especially for those who work for the government or State-owned enterprises. "For us, we are trying to get to know our target customers from social media and places LGBT people like to visit. We also have close cooperation with nonprofit organizations that focus on researching the LGBT group," Xiao said. "We have to do business like traditional businessmen: getting to know your customers and creating products based on their wants and needs." (kes)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post San Francisco Thu, January 14, 2016 A specialty car manufacturer is recalling the limousine model involved in a 2013 fire that killed five nurses on a San Francisco Bay Area bridge. Accubuilt is recalling about 1,000 limousines manufactured between Jan. 2, 1998, and July 21, 2005, because a rubbing driveshaft may increase the risk of fire. It's unclear if the recall is a result of the California fire in a 1999 Lincoln Town Car limo. A representative of the Lima, Ohio-based company did not return a call for comment Wednesday. The California Highway Patrol said the blaze broke out on the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge because of a catastrophic failure of the rear suspension system. Authorities said the air suspension failure allowed the spinning driveshaft to contact the floor pan, causing friction that ignited carpets and set the limo on fire. No charges were filed. The fire occurred while a nurse, Neriza Fojas, was celebrating her recent wedding with a group of friends. She was among the five killed. Four other friends inside the limo and the limo driver survived. The state Public Utilities Commission had authorized the vehicle to carry eight or fewer passengers, but it had nine on the night of the fire. The commission fined the limo operator $1,500 for having more passengers than allowed. Aerial video of the aftermath showed the fire scorched parts of the rear of the limousine. The car's taillights and bumper were gone, and it appeared to be resting on its rims. The remainder of the vehicle didn't appear to be damaged. (ags) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Khoirul Amin (The Jakarta Post) Thu, January 14, 2016 Domestic coffee traders have been urged to take advantage of the country's growing appetite for quality coffee before foreign players flood the market with the commodity, an industry player has said. Indonesian Coffee Exporters Association (AEKI) chairman Irfan Anwar said domestic coffee consumption was rising thanks to the growing number of young coffee drinkers. '['] we have to make the most of it as soon as possible before other competitors enter the same industry. Now is a good time to develop our coffee,' he said on the sidelines of a national coffee symposium on Wednesday. Indonesia, Irfan said, produced around 600,000 tons of coffee beans a year and imported between 60,000 and 80,000 tons, with 40 percent of domestic production going to the domestic market. Previously, Union of Indonesian Coffee Exporters' Associations (GAEKI) secretary-general Isdarmawan Asrikan said average domestic coffee consumption had risen to 1 kilogram per capita from around 0.5 kg previously. Irfan signaled, however, that the domestic market could still grow, as it remained small in comparison to the market in neighboring countries. Finns are the world's top coffee consumers with average consumption of 9.6 kg per capita, followed by the Norwegians (7.2 kg), Dutch (6.7 kg) and Slovenians (6.1 kg), according to Euromonitor. AEKI's industry compartment and specialty coffee division head, Pranoto Soenarto, said major challenges to Indonesia's coffee industry including its annual production in order to surpass Brazil and improving the welfare of local growers. 'If we can make it to 1.5 tons per hectare each year, all coffee farmers will prosper,' Pranoto said. Indonesia's coffee plantation area produces 741 kilograms per ha every year, a far cry from those of Brazil (2 tons/ha/year) and Vietnam (1.5 tons/ha/year), according to AEKI data. Irfan said that according to his estimations, the country's coffee production hit around 550,000 tons last year, lower than around 600,000 tons in 2014; the fall was due to the El NiAo weather phenomenon. He added that he hoped, however, that the country's coffee production could bounce back to 600,000 tons this year, as he expected that current technologies could offset the impacts of both El NiAo and La NiAa, both of which are set to show their faces this year. Previously, AEKI vice chairman Theng Hong Sioe said that coffee production could fall to around 400,000 tons this year in the event of a protracted El NiAo phenomenon. Indonesia's coffee production reached a peak in 2010, hitting nearly 700,000 tons, Agriculture Ministry data has revealed. Irfan said that while Indonesia's coffee production remained behind that of other countries, the country should focus on developing its specialty coffee, which is widely seen as among the best in the world. Five types of specialty Indonesian specialty coffee are listed among the world's 10 best. Among Indonesia's specialty coffees are Arabica Bali Kintamani, Flores Arabica Coffee and Sumatra Arabica Gayo. During the national coffee symposium held by AEKI on Wednesday and Thursday, local coffee growers and traders are set to participate in a number of workshops on exports and coffee quality. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Nurul Fitri Ramadhani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 14, 2016 The Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Ministry has enlisted the help of civil society organizations (CSO) to address problems at the village level. 'CSOs will have direct involvement with the community. They will collaborate with us to tackle problems within the villages. We have to create innovations based not only what the government wants but what the community wants,' the Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Minister, Marwan Jafar, said in a meeting with CSOs and experts on Wednesday. Several CSOs attended the meeting including representatives from the Alliance of Indigenous People (AMAN), the Agrarian Reform Consortium (KPA), the Indonesian Farmers Union (SPI), human rights watchdog Setara Institute and the advocacy and social policy research institute Prakarsa. Government policies with regard to villages, Marwan said, do not always match with what villagers really need. Marwan said that such a discrepancy had occurred in the agrarian sector where problems such as land grabbing continued between villagers and companies because the government did not have a national database on land conflicts. For data on poverty and ecological crisis at the village level, the government continues to rely on the data supplied by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) and the Social Affairs Ministry, all of whom have produced different sets of data. Marwan believes that the involvement of CSO and experts could help address the problem. 'With such a working group, we can share information and explore the best recommendations with regard to future steps. Also, civil society groups could conduct better research on the root cause of agrarian conflicts,' Marwan said. The initiative to involve CSOs in addressing problems at the village level is a follow up to President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo's plan to accelerate development in the country's 73,000 villages, several of which are located in border areas, Marwan said. The government expects to set up 2,000 developed and independent villages in the next five years and has doubled the allocation of village funds to around Rp 47 trillion (US$3.4 billion) this year to achieve the target. This year, the village funds are reportedly to be spent entirely on infrastructure projects in the villages; to repair damaged roads, construct irrigation networks and for clean water procurement. Marwan said the government would hire local villagers as workers and use construction materials, such as cement, sand and bricks, derived from the villages themselves. 'I know that there must be many complaints from CSOs and even from the villagers about the use of the funds, demanding that the funds go toward improving the quality of education and the health sector, but it's the President's decision,' Marwan said. The executive director of the independent watchdog on state and local budgets Pattiro, Sad Dian Utomo, said that the government needed to make sure that the infrastructure projects and investments are not harmful to the local environment. 'Make sure that the projects contribute to the improvement of the villagers lives,' Sad said. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta Thu, January 14, 2016 Leaders of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) said that the antigraft body would continue its probe into the Bank Century case that has implicated former vice president Boediono, who once served Bank Indonesia governor, and other BI former deputy governors. The investigation into the case has been in limbo since the Jakarta Corruption Court sentenced the first suspect in the case, former BI deputy governor Budi Mulya, to a 10-year prison term in July 2014. To date, the KPK have yet to name as suspects other individuals named in Budi's verdict. The panel of judges at the court found that Budi had abused his authority collectively with his fellow colleagues on the board of governors; Boediono, former BI senior deputy governor Miranda Goeltom, and then BI deputy governors Siti C. Fadjrijah, Budi Rochadi, Muliaman Hadad, Hartadi Sarwono and Ardhayadi Mitroatmodjo. The Supreme Court has also confirmed the roles of those individuals in the case at the cessation level. Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) deputy chairman Laode Muhammad Syarif said that investigators had moved slowly in their probe because they were still waiting for the copy of the cessation verdict from the Supreme Court. 'We have yet to receive the copy from the Supreme Court. As soon as we have it at hand, we will study the verdict thoroughly,' Laode told the Jakarta Post on Wednesday. KPK commissioner Alexander Marwata also said that antigraft body leaders would convene prosecutors to examine the roles of the implicated individuals after the KPK had received the copy of the cessation verdict from the Supreme Court. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta Thu, January 14, 2016 The Defense Ministry is considering the purchase of new hospital ships for the Indonesian Navy (TNI AL) in order to boost the country's preparedness in dealing with natural disaster. 'The Navy expressed a need [for hospital ships] and we are considering the proposal,' Indonesian Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu said in Jakarta on Tuesday after the executive meeting with the military commander and the Air Force, the Navy, and the Army chiefs of staff. The Navy Chief of Staff Admiral Ade Supandi told The Jakarta Post that the navy planned to purchase at least two hospital ships. 'There is still some discussion on the idea. However, it is clear that we will buy the ships from shipbuilder company PT PAL,' Ade said. He believed that two ships would be enough to support the government's humanitarian efforts in cases of disaster. 'We expect that the new hospital ships will be akin to KRI DR Soeharso-990, either the type or the size,' Ade said. Joining the Navy's fleet in 2003, KPR DR Soeharso is the only hospital ship in the country. With a length of 122 meters, KRI Dr Soeharso is a landing platform dock-type vessel. In an emergency situation the ship can accommodate 400 soldiers and 3,000 passengers. During the fire-induced haze disaster last year, the Indonesian Military (TNI) deployed KRI DR Soeharso to evacuate women and children affected by smoke. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Nani Afrida (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 14, 2016 The Indonesian Navy is under public scrutiny after a number of its personnel assaulted a 12-year-old schoolboy whom they suspected of stealing a bird. The boy, identified as T, suffered concussion, kidney and liver dysfunction and severe injuries to his face and body. The Navy has acknowledged the men's wrongdoing and apologized on their behalf to the boy and his family. 'On behalf of the Indonesian Navy, I apologize for this incident. We admit that the personnel involved went overboard in beating up the boy,' Navy spokesman Commodore M. Zainudin said on Wednesday. The Navy, he added, would pay for all expenses incurred from the boy's medical treatment. Zainudin said the Navy was currently conducting an internal investigation into the incident and promised that the perpetrators would be punished. According to T's testimony, the elementary school student entered the Marines housing complex in Cilandak, South Jakarta, in search of a lost kite. He was approached by a man in military fatigues. 'He thought I was a bird thief. I told him I wasn't,' T said in his account, adding that the man, who was carrying a gun, forced him to admit to the theft. T was then taken to a security post, where three servicemen assaulted him, including by turning a water hose on him, and ignored his pleas to be released, according to the testimony. The boy's father rushed to the post when he heard from his son's friends that his son had been taken by military personnel. 'When I got there, I saw my son. He had been tied to a pole, and was naked,' said the father, adding that he himself had also been mistreated by the Navy personnel. He would, he said, prioritize his son's recovery above seeking reconciliation or legal redress. Navy chief of staff Admiral Ade Supandi told The Jakarta Post that the violence committed by his men troubled him. 'I have ordered the Marine Corps chief and the military police to investigate [the incident]. Punishments will be imposed in accordance with regulations,' he said. Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) chairman Asrorun Ni'am Sholeh said that T was now under the protection of the KPAI. 'He will get medical treatment for his injuries and will be protected by the Witness and Victim Protection Agency [LPSK],' Asrorun said; T's parents are reportedly fearful of reprisals and are reluctant to return home. 'The KPAI will facilitate protection in coordination with the LPSK,' Asrorun said. The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) meanwhile condemned the incident, saying the men involved had used counterterror techniques to intimidate and abuse civilians. 'It shows that the military is incapable of judicious use of antiterror training. They use it against civilians,' said Puri Kencana Putri, Kontras deputy coordinator for strategy and mobilization. 'The only available solution to this is through the military courts. We have no system that takes a human rights approach emphasizing transparency and protection of victims,' Puri said. Women's Empowerment and Child Protection Minister Yohana Yambise visited T on Tuesday night to ensure the boy was receiving proper treatment. During her visit, Yohana promised T's father that she would instruct the Navy and the National Police to protect the family. (saf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Erika Anindita & Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 There was no blast in the Palmerah area of West Jakarta, despite rumors that claimed a bomb exploded there at the same time as the attacks on Jl. MH Thamrin in Central Jakarta. West Jakarta Police chief Rudy Hariyanto said that there was no blasts nor gunfire in Palmerah. "I have checked the location and none of that is true," he said, adding that there was no threat addressed to the Palmerah Police post. Previously, there had been rumors that blasts took place in several areas in the capital and around it, such as in Palmerah and Alam Sutera in South Tangerang. National Police chief spokesman Insp. Gen. Anton Charliyan confirmed that the blasts only happened in the Thamrin area and not in other parts of the city. "We have checked all the reports and they are hoax news. It is not true there were bomb blasts in Palmerah or in Kuningan [South Jakarta]," he said. At least seven people died, including five terrorists, in the blasts and gun attacks in the Thamrin area at around 10:50 p.m. The two civilian fatalities were a Canadian and an Indonesian. More than 19 people were injured in the incident, police said. (rin) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Munir Ahmed (The Jakarta Post) Islamabad Thu, January 14, 2016 Pakistan on Wednesday announced the arrest of "several individuals" from an outlawed Islamic militant group believed to be linked to a four-day assault on an Indian air base earlier this month that killed seven Indian soldiers. The government announced the arrests in a statement after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif presided over a meeting to discuss security issues. The meeting was also attended by Pakistan's army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif, the country's intelligence chief and other security officials. The statement said an investigation into the incident has made "considerable progress," leading to the arrest of several individuals from the Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group. All six militants who took part in the attack were killed by Indian forces. India has long accused Pakistan of turning a blind eye to Islamic militants who have staged cross-border attacks and battled Indian forces in the disputed Kashmir region. Pakistan was quick to condemn the air base attack, and Sharif spoke to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, expressing condolences and saying Pakistan would investigate any information that India provides. But the attack raised concerns over peace talks planned for Friday between the two longtime regional rivals. In a separate statement, Sharif's office said the government has set up a committee "to probe the allegations of alleged involvement of certain individuals" in the incident in India. The committee is headed by a senior officer at the Counter Terrorism Department, Rai Tahir, and its members are officers from the civil and military intelligence agencies. Also Wednesday, Pakistani media reported that authorities had taken Maulana Masood Azhar, the head of the Jaish-e-Mohammad group, into custody or questioning. The government did not confirm or deny reports about Azhar's detention. However, two security officials said Azhar's brother and 13 other men were detained for questioning this week. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Indian defense officials have said that six heavily armed gunmen entered the Pathankot air base before dawn on Jan. 2. Indian troops exchanged gunfire with the men before finally killing all six on Tuesday evening. The United Jehad Council, an alliance of 13 Kashmir-based rebel groups, claimed that its "highway squad," which usually attacks military convoys, carried out the attack. The council is believed to be based in Pakistan's section of Kashmir, the divided Himalayan region claimed in its entirety by both nuclear-armed powers. Indian investigators have said that phone intercepts suggest that the gunmen came from Pakistan. In his phone conversation with Sharif, Modi asked Islamabad "to take firm and immediate action" against those linked to the attackers. "Specific and actionable information in this regard has been provided to Pakistan," a statement from his office said last week. The attack was seen as an attempt to derail the Pakistan-India peace process and came just days after Modi paid a surprise Dec. 25 visit to Pakistan. India accuses Pakistan of arming and training Kashmir insurgents in its portion of Kashmir. Pakistan says it only provides moral and diplomatic support. (kes)(+) ____ Associated Press writers Muneeza Naqvi in New Delhi and Asim Tanveer in Multan, Pakistan contributed to this report. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Sylvie Corbet (The Jakarta Post) Paris Thu, January 14, 2016 With the blood and bullets now swept away, the Carillon cafe reopened its doors Wednesday for the first time since it was among the Paris sites targeted by Islamic extremists in November. The French capital is trying to revive tourism and commerce after the attacks that cost 130 lives and cast a shadow of fear over the city. "Welcome to the Carillon," bartenders said while opening the doors, offering a glass of champagne to the first customers, some of whom were altering between smiling and crying. "It's important not to wait to return to these places where people have suffered," said Parisian Victoire Rambert, who lives nearby. "We are lucky enough to be alive," added her friend Fatim Layachi. "We must continue to live and to chat in cafes, drink a glass, even if today it's more meaningful than usual, obviously." Bouquets of fresh flowers, notes and photos of those killed on Nov. 13 were still lying near the Carillon's facade. Two other cafes targeted in the attacks have already reopened. Paris tourism took a hit in the weeks following the violence. State statistics agency Insee said hotel occupancy in the French capital dropped by 25 percent in the two weeks that followed the attacks, compared to November 2014. Air France estimates the attacks caused 120 million euros ($130 million) in lost revenue. Parisian hotels ' that usually have no vacancy during Christmas and the New Year celebrations' saw their activity drop by 30 to 40 percent at the end of the year, said the president of hotel union UMIH in the Paris region, Evelyne Maes. Following the attacks in January last year against satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket that left 17 people dead, it took three months to return to normal, Maes said. Museum attendance also suffered. Visitors at the Louvre decreased by 7 percent from 9.3 million in 2014 to 8.7 million last year and 7.4 million people went to Versailles palace in 2015, a drop by 4 percent. Many tourists were going for a walk on the Champs Elysee avenue on Wednesday where extra security in the form of military patrols was noticeable. Mexican Rosa Martinez, who is on a two-week trip to France with her husband, said the couple had planned their vacation long before the November attacks and were hesitant about whether they should cancel or not. "But then we thought this is our dream vacation and there's no way these terrorists can deprive us of it," said the 45-year-old. "Actually we were right. The city is beautiful and we have met French people who say they are glad we are here, and now we see it as a way to show our support to the French people." France has been in a state of emergency since the November attacks. Over 13,000 troops, including 6,000 in the Paris region, have been deployed on French territory in addition to police forces. A group of 20 companies involved in France's tourism sector have launched an online campaign inviting people to share pictures with the hashtag #Parisweloveyou. In coming weeks, a giant hashtag sculpture covered by the mosaic of photos will be placed at a symbolic Parisian site. The precise location remains secret. (kes)(+) ___ AP writer Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to the story. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Fedina S. Sundaryani and Ina Parlina (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 14, 2016 Disgraced former House of Representatives speaker Setya Novanto missed a planned questioning by the Attorney General's Office (AGO) on Wednesday. The AGO said that it had sent Setya a summons letter last Friday requesting his attendance at the AGO headquarters in South Jakarta for questioning relating to his alleged attempt to leverage his power to gain shares from gold and copper mining company PT Freeport Indonesia. However, Setya's lawyer, Firman Wijaya, said that the AGO did not have the rights to issue a summons letter to question the Golkar Party lawmaker without the approval of President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo. 'The Attorney General [M Prasetyo] has already sent a letter requesting approval [from Jokowi], so why are they not respecting the presidential institution [by waiting for a response]?' he said, referring to a letter that the AGO sent last month. Firman also said that Setya and his legal team were considering submitting written testimony about the case instead of attending a questioning in person. 'They want [Setya's] testimony, and we'll give it to them through a letter, which is legally permissible,' he said. The AGO has been investigating the alleged conspiracy for the past two months following a report filed by Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Sudirman Said to the House's ethics council. The report included the submission of a recording of a conversation and its transcript. The AGO summoned Setya after being told by House secretary-general Winantuningtyastiti Swasanani that Setya's meeting with Freeport president director Maroef Sjamsoeddin and business tycoon Muhammad Reza Chalid, at which the then speaker allegedly demanded shares in exchange for government assurance of an extension to Freeport's contract, was unrelated to his official duties as House speaker. However, Setya has not yet been named a suspect in the case. Firman also lambasted the AGO for basing its conspiracy investigation on the recording of the meeting, which he claimed had yet to be authenticated. '[The AGO wants to] question [Setya] based on the recording, while we believe that the recording is illegal. How can you question someone on an illegal basis?' he said. Setya has filed police reports against both Sudirman and Maroef for slander, defamation and violation of the Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law. Separately, AGO junior attorney for special crimes Arminsyah said that investigators would summon Setya again next week. 'Naturally, we will summon him again next week,' he said. Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung meanwhile said the Palace had decided not to issue special presidential approval for the AGO to question Setya, despite the AGO requesting so last month. In line with previous arguments made by parties ranging from Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly to antigraft campaigners, Pramono insisted that, unlike with general crimes, summoning a lawmaker for questioning related to possible corruption charges did not require the president's approval. '[The next steps are] up to the AGO. What now seems clear to us, though, is that after reviewing [the AGO's request] we, the government and the President, believe that [the summons] needs no presidential approval, given the charges the AGO is applying,' Pramono said at the Presidential Palace on Wednesday. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ina Parlina (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, January 14, 2016 Indonesia and Singapore have agreed to improve bilateral ties following a courtesy call meeting between President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo and Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan on Wednesday at the State Palace. Balakrishnan, a former environment and water resources minister, was in Jakarta for a two-day introductory visit for his new post. 'The President said that we have close ties and that improving relations and cooperation is imperative; mutually beneficial cooperation, naturally,' Deputy Foreign Minister AM Fachir, who accompanied Jokowi during the meeting, told reporters on Wednesday. Singapore has long been one of Indonesia's top trading partners and sources of investment. Data from the Foreign Ministry show that bilateral trade reached US$41.99 billion in 2014, the second-highest amount after China. Singapore has consistently been among the top five investors in Indonesia in the past five years, with $5.8 billion in investment in 2,056 projects in 2014. During Wednesday's meeting, Fachir said Balakrishnan had expressed appreciation for Indonesia's efforts to improve the business climate through deregulation. 'Other than recognizing Indonesia's potential, he also said he had great confidence in further investment in Indonesia,' Fachir added. According to Fachir, Singapore also appreciates Indonesia's efforts in tackling the annual haze that has often blanketed neighboring countries, including also Singapore. '[Balakrishnan] believes that the situation will be better in the future [for both countries] and expressed willingness to cooperate with Indonesia [in tackling haze],' Fachir said. Jokowi visited Singapore in mid-2015 and held a meeting with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at which the two reiterated their commitment to strengthening bilateral ties, particularly in the economic sector. Jokowi also told a business forum of top Singaporean government and corporate officials not to miss the chance to invest more in Southeast Asia's largest economy. During his visit to Jakarta, Balakrishnan has also met with a number of ministers, including, on Tuesday, his counterpart Retno LP Marsudi. The two discussed ways to improve Indonesia's agribusiness exports to Singapore, as reported by Antara news agency. Retno was quoted by Antara as saying that Singapore needed agriculture products and Indonesia could meet those needs. Balakrishnan also met with Communication and Information Minister Rudiantara on Tuesday to discuss possible cooperation in the ICT sector and digital economy amid a growing Indonesian digital economy. Balakrishnan also met with Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan on Tuesday morning; Luhut explained Indonesia's efforts to improve the investment climate in the Batam-Bintan-Karimun Special Economic Zone (BBK). The two also briefly discussed issues related to the flight information region (FIR), amid Jakarta's efforts to take over the management of airspace over Riau and Riau Islands provinces from Singapore in the next three years. According to the Singaporean Foreign Ministry's official website, Singapore sees the FIR as an issue not of sovereignty, but of commercial air traffic safety and efficiency. Singapore has been managing the FIR over the area since 1946 and Indonesia's efforts since 1993 to take over the airspace have so far been fruitless. The city-state controls airspace up to 110 nautical miles from its position, covering Batam, Dumai and Natuna ' an arrangement that deprives Indonesia of authority over the airspace. As a consequence of the arrangement, patrols conducted by the Indonesian Air Force and Navy in the territory must also seek guidance from Singapore. _______________________________ To receive comprehensive and earlier access to The Jakarta Post print edition, please subscribe to our epaper through iOS' iTunes, Android's Google Play, Blackberry World or Microsoft's Windows Store. Subscription includes free daily editions of The Nation, The Star Malaysia, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Asia News. For print subscription, please contact our call center at (+6221) 5360014 or subscription@thejakartapost.com Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 After almost ten years, Suzuki will once again sell Jimny jeeps in Indonesia. The new Jimny jeeps, which will be built in Japan, will reportedly be available in the first semester of 2016. "The current price set by private importers is between Rp 450 million [US$32,410] and Rp 500 million. It could be cheaper than that," Suzuki Indonesia product development head Donny Saputra recently told kompas.com. In Japan, there are two types of Jimny jeeps currently being sold: the 0.6L Jimny and 1.3L Jimny Sierra. The latter model will be the one made available for the Indonesian market. Suzuki Indonesia used to produce Jimny jeeps but following changes in the taxation rules on 4x4 automobiles, the company introduced a 4x2 version called 'Katana'. Local production for Jimny jeeps stopped in 1992 but the company continued to manufacture Katana until 2006. "Jimny is a legend in Indonesia. The comeback is long time coming for its fans," Donny said. (anh/kes)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Tehran Thu, January 14, 2016 The latest developments following the release of 10 U.S. Navy sailors detained by Iran after entering its territorial waters (All times local). ___ 12:30 a.m. Iranian state TV has rerun a video clip of one of the held U.S. sailors apologizing for the intrusion into Iranian territorial waters. In the footage, filmed before the sailors were released on Wednesday, the sailor says: "It was a mistake. That was our fault and we apologize for our mistake." The sailor is not identified by name in the clip but the TV interviewer says he is the "commander" of the group seized by the Iranians. He is then asked if the sailors' GPS had alerted them about the intrusion, to which he replies, "I believe so." The U.S. Central Command later said the "video appears to be authentic but we cannot speak to the conditions of the situation or what the crew was experiencing at the time." It added that the crew is "currently undergoing the reintegration process and we will continue to investigate this incident. What matters most right now, however, is that our sailors are back safely." ___ 10:10 p.m. The top House Democrat is applauding Iran's release of 10 U.S. Navy sailors who'd been held after their two small boats allegedly strayed into Iranian territorial waters. Asked by reporters if she was troubled by the sailors' treatment by Iran, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that she hadn't seen videos of the incident. The California Democrat said the matter "was resolved in a matter of hours, and I think that that's record time for all of the, shall we say, apprehension of people who may or may not have been in their waters." Pelosi says she believes the negotiations that produced the recent deal limiting Tehran's nuclear program helped smooth the way to the "speedy resolution" of the sailors' apprehension. Pelosi said the Obama administration has never appeased Iran and said the names of other Americans being held by Tehran are brought up at every meeting with Iranian officials. ___ 9:40 p.m. Two Republican presidential hopefuls say they're outraged over Iran's detention of U.S. Navy soldiers. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says the sailors' temporary detention by Iran is "outrageous" and shows "how little they respect (Obama) and how weak this president truly is." Speaking at a campaign stop in New Hampshire, Christie said on Wednesday that "this is why the American people are so nervous, why they are scared and anxiety-ridden over our place in the world and what it means for the purpose our own safety and the safety of our fellow citizens." Also Wednesday, campaigning in South Carolina, Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio said he was angry and outraged at the images broadcast of 10 U.S. sailors captured in the Persian Gulf by Iranian Revolution Guard forces. Rubio says: "You know why these things happen? Because they know they can get away with it while President Barack Obama is in office." He says that if elected, he plans to reverse the "ridiculous" nuclear deal with Iran. ___ 7 p.m. A senior U.S. defense official says the 10 American sailors briefly held by Iran are heading to a U.S. military facility in Qatar and likely have already arrived there. The official says the sailors also will be debriefed by naval officials and will get medical checkups, though there's no sign any were harmed. The official spoke to The Associated Press on Wednesday on condition of anonymity as the information had yet to be made public. The nine men and one woman were held in an Iranian base on Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf after being detained nearby on Tuesday. The U.S. military has said that mechanical trouble with one of the boats caused them to drift into Iranian territorial waters near the island, where they were picked up by Iran. 'Lolita C. Baldor in Washington. ___ 6:45 p.m. Iranian state television has shown dramatic images of the moment when Revolution Guard forces captured 10 U.S. sailors in the Persian Gulf. The video and stills were published on its website Wednesday night, hours after the nine American men and one woman were released by Iran. The images show the U.S. sailors with their hands on their heads, while others show Iranians inspecting the machine guns onboard and going through papers. The American sailors were held in an Iranian base on Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf after being detained nearby on Tuesday. The U.S. military has said that mechanical trouble with one of the boats caused them to drift into Iranian territorial waters near the island, where they were picked up by Iran. ___ 5:35 p.m. The White House says new lines of communication with Iran established during nuclear negotiations were key to getting 10 U.S. Navy sailors released quickly. White House chief of staff Denis McDonough says he's hesitant to draw big lessons from the incident about the state of U.S.-Iran relations. But he says open lines established recently are "extraordinarily important" in resolving situations such as the one in the crowded Persian Gulf. He says U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's relationship with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif played a key role in this case. Kerry and Zarif grew acquainted through the recent nuclear deal between the Islamic Republic and world powers. But President Barack Obama and Kerry have said the nuclear deal was separate from other issues between the U.S. and Iran. McDonough told a Christian Science Monitor breakfast Wednesday the White House is very pleased to have the sailors "back with us." He says that's "where they should have always been." ___ 4:30 p.m. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has thanked Iran for ending what could have been a crisis involving the Islamic Republic holding 10 U.S. sailors, who have now been freed. Kerry said in a statement on Wednesday: "That this issue was resolved peacefully and efficiently is a testament to the critical role diplomacy plays in keeping our country safe, secure and strong." Kerry has a close relationship with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif after the recent nuclear deal between the Islamic Republic and world powers. The nine American men and one woman were held in an Iranian base on Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf after being detained nearby on Tuesday. The U.S. military has said that mechanical trouble with one of the boats caused them to drift into Iranian territorial waters near the island, where they were picked up by Iran. ___ 4:15 p.m. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden says that America did not apologize to Iran over U.S. sailors allegedly entering Iranian territorial waters. Biden made the comments Wednesday in an interview with "CBS This Morning." The vice president said: "There's nothing to apologize for. When you have a problem with the boat you apologize the boat had a problem? No, and there was no looking for any apology. This was just standard nautical practice." Biden said that the Iranians realized the U.S. sailors "were there in distress and said they would release them and released them like ordinary nations would do." The nine American men and one woman were held in an Iranian base on Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf after being detained nearby on Tuesday. The U.S. military has said that mechanical trouble with one of the boats caused them to drift into Iranian territorial waters near the island, where they were picked up by Iran. ___ 3:10 p.m. U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter has welcomed the release of 10 U.S. Navy sailors held overnight by Iran. In a statement Wednesday, Carter said he wanted to thank U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry for his "diplomatic engagement" on the issue. Kerry has a close relationship with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif after the recent nuclear deal between the Islamic Republic and world powers. Carter also said: "Around the world, the U.S. Navy routinely provides assistance to foreign sailors in distress, and we appreciate the timely way in which this situation was resolved." The nine men and one woman were held on Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf after being detained nearby on Tuesday. The U.S. military has said that mechanical trouble with one of the boats caused them to drift into Iranian territorial waters near the island, where they were picked up by Iran. ___ 2:30 p.m. The U.S. military says that 10 sailors briefly held by Iran are back in American care and "there are no indications that the sailors were harmed." The U.S. Navy issued a statement Wednesday after Iranian state media announced the sailors had been freed. It said the sailors departed the Iranian base on Farsi Island at 0843 GMT on the same boats that brought them there. It said the Navy would conduct an investigation into the incident. The nine men and one woman were held on Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf after being detained nearby on Tuesday. The U.S. military has said that mechanical trouble with one of the boats caused them to drift into Iranian territorial waters near the island, where they were picked up by Iran. ___ 2 p.m. Iranian state television is reporting that all 10 U.S. sailors detained by Iran after entering its territorial waters have been released. Iran's Revolutionary Guard said the sailors were released Wednesday after it was determined that their entry was not intentional. The nine men and one woman were being held at an Iranian base on Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf after being detained nearby on Tuesday. The U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet had no immediate comment or confirmation of the release. (ags) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Arya Dipa (The Jakarta Post) Bandung Thu, January 14, 2016 The West Java administration plans to build a Light Rapid Transit (LRT) system that will connect with the planned Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway. West Java provincial administration secretary Iwa Karniwa said the LRT system would serve routes in Greater Bandung, which includes Bandung city, Bandung regency, Cimahi city, West Bandung regency and Sumedang regency. 'That way, there will be intermodal integration,' Iwa Karniwa said in Bandung on Wednesday. He added that deliberations on the LRT system had reached the draft stage of the presidential decree and would only need a technical meeting with the directorate general of railway to synchronize the high-speed train and the LRT projects. He said the LRT project would be funded by several cooperating firms, just like the Jakarta-Bandung fast train project, which was funded by Chinese investors and Indonesian state-owned enterprises. Iwa added that the West Java provincial administration had recommended eight routes for the Greater Bandung LRT project, namely Leuwipanjang-Jatinangor, Leuwipanjang-Padalarang, Leuwipanjang-Soreang, Gedebage-Majalaya, Dago-Leuwipanjang, Cibeureum-Gedebage, Martadinata-Majalaya and Dago-Pasirluyu. 'The main station will be in Bandung. We suggest that there would be more than 14 stations, but we still have to wait for the technical meeting with the Transportation Ministry,' Iwa said. In a related development, Transportation Minister Ignasius Jonan has issued the license for the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed train proposed by the PT Kereta Api Cepat Indonesia China (KCIC) consortium for a 142-kilometer route. The government agreed to four stations on the route, namely Halim, Karawang, Walini and Tegalluar, and an operational facility outside Tegalluar. Transportation Ministry spokesperson JA Barata said PT KCIC had applied for a license from the Transportation Minister to declare the company a railway facility management entity. The next step would be for investors to deposit capital of at least Rp 1 trillion and obtain a development license, which required the detailed engineering design (DED) and the environment impact analysis from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. Construction on the high-speed train, which will run at more than 250 kilometers per hour, is set to begin this month and is slated to finish by the end of 2018. Bandung Mayor Ridwan Kamil has recommended the central government allow his side to directly appoint PT KCIC to the development of the LRT in Bandung city, particularly for Line 2, to expedite the integration. Line 2, which covers a route of 20 km, will connect Cimindi in the western part of the city with Gedebage in the eastern part. Ridwan also said that PT KCIC had prepared US$1 billion for the project. 'The funds are the investors' responsibility. The exact value of the investment is not yet known, because the feasibility study is still going on,' Ridwan said. The development of the LTR's Line 2, according to Ridwan, would follow the groundbreaking of the fast train project in mid-January in Walini, Purwakarta regency, West Java. He said the feasibility study on Line 2 would only be conducted after Jan. 21. 'It will take three months to finish. The development is expected to start this year.' The mayor expressed his hope that the LRT's Line 2 could be built within a year. He said if the development of the 140 km fast-train project was projected to finish by 2018, the 20 km Line 2 development could be completed in a year. _______________________________________ To receive comprehensive and earlier access to The Jakarta Post print edition, please subscribe to our epaper through iOS' iTunes, Android's Google Play, Blackberry World or Microsoft's Windows Store. Subscription includes free daily editions of The Nation, The Star Malaysia, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Asia News. For print subscription, please contact our call center at (+6221) 5360014 or subscription@thejakartapost.com Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali has been put on high alert after the terror attacks in Central Jakarta on Thursday. According to state-owned airport operator PT Angkasa Pura I general manager at Ngurah Rai, Trikora Harjo, police and military personnel were set to be deployed as a result of the heightened status. "In addition to personnel from the Ngurah Rai Airport Police, we've also deployed Mobile Brigade [Brimob] and the Bali Police's Gegana bomb squad," said Trikora as quoted by Antara news agency on Friday. Previously, Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu reportedly stated that Bali was likely to be the next target of the terrorists. "Jakarta and Bali are known worldwide; thus the impact is huge if they [become a target] of attack," said Ryamizard on Thursday. (kes)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Slamet Susanto (The Jakarta Post) Yogyakarta, Central Java Fri, January 15, 2016 There have been no tourist cancellations to Yogyakarta following Thursday's terror attack in Central Jakarta, according to the Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association (PHRI). "It's true there were foreign casualties in the terror attack, but we assured them [tourists] that Yogyakarta was safe and foreigners would still be able to find comfort here. [So far] there have been no cancellations," Yogyakarta PHRI secretary Dedy Pranowo Eryono told thejakartapost.com on Friday. According to Dedy, the impact of the attack was not significant because Jakarta was not the main entry gate for foreign tourists, who usually visited Bali prior to exploring other destinations throughout the archipelago. "It's a different situation compared to the 2012 Bali bombing. Following that incident, many cancellations were made and the number of foreign tourists significantly dropped," said Dedy, adding that visitors from Europe, Japan and Australia remained continued to arrive in Indonesia throughout January, a month that is usually a less crowded season for foreign tourists compared with October and November. Separately, Garuda Java Tour and Travel owner Edi Prabowo said his company expected to serve some 300 Japanese tourists eager to explore Yogyakarta in January. "Some visitors were worried at first and asked [us] about the situation after the attack, but after being informed, they feel safe to travel to Yogyakarta," said Edi. Yogyakarta Tourism Agency head Aris Riyatna confirmed that no cancellations had been made by travel agents catering to foreigners as of Friday afternoon. "We have coordinated with travel agents and others to deliver correct information and intensively communicate with foreign travel agents," said Aris. He added that visitors to Yogyakarta were comprised primarily of men and women from the Netherlands, Japan and Malaysia and that the number reached 281,000 in 2015, an increase of 17 percent from last year. "For domestic tourists, the number reached 3.4 million, a 21 percent increase from 2014," Aris said. (kes)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 The Indonesian government has defended itself against criticism of its preparedness to handle terror threats, following deadly attacks in Jakarta on Thursday. The Jakarta attack was not proof of the government being unaware of threats, but rather showed the difficulty of the task at hand, Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu said. Ryamizard commended the police's swift actions in intercepting the attackers by isolating them outside of the Skyline building, where a series of explosions followed by a gunfight took place. 'If they had not been stopped, there could have been a stronger blast inside the building,' he said. The government was already privy to information on possible terror attacks in the capital city following an earlier report by the National Intelligence Agency (BIN). "One or two months ago, areas around Senayan and Hotel Indonesia were warned," Ryamizard said as quoted by tempo.co. He believed the attackers on Thursday took advantage of a moment when officers were vulnerable. "The perpetrators would have seen if the officers were ready, and then [they would not have carried out the attack]. But in the opposite situation, they would," he said. According to Ryamizard, the government still could not confirm if the attacks were carried out by members of the Islamic State (IS) group because the concepts of terrorism and radicalism had spread throughout many groups. Meanwhile, Jakarta Police chief Tito Karnavian told reporters that IS was "definitely" behind the attack and suggested the mastermind was Indonesian militant Bahrun Naim, who is believed to be in Syria. The explosions and gunfight took place around the Sarinah department store in Central Jakarta. According to a police report, at least seven people were killed, including five attackers. President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said in a televised address that 'the state, the nation and the people should not be afraid of, or be defeated by, such terror acts.' (liz/bbn)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post South Tangerang Fri, January 15, 2016 A businessman in South Tangerang, Setio Bawono, managed to escape from robbers on Thursday who tried to steal Rp 60 million (US$4,327) he had just withdrawn from a cashpoint. Setio's driver was injured in the attack. South Tangerang Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Ayi Supardan said that Setio had just withdrawn the cash from a bank in Alam Sutera, Serpong, and was driving away with his driver. Some kilometers away from the bank, they noticed the car had a flat tire and stopped. While they were checking the tire, Ayi said, two men on a motorcycle shot at them; missing their target, the suspects attacked Setio and the driver with a knife. According to Ayi, Setio evaded the attack and fled to the nearest crowded place, but the driver was stabbed in the back. 'The suspects appear to have followed their target before attacking them,' Ayi said on Thursday, adding that the police were now tracking the suspects, who were probably part of a larger group. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ayomi Amindoni (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 The police are still identifying the bodies of seven people killed in attacks on Jl. M.H. Thamrin in Central Jakarta on Thursday. According to National Police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti, identification was being crosschecked by the National Police's Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) unit with the DNA of relatives of those killed. 'Of course, we can't rely solely on visual identification. Several tests should be done to meet the standards of identification, not only a single source,' said Badrodin at the Sukanto Police Hospital in East Jakarta on Friday. A series of explosions and gunfire occurred near the Sarinah shopping center, about 1 kilometer from the State Palace and other government officers, at 10:55 a.m. on Thursday, killing five suspected attackers and two innocent civilians. Badrodin said he had asked the DVI team to reconfirm their identities to avoid any errors. The police said that the identity of a Canadian, who was one of the two civilians, had not been verified. 'In relation to body of the Canadian citizen, we will do the same identification. We will check his identity and find out who he is,' he said. Meanwhile, DVI chief Sr. Comr. Anton Castelani was reluctant to reveal the preliminary identities of the seven dead. 'Due to the process of the investigation, we cannot yet reveal their identities,' Anton said as quoted by kompas.com. According to Anton, the results of identification by DVI team will be handed over to investigators and subsequently revealed to the public in order not to prejudice an investigation. Likewise, the National Police's medical and health center head, Brig. Gen. Arthur Tampi, said his team did not have the authority to reveal the identities of the dead. 'We are not authorized to provide information. Let the spokesman do it,' Arthur said. (bbn)(+) Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 By Anvar Mammadov - Trend: The State Oil Fund of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOFAZ) sold $ 200 million to 35 local banks through the auction of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) Jan. 15, SOFAZ said Jan. 15. Moreover, the CBA sold $100 million more to the banks via the auction Jan. 15, the statement said. Thus, SOFAZ will continue selling foreign currency via auctions in 2016. From now on, the CBA holds auctions three times a week - on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The foreign currency is sold as part of SOFAZ's transfers to the state budget of Azerbaijan, which are envisaged in the amount of six billion manat in 2016. SOFAZ was established in 1999 and its assets were equal to $271 million that period. As of October 1, 2015, SOFAZ assets reduced by 6.38 percent compared to early 2015 ($37.1 billion) and were estimated at $34.74 billion. Under SOFAZ's regulations, its funds may be used for the construction and reconstruction of strategically important infrastructure facilities, as well as solving important national problems. The main goals of the State Oil Fund include: accumulation of resources and the placement of the fund's assets abroad in order to minimize the negative affect on the economy, the prevention of "Dutch disease" to some extent, promotion of resource accumulation for future generations and support of current social and economic processes in Azerbaijan. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Anvar_Mammadov Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 The National Police have tightened security across the country following suicide bombings and armed attacks in the heart of the capital on Thursday. National Police spokesman Insp.Gen. Anton Charliyan said that as of 5 p.m. Thursday, an alert one status was implemented nationwide. The status was escalated for all relevant agencies and officials to maximize security, especially in terror-prone areas, such as police posts, government offices, foreign-associated sites and embassies, he said on Thursday evening. "[We are] on full alert because we cannot predict [terrorists'] movements. Their hiding places are not only in Jakarta or in Java but throughout Indonesia," he said, urging people to be aware of their surroundings and to cooperate with the police. The blasts and gunshots on Jl. MH Thamrin in Central Jakarta on Thursday afternoon claimed seven lives, including five terrorists, police confirmed. The police have coordinated with the Indonesian Military (TNI) regarding security measures. Authorities have also tightened security at airports across the country. (rin)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Noor Huda Ismail (The Jakarta Post) Melbourne, Australia Fri, January 15, 2016 It is far too early to get a complete picture of who might be behind the recent drama of terror that took place in popular and strategic meeting points in Jakarta. Five suspected attackers died, two of whom were suicide bombers. The National Police believe they were linked to a terrorist cell in Surakarta and in communication with the Islamic State (IS) organization in Syria. The group that carried out the Paris-style attack may have timed it for January because during this period law enforcers would not be on high alert over terrorist threats, unlike at the end of the year from September to December. About 150,000 police officers and soldiers were deployed during Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve to guard churches, airports and other public places. More than 9,000 police were also deployed in Bali, the site of Indonesia's deadliest terrorist attack that killed 202 people in 2002. Anyway, what does the latest attack mean for Indonesian security? Indeed, Indonesian authorities have foiled at least 15 plots to launch terrorist attacks in the country since the last bombings in Jakarta in July 2009 ' enough time for the terrorist network to consolidate its strength to strike back. Thursday's coordinated attack, however, may change the landscape of terrorism threats in Indonesia. It seems that the terrorist network is now moving from 'soft targets' of Western interests such as restaurants, bars, embassies and hotels to employing a guerilla type of attack. This trend is disturbing because the group can carry out an attack in a more precise way and require few resources. To produce this kind of style, the group has to conduct a series of training regiments as suggested in their motto: 'La jihada illa bil 'idad', an Arabic phrase that means 'there is no act of terror without preparation'. Following this logic, some sort of military training must be organized before selecting the suitable field operators to execute an attack. Terrorist groups in Indonesia are small and fragmented. However, they are obsessed with military training. Therefore, after the Indonesian police killed Malaysian terrorist Noordin M. Top in Central Java in late 2010, a number of senior Indonesian terrorists, including Dulmatin and Abu Tholut, quickly staged military training in Aceh in 2011. Yet, when the Aceh training was uncovered by the police, undetected cells of the group continued to hold closed and informal military training wherever and whenever they could. Having reliable field operators has always been the key to the success of any acts of terrorism. Historically, a terrorist group in Indonesia selects individuals who have hands-on experience in any conflict zone, either locally such as in Ambon and Poso or internationally such as in Afghanistan, Moro and Syria. This cluster of recruits, the group believes, will be able to carry out acts of terrorism calmly because they are battle hardened. If the group is unable to find such individuals, it will select former thugs or criminals who joined the group through informal religious groups consisting of 10 to 20 people. The ideologue of the group then would tell them that the best way to repent was use their skills and bravery to 'defend the plight' of Islam. For them, participating in acts of terrorism would also increase their standing before other members. Individuals that may fall into this category include terrorists linked to armed robbery in Medan, East Indonesia Mujahidin (MIT) leader Santoso and people from Lamongan, East Java, who have joined IS. Besides being fueled by their ideology, the terrorists also harbor resentment toward law enforcers, especially the police who hunt and sometimes torture their fellow captured 'fighters'. This phenomenon may help explain why people have the impression that well-trained and fearless recruits performed the recent attack in Jakarta. Indonesia can prevent future attacks by this specific cluster of terrorists in part by addressing a loophole in the law that prevents law enforcers from prosecuting jihadists who have returned from overseas battles as foreign fighters. Indonesia, despite its Terrorism Law, does not have a regulation that bans its citizens from joining paramilitary training or battles abroad. As a result, even though the police can identify and capture jihadists who return home from war zones under the banner of IS, they cannot charge, let alone imprison them. Indeed not all homecoming fighters pose a danger. Some of them have returned to their home soil because they are disenchanted. But without an integrated program to help reintegrate post-conflict actors, including former militants fighting for IS, into society, Indonesia will remain under a constant threat of acts of terrorism. _____________________________________ The writer, who has done extensive research on terrorist networks and religious extremism, is a PhD candidate in politics and international relations at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Niniek Karmini & Ali Kotarumalos (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 The scene had echoes of the Paris attacks: A bustling shopping area shaken by the blasts of suicide bombers and gunfire as onlookers fled in terror. But when Thursday's assault in central Jakarta was over, the death toll was far lower. Of the seven killed, five were the attackers themselves and only two were civilians ' a Canadian and an Indonesian. Another 20 people were wounded. Still, authorities and analysts believe the violence that left the city of 10 million on edge for hours was a loud announcement of the Islamic State group's presence in the world's largest Muslim-majority nation. Supporters of the Islamic State group circulated a claim of responsibility on social media resembling the militants' previous messages. The attackers carried handguns, grenades and homemade bombs and struck a Starbucks cafe and a traffic police booth in the Indonesian capital's highest-profile attack in six years. Authorities said they found a large, undetonated bomb and five smaller devices in a building near the cafe. "So we think ... their plan was to attack people and follow it up with a larger explosion when more people gathered," said Maj. Gen. Anton Charliyan, the spokesman of Indonesia's national police. "But thank God it didn't happen." Jakarta police chief Maj. Gen. Tito Karnavian said the attackers had links with IS and were part of a group led by Bahrum Naim, an Indonesian militant who is now in Syria. "We have identified all attackers," Charliyan said. "We can say that the attackers were affiliated with the ISIS group," he added, using an acronym for the Islamic State group. The claim was shared on Twitter late Thursday, and the US-based SITE Intelligence Group said it also was circulated among pro-IS groups on other media. The message said attackers carried out the Jakarta assault and had planted several bombs with timers. It differed from Indonesian police on the number of attackers, saying there were four. It said they wore suicide belts and carried light weaponry. The statement could not be independently verified by The Associated Press, though it resembled previous claims made by the group, which controls territory in both Iraq and Syria. Jakarta is no stranger to terrorism, with the 2009 bombings of two hotels that killed seven people and injured more than 50. The bloodiest attack by Islamic extremists in Indonesia ' and in all of Asia ' was in 2002, when a nightclub bombing on the resort island of Bali killed 202 people, mostly foreigners. Those and others were blamed on the al-Qaida-inspired Jemaah Islamiyah. Following a crackdown by security forces, militant strikes in recent years have been smaller and less deadly, and have targeted government authorities, mainly police and anti-terrorism forces. Terrorism experts say IS supporters in Indonesia are drawn from the remnants of Jemaah Islamiyah. Charliyan said police had received information in late November about a warning from the Islamic State group that "there will be a concert" in Indonesia, meaning an attack. Last month, anti-terror police arrested nine suspected militants and said they had planned attacks "to attract international news coverage of their existence here." Indonesian authorities deployed 150,000 security personnel, made arrests and said they foiled a plot to kill government officials, law enforcement officers and others. The heightened security ended Jan. 6. Southeast Asian terrorism expert Sidney Jones wrote in November that Bahrum Naim has been urging his Indonesian audience to study the Paris attacks. "While the police and army have been focused on going after Indonesia's most wanted terrorist, Santoso, in the hills of Central Sulawesi, ISIS has succeeded in building a network of supporters in the suburbs of Jakarta," Jones wrote. Taufik Andri, a terrorist analyst, said although the attack ended swiftly and badly for the attackers, their aim was to show their presence and ability. "Their main aim was just to give impression that ISIS' supporters here are able to do what was done in Paris. It was just a Paris-inspired attack without being well prepared," he told The Associated Press. Those attacks in November killed 130 people. Thursday's first suicide bomb went off about 10:50 a.m. at the Starbucks, which is near to some UN offices, a shopping center and other Western restaurants, including McDonald's, Pizza Hut and Burger King. The neighborhood is home to many luxury hotels, high-rise buildings and diplomatic offices, including the French Embassy. Karnavian told reporters that after customers ran out of the cafe, two gunmen outside opened fire, killing the Canadian and wounding an Indonesian. At about the same time, two other suicide bombers struck a traffic police post nearby, killing an Indonesian man. Minutes later, a group of police were attacked by the remaining two gunmen, using homemade bombs, Karnavian said. This led to an exchange of fire that lasted 15 minutes and ended with both attackers dead. Guruh Purwanto heard the initial explosion as he met with co-workers at an agricultural company next to the shopping center. He rushed out and saw white smoke billowing from the Starbucks and people running in panic. "I was shocked when I saw two men with handguns shoot a foreigner," Purwanto said. "He tried to hide behind a car." He heard another blast and saw three bodies on the street near a wrecked traffic police booth, with more white smoke. The two gunmen ran into a movie theater but were eventually cornered by police in the Starbucks parking lot, Purwanto said. "There was gunfire between police officers and the two attackers, like in a movie ... and suddenly the two blew themselves up," he said. "It was scary." A Dutch man who was seriously wounded underwent surgery, according to Foreign Ministry spokeswoman in the Netherlands. The man, who was not identified, is an expert in forestry and ecosystems management for the UN Environment Program and is "fighting for his life," said UNEP chief Achim Steiner. About five hours after the first explosions, police announced the area was secure. "This act is clearly aimed at disturbing public order and spreading terror among people," said President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, who visited the attack site. "The state, the nation and the people should not be afraid of, and be defeated by, such terror acts." In condemning the violence during a visit to London, US Secretary of State John Kerry said "these acts of terror are not going to intimidate nation-states from protecting their citizens and continuing to provide real opportunity, education, jobs, possibilities of a future." The attack prompted a security lockdown in central Jakarta and enhanced checks all over the city. By evening, a large screen atop the building that houses the Starbucks displayed messages that said "#prayforjakarta" and "Indonesia Unite." Some people left flowers near the stricken traffic police post, along with a wreath that read "Deep condolences. We are not afraid." (rin) Fadlan Syam, Dita Alangkara & Michael Corder contributed to the story. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 The attack in Jakarta on Thursday was as much a battle of images and perceptions as it was an exchange of gunfire and explosions.Indonesia's counterterrorism effort has had significant success over several years in degrading the capabilities of domestic militants to launch deadly attacks, creating a sense that the battle against Islamic militants was largely won. On one level, the attack in Jakarta was an attempt to change that narrative.The attackers captured worldwide publicity by carrying out the first deadly attack in Jakarta since 2009, weeks after authorities said they knew of a credible threat. Yet the low death toll ' two victims and five attackers ' highlighted their weaknesses and the ability of security forces to respond rapidly.Here's a look at other ways in which Islamic militants and the Indonesian government are handling the optics of the attack, and the broader issue of extremism in the world's largest Muslim-majority country: INSTILLING FEAR Above all else, the brazen nature of the attack in a busy commercial district in broad daylight was meant to terrorize and sow panic. Creating an atmosphere of fear and insecurity in a city of 10 million amplifies the impact of the attack well beyond the actual loss of life. Another intention is to galvanize supporters, creating momentum for further attacks.Jakarta, meanwhile, presented itself as a city unbowed by extremist attacks. Newspapers carried bold front-page headlines declaring the country united in its condemnation of the bombings. LINKS TO ISLAMIC STATE GROUP Police say the attack was linked to the Islamic State group, and that one of the five attackers had a black IS flag.Under siege from a sustained counterterrorism effort, Indonesia's militants have been seen as increasingly weak and fragmented. Their identification with the Islamic State group in distant Syria is an attempt to change those perceptions by linking to a network known for brutal, headline-grabbing attacks. Whether or not IS had a direct role in the attack, supporters of the group were quick to claim responsibility online, conveying a message that its international reach is growing. FAST RESPONSE Counterterrorism forces apparently did not anticipate Thursday's attack, though authorities announced last month that they knew of a credible threat. Security personnel, however, were able to respond rapidly. That was partly luck ' police happened to be in the area on other business ' but it still bolstered the image of security forces and government. Indonesia's president Joko "Jokowi" Widodo rushed to the scene from another part of Java, one of Indonesia's main islands and home to the capital Jakarta. With a forceful condemnation and an appeal to national unity, he capitalized on an opportunity to project strength. Jokowi has struggled to assert his authority since being elected as a maverick candidate in July 2014. SOMEONE ELSE'S FAULT Police were quick to draw a link with IS, saying the attackers were linked to Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian fighter in Syria. While that could play into the aims of the attackers, it could also pin responsibility on foreign influences and skirt questions about Indonesia's domestic counterterrorism strategy. Authorities have concentrated on hunting down the remaining most wanted Indonesian militants in remote locations while an IS-inspired network developed in Jakarta's suburbs. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ina Parlina, Prima Wirayani and Ganug Nugroho (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 The nation, from President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo and religious leaders to the general populace, defiantly stated its determination to stand united in the face of terrorist attacks on Thursday. The President called for calm and urged the nation not to cower in the face of the barbaric attacks that shook the city on Thursday in a district packed with malls, embassies, government headquarters and UN offices. It is also located less than 200 meters from the Presidential Palace. 'The state, the nation and the people must not be fearful, must not bow down to terrorism,' Jokowi said in a statement. As news of Thursday morning's attacks broke, the President cut short his visit to Cirebon in West Java, returning to the capital by helicopter. He inspected the scene on Jl. MH Thamrin in Central Jakarta, before chairing a limited Cabinet meeting to discuss security in the wake of the incident. 'Everything is under control,' Jokowi assured the nation. At around 10:50 a.m., devices exploded outside a Starbucks cafe and a small police post near the Sarinah shopping center on Jl. MH Thamrin. The attacks killed two civilians, an Indonesian and a Canadian, and seriously injured 24 victims, including police officers and one citizen each of the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Algeria, according to the National Police. Five terrorists were also killed in the attack. Jakarta Governor Basuki 'Ahok' Tjahaja Purnama described the terrorists as cowards. 'I condemn acts like these, which are justified by no religion. You are not God,' the governor said at City Hall. Jakarta Police chief Ins. Gen. Tito Karnavian said the police would boost security measures to ensure the safety of the city and its people. 'We have to stand strong. We are chasing the culprits and their networks and also reinforcing security in Jakarta,' Tito said. Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) chairman Said Aqil Siradj said no religion or civilization could tolerate such despicable acts. 'I swear to God that any form of terrorism runs contrary to Islam,' Said proclaimed. Muhammadiyah chairman Haedar Nashir pointed out that terrorists intended to create fear and chaos in society. 'The population must remain calm and unafraid. Let the security apparatus take care of the problem,' Haedar said. Separately, the Indonesian Council of Ulemas (MUI) expressed condolences to the families and friends of those killed. The Indonesian Communion of Churches (PGI) also condemned the attacks. Meanwhile on social media, netizens quickly united behind defiant hashtags #JakartaBerani (Jakarta is Brave) and #KamiTidakTakut (We are not Afraid) boldly stating their refusal to be cowed by the attacks. Internet user Granary Agapia said she had joined the hashtag on social media platform Path, as she wanted to foster positive energy for herself and for other people. Fellow netizen Giasinta Angguni Pranandhita, who posted the hashtag to her Facebook account, said that the posting was intended to show the terrorists that their actions would not stop the city's people from going about their business. 'We must stay alert, but not paranoid. We must show that we stand together and will not let such incidents leave us paralyzed,' she added. A group of residents is organizing a solidarity event scheduled for Friday titled Kami Tak Takut Teror (We are not afraid of terror). Held at the scene of the violence on Jl. MH Thamrin, the rally will begin at 4 p.m. In the meantime, the Jakarta Composite Index (JCI), the benchmark of the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX), retreated 1.72 percent from Wednesday's closing shortly after the bombing and ended Thursday's first trading session at 4,459. The index, however, began to rebound from the opening of the second trading session and closed the day at 4,513 from 4,537 on Wednesday. Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said that the government would move to calm the market should it appear jittery. 'The volatility appears to be temporary. The most important thing is to step up security measures to bring back confidence,' Bambang said. In response to the death of its citizen, the Canadian Embassy in Jakarta said in a statement that to protect the privacy of the individual concerned, further details on this case cannot be released. 'We are aware of media reports that a Canadian may have been among the victims. The government of Canada, in collaboration with Indonesian authorities, is investigating and attempting to confirm the identify of the victim.' How the carnage happened 10:55 a.m. * A suicide bomber assaults the Starbucks cafe in Sarinah, Central Jakarta. Within a few minutes, two other men hold two civilians hostage, one foreign national and an Indonesian. The foreign national is shot dead. The two terrorist suspects then start shooting at policemen, who fire back from behind a police car. During the shoot-out, the two men throw grenades at the officers. However, the police eventually manage to kill the two suspects. While the police are distracted by the shoot-out with the two terrorists, two other suspects ride on a motorcycle toward the traffic police post located in the middle of Jl. Thamrin. They commit a suicide bomb attack on the traffic post. * After the final explosion, the police's bomb squad raid the surrounding buildings (the Djakarta Theater and the Cakrawala Building) and eventually find six bombs that have yet to be detonated. 3 p.m. Police continue to monitor the area. The area is eventually declared safe. Police suspect that the pistols used were mostly homemade. Casualties Seven deaths: five terrorists, one Indonesian, one Canadian. 24 injured: five police officers, four foreign nationals, 15 Indonesians. The foreigners are Johan Kieft of the Netherlands, Frank Feulner of Germany, Manfred Stoif of Austria and Morad Al Muneri of Algeria. Source: National Police and witnesses ____________________________________________ To receive comprehensive and earlier access to The Jakarta Post print edition, please subscribe to our epaper through iOS' iTunes, Android's Google Play, Blackberry World or Microsoft's Windows Store. Subscription includes free daily editions of The Nation, The Star Malaysia, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Asia News. For print subscription, please contact our call center at (+6221) 5360014 or subscription@thejakartapost.com Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Tama Salim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 The US Embassy in Jakarta said on Thursday it would remain closed on Friday as a precaution following an attack by suicide bombers and gunmen in Jakarta. Meanwhile, the Japanese Embassy, located less than a kilometer from the location of the bombing, promptly issued a statement on its website that it would close its consular services from 1:30 p.m. until further notice. The US embassy will remain open for emergency services, it said in a statement on its website. 'Further incidents are possible. As the security situation remains fluid, US citizens are advised to avoid Sari Pan Pacific Hotel and Sarinah Plaza on Jl. MH Thamrin and defer all non-essential travel in the city,' it said as quoted by Reuters. In responding to the situation, an official from the French Embassy in Jakarta, which was located a block away from the incident, said there had been no casualties among its staff. 'There is no news of anything [from the embassy]. We have asked all embassy staffers to remain alert but also calm,' said first secretary Quentin Biehler on Thursday. At one point during the day, speculation spread that the attack in Sarinah was premeditated, following the distribution of emergency notifications for US citizens issued by the US Embassy in Jakarta. Many people took issue with the notifications on social media on account of its timestamp, which indicated that the warnings were distributed prior to the attack itself. The US Embassy in Jakarta has since spoken up about the issue, claiming that the emails were distributed by a US network from overseas, which had unintentionally contributed to the confusion. 'Following the heinous attack that took place today in Jakarta, the US Embassy issued two emergency notifications for American citizens living in Indonesia. These emails were sent from an emergency response network with a GMT+7 time stamp,' read an official statement from the embassy on Thursday. The US Embassy further said that the notifications 'were sent to registered US citizens to keep them apprised of the latest developments and provide important safety information for our citizens abroad'. Meanwhile, Philippine security forces expressed concern over an 'emerging threat' of terrorism, after suicide attackers struck the Indonesian capital on Thursday. 'Our security forces are well aware of the emerging threat and have been conducting operations to prevent terror acts anywhere in the country,' said a joint Philippine military and police statement on the Jakarta incident. Military spokesman Col. Restituto Padilla told AFP there had been no recent specific threats picked up by the authorities in the Philippines. However, he said the police and military forces continued to monitor the 'usual threats from local terrorist groups, such as the BIFF [Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters] and ASG [Abu Sayyaf Group].' The ASG, blamed for many of the nation's deadliest bombings, as well as the BIFF Muslim guerrillas, have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State movement. The military has said both groups had in the past sheltered foreign militants fleeing prosecution for the 2002 Bali bombings in Indonesia. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Haeril Halim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 Testifying at the Jakarta Corruption Court on Thursday, Vice President Jusuf Kalla defended graft suspect Jero Wacik against the accusation that the former minister misused money from the state budget to cover personal expenses while serving as culture and tourism minister between 2005 and 2009. Kalla was the vice president for then president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono when the alleged crime took place. Kalla appeared in court to testify on behalf of Jero, who was standing trail on charges of embezzling Rp 10 billion. He said that Jero did not violate any regulations because a Finance Ministry regulation issued in 2006 on the use of ministerial funds stipulated that ministers had the prerogative to spend ministerial funds at their discretion on either personal or official use. The government scrapped the 2006 Finance Ministry regulation, which limited the use of ministerial funds to official activities and replaced it with the 2014 regulation, which gives more room for ministers to spend operational funds at their initiative without requiring them to write accountability reports on the use of the funds as mandated by the 2006 regulation. 'As a representative [of the government], it is difficult make a distinction between ministerial duties and daily activities as ministers. Because the [2006] regulation was scrapped, ministers must refer to the 2014 rule. The thinking behind it [the current regulation] is to help ease ministers' jobs,' Kalla said on Thursday. Jero, Kalla said, could use ministerial funds to pay for activities like dinners with colleagues or official guests. _________________________________ Jero, Kalla said, could use ministerial funds to pay for activities like dinners with colleagues or official guests. He also said that ministerial funds could be used to pay for official activities not covered by individual ministries' budgets. 'For example, a minister has to stay healthy. If he wants to exercise but there is no budget provided by his office then he could use operational funds,' Kalla said. Kalla also said that Jero had in fact delivered on his job as culture and tourism minister by increasing the number of foreign arrivals from 5 million to 7.5 million between 2005 and 2009. 'As a minister he achieved a lot while in office,' Kalla said, adding that there were no indications to suggest that Jero abused his position as culture and tourism minister for personal gain. When pressed by KPK prosecutors if a minister could spend ministerial funds to fund family activities as Jero did, Kalla said: 'As I earlier stated, it is impossible to separate the role of a minister's daily life and in official duties.' After the hearing, KPK prosecutors lambasted Kalla for basing his statement on the 2014 Finance Ministry regulation, saying that a new regulation could not be used to defend a violation that happened prior to its passage. KPK prosecutor Yadyn said that Jero's offenses clearly violated the 2006 regulation, which was applicable when Jero was in office. 'We're sticking with the 2006 regulation,' Yadyn said. He said the KPK's team of prosecutors were optimistic that the panel of judges would rule in favor of the KPK because witnesses and evidence collected during the nearly three-month trial had proven Jero's guilt. 'We are optimistic that we will win the case because all the collected evidence and testimonies support our argument,' Yadyn added. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Haeril Halim and Tama Salim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) on Thursday named Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politician Damayanti Wisnu Putranti a suspect for accepting bribes from a group of businessman following her arrest by KPK investigators on Wednesday night. Damayanti, currently a member of House Commission V overseeing infrastructure, is the second PDI-P House lawmaker to be arrested by the KPK since the party won legislative elections in 2014. Last year, the KPK nabbed PDI-P lawmaker Andriyansah for receiving bribes on the sidelines of the party's congress in Bali. The congress was attended by President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo and party chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri. 'DWP [Damayanti] and some other individuals were arrested during the operation. The other individuals have been identified as UWI and DES. They have all been charged under articles 11 and 12 of the 2001 Corruption Law for receiving bribes,' KPK chairman Agus Rahardjo told a press briefing at the headquarters of the antigraft body on Thursday. The individuals identified only as DES and UWI were businessmen who allegedly helped to arrange a S$33,000 bribe to Damayanti. Both articles 11 and 12 carry a maximum penalty of 20 years behind bars. Meanwhile, Agus said KPK investigators had charged another businessman, identified only as AKH, for bribing the PDI-P politician, adding that AKH would be charged with Article 5 of the 2001 Corruption Law. Article 5 carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Agus further said that Damayanti received the $33,000 in exchange for her work to secure a construction project earmarked for the Public Works and Public Housing Ministry for the 2016 fiscal year. Damayanti was arrested along with UWI, DES and AKH at four different locations across Jakarta on Wednesday night. The KPK also arrested two drivers, who were later released after undergoing 24 hours of intensive questioning at KPK headquarters. Agus said that the $33,000 was part of $404,000 promised by AKH to Damayanti and DES for their efforts to secure the project from the Public Works and Public Housing Ministry. 'UWI earlier received another $33,000, which was later collected by DWP,' Agus said. Following the arrest, KPK investigators on Thursday sealed a number of buildings in Jakarta thought to house evidence in the bribery case. All four suspects have been sent to the KPK's detention center. Soon after his arrest, the PDI-P quickly dismissed Adriyansah from the party. Adriyansah was later convicted and sentenced to three years in prison. Separately, Hendrawan Supratikno, deputy chairman of the PDI-P faction in the House, confirmed the arrest of Damayanti and said that the party would not tolerate any offences that could taint the party's good image. '[We will dismiss her] immediately, just like we did with Adriansyah,' he said on Thursday. Hendrawan acknowledged that Damayanti was known to come from a 'well-off' background due to her career in infrastructure development projects. Earlier on Tuesday, PDI-P chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri warned the 4,000 participants of the party's national meeting in Central Jakarta that the party would not tolerate corruption and any members involved in the practice would be dismissed from the party. _______________________________________ To receive comprehensive and earlier access to The Jakarta Post print edition, please subscribe to our epaper through iOS' iTunes, Android's Google Play, Blackberry World or Microsoft's Windows Store. Subscription includes free daily editions of The Nation, The Star Malaysia, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Asia News. For print subscription, please contact our call center at (+6221) 5360014 or subscription@thejakartapost.com Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) investigators have searched the offices of two members of House of Representatives Commission V, namely Damayanti Wisnu Putranti from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) faction and Budi Supriyanto of the Golkar Party faction, in relation to a bribery case. Kompas.com reported that after searching Damayanti's office for an hour, investigators left without seizing any files or other items and went directly to Budi's office in the House's Senayan complex. Amid public pessimism on social media over the independence and capacity of the new KPK commissioners, the commission on Wednesday night arrested Damayanti, a member of the ruling PDI-P. For the PDI-P, it was the second arrest by the KPK of one of its House members recently. Earlier, in April 2015, a member of House Commission VII overseeing energy, who was also from the PDI-P faction, was apprehended by the KPK in Bali while attending a PDI-P congress. "She shouldn't be doing that. All I know is that she is already rich, a businesswoman in the infrastructure sector. Her husband is a well-known person with a high profile," PDI-P senior politician Tjahjo Kumolo said on Thursday morning as quoted by kompas.com. Damayanti, he further said, should have focused on her duties as a House member. Tjahjo said that she would be dismissed from the party, in accordance with a warning she received a few days ago during the party's national working meeting. "It is unfortunate that the position of a House member, which she achieved through hard work, must end with bribery," Tjahjo said. Damayanti reportedly sent two friends, Julia Prasetyarini and Dessy A. Edwin, to meet with PT Windhu Tunggal Utama CEO Abdul Khoir on Tuesday. At the meeting, Abdul promised S$99,000 for Damayanti, Julia and Dessy as a 'commitment fee' to win projects funded by the House in Maluku province. The KPK apprehended all four of them on Wednesday night. (ags)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Corry Elyda (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 The Koperasi Wahana Kalpika (KWK) angkot (public minivan) cooperative is planning to rejuvenate its vehicles and integrate its management with other modes of transportation. After meeting with Jakarta Governor Basuki 'Ahok' Tjahaja Purnama at City Hall on Thursday, KWK chairman Laode Djeni Hasmar said that his cooperative had asked for time from the city administration to rejuvenate its vehicles. Djeni said that 4,082 out of the 6,238 minivans under KWK were more than 10 years old. 'We will rejuvenate the vehicles gradually. We need at least two years,' he said, adding that KWK minivans served 78 routes in greater Jakarta. 'Each owner can only have five cars. So, we have 3,600 owners, or members, in the cooperative,' he said. Djeni said that after the rejuvenation, the cooperative would integrate its minivans with other transportation modes. 'We will invite the governor to our annual meeting in March to talk about the direction being taken with public transportation,' he said. The Jakarta administration is creating tension within public transportation. The Transportation Agency has been confiscating ill-maintained and rickety minibuses, especially those without proper documents. Jakarta also called on all bus companies and cooperatives to join city-owned bus operator PT Transportasi Jakarta (Transjakarta) to integrate their transportation modes. Since public minibus cooperative Kopaja agreed to operate under Transjakarta management, hundreds of its new minibuses have began to be used as Transjakarta feeder buses. Separately, Ahok said that he had told the KWK management that they would not survive if they did not join Transjakarta. 'KWK minivans were initially to become feeder transportation from housing complexes and suburbs. However, the fact is, 50 percent of them are roaming around in the middle of the city,' he said. 'We are also questioning their road worthiness certificates,' he said. He added that although they had pledged to rejuvenate their public minivans, the city administration would keep taking stern action if they violated regulation. 'If they wait for passengers for too long, we will give them sanctions,' he said. Ahok said KWK had to replace their minivans with big buses on routes overlapping with Transjakarta. However, KWK are allowed to operate their minivans for routes on local roads, in housing complexes and kampung. Ahok said it was the best way to revamp the transportation system. 'We want Transjakarta to control all routes for 24 hours,' he said. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 Trend: Official exchange rate of the Azerbaijani national currency - the manat - against the US dollar was set at 1.5870 manats/$1 for Jan. 18, said the Azerbaijani Central Bank Jan. 15. The average rate of manat was set following the interbank transactions on the Azerbaijani currency market, said the Central Bank. Some $300 million was sold to the banks via the auction Jan. 15. Some $ 200 million of this amount was ensured by SOFAZ (State Oil Fund of the Azerbaijan Republic) and $ 100 million - Central Bank of Azerbaijan. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Farida Susanty (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo has assigned the Transportation Ministry to develop Kertajati International Airport in Majalengka, West Java, to expedite the infrastructure project, which has stalled for a decade under the provincial administration. 'I've set a target to finish developing the airport by next year. It has taken six years [for the land procurement], and I don't want the construction to take even longer,' Jokowi said in a statement made available by the presidential communication team. The airport, which is expected to handle 5.6 million passengers a year, is intended to serve as an alternative to lighten the burden of Husein Sastranegara International Airport in Bandung, as well as Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta. The West Java administration set aside only Rp 500 billion (US$35.8 million) for the development this year, while the estimated amount needed for the project's overall construction reaches Rp 2.5 trillion. The gap will be met by the Transportation Ministry using its allocated budget, according to Jokowi. The Transportation Ministry, previously in charge of developing the airport's air infrastructure only, has spent a total of Rp 375 billion to date on building the runway out of the Rp 1 trillion investment required for the air infrastructure. Previously, the regional administration, through province-owned enterprise PT Bandara Internasional Jawa Barat (BIJB), was in charge of the airport's land infrastructure construction, a task that will now be handled by the ministry. BIJB is in talks with state airport operator PT Angkasa Pura II, which is interested in both investing in and operating the airport. Some foreign investors are also reported to have shown interest in the airport. The ministry's director of airports, Agus Santoso, agreed that the delay was worrying; the West Java government has procured only 1,000 hectares of land of the required 1,800. 'If the development continues to stall, the economic opportunity will be lost,' Agus said, adding that the airport would have multiplier social and economic effects on the area around it, especially West and Central Java. In the first phase of development, one runway was built; in the second, the government plans to build two runways with expanded width to contain wide body aircraft, as well as a taxiway and apron. The project was first initiated in 2003, and was planned to be funded by the regional budget. However, the regional administration failed to allocate funds until the government stepped in in 2012. Contacted separately, Angkasa Pura II president director Budi Karya Sumadi said that the airport operator would welcome the final decision on the project. 'We will welcome [a role in the project], be it as operator or investor,' he said. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 The Attorney General's Office (AGO) is planning to summons the committee members of the Fajar Nusantara Movement (Gafatar), a mass organization that has recently been accused of involvement in several missing persons cases. The AGO's junior attorney for intelligence, Adi Toegarisman, said that government institutions have gathered information about the group and found that it has spread teachings that are considered blasphemous to Islam, Judaism and Christianity. 'The AGO has monitored the group for several months. From the outside, it appeared to be an organization with social activities,' he said on Thursday as quoted by jpnn.com. The AGO, along with the Home Ministry and Religious Affairs Ministry are planning to disband the organization, based on Law No. 1/1965 on the Prevention of Religious Abuse and Blasphemy. Gafatar was brought into the spotlight after the disappearance of physician Rica Tri Handayani and her child from Yogyakarta on Dec. 30. Before police in Pangkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan, came across her on Monday, it had been suspected that Rica had been recruited by the organization. Following the disappearances, the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) made an announcement that Gafatar was, in fact, an incarnation of Al-Qiyadah Al-Islamiyah, a syncretic sect synthesizing the Koran, Bible and Torah. On the group's website, Gafatar leader Mahful M. Tumanurung claims that it is not a religious group. Last year, six Gafatar leaders were sentenced by the Banda Aceh District Court to three to four years in prison for defaming Islam because they acknowledged their spiritual leader, Ahmad Musadeq, as a messiah. In 2008 Musadeq, who founded Al-Qiyadah Al-Islamiyah, was sentenced by the South Jakarta District Court to four years in prison for blasphemy because he had declared himself a prophet. National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Anton Charliyan said on Wednesday that two people, including Rica's cousin, had been named as suspects for alleged abduction in Rica's case, as stipulated by the Criminal Code (KUHP). Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 Following the terrorist attacks in Central Jakarta on Thursday, netizens quickly responded in interesting ways that later went viral on social media. In some of the photos that are rapidly circulated on social media, street food vendors were pictured still conducting their usual activities even when the battle between the police and terrorists was ongoing. This includes a vendor who sold snacks to a member of the Indonesian Army (TNI) who was at the time securing the street in an armored car. A food stall vendor named Jamal also became famous after a photo of him still grilling his satays during the attacks, which were situated not far away from the scene, went viral. A photo showing street vendors who kept selling food and beverages around the scene also became popular. At about 12 p.m., the weather in Central Jakarta was quite hot and made people thirsty, hence it provided a good opportunity for the vendors to offer cold drinks to the curious people crowding near the scene. Another picture that went viral showed police hiding behind a car as they were engaging in a battle with the terrorists, while fearless spectators could be seen watching the scene in the background, a scene more appropriate for an action film rather than an actual terrorist attack. A hashtag #KamiTidakTakut (We are not afraid) also went viral, which served as a campaign to show that if the terrorists' main purpose was to create fear, it did not work. According to kompas.com, a netizen, @rikatheo, shared her support using the hashtag by tweeting, "I told my prof abt the satay vendor. She said 'Fear has no place when one has to live on, I suppose.' Live on Indonesia. #KamiTidakTakut." A foreigner named @blinque also reportedly shared: "I may not be Indonesian, but I applaud the Indonesian people and their spirit in the face of adversity #KamiTidakTakut". On Friday, Jakarta reportedly recovered quickly with Jl. Thamrin being reopened and congestion occurring on some roads. US-based coffee shop chain Starbucks also reopened its stores across the capital on Friday, aside from the one outlet that was attacked in the incident. All branches of the worldwide coffee franchise in the city were shut on Thursday immediately after the series of attacks took place on Jl. MH Thamrin. (kes) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Indra Budiari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 The victims of a series of bombings on Thursday that killed seven people and injured 24 others have been met with a wave of sympathy and prayers by friends, family and public figures. A number of high-profile figures paid courtesy visits to the hospitals where the injured victims were being treated. Health Minister Nila F. Moeloek visited the Gatot Subroto Army Central Hospital (RSPAD) in Central Jakarta on Thursday evening, accompanied by Coordinating Human Development and Culture Minister Puan Maharani and Jakarta Governor Basuki 'Ahok' Tjahaja Purnama. Nine victims were being treated at the RSPAD, including Dutch national Johan Kieft, a UN forestry expert. National Police general supervision inspector Comr. Gen. Dwi Prayitno meanwhile visited Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital (RSCM) to see an injured police officer being treated there. Later, Home Minister Tjahjo Kumolo also visited the victims at RSCM. The bodies of the seven dead were brought to Said Sukanto National Police Hospital in Kramat Jati, East Jakarta. As of Thursday evening, the police had not released the names of the dead, but did say one was Canadian, another an Indonesian civilian. Of the 24 injured, 15 are Indonesian civilians, five are police officers and four are nationals of Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Algeria. They were being treated at the RSPAD, RSCM, Abdi Waluyo Hospital and Tarakan Regional Hospital, all in Central Jakarta, Husada Hospital in West Jakarta and Metropolitan Medical Center (MMC) Hospital in South Jakarta. Meanwhile, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has confirmed that a Dutch member of its staff had been seriously injured during the attack in the vicinity of the UN offices. In a statement made available to The Jakarta Post, UNEP said that the man, a renowned expert in forestry and ecosystem management, was stationed in Jakarta as part of the UN team that provides support to the Indonesian government in combating peatland fires. 'Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families, including our UNEP colleague, who is currently fighting for his life, and the people and government of Indonesia,' said UN undersecretary-general and UNEP executive director Achim Steiner. 'The staff member is married and has four children,' the statement said. Agus Sari, who chairs the working group on funding instruments at the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) task force, said Kieft was one of his closest friends, adding that they had worked in the same field and known each for more than 20 years. 'My thoughts and prayers are with him and his family,' Agus said, adding he had heard Kieft had suffered serious injuries to his head and body. At the time Agus spoke to the Post, Kieft was undergoing surgery at the RSPAD. Presidential spokesperson Johan Budi has confirmed that all medical costs of the victims will be fully covered by the government. ____________________________________ Names of injured victims as released by police: 1. Adj. First Insp. Dodi Maryadi, traffic police officer, suffered gunshot wounds to the stomach 2. Adj. First Insp. Budiyono, Central Jakarta Police internal affairs officer, suffered gunshot wounds to the stomach 3. Brig. Suminto, traffic police officer, suffered gunshot wounds to the left hand 4. Adj. First Insp. Dodi Maryadi, traffic police officer, sustained injuries to the foot 5. Adj. First Insp. Suhadi, traffic police officer, suffered two gunshot wounds to the back 6. Dutchman Johan Kieft sustained severe injuries to the head and body 7. Algerian Morat Armeswari suffered injuries to the chest and left foot 8. Austrian Manfred Stoif suffered injuries to the right hand and left wrist 9. German Frank Feulner suffered wounds to the forehead and neck 10. Anggun Artiasari suffered injuries to the right foot 11. Indah Puspita Sari suffered wounds to the forehead and stomach 12. Mira Puspita suffered wounds to the right foot 13. Venosia Dyah Mavianti suffered injury to the back of the head 14. Chairul suffered a back injury 15. Rais suffered a gunshot wound to the head 16. Aldi Tardiansyah suffered an injury to the ear 17. Afrizal suffered injuries to the forehead and elbow 18. Agus Kurnia sustained head injuries 19. Permana sustained spinal injuries 20. R. Putra sustained spinal injuries 21. Budi Rachmat suffered injuries to the right foot 22. Adi Saputro suffered head wounds 23. John suffered trauma 24. Meisy Sabartian sustained an injury to the left eye __________________________________________________ To receive comprehensive and earlier access to The Jakarta Post print edition, please subscribe to our epaper through iOS' iTunes, Android's Google Play, Blackberry World or Microsoft's Windows Store. Subscription includes free daily editions of The Nation, The Star Malaysia, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Asia News. For print subscription, please contact our call center at (+6221) 5360014 or subscription@thejakartapost.com Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 The growing need for funding among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Indonesia has pushed a group of young entrepreneurs to build a peer-to-peer online lending platform named Modalku. 'Many SME owners don't have any business records and some don't have any bank accounts so it's hard for them to access loans from banks. That's where we come in to offer the solution of fair interest loans with easy requirements,' said Modalku co-founder Reynold Wijaya during the startup's launch in Jakarta on Wednesday. The business, co-founded by Reynold and Kelvin Teo, both in their 20s, links lenders and borrowers through their website. Lenders from all over the world can choose borrowers, whose complete profile is displayed on the lenders' online account. Modalku requires lenders to inject a minimum Rp 10 million (US$722.5) deposit into the platform so that they can start channeling a minimum Rp 1 million loan to each debtor. Interest paid to them by the platform ranges between 12 and 18 percent per annum. Each debtor, meanwhile, can get up to a total of Rp 500 million in loans with 15 to 20 percent annual interest in three, six, or 12-month loan periods without collateral. Reynold refused to disclose the company's turnover target this year, stating that for now its primary goal was to win the market's trust that the system offered secure alternative funding and investment options to the public. 'Our focus now is to make the market believe that the system is secure. Security is the keyword here,' he said, adding that money from the sources was channeled directly to the borrowers and not re-invested in other portfolios. Before being verified as an eligible debtor, a potential SME operator must go through online psychometric testing, a kind of psychological test with Harvard Kennedy School standards. The test is conducted by Entrepreneurial Finance Lab and helps Modalku determine someone's credit risk. To better understand new markets and to reduce financial risk, the portal also requires that potential borrowers hold a bachelor's degree, live in Greater Jakarta and have a monthly revenue of Rp 20 million. 'We have to put in this kind of criteria for now because security is our main priority. Later in the future, when we better understand the market characteristics, we could change the requirements,' Reynold said. Before this particular portal, Reynold and Kelvin had previously opened a similar portal in Singapore called Funding Societies, an operation legalized by the Singapore Monetary Authority. Since its establishment in July 2015, Funding Societies channeled S$3.2 million in loans to 37 Singapore SMEs and saw repayments of S$500,000. In Indonesia, Modalku, established under PT Mitrausaha Indonesia Grup, has yet to see any law covering its area of operations. The Financial Services Authority (OJK) has said that it was now in the process of making a regulation that could protect such businesses. 'For now, we see it as an online portal that links lenders and borrowers,' said Hendrikus Passagi, senior researcher for OJK's strategic policy development division. Data from the Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Ministry revealed that by 2013, the country had established 58 million SMEs, employing 114 million people, almost half of the nation's population. However, SMEs only made up 23 percent of the country's GDP. University of Indonesia's SME Center revealed that less than 2 percent of the 58 million SMEs in Indonesia earned over Rp 300 million a year because of a lack of business training and access to funding. (rbk) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Peter Milne (The Jakarta Post) Pekalongan, Central Java Fri, January 15, 2016 The north coast of Java is dotted with old trading towns that are often overlooked by visitors to Indonesia. One such town is Pekalongan in Central Java, known as the Batik City and home to some of Indonesia's most sought-after batik. Situated midway between Semarang and Surabaya, Pekalongan is a outstation of old Javanese charm mixed with cultures brought by traders in the 17th century ' Arabs, Peranakan Chinese and the Dutch. Every street seems to support a community of becak (three-wheeled pedicabs) drivers and street-food sellers, while tourists are still a rarity in this ethnically diverse city. Not only had I never been to Pekalongan in my 20 years in Java, but going there was also an excuse to take the train ' something I hadn't attempted for a decade. I have to say I was impressed; not only is it effortless to book tickets online and collect them at the station, but the long-distance executive trains run on time, are clean and comfortable and come complete with transportation police who keep a beady eye on travellers. Pekalongan is first mentioned in chronicles dating back to the 12th century, when Chinese merchants of the Song dynasty first made contact and knew the city as Pukalong. They describe the 'King of Java' as living there and the local people wrapping their bodies in colorful woven cloth. This seems to confirm that the people of Pukalong were already making batik fabrics back in the 12th century. Apparently, Pukalong was also reputed for its coconut wine. It's a shame they have lost that tradition today; modern Pekalongan is a dry city, where the sale of alcohol is forbidden. The Dutch East India Company, the VOC, arrived in the early 17th century and started to exploit Pekalongan for its agricultural products, focusing on sugar production, which later expanded into a major industry in the 19th century. To subdue the natives the VOC built a large fort in the city in 1753, which still stands today. Being a fan of Dutch forts, I was keen to have a look, but when I located the building it turned out to be a fully functioning penitentiary. More recently, Pekalongan was declared not only Indonesia's but also Southeast Asia's first member of UNESCO's World's Creative Cities Network in 2014. This came in the wake of the important role of Pekalongan's batik museum in helping to obtain UNESCO certification for Indonesian batik. Getting around Pekalongan is a real pleasure. The traffic is light and there is an army of becak drivers to choose from. The city center is so small that you can go almost anywhere for around Rp 15,000. One of the most important places to visit is the Pekalongan Batik Museum, housed in a colonial-era Dutch building overlooking a square shared with the colonial governor's old palace. Opened by then President Susilo Bambang Yudoyono in 2006, the museum houses a truly stunning collection of batik, not only from Pekalongan but from all over Indonesia. The exhibits are all well labelled, with the designs and origins explained in both English and Indonesian. The museum also contains a workshop where batik enthusiasts can try their hand at the art of batik-making. It helps to have a very steady hand. The old center of the city contains several kampong (small village communities) where the traditional hand-made small-scale batik workshops are found. In fact, printed-batik factories are not allowed to operate in the old city. It's best to go with a guide who knows their way around and is friendly with some of the small factories. This is the best way to see and learn about the art of batik-making. Pekalongan batik tends to be more colorful and lively than the more formal batik designs found in Surakarta and Yogyakarta, partly thanks to the invigoration of the designs and colors brought by a Dutch woman, Eliza van Zuylen, in the mid-19th century. Other sites that are worth checking out in Pekalongan include the lively market with its vendors of fresh goods from outside the city and the alun-alun town square that is overlooked by the oldest mosque in the city, Jami Yasmaja Mosque. Not far from the market is the old Chinese quarter with distinctively roofed terraced shop-houses and an ornate red temple. Pekalongan is also a paradise for those who can't resist indulging in traditional street food. One of the best places to go is the Chinese quarter. One great spot located on the pavement of Jl. Hasanuddin is Nasi Gudeg Ibu Sri serving a local version of the Javanese dish. Not far away there are kaki-lima vendors of bubur kacang hijau (mung bean porridge) and ketan hitam (black sticky rice). If you like crab, head for Kepiting Gemes Bung Kombor on Jl. Blimbing. The city is hardly well-endowed with hotels, there being only about a dozen or so. By far the best is The Sidji Hotel (sidji means 'one' in Javanese), a new centrally located, family-run boutique hotel added to the back of a traditional Dutch-era house, circa 1920. The hotel also has one of the best restaurants in town, together with its own batik store. So, if you're at a loose end one weekend, escape into the depths of traditional Java and visit Pekalongan. Now's a good time to go: plans are afoot to construct a mega-power station in the near future, and change will come rapidly once construction starts. ' Photos by Peter Milne Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ayomi Amindoni (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 Voicing a slogan of #KamiTidakTakut (We are not afraid), a solidarity message channeled through social media, a group of people placed flowers and prayed at terrorist attack sites on Jl. M.H. Thamrin, Central Jakarta, on Friday afternoon. They boldly expressed the refusal to be cowed by the attacks. This act of solidarity was organized by a group of people concerned about the terrorist attack that killed seven people and wounded 17 others. About 100 people dressed all in white marched from the Sarinah shopping center to the Starbucks coffee shop at the Skyline Building, one of the crime scenes, chanting "Kami tidak takut" and singing the national anthem, 'Indonesia Raya'. The eldest daughter of late president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid, Alissa Qotrunnada Munawaroh Rahman, philosopher and Catholic priest Franz Magnis-Suseno and political and human rights activist Fadjroel Rachman were among those present. Fadjroel said in a speech that the movement aimed to show that the Indonesians were not afraid. "We condemn the violence and condemn anyone who uses the name of religion to kill others," said Fadjroel. "We will fight them. We are not afraid," he added. Alissa Wahid applauded the quick response of the government and the police and the immediate restoration of calm. "Do not allow the seeds of intolerance to disturb our country," Alissa said. Noted lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis added that fighting terrorism was not the responsibility only of the police and the military but of everyone. "If we can increase solidarity we can mitigate terrorism," he said. Meanwhile on social media, hashtags #KamiTidakTakut remains the trending topic worldwide. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 The police have arrested an alleged terrorist in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, Antara news agency reported. According to East Kalimantan Police chief Insp. Gen. Safaruddin, the National Police's Densus 88 counterterrorism unit made the arrest on Friday morning, a day after terror attacks occurred in Central Jakarta. "The suspect was detained at his in-law's house in Sepinggan Baru, Balikpapan Selatan district. He didn't resist and we found evidence including bullets, urea [fertiliser] and gunpowder," Safaruddin said as quoted by Antara. The police have not yet revealed the identity of the suspect, who is being held at the police's Mobile Brigade (Brimob) Mako detachment headquarters. The police also have yet to confirm other circumstantial evidence related to the arrest. The East Kalimantan Police issued a high alert status from Thursday throughout East Kalimantan and North Kalimantan. Security precautions have reportedly been increased in strategic areas such as airports, seaports and police posts. (kes)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 In the hunt for more suspects linked to the terror attack that occurred in Central Jakarta on Thursday, the police raided several locations and apprehended three people south of the capital in Depok, West Java, on Friday morning. National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Anton Charliyan said on Friday that the police's antiterrorism unit Densus 88 had moved to hunt down suspects, as reported by kompas.com. The police arrested three men suspected to have links to Thursday's fatal attacks on Jl. MH Thamrin. The men ' Saiful, 40, Isro, 35, and Sudirman, 30 ' were apprehended on Jl. H. Dul, Cipayung subdistrict, Depok. An Islamic State (IS) movement flag was found at the location of the arrest, Anton said. Depok Police chief Sr. Comr. Dwiyono said the raid was led by the Jakarta Police's general crimes unit director Sr. Comr. Krishna Murti early on Friday. "We apprehended them because we received reports that they had threatened a woman, [telling her] to join their group, and that their group is spreading terror," he said as quoted by kompas.com. The police also confiscated a laptop, and are conducting further investigations on possible links between the three men and the Thamrin attack. (rin)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 The police have detained a 16-year-old male student at Lombok International Airport in West Nusa Tenggara for the possession of three bullets. According to the West Nusa Tenggara Police's public relations head, AKBP Tri Budi Pangastuti, the student, Fajar Haitami, was on his way to take a Lion Air flight to Surabaya on Thursday around 2:30 p.m. when, during a security check, he jokingly told a friend that there was a bomb in his bag. An airport officer who heard the statement immediately took Fajar into a security office to investigate further. During the examination, security officers found three 5.56-calibre bullets ' one with a TG code and two with LO codes ' inside Fajar's bag. Fajar, from Ampenan district in Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara, said he was a student at Yarsi Mataram Institute of Health Sciences (Stikes) and was on his way to Malang with his friend to undertake nursing training. He also said that he had found the three bullets during a riot in Bima regency in 2014. "We are currently checking on his story," Tri Budi told Antara news agency on Friday, adding that Fajar had been taken to the Central Lombok Police station for further investigation. (kes)(+) China has become the 67th member of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Following the completion of all the formalities, the announcement was made after a meeting between the EBRD President Sir Suma Chakrabarti and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing on January 15. The EBRD's existing shareholders agreed at the end of 2015 that China should become a member of the Bank. "This is a very important step for the Bank, for the countries where the EBRD invests and also for China. We are opening up a new chapter of cooperation that will be of benefit to all parties," President Chakrabarti said during his meeting with the Chinese Premier Sir Suma has described Chinese membership of the EBRD as a win-win-win scenario. The EBRD will support Chinese companies as they invest in the EBRD regions. EBRD membership will also provide a boost to China's "One Belt, One Road" initiative where it passes through EBRD countries of operations, he said. The EBRD will benefit from having the world's second largest economy as a shareholder and will have better access to Chinese firms that could be partners in the EBRD regions. The economies in the EBRD regions will benefit, as China will become an important new source of investment finance for development in the countries where the EBRD is active. During his visit to Beijing Sir Suma also held talks with Vice Premier Ma Kai and Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of the People's Bank of China and who will also be China's Governor at the EBRD. He also met the President-elect of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIIB), Jin Liqun, as well as K.V. Kamath, the president of the New Development Bank, which is headquartered in Shanghai. The EBRD President is scheduled to attend the AIIB's inauguration ceremony on January 16. The EBRD has cooperated with the AIIB from very early days, engaging in dialogue on such issues as governance and social and environmental standards. Sir Suma has expressed a strong desire for EBRD and AIIB cooperation in joint projects once the new bank begins its operations. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 The National Police are hunting for other members of a terrorist group that carried out an attack on Jl. MH Thamrin in Central Jakarta on Thursday, after the arrest of three alleged terrorists in Depok, West Java, on Friday. Five alleged terrorists were killed during the Thamrin attack that saw explosions and gunfire around the Sarinah department store, about one kilometer away from the State Palace. National Police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti said on Friday that the police believed other group members had helped with the attack. 'Surely, there were [more] people behind the attack. Who bought [the explosive materials]? Who assembled [the devices]? Who facilitated the attack? All of them are suspects, aren't they?' Badrodin said as reported by kompas.com. He stressed that it was the task of the police to arrest all of those responsible for the incident that killed seven people ' five attackers and two civilians ' and wounded 24 others. According to Badrodin, the police were continuing to search for others believed to be involved. 'The police have started to move in an effort to hunt down the suspects. Let the police do their jobs,' he added. Meanwhile, officers from the National Police's counterterrorism squad Densus 88 on Friday arrested three more alleged terrorists in Cipayung district, Depok. The three were allegedly involved in the Jakarta attack. At around 10:50 a.m. on Thursday, devices exploded outside a Starbucks cafe and a small police post near the Sarinah building. The attacks killed two civilians ' an Indonesian and a Canadian ' and seriously injured 24 people, including police officers and one citizen each from the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Algeria, according to the police. (bbn)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Corry Elyda and Nurul Fitri Ramadhani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 The National Police are considered to have swiftly and reliably countered a deadly terrorist attack in front of the Cakrawala Building on Jl. MH Thamrin in Central Jakarta on Thursday and were perceived to have restored a sense of security to scared Jakartans during the dark hours. In less than five hours, the police disabled the terrorist actions, which left five alleged perpetrators and two civilians dead and another 24 people injured, including five police officers. Two suspects died in suicide bombings while three others were shot dead by the police. The police said none of the suspects survived. National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Anton Charliyan said that the police also raided the building and its surroundings after the final explosion. 'We found six bombs that had yet to be detonated,' he said. Police officers, including several top figures like Jakarta Police general crimes director Sr. Comr. Krishna Murti, Central Jakarta Police chief Sr. Comr. Hendro Pandowo and his deputy Adj. Sr. Comr. Roma Hutajulu were seen on live TV eliminating the terrorist suspects during the shooting spree. A Central Jakarta Police car was also the target of a grenade bombing and gunfire by the perpetrators, wounding several police officers. Anton said the police had actually been aware that there would be a terrorist attack in Indonesia. 'The perpetrators were allegedly affiliated with the Islamic State,' he said, adding that, therefore, t he police had swiftly countered the attack. According to the National Police, the attack has claimed seven lives: the five perpetrators and two civilians, an Indonesian and a Canadian. Besides injuring civilians, the attack also wounded five police officers, four of them traffic police on duty in the area. Traffic Police officer Adj. First Insp. Dodi Maryadi and Adj. First Insp. Budiyono, a Central Jakarta Police internal affairs officer, were both shot in the stomach. Adj. First Insp. Budi Rachmat, a traffic police officer, was shot in the left side of his chest, while Adj. First Insp. Suhadi, a traffic police officer, suffered two shots in the back. Traffic police officer Deny M. was injured in the leg, according to data from the Jakarta Police. Military expert Salim Said of the Indonesia Defense University said that the police had done a good job in handling the attack. 'It was terrorism. No wonder that it occurred undetected. In this case, the police looked capable and skillful,' Salim said. Information about possible terrorist attacks, he said, had emerged since Christmas and New Year's Eve, but at that time the police had tightened security so the attacks did not happen. 'Moreover, the police, through its counterterrorism squad [Densus 88], have arrested a number of alleged terrorists in recent years. If they had not, today's attack might have gone worse and simultaneous,' he added. He went on to say that even in countries like the US and France, such attacks could happen. 'There must be victims in any terrorist attack, but we can't always blame the police,' Salim said. A positive response was also delivered by Jakarta Governor Basuki 'Ahok' Tjahaja Purnama. 'The police have been anticipating a terrorist attack since last year,' he said, adding that it was proven by the fact that none of the bombs planted in the building had exploded. He added that the police had also responded well when facing the tragedy. Ahok said that preventing a suicide bombing was difficult. 'Even European countries cannot prevent it,' he said, referring to the recent Paris attacks. Ahok said it was not possible for security guards to always be suspicious and paranoid and to check all people's bags. Fedina S. Sundaryani contributed to the story. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Anggi M. Lubis (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 Two state companies are expecting to raise Rp 3 trillion (US$215.67 million) from the stock market this year through an initial public offering (IPO) and a rights issue, details of which are still being discussed by a government committee. State-Owned Enterprises Ministry deputy for restructuring and planning Aloysius K. Ro said the two companies were plantation company PT Perkebunan Negara VII (PTPN) and pharmaceutical firm PT Kimia Farma and were among six companies currently being assessed by the government's privatization committee. 'We will definitely see PTPN go public this year,' Aloysius said. As for Kimia Farma, which is already listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX), Aloysius said that the drugmaker had made a request for a rights issue. Aloysius said that the proposals were currently being discussed by the government's privatization committee, which includes representatives from the State-Owned Enterprises Ministry, the Finance Ministry and the Office of the Coordinating Economic Minister. He added that the discussion was expected to be finalized this quarter before being submitted to the Financial Services Authority (OJK) and the House of Representatives. PTPN VII finance director Agoes Riyanto said his company was ready for immediate listing on the bourse, looking to pocket around Rp 2 trillion. 'We will use the money for business development and working capital,' he said. Agoes said that his company would use its December book for the IPO. As of December, he said, his company's assets stood at Rp 9.4 trillion. Kimia Farma president director Rusdi Rosman, meanwhile, said that his company was looking to raise around Rp 1 trillion from the rights issue to build factories and boost production capacity. His company, he said, needed around Rp 3.9 trillion for capital expenditure (capex) for the next three years, hence the need to source fresh funds. Kimia Farma's rights issue does not count as a state capital injection, in which companies are granted funds to work on strategic investment, raised through an equity issuance that is designed to keep both government and public stakes in the respective company unchanged. As such, it is likely the government's stake will fall after the transaction, unless the ministry is willing to take up the new shares. 'The scheme will go ahead with the consent of our shareholders,' Rusdi said. The government currently owns a 90 percent stake in the company. Minister Rini Soemarno previously said that her ministry was looking to see more public ownerships in state-run companies this year, with more free-float stocks expected to come from new IPOs or rights issues The companies that the ministry expected to enter the stock market this year, Rini said, included aluminum producer Indonesia Asahan Aluminium (Inalum). There are 20 state-run companies and two state-run enterprise subsidiaries listed on the IDX, of a total 119 state-owned firms and more than 700 subsidiaries. According to IDX documentation, state-run firms account for 24 percent of the bourse's market capitalization, despite their numbers making up less than 5 percent of 517 companies listed on the bourse. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ni Komang Erviani, Apriadi Gunawan and Ruslan Sangadji (The Jakarta Post) Denpasar/Medan/Palu Fri, January 15, 2016 In response to the deadly terrorist attack that struck Jakarta on Thursday, local police and military institutions in the country's major cities have stepped up security precautions at various high-profile locations including consulates, malls and five-star hotels, in order to prevent similar such incidents from occurring elsewhere in Indonesia. In Denpasar, Bali, police and military personnel intensified patrols in popular tourist districts such as Kuta, Seminyak and Nusa Dua, soon after the attack happened in Jakarta. Dozens of armed police were also seen securing the Australian consulate-general on Jl. Tantular, Denpasar, and the US consulate-general on Jl. Hayam Wuruk. Bali Police are also tightly monitoring the main entrances to the popular resort island. Bali Police chief Insp. Gen. Sugeng Priyanto emphasized that Bali was still safe and that there were not yet any intelligence reports of a possible terrorist attack targeting the island. 'As of now, [Bali] is still safe. But we have to remain alert,' Sugeng said. In October 2002, a series of coordinated attacks in Kuta orchestrated by the regional terrorist network Jamaah Islamiyah led to the death of more than 200 people, including 88 Australians. Three years later, another series of bomb attacks hit the island, killing at least 20 people and injuring 100 others. In Medan, North Sumatra, foreign consulate offices, such as the US and Chinese consulate offices, and a number of shopping malls and hotels in the city also received heightened security measures. Security personnel, for example, were seen combing through the JW Marriot hotel on Jl. S. Parman, Medan. North Sumatra Police's vital object security directorate head Sr. Comr. Heri Subiansauri said the combing procedure, aimed at searching for suspicious objects, was not only carried out at the hotel but also at other vital objects in the city. 'We conducted the combings in response to the bomb attack in Jakarta. We have also posted personnel at vital points across the city. We have expanded security at several places,' Heri said. The Medan Police's headquarters and police posts on the streets of Medan also received expanded security from fully-armed police personnel. Medan Police chief Sr. Comr. Mardiaz Kusin Dwihananto said the police had deployed personnel to secure vital facilities prone to disturbances. Security in Bandung, West Java, and Pekanbaru, Riau, has also been intensified. Pekanbaru Police chief Sr. Comr. Aries Syarief Hidayat said fully-geared two-wheeled patrol teams had been deployed to various corners of the city. Every entrance to the city was also tightly guarded to prevent intruders. 'Police have continued to coordinate with the Indonesian Military [TNI] to prevent terror attacks. Intelligence officers have also been spread to gather as much information as possible from the public,' he said. The Roesmin Nurjadin Airbase in Pekanbaru also tightened security by closing access from Jl. Inpres and from the direction of the Sultan Syarif Kasim Airport II International in Pekanbaru. West Java Police chief spokesman Sr. Comr. Sulistyo Hartono said the police had also placed personnel on standby to secure every vital object situated across the province. 'We're on high alert,' Pudjo said. Separately, the Central Sulawesi Police declined to comment on the possible involvement of the Poso-based terrorist group led by Santoso in the deadly attack on Jakarta. The group, which has become the most-feared group in the region after orchestrating the murder of a number of local residents, is believed to be affiliated with the radical Islamic State (IS) movement. 'I only take care of Poso. I don't want to comment on the attack in Jakarta. Please ask the National Police,' Central Sulawesi Police chief Brig. Gen. Idham Azis told the Post by phone. ___________________________________________ Arya Dipa in Bandung and Rizal Harahap in Pekanbaru contributed to the article. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Khoirul Amin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 The government is looking into the possibility of reducing import duties on Japanese-produced cars should the East Asian country be willing to do the same thing for Indonesia's agriculture and fishery products, a senior official has said. Bachrul Chairi, the Trade Ministry's director general for international trade and cooperation, said on Wednesday that the government could lower its import duties on Japanese (CBU) cars to 5 percent this year if Japan carried out reciprocal measures for Indonesia's commodities. 'Basically, Indonesia can turn the initial note but with the requirement that Japan accommodates our interests in the agriculture and fishery industries,' he said after a closed-door meeting on free trade agreements at the Office of the Coordinating Economic Minister. Bachrul said that a number of Indonesian products like bananas and tunas were still subject to high tariffs or prohibited from entering Japanese markets. Under the Indonesia-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (IJ-EPA), which went into effect in 2008, Japan listed rice, wheat, meat, pineapples, bananas and starch, among others, as sensitive products. Indonesia currently imposes a 28.1 percent import tax on Japanese cars with engine capacities of between 1,500 cc and 3,000 cc. The tax will be gradually lowered to zero percent by 2023 as agreed to by both parties under the IJ-EPA. After intensive talks between the two parties in 2012, Japan reported that Indonesia had agreed on Japan's request to accelerate the lowering of import tariffs to 20 percent between 2013 and 2015 and to 5 percent this year. Japan, the second largest foreign investor in Indonesia, previously threatened Southeast Asia's largest economy with a dispute settlement case at the World Trade Organization (WTO). Industry Minister Saleh Husin said that the government would review the possibility of granting Japan's request but argued that it was important to keep Indonesia's local component industry growing. I Gusti Putu Surywirawan, the Industry Ministry's director general for metals, machinery, transportation equipment and electronic industries, said that it would be difficult for the country to lower CBU import duties to the level requested by Japan. 'We're trying to attract more automobile production in Indonesia. If we lower the import tariff this year, I'm afraid that many will opt for importing CBUs rather than assembling or manufacturing cars here,' he said. Bachrul also said that the government was committed to solving disputes with Japan under the IJ-EPA within two to three months. Indonesia and Japan have so far achieved zero or low tariffs for around 92 percent of products. Saleh, Trade Minister Thomas Lembong, Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution and Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) head Franky Sibarani met on Wednesday to discuss matters related to a number of Indonesia's trade agreements with trading partners. Among the discussed agreements were the IJ-EPA, the ASEAN-Japan free trade agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Fri, January 15, 2016 At least five of the 24 victims injured in the vicious attack at the Sarinah department store on Thursday were police officers, showing that the attack was aimed at the police, National Police deputy chief Com. Gen. Budi Gunawan has said. 'The five police officers were severely injured by gun or shrapnel wounds. Meanwhile, five alleged terror attackers and two civilians died. One of the fallen civilians was an expatriate,' he said as quoted by tribunnews.com in Jakarta on Friday. National Police spokesperson Insp. Gen. Anton Charliyan said that at the end of 2015, the intelligence agency had been informed that the Islamic State (IS) movement, also known as ISIS, may strike Indonesia with a terror attack targeting the police, mainly high-ranking officers. Anton suspected the blasts and shootings at Sarinah were related to the terror plan. However, he underlined that further investigations were needed to validate the hypothesis. A terrorism observer from the Peace Inscription Foundation, Taufik Andrie, said the Sarinah attackers had shown similar patterns to terrorists who attacked Paris in November 2015, such as shooting at the crowd. The victims, therefore, ranged from expatriates to women and police officers, he added. 'This is similar to the Paris attack, which aimed at the crowd. However, the radical elements [could be] affiliated with ISIS shooting at security personnel as a form of a retaliation for their apprehended mates,' he said as quoted by tempo.co. Another similarity between the Jakarta and Paris attacks, he continued, could be seen in the openness of the violence carried out. Instead of quietly leaving the area after setting a timed bomb, the attackers joined the crowd of onlookers and calmly shot at them. 'They set the bomb to attract attention. The objective was to gain vast media coverage, to disrupt economic and political stability, and create fear among society,' said Taufik. National Intelligence Agency (BIN) chief Sutiyoso also suspected the attackers were IS members. 'But to make sure, we need more time to investigate,' he said. (ags)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Djemi Amnifu (The Jakarta Post) Rote Ndao, East Nusa Tenggara Fri, January 15, 2016 The Baa District Court in Rote Ndao regency, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), on Thursday sentenced a ship's captain to five years and eight months in prison for attempting to transport asylum-seekers to New Zealand. The man had been skippering a boat carrying dozens of asylum seekers that was intercepted last year by the Australian authorities. In another hearing, the court sentenced the ship's five crew members to five years and six months' imprisonment each on similar charges. The panel of judges also required Yohanis Humiang, the captain of motorboat KM Andika, to pay Rp 700 million (US$50,170) in fines or serve an additional five month in prison. Meanwhile, each of the crew members ' Marthen Karaeng, Medi Ampow, Yapi Aponno, Ivan Janny Worotitjan and Indra Reza Rumambi ' is required to pay Rp 500 million in fines or serve an additional three months in jail. The sentences, however, are more lenient than those demanded by prosecutor Alex Selle, who sought eight years' imprisonment and Rp 500 million in fines for each of the six defendants, who hail from Manado, North Sulawesi. The ship's captain and his crew attended separate hearings conducted consecutively by a panel of judges presided over by Ari Wahyu Irawan and also including Rosihan and Sisere Nenohaifeto. In Yohanis' verdict hearing, the panel of judges said the defendant had been legally and found guilty of committing a crime by sending foreign citizens abroad for personal profit. The defendant, the judges said in their verdict, had violated Article 323 Point 1 of Law No. 17/2008 on shipping, Article 120 Point 1 of Law No. 6/2011 on immigration and Article 55 Point 1 of the Criminal Code. 'The panel of judges found no mitigating factors,' Ari said. The five crew members, meanwhile, were found guilty of violating Article 120 Point 1 of Law No. 6/2011 and Article 55 Point 1 of the Criminal Code, according to the verdict. 'Aggravating factors include the chance of the defendants' wrongdoing encouraging foreign citizens to come to Indonesia. Mitigating factors include their being honest in admitting their wrongdoings and their having their own families,' the presiding judge said. In May last year, Yohanis and his crew members were heading to New Zealand with 65 migrants hailing from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar when they were intercepted by an Australian Navy vessel. After being questioned by Australian authorities aboard the ship, the asylum seekers, along with their Indonesian accomplices, agreed to return to Indonesia. Their boat, however, sank in late May in waters near Rote Island, NTT, forcing local authorities to rescue them. Yohanis and his crew members told the police that the Australian authorities had given each of them between $5,000 and $6,000 before releasing them. Responding to the court's verdicts, the prosecutor and defense team both said they would take time before deciding whether to mount an appeal. 'We will take some time to consider the verdicts,' prosecutor Alex said. In 2013, the Australian government introduced tough immigration policies in a bid to stop an influx of migrants arriving by boat. Asylum seekers arriving on boats are sent to Pacific camps, while some vessels are turned back when it is safe to do so, or taken back to their country of origin. The military-led operation has so far helped the country significantly reduce the numbers attempting the journey from Indonesia to Australia. In November last year, another group of asylum seekers was also forced to return to Indonesia after their boat was intercepted by Australian authorities. Sixteen asylum seekers from India, Nepal and Pakistan arrived in the NTT provincial capital of Kupang several days later after a boat provided by the Australian Navy on which they were returning sank off the coast off West Kupang. _______________________________________ To receive comprehensive and earlier access to The Jakarta Post print edition, please subscribe to our epaper through iOS' iTunes, Android's Google Play, Blackberry World or Microsoft's Windows Store. Subscription includes free daily editions of The Nation, The Star Malaysia, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Asia News. For print subscription, please contact our call center at (+6221) 5360014 or subscription@thejakartapost.com Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Liza Yosephine (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 US-based coffee shop chain Starbucks on Friday reopened its stores across the capital after terrorist attacks in Central Jakarta on Thursday, aside from one outlet that was struck in the incident and remained closed. All branches of the worldwide coffee franchise in the city were shut on Thursday immediately after the series of attacks took place on Jl. MH Thamrin. The Starbucks establishment in the Skyline building in the city center suffered damage during the attacks, with one person shot dead near the store. All employees are confirmed to be safe. "While this store will remain closed, based on the stabilization of the situation being conveyed by local authorities, we will open all other stores in Jakarta and across Indonesia on [Friday]," Starbucks said via an official statement on its global website. A spokesperson from Starbucks Indonesia said the reopening of stores in Jakarta did not signal a loosening of security measures. "We will continue to monitor the situation intensively and will provide updates should there be any further developments," Starbucks Indonesia spokesperson Yuti Resani said as quoted by news portal kontan.co. (rin)(+) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ina Parlina, Nurul Fitri, Ramadhani and Fedina S. Sundaryani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 The National Police blamed the suicide bombings and shootings at the Sarinah shopping center in Central Jakarta on a radical group closely affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) movement based in Syria and Iraq. Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Tito Karnavian said the police force had strong reasons to believe that terrorist Muhammad Bahrun Naim was the mastermind behind the attacks, which led to the deaths of two civilians and left dozens injured. Five suicide bombers and assailants also died in the attacks. Bahrun is believed currently to be in Raqqa, Syria, the de facto capital of IS. Tito said intelligence information mentioned IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's instructions for members to commit attacks outside of Syria and Iraq. 'In Southeast Asia, there is a figure named Bahrun Naim who established [radical group] Katibah Nusantara. He wants to become the leader of the Southeast Asian IS branch ['] several figures in Asia are competing against each other [for the position],' he said, adding that Thursday's attacks were conducted to prove to the IS international leadership that he was worthy of the position. Bahrun Naim is no stranger to the police force. In November 2010, the National Police's counterterrorism squad Densus 88 arrested him and confiscated hundreds of bullets from his house in Pasar Kliwon, Surakarta, Central Java. The Surakarta District Court sentenced him in June 2011 to two-and-a-half years in prison for violating Emergency Law No. 12/1951 on illegal firearms possession. The police suspect that after his release from prison, Bahrun traveled to Syria to join IS earlier last year. He was back in the spotlight following the disappearance of Muhammadiyah Surakarta University (UMS) student Siri Lestari, who was alleged to have wed Bahrun Naim in 2014. Tito said Bahrun Naim had been particularly influential in Java and Sulawesi, the latter being the base of the East Indonesian Mujahideen (MIT) group led by notorious and most-wanted terrorist suspect Santoso. He further confirmed that the five deceased terrorism suspects were all Indonesians. 'We don't know whether or not there were [other terrorism suspects] who were able to flee. Up until now we are assuming that there were five perpetrators. However, we will continue to hunt down those related,' Tito said. According a report published by the British-based news publication, the Independent, one of IS' propaganda agencies, Aamaaq news agency, claimed on its Telegram channel that IS fighters had carried out an armed attack 'targeting foreign nationals and the security forces charged with protecting them in the Indonesian capital'. Meanwhile, Nasir Abas, a terrorism expert from the University of Indonesia, said he was convinced that terrorists were directly affiliated with and fully funded by IS. He said the aim of the attacks was to announce their existence in the country. 'They want people to recognize that they exist in Indonesia. The threats they have made all this time were real and they are serious about it,' he said, adding that the attacks were somewhat different to several attacks over the last 15 years, such as the 2002 Bali bombings and the 2009 bombings at JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta. In previous bombings, he said, terrorists targeted Westerners and only aimed to express their hate for the West and its ideologies. Nasir said that Thursday's attack was the group's effort to show its opposition to the West by attacking a US franchise Starbucks Coffee outlet, as well as to distract the government. 'They attacked police officers on duty. It looked like they wanted to protest against the government.' He said the attacks were also more brutal as they involved multiple perpetrators and shooting in addition to the suicide bombs. Terrorism expert Al Chaidar said the terrorists were not directly affiliated with IS and did not act on behalf of the main group in Syria. 'They looked like only a small group of supporters who wanted to try a similar attack to the one in Paris,' Chaidar said, adding that the reason behind the attacks might be revenge for the 2010 arrest of terrorist convict Abu Bakar Ba'asyir and the arrests of several other radical group members. ____________________________________ Major terrorist attacks in RI * Aug. 1, 2000. Residence of the Philippine ambassador in Jakarta. Two civilians killed and the Philippine ambassador injured. * Sept. 13, 2000. Jakarta Stock Exchange. 15 killed and dozens wounded * Dec. 24, 2000. Series of Christmas Eve blasts rock churches in Jakarta. 17 killed, 100 wounded * Oct. 12, 2002. Bali bombing. 202 killed, hundreds wounded. * Aug. 5, 2003. JW Marriott Hotel. 12 killed, 150 wounded. * Sept. 9, 2004. Australian embassy bombing. 10 killed, more than 100 wounded. * May 28, 2005. Tentena market bombing in Central Sulawesi. 22 killed. * Oct. 1, 2005. Bali bombing. 23 killed, dozens wounded. * July 17, 2009. JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton. 9 killed and more than 50 injured. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Safrin La Batu (The Jakarta Post) Fri, January 15, 2016 The Jakarta Police announced on Thursday that they had named US chiropractor Randall Cafferty and Malaysian national Khan Wain Min suspects in an alleged malpractice case that claimed the life of Allya Sisca Nadya. Khan is the owner of the Chiropractic First chain of clinics that employed Cafferty. The Police said Cafferty would face multiple charges: violating Article 122 of Immigration Law No. 6/2011 on visa purpose with a maximum penalty of five years behind bars; Article 191 of Law No. 36/2009 on malpractice, bearing a maximum penalty of one year behind bars and a maximum Rp 100 million (US$7,166) fine; and articles 83 and 84 of Law No. 36/2014 on running a medical practice without a permit, which carries a maximum penalty of six years behind bars. Meanwhile, Khan, who is currently at large, is to be charged with Article 185 and Article 42 of law No. 13/2003 on employing a non-licensed employee. The announcement came after police investigators on Wednesday exhumed the body of 33-year-old Allya to conduct an autopsy. According to Jakarta Police general crimes director Sr. Comr. Krishna Murti, the force also performed a crime reconstruction in the afternoon. 'Both [the autopsy and the crime reconstruction] confirmed that the suspect [Randall] had performed therapy [on Allya] without following proper legal-medical procedures,' Krishna told reporters at a press briefing at the Jakarta Police headquarters in South Jakarta on Thursday. He did not specify how the suspect's illegal behavior had brought about the death of the victim, noting only that the latter had suffered neck-swelling after a session with Cafferty at a Chiropractic First clinic at Pondok Indah Mall in South Jakarta on Aug. 6 last year. 'Testimony from witnesses and our own evidence lead to the same conclusion. Many witnesses, including medical experts, have told us that the cause of death was neck-swelling,' he explained. Besides not following proper medical procedure, Cafferty was also suspected of having no legal documents allowing him to exercise his profession in Indonesia, Krishna went on. 'The suspect conducted his practice as if he had valid documents,' he said, adding that the suspect had also violated immigration law by overstaying his visa, in addition to working in Indonesia on a business visa. The police are currently searching for Cafferty, who has ignored two police summonses. He was previously reported to have left Indonesia, but Krishna said on Wednesday that according to information from the directorate general of immigration, he was still in the country. According to Allya's father, Alfian Helmy, Allya decided to register for therapy at the clinic after complaining of minor pain in her neck after carrying a backpack containing a laptop. After the first session, Alfian said, his daughter felt even greater pain in her neck. He and his wife took Allya to Pondok Indah Hospital (RSPI) in South Jakarta, where she died shortly after being admitted. The family decided to file a complaint at the Jakarta Police after they consulted with an RSPI doctor who suspected Allya's death to have been the result of malpractice. Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Jan. 15 By Huseyn Hasanov- Trend: Two new fields were discovered near the Galkynysh largest field in Turkmenistan in 2015, the Turkmen Geology state corporation said. This testifies to an increase in the proven reserves of natural gas in this area. According to the statement, new gas fields Garakel and Bagli, were discovered as a result of the search-exploration operations. "The discovery of these fields testifies to an increase in the proven reserves of natural gas in the Galkynysh super-giant oil field," the statement said. The reserves of Galkynysh field together with Yashlar and Garakel deposits are estimated at 27.4 trillion cubic meters. According to the statement, the natural gas reserve growth plan was fulfilled at 132 percent in Turkmenistan in 2015. In total, the search-exploration operations were carried out at 32 oil and gas areas and fields in 2015. Moreover, some 35 exploratory oil and gas wells were drilled. According to the statement, it will be a priority for the Turkmen Geology experts in 2016 to search and explore liquid hydrocarbons and natural gas, not containing hydrogen sulphide and carbonic gas. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Grace D. Amianti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 Private lender UOB Indonesia expects to maintain the growth rate of its credit card transactions in 2016 as it saw an increase in the business last year. The bank, part of Singapore's financial giant, the United Overseas Bank Limited (UOB), managed to book growth last year of between 15 percent and 20 percent in credit card transactions, higher than the average single-digit growth in the banking industry. 'We hope to maintain the growth again this year, at a minimum, as we will be more aggressive,' UOB Indonesia unsecured business head Irwan Tisnabudi said in a press conference on Thursday. Irwan said the bank booked Rp 6 trillion (US$431 million) in credit card transactions last year from a total of 350,000 cards, making its market share between 2 percent and 2.5 percent of the domestic credit card industry. As an effort to achieve its target, UOB Indonesia and Visa Worldwide Indonesia launched on Thursday a travel-focused credit card as an increasing number of the bank's customers were using UOB credit cards while overseas. Irwan said that the new product, called UOB PRVI Miles credit card, would be competitive in Indonesia as it offered its cardholders a fast way to earn airline miles. The airline miles could be redeemed for free tickets from airline partners, such as Garuda Indonesia and Singapore Airlines, he said. 'Card members earn one airline mile for every Rp 3,500 spent overseas, or for every Rp 7,000 spent locally,' he said. According to Bank Indonesia data, 6.31 million Indonesians traveled overseas last year, a 3 percent increase compared to 2014. World Tourism Organization data shows that Asia emerged as the favorite region for Indonesian travelers with top three destinations: Singapore at 31 percent, Malaysia at 25 percent and China at 13 percent. UOB Indonesia personal financial services head Lynn Ramli said the growing number of traveling Indonesians was also supported by increasing e-commerce that enabled them to plan and book their holidays online. Irwan said Indonesian travelers are spending more as the bank managed to post more than Rp 800 billion in travel and overseas credit card transactions in 2015, an increase of 5 percent year-on-year (yoy). As many as 14 percent of UOB Indonesia's total credit card transactions worth more than Rp 6 trillion last year occurred overseas, mainly in Singapore (46 percent), followed by the US (8 percent), Malaysia (7 percent), Hong Kong (5 percent) and Japan (4 percent). Most UOB Indonesia's overseas credit card transactions last year were for purchases of fashion items (20.7 percent), medical services (13.9 percent), hotel and other accommodations (13.1 percent), retail merchandise (8.5 percent) and department store merchandise (8.1 percent). Irwan said peak spending last year occurred in June and July as the months coincided with the long school holidays and the Idul Fitri celebrations. 'We are optimistic that there will be about 20,000 to 30,000 new holders of UOB PRVI Miles this year,' he said. The latest Visa Global Travel Intention Study in 2015 found that 73 percent of Indonesian travelers preferred using payment cards in the booking stage and 54 percent of them favored credit cards across all merchants. 'The UOB PRVI Miles Credit Card is ideal for travelers as it offers cardholders the security and reliability of Visa's trusted brand,' Visa Worldwide Indonesia president director Ellyana Fuad said. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Tama Salim and Yohanna Ririhena (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, January 15, 2016 Attacks by suicide bombers and gunmen blamed on the Islamic State (IS) movement in the heart of Jakarta have incited condemnation from around the world, with leaders offering any support that the Indonesian government may need to tackle these terrorism acts. Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said Canberra condemned the attacks and, while the incident was still unfolding, that it was too early to determine the scale of damage or the extent of casualties. 'I have spoken to Indonesian Foreign Minister [Retno LP] Marsudi and offered any support that Indonesia may need to respond to these attacks,' Bishop said. US Secretary of State John Kerry expressed condemnation over the attack. 'These acts of terror are not going to intimidate nation-states from protecting their citizens and continuing to provide real opportunity, education, jobs, possibilities of a future,' said Kerry during a break in talks in London with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir. 'There is nothing in any act of terror that offers anything but death and destruction. And so we stand together, all of us, united in our efforts to eliminate those who choose terror,' he said as quoted by Reuters. Al-Jubeir also condemned the attacks, saying it should strengthen resolve to work effectively together to combat the scourge of terrorism. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said he was deeply shocked and saddened by the attacks in Jakarta. 'Malaysia stands ready to help in any way. Thoughts and prayers with the Indonesian people,' Najib said on Twitter. Condemning the attack, Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said that terrorism had raised its ugly head and once again innocent civilians were its victims. Koenders expressed his condolences and offered his country's assistance to Retno, 'Should Indonesia need it.' The attacks show once more that terrorism has spread its tentacles all around the world, Koenders said. 'Anyone can be a victim of terrorism. Whether you're shopping in the centre of Paris, sitting in an office in New York or on holiday in Jakarta. This is the fear that terrorists seek to plant in our hearts,' the minister said. The embassy is also staying in close touch with local authorities to find out about possible Dutch victims. So far it has learned that one Dutch man was seriously injured in the attack. Local authorities have recorded that Johan Kieft suffered heavy injuries to his right hand and his head, as well as a fracture to his right leg. He is currently under the care of medical personnel at the Gatot Subroto Army Central Hospital (RSPAD) in Central Jakarta. Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said he was shocked and dismayed by news of the attacks. 'Singapore condemns these attacks. We will give our full support to the Indonesian government to bring the perpetrators to justice. My thoughts are with the families of the victims and the Indonesian people,' he added. Singapore's Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, who just visited Jakarta, said Singapore was monitoring the situation in Indonesia with great concern, adding that there have been no reports of Singaporeans hurt in the Jakarta blasts. European Union High Representative and Vice-President Federica Mogherini underlined that Thursday's attack was a tragic reminder that the threat of terrorism was global and has to be tackled globally. 'Our hearts go out to the families and friends of the victims. We stand firm by the Indonesian government and its people in their fight against violence and extremism. I will personally convey my condolences to the Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi ' with whom I also spoke a few days ago ' in a phone call later today,' Mogherini said on Thursday. 'The European Union will continue to work with Indonesia to defend peace and the values of freedom and diversity, which underpin our societies.' The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has also condemned the bomb attacks and series of shooting in the Indonesian capital, with Secretary-General Iyad Ameen Madani sending his 'heartfelt condolence to the families of the victims of the attack and his wishes for the fast recovery of the injured'. Madani strongly condemned the perpetrators 'of this heinous act committed against the peaceful community of Jakarta', restating the OIC's position that denounces all acts of terrorism and violent extremism and rejecting any justifications for terrorism. The Manny Cantor Center of the Educational Alliance is getting ready to kick off a series of high quality free events in partnership with Lincoln Center. Lincoln Centers Boro-Linc initiative brings cultural programming into local communities throughout New York City. During the next several months, resident organizations such as Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet and New York Philharmonic will be staging performances and workshops on the Lower East Side. The family oriented programming will take place at the Manny Cantor Center, 197 East Broadway. Heres the full schedule: Sunday, January 31, 2016 2 p.m. 3 p.m. Pre-performance Art-making Workshop: Drawing on song lyrics and personal experience for inspiration, workshop participants will use fun fabrics and trimmings to create unique freedom flags. 3 p.m. 4 p.m. Jazz at Lincoln Center: Jazz for Young People-Let Freedom Swing: Celebrate the ideals of American democracy through the lens of Americas most democratic art form: jazz. Recommended for ages 6-12. Sunday, February 28, 2016 2 p.m. 3 p.m. and 3 p.m. 4 p.m. New York City Ballet Creative Movement Workshop: Join the artists of New York City Ballet in this exploration of music and movement. NYCB dancers guide children in a ballet warm-up and movement combination, concluding in a lively performance for accompanying family and friends. No prior dance training needed. The 2 p.m. workshop is recommended for ages 4-7 with parents, grandparents and/or caregivers. The 3 p.m. workshop is recommended for ages 8-10 with parents, grandparents and/or caregivers. Sunday, March 13, 2016 2 p.m. 3 p.m. Pre-performance Art-making Workshop 3 p.m. 4 p.m. New York Philharmonic: KALEIDOSCOPE: Join the renowned ensemble of New York Philharmonic Teaching Artists for a fun, interactive concert in an hour of music and musical games. Recommended for ages 6-12. Sunday, April 10, 2016 2 p.m. 4 p.m. Metropolitan Opera Guild: Opera in your Neighborhood! Workshop: Explore the magical world of opera including the singing, characters, movement, music, and words, then work together to create a mini-opera about the neighborhood! Recommended for ages 6-12. No music experience necessary. Sunday, May 15 2 p.m. 3 p.m. Pre-performance Castanets & Rhythm Workshop with Angelica Negron: Build and design your own bird castanets and learn to play simple rhythmic patterns to accompany the band at the 3:00 performance! 3:00 p.m. 4:00 p.m. Lincoln Center Education: Acopladitos: This Brooklyn-based band blends curious electronic and folk instruments with original songs in Spanish for an interactive musical experience. Recommended for ages 3-6. January 31-April 1 (Special Exhibition) Saturday, January 31 at 4 p.m. The Genius of Geoffrey Holder Opening Community Party: Born and raised in Trinidad, Geoffrey Holder revealed his genius in his long career in dance, theater, film, music, and art. As a choreographer, designer, director, and actor, Geoffrey Holder is well represented in all of the research and circulating collections of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. He is honored for his performing career in dance and theater, his Tony Award-winning work as director and costume designer for The Wiz, and contributions to the repertory of the Alvin Ailey Dance Company and Dance Theatre of Harlem. NOTE: The January 31 performance is sold out. Throughout the series all unclaimed tickets will be made available to the wait-list on a first-come-first-served basis 10 minutes before the start of each performance. Boro-Linc was launched last year in the Bronx, Staten Island and Queens. Its now been expanded to Manhattan and Brooklyn. As families arrived at the Manny Cantor Center yesterday morning, Educational Alliance President & CEO, Alan van Capelle, and other staff members handed out brochures about the new programming. The Lo-Down caught up with him to talk about the partnership. Noting that arts and culture have always been part of the Educational Alliances mission, van Capelle said his team has been exploring ways to make arts programming more accessible within the community. The historic Lower East Side non-profit was chosen, he said, because it now boasts a world class performance space, and because, we draw a very diverse population coming to our community center. We have a community center, van Capelle added, where the well-to-do, the middle class and the low-income people are all walking through the same door every single day and I think thats attractive to Lincoln Center. The Educational Alliances leader works in the neighborhood but is also raising his family here with Matt Morningstar, his husband. As a father of two children, he explained, Matt and I often find ourselves going to other neighborhoods in New York City, whether its the Upper West Side or the Upper East Side to spend time with our kids on a Sunday afternoon doing something artistic. I would much rather get them in a stroller, walk seven blocks to the Manny Cantor Center and see the same top quality performances taking place in my community center with my neighbors around me. Click here for more details about the Lincoln Center programming. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend: Fire has been extinguished at another gas well at the platform #10 of the Gunashli field in the Caspian Sea, said the Azerbaijani Emergency Situations Ministry Jan. 15. The fire broke out on the offshore platform Dec. 4, as a strong storm damaged an underwater high-pressure gas pipeline. As many as 33 people were rescued in an ensuing large-scale operation. The bodies of 11 killed were retrieved, while 19 oil workers are still listed as missing. At present, the Ministry of Emergency Situations continues work to extinguish fire at other wells of the platform. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov Tehran, Iran, Jan. 13 By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend: The Iranian government has two ways to meet the falling oil prices - narrow expenditure and reduce cash subsidies, Iranian MP Ebrahim Neku said. OPEC oil basket price plunged to $25.76 on Jan. 12, about $1.31 less than the previous day. As Iran's economy is heavily reliant on oil, in such situations the government needs to seek other sources of income, Neku told Trend January 13. OPEC oil basket price was about $108 in first half of 2014, but has been decreasing due to glut in the markets. The current figure is the lowest price since early 2014. Iran's case has been especially bad under international sanctions, which forced the country to cut its output from over two million barrels a day to one million. The MP stated that the Iranian government has to have the least expenditure to save money for vital corners. He added that cash subsidies are overwhelming the country's economy at large and need to be narrowed down to only really needy people. The cash subsidies were initiated by former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by giving each Iranian what is now worth $12 per month. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 By Fatih Karimov - Trend: Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit Iran on January 22, said the message on Iranian president Hassan Rouhani's official website. The upcoming visit will be the first visit of Chinese president to Iran in 14 years. The Chinese president reportedly will arrive in Iran heading a big delegation of political and economic representatives. The visit will last for two days. 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On July 14, Iran and the P5+1 group of countries comprising the United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom plus Germany, signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The agreement guarantees the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Earlier on Friday, the White House said Iran has made progress in upholding its commitments outlined in the nuclear agreement. However, the Obama administration did not provide an update as to when the agreement will be fully implemented. Ten Yemeni men held at the Guantanamo Bay US military prison were sent to Oman on Thursday, bringing the detainee population below the symbolically important milestone of 100 as President Barack Obama steps up efforts to close the facility before he leaves office, reuters reported. Their transfer to the Gulf Arab state marked the largest group of prisoners shipped out of the detention center at the US naval base in Cuba since Obama began his presidency in 2009 pledging to quickly shutter a prison that has drawn international condemnation. The Yemenis, all held for more than a decade without charge or trial, were part of a wave of releases that the Obama administration signaled would take place early this year as it prepares to give Congress a plan for closing the facility. Four other detainees were moved out already this month. Obama, whose term in office ends in January 2017, has vowed to push ahead with his efforts but faces opposition in the Republican-led Congress. Lawmakers have created obstacles to moving any Guantanamo prisoners to facilities in the United States. In Oman's, Muscat, an Omani official was cited by the state news agency as saying the Yemenis had arrived and would remain there for humanitarian reasons until conditions in Yemen, gripped by civil war, allow them to be sent home. Oman, a close US ally, had accepted earlier groups of Guantanamo prisoners. US Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the transfer followed a "deliberate and careful review." "We completed the transfer of 10 Yemenis - roughly 10 percent, that is, of the total remaining Gitmo population - to the government of Oman," Carter told an audience at the US military's Southern Command, which oversees the military detention facility. The 93 prisoners remaining at Guantanamo mark the lowest number since 2002, shortly after then-President George W. Bush opened the facility to house foreign terrorism detainees after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Obama administration officials have said they will focus on repatriating or resettling the 34 Guantanamo prisoners, most of them Yemenis, cleared for release long ago by US authorities. The United States has ruled out sending the Yemenis home due to Yemen's chaotic security situation. Obama campaigned for the presidency in 2008 vowing to close the Guantanamo prison. In his final State of the Union address on Tuesday, he again urged Congress to help him achieve that goal. "It's expensive, it's unnecessary and it only serves as a recruitment brochure for our enemies," Obama said of the prison. The White House has not ruled out that Obama could use executive powers to shut the prison, bypassing Congress. Some lawmakers have vowed legal action if he does that. Carter said he had proposed to Obama establishing an alternative location that would bring some detainees - those deemed too dangerous to be transferred - "to an appropriate, secure location in the United States." "Congress has indicated a willingness to consider such a proposal," Carter said. A number of lawmakers, mostly Republican but also some Democrats, have made clear they would resist moving the inmates into US prisons, even maximum security facilities where other terrorism suspects are being held. The transfers "represent a thinly veiled attempt to undercut the will of Congress and would further endanger the American people," US Senator Kelly Ayotte, a New Hampshire Republican, said in a statement issued before the Yemenis were flown out. The Pentagon identified the released detainees as: Fahed Abdullah Ahmad Ghazi, Samir Naji al-Hasan Muqbil, Adham Mohamed Ali Awad, Mukhtar Yahya Naji al-Warafi, Abu Bakr Ibn Muhammad al-Ahdal, Muhammad Salih Husayn al-Shaykh, Muhammad Said Salim Bin Salman, Said Muhammad Salih Hatim, Umar Said Salim al-Dini and Fahmi Abdallah Ahmad Ubadi al-Tulaqi. Phuket's best impress at Full Metal Dojo 8 [PHOTOS] MMA: Phuket-based athletes won six cage fights as Thailand's leading Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) promotion, Full Metal Dojo (FMD), returned to Seduction Nightclub in Patong last Sunday (January 10). By The Phuket News Friday 15 January 2016, 05:26PM FMD 8: Return of the Mack saw a card full of up-and-coming Thai prospects and experienced foreigners who went all-out at the promotions' return to the island in two years. The night's main event saw locally-based veteran Will The Kill Chope (29-9), who recently trained out of Combat 360X Khao Lak, take on Czech fighter Michal Vostry (6-7) out of Legacy Gym in Ubon Ratchathani. Though Chope's height became a factor, Vostry used his size and punching power in the first round to take down the American in the first round. The second round saw Chope return to form by dominating with his ground game, making several attempts to rear-naked choke Vostry with no success. Vostry continued to pressure Chope in the third round though the judges gave the veteran the win via split decision. The night also saw a win for Masoud Ranjbar (2-0), a heavyweight Iranian fighting out of AKA Thailand in Rawai, over Polish fighter Andrzej Kulik (0-4). Within moments of the opening bell, Ranjbar was able to slip and dodge Kulik's striking and take him down. The Iranian capitalised on the opportunity by staying on top of Kulik and raining down hard elbows and punches, prompting a referee stoppage in the first minute and a half. The win was Ranjbar's second professional victory after making his debut at FMD 4 last February in Bangkok. Meanwhile, Yousseff Wehbe, a Lebanese fighter from Phuket Top Team, was defeated by Carlos Prates (5-4) out of Phuket Fight Club in the second round of their welterweight battle. Wehbe's takedown attempts in the first round were stuffed by Prates. The Brazillian used his ground game to take Wehbe down in the second round and submitted him with a rear-naked choke. George Farrow, a fighter from Maximum Gym in Patong, made his debut at the event against fellow Thailand national Komom Jon Tap Ninin (0-1) of Bangkok. After the first minute of the fight, Farrow was able to take down Ninin and finish him off with a series of elbows to get a referee stoppage victory. In keeping with one of the primary aims of the promotion, FMD 8 saw a battle between two Muay Thai specialist making their MMA debut, Atipong Sing Noi Nuiaiad (18-12 in Muay Thai) of Lion Muay Thai in Phuket, took on Supachai Sungprasert.(100+ Muay Thai fights) of Amazing Muay Thai Gym Hua Hin. The bout was, as expected, primarily a striking affair with a little to no attempts at transitioning to the ground. Atipong was declared the winner via unanimous decision. The event was the third time the promotion brought their brand of MMA to Phuket's Seduction Nightclub, which also hosted the inaugural show in 2014 and FMD 2 that August. Both of those shows saw a slew of fighters based in many of Phuket's MMA camps as well as other gyms around Thailand. Full FMD 8 Results: Suicide bombings are a 'wake-up call' for region BANGKOK: Thursday's (Jan 14) suicide bombing attacks in Jakarta were a wake-up call for security officials in Southeast Asia to work more closely in sharing intelligence and information on Islamic State (IS) fighters, the secretary-general of Thailand's National Security Council says. policemilitary By Bangkok Post Friday 15 January 2016, 09:32AM Special Branch commanders ordered more than a dozen police to clear pedestrians and reinforce the normally light security at the Indonesian embassy on Petchaburi Road in the Pratunam shopping area. Photo: Bangkok Post/EPA Gen Thawip Netniyom said that the bombings in Indonesia should be considered a major threat to national security. Shortly after the incident, Jakarta's police chief Tito Karnavian told reporters that the IS was definitely behind the attacks and he named Indonesian militant Bahrun Naim as the mastermind. Indonesian police said they believe Naim is fighting with IS in the Syrian city of Raqqa. Gen Thawip said Thai authorities normally work closely with Indonesia. However, only general movements of the IS group in the region were reported before the incident, with reports indicating that some IS militants are planning to form factions in countries in the region. The attacks further underscore that intelligence agencies in each country, including Thailand, need to improve on collecting information which plays a pivotal role in tracking perpetrators, Gen Thawip added. The attacks in Jakarta, which killed seven people and injured 23 others, have also raised serious concerns over safety in Thailand. National police spokesman Detnarong Sutthichanbancha said police have been instructed to step up security measures at embassies, especially the Indonesian embassy in Bangkok, and at border checkpoints nationwide. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai conveyed their condolences to Indonesia's President Joko Widodo in a tribute to the victims of the suicide attacks. The statements also condemned the assailants for their heinous acts. Foreign Ministry spokesman Sek Wannamethee said no Thais were affected by the attacks. The Thai embassy will also work closely with the Indonesian government to remain updated on the situation, he said. Thai business operators in Indonesia also increased security efforts. Chaiyarit Anuchitworawong, executive vice-president of Bangkok Bank, said the attacks occurred near its branch in central Jakarta but there was no impact on either clients or staff; however, security has been stepped up. Mr Chaiyarit said the bank is ready to immediately adopt a contingency plan if necessary. "Almost all of our staff there are local people, they were in a panic at the beginning but after our officers kept the situation under control, they were feeling better but we have to remain cautious. We still have no idea what will happen," said Mr Chaiyarit. Chemical producer Covestro (Thailand) said it is sticking to a plan to open a laboratory next year despite the intended site being located only a kilometre from the scene of the attack. Read original story here. Gunmen stormed the Splendid Hotel in the capital city of Ouagadougou on Friday, burning cars and firing into the air. "It is continuing at this time. We are trying to know how many attackers they are to better coordinate our actions," a security officer said. "Hostages have been taken. The operation could take several hours." The French Embassy in Burkino Faso has classified the incident as a "terrorist attack." "Serious incidents happened this evening at around 20:30 in the perimeter of Kwame N'krumah Avenue, Cafe Cappuccino, Hotel Splendid," the embassy said in a statement. "In view of the circumstances, the Embassy of France recommends that you go to your home, avoiding the aforementioned perimeter." The Cappuccino cafe-restaurant across the street from the hotel has also reportedly been targeted. The Splendid is an upscale hotel popular with Westerners. The hotel is also sometimes used by French troops with Operation Barkhane, an anti-terror unit based in Chad. While it remains unclear who is behind the incident, Islamist militants have conducted similar attacks in neighboring Mali. Last November, militants left 20 people dead after storming the Radisson Blu hotel. Burkina Faso has also undergone turmoil since 2014, when its longtime president Blaise Compaore was overthrown. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend: Some 21 Kocaeli University academicians were detained on suspicion of propagandizing the terrorist organizations in the Turkish province of Izmit near Istanbul, the Turkish Sabah newspaper wrote Jan. 15. The names of the scholars who have actively opposed the military operations against the PKK in the south-east of Turkey are not disclosed. PKK, which is listed as a terrorist group by the UN and the EU, has in recent months become active in the south-east of Turkey as attacks on military units and police stations have increased. The conflict between Turkey and the PKK, which is demanding the creation of an independent Kurdish state, has been continuing for over 25 years and has claimed more than 40,000 lives. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu Germany and Turkey are to hold a joint mini-Cabinet meeting later this month with discussions to focus on terrorism in the aftermath of the Istanbul attack that killed ten Germans, officials said Friday, Anadolu Agency reported. The Jan. 22 meeting in Berlin will see senior ministers from Chancellor Angela Merkel and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's teams talk about common issues such as terror and the refugee crisis. "We will discuss all issues of common interest," German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said at a news conference. The Turkish delegation will include Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz, Interior Minister Efkan Ala, Economy Minister Mustafa Elitas and EU Minister Volkan Bozkir. Ankara and Berlin stepped up cooperation last year in the face of a growing refugee crisis, with nearly 1.1 million asylum seekers arriving in Germany and more than 2.4 million living in Turkey. Both countries share concerns over the conflict in Syria and the threat from Daesh, which has been identified by Davutoglu as being behind Tuesday's suicide bomb in Istanbul's tourist district. Germany is Turkey's main trading partner and is home to around 3 million ethnic Turks. German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer said on Friday that Berlin attached great importance to the meeting. "Beginning inter-governmental consultations with Turkey shows our interest in closer cooperation and this also shows Turkey's interest in enhancing relations with Germany," he told journalists. As well as Daesh, Turkey is concerned about support for PKK terrorists in Germany, where there are an estimated 14,000 PKK supporters, according to a recent report by Germany's domestic intelligence agency. Commenting on security operations in southeast Turkey, Schaefer said it was "totally legitimate to take measures against a terrorist organization" but called for "proportionality". The PKK - considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S., and EU - resumed its 30-year armed campaign against the Turkish state in late July. The Turkish government has demanded a sterner approach from Germany in tackling PKK propaganda and funding. Germany, which is home to around 700,000 Kurdish immigrants, outlawed the PKK in 1993. Pierre, Tea Area lives up to hype and more from HS football week nine WASHINGTONOn Jan. 15, Wikipedia officially celebrates 15 years as the Internets free encyclopedia, cataloguing humankinds achievements in real time and, more importantly, rescuing desperate students facing school assignment deadlines. In that time, it has hastened the end of Microsofts Encarta encyclopedia and supplanted Britannica as the dominant reference work in English. While the digital landscape has changed drastically over the last decade, Wikipedia has not, and still delivers that rare site that strives for neutrality and accuracy, all with no commercial advertisements. Its hard to overstate how influential Wikipedia has been, not just as a free alternative to traditional knowledge sources, but as a vanguard for maintaining and delivering up-to-date information. Each month, nearly 100,000 volunteers from around the world actively contribute content to Wikipedia so that anyone may freely read, copy or redistribute its articles. Dr. James Heilman, an emergency room doctor and a volunteer Wikipedia editor, found that it was the most turned-to source of information on the Internet during the height of the recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa. In the Journal of Medical Internet Research, he noted, Wikipedia appears to be the single most used website for health information globally, exceeding traffic observed at the National Institutes of Health, WebMD and the World Health Organization. With substantial editions in over 100 languages, it has become a critical educational resource in emerging markets ignored by traditional publishers. However, Wikipedia, now an online digital teenager, faces big questions about its identity and future direction. While its volunteer community emerged alongside blogs and MySpace two open web platforms that have dramatically declined in the last decade the encyclopedia continues to be relevant, timely and useful, even if its text-heavy front page looks old-fashioned compared to todays social media start-ups. Since its creation in 2001, Wikipedia has expanded beyond a simple encyclopedia to establish a greater Wikimedia movement that few people see but benefit from in profound, novel ways. The extension of the crowdsourced knowledge effort to media has spawned a range of projects, from the multimedia repository Wikimedia Commons to collaborations with world class international museums to the creation of Wikidata, the worlds largest shared open access database. Tell us Launched in 2012, Wikidata was designed to help Wikipedia structure 15 years worth of users text contributions into a database that allows for cross-referencing and linking to the outside world. By having precise technical descriptions of information in its database, Wikidata makes searching, filtering and joining collections of human knowledge possible on a massive scale. It has been so successful that Google canceled its own similar project, Freebase, to throw its support to Wikidata. In its announcement, the search giant noted the superiority of the Wikimedia project as a community-driven effort to collect and curate structured knowledge. With Wikidata acting as a central database hub on the Internet, the possibilities for cultural and educational institutions are staggering. A project called MixNMatch is already underway to use Wikidata as a hub that links museum collections. Prominent cultural institutions such as the Smithsonian, British Museum and the Getty Research Institute are joining their individual databases to Wikidata, thereby creating the ultimate directory what some have called, after Tolkien, one database to bind them. The evolution of Wikipedia beyond text-oriented articles can also be seen in efforts to add rich media, such as video and interactive content. Given the rise of video content on YouTube, Facebook and Vine, it is striking that video in Wikipedia is so sparse and low-quality, with only a fraction of a percent of its articles hosting moving images. The potential for watching dance, sport or artistic technique in video or having interactive gadgets to explore physics and civil engineering models is still untapped. Thats just talking about two dimensions. When it comes to the world of virtual reality and 3D objects, Wikipedia is even further behind. Overseeing the Wikimedia movements financial and legal issues is the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, based in San Francisco, which employs some 250 people in a variety of fundraising, outreach and engineering positions. One of the roles the foundation has taken up is to advocate for the readers and users of Wikipedia by better understanding who uses Wikipedia and how can the project can stay relevant to the public. The foundation even hosts monthly public metrics briefings by videoconference to evaluate trends and critical issues. Long-term problems, like how to address Wikipedias lack of women editors or how to reach more users in emerging economies are frequently discussed. But recently, the foundation has even more reasons to be concerned. Visitors to Wikipedia, as measured by pageviews and unique users, have traditionally placed the site among the most visited in the world. After more than a decade of year-on-year growth, those numbers have been flat for the last year, even as the number of Internet users is expanding globally. The lack of growth is a mystery, though this doesnt necessarily mean Wikipedias influence has waned. Google, for example, uses Wikipedia extensively in its search engine and Knowledge Graph project, displaying information gleaned from wiki pages directly in search results without requiring a user to visit Wikipedia. While this legitimate use of Wikipedias content fulfills its mission of delivering the sum of all human knowledge to the public, it also deprives it of a chance to engage potential editors or donors. Perhaps the biggest challenge exists in the rapidly-evolving computing landscape, with the dramatic shift towards mobiles as the dominant information device. A project by the Wikimedia Foundation called Wikipedia Zero has been successful in recognizing this, by convincing mobile network operators to waive data charges for users accessing Wikipedia from their handsets. For developing countries, this initiative has the potential to bring a tremendous learning resource to millions over the air for nothing more than the price of the device. Unfortunately for Wikipedia, this global trend toward mobile could have a dramatic effect on the sites volunteer contributions. Are people going to help edit text articles on mobile devices with tiny on-screen keyboards, or can the Wikimedia movement tap the potential of micro-contributions or use these multimedia-capable handsets for audio, video and photos from the crowd? Some of the answers depend on technological innovation and some on content innovation. Right now, the tension over the right approach is growing between the community of editors and the Wikimedia Foundations board of directors. The relationship of the board and the community has reached one of the most acrimonious points in Wikipedias history. A series of disputes has erupted over the last two years over who has the power to determine what technologies are deployed on Wikipedia, ranging from how images are displayed on articles to how to make Wikipedia easier to edit for newcomers. In a widely read blog post, Wikipedia veteran Liam Wyatt captured the frustration of many volunteer editors critical of the foundations engineering efforts, saying the board treats the nonprofit as a technology organisation in the style of a dot-com company, out of step with the staff and without the awareness of the community. In December 2015, volunteer editors were surprised when one of the three community-elected members on the 10-person board (the previously mentioned Dr. Heilman), was removed by a majority vote of the board members with minimal explanation. Adding to the tension, one week later the board appointed two Silicon Valley veterans, Kelly Battles and Arnnon Geshuri, to replace two outgoing board members whose terms were ending. The optics of appointing two relative outsiders while ousting a well-regarded community figure was jarring. Not long after board changes were announced, Wikipedias editing community found that Geshuri was associated with the high-profile do not poach hiring controversy in 2010 when he was an executive at Google. The Department of Justice later pursued an antitrust class action lawsuit that claimed Apple, Google, Intel and other technology firms mutually agreed not to recruit employees away from each other. His role in the case has alarmed many Wikipedia editors to the point that two former Wikimedia Foundation board members, both of whom served as chairs, have joined a community outcry opposing Geshuris appointment. To be fair, much of this tension goes unnoticed by the vast majority of Wikipedias volunteer editors, who are more interested in the actual task of writing encyclopedia articles. But the history of online communities has shown that long-term survival is difficult, and that confidence, once shaken, is hard to get back. In 1945, the scientist Vannevar Bush described a hypothetical memex device that would serve as a memory and index to all of the worlds information and communication. Wikipedia fulfills much of that original vision as a text reference for the worlds major languages, but there is much more work to do. Forward-looking projects in the Wikimedia movement, based in fields like interactive multimedia, 3-D content and collaborative video editing, will take technological know-how and new types of contributors. At the same time, however, technology is not enough to keep the Wikimedia movement moving forward. Ultimately, Wikipedia was started by and still relies on the efforts of human volunteers. It will only thrive for another 15 years if that community can work co-operatively with the Wikimedia Foundationand infighting doesnt splinter the movement. Andrew Lih is an associate professor of journalism at American University and the author of the book The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the Worlds Greatest Encyclopedia. SHARE: Amid the current abundance of watchable, nay addictive, TV series, theres Mozart in the Jungle. Tres, tres amusant. Its about love, hate, humour, misery and music in a fictional New York symphony orchestra. Two seasons of 10 bite-sized episodes are now up. Gael Garcia Bernal plays an adorable Mexican conductor, less modelled than 3D printed from Venezuelan Gustavo Dudamel, though the show omits Dudamels connection to the late Hugo Chavez, who embraced El Sistema, a Venezuela-based music program for poor kids. Malcolm McDowell plays The Old Maestro as an analogue rogue to the lawyer he created on the lamented (by me) series, Franklin and Bash. For those obsessed with why Canada has failed to participate in the explosion of quality episodic TV though countries as small as Denmark join in it suggests a solution: How about a series based on an institution of high culture like an orchestra? Oh wait, we did that and it worked! It was Slings & Arrows, about actors in a not even thinly disguised Stratford Shakespearean Festival. It had three six-hour seasons from 2003 to 2006. If you mention it to anyone who hasnt heard tell, a disgusted look spreads over them and they gasp. Canadian culture as premise? Yet its gripping, dark, funny, the characters draw you in and you start binge watching. David Simon, who created The Wire, said it gave him writer envy. The fact it wasnt more successful proves nothing. Lots of fine series didnt spread far. But theyre how you build a groundwork, on which other shows feed and grow. Why did it work? Culture workers like actors and writers know our cultural institutions intensely; they live and die with them. So it rang with artistic truth. But enough about culture about culture. Lets not avoid the overarching issue: cop shows, crime shows, anything with violence. Those are the grail. Why do we always fail? Its not for want of trying for 50 years, from Sidestreet and Night Heat to Flashpoint, Murdoch Mysteries, Republic of Doyle. Theyre not unwatchable but once you start, youre not compelled to stick with them or return. (Thats my experience, feel free to scoff.) Lets come at it from the other end: why do others succeed? At Christmas the BBC produced yet another version of Agatha Christies 1939 novel And Then There Were None. Everybody knows how it goes yet millions watched and loved it. The script adapter, who hadnt read it before, said she was shocked by its coldness and brutality. What do writers like Christie draw on to portray cold and brutal? Some of its surely personal, but some is larger. The UK is steeped in violence, from the coercion of other peoples into Great Britain (its English writers, not Irish or Scots, who write most of the crime stuff); then the empire and its bloody expansion. The class war at home, dispossessions of farmers. The U.S. too is drenched in violence its grimly aware of: from genocides of native peoples through slavery to Black Lives Matter. Denmark has its Viking past; Sweden, which also does copcult, has the Viking piece plus imperial wars. You write on violence with conviction when that past lives on in you somehow. Canada has its own history of violence, including two world wars. But since the 1950s theres been an effort to see ourselves as peacekeepers. I endorse that but what happened to the past? This is my problem with peacekeeping and tolerance as Canadian values. It makes them sound like part of our eternal nature rather than a new component weve chosen to try to construct now. In the process you lose or deny what was also part of you and to some extent still is. Denial rarely works out well. And this happens to be denial of the part that can be drawn on if you want to deal with crime and violence. You end up with crimefighters like Howard Engels amiable private eye, Benny Cooperman, who always orders egg salad sandwiches. Theres more real sense of violence in the staged Macbeth scenes in Slings & Arrows than in all the murders in Murdoch Mysteries or Company X (about World War Two) or The Romeo Sections cold cynicism. Those Stratford actors feel existential rage and despair as Canadian actors and they pour every bit into their play. Rick Salutins column appears Friday. ricksalutin@ca.inter.net SHARE: The Zhijin Cave is believed to be about half a million years old, and serves as an undisturbed habitat for a variety of boars, bats and serpents. (Photo : China Daily) Once believed by locals to be a portal that would transport people to the dwelling of a mountain god, the Zhijin Cave in Guizhou Province is now an awe-inspiring natural wonder frequented by adventure seekers, according to a report by China Daily. Advertisement Designated as a World Geology Park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in September last year, the Zhijin Cave is reported to be one of the largest karst caves in the world. Prior to a visit by a local tourism resource prospecting team in 1980, villagers from Minzhai village revered the "holy holes" as supernatural objects. A visit by the prospecting team led to the discovery of Zhijin Cave, which boasts a 5.5-million-cubic-meter chamber that spans 6.6 kilometers long. Meanwhile, some parts of the ceiling were recorded to be as high as 150 meters. The chamber's floors, wall-to-wall, spread up to 175 meters. The Zhijin Cave is believed to be about half a million years old, and serves as an undisturbed habitat for a variety of boars, bats and serpents. Further explorations of the subterranean wonder led to the discovery of over 40 types of karst formations, such as stalactites and stalagmites that measure more than a hundred meters. According to China Daily's report, water dropping from the ceiling lengthens the stalagmites' tips one millimeter per year. Some of the formations have been assigned appellations to local folklore or religion. Some visitors say that the cave is "a museum of Chinese caves." Aside from karst formations, Zhijin Cave is also home to an impressive watercourse which once was an underground river. The adventure is not done once the cave exploration is finished. Visitors are highly encouraged to explore the area, which is home to ethnic groups such as the Yi, Maio and Bouyei. Zhijin is approximately a two-hour bus ride from Guiyang, the provincial capital of Guizhou. The whole cave trek lasts for about two hours. Natural history is a different system compared with science, said Liu. Its about indigenous knowledge, the kind you gain from interacting with the world instead of lab results. (Photo : China Daily) Liu Huajie, a naturalist and professor at Peking University, says emotional attachment among todays youth can lead to the preservation of the environment, according to a report by China Daily. Advertisement The naturalist, who spoke at a salon titled "How could natural history rescue China from ecological crisis?" aims to educate his students to help them get to know the beauty of nature. China's environment is experiencing ecological woes brought about by several factors such as red tides, overgrazing, overuse of pesticides, deforestation, and most of all, smog, said Jiang Gaoming, a research from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. "If we carry on what we're doing, it might be just too late to solve the problem," Jiang said at the salon. "Natural history is a different system compared with science," said Liu. "It's about indigenous knowledge, the kind you gain from interacting with the world instead of lab results." "Nowadays, people give up much of their natural instincts and turn to scientific readings to understand nature. But firsthand knowledge is essential for survival," he added. "Besides, how can you expect someone brought up (exclusively) in urban, man-made forests of things to truly care for nature?" "Truth be told, I don't have a solution," said 49-year-old Liu, who teaches history of science at Peking University. "The problem with environment is staggering enough that not even the premier has an easy way to address it. That said, I believe natural history could contribute to ecological civilization, especially in the long run." Naturalists can help more people understand the natural history of the world, and as a result, connect with their natural surroundings on a deeper level. "Naturalists, with their understanding of and link to nature, will care for nature as it's part of their lives. They have a different mindset compared to what's prevalent these days," Liu said. China Island Dispute: Will China Heed the Warnings Of Japan To Stay Away From the Disputed Senkaku Islands? China has been warned by Japan not to intrude near the disputed Senkaku Islands. (Photo : Reuters) China has been warned by Japan not to intrude near the disputed Senkaku Islands. Japan has gone to the extent of sending its Self-Defence Force (SDF) ships so that the area could be patrolled and protected from the Chinese naval vessels, as reported by the Youmiuri newspaper on Tuesday this week. Advertisement The SDF ships are ready to take action if their warning is not headed and Chinese naval vessels are found within about 22 km of the Senkaku islands, even after being warned to leave the disputed islands. It was in November when Japan had issued the warning to China after it found that Chinese coast guard ships, armed with cannon like weapons, were seen near the island. The Chinese have renamed the island as Diaosyus, and both Japan and China claim ownership of the land, in spite of it not being inhabited. Both countries are aware of the need to maintain the diplomatic ties, as it is the Tokyo-Beijing diplomatic relationship has suffered as a result of China's claim over the island chains and territorial waters in the region. This dispute over Senkaku Island is not the sole clash as there have been others between China and other countries sharing the South China Sea coastline. Earlier, there have been disputes over the Spratly Islands and the Paracel Islands, which received international attention in recent years. According to reports, China's claims are deemed illegal, but then, this has backfired as the military build-up in the region by China prevents legal access to international waters and shipping lanes. It remains to be seen if China will honor the International laws which grant the right of passage of naval ships within other nations' territorial waters, as long as they don't pose a threat to security, or will it be as aggressive as ever in its quest to expand its territory. Cadillac Hybrid Built in China to Be Sold in the US Market The GM hybrid plug-in CT6, which was built in China, will be sold in the U.S. this year. (Photo : www.insideevs.com) General Motors Co. has announced that it will import the China-made plug-in hybrid version of the Cadillac CT6 luxury sedan to the U.S., barely two days after it unveiled its first new vehicle from Detroits Big 3, which was similarly imported from China, China Daily reported. Advertisement The report said that GM's plug-in hybrid CT6 will be made at a plant in China, although the company also plans to make the CT6 at a plant in Detroit. Sean McAlinden, vice president for strategic studies and chief economist at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan, said that the major reason why GM will build the plug-in hybrid CT6 in China is the expected small size of the potential market for the hybrid car. "Hybrid sales were off by 20 percent in the U.S. last year due to low gasoline prices (below $2 a gallon). So the hybrid CT6 would not sell well in the U.S. just like the hybrid Lexus models. We only need a few," McAlinden said. According to McAlinden, the Detroit plant where the CT6 will be built "will also start to produce the Chevrolet Camaro next year, which will fill out capacity at that plant." The report said that GM also plans to sell the plug-in hybrid CT6 in China. "Hybrids make great sense in China compared to electric vehicles because of the heavy use of coal to produce electricity," McAlinden said. The report said that the move to sell the two Chinese-made vehicles indicated that GM is confident in the quality of the products that are produced in China. "Longer term, we should see more of this because GM's Chinese operations have every capability required to provide cars for North America," said Eric Noble, president of CarLab, a consulting firm in Orange, California. "They would import here instead of from Europe because Chinese consumer tastes align more closely to American tastes than Europe's ever did." The report added that the new Lincoln Continental full-size sedan, unveiled by Ford Motor Co., GM's chief rival, on Tuesday, Jan. 12, at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, is scheduled to go on sale in the U.S. and China later this year. China is also expected to play a key role in Lincoln's revival of the Continental as part of a multiyear, multibillion-dollar comeback. "We believe there will be a sizable market for this vehicle in the U.S. and China," Lincoln spokesman Stephane Cesareo told China Daily in 2015, adding that the company expects to have 60 dealerships in the country by the end of 2016. "China represents a critical part of our strategy," Cesareo added. "Our goal is to develop a strong network of dealers in the country's major cities." Chinese Celebrate Lunar New Year (Photo : Getty Images) Four weeks ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year, netizens are having a blast at the symbol for the coming year - the Horse Month of the Monkey Year. The new year, also called Spring Festival, begins this year on Feb. 8 and will last until the Lantern Festival which falls on Feb. 23, according to The Telegraph. Advertisement The humor that users of Weibo and other social media sites in China are into is because that phrase, according to Chinese slang, is a date in the unforeseeable future. It's as good as saying things or events wished for in 2016 would likely not happen or would take a very long time before it takes place, explains Chinadaily. Among the things that Chinese netizens saw as having a slim chance of occurring are finding a girlfriend, writes Wei Lin De Cen, a microblogger. One reason behind that pessimism is the gender imbalance in China due to the three-decade-long one-child policy that resulted in males exceeding females by millions, which translates into many men having to resign to their fate of being bachelors for life. With China's economic slowdown, it would not be surprising that one microblogger wished for a salary increase this year, although the netizen concedes it is wishful thinking only. As the most important holiday in Chinese calendar fast approaches, views to a topic page on Sina Weibo, Twitter's equivalent in the Asian giant, dedicated to Huo Nian Ma Yue - the Chinese translation of the New Year zodiac sign symbol - has exceeded 60 million. Messages posted, meanwhile, has gone beyond the 70,000 mark. There are 12 animals designated each month in the Chinese zodiac. Each year, also on a 12-year cycle, has a different animal assigned, resulting in 2016 becoming the Horse Month of the Monkey Year. The gaggle of GOP presidential hopefuls took the stage tonight in the sixth (and seemingly billionth) debate. Tonight's debate in North Charleston, S.C., hosted by Fox Business Network and moderated by Fox anchors Neil Cavuto and Maria Bartiromo, kicked off at 9 p.m. ET. TheStreet covered tonight's GOP debate live on social media -- follow us at @TheStreet and @TSTPolitics on Twitter for videos, commentary, news and more. Hillary Clinton on the flat tax. Trump vs. Bush? Rupert Murdoch weighs in. On Cruz's "New York values" comment Gun control takes center stage. It's Donald Trump vs. Cruz. Sen. Ted Cruz takes shots at The New York Times. Gov. Chris Christie was full of one-liners. This quote garnered a roaring applause from the audience. Gov. Nikki Haley delivered the GOP response to Pres. Obama's speech on Tuesday. This is could be a huge issue tonight: And the tweets starting rolling in even before the debate. Did Carly Fiorina win the undercard debate? Sen. Rand Paul did not attend the undercard debate amid low poll numbers. NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Progress Software (PRGS) closed higher by 7.8% to $25.01 on Thursday afternoon, following a report suggesting the software solutions company is exploring a sale. The company is said to be considering a sale as part of a strategic review, sources told Reuters. Progress Software has been said to have already spoken with private equity firms regarding the possible deal. The company would face challenges to a leveraged buyout due to its debt markets, Reuters' sources added. There is always the possibility that the company's discussions will amount to no deal. However, if a deal were to go through Progress Software would be the latest in a series of business software companies to look into a sale, Reuters noted. Last year, several businesses chose to go private in an effort to ramp up their transition to cloud computing. Progress Software has a market capitalization of about $1.2 billion, according to Reuters. Separately, TheStreet Ratings has a "hold" rating and score of C on Progress Software stock. The primary factors that have impacted the rating are mixed - some indicating strength, some showing weaknesses, with little evidence to justify the expectation of either a positive or negative performance for this stock relative to most other stocks. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures and expanding profit margins. However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including deteriorating net income, disappointing return on equity and weak operating cash flow. TheStreet Ratings objectively rated this stock according to its "risk-adjusted" total return prospect over a 12-month investment horizon. Not based on the news in any given day, the rating may differ from Jim Cramer's view or that of this articles's author. You can view the full analysis from the report here: PRGS PRGS data by YCharts Ted Cruz knows he may not be the guy you want to have a beer with, but maybe you do. Political pundits have long floated the idea that American voters tend to lean toward White House contenders they wouldn't mind having a cold one with. In 2004, Democrats pointed to that likeability factor as an explanation for George W. Bush's reelection, and in 2012, Republicans pondered the same when Barack Obama won a second term. So, out of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Texas Senator Ted Cruz,Ohio Governor John Kasich, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump, who would you rather have a beer with? In the current GOP field, some contenders may fit the drinking buddy role better than others. Unfortunately, two who fit the bill won't be in the debate tonight. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham in a September debate joked, "That's the first think I'm going to do as president -- we're gonna drink more." He's no longer in the race. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who is sitting tonight's debate out, sipped bourbon during an appearance this week on "The Daily Show" with Trevor Noah. Luckily, in the crowded GOP field -- and in the seven-man debate Thursday night -- voters still have their fair share of options to pick from as their favorite drinking buddy. Who among tonight's Republican presidential debate participants would you rather have sitting next to you at the bar? Remember, Donald Trump doesn't drink. If you missed Thursday night's Republican debate, you might not know that Ben Carson is "everybody", John Kasich thinks Bernie Sanders is a joke, and Donald Trump has friends who buy tractors in Japan -- three of the most important moments from the battle; here are six more. The showdown, hosted by Fox Business Network in North Charleston, S.C. was the feistiest such event of the election cycle so far. The candidates' contempt for one another came out on more than one occasion, and with the first primaries just a couple of weeks away, it's obvious the pressure is on. President Obama's final State of the Union address, delivered Tuesday, was clearly fresh in the minds of the GOP contenders. Candidates minced no words in their respective assessments of Obama's record; take New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who called him a "petulant child" and threatened to "kick [his] rear end out of the White House" come the fall. Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton was the target of numerous attacks as well, with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush characterizing the idea of her candidacy as a "national security disaster." The Republican presidential contenders will debate one more time before voters gather for the Iowa caucus. The next GOP showdown will be on Thursday, January 28 on Fox News. Until then, catch six of the biggest moments of last night's event. 1. Trump Contemplates Losing Think Trump has a confidence problem? Not likely, but he did show the world on Thursday that he's thought about what happens if he loses the primary race. When Ted Cruz extended the invitation to consider Trump for his VP slot when he wins the nomination, the businessman spurned the offer. "I'll go back to building buildings if it doesn't work out," he said. Trump has a plan, too, for if he manages to capture the White House in November. When asked whether he would put his multi-billion-dollar fortune into a blind trust (a requirement for all presidents when it comes to managing their wealth while in office), Trump said he would, adding that he already knows who he would leave his business to -- his children, Donald, Eric and Ivanka. And he wouldn't have any qualms about giving his empire up. It's a plan he's been touting since flirting with candidacy in April 2015. "I'm proud of my company, but if I become president, I couldn't care less about my company. It's peanuts," he said. 2. Cruz Answers Tough Questions on Campaign Loans and His Canadian Birth Heading into Thursday evening, there was little doubt that Ted Cruz was going to have to answer some tough questions. Debate moderators Neil Cavuto and Maria Bartiromo wasted no time in getting to it. One of the first question for the Texas senator Thursday was about a New York Times pieceWednesday reporting that he had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in improperly disclosed loans from Goldman Sachs and Citibank to fund his 2012 Senate bid. Cruz, ever the savvy debater, used the opportunity to attack the media, a favorite (and successful) move for candidates. "Thank you for passing on that hit piece on the front page of The New York Times. You know, the nice thing about the mainstream media, they don't hide their views," he said, explaining that he and the publication "don't exactly have the warmest of relationships." He then wrote the failure to disclose the money off as a paperwork error, concluding, "If that's the best hit The New York Times has got, they better go back to the well." But he wasn't off the hook. The next topic up for discussion: whether he is even qualified to run for the office of the presidency due to his Canadian birth. The subject was discussed for a long time at the debate and provided some of the most fiery exchanges. Trump has called into question whether Cruz, who was born to an American mother and Cuban father in Canada, fits the natural-born citizen bill required of the president of the United States. Cruz called foul on the billionaire's comments, saying that in September of last year, Trump said publicly that his lawyers had looked into the issue and had no qualms. His argument: Trump's decision to bring up the issue has more to do with his rising poll numbers, not law. "Since September, the Constitution hasn't changed, but the poll numbers have," said Cruz, who has ascended steadily in the polls in recent weeks. Trump acknowledged that Cruz's rise in public opinion has, in fact, influenced his latest maneuver. "Because now he's doing a little bit better. I didn't care before," he said. Trump's logic was that Cruz will be sued if he gets the nomination and that the Republican party shouldn't take a chance with that. 3. Rubio Fights Christie and Cruz Florida Senator Marco Rubio was called to answer for a laundry list of critiques of the New Jersey governor, including his support of the common core, gun control and Planned Parenthood, that he ran in an attack ad. While he fell short of calling Christie a liberal out-right, he cast him as a too-left-leaning politician. Christie got his revenge later in the evening, when forcefully taking over after the senator spent several minutes battling with Cruz over taxes in a long and confusing stretch of the debate. The moment was one of the most talked about on Twitter when it happened. Perhaps Rubio was trying too hard to attack Cruz, spitting off numerous condemnations of the Texas senator's tax plan. He criticized the idea of a "value-added tax," which he said would actually raise taxes, and essentially accused him of trickery in claiming he would abolish the IRS (as he pointed out, somebody has to collect taxes, no matter how simple the tax code is or how low taxes are). When all is said and done, under Cruz's tax proposal, he said, "Now you got Europe." Notice something missing? No Rand Paul 4. "We Want Rand!" Kentucky Senator Rand Paul was a no-show Thursday. After being relegated to the undercard debate by Fox Business Network, the libertarian refused to take part in the event at all. But his presence was still felt. A chant broke out in the middle of Thursday's primetime debate, with a handful of the members of the audience shouting, "We want Rand!" The Kentucky Senator surely heard the chants as he watched the event unfold and participated from a distance. In recent days, Paul has made numerous media appearances, even stopping by "The Daily Show" to drink bourbon and do his own singles debate with Trevor Noah. He raised money and interacted with supporters via Twitter, employing the hashtag #RandRally to spur support. He also had some fun things to say. 5. China, China, China Cruz isn't the only one with a problem with the Times -- Trump isn't a fan either. The billionaire businessman said that the publication had lied in quoting him as saying he would favor a 45% tariff on Chinese exports to the United States. And then he had much more to say about the country, one of his favorite talking points. He blamed China for problems with North Korea, saying, "Without China, North Korea doesn't even eat." He then reiterated his position on the country, accusing it of unfairly devaluing its currency to kill American companies and cheat on trade. He claimed the United States has lost four-to-seven million jobs because of China and claimed we also have a $505 billion trade deficit with the nation. While he denied the Times' claim that he would put a 45% tariff on Chinese goods, he said he wouldn't rule a similar measure out. "I'm totally open to a tariff," he said, though he clarified that he loves China and the Chinese people. Ohio Governor Kasich jumped onto Trump's China bandwagon, saying the former reality television star is right about North Korea and about the need for America to stand up for itself in trade agreements and in keeping American jobs. "I think we should be for free trade, but I think fair trade. And when countries violate trade agreements or dump products in this country, we need, we need to stand up against those countries that do that without making them into an enemy," he said. Rubio tackled the China issue as well but took a different angle. While he acknowledged that everyone is "frustrated" with what China is doing, he noted that high tariffs may have some unintended consequences and leave Americans paying more. "China doesn't pay the tariff, the buyer pays the tariff," he said. 6. Where Was Ben Carson? The ever-reserved retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson didn't show any more energy Thursday night than in previous debates. Speaking for less time than any other candidate and less than half of how much Trump or Cruz spoke, it was at times easy to forget he was there. But, he did get one joke in: Speaking of absentee candidates, can you spot in this article where we mentioned former Florida Governor Jeb Bush? If you're having trouble, ask yourself, is that a good thing for his candidacy? First Two Weeks of 2016 Saw Rising Tensions in Asia The situation in the Korean Peninsula is particularly sensitive, as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) launched a nuclear test recently. (Photo : Getty Images) Tensions have been rising in different parts of Asia ever since 2016 started, China Daily reported. North Korea performed a nuclear test, the United States flew a nuclear-capable B-52 bomber over the Korean Peninsula, and Japan is boosting its military presence in the South China Sea. Advertisement Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in a statement last Wednesday that "hopefully, relevant countries will act cautiously and properly tackle the issue." "As one country seeks its own security, it must consider the security interests of other countries as well as the peace and stability of the region," Hong added. The situation in the Korean Peninsula is particularly sensitive, as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) launched a nuclear test recently. As a response, the U.S. sent a nuclear-capable B-52 bomber over South Korean airspace on Sunday, Jan. 10. According to a report by Korea Herald, Republic of Korea (ROK) President Park Geun-hye said in her New Year's address on Tuesday, Jan. 12, that they will be reviewing an advanced missile defense system due to the nuclear and missile threat from the DPRK. ROK and the U.S. are also working on additional deployment of "strategic assets," said ROK spokesman Kim Min-Seok, to control the rising tension in East Asia. Meanwhile, in the Philippines, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) strongly opposed the declaration of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement as constitutional by the Supreme Court of the Philippines. Bayan secretary-general Renato Reyes Jr. said that it was "another sad day for Philippine sovereignty." "The decision will pave the way for the construction of new U.S. military facilities in different parts of the country," he said in an interview with The Manila Times. Japan is also boosting its presence in the South China Sea by forging strengthened relations with nations like Vietnam and the Philippines, both of which have territorial disputes with China. Experts suggest that China should respond with appropriate measures in case of future provocations by Japan. Editor's pick: Originally published Jan. 15. The new year hasn't exactly brought glad tidings to the oil and gas industry. Oil prices briefly fell below a key threshold of $30 per barrel on Tuesday, prices not seen in 12 years. Royal Bank of Scotland analyst Andrew Roberts forecast in a doomsday report that Brent oil could fall further to $16 in the first quarter as demand drops and the world runs out of ships in which to store it. Last week Chevron (CVX) announced it was laying off 7,000 people, and BP (BP) followed up this week with 4,000. "Even the strongest names, with the highest multiples, are starting to see some weakness," Wunderlich Securities analyst Jason Wangler wrote in a report this week titled No Fun in Energy. Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Fadel Gheit added to the malaise, predicting on CNBC that half of all U.S. shale producers will be forced into Chapter 11. "The longer oil prices remain low, the more companies are likely to file for bankruptcy," he told The Deal, the most vulnerable being those with debt ratios above 40% and high break-even points. An alternative? How about getting hitched? By combining assets, companies could cut duplicative functions, benefit from economies of scale and be better able to tap the capital markets. A lot of folks were expecting a flood of corporate mergers and acquisitions in the sector last year. But the banks ended up going easy on oil and gas companies during loan re-determination time and companies were able to tap the capital markets in the first half of last year, which allowed them to live another day without having to sell assets or themselves. As a result, M&A in the industry was down almost a quarter last year to $143 billion, according to figures out this week from data provider IHS. Analysis by oil and gas research firm Wood Mackenzie shows that 2015 was the slowest year for M&A in the sector in over a decade, with spending on deals collapsing by two-thirds, not including Royal Dutch Shell's (RDS.A) mammoth $82 billion purchase of BG Group. With asset sales bringing in little money and financing options only available to the stealthy going forward, expect to see more combinations. Gabriele Sorbara, an analyst at Topeka Capital Markets, thinks West Texas' and New Mexico's Permian Basin in particular will yield more M&A. His top takeout candidates include under-leveraged, high-quality names including Energen (EGN) , Diamondback Energy (FANG) , Parsley Energy (PE) , Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD) and Cimarex Energy (XEC) . He thinks mergers of equals will be common, such as a possible combination between Concho Resources (CXO) and Cimarex. Analysts at Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. say excess costs have built up among five small companies operating in West Texas' Midland Basin, including Energen, Diamondback, Parsley, Laredo Petroleum (LPI) and RSP Permian (RSPP) , compared with larger competitors such as Concho and Cimarex, which could lead to some combinations. They think Energen and Laredo are the most likely takeout candidates in the group given their under-capitalized drilling programs and potential synergistic cost cuts, as Diamondback and RSP have the most lean overhead. "Corporate consolidation cannot be ruled out," they said. Christopher Sheehan, director of energy M&A research at IHS, said oil and gas producers with heavy debt burdens and hedges rolling off this year will become increasingly vulnerable and will either have to dispose of prized assets, face serious restructuring, including the potential for bankruptcy, or become takeover targets. Indeed, the firm's database is tracking more than $200 billion worth of oil and gas property and corporate opportunities that have the potential to transform the portfolios of stronger players. "The volume of global assets for sale and companies under financial duress are surging as oil prices continue to be subdued," he says. Wood Mackenzie thinks upstream oil and gas deal activity is set to ramp up this year regardless of what happens to oil prices, with low prices leading distressed players to sell assets and maybe themselves to survive and rising prices leading companies to make deals before inflation sets in. Says M&A analyst Greig Aitken: "As we saw in [the second quarter of] 2015, when sentiment takes hold that oil prices are on the path to recovery, M&A activity can pick up quickly." Bring it on. NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- CONSOL Energy (CNX) stock is down by 6.23% to $5.27 in mid-morning trading on Friday, as oil prices sink today. Oil prices are retreating on expectations that Iran will increase its oil production when sanctions against the country are lifted, Reuters reports. Sanctions could be lifted in the next few days. "In the very short term, another price drop cannot be excluded in particular after sanctions against Iran are being lifted," Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch told Reuters Global Oil Forum. "That means a drop towards $25 is quite possible, but not much lower than that." Crude oil (WTI) is declining by 5.51% to $29.48 per barrel and Brent oil is down by 4.44% to $29.51 per barrel, according to the CNBC.com index. Based in Canonsburg, PA, CONSOL is an oil and gas exploration and production and coal mining company. Separately, recently, TheStreet Ratings rated this stock as a "sell" with a ratings score of D. The company's return on equity has greatly decreased when compared to its ROE from the same quarter one year prior. Compared to other companies in the Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels industry and the overall market, CONSOL ENERGY INC's return on equity significantly trails that of both the industry average and the S&P 500. Though the company has demonstrated a pattern of positive earnings per share growth over the past year, we anticipate underperformance relative to this pattern in the coming year. TheStreet Ratings objectively rated this stock according to its "risk-adjusted" total return prospect over a 12-month investment horizon. Not based on the news in any given day, the rating may differ from Jim Cramer's view or that of this articles's author. You can view the full analysis from the report here: CNX CNX data by YCharts Editor's pick: Originally published Jan. 15. "Illegal immigration is beyond belief," declared Donald Trump at the sixth Republican presidential primary debate on Thursday evening. He's got a plan to fix it, though the ramifications might not be all that great for the economy. Tackling immigration has been among the billionaire businessman's top priorities in his presidential bid. He first made waves on the issue in his campaign announcement speech in June, calling Mexican immigrants criminals and rapists and pledging to build a wall on the southern border. His plans have cost him a handful of business deals, but they might cost the United States much more. The American Action Forum, a right-leaning policy institute based in Washington D.C., estimates that immediately and fully enforcing current immigration law, as Trump has suggested, would cost the federal government from $400 billion to $600 billion. It would shrink the labor force by 11 million workers, reduce the real GDP by $1.6 trillion and take 20 years to complete (Trump has said he could do it in 18 months). "It will harm the U.S. economy," said Doug Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum and chief economic policy adviser to Sen. John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, in an October interview. "Immigration is an enormous source of economic vitality." A number of industries that depend heavily on cheap immigrant labor would be devastated -- especially agriculture. "There would be an abrupt drop in farm income and a sharp rise in food prices," said John McLaren, professor of economics at the University of Virginia with expertise in international trade, economic development and the political economy. Companies that sell to the immigrant population would be affected as well, leading to decreased revenues for local businesses and a loss of American jobs. "Immigrants, whether they are legal or illegal, always spend a portion of their earnings in the location where they have their jobs," McLaren said. "And in a lot of our urban centers, this is actually an important part of the economy." Ted Cruz has argued that illegal immigration drives down wages, but that is generally not the case. According to an April 2015 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, the opposite happens, and local real wages often rise. Moreover, on average, each immigrant generates 1.2 local jobs for local workers, most of which are native-born Americans. "Obviously, those jobs would disappear if the undocumented were just yanked away," McLaren said. On Thursday, Trump appeared to link illegal immigration to the national debt, though the exact relationship wasn't clear. "We are $19 trillion -- our country's a mess and we can't let all these people come into our country and break our borders. We can't do it," he said. Of course, Trump's criticism of the U.S. immigration system isn't strictly tied to wages, the loss of American jobs or the economy at all -- it is also focused on Muslim immigration and the threat of terrorism. On Thursday, he appeared more interested in discussing the latter. When asked why moderator Maria Bartiromo whether he would consider rethinking his proposal that Muslim immigration be brought to a halt, he stuck to his guns and again refused to back down. "Look, we have to stop with the political correctness," he said. "We have to get down to creating a country that's not going to have the kind of problems that we've had with people flying planes into the World Trade Centers, with the -- with the shootings in California, with all the problems all over the world." He reiterated his assertion that "we have to find out what's going on" and emphasized that he has banned a temporary stop, not permanent. Trump's plans may be momentary, but some say the impact of his over-the-top rhetoric on immigration could be long-lasting and do irreversible damage to the American image. "What's the American brand after we've rounded up 11 million people and sent them packing?" said Jim Pethokoukis, a columnist at the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank based on Washington, D.C. "Do people still view America the same way?" NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Transocean (RIG) are plunging by 7.78% to $9.72 on Friday morning, as oil prices fall below $30 per barrel. Crude oil (WTI) is nosediving by 5.38% to $29.52 per barrel this morning and Brent crude is sinking by 4.7% to $29.43 per barrel, according to the CNBC.com index. The price of the commodity pulled major stock markets around the world lower on concerns of a global slowdown, as the growing oil oversupply continues and investors seek a safe haven in assets such as gold, Reuters reports. Additionally, oil prices are falling on anticipations that Iran will boost oil exports after sanctions are removed, which could occur in the next few days, Reuters noted. "Oil is deeply oversold. The stock market is deeply oversold. The inability for the market to rally from deeply oversold conditions clearly tells you how weak the market is," Adam Sarhan, chief executive of Sarhan Capital told Reuters. Transocean is a Switzerland-based provider of offshore contract drilling services for oil and gas wells. Separately, TheStreet Ratings Team has a "sell" rating and score of D+ on Transocean. The company's weaknesses can be seen in multiple areas, such as its weak operating cash flow and generally disappointing historical performance in the stock itself. You can view the full analysis from the report here: RIG Recently, TheStreet Ratings objectively rated this stock according to its "risk-adjusted" total return prospect over a 12-month investment horizon. Not based on the news in any given day, the rating may differ from Jim Cramer's view or that of this articles's author. RIG data by YCharts Editor's pick: Originally published Jan. 15. Honda (HMC) this week took the wraps off the new-generation Ridgeline, a medium-sized pickup truck that actually looks like a pickup truck. That opinion of the new Ridgeline's styling may sound like damning with faint praise, though Honda would be the first to concede its initial try at a pickup truck in 2005 failed rather miserably, mostly because of its looks. Indeed, that Honda Ridgeline turned out to be such a flop that the automaker discontinued it altogether two years ago. But the new Ridgeline, with much more conventional styling, could do far better. It goes on sale later this year. The top three Japanese automakers collectively have secured only a tiny chunk of the U.S. pickup market, the only important automotive category in which the Japanese industry hasn't become prominent. Yet Honda, Toyota (TM) and Nissan (NSANY) keep plugging away, attracted by the chance to partake of outsize profit margins from the bigger vehicles. Referring to research about shoppers who passed on the previous pickup, Jeff Conrad, senior vice president of the Honda division said: "They said, 'You know ... I want an innovative truck but I can't get by the styling.' So we changed that. And we said, 'Hey the pickup truck segment likes a traditional look,' so we gave this a traditional look." Ford (F) , General Motors (GM) and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCAU) each earn a sizable percentage, if not a majority, of their profits from full-size and medium-size pickups. They've dominated the segment because they've devoted their best engineering and marketing talent into designing highly rated, exceptionally able models, and because their customers tend to be highly loyal, returning again and again to the Ford, Chevrolet or Ram brands. Honda, a conservative automaker that has never -- that's correct, never -- posted an annual loss, nevertheless sees potential in the U.S. pickup market, as do its two Japanese rivals. Last year, Toyota introduced a new version of its popular Tacoma medium-size pickup, and Nissan has a new generation full-size pickup coming later this year. Still, within the full-size category, where Honda doesn't have an entry, Toyota and Nissan together captured less than 10% of the U.S. market last year. In the midsize pickup category, which is a fraction of the full-size segment, Toyota and Nissan Frontier dominate with more than half the sales, but GM is coming up fast with its Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon models. Ford has said it's reviving its midsize Ranger in a few years. The pickup truck is an idiosyncratic, fuel-hungry (compared to cars) facet of American culture. Nowhere else in the world is there consumer affection for such vehicles as in North America, which has probably been a lucky thing for the U.S. auto industry. Doron Levin is the host of "In the Driver Seat," broadcast on SiriusXM Insight 121, Saturday at noon, encore Sunday at 9 a.m. This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held no positions in the stocks mentioned. Reda has been providing high-quality fabric to prestigious fashion houses since 1865. (Photo : rembrandt.co.nz) Top Italian fabric brand Reda is trying to tap into the Chinese market, which holds great potential for business, according to a report by China Daily. The premium fabric brand recently showcased its latest collection for Winter 2017 in Beijing. The show was heavily inspired by three factors: the paintings of great Spanish painter Diego Velazquez, the Edwardian Age, and the Bloomsbury Group. Advertisement As a result, Reda's fabrics featured rich earth tones of green, brown and gray, infused with bright pops of blues and pinks for a livelier effect. Reda has been providing high-quality fabric to prestigious fashion houses since 1865. The brand counts Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, and Ermenegildo Zegna as some of its most loyal clients. That market is about to change, however, as Reda enters the Chinese market. More and more Chinese designers and manufacturers are looking for classic made-in-Italy fabrics, according to Fabrizio Alessandro Goggi, Reda's global communications director. "Young designers and Chinese fashion are really trendy. They need something soft and classic to be the sustainable base for their creations," Goggi said in an interview with China Daily. For Reda, the quality of the fabric is one of the most important building blocks of a great design. "What they are looking for is something they can rely on. As their creations are sometimes really extravagant or even crazy, they need solid fabric in order to create what they want. And only fabrics of good quality can work." Reda has already worked with Xander Zhou, an emerging Chinese designer, a few years ago. "This was just the beginning. Next year we would like to find someone else who can express not only the quality of the fabric but also his (or her) own ideas," said Goggi. The first step toward this direction is working with Shanghai Fashion Week in order to support local designers. "The real designer is not the one who creates the best dress or the best suit, but the one who uses both creativity and technique and mixes them," Goggi added. NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Toll Brothers (TOL) are down in afternoon trading on Friday, continuing to decline a week after the company fell to a new 52-week low. The company was initiated with a BBB- credit rating by Morningstar today. The rating suggests that the home builder has a moderate default risk. The company's price target was also lowered, to $40 from $43, by analysts at JPMorgan Chase (JPM) on Wednesday. Argus Research company disagreed with JPMorgan when they wrote that the company was poised for growth in 2016 due to the company's own guidance of solid home deliveries in 2016. "Toll is the largest homebuilder serving the luxury market. We believe that Toll's access to capital is an advantage over small and mid-sized builders that are privately owned. The company's strength could have additional value in an environment where very selective lenders serve the homebuilding industry [...] We continue to expect strong revenue and earnings growth to drive share price appreciation over the next two years," said analysts at the firm, rating the company a "buy" with a $43 price target. However, TheStreet Ratings downgraded the company's stock to "hold" from "buy," while also lowering its letter grade to C+ from B-. TheStreet identified multiple strengths in the company, including its growth in earnings per share, revenue growth and largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures. However, as a counter to these strengths, TheStreet also finds weaknesses, including disappointing return on equity, weak operating cash flow and a generally disappointing performance in the stock itself. TheStreet's chartist Bruce Kamich commented on Toll today. "Shares of TOL, chart above, traded sideways-to-lower in 2015, and the declines have sped up in the new year. The November rally was the last upside attempt where TOL made a higher price high versus October, but the On-Balance-Volume (OBV) line made a lower high for a bearish divergence. Prices also failed at the 200-day moving average," Kamich wrote. "In this longer-term chart of TOL, above, you need to see how important the $30 level is. The $30 level held in late 2012, held in 2013 and held again in 2014. The OBV line and the Moving Average Convergence Divergence oscillator are pointing to further weakness on this time frame. A weekly close below $30 is likely to precipitate further losses to the $25 area, maybe even the $20 area," Kamich concluded. Updated to include comments from Jim Cramer. Chipotle (CMG) employees and investors may be in need of a little morale boost after months of unfortunate headlines that have badly hurt sales and sent the company's stock price plunging. As execs disclosed at the ICR Conference this week, Chipotle will shut all of its more than 1,900 restaurants on Feb. 8 for a few hours in the morning to hold an employee powwow of sorts. Employees from across the globe will be linked together via satellites. Leading the meeting? None other than Chipotle's founder and co-CEO Steve Ells, who is scheduled to "thank" and "encourage" employees, as well discuss upcoming changes to operations, according to comments made at the presentation. "We're excited about the opportunity to talk directly to all of our employees, who are doing such an awesome job," said Chipotle co-CEO Monty Moran sitting on a stage next to Ells and CFO Jeff Hartung. Moran, who created what Chipotle calls its "people culture," was quick to point out that Chipotle employees aren't exactly depressed despite the barrage of news related to people getting sick from E.Coli and norovirus. "The morale in our stores is actually very, very high," Moran said. "I've gotten a number of emails, actually hundreds, just spontaneously from our managers, sort of saying, hey, these procedures you're implementing, they make sense -- we're really pleased with how upbeat and eager our top performers in our restaurants are to tackle this challenge." Jim Cramer, portfolio manager of the Action Alerts PLUS Charitable Trust Portfolio, noted that "Chipotle is under pressure-why? Because they're going to close their stores for a little while February 8, they want to get their safety concerns down. I think that's terrific. But the stock has roared almost 20% since they said that things aren't so bad." Exclusive Look Inside: You see Jim Cramer on TV. Now, see where he invests his money and why. Learn more now. As TheStreetsuggested on Dec. 11, closing the restaurants for a day would help Chipotle to go on the offensive with its set of new food safety initiatives and re-energize faithful Chipotle workers. Closing stores en masse to improve operations and signal to customers how important getting things right is was a maneuver used successfully by the ultimate restaurateur around -- Starbucks (SBUX) founder Howard Schultz. When the energetic Schultz returned to Starbucks (an Action Alerts PLUS holding) as CEO in 2008, he closed all locations down for over three hours one evening so that workers could be retrained. Schultz had hated how Starbucks was serving up coffee; it had become a commoditized experience. The tactic was unheard of at the time, but it worked. The coffee giant was able to remind the public why Starbucks was great, while resetting the mindset of slacking employees. Since Starbucks shut its doors on Feb. 28, 2008, sales and earnings have recovered, and the stock has surged 533%. Chipotle likely has a tougher road back from an E.Coli outbreak than Starbucks trying to bounce back from consistently serving sub-par coffee. Still, Feb. 8 could mark the start of Chipotle's gradual recovery. A Siberian tiger lies on the snow in its enclosure at the Siberian Tiger Park in Harbin, China, on Jan. 6, 2014. (Photo : Getty Images) Jilin Provinces forestry bureau has reported finding paw prints made by an endangered Siberian tiger near the city of Jiaohe on Dec. 11, 2015, China Daily reported on Tuesday. The tracks were discovered at the Shengle forest farm, which is located in between two of the world's largest Siberian tiger habitats. Based on the animal's stride, the tiger is estimated to be around 2 meters tall, according to the bureau. Advertisement On Dec. 14-19, rangers tracking and monitoring the area around the farm found urine and hair samples as well as the carcasses of two wild boars. "The big one [boar] was almost completely eaten, leaving only bones, and the smaller one was half eaten," China Daily reported, quoting one of the rangers. Aside from the boar, the rangers also reported finding tracks of roe deer, a favorite prey of the tiger. Wu Zhigang, an official of the Jilin forest research institute, said that signs of the Siberian tiger are a good indication that the species has grown rapidly in number with 27 already under monitoring. Also known as the Amur or Manchurian tiger, Siberian tigers mainly live in eastern Russia, northeast China and the northern part of the Korean peninsula. According to official estimates, the number of tigers living in the wild is only around 500, with around a dozen living in nearby Heilongjiang Province. The forest bureau said it will continue to monitor the area for additional evidence of the Siberian tiger. Tiger populations in northeast China have risen in recent years, thanks to increased conservation efforts by the government and the shift from hunting the endangered big cats to protecting them by villagers in the region. According to experts from the World Wide Fund for Nature, the Wildlife Conservation Society, Northeast Normal University in Changchun, wildlife NGO KORA and the University of Montana, around 130 Siberian tigers can be accommodated in habitats across northeast China. 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. A mourner cries at the funeral of Lokman Acikgoz and his two sons in Cinar, in the mostly-Kurdish Diyarbakir province in southeastern Turkey, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016. The members of the family were among several people killed late Wednesday when Kurdish militants detonated a car bomb at a police station in Cinar. The force of the blast caused their house, which was near the station, to collapse. Clashes between Turkey's security forces and the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, reignited in July 2015, shattering a fragile peace process. (AP Photo/Dominique Sequel) Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Pensacola Bay Center in Pensacola, Fla., Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Michael Snyder) In this Jan. 14, 20166 file photo, Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks during the presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum in North Charleston, S.C. Cruz has said that after working on George W. Bushs 2000 campaign, being passed over for a senior position with the new administration was a crushing blow. Cruz was offered a job as White House associate counsel shortly after Al Gore conceded the race in December, but he rejected it, members of the Bush transition team told The Associated Press. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton, File) Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi speaks at the 2016 First G20 Sherpa Meeting in Beijing on Jan. 14, 2016, as part of preparations for the G20 summit to be held in Hangzhou in September. (Photo : www.zimbio.com) China is set to take a bigger role as it prepares to host the G20 summit in September, with the aim to contribute more to establishing global economic rules, observers said. China Daily reported that the observation was made during the First G20 Sherpa Meeting in Beijing on Thursday, Jan. 14, a three-day gathering attended by senior officials as part of the run-up to the summit in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. Advertisement In his address during the opening session, State Councilor Yang Jiechi said that one of China's goals for hosting the summit this year is to boost the G20's role from being a mechanism to tackle crises to one that exercises long-term, effective management. Yang said that the G20 must realize that successful transformation and its achievements in addressing new global economic challenges "concerns the overall development of all the member states and influences the very interests of all countries in the world." Yang noted that the G20 will play a leading role by showcasing its goals and outlining the directions for world economic development and international economic cooperation. The G20 is expected to draw up rules and indicators and monitor and check their implementation by providing benchmarks for assessing cooperation, Yang said. Chen Fengying, a senior researcher of the world economy at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said that a shift in the G20's role will help "address both root causes and symptoms." Chen noted that the G20 represents nearly 90 percent of the global economy's volume and 80 percent of international trade. The researcher said that in addition to making its voice heard on the global stage, China has also begun to offer more initiatives. Huang Wei, a researcher of global economic governance at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that China's unique philosophy and its own "rhythms of exercising economic governance" provide the basis for its latest initiatives and proposed measures. "Given the global governance interest . . . the developing countries--including the emerging economies--have received some response to their pursuits, but this is far from enough. So we need to do more in this regard," Huang said. According to the report, this year's G20 Summit will be held on Sept. 4 and 5 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. The report said that four Sherpa Meetings will convene before the summit to prepare for it and one afterward for follow-up work. These include the following meetings: Jan. 13-15: First Sherpa Meeting, Beijing April 6-8: Second Sherpa Meeting, Guangzhou June 23-25: Third Sherpa Meeting, Xiamen Early September: Fourth Sherpa Meeting, Hangzhou Late October / early November: Fifth Sherpa Meeting, Wuhan Meetings for finance ministers and central bank governors will also be held for the financial agenda. The dates and locations of the meetings are: Feb. 26-27: First meeting, Shanghai April 13-14: Second meeting, Washington, D.C. July 23-24: Third meeting, Chengdu Oct. 6: Finance ministers and central bank governors working dinner, Washington D.C. Meetings of trade, employment, energy and agriculture ministers and the working groups will be held separately during the summit. Patnaik's close aides say that to understand him, one has to understand his empathy By Pratul Sharma/Photos Sanjay Ahlawat [ COMMUNICATED CONTENT] Rochester, NY is an out of town community where Middos and Limud HaTorah are the focal point. Located in Western NY between Buffalo and Syracuse, being part of our close-knit kehilla means that you are not just another face in the crowd. Additionally, our community is only a 3 hour drive from Toronto and 4.5 hours from Monsey, making it easy to visit family and friends. The cost of housing along with the quality of the neighborhood is hard to believe. You can purchase a 3 bedroom home for around $150,000 and a 4-5 bedroom home for between $200,000 and $225,000. Here is an example of a home purchased by a frum couple in the summer of 2014. A 5 bedroom home for $205,000! CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT ROCHESTER, NY Our neighborhood is very clean, quiet and full of wonderful people. Career opportunities are available in a variety of fields, and we are happy to aid in job searches using our local connections and relationships with staffing agencies. Rochester has strong education and medical fields and is full of many opportunities for professionals Whatever your stage in life, Rochester has something to offer. There are schools and Yeshivos to guide a person from preschool through Kollel, as well as many learning programs for adult men and women. Children receive personalized education from dedicated Morahs and Rabbeim who strive to help each student reach his or her potential through a variety of learning styles. Several Shuls and various Davening options for both weekdays and Shabbos, along with daily Shiurim round out the deal. Despite our size, Rochester is definitely a true Makom Torah. CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT ROCHESTER, NY If all that isnt enough to pique your interest, here is one more incentive for considering Rochester. Derech HaTorah of Rochester, our Yeshiva elementary school, is currently offering a fantastic tuition break for new students. New families pay a flat rate of $1,000 per year for ALL of their childrens tuition for their first two years in Rochester. Whether you will be sending one child or eight to DHR, your expense will still be $1,000 total. So, if you are looking to relocate your family to a community where you can make a difference, where your children will have wonderful, wholesome friends, and where Torah hashkafos guide your way of life, dont waste another day. We are waiting to welcome you. See our website www.TorahRochester.com for more details or contact Jake Dan at [email protected] or 585-330-1270 to learn more or to schedule a visit. Shaare Zedek Hospital has installed 20 state-of-the-art ultrasound devices in different departments in the hospital towards improved patient care. Hospital officials report the variety of devices were chosen based on the specific needs of each department. They all offer high resolution and operational convenience for the medical staff. In addition, they allow physicians to perform many tests that werent possible with the older devices. Prof. Irith Hadas Halpern, head of the Imaging Wing, explains that imaging is an unparalleled diagnostic tool. In a hospital such as Shaare Zedek, that treats so many patients, the imaging devices never rest, especially the ultrasounds since they are also used in invasive procedures. This is why it is so important to incorporate the best devices in the routine work of our physicians. The new ultrasounds were installed in the Department of Emergency Medicine (ER), pediatric departments and Pediatric ER, NICU, Womens Clinics, Cardio Institute, and of course the Ultrasound Institute. They offer our patients advanced cardiac echo tests, elastography tests (these are used to evaluate the elasticity of tissue, to help diagnose malignant and benign processes), tests which require contrast and scans during laparoscopic procedures. A special transducer supplies an exceptionally high quality image during the procedure, which allows for maximum accuracy, explains Prof. Hadas Halpern. Each department received devices with unique functions relevant to the diagnoses performed there, and their strategic placements throughout the hospital cancels the need to bring the device to the patient, a process that both damages the equipment and prolongs the diagnosis and treatment. To provide the best care we require the best equipment. This is why we never rest and are always on the lookout for newer, better devices. I hope these new ultrasounds will further facilitate that which we do best providing our patients with the best treatment and care, summarizes Prof. Hadas Halpern. Purchase of the ultrasounds was made possible in part through the generous support of the USAID-ASHA program of the Government of the United States. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) Amid calls from a prominent Jewish official in Marseille calling on Jews to stop wearing yarmulkes in public, Chabad shaliach in Paris Rabbi Levi Matusof announces he will distribute yarmulkes for people to wear. In an interview with Arutz-7 News, Rabbi Matusof explained shluchim around France will be distributing yarmulkes, for that is their response to the recent terror attacks. he stressed that no one is about to compromise their Avodas Hashem and they will continue in the future as they conducted themselves in the past. He proudly explained that more and more Jews are becoming aware and putting on tefilin and wearing a yarmulke. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) Looks like Ted Cruz may get that cage match with Donald Trump that the Texas senator had vowed to avoid and its crowded in there. The two seem locked in battle for primacy in Iowa, the first state to vote on the GOP nomination in just a few weeks. But first, on Thursday night, five of their rivals join the potential brawl onstage at the GOP presidential debate in South Carolina. Expect the candidates Trump, Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush and John Kasich to discuss matters of security, the nations economy, health care and more as they jockey for positioning in Iowa, which votes Feb. 1, and New Hampshire, Feb. 9. If the bickering becomes hard to follow, try this exercise: Hark back a mere 48 hours to President Barack Obamas final State of the Union address. Picture each of the GOP hopefuls standing at the same storied podium a year from now, delivering the traditionally high-minded address to the nation. The Obama White House, which purposely sought an earlier-than-usual address this year, hopes that vision doesnt sit well with most voters. Rest assured, the presidents party gets its turn at the next Democratic debate, on Sunday. And Republicans get the last word on early debates two weeks from now at the final confrontation before the Iowa caucuses. Here are some things to watch at the debate sponsored by Fox Business at 9 p.m. EST: TRUMP vs. CRUZ The so-called bromance long over, Trump and Cruz are competing fiercely for conservative voters in Iowa. Look for more of the yes/no fight over whether Cruzs eligibility to be president is in question, given his birth in Canada. Cruz was born to an American mother, and most legal scholars agree that makes him a natural born citizen a requirement by the Constitution for people to be U.S. president. Trump insists thats not been settled and says Democrats are likely to file a lawsuit over the matter should the GOP nominate Cruz. The Texas senator, a constitutional expert, says theres little danger of that because the law is clear. CRUZ, ENGAGING After saying for months that he didnt want to get into a cage match with Trump, Cruz on Tuesday tried out a series of attacks on the billionaire developer, casting him as a less-than-pure conservative who is poorly prepared for the challenges facing the U.S. from abroad. Its unclear whether the Texas senator will keep up the barrage or back off and refuse to engage Trump before a national audience. Cruz has given him a pass before. BUSH vs. TRUMP Look for the former Florida governor, fading from the front of the pack, to cast himself as the only Republican presidential hopeful brave enough to go after Trump. In recent days, hes criticized the real estate developer on taxes, guns and health care, saying Trump would not apply conservative principles to the nations problems. Bush also is expected to highlight his multi-point plan to fight Islamic State militants. EVERYONE vs. CRUZ Given Cruzs rise in Iowa and New Hampshire polls, look for more piling on. Rubio is a likely agitator, given the rivalry thats sprung up between the two over what to do about the 11 million people in the country illegally, as well as how to tighten the nations borders. Both are sons of Cuban-born fathers. The confrontation, widely expected in the last debate, didnt happen. RUBIO Such a confrontation could benefit Rubio, who presents himself as an appealing alternative to Trump and Cruz for the wide swath of undecided Republican voters in Iowa. The national stage would give him a platform to show off his foreign policy and national security expertise and appeal to more moderate Republicans in New Hampshire and the GOP establishment nationally. CHRISTIE Expect the bombastic New Jersey governor to try to stay out of the bickering and make the case that he gets Americans concerns over security and the economy. Hes focused on a good showing in New Hampshire. (AP) China is planning to launch more than 30 space missions in 2017. (Photo : YouTube) According to news gathered from China's major space contractor, China is planning to launch more than 20 space missions in 2016. Announcing its busy schedule for launching more than 20 space missions in 2016, China reiterated its intention to launch a manned spacecraft Shenzhou 11, together with a space laboratory named as Tiangong 2, besides other commercial and military space missions. Advertisement China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp announced its plans to test fly the Long March 5 and Long March 7 rockets, besides launching the manned spacecraft and the space laboratory. In 2015, China had launched 19 orbital missions, and this year, it intends to cross 20, according to news from reliable sources. Also in the news is the launching of two satellites, which include the one for Beidou Navigation Satellite System, which is developed domestically. The other one is the Gaofen 3, specifically for the Gaofen High-Resolution Earth Observation System. China is planning to launch most space missions in the year 2016, surpassing 19 in the year 2015, according to a statement given by Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. It also said that the company has plans to launch a communications satellite for Belarus, which signifies the launch of the first communications satellite being exported to Europe for the first time. The sensational part of the news is that, China, for the first time, will be sending trio astronauts into space aboard the Shenzhou 11, which is scheduled to dock with Tiangong 2, the space laboratory. This year is going to be a year when China will be showing the world its endeavor for launching most number of orbital missions in a particular year. The first launch scheduled on Jan. 15, when the Long March 3B rocket blasts off the communications satellite for Belarus, named as Belintersat 1. It used to be that death and taxes were the only certain things in life, but for President Barack Obama there is a third: Michelle Obama will not run for president. With Obama now in his final year in office, the focus naturally has shifted to who will succeed him. At a town hall event Thursday with Louisiana residents, Obama was asked if theres any chance he could talk the first lady into running. His answer? An emphatic no. There are three things that are certain in life: Death, taxes and Michelle is not running for president, he said. That I can tell you. A dozen Republicans and three Democrats are in the running to succeed Obama next January, but speculation seems to be returning to whether Mrs. Obama would ever run, despite her previous declarations that she would have to be crazy to do so. Obama praised his wife of 23 years for her work to reduce childhood obesity, as well as her efforts with Jill Biden, the vice presidents wife, to help military families. He said he was certain she would stay active after leaving the White House, and launched into a riff on her youthful appearance compared to his head of grey hair after seven years in office. Not only is she going to be a very young ex-first lady, unlike me, she looks young, Obama said. He said they recently watched video of their 1992 wedding and he realized boy, I sure have aged. But Michelle, she looked identical. Obamas stop in Baton Rouge was part of his tradition of getting out of Washington after delivering his State of the Union address. He visited Omaha, Nebraska, on Wednesday, the day after the speech. The White House says he wants to spend more time in the company of real people. Before taking questions, Obama praised the decision by Louisianas new governor, Democrat John Bel Edwards, to expand Medicaid in his state. Several hundred thousand Louisiana residents stand to benefit, according to Edwards office. Hes already delivering for the people of Louisiana, Obama said. Edwards predecessor, Republican Bobby Jindal, had refused to expand the program on grounds that it would be too costly for the state. Obama said Edwards decision shows you why elections matter. Obamas health care law allows states to use federal money to expand Medicaid to provide coverage to more of the working poor. The federal government pays the full cost of expansion through 2016, gradually dropping to 90 percent in 2020 and after. Thirty other states and the District of Columbia have accepted Washingtons offer to pay the full cost of expanding Medicaid, but more than a dozen mostly conservative states have not. Its a situation Obama hopes to change before he leaves office. In an attempt to encourage holdout states to follow Edwards lead, Obama will ask Congress to provide full federal funding for the first three years after states expand their programs. That means any state that expands Medicaid this year currently the final year for full federal funding or any year after would get Washington to pay 100 percent of the costs for the first three years. The White House said the proposal will be in the 2017 federal budget plan Obama is sending to Capitol Hill next month. Obama also urged Louisianans to support Edwards, who took office this week. Hes coming in a little like I came in got to clean up some stuff, Obama said, referring to his experience taking office during the worst economic downturn in generations. In Edwards case, he faces a shortfall of more than $700 million for the remaining six months of the current budget year. The gap widens to an estimated $1.9 billion next year. (AP) With just over two weeks until voting begins, Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz firmly asserted their standing atop the GOP race in a fiery debate, overshadowing a crowded field of rivals still grappling for a way to overtake the front-runners. Thursday nights debate underscored that the competition between Trump and Cruz will be rough-and-tumble in the days leading up to the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses, a shift from the relative civility thats defined their relationship until now. The candidates tangled over Cruzs eligibility to serve as commander in chief and the real estate moguls New York values, with Trump besting his rival with an emotional recounting of his hometowns response to the Sept. 11 attacks. When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York, Trump said. That was a very insulting statement that Ted made. Trump renewed his suggestion that Cruz may not be eligible to serve as commander in chief, saying the senator has a big question mark hanging over his candidacy, given his birth in Canada to an American mother. Cruz suggested Trump was only turning on him because hes challenging for the lead in Iowa and the businessman agreed. Thursdays debate was one of the last high-profile opportunities other candidates on stage had to sway voters views. But none appeared to emerge with a breakout moment. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who holds a slight advantage over the field of more mainstream candidates, found himself in heated exchanges with both Cruz and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Rubio likened Christies policies to President Barack Obamas, particularly on guns, Planned Parenthood and education reform an attack Christie declared false. Seeking to undermine Rubios qualifications for president, Christie suggested that senators talk and talk and talk while governors such as himself are held accountable for everything you do. Cruz confronted Rubio late in the debate over his support for a Senate bill that would have created a pathway to citizenship for people in the U.S. illegally, an unpopular position among GOP primary voters. Rubio tried to flip the criticism around on Cruz, accusing him of switching positions on immigration himself, as well as on numerous other issues. That is not consistent conservatism, Rubio said. That is political calculation. Cruz was also on the defensive about his failure to disclose on federal election forms some $1 million in loans from Wall Street banks during his 2012 Senate campaign. He said it was little more than a paperwork error. Rubio and Christie are among the candidates seeking to break out of the establishment pack, particularly in the New Hampshire primary, which quickly follows the leadoff Iowa caucuses. The race in Iowa has settled into a tight, two-way contest between Trump and Cruz. Thursday nights debate came at the end of a week that has highlighted anew the deep rifts in the Republican Party. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a rising GOP star, was widely praised by many party leaders for including a veiled criticism of Trumps angry rhetoric during her response to Obamas State of the Union address only to be chastised by conservative commentators and others for the exact same comment. Trump said he wasnt offended by Haleys speech and argued his anger is justified. Im very angry because our country is being run horribly, he said. And I will gladly accept the mantle of anger. Trump also stuck with his controversial call for temporarily banning Muslims from the United States because of fear of attacks emanating from abroad. He said he had no regrets about the proposal and noted his poll numbers went up after he announced the plan. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who has emerged as a frequent critic of Trump, urged the front-runner to reconsider the policy. What kind of signal does that send to the rest of the world? said Bush, who has struggled to gain any momentum in the race and often appeared overshadowed Thursday night. Ohio Gov. John Kasich also broke with Trump on the Muslim ban, but like the entire GOP field, called for at least a temporary halt on the Obama administrations plan to allow thousands of Syrian refugees into the country. Ive been for pausing the Syrian refugees, Kasich said. But we dont want to put everybody in the same category. On the economy and national security, the candidates agreed any of them would be better than Obama or Hillary Clinton. On Tuesday night, I watched story time with Barack Obama, and it sounds like everything in the world was going amazing, Christie said. Bush suggested the country was less safe under Obama and declared Clinton would be a national security disaster. Rubio went even further, saying Clinton was disqualified for being commander in chief, accusing her of mishandling classified information and lying to the families of Americans killed in the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya. Ben Carson, who has fallen behind his rivals despite being well-liked among Republican voters, generated laughs after joking about having to wait nearly 15 minutes to get his first question. I was happy to get a question this early on, the retired neurosurgeon said with a big smile. Tighter rules for Thursdays debate, hosted by Fox Business Network, resulted in a smaller cast of candidates in the main event. Businesswoman Carly Fiorina was bumped to the undercard event, as was Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, though he chose to not participate in the early evening contest. Toward the end of the debate, a handful of audience members in the hall broke out into a We want Rand chant. Republicans have one more debate scheduled a Jan. 28 event in Des Moines before voting begins in Iowa. (AP) This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The material is being made available in an effort to advance understanding of technology, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. This is a completely non-commercial site for private personal use. Tesco CEO Dave Lewis has learned customers really appreciate good service Here is a puzzle. After all the attention on Lidl and Aldi, with the hyped Kantar market research suggesting bigger market shares, its the home-grown grocers Tesco, Wm Morrison and J Sainsbury which all delivered surprisingly strong festive trading. It demonstrates what competition can do. Margins for Britains big grocers may be under pressure but the customer is getting much better deals. Dave Lewis at Tesco may not have a retail background but he has learned a great truth. Customers also like service. It was when Dixons Carphone mimicked John Lewis by having staff who knew something about what they were selling that recovery took place. This is not to say Tesco has all the answers. Indeed, data for the third quarter, showing a drop in same store sales of 1.5 per cent in Britain, is worse than the second quarter. The Christmas glitter may exaggerate the improvement. It is good to see, however, that after taking away currency effects (which have nasty distorting impact) that overseas trading also is improving both in Europe and Asia, where Thailand is very important. All the more reason for Tesco to keep its eye on this prize rather than listening to those who would like to see it narrow focus. Lewis still faces many challenges as he seeks to put the past behind the company. Debts are still too high but some progress has been made in reducing the leverage and strengthening free cash flow. If Tesco does deliver nearly 1billion of operational profits for 2015-16 that should assist. The new team also has moved to improve relations with suppliers and it would be a pity if, to improve margins, it gets on the wrong side of the retail ombudsman. There is still the lingering shadow of the past in the shape of the Serious Fraud Office inquiry hanging over its head. All the signs are that Tesco has been as co-operative as it is possible to be (good lesson there for other companies under similar shadows) and that David Green and his team at the SFO should soon be in a position to assess whether figures were fiddled, as has been alleged, and there is a case to be brought. That may appear to have little to do with current trading performance. But it will give Lewis the opportunity to press on with creating a cleaner and more consumer and supplier friendly Tesco. Home truths It has has been the best of times and the worst of times for Home Retail Group. It is in advanced talks to sell DIY offshoot Homebase to Australias Wesfarmers for 340million, a better than expected price. On the negative side, same-store sales at Argos fell by 2.2 per cent over the final quarter of the year, which suggests its new online shopping model aint quite what it is cracked up to be yet. Chief executive John Walden was equipped with loads of data designed to show that all is hunky dory, including mobile sales up 56 per cent as well as big double-digit gains in everything from TV monitors to Fitbit-style gear for exercise fanatics. A sharp drop in the sale of games consoles disappointed. Arguably the path is looking clearer for Sainsbury. The impending Homebase sale improves the HRG balance sheet because it rids it of expensive leases that werent paying their way. Meanwhile, hub and spoke delivery, despite some IT snafus, is allowing Faststream, promising same-day delivery for 3.75, a lift. There seems to be enough spark in the electronics sales, the digital model and a substantial credit book to keep Sainsbury interested. It is going to be all about price, with HRG said to be seeking something with two in front of it against a current price of 152.7p. Fat chance. Brexit 1 All those who thought that the fall in the pound to a four-and-a-half-year low was all about dollar strength, following the Feds interest rise, forget it. A footnote to the Bank of England minutes of the Monetary Policy Committee suggests that it is concern about a British referendum on leaving the European Union which is weighing on the foreign exchanges. Markets never like uncertainty but it is curious that they should regard the UK divorcing itself from the moribund economics of stagnation as a reason to sell sterling. Brexit 2 Equally unconvincing is the Restaurant Group owner of such iconic shopping park brands as Frankie & Bennys, Chiquito, Garfunkels and Coast to Coast. After 200million was wiped off the share price the company suggested that the looming Brexit referendum was rattling shoppers. Getting paid to shop sounds like the ultimate prize. Usually, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. But it really is possible to earn as you spend using cashback websites. These firms have tie-ups with retailers of everything from groceries, clothes and electrical goods to insurance policies and broadband deals, and they pay a percentage of what you spend. If used regularly, the extra money you earn can add up to hundreds of pounds a year. In fact, millions of pounds was earned in 2015 by members of these cash-back websites. Last year, rewards websites had a whopping 2.7 billion visits, compared with 2.2 billion for 2014, according to data from credit reference agency Experian's Hitwise. Too good to be true? Shop until you drop... and get paid for it HOW IT WORKS You need to become a member of a cashback website to start earning as you shop. Each have a host of participating retailers, from big-brand names such as John Lewis, Marks & Spencer and Boots, to smaller ones, as well as online firms. There are also lots of holiday companies, such as hotels.com and expedia.com, as well as banking and insurance brands. Many of these big names are on each website, though their offers may differ. Cashback sites receive fees from service providers and retailers for referring customers to them and from advertising. The cashback sites pay at least some of this fee to the customer as a reward for their custom. It is typically paid into an account on the website, from where customers transfer it into their own current accounts. You will need to set up a cashback website account into which the money is paid, and link it to your bank current account, so when you're ready to use the cash you've earned, you can transfer it online. When you shop online, you first visit the cashback website and log into your account. Next, find the shop you want to visit by clicking on the link on the cashback page. You'll then be redirected to that store's own website, where you can shop as normal. The cashback website will remember your visit and register what you spent even though you're no longer on its website. At the end you still receive your item directly from the retailer, but you also get a reward from the cashback website. HOW IT CAN WORK FOR YOU Alex Nicholls has earned more than 2,800 by shopping via TopCashback.co.uk. She recently got 101 when booking a Royal Caribbean cruise for her 30th wedding anniversary, which was partially paid for using 250 of previous cashback earnings. Alex, 53, who works as a financial director and lives in Basingstoke, Hants, with her husband and two sons, shops through the website for purchases such as breakdown cover, printer ink and travel insurance. I use the cashback earnings to pay for treats for me and my family, she says. I always check if theres cashback available before making a purchase. Simon Barlow has earned an impressive 3,900 by shopping via TopCashback. His most lucrative purchases earned 126 on a Sky Digital TV package and 115 from an EE mobile phone contract. The 32-year-old, who works as a sales manager in London, says: Using a cashback website has helped me get rid of some of my debts. Its a great practical use of my earnings, and having an extra income has given me peace of mind. CHOOSING A WEBSITE There are a handful of cashback websites to choose from. Among the best known is Quidco, which has six million members and 4,300 registered retailers. There is no charge for basic membership, so you get 100 per cent of the cashback earned. You can upgrade to its Premium service, which offers faster payments and enhanced cashback rates. For this, Quidco retains the first 5 of earned cashback every year as a fee. You can also get 2 per cent extra if you opt to receive your cashback as an amazon.co.uk gift certificate. So, earn 100 cashback on Quidco and you get 102 to spend on Amazon. Members can request a payment at any time by clicking the 'Pay Me' button. The money will arrive within five working days. TopCashback has 4.5 million members and access to around 4,300 retailers. Like Quidco, there is the choice of a standard account called Classic, and its Plus membership where you gain access to higher cashback rates and bigger bonuses in exchange for 5 of your annual cashback. Greasy Palm has 3.2 million members and links with more than 2,500 retailers. Once you have accrued 25 or more in cashback you can opt to have it paid straight to your preferred bank account or in Amazon gift vouchers. Other cashback websites to consider include I Love Cashback and Free Fivers. WHAT YOU CAN EARN Deals change all the time with different retailers. For example, current High Street ones include between 3 per cent and 10 per cent cashback in Mothercare, Gap, Debenhams and Halfords. Holidays take the top spot for earnings for the members of TopCashback, who garnered more than 10 million within the travel sector in 2015. Members also managed to earn more than 5 million on their insurance renewals in that time. Many opted to use their cashback account to revamp their broadband and digital TV services. Such customers earned more than 3 million on their subscriptions with TopCashback in 2015. Broadband users received just over 2.2 million cashback. Mobile phone offers make a regular appearance and consumers who switched their tariffs through the site made more than 1.6 million in cashback. Shoppers pocketed more than 740,000 from purchases with department stores, 730,000 was made from electrical goods and an impressive 700,000 by those spending on clothes. At TopCashback, the highest paid cashback by brand last year was hotels. com, followed by BT Broadband (for new customers), Sky digital TV and broadband, Expedia and Aviva car insurance. MAKE YOUR LOYALTY PAY Your purse or wallet may be brimming with reward cards. But have you redeemed your points recently? There are around 5 billion in rewards sitting unclaimed in the top ten loyalty schemes that could be spent on flights, holidays, days out or groceries, according to research by Loyalive. This is because one in five UK loyalty card owners has not redeemed their loyalty points in the past year, and 7 per cent never have. Boots Advantage Card is the most generous reward scheme with four points awarded for every 1 spent, and each point worth one penny, which you can spend in store. With Tesco you get one Clubcard point for every 1 you spend in store. Every three months you will be sent a voucher for points youve earned. However, you can get more out of these if you spend them with one of Tescos partners. For example, a voucher for 2.50 to spend in Tesco is worth 5 in Evans Cycles or 10 in Cafe Rouge and Prezzo. Sainsburys Nectar points can be turned into days out and flights with easyJet as well as money off your bill at Argos and eBay as well as Sainsburys. Every 500 points is worth 2.50. Avios points can be exchanged for hotel stays in and outside the UK, flights and Eurostar tickets. Keep an eye out for seasonal offers that allow you to get more out of your points. Avios is having a January sale. It claims you can save 40 per cent on hotel stays and 300 on package holidays. BEWARE THE PITFALLS The amount of time it takes to get a payout varies widely between retailers. The sites do not make the cashback payment until they have received their fee from the vendor, which may mean a lengthy wait for customers. For example, while the typical waiting time for cashback with M&S is about five weeks, with holidays and travel it will be paid only on completion of the trip. Cashback services are not fully regulated, so there is no guarantee that shoppers will receive the amount advertised. Also, deals can change at short notice, so the rate advertised may not always be what members end up getting. James Daley, of Fairer Finance, warns: 'Cashback websites can be a great way of saving a few pounds, but it's important that you stick with established sites that you can trust. There are stories of people signing up to lesser-known sites and finding the cashback they've been promised never materialises or they're made to jump through hoops to get it. 'Don't let your cashback rewards build up for too long. There's no protection if your cashback website goes bust, so draw down your cashback on a regular basis.' FIND CHEAPER CINEMA TICKETS Going to the cinema is not cheap. Tickets can cost up to 10 a person. But if you can be flexible on when you go there are great discounts up for grabs. If you take out insurance with comparison website Compare the Market, you can get two-for-one tickets on a Monday or Tuesday as part of its Meerkat movies offer. Empire Cinemas offers cheap tickets on a Tuesday from 4.50 each as part of its Savrday Tuesday deal (excludes Bank Holidays, Impact, Luxury and VIP seating, opera, 3D and special presentations). It also offers discounts on films coming to the end of their run on Thursdays. Odeon offers Supersaver tickets Monday to Thursday before 5pm; Vue has Super Tuesdays at most of its cinemas, with a third off all day. You need to sign up first. Odeon Silver Cinema offers cut-price tickets for over-60s, worth 4 on premium tickets or 3 on standard. Both include hot drinks and snacks. At selected Vue Cinema Seniors Club screenings, over-60s get a free cup of tea and a biscuit. DOUBLE UP WITH A CASHBACK CREDIT CARD You can earn even more via the 17 cashback credit cards on the market. These offer a certain percentage of your monthly spend. The total amount over 12 months is paid annually by crediting the card. If you use one of these cards to pay for goods through your cashback website account, you can add to the money you make back. The top-paying card is Platinum Cashback from American Express. It pays 5 per cent for three months on a spend of up to 2,500 per year and 1.25 per cent for the rest of the year. The card has a 25 annual fee. Alternatively, Santander pays cashback on its 123 card, depending on where you shop. Currently, you will earn 1 per cent on supermarket shopping up to 300, 2 per cent in department stores up to 150 and 3 per cent on fuel and train fare spending up to 100. Spending on a cashback credit card is only a good idea for those who pay back the full balance every month and who earn more through cashback than the cost of the annual fee. Interest charges will chip away at your earnings, so if you can't control your spending, this is not for you. WEALTH WARNING Earning money as you shop is a great way of getting what is effectively a discount on your shopping. Just don't use it as an excuse to splurge. Andrew Hagger, of financial website MoneyComms, says: 'It's easy to overspend when you are swayed by a discount, so don't be fooled into buying purely on the basis of the cashback on offer. 'This is particularly important on insurance products where you may be tempted by the much higher rewards that are frequently available. 'Before you click to buy, weigh up what the cost will be after the discount and then do a quick search on an insurance comparison website. 'You may be surprised find the cashback deal isn't all it's cracked up to be.' When it comes to buying a mobile phone, TV package or insurance, read the terms and conditions and understand what you're buying. In some cases, a different policy may be more suited to your circumstances, in which case buying one offering cashback could be a false economy. Fairer Finance's Mr Daley says: 'If the retailer offering the best deal happens to offer cashback through the site you're signed up to, then great. But don't start by choosing a retailer just because they're part of your cashback scheme.' The stone-faced Shell building overlooking the Thames at dawn is the grand dame of the London skyline predating the towers of Canary Wharf and the London Eye. It is from here, in a relatively modest, plainly decorated 24th floor office, with almost no personal touches, that Ben van Beurden, a Shell man for 33 years, is engaged in the boldest move of his career. Ill be very honest with you, he confesses to the Mail in his first major interview since the transforming bid for BG International, formerly the exploration arm of British Gas, was unveiled last April. I have never done something quite as important and significant and momentous in my personal life, my professional life and everything else. The only personal marker in his London office is a glass of cranberry coloured juice on the desk next to a pair of cheese and tomato rolls covered with clingfilm. There is no Fred Goodwin-style personal chef, ready to prepare scallops, for the down-to-earth Dutchman. Van Beurden presides over the FTSE 100s largest corporation with a current market capitalisation of 86billion (down from more than 100billion in December) and looks like everyones favourite uncle, with a soft smile and a dimple in his right cheek. He in some ways seems ill-suited to the world of high finance, which he entered in April last year when Shell launched its 36billion bid for BG. As the oil price has plummeted to $30 a barrel, the wisdom of the deal, sold to the City on the basis of an oil price that was twice that, has come under heavy fire. The process of creating a much better company for the longer term is not going to give me a near-death experience, van Beurden says. Popular opinion in the City suggests that if Shell fails to win enough votes from Shell and BG shareholders to carry the deal on January 27 and 28 he will be getting his marching orders. Similarly, if the Shell chief executive cant deliver the reshaping of the company he has promised, with enormous cuts in costs, investment and big asset disposals, he may also be out. Van Beurden acknowledges the gamble. In the short-term having done this deal, having paid out probably $20billion (13.9billion) worth of cash to BG shareholders, will this deal give me short-term trouble and will I put the company under more stress? He is adamant that it will make no difference. It doesnt really matter too much where the oil price comes out because the capacity of the combination is higher than the dividend capacity of the stand-alone company. Shells case is that the BG deal will leave it in a better place irrespective of what happens to oil prices. Fundamentally it gives us more exposure to liquid natural gas, which is the fastest growing part of the industry. It is also the stuff that keeps Britains lights burning and the central heating warm as the nation experiences its first cold snap of a mild and wet winter. Van Beurden and Shell people like to think over the long term, so he easily bats away the idea that there are fundamental changes in the energy market and we are heading for an age of plenty where oil prices forever remain low. He says: The answer is, as long as the oil price over the next 20-30 years is in the low $60s this deal will have been financially, very, very sound. Some people think the oil price will be $20 a barrel and some will think that the oil price will be $120 a barrel. And it may be both are right. Tank half full: Shell boss Ben van Beurden is optimistic The important number for the merger, in the chief executives view, is now $50 a barrel, because that he says is when the acquisition breaks even. Given that the oil price is currently well below that, what does that mean for Daily Mail readers, who are also BG investors and who have been inundating us with questions about whether to accept the bid and the impact on dividend payouts? Van Beurden says: They are going to see a huge uplift in dividend. BG doesnt pay much of a dividend and they are going to be inheritors of the Shell dividend. Moreover, if the BG investors vote for the deal there is a significant premium, a large part of which is basically being paid out of cash and the underlying equity. We are cashing BG shareholders out at the bottom of the cycle. But if BG shareholders are such winners, wont existing Shell investors lose out? Shell shareholders do have a concern about the sustainability of the dividend, he admits. So we gave an assurance on the dividend for the next seven quarters. We are confident that in 2015 [the current financial year] it is going to be $1.80 per share and in 2016 at least that. Beyond that, it is going to depend on what van Beurden calls the break-even price, which he assesses at $50 a barrel. He insists, however, that there is more chance of achieving that price post-merger than as a stand-alone company. It is not just Shell and BG investors who watch the oil price closely, but also the motorists. Most want to know why petrol prices have remained so sticky at around 100p a litre when spot oil prices have fallen off a cliff. The Shell boss is not normally used to having to address the consumer directly and argues that competition on the forecourts is ferocious with big oil having to compete with supermarket chains and independents, and they all compete without the supply background. The retail entity in the UK is not making big fat profits. We just have to make a decent margin on the capital employed, he adds. Conducting a takeover battle, against the background of a tumbling oil price and the worst security conditions in the Middle East he has ever encountered, has not been easy. He says: I wouldnt say it has been an obsession, but it has taken a lot of time, a lot of thinking and not just [about] the shareholder price we have at the moment and the volatile start to the year. At this stage, repricing or renegotiating the deal is not an option in his view because The Takeover Panel, the City referee, would insist it goes away for six months and comes back again with the new offer. That would require it to go back to regulators around the world and seek their permission again. There has been only one exception to that, he notes, and that was the Lloyds Bank takeover of HBOS in 2008, and No 11 was behind that. Van Beurden clearly is not expecting a similar nod from Downing Street record low oil prices or not. The dramatic fall in oil and gas prices has the world's biggest miner, BHP Billiton to write down the value of its US shale assets by $7.2billion (5.1billion) and to reduce its long-term price forecasts. The commodities giant said that while it expected the price of oil to improve from current 12 year lows, the short and medium term outlook remained bleak. Shares in the FTSE 100-listed group fell more than 5 per cent on the news, dragging the sector and the Footsie lower. By mid morning, BHP shares were down 5.2 per cent, or 34.45p at 622.55p with investors concerned that the news could be a prelude to a cut in the group's dividend payouts, with fellow blue chip miners Glencore and Anglo American already having taken that step. US shale: BHP Billiton is to write down the value of its US shale assets by $7.2billion (5.1billion) Mike van Dulken, Head of Research at Accendo Markets: With peers GLEN and AAL having already cut their dividends amid restructuring, the question is how long BLT can fend off taking the rug from under loyal income-seeking shareholders whilst doing everything necessary to preserve cash-flow.' The price of Brent crude has slumped over 20 per cent in the first two weeks of 2016, dropping back below $30 a barrel again today. Brent is down over 70 per cent since June 2014, when it cost $115 a barrel. The impairment move adds to other recent problems for BHP, including the fatal collapse of a dam at a Brazilian mine controlled by the UK-listed firm and Brazils Vale in December as well as tumbling iron ore, copper and other metal prices. Accendo's van Dulken, added: 'With it already dealing with a Brazilian dam disaster, investors are having to put up with significant volatility almost daily as woes related to China, global growth and an overinvested commodity sector bite hard. How long and how low are the questions of most pertinence. Commodity prices have been hard hot by a slowdown in China, the second biggest economy in the world and the top global consumer of metals, which in turn has led to a slide in mining stocks. Oil and gas groups have also experienced severe volatility amid the weaker prices over the past year, which has hit the profitability of many companies. BHP invested in US shale in 2011, spending $17billion on two acquisitions. But back then oil and gas prices were much higher than they are now, hence the write-downs, which will bring the total value of its US onshore assets down to about $16billion, according to the company. The group said it was also responding to the weak price environment by reducing the number of its rigs in the US from 26 a year ago to just five by the end of the current quarter. Chief executive Andrew Mackenzie said: While we have made significant progress, the dramatic fall in prices has led to the disappointing write down announced today. 'However, we remain confident in the long-term outlook and the quality of our acreage. We are well positioned to respond to a recovery. Analysts said the writedown, while not directly affecting dividend payments, signalled that the company was feeling the effects of plunging commodities prices. Analysts at Liberum Capital said: Although a non-cash event, this sends a signal that the company acknowledges the detereorating conditions in commodity markets, which may lead to a cut in its dividend at its interim results on the 23rd of February. Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: 'BHP Billiton is currently forecast to be the FTSE 100s highest yielding stock in 2016 with a huge yield of more than 11 per cent according to analyst consensus. 'Although todays write downs are non-cash and hence dont directly affect the dividend payment, it clearly shows the commodities crunch is having an effect. 'With dividend cover currently at just 0.4 times earnings, the lowest of the forecast top 10 yielders in the FTSE 100, a cut to the forecast 2016 pay out looks a strong possibility.' China Establishes Sansha City (Photo : Getty Images) Besides building landing facilities and other physical structures in the disputed islands in South China Sea, China now plans to seek private investors to put up more infrastructure there. Another plan by China that would definitely anger its Asian neighbors such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan, is to begin regular flights this year, 2016. The island that China wants to invite investors is Woody Island in the Paracels which China now refers to as Sansha City. Advertisement Feng Wenshai, deputy mayor of Sansha, says, "The city will also push forward the planning and construction of a maritime medical rescue center. Submarine optical cables will be laid and put into use this year, and WiFi will cover all inhabited islands and reefs," quotes Xinhua News Agency. He adds that the city would initiate public-private partnership programs, while the airport on Woody Island would roll out regular flights in the coming months. A naval battle with Vietnam in 1974 gave China control of the Paracels. Feng's statement further fuels fire to the already tense situation between China and Vietnam after Beijing sent two jets that landed on Fiery Cross Reef, one of the disputed territories. The aircraft carried family members of Chinese soldiers stationed in the island. Chinese state media published some of the photos of the passengers on Friday. Political experts, however, differ on their interpretation of the impact of China's move on the region's maritime trade. Australia Defence Force expert on the South China Sea believes China is, in effect, expanding its territory by building infrastructure on the islands. But University of New South Wales visiting professor Greg Austin says otherwise. He explains, "We shouldn't allow our shock of China's building up of artificial islands to somehow convince us that this is naked aggression by China," quotes Xinhua News Agency. Austin mirrors Beijing's defense that China is only defending what it believes is part of China's historical claim. Charges are imminent in the Serious Fraud Office investigation into Tesco, the Mail can reveal. Investigators have been pulling together evidence to see if any individuals working for Britains biggest supermarket, or the grocer itself, acted illegally in inflating its accounts. A probe was launched in 2014, but sources say the SFO is close to forming a case. Probe: Former chairman Sir Richard Broadbent and former chief executive Phil Clarke (pictured) both left the firm before the investigation was announced Earlier this month Robert Buckland, the solicitor general, said the SFO had sought approval for extra funding of 15.5m to probe blockbuster investigations. Meanwhile, a separate investigation into Tesco by the independent supermarket regulator Groceries Code Adjudicator is expected to conclude within the next two weeks. The SFO launched its probe into Tesco amid claims that directors cooked the books to cover up dismal profits. More than 2bn was wiped off Tescos market value after it admitted to inflating its accounts by 250m a figure which has now jumped to 326m. It was allegedly manipulating the timing of payments from suppliers pulling some forward in order to paint a more flattering picture of its finances. Former chairman Sir Richard Broadbent and former chief executive Phil Clarke both left the firm before the investigation was announced. Clarke is among those who have been quizzed by the SFO. He has been questioned under caution, meaning anything said can be used as evidence in court On Thursday, Tesco beat forecast with strong festive trading giving hope the business is on the mend. Tesco (up 3.55p to 164.45p) credited lower prices and 4,000 more staff delivering improved customer service for a 1.3 per cent rise in sales for the six weeks to January 9. This was better than a fall of 1.5 per cent that analysts had forecast. The supermarket has given no update on the progress of the fraud investigation and declined to comment last night. Britain has finally received the final payment from Iceland after the collapse of savings provider Icesave nearly eight years ago. Around British 300,000 savers had money in accounts with online provider Icesave which offered a raft of attractive deals in the run-up to the financial crisis in 2008. The Treasury said that today, it has received the final payment of 740million from the Landsbanki estate, which operated as Icesave in Britain. Icesave collapse: In October 2008, 300,000 British savers panicked as the Icelandic provider went bust - eight years later, the debt has been repayed It means the Government has now received 4.6billion from the Landsbanki estate and litigation cases. Taxpayers paid a whopping 4.5billion to British depositors in Icesave, following the collapse of the Landsbanki estate at the height of the financial crisis in 2008. Today's payment means the Government has now fully exited from the Landsbanki estate, bringing an end to substantial negotiations between Britain and Iceland on recoveries from the estate. The Treasury said that 'a line can now be drawn under this dispute' and that it 'looks forward to a renewed, cooperative relationship between the two countries.' Chancellor George Osborne said: 'Billions of pounds were spent during the financial crisis to compensate savers of Icelandic banks. 'Some doubted we'd ever recover the money from Iceland but today, through patient diplomacy and determination, the Government has made another significant step towards recouping taxpayers' money spent on bailing out our financial system.' The final payment marks a significant milestone in the Government's efforts to recover the costs to taxpayers of the financial crisis. It is the product of sustained engagement between the Government and the Icelandic authorities. It says all proceeds will be used to pay down the national debt. The Icelandic government took control of Landsbanki as it became clear it was in trouble. It operated in Britain from October 2006 until its demise, and in Holland from May 2008. It intended to roll the brand out to additional European countries in the years after, before the financial crisis took hold. In Britain, its marketing slogan was 'clear difference.' It offered an easy-access account, cash Isa and a range of fixed-rate savings products. Some offered rates of more than six per cent. The news is that Uber Technologies Inc has raised fresh funds amounting to $7 Billion for the expansion of its China unit. (Photo : Reuters) The news is that Uber Technologies Inc has raised fresh funds amounting to $7 Billion for the expansion of its China unit. In its endeavor to raise funds, the company has brought in local partners HNA Group, an Airlines Operator in China, and Guangzhou Automobile, a local car maker. This fund raising is for waging a battle with a local Chinese rival, according to news gathered from reliable sources. Advertisement Uber Technologies Inc, the global leader in ride-hailing, said that it all depends upon Guangzhou and HNA Group to assist them in their fight against Didi Kuaidi Joint Co., a start up company, for market share. According to Travis Kalanick, Chief Executive of Uber, the company has set their eyes on China as a focal point for rapid global expansion. News is that $1 Billion has been earmarked in 2015 for China alone, where a separate identity has been established in the name of Uber China. Didi Kuaidi is the local rival, who is posing to be a formidable challenger and practically a threat to Uber, having $3 Billion of funding in the year 2015 and the valuation of which stood at over $16 Billion. The major shareholders of this funding are said to be Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., giants in e-commerce, and Tencent Holdings Ltd., a leader in the gaming industry. It is the local partners that have played a significant part in supporting Uber in its fight against the local startups. What it stands as of now is that Uber has been able to garner support from China Taiping Insurance and China Life, the deep pocketed insurers. At the same time, DidiKuaidi has been able to find support from Chinese financial conglomerate Ping An Insurance (Group) Co. and China Investment Corp., by being able to raise funds to the tune of $740 Billion. MBABANE Lawyer Siboniso Clement Dlamini wants the High Court to order that he be immediately appointed an executor of the estate of PUDEMO President Mario Masukus late brother Bani in order to protect his assets. Dlamini was recently taken to court by a widow for allegedly misappropriating over E800 000 of her late husbands estate. Dlamini alleged that the PUDEMO president and the other people, with whom Bani was involved in a land dispute at the time of his death, were taking advantage of his demise in that they were helping themselves to his assets. In an affidavit, which Dlamini filed under a certificate of urgency at the High Court, he alleged that these people were not entitled to the assets of the deceased. He stated that if an executor was not immediately appointed there would be irreparable harm as the estate assets would be depleted. In the notice of motion, he seeks an order directing or compelling the Master of the High Court to issue letters of administration to him as the executor testamentary in Banis estate. He alleged that Bani nominated him to be the executor of his estate. The veracity of the allegations is still to be tested in court. Dlamini told the court yesterday that at the time of Banis death, the latter was involved in a land dispute with certain members of his family, including the PUDEMO president. The lawyer further informed the court that Bani had obtained an order to the effect that no transactions were to be effected pertaining to the property in dispute; remaining extent of Portion 14 of Farm Peebles Block (North) No. 9, which is situated in Manzini. He alleged that due to the non-appointment of an executor, the people who were involved in litigation with Bani over the property have taken advantage of his death. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Bill Parry An ex-con from the Bronx has been driving the streets in and around LaGuardia Airport searching for an NYPD officer for the last month. James Roberts, 58, is not sure of the cops name or the precinct he is stationed at, but he is positive about one thing. That man changed my life, Roberts said. Im just trying to find him so I can thank him properly, maybe take him to lunch. Im pretty sure his name was Anderson or Andrews, something like that, and hes a bald black man in his mid-30s with a little mustache. And he was very polite and very nice. Roberts was a small-time drug dealer with the street name Mousie in the 80s and 90s, selling crack and marijuana. He claims he was not a violent criminal. I didnt believe in gun violence or knives, Robert said. Killing people is wrong, but I came to realize that I was killing people, too, but I was doing it with crack. I saw what crack was doing to Gods children and when I came to that realization, I just had to retire. Roberts stopped dealing drugs in 1999, but several weeks later he was arrested and charged with criminal sale of a controlled substance. Roberts claimed he was set up by a woman he had refused to sell to because she was pregnant. When she pointed me out to the cops, I had nothing but $7 and four cigarettes in my pocket, Roberts recalled. It was my rap sheet that caught up with me and they sent me upstate. Roberts spent the next four years in Clinton Dannemora Prison, the maximum security jail for men just south of Montreal. Roberts steered clear of trouble, spending all of his free time studying in the prisons law library. After his release in 2005, Roberts found that his incarceration was a barrier to employment. For the next 12 years he tried a job readiness program and spent time in the Doe Fund, but the only work he could get was as a disc jockey technician two or three times a month making $25 a party. In November, an acquaintance suggested he try talking to America Works, a private workforce development firm that has found jobs for a half a million hard-to-place workers since 1984. America Works has placed military veterans, long-term welfare and food stamp recipients, people who are homeless and living in shelters, and like Roberts, former criminal offenders. On Jan. 7, his case worker told him she found a job for him at LaGuardia Airport servicing cars at the National, Enterprise and Alamo rental-car depots and he raced to Queens. When he got off the M60 bus at 82nd Street and Astoria Boulevard North, Robert realized his appointment was not at the airport but at the offices of Cavalry Staffing in Fresh Meadows. But since he only had enough fare for his return trip to the Bronx, he began to get uptight and visibly agitated and thats when he heard a voice. This police officer was sitting in his patrol car at the bus stop and he tried to calm me down, Robert said. When he looked at the address, he said he knew the place because he took his wife to the Applebees around the corner. I said point me in the direction and Ill start walking because I dont have the fare. Thats when he told me to get in the car and hed take me there. He said it was OK, he was on his lunch break. When the officer dropped him at the proper offices on 186th Street, he shook Roberts hand and wished him the best of luck. I told him if I got the job Id take him to lunch at that Applebees on 188th Street, Roberts said. Well, I got the job the very same day and ever since Ive been driving around hoping to find him, so I can take him to lunch and thank him for caring. America Works CEO Dr. Lee Bowes found the whole story to be heartwarming from beginning to end. First off, Mr. Roberts has been collecting Social Security disability checks, so he could have spent the rest of his life at home collecting checks, but he preferred to work, Bowes said. And then to see how this officer helped him was touching. We would love to be able to let Commissioner Bratton know what this officer did, but we havent been able to find him. The NYPDs 114th and 115th Precincts and the Port Authority Police Department have been unable to find an officer matching the description. Roberts said he will keep searching until he finds him. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Madina Toure Borough Muslims said they are pleased with the citys settlement of several lawsuits from 2013 that accused the NYPD of improperly investigating Muslim groups. While the city did not admit to engaging in improper practices, it plans to provide additional guidance to police officers. The changes are an effort to offer more thorough guidance to NYPD personnel within the existing Handschu Guidelines, rules that shape investigations of terrorism and other potentially unlawful political activity. Mohammad Rahman, president of the Jamaica Muslim Center at 85-37 168th St., said his center has had good relations with the Police Department, but that the surveillance program violated Muslims constitutional rights, calling the settlement a victory for the Muslims. It did not affect us much, but as a Muslim a lot of people were under the surveillance program they had, Rahman said. It was a discriminatory thing. It definitely does not go with the Constitution of this country. Bengali community activist Mazeda Uddin said Muslims are not treated well but that they are at least not afraid to speak up. Before, they dont want to even bring up issues with anyone, even to the police even to the state, Uddin said. The Handschu Guidelines were implemented after a class-action suit brought by American political activist and lawyer Barbara Handschu and others in 1971 accusing the NYPDs Red Squad, a political intelligence unit, of spying by keeping dossiers on political activists. A judge agreed to modified the guidelines in 2003 at the request of the NYPD due to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. They will be changed as part of a resolution of Raza v. City of New York, a lawsuit alleging suspicion-less surveillance of Muslims, and Handschu v. Special Service Division, a challenge to numerous NYPD surveillance and investigative practices aimed at political organizations. Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said the changes make it easier to maintain best practices in intelligence gathering and investigations and Mayor Bill de Blasio called communities of faith strong partners in the fight against terrorism. The changes include clearly incorporating regulations against religious profiling in police policies, a provision for considering the effect investigations have on people who are not targets in the same community, reasonable time limits for certain investigations and adding a civilian member to an internal NYPD Handschu Committee. The NYPD also agreed to remove the 2007 report Radicalization in the West about terrorism from its website. But Tanjir Alam, secretary at Masjid Baitul Gaffar in Richmond Hill, said there must have been a reason that prompted the NYPD to spy on the Muslim community in the city, but he could not comment on the settlement. If a member of the Muslim community had plans on doing something wrong, I definitely support the NYPD or any law enforcement, Alam said. Rahman cited Bratton and de Blasio have had good relations with the 107th Precinct and the Muslim community compared to previous administrations. De Blasio visited his center last month. Hes (de Blasio) been working very well with all the communities and as a Muslim, I dont have (any) complaints about this mayor or this police commissioner, he said. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Anna Orjuela Gilbert Taylor, former commissioner of the Department of Homeless Services, has voluntarily or involuntarily resigned. Regardless, this is a much-needed change, which provides the city with an opportunity to rectify some of his poor decisions as well as reform the agency to effectively help those in need. Aside from his dismal failure in stemming the tide of homelessness, Taylor fundamentally misled the Elmhurst community and broke the law when he illegally converted run-down commercial hotels like the Pan Am and Westway into family homeless shelters. Although New York City Administrative Code 21124(b) requires that all family homeless shelters provide a bathroom, a refrigerator, a cooking facility and an adequate sleeping area within each unit, Taylor blatantly disregarded the cooking facility requirement and had homeless families move into small hotel rooms. These families were forced to languish in these rooms for over a year without access to a kitchen. As a lawyer, was he clueless or simply being reckless? By not requiring these shelters to install kitchens, DHS is endangering these families and depriving them of essential services. In addition, the City is back-stopping the hotel industry. If the hotel owners business is not doing well, they will convert their hotels into shelters and collect $4,000 a month per room without having to invest in any renovations. They would simply reduce their staff and collect an exorbitant amount of taxpayers hard-earned money from DHS. Additionally, community boards and local residents in every neighborhood are now wary of developers who are looking to build a hotel. Are the developers really building a hotel or are they building a homeless shelter because, according to Gilbert Taylor, there is no distinction between the two? This is an unnecessary uncertainty and hinders the citys economic growth. For a progressive mayor who came into power by pledging to implement policies that will help the poor, this is complete hypocrisy! Mayor de Blasio is not helping the poor or the working class, he is actually helping the rich by fleecing taxpayers. We ask the Mayor to restore the peoples faith in government and force these operators to adhere to the law and install a kitchen in each family shelter living unit. Otherwise, no contract or taxpayer funds should be awarded. Anna Orjuela Resident of Queens Community Board 4 for over 30 years, Member of Elmhurst United Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Madina Toure State Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Flushing) said the NYPD is following a number of leads in the case of a 16-year-old exchange student from China who was slashed by a mysterious attacker last month on her way to school in Whitestone. The girl said she plans to stay in the United States. At about 8:15 a.m. Dec. 16, a male approached the girl, identified by Kim as JiaJia Liang, near 147th Street and 13th Avenue and cut her face and neck so severely that she needed more than 200 stitches, according to Kim and the NYPD. No words were exchanged during the attack and Liang was rushed to the Long Island Jewish Medical Center, the NYPD said. Police said the investigation remained ongoing. Kim could not comment on a report in the Daily News that her attacker left a letter on the windshield outside the home of a girl who he said was the intended target rather than the young woman who was slashed, although the lawmaker said it seems to have been a targeted attack. He said they were initially frustrated at the pace of the investigation, but police has been on top of the leads, noting that Commanding Officer Thomas Conforti of the 109th Precinct and the community were up in arms about this. The police have a number of solid leads and Ive interacted with not only the NYPD but the mayors office on this and theyre on top of the case and Im confident that theyre going to pursue those leads, he said. Both Liang and her mother were wearing surgical masks at a Jan. 7 news conference in Kims office. The exchange student has been attending the Whitestone Academy for the past three months and is staying with a Chinese-American host family that lives near the school. She is here on a permanent basis on a student visa, with plans to pursue her high school and college education in the United States. The Whitestone Academy declined to comment. Speaking through Edward Ip, chief executive officer of Orient Retreat Spa, who translated from her Cantonese, Liang said the incident was tragic but that she appreciates the support. The injury, the cuts and wounds are healing and I still want to stay here to pursue my education, she said. Her mother said the family has been having a difficult time. I want to thank everyone for supporting us, for help at the time that we feel the most hopeless and when we are at this most tragic moment, the victims mother said through a translation by Ip. Kim and the law firm of Gary Park announced a special fund that will cover various expenses, such as traveling costs and possible surgery to cover her scars. The trust fund has been set up with Chase Bank. Parks firm will provide pro bono legal services. We asked her if she wanted to return back to her country, Kim said. She said without hesitation, No, I still want the dream. We have the responsibility to help this young woman. He added that the girl embodies the grit, the determination and resilience that has made the city, state and country great. Frank Lu, an immigration lawyer, also said he is working to help her apply for the U visa, a special visa for victims of crimes. To donate, go to www.GoFun dMe.com/ suppo rtjia jia or send a check on her behalf to The JiaJia Liang Trust at Gary Park Law firm at 39-01 Main St., No. 608, Flushing 11354. To share with friends and brethren The Gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (the Everlasting Gospel), and to prepare a people to stand when He returns to redeem His remnant. Also, to share relevant information of current events, and to show how they relate to prophecy; By means of articles, editorials, opinions, scripture readings, and poetry. Disclaimer Endrtimes does not necessarily endorse or agree with every opinion expressed in every article/video posted on this site. The information provided here is done so for personal edification; It's up to the reader to separate truth from error, and to examine everything (like the Bereans) from a Biblical perspective. Let the Holy Scriptures be you guide! - - - FAIR USE NOTICE: These pages/videos may contain copyrighted () material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available to advance understanding of ecological, POLITICAL, HUMAN RIGHTS, economic, DEMOCRACY, scientific, MORAL, ETHICAL, and SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior general interest in receiving similar information for research and educational purposes. October Fun Calendar: Plenty to do this month in Beaver County Associated Press file SHARE By John Ingle of the Times Record News Those in the oil industry or operating support functions are concerned about just how far the price of oil will drop. The price of U.S. Crude opened at $30.60 Thursday, but the posted price what oil is actually selling for is about $27 per barrel. "It's not positive, I can tell you that," said Texas Alliance of Energy Producers President Alex Mills of the feeling locally. "There's lots of concerns about how deep and how long it will last." The price of oil went into a downward spiral in late-2014 because of an oversupply in the system and overproduction in Texas, the United States and globally. Mills said there doesn't appear to be a visible bottom to the drop in price, and the Energy Information Administration is now pushing the possibility of any meaningful recovery to 2017. He said there had been talk of the second or third quarter of 2016 to be the point when the industry might see some change in supply and demand, reversing the trend. Karr Ingham, a petroleum economist with Ingham Econ LLC in Amarillo, said the price of oil hasn't been this low since 2003, and that was when the price per barrel of oil was increasing. "Oil prices started to rise in the latter part of 2002, and rose from 2003 all the way up through mid-2008, collapsed temporarily for a few months during the recession and then started rising again," he said. "It did so through mid-2014 and now they're really on the skids." Ingham said that a narrowing of the year-over-year comparisons in oil production is an indicator that production is leveling off and is responding to the lack of demand. But, the production number is still higher than needed, especially with OPEC and non-OPEC nations flowing more oil into the supply chain. An unknown is the affect Iranian oil will have on the market when they are able to have their production online and contributing to the oversupply, but any amount will be more than what they had produced. Some dealing in oil futures markets such as Standard Chartered have predicted oil would bottom out at $10 per barrel. Ingham said he doesn't believe the per barrel price will reach that level. While the market is "consistently oversupplied", he said, it is not "horrifically oversupplied". The media has reported on businesses in the industry cutting jobs or filing for bankruptcy protection as the historic drop in prices starts to take its toll. Mills said he has not heard of local businesses filing for bankruptcy protection. "Most of the bankruptcies I've heard of so far have been in Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston areas," he said. "You hear a lot of it in Houston because those larger companies down there are really feeling the crunch. "So I haven't heard of any here. A lot of companies have cut back on their exploration and on their budgets." Mills said he's not aware of companies in this area having "distressed sales" of assets to stay in operation. Crystal Ojeda, a job developer at Workforce Solutions North Texas in Wichita Falls, said by email that they have seen quite a few oil field-related workers come in to their office seeking work recently. Unpopular steps can be taken to help reverse the trend, Mills said, such as limiting the supply of crude oil and cutting back on production to get supply and demand back to a more reasonable state. In the meantime, he said, it is the small operators who don't have a large bank roll to absorb the financial blow will be hurt the most. "When you've got wells that are producing two to three barrels a day and your cash flow is getting cut to where every day your losing money, it makes it really tough to hang on," he said. "That's what we've got. We've got a lot of them up here." Council takes no action on suing entertainment giants Wichita Falls city councilors moved consideration of a lawsuit against some major entertainment companies off the agenda when they met Tuesday. Contributed graphic SHARE Debra Pardue, Wichita Falls On Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2015, TRN published a letter from a local doctor. I want to say that he is absolutely correct in the things he said concerning Obamacare "Affordable" insurance. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I had to turn to Obamacare. While not "affordable," I was lucky enough to have a policy that served my needs during 2015. Beginning in 2016, when Blue Cross Blue Shield changes to HMOs health care for me becomes a nightmare. Here are the facts: 1. The government passed that we must have health insurance or pay a penalty. 2. BCBS is the only provider for Obamacare for those of us in Wichita Falls. Maybe all of Texas? 3. As the doctor said, virtually no one in Wichita Falls accepts the new HMO. 4. In order to be covered by insurance, I will have to change primary care physician. Change from a physician who is familiar with the health problems I had in the past, to a physician who doesn't know me. 5. Specialists I need to see don't accept HMO's. That means I must travel to Dallas or Oklahoma City for a specialist. Again to see someone who doesn't know my health history. I have called Senators, Representatives, and the Texas Board of Insurance. I was told they didn't realize this was happening, yeah right! No one was able to tell me why there isn't another insurance provider besides BCBS. I was also told the reason for the change to HMO's is because BCBS lost millions of dollars being the provider of insurance for Obamacare. The change to HMO's is to help recover some of that lost money. Senators and Representatives, BCBS, nor the Obamacare Marketplace plan to make any changes at this time to better serve the people of Wichita Falls, or for all of Texas for that matter. So, as the doctor said, take your time and weigh your options. Albany Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is asking federal officials to deny developers of the Constitution natural gas pipeline permission to start cutting trees along the proposed 124-mile route until after the state decides on required water quality protection permits. On Thursday, Schneiderman's office wrote to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, asking also that the agency hold off acting on a request by Constitution, which wanted an answer by Friday to start cutting trees along the pipeline's planned route in the Southern Tier and central New York. The planned $750 million pipeline would carry hydrofracked natural gas from Pennsylvania into New York, crossing through Broome, Chenango, Delaware and Schoharie counties, where gas then could move into the Iroquois pipeline into Canada and New England for potential overseas export. FERC has approved the project, which still needs water quality permits controlled by the state Department of Environmental Conservation. DEC has an April deadline to act on the permits. Opponents say the pipeline poses a threat to streams, wetlands and forests, and that environmental risks were ignored by FERC, which approved the project in December. Anne Marie Garti, a founder of the Stop the Pipeline coalition, which has been trying to block the project, said the group had asked Schneiderman to step in and was pleased at his action. On its route, the pipeline would cross 270 bodies of water and clear 1,000 acres of forest containing 700,000 trees. More than 700 parcels of land are affected by the proposed pipeline, and 120 landowners face losing property to the gas company under eminent domain. In its Jan. 8 request to FERC, the company wants to begin "non-mechanical" cutting of an unspecified number of trees along the route starting Jan. 22. "It is critical that we begin tree felling activities this month in order to meet our 2016 in-service commitment while complying with the environmental conditions of the Dec. 2, 2014 FERC Order, as well as the USFWS Biological Opinion, to avoid adverse impacts to migratory birds and the Northern Long Eared Bat," said Constitution spokesman Christopher Stockton. Those conditions limit Constitution to cutting trees "within the construction workspace" to between Nov. 1 and March 31 in order to protect migratory songbirds and the northern long-eared bat, which is listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The bat populations in the state have been decimated by the fungal disorder known as white nose syndrome. The pipeline is a partnership of Houston-based Cabot Oil and Gas Corp; Williams, an Oklahoma-based energy company; Piedmont Natural Gas, and WGL Holdings. bnearing@timesunion.com 518-454-5094 @Bnearing10 This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate London British actor Alan Rickman, a classically trained stage star and sensual screen villain in the "Harry Potter" saga and other films, has died. He was 69. Rickman's family said that the actor died early Thursday in London after a battle with cancer. Daniel Radcliffe, who played opposite Rickman in eight "Harry Potter" films, said Rickman was "undoubtedly one of the greatest actors I will ever work with." Born to a working-class London family in 1946 and trained at the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Rickman was often cast as the bad guy; with his rich, languid voice he could invest evil with wicked, irresistible relish. His breakout role was as scheming French aristocrat the Vicomte de Valmont in an acclaimed 1985 Royal Shakespeare Company production of Christopher Hampton's "Les Liaisons Dangereuses." Film roles included Hans Gruber, the psychopathic villain who tormented Bruce Willis in "Die Hard" in 1988; a deceased lover who consoles his bereaved partner in 1990's "Truly Madly Deeply"; the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham in "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" in 1991; and a wayward husband in the 2003 romantic comedy "Love Actually." Millions know him from the Potter films, in which he played Hogwarts teacher Severus Snape, who was either a nemesis or an ally possibly both to the titular teenage wizard. Radcliffe, who played Harry, said Rickman "was one of the first of the adults on Potter to treat me like a peer rather than a child. Working with him at such a formative age was incredibly important and I will carry the lessons he taught me for the rest of my life and career." Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling tweeted that "there are no words to express how shocked and devastated I am to hear of Alan Rickman's death. He was a magnificent actor (and) a wonderful man." Emma Thompson, who starred alongside Rickman in films including "Sense and Sensibility" and "Love Actually," praised Rickman's "humor, intelligence, wisdom and kindness" and called him "the finest of actors and directors." "I couldn't wait to see what he was going to do with his face next," she told Newsweek. Mohammed Saghir, the present-day Sheriff of Nottingham now a ceremonial role in the English Midlands city paid tribute to Rickman's version of Robin Hood's famous foe. "His sheriff was a gloriously nasty character who it was easy to love to hate and who he appeared to have great fun playing," Saghir said. Rickman's villains were memorable, and included an Emmy-winning turn as "mad monk" Rasputin in a 1996 TV biopic. But Rickman's screen roles were remarkably varied, and included the upright Col. Brandon in Ang Lee's 1995 film version of "Sense and Sensibility" and Irish politician Eamon de Valera in 1996 historical drama "Michael Collins." He worked in comic sci-fi, bringing knowingness and fun to the spoof "Galaxy Quest" in 1999. He delivered existential ennui as the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" in 2005. Hoosick Falls Residents in this factory village packed the high school Thursday night to learn more about a dangerous chemical that contaminated their water system and stoked fears about whether it's caused what many believe is a high rate of unusual and aggressive forms of cancer. "I'm very, very sorry that you have been going through this," Judith Enck, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's regional administrator, told the audience. "I'm sorry that we don't know how long you have been drinking contaminated water. ... No medical studies or surveys have been done in Hoosick Falls. Action should be taken to protect your health." The focus of the contamination has been a Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics manufacturing plant. The small factory, the village's largest employer with about 125 workers, is on a hill overlooking the Hoosick River, about 400 yards from village well fields. The company owns a second plant in the village with about 75 workers. The standing-room-only meeting took place hours after the state Department of Environmental Conservation and state Health Department jointly called on the EPA to add Saint-Gobain's McCaffrey Street plant "and other possible sources of contamination" in the village to the federal Superfund program and "undertake a full environmental investigation to address the sources of contamination." Enck, who organized the informational meeting, has urged village leaders to warn residents to stop drinking the water and limit other exposure. Mayor David B. Borge had previously said it was a "personal choice" whether to consume the water, which comes from underground wells serving about 4,500 consumers. Elevated levels of the toxic chemical, perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, were found in the system in 2014 by Michael Hickey, a former village trustee whose father died of cancer. Hickey sent water samples to a Canadian lab that reported levels of PFOA that the EPA later said are not safe for human consumption. The audience applauded loudly when David Engel, a lawyer for a grassroots citizens group formed to help educate residents about the pollution, referred to Hickey as a "hero." Saint-Gobain officials said there has been no determination on the source of the contamination, but the McCaffrey Street plant they bought in 1999 used PFOA for decades, and levels as high as 18,000 parts per trillion were found in the groundwater under the plant. EPA's guideline is 400 PPT for short-term exposure, which many health officials and experts say is not strict enough. "The use of PFOA in our facilities in the past was limited to small amounts that were present in some of the raw materials that were supplied to us by others," said Dina Silver Pokedoff, company spokeswoman. "In December 2014, we eliminated altogether the use of PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) containing PFOA in our Hoosick Falls facility." The firm's decision to stop using PFOA at its Hoosick Falls plants took place the same month that Saint-Gobain told the EPA that PFOA had been found in the public water system. The state Health Department last month issued a fact sheet to residents downplaying the health risks of the toxic chemical. But Thursday, the state took a stronger stand and called on the EPA to set stricter standards on the acceptable levels of PFOA in drinking water. The state also said it would begin "an investigation of the incidence of cancer among village residents." Hoosick Falls has had number of manufacturing plants dating to the early 1800s, including other plants that used PFOA or similar synthetic chemicals. In the last three months, the Times Union has interviewed current and former residents who suspect the drinking water may have caused cancer or other serious effects for themselves or relatives. Sarah Armour, whose mother, Janice Marie Polacek, was born and raised here, told the Times Union her family was suspicious when Polacek, a non-smoker, died at 42 from brain cancer. "She was only 39 years old when she began to have horrible headaches and dizzy spells," Armour said. "A CT scan of her brain showed a huge mass that turned out to be a metastasis from an extremely rare and aggressive form of cancer, carcinoma of the thymus. She underwent radiation, chemotherapy, and even a tumor debulking open chest surgery, but ultimately died ... I recall when she was first diagnosed, my father saying something about a plant near her childhood home that he suspected might have contributed to her unlikely development of cancer. Even back then, over 25 years ago, he knew something was not right about it." The EPA's Enck said government agencies need to determine the source and extent of water pollution, including if it has contaminated private wells. "A very detailed study of groundwater is needed in Hoosick Falls to know what we are dealing with and how to best address it," she told the audience. "There also needs to be sampling in the Hoosic River." Dr. Marcus E. Martinez, who runs a family medical practice here, said he and his father, who opened the practice in 1956, have noted rare and aggressive forms of cancer in patients, as well as thyroid diseased and other health problems. PFOA is a man-made chemical used to make non-stick and other household and commercial products that are heat-resistant and repel grease and water. Under a deal with the EPA, major PFOA makers began phasing out its use in 2006. PFOA exposure has been linked to increased health effects, including testicular and kidney cancer and thyroid disease. Last week, village trustees voted to have temporary filters installed on the water system. A long-term plan to install a charcoal filter system expected to remove PFOA from the water is set to be done later this year. Saint-Gobain has offered to pay to install and maintain the filter, and has also paid for residents to get free water from a local supermarket. Julia DiCorleto, a general manager who oversees Saint-Gobain's Hoosick Falls plants, said the soil-testing it did around the McCaffrey Street plant showed low levels of PFOA in the soil, which may indicate water pollution came from a source other than their plant. But the company's tests also showed extremely high levels of PFOA in the groundwater under the plant site, which includes an aquifer believed to feed the village's underground well system. Saint-Gobain officials said their decision to help the village does not represent any acknowledgement of responsibility for the PFOA pollution. A science panel formed as a result of class-action litigation in the Ohio Valley with DuPont, one of the primary manufacturers of PFOA, conducted a comprehensive study of the health effects of exposure and concluded the chemical has a "probable link" to six diseases: kidney cancer; testicular cancer; ulcerative colitis; thyroid disease; preeclampsia/pregnancy-induced hypertension; and medically diagnosed high cholesterol. Last fall, one of the first cases to go to trial resulted in a $1.6 million judgment for a woman who lost a kidney attributed to PFOA exposure. Five other cases in the litigation may go to trail beginning this year. blyons@timesunion.com 518-454-5547 Saratoga Springs An American dentist whom the Defense Department deemed a security threat for having family in Israel will keep his job with the Navy after the federal government, in a striking reversal, granted him security clearance to work in the military. A Navy commander informed Gershon M. Pincus by email last week that security officials had completed a required investigation into his background and decided the 62-year-old civilian did not pose a threat and could continue working on sailors from West Milton at a naval dental clinic on West Avenue in Saratoga Springs, said Avi Schick, Pincus' attorney in Manhattan. "I'm overjoyed with it," Pincus said Thursday in response to the decision that he could stay. He had no hard feelings, Pincus said, but didn't want others to experience what he did. Pincus said Thursday that he wanted to work 10 more years at the West Avenue clinic. Military officials did not respond to requests for comment. The decision marked an about face from September, when the Pentagon denied the civilian dentist from Queens security clearance on the grounds that he frequently talks on the telephone with his mother and siblings in Israel, "and foreign contacts and interests may be a security concern due to divided loyalties or foreign financial interests," according to Pentagon documents. Pincus felt like he "was hit between the eyes," he said, but the dentist continued working 20 hours a week at the clinic while he appealed the ruling with pro-bono help from the Dentons law firm. On Jan. 7, following media coverage of the case, Cmdr. Benjamin Young, head of the Navy health clinic on West Avenue, told Pincus the Pentagon had overturned its ruling, clearing Gershon to treat the sailors who support the United States' nuclear submarine propulsion program at the nearby Kenneth A. Kesselring Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory. Schick, the attorney, called the case part of a larger issue. He says there have been 105 documented instances in the last decade in which employees of military contractors appealed clearance rejections based on family ties to Israel. Of those cases, 47 of those decisions were made during the last three years of George W. Bush's presidency and 58 during the Obama presidency. "The bipartisan nature of the bigotry makes it vital that we continue to speak out and insist that American Jews are entitled to be judged based on their conduct and their character, not who they remind others of," Schick said. "The Pentagon policy must be revisited, revised and reversed." Pincus landed the military job through the USAJobs website. He said he wanted the job so he could give something back to his country after owning a successful private practice. He started working in Saratoga Springs in 2014, and purchased a second home in Ballston Spa to save on the 200-mile commute from New York City. During the interview process with the Office of Personnel Management, Pincus disclosed on Nov. 26, 2014, that his mother, brother and sister had moved to Israel around 1982, and that he had traveled there three times since 2007 to visit them. One of Pincus' children served in the Israeli army for six months, but died in 2010 at age 26. A second interview, on March 18, 2015, focused on issues related to his family's ties to Israel, and Pincus was subsequently denied clearance on Sept. 15. In its "statement of reasons," the Pentagon cited Pincus' weekly contact with relatives in Israel, who may speak with neighbors, raised security concerns. dyusko@timesunion.com 518-454-5353 @DAYusko Jakarta, Indonesia The Islamic State claimed responsibility for a terrorist attack in the Indonesian capital on Thursday, raising the specter of an expanded presence by the group in Southeast Asia. The Syrian civil war has been a source of inspiration for violent Islamists in Indonesia, and hundreds have traveled to Syria to join the Islamic State over the past several years. But recently they appear to have sought targets closer to home. Extremists claiming to represent the Islamic State carried out small-scale attacks in Indonesia and the Philippines last year. "In the last six months, we've seen a spike of planning for violence in Indonesia," said Sidney Jones, a terrorism expert and the director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict in Jakarta. "It's a desire to prove that jihadi groups are still alive and well in Indonesia and are committed to carrying out the ISIS agenda." In Thursday's attack in the center of Jakarta, militants targeted a police traffic post near an affluent shopping area, then set off explosions in an apparent suicide attack outside a nearby Starbucks coffee shop. At least seven people were killed, including five of the assailants, and 23 people were injured, the police said. The Islamic State took responsibility for the attack in a statement released on its official Telegram channel, an encrypted phone app. Gen. Tito Karnavian, chief of the Jakarta Provincial Police and the former head of the country's national police counterterrorism unit, said at a news conference Thursday that the perpetrators were linked to leaders of the Islamic State in Raqqa, Syria, and warned that the group was expanding its operations across the region, including in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. He identified the organizer as an Indonesian citizen believed to be in Syria. The suspect, Bahrun Naim, is a leader of Katibah Nusantara, a Southeast Asian-based military unit under the Islamic State, Karnavian said. The police appear to have been aware of Bahrun for some time. At least 16 terrorism suspects have been arrested in Indonesia in the past month alone, and the police said they received information in late November that the Islamic State was planning "a concert" in Indonesia, possibly meaning an attack. Despite the fear caused by gunfire and blasts in the middle of a major Asian city, the limited casualties on Thursday raised questions about the terrorists' destructive capabilities. The police said the explosives used were small bombs or grenades, much less powerful than those used in previous attacks here There's a sublime moment that occurs when I reach the top of the Brooklyn Bridge a marine breeze whiffing up from the East River, traffic rattling along on the roadway below, hundreds of people shuffling, loping, toddling, jogging, moseying, and biking past, smartphones and selfie sticks raised in all directions, the American flag hoisted high overhead, the Manhattan skyline working its magic in the background when I pause to hope this scene never will cease to stir my heart. I promised my editor this story about walking the Brooklyn Bridge so many months ago, it's embarrassing. It was meant to coincide with the long-anticipated completion of a major, multi-year rehabilitation (its first since 1958). Over budget and, like my story, way behind schedule (a projected completion date of the end of 2014 has been pushed back to spring 2016), the project has left this National Register Historic Landmark draped in tarps and mired in construction inconveniences for several years. My problem was that I really wanted to do the thing justice without overstating my case. It is just a simple bridge. But it also offers one of the most authentic and stirring New York City experiences I know. Opened in 1883, the span is the oldest of the three suspension bridges along with the Williamsburg (1903) and the Manhattan (1909) that cross the East River between Manhattan and Brooklyn. According to the New York City Department of Transportation, more than 120,000 vehicles, 4,000 pedestrians and 3,100 bicyclists cross the Brooklyn Bridge every day. More Information If you go The Brooklyn Bridge Pedestrian Walkway begins at the intersection of Tillary Street and Boerum Place. It's also accessible via an underpass on Washington Street, about two blocks from Front Street in the neighborhood Dumbo. This underpass leads to a stairway to a ramp leading to the Brooklyn Bridge Pedestrian Walkway. Public bathrooms are on the Brooklyn side at the head of the Brooklyn Bridge Park, as well as at the end of Old Fulton Street. The bridge is more easily accessible by subway from the Manhattan end; the closest stop in Brooklyn requires a walk of one-third to two-thirds of a mile to the pedestrian entrance. Check the Brooklyn Bridge Facebook page (facebook.com/BrooklynBridgeNYC) before planning your visit; the page is updated regularly with information about construction plans and bridge-related events. Want to experience the bridge in the fast lane? Bikes are available for rent at brooklynbridgesightseeing.com. See More Collapse The upper span is open to pedestrians and bicyclists 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. You can enter near the spectacular, Beaux-Arts-style New York City Hall on the Manhattan side. But walking from Brooklyn to Manhattan affords superior views. The Brooklyn-to-Manhattan trek starts in the super-trendy section of Brooklyn known as Dumbo for "Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass." I learned pretty quickly to obey the cardinal rule of the Brooklyn Bridge: Bicycles rule. Bikes and pedestrians have separate lanes in the 15-to-20-foot-wide passageway, and the bikers don't take kindly to walkers straying into their territory. If you're walking with kids, you'll want to hold hands. This 1.3-mile walk isn't actually much of a hike; the incline is gradual, and there's ample opportunity to stop and rest. Most guides suggest allowing an hour for a leisurely stroll. It's best to wear comfy footwear, and definitely not heels, as their spikes can get stuck in the wooden walkway. The path is accessible to wheelchairs and strollers. The first few minutes of the Brooklyn-to-Manhattan trek are at such low elevation that they don't offer much in the way of spectacular views. That's when the people-watching kicks in. The Brooklyn Bridge brings you elbow-to-elbow with a remarkable and colorful cross-section of humanity. The bridge looks just the way it did in the late 19th century; even its low-key paint officially called Brooklyn Bridge Tan gives it the feel of a sepia-tone daguerreotype. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter. I don't know much about civil engineering, but I find the neo-Gothic structure itself riveting. Its trusses, beams and coiled wire supports are evidence of the incredible mechanical feats people achieved back in the high-ambition, low-tech days of the late 1800s. Designed by German immigrant John Augustus Roebling, who contracted a fatal case of tetanus while surveying the site, it was for a time the tallest structure in the Western hemisphere. It took 14 years and 600 workers to build; about two dozen of them died in the process, many from "the bends" because they were brought too swiftly to the water's surface after working in chambers within the caissons below. Roebling's son Washington took over the project after his father's death, but he, too, got the bends and became unable to work on-site. His wife, Emily Warren Roebling, took over the first-hand supervision under his direction. She was the first person to cross the bridge. In 1884, P.T. Barnum paraded 20 or so elephants from his circus, the famous Jumbo leading the way, across the bridge, ostensibly to demonstrate that it was safe, strong and sound. Two sturdy granite central towers, named for Brooklyn and Manhattan, rise at the pinnacle. The platform connecting them is prime photo-op real estate. I also came across, and briefly glommed onto, a group taking a guided tour. The guide was a member of the organization Free Tours by Foot, which turns out to be just what it sounds like: a group that offers tours for free! of varying lengths and focuses. The historical markers that appear along the walk are hard to read and, once read, are not super informative. In addition to the spectacular Brooklyn and Manhattan skylines, highlights include the South Street Seaport, views up and down the busy river, and the other two bridges. The Manhattan skyline features a densely built chunk of Wall Street, the Empire State, Chrysler and Citicorp buildings, and Freedom Tower, where the twin towers stood before 9/11. The Brooklyn Bridge remains an authentically New York experience. Albany Nine school districts in the Capital Region would see their state aid decrease in the coming school year under Gov. Andrew Cuomo's proposed 2016-17 budget. The East Greenbush school district, which serves about 4,100 students across seven schools in Rensselaer County, would see the largest drop. State aid would fall 5.76 percent from nearly $29 million to $27.3 million. Other districts that would see a drop include North Colonie (2 percent), Green Island (0.68 percent) and Guilderland (1.14 percent) in Albany County; Schodack (3.25 percent) in Rensselaer County; Schuylerville (0.43 percent) in Saratoga County; and Duanesburg (3.11 percent), Schalmont (0.23 percent) and Mohonasen (2.16 percent) in Schenectady County. The decrease could be due to a number of factors, including a decrease in the number of special education students within the district, rising property values and income, and expiring aid for building projects, bus purchases and BOCES programs. As the state's nearly 700 school districts face a tax cap near zero this year limiting their ability to raise property taxes districts that face declining state aid will likely be forced to cut staff and programs, and dip into their fund balances to make ends meet, said Rick Timbs, executive director of the Statewide School Finance Consortium, a coalition of 431 school districts that fight for equitable distribution of school aid. "People who heard Cuomo's speech, that he's raising state support for schools to record levels, would have left thinking that sounds pretty good," he said. "But what he doesn't say is that that 'new' aid isn't all new." During a joint State of the State and budget address Wednesday, Cuomo announced a proposal to raise school funding $2.1 billion over the next two years. For the coming school year, he has actually budgeted a $991 million increase to schools, which amounts to a 4.3 percent increase over last year. But a portion of that number is actually just pay back money the state took from schools during the recession to help close its budget deficit. This aid-diverting device appears on school budgets as a gap elimination adjustment, and would remain in place another two years under Cuomo's proposed budget. Lawmakers had called for ending the adjustment immediately, with state Sen. Majority Leader John Flanagan warning last week there won't be a budget unless it's eliminated. In addition, the aid increase Cuomo touted this week also includes funds for one-time programs that school officials can't be sure will stick around, Timbs said, like a $100 million Community Schools fund and $22 million to expand pre-kindergarten for 3-year-olds. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter. Education advocates were also disappointed to see that Cuomo's proposed budget includes just $266 million more in foundation aid, which the state is about $4.4 billion and five years behind on. This aid was enacted in 2007 in response to a court order, and was designed to bring adequate funding to schools with high levels of student poverty, low property values, and high rates of students with disabilities and English-language learners. "So we're looking at a plan that's totally insufficient, that still leaves in the GEA, that doesn't get anywhere near the foundation aid schools actually need," Timbs said. "Are you kidding me? When you lay this all out and look at it, you can see what's happening." The projected aid increase is less than half of the $2.4 billion requested by the state Board of Regents, which sets state education policy. In its request, the Regents asked for a $1.3 billion increase in foundation aid next year and a full restoration of the $434 million that was diverted from schools under the gap elimination adjustment. Three districts in the four-county Capital Region would see a double-digit increase in school aid under Cuomo's proposal Bethlehem (10.07 percent), Waterford (11.66 percent) and Lansingburgh (13.63 percent). bbump@timesunion.com 518-454-5387 @bethanybump Albany The speech was the easy part. Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Wednesday State of the State address, in which he unveiled his $145 billion spending plan budget, started the clock on a 10-week negotiation involving Cuomo and two legislative leaders who are still relatively new on the job. Yet Cuomo's speech marked a departure from last year's public deal-making stance, which involved ultimatums and his (not always successful) attempts to handcuff policies together. The absence of the governor's favored carrot/stick approach may signal a more amicable plan for achieving his lofty goals with the Legislature's help or it could simply mean that he's saving it for the more intimate setting of the negotiating table. In his 2015 speech, Cuomo set a harsh tone by saying he wouldn't move forward with major increases in education aid unless lawmakers approve a controversial teacher evaluation plan. After the arrest the next day of then-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Cuomo forced lawmakers into an even tighter corner by vowing that he would not sign a state budget that did not include a number of ethical fixes. Ultimately, Cuomo's heavy-handed tactics worked. But on Wednesday, he shifted to lauding the Legislature for finding ways to compromise, in stark contrast to partisan gridlock in Washington, D.C. "In New York we have political differences, but we don't have political divisions and that's all the difference in the world," Cuomo told lawmakers during his speech. "And that's why this government has continued to work, and that's why this government has continued to progress so thank you for that." Cuomo's 2015 ultimatums brought a wave of harsh criticism from some circles. Following his 2015 speech, New York State United Teachers President Karen Magee called the governor "misinformed" and suggested the linkage of school aid to Cuomo reforms was tantamount to holding students hostage. Contrast that with even-keeled rhetoric from the same union on Wednesday, when the governor said he would accept recommendations of his Common Core task force, which include developing a more state-driven set of education standards. The Board of Regents, with Cuomo's support, recently placed a moratorium on the use of student test scores for teacher evaluations through the 2018-19 school year. In Wednesday's speech, the governor also proposed a $991 million increase in aid for the 2016-17 school year, about half of what the state's education advocates called for in November. But that's something the union cautiously noted as beginning "the essential discussions that must take place about what's needed to provide every student with a quality public education in the wake of the tax cap." "As a 30-year teacher, I would say that the governor has had a chance to get more information in this past year," Magee told the Times Union on Thursday. She described Cuomo's new rhetoric to be more "traditional." "He's had a chance to rethink and, as he has even stated, reboot," Magee said. Even if the governor is taking a more traditional tack, that doesn't mean others aren't contemplating getting out their own set of handcuffs. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter. Senate Republican Majority Leader John Flanagan reiterated on Wednesday that his conference, which holds the bare 32-vote majority needed to pass legislation in that chamber, will not approve a state budget that does not entirely eliminate the remaining Gap Elimination Adjustment, a leftover from the 2008 fiscal meltdown. Shutting down the GEA would cost roughly $434 million; Cuomo wants to accomplish that over two years. Though Flanagan is a veteran lawmaker, Wednesday marked the first time he sat on the stage on a State of the State address as the leader of a majority conference. His elevation last May following the arrest of Senate GOP leader Dean Skelos came with the support of upstate members and others who will be watching him in the post for the first time and hoping that his resiliency helps them as they come into a key election season. Ultimately, tone in January is not always indicative of tone in March negotiations. On the issue of ethics, the governor may have a key advocacy group that can issue an ultimatum for him: voters, who in November will have an opportunity to judge 2016's progress and reform. Whether ultimatums are in the works or won't come at all, there is plenty time for the governor, Flanagan and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, who has been sticking to his subdued nature early in the session, to calibrate their 2016 negotiating styles. "I just don't know whether (the governor is) going to in negotiations say, 'We're not going to do that unless you do this,' because that's always the way negotiations go," Senate Deputy Republican Majority Leader John DeFrancisco said after Wednesday's speech. "The fact that he didn't say that (Wednesday) doesn't mean that he's not going to link things." mhamilton@timesunion.com 518-454-5449 @matt_hamilton10 This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Troy Thomas and Dorothy Ryan lived in the first-floor flat of a two-family house in the city's Stowe Hill neighborhood and built a simple life together on Cottage Street. It was the house where he grew up. His parents owned it and lived upstairs. Throughout 68 years of marriage, the Ryans were the glue that held together a large family that included four great-grandchildren and many nieces and nephews. Their love story was uncomplicated and durable. They were inseparable as they walked to church, the grocery store or to visit friends. Neither ever had a driver's license, nor owned a car. A World War II Navy veteran, he worked in the Behr-Manning sandpaper plant in Watervliet. She was hired at the plant, too. One night, Ryan and a buddy went to a Troy bar, the Airport Inn. His friend introduced the co-workers and declared to Ryan: "This is the woman you're going to marry." A year later, they wed. Their health began failing around the same time, and both went into a nursing home about a year ago. They shared a room. Last weekend, the end came first for Dorothy, 89, who suffered from complications from a fall last October that fractured her back. She died Friday night. Their daughters pushed her bed next to the bed of her husband, Thomas, 91, close enough so that he could hold her hand. He suffered from congestive heart failure and dementia, but he had a moment of lucidity as he clutched his wife's hand. "We're going together," he told their two daughters at the bedside. About 30 hours later, in the predawn hours of Sunday, he breathed his last. "We always prayed they would go together," said a daughter, Sharon Ryan. Later that afternoon, after a rainstorm, a rare double rainbow emerged that was widely photographed around the area. The double rainbow seemed to settle over the Eddy Heritage House, where the couple died. The daughters considered it was a heavenly sign that reassured them that their parents were together again. The family began planning a rare dual funeral. Thomas Ryan almost did not survive the war. Few outside immediate family members knew about what Ryan survived aboard the USS Lindsey on April 12, 1945. The destroyer minelayer came under a relentless Japanese air attack off Okinawa and suffered two direct hits by explosive-laden piloted aircraft known as kamikazes. The explosions and fires killed 57 sailors, severely wounded 57 more and nearly sank the ship after 60 feet of its bow were torn away. Commander T. E. Chambers ordered "all back full." Swiftly throwing the engines into reverse managed to save the vessel from getting swamped over its destroyed bow. A tug helped the disabled destroyer move 20 miles in reverse to a safe anchorage, where the dead and wounded were assisted and repairs were begun. Low on food, without power, the smell of rotting flesh and carnage still clinging in the tropical heat to the battered ship, the Lindsey was slowly towed backward 1,300 miles to a floating dry dock at Guam. A temporary bow was installed and the ship crossed the Pacific Ocean under its own power and arrived in Norfolk, Va., on Aug. 19, 1945. On Sept. 15, 1945, the Troy Record published an interview with Ryan. The headline read, "Trojan tells of terrific assault survived by ship." The article quoted from a letter Ryan sent home to his parents. "It was horrible," he said of the attack. "We never expected the ship to stay afloat but she was one tough ship. We took a beating but we sure as hell dished it out." After that, he stopped talking about it. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter. "I put the genie in the bottle" was how he put it to his daughters. On the anniversary of the deadly attack on the Lindsey, horrible memories resurfaced for Ryan. "April 12 was always a really tough day for my uncle," said Scott Ryan, a nephew. "He told me a few stories, but he rarely talked about it. He hid his medals." Three decades ago, when surviving Lindsey crew members were in their mid-60s, the first ship's reunion was organized. The Ryans were afraid to fly, so the couple took the train to San Francisco, New Orleans, San Antonio, and other cities. The reunions ended a few years ago when death and infirmity thinned the ship's already-depleted ranks. When he moved into the nursing home, the only personal items Ryan insisted on bringing from home were two framed photographs of the Lindsey one before and one after the attack. Ryan kept a well-worn bundle of prayers torn from old missals, with a handwritten list of crew members killed, deceased family members and friends who had passed away. He recited the names each day as he said his daily prayers. He was buried with his prayer bundle. Ryan was persuaded to be videotaped for an oral history several years ago by the New York State Military Museum and Veterans Research Center in Saratoga Springs. He wept at several points and had to pause to compose himself. After his dementia diagnosis a few years ago, while his medication was being adjusted, he suffered a severe post-traumatic stress disorder episode. "The genie came out of the bottle," his daughter said. His father sobbed for days and could not be consoled, until the drug dosage was altered. The couple was buried with full military honors, alongside each other, on Wednesday in the Gerald B.H. Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery in Schuylerville. pgrondahl@timesunion.com 518-454-5623 @PaulGrondahl President Barack Obama's final State of the Union address was part stump speech for the third term he'll never have and part melancholy addendum to the first speech that propelled him to national attention. Far more than with George W. Bush in 2008, Bill Clinton in 2000 or Ronald Reagan in 1988, the roiling presidential campaign was an unmentioned but omnipresent subtext of the speech. While Obama's two-term predecessors referred only glancingly to the impending election, his would-be Republican replacements were the unnamed but unmistakable targets of Obama's critique. Indeed, Donald Trump was watching; the speech, he tweeted, "is really boring, slow, lethargic," which raises the question of what, exactly, he imagines serving as president is like. Obama's intended audience wasn't so much Trump et al., but voters tempted by Trump's ugly, divisive message. Americans shouldn't be seduced, Obama argued, by those "peddling fiction" about America's economy in decline or American military strength waning. There have been stretches when Obama exudes the attitude that he can't wait to get out of town, to be freed from having to deal with dumb politicians and dumber politics. He'd rather be browsing in a bookstore than schmoozing with senators. Tuesday night, with his gracious nod to new House Speaker Paul Ryan and Ryan's interest in issues of poverty, reflected a different Obama, the one reluctant to pack his bags. Even more, the one sorrier not to have another shot, now that he's got a better grasp of how to do the job. Which leads to the sadder-but-wiser president, and the contrast to the uplifting Obama, circa 2004, with his vision of uniting red and blue America. The older, grayer Obama grasps that achieving "a better politics" is not simply a matter of goodwill and trying harder; he rues that his presidency has left the parties more divided than ever. "We have to change the system to reflect our better selves," he said, citing nonpartisan redistricting, voting rights and campaign finance reform. Specifically, "I believe we've got to reduce the influence of money in our politics, so that a handful of families or hidden interests can't bankroll our elections." "It's great for him to talk about it, but he's done nothing for the last seven years," said Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer. Although he credits the administration for helping stop some legislative changes that would have made matters even worse. "It's a fundamental failure of his presidency." In 2008, Obama put the nail in the coffin of the public financing system for presidential campaigns, becoming the first presidential candidate since Watergate to run a campaign fueled by private money. Obama vowed then that he was "firmly committed to reforming the system as president." Uh-huh. More broadly, Obama has denounced the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, most notably in his 2010 State of the Union address, but has put no real effort into fixing the mess created by the rise of super PACs and, even worse, the gusher of undisclosed "dark money" to groups that claim exemption from reporting requirements. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter. Obama's Internal Revenue Service has repeatedly postponed writing rules that would force these phony "social welfare organizations" to disclose political spending. And campaign finance reform advocates have been beseeching the administration for years now to shed at least some sunlight on dark money through an executive order that would require federal contractors to report these contributions. Such an order would not solve the dark money problem, but it would be a start. "I can't do these things on my own," Obama said of his promised political reform agenda. The executive order is one thing he can. It wouldn't require that third term. Ruth Marcus' email address is ruthmarcus@washpost.com. I agree with the program I don't agree with the program I like the idea, but feel the current proposal is too broad Let me park where I want! Vote View Results [January 15, 2016] Will T-Mobile's Binge On Leave Consumers with a Hangover? MORRISTOWN, N.J., Jan. 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- P3 Group, a global consulting, engineering and testing services company, today released the results of a 12-week crowdsource study that separates fact from fiction in the ongoing debate over T-Mobile's new Binge On, a program that allows customers to stretch their data buckets by streaming video from participating providers for free. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160114/322521 The P3 report is based on real data collected across the United States and analyzed for the six weeks before and six weeks after the November 15, 2015 introduction of Binge On. The report draws on the daily smartphone usage of more than 1,000 T-Mobile customers who opted into P3's crowdsource panel by downloading P3's proprietary measurement software that records real, everyday smartphone use including the speed, duration and quality of voice and data usage on a 24/7 basis. According to T-Mobile, with the Binge On program, its network detects all video and adjusts all streams for smaller/handheld devices resulting in DVD video quality of 480p or better. T-Mobile caps the average transmission speed of video content at around 1.5 Mbit/s. In its 10-page report, which can be downloaded at http://www.p3-group.com/P3-Offers-Binge-On-Insights, P3 finds that, overall, T-Mobile Binge On customers are using video apps slightly more often and, once apps are launched, they are using them significantly longer than before. P3 data reveals that the T-Mobile customer video data rate was reduced much less than the maximum bandwidth. The resulting effective data rate of popular video apps still achieves a level of about 60 percent or more of what was achieved before Binge On, although the bandwidth of the network is capped to a much smaller fraction of what the T-Mobile network is providing to non-video content. Apps with a lower portion of video traffic are less affected with a remaining bandwidth closer to pre-Binge On levels. Other apps are not affected at all. "Based on our in-depth analysis of T-Mobile customer usage, we see that Binge On has some positive effects on the user experience," said Dirk Bernhardt, CEO of P3 Communications. "For example, T-Mobile Binge On customers in the P3 panel who open Hulu send about 50 percent more time on it. And increased video usage applies to non-participating service providers, like YouTube, as well as to providers currently partnering with T-Mobile in the Binge On program. "It appears that a rising tide lifts all ships," he said. "Because Binge On partner traffic is not charged by volume, T-Mobile customers have more of their data plan allowance left for non-Binge On services." The report does note that the reduced data rate for Binge On video effectively decreases the available video data rate to about 60 to 75 percent of pre-Binge On levels. "While this does have some impact on video resolution and/or frame rate, the effect on the user experience is hard to quantify as this depends on the particular video content and device they are using," Bernhardt said. The data shows that all types of apps that download video content are affected. It doesn't matter whether or not the content is streamed or downloaded. Video content embedded in a Web page, retrieved from social networks or simply downloaded is affected as well. Other findings of the study include: On average, customers are spending up to 50 percent more time per session watching Netflix and Hulu; 16 percent longer on YouTube. The amount of data transmitted during a video session averaged over all Netflix, Hulu and YouTube sessions decreased by about 13 percent. The average instantaneous throughput by different apps depends on the mix of video and non-video content. While the average instantaneous throughput available to video apps drops to just 29 to 54 percent of pre-Binge On levels, it doesn't necessarily mean the video data rate is reduced but that video buffer is filled slower than before Binge On. Due to the mix of video and non-video content, the average instantaneous throughput of social media apps is reduced less (to about 50% to 80%) than for video apps. The biggest impact on gaming apps appears to involve video ads the user can watch in order to earn gaming points instead of buying them via in-app purchase. Bernhardt said the increased use of video apps indicates that Binge On does attract customers. "In addition, capping the bandwidth available for the transmission of video content allows T-Mobile to mitigate the risk of congestion in its network. It appears that T-Mobile has successfully managed to carry more video traffic, while avoiding a dramatic increase of the load on its network." P3 has more than a decade of experience in testing wireless devices, network quality and service performance around the globe. The company has provided consulting, engineering and testing services to major U.S. carriers since 2007 and to Canadian carriers since 2013. Last year the company performed the first independent mobile benchmark of Voice over LTE services in the United States. "We're all about solving deep technical problems for our customers," said Bernhardt. "Our P3 Insight program represents a disruptive new way of crowdsourcing. One not built on artificial traffic, but on observing everyday smartphone use by real customers." For more information, please visit the P3 Group website. About P3 P3 Group is a leading global consulting, engineering and testing services company with a team of over 3,000 consultants and engineers across 50 countries. The company provides a broad portfolio of independent technical and management consulting services including network planning, engineering, end-to-end optimization, market intelligence, security, QoS and QoE testing, international benchmarking, device testing and acceptance services. It is recognized worldwide as the completely neutral authority on network quality. Our unique differentiation lies in our strategic consulting expertise combined with deep technical and engineering skills to offer management solutions to complex problems. P3 telecommunications clients include wireless carriers, infrastructure vendors, device manufacturers, public safety organizations and regulatory authorities. In the Americas, P3 has offices in Detroit, Mich. Newport Beach and San Jose, Calif., Morristown, N.J., Portland, Ore., Greenville, S.C., Durham, N.C. and Dallas, Texas; Mississauga, Ontario; and Mexico City, Mexico. For more information please visit www.p3-group.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/will-t-mobiles-binge-on-leave-consumers-with-a-hangover-300204967.html SOURCE P3 Group [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 14, 2016] IllumiCare's "ribbon of information" floats on top hospital electronic medical record, empowers physicians with real-time cost and risk information BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Jan. 14, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Birmingham-based IllumiCare announces growing adoption with its implementation at four St. Vincent's Health System hospitals and new partnership with the Texas Hospital Association. Everywhere physicians go to order things a restaurant, shopping online, etc. they see the cost of things...except inside hospitals. Studies show that informing physicians about treatment costs and/or risk of patient harm, at the time and place they are about to order the next test or medication, causes them to order fewer and less expensive tests and medications. IllumiCare is a patent-pending, non-intrusive ribbon of information that hovers over a hospital's electronic medical record and gives physicians real-time, patient-specific data. It presents the human and financial cost of care not just how much radiology tests cost, but also the patient's cumulative medical radiation exposure and associated cancer risk; not just the cost of labs, but also the estimated blood loss from all those lab draws and the risk of hospital-acquired anemia; not just the cost of scheduled medications, but the risk of adverse drug reactions, etc. The first health system to implement IllumiCare was St. Vincent's Helth System. A small group of physicians were included in its initial rollout. Their feedback was critical in improving the experience for future physicians who get access. "It means a lot to me that my home hospital is one of the first hospitals in the nation to track patients' medical radiation exposure from radiology tests, estimated blood loss from inpatient lab tests and other key patient safety indicators," said the Birmingham visionary behind IllumiCare, Dr. Mukul Mehra. "We want to empower our clinicians with information that is not currently available at the point of care," he added. IllumiCare has started to attract the attention of many other health systems. Just today it announced a partnership with the Texas Hospital Association to leverage this technology in Texas hospitals. "We are very excited about the possibilities, because IllumiCare is a platform to visualize any patient-specific data concurrent with the electronic medical record in a way that is clinically non-intrusive, EMR-agnostic and easily implemented," stated G.T. LaBorde, IllumiCare's chief executive officer. He continued, "We are very excited to help our customers use this customizable tool to meet their needs." About IllumiCare IllumiCare combines actionable clinical and financial intelligence in a non-intrusive ribbon of information presented to hospital providers at the point of care. To see IllumiCare in action, see: http://www.illumicare.com/quick-tour. IllumiCare is located in Birmingham, AL. For more information, please visit www.illumicare.com or call 205-578-1738. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/illumicares-ribbon-of-information-floats-on-top-hospital-electronic-medical-record-empowers-physicians-with-real-time-cost-and-risk-information-300204898.html SOURCE IllumiCare, Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Today, the channel has some super-sized vendors like Dell (News - Alert), Cisco, Microsoft, IBM and AT&T. I would put Ingram and Tech Data there too. There are numerous carriers in the next segment of the channel pyramid that include CLECs like TelePacific, Windstream, Level3, and CenturyLink (News - Alert); and other carriers like Comcast and Sprint; hardware vendors like Xerox, ADTRAN, and Juniper; and cloud players like Salesforce, VMware, and Lenovo. There are two more segments that make up the technology channel. The bottom one is filled with boutique shops of SaaS, PaaS, other as-a-service players, and security. It is filled with regional fiber players and data centers. And it is filled with VoIP providers (and conferencing players). One segment up you could put the marketing mavens of Vonage (News - Alert), RingCentral, and 8x8, along with the cablecos that are not Comcast. The first group has made a brand for itself that also created some demand that channel partners can leverage. The cable guys certainly have demand but some programs are just too rigid to create a business around. The bottom segment has two problems: attention and business model. The attention part is because they don't utilize marketing and have no (or a crappy) brand. So the partner has no leverage to use that. Say what you will about the call quality of OTT providers like RingCentral or Vonage, but the masses have heard their names. There is name recognition that can be utilized. And the amount of advertising that the big three ITSPs have done has created some demand for hosted PBX. When you examine the business model, could a partner make a living off of your services? Obviously, many tech partners have a business (and a healthy living) that revolves around the top-tier programs like IBM (News - Alert). However, when you have a VoIP provider with an unknown brand, how can a partner wrap its business around it? How can he or she make a living from selling it? Cable is easy to sell, but at $300 per sale, it takes a number of sales to make a living. The same is true with very small business voice services; at less than eight SIP paths (or trunks), is there an ROI on the sale? First recognize that you are in the bottom tier, then do something about the brand and the business model and partners will come. Peter Radizeski is president of telecom consulting firm RAD-INFO (News - Alert) Inc. (www.rad-info.net). Edited by Maurice Nagle City Council discuss owner occupied home rehabilitation program The $250,000 grant would be would be split between 15-20 city homeowners, who would be afforded up to $15,000 each for repairs to their homes. Hisham Geneina's has said theft by public officials has cost the teassury LE600 billion in recent years Egypt's newly-elected parliament the House of Representatives is expected to open next week an investigation into top auditor Hisham Geneina's recent statement that state corruption led to the loss of LE600 billion. Geneina is chairman of the Central Auditing Agency (CAA), which acts as the country's main watchdog on public authorities. The CAA has been under the purview of the president of the republic since 1996. On Tuesday night, a large number of MPs affiliated with the In Support of Egypt requested parliament's speaker Ali Abdel-Al to entrust a parliamentary fact-finding committee with opening an investigation into Geneina's statement. The request comes just one day after an investigative committee formed by Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said Geneina 's statement has inflated figures about corruption in Egypt and that his statement aimed at defaming the reputation of Egypt. Sameh Seif El-Yazal, a former intelligence officer and leader of the In Support of Egypt coalition, said he and 50 other MPs have submitted a memo to speaker Abdel-Al, asking him that an ad hoc fact-finding parliamentary committee be formed to investigate Geneina's claims. "Geneina has deliberately misled the public about corruption in Egypt and his statement was a lot of defamation for Egypt in domestic and foreign circles," said El-Yazal. El-Yazal told reporters Tuesday night that under the request of a majority of MPs, Geneina could be forced to come before parliament to face questioning. Mostafa Bakri, a journalist and a leading MP affiliated with the pro-Sisi bloc, said "parliament could refer Geneina to prosecution authorities to be investigated on his misguided reports about corruption." El-Yazal, Bakri and many other MPs believe that Geneina is loyal to the Muslim Brotherhood and that he is leading a conspiracy on behalf of its leaders to defame the regime of president El-Sisi. Bakri said after the release of the investigative committee's report that Geneina should be dismissed from his position as CAA's chairman. El-Yazal said the report made by the investigative committee on Geneina's statement will be thoroughly revised by the house as parliament is the main supervisory and watchdog institution in the country, and one of its main tasks is to revise CAA's reports about corruption. Joining forces with the pro-Sisi bloc, 25 MPs led by Anwar Esmat El-Sadat, leader of the liberal reform and development party, have Wednesday signed a memo requesting that speaker Abdel-Al summon Geneina to defend his claims before parliament. "We are neutral and we do not want him to come under retaliatory grounds all we want is to reach the truth," said El-Sadat, adding that "it is very important to listen to the two sides of the story; Geneina and those who made the investigative report upon the request of President El-Sisi." Sadat said the fact that CAA is independent does not mean that its chairman is immune to questioning. "Both MPs and CAA are mainly responsible for supervising state authorities and investigating public corruption," said Sadat. On Wednesday morning, Prime Minister Sherif Ismail visited parliament to congratulate constitutional law professor Abdel-Al for his election as speaker. Ismail said that once parliament's committees are formed, the government will be ready to deliver its policy statement before the House. "This is expected to be at the end of January," said Ismail. Ismail also said that work groups were formed to review reports issued by the CAA after Geneina's statement about corruption. In 1996, after prime minister Kamal El-Ganzouri was dismissed by then-president Hosni Mubarak, it was decided that CAA come under the supervision of the president rather than parliament, which had long been responsible for revising CAA's reports about state authorities. Search Keywords: Short link: Meanwhile, activist Omar Hazek was barred from travelling to the Netherlands to receive a freedom of expression award Related Four members of April 6 Youth Movement detained for illegal protest Egyptian security forces arrested Thursday Taher Mokhtar, a member of the Freedoms Committee at the Doctors Syndicate and a long-time revolutionary socialist activist, according to Freedom for the Brave, a grassroots campaign for the release of political prisoners in Egypt. According to a statement released on the campaigns official Facebook page, security forces stormed Tahers apartment in downtown Cairo, arresting him and a friend and taking them to the Abdeen police station. The charges against the 30-year-old Mokhtar are unclear. Also on Thursday, authorities detained political activist and poet Omar Hazek for two hours at Cairo International Airport before releasing him. Hazek, who was on his way to the Netherlands to receive an award for freedom of expression, was told by authorities that he was barred from travel over security concerns. Hazek was released from prison in September by a presidential pardon. He was serving a two-year sentence for illegal protesting. Security forces also raided the Giza headquarters of Masr Al-Arabia news website, arresting its administrative manager Ahmed Abdel-Gawad, reported Al-Ahram Arabic website. Abdel-Gawad is accused of spreading false news and inciting violence against the state on the upcoming anniversary of the 25 January revolution. Police also confiscated seven computers used by the website. Search Keywords: Short link: Egypt's foreign ministry condemned on Friday the terrorist attacks in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta which left at least seven people dead on Thursday. "Egypt expresses its full support to Indonesia in these hard conditions as well renewing its call on the international community to unite against terrorism," a foreign ministry statement read. At least seven people -- five attackers and two civilians -- were killed in Jakarta on Thursday as militants launched suicide, shooting and bombing attacks that tore through a Starbucks cafe and shook an embassy district in the Muslim-majority nation. The Islamic State militant group announced that it had carried out the attacks, according to Aamaaq news agency which is allied to the group. Egypt is battling an Islamist insurgency linked to ISIS that has gained pace since the ouster of president Mohamed Morsi in 2013. Search Keywords: Short link: You have reached a premium content area of Transitions. To read this entire article please login if you are already a Transitions 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). An Egyptian state-owned newspaper apologised for using a derogatory term about the jailed spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, in a story about his health. Yasser Rizq, the editor-in-chief of state-owned daily Al-Akhbar, wrote in a note published in the newspaper on Thursday that "gloating about a person's illness does not fit either my own morals nor Al-Akhbar's editorial policy, which is widely known for its credibility and impartiality." An article published in the newspaper last week gave an update about the health of the Brotherhood's supreme guide, using a term that is considered derogatory in Egyptian Arabic to describe his hernia operation. "Although this headline made some readers happy," Rizq wrote, he had decided to apologise as he found it being interpreted as "insulting." "I condemned the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood and I criticised former president Mohamed Morsi's regime, but at the same time Badie is behind bars and he is helpless," he wrote. The Brotherhood was designated a terrorist organisation in 2013; much of its leadership and many of its members were jailed on charges often related to violence or terrorist activity. In 2015 a number of convictions for terror-related charges against the group's supporters and members were overturned, including several convictions of Badie. Badie has remained in jail as he is facing an initial death sentence along with five other top Brotherhood figures in the case dubbed "the Wadi Natroun prison break case." The case is currently being appealed. Search Keywords: Short link: There is an ongoing campaign to smear Al-Azhar by quoting selectively from books published by the university that purport to show links with terrorist ideas, Grand Imam Ahmed El-Tayyeb told state TV on Friday. "They want to show that Al-Azhar's curriculums spread terrorist ides and views although our heritage books have been in place since long agoso why they are doing this now? For sure, to demolish Al Azahr," El-Tayyeb added without pointing his finger at any particular groups or persons. Al-Azhar, the highest seat of Sunni Islam, has been criticised by some for failing to combat extremist ideas. In December controversial TV presenter Islam El-Beheiry was sentenced to five-year in prison on charges of contempt of religion. El-Beheiry was a harsh critic of Al-Azhar, and the institution requested the Egyptian authorities stop airing his show, describing him as "leading a fierce campaign against the foundations of Islam and Islamic heritage." Search Keywords: Short link: Axelle Lamaire, French Minister of Digital Affairs A few days ago an amendment to a proposed "Digital Republic" bill tried to ban strong encryption in France by forcing equipment manufacturers to build in decryption capability so that their devices could always be decrypted upon request. The amendment was written by a group of 18 politicians from the French Republican party, but it was rejected by the French government. Speaking on behalf of the government, Axelle Lemaire, who is the Minister for Digital Affairs and has also been promoting the main Digital Republic bill, said that the amendment wouldve brought "vulnerability by design" into products and everyones data would be less protected. The backdoor would allow other bad actors easier access to peoples data, even if the law enforcements intentions were good. She also argued that having to build these vulnerabilities into products would damage the companies revenues as well as their credibility. Lemaire reminded everyone of the recent backdoor found in Junipers firewalls, which could only exist because the NSA backdoored a cryptographic standard a few years earlier -- one that Juniper ended up using. Lemaire said that allowing intelligence agencies to put vulnerabilities in products would lead to situations that are detrimental to the whole community. She also noted that Netherlands recently showed its commitment to encryption, implying that this is the direction France should go, too. The minister added that the Republicans were right to participate in the debate about the digital French republic, but their proposal is not the right solution. The Republicans vice president withdrew the amendment but continued to defend the substance of the argument, that law enforcement needs access to encrypted devices. Lately, weve seen that some of the countries initially proposing backdoors and a ban of strong encryption or anonymity tools, including the U.S., France, and UK, have started to back down a little on this issue. However, it remains to be seen if the issue will be settled for good soon or whether theyll keep asking for encryption backdoors whenever theres a new opportunity to do so. Lucian Armasu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware. You can follow him at @lucian_armasu. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube. You probably know HANCOQ best as one of the co-founders of the Eastern Seaboard Electric Soul Ensemble (ESESE), a Melbourne collective of rappers, vocalists, musicians, producers, videographers, and creatives. The group unveiled their debut single last year and have been capitalising on the serious buzz it generated ever since. Now, HANCOQ is teaming up with Skomes and Hudson James Jr to release a special collaborative EP. Titled SKOMES.ESESE, the release is set to drop Thursday, 21st January as part of the lead-up to HANCOQs appearance with ESESE at the upcoming St Jeromes Laneway Festival. Readers can now check out the lead single from the EP. In My Feelings will be officially released on Saturday, 16th January and features an appearance from highly buzzed, rhyme-slinging up-and-comer Baro. Check out the track below, along with all of HANCOQs upcoming tour dates for more info visit his Facebook page. HANCOQ National Tour Dates Saturday, 13th February 2016 Laneway Festival, Melbourne w/ESESE Saturday, 27th February 2016 The Evelyn Hotel, Melbourne w/Baro, Fortunes, ALTA & Big Words "After the best 10 and a half years of my radio career, at KMBZ and Talk 980, I was let go today. I want to thank Entercom for the time of my life and my beloved listeners for being so loyal and such great friends. I look forward to my next great opportunity, whether that is in radio or in some great new venture." Staunch Conservatives in Kansas City along with the most informed denizens of the local discourse are taking this one to heart . . . Here is what's really an end of an era for Kansas City and another sign that the conversation has moved to the Internet. Take a look . .We can only hope that Darla stays in Kansas City . . . Remember this blog started off talking with her weekly.Like it or not, Darla is one of the most knowledgeable, thoughtful and dedicated talkers Kansas City has ever seen . . . She counts locals on both sides of the aisle among her friends if not fans. Her FB announcement earned more than 500 comments and DOZENS of shares.Developing . . . Ahmed Abdel-Gawad was accused of 'spreading false news' and 'inciting violence against the state' on the upcoming anniversary of the 25 January revolution Related Egyptian Doctors Syndicate activist Taher Mokhtar arrested The managing editor of Egyptian news website Masr Al-Arabiya was released on Friday after spending a night in police detention, Aswat Masriya reported, following his arrest on charges of spreading false news." Ahmed Abdel-Gawad was arrested on Thursday when security forces stormed the headquarters of the privately owned website. He was charged with spreading false news and inciting violence against the state on the upcoming anniversary of the 25 January revolution. Police also confiscated seven computers used by the website on allegations that they are harmful to national security", the website said in a statement. Also on Thursday, Egyptian security forces arrested Taher Mokhtar, a member of the Doctors Syndicate and a long-time revolutionary socialist activist, as well as detaining political activist and poet Omar Hazek for two hours at Cairo International Airport. Mokhtar remains in custody; charges against the 30-year-old are unclear. Hazek was prevented from boarding a flight to the Netherlands where he had been due to receive an award for freedom of expression. He is facing a travel ban due to security concerns. Search Keywords: Short link: CHECK THIS KICK-ASS TKC COMMENT FACT CHECKING THE LATEST RETRO CRIME-FIGHTING STRATEGY DEMONSTRATING A DEARTH OF NEW IDEAS IN KANSAS CITY!!! "What I find most surprising about Chief Forte's comments regarding a possible voluntary diversion of police funds toward municipal infrastructure maintenance, namely tearing down dilapidated housing, is that this very same strategy was promised by Mayor James years ago!! "Who can forget the photo op wherein Mayor James sat in the cab of a backhoe and began tearing down an abandoned home? He promised that the city would raze a certain number (was it 200?) of abandoned houses within the next year or two. Well, guess what happened? After a few were torn down, the initiative ceased due to lack of funds! "All public relations, and no commitment to solving problems. "It's surprising that Chief Forte would float the same idea. "The City Manager Schulte was quoted the other day as estimating it would take $10-15 million dollars for the city to demolish all the abandoned dangerous dwellings in the urban core....yet he's about to divert $18 million toward the failed 18th and Vine area. KCMO leadership has no understanding of priorities and return on investment." The sordid topic of Kansas City's "dangerous building" problem and its impact on local crime has been "" as if it's news and not just another carefully crafted and tragically recycled political talking point. Thankfully, there are people in Kansas City who know better and remember this recycled effort.To wit . . .Every day our blog earns hundreds of comments but this one was spotlighted by more than a few readers and deserves special consideration because it calls into questionTake a look:########### A hopeful look at a proud tradition for Kansas City Public Schools . . . Meetingnew leader, touting his arrival and subsequent new plan as a LONG-AWAITED SOLUTION to an the ongoing troubles of the embattled district . . . And then repeating the process when something inevitably goes wrong or the guy decides to cash out.Here's how this "new" routine starts . . . Without much community involvement:Meanwhile the district remains partially accredited and this year student test scores actually took a bit of a dip but that fact was widely unreported in local media.Developing . . . Kansas City Anti-Violence Project Opens First LGBTQ Victim Services Center in Four-State Region Here's an important word about the work to provide resources for a community problem that's often overlooked . . .Kansas City, MOThe Kansas City Anti-Violence Project is proud to announce the grand opening of its lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) Victims Services Center, the first of its kind in a four-state regionKansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa . The Center provides a safe space for LGBTQ adult and youth survivors of trauma, neglect, domestic violence, sexual assault and hate crimes to access KCAVP services. Through the Center, KCAVP is able to initiate new programs, such as support groups and case management, and implement greater resources for clients through its new clothing closet and food pantry. The new Center will also allow for a safe and confidential space for clients to meet with advocates in person and attend therapy sessions. These services will enhance KCAVPs ability to provide both emergency and long-term services to LGBTQ survivors of violence in Kansas and Missouri. The Center will officially open Wednesday, February 3, 2016 at 10 am.In order to celebrate the new Center, KCAVP will hold a Grand Opening on January 29, from 5 to 7 pm at its new location (4050 Pennsylvania Ave., Ste. 135, KCMO 64111). The event is open to the public and refreshments will be served. There will be a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony at 5:45 pm.Until KCAVP moved to its current location, the organization operated from an undisclosed location, which limited its ability to provide safe and confidential services to clients. It required many clients to access long-term advocacy services by phone or in-person at secure, but more public locations. With the new Center, KCAVP is able to provide clients with a consistent meeting location as well allow them to drop in to access services without an appointment on weekdays from 10 am to 6 pm.This is an important landmark in KCAVPs history. The opening of the LGBTQ Victim Services Center represents the dedication of all the staff, board and volunteers who have worked with us, and the amazing support the community has shown us, said Justin Shaw, Executive Director of KCAVP. This center is also a response to the call from our community for safe spaces where LGBTQ people can receive crisis and holistic support. We are seeing increasing demand for our services and programs. This center will allow us to better respond to that demand and expand what we can offer for those who come to us.KCAVPs current location also houses the Youth Department and Education and Outreach Department. Through the Youth Department, KCAVP provides advocacy to LGBTQ youth and young adults who are experiencing trauma, violence, or neglect in their lives. The Youth Department also provides trainings to youth and youth service providers in Kansas and Missouri on various topics regarding violence experienced by LGBTQ youth, how to advocate for LGBTQ youth, and how to promote the resiliency of LGBTQ Youth. The Education and Outreach Department provides trainings on domestic violence, sexual violence, and hate crimes in the LGBTQ community for adult service providers and interested community organizations in Kansas and Missouri.### A couple of years ago,ignited a debate across the nation about social media bullying, the local justice system and the role of politicos in addressing the crisis.The legal outcome of the controversy was disappointing for many BUT now there's a movie examining the episode making a high profile debut in the most celebrated independent cinema festival in the nation.Thanks toand the link to the Sundance info of this controversial movie project . . .Description . . ."Audrie and Daisy, two high school girls in different towns across America, were sexually assaulted by boys they thought were their friends. Both girls experienced social media bullying and were stigmatizedand both attempted suicide. Tragically, Audrie takes her own life, but Daisy survives, and her story becomes a journey to keep living. By juxtaposing their stories and drawing connections between the two teenage girls, bold filmmakers Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk illuminate the larger societal epidemic of sexual assault that has been exacerbated by todays technologies. And rather than paint a simple picture, they also give voice to the spectrum of male perspectives involved in Daisys case: her assailants, the small-town sheriff, and her brother, who now works to change the next generation of boys."Through the specificity of Audrie and Daisys experiences, insights emerge that can be extrapolated to the larger landscape. As Daisy learns Audries story and joins a community of survivors, Audrie & Daisy sparks a vital conversation around breaking these cycles of stigma and isolation for teenage rape victims that has blown up in the face of social media hysteria."Developing . . . What is the Kansas City Earnings Tax? "The earnings tax generates revenue that pays for a wide variety of basic city services used by all those who live and work in Kansas City, Missouri. In addition to helping fund basic city services such as repairing roads and weekly trash collection, the revenue from the earnings tax also pays for police officers, fire fighters, paramedics and ambulance services. Revenue from the earnings tax also helps fund snow removal, codes inspection, historic preservation and other city needs. The earnings tax generates approximately $220 million dollars annually and is paid by any business or person who lives or works in Kansas City, Missouri." The earnings tax is an essential and fundamentally sound tax policy that the citizens of Kansas City have embraced for half a century, James said in testimony prepared for delivery to the Missouri Senate Ways and Means Committee at the State Capitol in Jefferson City. Its a bleak future without the Kansas City earnings tax. James told lawmakers that the earnings tax brings in $230 million of Kansas Citys $533 million General Fund, 74 percent of which supports public safety, including salaries of police officers and firefighters. The bill would require reduction of 810 police officers, 550 firefighters and another 370 civilian, public-safety employees, James said. James added that the bill also would force the city to cut another 510 non-public safety positions. Why are Missouri Republicans working to overturn the earnings taxes in Kansas City and St. Louis? "The court issued a ruling that double taxation is unconstitutional, making it illegal for two states to tax the same income . . . A brief filed with the court said the ruling could affect Kansas Citys earnings tax, but a city spokesman said that opinion is wrong and the citys legal team thinks the tax will survive." Do I get to vote on the Kansas City Earnings Tax issue??? A Kansas City Earnings Tax election is scheduled for Tuesday, April 5, 2016. WON by an 80% margin 5 years ago in 2011 This post is a simple explanation of a Kansas City election issue and an item currently encountering debate among the Missouri General Assembly.Normally, we hatecredence or time given tobut given that the overwhelming majority of people in Kansas City stopped voting and local media is nothing more than a vast array political talking points and doggies stories . . . Consider this guide a public service.We're trying to be as objective as possible but overallthat most readers do not favor a renewal of the E-Tax.So, keep our penchant for hotness and critical thinking in mind and here goes . . .Basically, it's a 1% levy on the earnings of anybody earning a living by working in KCMO.The tax is a constant target of criticism in Johnson County given that so many residents of that nearby community live in suburbs with better schools but still commute to Kansas City Proper for work.There are a lot of reasons for that . . . Here's the yearbook answer:Last year. . . This is complicated stuff, and it's up for another challenge soon, but here's the simplest way to put it:Since that time . . .. Currently, the E-tax is subject to an election every 5 years - An effort that stems fromDuring this campaign cycle,in a bid for Missouri Attorney General.Also the overriding sentiment from Missouri Republicans is thatBehind the scenes, Mayor Sly James has been increasingly at odds with Republicans in Missouri.and the animosity has now created a clear cut case of political payback during this e-tax debate.Yes. As with most things in Jeff City . . . Nothing might result from all of these Missouri power plays and political chest thumping.However . . .An army of Kansas City political consultants have been recruited to push the e-tax effort thatand at this point there is no organized opposition against the tax despite many criticisms against the constant city hall TIF and development deals which contradict claims of financial hardships politicos mention when talking about how desperately the city needs e-tax cash.For the most part are the basics of the argument . . . With a little bit of TKC perspectives, insight andthat other newsies are too scared to share.You decide . . . Laid-back Kalamata, which lies in the far south of mainland Greece, is known for long beaches, olives and honey Daily Mirror includes Kalamata among top-10 hottest holiday destinations for 2016 from stunning cities to cool new countries. According to the popular British newspaper: "Laid-back Kalamata, which lies in the far south of mainland Greece, is known for long beaches, olives and honey. And with the news British Airways will be launching direct flights to the ancient Peloponnese city in April, it looks set to attract a lot more Brits. The clear warm water is popular with sunbathers and swimmers, and has a raft of water sports. There is also a wide choice of bars, restaurants and shops lining the busy marina, and plenty of history for culture vultures." Mirror also proposes for Kalamata the following deal from 689pp for seven nights: BA has seven nights B&B at the five-star Westin Costa Navarino Resort from 689pp with Heathrow flights between April 30 and May 7. Book by December 31. The full list includes: Some of the young Egyptian activists reported by their families to have disappeared have in fact joined terror groups, a high level Egyptian interior ministry official said on Friday. Reports of forced disappearances of young activists by the security services have been circulating in the Egyptian media for several months. The National Council for Human Rights, an official body, has formally requested any available information about the whereabouts of 191 people who have disappeared from the interior ministry. Speaking on CBC Extra channel by phone, Major General Abo-Bakr Abdel-Karim, assistant interior minister for public relations and media said that "some of the missing youth who have been reported disappeared by their families have joined terrorist organisations." Abdel-Karim said that information has been sent to the council regarding 118 people who were initially suspected to be victims of forced disappearance. Early in January, the interior ministry said that out of 191 names sent by the NCHR, 83 were awaiting trial, including 10 who had been released and two who were wanted by authorities pending trial and were at large. An additional 16 were temporarily detained pending further investigation. The ministry has said several times during the past weeks that no forced disappearance cases have ever been recorded in Egypt. Freedom of the Brave, a grassroots campaign calling for the release of all detained activists, has reported the disappearance of many activists, including recently an activist known as Mostafa Massouny. The interior ministry official denied that Massouny was arrested "by the police or any affiliated security apparatuses." Abdel-Karim said that the interior ministry is committed to examining the rest of the names sent by the council at the soonest possible time. Search Keywords: Short link: Tourexpi, turizm haberleri, Reiseburos, tourism news, noticias de turismo, Tourismus Nachrichten, , travel tourism news, international tourism news, Urlaub, urlaub in der turkei, , holidays in Turkey, , global tourism news, dunya turizm, dunya turizm haberleri, Seyahat Acentas, This site is best viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0+, at a minimum screen resolution of 1024 x 768. Today, clients coming from China stay in hotels, but Bruno James believes that tomorrow, tourism residences will become an accommodations options for middle-class Chinese travelers. Because while inhabitants of major urban centers have already experienced traveling, there remains a large reserve of travelers in other cities. China has 50 cities with over one million habitants that are still developing. Varying degrees of maturity inside the country foreshadow that development will spread out over several years, explains Maxime Tissot, Executive Director of the Tourism and Congress Office of Marseille. To seduce Chinese travelers, professionals will need to especially improve on hospitality. The Marseille Tourism Office has already recruited 2 people devoted to this market and has begun a process of translating touristic documents. We must work strongly on the hospitality aspect, and I incite all structures to translate their documents in Chinese, states Maxime Tissot. He not only incites tourism professionals but also businesses to join this effort, because shopping is a crucial element to Chinese visitors. A Chinese tourist spends on average 185 per person and per night versus 53 for a French tourist. Chinese travelers are consumers, confirms Pierre Shi, Manager of ID Travel Pro. They are fond of French brands that are more expensive in China, but also of typical products made in France. Our Tour-Operator discovered the Calisson of Aix-en-Provence, which is exactly the type of product that attracts clients. Egyptian Tourism Minister tells Al-Arabiya website that the sector's losses are the largest in 20 years Egyptian Tourism Minister Hisham Zaazou said on Friday that the country's tourism sector has been losing LE2.2 billion ($283 million) per month since a Russian passenger crashed in Sinai in October, killing all onboard. In an interview with Al-Arabiya news website Zaazou said that the losses are presumed to be the largest in the tourism sector for the past 20 years. "The numbers of tourists have been decreasing since Russia and Britain banned flights to Egypt from their airports," he added, referring to a measure put in place following the plane crash. The Egyptian authorities have not yet released the final results of the investigation into the circumstances of the crash. However, the Russian officials have said they believe a terrorist bomb caused the incident. Zaazou stressed so far the committee tasked to issue the final report about the incident had not received any information suggesting that the plane was due to a terror attack. "I believe there is a misunderstanding on the part of many parties, including Russia," he said. The minister did not specify when the committee will finalise its report. Hurghada incident Speaking about a stabbing incident that took place in the Red Sea town Hurghada last week, Zaazou said that the incident hadn't had a major effect on the number of tourists that have lately been visiting the country, especially Hurghada and Sharm El-Sheikh. Three European tourists were stabbed by local attackers while eating at a hotel restaurant in Hurghada. Authorities said terrorism was not behind the incident. Zaazou told Al-Arabiya that the way Egyptian authorities dealt with the Hurghada attack has also helped the situation saying that "we have learnt from past experiences and the need for speedily being present in the place of the incident and the transparency in reporting the attack." The minister also shed light on more procedures for the safety of tourists, for which the Egyptian cabinet has allocated funds. As an example, Zaazou said that the number of CCTV cameras in touristic sites will be increased. "I hope that tourism gets back to its normal level before 13 months pass, which is the expected period, according to studies, needed for such circumstances," he added. Speaking about the UK-based Control Risks Group, a consultancy firm that is to review and enhance security arrangements at Egyptian airports, Zaazou said that Egypt had not signed yet any contracts with the firm but added that the signing might take place by the beginning of February. He said that Marsa Alam International Airport, located in the Red Sea governorate, will join the list of those under review by the firm. Cairo International Airport and Sharm El-Sheikh airport will also be reviewed. "A British team is currently reviewing the safety conditions and the security of airports as per request by the UK," he stated. Zaazou said in the interview that Egyptian revenues from the tourism sector in 2014 were LE7.2 billion and that they had been hoping for an increase of 15-20 percent in 2015. Before the plane crash, there were signs of a recovery; tourism revenues surged 45.3 percent to reach $7.4 billion in the fiscal year ending 30 June 2015, compared to $5.1 billion in the same period the previous year, according to the central bank. Although street protests in Egypt have decreased over the past two years, the recovery in tourism revenues remains well below the $12.5 billion generated in the peak year of 2010 prior to the uprising that unseated long time autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Search Keywords: Short link: What happened on Tuesday? A suicide bombing took place in Sultanahmet Square, a popular tourist area in Istanbul. The incident is expected to have a negative impact on tourism in the country. The bombing killed ten people, all German, and injured 17 others. Of the 11 people who were hospitalised, nine were German, one was Norwegian and one Peruvian. "We will continue our fight against terrorism with the same resolve, and will never take a step back," Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was quoted as saying during a meeting at the Cankaya Palace in Turkey's capital Ankara. What have the Turkish authorities said about the bombing? At a press conference with his German counterpart Thomas de Maiziere on Wednesday, Turkish interior minister Efkan Ala said that an "investigation is continuing in a very intensive way." Ala announced on Thursday that seven people were detained for connection to the attacks. The Turkish government said earlier that a 28-year-old Syrianwho is a member of ISISis responsible for the attack and entered Turkey from Syria as a refugee, a result that that quickly reached. Davutoglu said the skull, face and nails of the Saudi-born Nabil Fadli confirmed that he was the suicide bomber. "If you consider the way the attack happened and the general trend of it, we have identified Islamic State as the primary focus," Reuters quoted Davutoglu as saying to Turkey's NTV television. "It was definitely a suicide bombing...DNA tests are being conducted. It was determined how the suicide bombers got there. We're close to a name, which points to one group." Did ISIS claim its responsibility for the attack? ISIS haven't claimed responsibility which is unusual; ISIS and the groups linked to it in the Middle East usually move quickly to declare responsibility for the operations they execute. The nature of the relationship between Turkey and ISIS is somewhat opaque. Last October, Turkish investigators accused of ISIS of two suicide bombings that targeted a protest in the capital Ankara, leading to the death of 100 people and injury of more than 200 others. Demonstrators were calling for an end to the renewed confrontations between government troops and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Some of Erdogan's opponents had accused him of having a greater interest in fighting the PKK than ISIS. Turkey, a NATO member-state, signed an agreement with the United States in February last year on training and equipping more than 400 Syrian opposition fighters who will fight ISIS. The NATO partners reached further understandings in July. Turkey accepted allowing US planes to launch air strikes against IS militants from the US Incirlik air base near the Turkish-Syrian border. Later, both sides agreed to create an "ISIS-free zone" in northern Syria along the borders with Turkey by pushing IS militants away from a 60-mile strip, although this has not been carried out yet. The agreement aimed to eventually bring the area under the rule of pro-western Syrian rebels, which would then allow for a return of Syrian refugees into a safe territory. After the October attacks, Erdogan vowed to "act militarily" against ISIS. He said in November that 2,000 militants "inside and outside the country" were killed. Also dozens of suspected militants were arrested. The Istanbul attacks came one month after Russia said it had proofs that Erdogan and his family were involved in oil-smuggling activities from ISIS-controlled areas in Syria and Iraq. In a press conference, Russian officials presented satellite pictures of tanker trucks loading from ISIS-controlled oil facilities and transferring them to Turkey. In the meantime, Davutoglu announced on Thursday that the Turkish military has attacked 500 ISIS positions in Syria and Iraq, killing 200 militants. What was the response of the German government? German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had phone conversations with both President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Davutoglu, expressed solidarity with the families of the victims, saying "we stand by your side" and offering condolences to Turkish citizens. "We feel a sense of solidarity with Turkey," she said, adding that those who carry out such attacks, be it in Paris, or Copenhagen or Istanbul, have the same target -- "our free life and free society." "The terrorists are the enemies of all free people, they are enemies of humanity, be it in Syria, Turkey or France or Germany," she said, stressing that Berlin would fight such terror "with determination." German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere pointed out that there is "no indication" that the bombing was targeting German people in specific, asserting no willingness to stop the travelling of Germans to Turkey. Yet, the German foreign ministry called on Germans to stay away from "large groups" in public and tourist sites in Istanbul. Search Keywords: Short link: Moroccan-Dutch MP Khadija Arib was elected speaker of the Netherland's lower chamber of parliament on Wednesday, becoming the first Arab woman speaker of the Dutch parliament. Arib, who was born in Morocco and moved to Netherlands at 15, swept the final vote of the House of Representatives with 83 out of 134 votes. The 56-year-old was first elected to parliament in 1998. A Labour MP, she is a member of a number of committees, including the Security and Justice Committee, Foreign Affairs Committee and Health, Welfare and Sport Committee. She has also focused on women's issues as well as racism and discrimination. Arib has often been criticised because of her dual Moroccan-Dutch citizenship and for being a member of a council for human rights in Morocco. The right-wing Party For Freedom opposed her appointment, later describing her election as a "black day in history", the local Dutch News reported. Netherlands, which has a population is around 17 million people, is home to around 380,000 Dutch of Moroccan origins, according to official statistics. Arib's election comes a time of high tension in Europe over the ongoing refugee crisis. Search Keywords: Short link: Tunisia's ousted president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali ruled for decades in pomp and luxury but the longtime strongman has cut a reclusive figure since his exile to Saudi Arabia five years ago. After months of protests against his 23-year rule, Ben Ali fled Tunisia in January 2011 to the Red Sea city of Jeddah with his second wife, Leila Trabelsi, and his children, Mohamed and Halima. The career soldier had been in power since November 1987. After a promising start, Ben Ali consolidated his rule by muzzling the opposition and retaining control of the media and armed forces. His eventual downfall shocked observers and triggered revolts that toppled strongmen across the Arab world. During his exile Ben Ali, 79, has kept almost entirely out of the media glare, a far cry from the man once famed for his lavish lifestyle and elaborate entertaining. The revolt that toppled him was triggered in December 2010 by the self-immolation of a young man in the destitute centre of the country. The snowballing uprising first focused on joblessness but took on a political dimension, fuelled by anger after a crackdown that left scores dead. Ben Ali made several attempts to defuse the crisis, including the creation of 300,000 new jobs, the sacking of his interior minister, the release of detained demonstrators and a pledge to not stand for re-election in 2014. But the mood was unforgiving and he eventually stepped down on January 14, 2011, before fleeing the country. Although Ben Ali releases periodic updates via his Lebanese lawyer, his movements and daily activities in exile remain a mystery. "President Ben Ali doesn't want to publicise details" about his life in Jeddah, lawyer Akram Azoury told AFP. In 2011 Azoury published a text containing the ex-leader's version of his ouster in which he claimed to have been the target of an assassination plot by a senior general. According to the text, Ben Ali was forced to flee Tunisia with his family in fear of his life. He also denied ordering security forces to fire on protestors, something for which he received a life sentence in absentia in 2012. His absence from public life has prompted hearsay over his health, including periodic -- and ultimately premature -- rumours of his death. When Ben Ali has appeared in public the results have been less than statesmanlike; in 2013 an Instagram account drew interest and derision after it appeared to post photos of the deposed leader, including one of him smiling in striped pyjamas. In 2012, his wife released a supposedly tell-all account of life married to Tunisia's last autocratic leader. "My Truth" rejected accusations of corruption and authoritarianism that dogged Ben Ali's rule. The former first couple were both sentenced to 35 years in jail for graft shortly after leaving power. Following the release of Trabelsi's account, they were pictured together in public -- Ben Ali still sporting his characteristic dyed, jet black hair -- apparently dispelling gossip that the two had divorced. And Trabelsi later gave an interview to a French daily insisting her husband was not gravely ill in a coma. Search Keywords: Short link: When a wave of deadly ethnic violence swept through the northern Iraqi town of Tuz Khurmatu, Ahmed Hassan Majid's house was on the wrong side of an invisible line. The Kurdish-Turkmen violence ignited by a checkpoint dispute in November has since faded, but divisions between the communities are sharper than ever. They fight the same jihadist enemy but in areas where their frontlines meet, the autonomous Kurdish region and the Baghdad-backed Shiite paramilitary forces are vying for influence, a contest that sometimes descends into violence. After clambering over his charred belongings to reach the roof of his house, which was torched during the unrest, Majid pointed to a cinderblock wall that went up recently, dead-ending a street to mark an ethnic border. "On this side, Kurds. Over here, it's Turkmen," said the 36-year-old father of two. Majid is a Turkmen Shiite, but the house he spent a quarter of a million dollars on before moving in earlier this year was one of the first Turkmen homes on the edge of the Kurdish district. As he sat on a plastic chair in the darkness of his gutted home, his eyes drifted into a sorrowful haze. "It was one of the first to be torched. I have lost everything," Majid said. In the bridal parlour he ran from a small office attached to his house, a wedding dress survived the destruction. But Tuz Khurmatu is a divorcing town -- neighbourhood minority residents who were not forced out by fire and threats have spontaneously moved back across the ethnic divide. In some cases, Kurdish and Turkmen families that were both on the "wrong side" of town traded homes to save having to find a new place to live. Nihan Bahaeddin's home in the same area was occupied by Kurdish forces at the height of the November tensions but was not burned down. The 35-year-old biotechnology professor was already displaced once in June 2014 when the ISIS militants group took over the city of Mosul where she was teaching. "It's dangerous but we had no other choice than to come back. The Kurdish soldiers made a mess but we have no other place to live," she said. "Tuz is part of Kurdistan" was scribbled on walls in the children's room and hallway, a reference to the Kurds' three-province region that has expanded its territorial control during the conflict with ISIS. Tuz Khurmatu, about 180 kilometres (110 miles) north of Baghdad, is a major crossroads in Iraq -- a gateway to Kurdistan to the north, ISIS-held territory to the west, Iran to the east and Shiite Arab areas of Iraq to the south. The word "Kurdish" has been spray-painted on the iron doors of hundreds of shops to prevent them from being burned down. "Is this what it's come to?" said one shop-owner, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. According to sources on both sides, around 110 homes and at least 200 shops were torched or damaged during the flare-up last month, about two thirds of them Turkmen-owned. Shallal Abdul Baban, the Kurdish official responsible for the area, said at least 10 Turkmen and eight Kurds were killed in the violence. The ethnic tinderbox town has seen several flare-ups over the years, but a dispute at a checkpoint on November 12 was the spark that ignited Kurdish-Turkmen violence that culminated in a firefight inside the hospital and the murder of a surgeon. A joint committee organised exchanges of detained residents but nobody was prosecuted for the violence. A report released on Wednesday by Human Rights Watch said civilians were targeted on the basis of their ethnicity. "They have been carrying out killings, abductions, and widespread property destruction with complete impunity," said Joe Stork, HRW's Middle East director. The town of about 100,000 inhabitants is now run by two rival forces, the Kurdish peshmerga forces on the one hand, and the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary force to which most of the Turkmen Shiites have entrusted their fate. Many of the Turkmen community's hubs lie in contested areas of Iraq where the Kurds' expanded ambit and the Hashed al-Shaabi's ever-growing influence meet. Turkmen leaders recently voiced outrage over the Kurdish authorities' digging of a trench along their frontlines with ISIS. The Kurds insist it is only meant to protect from car bombs, but the Turkmen say it is a political move dividing Iraq. In Tuz Khurmatu, even those Turkmen residents who are on the right side of the wall could end up on the wrong side of the trench. Search Keywords: Short link: Russia and Syria in August signed an agreement giving Moscow the go-ahead for an open-ended military presence in the war-torn country, Moscow has revealed. The agreement was signed in Damascus on August 26, 2015, more than a month before Russia launched a bombing campaign against the Islamic State (ISIS) group and other "terrorists" at the request of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad. The Russian government on Thursday released the text of the agreement, which said that it had been "concluded for an open-ended period of time." Under the terms of the agreement, Russia deployed warplanes and personnel at the Hmeimim airbase in Latakia in Syrian government-held territory. The deal was made to defend the "sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of the Russian Federation and the Syrian Arab Republic," according to the document. President Vladimir Putin justified the campaign launched in September -- Russia's first major foreign intervention since the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 -- by saying that Moscow needed to target ISIS militants before they crossed into Russia. Military analyst Alexander Golts said the agreement with Syria suited Russia's interests. "Russia can halt its operation at any time so it does not have any responsibilities before Syria," he told AFP. "At the same time it can stay there for as long as it wishes. It's totally up to the Russian authorities." The West has criticised Russia's foray into the already convoluted, multi-front conflict, accusing Moscow of targeting not only the ISIS group but also moderate rebels fighting the Assad regime. Moscow has denied the accusations, claiming it has been supporting anti-Assad armed rebels in the fight against ISIS. Search Keywords: Short link: The deadly Paris-style attack in Jakarta has thrown a spotlight on a shadowy Southeast Asian faction of ISIS group and offers new evidence of the spread of ISIS franchises. Under growing pressure in Iraq and Syria from the US-led bombing campaign, the extremist group is spreading its tentacles, metastasising into new regions. The IS group already has affiliates in Libya and Nigeria, and has targeted a host of other countries like Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan, using its signature brutality to lure disaffected fighters from other jihadists like the Taliban. Now, with its claim of responsibility for Thursday's suicide bomb and gun attacks in Jakarta -- which left five attackers and two other people dead -- the brutal grouping appears to be getting a foothold in Southeast Asia. "IS is changing strategy," said Jakarta police chief Tito Karnavian, the former head of Indonesia's anti-terrorism unit. "They are establishing branches of IS across the world -- in France, Europe, Africa, Turkey as well as Southeast Asia," he told reporters this week. Indonesian police have pointed the finger at Katibah Nusantara, a militant unit of Malay-speaking ISIS jihadists fighting in Syria. While there has as yet been no direct Katibah Nusantara claim, the group has loomed ever larger on the radar of ISIS-linked groups. Its extended name translates roughly as "Malay Archipelago Unit for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria." Its goal: a Southeast Asian outpost for its global caliphate. The faction's fighters, primarily from Indonesia and Malaysia and who coalesced along shared lines of language and culture, rose to prominence in 2015 after distinguishing themselves on the battlefields of Syria and Iraq, helping to capture territory. Those victories were a Southeast Asian publicity coup for IS, which trumpeted them in glowing terms on social media in the Malay language, publicity aimed squarely at potential jihadists across the region. Police say Katibah Nusantara is led by Bahrun Naim, who they accuse of orchestrating Thursday's attacks from Syria, where he is believed to be instructing Southeast Asian militants and organising recruitment. He has been described in some media reports as a former Internet cafe employee. Analysts say he was previously imprisoned briefly in Indonesia on suspicion of terrorism involvement, and has been linked with other extremist groups in the past. "He is an active player," said Joseph Chinyong Liow, an expert on Southeast Asian Islam at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. "He has a website which celebrates IS and its successes, and more specifically, he celebrated the Paris attacks." Sidney Jones, a regional terrorism expert, has called him an "ex-prisoner and jihadi intellectual", saying he was involved in a previous plot last year to carry out an attack in Indonesia, which appears not to have gone ahead. Indonesia suffered several large and deadly bomb attacks by Islamic radicals between 2000 and 2009, but a subsequent security crackdown weakened extremist networks, and there had been no major attacks for years. If Katibah is responsible, the Jakarta violence marks its first high-profile strike in its home region, and will challenge Indonesian authorities to once again tame the extremists in their backyard. "One of the saving graces for Indonesia over the last five years is that local terrorists have thought small," Jones wrote in a recent analysis of Katibah Nusantara. "Bahrun Naim and some of his friends think bigger." Some fighters from Southeast Asia have returned from the Middle East with tales of disappointment at being given little respect or responsibility there, analysts said. But the language and cultural commonalities of Katibah Nusantara followers could help keep fighters in the fold and provide an enduring tool for coordinating attacks across Southeast Asia and recruiting more fighters to Syria, analysts said. ISIS group "is very sophisticated and professional in their militancy, in every sense of the word", said Liow. "It does appear to be able to capture and captivate the imagination of many Muslims in this part of the world." Search Keywords: Short link: Indian Ocean archipelago and Saudi Arabia ally the Comoros said Friday it had cut diplomatic relations with Iran over what it termed Tehran's "aggression" towards Jeddah. A foreign ministry statement said the Comoros viewed Tehran as "interfering" in "the internal affairs of certain countries" and "not respecting diplomatic conventions". Relations between majority Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia dived after the January 2 ransacking of the Saudi embassy in Tehran and the Saudi consulate in Mashhad, Iran's second city. The ransacking came amid anger over Riyadh's execution of Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent cleric from the kingdom's Shia minority. Following the execution Jeddah severed diplomatic relations with Tehran. Several Arab countries followed suit and severed or reduced relations with Iran. Comoros' foreign ministry said it had called on the Iranian ambassador to clear his desk. The move came a week after the Comoros recalled its own ambassador from Tehran judging that Iran has created a climate of "gratuitous aggression" towards Jeddah. "One cannot violate with impunity the sovereignty of diplomatic missions," the ministry's director general Ahamada Hamadi told AFP, referring to the ransacking. The three islands of Anjouan, Grand Comore and Moheli that make up the Comoros have a total population of just under 800,000 people, nearly all of whom are Sunni Muslims. Search Keywords: Short link: Austria will deny entry to migrants who intend to pass through Germany rather than apply for asylum there, Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said in a radio interview broadcast on Friday. Germany has been turning away a growing number of migrants at its border with Austria, sending hundreds back into Austria every day, the Austrian police said this week. Hundreds of thousands of migrants have streamed through Austria and into Germany since September, when the two countries threw open their borders to a wave of people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Only about 90,000 have applied for asylum in Austria last year but fears about migrants have nevertheless contributed to a rise in support for the far right. Government ministers from the Social Democrats and their junior coalition partner, the Austrian People's Party, have said more must be done to reduce the number of people arriving, though they have disagreed on how to achieve that. "What is the situation currently on the German-Austrian border? That only those who want asylum in Germany are being let through, and those who want to travel onwards are sent back," Mikl-Leitner told Austrian broadcaster ORF. "We will stop them directly on our southern border as of the end of next week," she said, referring to the country's border with Slovenia. Search Keywords: Short link: Tropical disease experts in Sierra Leone scrambled Friday to investigate a new suspected death from Ebola announced just hours after west Africa celebrated halting the spread of the deadly virus. A 22-year-old female student was taken ill near the Guinean border and died three days ago, with an initial swab testing positive for Ebola, health officials said. "The victim was taken ill when she was on holidays in Bamoi Luma and was taken to Magburaka, where her relatives took her to the government hospital for medical attention," district medical officer Augustine Junisa told reporters. "Three days later she died at home and her death was reported to the hospital officials and an initial swab test was taken which proved positive" on Thursday. Junisa said further tests would be carried out on Friday and appealed to the public in the area to remain calm. The WHO had said Thursday a two-year Ebola epidemic that killed more than 11,000 people and triggered a global health alert was over, with Liberia the last country to get the all-clear. Residents in the Magburaka, a town of around 40,000 people and the capital of the Tonkolili district, expressed their shock and distress over the announcement. "It was not expected and came at a time when we had thought that the virus is nowhere within our land," groundnut farmer Allieu Kamara told AFP. "We are really worried that death has resulted from the case but we are hopeful that the huge presence of the various key players will bring back confidence to all of us." The deadliest outbreak in the history of the feared tropical virus wrecked the economies and health systems of the three worst-hit west African nations after it emerged in southern Guinea in December 2013. Sierra Leone was declared free of Ebola transmission on November 7 last year and Guinea on December 29. At its peak, it devastated Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with bodies piling up in the streets and overwhelmed hospitals recording hundreds of new cases a week. Rick Brennan, the World Health Organization's chief of emergency risk management, hailed the milestone but told reporters in Geneva that "the job is still not done", pointing out that there had already been 10 small flare-ups because of the persistance of the virus in survivors. UN chief Ban Ki-moon also warned the region can expect sporadic cases in the coming year but added "we also expect the potential and frequency of those flare-ups to decrease over time". Liberia, the country worst hit by the outbreak with 4,800 deaths, discharged its last two patients from hospital -- the father and younger brother of a 15-year-old victim -- on December 3, 2015. Africa's oldest republic was the last country still afflicted by the outbreak that infected almost 29,000 people and claimed 11,315 lives, according to official data. The real toll is suspected to be much higher, with many Ebola deaths believed to have gone unreported. After the last patient is declared in the clear, a 42-day countdown -- twice the incubation period of the virus -- begins before the country is proclaimed Ebola-free. Ebola causes severe fever and muscle pain, weakness, vomiting and diarrhoea. In many cases it shuts down organs and causes unstoppable internal bleeding. Patients often succumb within days. From a Guinean infant who was the first victim, the epidemic quickly spread into neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone, notching up more deaths than all other Ebola outbreaks combined. Liberia was first to be declared free of human-to-human Ebola transmission in May, only to see the virus resurface six weeks later. It was officially credited with beating the epidemic for a second time in September before another small cluster of cases emerged. Reaction to Thursday's announcement was muted in the capital Monrovia, where locals have become accustomed to good news on Ebola being followed by setbacks, and there was no official programme of celebration. Search Keywords: Short link: Republican White House hopeful Ted Cruz faced a legal challenge to his eligibility to be president Friday in a lawsuit filed over his birth in Canada. It comes after frontrunner Donald Trump -- a 'birther' who famously challenged President Barack Obama to produce his Hawaiian birth certificate -- has been hammering away at the hardline Texas senator's eligibility. Cruz insists he has met the constitutional requirements to be a "natural-born" citizen because his mother was born in Delaware. During a presidential debate Thursday night, he accused the real estate mogul of manufacturing a crisis to retain his lead in the polls. "Back in September, my friend Donald said he had his lawyers look at this from every which way and there was no issue there," Cruz said. "Now since September, the constitution hasn't changed. But the poll numbers have," he added. "Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling in Iowa." He went on to point out that Trump, whose mother was born in Scotland, was disqualifying himself. Trump shot back: "As you know, Ted, in the last three polls I'm beating you. So you shouldn't misrepresent how well you're doing with the polls." "You have a big lawsuit over your head." The lawsuit filed in federal court in Texas is seeking a judgment on Cruz's eligibility, arguing that the case law is simply not clear on the definition of a natural born US citizen. "The entire nation cannot afford such constitutionally (sic) confusion and uncertainties overhangings (sic) the electorate process," the suit filed on behalf of Texas resident Newton Boris Schawtz argues. Cruz was born in 1970 in Calgary, Alberta to an American mother and a Cuban father who returned to live in the United States after a year. Cruz renounced his Canadian citizenship last year. In 2008, a man unsuccessfully challenged the eligibility of Republican contender John McCain, who was born on a US military base in Panama. As a precaution, the Senate unanimously adopted a resolution recognizing McCain as a natural citizen. The lawsuit noted that despite the fact that Obama's mother, like that of Cruz, was indisputably an American citizen, his eligibility remains in doubt among conservative critics who still believe he was actually born in Kenya, the country of birth of his father. "It was his birth in Hawaii that was decisive and not his mother's," the lawsuit contends. "That is why it has been under constant attack for eight years, including by Donald Trump publicly." Search Keywords: Short link: Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 15 The 68th Army Day was commemorated at the headquarters of the Western Command, Chandimandir, by paying a homage to the soldiers who had laid down their lives in the line of duty. The day marks the taking over the reins of the Indian Army by General KM Cariappa, who succeeded the last British Commander-in-Chief, General Roy Butcher, and became the first post-Independence head of the Army. A wreath laying ceremony was held at Veer Smriti where Lt-Gen Gurdeep Singh, Chief of Staff, Western Command, paid floral tributes. As part of the commemorations, several events like medical and blood donation camps, quiz and a painting competition for schoolchildren were organised at Army Public School in Chandimandir in the past week. A performance by the 14 Gorkha Training Centre Military Band and pipes and drums band of the Dogra Regiment were also organised for the public in Chandigarh and Panchkula. Tribune News Service New Delhi, January 13 The 1971 war hero, Lt Gen JFR Jacob (retd), who negotiated the surrender of 90,000 Pakistani troops at Dhaka, died of age-related complications here this morning. He was 92. Jacob as Major General was Chief of Staff at the Eastern Army Command during the 1971 war with Pakistan. Lt Gen JS Aurora was heading the command at Calcutta (now Kolkata). In Jacobs death, all the key military leaders of the 1971 war have died, ending an era. Lt Gen Aurora; Lt Gen Sagat Singh, who headed the 4 Corps; Lt Gen (later General) TN Raina who headed the 2 Corps, are all dead. The then Army Chief, Field Marshal SHFJ Manekshaw, is also dead. Jacob, a bachelor, was living in Delhi's RK Puram. His body will be kept in state at Brar Square in Delhi Cantonment for the final wreath-laying at 1 pm before being handed over to Delhis small Jewish community at the Judah Hyam Synagogue in central Delhi for his final rites. Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag termed Lt Gen Jacobs death a great loss, adding that he was a pillar of military leadership and personified the best qualities of a soldier and a statesman. Jacob was a former Governor of Punjab and Administrator of Chandigarh between November 1999 and May 2003, where he earned the sobriquet of peoples Administrator. He was famous for dropping in unannounced in public offices. Israeli Ambassador Daniel Carmon said the General was a staunch supporter of India-Israel relations. He shall forever be remembered as a human bridge between our peoples, he said. Lt Gen Jacob was born in 1923 at Calcutta. He enlisted in the British Indian Army in 1942 and retired after 37 years of service. He authored two books: Surrender at Dacca: Birth of a Nation and An Odyssey in War and Peace: An Autobiography. Was a man of many parts Sarbjit Dhaliwal Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 13 Though there was no one to question his authority, he would never violate rules. Fond of fishing at the Bhakra Nangal Dam, he would insist on securing a permit. This is how Shiv Dullar Singh Dhillon, an IAS officer, described the charming persona of former Punjab Governor, Lt Gen JFR Jacob (retd), who passed away in Delhi this morning. I was posted as SDM at Anandpur Sahib. He used to take me along for fishing, said Shiv Dullar. He was one of the finest human beings. He made it a point to locate those who had served with him in the Army. Then he would spend hours with their families. He used to invite soldiers from his regiment at Raj Bhavan. There are 100 per cent honest people. But I would say Lt Gen Jacob was 200 per cent honest, said former Punjab Chief Secretary SC Aggarwal. He was the most knowledgeable person Ive ever met, Aggarwal said. Once, a delegation from Tanzania came to see Jacob. He told them so much about Tanzania that they had to admit that they were not aware of the many things about their own country. Jacob, who will be remembered as the Peoples Governor, was also fond of collecting artefacts and antiques. He would often visit Patiala and other places to collect such items. In fact, he had turned his own house at Delhi into a museum. Obituary The quintessential Gunner Lt Gen JFR Jacob was arguably last of the knights who straddled generations of military history Lt Gen Bhopinder Singh (Retd) Son of a Baghdadi Jewish businessman from Kolkata, Jack Farj Rafael Jacob would grow up to be an unlikely Indian war hero and much more! In a fast fading world of classical military Generals, Lt Gen Jacob was arguably the last of the knights who straddled generations of military history, which saw him in action in World War II, 1962, 1965 and, of course, peaking in the 1971 Indo-Pak war, an unprecedented military success. The young impressionable boy was so moved by the stories of the Jewish Holocaust that he defied his family history and chose to join the British Army to take on the Nazi Germans in World War II. Providentially, he was assigned to do just that after commissioning in the Artillery Brigade of the British Army and take on General Rommels fabled Afrika Korps. However, fate was to deny him that opportunity, as his brigade arrived only after the battle was over and he had to spend the next three years fighting the Japanese, in the Burma Campaign. A bright officer, he was always destined for higher glories as he went on to graduate from the premier Artillery institutions in the UK and the US. But, the Gunner fired his biggest career guns in the 1971 Indo-Pak war, as he immortalised and distinguished himself in his role as the Chief of Staff, Eastern Command. While there is no doubt about Lt Gen Jacobs professional conduct, planning and contribution to the success of operations in the annals of the 1971 war history, there is an acrimonious debate as to the real claimant for hero-ship to the success of the decisive 1971 victory that fundamentally altered the political geography and power equations in the sub-continent. Then Chief of Army Staff General Sam Manekshaw (later Field Marshal) and the Eastern Army Commander, Lt Gen JS Aurora, come in for a bit of a rough assessment by Jake (as Lt Gen Jacob styled himself) in his book Surrender at Dacca: Birth of a Nation. The implied sense was that he himself was responsible for all major policy decisions and that the Eastern Army Commander was said to be busy planning a trip for his wifes travel for the surrender ceremony, while the Army Chief Manekshaw was a media star, portrayed as lacking combat experience. History has many versions and perceptions about the individual contributions to the overall success of war, but what remains unquestionable is the sound strategy and tactically daring conduct of Lt Gen Jacob during the 1971 war and the surrender negotiations. Nearly 90,000 Pakistani soldiers surrendered with only 3,000-odd Indian soldiers in the near vicinity of Dhaka. Perhaps the best left-handed compliment comes from the enemy itself when General Niazi noted in the Hamidur Rehman report, General Jacob blackmailed me! He threatened to hand us over to the Bahini, and that they would bayonet us, or when the Pakistan National Defence College concluded, The credit really goes to General Jacobs meticulous preparation in the Indian Eastern Command Post-retirement, Lt Gen Jacob did not hang his boots and pursued business interests till his political baptism into the BJP, triggered by the partys natural inclination towards advancing ties with Israel. He rightfully served as the partys security adviser and then went on to assume higher responsibilities as the Governor of Goa and, later, Punjab. His second innings in public life was marked by exceptional correctness, sobriety and probity that made him stand out as a fine example of constitutional correctness and Indias inherent plurality. I am proud to be a Jew, but am Indian through and through. I was born in India and served her my whole life. This is where I want to die, he wrote. A patriot and a larger-than-life officer, with an irrepressible zest for life, he would often shoot from the hip and was candid about his opinions, adding to his colourful aura and personality in him, the military lost a cavalier war hero who epitomised romantic notions of military leadership, and the nation its unique beacon of the lofty idea of India. But then, as they say, soldiers never die, they only fade away. RIP, Sir! (The writer is former Lt Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands & Puducherry) Rajinder Nagarkoti Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 15 The Chandigarh Municipal Corporation for the first time has fixed daily targets of MC enforcement inspectors and sub-inspectors in terms of challans and imposition of fine. As per orders issued by the MC Commissioner, B Purushartha, the MC enforcement wing now have to issue 350 challans daily and recover a fine of Rs 1,22,500 per day. The MC sub-inspectors were given targets of issuing challans ranging from 10 to 20. Similarly imposition of daily fine ranges from Rs 3,500 to Rs 7,000 per day. A meeting in this regard was convened by the MC Commissioner, which was also attended by MC Joint Commissioner Virender Chaudhary and SDMs. Sources said at the meeting, the Commissioner asked about the monthly revenue generation of the MC enforcement wing by way of issuing challans and releasing of seized items. The MC enforcement wing officials told the Commissioner that last month their revenue generation was around Rs 14 lakh. Thereafter, it was proposed that encroachers should be dealt with sternly and monthly revenue generation target of the MC enforcement wing should be fixed. Situation worse in Sectors 15, 19, 22 Corridors and pavements in the markets of Sectors 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 27, 28, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 44, 45 and 46 have been encroached upon by shopkeepers by displaying goods, leading to congestion. The situation in booth markets of Sectors 15, 19 and 22 is worse as shopkeepers have gone a step ahead by renting out the facing walls and even pillars to vendors. Goods such as clothes, bags and shoes can be seen hanging from walls and are sold by the vendors who pay rent for operating from outside the shops. This further narrows down the lanes of the markets, causing inconvenience to visitors. Working hours extended up to 1 am At the meeting, discussion also took place on the proposal of Additional Commissioner-cum-Sub Divisional Magistrate (Central) Prince Dhawan, who had proposed to extend the duty hours of the staff of the MC enforcement wing till 2 am. Earlier, the staff used to work till 6 pm. Finally, the MC has decided to extend working hours till 1 am in shifts. The normal working of the staff will be from 1 pm to 9 pm. Congress blames MP and Mayor The Chandigarh Congress president Pardeep Chhabra has blamed city MP Kirron Kher and newly elected Mayor Arun Sood for orders to harass street vendors. Chhabra said by issuing such orders the MC enforcement staff will issue daily challans to street vendors. While on the one hand, the Congress was fighting for the rights of the street vendors and on the other, the BJP, Kher and Mayor Arun Sood had failed to protect the rights of the street vendors, he said. The Chandigarh Congress will continue to fight for the rights of the street vendors and will press for an early implementation of the Street Vendors Act. Tribune News Service Amritsar, January 15 A two-day cancer awareness and screening camp was inaugurated at the health centre of Guru Nanak Dev University here today. The camp is being organised in association with medical experts of the Roko Cancer Charitable Trust and Cancer Care Charitable Society. The objective of the camp is to create awareness about cancer. Chairperson medical committee, Prof Dr Gurcharan Kaur, inaugurated the camp. She felicitated the team of doctors and para-medical staff, who offered their services to organise the camp, besides creating awareness on early detection of cancer among the people leaving in the urban, semi-urban and rural areas. She said the biggest service in the world was that of humanity. As many as 102 patients were examined on the first day of the camp. Earlier, in charge, university health centre, Dr Sunil Gupta, welcomed the team of doctors and para-medical staff. He also gave details about the facilities available at the university health centre. Seminar on solid waste management A seminar on Options and challenges of management of municipal solid waste was held at conference hall of Guru Nanak Bhawan of Guru Nanak Dev University here today. The seminar was organised by Guru Ramdas School of Planning in collaboration with Toxic Link, New Delhi, a non-profit organization. The seminar discussed the focus areas of the organization, which include e-waste, hazardous industrial waste, plastic waste, bio-medical waste, municipal and radioactive waste. Gopal Kumar Johari, head, Guru Ramdas School of Planning, welcomed the delegates and participants. Dr TS Benipal, director research, Guru Nanak Dev University, inaugurated the seminar. Dr Raju Chauhan, health officer, Municipal Corporation, Amritsar, presented an overview of solid waste management in the city. Satish Sinha, associate director, Toxic Link, described the innovative technologies and new inventions all over the world for management of municipal solid waste. Venkatesh Sekhar from Karnataka State Pollution Control Board shared experiences in the state. Kirandeep Sandhu, seminar coordinator, described the existing scenario of solid waste collection system in Amritsar. Students, research scholars and faculty members of Guru Ramdas School of Planning, the Departments of Architecture, Environment and Botanical Sciences were among the participants. Officials of government departments and members of various NGOs, Pollution Control Committee, INTACH as well as Sangarsh Samiti also attended the seminar. The Chinese president is expected to arrive in Egypt next week for the first time since Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi took office in June 2014 Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to discuss potential investments in infrastructure projects with Egypt during his upcoming visit in the fields of transport, electricity, housing and agriculture, the government spokesman said on Friday. Hossam Al-Qawish said in a statement that possible projects include train lines worth $1.5 billion. Xi will visit Saudi Arabia, Iran and Egypt on a Jan. 19-23 tour, China's Foreign Ministry said. It provided no other details. Egypt needs foreign investment to strengthen an economy that was battered by political turmoil triggered by the 2011 uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Search Keywords: Short link: Mohit Khanna Tribune News Service Ludhiana, January 15 Though the police seem to be in a denial mode over the arrest of Ankush Sagar Khatri alias Ankur, who along with his accomplice NS Sehgal duped Dr Mohd Yameen, Head of the Department (HOD of orthopaedic), at the Dayanand Medical College of Rs 1.5 crore, it has come to light that the accused was involved in an admission scam in 2011-2013 as well, when a Delhi-based woman had accused him of duping her of Rs 11 lakh on the pretext of enrolling her daughter in an MBBS course at a medical college. The Delhi police in their probe had found that Ankush was allegedly operating the admission racket in connivance with additional finance officer of a medical college in the city, who was later arrested by the Muzaffarnagar police. Nidhi Jain, a Gurgaon-based woman, alleged that two employees of a city-based medical college, in connivance with an education service provider from Rohini in Delhi, pocketed more than Rs 11 lakh on the pretext of facilitating her daughters admission to an MBBS course. Nidhi said since she was looking for MBBS seats under the management quota for her daughter, she put her contact details on a few educational websites. In December 2011, Ankush Sagar Khatri, who claimed to be an education service provider at Rohini, Delhi, contacted Nidhi and her husband. The duo claimed that they deal in admissions under the management quota in the medical stream. In March 2012, they claimed that they had a tie-up with the management circle of the medical college in Ludhiana and can get an MBBS seat for their daughter in 2012-13 batch. To strengthen their claim, they contacted the employees of the medical college, Nidhi said. The deal was struck at Rs 22 lakh. Nidhi and her brother-in-law Gaurav Jain handed over a cheque for Rs 5 lakh in favour of EDU STORE to Ankush Sagar Khatri and gave Rs 50,000 in cash to the employee for booking a seat in the MBBS course at CMC. As the middlemen started pressing for more money to ensure the booking of an MBBS seat for her daughter, Nidhi paid Rs 3 lakh more. In June 2012, Ankush Sagar Khatri met Nidhis husband Sanjay Jain and assured him of the admission. They mentioned that 90 per cent of the work was done and handed over a copy of a recommendation letter issued by a religious head of the medical institute. Subsequently, Nidhi made a third payment. Ankush assured the allocation of an MBBS seat to her daughter in the medical college in Ludhiana, during the first counselling on July 16, 2012. On the day of counselling, Ankush introduced her to the additional finance officer of medical college, who Nidhi said assured her that all arrangements had been made for her daughters admission. She came to know about the fraud when her daughter failed to get admission in both counsellings. Nidhi said after sometime, Ankush and the two employees stopped attending their phone calls. Nidhi sent a legal notice to Ankush, who then issued a cheque. But, all cheques bounced due to insufficient amount in his account. Finally, Nidhi filed a complaint with the Delhi police. Sources in the PAU police station said Ankush had settled the matter with Nidhi Jain towards the end of 2013 by returning the amount to Nidhi Jain. Police officials said Ankush besides posing as a middleman for the admission in medical college in Punjab had developed a huge network in medical colleges located in the southern states of the country. Officials were also probing whether more city residents have been duped by Ankush. S Nihal Singh QUITE apart from the periodic circus that takes over the United States in its presidential election campaign, the Donald Trump phenomenon represents something unique and disorienting in the history of the country. This applies not merely to the Republican Party, but also underlines a deeper malaise. To begin with, Mr Trump is not following the traditions of US electoral campaigns of outlandish candidates dropping off the television screens after making their initial splash. Indeed, it seems more likely that he will remain in the field as the Republican candidate now that he is catching up with Ms Hillary Clinton, the almost certain Democratic Party candidate, in poll projections. Secondly, and more significantly, a country of migrants that takes pride in advertising its diversity and how the local boy in a remote land made good in Gods Own Country is being hijacked by a billionaire to discriminate against Muslims by barring them entry until individual scrutiny. It is revealing that such calls were not made after the catastrophic 9/11 killing and destruction of the New York towers and the Pentagon by using passenger planes as missiles. The hijackers were for the most part Saudi Arabians. Yet, today, the US has the leading Republican candidate in the election campaign calling for outright discrimination against Muslims. Admittedly, Americans have suffered at the hands of Muslim insurgents in the wars it has fought in the Middle East, beginning with its foolish invasion of Saddam Husseins Iraq. But the series of maladroit interventions that gave rise to the phenomenon of the Islamic State and its fellow travellers have come to haunt US policymakers, with the result that the Obama administration has had to lead squadrons of air attacks over 18 months to try to destroy the wielders of the threat. These developments go far beyond the extravaganzas that are features of American elections. Mr Trump is raising questions that strike at the heart of his countrys traditional philosophy and composition. True, the spectacular terrorists attacks in Paris and in Turkey killing and maiming many was a horrible experience to live through on top of the continuing civil war in Syria pushing millions into neighbouring refugee camps and undertaking perilous journeys to flood Europe. But the even greater and spectacular act of ramming planes into the New York towers did not provoke a similar outcry. In searching for answers, two factors seem to be playing out in a country of great vitality and dynamism. One is a churning of a cumulative sense of anti-Muslim feelings compounded by the Israeli lobbys rooting for Jews against Muslims. The other is the failure of recent US presidents to redefine policies in regional and other crises in a nation that is still reconciling itself to a new caution in military interventions in unstable areas. Looking back, the time Mr Barack Obamas Secretary of State John Kerry initially spent on seeking a solution to the longstanding Palestinian-Israeli conflict yielded little and has fallen off the radar screen, with the ruling Israelis putting the problem of usurping power in East Jerusalem and chunks of the West Bank to an undefined future. Indeed, with the worsening of the situation in the Middle East, the Obama administration has washed its hands of the persisting crises, except to support Israel (despite its lack of empathy for the Netanyahu government) and fight the Islamic State through leading an 18-month-long bombing campaign. The Trump phenomenon reflects a groping for answers both for the Republicans and the country at large. The Chinese story is still in the making, with its fantastic rate of growth having slowed down and the large-scale anti-corruption drive keeping President Xi Jinping off balance up to a point. Closer home, the Hong Kong phenomenon of one country, two systems is being whittled away by the spiriting away to mainland China of five persons connected to a bookshop that specialises in printing books on the less than model private lives of leaders of China. In his last State of the Union address, President Obama sought to lift Americans spirits by emphasising the inherent strengths of the countrys military prowess and the power of its ideas even while seeking to seal his two-term legacy. And he looked to the future for righting the nations morose mood. Even more strikingly, the US President took aim at Mr Trump without naming him by declaring that the spirit of the American constitution and its practice preclude discrimination against anyone on the basis of creed, race or origin. While President Obamas soaring rhetoric, reminiscent of his 2008 address, will have its place in history, the mood of his people remains downbeat. For one thing, with Chinas rise the US is no longer the sole superpower it became after the end of the Cold War. Besides, the failures of American interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite billions of dollars spent and many American lives lost, have induced a sense of gloom which the Republicans are exploiting. The world has indeed changed because of evolving geopolitics and the intensity and nature of the threat of international terrorism represented by the Islamic State and its allies actually ruling over territory in Syria and Iraq. The new threat is both military and ideological. As the Paris and Turkish attacks revealed, the IS has an inbuilt capacity to cause murder and mayhem far from its bases. Ideologically, it has the capacity to continue to attract Muslims around the world to its evil creed and deeds. Its sophistication in using modern technology for its ends has won the respect of professionals. There are no panaceas in meeting these new threats but President Obamas cure is to take America out of its present malaise to fight new battles in the future. In any event, the United States in an optimistic country with an ability to bounce back and get over its black mood. Dinesh Kumar On January 15, 1949, barely a fortnight after the Indian Army had finished battling a newly created Pakistan for a year and two months over Jammu and Kashmir under the command of a British general, the Indian Army got its first Indian citizen as its Commander-in-Chief (redesignated Chief of Army Staff in 1955) in Field Marshal (then Lieutenant-General) Kodandera Madappa Cariappa. Since then, January 15 is observed as Army Day in post-Independence India. After a fiery start immediately after Partition, the 1950s turned out to be a relatively quiet decade for the Army although there was otherwise considerable disquiet on the geopolitical front. China's occupation of Tibet, followed by its aggressive posturing and cartographic aggression of questionably defined Sino-Indian land boundaries, Pakistan's brazen tilt towards the United States and forging of military alliances with that country along with its quiet befriending of China, and, within India, the secessionist movement in Nagaland were some of the causes for serious concern. The fallout from these developments defined the 1960s and the Armys role. During that decade, the Army got heavily engaged in a series of military operations that included fighting three intensive wars within a span of just nine years. It started with liberating Goa from Portuguese rule in 1961, followed a year later by the Sino-Indian war in 1962 during which India lost territory in Ladakh. Less than three years later, in 1965, the Army was again fighting a war, this time with Pakistan, which first began with a smaller scale skirmish in Gujarat's Rann area and then a full-fledged war along the entire land frontier starting from Jammu and Kashmir. Six years later, in 1971, the Indian and Pakistani armed forces were locked in a fierce war which witnessed the dismemberment of East Pakistan from West Pakistan. But since the 1971 war, warfare in the subcontinent has undergone a paradigm shift. Other than the 1999 limited mountain war in the freezing heights of Ladakh's Kargil region, the Indian Army has not fought a conventional war. Neither is a conventional war likely in at least the near future. Indeed, from conventional wars, warfare has moved to various irregular forms such as proxy war, guerrilla warfare and other such forms of low-intensity conflict, and terror attacks. This has required the Army to considerably reorient itself and train differently which has come at a considerable price. And yet, the Army, the world's fourth largest, cannot be unmindful of the country's long stretches of land borders, considerable portions of which are undefined. These need continuous safeguarding and preparation for a conventional war. Neither can it stay oblivious to the scale of military modernisation being effected in the neighbourhood, especially by China which is a de facto superpower and considered a competitor and long-term adversary. Wide gaps and deficiencies in the Army's ability to successfully fight a conventional war are well known and widely documented by, for example, successive reports prepared by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on defence. These deficiencies have arisen over time, reflecting adversely on the functioning of the Government irrespective of the political dispensation in power. The deficiencies are across all spectrum of equipment from rifles and ammunition to big-ticket items such as artillery and air-defence guns to name a few. Considering that low-intensity conflict is what the Army is most preoccupied with, the Army of the world's sixth nuclear weapon state continues to suffer shortfall of some basic equipment, starting with bullet-proof vests, night-vision devices, thermal imagers and direction-finding equipment in the 21st century. The Army's involvement in combating low-intensity conflict dates back to the late-1950s, when it was first inducted in such operations to fight Naga rebels in Nagaland. Since then, the Army has seen similar operations in Mizoram, Manipur and Assam. While the Army's engagement in Punjab was only for a limited period, it is in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, beginning from 1989, that the Army continues to be engaged in its longest and most intensive spell of low-intensity conflict operations. These operations have resulted in a considerable number of casualties of officers and soldiers in the last two-and-a-half decades. The Army has had to change its orientation fighting terrorists and insurgents often indistinguishable from civilians rather than a visible and clearly defined enemy in uniform. This has led to other problems. In their anxiety to get noticed, careerist officers have sometimes engaged in professionally unethical actions. Similarly, some over-enthusiastic officers have killed innocents on a few occasions. Others have taken advantage of the situation and engaged in corruption. These actions have, on occasions, combined to give a well-established apolitical institution a bad name in a state where the stakes are high. Any adverse incident gets magnified by the Pakistani establishment, terrorist groups, the international community and the civilian population. All this and more has taken a toll on the internal health of the Army. Shortfalls in the officer cadre, which average about 10,000 less than the authorised sanctioned strength of 49,737, has meant that many combat units are functioning at about 50 per cent of their sanctioned strength. As a result, officers with little experience are being tasked to command companies (about 125 soldiers), are multi-tasking by being burdened with more responsibilities and are unable to spend much time with the soldiers they command and foster a bond with them. Rather, there have been several incidents of violence between officers and soldiers in the past few years. It does not end here. The background of the soldier is no longer that of an illiterate peasant from the village. Some are better educated and almost everyone is far more aware due to the ongoing revolution in information and communication technologies (ICTs). But ICTs have also created a new set of problems. Instant messaging also means soldiers are in regular touch with their families. It is fine so long as the messages are positive in nature. But when problems get communicated, these impact a soldiers mind, especially in a low-intensity conflict environment. Problems could be manifold but land disputes and marital issues are the commonest. Tensions and disconnect between officers and soldiers in battalions has only worsened matters. The impact was most evident between 2001 and 2011, during which as many as 1,056 soldiers committed suicide. This trend has declined in recent years, following a series of steps taken as a result of a study conducted by the Defence Institute of Psychological Research. The impact of social media and instant messaging is not confined to the soldiers alone. Increasingly, officers are using this medium to voice and communicate their discontent with the system. Whether it is their reservations about the One Rank One Pension announced by the Government, recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission or criticism at the handling of the terror attack on the IAF base in Pathankot, the officer cadre is ever more vocal than before. As is the case in most organisations, the problem begins from the top. Recent years have witnessed much infighting, expression of resentment and politicking among the top brass, including at the level of the Chief. Clearly, the Army needs to introspect and address issues concerning its internal health, including the quality of its leadership. dkumar@tribunemail.com Tribune News Service New Delhi, January 14 Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung today told a delegation of BJP MLAs that their demand for a CBI investigation into the alleged autorickshaw permit and public distribution system scams would be considered. The delegation, consisting of BJP MLAs Vijender Gupta, O.P. Sharma and Jagdish Pradhan, apprised the LG of serious irregularities allegedly committed by AAP leaders, government officials and a large number of middle men in auto permit allocation and Public Distribution System. The LG assured the delegation members that the issue raised by it would be referred to the CBI. The MLAs informed him that the government is trying to hush up the scams. Only three officials have been placed under suspension in autorickshaw scam while the government has not deemed it fit to order an inquiry into the irregularities in ration system. Kejriwal himself had assured of a CBI inquiry into the matter, but developed cold feet later, the MLAs alleged. Barack Obamas final State of the Union address was understandably an inward-looking speech because the US is already in election mode. He courageously made a robust defence of American values that made his country strong and resilient. He spoke with passion and conviction and clarity. When he asked his countrymen to reject politics targeting people, Obama made it clear it isnt a matter of political correctness. When a politician insults Muslims, when a mosque is vandalised, it doesnt make us safer. The world respects us not just for our arsenal; it respects us for our diversity and our openness and the way we respect every faith. It may be surprising to hear a US President deploy ideas and phrases that are deemed to have outlived their validity by many an Indian politician. That workers have less leverage for a raise, companies less loyalty to their communities and more and more wealth and income is concentrated at the very top, offended the belief that everybody who works hard should get a fair shot. Thats why, he pressed for the strengthening of social security and medicare, the two key areas that do not seem to interest many of our policy makers anymore. And no, President Obama didnt name Pakistan as a safe haven for terrorists. Rather he felt parts of it were going to be roiled by unrest for some time to come. His forecast for US foreign policy was reassuring to the global community that has come to view American military intervention as a sure recipe for sustained chaos. The US had learnt its lessons from Vietnam and Iraq and would therefore not resort to state building, at least till the Democrats are in power. And that over-the-top claims that any fight with a terrorist organisation is World War III, plays into their hands. As the handshakes with Iran and Cuba showed, Obama has tried to craft a different US and a different approach to the global order. He will be applauded by all peace-loving people the world over. Shiv Kumar Sharma Yamunanagar, January 14 Former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda today said the BJP at the Centre and in the state was targeting its political opponents by lodging false cases against them. Both the BJP governments have failed on all fronts. Promises made during the elections have not been fulfilled. To hide the governments failure, the opposition leaders are being targeted by filing false cases against them, Hooda said while interacting with mediapersons at Jagadhri. On the occasion, former Speaker Kuldeep Sharma, Congress MLA Karan Singh Dalal, senior party leader Bhupal Bhati, former minister Subhash Chaudhry and businessman Bharat Sharma were also present. The law and order situation has deteriorated in the state since the BJP formed the government. People are feeling unsafe in the prevailing circumstances, he said. He said the Congress leaders were not afraid of the vendetta politics being pursued by the BJP. They would take the issues to the court of the people to give an appropriate reply to the BJP governments. Hooda said the people were fed up of the government only within a period of a year. He said the plan of opening women police station was prepared by the Congress government, but the BJP government was taking its credit. He said the Congress would oppose the issue of surrendering Haryanas share of electricity to other sates taking to the streets with the help of people. Sushil Manav Tribune News Service Fatehabad, January 15 The Haryana Operational Pilot Project (HOPP), an India-Dutch research project, was launched in the state by the Central Soil Salinity Research Institute (CSSRI) and Haryana Agriculture University (HAU), Hisar, in 1997 to reclaim waterlogged and saline land. In nearly two decades, only 9,831 hectares out of 50,000 hectares severely hit by soil salinity and waterlogging has been reclaimed. In all, 7,170 farmers have benefitted. The lack of political will has led to shortage of staff in the HOPP and lack of repair of the machinery, functioning of the project is suffering badly, said HS Lohan, a former Executive Project Director of the HOPP. He retired from the Agriculture Department as an Additional Director in 2007. When it was started, the HOPP had a staff of 46 people. Now, hardly one-fourth of that strength is left as posts falling vacant on account of retirement have not been filled, Lohan said. He claimed an annual loss of more than Rs1,000 crore was being incurred since 50,000 hectares (1.25 lakh acre) hit by soil salinity and waterlogging was not producing anything. Salinity in groundwater is like cancer cells in a body. The solution is sub-surface drainage (SSD) projects. The permanent solution lies in bio-drainage through water-transpiring trees such as eucalyptus and saline fisheries, said Sushil Kamra, principal scientist in the CSSRI. The project involves installation of sub-surface perforated corrugated drains at a depth of 5 feet with the help of lazer-controlled trencher machines imported from the Netherlands for Rs 10 crore each, Kamra explained. One of the three trenchers with Haryana is in a state of disrepair. Once installed, the drains pump out water regularly for one to two years to make the upper 5-foot surface of soil free from water so that it can be used for agriculture purpose. The cost of pumping out water and putting it in a drain or a canal has to be borne by farmers. In the past two decades, the projects have been launched in three phases: from 1999 to 2002, the project was launched in Gohana and Kalayat on 2,406 hectares; from 2003 to 2009, it was launched in Jhajjar, Bhiwani, Sonepat and Sirsa districts on 3,325 hectares; and from 2009 to 2015, the project was launched in Fatehabad, Jhajjar, Palwal, Rohtak, Jind and Sonepat districts on 4,100 hectares. The mere installation of the projects is not the solution. The pumping of surface and sub-surface water for one to two years has to be done by farmers by forming societies and contributing funds for diesel. In many cases, the projects cannot give the desired result, as farmers did not perform their part of the job properly, Kamra said. The project is working well in my village. Nearly 200 acres hit by soil salinity and waterlogging has been reclaimed, said Krishan Swaroop Gorakhpuria, a farmer from Gorakhpur village in Fatehabad district. Tribune News Service Jalandhar, January 15 The dreaded gang busted by the Jalandhar rural police today made startling revelations about its plans to revive the terror of the Sukha Kahlwan gang in the region and to avenge his murder from Vicky Gonder, who was recently arrested by the Taran Taran police in an encounter. The seven nabbed gangsters included Gourav Sharma, alias Goru (22) of Ludhiana, Jatinder, alias Sonu (27) of Blalo village, Phagwara, Ranbir Singh (19) of East Gobind Nagar, Amritsar, Kuldip Sarpanch (34), a handicapped person of Kanga Lohia, Lakha (25) of Rawalpindi, Kala (28) of Kakra, Harvinder (27) of Rawalpindi. Four other persons who allegedly gave the gang Rs 2.5 lakh contract money to kill persons involved in amputating one Arun of Rawalpindi are Sadananda, alias Nikki, of Dumeli, Joginder Pal, alias Sabi, of Dumeli, Davinder, alias Sunny, of Jalowal Khanur and Mohan Kumar Patara. The police had recovered sophisticated weapons, including nine pistols, 62 live cartridges from the gang. HPS Khakh, SP, Investigation, Jalandhar rural police, said Ludhiana-based Goru Bacha is aged just 22. He entered the crime world when he was just 14 and was booked in an attempt to murder case. Already facing trial in 14 criminal cases, he was also involved in police encounters with the Jalandhar rural and Ludhiana police near Nakodar a few years ago. Now, he was out on bail and had again indulged in illegal activities. Khakh said the rural police in 2014 had also busted the Jaggu gang, a gang of contract killers, active in border areas from whom sophisticated weapons were recovered, adding that Goru was also associated with this gang. After sharpshooter Sukha Kahlwan was murdered in police custody near Phagwara on January 21, 2015, while he was being taken to Nabha jail after producing him in a Jalandhar court, Goru had decided to take revenge from Vicky Gonder, who killed Sukha in police custody. Confirmed sources revealed that Goru, along with his gang members, had followed police vehicles of gangster Gonder in the recent past to eliminate him, but he failed to do so. Sources also confirmed that Goru Bacha also visited Jalandhar to free Sukhas close associate Bhana during his appearance in a Jalandhar court. However, due to high security of Bhana, Goru was unsuccessful in his plans. Notably, Bhana had also issued threats to kill Gonder. Goru wanted to free Bhana to take on rival Gonder. The police would take them on police remand to inquire about the supplier, who supplied them sophisticated and expensive weapons. Deepkamal Kaur Tribune News Service Jalandhar, January 15 Even as local PPP leaders, including ex-councillor Jaswinder Singh Billa, Rajinder Singh Johal and youth leader Surjit Singh, accompanied party president Manpreet Singh Badal to New Delhi to attend the merger of the party with the Congress, two representatives from the area, orthopaedician and party spokesperson Dr Navjot Singh Dahiya and central committee member from Sultanpur Lodhi Raja Gurpreet Singh, stayed away from the event. Both Dahiya and Raja Gurpreet were in New Delhi today, but they did not attend the joining-in ceremony which was held in the presence of AICC Vice-President Rahul Gandhi and top Punjab leadership. Dr Dahiya and Raja Gurpreet are reportedly bargaining for Shahkot and Sultanpur Lodhi seats, respectively, from where they had contested as PPP candidates. The duo has so far not joined the Congress and has been claiming that they were still taking the opinion of their mentors and supporters on how to proceed. Dr Dahiya had contested from the Shahkot seat and had bagged nearly 9,838 votes from the constituency in 2012 Assembly polls, whereas Raja Gurpreets father Jaimal Singh, who was the candidate then from the Sultanpur Lodhi seat has got 2,267 votes. Since Col CD Kamboj, who had been unsuccessfully contesting in the last two elections from Shahkot seat, has moved to the AAP, the Congress might consider Dahiya for the party ticket. There are other contenders from the seat, including Rajanbir Singh and Laddi Sherowalia. New Bholath contender too After the PPP merger, there has been another claimant in the Congress from the vacant Bholath seat. Gurmeet Singh Nadala, a former tehsildar, is aspiring for the seat left vacant by Sukhpal Singh Khaira, who joined the AAP last month. Nadala had contested from the seat in the 2012 Assembly polls and got just 1,843 votes with fight then largely remaining between SADs Bibi Jagir Kaur and Khaira. Cousins join in again Politics has come a full circle for estranged cousins PPP president and former Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal and former SAD MLA and now Congress leader Jagbir Brar. The merger of the two parties has brought the duo again under the same platform after they had parted in mid-December 2011. Both Manpreet and Jagbir were with the SAD till they quit party to form the PPP. A former BDPO, Jagbir had then quit his MLAship to side with his cousin, but they could not go along together far. Jagbir quit the PPP just ahead of the 2012 Assembly polls and joined the Congress. Jumping into the third party, he got the ticket from Jalandhar Cantonment, but lost to Pargat Singh. Brar is currently DCC (rural) president. Since then, the duo had not been seeing eye to eye. Now the merger has brought them into one party again and they are likely to be seen together at political fora in and outside the city. Jagbir , when contacted about the same, seemed to be a bit confused with the reply, Its a party decision to merge the PPP with the Congress. Asked if he would now share the dais with his cousin again, he replied, That only time will tell. Lets see. Srinagar, January 14 Violent protests erupted after a youngster who had been missing since the past two days was found dead in Peerbagh on Thursday morning. Owais Bashir (20), a resident of Peerbagh, was found dead near a local Railway bridge, a police official said. Protesters pelted stones at policemen and blocked the road to Srinagar Airport, forcing security men to fire tear gas shells to clear crowds, the official said. Bashirs family said he had left how home on January 12 at 4 pm and never returned. "The mobile phone of Owais was switched off after 5.00 pm. When he did not return home till late in night we began looking for him. We approached police later," Bashirs cousin Sahil said, adding the police still had the body. The police refused to comment, saying only that they were still investigating the death. Meanwhile, the state government has ordered a time-bound magisterial probe into the death of the 20-year-old youth. A magisterial inquiry has been ordered to probe the death of the youth, Deputy Commissioner, Srinagar, Farooq Lone told PTI. Lone said Assistant Commissioner (Revenue), Srinagar, Hamidullah Mir has been asked to inquire into the death and submit a report within a month. PTI Cairo's fitness-lovers were up early on Friday to celebrate the third anniversary of the founding of the running group Cairo Runners, the leading running community in Egypt, decided to start 2016 by celebrating their third anniversary in a run in Zamalek on Friday. "These runs are one of the things that give me power to do my work and fulfill my duties to my family energetically," Sherifa, who works in the petroleum sector, told Ahram Online as she stood amid hundreds of runners of different ages at the gathering point at El Sawy Cultural Wheel. "I live in Zamalek, but events that are in the outskirts of Cairo also have me up early and excited to join," she added Sherifa was among hundreds who gathered at 7am for Cairo Runners' signature energetic warm-ups, which saw the place literally pounding with participants mimicking the exercises performed on stage at the cultural hub. Prior to the warm-ups, Cairo Runners' Khaled Mahgoub announced on stage that in line with Cairo Runners' social responsibilities, they are partnering this time with " Inmaa" which specialises in providing children and youth with trainings and skills. Runners then took off around Zamalel, making their way along the 4km route of Abu El-Feda, Brazil, Kamal El-Tawil, and Mohamed Mazhar streets. Chocolate was everywhere... Route flags, signs, certificates, etc, were themed with the sweet treat, as the event is sponsored by Snickers. At the end the event did not disappoint, with participants hailing its success and the spirit that prevailedas they treated to an extravaganza of sweet waffles and chocolate. El-Nafikha band also entertained the runners at the end with some oriental music. In a country where jogging is yet to catch on, Cairo Runners have been forging ahead by organising group runs around the capital. The leading running community was one of the earliest pioneers in encouraging Egyptians to adopt a healthier, more energetic lifestyle, taking to the streets for early runs every Friday, and choosing different locations in the capital each time. Cairo Runners began in 2012 as a series of runs through areas in central Cairo and surrounding suburbs. At the beginning of the initiative, the participants were around only 70, but Cairo Runners take pride in their expansion, with the number of runners increasing with the success of each event. Their current outreach has almost hit 400,000 on Facebook while the number of their followers on Twitter is above 16,000. The average numbers of runners per week is around 3,000. Search Keywords: Short link: By Ervell E. Menezes Set in Denmark in the early 1920s and based on a true life story by David Ebbershoff, The Danish Girl is a moving, sensitive drama of sex change and its psychological impact on its subject Einar Wegner (Eddie Redmayne). Einar and Gerder Wegner (Alicia Vikander) are a happily married artist couple living in Copenhagen till one day Einar fills in for a missing female model for his wife. It is here that his hidden female qualities are aroused and his Lili Elbe (Redmayne) personality starts taking shape. Einar begins dressing up like a woman, tends to shun society but still carries out his main commitments. And he is closely supported by his confused wife Gerder. All this while, Gerders paintings go to Paris and so does the couple. They meet art dealer Hans Axgil (Mathias Schoenaerts), who coincidentally is known to Einar as a child (in fact was kissed by him). This further complicates things. So, after thinking things together the couple decides to consult Dr Warnekros (Sebastian Koch), who suggests a hitherto untried sex reassignment surgery in two parts. Meanwhile, Hans hovers around the two because of his concern for Ainar and his new-found attraction for Gerder. All this while the narrative flows smoothly, thanks to Lucinda Coxons imaginative screenplay, considering that the subject covers new ground and director Tom Hooper also endows it with the treatment it requires, especially when dealing with sensitive subjects like genitalia. That he is supported by two excellent actors makes it so much easier. We all know Redmaynes talent and winning an Oscar for playing Prof Stephen Hawkings in The Theory of Everything last year. Here he proves his versatility by entering the psyche of a transgender and he does it with panache. But in Alicia Vikander, we have a very talented artiste destined for future fame. So with these two hogging the action the others are subsidiary, but Mathias Schoenaerts makes more of an impression than Sebastian Koch. Danny Cohens caressing camerawork makes for visual beauty and dramatic relief in this throbbing human drama. Not to be missed! Simran Sodhi Tribune News Service New Delhi, January 14 The foreign secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan have been rescheduled to a date in very near future. Ending days of speculation, the Ministry of External Affairs today said the foreign secretaries spoke to each other and decided to reschedule the talks. Official spokesperson of the External Affairs Ministry Vikas Swarup added that the national security advisers of the two countries were in regular touch. India said it was ready to welcome the special team being sent by Pakistan to investigate the Pathankot attack. Whether it would be allowed access inside the Pathankot air base and other such modalities was still being sorted out. The government welcomes the proposed visit of the Pakistani probe team. Indian investigative agencies will provide all possible help, he said. On the question of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) leader Masood Azhars arrest, the MEA said it still had no official confirmation on the issue. Even in Islamabad, Pakistan foreign office spokesperson Qazi Khalilullah said he was not aware of such arrests. Late last evening, reports emerged from Pakistan that the JeM chief had been arrested or detained. But in the absence of any official confirmation from either side, this is still open to speculation. However, India today welcomed the action taken by Pakistan against JeM as an important first positive step in the right direction. Since the Pathankot attack, the foreign secretary-level talks have been under the scanner. India believes elements belonging to JeM are behind the attack. It has given evidence that links the attackers to their handlers across the border. Mumbai, January 15 An Indian engineer from Mumbai who had been missing since the past three years has been found in Pakistan Armys custody, his parents said on Friday. Hamid Nehal Ansari had reportedly entered Pakistan illegally through the Afghanistan border as he was in love with a girl from Kohat whom he had befriended on social media networks. Since the girl's parents were planning to get her married soon, Ansari took the risk of entering Pakistan illegally to meet her but soon went missing. Ansaris parents had been frantically trying to find him since. "We are relieved and happy to hear that he's safe. But we are uncertain of the future. We want our son to return soon," his happy father Nehal Ansari said. Hamid, who also has an MBA degree, had gone to Kabul for a job in the operations sector of an airline on November 4, 2012, and promised to return within a week. He came to know about the job opening of manager at Kabul airport. He went to Kabul. We were constantly in touch but after 10 days there was no contact, his mother Fauzia Ansari said. After he went missing, his family feared he may have been abducted by terrorist groups and moved the state and central government to help trace him. The Pakistan India Peoples' Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD), which had first made the announcement on Thursday, said "it is heartening to know that young Hamid N. Ansari is alive". "Deputy Attorney General of Pakistan, Mussaratullah Khan on Wednesday informed the Peshawar High Court that the defence ministry had informed him about Ansari who was in the custody of their army and was being court-martialled," PIPFPD India general secretary Jatin Desai said here. The PIPFPD claimed that everyone who tried to help out in this case were targeted, and at least one local media person, Zeenat Shehzadi, is also reported missing. "There is no doubt that it is only through a sustained judicial effort that brought the Pakistan Army and government to respond to the court and acknowledge that Hamid N. Ansari is in their custody, though he should have been produced in a court long back," Desai said. "We recognise the humanitarian efforts of friends, well-wishers and lawyers. It has been a long struggle for Hamid's parents. We appeal to the Pakistan government to release him as he has been already in custody for more than three years," Desai urged. The PIPFPD also requested the Pakistan Government permit Ansari's parents and family to meet him and said both the Indian and Pakistan governments must view this issue from a humanitarian perspective. Agencies New Delhi, January 15 Minister of State for External Affairs VK Singh will look after all issues related to expatriate Indians in the Gulf. All matters relating to Indian nationals in Gulf countries will now be looked after by my colleague Gen VK Singh (retd), External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted late on Thursday. There are nearly five million expatriate Indians in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Sushma Swarajs statement comes after the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA) that looked after issues of Indians abroad was merged with the External Affairs Ministry this month. Sushma Swaraj said on January 7 that she suggested to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to merge the MOIA with the External Affairs Ministry as much of MOIA work was done by Indian missions. Modi accepted the proposal. IANS Freetown, January 15 A woman who died of Ebola this week in Sierra Leone potentially exposed at least 27 other persons to the disease, according to an aid agency report on Friday, raising the risk of more cases just as the deadliest epidemic on record appeared to be ending. Just a day earlier, the World Health Organization (WHO) had declared that all known chains of transmission have been stopped in West Africa, meaning that the region was officially free of the disease after a two-year epidemic that killed more than 11,300 people. It warned, however, of potential flare-ups, as survivors can carry the virus for months. The new case in Sierra Leone is especially disquieting because authorities failed to follow basic health protocols, according to the report seen by Reuters. It was compiled by a humanitarian agency that asked not to be named. The victim, a 22-year-old female named Mariatu Jalloh, began showing symptoms at the beginning of the year, though the exact date is unknown, the report states. A student in Port Loko, the largest town in Sierra Leones Northern Province, Jalloh travelled to Bamoi Luma near the border with Guinea in late December. Sierra Leones northern border area, a maze of waterways, was one of the countrys last Ebola hot spots before it was declared Ebola-free on Nov. 7, and contact tracing was sometimes bedevilled by access problems. By the time she travelled back to her parents home in Tonkolili district, east of the capital Freetown, using three different taxis, Jalloh had diarrhoea and was vomiting, the report said. She was nursed by members of a household of 22 people. She sought treatment at a local hospital on Jan. 8 where a health worker, who did not wear protective clothing, took a blood sample. It was not immediately clear whether the sample was tested for Ebola. She was treated as an outpatient and returned home, where she died on Jan. 12. Health workers took a swab test of Jallohs body following her death, which tested positive for Ebola. Asked about apparent errors in handling the case, Sierra Leone health ministry spokesman Sidi Yahya Tunis said that the patient had been tested for the virus and had received treatment in a government hospital. He did not give further details. Body washing Information campaigns calling upon residents of Ebola-affected countries to respect government health directives have been largely credited with turning the tide of the epidemic. However, safety measures, particularly a ban on traditional burial ceremonies, have faced stiff resistance at times. The report stated that five people who were not part of Jallohs parents household were involved in washing her corpse, a practice that is considered one of the chief modes of Ebola transmission. Almost all the victims of the regional epidemic, which originated in the forests of Guinea in 2013, were in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. All three nations have been declared free of the virus at various times. But both Sierra Leone and Liberia have seen the disease return despite passing a 42-day period with no new cases, after which countries are declared free of Ebola transmission. It is really important that people dont understand this 42-day announcement as the sign that we should all just pack up and go home, said WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic. We should stay there and be ready to respond to these possible cases. Ben Neuman, an Ebola expert and lecturer in virology at Britains University of Reading, said: My first thought is that a hospital in Sierra Leone completely misdiagnosing a case of Ebola, apparently without sending a sample to one of the many testing labs that are being kept open for just this reason is ridiculous -completely unacceptable. He said Ebola was hard to distinguish from many other diseases that cause pain, fever, diarrhoea and vomiting. The only way to know for sure is by testing whether pieces of the Ebola virus are present in the blood, Neuman added. People still make better doctors and nurses than computers, but people will always make mistakes. Unfortunately this mistake is a big one. Ebola is passed on through blood and bodily fluids, and kills about 40 percent of those who contracted the virus. While the WHO has said that another major outbreak is unlikely, it stated that there was a risk of flare-ups throughout 2016 because of the way the virus can persist in those who survive it. Research on survivors has located it in semen, breast milk, vaginal secretions, spinal fluid and fluids around the eyes. Reuters Sydney, January 15 A 26-year-old Indian Sikh was on Friday granted a special visa by the Australian government on humanitarian grounds. The special visa will allow Jaspal Singh to return to Australia after attending his fathers funeral in India, ABC reported on Friday. The 26-year-old, who arrived in Australia as a student, was awaiting the arrival of his father and mother at Melbourne Airport on Monday morning when the tragedy struck. Gurdyal Singh collapsed at the arrival gate following a suspected heart attack. He died at the scene, despite the efforts of paramedics. The family was making arrangements for the funeral in India and Jaspal Singh was planning to escort the body back home. However, Jaspal Singhs case was complicated by the class of bridging visa, which meant he was at risk of being blocked from coming back to Australia. Jaspal Singhs visa had expired for three weeks in 2013 after his separation from his previous partner. He had applied for a new visa with his wife Mandeep Kaur but was waiting for approval by Immigration Minister Peter Dutton. Following an appeal from his family, Jaspal Singh was granted special visa. Describing Jaspal Singhs situation as complex, a spokesman for the Immigration Minister Dutton, in a statement said: Mr. Singh has been given a bridging visa which will enable him to escort his fathers body to India and then return to Australia. IANS Islamabad, January 15 Pakistan strongly condemned US President Barack Obama's remarks that the country could become a haven for militants and would remain unstable for decades to come. In his last State of the Union address on Tuesday, Obama had said that "instability will continue for decades in many parts of the world in the Middle East, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in parts of central America, Africa and Asia". He said that the US' foreign policy must be focused on the threat from the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda, but it should not stop there. "For even without IS, instability will continue for decades in many parts of the world in the Middle East, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in parts of Central America, Africa and Asia," he said. "Some of these places may become safe havens for new terrorist networks; others will fall victim to ethnic conflict, or famine, feeding the next wave of refugees," he said. Pakistani Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz rejected Obama's comments in a breakfast meeting with Chinese scholars, diplomats and mediapersons. "Whatever the US president said about instability in Pakistan and Afghanistan are his predictions and have nothing to do with ground realities," Aziz said. "Pakistan is taking decisive action against terrorism and militancy and days to come will witness more stability here," he said. Aziz said Afghanistan faced the issue of "instability" but Pakistan was making all out efforts to bring peace and stability in its neighbouring nation. PTI Mogadishu, January 15 Somalias al-Qaeda-linked Shebab militants stormed an African Union base on Friday in the countrys southwest, with several killed in fierce gun battles, soldiers said. They launched an offensive on a military base at El-Adde and there was heavy fighting which caused casualties, Somali army colonel Idris Ahmed said, adding a Shebab suicide commando blasted a way into the base in the Gedo region, which borders Kenya and Ethiopia. Both Somali troops and Kenyan soldiers with the AU force, AMISOM, are deployed at the isolated base. There was suicide attack followed by the fighting and it seems that the base was stormed, Ahmed said. AMISOM can confirm that there was an attack on our troops in El-Adde, the force said in a brief statement hours after the attack began, but gave no further details. Shebab spokesman Abdiaziz Abu Musab claimed 63 Kenyan troops were killed in the pre-dawn raid, but this could not be immediately verified. The mujahedeen fighters carried out a successful operation this morning on a military base at El-Adde, and they have killed many of the Christian soldiers from Kenya, Musab said. We have counted 63 dead bodies inside the base. The Shebab frequently exaggerates the number of troops they kill, while AMISOM rarely gives exact tolls. The attack came as politicians met in the southern port of Kismayo, with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud leading a National Consultative Forum to debate planned elections due later this year. Somalia is no longer a failed state, Mohamud said in a statement, which made no reference to the attack. Somalia is building a strong foundation to support a better future. Kenyas defence ministry confirmed there had been casualties but was unable to confirm numbers, describing the assault as an unfortunate incident. Kenyan military spokesman David Obonyo said the army is doing all it can to consolidate the situation in the shortest time possible, without giving further details. Local elder Hussein Adam said he heard a huge explosion followed by intense gunfire for about 45 minutes. We dont know about the casualties, but people who went there saw many dead bodies strewn around, he said, having spoken to those who went to the base. The Shebab, fighting to overthrow Somalias internationally-backed and AU-protected government, has launched a string of similar attacks. In September 2015, Shebab fighters stormed a Ugandan AMISOM base in Janale district, 80 kilometres southwest of Mogadishu in the Lower Shabelle region. And in June, Shebab killed dozens of Burundian soldiers when they overran an AMISOM outpost northwest of Mogadishu. The militants also stage frequent suicide attacks in the capital. AFP (Beijing) A decision by the central government to grant more power to local governments regarding decisions on new power plants appears to be backfiring, as local officials have interpreted the move as a green light to build highly polluting facilities. As part of reform efforts to decentralize power, the Ministry of Environmental Protection in March 2015 handed authority for vetoing power projects on the grounds of environmental concerns to provincial governments. But the ministry may now be flummoxed to see that the move has resulted in a slew of project approvals by local authorities. In the northern province of Shanxi alone, 23 coal-fired power plants won approval from March to October last year, including two, owned by ChinaCoal Pingshuo Group and China Resources Power Holdings, that the ministry previously shot down because they were too dirty. Three such projects were approved in Inner Mongolia during the period. A ministry official who participated in the initial assessment of the ChinaCoal and CR Power projects said they were not approved because they failed to meet central government standards. The ministry refused to approve the projects in March, just before it handed out the environment assessment authority, due to concerns about air pollution, said the official who asked not to be named. But officials in Shanxi thought otherwise. The government of the province, which is rich in coal, has actively promoted plants that use waste from coal mining to generate electricity in recent years as a way to boost economic growth. When the province was handed the power early last year to determine the environmental feasibility of plans for power plants, it gave the green light to the two facilities and others. "The central government's measure, originally designed to decentralize administrative power and improve efficiency, has been used as an opportunity for local governments who are counting on the coal industry for higher GDP growth," one environmental expert said. Missed Message Some of the power plants in question use by-products of coal mining called gangue, slime and middling, a method environmental experts say results in great amounts of emissions. Provinces like Shanxi have been keen to build more of the facilities in recent years as a way to use their large stores of the materials, and most of the new electricity plants approved in Shanxi use coal gangue. Official data showed that the country produces more than 300 million tons of coal gangue, slime and middling every year, but only about 100 million tons are used by existing electricity facilities. The remaining gangue and slime cover some 13,000 hectares of land, a number local officials would like to see cut. And storage of the materials creates harmful gases and pollutes soil and water. In November 2011, the National Energy Bureau issued a notice that said the country should stop developing this portion of the coal-fired power plant sector. Despite this, in June 2013, the bureau allowed the Shanxi government to draft plans to build plants with a capacity of 19.2 million kilowatts in a bid to use up some of the materials. By October that year, the province had approved a number of projects and submitted their plans to the central government for review. However, as of March 2015, many of the projects still had not won Beijing's approval. The ministry official said using coal gangue to generate electricity indeed cuts waste from mining, but the ministry is concerned about the projects because burning the material results in greater amounts of dust and sulfur dioxide emissions than do plants that consume higher-quality materials. "The northern China area has no more room for more emissions," the official said. The environmental ministry said it rejected the ChinaCoal and CR Power projects just before it gave local governments the right to approve plans in the hope that its decision set an example. The ministry's message did not get across. Said the official: "All of a sudden the projects were approved." Green Data, a non-government environmental organization, said that work on most of the newly approved projects has started since October. Way Too Much Making matters worse is that the plants are being built despite the fact the country has excess electricity. The environmental ministry said that from January to September last year, 155 new coal-fired power plants with total generation capacity of 12.3 billion kilowatts were approved for construction across the country. That works out to four-fifths of all projects approved by the central government from 2012 to 2014. Most of the new projects are in Shanxi; Inner Mongolia, which is also in the north; and in the western region of Xinjiang. A November 2015 study by Yuan Jiahau, a professor at the North China Electric Power University in Beijing, shows that Shanxi is expected to generate 21 million more kilowatts than it needs by 2020, and the figure in Xinjiang is 15.5 million. And one official said that if no limits are put in place the country will have a severe oversupply of electricity generated by coal-fired plants by 2020. Zhou Dadi, former director of the an official energy research institute, said the country "should stop or at least slow construction of coal-fire power plants as soon as possible, especially in the next three years." (Rewritten by Han Wei) Photo: U.S. DOT The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration announced on Jan. 15 that it is formally initiating a Safety Fitness Determination rulemaking that will enhance the agencys ability to identify non-compliant motor carriers. FMCSA said the SFD Notice of Proposed Rulemaking updates the agencys safety fitness rating methodology by integrating on-road safety data from inspections, along with the results of carrier investigations and crash reports, to determine a motor carriers overall safety fitness on a monthly basis. Word of the proposed rule, in the works since 2007, came three days after a coalition of trucking stakeholders announced they would challenge the validity of the rulemaking because it would ignore the clear mandates of the FAST Act [the recently passed highway bill] by incorporating] current on-road safety performance data. FMSCA said the proposed SFD rule would replace the current three-tier federal rating system of satisfactoryconditionalunsatisfactory, which has been in place since 1982, with a single determination of unfit. A carrier that is determined to be unfit would be required to either improve its operations or cease operations. The agency also said the proposal would permit FMCSA to assess the safety fitness of approximately 75,000 companies a month. By comparison, it is now only able to investigate 15,000 motor carriers annually with less than half of those companies receiving a safety rating. Per FMCSA, the proposed methodology would determine when a carrier is not fit to operate commercial motor vehicles based on: The carriers performance in relation to a fixed failure threshold established in the rule for five of the agencys Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories (BASICs) Investigation results; or A combination of on-road safety data and investigation information The proposed rule further incorporates rigorous data sufficiency standards and would require that a significant pattern of non-compliance be documented in order for a carrier to fail a BASIC, FMCSA stated. When assessing roadside inspection data results, the proposal uses a minimum of 11 inspections with violations in a single BASIC within a 24-month period before a motor carrier could be eligible to be identified as unfit. If a carriers individual performance meets or exceeds the failure standards in the rule, it would then fail that BASIC. The failure standard will be fixed by the rule. A carriers status in relation to that fixed measure would not be affected by other carriers performance. FMCSA said that failure of a BASIC based on either crash data or compliance with drug and alcohol requirements would only occur following a comprehensive investigation. The agency estimates that under the proposed rule, less than 300 carriers each year would be proposed as unfit solely as a result of on-road safety violations. FMCSA said its analysis has shown that carriers identified through this on-road safety data have crash rates of almost four times the national average. This update to our methodology will help the agency focus on carriers with a higher crash risk, said Scott Darling, FMCSAs acting administrator. Carriers that we identify as unfit to operate will be removed from our roadways until they improve. FMCSA will publish the Safety Fitness Determination NPRM in the Federal Register on Jan. 21. The proposal will be available at www.regulations.gov at docket number FMCSA-2015-0001. Initial comments will be due March 31, 2016, and response comments will be accepted for an additional 30 days. Jean Baptiste Saint Amon had a dream to own his own business, an authentic French bakery. When I was working in France, there were 20 bakeries on the same street, Saint Amon said. The competition is very tough, and you dont make much money. In pursuit of his dream, he moved to the states and started working at River Spirit Casino as a pastry chef. For the French immigrant, owning a business means freedom. After working somewhere for a while, you kind of want to be on your own, he said. You want the freedom to do what you want. But that dream almost didnt come to pass. We started meeting with banks trying to get a loan, he said. But no banks would support us because I am French and just in the states for two years. I dont have a long credit history and Ive never owned a business. He eventually tried Tulsa Federal Credit Union and met with Andrew Winslow, small business development officer, and Glen Ogden, chief lending officer, who partnered with Amon to make his dream a reality. Actually, TFCU was our last chance, Amon said. They were the only bank that believed in us and listened to our story and they said, Yes, we think you could be successful, and they loaned us the money and here we are. Saint Amon and his wife Sarah, who is also a pastry chef, borrowed $60,000 to add to the $40,000 they had in savings. We are partners with our businesses, Ogden said. Whereas, with larger banks, a project under $2 million may not be worth their time. They want the big development projects and those types of things. TFCU provides loans to a variety of business plans from a few thousand to million dollar projects. But, as the Small Business Development Officer, its Winslows job to go out and work with people who are already small business owners or those who are looking to start a business for the first time. We want to help somebody who wants to buy a route for a delivery service that needs a $200,000 loan or someone who wants to create equipment for the oil fields in a shop at their house and they only need $25,000 in supplies, Ogden said. We are here to partner with that small business and make sure they are here to benefit the community of Tulsa. Saint Amon was surprised when he learned his loan had been approved. It was surprising because we went to so many banks and we gave them our folder and they said, Yeah, well submit your application and they would get back to us and say No, theres nothing we can do for you, he said. They were disappointed many times by banks who told them their loan application had been submitted for a Small Business Administration loan. We always thought they gave the SBA our application, but they never did, he said. I dont know if they didnt believe in us, so yeah, TFCU was our last resort. They believed in us, and thats awesome! Winslow says the small business market is very strong in Tulsa and the credit union is making strides in improving service and technology for their members. We want to play more of a part in the small business market and we want to help small business by looking at a variety of solutions for them, Winslow said. For someone starting a business, the first step is to visit a branch member service specialist. There they can open an account, provide a needs assessment and then be referred to Winslow for further assistance. He will meet with them at a place of their choosing to assist with terms of the loan, determine the amount and how quickly they need the money. Wed look at all the options to see what best benefits them, Winslow said. Getting started An entrepreneur must have a completed loan application, the business articles of incorporation, a three-year revenue projection, a business plan, a resume and three years previous tax returns, both for the business and personal for everyone that will be on the loan. These are the items youll need to get started on the loan and will let us know if the loan is viable, Winslow said. TFCU also has templates available to help in preparation of a business plan in order to help the borrower get started. Im an overall resource any time if they need a business plan or projections put together, Winslow said. I can definitely help them with that or at least advise them as they do it. Said Ogden: We have a SBA express line of credit which is targeted towards startup businesses that may need working capital. These loans are targeted for someone who may need equipment or are just starting out into business. Im currently helping a man who has a tree service and needs a grapple truck, Winslow said. We also have an SBA Express Vehicle Loan. The benefit of that is you can write off the interest on your taxes, because it is a business loan and the loan can go up to 10 years. Saint Amon Baking Co. The Saint Amon Baking Co. is under construction at 121st Street and Sheridan Road. He expects to be open in early spring making authentic French banquettes, croissants, chocolate croissants, apple turnovers and American classics such as pecan pies and butter cream cakes. Its going to be super exciting, he said. You can buy eclairs in the grocery store, but I know thats not how they are supposed to be. Once we get open, people will see what they are really supposed to taste like. As for TFCU, Saint Amon is thankful. We are really grateful Tulsa Federal Credit Union believed in us and they worked with us, he said. Every time I had a question, they were really helpful. And the process was really fast. They got the answer for us in maybe a week. National Religious Broadcasters honors KGEB as TV Station of the Year National Religious Broadcasters named KGEB-23/53 as the 2016 Full Power TV Station of the Year. KGEB is a station under the purview of Oral Roberts Universitys GEB America Network. The award was given as part of the 2016 NRB Media Awards, which recognize the most outstanding ministries, facilities and programs/producers in the worlds preeminent association of Christian broadcasters and communicators. To support their goal of providing high-quality Christian programming, the network recently signed an agreement with Christian televisions Trinity Broadcasting Network providing a six-hour block of live programming from TBNs exclusive teen and young adult network, JUCE TV. The programming is available seven days a week on all GEB stations from midnight to 6 a.m. NRBs Annual Media Awards program is designed to encourage excellence in production, service to the community, faithfulness to the mission, commitment to the Gospel, and personal integrity. Engineering firm McClelland Consulting names two associates McClelland Consulting Engineers promoted David Cross and Steven Head to associates. Cross has managed and oversaw MCEs Oklahoma office since 2014 along with managing numerous civil engineering design projects throughout the state. Head joined MCE in 2012 as the supervisor of MCEs in-house construction materials testing laboratory in the Fayetteville, Arkansas office. He oversees the performance and scheduling of testing, special inspections and subsurface drilling operations. MCE is a regional multi-disciplined consulting engineering firm providing professional civil engineering services including geotechnical engineering, environmental engineering, airport engineering, landscape architecture and professional land surveying. It has offices in Little Rock, Fayetteville and Tulsa. BP renews contract with Tulsa company for maintenance Matrix Service Company announced last week that BP has renewed its contract with subsidiary, Matrix Service Inc., as the preferred maintenance contractor for its Cherry Point Refinery through 2020. BPs Cherry Point Refinery is the largest in the state of Washington and third largest on the West Coast, processing approximately 230,000 barrels of crude per day. Matrix Service has provided on-site maintenance, capital project and turnaround work at the refinery for more than 20 years. Matrix currently has 250 people on-site at the Cherry Point refinery, although those numbers increase dramatically during planned outages. Make-A-Wish Oklahomawelcomes names new CEO Katie Fitzgerald joins Make-A-Wish Oklahoma as president and CEO. In addition to managing the operations of the organization, Fitzgerald will work closely with supporters all over the state to promote and expand the Make-A-Wish mission of granting wishes to children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy. Fitzgeralds resume includes experience in the fields of child advocacy, child and family services and fund development. She joins Make-A-Wish following a six-year tenure as executive director at the Center for Children and Families in Norman where she led the largest expansion in operating and capital revenue in the agencys history along with a related expansion in child and family services. Fitzgerald has also served as Director for the Womens Leadership Initiative at the University of Oklahoma and led the Oklahoma Afterschool Network at the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy. Before moving to Oklahoma, Katie served as program director with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan and as a vice president with United Way of Greater Battle Creek. Katie earned her masters of social work from the University of Michigan and her undergraduate degree at Michigan State University. Make-A-Wish was created in 1980 after being inspired by a seven-year-old boy named Chris who had leukemia. In The Raw Broken Arrow under new ownership Scarpa Restaurant Concepts, which also owns includes Main Street Tavern and The Rooftop, is now owner of In The Raw Broken Arrow, 216 S. Main St. We are committed to making all of your favorite ITR Broken Arrow dishes with the utmost quality and consistency to be enjoyed in a beautiful atmosphere with excellent service, Scarpa owner Jason Scarpa said. ITR is an exciting part of the Rose District, and we are proud to have the restaurant as part of our Scarpa Restaurant Groups. ITR Broken Arrow will be open 11 a.m.-10 p.m. seven days a week, and every Thursday evening will feature Martinis and Music featuring various local musicians and specialty martinis. Liberty Tax Service opens new office in Bixby area Tammi & Kelly Bailey are a new franchisee with Liberty Tax Service in the Bixby area. They join more than 2,000 other franchisees who are part of the Liberty Tax brand, bringing professional tax preparation services to local residents. Liberty Tax franchisees are committed to the communities in which their offices are located. Franchisees host fundraising events for local charities and sponsor community service activities. They also offer informative seminars on tax issues affecting local residents. To learn more about Liberty Tax franchise opportunities, visit libertytaxfranchise.com. BKD announces promotion of Jessica Elsberry Todd J. Lisle, BKD, LLP managing partner, announced the promotion of Jessica Elsberry to Senior Associate II. Elsberry serves clients in BKDs audit and attestation practice for health care entities. She is a 2012 graduate of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse with a bachelors degree in accounting. She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Oklahoma Society of CPAs and the Oklahoma chapter of the Healthcare Financial Management Association. BKD is a CPA and advisory firm with approximately 2,400 personnel, including approximately 260 partners, serve clients in all 50 states and internationally. HoganTaylor announces promotions of 14 HoganTaylor LLP, one of the largest public accounting firms in the Oklahoma and Arkansas region, announce the promotions of 14 employees: Brandon Jackson to senior manager, assurance Department. Jackson joined HoganTaylor in 2007 and specializes in corporate and SEC engagements. He graduated from Northeastern State University in 2006 with a degree in accounting. Natasha Morrison to senior Manager, assurance department. Morrison joined HoganTaylor in 2007 and specializes in the employee benefit plan area. She graduated from Northeastern State University in 2006 with a degree in accounting. Matt Neas to senior manager, tax department. Neas joined HoganTaylor in 2007 and specializes in multistate corporate returns, insurance, international and manufacturing. He holds a degree in accounting from the University of Tulsa and a masters in accounting at the University of Texas. Melania Powell to senior manager, tax department. Powell joined HoganTaylor in 2008 and specializes in partnerships, construction, oil and gas, and other areas. She graduated with masters from University of Arkansas and holds a bachelors degree in psychology from Missouri Southern State University. Dmitry Volfson to senior manager, assurance department. Volfson joined HoganTaylor in 2009 and specializes in the NFP and investment fund areas. He graduated from Iowa State University with a masters of accountancy and a bachelors in accounting in 2007. Ben Gray to manager, tax department. Gray joined HoganTaylor in 2011 and graduated from the University of Tulsa with a degree in accounting and his MBA. Joe Watkins to manager, tax department. Watkins joined HoganTaylor in 2009. He received his degree in accounting from University of Tulsa. Patricia Beyen to senior, assurance department. Beven joined HoganTaylor in 2015. She received her degree in accounting from Northeastern State University. Wade Henson, to senior, assurance department. Henson joined HoganTaylor in 2013. He earned his bachelors and masters degrees in 2012 from the University of Arkansas. Brett Jackson to senior, assurance department. Jackson joined HoganTaylor in 2014 and graduated from Oklahoma Baptist University where he received his degree in accounting in 2009. Kala Kinyon to senior, tax department. Kinyon joined HoganTaylor in 2014 and earned her bachelors in accounting from the University of Arkansas. Chris Mayer to senior, tax department. Mayer joined HoganTaylor in 2014 and graduated from Friends University where he received his MBA in accounting. Victor Stillwell to senior, tax department. Stilwell joined HoganTaylor in 2015 and graduated from Pittsburgh State with his bachelors in accounting and completed a bachelors in public relations from Kansas State. Michael Summers to senior, assurance department. Summers joined HoganTaylor in 2013 and graduated from the University of Oklahoma with his bachelors and masters in 2013. Commerce Bank announces growth in the New Year Commerce Bank named Aaron Bales account manager of commercial card products in the Tulsa market, the company announced. Bales is responsible for growth and retention of the banks Oklahoma commercial card portfolio and will serve customers in both Oklahoma and Arkansas. Aaron brings five years of commercial banking experience to Commerce Bank, said Shannon ODoherty, Oklahoma market president for Commerce Bank. His previous payment strategy experience will help us grow our commercial card product offering to customers in Oklahoma and Arkansas. Commerce Banks commercial card products offer an all-inclusive payment management program, combining the benefits of distributed purchasing with centralized accounting through modules that customers can customize according to business needs. The product is available nationwide to corporations. OKLAHOMA CITY They came mad, frustrated, seeking answers and action. Oklahomans whose homes and businesses have been rattled by earthquakes caused by injection wells say they want the shaking stopped immediately and want those responsible held accountable. Many also expressed frustration with elected leaders, namely Gov. Mary Fallin, members of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission and lawmakers. The Corporation Commission is charged with regulating the oil and gas industry and has required injection-well operators in areas hit by quakes to reduce volumes and depths of the wastewater injections and in some cases stop operations altogether. A public hearing on earthquakes had to be moved to the House chamber from a conference room at the state Capitol to accommodate the crowd, which numbered more than 100. It came the day after a similar event in Edmond. Several of those at the Capitol hearing also attended the Edmond meeting. Many suggested a moratorium on injection wells. The hearing was organized by Rep. Richard Morrissette, D-Oklahoma City, who has suggested a number of proposals, such as a reparation fund to assist those affected and limits on the amount of wastewater any company is allowed to inject each year. I am paying for insurance for man-made quakes caused by the petroleum industry, said John Vaught of Edmond. Fallin and lawmakers have turned their heads on the issue, he said. I am not at all satisfied with the states response, Vaught said. I havent seen a response. Julie Allison of Edmond said several quakes have struck near her home and caused damage. It is the responsibility of the oil and gas industry to have insurance, she said. They should pay my deductible and damage. Also on hand was Arkansas attorney Scott Poynter, who represents residents who have been affected by the earthquakes. He said a federal lawsuit is planned, as well as a class-action lawsuit in district court. The Oklahoma Corporation Commission is slower than Christmas, he said, garnering applause. He told attendees to document their damage in pictures and videos and keep receipts from repairs. He said he believes that a lawsuit can be brought against insurance companies that dont want to pay claims and that residents could recoup damages for pain and suffering. Many residents are afraid a magnitude-5.0 quake could hit, he said. Children have begun sleeping with their parents out of fear, he said. In addition, residents are suffering market loss on homes that have had to be repaired, he said. Politics and money are the reasons the quakes are still damaging property, Poynter said. Kim Hatfield, president of Crawley Petroleum and a member of the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association, said he understands residents fear and concern, adding that is natural to be afraid of things one cant control. I think there is a consensus that the injection wells are at least a portion of the problem, he said. But a moratorium on injection wells would have far-reaching implications for Oklahoma, where the oil and gas industry is a major part of the economy, he said. Fallin was not at the legislative hearing. Michael McNutt, the governors spokesman, said she was conducting the states business on Friday, much of it involving issues affecting the economy and the state budget. The governor is working on solutions, he said. Her Coordinating Council on Seismic Activity, which she formed more than a year ago, meets regularly to develop a response to the earthquakes and to ensure that the energy industry, state agencies, environmentalists and academics are all talking and sharing data, McNutt said. The Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which has exclusive jurisdiction over oil and gas in the state, and the governors secretary of energy and environment are actively working on this issue. Just two days ago, the Corporation Commission issued a directive that 27 saltwater disposal wells in the Fairview area limit volumes. There is no need for the governor to intervene at this time. Matt Skinner, a Corporation Commission spokesman, said the agency was not set up as an earthquake entity and is learning more and more about the problems and how to address them. If your house is shaking, it (the states response) isnt fast enough, Skinner said. That is just a fact. Tulsa County commissioners said Thursday they are about at the end of their rope with the city over a dispute concerning the Tulsa County Jail, and indicated the city has tried to use the location of a new family justice center as leverage in the negotiations. We had a really good (site) we were ready to move forward on, but oddly enough it seems the jail negotiations got in the way, Commission Chairman Karen Keith said during a morning management conference. Earlier in the meeting, Commissioner John Smaligo called the citys position on the jail negotiations absolutely outrageous. Tulsa City Manager Jim Twombly said legal complications, not the jail negotiations, derailed the family justice center. As far as I know, nobody (with the city) has said that to the county, Twombly said when asked whether the land for the justice center had been offered in exchange for a favorable jail agreement. The county and city have been at odds for some time about the amount the city pays to keep keep people arrested on municipal charges at the Tulsa Jail. The city now pays the county about $700,000 a year to house the prisoners, while county says the actual cost is at least $3 million. The county has been subsidizing the jail from its general fund, but the commissioners want it to be self-sufficient. Smaligo has been particularly outspoken in that regard. The dispute has pitted the county commissioners against Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett and other mayors on the Tulsa County Juvenile Justice Authority. The acrimony is such that Smaligo said during Thursdays meeting that he will not vote to reappoint Sand Springs Mayor Mike Burdge to the authority. Burdge and Owasso Mayor Geri Moberly have discussed suing county and the jail authority. Adding to the countys frustration is its exclusion from the formulation of a forthcoming city bond proposal that will obligate all but a small portion of the expiring 0.6 percent Vision 2025 sales tax. Chief Deputy County Commissioner Michael Willis said Thursday he has had several meetings on the subject with Twombly and Jarred Brejcha, Bartletts chief of staff. I would say things are still ongoing, Willis said. We really made some progress but then it kind of hit a bump. Those were meetings about meetings, Twombly said. The last real negotiations we had were in August. We proposed going back to that point (to resume negotiations). Willis and Twombly confirmed the Tulsa County Juvenile Justice Authority had been looking at land near the airport for the family justice center. Willis said the county thought it was close to an agreement, but the deal fell through likely because of the jail issue. Twombly said the location is unavailable because it has not been transferred from the Tulsa Airports Improvement Trust, or TAIT, to the city. Even then, Twombly said, it would have to be determined whether the family justice center is the best use of the land. We would want to evaluate it, he said. The juvenile justice authority, which is chaired by Keith, had planned to have a location for the center identified by the end of 2015. On Thursday, Willis said a decision could take from a few weeks to a few months, depending on whether a privately or publicly owned site is chosen. Tulsa County voters approved $45 million for the project in 2014. The center will house family and juvenile courts and related agencies and services. OKLAHOMA CITY A Tulsa-area business executive and an Oklahoma City resident were appointed to state government positions Friday by Gov. Mary Fallin. Dana Weber, president and CEO of Sand Springs-based Webco Industries Inc., was appointed to the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority. She will replace Kevin Hern, who resigned in November. Weber, of Tulsa, will begin serving on the six-member turnpike authority immediately. Once the Senate signs off on her appointment, she will serve the remainder of Herns term, which expires in 2021. Webco manufactures and distributes metal tubular products designed to industry and customer specifications. Weber, who has been with the company since 1977, graduated from the University of Tulsa with a bachelors degree in accounting in 1979 and a law degree in 1983. She is a board member of the Oklahoma State Chamber, Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs and Oklahoma Innovation Institute, while serving on the Mayors Commission on the Status of Women and several advisory boards. She also served on Fallins tax reform task force in 2011. Fallins other appointee is Adam Luck, who will serve on the State Board of Corrections. He is replacing J. Matt Tilly, who resigned in October. Luck will serve the remainder of Tillys unexpired term, which runs through 2021. His appointment is subject to Senate confirmation. Adam has studied Oklahomas justice system, so he is an ideal choice for the Board of Corrections as we look for ways to reduce the states prison population, Fallin said. We need to realize that the current approach to corrections is unsustainable. Luck, an Air Force veteran, is Oklahoma director of Right on Crime, a Texas Public Policy Foundation project that focuses on criminal justice reform. He also is a research fellow for the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs. Luck earned a bachelors degree in global security and intelligence studies from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 2013 and a masters degree in public policy from Harvard University in 2015. He was selected as a summer fellow while at Harvard, working for Fallin in 2014 to produce a report on the state of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative in Oklahoma. He continued his study of the states justice system through his masters thesis, analyzing how successful reforms in Texas could be applied to Oklahoma. (Beijing) Environmental officials in the capital have summoned officials from five provinces and regions for what they say are "talks" about the mishandling of the country's nature reserves. Local officials and the people running five nature reserves around China were asked to come to the Ministry of Environmental Protection in Beijing for meetings on January 13 and 14, the ministry said in a statement. The statement said mining and agricultural activities are the major problems on the reserves in the provinces of Henan, Shandong and Guangdong and in the regions of Inner Mongolia and Ningxia. The ministry divided the country's nature reserves into three types in 1994, namely strictly protected core areas; buffer zones where the only human activity allowed is research; and experimental zones where controlled commercial and subsistence land use are allowed. However, the ministry said it found open-pit mines in core areas and buffer zones in the Ningxia Helanshan National Nature Reserve. It added that the government of the Ningxia region, which is in China's north, has handed out licenses allowing 37 companies to run open mines in the reserve since 2011. In Guangdong, the ministry said the office running the Danxiashan National Nature Reserve leased land to individuals for agricultural production and that pig frms are discharging wastewater into rivers in core areas. Ten mining companies dumped more than 20 million tons of waste in the Xiaoqinling National Nature Reserve in the central province of Henan, the ministry said, and aquatic farms were built without authorization in the Changdao National Nature Reserve in the eastern province of Shandong. A cement factory was also found in the Xilingol Grassland National Nature Reserve in Inner Mongolia, a region in northern China. Besides summoning lower level officials to the capital for a meeting, the ministry's statement also orders officials to address the problems immediately and tell the public how this is being done. The ministry will "hold to account those who do not do their job sufficiently," the statement said. The ministry started inviting local officials to Beijing for what it calls "talks" in 2014 as a way to pressure them to begin following its rules after years of prioritizing GDP growth over protecting the environment. It's unclear what issues are raised in the talks. About 20 mayors of cities around the country responded to specific problems after being summoned to Beijing for talks last year, the ministry said on January 4. It cited as an example Linyi, a city in the eastern province of Shandong, which shut down more than 50 factories in 10 days after its mayor was summoned to the capital for a chat in July last year. (Rewritten by Chen Na) Rene Angelil, husband and former manager of mega-hit songstress Celine Dion, has died. The 73-year-old, who had battled cancer three times since 1999, died at his home in Las Vegas, a representative confirmed to People magazine. "Rene Angelil, 73, passed away this morning at his home in Las Vegas after a long and courageous battle against cancer," said a statement to People. "The family requests that their privacy be respected at the moment." A statement from the Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner to People said: "Mr. Angelil, 73, died of throat cancer at his home in Henderson while under the care of a physician." It added that Angelil's death was due to natural causes and no further investigation into his death was expected. The Montreal native discovered Dion when she was 12 and guided her successful career. They started dating when she was 19 and married in 1994. Angelil, the father of their three sons Rene-Charles and 5-year-old twins Eddy and Nelson stepped down as her manager in June 2014. He has three adult children from a previous relationship Anne-Marie, Patrick and Jean-Pierre. He was diagnosed in 1999, had treatment and then surgery in December 2013, which limited his speech, according to hollywoodreporter.com. In August 2014, Dion announced she was postponing her career to care for him. On August 27, she returned to her residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas at her husband's insistence and has shows scheduled through June. In an interview with USA Today in August, she said "We have asked (doctors) many times, how long does he have, three weeks, three months? Rene wants to know. But they say they don't know." She added that she promised to keep Angelil's dying wish. "I'll say, 'You're scared? I understand. Talk to me about it' And Rene says to me, 'I want to die in your arms.' Okay, fine, I'll be there, you'll die in my arms." OKLAHOMA CITY An Oklahoma Supreme Court referee heard oral arguments Thursday on a challenge to the qualification of a candidate for Tulsa County sheriff. Jason Jackson is trying to remove John Fitzpatrick from the ballot. Jackson alleges Fitzpatrick doesnt qualify as a certified peace officer because he is a certified reserve officer. Both are Republican candidates for sheriff. Fitzpatricks attorney, Don Lepp, disagreed, saying Fitzpatrick meets the qualifications to run for office. The Tulsa County Election Board earlier decided to allow Fitzpatrick on the ballot following a challenge by Jackson. A primary is set for March 1, followed by an April 4 general special election. One Democrat and nine Republicans are running for the office. The post became vacant with the resignation of Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz following a grand jury investigation into his office. The winner will serve the remainder of the term, which will end Dec. 31. Oklahoma Supreme Court referee Greg Albert said he will write a report for the court restating the arguments. I have no decision-making power, Albert said. The parties to the dispute do not get to read his report, Albert said. The court could assume jurisdiction and allow or remove Fitzpatrick from the ballot, he said. It could also decline to take the case, he said. Albert said it was possible the court could decide the matter by Monday, but it was more likely a decision would come Jan. 25. Albert also questioned Jacksons attorney, Tara Zickefoose, about why the appeal of the election board decision wasnt filed in district court. Zickefoose said the time constraints involved made a filing with the Supreme Court a better option. OKLAHOMA CITY Tulsa Regional Chamber President Jeff Dunn met with Gov. Mary Fallin on Thursday, days after Finance Secretary Preston Doerflinger took to social media to criticize statements Dunn made about a tax cut amid budget shortfalls. He came to tell the governor he looks forward to working with her and that he was sorry if he offended anyone, said Michael McNutt, a Fallin spokesman. Earlier this month, Dunn said he was disturbed by comments made by Doerflinger, but did not mention him by name. The finance secretary had told the Tulsa World he was glad about the 0.25 percent income tax cut that took effect Jan. 1 and that taxpayers deserve to keep more of their own money. The state is facing a revenue failure for the current fiscal year and expects to have at least $900.8 million less in crafting the fiscal year 2017 budget. State officials have pinned the reductions on a dramatic drop in the price of oil and have been defending the decision to go forward with a tax cut. Many elected officials, to some degree, have their judgment clouded by that omnipresent intoxicant re-election, Dunn said during the Tulsa Regional Chambers annual meeting Jan. 7. Doerflinger serves as Fallins chief budget negotiator. Dunn did not return phone calls or an email seeking comment following his meeting with Fallin. In light of Jeff Dunns comments at the Tulsa Chamber meeting yesterday, let there be no doubt I am always going to be in favor of the hardworking, taxpaying citizens of this state being able to keep more of THEIR money, Doerflinger wrote in a Jan. 7 Facebook post. Modest, incremental income tax reductions are not the problem and it is disingenuous to suggest otherwise. The arrogance of those who would suggest to YOU, the taxpaying citizens of this state that you should not be able to keep more of your hard earned dollar astounds me! #really? #outoftouch #ohthearrogance. On Wednesday, Fallin released a statement about General Electrics decision to leave Connecticut as an example of why Oklahoma needs low taxes. Some have suggested that Oklahoma should postpone the 0.25 percent income tax cut that went into effect this month because of the budget shortfall and its impact on the upcoming 2017 fiscal year, Fallin said. The budgetary impact in the 2017 fiscal year is a little more than 10 percent of the projected budget hole, she said. The state would still have more than an $800 million budget hole without the tax cut, she said. Up until the energy industry downturn, Oklahoma had the fourth-fastest-growing economy in the nation, Fallin said. This tax cut will prove its worth in the long term. Doerflinger posted the Fallin statement on his Facebook page with his comments. Tulsa Chamber leaders take note! And ..... #getserious about job creation and retention. The reason why you exist. #focus. Doerflinger did not return a phone call seeking comment. The Oklahoma Democratic Party said Fallins comments about General Electric were an effort to pander to her base. And that she is using this as her springboard to lambast anyone who speaks out against the recent income tax cut in Oklahoma is absurd, said Sarah Baker, Oklahoma Democratic Party communications director. We just cut education by $47 million no large corporation, in their right mind, is going to look at Oklahoma right now if we cant even promise a robust education for the families of a new workforce in the hundreds or thousands. TEN is back to super Sundays with a strong event line-up from Sunday, 31 January. 6pm Family Feud 6:30pm Im a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. Season premiere. 8pm Modern Family. Season premiere. 8:30pm The X-Files. Season premiere. The premiere for The X-Files will take place 6 days after its US broadcast. While many of its audience are likely to be across digital platforms, downloads and online buzz, a second episode will air at 8:30pm Monday February 1, meaning two eps will air outside of ratings. Australias #1 game show, Family Feud, makes its return to Sunday nights airing Sunday to Friday at 6pm. Join host Grant Denyer as he meets some of Australias funniest families on the show where having fun is just as important as winning. Hosted by Julia Morris and Chris Brown and broadcast live, five nights a week from South Africa, Im A CelebrityGet Me Out Of Here! will premiere at 6.30pm and will continue Monday to Thursday at 7.30pm. Speculation is rife about which celebrities will trade their luxurious lifestyles for jungle living. All will be revealed on the first night when Julia Morris and Chris Brown welcome the brave celebrities into the wilds of the African jungle. Australias favourite dysfunctional family returns at 8.00pm. The seventh season of Modern Family will bring even more of the wild hilarity fans have embraced, with the three families facing a myriad of trials and tribulations in their own unique comedic ways. In what promises to be the biggest science fiction television event of 2016, The X-Files will premiere at 8.30pm. More than 13 years after the original series concluded, FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) are back investigating unexplained cases for which the only answers involve paranormal phenomena. Viewers will not have to wait long for their next paranormal fix, with episode two airing the following night on Monday, 1 February at 8.30pm. Amended. Diana Hartman, of Arlington, Texas, has a special understanding of the importance of preserving the damaged photographs. University of Delaware conservators discuss how to work with photographs damaged in floods and fires. 4:54 p.m., Jan. 15, 2016--Suffice it to say that no one recommends putting treasured photographs or anything of value, really into raging floodwaters, filled as they are with whatever has been swept along in the current. But many of the photographs spread out on tables in a workshop at the Winterthur Museum Research Building this month went through that kind of abuse during deadly flash floods that swept homes off their foundations, damaged bridges and roads, and cut a swath of destruction throughout Texas and Oklahoma during the 2015 Memorial Day weekend. The photographs arrived at Winterthur for treatment by graduate students in the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation, under the expert guidance of Debra Hess Norris, Unidel Henry Francis du Pont Chair in Fine Arts and chair of UD's Department of Art Conservation. The competitive program is one of only four such programs in the nation. All of the photographs had been rescued from the disaster that emerged in central Texas on May 24. About a foot of rain had fallen into the Blanco River watershed during the overnight hours Saturday into Sunday, and that rain followed a week of heavy downpours. The Blanco rose more than 27 feet above flood level, reaching heights upwards of 40 feet at Wimberley, Texas, before the gauge gave way. Lives were lost as that sudden wall of water came through, including eight people who were in a house that was swept into the Blanco, hit a bridge and was destroyed. Those losses are unfathomable and irretrievable. But some treasures can be salvaged, and as recovery efforts began, Carolyn Manning, director of the Wimberley Village Library, invited people to bring whatever photographs they found in the floodwaters or debris to the library, where they would be spread out to dry and the rightful owners might be reconnected to their pictures. Word spread quickly on Facebook and other social media networks and about 8,000 photographs arrived, Manning said. The library staff cleared out a room to spread them out on tables and on the floor where they could dry. The University of Texas' School of Information in Austin offered preservation assistance and, along with the Archivists of Central Texas, later held community workshops to help people learn how to salvage the items. Volunteers helped to catalogue the photographs. And 275 of those photographs were shipped to Norris and the first-year graduate students who were in a three-week photograph conservation class she teaches at Winterthur each January. Last year, Norris' students taking the same class helped to stabilize and preserve a trove of family photographs damaged in a Christmas night blaze that killed a woman and her three grandsons in rural Ohio. Disaster response Flood damage is much different than fire damage, and both present enormous challenges. Special handling and equipment and a thorough understanding of the chemistry and materials involved are required to develop effective protocols. Norris has special expertise in disaster response and her work has received international acclaim. Some of the photographs that showed up in Wimberley date to the 19th century, when egg whites were used to produce a photographic print. Others arrived in critical condition, split or scratched or so caked with mud and leaves it was impossible to know if any image remained beneath the surface. How they made it to those tables at Winterthur from the raging river is anyones guess. But they all belong to someone, still bear the stories that someone knows, and Norris and her students are working to clean the surfaces and stabilize them to prevent further deterioration. That will allow some to be digitized. "Nowadays, we have digital copies," Manning said, "but when you have paper copies and you're losing pictures of weddings and babies and all sorts of things the people whose photos we did find here were so grateful. It made people feel good that though there was still so much upheaval they could at least find something that they could hold onto." Digital imagery is not as peril-free as some believe, said Amy Bowman, a photograph archivist at the University of Texas who has worked closely with the Wimberley community. "We had a man who came into the library," she said. "He had gathered photos from his family lots of prints and was in the process of digitizing everything. But his hard drive went down the river and was lost. The prints were what were found and he was coming into the library to pick them up." The University of Texas instructors who led the Wimberley project Karen Pavelka and Rebecca Elder worked with Norris, whose conservation work is recognized around the world, to send a collection of especially damaged images to Winterthur for careful examination and stabilization. Special meaning Norris' students are in their first year of a graduate program that prepares them for work in all sorts of object conservation fields furniture, textiles, photographs, paintings and many others. One undergraduate, Laura Mosco of New Hyde Park, New York, who is studying art conservation and art history, also has been part of the project. The work has special meaning for two of the grad students, who knew Wimberley and its swimming holes and markets well and had family or friends who lived there. They knew immediately the significance of the "bluebonnet" photograph that was among those shipped to Winterthur, for example. This one showed a young boy in the middle of a huge field of flowers. But these aren't just any flowers, said Diana Hartman of Arlington, Texas. "It's the iconic bluebonnet photo," said Hartman. "It's something every parent in Texas makes every kid do." Hartman had one taken and so did classmate Claire Taggart of California, who lived in Marfa, Texas, for a while and said parents will pull to the side of dangerous roadways if they spot a good place to take a bluebonnet photo. Ellen Nigro of Hockessin, Delaware, had a photograph of a high school band in front of her, taken at the 11th annual Six Flags Over Texas Band Festival. Such items are treasures and Hartman helped to spread the word in Wimberley that many photographs could be salvaged. "I have been lucky enough to have studied disaster situations with Debbie in the past, so I've seen what could be done," she said. "I knew we could do something and they belong to someone, so they're very important." Preservation education, application Working to help others learn how to care for photograph collections is important to Norris and her students and can help to prevent damage in future disasters. "We treasure our heirlooms," said Kelsey Wingel of Hockessin, as she gently cleaned the surface of a photograph to remove embedded grime and mud. "To be part of this work is a personal and wonderful experience." And it allows students to apply the concepts they have learned in class to a real-world problem. Jackie Peterson of Syracuse, New York, plans to specialize in textile conservation. The work with photographs broadens her understanding of the tools and techniques needed to address fragile items. She worked with soft hake brushes, cotton swabs and ethanol mixtures to remove surface dirt. But a lot of the dirt was sandy, she said, and extra care was required to prevent scratching the images. The skills learned in Norris' classes have been exported around the globe, as a map outside the workshop shows. That's because the program draws students from around the world who have demonstrated skills and want to study conservation at this high-level. Ersang Ma, who grew up in Shanghai, China, and graduated from New York University in New York City, said she wants to do meaningful work and contribute something to the greater good. She considers conservation as part of that and sees print photographs as a kind of archaeological format that will be important to future generations, who might otherwise have access only to those captured digitally. "Every family has photographs it's what we connect with," she said. "They're kind of magical. It's a still image but you think about what happened around the time the photograph was taken." Efforts to rescue damaged items are not prevalent in China, Ma said, but she hopes to be part of developing a preservation project there. Mina Porell of Sofia, Bulgaria, said not all of the photographs can be saved, but it is worthwhile to save those that can be saved. As she looked at one image a photograph of three young siblings she thought of her own sons, ages 4 and 8. Another captured her because of the wistful look on a young bride's face. "This hits home," she said. "I have children. And this [wedding] photo, when thinking of my own wedding, is one I would like to have." Water damage can affect the dyes and substrates of photographs, problems that are further complicated if photos get stuck together and their elements intermingle. Conservators must discern whether the changes can be reversed or minimized, and must decide on the best way to approach them. The work is exacting and students worked evenings and weekends to address as many photographs as possible before Norris' class ends Jan. 20. The mission to educate the public on how to conserve and protect such family treasures will continue and Norris is willing to consult as need arises. "It's so important for the public to know that these materials however damaged can be preserved for the enjoyment of future generations," she said. "The results have been pretty remarkable." Such work contributes to cultural understanding, reconciliation, sustainability, and building mutual respect, she said. And in Wimberley, it helps to soothe some of the pain. "Tell all of them thank you," Manning, the library director there, said. "Whoever's pictures those are, I'm sure will be very grateful." Norris can be reached for referrals or consultation requests at art-conservation@udel.edu. Article by Beth Miller Photos by Evan Krape Video by Ashley Barnas Two Ukrainians have been released from the captivity of Libyan militants and are going home. This is reported by the press service of the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine. "Two citizens of Ukraine, the members of the Sun Oil ship crew, were held captive by the armed group in Tripoli (Libya) since January 2015. January 14, 2016, they were released thanks to the efforts of Ukrainian diplomats. They are going home," reads the statement. The Ukrainians are expected to arrive home on January 15. ol Agrarian Policy Minister of Ukraine Oleksiy Pavlenko and Agrarian Policy Minister of Egypt Essam Osman Fayed discussed further ways to enhance cooperation in the agriculture field in Berlin on Thursday. The meeting was held within the framework of the Green Week agricultural fair, an Ukrinform correspondent in Germany reports. "Ukraine is ready to establish a regular supply of agricultural products to Egypt, primarily of grain, livestock products, oils, confectionery and dairy products," Pavlenko said. He said that in 11 months of 2015 the trade turnover in agricultural products between the two countries amounted to USD 941.9 million, the Ukraine's exports reached USD 908.2 million while import made up USD 33.8 million. ol Ukraine has more than doubled gas imports from the Slovak corridor pipeline. In particular, over the past day Ukraine imported 27.1 million cubic meters of gas and today - 26.9 million cubic meters are expected to arrive. The department of public relations and press relations of Ukrtransgaz told Ukrinform. "The hike in imports of the Slovak gas occurred yesterday," the report says. According to Ukrtransgaz, today the order for importing gas from Europe in the amount of 26.9 million cubic meters per day from Slovakia and 1.4 million cubic meters per day from Hungary have been received. Ukrtransgaz reminds that prior to the increase in gas imports the daily volume of natural gas from Slovakia totaled 11.4 million cubic meters. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has expressed its strong protest over the illegal entry in the territory of Ukraine and sojourn in the temporarily occupied city of Donetsk of the Czech Republic citizens, MPs from the Czech and Moravia Communist Party in the lower house of the Parliament of the Czech Republic Zdenek Ondracek and Stanislav Mackovik. Ukrainian Foreign Ministry reports. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs calls on the Czech government, parliamentary and public circles to publicly dissociate themselves from such provocations, which are regarded as a sign of disrespect to the sovereignty of Ukraine and negligence of the official position of the Czech Republic and the European Union as to the condemnation of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. The Belarus interior ministry has collected data on 24 Belarusian citizens - participants of military operations in Donbas. BELTA news agency has reported citing data from the interior ministry. "Employees of the main directorate for combating organized crime and corruption at the interior ministry have collected 16 dossiers on 24 citizens of the republic, who took take part either in fighting in the territory of Ukraine in the armed groups in both sides of the conflict," the press service said. The General Prosecutor's Office, the Investigative Committee are reviewing documents in order to give a legal assessment of the persons actions. The number of people fleeing Mozambique and seeking asylum in Malawi has increased significantly over the last few weeks. In the village of Kapise, Mwanza district some 100 kilometres south of the country's capital Lilongwe, UNHCR registration teams have recorded the arrival of 1,297 people, two thirds of them women and children, with over 900 people awaiting registration. Another 400 new arrivals have been reported in 16 villages located further south in the district of Chikwawa. The Mozambicans, who mainly originate from Tete province, have told UNHCR and local authorities that they fled fighting between the opposition RENAMO and government forces. Refugee women told a UNHCR protection officer how their homes were burned down with one grandmother left inside to die. They say that government forces are attacking villages believed to be harbouring opposition members. UNHCR has not been able to confirm the accuracy of these allegations. Some parents also stated they have been separated from their children during flight and they have not been able to find them. In mid-2015, UNHCR and the government of Malawi recorded some 700 arrivals from Mozambique in the same area. UNHCR provided relief items, such as blankets, tents, domestic items and agricultural tools. Agreements were made with the national and local authorities for the refugees to be hosted in local communities as it was believed at that time the situation would be temporary. In the past few weeks, however the situation has changed with more and more people crossing into Malawi. UNHCR is working with the government to coordinate the response to assist these newly arrived refugees. We assist the government with the registration of new arrivals and the provision of tents, as well as domestic utensils, matrasses and other basic relief items. The World Food Programme is providing food and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is already on the ground with a mobile clinic. Malaria is a major concern and the number of patients seen daily has increased from 70 to 250. With the looming fear of a cholera outbreak, MSF has been quick to drill two boreholes and are planning on drilling third to improve the water supply. UNICEF is putting up temporary latrines and washrooms to avert health disasters and has also provided two large tents where children can play and learn. UNFPA plans to work on maternal health. The Government of Malawi is considering reopening Luwani refugee camp, which previously hosted refugees from Mozambique during the civil war (1977 -1992), when over a million Mozambican refugees fled to neighbouring Malawi. Malawi already hosts some 25,000 refugees mostly from the Great Lakes region in Dzaleka camp located some 35 kms from Lilongwe. This camp stretched to capacity and with food rations being reduced to 50 per cent since October last year, and the resources to assist refugees are limited. For further information on this topic, please contact: In Pretoria, Tina Ghelli on mobile +27 82 7704189 In Malawi, Monique Ekoko on mobile +265 88 567 2221 In Geneva, Karin de Gruijl on mobile +41 79 255 9213 Syrian mother Fatma and her daughter Farah, sit with Gaziantep province Deputy Governor Halil Uyumaz, Fatma's husband Ahmed and Filippo Grandi at Nizip II refugee camp, Turkey. UNHCR/E.Gurel NIZIP, Turkey, Jan 15 (UNHCR) - "A visit to the front line in the world's largest refugee crisis." Those were the words of Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees as he toured one of Turkey's many refugee camps near the border with Syria. Southeast Turkey is home to more than a million Syrian refugees, 220,000 of them in camps. Turkey itself has welcomed 2.5 million Syrians and hundreds of thousands of others, notably from Iraq. It is the largest refugee hosting country in the world. At the Nizip I and II camps, home to almost 16,000 refugees, some of whom fled their country four years ago, Grandi said the choice of his first visit as High Commissioner was to send a message to the world that Turkey is doing a wonderful job handling the huge number of displaced people. At the camp he was greeted by Fuad Oktay, the president of the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority, AFAD, which manages the refugee camps, and the Deputy Governor of Gaziantep province, Halil Uyumaz. His goal was meet and talk to refugee families. In Nizip II, a container camp with almost 4,900 residents, he was welcomed by Fatma, Ahmed and their three children. Two other children were killed by shrapnel when they and their parents were looking for safety near Aleppo. The traumatized family then fled Syria three years ago. "I asked her if she wants to go back and she had no hesitation. She said for sure, but when peace comes," Grandi said in a video. "So peace has to come for these people. The situation has been going on for far too long. But I am glad that I started from here. It gives me both a sense of the despair but also of the hope and possibility of better times, if the politics turn in the right direction." Just down the road Nizip I is a tent camp, opened four years ago. It now houses 10,800 refugees, 55 per cent of them children under 18. Emra is a widow raising three of those children. She fled Syria a year ago after her husband was killed in the war. One of her boys, Mohammed, is deaf and mute. He also has a chronic condition that has left his legs stunted and stiff. "I couldn't stay any longer," she told Grandi. "I had a disabled boy and no money. I had to come to Turkey to save my children." In answer to the High Commissioner's question, she said the camp, run by the Turkish Government, provides her with vouchers for food and her son goes to a hospital in Gaziantep for treatment. "It reminds us that in the end this is about people suffering unimaginable situations," Grandi said. "But they are strong." The camps, run by the Turkish authorities, and supported by UNHCR, have become part of the fabric of Turkey. The refugees here told the High Commissioner they have been well taken care of here. But their lives, without their country, are half lives. And their hope, as High Commissioner Grandi heard, was for the war to end to allow them to lead full lives again. By Don Murray in Turkey Propaganda packages being floated across the border attached to helium balloons try to win North Koreans over with a mixture of information, scandal-mongering and enticements. Leaflets in the packages detail South Korea's economic success story, criticize the hereditary transfer of power in the North and, in some cases, proselytize on behalf of born-again Christianity. They also contain US$1 bills, mini radios, DVDs, instant noodles, nylon stockings, lighters and other essentials. North Korean words and expressions are mostly used to make leaflets easy to understand. Leaflets are geared to information that Pyongyang does not want its people to know. Recently they have been shedding light on North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's execution of his uncle and former eminence grise, Jang Song-taek, as well as the myriad mistresses of former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, and inside information on Kim Jong-un and wife Ri Sol-ju. The activities of Hwang Jang-yop, the highest-ranking North Korean defector who died in 2010, are also mentioned. The two main activist groups that float propaganda leaflets across the border are Fighters for Free North Korea and North Korean Christian Association. The defectors Christian association has flown 1,567 helium balloons with around 470,000 propaganda leaflets across the border this year alone. Each balloon can carry around 30,000 leaflets. Fighters for Free North Korea also flew some 7-8 million leaflets into North Korea this year. Park Sang-hak, head of the group, said, "Until last year, we used to fly the balloons from ships out in the ocean and were able to send twice as many as we do now. But the number has declined since we were prohibited from doing that." Islamic State has claimed responsibility for Thursday's coordinated bomb and gun attack in the Indonesian capital that left seven people dead, including all five attackers. The Islamic State-linked Aamaq News Agency says the attack in an upscale neighborhood in central Jakarta "targeted foreign nationals and security forces charged with protecting them." Foreigners were among 20 people who were wounded. Earlier, Indonesian national police spokesman Anton Charliyan said an IS-affiliated group was probably behind the assault, and the attackers were likely trying to imitate the November Paris terror attacks. The Jakarta police chief went further, naming an Indonesian in Syria as responsible. All leaders of Islamic State in Southeast Asia are competing to be the regional chief," Tito Karnavian told reporters. "Thats why [Indonesian IS fighter] Bahrun Naim plotted this attack." The violence began with a series of explosions mid-morning in an area near a shopping center, luxury hotels, embassies and other office buildings. The first two occurred in the outdoor smoking area and a parking lot of a Starbucks. A third explosion rocked a small police station. The militants engaged in intense gun battles with police throughout the day. By late afternoon, authorities declared the attack over, saying all five militants were killed. A Canadian national and an Indonesian citizen were also killed, police said. Busy Spot "This is a very popular shopping area with restaurants and office buildings. About 50 meters from there is the United Nations office. The U.S. Embassy is almost around 400 or 500 meters from there, not far from the presidential palace, actually. So this is a really centrally located place," said VOA Indonesian Service reporter Frans Demon. While clearing Tamarin Avenue where the attacks occurred, police say they found one large and five small unexploded bombs. It is not clear why the bombs did not go off. Indonesian authorities in November had received a threat from Islamic State about a coordinated bomb attack in the capital. "Around Christmas and New Year's there was a threat by this group [IS] that they will do what they call a 'concert' in Jakarta, meaning they will set off bomb explosions in several places at the same time," said Demon. A heavy police presence now on the streets of Jakarta is aimed at reassuring citizens. Zainal Arifin hopes that it will also stop future attacks. "Jakarta's citizens, including myself, are now scared to go to shopping malls and other public places. But the police say we have nothing to fear because theyll protect us. Hopefully this won't happen again," he said. North Korea on Thursday criticized organizers of the World Economic Forum in Davos for revoking an invitation to its delegation in the wake of a nuclear test. The WEF sent an invitation to North Korea last autumn but withdrew it after Pyongyang defiantly conducted what it called a hydrogen bomb test last week. There is widespread skepticism over whether the blast was truly an H-bomb test, but world powers are looking for ways to punish the North. The test, even if not a hydrogen bomb, will still likely push the country closer toward a fully functional nuclear arsenal. YouTube says it has launched a local version for Pakistan. From now on, users in Pakistan will be directed to an Urdu-language version of the YouTube video sharing website at youtube.com.pk, which will feature videos trending in the country. "We aim to provide an even more tailored YouTube experience by launching versions that are optimized for Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. We also hope that this will pave the way for the work of local creators, personalities, and musicians to shine on the world's largest and most vibrant video community," said a Google spokesman, cited by Dawn newspaper. Google owns YouTube. The move is seen as a possible first step toward an end to Pakistan's ban on YouTube. The ban has been in effect since 2012, when the company did not remove what Pakistani authorities said was a blasphemous film. The movie, "Innocence of Muslims," depicted the Prophet Muhammad in a derogatory way. The movie sparked violent protests around the globe. YouTube said it will continue to track government requests to remove content. Pakistan has blocked sites before. In 2010, Pakistan shut down Facebook for two weeks, saying the social media website contained what Pakistani authorities said was blasphemous content. Since the ouster of the University of Missouri's system president, other schools' student bodies have found their voices elevated by public interest in their case. Whether the heightened visibility actually contributed or not, another college president is stepping down amid social unrest. Ithaca College President Tom Rochon announced his impending resignation following students' complaints he has been negligent toward issues of racism on campus, according to The Washington Post. Some students at Ithaca have staged "die-ins" and other demonstrations to express frustration over Rochon's perceived indifference toward racial bias. Rochon's resignation will be effective July 1, 2017 in order to allow the school ample time to find a permanent successor. "I am proud of the progress and accomplishments achieved by the college over what will be a nine-year tenure as president," he wrote in a statement posted on Itacha's website. "I look forward to working with the college community over the next 18 months in a constructive and collaborative way, making progress on issues of diversity and inclusion, shared governance, and decision making." A student group known as POC at IC led a number of protests at the private school in Ithaca, New York. Both students and faculty took votes of confidence, The Ithacan reported, and both voted more than 70 percent for "no confidence." The school's staff council is currently taking the same vote. Though the newspaper reported POC at IC had been demonstrating all semester, Rochon did not appoint a chief diversity officer until the day after Tim Wolfe resigned as the Missouri system's president in Nov. While many students were pleased to see Rochon's decision, Dominick Recckio, Ithaca's student government association president, saw something that caused concern. First, that there will be "year and a half" between now and his resignation and, second, that the school's board will start its search for a new president over the summer. "That is also a frustrating decision, you know? Starting the process that should be inclusive during the summer when students and faculty are not around," he told USA Today College. "I hope that they let students, faculty and staff be a part of the process - I imagine they will." In hearing the University of Virginia's lawsuit against Rolling Stone magazine, a judge ordered the woman who was the subject of the now-retracted article to turn over all documents she has that pertain to the story. The woman, who is only going by "Jackie" to protect her identity, told a writer named Sabrina Rubin Erdely she was brutally gang raped at a fraternity house on UVA's campus. Lawyers representing UVA associate dean Nicole Eramo are trying to prove the male student who allegedly led the attack was made up, The Washington Post reported. Eramo is suing Rolling Stone for defamation, painting her as the villainous administrator who neglected Jackie's complaints in an articled titled "A Rape on Campus" published in Nov. 2014. Erdely's story punctuated what President Obama has called an "epidemic" of campus sexual assault cases that are mishandled by the victims' schools, and it quickly went viral. But shortly after publication various news outlets picked apart Jackie's story and people from the story refuted the events, leading Rolling Stone to have the article reviewed. That led to a full retraction and lawsuits from UVA and the fraternity implicated in the story. Eramo's lawyers previously requested Jackie's documentations related to her case because they believe she invented every aspect of her account, The Post reported. Sexual assault survivor advocates have stood by Jackie, claiming she embellished the details of a real attack, but Eramo's lawyers are apparently looking to prove none of it was true. In addition to The Post and other news outlets' reviews, the Charlottesville Police's investigation turned up insufficient evidence to pursue the case further. Eramo's lawyers also noted Jackie was the only source Erdely relied upon for her story, a decision both she and Rolling Stone would later regret. All told, Eramo's lawyers are trying to prove Jackie "catfished" a fellow UVA student named Ryan Duffin, The Washington Post reported. Eramo's lawyers believe Jackie started texting Duffin as a male student named Haven Monahan because he would not return her affections. The Charlottesville Police later determined Monahan was not nor ever was a student at UVA. The pictures Jackie shared with Duffin that showed her and Monahan were actually of a male student from her high school. The male student told The Post the pictures were of him, not Haven Monahan. Wyoming Business Tips for Jan. 24-30 By Susan Jerke, WSBDC regional director Where can I learn more about resources that are available to small businesses in Wyoming? Charlotte, Wright SBDC, MRC, PTAC, SBIR/STTR, WBC, SBA, WWBC, DWS, MW, WTBC, RPC (answers below). Wow, are you familiar with this incredible alphabet soup of acronyms representing organizations that can help build your Wyoming business? Through March 3, two-hour seminars titled, Meet Wyomings Business Assistance Experts, will be held statewide to introduce small business owners to these organizations that make up the Wyoming Business Resource Network. Representatives of each organization will share information in person at most of the events and answer questions from participants. Wyoming is a great place to own and operate a business, and Wyoming residents are known to be hard-working, independent individuals. The state is unique, with its superb opportunities for networking. The large geographic area, with low population, has been described as having one long Main Street, where everyone is connected to their neighbors, helping whenever possible. Do not miss this opportunity to meet the passionate people who want to help locally owned companies succeed. Funding from the state of Wyoming and local and federal government resources support a wide variety of business services, most of which are free of charge. These presentations will connect owners with the expertise in the Wyoming Business Resource Network, and how they can serve your business -- from start-up to expansion, to exit, and everything in-between. To find the nearest event, visit http://wyen.biz/events/wyoming-entrepreneur-classes/meet-wyomings-business-assistance-experts-casper/. -- Answers to the acronym challenge: SBDC (Small Business Development Center); MRC (Market Research Center); PTAC (Procurement Technical Assistance Center); SBIR/STTR (Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer); WBC (Wyoming Business Council); SBA (Small Business Administration); WWBC (Wyoming Womens Business Center); DWS (Department of Workforce Services); MW (Manufacturing Works); WTBC (Wyoming Technology Business Center); RPC (Research Products Center). A blog version of this article and an opportunity to post comments are available at http://wyen.biz/blog1/. The WSBDC is a partnership of the U.S. Small Business Administration, the Wyoming Business Council and the University of Wyoming. To ask a question, call 1-800-348-5194, email wsbdc@uwyo.edu, or write 1000 E. University Ave., Dept. 3922, Laramie, WY, 82071-3922. North Korea floated propaganda flyers to the Seoul metropolitan area for a third day running on Thursday, leaving the government here at a loss how to respond. The South Korean military has already printed up its own propaganda leaflets to be floated across the border in response but is so far holding off because that could violate the armistice agreement. The military here said the North floated balloons carrying leaflets from the northern side of the Imjin River on Wednesday night and early Thursday morning, the same point where they had launched them the previous two days. They came down in bundles in Ilsan, Gyeonggi Province. In one case, a bundle made a dent in the roof of a car. Tens of thousands of flyers had been retrieved in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province until Wednesday. "We can send balloons farther than the North and scatter leaflets at precise points where we want them," a military officer claimed. "Now it's up to the brass to give the go-ahead." Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said, "The armistice agreement guarantees the right to self-defense in proportion to an enemy attack. I don't think it'll matter." But the military is worried that the UN Command Military Armistice Commission could object. "The UNCMAC prohibits both Koreas from engaging in hostilities," the officer added. "If we disseminate leaflets in a military capacity, it's highly likely that the UNCMAC will oppose it because of possible cross-border tensions." Genres : Comedy and Romance : Comedy and Romance Running Time : 102 min. : 102 min. Directed by : Cho Kyu-jang : Cho Kyu-jang Starring : Moon Chae-won, Yoo Yeon-seok Synopsis : Soo-jung has been with her boyfriend for 10 years, but their romance is now nothing but a lukewarm relationship. The night before her business trip to Busan, Soo-jung heard that her friend is getting married to her first love, and feels distracted. On a train to Busan, she sits next to Jae-hyun, whos claiming himself as an Agapemonite, an obscure Christian sect where men took many spiritual brides, and that he will willingly jump into bed with a woman for one night. Falling for her gorgeous hips, he keeps coming on to her during the journey. She tries to push him away, but ends up sharing a car ride to Busan with him due to the sudden breakdown of the train. The San Diego Padres have agreed to terms on a one-year deal with veteran infielder Alexei Ramirez, according to a report from MLB Network's Jon Heyman on Thursday afternoon. At this time, a salary guarantee is yet to be made. Once that has become confirmed, approval of a physical examination will take place before he is officially welcomed in a press conference at Petco Park. The news comes just a day after news broke that the club had closed in on their final two possibilities for the shortstop position, with another free agent in Ian Desmond having been the other name in conversation. Ramirez has spent the entirety of his major league career with the Chicago White Sox which started back in 2008. Ramirez had defected Cuba and was eligible to sign with an MLB team as the process continues to run that way to this day, as we recently saw RHP Yaisel Sierra agree to a deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Ramirez has been nothing but reliable during his major league career, that includes as a defender and in the batters box. He doesn't wow you with any particular tool, but he is as solid as it gets in the middle of the diamond. When Ramirez officially steps foot in the batters box as a member of the San Diego Padres, Ramirez will be making his 5,000th career plate appearance. Over the course of the 2015 season, Ramirez hit with a slashline of .249/.285/.642 alongside 10 home runs and 62 RBI's in 583 total plate appearances. Over that span, he played in 154 games. Ramirez, 34, is rated as a below average offensive player. For his career, Ramirez has a career OPS+ of 91, with 100 being league average. He's had a couple seasons where he won a Silver Slugger, but Ramirez is usually pretty average as he's never hit .300 and doesn't get on base at a high rate. Coming off a season where they vastly underachieved, the Padres are trying to turn things around and signing a reliable shortstop in Ramirez is a good sign. Ford Motor Company, has announced conducting test drive of its autonomous cars in a snowy environment. Snow appears a potential challenge to the driverless cars since the sensors do not work well in wintery weather. Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) sensors represent the world around a driverless car. Measuring intensity of the light reflected from rapidly firing LASER helps autonomous cars to sketch the views. The principle is similar to that involved in radar where radio wave measured instead of light. But these sensors falter in snowy conditions, and the car's onboard cameras fail to interpret road markings obscured by snow. Ford's autonomous car program enables the LIDAR sensors to detect landmarks above the ground, such as buildings and road signs. Snow reflected LASER beams misguide the inbuilt computer in reading the road signs while sketching the views around, reports BBC while narrating the technology involved. Ford has initiated to draw incredibly detailed 3D maps covering wide range of roads and signs thereto supported with information on topography. The maps are being created too by autonomous cars while driving through a given stretch of road in clear weather conditions and necessary data gets preserved, describes Digital Trends. The Ford driverless cars can use the 3D maps to figure out their exact locations at any given moment. The LIDAR scanners calculate distance from a nearby sign and match with the stored data to analyze the positions, according to a report published in Wired. Ford has tested feasibility of the 3D maps in real snow last month at MCity, a model city built by the University of Michigan. The idea of self- locating using deduction method is not a unique one. But Ford is definitely the first one surpassing all competitors to demonstrate navigation on snow covered roads using its self developed 3D map. Despite of all these achieved successes, least problem residues still. Snow or rainfall still may interfere with LIDAR and cameras. Moreover, it is mandatory to learn about the temporary obstacles for safe driving, in addition to interpret the exact locations. Snow or rainfall changes landscape drastically and confuses the inbuilt computer while calculating the locations. Ford Motor Company, the American multinational automaker with headquarters in Dearborn, Detroit, Michigan has announced test driving its autonomous cars in snowy environments. The test drive has been conducted in the streets of MCity, a fake city developed by the University of Michigan. Ford developed 3D maps seem to be effective in running the autonomous car over snow covered roads. Origin Energy, Infigen Energy and APA Group are among several solar energy companies participating in $100-million funding scheme to build solar project in Australia. The government has received 77 expressions of interest bids from a host of companies. Australian government will offer grant of $30 million for each project. The total capacity of 22 projects would be 766 megawatts involving combined project cost of $1.68 billion. Renewable energy companies from Canada, China and Europe are participating in bidding for solar projects in Australia. The final submission from bidders for ARENA funding is due by 15 June 2016. These companies are seeking funds to develop large-scale solar projects at an estimated cost of A$1.68 billion ($1.2billion). The cost of solar energy projects is expected to come down by half in next five years. Australian government is keen on solar energy sector as it gets more solar radiation per square meter. The decline in costs to supply power from solar projects is helping the growth of the solar energy sector. The cost of solar energy per megawatt-hour may come down to A$75 by 2020 from A$150 in 2015, as reported by Bloomberg. The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has firmed up plans on 22 individual projects for the final stage of bids. It'll also provide $30-million grant for every project. ARENA and Greg Hunt, Federal Environment Minister, will announce the projects soon. Several potential foreign solar energy companies will enter Australian industry through these bids. The major solar energy projects include over 100 megawatts by Origin in Queensland. China's Goldwind, Germany's Juwi and Spain's FRV have offered bids for smaller solar energy projects in Australia, as reported by The Sydney Morning Herald. Australia is seeking over three times as much as funding is on offer. The final submission from bidders for ARENA funding is due by 15 June 2016.0 The total capacity of 22 projects would be 766 megawatts and require $332 millions of funds for plants. The estimated projects costs in total would be $1.68 billion. All these 22 solar power projects would be set up on mainland Australia. About 10 projects in Queensland, eight in NSW, two in Victoria and one each in Western Australia and South Australia. Out of 77 eligible projects, ARENA has finalized a list of 22 projects for its A$100-milllion solar energy scheme. The shortlisted projects' combined capacity would be 766megawatt and 250MW may be developed under the scheme, according to PV Magazine. Ivor Frischknecht, CEO, ARENA, said: "Each project was able to demonstrate its cost of energy was below the threshold of $135 per MW/hour, with some projecting costs significantly below this threshold level. The strong interest and high-quality applications demonstrate Australia is serious about deploying large-scale solar and capitalizing on its abundant solar resources." It's estimated that four to 10 projects may win grants of $30 million apiece from ARENA. Clean Energy Finance Corporation will extend debt via $250-million financing program. ARENA Chief Executive Ivor Frischknecht says "Australia is serious about deploying large-scale solar and capitalizing on its abundant solar resources." The latest solar energy program will increase the capacity from 200 megawatts to 440 megawatts. This would be sufficient to power 120,000 homes. The program will also be aimed at reducing project cost in the energy sector. The solar project will lower the cost of power to $135 per megawatt-hour, while wind power costs $80-$90 per megawatt/hour. Qualcomm Inc., The San Diego, California based chipmaker and Japan's TDK Corp. has entered a partnership worth $3 billion. The partnership deal aims to develop components for smart phones and other appliances to communicate wirelessly. The Singapore based joint venture's produce will cover the growing market of radio frequency chips used in handsets, robotics, cars and drones. Qualcomm has agreed to invest $1.2 billion. However TDK will rotate its design and manufacturing assets and related patents. The chip maker will own 51% of the new company naming RF360 Holding. The electronics pioneer will also enjoy the opportunity to acquire TDK's stake at a later date, reports International Business Times quoting a joint statement published on Wednesday. Qualcomm expects the transaction to add non-GAAP earnings per share within a year following the closure of the deal. However, TDK forecasts the transferred business will employ about 4,200 employees and $1 billion annual sales. The deal is expected to close by early 2017, reports Business Insider. The market for the electronic components is expected to grow 13% a year and reached to $18 billion by the year 2020. Tying up with TDK allows Qualcomm to offer modules containing all the components required by smart phone makers through a single package, reports Bloomberg quoting Cristiano Amon, the head of Qualcomm's chip division. Due to sluggish growth, Amon has been seeking for new growth areas for selling chips. He has also been reported to try for stepping into the computer server market and get its chips into a variety of devices including drones and robots. Following the deal, TDK share price has rose by 5.5% to 7080 yen and recorded the biggest gain two months in Tokyo Stock Market. Meanwhile, Qualcomm share has slipped less than 1% at the end of Wednesday in the Wall Street. Increase in mobile data speeds has made it more difficult to bring radio signals into phones. It appears to be a difficult task for handset makers to handle through discrete components. Modern smart phones have to deal with about 49 different frequency bands, compared to just three in early data-capable phones more than a decade ago. Through solving the existing complexity, Qualcomm will help makers to develop new categories of devices and add cellular functions more quickly. Qualcomm Inc. has been reported to witness sluggish sales growth due to huge competition in electronics market and seeking for potential growth area. Christiano Amon, head of Qualcom's chip division has perfectly utilized the opportunity to build a $3 billion joint venture in Singapore. The partnership deal aims to develop components for smart phones and other appliances to communicate wirelessly. Registering a record level of money raising, the UK-based technology firms mobilized $3.6 billion (2.5 billion) funds from venture capitalists (VC) in 2015. The British technology firms were able to raise money owing to strong investor appetite for startups and fintech companies. The VC funding for UK technology firms rose 70 percent in 2015. The venture capital funding raised by the UK technology companies rose 70 percent from $2.1 billion in 2014 to $3.6 billion in 2016. London-based technology firms accounted for lion's share in the total VC funding in 2015. The London firms mobilized $2.2billion in 2015, an increase of $1.3 billion from 2014. Financial Times reports that the growing investor confidence on UK startups and fintech groups can also compete at global level. The UK technology sector is still lagging behind the US technology industry. According to CB Insights, a data research company, the UK technology sector raised $9.7 billion since 2010, while London-based firms accounted for more than half. The funds mobilized by the UK technology sector are much lesser than US. It's estimated that US venture funds poured in $35.7 billion in 2014 alone. However, the UK technology sector is steadily growing. US companies accounted for 29 percent, Israel four percent and Germany accounted for two percent in the total VC funding to the UK technology sector. Bloomberg further reports that the largest single investment was reported by London-based small business lending platform Funding Circle, which mobilized $150 million in April 2015. This funding was led by DST Global. Half of the VC funding into London technology sector was from UK-based firms. Eileen Burbidge, a founding partner at venture capitalist Passion Capital and a tech adviser to a number of UK governmental bodies, said: "It is a chicken-and-egg situation. More entrepreneurs results in more great companies, which means more money coming to follow to support that growth." Majority of the UK-based fastest growing technology firms command valuations over $1 billion (680 million), as reported by Business Insider. Technology startups with valuation over $1billion are considered to be 'Unicorn' businesses. The UK technology industry is yet to produce a global giant company on the lines of Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple. UK has one advantage over the Californian startups is for fintech segment as its proximity to the London's financial sector. UK fintech companies closed in several funding rounds in 2015. For instance, Ebury raised $83 million, Funding Circle mobilized $150 million and World Remit raised $100 million. The operator of Turkey's busiest airport is planning to invest in businesses in the Philippines and Belgrade. According to Bloomberg News, two people who have knowledge of the confidential information revealed that TAV Havalimanlari Holding AS is in talks to invest in two airport deals that are up for bid in February. One of the people familiar with the issue said Tav, which Aeroports de Paris owns 38 percent stake to, may plan to get operational rights and even asset acquisition. The airport in the Philippines would be one of five for which TAV and partners won pre-qualification status last year, the person said, declining to specify a location. Hurriyet Daily News reported that TAV is part of a consortium that submitted pre-qualification documents for the Philippines' Private-Public-Partnership Regional Airports Projects. TAV wrote a statement to the Public Disclosure Platform (KAP) in August, which states, "The project consists of the operations and maintenance of the Bacolod-Silay, Iloilo, Davao, Laguindingan and New Bohol-Panglao [Tagbilaran] airports, which served around 9 million passengers in 2014." The Daily Sabah wrote that TAV's statement states that the joint venture of TAV, Aeroports de Paris' (ADP) subsidiary, Aeroports de Paris Management (ADPM), and Metro Pacific investments Corporation (MPIC) applied for the rights to operate and repair airports in Bacolod-Silay, Laguindingan, Iloilo, New Bohol-Panglao, and Davao. The airports mentioned served a total of 9 million passengers in back in 2014. MPIC will own 60 percent share of the consortium, while TAV and ADPM owns 40 percent. The Nikola Tesla airport in Belgrade hasn't reported any bid documents yet. However, Serbia's government announced in December that it has taken advisers on board to create long-term management contracts. TAV's shares increased 0.2 percent to 18.03 liras a share in Istanbul January 13. That is the highest it has been since two weeks. It has steadily been increasing for the four days. Morgan Stanley, the New York based bank has sent memos to employees refurnishing its struggling fixed income division. The memo replaces two co-heads of the division with the head of its stock-trading desk. The Wall Street firm has named Sam Kellie-Smith as head of Fixed Income and Commodities. Prior to this assignment, he has served as head of equity trading. Robert Rooney as co-head of fixed income has been moved to a new role as chief executive of Morgan Stanley International and head of Europe. At the same time, Michael Heaney retires from the company after serving three decades in a row, reports The Wall Street Journal. Fixed income, currencies and commodities (FICC) trading is a part of the business that has been particularly hard hit this year across Wall Street. Morgan Stanley has just cut 25% of its workforce in FICC. The new FICC boss, Kellie-Smith is a Morgan Stanley veteran. He has joined the bank in 1997 as a derivatives trader in London. Prior to that, he has initiated his career in the fixed-income division of Swiss Bank Corp. Since his appointment in Morgan Stanley, he has held senior roles in the firm's Hong Kong and New York portions, reports Business Insider. Ted Pick, of the bank's equities trading unit, has been tasked by Gorman last year to oversee its entire trading business. Under Pick and recently promoted president Colm Kelleher, the bank is reshuffling key equities executives in fixed income segment as it tries to facilitate better coordination between the two units, reports Reuters. However, the moves are the latest ripples following two other significant management changes. First one is the Edward Pick's promotion to head of all trading from head of stock trading in October. The second one is Colm Kelleher's promotion earlier this month assigning to president of Morgan Stanley from head of trading and investment banking. During last month, Morgan Stanley has cut 1,200 employees including some 25% of its fixed-income traders and salespeople. However, job cutting or reshuffling don't surprise the analysts by any mean. Because some of the biggest European banks, expected to retreat from the debt markets, have appointed new chief executives in similar manners. Morgan Stanley has been reported to reduce its workforce last month. The cut off includes 25% of its workers from the fixed income division which has been hard hit this year across Wall Street. Further job cuts or reshuffle to rebuild the problem ridden division has been expected. So appointment of Sam Kellie- Smith as the head of FICC hasn't at all surprised the industry insiders. Uber has been fined $7.6 million by the California Public Utilities Commission for failing to follow reporting mandates that would protect passengers from discrimination. Uber has 30 days to pay the fine or be suspended in California. California law requires Uber to share data with the state concerning their passengers. Information like the number of rides accepted and denied, the number of wheelchair-accessible ride requests and miles traveled and amounts paid are used by the state to help determine how accommodating the service it to all passengers. The law comes in line with criticisms by disability rights advocates. They claim that Uber has been working around the American with Disabilities Act, which requires companies that provide transportation services to accommodate those with disabilities. Other suits have claimed that Uber has refused service to those in wheelchairs, and blatantly denied service to users with service dogs. Uber claims that it has given all the requested data to the state and has an issue with how the Commission calculated the fine, which the company will appeal. An Uber spokesperson, with Fortune, explained their next steps. "While we are disappointed by the decision, we look forward to making our case to the California Court of Appeals. In the meantime, we will pay the fine and continue to work in good faith with the Commission." Uber has come under fire in many of the cities its been implemented because of an ongoing debate on whether or not Uber and other ride-sharing companies should follow the same regulations as traditional taxi companies. The LA Times reported that, in June, California determined that an Uber driver would be considered an employee and not a contractor, which would mean drivers would be able to demand more pay and incentives from the company. The Commission originally fined Uber in July $7.3 million for failure to comply with requirements. When Uber appealed, an administrative law judge reissued the ruling on Wednesday, increasing the fine to $7.6 million. The Verge wrote that the fine would be easy for Uber to pay since it is the most valuable startup, worth an estimated $62.5 billion. But the fine comes right after Uber agreed to refund California residents a total of $1.8 million for extra fees improperly collected for rides to the airport. The startup has been accused of improperly handling its customers and drivers in many of the cities that its used in, but despite all the legal action, people still use and still drive for Uber. It seems that with this much demand, the service will have a place in the future, but it needs to be able to work with existing national and state structures if it wants to be able to gain any momentum. DAVID YAMAMOTO/SPECIAL TO THE STAR The special of the day Jan. 8 was roasted duck breast with blue cheese sauce. Rita Moran Columnist SHARE La Plage Cafe serves French fusion cuisine in Port Hueneme. DAVID YAMAMOTO/SPECIAL TO THE STAR La Plage Cafe serves French fusion cuisine in Port Hueneme. photos by DAVID YAMAMOTO/SPECIAL TO THE STAR Veronique Spanier is chef and owner of La Plage Cafe. DAVID YAMAMOTO/SPECIAL TO THE STAR Veronique Spanier, chef and owner of La Plage Cafe, discusses the length of cuts for baguettes for sandwiches with Sous Chef Oscar Hernandeon. The new La Plage Cafe in Port Hueneme was moving along swimmingly at a recent lunch hour, highly appropriate for a spot named after "the beach." The cafe also is not too far from a sandy beach, though it sits comfortably in a small shopping center on a corner of Port Hueneme Road. Owner and chef Veronique Spanier serves up French fusion cuisine that showcases her well-traveled background. Featuring breakfast and lunch in its opening days, La Plage has a brief but intriguing menu, plus daily specials. The atmosphere in the space that once housed Friends Cafe and L & J Delicious Cafe is fresh and welcoming. Seating is indoors and out, ready for weather cool or warm, or in most recent times, wet or dry. Service is as quick as freshly produced dishes allow. Le pain perdu, defined on the menu as Special French Toast ($10.50), was one item I had to sample. Once, some years ago, I actually made it myself, and at the time it required placing the bread in a flat oven-compatible pan, pouring the rich egg and milk mixture over it all and letting it rest in the refrigerator overnight before baking it. That was pre-microwave popularity, of course. Nowadays the process moves more quickly, but La Plage's menu does note that anyone ordering it should allow for at least 15 minutes prep time. We were anticipating a leisurely meal, so that was no problem. While we were nibbling on a small basket of crisp bread slices, butter and jam, we were perfectly happy to wait for our "lost bread" item along with the others we ordered: Nicoise salad ($10.50), eggs Benedict ($10.50) and a La Plage Burger ($12.50). The cafe is happy to serve breakfast items throughout its current 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. hours but also offers fine lunch options. Additionally, it posts a few specials on a blackboard each day. LA PLAGE CAFE Location: 429 E. Port Hueneme Road, Port Hueneme. 874-1845 Hours: 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tues.-Sun., breakfast and lunch items Impressions: Very attractive and comfortable remodel of long-standing restaurant site; friendly and efficient service; exceptional menu of breakfast and lunch items, with daily specials Whats hot: Le Pain Perdu, Nicoise salad, La Plage Burger 2 for lunch Main dishes: Nicoise salad ($10.50) + La Plage Burger ($12.50) + Le Pain Perdu ($10.50, with bacon an additional $1.50) Dessert: Three small croissants with strawberry jam ($2.50) and cafe au lait ($4.50) Tab for two: $13-$25 The pain perdu proved impressive, with the crispy outside of the bread cradling the light and moist interior, making it a heavenly dish. It can be ordered with strawberry jam or fresh fruit. Bacon ($1.50), ordered along with it, was crisp and flavorful, indicating good quality and competent preparation. Our other breakfast-oriented dish, eggs Benedict, is more familiar but offers the added taste treats of mushrooms, truffle oil and garlic fries. Bacon or ham can be added. There are fewer strictly lunch items on the current menu, but they also were well worth the seaward trip. The Nicoise salad boasted a bounty of seared ahi arrayed across the top of it, with steamed potatoes, green beans, red onion, tomato and a poached egg joining the satisfying combination. La Plage Burger was such a mouthful that I decided to eat it with a knife and fork, though it could be munched as it is: a ground Angus beef patty (mine ordered rare), Gruyere cheese, onion-mushroom chutney, tomato, bacon, avocado and a secret sauce. Suffice it to say it was tender, full of flavor and an outstanding burger treat. It came with skin-on fries (for a bit more it could be garlic or truffle fries) that seemed as fresh and just-fried as possible. We tried for a chocolate croissant for dessert, but they weren't available at the time. We settled instead for a trio of small croissants with more strawberry jam, and bien sur, cups of cafe au lait ($4.50). Other items available at La Plage include Croque Monsieur, a ratatouille omelet with smoked duck breast and goat cheese, a calamari and fried chorizo omelet, and crepes on the breakfast-oriented portion of the menu. Under lunch options are La Tartine, featuring rustic bread, onion, tomato, arugula, mozzarella and choice of beef or cured duck, and chicken or pork fried rice served with an egg, sunny-side up or poached. My La Plage experience left me wondering which of my friends I could coax to join me there again. LISA MCKINNON/THE STAR An appetizer of rabbit merguez and heirloom tomatoes is served atop white Sonora wheat naan during Slow Food Ventura Countys A Taste of Spring event at Pedalers Fork in Calabasas. The group is teaming with the restaurant again to present a Five Breeds Dinner on Feb. 2. Lisa McKinnon Columnist SHARE LISA MCKINNON/THE STAR Pedalers Fork restaurant in Calabasas will be the setting for a Feb. 2 Five Breeds Dinner presented by Slow Food Ventura County as a benefit for The Livestock Conservancy. LISA MCKINNON/THE STAR Pedalers Fork restaurant in Calabasas will be the setting for a pork-centric Feb. 2 dinner presented by Slow Food Ventura County as a benefit for The Livestock Conservancy. LISA MCKINNON/THE STAR Pedalers Fork is a combination restaurant, coffeehouse and bike shop in Calabasas. The Slow Food movement has a saying: Eat it to save it. That's the idea behind the organization's International Ark of Taste, a list of "delicious and distinctive foods facing extinction" unless they find their way onto plates on a regular basis. (Already in the ark's figurative "hold": more than 1,000 items ranging from North American Plains bison to Pixie tangerines grown in the Ojai Valley.) The idea also is guiding the creation of the Five Breeds Dinner, a pork-centric event that will feature five courses by Los Angeles-area chefs when it is presented Feb. 2 by Slow Food Ventura County as a benefit for The Livestock Conservancy. Slow Food Ventura County is one of 175 local and campus chapters that make up Slow Food USA. The chapter relaunched in 2015 after about a decade of dormancy. The Livestock Conservancy is a North Carolina-based nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting "endangered livestock and poultry breeds from extinction," according to the mission statement on its website, www.livestockconservancy.org. "Many of the most productive on-farm breeds are rapidly disappearing in the wake of industrial-scale genetics. The passion of the conservancy's work is making sure biodiversity lives on in our region," said Charles Barth, chairman of Slow Food Ventura County, in a media release about the event. Barth also serves as a public member of the CDFA/Certified Farmers Market Advisory Committee and handles direct sales and marketing for Watkins Cattle and Livestock in Ojai. The benefit will take place at Pedalers Fork in Calabasas. As the restaurant's executive chef, Dan Murray will lead a culinary team that includes Gavin Lansdale of Akasha in Culver City, and Christopher Hollobaugh of the Watkins Ranch Butcher Shop in Meiners Oaks and Apricot Lane Farms in Moorpark. Dinner will follow a comparative tasting of Berkshire, Mulefoot, Large Black, Red Wattle and Tamworth pork. Also participating will be Four Brix Winery of Ventura and Hand-Brewed Beer of Chatsworth. Tickets, $150 per person, are available at tinyurl.com/pnfhtg8. Pedalers Fork is at 23504 Calabasas Road (www.pedalersfork.com). For menu details as they become available, check the SFVC Facebook page. Lisa McKinnon is a staff writer for The Star. Her Cafe Society column also appears Fridays in the Time Out section. For between-column updates, follow 805foodie on Twitter and Instagram and "like" the Facebook page VCS Eats. Please send email to lisa.mckinnon@vcstar.com. SHARE Joyce Bronstein By Staff Reports The community is invited to Temple Etz Chaim next week to celebrate the 20-year anniversary of Joyce Bronstein serving as the director of Religious School Education at the Thousand Oaks temple. Shabbat services are open to the community on Friday at 7:30 p.m. at the temple, 1080 E. Janss Road, Thousand Oaks. The congregation will hold a gala "Dine, Dance, Re-Joyce" the next day. "At Temple Etz Chaim, we feel the important responsibility of providing our students with an excellent Jewish education," Bronstein explained. "Our school's critical role is to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary for our students to function responsibly in the Jewish community. Religious education will help to enable future generations to live productive and meaningful lives as Americans and Jews." Under Bronstein's direction, the temple's Religious School has created a curriculum designed to enhance and enrich a Jewish child's life from kindergarten through the 12th grade. Programming for the students includes the High Holiday education experience, grade-level Shabbat dinners, Museum of Tolerance field trips and cultural education through music, Israeli dance, ceramics, cooking and Ulpan, which means an intensive study of Hebrew. For more information on the celebration in Bronstein's honor, call the temple at 497-6891. STAR FILE PHOTO Three intersections on Thousand Oaks Boulevard will have left-turn flashing yellow arrows installed later this year. SHARE By Wendy Leung of the Ventura County Star Thousand Oaks will install flashing yellow arrow signals at five intersection locations, a move to ease traffic delays caused by a red left-turn arrow. The city will spend $80,000 on the new signals, which will be installed this spring and summer. "How many times have you sat in a left-turn lane wanting to turn left and nobody is coming in the opposite direction? This will alleviate a little bit of that," said Councilman Al Adam. "I think it's a concrete step toward having traffic flow a little better in the city of Thousand Oaks." A yellow flashing arrow indicates to a driver that when oncoming traffic is clear, it is safe to turn left. It operates the same way a regular green light would for the driver turning left. "You make a judgment as a driver if there's an adequate gap and there's no pedestrians," said Jim Mashiko, Thousand Oaks' senior engineer. The flashing yellow arrows will be installed on Thousand Oaks Boulevard at Rancho Road, Dallas Drive and Duesenberg Drive. They will also be on Moorpark Road at Thousand Oaks High School Driveway and on Hillcrest Drive at Marin Street. Intersections with left-turn arrows are generally safer, with a lower collision rate, than those without. But local motorists have complained about the long wait times for drivers turning left. At some intersections in the city, drivers can wait as long as two minutes for a green arrow. There is just one flashing yellow arrow in Ventura County. It's located at Rice Avenue and Camino del Sol in Oxnard. Based on the city's research, other cities such as Pasadena, Torrance and Long Beach have had good experience with the flashing yellow arrow. However, Santa Clarita installed three such lights but later removed them because of an increase in accidents. The number of travel lanes and speed limit in the Santa Clarita intersections are different from those at the proposed Thousand Oaks intersections. City leaders plan to make a video about the new signal and show it on local access television and its website. RICHARD QUINN/SPECIAL TO THE STAR Sean Chen warms up on his trumpet with the Thousand Oaks High School Lancer Band on Monday. Chen and other members of the band traveled to Paris to perform in the inaugural La Grande Parade de Paris on the Champ-Elysees on New Years Day. SHARE RICHARD QUINN/SPECIAL TO THE STAR Bethany King plays her euphonium during rehearsal with the Thousand Oaks High School Lancer Band on Monday. She and other members of the band traveled to Paris to perform in the inaugural La Grande Parade de Paris on the Champ-Elysees on New Years Day. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO The Thousand Oaks High School Lancer Band marches in Paris on New Years Day. RICHARD QUINN/SPECIAL TO THE STAR Natalie Ruckstuhl (right) plays her clarinet in front of her colleagues in the Thousand Oaks High School Lancer Band. Students were playing solo Monday in preparation for Ventura County Honor Band tryouts. Ruckstuhl and other members of the band traveled to Paris to perform in the inaugural La Grande Parade de Paris on the Champ-Elysees on New Years Day. By Robyn Flans Angela Yu, a 15-year old flutist with the Thousand Oaks High School Lancer Band, put it simply: Playing in the inaugural La Grande Parade de Paris on the Champs-Elysees on New Year's Day with 67 of her school bandmates was, she said, "definitely one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences." The students left for Paris on Dec. 28. They performed with other American bands in front of the Eiffel Tower and at the American Cathedral before joining the New Year's Day parade. The group enjoyed some sightseeing before returning on Jan. 4. Band Director Marty Martone said the musicians were invited by the same coordinator who extended an invitation in 2008 for the first Rome New Year's Day celebration, which the Lancers also accepted. But there was a big difference this time around. A few weeks before the band was to leave, terrorists struck Paris. Martone said that while there was never a discussion about canceling the event, several families pulled their children from the trip. About 80 originally were scheduled to go. "There were sometimes hourly updates as to the circumstances that were going on and how we were moving forward," he said. "The people in Paris were strong and did not want to bow down. I don't know what discussions they had, but the itinerary remained the same." Angela said that while her mother was a little concerned, she felt there would be additional security because of the attacks. Ethan Harbour, 16, took a philosophical approach. "Bad things can happen anywhere," the tenor drum player said. "Paris is a huge city with millions of people, and if they're comfortable being there and they can go about their daily lives normally, I shouldn't be afraid." He said the parade was "a very cool experience." "There was one moment when we got to the end of the road and we looked back and all you could see were people flooded in the streets," he said. He said it was different from the Rose Parade, where people are on the sidelines and in stands. "There, the people walk with you and they are right next to you," he said. "It's a lot more intimate." Having never been out of the United States, he enjoyed visiting the Palace of Versailles, which he had studied in school. "There's really nothing like it that I've seen before," he said. "The beauty of it and the fact that they were able to construct it so long ago and have it still here now is amazing to me." Sierra Waters, a tenor drum player, said all the tedious rehearsing was worth it. "Seeing everyone smiling and enjoying the music was very gratifying" during the band's performances, the 16-year-old said. She said her favorite site was Chantilly, just outside Paris. "It's famous for horse racing, chocolate and porcelain," she said. "There's a castle there and a horse farm. It was really nice to be able to take a step back after being in the city so long and look at the animals and the old architecture." Martone said he felt the Parisians appreciated the presence of the young Americans. "I had a sense of feeling of pride that Americans were there," Martone said. The trip met all of his expectations. "To hear the kids talk about the Treaty of Versailles and being in the room where the treaty was signed for World War I was incredible," he said. "The trip was an educational experience and a cultural experience for all of us. Every hope and dream I had was accomplished. "I wanted to give the kids an experience of a lifetime and an opportunity to reach out musically to inspire and emotionally touch an audience. I think we accomplished both those things." AP FILE PHOTO In this July 29, 2013 photo, a researcher holds a human brain in a laboratory at Northwestern Universitys cognitive neurology and Alzheimers disease center in Chicago. Researchers at the university are looking at the rare group of super agers men and women who are in their 80s and 90s, but with brains and memories that seem far younger. They hope that they may find ways to help protect others from memory loss. SHARE By Tom Kisken A group fighting Alzheimer's disease in Ventura County will remain part of the powerful Alzheimer's Association though other groups have seceded because of autonomy concerns. Leaders of chapters of the Alzheimer's Association in the Los Angeles area, Orange County and San Diego voted last month to break ties with a national organization focused on the 5.3 million Americans with Alzheimer's. The votes came in the wake of the Alzheimer's Association's plan to fold in local affiliates that previously operated as separate nonprofit organizations. But board directors of the California Central Coast Chapter voted unanimously Tuesday night to merge with the national association. The chapter covers Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Kern counties. It helps to raise $1.5 million or more a year in a region where some 50,000 families deal with Alzheimer's, also providing care support and other resources. The decision means the chapter's 18-member board of directors will become an advisory arm, giving up governance to the national organization. As before, about 60 percent of the funding will be controlled locally and donors will still be able to restrict how their gifts are spent, said Rhonda Spiegel, chapter CEO. She said little if anything outside of governance will change. "We are the Alzheimer's Association. Our mission is the Alzheimer's Association and there's no reason for us to be anything but the Alzheimer's Association," she said. Federal government officials have set a goal of finding a way to prevent or effectively treat Alzheimer's by 2025. National leaders say consolidation will unify efforts, expanding resources for families and funding research aimed at controlling and ending the disease. "We had always hoped all of the chapters would move forward with us," said Kate Meyer, spokeswoman for the Alzheimer's Association. "We're going to move forward and serve our constituents." Leaders of a chapter serving about 275,000 people with Alzheimer's in Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties told the national group they were seceding earlier this month. The decision allows all of the money raised in the region to stay there, said Susan Galeas, CEO of a group now called Alzheimer's Greater Los Angeles. "We just felt it was better if 100 percent of the funds raised through our generous supporters stayed local," she said, noting the region includes Westlake Village and could one day expand to the Conejo Grade. Spiegel said sharing money with the national association helps realize the goal of a world without Alzheimer's. Money funds research, she said, noting the association is the largest nonprofit funder of Alzheimer's research in the world. "If all of our money remained local, we couldn't provide the support to public policy to get federal funds for research," she said. Galeas said her group wanted the independence to focus its research money on local centers such as UCLA, USC and Cedars-Sinai. "This was about autonomy and really meeting local needs," she said. Leaders of some groups that work with the California Central Coast Chapter said they didn't know enough about the decisions to weigh in on the impact. "My daddy always taught me unless you have all the facts, don't give an opinion," said Andrea Gallagher, president of the Senior Concerns nonprofit group in Thousand Oaks. SHARE The rap these days is that Marco Rubio is the presidential candidate most feared by both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Well, that's what a Rubio PAC ad says, anyway, but there are objective factors to support the case. Though he's running behind both Trump and Ted Cruz, Rubio's a candidate the Republican establishment could get behind. Conventional wisdom would say Trump is too much of a loose cannon and Cruz is too associated with the far right to win a general election. Rubio claims to be the only Republican candidate who can unite all segments of the GOP: tea party, evangelical and chamber of commerce. He even boasts of appealing to working people who haven't voted Republican before. How is it possible to unite so many factions? That's what I was wondering when Rubio came in last week for the editorial board endorsement-seeking interview with my newspaper, The Des Moines Register. Rubio's skill, it seems, is in reaching conclusions that conservative wings also would, but using mainstream reasoning to get there. And deflecting issues he might have trouble answering to everyone's satisfaction. He has gone from supporting to opposing immigration reform, not because of lack of empathy, he would argue. Because of terrorism. "The immigration issue has been transformed in the past year," he said. "It is primarily a national security issue." Left unexplained was how a refugee situation involving fleeing Syrians can be conflated with the fate of 11 million undocumented immigrants from mostly Mexico who are living here. Working people, declares Rubio emphatically, feel forgotten: "It's been a long time since the Republican Party has talked to a single mother raising two children who is struggling at $15 or $14 or $13 an hour. It's been a long time since the Republican Party has had an agenda that talks to students." He said the other Republican candidates don't even discuss student debt. But Rubio's approach seems to be to promote vocational education as an alternative to college not exactly the way to upward social mobility. And his example of the single mother struggling at $15 an hour would have been stronger if he used Iowa's actual minimum wage of $7.25. But Rubio doesn't favor a minimum wage hike. That, he argues, would burden businesses in ways that would be passed on to workers and consumers. On U.S. race relations: "I'm troubled by this narrative that law enforcement is systematically violating the rights of people on a regular basis. I don't think the majority of police officers are pulling people over for the fun of it." But "I recognize that predominantly minority communities have terrible relationships with local law enforcement." He has even seen it, he said, through the eyes of an African-American police officer friend in South Florida who was pulled over multiple times and never given a ticket. But "I'm not sure the answer to all these questions is some law." So, what is? "The president must recognize that it's an issue in this country if a significant percent of American people believe they are being treated unfairly." Then he pivoted to a non-sequitur about children growing up in broken homes, in substandard housing and failing schools, concluding there are state-level solutions to such problems. Rubio turned philosophical again on the question of tougher gun laws. He opposes President Barack Obama's executive order, saying background checks wouldn't have prevented the mass killings we've had. Instead, Rubio suggests we ponder: "What is it in our culture and our society that has led to this uptick in recklessness and disregard for life?" OK. But a more relevant question might be why, given this trigger-happy culture, it is legal, for example, to carry concealed weapons. "I'm not sure there's a law or a program we can pass that can address the societal breakdown," Rubio said. So that's how he does it: Expressing appropriate indignation over the plight of the struggling without suggesting changes that would cost employers anything. Sounding moderate despite answers that never challenge tea party, evangelical or big-business perspectives and changing the subject when it comes too close to requiring that. You can see why the party might pin its hopes on him. The only question left is, what would he really do if elected? Rekha Basu is a columnist for the Des Moines Register SHARE "It depends on you." President Obama was looking directly at you Tuesday night in his final State of the Union speech when he said that, urging Americans to engage in the political process this year. After reviewing the accomplishments of his seven years in office, laying out the threads of what he believes will be his legacy, and after nipping away at the current presidential candidates, President Obama turned in the final moments of his speech to "maybe the most important thing I want to say tonight." Our future, he said, is dependent on us working together and that is dependent on us making our politics work. He acknowledged in the speech that often it seems like too big a mountain for any one of us to climb to try to fix our politics. The president urged reform in the drawing of legislative and congressional districts, but California voters have already done that and last year the Supreme Court upheld (on a narrow 5-4 vote) that independent process. He also railed against efforts to restrict the right to vote. But here in California we haven't faced that obstacle. President Obama also called for reform in campaign finance laws. That seems like a daunting task, particularly in light of the Supreme Court approval of unlimited independent expenditures. But we can raise our voices toward consensus on alternatives that will diminish the power of money in our campaigning. And we can be more skeptical of the messages that money buys in trying to influence our votes. Then the president offered an idea of what each of us, each of you, can do to help alter the political landscape. And that is to get active in the process and remain active even after the ballots are counted. Here's the bleak picture that President Obama painted if we fail to do that: "If we give up now, then we forsake a better future. Those with money and power will gain greater control over the decisions that could send a young soldier to war, or allow another economic disaster, or roll back the equal rights and voting rights that generations of Americans have fought, even died, to secure. And then, as frustration grows, there will be voices urging us to fall back into our respective tribes, to scapegoat fellow citizens who don't look like us, or pray like us, or vote like we do, or share the same background." We see flashes of involvement as people engage in the system when they find an issue that stirs their passion. So many people showed up at the Mandalay Shores Community Association board election meeting that it had to be postponed and scheduled for a bigger location. Ojai residents have packed their council chambers over issues they believe threaten their community's character. Water agencies have seen full houses in the past year as they wrestle with drought-related rules. These are the daily acts of citizenship that will keep us strong. These are the connections that you can make with your politics that can and do make a difference. It's an election year. Ventura County alone will have more than 170 elected positions on the ballot in 2016. It requires your time and energy to understand what is at stake in each one of those elected jobs. But your commitment to do that, and then to cast your vote, is your payment for the rights we all enjoy. SHARE For the health of people of Muslim faith, I am asking that we reject Donald Trump and other biases targeting the Muslim community. I am a family practice physician-in-training in Ventura. I am gravely concerned that his targeting of the Muslim community risks propagating a worsening socioeconomic status for them, which in turn leads to worse available health care and quality of life. If Donald Trumps declaration is believed to be true that Muslims are dangerous, they are likely to be pushed away from society, including socially, financially and medically. That means lesser paying jobs even for similar rates of education or experience, resulting in less disposable income and ability to seek health care. This is not specific to Muslims in particular, rather any targeted group. For example, the LGBTQ community historically has increased rates of depression, suicide and drug abuse; however, because of the stigma that we as a society have created to such individual life choices, they also historically have worse relationships with physicians and seek less care, even in times of need. Similarly inferior health care is achieved for people of African-American, Hispanic and Native American descent, largely attributed to socioeconomic influences. While the Muslim community has not been studied individually, they would be at risk to suffer similar fates with such biases. As a physician concerned about the community members health, I am asking the community to reject Donald Trumps outrageous claims and other notions that Muslims are dangerous. On the contrary, we should appreciate the richness of their religion and kindness that many more Muslims than not have to offer. The medical field does not overtly provide preferential treatment to any one person of a particular background everyone is eligible for quality health care. Shouldnt everyone be eligible for quality social and community ties, as well? John Paul Kelada, M.D., Ventura With the world predicted to (possibly) end December 21, its time to seize the day and spend your final hours exhausting bucket lists with a once-in-a-lifetime getaway. Created to be a city of escape, theres no better place than Las Vegas to live life to the fullest and leave it all behind. Whether guests want to live like a celebrity, splurge on one last outfit, party like a rock star or marry a stranger, Sin City is the place to do it. This December, plan a hedonistic end-of-the-world vacation, and if fate decides to give the world a break, thank your lucky stars youre waking up in Las Vegas to celebrate! Live Like Theres No Tomorrow Always wanted to plan an over-the-top, no expense spared vacation? Carpe diem with a getaway at The Villas at The Mirage a decadent den of luxury for $3,500 a night. 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Party Like a Rock Star Las Vegas is famous for its lavish nightlife scene, catering to an endless list of celebrities nightly so party like a rock star for a VIP countdown to remember (if the world doesnt end). One of The Strips newest hotspots, 1 OAK at The Mirage, is known for its A-list clientele, from Katy Perry and Fergie to Lenny Kravitz and John Legend. Rub elbows with the elite or even request their preferred tables and soak up 16,000 square feet of sexy. Til Death Do Us Part What better time than the final days on Earth for a grand romantic gesture? For $25,000, lovebirds can say I Do with the Cosa Bella Bellagio Wedding Package with all the extras including a beautiful walkway strewn with fresh white petals, charming live harp music, three-night stay in an extravagant Lakeview Penthouse Suite at Bellagio, choice of a romantic dinner at either award-winning restaurant Picasso or PRIME, Cirque du Soleils finest performance O and $1,000 credit at Spa Bellagio. Want a marriage, but missing a partner? Take a chance and marry the cute stranger you just met with a ceremony on the Roller Coaster at New York-New York for a final night of wild romance and wicked fun. Armed Indonesian police arrive at the site of gun and suicide bomb attacks outside a Starbucks coffee shop in central Jakarta on Jan 14, 2016. (Photo: AFP/Romeo Gacad) JAKARTA: A "Paris-style" suicide strike on the Indonesian capital on Thursday (Jan 14) confirmed Southeast Asian governments' worst fears - that citizens returning from fighting alongside the Islamic State group in the Middle East could launch attacks at home. Regional nations have been warning for months of the possibility of attack, mirroring concerns expressed by European authorities fearful of the intentions of people returning home from conflict. The blasts and gunfire that rocked Jakarta came after six years of relative calm, following a government crackdown that weakened the country's most dangerous homegrown Islamic networks. "We know that (IS) has the desire to declare a province in this region and there are groups in this region ... that have pledged allegiance to (IS)," said Kumar Ramakrishna, an expert on Southeast Asian militant groups at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. "The threat of returning Southeast Asian fighters radicalised in the Iraq/Syria region (is) also another factor of concern, together with the possibility of self-radicalised lone wolves appearing in the scene." "Based on social media accounts, there seems to be a degree of coordination and a fair bit of sophistication in the attacks. This is not a lone wolf attack, it's planned. Significant planning was involved," said Mr Ramakrishna. Thursday's attacks left five attacks and two civilians, including a Westerner, dead and 19 others wounded. National police spokesman Anton Charliyan told AFP that authorities had a "strong suspicion" an IS-linked group carried out the assault and that it was designed to replicate the November strike on Paris that claimed 130 lives. Although the toll was much lower, the selection of soft targets in the heart of the capital terrified citizens, and social media erupted with disturbing images and video footage, and the hashtag #KamiTidakTakut (We are not afraid). FIGHTERS RETURN The strike was launched just weeks after Indonesia issued a heightened alert and arrested several suspected militants, some of them from IS-linked cells. The Soufan Group, a New York-based security consultancy, says that of the 500-700 Indonesians who travelled abroad to join IS's self-proclaimed caliphate across swathes of Syria and Iraq, scores have since returned. The threat posed by returning foreign fighters is not a new one for Indonesia. The country's counter-terror chief has recalled that Indonesians who trained with Islamic militants in Afghanistan in the 1990s came back and launched terror attacks, including the 2002 Bali bombings. Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation, launched a crackdown that neutered the networks, and attacks in recent years have mostly been low-level and have targeted domestic security forces. More recently, the country has banned support for IS and its ideology, but experts worry that Indonesian laws are not adequate for tackling the new threat and that the region is failing to pull together. "The governments in this region must work together to prevent the creation of a satellite of the caliphate because if such a satellite is declared, the threat in Southeast Asia will grow," said regional terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna. "There are groups based both in Indonesia and the Philippines that have pledged allegiance to IS and those groups must be dismantled." Indonesia and Southeast Asia have also been a target for Al-Qaeda, with the terror network's chief Ayman al-Zawahiri calling for a regional "battle" in remarks released this week. Addressing Muslims in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and neighbouring countries, Zawahiri said the region's Muslims were "leading an ideological and political battle against the seculars and the enemies of the religion". One strategy being deployed by Indonesia's counter-terror chiefs is to leverage a handful of former IS members who have returned from the Middle East disenchanted with their experiences. They are looking to publicise their stories of misery and disappointment - at the hands of a militant leadership which gave them little respect or responsibility - in a bid to deter potential recruits. But the threat is unlikely to dissipate. "Indonesia has faced a rising threat of this kind of terrorist attack over the past year," said Hugo Brennan, an Asia analyst Verisk Maplecroft. "The warning signs have been there for all to see." Foreign and domestic firms are worried that a new law regarding labour benefits will drive up production costs Under the law, taking effect on January 1, 2016, there will be a rise in social insurance, and sickness and maternity allowances and benefits for labourers. This regulation is aimed to help labourers have a better life. However, the regulation has been frowned upon by foreign firms. Yazuzumi Hirotaka, chief representative of the Japan External Trade Organisation (Jetro) in Ho Chi Minh City, told VIR that together with an increase in regional minimum wages, the change of ratio for the payment of social insurance officially taking effect from January 1, 2016 would make businesses operational costs significantly higher. As a result, investors might hesitate to promote or expand their investment activities in Vietnam. Hirotaka added that in May 2015, the Japan Business Association in Vietnam sent its concerns about the issue to the relevant Vietnamese ministries and agencies. However, not much had been done to address these issues since they were first raised. Echoing Hirotakas view, Ryu Hang Ha, chairman of the Korea Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam, further added that the new law would force employers to pay more for additional items to wages, which were the basis for the calculation of social insurance payments. This might lead to a dramatic increase in labour costs. We see no other country where enterprises must bear huge expenses on social insurance, which are equivalent to 22 per cent of wages payable to employees, as Vietnam does, Ha said, noting that the new regulation would add significantly to the expenses borne by enterprises and therefore would cause the manufacturing industry to lose some of its appeal. Not only foreign investors, several local firms have also barracked the new regulation. Nguyen Xuan Duong, board chairman of Hung Yen Garment JSC, said that labourers would actually be the most affected by the law, as labour-intensive firms would not accept losses or profit cuts. They would instead reduce labourers income to retain benefits. Duongs company is employing 14,000 workers. According to his estimation, with the old social insurance payment level, the company lost VND180 billion ($8.25 million) a year. Under the new regulation, the figure would reach VND230 billion ($10.55 million) annually. We have no choice but decrease labourers income, said Duong. Still, despite growing concerns among the business community, Tran Thi Thuy Nga, head of the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Social Insurance Department, told VIR that the law has many positive changes, aiming to increase social responsibility among businesses and bring a better life to workers in the short and long term. We have taken into careful consideration the possible financial burden on businesses when the law comes into effect, and we found that the increased social insurance payment would not affect them greatly, she added. Illustrative image - File photo It is an experience of total enjoyment. However, when such travel is combined with charitable activities and environment protection, one is not only relaxed but also contributes something to society and learns more meaningful things about life. Unlike normal tours, charitable tours or voluntours are often conducted in disadvantaged areas that have high tourism potential. For example, a charitable tour called Ao Am Cho Em (Warm Clothes for Children) has been launched annually by a travel agency since the winter of 2012. Tourists joining the tour get to explore the natural beauty of northern provinces such as Lao Cai, Yen Bai and Thai Nguyen. At the same time, they can directly give presents or donations to disadvantaged local children and experience their daily life. "I enjoy both travel and charity work. I have seen many poor children in the mountainous northern provinces such as Ha Giang going to school with bare feet or without warm clothes in the freezing cold. That moves me into tears," Nguyen Van Anh says, explaining about the reason why she booked Ao Am Cho Em Tour. "I was stunned by the spectacular landscape in Ha Giang during my visits, but the charitable trip was my most memorable one. It was truly a chance for me to not only discover the land I love, but also share and sympathise with the plight of underprivileged locals," Anh says. The participants in voluntours are both tourists and volunteers, mostly students who want to get more life experience and also do some social work. Instead of giving donations, students with limited budgets can contribute to local educational projects such as by teaching English and social skills to children or by repairing facilities for provincial schools. Nguyen Van Ha from Ha Noi Banking Academy has just returned from his voluntary tour to Mai Chau District in Hoa Binh Province. Together with nearly 100 other students and volunteers, Ha helped the villagers in their daily work and to improve their English skills. "This voluntour enabled me to practise my English and social skills with other international volunteers, in addition to teaching English to the local people so that they can communicate with foreign tourists," he says. During the trip, tourists can see small mud-splattered children and little dilapidated houses perched on mountain slopes. "But hidden behind those sights are the sincere human kindness and affection of the local people for us. "I have realised how fortunate I'm in comparison with the people there, and felt I should treasure more what I have. Those are the reasons why I will definitely come back," Ha says. Besides booking tours to do charity work, an increasing number of tourists are surprisingly very willing to spend money on environment-friendly tours in which they have to collect rubbish or plant trees. Ly Son Island in the central province of Quang Ngai, Ha Long Bay in Quang Ninh Province and Mai Chau in Hoa Binh Province are popular destinations for such tours. "I learnt about the tours that combine environment protection and the discovery of nature. I was very curious and so decided to book one tour to Mai Chau District," Nawarat Masathien from Thailand says. While she was very impressed with the spectacular mountainous scenery in the province, she was very surprised to see rubbish scattered in the area. After relaxing and discovering their destination, the tourists, regardless of their nationality and age, spare some time to collect rubbish left behind by previous tourists at camping sites or on the beach. "It is good for both the environment and the living conditions of the local people," French visitor Floria Baker says. "The villagers also joined us in collecting and classifying rubbish in bags," she says, adding that even her children had a lot of fun and enjoyed the meaningful activity. Environment-conscious tourists are also excited about ReCycle Tours, in which they can cycle on peaceful roads to reach their destinations, while planting trees along the way. Many of them consider planting of trees to be a tribute to nature that has presented them with charming natural beauty. "I hope such tours will be expanded and more tourists will join them, so that each person can become more aware about his responsibility to society and the environment. It also helps to make the country a better place, attracting more visitors from across the world," Ha says. Prime Minister Hun Sen has established a government commission to crack down on illegal logging and timber smuggling. The commission will be led by military police commander Sao Sokha, and will be supported with two military helicopters and military-grade weapons and training. Hun Sen announced the commission at the weekly meeting of the Council of Ministers Friday, where he also warned he would begin demoting officials found colluding with timber smugglers. Phay Siphan, a spokesman for the Council, said the announcement came following information that illegal luxury timber is moving to Vietnam through Tbong Khmum province. Due to a request from [Interior Minister] Sar Kheng, the new commission will be led by general Sao Sokha, the commander of the military police, he said. Environmental activists say the commission will need a plan of action, or it will become another defunct attempt at curbing rampant illegal logging. Chhay Thy, Ratanakkiri provincial coordinator for the rights group Adhoc, which closely monitors forestry crimes, told VOA Khmer the commission is coming a bit too late, given how much of Cambodias forest cover has already been logged. The government is acknowledging that deforestation has serious impacts on us, thats why they have to take action, he said. Otherwise, the forest will be completely destroyed. Cambodians will be paying close attention to the new commission to see whether it takes action, he said, and that could have an impact on national elections in 2018. People know clearly whether they just talk without action or just make a performance to lure people, he said. People have their own critical thinking, based on the leaders actual activities. Likewise, Tek Vannara, executive director for the NGO Forum, said the government must take legal action for a crackdown to be effective. Deforestation has major impacts on the poor, leading to food insecurity and climate change, he said. Our forest nowadays seems very small. We can see theres only some left in Prey Lang, the area around the Tonle Sap Basin, the Cardamom Mountains and the northeastern provinces. The countrys forest cover is down to about 20 percent of what it was just a few decades ago, he said. (The government says cover remains closer to 60 percent.) Phay Siphan said the new commission was an acknowledgment of the problem and the failure of local authorities and the Ministry of Agricultures forestry department, but he said the new plan will achieve results. Because they have not been effective, we are taking new action strictly in both mechanism and sensibility, he said. As [Hun Sen] said that in those placeshe is willing to remove the provincial governors, the district governors, forestry administrators, and military police. Like the Khmer saying: too many people cause burnt sticky rice cakes. Jakarta mobilized its entire police force Friday to guard the capital a day after the first attack by the Islamic State group in the worlds most populous Muslim nation. Two civilians died, along with five assailants, in the assault. About two dozen other people were seriously wounded, including several Europeans. Officers carrying automatic weapons slung on their shoulders could be seen patrolling inside the upscale Plaza Indonesia shopping center. Three people -- described by police as a bomb-maker, a firearms expert and a preacher -- were arrested Friday in Depok, about 40 kilometers south of the capital. There were conflicting statements by officials as to whether the trio is linked to the Jakarta attack, although police said an IS black flag was recovered during the raid in Depok. The nearby Serinah shopping mall was one of the intended soft targets of Thursdays assault. A vigilant security team is credited with thwarting an attack on the mall by detouring a vehicle to a checkpoint where the assailants detonated their explosives. Security increased In addition to shopping centers, security has also been stepped up at embassies and hospitals, Jakarta Metropolitan Police spokesman Mohammad Iqbal told reporters. Some countries, including the United States, kept their embassies closed Friday. One of the perpetrators who died in Thursday's violence had previously been arrested for possessing ammunition during a time U.S. President Barack Obama had visited the country, Indonesian national police chief Badrodin Haiti told reporters Friday. Despite Thursdays IS attack in Indonesia, authorities here are gaining praise from security analysts, noting the country has been seeing hundreds of supporters of the terrorist group shuttle between the Southeast Asian nation and Syria. The fact they missed one shouldnt be taken as a massive failure, said Sidney Jones, director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict. Jones, speaking from Singapore, told VOA the arrests made by police in November and December likely meant a significantly smaller casualty count, but that such an attack was inevitable as theres been activity brewing for some time. As long as the IS networks remain active with aspirational Islamists intent on doing harm in Indonesia, we will continue to see attempts, he said. 'Imitate' Paris attacks Thursdays attack by at least five assailants also involved two explosions outside a Starbucks coffee shop frequented by Westerners, including diplomats who worked in nearby embassies and United Nations offices. While Indonesian authorities contend the attack was meant to imitate the coordinated Paris siege on November 15 last year, the first IS attack in Indonesia fell short of that level of carnage. Analysts theorize that the Jakarta attack on soft targets with a poorly trained small group armed with grenades, homemade bombs and handguns may have been hurried into execution amid leaders of rival factions jockeying to be in line to be recognized as emir should IS declare Indonesia as one of its provinces. "Thats why [Indonesian IS fighter] Bahrun Naim plotted this attack," from Raqqa in Syria, said Jakartas police chief Tito Karnavian just hours after the incident. The Islamic State-linked Aamaq News Agency said the Jakarta attack "targeted foreign nationals and security forces charged with protecting them." A U.S. counterterrorism official told VOA there was no reason to doubt Islamic States claim of responsibility for the attacks. U.S. military and intelligence officials have been warning the terror group has been placing a greater emphasis on so-called external attacks, devoting more people and resources, while using the attacks in Paris that killed 130 as a model. 'Symptom of the losses' Its definitely a symptom of the losses theyve been suffering, like in [the Iraqi city of] Ramadi, a U.S. official told VOA on condition of anonymity. Watch: Related video The official said Islamic State has repeatedly shown that when its forces falter at fighting a more conventional-style war on the ground, it will shift toward more asymmetric, terrorist tactics, both in Iraq and Syria and elsewhere. The United States condemned the attacks "in the strongest possible terms." A White House statement said the U.S. will stand by its strategic partnership with Indonesia and "the government of Indonesia as it works to bring those responsible for this barbaric terrorist attack to justice and build a more secure future." Indonesia is no stranger to acts of terrorism. Most notably in recent years, two luxury hotels in Jakarta were hit by separate blasts five minutes apart on July 17, 2009, killing some foreigners. That attack took place nearly four years after coordinated suicide bombings and car blasts at two sites on the resort island of Bali killed more than 20 people. Taiwanese voters will pick a new president Saturday after an intense final-hours campaign focused on the island's ailing economy. Voters want higher salaries, cheaper housing and more jobs. Both top candidates say they have solutions. Taiwan's economy slipped into recession in September and export orders, the islands lifeblood, have fallen for nine months. Workers complain they cannot afford to buy apartments in Taipei on wages as low as $600 a month or pay to care for children and aging parents. These issues have chased Taiwans two major party candidates as they scour the streets for votes ahead of Saturdays election. Taiwans opposition party candidate is leading in polls. Wang Yeh-lih, political science professor at National Taiwan University, says voters are looking to the next president for a more comfortable living. He believes the economy is a leading election issue as people demand higher incomes, seek more job opportunities and press other issues related to their personal pocketbooks. Wang adds that common people want to see how a change in party works out because the current Nationalist Party performed poorly over the past eight years. Taiwan industrialized in the 1960s, but living standards lag those in Japan, South Korea and other places that took the same course. Still, land and labor cost enough to send investors offshore, taking capital out of Taiwan and reducing the number of local jobs. Current President Ma Ying-jeou disappointed voters by missing targets to raise salaries, lower unemployment and increase the half-trillion-dollar GDP. Since 2008, his Nationalist government has looked for economic support from China. The two countries have signed 23 deals aimed mainly at boosting trade, tourism and investment. China is a powerful Taiwan political rival of seven decades and also the world's second largest economy. Opposition Democratic Progressive Party candidate Tsai Ing-wen has said she would move to help Taiwan's smaller enterprises get ahead in the domestic market and overseas. In May, her party suggested changing laws to raise wages and shorten work hours from 84 every two weeks to 40 per week. She advocates creating jobs through a network of neighborhood caretakers for children. The opposition candidate also wants to build 200,000 units of affordable housing to ease worries about high land prices. Apartments in Taipei are priced comparably to other major world cities. Pre-election opinion polls give Tsai a lead of at least eight percentage points. The Nationalist candidate, Eric Chu, has pledged to raise the minimum wage in phases from today's $600 per month to just under $900 per month by 2020. Chu suggests opening neighborhood senior care centers to look after elders when their adult children go to work. A party spokesman says he would push for affordable housing in existing units rather than building new ones. China is another key piece in the puzzle. Candidates traded barbs over which party is best suited to manage relations with the islands massive neighbor. "It's important that America and China and other countries around the world want us to keep peace on both sides and maintain regional stability," said Chu. "I promise that I can fulfill that task if I am elected. DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen said "we will maintain the status quo [between China and Taiwan. The two sides will continue to pursue peace and interactive development. Taiwan election officials will announce the new president Saturday and the winner will take office in May, when President Ma must step down due to term limits. Al-Shabab militants attacked an African Union military base Friday in southwestern Somalia, near the border with Kenya, reportedly killing dozens of Kenyan troops working for the African Union mission. Friday's early morning attack in the town of Elbe in Gedo region, started with a suicide bombing and was followed by a firefight with Kenyan troops stationed at the base. Kenyan Defense Forces said in a statement that al-Shabab militia attacked a Somalian army base near the Kenyan forces' base. The statement said the militants overran the camp but the Kenyans counterattacked, in support of the Somali troops. Al-Shabab says 60 Kenyan troops were killed in the clashes, but Deputy Gedo Governor Mohamed Hussein Isaak told VOA that at least 40 Kenyan soldiers were killed and said some troops managed to escape the base. Residents say al-Shabab has taken control of the town and surrounding areas and has hoisted its flag. The residents also say the militants seized weapons on military vehicles. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack in a statement, saying, "This attack will not diminish the resolve of the United Nations to work hand in hand with the African Union and AMISOM to support the people and Government of Somalia." The African Union Mission in Somalia said this attack "demonstrates the vile nature of Al Shabab, whose sole purpose is to spread terror and continue the destabilization of Somalia." "Our resolve can only be rejuvenated, to fight on until Somalia is freed of all elements of terror," the AMISOM Statement said. Al-Shabab carried out similar attacks on AU facilities in June and in September of last year. Dozens of peacekeeping troops were killed in those attacks. Societal changes are causing Cameroon to consider more care centers for the elderly as fewer people adhere to the tradition of "at-home" elder care for family members. Ndula Pascaline, of Yaounde's Bethanie Viacam center for old, invalid and abandoned persons, says it was once a social taboo in Cameroon for people to place their parents in assisted-living homes, but now, whether its because of a lack of funds or disinterest, more people are disregarding that tradition. Pascaline says as many youth head to cities to find work, they feel they are left with no option other than to leave their parents at home in villages or at care centers. She says another group of elderly that are often abandoned are those who are accused of practicing witchcraft. Needs of the elderly A 2013 study by the Central African Economic Commission and the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights found that just 10 percent of Cameroonians have social insurance plans that help take care of them in their old age. Richard Ndi Tantoh, director of the nongovernmental organization Ecumenical Service for Peace, piloted the study. He says it is imperative for the government to take care of the needs of the elderly. "We are going to engage stakeholders with this study so that they see what exactly is happening with the elderly around Africa. So that at least we should begin to reflect on how we can set up a system which will be able to rehabilitate elderly persons," Tantoh said. "They are people who spent their lives working to build a country and I dont think it is good for the country to abandon them when they are at old age." Still, some elderly say they are being abandoned by family members when they begin to succumb to health issues. Ngah Gisselle, 72, has been at Yaounde's Bethanie Viacam center for four years. She says she was abandoned by her family and two children who, according to cultural tradition, are supposed to take care of her. Gisselle says a kind stranger brought her to the center when she started suffering from chronic heart infections. When she recovered, she was told a Jesuit priest brought her to the center. She credits the center's care for her present health. Jobs elsewhere The center is home to 45 elderly people, including former teacher Jean Etoundi, 84, who says his daughter brought him to the center because her career -- a job in Cameroon's economic capital, Douala -- meant she could no longer live with and care for him. Etoundi, who is paralyzed, says his daughter sends money for his care. Some of the elderly in Cameroon say they never had sufficient means to prepare for retirement and old age, especially after Cameroon's currency suffered a 50 percent devaluation in 1994 and state workers saw their salaries cut by 60 percent. Social worker Mbiybe Rosaline says such conditions made it difficult for many people to prepare for retirement. "When they leave work and they go back to the village, they don't have what they need to take care of themselves, especially those who did not prepare towards their old age, Rosaline said. "So we are trying to see how we make a society that is inclusive, that will make everybody feel comfortable." U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter has announced that Army General Joseph Votel will be nominated as commander of U.S. Central Command, which overseas operations in Iraq and Syria. Carter said Thursday Votel was his "only recommendation to the president." Votel, who heads special operations forces, would take over leadership of U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in Iraq and Syria against Islamic State. He would succeed Army General Lloyd Austin, who is retiring. Votel's appointment would reflect U.S. President Barack Obama's decision to move into more special operations-related activities in the war against Islamic State. Votel, 57, is a former commander of the 75th Ranger Regiment and a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He headed the secretive Joint Special Operations Command before taking over Special Operations Command in 2014. It is yet another busy market day in PK5, the last remaining Muslim enclave in the Central African Republic's capital, Bangui. Farmer and businesswoman Philomene Pata has been coming to the market to sell her goods for as long as she can remember. But recently, such visits reportedly have become increasingly dangerous for her and other women who live in the M'poko displaced persons camp at the Bangui airport. In bringing her produce to the market, Pata says the anti-balaka the mostly Christian militia would take her phone, her money and her goods. Sometimes, she says, she would be beaten and told, "This will teach you to not bring food to the Muslims." While the security situation in Bangui has improved somewhat in recent months, some neighborhoods are still under militia control. One area of the M'poko camp is controlled by an militia leader known as Emar Nganafei. Some aid agencies have suspended their work in the camp because of the volatile situation. Last month, at least 10 men some of them armed stormed and looted the camps hospital, run by Doctors Without Borders. Women on their way to the market are constantly harassed by the anti-balaka militia, says Blandine Nah, the president of a women's association in the camp. Nah says the men kidnap the women as they leave the camp and rape them. It happens all the time, she adds, but especially during the night. Sometimes the men then let the women go, Nah says, but other times they only release women after their families pay a ransom. Nah has met dozens of rape victims in the camp. Many of the women lost their husbands when the Muslim Seleka rebels attacked Bangui in December 2013. Many have a hard time supporting their families. The women have no work and are struggling, Nah says. Some of them are sleeping with men outside the camp for money, but when they return, Nah says, the militia inside the camp kidnap them and rape them. Rights group backs claims During two weeks in December, Human Rights Watch documented at least 25 acts of sexual violence in Bangui. The number is likely much higher, as many of the cases are never reported because of the social stigma. The organization also documented at least five cases where women and girls were raped by Muslim self-defense groups, some who were conducting revenge attacks against Christian and animist neighborhoods near the enclave. Nah says there is no security at the camp and peacekeepers only stop by occasionally. The International Criminal Court has been conducting investigations in the C.A.R. A special criminal court that is set to start working this year could help address crimes, including sexual violence, and provide justice for the victims. Meanwhile, the estimated 20,000 people at the M'poko camp remain largely unprotected, as U.N. peacekeepers and French forces known as Sangaris have made it clear they will not provide security. Taiwan will hold a general election Saturday to elect the 14th president and vice president of the Republic of China, and all 113 seats of the 9th Legislative Yuan. According to the Central Election Commission, approximately 11.8 million citizens are eligible to cast ballots. Here's a look at the upcoming poll: The candidates Eric Chu is the mayor of Taiwan's most populous metropolis, New Taipei City, and chairman of the ruling Kuomintang party (KMT). Chu entered the 2016 presidential race late. The KMT drafted him in mid-October last year, replacing a female candidate on the ticket. Chu is viewed as a staunchly pro-China candidate. Like outgoing President Ma Ying-jeou, he favors building strong relations with Beijing on the basis of the 1992 Consensus, in which both sides insist there is one China but agree to disagree on what this means. Tsai Ing-wen is the head of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). She was Taiwan's first female presidential candidate during the 2012 presidential race, which she lost to Ma. She has been the frontrunner in polls leading up to the elections and is widely expected to win Saturday, becoming Taiwans first female president. She was one of the chief drafters of the "special state-to-state relations" doctrine of former president Lee Teng-hui, which defined Taiwan and China's relationship on country-to-country terms, angering Beijing and leading to heightened tensions. She has since moderated her views, promising to maintain peaceful and stable relations if elected. James Soong is the founder and chair of the smaller People First Party (PFP). The former member of the KMT, Soong says his goal is to offer Taiwanese voters an alternate choice to the two traditional parties. He rejects the notion that his candidacy will help the opposition beat his former party, the KMT. The legislative yuan The KMT currently holds 65 of the legislatures 113 seats, all of which are up for grabs on Saturday. It needs to retain 57 of them to keep its majority. Most of the seats are chosen by geographical districts, but 34 are filled by the parties based on the national vote and six are reserved for aboriginal constituencies. Polls show the KMT risks losing its majority for the first time in Taiwan's history. The issues Cross-Strait relations: As in past elections, the crucial political issue is China, and whether Taiwans future lies in a closer relationship with its giant neighbor or an autonomous identity. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and sees the unification of the country as a central goal. Under the pro-reunification KMT government, cross-strait relations reached a high in November 2015, when Ma met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Singapore, heralding the first meeting between the top leaders of Taiwan and China since the Chinese Civil War in 1945. But even though Tsai has pledged to keep the relations status quo if elected, there is no guarantee she will be able to contain DPP members that take a more hardline approach to Taiwan independence. Domestic concerns: The island's economy is expected to play a major role in the outcome. The past eight years of Ma's presidency has seen increased trade ties with China, but that has not proven profitable for the island. As Chinas growth has slowed, Taiwans economy has plummeted, contracting over the most recent quarter. Gross domestic product growth for 2015 is expected to be just 1 percent. Wages are also stagnating, even as companies make profits, leaving many to believe it's mainly businesses, not ordinary people, which have benefited from the closer trade ties with China. The results The Central Election Commission of Taiwan will begin to post results on its website after polls close. The new legislature will be seated on February 1. The victor in the presidential race will not take office until May 20. Defense officials from China and South Korea have held their first meeting since North Korea's nuclear tests a little over a week ago. Representatives from both countries met Friday in Seoul. South Korea and China hold nearly annual meetings to discuss security of the Korean Peninsula. Yoon Soon-gu, South Korean Defense Ministry's director general on international policy met with Guan Youfei, Chinese Ministry of National Defense foreign affairs office director to discuss counter measures to North Korea's nuclear tests. North Korea has received an onslaught of international condemnation for what it said was a "successful" hydrogen bomb test. On Wednesday, South Korean President Park Geun-hye called on China to use its influence over North Korea to force it to end is nuclear program. The United States also wants China to exert more pressure on North Korea to press it to give up its nuclear program. China is North Korea's most important ally. Trade between the two countries totaled $6.4 billion in 2014. The U.S. says China could pressure North Korea by cutting energy to the country and restricting trade. A former television comedian with no political experience has been sworn in as Guatemala's president. Jimmy Morales easily won the country's top office in October after a corruption scandal toppled the country's last leader and fueled voter outrage with the political establishment. Playing up his outsider status and promising clean government, Morales surged in opinion polls after a probe into a multi-million dollar customs racket that forced President Otto Perez out of office. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden attended the inauguration of Morales Thursday along with several Latin American presidents. Morales asked Biden to add Guatemala to the list of countries granted temporary protected status, providing its eligible citizens in the U.S. temporary protection from deportation and allowing them to work and travel. Tails wagging, several dogs with their beaming pet parents are attending a birthday party at the Dog Chef Cafe in Baltimore, Maryland. The music is blaring, and the table is set with plates and food, where Pierre, a cute white toy poodle, is the center of attention. Hes not just a dog to me; hes a member of my family, Jazzmen Knoderer says as she pets her pup. She and her husband, Daniel, adopted Pierre five months ago, after he was found wandering the city streets. And even though they dont know when he was born or exactly how old he is, they thought it would be fun to have a birthday party at the cafe, which is known for healthy meals and treats for canines. Like most dog owners, I care about the snacks and treats that I give my dog," Jazzmen said. So does dog lover Kevyn Matthews, the dog chef and owner of the cafe, who uses his skills as a chef for humans to create nourishing dishes for canines. He uses human-grade food to provide an alternative to manufactured dog food, which he said may be full of stuff thats not good for dogs. His dog-friendly shortcake, on the other hand, is "made with no sugar at all, just a little honey and topped with a raspberry reduction. Yummy to dogs and humans Matthews attractive creations, from muffins to candy to pretzels, don't merely look good enough for people to eat they are. Customer Kyla Thomas samples a peanut butter cup. It is unsweetened and covered with carob instead of chocolate, which is toxic to dogs. Shes pleasantly surprised. This is really, really good. This just doesnt taste like food for a dog, but food we would eat, she told Matthews, who is helping her from behind a glass counter that is also stocked with cookies, rolls and even yogurt-filled cannolis. I make it look like something that a human wants, explained Matthews, but whats in there is what the dog actually needs things like fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and fish. Customer Blythe Pruitt likes that the food is natural and wholesome, theres no preservatives and its freshly made. She bought a meal in a plastic foam carryout container. Our little pup is going to get his own little hamburger and sweet potatoes, she said. Accent on health As Matthews chops kale to put into pretzels hes baking, he said he does not use wheat, soy, corn or other fillers found in some packaged dog food that may cause allergies. He said his dishes help dogs with health issues. For dry skin, he suggests "a coconut muffin because its filled with the proper oils, or one of the pumpkin muffins if they have a problem with digestion or they're constipated. Matthews treats and meals are not cheap, but his customers think they are worth the price. Some spend between $100 and $1,000 per month for his meal service. Some want the best food possible; others want the health benefits his food provides. At the birthday party, the pet parents talked about their dogs and canine gadgets on the market, while they stuffed their pups with healthy treats. The dogs really seemed to like the food, said Jazzmen. Pierre has a Twitter account and Instagram he is @PierrePup so I will post pictures from his party today to share with his followers. For Matthews, the best part is knowing the dogs were fed the best food he can give them. A dog spends its life making us happy, and what makes me happy is seeing a dog happy, he said. The European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management has called for political solutions in dealing with the root causes of the migrant crisis: war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Speaking Friday in Belgrade, Serbia, following a meeting with Serbia's prime minister, Christos Stylianides said that European institutions have taken a lot of initiative in Syria in order to persuade people to stay in their country. "We must address the root causes of the refugee crisis. We must fight [for a] political solution inside Syria, inside Afghanistan, inside Iraq," he said. "We made a lot of initiative inside Syria in order to provide not only basic needs but specific assistance, maybe through education, in order to safeguard dignity of refugees and in order to persuade them to stay there in their country." Serbian Prime Minister Aleksander Vucic said that his country will fulfill all its obligations to protect migrants and refugees. Although the number of arrivals in Serbia has decreased due to the cold winter weather, some 2,500 migrants still cross into the Balkan country every day. Vucic appealed to the European Union to adopt a common policy in dealing with the crisis and to extend more help in funding and resources to countries on the Balkan route. "We will fulfill all the obligations we receive from the European Union as a serious, responsible country, by protecting the rights of these people, respecting their human rights, and at the same time, do what was agreed and what is an overall EU policy, said Vucic. A senior official of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has said that government policies in Europe and elsewhere are not keeping pace with the vast movement of people. IOMs Director-General Lacy Swing has said that the migrant and refugee crisis in Europe, the worst in the continent since World War Two, has firmly put the migration issue on the world stage. The world is finally catching up to the fact that human mobility is a megatrend of our time, said Swing. IOM predicts that 2016 will be another critical year for migration to Europe, noting that one in seven people today is a migrant. Of these, 232 million are international migrants and 340 million are internal migrants. More than 1 million refugees and migrants reached Europe by sea last year, according to the U.N. refugee agency and more than 3,770 people lost their lives making the perilous Mediterranean Sea crossing. The European Parliament on Thursday postponed a vote on new car pollution limits that could have killed a compromise agreed by EU members, as politicians argue over whether to seek tougher limits despite the delays that would entail. With strong political momentum for stricter emission limits after the Volkswagen scandal, the assembly had been due to vote next week on a parliamentary proposal to reject a compromise agreed by representatives of the 28 European Union nations in October. The vote pits lawmakers, who side with automakers pushing for the compromise proposal to be adopted now, against environmentalists seeking tougher rules. The diluted deal would allow cars to carry on emitting more than twice official limits on nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions, blamed for premature death and respiratory diseases. It was overwhelmingly rejected by the assembly's environment committee last month, but members of the centre-right European People's Party (EPP) and of the Socialists and Democrats on Thursday supported pushing back a plenary vote until next month. The EPP, the biggest political group, argued that rejecting the draft law would delay changes to old limits while a new proposal is thrashed out and the automotive industry would lack certainty to make business adjustments and invest in cleaner technology. Politicians said they want the time to come up with an alternative proposal for future legislation on emissions. "We are negotiating informally with the Commission and we want something substantial in our hands at the end of the day if we vote against the objection," said German Socialist Matthias Groote. Green politicians criticised the delay, calling it a ploy to derail efforts to toughen up rules, which were watered-down last year after many of the 28 member states demanded leeway to protect their car industries. "The clear intention ... is to prevent this fundamentally-flawed driving emissions test procedure from being rejected," said Rebecca Harms, co-head of the Green group. "This may be in the interest of some laggards in the car industry but it is clearly not in the interest of Europe's citizens." Revelations by Volkswagen in September that it had installed software in diesel vehicles to deceive U.S. regulators created a political firestorm in Europe where half of vehicles are diesel. The cloud over the industry darkened on Thursday as sites of French carmaker Renault were inspected by investigators looking into its emissions technology, news that wiped billions off its market value. The current EU proposal aims to close the gap between vehicles emissions tests and real road conditions from 2017 to curb toxic discharges that have surged to more than seven times their European limits. After 2020, it would still allow a 50 percent overshoot above the legal ceiling for nitrogen oxide readings of 80 milligrams/kilometer. If parliament rejects the proposal, it could mean a delay of around two years while the EU executive drafts a new one. The full EU assembly, which can take or leave the draft law by national governments, is now expected to vote in the first week of February. "Nobody wants to slow down the whole process," Dutch Liberal politician Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy said. "On the other hand ... if we allow cars to emit so much more than legally already in the law, we don't give members states the instruments they need to clean up air in cities." The White House issued a sharply-worded statement Sunday saying it "condemns in the strongest terms" attacks in the capital of Burkina Faso that killed at least 29 people and wounded scores more from 18 countries overnight Friday. The statement also warned that "acts of terrorism will not stop efforts by brave Americans and others from around the world" who work to "strengthen democracy, improve health care and increase economic opportunities" in the West African nation and elsewhere in the developing world. The statement, which references the death of American missionary Michael Riddering in the massacre, comes as Burkina Faso began observing three days of national mourning following the attack on a luxury hotel and a nearby cafe. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) claimed responsibility. Riddering and his wife operated an orphanage and a women's crisis center about 100 kilometers from the capital, Ouagadougou. President Roch Marc Christian Kabore, who took office last month, said that "for the first time in its history, our country has fallen victim to a series of barbaric terrorist attacks." He said his nation will nevertheless "emerge victorious." Gunmen stormed Ouagadougou's Splendid Hotel and the Cappuccino Cafe Friday night. Burkinabe security forces and their French counterparts responded early Saturday, triggering an hours-long battle to retake the hotel and the cafe popular with foreigners and United Nations staff. Interior Minister Simon Compaore said more than 150 hostages were rescued in the security operation, but a number of them were wounded. Authorities say the fighting lasted 12 hours. Four jihadists, including two women, were reported dead by the time the fighting was over. French President Francois Hollande on Saturday condemned the "odious and cowardly attack" in the former French colony. A statement from Hollande's office said he "expressed his full support to President Kabore." Video from the attack scene: Burkina Faso has endured bouts of political turmoil since October 2014 when President Blaise Compaore was overthrown in a popular uprising. Last September, members of a presidential guard launched a coup that lasted only about a week. The transitional government returned to power until Burkina Faso's November election ushered in new leaders. Billionaire American real estate mogul Donald Trump and Texas Senator Ted Cruz have for months acted more like partners than rivals, as they compete to become the Republican Party's nominee for U.S. president. But at Thursday's Republican presidential debate in South Carolina, the men who occupy the top two positions in most national public opinion polls were anything but friendly towards each other. During the 2-hour nationally televised debate, Trump and Cruz repeatedly clashed, at times getting emotional, as they tried to win the support of voters upset at the GOP establishment. Cruz also engaged in a series of feisty exchanges with Florida Senator Marco Rubio, a fellow Cuban-American who is appealing to a broader segment of the party and who is coming in third in most polls. The other four candidates on stage New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Ohio Governor John Kasich, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and ex-Florida Governor Jeb Bush struggled to make their mark. Three-man race? "There were three winners of this debate: Rubio, Trump and Cruz," said Ford O'Connell, a Republican strategist and former campaign advisor for Senator John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. The debate did not do much to change the perception that the Republican field is narrowing, O'Connell told VOA. "At the rate things are going, it seems like we're heading for a three-man race," he said. That is also the assessment of Tucker Eskew, a veteran political strategist from South Carolina and a former deputy assistant to former president George W. Bush. "[After this debate] I think we will have seen some hardening of support for the major candidates, and perhaps a softening of support for those falling out of the top three or four," Eskew told VOA. Trump-Cruz clashes What is less clear, however, is who came out on top in the confrontations between Trump and Cruz, a fight that was long-anticipated. Cruz has for months refused to criticize Trump, fearful that if he does, he may alienate the reality TV star's supporters who he hopes to eventually attract. The animosity between the two men has recently increased after Trump raised the question of whether Cruz is qualified under the constitution to become president, since he was born in Canada to a Cuban father and an American mother. There was some evidence Trump's attack was working: many recent polls in Iowa, which holds the nation's first nominating contest in less than three weeks, show Cruz losing support after weeks of gaining ground on the real estate magnate. On Thursday, it was clear that Cruz has had enough. Addressing the controversy, he accused Trump of political opportunism in bringing up the issue about his birth. "You know, back in September, my friend Donald said that he had had his lawyers look at this from every which way, and there was no issue there. There was nothing to this birther issue," Cruz said. Watch video report from VOA's Jim Malone: "Now, since September, the Constitution hasn't changed. But the poll numbers have," the Texas senator added. In response, the blunt-speaking Trump acknowledged he was raising the issue "because now [Cruz] is doing a little better." He also repeated his assertion that there is a "serious question" about whether Cruz meets the constitutional requirement of being a "natural born citizen." "There's a big question mark over your head, and you can't do that to the party," Trump said. "Who the hell knows if you can even serve in office?" 'New York values' In another particularly spirited exchange, Cruz repeated his campaign trail accusation that Trump has "New York values," something he hopes will make him seem out of touch with traditional conservatives. "Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan. I'm just saying," said Cruz. Trump quickly hit back, defending New Yorkers that he said responded "beautifully" to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. "We rebuilt downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers. And I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made," Trump said, to applause. Who won? "That was a powerful moment and one that did not work well for Cruz," according to Eskew. But overall, he says the Trump-Cruz exchanges were a "mixed bag," with neither side coming out on top. "Ted Cruz certainly did a far better job and got a much-needed win on the birther issue," according to O'Connell. "Though I've got to say that Trump back-handed pretty hard with the New York values [accusation]." Chip Felkel, another political strategist based in South Carolina, told VOA the long-awaited bout between the two frontrunners "didn't disappoint." "Trump to me tonight was a little bit more reserved. He also got booed twice, which I thought was interesting," Felkel said. "I would have to say that Cruz probably got the better of Trump." The debate took place in South Carolina, in a region of the country where Trump could have difficulty winning enough support once the voting begins. Trump's debate performance may be emblematic of his wider struggles in the south, Felkel said. "Trump is a lot of things. I think more than anything, for some people, he's an entertainer," Felkel said, noting Cruz's popularity with evangelical Christians and other social conservatives. "And I think as we get closer to this primary, people are starting to notice that he's saying a lot but he's not saying a lot. It's time to get serious here. I do think that may cause him some problems," he added. Cruz-Rubio clash Cruz also worked to fight off a series of attacks from Rubio, who accused his colleague from Texas of changing positions on several key issues involving immigration. "You used to say you supported doubling the number of green cards, now you say that you're against it. You used to support a 500 percent increase in the number of guest workers, now you say that you're against it," Rubio said. "You used to support legalizing people that were here illegally, now you say you're against it. You used to say that you were in favor of birthright citizenship, now you say that you are against it," he added. Cruz hit back: "I appreciate you dumping your oppo (opposition) research folder on the debate stage there," he said. "It's your record!" Rubio responded. Criticism of Obama, Clinton The candidates also took aim at the man they hope to replace: President Barack Obama. One of the president's fiercest critics was Governor Christie, who promised to "kick [Obama's] rear end out of the White House" and who at one point referred to the president as a "petulant child." Another prominent focus in the debate was Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Bush brought up the scandal over Clinton's use of a personal email server during her time as secretary of state, saying it could distract her if she becomes president. "If she gets elected, her first 100 days instead of setting an agenda she might be going back and forth between the White House and the courthouse," Bush said, to applause. Bush, who was once seen as a favorite of the GOP establishment, has steadily lost support, and now finds himself near the bottom in most opinion polls. Once the voting starts, he and other candidates in the lower tier could start dropping out quickly, according to analysts. "But I don't think we're going to see any drop out until either New Hampshire or South Carolina," O'Connell cautions. "Once you've made this type of commitment, you might as well go through with it." A blind child carried a white dove in his hand at a protest outside his school this past Saturday in the Yemeni capital, Sana'a. The school was bombed last week. "The center only houses students," says Mohammad al-Junaid, a dormitory supervisor. "It is an educational center with no weapons and no political ties. What was the objective?" Human Rights Watch blames both the Saudi-led coalition for hitting civilian targets and the Houthi militants battling the coalition. The group says armed Houthis were stationed near the center, putting the students at risk. Houthi leaders have repeatedly denied having any operations in the area, and school officials said they had not seen soldiers nearby. All parties, however, agree the war has taken the greatest toll on vulnerable groups like the disabled and, with no end to the fighting in sight, their numbers are growing. Nearly 6,000 people have been disabled in nine months of airstrikes, according to Human Rights Watch. "After nine months of fighting, there has been no letup in coalition air attacks striking homes, hospitals, markets, and now a school for people with visual disabilities," said Shantha Rau Barriga, HRW disability rights director. "Making clear that none of Yemen's civilians is safe." Attack on humanity The al-Nour Center was attacked on January 5 around 1:15 a.m., and five people were injured. If the bomb had exploded, it would have been much worse. "I was in bed asleep, and I tried to get up but the fumes and dust knocked me over," said al-Junaid, the dorm manager. "I tried a second time and fell again. On the third try, I broke through the fumes after hearing the screams of the children." School officials say the center serves 250 blind students, mostly children, and 130 people were in the building at the time of the bombing. "The third floor was destroyed and the rest of the center was damaged badly," said Jamil el-Hemyari, the center's director. "On the two lower levels, the doors and the windows were blown out and the furniture was destroyed." The public was enraged by the attack and protests continued for a week after the bombing. "We are calling on whatever is left of humanity's conscience for help," called out one protester into several microphones. "We are appealing to any human rights organizations that still exist here in Yemen, or anywhere else." Protesters said an attack on the country's most at-risk children it is an attack on humanity. In Yemen, they said, humanity is being attacked "over and over again." Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif says international economic sanctions on Iran will be lifted Saturday, with the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency expected to confirm that Tehran has complied with last July's landmark agreement with world powers to restrain its nuclear development program. "Today is a good day for the people of Iran and the sanctions will be lifted today," Zarif told Iran's IRNA news agency as he arrived in Vienna, awaiting the release of the final report by the International Atomic Energy Agency. "It's also a good day for the region." The top Iranian diplomat met with the European Union foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, on implementation of the Iranian nuclear deal negotiated over two years between Tehran and the United States, Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany. In the July 14 pact, Iran agreed to curb its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions against Tehran that have hobbled its economy. Frozen assets With removal of the sanctions, Iran immediately will gain access to about $100 billion in assets frozen overseas and reopen its doors to world trade with international corporations selling cars, airplanes and other major items it needs to support a nation of 80 million people. Tehran says it plans to swiftly ramp up its oil exports, within weeks adding another 500,000 barrels a day to a global oil glut that has plunged oil prices on international markets to below $30 a barrel for the first time in 12 years. Iran says that within a year its oil exports could total a million barrels a day. Zarif and Mogherini were to meet with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry Saturday. The three are expected to make a joint statement. IAEA statement expected The IAEA had been expected to soon officially announce that Iran has complied with its commitment to curtail its nuclear program, clearing the way for the lifting of international sanctions. Under last year's agreement, the Islamic Republic agreed to scale back its uranium-enriching activities and submit to inspections in exchange for the rollback of sanctions. U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said that the meeting in Vienna is in line with the agreement's Joint Plan of Action (JCPOA). "As we've said, all parties have continued making steady progress towards Implementation Day of the JCPOA, which will ensure the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program," Toner said. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Friday the United States is aware that Iran has made important progress in fulfilling commitments in the agreement, but that Iran will not receive any sanctions relief until the IAEA confirms commitments and compliance. He said this includes shutting down "every pathway that Iran has obtaining fissile material it has," as well as eliminating 98 percent of its uranium stockpile. He said most importantly, there will be ongoing monitoring of Iran's nuclear program. "We have the ability to snap sanctions back in place," he said. Deal opposed by Israel Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been among the most vocal opponents of the deal negotiated with the United States and other world powers. He said it would not slow Tehran's work toward a nuclear weapon and would put Israel in danger. He highlighted his concerns in an address to the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress in March during a trip in which he did not meet with U.S. President Barack Obama. Diplomatic sources told the French news agency, AFP, Friday that everything was being put in place so that the European Union, along with the United States and United Nations, can end the sanctions regime on what is known as "Implementation Day" for the July agreement. Their comments came one day after Iran said it had removed the core of its Arak heavy water nuclear reactor and filled in part of it with cement, meaning it cannot be used to produce a nuclear weapon. Iran has said its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. Sanctions have blocked Iran from at least $50 billion in frozen assets. VOA State Department Correspondent Pam Dockins contributed to this report. When Ted Osius came to Vietnam as a U.S. diplomat in the 1990s, he was forbidden from discussing Agent Orange, the defoliant that America doused on its enemy in the Vietnam War. Two decades later, U.S. policy has done an about-face. Osius, now the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam, oversees joint efforts to expunge dioxin from Vietnamese soil and care for locals who suffered from exposure to the chemical. We turned what was a place of great contention into an area where we are collaborating a great deal with Vietnam, Osius said Thursday at a conference marking 20 years of bilateral relations. And were having an honest discussion about our past. And my belief is the only way to get past the past is if youre honest about it. Metamorphosis As Washington takes responsibility for its history, the Agent Orange turnaround demonstrates the thorough metamorphosis Vietnam-U.S. ties have undergone. With war in the rear-view mirror, the two countries have ramped up trade and educational exchanges, voiced similar concerns about Chinas ascent in the region, and burned through the kilometers for high-level state visits. On commerce, Hanoi and Washington were the first to complete bilateral talks for the 12-nation Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal. The TPP would bolster the U.S.-Vietnam friendship, but officials on both sides try to temper the notion that this friendship is meant to counterbalance China. At the conference, former Foreign Minister Nguyen Dy Nien dismissed what he called rumors that territorial conflicts are pushing Vietnam into U.S. arms. Its not because we take advantage of this relationship to counterweight the other side, Nien said. That is not our policy. The countries are warming up to each other for their overall benefit, he said. Nien lit incense last year when U.S. President Barack Obama hosted a Vietnamese communist party secretary, a first for the White House. My heart was touched, Nien said. TPP, South China Sea But China also makes the TPP more appealing to Vietnam, which imported $4.2 billion worth of goods from China in November, compared with exports worth $1.5 billion, according to Vietnams General Statistics Office. To rely less on its longtime "frenemy" and narrow the trade deficit with China, Vietnam would find alternative trading partners in the TPP. Both Washington and Hanoi also have a common worry that Beijing is moving more vigorously into the disputed South China Sea. This month China test-landed aircraft on Fiery Cross Reef, part of an island it built from scratch in the sea. As China rises, former Minister of Industry and Trade Truong Dinh Tuyen alluded to the TPP as a way for the United States to flex its power in Asia. I think the U.S. needs the TPP more than Vietnam does, he said. If Washington is leery of Beijing, other Southeast Asian nations might seem like more obvious partners than its erstwhile war foe Hanoi. The Philippines has a military alliance with the United States. Thailand has been a longtime friend. Indonesia manages the regions biggest economy. None of them are in the TPP. But several analysts argue these neighboring countries havent shown the political will to tear down protectionist barriers. Vietnam, by contrast, has repeatedly stepped up to the plate to reform its economy, said Asia Society Policy Institute vice president Wendy Cutler. Investment in future Cutler urged Vietnam to invest in more skills training, research, infrastructure, and technology to boost its productivity and climb up the value chain. Vietnam has a request for the United States, too. It wants to be recognized as having a market economy, which would spare it from some anti-dumping lawsuits. Some view Vietnams price caps and fixed currency rates as non-market controls. Yet the U.S. policy of quantitative easing has also been likened to currency manipulation because the governments money-printing affects exchange rates. In the meantime, Vietnam and the United States are making progress in other areas. For instance, the United States spends roughly $10 million a year to rid Vietnam of unexploded war ordnance. In nine provinces it provides aid to Vietnamese with disabilities potentially linked to the war, and Osius said he pushes for more support whenever he returns to Washington. Kenya's Communications Authority has issued a rule requiring all Internet users at cybercafes to produce identification cards or birth certificates.The authority says the move is designed to curb hacking and terrorism, but critics say it infringes upon constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. Dennis Mulandi, 24, a Nairobi entrepreneur, has run the Beats Cyber Cafe for four years. On average, about 100 customers frequent his establishment each day but they'll now have to show an ID to go online. Mulandi said the government's concern is misplaced. "You find there are other people who have their laptops at their houses, they have their Internet," he said. "So those people ... may be the ones hacking the government, not the people who are coming to the cybers, because we know all our clients. Vincent Ochieng, a frequent customer of cybercafes, said such establishments offer the convenience of accessing the Internet at an affordable price. The new rule, he said, will restrict freedoms guaranteed in Kenya's constitution. They are a violation to our freedom of association, freedom of movement, and I believe it will curtail many businesses, because we want to feel free," Ochieng said. "If youre going to browse, if youre going to exchange information, we dont want to be like the police is watching over us. Dr. Felix Odimmasi, an expert on international law and diplomacy at the University of Nairobi, said he doubted the new law would have the desired effect. They are not going to curb terrorism, because terrorists do not necessarily use cybercafes," Odimmasi said. "I dont think there are any cases that have been investigated that link terrorism to the use of cybercafes especially. Kenya's Communications Authority declined several requests to be interviewed for this story. Iranians go to the polls next month to elect two major bodies of leadership: the Parliament and the Assembly of Experts, the countrys top body of clerics. At the same time, as Iran prepares to rejoin world economic markets with the implementation of the Iran nuclear deal, the current secular government hopes its performance will ensure electoral victories in the upcoming polls. The deal, which aims to curb Irans nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, is seen as reformist President Hassan Rouhanis biggest foreign policy win, and it is expected to pump billions of dollars into the economy. As elections approach, the president and his allies are in a hurry to show the public and religious leaders this deal lives up to its promises, according to analysts. He is a bit of in a rush to implement and to have the sanctions lifted by election time, said Yan St.-Pierre, who heads the security consulting group Mosecon. So he can say, Look, my plan is actually working, we are on course. The elections will be critical in shaping Iranian policy for years to come, St. Pierre added. Other analysts warn that hardliners may seek to exploit what some see as failures, like the Iran-Saudi diplomatic dispute, to discredit reformers. It may turn off their supporters, the people who are looking for reform to give up the government and they would not support the elections, explained Camelia Entekhabifard, an Iranian author and news commentator. Ali Vaez, the International Crisis Group's senior analyst for Iran, said that if the diplomatic break with Saudi Arabia is used as a political tool ahead of elections, however, the results may be irrelevant. Voters go to the polls mostly motivated by domestic issues and not by foreign policy issues, he said. Clerics court widespread support The current Assembly of Experts also has a lot riding on the upcoming election, according to Entekhabifard, as it may be called upon to select a new Supreme Leader to replace 76-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. If he wants to resign, he wants to give up the power, if he dies during these eight years, she said, it is important that this assembly chooses the Supreme Leader by claiming having had a massive support of the people coming to cast their votes at this election. High voter turnout, she added, will ensure the Assembly of Experts maintains its authority as the country turns away from isolationism. In a speech last week, the Supreme Leader called on all voters even those that disagreed with him to turn up at the polls. I emphasize and insist that everybody should take part in our elections, he said. I have repeatedly said that even those who do not agree with the Islamic Republic should take part in our elections in order to safeguard the country and raise its status. The Assembly of Experts also has considerable power to affect the outcome of the election, according to St. Pierre of Mosecon. The religious body has the authority to accept or reject candidates before the vote. The vetting process allows them to put a candidate who will be more inclined to support their position in parliament, he said. So thats part of the process to ensure the upper circle the Assembly of Experts and the clerics, the Supreme Council maintain the ultimate power. This doesnt exclude the possibility that the newly-elected leadership will be more reform-minded, noted St. Pierre. And recent events, including the swift release of 10 U.S. sailors captured this week in Iranian waters, have signaled a shift in Iran that hasnt been seen since the current governmental system was formed after the 1979 revolution. The heart of the system, though, will remain the religious authorities who are quick to point out they remain decidedly anti-Western, despite their possibly grudging support for the Iran deal. A [parliament] that repeats what the enemy says in the case of nuclear negotiations or in the case of different other issues is very different from a [parliament] that is independent, liberated and courageous, the Supreme Leader said in his speech. Indonesian officials estimate there are between 200 and 300 IS sympathizers in country Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for carrying out Thursday's coordinated bomb and gun attacks in Indonesia's capital Jakarta that left seven people dead, including all five attackers. According to reports, IS has been recruiting in Indonesia, the worlds largest majority Muslim nation. Hundreds of Indonesians have left the country to join the group in Syria. Heres a look at IS activities in Indonesia: Q: How long has IS been active in Indonesia? According to Greg Fealy, an associate professor at the Australian National University who studies terrorism in Indonesia, the IS terror threat in Indonesia has been rising since mid-2014. Al Chaidar, a faculty member at the University of Malikussaleh in Indonesia, told VOAs Indonesian service in November that there were many IS sympathizers in Indonesia, though he did not have exact numbers. Indonesian officials estimate there are between 200 and 300 IS sympathizers in the country. The chief of Indonesias counterterrorism police, known as Detachment 88, said at a seminar in December that IS had repeatedly threatened to attack Indonesia, including after the IS attacks in Paris in October. A man claiming to be an IS leader in Indonesia, who goes by the name of Santoso, threatened to attack the Jakarta police headquarters and fly the black IS flag over the presidential palace, while another IS member, Salim Mubarik Attamini, has also vowed to attack the country. Q. How many Indonesians are fighting with IS in Syria and Iraq? Hundreds of fighters from Indonesia have reportedly traveled to join IS in Syria, including those with families who news reports say want to live in an Islamic country. Indonesias counterterrorism agency said in December that as many as 384 of the nations citizens have joined IS. Chaidar, however, believes that about 611 Indonesian are now training in Syria and that some of them have returned. Q. How many Indonesians have returned home after serving with IS? There are conflicting reports about the exact numbers of Indonesians who have returned. Government reports suggest anywhere from 169 to 300 Indonesians who fought for IS have returned home. According to counterterrorism officials, eight returnees were arrested in recent months for fighting alongside IS militants on the frontlines of the war in Syria. Q. How is IS funded in Indonesia? Indonesian officials say they have tracked a network of funding for terror coming in and out of Indonesia from across Southeast Asia. Some of the money may be used to initiate activities that support IS and terrorism activities or to finance aspiring militants' trips to Syria to join IS," Ade Bhakti, executive director of the Jakarta-based Center for Radicalism and Deradicalization Studies told the Bangkok Post. The Australian and Indonesian authorities discovered that the equivalent of about $450,000 was transferred from a suspected terrorist cell in Australia to Indonesia. The money is allegedly being used to fund terror in Indonesia. Q: How is Indonesia fighting IS? In order to counter the terrorist threat, the Indonesian government is pursuing a two-pronged policy of law enforcement operations and de-radicalization programs. Since most IS members in Indonesia are young, the countrys counterterrorism agency is trying to involve young people in a counter-radicalization drive and peace programs. According to countrys minister for law and security, the security and intelligence agencies have increased coordination to deal with potential threats from IS. The minister, Luhut Panjaitan, told reporters that the government is planning to take a soft approach toward alleged IS sympathizers, in contrast to Western counterterrorism practices, which he said have proved unsuccessful. Meanwhile, security forces last year conducted operations to hunt down the Santoso group aligned with IS in the northeastern city of Poso. In raids conducted against suspected IS affiliates in the Central Java city of Solo, security forces found IS paraphernalia, such as black flags and T-Shirts with IS logos . Still, Chaidar said Indonesian law enforcement's counterterrorism measures are largely weak and ineffective. He said that eight cities in Indonesia known for radicalism could be targeted by IS, including Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan, Lombok, Balikpapan, Tangerang, Depok and Bekasi. "Lasting defeat" has become a mantra for top U.S. officials when talking about the strategy to defeat Islamic State terrorists. "We must, we can and we will deliver a lasting defeat to ISIL, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told soldiers this week at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, using an acronym for the group. Carter used lasting defeat nine more times during his remarks that day, and twice more a day later at U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida, talking about the overall strategy to deal ISIL a lasting defeat. That objective has become a priority for the Obama administration and others who see Islamic State as an existential threat. Less clear is how that lasting defeat will be engineered and how long it will take. Building local forces The global jihadists will not be defeated until the ungoverned space in which they operate is eliminated, their ideology is discredited and stability is returned to the Middle East, Michael Vickers, a former undersecretary of defense for intelligence, told House Armed Services Committee members Tuesday. This will require a significant long-term investment in capacity building of indigenous forces, irregular as well as regular, and sustained U.S. engagement, he warned. Some of that is already underway, especially in Iraq, where U.S. and other coalition members have trained more than 17,000 Iraqi and Kurdish troops, according to coalition data. Another 2,800 Iraqi soldiers are currently in training, officials said. The U.S. has also been advising and assisting forces in Syria, though efforts to train moderate Syrian forces were scrapped. Still, former U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford told lawmakers those efforts might not be enough, especially as local forces in Syria, with the backing of U.S. and coalition airpower, make progress against Islamic State forces. Keeping lights, water on Local authorities who are trying to keep the electricity going, trying to keep hospitals going, trying to keep the water going are going to need help, Ford said. The Islamic State operated these things. When its gone, services must be maintained. And former officials caution that type of help will have to be given and sustained, even after Islamic State forces have been defeated militarily. I think youre looking at 10, 15, 20 years of U.S. commitment to this region in a very significant way, said former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morrell. We needed to be in South Korea for a very, very long time to maintain stability on the peninsula. U.S. officials also say Washington has provided Iraq with more than $600 million in humanitarian aid and has helped create a $50 million stabilization fund to help rebuild cities like Ramadi, largely destroyed in the fighting to root out Islamic State fighters. The U.S. has also spent more than $5 billion so far on humanitarian assistance to the Syrian people. Aftermath But some former officials warn that without a continued U.S. military presence, Iraq will be in danger of again falling victim to Islamic State or its successor. The point is not to pick up and completely leave, former CIA Director James Woolsey told VOA during a recent interview. We did not pick up and completely leave Germany or Japan after World War II. We did not pick up and leave South Korea after the Korean War. Where things have been successful, we have stayed, along with allies, and worked to bring the state along into democracy and prosperity. Yet while the U.S. has been willing to spend money on rebuilding infrastructure in countries like Iraq, there are questions about whether there is enough political willpower to undertake the type of comprehensive state-building efforts needed to heal long-standing rifts between Sunni and Shia communities and create effective governments. How do we get the constituencies that matter? said Sarah Chayes, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. How do we get them engaged in a process which arrives at an Iraq they can live in? Chayes, who served as a special adviser to Admiral Mike Mullen, a former U.S. Joint Chiefs chairman, said in Iraq after the fall of former dictator Saddam Hussein and in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban that the U.S. paid lip service to such efforts, leaving newly installed authorities on their own to deal with sectarian strife and corruption. These regimes went about deliberately imploding the institutional infrastructure that could have made for an alternative regime, she said, adding that there is still a need for significant tutelage. Sustainable stability In his address this week to soldiers about to deploy to Iraq to help in the effort to defeat the Islamic State group, Carter only went so far in addressing those concerns. "For our military efforts to produce lasting effects, we must set the conditions for sustainable political stability in the region, he said. In a Twitter town hall on Wednesday, Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman Colonel Steve Warren also acknowledged the challenge. A lasting defeat requires political reconciliation here in Iraq and an end to the civil war in Syria, he said. That can only come internally from the political process." Thursday's terrorist attacks in Jakarta have raised concern throughout Asia that the Islamic State group is attempting to create a caliphate in Indonesia, which has the largest Muslim population in the world. The attack in the capital killed two people along with five attackers, and prompted Indonesian authorities to call for cooperation with countries throughout Asia in the fight against Islamic extremism. It also follows the arrests in December of 13 men across the island of Java, including one Chinese Muslim Uighur with a suicide bomber vest. Indonesian authorities believe increasing numbers of Chinese are traveling to the country to wage jihad. Route for militants Biveer Singh of the Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore said Indonesia may be an increasingly popular transit route for militants seeking to join IS. Most of them are actually en route, either on the way to Syria and Iraq, and on the way back to Southeast Asia, or as some reports indicate, after having come back from Syria and Iraq, on the way back, then go to Southeast Asia," Singh said. The Chinese Uighur man was arrested December 23 in a house just outside of Jakarta. Authorities believe that he, and many others, are answering a call by Santoso, who lives in the jungles of eastern Indonesia, to fight for the Islamic State group. Todd Elliott, a terrorism analyst at Concord Consulting in Jakarta, says IS propaganda may be prompting Uighurs to leave Chinas westernmost province of Xinjiang. The spread of ISISs propaganda, Xinjiang is not immune to that. I think that is also prompting some Uighurs from that region to seek other countries for jihad," Elliott said. Chinese crackdown Protests and violence have killed hundreds over the past few years in Xinjiang, and many say religious repression and cultural genocide are inspiring Uighurs to leave China. Beijing has cracked down on the region in what it has called an attempt to root out terrorism. But some say it is a veiled effort to forcibly repress and assimilate the Uighur ethnic minority. This weeks attacks in Jakarta, and the arrest of a Chinese Uighur there last month, will likely bolster Chinas claim that the threat of terrorism within the mainland and abroad is growing. Wang Dong, a professor of International Relations at Peking University, said this shared threat will improve ties between China and Indonesia. This is actually an indication of really cooperation between China and Indonesia on terrorism, and also because China and Indonesia share the concern of the threat of terrorism," Wang said. Indonesia has been the target of several terrorist attacks, most notably the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people; mostly foreign tourists. A spokeswoman for the Bring Back Our Girls movement in Nigeria has again said it is the duty of the Nigerian government to rescue the Chibok girls from Boko Haram captivity, regardless which political party is in power. Aisha Yesufu said liberating the girls is not a privilege but a constitutional right that the Nigerian government must fulfill. The Islamist extremist group kidnapped more than 270 girls from a boarding school in Chibok, northern Nigeria in April 2014. On Thursday, President Muhammadu Buhari met with about 300 parents and sympathizers of the girls, and promised he will launch a new inquiry into the circumstances leading to the kidnapping. But the parents left the meeting feeling less optimistic that the government would do whatever is necessary to liberate the girls, Yesufu said. First of all, the president failed to make any connection with the parents of the girls who today have spent 21 months since they were abducted. There was no personal connection. The president finished his talk at the microphone and walked out. That was an opportunity for us as a nation to connect with the parents and after that apologize to them for what has happened and make them feel that they are not alone in this whole tragedy that has befallen them, she said. Yesufu said Buhari basically reiterate what he had said earlier, that he had no credible intelligence on the whereabouts of the Chibok girls and that he is still waiting for the credible leadership of the Boko Haram group to come meet him and negotiate their release. Also, there were so many things that he did mention, the fact that the fight against terrorism that he has embarked on should be appreciated; and also that the Chibok girls were not abducted during his regime. They were abducted during the previous regime, she said. But Yesufu said whoever is president of Nigeria is responsible for rescuing the Chibok girls. First of all, there is no vacuum in the governance irrespective of during whose administration the girls were abducted. It is the duty of the Nigerian government to ensure that the Chibok girls are rescued, and whoever is head of the Nigerian government is responsible for the rescue of the Chibok girls, Yesufu said. She said Buhari also told the parents that his government is fighting a war on corruption, and that a lot of money that was supposed to be used to arm the military in the fight against Boko Haram went into the hands of individuals and that his government is trying to recover the stolen money. Yesufu said the Bring Back Our Girls movement will continue to agitate until the girls are released. We will not allow Nigerians, we will not allow the government to forget the girls or treat the demand for their release as an irritating issue. We will focus on it, and we will keep calling on the government to ensure that the girls are brought back home. It doesnt matter during what administration the Chibok girls were abducted. All that matters is that the Nigerian government must rescue the girls, and in doing so must realize that they are not doing the Chibok girls a privilege by rescuing them, she said. North Koreas purported nuclear test might be an attempt to seek attention from the United States, a former U.S. envoy said. The announcement that the communist country successfully tested a hydrogen bomb came as a surprise, prompting analysts to wonder what might have motivated Pyongyang to make the provocative move. Some say internal politics might have played a role in the decision, and others cite deteriorating ties between North Korea and China, adding Pyongyang did not notify its ally of the test in advance. Bill Richardson, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. who extensively dealt with North Koreans, told VOA Wednesday Pyongyangs sudden move might be aimed at steering Washingtons attention toward it. Seeking attention Were still around. I know you are all worried about the Middle East, Iran and Saudi Arabia, but we still are here in Northeast Asia, said the former ambassador, meaning that's what North Korean officials are likely thinking. Richardson said Pyongyang's message to Washington is this. We are not going to give up our nuclear proliferation. We are not going to give up developing nuclear weapons. This is our fourth and you need to deal with us, the envoy said. The former ambassador called on Washington to change its approach to Pyongyang, saying the current policy has failed to stop Pyongyangs nuclear development. Sanctions, strategic patience have not moved North Korea to stop developing their nuclear weapons, he argued. Instead, Richardson called for fresh diplomatic efforts involving key members of the Six-Party Talks, multi-state nuclear talks, in what he called a readjustment of the policy. Richardsons comments came amid criticism that the United States might have overlooked the North Korean nuclear issue while trying to resolve disputes over Irans nuclear development. Some critics noted President Barack Obama did not mention the nuclear test when he laid out U.S. foreign policys priorities in his highlighted State of the Union address this week. North Korea overlooked? The White House dismissed the criticism, saying the North Korean nuclear issue is a huge priority to the president. If theres one thing I know about the leader of North Korea, he likes attention Ben Rhodes, Obamas deputy national security adviser, told reporters in reference to Obamas speech. We didnt particularly feel compelled to give him that attention, added Rhodes. Despite North Koreas apparent unwillingness to give up nuclear weapons, there are still incentives for Pyongyang to negotiate away the weapons, according to Richardson. I do believe they have an incentive. I think North Korea realistically has to find ways to improve their economic life, the envoy said. A Norwegian educational program for migrants and refugees that focuses on the treatment of women is attracting attention in the wake of mass New Year Eve assaults on women in Cologne, Germany. Reports that women in Germany, Sweden and elsewhere have been sexually harassed by men from the Middle East, northern Africa and Asia have sparked outrage across Europe. Governments are forced to look for solutions, including deportation of offenders and educating immigrants about western laws and values. The Hero Kompetanse center in the northern Norwegian city of Stavanger offers courses in Norwegian language and culture to refugees and asylum seekers. Many students in this class came from countries where women have little or no freedom. "In my home country, women just sit at home, make food and clean the house and stuff like that. They only do work at home," said Hienok Brane, an asylum seeker from Eritrea. "I have to decide for the women. That was what I thought when I first came to Norway. But now I agree that we [men and women] stand together in this system." An important part of the training focuses on the prevention of rape, according to Linda Hagen, who is with the Hero Kompetanse Migrant Center. "The course is about rape preventing and it teaches migrants the Norwegian social codes," she said. Europe's Tough Measures The two-year pilot program has caught the attention of other European countries following reports of sexual assaults by foreign men on women in Europe. German officials have announced tough measures for such crimes. "Foreigners who commit crimes in Germany will be deported more rapidly in the future, based on the proposals the interior minister [Thomas Maiziere] and I have made," said German Justice Minister Heiko Maas. "They will also lose their refugee status more quickly." Rights groups and Muslims have called such steps hasty and unjustified. "We have seen it again and again how women were abused, mistreated and discriminated. But this subject never got the attention that was required before," said Aiman Mazyek, president of the German Council of Muslims. "It would be fatal to do it now in connection with refugees. We need to talk about it. We need the discussion. But please let's not do it at the expense of refugees. This is a general problem. And part of the solution is tougher punishments for sex crimes. We do support that." Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven promised a thorough probe into allegations that the police covered up accusations of sexual assault by migrant youths at a music festival in Stockholm. He also pointed out that harassment of women is not a new phenomenon. "It's not as if sexual harassment has just appeared now. Unfortunately, it's been around forever and many women have experienced it during many, many years eternally," he said. Assaults on women by foreign men in Cologne have provoked mass anti-immigrant protests in Germany, but they also sparked a debate on the widespread abuse of women everywhere and a lack of laws to protect them. Officials in Afghanistan say they could not confirm the death of a top commander of the Islamic State group in Afghanistan. On Thursday, the Afghan officials had said a U.S. drone strike killed Islamic States top commander in the area along with at least 11 other insurgents. But Achin district Governor Haji Ghalib, who had reported Hafiz Saeed Khans death Thursday, told VOAs Afghan Service Friday: The information we received yesterday was not accurate. After receiving accurate information, we realized he had not been killed. Nevertheless, Ghalib said that 12 IS fighters, including an IS commander, had been killed in Thursdays drone strike in the region. Colonel Mohammad Numan Hatifi, a spokesman for the 201st Army Corps in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, also dismissed reports of Hafiz Saeed Khans death. The report was a lie, he told VOA. Hafiz Sayeed is not in Afghanistan. Hes in Pakistan. There is no independent confirmation Khan is inside Pakistan. The Islamic State group did not have any immediate comment about Thursday's drone strike. Khan, a former Taliban commander who switched sides to join the Islamic State militant group more than a year ago, was said to have been killed six months ago, but the terrorist group denied that report at the time. Authorities in Pakistan have made fresh arrests as part of their crackdown on Islamic State loyalists to prevent the Middle Eastern terror group from establishing a foothold in the country. The arrests came as a top Pakistani leader dismissed U.S. President Barack Obamas assertions in his annual State of the Union address this week that Pakistan will be among the countries where instability will continue for decades in the wake of the threat from IS and al-Qaida. Pakistani media reports said Friday that counterterrorism forces have rounded up 60 suspected IS supporters from different cities of the northwestern Khyber Pkhtunkhwa province as well as adjoining tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. Information gleaned from IS supporters detained in recent weeks from parts of the countrys most populous province, Punjab, had reportedly led Pakistani authorities to make the fresh arrests. Without giving any other details, a senior provincial security official, on condition of anonymity, confirmed to VOA the arrests of a few people who were in possession of IS literature. The Pakistan government has vowed not to allow IS to establish a foothold in the country and cites raids against suspected cells of the group as a practical demonstration of its resolve. We have taken decisive action against terrorism, Sartaj Aziz, Pakistani advisor to the prime minister on foreign policy, told reporters in Islamabad Friday. Diminished threat When asked whether he agreed with President Obamas concerns about future instability in Pakistan, Aziz characterized them as mere predictions, and insisted that unlike the rest of the world, terrorism in his country is going down because of a focused national policy against the threat. These are obviously (Obama's) apprehensions and we have to prove through our both action as well policies that his prediction will not come out true as far as Pakistan (is concerned), Aziz asserted. The advisor noted that instability in Afghanistan remains a source of worry for Pakistan but it is working with the neighboring country to help it become more stable. IS, which controls large territories in Iraq and Syria, has found some bases particularly in eastern Afghan areas on the Pakistani border. The Middle Eastern terrorist group identifies Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of Iran as its Khorsan province. Early last year it appointed a Pakistani militant leader, Hafiz Saeed Khan, as its emir (chief) for the region who is believed to be based on the Afghan side of the long porous border. Khorasan classification In Washington, the U.S. government announced Thursday that Islamic State - Khorasan is now formally listed as a foreign terrorist organization. It said Islamic State's regional operatives are primarily former members of the Afghan Taliban and the Tehrik-e-Taliban group waging a bloody insurgency against the state of Pakistan. Islamic State - Khorasan, which is about one-year-old, said its first major attack in Afghanistan, on Wednesday, targeted Pakistans consulate in Jalalabad, the capital of the eastern Afghan border province of Nangarhar. The assault left seven Afghan security personnel dead and caused injuries to at least ten people, including a Pakistani staff member at the diplomatic facility, according to officials. Meanwhile, authorities in the Afghan province said it is unclear whether a U.S. drone strike Thursday killed Khan, along with 11 other militants in Achin district, which is believed to be and IS stronghold in Afghanistan. U.S. confirmed a strike in Achin District, Nangarhar province January 14 against a threat to the force. At this time we cannot confirm the claim that Hafiz Saeed (Khan) was involved in this strike, the U.S. military said in a brief statement sent to VOA. United Nations aid agencies say many people in the besieged Syrian government-controlled town of Madaya have starved to death, while children suffering from severe levels of malnutrition are barely clinging to life. The U.N. agencies report people in Madaya are in poor condition after having been deprived of food, medicine and other essential life-giving supplies since October. The agencies succeeded in delivering desperately needed humanitarian aid on Monday, with U.N. aid workers saying they were shocked by what they saw. The spokesman for the U.N. Childrens Fund, Christophe Boulierac, says the U.N. found severe levels of malnutrition in the children. He says some were so weakened from lack of food that they died in front of those who came too late to help them. The people they met in Madaya were exhausted and extremely frail," he said. "Doctors were emotionally distressed and mentally drained, working around the clock with very limited resources to provide treatment to children and people in need. Boulierac says UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and Syrian Arab Red Crescent plan to make a nutritional assessment of the pressing needs on Sunday. The World Food Program has brought a month's supply of wheat flour for Madayas 39,000 inhabitants, as well as therapeutic food for children and other vital aid. Spokeswoman Bettina Luescher says WFPs nutritionist, who was part of the convoy, described the situation as very bad. The adults looked very emaciated. According to a member of the relief committee, 32 people have died of starvation in the last 30-day periodThe World Food Program is appealing that we can get into those places regularly," she said. "We need to be able to have continuous access to these people in order to really help. Once a month is not enough, so we are hoping that the convoy will be able to go in, in the next few days. The United Nations and other international agencies are planning to send more convoys in to Madaya, as well as to rebel-controlled besieged areas of Foua and Kefraya in Idlib province in the coming days. In the meantime, the World Health Organization reports a first mobile clinic left for Madaya Friday after reaching an agreement with the Syrian government for this vital medical operation to go ahead. WHO says it hopes the government also will agree to allow the start of a much needed vaccination campaign in Madaya next week. More than a thousand people, from the homeless to paroled prisoners to refugees to impoverished children, were treated to a day at the circus Thursday in Rome, courtesy of Pope Francis. The Vatican ferried the guests to the big-top show on the outskirts of Rome, the latest gesture of affection for the poor and needy, which has been a hallmark of Francis' papacy. Francis did not attend the show, but the audience was treated to such typical circus acts as knife throwing, prancing white horses and singing. One of the attendees, a homeless Polish man called Marek, said the event satisfied the common need for "a bit of fun." "We can't always be sad for the things that have happened. We need to be able to find a small, small space to be lighthearted," he said. The event also offered showers, shaves and medical care in St. Peter's Square for the homeless and needy. The owner of the Rony Roller Circus called Thursday's show a very emotional one. Francis met with a group of circus performers last year, saying they "create beauty" that is good for the soul. President Muhammadu Buhari this week announced that Nigeria would investigate the 2014 mass kidnapping of school girls from the northeastern town of Chibok by Boko Haram militants. But advocates for the missing students release are skeptical of how much a probe could accomplish nearly two years after they were taken. The Chibok kidnapping is perhaps the most notorious episode in Boko Harams nearly seven-year quest to impose strict Islamic law in the northeast. It brought international attention to Boko Haram and criticism to Nigerias government in a way few of the groups previous atrocities had. Nearly two years later, the 219 girls held by the group have yet to be found and Boko Haram is far from a spent force: their attacks have forced over 2 million people to flee their homes and have killed more than 20,000, according to United Nations estimates. Buhari announced on Thursday that the national security adviser would name a panel to investigate the Chibok kidnapping. The news came on the heels of an unscheduled meeting between Buhari, parents of the missing students, and activists pressing for their release. If the investigation is properly done, it would shed more light onto why it happened and ways in which government can ensure such incidents dont happen again in the nearest future, said Rotimi Olawole, a spokesman for Bring Back Our Girls, an advocacy group that has been holding demonstrations calling for the students rescue. Some are skeptical This isnt the first time Nigeria has announced they would investigate the attack. Former president Goodluck Jonathans administration announced an investigation weeks after the abductions. But Manasseh Allen, a Chibok resident who has advocated for the girls release, said the investigators commissioned by the Jonathan administration didnt seem to do much. They came to Chibok in a chopper, landed, just greeted the parents ... and they are up again, Allen said. Aside that one, there was never any form of investigation. He was pessimistic about what this new probe could accomplish. I dont see investigation that is almost one year close to date is going to bring out anything, he said. Olawole said Bring Back Our Girls had been trying to get a copy of any reports the earlier investigation had produced, but had been unsuccessful thus far. Some were hopeful that the investigation would turn over new information. Chibok resident Ayuba Alamson says authorities never interviewed him nor many other people who were in Chibok during the attack. He hoped the inquiry would shed light on whether there was evidence the attack was coming, and why the government school in Chibok was open in April 2014 when so many other schools had shut due to Boko Haram violence. We are still demanding a comprehensive investigation to be carried out and for the work to be made known to these parents, relations and the whole world, Alamson said. Buhari said in a recent chat with journalists that the government had yet to locate the girls. He said hed be open to negotiating for their release, if Boko Harams leadership could be located. Gaetan Ziga and his band are rehearsing for a concert. Outside, the sounds of sirens ring out and hooded men lurk in the shadows the usual fare in Paris' gritty La Chapelle neighborhood where they practice. But another sound is coming from inside the small studio, as the band picks over a section of La Rosee du Matin, or Morning Dew, the title track of Zigas new album about refugees. As the bands lead guitar player and vocalist, Ziga doesnt have to look far for inspiration. Immigrants from all parts of the world squat in tent camps around the city until authorities demolish them. Some count among the wave of asylum seekers who have poured into Europe over the past year. In countries like Poland and Croatia, many have been met with rising walls and closed doors. The welcome is even fading in Germany, which took in more than one million migrants last year, after Arab men were among those blamed for New Years Eve attacks in Cologne. Not so in the music industry, where the influx of newcomers has instead sparked an artistic awakening of sorts. German punk rock band Die Arzte has dusted off its 1992 song, "Cry For Love," which soared in the charts recently in response to far-right attacks on refugee shelters. Russian group Pussy Riot has released a tough new video demanding that European governments "let refugees in." Another music video released in Britain features the Crowded House song, "Help is Coming," played to haunting images of refugees with British actor Benedict Cumberbatch urging the world to respond. Proceeds from that video are going to the international charity Save the Children. A sign of the times The impact of something like the "Help is Coming single is as much getting people aware of the issue, getting them engaged, getting them emotionally involved as the money its raised, said Nicole Itano, who runs Save the Childrens creative department in Britain. She also said the charity did not drive the campaign; its supporters did. Increasingly were seeing the most successful things are those enabling our supporters to advocate and raise money on our behalf, she said. The refugee music has a star-studded precedent: the 1985 Live Aid event raised over $100 million for famine relief in Ethiopia, but left a mixed legacy. Critics described the worldwide concerts that drew stars like U2 and Madonna as clumsy and patronizing and suggested some of the funds were badly spent. University of Sussex history professor Lucy Robinson said Live Aid also changed negative perceptions about the music industry and the era. It became the go-to image of proving that the 1980's wasnt all greed and individualness, that pop music wasnt all Duran Duran on yachts and piles of cocaine, she said. It was also about media technology of simultaneous broadcasts and the world working together to solve a global crisis. Robinson said she became an expert in charity music almost by accident, collecting secondhand albums of what she called cheesy songs youre never going to play. If theyre going to be any good, theyve got to be really bad, she said, laughing. Its a proper donation to buy something you dont even want. Back to roots Todays charity music is almost a return to its pre-Live Aid roots, that earlier idea of urgency and swift responses, throwing it all together and spontaneity, Robinson said. In some ways, that captures Reach Out a download only album bringing together Welsh groups like Super Furry Animals. Welsh journalist David Owens founded the project, whose proceeds go to British charity Refugee Action. The idea came after I saw pictures of Aylan Kurdi washed up on the Turkish shore, Owens said of the drowned Syrian toddler whose death briefly galvanized international outrage over the plight of refugees. I have a 6-year-old daughter, and I think it just resonated hugely with me," he said. "I just couldnt believe we lived in a day and age when this sort of thing keeps happening. Gaetan Ziga knows the hardships facing asylum seekers better than most musicians. At least once a week, hes up before dawn, serving coffee to immigrants as head of a youth volunteer group in the Essence area outside Paris. Its really good that Gaetan puts what he witnesses into music, said a regional Secours Catholique organizer Francois-Marie Debont, who works with him. And hes someone who has lived things a bit from the inside. Indeed, Ziga is an immigrant himself, arriving in France from his native Cameroon at the age of 13. Eight years later, he became a French citizen. His Catholic faith and his family have taught him to reach out to those less fortunate, he said. The family recently raised funds to build a hospital near his native village. When I was a child, my mother used to go to town to sell our harvest, and shed sometimes return with an orphan whom we raised, he says. Its an education I cant forget. Anger about Europes treatment of asylum seekers drove Ziga to write his latest album. Im not a specialist on how to welcome people in, he says. But everybody has the right to live in peace and liberty. Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn on Friday rejected Mexico's claim that his secret meeting with Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was crucial to the drug kingpin's recapture, saying officials were trying to put him in the crosshairs of the feared cartel. Penn also told talk show host Charlie Rose that he regrets the fallout from the Rolling Stone article based on his interview with Guzman. Their meeting in a jungle hideout was the first interview anyone scored with the fugitive drug lord, and Penn said he had hoped it would spur a broader discussion on the drug war. In Penn's first major television interview about the meeting, Rose asked the actor whether he believed Mexico President Enrique Pena Nieto's government had deliberately sought to credit him with Guzman's capture to put him at risk from the Sinaloa Cartel. "Yes," Penn replied. "There is this myth about the visit that we made, my colleagues and I with El Chapo, that it was... 'essential' to his capture," Penn said. "We know the Mexican government, they clearly were humiliated by the notion that someone found him before they did," added Penn. The actor, who has won Oscars for "Mystic River" and "Milk," said he met Guzman "many weeks" before his arrest, in a location far from where the kingpin fell into police hands in northern Mexico six months after staging a spectacular prison break through a tunnel in his cell floor. "I have a terrible regret," Penn said in the interview recorded on Thursday in California. "I have a regret that the entire discussion about this article ignores its purpose, which was to try to contribute to this discussion about the policy on the war on drugs." "Let me be clear. My article has failed," said Penn. Rolling Stone published Penn's article on Saturday, a day after Guzman's recapture. The piece cited the drug lord boasting about smuggling drugs into the United States, and about laundering ill-gotten gains. Guzman's lawyer on Wednesday accused Penn of lying, and said he should be called to give evidence. "He (Guzman) could not have made these claims... Mr Guzman is a very serious man, very intelligent," Badillo said. "Where's the proof? Where's the audio?" Neither Penn's publicist nor Rolling Stone have commented on Badillo's claims. The excerpt of the Rose interview, published ahead of its full airing on CBS on Sunday, did not address the lawyer's comments. A government spokesman said on Tuesday that Mexico was not directly investigating Penn nor his companion, actress Kate del Castillo, but rather the circumstances around the meeting. After half a decade of hard times, U.S. car manufacturers sold more automobiles last year to American customers than ever before. The cars Americans are driving are more fuel-efficient and typically loaded with electronic devices. But within a decade, manufacturers say drivers should expect semi-autonomous and fully autonomous cars that will make driving safer and less tiring. In 2004 U.S. military research agency DARPA challenged automotive engineers to try to build a self-driving car. Though the course had only simple obstacles and no other traffic, none of the vehicles reached the end. Twelve years later the technology has advanced so far that manufacturers are testing it on roads with real traffic, trying to make it absolutely safe for both passengers and pedestrians. I figured if I was able to make a car that was smart enough to drive itself, I could probably make a car that was smart enough to be a bit safer. So from my perspective, safety has always been our priority," said Ford's James McBride. Google admits that its experimental self-driving cars have had some close calls, but points out that in late 2014 incidents happened once every 1,300 kilometers, while last year they happened once every 8,500 kilometers. And it's not just about the safety, manufacturers also have to make sure consumers are willing to let go of the wheel. We don't want to go too far too fast because the customer may not be expecting that. There's a learning curve that has to take place," said Kia's Joseph Steffey. One thing that can help customers get used to not being in control is the driving simulator. Wearing virtual reality goggles drivers can experience the sensation of being passive behind the steering wheel. Some cars are already equipped with electronics stemming from the DARPA Grand Challenge, such as laser proximity sensors, video cameras, lane-change warning lights and other devices. Researchers say future cars will also be able to communicate with the world around them, such as pedestrians smart phones. We can see where that pedestrian is walking, and then we can actually pick them up if they walk out in front of the car, and the car will choose to stop," said Steffey. Experts say that safe and affordable self-driving cars should be available to the average consumer within four to five years. Calls to end police brutality and establish meaningful criminal justice reforms have become a part of the political debate in the upcoming U.S. presidential election. One group is taking credit for pushing the issues: Black Lives Matter. The social justice movement thrust its agenda to the forefront of the race for the White House this November. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), who supports the movement, said Black Lives Matter activists can take a great deal of credit for moving the criminal justice agenda forward. The movement changed the attitudes and mindsets of people about police-community relations, gun violence and the crisis mode we need to be in to pass criminal justice reform, Lee said. Black Lives Matter began non-violent street protests after the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012. The organization gained national attention following the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was shot and killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. Since then, the deaths of other unarmed black males at the hands of police officers have inspired more protests across the country. Now the movement has gotten the attention of politicians running for the White House as it has forced some of the candidates to grapple with the thorny issue of racial inequality. The group has also disrupted some political events. The movement forced some campaigns to schedule meetings with its activists to discuss common sense solutions. Our activists look forward to discussing their concerns with other presidential candidates in the future, said Julius Jones, founder of the Black Lives Matter chapter in Worcester, Massachusetts. "Each one is being made to offer their racial analysis in the United States. We require that they have an understanding of it. Whatever it takes to get Black Lives Matter on the national agenda is what we're seeking to do and it's important to note that folks want to characterize and judge the movement in a myriad of ways, but what no one can argue with is this is a pressing issue," Jones said. Last August 2015, a video was released showing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton meeting with Black Lives Matter activists. Look, I don't believe you change hearts," Clinton said, arguing that the movement can't change deep-seated racism. "I believe you change laws, you change allocation of resources, you change the way systems operate. You're not going to change every heart. You're not." Her challenger, Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT), also met with representatives of Black Lives Matter and pledged to make meaningful criminal justice reforms a priority if he's elected president. Among the Republican presidential hopefuls, only former Florida governor Jeb Bush has spoken directly with advocates for the Black Lives Matter movement. "I am committed to restoring opportunity for all Americans and addressing criminal justice reforms," Bush said. Washington attorney and community activist Nkechi Taifa believes the movement can be a force during the presidential race by addressing issues like mass incarceration, especially among African Americans. "It is not to say that all lives do not matter. What it means is that specific attention at this period, at this time, needs to be placed on people who are most adversely impacted by the laws and policies that are going on," she said. Alicia Garza, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter, said the group would not endorse a presidential candidate in the 2016 election. "In the future, the organization may become more involved with candidates and parties, and even run candidates, but we're not there yet. Each candidate should expect to be held accountable," she said. "That is our political position in this current election cycle." Turkish authorities have detained at least 14 academics accused of supporting "terror propaganda" after they signed a petition calling for an end to the government's crackdown on Kurdish rebels. The arrests drew international condemnation and expressions of concern about freedom of expression in the country. The state-run Anadolu news agency said the academics from Kocaeli University, near Istanbul, were detained during raids at their homes early Friday, adding that others were set to be taken in. The detainees were among more than 1,200 academics who signed a statement condemning Turkey's "deliberate massacres and deportation" of Kurdish people in the southeastern part of the country. The petition also called for an immediate end to the use of curfews and the resumption of the peace process with the PKK Kurdish rebel group. Notable names Among the petition's notable foreign signatories were Noam Chomsky, the renowned U.S. leftist political analyst and linguist, and Slavoj Zizek, the prominent Slovenian philosopher and Marxist intellectual. The academics were detained under laws about threatening the integrity of the state and terrorist propaganda, which can carry long prison terms. Prosecutors opened investigations into more than 130 academics who signed the petition in Istanbul. Similar investigations are being carried out across the country. Also, the state body that administers universities announced that it was launching disciplinary probes. The detentions were condemned by opposition parties, with one describing them as a dark stain on Turkish democracy. Emma Sinclair-Webb, senior Turkey researcher of U.S.-based Human Rights Watch, called the detentions alarming. "It marks a new threshold, really," she said. "It shows that there is an intolerance of even the most mild calls for political negotiations with the PKK, rather than military solutions to the Kurdish issue. We havent for many years in this country seen academics targeted in such a way. It's an extremely chilling and intimidating move." But Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu strongly defended the crackdown. No country would consider supporting or collaborating with a terror organization as freedom of expression, he said. 'So-called intellectuals' The arrests came a day after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said those who had signed the petition were traitors and supported terrorism. Erdogan has described the academics as "so-called intellectuals" and "the darkest of people;" but the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, John Bass, strongly condemned the crackdown in a written statement, saying it was having a chilling effect on legitimate political discourse across Turkish society. Observers said that was likely to be the object of the prosecutions as a message to those critical of the current crackdown on the PKK to remain silent. Turkish forces launched a new offensive in July against the PKK in southeastern Turkey, a move that ended a cease-fire of more than two years between the militants and the government. Erdogan further pledged in November to continue until every one of the militants was defeated. Turkey, the United States and European Union all consider the PKK to be a terror group. The conflict between Turkey and the PKK has left 40,000 people dead since 1984. Terrorism and Russian sanctions have left Turkeys already struggling economy bracing for the worst. Tourism seems sure to take hit, analysts say, after a suicide bomber aligned with Islamic State (IS) blew himself up in a crowd of German tourists this week, killing 10. German tourists make up roughly 15 percent of Turkeys tourism industry, which earns the country $34 billion annually. Who will want to come to Turkey now? asked Refet Kayakiran, a Turkish tourism expert. After the bombing, Turkey tourism is finished," he added, noting the rash of German tourism cancellations. The bombing came as the Turkish economy starts to see the effects of Russian sanctions, which Moscow imposed following a diplomatic row with Ankara over Turkeys downing of a Russian fighter jet in along the Turkish-Syrian border last November. Turkey said the jet, operating in support of government forces against rebels in Syria's civil war, entered its air space a charge Russia denied. Russia's sanctions are largely aimed at Turkeys tourist, agricultural and banking sectors. "Turkey will lose $3.1 billion worth of trade in 2016 due to Russian economic sanctions," Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek said last week at a meeting in Washington. Kayakiran said the combination of Russian sanctions and terrorism fears will have a ripple effect, hurting not only hotels and resorts, but also shop owners, cab drivers and street vendors, whose livelihoods depend on visitors. Making up for these losses may take many years, he said. How can you calculate that in numbers? Russia has banned the import of Turkish fruits and vegetables, poultry and even salt. Russia has 60 percent of our fruit and vegetable exports, said Burhan Er, the president of the Turkish Fruit and Vegetable Sellers Association. We lost all of that. Russia is a big market for us. Russian Tourists Moscow also banned the sale of charter vacations to Turkey for Russian citizens. In Istanbuls touristy Laleli area, where shops sell mostly leather products, clothes, carpets, and souvenirs, the impact is already seen. Business with Russia was already slowing down, said Laleli businessman Zafer Soylu. The downing of the Russian jet added to that. Many shops around here will have to close. Losing Russian tourists could cost Turkey more than $3 billion a year, according to industry experts. In 2014 alone, 4.5 million Russian tourists visited Turkey. Food Exports, Energy The Russian ban on imported Turkish food products will mean financial losses of about $764 million, the Turkish Agriculture Ministry said last week. Moscow has also suspended a new pipeline project called "Turkish Stream" that was to deliver natural gas exports to Turkey. Russia's state nuclear company Rosatom suspended work on a $20 billion nuclear plant in Akkuyu, Turkey. Aydin Sezer, a former trade official who represented the Turkish government in Moscow, told VOA that Russian sanctions would cost Turkey more than $12 billion annually four times Turkish government estimates. One of Turkey's biggest financial institutions, Is Bankasi, said in a report on the impact of Russian sanctions that exports, along with trade and construction revenue, will be the "hardest hit areas" for Turkey. At best, Turkey's annual losses will be $4.4 billion; in the worst-case scenario, it could reach to $7.3 billion, the report said. Turkish exports to Russia in 2015 were valued at nearly $4 billion, according to government figures. The top three Turkish export items to Russia are fruits and vegetables, textile products and motor vehicles. Turkey's imports from Russia were more than $25 billion in 2014 and a little more than $21 billion in 2015. Oil and natural gas imports counted for more than $16 billion in 2014 and almost $13 billion last year. Iron, steel and other metal imports also top the list. Turkey and Russia have, to varying degrees, long been in a proxy war in Syria, with Russia backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Turkey supporting Assad's Sunni opponents. Turkey has also recently increased its cooperation with the international coalition against IS in Syria. Uganda's electoral commission plans to meet next week with representatives of the country's eight presidential candidates, political parties and stakeholders to explain its decision to use a biometric system to verify voters in the February 18 general election. This would be the first time that the electoral body employs a biometric system, which uses human body characteristics to confirm a person's identity. Jotham Taremwa, a spokesman for the electoral commission, says the deployment of the biometric verification mechanism at all polling stations across the country will significantly boost the credibility of the presidential, legislative and local elections. The commission has begun training its officers in how to use the system. "For the first time in our history of elections in Uganda, we are going to use biometric voter verification equipment at every polling station. When you come as a voter, the machine identifies you as so and your voting status by using either your thumbprint or a barcode on the back of your national ID [identification] or a barcode on the voter location's list that we will be issuing at least two weeks before the polling," Taremwa said. "We are going to engage with all the parties and the official agents of the candidates to talk about this machine, he said, but also demonstrate to them on how it would be used and what advantages come with it. And later we will roll out to our districts, sub-counties and parishes. So that by the time we go to the polling, everybody would appreciate and know how the machine works." One man, one vote The electoral commission compiled the voter list to be used for the elections using the biometric system to register prospective Ugandan voters. Taremwa says it would be improper for the biometric system to be used to compile the voter list but not used for the elections. Civil society and opposition groups have urged the electoral commission to ensure there are backup machines in case there are malfunctions, as happened in some African countries during polling. "So far we have received about 17,000 out of over 30,000 machines we require," Taremwa said. "We have about 1,400 sub-counties in Uganda and each sub-county will have at least two machines that we will used in case there is a technical problem on one of the machines within that sub-county." Opposition supporters have also questioned the timing of the decision to deploy the biometric verification system in this year's polling. They said the electoral commission ignored previous demands that the system be used to ensure credible and transparent elections. "It is part of our operational reforms as electoral commission to ensure that the principle of one man, one vote holds. And that is why we needed that machine to identify the voter and then we can check that voter in the register, but also ensure that we know somebody's voting status," Taremwa said. "Previously, when we didn't have biometric voter registration, somebody would vote ... and drive his vehicle and vote 30 kilometers [away]. So there were chances that the process could be rigged. But this time we think we are [stopping] that one." Meanwhile, the ballot papers to be used for the elections are being printed both locally and internationally. The electoral commission says companies in Uganda, South Africa, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom are in the advanced stages of printing the sensitive documents to be used at the polls. Fears are growing that the rising ethnic divide in Burundi is beginning to resemble the situation that preceded Rwandas 1994 genocide, which killed some 800,000 people, mainly Tutsis, by Hutus. "All the alarm signals, including the increasing ethnic dimension of the crisis, are flashing red," U.N. rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein warned in a statement. Zeid is clearly worried about emerging new trends in Burundi, including cases of sexual violence by security forces and a sharp increase in forced disappearances. He says says he has evidence women have been sexually violated by security forces because of their Tutsi ethnicity. He warns "a complete breakdown of law and order is just around the corner." He released a statement Friday saying a series of raids Burundian security forces conducted on December 11 against opposition supporters' houses triggered human rights violations. He said there were reports of gang-rapes of women during the raids and reports from locals that there were mass graves in the area. Zeid says the reports set off "all alarm signals, including a dimension of growing ethnic crisis." Burundi's army reported on December 12 that at least 87 people were killed in the capital, Bujumbura, by what it said were attacks on three military installations by unknown gunmen. Eye witness accounts But witnesses, who told reporters they emerged from hiding Saturday to find hundreds of corpses in the streets, said some of the victims had been dragged from their homes by security forces and executed. The army has declined to address those allegations. The high commissioners spokesman, Rupert Colville, says the U.N. has documented 13 cases of sexual violence against women during search and arrest operations following the December events. He says new cases of sexual violence are continuing to emerge, noting victims of these operations say they were targeted because they were Tutsis. The suggestion that an ethnic dimension is now starting to emerge is reinforced by one of the sexually abused women who said that her abuser told her she was paying the price for being a Tutsi," Colville said. "Another witness claimed that Tutsis were systematically killed, while Hutus were spared. Colville says the U.N. Human Rights office also has received numerous allegations that many young men were picked up by police and army forces during this search operation. He says many were later tortured, killed, or taken to unknown destinations. He says the high commissioner is particularly alarmed at the increasing number of disappearances, coupled with allegations of secret detention facilities and mass graves. Witnesses have reported the existence of at least nine mass graves in Bujumbura and its surroundings including one in a military camp," Colville said. "And, together, they are believed to contain more than 100 bodies in total, all of them allegedly killed on the 11th of December. High Commissioner Zeid is calling for an urgent impartial investigation into the events on December 11 and 12, including the alleged mass graves. He says it is critical for these grave sites to be safeguarded. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday he is deeply concerned about Burundi's instability and called on Burundi's leaders to take steps to build confidence, including releasing political prisoners and lifting restrictions on civil society. State of crisis Peace talks set to be held in Tanzania were canceled earlier this month when the Burundian government refused to participate in talks that include the political opposition, which it accuses of "supporting violence." And last month, Burundi refused an offer by the African Union to send 5,000 peacekeepers to Burundi to stop the violence. The government said the AU troops could be attacked if they attempt to come without permission. Burundi has been in crisis since late April when President Pierre Nkurunziza announced he would run for a third term in office, arguing that the constitution allows him to do so because he was appointed to his first term. The announcement set off political demonstrations that were met with violence by security forces. Burundi's constitutional court ruled in the president's favor, and he won his third term in July elections boycotted by the opposition. The political turmoil has continued, and worsened, since then. The number of people migrating to foreign countries surged by 41 percent in the last 15 years to reach 244 million in 2015, according to a United Nations study released this week. Of those people, 20 million are refugees. The U.N. is planning a series of meetings to address migration in 2016, including a March 30 gathering in Geneva where countries will be invited to pledge resettlement spots for Syrians fleeing civil war. But while the Syrian refugee crisis has gripped the worlds attention, it is but a drop in the sea of international migration. The vast majority go to Europe, home to 76 million international migrants in 2015, or two-thirds of the total. In Europe, the population would have declined during the period 2000-2015 in the absence of positive net migration, the report said. Even if current migration levels continue, Europes population is still projected to decline over the next 35 years because of its surplus of deaths over births. By individual country, however, the United States had by far the largest portion of the worlds migrants - 47 million, or a fifth of the total. Germany and Russia shared the second spot with about 12 million each, followed by Saudi Arabia (10 million), Britain (9 million) and the United Arab Emirates (8 million.) Canada ranks seventh on this measure, with slightly fewer than 8 million migrants. U.S. is ratcheting up diplomacy with participants in the six-party talks for a strong and united response to the recent nuclear test by North Korea. Secretary of State John Kerry will be visiting Asia in the near future, State Department spokesperson John Kirby said on Thursday. Kirby said the administration supports tougher pressure against North Korea, referring to a legislation passed by the House of Representatives on strong sanctions to deny Pyongyang the hard currency it needs for nuclear program. We share Congresss concerns about North Koreas continuing violation of its commitment and international obligations, and we look forward to continue to work with Congress on our shared goal of enhancing sanctions pressure to steel North Korea towards better choices, he said. DPRK: 'greatest source of instability' Meanwhile, Deputy Secretary of the State Tony Blinken is set to arrive in Japan, South Korea, and China in coming days to discuss regional security issues, including the United States' rock-solid commitment to its allies security in the face of recent North Korea provocations. In response to VOAs question via Twitter prior to his trip, Blinken said that U.S. and China share the same interest in regional stability, while the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea), another name for North Korea, is "the greatest source of instability" in the region. This is the Blinkens third visit to Northeast Asia in the last 11 months since he assumed office. Getting China on board While Washington is seeking tougher sanctions against Pyongyang through the United Nations Security Council, the severity of the sanctions will depend on the level of political will in Russia and China, which have veto power and are close to the isolated regime in Pyongyang. On Wednesday, during a phone conversation between President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin, U.S. sought a strong and united international response to North Koreas nuclear test, which was in defiance of Security Council resolutions, said the White House in a statement. Seeking Chinas cooperation in response to North Koreas recent nuclear test is one of the top foreign policy priorities in 2016, said Ben Rhodes, Deputy White House National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications. We'll be working with China through the U.N. Security Council and also in our own bilateral discussions about how to demonstrate to North Korea that that is a path that leads to greater cost, consequences and isolation, said Rhodes Wednesday at the Foreign Press Center. Rhodes added Washingtons coordination with Tokyo and Seoul was absolutely central, noting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korea President Park Geun-Hye are among the first leaders that President Obama called after Pyongyang claimed it had successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb test last week. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called Pyongyangs recent nuclear test a destabilizing act that violates Security Council resolutions and imperils collective security, warning of the dangers of nuclearized Korean Peninsula, on Thursday during remarks on his priorities in 2016. Launched in 2003, the six party talks are aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear program through negotiations involving China, the United States, North and South Korea, Japan, and Russia. A refueling rendezvous that went astray and an engine issue are key pieces of the puzzle behind the incident involving the 10 U.S. Navy sailors who were held earlier this week by Iran, according to U.S. officials. The U.S. Navy boats and their crews were detained for 16 hours by Iranian Revolutionary Guards after apparently veering into Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf near Farsi Island. The boats had intended to meet up with a U.S. Coast Guard boat for refueling, "but never rendezvoused," a U.S. official told VOA. The sailors were traveling through the Persian Gulf from Kuwait toward Bahrain when U.S. controllers lost contact with them Tuesday. The Revolutionary Guard members boarded the U.S. vessels and surrounded the crew members, a second U.S. official said. "They went off course somehow. Initial indications are that when they realized they were in Iranian waters, the engine was not able to get to full power for at least one of the boats," the official said. An investigation is underway into further details surrounding the incident. When it happened, a U.S. strike group in the area was tasked with the search and rescue. "When conducting a search and rescue, you are allowed to enter into countries' territorial waters," one official said. Some assets available included the guided missile cruiser USS Anzio, fixed wing aircraft, and helicopters. The search and rescue was "simultaneous" with diplomatic outreach, one of the U.S. officials said, and searchers did locate the missing vessels at Farsi Island, but could see the sailors were not in the boats. "We had visual of the boats," the official told VOA. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said resolution of the incident was a success for diplomacy, and Defense Secretary Ash Carter said he was grateful to have the service members back in our hands. The widow of an American killed in Jordan is suing Twitter Inc., accusing the social media company of giving a voice to the Islamic State group. Tamara Fields, a Florida woman whose husband, Lloyd, died in the November 9 attack on the police training center in Amman, said Twitter knowingly let the militant Islamist group use its network to spread propaganda, raise money and attract recruits. She said the San Francisco company had until recently given Islamic State, also known as ISIS or IS, an "unfettered" ability to maintain official Twitter accounts. "Without Twitter, the explosive growth of ISIS over the last few years into the most-feared terrorist group in the world would not have been possible," according to the complaint filed Wednesday in federal court in Oakland, California. Fields accused Twitter of violating the Anti-Terrorism Act, which allows triple damages for providing material support to terrorists. Her attorney said he thought the case was the first in which a social media company was accused of violating that federal law. The lawsuit may add to pressure that social media companies such as Twitter and Facebook Inc. face to take down posts associated with terrorist groups. "While we believe the lawsuit is without merit, we are deeply saddened to hear of this family's terrible loss," Twitter said in a statement about the civil lawsuit. "Violent threats and the promotion of terrorism deserve no place on Twitter and, like other social networks, our rules make that clear." US task force Last Friday, the Obama administration set up a task force to crack down on extremist groups using the Internet to advance their goals, find recruits and plan attacks such as recent killings in Paris and San Bernardino, California. Senior national security officials from the administration also met with technology executives in Silicon Valley last week to discuss what more could be done to counter Islamist militants. Fields, the widow, may face an uphill battle to prove Twitter knew or should have known that its technology was helping terrorists. "We certainly know social media plays an important role in allowing ISIS to recruit foreign fighters," said Jimmy Gurule, a University of Notre Dame law professor and former U.S. Treasury Department official specializing in terrorist financing. "But at the end of the day, is there a sufficient nexus between ISIS's use of Twitter and acts of terror? I'm not saying you can't show it, but it's a real challenge." Lloyd "Carl" Fields was among five people killed in the "lone wolf" attack at the police training center by Jordanian Police Officer Anwar Abu Zeid. The government contractor, who had been a police officer for a decade, was in Jordan to train police from that country, Iraq and the Palestinian territories. Legal strategy Joshua Arisohn, a partner at Bursor & Fisher representing Tamara Fields, said his client could prevail by showing that Twitter's activity was a substantial factor in her late husband's death, and that the death could have been foreseen. "Given the significant support that Twitter has knowingly provided to ISIS over the years, we're confident that we can meet this standard," Arisohn said in an email. Islamic State, which controls large areas of Iraq and Syria, has used the Internet regularly to spread its message. The Brookings Institution think tank has estimated that Islamic State supporters operated at least 46,000 Twitter accounts between September and December 2014. Social media companies are not uniform in handling requests from authorities to take down online material. Some technology executives worry that being too quick to remove suspect posts could invite endless and often meritless demands for takedowns. Twitter has positioned itself as a defender of free speech and has been reluctant to act as censor. According to its online "transparency report," Twitter honored none of the 25 requests from U.S. government and law enforcement authorities to remove posts between January and June 2015. Worldwide, Twitter said it honored 42 percent of the 1,003 removal requests from governments, law enforcement and courts during that period. More than two-thirds of the requests came from Turkey. Twitter said it withheld 158 accounts and 2,354 tweets during the period. Nothing 'hateful' In December, Twitter updated its policies for policing content to explicitly prohibit "hateful conduct." Gary Osen, a lawyer who in 2014 persuaded a Brooklyn, New York, jury to hold Jordan's Arab Bank Plc liable for handling transactions for Palestinian militant group Hamas, said there is "no question" the Anti-Terrorism Act covers Fields' claims, but that showing Twitter's "knowledge or willful blindness" is the challenge. Fields said she met that standard, citing Twitter's alleged resistance to numerous requests from U.S. government officials, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and others to do more to keep Islamic State off Twitter. An appeal to world leaders is calling on them to raise $750 million to educate a million Syrian refugee children living in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. A short movie has been produced to highlight the transformational opportunities a place at school can have. With a smile and strength we will shape tomorrow. The optimistic rap lyrics of Samir, Abdulrahman and Mohamed three refugee brothers who want to be Syrias hottest hip hop stars. "Our band is called Fire Rap. The band members stage names, are Samir, Amir and Jami," said 13-year-old Samir. The brothers fled Syria to Lebanons Bekaa Valley four years ago with their parents. They are among the more fortunate refugee children they have places at a local school where they have honed their musical skills alongside a proper education. Ben Hewitt is from the charity Theirworld which commissioned the movie, titled Straight Outta Syria. The aim of this film is to raise awareness of the need to get every child into school. And weve chosen to focus on talents, on the potential of young people. And so people can see theres a generation of young Syrians who are in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan out of school, and theres lost potential," said Hewitt. Theirworld estimates there are close to a million refugee children who are not in school and that makes them vulnerable to child labor, early marriage, exploitation and extremism. The charity wants to expand the so-called double shift system that they say is working well in Lebanese schools where local children attend in the morning, and refugee children in the afternoon. Back at school, the three brothers perform songs in front of their classmates about fleeing the war in Syria to rapturous applause. "When I grow up I would like to write humorous songs. Because I don't like to write about misery," said 12-year-old brother Abdulrahman. Hewitt says getting a place in school is about more than just learning. One, it gives them longer term hope. But also it gives them shorter term stability, gets them back into the classroom theyre in a safe environment, theyre learning and theyre focused," he said. The charity is hoping to build support for the campaign ahead of a Syria Donors conference in London next month. Sikyong Sangay discussed the situation in Tibet at Chiba Institute of Technology on Monday, 11 January as part of his effort to raise awareness on Tibet during his visit to Japan. Sangay gave an overview of Tibetan history and refuted Chinas narrative and historical claims of Tibet having been an integral part of China throughout history. The exile Tibetan leader also expressed concern over the potential geopolitical tensions that could rise due to depletion of Tibets glaciers which could trigger wars over water in the future. In referencing the 142 Tibetans who have carried out self-immolation protests inside Tibet in recent years, he said that the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet and freedom for Tibetans as being two main calls of the self-immolators. The two exile Tibetan Parliament members from Europe have launched a website called Future-of-tibet.org to petition and disseminate information regarding Tibetan community in the West. The website claims that the aim of the initiative is to, strengthen the Tibetan communities in Europe and to strengthen the Tibet movement and its activities in the Europe in order to achieve the just goals of our cause. The petition which are directed to the Kashag and the Parliament of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) address the need to build a Tibetan Community in the West that can meet the challenges of the 21st Century. With more than 30,000 Tibetans migrating to the West in the last two decades, Chithue Wangpo Tethong and Chithue Thupten Wangchen suggest that the balance of the exile community was shifting rapidly and that it offered challenge as well as a huge potential for building a strong Tibetan community in the West. The two Parliamentarians say that achieving that goal requires the combined effort of the youth, the parents and the Tibetan communities in the West, as well as more leadership by the CTA, saying, We want the CTA to take responsibility for the preservation of Tibetan culture in the West and develop policies that fit to our needs in the West. Rumors about President Robert Mugabe's state of health and sharp reactions by Zanu PF and presidential spokesman, George Charamba, have set the social and mainstream media on fire. Some Zimbabweans are now urging the government to disclose his state of health while on holiday in the Far East following unconfirmed reports that he suffered a heart attack. The government has since dismissed these reports as baseless. Some local people say while Mr. Mugabe is now 91 years old, an age which is commonly associated with many health challenges, it is unlikely that he is sick as such reports have been circulating over the years when the president is on vacation in Asia. President Mugabe and his wife left for a vacation in December 15th at an unspecified destination in the Far East following the Zanu PF Peoples Conference held in Victoria Falls. When the president left the country, Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko took over as acting president, a position he held until recently when Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa returned from leave. Mnangagwa is currently the acting president, a move that generated a lot of interest among some Zimbabweans when he took over from Mphoko. This coincided with a report that the president had some health issues. Some observers and government insiders say this arrangement was made before Mr. Mugabe went on leave. Though Charamba and Zanu-PF spokesman Simon Khaya Moyo have squashed rumors that the president may be experiencing health challenges while on leave after allegedly experiencing a heart attack, this has set social and mainstream media on fire. What would ease the nation's hungry curiosity about the state of their president? Melody Garaipasi of Chitungwiza said while she is now familiar with the annual rumor concerning the presidents health, there is need for government to open up about his condition and whereabouts. It normally happens every January. I think its also important for the Zanu PF people to communicate the correct message to the public regarding the health and whereabouts of the president so that we can curb speculations. Garaipasi said the president must at times spend his holidays in the country to avoid such kind of reports. Milton Phiri of Harares Rugare high density suburb said while the presidents health problems have, in his words, become a usual January rumor it clearly shows what Zimbabweans think about Mr. Mugabes state of health all the time. I think people are now cooking up stories because they really want it to happen and I think when the day comes they will be celebrations in Zimbabwe. But for Zanu PF youth, Onias Mabhara of Mbare, the rumors were cooked up by the presidents enemies. These are false and malicious reports intended to damage the image of the president. Independent political commentator, Fortune Gwaze, concurred, saying the nation is now accustomed to the rumours. I dont think there is anything to it unless we dont see him coming back when he is supposed to assume his duties in early February or end of January. When people start talking about Mugabes death then the next day they see him well coming up strongly then they say this guy is invincible." For Owen Dhliwayo, the health concerns are the work of some political players who want to portray Mr. Mugabe as an invincible man. When people start talking about Mugabes death then the next day they see him well coming up strongly then they say this guy is invincible. They want to paint a picture of Mugabe as someone who is beyond human frailties, like he is not affected by his health so they want to present him like that. But Harare Polytechnic media lecturer, Wellington Gwadzikwa, blamed all this on what he called shoddy journalism. Media organizations and journalists are writing stories that are false, that have no facts, that are fictitious and that are also malicious. People will never trust the media because why should you trust the same media which gives you false information. So the media profession is likely not to be taken seriously. Rumors of this nature have occurred annually, with a memorable headline once quoting President Mugabe stating that "I am not dead." Mr. Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe for more than 35 years, turns 92 next month. Meanwhile, Mnangagwa and Mphoko have taken turns to serve in Mr. Mugabes position while he is on leave. It proves that Zimbabwean politics is shaped around an individual and not an institution so this causes a lot or problems when it comes to decision making." Political analysts say there was nothing wrong with the arrangement given that they have always done so in the past. Dhilawayo said it did not matter who acted as president because party and government meetings such as the ruling Zanu PF Politburo and cabinet do not take when Mr. Mugabe is on leave or out of the country. It proves that Zimbabwean politics is shaped around an individual and not an institution so this causes a lot or problems when it comes to decision making." But former Zimbabwe National Students Union leader Tafadzwa Mugwadi said it was important for the two vice presidents to alternate as it gave them experience to lead the nation. Its giving both of them an opportunity to showcase their potential to demonstrate their ability to run the nation and assist the president especially when he is not available. Mr. Mugabe, who is also the chairman of the African Union, is expected back home at the end of this month. Human rights lawyers have welcomed the Judicial Services Commissions decision to turn current circuit courts into permanent High Court stations, saying the move will help bring justice closer to ordinary people and help boost their confidence in the countrys justice delivery system. Speaking to Studio 7 regarding the move, director Irene Petras of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said her organization welcomes and supports the establishment of High Court stations outside Harare and Bulawayo. Earlier this week at the official opening of the courts 2016 legal year in Bulawayo, High Court judge president, Justice George Chiweshe, revealed that the Judicial Services Commission was moving ahead with plans to upgrade circuit courts into fully fledged High Court stations. It is not known how much money would be needed to upgrade each circuit court into a permanent station. Petras said the move will help ordinary people have better access to the countrys justice delivery system. We believe that particularly in a society which is facing serious social and economic challenges, geographical accessibility of the court is very important as people cant really afford to travel to the main cities in order to access justice. So, we believe it will allow a lot more people to utilize the facilities. The country only has two High Court stations in Harare and Bulawayo but the some sessions in Gweru, Hwange/Lupane, Masvingo and Mutare, which handle cases for two weeks in each legal term. The Masvingo circuit centre will be the first to be converted into a permanent High Court station, and the further establishment of other centres is expected to help ease the backlog of the cases being handled by the Court. The High Court has hundreds of pending cases. Programmes director Tineyi Mukwewa of the Abammeli Human Rights Lawyers said the move would also help boost the confidence of ordinary people in utilizing the justice system. By making the High Court a permanent feature in the smaller towns what it means is that its a shorter distance to travel so it means that people will be able to access justice promptly and they limit the amount of money and time spent in travelling to the Court. So, ultimately people will have more confidence in using the Court as a means to settle disputes." Petras said besides having the physical infrastructure, there is need to ensure that funds are available for the hiring of competent staff in the additional High Court centers so that the system continues to function efficiently. Justice delivery is not just about having the physical infrastructure but also ensuring that we also have capable and efficient personnel who can make sure that every aspect of the justice delivery chain is functioning in the optimum way. In his speech when he officially launched the 2016 legal year, Justice Chiweshe said decentralization of the High Court was a common trend both regionally and internationally, and acknowledged that Zimbabwe is lagging behind. Justice Chiweshe said the move will save costs not only for litigants and practitioners but also for treasury, since it will reduce witnesses travel and subsistence allowances as well as expenses incurred by prison and police services in moving prisoners to and from court centres. ST. PAUL, MN Today, Lt. Governor Tina Smith honored state employees, who worked on eight different reform projects that have greatly improved the services their agencies provide for Minnesota residents and businesses. As part of the Dayton-Smith Administrations Better Government and Continuous Improvement initiatives, these reforms have made state government more accountable to Minnesotans, saved taxpayer dollars, improved efficiencies, and provided better customer service. These reforms make government more accountable, by saving taxpayer money and providing better customer service to Minnesotans, said Lt. Governor Smith. Thanks to the work of the state employees we are recognizing today, veterans are receiving better care, more families and children have safe, affordable homes to live in, and small businesses are getting better, faster services from state government. The Governors Better Government and Continuous Improvement Awards annually celebrate individual and organizational achievements that have increased the productivity and efficiency of state government services, while improving customer service. Descriptions of the winning reform projects are below. Better Government Awards Interagency Council on Homelessness Reducing Statewide Homelessness From 2013 to 2015, the Interagency Council on Homelessness developed and implemented a project called Heading Home: Minnesotas Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness. Eleven state agencies have worked collaboratively to achieve a 17 percent decline in homelessness for Minnesota families with children between 2014 and 2015. This is the fifth-largest decrease in homelessness among the 50 states. The Council also has preserved 4,000 units of affordable and supportive housing. The Council will continue its work by releasing an update to their plan in 2016. In addition, the Minnesota Homelessness Veteran Registry was created to end Veteran homelessness. The registry works to connect local, federal and non-governmental partners to create solutions. Military Affairs Expanding Service Opportunities for All Minnesotans The Department of Military Affairs implemented an action plan focused on improving diversity among its personnel and service members. Over the past four years, the National Guard has almost doubled in overall diversity from 7.8 percent to 14.3 percent. To achieve their success they widened recruiting efforts, opened advancement positions to female service members that were previously restricted to men, and instituted a mentorship program to encourage the advancement of personnel and service members of all backgrounds. Housing Finance Agency Increasing Communities of Color Homeownership The Minnesota Housing Finance Agency worked to address the disparity in homeownership for households of color. The agency committed $500,000 to provide one-on-one counseling on credit repair, debt reduction, money management, mortgage loan applications, and good faith estimate comparisons. In addition, the Housing Finance Agency provided three down payment and closing loan options. In 2015, 1,148 (29.4 percent) first time homebuyer loans went to households of color and Hispanic ethnicity. The Agency will continue to build on their success by strengthening their outreach to minority communities, and continuing counseling on homeownership. Childrens Cabinet & Department of Education Supporting At-Risk Children & Families Minnesotas Help Me Grow initiative helps the families of at-risk young children understand developmental milestones, identify concerns, and find help additional assistance all at no cost. To make it easier to navigate, the Minnesota Department of Education and the Governors Childrens Cabinet overhauled the programs website, making it more user-friendly. Thanks to these changes, health care and social service workers can now make referrals without doing prior research. These updates have achieved significant results increasing child referrals from 533 to almost 13,000 a year. To build on this success, the Department of Education and Childrens Cabinet are exploring ways to expand the resource base for children up to eight years old. Continuous Improvement Awards Department of Veterans Affairs Reducing the Use of Psychotropic Medication for Veterans In 2012, 69 percent of patients served by the Department of Veterans Affairs were using psychotropic medications. To improve patient health and wellness, the agency set a goal to reduce the use of these medications to 22.6 percent by 2015. To reach this goal, Veteran Affairs staff worked to better coordinate the care provided by their psychiatric, nursing, and recreational programs. Veterans Affairs also hired life enrichment coordinators to collect and analyze data, develop plans to decrease behaviors, and to communicate with their interdisciplinary team. Using this coordinated approach, the agency exceeded their psychotropic medication use goal of 22.6 percent in October 2015 reducing the use of these medications to 15.3 percent. Department of Transportation Improving Bridge Inspections The Department of Transportation found that using Unmanned Ariel Vehicles (UAVs) for bridge inspection can decrease safety risks for bridge inspectors. It also has proven to minimize traffic disruptions, from eight days to only five. UAVs provide inspection detail that replicates the detail learned through traditional measures, but cost significantly less in equipment and traffic control needs. Department of Health Improving the Quality of Death Records Data In 2014, local public health agency representatives asked the Department of Health to release vital records death data sooner. Local public health agencies wanted preliminary death data sooner, so that they could implement faster responses to emerging issues such as drug overdose deaths in near real-time. In response, the Department of Health worked to streamline their record keeping process. Because of these changes, families can now have both the fact of death and cause of death within 10 days. For local public health agencies the changes have been dramatic. Previously, it took up to 22 months to receive the data. Now they receive in just 1 week. Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Streamlining Information Requests The Pollution Control Agency increased efficiency and reduced the time it takes to process citizen requests to increase their satisfaction. The Pollution Control Agency now responds to every request within three days, and provides a full response to the requested information within 21 days. To develop these standards, they surveyed external partners for their expectations for good service. The team switched their focus to see value through the eyes of their customers, and has held this ideal through the entire project. Thanks to this effort, the Pollution Control Agency is now responding to nearly all of their requests within the 21-day window. SAINT PAUL With the return of bitterly cold winter weather, the Minnesota Department of Commerce wants low-income Minnesotans to know about the opportunity to apply for the states Energy Assistance Program (EAP) to get help paying their heating bills. We want Minnesotans to know that help is available if they are struggling to pay their heating bills, said Commerce Commissioner Mike Rothman. Heating your home is a necessity in this cold weather, and we do not want any Minnesotans health or safety put at risk. Energy assistance funds can help households avoid the choice between buying food and medicine or paying their heating bill. Energy assistance applications have been down slightly this heating season, possibly due to warmer than normal temperatures in November and December, said Rothman. We encourage anyone who may have difficulty paying their heating bills to apply for energy assistance, he said. Low-income households with children under the age of six, people with disabilities, veterans and seniors are especially encouraged to apply. In October 2015, Minnesota received nearly $102 million in federal Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) funds for this years Energy Assistance Program. The funds help low-income homeowners and renters pay for heating bills through grant money paid directly to utility companies and heating fuel vendors on behalf of eligible households. The funding also helps some homeowners repair or replace malfunctioning heating systems. Nearly 139,000 served last year The Energy Assistance Program helps homeowners and renters who earn less than 50 percent of the states median income ($46,056 for a family of four) obtain grant money to help pay their heating bills. Last year, Minnesota served nearly 139,000 households. The average basic grant per household was just over $500. Commerce administers the Energy Assistance Program in partnership with 31 local service providers throughout the state. The service providers may also help advocate for consumers in situations such as utility disconnections and energy supply issues. Service providers can also educate clients about efficient and safe use of home heating systems. How to apply for energy assistance While new applications are accepted until May 31, 2016, funding is limited and administered on a first-come, first-served basis. Qualifying households must apply for assistance through the local service provider in their area. To find your local service provider, call 800-657-3710 or visit the Energy Assistance Program section at the Commerce Department website (mn.gov/commerce). Sheldons friends know he and Amy had coitus, but its no biggie. Or so The Big Bang Theory writers would have us believe. The reactions of Sheldons friends to finding out he had, you know, done it was pretty high on my postSheldon Did It wish list. Not in a creepy, give-us-all-the-details sort of way, but this particular installment does end with a shirtless Raj dancing on the stripper pole of a Vegas-bound party bus, so The point is, these characters would definitely want to have this information about their friend, and theyre the sort of people who would have an animated reaction to that information. I mean, come on. Sheldon. Had. Coitus. The guy who doesnt like to be touched, who shows little interest in the opposite sex, who is so fussy he and his roommate schedule potty times, had coitus. This is a major event for Sheldon, not just in his personal growth and maturity, but also as proof for his friends that, yes, he is human. If there was a major reaction from the gang, though, we didnt see it. Instead, Leonard, Howard, and Raj reveal that they know while complaining about Sheldons most recent round of rude behavior. After Howard points out how Amys time away from Sheldon helped their relationship, Raj tacks an extra provision onto the plan: As long as it doesnt end with us having coitus with him, Im in, he quips. So, they know. We know they know, and thats (probably) all were going to know about how they know. Barring a flashback story line in a future episode, this is a major missed opportunity to wring more funny and heart out of a momentous event in Sheldons life. Especially since were already moving on to another fairly significant occurrence in the house of Cooper and Hofstadter: Sheldon has decided to be empathetic. When he fails to empathize with his fellow humans, he has decided he will apologize to them which is how the Sheldon Cooper Apology Tour comes to be. Heres some background: Sheldon had a nasty bout of the flu, which, he shares with Amy, he believed entitled him to be cranky with his friends without having to care about their feelings. The other humans dont go for that, Amy tells him, from roughly 2,000 miles away at a neurobiology conference in Detroit. (She chooses to stay there while he rides out his illness.) She suggests that he learn to be nicer when people try to help him, and when he isnt nice, he needs to express his remorse. Okay, thats not exactly what she says. After Sheldons less-than-halfhearted attempt at being empathetic, what she actually tells him is: Great, now try it as if this isnt your first day as a person. The breakup clearly did both of these characters a lot of good. Sheldon learned how much he truly cares for Amy, and Amy boosted her confidence around her complicated bae. In Costanza-ese, shes got the hand in the relationship right now. Sheldon takes Amys advice to heart, partly because he wants to be invited on the group trip to Vegas you know, the trip they planned to get away from him even though he doesnt actually want to be in Las Vegas. (Americas urinal cake, as he calls it.) He apologizes to everyone, and everyone accepts his contrition admissions except for Emily, Rajs once-creepy girlfriend who has proven to be so uninteresting that dullness is now her identifying characteristic. Emily doesnt forgive Sheldon because his apologies are tinged with the opinion that her dermatology career means shes not a real doctor. (Or, in another Seinfeld nod because everything in life can be tied back to a Seinfeld episode he thinks shes Pimple Popper, M.D.). This leads to a fight between Emily and Raj, which sadly does not lead to a breakup. After she eventually forgives Sheldon, the whole gang minus Amy, but with the addition of Stuart ends up on that party bus to Sin City, where Raj shakes his groove thing to Disco Inferno while Penny and Bernadette stuff dollar bills in his pants. Raj needs a new girlfriend, and a real story line. THEOR-EMS: Colony Pilot Season 1 Episode 1 Editors Rating 3 stars * * * Previous Next Previous Episode Next Episode Josh Holloway as Will Bowman. Photo: Greg Gayne/USA Network Lets begin with a warning: Theres a lot of silly dialogue in Colony. Good guys ask bad guys how they slap on a suit and a smile and dick over their own kind. Teen bullies harass their classmates by warning, No trading goes on without me getting my beak wet. A moody ex-FBI fugitive hunter, when pressed about his past, mumbles about being good at finding people. Most regrettably, a black woman running a bootleg pharmacy brags about how no one makes good insulin except old Heloise. (Old Heloise seems an awful lot like Annie the Popeyes lady, doesnt she? Thats because both characters are played by actress Deidrie Henry.) If you had high hopes that USA would follow up Mr. Robot with another stirring original drama, dont fret: The pilots unconvincing script doesnt spell Colonys early doom. Executive producers Carlton Cuse and Ryan Condal have conjured an urban dystopia with promising similarities to genre contemporaries (from District 9 to Fear the Walking Dead) and thematic forebears (They Live, Escape from L.A.). Lets back up a moment, though, and say a few words for the late Spider, a.k.a. Charles Baker, immediately unmistakable as Breaking Bads lanky miscreant Skinny Pete. We meet Spider as he helps smuggle former Special Agent Will Bowman (Josh Holloway) from Los Angeles into Santa Monica to find his missing 12-year-old son. He dies on the job soon afterward, thanks to an IED planted by an insurgency group called the Resistance. We knew poor Spider for all of an hour. Rest assured, Spider doesnt die in vain. Will survives the blast, then after being escorted to a slummy holding area, hes chaperoned to the Green Zone, a cordoned-off VIP area in Los Angeles for post-apocalyptic muckety-mucks and obedient compliers. The mysterious, unseen Hosts have besieged La La Land and everywhere else on Earth, presumably imposing a new world order that mimics John Nadas perspective in They Live. (No x-ray specs required.) Under the new Host regime, Napoleonic nobodies like Alan Snyder (Peter Jacobson) control territory by proxy, governing armies of militant Redhats who keep the public in line by tearing families apart (hence Wills quest), compelling innocent civilians to slave work in The Factory, and generally just acting like dicks. Will is relieved that hes headed to the Green Zone, but that comfort is short-lived. Snyder barely allows him a sip of bourbon before laying out his offer: You were a super-duper special agent in your previous life, until we made all law enforcement disappear. You, you canny bastard, somehow slipped through the system. And while we appreciate the irony of this situation, wed like to hire you to sniff out civilians who help the Resistance. In return, we might give you that father-and-son reunion you crave. As with any serious job offer, Snyder gives Will a night to talk things over with his wife, Katie (Sarah Wayne Callies). However, shes as skeptical as her husband is desperate. She just spent her afternoon in the worst way: almost getting conned by black-market insulin peddlers, watching a man get kidnapped into a Redhats SUV, and defying proxy law by openly brandishing a firearm to protect herself from the neighbors. To top it all off, she and Will are still struggling to assign blame for their middle childs unknown whereabouts. While both are sympathetic to the Resistances cause, Katie has leadership potential written all over her. After Katie gives Will her blessing to take the job, she steals off to meet with insurgent higher-ups and disclose that fittingly, by proxy shes their new woman on the inside. In the meantime, she and her kin will be eligible dependents for Wills fringe benefits, like all the insulin they need, social opportunities, even omelettes and bacon whipped up by Proxy Snyder himself. For Will and Katie, forging ahead as government collaborators is a no-brainer, no matter their respective endgames. At least this way, their oldest son Bram wont have to barter oranges for tortillas on the school bleachers and wet those bullies beaks. After one episode, Colony seems somewhat promising. Proxy Snyder is a terrific face for the faceless alien menace; hes irresistibly insincere as he assures Will that the Hosts will leave once they satisfy their needs. Much like Snyder, Im eager to watch Wills pursuit of Geronimo, the enigmatic leader of the Resistance. Also: How will his and Katies missions imperil the Bowman family? Bad times are ahead. With a little bit of SFX razzle-dazzle, thats reason enough to hope Colony will become good TV. Apart from all that: January 11 is Alexander Hamiltons birthday. In lieu of a 261-candled cake, were celebrating with a weeklong series that explores the production and significance of the Founding Fathers eponymous Broadway musical. In 2007, Jeremy McCarter, at the time a theater critic for New York, wrote a glowing review of Lin-Manuel Mirandas Off Broadway production In the Heights, praising it as a musical that owes more to Big Pun than to Bernstein. The following year, having moved on to Broadway, the show was nominated for 13 Tony awards, winning four, including Best Musical. Despite that dizzying success, Miranda remembered McCarters early review, and the two eventually met to talk about their shared interest in theater and hip-hop. But Miranda also had an idea: He mentioned to me in our very first conversation that he was interested in doing something about Alexander Hamilton, which at first I thought was a really funny joke, says McCarter. Turns out it wasnt a joke. McCarter later left the magazine business to run Public Forum, a performance and conversation series at the Public Theater centered on politics, media, and the arts. (Disclosure: I worked with McCarter at the Public.) It was there that the Publics artistic director, Oskar Eustis, asked him to recommend artists for potential projects, and the first person he could think of was Miranda. McCarter introduced Lin to the Public in the summer of 2011, and, well, you know the rest. Hamilton is now one of the most sought-after tickets in town, and next up, the show is preparing to go national. Come April, there will also be a book, Hamilton: The Revolution, co-authored by McCarter, who wrote the chapters, and Miranda, who provides detailed annotation to his libretto. It includes profiles of all 11 principals, as well as over 40 different interviews, including several with Hamilton biographer Ron Chernow. When Lin told me that there was going to be a book about the show and proposed that he and I do it together, I wasnt sure what the book could be until I thought about the fact that Hamilton tells the story of a revolution, but it is itself a revolution, and the book could be a way for readers to watch those two revolutions happen in tandem. Miranda wrote most of the songs from Hamilton in sequence, so the book follows its creation and its plot in chronological order, beginning in the White House, where the world got its first look at the opening number, Alexander Hamilton, and ending on Broadway opening night with Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story. I got lucky, says McCarter. One of the fortunate, unexpected things about this book is that Ive been around the show since before it was a show, and I didnt have a thought in my head about writing a book about it with its author until he proposed it very late in the process. So a lot of the book is based on things that I got to see firsthand that havent been reported elsewhere because nobody else was there. Below, McCarter talks about putting Hamilton: The Revolution together, the clever chapter titles found in the table of contents premiering exclusively on Vulture and the stories behind some of the books standout chapters. The first page of the Table of Contents. Zoomed-in breakouts are below. Figuring out the structure of the book Lin wrote the show largely in sequence, so the text of the book is a series of chapters that describe another episode in its development, or share a profile of a person involved in the production, or something essayistic about what it means. It was complicated to put together, but part of the fun of it for me and Lin is that this was like a puzzle: How do you assemble the pieces of this book so that its telling a coherent story from page one to page 288, but also setting up the next song in the show, and how do the notes on that song explain that song but also continue the insight that Lin has been giving you in the songs that follow and precede. Writing the lengthy chapter titles in the table of contents We knew from the beginning that the book ought to evoke Hamiltons era, and one of the really distinctive things about books back then is the crazy-long, all-inclusive titles, which, it turns out, are stylistically really interesting, but also really helpful because these chapters do include lots of different kinds of stuff. So I asked Tori Spencer of Melcher Media, the company that put the book together, to find lots and lots of tables of contents from books written during Hamiltons lifetime and asked her to send them to me. I put them all in one place and just looked for patterns that got used a lot. I then made a catalogue of words that were really used in tables of contents back then. When I was writing the chapter titles, it was almost like Colonial-era Mad Libs to try to accurately describe whats in this book using primarily or entirely the words that would have been used in the 1790s. On some of them, like Stakes Is High, its just too irresistible if you can put the title of a De La Soul album in that old-timey font. I dont have anywhere near the self-control to resist doing that. How Lin approached the annotations Lin went in on these song annotations. Theyre really smart, theyre really funny. He shed a lot of light on how autobiographical some elements of the show are even moments that you would never think are related to his own experience. Most of what Lin wrote in the annotations is even new to me, and I was around to watch him work on a lot of it. Theyre very personal. Its a mix of technical stuff, of jokes, of references to other shows and rap albums. Its about his life, and how his experiences shaped large things and small things in the show. They shed an extraordinary amount of light on what youre hearing. On Chapter XIII: Concerning the Lady and the Tramp, in Olden Days and Our Own, With Reference to Helpless and Many Songs That Feature Ja Rule At some point, the first time they sent us preview pages to show us the layout, I remember seeing Ja Rules name in that font that evokes the 18th century and thinking that it was so funny, the juxtaposition, that it made me want to push more for ways of playing with ways that the present and the past are playing with each other. We were really guided by the sensibilities of the show. [Director] Tommy [Kail] always said that there should be no filter, no wink at the audience. Theres something very immediate about the show and the way that it wants to collapse the distance between Hamiltons time and our world today, and I felt that in the book, too. Everything thats in it ought to be primary material of one kind or another. Its a description of an episode, or its a direct quote from a document from the time, or its Lin commenting on his own process. Immediacy was a big word. On Chapter XVIII: An Account of Rapping for the Children, Who Will One Day Rap for Themselves This chapter is about the student matinees we arranged at the Public. I talked to some of the teachers who brought high-school students to see the show, and those interviews are some of my favorite things in the book because they give a clear sense of what this is going to mean long after the show is out around the country. Lin and I both think that the greatest impact of the show is going to be on the kids who see it and, in a few years, the kids who perform it for themselves. So we were constantly aware of making a book that would make it easier for those kids to do what theyre gonna do. On Chapter XIX: Did They or Didnt They? Or, Some Discourse on Affairs Nobody was sure if Alexander Hamilton and Angelica Schuyler had an affair. They wrote incredibly flirty letters back and forth, and its one thing to say that is ambiguous in the show. Its written to be ambiguous in the show, but if youre an actor, you have to play something. You have to decide, are you playing this as if youre having an affair with the other persons character or not? I thought I would be interested to hear what Lin and Renee [Elise Goldsberry] said about how they play Alexander and Angelica every night. So this chapter is a conversation with the two of them about that. On Chapter XXIII: On the Origin and Persistence of Our National Shame This point in the story is when the company has gone back into rehearsal after the Public, but before Broadway, and they reassembled almost exactly on the day of the shooting in Charleston. It was something they had to reckon with, and One Last Time, which is so much about George Washington and his hopes for the country, when Washington is being played by an actor of color, it was a moment to try to reckon with what the show means given whats happening in the country right now. On the Epilogue The epilogue was sort of tacked on at the end because we thought that we were done, but then we heard that President Obama was coming back, so we realized we werent quite done with the book after all. I was onstage when he talked to the cast. Hes in the book three times, and I do think theres a way where Hamilton captures some of the energy of the Obama era. To be clear, not in a partisan way. Its not about red hats or blue hats. Its just about the way that the outsiders move to the center, and making sure everyone has a chance to have their stories told, and about the power of stories themselves. Photo-Illustration: Maya Robinson and Photos by CBS, Netflix, Serial and Getty Images Anyone who tuned in to Netflixs Making a Murderer, HBOs The Jinx, or NPRs Serial podcast probably indulged a fantasy that, had they sat on any of those juries, fair verdicts would have been meted out. The maddening reality, however and part of whats made all the above mini-series so addictive is that our indignations been collectively stoked by an overwhelming presentation of evidence and testimony that could have only been accrued in the years following each cases respective trials. To be sure, all three works are exemplary of investigative storytelling at its finest, rousing us from social-media self-involvement with the kind of probing journalism that was once the province of newspapers and network-TV exposes. And as transmitted via streaming television and iTunes downloads, the new wave of true-crime narrative feels tantalizingly two-way, as if it were a virtual invitation from filmmakers and producers to help demystify the criminal-justice system. But does that suggest that, postSteven Avery, Brendan Dassey, Robert Durst, and Adnan Masud Syed the aforementioned broadcasts polarizing subjects attorneys will suddenly be selecting from a more cynical jury pool? Or are such questions just a requisite rehashing of the mid-2000s CSI effect debate (or even its forebear, the so-called Perry Mason syndrome), a study that considered whether CBSs hit procedural was directly linked to an uptick in jurors insisting on examining substantial forensic evidence before delivering a conviction? (As one researcher writes of the supposed CSI effect, I once heard a juror complain that the prosecution had not done a thorough job because they didnt even dust the lawn for fingerprints.) These [docu-]series are, at least on the face of them, less an indictment of forensic science and more of the legal system, points out Melissa Littlefield, associate professor of English at the University of Illinois and author of journal article Historicizing the CSI Effect(s), as a means to distinguish The Jinx and contemporaries from their scripted predecessors. We wouldnt be talking about the CSI effect. Wed be talking about some other kind of effect thats producing a desire to do a kind of armchair retrial in the public eye. And while its a bit premature to gauge the appreciable implications of Serial and its kin on trial juries, the legal community has certainly taken notice and anticipates subtle, tactical changes in the courtroom. Its certainly something the defense will try to dance around, affirms criminal-defense lawyer Joel Isaacson, whose clients have included convicted sibling murderers Lyle and Erik Menendez. I dont know if it would be proper to talk to a jury and say, Now, you know how many people have been released off of death row because they were innocent, but you certainly would like to keep it in the forefront of the jurors minds and try to get them to require clear, confident, convincing evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. Though if you ask professional jury consultants, someone plucked fresh from devouring Making a Murderer might not even make it past their first day of civic duty. You would want to have the attorney ask: How long did you watch it? With whom might you have had conversations about what you saw? Have you done anything in furtherance of your feelings about the show? For instance, some sort of social-media post, advises trial consultant Jo-Ellan Dimitrius, whos helped select juries for clients representing both plaintiffs and defendants, notably including O.J. Simpsons 1994 defense team. By gaining that information, youre going to get a good mind-set of [whether] they were biased in favor of Mr. Avery and against the prosecution or police. Moreover, she projects that potential jurors familiarity with Making a Murderer in particular will be a significant question on criminal cases from here on out. We used to ask those questions about CSI because it was pretty predictive of someone who was a defense-prone juror. But as previous empirical and anecdotal research into the CSI effect would suggest, a culturally savvy jury wont necessarily be compelled further toward or against incrimination. In 2008, Donald E. Shelton, a former Michigan Circuit Judge and current University of Michigan-Dearborn director of criminal-justice studies, published a study titled The CSI Effect: Does It Really Exist? He and two colleagues surveyed 1,000 selected pretrial jurors on their expectations and demands for scientific evidence and their television-watching habits. Per the study, its results bore out that, Although CSI viewers had higher expectations for scientific evidence than non-CSI viewers, these expectations had little, if any, bearing on the respondents propensity to convict. A data-driven 2005 study on the subject published by University of North Carolina Greensboro associate professor of media studies Kimberlianne Podlas, titled The CSI Effect: Exposing the Media Myth, takes that skepticism a step further. Podlass research, which coupled surveys similar to Sheltons with application of theories on media and the law, not only strongly denies the existence of any negative effect of CSI on not guilty verdicts, but contests that it could just as readily complicate the defenses claims of innocence as tax the plaintiffs burden of proof. In short, its impact is arguably negligible. In the decade since Podlass report, Making a Murderer and like-minded docuseries havent necessarily altered her point of view. Though she does concede that the placebo of constantly reinforcing CSI-effect-derived thinking can lead to genuine judiciary paranoia. I think theres an effect of believing in the effect, Podlas explains. If judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement think there is some kind of effect going on whether theyre correct or not then that will necessarily influence their behaviors in the courtroom, in choosing cases, in deciding when theyre going to have splashy conferences, what kind of experts they might choose. With regards to the public and jurors, if youre used to the story of, This is how we go about catching the bad guy, or, This is what you should expect will be revealed in a trial, then when someone is presenting facts or a theory of a case, if what theyre saying matches the dominant cultural story, people are more prone to believe it. When it comes to Serial, The Jinx, or Making a Murderer, its more likely they merely confirmed viewers skeptical tendencies rather than awakened them. After all, jurors like all people are encoded with a lifetime of stimuli that have shaped their worldview, minimizing the likelihood that recently ingested media would directly radicalize their biases. So by the time a trials commenced, even the most cynical juries will likely allow a measure of deference to the ensuing process. As Simon A. Cole, a noted CSI effect skeptic and professor of Criminology, Law, and Society at University of California, Irvine, puts it, Everything we know about juries seems to suggest that, while being on a jury is often unpleasant, they take it very seriously and are making serious decisions about whether to find someone guilty or not guilty in a criminal case. Its a hard argument to make that theyre going to make a different decision based on whats gotten in their head from television. When it comes down to it, the most obvious and immediate impression these docuseries are making is on the specific cases theyve given cause to revisit. And to those whose lives have been altered by the verdicts handed down to Steven Avery, Brendan Dassey, Robert Durst, and Adnan Masud Syed, that impact is unimaginably significant. As for whether it will influence a generation of sophisticated future jurors who can preempt the need for a Serial or Jinx to even manifest, thats perhaps idealistic. But as UNC Greensboros Podlas acknowledges of the very correlations shes sought to disprove, If these kinds of theories can get people thinking about how the legal system works, then so much the better. Youll be Peaky Blinded by those blue eyes. Photo: Michael Kovac/2015 Getty Images Weve seen superhero movies set in the present, the future, the 70s, World War II, and even the Days of Future Past, but we havent seen many that are set during World War I. Luckily, Chris Pine, Americas wokest leading man, is on the case. In an interview with the Toronto Sun, the Wonder Woman second lead (not a dig; Pines happy to take the backseat) revealed that the upcoming film is set during the First World War. And just like any self-respecting Great War period drama, the Patty Jenkinsdirected film isnt skimping on production value. Our costume design is incredible, the actor said. We have scenes with, like, 500 extras all in period dress. As anyone who has had to take modernist literature knows, a World War I story isnt complete without a brooding rogue. Enter Pines character: Steve Trevor is a rogue-ish, cynical realist whos seen the awful brutish nature of modern civilization, he said, unwittingly describing every male love interest in Downton Abbey. Hes a worldly guy, a charming guy and its going to be a great, fun film. There are some incredibly deep, interesting and morally relevant themes. Yes, were finally getting that superhero-movie-period-drama hybrid that appeals to all four quadrants: comic-book geeks, Masterpiece Mystery! fans, newsboy-cap aficionados, and the 38 million young souls cut down like poppies in bloom in the violence between 1914 and 1919. Koch Pipeline Co. presented a check for $4,000 to Elm Mott Fire Rescue as part of its Helping Heroes grant program. In 2012, Koch Pipeline Co. and Flint Hills Resources began the Helping Heroes grant program to support Texas fire departments and emergency responders. To date, the companies have awarded approximately $500,000 in grants across the state. Elm Mott Fire Rescue will use their funds for gas ventilation fans, said Yoalmo Salazar, operations supervisor with Koch. That equipment is critical to the work of first responders and we are honored to be able to help. ----- Austin Simpson (center) with Elm Mott Fire Rescue accepts the check from Tim Smith (left) and Yoalmo Salazar with Koch Pipeline. Koch Pipeline Co. photo Class acts Seventeen McGregor High School artists entered the Heart of Texas Rodeo Western Heritage Art and Photography Contest at the fair and rodeo. Students who earned honors at the competition included: Senior photography division Diamond Eubank, grand champion ($1,000 scholarship). Senior art division Paula Hoke, third place; Alisa Hogan, fourth place; Hannah Lightfoot, fifth place. Students named to the deans list for the fall semester at McMurry University in Abilene are: Kayla Smith, of Robinson; Savannah Freeman, of Mart; Adrian Amaro, of Mount Calm; Blake Janek, of Valley Mills; and Jack Payne, of Walnut Springs. Jamie Watts, of Hewitt, was named to the deans list for the fall semester at Drury University in Springfield, Missouri. Applause Midway ISD mathematics educators were featured presenters at Baylors Technology in Mathematics Event. Amber Calderon of Castleman Creek Elementary shared iPad instructional ideas for elementary mathematics teachers. Steve Seale of Midway High School and John Choins of Midway Middle School shared iPad instructional ideas for secondary mathematics. Katie Johns represented Midway ISD and Castleman Creek at the fall meeting of the Central Texas Council of Teachers of Mathematics at Baylor University. She spoke to teachers about the importance of creating a problem-solving culture in elementary mathematics classrooms. Pitching in A spaghetti supper fundraiser to benefit McLennan County Pack of Hope will held from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Jan. 28 at Poppa Rollos, 703 N. Valley Mills Drive in Waco. The event is come-and-go or stay to eat a spaghetti dinner. Tickets cost $20 for adults and $10 for children younger than age 12. The Pack of Hope is a nonprofit group that supplies school districts and their eligible students with nutritious food to prevent hunger from Friday through Sunday while they are not in school. The Pack of Hope serves more than 1,000 McLennan County students. Although the Pack of Hope hosts several fundraisers a year, this event is the organizations largest. For tickets, call 772-0975 or email packofhope@gmail.com. Visit the Pack of Hope website at www.packofhope.org. Send submissions to neighborplus@wacotrib.com. A Waco man who was acquitted in 2008 on charges he sexually abused a family member was found not guilty Thursday on similar allegations involving another female family member. Judge Ralph Strother of Wacos 19th State District Court found Arturo Garcia Rivas, 50, not guilty of three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a 7-year-old family member, which would have occurred in December 2005. In pronouncing his decision after the three-day bench trial, the judge told Rivas that you have to be the luckiest man in the world, referring to Rivas acquittal in October 2008 on four counts of aggravated sexual assault and four counts of indecency with a child of another family member beginning when that girl was 7. Strother said he could not say that Rivas is innocent of the charges but said Rivas attorney, Damon Reed, raised sufficient reasonable doubt that required a not-guilty verdict. A 19th State District Court jury acquitted Rivas the first time. This time, the parties chose a bench trial before Strother, who also presided over Rivas first trial. Deputies quickly hustled Rivas away from the courthouse, trying to avert a confrontation between Rivas and his ex-wife and her husband. The Rivases were embroiled in divorce and custody battles when the accusations surfaced. Rivas wiped tears as he left the courtroom and later, speaking through an interpreter, thanked the judge for believing I was not guilty of these crimes . . . He also thanked God and his attorneys. Reed and Abel Reyna represented Rivas at Rivas first trial in 2008. Reyna, who is now McLennan Countys district attorney, recused his office when the second set of allegations surfaced. Melanie Walker and Edward Vallejo, former prosecutors who were involved in Rivas first trial, were appointed special prosecutors to handle the second trial. Walker, who left the courtroom in tears, declined comment after watching Rivas acquitted for the second time. Reed said he is happy for Rivas, a poultry plant worker, but sad for his family. Allegations of aggravated sexual assault, true or not, victimize the children, the families and the defendants forever, Reed said. I am very happy with the outcome of this trial. I believe that Judge Strothers attention to the law, the facts and the totality of the circumstances practically mandated the decision that he made. This case, I believe, can be looked upon to assure everyone in McLennan County, and all of the people living in and visiting the cities and communities within the county, that the judicial system in Waco, Texas, is not flawed. The girl, who is now 17, testified that Rivas sexually assaulted her in his van in the Wal-Mart parking lot in Bellmead while her younger sister slept nearby. The girls allegations came in 2009 on the same day that Rivas ex-wife was found in contempt of court during a hearing in her custody fight with Rivas. Previous denials Trial testimony showed the girl previously had repeatedly denied to authorities from several agencies that Rivas abused her. Reed argued that Rivas ex-wife convinced her to make the allegations because of the acrimonious custody fight. Walker presented evidence that the girl tested positive for herpes and that Rivas also has herpes, while Rivas ex-wife told authorities that there was no other man in her life who had access to the girls. Reed, however, countered that testimony with evidence showing that a man had been living with Rivas ex-wife for several years and shared a bedroom with the girls. Reed also noted that Rivas had no access to the girl for several years and cited medical evidence that indicated it would be impossible for Rivas to have infected the girl in 2005 and for her first herpes outbreak to occur in 2009. Those who enjoyed the falls shadowcast performance/screenings of the Rocky Horror Picture Show wont have to wait until Halloween and October to do the Time Warp and more again. The Waco Warp, which performed at the Creative Art Studio and Theater, will hold auditions on Thursday, Feb. 18, for upcoming performances in mid-March. Auditions will take place at 7 p.m. at 7524 Bosque Blvd., Suite Q, the new home for the Brazos Theatre Group. Those auditioning should have a lip-sync performance of a song, from Rocky Horror or not, prepared and be ready to do the Time Warp. Waco Warp will perform Rocky Horror Picture Show March 11-12 and will be at the Heart of Texas Comic-Con that weekend, too. Those with questions about Thursdays audition or the upcoming RHPS perfor,ances can email them to rhpswaco@gmail.com. As calving season begins, the Falls County 4-H is looking to protect Texas herds from an increase in predators with a fundraising hunt this weekend. In conjunction with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service in Falls County, 4-H will host a 24-hour statewide varmint hunt beginning noon Saturday. Registration costs $150 for each team, with each group allowed up to four people, who will meet in Lott for the noon kickoff. Registration begins at 10 a.m. Teams are allowed to hunt anywhere in Texas but must return by noon Sunday for the weigh-in. Winners will be determined based on point values for each type of animal, from 50 points for mountain lions down to four points for raccoons. Belt buckles will be awarded to the first place team, and 60 percent of the buy-in money will be distributed for prizes. The rest will go to 4-H. Falls County extension agent Cooper Terrill said the idea came from the need to protect cattle and sheep during birthing season, which runs approximately from January through March. Ive seen more predators in the past two years than Ive seen ever, Terrill said. Because of the strong rains Texas received over the past few years, there was a boom in prey animals, such as rabbits, Terrill said. This causes a rise in predators, such as coyotes, foxes and bobcats. As the population of predators increases, they spread to find food and often feed on exposed calves, goats or lambs. Its a good time to do it, because its not going to have a long-term effect on (the predators) population, Terrill said. The animals are highly prolific. They breed rapidly. Weve seen a massive population boom due to the rain. The predator population count is elusive and almost impossible to track, Terrill said, but the economic losses predators cause are in the millions of dollars and probably are underreported. A 2009 National Agricultural Statistics Service study reported a loss of 197,000 sheep and goats, valued at $18.5 million, and 46,000 cattle and calves valued at $19.5 million. The economic losses are probably much greater since livestock prices have gone up, too, Terrill said. A couple of ways to know the predator population is rising are that more are hit by cars and more are seen during the day, said Gene Richardson, an associate director of commodities and regulatory activities for the Texas Farm Bureau. Bobcats are very nocturnal, Richardson said. When you start seeing them in the daytime, youve got a lot. Tracy Tomascik, also an associate director of commodities and regulatory activities for the Texas Farm Bureau, said he has seen a significant increase of coyotes on his land in Milam and Falls counties. Although they do a tremendous amount of good by keeping the rodent population down, coyotes will frustrate cows during births and steal their calves. Our coyote populations on our farms is much more populated that it was three years ago, Tomascik said. Its concerning when in the middle of the day you see predators wandering across the pasture. Over the holidays, an editorial criticized Christians who do not benignly tolerate homosexuality among other things. Christs words were alleged to include tolerance. Yet neither God nor Christ is tolerant. Compassionate? Yes. Forgiving of those who repent? Yes. Tolerant as the word is used today? No. God does not tolerate sin. This is clearly demonstrated frequently in the Bibles Old Testament. God is clearly shown to impose judgment against sin. This is evident both in the lives of individuals as well as for nations. Likewise, Christ was not tolerant of sin as related in the New Testament. When the adulteress was saved by Christ from stoning, Christ did not say, Go on with your adultery, you have been a victim who needs special consideration. Anyone who does not accept your adultery is just a hater. No, Christ did not stop at, I do not condemn you. Rather, Christ said: Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more. (John 8:11) Her lifestyle was not to be tolerated. Repentance was called for, even though compassion was shown. Likewise, Christ did not tolerate the Jewish leaderships hypocrisy. Neither did he show tolerance when chasing the moneychangers from the Temple. We often seem desirous to focus on a single aspect of God. At one time, fire-and-brimstone preaching was the order of the day. God was a god of judgment. Gods mercy, compassion and love were seldom mentioned. People should seek Gods forgiveness out of fear. At some point, God began to be portrayed strictly as a god of love. There was no mention of judgment and justice, as this might make someone feel uncomfortable. Yet God is multifaceted. He truly is a god of love and compassion but also a god of justice and judgment. Accordingly, we are called upon to repent and accept the way of Christ lest we fall to his judgment. This is compassion and justice but not tolerance. We can show compassion for the individual without accepting the sin. This is no paradox, as todays tolerant crowd would have us believe. I have never personally known a Christian who showed hate toward those choosing sinful lifestyles. I have seen Christians show great compassion and make considerable efforts to help such people. Of course a few calling themselves Christians have exhibited hate over the years. But this is a minuscule percentage. This reflects that Christians are not perfect, merely forgiven. And not all who call themselves Christians are Christians, as is true with any affiliation in this imperfect world. Quite frankly, I am tired of those who do not tolerate homosexuality being labeled haters. The only hate being shown is from the supposedly tolerant. Disagree with the tolerant crowd and be ready for vitriol up to and including death threats. A Philadelphia high school student who penned an article criticizing the Michael Brown and University of Missouri protests has experienced this first hand. He has not returned to classes this semester due to multiple death threats. Apparently some lives matter more than others. Professors have been ousted for suggesting that tolerance should be a two-way street. Somehow the First Amendment only seems to be working in one direction. How sadly ironic that those shouting tolerance show no tolerance toward those who disagree with them. And how astounding that those accusing others of being haters are the ones exhibiting the hate. The bakers who refused to condone homosexuality by baking same-sex wedding cakes displayed no hate. They merely declined business on moral grounds. It would have been much easier to make the sale and take the profits. So where did the hate come from in this scenario? From the tolerance crowd, ranging from verbal abuse and public castigation to death threats. Had homosexual individuals been in need of a meal, the bakers would have gladly met their needs by providing food. But the bakers would not accept or condone a sinful practice. Some apparently think forcing Christians to go against their beliefs is perfectly acceptable. What would those same people say if a devout Muslim restaurateur was forced to serve pork? I am certain the tolerant crowds tune would change. The Muslim would be portrayed as a victim unfairly forced to violate his religious beliefs. Yet Christians are not afforded the same consideration. Those espousing tolerance need to look in the mirror before leveling accusations. The First Amendment should protect all, not merely the politically correct. As far as following Christs example, Christ showed great compassion. But he also called out wrong where it existed. Brent Doty has served in manufacturing and operations management for more than 30 years. He has served on the boards of directors for various organizations, including corporations, chambers of commerce and churches. He lives in Robinson. The team at Waterford Walls has hardly been able to contain its excitement this week as it brings another exciting artwork to the city.... The 24th of July is a special day for Samaritans. 24/7 is a day we use each year to highlight that we are available... AFTER two long years without the fun and festivities that go with St Patricks Day, it has been confirmed that the St Patricks Day... Christmas is such an important time for family reunions, but there are many of us for whom Christmas is also a time when those... Port of Waterford has estimated that it would generate 3.5m this summer with the return of cruise ships for the first time in two... AN Animal Welfare Inspector with the ISPCA has described how defenceless dogs that were saved from an illegal puppy farm in Waterford have been... DESPITE the pressing need to do so, over half of all Irish people say they could not afford an average cost of 56,000 to... A Garda sergeant, who was seen assaulting a member of the Traveller community, was not prosecuted or disciplined over the incident, it has emerged. The... ... but you will need to show proof of jab get into bars STUDENTS heading to college in September will not have to be vaccinated... Waterford Fine Gael Senator John Cummins has described the progress which has been made on the purchase of the former Waterford Crystal site for... James Hird's attempt to clear his name has been met with a high degree of scepticism on social media. In a column for a News Limited newspaper, the disgraced former Essendon coach was given a platform to write about the club's disastrous 2012 supplements program, telling his side of the story. It comes days after the 34 past and present Bombers players who took part in the injecting program received season-long bans from the Court of Arbitration for Sport. In his column, Hird reveals fitness coach Dean Robinson and sport scientist Stephen Dank were not his first choice for a high-performance team that year. With another life-saving drug listed on the PBS, the age-old debate over the ethics of "Big Pharma" and drug pricing continues. The merits of Gilead's hepatitis C drug go without question, but its price tag for Australian patients has been subject to much scrutiny. We have two options: accept that we are completely beholden to the US pharmaceutical market or start competing at their level. Why do the vast majority of medical breakthroughs come from the US? Why not Australia? The obvious answer is size and money. The US is home to 320 million people and a $24.5 trillion GDP compared to Australia's 24 million and $2 trillion. But there are more qualitative differences that set the US biotechnology apart, not just from Australia, but the rest of the world. It is part of the US cultural mindset to believe that anything is possible. They're right, and it's time we started thinking the same way. Credit:Michael Clayton-Jones It is possible for Australian biotech companies to compete on the international stage, with CSL and Cochlear being notable examples. But such success stories are exceptions, and the question remains: what can we learn about innovation from the US, without sacrificing our fair and equitable health system? The answer to that question depends entirely on whom you ask. Independent senator Nick Xenophon. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen It's a name he's not at all comfortable with "It seems ego-driven or self-centred" and he's fully cognisant of the risks of personality-based political parties: he had front-row seats for the spectacularly swift self-destruction of the Palmer United Party, after all. But he ultimately took the view that his name recognition is one of his key electoral assets. An unrelated name he toyed with Australian Centrist Party would only create confusion. When Xenophon called for candidates about 450 people put their hands up. After spending much of 2015 narrowing down the list he's decided to run candidates in at least 15 lower house seats about half in SA, the others spread across Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria and two Senate candidates in each of the six states. Candidates are expected to share some of Xenophon's key concerns predatory gambling, government accountability, the future of Australian manufacturing and have a commitment to the rather more nebulous concepts of "common sense" and "fairness". While he doesn't wholeheartedly welcome the comparison, he's trying to stake out the pragmatic middle ground once occupied by the Australian Democrats, but less rarefied, more retail. So how will he fare? Under Abbott, his prospects were promising. Analysts predicted he could pick up another Senate seat and as many as four lower house seats in his home state, knocking off the likes of government minister Christopher Pyne in Sturt and the recently-demoted Jamie Briggs in Mayo. A ReachTEL opinion poll last July showed an unnamed Xenophon candidate would beat Pyne 38 per cent to 31. That result sent shockwaves through the Abbott government and was seen as a key reason why Pyne shifted his support to Turnbull although the minister denies this. In those days, anything seemed possible maybe even wins in a couple of seats outside SA. Xenophon is running a candidate against Abbott in the Sydney seat of Warringah (assuming the former PM runs again) and a number of other government figures such as Assistant Treasurer Kelly O'Dwyer in Victoria and Ian Macfarlane in Queensland. But post-coup, things are different. "I think they're going to struggle in the lower house," says University of Adelaide political scientist Clement Macintyre. "I wasn't saying that when Abbott was prime minister, I thought there was every chance they were going to take a couple of South Australian seats. "But the change to Turnbull has really changed the mood." Professor Macintyre believes Xenophon may now have a better chance of taking the seats of Adelaide and Makin from Labor. But if the major parties preference against him again a sure sign that they're worried about his growing influence his candidates could be locked out. "The temptation for the major parties to take out an MP from the other side will be great but breathing life into the Xenophon phenomenon in SA is fraught with risks," Macintyre said. ABC election analyst Antony Green says after eight years in federal parliament, Xenophon has good name recognition outside SA and could poll as high as 10-12 per cent in the eastern states. "But that's not enough to pick up a seat," Green says. "He would still have a chance in some seats in South Australia now but even then it's going to be tough." Xenophon's difficulties are compounded by a lack of money. Without any corporate or union support he's largely reliant on public donations, which haven't exactly been flooding in. According to his website, the party has attracted only three donations over the $12,500 public disclosure threshold. Xenophon can barely afford to visit his own candidates (he's refusing to charge taxpayers for any party-related travel) let alone drop substantial sums on advertising or polling. He's dipped into his own pocket taking out a new $100,000 mortgage on his house to cover campaign costs. "We're running a very lean operation," he says. "This is not so much a shoestring budget as a dental floss budget." There is some good news for Xenophon: both Macintyre and Green believe Griff, who's now doubling as Xenophon's lead SA Senate candidate and the party's campaign manager, will secure a seat. That's not exactly the sweeping success Xenophon hoped for. But he's staying upbeat. Committee chairwoman Labor senator Sue Lines said the findings of the inquiry showed a "disgraceful" level of discrimination. The Education and Employment References Committee, which oversaw the Federal senate inquiry into how children with a disability fare at school, was "shocked and saddened" by evidence children were being denied their right to an education. The school system is failing children with a disability, with a national inquiry finding they are routinely refused enrolment, bullied and abused. "We are failing children with disability in the school system," she said. "They are refused enrolment, they are only going a few days a week or not going at all. If they do attend school, bullying and exclusion are the norm. It is disgraceful. "This inquiry has lifted the lid on the failure to provide these children with the basic human right to an education." The inquiry received almost 300 submissions from families of children with a disability, education experts and disability advocates, outlining a culture of low expectations for children with a disability. Chief executive of Children with Disability Australia Stephanie Gotlib told the inquiry: "To have any chance of accessing your basic education rights in Australia, students with disability must rely on fierce advocacy - usually by families - and the stars aligning." "Bamboo sticks, lighters, sand, knives, glass and even stones will demand you act out on your pledge of allegiance," Bahrun fumed, hoping for bloodshed. "Be lone wolves by whatever means you can," declared the man known as Bahrun Naim in a recent internet screed, later praising the Paris attacks in an attempt to inspire what one leading analyst called "terrorist wannabes" in Indonesia. Police in Jakarta accuse a firebrand Indonesian fighting in Syria with Islamic State of inspiring Thursday's terrorist rampage. Bahrun's online rants have given him a profile, but there are doubts he acts with the formal endorsement or more importantly, the resources of Islamic State leadership. Bahrun Naim, the Indonesian Islamic State member, is suspected of calling for attacks in Malaysia. Credit:Google+ If anything, he appears a franchised hater in a clumsy and deadly extension of the terrorist brand. Bahrun described the Paris attacks in November as "inspirational", "well-planned" and "astounding", but if Bahrun indeed had a hand from afar in directing attack in Jakarta, his footsoldiers failed to mimic the full horror seen in France. His internet blog no longer operating on Friday but still available via an internet archive featured bomb-making lessons, a "short-course" in being a sniper, and setting up cell systems for command. Thursday's attack in central Jakarta has fuelled the worst fears of south-east Asian governments that Islamic State fighters returning from the Middle East have emerged as a dangerous new threat to the region. IS has grandiose plans for fighters recruited across the Malay archipelago who have formed a dedicated fighting force called Katibah Nusantara (Malay Archipelago Combat Unit), according to intelligence reports. Since 2014 the unit has been using videos and printed material in the Malay and Indonesian languages to recruit fighters and supporters in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and southern Thailand, reports say. LONDON: A little over a quarter of a century ago, Europe celebrated the healing of the schism that Communism enforced on it since World War II, and which produced great tribunes of freedom. Lech Walesa, the Polish shipyard electrician, climbed over his yard wall in Gdansk to join and then lead a strike in 1980 lighting the fuse to ignite, 10 years and a period of confinement later, a revolution that couldn't be squashed. He was elected president in 1990. Poland's Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the Law and Justice Party leader, and former prime minister, drives the government's agenda with a steady purpose. Poland is now regarded as the largest and most successful of the Central European states. Credit:Bartek Sadowski Vaclav Havel, the Czech writer and dissident who served years in prison for his opposition to the Communist government, emerged as the natural leader of the democrats who articulated the frustration of the country. He was elected president of the still-united Czechoslovakia in 1989. Jozsef Antall, a descendant of the Hungarian nobility who opposed both the Hungarian fascists and communists, was imprisoned for participating in the 1956 revolt against the Soviet Union. And he was foremost in the negotiations to end Communist rule in the late 1980s. He survived to be elected prime minister in 1990. Patrick Norman Pat Chapman is a 34-year-old, Caucasian male who was last known to be in Piedmont which is near the area of Greenville, Missouri on May 10, 2020. Pat had stayed the night with a friend and his wife at their home. In the early morning when the friend woke to go to work. Pat was gone in his own Burgundy color 1995 Ford Escort. That is the last anyone was known to have seen him. The vehicle was later recovered on May 29, 2020 in Mill Spring, Missouri. Advertisement By West Kentucky Star Staff Jan. 15, 2016 | PADUCAH, KY By West Kentucky Star Staff Jan. 15, 2016 | 04:19 PM | PADUCAH, KY The McCracken County Sheriff's Department is warning the public about a recent Facebook scam that cost a local woman $500. McCracken County Deputies were contacted Friday afternoon by a local resident who told them that a Charles Smith Mountjoy had sent her a friend request on facebook, which she accepted. The victim said that Mountjoy told her that for a fee of $500, she would receive $100,000 from the US Government. Mountjoy then asked for personal information like her drivers license number, name and date of birth, facebook password and phone number. The scammer had also reportedly made another facebook profile impersonating one of the victim's friends, saying that the scam was legitimate. The victim ultimately sent the scammer $500 and her personal information. She later attempted to contact the scammer, and eventually received a phone call from someone with a foreign accent. Deputies are advising residents to use caution when giving out any personal information over the phone or email. Kentucky State Police are looking for a missing Monticello woman last seen in Hopkinsville By West Kentucky Star Staff Jan. 14, 2016 | 10:54 AM | CALVERT CITY, KY Governor Matt Bevin announced Thursday morning that Westlake Chemical Corporation plans to invest $130 million in their Calvert City facility to improve efficiency and retain hundreds of jobs. In a press release on their website, Westlake said the expansion would remove a bottleneck at the facility, and expand their ethylene capacity. Westlake officials expect to start construction as early as the end of the year. This investment by Westlake in Marshall County helps ensure a stable future for thousands of people in Western Kentucky directly and indirectly connected to the facility, Gov. Bevin said. Westlake President and Chief Executive Officer Albert Chao said, We are pleased about this investment in our Calvert City operations. Westlake Chemical has enjoyed a rewarding relationship with Kentucky for more than 25 years. These operations are a vital hub for our enterprise and we look forward to a continued beneficial partnership in the future. Westlake purchased the Calvert City facility in 1990 from BF Goodrich. It employs 387 workers and 150 fulltime contractors. Customers use their vinyl resins to make a variety of construction materials, including pipe, windows, fencing, decking and film. By West Kentucky Star Staff Jan. 14, 2016 | 09:07 AM | PADUCAH, KY The Tiny Tornadoes. That's what a group of 11 people, many of them teachers, are calling themselves from an elementary school out of the Paducah City Schools.The group won $1 Million from Wednesday night's Powerball drawing. The odds of having a $1 Million dollar ticket are 1 in 11,688,053. To win that amount, they matched the five white balls in the drawing, but did not match the Powerball.The group indicates they bought a total of 27 tickets. KY Lottery officials say the ticket was purchased at Smoke Shop on North 8th Street.A $50,000 ticket was sold in Benton, according to Kentucky Lottery officials.It matched 4 white ball numbers AND the Powerball number. The odds of winning that prize are 1 in 913,129.18.The $1.6 billion jackpot will be shared by ticket holders in Munford, TN, just north of Memphis, and winners in Southern California and Florida.Multiple reliable sources are indicating to West Kentucky Star that the winner of the $1 Million Powerball ticket sold in Paducah, is a small group of teachers at a Paducah area school.An announcement is expected by the group within the next few hours. By West Kentucky Star Staff Jan. 15, 2016 | 11:38 AM | FULTON COUNTY, KY A man was arrested Tuesday evening on several charges following a police pursuit in Fulton County. Fulton County Sheriff's deputies responded at around 8:45 pm to a home on Stateline Road. Deputies said the homeowner told them a white male identified as 32-year-old Robert D. Hardy came into the home and tried to give him some drugs. Hardy had left the scene by the time deputies arrived, and they went to his home looking for him. Deputies said that when they arrived, Hardy was on a backhoe and had gotten it stuck. He then fled into a field, ran through a creek and into a wooded area. He was eventually taken into custody inside his home. Hardy is charged with aggravated DUI, fleeing or evading police, resisting arrest, possession of drug paraphernalia and criminal mischief. He was booked into to the Fulton County Detention Center. Hardy was also served a fugitive from justice warrant out of Obion County, TN. By Joe Jackson Jan. 14, 2016 | 06:42 PM | MAYFIELD, KY A Calloway County woman faces DUI and other charges after a head-on crash Wednesday morning in Graves County. According to the Graves County Sheriffs office, the crash happened around 10:30am in the 7600 block of State Route 58 East. Deputies said 58-year-old Ronnie Heath of Hardin was traveling west on KY 58 when a vehicle driven by 28-year-old Brandi Wilburn of Murray crossed the center line and struck Heath head-on. Deputies said Wilburn had been seen by another motorist swerving and driving recklessly just prior to the accident. The motorist was on the phone with dispatchers when the accident occurred. Wilburn had to be removed from her vehicle by members of the Mayfield Fire Department. Both Heath and Wilburn were taken to Jackson Purchase Medical Center. Heath was treated and released. Wilburn was later transferred to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. Wilburn was charged with DUI 1st-aggravated, and will have criminal charges pending. By The Associated Press Jan. 14, 2016 | 06:30 PM | LOUISVILLE, KY Two University of Louisville trustees have announced they're withdrawing their support for university President James Ramsey. Trustee Steve Campbell said he is making the change "with all due respect." Another trustee, Craig Greenburg, said a resolution last fall supporting Ramsey is being used as leverage by Ramsey's defenders. The Courier-Journal reports the comments came during a meeting Thursday. Ramsey declined to speak to reporters afterward but said in a statement that the two trustees of 20 are entitled to their point of view, adding that he disagrees with them about how to best provide a quality education. Board Chairman Larry Benz said after the meeting he supports Ramsey but thinks the powers of the president need to be "decentralized." Trustee Ron Butt said briefly that he strongly opposes a proposal that would remove Ramsey as foundation president. ___ Information from: The Courier-Journal, http://www.courier-journal.com By The Associated Press Jan. 15, 2016 | 02:45 PM | LOUISVILLE, KY Chinese appliance maker Haier is buying General Electric Co.'s appliance unit for $5.4 billion to expand its global presence.Haier and GE announced the sale Friday and said they agreed to form a strategic partnership to cooperate in areas such as the Internet, healthcare, and advanced manufacturing.GE's sale of its appliance unit comes in the midst of an effort by the company to shift its focus to higher-technology and higher-profit areas such as medical equipment.Haier said GE's appliance division will remain headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky.Haier, headquartered in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao, is the world's biggest appliance maker, with 2014 revenue of $32.6 billion.GE had previously agreed to sell the business to Sweden's Electrolux (ELUXY), but the deal was abandoned after regulators raised antitrust concerns.Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin said Friday that the sale puts Kentucky in prime position to compete globally on appliance manufacturing. He applauded Haiers decision to keep the appliances headquarters in Louisville, and he hopes the appliance business there can strengthen and grow. By The Associated Press Jan. 14, 2016 | 07:00 PM | FRANKFORT, KY A Kentucky lawmaker has withdrawn his bill that would have barred people from posting information identifying people involved in life-threatening events on social media for one hour. State Rep. Bam Carney said Thursday he wanted to start a conversation about people using social media to quickly share news of tragic events they witnessed. Carney says that was accomplished with media attention of his bill. He says that too often, people find out about tragedies involving loved ones through social media before hearing from authorities. First Amendment expert and Louisville lawyer Jon Fleischaker had told the Lexington Herald-Leader the bill amounted to "prior restraint" and was unconstitutional. The bill proposed fines for violators. It would have made exceptions for news media, victims of the event and emergency responders at the event. While Operation Desert Storm called up scores of Air Force Reserve units, few units at the time had the distinction of also hosting a major embarkation point. Thats just what happened when the men and women of the Patriot Wing then officially known as the 439th Military Airlift Wing swung into 24-hour action at Westover. Air Force airlift planners seized the advantages of the bases strategic location, long runways, and vast ramp space to convert the reserve base into what would be one of the busiest airlift hubs throughout 1990 and into the spring of 1991. Operation Desert Storm was an exceptional example of Total Force integration in support of combat operations with an all-volunteer force. By the time the operation ended in March 1991, Westover had racked up the following statistics: -- More than 63,000 troops processed through on their way to the desert -- Aerial port squadrons handled more than 121,000 tons of desert-bound cargo -- After the war ended, Patriot Wing leadership organized an around-the-clock welcome home center, with more than 30,000 sailors, Marines, Airmen, and soldiers stepping foot on American soil for the first time -- The base handled 3,605 aircraft Jan. 16, 2016, marks the 25th anniversary of Desert Storm, the coalition effort to free Kuwait from the grips of an Iraq invasion force. Below are some factoids on Air Force Reserve contributions to the campaign, courtesy of the Air Force Reserve Command History Office. Airlift and Aeromedical In the build-up to Desert Storm, Reservists provided fully 50 percent of the Air Forces strategic airlift aircrew and aerial port capability, 33 percent of its aeromedical evacuation aircrews and 25 percent of its tactical airlift forces. Volunteerism By August 1990, more than 15,300 Reservists had volunteered to serve, about 22 percent of the Air Force Reservists. Strategic airlift The first Reserve assets to reach the theater of operations was a C-141 Starlifter aircrew that landed in Saudi Arabia on Aug. 8, 1990. By the eve of Desert Storm, Air Force Reserve aircraft and crews flew more than 107,000 hours, moved more than 135,000 passengers, 235,000 tons of cargo and delivered five million pounds of fuel. Casualties On August 29, 1990, an Air Force C-5, flown by an all-Reserve, all volunteer crew from the 68th Military Airlift Squadron, 433th Airlift Wing, Kelly AFB, Texas, crashed on takeoff from Ramstein Air Base, Germany. Thirteen people died and four were wounded. Ten of the 17 were Reservists. Of those 10, nine died and one was injured. Staff Sgt Lorenzo Galvan, Jr., a loadmaster, earned the Airmans Medal for his efforts to rescue other crash victims. The nine who died were the only Reservists to lose their lives during the conflict. Reserve Call-Up On Aug 22, 1990, President Bush authorized the call-up of 200,000 reservists for 90 days under Title 10 US Code Section 678b. The decision, the first significant, conflict-related call-up of the Reserve component since 1968, marking the beginning of a process that would eventually see more than 20,000 Air Force Reservists called to active duty. Who got the call-up By February 1991, more than 17,500 Reservists were on active duty. Roughly one in four was a woman; approximately 1,800 were Air Reserve Technicians, 1,300 were individual mobilization augmentees, and more than 500 were members of the individual ready reserve. More than 7,800 of the Reservists called up were in medical specialties. In expectation of massive casualties that never came, all Air Force Reserve medical units were called to active duty. Mobilization peak Mobilization reached its peak on March 12, 1991 with almost 23,500 Air Force Reservists on duty. Of these, more than 20,000 were assigned to 215 Reserve units; 2,300 were IMAs, 960 were IRR or retirees. Most of the Ready Reserve were medical personnel. Sole fighter unit The Air Force Reserves first (and only) tactical fighter unit to be recalled was the 706th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 926th Fighter Group, Naval Air Station New Orleans. The A-10 squadron deployed to Saudi Arabia in mid-January just before the beginning of the air campaign against Iraq. Combat notes: Capt Bob Swain, a pilot with the 706th TFS, scored the first-ever A-10 air-to-air kill when he destroyed an Iraqi helicopter. This same officer -- later a colonel -- commanded the 439th AW at Westover from June 2008 to August 2011. During one day of combat, Lt Col. Greg Wilson, 706th FTS and 1st Lt. Stephan K. Otto of the 354th Tactical Fighter Wing, Myrtle Beach AFB, S.C., destroyed 10 mobile Scud launchers and a pair of ammunition dumps and helped AF/A-18s destroy 10 more Scuds. Tactical airlift Crews from the 1650th Tactical Airlift Wing (Provisional), drawn largely from the 914th Airlift Wing, Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station, New York, and 927th Tactical Airlift Group, Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Michigan, flew more than 5,000 hours, and 3,200 sorties in 42 days of combat. Left Hook Tactical airlift forces played a major role in the redeployment of forces in northern Saudi Arabia as commanders set up what became the dramatic left hook into Iraq. A-10s operating from bases close to the front lines, attacked a full range of ground targets including Scud missiles. Reserve AC-130 Gunships and HH-3E helicopters also supported special operations as well as search and rescue missions. Demobilization The Department of Defense authorized commanders of the gaining major commands to demobilize Reservists, consistent with military requirement, on March 8, 1991. Most Reservists had been demobilized by late June, but a handful remained on active duty through August and beyond. (MSgt. Andrew Biscoe, 439th AW Public Affairs, contributed to this story) The latest advisory comes in the view of a martial law imposed by Putin in parts of Ukraine. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/01/2016 (2470 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. An elaborate humanitarian mission to rescue 10 at-risk Somali orphans from Saudi Arabia and bring them to Canada ended successfully Thursday night at Richardson International Airport. Im so happy, said oldest brother Fathi Ismail, 17, who in October 2014 crossed into Canada alone and on foot at Emerson and walked to Winnipeg. The Grade 12 student, who has a physics test Friday, has been trying to get the siblings he left behind ever since. On Thursday evening, they arrived into the welcoming arms of Fathi, the childrens sponsors at Hospitality House Refugee Ministry and dozens of well-wishers. Its a helluva story, said retired newspaperman and Hospitality House executive director Tom Denton. For the charity that has privately sponsored hundreds of refugees over the years, this is its most complicated and suspenseful caper to date, he said. Phil Hossack / Winnipeg Free Press Nasiimo Ismail looks a little skeptical as he's wrapped in a scarf for Winnipeg's -20 C temps Thursday. The rescue involved 10 siblings ranging from eight to 16 years old, plus the eldest sisters baby girl. The siblings were orphaned after their mother died of cancer in 2009 and their father died in 2014 of a heart attack. Their dad had worked for the Somali consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where the children were born. When he died, the Saudi government wanted to send the children to Somalia where they had no relatives to support them and a slim chance of survival amid its anarchy, said Denton. Their late fathers friends and colleagues in Jeddah raised money to look after the children who had no legal status in Saudi Arabia and keep them safe there. Then, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia started rounding up Somali illegals and deporting them. In October 2014, Fathi, then 16, obtained a student visa to the U.S. After landing in Los Angeles, Fathi took a bus to Minneapolis, then caught a ride close to the border crossing at Emerson. The teen walked into Canada and all the way to Winnipeg, where he has a cousin. Fathi filed a successful refugee claim with the help of the Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council, but his Winnipeg cousin, whod just arrived months earlier, was in no position to support him. Fathi was placed in the care of Child and Family Services. Although safe in Winnipeg, the teen was distraught over leaving his younger siblings behind, Denton said. A social worker told Denton that Fathi would break into tears in school, afraid his siblings in Saudi Arabia would be deported to Somalia. Phil Hossack / Winnipeg Free Press 18-month-old Kinda Ismail peers out of a new parka after arriving at the James Richardson International Thursday evening. Here we have a situation where kids were in extreme danger, said Denton. The board of Hospitality House agreed to sponsor the children. We had to get them out of there quickly or risk them being deported. Twice, the children had to go into hiding when Saudi security forces swept their neighbourhood for illegals. They had to sneak off in pairs for immigration medical checkups to not draw attention to themselves. They needed identity documents and passports from Somalia even though they were born and living in Saudi Arabia. The hardest part was to have the Canadian system for processing privately sponsored refugees do a fast one, Denton said. Its not set up to do fast processing. Typically it takes five years or more. This time, the bureaucracy acted quickly, thanks to the compassion and hard work of officials with Citizenship and Immigration Canada, the International Organization for Migration, the UNHCR and the Sponsorship Agreement Holder Secretariat in Ontario, Denton said. The hero who made it happen, though, is Fathi, said Denton. This kid (who just was) 16 crossed the world alone to L.A. Then he made his way to Minneapolis and thence to the Canadian border, from which point he walked to Winnipeg. He made a refugee claim, was successful, and then went about saving all his siblings from death or slavery, and giving them a chance in Canada How many 16 year olds would have the strength and commitment to do that? Phil Hossack / Winnipeg Free Press Surviving siblings of the Ismail family wait outside James Richardson International Thursday evening in new parkas in -20C temps after arriving in the city from Saudi Arabia. Fathi, legally a youth in care, turns 18 on Jan. 19 and agreed to be named in this story. He said his dad was a strong man and would have wanted him to make sure his brothers and sisters were safe. He would be very happy, said Fathi, who plans to continue his education as a youth in care to get a good job so he can support his younger siblings. Groups and volunteers are helping, too, Denton said. A woman in the Somali community has volunteered to be a live-in house mother for the kids, who will be housed at the Hospitality House residence and supported by the Catholic and Anglican-funded charity, the Somali community and donors to a Go Fund Me page on social media. Denton said theyve met with CFS. An anonymous donor has agreed to pick up the tab for the childrens airfare, he said. At the airport, members of the General Wolfe School human rights club and staff welcomed the weary young newcomers with roses, welcome signs in English and Arabic and bags of mitts, hats and boots. Winnipeg restaurants that belong to Restaurants Canada have agreed to feed the children during their first week, said Mary Beth Taylor, who was at the airport to welcome Fathis family. Shes with the Creaddo Group thats volunteering to help Hospitality House raise money. Manitobans wanted to help when they heard about the arrival of the children, said Karin Gordon, director of settlement for Hospitality House. Quilters in Pinawa have made blankets for each of them. Students at West Kildonan Collegiate prepared gift boxes for each of the children, who will attend school as soon as possible. They will have a big advantage coming in at this young age, Denton said. He has one simple but big hope for them: That they will have a normal life as Canadians. We have the most successful multicultural society on the planet. Its something Im very proud of. carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca Phil Hossack / Winnipeg Free Press Yasin Ismail, 9, reacts to the crush of media and welcoming supporters at James Richardson Airport Thursday as his older brother Fathi (right) greets all of his surviving siblings. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/01/2016 (2469 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A deal is in place between Omnitrax Canada and a group of First Nations led by Mathias Colomb Cree Nation to acquire the Hudson Bay Railway and the Port of Churchill. Details were not released, but the players made it clear it would not be a conventional cash transaction and there would have to be an element of public-sector support to be able to finalize it. A previously announced 45-day period of diligence expires Tuesday. Wayne Glowacki / Winnipeg Free Press In centre, Chief Arlen Dumas, Mathias Colomb Cree Nation, MKO Grand Chief Sheila North Wilson and Merv Tweed, president of Omnitrax Canada at a news conference Friday to update details of the purchase of the Hudson Bay Railway from Omnitrax. We are proud to champion this effort to reinvigorate the north in a meaningful way, said Arlen Dumas, chief of the northern Mathias Colomb First Nation. Dumas said the transaction will eventually include support from various partners. He was cryptic in his response to questions about the structure and the financing of the deal, suggesting it would reflect new realities a historic transfer of land and infrastructure back to their rightful owners. These processes (the manner in which the railroad was owned and operated) were developed 50 years ago, and they may have worked 50 years ago, but they need to be re-shuffled, Dumas said. We need to move in a different direction. Fundamentally, the way we have been doing business in the north is a convention of an outdated time. How that will manifest itself in the transfer of ownership of about 1,000 kilometres of railroad line and a deep water port on the Hudson Bay remains to be seen. However it works, Merv Tweed, president of Omnitrax Canada, seemed to be on the same page. We have looked after the property for 17 years, Tweed said. We recognize it is time to move back to the rightful owners. Again, while no details were disclosed on how the deal is to be structured, Tweed acknowledged it would not be a conventional commercial transaction. It has been a real experience regarding how these deals are put together, he said. I see the positives in the outcome. It is new to us. Omnitrax has been unsuccessful in diversifying the cargo shipped out of the port and has relied exclusively on grain exports. But grain volumes fell dramatically this year and may have prompted Denver-based Omnitrax to take steps to get out of the Manitoba market. Mathias Colomb Cree Nation, along with two other northern bands, have experience in the railroad business. They acquired the line from Pukatawagan to The Pas from Omnitrax in 2006 and have run the Keewatin Railway Co. successfully since then. Port of Churchill That deal was done in a way that does not allow the owners to make a profit. Its doing very well, Dumas said. We are acquiring additional assets and contracts It just depends on how you look at profit. To me, the benefit of having 10 families working for the last 10 years is immeasurable. Four other bands have submitted official letters of support of the current deal, but Dumas said he is looking to include every First Nation in the railroads jurisdiction. Tweed said hes optimistic the negotiations would be completed by Tuesday. Discussions have been taking place with federal and provincial government officials. Dumas indicated federal support seems to be forthcoming and said he invited participation from the provincial government. A spokeswoman for provincial Infrastructure and Transportation Minister Steve Ashton would only say: We can confirm that senior officials from several departments have met with the First Nations and Omnitrax. We are engaged and supportive. Sinclair Harrison, the president of the Hudson Bay Route Association, which promotes use of the rails and port, said the association would support whatever the ownership structure looked like. We are not picking favourites, Harrison said. We have been around for 73 years, and we will support whoever is successful and do what we can to help them make it a successful operation. martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/01/2016 (2469 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The bodies of three adults killed in a tragic fire were on their way back home Friday to Bunibonibee Cree Nation in northern Manitoba. Grieving relatives wheeled funeral flowers and wreaths through the crowded Perimeter Airlines terminal on Ferry Road as crews loaded three coffins onto two charter planes for the long journey home. James Crane, along with his son, Jamie Crane, and Jastidee Sinclair, perished in the house fire on Dec. 29 in Bunibonibee at Oxford House. JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS A coffin bearing the body of one of three people killed in a house fire in Bunibonibee Cree Nation in December is loaded onto an airplane in Winnipeg Friday. The bodies were in Winnipeg for autopsies and are making the trip home for burial. The fly-in Cree community is located 575 kilometres northeast of Winnipegz Relatives avoided media scrutiny and Chief Timothy Muskego said theyd declined comment. As expected, RCMP confirmed to the chief the cause of the fire was a wood stove. Although the community has four fire trucks, none of them were of much use because there was no source of water, and the house burned to the ground with the three people inside. The bodies of three adults were discovered in the rubble of the home after the fire. Where this happened, there was no water main and that took us longer to extinguish the fire. It took so long for the water to be trucked in, the chief said. The tragedy cast a light on deplorable state of First Nation housing and fire services. Immediately after the fire, the grand chief who oversees Manitobas northern First Nations communities said, Were seeing the unfortunate realities of a failing system after a fire claimed the lives of three people in Oxford House. The grand chief of the Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, Sheila North Wilson, is from Oxford House. One of the solutions MKO is starting a northern First Nations fire association and having this body look at the gaps where things are falling through in terms of fire safety in First Nations and MKO territory, North Wilson said. This more than hits close to home its my home and my community. All we can do is pray and be with them. A report obtained by The Canadian Press before Christmas revealed almost half the First Nations in Canada have little to no fire protection. JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Chief Timothy Muskego of the Bunibonibee Cree Nation, at Perimeter Airways in Winnipeg Friday. Manitoba was one of two provinces B.C. being the other that had the highest percentage of First Nation sites with marginal fire protection, according to the report. The report also found that rates of fires were 2.4 times higher in First Nations than the rest of the country, while also revealing First Nations residents were 10 times more likely to die in a house fire compared with the rest of Canada. Muskego said before he boarded that fixing the poor state of infrastructure is his top priority in talks with the federal government. The funerals are tentatively set for Monday after a weekend wake this weekend. Im happy the bodies were released. The families can put their loved ones to rest, Muskego said. The Office of the Manitoba Fire Commissioner and the RCMP both conducted investigations. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/01/2016 (2470 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A St. Theresa Point has been charged with second-degree murder after another man died from an apparent assault at a Winnipeg hotel last week. Emergency officials were called to a hotel in the 400 block of Westwood Drive around 8:30 a.m. Dec. 11, where they found 57-year-old George Gabriel Flett suffering from upper-body injuries. Flett was taken to hospital, where he died of his injuries on Jan. 5. On Dec. 22, police arrested Darcy Jerome Beardy, a 29-year-old from St. Theresa Point, and charged him with aggravated assault. On Jan.13, police charged Beardy with second-degree murder after consultation with Crown prosecutors. He has been returned to custody. Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/01/2016 (2470 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. This week, Premier Greg Selinger took a major step closer to realizing the dream of relocating the CPR Winnipeg Yards. Unfortunately for him, it is getting increasingly unlikely he will be at the controls if and when this dream becomes a reality. On Thursday, Selinger revealed he had recruited former Quebec premier Jean Charest to head an as-yet named task force to study rail relocation in Winnipeg and formulate a plan to move forward. Theoretically at least, this task force is supposed to include participation from both CP and CN. Make no mistake about it, this is a deft bit of politics on the part of the premier. Charest is a heavy-hitter, a political figure with both the gravitas and the influence to lend some much-needed credibility to the rail relocation plan. Wayne Glowacki / Winnipeg Free Press From left, former Quebec Premier Jean Charest, Premier Greg Selinger and Mayor Brian Bowman. Charest was named Rail Relocation Task Force Chair at a news conference Thursday at The Forks. It was also very cleverly timed. Starting Wednesday, the province is under a pre-election publication ban that will last through to the April 19 election. It prevents the Selinger government, including its Crowns and agencies, from making any significant announcement. The Charest appointment comes just under that wire. Even so, there are questions now about whether the former first minister could make appointments to his task force or otherwise demonstrate progress in getting the railways to sit down and talk relocation without violating the blackout. For now, Selinger will be relying on the fact that this is one of the boldest and most impactful ideas to ever be floated by a Manitoba premier. The impact of the premiers ruminations on this project floated late last year in the throne speech for the fall session of the Manitoba were limited not by a lack of support but by a shortage of faith that it could ever come to fruition. Most Manitobans love the idea. In a recent Free Press-Probe Research poll, nearly 60 per expressed support for the idea; only 23 per cent opposed. First ministers will tell you that anytime you have an issue with clear, strong majority support, its one worth pursuing. The problem is most Manitobans are also of the opinion its not realistic to expect the rail yards to relocate. That its too expensive and disruptive, and that the railways themselves will try to (pun intended) derail the whole initiative. The Charest appointment is clearly an effort to cause those skeptics to re-think their positions, and perhaps create some buzz around the NDP government as it heads into a critical date with voters. Selinger is right to point out that the estimated $1 billion needed to build bridges and tunnels over and under the CPR Central Yards is really not money well spent. And that relocating the yards is, in the long run, the better value with a better outcome. Selinger clearly hopes Charests involvement will show some voters there is more to this plan than high hopes. First and foremost, Charest is hardly in need of the work. Since leaving politics unceremoniously his government was unseated by the Parti Quebecois in a 2012 election, in which Charest lost his own seat the former first minister has gone back to practise high-level law. It certainly seems Charest believes in Selingers dream; he has precious little to gain and quite a bit to lose from hitching his wagon to a hopeless cause. Second, Charest certainly does have the gravitas and skill set to sit down face to face with the CEOs of the railways, renowned as among the toughest and most unyielding business leaders in the country. He is a constant and welcomed presence in the rarified air of corporate Canada. Charests challenge is to get the two major railways to agree to admit publicly that they are willing to at least sit down and talk about potential relocation scenarios. Both CN and CP will likely need to be at the table given that the rationalization of railways through Winnipeg will require some co-ordination between the two competitors. That participation seemed to be somewhat in doubt Thursday when representatives of the railways made a hasty exit from the news conference announcing Charests appointment without facing the media. Prior to this announcement, CN and CP expressed only mild support for assisting the province to study the issue of relocation. However, and perhaps most importantly, they have said they will participate in the process Charest is now leading. Its important to realize there is, at this stage, no benefit for the railways to demonstrate much in the way of support for a relocation plan. Federal legislation that oversees projects like this ensures a railway can neither lose nor gain materially from a relocation. In reality, a scenario in which the government pays the gross majority of the costs of relocation is a potential win for the railways. The principles of negotiating strategy dictate, at this point, that they refrain from showing too much of their hands. This most recent development in one of the most fascinating stories in Manitoba politics certainly should set chins wagging in this, the critical period before an April 19 election. Less certain is who the rail relocation task force will be reporting to come April 20. dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca Families who are in various stages of transferring their farms to the next generation are invited to a series of three Land Stewardship Project workshops Feb. 1, 8 and 15 in rural Plainview. The sessions, which will be held at Peace United Methodist Church, 52497 275th Ave., Elgin, Minn., run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The cost is $150 per family, which covers three full day sessions and materials. Space is limited. To register or for more information, contact LSPs Karen Stettler by Jan. 25 at 507-523-3366 or stettler@landstewardshipproject.org. Winona County started the new year by filling the vacancy for its planning and environmental services director, which had been vacant since early summer. Eric Evenson-Marden has been in the position since Dec. 28. He has been in government, environment and planning-related fields since the early 1990s, when he was the senior planner for Dakota County. He worked as the administrator of the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District, one of the largest in the state, from 1998 until 2014. Most recently he was the zoning supervisor for Becker County, a county of just over 30,000 people. The Daily News talked with Evenson-Marden about his first weeks, land-use and environmental issues he expects to encounter, and what kinds of changes and challenges he anticipates. So how are you liking Winona so far? Love it, I absolutely love it ... This used to be a weekend destination quite often for my family. I have a sister down in St. Charles, I got a sister down in Chatfield, I have a brother that lives down here. The other thing that I have come to appreciate and really like about Winona itself is that its a very young-feeling community. Its got kind of that cool, urban feel to it, you know? You got three coffeehouses within walking distance from work, how cool is that? Is that a change from northern Minnesota? Its a big change. The area where I was working, its kind of lakes country. Up there, about a third of the population would leave every winter. You have a lot of retirees up there, so it had a different energy about it. Summer time there was a lot going on because its a big playground. Recreation and vacationing. So down here has a different feel. Youve been in the planning and environmental work a while. What are differences between here and where you were before? The big difference is up there I was dealing with lakes, down here youre dealing with streams. We had about the about the same percentage of agriculture and non-agriculture. The western side of Becker County was all farmland. On the eastern side you get into lakes region, and a lot of lakes issues. Just like here, tourism is a big issue up there, a big part of the economy. Up there, forestry was a large part of the economy. Youve got kind of the conflict of long-term residents versus new people coming into the area, that tension between people who are buying their little retirement parcel and folks who have lived there a long time and are used to things kind of the way they always were. One of the biggest discussions around here has been around sand mining. Do you have any experience in that area? My background is in geology and geological engineering ... I understand it, yes. Was that also an issue up north? No. We had gravel mining up there because we were in the Lake Agassiz area so there were a lot of gravel mines. Theres some similarities, but also pretty significant differences as far as where theyre mining and how theyre mining down here. Youre not only surface mining, but also subsurface mining. What planning and environmental issues do you see coming up in Winona County? I dont know if you could generalize and say there are things that come up in a county the size of Winona that come up in other areas. Theyre pretty unique to the areas themselves. Some of the issue that I see here is how the landscape is changing. Youre moving from an area that used to have a large number of small family farms to an area where the farms are being consolidated. Youre also living in an area that a lot of people are moving down to, and theyre looking for their little lot to retire on or move into. Youre seeing more demand for building lots. How about major projects? They were just beginning to have conversations about wind energy up (in Becker County). Solar hasnt really caught on up there yet. I think its just a matter of time. That is, I think, going to become a bigger issue in planning across the entire state. The issue of solar, solar farms and so forth. On the topic of changing, there has been mention of taking a look at some zoning ordinances to see if they need to be changed or updated. Ive written a lot of ordinances and Ive written a lot of rules and regulations. Not gone through a wholesale change in a zoning ordinance and I dont think well see a wholesale change in the zoning ordinance. I think what well see is sections will be looked at, such as issues with solar energy. Possibly some of the issues with land use that have been controversial well get a close look at. But I dont expect to see any wholesale changes anytime soon. Im actually a real advocate for performance-based systems, Ive done a lot of those rule changes. I like those. What do you mean by performance-based systems? You can define what your goal is and focus more on achieving the goal rather than how you get there. You actually end up with better, more sensible regulations. This county has a lot of performance-based regulations, which is nice. What would be an example of that? Some of the aspects of the feedlot laws, where they have to be designed in such a way as to not adversely affect surface or groundwater. Now that is a pretty broad goal, and there is standards that they have to live with, but when looking at that were saying, ultimately, How do you need to build this thing to not have an adverse impact on these things? The other thing I really want us to do is, in things I can move forward with, is a better use of technology. Its one of the things Ill be focusing on over the next couple years. How do we make the permit applications online so you can type them online, submit them automatically, populate our databases just automate more of the process. What are you thinking about Winona County as far as your career? When I heard about this job I was working in Becker County and my plan was eventually to work up there, because I had grown up in the northern part of the state, my plan ultimately was to retire up there. I dont know if I have those plans any more. When this job opened up down here, it really created an incredible opportunity for me. Something that I really like a lot. Eventually I will move down here and move here permanently. The rap these days is that Marco Rubio is the presidential candidate most feared by both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Well, thats what a Rubio PAC ad says, anyway, but there are objective factors to support the case. Though hes running behind both Trump and Ted Cruz, Rubios a candidate the Republican establishment could get behind. Conventional wisdom would say Trump is too much of a loose cannon and Cruz is too associated with the far right to win a general election. Rubio claims to be the only Republican candidate who can unite all segments of the GOP: tea party, evangelical and chamber of commerce. He even boasts of appealing to working people who havent voted Republican before. How is it possible to unite so many factions? Thats what I was wondering when Rubio came in last week for the customary editorial board endorsement-seeking interview with my newspaper, The Des Moines Register. Rubios particular skill, it seems, is in reaching conclusions that conservative wings also would, but using mainstream reasoning to get there. And deflecting issues he might have trouble answering to everyones satisfaction. He argues against the U.S. Supreme Courts same-sex marriage ruling, for example, not on religious grounds but on the basis of states rights. So instead of having to build a nonreligious case for why same-sex marriage is bad for the nation, he makes one for why a federal court has no standing to strike down states laws. He has gone from supporting to opposing immigration reform, not because of lack of empathy, he would argue. Because of terrorism. The immigration issue has been transformed in the past year, he said. It is primarily a national security issue. Left unexplained was how a refugee situation involving fleeing Syrians can be conflated with the fate of 11 million undocumented immigrants from mostly Mexico who are living here. Working people, declares Rubio emphatically, feel forgotten: Its been a long time since the Republican Party has talked to a single mother raising two children who is struggling at $15 or $14 or $13 an hour. Its been a long time since the Republican Party has had an agenda that talks to students. He said the other Republican candidates dont even discuss student debt. But Rubios approach seems to be to promote vocational education as an alternative to college not exactly the way to upward social mobility, which typically requires a college education. And his example of the single mother struggling at $15 an hour would have been stronger if he used Iowas actual minimum wage of $7.25. But Rubio doesnt favor a minimum wage hike. That, he argues, would burden businesses in ways that would be passed on to workers and consumers. And while the senator from Florida speaks poignantly of people whose jobs have been replaced by a machine or sent to another country, rather than call out the companies that moved in search of cheaper labor, he blames corporate taxes and regulations. In response to a question about the protesters occupying Oregon public lands, Rubio said, You cant be lawless no matter what dispute you have with the federal government. But, he said, The federal government controls far too much land. Or on U.S. race relations: Im troubled by this narrative that law enforcement is systematically violating the rights of people on a regular basis. I dont think the majority of police officers are pulling people over for the fun of it. But I recognize that predominantly minority communities have terrible relationships with local law enforcement. He has even seen it, he said, through the eyes of an African-American police officer friend in South Florida who was pulled over multiple times and never given a ticket. But Im not sure the answer to all these questions is some law. So, what is? The president must recognize that its an issue in this country if a significant percent of American people believe they are being treated unfairly. Then he pivoted to a non-sequitur about children growing up in broken homes, in substandard housing and failing schools, concluding there are state-level solutions to such problems. Rubio turned philosophical again on the question of tougher gun laws. He opposes President Barack Obamas executive order, saying background checks wouldnt have prevented the mass killings weve had. Instead, Rubio suggests we ponder: What is it in our culture and our society that has led to this uptick in recklessness and disregard for life? OK. But a more relevant question might be why, given this trigger-happy culture, it is legal, for example, to carry concealed weapons. Im not sure theres a law or a program we can pass that can address the societal breakdown, Rubio said. So thats how he does it: Expressing appropriate indignation over the plight of the struggling without suggesting changes that would cost employers anything. Sounding moderate despite answers that never challenge tea party, evangelical or big-business perspectives and changing the subject when it comes too close to requiring that. You can see why the party might pin its hopes on him. The only question left is, what would he really do if elected? Did you see the Vikings game Sunday? Do you know someone whos been treated by a doctor at Mayo Clinic? Did you sprinkle Crystal Sugar on your Cheerios this morning? Is there a can of Green Giant peas in your pantry? Maybe a can of SPAM? So, what part of Minnesota are we better off doing without? Thats the real question we need to be putting to our state legislators as they get ready for the 2016 session. Minnesota is one state, and we all do better when were all doing well. That bit of common sense hasnt made it to St. Paul in recent years. Political gamesmanship playing off the presumed interests of outstate communities against the big, bad Twin Cities has been used to obscure the reality that farms, small towns, regional centers and the metro all have common needs and depend on one another to prosper and to meet the needs of all Minnesota citizens. So what does Utica have in common with Mankato, much less Edina or Minneapolis? Start with a need for essential infrastructure sewer, water, electricity and ever-increasingly high-capacity broadband digital services and an adequate, appropriate transportation network. They all need adequate, affordable housing, access to top-quality preventative and emergency medical care, elder-care programs and facilities, high-quality preschool, elementary and secondary schools for their children, and access to world-class, state-of-the-art post-secondary education to train and retrain a world-class workforce to staff state-of-the-art business and industry, and beneath it all, a social safety net to maintain the welfare and dignity of all. Granted, there are obvious differences in how these needs are met in communities of vastly differing size and location, and those differences must be taken into account as resources are allocated. But funding the needs of Minnesota communities isnt a zero-sum game. We all benefit when Twin Cities transit systems get workers to the job quickly and efficiently so the planes can fly, the money can flow, and the trains can roll, just as Twin Cities business and industry depends on customers, workers and raw materials from outside the metro. Assuring that the needs of all Minnesotans are met from International Falls to LeRoy, from Moorhead to Red Wing will require legislators from both parties to set aside the us against them attitudes that have pervaded St. Paul politics. If were all in this together, we have to quit seeing policy making as a zero-sum game. A case in point is the approach to local government aid (LGA) taken during the past legislative session. In a nutshell, LGA is a means of equalizing the money Minnesota cities have available to provide city services while holding down property taxes. Last session, House Republicans attempted to pay St. Peter by robbing St. Paul cutting LGA payments to Minnesotas largest cities. The attempt stalled, and for the good of the entire state should be laid to rest permanently, replaced by proposals that recognize theres no part of Minnesota the state can do without. Eighteen Baraboo School District educators have been certified to teach gifted and talented students through a program with two Wisconsin universities. Two years ago, Baraboo schools partnered with UW-Whitewater and UW-Stevens Point to offer gifted and talented courses to Baraboo educators. The first group to complete the certification was recognized by the Baraboo School Board at its meeting Monday. Teachers from all levels and administrators were able to participate in the program, which was developed to help educators improve engagement and encourage students who excel in the classroom. Baraboo Director of Teaching and Learning Jane McMahon said the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 encouraged school districts to focus on bringing all students up to a certain level of proficiency. As a result, funding for gifted and talented students was cut. The federal government recently passed the Every Student Succeeds Act, which replaces the 2001 law. Markedly different from No Child Left Behind, this act requires that school districts across the nation strive to ensure growth for all children, McMahon said. Federal funding through Title I and Title II will require that districts identify how they are meeting the needs of all learners, including advanced learners or students identified as gifted and talented. Baraboo is well prepared for these changes. Many of the practices highlighted during the program are being implemented in Baraboo schools. One of the most visible changes is the development of clusters, in which students are grouped with peers who have similar skills. McMahon said the clusters are tiered in a way that provides appropriate challenges for students. Those who perform above their level can be accelerated and receive appropriate credit for the grade level at which they are studying. Baraboo School District Administrator Lori Mueller said no other district in the state has 18 educators certified in the gifted and talented program. Its a real feather in the cap for our school district, she said. Baraboo School Board member Doug Mering said he has attended conferences concerning gifted and talented programs. They look at Baraboo like were walking on water because of the work you do, he told the educators at Mondays meeting. UW-Whitewater associate professor Scott Peters helped develop the certification program and has teamed up with Professor Marcia Gentry from Purdue University in a national study to determine the results of the school-wide cluster model. Baraboo schools are participating in the study. Prosecutors have filed charges against several people they say were involved in an unusually high number of overdoses in Sauk County within the last week. The man authorities have implicated in selling a portion of the unusually potent batch of heroin to local users is 31-year-old Daniel A. Kaiser of Baraboo. He now faces felony charges of possession of heroin, possession of heroin with intent to sell and bail jumping. A sergeant with the Sauk County Sheriffs Department reports that he made contact with Kaiser in the parking lot of the Baraboo Walmart Superstore on Saturday afternoon. The officer said Kaiser had an open wallet in his hands with a large amount of cash. As he was being arrested for an active warrant out of Illinois, the officer allegedly found heroin inside a cigarette box that was in Kaisers pocket. The two rocks confiscated during the arrest weighed about 1.5 grams, according to a criminal complaint filed in Sauk County Circuit Court. Authorities say they found $1,730 in Kaisers wallet. During an interview at the jail, Kaiser allegedly told an investigator that he has a gram-a day heroin habit. He said he frequently takes trips to Madison, where he purchases 1.5 grams of the drug, then sells a gram. Kaiser has been jailed on a $7,500 cash bond and is due to appear in court Feb. 17. Two other men now facing charges were themselves were victims of apparent overdoses. The criminal complaints against 21-year-old Christopher Lee Martinez of Merrimac and 22-year-old Andrew A. Lee of Baraboo each detail efforts to save the two young mens lives. Paramedics arrived at a Sauk City home Saturday to discover a man giving chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth to Martinez. They quickly administered Narcan, a drug that counteracts the affects of overdoses from opiates. The man who had administered life-saving efforts told authorities he received a call from Martinez earlier that afternoon in which Martinez said he was really high and was worried he did too much heroin. During an interview after he was revived, Martinez allegedly admitted to shooting a gram of heroin that he purchased in Baraboo for $100. He now faces one felony count of heroin possession and has been released on a $1,500 signature bond. Authorities were called to a home in Baraboo on Jan. 8, where they found Lee unresponsive. He was revived after first responders administered four doses of Narcan. A woman at the scene, 18-year-old Claudia Cornelio-Riley of Baraboo, said Lee had ingested heroin about 10 minutes before he became unconscious. Lee initially told investigators that he had taken a normal dose of the drug, but later said he took double the amount that he typically does. Investigators found drugs and paraphernalia at the scene. Lee and Cornelio-Riley each face charges of possession of heroin, marijuana and drug paraphernalia. Lee was jailed on a $750 cash bond, and Cornelio-Riley on a $200 cash bond. They are both due to appear in court Feb. 11. Last September, I sat down with a group of correctional officers and staff and their families in Portage. In an effort to better understand what was happening at Columbia Correctional Institution, State Sen. Jon Erpenbach and I listened as they described the conditions they saw at the institution. Over the course of a full day, they spoke about a wide variety of issues they face on the job every day. Regardless of age, background, or position, they all expressed the same concerns: for their own safety, the safety of their families, the inmates they are tasked with protecting, and their peers and neighbors. Since that meeting, concern over Wisconsins prisons has greatly increased beyond CCI. We have heard from Department of Corrections employees, inmates and their families all across the state. The issue of safety and security in our prisons has become one that we cannot and should not ignore. It is not a new issue, but we have reached a critical point where action must be taken. It is long past time that the Legislature, Gov. Scott Walker and DOC work together to keep our communities safe. Recently, I joined Sen. Erpenbach and other legislators in announcing a set of proposals to improve safety and security at CCI and other institutions across the state. Our proposals would: Require four weeks of on-the-job training for new recruits Training for officers that dispense medication Require first responder units to be fully staffed at every shift for back-up Require at least one guard tower and one perimeter to be staffed during every shift Allow workers to collectively bargain for workplace safety Limit the consecutive shifts of overtime allowed to two Require incident reports to be public Adjust sergeant pay advances with officer pay to address sergeant vacancies We need to not only change the way we prepare new officers and staff for correctional positions, but improve our treatment of those who have dedicated years of their lives to DOC. New officers should be thoroughly trained in the specific institutions they will be placed in, not limited to a general academy training session. Everyone should be able to go to work knowing when theyll be coming home again. Officers and staff on every shift deserve to feel safe knowing that the institutions towers and perimeters are being watched, and that they will have adequate back-up from assigned first responders in case of an assault or emergency. These bills are basic improvements we have proposed in order to help fix the major safety and security problems we are seeing in DOC institutions across Wisconsin. These policies represent a significant move toward a better environment for DOC officers and staff, but they are only the first step. The safety of correctional employees in our institutions is directly linked to the safety of the inmates they are tasked with overseeing. We have seen that when our prisons are so drastically understaffed, the frequency and severity of assaults both on officers and among inmates increase. Inmate mental health should also be a part of our discussions on the safety of DOC institutions. Community and state support for effective mental health care is lacking in our state. This leaves many of our citizens struggling alone with mental illness, which often results in arrests and prison time. Meanwhile, many DOC officers and staff are being asked to dispense medication to these inmates with virtually no training, preparation, or supervision. These security concerns are interconnected. We cannot work to improve conditions for our officers without considering inmate safety as well. Democratic State Rep. Dave Considine of Baraboo represents the 81st Assembly District in the state Legislature, which encompasses eastern Sauk County, including Baraboo. He can be reached by phone at 608-266-7746, or email Rep.Considine@legis.wisconsin.gov. Wilson Elementary School may become the third Blue Ribbon School in Beaver Dam after becoming one of eight schools nominated for the honor in the state. South Beaver Dam Elementary became a Federal Blue Ribbon School in 2005 and Lincoln Elementary became a Blue Ribbon School in 2010. It was announced Thursday that State Superintendent Tony Evers nominated eight elementary schools for the National Blue Ribbon Schools Program, which recognizes overall academic excellence or progress in improving student achievement. The other schools Evers nominated were Addison Elementary School from the Slinger School District; Halmstad Elementary School from the Chippewa Falls Area Unified School District; Marengo Valley Elementary School, Ashland School District; Muskego Elementary School, Muskego-Norway School District; Oconto Falls Elementary School in Oconto Falls Public School District; Swallow Elementary School in Swallow School District; and Woodland Elementary School in Barron Area School District. Wilson Elementary is very honored to be nominated at the state level for such a prestigious award, Wilson principal Christine Ziemann said. The staff, students, and parents have worked very hard to obtain the level of academic achievement that put us into consideration for this award. We look forward to working very closely with DPI through the nomination process at the federal level. Schools nominated to the program must complete the Blue Ribbon Schools application and undergo the national review process. Awards are typically announced in early September. National Blue Ribbon Schools are selected based on two criteria. They must be high performing schools in which the students, regardless of backgrounds, are ranked among the states highest based on their performance on state assessments. The schools also must have at least 40 percent of their students coming from disadvantaged backgrounds, which improve student performance to high levels as measured by the schools performance on state assessments or nationally-normed tests. Beaver Dam Unified School District has earned a number of honors in the past decade. Beaver Dam High School received the U.S. News & World Report Silver Award in 2015 and the state of Wisconsin Advance Placement Pacesetter School Award in 2014. In addition, the district has received 13 Wisconsin School of Recognition Awards since 2008. Visitation will be at Harmony Baptist Church, N8954 Highway W, Beaver Dam, on Monday, Jan. 18, from 3 p.m. until the church service at 5 p.m. The Revs. Peter Ostrander and Robert Johnson will officiate. Burial will be at Spring Brook Cemetery in the town of Spring Brook, Dunn County, Wis., on Tuesday, Jan. 19, at noon. Margery Louise Owen was born June 6, 1927, to Charles F. and Gladys (Anderson) Owen in Falls City, Wis. Margery attend Northwestern College in Minneapolis and UW-Eau Claire, where she received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in elementary education. Owen taught in Illinois, California and Arizona. In 1965 she settled in Beaver Dam, teaching the fifth grade at Washington Elementary. Owens community involvement included active participation at Bible Baptist Church where she served as a pianist, soloist, Sunday school teacher, and the vice president of the womens missionary society. Later, Margery was a faithful member of Harmony Baptist Church. She was a member of the BDEA, WEAC and NEA, as well as a member of Delta Kappa Gamma, an honorary educational sorority. Ms. Owen strived to teach children the importance of being able to read. She touched countless childrens lives and her legacy will hopefully live on through generations to come. The Town of Necedah is looking to clean up messy properties, but one particular property has an unusual obstacle for the town to hurdle over. During the town board meeting Monday, Town Chairman Terry Taft gave an update on how the town is dealing with properties not complying with town ordinances. Effort has been made to reach the owners of various properties throughout town, but there is one set of property owners will never be able to be reached. The Wagenblast property, W5095 County Highway G, was owned by Edward and Reba Wagenblast who died a few years ago. Their daughter, who lives in Missouri, was the rightful heir to the house and land, but said she did not accept the inheritance. This left the property as owned by people who have passed away. (The Wagenblasts daughter) wants nothing to do with (the property), Taft said. Our attorney told me that I should call her (the daughter) and ask if she would exercise her rights to pass the property on to the town. The best solution would be to have the property sold and cleaned up preferably in that order. Its an unusual situation, as the cost to clean up the property may exceed the value of the property. A neighbor reportedly offered $1,500 for the property. The town then debated if it should get a title search done before acquiring the property. I dont want to have the town get in trouble and have some thousands of liens, Taft said. A resident offered to look into the titles on behalf of the town without cost. Juneau County Treasurer Denise Giebel told the Star-Times the 2013, 2014 and 2015 taxes are owed on the property. If they continue to be unpaid, which is very likely since the property owners are deceased, the county would start in rem foreclosure next year. Rem foreclosure is a process where anyone who may have an argument to ownership rights of a property can make their case. The process would likely start at this time next year if nothing is done to change the ownership situation. Giebel said the county is obligated to follow the same rules on the Wagenblast property as they would any other property. This includes a certified mailing, a title search and publishing something in the newspaper three times. In other business, the town board discussed purchasing a new wood chipper. No decision was made, and some town members objected to the expense. Taft said the current chipper is old and unsafe. The board also considered a name for the permits in its ordinance about driveways connected to fields and not buildings. After prolonged debate, it was decided that Land Entrance Permit was the best choice. The ordinance has not yet been fully written and no action was taken on it. Columbia County Circuit Court Judge Todd Hepler ruled Thursday that a Madison man will face trial on a charge of first-degree reckless homicide as party to a crime in the August heroin-overdose death of a Lodi-area man. Denan Marquardt, 27, could face up to 40 years in prison if convicted in Nicholas J. Klamers death. Assistant District Attorney Crystal Long called Detective Sgt. Jason Kocovsky of the Columbia County Sheriffs Office to the witness stand at Thursdays preliminary hearing. Kocovsky told the court how on Aug. 18 he was called to a Lodi-area home for a death investigation. At the scene, he joined two sheriffs deputies who had been first responders for a 27-year-old man who had syringes nearby and, it would later be reported in the autopsy, had overdosed on heroin. Kocovsky soon located Chase Thistle, 26, of Madison, who was known to be a friend of Klamers. Thistle told officers, according to court documents, that he had been sitting at a campfire with Klamer and they had gotten the idea to get some heroin. In court, Kocovsky explained that a search of Thistles phone showed that Thistle had contacted Marquardt in Madison. Thistle and Klamer went to meet Marquardt outside a supermarket in Madison. Thistle told me that they met Marquardt there, who was homeless, and was living out of his minivan, said Kocovsky. And also present was Marquardts then-girlfriend Anna Hayes (27, of Portage) and another subject that was later identified as Patrick Sawyer (46, of Tampa Bay, Fla.). All five of them then drove to a convenience store, where according to Kocovsky, Klamer gave $200 to Sawyer, and Sawyer and Hayes took the van to meet with their dealer. A few minutes later Hayes and Sawyer returned with the van and about a gram of heroin. They went back to the grocery store parking lot, where, Thistle told authorities, Sawyer gave the heroin to the victim. In the van, Hayes provided a needle and cooker, and each of them shot up. Afterward, at about 3 a.m., Thistle and Klamer started back home. Defense attorney Mark Walter Frank asked Kocovsky how Thistle and Klamer got to Madison, since they did not drive themselves. Long objected to the question as irrelevant. Judge Hepler sustained the objection. Frank then questioned Kocovsky about Marquardts role in the events. Mr. Marquardt never handled any money that was used to purchase heroin? Frank asked. Correct, said Kocovsky. So Mr. Sawyer and Ms. Hayes went somewhere to get heroin, right? Correct. Then they came back with heroin. Right. And they did all that without Mr. Marquardt being there. He was not with. He knew of it. Correct. Franks questions about the circumstances of Thistle and Klamer getting an early-morning ride to Madison and back were quickly objected to by the prosecution and cut off by Hepler. Previous cases in county This is the third case of this nature heard in Columbia County Circuit Court since 2010. One involved six drug users and dealers whose multiple purchases of cocaine and heroin in 2010 ended in a young mans death on the couch in one defendants apartment. The other case occurred in 2012 in which three men were charged after a man overdosed on heroin, lost consciousness and stopped breathing on the front steps of a Portage home. In the 2010 case, one man was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison, one man was found not guilty and the others, after entering varied no-contest pleas, received between six months of suspended jail time and one year in jail with two years of supervision. In the 2012 case, the three defendants were sentenced to 5 1/2 years, seven years, and 10 years in prison. The parties of the 2012 case also had more clear negligence, including the person who originally sold the drug, the person who delivered the drug, and last the person who did the drug with the victim and, when things went bad, told a passerby offering help that everything was just fine. Prosecutors arguments He (Klamer) died of heroin toxicity according to the doctors report, and Chase Thistle (was) making statements that he contacted Den Marquardt, which are confirmed by telephone searches for both Marquardt and Chase Thistle, said Long, making her final case to proceed to trial. Chase Thistle and Mr. Klamer used heroin voluntarily to the point that Mr. Klamer overdosed and Mr. Thistle left him for dead in the boathouse and went home, explained Frank. And the money for the heroin went directly to someone other than Mr. Marquardt and other persons bought the heroin, and other persons brought the heroin back. And then Mr. Marquardt was one of five people using heroin at that scene. In this matter, this is a party to a crime, this is not alleging that he directly participated in the delivery, necessarily, but certainly he was there, certainly he was involved with solicitation, facilitating Mr. Klamer in this transaction occurring, said Hepler, which this court is satisfied constitutes probable cause for the party to the crime. Hepler ordered Marquardt to be bound over for trial. Long requested arraignment and the entering of a formal plea to take place at a separate hearing, scheduled for March 22. Marquardt continues to be held at Columbia County Jail on a $5,000 cash bond. Seven months after a violent incident at Columbia Correctional Institution, an inmate had his initial appearance in Columbia County Circuit court, the second initial appearance for this case. Robert Reifschneider, 40, is accused of trying to kill his cellmate in CCI in May. He appeared via video for an initial appearance and bond hearing on Aug. 25. When Judge Andrew Voigt read the charge against him, Reifschneider seemed surprised and confused. The hearing was then postponed. It took 90 days to get the complaint filed and another two weeks to get this scheduled, said Voigt, following the false start, I have no doubt there will be further delays. On May 17, after about a month with his cellmate, Reifschneider, according to court documents, was acting erratically and demanding that his cellmate be removed. He then started beating the cellmate, an incident that seemed to resolve with Reifschneider simply calming down. Later that same day, he did it again, CCI guards told authorities. This time it reached a point that he had been kicking his cellmate in the chest and head, hitting the mans head against the wall and then dropping a box fan on him, yelling, Im gonna kill this guy! Two officers responded to the incident, opening Reifschneiders door, one pulling the beaten inmate out of the cell and the other confronting Reifschneider in the cell. The officers told a Columbia County Sheriffs Office detective that Reifschneider then picked up a box of documents and threw it at the approaching officer, then punched him in the face. Reifschneider and the officer slipped on the blood and condensation on the floor and fell. As they fought, Reifschneider sustained a serious head injury and was taken to Divine Savior Healthcare before being flown to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Hospital. In court on Thursday, Judge Todd Hepler asked Reifschneider if he understood the charges being brought against him. Not necessarily the full reasoning in his particular case, he said, but he understood the charge. Asked if he had been able to read the criminal complaint describing the accusations, Reifschneider told the court he had not seen it. Defense attorney Ronald Benavides interjected, waiving the right to have the complaint read in full in court. At the next step, Reifschneder declared, I would like to exercise my rights in full. Hepler and Benavides together clarified that the question for him was not whether he would waive his right to a preliminary hearing, but just required time limits, allowing more time for preparation. It would allow me to meet him personally, said Benavides. Given Reifschneiders incarcerated status, a cash bond would do little to encourage his appearance or absence from the next hearing. He is serving a four-year, ten-month sentence for 2013 convictions of possession of a firearm by a felon and obstructing an officer. Reifschneiders next court appearance is scheduled for March 24. Monya Schulenberg crossed DeWitt Street on Wednesday afternoon with a little help from Wallace Roderick or Wally, as she referred to him when she reached Franklin Street. Did you get the hand-warmers? she asked Roderick, one of seven crossing guards in Portage. Her granddaughter Josephine, in kindergarten at Rusch Elementary, provided Roderick with the gift and a card for Wisconsins Crossing Guard Recognition Week. This is a rough corner, Schulenberg explained on her way to Rusch. Its the busiest. Roderick, a retired U.S. Navy bandmaster, minutes earlier estimated that his post sees about 450 cars in the morning and 400 in the afternoon. Close calls do occur, he said, and hes seen many drivers fail to slow to 15 mph during his 4 1/2 years as crossing guard. His tactic for a dangerous situation? I just step off the curb, raise my sign and go, Roderick said. You cant be afraid to step out in front of them. Portage Police Department and Portage school officials took the crossing guards out for breakfast Thursday morning at Dinos Restaurant, in appreciation of a very dedicated group, said Chief Ken Manthey. Theyre very caring people who want to keep our children safe every day, he said. Studies have shown, Manthey added, that if a car traveling 30 mph strikes a person, theres an 80 percent chance for significant injuries or death. If a person is struck at 15 mph, however, injuries are very often minimal or nonexistent. Theyre literally saving children. Crossing guards like Roderick didnt intend to be crossing guards for years, often happening into the job only when they learned theres a need. How crossing guards do their job well, Schulenberg noted on that walk down Franklin, probably has something to do with relationships. He just seems to know so many people, she said of Roderick. They really listen to him. Eyes everywhere Marie Hoffer is in her sixth year as crossing guard at Rusch, stationed at Franklin and MacFarlane streets. Children on Wednesday afternoon, one after the other, hugged Hoffer as they crossed. One of them called her Hermione. That boy is really into Harry Potter, Hoffer said. So I call him Harry. Personal relationships are what make the job worth it, crossing guards agreed. Its certainly not a job without challenges. This week is cold, Hoffer said, but its nothing compared to whats probably ahead. Two years ago we had 25- to 30-below wind chills for almost two weeks in a row, and thats brutal, said Hoffer, who after retiring from customer service at Saint-Gobain became a crossing guard because she missed being around people. With heavy snow a crossing guard needs to be more cautious when crossing children, she added, but at least drivers tend to slow down in those conditions. Parents are often surprised how many drivers speed in school zones. Something else surprises parents. Theyre surprised Im calm as I am, Hoffer said, implying thats the most important part of the job. Your eyes have to be everywhere. Longest serving Jayne Krall became a crossing guard nine years ago when she learned from police the city was desperate for crossing guards. She didnt think shed enjoy the job, but as time went on she discovered she was learning a lot about people. You learn everybodys the same, said Krall, who helps children cross New Pinery Road and Slifer Street near Bartels Middle School. Krall, with her English accent, seems to intrigue the youngsters. She came to the U.S. 25 years ago from England and has lived in Portage for 20 years. We play guessing games about it, Krall said of her accent, and most of them come up with the right one and ask me what its like in England. I tell them they have a nice accent, too. Her focus on safety has resulted in children she no longer crosses remembering her, sometimes stopping her in a store to say, You taught me how to cross the road. Thats interesting to Krall, who has noticed that with so much emphasis on driving, a lot of children really havent been taught to cross streets. A lot of them dont really know you have to press a button to get the light to change. Kralls tenure as crossing guard in Portage is second only to Warren Taylor, who agreed with the others that people make the job. Taylor, stationed off Wisconsin Street near Jeffs Tire Place, has been a crossing guard for 18 years. They all come up on the corner, telling me they appreciate the job Im doing, Taylor said. Im going to get that 20 years, he said of his tenure. The kids are really important to me, to make sure they cross safe. Last September, I sat down with a group of correctional officers and staff and their families in Portage. In an effort to better understand what was happening at Columbia Correctional Institution (CCI), Sen. Jon Erpenbach and I listened as they described the conditions they saw at the institution. Over the course of a full day, they spoke about a wide variety of issues they face on the job every day. Regardless of age, background, or position, they all expressed the same concerns: for their own safety, the safety of their families, the inmates they are tasked with protecting, and their peers and neighbors. Since that meeting, concern over Wisconsins prisons has greatly increased beyond CCI. We have heard from Department of Corrections (DOC) employees, inmates, and their families all across the state. The issue of safety and security in our prisons has become one that we cannot (and should not) ignore. It is not a new issue, but we have reached a critical point where action must be taken. It is long past time that the Legislature, Gov. Walker and DOC work together to keep our communities safe. Recently, I joined Sen. Erpenbach and other legislators in announcing a set of proposals to improve safety and security at CCI and other institutions across the state. Our proposals would: Require four weeks of on-the-job training for new recruits. Training for officers that dispense medication. Require first responder units to be fully staffed at every shift for back-up. Require at least one guard tower and one perimeter to be staffed during every shift. Allow workers to collectively bargain for workplace safety. Limit the consecutive shifts of overtime allowed to two. Require incident reports to be public. Adjust sergeant pay advances with officer pay to address sergeant vacancies. We need to not only change the way we prepare new officers and staff for correctional positions, but improve our treatment of those who have dedicated years of their lives to DOC. New officers should be thoroughly trained in the specific institutions they will be placed in, not limited to a general academy training session. Everyone should be able to go to work knowing when theyll be coming home again. Officers and staff on every shift deserve to feel safe knowing that the institutions towers and perimeters are being watched, and that they will have adequate back-up from assigned first responders in case of an assault or emergency. These bills are basic improvements we have proposed in order to help fix the major safety and security problems we are seeing in DOC institutions across Wisconsin. These policies represent a significant move toward a better environment for DOC officers and staff, but they are only the first step. The safety of correctional employees in our institutions is directly linked to the safety of the inmates they are tasked with overseeing. We have seen that when our prisons are so drastically understaffed, the frequency and severity of assaults (both on officers and among inmates) increase. Inmate mental health should also be a part of our discussions on the safety of DOC institutions. Community and state support for effective mental health care is lacking in our state. This leaves many of our citizens struggling alone with mental illness, which often results in arrests and prison time. Meanwhile, many DOC officers and staff are being asked to dispense medication to these inmates with virtually no training, preparation, or supervision. These security concerns are interconnected. We cannot work to improve conditions for our officers without considering inmate safety as well. Planning nutrient management prior to harvest Harvest is always a fast-paced season for growers, that's why it is important to meet nutrient management goals prior to harvest. MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry to speak at King commemoration Students to engage in service in honor of King's legacy The William & Mary community is expected to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. in January with a series of events, including service opportunities for students and a commemoration program with guest speaker Melissa Harris-Perry, an MSNBC host and Wake Forest University professor. The commemoration program, hosted by the Center for Student Diversity, is scheduled for Jan. 21 at 7 p.m. in the Sadler Centers Commonwealth Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public. The service opportunities for students, coordinated by the Office of Community Engagement, begin the weekend of Jan. 15 and culminate in a day of service on Jan. 19. In addition to hosting a self-titled MSNBC show, Harris-Perry is the Presidential Endowed Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest University. She also directs the Anna Julia Cooper Center on Gender, Race and Politics in the South and is the executive director of the Pro Humanitate Institute. She has written several books, including Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America and Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought, which won the 2005 W. E. B. Du Bois Book Award from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists and 2005 Best Book Award from the Race and Ethnic Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. She also writes for The Nation and Essence magazines. The Center for Student Diversity hosts the commemoration event annually, and past speakers have included Marc Lamont Hill, Roslyn M. Brock, Julianne Malveaux and Cornel West. Recent events at institutions like the University of Missouri, Yale, as well as our own institution have pushed us to elevate the dialogue and action around diversity and inclusion within the higher education context, as well as society as a whole, said Vernon Hurte, senior associate dean of students and director of the Center for Student Diversity. I believe Professor Harris-Perry is well-positioned to contribute in a major way to the ongoing dialogue we are engaged in here at William & Mary. The MLK programs offered through the Office of Community Engagement give students a chance to conduct issue-focused service in small groups, according to the OCE website. This year, through OCEs Branch Out Alternative Breaks, students will participate in three service trips over Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, Jan. 15-18: one focusing on refugee resettlement (Newport News), one on the needs of the critically ill (Richmond) and one on the William & Mary Lemon Project (Williamsburg). On Jan. 19, approximately 40 students will participate in a day of learning and service in the Williamsburg area. The students will split into small groups that will each address a local social-justice issue, including hunger, access to housing, healthy families and youth empowerment, said Elizabeth Miller, assistant director of the Office of Community Engagement. Throughout the day, the students will work with non-profit organizations including Head Start, Habitat ReStore, Child Development Resources and Grove Christian Outreach. In the evening, the students will converge for dinner, a panel discussion about the school-to-prison pipeline and a reflection session on their own role in furthering King's legacy, Miller said. Students interested in participating should email Arvin Alaigh ( aalaigh@wm.edu ), fellow for local engagement by Dec. 21. Paul Marcus to serve as president-elect of Association of American Law Schools The AALS House of Representatives elected Paul Marcus, the Law School's Haynes Professor of Law, as president-elect on January 9 during the association's annual meeting. Photo - of - Hide Caption William & Mary Law School Professor Paul Marcus was selected as president-elect of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) on Jan. 9 during the association's annual meeting in New York. Dedicated to upholding and advancing excellence in legal education since its founding in 1900, AALS is comprised of 179 member law schools and serves as the learned society for more than 9,000 law faculty. It advances teaching and scholarship through its annual meeting and other events, and serves as a catalyst for discussion of important issues in legal education and the legal profession. "I am very pleased to have been chosen as the president-elect of the Association of American Law Schools," said Marcus, who is the Hugh and Nollie Haynes Professor of Law at William & Mary. "The organization does extremely important work in promoting excellence in legal education. It is my goal to actively assist in that work. I hope to pursue several projects, one of which is something I care a great deal about: encouraging law schools to play an active role in making sure that all needy individuals throughout our nation can receive affordable legal services." Marcus is an internationally known scholar of criminal law and procedure, jury behavior, and copyright law. He has written more than 50 law review articles and authored or co-authored eight books, including The Prosecution and Defense of Criminal Conspiracy Cases. In addition to his scholarship, he has given invited lectures or conference presentations in 24 countries, most recently in France and Brazil. He regularly lectures on behalf of the Federal Judicial Center. "We congratulate Professor Marcus on his election as president-elect of the AALS," said William & Mary Law School Dean Davison M. Douglas. "Professor Marcus is one of the most experienced legal educators in the United States, with a deep understanding of the range of challenges that confront America's law schools. He is also a gifted teacher and a widely respected scholar. Professor Marcus is a marvelous choice to serve as president-elect of the AALS!" Marcus began his academic career at the University of Illinois and later joined the faculty of the University of Arizona, where he was appointed dean of the College of Law at the age of 36. In 1992 he joined the William & Mary faculty as the Haynes Professor of Law and later served as acting dean for two years. A three-time winner of the Law School's Walter L. Williams, Jr., Memorial Teaching Award, he was appointed in 2007 as the Law School's first Herbert V. Kelley, Sr., Professor for Excellence in Teaching. In 2010 he received the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award, the state's highest honor for professors, given to recognize excellence in teaching, research, and public service. A. Mechele Dickerson, now the Arthur R. Moller Chair in Bankruptcy Law and Practice and a University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas School of Law, began her academic career at William & Mary. She recalled Marcus's interest in mentoring junior faculty and his belief that colleagues could learn from each other, particularly when it came to teaching. He frequently offered to observe classes taught by pre-tenured faculty in an unofficial capacity and, in turn, welcomed them to sit in on his classes. "Watching Paul teach and working with him on projects and committees at William & Mary helped mold my approach to being a professor, " Dickerson recalled. "He is a model teacher and scholar who represents everything we should be proud of about legal education in the United States. Given Paul's dedication and commitment to improving legal education generally and to helping young professors become better teachers and scholars, I cannot think of a person more worthy to assume the leadership of AALS." Melanie D. Wilson, the Dean and Lindsay Young Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee College of Law, said that Marcus over four decades "through actions, as well as his words, has demonstrated his resolute commitment to excellence in legal education. He is a first-rate teacher who has spent countless hours mentoring junior colleagues, both at William & Mary, and across the country. He is a model scholar, who has authored dozens of books and scholarly articles, mostly urging improvements to our criminal justice system. And, he has proven repeatedly his dedication to achieving a diverse and inclusive educational (and broader) community through his tireless service and outreach, whether with the local Big Brothers Mentoring Program or at the national level. Paul Marcus is a perfect fit to become president of the AALS in these challenging times." Marcus is founder and director of William & Mary Law School's Literature and the Law Program at the Virginia Peninsula Regional Jail. He has been honored with the University of Arizona's Distinguished Citizen of the Year Award and William & Mary's Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award, which recognized him "for the spirit with which he gives of himself, especially to those in need." 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 With their new Planetary Defense Coordination Office, NASA has taken on a very important job: detecting asteroids and comets, and defending the planet from their potentially destructive capabilities. According to CNN, the office is managed by the Planetary Science Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington DC. Its mission is centered around the early detection of potentially hazardous objects (PHOs). These objects consist primarily of asteroids and comets that have the potential to get within 0.05 Astronomical Units of Earths orbit around the sun (7.5 million kilometers) and are large enough to reach Earths surface and do some serious damage while theyre at it. An important part of ensuring Earths safety from these sorts of PHOs involves examining the orbits of other planets in the solar system as well, as factors like Jupiters massive gravity have the potential to redirect the trajectory of orbits in ways we might not have anticipated. Aside from PHOs, we also have to worry occasionally about near-Earth objects (NEOs) which are closer and more direct threats than the average PHO. More than 13,500 NEOs have been discovered to date and around 1,500 are detected each year. Asteroid detection, tracking and defense of our planet is something that NASA, its interagency partners, and the global community take very seriously, said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASAs Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Grunsfeld mentions that even though there are no direct impact threats at this time, the 2013 Chelyabinsk super-fireball and the recent Halloween Asteroid close approach remind us why we need to remain vigilant and keep our eyes to the sky. In the future, the new office will also be able to detect asteroids that are near enough to the Earth to be exploited for their resources and raw materials. Although eliminating thousands of jobs, the plan affects less than 1 percent of the retail giant's square footage and revenue. After increasing pressure to cut costs, Wal-Mart has announced plans to close 269 stores, including 154 in the U.S., eliminating 16,000 jobs. Sixty of the stores to be closed are in Brazil, where the company has struggled to become profitable. Despite the closings, the massive company will lose less than 1 percent of its total revenue and square footage. Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon made the decision after evaluating the financial performance of these stores and their fit with Walmarts broader strategy. Wal-Mart says that sales have not been growing fast enough to make up for the billions of dollars the company is spending on higher wages and website improvements. The Bentonville, Ark.-based company currently has 11,600 stores. Although they will continue the Neighborhood Markets, the pilot Wal-Mart Express program will end. These stores attempted to recapture the corner grocery field, but have performed poorly since their 2011 beginning. Twelve supercenter stores will also be closed, each of which employs about 600 people. The cutbacks will affect approximately 10,000 U.S. workers, but the company is giving them the opportunity to relocate to nearby stores. They will also provide one week of severance pay for each year with the company, along with 60 days of pay. Wal-Mart has 1.4 million employees in the U.S., along with 800,000 more in foreign countries. Shares in Wal-Mart have lost 29 percent of their value in the past 12 months due to slow growth and profit declines. Shares fell 2.1 percent on Friday in New York, along with a broader market decline. Some investors say the cuts still may not be enough. Edward Jones analyst Brian Yarbrough said that he does not think this is enough to move the needle. He said he thinks they need to close a lot more stores than they are planning. Wal-Mart still intends to follow through on plans to open 50 to 60 supercenter stores in the U.S. this year, along with 85 to 95 more neighborhood markets. The shutdowns will reduce earnings by about 20 cents, to 22 cents a share. Earnings are expected to show a 6 to 12 percent decrease in the year ending January 2017. Wrexhams Techniquest Has Bright Future Despite South Wales Funding Cuts This article is old - Published: Friday, Jan 15th, 2016 Techniquest in Cardiff faces a 22% funding cut, with funding also due to be reduced at a similar level at the sister site up here at Glyndwr University in Wrexham. Although both are known to the public under the same Techniquest brand, the Cardiff and Wrexham operate as separate entities. Earlier this week Education Minister Huw Lewis told the BBC that Techniquest was overly dependent on public funds; and it had to change; with other comments from Mr Lewis saying it was not a sustainable position and that Techniquest has got to be restructured. Currently the Welsh government provides Techniquest in Cardiff with a 1.3 million grant. However this week the science and education centre was told the funding is due to be cut by 22% from April.Wrexhams operation is due to have a similar 22% cut but on a lower overall sum. Techniquest Cardiff have also been told they could lose all the funding by 2019, a move that is mirrored locally, with Wrexham facing further reductions planned in succeeding years. In Wrexham, Techniquest have said that since the news that Welsh Government funding support for North Wales very own science discovery centre in Wrexham was being reduced, management of Techniquest Glyndwr have worked hard with their staff to develop an action plan to create a long term financially sustainable future for the popular independent charity. Techniquest tell us there are currently over 80,000 engagements with school students, family visitors and community events each year, but it is hoped they will be able to substantially increase this figure to generate the additional income to support the business. The site itself on the Glyndwr campus ,along with ties to the University could mean the local Techniquest is at an advantage over their Cardiff relations, with Wrexham.com being told it means that: There are good links with a range of science and engineering departments and a popular aspect of the secondary school programme have been science workshops offered by Techniquest Glyndwr followed by tours round relevant departments of the university. These help to give students a realistic introduction to higher education and to make use of the sophisticated facilities and equipment that are available at the University. Scot Owen, Education Manager at Techniquest Glyndwr said: Whilst the reductions in funding over the next few years are disappointing and are going to make it more difficult for us in the short term, through the cooperation and ideas of our enthusiastic and committed team we have focussed on a variety of ways to make our business financially sustainable in the long term without ongoing core funding from the Welsh Government. We are already working hard to strengthen our existing good links with local industry and there are plenty of opportunities for us to develop beneficial partnerships with the private sector to support our mission to enthuse and educate people of all ages in science and engineering. Our aim is to become a well-respected and financially strong social enterprise that not only is able to deliver an extensive educational programme to schools at primary and secondary level in the region, but also attracts significant numbers of visitors to the area because of the exciting offer we have to families wanting a good value and educational day out. Iwan Thomas, Chair of the Board of Trustees to the charitable company North Wales Science that operates Techniquest Glyndwr added: The reductions in funding from Welsh Government have prompted a significant review of how Techniquest Glyndwr operates, forcing us to look long and hard at our strengths and weaknesses and identify the range of opportunities to develop the business into a more sustainable model without high levels of public finance. I was present for the recent event at Techniquest Glyndwr to celebrate the launch of UK Astronaut Tim Peake to the International Space Station and it showed to me what a worthwhile and valuable organisation it is with its significant strengths. There were over 120 schoolchildren at the event who witnessed the excitement of the launch and they were then treated to an engaging live science show about the space mission and the science behind it. It was clear to me that the children there were fully engaged with the topic and Im sure that more than a few will be inspired to follow a career in science or engineering as a result. That for me sums up what the organisation is about and we will be working hard over the next few months and years to make sure that not only will the organisation survive but it will become a centre of excellence for the region in STEM education. Techniquest Glyndwr say they are particularly keen to work with local companies who have aspects of their activity related to science, technology or engineering to help make the science of the classroom come alive by linking real life situations which demonstrate various scientific principles. Links can be through sponsorship of outreach visits to schools, the offer of on-site visits to industrial operations or collaboration in the development of additional interactive exhibits to augment the 75 or more examples currently at the centre. Stats from Techniquest Glyndwr say this year a total 25,000 family visitors are projected to visit the facility. In addition nearly 20,000 outreach engagements take place in primary and secondary schools across North Wales and a further 7,000 in England. Interaction with the public at various events in the region amount to a further 8,000 engagements. A former Albuquerque, New Mexico city employee has filed a lawsuit against the city and four individual high-ranking Albuquerque Police Department (APD) officials, alleging that he was ordered by the officials to find ways to delay, withhold, deny and in some cases destroy public records requested in high-profile cases. The suit further claims that he was fired for complaining to department officials about those orders. Among the four individual defendants named in the complaint is Gorden Eden, the chief of the APD, which has been the subject of a number of lawsuits involving police killings, most prominently the murder of homeless mentally ill man James Boyd by two APD officers in March 2014. The other defendants are APD Assistant Chief of Police Robert Huntsman, APD Legal Advisor Kathryn Levy and APD Support Services Executive Director William Slausen. The action is being pursued under the New Mexico Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA), which, according to the complaint, forbids a public employer from taking any retaliatory action against a public employee because the public employee communicates to the public employer or a third party information about an action or failure to act that the public employee believes in good faith constitutes an unlawful or improper act. The plaintiff, Reynaldo Chavez, was hired as a Central Records Supervisor and Records Custodian for APD by the city in June of 2011. Among his duties were receiving and responding to requests for public records, providing proper and reasonable opportunities to inspect them and providing reasonable facilities to make or furnish copies of them. In addition to documents, public records requests may include lapel camera videos, belt tape audio recordings, photographs, text messages, emails, cell phone videos and other materials. Chavez received a Civilian of the Month award in August 2012 and a 2012 Civilian of the Year award from the APD, at the time headed by Chief Raymond D. Schultz. At no time did Mr. Chavez receive a deficient employment performance review or be placed on a corrective employment performance improvement plan, according to the complaint. Chavez was promoted to Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) Supervisor in November 2013. Chavez was the point of contact for all IPRA requests, but he had limited discretion and was required to seek approval for records releases from Defendants. The defendants determined which requests were to be considered high profile. Those included requests concerning Mary Han (a defense attorney considered a thorn in APDs side, who died in 2010 under mysterious circumstances), District Attorney Kari Brandenberg, APD use of force, APD Internal Affairs, the Police Oversight Commission, officer-involved shootings including James Boyd and Mary Hawkes, anti-police violence protests and others. According to the lawsuit, the defendants individually or in aggregate instructed Chavez to tell requestors that records would not be released without any explanation other than this wont be released. Levy frequently told him that there are items we will just not release and we will pay the fines or lawsuits. They also told him to creatively identify an allowable exception to the IPRA in order to baffle or frustrate requestors or otherwise burden them, to withhold records that they claimed were exceptions to IPRA, to arbitrarily delay production of records without justification, to fabricate reasons to burden requestors with additional [unnecessary] requirements like case numbers or increased particularity. In some instances, they told Chavez to overproduce materialsthus requiring a given requestor to spend time consuming hours sifting through boxes of irrelevant materials when no such responsive records were produced. They often called, texted or emailed him after hours about pending IPRA matters, and whenever possible tactically coordinated the release of high profile public records on days before weekends or holidays to minimize media exposure. Another of Chavezs duties was the creation of a database of information about IPRA requestors, which Defendants tasked Mr. Chavez to buildas a means to gather intelligence on various persons and entities who sought information under IPRA from the City, the Complaint alleges. It further states that Chavez made a number of objections and protests to the defendants, among them verbal statements and demands that they articulate the basis for the refusals and issue written orders to him or that they deal directly with requestors. In April 2015, Roberta Archuleta, a subcontracted employee who was assigned to Chavezs staff, complained to an APD detective that Chavez had verbally, physically and sexually abused her. According to the complaint, she filed her complaint shortly after he had met with her and informed her that she was on notice to provide a doctors note if she took any more sick days off [which she often did on Mondays and Fridays] or was otherwise going to be let go for abuse of sick leave. Chavez had previously admonished her several times about the sick leave issue and about lapses in her job performance, including frequent typos, chronic errors in providing responsive materials, misuse of equipment and resources and unprofessional conduct. Eden placed Chavez on administrative leave. This incident occurred two months after a meeting with the defendants, Chavez and the Albuquerque Journal s editor and some personnel regarding the newspapers problems obtaining records. After the meeting, Slausen allegedly told Chavez, your unit needs to be disbanded, there is no need for the IPRA Unit, or, according to the complaint, words to that effect. An investigation of the staffers allegations resulted in what the complaint calls unsubstantiated conclusions that Chavez had violated department procedures by tolerating and failing to intervene in and prevent sexual harassment, ridiculing APD and being untruthful. Chavez was terminated on August 20, 2015. The Complaint notes, Following Defendants termination of Mr. Chavezs employment, Ms. Archuleta of Select Staffing, Inc. was terminated from her position in APDs IPRA Unit for conduct consistent with Mr. Chavezs concerns. Five examples are cited and elaborated on as examples of unlawful and improper actions in the Complaint, relating to: The March 16, 2014 killing of James Boyd by APD officers Keith Sandy and Dominique Perez; Reporters attempts to get information about the cozy relationship between APD chief Ray Schultz and the Taser stun gun manufacturer both before and after his retirement. Taser also markets the lapel cameras that mysteriously malfunctioned or were not turned on during instances of police violence; Police spying on Kenneth Ellis, father of a man slain by APD officer, at a protest in June 2014; Efforts by Silvio DellAngela and Charles Arasim, activist critics of APD, to get IPRA public records; IPRA public records requests regarding the death of Mary Han. In all these cases, the Complaint concludes that the requested public records remain unproduced. The Complaint alleges that political calculations account for the defendants actions, among them: concealing misconduct by City personnel, mitigating public reaction concerning actions by City personnel, retaliating against City personnel, depriving opposing parties of discovery related to pending actions against the City, encrypting audio and video so that requestors were not able to access information contained therein, and concealing relevant records from the United States Department of Justice. These allegations are neither surprising nor confined to Albuquerque. As ruling classes in the US and elsewhere move ahead with militarization, mass surveillance, police violence and attacks on working-class living standards, they see openness, democratic rights and accountabilityand indeed the rule of lawmore and more as hindrances to their class rule that must be suppressed at every opportunity. In a speech to US soldiers in the 101st Airborne Division about to deploy to Iraq, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter gave the most extensive account of the Pentagons plans to escalate the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria over the next year. In particular, he singled out the two largest urban areas controlled by ISIS, the city of Mosul in northern Iraq, third-largest in the country, and the groups de facto capital of Raqqa, in eastern Syria, as the main targets for coordinated air, ground and special operations warfare in the next period. Carters remarks Wednesday were clearly intended to build on the defense of the Obama administrations anti-ISIS campaign made in the presidents State of the Union address Tuesday. Carter cited Obamas speech, telling the solders, As the president, said we must, we can and we will deliver a lasting defeat to ISIL. The Pentagon chief revealed that 200 special operations troops he ordered to Iraq last month are now on the ground and engaged in covert action against ISIS targets there. This is separate from the 50 special ops now working in northwestern Syria with insurgent forces, particularly the Kurdish PYG. This specialized expeditionary targeting force will begin going after ISILs fighters and commanders, killing or capturing them wherever we find them, along with other key targets. How this differs from actual combat is a purely semantic distinction, aimed at preserving Obamas claim that he brought an end to the war in Iraq launched by George W. Bush. Some 500 troops from the 101st Airborne headquarters will join the fighting in Iraq at the end of February. Another 1,300 troops from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team will deploy to Iraq in late spring to train Iraqi Army and Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers. Carter outlined three military objectives for the US war against ISIS: One, destroy the ISIL parent tumor in Iraq and Syria by collapsing its two power centers in Mosul and Raqqa. Two, combat the emerging metastases of the ISIL tumor worldwide, and three, protect the homeland. He spent most of his time elaborating on the first objective, telling the assembled soldiers, Let me map for you where we are headed this year and where youll be headed. The ISIL parent tumor has two centersRaqqa in Syria, and Mosul in Iraq. ISIL has used its control of these cities and nearby territories as a power base from which to derive considerable financial resources, manpower and ideological outreach. They constitute ISILs military, political, economic and ideological centers of gravity. Thats why our campaign plans map has got big arrows pointing at both Mosul and Raqqa. We will begin by collapsing ISILs control over both of these cities and then engage in elimination operations through other territories ISIL holds in Iraq and Syria. Mosul is widely viewed as likely to prove the bloodiest battlefield, since ISIS forces have had 18 months to entrench themselves in this city of two million people. They captured it in June 2014 in a lightning offensive as Iraqi Army troops fled in disarray. Reaching and retaking Mosul will not be easy, and it will not be quick, Carter said. There will be many engagements in between. Carter referred to the history of the 101st Airborne Division, which captured Mosul during the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, but he said that repeating such an attack would be counterproductive. I know the 101st has taken Mosul before, and you could do it again, he said. We could deploy multiple brigades on the ground and arrive in force, but then it would likely become our fight and our fight alone. Such an effort would Americanize the conflict, giving ISIL the chance to call it a foreign occupation, he warned. Although he made no reference to this, such a full-scale ground assault by US combat troops would mean tens of thousands dead, with mass casualties not only among the Iraqi population, who would be the main victims, but among the American soldiers as well. Such an outcome would both further inflame the Middle East against US imperialism, and fuel antiwar sentiment at home. Even more problematic, Carter continued, would be efforts to hold cities like Mosul and Raqqa if they were conquered by an invading force rather than by local allies of Washington, such as Kurdish and Iraqi government troops. The Pentagon chief flatly rejected any withdrawal from Syria and Iraq or a hands-off policy by Washington. Such a policy would surrender the strong and global leadership that the United States stands for. Instead, he explained, We are going to enable local, motivated forces and an international coalition with a clear campaign plan, with American leadership and with all of our awesome capabilities from airstrikes, special forces, cyber tools, intelligence, equipment, mobility and logistics, training, advise and assistance from those on the ground, including you. As this language indicates, US imperialism will be in control of the battle, while making use of local forces to do the bulk of the fighting and dying. Carter told the soldiers that he expected both the US Congress and foreign allies to provide support and resources for the escalating conflict in Syria and Iraq. He demanded that Congress fully fund a pending budget request for the war in Syria. And he announced that he would travel to Paris for a meeting January 20 with defense ministers from the other six imperialist powers that are playing a subsidiary role in the ground and air war: France, Australia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian announced Thursday that French warplanes had bombed an ISIS communications target near Mosul. We have struck seven times since Monday, Le Drian said, referring to the overall French bombing in both Iraq and Syria. Another key US ally in the war with ISIS is Jordan, whose King Abdullah visited Washington during the first three days of the week. His most important discussions were at the Pentagon Monday, where he met with Carter to discuss the fighting just across his countrys borders. Significantly, he suggested that the war was about to be waged at an increased tempo. ISIS can be defeated fairly quickly, he said in an interview with Wolf Blitzer of CNN. Hopefully, he added, the military party is short-term. The mid-term is going to be the intelligence and security aspect. The long-term is the ideological one and the educational one. Meanwhile ISIS militants staged two devastating terror attacks against Shiite neighborhoods in Iraq Monday, killing more than 40 people. Gunmen attacked a shopping mall in eastern Baghdad Monday evening, backed by multiple suicide bombers. Seventeen people died, in addition to the bombers. A few hours later, nearly two-dozen people were killed in two bombings in Muqdadiya, a city northeast of Baghdad in Diyala province. An improvised explosive device killed several people, and a suicide car bomber drove into the crowd that responded to the first bombing. The UK saw wide-scale flooding in the closing months of 2015 and in January, affecting Wales, Scotland, northwest England and parts of Yorkshire. Thousands of homes and businesses have been ruined, road and railway lines closed and residents left without utilities. According to accountancy firm KPMG, the total cost of the floods could be as high as 5.8 billion. The Conservative governments response to the devastation has been minimal. Prime Minister David Cameron has promised a paltry 40 million to repair flood defences in the major conurbations of Leeds and York. This is under conditions where, since 2000, the UK has experienced the five wettest years on record. Many areas have been flooded two or three times. The governments expert Committee on Climate Change says the situation is likely to get worse because Flooding, heat waves and periods of drought are projected to become more common. It declares that it is critical that appropriate and cost-effective steps are taken to prepare and adapt the country to climate change. In England alone, 5.2 million properties, one in six, are at risk of flooding. It has been estimated that maintaining existing levels of flood defence would require flood defence funding to increase to over 1billion per year by 2035. Currently it is under half that amount. Since 2000, several scientific reports have been published and inquiries held laying out the consequences of the lack of investment in new and sustainable flood defences and poor maintenance of existing infrastructure. Despite the warnings, they have been ignored by successive governments whether Labour, the Conservative/Liberal-Democrat coalition and Conservative, or the Scottish National Party administration in Holyrood. Over this period, funding for the Environment Agency (EA), which is supposed to have overall control of flood control, has been cut by 14 percentabout a quarter in real termsleading to huge job losses. A similar fate has befallen the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. Just before the latest floods, the government received another warning from the Association of Drainage Authorities whose members include the EA, local councils and drainage boards. The leaked report revealed that the EA had reduced the extent of their watercourse channel maintenance and taken steps to stop operating a number of structures and systems. Because of 40 percent government imposed budget cuts, councils have reduced funding to organisations and landowners who carry out flood defence work. Such reductions in investment mean that some river, watercourse and sea defence systems and structures are maintained only to a minimal level, the association stated. The governments attempt to get the private sector to come up with money for flood defences through partnership funding has been a disaster, with less than 4 percent of total funding coming from such sources. The situation can only get worse. The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), which includes the EA, is one of four government departments that have agreed to slash their budgets by an unprecedented 30 percent over the next four years as part of Chancellor George Osbornes plans to cut 20 billion of government spending and deliver a budget surplus by 2019. The fact is that money is there for flood defence, but UK governments of whatever hue, like governments throughout the world, have pursued policies since the 2008 financial crisis that have concentrated even further wealth in the hands of a tiny rich elite. They have been carrying out a social counterrevolution that involves the repudiation of the very notion of public services and welfare provision as an unacceptable drain of the wealth of the super-rich. According to figures from the UK Office of National Statistics, there is around 9 trillion of wealth in private hands that is overwhelmingly concentrated in the hands of a small minority. The recently published Bloombergs billionaire index reveals that the two wealthiest UK citizens saw their wealth increase by 900 million last yearmore than enough on its own to develop and maintain flood defences. According to Richard Murphy, professor of Practice in International Political Economy at City University London, the gap between the amount of tax that should be collected as per government legislation and what is actually collected is around 120 billion a year. This is because the super-rich have made tax avoidance and evasion a fine art. Put simply, corporations and the super-rich do not want to pay tax and are given every opportunity not to do so. Last year the European Commission, as part of its Action Plan for Fair and Efficient Corporate Taxation, revealed that almost 25 percent of the worlds tax havens on its blacklist were British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependenciesincluding Anguilla, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Guernsey, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos Islandsall of which are tied by a thousand threads to the City of London. The Justice Network found that approximately $21 trillion is currently being hidden in offshore tax havens and that the Cayman Islands have over 85,000 companies registered there, more than the countrys population. At the same time as governments allow the super-rich to get away with paying no taxes, and thus avoiding any contribution to public services, they promote the idea that charities, volunteers and self-help groups can shoulder the burden. Following the 2007 floods, Labour commissioned a review by Sir Michael Pitt. Despite recommending long-term planning and pointing out the advantages of a well-resourced, publicly funded flood defence system, the vast majority of Pitts 92 recommendations barely scratched the surface, and stressed that flood victims should not expect the state to look after them. Instead, local groups contributing to costs themselves rather than central funding should become the rule rather than the exception, with those at risk flood-proofing their homes and preparing emergency kits of torches, wind-up radios, blankets, a first aid kit and a mobile phone. The Conservative-supporting Daily Telegraph expressed this position even more bluntly in its December 28 article UK Floods: Blame game is cheapsolutions arent. It noted: [P]rotection against flooding is one of several hugely sensitive issues the country facespressure on the NHS is the most glaring examplein which demand so outstrips supply that an almost limitless amount could be spent. And while the last Labour administration behaved as though infinite sums were available, thankfully we have a Government that believes in economic responsibility. The Telegraph insists: What is required is a realistic debate about systemic pressures on much of our most vital infrastructure, to make clear choices about the fundamental provision from central government and then find innovative ways to finance and renew services beyond that basic threshold the longer that difficult decisions are put off, the harder the underlying problems will be to solve. Difficult decisions is a euphemism for further swingeing cuts. According to the Telegraph the capitalist crisis is such that health care coverage for the population and provision and maintenance of essential infrastructure for a modern functioning society can no longer be provided by the state and the debate must be about how to privatise services, hand them over to volunteers or run them down altogether. This points to the essential conclusion that to address the underfunding of necessary infrastructure means breaking the political stranglehold of the parasitic rich elite and expropriating its wealth. This can only be achieved by the building of a mass movement of the working class, based on a socialist perspective to reorganise society along the lines of production for need, not private profit. Europe One-day strike of junior doctors in England A 24-hour strike by junior doctors in England began at 8 a.m. on Tuesday in which they only provided emergency cover. They were taking the action in opposition to the Conservative governments attempts to impose a new contract that would mean a cut in pay, longer working hours and less chance for advancement. A series of three strikes due to have begun December 1 were postponed when the organization representing the junior doctors, the British Medical Association (BMA), called them off to hold further talks with the government under the auspices of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Services, ACAS. Following a breakdown of the talks, the new series of strikes were announced. The 24-hour strike is to be followed by a 48-hour strike beginning 8 a.m. on January 26, followed by a nine-hour all-out strike with no emergency cover on February 10. However, talks under the auspices of ACAS began again Thursday. The BMA is desperate for the government to come up with a face-saving formula that would allow the two further proposed strikes to be called off. London underground rail unions announce strikes Unions representing staff working on the London Underground (LU) system (the Tube), the Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, ASLEF and UNITE have announced a series of three 24-hour strikes. They are due to begin in the evening of January 26, February 15 and 17. The strikes are over LUs management plans to introduce a 24-hour all-night service. TSSA, the union representing office and ticket staff, is due to consult its members as to whether they will join the action. Strike by teachers at English Midlands school Teachers at Small Heath School, Birmingham, came out on strike Monday against plans by the local authority to convert it to an Academy school. They have already held five days of strikes since May last year. They voted for four further days of strike last week. Following the decision to hold further strikes one of the teachers, Simon OHara, was suspended. The teachers are members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT). A petition calling for the reinstatement of OHara, who has taught at the school for 30 years, has been signed by 1,300 people. Greek workers oppose pension and social security reforms Last Friday hundreds of Greek public sector workers and pensioners marched in Athens, protesting against the Syriza government pension reforms, which will see pension schemes merged into one main scheme with payments reduced by around a third. Staff employed by the Seamens Pension Fund (NAT) were on strike Monday and Tuesday of this week in opposition to plans to merge NAT into the main pension scheme. Their union held a general assembly on Tuesday to discuss future action. The PNO union representing Greek ferry staff this week announced a 48-hour strike January 20-21. It is in opposition to the government plans to merge the social security fund covering seamen and transport workers into a national insurance scheme, the EFKA. Dutch dockers threaten further strikes Around 800 dockers organized by the FNV Havens union in the Port of Rotterdam held a 24-hour strike on January 7. It was in opposition to plans to open two new terminals, which will be highly automated and according to FNV could lead to the loss of around 700 jobs, a fifth of the current workforce. The workers are seeking job security guarantees over the next nine years and have said they will hold further strikes if talks with the employer are unproductive. The strike last week was the first in 13 years. Strike threat by Portuguese public sector staff The CGTP union body announced Monday it would call a strike of public sector workers in Portugal if the newly elected coalition government did not cut the working week from 40 hours to 35 hours this month. The newly elected left coalition government had promised to reverse the previous right-wing governments imposition of a 40-hour week, which had been brought in as part of its austerity measures. However, the government said the cut in hours would apply from July this year. Ukrainian miners block border crossing Ukrainian miners went ahead with their plan to block a border crossing post Tuesday. More than 300 miners blocked the crossing point between Poland and the Ukraine on the main road linking Lviv and Rava Ruska. The miners, members of the Independent Trade Union of Coal Miners of Ukraine (NPGU), have been on strike since January 2. They are protesting at arrears in their wages. They have been paid less than half their wages owed for the period November to December 2015. Cypriot workers strike threat Workers belonging to the Turkish Cypriot public sector workers in Northern Cyprus have threatened to strike if their customary 13th salary is not paid by January 25. Staff employed by the Republic of Cyprus state telecoms company, CyTA, organized by the EPOET OIO-SEK union, have voted over 90 percent in favour of a strike against plans by the Cypriot government to privatize the company. The government is also planning to split the state-owned power company EAC into two organizations, one for power generation and one for electricity distribution, with a view to privatization. Power workers unions are opposed to the moves. The government is seeking to privatize these companies as part of its deal with international financiers who bailed out the country. Middle East Striking Egyptian workers suspended Around 18,000 workers employed by Petrotrade have been on strike for over five weeks. Petrotrade has 52 branches across Egypt. Set up in 2001, the company collects payments for domestic gas on behalf of the Petroleum Authority. The dispute is over the company policy of paying bonuses only to managers and favourites among the workers, bypassing the bulk of the workforce. Over the course of the dispute the company has suspended some workers, now numbering several hundred, it regards as ringleaders of the strike. Police have questioned some after asking them to report to police stations. Wildcat strike by Israeli airport authority staff Staff working for the Israeli Airport Authority coordination centre began an all-out unofficial strike on Sunday. The Airport Authority applied to the court in an attempt to halt the strike. Africa Kenyan teachers strike Lawyers acting for the Kenyan National Union of Teachers (KNUT) are demanding the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), the teachers employers, respect the ruling on teachers wages negotiations. The court ruled teachers could resume their strike after the 90-day suspension agreed with the government had ended. The government has reneged on court rulings and appeals relating to the teachers pay award. The unions main concern has been the decision by the TSC not to collect union dues. The union argued that the TSC should have opened a suspense account rather than stop taking deductions. KNUT accuses the TSC of penalising the union for calling the strike last September and attempting to bankrupt the union. The strike continued for five weeks, becoming the longest teachers strike in Kenyas history. The union is demanding the money from the outstanding dues from October to the present day to be able to carry out elections as demanded by the TSC. According to the TSC, the elections are needed so they can determine which teachers are members of KNUT and which are members of the Kenyan Union of Post Primary Teachers (KUPPET). Temporary teachers taken on to break the strike who were promised permanent jobs have been sacked after their three-month contracts expired. Liberian Ebola front line workers denied benefits One hundred workers responsible for cleaning down, bagging and burying Ebola infected bodies in Liberia have been consistently denied risk benefits that had been promised to them. They have held demonstrations and been promised meetings with officials who then fail to turn up. They were able to meet with Prime Minister Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who gave them $2,000 and bags of rice and arranged for them to meet with the minister of health at the beginning of January. However, when they turned up for their meeting they were denied access to the minister. Each Ebola Treatment Unit worker is owed $5,000 in compensation for their hazardous work. Lecturers strike in Nigeria Lecturers in Oson state, Nigeria, came out on indefinite strike Monday over the sacking of 141 of their colleagues. The members of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) and College of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU) are demanding the governor repeal all sacking notices from October 29 to the present. They are also demanding that the state implement agreements made with the union on October 29 and for their salaries to be paid in full. The Medical and Dental Association of Nigeria at the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Teaching Hospital has joined the strike in solidarity with the lecturers. A separate dispute, a strike by the Association of Resident Doctors (ARD) and Association of Medical and Dental Officers (OSAMDO) in Osun state, continues. South African bus workers strike Bus workers at Transnat bus service for the eThekwini Metro Municipality were on strike in Durban, South Africa, Wednesday in response to non-payment of Decembers wages and bonuses. Payments to their provident fund are also overdue. Some workers abandoned their buses last Friday after learning their wages had not been paid. The municipal bus service expected workers to return to work on Wednesday afternoon, claiming that the wages of the 750 employees would have been paid in full by then. They came out on strike on the day pupils were due to return to school. Transnat is owned by the nephew of Jacob Zuma, South Africas president, and has been sued by the municipality on previous occasions. The bus drivers have been invited to a meeting with Transnat, but a worker told the Citizen online news, Drivers are not going to the meeting. They feel the [eThekwini Metro] council is colluding with Transnat. They want the mayor to come to them at their depot in Umlazi and Ntuzuma. Another worker said, People are scared to speak out. There is a culture of threatening people. Its run like the taxi industry. Coal miners strike in South Africa South African miners at Msobo Coal went out on strike Monday against redundancies. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) claimed there were no proper consultations over the retrenchments and that redundancies are being made to enable the company to employ casual workers in line with other mines. On Wednesday, just one day after Michigan Governor Rick Snyder mobilized the National Guard in response to the drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan, he was forced to admit that ten Flint residents had died as a result of an outbreak of Legionnaires disease likely linked to the citys contaminated drinking water. Those deaths are in addition to the 9,000 children likely to have been put at risk for lead poisoning. Even small exposures of children to lead can permanently lower intelligence and academic achievement, and the effects cannot be corrected. The citys spiraling public health disaster is the result of its move in April 2014 to draw its drinking water from the Flint River, after the Detroit water department demanded higher rates in the aftermath of the Detroit bankruptcy. The Flint River, having been used as a dumping ground for chemicals by local industry for decades, was widely known to be polluted, but state-appointed Emergency Manager Darnell Earley argued that a cost savings of $5 million over two yearsto be passed on to the citys creditors on Wall Streetjustified the move. The citys political establishment hailed the decision and the emergency manager and local Democratic Party officials declared that the water was safe in the face of mounting protests by residents. Throughout early 2015, city officials even falsified the results of tapwater tests in order to downplay the presence of lead. On Tuesday, the Detroit News reported that the US Environmental Protection Agency had indications as early as February that drinking water in the city of Flint was contaminated, but took no action to inform the population, even as state and local officials sought to publicly reassure residents that the water was safe to drink. Snyders admission of the outbreak of Legionnaires disease was made the day after President Obama gave a State of the Union address in which he declared, ritualistically, that the state of our union is strong. He bragged, our auto industry just had its best year ever, as part of a manufacturing surge that had led the United States to recover from the worst economic crisis in generations. A look at Flint, the birthplace of General Motors, tells a different tale. In 1978, the city employed 80,000 autoworkers. Today, this figure stands at about 5,000. Flint has an official poverty rate of 40.1 percent, making it the second-most poverty-stricken city of its size in America, behind Youngstown, Ohio, another former icon of American industry. A staggering two-thirds of the citys children live in poverty, 10 percentage points higher than Detroit, Americas poorest large city. To an extent even greater than Detroit, the citys population has dwindled and most of its historic buildings have either been demolished or stand vacant. Even as government officials were forced to admit the scale of the disaster taking place in Flint, teachers in Detroit were engaged in a mass sick-out in defiance of their union that closed 60 schools, protesting dismal school conditions that left buildings covered in dangerous mold with huge gaps in flooring and no heat. The conditions in Flint and Detroit reveal the reality behind the Obama administrations claims of an economic recovery in Americas manufacturing cities, and the triumphal assertions by politicians and the media that the bankruptcy of Detroitwhich sold off city assets to speculators and slashed the pensions of municipal workers and retireeshas brought about an economic turnaround. In fact, the desperate conditions in Flint and Detroit are a microcosm of the social disaster that has been imposed on the American working class by decades of deindustrialization, mass layoffs and attacks on workers living standards. Even as he sought to present an absurdly positive picture of social relations in America, Obama was forced to acknowledge the growth of poverty and social inequality, while attributing it to inexorable technological changes that resulted in workers having less leverage for a raise. In reality, the horrific growth of poverty and social misery in cities such as Flint is the result of the class policies of the ruling elite, imposed by both parties and rubber-stamped by the trade unions and the Democratic politicians who have run cities such as Detroit, Flint, Baltimore and Chicago. Every step in the destruction of Flint has taken place with the seal of approval of the unions, beginning with the wave of auto plant closings in the early 1980s which the unions said were necessary to improve the profitability of the automakers and the long-term prospects of autoworkers. Three decades later, responding to the move in April 2014 to begin using water from the polluted Flint River, AFSCME Local 1600 president Sam Muma declared, This is a good thing for the community. It will provide jobs and make the city self-sufficient. Flints director of public works, Howard Croft, an African-American Democrat, declared that the move marks the beginning of the new narrative of the city of Flint, while Democratic Mayor Dayne Walling praised the decision as an important day for us. These minor henchmen of the American financial elite have made their livelihoods peddling policies that have destroyed the lives of countless millions of families, led to hundreds of thousands of early deaths, and turned America into a country where most households are so poor they do not have enough cash to cover a $500 emergency expense. The conscious policy of deindustrialization begun in the late 1970s, which reduced cities throughout the country to rubble, was aimed at extracting trillions of dollars from American workers by slashing wages, raiding pensions and selling off assets. But more than pure greed was involved in these sociopathic measures. Flint was the scene of the powerful sit-down strike of 1936-37 and a symbol of the independent strength of the American working class. Its destruction was a form of cruel vengeance extracted by the ruling elite. Legend has it that when the ancient Romans sacked the city of Carthage, in addition to razing it to the ground, they salted the earth so that nothing would grow there again. This was done as retaliation for the defeats they had suffered at the hands of their great enemy, Hannibal. That story, describing the actions of a people who were among the cruelest in history, is as far as we can tell not true. But the American ruling class, filled with bitter hatred of the workers of Flint, not only reduced the citys factories to rubble and its children to poverty, but poisoned its water supply. The disaster in Flint reveals the nature of the sociopaths and murderers among Americas billionaire financial oligarchs and their hired politicians and functionaries. The only way to reverse the decades of social destruction that they have wrought, and ensure a decent life for Americas workers, is to confiscate the ill-gotten billions of the financial oligarchy, seize the major corporations, and reorganize society on a socialist basis. On January 13, European Commission (EC) Vice President Frans Timmermans announced that the EC had initiated steps toward monitoring the rule of law in Poland. The move comes in the wake of a massive campaign against the Polish government by German politicians and media outlets and signals an extreme escalation of tensions within the European Union. Poland is the EUs sixth largest economy and the biggest one in Eastern Europe. In July of this year, Warsaw will host the NATO summit. The rule of law framework was adopted by the EC, the executive arm of the EU, only recently, in March 2014, to address systemic threats to the rule of law in any of the EUs 28 Member States. The first stage of the process forces a dialogue between the EC and Polish officials to put pressure on the decision-making process relating to the countrys new policies. If Warsaw does not comply with proposals by Brussels, the EU can set a deadline for implementing the policies it has suggested. If the Polish government should then still not comply with the demands of the EU, the EC can theoretically, based on Article 7 of the EU treaty, deprive Poland of its voting rights and cut it off from a number of EU funds. The mechanism can be blocked, however, by vetoes of other EU member states. To this aim, Law and Justice party (PiS) head Jarosaw Kaczynski held a secret meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has also established an authoritarian right-wing regime in his country. The EU justifies its unprecedented move on the basis of the blatant assault on democratic rights by the new PiS-government, which was brought to power in the October parliamentary elections. Within the first weeks of its rule, the government has taken control of the Constitutional Court and the countrys secret services. With a bill introduced at the end of the last year, it placed public radio and television under government control. The constitutional coup by the PiS government is aimed at establishing an authoritarian dictatorship in order to prepare the grounds for a crackdown on the social rights of the working class and a major role of Poland in the US war drive against Russia. The EC move to place Poland under EU supervision, however, has absolutely nothing to do with the defence of democracy. The EU itself has been the main mechanism for an all-out assault on democratic rights in Europe over the past years, implementing drastic measures in Greece, Italy, Spain and other countries in total disregard for basic democratic mechanisms and against the opposition of the vast majority of the population. Rather, it is a move aimed at pressuring a government that has moved into open opposition with Germany, the EUs dominant power, over a number of geopolitical issues. The ECs decision was preceded by an aggressive campaign by German politicians and media against the new Polish government. It was also a German politician, Gunther Oettinger from the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU), now the acting EU commissar for media, who first publicly suggested implementing this EU mechanism against Poland in an interview with the leading German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . The German bourgeoisie is opposed to the increasingly close alliance between the PiS government and US imperialism. PiS is trying to build an alliance of Eastern European states that would form a counterweight to the German-dominated EU and play a major role in a regime-change in Moscow orchestrated by US imperialism or an all-out war against Russia. The PiS government reacted to the campaign in Germany with an aggressive anti-German press campaign in Poland itself, while leading politicians tried, at the same time, to downplay the scale of the tensions with Berlin. On Monday, German Ambassador Rolf Nikel was summoned by Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski to a 40-minute one-on-one discussion on the anti-Polish comments of German politicians. Waszczykowski afterward tried to downplay this step, which had previously only been taken with the Russian ambassador. He argued that miscommunication was at the roots of the current Polish-German tensions. Waszczykowski also invited his German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, to come to Warsaw. Nikel too tried to deescalate tensions, saying he and Waszczykowski had a good discussion and that German-Polish relations were a treasure that had to be guarded. Meanwhile, an anti-German campaign to support the new government has developed in the Polish media. In order to prop up their own reactionary agenda, the Polish nationalists and far-right systematically make use of the crimes of German imperialism in Poland during World War II and the disgust that the return of German militarism justifiably provokes in the general population. Polands justice minister, Zbigniew Ziobro, compared the proposed EU supervision to the Nazi occupation of Poland during the Second World War. Referring to a comment by Martin Schulz, a politician of the German SPD and head of the European Parliament, in which he described what had taken place in Poland as a cold coup detat, the pro-PiS, far-right Gazeta Warszawska wrote: History makes a disturbing full circle. Seventy-six years after the attack on Poland ... [Schulz] simply continues the anti-Polish rhetoric of Hitler. A cover of the pro-PiS weekly Wprost shows Chancellor Angela Merkel and four other German politicians wearing Nazi uniforms next to the headline They want to control Poland again. The latest cover of the right-wing weekly wSieci, titled Conspiracy against Poland, features a photomontage of Merkel and Schulz as the Russian empress Catherine the Great and King of Prussia Frederick II in reference to 1773, depicting the first partition of Poland between Prussia, the Habsburg-Austrian Empire and Tsarist Russia. Krystyna Pawowicz, a PiS parliamentary delegate, called for boycotting German banks and products. PiS head Kaczynski declared during the 69th commemoration of the Smolensk plane crash that killed his twin brother Lech: No pressure, no hollering or words, especially from German lips, will turn us from our path. However, the Polish bourgeoisie itself is deeply divided over the countrys foreign policy. These divisions were revealed sharply in a parliamentary session on January 13 at which Prime Minister Beata Szydo failed to achieve a consensus with the parliamentary opposition on foreign policy. In an open attack on the governments foreign policy orientation, the deputy head of the Civic Platform (PO) parliamentary club, Rafa Trzaskowski, stated: We do not want to lose Polands position that we have built for the past eight years. The national interest is not represented by losing the influence in the EU and in the world or creating some pipe dreams of the next Intermarium, but [by] cooperation on equal terms with our partners. PO, the former ruling party, still favours an orientation towards Germany and the EU. Under the PO government, Polish-German relations were praised as the best history had ever seen. In 2014, Radek Sikorski, then foreign minister, had called for the salvation of Europe from crisis under a strong German leadership. Newspapers and journals supporting the political line of PO have expressed support for Merkels policies. The leading liberal daily Gazeta Wyborcza wrote that in the context of the refugee crisis and the events in Cologne, the weakening position of Merkel, who has come under increasing attack by ruling circles in Germany, were bad news both for both Europe and Poland. The PO-led opposition previously appealed to the EU in the protests staged in recent weeks in Warsaw and other cities by layers of the urban middle class. The latest edition of Newsweek Poland, with the cover title The Rape of Poland, describes the oppositions appeal for EU intervention in Poland as an act of patriotism. The Quebec Labour Relations Commission (CRT) has strongly endorsed the draconian sanctions the City of Montreal has imposed on 2,000 blue-collar workers for participating in an illegal meeting last month. In its ruling, the CRT rejected out of hand a complaint filed by Local 301 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) that argued the week-long suspensions constituted an illegal lockout. This is the second time in less than a month that the CRT has facilitated the attack Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre, a former federal Liberal cabinet minister and close ally of Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard, is mounting on municipal workers. On December 8, 2,400 city employees from all shifts defied Coderres threats and participated in a 90-minute special membership meeting called by the CUPE Local 301 leadership during working hours. The meeting discussed the drastic cuts to Quebec municipal workers pensions contained in Law 15, legislation the Couillard government adopted over mass opposition in December 2014. The meeting also reviewed the implications of the fiscal pact the Quebec Liberal government struck with the provinces municipalities last September. Under the pact, the municipalities agreed to forgo their opposition to hundreds of millions of dollars in further cuts to provincial government transfers in exchange for Couillard pledging to pass legislation empowering the municipalities to declare labour negotiations at an impasse and dictate their employees wages and other terms of employment. On the eve of the Dec. 8 special meeting, the CRT had acceded to Coderres request that it ban the meeting on the grounds it constituted an illegal work stoppage. Vowing to put an end to lawlessness, the Coderre administration subsequently announced it was suspending 2,000 workers for five days without pay. Members of the Local 301 executive and union delegates, meanwhile, were punished with two- and one-month long suspensions, respectively. In its ruling, the CRT made an emphatic statement in support of employer rights, saying that it is managements prerogative to determine how workers should be penalized for violating a collective agreement. To allow the unions claim, declared the CRT, would ensure that employees who were deliberately guilty of acts contrary to the collective agreement could not be punished as desired by the employer on the grounds that it would cause a slowdown in work or the provision of services to the public. Despite the CRTs repeated decisions in favor of the City of Montreal, the union announced that it will take no action in the face of the mass suspensions other than to lodge a legal appeal. The capitalist elite and its media are strongly supportive of the hard line the Coderre administration has adopted against the blue-collar workers, and this for two reasons. They are determined to make working people pay for the economic crisis through the slashing of workers rights and public and social services; and, second, because they are terrified of the possibility of mass defiance of the battery of anti-worker laws. An editorial in the Montreal Gazette denounced the municipal workers meeting as a wildcat strike and claimed those in attendance had been incited to violence. The victimization of the Montreal blue-collar workers represents a serious warning to the entire working class, and especially the half-million Quebec public sector workers, who are opposing the Couillard governments concession demands and more generally its assault on education, health care and other vital public services. As resistance to big business and the austerity agenda of its political hirelings mounts, the ruling class across Canada is turning more and more to state repression, criminalizing worker job action through laws, court injunctions and labour commission rulings, and deploying police to support strikebreaking and intimidate and attack protesters. For the past year, it has been an open secret that the provincial Liberal government is preparing to illegalize public sector worker job action and impose concessionary contracts by decree. Yet the unions systematically suppressed all discussion of this threat. To have pointed to the governments plans would have underscored the reactionary character of the unions appeals for a social dialogue and good faith negotiations with the Couillard government and their implacable opposition to any genuine working class challenge to the Liberals and their austerity agenda. Now the Common Front of public sector unions is using the threat of an emergency anti-worker law to try to press-gang workers into ratifying the sell-out, five-year tentative agreement they reached with the Quebec government last month. This agreement includes two years of wage freezes, would increase the retirement age and penalties for early retirement, enshrine the massive cuts Liberal and Parti Quebecois governments have made to public services over the past five years, and open the door for the Couillard government to press forward with the marketization and privatization of services. With opposition to this agreement mounting, the union bureaucrats are serving as veritable mouthpieces for the Liberal government. At union meetings workers are being told that if they defy the union apparatus and reject the tentative agreement, the government will not only criminalize further walkouts, but seize the opportunity to impose still larger concessions. Similarly, the blue-collar workers union has opposed the suspensions, not as a violation of democratic rights, but on the grounds that it deprives the public of services to which they are entitled, an argument that in the future could very well be invoked by the Coderre administration or Couillard government to justify further attacks on worker rights. Far from forthrightly opposing the sanctions, the union has characterized them as unfair, excessive and disproportionatecriticism also made by the right-wing municipal opposition party, Project Montreal. Since the 1980s, the pro-capitalist union leaders have worked to convince the ruling elite that the best way to impose austerity measures and stifle the opposition of the workers is to continue to use their servicesthe basis of their privileged social position. In this spirit Chantal Raclette, president of the municipal workers union, defended herself against the accusation that she looked like someone who wants to fight, saying: I told the administration we are ready to sit down at the negotiating table. MIAMI (AP) A man has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for killing a former girlfriend during an argument at her South Florida home. The Miami Herald (http://goo.gl/C28zsp ) reports that 54-year-old Joel Rodriguez pleaded guilty to murder Thursday. Authorities say Rodriguez was staying at the Coral Gables home of 49-year-old Ruth Fuentes in January 2011 when he shot her during an argument. Detectives quickly identified Rodriguez as a suspect after her used Fuentes's ATM card to withdraw cash and drove to New Jersey in a rented car. Rodriguez was later arrested after authorities say he threatened his ex-wife in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. TALLAHASSEE, FL (WTXL) - Here is a list of some of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day events throughout the region. FAMU National Day of Service January 15 through January 18 FAMU students and alumni are encouraged to give back to their community through the service program. 46th Annual Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Sunday, January 17, 2016 at 5:00 p.m. at the Bethel A.M.E. Church In addition to a MLK tribute, two area churches, the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church and the Bethel Missionary Baptist Church, will be honored for their history in the community. Reverend Dr. R.B. Holmes will be speaking at the event. 4th Annual MLK "Dare to Dream" Music Festival Monday, January 18 from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Cascades Park Several artists will be performing at the event including "The Band Be Easy" and Royce Lovett. A historical exhibit by FAMU and the John G. Riley Center will also be on display. 19th Annual Day of Dialog Monday, January 18 from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Cascades Park This year's theme is "Enhancing Connections to Create a More Cohesive Community" and will feature a panel discussion on changes the community hopes to see in Tallahassee. Valdosta State University Candlelight Vigil Monday, January 18 at 4 p.m. A commemorative march will begin at the University Center Fountain at 4 p.m. and end at West Hall where the candlelight vigil will be held. Former student William Jimerson will speak at the vigil. An Evening with Jelani Cobb Tuesday, January 19 at 7 p.m. at the Ruby Diamond Concert Hall Jelani Cobb is the Keynote Speaker for FSU's 28th Annual MLK Week. Cobb is a staff writer for The New Yorker that focuses on race, the police, and injustice. You can learn more about the event by clicking here. LOWNDES COUNTY, GA. (WTXL) - In Lowndes County, a man is arrested after leading deputies on a chase while driving a tractor trailer. The Lowndes County Sheriff's Office says, someone called 911 around 9 Wednesday night to report a semi-truck driving erratically on I-75. A deputy was able to intercepted the truck. When he tried to stop the truck, he says, the man behind the wheel just kept driving. Identified as Eddie Woody, during the pursuit, the deputy says, Woody reportedly swerved and nearly hit him. The chase crossed into Florida and ended with the semi running off the roadway and hitting a guardrail. Woody was arrested and booked into the Lowndes County Jail. You are the owner of this article. You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close Submit An Obituary Funeral homes often submit obituaries as a service to the families they are assisting. However, we will be happy to accept obituaries from family members pending proper verification of the death. Go to form Hundreds of professionals from 30 countries participated in a large-scale exercise at the Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva this week, simulating the evacuation of dozens of casualties following a massive terrorist attack. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Dozens of simulated casualties with various degrees of injury were evacuated to Soroka in scenarios mimicking a terror attack in a populated urban facility and leakage of hazardous materials from a train car. International exercise in Soroka on dealing with disasters (Photo: Shmaryahu Spero, TPS) We have a lot of experience in dealing with mass-casualty incidents and Im proud to have this opportunity to showcase the abilities of our life-saving teams to professionals from all around the world, said Soroka Director Dr. Ehud Davidson. International exercise in Soroka on dealing with disasters (Photo: Shmaryahu Spero, TPS) The exercise was organized by the Soroka Medical Center, the Health Ministry's Emergency Department, the IDF Home Front Command, and the IDF Medical Corps. International exercise in Soroka on dealing with disasters (Photo: Shmaryahu Spero, TPS) It was the closing event of the IPRED IVthe Fourth International Conference on Healthcare System Preparedness and Response to Emergencies and Disasters. During the conference, professionals from around the globe presented the latest findings regarding preparedness for dealing with various disasters and emergencies. Treating victims in large-scale disasters Meanwhile in Jerusalem, a delegation of experts in the field of treating victims of large-scale natural disasters came to Israel to learn of Israeli treatment of physical trauma victims. The knowledge they gained will be used back in their home countries, which suffer from frequent natural disasters. The experts included medical doctors and government officials from India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. The arrival of Indonesian representatives was a rare occasion since the country has no diplomatic ties with Israel. Prof. Avi Rivkind with delegation of experts on dealing with natural disasters from Indonesia, Sri-Lanka and India (Photo: Hadassah Spokesperson) The delegation visited Jerusalems Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital, and learned from Israeli experts about their methods of treating trauma victims. Hadassah runs the only Level 1 Trauma Center, in Jerusalem, which meets criteria set by the American College of Surgeons. The center is prepared to deal with mass-casualty events and treats severely wounded victims. The foreign experts learned of details about methods used by the center to treat victims of terror attacks, traffic accidents and penetrating trauma from Professor Avi Rivkind, Head of the Hadassah General Surgery and Trauma Departments. Many of the delegation members are experienced in treating victims of major natural disasters such as tsunamis, floods and earthquakes. They took interest in Hadassahs rehabilitation options for trauma victims, and in the hospitals treatment procedures and division of labour. The arrival of such a delegation, including representatives of countries with no diplomatic relations with Israel, is definitely a rare occasion and is something we can be proud of, said a spokesperson for Hadassah. The visit was initiated and arranged by the American Jewish Committee, an advocacy group acting globally to support Israel and to develop unofficial relations between Israel and foreign states, governments and diplomatic delegations around the world. MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE - US Defense Secretary Ash Carter is announcing that the general who heads his special operations forces will be nominated as the next commander for the Middle East. Army Gen. Joseph Votel would take over leadership of US Central Command, which oversees military operations in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State Group. He would succeed Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, who is retiring. Carter announced the decision at Central Command headquarters in Tampa, standing alongside Votel. He was in town to meet with his commanders about how the fight against IS will take shape this year. Votel, 57, is a former commander of the 75th Ranger Regiment and a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He headed the secretive Joint Special Operations Command before taking over Special Operations Command in 2014. PARIS - A drawing in French satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo suggesting Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy found dead on a Turkish beach last year, would have grown up to be a sex attacker caused outrage online on Thursday. The cartoon depicts two male creatures running after terrified women with the caption: "What would have become of the young Alan if he had grown up? A groper in Germany." The cartoon was published a week after the anniversary of attacks on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris which killed 12 people in January last year. The phrase "Je suis Charlie" ("I am Charlie"), was swiftly adopted by supporters online. This time, many people on social media said the cartoon was offensive while others argued Charlie Hebdo was keeping to its usual provocative tone to stir debate on European attitudes to the migrant crisis. Iran has removed the core of its Arak heavy water reactor and filled part of it with cement, a crucial step under a soon to be implemented nuclear agreement with world powers. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter A spokesman for Iran's Atomic Energy Organization told state television the work was done on Wednesday, paving the way for UN nuclear inspectors to announce Iran has met its commitments. The Arak heavy water reactor (Photo: AFP) Asked on Thursday if the core had been removed from the reactor, spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi replied: "Yesterday we finished the central part and the openings have been filled with cement." Such measures mean the reactor will not be able to produce any weapons-grade plutonium from spent nuclear fuel, cutting off a potential pathway to an atomic bomb an aim Iran has always denied pursuing. Kamalvandi's comments came ahead of "Implementation Day" for the nuclear agreement between Iran and six powers Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States. At that time the deal will come into effect and nuclear-related sanctions on Iran will start to be lifted. Iranian and US officials have said Implementation Day will come soon, probably by Sunday but possibly earlier. The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, must first issue a report confirming Iran has met its side of the deal. Photo: Reuters IAEA inspectors are now in Iran, Kamalvandi said, and they would be sending their report to the watchdog's headquarters in Vienna. The IAEA has not commented on when it will declare its findings and diplomats in Vienna also said it was not yet certain when the IAEA would report. Reports emerged Monday that Iran had removed the core at Arak, but a top official later denied this was the case, insisting Tehran was still working on a deal to redesign the reactor. Although China and the United States were expected to help Iran redesign the reactor core, deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said Wednesday that an Iranian company would modernise it. Under the deal, Iran has already reduced the number of its active centrifuges -- fast-spinning machines that enrich uranium and transferred the bulk of its low-enriched uranium stockpile to Russia. On Monday, President Hassan Rouhani pledged that Iran was about to enter "a year of economic prosperity", with sanctions lifted, and said his government had delivered on its promises. "The government is running the country under sanctions not under normal circumstances. God willing, in the coming days we will witness a rolling up of the sanctions scroll in this country," he said. On the back of the nuclear deal, Rouhani wants to make greater inroads in domestic policy, with even modest social and political reforms in the Islamic republic. But he has faced criticism from hardline groups about the nuclear accord, with opponents warning it could lead to "infiltration" by the United States in Iran's economy and other arenas. Lebanon-based Hezbollah is growing stronger as a result of weapons shipments from the Russian military, two mid-level commanders in the organization have said. According to the story, first circulated in The Daily Beast, Russia is directly transferring artillery and anti-tank munitions to Hezbollah without any caveat as to what they are used for, despite Russias close relationship with Israel. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter This begs the question whether the threat to Israel from the Shiite organization has intensified since Russian jets started to bomb Syrian dictator Bashar Assads enemies. However, Hezbollah is still bogged down in the Syrian conflict and is unlikely to be supported in any way by Russia in a future conflict with Israel, analysts say. Irans proxy actor, Hezbollah has enjoyed funding and training that allowed the organization to become a powerful militant force with vast arsenals of artillery rockets and a sophisticated organizational structure. A frosty standoff has endured between Hezbollah and Israel since the two fought a costly war in the summer of 2006. Heavily committed to propping up the ailing Assad regime, Hezbollah has lost strength in recent years, but remains formidable. Hezbollah militants in Lebanon (Photo: AP) When you count the rockets they have, they are as strong as they were before the eruption of civil war in Syria. (But) when you speak about morale, its not very high theyve suffered many casualties, Eyal Zisser, a professor at Tel Aviv University and an expert on Hezbollah told The Media Line. Added to this is the financial burden the organization is shouldering, the professor explained. Israeli intelligence estimates have suggested that Hezbollah has sustained between 1,300 and 1,500 fatalities in combat in Syria, with a further 5,000 injured, out of a projected 18,000 fighters. For this reason Russias sudden and dramatic intervention in the Syrian quagmire in September of last year would have come as a relief to all the factions fighting to maintain Assads regime. Its helpful to Hezbollah because its kind of sharing their load (by) targeting Hezbollahs opponents in the Syrian opposition, Lina Khatib, a senior research associate with the Arab Reform Initiative in Paris, told The Media Line. But although Russian jets and Hezbollah infantry might be fighting in conjunction, the two are not natural allies and it is unlikely that Russia would supply weapons directly to the Shiite organization, Khatib said. Its more plausible that weapons supplied by the Russians to the Syrian army are filtering down and being handed over to Hezbollah, partly because the regimes forces are so battered that they have lost their capacity to continue fighting in some areas, the associate said. Added to this the Kremlin is aware how any transfer of weapons to Irans proxy would be viewed elsewhere. It is possible that Russia is relying more on Hezbollah for ground support than on the crumbling Syrian army. But Russia is careful not to empower Hezbollah to an extent that would allow it to pose a significant threat to Israel, Khatib said, noting the very good ties between Moscow and Jerusalem. Zisser went even further, discrediting the notion of a transfer of arms directly from Russia to Hezbollah. I dont believe that this is the case. I mean the Russians have no interest in it they know how sensitive Israel is so whats the logic in angering Israel, he concluded. This means that although Hezbollah might have benefited from Russias intervention, the group is not necessarily strengthened in relation to Israel. The threat posed to the Jewish states northern border from its old enemy remains unchanged. They are not as ready as they were before many of their best warriors were killed in Syria but they are still threatening, they still cause problems to Israel, Zisser stated. But if the reports of direct arms transfers are true, it is a worrying development for Israel, Yoram Schweitzer, head of the Program on Terrorism and Low Intensity Conflict with the Institute for National Security Studies, told The Media Line. The risk of a transfer of arms by Russia to Syria, Iran and Hezbollah is one of the negative components of the Russian involvement in this area the risk has always been there because of this kind of cooperation, he explained. The question is: is it true? Schweitzer concluded. This article was written by Jonathan Swift. Has one of the largest construction companies in the world succumbed to the boycott against Israel? The BDS movement in Ireland and the United Kingdom claims that they managed to convince the Irish building materials company CRH to sell its stake in Israeli company Mashav Holdings. The reason: The company provided the cement for the construction of the separation fence. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Irish construction group CRH, one of the top ten construction companies in the world, sold its stake last weekend in Mashav Holdings, the parent company of Nesher Israel Cement Enterprises Ltd. to Israeli holding company Clal Industries. The Irish company held a 25 percent stake in the Israeli company since 2001. CRH reported last week the sale of all its stakes in Mashav to Clal. The company did not officially give a reason for the sale but the BDS movement officially claims that the decision was politically motivated. BDS protestors (Photo: Reuters) The chairman of Irelands Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Martin OQuigley, described it as an important victory for the Palestinians, "whose lives and livelihoods have been destroyed by the unceasing construction of the Apartheid Wall, which steals Palestinian lands, divides communities, destroys the social fabric and makes normal life impossible. Over the years, Irelands BDS movement, one of Europes most hostile to Israel, has put massive pressure on the Irish company to withdraw all of its investments from the Israeli company because of its connection to the supply of cement for the separation wall. The Independent wrote that the Irish company's decision "ended a focus of major controversy for the Irish group. OQuigley boasted that it appears that international companies are eventually learning that it doesnt pay to do business with the apartheid state. According to estimates, pressure from BDS supporters is not the main cause of the CRH's decision, despite the fact that this is a crucial factor as the company feared a negative impact on its business. Another factor that could have led to the decision is the increased regulation of Nesher and the supervision of cement prices, which have made CRHs investment in Mashav less attractive. Another explanation given by the Irish company relates to its decision regarding the sale of low stakes and its 25 percent stake of Mashav falls exactly on this category, and the company has sold other stakes that it held in other companies. We are in a confused period in the annals of Zionism. Around us, everything is great. There are no great enemies to threaten the state of Israel's existence. The Iranians are busy humiliating American sailors, and the Arabs are busy with survival as a substitute for the traditional ambition of throwing the Jews into the sea. The economy is stable. Our situation is better than in the past, despite concerns about the BDS movement and one anti-Semitic foreign minister from Sweden. Perspective makes all the difference: during the Arab boycott of Israel, thousands of companies boycotted us, while today we barely have Roger Waters and one ambassador who was iced on the way to Brazil. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter If you'd like another speck of positivity, then make note that Zionism was realized: We are a sovereign nation with Jewish rule, military power (plus a submarine), falafel which is really a culinary territory conquered from the Arabs, and many statistics showing that half of all the world's Jews live here despite the knives and intifadas. Everything's good, except for what's going on inside, at home. Door to B'Tselem offices after fire this week (Photo: EPA) I have a clear side in the political debate happening here. In my view, it is impossible to attain peace with the Palestinians and this truth must be said again and again in order to create political alternatives. There are those on the left who would like a unilateral retreat, and I would like a partial annexation, reducing the disputed territory in order to bolster separation from the Palestinians without gambles in the Gaza mold. The method is unimportant and is not my point. What's important is that the social process happening here does not depend on what happened in 1967, but on what has happened here in the past decade. We have lost the ability to be practical. We lost a certain level of sanity in favor of a tribal war. Every word said in public becomes part of the struggle between left and right. Every radical is an excuse for a counter campaign. That's how I found myself breathing a sigh of relief on Monday morning when it was revealed that the fire at the B'Tselem offices was sparked by a short circuit and not arson. Why? Because it could happen. Here's the honest truth: there are enough radicals on the right who could set the B'Tselem offices on fire, and they worry me very much. There are plenty of examples, from the hilltop messianics who want to form the Kingdom the Judea to the young people of La Familia and Lehava. Most of them have a low socioeconomic status, teen dropouts without an education or a future. They have never read what Jabotinsky said about the Arabs or what Begin's and Herzl's values were. They don't understand Netanyahu's verbal wriggling for and against leftists and Arabs, or the sectarian political game. They certainly don't understand that after activity on the radical write and dedicated handling by Lehava will ruin their lives. They will never be drafted into the army, like Gopstein. They will have a hard time getting jobs after that. All they will have left is hatred. What's the conclusion? That they're my problem. I have a responsibility to fight the phenomenon as someone who writes and speaks out. Not because they're my tribe, but because they're part of my people. Three days before the fire at B'Tselem, the expose about Ezra Nawi and a B'Tselem member was released showing them discussing turning in land owners to the Palestinian Authority. Human rights activists who are responsible for the killings of innocents belong in a script that even Hollywood would reject for being unrealistic. Here, it happened and was documented. It's a good story journalistically, but beyond that it exposed the threat of social disintegration. Supposedly, I should have been party to the festival of Schadenfreude. I have dealt with the unhealthy mixing between some human rights organizations and activity in the gray area for several years. Anyone who met Nawi in southern Mount Hebron in uniform knows the method, the curses he hurls at IDF soldiers. Anyone who's been there knows his camera, waiting for the moment a soldier loses his cool. There was no need for an expose and plants with a hidden camera to find out about the blurring of the lines. There is no need for incriminating information in order to understand that Breaking the Silence is trying to create political pressure on Israel and not to improve morality, or that B'Tselem employs investigators for whom human rights are the last priority. You also don't have to be on the center or right to practically understand that something is rotten in this performance. And here, instead of practical reactions, an accusatory campaign against everyone who brought the story to light began. Everything except soul searching and taking responsibility. The left, which stayed silent, shot itself in the foot. And yes, human rights organizations have the right to deal with politics instead of human rights even when I am opposed. The problem begins when there is no more faith in Israeli democracy, when people try to circumvent it by applying external pressure or scheming. Firefighters respond to B'Tselem fire (Photo: Reuters) Anyone who thinks unpractical thinking and tribalism is the purview of a particular political camp does not understand the scale of the problem. It's everywhere. Take the money the Agriculture Ministry allocates for paving a road to the Cave of the Patriarchs or to an auditorium in a settlement I know from up close. Do you have to be part of the opposition to understand that agriculture in Israel is in trouble? Pepper farmers in the Jordan Rift Valley (and beyond the Green Line) are failing and farms in the Aravah are shutting down. Do you have to belong to a particular tribe to see that the reduced budget needs to be allocated for agriculture? Other projects, from roads to religious sites, have other ministries. Common sense is decisive, not the tribe. Since Operation Protective Edge, I have received many e-mails from people on the Zionist left who feel persecuted. The lack of legitimacy is very problematic. Some write in order to debate without risking a deluge of contempt, and some to unload to the guy who writes in the paper. In the days of Mapai, that's how libertarians felt, and national religious Jews feld it at one time. Now, within the tribal war erupting over every Ezra Nawi, that's how Zionist leftists feel. IT's frustrating. The campaign in the last election to brand Labor followers as anti-Zionist was outrageous to me. It was political weakness of those who didn't know to say what they were, and so explained who they were against. Now there is a counter campaign, which accuses critics of human rights groups of Rabin's murder. There are no elections on the horizon, to the best of my knowledge, but the campaigns go on anyway. The responsibility to establish a common ground belongs to the government and those who control it. The rest take responsibility voluntarily. I doubt there's anyone in today's political echelons who understands how potentially damaging life in an ongoing campaign can be. There is no struggle over 1967 here, but rather about 2048. There's no need for a fake hug just a need to understand this. For anyone who needs it, Jewish history is full of explanations. And maybe that's the reason I feel comfortable in the reserves. It's the sanest place in Israel. Despite all the researchers who talk about concern over the process of religionization (a term invented to explain the number of religious officers in the IDF), despite claims by Breaking the Silence, there is no legitimacy in the IDF to be radical. The thinking is practical. The Zionist left exists there and the right lives in peace with it. In wartime, Israelis serve in the reserves or just stand and give away coffee and care packages at intersections. It's always impressive to see how the IDF became, alongside its combat role, the most important educational system in Israel nationalism without political stripes. It's a jungle out there. The problem is that as time goes by, so shrinks the percentage of recruits and reserves soldiers from the general population. The whole issue of the equal burden and recruitment to the IDF has been forgotten. The most important tool for our existence. Something small that we all have in common. Turkish police on Friday detained 15 academics who were among more than 1,000 scholars who signed a declaration denouncing military operations against Kurdish rebels in southeastern Turkey, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. The move deepens concerns about freedom of expression under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's rule. Prosecutors on Thursday launched an investigation into the academics on possible charges of insulting the state and engaging in "terrorist propaganda" on behalf of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. The move came after Erdogan severely criticized the signatories, including linguist Noam Chomsky, and called on the judiciary to act against the "treachery." Erdogan said the academicians' declaration was biased against the state, used the same language used by "terrorists" and did not speak out against the rebel group's violence. On Thursday, Kurdish rebels detonated a car bomb at a police station in southeastern Turkey, then attacked it with rocket launchers and firearms. Six people were killed, including three children, authorities said. Five new dairy farms in South Sudan will be created with the help of one of Israels architectural firms, AlefBet Planners. These new farms will provide a much needed boost to the countrys agricultural sector. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter As an architectural firm that was founded approximately 70 years ago and that served many of the kibbutz communities in Israel, AlefBet Planners offers agricultural planning expertise and know-how. South Sudan's Ambassador to Israel Ruben Mariel Benjamin (Photo: Hillel Maier/TPS) We started designing this five-dairy-farm project with 2000 cows per farm, AlefBet Planners Business Development Manager Daphna Regev told Tazpit Press Service (TPS). We have designed most of the dairy farms in Israel so we have a vast amount of experience, noted Regev to TPS. Weve designed dairy farms and other similar projects worldwide for many years so we implement all our know-how by designing facilities abroad with an emphasis on Africa. We design the village itself, including the housing, the facilities for the inhabitants, and the agricultural projects, which could include fresh produce or the production of meat or dairy products, Regev continued. Israels positive relationship with South Sudan since South Sudan declared its independence in 2011 has been particularly significant and beneficial to AlefBet Planners. This project of ours is very special because we have a good relationship with South Sudan, Regev said. In particular, Regev believes that Israel can help build an agricultural sector in South Sudan that was just about nonexistent in the country a few years ago. I met South Sudans minister of agriculture three years ago and she told me that there was no agricultural sector and that the situation is particularly bad, she recounted to TPS. Regev believes that her organization can use its vast experience working in Israels arid regions to help jumpstart South Sudans agricultural economy. What I think is noteworthy about our project is that we can help South Sudans agricultural sector face its harsh weather conditions, Regev explained. We have designed many farms in the desert in Israel and in other harsh environments and we know how to deal with such difficult climatic conditions. Regev also pointed out some recent positive trends in South Sudans agricultural sector that demonstrate potential for both South Sudanese and Israeli companies in the near future. Money has suddenly been flowing into South Sudan from the World Bank and other international funds, she told TPS. We also see that there are quite a few other projects like ours in South Sudan and people are talking more about implementing more projects there. Regev remains very hopeful and optimistic regarding the prospects for both South Sudan and Israel. I feel that there has been a change in South Sudan and Im sure that the market there for Israeli companies will be very good over the next few years, not only in the agricultural sector but in the infrastructure and water sectors as well, she projected. An 18-year-old Palestinian was killed by IDF fire during clashes along the Gaza border fence on Friday afternoon, east of Al-Bureij. Health officials in the Gaza Strip told AFP that a further two had been wounded by gunfire. The IDF responded that dozens of Palestinians had approached the fence, including some who setting tires on fire and throwing stones at army troops. The troops fired warning shots and when one demonstrator failed to go back and tried to cross through the fence, they fired another warning shot at him. To my friends on the left-wing, this is a wakeup call. Ezra Nawi's story was supposed to set off the warning bells. It didn't. If you keep on with the regular chorus of "this is an attack on left-wing organizations," you will be doing a great service for the extreme right-wing. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter When did anyone level relevant criticism against you? If your automatic reaction has been for many years to cry out "fascism" or "a danger to democracy," and never really address the issue at hand, then something has gone completely wrong with you, because this is the way to close yourselves off, it's not the way to deal with it. After all, most of the automatic reactions to the "Uvda" investigative report focused on the program itself and not the things it exposed. You've been praising exposes for years, and all of a sudden you're against them? What happened? Zehava Galon. Claims that there is an orchestrated campaign against the left. (Photo: Idan Erz) Zehava Galon, the political leader of the left, paid lip service by condemning Nawi, but claimed that "Uvda on Thursday joined the orchestrated and institutionalized campaign against the left and against left-wing organizations." Nawi, let us assume, does not represent you. Galon does. From here on out, every uncovering of price tag activities will, according to Galon's logic, turn into a "campaign against the right and right-wing organizations." That's a shame. Such logic does not distance Nawi from the left, it brings them together. A prevailing mood The main argument that was made was that even if Nawi was wrong, he and left-wing organizations are, at the end of the day, doing holy work against the injustices of the occupation. I wish. The reality is that in recent years, some left-wing activists have been going down a dangerous path. They're not opposing the occupation, they're opposing the State of Israel. They're not dealing in criticism, but in demonization. They're not against the settlement enterprise, they're against a Jewish and democratic state. This isn't about just one person. This is about a prevailing mood in some left-wing organizations. Five years ago, it was revealed that Hedva Radanovitz, the deputy director of the New Israel Fund, told the American Embassy that she "was not worried about not having a Jewish state, because that would make it more democratic." That should have sounded off the warning bells, but it didn't. Radanovitz found her place in another organization, Bimkom - Planners for Planning Rights. Lizzie Sagi, a former senior official in B'Tselem, wrote that "Israel causes humanity's greatest horrors ... Israel proves devotion to Nazi values." She had to leave B'Tselem. She too found herself a new home at the Human Rights Defenders Fund, a subsidiary of the Yesh Din NGO. The executive director of the Fund is Alma Biblash, who called Israel "racist and murderous" and "an apartheid Jewish state that is temporary." She also supports the right to destroy Israel, which hides under the guise of the "right of return." Biblash takes it one step further and calls for "a struggle of Israelis, Palestinians and the international community against the Israeli regime." And this is where the punch line is: What is the struggle for? To "put an end to the occupation from the Jordan to the sea." Yes, even Tel Aviv is occupied territory. And we'll have a wonderful time here under Palestinian rule. Just like in Syria there is wonderful harmony and peace among nations. A year ago, a researcher in B'Tselem, Atef Abu a-Rub, was revealed to be a Holocaust denier, so it's reasonable to suspect his motivation in providing materials to B'Tselem. Some of the leaders of the organization over the past decade, Prof. Anat Biletzki and Prof. Oren Yiftachel, are avid supporters of the "right of return." Attorney Hussein Abu Hussein, a member of B'Tselem's Public Council, claimed that "Israel is worse than the Nazi regime," and that "it's not enough to speak about the monster. Something has to be done." He has nothing to do with Nashat Melhem, who went out and did something, but if that is not an encouragement to violence, then I don't know what is. Ties to BDS This week, Yifat Erlich uncovered, in this very paper, the ties between Alon Liel and Breaking the Silence. Liel is leading the international anti-Israel campaign in the service of the Palestinian demand to be recognized as a state. He knows, and certainly should know, that the Palestinians are turning to the international community because they refuse to accept the formula of two states to two peoples. He knows they're insisting on a "mass right of return," which means the destruction of Israel. He's not promoting peace, he's bolstering Palestinian intransigence. He wants to turn Israel into South Africa, a boycotted and leprous apartheid state, "and then, as soon as there is recognition that this is unbearable, things will start moving," he explains. And he's trying to pave the way for Breaking the Silence. A Breaking the Silence demonstration. The group has ties to BDS organizations. He doesn't have to work hard. Contrary to the repeated claims of the organization, they receive financial aid from, and cooperate with, organizations that support the BDS movement, like, for example, the Irish Trocaire Fund. But they keep telling us that they're not part of the boycott campaign. Who do they think they're fooling? They had a mentor even before Liel, Prof. Nurit Peled-Elhanan. She has a long history of horrifying comments. For example, "All of the sickening characteristics the anti-Semitic world attributes to Jews exist in the leaders of the State of Israel." This is no longer anti-Zionism, it is fully-fledged shameful anti-Semitism. And if we think it cant possibly get any worse, then we are wrong. The NGO Yesh Din is employing a blogger that just last month wrote on his personal blog that Israel is a "murderous Jewish theocracy," and that's why "the Jewish state will have to be destroyed with blood and fire, so it could be rebuilt as a democratic state." Even BDS activists, who dream of the destruction of Israel, are slightly more moderate in their words. Time for self-criticism There are plenty of other comments like this coming from distinctly anti-Zionist organizations and activists. I only presented those that came from activists of organizations funded by the New Israel Fund. They're supposed to operate according to the Funds rules and guidelines, which underwent a positive change several years ago following public criticism. But rules and reality aside. These organizations also raise claims that are true. They expose wrongs and injustices. But when the political agenda is not about fixing and improving, but rather about the dissemination of hatred and the aspiration for the destruction of Israel, it's a bit hard to take their exposes seriously. There are serious people sitting at the top of these organizations, and at the top of the New Israel Fund. The very flesh and blood of the national-Zionist struggle. And that's the problem. The fact that A.B. Yehoshua, Amos Oz, Gila Almagor and generals in reserves attach their names to these organizations, places a responsibility on them. They're in the same boat. Instead of denunciating these wild thorns, that long for the destruction of Israel and preach fighting against it, they are turning into ostriches, burying their heads in the sand - they see nothing, smell nothing, hear nothing. Do good Jews around the world, who donate to the New Israel Fund, know what is happening in their names and with their money? This is a call to the Zionist left. There's a need to fight for a just and more moral Israel. There's a need to fight for peace, separation, or a diplomatic accord. There's a need to fight against the continuation of the settlement enterprise, which is leading Israel towards a future of one big state that will be neither Jewish nor democratic. But your ties to too many activists and senior officials who portray Israel as the Nazi monster only serves to encourage the loathing of the left. And quite rightly so. Demonization is not criticism. Calling for the destruction of the Jewish state does not require interpretation. Why aren't you speaking up? Why should sane Israelis, who support peace, join your camp, which legitimizes the insane hatred of the very existence of Israel? The Nawi affair is another opportunity for self-criticism. For your sake, for our sake, don't lose this opportunity as well. A solidarity event took place on Friday at the Simta pub in Tel Aviv, where Alon Bakal and Shimon Ruimi were murdered by gunman Nashat Melhem two weeks ago. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Hundreds arrived at the Dizengoff Street pub in a show of support, initiated by Israeli the public in order to strengthen the establishment. Solidarity event at the Simta bar in Tel Aviv two weeks after a shooting attack (Photo: Motti Kimchi) "The response is crazy. It really warms the heart," said Ariel Illouz of Jerusalem, one of the initiators of the event. Exactly two weeks prior, Nashat Melhem arrived at the Simta pub and fired several rounds into the bar, killing Ruimi, who had come to celebrate a friend's birthday, and Bakal, a manager of the pub. Melhem later murdered Amin Shaaban , a taxi driver, while making his escape back to Arara in the north of Israel. Melhem was killed in a shoot-out with Israeli special forces a week ago. Employees at Simta wore t-shirts with the names of Melhem's victims on them and some wore hats saying: "You can't stop living." Solidarity event at the Simta bar (Photo: Motti Kimchi) Saar Geva, one of the pub managers, said: "It's an amazing event to commemorate these people as well as to go on. It's to show everyone that it's possible to continue. "An event like this connects people to what happened here and proves what the people of Israel are about. It's an incredible initiative," Geva added. "I feel as if it happened yesterday and it's still strange. I hope that Shimi and Alon are looking at us from above and smiling," he said. Bruria Mizrahi, the mother of one of the pub's owners, came to support her son. "I'm happy and sad," she said. "I came to encourage my son and all the youngsters in Israel to carry on enjoying life. Solidarity event at the Simta bar (Photo: Motti Kimchi) "I'm standing here and looking. It was important to me to see where it happened. The last two weeks have been hard, my son is heartbroken," Mizrahi continued. "On the one hand the murders were incredibly sad, but on the other there is joy in seeing the response and celebration here now. I wish for everyone not to know such sorrow again," she added. Shahar, who came from Jerusalem, said: "My friends and I came in order to express our support for people in Tel Aviv. Everyone wants peace, but there is no place for violence, no place for stabbings and no place for terror." Luke Airmen remember Gulf War It's been 25 years since the world's nations rallied together in support of the Gulf War. Operation Desert Shield saw the buildup of troops in the Persian Gulf in defense of Saudi Arabia which led to the combat phase known as Operation Desert Storm. Several 944th Fighter Wing Airmen remember seeing that conflict unfold early in their careers. These are their stories. The buck sergeant Senior Master Sgt. Stephen Brook, 944th Logistics Readiness Squadron transportation manager, was a young buck sergeant stationed at Loring AFB, Maine. He deployed to Camp Nacirema ("American" spelled backwards) in Seeb, Oman, as a vehicle operator to provide crew support. Not much was known about his deployed location back then, so getting his team there was half the battle. "We had tickets to Dover AFB, Delaware, and when we arrived, we reported to the troop movement center," Brook said. "They asked us where we wanted to go. I was the ranking NCO at the time, so I handed a copy of my orders and the guy asked 'Where is this?'" The Dover Airman told the group they were flying only to Riyadh or Dhahran, so Brook made the command decision to go to Dhahran. Once there, it took a visit to that location's command post to find out exactly where the team was travelling to. "I went in there and I said 'Hey, you gotta tell me where this place is because I can't get my guys there,'" Brook recalled. The officer on duty at the time looked at his orders and asked him to wait as he went to the classified safe. The officer pulled out a document and said "Oh, you need to go to Seeb." Brook remembers the high operations tempo both at home and abroad. "At the time, Dover was insane, moving massive amounts of people and cargo into the theater in preparation for Desert Storm," he said. "When we got to Dhahran, [the tempo there] was surreal." In spite of the busy lifestyle, Brook stayed focused on the mission and kept in touch with his family with a weekly 10-minute phone call. He went home after four months in theater. The Marine Senior Master Sgt. Patrick Mahan, 944th LRS fuels superintendent, was a student at Northern Arizona University when he decided he needed a change in his life. After a year of college, he enlisted in the Marine Corps in February 1989. Lance Cpl. Mahan was stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Arizona, when he was deployed to the Port of Jubayl, Saudi Arabia, on temporary duty receiving maritime prepositioning ships and taking inventory of the offloaded resources. "I was part of an air combat element and we secured the resources that were spread out to Saudi Arabia," Mahan said. Eventually his group completed the mission and each member went their separate ways. Mahan went on to Bahrain working as a postal worker for two months before returning to Saudi Arabia in December 1990. "One of the duties I had then which was very enlightening was accounting for those who were either missing in action, killed in action, or were present and accounted for," Mahan said. "It was enlightening because the sudden reality of what happens to people. Anytime we had access to television, we would actually see these people we were keeping numbers about." Up to now, Mahan recalls many names from those lists. When he returned home from supporting Operation Desert Storm, Mahan noticed a distinct difference in how veterans were welcomed back. "Coming home, I think [the Gulf War] closed the whole stigma of the Vietnam War," he said. "The Gulf War sort of put a spotlight back on the way we treated Vietnam veterans because we treated Gulf War veterans so well when they came back. There was pizza at the terminal when I got off the plane and that was unlike what the Vietnam vets experienced. "So I've always had that connection with Vietnam vets," Mahan added. "It was a really defining thing." The daughter Chief Master Sgt. Rhonda Hutson, 944th Fighter Wing command chief, remembers her days as young Airman 1st Class Rhonda Daniels stationed at Wurtsmith AFB, Michigan. "It was an interesting time then because we hadn't been in a conflict for a while," she said. "At the time, at all the B-52 bases, they either came over and dropped off stuff and we'd store it or they would pick up and just go, so we were a stopping point." Hutson's unit received notification in December 1990 that all Wurtsmith jets were deploying. She remembers the days prior to her deployment. "I was leaving and my parents showed up and they were freaked out," Hutson said. Her parents reaction to Hutson's impending deployment may have bordered on premonition as the harsh reality of the conflict reared its head. "We left home January 1991 and we were on the ground a day before the air war officially kicked off," Hutson said. "We stayed in a hotel downtown for three or four nights because our compound wasn't ready. The air war kicked off and we moved to our compound and everything was good even while the buses were picking up people and moving stuff. "Then there was a terrorist attack on one of the buses," she continued. "It was interesting because we knew now the bad guys were watching what we were doing." Hutson witnessed more danger during daily operations in theater. "I remember our wing commander deployed with us and he wasn't support to be flying because they wanted him to run the wing," Hutson said. "For whatever reason, he decided he was going to fly. His jet got shot up and we could see from the munitions storage area as he made his approach. He was being escorted by a pair of F-16s and the tail of his B-52 was shot off. We were all wondering 'Is he gonna make it?' It was crazy." The young munitions Airman worked with a close-knit group who supported and protected each other, especially in a foreign country. "The first part of my career, females were relatively new to the military," Hutson said. "When we first got there, the local leaders wanted our women to wear 'abayas' but our wing commander said "No, we are Americans and we're not wearing them." Looking back, Hutson has watched her beloved Air Force transform over the years. "Back then, we did things that were regarded as acceptable norm then but would not be today," Hutson said. "I watched our Air Force go from how it was then to what we are today and it was a huge shift. It needed to happen and I'm very proud to be part of it." Operation Desert Storm was an exceptional example of Total Force integration in support of combat operations with an all-volunteer force. Jan. 16, 2016, marks the 25th anniversary of Desert Storm, the coalition effort to free Kuwait from the grips of an Iraq invasion force. Below are some factoids on Air Force Reserve contributions to the campaign, courtesy of the Air Force Reserve Command History Office. In the build-up to Desert Storm, Reservists provided fully 50 percent of the Air Forces strategic airlift aircrew and aerial port capability, 33 percent of its aeromedical evacuation aircrews and 25 percent of its tactical airlift forces.By August 1990, more than 15,300 Reservists had volunteered to serve, about 22 percent of the Air Force Reservists.The first Reserve assets to reach the theater of operations was a C-141 Starlifter aircrew that landed in Saudi Arabia on Aug. 8, 1990. By the eve of Desert Storm, Air Force Reserve aircraft and crews flew more than 107,000 hours, moved more than 135,000 passengers, 235,000 tons of cargo and delivered five million pounds of fuel.On August 29, 1990, an Air Force C-5, flown by an all-Reserve, all volunteer crew from the 68th Military Airlift Squadron, 433th Airlift Wing, Kelly AFB, Texas, crashed on takeoff from Ramstein Air Base, Germany. Thirteen people died and four were wounded. Ten of the 17 were Reservists. Of those 10, nine died and one was injured. Staff Sgt Lorenzo Galvan, Jr., a loadmaster, earned the Airmans Medal for his efforts to rescue other crash victims. The nine who died were the only Reservists to lose their lives during the conflict. On Aug 22, 1990, President Bush authorized the call-up of 200,000 Reservists for 90 days under Title 10 US Code Section 678b. The decision, the first significant, conflict-related call-up of the Reserve component since 1968, marking the beginning of a process that would eventually see more than 20,000 Air Force Reservists called to active duty. By February 1991, more than 17,500 Reservists were on active duty. Roughly one in four was a woman; approximately 1,800 were Air Reserve Technicians, 1,300 were individual mobilization augmentees, and more than 500 were members of the individual ready reserve. More than 7,800 of the Reservists called up were in medical specialties. In expectation of massive casualties that never came, all Air Force Reserve medical units were called to active duty.Mobilization reached its peak on March 12, 1991 with almost 23,500 Air Force Reservists on duty. Of these, more than 20,000 were assigned to 215 Reserve units; 2,300 were IMAs, 960 were IRR or retirees. Most of the Ready Reserve were medical personnel.The Air Force Reserves first (and only) tactical fighter unit to be recalled was the 706th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 926th Fighter Group, Naval Air Station New Orleans. The A-10 squadron deployed to Saudi Arabia in mid-January just before the beginning of the air campaign against Iraq.Capt Bob Swain, a pilot with the 706th TFS, scored the first-ever A-10 air-to-air kill when he destroyed an Iraqi helicopter. During one day of combat, Lt Col. Greg Wilson, 706th FTS and 1st Lt. Stephan K. Otto of the 354th Tactical Fighter Wing, Myrtle Beach AFB, S.C., destroyed 10 mobile Scud launchers and a pair of ammunition dumps and helped F/A-18s destroy 10 more Scuds.Crews from the 1650th Tactical Airlift Wing (Provisional), drawn largely from the 914th Airlift Wing, Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station, New York, and 927th Tactical Airlift Group, Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Michigan, flew more than 5,000 hours, and 3,200 sorties in 42 days of combat.Tactical airlift forces played a major role in the redeployment of forces in northern Saudi Arabia as commanders set up what became the dramatic left hook into Iraq. A-10s operating from bases close to the front lines, attacked a full range of ground targets including Scud missiles. Reserve AC-130 Gunships and HH-3E helicopters also supported special operations as well as search and rescue missions.The Department of Defense authorized commanders of the gaining major commands to demobilize Reservists, consistent with military requirement, on March 8, 1991. Most Reservists had been demobilized by late June, but a handful remained on active duty through August and beyond. Remembering Desert Storm - Where we are today in the Total Force Continuum See all those contrails heading north, Captain? the salty lieutenant colonel asked me on Jan. 16, 1991. Yes sir! I replied flying as a brand new aircraft commander in the C-141B Starlifter. The contrails covered the darkening sky and seemed like hundreds of fingers reaching north into Iraq to grab Saddam Hussein. That means we are at war, said the colonel, as the cockpit fell silent and each crewmember pondered the greater implication of the contrails. That was a quarter of a century ago this week, marking the opening salvo in Operational Desert Storm. The operation was an American shock and awe campaign to evict Saddam Hussein from Kuwait and displayed airpower that the world had not seen since Operation Linebacker II over Vietnam. I was honored to be part of the largest air bridge in history, often flying 24-hour airlift missions from Torrejon and Zaragosa, Spain, or Ramstein and Rhein Main, Germany to locations in Saudi Arabia such as Dhahran or Riyadh. The ramps at these locations were so full and it was sometimes difficult to find the assigned aircraft to preflight. Loading crews were challenged to keep up with the volume of cargo and people necessary for the fight. We would often augment our crews with pool pilots additional pilots to extend our crew duty day. Each day was long and hot; our ground times downrange were short but filled with the apprehension of dreaded Scud missile alerts. Tired crews would return to Europe for a short rest before repeating the process. We were all supported by the greatest cast the world has ever known, filled with maintainers, aerial porters, fuelers, logisticians, and services Airmen. All told, the Total Force flew more than 69,000 sorties in support of Desert Storm. The operation also saw the first comprehensive use of stealth and space technologies integrated with precision guided weapons. Twenty-five years later, my C-141B has long ago been retired, replaced by the C-17 Globemaster III. While much of our Air Force has been modernized since that first night in the desert, our average aircraft age today stands at 27 years. We have gone from having 188 fighter squadrons during Desert Storm to 54 today. Aging combat aircraft such as our B-52s and KC-135s are slated to keep flying for a decade or more. In Operation Desert Storm, I was an Airman in the Regular Component when it consisted of over 600,000 Airmen; today, it has decreased to approximately 313,000 Airmen. Even with that size , Desert Storm required more than 48,000 Air Reserve Component Airmen to remove Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. As a result of a smaller force, our Air Reserve Component consisting of over more than 105,000 Air National Guardsmen and 69,000 Air Force Reservists have gone from a strategic reserve force to one that provides daily operational capability and surge capacity where needed. These figures do not include the vital capability our Air Force civilian Airmen bring to the fight. Southwest Asia is no less secure and in some ways is more complex and dangerous even though Saddam Hussein is long gone. Commitments to our friends and allies are not decreasing, so we will continue to rely on the Total Force more, not less. In my current role in the Total Force Continuum Air Staff office, our team is looking for the most efficient mix of Regular, Guard, and Reserve Airmen in each primary mission area. In the aggregate, our analysis shows that our Air Force is at least 12 percent too small for current requirements. Just as during the peak of Desert Storm, we are all in and have cleared the bench to meet current requirements. We are also looking at policy and legislative ways to make our Total Force more integrated by preserving and leveraging the strengths and efficiencies of each individual component. Programs that will allow transitioning between Air Force components, provide career development opportunities, and feature our three components working more closely together will become the norm over the next 25 years. In commemoration of Desert Storms largest air campaign this week, make sure you thank a veteran for serving in the operation, and ask a wingman or relative who participated about their experiences. If youre reading this and not part of the worlds greatest Air Force, consider joining either the Regular, Reserve, or Guard component. We may be smaller than in 1991, but were the most lethal air, space, and cyber force. And there is no question our Total Force will continue to answer our Nations call. Citizen Airmen from the Air Force Reserve's 910th Airlift Wings highly-specialized aerial spray unit facilitated the Department of Defense's (DoD) Aerial Spray Certification Course at the Lee County Mosquito Control District Training Center here, Jan. 11-14, 2016. According to course materials, participants are acquainted with aerial application of pesticides, especially as it relates to the U.S. military. Graduates of the course are also certified to be ground supervisors of aerial spray operations, monitor pest control contracts using aerial spray and, if they are command-level pest management professionals, approve DoD aerial spray projects. Although the idea and practice of protecting troops on the ground by destroying disease-carrying insects from the air has been around for seventy years, the technology and aircraft involved have evolved. The opportunity to see the tools used in aerial spray operations and the requirement for certification or recertification brought nearly a dozen DoD military and civilian personnel pest control professionals to participate in the course. Course topics included aerial spray theory, mapping and math, C-130 operations, public affairs, aerial spray contracting and more. Participants also viewed static displays of aerial spray aircraft and equipment and took part in a field exercise. Staff Sgt. Daniel Fink, a pest management supervisor assigned to Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, said he has been interested in the aerial spray aspect of pest management since he started his military career. "Ive wanted to attend this course since I got in," said Fink. This is good info to have about this capability. The 910th personnel said the Lee County facility, located just outside Ft. Myers, is an outstanding location to conduct the training. "This is a collaborative effort with Florida Mosquito Control Association, and the goal is continuing education and certification," said course director Lt. Col. Karl Haagsma, one of two full-time entomologists assigned to the 910th. Its really about honing skills. Haagsma said the course has been hosted at the Lee County facility three times in the last decade. He also said refresher courses are held at the 910ths home installation during the years between the ones when the Florida course is held. The 910th, host to DoD's only aerial spray capability, is based at Youngstown Air Reserve Station, Ohio. Personnel assigned to the 910ths aerial spray unit include spray-qualified pilots, loadmasters who double as Modular Aerial Spray System (MASS) operators and specialized maintenance personnel and, of course, the entomologists, affectionately known as the 'bug docs. A quartet of traditional reservist bug docs bring a vast skill set and knowledge base from their civilian jobs to their positions as Air Force Reserve entomologists and as course instructors. Lt. Col. Tom Janousek is a pest consultant based in Omaha, Nebraska when he is not working with the 910th. Lt. Col. Don Teig is the Air Force pest management subject matter expert at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida. Maj. Kirk Mundal brings eight years of Navy active duty experience as a medical entomologist to the team and Maj. Jen Remmers is a disease vector management consultant in her civilian career. The goal of aerial spray is to achieve maximum kill of the target pest with minimal impact on the environment, Remmers said, during her opening presentation at the course. According to the 910ths entomologists, the 910ths capability is used to spray areas larger than 5,000 acres from altitudes above the ground of 100 to 150 feet, depending on the type of spraying being done. Recently, after nearly a decade of careful preparation, the wing has started conducting aerial spray operations after dark using night vision technology at an altitude above the earth of 300 feet. Ground application methods or private enterprise contracted aircraft take care of smaller areas that are not practical or cost-effective for the unit's large planes to handle. The 910th's unique capability has taken the aerial spray team all over the country to not only eliminate mosquitoes, sand flies, filth flies and other pest insects on DoD installations and, in some cases, nearby communities, but to also eliminate unwanted vegetation on bombing ranges as well as assist during the response to the Deepwater Horizon incident, the worst oil spill in U.S. history, in 2010. Our wartime mission is to protect U.S. troops from insect-carried diseases, said Maj. Steve Stroney, 910th chief of aerial spray. Anytime we conduct spray operations around the country, we are training our personnel to carry out that tasking. It is critical for us to know everything we can about the product we are using, how it comes out of our aircraft and what the effects of the products are, said Lt. Col. Mark Breidenbaugh, 910th chief entomologist. Ultimately, this course is about the judicious use of aerial spray products in eliminating the targets and protecting troops." Chief Frederick Ryan reports that the Arlington police are investigating a bomb threat made against Arlington Catholic High School Arlington police responded to the school, on Medford Street, at 1:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 15, after the school reported that someone had phoned in a bomb threat, a department news release says. The school was evacuated, and out of an abundance of caution, the nearby St. Agnes School was dismissed early. The Arlington schools were among at least nine schools across Massachusetts evacuated Jan. 15, or placed in safe mode as public safety agencies responded to bomb threats, BostonGlobe.com reported. The schools received chilling, automated phone messages warning that bombs would detonate in the buildings "in the very near future," officials told The Globe. Also evacuated for bomb threats were Boston College High School in Dorchester, two public middle schools in Weymouth, the Abigail Adams and Maria Weston Chapman schools. No one was injured. After a thorough search, officers determined at 3:30 p.m. that nothing harmful was inside the school. The Cambridge Police Department and the Massachusetts Environmental Police also responded to the scene with K-9 units to assist Arlington Police. Arlington Police are aware that other threats were made against Catholic and public schools elsewhere in Massachusetts today. "At this time, we are actively investigating to determine what, if any, connection exists among various threats made against schools today," Chief Ryan said. "We will work closely with our law enforcement partners and conduct a full and thorough investigation." Chief Ryan would also like to thank the students, faculty, staff, and parents of both schools for their patience and assistance today. The incident is under investigation by the Arlington Police Department's Criminal Investigation Bureau. Emergency protocols were activated by school officials. In Boston, the Boston police Bomb Squad rushed to BC High after the school received a threat, Officer Rachel Maguire, a police spokeswoman, told The Globe. She said the school received the bomb threat via a "telephone recording." Students went into lock-down while the school was searched by police. The departments specialized units remains on scene at the Dorchester school at 2:15 p.m., police said. Students at Chapman and Adams middle schools, both part of Weymouth Public Schools, were relocated to neighboring schools, district superintendent Kenneth Salim said. Weymouth police and fire were at both schools, he said. Officials are investigating the source and threat level of the calls, according to Salin.The incidents are under investigation by law enforcement. This report was published Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. As a homeowner, you probably already know that you should be working to maintain your home. But, chances are, you Read More Advancement in space travel has progressed leaps and bounds since man first walked on the Moon that faithful day in July of 1969. Humanity has seen Pluto up close, has landed a spacecraft back on Earth and has established its first asteroid defense department. Recently, Russian scientists have announced a new breakthrough that could possibly make space exploration safer and open up the universe even farther. Just this week, researchers from Android Technics, a Russian state-run robotics firm, announced that they are currently working on humanoid robots that would eventually be sent into space. These "avatar robots" will be replacing cosmonauts on space mission that are deemed too dangerous. The project aims to not only cut spending in training cosmonauts but also explore the vastness of universe without risking human life. "This is relevant, in particular, for exploring Mars and the moon where robots will be able to set up [research] stations, build premises and external infrastructure, assemble electric generators and other surface constructions without a direct human presence" explained Alexander Permyakov, Director General of Android Technics. Advertisement Russia however would not be the first country to send a humanoid robot to space. The Robonaut, which was built and designed by NASA Johnson Space Center in Texas, was launched back in 2011. The recent iteration of Robonaut, Robonaut 2, was subsequently sent to the International Space Station and is the first dexterous humanoid robot in space. China has also chimed in on the efforts to create humanoid robots. Last year, China's space Agency unveiled a new innovation in the form of "Xiaotian." Xiaotian, which translate to "little sky," is a robot developed by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. that remarkably looks like Marvel's Iron Man. According to reports, the robot has flexible arms that is capable of almost human like movements. Sign up to get the latest news delivered to your inbox every week! The NBA trade rumors continue as fans continue to suggest moves for their team. In a recent chat on Basketball Insiders, Steve Kyler entertained a suggestion on the OKC Thunder trading for the Phoenix Suns' PJ Tucker. "The Suns are in seller's mode, so it's possible," Kyler said. "I am not sure what the Thunder would part with to get PJ. The other part is the Thunder understand that too much offense is not a good thing. They value spacing and defense so maybe, but he is not a name I have heard mentioned." Advertisement The Thunder seems set on their roster as they only factors that caused them to fall short were injuries to Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook or both. Kyler thinks the team has already made the changes last season and wants to see how far this roster reaches. Thus, the question is raised, are the Thunder "real" contenders? This was addressed by Today's Fastbreak, and the result is not as optimistic. Writer Joseph Nardone acknowledges that the team has two prime talents and could actually be strong enough to be contenders, but the problem lies in the quality of the competition. "Durant and Westbrook are the type of talents that could literally carry a team on their backs," Nardone said. "I don't love them as a serious contender, though. If only in terms of 'second-tier' teams - those not named Golden State, San Antonio - then sure. They are as good, if not better, than the rest of the West." The Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs have raised the bar so much that the other Western powers may be left on the outside looking in. The Thunder is just not consistent enough to be mentioned in the same breath as the two Western juggernauts. Sign up to get the latest news delivered to your inbox every week! Latest Amal Clooney news revealed that the Human Rights lawyer doesn't see herself as a celebrity. NY Daily News reported that George Clooney's wife doesn't consider herself a star but acknowledges that her fame is a tool to raise awareness on issues important to her. The Human Rights lawyer had an interview with NBC Nightly News and brought attention to the political crisis in Maldives. The interview was aired last Thursday and Amal Clooney discussed the predicament of former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed, who was imprisoned after a coup. Advertisement "Democracy is dead in the Maldives," she told Cynthia McFadden of NBC News. "Literally, if there were an election now there would be no one to run against the president. Every opposition leader is either behind bars or being pursued by the government through the courts." Nasheed is one of Amal Clooney's clients. He was the first president to be democratically elected in the Maldives. However, three years after he took the position, he was accused of terrorism and sentenced to 13 years in prison. Although she didn't discuss her famous husband in the interview, Amal shared her thoughts on the celebrity status that comes with being married to George Clooney. She also revealed that she did not think that she should be compared to politically-active stars like Angelina Jolie. "I think it's wonderful [that] celebrities would choose to spend their time or energy or, you know, the spotlight that they have to raise awareness about these causes," Amal admitted. "I don't really see myself in the same way because I'm still doing the same job that I used to do before. I think there is a certain amount of responsibility that comes with that. And I think I'm exercising it in an appropriate manner by continuing to do this kind of work." USA Today noted that this is the latest step in Amal Clooney's advocacy to raise awareness for international human-rights causes in America. She has had interviews with BBC and CNN's Christiane Amanpour. Sign up to get the latest news delivered to your inbox every week! Tesla's autopilot system added new features, including the "summon" self-parking ability. With such advancements, CEO Elon Musk said he thinks it's "probably better" than human drivers. Just recently, the EV maker rolled out a self-parking "summon" feature via an over-the-air software update. With it, owners are now able to park or get their vehicles remotely from up to 39 feet, The Wall Street Journal reported. The feature allows a Tesla vehicle to park itself in tight spaces or back out of one all on its own. In addition, the system has reportedly been modified to slow down when driving on curved roads, as a human driver would. Advertisement Per the publication, the update also introduced restrictions on the autopilot system. Reportedly, autopilot can no longer be activated on residential streets as well as roads with no center divider. Tesla vehicles won't be able to go more than five miles per hour of the posted speed limit as well. The restrictions were placed in response to videos showing owners recklessly behaving with autopilot turned on despite Tesla's safety warnings. Despite full autonomy still on the horizon, CEO Elon Musk is optimistic about the future of the Tesla autopilot system. "It's probably better [at driving] than a person right now," he said in a conference call with reporters Sunday, as quoted by The Washington Post. Over the next 24 to 36 months, Musk reportedly expects Tesla vehicles "will be able to drive virtually all roads at a safety level significantly better than humans." The Palo Alto company's boss also sees the self-parking "summon" feature as "baby steps" towards fully autonomous vehicles. He's even shared his vision of its development. "I think within two years you'll be able to summon your car from across the country," he said admitting he might be a little too optimistic about the time frame. 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. The article/blog entry below from the JTA reminds me of the arguments about Lenin's Jewish ancestry. Now that we can look at the records, we know that Leni... 11 years ago Imagine finding on-line, details of your ancestor's grave, in a cemetery on the other side of the world! Then being able to get a photo of the headstone! Find out more about the GRAVESTONE PHOTOGRAPHIC RESOURCE PROJECT : how you can benefit... how you can help! Hi, There is a new center in mumbai at JJ Hospital. However not enough information is available about the same. Here are some Traveler t... When Yosef said to the Sar Hamashkim : "But have me in thy remembrance when it shall be well with thee, and show kindness, I pray thee, unto me, and make mention of me unto Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house," what was Yosef requesting from the Sar Hamashkim? And he told him to mention him before the king of Egypt as if Yosef did some sort of favor to Par'oh earlier and now he's telling the Sar Hamashkim to mention him before the king, or as if there was some sort of protexia earlier between them that Yosef sent to mention him before the king that he will save him from prison? This idea cannot be right since Yosef never saw Par'oh and Par'oh never saw Yosef, so how could he send to now mention him before Par'oh?And furthermore, since he was a slave and him master put him in prison for being suspected with his wife - even though it wasn't true - but nevertheless, logic dictates that Par'oh would believe the master over the slave.Also, what Yosef said , "For indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews," it is implied from the verse that this is what Yosef is commanding the Sar Hamashkim before the king of Egypt - "that I was stolen". What was Yosef thinking? Just because he was stolen, the king will save him? It's known that at those times, when they kidnapped someone, the law was that he would be sold as a slave. Even nowadays [i.e., 1884, when the book was printed], in Africa and Asia, these things occur where they kidnap people by force and sell them as slaves and this is no crime at all in those countries - so especially at that time! So how did Yosef want to find favor, kindness, and mercy in the eyes of Par'oh the King of Egypt?We also find that when Yosef was ruler in Egypt, he moved the Egyptians from city to city , and not only that, but he commanded them to get circumcised and when they cried out in the ears of Par'oh, he told them, "Go to Yosef [and do whatever he tells you]." This means that the Egyptians suffered under Yosef terribly - not only did they become exiled from their cities and places, he also commanded them to get circumcised by force. And if they weren't circumcised, Yosef would not give them bread. And when they cried out to Par'oh, Par'oh told them, "Whatever Yosef tells you, do." And we don't find Par'oh protesting Yosef's actions at all.And that which it says later , "Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph," how is it possible that he did not know the wise Yosef, who rule Egypt for 80 years whereas no other king in the world ruled for so long, and who, with his wisdom, saved Egypt and the entire world from perishing from starvation? And even though there are some rabbis who said that it was the same Par'oh but made himself out like he didn't know [Yosef], but the truth is that he did not know [Yosef].We also see that when Israel left Egypt, many Erev Rav left with them - thousands and myriads more than Israelites - because the Erev Rav were involved in the back-breaking work in Egypt just like Israel without a difference. One could ask: who brought the Erev Rav into the servitude of Egypt? And from where were there such a large amount of Erev Rav? We know that upon Israel, it was decreed "that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them," but there was no similar decree upon the Erev Rav, so why did the Egyptians enslave them with harsh labor as well?In order to answer all this, you should know that our Holy Torah is G-dly - it is not a historical report like people write in the newspapers, Has Veshalom. Rather, what Hashem Yitbarach is informing us in His Holy Torah applies to us in all generations in order to know His providence over our fathers and over us. However, that which applies to the history as to what occurred in those days, and the topics of kings, countries, and the political situation that only occurred then - doesn't apply to us at all. However, if we delve deep into the matter, then many ideas and topics that we didn't know earlier can be revealed to us, and through this, we can understand many hidden things in the Torah.This is just as Haza"l saw in the eye of their wisdom that during the days of the forefathers and even during the days of Ya'akov, Arab kings broke into Egypt and usurped the kingdom and ruled there for a number of centuries. And the Egyptians called them " Hyksos ", just like Rabbeinu N. Halevi brings down in his book Hikrei Kadmoniot that all the Arabs were shepherds and they were called "shepherd kings" , who ruled over Egypt during the days of Yosef. And the Par'oh King of Egypt at the time of Yosef was not Egyptian, but was one of the shepherd kings from the Arab kings. For this is how Onkelos translates "" as "" [i.e., to Arabs] from the family of Avraham who were all shepherds and from the children of Yishmael and from the children of Ketura, who conquered Egypt under their hands forcefully against the will of the Egyptians and they subjugated them against their will. And these kings brought along with them many of their Arab brethren and made from them judges, officers, rulers over the Land of Egypt, and generals over the army to be assured that they will be loyal to their king from the children of their tribe. And they were to the Egyptians like thorns in their eyes. And the Egyptians hated the king and his men with the epitome of hate, but they were forced to bear their burden.And this is why Yosef asked the Sar Hamashkim to remember him before King Par'oh - for he was kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews. He wanted to say that he was a Jew, and Yosef was hoping that when the king will hear that he is from the land of the Hebrews from the children of Avraham the Hebrew from the family of the king, he would definitely draw his kindness upon him and he will find kindness and favor in the eyes of the king and he will set him free. And the truth was that such occurred. When the king heard about Yosef, he immediately sent for him. And when he also saw his great wisdom, the king did not pay attention to the laws and statutes of Egypt in those days that a slave cannot rule or wear royal garb. And the king did with Yosef against the laws of Egypt and appointed him as a ruler over the entire Land of Egypt and left him in charge of all royal matters. And he was very happy that he found in Yosef a loyal man from his family whom he could trust with all his heart and who will be loyal to him, to his kingdom, and to his throne against the Egyptians who are his arch-enemies.And this is why shepherds were an abomination to Egyptians since this Arab king who ruled them by force and all his officers were shepherds. And from their great enmity of the king, they were not able to eat bread with the Hebrews and they also couldn't eat together with the Arabs because of their great hatred for them. And this is why when the King of Egypt heard that the brothers of Yosef came , he requested of them that they all come with their father to Egypt, and he gave them wagons by the mouth of Par'oh, and he was very happy about them, and he requested of them that they settle in Egypt in order to increase the Hebrew population who are loyal to his rulership in Egypt.And this is why when they first came, Yosef commanded them that if Par'oh asks them about their profession, they should specifically answer that they are only shepherds so that the king knows that they are from his family and from his land who are all shepherds - even though this is an abomination to the children of Egypt - since the king was from a family of shepherds and the shepherd kings usurped the Egyptian government and ruled them by force, which is why all shepherds are an abomination to Egypt. However, in the eyes of the king and his officers, this was an honor and a great thing because only these men from the children of Ketura and Yishmael and from Arabia did the king draw close to him to make them rulers, officers, and generals. And also from the brothers of Yosef, he wanted to make into generals and rulers over the cattle, but they did not want this. And Par'oh did all this to add loyal subjects to his kingdom.And Yosef was also very loyal to his king, and he did with the Egyptians what he did in order to subjugate them. He moved them to cities from one end of Egypt until the other, he bought them as slaves to Par'oh, and according to Haza"l, he commanded them to circumcise themselves (since the king was already circumcised) and the king did not protest, but just the opposite - he commanded the Egyptians, "Go to Yosef. Whatever he tells you, do." And he was very happy that he had a loyal and smart viceroy like Yosef. Therefore, the fear of Yosef and the fear of all his brothers while they were still alive fell upon the Egyptians - and the Egyptians could not lift their heads up until Yosef, his brothers, and that entire generation died. Then, all the Egyptians rose up like one man and rebelled against their king, and in the harsh war, they deposed him and they took off the yoke of the shepherd kings, and that is when "A new king rose in Egypt who did not Yosef.The new king was already an Egyptian from birth - the head of the rebels - and he made himself out as if he did not know Yosef, meaning he did not want to know or mention any merit for Yosef. Rather, just the opposite, to the entire house of the children of Yosef and to all the Hebrews from the family of Yosef and to all the Erev Rav from the children of Ketura and Midyan, he became a great foe and enemy.His first advice was to take revenge against all who were friends with the previous king, who were the Hebrews and my people from Aram, Midyan, the children of the East, and from Arabia. From all these, whom the previous king drew close to him in Egypt. And they are all called by the name "Erev Rav", who all settled in Egypt from the time the shepherd king ruled. And the new king was afraid that perhaps he will increase in numbers there , and if the shepherd kings - the Arab kings - will come for war, then "they also join themselves unto our enemies, and fight against us, and get them up out of the land."He therefore consulted with his people, "Come, let us deal wisely with them" and their advice was to build store-cities for Par'oh, which are strong and fortified cities. And by doing this, they will pressure all the aliens who settled in the Land of Egypt during the days of the shepherd kings. And so they did - all the work they worked was back-breaking and cruel - revenge without mercy. And they threw the boys into the Nile in order to weaken them and to also break whatever remained of their spirit - until Hashem had mercy over Israel and saw their affliction and sent His chosen Moshe and took them out of Egypt with signs and wonders. And then, because of the freedom of Israel, the Erev Rav also went out together with Israel from Egypt, as they also suffered harsh afflictions in Egypt just like Israel.And from here, all that we asked has been answered. HUNTER HAYES REWARDS TRIAD FANS BY ADDING NOV. 19 SHOW AT LJVM TO 21 TOUR Tickets go on sale Friday, Aug. 28 at 10AM! "After launching what Billboard called countrys biggest digital experiment to d... TWIN CITY STAGE TO PRODUCE AWARD-WINNING WORLD PREMIERE "The American Association of Community Theatre (AACT) is pleased to announce Twin City Stage of Winston-Salem, North Carolina has ... Candidate profile: Bernie Reeves Bernie Reeves founded the Spectator weekly in Raleigh in 1978. He likes to say that its the first city weekly in the Southeast, and I am ... They roam around in the background, sometimes in the open, but are always on call. Whoever you want: plain-clothed police officers, intelli... New Delhi: The Delhi Government has collected over Rs 2 crore from the over 10,000 challans issued by traffic police, transport department and Sub Divisional Magistrates to violators of odd-even scheme which ended on Friday. According to official data, as many as 10,021 people were challaned for violating car-rationing scheme, which came into force from January 1. The Sub Divisional Magistrates (SDM) challaned as many as 5,582 motorists, while around 2,870 people were fined by the Delhi Traffic police for violating the scheme, a senior official said. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal praised the traffic police for their assistance in enforcing the odd-even scheme. The Government had stipulated Rs 2,000 penalty under relevant sections of Motor Vehicle Act for each violation of the restrictions rolled out on January 1 and remained in force between 8 AM to 8 PM during weekdays. The AAP government has already announced that it will provide subsidy on purchase of cycles, from the money collected as challans during the implementation of period of odd-even scheme. According to the government's plan, after the car-rationing pilot scheme is wrapped up, the government will constitute a committee to work out further modalities of the idea. Delhi: Internal elections of Bharatiya Janata Party is expected to be held between January 18 to January 23, as per a media report. According to CNN IBN, Amit Shah is all set to be re-elected as BJP's next party president. The quorum is said to be now complete as more than half state units have completed their respective organisational elections. As per the report, the notification will be announced by the returning officer and party MP Avinash Rai Khanna in the next 48 hours. The report also quoted sources as saying that Shah will take charge with RSS riders so that he is more accommodative while picking his team. 51-year-old Shah is currently completing former party president Rajnath Singh's term. Rajnath became the Union Home Minister. Thus, this will be Shah's first clear term as BJP chief if he is re-elected. Also, if re-elected, 2016 is going to be crucial year for Shah with upcoming Assembly elections in Assam, Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Lucknow: Accusing BJP of raking up Ram Temple issue with an eye on 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, BSP supremo Mayawati Friday launched a broadside against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said like in Delhi and Bihar, voters in the state will also not fall for his "theatrics". The former UP Chief Minister, who celebrated her 60th birthday today, alleged that the "Centre has given full freedom to communal forces, leading to chaos in the country". "As UP assembly polls are drawing near, BJP, RSS and other organisations are whipping up Ram Temple issue, which is pending before the Supreme Court. "Playing with religious sentiments for votes will not work. Voters should be careful," Mayawati told reporters. "As UP elections are near, Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has ignored the state except his constituency Varanasi has now woken up for its development," she said. "He (Modi) has started 'natak' (theatrics) like Delhi and Bihar but people here will not fall in his trap and in UP elections too BJP will have to face defeat," she said. Alleging that the Centre was trying to woo Dalit voters in the name of B R Ambedkar, Mayawati said if it was serious, it should "have decided to work in favour of Dalits and backward followers of Babasaheb on his 125 birth anniversary. "The Centre should have passed Bill for reservation in promotions. It should have provided reservation to poor, who migrated to other castes and also upper caste poor by amendment in the Constitution. But it did nothing in this regard," she said. On PM's "acche din" slogan during Lok Sabha election, Mayawati claimed, "Prime Minister Narendra Modi's promise has remained a pipe-dream, rather bad days have dawned". "Capitalists are getting benefit in this regime. The prices of crude oil have come down to 33 dollars per barrel but the benefit was not been passed on to the common man," she said. Raising question on country's Pakistan policy, Mayawati said, "BJP's policies on Pakistan are not steady." Cautioning against propaganda by rival parties, Mayawati said she was termed as "daulat ki beti" instead of "dalit ki beti" by her detractors but it did not work. On the occasion, Mayawati released the 11th volume of her book "A travelogue of my struggle ridden life and BSP movement" in both Hindi and English. Beijing: China should be careful not to step into "minefields" between India and Nepal, an article in the Chinese media said on Friday, underlining that though it is necessary to provide aid to Kathmandu, it should not be at the cost of Beijing's interests. "Facing Nepal-India rows, China should be aware that the (India-Nepal) disputes cannot be resolved immediately. As a responsible country, Beijing ought to help address the issue in accordance with its own capacities," the article in the state-run Global Times said, referring to the row over Lipu-Lekh Pass and Nepal's new Constitution. It said that China is supposed to play a role as a mediator between Nepal and India. "On the one hand, it is necessary to provide temporary aid to Nepal. Beijing is now transporting oil to its southern neighbour to ease Kathmandu's fuel shortage. On the other, it is of great importance for China to safeguard its own national interests. The aid should not be at the sacrifice of Beijing's interests," it said. "In addition, China ought to be careful not to step into the minefields between Nepal and India. Maintaining a neutral stance is of significance for Beijing," it said. The article said that the "dispute over the Lipu-Lekh Pass have been simmering for years between Kathmandu and New Delhi." "The mention of the pass in the China-India joint statement has triggered Nepalese protests. Therefore, Beijing ought to be extremely careful not to unconsciously touch on sensitive issues between Kathmandu and New Delhi," it said. Nepal's Parliament had raised serious objection over an agreement between India and China to boost border trade at Qiangla/Lipu-Lekh Pass, close to an area which Nepal claims to be part of its territory and had asked both countries to correct their pact immediately. During Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Beijing, China and India agreed to hold negotiations on augmenting the list of traded commodities, and expand border trade at the Lipu-Lekh Pass in the joint communique. On Nepal's announcement that Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli will travel to New Delhi next month on his first official foreign visit, the daily said, "Driven by vanity, the Indian government cares a lot about Oli's choice to pay a first visit to New Delhi instead of China...India expects the visiting order to reflect its dominant status in South Asia." It said that the Nepalese government was not serious when suggesting earlier that Oli may visit China ahead of India. "Kathmandu was just sounding out New Delhi's attitude. As Nepalese prime ministers have traditionally chosen India as their first destination for state visits, Nepal was attempting to find some leeway in the negotiation with India over the ongoing blockade triggered by the adoption of the Nepalese constitution, which India feels does not protect the rights of the Madhesi, an Indian-backed lowlands minority," it said. The article also said that China can absorb Nepal into some Beijing-led regional organisations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation by granting observer status. "The regional organisations will serve as a platform for Kathmandu to resolve bilateral and multilateral problems. By joining regional institutions, Nepal will find it easier to come up with a solution to strike a balance between China and India. Beijing, as a close friend of Kathmandu, has a responsibility to help its southern neighbour," it said. Lahore: Pakistan's Punjab province Law Minister Rana Sanaullah today confirmed that banned Jaish-i-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar has been taken into "protective custody" along with his accomplices, but clarified he is "not arrested." "Masood Azhar has been taken into protective custody by the Punjab police counter-terrorism department," Sanaullah told Dawn News. Also Read: No information on Masood Azhar's arrest; Indo-Pak FS-level talks rescheduled, new date soon: MEA Also Read: We have no official confirmation regarding detention of Maulana Masood Azhar: MEA Earlier, the government chose not to confirm or deny the reports that Azhar has been taken into "protective custody". "We have taken Maulana Azhar and his fellows under protective custody in connection with the Pathankot incident. However, we will arrest him if his involvement in the Pathankot attack is proved," Sanaullah said. He added that operation against banned outfits including JeM would continue under the National Action Programme. India has identified Azhar as the mastermind of the Pathankot attack on January 2. It has also blamed his brother Rauf and five others for carrying out the attack in which seven Indian soldiers were killed along with all the six terrorists. India has shared this information along with two Pakistani phone numbers that were made calls to by the terrorists. According to reports, security agencies have arrested 31 activists of JeM from different parts of the province. After a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif yesterday, his office issued a statement which said that "several individuals" belonging to JeM have been apprehended in connection with the Pathankot terror attack and some of its offices traced and sealed. Today, Pakistan said that the Indo-Pak Foreign Secretary-level talks will not take place tomorrow as scheduled. Foreign Office spokesman Qazi Khalilullah told a news briefing that both sides were holding consultations to reschedule the talks. New Delhi: Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Maulana Masood Azhar, who is widely believed to be behind the deadly attack on the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot, has used the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru to motivate his fighters to carry out more attacks against India. A report in Mail Today, quoting intelligence sources, said on Friday that the JeM chief, who is a good orator, has apparently using Afzal Guru's case as a potent tool to motivate acts of terror against India. Azhar is known for making highly provocative and fiery speeches seeking revenge for Parliament attack mastermind Afzal Guru's hanging. The intelligence agencies believe that Afzal Guru's hanging had breathed a fresh lease of life into Pakistan terror outfit JeM after which it had expedited its anti-India operations. After Afzal Guru's execution in Delhi's Tihar jail in February 2013, the JeM formed the Afzal Guru Squad - a crack fidayeen team with the sole objective of avenging his death, say intelligence sources. Within a span of few months, a fresh breed of terrorists infiltrated into the Indian side and started attacking the security forces. JeM, which espoused the Kashmir separatist cause, has its roots in Bhawalpur in Pakistan's Punjab province. It was formed in 2000 after a split in Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. Majority of those who broke away joined Masood Azhar. The terrorists who carried out the Pathankot attack are also suspected to be from the Afzal Guru Squad, as per intelligence sources. Intelligence agencies believe that calls that were made to Pakistan by the Pathankot attackers were later traced to have been made to top JeM leaders. These calls were made using a taxi driver, Ikagar Singh's phone. Singh was killed by the terrorists who later attacked the Air Force base. Security agencies feel that not just Azhar, but his brother Abdul Rauf Asghar too was also involved in planning the Pathankot attack. The two brothers were also the brain behind the IC-814 hijack. Azhar and two other terrorists, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, were released by India after Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu was hijacked and taken to Kandahar in 1999. Intelligence reports say that not just the Pathankot attack, several other attacks on security forces over the last two years can be attributed to the Afzal Guru Squad. In all these attacks, the method was similar - terrorists in army fatigues crossed the border and targeted security forces. Intelligence inputs indicate that JeM is planning more Pathnakot-like attacks in India. New Delhi: The Bajrang Dal activists on Friday staged protest outside Banga Bhawan here in view of the recent violence that rocked Malda disrict in West Bengal. On January 03 violent protest broke out in Malda resulting into an attack on the Kaliachak police station and torching of vehicles including those belonging to the Border Security Force (BSF). A large number of people had gathered to protest against remarks allegedly made to "hurt religious sentiments" in Uttar Pradesh. Meanwhile, the Centre has decided not to send any official team to West Bengal, as demanded by BJP, as of now to probe the violence in Malda. A three-member BJP delegation had on Wednesday met Home Minister Rajnath Singh and demanded a high-level probe into the Malda violence, alleging it had links with fake currency and narcotics trade and infiltration. Accusing the Trinamool Congress government of protecting criminals involved in the incident of "anarchy and terror", the BJP team led by general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, who is also the in-charge of party's West Bengal unit, had met Singh, who "assured" them of appropriate action. BJP leaders have alleged that Trinamool Congress and Janata Dal (United) workers were involved in the Malda violence. Specifically, JD(U) Rajya Sabha MP Ghulam Rasool has been accused of instigating the mob. Rasool has been alleged to have links with a Muslim organisation called Idra-e-Sharia, which had called the march that turned violent in Malda. The march was called to protest against a Hindu right-wing leader's controversial remarks on Prophet Mohammad in Uttar Pradesh recently. Mumbai: Indian national Nehal Hamid Ansari, who was reported to be missing since 2012, has been found to be in Pakistan Army's custody. Hamid's mother Fauzia Ansari today confirmed about her son's arrest in Pakistan. Fauzia, a teacher based in Mumbai, thanked the Government of India for their efforts to help her son. "Indian government has been very supportive, they showed us many letters which they sent to Pakistan high commission," she said. While narrating the story of her son to news agency ANI, she said, Nehal had gone to Kabul looking for a job. After a long struggle, when we came to know that he is safe there under the watch of government. We are at least satisfied that he is fine. He is very talented but he never got desired job. He didn't have job satisfaction. In 2012 Nehal went to Afghanistan for a job at Kabul airport. She said for the first ten days he was in touch with us, but after that there was no contact. He had reportedly entered Pakistan illegally through the Afghanistan border as he was in love with a girl from Kohat district whom he had befriended on social media networks. Since the girl's parents were planning to get her married soon, Ansari took the risk of entering Pakistan illegally to meet her but soon went missing. To enquire about their 28-year-old son, the parents contacted Indian embassy in Afghanistan and found out that he was trying to help a tribal girl who was being ill-treated in Pakistan. The parents had filed a petition in Peshawar High Court. The PIL said that Nehal got in touch with the girl through Facebook. Fauzia further says that some of her son's Pakistani friends had advised him to enter the country without visa. According to reports, a divisional bench of the Peshawar High Court disposed off the case of Hamid Ansari after the government confirmed that he was currently in army custody and facing a trial in military courts. New Delhi: The Delhi Police on Friday arrested Hindu Sena chief Vishnu Gupta, a day after the right-wing group's members vandalised the office of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA). Posing as potential customers, four-five Sena activists entered the PIA office on Barakhamba Road in the central business district at around 3 pm and vandalised the office, breaking several computers and tearing up documents. A Delhi Police team reached the spot and arrested 24-year-old Lalit alias Amit while the others managed to escape. Police had obtained the CCTV footage on the incident. The PIA office, situated on the fifth and sixth floors of Narain Manzil on Barakhamba Road, was closed when the Hindu Sena activists struck and raised anti-Pakistan slogans after vandalising the office. Police said the activists left behind some pamphlets, saying Pakistan was continuously involved in terror attacks in India, including at Pathankot's Indian Air Force base, and the Indian consulate in Afghanistan. India should not have any relations with Pakistan till it stops terrorist activities and hands over fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and internationally-designated terrorist Hafiz Muhammad Saeed to India, one of the pamphlets read. (With IANS inputs) New Delhi: To nail Punjab Police officer Salwinder Singh's lie in connection with the Pathankot terror attack probe, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Friday gave a nod to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to conduct Narco test on him next week. The NIA, which has been probing the Pathankot attack, had questioned Singh, who is allegedly frequently changing his statements, for the fourth straight day yesterday. Singh was quizzed by the NIA today for the fifth consecutive day, whose interrogators also questioned his cook and the caretaker of Panj Peer Dargah, which the official had claimed to have visited before he was kidnapped by the terrorists involved in the Pathankot attack. The Gurdaspur SPs cook Madan Gopal, who was also abducted with him and a jeweller friend of the officer, and Somraj, caretaker of Panj Peer Dargah in Punjab, were also questioned, the spokesperson said, adding they all may be confronted with each other to ascertain the veracity of their statements. The shrine is located a few kilometres from Bamiyal, the village from where the terrorists were suspected to have infiltrated into India before mounting the attack. Singh, shunted barely few days before the January one-two terror strike as Superintendent of Police (headquarters) of Gurdaspur and facing alleged charges of breach of discipline, has in-principle given his consent for a polygraph test, the sources said, as per PTI. The NIA will move an application before a designated court here tomorrow seeking permission for conducting a polygraph test on Singh. Six terrorists had attacked the Pathankot base on the intervening night of January 1 and 2. They were killed in a counter-operation by Indian forces that lasted for about three days and also claimed the lives of seven security personnel. Officials of the terror probe agency have also found similarities in the recent attack on the Pathankot Air Force station and a police station and some other targets in Dinanagar, both in Punjab, a Home Ministry spokesperson said. Three heavily-armed militants in army fatigues, believed to have infiltrated from Pakistan, had on July 27, 2015, sprayed a moving bus with bullets and stormed a police station in Dinanagar, killing eight people, including a Superintendent of Police before being killed in a counteroffensive. The case is being probed by the Punjab Police. India had earlier said that it will extend all help to a special team Pakistan proposes to send to Pathankot to investigate the terror attack on the IAF base. India says that the six terrorists who attacked the Indian Air Force (IAF) station in Pathankot in Punjab on January 2 were Pakistanis and allied to the Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM). External affairs ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup welcomed Pakistan's announcement on Wednesday that JeM activists had been arrested and its offices sealed. India blames the group for the Pathankot incident. The crackdown on the JeM was an "important and positive first step" in the move to bring to justice the Pathankot attack plotters, he said. He had further said that India and Pakistan had agreed to reschedule the talks between their foreign secretaries which were to take place in Islamabad on Friday. (With Agency inputs) New Delhi: Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Friday in the national capital and discussed the take-aways from the Pathankot terror attack, where they stressed on the need of improved intelligence inputs and also lauded the bravery showed by security forces during the operations. The Ministers appreciated the work done by both the intelligence agencies, in giving advance warning of the attack and of the security agencies, in effectively meeting the challenge and minimising the possible damage. They also appreciated the bravery shown by the security forces in the incident and paid homage to those who sacrificed their lives in it. Discussions were held on the means to further strengthen the prevention, detection and foiling of such dastardly attacks. It was felt that the strengths displayed by all the concerned agencies, especially in terms of their synergised response needs not only to be commended, but also further built upon. It was felt that once the intelligence input had been confirmed, the response time was quick enough, both in terms of decisions that were taken, and in deployment of forces. However, in view of the continuing threats from hostile elements from across the border, the need to further upgrade both intelligence and preventive abilities especially in terms of technology was stressed. It was also decided that the security audit of all vulnerable stations, of armed forces, para-military forces and police would be carried out within a given timeframe. The need to have a better media communication strategy was also asserted and it was decided that in such incidents, the media should be briefed by the authorised persons on the spot and arrangements for this, including training, should be put in place, to meet such contingencies, should they happen in the future. National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, Defence Secretary G. Mohan Kumar, and senior officers from the Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Defence were also present at the internal security meeting. Mumbai: An Indian who had been missing after he went to Pakistan's Kohat district in 2012 while searching for a girl whom he fell in love with, has landed in jail, it has now emerged. Indian national Nehal Hamid Ansari, son of a school teacher Fauzia Ansarim - a teacher based in Mumbai - has confirmed about her son's arrest there. According to a report published in 'The Indian Express', Fauzia said her lawyer on Thursday informed that her son faced a court-martial on unspecified charges in Pakistan. The story dates back to 2012, when 'missing' Nehal was arrested by the authorities in the northwestern Pakistani district of Kohat. Speaking to the newspaper, Fauzia said, We last spoke to him on November 10, 2012, when he told us that he would be returning soon as the visit to Afghanistan was not fruitful. However, after November 15, when his phone was not reachable, we lodged a complaint at the Versova police station. While speaking to news agency ANI, Nehal's father said they have met External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj few times and got positive response. The aggrieved mother said when she went through her son's emails, we came to know he wanted to help girl in Pakistan who was being oppressed by community leaders. According to a 'DAWN' report, investigating officer Sajjad Khan of the Kohat police had informed Peshawar High Court Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Ikramullah Khan that the polices Riders Squad had arrested Nehal Hamid Ansari, 28, in the city and shifted him to the Kohat Development Authority (KDA) police station for interrogation. Fauzia, who had filed a petition in the Pakistani court, has maintained that her 28-year-old son had gone to Afghanistan in November 2012 in search for a job and then entered Pakistan to help a distressed girl. The petition says that the Indian national got in touch with the girl through Facebook. Fauzia further says that some of her son's Pakistani friends had advised him to enter the country without visa. Last year, the aggrieved mother had appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to secure her son's release. Islamabad: After Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said Maulana Masood Azhar has been taken under "protective custody", the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) on Thursday countered the claims and said its chief was never arrested. On its Facebook page, the terror outfit declared: Disbelievers and hypocrites across the world are celebrating our arrest, but the arrest never happened, reports The Indian Express. In a statement in Urdu, JeM added: Even if they happen, what difference will it make? No difference, except one. Allah willing, there will be more enthusiasm and excitement among people of the faith, and the work of jihad will gather more strength and energy. On Thursday, Sanaullah, while speaking on DawnNews talk show 'News Eye', said that Masood Azhar was taken into protective custody by the counter-terrorism department. India says that the six terrorists who attacked the Indian Air Force (IAF) station in Pathankot in Punjab on January 02, killing seven security personnel, were Pakistanis and allied to the JeM. On Wednesday, Pakistani media had reported that the JeM chief, known for his close ties with Pakistani intelligence agencies, was taken to an undisclosed destination and was questioned as part of a crackdown. However, later, Pakistan's Foreign Office said it has no idea if Maulana Masood Azhar has been detained. While news of his detention was coming in on Wednesday, Azhar wrote a piece, under his pen name Saidi, that the road chosen by the Pakistani government - in its crackdown against the JeM - is very dangerous for this country. Bengaluru: The Bengaluru Police faced some tense moments on Friday afternoon after a suspicious bag was found abandoned at the Cauvery Junction on Sankey Road. The police immediately cordoned off the area and isolated the bag reportedly with wires jutting out. On inspection, the bomb squad found it to a jute bag with a bottle inside it. Bengaluru City Police Commissioner NS Megharikh later said, No bomb in the suspicious object. The entire incident created panic, leading to disruption in traffic on the busy road leading to Bengaluru International Airport. Meanwhile, the police is not taking the hoax lightly and have put the security apparatus on high alert. Thiruvananthapuram: Naushad Ahmed Khan, the lawyer who is seeking entry for all women and girls in the Sabarimala temple in Kerala, on Friday informed the Supreme Court that he has received 500 threatening phone calls. The Sabarimala temple, as a practice, does not allow girls after attaining puberty to enter the premises. However, women, who have crossed menopause, are allowed. The president of the Indian Young Lawyers' Association (IYLA) said he received the calls which threatened to blow up his house and warned him to drop his petition in the apex court. The court, however, said PIL petitions could not be revoked. The court also said that it would appoint an Amicus Curiae. Judges also said that they will take a decision on Monday as regards what sort of security should be provided to Khan. On January 11, the Supreme Court had ruled that no temple can bar the entry of women devotees -- except on the basis of religion. A bench of Justices Dipak Misra and NV Ramana has sought clarification on the Sabrimala Ayyappa Temple's custom of prohibiting the entry of women between the age of 10 and 50 years. The ruling immediately divided the faithful into two camps -- those who want to retain the present system and those who want that women of all age groups should be allowed entry into the Sabarimala temple. Situated on the mountain ranges of the Western Ghats at 914 metres above sea level, the Sabarimala temple is four kilometres uphill from Pamba river in Pathanamthitta district, around 100 km from Thiruvananthapuram. The temple, which bars the entry of women who have attained puberty, is accessible only on foot from Pamba. Till a few years back, it was open only for two months -- from mid-November to mid-January. Now it is kept open for five days every month. It draws millions of devotees, mainly from southern India. Kolkata: Even as CPI(M) on Friday alleged that the proximity of culprits to the ruling Trinamool Congress had stopped police from taking prompt action in the mowing down incident of an airman during the Republic Day parade rehearsals here two days ago, a report said that the son of a TMC leader drove the Audi SUV. The Indian Air Force officer who was supervising a Republic Day practice parade in Kolkata was killed in the incident. NDTV quoted police sources as saying that the Audi Q7 abandoned after the incident on Wednesday was driven by Ambiya Sohrab. The 26-year-old man is the son of former MLA Mohammad Sohrab. Sohrab joined the TMC in 2013. Corporal Abhimanyu Gaud, died soon after he was knocked off his feet by the speeding car. The car supposedly dragged Gaud more than 20 m after hitting him and he died due to excessive blood loss. Reports said that the person who was driving the car ran away. Meanwhile, CPI(M) politburo member Salim asked today, "On every January 26 due to Republic Day celebrations, there are red alerts all over the country. And after the attack at Pathankot, there is a high alert across the country. There was an alert (sounded) in Fort William area also, where the parade rehearsals are taking place. So, how come a person, after crushing an airman can just escape, when the police were present and guarding the premises?" as per PTI. Salim's comments came after the Kolkata Police yesterday issued a look out notice against Ambia Sohrab, Sambia Sohrab and their father Mohammed Sohrab, who are absconding. A 22-member team was set up by the CP yesterday to speed up the probe into the mishap in which Gaud was hit and killed by the brand new Audi. On the other hand, forensic report of the car suggested it was travelling at high speed of around 90-110 km per hour when it barged through the guard rails and hit the airman. (With PTI inputs) Mogadishu: Al Shabaab fighters attacked a remote Somali army base and entered a nearby town close to the border with Kenya on Friday, saying they had killed dozens of Kenyan soldiers in an African Union force supporting the government during the assault. Somali and Kenyan military officials said the fighters had seized the Somali army base near the town of Ceel Cadde, about 550 km (340 miles) west of Mogadishu in a region near Kenya`s border. A spokesman for the African Union peacekeeping force AMISOM said the battle for the base was still under way. Al Shabaab said it had killed more than 60 Kenyan soldiers from AMISOM. Kenya`s Defence Ministry said both sides had suffered casualties but said numbers were not confirmed. An AMISOM spokesman said the al Shabaab toll was exaggerated but did not give a figure. There was no independent figure. "The fighting is ongoing," AMISOM spokesman Paul Njuguna said. A shopkeeper in the Ceel Cadde town said soldiers from AMISOM appeared to have left the town and fighters were now on the streets. "We see al Shabaab in every corner of town," shopkeeper Abdullahi Iidle told Reuters. "Some residents have fled." Al Shabaab has been driven out of major strongholds in Somalia by an offensive by AMISOM and the Somali army that was launched last year. But the fighters still control some parts of the countryside and often launch guerrilla-style assaults and bomb attacks. The group, which is aligned with al Qaeda, said it took over the base after a suicide bomber rammed its gates, and also controlled the town, capturing nearly 30 trucks and armoured vehicles. The group`s military operations spokesman, Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, told Reuters it had killed more than 60 Kenyan soldiers serving with AMISOM, while others escaped. Al Shabaab has often inflated casualty figures in the past, while the Somali government and other official estimates have often played down the numbers. A spokesman for the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) said al Shabaab fighters overran the Somali army base and AMISOM had counter attacked. "The number of casualties on both sides is unknown," Col. David Obonyo, KDF spokesman, said in a statement. A senior Somali military official confirmed the militants had taken over the base. "AMISOM has gone out of the town and base for strategic reasons," Colonel Farah Surow, who is based about 100 km (60 miles) from the Ceel Cadde base, told Reuters. African Union troops, now numbering about 22,000 from several African nations, have spent nearly a decade battling al Shabaab insurgents in Somalia, a country mired in conflict since civil war broke out in 1991. Al Shabaab has in the past year staged multiple attacks against African Union bases in Somalia, part of a guerrilla warfare strategy to drive out foreign troops and impose its harsh version of Islamic law across the Horn of Africa nation. London: A Briton, who has been a sperm donor for the past 16 years, claimed that he has fathered 800 children over the past one-and-a-half decade. "I'd like to get the world record ever, make sure no-one's going to break it, get as many as possible," NDTV quoted Simon Watson as saying. "Usually one a week pops out. I reckon I've got about 800 so far, so within four years I'd like to crack 1,000," he said. Incredible! This 41-year-old may just be the world's most prolific sperm donor. Watson now sells his sperm on the Facebook. He charges 50 pounds for his "magic potion". Watson also gets his regular tests and posts the results on his Facebook page. "I've got kids all the way from Spain to Taiwan, so many countries," he told BBC. Watson has three children of his own from two marriages, and he started donating sperm soon after his first marriage ended. He said that he has no plans on stopping, as long as everything still works. I've got children all over the world now, and the parents are always so grateful," he added. Moscow: No country in the world is immune from corruption and public officials top the list of corrupt persons. However, this public official in Russia did something no one could even think of trying steal a highway! As per CNN, a senior Russian prison official in northern Komi province has been accused of permitting illegal dismantling and removal of over 7,000 concrete slabs from a 50-kilometre stretch of a highway and selling them. Russia's Investigative Committee revealed the 'heist' in a statement and named the official as Alexander Protopopov. Protopopov was overseeing the Federal Penitentiary Service in Komi. As per the report, the slabs were unlawfully removed over a period between June 2014 and August 2015. The embezzlement cost the government six million rubles (around USD 79,000). The official has been arrested, the statement said. Other local officials suspected to have assisted Protopopov in removing the slabs are also being probed, prosecutors said. Beijing: China on Friday acknowledged for the first time that it is communicating with the United States about the case of Ling Wancheng, the brother of a one-time senior aide to then President Hu Jintao, in a case that could complicate ties. Authorities have been tight-lipped about revealing any information about the man, Ling Wancheng, who is in the United States, sources have told Reuters. China has demanded his return, the New York Times had earlier reported, in a case that could strain Sino-US ties if he were to seek to defect. The government has given no details of any crime Ling is suspected of and he has not appeared on any wanted lists. Last month, Liu Jianchao, who runs the ruling Communist Party`s anti-graft watchdog`s team trying to repatriate graft suspects, told reporters Ling Wancheng`s case had nothing to do with him and he did not know who was in charge of it. But on Friday, in response to a question from Reuters at a news conference, Liu confirmed for the first time contacts with the United States about the case. "As for the case of Ling Wancheng, the Chinese side is handling it and is communicating with the United States," Liu said. Ling was in the United States, Liu told Reuters later. On anti-corruption cooperation between China and the United States, Liu praised a "very positive" US attitude. Last July, China said it would prosecute Ling Wancheng`s brother, Ling Jihua, a one-time senior aide to Hu, after an investigation found that he took bribes and engaged in other corrupt behaviour. Another brother, Ling Zhengce, has also been accused of corruption. Ling Jihua`s case has presented a dilemma for Beijing. His position is particularly sensitive because of his connection with Hu, President Xi Jinping`s predecessor. Since assuming power in late 2012, Xi has pursued a relentless campaign against corruption, warning that the problem could threaten the party`s ability to retain power, though some analysts say he is also eliminating rivals. China`s efforts at repatriating corrupt officials overseas have long been hampered by Western countries` reluctance to sign extradition deals, partly out of concern about its judicial system. Rights groups say Chinese authorities use torture and the death penalty is common in corruption cases. Separately, Wu Yuliang, deputy secretary of the watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, said the governor of China`s populous southwestern province of Sichuan, Wei Hong, was suspected of serious "discipline violations", a euphemism for corruption. Beijing: China on Friday said it supported "necessary" action against North Korea by the U.N. Security Council to preserve the authority of the United Nations in the face of Pyongyang`s latest nuclear weapon test this month. The North`s nuclear test angered both China and the United States and again raised questions about what can be done to stop its development of nuclear weapons. The country is already under a wide array of international sanctions, and diplomats have said U.N. Security Council members were expected to discuss the possibility of adding to those. China`s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the nuclear test violated U.N. resolutions and ran counter to goals for denuclearisation on the Korean peninsula. "China supports the U.N. Security Council in taking the necessary response to this. We believe the United Nations` authority must be preserved, and the nuclear non-proliferation system must be safeguarded," the ministry cited Wang as saying, in a statement on its website. He did not elaborate on what that response should be. Despite differences over the issue of new Security Council resolutions, the international community must take a "clear and consistent" direction and return to six-party talks, Wang said. "It is not to provoke confrontation, but rather to firmly advance denuclearisation goals," he added. "It is not bring chaos to the peninsula, but to seek a plan for lasting stability." Last week, North Korea said it had tested a powerful hydrogen bomb but the United States and various experts doubt that, as the blast was roughly the same size as that from its previous test, of an atomic bomb, in 2013. South Korea warned the North that the United States and its allies were working on sanctions to inflict "bone-numbing pain" for the test, and urged China to do its part to rein in its isolated neighbour. The World Economic Forum withdrew its invitation for North Korea`s foreign minister to attend its annual Davos meeting because of the nuclear test, a move Pyongyang said was "based on unjust political motivation" driven by the United States. It was to have been the country`s first participation in the event in 18 years. Beijing: Days after China passed a new law that for the first time permits its military to venture overseas on counter-terror operations, its marines began exercises in the western deserts of Xinjiang, more than 2,000 kilometres from the nearest ocean. The continuing drills are an indication, analysts say, that the marines, who have traditionally trained for amphibious assault missions, are being honed into an elite force capable of deploying on land far from mainland China. China`s limited means to respond to threats abroad were highlighted by two incidents in November: when Islamic State executed a Chinese hostage, and the killing of three executives by Islamist militants who attacked a hotel in Mali. China`s new counter-terrorism law, passed in late December, is aimed at protecting its expanding global commercial and diplomatic interests. But China`s military commanders are also trying to create a military in the likeness of the world`s most dominant power projection force, analysts say. "They study what the Americans have done very carefully and it`s the mirror image effect," said Leszek Buszynski, a visiting fellow at the Australian National University`s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre. The cold weather training will improve the marines` ability to conduct "long-distance mobilization in unfamiliar regions", the deputy chief of staff of the Navy`s South Sea fleet Li Xiaoyan said in a Ministry of Defence statement earlier this month. During the drills, the marines will travel 5,900 kilometres via air, truck and rail beginning in the southern province of Guangdong, the longest range manoeuvres ever conducted by the force, state media said. EXPEDITIONARY FORCE The exercises are the latest in recent years that show the efforts China is making to boost its expeditionary force capabilities. In 2014, the marines conducted their first training in the grasslands of the northern landlocked Inner Mongolia region. At the time, the exercise was seen as unusual for the south China-based force more proficient in beach landings. Since those drills, the roughly 15,000-strong marine corps, which operates under the People`s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy`s South Sea fleet, appears to be settling into a new niche. "They never really had a major strategic role, as force projection wasn`t something the PLA was willing, or able, to think about even ten years ago," said Gary Li, an independent security analyst in Beijing. With amphibious divisions in the PLA Army also capable of extending China`s reach into the South China Sea and Taiwan, Li said the marines are a good fit for a budding Chinese expeditionary force. "The main advantage of playing around with the marines is that they have a higher concentration of specialists, act well as light infantry, have good esprit de corps, and are nimble enough to be deployed over long distances if needed," he said. RISING GLOBAL PROFILE Along with President Xi Jinping`s vows to build a more modern military, the global profile of China`s armed forces is on the rise. Already, the South Sea fleet, which is based on the mainland coast near the island of Hainan, has been used on operations far from the South China Sea. The fleet`s vessels have ventured to the Middle East and Mediterranean after deployments on international anti-piracy patrols around the Horn of Africa. Chinese officials announced in November they were in talks with Djibouti to build permanent "support facilities" to further boost Chinese naval operations, in what would be China`s first such off-shore military base. The African port, sitting on the edge of the Red and Arabian seas, is home to several foreign military bases, including U.S., French and Japanese naval facilities. China is also expanding its peacekeeping role, with Xi pledging in September to contribute 8,000 troops for a U.N. stand-by force that could provide logistical and operational experience the PLA would need to operate farther abroad. While China has been getting more involved diplomatically in trouble spots like the Middle East, it is adamant that it does not interfere in the affairs of other countries, and is the only permanent member of the U.N. Security Council which has not taken military action in Syria. The Defence Ministry said in a fax that the drills were part of "annual planned" exercises. For now, China`s marines are advancing only through the snow fields of Xinjiang, as depicted in state media photographs, still wearing their speckled blue fatigues designed for operations at sea. But that could shift in time. "China`s global security posture is becoming more active," said Zhang Baohui, a mainland security expert at Hong Kong`s Lingnan University. "And this seems to fit that policy." (Reporting by Michael Martina and Greg Torode. Additional reporting by Matt Siegel in SYDNEY. Editing by Bill Tarrant) North Charleston: Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump and top challenger Ted Cruz ended a longstanding truce in spectacular fashion on Thursday night with bitter exchanges during what may have been Trump`s strongest debate performance to date. The New York billionaire and the Texas senator appeared to have a split decision by the end of the night, a sign that for all the bluster, little took place that could derail Trump from his lead position with a contest in Iowa on Feb. 1 to begin the search for a Republican presidential nominee. Projections that the debate would be a free-for-all were accurate. Beyond the Trump-Cruz theatrics, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida turned in a pugnacious performance with attacks on Cruz and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Florida Governor Jeb Bush presented himself as a voice of reason against Trump. A Google snap poll showed viewers believed Trump, who in the most recent debates was at times less engaged, won the night with 37.3 percent to Cruz`s 26.6 percent and Rubio`s 12.1 percent. Until the Fox Business Channel debate in North Charleston, South Carolina, Trump and Cruz had been friendly because they have both been chasing conservatives of the Tea Party movement and did not want to anger them. With Trump now needing to fend off Cruz`s rise in Iowa, he pushed his charge that Cruz may not be constitutionally qualified to serve as president because he was born in Canada. The U.S. Constitution says only "natural born" citizens can become president of the United States. "Who the hell knows if you can even serve in office?" Trump told Cruz, drawing a scattering of boos in the audience. Born in Calgary, Alberta, to a U.S. citizen mother and a Cuban father, Cruz accused Trump of bringing up his birthplace simply because Cruz was leading some polls in Iowa. Cruz said Trump, who led the movement questioning whether the Hawaiian-born President Barack Obama was really from the United States, had asked his lawyers to look into the issue of Cruz`s birth in September and concluded there were no issues. "Since September, the Constitution hasnt changed, but the poll numbers have," Cruz said. "And I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are dropping in Iowa, but the facts and the law here are really clear." Trump said Democrats would sue if Cruz were on the Republican ticket, putting their party`s chances of winning at risk. Cruz shot back that he had spent many years studying constitutional law: "I`m not going to be taking legal advice from Donald Trump." The birthright issue has dogged American politics before: 2008 Republican nominee John McCain survived questions about his birth in Panama because he was born on a U.S. military installation there and it was judged to be U.S. soil. In 1967, Republican candidate George Romney faced questions about his birth in Mexico, but his candidacy never advanced far and the issue was abandoned. Berlin: The number of Islamist militant fighters returning to Germany from Syria and Iraq is on the rise and more than 400 people are being watched, the head of German police said on Friday. Holger Muench, president of the BKA federal police, told ARD television that the number of people leaving Germany for the two countries to fight with militant groups such as Islamic State was dropping. But there has been a simultaneous rise in the number of fighters returning home. "The wave of departures is becoming flatter," he said. "In the meantime, we have more than 400 individuals who pose a threat and whom we must keep an eye on." Muench said, however, that the suicide bombing in Istanbul this week in which 10 German tourists were killed was not a sign that the threat of a militant attack in Germany was higher than before. The attack was carried out by an Islamic State suicide bomber who entered Turkey as a refugee from Syria, the Turkish government said, adding that the militant had not specifically target Germans. Germany and Turkey are both part of a U.S.-led military coalition that is carrying out air strikes against Islamic State. Stockholm: This seems funny but that's exactly what happened! A burglar who was so frightened by the wrath of a pizza store owner that he locked himself inside a toilet and called the police for help. The incident took place in the Swedish city of Uppsala. On breaking into the restaurant around 3 am, the burglar received a rude shock when a loud alarm went off and alerted the owner. A frightened burglar in Sweden called police on Tuesday after hiding in the toilets of a pizzeria to escape the wrath of its owner, police said. "I put on a shirt, trousers and shoes and I ran," media report quoted the owner, who lived nearby, as saying. The burglar who was accompanied by his associates, couldn't manage to escape as the owner immediately arrived at the scene and began fighting. The police have rescued two burglars who were hiding inside the premises. This was the third burglary attempt at the sore in the past two years, AFP reported citing the owner. Melbourne: The escapades of two young men from Melbourne have hit headlines Down Under after Victoria Police pulled them up over their plan to hold 'Triple J Hottest 100 Party 2016 at St Kilda Beach' on January 26. Meet Jai Motherwell and Clint White, who appear to be two regular young blokes, but with a nose for some fun. They put up a page on Facebook announcing their plan to host a party at St Kilda on Australia Day and within no time they got response from over 20,000 eager people, willing to groove with them on the hottest numbers of the year. But Jai and Clint also ended up inviting more attention than they had bargained for Victoria Police was interested in the party as well! The police had a 'sweet' message for them: Hi Jai and Clint. This is Victoria Police. We know this party is not sanctioned by Triple J, so we're assuming you haven't got any permits from Port Phillip Council either? If that's the case, we'll pay you a visit on Australia Day and let's hope we don't spoil your party! Jai later wrote on the page: Okay, some of you would have just heard Clint White's interview with 3AW this morning. Most of you have seen the post by Victoria Police. Clint and I have been on the phone all morning with media, local councils and the Victorian Police. We have decided to shut this event down. The numbers have blown way out of proportion and you can't trust 20,000 strangers to do the right thing. We will be working with the Victorian Police and local city council about this matter leading into the event. Please respect our decision and share around that the event has been cancelled. There are plenty of other parties in St Kilda for Australia Day. Who's keen to catch Fatboy Slim?! Here's wishing good luck to the dudes! Jakarta: Indonesia is hunting for terror cells believed to be behind Thursday`s attack that killed seven people, including two civilians, here, Jakarta`s chief of police said. Two civilians and five attackers died in the gun and bomb assault in a busy commercial district on Thursday, BBC reported. Insp Gen Tito Karnavian said the attackers had been "neutralised" but were linked to groups across Indonesia and were "part of a global network". The Islamic State (IS) militant earlier claimed responsibility of the attack. It released a statement online, saying it had been carried out by "soldiers of the Caliphate", targeting "citizens of the Crusader coalition" against the group. Three men were arrested near Jakarta early on Friday, police told the media. It was not immediately clear whether they had direct links with the attacks. Authorities have named Bahrum Naim, an Indonesian believed to be fighting with IS in Syria, as the suspected co-ordinator. Security forces battled militants for hours on Thursday in a major business and shopping district of Jakarta, the report said. The assault ended when two of the attackers were killed in a suicide bombing, said police, with the other three killed in gun battles. A Canadian and an Indonesian national, both civilians, also died and at least 20 people were injured. Lahore: Putting its weight behind the banned Jaish-e-Mohammad, JuD chief Hafiz Saeed today chided Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's government for detaining Jaish chief and activists in connection with the Pathankot terror attack. Addressing the Friday sermon at JuD headquarters here, Saeed said that the Pakistan government is taking action against JeM to "please" India. "The arrests are regrettable as the Nawaz government is only doing so to please Modi sarkar (government). The arrests will only encourage the Indian government to put further pressure on Pakistan to backtrack it's stance on Kashmir," he said. Saeed further said the Pakistani government is ignoring "national interest" for the sake of its friendship with India. The LeJ founder also criticised the Pakistani news analysts for appreciating the government for arrests made in connection with the January 2 attack on an Indian airbase in Pathankot. Athens: North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un is afraid of sharing the fate of slain dictators Saddam Hussein, Moamer Kadhafi and Al-Qaeda's Osama bin Laden, and is working on a nuclear deterrent for this purpose, a former Japanese defence minister said on Friday. "Kim is very afraid to be killed like (Iraq's) Saddam Hussein, (Libya's) Moamer Kadhafi or Osama bin Laden," Satoshi Morimoto, who is now a national security expert, told a conference in Athens. "So as long as they maintain nuclear capability they think they can survive," said Morimoto, a professor at Tokyo's Takushoku University who served as defence minister in 2012. North Korea says it tested a miniaturised hydrogen bomb on January 6 -- a claim largely dismissed by experts who argue the yield was far too low for a full-fledged thermonuclear device. Morimoto argued that given available data, the weapon tested was likely a "small bomb with a launch missile." He recalled a similar situation in 1953, when the Soviet Union said it had tested a hydrogen bomb, but the United States considered it a smaller-scale thermonuclear weapon. Moscow's first 'true' hydrogen bomb test came two years later. North Korea "is in the process of developing a hydrogen bomb, but not yet," Morimoto said. "Despite sanctions, they never gave up nuclear development and ballistic missiles," he said. Jakarta: An audacious attack by suicide bombers in the heart of Indonesia's capital was funded by the Islamic State group, police said on Friday, as they seized an IS flag from the home of one of the attackers and carried out raids across the country in which one suspected militant was killed. National police chief Gen Badrodin Haiti told reporters that yesterday's attack was funded by IS through Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian who spent one year in jail for illegal possession of weapons in 2011, and is now in Syria fighting for the group. Supporters of IS also circulated a claim of responsibility for the attack on Twitter late yesterday. The radical group controls territory in Syria and Iraq, and its ambition to create an Islamic caliphate has attracted some 30,000 foreign fighters from around the world, including a few hundred Indonesians and Malaysians. The IS link, if proved, poses a challenge to Indonesian security forces. Until now, the group was known only to have sympathizers with no active cells capable of planning and carrying out a plot such as yesterday's in which five men attacked a Starbucks cafe and a traffic police booth with handmade bombs, guns and suicide belts. They killed two people, one a Canadian and the other an Indonesian, and injured 20 in the first major attack in Indonesia since 2009. The militants were killed, either by their suicide vests or by police. The attack "was funded by ISIS in Syria through Bahrun Naim," Haiti told reporters after Friday prayers, using an acronym for the Islamic State group. He did not elaborate. He also identified one of the five attackers as Sunakim, who in 2010 was sentenced to seven years in jail for his involvement in military-style training in Aceh, but was released early. Police conducted raids across Indonesia but was it unclear whether those arrested were suspected of links to the bombing or if police were rounding up militants as part of a broader crackdown in its aftermath. They also outlined a partial reconstruction of events based on security camera video, part of which showed a Starbucks customer escaping from the grip of a bomber before he detonated his suicide bomb. Police did not identify the customer but said he or she suffered minor injuries. National police spokesman Maj Gen Anton Charliyan said an IS flag was found in the home of one of the attackers and raids were conducted in Java, Kalimantan and Sulawesi, with four arrests made. Charliyan said three men arrested at dawn in their homes in Depok on the outskirts of Jakarta are no longer suspected of being linked to the attack. Islamabad: Pakistan on Friday rejected US President Barack Obama's remarks that the country could become a safe haven for terrorists and would continue to face instability for decades to come. In his last State of the Union address on Tuesday, Obama said "instability will continue for decades in many parts of the world in the Middle East, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in parts of central America, Africa and Asia". Obama has said the US' foreign policy must be focused on the threat from Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda, but it can't stop there. "For even without IS, instability will continue for decades in many parts of the world in the Middle East, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in parts of Central America, Africa and Asia," he has said. "Some of these places may become safe havens for new terrorist networks; others will fall victim to ethnic conflict, or famine, feeding the next wave of refugees," he said. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz rejected Obama's comments in a breakfast meeting with Chinese scholars, diplomats and mediapersons. "Whatever the US president said about instability in Pakistan and Afghanistan are his predictions and have nothing to do with ground realities," Aziz said. He said Pakistan was committed to defeating militancy and had major successes in the fight to eliminate terrorism. "Pakistan is taking decisive action against terrorism and militancy and days to come will witness more stability here," he said. Aziz said Afghanistan faced the issue of "instability" but Pakistan was putting in all efforts to bring peace and stability in its neighbouring nation. Hyderabad: Makar Sankranti, the colourful Hindu festival, was celebrated with pomp and gaiety across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana on Friday. On the second day of the three-day festival, the countryside in both the Telugu states wore a festive look with decorated houses, kite-flying, cockfights, bull-fights and other rural sports. Villages in both the states came alive with Sankranti, considered as one of the major festivals. It was time for the families to take a break and come together in their natives towns and villages. People from different parts of the country and even abroad joined their near and dear ones for the festival. Attired in their best, men, women and children thronged the temples to offer prayers since early morning. Lakhs of people from Hyderabad left for their homes in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana for the celebrations, leaving the city`s roads almost deserted. Authorities operated hundreds of special buses and trains from Hyderabad to various destinations in the two states over last couple of days to clear the festival rush. U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump continues to grab all the media attention, and Hillary Clinton remains a Wall Street favoriteso why is underdog Democratic Party candidate Bernie Sanders suddenly surging again in the polls? In a Guardian op-ed, Trevor Timm argues that part of the reason is his common-sense, non-hysterical approach to ISIS/ISIL and related Islamist terrorist threats. He has, to great criticism by beltway pundits, avoided the rest of the candidates' descent into constant fear-mongering about terrorism and hyping the "threat" from Isis. Instead he has mocked both the media and other candidates for doing so, as BuzzFeed reported last month: "As a nation and as a people, we have got to understand that our country faces a myriad of very serious problems if you turn on the TV, what they now say is, 'Well we've got one problem, it's Isis," Sanders said, launching into a sarcastic impression of the "they" on television this week. Clinton, meanwhile, has sounded more like the Republican candidates with her conventional forever war posture, her defense of the disastrous Libya intervention and her calls for an escalation of the war in Syria. Apparently she's not concerned that she's running for the nomination from a party who rejected her in 2008 partly because of her support for the Iraq war. FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Germany's highest court has declared unlawful a feature that encourages Facebook users to market the social media network to their contacts, confirming the rulings of two lower courts. A panel of the Federal Court of Justice ruled that Facebook's "friend finder" promotional feature constituted advertising harassment in a case that was filed in 2010 by the Federation of German Consumer Organisations (VZBV). The Facebook feature invites users to grant it permission to vacuum up the e-mail addresses of friends or contacts in the user's address book, which in turn allows the social network to send an invitation to non-Facebook users to join the service. The court concluded this was a deceptive marketing practice, confirming decisions by two lower courts in Berlin in 2012 and 2014, which had found that Facebook had violated German laws on data protection and unfair trade practices. The federal court also said Facebook had not adequately informed members about how it was using their contacts' data. In a statement, a spokeswoman for Facebook in Germany said it was waiting to receive the formal decision and would study the findings "to assess any impact on our services". The VZBV welcomed the ruling and said in a statement that it will have implications for other services in Germany which use similar forms of advertising. "What the judgment means exactly for the current Friends Finder, we now have to find out," said Klaus Mueller, head of the VZBV. "In addition to Facebook, other services use this form of advertising to attract new users. They must now probably rethink," Mueller added. (Reporting by Harro ten Wolde; Editing by Eric Auchard and Adrian Croft) TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - The militarization of Central America's violent Honduras has helped to stem gang bloodshed in a land known for the world's highest murder rate, but it has created another problem - an apparent spike in abuses blamed on soldiers. Former President Porfirio Lobo rolled out the military in 2012 to fight drug gangs and his successor Juan Hernandez upped the offensive, pledging to "put a soldier on every corner". While that may help Honduras shake off its reputation as the world's deadliest country, a litany of murder, rape and torture accusations by some victims and human rights groups against the military is haunting a country struggling to find its feet after a 2009 coup that sparked a surge in violence. Poverty and chronic violence in Honduras were among the main factors behind a surge in illegal migration from Central America to the United States last year that caused a major political headache for President Barack Obama. Between 2012 and 2014, Honduran soldiers were accused of being involved in at least nine murders, over 20 cases of torture and about 30 illegal detentions, according to data compiled by Reuters. The figures assembled by Reuters come from the U.S. State Department's 2014 Honduras human rights report, three major human rights organizations and three newspapers. Reuters could not independently verify every incident of abuse blamed on the military, but confirmed two in interviews with victims. There is no official tally of abuses by soldiers. In 2010 and 2011 there were no reported cases implicating soldiers in such crimes. The military was accused of abuses in 2009 related to protests following the ouster of former President Manuel Zelaya in a coup. "The number of human rights violations by the military is rising, and the threat is greater and growing because military police operate with their faces covered and without visible identification, which fans impunity," said Juan Almendarez, director of CPTRT, a center for the treatment of torture victims and their relatives. Honduras' Interior Minister Rigoberto Chang acknowledged there had been some cases of military abuses, but said they were isolated incidents and promised justice would be served. "Those soldiers that violated the behavior code have been handed over to the courts," Chang, whose brief includes justice and human rights, told Reuters in May when asked about the abuses. "But the presence of soldiers in the streets will continue until security is reestablished." Colonel Antonio Sanchez, the spokesman of the Honduran armed forces, declined to comment for this story when asked about a spike in military abuses. He said, however, that all soldiers were trained in human rights and any accused of wrongdoing would be judged in court. "If anyone has a different idea over how the state can fight against insecurity in Honduras, let them propose it," he said. Since taking office in early 2014, Hernandez, a military-trained politician, has deployed a new military police force known as the PMOP that is set to grow by 40 percent this year. Hernandez has also increased the defense budget by a fifth. Supporters of greater military presence say it has helped lower the country's murder rate, which the United Nations put at over 90 per 100,000 people in 2012. By comparison the global rate was over six deaths per 100,000, while the U.S. one was below five. (graphic:http://reut.rs/1RgDMXw) According to the respected National Autonomous University of Honduras' Observatory of Violence program, the 2014 murder rate fell to 68, down from 79 in 2013. As a result neighboring El Salvador took over last year as the country with the world's highest murder rate. But there are also currently at least 24 soldiers being investigated by authorities on charges related to nine murder cases, according to the data compiled by Reuters, with more detained on suspicion of crimes ranging from torture to rape. MILITARY MIGHT Last February, Luis Betancourt was working at his fruit stand in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, when a group of masked men who claimed to be from the police's intelligence unit forced him into an idling car. During the journey, the men revealed they were soldiers, and Betancourt said they told him there was a 120,000 lempira ($5,525) price on his head. "They told me that if I didn't pay anything, they would kill me and my family as well," he said. Some of Betancourt's family witnessed the incident, and called the police, who rescued him. Four members of the PMOP were arrested and have been charged with his kidnapping. More boots on the ground has played well politically for Hernandez, who says he is considering the idea of changing the constitution to allow him to run for a second term while also grappling with a $200 million corruption scandal at the Honduran Institute of Social Security that marred his election campaign. The United States has said it respects the decision to use soldiers for policing, while the United Nations has urged Honduras to put a date on ending the military's security role. A survey by the Observatory of Violence showed that 60 percent of Hondurans approve of the new military police. "It's really nice, and we're safe, because there are soldiers who protect us," said housewife Tania Rodas, as her family celebrated her daughter's birthday in Tegucigalpa, just yards away from soldiers with assault rifles. (Writing by Enrique Andres Pretel and Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Simon Gardner and Tomasz Janowski) The scope of an independent forensic investigation into the Ottawa Hospital's planning department included chief operating officer Cameron Love, who was cleared of any wrongdoing, the hospital told CBC News in response to questions about work done by hospital contractors on the COO's home. "During the investigation launched in the summer of 2015, Love disclosed that he had renovations done on his home on a number of occasions between 2004 and 2011 by contractors also employed by the hospital, including one company named in a lawsuit launched by the hospital last week," Allison Neil, the hospital's executive vice-president of communications told the CBC News. In that lawsuit, the statement of claim accuses two former directors of conspiring with five contractors to defraud the hospital in exchange for kickbacks. The forensic investigation cleared Cameron Love. "In 2004/05, work was performed by one of the defendants named in the suit. In 2011, he (Love) had work done on his home by a hospital contractor who is not a defendant in the suit," Neill said. The hospital said Love paid for the work personally and disclosed the information to his supervisor. "The investigation has found no improper influence over contractor procurement, collusion with contractors or wrongdoing by Cameron Love." Conflict of interest rules But an expert in construction law, David Debenham questions whether that is good enough. "There's usually any number of conflict of interest rules that prohibit a person responsible for a public procurement from doing business with the people that they're supervising and awarding contracts," Debenham said. He pointed to Public Works and Government Services Canada conflict of interest rules that state, "Public servants must perform their duties and arrange their private affairs so that public confidence and trust in the integrity, objectivity and impartiality of government are conserved and enhanced." Story continues Between 2003 and 2014, Love was, among other roles, vice-president of facilities planning and development, which oversaw the planning department responsible for capital projects. The same audit that cleared Love led to the lawsuit that names Frank Medwenitsch, the former director of capital projects, and Brock Marshall, the former director of engineering and operations as defendants. The lawsuit includes accusations of conspiring to fix contracts, pad invoices, nepotism, extortion and kickbacks, that involved lavish trips, free cars, and low cost even no cost work done on the homes of Medwenitsch and Marshall. The claims have not been proven in court. Police have seized an Ottawa restaurant and a Gatineau building that houses a bar as part of a joint police investigation into the proceeds of crime from an organized drug-trafficking network based in Ottawa, RCMP said in a news release Thursday. The RCMP, Ontario Provincial Police and Ottawa Police Service worked together to identify the assets that belong to the Alkhalil organization as part of a two-year investigation dubbed Project Anarchy. The investigation led to nine arrests and the seizure of 10 vehicles, four firearms and 24.5 kilograms of cocaine with an estimated street value of more than $12 million, RCMP said. Hisham Alkhalil, the alleged head of organization, is expected to return to court Feb. 8 for the continuation of his preliminary hearing for drug-related charges, RCMP said. A property on Rossland Avenue in Ottawa, worth about $1.1 million, was seized in January 2014 as part of the case, RCMP said. Seizing two other properties at 354 Olmstead St. in Ottawa and at 175 Promenade Du Portage in Gatineau worth a combined $1.4 million is meant to "further disrupt and dismantle this drug trafficking network financially and to prevent further acts of criminal activity," said Ronald Lauzon, the acting officer in charge of the RCMP detachment in Ottawa, said in a news release. Ottawa police Insp. Mike Laviolette said that "taking away their financial gains is the true penalty for their crimes." By Steve Holland CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) - Long viewed by the Republican establishment and many donors as one of their rising stars, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio has been struggling to make his mark in the race for the party's 2016 presidential nomination in a field led by mavericks Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Regarded as well-spoken and telegenic, Rubio began facing criticism a few months ago when he was perceived as campaigning too little in Iowa and New Hampshire, the two states where next month party members will cast their first ballots. Rubio, 44, may still have a breakthrough, but with 20 days to go until Iowa's Feb. 1 nominating caucuses, the first-term Florida lawmaker faces questions about his campaign strategy in a race for the Nov. 8 election made up of 11 candidates dominated by the billionaire Trump and U.S. Senator Cruz of Texas. His prospects reach a critical moment at a Thursday night debate in South Carolina when he tries to position himself as the consensus alternative to Trump and Cruz and distance himself from such establishment candidates as former Florida governor Jeb Bush and governors Chris Christie of New Jersey and John Kasich of Ohio. Republican experts say he seems to be straddling two political lanes, trying to win over establishment Republicans as well as anti-establishment conservatives who favor Cruz. The debate, on the Fox Business Network, is due to begin at 9 p.m. ET on Thursday (0200 GMT on Friday). The son of Cuban immigrants, Rubio has drawn support by stressing his working-class upbringing in Las Vegas and Miami as the child of a bartender father and a mother who was both a maid and a cashier. But voters and party operatives suggest he has until recently failed to commit to the intimate face-to-face politicking considered mandatory by voters in either Iowa or New Hampshire, which has a Feb. 9 primary. Rubio aides acknowledge the high stakes of the coming weeks. "I feel good but we've got to close strong," said Rubio's New Hampshire state director, Jim Merrill. A Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll showed Rubio on Wednesday at 6.7 percent, compared to 15.2 percent little more than a month ago, falling from second place to fifth among Republicans after Trump, Cruz, Bush and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. A QUESTION OF COMMITMENT Some voters have cited a tendency by Rubio in past months to stick to well-honed talking points on the stump instead of mixing it up at town-hall meetings where people can ask questions. This has raised concerns he might lack necessary experience. "There's a lot of people who were very interested in him and continue to be, but in Iowa it just seems like he hasn't fully committed himself to aggressively campaign in the state and that's causing some pause," Iowa Republican strategist Doug Gross said. Dennis Thorell of New Durham, New Hampshire, said Rubio needed a longer resume of accomplishments than U.S. senator and former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. Thorell said Rubio might be better suited for the vice presidency or another top job in a Republican administration. "He hasn't had any experience running anything," Thorell said while listening to Rubio in Concord, New Hampshire, last week. "He did very well in the legislature down in Florida and was mentored by Jeb (Bush) but he hasn't run anything." Rival candidates for the Republican nomination have assailed Rubio also for his absences from the U.S. Senate during hearings and floor votes, raising further questions about how he spends his time. Defending his record of missed votes, Rubio has said the majority of his time is spent in service to his constituents and his Senate committee work, both of which he says continue unabated. ADVERTISING BOOST Rubio aides told Reuters they plan a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign for New Hampshire and expect to outspend all rivals on the TV airwaves in the state. The aides said Rubio has plans to be a major presence in both Iowa and New Hampshire in the final stretch, with a schedule that will include plenty of give-and-take with voters in informal settings such as town halls. They said Rubio's schedule is as heavy as any of his rivals, but that much of it has been at behind-the-scenes fund-raising events that have been essential to get him the resources needed for the final push. Republican strategists say Rubio's path to the nomination would have to start with at least a third-place finish in Iowa presumably behind poll leaders Cruz and Trump, which would deliver him some momentum going into New Hampshire. If Rubio goes on to place high in Iowa and do well in New Hampshire, he and his aides will see it as the realization of a strategy of going for broke at the right moment in the states that render the first judgments in the presidential race. "From the get-go we said we didn't want to peak in September, we wanted to peak in February. It's starting to grow. It feels like it's starting to happen for us," Rubio spokesman Alex Conant said. Republican analysts say Rubio appears to be as well-placed as any of his rivals in the drive to become the establishment Republican favorite. He is drawing increasingly larger crowds in New Hampshire and has a solid organization in the state. "I think he suffered from the perception that he hasn't been here as much and worked it as hard as some of his competitors," Republican strategist Steve Duprey said. "If he puts the pedal to the metal, he could do very well." For more on the 2016 presidential race, see the Reuters blog, Tales from the Trail (http://blogs.reuters.com/talesfromthetrail/). (Additional reporting by Alana Wise; Editing by Caren Bohan and Howard Goller) New Rule Greenlights Aquaculture in Gulf of Mexico Federal Waters "While this framework is the first of its kind in federal waters, the states already support many successful and thriving aquaculture operations in their waters," said Eileen Sobeck, assistant NOAA administrator for fisheries. "Allowing this type of seafood production will not only reduce U.S. dependency on imports, but also provide a domestic source of sustainable fish protein and create jobs." The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published a final rule Jan. 11 that implements the first U.S. comprehensive regulatory program for aquaculture in federal waters -- specifically, federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico. "As demand for seafood continues to rise, aquaculture presents a tremendous opportunity not only to meet this demand, but also to increase opportunities for the seafood industry and job creation," said Kathryn Sullivan, Ph.D., NOAA's administrator. "Expanding U.S. aquaculture in federal waters complements wild harvest fisheries and supports our efforts to maintain sustainable fisheries and resilient oceans." These federal waters begin where state jurisdiction ends and extend to 200 miles offshore. In this case, federal waters begin three nautical miles off Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama and nine nautical miles off Texas and the west coast of Florida. "While this framework is the first of its kind in federal waters, the states already support many successful and thriving aquaculture operations in their waters," explained Eileen Sobeck, assistant NOAA administrator for fisheries. "Allowing this type of seafood production will not only reduce U.S. dependency on imports, but also provide a domestic source of sustainable fish protein and create jobs." The rule authorizes NOAA Fisheries to issue permits to grow species that include red drum, cobia, and almaco jack in these waters for an initial period of 10 years; it attracted thousands of public comments. "The permit process includes comprehensive safeguards to ensure healthy oceans and coasts and considers other uses of ocean space, such as fishing. The rule implements environmental safeguards, including a baseline survey, monitoring, and reporting requirements. In addition to a NOAA permit, farming fish in federal waters also requires permits from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. NOAA Fisheries is working with these agencies to set up a coordinated permitting process for the Gulf," according to the agency's announcement. "This is all about managing and expanding seafood farming in an environmentally sound and economically sustainable way," said Michael Rubino, director of the NOAA Fisheries Office of Aquaculture. "The permit process we've laid out accounts for the region's unique needs and opens the door for other regions to follow suit." Three offshore mussel farms received federal permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last year; two were off Massachusetts and one off California. And the the Corps of Engineers and EPA are weighing an application for a company seeking to farm fish in federal waters off California. Facebooks Find A Friend emails have been declared illegal by Germanys highest court. The feature on Mark Zuckerbergs social network accesses users email address books and sends Facebook invites to people are arent yet members. Facebook has been ordered to disable the feature in Germany, after Frankfurts Federal Court of Justice deemed the unsolicited marketing to be in breach of the law. Invitation emails from Facebook to people who have not clearly consented to receiving them are an unacceptable nuisance, the court ruled. The court confirmed the findings of two lower courts in Berlin in 2012 and 2014, that concluded that Facebook had broken German data protection laws. A Facebook spokeswoman said that the company would review the full ruling as it becomes available. We will study it carefully to assess any impact on our services today, she said. This is not the first time that Facebook has faced scrutiny over privacy. In 2015, the social network was accused of tracking users, even after they had logged out. Image credit: APA-PictureDesk GmbH/REX Shutterstock CONSHOHOCKEN, PA--(Marketwired - January 15, 2016) - More than 12 million children in over 46 countries have better schools, teachers and learning materials, thanks to a 13 year partnership between the IKEA Foundation, Save the Children and UNICEF. Since 2003, the IKEA Foundation's 'Soft Toys for Education' campaign has contributed $97.7 million (EUR 88 million)* to Save the Children and UNICEF, helping to increase school attendance for some of the world's most marginalized and vulnerable children. Funds have also helped train teachers, provide educational materials and improve child-protection systems in schools and communities. During this year's campaign, which ran from November 1 through December 26, 2015, the U.S. alone raised over $1.4 million through soft toys, IKEA FAMILY children's books and card games sales. "Education is the most solid road leading out of poverty. All children have the right to an education but still too many are left behind. Partnering with UNICEF and Save the Children for 13 years has allowed us to address this issue strategically and invest in improving the quality of education in some of the world's poorest communities -- and we're incredibly grateful to the IKEA customers and co-workers who have worked so hard to make that right a reality for over 12 million children," said Per Heggenes, CEO IKEA Foundation. In Ethiopia, funds from the IKEA Foundation have helped UNICEF reach children in rural farming communities with basic education. The flexible schooling model has been so successful that the Ethiopian government has rolled it out nationally. "Over the last 13 years, the incredible support of the IKEA Foundation and IKEA employees and customers has been invaluable in helping UNICEF transform the lives of the world's most vulnerable children through education," said Caryl M. Stern, President and CEO of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. "Thanks to this partnership, millions of children around the world will have the opportunity to receive a quality education and build a better and brighter future for themselves and their communities." Story continues In China, IKEA Foundation funding helped develop early-childhood development centers for disadvantaged children living in selected rural communities. The impact of these centers on children's lives contributed to the Government of China's decision to universalize preschool education. With the support of the IKEA Foundation, Save the Children has worked in 17 countries in Asia and Europe to provide educational opportunities for previously out-of-school children, to improve the learning environment and to train teachers on child-centered, nonviolent and inclusive teaching methodology. "With the help of the 'Soft Toys for Education' campaign, Save the Children is creating a better and brighter future for children -- giving the most vulnerable kids access to learning, and teachers the tools to provide a better quality education," said Carolyn Miles, president and CEO of Save the Children. "We are extremely thankful for our partnership with the IKEA Foundation, and all the support we've received from IKEA employees and customers the past 13 years. Together we have made an enormous difference in the lives of children." In Bangladesh, the Philippines and Vietnam, Save the Children has, together with education authorities and civil society organizations, supported policy reform and practices to ensure that children from minority groups learn in a language they understand. Although the Soft Toys for Education campaign has ended its successful run, the IKEA Foundation will continue its commitment to UNICEF and Save the Children through ongoing grants in Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia in the areas of education, early-childhood care and development, child protection, adolescence and humanitarian response. Through the IKEA IWitness program, IKEA co-workers get to see first-hand how the campaigns they support create a better everyday life for children and their families in developing countries. *For every soft toy, children's book and card game sold, the IKEA Foundation donated one euro ($1.11)** to UNICEF and Save the Children to train teachers, improve child-protection systems, provide educational materials, and increase school attendance in some of the world's poorest communities. ** Dollar to Euro calculated at $1.11, August 31, 2015 Notes to editors Behind these figures are the individual stories of teachers and children like May Yoi Ching Marma in Bangladesh, Naima in the Philippines, Nokolunga in South Africa and Jan Sankoh in Sierra Leone. Save the Children The story of May Yoi Ching in Bangladesh https://www.savethechildren.net/save-children-ikea-foundation-partnership-case-study-bangladesh The story of Roland Ibishaj in Kosovo https://www.savethechildren.net/save-children-ikea-foundation-partnership-case-study-kosovo UNICEF The story of Nokulunga in South Africa http://www.unicef.org/esaro/5440_south-africa_day-of-the-girl-child.html Studying despite the Ebola outbreak Sierra Leone http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/sierraleone_81528.html About IKEA Group The IKEA vision is to create a better everyday life for the many people. Our business idea supports this vision by offering a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them. There are currently 329 IKEA Group stores in 27 countries. There are 41 IKEA stores in the US. In FY 15, IKEA Group had 716 million visitors to the stores and 1.9 billion visitors to IKEA.com. IKEA incorporates sustainability into day-to-day business and supports initiatives that benefit children and the environment. For more information, please visit www.IKEA-USA.com, facebook.com/IKEAUSA, @IKEAUSANews, @IKEAUSA, http://pinterest.com/IKEAUSA/, http://www.youtube.com/IKEAUSA, IKEA-USA.com/sharespace About IKEA Foundation The IKEA Foundation (Stichting IKEA Foundation) is the philanthropic arm of INGKA Foundation, the owner of the IKEA Group of companies. We aim to improve opportunities for children and youth in some of the world's poorest communities by funding holistic, long-term programs that can create substantial, lasting change. The IKEA Foundation works with strong strategic partners applying innovative approaches to achieve large-scale results in four fundamental areas of a child's life: a place to call home; a healthy start in life; a quality education; and a sustainable family income, while helping these communities fight and cope with climate change. Learn more at www.ikeafoundation.org and www.facebook.com/IKEAfoundation. About Save the Children Save the Children gives children in the United States and around the world a healthy start, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. We invest in childhood -- every day, in times of crisis and for our future. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook. About UNICEF The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) works in more than 190 countries and territories to put children first. UNICEF has helped save more children's lives than any other humanitarian organization, by providing health care and immunizations, clean water and sanitation, nutrition, education, emergency relief and more. The U.S. Fund for UNICEF supports UNICEF's work through fundraising, advocacy and education in the United States. Together, we are working toward the day when no children die from preventable causes and every child has a safe and healthy childhood. For more information, visit www.unicefusa.org. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Tri Tran, munchery Today, Tri Tran is the CEO of a $300 million startup. But when he was 11 years old, he was boarding a 35-foot-long boat with his grandmother and older brother that would transport him from Vietnam to Indonesia, the first leg of a trip that would eventually take the three of them to America. It was 1986. Tran, the son of two teachers, had been born just months before the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Instead of moving to America before the end of the war, Trans parents had decided to stay put. My dads father, my grandfather, had studied abroad before, and his attitude was its not easy being in a brand new country like that, Tran recalled. So the family stayed in Vietnam. But Trans brother, who was six years older than Tran, had ambitions to go to college. Trans parents knew America would be a better place for their sons to receive an education than war-torn Vietnam. Trans parents and the two boys tried escaping the country several times, but something bad always happened that ended up quashing the trip: once, they were discovered by police; another time, they missed the boat that would have taken them out of Vietnam as refugees. One time, the family ended up in jail for 24 hours after being caught escaping, and were later only released when they bribed the police. What actually led Tran to leave Vietnam was superstition. The organizer said, Hey, you four people my parents, my brother and I you four have bad zodiac signs together, Tran told Business Insider. Theyre very superstitious, so theyre like, The four of you dont go together, so youve only got three seats, just choose the three people who will go. Trans family came up with a plan: Tran, his brother, and his grandmother would go to California together, where Trans uncle already lived. Trans parents would stay behind and eventually join them. Story continues In April 1986, Tran, his grandmother, and his older brother boarded the 35-foot-long fishing boat with about 130 other people. We were packed like sardines on this boat, Tran told Business Insider. In the first two days, when we were inside Vietnamese water, you have to look like a fishing boat, otherwise its illegal, and theyd catch you. Tri Tran in Indonesia Munchery Everyone stayed below deck for those first two days, sitting in the same compartments usually used to hold fish. It was gross, Tran recalls. You know people sitting, jam-packed and throwing up on each other. After a five-day, six-night trip, Trans boat arrived in Indonesia, at a refugee camp. Tran remembers surviving on some basic sustenance for the first six months the family was there. Then, the paperwork process began: the family made contact with Tris uncle, who lived in San Jose, California, and they started the process of applying for sponsorship. Six months is actually considered very quick, versus other people who stay on those islands for years, Tran says. It was quick because my uncle is my grandmothers son, so thats a direct relationship, and she was 64 years old so she was considered senior, and then my brother and I were both under 18, so we were minors. munchery founders Having established contact with his uncle, Tran and his brother and grandmother were transferred to Singapore. They eventually boarded a plane that took them to San Francisco, where Trans uncle was waiting for them. From Vietnam to America, the whole trip took about seven months. Tran picked up his education in middle school, initially scraping by knowing just a few English words. I befriended a couple of other Vietnamese kids who knew more English than me, but could translate things for me, Tran says. Sitting in the classroom was just the teacher just spoke in English exclusively, so youre like uh huh, OK, whatever. Eventually, Tran learned English. He and his brother graduated from high school, and both went to MIT. As soon as he graduated in the late 90s, Tran hopped on a plane and came back to Silicon Valley to work at then-hot corporate computing company Silicon Graphics. hillary clinton munchery Meanwhile, Trans parents were still in Vietnam, and they were communicating only via snail mail and eventually through painstakingly coordinated phone calls. It was kind of odd hearing my moms voice because I couldnt even recognize her voice the first time when I heard it. I didnt know how miserable they were, Tran says. When I finished college I actually managed to save up enough money to buy a plane ticket, to go back to Vietnam for the first time 11 years later, with my brother. Tran and his brother sponsored their parents to come to the US. They made the move in 2000, settling down in the San Francisco Bay Area, near Tran. Tran left Silicon Graphics and worked at startups for a while, but eventually started Munchery, a food delivery startup in 2010. He was tasked with cooking for his family himself, his wife and his two sons and found himself constantly looking for an answer to the question: Whats for dinner? Now, Munchery is a $300 million company that offers both prepared meals and ready-to-assemble meal kits on-demand and scheduled. Its raised $117 million in VC funding from investors like Greycroft Partners, Tinder cofounder Justin Mateen, Menlo Partners, and Sherpa Capital. munchery Tran says more than 90 percent of Munchery orders are from repeat customers, and Tran says mobile adoption is really important to him. The companys mobile adoption has increased 10x over the past year. Now, the number of orders on mobile is approaching 50% of all of the orders placed through Munchery. Right now, Munchery operates in four key geographic areas: the Bay Area, Seattle, New York, and Los Angeles, and its looking to expand its footprint in each market it currently serves. For example, in Seattle, Tran says Munchery will start reaching Tacoma and North Seattle, and in New York, it plans to expand to Long Island, Westchester, and Upstate New York. The post A startup founder left Vietnam for America on a fishing boat when he was 11 now hes the CEO of a $300 million company appeared first on Business Insider. Latvian English Olaine, 2016-01-15 08:08 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- December 2015, consolidated sales Share in total sales Changes to December 2014 Russia 40% 24% Latvia 31% 30% The Netherlands 7% 145% Tajikistan 3% 89% Poland 3% 37% Ukraine 2% -89% Uzbekistan 2% NA Georgia 1% 138% Belarus 1% -91% Albania 1% 153% Other 8% 3% Total 100% -5% Sales of pharmacy chain of SIA Latvijas aptieka in December 2015 were 1.62 million euros, which represents an increase by 42% compared to the same period one year ago. 62 pharmacies were operating during December. Sales of SIA Silvanols during December were 0.52 million euros, which represents an increase by 24% compared to December 2014. During this period products of SIA Silvanols were sold to four European countries and with assistance from Olainfarm, also to Belarus and Azerbaijan. In twelve months of 2015, according to preliminary figures, the consolidated sales of AS Olainfarm reached 98.09 million euros, which represents an increase by 5% compared to the same period of 2014. The most rapid sales increase in 2015 was achieved in The Netherlands, where sales grew by 107%. Major sales markets of AS Olainfarm during 2015 were Russia, Latvia, Ukraine, Belarus and The Netherlands. 12 months of 2015, consolidated sales Share in total sales Changes to 12 months of 2014 Russia 34% -1% Latvia 24% 11% Ukraine 13% -7% Belarus 6% -19% The Netherlands 6% 107% Kazakhstan 2% 7% UK 2% -6% Poland 1% -13% Uzbekistan 1% 3% Tajikistan 1% 39% Other 9% 23% Total 100% 5% During 12 months of 2015, sales of pharmacy chain of SIA Latvijas aptieka were 16.9 million euros, which represents and increase by 13% compared to 12 months of 2014. Sales of SIA Silvanols during 2015 was 4.4 million euros, which represents an increase by 26% compared to 2014, when SIA Silvanols made sales worth 3.5 million euros. Products of SIA Silvanols during 2015 were sold to 13 countries on two continents, and with the help of AS Olainfarm also to Belarus, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. According to unconsolidated preliminary results, sales of AS Olainfarm during December 2015 were 6.08 million euros, which represents a reduction by 12% compared to December 2014. The biggest sales increase was achieved in Albania, where sales grew by 153%. Sales to The Netherlands grew by 145%, sales to Georgia grew by 138%, while sales to Tajikistan grew by 89%. Significant shipments during this period were also made to Uzbekistan. The major sale markets of AS Olainfarm in December 2015 were Russia, Latvia, and The Netherlands. In total during this period AS Olainfarm sold its products in 24 countries on three continents. December 2015, unconsolidated sales Share in total sales Changes to December 2014 Russia 49% 24% Latvia 18% 13% The Netherlands 8% 145% Tajikistan 4% 89% Ukraine 3% -89% Poland 2% 4% Uzbekistan 2% NA Georgia 2% 138% Belarus 1% -91% Albania 1% 153% Other 9% 13% Total 100% -12% According to preliminary unconsolidated results, during 12 months of 2015, sales of AS Olainfarm were 85.67 million euros, which represents an increase by 5% compared to the same period of 2014. The most rapid sales increase in 2015 was achieved in The Netherlands, where sales grew by 107%. Sales to Turkmenistan grew by 46%, sales to Tajikistan grew by 39% and sales to Latvia grew by 25%. According to preliminary unconsolidated results, the major sales markets of AS Olainfarm in 2015 were Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Belarus and The Netherlands. In total during 2015 AS Olainfarm sold its products in 42 countries on five continents. 12 months of 2015, unconsolidated sales Share in total sales Changes to 12 months of 2014 Russia 39% -1% Ukraine 15% -7% Latvia 14% 25% Belarus 7% -19% The Netherlands 7% 107% Kazakhstan 3% 7% UK 2% -6% Uzbekistan 2% 3% Tajikistan 2% 39% Turkmenistan 1% 46% Other 9% 9% Total 100% 5% Annual General Meeting of shareholders of JSC Olainfarm, held on June 11, 2015 approved operating plan of the company, according to which the unconsolidated sales of the company in 2015 will reach 87 million euros, while consolidated sales will reach 100 million euro. According to these preliminary sales figures, the company has attained 98% of annual target for unconsolidated sales and 98% of annual target for consolidated sales. JSC Olainfarm is one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in Latvia with more than 40 years of experience in production of medication and chemical and pharmaceutical products. A basic principle of company's operations is to produce reliable and effective top quality products for Latvia and the rest of the world. Products made by the Group are being exported to more than 35 countries of the world, including the Baltics, Russia, other CIS, Europe, Asia, North America and Australia. BOSTON, Jan. 15, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- National Parents Organization welcomes the stunning news that the Council of Italian Bishops (Conferenza Episcopale Italiana, or CEI) has endorsed shared parenting after divorce or separation, based on a full-page spread that appeared in its official newspaper, Avvenire ("Future") on the Sunday before Christmas. The article was written by the Chief Editor of Avvenire, Luciano Moia. The article urges family courts to not only state support for shared parenting, but to also ensure the arrangement actually occurs in practice. Also, the article was supportive of legislative efforts that encourage shared parenting. Many Church observers believe that Avvenire would not publish anything known to contradict the views of the Pope on a sensitive subject. While research favoring the two-parent solution is now overwhelming, this is the first time a major religious body has taken a stance on shared parenting - where children spend as close to equal time as possible with both parents after divorce or separation. "This article follows a series of statements by Pope Francis over the last year emphasizing the critical importance of two parents for children, and specifically of the father, because of the problem of fatherlessness," said Dr. Ned Holstein, Founder and Board Chair of National Parents Organization. "This is an additional reason to believe that the December 20, 2015 article in Avvenire reflects the vision of the Pope. Given the historical reluctance of the Church to involve itself in matters of divorce, this is a striking development." In November, 2014, Pope Francis said that children have the right to be raised by a mother and a father, according to the Catholic News Agency. According to Catholic Radio, in January, 2015, Pope Francis "called on fathers to be present in the lives of their children," and said that "fathers are necessary as examples and guides of our children " In June, 2015, the Catholic Herald paraphrased the Pope as follows: "Even if couples are unable to live together, the Pope said, they must find a way to work together harmoniously. And if they get to the point where 'separation seems inevitable,' he said, 'know that the Church holds you in its heart and that your educating role does not end: you are and will always be dad and mum.' " In a sidebar to the recent main article, Avvenire pointed approvingly to the December conference of the International Council on Shared Parenting in Bonn, Germany, which National Parents Organization helped organize. It also reported approvingly on the shared parenting advocacy of Italian pediatrician Dr. Vittorio Vezzetti, who has been instrumental in working with the Church, and on the resolution passed in October by the Council of Europe calling for shared parenting legislation in the EU member states. Sharing of parenting time after separation or divorce remains an unusual family court result. In fact, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, shared parenting occurs less than 20 percent of the time when parents divorce or separate. "National Parents Organization greatly appreciates the weight of a voice as prominent as the Catholic Church. I hope that family courts and legislative leaders throughout the United States will follow the Catholic Church's lead and resolve to support the best interests of children by backing shared parenting in 2016," Dr. Holstein said. MEDIA SOURCE Ned Holstein, M.D., M.S. A regular contributor to local and national media, Dr. Holstein is Founder and Chair of the Board of National Parents Organization. Dr. Holstein was appointed by the Governor of Massachusetts to the Massachusetts Working Group on Child Centered Family Law, and he was previously appointed by a Massachusetts Chief Justice to a task force charged with reviewing and revising the state's child support guidelines. A graduate of Harvard College, Holstein also earned a Master's degree in psychology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His medical degree is from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where he serves on the faculty. ABOUT NATIONAL PARENTS ORGANIZATION National Parents Organization, a charitable and educational 501 (c)(3) organization, seeks better lives for children through family law reform that establishes equal rights and responsibilities for fathers and mothers after divorce or separation. The organization is focused on promoting shared parenting and preserving a child's strong bond with both parents, which is critically important to their emotional, mental, and physical health. In 2014, National Parents Organization released the Shared Parenting Report Card, the first study to rank the states on child custody laws. Visit the National Parents Organization website at www.nationalparentsorganization.org. As of August 26th, 2021 Yahoo India will no longer be publishing content. Your Yahoo Account Mail and Search experiences will not be affected in any way and will operate as usual. We thank you for your support and readership. For more information on Yahoo India, please visit the FAQ #DP DP bristles at prosecution probes targeting top officials of previous administration The main opposition Democratic Party (DP) strongly protested prosecution investigations that led to arrest warrant requests for former top officials of the previous Moon Jae-in gov... By Idrees Ali and David Alexander WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Officials at a U.S. Army biodefense lab in Utah had multiple warning signs of safety issues but failed to take steps that could have averted the mistaken shipment of live anthrax to other labs, according to a military investigation report released on Friday. While no single event or individual directly caused the shipment, a number of people, including leaders at Dugway Proving Ground, should be held accountable, the report said. "A combination of events including gaps in science, institutional issues, and personal accountability, when taken together each contributed to this event," Major General Paul Ostrowski told reporters. The lab at Dugway Proving Ground, an Army facility southwest of Salt Lake City, is responsible for neutralizing anthrax spores that are sent to other laboratories for medical research and investigation. For more than a decade, the lab used a technique that failed to fully neutralize the spores on many occasions, resulting in live spores of the deadly bacteria being sent to 192 labs in the United States and abroad, Defense Department officials reported last year. The report concluded that senior leadership at the lab downplayed previous incidents and showed complacency. "The leadership at (Dugway) did not comprehensively investigate these mishaps, address incidents as training/educational opportunities, or take disciplinary action against personnel," the report said. Lieutenant General Thomas Spoehr, director of the Army's office of business transformation, said a review panel, with scientists from within and outside the Defense Department, would be created to look at procedures for working with biological weapons. Spoehr added that Dugway's "mission of producing biological agents for export" had also been eliminated. FAILED TO ACT Officials failed to take effective action to correct the problems even after serious incidents at the labs between 2007 and 2011, according to the report. The review said five leaders, including two former commanders of the lab, failed to take appropriate actions. The report named only Brigadier General William E. King IV, who was in command at Dugway as a colonel from 2009 to 2011. King is now commanding general at the 20th Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, Explosive Command at the Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. "Colonel King responded to each incident by correcting deficiencies identified by outside organizations, but he failed to conduct internal reviews to improve the operations of (Dugway) and prevent future incidents," the report said. King could not immediately be reached for comment. (Editing by Bernadette Baum, Bernard Orr) Milan (AFP) - Roberto Mancini says Andrea Ranocchia can leave the club but insists the rest of his Inter Milan players are "staying right where they are" during the winter transfer window. Out-of-favour Ranocchia had been linked with a move to the Premier League but the former Italy defender's most likely destination is now Sampdoria, according to reports Friday. Inter were forced to pay a six million euro fine at the end of last season after breaching UEFA's financial fair play regulations, meaning there are likely to be no new arrivals in January unless current players move elsewhere. Mancini said Friday: "There are a few rumours flying around, but for now all the players are staying right where they are. "January is a bit of an awkward month for this reason. If Andrea Ranocchia decides to accept an offer, we will look to bring in an equivalent player." Mancini's men have been in impressive form so far this season and at the halfway point sit just two points off leaders Napoli, having given up the lead after a shock 1-0 defeat to Sassuolo last weekend. Mancini, who won seven trophies including three consecutive league titles with Inter in his previous spell in charge, indicated he is happy with his current crop of players. Speaking a day ahead of a "tough" trip to Atalanta, he added: "I think this team can stay as it is right until the end. "As I've always said, other teams may have more stars but the fact that we've consistently been between first and second place means we only need to keep calm and concentrated to stay where we are." A run of four straight defeats has seen Atalanta drop to 11th place at 17 points off the lead, but Mancini says Edy Reja's men are among three smaller teams in the league, along with Empoli and Sassuolo, that are tough to crack. "We know that Empoli, Sassuolo and Atalanta are three teams with pace, quality and nothing to lose," he said. Story continues "I want to see the same spirit we saw against Sassuolo only with a different final result." A win for Inter would send them back on top, at least until Napoli host Sassuolo in Saturday's late game at the San Paolo. On Tuesday, Napoli host Inter in the quarter-final of the Italian Cup. Juventus, who are also two points off the pace but in second place, are away to Udinese on Sunday. Washington (AFP) - Eight civilians were killed and three others injured in air strikes carried out from April to July of last year against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria, the US military said Friday. US Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees operations in the Middle East, said the deaths came during three strikes in Syria and two in Iraq, bringing to 14 the total number of civilians the US-led coalition has acknowledged killing in the two countries since operations against the Islamic State group began in August 2014. "We deeply regret the unintentional loss of life and injuries resulting from those air strikes," CENTCOM said in a statement revealing the results of their investigations. Two of the victims died on April 12 near Hawijah in Iraq during a strike on an IS "tactical unit," CENTCOM said, and three others were killed in another strike near Suluk in Syria on June 11. On July 4, near the IS stronghold of Raqa in Syria, three civilians were "likely" killed during a strike against a high-value IS target. The car and motorcycle they were traveling in had crossed into the target zone after the bomb was released, CENTCOM said. Though the military used the term "likely," their statement also says that in all the strikes, "civilian casualties unfortunately did occur." Officials said they had determined the strikes complied with the law of armed conflict, "and all appropriate precautions were taken." The latest announcement marks the third time since the US-led coalition started bombing IS jihadists that the military has acknowledged civilian casualties. In November last year, the Pentagon said four people had been killed in a US air strike against an IS checkpoint in Hatra in Iraq in March. The military has also acknowledged the deaths of two children in Syria in November 2014. Despite such incidents, US officials frequently boast of the accuracy of their missile strikes and bomb drops. Story continues As of January 10, the coalition had carried out 9,560 strikes, and the Pentagon has said more than 97 percent of such attacks hit their proper targets. But air campaign critics claim coalition strikes are killing many more civilians than the United States has acknowledged. Airwars, a London-based group of independent journalists, published a report in August saying "many hundreds" of civilians had been killed. - Warning IS oil truck drivers - Still, the United States has gone to considerable lengths to avoid many civilian deaths. In a move ridiculed by hawkish opponents in the US Congress and privately by some coalition partners, pilots dropped pamphlets before bombing trucks ferrying illicit oil around Syria for the IS group. The military reasoned the truck drivers, while working for the jihadists, were not themselves members of the group. The Pentagon has said it is prepared to alter rules of engagement when necessary to hit high-value targets, provided these attacks yield significant gains against the jihadists. A possible illustration of this came Monday, when a coalition strike on an IS facility hoarding millions of dollars in cash reportedly killed five to seven civilians. CENTCOM spokesman Colonel Pat Ryder told AFP the coalition had received 120 allegations of civilian killings. Fourteen of these remain under investigation, 19 are closed and the rest were "deemed to be not credible," he said. "In accordance with our commitment to transparency, we are working to release the assessment findings of the remaining closed allegations as soon as possible," he said. News Microsoft Expanding Windows 10 Push to Small Businesses Microsoft's Windows 10 upgrade push will soon expand to organizations, the company said on Wednesday. Starting in the United States "later this month" and other markets "shortly thereafter," Microsoft will deliver its Get Windows 10 (GWX) application to domain-joined PCs. The GWX app produces a "nagware"-like notice that pops up on PC desktops, prompting individual users to upgrade their machines to Windows 10. The move will affect organizations running Windows 7 Pro or Windows 8.1 Pro editions. In addition, only PCs configured to receive updates automatically from Microsoft's Windows Update service will get the GWX app, Microsoft indicated. If the organization uses System Center Configuration Manager or Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) to manage its devices (which is an unlikely scenario for small organizations), then this GWX push won't happen, according to Microsoft. Users of Enterprise editions or embedded editions of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 aren't affected by this policy change. Prior to Windows 10's release, Microsoft MVP Andre Da Costa had explained that domain-joined users of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and Windows 8.1 PCs wouldn't get the GWX notice. However, with this week's announcement from Microsoft, that approach is changing. Small businesses and organizations that want to control their PC environments, and not potentially have individual users upgrading to Windows 10, will need to take action very soon if they want to block Microsoft's upgrade push. Microsoft is claiming that small businesses have been asking for the GWX app as an easy way to upgrade. It's being delivered because of "ongoing customer requests from many small businesses and other small organizations," the announcement stated. However, Microsoft MVP Aidan Finn has noted that most small businesses likely won't know about this policy change. In addition, they likely are least prepared to deal with potential compatibility issues. "Microsoft opting to force change and uncertainty on those businesses that are least ready is down right dumb," Finn commented in a blog post. The Windows 10 upgrade process can take a couple of hours to complete, which could disrupt small business operations if individuals accept the GWX app's invitation to "upgrade now." The process involves a potential download of files of up to 3GB to carry out the upgrade. It's likely that users will instigate the upgrade process if they see the GWX notice. Late last year, it was noticed that the GWX notice just showed an "upgrade now" and "upgrade later" message. The ability to decline the upgrade was hidden. Smaller organizations running Windows Server Essentials, formerly known as Windows Small Business Server, apparently have special problems applying Windows 10 upgrades. Microsoft released a Client Connector upgrade for Windows Server Essentials that added support for Windows 10 clients back in November. However, a Windows 10 upgrade allegedly can "break" the connector. Microsoft MVP Susan Bradley has outlined some of the nuances involved in adding Windows 10 to computing environments with Windows Server Essentials in her blog. Her recommendations also are summarized here. Blocking GWX Microsoft has published Knowledge Base article 3080351 with information on how to block the Windows 10 automatic upgrade process. Organizations can add a Group Policy Object and configure it to "turn off the upgrade to the latest version of Windows through Windows Update." Alternatively, they can alter the Windows registry using the edits described in the Knowledge Base article. However, there's another step to carry out, namely, blocking the GWX pop-up notice. To do that requires carrying out another edit of the Windows registry, as described in the Knowledge Base article. Of course, organizations bear the risks with registry edits. Microsoft recommends backing up the Windows registry before making the changes. If those changes get made, will that secure organizations against automatic upgrades to Windows 10? Maybe, but investigations by InfoWorld author Woody Leonhard indicated that the GWX upgrade push has been a part of various patches released by Microsoft for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 PCs. He cited Microsoft's patch KB 3035583 as having the effect of undoing "DisableGWX and DisableOSUpgrade registry settings." A free GWX Control Panel tool, which is designed to block Microsoft's Windows 10 upgrade push, has to be regularly updated to keep pace with Microsoft's attempts to push down upgrades. 1 Billion Goal This week's announcement, in a Microsoft "Windows for IT Pros" blog post, is the second time that Microsoft has announced a policy shift to push Windows 10 upgrades. In October, Microsoft explained that it planned to bump up the Windows 10 upgrade from an "optional update" in Windows Update to a "recommended update" sometime early this year. Potentially, depending on Windows Update settings, that change meant that Windows 10 could automatically install. Microsoft also did away with its reservation system for Window 10 upgrades that it earlier had in place. Presently, Windows 10 upgrades can happen when the bits and the machine are deemed ready. There's no waiting period, which was the earlier practice. Microsoft has a corporate goal to get Windows 10 on 1 billion devices by its fiscal-year 2018, which happens around October 2017. In January of this year, Microsoft reported that 200 million machines now run Windows 10. News Microsoft To Push Windows 10 to Some Domain Joined PCs This Month Microsoft indicated on Wednesday that it plans to expand its Windows 10 upgrade push starting "later this month" in the U.S. market, with other markets following "shortly thereafter." Specifically, Microsoft is planning to deliver its Get Windows 10 (GWX) application to domain-joined PCs, a move that is likely to affect smaller organizations running Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. The GWX app produces a "nagware"-like notice that pops up on PC desktops, prompting individual users to upgrade their machines to Windows 10. Only organizations running Windows 7 Pro or Windows 8.1 Pro editions will be affected. In addition, only PCs configured to receive updates automatically from Microsoft's Windows Update service will get the GWX app, Microsoft indicated. If the organization uses System Center Configuration Manager or Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) to manage its devices (which is an unlikely scenario for small organizations), then this GWX push won't happen, according to Microsoft. Users of Enterprise editions or embedded editions of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 aren't affected by this policy change. Prior to Windows 10's release, Microsoft MVP Andre Da Costa had explained that domain-joined users of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and Windows 8.1 PCs wouldn't get the GWX notice. However, with this week's announcement from Microsoft, that approach is changing. Small businesses and organizations that want to control their PC environments, and not potentially have individual users upgrading to Windows 10, will need to take action very soon if they want to block Microsoft's upgrade push. Microsoft is claiming that small businesses have been asking for the GWX app as an easy way to upgrade. It's being delivered because of "ongoing customer requests from many small businesses and other small organizations," the announcement stated. However, Microsoft MVP Aidan Finn has noted that most small businesses likely won't know about this policy change. In addition, they likely are least prepared to deal with potential compatibility issues. "Microsoft opting to force change and uncertainty on those businesses that are least ready is down right dumb," Finn commented, in a blog post. The Windows 10 upgrade process can take a couple of hours to complete, which could disrupt small business operations if individuals accept the GWX app's invitation to "upgrade now." The process involves a potential download of files of up to 3GB to carry out the upgrade. It's likely that users will instigate the upgrade process if they see the GWX notice. Late last year, it was noticed that the GWX notice just showed an "upgrade now" and "upgrade later" message. The ability to decline the upgrade was hidden. Smaller organizations running Windows Server Essentials, formerly known as Windows Small Business Server, apparently have special problems applying Windows 10 upgrades. Microsoft released a Client Connector upgrade for Windows Server Essentials that added support for Windows 10 clients back in November. However, a Windows 10 upgrade allegedly can "break" the connector. Microsoft MVP Susan Bradley has outlined some of the nuances involved in adding Windows 10 to computing environments with Windows Server Essentials in her blog. Her recommendations also are summarized here. Blocking GWX Microsoft has published a Knowledge Base article 3080351 with information on how to block the Windows 10 automatic upgrade process. Organizations can add a Group Policy Object and configure it to "turn off the upgrade to the latest version of Windows through Windows Update." Alternatively, they can alter the Windows registry using the edits described in the Knowledge Base article. However, there's another step to carry out, namely, blocking the GWX popup notice. To do that requires carrying out another edit of the Windows registry, as described in the Knowledge Base article. Of course, organizations bear the risks with registry edits. Microsoft recommends backing up the Windows registry before making the changes. If those changes get made, will that secure organizations against automatic upgrades to Windows 10? Maybe, but investigations by InfoWorld author Woody Leonhard indicated that the GWX upgrade push has been a part of various patches released by Microsoft for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 PCs. He cited Microsoft's patch KB 3035583 as having the effect of undoing "DisableGWX and DisableOSUpgrade registry settings." A free GWX Control Panel tool, which is designed to block Microsoft's Windows 10 upgrade push, has to be regularly updated to keep pace with Microsoft's attempts to push down upgrades. 1 Billion Goal This week's announcement, in a Microsoft "Windows for IT Pros" blog post, is the second time that Microsoft has announced a policy shift to push Windows 10 upgrades. In October, Microsoft explained that it planned to bump up the Windows 10 upgrade from an "optional update" in Windows Update to a "recommended update" sometime early this year. Potentially, depending on Windows Update settings, that change meant that Windows 10 could automatically install. Microsoft also did away with its reservation system for Window 10 upgrades that it earlier had in place. Presently, Windows 10 upgrades can happen when the bits and the machine are deemed ready. There's no waiting period, which was the earlier practice. Microsoft has a corporate goal to get Windows 10 on 1 billion devices by its fiscal-year 2018, which happens around October 2017. In January of this year, Microsoft reported that 200 million machines now run Windows 10. Air France on Friday presented unions with a new development plan, revising a restructuring project that had prompted violent demonstrations and physical attacks on company managers. The new blueprint calls for two aircraft to be added to the carrier's long-haul services per year between 2017 and 2020, and possible job creations, subject to an agreement on productivity, unions said after a meeting in which management submitted the proposals. If approved, the project will replace the second stage of the so-called "Plan B" austerity programme, which had called for the withdrawal of nine planes from the company's fleet, reduced flight schedules and 2,000 job cuts. Management will, however, implement thousands of job cuts in 2016 as part of the first phase of "Plan B", union representatives said. Any future job creations would concern navigators and pilots, Mehdi Kemoune, a representative for the CGT union, told AFP. There would also be no forced job cuts for economic reasons for ground staff until mid-2018, he said, so long as staff accepted redeployment requests. Unions gave the new plan a mixed reception, their representatives said. The new approach is a departure from a restructuring project presented last year that led to chaotic scenes in October when two of Air France's executives had their shirts ripped off by angry staff. In pictures carried by media across the world, human resources chief Xavier Broseta, naked from the waist up, had to scale a fence after he was pursued from a meeting about the proposals. Another executive, Pierre Plissonnier, also had his shirt and jacket torn. The violent protests took place at Air France's headquarters on the outskirts of Paris on October 5 as management announced a plan to cut 2,900 jobs. In November, Air France sacked four employees and started dismissal proceedings against a union representative over the violent scenes. The incident highlighted rising tensions at France's national flag carrier as the airline, facing intense competition from global rivals, seeks to persuade its pilots to adopt more flexible working practices. Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran next week, Beijing's foreign ministry said Friday, as the world's second-largest economy seeks greater diplomatic heft in a crucial and tense region. Spokesman Lu Kang said in a statement that Xi would visit the three Middle Eastern countries over five days from Tuesday. The trip, Xi's first to the region as president, comes amid mounting tensions over the war in Syria and after protesters ransacked and burned the Saudi Embassy in Tehran over the execution of a Shiite cleric. China depends on the Middle East for its oil supplies but has long taken a back seat in the region's diplomatic and other disputes, only recently beginning to expand its role, especially in the Syrian crisis. "China is the biggest importer of Middle Eastern oil," Zhu Feng, professor at Peking University's School of International Studies, told AFP. "So stability in the Middle East is what China would most like to see." As China's economy has grown, its dependence on imported oil and natural gas has increased, making the Middle East a crucial part of Beijing's strategy as it seeks to expand its influence through Xi's signature foreign policy initiative, known as "One Belt One Road". The massive investment scheme aims to increase China's footprint from central Asia to Europe through the use of loans to build infrastructure and transport networks. Touted as a revival of ancient Silk Road trade routes, the initiative underscores China's ambition to wield geopolitical power to match its economic might. "Xi Jinping is very committed to projecting China's image overseas, to boosting China's international footprint to a level which is commensurate with its fast-growing economic and military power," Willy Lam, professor of politics at Chinese University of Hong Kong, told AFP. Beijing was trying to project power and influence in the Middle East, seeing an opening in the troubled region as US policy "hasn't been very successful under (US President Barack) Obama", he said. Story continues China was presenting itself as "a mediator with no strings attached", added Lam, in contrast to Washington, which has "vested interests in that part of the world going back four, five decades". - 'Rare opportunity' - This week a Chinese diplomat urged "calm and restraint" between Saudi Arabia and Iran, but Xi's trip was most probably organised before the discord erupted between Riyadh and Tehran, Zhu said. "Clearly now there are tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, so he will be going there in the role of persuader" seeking cooperation against in the fight against the Islamic State jihadist group, Zhu said. "China will try and do what it can, but it still won't play a main role." In a commentary, the official Xinhua news agency said: "Although China never takes sides, it will be a rare opportunity for China to call for calm and restraint from both sides." In the past month, Beijing has hosted high-level members from both the Syrian regime and its opposition. It has consistently urged a "political solution" to the Syrian crisis, despite being seen as having long protected President Bashar al-Assad, and four times vetoed UN Security Council measures aimed at addressing the conflict. Last year, China helped broker a landmark nuclear deal with Iran, which has begun to emerge following years of international isolation. Days after the signing of the historic framework agreement, Iran was approved as a founding member of the Beijing-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which is expected to provide funding for One Belt One Road. On Wednesday, China published its first official Arab Policy Paper, claiming a "broad consensus on safeguarding state sovereignty and territorial integrity, defending national dignity, seeking political resolution to hotspot issues, and promoting peace and stability in the Middle East". By Kanupriya Kapoor and Darren Whiteside JAKARTA (Reuters) - Jeremy Douglas hadn't seen anything like what he was witnessing from his office window at the United Nations building in central Jakarta: police exchanging gunfire with militants amid a series of blasts at a key intersection of Indonesia's capital. "Serious exchange of fire in downtown #Jakarta. Didn't experience this in 3.5 years in #Pakistan," Douglas, the regional representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, wrote in a series of tweets on Thursday. "Amazing how some folks are walking and some running. Kind of a denial or something," he said in another tweet, referring to the pandemonium on the street below that took almost three hours to bring under control.He had just gotten out of his car to enter the U.N. building with a colleague "when a massive #bomb went off", he tweeted. "Chaos and we're going into lockdown." Indonesia has seen attacks by Islamist militants before, but a coordinated assault by a team of suicide bombers and gunmen is unprecedented and has echoes of the sieges seen in Mumbai seven years ago and in Paris last November. The attack began around 10:30 a.m. with a blast just outside a Starbucks cafe near the intersection. A police post in the intersection by the cafe was also damaged in one of the explosions. Police said they suspected at least three suicide bombers were involved. The numbers kept changing in the hours after the attack, but by late afternoon officials said five militants had died and two had been arrested. One policeman was also killed. Reuters photographer Darren Whiteside, who was near the Starbucks when the blast went off, said debris was strewn about the street 30-40 metres in front of the cafe and he saw a police officer's body being dragged away. Police responded in force within minutes, Whiteside said. Black armoured cars screeched to a halt in front of the Starbucks and sniper teams were deployed near Sarinah's, Jakarta's oldest department store, across the street from the United Nations building. Helicopters flew overhead, as police tried to hold back a huge crowd around the scene, he said. Dozens of military troops were also deployed at the scene. Starbucks said in a statement one customer was injured in the attack and all of its employees were safe. M.Y. Farooqui, general manager with the Dubai-based firm OHME, was having breakfast at the Sari Pan Pacific Hotel next to Sarinahs when he heard a massive blast. Hotel is locked up from all sides and no one is allowed to go out or in. May God bless us, he wrote in a Facebook message to a Reuters reporter. The injured were taken to nearby Gatot Subroto hospital, where a whiteboard was set up with their names written on it as they were brought in. A woman, who hospital staff said was related to the dead police officer, came in crying, accompanied by a small child wearing an elementary school uniform. Arriving at the scene after the shooting stopped, Indonesia's security chief said it was too early to say who was behind the most dramatic militant attack on the Muslim-majority country since 2009, but said such events were no surprise. "Similar events have happened in Paris, Mumbai, New York, they can happen here too," Chief Security Minister Luhut Pandjaitan told reporters. Daily life mostly continued as normal across the usually traffic-clogged city, and the hashtag #KamiTidakTakut - "we are not afraid" - was trending among Indonesian Twitter users. (Reporting by Kanupriya Kapoor and Darren Whiteside. Additional reporting by Franciska Nangoy. Writing by Bill Tarrant; Editing by John Chalmers) By Silvia Ognibene FLORENCE, Italy (Reuters) - Italian police have arrested a Senegalese illegal immigrant who prosecutors believe killed Ashley Olsen, a U.S. woman who was found dead in her apartment in Florence last weekend. "We have collected very serious evidence of his guilt," Florence chief prosecutor Giuseppe Creazzo told reporters at a news conference on Thursday after the man was arrested and questioned in the early hours of the morning. Creazzo said the man, named as Diaw Cheik Tidianee, had met the 35-year-old Olsen in a local nightclub and that the two had consensual sex in her home under the influence of alcohol, and possibly drugs, before he killed her. She was strangled in the early hours of Friday, Creazzo said, but the autopsy revealed that she had two fractures to her skull -- injuries that would also have proved fatal. The case has attracted huge international media attention and investigators were keen to avoid any repeat of the drawn-out saga that followed the 2007 killing of British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia, not far from Florence. Kercher's American flatmate Amanda Knox and her Italian boyfriend spent almost four years in prison for the crime before finally being acquitted last year by Italy's highest appeals court. During a long interrogation that ended at 4.00 a.m. local time, Tidianee had "substantially admitted" the prosecutors' reconstruction of events, Creazzo said. Tidianee and his lawyers have not made any public comment but Italian media said he told police he had not meant to kill Olsen, but that she had fallen during a row. Creazzo did not give Tidianee's age but said he was born in 1988 and had arrived in Italy illegally a few months ago to join his brother who has been living in the country for some time. The case may fuel tensions over illegal immigration which have already led to a sharp rise in support for the anti-immigrant Northern League party. The only person finally found guilty of the Kercher murder was a drifter from the Ivory Coast, Rudy Guede, who was found to have sexually assaulted his victim before killing her. Witnesses and video surveillance cameras confirmed that Tidianee and Olsen had left the Montecarla nightclub and entered her house together, Creazzo said, adding that Tidianee had taken Olsen's phone and put his own SIM card inside it. The "decisive evidence" had come from Tidianee's DNA which was present on a condom and a cigarette butt found in the house and which matched DNA found under Olsen's finger nails. Tidianee is currently in a Florence prison and faces a charge of murder, aggravated by cruelty. "There was no sign of any erotic game," Creazzo said. Olsen came from Florida and had been living in the central Italian art city of Florence for the past three years. Friends said she had moved to Italy to join her father Walter Olsen, who teaches in the city. (Writing by Gavin Jones; Editing by Crispian Balmer and Catherine Evans) Chancellor Angela Merkel will host Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu for talks next Friday, her spokesman said, with discussions to centre on the suicide attack in Istanbul that claimed 10 German lives. Tuesday's "attack in Istanbul will play a central role" in the talks, said Steffen Seibert, spokesman for Merkel. The two leaders will also discuss issues on both countries' priority lists, including their fight against terrorism and a record refugee influx to Europe. The talks are part of a series of so-called government consultations that Germany has with only a handful of countries, including India and China. Friday's meeting would be the first with Turkey's cabinet and will include interior, foreign and defence ministers from both sides. Turkey has a special relationship with Germany as the biggest EU economy is not only home to around three million people with Turkish roots, but also its biggest trading partner. Turkey, which shares a border with war-torn Syria, is also a key player in the current record migrant influx to Europe, with EU countries needing Ankara's help to stem the flow. It has also stepped up its involvement in the US-led coalition against the Islamic State group, through air strikes as well as the hosting of war planes. SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea on Saturday called for the conclusion of a peace treaty with the United States and a halt to U.S. military exercises with South Korea to end its nuclear tests. The isolated state has long sought a peace treaty with the United States, as well as an end to the exercises by South Korea and the United States, which has about 28,500 troops based in South Korea. "Still valid are all proposals for preserving peace and stability on the peninsula and in Northeast Asia including the ones for ceasing our nuclear test and the conclusion of a peace treaty in return for U.S. halt to joint military exercises," North Korea's official KCNA news agency cited a spokesman for the country's foreign ministry as saying early on Saturday. Asked if the United States would consider a halt to joint exercises, U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said it had alliance commitments to South Korea. "We are going to continue to make sure the alliance is ready in all respects to act in defence of the South Korean people and the security of the peninsula," he told a regular news briefing. Asked earlier this week about North Korea's call for a peace treaty, the State Department reiterated its position that it remained open to dialogue with North Korea but said "the onus is on North Korea to take meaningful actions towards denuclearisation and refrain from provocations." The two Koreas remain in a technical state of war since their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. North Korea said on Jan. 6 it had tested a hydrogen bomb, provoking condemnation from its neighbours and the United States. Experts have expressed doubt that the North's fourth nuclear test was of a hydrogen bomb, as the blast was roughly the same size as that from its previous test, of a less powerful atomic bomb, in 2013. Pyongyang is under U.N. sanctions for its nuclear and missile programmes. (Reporting by Tony Munroe in Seoul; additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Washington, editing by Andrew Roche and Tom Brown) NEAR MADAYA, Syria/BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) - A second batch of aid reached a besieged Syrian town and two trapped villages on Thursday and the United Nations accused rival factions of committing war crimes by causing civilians to starve to death. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war, said aid trucks had entered the town of Madaya near the border with Lebanon, and the villages of Kefraya and al-Foua in Idlib province in the northwest. Syrian state media said six trucks had gone into Madaya. For months, tens of thousands have been blockaded by government troops in Madaya and surrounded by rebel forces in the two villages. "According to the ICRC team that entered Madaya, the people were very happy, even crying when they realised that wheat flour is on the way," Dominik Stillhart, International Committee of the Red Cross director of operations, said in New York. Aid officials hoped to bring in more supplies, with fuel deliveries set for Sunday, according to Stillhart. "We hope ... this effort will continue," said Yacoub El Hillo, the U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator in Syria, who accompanied the convoy. A senior U.N. human rights official said the use of starvation as a weapon was a war crime. "Starving civilians is a war crime under international humanitarian law and of course any such act deserves to be condemned, whether it's in Madaya or Idlib," said U.N. Human Rights High Commissioner Zeid bin Ra'ad. "Should there be prosecutions? Of course. At the very least there should be accountability for these crimes." "ATROCIOUS ACTS" U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Syria's warring parties, particularly the government, were committing "atrocious acts" and "unconscionable abuses" against civilians. "Let me be clear: the use of starvation as a weapon of war is a war crime," Ban told reporters. The siege of Madaya, where people have reportedly died of starvation, has become a focal issue for Syrian opposition groups who want all such blockades lifted before they enter negotiations with the government planned for Jan. 25. A prominent member of the political opposition to President Bashar al-Assad told Reuters that date was unrealistic, reiterating opposition demands for the lifting of sieges, a ceasefire and the release of detainees before negotiations. "I personally do not think Jan. 25 is a realistic date for when it will be possible to remove all obstacles facing the negotiations," George Sabra told Reuters. A total of 45 trucks carrying food and medical supplies were due to be delivered to Madaya, and 18 to al-Foua and Kefraya on Thursday, aid officials said. The Syrian Observatory said it had recorded 27 deaths in Madaya from malnutrition and lack of medical supplies, and at least 13 deaths in al-Foua and Kefraya due to lack of medical supplies. The population of Madaya is estimated at 40,000, while about 20,000 live in al-Foua and Kefraya. "The scenes we witnessed in Madaya were truly heartbreaking," said Marianne Gasser, the most senior official with the International Committee of the Red Cross in Syria. "The conditions are some of the worst that I have witnessed in my five years in the country. This cannot go on," she said. PEACE TALKS The talks planned for Jan. 25 in Geneva are part of a peace process endorsed by the U.N. Security Council last month in a rare display of international agreement on Syria, where the war has killed 250,000 people. U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said after meeting representatives of the United States, Russia and other powers on Wednesday that Jan. 25 was still the intended date. Russia said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry would meet in Zurich on Wednesday, five days before the talks date. But even with the backing of the United States and Russia, which support opposite sides in the conflict, the peace process faces formidable obstacles. "The meeting is due in a bit more than 10 days, but before then de Mistura will present in New York what he has achieved," said a senior Western diplomat. "But he still has to define how to press ahead with this mechanism which to me is not looking good because all sides are not agreed on the parameters." German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Jan. 25 remained the plan "but it is human beings who are negotiating on both sides" and changes regarding the date could still arise. Fighting is raging between government forces backed by the Russian air force and Iranian forces on one hand, and rebels including groups that have received military support from states including Saudi Arabia and the United States. Rebel groups that back the idea of a political settlement have rejected any negotiations before goodwill measures from Damascus including a ceasefire. Sabra, the opposition politician, said: "There are still towns under siege. There are still Russian attacks on villages, schools and hospitals. There is no sign of goodwill." There are about 15 siege locations in Syria, where 450,000 people are trapped, the United Nations says. The Syrian government has said it is ready to take part in the talks, but wants to see who is on the opposition negotiating team and a list of armed groups that will be classified as terrorists as part of the peace process. Underscoring the complications on that issue, Russia condemned as terrorists two rebel groups that are represented in a newly-formed opposition council tasked with overseeing the negotiations. "We do not see Ahrar al-Sham or Jaysh al-Islam as part of the opposition delegation because they are terrorist organisations," the RIA news agency quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov as saying. (Reporting by Kinda Makieh near Madaya, Tom Perry, Mariam Karouny and Lisa Barrington in Beirut, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Jack Stubbs and Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow, John Irish in Paris, Tom Finn in Doha, Francois Murphy in Vienna and Michelle Nichols in New York; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Giles Elgood) Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab militants stormed an African Union base Friday in the country's southwest, the Somali army said, with witnesses reporting several dead. "They launched an offensive on a military base at El-Adde and there was heavy fighting which caused casualties," Somali army colonel Idris Ahmed said, adding a Shebab suicide commando blasted a way into the base in the Gedo region, which borders Kenya and Ethiopia. Both Somali troops and Kenyan soldiers with the AU force, AMISOM, are deployed at that base. "There was suicide attack followed by the fighting and it seems that the base was stormed," Ahmed said. "AMISOM can confirm that there was an attack on our troops in El-Adde," the force said in a brief statement, but gave no further details. Shebab spokesman Shebab spokesman Abdiaziz Abu Musab claimed to have killed 63 Kenyan troops in the pre-dawn attack, but this could not be immediately verified. "The mujahedeen fighters carried out a successful operation this morning on a military base at El-Adde, and they have killed many of the Christian soldiers from Kenya," Musab said. "We have counted 63 dead bodies inside the base." The Shebab frequently exaggerates the number of troops they kill, while AMISOM rarely gives exact tolls. Kenya's army said Friday morning fighting was ongoing, and insisted that it was the Somali army base next door to its camp that was seized. "Al-Shebab militia attacked... the KDF troops under AMISOM counter-attacked, the fighting is still going on," said Kenya army spokesman David Obonyo. Local elder Hussein Adam said he heard a huge explosion followed by intense gunfire for about 45 minutes. "We don't know about the casualties, but people who went there saw many dead bodies strewn around," he said, having spoken to those who went to the base. The Shebab, fighting to overthrow Somalia's internationally-backed and AU-protected government, has launched a string of similar attacks. In September 2015, Shebab fighters stormed a Ugandan AMISOM base in Janale district, 80 kilometres (50 miles) southwest of Mogadishu in the Lower Shabelle region. And in June, Shebab killed dozens of Burundian soldiers when they overran an AMISOM outpost northwest of Mogadishu. The militants also stage frequent suicide attacks in the capital. But the 22,000-strong AMISOM force has also made significant gains against the Shebab, pushing them out of several strongholds in the southwest of the country. The Shebab have also staged attacks in Kenya, killing at least 67 people at Nairobi's Westgate Mall in 2013 and massacring 148 people at a university in Garissa in April 2015. The militants say the attacks are retaliation for the Kenyan military presence in Somalia and "war crimes" committed by Kenyan troops. ROME (Reuters) - Ethiopia faces its worst drought in decades, leading the United Nations food agency to call on Friday for an emergency cash injection of $50 million to help the country overcome the crisis. Crop production has fallen up to 90 percent in some regions and failed completely in the country's east, a consequence of an El Nino weather pattern that has caused significant declines in rain in some parts of the world and floods in others. The Rome-based UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said the drought had decimated Ethiopian livestock and threatened food supplies for 10.2 million people. Access to pasture and water will worsen until the rainy season begins in March, FAO said. "The outlook for 2016 is very grim," said FAO representative for Ethiopia Amadou Allahoury. "Food overall will become harder to access if we continue to see prices rise, food stocks deplete and livestock become weaker, less productive, and perish." Brought to its knees by famine in 1984, Ethiopia's economy is now one of the fastest-growing in the world, leaving it better able to deal with such crises. Agriculture also plays a smaller role in the economy, but the FAO says it still provides half of gross domestic product and 80 percent of employment. The agency's plan includes distributing seeds and animal feed, vaccinating animals, delivering 100,000 sheep and goats to vulnerable households and giving farmers cash for bringing weakened and unproductive livestock to slaughter. Communities will be offered support with savings-and-loans schemes, irrigation projects, and education. El Nino, marked by warming sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, causes both drought and flooding in Ethiopia. FAO said the latter was expected to be as destructive to agriculture as the lack of rain. (Reporting by Isla Binnie, editing by Larry King) By Rafiq Shirzad JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Islamic State claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on the Pakistani consulate in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad on Wednesday, stoking fears over the spread of the ultra-radical movement in Afghanistan. Afghan officials said all three attackers and at least seven members of the security forces died during the attack by the Islamic States, which hitherto had not struck high-profile Pakistani targets in Afghanistan. The attack, which coincided with efforts to restart the stalled peace process with Taliban insurgents and ease diplomatic tensions between India and Pakistan, added a dangerous new element to Afghanistan's volatile security mix. "This is a major concern for us if they carry out more attacks like this," an Afghan security official said. "We have enough problems to deal with already." Nangarhar, the province in which Jalalabad is located, has become the main Afghan stronghold of Islamic State (IS), which has battled the Taliban for leadership of the Islamist insurgency, attracting many former Taliban militants. But IS has not so far been regarded as ready to organise and mount a complex attack involving suicide bombers and gunmen hitting a major urban target, said the security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Attaullah Khogyani, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said a suicide bomber had tried to join a queue of people seeking visas to Pakistan and blew himself up after being prevented from entering the building. Witnesses in Jalalabad, the main trade gateway to the Khyber Pass and Pakistan, said heavy gunfire and a series of explosions could be heard during a battle that lasted several hours, and residents and children from a nearby school were evacuated. Islamic State said on its official Telegram messaging service channel that three members wearing suicide-bomb vests carried out the attack, which it said had killed dozens of people including "several Pakistani intelligence officers". It said two suicide attackers had been killed while a third escaped. Pakistan condemned the attack but said all members of the consulate staff were safe, with one official slightly injured by broken glass. The attack carried echoes of one last week on the Indian consulate in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, when a group of assailants barricaded themselves in a house and resisted security forces for about 24 hours after a suicide bombing. Delegates from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States met this week to try to resurrect efforts to end nearly 15 years of bloodshed in Afghanistan, even as fighting with the Taliban intensifies. In Pakistan on Wednesday, at least 14 people were killed in am explosion near a polio vaccination centre in the southwestern city of Quetta. (Additional reporting by Ahmad Sultan and Mirwais Harooni and Andrew MacAskill in Kabul, Tommy Wilkes in Islamabad and Omar Fahmy in Cairo; Editing by Robert Birsel and Miral Fahmy) BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union executive should come up with an assessment of the rule of law in Poland around mid-March, a spokesman said on Thursday after Brussels launched a probe into legal changes under a new conservative, Eurosceptic government in Warsaw. The unprecedented move came less than three months after the Law and Justice (PiS) party won national elections in Poland and swiftly subjected public media to direct government control and changed the law on the constitutional court. Under the procedure, the European Commission will now discuss with Warsaw its concerns that the changes eat into democratic principles. The main, though unlikely sanction, would be to strip Poland of its voting rights in the EU. Poland's Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said on Wednesday the exchanges with the Commission could take months. But the Commission's spokesman, Margaritis Schinas, gave a much tighter deadline. "The College (of Commissioners) gave a rendezvous meeting for mid-March that would allow for this structured and cooperative dialogue to conclude," Schinas told a regular news briefing on Thursday. "The Commission hopes, and yesterday (Commission Vice-President) Frans Timmermans... was rather confident that this process by mid-March will lead to the sort of outcome that would allow the Commission to assess the situation." Warsaw, where PiS promotes socially-minded economic policies along with ultra-conservative, Catholic values, says it has strong social mandate to carry out far-reaching changes. The European Commission, where each of 28 EU countries has one official, will base its decision on a ruling by an advisory body on constitutional law to the Council of Europe, a 47-nation European rights organisation that works closely with the EU. Poland has asked the so-called Venice Commission to comment on its changes to the law on the constitutional court and the body plans to adopt its conclusions on that matter at a plenary session due March 11-12. (Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska; editing by Jan Strupczewski) By Gabriela Baczynska and Jan Strupczewski BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union began an unprecedented inquiry on Wednesday into whether Poland's new conservative, Eurosceptic government has breached the EU's democratic standards by taking more control of the judiciary and public media. The first use of the EU executive's new Rule of Law Framework could in principle eventually lead to sanctions such as the suspension of Poland's voting rights. But the main impact now may be to further sour relations among EU member governments already strained by multiple crises and mounting nationalism. "The European Commission does not wish to put into question any of the democratic choices made by the Polish people," its deputy head, Frans Timmermans, wrote to the Polish justice minister in a letter on Wednesday that was seen by Reuters. "However, the European Union is founded on a common set of values ... which include in particular the respect for the rule of law," he added. "There can be no democracy and respect for fundamental rights without respect for the rule of law." The decision, by consensus, followed intense debate at the weekly meeting of the European Commission. Its 28 members, one from each EU state, weighed whether to continue informal talks with Warsaw or launch a formal confrontation which might harden attitudes within Jaroslaw Kaczynski's ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party. Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has said it should not be seen to be "bashing Poland" and officials had indicated the executive might hold off on triggering a formal review. But diplomats said Warsaw did itself no favours in Brussels by its combative reactions ahead of the Commission debate. One key minister dismissed criticism from EU powerhouse Berlin as "silly" and reminded Germans of their World War Two crimes in Poland, while a pro-government magazine depicted Chancellor Angela Merkel as Hitler on its cover, and Juncker as a Nazi general. Timmermans, who has responsibility for human rights on the executive, pushed his colleagues hard to launch the procedure, sources familiar with the meeting told Reuters. The Dutchman promoted the mechanism when he was foreign minister in The Hague in 2014 as a response to criticism the EU had failed to curb authoritarian measures by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. WARSAW UNFAZED The Polish government played down the Commission's move. A spokesman called it "standard procedure" and a "fact-finding operation by the European Commission on the basis of some speculation that has surfaced in western Europe". Deputy Foreign Minister Konrad Szymanski, visiting the European Parliament, said: "We are ready for dialogue." Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski told Reuters he found Timmermans' statements "contradictory", however, and Szymanski said the EU risked "taking sides" against PiS in Polish politics following its election victory in October. Timmermans said the Rule of Law Framework would usher in a "structured dialogue" with Warsaw. He and the Commission would review Polish responses by mid-March, after working with the Council of Europe, the pan-European human rights watchdog. Critics accuse Kaczynski and his party ally Prime Minister Beata Szydlo of rolling back judicial independence and freedom of speech. Supporters say the government is entitled to uphold Catholic and national values, independent of Brussels. PiS has packed the constitutional court with its appointees and changed the court's voting system, curbing its ability to censure legislation. It has also passed a law giving the government direct control over the appointment of public media chiefs. The procedure pits the Commission against by far the biggest of the ex-Communist eastern states that joined the EU a decade ago. Poland's seat on the Commission is held by a former minister in the previous, pro-European, centre-right government. The row comes at a time when the Union may be more divided than at any time in its six-decade history, including between east and west and rich and poor states, over a variety of major crises, including how to handle a big influx of Syrian refugees. Several eastern leaders have cited popular rejection of Muslims to justify opposing efforts by Brussels and Berlin to force all EU states to take in quotas of asylum-seekers. Senior EU officials have noted that, unlike Orban in Hungary, the Polish government has already faced substantial domestic protest at its actions, including demonstrations. Penalising a state for a "serious breach of (EU) values" under Article 7 of the EU treaty by, among other things, suspending its right to vote in EU councils is a "nuclear option" that has so far never been used. Juncker says it is unlikely to be applied against Poland, which leaves the bloc with few means except persuasion. Orban has already said he would veto sanctions -- a move that would in any case be considered only after a process under which the Commission can recommend changes to national legislation and then wait to see if they are implemented. (Additional reporting by Wiktor Szary in Warsaw; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Catherine Evans) By Ghazwan Hassan TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - Islamic State militants briefly took control of a northern Iraqi village on Thursday, forcing out police and pro-government fighters and underlining the fragility of the state's hold on the territory. The army retook Tal Kusaiba hours later in a counter- attack, though one senior official said militants were still holed up inside some houses in the predominately Sunni village, around 35 km (20 miles) east of Tikrit. The operation shows "they can still mount attacks and control places there," said Hisham al-Hashimi, an Iraqi analyst who has worked with the government. The early-morning attacks on Tal Kusaiba killed the police station chief and his guard along with nine fighters from a powerful Shi'ite militia and Sunni tribal force, police and tribal sources in nearby Alam said. The insurgents seized the police station and other government buildings before the army, supported by Iraqi air strikes as well as counter-terrorism forces and Badr militia fighters, forced them out, said Laith Hameed, a senior official in Alam said. Pro-government forces have been pushing north along the Tigris River for nearly a year, retaking Tikrit from Islamic State fighters in April and then driving them out of Baiji, 40 km (25 miles) further north, in October. Baghdad aims to maintain the momentum and continue north to recapture the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul later this year. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has said retaking the largest city under Islamic State control would signal the end of the group's presence in Iraq. Yet security forces' control over territory outside major population centres has proven more difficult to maintain. An attack this far south highlights the group's continued reach, especially in rural areas, even after the government claimed victory last month in the western city of Ramadi. "Daesh exploited a weak spot in the Himrin (mountain) area that is not under control of the (Iraqi) forces and attacked Kusaiba village with 10 vehicles, including Humvees," said Hameed, the Alam official, using an acronym for Islamic State. U.S. Army Col. Steve Warren, Baghdad-based spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition bombing Islamic State in Iraq and neighbouring Syria, said the insurgents regularly launched such "harassing attacks". "It's meant to try to slow the momentum of the Iraqi forces," he said. The militants, who seized swaths of northern and western Iraq in 2014, claimed responsibility for suicide attacks on Monday in Baghdad and Diyala that killed more than 40 people. Officials said the assaults were meant to detract from government advances in Ramadi and distract the security forces. (Additional reporting by Saif Hameed in Baghdad; Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Andrew Heavens) By Maja Zuvela SARAJEVO (Reuters) - An Austrian peace envoy in Bosnia has received death threats written on postcards that were distributed to the public by the party of Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, the envoy's office said on Friday. Dodik's SNSD party, which holds power in Bosnia's autonomous Serb Republic and has frequently locked horns with peace envoy Valentin Inzko, distributed 10,000 postcards to the public ahead of the Jan. 9 anniversary of the Serb Republic's founding. The postcards carried caricatures of Inzko and foreign judges on Bosnia's constitutional court, which had declared the Jan. 9 holiday discriminatory. The public was invited to write messages on the postcards and send them to Inzko. Dodik, who says Bosnia is doomed and the Serb Republic destined for independence, has long called for the departure of the peace envoy and other international officials tasked with monitoring Bosnia's recovery from its 1992-95 war. Inzko has the power to sack state officials deemed to be violating the 1995 peace deal that ended the war. Inzko's office said many of those who sent the postcards had simply expressed their political views, but that some contained offensive language, even death threats. Officials at the SNSD headquarters in the town of Banja Luka could not immediately be reached for comment. "It should be noted that making death threats is a criminal offence and the cards in question will be handed over to the competent authorities," Inzko's office said in a statement. "We understand that the postage for all of these postcards was prepaid, presumably by SNSD, and this raises questions about the role the party has played in facilitating death threats." The Bosnian Serbs mark 'Statehood Day' on Jan. 9, the day in 1992 when they declared independence from Bosnia ahead of a war that claimed 100,000 lives. But Bosnia's constitutional court ruled in November that the date should be changed because it coincides with an Orthodox Christian holiday and is therefore considered discriminatory to non-Serbs who also live in the region. (Editing by Matt Robinson and Andrew Heavens) By Jonathan Saul and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen LONDON/SINGAPORE (Reuters) - China's growing military presence in the South China Sea has drawn warnings from the United States that Beijing is seeking to exert control over one of the world's most important sea lanes, but so far the shipping industry seems less concerned. Beijing has been increasingly assertive in staking its claim to almost the whole of the sea, though which trillions of dollars of trade passes each year. This month China landed its first test flights on a new 3,000 metre (10,000 ft) runway it has built on a reef in the Spratly Islands, drawing protests from Vietnam and the Philippines which have overlapping claims in the area. Despite the diplomatic tensions, merchant shipping says operations are, as yet, unaffected. "For ship owners, its business as usual," said Captain Bjorn Hojgaard, chief executive officer at Anglo-Eastern Univan Group, one of the world's biggest ship management companies. "From our point of view, it's just another military base. It's only politics, commercially it makes no difference." The deep waters of the South China Basin between the Spratly and also-disputed Paracel Islands are the most direct shipping lane between northeast Asia's industrial hubs of China, Japan and South Korea and Europe and the Middle East. The geography of the region offers few economically viable alternative routes for large oil tankers, dry-bulk ships and container vessels. Reuters shipping data shows that, counting just Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) super-tankers, some 25 VLCCs are passing between the Spratly and Paracel islands at any time, with enough capacity to carry the equivalent of about 11 days' worth of Japanese demand. The U.S. military, which remains by far the most powerful naval force in the region, has warned that Beijing is seeking to establish a level of de facto control over the South China Sea that threatens freedom of navigation for international shipping. Speaking to reporters aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier in Japan last week, Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin, commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, said that already "we are kind of using China national rules for international (navigation)" in the sea. Admiral Scott Swift, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, had said in December that ships nearby these islands were now "subject to superfluous warnings that threaten routine commercial and military operations". Chinese President Xi Jinping said in November that freedom of navigation for shipping would never be a problem in the South China Sea. SABRE-RATTLING? Tensions in the South China Sea have risen over the last year as China has stepped up construction and reclamation to create man-made islands on reefs and atolls it controls. "It seems that the new strategically located islands reportedly constructed by China would give China more security leeway in the disputed waters and make it difficult for other forces to assert sea control," said Jonathan Moss, head of transport at law firm DWF, who acts for insurers and shipping companies. Michael Frodl, of the U.S.-based consultancy C-Level Global Risks, said China's goal was to use "air power to project into the waters" around the artificial islands. So far, however, there are few signs that the commercial shipping is being affected. "Ships have the right of free passage... and even if China does eventually take over the South China Sea, this shouldn't affect the passage of merchant ships," said Arthur Bowring, managing director of the Hong Kong Shipowners' Association, whose members operate or manage about 8 percent of the global merchant fleet. Khalid Hashim, managing director of Precious Shipping, one of Thailand's largest dry cargo ship owners, said that "despite all the sabre-rattling by the USA" shipping activity in the South China Sea remained normal. "I don't think the current tensions will escalate any further," he said, adding that the region's shipping lanes were too important for China's economy to be disrupted. Ship insurers also said had been no impact on the region's trading. Simon Lockwood, deputy managing director of marine at leading global insurance broker Willis Towers Watson, said the South China Sea area was not listed as a high risk area by the industry's influential Lloyd's Joint War Committee, which underwiters follow closely. "And as such insurers will not (and cannot) charge additional premiums for vessels operating in the region," Lockwood said. The 2014 "Sailing Directions" for the South China Sea produced by the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency gives extensive details on the Spratlys. It declares some 52,000 sq miles (135,000 sq km) as "Dangerous Ground" due to inadequate surveys and bad weather. It also notes that sovereignty in the area is "subject to competing claims which may be supported by a force of arms". Some shippers believe a greater Chinese presence could actually improve safety. "At the moment Hong Kong, with helicopters and fixed wing aircraft, has the responsibility for co-ordinating search-and-rescue activities in much of the South China Sea," one shipper in Singapore said. "If China is to base search-and-rescue assets on the (disputed) islands then there would potentially be faster response times, improving the chances of rescue and survival." (Additional reporting by Keith Wallis in SINGAPORE and Timothy Kelly in TOKYO; Writing by Henning Gloystein; Editing by Alex Richardson) By Angus MacSwan MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's King Felipe will meet leaders of political parties throughout next week in an attempt to help break the political impasse after last month's inconclusive national election, the palace announced on Friday. Although Spain is a constitutional monarchy and the king is a ceremonial figure, he also has a role as a facilitator. The country has had only an acting government since the Dec. 20 election. From Monday, the king will hold individual consultations at the Zarzuela Palace with the leaders of the 15 parties represented in parliament, starting with small regional parties, the palace said in a statement. The process will culminate on Friday, when Acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of the People's Party (PP), Pedro Sanchez of the opposition Socialists (PSOE), and Pablo Iglesias of the new left-wing party Podemos will discuss the situation with him. The king is then expected to propose a candidate for prime minister. The fragmented election has thrust Spain into a situation unprecedented in the four decades since the return of democracy. Rajoy's PP, which ruled for the past four years, won most seats but failed to gain an outright majority. The PSOE came second but also with greatly reduced support. Two new parties, the anti-austerity Podemos and the centrist Ciudadanos, attracted a new generation of voters disillusioned with the old elite, breaking the traditional mould. Rajoy has called for a "Grand Coalition" of the PP, PSOE and Ciuadadanos to maintain stability and confront a separatist challenge from the Catalonia region. The PP aims to hold a first vote on its proposal for a government by the end of January. The PSOE wants a coalition of the left with Podemos, but that idea is complicated by Podemos's support for a referendum on Catalonian independence, which Sanchez rejects. Many analysts believe a rerun of the election is inevitable. In his Christmas Eve message just days after the election, King Felipe appealed for dialogue and unity among Spaniards. "What should matter to all, first and foremost, is Spain and the general interest of the Spanish people," he said then. The crisis provides a test for Felipe, at 47 the world's third-youngest monarch, 18 months after he took over the throne when his father Juan Carlos abdicated. Juan Carlos had been popular among Spaniards for his role in the transition from dictatorship to democracy, notably for standing against an attempted military coup in 1981. But his popularity waned due to his perceived extravagance and scandals involving his family while Spaniards suffered a harsh recession. Felipe's performance has boosted the standing of the monarchy again. (Reporting by Angus MacSwan; Editing by Andrew Roche) BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand delivered a progress report on Thursday on efforts to clamp down on illegal fishing in a last-ditch attempt to show progress made ahead of a visit by EU officials next week. Thailand, the world's third-largest seafood exporter, faces a ban after the EU issued the country a "yellow card" in April for failing to crack down on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. Last month, Thailand said its seafood exports to Europe, the United States and Australia had not been hit by reports of slavery by campaign groups and media. At a news conference attended by the navy, labour and foreign affairs ministries, authorities said Thailand had registered most of its fishing vessels and caught groups suspected of human trafficking offences in the fishing sector. "We have completed 70 percent of the task," said Vice Admiral Jumpol Lumpiganon, deputy chief of staff for the Royal Thai Navy. National police said 35 groups suspected of involvement in human trafficking in the fishing industry and 73 individuals had been apprehended since April. Iris Petsa, Press Officer for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries at the European Commission, said the EU could not comment on what was said by the Thai authorities. "Indeed the delegation is going to Thailand next week and the delegation will have to come back and make an assessment. I cannot give a time-frame on when that decision will be made," Petsa told Reuters by telephone from Brussels. Thailand's annual exports to the EU are estimated to be worth between 575 million to 730 million euros ($641 million to $813 million). The government has said it is confident exports won't be banned. Sompong Srakaew, director of the Thailand-based Labour Rights Promotion Network which works with Thai and migrant workers in the fishing sector, said not all issues had been resolved and the government needs to take a long-term view. "The government mustn't take a short-term view just to meet the EU's targets," said Sompong. "Some progress has been made but the law will need to be enforced both in terms of monitoring vessels and also workers in the fishing sector." (Reporting by Amy Sawitta Lefevre; Editing by Nick Macfie) By Ju-min Park and Tony Munroe SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea warned North Korea on Wednesday that the United States and its allies were working on sanctions to inflict "bone-numbing pain" after its latest nuclear test, and urged China to do its part to rein in its isolated neighbour. With tension high on the border after the North's fourth nuclear test on Wednesday last week, South Korean forces fired shots towards what Yonhap News Agency said was a suspected North Korean drone. It returned to the North after the shots, South Korean military officials told Reuters. The North's nuclear test angered both China and the United States and again raised questions about what can be done to stop its development of nuclear weapons. The World Economic Forum withdrew its invitation for North Korea's foreign minister to attend its annual Davos meeting because of the nuclear test. It was to have been the country's first participation in the event in 18 years. The U.S. House of Representatives voted nearly unanimously on Tuesday to pass legislation to broaden sanctions on the North. But apparently unperturbed by the prospect of further international isolation, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for an expansion of the size and power of his country's nuclear arsenal, urging the "detonation of more powerful H-bombs", the North's state media reported. North Korea said last week it had tested a powerful hydrogen bomb but the United States and various experts doubt that, as the blast was roughly the same size as that from its previous test, of an atomic bomb, in 2013. South Korean President Park Geun-hye said more "provocations" by the North including "cyber-terrorism" were possible and new sanctions should be tougher than previous ones. She did not give specifics. "We are cooperating closely with the United States and allies to come up with effective sanctions that will make North Korea feel bone-numbing pain, not only at the Security Council but also bilaterally and multilaterally," she said in a speech. Park said South Korea and China were discussing a U.N. Security Council resolution on North Korea, noting that China had stated repeatedly that it would not tolerate its nuclear programme. China is North Korea's main ally and trade partner but it opposes its bombs, while Beijing's ties with South Korea have grown closer in recent years. "I am certain that China is very well aware if such a strong will isn't followed by necessary steps, we will not be able to stop the North's fifth and sixth nuclear tests and we cannot guarantee true peace and stability," Park said. "I believe the Chinese government will not allow the situation on the Korean peninsula to deteriorate further." Sung Kim, U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, met with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts in Seoul on Wednesday and said the three agreed that a "meaningful" new sanctions resolution was needed from the Security Council. "I hope the Chinese authorities agree with us that we simply cannot take a business as usual approach to this latest provocation. We will be working very closely with them to come up with a meaningful resolution," he said. In Washington, White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said China could and should put more pressure on North Korea. "We understand their concern about instability on the Korean peninsula, but the fact of the matter is that the current status quo is destabilising where you have nuclear tests," he told a news briefing. Rhodes said it was important the United States and its allies developed capabilities to respond and referred to Sunday's U.S. B-52 bomber flight over South Korea, missile defence and military cooperation with both South Korea and Japan. Rhodes also said that President Barack Obama chose not to mention North Korea in his State of the Union address on Tuesday as he did not want to give Kim Jong Un the attention. "He likes attention and probably would like nothing more than the president to spend a lot of time to talk about it in the State of the Union," Rhodes said. "We didn't particularly feel compelled to give him that attention." 'FINANCIAL PRESSURE' China rejects complaints it is not doing enough on North Korea. In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China's efforts towards a denuclearised Korean peninsula would continue. "This is in everyone's interests and is everyone's responsibility, including China and South Korea," he said. The U.S. House sanctions measure passed by 418-2 and Senate leaders expect to consider a similar bill shortly. The House bill had been introduced in 2015 but was brought up for a vote only after North Korea's latest test. "(The bill) uses targeted financial pressure to isolate Kim Jong Un and his top officials from the assets they maintain in foreign banks, and from the hard currency that sustains their rule," said Republican Representative Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and an author of the measure. To become law, it must also pass the U.S. Senate and be signed by Obama. The 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea have been put on high alert as a noisy propaganda battle is played out across the heavily fortified border with the North. South Korea, still technically at war with the North since their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty, has for days been blaring propaganda through loudspeakers across the border. South Korea's military said it had found anti-South leaflets in the Seoul area, which it suspects were dropped from North Korean hot air balloons. South Korean financial regulators met computer security officials at 16 banks and financial institutions and urged vigilance in the face of possible cyberattacks by North Korea, although none has been detected. (Additional reporting by Jack Kim, James Pearson, Jee Heun Kahng, Hooyeon Kim, Dahee Kim and Se Young Lee in SEOUL, Tom Miles in GENEVA, Patricia Zengerle and David Brunnstrom in WASHINGTON and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Nick Macfie and Howard Goller) By Mark Hosenball WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department has begun talks with Mexican authorities about extraditing drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to the United States, a spokesman said on Thursday. Guzman's extradition to face charges in the United States was discussed on Tuesday at a meeting in Miami between Arely Gomez, Mexico's attorney general, and Justice officials, said the spokesman, who requested anonymity. He declined to identify the U.S. officials who met with Gomez. The Miami meeting followed a phone call to Gomez last Friday by U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to congratulate Mexico on its recapture of Guzman. He escaped in July from what was supposed to be one of Mexico's most secure prisons. The Miami meeting was the first face-to-face discussion between U.S. and Mexican officials on the matter, the spokesman said. Officials from both countries have said extraditing Guzman could take a year or longer. U.S. officials have said the United States has filed more than one extradition request for Guzman. News reports from Mexico said that after his recapture, Mexican authorities served Guzman with copies of two outstanding U.S. extradition requests. A U.S. law enforcement source said at least two federal prosecutors' offices had in the past sent extradition requests for Guzman to Mexican authorities - the U.S. Attorney's offices in San Diego, California, and El Paso, Texas. The department spokesman declined to confirm how many extradition requests have been sent and by which prosecutors. The law enforcement source said that although prosecutors in San Diego and El Paso had formally staked claims to try Guzman if he is extradited, it is possible, if not likely, that other U.S. Attorney's offices with cases against Guzman will also bid to try him first after extradition. Among other federal prosecutors with open cases on Guzman are those in Chicago, Miami and both Brooklyn and Manhattan, New York. Lynch previously served as U.S. attorney in Brooklyn. U.S. officials said if there is a competition among U.S. Attorneys to try Guzman, Justice Department headquarters, and ultimately Lynch herself, may decide who tries him first. (Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Dan Grebler) Sports and wellness-focused venture capital firm Will Ventures has picked up $150m for its sophomore fund, almost triple the total it collected for its debut vehicle in 2020. Swish is an Android app that aims to connect people through the medium of photography. Rather than create another sprawling social network like Instagram however, Swish takes a more whimsical approach to things. For each photo you send out to the world, to arrive on someones screen you get one in return and this is how Swish works. You amass a group of photos from all over the world, sort of like post cards, you can see where each photo came from on a world map, too. Not just that, but users have the opportunity to connect and chat with the person that sent you your photo. Its an interesting concept of connecting two people that would never have otherwise met or interacted with each other all through a single photo. So, lets take a closer look, shall we? As with a lot of Android apps, users just need to download Swish from the Play Store. Theres an introduction to the app, as well as a note to let users know that they dont need to input any of their personal information if they dont want to. This is backed up by the only need to create a username for your profile, and nothing else. The main screen of Swish is nice and simple, all users need to do is to choose an action, such as sharing a photo: You can rename a photo with whatever you want to say or express with your image, and you can also edit your photo as well, to make it look a little better and so on. You can even write a message directly on to your photo should you want to. When you send off a photo into the world, youll get one in return, this is completely random and its sort of like a digital photo in a bottle sort of thing. I got this picture from someone in South Korea: You can choose to chat with someone that has sent you a photo, but this will cost you either a wing (which need to be paid for when you run out) or watch an ad and get it for free. You can also take a look at this users profile and the sort of photos that theyve shared in the past, too. One thing thats nice about Swish is that you can take a look at the world map and see where your photos have been coming from, which is a nice touch, for sure: Rather than try and be the next Instagram, Swish is something a little different. Its not so much a standard social network, but instead something a little quaint and quirky. Sending off your image to the world, with no idea who or where it will end up, and getting something random in return is fun, and it takes the superficial attitude of Instagram out of the equation. This really is a small community of people looking to share photos with other people, regardless of where they are or what theyre in to, its all about the images with Swish, and thats great. The app itself is simple and has a good Material Design look and feel to it, I do wish that the album chooser let me choose from specific device folders or from Google Photos but it gets the job done, thats for sure. Ratings Speed (4/5) Swish works just fine and theres no waiting around for anything to happen or things like that, it all just works. Swish works just fine and theres no waiting around for anything to happen or things like that, it all just works. Features (4/5) It might not be for everyone, but the fresh approach to sharing images and connecting with people on common ground is appealing and one that I can see a lot of people getting in to. It might not be for everyone, but the fresh approach to sharing images and connecting with people on common ground is appealing and one that I can see a lot of people getting in to. Theme (4/5) Swish features a great Material Design look and feel and has a lot going for it, and its nice and simple to use. Swish features a great Material Design look and feel and has a lot going for it, and its nice and simple to use. Overall (4/5) A quaint and fun little app, Swish is worth taking a look at, and its a lot of fun to experiment with. A digital message in a bottle of sorts, Swish is a nice change of pace from Instagram and Twitter. Pros Nice-looking Material Design look and feel makes this a pleasant app to look at. Fun to see where your images end up when you send them off into the world. Good way of connecting to people through one overall common interest; photography. Free to download and use. Cons Photo picker doesnt allow you to choose from certain device folders or Google Photos. Donation version should include more wings to communicate with more people. All-in-all, Swish is a lovely change of pace from the majority of different social apps out there, and I can see a lot of budding photographers as well as style-conscious people really liking this. With some room for improvement, Swish is a simple and quaint Android app that I can see a lot of people all over the world enjoying and getting in to over time. Any avid TV or movie watcher is probably always looking for a new way to engage and interact with their digital content. Whether you are using an Android TV device, a Smart TV, cable or any other form of streaming or media consumption, one way you can engage is through the various remote control apps that are available for Android devices. In fact, this is an area which has seen quite the boom of late with many manufacturers like Xiaomi and LG looking to include their own native remote control app as pre-installed apps on their devices. However, when it comes to the likes of Samsung and HTC, they have opted to include a pre-installed version of the third-party Peel Smart Remote app. In HTCs case, they originally did make use of their own app, but in the end opted to replace it with Peel Smart Remote on their latest handset, the HTC One M9. When comparing the likes of the Xiaomi and LG in-house remote apps to the Peel Smart Remote app, it suddenly becomes easy to see why. Setting Up For those who have not used an Xiaomi or LG device, the in-house remote app on offer with Xiaomi is the Mi Remote, while LG offers QRemote (or Quick Remote). And to be fair, in terms of setting up, neither the Xiaomi, LG or Peel Smart Remote app are too taxing and all do offer an easy route to connecting. However, part of the reason for the Xiaomi and LG easy connection is how simplified and basic their apps are. In contrast, the Peel Smart Remote app is significantly more feature-heavy and yet was just as easy to set-up. That said, there is a difference in compatibility. Although, all three apps were able to connect to our TV easily enough, there is a vast difference in the compatibility of the Mi Remote compared to the LG and Peel options and especially for additional devices. Although, Mi Remote does list a sufficient variety of major TV manufacturers, when trying to connect to any other device, and in particular when trying to connect to a cable box, there is literally no availability for consumers outside of China with the app making a clear preference for Chinese manufacturer and cable listings. In comparison, the LG QRemote did come with a decent-enough level of device compatibility and listed a good selection of manufactures for each option. However, this is a remote which was incapable of recognizing devices based on the service provider. So while it would connect to our AT&T box as a Motorola device, the functionality was extremely limited as the app is unable to understand this is an AT&T device and offering any provider-specific features. In stark contrast, the Peel Smart Remote app had no issues in connecting to any of our devices and actually enjoyed a much more straight-forward and easy to navigate interface. Devices are not just broken down into their overall product range categories, but also into specific sub-product categories. To highlight the example, if connecting audio equipment through the Mi Remote app, only the Amplifier label is used as a means of basic identification, which was then followed by a long list of manufacturers that you have to endlessly scroll through and most of which were Chinese. While with QRemote, it was the same issue with just the Audio tag being used, followed by a long list of manufactures to scroll through. For Peel Smart Remote, Audio products were first identified by Sound and then could be further product-specific determined by the likes of Sound Bar, AV Receiver or Home Theater and then only the relevant product companies would be displayed. Not only did this prove to be far quicker in finding your specific device, but offered a much more user-friendly level of setup. The general setup also includes a Personalize aspect which looks to offer a more content specific level of recommending which again highlighted just how interactive this particular remote control app is. Features This is literally the make or break aspect of any remote control app. Anyone who uses a Fire TV or Android TV device and makes use of the standard remote control apps that are available though the Play Store, will know that while they both connect well and offer control of their relative streaming devices, they are significantly basic apps with no notably additional or unique features. In fact, with the Fire TV and Android TV apps in particular, neither of them offer a way to control even the volume, which is presumably considered to be one of the more baseline and fundamental features. Therefore, a remote control app which can offer a better degree of functionality is what will be one of the clear differentiating aspects for this type of app. The LG option, QRemote, does not offer any form of additional features at all and just maintains a usage level similar to that of any basic remote app. So once connected, all you have are the basic volume up, down, channel up, down and power controls. When it comes to the Xiaomis Mi Remote app, there are some additional features on offer like an EPG which can be used once you connect your cable box. However, this is again only available for Chinese consumers and as such, if youre based outside of China, then you are only looking at a standard remote control app with no notable additional features. There are no means to connect a U.S. cable box and make use of the EPG features. In contrast, this is where the Peel app significantly overshadows the other apps. The Peel app is purpose-designed to offer users a massive degree of control over their home media network and the app does this extremely well. First up, once the app is connected to your cable provider the app contains a fully usable program guide which will show you everything that is on right now. Instead of having to channel surf through stations, you can simply swipe through the programs, find what you want to watch and hit the link and the TV will turn to the correct channel. What is more impressive though, is that you do not need to program anything in when connecting the Peel Smart Remote app to your provider. There are no codes or passwords that need to be entered as the app pulls the data from the TV listings for your specific region. A feature which unlike the Mi Remote app, is present in a significantly large number of countries with the app able to offer TV listings for 110 countries and in multiple languages. So once it understands the make, model, location and provider (all down during the initial pairing with the app), the listings are automatically generated. Of course, this does mean that there might be some channels listed that you dont have, depending on a particular package or maybe you do not want all of your available channels listed. Either way, all the lists can be further adjusted in the settings to be more curated to your exact setup and there is also a favorites feature where you can save the channels that you specifically want quick access to. As well as whats on now, the app will also show you what is scheduled to be on throughout the rest of the day (and the week) and also offers the option to set a reminder for you to watch content you click on. Not to mention, upcoming content is also displayed in a personalize fashion with the app looking to provide you with recommendations for certain genres or video content type. So if you just want to check out the movies which will be on this week, you can. If all that was not enough, the app also now comes with a beta streaming tab which lets you sync other streaming services you might have. These includes the like of Netflix and Hulu. If you have the app installed on your device, then the Peel Smart Remote app can engage with it. In fact, it will only show you results in your various now showing feeds for apps that you have installed. So for instance, if you are only running Netflix on your phone, you wont have to worry about irrelevant Hulu information being shown in-app. The streaming option in particular, proved to be a very effective way to watch content with the remote, as the categories were rather well-defined into the top content for each app. Not to mention, additional categories like leaving Netflix soon proved to be useful to ensure you dont miss any of the content you had been planning on watching, but had not got around to. One of the additional benefits of the general Peel Smart Remote UI, is that while you are surfing through content to watch, a shortcut icon is always present in the bottom right corner of the screen for the remote control (which can be seen in all of the screenshots), so you can very easily and quickly bring back up the remote, adjust the volume, pause or so on, before returning back to looking through the guide. Likewise, if you remain in the remote mode, there is also a nicely positioned slide-out tab on the right of the remote view which offers a quick link to the schedule or the channel you are watching, as well as links to recently watched channels for quick changing back again. This last point, the recently watched channels is an example of how the app is able to adapt to the individual user. This was another aspect which was noted with the general use of Peel Smart Remote, as the app is one which seems to grow in its understanding and offer a more personalized level of usage as time goes on. In addition to the additional streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu, the streaming tab also offers links to YouTube content as well. So you can check out the latest trailers for movies that will be hitting theaters or rental soon. Again, clicking the link will simply open and play from the YouTube app. It is also worth noting that the app comes cast-enabled and allows you to cast any of the streaming service links to any Android TV, Fire TV device, compatible streaming box or Smart TV. Clicking the cast icon opens up the usual cast screen and detailing all the connected devices. Of course, you can simply opt to continue watching the content directly on your mobile screen, without the content on your TV screen being disrupted. Integration & Performance While all the big bells and whistle features are great to have, when comparing the Peel app to the Mi Remote and QRemote apps, it was the little additional features which really came through and highlighted how well thought out the app actually is. For instance, volume is always an issue on these apps and while the Mi Remote and QRemote app both offered the ability to control the volume, it did so only for independent devices. So if you want to turn down the TV volume while in cable mode, you first had to select back to TV. This was not the case with the Peel Smart Remote app and whichever mode you were in, some feature like volume seemed to universally work. This was another common theme noted, with the Peel apps remote view feeling more intuitive overall and again, much more user-friendly. Although, the QRemote app is also well designed, certain elements (like how close the power buttons for cable and TV were) resulted in the QRemote app not as user-friendly as Peels approach and less visually appealing. Then there are the features like the short remote which can be used as a notification feature or on the smartphones lock screen. For a lock screen remote, the level of control and functionality was surprisingly well thought through, with a much larger ability to control the TV and content without having to enter the app or even unlock the device. There is also a reminder feature built-in so you can have reminders sent to you in the form of a notification. Last but not least there was the multi-room feature. Although again, the Mi Remote and QRemote both allow you to add additional devices/setups to be controlled, the level on offer with the Peel Smart Remote app is just so much wider. First up, when creating a setup for a different room or devices, the remote control actually adopts a different layout which is better suited to each setup. More impressively, there is a feature in the settings mode which when activated, will adjust the app to the room you are in. In this mode, the remote control is always ready and set to the correct room/device mode when you open the app. This was by far one of the real attention to detail elements that were noted. Wrap Up The Peel Smart Remote app is certainly an app which is gaining in popularity. Not only has it been downloaded a seriously large number of times by the general public, but the list of compatible devices and manufacturers who are adopting the Peel app as their go-to remote control app is increasingly and it is easy to see why. There is no comparison between the Peel app and the offerings which are coming through from manufacturers like Xiaomi and LG. The OEM apps are just too basic in nature and would require far too much time and resources to be able to offer an app which is as feature-rich as Peel Smart Remote. It is not perfect though and there are elements to be improved. While you can connect to Android TV and Fire TV devices, the remote does not naturally work with those devices and therefore, can only currently interact with the apps on your smartphone. Although it can with Apple TV and Roku. But these are smaller issues when comparing the overall value and level of functionality that is on offer, as you can completely control both your live TV and streaming content all from the Peel Smart Remote app and effortlessly. Not to mention, this is an app which is compatible in a sheer number of countries. So if you are in India or China, then the Peel Smart Remote will function much like it does in the U.S. and offer the same level of EPG and functionality. Which cannot be said for the other apps. While the like of Mi Remote offers an EPG feature, it is far too country-limited. What will be a problem for some people though is that not all phones can make use of the Peel app. It does require an IR Blaster to be built-in and this is why some manufacturers will more than likely push forward with their own options instead of adopting Peel if they opt to build a phone which does not contain an IR Blaster. However, the issue there, is that the other manufacturer apps (like the ones we tested) do not offer as much of an all-round experience and seem to naturally compromise it certain aspects. In the case of Mi Remote it was in the country and device brand support, while in the case of QRemote, the support is there, but the features are not. If you do have a compatible device and are looking for a better way to control your media consumption, then the Peel Smart Remote is about as good as it gets. Its been an interesting six months for Android Wear, weve seen the follow-up to the original Android Wear watch to beat, the Moto 360 as well as TAG Heuer enter the market with a $1,500 statement. Now though, Fossil joins the gang, a firm established in 1954 and now known for producing classy, yet edgy timepieces that appeal to a younger, more self-aware consumer. Fossil make some excellent watches for both men and women, and they always have just a little something extra about them. The Fossil Q Founder is their first Android Wear watch, and indeed one of their first smartwatches ever made. Its a sizeable and noticeable piece of hardware, but is it an Android Wear watch to compete with those already on the market or is it simply bluffing behind good looks and a brand name? Specs This must be new territory for Fossil, having their latest watch evaluated by what pieces of silicon are under-the-hood, rather than its movement. Of course, thats what the smartwatch is all about, these are wrist-mounted computers in more than a couple of ways, and it needs to be judged by its competitors, regardless of who makes them. In many ways, the Fossil Q Founder falls short. With a 47mm stainless steel casing and 22mm stainless steel band, the Q Founder is not light at 72g or so. For all of that you get a 1.5-inch LCD display (complete with flat tire!) which has a cut at the bottom for an ambient light sensor with a pixel density of 240 pixels per inch. There is no heart-rate monitor here and no GPS, which already puts the Q Founder behind the times. There doesnt appear to be much info on the battery size online, but from what I could dig up, it appears as though theres a 400 mAh cell in here. Interestingly, this can be charged using Qi wireless, just like the Moto 360, and it works with any pad you can get it to settle on. Fossil say this will get you 24-hours of battery life (more on that later on). Theres an Intel CPU on the inside here, again specifics are hard to hind, but the consensus is that this is an Intel Atom chip similar to those found in ASUS ZenFone smartphones and such. Thats about it for the the Fossil Q Founders spec sheet, sadly. To go with this Intel Atom CPU is 1GB of RAM as oppose to the 512MB of RAM found in most other Android Wear watches. Design and Hardware The Fossil Q Founder that I was sent was the metal version, with a stainless-steel face and a link band to match. The first two things I thought when I took it out of the box were wow, this is a nice box followed by this is one big watch. When I first put it on I was umming and ahhing to myself about both how big it is and how heavy it is, seriously, this is one heavy watch. At 47mm (according to the back of the box) this is a pretty big watch, and its also pretty chunky as well, compared to my G Watch R it feels practically massive. It is however, remarkably well-made and it feels that way. From the reassuring click you get from the watch clasp to the resilient casing (Ive been wearing this a few weeks with no scratches at all). Design wise, I find myself torn when trying to sum up the Fossil Q Founder. On the one hand, I personally quite like its physical size. Im a big guy at 62 and in need of losing more than a few, so my big wrists suit this style quite nicely, but those with smaller wrists might feel swamped by this. The weight of the watch (which is about 72g) is a little heavy, but I quite like it when resting on my wrist. Again, this is personal preference here, and I can see why a lot of people would be put off by such a heavy watch, especially when wearing it day-in, day-out. So, we like the size and the heft of the watch, but what about looks? With the metal band equipped, this is a good-looking watch, but this could be from any manufacturer in the world. There are but two pieces of branding on the Q Founder, a Fossil logo underneath the watch face itself and a small stamping on the watch clasp. Im not suggesting that manufacturers start plastering logos all over their smartwatches, but we know the TAG Heuer Connected is a TAG, this metallic band could be from any manufacturer on earth, especially at a distance. In short, the Fossil Q Founder is a heavy, chunky smartwatch that wont appeal to everyone. However, its well-made and the metal band is easily swapped out for any 22mm fitting you want, and there is a brown leather option available, so there is some flexibility. The verdict on looks with this comes down to thing; if you like large watches that look great with a metal band, the Q is for you, if you dont, then there are better-looking alternatives out there. Display For all of its charm out of the box and on my wrist, the display of the Fossil Q Founder really lets the side down. Its a 1.5-inch LCD affair, which is already a disappointing note, but then add in the low resolution resulting in 240 pixels per inch and a cut at the bottom of the display, things get worse. Lets tackle the flat tire thing head-on, it is what you make of it. For me, as an owner of the original 360 and a current owner of a G Watch R, I have to question why anyone goes this route. Still, after wearing this for a few weeks now, I dont mind it so much. It doesnt seem quite so severe as it can on a Moto 360, but it does still look a little ridiculous, and from Fossil? We should be seeing a fully-circular display here. Still, watch faces like Simple & Elegant have turned this into a plus point for users with some fun additions. The long and short of the flat tire thing is that its there to house an ambient light sensor, something I could have done without to get a fully-circular display, and really at this price point from this brand it should be fully-circular. Moving on, and things are a little better, depending on your outlook. The Fossil Q Founders display is not the sharpest out there, but it is nice and big, and using this while on the move made a big difference. Having the font set to normal in the settings, a notification was big, easy-to-read and pleasant to digest when I would raise the Q to my face. Color wise, well, its a generic LCD and at times things come across as washed out and a little overblown. An OLED display this is not, and compared to the Watch Urbane or Huawei Watch, this display is disappointing. Having said that, it does get nice and bright, and was easily read in sunlight during my testing. Ambient mode is less helpful, as this is an LCD panel, theres no fancy turning off some pixels but not all tricks as the Watch Urbane and co. manage. Instead, the display simply shuts off the backlight and goes dim. Its readable in this mode, of course, but in sunlight the ambient mode is practically useless. Tilt-to-wake can fill in here, but its not all that accurate and I find it actually hits the battery quite hard on the Fossil Q Founder. The display here, aside from its size, is a real low point for the Q Founder, and you really would have expected more from Fossil. I suppose that if you just want glanceable info thats easily-read, this will get the job done, but it just doesnt feel that premium, and Fossils asking price definitely makes you think that it is premium. Software As Ive been wearing the Fossil Q Founder exclusively for three weeks or so at this point, I have discovered two key things about Android Wear and the Q. 1 Fossil included the bare minimum to make an Android Wear watch in their name and 2 the Fossil Q Founder is in desperate need of a software update. Tackling the Android Wear equation first, this runs the same exact software as say, a Moto 360 2nd Gen or a Huawei Watch. Everything works just fine in this regard, notifications work brilliantly, Android Wear apps are useful depending on what you need and watch faces work finemost of the time. As an Android Wear watch, the Fossil Q Founder is fine, nothing more and nothing less. With no heart rate monitor and practically nothing else from Fossil themselves, this is a barebones device that doesnt even have many watch faces from Fossil. Speaking of which, there are six different watch faces from Fossil included here. These are Classic, Digital, Fred, Flip Digital, Kaleido and Roulette. None of these are exciting, and the only one that really looks any good in my opinion is the Classic face. To change these on your phone, you need to install the Fossil Q app, which is frankly a little pointless if you have the Q Founder. If you had the Q Reveler, Dreamer or Grant I can see why this app exists, but for this smartwatch its needless. Why I say this is needless is because it doesnt actually interface with the watch, it redirects to the Android Wear app when choosing the Q Founder, which leaves the Q app to give you a persistent notification that theres no device connected The Fossil Q app is essentially just a way of customizing your watch faces. You can change the dial color, hand color, change the sub-eye displays and more. Weirdly, you can change all of these settings from the watch itself, but not in the Android Wear app on your phone, to do it on the phone you need to use the Fossil Q app, which is more than a little frustrating frankly. Other than that, theres nothing else to see here. If you dont need any more than this, then there are no problems. I found that I didnt care for the Fossil watch faces anyway, so the Q app is basically unnecessary, but these watch faces look and feel like they were rushed and they sour the whole experience. Speaking of souring the experience, there is a bizarre quirk that afflicts the Q Founder every now and then. I find it happens most when I take it off of the charger, but it does sometimes happen randomly during the day. It might not happen for two days, and then it might happen every day. The issue is that the watch sort of goes crazy. Its hard to describe, but the watch will continually turn the screen off when trying to operate the thing, opening settings and scrolling down to restart can end up with you going back and repeating the whole process time-after-time. The watch just gets in a mood where it doesnt want to play ball, and every time you swipe up for a card it will turn the screen off and so on. The only fix for this I find is to change the watch face and then reboot. I did initially think this was a problem with third-party watch faces, but the same happens with the Fossil faces, more often, actually and so I think this is why the Q Founder needs a software update. This is inexcusable behavior for a watch, something that you expect to just work, all the time, whenever you want it to. There are other issues as well, like the battery stats in the Android Wear app showing basically no information at all, aside from a sketchy report on how much time you have left on the battery. Another software update is needed here, and hopefully Fossil is already working on one to quash these bugs and more. Performance With an Intel CPU under-the-hood, people might think this could be another case of an oddball processor creating a poor overall experience. I can tell you that this is not the case. Using my G Watch R, running the same Snapdragon 400 and 512MB of RAM as practically everything else out there, the Fossil Q Founder is just as quick, if not quicker. Theres 1GB of RAM here, and while I dont think that makes much difference right now, some of the larger apps I use seem to appear quicker on the Q Founder, but that could be anecdotal, of course. The Fossil Q Founder performs admirably the vast majority of the time, and even heavier apps like the new Spotify browser run nice and quickly. Theres little else to say here, the Fossil Q Founder performs just as well as youd want it to, and it even goes a little above that, to be honest. Battery Life Welcome to the biggest mixed bag of results I have seen on a smartwatch. For the first week or more, I was getting abysmal battery life out of the Fossil Q Founder, like the sort of battery life that had me thinking it was defective. Then, after I discovered that the Android TV remote app was to blame, things mercifully got a lot better, but theyre still not OLED watch levels, and they never will be. As of writing, it is 10:25 AM for me and the watch has been unplugged since 09:05 AM and I have 87% battery life with the screen on the whole time. Android Wear tells me I have another 17 hours to go before she hits zero. I would go with this, especially going by the previous days more normal usage with the screen on all day and about 35% left at 12:00 AM when I took it off. The battery life here is the sort of thing that will work for some, and not for others. Dont see the point in having the display on when youre not looking at it? Youll get a day and then some. However, should you have a lot of time taken up by notifications and interactions with the watch coupled with an always-on display that 24 hours can start look more like 15 and sometimes even 12 hours. General, everyday usage however should see the majority of users from morning to night with few issues, if at all. I was glad that I stuck with the battery life on the Q Founder, as I now see that its not nearly as bad as I had heard or saw for myself when I first used it. Still, my G Watch R is laughing at the Q Founder, as the OLED display would enable the G Watch R on my usage to get two-days or so of use with little fanfare. This is the price users will have to pay at Fossils choice to go with an LCD display, they are nowhere near as efficient and as an always-on display they dont really save much power. Long story short; the Fossil Q Founder will get most users from the morning until the evening, but not much more than that. The party piece here however is the charger. Fossil calls this a cuff and its essentially the pillow found inside watch boxes gone digital. Theres a microUSB port on the back of this cuff, a little padding and some plastic sides to keep it upright. In the center is a translucent charging pad which is basically a Qi wireless charger. The watch rests on this pad to charge, and its actually one of the nicer chargers I have seen on an Android Wear watch, it is certainly a cut above LGs and Huaweis chargers that they include with their offerings. The LEDs however, might be annoying for some, when charging its red and when fully-charged it turns blue. These LEDs are bright, and I really wouldnt recommend putting this on your bedside table if its right next to your face. They are annoying. Put further away however, and there are no issues to be had with such a charger, and its a very nice addition from Fossil. Verdict The Fossil Q Founder is an interesting Android Wear watch, it has some plus points, but more head-scratching low points than you would expect from Fossil. The lack of a heart rate sensor is, in my eyes, acceptable as nobody wants to go running or hit the gym with something this heavy on their wrist. The flat tire and LCD display though? On a watch that costs $295 (the brown leather version is $275) we shouldnt be seeing either, and while the flat tire is not that big a deal, the lack of an OLED display is a true head-scratcher. Then theres the software side of things, going with Android Wear is the right path to take, but then adding in just six, and six not-so-good-looking watch faces at that is just not what wed expect from Fossil, and frankly smacks of laziness. Having said all of that, the Fossil Q Founder is not a bad watch, its just not a great watch. If youre a fan of metal watches and want something a little bigger, then the Fossil Q Founder will be a pleaser. The same goes for users that dont need oodles of battery life or added software features. Make no mistake though, the Fossil Q Founder is most definitely form over function, and theres only so much substance beneath this pretty face. Personally, I really like the larger face size and overall look, but many more wont put up with the foibles of the Q Founder just because it looks nice. Perhaps in a future version, Fossil can perfect things, because right now they have the hardware and design right, but not too much else. Some would say that Huawei has become the most important OEM in 2015, not only showing some unbelievable growth in every market it sells devices in, but also because of its partnership with Google on the Nexus 6p and the Android Wear powered Huawei Watch. As such its other flagship devices have generated quite a bit of interest, and while they dont retain the pure Android nature of the Nexus 6p or Huawei Watch they do pack a boatload of features. The Mate S is one of Huaweis latest devices to have launched, and while weve had this phone since our hands-on in September we wanted to give it a little bit of time to bake before giving it the full review treatment. Unfortunately for us there have been no updates to the device since September, and all the issues we saw with the software back then are obviously still present today. With the launch of the Mate 8 is this phone still worth looking at, even with the Android 6.0 Marshmallow update on the horizon, or should you just forget about it completely? Lets dive in! Specs Huaweis Mate S is premium all around, including both the build and the internal specs. Inside the all-metal chassis is a custom HiSilicon Kirin 935 octa-core processor made up of a 2.2Ghz quad-core processor and a 1.5GHz quad-core processor, along with a Mali-T628 MP4 GPU. The screen up front is a 5.5-inch 1080p Super AMOLED display (401 PPI), and 3GB of RAM keeps your apps from closing in the background. Theres a choice of 32, 64 or 128GB of storage, and the 128GB model actually features a brand new Force Touch screen with additional features that well cover later. On the back is a fingerprint scanner as well as a 13-megapixel camera with optical image stabilization (OIS), and of course dont forget that 8-megapixel shooter up front with LED flash. Theres a 2,700mAh non-removable battery and even microSD card support for expandable storage if you need it. The whole package measures in at 149.8mm high by 75.3mm wide by 7.2mm thin, and weighs 156 grams. In the Box Huaweis presentation is premium all the way around, and from the moment you set your hands on the box youre going to feel like you got a top-of-the-line item. The box itself as a cloth-like texture to it and shows the phone in a way that appears more like a jewelry item than your standard smartphone. Behind the phone is a pair of headphones, a wall charger and a microUSB cable in addition to some manuals and the SIM/microSD card tray eject tool. Surprisingly enough theres also a premium feeling window flip case in the box too, an additional value that most OEMs charge extra for. Display 2015 is clearly the year of Super AMOLED, as weve seen a number of non-Samsung high profile flagships finally make the move to this type of display. In general Super AMOLED technology just looks better than what can be presented on an LCD, and the biggest reason for this is not just the infinite black levels, which are achieved thanks to the displays ability to completely turn off pixels instead of displaying a gray hue like an LCD, but also its high contrast levels. Color accuracy tends to take a back seat on some AMOLED displays, and while Huaweis display here is certainly more saturated than you might find on your average LCD, its not overly offensive or unrealistic looking. Theres no saturation adjustments to be found in display options, but there is a way to easily change the slightly cool tones that the screen ships with to some warmer ones, or if you really want things looking blue you can push it further to the cool range with a simple slider. Rainbow shimmering can be found only at extreme angles, and its at these extreme angles where youll also find some darkening of the panel too. No one would ever hold a display at this angle, so its within an acceptable range to where we can say this one is just fine, unlike some other AMOLED panels lately that have significant color shifting with even the slightest tilt (Nexus 6p, HTC One A9 for example). Refresh rate of the panel is phenomenal and theres no noticeable color blending or purpling of the blacks as they wake up from slow scrolling. This can be found on some AMOLED panels when scrolling on a dark web page or app and the panel is slow to wake up the individual pixels, creating an odd color for a microsecond. Last but certainly not least is the digitizer, which is good about 70% of the time, but can get annoying during some fast typing or swiping moments. This is ironic given that the 128GB model features the most advanced digitizer on the market, at least in terms of technical merits, given that its the first phone on the market with Force Touch. This digitizer is also able to detect knuckles as well as fingertips, giving some additional functionality over normal touch. Well cover some Force Touch stuff later in the software section, but the digitizer on this particular phone model is not great given the price range. Hardware and Build Huawei has been pushing harder into the all-metal realm this year, as evidenced not only by its Spring and Summer 2015 devices, but this and the Mate 8 as well. The Mate S is absolutely in the top tier of all devices on the market in terms of build quality, not only from its all-metal construction but from the sheer weight and construction too. The metal chassis has a nice weight to it and while its a pretty average 156 grams, it feels heavier and sturdier than the vast majority of flagships on the market. This heavier feeling weight isnt a bad thing at all as the description might entail, rather a way to truly feel the quality craftsmanship that went into creating this device. All the edges are chamfered and smoothed out to create a truly seamless feel to the phone, making one thing its actually a single piece of material rather than glass and metal fused together. The back also features an ever-so-slight curve to it to fit your hand better. This incredibly beautiful looking and feeling device also features rounded edges to the glass, giving the sublte feel of continuity between the glass and metal that wouldnt be achieved otherwise. Its difficult not to gush about just how good this phone feels in the hand, much less looks. The bezels on the side of the device are rather thin, although the chin is slightly larger than you might initially think given that there are no capacitive or physical buttons here. The whole panel is covered in Gorilla Glass 4, although this is now the second Gorilla Glass 4 covered panel that Ive managed to scratch, whereas Ive never scratched a Gorilla Glass 3 panel before. Above the display youll find the normal sensors and ear piece, while a surprising front-facing LED flash makes an appearance here too. On the right youll find the radial-grooved power button placed just above the midpoint of the device, while the volume rocker is above that. The left side of the device houses the ejectable SIM card tray that features two slots, one for a micro SIM card, while the other slot doubles as either a micro SIM or microSD card slot. Up top youll find the 3.5mm headset jack and secondary noise-cancelling microphone, while the bottom houses a faux stereo speaker setup and microUSB port. Around the back youll find the rounded square fingerprint scanner placed just below the rounded square camera lense. The fingerprint scanner is recessed into the body while the camera lens juts out the tiniest bit, keeping you from pawing the lens too much. Theres also a dual-tone dual-LED flash back here too along with some rather attractive looking antenna lines. Performance and Memory Performance as a whole was abysmal given the price of the phone and the fact that this was using Huaweis top-end SoC at the time of release (the Kirin 950 in the Mate 8 is now the top dog). Unfortunately reality sets in after a brief usage of the phone, and prolonged usage only tends to grow more and more irritating. Things stutter when they shouldnt, apps take forever to install, and in general this doesnt always feel like a top-end high-priced phone in any way when it comes to performance. Gaming wasnt bad but it wasnt great either, and yet again doesnt feel quite like a high-end device, especially at only 1080p resolution when plenty of other flagship phones at this price have better performance and push quad-HD resolution. This phone should perform way better, but Huaweis chipset just cant keep up with Qualcomms or Samsungs, especially at this price range. Multi-tasking was alright, and thankfully Huaweis use of software buttons, specifically a dedicated overview multi-tasking button, make a lackluster experience at least somewhat tolerable. Huawei doesnt use the traditional 3D carousel that Android Lollipop introduced though, rather it uses a thumbnail grid with 4 thumbnails on screen at once, with additional apps on subsequent pages. Swiping down on a thumbnail locks it into memory and gives it priority over other apps when the system needs to free up RAM, while swiping up takes the app out of RAM (closes it). In general I found that apps had to reload far more often than they should, and even having 3-4 apps open at once proved to be too much for the poor RAM management in EMUI as a whole on this phone. Benchmarks Benchmarks reflect what the overall experience feels like, and the results show it much closer to a $150 Lenovo K3 Note than anything in the $500+ price range. This is easily the most disappointing factor of the phone, and its not just comparing raw numbers either. Take a look at the benchmark results below. Phone Calls and Network Call quality was nothing short of excellent, and I even experienced a full fledged HD voice call on T-Mobile USs network. Network strength was as good as I could have hoped for, which is great given that metal phones can some times cause problems with signal strength. I even got full LTE support on T-Mobile US too and never once felt like this was a second-rate experience when it comes to network quality. Check out the list of all supported bands below and pay close attention to each model number, as the supported bands vary wildly. We have model CRR-L09, which is the one best configured for US support including T-Mobile and AT&T LTE bands. This particular model even got LTE in Germany during IFA on Vodafone, so its quite the jet-setter. Model CRR-UL00 2G: 850/900/1800/1900MHz 3G HSPA: 850/900/1700/1900/2100MHz LTE Bands: 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/17/20/38/39/40/41 Model CRR-L09 2G: 850/900/1800/1900MHz 3G HSPA: 850/900/1700/1900/2100MHz LTE Bands: 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/17/18/19/20/25/26/28/40 Battery Life 2,700mAh is a battery size youd normally find in a phone closer to the 5-inch mark, and it feels like it in regular use too. I struggled to get 3 hours of on-screen time with the phone regardless of what I did per day, and while I dont normally go too much by the on-screen time this one felt really weak. The biggest problem here seems to be some sort of bug with cell standby and that dual-SIM card slot, where the phone appears to be constantly searching for a second SIM card even though it should be content with a single one. This artificially drains the battery quite a bit and showed up in the top 3 battery drain every day. If this can get sorted out things will probably be great, but as is its pretty lame. Battery tests show a considerably higher usage scenario than I was able to net, so theres certainly plenty of hope here for good battery life even if I didnt find it in my personal usage. Sound Sound output via the 3.5mm headset jack was nothing short of phenomenal, especially with the optional DTS mode enabled. Volume levels were nice and loud, highs were clean and clear, lows were deep and mids didnt get muddled in to where they shouldnt be. This is good since theres no equalizer to adjust the sound at all, so the only actual toggle youve got here is the DTS mode. Overall the music listening experience from the Mate S was absolutely top notch and I really couldnt ask for more in terms of quality, but its always nice to have software EQ adjustments in case you need to change some things for specific listening equipment like earbuds or headphones. Sound from the speaker on the body of the phone was actually quite impressive, especially given that its a bottom facing single speaker. Only the right grill is actually a speaker, the left side is simply for design, but this speaker was not only loud, it was clear and pronounced. Actual bass can be heard from it and audio wasnt tinny or muddy the way it can be on these sorts of small single speakers. Its not as good as front-facing speakers but its about as good a bottom facing speaker as I can recall ever hearing. Software Huaweis EMUI is one of the heavier Android skins around, and while it changes some core functionality of Android it doesnt really ruin anything the way some other heavy Android skins out there can do. The biggest changes youll notice are aesthetic ones which come in the form of the lockscreen and notification shade among the general app design that Huawei sticks with. Our unit is running EMUI 3.1, which runs atop Android 5.1.1 Lollipop, although the EMUI 4.0 update running atop Android 6.0 Marshmallow is slated to happen very soon. EMUI 4.0 carries things even further into the iOS clone market and doesnt bode well for those looking for a Chinese phone that doesnt look like an iPhone knockoff, but at least Huawei tries to differentiate itself via features since it seems to be content with following the pack in looks. UI Weve covered EMUI 3 in a few other Huawei phone reviews, and theres relatively nothing different here in terms of design over those. The biggest issue visually is the tinted status bar that was introduced officially in Android Lollipop, and offers a way for developers to change the color of the top status bar to their apps color scheme. Huawei apparently doesnt like this feature unless its their own apps, which all tint the status bar white, while the rest of the apps are all given a clear status bar. Behind this clear status bar is whatever wallpaper youve chosen on the home screen, which often times means its an interesting looking bar that will look unique on everyones phone, but wont fit with the color scheme that a certain apps developer has set. While this is certainly a preference thing the behavior of the status bar is just plain broken, as its behavior depends completely on what launcher youre using and what wallpaper youve chosen. Some wallpapers behave properly as Huawei designed it and are displayed behind the transparent bar, while others completely break the UI and this status bar. This results in a proper Lollipop colored status bar, but ends up breaking other UI elements that Huawei designed in a very weird way. Header images on settings and other Huawei apps literally dont appear right after this happens, and overall youre going to find some truly bizarre looking placeholder images in place of the correct ones. Its a mess to say the least. There are no priority modes in the volume panel, so theres no easy way to turn priority mode on or off from here. Do Not Disturb is at least present and works well, as you can either toggle it from the quick settings portion of the notification shade or schedule it each day. Lockscreen notifications are also pretty much nonexistent by default, and users that want these notifications will have to hunt through the convoluted system settings menu and enable them on a per-app basis. This is an absolutely abysmal and painful way to do this, and will result in most users never seeing notifications on their lockscreen as Google intended it (and honestly as just makes sense). Features Huaweis digitizers have become more advanced in some ways, and while we covered the issues pertaining to fast typing on this phone there are some other interesting uses that Huawei has enabled here. Like some other Huawei phones, the Mate S is able to detect your knuckles in addition to your fingertips, and this brings some additional gestures that wouldnt be possible without something like a stylus otherwise. You can cut pieces of the screen and share them just like on a Galaxy Note device by just using your knuckle instead of your finger, or take a full screenshot if youd rather do that. You can also draw the letters c, e, m and w on the screen with your knuckle to launch any app on the phone, all of which is customizable from the settings menu. Theres a voice wakeup feature but it can only be used to find the phone or place calls. This isnt a personal assistant and it isnt Google Now, so its functionality is quite basic although it does work very well. Theres also plenty of other features to be found here that weve seen on other Huawei phones, but are no less mentionable. Check the screenshots below for tons of little things on the Mate S. Fingerprint Scanner Most phones only use the fingerprint scanner to unlock the device, while others allow you to lock individual apps or even pay using your fingerprint to authenticate. While the fingerprint scanners authentication does only unlock the Mate S, it can be used as another gesture device to perform actions without touching the screen. Pressing and holding it will answer an incoming phone call, clicking it will take a picture or stop an alarm, and swiping on it will bring down the notification shade down or browse through photos. Almost all of these are pretty gimmicky to say the least, but taking photos with it is actually incredibly useful since it doesnt require you to shift your hand to take a picture, and works very well with selfies too because of the way the phone is held. While the fingerprint scanner was good it still isnt quite as good as the one found on the Nexus 5x or 6p, and I found that probably close to 20% of the time it would tell me it couldnt read my finger. When it did unlock though it was nearly instant, and I have nothing but positive remarks on the unlock speed when it works. Camera Software Huawei is one of the many OEMs out there that feels content with simply copying Apples camera interface without changing almost anything at all. While this is irritating visually whats more irritating is the speed at which it takes to switch modes. A simple swipe to the left or right moves between the clearly marked modes, but it takes too long to get from one end to the other. Its also annoying to have to switch between photo and video modes when so many Android phones have been able to do both at the same time for years now. Live filters are here and exactly where you would expect them to be, in the bottom right button, and up top youll find context-sensitive options that change depending on the mode selected. The real interesting meat of this camera comes in the form of a very detailed and well designed manual mode. This manual mode features tons of options for the photo component, including manual ISO, shutter speed, white balance and focus modes, as well as a few manual video modes as well. This isnt quite as detailed as the manual modes on the LG V10, but its definitely considerably more customizable than the vast majority of phones out there. Manual mode can help take better pictures when the auto mode cant get it quite right, and being able to adjust each component of the shot individually while leaving others at the auto setting makes it easier to do whats needed. The biggest issue comes in design yet again, but this time its because some options are only shown as arbitrary icons without any sort of description, which could leave plenty of users scratching their heads. Results OIS is present on this 13-megapixel module and generally does a good job of keeping video still. You can even see the OIS module moving to adjust for hand shake when lining up the shot for both audio and video modes, attempting to keep things smooth whereas a hand might make them a little bit jittery. This is even the case with HDR where there was almost never double imaging or ghosting, even in lower lighting conditions. Overall though HDR mode does a good job of preserving details and adjusting lighting for better dynamic range to help mellow out those highlights and eek more details out of the shadows. Keeping this mode hidden within the mode selection menu rather than making it automatically choose, or better yet providing a dedicated button on this large 5.5-inch screen, would have been a much better choice. Again the decision to blindly follow Apple in many ways causes problems when trying to more intelligently design software to meet the specific needs of users. Overall the picture quality of the camera is generally quite good, although its not quite the best the industry has to offer. The biggest holdup here isnt in picture taking speed, where the Mate S definitely excells, or even in preferring shutter speed over ISO to keep images from being blurry, but from noise reduction. Only in the brightest of sunlight does the denoise filter seem to nearly completely turn itself off, but outside of this the denoise filter seems to be set to overdrive, coming in to erase noise but also cancelling out the additional detail a 13-megapixel sensor delivers. The results are muddy low light shots, even if the shot is well balanced in all other categories, and even daylight shots just look soft overall. This is something thats very easily fixed in software and very well could be changed in a simple mod, but unless Huawei offers a manual adjustment or changes the default behavior, most users will find these results. Videos were just as muddy and only go up to 1080p instead of 4K as weve become accustomed to for years in the top-tier Android world. Theres some pretty cool timelapse video here and even some slowmo features to record light trails, but most of these were useless unless youre using a tripod to keep the phone steady. Some standard slowmo video at 120FPS or 240FPS like the Huawei-built Nexus 6p has would have been nice, and honestly has come to be expected from most people in their smartphone cameras anyway. Check the Flickr album below for all the pictures and video we took during the review period. The Good Incredibly strong, thin and well shaped metal build Excellent screen quality Lots of software features Sound output is phenomenal Lots of options in the camera software International signal compatibility The Bad EMUI has huge UI issues Camera has poor low light performance Camera software can be slow, confusing Digitizer needs work Performance is horrible for the price Final Thoughts While the Mate S has been out for just under 2 months now, it already felt dated at launch. Part of this is due to the high price tag and terrible performance for that price, and while the build quality is among the very best in the smartphone world it simply cant make up for the sluggish behavior found during use. There are simply too many areas where the Mate S falters or just doesnt do as well as other phones in this price range, and ultimately make it impossible to recommend for any one feature at this price range. Huawei even has another phone thats vastly superior in every aspect, the Nexus 6p, and even the recently released Mate 8 outdoes it in nearly every category too. Like some other Chinese OEMs on the market Huaweis version of Android ultimately causes more problems than it attempts to fix. Even with all the great features it adds the basic use falls flat because of the undying love some Chinese OEMs seem to have for Apples design, which just doesnt work well with Android. If youre looking to spend $500 or more on a smartphone right now you really should just get something else, theres just too many better phones on the market for this price. Learn English Words Free is an Android app from the folks at Languagecourse.net and as the name suggests its entirely free to use. An app that builds up simple vocabulary while also offering some more complicated words as well this is not something to teach grammar, but rather build confidence through quick and easy learning. Building a vocabulary is super-important to learn a language, and Learn English Words Free does that with a new learning method that has small repetitions throughout to reinforce learning as users keep going. With as much as 10,000 words to learn across different difficulty levels, Learn English Words Free has high-quality audio in a number of different languages to listen and match words and even use the audio-only mode to learn while youre on the move. As with other apps out there, users can download Learn English Words Free from the Play Store. For those that want to use the same app to learn different languages there are a multitude of different languages to choose from here. A web version is also available at http://www.languagecourse.net which you can access from your PC. A cloud syncing functionality makes sure that your progress is saved even if you switch between the web version from your PC and the smartphone app. Now, considering that my native language is English, it wouldnt be that a good txt of an app like this, would it? So, I chose Spanish as I know a little Spanish, and I feel like a lot of Spanish users would want to use this app to learn English. Learn English Words Free starts off by asking you to choose a course. The beginner phrases are great for complete novices and those that have studied English, but need some refreshing can jump on during a later course that is more challenging. Then the app asks you some questions about why you want to learn English and how much time you can give to the app each day. One of the things that set Learn English Words Free apart from the rest is the new way of learning new words, using something called Superlearning. Users can choose to use this or not, its up to them. I tried this new mode out, and it gives you a sort of lesson to take in both visually and audibly. Users need to listen to things as the lesson goes on, and they can pause it or skip to the next word, but the idea is that the information is soaked up in a natural manner. Once users have watched this, theyll then need to go through a sort of test afterwards, which will test the retention of the new words. Both the intro of the Vocabulary Trainer as well as the questions afterwards mix things up with a combination of images, no images and just words you need to listen to. At any time users can change the speed of these tests as well, which is good for users of all ages. Students of the app can take a look at the words that theyve been learning, as well as see how many times they have answered questions on those words correctly. There are settings that users can change here, including the ability to change their native language whenever they want. These settings allows users to change a number of things, including turning on or off the audio side of things, and to just tailor the learning experience to be just how users want it to be. While I was in High School, I studied Spanish, German as well as Japanese, some more than others but I wish I had an app like this. Flashcards, which is what this app mostly focuses on, are a great way of learning new words, but also to get the brain going and put people in the right frame of mind to learn. Thats what Learn English Words Free can do for students and people looking to teach themselves, the high-quality audio is easy to understand, and its easily one of the better apps for learning words in this manner. For a free app I am surprised by how much content is available here, and theres really a lot to love about the overall interface. For me though, I thought the Superlearning mode was a real high point for the app, as it encouraged quick learning, yet learning that is also of good quality, too. Ratings Speed (4/5) Learn English Words Free runs nice and smoothly, and its very quick on the majority of hardware. Learn English Words Free runs nice and smoothly, and its very quick on the majority of hardware. Features (5/5) For a free app, this has so much on offer that its near impossible to argue with. The audio sounds great, its simple to use and yet also extremely effective as well. A great tool to build your vocabulary and to keep your brain sharp when learning a new language. For a free app, this has so much on offer that its near impossible to argue with. The audio sounds great, its simple to use and yet also extremely effective as well. A great tool to build your vocabulary and to keep your brain sharp when learning a new language. Theme (3.5/5) This is perhaps the only thing that needs work here. The audio is excellent, but the overall look and feel of the Android app could definitely be better. It feels a little dated, but the images and audio quality definitely bring things up a notch. This is perhaps the only thing that needs work here. The audio is excellent, but the overall look and feel of the Android app could definitely be better. It feels a little dated, but the images and audio quality definitely bring things up a notch. Overall (4/5) With so much on offer for both new and existing English students, Learn English Words Free is a great app to get started with, or to refresh your memory. As both a companion app to your studies as well as a standalone experience, theres a lot on offer. Pros Works well on all sorts of hardware, regardless of age or processing power. Has a lot to offer both existing English students as well as those just getting started. Superlearning mode makes it nice and easy for students to soak in new content and test themselves at the same time. Audio files here are extremely high quality and have a lot to offer those looking to just listen as they go about their day. Cons Android app itself is not the best-looking out there, but the audio and images are good. Might not be too good an option for those that are a little on the younger side of learning. Overall, Learn English Words Free has oodles of content on offer, all for free and it comes together nicely. The Android app itself might not be the best-looking out there, but the high-quality audio and easily-understood images make up for this in droves. As flashcard apps and vocabulary building apps go, this has everything youd want, without the associated price tag, either. Light & Motion Tracker is an Android app that gives users the tools to amplify the light found in photos, allowing users to see if there are ghosts or other abnormalities captured, but not seen without help, in photos from your smartphone. Light & Motion Tracker features 5 phase detection levels, a pulse mode, fullscreen and pan modes, 10 zoom levels and a fast processing time. Users can choose 2 6 different photos at a time to cycle between, to look and see if theres something hiding in the frame that the naked eye just cant see. Light & Motion Tracker can be treated like a sort of microscope for light in pictures taken by your smartphone. For budding ghost hunters, researchers or just the curious, this is an interesting app to say the least. First of all, users will need to download Light & Motion Tracker from the Play Store. Once installed, users will see a tutorial laid out before them to take a look through. The best way to get a feel for the app and how to use it however, is to simply watch this video from the developer themselves, which is embedded below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rqkuq_rb_Rc I was a little perplexed to see that the app didnt allow to take photos from within the app itself, after all this is easy to implement in any Android app. Instead, users are forced to choose from their last 25 pictures, which would, for exampled, leave out images of that haunted house or late night photo you took a month or two ago. I chose a few images of my office, which is set in the old dining room of this hundred-year old Victorian House, so their has to be a few spirits knocking around the place, right? This is a picture of one of the first few phases, Phase 3 and the image is already starting to appear quite different. Moving on to Phase 5 and we can see things are a lot different: The controls are now ready, and with this users can go back and forth between their six images, they can rotate their images or they can turn the Pulse modes on and off, which rapidly changes between the altered and non-altertered images. You can also zoom in on photos to get a closer look and to see if theres anything hidden away. MyBB-8 Droid on my desk is now beginning to look a little suspicious, but the quality of the photo becomes so poor that I cant really see if theres anything else there or not. Comparing the different phases side-by-side does however, show up some differences, thats for sure. Light & Motion Tracker is an interesting app to say the least, its designed for curious people looking to see things that the naked eye simply cant do. However, the way it does that, by simply bumping up the amount of light thats in the photo and to the untrained eye this would look nothing more than a simple photo filter applied over-the-top of an image. I cant say that I believe in paranormal activity or ghosts or anything like that, but if I did I think that this is the sort of Android app that Id be on the look out for. A nice, fun little app that has a little science behind it for those looking to explore what they cant see on their own, Light & Motion Tracker is worth checking out. Ratings Speed (3.5/5) Photos take a long time to be processed, and moving around on them is also pretty slow as well, unfortunately. Photos take a long time to be processed, and moving around on them is also pretty slow as well, unfortunately. Theme (3.5/5) The overall look and feel of the app is a little dated, and the icons and controls seem overly large, especially on a high-resolution display like a Full HD device or above. The overall look and feel of the app is a little dated, and the icons and controls seem overly large, especially on a high-resolution display like a Full HD device or above. Features (4/5) It might not be 100% scientific, but there is a little science here, and it shows. For those interested in seeing what more light can do to a photo, Light & Motion Tracker is the app to check out. It might not be 100% scientific, but there is a little science here, and it shows. For those interested in seeing what more light can do to a photo, Light & Motion Tracker is the app to check out. Overall (3.5/5) Even though the overall look and feel of the app needs a little work, Light & Motion Tracker does have some interesting features on offer, and I can see a lot of budding ghost hunters and such be really interested in this overall. Pros Offers users the ability to zoom in and pan around their images once the process has finished. Has a variety of different Phases to let users see the different effects and such throughout examining the different photos. Great for those hunting ghosts or examining haunting artefacts or houses, as well as those curious about myths and such. Works on the majority of smartphones and tablets without a problem. Cons Only allows users to choose from their last 25 photos, which is pretty limited. Doesnt allow users to take photos directly within the app. All-in-all, Light & Motion Tracker is an Android app that is definitely in need of some extra polish, and its the sort of app that might not appeal to everyone. Nevertheless, theres some scientific fun to be had here, and for the curious out there, this is the sort of app that will get their brain ticking and excite them. Of course, I have to say that unless you have at least some sort of belief in all this paranormal stuff, then Light & Motion Tracker might not be all that fun for you. Seed4Me VPN is an Android app that offers users the ability to stay connected while also staying safe no matter where they are. A VPN is essentially a way to make sure that your information isnt intercepted as you browse the web, it does this by encrypting your data and masking your IP address and location. This also unlocks geolocked content such as certain TV or movies just because youre online in a different region. With Seed4 Me VPN and Android Headlines, users can get six months worth of unlimited VPN access for free! With an account, users can use this access across multiple devices, and extending it is also affordable. So, lets take a look at what this VPN app has to offer. As with most other VPN apps for Android, users will need to download Seed4 Me VPN from the Play Store. Its also available in Amazons App Store for the Kindle Fire line of tablets here, as well as on iOS here. When Seed4 Me VPN is first launched, theres an introduction, and a simple way to get connected, users just need to hit continue and they can get started. There are a handful of different locations that users can connect to as well. This is a good feature, because it allows users from further flung regions of the world to connect to more Western nations and get access to popular movies and TV that would otherwise be locked away. When youre connected, your IP address will change, and as we said, with Android Headlines and this review you can get access to six months worth of unlimited VPN access for free. As we can see it says I am protected and have access until June 2016. One thing that you need to be aware of with all VPN apps like this one, is that when you use a VPN, all of your traffic will pass through another server en route to its final destination. With that said, I wanted to make sure that Seed4 Me VPN actually does what it says it does, so I first checked my IP with Google, and could see that they matched up. Then I checked to see if my location was identified as well. I live in the UK, so when I chose the United States and sure enough my location was shown to be somewhere in the US of A. Seed4 Me VPN is an unlimited VPN, which means that there are no data caps or speed throttling or anything of the sort. While our review period is getting users six months worth of free service, this can be extended should people wish to get more protection. I dont think this is unreasonable pricing here, but I do have to say that there are cheaper VPN models out there. Of course, not all of them include the option to have an account to use across the majority of your devices, like this does. Also Seed4 Me VPN offers users the opportunity to get a little more for free by sharing the love: Theres one thing that I didnt appreciate when using Seed4.Me VPN Proxy, and thats the persistent notification that keeps on appearing asking you to connect to a VPN. However, this can be removed by long-pressing on the notification and then changing one of the options that appears. All-in-all, Seed4 Me VPN is a great little VPN app, its put together with a high level of polish, the interface is nice and easy to follow, and theres little to get in the way of getting online quickly in a safe manner. It would be nice if the persistent notification could be toggled on or off, but this will prove useful for a lot of people. Thanks to the free six months offer that Seed4 Me VPN is running with our review of the app, this has a lot of value to it as well. After all, six months of unlimited VPN is pretty pricey depending on which VPN app you end up using. With quick connection times, a variety of different locations all over the world and more, theres a lot on offer here with Seed4 Me VPN. Ratings Speed (4/5) Everything here runs nice and quickly, with little to no waiting needed. Everything here runs nice and quickly, with little to no waiting needed. Features (4/5) While operating like most other VPN apps, Seed4 Me VPN works well and offers competitive pricing on connections to a number of popular locations without any limits. Users can also use the same account across different devices. While operating like most other VPN apps, Seed4 Me VPN works well and offers competitive pricing on connections to a number of popular locations without any limits. Users can also use the same account across different devices. Theme (4/5) While everything looks good here, and is easy to use, the font size is a little on the large size. While everything looks good here, and is easy to use, the font size is a little on the large size. Overall (4/5) With a clean interface and easy to follow instructions, and a VPN service that works well with no hassle, Seed4 Me VPN ticks all of the right boxes. Pros Offers 11 popular locations across the globe for quick connections in an instance. Competitive prices on unlimited VPN access. Free VPN access can be obtained by sharing with friends and such. One single account works across iOS, Android and your computers. Cons Persistent notification can be a little annoying. Font size in Android app is a little on the large size. Seed4 Me VPN Proxy is a complete VPN solution no matter what platform you want to use to get online with, and it all works nice and quickly, too. With Android Headlines and this review, users will get six months worth of free VPN access, which is a high value. Not to mention, there are 11 popular locations all over the world to connect to, and it absolutely works as it should do. While Chromebooks are generally considered to be one of the hit devices of 2015, towards the close of the year, they did begin to start to attract some unwanted attention. This was to do with a very specific section of the Chromebook market, the education sector. The issue was that the Electronics Frontier Foundation (the company currently undergoing dealings with T-Mobile and Binge On), had looked into the suite of software which is designed for Chromebook use in the Classroom and were concerned that the software could be pulling more student data than it should be. Within hours of the reports coming through, Google did respond publicly by issuing a blog post defending their position and stating that they do feel they act within the boundaries of the law, the agreement they had signed known as the Student Privacy Pledge and that they do all they can to ensure Chromebooks for Education are safe for students. Of course with a situation as tender as being accused of mining student data, that was unlikely to be the end of the situation and it is not Advertisement Today, Senator Al Franken sent an open letter to Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, actively asking for further explanation on the situation, what data is collected by Google and how the data is collected. Sen. Franken made it clear that Googles general moves into the classroom are ones to be commended, but at the same time highlighted that the issue and the extent to which Google may be collecting K-12 students personal data is something to be concerned about. As well as the actual data collection, Sen. Franken was also concerned as to whether students have the ability to consent to this collection of data in the first place. As a result, in the open letter, Sen. Franken specifically asks Google to provide information on a number of key points. Like for example, When a student is using a Chromebook but is not using one of the GAFE services, what kind of data does Google collect on an individual student?. Of course, so far there is no official word or response from Google on the open letter, although, it is likely we will hear more about this in due course. In the meantime, those interested in reading the open letter in full including the number of questions specifically asked about the collection of data, can do so by heading through the source link below. Pope Francis may not have a computer, nor internet access, but he has proclaimed that the virtual network we use to communicate with is a gift from God. Considered as Gods representative, Pope Francis is set to have a meeting with former Google executive, now Alphabet executive, Eric Schmidt. According to numerous reports via tweets and a Vatican source, it has been reported that Pope Francis will meet with the Silicon Valley executive for about 15 minutes. On this special occasion Schmidt will not be alone, he will also be accompanied by Jared Cohen who is the head of Google Ideas. Google of course, denied to comment on the meeting but reports suspect that the meeting will be held at the Vatican in Rome. Its rather rare to see such a powerful religious figure meet with an American executive. Not to mention that Schmidt is part of a company that leads the tech world by web search and technology. Pope Francis has spoke about modern technology and the internet before saying that the internet offers people immense possibilities that include encounter and solidarity. Pope Francis sees technology as something good and has even stressed the importance of social media. According to the Pope, media helps bring people closer together in what he called the unity of the human family. The unity that Pope Francis speaks of will in return, inspire solidarity which can establish a dignified life. Advertisement As of right now its unclear as to what Schmidt and the Pope will cover during their short 15-minute meeting at the Vatican. It could be possible that the two will go over the huge gap that divides the wealthy and poor. The Pope spoke on the subject saying that people who have less of an access to social media could be left behind. That would be a big deal especially with the ever changing landscape of the tech world. Whatever it is that Schmidt and the Pope will talk about will probably be interesting since they share two common interests which involve environmentalism and why sustainability is important. Whenever the meeting is held, hopefully there will be detail of their highly anticipated discussion. Theres been a lot of talk of the upcoming spectrum auction thats set to take place pretty soon. The FCC is going to be auctioning off the 600MHz spectrum, that was once used by TV broadcasters, and in a few years itll be used by wireless carriers. This spectrum is like gold to carriers. Simply because it is low-band spectrum, which is better for coverage especially indoor coverage and it means carriers can use less towers and cover more area. T-Mobile has been very adamant that they want plenty of 600MHz spectrum. Since they have the least amount of low-band or sub 1GHz spectrum in their portfolio, they could stand to gain the most from it. Sprint has already stated they are going to be sitting out of this auction, and Verizon seems pretty luke warm to the incentive auction. Now it appears that the auction could only bring in about $33 billion in total. This is primarily due to the current price war going on with the four major carriers, as well as the growth in the industry dying down. The FCC was expecting the auction to bring in around $45 billion, and even one broadcaster had much higher expectations. Around $84.9 billion. According to the analysts, it looks like AT&T might spend the most, at around $10.6 billion, followed by T-Mobile at $8 billion, Verizon at $6.2 billion, and Dish at $4.7 and others making up the remaining $3.6 billion. In that other category, analysts believe Comcast, Charter Communications and American Movil might bid in the auction. Advertisement In 2015, the FCC held the AWS-3 auction, in which nearly $45 billion was spent by the carriers, for more spectrum. Given the spectrum up for auction in this Incentive auction, many would think that the carriers would be willing to spend more. But these days the carriers dont have the kind of cash sitting around that they used too. Thanks to carriers like Sprint and T-Mobile becoming very competitive with AT&T and Verizon in the past few years, profits have started to dwindle, and thus theres not much left for buying spectrum. Nevertheless the spectrum auction is going to be one to watch. If T-Mobile can pick up a good amount of 600MHz, we could see a whole new industry in the next few years with plenty more competition. Uber is definitely no small company. The nature of the business and the recruiting methods made navigating applicable laws and going international rather simple, leading to a near-global rollout relatively quickly. Ubers Chinese operations have gotten particularly large, winding up valued around $7 billion. The money is a mix of profits, assets and investments from various worldwide firms, some of whom are undisclosed investors. Thanks to their unorthodox business model and insane growth rate, securing funding has never been terribly difficult. In a recent fundraising round, in fact, Uber managed to nab almost $2 billion from investors and partners in China. Ubers main unit, operating internationally, got what was left of the money after the Chinese arm took their cut. Beyond that, the allotment of funds across Ubers various divisions and worldwide entities wasnt disclosed, meaning it could have provided a seasonal bailout of sorts to various markets that slump in winter, or could have simply been distributed equally among Ubers bits and pieces. According to the Chinese media, with details later confirmed by a spokesperson for Uber, the list of investors in China includes CITIC Securities Co Ltd, Guangzhou Automobile Group Co Ltd, China Life Insurance Co Ltd, China Taiping Insurance Holdings Co Ltd, Hainan Airlines Co Ltds parent company, HNA Group Co Ltd, and three others that were undisclosed until now. China Broadband Capital, China Vanke Co Ltd and China Minsheng Banking Corp have joined Ubers official investor list in China. Advertisement Uber seems to be having a very good year, having signed tons of deals, including some with public transport authorities, and left rival Lyft in the dust. Uber has also seen their service integrated into Facebooks Messenger app. Future plans paint an even sunnier forecast, with plans to go into the self-driving car segment and join the transportation revolution early on. Future fundraising rounds havent been announced quite yet. Whispers and rumors of the company going public at some point in 2016 would make sense, but there has thus far been no sort of confirmation, nor any denial on Ubers part. Given future plans and projections, now is a great time to be involved with Uber. There are many Chinese manufacturers building good quality devices so as to compete with the likes of HTC Samsung as well as Xiaomi and Huawei. However, one of the stumbling blocks for any manufacturer new to either a particular product or a region is how to build customer awareness. One of the trends that some Chinese manufacturers have tried is creating sub brands, such as Huaweis Honor and ZTEs Nubia. There are a few reasons why a given manufacturer may decide to create and maintain another brand of products, such as how easy the new sub brand is to pronounce for the particular home market. Honor is a much easier word to pronounce than Huawei (wah-hee). Other reasons include creating a new brand with the intention to tackle a different subsector of handsets: ZTEs Nubia brand is for a more upmarket device compared with products wearing the ZTE logo. However, there are signs that introducing a number of sub brands into various markets has not helped the manufacturers and has perhaps hindered them. A new report from Digitimes, which cites unnamed industry sources, is suggesting that for 2016, manufacturers are looking to consolidate their smartphone ranges. These sub brands include K-Touchs Nibiru, INUI from Gionee, ZUK from Lenovo, Great God and ivvi from Coolpad and Palm from TCL. The cited example is Nubia, where sales figures have been disappointing. For every Nubia branded smartphone, ZTE sold four devices and because of this, the parent ZTE has sold off one third of Nubia to Chinese retailer, Suning, for a little under $300 million. Coolpad now has three brands to tackle the telecommunications, retail and online markets, but this has not worked out well for the company. It has new investors such as LeTV and Qihoo 360, and there are rumors that the business may be effectively bought by LeTV. We have already seen how the Great God brand has been passed across to Qiku (part of Qihoo 360). Lenovos ZUK, created via a joint ventre with Chinese Internet search giant, Baidu, has yet to achieve a breakthrough into the smartphone market. Advertisement The last two sub brands that could be consolidated are OnePlus, part of Oppo, and Palm, owned by TCL. OnePlus sales have been disappointing into overseas markets and the business is rumored to be laying off staff and could being incorporated back into Oppo. Palm, the brand applied to one of the first personal digital assistant devices, has been passed from owner to owner and split off from their last operating system, Web OS. TCL, which also owns the Alcatel brand, has yet to release any Palm-branded hardware, which could illustrate how difficult it is to launch a new brand into a crowded market. We may yet see a Palm-branded device in 2016, but we should not hold our breath. Were not exactly seeing a ton of tablets being announced lately. Tablets shipments have gone down in 2016, but were still seeing some interesting tablets hit the market. Weve recently talked about one such device, the Chuwi Hi12. The vast majority of you have probably never heard of this company, which is not that surprising considering Chuwi is not exactly that well known. Anyhow, about half a month ago, weve shared some images of Chuwis upcoming Hi12 tablet, and have also reported that the device will be available in both Windows and Android flavors. Well, it seems like this tablet is now available for pre-order from GearBest, read on. Now, Chuwi said last month that the Windows variant of the tablet will launch first, and that the Android flavor will follow later on. Well, the listing on GearBests website actually mentions both operating systems, which could indicate this is a dual boot tablet, if not, it should be fairly easy to sideload Android on it as well. In the listing itself, youll notice Windows 10 in the title, but if you scroll down to see more details, youll see the Google Play Store is mentioned there, as well as Android OS in general. Theres also this part: This Android/Windows device is designed to function specifically with the current Android/Windows OS installed on it, which more or less confirms both systems are installed. Advertisement That being said, lets take a look at Chuwi Hi12 specs. This tablet features a 12-inch 2160 x 1440 IPS display, along with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage (expandable via a microSD card up to 64GB). This tablet is fueled by Intels Cherry Trail Z8300 quad-core SoC clocked at 1.44GHz, while Intels HD Graphics card (8th-gen) is also available here. The 5-megapixel shooter is placed on the back of this tablet, and youll find a 2-megapixel snapper up front. The 11,000mAh battery is placed on the inside of this tablet, and it also comes with a micro HDMI slot. Speaking of which, you can see a full slot setup in the gallery down below, where youll find quite a few images of this tablet. The pre-orders are now available on GearBest, you can get this tablet for $249.99. Keep in mind that the pre-order period ends on January 28th, so if youre looking to pre-order one, you should do it before then. It is also worth mentioning that this tablet is made out of metal, which is clearly noticeable in the images down below. Thats pretty much it, stay tuned for further info. The Verizon-bound LG Optimus Zone 3 had leaked out last month, but this time around, big red has made it official. The entry-level smartphone will now be available on Verizon Wireless, as per an announcement by the largest wireless carrier in the US. The device will cost only $69.99 for subscribers signing up for the carriers simplified prepaid service plans that start at $30 for unlimited talk and text. While the $30 plan allows users to access the internet via Wi-Fi, for those wanting cellular data, Verizons simplified prepaid plans offer 1 GB of LTE data for $45 and and 3 GB of data for a monthly payout of $60. All of that, without any contractual obligation or extra charges like access fee or device payment, etc. Coming to LGs latest entry-level model on Verizon, the Optimus Zone 3 features a 4.5-inch display that the carrier claims is best in class. The smartphone is powered by a quad-core processor of unspecified make, according to the listing on Verizons official website. the phone is also said to be powered by Android Lollipop operating system, without specifying the particular version. Theres no word on the amount of RAM either, but the phone is advertised as carrying 32 GB of expandable memory. As for cameras, the device will come with a 5-megapixel primary shooter on the rear and a 2-megapixel selfie-cam on the front that actually comes with a selfie-flash. Verizon also makes it a point to mention that the default camera app on the handset includes gesture shot. Advertisement Theres no word on whether the Optimus Zone 3 will remain a US-only product or if it will get a wider release globally, even if by any other name. However, seeing as the Zone 3s predecessors were US-exclusive, the chances of that happening are probably slim to none. Either way, LG Electronics seems to be on a smartphone launching spree right now, especially in the entry and mid-range segments. Only recently, the company introduced as many as three new handsets, dubbed the K10, the K7 and the K4, as part of its brand new K Series of affordably-priced smartphones that are slated to replace the L Series of mid-rangers that never quite gathered the sort of traction that the South Korean company would have hoped for. While the K10 and the K7 were demoed at the recently-concluded CES 2016 event at Las Vegas, the K4 was shown off on an official promo video released by the company earlier this week. Audiofly is a brand that those interested in music or audio equipment will recognize for their in-ear monitors. The Australian firm supplies performance-grade monitors for live musicians as well as a range of in-ear headphones for consumers. The AF240 represents their first over-ear, full-size headphone, their first entry into a market filled with competitors. Audiofly has earned themselves a good name for their in-ear headphones, with offerings that are affordable all the way up to the high-end realms of audiophile grade hardware. With the AF240, Audiofly have tried to offer great sound in a closed-back headphone design while also offering a few differences to the everyday over-ear set of headphones. Have they succeeded with their first product in the over-ear market at $249.99 or should they stick to in-ear headphones? Read on as I hope to answer that very question. Features and Specs 40mm single-membrane neodymium driver 20 to 20,000 Hz Frequency Response 16 Ohm impedance 103 dB sensitivity at 1 kHz 1.5-meter detachable cable built with Audioflex and CORDURA materials Inline microphone with play/pause, answer/end call button Noise-isolating memory foam ear pads cutting out 20 dB of ambient noise Wax canvas carrying case Self-adjusting headband and ear cups Design and Comfort Advertisement These days, a pair of headphones has to look nice to even begin to be taken seriously, and Id say Audiofly have played a safe game with the look of the AF240s. For one thing, these are big, without being ridiculous, theres a lot of padding in that chunky leather headband and those ear cups are definitely noticeable. Available in only black, there are some interesting design choices here, like the bronze-stamping of the Audiofly logo on the faux-leather finished ear cups (which are piano black polycarbonate, by the way). The headband that peaks out between the padding and ear cups is nice and has a slightly different finish to most other metal headbands and the raw stitching on the top of the headband is a nice touch as well. There are a pair that might get you a few looks out and about but theyre far from being obnoxious. I appreciate the understated approach here, and while these are definitely modern in their design, they dont try too hard and you could really get away with these no matter what youre wearing. My only real complaints with the overall package is that the cable which is nice and thick and seems strong has started to fray at both ends a little bit, Im not sure if this is normal or not but mercifully its a standard 3.5mm cable, so you can use whatever the hell cable you want should this one break or you not like the color of it. This is a good thing. So too, is the fact that the ear cups are easily-removed and can be replaced with a pair from Audiofly with little to no fuss. Comfort is an interesting area when talking about the AF240. Thats because these are a self-adjusting pair of headphones, with the aim to make it as easy as possible to wear. The headband self-adjusts to fit on your head, meaning theres no ratchet system of clicks and clacks to find the right position on your head, instead you just need to pull the ear cups to wear you want them and let the band settle on to your head. The ear cups follow suit and can be swivelled a full 90-degrees and they also self-adjust to seal around your ear. This little party trick is an interesting one, but one that doesnt work all of the time. Sadly, this results in a pretty strong clamping force and it can take a few moments to get the seal just right when you put them on. That said, this means that the AF240 do not fall off of your head when like me you end up bobbing around at your desk like an idiot as Future Islands flood your head. Are the AF240 comfortable? I would say so, yes. Only in the same sense as most other closed-back headphones. These feel really snug on your head, without being painful or creating any pressure (the extra padding sees to that) and your ears will sweat after a period longer than an hour or so. As for the noise-isolating ear pads? Jurys still out on that one, Ive had these since late December and spent a good two to three hours a day average listening to them at my desk. I have a loud, loud mechanical keyboard in front of me and at moderate listening volume I can still here it quite clearly, so Id have to question their claim of 20 dB, but they will shut out the rest of the world and theyll be fine on the daily commute, too. Advertisement I have to give the Aussies at Audiofly a massive thumbs-up for the included carrying pouch that the AF240s come with. This has to be the only carrying pouch Id consider using for a pair of headphones. The waxy exterior shrugs at moisture, the thick rope tie at the top is strong and sturdy and the inside, oh, the inside. The inside of this has to be the softest carrying pouch for headphones Ive come across. Theres also a separate pouch for the included cable to rest as well. Perhaps Im making too big a deal of this, but for reference the carrying pouch that comes with the famous Beyerdynamic range of DT990s is a joke, even Master & Dynamics MH40s (which cost more than these) doesnt come close to this. The point here is what include one if its not going to be any good? Audiofly gets a big thumbs-up for a carrying pouch that should actually offer some protection and looks nice as well. Sound Advertisement Okay, okay so the AF240 have a great carrying case, a fancy self-adjusting headband and they look nice, but are they really any good? Its been interesting coming up with a way of describing how these sound after listening to them for the past few weeks. Those thinking that this is another modern headphone with oh too much bass will be happy to hear that isnt the case, and those looking for a pair that sound great no matter what you like listening to should keep reading. The best way of describing these is to imagine a five-band equalizer and every value taken up a whole notch. Everything here is turned up to 11, with no one part overdone or turned up too high. Bass, for example is nice and punchy, but it doesnt boom out and flood the rest of a track and the highs have a lovely resonance to them but nothing is ever shrill. Vocals are quite forward and theres always lots and lots of detail to love about these, no matter what youre listening to. Listening to Future Islands Seasons (Waiting on You) the vocals are smooth and grainy all at the same time, just as they should be, delivering the warm, strained voice of Samuel Herring. Bass is tight and hard-hitting on tracks like Rihannas Bitch Better Have My Money and on synth pop jams like CHVRCHES Bow Down the high synths have a nice ring to them without being shrill, and Laurens vocals are soft and resonant. These are a great pair of headphones to listen to practically anything with, but theyre not perfect. While I do think theres a good bass response with these, its perhaps more of a precise tubbiness than a boomy, resounding thud. Punchy and precise, the bass here is nice, but those looking for massive thuds wont find that here. As for everything else, I was pretty impressed with the range these exhibited, but when theres a lot going on it does appear as if the drivers are struggling a little and it can be hard to pick out particular notes and layers within a track. Advertisement Verdict For a $249.99 set of headphones, have Audiofly hit the right mark here? Almost. At this price point, I should be more impressed with their overall sound signature, but as it is these are fairly middling in terms of their overall reproduction. That said, the bass is not artificial or too boomy, the mid-range is alive and well and theres nothing to complain about the high notes. Perhaps Im not blown way because the signature here is so balanced, which is nice as these are an excellent pair to plug in and get great results no matter what. Theyre comfortable, good-looking and have some nice extras included, but for this amount of money these should have a little more presentation and detail. A solid pair of headphones that dont quite live up to their price tag, the AF240 are worth considering, but perhaps not at their current price tag. We have to remember this is the companys first set of over-ear headphones, and while these are good, Im more excited about what Audiofly can do with a second-generation of these. Google bought Motorola in 2012 at a cost of $12.5 billion in a decision that, at the time, seemed somewhat unusual: other than the Nexus product line, which Google has used a third party manufacturer for, the company has not had a handset or tablet manufacturing business. However, the main reason for buying Motorola was not because of the handset and tablet business but was because of Motorolas impressive array of patents. Indeed, when Google sold Motorola to Lenovo in 2014 for a shade under $3 billion, it kept the vast majority of patents for the protection of all Android manufacturers and customers. This decision was designed to prevent Android from becoming mired in lawsuit after lawsuit from the legitimate businesses, patent trolls and Apples of this world. Weve news today that Google is putting up over two hundred battery patents for sale. The breakdown of these patents is approximately two thirds US patents and the remaining third from around the world, covering six categories: charging, chemistry, packaging, manufacturing, hardware and hybrid batteries. Within these categories we find technologies related to electric and hybrid vehicles the document notes that the market for rechargeable lithium ion batteries for electric vehicles is expected to reach $7.5 billion by 2020. Googles decision to sell on these patents is probably more about passing on patents it no longer needs rather than a lack of interest in battery technology. Many of Googles products require battery technology, from the Pixel C tablet through to the Project Loon balloons, which will require some form of battery power reserve. There are several businesses known to be especially interested and pursuing better battery technologies including Apple, BlackBerry, Samsung, IBM, Qualcomm and Tesla. Battery life (and related to this, power consumption) is a very important part of the mobile world, because the smartest of smartphones is only useful as long as it has charge! Patents are also very important the the industry: Fortune notes that when a patent is up for sale, members of the LOT Network are protected from the business or individual that acquires the patent. Advertisement Google is still interested in pursuing patents across and remains one of the more active businesses acquiring and registering patents. In 2015, the company was granted over 2,800 patents in North America (ranking fifth amongst technology companies). For the twenty third year running, IBM was placed first, having registered 7,355 patents. Other businesses in the top ten include Samsung, Canon, Qualcomm, Toshiba, Sony, LG, Intel and Microsoft. Google products arent available everywhere. In fact, most products start off in the US and then make their way over to parts of Europe. For instance, Google Play Music was once a US-only product, but its now available in a slew of countries. Google Play Books has now opened up to 9 more countries in the middle east. So for those of you in Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Google Play Books is now available to all of you, at least according to the updated support page for Google Play Books. Many of these middle eastern countries still dont have Google Play Movies & TV, hopefully those will be on the way shortly. In these countries, Google is not only offering English books, but also Arabic books, since that is what the majority of these countries speak besides English, that shouldnt be a huge surprise really. So now those in the United Arab Emirates and these eight other countries can start filling up their library with all sorts of books, which you can read anywhere, especially with offline access available. Advertisement Another feature thats popping up in these countries along with Google Play Books, is the ability to upload PDFs and ePubs. Theres also word of some weird translation going on right now for Google Play Books. That will likely be straightened out pretty quickly though, as it appears Google have just flipped the switch for Play Books in these countries. Reading books on your mobile device -whether that be a tablet or a smartphone can be very convenient. Especially if youre one that has to take a subway ride to work and to get home each and every day. The Play Books team has been working to make the experience of reading on your smartphone or tablet better than before, and now those in Egypt and the other eight countries here will be able to experience that as well. Although they have had other services for digital books available already. Amazon recently brought their Kindle devices on over to the UAE and other middle eastern countries as well. When LG released last years G4, they did so after Samsung had announced and launched the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge. Samsung had managed to take Mobile World Congress by storm last February, knocking competitors like HTC out of the water in terms of press and recognition. While LG were smart to have an event all to themselves, it didnt quite get the same amount of attention, and an unfortunate massive leak before the announcement probably didnt help matters. This year however, it appears that LG is to move the release of the G5, the successor to last years flagship, up to Mobile World Congress and take on Samsung. As the Korea Times is reporting, LG Electronics head of mobile, Cho Juno, said that this year will be different. LG Electronics is ready to take on Samsung during a news conference in South Korea. The two South Korean giants have enjoyed a bitter rivalry for decades now, operating in many of the same spaces such as washing machines, refrigerators, technology and more. Samsung definitely has the upper hand where smartphones are concerned, but LG has had a good past three years, and after partnering with Google for the Nexus 4, Nexus 5 and now the Nexus 5X their brand presence has increased, too. The report goes on to say that LG will launch the G5 a day before Mobile World Congress, which suggests that LG is looking to launch their new device at the same time as Samsung. Advertisement So far, weve heard leaks of the G5 being a 5.6-inch device with a Quad HD display powered by a Snapdragon 820. Taking things further, a rumored 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage alongside a 20-megapixel rear-facing camera. Speaking of which, the camera experience on the G4 was one of the best to launch last year, so people will be expecting big things from LG this year. Other rumors have surfaced indicating that a modular design could be present to allow for a removable battery and expandable storage while offering a more premium build. Regardless, it looks as if we wont have too much longer to wait as LG have already confirmed their plans for Mobile World Congress. Weve seen plenty of Motorola-related coverage all over the media lately. Some statements one of Lenovos exec made were misunderstood by foreign tech sites, which resulted in wrong information regarding Motorola. It was said that Motorola plans on discontinuing Moto E and Moto G devices, but the company officially denied that. Well see new Moto E and Moto G devices hit the market in the future, that much is certain. That being said, the 2nd-gen Moto G is now discounted on BestBuy, so read on if youre interested. The 2nd-gen Moto G was announced back in September 2014, and it usually costs $149.99 on BestBuy in the US. Well, now you can purchase this handset for only $99.99 if youre interested. The Moto G (2nd-gen) might not be the latest handset Motorola has released, but there are certainly some of you who are still interested in it. Also, keep in mind that this is not the latest Moto G device either, the Moto G (3rd-gen) has been available in the market since mid-2015. That being said, lets take a look at Moto G (2nd-gen) specs once again, just to remind those of you who might be interested in getting this handset from BestBuy. Advertisement The Motorola Moto G (2nd-gen) features a 5-inch 720p (1280 x 720) IPS LCD display along with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage (expandable up to 32GB via a microSD card). Qualcomms Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor fuels this handset along with an Adreno 305 GPU for graphics. The 8-megapixel shooter is located on the back of this phone, and a 2-megapixel snapper can be found up front. The non-removable 2,070mAh battery is also a part of this package, and Android 4.4.4 KitKat comes pre-installed on this device, you can upgrade to Android 5.0 Lollipop though, so keep that in mind. The device might even get Android 6.0 Marshmallow at some point, which is also something that you should take note of here. Thats pretty much it, if youre interested and live in the U.S., follow the source link down below. Ever since smartphones and tablets took off, the display has naturally been a big focus for manufacturers to keep customers interested in their new releases and devices. When Samsung burst on to the scene with the original Galaxy S, they did so with a different type of display to their competitors, Super AMOLED, using Organic LEDs to create a much more vibrant and vivid display, Samsung has been trading off of this technology for years now, but theyre not alone, and 2016 has the markings of a big year for OLED displays across the industry. As Business Korea is reporting, Industry Analysts from IHS predict that there will be 35 Trillion Won (Roughly $28.7 Billion US) invested in OLED production across South Korea, Japan and China across 2016 and 2017, with much of the investment taking place in 2017. While Samsung currently controls about 90% of the worlds OLED market, there is competition coming out of China, with companies like BOE, Truly and Ever Display looking to create even better production facilities over the next couple of years. An industry insider notes that there will be seven new OLED lines with a capacity of 50,000 panels a month will be put into operation in Korea, China and so on until next year Advertisement AMOLED display have been used in devices from Motorola and others more frequently in the past year, and with more Chinese smartphones breaking into the mainstream, its no surprise that production is to ramp up across this year and next. Flexible OLED displays are to be in the spotlight as well, with some analysts predicting that Samsung is to launch a folding smartphone before the end of 2016. Wearables such as smartwatches benefit massively from OLED displays, not only producing more vivid displays, but also extending their battery runtime dramatically. Smartphones meanwhile, could undergo a slight design change in the next couple of years with flexible OLED. The LG G4 had a slight curve throughout the display and the Galaxy S6 Edge had a prominent slope from both the left and right-hand sides to offer something a little different from previous releases. The Galaxy S7 could be unveiled in a little more than a month, weve heard many rumors about it and weve seen some leaked renders which depict what the highly anticipated phone could look like. Regarding the hardware, rumors suggest that the design of the new flagship will resemble the one of its predecessor, based on glass on the front and back and a metallic frame in between. Internally, it is supposed to be powered by either a Snapdragon 820 processor or Samsungs Exynos 8890 processor with 4 GB of RAM in both cases. There will probably be two versions of the Galaxy S7, one with a flat screen and another one with curved screen on the edges, which will most likely be called Galaxy S7 Edge. The sizes of those phones are still unknown, as the information is contradictory at the moment. Those phones could even be launched with a larger version of the Galaxy S7 Edge, called Galaxy S7 Edge+. Apple upgraded the cameras on their latest iPhones and to show them off they implemented a feature called Live Photos. These phones record a few seconds before and after the picture is taken so the images have movement when seen in the Gallery. As usual, Apple didnt invent such feature, as HTC included a similar functionality in its Zoe app and Windows Phone also integrated a similar feature in its Camera app. Still, since the iPhones are quite popular, this feature is now better known. A new report suggests that a similar feature could be launched in Samsungs latest offering. Apparently, software engineers from Samsung are developing and testing the feature, and even if the company might show it at the launch of the Galaxy S7, it could be included in a future software update a little later. According to the information, the company has yet to decide what to call this feature, with Vivid Photo or Timeless Photo being two of the possibilities. Advertisement These kind of photos wouldnt record sounds, unlike in Apples implementation, so these files would not weight as much and they could be shared directly to Facebook and other social media sites as GIFs. Apple uses its pressure sensitive display in this feature, so its unknown if the Galaxy S7 would have a similar display, although some rumors have suggested that it will. It is worth remembering that these are just rumors until the phone is officially announced. Samsung has always been known for their software modifications on top of Android and depending on your outlook, thats either a good or bad thing. For a lot of users, this means extra features that simply arent available in stock Android or other devices, but for others it means yet more bloatware that they either have to wade through or disable in order to slim down their overall experience. One things for sure though, when Samsung added their KNOX security to Android, Samsung devices all over the world suddenly became more attractive to enterprise customers and with this latest news, businesses might be giving even more thought to using Samsung smartphones. In a press release this week, Samsung announced that the KNOX suite of security services recovered certification from both Chinas Information Security Certification Center (ISCCC) and Frances National Agency of Computer Security (ANSSI). Samsung did go on to admit that they worked closely with both parties, so there is a chance that specific modifications were made and that both French and Chinese agencies will receive different versions than the one available out of the box. Regardless, getting yet more government approval around the world is a big deal for Samsungs KNOX product, and it was only a few years ago wed expect to be hearing products from BlackBerry or Microsoft get this same sort of approval. Advertisement The version tested was KNOX 2.3 and in the case of the ISCCC Samsungs Galaxy S6 Edge+ and Galaxy Note 5 are the devices that will be used by employees of Chinas government officials and those in public sector jobs. In Europe, Frances ANSSI were keen to explore the dynamic partitioning available with KNOX, allowing companies and agencies to securely separate data, yet keep them in the same device. The French and Chinese authorities join those in Finland, Russia, the UK and the USA that have given KNOX the nod to be used in sensitive areas and by government authorities. Now, what was once a feature dubbed as nothing more than another gimmick to lure people in has become a big strength for Samsung, and proves that Android can be secure enough for the enterprise market. Ever needed to transfer a file from one device to another? Or you wan to share that awesome selfie you just took with your friends, to your friends without posting it on Instagram or Facebook? Samsung has a solution, and it doesnt even require network connectivity. Samsungs WiFi Transfer launched on the Google Play Store today, allowing users to transfer files between devices. This doesnt just work with Android devices either, you are able to transfer files to your computer from your smartphone as well. Using WiFi Direct, Samsung WiFi Transfer sets up its own connection with the other device to send files over. Much quicker than connecting via Bluetooth, and even easier than using a WiFi network or mobile network to send these files. Most of all because it wont use your data. Now the only downside here is that you do need a Samsung device to use Samsung WiFi Transfer. To start the transfer youll need a Samsung smartphone or tablet, but the device you are transferring to doesnt need to be a Samsung device. WiFi Transfer can also backup your data, although there is a limited amount of space for backing up files and such. Advertisement If you dont have a Samsung device, you can use alternatives, there are many other alternatives on the Google Play Store already. In fact, a pretty popular one is AirDroid. Which can send files back and forth between your phone, and another phone, tablet or even a computer. Its a pretty simple process, but one that is pretty darn handy. Of course, there are also some flash drives that are compatible with USB OTG for smartphones that work pretty well too. Sandisk has a few really good ones available right now, and they go all the way up to 128GB of storage. Samsungs WiFi Transfer is available on the Google Play Store now. Its compatible with some devices, but not all. Of course, Samsung devices are listed as being compatible, but were also seeing some others being included. Likely those that have WiFi Direct support. You can pick up the app from the link down below. Samsung and Qualcomm have worked together over the past years on many devices that are powered with Qualcomms Snapdragon processors. Last week the tech giant Samsung said it will start the process of mass producing Qualcomms new Snapdragon 820 mobile processors. Samsung, using the exact same process to make its own Exynos 8 mobile chips, will start production on the Snapdragon 820 using 14-nanometre chip production technology. This is great news for Samsung seeing as it will power Samsungs new Galaxy series, Galaxy S7, S7 Edge, and S7 Edge Plus, although the South Korean company did not reveal any benefit if any, the deal with Qualcomm will bring. Samsung and Qualcomm have had an off and on relationship for quite some time now with Samsungs phones having been put through a rigorous back and forth between processors. According to Wikipedia, in 2010 Samsung launched its first Galaxy phone which featured its licensed processor the ARM Cortex-A8 which was later called Exynos 3. The Galaxy S had many variants and some of which featured semi-related Snapdragon processors. Qualcomms Snapdragon processors can be found in many of Samsungs smartphones and tablets. Devices like Samsungs Galaxy TabPro, Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet, Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy S5 and S5 Active, and Samsungs Galaxy Note Edge and Note 4 were all devices powered by Qualcomms Snapdragon processor. Advertisement Although there were many rumors last year surrounding why Samsung decided to drop Qualcomm from its last flagship devices and instead use their own built processors, Samsung and Qualcomm seemed to have hugged it out and are now working together again on Samsungs latest flagship series. Qualcomm did seem to have some issues last year with their Snapdragon 810 processor overheating in some devices. Devices such as the HTC One M9 and LGs G Flex 2 featured this processor. Qualcomms vice president of marketing Tim McDonough did say that these were just rumors although the LG G Flex 2 did illustrate overheating issues but was said to be a result of excessive thermal throttling. Tim McDonough did go on to say that most of these rumors were just from someone who wanted to fuel the flame and wanted to get a story out of it. Whatever the case may be Qualcomms issues were eventually settled and Samsung obviously agrees with it starting production shortly. For a time, Google Glass was a singularly innovative product that was put in the hands of developers and early adopters. Those days are over now that a handful of companies are working on producing similar technology, and with Google Glass having taken a step back and revised its strategy, design, and target markets to focus more on enterprise. The popularity of Google Glass may have died down within the consumer community, but there are still plenty of users out there who enjoy their units and are getting a lot of functionality out of the face-worn AR technology. A recently reported issue however, seems to be making Google Glass units otherwise unusable. While not every single person who still has a Google Glass Explorer Edition unit has encountered the issue, a server problem reported by a decently sized and growing collection of users on Google+ mentions that Google Glass units are resetting themselves. The bigger issue is that once the reset took place, users have been unable to reconfigure their Glass making them completely unusable. This poses a major problem for anyone that still owns Glass as acquiring them was fairly expensive. This also isnt a completely brand-new problem as users have been reporting it since the first week of January. Advertisement Other users have reported a completely separate issue when trying to view Maps and Calendar cards, stating that instead of being able to view the information on those cards they are told their Google password is incorrect. While both of these issues are alarming, the reset issue more so, the good news is that Google is working to fix the problems with the server that is causing these in the first place. The other good news is that this has nothing to do with the hardware according to Google, so users shouldnt have a need to worry about that. While the fix wont be immediate, Google states that they should have things up and running and resolved within a few days, which means any Glass users who are experiencing either of these problems should see things go back to normal by the time the weekend rolls around. Wearables have really kicked off in the last two years. We have seen many tech companies released their very own smartwatches, had thanks to that weve also seen a ton of different design approaches. Huawei Watch, Apple Watch, Moto 360 line, Asus Zenwatch line, Pebble Steel there are a ton of smartwatches out there already, and 2016 looks to bring a ton of additional offerings to the market, not only smartwatches, but smart wearables in general. According to a new report from DigiTimes, were going to see over 100 million smartwatches and smartbands shipped in 2016. The 2nd-gen Apple Watch is set to be the frontrunner according to industry sources, probably because the first-gen Apple Watch was the most demanded smartwatch out there. The sources have also stated that the restrictions to Android Wear OS, and difficulties to differentiate products have slowed down the growth of this platform. Now, to put that into perspective, the market share of Android Wear devices declined to 2.7% in 2015, which is a significant drop compared to 11.9% from 2014. This info is based on the estimate by Taipei-based Market Intelligence and Consulting institute (MIC). Advertisement Now, the sources claim that Android Wear is expected to grow in 2016 considering the fact that it will expand to the Chinese smartphone market. Google Services are making a comeback to China this year, and that will certainly benefit Android Wear. The platform is definitely expected to grow this year, but the estimates are still not in. Now, as far as smartbands are concerned, Xiaomi has been really successful in 2015, as they were in 2014 as well. Their newly-released Mi Band is selling really well, and considering how affordable it is, other companies will have to find a way to differentiate if they want to compete with the China-based tech giant. That is pretty much it, all in all, 2016 will be a very exciting year as far as wearables in general go. We expect quite a few new smartwatches and smartbands to reach the market, and Android Wear is expected to grow as well, which are great news for the industry, thats for sure. Last year was an interesting time of year for phones, we saw a resurgence from Samsung with their new design language from the Galaxy S6 and LG perfect beyond just high-resolution displays. OnePlus launched yet another device and Motorola were back with some larger phones compared to 2014. Now that its 2016 however, were beginning to get itchy for new hardware. Well have to wait a couple more months to see fresh hardware, for now we have the best of 2015 to choose from should we be on the lookout for quality hardware without the price tag. 10. Sony Xperia Z5 Premium Advertisement When Sony unveiled the Xperia Z5 lineup, they did so with much of the same features and hardware that was used in the Xperia Z3 and Xperia Z2 line before it. However, with a new camera and a fingerprint sensor, there were upgrades to get excited about, and a new Xperia Z5 Premium to go crazy for. With a 4K 5.5-inch display, the Xperia Z5 Premium is one hell of a smartphone, and its mirror-finish certainly turns heads, too. Despite all of its plus points however, the Xperia Z5 Premium is difficult to get hold of in North America and expensive the world over. As we discovered in our review, the 4K display is only really 4K part of the time, and the chances of making the most out of it are often slim. If youre in the market for an Xperia Z5 however, this is the one to go for. 09. Motorola Droid Turbo 2 Advertisement The Droid line of devices have been around for years now, and this latest is one of the best ever produced by Motorola. With more Moto DNA than ever before, there are now some customization options available via Moto Maker and a ShatterShield display that promises to not ever break on you. Even so, its only available on Verizon, and theres not much beyond the usual Droid features and the aforementioned shatterproof display to set this aside from, say the Moto X Pure. Regardless, for those looking for a quality phone that doesnt break when you look at it, and quality service from Verizon this is a decent option. 08. Google Nexus 5X Advertisement When Google and LG teamed up once again to make the Nexus 5X, a lot of users were understandably pretty happy. The original Nexus 5 was a great device that had a whole lot going for it, especially the price tag. With the Nexus 5 X, Google added a Sony sensor that takes great shots, as well as a new fingerprint sensor. With a familiar form-factor at 5.2-inches, the Nexus 5X is a return to form for affordable Nexus devices. However, compared to other similar-specced devices, it could be considered a little pricey. Needless to say, we found it a great balance of size, specification and price when we reviewed it last Fall. 07. OnePlus 2 Advertisement Last year OnePlus introduced not one, but two smartphones. The later OnePlus X was mostly the original dressed up different clothing, but the OnePlus 2 was an excellent successor to the original. With a better-looking display, a better build and much more developed software, the OnePlus 2 is incredible value for money. Its also available without an invite now, making this a much more accessible device for the majority of users. While the lack of NFC gets more and more lamentable as Android Pay takes off, theres still a lot to love here. Especially if youre the type of user that likes the sound of 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage for much less than most other devices on this list. 06. Moto X Pure Advertisement 2015 might be the last year that we see Motorola launch the Moto line of devices now that their parent company Lenovo has big plans for 2016, so its a good job the Moto X Pure was an excellent all-rounder. For a smartphone that costs less than the majority of others and works on every carrier throughout North America and even further afield, the Moto X Pure is an excellent device. The camera and battery life have been greatly improved, and as we found in our review, Motorola have kept a lot of what people liked about the previous iterations alive and well. With a refreshing take on software as always, the only real downside here is that at 5.7-inches this is a big jump in size from previous Moto devices. 05. LG V10 Advertisement When LG released the V10, they essentially took the camera software from the G4 and turned it up to 11. With excellent video recording capabilities as well as some brilliant stabilisation tricks, the V10 is an excellent device to make films, capture every moment and just share away. While dressed up to be a little more rugged than the G4, it doesnt feature a ShatterShield display like the Droid Turbo 2, and it doesnt feature much else besides the camera features. Regardless, the V10 is a curious little device that deserves recognition. With the specs of the best out there and special attention paid to the camera, the V10 is the smartphone for creators and those with busy schedules alike. 04. LG G4 Advertisement The LG G4 was an improvement over the LG G3 in practically every way, and it brought with it a little refinement thanks to the leather back panels, too. Of course, with one of the best cameras on the market, its hard not to like the LG G4, regardless of looks. The 5.5-inch 2560 x 1600 display now looks much better in terms of color reproduction, and the software is a little more toned down as well, with LG working hard to get Marshmallow rolled out to everyone, not just parts of Eastern Europe. Having said that though, the G4s Snapdragon 808 can produce some stutters here and there and doesnt keep up compared with other devices on this list. 03. Samsung Galaxy Note 5 The Galaxy Note line of devices have often been the absolute best Samsung can cram in a smartphone. This year however, they seemed to take a step backwards. Aside from the ever-excellent S-Pen, the Galaxy Note 5 looks and feels like a larger Galaxy S6, with none of the fanciness of the Galaxy S6 Edge+. Theres no removable battery and no expandable storage. What there is however, is one of the better software experiences outside of Googles own as well as one of the best cameras out there coupled with a fresh new look. Its just a shame Samsung didnt do more to make it its own device like they had done previously. 02. Huawei Nexus 6P When Huawei and Google partnered for the Nexus 6P everything looked great on paper, but there were questions after the announcement. Could this Chinese manufacturer deliver? As we discovered, the Nexus 6P not only delivered but became one of the best Nexus smartphones ever produced. With an excellent build and great display, the Nexus 6P delivers in many an area, including the excellent camera. It might not have all the pixels as some cameras out there, but with a larger sensor it takes much more natural photos than most other devices. 01. Samsung Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge, Galaxy S6 Edge+ Samsung released not one, not two but three devices cut from the same cloth. The Galaxy S6 line of devices all feature the same excellent processor, the same Super AMOLED display and the same look and feel. The Galaxy S6 Edge and Edge+ add-in a little luxury and mystique with the curved display edges, but theres otherwise a similar thread joining these all together. Which is great, as it gives users the opportunity to get a larger device with a similar experience, and it gives Samsungs new design language a number of devices to show off with. What will 2016 hold for Samsungs Galaxy S7 line? Well have to wait and see. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump and top challenger Ted Cruz ended a longstanding truce in spectacular fashion on Thursday night with bitter exchanges during what may have been Trump's strongest debate performance to date. The New York billionaire and the Texas senator appeared to have a split decision by the end of the night, a sign that for all the bluster, little took place that could derail Trump from his lead position with a contest in Iowa on Feb. 1 to begin the search for a Republican presidential nominee. Projections that the debate would be a free-for-all were accurate. Beyond the Trump-Cruz theatrics, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida turned in a pugnacious performance with attacks on Cruz and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Florida Governor Jeb Bush presented himself as a voice of reason against Trump. A Google snap poll showed viewers believed Trump, who in the most recent debates was at times less engaged, won the night with 37.3 percent to Cruz's 26.6 percent and Rubio's 12.1 percent. Until the Fox Business Channel debate in North Charleston, South Carolina, Trump and Cruz had been friendly because they have both been chasing conservatives of the Tea Party movement and did not want to anger them. With Trump now needing to fend off Cruz's rise in Iowa, he pushed his charge that Cruz may not be constitutionally qualified to serve as president because he was born in Canada. The U.S. Constitution says only "natural born" citizens can become president of the United States. "Who the hell knows if you can even serve in office?" Trump told Cruz, drawing a scattering of boos in the audience. Born in Calgary, Alberta, to a U.S. citizen mother and a Cuban father, Cruz accused Trump of bringing up his birthplace simply because Cruz was leading some polls in Iowa. The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks. -Mark Zuckerberg In business, just as in life, there are many areas that require a fine line to be walked. There are choices we have to make every day in order to keep a delicate balance, such as knowing when to hire new employees or when to pull the trigger on a growth initiative. The most important fine line for the future of many credit unions is this: knowing when you are ready enough to move forward on taking action. There many innovative and successful credit unions out there, and then there are some that are shrinking year-after-year due to inaction. I call it the Getting ready to get ready to get ready syndrome. The very best advice Ive received in my career was when I interviewed in 2006 for the marketing and business development manager position for the then $37 million Members First Credit Union in Columbus, Ohio. My boss-to-be said, We are not expecting a series of homeruns from you. We are a credit union that is successful because we consistently hit base hits. Thats how you win games. He also went on to tell me in my interview that they expect some of the things I try to fail and I was encouraged, because it meant I was being given permission to try new things and put us out there where we needed to be. It was this advice that made my choice to work for this credit union and CEO very easy, and it was the best decision Ive ever made. If you are waiting for the alignment of stars for the perfect time to do something perfect economy, perfect employees, perfect budget, perfect location I have two words for you: stop waiting. Perfect doesnt exist. Not making a decision on something is still taking action inaction being the action but the result is that the situation is one you dont control. Youre letting outside forces determine the direction of your credit union for you. As the United States Marine Corps says, 60% and go. Youll never have all you need to make a perfect decision for the perfect time. That point being made, it is a delicate balance on that fine line. There are some businesses that take too much action and try everything new and shiny that comes its way in order to chase success. Its frequently just a distraction from doing the real work of doing 2-3 things very well. In your efforts to do a few things very well, there will be failures. Count on it. Make sure leadership is poised to reinforce the risk-taking mentality of those who are fearless in the face of potential failure, whether they succeed in a specific effort or not. If someone is always to blame, if every time something goes wrong someone has to be punished, people quickly stop taking risks. Without risks, there cant be breakthroughs. -Peter Diamandis 2016 is here. What are you going to do this week, this month, this year to move your credit union forward? Tell the CA Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation that their "security/welfare checks" are torturing the men in Pelican Bay SHU and need to stop NOW!!Learn more here about the 'checks' and how you can further support by sharing information and making phone calls:Since August 2, 2015, men in Pelican Bay SHU have been awakened every 20-30 minutes, 48 times a day, due to so-called "security/welfare checks" by guards. The architecture of the Pelican Bay SHU (PB SHU) amplifies the loud noise of the 'checks' -metal pod doors opening and slamming closed, chains and locks rattling, guards' boots stomping, metal pipes banging against the cell doors, and the beeping of the electronic monitoring system at each cell door. Sometimes guards also shine their flashlights into people's eyes. The people suffering these so-called "security/welfare checks" are locked in concrete solitary cells, so the noise and intrusion every 30 minutes is (additional) unavoidable torment .As of February 1st, it will be 181 days that these men have been tortured by sleep deprivation!! Six months.California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) claims the 30-minute checks are to prevent suicide. But we know that interrupted sleep is causing serious mental and physical health problems. John R. Martinez, in solitary for 15 years and in Pelican Bay SHU for over a decade, wrote in late August: there is a reasonable probability that life-threatening injuries and/or even death is inevitable, as medical symptoms are only worsening but not being treated.People locked up in PB SHU report health problems including:severe stressweight lossdizzinessfaintnessnauseaheadacheseye problemsstomach and bowel problemsdepressionfast heart ratesJohns mother, Dolores Canales, co-founder of California Families Against Solitary Confinement and the Family Unity Network, said: I visited my son in the Pelican Bay SHU on 12 September and he is going crazy from not being able to sleep. Ive never seen him like this. He couldnt think, and he fell asleep while I was talking with him from across the glass partition. John was in that state in September after 5 and a half weeks of sleep deprivation. It has now been 5 months since the checks started on August 2, 2015.Prisoners cannot concentrate, exercise, read, do legal work - the things that help them survive - and they cant sleep! This is extremely cruel and dangerous.If you can't attend the Rally in person, please make phone calls (and call more than once!) to:CDCR Secretary's Office: 916-323-6001CDCR Director of Adult Divisions, Kelly Harrington (he): 916-445-7688Senator Loni Hancock, Chair of Senate Public Safety Committee: 916-651-4009Assembly Member Bill Quirk, Chair of Assembly Public Safety Committee: 916-319-2020Governor Jerry Brown: 916-445-2481Suggested script for calls: Begin with your name and the city and state where you live. Please tell all of them: Stop the so-called 'welfare' checks in the SHU at Pelican Bay State Prison. Sleep deprivation is torture.You can also email CA elected officials- to STOP the 'checks'- with this link from Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) : http://tinyurl.com/ztjcos3 Please spread the word! More people need to know about this sleep deprivation! And we want a strong showing outside CDCr. Share the articles, the American Public Health Association (APHA) letter opposing the checks, and our video. [Links below]Any questions, don't hesitate to send us, Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition, a Facebook message or email us at phssreachingout [at] gmail.com . Our website is prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.comSF Bay View article http://sfbayview.com/2015/12/take-action-against-ongoing-sleep-deprivati ...American Public Health Association (APHA) letter opposing the checksYou Tube Video Sleep DeprivationThe Guardian, Sept, 25, 2015 http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/25/california-prison-suicide ...Scientific American, Oct. 2015 "Sleep On It: Your nightly rest turns out to affect your mind and health more than anyone suspected" https://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/sleep ...Sleep (Deprivation) Survey Report from Pelican Bay SHU Oct 13 & 14, 2015Why Interrupted Sleep Is Worse Than Short Sleep LOS ANGELES, January 14, 2016 Fracking is commonly used in Aliso Canyon gas storage wells and has occurred near SS-25, the leaking well spewing thousands of tons of methane into Los Angeles neighborhoods, according to official state documents. Gov. Jerry Brown needs to immediately halt fracking in gas storage facilities throughout California, said Maya Golden-Krasner, an L.A.-based attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. Fracking for gas storage poses a huge threat to well integrity and public safety, especially when its done in the old and corroding wells in Aliso Canyon. This dangerous practice increases the risk of accidents like the massive leak that has driven thousands of L.A. residents from their homes.Californias new fracking law, S.B. 4, contained a little-noticed provision exempting certain types of well stimulation for gas storage. Well records show that state oil officials have not been tracking let alone monitoring or regulating this practice in Aliso Canyon gas storage wells, many of which are decades old.State documents do show that a gas storage well was fracked less than half a mile from SS-25 in 2005, and the California Council on Science and Technologys recent well-stimulation report states: Operators hydraulically fracture gas storage wells. Hydraulic fracturing facilitates about a third of the subsurface storage of natural gas in the state. The practice is concentrated in Aliso Canyon, according to the science council.Fracking is used by operators to increase production of gas from storage wells. A 1999 report from the U.S. Department of Energy explains that gas storage wells are prone to continued deliverability loss at a reported average rate of 5 percent per year. This is a result of formation damage due to the introduction of foreign materials during gas injection, scale deposition and/or fines mobilization during gas withdrawal, and even the formation and growth of bacteria, the report explains.People around California have no idea that gas storage wells near their homes are being fracked, Golden-Krasner said. This dangerous practice is being used in their backyards while state regulators look the other way. Thats absolutely unacceptable, and it needs to stop now.The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 990,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.Center for Biological Diversity WASHINGTON, January 12, 2016 In response to a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity and Save The Frogs, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today announced a temporary rule restricting the importation of salamanders for the pet trade. The restriction is designed to prevent introduction of the deadly fungus Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal) into the United States. Bsal is a highly virulent pathogen from Asia, spreading through the salamander pet trade and killing wild salamanders, that has already nearly wiped out wild fire salamanders in the Netherlands and Belgium. With this rule the Service is trying to prevent introduction and spread of the disease across the United States. Im ecstatic the Fish and Wildlife Service is taking action to protect our native salamanders from this deadly disease, said Jenny Loda, a Center biologist and attorney dedicated to protecting rare amphibians and reptiles. With nearly 200 unique species of salamanders, the U.S. is a global hotspot for salamander biodiversity. This important step gives me hope that these amazing little guys will be around for the long haul.Infected salamanders could enter the United States through commercial trade in salamanders, mostly imported as pets. Two million live salamanders have been imported into the United States over the past 10 years; 70 percent of these salamanders (1.4 million) were Chinese and Japanese newts within the Cynops genus, a group of amphibians expected to act as carriers of the disease.Over a year ago a published study revealed that Bsal is lethal to salamanders in the United States, and scientists and conservation groups called on the Fish and Wildlife Service to take swift action to suspend salamander imports to prevent the spread of this disease. In the past year Bsal has spread to Germany, and Bsal infections were discovered in three species of European salamanders imported to the United Kingdom.Bsal is a relative of the better-known killer chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), one of the major drivers of amphibian declines and extinctions throughout the world. Bd has contributed to declines of numerous species in the United States and is a primary factor in the rapid decline of mountain yellow-legged frog populations.We are lucky to have the rare opportunity to prevent this deadly disease from entering the U.S. and causing the same type of devastation we saw with Bd, said Kerry Kriger, executive director of Save The Frogs. I am so glad to see the Fish and Wildlife Service stepping up to take action to protect our native salamanders.Bsal is especially lethal to newts, including the eastern newt, a widespread species found across 33 states. The disease also poses a severe threat to rare populations of salamanders, especially given that one-third of the nations salamanders are already at risk of extinction from threats like habitat loss and climate change. Bsal infections could extirpate remaining populations of the striped newt, a rare species that has been a candidate for Endangered Species Act protection since 2011.At a time when the introduction of devastating animal diseases like the pathogens that have wiped out millions of bats in the eastern United States and frog populations across the country have become all too common, its incredible to see proactive steps being taken to protect our wildlife, said Loda.Photo: Eastern Newt (Red Eft). Location: Durham County, North Carolina, United States, credit: Wikimedia Commons/Patrick Coin.The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 950,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.Save The Frogs works in California, across the USA, and around the world to prevent the extinction of amphibians, and to create a better planet for humans and wildlife.Center for Biological Diversity On January 8, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lees 2016 inauguration was disrupted by protesters calling for the firing of Police Chief Greg Suhr. Demonstrators continue to call for justice following the notable police shootings of Alex Nieto and Mario Woods, which have traumatized the community in San Francisco.Edwin M. Lee was sworn in as Mayor for another term. The ceremony was held inside City Hall and the public was invited. Lee narrowly won the 2015 election, and many in the community are furious that he is their Mayor, again, with the recent incidents of police brutality disrupting the community.The protesters staged outside City Hall and developed their strategy. Many had signs, but they were small and easily hidden. It appeared that most of the protesters gathered on the second floor, but they moved around a lot. The protester's were often kettled by police with riot gear on, or by the sheriffs. The protesters who were deemed too loud or extremely disruptive were grabbed and escorted away from the scene. At least 5 protesters were taken away, and some were arrested. During the inauguration screams from protesters could be heard throughout the whole building, and throughout the whole ceremony, so it seemed to be effectively disrupted. Donald Trump criticized the practice of corporations moving their headquarters overseas in name only to avoid US taxes during the presidential debate in South Carolina. Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump criticized the practice of corporations moving their headquarters overseas in name only to avoid US taxes during the presidential debate in South Carolina. Trump called these corporate "inversions" "one of the biggest problems" facing the United States. Democratic presidential candidates have also criticized the practice. According to the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, inversions could cost the US government nearly $20 billion over the next ten years."It's clear the issue of inversions crosses party lines," noted Eric LeCompte, executive director of the bipartisan religious development group Jubilee USA. "This is an issue where Congress can work together and solve a problem that affects all of us."After the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer inverted by merging with Ireland-based Allergan in November, Presidential candidates from both parties and Republican Senator Orrin Hatch called for legislation to stop inversions. In December, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton released a tax plan designed to stop the practice."Presidential politics could help push Congress to do the right thing," said LeCompte, who served on United Nations expert groups on tax issues. "Inversions are a theft from the poor and hurt economic growth."Jubilee USA Network is an alliance of more than 75 US organizations and 550 faith communities working with 50 Jubilee global partners. Jubilee's mission is to build an economy that serves, protects and promotes the participation of the most vulnerable. Jubilee USA has won critical global financial reforms and more than $130 billion in debt relief to benefit the world's poorest people. http://www.jubileeusa.org The government's war on drugs is full of hypocrisy and lies. With the right hand the ATF and others conduct raids on drug dealers. With the left hand, the CIA for 50 years has sold drugs in order to fund black ops and to have an army of addicts willing to do anything for a fix. 5 Whistleblowers Of Many Who Have Exposed CIA Role In Cocaine or Crack DistributionI Sean PennHis interview in Rolling Stone about his conversation with El Chapo is linked below.On Sunday Jan 18, 2016 60 Minutes of CBS will feature an interview with Sean Penn. and Monday the next day the entire interview with CharlieRose will be broadcast on Mr Rose' PBS show. Sean Penn has said his intention was to start a discussion about the 'war on drugs' in the US.II Gary Webb of the San Jose Mercury NewsGary Webb in 1996 published the article Dark Alliance, about the CIA's role in creating a crack epidemic in the US., targeted toward black communities.Many say that Gary Webb, the San Jose Mercury reporter, was murdered, although the movie Kill The Messenger leaves it up to the audience. Why? The Congress had been opposed to the Ronald Reagan, Oliver North, CIA plans to create and fund an army of 'freedom fighters' in Nicaragua. Tens of billions of dollars of crack cocaine was distributed. The CIA created an army of addicts in the US in order to attempt to destroy socialism in Nicaragua through an illegal war. It was Operation Guido or Guns In, Drugs Out.CIA connected media, the Washington Post, L A Times and New York Times, Nightline of ABC and Dateline cooperated in the CIA attempt to destroy Gary Webb. The Times printed news of his one time affair during his marriage. The San Jose Mercury News caved to the pressure. Webb had been held at gunpoint at least twice. He was followed. To protect his family, he had to move out. Illegal search and seizure occurred. As late as 2014 the Washington Post was attacking Webb and defending its sleazy crime.Before his death, Gary Webb wrote a book, Dark Alliance, defending his reporting.III Narrator Elizabeth MontgomeryEight years before Gary Webb, in 1988, Elizabeth Montgomery, Star of Bewitched and daughter of former Screen Actors' Guild president Robert Montgomery, had narrated the film Coverup about G H W Bush's role in drug distribution. Bush had been for 1 year the head of the CIA and after that had been a link between Reagan and Oliver North. A 2 hour show by NOVA also focused on this topic.IV 50 Years Of Drug Dealing By The CIA. The CIA airline Air America was used to transfer heroin from Southeast Asia to the US. The FBI followed Dick Gregory around the country as he reported that cocaine was secreted in the coffins of returning dead soldiers and that Jim Jones was part of a Vacaville prison (California) behavior modification study designed to observe how street people with no support system could be programmed.V The Bush family fought the publication of James Hatfield's book, Fortunate Son, which reported on G W Bush's cocaine habit. They were successful in retracting the entire first printing. But James Hatfield got another publisher. He, a Texan, was found murdered in an Oklahoma motel room. The authorities ruled it a suicide.Libertarians, conservatives like William F Buckley, and countless others have advocated an end to the trillions of dollars spent in phony wars on drugs.Sean Penn article on El ChapoCharlie Rose ShowHuffington Post on the movie Kill The Messenger which is about Gary Webb, whistleblower reporterThe movie CoverUp narrated by Elizabeth Montgomery, documenting G H W Bush role in drug distributionCIA and the Media50 Years of CIA Drug DealingThe book Fortunate Son about G W Bush's cocaine habit... the author was found dead"The Slimy Attack by the Washington Post on Gary Webb" by Robert Parry who at the AP wrote of the CIA cocaine connection in 1985.Picture sources:Wikipedia: source for Eliz. Montgomery Picture.Dick Gregory zimbio.comGary WebbSean Penn http://a4.files.biography.com/image/upload/c_fill ,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,g_face,h_300,q_80,w_300/MTE5NDg0MDU1MTk4MDA4ODQ3.jpg4532 Allianz buys first wind park in Finland Channels: SAA/ALM, Managers Companies: Allianz Capital Partners, ACP, M&G Investments, Legal & General, Gothaer Versicherungen People: David Jones A llianz Capital Partners (ACP) has acquired its first wind generating capacity in Finland. The private equity arm of insurer Allianz bought six turbines from wind power company OX2, expanding its 2.5bn ($2.7bn) portfolio of 55 renewable energy projects in Europe. The site at Jouttikallio, around 80 km from Vaasa, has a capacity of 21 megawatts and will satisfy the electricity demands of around 12,600 households, according to ACP. The project is due to be commissioned and delivered to Allianz at the end of 2016. OX2 will be responsible for the commercial and technical management of the wind farm. The purchase price was not disclosed. David Jones, ACP's head of renewables, said Finland is a promising European wind market. Jones explained last summer that investing in wind and solar farms is particularly attractive for insurers because they provide stable investments and long-term yields. "We are looking at an investment horizon of at least 25 years," he said. "What's more, yields from investments in wind and solar energy are higher than those of many other investment classes, such as government bonds - at the moment the market yields for renewable energy are at round about 5-6% and these yields are also totally uncorrelated with the ups and downs of the financial markets. They positively contribute to diversification." Other insurance asset management arms committed to renewable energy include M&G Investments, Legal & General in the UK, and Gothaer Versicherungen in Germany, as reported by IAR in 2015. Benedicte Gravrand Mexikoma the Safe Choice in Sunshine Millions at Gulfstream Park: Competitive large-field races are what bettors enjoy, and Saturdays $250,000 Sunshine Millions Classic at Gulfstream Park features a 10-horse field with at least a few key contenders. Out of the main choices, Mexikoma seems like the safest choice to hit the board for Team Valor International. Mexikoma, once considered a Derby contender in 2014, never quite lived up to his potential after Team Valor bought the colt from Michael Dilger and transferred him to Richard Mettee. Now back with Dilger since last summer (while still owned by Team Valor), Mexikoma has posted two wins out of five starts. If there is one primary concern with Mexikoma, he only finished an okay third and fifth in two tries at Gulfstream Park. The initial try over this dirt surface came against graded stakes horses such as Constitution and Tonalist, which makes the loss more forgivable. Last month, he finished fifth in the ungraded Harlans Holiday. From the middle post position, jockey John Velazquez can secure good position right after Sr. Quisqueyano and Mr. Jordan cross from their outside posts. While he lacks a win at Gulfstream Park, Mexikomas TimeformUS numbers are solid, although not mind-blowing. If a speed duel develops, he will take advantage. Much reason exists to believe a fast pace will happen in the Sunshine Millions. Sr. Quisqueyano and Mr. Jordan possess plenty of speed and each would prefer an uncontested lead, if the opportunity arises for one. Assuming neither horse scratches, finding an easy time up front should be difficult. Then again, Sr. Quisqueyano won this race last year after putting away the cheap speed Im Steppin It Up and holding off East Hall in a visually fantastic effort. Im Steppin It Ups odds were 60 to 1 though. When a super-longshot leads, it is the same as no horse leading or the second horse in front. While it is true Wildcat Red, who starts in an undercard race on Saturday, also pressed the pace in the Sunshine Millions last year and quickly faded, he never raced again until July. Most likely, Wildcat Red came out of the race injured. The fact Sr. Quisqueyano outlasted him too becomes less significant as well. To illustrate this point, Sr. Quisqueyano lost his next five races. Still, trainer Peter Walder hopes for a turnaround. Ive kind of been pointing to this race all year. Its his time to wake up, Walder said. Mr. Jordan, like Sr. Quisqueyano, comes with a losing streak. He last won in the Pegasus Stakes (GIII) at Monmouth Park back in June after stalking the pacesetter Tekton. In August, Mr. Jordan faced American Pharoah in the Haskell (GI). Cross the effort out. Mr. Jordan returned in December in the Harlans Holiday, the same one Mexikoma ran in, and faded to third place after setting a decent pace on an uncontested lead. Just last weekend, Mr. Jordan faded again to fifth in the Hals Hope (GIII). The bump at the break possibly affected his run. Sure, Sr. Quisqueyano and Mr. Jordan are capable of numbers large enough to win. One of them may work out a good trip. At the same time, they are untrustworthy and need to be included with a safer option. The final horse with a chance to win is Runs With Bulls, who Walder also trains. This seven-year-old gelding is on a three-race winning streak, but two of those wins came at lowly ThistleDown. The third win came here in the Starter Stakes. He earned a 100 TimeformUS Speed Figure, a number lower than the above three can produce. As with his other entrant, Walder spoke positively of his horses chances anyway. He looks like hell run all day. His numbers are good. Why not?, he said. Perhaps Walder refers to Runs With Bulls Beyer Speed Figures, which sometimes differ from TimeformUS numbers. On the plus side, the high-percentage Javier Castellano takes the call. The Sunshine Millions Classic appears tough this year. As long as there are no scratches, Mexikoma projects for a setup. Given his closing style, and how Sr. Quisqueyano and Mr. Jordan run, the Birdstone colt figures to be around the leaders towards the end. Use them all in horizontals and backwheel Mexikoma in exotics. Sunshine Millions Classic Stakes 2016 Post Positions & Odds Race 11 5:05 PM ET 1 Abounding Legacy 12-1 Rosario/Nicks 2 Runs With Bulls 6-1 Castellano/Walder 3 Yourdreamsormine 20-1 Leyva/Kaplan 4 Saraguaro 5-1 Castro/Joseph, Jr. 5 Mexikoma 9-2 Velazquez/Dilger 6 Roll On the Navajo 15-1 Gaffalione/Rakoff 7 Morgans Harbour 30-1 Lezcano/Pinchin 8 Sr. Quisqueyano 4-1 Zayas/Walder 9 Mr. Jordan 7-2 Bravo/Plesa, Jr. 10 Catholic Cowboy 12-1 Saez/Zito Washington, DC An An overtime pay lawsuit that originated in California has gone all the way to the US Supreme Court and could pave the way for the entitlement of retail automotive service advisors to overtime pay. Its been a long journey, however, with both sides in the dispute digging in their heels.Plaintiffs initially brought their unpaid overtime lawsuit against Encino Motorcars LLC in September 2012, arguing that their job descriptions and job function qualify them for overtime pay. Service advisors are employees of the dealership whose function is to greet customers and clients of the dealership, help to determine what service and/or repairs a vehicle requires and suggest additional work thats not immediately needed - an upsell, if you will.The plaintiffs view their functions primarily as those of an employee, and thus should qualify for overtime pay under California overtime law. The dealership, on the other hand, sees the service advisor as primarily a salesperson who also takes part in the servicing of vehicles and, thus, is exempt from overtime under provisions observed by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).According to court documents, the original lawsuit was thrown out in January 2013 but revived by the Ninth Circuit in March of last year. The Ninth Circuit sided with the plaintiffs, ruling that service advisors working for the dealership were primarily employees of the dealership with a minimum of their time spent in a sales capacity and, thus, qualified for overtime pay under overtime pay laws observed by the state of California and the FLSA.Not satisfied with that ruling, Encino Motorcars appealed the case to the US Supreme Court. Among other arguments in a brief filed on December 22, the defendant held that the plaintiffs support and defense of the Ninth Circuit ruling fails on the basis of similar rulings by every other court having correctly identified service advisors as a paradigmatic example of a salesperson who also takes part in the servicing of vehicles.The plaintiffs, on the other hand, hold that they should not be put into the same category as salespeople or mechanics - neither qualifying for overtime pay under FLSA rules - based on the particular function of greeting clients, liaising with the service department and attempting to upsell repair services.It should be noted that the US Supreme Court has yet to accept the case - rather, arguments have been flying as to whether or not it should. The defendant, Encino Motorcars, is of the view that the US Supreme Court would be wise to consider the case as the Ninth Circuit Ruling dramatically upsets that once-settled body of precedent and [the Supreme Courts] intervention is warranted to restore uniformity to this important area of the law. If the decision is left undisturbed, there will be no shortage of lawsuits seeking windfall recoveries, the dealership said in its brief filed in mid-December.The National Automobile Dealers Association and various other dealership associations in nine states have also thrown their support behind Encino Motorcars.The plaintiffs, however, are standing by their position that the Ninth Circuit got it right and that any ruling on the part of the Supreme Court would have a limited effect on the overall landscape, given that the issue is of paltry significance on a national scale and thus is not worthy of consideration by such an august body such as the US Supreme Court.The case isCase Number 15-415, in the Supreme Court of the United States. Fifty years ago on January 15, 1966, the first military coup d etat was carried out in Nigeria by junior soldiers, toppling the government of Nnamdi Azikiwe and Tafawa Balewa thereby rewriting the political, social and military history of the country forever. [article_adwert] On the morning of the coup, Kaduna Nzeogwu, the leader of the coup plotters led soldiers in Kaduna to take over the house of Ahmadu Bello, the leader of the northern region. He was summarily killed after the house was ransacked. Brig Samuel Ademulegun, the commander of 2nd brigade and his wife were reportedly shot by Nzeogwu's co-conspirator, Maj Timothy Onwuatuegwu. In Lagos, Sir Tafawa Balewa who was the prime minister was taken out of his mansion at gun point. His body was reportedly discovered six days later. The attack was led by Emmanuel Ifeajuna. The attack in Ibadan was led by Capt. Emmanuel Nwobos and although there was a scuffle, Samuel Akintola was eventually killed. Major General Aguiyi Ironsi took over government as the first military head of state but the nature of the coup made it look like powerful northerners were killed while their Igbo counterparts were spared. Also, most of the key coup plotters were Igbos and although an Igbo, Arthur Unegbe was killed, it was soon tagged an Igbo coup It was to change the history of the country forever. Coup and Counter coup Tafawa Balewa The coup, though not completely successful laid the foundation for coups and counter coups in Nigeria. Just six months after the first coup, a counter coup was carried out leading to the death of Ironsi. The coup, popularly referred to as the return match, was planned and carried out by northern officers. It was evident that the attack was retaliation for the first coup. Although the officers that carried out the January coup were still in detention, the fact that they had not been tried for treason and were still on the payroll of the government sent a signal to the northerners that the Igbos wanted to dominate. Aguiyi Ironsi The counter coup would not be the last as officers grew more experienced in coup planning. Bloodier coups followed as senior military men masterminded and carried out more potent coups. Abortive and unsuccessful coup planners were unceremoniously hanged but the tradition of toppling government through a coup continued until 2007 when the former president Olusegun Obasanjo successfully handed over power to Umaru Musa YarAdua. Still it was reported that Obasanjo took stringent measures to prevent the toppling of his government by retiring senior military personnel. Biafra Odumegwu Ojukwu Although the Biafra civil war began in July, 1967, the genesis could be traced to the first coup of January 1966. The supposed Igbo coup strained relationship between the Hausas in the north and Igbos in the east. Following the counter coup in July, 1966, Igbos reportedly became victims of violent attacks in the north while little was done by the then head of state, Yakubu Gowon. Tension grew and an attempt to salvage the situation failed after the Aburi Accord in Ghana in January, 1967. A few months later, Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, the military governor of the eastern region declared the region an independent Biafra state. Nnamdi Kanu What followed was a bloody war that lasted for three years. Although Nigeria returned to being a single country, the event led to the formation of different separatist groups calling for the declaration of an independent state of Biafra. The detention of Nnamdi Kanu, the director of Radio Biafra on charges of treason is due to his agitation for an independent Biafra state; an agitation that is remotely connected to the first coup in 1966. State Creation Nigeria map Prior to 1966, Nigeria was divided into four regions: Northern region, Western region, Mid-Western region and Eastern region. While the formation of states was something that would eventually happen, the speedy creation of 12 states three days before the start of the civil war was a way to weaken the strength of the Eastern region. The eastern region was broken up into Central Eastern, South Eastern, and Rivers state. It changed the country's setup from regionalism to statehood. The creation of states created a crack in what used to be perceived as a unified eastern region. This was a tactic used by the federal government to establish scattered region that could be handled individually. This was a reaction to the brewing civil war which is also connected to the coup of 1966. Although the number would eventually rise to 36, the creation of 12 states was very significant at that time. Military Involvement In Politics president muhammadu buhari and Olusegun obasanjo.. both were former heads of state The militarys involvement and participation in Nigerias politics and governance can be traced to the first coup of 1966 when the civilian government was toppled and replaced with a military rule. Since then military rule continued till 1979 when a civilian government took over. Four years later, another military coup ousted the civilian government until 1999 when an election was carried out and Obasanjo, a former military officer was sworn in as president. Since the military tasted power in 1966, the desire for government increased. Officers who served as military governors or held leadership positions have shed their uniforms to occupy or contest in elective positions in the country. Among them are the aforementioned Obasanjo and the current president, Muhammadu Buhari. Ojukwu and Ibrahim Babangida showed interest in also becoming the president. Other former military men who occupied or contested in elective positions are David Mark, Jonah Jang, Tunde Olurin, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Murtala Nyako and Tunde Ogbeha. Northern Dominance In Nigerian Military Ibrahim Babangide and Sani Abacha. Both were chiefs of army staff and later became heads of state The military coup of 1966 ushered in an Igbo head of state, Aguiyi Ironsi. It was evident therefore that Ironsi got the position because he was the chief of army staff, the most senior commissioned officer. Whether by design or nature, the position was not occupied by an Igbo officer for more than 40 years. This automatically reduced the chances of an Igbo officer occupying the position of Head of State as three heads of states were former chief of army staff. Azubuike Ihejirika The position rather was mostly occupied by northern military officers which gave the region the chance to produce most of the military heads of state in the country. It took 44 years after Ironsi for an Igbo to return to the position of chief of army staff with the appointment of Azubuike Ihejirika by the then president Goodluck Jonathan. Source: Legit.ng Precisely 640 days after the Boko Haram terrorist group kidnapped over 200 female students from their dormitory at Government Girls Secondary School (GGSS), Chibok, Borno state, the present administration has responded to the pleas of the girls' parents. FROM LEFT: Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Sen. Aisha Al-Hassan; Minister of Defence, Gen. Mohammed Dan-Ali; President Muhammadu Buhari, and National Security Adviser Babagana Monguno, during the Presidents Meeting with Members of the Bring-Back-Our-Girls, at the Presidential Villa in Abuja [article_adwert] READ ALSO: Soldiers Detain 65 Parents Of Kidnapped Chibok Girls Leadership reports that President Muhammadu Buhari, on Thursday, January 14, ordered a fresh investigation into the abduction of the girls. Reports have it that the panel that will investigate the incident is to be named by the national security adviser (NSA) General Babagana Munguno. The presidential senior special assistant on media, Garba Shehu, in a statement said the panel is to uncover the remote and immediate circumstances that led to the abduction of the female students by the terrorists and also other events, actions and inactions that accompanied the incident. Speaking earlier at a meeting attended by some parents of the abducted girls, representatives of the Chibok community and members of the Bring Back Our Girls movement at the Conference Hall of the State House, the president said he has been doing his best and promised to continue to do everything possible to rescue the children and re-unite them with their families. President Buhari said that he remained unwavering in his promise to bring back the girls. I assure you that I go to bed and wake up everyday with the Chibok girls on my mind. The unfortunate incident happened before this government came into being.What have we done since we assumed office? We re-organized the military, removed all the service chiefs and ordered the succeeding service chiefs to deal decisively with the Boko Haram insurgency. In spite of the terrible economic condition we found ourselves in, we tried to get some resources to give to the military to reorganize and equip, retrain, deploy more troops and move more forcefully against Boko Haram. And you all know the progress we have made. When we came in Boko Haram was in Adamawa, Yobe and Borno. Boko Haram has now been reduced to areas around Lake Chad. Securing the Chibok girls is my responsibility. The service chiefs and heads of our security agencies will tell you that in spite of the dire financial straits that we found the country in, I continue to do my best to support their efforts in that regard. This is a Nigeria where we were exporting average of two million barrels per day at over 140 dollars per barrel. Now it is down to about 27 to 30 dollars. You have been reading in the press how they took public funds, our funds, your funds and shared it, instead of buying weapons. That was the kind of leadership I succeeded. That was the kind of economy I inherited. God knows I have done my best and I will continue to do my best, President Buhari said. Other top dignitaries at the meeting with the girls parents included the minister of defence, Mansur Mohammed Dan Ali, the minister of women affairs, Hajiya Aisha Alhassan, the chief of defence staff, Gen Gabriel Olonisakin, the chief of army staff, Lt-Gen Tukur Buratai, and the national security adviser, Maj-Gen Babagana Monguno (rtd). READ ALSO: Ita Enang Reacts To Missing Budget Accusations Speaking also at the meeting, Gen Olonisakin disclosed that in the last three months the military has freed over 3,000 people from Boko Haram captivity in the northeastern part of Nigeria. He claimd that the military has the ability to rescue the girls, but noted that: intelligence is delicate and we dont want to do anything to jeopardize the lives of the girls. Legit.ng had earlier reported that parents of the abducted Chibok school girls marched to the Presidential Villa in Abuja to protest the whereabouts of the missing school girls. It was reported that during the meeting, President Muhammadu Buhari stormed out. The Chibok girls were abducted by the Boko Haram terrorist group in April 2014, who stormed their school in the community located in Borno state, northeast Nigeria. The incident sparked many reactions from both international communities and neighbouring countries within the West Africa region. It has not been ascertained if the girls are still alive or where they are being kept. Source: Legit.ng In a rather amazing fashion, Nigeria's former president, Goodluck Jonathan has made history with another international award in Atlanta, USA. This is coming on the heels of local and international recognition which has come his way since he conceded defeat to President Muhammadu Buhari after losing at the 2015 presidential election. [article_adwert] The former president on Thursday, January 14, 2016, added to his growing list of international awards after being honoured by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), in Atlanta, Georgia. Ex-president Goodluck Jonathan receiving his award in Atlanta, Georgia. READ ALSO: Jonathan Writes Letter To Obasanjo, Addresses Him Dear Baba According to Vanguard, he got the Presidential Award in recognition of his leadership in advancing human rights, social justice and the fight for universal freedom. The conference was founded by the late American Civil Right leader, Martin Luther King Jr, in January 1957 and is currently led by Dr Charles Steele Jnr. Ex-president Goodluck Jonathan displaying his award in Atlanta, Georgia. View more photos from the event below: This award is one of the activities which will take place ahead of the Martin Luther King Jr Day which comes up on Monday, January 18, 2016. READ ALSO: Tanzanians Commend Jonathan, Call Him A Hero Of Credible Election In Africa By this arrangement, ex-president Jonathan becomes the first African leader to be so honored and has gained recognition by the president of the SCLC, who has promised to work with the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation to advance the cause of peace around the world and to bridge the gap between people of color in the Diaspora and Africa. After receiving the award, the ex-president appreciated the initiator, saying the recognition will enable him work harder for the advancement of democracy. He said: "I thank the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, for inviting and honoring me today, and especially so, as this invitation comes right about the period when the world stands still in recognition of the selfless sacrifice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. When we think of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), it is virtually impossible to separate this worthy body from its founder, the late great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, or from epoch making landmark events of the American Civil Rights movement. "I am pleased to know that the Southern Christian Leadership Conference is not just one of the great American institutions, it is also one of her more potent vehicles for the advancement of liberty and freedom for all Gods people. For that, I also commend Charles Steele for his leadership and commitment to peace and justice nationally and globally. "The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Dr. Martin Luther King Jrs principles of non violent protests played a great part in the independence movement in my native country Nigeria and indeed throughout Africa as a whole. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr witnessed the British Union Jack being lowered in Ghana in 1957 when Ghana became the first Sub-Saharan African nation to gain independence, an action which set off a positive chain reaction all over the continent. In 1963, Ambassador Leslie O. Harriman, Nigerias Permanent Representative to the United Nations, who prosecuted our anti apartheid strategy at the UN, testified of the support he received from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr in kick starting that noble effort. "Suffice to say that the efforts of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr in advancing Liberty and equal rights transcended national boundaries. Speaking for my foundation, the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation, I must say that I have been inspired by this great man and the worthy institutions and legacies he left behind and I am further inspired to continuing doing good and advancing human freedoms just by being present here today. "My personal takeaway from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, is service to God and the brotherhood and equality of all men before their Creator. In keeping with that, I have learnt not to look up to any man, except he is taller than I, or to look down on a fellow mortal, except I am admiring his shoes. "Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said: 'Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love'. Those words helped me deliver on my stated promise to deepen democracy in Nigeria and in the process demonstrate through action that nobodys political ambition is worth the blood of any Nigerian. Once again, I thank the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for having me. May God bless you and continue to raise up from among you men and women who will continue in the footsteps of your worthy forebears. "It was also a pleasure to meet Naomi King, the sister of the late American Civil Rights leader and founder of the SCLC, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, who was kind enough to attend the event and identify with the goals and aspirations of the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation. By this award, I am further inspired to continue to work for the advancement of democracy, peace and progress in Nigeria and Africa. Jonathan who also became a grandfather yesterday, was recently named the Person of the Year by The African Sun Times, Africas number one and largest newspaper in the United States of America (USA). Source: Legit.ng To many the twerk dance is foreign to Nigerians but that has been contested by a staunch fan of the late afro beat legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti with some evidence. Sola and Yeni Anikulapo-Kuti, learning and watching their father Fela choreographing his dancers. Nigeria is the home of twerking, says an avid Fela fan who goes by the name Mallam Okwechime Abdul on Facebook. He runs the Facebook group, Kalakuta Chronicles and hosts a show on the online radio, iGroove Radio. Abdul contends that twerking was made popular by Fela and his dancers. He wrote in a post on the page: In Africa, dancing is revered. Music and dancing are integral part of the African culture. Whenever Africans celebrate or are marking any event, music and dancing are interwoven into such. Children learn how to dance at very early ages in life. They usually learn by joining age groups dancing troupes or watching older members of the family do the unique cultural dances of their ancestors and lineage. "Interestingly the females are always the focus and indeed the main thrust of the dances in Africa. Across Africa scintillating wriggling of the waist is the hallmark of dances. The style of waist wriggling varies from people to people. But what is common is the reliance on women to package the dances. "The rest of the world usually waits for International Culture Festivals to witness the Africa dance displays. These also go for people of African descent; Brazilians, Jamaicans, Caribbeans.... However the emergence of Fela on the world music scene took African dancing to a different level. "Fela repackaged the dances of Africa for international consumption. He redefined waist wriggling and made global audience salivate and drool for more each time his dancers mounted the stage. He started this very early in his career. And he evolved the now worldwide Afrobeat Dance. [article_adwert] READ ALSO: Why Fela Hated Former President Obasanjo- Femi Kuti "Dele Salami, the beautiful dancer was the pioneer Afrobeat dancer. She was a lone dancer but creditable she defined the steps of future Afrobeat dances. Her dance and subsequently Afrobeat dance, is centered around the waist. Size of buttocks of the dancers goes a long way to enhance the dance but it is the dexterity in the art of wriggling the waist that leaves the audience gasping. Now the whole world is in a trance. "Initially with Dele alone, it was just a matter of freestyle waist wriggling dance. But with the emergence of the Kalakuta Republic and the famous Fela girls who later became Fela queens, more dancers were introduced. The freestyle waist wriggling style, largely dependent on the dexterity of the individual dancer, began to mix with the choreographed dance pattern yet largely centered around patterned waist dance. What this means is that a dance teacher came to add these patterns to whatever waist wriggling talents the dancer had. And this instructor, (wait for it) was most of the time Fela himself. "Fela supervised and taught dances at rehearsals, patterned along the Afrobeat Rhythms in his head. So the choreographed dance steps on Fela stage were indeed patterns formed and created by him out of the beats of his music. He knew what he wanted to see as he put it succinctly, "African Woman Go Dance, She Go Dance Fire Dance...." It was indeed the burning fire of Africa Dances that emerged on the Fela stages. Queen Sewa, one of Fela's best twerkers "The fear in those days was continuity after Fela might have passed on. But unconsciously, while growing up, his two daughters, Yeni and Sola, were usually very attentive observers at these rehearsals. And this is aside the fact that Dele Salami, the pioneer dancer had also deliberately gave them the appetite for Afrobeat dance. READ ALSO: Throwback Thursday: 10 Songs That Made Majek Fashek A Reggae Icon "So when Fela left the scene the two sisters took up the Afrobeat dance. And today years after Fela created the dance, and Sola, his younger of the two first daughters, had also passed on, Yeni Kuti who actually felt and shared her father's dream has kept the flame of Afrobeat dance burning. Today the whole world is doing Afrobeat dance. Yeni Kuti leading Femi Kuti's Positive Band Force dancers "And all of a sudden from the creative impetus of one man who saw tomorrow, twerking, (waist wriggling dance) has taken the centre stage globally. Watch one of Fela's stage performances below where the dancers wound their waist in a way akin to the contemporary hip hop dance called twerk or twerking. Dance can be seen from 9:50. Do you agree with Abdul? Share your thoughts below. Source: Legit.ng President Muhammadu Buhari was today, January 15, 2016, pictured laying a wreathe during the 2016 Armed Forces Day Remembrance celebration in Abuja. With him also were the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo; Senate president, Bukola Saraki; Speaker of the House of Representatives; Chief Judge, Justice Mohammed Mammod; Chief of Army Staff, General Abayomi Olonisakin and members of diplomatic corps and ministers. [article_adwert] Below are some photos from the event obtained by Legit.ng: Source: Legit.ng The controversy over Nigeria's 2016 federal budget deepens as two versions of the document emerged. President Buhari presents 2016 budget in the National Assembly. [article_adwert] President Muhammadu Buhari presented the 6.07 trillion budget before a joint session of the National Assembly on December 22, 2015. The leader of the nation was well received as he presented an expansionary budget aimed at promoting the economy. READ ALSO: Presidency Reacts To Missing Budget The second version was presented by Ita Enang, the special adviser to President Buhari on Senate matters. On Tuesday, January 12, it was claimed that the budget had vanished from the legislative body, and there have been rumours that the document was withdrawn for correction. See the infographics below and continue reading the initial story below: Immediately after the Senate plenary Buhari met behind closed doors with Bukola Saraki, the Senate president. After the meeting the two Nigerian leaders said that the budget was with them. The president said hundreds of duplicates of the national document were presented to the National Assembly and all could not possibly be lost. One of the copies of the budget was published on the website of Budget Office Federation. The Cable, however, compared both copies of the document and emphasized the differences between the two versions of the 1,810-page budget. Most of the differences between the two budgets concerned the state house and the presidency in general. Another N3.9 billion was included for routine care of the presidential villa, while the money specified for the procurement of BMW salon cars was reduced from N3.6 billion to N340 million. READ ALSO: Senators Divided Over Buhari's Alleged Budget Withdrawal N25m was added for the maintenance of the office of the chief of staff to the president and another N795m for the Ministry of Solid Minerals (website update). Construction and provision of recreational facilities were removed from the second version of budget. Source: Legit.ng Tension gripped Gbaramatu kingdom and other parts of Warri, Delta state, after suspected former militants blew up a gas pipeline in Warri South-West local government area on Thursday, January 14. Tompolo The Nation reports that multiple explosions also rocked several oil installations in Gbaramatu kingdom, barely hours after a Federal High Court in Lagos ordered security operatives to arrest Niger Delta ex-militant leader, Chief Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo. Speaking with Vanguard, a resident from one of the Ijaw communities said that people were sleeping with their eyes open throughout the night as bombs boomed everywhere. They blew up the gas pipeline from Escravos to Warri Lagos and Abuja at three different points. They struck at Opudebubor, Okpelama and Kpokpo area, Chanomi creek and Sahara, behind Chevron Nigeria Limited. We do not know what is going to happen next, but there is tension since last night over the bombing and many residents are afraid that it will continue. Some are already fleeing their communities because they suspect that government would deploy security agents to hunt for those bombing the pipelines and they do not want to be caught in the ensuing crossfire, he said. READ ALSO: Tompolo Reacts To Alleged EFCC Summons [article_adwert] Meanwhile, Tompolo has recently raised the alarm that some people are planning to bomb crude oil facilities and pipelines in the Niger Delta region and attribute the havoc to him. Addressing those who are still dissatisfied with the re-election of Governor Seriake Dickson, the former militant leader said: I want to admonish those that are still aggrieved as a result of the outcome of the election not to resort to destruction of national assets, especially crude oil facilities and pipelines and attribute it to me because of my position on the election. Source: Legit.ng Following the ongoing arms procurement probe President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate former Chief of Defence Staff Alex Badeh, ex-Chief Of Air Staff A.N Amosu and other former military leaders. Buharis spokesman Garba Shehu has issued a statement that contained the full list of retired and serving military men who served during the immediate past government of Goodluck Jonathan who must be investigated by the anti-graft commission. [article_adwert] They include: 1. Air Chief Marshal AS Badeh (Rtd) 2. Air Marshal MD Umar (Rtd) 3. Air Marshal AN Amosu (Rtd) 4. Maj-Gen. ER Chioba (Rtd) 5. AVM IA Balogun (Rtd) 6. AVM AG Tsakr (Rtd) 7. AVM AG Idowu (Rtd) 8. AVM AM Mamu 9 AVM OT Oguntoyinbo 10. AVM T Omenyi 11. AVM JB Adigun 12. AVM RA Ojuawo 13. AVM JA Kayode-Beckley 14. Air Cdre SA Yushau (Rtd) 15. Air Cdre AO Ogunjobi 16. Air Cdre GMD Gwani 17. Air Cdre SO Makinde 18. Air Cdre AY Lassa 19. Col N Ashinze 20. Lt Col. MS Dasuki (Rtd) On the recommendations of the committee's second interim report, the president has ordered the commission to probe the roles of the officers and the companies and their chiefs in major breaches connected with the purchases by the Office of the National Security Adviser and the Nigerian Air Force. READ ALSO: Arms Deal Saga: Top 10 People Who Have Been Implicated 1. Messrs Societe D Equipments Internationaux 2. Himma Aboubakar 3. Aeronautical Engineering and Technical Services Limited 4. Messrs Syrius Technologies 5. Dr Theresa A. Ittu 6. Sky Experts Nig Ltd 7. Omenyi Ifeanyi Tony 8. Huzee Nig Ltd 9. GAT Techno Dynamics Ltd 10. Gbujie Peter Obie 11. Onuri Samuel Ugochukwu 12. Spacewebs Interservices Ltd 13. Oguntoyinbo Tayo 14. Oguntoyinbo Funmi. 15. Delfina Oil and Gas Ltd 16. Chief Jacobs Bola 17. Mono Marine Corporation Nig Ltd 18. Geonel Intergrated Services Ltd 19. Sachi Felicia 20. Mudaki Polycarp 21. Wolfgang Reinl. The statement reads in part: A main purchase activity undertaken by Dasukis office for NAF was that concerning the contracts awarded to Societe D Equipment Internationaux (SEI) Nig Ltd. The SEI contracts included procurement of two used Mi-24V helicopters instead of the recommended Mi-35M series at the cost of one hundred and thirty six million, nine hundred and forty four thousand US dollars ($136,944,000.00). The committee established that ONSA also funded the procurement of 4 used Alpha jets for the NAF at the cost of seven million, one hundred and eighty thousand US dollars ($7,180,000.00). However, it was confirmed that only 2 of the Alpha jet aircraft were ferried to Nigeria after cannibalization of engines from NAF fleet. READ ALSO: The Real Reasons Why Dasuki Is Being Investigated It was further observed that the sum of three million, three hundred thousand US dollars ($3.3m) was fraudulently included in the contract agreement as VAT and with holding tax and subsequently paid into the bank accounts of Spacewebs Interservices Ltd and Delfina Oil and Gas Ltd. The committee further established that two million US dollars ($2m) from the proceeds was transferred to Mono Marine Corporation Nig Ltd, which is jointly owned by principal characters in this deal. The Committee opined that the infractions of extant regulations by these companies were clearly intended to defraud. The committee uncovered insider dealings by military officers in procurement activities undertaken by ONSA and the NAF. The officers were found to have misused or abused their offices for personal gains by influencing award of contracts to private companies in which they have substantial interests. The operatives of the anti-graft commission has recently sealed the house of Alex Badeh in Wuse zone II in Abuja. The action of the EFCC was said to be part of the current investigations into the arms procurement scandal in the office of former NSA Sambo Dasuki. Apart from the key culprit in the arms probe Dasuki, there are others who have been lashed in the investigation, including former minister of state for finance, Bashir Yuguda, chairman of DAAR communication, Raymond Dopkesi and former chairman of the PDP, Haliru Bello, the spokesperson of the opposition party Olisa Metuh and many others. Source: Legit.ng The Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) on Friday, January 15, issued the federal government an ultimatum demanding the release of the director of Radio Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, no later than Monday, January 18. According to a statement by Samuel Edeson, MASSOB director of information, and Ibem Ugwuoke Ibem, MASSOB national secretary, the organization threatened to organize protests and massive demonstrations across the south-east and south-south as well as in America, Europe and Asia. The group reminded that Kanu was being remained in detention even after the Federal High Court, Abuja, ordered his unconditional release. [article_adwert] The MASSOB, however, maintained that their protests would be non-violent. "Our members at home and in diaspora are prepared for a massive demonstration, protest and a civil disobedience against the continued detention of Nnamdi Kanu (IPOB Leader) starting from Monday, January 18, 2016," the statement says. "MASSOB also directs former members in Ralph Uwazurikes BIM to join and participate in the non violent world wide demonstration against Nnamdi Kanus continued detention as a mark of Love and respect for Biafra," it further says. The organisation also used the opportunity to condemn the statement credited to the Anglican Arch-Bishop of Enugu Province, Most Rev. Emmanuel Chukwuma, to the effect that their agitation for actualisation of a Biafra Republic was "misguided and misdirected". The group insisted that their agitation was borne out of a genuine desire by the Igbos to have a country of their own. Source: Legit.ng The high volume of hotel sales in recent years has resulted in a significant increase in the number of branded hotels in Ireland. According to a new report from Savills Ireland, over 25% of all hotel bedrooms in the Republic of Ireland now carry the brand of a hotel [] Union Investment has acquired its first shopping centre in the Netherlands for its institutional open-ended real estate fund UII Shopping Nr. 1. Completed in 2004, De Klanderij in Enschede comprises approximately 20,000 sq m of retail space and 54 shops. The centre is fully let. Union Investment is acquiring the [] BS6 Maruti Brezza petrol has been launched. It is only offered in petrol 1.5 liter engine. No diesel is on offer. The primary contenders in the all-important sub-4m compact crossover segment, the Maruti Vitara Brezza, Tata Nexon and Hyundai Venue have all been updated to BS6 emission standards. So a brief comparison of the prices and variant-wise features are in order. The Venue being the latest kid on the block, launched only last year, the switch to BS6 didnt involve styling changes whereas both Tata Nexon and Maruti Vitara Brezza have gone under the knife in addition to receiving engine upgrades. Coming to the base prices, surprisingly, its the Hyundai which emerges as the most affordable product with a starting price of INR 6.7 lakh for the 1.2-liter E MT petrol variant. The Tata Nexon BS6 starts at INR 6.95 lakh for XE variant. The petrol-only Maruti Brezza starts at a heady INR 7.34 lakh for the base LXi variant. The entry-level diesel variants of the Venue and Nexon start at INR 8.09 lakh and INR 8.45 lakh respectively. All prices are ex-showroom. Manual Ex-sh Manual Ex-sh Manual Ex-sh Brezza Price Venue Price Nexon Price Lxi 5MT Rs 7.34 L E 1.2 5MT Rs 6.7 L XE 6MT Rs 6.95 L Vxi 5MT Rs 8.35 L S 1.2 5MT Rs 7.4 L XM 6MT Rs 7.7 L Zxi 5MT Rs 9.1 L S 1.0 6MT Rs 8.46 L XZ 6MT Rs 8.7 L Zxi+ 5MT Rs 9.75 L SX 1.0 6MT Rs 9.79 L XZ+ 6MT Rs 9.7 L Zxi+ DT 5MT Rs 9.98 L SX 1.0 DT 6 MT Rs 9.94 L XZ+ (O) 6MT Rs 10.6 L SX 1.0 (O) 6MT Rs 10.85 L SX 1.0 (O) DT 6MT Rs 10.95 L Auto 4AT Ex-sh Auto 7DCT Ex-sh Auto 6AMT Ex-sh Brezza Price Venue Price Nexon Price Vxi AT SHVS Rs 9.75 L S 1.0 DCT Rs 9.6 L XMA 6AMT Rs 8.3 L Zxi AT SHVS Rs 10.5 L SX+ 1.0 DCT Rs 11.35 L XZA+ 6AMT Rs 10.3 L Zxi+ AT SHVS Rs 11.15 L SX+ 1.0 DCT DT Rs 11.5 L XZA+ (O) 6AMT Rs 11.2 L Zxi+ AT DT Rs 11.4 L The Venue is the only model to offer two petrol engines. The base 1.2-liter naturally aspirated unit makes a modest 83 hp while the range-topping turbocharged 1.0-liter unit puts out a segment leading 125 hp. The Nexon retain its 110 PS 1.2-liter turbo petrol motor while the Vitara Brezza which wasnt available with a petrol motor now gains a 1.5-liter naturally aspirated unit with 103 hp on tap. The unit is supported by Marutis SHVS mild-hybrid system. As far as diesel powertrains are concerned, the both Venue and Nexon employ 1.5-liter turbocharged units dishing out 100 hp and 110 hp respectively. The Nexon is the only SUV in this comparo to be also available with a pure-electric powertrain. All these crossovers are loaded with decent level of equipment right from the base variants. Thanks to government regulations, all these vehicles come equipped with standard dual front airbags, ABS with EBD, reverse parking sensors, front seat-belt reminders and pretensioners and speed alert system. None of the cars offer touchscreen infotainment system on base models but all the mid- and high-end variants pack comprehensive infotainment system. With 35 connected car features, Nexons updated infotainment system is up there with that of Venue. The Venue is the only model in this comparison to offer the option of side curtain airbags while Nexon facelift adds sun-roof to the mix. The Vitara Brezza BS6 brings to table dual-tone exterior colour themes. To summarize, Maruti Brezza petrol BS6 is priced in the range of Rs 7.34 lakhs to Rs 9.98 lakhs, while the Venue manual price ranges from Rs 6.7 lakhs to Rs 10.95 lakhs, Nexon manual price range is Rs 6.95 lakhs to Rs 10.6 lakhs. Automatic Brezza price ranges from Rs 9.75 lakhs to Rs 11.4 lakhs, Venue DCT auto price ranges from Rs 9.6 lakhs to Rs 11.5 lakhs, Nexon AMT price ranges from Rs 8.3 lakhs to Rs 11.2 lakhs. All prices are ex-sh. A combination of soft markets, mining companies lack of environmental knowledge and local opposition will stop a seabed exploration application from going ahead, says Green Party MP Catherine Delahunty. Commenting on Pacific Offshore Minings application for a five-year permit to explore for ilmenite titanium ore, within 12,000 hectares off Waihi Beach, Catherine says one of the main hurdles facing seabed mining is the mining companies lack of knowledge about the effect mining operations will have on the seabed. Bay of Plenty Police are asking for information about four men who have warrants for their arrest. Blair Te Pairi, 22, is from Taneatua but has recently been in the Gisborne area. She was little more than a skeleton dumped in front of a shelter in the middle of the night, fleas feasting on her right down to the bone. But when the door finally opened in the morning, so did all the possibilities of a real life for the dog who came to be known as Orphan Annie. Peaceable Kingdom Chronically underweight and ravaged by fleas, the dog was left in a crate at the Peaceable Kingdom animal shelter in Whitehall, Pennsylvania, last November. She weighed around 6 pounds and had open sores all over her body. "She had severe anemia from the fleas," Peaceable Kingdom's medical director Sarah Donnelly told The Dodo. "They were basically sucking the life out of her." But Annie would never be orphaned again. Since undergoing treatment at Peaceable Kingdom - and catching up on all the love she had missed in her life - Annie has rebounded relentlessly. Peaceable Kingdom Dodo Shows Faith = Restored Woman Tries Every Day For A Month To Rescue This Dog "She is living a very happy life with a great foster family and doggie foster siblings," Suzy Sora of Peaceable Kingdom tells The Dodo. Peaceable Kingdom She's back to her normal weight and while she's awaiting the outcome of blood tests this week, appears to be back to her old self - or at least, the old self she should have been. And she's even getting her first taste of fame. Hope for Orphan Annie, a Facebook page dedicated to the dog, has drawn more than 18,000 followers. Peaceable Kingdom

Jeff Miller

For construction workers at a Hendersonville, North Carolina site, it must have seemed like just another miserable morning. It was raining torrentially. And, of course, there was that dog. The Dodo The Dodo The one next door whom they had watched suffer alone since they started on the project back in September. The one who lived in a pit so thick with mud, he often had to stand on his own crude doghouse. And the one who would peer up against his fence, wagging his tail feverishly at the merest hint of attention. The Dodo Dodo Shows Foster Diaries Guy Falls In Love With His Little Meatball Of A Foster Dog The Dodo But it wasn't going to be that kind of day. Hendersonville's chief of police, Herbert Blake, was standing outside the house in the driving rain on Friday morning, alongside a city councillor and several animal welfare workers. Jeff Miller Jeff Miller This was Demo's walk to freedom. Or, we should say, leap to freedom. "He jumped in the back of the car like he owned it," city councillor Jeff Miller told The Dodo. Jeff Miller Jeff Miller And no one cheered more loudly than the construction crew, who had, for months, been heartbroken eyewitnesses to the dog's plight. "The only reason why the animal had food, water or shelter was because of the construction workers," Susan Turner of rescue organization Nadia's Hope Foundation tells The Dodo. Indeed, the workers, haunted by Demo's plight, built him a shelter from brick and tarp. They laid cedar shavings on the ground. And even shared their lunches with Demo. Since the story was first reported on The Dodo on Thursday, animal lovers around the world have rallied to save the dog. The chief of police woke up Friday morning to 450 emails. For city councillor Jeff Miller, the story seemed so shocking, at first he didn't believe it was happening in his town. So he drove around late that night, trying to find Demo's pen. And it turned out, "I live like nine-tenths of a mile from there." "That's when it all kind of came into focus," he says. "And this morning, it all hit the fan." Miller drove with the police chief to the house this morning. They persuaded the dog's owner to give him up. His owner was waffling right until the end. "The truth is the gentleman who owned the house, he was an older gentleman, had tried to take care of him," Miller explains. "But it was his son's dog and his son was in prison." Jeff Miller Jeff Miller Miller says the dog had food and water, despite what construction workers contend, and he had a makeshift shelter. "It certainly wasn't to the standards we would have liked to see, but it met with the basics of what is required." Construction workers who spoke to The Dodo yesterday weren't entirely convinced. "They do put food out there for him, sometimes it's just water, usually on the ground or whatever," one of the workers told The Dodo on Thursday. "It's basically a big old mud hole back there." And then came the most important day of Demo's life - that drenched Friday morning, when the dog who seemed to have so few friends suddenly found himself surrounded by so many. He woke up this morning in his doghouse, an island in a sea of mud. Tonight, he sleeps at the Blue Ridge Humane Society, a no-kill shelter in Hendersonville, where he will make up for lost time, surrounded by new friends. Blue Ridge Humane Society He's already been given a new name: Noah. "The city police department has done everything in their power to take care of this and they followed through to the very bitter end," Caroline Gunther, a board member for the Blue Ridge Humane Society, tells The Dodo. And so too, did those unnamed construction workers who threw a lifeline to a dog whose life, like his murky home, seemed scheduled for demolition. The reconstruction begins today. Jeff Miller Jeff Miller Mike Martorana's standard, early morning stroll with his dog took a scary turn for the worse on Thursday. At around 8:30 a.m. in Billerica, Massachusetts, Martorana was walking Maya, his 1-year-old black Labrador retriever, when a squirrel caught her attention. Maya ran across the thin ice of a pond to chase after the squirrel, only to fall in, reported the Lowell Sun. "I knew not to go on the ice so I called the fire department and animal control and they did an unbelievable job," Martorana told the Lowell Sun. "She was half in the pond and she was holding on to the ice with her front paws." While Maya waited to be rescued, she struggled to save herself. "She was actually trying to pull herself out with a tree branch there," Captain Erik Szymanski of the Billerica Fire Department told the Lowell Sun. Twitter/Billerica and Tewksbury Animal Control These sharks are saying "no thank you" to baby daddy drama - by skipping out on the daddy part entirely. For the first time in history, scientists have witnessed a miraculous virgin birth two generations in a row by a captive whitespotted bamboo shark, according to new findings by the Journal of Fish Biology. While virgin births have been seen in other animals before, what makes this shark's ability to reproduce all on her own so incredible is the fact that she was the result of a virgin birth as well. And, to top things off, one of this miracle shark's offspring also went on to reproduce asexually. Previously, the general consensus among scientists held that invertebrates (animals without backbones) were the primary champions of asexual reproduction, also known as parthenogenesis, or, in layman's terms, having babies without the act of, well, baby-making. Now, it seems this alternative method to producing offspring is en vogue with other vertebrate animals as well, with Komodo dragons, water snakes and, now, these sharks all going 100 percent sperm-free. In the case of the sharks, the study marks the first time scientists have seen two generations of a species - mother, followed by her child - give birth without sex. Wikimedia Commons Ten beagles are about to have a whole new understanding of what it is to be alive. Beagle Freedom Project Beagle Freedom Project Thanks to a rescue organization, the Beagle Freedom Project, these lucky dogs are going to loving homes after spending their lives in a research laboratory. Beagle Freedom Project Dodo Shows Foster Diaries This Pregnant Pittie Foster Story Is The Happiest Thing Ever Beagle Freedom Project Beagles are a popular breed for laboratory research because of their friendly and docile nature, according to the Beagle Freedom Project. Research beagles are often obtained from breeders who specifically breed dogs to sell to scientific institutions. As recently as 2012, 70,000 beagles were in laboratories in the U.S. alone. Beagle Freedom Project Beagle Freedom Project Beagle Freedom Project This latest rescue is taking place in Europe. The project has been working tirelessly to coordinate new homes for the dogs in a massive international effort. "We worked with our partner organization Vackolo in Hungary for their release," Shannon Keith, president and founder of the Beagle Freedom Project, told The Dodo. "Then we transported them to Switzerland and Holland to their new homes." Beagle Freedom Project Beagle Freedom Project One beagle has a permanent home already and the others are in foster homes now. The Beagle Freedom Project is optimistic that they'll all end up getting forever homes. "We like to do foster homes first to assess their personalities once they become acclimated to real life," Keith explained. Beagle Freedom Project Forty-one animals lost their lives after a fire swept through controversial animal attraction Wildlife In Need (WIN) on Tuesday. The Charlestown, Indiana, center, which is known for its infamous Tiger Baby Playtime events that allow people to cuddle and take photos with young tiger cubs, lost a freezer as well as its bird and reptile area in the blaze, which reportedly escalated after a barn caught fire. "Some were scaly, some feathered, others furry, but all were friends," WIN said of the lost animals in a Facebook post. "We have bonded with all our animals here at WIN and the hearts of our volunteers and staff are heavy tonight." Dodo Shows Wild Hearts Orphaned Deer Runs Back To The Wild With Her Best Friend The loss of the animals is tragic. But many animal groups see the fire as the latest in a long string of animal and humane welfare incidents at the facility - and say the only reason it happened is because the the USDA allowed WIN to remain open despite repeated violations. "Sadly, this shows how little the term 'USDA licensed' can mean for a facility," Wildcat Sanctuary, a Minnesota rescue, wrote in a Facebook post about the fire. "When you pay to play with a baby tiger or lion cub, this is the sort of collateral damage that thrill of a lifetime moment can result in." WIN has been most strongly criticized for its lucrative Tiger Baby Playtime events. During the attraction, guests pay to enter the cubs' enclosure, where they are allowed to pet, hold and handle them. For an extra fee, visitors can even take photos. So-called "tiger selfie" opportunities are roundly condemned by legitimate sanctuaries and zoo facilities, as the animals are often ripped away from their mothers as infants and disposed in unknown ways as soon as they outgrow their "cute" phase. And WIN's tiger cub events are particularly fraught with injuries, mishandling and miscommunication, according to USDA reports and several animal welfare groups. One USDA inspection revealed that WIN workers regularly used riding crops to discipline tiger cubs when they "started to bite" visitors. It also noted that at least two visitors to Tiger Baby Playtime events, including one child, had been bitten by mishandled tiger cubs. An investigation conducted by PETA also recorded Tim Stark, WIN's owner, telling guests to hit the young cubs in the face to control them. Stark could not be reached for comment. And that's just the beginning. Between May 2014 and October 2015, the USDA cited WIN for 21 violations of the Animal Welfare Act, including a failure to treat illnesses, dirty water in the animals' cages and too-short enclosures that could allow animals to escape. One report describes a Great Dane with "thick green mucus" dripping from his eyes. No veterinarian had been summoned. Inspectors also witnessed tiger cages and cougar cages that were covered in bones and, in the cougar's case, feces. Stark was under investigation at the time of the fire for illegally selling an ocelot to a private owner in Texas, violating the Endangered Species Act. The USDA was in the process of attempting to remove his license. So why was WIN allowed to operate this long? Because the USDA is vastly overburdened, Susan Bass, PR director for the Florida sanctuary Big Cat Rescue (BCR), told The Dodo. Like Wildcat Sanctuary, BCR indicated that the USDA was partially at fault for the fire, writing in a highly shared Facebook post that the "USDA should have shut them down long ago." "There are around 100 inspectors and between 9,000 and 11,000 facilities to check," Bass said of the USDA's outnumbered animal welfare department. This makes catching every violation - and enforcing consequences - nearly impossible. Combined with the USDA's loose requirements for licenses, it's a recipe for disaster. "It is illegal [in most states] to own a wild cat as a pet," Bass explained. "But groups get around the law by getting a USDA exhibitor's license." Locals in one Mississippi town are outraged after they turned to wildlife officials for help - and recieved anything but. In a printed letter to the Vicksburg Post, a man named Jimmy Hart said he was driving down a road in Vicksburg, Mississippi, when he noticed something unusual in the nearby backwater. It was an exhausted male deer swimming toward the shore. Hart pulled over to the side of the road to watch, hoping he would make it. Unfortunately, several other people did too. The deer reached the bank but was uncomfortable with the watching crowd, according to Hart's letter, which has since been shared online. "I guess so many people around spooked him," Hart said. Shutterstock Shutterstock So the tired deer headed back into the water, swimming a few yards upshore before pulling himself onto the bank again. "At that point he was so exhausted he just laid down to rest," Hart wrote. While most people don't associate deer with rivers, they're actually competent swimmers and can easily navigate water when needed. At this point, the natural solution would have been to disperse the crowd and allow the tired animal to rest. Instead, a "conservation officer" with the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks (MDWFP) arrived. "I walked over and took a picture of the deer and was told not to take any pictures," Hart wrote. "All spectators were told to back away." Shutterstock Dodo Shows Adopt Me! Scared Little Dog Is So Full Of Joy Now And Looking For A Family Shutterstock Then, instead of dispersing the crowd, the wildlife officer walked up to the resting deer. He pulled out his gun and, in full view of the crowd, shot the tired animal three times. "To say I was disturbed by it is an understatement," said Hart, who described the incident as a "pathetic scene." As Hart's letter circulated, outrage grew among Vicksburg citizens, many of whom are hunters but found fault with the unnecessary and callous way in which the situation was handled. "So in other words neither the cops or wildlife official involved are capable of crowd control and need to be fired since that is part of their job duties," one man commented on a local news site. "Others were there and they all were disgusted!!" a woman wrote on Facebook. While some called into question the veracity of Hart's account, a local outlet reached out to the MDWFP, which confirmed Hart's sad account of the tale. Shutterstock Shutterstock "That deer swam out and people wouldn't leave him alone," Colonel Steve Adcock, chief of MDWFP's law enforcement bureau, told the Clarion-Ledger. "People had literally worn the deer completely out. There was nowhere for him to escape to." Despite this description, when asked about the deer's fate, Adcock confirmed that a game warden had killed the apparently uninjured buck - and cited "public safety" as the reason. "It's a main highway there that has tons of traffic," Adcock said. "It was a public safety concern that it was going to cause an accident." In other words, officers killed the deer because it was on a shore that was near a road. Adcock also said the officers don't carry sedatives, despite being tasked with managing wildlife, as they "are not veterinarians." Unfortunately, this incident falls into an ongoing pattern of police and wildlife officials - who are often tasked with the conflicting interests of protecting wildlife and promoting hunting - resorting to fatal or excessively violent methods in situations that, experts say, are often non-threatening. Last year, a mountain lion fell asleep by a building in Omaha, Nebraska, and was greeted with a hail of 16 bullets over a minute-long period, being shot each time he tried to rise. Experts later told The Dodo that the big cat posed no threat. A few months later, another mountain lion was killed, this time in Great Falls, Montana. Her crime? Setting foot inside the city's boundaries. Shutterstock Shutterstock Of course, a killing is even more inexplicable when a deer is involved. And these stories are just among the handful that trickle through to the media; in 2014, a whopping 2.7 million animals were killed by the federal wildlife service alone. But for now, Vicksburg locals are just concerned with the fate of one very tired deer, who was likely stressed by the recent flooding the state has faced. "Everyone was furious because we knew this deer was merely worn out from his long swim to safety only to be shot regardless," Hart said. And according to Hart's letter, the incident has left him doubting his faith in the state's wildlife management department. "I always thought that the job of a game warden was to protect helpless animals," he wrote. "What I witnessed that day has left me wondering." You can read the full letter below. Facebook/Annie Douglas Warnock Bozo the Bear as Ben and Mr. Haggerty as Grizzly Adams. (Frank Carroll /NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) Dan Haggerty, an actor who played the mountain man Grizzly Adams in films and in a short-lived television series in the 1970s, died Jan. 15 at a hospital in Burbank, Calif. He was 74. The cause was cancer of the spine, according to published reports quoting his manager, Terry Bomar. Mr. Haggerty was a onetime Muscle Beach weightlifter who worked as a stuntman early in his career before landing the role of Adams, a real-life 19th-century frontiersman in the California mountains. Bearded and burly, Mr. Haggerty had a natural affinity for animals, including bears and mountain lions, which were featured in the film The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams. The low-budget movie, released in 1974, depicted the outdoor adventures of the title character, who retreated to an isolated life in a mountain forest after being wrongly accused of murder. In a wild environment, he lived among wild animals, including grizzly bears that he tamed and raised. Mr. Haggerty in 2010. (Dan Steinberg/AP) The film became a surprise box-office hit and made Mr. Haggerty an unlikely star. A television adaptation, also called The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams and featuring Mr. Haggerty, aired on NBC for two seasons in 1977 and 1978. He reprised the role of Grizzly Adams in a 1981 feature film, Legend of the Wild, and a 1982 TV movie, The Capture of Grizzly Adams. He was born Gene Jajonski in Pound, Wis., on Nov. 19, 1941. He played a bodybuilder in the film Muscle Beach Party (1964) with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello and had minor roles in the 1965 Elvis Presley film Girl Happy and in Easy Rider (1969), starring Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda. Mr. Haggerty played another mountain man in Grizzly Mountain (1997), which featured his children Dylan and Megan, and in a 2000 sequel, Escape to Grizzly Mountain. He continued to appear in small film and television roles until shortly before his death. In 1985, Mr. Haggerty was sentenced to 90 days in jail and three years of probation after being convicted of selling cocaine to an undercover police officer. He was severely injured in a motorcycle accident in the 1990s and underwent several surgeries. His first marriage, to Diane Rooker, ended in divorce. His second wife, Samantha Hilton, died in 2008. Survivors include two children from his first marriage and three from his second. Brian Bedford, a Tony Award-winning classical actor whose stage work included roles by Shakespeare and Chekhov, a long relationship with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and a memorable cross-dressing turn as a dowager on Broadway, died Jan. 13 in Santa Barbara, Calif. He was 80. The cause was cancer, said Richard Schmenner, his agent at Paradigm Talent Agency . Mr. Bedford earned his seventh Tony nomination in 2011 for his drag performance as Lady Bracknell, Oscar Wildes fearsome social arbiter, in The Importance of Being Earnest, which he also directed. I approached Lady Bracknell just as seriously as I approached King Lear, he told the Associated Press in 2010. He said he chose to perform in drag as a professional challenge and as a way to add a farcical element to the production, but he admitted it wasnt the first time he had played a female character. When I was 14, I did play the Virgin Mary, he said. But that early role turned out to be less about choice than necessity: He was at an all-boys Roman Catholic boarding school at the time. I was thrilled doing any kind of acting at that point, he said. Brian Bedford, right, as Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wildes The Importance of Being Earnest" in 2010. The role earned him a seventh Tony nomination. (Joan Marcus) Mr. Bedford was born Feb. 16, 1935, in Morley, England, and attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts with such stars as Peter OToole, Albert Finney and Alan Bates. He won a Tony Award in 1971 for a spectacular performance in Molieres The School for Wives. At 36, he played a man twice his age, a cuckolded husband hilariously consumed by jealousy. Mr. Bedford first came to the United States in 1959 to appear in Five Finger Exercise, by Peter Shaffer. He later appeared in The Private Ear, Tartuffe, The Public Eye and Richard Nelsons Two Shakespearean Actors, among other plays. His film roles included Grand Prix (1966), opposite James Garner and Eva Marie Saint; Nixon (1995), in which he portrayed Clyde Tolson, the associate director of the FBI; and the 1973 animated featured Robin Hood, in which he voiced a fox. Mr. Bedford was a classical actor, rather than an actor who occasionally did the classics. He was unconcerned that his name wasnt well known, choosing instead to inhabit characters onstage, whether in comedies such as Michael Frayns Noises Off or classics such as Samuel Becketts Waiting for Godot. Its one of the consolations of getting older, Mr. Bedford told the AP in 1992. If you have the luck, as I have had, to get these opportunities, your technique actually improves. And you are able to play these marvelous parts. When you are young, you have all these fabulous ideas, but you havent got the technique to realize them. Survivors include his husband, actor Tim MacDonald. 1 of 83 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad Notable deaths of 2015 View Photos A look at those who have died. Caption A look at those who have died. Wait 1 second to continue. This is the story of how The Winters Tale, one of Shakespeares most problematic plays to stage, became a critically acclaimed ballet that will open at the Kennedy Center this week. The story begins as cultural collaborations so often do with a choreographer and theater director walking into a pub. The director, Nicholas Hytner, does not recall the exact venue, but he remembers having a drink with his friend, the choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, and that they debated which story Wheeldon should adapt into his next ballet. I was looking to take on a bit more challenging story, Wheeldon said, speaking from his London flat last week. Something with a bit more meat. At the time, Hytner was still the director of Londons National Theatre while Wheeldon was fresh off the blockbuster success of Alice in Wonderland, a co-production between Londons Royal Ballet and the National Ballet of Canada. He was not yet basking in the Broadway glow of his Tony-nominated musical An American in Paris, which opened in New York last year. Hytner suggested that for his next full-length ballet, the choreographer should tackle a play that has stymied theater directors him included for 400 years: Shakespeares late romance, The Winters Tale. It occurred to me that as far as I knew, the play probably hadnt been the basis of a ballet before, Hytner recalled recently via email. That its range of emotion, its discovery of the miraculous in the mundane, its faith (though tentative) in the possibilities of redemption, its variety of settings might all be suitable for ballet. Piotr Stanczyk and Hannah Fischer in The Winters Tale. (Karolina Kuras/Courtesy of The National Ballet of Canada.) A Winters Tale will receive its American premiere Tuesday night, when the National Ballet of Canada opens a six-day run at the Kennedy Center, fresh off the ballets critically hailed Toronto debut last fall. The Royal Ballet presented the world premiere in 2014 and will reprise it this spring. On both continents, Winters Tale has been a commercial and critical success. But were it not for Hytner and another theatrical luminary on this side of the Atlantic, the ballet would not exist. I was not entirely convinced initially, Wheeldon remembers. After having drinks with Hytner, he sat down to read it. Or tried to. I found it quite hard going on the page, actually, he said. But, I could see why Nick was so buzzed about seeing the play told through movement. If you knock away the language and boil it down to the bare essence, there is a really a great story there. Winters Tale is about the dire consequences of jealously and the difficult road to redemption. The play opens with Leontes, king of Sicilia, hosting his childhood friend Polixenes, king of Bohemia, for a long overdue diplomatic visit. By Scene 2, Leontes is convinced that his wife Hermione has feelings for Polixenes that are too hot, too hot! even though each character has uttered only a handful of lines so far. One of the key points of advice that Nick gave me was, Do not try to explain the jealousy, Wheeldon recalled. Theres no reason given in the text. In a courtly party scene, its apparent that Leontes suspects Hermione is pregnant with his friends child when the lead female dancer simultaneously places both mens hands on her belly. The lights dim, theres a rumble of timpani, followed by an eerie flute siren song and descending trills from the violins. (Composer Joby Talbot wrote the evocative score.) All other dancers onstage except for Leontes freeze. What follows is an angular, agonized solo featuring a man gripped by sudden madness. Wheeldon took his cue from Shakespeares line that Leontes feels as if he nearly swallowed a spider in a cup. Theres no reason for the madness, but there is a method to depict it. We used keys within the text to unlock the movement vocabulary, Wheeldon said. The choreographer dealt with The Winters Tales other problems through a series of storyline cuts, character consolidations and genius stagecraft. Hytner made himself available as a consultant. Bob Crowley, a veteran of the Royal Shakespeare, created the sets, and puppeteer Basil Twist designed billowy curtains used for special effects, including a tempestuous sea and the bear that appears in Act III. Both the storm and the angry bruin can be tough to stage and can unintentionally come off as slapstick comedy. Exit, pursued by a bear, is the seemingly ludicrous stage direction, just before a main character is devoured offstage. Piotr Stanczyk and Hannah Fischer in The Winters Tale. (Karolina Kuras/Courtesy of The National Ballet of Canada) The act is set in Bohemia, and immediately after the bear incident, a band of shepherds finds an abandoned baby on the beach. Hermiones exiled infant princess will grow into Perdita, a Bohemian peasant heartthrob. Some directors, like Shakespeare Theatres Michael Kahn, go for broke, embrace the bizarre transition and shock audiences with a change in set designs when they come back from intermission. Who even knows where Bohemia is, Kahn quipped. I set it in Switzerland once and had everybody yodeling. An ardent fan of ballet who has followed Wheeldons work ever since the young Brit was still a dancer at New York City Ballet, Kahn has long been looking forward to seeing Winters Tale performed without Shakespeares tricky text. This is probably one of few successful Winters Tales there are, because its a very difficult play, although it is one of my favorite plays, Kahn said. The last scene in one of the most beautiful he ever wrote. That poetically beautiful last scene poses another problem. The action returns to Sicily, where for 16 years, Leontes has been mourning Hermiones death. At the urging of Paulina, Hermiones lady in waiting, Leontes shows Perdita a statue of the mother she believes is long dead. The so-called statue scene is one that people think that people write about all the time, says Michael Witmore, director of the Folger Library. Both directors and scholars have many theories about whats going on when the statue begins to speak, although famously, she directs her lines only to Perdita. Its the magic of the theater, and also of the audience, hoping against hope that Hermione might still be alive, Witmore explained. In Shakespeares day, Witmore suspects the actor portraying the statue would have stood in a recess against the back wall above the stage. Modern lighting and effects allow directors to play with how supernatural the magic should appear. Scholars may disagree, but in Wheeldons mind, and his ballet, theres little ambiguity in the ending and the clear message of forgiveness it presents. Christopher somehow, with all his talent, gets to the heart of the story, says Karen Kain, artistic director of the National Ballet. Just as Wheeldon had to overcome his concerns about adapting the play, Kain also needed convincing before she joined the Royal Ballet in co-commissioning the choreographers project. Kain sought the advice of her friend, the great Canadian actress Martha Henry, who had played Paulina and many Shakespeare roles over the course of her five-decade career at the Stratford Festival. Oh, its perfect, Kain recalled her friend saying. That gave me the courage to go forward and commit. Visually, there is so much richness in (Winters Tale), Kain said. They were right. Its perfect for a really dramatic ballet. Ritzel is a freelance writer. Geza Rohrig plays Saul in the Holocaust film Son of Saul. By the time we started filming, I had been living with this character for months, Rohrig said in an interview with The Post. (Sony Pictures Classics) The Hungarian Holocaust drama Son of Saul was just nominated for a best foreign language film Oscar, and many prognosticators consider it a shoo-in to win. Directed and co-written by Laszlo Nemes, the film stars newcomer Geza Rohrig as Saul, a member of a Sonderkommando unit in a Nazi death camp a team of Jewish prisoners who were spared death, if only briefly, to work in the crematoriums and gas chambers. In the course of his duties at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Saul finds a dead boy whom he comes to believe is his son, and tries to bury him. Shot with a nearly square 1.33 aspect ratio the proportions of a computer monitor the film almost never leaves Sauls face as he seeks to carry out his quixotic task amid ever-present death. New York-based star Rohrig and Budapest-based director Nemes sat down in Washington recently to talk about the message of the almost unbearably claustrophobic film, about which Nemes said, We didnt want to do the cinema thing. We wanted it to be a portrait. [Read Ann Hornadays four-star review of Son of Saul] Most commentary has focused on the films look, but the audio, which won a prize at Cannes for sound designer Tamas Zanyi, also is striking. We hear a disembodied kaleidoscope of shouting, shovels, a furnace, gunshots. Nemes: When I went to my sound designer, I told him this is going be 50 percent sound, at least. We have a very narrow field of vision, but the sound is always there to say that theres much more than that. We cannot identify clearly the source of the sounds, at least half of which is made up of layers of human voices, a Babel of languages. It was very important that the audience be lost, be frustrated, because the individual is lost and frustrated, within the camp. Does this reinforce Sauls state of mind? Nemes: Absolutely. And our state of mind. At some point the viewer has to let go of the thinking process. Its a different state of mind that comes after the war. With Son of Saul, we wanted to forget all the postwar perceptions and, lets be frank, the deformed vision of the Holocaust. We had to go back to the here-and-now of the camps. All the mechanical noises and sounds within the film all the metal sounds refer to the crematorium. Its always at work. In a way, its something organic. Its a beast thats alive. The Holocaust film is a staple of cinema, especially in Europe. Does the success of your film suggest that parallels can or should be drawn between the events of the Holocaust and today? Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump recently called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States. Rohrig: We are here to promote a film about genocide that took place in the heart of Europe 70 years ago. Are we any sort of players in the presidential campaign? Nemes: Let me just say one thing: Paratroopers are on hair-trigger alert in front of synagogues, 70 years after the destruction of the Jews. Rohrig: I can assure you that, personally, I think and I hope that this stupidity will be struck down. Nemes: Theres something at the heart of the film that interrogates the nature of evil within civilization, then and now. You called Hollywoods portrayal of the Holocaust deformed. Nemes: I mean inaccurate. And not only Hollywood. It has become a genre with its own codification and value system. The Holocaust is there to raise the dramatic stakes. Its not there to interrogate. Ninety percent of these films, they actually reassure the viewer and allow the viewer to remain at a superficial level of emotion, by making it understandable, in effect, presenting the S.S. guards point of view. That participates in the deformation of our perception. The Holocaust becomes an abstract thing. I tried to bring this story to the screen while immersing the viewer in an experience. Cinema has given us the illusion of the Holocaust. Its almost like its on another planet. What about a film such as Inglourious Basterds? Rohrig: You know why I hate that movie? Because it basically turns Jews into Nazis. I was appalled by the film. It reduces the Holocaust to a sporting event. Go Jews. Boo Nazis. Rohrig: Exactly. To me, its not just a parochial issue about Jewish genocide. If I were a Christian, I would be compelled to view the Holocaust as the single greatest failure of Christianity since its origin. Here, you can put Trump in. And I want you to put [Syrian President Bashar] al-Assad in, as well. The problem started in Syria with a cruel dictator murdering 300,00o of his own people. Trump is not the real issue, for Gods sake. The world is becoming a better place, but human beings are not becoming better people. That sounds pretty hopeless. Nemes: I would say that theres hope. Thats the strongest question of the film: When theres no more hope, do you still have the possibility for something that would allow us to remain human? Rohrig: I would go a step further. I would say there is hope for the individual. Not for humanity? Rohrig: Some people are very angry at the way Saul conducts himself. They say that his actions do not serve any immediate social end. What difference does it make, in a place where there are thousands of people, children included, gassed and burned daily, to cherry-pick one, so to speak, and bury that one? But there is more to life than practicality. There are values that are worth dying for. I think that Gods last witness is Saul in this movie, because he is doing something for someone else. Some say that funerals are for the living. Rohrig: I understand that, but usually you bury a loved one. I would argue that it weakens the case of the movie to insist that this boy is Sauls biological son. When people ask me, I always answer, This was the son Saul never had. It wasnt for Saul, to help Saul with his grieving, to bury this boy. Animals dont bury each other. Its one of the basic humanitarian values, no matter what. We bury each other. Geza, youre not a professional actor. Can you talk about the emotional challenges of making the film? Rohrig: To be honest, I didnt feel that was a challenge. By the time we started filming, I had been living with this character for months, reading about the Sonderkommando camps, waking up in middle of the night. I wanted to know precisely not their feelings or thoughts, I wasnt interested in that I wanted to know what they were doing. I knew they extracted gold teeth. With what? Did they use mirrors? What sort of instruments? The camp guards in the film use dehumanizing slang to refer to their victims bodies, calling them Stucke, or pieces. Rohrig: From my readings, I knew that the line of demarcation between life and death eradicates. Youre not so sure whats alive and whats dead. My question, as an actor, was: How on Earth can I, in 2014, get into this state of mind? I really felt that this is the sort of challenge in which even the young Robert De Niro would not have had any sort of advantage over me. The preexisting tricks simply dont work here. I have to forge a new language. For me, the challenge was before the shooting and after the shooting. The shooting itself is almost hard to recall. I hardly remember it, to be honest. After the filming was hard? Rohrig: After was the worst. I hope you dont find this perverse, but I kind of missed Saul. Ive tried to think why. There is one thing that was very attractive about the camps, and that is that all of the unessential factors in human life the look, the wealth, the connection none of that mattered. All that mattered is who you are and what your character is made out of. I remember standing in a line in a pizza shop in New York after the movie, and someone dropped a pizza, and the pizza did not drop on the side of the cheese. And they still threw it away. I was like, Give it to me! Please understand me: My hunger was more than just a physical hunger. I was still carrying Saul. I would describe it as a melancholy. Do you still ever feel that way? Rohrig: I do feel it. And I dont ever want to let it go, entirely. Son of Saul (R, 107 minutes). At area theaters. In Hungarian, Polish, Yiddish, Russian and German with subtitles. Authorities have confirmed that an infant in Hawaii has brain damage after its mother contracted Zika virus. Here's what you need to know. (Gillian Brockell/The Washington Post) Authorities have confirmed that an infant in Hawaii has brain damage after its mother contracted Zika virus. Here's what you need to know. (Gillian Brockell/The Washington Post) The mosquito is at it again. The latest bugger-borne virus to rattle U.S. health officials and travelers is called Zika, which was named after a forest in Uganda. The virus has been quickly spreading through Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering releasing a warning to pregnant women traveling to these infected areas. The concern: possible brain damage to babies. To better understand the virus, we contacted the CDC, which responded with a primer on Zika virus. Here is what you need to know. What is Zika? The Zika virus is spread to people primarily through the bite of an infected Aedes species of mosquito. These are the same mosquitoes that spread dengue and chikungunya viruses. Mosquitoes become infected when they bite a person who is infected with the virus. The infected mosquitoes can pass on the virus to other people through bites. The daytime biters live indoors and outdoors, near populated regions. What areas of the world have been affected by Zika? Outbreaks have been reported in tropical Africa, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands and, most recently, the Americas. In December, Puerto Rico reported its first confirmed case. There have not been reports of locally transmitted Zika virus in the continental United States, but cases have been connected to returning travelers. In addition, the imported cases may result in the local spread of the virus in some areas of the United States. The Aedes aegypti mosquito transmits Zika virus. (James Gathany/ASSOCIATED PRESS) Is this a new virus? No, but it could spread to new areas. Last May, the Pan American Health Organization issued an alert concerning the first confirmed infection in Brazil. Between last May and Jan. 7, at least 14 other countries and territories, including Puerto Rico, have reported local transmission. What are the symptoms? About 1 in 5 infected people becomes ill. The most common symptoms are fever, rash, joint pain and conjunctivitis, or red eyes. Other symptoms include muscle pain, headache, pain behind the eyes and vomiting. The symptoms are similar to those of dengue and chikungunya. The illness is usually mild, with symptoms lasting from several days to a week. Hospitalization is uncommon, and deaths are rare. There is no vaccine or medicine to treat the illness. Where can travelers find more information? Check the CDCs website at cdc.gov/zika. More from Travel: The virus that ruins Caribbean vacations Interior walkways inside the Eastern State Penitentiary. In the travel industry, prison museums are a growth sector. (David Brown) I was halfway down Block 1 at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, peering into a cell for a thief imprisoned in 1829, when I realized the place resembled a Carthusian monastery. Members of Catholicisms most austere order, Carthusian monks live, eat, work and sleep alone in cells, coming out only for church services and a four-hour walk each week. They are forbidden to speak unless given permission. Each man has a tiny walled yard where he can look at the sky and feel the sun. As the wonderful book An Infinity of Little Hours (2006) makes clear, its a life balanced between sanctity and madness. In the first era of Eastern States 142-year life as a prison, inmates spent 23 hours a day in their cells, with two half-hour recesses in private yards reached by a stoop-through door. Their only reading material was the Bible, and they spoke to no one but guards and the chaplain. If they left their cells, they were hooded. Some spent years inside the massive stone walls without seeing the face of another prisoner. Today, it seems odd that this was ever viewed as a way to cure antisocial behavior. But it was. In fact, the Pennsylvania system was penologys breakthrough idea, rescuing murderers, burglars, forgers and confidence men from cruel treatment by keepers and fellow miscreants. Eastern State, the ideas embodiment, went on to be the model for 300 prisons on four continents. Seeing how penitence got into the word penitentiary is just one revelation that awaits a visitor to Eastern State Penitentiary, surely one of the countrys more unusual museums. In the travel industry, prison museums are a growth sector. A book published last year, Escape to Prison: Penal Tourism and the Pull of Punishment, looks at 10 of the roughly 100 of them around the world. Although some (like Alcatraz, or South Africas Robben Island) are better known than Eastern State, few can compete with it. In its educational and historical narrative, its clearly at the top, said Michael Welch, the Rutgers University sociologist who wrote the book. Its not a theme park. Its not intended to amuse you. It is, in the words of Steve Buscemi, who narrates the indispensable audio guide, a magnificent ruin. The architecture is Gothic Revival, with 30-foot walls of Wissahickon schist, faux battlements and two gargoyles over the entrance holding lengths of chain. Inside, the walls are flaking paint and spalling rock dust. Birds swoop in and out of broken windows. Vines and saplings have taken up residence where prisoners worked and lived. In the Eastern State Penitentiary exercise yard, a sculptural graph shows U.S. rates of imprisonment over time. (David Brown) One of the prisons innovations was its hub-and-spoke design, which is still used in many prisons. Cellblocks radiate from a central rotunda, where guards kept watch. Seven blocks are open to visitors, and hundreds of cells have been left as they were when their occupants moved out in 1971, down to tipped-over stools and open drawers. Guides are stationed around the prison and the grounds. (Several I spoke to were recent Temple University history and archaeology graduates.) They give mini-tours to parts of what was essentially a walled town forced to evolve without changing its footprint. Soup Alley is a covered walkway with cafeteria counters on either side, built in 1924, when inmates started eating together. A stove with an oven door open is covered with dust near where a tarred roof has collapsed. A dining room, created by knocking down the walled yards of the nearby cells, stands empty. Part of Cellblock 3 was converted to a hospital in 1880. A tree root snakes over the door to the operating room, added in 1910. Inside, a steel IV pole sits in a corner and a surgical lamp the size of a searchlight hangs from the ceiling. Al Scarface Capone, who spent time at Eastern State in 1929, had two operations there. One was a tonsillectomy; the other, unnamed, was probably a circumcision. (Capone had syphilis, and circumcision would reduce the chance hed transmit it.) Its remarkable that people are allowed in such places in this era of phobias over lead paint, trip hazards and things-you-may-have-to-duck-under. The museum shows respect for the good sense of its visitors, who numbered 194,000 last year (30,000 in group tours). The idea for a new kind of prison originated at a meeting of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons in 1787. (Benjamin Franklin was an early member.) Inspired by Quaker ideals and Enlightenment thinking, the prison was designed to induce regret and penitence in prisoners. It was more than 30 years before the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania took the suggestion. Eastern State Penitentiary opened its gate in 1829. The corridors and cells have vaulted ceilings that suggest an ecclesiastical setting. The single skylight in each cell was called an eye of God. The food was reputedly good. Pipes under the floor delivered central heat, and bucket-flush toilets connected to a sewage system. This was a time, the commentary points out, when the White House had neither of those amenities. However, not everyone agreed that solitary confinement was the route to reformation. Charles Dickens toured the penitentiary in 1842 and wrote: I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body . . . it extorts few cries that human ears can hear; therefore I the more denounce it, as a secret punishment . . . The Pennsylvania System of solitary confinement didnt last long. As early as the 1840s some prisoners had cellmates, and in 1913 the strategy was abandoned. New multi-tiered cellblocks were squeezed in between the original ones. By the 1920s, the institution built for 700 inmates housed 2,000. The walls are flaking paint and spilling rock dust inside the Eastern State Penitentiary, which opened its gate in 1829. (David Brown) A cell at Eastern State Penitentiary, which was designed to induce regret and penitence in prisoners. (David Brown) The place is so big and operated for so long that the opportunities for narrative are legion. And the museum takes full advantage of them. There are displays about women prisoners (who were there until 1923), race in prison, prison gangs and famous inmates. You can see the restored synagogue, Capones cell and the place from which 12 people, including the bank robber Willie Sutton, escaped (temporarily) through a tunnel. A dozen cells have been given over to artists for installations. On display now is a reconstruction of a cell from Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay. Another, called Other Absences, has pictures of 50 men, women and one child murdered by former inmates hanging from the ceiling of two cells. What wasnt addressed for years, however, was the growth of imprisonment in the United States, a trend known as mass incarceration. There was this massive blind spot, said Sean Kelley, the director of interpretation and public programming who was the museums first full-time staff member in 1995. The old ending of the audio tour asked people to reflect on the current incarceration system. But we didnt give them any facts on which to reflect. It was essentially the same as saying, Drive safe. Today, the facts are hard to miss. They take the form of a $100,000 sculpture erected in 2014 in the center of the exercise yard. The corridors and cells in the Eastern State Penitentiary have vaulted ceilings that suggest an ecclesiastical setting. (David Brown/For The Washington Post) For every decade since 1900, the number of people imprisoned in the United States per 100,000 population is depicted as a steel box of proportionate height. Through 1980 the rate varied from 100 to 200. Those boxes are a couple of feet high; you could step from one to the next if they let you. Then the rate took off. In 2010, it was 730 per 100,000, and the box is 16 feet tall. Viewed from other angles, the 3-D infographic compares the U.S. imprisonment rate with that of other countries, and it also depicts the racial breakdown of the American prison population over time. The museum is finding other ways, as well, to engage the subject of crime and punishment. On the first Tuesday of each month, a scholar, author or public official gives a talk in the rotunda, followed by a reception. Septembers speaker, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, was shouted down by Black Lives Matter protesters. Eastern State Penitentiary, too massive and obsolete to be repurposed after it closed, has found new life helping people, once again, think about the purpose of imprisonment. Its long-dead founders would be pleased. Brown is a former science reporter at The Post who lives in Baltimore. If he reveals the details of his awful vacation-rental experience, Terry Fedigan is afraid of what might happen. The rental propertys owner could sue and win. Last summer, he rented a home in New Yorks Catskill Mountains with his brother. We were not satisfied, and I wrote a negative, but factual, review on TripAdvisor, he says. But after the post went live, the owner called Fedigans brother, who had signed the contract, and demanded that he delete the review immediately. Initially, I dismissed it as absurd, says Fedigan, a legal consultant who lives in London. But then he checked the contract. Sure enough, his brother had agreed that he and his guests would refrain from publishing any disapproval of the property, disparagement, defamation, libel and/or slander of [property and owner], as well as the property including but not limited to its affiliates and its employees. Fedigans brother signed away his right to free speech, which appears to be an increasingly common occurrence in the travel industry. Non-disparagement clauses in contracts are multiplying, according to Whitney Gibson, a partner at the Washington law firm Vorys, which specializes in Internet brand and reputation issues. There have certainly been an increasing number of these clauses in the last couple years, as businesses have grown concerned about their online reviews, he says. But a proposed law would tip the scales in the consumers favor. The Consumer Review Freedom Act, being considered by Congress, would void any contract that prohibits, restricts or imposes a penalty on customers who write a review. The law has many supporters and a few detractors, but if youre planning a trip, you can take a few steps to avoid a gag clause, which is most common in vacation-rental contracts. Its too late for the Fedigans and many others like them. They reluctantly deleted the review of the substandard vacation rental, which is normally the outcome. I consider this an egregious example of free-speech stifling as well as old-school bullying, Fedigan says. If you look at public reviews on his property, they are all positive. Clearly, his bullying tactics are effective at dissuading the publishing of negative reviews. But companies such as TripAdvisor, which hosted the now-deleted review, are fighting for people like Fedigan. We do not believe that unscrupulous business owners seeking to eliminate transparency in the marketplace should be able to muzzle dissatisfied consumers opinions and reviews, Adam Medros, TripAdvisors head of global product, said at a congressional hearing last month. It is completely against the spirit of our site for any business owner to attempt to bully or intimidate reviewers who have had a negative experience. Theres another side to this issue, and it also makes a compelling case. This debate has been cast as being about the freedom of speech, says James Goodnow, a lawyer with an expertise in technology cases. It is not at least not in the constitutional sense. The First Amendment freedom of speech protections only apply to government limitations on speech. The issue, he adds, is about the freedom of contract. Specifically, about when and for what reasons the government may limit a contract between two private parties: a reviews site and a user. Non-disparagement clauses came to my attention in 2012, when readers Tom and Terri Dorow contacted me about their vacation rental in Scottsdale, Ariz. In that case, they had also signed an agreement that forbade them from leaving a review without the owners permission. The penalty for an unsanctioned write-up? A $500 fine. After being contacted about their posting, they deleted their review, too. Supporters of non-disparagement clauses say they need them to protect their business. Rather than denying someones right to free speech, rental owners told me, the contracts simply spell out a resolution process for any problems, directing guests to work directly with the owner instead of taking a problem to the court of public opinion. That court, it seems, is what the travel industry fears the most. Just one negative review could push a vacation-rental owner into foreclosure, owners have told me. Last year, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed a bill that bans the states businesses from forcing consumers into contracts in which they waive their right to comment on the service they receive. There have been no reports of vacation rentals going under because of a review posted since the law went into effect. The conventional wisdom in the travel industry is that any contract language limiting reviews will hurt businesses and consumers in the long run. Any sort of gag clause in a contract is a bad idea, says Brian Sparker, head of content marketing at ReviewTrackers, a reputation-management company. Any business that wants to create an environment conducive to growth and brand development should steer away from engaging in this type of behavior. Sparker says he believes legislation would encourage travel businesses to do the right thing. Honest online reviews are one of the best ways for businesses to improve the customer experience. With real customer feedback, businesses can track issues the customer may be having, he says. Experts advise reading your contract carefully. Vacation-rental contracts are not standardized, making it easy to slip a gag clause into the fine print. If you see any language that limits your ability to leave a review, ask to have it removed. If the owner wont, find another rental. Even without the proposed law, non-disclosure clauses are rarely upheld in court. In most cases where such anti-free-speech agreements have come to light, the businesses involved have been met with public criticism and a quick backhand from the courts, says Josh King, general counsel for Avvo, an online legal-service marketplace. No matter what happens with the Consumer Review Freedom Act, one thing seems clear: The days of silencing customers with a gotcha contract are numbered. Elliott is a consumer advocate, journalist and co-founder of the advocacy group Travelers United. Email him at chris@elliott.org. The District failed again to meet annual federal targets for placing unemployed youths in jobs or employment readiness classes, putting the city at risk for financial sanctions for the second year in a row, according to a U.S. Labor Department letter to the city. The city also has failed so far to spend $5.3 million of federal grants provided over the past three years to provide job training for youths, Labor said in the Dec. 31 letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post. Partly because of the underspending, the city had only 88 youths in federally funded job training programs in the three months ended Sept. 30. That compares with about 7,000 young people, ages 18 to 24, who are both jobless and out of school and thus would benefit from such training. Despite the criticisms, Deputy Mayor Courtney R. Snowden said Labor was very unlikely to impose sanctions because of what she portrayed as a major new effort by the city to repair its relations with the federal department. The latest evidence of chronic dysfunction at the Districts workforce agencies drew condemnation at a D.C. Council public roundtable Wednesday called by council member Vincent B. Orange Sr. (D-At Large). The hearing focused on bureaucratic obstacles that have blocked the spending of tens of millions of dollars in recent years to provide job training that could have helped thousands of the unemployed to find work. The underspending came as city leaders lament that high unemployment in poor neighborhoods is fueling crime. [Why the District has a uniquely bad record on helping the unemployed get jobs.] The District has consistently had problems spending this money, said Orange, who chairs the committee on business, consumer and regulatory affairs. We need to get our act together, and we need to act posthaste. Council member Elissa Silverman (I-At Large) said the citys willful neglect had led to cancellation of classes to help dropouts get their high school equivalency, known as the GED. She said the citys explanation of what went wrong was maddening. Noting that unemployment was disproportionately high in African American neighborhoods, Silverman said, We need to go from saying black lives matter to proving that black lives matter. The citys shortcomings in youth job training were a major focus of the quarterly letter from Labor to Snowden. It said the city was supposed to place 64 percent of participants in education or employment in the program year that ended June 30, but it only managed to do so for 39 percent. Because it missed the target for two straight years, the letter said, the District is eligible for financial sanctions for a second consecutive year. Such penalties would be tiny but of symbolic importance. Snowden said she expected Labor to refrain from imposing them because she has stepped up city efforts to satisfy Labors concerns. For instance, she recently formed a turnaround team focused on making reforms to persuade Labor to lift the Districts designation as being a high-risk partner. The city is the only jurisdiction in the nation to have that label for job training and employment programs. The Labor letter said that youth program expenditures continue to be very low and that the city had spent only 38 percent of its funds for the program year that ended in mid-2014 and none of its funds for the following two years. This leaves an unexpended balance of $5.3 million across three years of funding to serve disconnected youth in the District, the letter said. City officials have said previously that the youth programs were underenrolled for multiple reasons, including a misguided effort in 2014 to tighten academic requirements for youths to be eligible for job training. Too few youths met the standard, they said. In addition, after some programs were phased out in early 2015, the city was too slow to launch new ones. Snowden, who is deputy mayor for greater economic opportunity, reaffirmed earlier pledges that the youth programs would be revived soon. It will be a lot easier to enroll young people in those programs and we will see those numbers increase, she said. We will get that money out the door. In this photo from January 2012, people attend the Lunar New Year parade in downtown Rockville, Md. Neighboring Howard County will give students a day off to celebrate the Lunar New Year next school year, along with Diwali and a Muslim holy day. (Marvin Joseph/THE WASHINGTON POST) Howard Countys school board voted unanimously this week to markedly expand its schedule of religious and cultural holidays, a decision members said recognized the growing diversity of the suburban Maryland school system. Students will get days off next school year for two Jewish holy days, following a debate over whether to end the longtime practice. They also will be off for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, the eve of Lunar New Year and the Hindu holiday of Diwali. The change came in a vote Thursday night as elected officials sought to be fair to a growing spectrum of groups that have asked for students to have time off with their families on major holidays. I strongly believe that our school calendar should be inclusive of cultures and religions of all of our Howard County residents, said board member Janet Siddiqui, echoing many of her colleagues. Howards action is likely to draw attention nationally as school systems struggle with how to create an inclusive school calendar balancing fairness, logistics and legal constraints as their communities grow more diverse and religious minorities become increasingly vocal. Once other communities see this school district has made this accommodation, theyre going to ask, Why cant we do it here? said Charles Haynes, founding director of the Religious Freedom Center of the Newseum Institute, who said he expects the decision to have ripple effects. The decision will be in effect for 2016-2017 while the school system studies the issue. Officials also plan to hire a firm to conduct a voluntary survey of religious preferences. The board asked district staff to report back with a range of options for how to implement the change. School officials have long said that by law, they must have secular reasons for closing schools on religious holidays, such as expectations of high absenteeism. In deciding to close for the Jewish holidays in 1979, for example, Howard officials said that staff absentee rates of 12 percent were interfering with instruction. The Montgomery County Board of Education recently moved a professional day to ensure that students would get a day off next fall for Eid al-Adha. But the decision in Howard goes further. This is really unprecedented, commented Zainab Chaudry, a spokeswoman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. We havent seen any school board vote to grant an accommodation to so many diverse faiths. It shows we dont have to strip any religious group of their holiday in order to reach a compromise thats fair to everyone. Thursdays decision in Howard followed extensive backlash about a calendar proposal that would have kept schools open on the Jewish holy days of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah for the first time in more than three decades. [Add a Muslim holiday? Remove a Jewish one? Schools debate calendars as diversity increases] School officials said that proposal, one of two options, was put forth as a way to treat religious and cultural groups more equally by closing schools only on state-mandated holidays. Maryland state law requires schools to be closed on Christmas and Good Friday as well as on the Monday after Easter. During a lengthy board discussion on Thursday, members spoke of their communitys history of diversity, with some saying it was what drew them to move to Howard. I believe that we should celebrate the two Jewish holidays, the two Muslim high holidays, we should have Diwali and we should have the Lunar New Year, said board member Ann De Lacy. If were going to give, I believe in either all or none. Ellen Flynn Giles, the boards vice chairman, voiced caution, saying that the board could not close schools for holidays without a secular reason for doing so and noting that there are many other holidays not under consideration for days off. Once you open to that, you have to honor every single one, and that becomes impractical in finding a way to serve school for 180 days, she said, while adding that students and parents must feel respected for their cultural and religious observances. Reaction to the decision was strong. Our whole community is thrilled by this news, said Jean Xu, president of the Chinese American Parent Association of Howard County, who said word spread quickly through social media within moments of the vote. We finally can celebrate our holiday with our families, and we dont have to choose between an instructional day and our cultural tradition, she said. Naimish Pandya, a Hindu community leader and father of two, said having the Diwali holiday off will allow families like his to carry on their traditions. He also said its an opportunity for people from all faiths to learn about each others practices. Michelle Ostroff, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Howard County, also credited the community for coming together and working across religious and cultural organizations: We accomplished so much more than when we tackle these issues in silos. MARYLAND Man held in death of woman found on trail An 18-year-old was arrested and charged in the death of a woman found on a park trail in Hyattsville, police said Thursday. He was apparently the womans ex-boyfriend, according to Prince Georges County police. Marvin Vazquez-Juarez, of no fixed address, has been charged with first- and second-degree murder in the stabbing of Catherine Alvarado, 20. A jogger spotted Alvarados body along the Northwest Branch Trail near Ager Road and East-West Highway on New Years Day, police said. Alvarado was pronounced dead at the scene. Lynh Bui Woman killed in nine-vehicle pileup A Springdale woman died Thursday morning in a nine-vehicle pileup in Prince Georges County. Maryland State Police said Angela Jefferson, 53, was driving on Lottsford Road in Upper Marlboro when her vehicle and a Chevy Silverado pickup, which was headed south on Largo Road, collided in the intersection. Jefferson was killed, state police said. Police said that the driver of the Silverado, Juan Sanchez, 34, of Laurel, did not have a drivers license. He was injured, but his condition was not immediately known. He has not been charged in the crash, but it is under investigation, police said. They said Sanchez was wanted on charges of driving under the influence filed on July 5, 2014. After Jeffersons and Sanchezs vehicles collided, they hit seven more vehicles, the police official said. Police said drivers and passengers in several of the other cars were hurt, but they did not know the number of victims or the severity of their injuries. Julie Zauzmer VIRGINIA Man suspected in electrocution dies A man who was accused of electrocuting a woman and then shocking himself in the basement of his Annandale home has died, Fairfax County police said. Jai Hyun Cho, 73, succumbed Saturday to the injuries he suffered in late December but lived long enough for police to issue an arrest warrant against him for allegedly killing 56-year-old Kum Yeon of Alexandria. Yeons daughter told Alexandria police on Dec. 21 that her mother was missing, authorities said. Fairfax County police traced Yeons cellphone to Chos home in the 7100 block of Pennys Town Court about 5 p.m. Cho left a note indicating that he wanted to kill Yeon and take his life, according to police. There was also a DVD with a printed label that appeared to show the pair engaged in sex. Yeon was pronounced dead at the scene, and Cho was taken to a hospital, where he was placed on life support. Justin Jouvenal Congressman will retire at end of term Rep. Scott Rigell (R-Va.) will retire at the end of this term after six years in office, he announced in a letter to constituents Thursday. Rigell pledged when he came to office in 2010 that he would serve no more than six terms. He is leaving after three, he said, because he had achieved what he set out to do. You might ask, Why is now the time to leave? he wrote. The answer is found in why I set aside all else and sought the office: to build a strong House majority that would check and balance the party that then controlled both political branches of the federal government. . . . We did just that. Rigell represents Virginias 2nd District, which includes Virginia Beach and the Eastern Shore. Democrats have targeted this area in the past, but Rigells district becomes more Republican under a new congressional map imposed on the state by federal judges this month. The district is home to more active-duty and retired military personnel than any other, according to his office. Maryland state officials had little to say Friday about a criminal probe that has been launched into former governor Martin OMalleys purchase of furniture from the state at a steep discount when he left office last January. A spokeswoman for the Anne Arundel County states attorney, Wes Adams (R), confirmed late Thursday that the office is investigating the purchases by OMalley, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. The OMalley family bought dozens of pieces of furniture and other items from the governors mansion after state officials deemed it excess property, according to state records. [OMalley says furniture purchases from governors mansion followed the rules] The family paid $9,638 for beds, chairs, desks, lamps and other items from the mansions living quarters that originally cost taxpayers $62,000. The Baltimore Sun first reported on the furniture purchase and on the states attorneys investigation. Former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley is seeking the Democratic nomination for president in 2016. (Charlie Neibergall/AP) The probe, which OMalley spokeswoman Haley Morris called politically motivated, could be embarrassing for the two-term governor at a time when he is stuck in single digits in the polls and heading into the all-important Iowa caucuses. OMalley has tried to position himself as the most electable alternative to Hillary Clinton, but he has been unable to build momentum in a campaign season dominated by a large, unpredictable GOP field and the unexpected surge on the Democratic side of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). This is a bogus political attack that the Maryland Republicans have tried to make stick, Morris said. And its sad that theyre wasting taxpayer resources on it. The probe is being handled by Adams, who took office in the heavily Republican county last January. One of his first actions was to rid his office of Democratic prosecutors. He later hired Kendel Ehrlich, wife of former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), as an assistant states attorney. Adams launched the investigation after receiving an email about the furniture purchase from state Secretary of General Services C. Gail Bassette, according to the Sun. Bassette is an appointee of OMalleys successor, Gov. Larry Hogan (R). Heather Epkins, Adamss spokeswoman, said he is following a legal process, without political motivations, and would utilize the same process were he to receive similar complaints about a Republican. [Senate president to Hogan: Talk to us] We cant pick and choose which complaint we are going to investigate, Epkins said. We are charged with doing due diligence to any claims that come to our office. She said the investigation is in its infancy stage. A spokesman for Hogan, who has publicly questioned OMalleys purchase of the furniture in recent months, declined to comment Friday, saying it would be inappropriate during an ongoing criminal investigation. Other cases of alleged wrongdoing by state officials have been investigated by State Prosecutor Emmet C. Davitt, an OMalley appointee. Davitts staff said he was not available for comment Friday. James Cabezas, a chief investigator in Davitts office, said Adams is within his legal authority to conduct an investigation. He said it is not unusual for a county states attorney to conduct a preliminary inquiry and then hand the case to the state. It would also not be unusual for Adams to keep the case, he said. OMalley said in September that he was kind of surprised by the controversy over his furniture purchase, saying his family followed the rules as they were laid out to us. He said the family paid what the Department of General Services determined was the furnitures depreciated value. I know there was no negotiating of the price, OMalley said in September. We were just told it was some sort of standard depreciation formula they had used for the prior family. OMalley aides say Ehrlich purchased furniture under the same procedures when he moved out of the governors mansion in 2007. Ehrlich purchased a lesser amount of furniture. Hogan, who moved into the mansion a year ago, was asked about the controversy during a news conference in September. He said he asked OMalley during a tour of the mansion about the beautiful furniture and asked whether the items belong to him or to the state. Hes been misleading, Hogan said. Governor Larry Hogan acknowledges a standing ovation as he takes the podium to address the Maryland General Assembly at its opening session on Jan. 13. At right is House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel). (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post) A commission that has spent months studying how to reduce the tax burden on Maryland businesses considered but rejected raising taxes on alcohol, gas and cigarettes to make up for any lost revenue, state Secretary of Budget and Management David R. Brinkley said Thursday. The commission, headed by former Lockheed Martin chairman Norman Augustine, is expected to release its recommendations soon, possibly Friday. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert), who helped create the commission, said Thursday that he expected the group to recommend increases in revenue so the states bottom line is not affected an approach that would clash with Republican Gov. Larry Hogans promise not to raise taxes of any kind. Brinkley, a former Republican lawmaker who was appointed to the panel before joining Hogans Cabinet, said that several members discussed tax increases but that the idea was shot down pretty quickly. Del. C. William Frick (D-Montgomery), one of seven lawmakers on the 25-member panel, agreed that the work group is not likely to propose revenue increases but he hinted that some of its members might have wanted to. I dont think Norm viewed his charge as being to identify offsets or spending cuts, Frick said. But legislators are in a different position than the rest of the commission members because they have to produce a balanced budget at the end of the day. Hogan spokesman Doug Mayer said that the phrase revenue-neutral is insider political code for raising taxes, and that is something the governor isnt ever going to consider doing. A draft commission report obtained by The Washington Post, dated Dec. 14, lists seven tax- relief proposals, including reducing the corporate income tax rate from the current 8.25 percent to 7 percent over a period of three years. The executive summary of the report stresses that the state should avoid harming programs and services that businesses view as assets, saying, for example, that education at all levels must be diligently protected. Many of the draft proposals match tax priorities that the Maryland Chamber of Commerce has listed on its website. In addition to the call for cutting the corporate income tax, the panels draft proposes a tax break for many individuals who file their business income on personal returns. The document also says Maryland should not adopt a combined reporting method that many Democrats have promoted as a way to ensure that corporations do not shift money between states to reduce their tax burdens. It calls for increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit that benefits families earning less than $53,000 a year a proposal Hogan made this week as part of his tax-relief plan. Many Democrats say such a change would help the economy by putting more money into the hands of the working poor, who some economists say are most likely to spend the extra cash. The draft recommendations call for eliminating corporate income tax on overseas earnings that have already been taxed abroad, a concept many Republican lawmakers and political candidates have proposed at the federal level. The idea is that taxing the income again discourages companies from investing it back home. Hogan said this week that he would support any and all tax-relief recommendations from the Augustine group. He also laid out a modest tax plan of his own that called for $480 million in relief for senior citizens, low-income families and new manufacturing businesses. [ The details of Hogans $480 million tax plan ] The governor, who took office last year after campaigning to roll back as many as possible of the tax increases implemented under his predecessor, Democrat Martin OMalley, has not wavered in his pledge to reject all tax increases. He even vetoed a measure that would have required hotel- booking sites to pay the same tax rate as hotels on room reservations, despite strong support for the legislation from Bethesda-based Marriott and other hotel chains. On Thursday, Miller described that veto as the very definition of insanity, saying Maryland could lose more than 2,000 jobs if Marriott which is looking for a new headquarters campus decides to move its headquarters to another state. The Senate will attempt to override the veto on Wednesday. Hogan has made it clear that he is eager for the Augustine commission to release its report, which had been expected to become public before the legislative session opened Wednesday. On Tuesday, the governor joked that he had thought about seeking an all-points bulletin from state police out of concern that the group had been kidnapped. To say this commission has gone missing in action and try to intimidate them to do something they arent really inclined to do is kind of dicey, to say the least, Miller said on the Senate floor Thursday. Miller warned that such remarks from Hogan could result in the kind of partisan gridlock that other states with divided governments have experienced recently. We dont need that, he said. There is more that unites us than divides us. Ovetta Wiggins contributed to this report. A Fairfax County Public Schools employee was arrested Friday for sending inappropriate photographs of himself to a student with special needs. Morrice D. Stephenson, 24, of Alexandria was charged with two felony counts of solicitation of a minor using a communication device, Fairfax County police said. Officer Brendan Murphy said that Stephenson worked as an aide helping students with disabilities while they ride the school bus to Quander Road School, a therapeutic school for public school students with special needs in the Alexandria section of the county. On Wednesday, administrators at the school called police to say that a 16-year-old student at the school had told school employees that Stephenson sent her the lewd photographs. Investigators found that he sent pictures of himself to the teenager at least twice in November and December. He was held without bond on Friday, Murphy said. A Southwest Washington man was arrested in the death of his girlfriends infant daughter in what police and prosecutors contend is the fifth killing of a baby by a mothers boyfriend in Prince Georges County in the past two years. Kareem Bryant, 23, has been charged with second-degree murder and first-degree child abuse in the death of 6-month-old Mariah Tilghman, Prince Georges police said Friday. The infant was rushed to the hospital after officers responded to a call for a baby who wasnt breathing in the 3200 block of 75th Avenue in Landover about 3:30 p.m. Jan. 6, police said. She died three days later. Her death was caused by blunt-force injuries to her head and chest, authorities said. Police said Bryant told them that he had injured the child. He was arrested Thursday. Kareem Bryant (Prince Georges County Police) Any homicide is tragic, but when it involves an innocent 6-month-old baby, it breaks our hearts, said Christina Cotterman, a county police spokeswoman. County prosecutors said that Mariahs injuries were consistent with those of a baby who had been shaken but that it was unclear what prompted the alleged violent contact. Mariahs mother was home at the time, and Bryant was alone in a room with the child, prosecutors said. Mariahs twin sister was unharmed. She remains in her mothers custody, prosecutors said, although officials with child protective services are reviewing the matter. Attempts to reach the families of Mariah and Bryant were unsuccessful Friday. Prince Georges States Attorney Angela Alsobrooks said her office is investigating the case and will probably move forward with prosecution. She said the incident makes her angry and sad. Mariah deserved to be safe in her house, Alsobrooks said. She was a defenseless baby. In the past two years, at least five infants in the county have died allegedly at the hands of their mothers boyfriends, Alsobrooks said. In the four previous cases, the mother was at work while the boyfriend was at home and tasked with caring for the child. In August, Osman Sesay was arrested in the death of his girlfriends 1-year-old son, Ahmed Jalloh. The boy was in Sesays care after his mother left for work. The circumstances were similar in the case of 1-year-old Jason Perez, who died in 2014 after his mother left him with her boyfriend, Melvin Edenilson Melendez, 21. Both Melendez and Sesay are scheduled for trial in April. Alsobrooks said her office has been working on a campaign to help single mothers connect to resources that could help them with child care. She added that mothers should not hesitate to check public records to see whether the men they are getting involved with have a criminal past. Bryant was released from prison in October on an armed robbery conviction in the District, prosecutors said. Alsobrooks said blame should not be placed on Mariahs mother but said all women should ask themselves: Do you know who has custody of your children? A caisson arrives, followed by family members, for a memorial service for 2nd Lt. Samuel Gordon Leftenant at Arlington National Cemetery on Jan. 14 in Arlington, Va. Leftenant was a Tuskegee Airman during World War II. Designated missing in action, his remains have not been identified. Jan. 14, 2016 A caisson arrives, followed by family members, for a memorial service for 2nd Lt. Samuel Gordon Leftenant at Arlington National Cemetery on Jan. 14 in Arlington, Va. Leftenant was a Tuskegee Airman during World War II. Designated missing in action, his remains have not been identified. Matt McClain/The Washington Post Samuel G. Leftenant went down over Austria in 1945. His surviving family gathered at Arlington National Cemetery to memorialize him. Samuel G. Leftenant went down over Austria in 1945. His surviving sisters, in their 80s and 90s, gathered at Arlington National Cemetery to memorialize their Army fighter pilot brother. Samuel G. Leftenant went down over Austria in 1945. His surviving sisters, in their 80s and 90s, gathered at Arlington National Cemetery to memorialize their Army fighter pilot brother. Years after the war ended, when Nancy Leftenant-Colon was an Air Force nurse in Germany, she would study the faces of black men she saw on the street, hoping that one might be that of her lost brother, Sam. A U.S. Army fighter pilot, and one of the famed African American Tuskegee Airmen, Samuel G. Leftenant , 21, went down in his P-51 on an escort mission over Austria in 1945. Neither he nor his plane were ever found. At first he was listed as missing in action. Then, in 1946, he was declared dead. But his parents, James and Eunice, and his 12 siblings always hoped that someday he would turn up. Nancy thought maybe he had been knocked on the head and forgot who he was, and that one day she might spot him in a crowd. All this was long ago. Her brother never came home. And Nancy is now 95. A memorial service was held at Arlington National Cemetery for Tuskegee Airman 2LT Samuel G. Leftenant on Thursday, more than 70 years after went missing during an escort mission over Austria in 1945. (Ashleigh Joplin,Michael Ruane/The Washington Post) On Thursday morning, she and her surviving sisters, Clara Leftenant-Jordan, 80, Mary E. Leftentant, 87, and Amy M. Leftenant, 82, gathered in Arlington National Cemetery to finally give Sam his goodbye. As Air Force jet fighters streaked overhead in salute, the sisters assembled before an elegant horse-drawn caisson that arrived to the sound of a single muffled drum and the cadenced step of an Army casket team. The caisson carried a silver ceremonial coffin that was empty, except for an American flag. And the family sat not far from Sams memorial tombstone, beneath which there is no grave. But a rifle party fired a salute, a bugler sounded taps, and 70 years after Samuel G. Leftenant, of Amityville, N.Y., vanished into the mountains near a place called Klagenfurt, his family could let him go. We need to have closure, Clara Leftenant-Jordan, of North Babylon, N.Y., said Wednesday. Im the youngest, and Im 80 years old. We really would like to put an end to it, to say goodbye, because we havent. We always think that we will see him, that he will come back to us, she said in an interview. I have dreams that I might see my brother again. I realize that the likelihood of that isnt going to come. Sisters of Second Lt. Samuel Gordon Leftenant, Clara Leftenant-Jordan, standing at left, Nancy Leftenant-Colon, seated at left, Mary E. Leftenant, seated at right, and Amy Leftenant, standing at right, pose for a portrait in front of a photograph of Samuel at the Hyatt Place Hotel on Wednesday. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post) A mission to Germany On April 12, 1945, four weeks before World War II ended in Europe, Lt. Leftenant and fellow P-51 pilot Lt. James L. Hall Jr., his flight leader, were escorting a formation of American bombers on a mission to Germany. They had left Ramitelli air base in Italy. Fellow Tuskegee pilot, and Leftenants buddy, George E. Hardy, 19, of Philadelphia, was flying another P-51 nearby . It was Leftenants third mission, his family said. He had been overseas less than three months. Shortly after 3 p.m., Hardy glanced off to his right and saw something sparkling near Leftenants fighter. Halls plane and Leftenants plane had collided, and the prop chewed part of the other airplane, which caused all this aluminum to fly off, Hardy said. Hardy, who is now 90 and was present Thursday, said he saw Leftenants aircraft start to go down but couldnt stop to help and witnessed nothing more. Last I saw of him, he said. Hall and Leftenant both bailed out. Hall was captured and held as a prisoner of war until the war ended, according to the Leftenant family. But Sam was never seen again. All three were among the more than 900 black fighter and bomber pilots who were trained at the segregated Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama. [Tuskegee Airman honored in a stamp] They were African American men from all over the country who fought racism and oppression at home, and enemy pilots overseas. The tail sections of their P-51s were painted a distinctive red. More than 400 served in combat abroad, flying patrol and strafing missions, and serving as bomber escorts from bases in North Africa, Sicily and Italy. Hardy said he and Leftenant were classmates at Tuskegee, graduating on Sept. 8, 1944. His mother pinned my wings on when I graduated, he said. The Leftenants upbringing On Sunday mornings, in the house Eunice and James Leftenant built out of scrap wood on North Washington Avenue, the children were summoned by the strains of the Wings Over Jordan choral group on the radio. They rose, gathered in the living room on their knees, while their father led prayers. Then they all piled into the familys Essex automobile and drove to nearby Bethel A.M.E Church, on Albany Avenue. After church, the children chased rabbits in a nearby cemetery. The Leftenants were a large and close family. James was the son of freed slaves and worked as a laborer for the state of New York. Eunice smoked a pipe and was as good with a hammer as anybody. They had migrated by boat from Goose Creek , S.C., and built the family homestead on Long Island in 1923. They were poor. James Leftenant would tell the children that all he had to give them was the familys good name. The Leftenants raised their own chickens, pigs and turkeys. The only store-bought items were flour, rice and lard. Family dinner was nightly feet under the table at 6, Nancy said. Her parents sat side-by-side and questioned the children about their day. The house had three bedrooms one for the parents, one for the girls, and one for the boys, the sisters said in a joint interview in a Washington hotel Wednesday. There was an outhouse and, in the beginning, no electric lights. Sam was the seventh of the 13 children, the family said, and one of six boys all of whom served in World War II. This was our country, Nancy Leftenant-Colon, of East Norwich, N.Y., said. We had to protect it. We wanted to be a part of this, and we were. Sam was a lovable individual, she said. He was the kind of person that you really liked to be around. He was the apple of my mothers eye. We realized that after he was lost. . . . She turned gray over night. Amy Leftenant said she was walking home from school on the day the telegram arrived saying Sam was missing. She was in sixth grade. As she neared home, a local storekeeper standing outside said: I heard your brother got killed today. She started to cry. When I got home, all the shades in the house were pulled down and flowers had been sent, she said. Smelled like a funeral parlor. I pulled up all the shades and threw the flowers in the trash, she said. Life had to go on. I always thought that Sam would come back. Always. Thursday, after the service, as mourners gathered in the Womens Memorial, near the cemetery, an old black-and-white photograph of Sam was up on a poster. Hes wearing a fur -lined aviators jacket, helmet and goggles in the picture. He is young and handsome and looks like a man at peace. A blue-and-gray treehouse above a small street on Capitol Hill has led to finger-pointing and the silent treatment among neighbors. There have also been stop-work orders, permits filed with the District government and redacted emails. Ah, it is classic Washington. When people go into opposition on something, theyll pull out every possible way to get at something, said Kirsten Oldenburg, Advisory Neighborhood Commission 6B chairwoman. People on Capitol Hill, they know how to get information. They are professionals. At issue is that the eight-foot-high treehouse juts into public space by about 20 inches. It looks like a castle and is perched in a 100-year-old elm tree on a U-shaped alley called Archibald Walk. The narrow street, near G and Sixth in Southeast, is lined with a half-dozen homes. Many of the homes on Archibald Walk dont have traditional front or back yards, and neighbors say the alley has become a public, shared space. It has been lined with flowerpots and benches, and a wedding was once held in the spot beneath the now-controversial treehouse. But the treehouse appears to be the one thing some neighbors dont want to share. This Capitol Hill treehouse has sparked debate among neighbors, with some saying it shouldn't have been constructed over public property. The green line on the ground is where DDOT says the homeowners' property line ends. (Larry Janezich/ Capitol Hill Corner ) The neighborhood blog Capitol Hill Corner first reported on the structure that has managed to divide the neighborhood. One commenter, Brian C., wrote on the blog: People who oppose tree houses never had, nor ever will have, any quality of life. Another, identifying as RD, wrote: Its a treehouse. Relax people. But opponents say the treehouse overwhelms the public space. To hear homeowners Ellen Psychas and Bing Yee tell it, it started out simply enough. Psychas, who counsels high school students about college, and Yee, a Department of Homeland Security lawyer, wanted to build a princesslike treehouse for their two daughters, ages 3 and 5. They said they checked with city transportation officials and the Districts Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs and found there were no specific regulations regarding the building of small treehouses. The couple said they passed out fliers alerting neighbors that they were building it and got no response. They also hired an arborist to help them avoid harming the tree, then bought $300 worth of eco-friendly tree-building hardware. [Father battles Fairfax zoning laws for sons treehouse] They built the nearly 30-square-foot treehouse. But now city officials say they didnt have the proper permits. Loraine Heckenberg, who lives nearby, said she and other neighbors on the street think the treehouse overwhelms the public space. She is also concerned about the lack of permitting and code enforcement when the structure was built. Heckenberg said she has spent as many as 20 hours a week in an effort to have the treehouse removed from the public portion of the alley. She has filed Freedom of Information Act requests with city agencies to learn more about the permitting process. Heckenberg said the owners of the treehouse used to play occasionally with her rescue dog, but they no longer speak. I dont feel a need to necessarily upset anyone, she said. But the rules are the rules. For the couple who built the treehouse, its gotten to be a bit too much. I dont like the way this has escalated, Psychas said. Were surrounded by grumpy old retired people. People dont have kids. But, she noted, its Washington. She and her husband have lived on Capitol Hill for 30 years and have owned the house since 2011. Were not new to the area, Psychas said. Were just concerned about this level of spitefulness. ANC representative Jim Loots called Archibald Walk a treasured, historic enclave. Had the property owners built their structure on private property, we would not be having this discussion, Loots said. This is public space in the truest sense of that term, and a private treehouse is simply not an appropriate use of that public resource. Still, some say, the treehouse is charming. In my personal opinion, its rather cute, said Oldenburg, the ANC chairwoman. I understand that the people who live there have different views of what their alley should be. She said she believes the owners did due diligence in researching the permitting process for the structure but got caught up in a mess of bureaucracies. Matthew Marcou, an associate director for public space regulation administration at the District Department of Transportation, said the couple should have obtained permits, and a review should have been done before the citys public space committee before the treehouse was built. Yee and Psychas said the city had no clear rules on treehouses to guide them through the process. We did, in fact, try to obtain permits, Yee said. The city issued a balcony permit in November after an inspector looked at the property several months after it was built. City officials now say a review was needed for a permit to allow the structure into public space instead. Will the treehouse be torn down? That could depend on the outcome of a public hearing scheduled for Jan. 28. Heckenberg, who said she has spent months dealing with the issue, said she hopes for a resolution soon. I hope it gets taken down and we can go back to healing, she said. Magda Jean-Louis contributed to this report. MAINE Attempt to punish governor falls short Critics of Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) failed to muster support for a vote Thursday on an independent investigation that could have led to impeachment for alleged abuse of power. A group led by Rep. Ben Chipman (D-Portland) wanted to punish the brash and outspoken governor for pressuring a charter-school operator into rescinding a job offer to House Speaker Mark Eves (D). House lawmakers voted 96 to 52 to indefinitely table debate after House Republican leader Ken Fredette introduced a motion to preempt action on the impeachment order. The motion succeeded after about three hours of debate. Associated Press Seattle tunnel digging halted: Washington state transportation officials and Gov. Jay Inslee (D) on Thursday halted all digging by Seattles tunnel-boring machine until the contractor determines what caused a large sinkhole to form over the area where the machine was operating. The sinkhole, measuring 35 feet long, 20 to 25 feet wide and 15 feet deep, appeared Tuesday night and the contractor filled it with concrete, officials said. Girls charged in school plot: Two 16-year-old girls were charged as adults Thursday in an alleged plot to kill classmates at a suburban Denver high school. Prosecutors charged Brooke Higgins with two counts of conspiracy to commit murder, saying she researched places where teens could buy guns online. A judge set her bond at $1 million. Higgins and Sienna Johnson were arrested Dec. 12. Prosecutors said they planned to attack classmates at Mountain Vista High School in Highlands Ranch. From news services Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is under fire about questions whether he knew earlier than he had said about discrepancies in police officers stories in the shooting of Laquan McDonald. (Brian Jackson/AP) Mayor Rahm Emanuel has struggled in recent months to maintain the trust of his city following public protests and calls for his resignation in the wake of fatal police shootings of young black men. The embattled mayor faced renewed questions Thursday about whether he had known earlier than he had previously said that police accounts of the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald conflicted with a dashboard-camera video of the 2014 incident. Early in the day, a federal judge ordered the release of video footage in another case, from 2013, that shows police fatally shooting an unarmed black teenager. The city had long opposed the release, but reversed itself this week and asked a court to make the video public. It was released hours after the ruling. By afternoon, Emanuel (D) faced the prospect of more protests in the city, beginning with some black ministers plans to boycott the mayors annual breakfast commemorating the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on Friday. Also, a march is set to take place through Chicagos financial district, along with a mock funeral procession through the South Side and more protests at Emanuels home. We are hurt, disappointed and angry, Bishop Larry Trotter, senior pastor of Sweet Holy Spirit Church, said in a statement about the planned boycott. The mayor has been friendly towards many ministers, but his administration has failed all Chicagoans. Editor's note: This video contains graphic content. Chicago police released October 2014 video of police shooting Laquan McDonald, a black 17-year-old. Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder. (Chicago Police Department) Even the White House seemed to offer tepid support Thursday for the presidents former chief of staff. Press secretary Josh Earnest praised Emanuel for taking full responsibility for solving this problem and noted that many communities are struggling with distrust of police and that he and President Obama had worked closely for years. But ultimately, Earnest said, it will be the voters of the city of Chicago itll be up to them to decide whether or not the mayor has done enough to address this problem. [In Chicago, distrust toward mayor had turned personal] The Chicago Tribune published a report Thursday suggesting that city attorneys and top aides to the mayor knew about discrepancies in the McDonald case months before Emanuel has said he learned about them. There is no evidence in recently released emails that the top aides talked directly to Emanuel about the details of the shooting. But the paper cited emails, interviews and City Hall calendars to show that the mayors aides, city lawyers and top police officials discussed video of the shooting in the months after it a time when the mayor was facing a contentious election. Emanuel spokesman Adam Collins, in an email, said that the mayor routinely meets with the police superintendent on crime reduction strategies, and with the corporation counsel on a wide range of legal matters, including lawsuits over Chicagos pension reform law, and that the mayors office has released emails and documents on the matter. The facts are clear, and anything else is nothing more than baseless innuendo, Collins said. In a letter last March, Jeffrey J. Neslund, an attorney for McDonalds family, warned the citys lawyers that he had seen the video and that it spelled trouble for the city. I submit the graphic dash cam video will have a powerful impact on any jury and the Chicago community as a whole, Neslund said in the letter. This case will undoubtedly bring a microscope of national attention to the shooting itself as well as the citys pattern, practice and procedures in rubber-stamping fatal police shootings of African Americans as justified. There is no smoking gun in the emails, said Evan McKenzie, a professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. But what is the political appearance here? . . . A reasonable inference that he knew what was in the video and wanted to keep it secret until the election was over. And that is a very, very damaging thing. Emanuel has said that he did not learn that police accounts differed dramatically from the now-infamous video until it became public two months ago. Asked Thursday how he could have been unaware of such stark differences for months, even as some of his top aides had known of the potential legal and political implications, Emanuel demurred. The answer, which is consistent with, and also what Ive said before, at that point, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. attorney and the states attorney are looking into it, and thats exactly where it should be so they can get to the bottom of it, he told reporters. Thursday morning, U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman ordered the release of video footage in another case that shows police fatally shooting an unarmed black teenager. Gettleman called the city irresponsible for fighting to keep the video under wraps for months, only to do an about-face this week and ask the court to make it public. Top city attorney Stephen Patton said this week that the reversal was part of an effort to be as transparent as possible and to find the right balance between the publics interest in disclosure and the importance of protecting the integrity of investigations and the judicial process. The video shows the 2013 shooting death of 17-year-old Cedrick Chatman, who was suspected of car theft when he fled from police in the South Shore neighborhood. In a central dispute in the ongoing wrongful-death suit, the city has said that Chatman turned and pointed a dark object at officers while fleeing, and the attorney for the officer involved said he and his partner had reason to believe that the suspect was armed. Chatmans family said he did nothing to threaten the officers. The object turned out to be a black iPhone box. The video released Thursday, taken from a police blue-light camera and two nearby surveillance cameras, appears to offer little in the way of answers. It captures the incident only from a distance, and the surveillance camera pans away from the scene at critical moments. On Dec. 1, Emanuel announced the creation of a Task Force on Police Accountability to examine the citys system of oversight and training for its police force. One of the groups assignments: review Chicagos decades-long policy opposing the public release of videos and other evidence relating to alleged police misconduct until investigations surrounding them are finished. The task force is scheduled to present recommendations for any changes by the end of March. The public release in November of the dash-cam video showing McDonald being shot 16 times by Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke has resulted in calls for the resignation of top officials in Chicago, including Emanuel, whose administration has struggled to quell the political upheaval that has grown louder since. Van Dyke faces a first-degree murder charge and has pleaded not guilty. Meanwhile, Emanuel has said that he welcomes the Justice Departments investigation of the Chicago police for civil rights violations, and he recently ordered a third-party review of the citys law department. Last month, amid the ongoing uproar, the mayor also fired Chicago Police Superintendent Garry F. McCarthy, saying: He has become an issue, rather than dealing with the issue, and a distraction. Wan and Dennis reported from Washington. Juliet Eilperin in Washington contributed to this report . A general view shows the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem's old city. Jewish immigration to Israel from Western Europe has reached an all-time high, report shows. (Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images) ISRAEL Jewish migration from W. Europe hits a high Jewish immigration to Israel from Western Europe has reached an all-time high as a result of a rise in anti-Semitic attacks, a leading nonprofit group said Thursday, as Frances beleaguered Jewish community grapples with whether to refrain from donning Jewish skullcaps for safety. The Jewish Agency, which works closely with the Israeli government and acts as a link to Jews around the world, said 9,880 Western European Jews immigrated to Israel in 2015 the highest annual number recorded. The figure marks an increase of more than 10 percent from the previous year and is more than double the 2013 level. The vast majority, close to 8,000, came from France, where a rise in anti-Semitic attacks has shattered the sense of security of the worlds third-largest Jewish population. Just this week, a machete-wielding teen attacked a Jewish teacher in the southern French town of Marseille, prompting a local Jewish authority to ask Jews to refrain from wearing their traditional skullcaps to stay safe. France is still reeling from attacks carried out last year by Islamist extremists in Paris. Children jump on a trampoline at the Alexandra Trampoline Club, after school in the township of Alexandra in Johannesburg, South Africa, Thursday. (Kim Ludbrook/EPA) Close to 800 Jews emigrated from Britain in 2015. Italy and Belgium were next on the list. Experts say European Jews have not felt this threatened since World War II, when 6 million Jews were murdered in the Nazi Holocaust. Associated Press British man avoids jail in migrant girl case: A former British soldier who tried to smuggle a 4-year-old Afghan girl into Britain at her fathers request was cleared of all charges related to aiding illegal immigration. A French court gave Rob Lawrie, 49, only a suspended 1,000-euro fine on a charge of putting the childs life in danger by transporting her in a storage compartment of his van. Lawrie, who had been volunteering at a squalid migrant camp in France at the time, said he had acted out of compassion. Gambia revokes order on head coverings for female staff: Gambias government said it has rescinded a recent directive that all female government staffers must cover their hair during office hours. The order by President Yahya Jammeh had sparked anger among opposition leaders, activists and pro-democracy groups. In early December, Jammeh declared his tiny West African country an Islamic republic. Italian police detain immigrant in Americans killing: Italian authorities said they have detained a Senegalese immigrant days after an American woman was discovered dead in her apartment in Florence. Tidiane Cheik Diaw, 27, has become the prime suspect based on witness testimony and DNA evidence from a condom and cigarette butt, Chief Prosecutor Giuseppe Creazzo said. Ashley Olsens skull had been fractured twice, and she had been strangled with a cord or rope. London police increase number of armed officers: London has put more armed police officers on the streets, a direct consequence of the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris. Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe said the Metropolitan Police will train 600 more firearms officers, increasing the number of armed officers to about 2,800. Police will also double the number of armed response vehicles. Most police officers in London do not carry guns. Even with the changes, more than 90 percent of Londons 31,000 police officers will not be carrying guns. Saudi Embassy reopens in Baghdad after 25 years: Saudi Arabia has reopened its embassy in Baghdad after a closure that lasted 25 years. The kingdom closed the embassy in 1990 after Saddam Hussein ordered an invasion of Saudi ally Kuwait. Iraq is trying to repair ties to oil-rich Saudi Arabia even as it enlists the help of Iran, Saudi Arabias longtime regional rival, to battle Islamist militants. Lebanese protesters clash with police over trash crisis: Dozens of Lebanese protesters clashed with police in Beirut over their countrys months-long trash-collection crisis. The clash began after some protesters entered the Environment Ministry to stage a sit-in coinciding with a cabinet meeting on the issue. The latest bid to solve the crisis a proposal to export the waste temporarily has stalled. The crisis erupted in July after authorities closed the primary landfill for Beirut without providing an alternative. India, Pakistan reschedule high-level peace talks: India rescheduled high-level peace talks with Pakistan while it evaluated actions taken by Islamabad against Pakistan-based insurgents it blames for an attack on an Indian air force base two weeks ago. Top diplomats were scheduled to meet in the Pakistani capital this week to set out a road map for talks on settling the dispute over the Himalayan territory of Kashmir and other irritants in bilateral ties. A spokesman for Indias External Affairs Ministry said the meeting will be held in the very near future. From news services A copy of George Washington's personal copy of the Constitution and Bill of Rights as displayed at Christie's auction house in New York when it went up for auction in 2012. (Spencer Platt/GETTY IMAGES) Sometimes I think tea partyers are in an emotionally abusive relationship with the Constitution. One day, they proclaim its inerrancy and say it must be loved, honored and obeyed in all its original perfection. The next day, they call for a constitutional convention, arguing that its broken, outdated and desperately in need of a facelift. In other words: I love you, youre perfect, now change. This pure, pristine document is so fervently adored by people of the parchment that some carry it around with them at all times sometimes in their breast pockets, close to their hearts, perhaps to protect them from a stray Second Amendment-protected bullet. They cite it as they might scripture (that is, often incorrectly, and for their own purposes). They believe that anyone who questions the Constitutions decrees must be verbally flogged or even impeached. The United States sacred scroll must be feared, fetishized and followed to the letter down to the comma, even in its original, strictly constructed form. Indeed, above all other national concerns, this founding document must be preserved as is. But now a line of thinking has emerged that the best way to preserve the Constitution is to revamp it completely. Consider Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), a tea party darling, who wants to convene a constitutional convention to amend this precious political heirloom. And not to push through just a single amendment, but nine. These amendments include: allowing a two-thirds majority of the states to override a Supreme Court decision; prohibiting Congress from regulating activity that occurs wholly within one state; and requiring a seven-justice supermajority for Supreme Court decisions that invalidate a democratically enacted law. Abbott also demands a balanced-budget amendment, which almost certainly would have been opposed by Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father who was the most prolific defender of the Constitution. These are not minor copy edits. In a 92-page document defending his proposals, Abbott laments widespread ignorance of the Constitution and argues that his plan is not so much a vision to alter the Constitution as it is a call to restore the rule of our current one. The Constitution itself is not broken, Abbott writes in italics. What is broken is our Nations willingness to obey the Constitution and to hold our leaders accountable to it. In other words, the Constitution says what Abbott thinks it says, not what it actually says, or what the Supreme Court decides it says so now we just need to rewrite it so that the text fits whats in his head. Abbott is not the only right-wing Constitution-thumper to call for reframing the Founding Fathers allegedly perfect handiwork. Marco Rubio, apparently trying to capture more of his partys fringe, recently announced that on his first day in office as commander in chief, he would put the prestige and power of the presidency behind a constitutional convention of the states. Its agenda would be to impose term limits on federal legislators and judges, as well as a balanced-budget amendment. Rubio assured Americans that delegates to such a convention wont be able to touch our important constitutional rights. Who determines which parts of the Constitution are important and therefore untouchable, and which are unimportant and touchable? Rubio, apparently. Then theres Donald Trump, who, along with others, wants to roll back the 14th Amendment to quash birthright citizenship . (In the meantime, hell settle for casting aspersions on his political enemies birthplaces.) And Ben Carson author of a book subtitled What We the People Can Do to Reclaim Our Constitutional Liberties has argued that U.S. law is not subject to judicial review from the Supreme Court, contra Marbury v. Madison. (Carson has also expressed other funny ideas about whats in the Constitution and who wrote it.) Like Rubio, Carson has supported the idea of a constitutional convention, along with fellow Republican presidential candidates Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee and John Kasich. Then theres Ted Cruz, who devotes a whole section on his campaign website to his pledge to defend the Constitution and restore the Constitution as our standard. Cruz, too, has decided that the best way to restore the Constitution is by altering it. He supports amendments to require a balanced budget, let state legislatures define marriage and subject Supreme Court justices to periodic retention elections. These and many more unspecified amendments are needed, he told reporters, because the federal government and the courts have gotten so far away from the original text and the original understanding of our Constitution. Because, obviously, the best way to honor that cherished, perfect, original text is by getting rid of it. A year ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping appeared to be living what he called the Chinese Dream. Chinas economy seemed strong, its military power was growing and Xi was aggressively consolidating domestic political power. But Xi is off to a bad new year. The Chinese economy is slowing sharply, with actual gross domestic product growth last year now estimated by U.S. analysts at several points below the official rate of 6.5 percent. The Chinese stock market has fallen 15 percent this year, and the value of its currency has slipped. Capital flight continues, probably at the $1 trillion annual rate estimated for the second half of last year. But Chinas economic woes are manageable compared with its domestic political difficulties. Xis anti-corruption drive has accelerated into a full-blown purge. The campaign has rocked the Chinese intelligence service, toppled some senior military commanders and frightened Communist Party leaders around the country. Jittery party officials are lying low, avoiding decisions that might get them in trouble; the resulting paralysis makes other problems worse. Xi is in an unprecedentedly powerful position. But because he has dismantled the tools of collective leadership that had been built up over decades, he owns this crisis, said Kurt Campbell, who was the Obama administrations top Asia expert until 2013. He worries that Xi will double down on his nationalistic push for greater power in Asia, which is one of the few themes that can unite the country. To scale back shows weakness, which Xi can ill afford now, Campbell said. Chinese sometimes use historical parables to explain current domestic political issues. The talk recently among some members of the Chinese elite has been a comparison between Xis tenure and that of Yongzheng, the emperor who ruled China from 1722 to 1735. Yongzheng waged a harsh campaign against bribery, but he came to be seen by many Chinese as a despot who had gained power illegitimately. A lot of historical events of that period are repeating in China today, from power conspiracy to corruption, from a deteriorating economy to an external hostility threat, one Chinese observer said in an email. Xis political troubles illustrate the difficulty of trying to reform a one-party system from within. Much as Mikhail Gorbachev hoped in the 1980s that reforms could revitalize a decaying Soviet Communist Party, Xi began his presidency in 2013 by attacking Chinese party barons who had grown rich and comfortable on the spoils of Chinas economic boom. Many of Xis rivals were proteges of former President Jiang Zemin, which meant that Xi made some powerful enemies. David Shambaugh, a China scholar at George Washington University, was an outlier when he argued in March that Xis reform campaign would backfire. Despite appearances, Chinas political system is badly broken, and nobody knows it better than the Communist Party itself, he wrote in the Wall Street Journal. The endgame of Chinese communist rule has now begun. This political obituary may prove premature. But theres growing agreement among China analysts that Xis crackdown has fueled dissent within the party and beyond, leading to further repression. Xi is a decisive strongman, so he may fare better than Gorbachev, but the structure underneath him is fragile. Chinas recent economic turmoil may be an inevitable result of the transition Xi is trying to steer. He wants to move China away from a debt-laden bubble economy, which depended on ever-growing exports, toward a more sustainable, consumer-driven model. His problem is that the Chinese system is bloated by inefficient, state-owned enterprises that survive on debt and subsidies. Xi has found it impossible to cut them loose. Its no easy thing to reboot a $10 trillion economy, said a former U.S. official who knows the top Chinese leaders well. Xi is trying to do it all himself at a time when everything is changing at once. This months financial rout showed the dangers for a China caught between a truly free market and continuing government control. An ill-conceived circuit breaker that kicked in when the stock market fell 7 percent, and government orders to big investors not to sell, probably accelerated the sell-off and the flight of capital. Conflicting signals on whether the central bank wanted a stronger or weaker currency shook the markets confidence. Xi has been pressing the free-market accelerator at the same time he pumps the political brake. For a China halfway pregnant with reform, the past months turbulence showed that these fundamental contradictions may not be sustainable. Read more from David Ignatiuss archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. Thomas Jefferson often argued that an educated public was crucial for the survival of self-government. We now live in an age in which that education takes place mostly through relatively new platforms. Social networks Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. are the main mechanisms by which people receive and share facts, ideas and opinions. But what if they encourage misinformation, rumors and lies? In a comprehensive new study of Facebook that analyzed posts made between 2010 and 2014, a group of scholars found that people mainly shared information that confirmed their prejudices, paying little attention to facts and veracity. (Hat tip to Cass Sunstein, the leading expert on this topic.) The result, the report says, is the proliferation of biased narratives fomented by unsubstantiated rumors, mistrust and paranoia. The authors specifically studied trolling the creation of highly provocative, often false information, with the hope of spreading it widely. The report says that many mechanisms cause false information to gain acceptance, which in turn generate false beliefs that, once adopted by an individual, are highly resistant to correction. As it happens, in recent weeks I was the target of a trolling campaign and saw exactly how it works. It started when an obscure website published a post titled CNN host Fareed Zakaria calls for jihad rape of white women. The story claimed that in my private blog I had urged the use of American women as sex slaves to depopulate the white race. The post further claimed that on my Twitter account, I had written the following line: Every death of a white person brings tears of joy to my eyes. Disgusting. So much so that the item would collapse from its own weightlessness, right? Wrong. Here is what happened next: Hundreds of people began linking to it, tweeting and retweeting it, and adding their comments, which are too vulgar or racist to repeat. A few ultra-right-wing websites reprinted the story as fact. With each new cycle, the levels of hysteria rose, and people started demanding that I be fired, deported or killed. For a few days, the digital intimidation veered out into the real world. Some people called my house late one night and woke up and threatened my daughters, who are 7 and 12. It would have taken a minute to click on the link and see that the original post was on a fake news site, one that claims to be satirical (though not very prominently). It would have taken simple common sense to realize the absurdity of the charge. But none of this mattered. The people spreading this story were not interested in the facts; they were interested in feeding prejudice. The original story was cleverly written to provide conspiracy theorists with enough ammunition to ignore evidence. It claimed that I had taken down the post after a few hours when I realized it receive[d] negative attention. So, when the occasional debunker would point out that there was no evidence of the post anywhere, it made little difference. When confronted with evidence that the story was utterly false, it only convinced many that there was a conspiracy and coverup. In my own experience, conversations on Facebook are somewhat more civil, because people generally have to reveal their identities. But on Twitter and in other places the online comments section of The Post, for example people can be anonymous or have pseudonyms. And that is where bile and venom flow freely. The Posts Dana Milbank recently quoted a tweet about a column of his that said, Lets not mince words: Milbank is an anti-white parasite and a bigoted kike supremacist. The comments about me were often nastier. Elizabeth Kolbert, writing in the New Yorker, recalled an experiment performed by two psychologists in 1970. They divided students into two groups based on their answers to a questionnaire: high prejudice and low prejudice. Each group was told to discuss controversial issues such as school busing and integrated housing. Then the questions were asked again. The surveys revealed a striking pattern, Kolbert noted. Simply by talking to one another, the bigoted students had become more bigoted and the tolerant more tolerant. This group polarization is now taking place at hyper speed, around the world. It is how radicalization happens and extremism spreads. I love social media. But somehow we have to help create better mechanisms in it to distinguish between fact and falsehood. No matter how passionate people are, no matter how cleverly they can blog or tweet or troll, no matter how viral things get, lies are still lies. Read more from Fareed Zakarias archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. Much of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s activism is misunderstood, even by some who seek to honor him. (The Washington Post) Much of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s activism is misunderstood, even by some who seek to honor him. (The Washington Post) The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is a historical figure every school child knows, one of the few from American history sculpted into a monument on the Mall. Yet much of his activism is misunderstood, even by some who seek to honor him. In the midst of protests by young African Americans in cities and on campuses across the country, Kings life and legacy remain profoundly relevant. As the holiday bearing his name approaches, here are five myths about the civil rights icon. 1. King believed in a color-blind society. Since his death, King has emerged as a triumphalist figure, used to reassure us that the United States has transcended its history of racial strife. Of all the ministers powerful oratory, these words from his speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 are some of the most cited: I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. But interpretations of this quote vary radically. Conservatives, including Ronald Reagan, have enlisted it to rationalize opposition to diversity programs. In 1990, African American pundit Shelby Steele titled his anti-affirmative-action memoir The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America. But King knew that the economy wasnt color-blind, and he believed that the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts would not eliminate racial disparity. After 1965, King fought against crisis levels of black unemployment in the Watts area of Los Angeles, for open housing in Chicago and in support of striking black sanitation workers in Memphis. At the end of his life, he became particularly disheartened by the racial barriers to housing and jobs in the urban North and West. Kings speech to Memphis sanitation workers a month before his 1968 assassination, on the economic disparities between blacks and whites, is a better measure of his mature thought. His words could have been written in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis: When there is vast unemployment and underemployment in the black community, they call it a social problem. When there is vast unemployment and underemployment in the white community, they call it a depression. King explicitly linked racism to economics in ways that remain sharply relevant. In his view, only direct intervention by a strong federal government could counteract the historical disparities wrought by the overlapping forces of race and class, forces that were unlikely to disappear. 2. Kings focus was racism in the South. In a 1993 survey, more than two-thirds of respondents said there had been significant progress toward Martin Luther Kings dream of racial equality. Many biographical sketches of the minister focus on the epic Southern civil rights battles and on the transcendent imagery of his I Have a Dream speech. One hour-long documentary on CNN devoted 53 minutes to his life prior to the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Largely left out: his work between 1964 and 1968, including the Poor Peoples Campaign and antiwar activism. King had not one dream but many. He placed the fight for African American equality within the larger struggle for international decolonization. After 17 African countries won independence in 1960, King observed in the Letter From a Birmingham Jail: We have waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. In 1967, at the Riverside Church in Manhattan, he made an impassioned plea against Americas aggressive anti-communist foreign policy, which had resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese. King denounced the United States as the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today. While a sanitized image of King as a Southern civil rights crusader has been enshrined in popular memory, his dream of ending American militarism has proved more difficult to accept. 3. King was the natural antagonist of Malcolm X. King and Malcolm X are often cast as opposing poles, with the former supporting nonviolent civil disobedience in the South and the latter encouraging angry, armed rebellion in the North. But the icons actually have more in common than one might think. Both mens political visions profoundly changed during their lives. Early in his career, King focused on more limited programs of desegregation but later believed a radical revolution of values in American society was needed. (One journalist said the year before he died that he sounded like a nonviolent Malcolm X.) Malcolm X had a revolution of his own, breaking with the Nation of Islam in 1964 and offering support to Kings campaign in Selma in 1965. And both men held a deep opposition to the war in Vietnam. King saw it as a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit and called for a global revolution against poverty, racism and militarism. Kings stance came at great personal and political cost. Nearly all of the major newspapers denounced him, and President Lyndon B. Johnson raged against his speech. Never again would he be welcome at the White House. Like Malcolm X, who faced popular outrage for saying the chickens came home to roost after the John F. Kennedy assassination, King also bore the pain of national censure and disgrace. 4. King is irrelevant to Black Lives Matter protesters. The denatured iconography of King has an unfortunate consequence: Many young people see him and the civil rights generation he personifies as irrelevant to their struggles against police violence and mass incarceration. Ferguson, Mo., activist Tef Poe expressed this most clearly when he asserted that the new protests aint your grandparents civil rights movement. Poes comments reflected how younger protesters have pushed against the politics of respectability associated with King, the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Black Lives Matter founders Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi have also critiqued the limitations of hierarchical male leadership models. Despite these differences, a deeper river of struggle connects civil rights and black power activism to the movement for black lives today. As seen in the Montgomery bus boycott, Bull Connors Birmingham and the Selma beatings, local authorities tried to stop political organizing through police and vigilante violence, mass jailings and brutality behind bars. Ferguson protesters, who faced down tanks, tear gas and assorted forms of military-grade hardware, tasted what many activists suffered throughout the 1950s and 1960s. As these examples show, the fight to end the criminalization of black protest, and of black people more broadly, lies at the heart of African American freedom struggles then and now. In his eulogy for Jimmie Lee Jackson, King denounced the misuse of police powers, which he saw as an expression of white supremacy. He understood Jacksons shooting by a white officer to be symbolic of race-based killings throughout the country. A state trooper pointed the gun, but he did not act alone, King said. He was murdered by the brutality of every sheriff who practices lawlessness in the name of law. He was murdered by the irresponsibility of every politician, from governors on down, who has fed his constituents the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism. 5. Without King, the civil rights movement wouldnt have happened. One of the most controversial aspects of Ava DuVernays film Selma is its rendering of King as the catalytic agent for the Voting Rights Act, at the expense of LBJ. Equally striking, though, is how it reflects the larger cultural tendency to represent the civil rights movement as an example of great man history, in which King eclipses other leaders and potential rivals such as Malcolm X and James Forman from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, who comes off as an erratic hothead. Hidden even further from view by King hagiography is the work of female civil rights activists, including Ella Baker, Daisy Bates, Joanne Grant, Fannie Lou Hamer and Septima Clark, who helped build the human infrastructure of the movement. Along with many working-class and poor black people whose names we will never know, these women helped launch local campaigns that garnered national publicity and attention. In the words of civil rights scholar Charles Payne, Men led, but women organized. King himself was deeply conflicted about his role as the face of the civil rights movement. In the last speech of his life, he warned his audience, I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. With these words, King recognized the importance of collective struggle and placed his trust in the hands of present and future generations. outlook@washpost.com Five myths is a weekly feature challenging everything you think you know. You can check out previous myths, read more from Outlook or follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter. President Obamas desire to avoid large new ground commitments in the Middle East is, in many respects, understandable, given the experiences of some 15 years of war. At present, however, the modest number of U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan operate with one hand tied behind their backs at a time when Afghan forces, though fighting hard, are struggling. That should be changed. We should unleash our airpower in support of our Afghan partners in the same way that we support our Iraqi and Syrian partners against extremists. At present, U.S. and NATO airpower in Afghanistan is used only to attack validated al-Qaeda targets, to counter specific individuals or groups who have attacked coalition forces previously and to respond directly to attacks on coalition forces. According to leaders on the ground, U.S. and NATO forces are otherwise not allowed to attack Taliban targets. The situation appears to be in flux in regard to Islamic State elements, but through 2015, they too could be targeted only under narrow circumstances. The origins of this contorted policy are, once again, somewhat understandable, even if the policy itself should be changed. When he was Afghanistans president, Hamid Karzai frequently objected to NATOs use of firepower, especially when tragic accidents took the lives of Afghan civilians. Though this war has probably involved the most carefully controlled airpower in the history of warfare, with NATO troops taking extraordinary measures to protect innocents, mistakes inevitably occurred. Karzais accumulated frustration led him to increasingly react to such tragedies not just with private outrage but also public excoriation. At times, the missions future hung in the balance. To minimize such friction, while also prodding Afghans to view the fight against the Taliban more as their own and less as ours, Obama decided to end NATO targeting of the Taliban in most situations. Also, some administration lawyers harbor concerns that the authorization for the use of military force approved soon after 9/11 does not extend to justify the continued use of force against the Taliban. That is logic we believe unfounded; after all, it was the Taliban that allowed al-Qaeda the sanctuary it used to plan the fateful attacks 15 years ago. In addition, the Taliban, in cahoots with the Haqqani network and other extremist elements, is trying to overthrow the very Afghan government that is now committed to keeping al-Qaeda and the Islamic State at bay. We have the tools in place to step up our game considerably. When combined with a motivated and competent ground force, airpower can be quite effective. This was witnessed in 2001, when U.S. airpower and special operatives worked with the Northern Alliance to oust the Taliban from power. It was seen on a vast scale while supporting coalition and host- nation forces in Iraq and Afghanistan increasing in effectiveness, in fact, as the fleet of drones and other precision-strike assets expanded dramatically over the course of the surges in each war. It has also been seen of late in Iraq and Syria, where U.S. airpower collaborated with Kurdish forces and other partners in both countries to prevent further inroads by the Islamic State in 2014 and then to liberate places such as Sinjar and Ramadi in Iraq and a number of villages near Kobani in Syria last year. In Syria and Iraq, U.S. and coalition airpower has been used increasingly vigorously. In 2014, coalition aircraft dropped ordnance during about 2,000 aircraft sorties; that number grew above 9,000 last year. But we have moved in the opposite direction in Afghanistan. Even though our military footprint there is more firmly established, with nearly 10,000 U.S. troops and 6,000 other foreign troops , and with several major airfields accessible to NATO forces in country, ordnance was dropped during only about 400 sorties last year. The corresponding tally for 2014 was about 1,100; in 2010, it was about 2,500. The Taliban is not winning decisively in Afghanistan by any means, but it has learned that it can mass for attack in many places without fear of NATO airstrikes. Partly as a result, it temporarily took control of the provincial capital of Kunduz in the fall; more recently it has taken large swaths of Helmand province, as well as a number of places in the countrys mountainous east. We do not need a big U.S. troop buildup in Afghanistan, but we should take the gloves off of those who are there. Afghan forces are doing perhaps 99 percent of the fighting on the ground, and that is as it should be though as the tragic recent casualties in Helmand and near Bagram Airfield reminded us, Americans are certainly still in the fight. The development of the Afghan air force will take a least a few more years. In the meantime, we can and should do more to ensure that the Taliban does not win the war, which could lead to new sanctuaries for al-Qaeda and the Islamic State on the eastern flank of their broader area of operations. Vigorous use of the airpower we already have in the region is the most logical and straightforward next step for doing so. Joshua Kurlantzick is a senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. When Chinese officials announced in 2013 that they would open an Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to primarily fund big construction projects across the Pacific, they launched a slow-motion freak-out in Washington. As they went around the world inviting governments to join, Obama administration officials pressured their allies in Asia, Europe and elsewhere not to. The AIIB, headquartered in Beijing, would allow China to expand its influence throughout Asia, the White House fretted. We are wary about a trend toward constant accommodation of China, one Obama aide complained to the Financial Times after Britain joined 56 other nations in signing up to fund power plants, roads, telecommunications infrastructure and other ventures. It was a rare public critique of a U.S. ally. The campaign against Chinas bank is hardly unique. Since the Obama administration came into office, its Asia strategy has been to fear and combat nearly every move by China to flex its muscles, which Beijing has done through aid grants, trade deals, energy exploration, new diplomatic initiatives and military relations with other nations. This anti-China strategy might be one of the only areas of agreement between the president and Republicans. Donald Trump, for instance, says he wants to battle China at every opportunity and promises to slap 45 percent tariffs on Chinese imports. In some places, such as the South China Sea, the nations expanding power poses a real threat. And it is frightening to see a xenophobic autocracy one that cracks down ferociously on domestic critics and fosters a growing cult of personality around President Xi Jinping gaining influence. But wariness toward China has morphed into a muddled, obsessive and often mindless U.S. policy. It holds that any new Chinese action must be stopped; any new Chinese ally must be won over; any new Chinese ambition must be contained. The administration has become so fixated on countering Beijing that it fails to realize that some of the Chinese actions it is fighting do not imperil the United States interests. Meanwhile, the (largely futile) battle doesnt just alienate allies. It also takes U.S. diplomats, money and arms away from places that truly matter to the United States. In some places, America would do best to let China win. Since at least 1989, the year of the Tiananmen Square massacre and the end of a honeymoon in U.S.-China relations, Washington has regarded Beijings growing power with suspicion. But during the Clinton administration, China was still recovering economically and militarily from that debacle; it posed no real military or diplomatic threat to the United States or most U.S. partners in Asia. Then George W. Bush spent his presidency focused on the war on terrorism and largely put China issues to the side. By the time Barack Obama took office, however, China had become much more influential. And the promise to end Middle Eastern wars gave the White House the bandwidth to focus on opposing it, often counterproductively. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank a relatively modest institution with an initial capitalization of about $100 billion, much of which China plans to provide is one place where the United States should have simply stepped aside. In asking other nations not to join as founding members, U.S. officials sometimes argued that the institution would duplicate the older Asian Development Bank, a multilateral bank dominated by Japan and headquartered in the Philippines, a U.S. treaty ally, according to Obama administration Asia specialists. Other times, they argued that the new bank would undermine international financial and environmental standards for aid projects. Yet the Asian Development Bank itself estimates that infrastructure in the continents poorer nations needs about $8 trillion in upgrades by 2020 if those countries want to remain globally competitive. The idea of the AIIB is genuinely popular with these countries as well as with some donor nations in Europe and doesnt threaten U.S. strategic interests. Meanwhile, U.S. partners didnt appreciate Washington telling them how to run every detail of their China policy. The Obama administration has expended serious energy trying to dissuade its allies from joining the bank, notes Elizabeth Economy, a China scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations, and still it couldnt succeed, which just makes the administration look weak. Washington could have helped the bank work with other global lending organizations and might have even had some say over its agenda but now officials from several of its founding member states tell me theyll be less inclined to listen to the White House when it wants their help stopping other Chinese initiatives. Beijings influence has also expanded in Southeast Asia. China has become the leading trading partner with many nations in the region, as well as the biggest donor to some poorer states. In November, it launched its first joint military exercises with U.S. treaty ally Thailand. The Obama administration has overreacted to these perceived dangers by devoting significant resources to improving ties with mainland Southeast Asian states, several of which have deeply undemocratic or illiberal governments. It has worked hard for rapprochement with Burma, including visits from then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Obama himself. The administration has upgraded defense ties with authoritarian or semi-authoritarian Cambodia, Laos and Malaysia, and may soon do so with Burma as well. Obama has built a close personal relationship with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, now in trouble for allegedly taking $600 million from a government fund. What strategic imbalance would result if Washingtons influence in these parts of the region diminished? Countries like Cambodia and Burma are still largely irrelevant to U.S. investors and strategic interests. The United States began boosting ties with Burma five years ago, but American investors have sunk only $2 million in officially counted investment into the country since 2011, largely because the business climate there remains atrocious. In Cambodia, U.S. companies invested about $85 million in 2014, the last year for which figures are available. (By contrast, American executives sent $290 million to tiny Luxembourg in 2015, a nation whose population is 4 percent of Cambodias.) Its AIIB failure may have made the United States look weak and miserly, but its focus on competition in unimportant parts of Southeast Asia has real consequences. Washington needs Chinese help to halt Irans nuclear program, combat climate change and protect global cybersecurity. The White House can fairly complain about Xis repressive regime and his rapid military buildup, but needlessly alienating Beijing only makes the worlds most important bilateral relationship harder. China has responded harshly to U.S. attempts to mitigate its influence in its own neighborhood, repeatedly delivering veiled public warnings to Southeast Asian nations that side with Washington on major issues and offering massive assistance to countries like Cambodia for moving closer to China. Sparking confrontation over important issues such as the South China Sea is worth it, but raising disputes over places like Cambodia is not. Africa is another place where the obsession with pushing back at most forms of Chinese influence has not helped. Its true that some, though hardly all, Chinese investment and aid on the continent does not conform to international environmental and anti-corruption standards. But sub-Saharan nations have generally welcomed this support. Pew surveys last year found that China is more popular in Africa than on any other continent. It is now the largest trading partner across sub-Saharan Africa, a relationship that will only deepen. Beijing and Washington have sometimes cooperated in Africa (battling Ebola and trying to strengthen the African Union), but often the two powers have competed for clout. In South Sudan, for instance, they have competed for influence over the government of the young country, alienating many Sudanese in the process and undermining cooperation in one of the most fragile parts of the continent. In November, China announced that it would be constructing a de facto military base in Djibouti, one of the most strategically important places in Africa because militaries there can project their power into the Middle East. The United States has a major base in Djibouti, and U.S. officials reportedly are worried about Chinese encroachments so nearby. But allowing Beijing to build its influence in Africa would come at only a minimal cost to U.S. interests, because China is hardly the African colossus it has been portrayed to be; the Djibouti base is still its first overseas military facility. Observers often dramatically overstate the scope of Chinese official finance loans and aid pledged to Africa, writes Deborah Brautigam of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, one of the most accomplished scholars of China- Africa relations. She adds that China treats Africa no more rapaciously than any other foreign power: It does not try to take African land, win all of Africas resources or push out other major players that have security interests on the continent. And other than the largest economies such as Nigeria and South Africa, the places where China wields greater influence Mozambique, Angola, Zambia are not central to U.S. companies or U.S. military strategy. No wonder African writers and analysts have called for China and the United States to put aside their differences so they can focus on jointly fighting poverty, improving the business climate, combating disease and building infrastructure. The tiny islands of the Pacific are another region of unneeded competition. There, in search of natural resources and a broader rejection of Taiwans independent government, Beijing is boosting aid and encouraging Chinese firms to invest in Fiji, Papua New Guinea and smaller nations such as the Solomon Islands. This does not represent a zero-sum challenge to American power. The rise of Chinese influence, which is driven predominantly by diverse commercial interests, does not presage a new era of geo-strategic competition, says a report from the Lowy Institute, a leading Australian think tank. Scholars there say China has projected minimal hard power far into the Pacific. Still, Obama administration officials see a battle for supremacy. As Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2011: Lets put aside the moral, humanitarian, do-good side of what we believe in, and lets just talk straight realpolitik. We are in a competition with China in the Pacific islands. So the White House has increased U.S. diplomatic representation in the region, boosted aid dramatically and rhetorically pointed to a competition between Beijing and Washington. It has done so even though most Pacific nations are tiny economies and the U.S. Navy retains a massive advantage over Chinas in speed, technology and basing throughout the Pacific. The White House strategy inevitably diverts scarce U.S. diplomatic resources from other parts of the globe while leaving island nations feeling compelled to choose between closer ties with China or with the United States. The result might embarrass Washington: Many of these nations might prefer China for its lavish aid and possible investment. Despite Chinas growing global influence, its image in many regions, including in Asia, is still weak. In the past decade, its relations with many of its neighbors have soured, largely because of its aggressive claims in disputed coastal waters. The same Pew surveys that found favorable views of China in Africa also showed that negative opinions were much higher in Asian nations such as India, the Philippines, Japan and Vietnam, where 74 percent of people had an unfavorable view of China. In Europe, Australia and parts of Latin America, initial excitement in the 2000s about the impact of new Chinese investment and aid has given way to decidedly mixed views among citizens and governments about Beijing, including fears that China will not play by trade rules, will steal technology and will make investments that offer little benefit to local economies. U.S. popularity, by contrast, has recovered from the lows of the Bush administration, particularly across the Pacific. A 2014 poll of people in 11 Asia-Pacific countries, conducted for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, found that nearly 80 percent of respondents, including those in many countries that viewed China unfavorably in the Pew study, supported a more robust U.S. economic and security presence in Asia a percentage that would have surely been lower during the 2000s. But the exercise of soft power rests on lasting positive perceptions, and it does not help for Washington to cultivate strongmen such as Malaysias Najib or Kazakhstans Nursultan Nazarbayev while promoting democracy elsewhere. It leads people in these countries to see little difference between U.S. and Chinese foreign policy. The real challenges posed by China require all of Americas focus at a time when the United States is shrinking its Army and is no longer the only global economic superpower. Those challenges include Chinas claims in the South China Sea, through which half the worlds trade passes, and its exertions in the East China Sea, which would give Beijing the right to block Japanese boats and fighter planes from the region around northeast Asia. And China is racing to modernize its navy to help support these power grabs. These are the developments worth fighting. The right strategy requires a nuanced understanding of where the United States should pick its stands against a rising China and where it is necessary to concede some power. In Southeast Asia, for instance, that means helping the countries most likely to have to defend themselves in the South China Sea (including Vietnam and the Philippines) while worrying less about mainland states (such as Burma). Nuance also demands a political environment in which leaders can talk about ceding some international influence to China. This will not be easy: Any pol who plays down American global dominance can become a target for opponents. But it shouldnt be politically toxic to admit that China is becoming more powerful and that a more reasoned U.S. foreign policy would be one that wields U.S. resources judiciously. We should marshal our capital for the challenges that are truly challenging. Twitter: @JoshKurlantzick Read more from Outlook and follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter. If you thought the political landscape couldnt be more unsettled, think again. In the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Bernie Sanders is surging. Hillary Clinton now faces not a coronation, not a cakewalk, but a contest one she could lose. Has there ever been a worse election to be an establishment candidate? Certainly not in my lifetime. When a pitchfork-populist billionaire is leading one partys race and a self-described democratic socialist is rapidly gaining ground in the other, I think its safe to say were somewhere we havent been before. For much of the past year, Clinton led Sanders in national polls by more than 20 points. Now, according to the RealClearPolitics average, her lead has shrunk to less than nine points and the most recent survey, a CBS/New York Times poll released this week, showed just a seven-point gap. State polls should make Clinton even more nervous. Her once-comfortable lead over Sanders in Iowa is now just four points, pretty much a toss-up. And in New Hampshire, Sanders a longtime senator from next-door Vermont leads Clinton by six points. It is within the realm of possibility that the presumptive Democratic nominee could lose both of the first two states. Then what? Its tempting to look for parallels from 2008: Clinton had the backing of the party establishment, but an insurgent named Barack Obama beat her in Iowa and ran away with the nomination. However, the one bit of finger-in-the-wind punditry Im comfortable dispensing this year is that comparisons with previous election cycles probably dont mean much. Instead, we should start by looking at Sanders and his message. All along, his campaign has enjoyed less media coverage than it deserves. I believe many journalists accepted the conventional wisdom that he is too unpolished and too far to the left to win the nomination despite evidence that substantial numbers of Democrats disagree. Sanderss central campaign theme is inequality. Over the past four decades, he argues, Wall Street and the billionaire class have rigged the rules to redistribute wealth and income to the wealthiest and most powerful people of this country. He proposes to do something about that lots, in fact. He wants wealthy individuals and large corporations to pay their fair share in taxes. He wants to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour and put millions of people to work by spending $1 trillion over five years to renew the countrys aging infrastructure. Sanders denounces free-trade pacts, such as NAFTA and President Obamas Trans-Pacific Partnership contending they drive down wages and eliminate American jobs. On this question, he agrees almost word for word with Republican front-runner Donald Trump. As I said, this is not a normal election cycle. Sanders wants to make tuition free at public colleges and universities. He wants universal child care and pre-kindergarten. He supports equal pay for women by law and a requirement that employers provide at least 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave and a minimum of two weeks paid vacation. And Sanders supports truly universal health care. He describes it as Medicare for all and notes that every other major industrialized nation considers medical care a right. Any Clinton supporters looking for a reason to panic should consider the way the campaign attacked Sanders on health care this week. Chelsea Clinton, stumping for her mother in New Hampshire, charged that Senator Sanders wants to dismantle Obamacare, dismantle the [Childrens Health Insurance Program], dismantle Medicare and dismantle private insurance. Hillary Clinton later doubled down, saying that if you look at Senator Sanderss proposals going back nine times in Congress, thats exactly what hes proposed. Come on, be real. Sanders doesnt want to eliminate government health programs; he wants to combine them all into one comprehensive system. A more honest line of attack might be that Sanders has yet to spell out how he would pay for universal health care or, for that matter, get it through a hostile Congress. Such careful and misleading parsing of language can only be called Clintonesque and only be read as a danger sign. I cant help but recall how Bill Clinton invited a backlash in 2008 by calling the Obama candidacy a fairy tale. Maybe Hillary Clinton should try leaving the family at home. Sanders still has an uphill battle, especially after Iowa and New Hampshire. But the Clinton campaign has a fight on its hands and anything smacking of politics-as-usual is more likely to lose votes than win them. Read more from Eugene Robinsons archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. You can also join him Tuesdays at 1 p.m. for a live Q&A. Harry J. Holzer is a professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University. Isabel V. Sawhill is a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution. The issue of paid leave is heating up in 2016. At least two presidential candidates Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) have proposed new federal policies. Several states and large cities have begun providing paid leave to workers when they are ill or have to care for a newborn child or other family member. This forward movement on paid-leave policy makes sense. The United States is the only advanced country without a paid-leave policy. While some private and public employers already provide paid leave to their workers, the workers least likely to get paid leave are low-wage and low-income workers who need it most. They also cannot afford to take unpaid leave, which the federal government mandates for larger companies. Paid leave is good for the health and development of children; it supports work, enabling employees to remain attached to the labor force when they must take leave; and it can lower costly worker turnover for employers. Given the economic and social benefits it provides and given that the private market will not generate as much as needed, public policies should ensure that such leave is available to all. But it is important to do so efficiently, so as not to burden employers with high costs that could lead them to substantially lower wages or create fewer jobs. States and cities that require employers to provide paid sick days mandate just a small number, usually three to seven days. Family or temporary disability leaves that must be longer are usually financed through small increases in payroll taxes paid by workers and employers, rather than by employer mandates or general revenue. Policy choices could limit costs while expanding benefits. For instance, states should limit eligibility to workers with experience, such as a year, and it might make sense to increase the benefit with years of accrued service to encourage labor force attachment. Some states provide four to six weeks of family leave, though somewhat larger amounts of time may be warranted, especially for the care of newborns, where three months seems reasonable. Paid leave need not mean full replacement of existing wages. Replacing two-thirds of weekly earnings up to a set limit is reasonable. The caps and partial wage replacement give workers some incentive to limit their use of paid leave without imposing large financial burdens on those who need it most. While many states and localities have made sensible choices in these areas, some have not. For instance, the D.C. Council has proposed paid-leave legislation for all but federal workers that violates virtually all of these rules. It would require up to 16 weeks of temporary disability leave and up to 16 weeks of paid family leave; almost all workers would be eligible for coverage, without major experience requirements; and the proposed law would require 100 percent replacement of wages up to $1,000 per week, and 50 percent coverage up to $3,000. It would be financed through a progressive payroll tax on employers only, which would increase to 1 percent for higher-paid employees. Our analysis suggests that this level of leave would be badly underfunded by the proposed tax, perhaps by as much as two-thirds. Economists believe that payroll taxes on employers are mostly paid through lower worker wages, so the higher taxes needed to fully fund such generous leave would burden workers. The costly policy might cause employers to discriminate against women. The disruptions and burdens of such lengthy leaves could cause employers to hire fewer workers or shift operations elsewhere over time. This is particularly true here, considering that the D.C. Council already has imposed costly burdens on employers, such as high minimum wages (rising to $11.50 per hour this year), paid sick leave (although smaller amounts than now proposed) and restrictions on screening candidates. The minimum wage in Arlington is $7.25 with no other mandates. Employers will be tempted to move operations across the river or to replace workers with technology wherever possible. Cities, states and the federal government should provide paid sick and family leave for all workers. But it can and should be done in a fiscally responsible manner that does not place undue burdens on the workers themselves or on their employers. In the iconic geography of the civil rights movement, the South understandably looms large. Selma. Birmingham. Greensboro. Washington? Not so much. But as the nation reflects on the struggle for racial equality this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the capitals mostly forgotten history of integration is worth remembering. Washington was a key civil rights battleground, especially in the years before the Supreme Courts landmark 1954 school desegregation decision in Brown v. Board of Education. In fact, in 1953, a Supreme Court decision that desegregated Washington restaurants paved the way for Brown and nationwide school integration a year later. The 1953 ruling, District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co., Inc. , is little-known now, but it was groundbreaking. It came at a moment when the court had failed to coalesce internally over how to resolve Brown and four companion cases, including one that challenged Washingtons segregated schools. Thompson was handed down four months after President Dwight D. Eisenhower vowed, in his first State of the Union address, to end segregation in the capital. It was not brought to the court by one of the lawyers most associated with Brown and the civil rights movement: Thurgood Marshall. Instead, it came at the instigation of an octogenarian activist and charter member of the NAACP named Mary Church Terrell. With Thompson, a standalone challenge to Washingtons Jim Crow restaurants, the court expressed a consensus it couldnt yet articulate in Brown and the other school segregation cases, which teemed with the complexities of directing the eras black and white children to sit side by side. Terrells legal battle began Jan. 27, 1950, when Thompsons Restaurant, a cafeteria at 725 14th St. NW, a few blocks from the White House, refused to serve her and two African American colleagues because they were colored. Terrell had lived in Washington for 60 years. She knew segregation. The District was then 35 percent black, but schools, movie theaters, department stores and other businesses were strictly separated by race. Most downtown restaurants denied service to blacks; some relegated them to a counter, where they had to stand. In fact, in a 1948 report by the National Committee on Segregation in the Nations Capital, a traveler from India said this: I would rather be an Untouchable in the Hindu caste system than a Negro in Washington. Even the Supreme Courts first African American law clerk, William T. Coleman Jr., a Harvard Law School graduate whose one-year tenure with Justice Felix Frankfurter ended in 1949, could not join colleagues for lunch at the Mayflower Hotel. Instead, he and a fellow clerk went to Union Station, where blacks and whites could eat together, as they could in federal government cafeterias which had quietly integrated during President Franklin D. Roosevelts administration. That move didnt bind private business in the District, even though the city didnt govern itself independently. Still, after she was refused service, Terrell went to local prosecutors, seeking to enforce Reconstruction-era ordinances that banned Washington restaurants from discriminating. The laws, still on the books almost a century later, had long been ignored, prompting The Washington Post to ruminate, in an editorial on Feb. 24, 1950, about the vanished sense of common humanity that had spurred their enactment. But it is a sense that needs to be regained, the editors added. Terrell pursued her challenge without help from the NAACP, working instead with the progressive lawyers, activists and communists with whom she had aligned. A trial judge initially dismissed the charges against the restaurant, finding that the old anti-discrimination statutes were no longer valid. The case would work its way through the courts for the next three years. In the meantime, Terrell kept up her organizing for civil rights, working with local activists to boycott the downtown department store Hechts, which segregated its lunch counter. In January 1952, after eight months, the store relented. The District had special relevance to the doctrine of legalized segregation. In Plessy v. Ferguson , the Supreme Courts 1896 decision upholding segregated railway cars in Louisiana, the justices referred, in part, to the fact that Congress required segregated schools in D.C. The courts reference was a nonbinding comment, but it bolstered the rationale of the case. And the rationale went, in part, like this: If Congress, which had jurisdiction over the District, could require segregated schools in the capital, surely Louisiana could segregate its railway passengers. But Thompson relied on local anti-discrimination laws and did not directly confront Plessy. That made the case a vehicle for the court to deal with segregation in private businesses. Stalled amid the complexities of school integration, the court pivoted to Washington and to the Jim Crow restaurants at its doorstep. In April 1953, urged on by the Justice Department, the justices agreed to hear Terrells case. The NAACP, which had mostly been focusing on school desegregation lawsuits, did try to participate once Thompson reached the high court. In a written filing seeking permission to submit a friend of the court brief, Marshall and his colleagues argued that Thompson was a case of nationwide importance, not a mere local dispute precisely because it challenged Jim Crow in the nations capital, the symbolic home of American democracy. But the court denied their request to file a brief, without explaining why. On June 8, 1953, the court ruled unanimously in favor of Terrell, finding that the decades-old provisions banning racial discrimination in public accommodations in the District remained presently enforceable. That same day, the court scheduled Brown and its companion cases for another round of oral argument in the fall. The justices had been winding down the term, taking care of unfinished business before the summer recess. But Frankfurter took pains to confirm, in a letter to Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson dated June 8, that the court would hand down the Brown order with Thompson. After Thompson, the capital saw no bloodshed or rioting, no racial unrest. When the local black newspaper, the Afro-American, wrote about Terrells victory, its headline read simply: Eat Anywhere. Within days, Terrell returned to Thompsons, which finally served her. Its like another Emancipation, said the Rev. Graham G. Lacey, a local minister who was there to witness the event. Thompson did not overrule Plessy. But it did send a signal: The justices had all but rejected the culture of Jim Crow and race-based exclusion, of line-drawing and whites-only dining rooms. Washington restaurants, once resistant, yielded to integration. So did movie theaters, which Terrell targeted after her win in the Supreme Court. Less than a year later, on May 17, 1954, the court unveiled its unanimous Brown decision. In a separate opinion, Bolling v. Sharpe, the court invalidated D.C.s segregated schools. With simple, declarative language, the justices did expressly what they had done symbolically in Thompson: They repudiated Plessy and separate but equal. After Brown, amid white supremacist backlash, the battle shifted to the South. The District had played its part. Twitter: @joan_quigley Read more from Outlook and follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter. IF A child cant open a bottle of aspirin, we should make sure that they cant pull a trigger on a gun. We are haunted by that recent comment by President Obama in the wake of the heartbreaking death of 3-year-old Manal Abdelaziz Jr. The boy was with his father in the familys North Carolina convenience store Sunday when he spotted a gun lying on a shelf and picked it up, accidentally shooting and killing himself. His father was just five feet away and, according to one police officer, had taken his eyes off the child for just a moment when the shooting occurred. The loss of any child is unbearable, but what makes Manals death so devastating is that it was entirely preventable and that its circumstances a curious child, a gun loaded but unsecured and unattended are all too commonplace. Already in this barely begun new year, a 9-year-old boy in southern Colorado died after being shot in the head by his little brother, a 2-year-old in Texas shot himself in the hand when he picked up a gun his father was cleaning and a 2-year-old boy in Florida shot himself in the face with a gun he found in his grandfathers truck. Last year, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, there were more than 270 incidents in which a child 17 or younger fired a gun unintentionally and harmed someone most often themselves or other children. A report co-written by the group showed American children are 16 times more likely to be killed in unintentional shootings than their peers in other high-income countries, even as research indicates that incidents involving death or injuries are significantly underreported in federal data. Nearly two-thirds of the incidents, the group concluded, likely could have been prevented if the firearms had been stored securely. The president, in calling for new technologies to boost gun safety, invoked the 30 children younger than 5 years old who died in unintentional shootings in 2013. There is no reason for this, he said. It is maddening and disgraceful that development of safer, childproof weapons has fallen victim to the unreasonable clout of the national gun lobby. Not only have firearms been exempted from regulation by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, but also gun manufacturers who think there is market for smart gun technologies have been intimidated into not developing products that would help save lives. And not just those of children. Consider, for example, the difference technology would have made if the stolen gun recently used to shoot a police officer in Philadelphia had been programmed for use only by its legal owner. If the arguments used by the gun lobby had been applied to auto safety, there would be no seat belts or air bags, and more lives would have been lost, not saved. Mr. Obamas vow to work with the private sector to update firearms technology is a prudent and long-overdue step in the right direction. Tom Hamburger is a Washington Post reporter covering the intersection of money and politics. To understand the motives of the conservative billionaire Koch brothers, look to their childhood and what a rigid, harrowing youth it was, according to a new book by New Yorker writer Jane Mayer. In Dark Money, Mayer relies on interviews and previously undisclosed documents to trace a family fortune that was built in part on business ties with the Third Reich, and an early childhood colored by a fearsome German governess and a strict, demanding father who favored corporal punishment. She obtained a confidential history of Charles Kochs effort to shape American politics that was commissioned by his brother Bill. The report, written by George Mason University historian Clayton Coppin, suggested that Charles has a hatred of the government so intense that it could only be understood as an extension of childhood conflicts with authority. Playing a potentially formative role, Mayer suggests, was a governess hired for the eldest Koch sons, Charles and Frederick, who have since gone separate ways. Frederick has pursued his interest in the arts and philanthropy in New York City while Charles has run Wichita-based Koch Industries, one of the worlds largest privately held corporations. In their youth, their governess, wearing a starched white uniform and a pointed cap, enforced a terrifying regimen that required the boys to have a morning bowel movement or be subject to castor oil and enema treatments, according to Mayer. The boys father, Fred Koch, cared about his sons, Mayer writes, but could be a terrifying disciplinarian. He built the family fortune through early deals in Stalins Russia and, Mayer reveals for the first time, through business relationships in Nazi Germany. Fred was involved in building Germanys third-largest oil refinery, a project Mayer says was encouraged personally by Hitler. The book quotes letters Koch wrote as late as 1938 favorably comparing Germanys work ethic with what he saw as the indolent attitude in the United States after the New Deal. When you contrast the state of mind of Germany today with what it was in 1925 you begin to think that perhaps this course of idleness, feeding at the public trough, dependence on government etc., with which we are afflicted is not permanent and can be overcome, he wrote. When the United States entered World War II in 1941, Mayer reports, Fred Koch sought to enlist in the U.S. military but was instructed instead to use his engineering skill to develop high-octane fuel for U.S. warplanes. In Allied bombing raids in 1944, American B-17s finally destroyed the Hamburg refinery that he helped build, Mayer writes. Koch Industries responded to news reports of the books charges before its publication. In a letter that went to more than 100,000 Koch employees worldwide and that was posted on a company website, President and Chief Operating Officer Dave Robertson said: We expect to have deep disagreements and strong objections with [Mayers] interpretation of the facts and their sourcing. Of the many false and inaccurate claims that have leaked out so far, the implication that Fred Koch sympathized with one of the most tyrannical regimes in history is reprehensible and represents the lowest form of journalism. The letter said that the company had conducted an extensive archival search and determined that Winkler-Koch Engineering, as the company was known earlier, handled more than 500 projects between 1928 and 1934, one of which was to build a cracking unit for the refinery in the Hamburg area. The contract for that unit was signed in 1933 and the refinery became operational in 1935, according to the letter, nearly six years before Germany invaded Poland. Robertson added, To cherry-pick one project among hundreds during this time frame and then use it out of context in order to further an agenda-driven storyline is grossly inaccurate. In her book, Mayer takes readers through decades-long efforts by Charles and David Koch and other conservative billionaire families to influence U.S. politics. She makes the case that anti-government campaigns by the Kochs and others have undermined American democracy and have helped wealthy elites block progress on problems such as climate change and income inequality. While Mayer delves into the activities of Richard Mellon Scaife and other conservative billionaires who have spent heavily on political causes, she focuses mainly on Charles and David Koch. The brothers operated for most of their lives on the fringes of GOP politics but now command a central position. The increase in their status and sway is explained, she writes, by the brothers carefully calibrated efforts to pull together like-minded wealthy families whose influence has soared to levels unseen since the era of the robber barons, when corporate giants controlled individual members of Congress. The Supreme Courts Citizens United decision which allowed corporations to contribute unlimited money to political causes was in many respects a return to the Gilded Age, she writes. For 2016, the Kochs and their political allies have together committed to spend hundreds of millions of dollars. Their spending, largely through nonprofits that do not disclose their contributors, was portrayed at a secret meeting of Koch donors as part of a movement to create national well being, Mayer writes. In her telling, these dark money expenditures made in the guise of philanthropy are intended mostly to promote the financial well-being of the Kochs and other similarly situated dynasties. Charles and David Koch are hated by Democrats and loved by Republicans. But regardless of which party you support, there's almost no question that the Koch Brothers have made money off of you. (Jeff Simon,Daron Taylor/The Washington Post) While she discusses the financial and personal motivations of leading donors on the right, Mayer devotes relatively little attention to the role of billionaires on the left and mega-donors impact on Democrats. That, combined with the fact that she was not granted an interview with either David or Charles Koch, gives her book an unrelentingly critical, polemical tone. But Mayer has not set out to write a nuanced portrait of the brothers. In her introduction, she calls out the Kochs for using their fortune to impose their minority views on the majority of Americans while working to undo checks on great wealth that have been in place since the Progressive Era. In the following chapters, she attempts to prove it. The Kochs are accustomed to being attacked by Democratic politicians, advocacy groups and muckraking journalists. But Mayers book is so deeply researched and studded with detail that it seems destined to rattle the Koch executive offices in Wichita as other investigations have not. It could inspire a more intense discussion about the impact of this wealthy conservative cadre on the Republican Party and the recent course of American politics. Other Koch biographies, including Daniel Schulmans Sons of Wichita, have described the harrowing rivalries that developed among the brothers in their early years. Mayer details the sad state of the siblings adult relationships and its consequences. A 1982 sealed deposition from Bill Koch, for example, describes how Charles and David attempted to blackmail their brother Frederick by threatening to reveal to their father his alleged homosexuality unless Frederick turned over his shares in the family business. The hostility led to lawsuits, acrimony and a propensity to use private investigators to unearth dirt on sibling rivals and other perceived enemies. Mayer quotes from interviews she conducted with investigators hired by the siblings and with other investigators attached to the government who have looked into possible criminal activity by the family-owned firm. Two former prosecutors and an FBI agent told Mayer they suspected they were targets of Koch Industries private espionage efforts while they were investigating the company for alleged misdeeds. She quotes one of them, Wick Sollers, a former federal prosecutor and Senate investigator who is now the managing partner of the King & Spalding law firm in Washington, as saying: Someone was trying to intimidate and silence the Kochs critics. Im not political, but it was troubling. Mayer and the Kochs have had a sour relationship since 2010, when the New Yorker published her first major piece on the family, Covert Operations, which detailed the high-priced efforts of David and Charles Koch to undermine the major policy initiatives of a newly elected president, Barack Obama. The Kochs denounced her reporting then as biased and inaccurate. After the pieces publication, she says, a source told her that the Kochs had hired an investigative firm to dig up dirt, dirt, dirt on her, and if they couldnt find it, theyd create it. Mayers book is especially useful in providing new perspective on the role that philanthropic organizations play in the strategy of the super-rich. Quoting in part from an unpublished memoir written by the late Scaife, she shows how two wealthy families used private foundations to avoid taxes while feeding the machinery of the right. Scaife estimated in his memoir that he personally spent $1 billion over 50 years, more than 60 percent of it to push conservative causes through 133 organizations. Mayers final chapter, Selling the New Koch: A Better Battle Plan, describes the Kochs campaign to pursue their political goals while softening their tough reputation, a lesson she believes Charles Koch learned from his studies of the John Birch Society, of which his father was a founding member. Recently, the company has run nationwide advertising aimed at letting the public know that Kochs diverse employees appreciate working for the growing, highly successful conglomerate. The Kochs also recently formed a very public alliance with the United Negro College Fund, a move that accompanied a bipartisan push to reform criminal sentencing guidelines. The changes would help imprisoned minorities but could also provide relief to corporate executives who face criminal charges. Many reporters, including those at The Washington Post, have written about the Kochs massive network of nonprofit organizations that permit donors, both corporate and individual, to contribute money secretly to influence not only politics but American education. Discussing programs aligned with the Koch-funded organizations in 238 colleges and universities across the country, Mayer notes that these programs, among other things, recruit students to work on campaigns while seeking to eliminate liberal bias from instruction at the college and even the high school level. In Topeka, Kan., a Koch-backed group provides online education to public school students, lessons that contend Franklin Roosevelt didnt alleviate the Depression and that government, rather than business, caused the 2008 recession. Mayer repeatedly argues that the Kochs political ambitions are entwined with the familys narrow personal interests, even as she quotes Charles Koch dismissing the idea as ludicrous in a recent interview in USA Today. She ends the book with a quote attributed to Charles as a boy. When called upon to split a treat with others he would say with a wise-guy grin, I just want my fair share which is all of it. Twitter: @thamburger A shattered windshield as Palestinians inspect a car after a ramming attack on two Israeli soldiers at the Palestinian refugee camp of Qalandia, north of Jerusalem, on Dec. 16. (Atef Safadi/European Pressphoto Agency) A CAR carrying an Israeli family was struck by gunfire as it traveled toward a West Bank settlement Oct. 1. When the driver was hit and the vehicle stopped, the gunmen approached and coldly murdered Eitam and Naama Henkin as their four children watched from the back seat. Soon after, Israeli security forces arrested what they said was a five-member Hamas cell from the town of Nablus that allegedly had carried out the assault. Now the Palestinian Authority, the secular government that controls Nablus and other major West Bank towns, has made its own arrest of a respected journalist. Salim Sweidan, a board member of the Maan News Network, was picked up by security forces from Nablus on Jan. 7. A prosecutor soon charged him with slandering public authorities, making up and publishing false news, violating Palestinian press laws . . . publishing material inciting hatred and violence, and publishing material that can harm national unity. Mr. Sweidan, who was released on bail this week, is not a Hamas member or supporter; on the contrary, he is close to the secular Fatah movement of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. His offense was to publish an article on a website reporting that Palestinian security services provided Israel with information leading to the arrest of the Hamas cell. That this has been cause for his prosecution is worrying evidence of two trends gathering momentum in the West Bank: the breakdown of the rule of law under the Palestinian Authority and the growing reluctance of its security forces and their leaders to maintain a relationship with Israel that has been vital to preserving a relative calm in the territory. Mr. Abbas has declared that no Palestinian journalist should be arrested for what he writes. As fellow Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab pointed out, Mr. Sweidans detention clearly violated the Palestinian Authoritys law. So did a subsequent demand by Nablus authorities that a website that reproduced his article publish an apology. Yet Nablus security forces carried out the operation without regard for the constitution or the 80-year-old Mr. Abbas who himself remains in office seven years after his term expired. Of equal concern is the security forces zeal not to be linked to Israels arrest of militants who carried out a brutal murder of civilians. For months, Palestinians have been carrying out uncoordinated but frequent attacks on Israelis. Mr. Abbas and other Palestinian leaders say they oppose the violence but at times have appeared to encourage it with inciting statements, and with visits to the families of Palestinian assailants killed by Israeli security forces. Some Palestinian leaders are pushing for a decision to end security cooperation between Palestinian security forces and Israel. That step would almost certainly lead to the suspension of U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority and its collapse. In short, the arrest of the Palestinian journalist is not just an example of the disregard for press freedom by Palestinian leaders. It is also another sign of an approaching crisis that Israel and the United States should be trying to head off. I will gladly accept the mantle of anger. Thus did Donald Trump react to South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who in her Republican response to the State of the Union address bravely called on Americans to resist the temptation to follow the siren call of the angriest voices. And nobody wears the mantle of anger as well as Trump. The rest of the Republican presidential contenders, acolytes in anger all, seem happy to help him on with the cloak, to hem the sleeves and let out the waist until the fury fits perfectly. Republicans like to blame Trump for hijacking the party, but equally to blame are the others in the race for letting it happen and continuing to do so, now just two weeks from the Iowa caucuses. Thursday nights debate was another depressing development: Any of four men on the stage Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie or John Kasich could have been a viable alternative to the fear and demagoguery offered by Trump and Ted Cruz. Instead, they cluttered the stage and quarreled among themselves, offering little beyond faint echoes of Trumps rage. A crystallizing moment came when each was asked about Trumps plan to bar Muslims from immigrating. Kasich: Ive been for pausing on admitting the Syrian refugees. Christie: I said right from the beginning that we should take no Syrian refugees of any kind. Rubio: Donald tapped in to some of that anger thats out there about this whole issue. Cruz: I understand why Donald made the comments he did, and I understand why Americans are feeling frustrated and scared and angry. Bush alone expressed outrage at Trumps proposal all Muslims, seriously? but he had no chance to draw an extended contrast with Trump in the seven-way competition for airtime. The GOP race is typically described as a struggle between the outsiders and the establishment. Really its a battle between the demagogic (Cruz and Trump) and the selfish (Rubio, Bush, Christie, Kasich). The latter candidates, blinded by certainty in their own magnificence, refuse to clear the field so that one of them can take on the demagogues. (Ben Carson, the other man on the stage, appeared to have wandered, bewildered, into the debate.) The polling shows the dilemma: Trump averages about a third of the GOP vote, Cruz a fifth. The four others together are about a quarter enough to give voters a viable alternative to Trump and Cruz, if only they could put country before self. Worse, they seem content to echo and imitate Trump. Haley, in the audience for Thursdays debate in South Carolina, got little support for her noble call last week for tolerance. Our military is a disaster. Our health care is a horror show, Trump said when asked to respond to Haley. We have no borders. . . . Our country is being run by incompetent people. And yes, I am angry. So was Bush: The simple fact is that the world has been torn asunder. And Rubio: If we dont get this election right, there may be no turning back for America. Christie spoke of Obamas governing as a dictatorship, called the president a petulant child and described the world being on fire. But none could equal Trumps formula for frightening. Its not fear and terror, its reality, Trump said. Our countrys a mess, and we cant let all these people come into our country and break our borders. Trump turned his conspiracy theories on Cruz (if you become the nominee, who the hell knows if you can even serve?) and when Cruz tried to fight Trump in kind by insinuating his New York values are too liberal, Trump shut him down by invoking the smell of death in New York after the 9/11 attacks. There is, as Cruz was the latest to learn, no way to best Trump in demagoguery. So if Trumps other rivals are only going to ape his paranoia and rage, why would voters accept an imitation if they can have the original? A better solution is to present an alternative, which the other Republicans cant do because theyre fighting among themselves. Rubio charged that Christie supported Common Core, gun control, Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Planned Parenthood. When Rubio and Cruz were having a valuable argument about taxes, Christie broke in to interrupt this debate on the floor of the Senate and told Rubio: You blew it. Similarly, after Cruz and Rubio were having an important debate about immigration, Bush dismissed the bickering of backbench senators who bend with the wind. And while his rivals quarreled over trifles, Trump got one step closer to the nomination. Twitter: @Milbank Read more from Dana Milbanks archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. The death of a child before his or her first birthday is a tragedy that occurs with surprising frequency in the United States. In 2013, there were more than 23,000 such deaths nationwide in a developed country with high expenditures on health care. Infant mortality rates (the number of infant deaths per 1,000 births) globally and in the United States have been declining overall, but a disproportionately large number of infant deaths occurred among African Americans. Vital-statistic reports showed an overall infant mortality rate of 5.96 per 1,000 live births in the United States in 2013, worse than rates in 33 other countries, including Cuba. The rate for non-Hispanic white people that year was 5.1, but the rate for African Americans was 11.1. This rate places African Americans in the company of less developed and poorer countries, including Romania (10.5) and the United Arab Emirates (11.3). Infant mortality is generally associated with poverty, low maternal education, poor health-care access and lack of adequate prenatal care. However, studies have shown that affluence, high maternal education and health insurance do not necessarily protect African Americans from poor pregnancy outcomes or infant mortality. An Institute of Medicine report found that the risk of preterm birth in college-educated African American women was greater than that for white women with fewer than eight years of education. Preterm birth when infants are born before 37 weeks of gestation is a major risk factor for infant mortality. Infants weighing less than 5.5 pounds at birth considered low-birth-weight and those under 3.3 pounds very-low-birth-weight also face increased risk of infant mortality. African Americans are more likely to have preterm and low- and very-low-birth-weight babies. Montgomery County, which consistently ranks as one of the nations healthiest and wealthiest counties, has significant racial health inequities. In 2014, according to the annual Infant Mortality in Maryland report, the infant mortality rate in Montgomery County stood at 4.8 per 1,000 births. Among white county residents, the rate stood at 3.6, but it was 8.3 for African Americans in the county. Montgomery County has responded with initiatives to decrease infant mortality and improve pregnancy outcomes. Its Fetal and Infant Mortality Review Board examines cases of loss to identify health-care delivery system successes and failures. The board regularly makes recommendations to its Community Action Team, a diverse group of public and private organizations charged with carrying out recommendations. It is critical to increase awareness in health-care providers and the general population that all African American women have a higher risk of preterm and low-birth weight infants and an increased risk for infant mortality. Regular visits to a primary-care provider can promote optimal health before pregnancy and treat medical issues such as diabetes, obesity and hypertension. Case management programs have reduced poor pregnancy outcomes. In Montgomery County, the African American Health Programs Start More Infants Living Equally program, known as SMILE, has had successes, including in having more babies born at a healthy weight compared with the countywide figure. The program offers home visits by nurses and case managers to pregnant African American women and new mothers and their infants. The Community Action Team is working to increase participation in the program by African American women, including college-educated, privately insured and professional women. Because the causes of preterm birth in African American women are not completely understood, studies are needed to examine whether stress, anxiety, depression and racism contribute to infant mortality, as well as ways to mitigate these factors. It is the hope of the Fetal and Infant Mortality Review Board and its Community Action Team that infant mortality and related racial and ethnic disparities will dramatically decline over the coming years, allowing more infants to live to their first birthdays and enjoy many more thereafter. The writer, a clinical investigator and family physician, is a member of the African American Health Program Infant Mortality Collaborative, the Montgomery County Fetal and Infant Mortality Review Board and the Community Action Team. Eighteen days before the Iowa caucuses, the Republican nomination contest has come down to two big questions: Can Donald Trump actually become the partys 2016 presidential nominee, and if he falters, who can emerge to seize the crown? What was unthinkable a few months ago no longer is. Trumps durability in national polls and his standing in the early states have forced GOP leaders and all his rivals to confront the possibility that the New York billionaire and reality TV star could end up leading the party into the fall campaign against the Democrats. Trump is anything but a typical front-runner. In fact, he is the most unconventional and atypical front-runner for as long as anyone can remember. And unless and until he actually wins primaries and caucuses, the race will remain what it has been for months: a confusing mash-up among a relative handful of candidates looking to pick up the pieces of a possible Trump breakdown. Almost everything about Thursdays debate here in South Carolina underscored the current state of the campaign. It featured a series of sharp exchanges between Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and efforts by the other candidates to break through by showing they could be tougher on President Obama than any of their rivals. The GOP race is now commonly defined as a pair of contests. The first features Trump and Cruz fighting to emerge as the leading candidate in what is either defined as the anger lane, the populist conservative lane or the outsider lane. In their own ways, both Trump and Cruz embody the vibrant anti-establishment anger of the grass roots. Donald Trump called Ted Cruz's comments about "New York values" offensive during the Jan. 14 GOP debate in Charleston, S.C. (Fox Business Channel) The other contest is the battle among more mainstream conservatives, representatives in one form or another of a nervous party establishment worried about protecting down-ballot candidates in the fall. That battle features Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former Florida governor Jeb Bush. Normally, the establishment is in the drivers seat in nomination battles. This time, those candidates have found themselves on the defensive and struggling to adapt to a Trump-dominated environment. But nothing is quite as clean as all that. Trump occupies space largely defined by his unique candidacy. He is not a pure conservative in any sense of the word. Although his and Cruzs support overlap, Trump is in a lane of his own. It remains to be seen whether his support is wide, deep and loyal or shallow and fickle in the face of any signs of weakness. Attacks are now flying in all directions, as the debate demonstrated. Cruz and Trump, who spent most of last year playing nice to each other, traded blows over whether Cruz, born in Canada to an American mother, is eligible to be president and over whether the values of New York are out of touch with those of the rest of the country. Cruz scored points on the first, while Trump effectively countered the second with a paean to New Yorks collective response to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Because there is no dominant figure among the tightly bunched establishment candidates, they are all firing at one another. Bush and his well-funded super PAC have been the most aggressive of late, but Christie, Rubio and Kasich are using what resources they have whether through advertising and direct mail or TV and print interviews to launch their own assaults. Thursdays debate, however, highlighted the current plight of the establishment candidates. Overshadowed by the exchanges of Trump and Cruz, they struggled to stand out in the crowd. Christie and Rubio traded harsh words at one point, and Bush sought several times to undermine Trump. All tried to use their time to attack Obama. But no one seemed to gain much ground against the others. The other reality of the campaign is that it is playing out separately in Iowa and New Hampshire. In Iowa, Trump and Cruz are the clear leaders. A few weeks ago, Cruz held a double-digit lead in a Des Moines Register-Bloomberg Politics poll. This week, that same poll showed his lead over Trump down to three percentage points. 1 of 17 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad Top quotes from the sixth Republican presidential debate View Photos The candidates shared these comments in North Charleston, S.C. in the years first debate. Caption The candidates shared these comments in North Charleston, S.C. in the years first debate. Top quotes from the sixth Republican presidential debate The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue. Given polls that show Trump well ahead in New Hampshire, the outcome in Iowa has huge implications. A Trump victory in Iowa would send seismic shocks through the party. No Republican in the modern era has won both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. Trump would be in a position to do so. A Cruz victory in Iowa, however, would rattle the establishment almost as much as a Trump victory, if not more. Unique among the elected and former elected officials in the race, Cruz campaigned from the start with an eye toward tapping anti-Washington sentiment among party conservatives. Party leaders fear that Cruz as the nominee could bring about a landslide loss in November. Cruz, who has played the campaign as smartly as anyone to date, is determined to disprove the doubters. The establishment battle takes place primarily in New Hampshire, where Rubio, Christie, Kasich and Bush are seeking to emerge as the candidate with the momentum to carry the fight well into the spring. Right now, however, that battle is for second place. Not since then-governor Bill Clinton came in second in New Hampshire and declared himself the comeback kid has runner-up offered as many rewards as in this years GOP race. But there are other crosscurrents shaping the race. As much as the Trump-Cruz contest defines the Iowa race, the battle for third place there also has real implications. Rubio currently holds third place in the Register-Bloomberg poll, but Ben Carson, who once led in the state, is just a point behind. None of the other candidates, with the possible exception of Trump, wants to see Rubio as the clear third-place finisher in Iowa. Establishment candidates know that if Rubio takes third there over the rest of them, he will have momentum heading toward the New Hampshire primary eight days later. But Cruz, too, wants to hold down Rubio in Iowa; Cruz senses that the fellow first-term senator represents a major threat if he is not stopped early. Belying the idea that the race is running in two separate lanes, Cruzs super PAC took aim at the Florida senator with a new television ad attacking Rubio for having supported comprehensive immigration reform, including a pathway to citizenship for those who are here illegally. Their competition erupted in the final minutes of Thursdays debate in an angry exchange between the two that highlighted the distrust now existing between them. Trump has absorbed fewer attacks to date. Thats partly because those who have attacked him have generally paid a far higher price than he has. But another reason others have left him alone is because they still believe he will be far more vulnerable when the field is winnowed by the results in the early states. That is based on evidence that, however passionate Trumps supporters may be, there is a large block of voters in the party who tell pollsters they will never back him. Were he to win Iowa and New Hampshire, however, everyones calculations about his strength and staying power would change and he would find himself under far more intense and sustained attacks heading into the next rounds of contests. Republicans still could be heading for something theyve seen before: a contest that pits a mainstream, establishment candidate against a conservative backed by the partys social and religious conservatives. Or it could be a race pitting Trump and Cruz, with establishment candidates destroying one another in the battle for supremacy, the ultimate evidence that the balance of power in the Republican Party has now tipped in favor of the anti-establishment grass roots. Or the party could be heading for something its never had in modern times: a true three-way contest that includes Trump, Cruz and someone else from the establishment wing a race that could cause chaos and division far into the spring. Answering the question of whither Trump is the first key to knowing which it will be. The White House will announce Friday that President Obama is appointing Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, his Cabinets longest-serving member, to lead a new interagency effort focused on addressing rural Americas struggle with heroin and opioid abuse as well as other pressing problems. The decision to centralize federal decision-making on drug abuse as well as other major problems in rural areas rising suicide rates, declining physical and mental health, and increased financial stress comes as addiction to heroin and other opiates has become a crisis in many areas. In an interview Thursday, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said the work Vilsack has done since 2011 chairing the White House Rural Council, a group focused on these areas, has given him firsthand experience seeing how substance abuse and poverty have continued to keep Americans in some parts of the country from making headway. The whole point is to have the secretary of agriculture look across the [federal government] to see what unique capabilities agencies have to invest in blowing through these obstacles to opportunity in rural communities. The Rural Council encompasses 15 departments and multiple agencies, including Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs and the Office of National Drug Policy, among others. Heroin and prescription opioid drug overdoses kill about 30,000 people a year heroin-related death rates increased 28 percent from 2013 to 2014 alone and state, local and federal law enforcement officials have begun to rethink how best to treat addicts who often have trouble getting treatment. [This is where heroin almost killed her] And as opioid addiction has emerged as a more pressing political issue with presidential candidates from both parties addressing the concerns of voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, the two states that will cast votes on the parties 2016 nominees next month both GOP and Democratic lawmakers have shown a willingness to expand federal support for tackling it. The budget agreement struck last month provided the administration with more than $400 million to address the epidemic, an increase of more than $100 million from the previous year. It also cut language barring the use of federal funds for needle-exchange programs, a move that many public health advocates had sought. Vilsack will unveil the new initiative during a town hall discussion on Friday at Ohio State Universirty in Columbus, where he will be discussing the expansion of the administrations rural-development efforts in 11 counties experiencing persistent poverty in the part of Appalachia that extends into southern Ohio. In an interview Thursday, Vilsack said that while any long-term solution to the problem will have to be pursued by the next president, the current administration could help develop a comprehensive strategy and elevate the issue in the American consciousness. Obama held a forum on the subject in October in Charleston, W.Va., a state where more than one-third of the overall injury deaths stem from drug overdoses. For me, as presidential candidates talk about this, the importance to me is to bring this issue out of the shadows, Vilsack said, noting that the rugged image of independence often prized in rural America really makes it hard for people to seek help. Vilsack, whose adoptive mother struggled with addictions to alcohol and prescription medication, said he was optimistic that there could be bipartisan support because it affects so many families. Matt Chase, executive director of the National Association of Counties, said in an interview that the new initiative is very timely and much-needed federal attention. He described the increase in drug and alcohol abuse in rural areas as symptoms of an economy where there is more automation and a lower need for workers. To me, it really boils down to the lack of economic opportunity in so many of these areas, he said, adding that although the administration has looked at the issue in the past, Vilsacks appointment shows more presidential focus. In many cases, state and local groups are banding together to try to combat rising overdoses. The National Association of Counties and several other state and local government groups announced Thursday that they have successfully negotiated with drug companies to purchase Narcan nasal spray, which can counteract the effects of an overdose, at a 40 percent discount. Mark Publicker, past president of the Northern New England Society of Addiction Medicine, said that while he was utterly pessimistic that a government task force could have a major impact on the problem, he had been encouraged by some of the efforts the administration had been taking to address the fact that the rural poor are most stricken by the epidemic and have the least access to treatment. Theres value in identifying the fact that were dealing with a multidimensional, complex problem that deserves more than the simple answers that are being floated, said Publicker, who treats addiction patients in rural Maine. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks during a campaign event at Iowa State University in Ames on Jan. 12. (Patrick Semansky/AP) Some leading Democrats are increasingly anxious about Hillary Clintons prospects for winning the partys presidential nomination, warning that Sen. Bernie Sanderss growing strength in early battleground states and strong fundraising point to a campaign that could last well into the spring. What seemed recently to be a race largely controlled by Clinton has turned into a neck-and-neck contest with voting set to begin in less than three weeks. On Capitol Hill and in state party headquarters, some Democrats worry that a Sanders nomination could imperil candidates down the ballot in swing districts and states. Others sense deja vu from 2008, when Clintons overwhelming edge cratered in the days before the Iowa caucuses. Just as Barack Obamas stunning upset there helped assure Democrats in later states that a black man could win votes from whites and propelled him to victory in South Carolina and other places, so, too, could a Sanders victory on Feb. 1 in Iowa and then Feb. 9 in New Hampshire ease doubts about the viability of a self-described democratic socialist, some said. Its just like the weak spot for Barack Obama was his skin color, but he got cured of that in Iowa, said Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), the partys leading African American in Congress. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) speaks during a campaign stop Jan. 14 at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. (John Minchillo/AP) If [Sanders] comes out of Iowa and New Hampshire with big victories if its close in both places, thats one thing but if he comes out of there with big victories, hey, man, it could very well be a new day, Clyburn added. One Clinton ally on Capitol Hill said some in the party are starting to seriously consider what it would mean for Democrats nationally if Sanders were to win. Theres definitely an elevated concern expressed in the cloakroom and members-only elevators, and other places, about the impact of a Sanders nomination on congressional candidates, Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) said. Israel, a former chairman of the Democrats House campaign committee, said that a Sanders nomination increases the level of anxiety that many of our candidates have in swing districts, where a Hillary Clinton nomination erases that anxiety. Sensing the tightening race, some state party officials have gone out of their way to keep the peace with supporters of Sanders, hoping to tap their energy and keep them activated for the general election campaign. The reevaluation of the Democratic primaries which seemed destined for a Clinton coronation after she recovered from a summer slide amid controversy over her use of a private email system while secretary of state comes as state and national surveys show her sliding fast once again. A Des Moines Register survey of likely Iowa caucus voters released Thursday showed a statistical dead heat, with Clinton at 42 percent and Sanders at 40. That marks a significant shift from a month ago, when Clinton held a lead of nine percentage points and saw her share of the vote at 48 percent. In New Hampshire, Sanders holds a commanding lead, 53 percent to 39 percent, according to a Monmouth University poll released this week. Clinton and Sanders have escalated their attacks on each other, with each claiming to be the strongest general election candidate. The new dynamic will be on display in South Carolina this weekend, when the Democratic candidates attend a party dinner and then a fish fry hosted by Clyburn ahead of their debate Sunday night. The pre-debate events, expected to draw hundreds of activists, will serve as a chance for Sanders to prove that his campaign has an effective organization beyond the first two states. Were really at the front end of the process for states beyond Iowa and New Hampshire, said Sanders adviser Tad Devine. Part of the process is to convince people Bernie is a serious option, and doing well in early states helps. Clintons allies have said that they have always planned for a difficult primary season and that they expect their well-structured campaign to pay dividends when the race moves on to larger states with more diverse electorates than the two earliest states. They note that a recent trip to Oklahoma, part of the Super Tuesday bloc of 10 states on March 1, demonstrated their campaigns long view of the race. From Day One, we have told everyone who will listen this would be a dogfight, said Jerry Crawford, a longtime Clinton supporter in Iowa. Hillary will continue to fight for every vote just as she has done since Day One in Iowa, and I wouldnt trade places with any other campaign. Whether or not he wins, Sanderss rise has created challenges for party leaders by highlighting policy differences between the Democratic establishment and the partys support base. Many Sanders proposals Medicare for all, free college and breaking up big banks go beyond congressional Democrats agenda but are embraced by an ascendant wing of the party. Those policy prescriptions win support in primaries, but many Democratic elites fear how they would play in a general election. At the same time, Democratic leaders know they cant afford to alienate an energized party base. Some recent surveys suggest that Sanders is drawing support beyond the liberals and young voters who have flocked to his rallies. A Quinnipiac University poll early this month found Sanders trailing Clinton by an insignificant two percentage points among moderate and conservative Democrats, a sharp shift from Clintons 24 percentage-point lead among that group in December. Whatever the success that Senator Sanders, that Bernie Sanders, has, I think its important to recognize that his supporters are essential to our success in winning the White House, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) told reporters in the Capitol on Wednesday. In the Senate, more than two-thirds of the Democratic caucus has endorsed Clinton. For now, the senators will remain calm, even if she loses the first two states, according to a senior consultant working on Senate races. However, full-fledged panic would set in if Clinton loses the Nevada caucuses, wedged in between New Hampshire and South Carolina, the consultant said. A Clinton defeat would complicate matters for one of the countrys most vulnerable Democrats, Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.). Bustos said that much of her campaign strategy is based on energizing female voters with the potential of a female presidential nominee . Theres a lot of excitement about having a woman at the top of the ticket, Bustos said, without directly critiquing Sanders. David Pepper, the Ohio Democratic Party chairman, said Clintons infrastructure remains very strong after her decisive victory over Obama there eight years ago. But, he said, the Sanders team has been on the move. Pepper said he allowed Sanderss supporters to use party headquarters to host a national meet-up, and Pepper met with Sanders after 6,000 attended a rally in Cleveland. One of Sanderss supporters recently announced a challenge to Rep. James B. Renacci (R-Ohio), a third-term Republican whose most recent reelection drew little competition. Our strategy of being intensely neutral and welcoming to all is paying off, Pepper said. Peppers approach differs from that of the Democratic National Committee, whose leadership has been feuding with the Sanders campaign over debate scheduling and other areas where Sanders allies say the party has shown favoritism to Clinton. The central fight among Democrats could come down to how voters will perceive Sanders, the wispy-haired 74-year-old former mayor of Burlington, Vt., and whether they think his ideology could be a help or a hindrance. Im deeply concerned that in November swing voters are not going to vote for a socialist, said Israel, who is retiring. Clyburn, however, said he wasnt convinced Sanderss ideology would be a drag, at least not in the primaries. He credited the senator for his consistent delivery of an agenda focused on erasing income inequality. Im out there, and I know what Democrats are feeling, he said. Democrats really feel strongly about this income-inequality business. That is a big, big issue. Anne Gearan, John Wagner and Scott Clement contributed to this report. Speaking in the spin room after the Fox Business GOP debate on Jan. 14, Donald Trump continued his attacks against Ted Cruz. (Dalton Bennett/The Washington Post) Speaking in the spin room after the Fox Business GOP debate on Jan. 14, Donald Trump continued his attacks against Ted Cruz. (Dalton Bennett/The Washington Post) The mutually beneficial campaign detente between Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) came to an end on the debate stage here Thursday. The two Republican presidential candidates, locked in a tight race to win the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses, argued over whether Cruz meets the constitutional requirements to serve as president and whether Trump is a trustworthy conservative or is tainted by what Cruz called New York values. Theirs was far from the only battle that broke out in the sixth GOP debate of the 2016 campaign season. Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) had intensely personal clashes with both Cruz and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Rubio and Christie are both hoping to emerge from the crowded Republican field as the establishments champion against the forces of insurgency that Trump and Cruz represent. Until recently, it was in both Trumps and Cruzs interest to avoid a direct confrontation. Cruz was leery of alienating Trumps supporters who might come to him, if the incendiary billionaire were to self-destruct. Trump, for his part, did not consider Cruz much of a threat. On Thursday, they went so far as to question each others fitness to govern. Trump contended that Cruzs birth to a U.S. citizen in Canada might disqualify him from becoming president because the Constitution decrees that only a natural born citizen may hold the office. Theres a big question mark on your head. And you cant do that to the party. You really cant, Trump told Cruz. The senator from Texas retorted that Trump was motivated more by his political prospects than any constitutional concern. I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling in Iowa, Cruz said. But the facts and the law here are really quite clear. Under long-standing U.S. law, the child of a U.S. citizen born abroad is a natural-born citizen. Then it was Cruzs turn to go on offense. Repeating something he first said in a radio interview, Cruz charged that Trump had New York values invoking that citys reputation, particularly in red-state America, as the bastion of the liberal elite. I can frame it another way, Cruz said. Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan. Im just saying. 1 of 17 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad Top quotes from the sixth Republican presidential debate View Photos The candidates shared these comments in North Charleston, S.C. in the years first debate. Caption The candidates shared these comments in North Charleston, S.C. in the years first debate. Top quotes from the sixth Republican presidential debate The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue. Trump responded with indignation, saying New York City is home to loving people, wonderful people. He recalled the fall of the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001, noting the smell of death that pervaded the city for months. I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York, Trump said. He added, That was a very insulting statement that Ted made. [Annotated transcript of the GOP debate] As Trump and Cruz argued over the latters constitutional qualifications to be president, the other candidates struggled to get a word in. Rubio drew applause when he interjected, I hate to interrupt this episode of Court TV, but I think we have to get back to what this election ought to be about. However, when Rubio and Cruz got their chance to go at it, theirs turned out to be an esoteric back-and-forth over the consistency of their Senate votes, particularly on immigration. After Rubio ticked through votes that he described as flip-flops and political opportunism on Cruzs part, the Texan said: He had no fewer than 11 attacks there. I appreciate you dumping your oppo research folder on the debate stage. Rubio insisted: No, its your record. At that point, former Florida governor Jeb Bush interjected: This latest back-and-forth between two backbench senators, it explains why we have the mess in Washington, D.C. Christie, who has often dismissed the Senate as nothing more than a debating society, interrupted another argument between Cruz and Rubio over taxes, saying: Youve already had your chance, Marco. You blew it. The disputes that broke out during the debate, which was sponsored by Fox Business Network and included the GOPs seven leading presidential hopefuls, have been simmering on the campaign trail in recent days. The event gave the candidates a chance to confront one another face to face, rather than through their stump speeches, surrogates and allied super PACs. Among the Republicans, several battles are going on at once. Where Trump and Cruz are each looking to win the caucuses by claiming to be the one who can slay the old order, the field also includes a host of current and former governors and senators. Nearly as important as which candidate comes in first place is the question of which will emerge from what is being called the establishment lane. Rubio repeated his charge that Christie, the governor of a heavily Democratic state, has a record too liberal for a conservative party. He noted that Christie once supported Common Core educational standards, backed some gun-control legislation and supported Obamas nomination of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Our next president has to be someone that undoes the damage Barack Obama has done to this country, Rubio said. It cannot be someone that agrees with his agenda. . . . Unfortunately, Governor Christie has endorsed many of the ideas that Barack Obama supports. Turning to face Rubio, Christie accused the senator of being loose with his facts and manufacturing indignation because Christie has emerged as a political threat. He reminded Rubio that he had once called him a conservative reformer that New Jersey needed, but that hes changed his tune. Christie recalled Octobers debate, when Rubio responded to an attack from Bush by saying someone had convinced him that Bush had to hit his onetime protege. It appears that the same someone who has been whispering in old Marcos ear, too, Christie said. As the leading candidates feuded, Ben Carson the mild-mannered retired neurosurgeon who briefly topped the polls urged civility. We have to stop this because, you know, if we manage to damage ourselves and we lose the next election and a progressive gets in there and they get two or three Supreme Court picks, this nation is over as we know it, he said. The call did not stop Bush from going after Trump, describing his rival as unhinged for his policies on immigration and Muslims and misguided in his plans for high tariffs on Chinese imports. This would be devastating for our economy. We need somebody with a steady hand being president of the United States, Bush said. Trump responded with an attack on Bushs personality. We dont need a weak person being president of the United States, Trump said, returning to an old insult that Bush is low-energy. We dont need that. We dont need that. Trump brushed off criticism of his demeanor, saying, I will gladly accept the mantle of anger. Our military is a disaster, he said. Our health care is a horror show. Obamacare, were going to repeal it and replace it. We have no borders. Our vets are being treated horribly. Illegal immigration is beyond belief. Our country is being run by incompetent people. And yes, I am angry. The debate came just 48 hours after President Obama delivered the final State of the Union address of his presidency, which included sharp condemnation of the angry GOP rhetoric over Muslims, immigration and other issues. At the debate, the candidates flung zinger after zinger in an attempt to outdo one another in delivering the most visceral condemnation of both Obama and Clinton, his first-term secretary of state and the leading Democratic presidential candidate. Christie called Obama a petulant child and likened his State of the Union to storytime because it painted, in Christies view, too rosy a picture of the country. We are going to kick your rear end out of the White House come this fall, Christie said of Obama. The language was just as strident in discussing Clinton. Bush suggested that she might be going back and forth between the White House and the courthouse because she is under FBI investigation for her email practices. Then Rubio stepped up the rhetoric and charged that Clinton was disqualified from being commander in chief. When co-moderator Maria Bartiromo asked Cruz about a New York Times report Wednesday that he failed to properly disclose loans from Goldman Sachs and CitiBank during his 2012 Senate campaign, Cruz used the moment to slam the mainstream media. Yes, I made a paperwork error disclosing it on one piece of paper instead of the other, Cruz said. But if thats the best the New York Times has got, they better go back to the well. Although Ohio Gov. John Kasich did not figure in the more contentious exchanges, he sought to appeal directly to frustrated middle- and working-class families. People are upset, he said. Youre 50 or 51 years old and some kid walks in and tells you youre out of work and you dont know where to go and where to turn. Do we have an answer for that? We do. David A. Fahrenthold in Washington contributed to this report. Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina went after the only other woman running for president during Fox Business Network's undercard debate on Jan. 14. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina went after the only other woman running for president during Fox Business Network's undercard debate on Jan. 14. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) The Republican undercard debate Thursday night concluded with all three long-shot candidates promising that theyd be the best to take on the Democratic front-runner glossing over, for the moment, the seven other Republicans theyd have to beat first. You cannot wait to see the debate between me and Hillary Clinton. You would pay to see that fight, said former tech executive Carly Fiorina, casting herself as a stand-in for women everywhere. Citizens, it is time, Fiorina said. We must take our country back. The other two low-polling candidates on the stage former senator Rick Santorum (Pa.) and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee talked about races they had run against Clintons allies. You want a fighter? You want a winner? Id appreciate your vote, Santorum said. The tone of Thursday nights early Fox Business Network debate in North Charleston, S.C., was unusually fearful and confrontational, as all three candidates onstage hoped for a Hail Mary a single breakthrough moment that would elevate them to the top tier of candidates. One candidate raised the prospect of a nuclear doomsday; another brought up the prospect of the government taking peoples guns. Mike Huckabee, Carly Fiorina and Rick Santorum participate in Thursdays undercard debate. (Scott Olson/Getty Images) If nothing else, at least they were there, debating publicly for an hour prior to the seven-candidate main debate later in the night. In his closing statement, Santorum mocked Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who failed to qualify for the main debate stage and then declined to show up for the undercard debate as being beneath him. Im going to take some of Rand Pauls time here for a second, Santorum said after his own speaking time had run out. Earlier in the evening, Santorum had sought to reframe a plan to deport illegal immigrants as a gift from the United States to both the immigrants and their home countries, bringing the benefit of U.S.-educated and U.S.-assimilated people. Im going to give them the gift of being able to help the country they were born in. Were gonna export America, Santorum said when asked about his plans to increase deportations of people who entered the country illegally. They can start a renaissance in their country so they wont be coming here anymore! he said to loud applause. For Huckabee, the plan was to allege conspiracies by President Obama to crack down on gun owners and seize firearms from lawful owners. Huckabee was cheered when he said he would encouraged gun sellers to disobey Obamas latest executive actions that expanded background checks for gun sales. Huckabee said he wasnt sure that Obama could be trusted to leave guns in their owners hands. If you like your gun, you can keep it, too, Huckabee said, paraphrasing an unkept promise by the president that all Americans could keep the health insurance they had after his health-care bill passed. Frankly, we dont buy it. Hes lost his credibility. Santorum raised fears of an apocalyptic attack by Iran, which he said would develop a nuclear weapon because of Obamas efforts to sign a nuclear deal. Santorum said that Iran was not like other countries, and that it might use the weapon to hasten a doomsday for religious purposes. An electromagnetic pulse attack, involving a nuclear weapon detonated in the upper atmosphere, could shut down all electronics in the United States, Santorum said, repeating some of his deeply worried messaging from the campaign trail. Huckabee also offered skepticism about the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan, saying that he saw little hope for rebuilding a nation like the land of the Flintstones. Its been that way for thousands of years, Huckabee said of Afghanistan, although parts of that country were relatively modern before the long and destructive fighting that began with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. All three candidates said Obama was too passive and permissive in foreign policy, and all promised more aggressive stances toward rivals such as Iran and Russia, as well as the Islamic State. Fiorina was asked whether, in an effort to fight the Islamic State, she would accept an alliance with Russia and Iran. She said no, and added that the United States must stick by Saudi Arabia in its ongoing tensions with Iran. Saudi Arabia is our ally, and Iran is our adversary, Fiorina said after offering a list of Middle Eastern allies whose leaders she knew personally. Vladimir Putin and Russia are our adversary. We cannot outsource leadership in the Middle East to Iran and Russia. Fiorina was also skeptical of Obamas latest efforts to expand background checks for gun buyers. So was the audience: When a Fox moderator noted that polls show widespread support for expanded background checks, the crowd booed. Not in this room, Santorum said. Thats what the polls show, the moderators replied. And we all believe the poll data all the time, dont we? Fiorina said. Jose A. DelReal in Iowa and Sean Sullivan and Ed OKeefe in Washington contributed to this report. Former Chinese student protest leader Wuer Kaixi is shown on World Press Freedom Day during a celebration of the 30th anniversary of Reporters Without Borders in Paris in May. (Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images) One of the most prominent and charismatic leaders of the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square is running for a legislative seat in Taiwans general election Saturday. Victory is far from certain for Wuer Kaixi, a longtime exile who was once named Chinas No. 2 most-wanted. The vote, set to begin at 7 p.m. Friday Eastern Time, is expected to see the opposition Democratic Progressive Party prevail over the ruling Kuomintang, which favors closer ties with China. Wuer is running for a small third force party focused mainly on electoral reform. But long-shot odds dont faze him. He is happy to have a platform, an opportunity to speak his piece. At 21, I fought for democracy, and more than 26 years later I get to shape it, he said. A life in Taiwanese politics is not something the young Wuer would have imagined. An ethnic Uighur, he was born in Beijing in 1968 and attended university there, joining the student-led protests in the spring of 1989. Wuer Kaixi, then a student at Beijing Normal University, leads a chant during a protest at the offices of the Peoples Daily in Beijing on May 9, 1989. (Sadayuki Mikami/AP) Confident and quotable, he soon became a front-line leader. A Washington Post report dated May 7, 1989, opened with Wuer being lifted on to students shoulders as they charged a police line. The police pulled Wuer down and ripped the school flag he was holding to the ground, but his action allowed hundreds of followers to break through, it reads. [Protest leaders share commitment, goals] Later that month, in what would become one of the movements defining moments, a hunger-striking Wuer met with the government's representative, Li Peng, wearing hospital pajamas and proceeded to berate the Mao-suited cadre in front of the media. Li would later back the bloody crackdown that sent Wuer and many others underground. Wuer escaped to Hong Kong as part of the smuggling effort known as Operation Yellowbird. From there, he made it to the United States, where he met his Taiwanese wife. Wuer and his family have lived in Taiwan since 1996. Hes tried several times to return to China, telling reporters he is willing to turn himself in to visit his aging parents. Every time, Beijing turned him back. His foray into Taiwanese politics comes at an interesting juncture. President Ma Ying-jeou came to power in 2008, promising closer China ties. That policy culminated last year in the first meeting between China and Taiwans top leaders since the end of the Chinese Civil War. [China, Taiwan leaders pledge peaceful ties at historic encounter] Although Taiwan is a thriving democracy, Beijing still claims sovereignty over it. Mas rapprochement was premised on a framework, negotiated in 1992, that allows both sides to say there is one China without specifying what that means. The woman predicted to become Taiwans next president, Tsai Ing-wen, does not put much stock in the 1992 consensus, promising instead to preserve the status quo across the Taiwan Strait. Wuer disagrees with both stances, seeing the 1992 agreement as a Cold War relic and embrace of the status quo as a cop-out. He wants Taiwan to formally recognize the Peoples Republic of China and end what he sees as the one China myth. Nobody really believes there is one country anymore, he said. There are two countries. Whether or not the idea proves popular with voters, who are mostly focused on domestic issues, the act of campaigning means something, said Wang Dan, a fellow Tiananmen survivor who lives in Taiwan. It's important to participate in democracy, and it doesnt matter if he gets elected or not, he said of Wuer. Both men see Taiwans democracy as an inspiration and, they hope, a model. People probably wont believe it if we say China will become a democracy one day, but its not impossible. It happened here in Taiwan, Wang said. Wuer said that if he is elected as a representative of the Constitutional Reform Fraternity Coalition, he will make domestic issues a priority for the next few years. But he said he must hope for a democratic future across the strait and knows he wants to be part of it. I want to learn how to shape a new type of democracy, he said. One that will work for Taiwan and hopefully, one day, for China. Xu Yangjingjing in Beijing contributed to this report. Read more: An opposition leader prepares to take helm in Taipei, and Beijing is rattled 5 things you should know about Taiwans Jan. 16 election Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world An audacious attack by suicide bombers in the heart of Indonesias capital was funded by the Islamic State, police said Friday as they said they seized one of the groups flags from the home of one of the attackers and carried out raids across the country, in which one suspected militant was killed. Gen. Badrodin Haiti, the national police chief, told reporters that Islamic State funding for Thursdays attack was funneled through an Indonesian, Bahrun Naim, who spent one year in prison for illegal possession of weapons in 2011 and is now in Syria fighting for the group. Supporters of the militant group also circulated a claim of responsibility for the attack on Twitter late Thursday. The group controls territory in Syria and Iraq, and its ambition to create an Islamic caliphate has attracted some 30,000 foreign fighters from around the world. The Islamic State link, if proved, poses a challenge to Indonesian security forces. Until now, the group was known only to have sympathizers with no active cells capable of planning and carrying out a plot such as Thursdays, in which five men attacked a Starbucks cafe and a traffic police booth with handmade bombs, guns and suicide belts. They killed two people a Canadian and an Indonesian and wounded 20 in the first major attack in Indonesia since 2009. The militants were killed, either by their suicide vests or by police. The attack was funded by ISIS in Syria through Bahrun Naim, Haiti told reporters after Friday prayers, using an acronym for the group. He did not elaborate. 1 of 15 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad The scene after suspected Islamic State affiliates stormed Indonesias capital View Photos Militants staged suicide bombings and opened fire in downtown Jakarta. Caption Militants staged suicide bombings and opened fire in downtown Jakarta. Jan. 14, 2016 People, including unarmed police officers, flee from the scene after a gun battle broke out following an explosion in Jakarta. Attackers set off bombs and exchanged gunfire outside a Starbucks cafe in Indonesia's capital in a brazen assault. AP Wait 1 second to continue. He also identified one of the five attackers as Afif Sunakim, who in 2010 was sentenced to seven years in jail for his involvement in military-style training in Aceh, but was released early. Police conducted raids across Indonesia, but was it unclear whether those arrested were suspected of links to the bombing or if police were rounding up militants as part of a broader crackdown in its aftermath. They also outlined a partial reconstruction of events based on security camera video, part of which showed a Starbucks customer escaping from the grip of an attacker before he detonated his suicide bomb. Maj. Gen. Anton Charliyan, a national police spokesman, said raids were conducted in Java, Kalimantan and Sulawesi, with four arrests made. Charliyan said three men arrested in Depok on the outskirts of Jakarta are no longer suspected of being linked to the attack. On Friday evening, police searched the home of another of the dead bombers, whom they identified as Muhammad Ali (no relation to the former professional boxer). Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world Taiwanese opposition leader Tsai Ing-wen won a landslide victory in the islands presidential election Saturday to become its first female leader, telling China she wants stable relations but would defend her countrys sovereignty and dignity. Tsai vowed to work with China to maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, but Beijing responded frostily to the results, saying good relations depended on her renouncing any prospect of Taiwan ever achieving formal independence from the mainland something she is unlikely to do. Tsai, head of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), received more than 56 percent of the vote, far ahead of Eric Chu of the ruling Nationalists, or Kuomintang (KMT), with 31 percent. The DPP also won a majority in the islands parliament, with 68 seats out of 113. For eight years, the KMT had promised that improving ties with China would rescue Taiwans ailing economy. But as trade and tourism boomed, more of the benefits flowed to business tycoons than ordinary people. The economy as a whole is thought to have barely expanded by 1 percent last year. Now, victory for the more independence-minded DPP raises the prospect of a new era of uncertainty in relations with China. Tsai vowed to maintain good relations with Beijing and signaled some flexibility, but she put the onus on China to meet her halfway. A 16-year-old singer in a South Korean pop band became the center of a political storm, after she forced to make a humiliating apology to China for daring to hold Taiwans flag on Korean television. (Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post) I also want to emphasize that both sides have a responsibility to find mutually acceptable means of interaction that are based on dignity and reciprocity, she said in a television news conference Saturday night. We must ensure that no provocation or accidents take place. Our democratic system, national identity and international space must be respected, she said. Any forms of suppression will harm the stability of cross-strait relations. But China responded with a vow to resolutely oppose any form of separatist activities seeking Taiwan independence and with a demand that Tsai renounce the idea. On major issues of principle concerning national sovereignty and territorial integrity, our will is firm as rock and our attitude is consistent, Chinas Taiwan Affairs Office said in a statement. We are willing to strengthen contact and exchange with any parties and groups that recognize that the two sides belong to one China. [An opposition leader prepares to take helm in Taipei, and Beijing is rattled] On Chinas Sina Weibo microblogging site, Tsais name and the phrase Taiwan elections were both blocked. On the surface, this election was all about current President Ma Ying-jeous failure to breathe life back into one of Asias former economic tigers. But at a deeper level, the vote was about Taiwans efforts to find its feet after two decades as a democracy and reimagine itself as a nation quite separate from its Communist big brother across the Taiwan Strait. Our democratic system, national identity and international space must be respected, Tsai says. (Damir Sagolj/Reuters) Regardless of how you voted, the exercise of democratic expression was the most important meaning of this election, Tsai told the Taiwanese people in the televised news conference, before addressing thousands of cheering and flag-waving supporters in central Taipei. Forty-year-old bank teller Chang Bi-hua said she had cried as the crowd chanted, Hello, president. Her friend Wesley Peng said the result had been expected but was still exciting and offered the chance for a bright future, a sentiment echoed by many. Everybody is very excited about the change, said 32-year-old Danny Lin. Democracy in Taiwan has been noticed across the world thats a national value of Taiwan. Tsai focused her campaign resolutely on domestic concerns, employment and housing, modernizing the economy and forming a government that is closer to the people. But China loomed like a shadow over the election. [China, Taiwan leaders pledge peaceful ties at historic encounter] The question of how Beijing would react to a Tsai presidency was something the KMT tried to exploit, warning of chaos and catastrophe if she should win. [Beijing warns Taiwan against ditching one China pact as election nears] Yet most voters were obviously not swayed by that argument. That was partly because many had grown uncomfortable with Taiwans growing dependence on China under Ma and partly because they trust Tsai to handle cross-strait relations sensibly but also because her victory would reflect a fundamental shift in the way Taiwanese people think of themselves, experts say. More and more, the people of this island think of themselves not as Chinese people, nor even so much as both Taiwanese and Chinese, but as exclusively Taiwanese, polls indicate. It is a process that got underway after Taiwan became a democracy, and that has accelerated as ties with China have blossomed under Mas presidency. The more contact people have had with China, the more they feel: Chinas great, but its just not us, said Nathan Batto, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica in Taipei. The issue of Taiwans identity and its unequal relationship with China was also inflamed on election day, after a 16-year-old Taiwanese pop singer was forced to make a humiliating apology to China for waving a Taiwanese flag on Korean television. Chou Tzu-yu was apparently forced to affirm her commitment to one China by her South Korean management company, concerned that it would damage her sales in China. [Watch: Teenage pop stars humiliating apology to China for waving Taiwan flag] Tsai said the incident shook Taiwanese society and angered many people, regardless of their political views. This particular incident will serve as a constant reminder to me of the importance of our countrys strength and unity to those outside our borders, she said. [A heavy metal star rocks the vote in Taiwan and gives Beijing a headache] Some of Tsais supporters openly declared their desire for an independent homeland, yet others prefer the middle ground that Tsai has chalked out. Tsai is an intelligent woman, said Gine Shuen, a 37-year-old teacher. Although she is the leader of the DPP, she doesnt insist on separating Taiwan from China, nor on making Taiwan too close to China. She keeps an open mind, wants communication and has a tolerant attitude, which is the best way to deal with the cross-strait relationship. Xu Jing contributed to this report. Nguyen Thi Hanh was 19 when she met Jim Reischl, a 21-year-old U.S. Air Force sergeant serving in the Vietnam War. Nguyen met Reischl in person for the first time in 45 years. (The Washington Post) Nguyen Thi Hanh was 19 when she met Jim Reischl, a 21-year-old U.S. Air Force sergeant serving in the Vietnam War. Nguyen met Reischl in person for the first time in 45 years. (The Washington Post) Alone in a hotel room in a small Vietnamese town, Jim Reischl waited restlessly. Recounting the story later, the Vietnam War veteran said he had traveled 8,500 miles, with an arthritic knee, for this long-sought reunion. I am getting a bit excited, he said. Geez, I havent seen her in 45 years! Then came a knock on the door. On the other side stood the woman he had left behind when he shipped out of Saigon in July 1970 the young bar hostess who had told him she was pregnant. He hadnt believed her, but he had also never stopped thinking about her. Now she was about to walk back into his life. Reischl, 68, came to Vietnam as a 21-year-old Air Force sergeant and was stationed at Tan Son Nhut air base outside Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City. 1 of 13 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad Long-separated sweethearts reunited in Vietnam View Photos Forty-five years after an American serviceman and his girlfriend were pulled apart during the Vietnam War, he tracked her down. Caption Forty-five years after an American serviceman and his girlfriend were pulled apart during the Vietnam War, he tracked her down. Jan. 9, 2016 Jim Reischl and Nguyen Thi Hanh, who dated during the Vietnam War while Reischl was stationed in Saigon, meet again after 45 years in Hanhs hometown in Vietnams Mekong Delta region. Quinn Ryan Mattingly/For The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue. After his year-long tour, he went back to Minnesota, became a government cartographer, married twice, had a son and suffered Agent Orange-related health problems. But he never forgot his first lady. Around 2005, after his second marriage ended, Reischl set out to search for the woman he remembered only as Linh Hoa not her actual name. He began by scouring the Internet, eventually contacting Father Founded, a group that helps link soldiers and their Amerasian children through DNA testing and other means. An estimated 100,000 children were born to U.S. servicemen and Vietnamese women during the Vietnam War, most of whom eventually immigrated to the United States. Many were adopted by U.S. families. Since 2012, with the help of Father Founded volunteers, Reischl has traveled to Vietnam five times, speaking to journalists and placing ads in local newspapers. The most recent read: I am in search of you. It has been many years. I am not looking for a relationship. I want you to know that. I just would like to talk with the wonderful lady I knew in 1969 and 1970. Last spring, in a trip chronicled by The Washington Post as part of a project about Amerasian children left in Vietnam, Reischl went back to visit the $5-a-month apartment where the couple had spent lazy days making love, watching a black-and-white TV, and listening to Beatles and Blind Faith records. He still remembers the day she told him she was pregnant. [Forty years later, Vietnam veterans still search for lost loves] She wanted me to stay with her and live in Vietnam. At the time I said, Im not going to live here, stay here. It was totally foreign to me, Reischl said. I was young and stupid, I guess. Reischl showed neighbors near the apartment a photo of the young woman he had snapped from a taxi the last day he saw her. She was standing on a balcony watching him ride away. Nobody remembered her, but Reischl said he vowed, I will never officially stop looking. In September, a 64-year-old woman sitting by her bedridden husband in the village of My Luong in Vietnams Mekong Delta picked up her iPad and clicked on a news site. She idly opened a locally written article about kids abandoned during the war. Scrolling down, she was shocked to see a photo of her younger self in the arms of a khaki-clad soldier Reischl. The moment I saw it, I knew, the woman, Nguyen Thi Hanh, recalled. Suddenly the memories of the first love reemerged. Also flooding back were thoughts of their daughter. For there had been a child, after all. After Reischl shipped out, a devastated Hanh left Saigon to take refuge in the countryside. On Dec. 18, 1970, she gave to birth to a baby girl with large eyes and pale skin whom she called Nguyen Thanh Nguyen Thuy. Her given name meant First Tear, Hanh said, because I was alone and didnt have any family with me at the time. Hanh, then 19, let a friend take the child to an orphanage, thinking she would still be able to visit her. But the friend disappeared, and when Hanh went to the orphanage, the nuns told her they had no record of the case. Hanh joined the South Vietnamese army and, after the fall of Saigon in April 1975, spent two years in a communist reeducation camp. There, she met her husband, now 74 and incapacitated from a stroke. The couple has two grown children. Over the years, she said, she never stopped looking for her child and never forgave Reischl for deserting her. I was still angry with him, she said. After she saw the news article, Hanh emailed the reporter, who helped her connect with Reischl in St. Cloud, Minn. Texting, phone calls and Skype chats followed. Their improbable reunion happened this past weekend in Hanhs home town. Nice to meet you . . . again, Reischl said when he opened the door and saw the petite Hanh, her hair still parted on the same side as he remembered it. He held out his arms. Hanh burst into tears. She became emotional again when the two sat down for an interview. The white-haired Air Force veteran put his arm on her chair as if to comfort her close, but not too close. The two are now determined to find the child they lost. Reischl brought a DNA kit so they could submit a sample from Hanh to a database for Amerasians seeking relatives on a family-heritage website. Without this effort, they say, their reunion will not be complete. Its a lie to say Im completely calm and carefree about this event, Hanh said later. I have mixed feelings about it. Im quite happy with my current life, otherwise. My only unfulfilled dream is to be able to find my first daughter. Nga Ly Hien Nguyen in My Luong, Vietnam, contributed to this report. Read more: Forty years after the fall of Saigon, soldiers children are still left behind Chinas assertiveness pushes Vietnam toward an old foe, the United States Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world It is the most fateful moment in a movie that purports to present a searingly accurate account of the 2012 attacks that left four Americans dead in Benghazi, Libya: a scene in which the highest-ranking CIA operative at a secret agency compound orders his security team to stand down rather than rush off to rescue U.S. diplomats under siege less than a mile away. According to the officer in charge of the CIAs Benghazi base that night, the scene in the movie is entirely untrue. There never was a stand-down order, said the base chief known as Bob, speaking publicly for the first time. At no time did I ever second-guess that the team would depart. [Fact-checking the Benghazi attacks] Nor, he said, did he say anything that could be interpreted as equivalent to an order to stand down. In a lengthy interview with reporters from The Washington Post, Bob provided new details about the attacks and his interactions with J. Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya who perished in them. The account from the CIA base chief adds a critical and previously missing voice to the public record on Benghazi, an attack that even three years later remains so politically charged that Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), a Republican presidential candidate, made it the center of his closing remarks during this weeks GOP debate. The question of whether someone issued a stand down has loomed over Benghazi since the immediate aftermath of the attacks. The initial speculation centered mainly on whether an official in Washington, including then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, had impeded rescue attempts an allegation rejected by a series of congressional inquiries. A 2014 House Intelligence Committee report found no evidence that there was either a stand down order or a denial of available air support. Bob agreed to talk on the condition that his last name not be used because even though he has retired, his cover has not been lifted. I thought I would regret it if I didnt, he said about finally speaking out. So much of this information has been wrong. The movie, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, is based on a book co-written by U.S. contractors hired to protect the CIA base in Benghazi. Bob said he was familiar with the contents of the book but had not seen the movie, which opened Friday. Scenes from the film were described to him by a Post reporter. The book and film blame Bob for blocking the departure of security operators until it was too late. The author of the book, Mitchell Zuckoff, said in a telephone interview that he stands by the depiction and that it is based on first-hand accounts. I think the evidence is extremely strong that the guys account is far more credible than that of the CIA chief, Zuckoff said. He said he made multiple requests through the CIA to speak with Bob but that those requests were denied. Zuckoff said he had numerous conversations with the CIA office of public affairs about the project, but officials said those talks came only after a draft of the book was finished and focused on whether it disclosed classified material that contractors were obligated to protect. The agency also met with the director of the film, Michael Bay, and cited a list of concerns about the contents of the book and movie script, officials said. The book publishers bypassed the CIA clearance process typically required for works by current or former employees and contractors. Zuckoff said that was in part because the agency did not want the authors to attach their real names to the book, and that doing so would have undermined its credibility. The book and movie render an unflattering portrait of the CIA and Bob, a former Army medic who spent 32 years with the agency. No one will mistake this movie for a documentary, CIA spokesman Ryan Trapani said. Its a distortion of the events and people who served in Benghazi that night. Its shameful that, in order to highlight the heroism of some, those responsible for the movie felt the need to denigrate the courage of other Americans who served in harms way. [The 8 most heated exchanges from the Benghazi hearing] Libya wasnt Bobs first war zone. The former veteran case officer, now in his early 60s, spent time in Central America, Iraq and Afghanistan as a clandestine case officer assigned to the Latin America and Near East divisions. A rumpled figure with short gray whiskers on his face, Bob said he arrived in Benghazi as base chief in December 2011. Under his command were the security team, known inside the agency as the Global Response Staff, as well as contract case officers with military experience and other U.S. personnel. The book accuses Bob of treating the GRS contractors like Wal-Mart security guards. He said that is a distortion, describing the security team as highly accomplished. These guys were heroes, he said. Bob met with Stevens on Sept. 10, 2012, when the CIA briefed the ambassador at the diplomatic facility shortly after his arrival from Tripoli. We did try to convey the seriousness of the terrorism environment in eastern Libya, he said. Although there was no specific threat information against Stevens, Bob said he was already familiar with two men later implicated in the assaults on U.S. facilities: Ahmed Abu Khattala, who was charged with plotting the attacks and has been brought to the United States to stand trial, and Sufian bin Qumu, a former detainee at Guantanamo Bay who remains in Libya. Bob said he first heard gunfire about 9:42 p.m. and suspected immediately that the diplomatic compound was under attack. The handful of U.S. diplomatic security personnel there also alerted the base and the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli. Bob said he began calling Libyan groups and making an effort to help get eyes up, a reference to surveillance drones that were directed toward the compound. He said the base immediately went into collect mode to try to figure out what was happening to the ambassador and said Stevenss rescue was always a priority. According to the book and the movie, the security contractors assembled their weapons and jumped into vehicles to begin a rescue mission. Bob, they said, ordered them to wait. Bob acknowledged that he was concerned about an ambush and that a departure by the security team would have left our base more vulnerable to attack. But, he said, there was never any question that there was going to be a rescue mission and no instruction by him to hold off. Instead, Bob said he spent much of the immediate period after the attack began, about 20 minutes, standing beside the leader of the GRS team who still works at the CIA scrambling to enlist local security teams. One of the things he wanted was a gun truck and support. Technicals, Bob said. The militias they contacted were evasive. One offered to shelter the U.S. personnel at a nearby militia compound, Bob said, while others didnt necessarily want to help us, and some just didnt know what to do. When the team leader realized reinforcements werent coming, he left with the contractors. If there was any delay, it was a matter of minutes. It took a good 15 to 17 minutes just to get ready, Bob said. About 10:03 p.m., according to a congressional timeline, the CIA security contractors left for the diplomatic compound. More than 40 minutes later, after parking some distance away and approaching on foot with weapons drawn, they arrived at the facility. Stevens was missing, and Sean Smith, a State Department communications expert, was dead from smoke inhalation inside the diplomatic villa. The attackers were gone. A second CIA officer at Benghazi that evening backed Bobs account. In an email provided to The Post, the officer said that when asked if the security team could respond to the requests for assistance at the special mission compound by the security team leader, the chief of base responded with one word: Absolutely. In an email, Zuckoff said that two of the CIA security contractors heard Bob say stand down. He added that the base chiefs account should be seen through the lens of hindsight. It must be terrible for him to live with the fact that he delayed the departure, knowing that the deaths [of Stevens and Smith] were caused by smoke inhalation, which by definition is a function of time. Other former CIA officers with no direct knowledge of the case but with experience in war zones chafed at such second-guessing and said seeking reinforcements was the right course. Did he lose 20 minutes? Probably, said one former senior agency official. But that was probably the right solution. Eventually, all of the Americans fled the compound and headed back to the CIA base. A good part of the night was trying to find out where the ambassador was and what had happened to him, Bob said. The CIA eventually learned that Libyans had located Stevenss body and taken it to a hospital. [GOP lands no solid punches while sparring with Clinton over Benghazi] The other major controversy surrounding Benghazi has focused on how the attack on the diplomatic compound was initially portrayed by the White House as a violent protest rather than a terrorist attack. Bob said there was some reporting even in the midst of the attacks that a terrorist group known as Ansar al-Sharia was involved, but he said he played no role in shaping White House talking points about the attacks that came under harsh criticism. Bob said he took only one call that evening from CIA headquarters and that it lasted two minutes. I just cut it short, he said. He declined to comment on continued political fighting in Washington over the attack. The following day, about 5:15 a.m., the CIA base came under mortar fire, and two GRS operators, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, were killed. The Americans finally evacuated the CIA base at dawn, escorted by a Libyan militia convoy to the airport. Bob said they destroyed the bases computer hard drives before they left. The movie shows Bob wanting to stay behind to collect intelligence and depicts one of the security contractors asking, For what, so more guys like [the two contractors killed] have to save your ass again? That never happened, Bob said. Eyebrows raised, he asked, I was going to stay behind by myself? While the CIA security operators who had been so dismissive of Bob left the country, the base chief stayed in Libya, relocating to Tripoli. We were there to collect and find out who had attacked us, he said. Bob said he also returned to the CIA base in Benghazi weeks later. I remember every second of it, he said. We had lost two brave Americans on the roof at that facility. It was difficult. Karen DeYoung and Julie Tate contributed to this report. In this undated picture posted on the Facebook page of a militant group, members of Ahrar al-Sham, one of the Syrian rebels groups, exercise in a training camp at an unknown place in Syria. (AP) A 50-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, who lived for a time in California, admitted Friday that he was part of a conspiracy to provide firearm scopes, tactical vests and other supplies to a Syrian rebel group that allegedly fought alongside al-Qaedas affiliate in that country, authorities said. Amin al-Baroudi, who also goes by Abu al-Jud, pleaded guilty to conspiring to export U.S.-origin goods to Syria in violation of federal sanctions, authorities said. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison at his sentencing May 6. Baroudis arrest and initial court appearance last month came amid heightened fears of terrorism in the United States after terrorist-inspired or -directed mass killings in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif. Significantly, though, Baroudi was not charged with lending support to terrorists, and the particular group he admitted supplying with weaponry, Ahrar al-Sham, has disputed that it has links to al-Qaeda or espouses al-Qaedas ideology. Prosecutors say the group frequently fights alongside Jabhat al-Nusrah, which is al-Qaedas branch in Syria. Baroudi, who was born in Syria but became a U.S. citizen, had been living in Irvine, Calif., although the manner in which he was indicted suggests he was brought to Dulles Airport specifically from overseas so that he could be charged in Alexandria, Va. The indictment against him alleged that Baroudi and others bought supplies from companies in the United States and traveled with the goods on commercial flights to Turkey, where someone would smuggle them across the border into Syria. Baroudi, according to the indictment, did not have a license to carry out such a shipment and was thus violating a broad prohibition on exporting goods to Syria. The highest level US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official in the Midwest was aware as early as April 2015 that the water being piped into the homes of Flint, Michigan residents was not being treated for corrosion control, yet said nothing. This despite the fact that it is common knowledge among water professionals that the lack of such treatment, especially in highly corrosive water as that found in the Flint River, will cause lead to leach into tap water from pipes and fixtures. The revelation of the federal governments role in the cover-up of lead poisoning of Flint residents comes as reports show a dramatic increase in cases of Legionnaires disease and related deaths in Flint, likely a result of the Flint River water. Protests by Flint residents are continuing, with a demonstration Thursday in the state capitol of Lansing demanding the resignation of Michigan Governor Rick Snyder for his role in concealing the dangers confronting Flint residents. EPA Region 5 Administrator Susan Hedman made a decision not to use the authority of the agency to compel local water officials to apply a $100 a month phosphate treatment to protect the Flint water infrastructure from corrosion or even to alert the public of the health danger in drinking the water, she told the Detroit News this week. According to the report, the EPA battled over corrosion control with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) behind the scenes starting in February. It is worth looking back to a September 2015 posting on the Flint Water Study website of Professor Marc Edwards to understand the context of this battle. It was in February that an EPA expert from Region 5, Miquel Del Toral recognized lead problems with Flint water. On February 26, a water sample from the home of one particular resident, Lee Ann Walters, was measured with extremely high lead contentover 100 parts per billion (ppb), while the EPA action level is 15 ppb. Del Toral asked MDEQ the next day if Flint was using phosphates for corrosion control. MDEQ official Stephen Busch blatantly lied: The City of FlintHas an Optimized Corrosion Control Program [and] conducts quarterly Water Quality Parameter monitoring at 25 sites and has not had any unusual results. Just over two weeks later, Walters home was retested with even higher lead levels397 ppb. When questioned, the MDEQ said they had investigated, finding that the source of the elevated lead was due to lead sources in her plumbing. Walters knew this to be untrue, since all the plumbing in the house had been replaced with plastic pipes. Walters young son was having health problems. On March 27, he was diagnosed with lead poisoning. To check on the MDEQ claim the previous month that an Optimized Corrosion Control Program was in place, Walters called the City of Flint. She was told that there was, in fact, no program at all for corrosion control! She notified Del Toral, who in turn asked MDEQ again, in an email, what corrosion control program Flint was using. This time the response was the truth: Flint was using no corrosion control. In an internal EPA Region 5 memo, Del Toral stated, Flint has not been operating any corrosion control treatment, which is very concerning given the likelihood of LSLs [lead service lines] in the City. He became concerned that there would likely be widespread elevated levels of lead in Flint water without the treatment. He subsequently discovered that the sampling method being utilized by the MDEQ and Flint water authorities was obscuring the actual levels of lead in tap water, writing in a June 24 internal memo: The practice of pre-flushing before collecting compliance samples has been shown to result in the minimization of lead capture and significant underestimation of lead levels in drinking water. Del Toral added that this method of sampling was a serious concern because it could provide a false sense of security to the residents of Flint regarding lead levels in the water. In her interview with the Detroit News, EPA Region 5 Administrator Hedman defended her silence, saying that the role of the EPA was to provide treatment standards and monitoring techniques and that under the law, the state is the primary regulator of water operations. Returning to the Flint Water Study chronology, the same day as Del Toral notified the EPA of the seriousness of the Flint water situation, he dropped off sampling bottles at Walters home and told her to contact noted water expert Marc Edwards at Virginia Tech University to help her to perform a proper sampling. After gathering tap water samples according to Edwards direction and returning them to VT, Edwards was stunned. The average lead level was 2,429 ppb, with a high sample of 13,200 ppb. When Del Toral was informed of the results, he drove back to Flint from his home in Chicago just in time to see the city replacing the service line to Walters home, which he personally confirmed had been pure lead. From February to June both the City of Flint and the MDEQ conducted the testing required by the federal Lead and Copper Rule (LCR) in a way that purposely obscured the high lead levels in the city. In the last five days before the June 30 deadline for collecting the required 100 samples, Adam Rosenthal of the MDEQ emailed Mike Glasgow at the City of Flint: We hope you have 61 more lead/copper samples collected and sent to the lab by 6/30/15, and that they will be below the AL [action level] for lead. As of now with 39 results, Flints 90th percentile is over the AL for lead. This is what happened according to Edwards: In the next five days the City collected 30 samples, all of which were below the action level, and did not reach the 100 sample target. If all 71 collected samples were counted, the City would have exceeded the 15 ppb action level. Federal law would then require that Flint residents be provided information about how to protect themselves and their children from lead in water . Del Torals concern with the sampling methods being used was a major problem for the MDEQs operation, which can only be described as criminal. On August 4, Walters and another Flint resident, Melissa Mays, described a meeting they had with MDEQ officials Liane Shekter-Smith (Chief of the Office of Drinking Water and Municipal Assistance), Stephen Busch and Brad Wurfel. Like a mafioso, Shekter-Smith bragged that Mr. Del Toral has been handled, and that Flint residents would not be hearing from him again, adding that Del Torals interim memo on corrosion control would never be finalized. Later, an NPR report stated, MDEQ spokesman Brad Wurfel says the report was the work of a rogue employee, and promised the final reportnot yet releasedwould tell a much different story. Thus, an experienced and diligent EPA expert was vilified and effectively silenced. In light of these facts, Hedmans defense of her role as head of the EPA is vacuous. In an attempt to deflect responsibility she said, It is important to understand the clear roles here. Communication about lead in drinking water and the health impacts associated with that, thats the role of DHHS (Department of Health and Human Services), the county health department and the drinking water utility. The head of the MDHHS, Chief Medical Executive Eden Wells, in another recent revelation, admitted to NBC News on Wednesday that the states response to a July email from a state health worker warning of an increase in the blood lead levels of Flint children, was a missed opportunity to act on the poisoning of the water. The writer of the email, Cristin Larder, an epidemiologist, noticed the spike in blood levels in July, August and September of 2014, shortly after the April 2014 switch to Flint River water. Since lead exposure is cumulative, continued exposure increases the deleterious effects on the body. So the longer the failure to act on such warnings, the greater the extent of the poisoning. To call inaction a missed opportunity would be laughable if it werent so serious. Flint residents had been actively warning officials for almost 21 months of the poor quality of Flints water. Now it is being revealed publicly that the callous response they received was an expression of a conspiracy at the highest levels. In a recent interview, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the pediatrician who uncovered the spike in levels of lead in Flint childrens blood last September, said, This experience has really shattered my trust in government. Its not that I was naive to start with, but youd expect that utilities, states, federal agencies would take their jobs seriously and try to protect people rather than deliberately mislead, lie and make up excuses not to protect public health. Ahead of the visit of President Maithiripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to Jaffna today, Tamil nationalists staged a symbolic protest on Wednesday. Sirisena and Wickremesinghe will participate in the festival events of Thai Pongal a traditional Hindu religious festival, presumably with the participation of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leaders. The protest, two days in advance of the visit, was a shameful manoeuvre to provide cover for the TNAs orientation to Sirisenas government. The leading organiser of the protest is M.K. Shivajilingam, a Northern Province Councillor and leader of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO), one of the constituents of the TNA. Along with him, Selvarajah Kajendran, the secretary of the Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF), and several other leaders of the TNA and TNPF participated in the protest. TamilNet prominently advertised the protest, portraying Shivajilingam as an opponent of the politics of the government, and the TNA urged the public to attend the protest. Despite all this publicity for a protest squarely in the Jaffna city centre, less than 30 people turned up. This low attendance itself reflects growing popular disillusionment with the Tamil nationalist groups support for Sirisena, who was installed in a US-led regime change operation a year ago, and has moved to implement social attacks demanded by the International Monetary Fund. In contrast, 600 Tamil, Sinhala, and Muslim students of Jaffna University medical faculty held a demonstration at the same venue, as part of the country-wide protest against the planned privatisation of medical studies. In his speech at the TNA protest, Shivajilingam said, The president and prime minister are cheating the Tamils. This is a first warning; dont make us wave black flags in the face of you and your ministers. This is a warning, if you dont understand this, we fight and establish self-rule with the help of the international community. The protest displayed a banner with five demands to the president and prime minister: Justice for genocide war crimes, third-party mediation for the Tamil national question, releasing military-occupied land and immediately stopping further occupation, revealing the whereabouts of the disappeared, and releasing all Tamil political prisoners. These demands are similar to that of the TNA election manifesto in the parliamentary elections in August. After the elections, the TNA abandoned these promises, transforming itself instead into a key prop of the government to impose broader attacks on the working class and poor of all ethnicities. While serving as a docile official opposition for Sirisena, the TNA is simultaneously covering up the continued use of torture by the Sri Lankan government, including against the TNAs own members. A handful of relatives of people who disappeared during the Sri Lankan civil war attended the protest and spoke to the WSWS. A mother from the village of Moolai said, The military arrested my son Ganes Karunakaran and another boy on 3 March 1997 on his way to a rice mill. He was then 19-years-old. We went to the Mavadi army camp and asked. They told us both of them would be released after three days in front of the Grama Niladhari (village officer), but they have not yet been released. We have met [former President] Chandrika Kumaratunga who was the president at that time. She said, your children are there, we would definitely release them but nothing happened. I am attending protests like this and meeting politicians with the hope that my son would come one day. Mahadevan Parameswaran said his brother was 15-years-old when he was seized by the army: He was taken away in 2009, during the shelling of the region by the army. He was with many people during the shelling, people dispersed in panic, and he went to the military-controlled area. We havent seen him after that. We have searched for him in camps and prisons. We also registered complaints with human right commission and presidential commission. We also met Alliance [TNA] members, but nobody helped us. Wherever we go, we talk and ask about him. My mother became sick searching for him. My sister and her husband were injured in the war and are unable to work. We are goldsmiths, we lost everything in the Mullivaikal. For us Mahinda [Rajapakse, Sri Lankas previous president] and Maithiri [Sirisena] are the same. The Tamil nationalist perspective of allying with the Indian bourgeoisie and the imperialist powers to win concessions for members of the Tamil minority has proven to be a dead end for masses of Tamil workers and oppressed people. Last years events in Sri Lanka once more proved that the global strategic interests of the imperialist powers shape their intervention in any country. The regime change operation led by Washington, with Indias support, targeted the pro-Chinese government of former President Mahinda Rajapakse. After the installation of Sirisena as president, and the formation of a government led by Wickremesinghes United National Party, the US brought Sri Lanka into the orbit of the pivot of Asia and its war preparations against China. The governments first austerity budget aims to dismantle all remaining obstacles to the unlimited exploitation of workers in Sri Lanka by international capital. The working class and oppressed face a massive wave of attacks against their living standard and political rights. Sirisena and Wickremesinghe will visit Jaffna today to make empty promises. Last year, Sirisena repeatedly travelled to the North, making surprise visits to paddy fields and poor families, to present himself as concerned about ordinary people. Yet none of his promises to people in the war-torn areas have materialised. According to the Tamil daily Thinakkural, Sirisenas frequent visits to Jaffna aim to relieve international pressures over the military occupation of private land in northern Sri Lanka. When Sirisena came to power, the military occupied 26 square kilometres (6,459 acres), but 4.5 square kilometres (1,118 Acres) have been returned in two stages. However, new land seizures are continuing. One thing you can say about a David Gordon Green film is that you can never be sure what to expect. It could be a stoner action comedy (Pineapple Express), a low-key comedy-drama (Prince Avalanche), a downbeat drama (Manglehorn), or a gritty character-driven thriller that actually gets a great performance from Nicolas Cage for once (Joe). Our Brand Is Crisis is another duck and swerve a political black comedy. Inspired by the 2005 documentary of the same name, Sandra Bullock plays a much sought after campaign strategist now retired, beaten down by the cynicism of her job. Shes coaxed in from the cold when former colleagues Anthony Mackie and Ann Dowd ask for help in getting a former Bolivian presidents, the unpopular Joaquim de Almeida, campaign back on track. Shes not into it, struggling with altitude sickness in La Paz and thinks the stern and arrogant de Almeida has no chance of winning. However, goaded by her opposite number Thorntons smug campaign manager is hired by a rival the campaign turns personal and she throws herself into the mix with gusto "The truth is what I tell the electorate the truth is," Bullock says at one point. Politics even when its honest its lying and Our Brand Is Crisis has nothing good to say about the corrupt mess. It makes no bones about a campaign being nothing more than advertising: the candidate as product and the message as brand. When an interviewer presses the genuinely upset de Almeida on his estranged sons struggle with drug addiction, Bullock encourages him to turn to the camera so the viewers can see the tears. The dialogue is sharp, the pace is zippy, the performances fun and everything seems to be hurtling towards making a point. But then it all falls apart at the midpoint when a drunken sequence involving Bullock on the tear with some indigenous teens who will by and large suffer from de Almeidas proposal to introduce the IMF to prop up the failing country. Its a sequence that feels out of whack with what has gone before and it infects the rest of the film, turning what was a cynical political drama into a game of one-upmanship and frat boy antics; at one point Bullock encourages the driver of her campaign bus to overtake Thorntons on a rocky cliff side so she can moon Thornton as they pass. Green seems to have forgotten why hes here. And theres no one to root for, which is fine if Green wasnt asking the audience to hope that Bullocks guy wins. But de Almeida is a despicable man and Bullock is tainted by her association with him, no matter how much she finds him and the whole process repugnant. The ending is as naff as it is unbelievable too. At least five men attacked targets near downtown Jakartas Sarinah Mall on Thursday, setting off explosives near a Starbucks cafe and a Burger King restaurant, and firing handguns and rifles at police and bystanders amid some of the Indonesian capitals elite hotels and business offices. Despite media comparisons to the attacks in Paris last November, only seven people died in the attacks, five of them the gunmen themselves, and only two among their targets. The circumstances of the attack and the reasons for its apparent failure remain murky. The attackers reportedly also threw grenades at a police checkpoint. Later Thursday, a series of explosions struck additional targets in Jakarta, including the Turkish and Pakistani embassies. The Indonesian military began moving units into the city center almost immediately in response to the incident. According to spokesmen for Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and reports in Western media, the attack was planned and coordinated from Islamic States self-proclaimed capital at Raqqa, Syria, under the leadership of an Indonesian national and former Internet cafe owner, Bahrun Naim, who traveled to Syria to join the Islamist forces last year. Naim allegedly directed a team of ISIS fighters that included foreign militants, including at least two ethnic Uighurs from Chinas western province of Xinjiang. Thursday saw an outpouring of warnings by Western media and governments, claiming that the attacks represent a qualitative escalation of terrorist activities in Southeast Asia. ISIS is seeking to make Indonesia the Asian beachhead for a new caliphate, Reuters editorialized in the middle of its report Thursday. Australian Attorney-General George Brandis similarly told media during a recent visit to Jakarta that ISIS is determined to secure an Indonesian distant caliphate. Australias foreign minister Julie Bishop proclaimed that Canberra would extend any support that Indonesia may need to respond to these attacks. In its In-Depth report Thursday night, titled Terror returns to region as Islamists hit Jakarta, The Australian proclaimed that the assault has raised fears of a revived Islamic terrorism campaign in the worlds most populous Muslim nation, sponsored by Middle East-based terror outfit Islamic State. Australian leaders responded immediately to the incident with offers of enhanced counterterrorism assistance. The attacks are the latest in a series of high-profile terror attacks attributed to the ISIS network and its affiliates, including attacks in California, France, and Pakistan, each of which has been immediately seized upon to justify a further intensification of the interconnected agenda of war, police repression and dictatorship being pursued by every bourgeois ruling class worldwide. In the name of preventing further Paris-style attacks, all of the major powers are moving to normalize the continuous occupation of their major urban centers by military and militarized-police detachments. Singapore has announced stepped up security operations in response to the attacks, including joint intelligence operations coordinated with Jakarta, according to the Strai ts Times . Two months since Paris, and two days after Istanbul, now there is an attack in Jakarta. This menace is just going to grow, said Singapores interior minister K. Shanmugam. Indonesian police spokesman General Anton Charily also said the attacks were modeled on those in Paris, and claimed that ISIS-affiliated forces are surging in Indonesia and neighboring countries. Jakarta mobilized more than 100,000 security forces last month in response to an alleged credible threat of a terror attack that never materialized. German security forces are preparing for multiple, time-staggered attacks against soft targets, modeled on the Paris attacks, according to a secret German government report leaked Thursday. The US government, which did so much to arm, train and mobilize the extremist groups out of which ISIS emerged, has also signaled its determination to deepen its military and covert operations in Indonesia in the wake of the attacks. An official statement from the US National Security Council declared Thursday: The United States is strongly committed to our strategic partnership with Indonesia and will stand by the Government of Indonesia as it works to bring those responsible for this barbaric terrorist attack to justice US Secretary of State John Kerry also condemned the attack, telling media that the US and Indonesia stand united in our efforts to eliminate those who choose terror. In a telling irony, Kerry delivered his remarks during a joint appearance with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, whose government has played a central role in US efforts to mobilize jihadist forces on behalf of its wars for regime change in Libya and Syria. Despite the media presentation of the Jakarta killings as representing a sudden outbreak of terrorism in the region, groups with links to US and Saudi-backed terror networks have carried out attacks across Southeast Asia for more than a decade, providing a useful cats paw on behalf of Washingtons drive to dominate the Asia-Pacific. The Islamist militia Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), which calls for a pan-Asian Islamic State and is linked into the broader Al Qaeda financial network, itself a splitoff from covert networks run by US, Saudi and Pakistani intelligence, has repeatedly carried out attacks, including the 2002 Bali bombings and 2009 Jakarta terror attacks against a number of luxury hotels. Like those attacks, the latest atrocity in Jakarta will be seized on to promote the US agenda of militarism and security crackdowns throughout the region. From the official beginning of the Bush administrations Global War on Terror, Southeast Asia was considered a crucial war front by the American political and military elites. A 2001 RAND Corporation study, The Role of Southeast Asia in US Strategy Toward China, called for the US to increase its military engagements with Southeast Asian states and develop a more robust and diversified network of access arrangements, along with strengthened military ties with the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam. The expanding US regional power network should focus on both deterring and preparing for a possible Chinese challenge, RAND wrote. With ever greater recklessness, the US ruling class is seeking to project power onto crucial pressure points around Eurasia. Washington is increasingly compelled to revive the hub and spoke system of alliances between Washington and the regional powers that, after World War II, served as the primary vehicle for the US and allied governments to prosecute counterinsurgency campaigns against communist guerrilla forces, Asia Matters for America noted in its 2014 study, An Emergent US Security Strategy in Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia is already witnessing the emergence of an incipient coalition in support of US security strategy, Asia Matters wrote. Rather than the supposedly novel threat of terrorism in the region, the real lesson of Thursdays bloodletting is that Indonesia, which straddles the main transit route between the Indian and Pacific Oceans at the Straights of Malacca, will be a central target of this agenda. (Photo: Thinkstock) By Candice Choi, AP Food Industry Writer NEW YORK (AP) Fast food is becoming a dirty term. As smaller players challenge fast-food chains like McDonalds and Burger King, theyre fighting to set themselves apart by describing their food as fast-casual, fine casual, fast crafted and even fan food. Thats even though they follow the same basic format: People standing in a line to order and pay a cashier for their food. MORE: Surprise Winner in Hamburger Taste Test The new phrases are being embraced as companies try to position their offerings as fresher or higher quality to distance further their menu items from the stigma that fast food is greasy, cheap and unhealthy. Even traditional fast-food chains acknowledge they have an image problem. McDonalds Corp. has said it wants to transform into a modern, progressive burger company. And Yum CEO Greg Creed has noted the need for the companys Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut chains to redefine the meaning of fast food, which is seen as industrial and impersonal. (Photo: AP) In the meantime, others are cooking up phrases to telegraph that they are anything but fast food. Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. and Panera Bread Co. are widely referred to in the industry as fast casual chains, a term meant to convey that they serve dishes that are in line with what people might find at a casual, sit-down restaurant. Shake Shack, the New York City-based burger chain, took it a step further last year when it declared itself to be fine casual. MORE: McDonalds Employees Reveal 15 Secrets About Working There In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Shake Shack explained: Fine casual couples the ease, value and convenience of fast casual concepts with the high standards of excellence in thoughtful ingredient sourcing, preparation, hospitality and quality grounded in fine dining. Story continues Even Arbys, whose food has been mocked on The Daily Show by former host Jon Stewart, is trying to change its image and has started calling itself fast crafted. Chris Fuller, a spokesman for Arbys, said the chain came up with description after holding Brand Camp meetings with employees around the country in 2014. Workers were given cards with the names of restaurant chains, and told to lay them out in order, with fast-food representing one end and fast casual representing the other end. Arbys always fell somewhere in the middle, Fuller said. Food Hack: How to Double the Size of Your Burrito at Chipotle As a result, he said the chain realized it offered the convenience of fast-food, but also offers that made-for-your care with its sandwiches. When asked how he thought Stewart might react if he were still on The Daily Show, Fuller said: I think he would come up with his own term, but Im sure he would have some fun at our cost. Everything on In-N-Outs Secret Menu, Ranked Arbys isnt alone, of course. Del Taco says it considers itself to be QSR-plus, a reference to the industry term quick service restaurant thats used to refer to fast-food. And Dairy Queens tag line is Fan Food Not Fast Food. Allen Adamson, founder of BrandSimple Consulting, said the trend shows the term fast-food has become the death star of the industry. The 10 Best Fast-Food Breakfasts, Ranked Adamson noted there was a time when the idea of getting food quickly was a unique concept, but that restaurants can no longer rely on speed alone to attract customers. Everything can be fast today. What you want to communicate is something more desirable, he said. The GOP debate crowd in North Charleston, S.C., repeatedly booed Donald Trump on Thursday night as he again questioned Sen. Ted Cruzs eligibility for the presidency. If you become the nominee, who the hell knows if you can even serve in the office? Trump said, renewing his allegations that Cruz is not a natural-born citizen under the Constitution because he was born in Canada. Cruz dismissed the argument, saying its straightforward that he counts as natural born under current immigration law. Cruz blamed his former law professor, Lawrence Tribe whom he described as a left-wing judicial activist Harvard law professor for stirring up the controversy about his eligibility. The Supreme Court has never ruled on the issue of whether a person born outside the country to a U.S. parent counts as a natural-born citizen. Cruz also suggested that Trump, who last September dismissed the issue of his eligibility, was motivated to attack him because of his rising poll numbers. Since September, the Constitution hasnt changed, but the poll numbers have, Cruz said. The two got into a heated back-and-forth, with Cruz saying that Trumps mother was born in Scotland, which under one definition of natural-born might exclude him from eligibility. Im not going to use your moms birth against you, Cruz said. Trump shot back: Because it wouldnt work. You have great constitutional lawyers who say he cant run, Trump insisted. Im not bringing a suit, I promise, but the Democrats are going to bring a lawsuit. Cruz suggested wryly that if Trumps theory is correct and hes ineligible, it could benefit the real estate mogul. If this all works out, Im happy to consider naming you as vice president, and if you happen to be right, you can get the top job at the end of the day, the Texas senator joked. For much of the night Thursday, the sixth Republican presidential primary debate was a split-screen competition, with two pairs of candidates fighting separate battles. As Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz slugged it out for the top spot in the Republican presidential primary polls, the two men competing to represent the establishment wing engaged with each other. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie hope to emerge as the champion of Republican voters who do not like Cruz and Trump. In New Hampshire, for example, support in the polls for Rubio, Christie, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Ohio Gov. John Kasich amounts to 42 percent. Trump leads the pack, but with only 30 percent. Each of the four hopes to be the one to break out of the pack and emerge as the alternative to Trump and Cruz. So each has been taking shots at the others, but Rubio and Christies broadsides at each other have been particularly harsh. Late in the debate, Cruz and Rubio clashed as they did onstage last month on immigration. But the fight that matters most to Rubio now is with Christie, and it will likely get more intense as the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses and the Feb. 9 New Hampshire primary approach. SLIDESHOW The 6th GOP debate >>> Debate moderator Neil Cavuto of Fox News asked the two Republicans about their recent back-and-forth, in which Christie charged that Rubio was trying to slime his way to the White House, and a super-PAC supporting Rubio portrayed Christie as a liberal in step with President Obama. Rubio noted after saying that he liked Christie that the governor supported the Common Core education standards and gun control, and that he had once, years ago, made a personal donation to Planned Parenthood. All Im saying is: Our next president has to be someone that undoes the damage Barack Obama has done to this country. It cannot be someone that agrees with his agenda, Rubio said. Cavuto asked Rubio if he considered Christie a liberal. Rubio stopped short of saying he did, but repeated many of his charges and added one more, that Christie supported Obamas nomination of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Story continues Unfortunately, Governor Christie has endorsed many of the ideas that Barack Obama supports, whether it is Common Core or gun control or the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor or the donation he made to Planned Parenthood, Rubio said. Our next president, and our Republican nominee, cannot be someone who supports those positions. Christie flung back at Rubio the Florida senators own response to Bush when the former governor attacked him in an earlier debate. At the time, Rubio said that Bush was simply doing what political consultants told him to do, because he was slipping in polls. I stood on the stage and watched Marco, rather indignantly, look at Governor Bush and say, Someone told you that because were running for the same office, that criticizing me will get you to that office, Christie said, leaning on his rostrum and looking at Rubio. It appears that the same someone has been whispering in old Marcos ear too. Christie disputed Rubios charges. I didnt support Sonia Sotomayor, he said. Secondly, I never wrote a check to Planned Parenthood. And he listed steps he said he had taken to veto gun control measures: vetoes of a 50-caliber rifle ban, a clip-size reduction plan and a statewide ID system proposal. Common Core, he said, has been eliminated in New Jersey. Christie went on to dismiss Rubios accomplishments as a senator What you get to do is just talk and talk and talk and then mocked him for changing his tone after they became rivals. Christie came back to his charge that Rubio was changing his stripes and abandoning his high-minded tone of a few months ago. I like Marco too, and two years ago, he called me a conservative reformer that New Jersey needed, Christie said. That was before he was running against me. Now that he is, hes changed his tune. But Rubio failed to press his attack on several points where Christie would seem to be vulnerable. In 1994, Christie did say he had donated money to Planned Parenthood, but now says he was misquoted. He was pro-choice in the early 1990s, but says he changed his views after hearing his daughters heartbeat in utero. In the early 1990s, Christie supported an assault-weapons ban, but now admits hes changed his mind. He defended Common Core as recently as 2013, but last year abandoned this position. On Sotomayor, Christie said he wouldnt have nominated Sotomayor, but did say, I support her confirmation. Late in the debate, as Cruz and Rubio debated tax policy, Christie interrupted to tout his own experience as a governor and once again reinforce his experience as a state executive in contrast to Rubios job as a lawmaker in a body of 100 senators. And he punctuated it with a dismissive put-down. Id like to interrupt this debate on the floor of the Senate, Christie said. He reminded the audience that the question had been about entitlements, and said he wanted to talk about that subject, projecting an air of exasperation with Cruz and Rubio for not addressing the topic at hand. When Rubio started to say that he would be happy to talk about entitlements, Christie brought him up short. You already had your chance, Marco. You blew it, Christie thundered. HMV's Galway store will close at the end of this month, it has been announced. It's been just over two years since a number of HMV stores in Ireland were reopened under new owners Hilco, with the Galway branch among several regional branches to reopen in September 2013. As they announced yesterday, however, they will close on January 31st and urged customers with gift cards to call in before then to use them. There is no word as yet on whether other stores nationwide are to follow suit. We've got some terrible news today. Our store is closing on the 31st of jan. Anyone with giftcards please call into the store. YYYY HMV Galway (@HMVGalway) January 14, 2016 We'd like to take this opportunity to thank all our customers from the old store to the new one. YY HMV Galway (@HMVGalway) January 14, 2016 Let's face it: Metallica's track record with fan relations hasn't always been fantastic - particularly since the whole 'Napster' fiasco back in 2000 that saw drummer Lars Ulrich hand over 300,000 names of fans that had downloaded their songs from the file-sharing service. Now, they've found themselves in a bit of hot bother after it was revealed that they sent a 41-page 'cease and desist' letter to Canadian tribute band Sandman, who were ordered to "stop using the name Metallica, or any of Metallica's logos on or to identify or promote live musical performances through [their] Facebook and YouTube pages". The move drew negative comments from some fans, who admonished the band for preventing Sandman from promoting their music in a positive light. However, in a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Metallica clarified that the letter was the fault of an 'overzealous attorney'. "We hear that a Canadian Metallica tribute band is a little upset with us and with a little digging, figured out why," they said. "It turns out that a certain letter was delivered to the band Sandman that neither we nor our management were aware of until it surfaced online. "Lucky for us, the band was kind enough to post it for us to see, and it turns out that we have a very overzealous attorney who sent this letter without our knowledge." Ulrich allegedly phoned Sandman frontman Joe Di Taranto to apologise and the Metallica urged them to "file the letter in the trash." She is the very best of Hallies: I loved this scene, because she went and brought each kitchen item, one by one, and set it up before climbi... The original concept of supranational democracy for Europe brought long-lasting peace to the Continent. EU's founder Robert Schuman described democracy as being in the service of the people and acting in agreement with the people. What's going on today? See also www.schuman.info and http://democracy.blogactiv.eu . For official diocesan information please click the diocesan logo on the right. to Bishop David's blog. Here you can find news, information, articles and pictures about the Church of England Diocese in Europe. We have over 300 congregations or worship centres serving Anglican and (mostly) English-speaking people in Europe, Morocco, Turkey, Russia and some central Asian countries. Appliance makers getting smart Updated: 2016-01-15 07:45 By Xu Jingxi(China Daily Europe) Chinese home appliance makers are forging tie-ups with technology companies to gain an innovation edge in smart products. Midea Group, based in Foshan, Guangdong province, announced it would research and develop smart appliances in March 2014. So far, it has made such products across 30 categories, from electric cookers to air conditioners, and launched an app to connect them. The company expects its intelligent products to account for half of sales in 2016, says Li Qiang, head of Midea's Research Institute for Smart Homes. Salespeople inspect Haier 3-D smart televisions during preparations for the opening at an electrical appliances store in Nanjing, Jiangsu province. Provided to China Daily Midea's sales in the first three quarters of 2015 reached 111.37 billion yuan ($16.9 billion; 15.4 billion euros), up 2 percent year-on-year. "R&D for smart home products is a major part of Midea's technological innovation as the company presses ahead with its transformation and upgrades to the Internet age," Li says. The company invested nearly 3 billion yuan in a global R&D center in Foshan in 2014 to incubate smart home products. In December that year, it teamed up with Xiaomi Corp, a major smartphone maker, and seven months later they produced an intelligent air conditioner that can automatically adjust the ambient temperature to suit the body condition as monitored by Xiaomi's wearable device, an electronic bracelet. Midea went on to top Chinese home appliances makers on the Fortune China 500 list in 2015, a year that saw many corporate marriages between players in the manufacturing and IT sectors. For instance, Haier Group forged a link with Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, the world's third biggest smartphone maker, and Gree Electric Appliances Inc, which also makes white goods, linked up with e-retailer JD.com. The Haier-Huawei partnership, formed in August, aims to integrate intelligent modules, interaction between mobile terminals and home appliances, and the sharing of cloud-computing data. The Gree-JD tie-up in December focuses on marketing and online sales. Besides integrating Internet technologies, traditional manufacturers are adopting the new marketing mindsets of their tech-savvy partners. For instance, Galanz Group, a household appliances manufacturer in Zhongshan, Guangdong, promoted the so-called fan economy in 2015 to deepen bonds with its legion of loyal consumers, whom it calls "Tomatoes". Galanz, known for its microwave ovens, organized sales promotions and cooking competitions involving its kitchen appliances. Such activities have an eye on estimates of future market activity. According to a joint report by the China Household Electrical Appliances Association and All View Consulting Ltd, the output value of the smart home industry is forecast to surge to 1 trillion yuan by 2020. The size of the smart home market in China will also expand to nearly 330 billion yuan in 2020, according to Qianjia, a website specializing in intelligent product building, smart home appliances and artificial intelligence. Oddly, the excitement that marks the launch of all kinds of smart products appears limited to makers of home appliances, and does not necessarily translate to a fantastic user experience. A 2014 survey by QQ, a Chinese instant-messaging service, showed 95 percent of 50,338 respondents were interested in a smart home technology, but only 12 percent believed the products on the market meet their expectations. Shen Guanghui, 25, a salesperson at a toy wholesaler in Chongqing, started buying intelligent household appliances in 2014. He described a scenario of his ideal smart home: When he prepares lunch in the kitchen, the airconditioner will "hear" the sounds made by the cooker and automatically start to cool the dining room, while the kettle will start to boil water based on its "memory" of his habit of drinking tea after cooking. "But now, I still need to order most of the so-called intelligent home appliances to do what I want them to do with apps on my cellphone. They are not smart enough," he says. "And different brands have their own apps to control their smart home products, which is inconvenient." xujingxi@chinadaily.com.cn ( China Daily European Weekly 01/15/2016 page27) Chanting the 'glocal' mantra for success Updated: 2016-01-15 08:16 By Cecily Liu In Londoncecily(China Daily) Handling challenges through change is key to success, says BT Global chief Luis Alvarez,CEO of BT Global Services When Luis Alvarez took the helm at BT Global Services in 2012, he was the fourth CEO in four years at the loss-making division. He has since turned the unit around as it accounts for 38 percent of BT's overall revenue, according to the latest figures available and serves about 6,500 firms across more than 170 countries. Central to Alvarez's success has been localization and connectivity that bring localized services to multinational clients through global connectivity. "For example, if a Chinese company was designing clothes for Spain or Italy in the old days, the employees would fly between China and Europe. But now, communication can be achieved with high-definition video conference, to effectively have a bird's-eye view of the dressing room without the need to be there," he said. Its initial China strategy was to mainly service its multinational clients which had established a presence in China, but this changed in recent years as its client base is increasingly consisting of Chinese firms with an eye to expand globally. His China team has grown from a handful of employees in 1995 to more than 300 today, who work across offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Dalian. Recently, Alvarez spoke to China Daily about his business plan in China, management style and personal life. The following are edited excerpts. What are your business' strategies in adjusting to China's latest economic initiatives like the New Normal and Belt and Road Initiative? BT's goal is to provide a better world through the power of communication. We provide connectivity on both voice and data to support our customers to grow their business globally. Due to the regulatory constraints in China, we need to expand more partnerships to reach out to more customers in order to deliver our capabilities. Besides our partnership with China Telecom Corp and China United Network Communications Group Co, we recently signed a partnership agreement with GNET to bring our conferencing solutions into China. China's New Normal and Belt and Road Initiative focus on connectivity and cooperation among countries primarily in Eurasia. We have been servicing and connecting Europe and Asia including China, since BT established its presence in China two decades ago. With the Belt and Road, I believe there will be more business activities between Europe and Asia, which will provide us more business opportunities. How would you comment on the prospects of your company in China in the context of the current economic situation there? Although China's economy has been slowing, we are still optimistic about the prospects in the country. Thanks to the continued investments in China by global multinationals and Chinese companies' aggressive expansion overseas, BT still records strong growth in the China market. Of course, we still hope the regulatory constraints for telecom and related value-added services in China will continue to relax. If this happened, it would certainly attract even more foreign investment into China. And BT would be able to bring a wider range of portfolio and value propositions to the Chinese customers that we are already providing to the customers around the world. In your view, what is the secret of your business' success in China? As a leading global networked IT service provider, BT has a strong capability to think global and act local with our customers. As our customers are growing globally, they need a global standard for better management and planning. At the same time, they also need speed and capability to execute locally. Backed by our strong global infrastructure and portfolio of solutions, we at the same time tap into local resources and have a strong local management team who have deep knowledge and experience to run the business in China. What essential leadership qualities do you consider important when leading your team to grow in the Chinese market? We need strong local talents with overseas exposure. We look for leaders who understand the local market and culture well but also have a global vision so that they are well-equipped to devise the best "glocal" strategy. How do you motivate your international team? We educate our international team about China market trends and demands as well as BT's value propositions and differentiators over our global and local competition. We are confident that BT is very competitively positioned in both the China and global markets. We will continue to grow our business to provide more development opportunities for our international team. How do you handle challenges your team has encountered in China, if any? We handle challenges through change. We change according to external market environment, customer needs and wants. We believe in survival of the fittest and we constantly adapt to external changes to be the best. We have an open and collaborative working culture in BT where teams work together and help each other to overcome challenges What do you think about the Chinese Dream? What are the dreams you have for your company in China? For BT, our dream is that the Chinese government will continue to liberalize and the China market will be more open. This will certainly be conducive to more foreign investment and ultimately benefit people in China. What are your hobbies? How do you spend your time outside of work when you are in China? I really like reading, and I like to keep updated on what is happening in the technology world. I go to the gym and I run - I think you should be fit mentally and physically. And when I am at home, I am learning to play the piano, and I am even spending some time building doll's houses. In China, I love trying different types of Chinese food, and I love to walk around and see all the vibrant activities and markets, which I think is fascinating. What is your life/business philosophy? I think that you have to work with a purpose, and feel that you are really making a contribution, that you have achieved something for your customers, your people, or the society. I like to feel that - that's my business philosophy. And actually I also think there's one life - there aren't moments of "work" and moments of "life" which are contradictory. You just have one sequence of minutes to live, and you need to decide how to spend each second to make it the best it can be. What is the book you are reading now? What is your favorite book? Normally I'm reading more than one book at any time. One of them at the moment is Speed Lead by Kevan Hall. Another one is a Spanish book called The Emperor's Assassins, by Santiago Posteguillo Gmez. I'm also reading Conversations with Myself by Nelson Mandela. In terms of my favourite books, I have two - probably one of the books I like the most, is Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda. The other one is Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa. What kind of "green" lifestyle do you have? I am very careful with how I use electricity, and also do small things such as not using plastic bags in supermarkets. I like to walk or cycle to work as well instead of taking public transport or a car. Name places in China that impressed you most or that you have not been to but want to explore? What was your favorite trip? Three places have impressed me the most. First, the Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an. Second, of course the Great Wall. But my favourite trip in China was probably to see Guilin (Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region) and Lijiang (Yunnan province). I would really like to go to Dalian (Liaoning province), because we have a lot of people working there for BT, and I've been told it's a beautiful place to visit - very culturally diverse, and some beautiful bays. And I would also like to see the surroundings of the Tibet region How do you spend your weekend? I do a bit of work, reading the documents I didn't have time to read properly during the week. I read, I watch films, I go for a run - and I spend a lot of time with my family. liu@mail.chinadailyuk.com COSCO the sole bidder for Piraeus Port stake in Greece Updated: 2016-01-15 08:18 By ZHONG NAN/CHRIS PETERSON(China Daily) China COSCO Shipping Group Co, the country's newly combined and largest shipping company by capacity, has offered 700 million euros ($762 million) and become the sole bidder for a majority stake in Piraeus Port Authority SA, the largest port in Greece after waiting for nearly 18 months. China COSCO Holdings Co, a subsidiary of COSCO Shipping, submitted a formal tender offer to the Greek government earlier this week. COSCO Shipping was one of five industry players, including the Dutch and the US container terminal operators APM Terminals and Ports America Inc, to show an interest in a 67 percent stake in Piraeus Port in June 2014, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Under the proposed deal, COSCO Shipping will invest another 350 million euros once the deal is sealed within five years to improve and upgrade infrastructure facilities in Piraeus Port. COSCO Shipping was the only chosen bidder to receive the notice from the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund, a privatization agency owned by the Greek government, to deliver its tender offer to Greek authorities within a week, after another two shipping rivals withdrew from the race after a prolonged waiting period. A spokesperson for the Greek fund handling the sale did not comment as the process is continuing. COSCO Shipping did not make any comment neither on Thursday. Eager to enhance their earning ability and compete with foreign rivals, China Ocean Shipping Group Co and China Shipping Group Co announced their merger and new management team earlier this month. The COSCO-CSC conglomerate is the world's fourth-biggest container line, with 8 percent of global container freight capacity. Chen Yingming, executive vice-president of Shanghai-based China Ports and Harbors Association, said even though it took a long time for the Greek government to choose the "best buyer" to stimulate its regional economy and local employment, it is worth waiting to invest in the port business, as asset values have fallen sharply under the current industrial climate. "With global trade falling, the shipping industry will continue to face tough times because of stiff competition among international shipping giants. Strategies such as forming alliances and offering lower shipping rates will affect the profitability of the sector in the long run," said Chen. Because the Mediterranean is a key European entry point for Chinese products such as clothing, machineries, household appliances, vehicle parts and industrial yarn, as well as automobiles from Japan and South Korea, Chen said Piraeus Port has more potential to attract international shipping companies to set their regional transit centers and service branches. Dong Liwan, a shipping industry professor at Shanghai Maritime University, said it is highly probable for COSCO Shipping to win the bid, because there has been a notable change in the Greek government's attitude. A winning bid would bring the Chinese company more profits through its port management activities, which would be welcome at a time when bulk cargo rates remain sluggish globally. Contact the writers at zhongnan@chinadaily.com.cn and chris@mail.chinadailyuk.com Tobacco sector contributes more to China's revenue Updated: 2016-01-15 17:45 (Xinhua) BEIJING - The tobacco industry contributed more to China's state revenue in 2015, official data showed on Friday. The sector handed over 1.1 trillion yuan ($170 billion) to public finance last year, up 20.2 percent from the previous year, the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) said. The industry contributed 6.49 percent of state revenue in 2014, and the ratio for 2015 will probably grow again, although the total fiscal revenue data has yet to be released. The monopolistic sector is increasingly important to revenue with steady growth despite intensified government's efforts to control tobacco in public places. The sector generated 1.14 trillion yuan in profits and taxation last year, up 8.73 percent year on year, the STMA data also showed. The world's largest tobacco producer and consumer, China has 316 million smokers, or nearly 30 percent of the total population, a recent official report showed. More than 50 percent of males smoke, while 2.7 percent of females smoke. China's smoking population increased by 15 million in the past five years, the report said. Some health experts have advised that tobacco tax be increased further and all tobacco advertisements and promotions be banned. China EximBank steps up Belt and Road support Updated: 2016-01-15 17:50 By Jiang Xueqing(chinadaily.com.cn) According to the general manager of the Export-Import Bank of China, Dai Peng, they has stepped up financial support for the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative. "China EximBank will strengthen efforts in financial services and product innovations, deepen its cooperation with multilateral financial institutions, and tighten risk control based on the risk assessment of countries along the routes of the initiative," Dai said. At the end of 2015, the bank's outstanding loans to countries along the routes of the Belt and Road Initiative rose 46 percent from the beginning of last year to 520 billion yuan ($79 billion), accounting for 37 percent of its total overseas lending. During the year, China EximBank signed about 500 projects contracts worth nearly 300 billion yuan. The bank currently participates in more than 1,000 projects with a loan balance in 49 countries along the routes of the initiative. The bank specializes in covering a number of fields such as: roads, railways, harbors, power, communications and industrial parks. The bank supported the construction of TajikistanUzbekistan Road, improving the transportation capacity between the southern and northern parts of Kyrgyzstan and shortening the journey to four about five hours. It also initiated the founding of several investment funds, including the China-ASEAN Investment Cooperation Fund, to integrate and guide social capital in support of the Belt and Road Initiative. The first phase of the fund invested 10 projects in member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, mainly covering fields like infrastructure construction, natural resources and the people's livelihood. The projects created opportunities for Chinese companies, products, technologies and standards to go global. Pakistan's Finance Minister Ishaq Dar arrives in China for AIIB meetings Updated: 2016-01-15 21:30 By Chen Yingqun(chinadaily.com.cn) Pakistan's Federal Minister of Finance Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar arrived in Beijing on Jan 15 to attend meetings with banking and financing institutions, particularly the inaugural meeting of the Board of Governors of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to be held over the weekend. Talking to Chinese media, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said that initially there was skepticism about AIIB from some countries, about its role, yet Pakistan believed that the AIIB would play a complementary role and the AIIB is now a reality. He said that Pakistan had been a great supporter of the idea of AIIB right from the beginning and that it will play a complementary role. This region needs roughly seventy percent of the worlds global financing for infrastructure development. Keeping in view the appetite and demand for infrastructure development in this region, AIIB's potential to bridge the need and supply gap of funds needed for infrastructure development in this region is tremendous. Value addition Updated: 2016-01-15 07:41 By Fu Jing(China Daily Europe) A visitor talks with an intelligent robot at an exhibition in Shenyang, Liaoning province, in December. [Photo provided to China Daily] China's stress on innovation will be a major focus at the World Economic Forum in Davos As far back as a decade, China set itself the task of transforming the country into an innovative society by 2020 and a world leader in science and technology by 2050. But as it faces global headwinds amid a slowing economy and the waning of its manufacturing prowess due to rising costs and wages, that task appears even more pressing. As the low-cost manufacturing and export model that served the country so well in the past three decades appears increasingly frayed, the country is pursuing innovation to drive the economy up the value chain and avoid the so-called middle-income trap that has snared many nations. China need only look back at its own history for inspiration. After all, the Middle Kingdom invented the compass, gunpowder, printing and papermaking before losing its technological edge in the past two centuries. It is still far behind almost all major developed economies when in comes to innovation, a tough reality that has led China's leadership to list "innovative development" as the first choice in its policy toolbox while charting the economic roadmap for the next five years. Such initiatives will be at the core of the Jan 20-23 World Economic Forum's summit in Davos, where the main theme is "Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution". Global leaders are expected to share insights and innovations on how best to navigate the future in a fast-paced and interconnected world, where breakthrough technologies, demographic shifts and political transformations have far-reaching societal and economic consequences. Sessions on China's economy and the country's reform and transformation efforts will be organized during the four days, and Chinese Vice-President Li Yuanchao will be joining the gathering of global politicians, business leaders, academics and media leaders. According to the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report 2015-16: "China ranks 28th - unchanged from last year. Its overall performance has barely budged in the past six years. Faced with rising production costs, an aging population, and diminishing returns on the massive capital investments of the past three decades, China must now evolve to a model where productivity gains are generated through innovation and demand through domestic consumption." If that process goes smoothly, China's ranking in measuring innovation levels may rise quickly. The government estimates it is now around the 18-20th place globally based on major ranking indexes. The Global Innovation Index 2015 - co-published by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property - ranked China in 29th place. When the report was first published in 2007, China's ranking was the same. In March, when China's National People's Congress holds its annual session, the national legislators will debate the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), which will detail goals and the roadmap to ramp up innovation. One promising area is the Internet-led industrial revolution worldwide where China can be a leader and build innovative capabilities, say China watchers. China has a mature and sizable information technology market, the world's largest reservoir of research talents and role models such as the so-called BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent), they say, pointing out that the country has already made breakthroughs in strategic areas such life sciences, new materials and, new energy. Charles-Edouard Bouee, global CEO of consulting firm Roland Berger, is one of the optimists. He says the merging of Chinese resources with the global industry ecosystem in past years has geared up the growth of local manufacturing. "China has aggressively built capabilities in high-speed computing, robots, new-energy vehicles and electric equipment," says Bouee. "For now, they are still focusing on the domestic market, but in the next five years I won't be surprised to see another Chinese company like Huawei or Lenovo (both global technology giants)." Bouee bases his confidence on the fact that China has an impressive talent pool, saying its students are among the world's best graduates, especially in engineering. Official figures show that China has a headcount of 71 million in the science and technology sector, with 5.35 million involved in research and development. In the past five years, 1.1 million Chinese graduates educated overseas have returned to China, three times the number between 1980 and 2010. Also, Chinese companies are increasingly buying European companies for their R&D strengths, with the latest example being ChemChina's acquisiton of German industrial machinery KraussMaffei Group for $1 billion (925 million euros) on Jan 11. From an average of $1 billion a year from 2004 to 2008, Chinese investment in Europe surged to $18 billion in 2014. Dennis Pamlin, founder of 21st Century Frontiers in Sweden, a consultancy that has long tracked the development of China and India and how they fare in innovation compared with European powers, says, "It is clear that a new generation of entrepreneurs in China have the confidence to provide world-class ICT (information and communication technology) solutions." Pamlin says the impact of role models such as Alibaba founder Jack Ma cannot be underestimated. "So China is expected to encourage the link between high-tech research, ICT implementation, transformative solutions and sustainable urban development, including in the next five-year plan," he says. Niels B. Christiansen, CEO of Denmark-based Danfoss, a global business that offers heating and cooling solutions both for industrial and residential purposes, says China needs a new approach to transit its growth model to a higher level by focusing more on innovation. "Going smarter, greener and more global will be some of the key components for China to succeed in this grand strategy for transition." Li Yan, CEO of Beijing Weipass Panorama Information Technology Co Ltd, which offers payment and transfer solutions, says one key advantage China has over other countries is the largest number of industrial clusters of high-tech electronic device manufacturing, which allows high levels of skill integration. "For example, you can find all kinds of components and materials very easily in Shenzhen, and also lots of well-trained professional workers. That is why tech giants such as Apple make China their manufacturing base," Li says. "That is not just an advantage of cheap labor, but the industrial clusters formed over these decades." China has 146 national high-tech parks and 2,500 incubators, in which about 100,000 companies are in high-tech businesses. Li also says many new Chinese hi-tech companies have their own tech innovation and unique business models. Pamlin says China has built key ICT infrastructure and allowed the use of smart high-tech solutions in a way that makes a rapid transition to a smart society possible. It has also encouraged the new generation to use new technology in ways that support the transition to more sustainable lifestyles. "Now the challenge is, as it is all over the world, more on the organizational and cultural side," he says. He also says the use of dematerialized solutions, more teleworking, co-sharing, investments in smart buildings that are net producers of renewable energy and a focus on nonmaterial goods among the richer parts of society will require new role models as well as new policy frameworks. "It is important to review current structures and incentives for business, but maybe more important to question current images of a successful life and see how sustainable lifestyles can drive innovation and allow 9 billion people to live a good life." Pamlin warns that the major obstacle for China is to avoid only following best practices from the West and exploring "next practice", solutions that no one else has implemented. Gao Shuang contributed to this story in Brussels. fujing@chinadaily.com.cn R&D spending by China The government set a target of taking research and development spending to 2.2 percent of GDP from 2011 to 2015, but it fell short of the goal, reaching the highest annual ratio of 2.1 percent in 2015. In 2014, the government spent 263.6 billion yuan; businesses, 981.7 billion yuan; and other sectors, 56.3 billion yuan. The breakdown for 2015 is not available. The government is expected to set a target of 2.5 percent for five years starting 2016, according to Wan Gang, minister of science and technology. Workers for Lianyugang Zhongfu Lianzhong Composites Group check the quality of wind turbine blades. Experts say China has already made breakthroughs in strategic areas such as new energy. [Photo by Geng Yuhe / For China Daily] ( China Daily European Weekly 01/15/2016 page1) Two-child policy to add 30m workers Updated: 2016-01-15 07:43 By Shan Juan(China Daily Europe) Xue yaqing, 6, holds her brother on New Year's Day at No 1 Hospital in Xiangyang, Hubei province. The newborn is the second child of a couple from the city in Central China. [Photo / Xinhua] Scrapping one-child policy should help China ease challenges of an aging society The scrapping of the one-child policy is expected to add more than 30 million people to China's working-age population by 2050, helping the nation avoid a looming labor shortage, a senior family planning official has said. The number was revealed by Wang Pei'an, deputy director of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, at a news conference on Jan 11 held by the State Council Information Office. The size of China's labor force aged 15 to 59, which has continued to dwindle since peaking at 940 million in 2012, is forecast to be 700 million in 2050, thanks to the two-child policy. "There is an irreversible downward trend in the size of the working-age population, and the entire population, but the new two-child policy will help to slow the decrease," says Yuan Xin, an expert in population studies at Nankai University. The Chinese government late last year announced it was scrapping its one-child policy, which had been in place since the late 1970s, on Jan 1, and the new policy came into force. Leaders are also discussing other policies, such as delaying the retirement age and improving the quality of human resources, to help sustain a high-efficiency labor force as it grows older. According to Wang, the two-child policy also will help address challenges of the rapidly aging population. Without the policy, the number of people age 60 and older would make up 25.7 percent of the population by 2030. The policy is expected to lower that number by 2 percentage points. In view of all this, "China still has a large enough labor force to sustain economic development", Yuan says. At the news conference, Wang said, "The quality of the population, rather than the quantity, matters most in the current situation. We need to improve the quality of the entire population, particularly the workforce." China's total fertility rate - the number of children an average woman gives birth to in her lifetime - is now 1.5. That is expected to peak by 2018 due to the relaxed family planning policy, with a population replacement level of 2 to 2.1, and then gradually decrease, Yuan says. The population would then be expected to drop, as the fertility rate would be below the replacement level. According to scientists, China's population will begin to dwindle from a peak of 1.45 billion in about 2030. Without the two-child policy, Wang estimates that the peak year would come about two years earlier. By 2050, the policy is expected to help add at least 150 million people, with a total population of 1.38 billion. shanjuan@chinadaily.com.cn (China Daily European Weekly 01/15/2016 page14) Chinese science enters Nobel zone Updated: 2016-01-15 07:41 By Fu Jing(China Daily Europe) Xue Lan, dean of the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University, says there are areas in which China can strengthen its scientific structure to make even more progress and recognition possible.[Photo by Fu Jing / China Daily] After years of significant progress, policy adviser predicts more gifted scientists will win top global recognition More gifted Chinese scientists, especially in physics, new materials and life sciences, are "very likely" in the next five years to see the type of global recognition given 84-year-old Nobel Prize winner Tu Youyou, says a top science policy adviser to the Chinese government. "Tu Youyou has become China's first Nobel laureate in natural sciences last year, and I don't think we will stop here," Xue Lan, dean of the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University, said in an exclusive with China Daily in London during an academic exchange. "Instead, I am confident that, after the painstaking efforts of the previous 10 to 15 years, Chinese scientists, as a whole, already are standouts on global frontiers and have become capable of competing with their global peers." Tu, the 2015 winner of the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, is known for discovering artemisinin, which halved the mortality rate of malaria during the past 15 years. She was recognized with two other scientists, from the United States and Japan, who developed a treatment for river blindness. Xue says such recognition is a testament to China's progress in basic scientific work. Xue says his prediction is based partly on his experience abroad and work tracing global scientific development. His observations cause him to believe global recognition is likely for more than just "one or two scientists". Instead, he sees this potential among a growing group of Chinese scientists. He also says there are areas in which China can strengthen its scientific structure to make even more progress and recognition possible. After earning a doctorate in engineering and public policy in 1991 from Carnegie Mellon University in the US and teaching at George Washington University, Xue returned to China to teach at Tsinghua in 1996. In 2000, he helped found its School of Public Policy and Management. Xue also has been a visiting scholar at the World Bank and Harvard University, where he serves on the advisory board. He also has been an adviser for science and technology policies for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United Nations, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group, and Oxford University. This experience has given him a broad view of global science and technology development. He says it has also enabled him to pick out physics, new materials and life sciences as the areas where recognition is most likely for China. In physics, he says a research team led by his Tsinghua colleague, Xue Qikun, in collaboration with researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Stanford University, reported the first experimental observation of the quantum anomalous Hall effect. According to Tsinghua, this represents an important new phenomenon discovered by Chinese physicists. Xue Lan cited Yang Zhenning, the 94-year-old Chinese-American Nobel Prizewinner in physics as saying that this research outcome should be recognized by the Nobel committee. Also in physics, Xue cites Pan Jianwei, a 46-year-old quantum scientist at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, Anhui province, as a possible Nobel Prize candidate. Pan led a team that won China's top science award, the State Natural Sciences Award (first class) on Jan 9 in Beijing for his team's outstanding discoveries in quantum communications. Xue also says Chinese scientists have made solid progress in the research of new materials science, but he did not cite any individual scientists. "The third area is from life sciences," says Xue, noting that Shi Yigong, a researcher in protein X-ray crystallography and dean of the School of Life Sciences at Tsinghua University, could be a candidate for top recognition. "And encouragingly, even younger researchers in the area have started to show such credentials," he says. Xue says Yan Ning, a life sciences professor who teaches at Tsinghua University, is one of the young candidates for global recognition. Yan got her bachelor's degree at Tsinghua in 2000 and was awarded her doctorate in 2004 from Princeton University in the US. "Yan is not alone, and we have a group of young scientists who already have garnered enough credentials to win recognition at global stage," he says. Xue says China's credentials in basic sciences could turn the country into the world's second-biggest scientific power, after the US. In terms of the number of scientific papers recognized through international citation standards, Chinese scientists produce half of the total of their American peers, but that's a big increase from 2009, when the proportion was one-third. Despite such progress, Xue says China needs to take urgent measures to reform its science and technology research systems to further tap the potential of its talent. "Especially, we need to offer attractive benefits packages to young scientists and researchers to ensure they are carefree and can focus on their research," he says. Right now, China's payment system for scientists and those in knowledge-intensive sectors are still rigid and the levels are low, he says. "Their contributions are calculated and paid in a way similar to the payment for construction workers, and this is surely not reasonable." Xue has urged the government to boost incomes and make sure compensation is in the form of annual salaries for those in knowledge and creative sectors, such as professionals at universities, research institutions and hospitals. "Such reform would allow young scientists to be rid of their worries, and their talent and potential would be more fully accessible," he says. "Now, most of them are still not living a decent life." Xue says he shared his suggestions with Premier Li Keqiang at a recent meeting in Beijing, when Li invited him to join several distinguished foreign experts, including Nobel economics laureate Joseph Stiglitz and economist Jonathan Woetzel with the Shanghai office of McKinsey & Co, to offer advice on China's development programs for the coming five years. "Premier Li echoed my suggestions and said they are important when he shook hands with me after the discussion," says Xue, who is on a panel of experts for China's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) dealing with national economic and social development, which is expected to be endorsed by the National People's Congress in March at its annual session. Xue has been requested to give such advice for the top leadership on several occasions, and he is also seen as a key expert in China's designated strategic industries, such as life sciences, new materials, new energy, the Internet and electric automobiles. In the next five years, he says, China needs to work on turning its research capacity into a bigger force for improving the country's productivity, competitiveness and profit-making capabilities. "In contrast to our growing research credentials in basic sciences, we still fall short in industrial innovations, which allow our businesses to become multinationals," he says. Xue says he can count on his fingers the Chinese companies with global fame. He says Huawei, a telecommunications company, is an excellent example of one that attaches great importance to research and development. "Apart from Huawei, you cannot easily name others that could be called real global brands in the high-tech sector," he says. "So obviously it is urgent to speed up market-oriented reforms, offer incentives, protect intellectual rights, and turn research outcomes into products and brands." fujing@chinadaily.com.cn ( China Daily European Weekly 01/15/2016 page7) Manned lunar mission moves a step closer Updated: 2016-01-15 07:43 By Zhao Lei(China Daily Africa) China has developed the manufacturing techniques for a key part to be used on its super-heavy rocket that will fulfill the nation's manned missions to the moon. The China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, working with other Chinese institutes, has developed a super-large interstage ring to be used to connect stages of the rocket, tentatively called the Long March 9. The development was announced in a news release by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, the country's major space contractor. The release says an interstage ring is a key component in a multistage rocket, and that those used on China's current rockets were made in sections before being assembled. In contrast, the ring on the Long March 9 will be made through a casting method that produces it in one piece. The academy has begun preliminary research on the Long March 9. The work has been approved by the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, which is in charge of the nation's space programs. According to sources at the academy, it plans to take up to five years to design and develop a liquid oxygen/kerosene engine with 460 metric tons of thrust and a oxygen/liquid hydrogen engine with 220 tons of thrust. The rocket will have a launch weight of 3,000 tons and is scheduled to make its maiden flight around 2030, the sources said, adding that it would play a key role in helping to land astronauts on the moon. The Long March 9's technical specifications have still to be disclosed. But Li Tongyu, head of aerospace products at the academy, says its diameter and height will be much greater than those of the Long March 5, which is undergoing final tests and will make its first flight soon. The Long March 9's thrust will also be much stronger, Li says. "Our current launch vehicles, including the Long March 5, will be able to undertake the country's space activities planned for the next 10 years, but they will not have the capacity to carry out the nation's long-term space programs," according to Li. Li Jinghong, deputy chief designer of the Long March 3A at the academy, cites technical estimates stating that the Long March 5 would require four launches to propel a manned mission to the moon, while the Long March 9 would need only one. The senior engineer also says that the Long March 9 would not be used solely for lunar missions, hinting that it would be required for other deep-space exploration projects. Tian Yulong, secretary-general of the China National Space Administration, says it has started preliminary research on a Mars exploration program. zhaolei@chinadaily.com.cn (China Daily Africa Weekly 01/15/2016 page14) Spreading the word Updated: 2016-01-15 07:44 By Mei Jia(China Daily Europe) Pathlight magazine introduces contemporary Chinese literature and is published in several languages including German, Russian, Italian and English (clockwise). Provided to China Daily With new editions in different languages, a Chinese magazine is taking the country's contemporary literature to the world Son of a robber, a betrayed woman and a lonely boy. When he read stories of these characters in the first German issue of Pathlight magazine, Enrico Brandt, cultural affairs officer at the German embassy in Beijing, says he could feel their pain as they faced society's cruelty. Launched last month, the first of its kind literary magazine is tailor-made for German readers of today's Chinese literature by the editorial team of the parent Chinese magazine, People's Literature. Two issues have also been published in French and Italian, and one each in Russian and Japanese. Newer versions are in development in seven additional languages, including Spanish, Arabic and Korean, according to the magazine's editor-in-chief, Shi Zhanjun. A seminar on the French version is planned in Beijing on Jan 21. Born soon after the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, People's Literature magazine began as a record of contemporary Chinese literary life, and soon became a cradle that witnessed the birth of generations of renowned writers. Shi tells China Daily that the multilingual twist of the top Chinese literary magazine was "triggered by the many invitations we got from the countries". He sees it as a breakthrough when compared with his past experience of having seen translated Chinese novels placed in foreign bookstores under the category of "sociology". "There was too much misunderstanding. All we want to do through Pathlight is to share with the global audience how ordinary Chinese people nowadays might feel and react toward the world," Shi says, and "that Chinese literature is about good stories and good language." Shi believes literary exchanges should be an intimate chat with full mutual respect, not deferential pandering by one side to the other. "When it comes to Chinese literature's global publishing, instead of waiting for the foreign publishers to pick and choose, Pathlight offers another efficient way in which we have the initiative," says Liang Xiaosheng, a writer and professor with Beijing Language and Culture University. The English version is the first of the series of international editions. Launched in 2011, it's a quarterly that's been redesigned from the cover to the illustrations to suit global tastes. With no example to follow, Shi says the team has not rushed, but was willing to go back and forth to find whatever worked, even if it meant changing one cover photo over 10 times, until they finally sent someone out to the Sanlitun area of Beijing to capture the perfect moment. Concentrating on one theme for each issue, it features short stories, novellas and poems by contemporary writers, especially from younger generations. "The form of a collection of short stories and poems is different than that of a novel. It gives more authors the opportunity to reach foreign readers, and at the same time, gives the readers a better overview of the current literary landscape in China," says Gong Yingxin, director of the German Book Office Beijing of the Frankfurt Book Fair. To publishing consultant Wang Jing, the key is to have the cross-cultural editorial team work together, combining the strengths of translators, scholars and critics who are either native speakers of English or Chinese. "Pathlight is lucky to work together with Eric Abrahamsen from the beginning," Wang said at a Beijing Language and Culture University forum last month discussing the magazine's good reception. Abrahamsen, from the US city of Seattle, is the winner of the 2015 China Special Book Award for his contributions in promoting Chinese literature. He also started a translators' agency, Paper Republic. "We definitely tend to aim at younger writers, and those with more unique voices. We're not really concerned with the status of the writers inside China, we're mostly just interested in their ability to write," Abrahamsen says, adding that that is where his team sometimes comes into conflict with their Chinese partners. The editors of both languages pitch themes and select works together, ensuring the final choices have quality and also appeal to the targeted readers. "The process of editing always takes longer than we expect at the beginning," Gong says, recalling the birth of the first German issue. The other versions, which are all annual, follow the English edition. Each of them has one Abrahamsen counterpart who is an arbiter of the taste of that audience's readers, according to Shi. For Italian, it's Lisa Carducci; for the Swedish language, it's Anna Gustafsson Chen. The first German version features 18 writers on the theme of "thinking". "Thinking of ordinary people in the process of radical social changes - it is about humanity, not necessarily the 'Chineseness' of the characters. I think the readers are very satisfied with the magazine and would like to read more," Gong says. While counselor Brandt is looking forward to reading more about Chinese women, youngsters and sci-fi from Pathlight, the French version, titled Promesses Litteraires, offers works of only female writers in its debut, and of male writers born after the 1960s for the second issue. Zhang Wei and a writer of animal stories, Hei He, are featured in the spring issue of the English edition, dedicated to nature. The magazines are now available at universities, some public libraries and the Confucius Institute worldwide. Shi and the team are also working on online versions. "I think from the very beginning Pathlight was good as a magazine, but most of the experimentation and adjustment that we've done over the years has been trying to make the magazine more visible, and more accessible," Abrahamsen says. "I hope it will reach more after gaining recognition first from the professional readers, like reporters, writers and scholars," he adds. According to the latest data from the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, China bought 16,918 overseas copyrights in 2014 while selling 10,171. Exports of publishing copyrights have increased by a factor of 6.5 compared with 10 years ago, striking a better balance. The Pathlight's experience would have been a different story back in the 1980s, when China began publishing translated works on a large scale, and there was little demand for reading on China, says Dai Jinhua, a Peking University professor. "Now with the backdrop of China rising, I think we'll have a series of new stories to tell the world, offering our values and a new perspective of thoughts through our literature and culture," Dai says. meijia@chinadaily.com.cn Book on an only child has a crowded fanbase Updated: 2016-01-15 07:44 By Yan Donjie(China Daily Europe) The book The Only Child follows the adventures of a young girl on the way back home. Provided to China Daily In her first effort, Chinese illustrator has hit based on her childhood experiences A Chinese illustrator's debut book, which was inspired by her experiences as an only child, has been named as one of the best children's books of 2015. The Only Child by Guo Jing has received critical acclaim and was selected from thousands of titles for best-of lists published by The New York Times and the Washington Post. Released in the United States in December, the book sold out on Amazon within two weeks, although as the author explains, "That's partly because only 10,000 books were printed for the first edition. A second edition will be printed soon." The pencil-drawn story follows the adventures of a young girl who falls asleep on a bus and gets lost in a forest, where she meets a flying deer, a whale and a seal that help her return home. "It's not just a tale of fantasy; it also reflects the lonely life of an only child in China in the 1980s," says Guo, 32, who based the story on her experiences growing up in Taiyuan, Shanxi province. One day, she recalls, her father was in a rush to get to work and had left her at a bus stop to travel to her grandparents' home. Like her character in The Only Child, Guo fell asleep on the way. When she awoke and got off the bus, she was in an unfamiliar forest. "I felt scared and extremely lonely," she says. Guo only started to draw the book only three years ago while working in Singapore as an illustrator. To complete it, she quit her job and moved back to her hometown. China's one-child policy, which was officially scrapped in 2015, had been in place since the late 1970s. According to estimates by demographer Yi Fuxian, the policy has meant that more than 200 million people grew up as the only child in their family. However, despite the fact many Chinese would likely empathize with main character, Chinese publishers originally rejected The Only Child when Guo sent out her sketches in 2014. Eventually, she was offered a deal by Schwartz and Wade, an arm of American publishers Random House. The company also nominated the work for the New York Times children's book list, which is used as a reading guide by many parents. The work has been compared with that of Chinese-Australian painter Shaun Tan, as well as Raymong Briggs' The Snowman. After seeing the response in the US, Guo says about 20 Chinese companies contacted her and offered to publish her work. As a result, The Only Child will soon be released in her homeland through China Citic Press. Although busy with media interviews and e-mails from readers, the artist is now working on her second book, "which might be about a big-mouthed girl". Guo says she is now more confident about expressing herself and creating her own unique artistic language. "I used to think art is what you do for the audience, but I finally understand now that art is what you express out of your heart," she says. yandongjie@chinadaily.com.cn Expert analysis Guo Jing drawings show a lonely child playing with imaginary animals, which in psychological terms here are "transitional objects". These animals are actually a substitute for company when the painter feels alone. The family planning policy introduced by China in the late 1970s has helped prevent a sharp population increase, but it also seems to have had a psychological impact on the generations that followed. Compared with children with siblings, the only child is less willing to share and is more self-centered. Data suggest that those born in the 1980s (after 1985 especially) are more likely to have depression, insecurity or overconfidence. I believe the two-child policy, which was announced in late 2015, will have a positive effect on future generations. I'm even looking forward to a three-child policy, which I feel is a more optimal number of children for a family. Apart from a sense of sharing, children are more capable of coping with adversity in school and society if they have experience competing and quarreling with siblings. Hu Deng, director of Renmin University of China's Counseling Center A long history runs through it Updated: 2016-01-15 07:46 By Andrew Moody(China Daily Europe) Dominic Ziegler, Asia editor of The Economist, believes that Heilongjiang River has had a major role in defining the relationship between two neighbors that are culturally different. [Photo by Nick J.B. Moore / For China Daily] Heilongjiang River is the backdrop for author's exploration of the Sino-Russian relationship over the centuries Dominic Ziegler believes major geographical features can be as responsible as people for shaping history. This is one of the themes of his new book, Black Dragon River, about the 4,500-kilometer Heilonjiang River, which forms a large part of the border between Russia and China. He believes it had a major role in defining the relationship between two neighbors that are culturally different. "Before I began research on the book I hadn't been aware just how seminal the river and its terrain was in shaping the relationship between these two countries. Without being too deterministic about it, it was a case of how geography shaped geopolitics." Ziegler, who was speaking at the central London offices of The Economist, where he is Asia editor, says despite being the ninth largest river in the world, few pay it much attention. It is, in fact, longer than either the Congo or the Mekong and drains into a bigger basin than the Yangtze, China's largest river. "For a time it was the longest river I had never heard of. When I was living in China in the 1990s I was constantly in search of wild places but never got there, although I had been up to Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province - just out of reach of it. "It is only when I worked in Japan and flew over it a couple of hours before landing on a flight from London to Tokyo that I resolved to find out more." This eventually involved taking a three-month sabbatical from work and starting his journey on horseback from the river's Mongolian source. His actual trip, which was done in stages, covered a distance of about 10,400 km as part of the river is out of bounds (as a result of it being a border). He also had to make detours through wetlands and take the Trans-Siberian Railway. "I rode up to the source by horse and wanted to follow the river into China, but there was an outbreak of foot and mouth disease so I couldn't." Ziegler says people make the mistake of thinking Russia always had its own far east, but this was largely a result of Cossack interlopers invading territory from the late 16th century onward. "There was this extraordinary and rapid push east by Cossack trappers in the forests for valuable furs, which were known as soft gold. "They had no idea they were moving through lands controlled by the Manchus and were knocking on the back door of the Chinese empire." On his journey, Ziegler traveled to Nerchinsk, where in 1689 a treaty was agreed between Chinese emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynastry (1644-1911) and Peter the Great, the tsar who brought Russia into the modern world. The treaty defined the border between the two countries. It was the first-ever treaty China signed with a Western power and, somewhat curiously, was written in Latin, an agreed neutral alternative to Russian and Manchu. This owed to the presence of Jesuit priests in the Chinese delegation. "The town is still in the middle of nowhere, but at one point in history the two great gargantuan empires in Eurasia spun around each other in this spot," he says. The journalist believes that even today China and Russia have a relatively stable relationship as a result of the treaty. "The two sides negotiated on a basis of real strict equality, which is in contrast to all the later unequal treaties of the 19th century. I think personally, even if both sides are not aware, it still colors the relationship and gives it a grounding." One major breach in the relationship did come in the 19th century. Muscovite Russians became obsessed with stories about the opening up of the American West and had an ambition to turn the Heilongjiang into the new Mississippi. They seized Chinese territory almost equivalent in size of France and Germany combined. They also thought they could bring French cognac and Hawaiian pineapples through the western mouth of the river. "The Russians developed fantasies that their manifest destiny lay in the Pacific. This is a river that freezes half the year and is not navigable for all of its route and even at the mouth there are sandbanks," he says. Ziegler, 54, went to Winchester College and read modern languages at Oxford University before eventually joining The Economist in 1984. He has held various positions, including Washington and Tokyo correspondent as well as China correspondent, based in Hong Kong and then in Beijing, in the 1990s. "It was a fascinating time because Zhu Rongji was premier and pushing through changes such as the first big reform of state-owned enterprises when there was much concern about how much exposure the banks had to those he let go. It was also when the private sector was taking off." Ziegler will be returning to Hong Kong this year to take charge of the magazine's Banyan column on Asian affairs. "I think it will be fascinating to be in China over the next few years, which I think will be critical. "With the economy, there is a trade-off between long-term and short-term growth in pushing through difficult reforms. Slower growth in the short run may mean greater productivity in the long run. The question is whether you can afford to do this in the short run." Back to the Helongjiang River, he believes there is still an awareness in the Russian far east that the real engine of their economy now comes from China in the south. "I think there is a sense of Moscow being far away and (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is just letting them swing, and the area is becoming depopulated." He says the exchanges between the territories above the river and China are now not all economic. "You often see these tall, blonde, long-legged Russian women marrying Chinese men because they see them as both hardworking and drinking less than their own men. They take a pragmatic approach," he laughs. andrewmoody@chinadaily.com.cn Bio Dominic Ziegler Journalist Age: 54 Education Winchester College, 1975-79 MA, modern languages (French and German), Oxford University, 1980-84 Career Joined The Economist as financial reporter, 1986 Finance editor, 1990-91 Washington correspondent, 1991-94 China correspondent, 1994-2000, first in Hong Kong and then opening The Economist's first mainland bureau in Beijing Finance and economics editor, 2001-03 Tokyo bureau chief, 2005-09 Founding Banyan columnist on Asian affairs, 2009-10 Asia editor, 2011-present Hobby, "I sail a traditional working boat, a Bristol Channel pilot cutter built in 1889." Book, Moby Dick by Herman Melville and, more recently, The Silk Road: A New History of The World by Peter Frankopan ("An outstanding and compelling history that made me think differently about the Mediterranean being the cradle of civilization.") Film, Kaos (1984, dir. by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani) Music, Late String Quartets (Opus 127-135) by Ludwig van Beethoven and Argentianin tango musician Anibal Troilo. Food, A good Irish lamb stew and Colcannon with a hole on top for the golden flake. (China Daily European Weekly 01/15/2016 page32) Heart of the law Updated: 2016-01-15 07:44 By Raymond Zhou(China Daily Europe) A minor's shoplifting led to her suicide. It has divided the public into camps of moralists and champions of the law A 13-year-old was caught red-handed stealing a few chocolate bars from a supermarket in Gansu province on Dec 29. The proprietor of the business called her mother to pay the penalty. The mother beat her daughter. Shortly afterward, the girl jumped from a 17-story building. From whichever angle you look at this, it's a tragedy that could've been avoided. The subsequent finger pointing shows a society struggling to come to terms with law and morality. On one end of the spectrum, we have preachers who frame the incident as an-evil-business-owner-vs-a-hungry-girl morality tale. Some even conjure up Jean Valjean, the protagonist of Les Miserables, who was thrown into jail for filching a loaf of bread. "When a child steals food, the whole society is guilty," some argue. The other side of the spectrum belongs naturally to legal purists, who inadvertently belong to the category of Javert, the inspector who relentlessly chases the good guy in the French masterwork. Some go so far to say that the girl "had it coming" because she had violated the law. Let's call them the bleeding heart and the cold heart. But the reality could have been less easily subject to broad strokes in stark black and white. It is true the girl, surnamed Zhao, came from a disenfranchised family whose parents had to work from hand to mouth. But they are by no means unable to purchase food. As a matter of fact, over the past three decades, abject poverty to the degree of hunger has eased dramatically across the nation. I can't say it has completely vanished, but the Zhao family doesn't seem to be suffering from it. To place it in perspective, let's recall another tragedy - arguably a bigger one - when four siblings in Guizhou province killed themselves early last year. It was not poverty per se but the lack of parental care. Their mother ran off, and their father was working elsewhere. They had money stashed away when they drank poison. The same goes for the string of suicides at Foxconn a few years back. Their salaries were markedly higher than similar jobs elsewhere. Yet the media saw them more or less as victims of poverty, so the bosses resorted to salary increases. It takes a lazy mindset to label all social ills "poverty". A society in change is fraught with all kinds of problems. If poverty is the only cause, it'll come to the natural conclusion that raising income is the ultimate solution. Or, to make it simpler, money can buy happiness. One commentator drew another set of lessons, among which was: "One should never steal food even when hungry." I don't agree with that, either. If a child consistently suffers from starvation, the whole society is indeed responsible in some way. Our web of welfare and philanthropy should have prevented such a thing from happening - given our current level of prosperity. Had panhandling not been controlled by the underworld, an underage beggar would get food from street stands or most passersby. And that includes supermarket owners or managers, I'm certain. Chocolate used to be seen as a small luxury in China. It is not a snack that fills your stomach, the way a bowl of instant noodles does. Later reports also said the Zhao girl stole not just candy bars but knickknacks that totaled 150 yuan ($24). Having two small girls of my own, I feel I can empathize with what goes through the mind of a child that age. When shopping with me, they pick stuff that I consider useless, mostly junk food. So I impose a limit, only one item each time. But I have to watch out in case they put things into their pockets - to fool either me or the checkout counter. It takes a while to drum into them that it is wrong and punishable. But the temptation is always there. If Zhao had asked for money from her parents for the things she wanted, she would have been turned down. So, she stole them, which was illegal but forgivable for her age. It would take repeated admonishing for a youngster to understand the concept that stealing is bad, which would eventually become part of her moral fabric. The problem lies with the way she was admonished on that day before the year's end. And I believe it was more the responsibility of the parent than the store manager. Unfortunately, in this case, the parent made a bigger mistake. Some say the manager/owner should not have called her mother, but rather, the police. Since she was a minor, the police would have to call her parent as well. The key, in my opinion, is whether the store treated her in a professional way or the way Chinese traditionally treat a thief, which is akin to lynching. Nobody knows a child better than Mom. When the mother came to pay the penalty, usually set at a rate higher than the value of the stolen goods - by up to 10 times - it was completely wrong for her to vent her humiliation onto the child. Yes, the situation cost the adult face, but she had to bear it in public. The store said its staff stepped in to stop her from beating up the girl. There was one little detail that seemed to have eluded most commentators. Zhao was reported to be a good student in school, earning high scores and general kudos from teachers and fellow students. This made her all the more vulnerable. Had she been a "bad girl" constantly chastised for all kinds of mischievous activities, she might have gained the "thick skin" to withstand the fuss. But she was sensitive. And her mother should have known. Reports, though unconfirmed, say the store, as a result of public pressure, had to pay 850,000 yuan to the girl's parents as compensation. If there's a lesson to be learned for the business and others, I believe it should be empathy. If they'd put themselves in the shoes of the girl or her parent, they may not have stuck so rigidly to the penalty for shoplifting. There should always be room in rules and laws to accommodate human factors. Contact the writer atraymondzhou@chinadaily.com.cn We want your comments and your story tips! geniusofdespair@yahoo.com (use ALL caps in subject line) afarago@bellsouth.net. Actually I never look at my email, Genius, so write to Gimleteye. Talmud Torah Tashbar, an unlicensed haredi school in the Stamford Hill neighborhood of London, operated illegally for 40 years. But now it has been ordered by the British government to close its doors by February 12. Illegal British Haredi School Ordered To Close For Failure To Teach Secular Subjects Shmarya Rosenberg FailedMessiah.com Talmud Torah Tashbar, an unlicensed haredi school in the Stamford Hill neighborhood of London, operated illegally for 40 years. But now it has been ordered by the British government to close its doors by February 12, the Independent reported tonight. The school does not teach any secular subjects even English and failed to meet the minimum standards required by the government. It is illegal in Britain to operate an unlicensed school. The school, which has 200 students, was found to severely restrict the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils in ways that prevent them from developing a wider, deeper understanding of different faiths, communities, cultures and lifestyles, including those of England. Ofsted, the British government schools inspection monitor, repeatedly inspected Talmud Torah Tashbar after it applied to be an officially recognized private school. Those Ofsted reports found that as a matter of religious principle Talmud Torah Tashbar does not allow students to learn English, and fails to provide students with any secular education. Talmud Torah Tashbar failed three yearly inspections from 2012 onward, but no action against it was taken by the government until now. On December 30, Ofsted told the school its application to be an officially recognized and licensed private school had been rejected. The order to close quickly followed. The British Humanist Association welcomed the governments decision to close Talmud Torah Tashbar and called on the Education Secretary to do the same with dozens of other schools, including some Islamic schools, with similar failings. Were glad that the Government has now moved to shut this particular school downHowever, there are clearly many more out there just like it. The situation revealed by these reports is simply outrageous and those in government who have failed to act in the past ought to be ashamed of themselves for standing idly by while thousands of children have their childhoods stolen. Every year, every month, every week that these places are allowed to stay open, a huge number of children remain isolated, indoctrinated, and very likely abused, so we will certainly be writing to the Government to ask that action is taken far more swiftly in the case of other schools than it has been here, a Humanist Association spokesperson said. [Hat Tip: D.O.] A Boeing 777 300-ER, with the new Air France logo, prepares for take-off in Everett, Washington April 10, 2009. REUTERS/Marcus R Donner PARIS (Reuters) - Air France has dropped a so-called "plan B" restructuring plan of job losses that triggered clashes with staff last year in favour of limited expansion, union sources said on Friday. In new plans outlined to the airline's works council, the French unit of Air France-KLM (AIRF.PA) targeted growth in its long-haul network from 2017, they said. The measures are conditional on greater productivity efforts from pilots and cabin crew, they added. Net investments would exceed 1 billion euros by 2020. Air France said it had no immediate comment. The airline said last week it would post a 2015 operating profit for the first time since 2008. (Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Bate Felix) Automobile light streaks are pictured at the American Apparel factory headquarters in Los Angeles, California July 7, 2014. I REUTERS/Jonathan Alcorn By Aurindom Mukherjee (Reuters) - Bankrupt teen apparel retailer American Apparel Inc's (APPCQ.PK) board has rejected the latest takeover offer involving the company's controversial founder, Dov Charney, a source told Reuters. Earlier this week, the Los Angeles-based company received a $300 million bid from a group of investors who are backing the return of Dov Charney. Hagan Capital Group and Silver Creek Capital Partners said their proposal included $90 million of new equity and a $40 million term loan, and backs a business plan from Charney, who was fired as chief executive in December 2014. American Apparel is open to a revised offer from the funds, the source said. (http://bloom.bg/1lbRGeX) Bloomberg reported the news first on Thursday. Hagan Capital Group, Silver Creek Capital Partners were not immediately available for comment. Representatives of Dov Charney declined to comment. American Apparel, which has not been profitable since 2009, filed for bankruptcy in October, joining a list other teen-focused retailers including Wet Seal and Body Central Corp that have struggled with changing tastes. Charney founded American Apparel in 1989, but was fired in December for allegedly misusing company funds and failing to stop a subordinate from defaming former employees. He has denied the allegations. (Additional reporting by Anya George Tharakan in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) By Chris Spink NEW YORK, Jan 14 (IFR) - Argentina's newly installed government has hired sovereign restructuring expert Lee Buchheit as it reopens negotiations to resolve a decade-long battle with holdout investors, sources told IFR. Buchheit's law firm Cleary Gottlieb advised the prior administration of President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner in its standoff with litigant hedge funds. But Buchheit himself was not involved in those negotiations as he had previously advised the Dart family, another holdout investor who had disputed debt payments with Brazil in the 1990s. Such a decision was seen as a mistake given Buchheit's skills in settling quarrels between governments and bondholders. Not only did he help Iceland in its standoff with bank creditors, but he was also the architect of Greece's 200bn exchange offer in 2012 - the largest ever sovereign restructuring. "The new government clearly wanted a different strategy," said one legal expert. "Lee would not have allowed that litigation to happen, I suspect." Another law firm is also to be appointed alongside Cleary Gottlieb, and possibly a financial adviser. Argentina's finance secretary Luis Caputo was in New York to meet with creditors and Daniel Pollack, the special master appointed by the US courts to help broker a solution. The finance ministry said Argentina will propose a solution to the legal battle by the week of January 25, Reuters reported. (Reporting By Chris Spink; Editing by Paul Kilby and Shankar Ramakrishnan) (Adds details on AEP founder, context on investments in Argentine shale) BUENOS AIRES, Jan 14 (Reuters) - State-run energy firm YPF said on Thursday it had signed a preliminary deal worth more than $500 million over three years with American Energy Partners LP (AEP) to explore for shale gas in Argentina's vast Vaca Muerta formation. Argentina sits atop some of the world's largest shale resources but is a net energy importer after years of under-investment in the country's energy sector. YPF says $200 billion over a decade are needed to reverse the deficit. That task has been made more complicated by the rout in global oil prices. The foray into Argentina by American Energy's Aubrey McClendon comes months after the former CEO of Chesapeake Energy Corp hired investment banks to shore up the finances of his Oklahoma-based oil and gas venture. In a statement, YPF said the joint venture involved a pilot project in the Bajada de Anelo block, located in Argentina's Neuquen province that would run until mid-2018. If the project is continued, Pluspetrol and the province-owned Neuquen Oil and Gas would join the venture, exploring the southern zone of another bock Cerro Areno. A company affiliated to American Energy Partners would take up to a 50 percent stake in both blocks. McClendon co-founded Chesapeake Energy in 1989 and turned it into a top U.S. gas producer. He resigned from the company in 2013 following a corporate governance crisis. McClendon went on to form AEP, whose financial backers have included Houston-based private equity firm Energy and Minerals Group. (Reporting by Richard Lough; Editing by Tom Brown and Alistair Bell) (Reuters) - Britain received a final payment of 740 million pounds on Friday from the estate of Landsbanki, an Icelandic bank that collapsed during the 2008 financial crisis. The government has now received 4.6 billion pounds from the Landsbanki estate and litigation cases, a statement from the Treasury said. (http://bit.ly/1RpE65K) Landsbanki had big retail operations overseas, accepting deposits in Britain and the Netherlands under the Icesave brand. When it failed, Iceland's banking insurance scheme was unable to cover those deposits, setting the stage for years of international litigation. (Reporting by Aastha Agnihotri in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza) When did cheap oil become an economic catastrophe? Anybody with a gas tank to fill knows the delight that comes from gassing up for half the cost of a couple years ago. Yet the plunge in oil prices is unnerving financial markets and contributing to a big selloff thats rattling investors. How can something thats supposed to be good for consumers cause so much trouble? The answer has to do with the entanglements between stock, commodity and currency markets, as well as traders trying to guess where markets are heading (and sometimes guessing wrong). But fundamentals still matter, and plunging oil prices remain a net positive for consumers and the U.S. economy. The average household saved $722 in 2015 thanks to lower gas prices, and will save another $217 or so this year, according to forecasting firm IHS. Lower costs for other types of energy, such as heating fuel, add to the windfall. This is free money going into the pockets of most Americans -- better even than a tax cut, which leaves the U.S. government short of revenue that simply got transferred to taxpayers instead. Economists point out that we havent seen a spike in consumer spending commensurate with the extra money in consumer pockets. But falling energy costs still help, anyway. The savings rate has ticked up from 4.4% at the end of 2013 to 5.2%, and more money in the bank makes people more confident about their financial future. Americans also seem to be using some of the savings to pay down debt. So why are plunging oil prices causing havoc in markets? Three basic reasons: First, oil prices can give important signals about things happening in the real economy, and those signals are worrisome right now. Part of the sharp drop in prices is due to falling demand, mostly in China. That means business is down at construction firms and industrial companies, which could indicate that a much-feared property bubble in China might be bursting. The problem is that demand for oil is down at the same time supply is up, and its very difficult to determine how much of the price plunge is due to each factor. So worries based on weak demand could be overblown. Story continues Second, the collapse in oil prices is causing a painful shakeout in the U.S. oil and gas sector, turning an economic bright spot into a bust. Whats unknown is whether an energy recession will remain contained to that industry, or spread further. The oil and gas sector represents slightly less than 5% of U.S. GDP, so the decline does impact growth. On the other hand, drilling regions such as North Dakota and west Texas were booming before the price plunge, so there ought to be some cushion. The third reason has to do with bonds and other securities linked to oil and gas firms. Defaults are already up, and once again, the question is whether distress will stay contained to the industry or spread further. Some analysts worry that defaults on oil and gas bonds could spread to other securities, especially high-yield "junk" bonds. But others think its a great time to buy distressed assets poised to bounce. Mix all of these factors together with currency wars emanating from Asia, confusing signals from the Chinese government and recessions elsewhere, such as Brazil, and its more than enough to temporarily outweigh the benefits of cheap energy. The American consumer is doing relatively well, says economist Chris G. Christopher of IHS. But financial markets dont always react in a sensible way. The newfound importance of oil and gas to the U.S. economythanks largely to fracking and other new drilling technologiesis also changing some longstanding rules about oil prices and prosperity. The old rule of thumb was that a $50 drop in the per-barrel price of oil would boost U.S. GDP by about 1% the following year. But analysis by Citigroup found that when such a plunge happened in 2014 and 2015, it boosted growth by only about one-fifth the expected amount. That may reflect increased exposure to a bust from a U.S. energy sector thats gotten appreciably larger. In the end, Citi concludes that low oil prices are a small net positive for growth, with consumers benefiting at the expense of energy firms. So far in 2016, however, the markets have interpreted cheap oil as a huge negative for growth. Somebodys wrong. Rick Newmans latest book is Liberty for All: A Manifesto for Reclaiming Financial and Political Freedom. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman. Christie Rubio New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) "can't even look me in the eye" while taking shots at his political career during Thursday's GOP debate. "Last night, with the shots being taken at me, and the person taking the shots can't even look me in the eye," Christie said Friday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." He added: "Um, that's not what voters want to see. They want to see you look somebody in the eye and that's what we do every time." Host Joe Scarborough then asked whom Christie was referencing. "Sen. Rubio," the governor replied. He was also pressed on "Fox & Friends" about Rubio's accusations that he had previously supported Planned Parenthood, Supreme Court Justice's Sonia Sotomayor's appointment, and the Common Core curriculum in New Jersey. "Well listen, when you just make stuff up, there's no reason to get upset about it," Christie said. The Newark Star-Ledger wrote in separate instances that Christie supported both Planned Parenthood and Sotomayor's appointment. "You guys should really shred the Star-Ledger by now. ... Whatever you read in the Star-Ledger, you should just think the opposite," Christie told the cast of "Morning Joe." Christie's comments were only the latest in a growing feud between him and Rubio. A super PAC supporting Rubio had ran ads accusing Christie of being too liberal on education and gun control, according to The Washington Post. Christie then told The Post that Rubio "can't slime his way to the White House." At Thursday's Fox Business Network debate, moderator Neil Cavuto gave Rubio a chance to apologize for the attack against Christie. He passed. "I like Chris Christie, but we cannot afford to have a president of the United States who supports Common Core," Rubio said. "We cannot afford to have a president of the United States who supports gun control," he continued, adding that Christie "wrote a check to Planned Parenthood." Story continues Christie then called out Rubio for famously telling former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) during a previous debate that "someone told you that because we're running for the same office, that criticizing me will get you to that office." "It appears that the same someone's been whispering in ol' Marco's ear, too," Christie said. "When you're a senator, what you get to do is just talk and talk. And you talk so much that nobody can ever keep up with whether what you're saying is accurate or not." If you're going to take shots at me, at least look me in the eye. https://t.co/DCgDDSXbkI @Morning_Joe Chris Christie (@ChrisChristie) January 15, 2016 When someone just makes stuff up, there's no reason to get upset. https://t.co/BDJebi0Muk @foxandfriends #GOPDebate Chris Christie (@ChrisChristie) January 15, 2016 More From Business Insider donald trump ted cruz US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and real-estate tycoon Donald Trump sparred extensively during the early portion of Thursday night's Republican presidential debate over Cruz's birth in Canada. Trump has in recent weeks repeatedly brought up questions about Cruz's eligibility to run for president, as Cruz has surged in polls of the first-caucus state of Iowa. When asked about the issue by Fox moderator Neil Cavuto, Cruz accused "my friend Donald" of questioning his eligibility for president only because of that fact and because the real-estate mogul's poll numbers had been sinking. "Back in September, my friend Donald said he had his lawyer look at this from every which way and there was no issue there. There was nothing to this 'birther' issue. Since September, the Constitution hasn't changed. But the poll numbers have," Cruz said to whistles and cheers from the crowd. "And I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling in Iowa," he added. "But the facts and the law here are really quite clear." Cruz then described why many legal scholars thought he was clearly eligible to be president: Because the Texas senator's mother was American at the time of his birth. Cruz said some of what he called the more "extreme" theories on the internet argued that a potential president must have two US parents to qualify for the Oval Office. "On the issue of citizenship, Donald, I'm not going to use your mother's birth against you," he quipped. Trump responded by touting his poll numbers. But he was booed while citing a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, published earlier Thursday, that gave him a 13-point national lead over Cruz. The businessman claimed that the crowd was booing Cruz, not him. "You have a big lawsuit over your head while you're running," Trump said. "And if you become the nominee, who the hell knows if you can even serve in office." Cruz, a former Texas solicitor general who has argued cases before the US Supreme Court, dismissed Trump's ability to argue legal issues with him. Story continues "I've spent my entire life defending the Constitution before the US Supreme Court," Cruz said. "And I'll tell you, I'm not going to be taking legal advice from Donald Trump." He also earned laughter by joking to offer to name Trump as his vice-presidential nominee. Cruz said if he were disqualified from the presidency, Trump then could take over at the top of the ticket. Watch their exchange below: NOW WATCH: Cruz: The birther argument would make Trump ineligible to run for President More From Business Insider China and Japan Add to Worries in the Crude Oil Market (Continued from Prior Part) Crude oil price trend US WTI (West Texas Intermediate) crude oil futures contracts for February delivery are following a long-term bearish trend. Prices are trading close to a 12-year low. The Chinese market collapse and the appreciating US dollar are putting pressure on the crude oil market. Prices are trading within a falling channel. Resistance and support levels Winter demand, lower oil prices, and bottom fishing could push crude oil prices higher. The next resistance level for crude oil prices is $40 per barrel. Prices hit this mark on November 2015. In contrast, record production from OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries), tension in the Middle East, and the appreciating dollar will continue to put pressure on the oil market. Crude oil prices have fallen below the support level of $32 per barrel, which we saw in 2004. Crude oil price forecast downgraded Crude oil prices have fallen almost 20% so far this year, as of the early hours of Asian trade this morning. The fall of oil prices has largely been due to Chinese turmoil, as discussed in the third part of this series. Weak demand cues and oversupply concerns have led to the downgrade of crude oil price forecasts in 2016. Barclays estimates that WTI and Brent crude oil prices will average $37 per barrel in 2016. Scotiabank estimates that oil prices will average $40$45 per barrel in 2016 and $45$50 per barrel in 2017. Similarly, Bank of America suggests WTI and Brent oil could trade at $45 per barrel and $46 per barrel, respectively, in 2016. WTI and Brent crude oil could trade at $59 per barrel and $61 per barrel, respectively, in 2017. Worst case scenario Goldman Sachs (GS) speculates that oil prices could hit $20 per barrel due to oversupply factors. Venezuelas government suggests that oil prices could test $25 per barrel if OPEC resists curbing crude oil production. Morgan Stanley also says oil prices could test $20 per barrel. Standard Chartered goes further and suggests that oil prices could hit $10 per barrel in the worst case scenario. On the other hand, UBS Group is more conservative and suggests that oil prices could test $30 per barrel in the short term. Finally, Iran estimates that crude oil could trade at $35$50 per barrel in 2016. Story continues The historically low oil prices affect global oil giants like PetroChina (PTR), ExxonMobil (XOM), Occidental Petroleum (OXY), Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A), Total (TOT), and Petroleo Brasileiro SA Petrobras (PBR). The ups and downs in the oil market also affect ETFs and ETNs like the iShares U.S. Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (IEO), the Vanguard Energy ETF (VDE), and the VelocityShares 3x Long Crude Oil ETN (UWTI). Read Why Crude Oil Bearish Traders Continued to Celebrate ahead of 2016 to learn more about the crude oil market in 2016. Browse this series on Market Realist: donald trump Real-estate mogul Donald Trump didn't let up on Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) just hours after the pair finished brawling during Thursday night's Fox Business Network presidential debate. "I thought Ted did not have a good night last night," Trump said Friday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe. "And I thought his hit on New York was disgraceful, frankly, and I guess a lot of people are saying that from what I hear." "Because I haven't been to sleep yet," he added, speaking in Iowa after debating in South Carolina. The previous night, Cruz and Trump traded blows on various topics. The two had long refused to criticize each other, but that detente is clearly over. Trump told the "Morning Joe" hosts that he was particularly offended by Cruz's bashing his "New York values," which the Texas senator described as socially liberal. As he did during the debate, Trump urged voters to instead think about the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. "Think about the firemen that were running up the stairs they're coming in and they go up to try and save people," he said. "And they know that building has got a big chance of coming down by that time. And the policemen and all of these guys are going up." Trump, the Republican front-runner, also had an aggressive exchange with Cruz over Trump's claim that Cruz might not be eligible to be president. Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother, and many legal scholars believe that is enough to qualify him as a "natural-born" citizen under the Constitution. But Trump has repeatedly argued that Cruz might not meet that threshold. Cruz countered during the debate by saying Trump was questioning his eligibility only because Trump's lead in Iowa polls had melted away just weeks before the February 1 caucus. "He came at me last night," Trump recalled Friday. "It was inappropriate. And I hit him very hard. But I had no idea that he was going to take it that way." He added: "I think he hurt himself last night. You know he's a good debater, but he's very strident. And a lot of people aren't going to like that. He's a very strident kind of a guy." Story continues Later during the "Morning Joe" interview, Trump again knocked Cruz for his debate performance. "I thought Cruz hurt himself last night very badly," he said. "People are not going to like him based on that performance last night." NOW WATCH: Cruz: The birther argument would make Trump ineligible to run for President More From Business Insider Christie Rubio Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) accused New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie of supporting Democratic positions during the Thursday-night Republican debate on Fox Business on Thursday night. Fox moderator Neil Cavuto pointed out that Rubio and Christie had "exchanged some fairly nasty words" recently. He was referring to Christie saying that Rubio can't "slime [his] way to the White House," in response to ads a super PAC supporting Rubio ran suggesting that Christie agrees with President Barack Obama too much on certain controversial issues such as the Common Core education standards and gun control. Cavuto asked Rubio if he went too far and if he wanted to apologize. "We have a very serious problem in this country," Rubio said. We have a president of the United States who is undermining this country's security and expanding the role of our government." Rubio went on to say that Obama is undermining our military and the constitutional basis of the government. "I like Chris Christie, but we cannot afford to have a president of the United States who supports Common Core," Rubio said. "We cannot afford to have a president of the United States who supports gun control. This president is less interested in funding the military than he is ... he's more interested in funding Planned Parenthood than he is in funding the military." He then said that Christie "wrote a check to Planned Parenthood." "All I'm saying is that our next president cannot be someone that does the damage that Barack Obama does to this country," Rubio said. "It cannot be someone that continues his agenda. The damage that he has done to America is extraordinary." Rubio warned that if US voters don't "get this election right," then there might be "no turning back for America." When Cavuto cut in and asked Rubio if he considers Christie a liberal, Rubio dodged the question, saying that Christie has endorsed many of the positions that Obama supports. Story continues Christie responded by saying he stood onstage watching Rubio "rather indignantly" tell former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) that "someone told you that because we're running for the same office, that criticizing me will get you to that office." He then shot at Rubio: "It appears that the same someone's been whispering in ol' Marco's ear, too." Christie then attempted to set the record straight about his positions. He said he never wrote a check to Planned Parenthood and that he vetoed several gun-control measures while governor of New Jersey. He also noted that Common Core has been eliminated in New Jersey. "When you're a senator, what you get to do is just talk and talk. And you talk so much that nobody can ever keep up with whether what you're saying is accurate or not," Christie said. "When you're governor, you're held accountable for everything you do. And the people of New Jersey have seen it." Christie ended with some nice words for Rubio. "I like Marco too and two years ago, he called me a conservative reformer that New Jersey needed," he said. "And that was before he was running against me." NOW WATCH: These are the biggest risks facing the world in 2016 More From Business Insider Screen Shot 2016 01 15 at 7.37.59 AM The Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas wowed a Fox News focus group with his debate performance Thursday night. Veteran pollster Frank Luntz said on "The Kelly File" that his focus group had overwhelmingly named Cruz as the winner of the Fox Business Network debate. Luntz started by playing a clip of a feisty exchange between Cruz and real-estate mogul Donald Trump over the Texas senator's eligibility to be president. "This is truly the highlight of the debate," Luntz said. Trump argues that Cruz's birth in Canada could disqualify him from the Oval Office because the Constitution requires presidents to be "natural-born" citizens. Cruz argued that his American mother meant he was a US citizen at birth and thus eligible for the presidency. Many legal scholars agree with Cruz. "I would suggest we focus on who's best prepared to be commander-in-chief, because that's the most important question facing the country," Cruz said in the clip. After Trump said there great legal scholars who thought Cruz could be disqualified, Cruz touted his legal background as Texas' former solicitor general. "I've spent my entire life defending the Constitution before the US Supreme Court, and I'll tell you, I'm not going to be taking legal advice from Donald Trump," Cruz said as the audience roared in approval. Almost everyone in Luntz's focus group apparently thought that Cruz had schooled Trump on the issue. "He handled him," one of the focus group's participants said of Cruz. "It was really evident that he was capable of taking the hit and handling it, and turning Donald around on himself." "Not only that," a man added. "He was very eloquent, very level-headed about everything that he had to say tonight. I like Donald Trump. Donald Trump is very opinionated, which doesn't make it easy for him during the debate." Watch below: According to Luntz, two other debaters also had a strong night Thursday: Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. Story continues The focus-group participants praised Rubio for defending gun rights and Christie for railing against President Barack Obama. Watch below: More From Business Insider The European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) reported that new vehicle registrations in the European Union rose 9.3% in 2015 and were up 16.6% year over year in December. For the month, Germany led with 247,355 new registrations, followed by France with 183,720 and the United Kingdom with 180,077. New car registrations have now posted year-over-year monthly increases for 28 consecutive months. Among the 27 members of the EU, consumers purchased 1.11 million new vehicles in December and 13.71 million in 2015. The top-selling maker in the EU is Volkswagen, which sold 235,170 vehicles in December and 3.38 million in 2015. VW's market share for 2015 came to 24.6%, down from 25.4% in 2014. The decline is likely due in part to the cheating scandal that surfaced in October. ALSO READ: The Largest Employer in Each State PSA Group, makers of Peugeot and Citroen, among other brands, was the second-leading company in terms of market share in 2015 with 10.6% of the EU market. Renault Group, with 9.7% of the market was third. Of the Detroit Three, Ford Motor Co. (NYSE:F) sold 78,076 units in December, up 24.6% for the month. The company's 2015 market share came to 7.3%, flat with the prior year, and Ford sold just under a million units in 2015, up 8.6% compared with 2014. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. (FCAU) increased its market share in the EU last year to 6.2%, up from 6.0% in 2014. Sales of the company's Jeep brand more than doubled to 84,261 units for the year. Total sales volume rose 14.1% in 2015. Opel Group, the General Motors Co. (GM) subsidiary in Europe, posted a 2015 market share of 6.8%, down from 7.2% in 2014. The decline is entirely due to the company's decision to stop selling Chevrolet-branded vehicles in Europe. Sales of the Opel/Vauxhall brands rose 6.3% in 2015. Total sales rose 2.4% in 2015. ALSO READ: 12 Things Not to Do If You Win the $1.3 Billion Lottery Toyota Motor Corp. (TM) posted market share of 4.2% in 2015, down from 4.3% in 2014. Sales volume rose 7.3% for the year to 574,652 units, and December sales rose nearly 14% year over year. Story continues BMW Group's market share in 2015 rose from 6.4% in 2014 to 6.5%, and the company sold 896,390 units last year. Daimler posted a market share gain as well, rising from 5.4% in 2014 to 5.8% last year. Of the major automakers on the ACEA's list, only one, Honda Motor Co. Ltd. (HMC), posted a year-over-year decline in volume, dropping from unit sales of 126,713 in 2014 to 125,834 in 2015. Related Articles Michael Morell The morning before US President Barack Obama gave his State of the Union address, three former US intelligence and diplomatic officials testified before the US House Armed Services Committee, describing the major issues with the US fight against ISIS. Former CIA Director Michael Morell, former US Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers, and former US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford had common threads that outlined two major problems with the US strategy to defeat the terrorist group ISIS aka the Islamic State, ISIL, or Daesh. The first problem is that air power alone won't be enough to defeat the group. The second, related issue is that there aren't local ground forces in Iraq and Syria that are capable of clearing and holding territory. And while the US has been fighting terrorism directly in the Middle East for more than a decade, ISIS is a much more evolved version of America's old foe, al-Qaeda. "I believe ISIS poses a significant strategic and lethal threat to the United States of America," Morell said. He continued: "The nature and significance of the threat posed by ISIS flows from the fact that ISIS is at the same time a terrorist group, a quasi-state, and a revolutionary political movement. We have not faced the likes of it before." ISIS map The US has been fighting an ideological and a literal war with ISIS. At home, the US government has been working to counter ISIS's very effective online propaganda messaging, and abroad the military has been running airstrikes and training ground forces in Iraq and Syria. The propaganda war isn't going well for the US, and the officials who testified on Tuesday emphasized that the air war is falling short as well. "Air power is not gonna win this thing alone," Morell said. "We need a ground force." Morell is more optimistic about Iraq than he is about Syria. This sentiment was echoed by Ford, who said that he was "much less upbeat, much less optimistic" about the Syrian side of the fight. Story continues "There is a strategy in Iraq to get that ground force. Ramadi showed that that strategy has potential," Morell said. Ground forces backed by US air power recently drove ISIS out of the Iraqi city of Ramadi. isis airstrikes ramadi Still, Iraqi ground forces have a long way to go, Ford said. "I worry, frankly, that we do not yet have enough people, friendly indigenous fighters, in places like Ramadi, Anbar Province, Diyala Province" to hold territory retaken from ISIS, he said. "I'm not sure that 30,000 [soldiers] is going to be enough to secure that Syrian border and control those towns." Meanwhile, the US is struggling to figure out how to seize territory back in the first place in Syria. "There is no ground force on the Syrian side that carries the same kind of potential as the Iraqi military carries," Morell said. He continued: We can do more, I think, with the moderate opposition, but at the end of the day, I think, [Syrian President Bashar] Assad's got to go, and we have to take the Syrian military [and] security resources, as degraded as they've become, and turn them into a force that the international community supports in taking on ISIS. Ford agreed that Assad, whose forces have been known to barrel-bomb civilians and commit other atrocities, must be forced out if we want to see a successful ground fight in Syria. ISIS Flag Iraq Iraqi Soldiers "The only way to generate more indigenous forces is to help the Syrian opposition and to see the removal of Bashar al-Assad at some point and the creation of a new national unity government," Ford said. "The sooner that can be done in Syria, the better. Only a new national unity government in Syria is going to be able to mobilize enough Syrians to fight and destroy the Islamic State." assad syria grafitti It's unclear, however, if Assad will be removed from power anytime soon. Russia recently jumped into the fray in Syria under the guise of fighting ISIS. But it seems that Russia's real aim is propping up its ally the Assad regime, since much of Russia's airstrikes in Syria have hit anti-Assad rebels rather than ISIS fighters. And while Russia has been increasing its presence in Syria, the US-led coalition has been focusing on Iraq. "Two-thirds of coalition efforts have really been against Iraq and not against Syria, where the more dangerous threat has existed," Vickers said. Syria is a much more chaotic theater than Iraq considering the all-out civil war that exists there, and ISIS's de facto capital and center of operations is based in Raqqa, Syria. The group is deeply entrenched there and US-backed forces haven't yet been able to take back Mosul, ISIS's main Iraqi base, let alone go into Raqqa. And while the US has seen some success in training Iraqi forces, that has not been the case in Syria. In October, the US ditched its program to train rebels in Syria to fight ISIS. This came after reports that rebels had been told that they couldn't fight Assad or the regime's allies, including Iranian-backed militias in Syria. Even if the US took the advice of experts who say Assad must go in order to achieve peace in Syria, it's unclear who would replace him. "It has to be negotiation," Ford said. "Had we asked the question 'Who would follow Saddam Hussein?' we wouldn't have known the answer to that in 2003," he continued, referencing the US toppling former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein after the 2003 invasion. He said: Just as the wobbly government in Iraq ... needed help, that will be the case also in Syria. I do not believe that if Assad goes, only the Islamic State takes over. I think that is wrong on multiple levels and is indicative of the sense that there is no hope, when actually there is quite a bit of hope. Here's a video of the full testimony: More From Business Insider (Corrects paragraph 9 to say the DNB Bank analyst's comments were made to Reuters and are not from a research note) By Ankit Ajmera Jan 15 (Reuters) - General Electric Co said it would sell its appliance business to China's Haier Group for $5.4 billion in cash, another step in its push to sell its non-core assets and project itself as a technology company. The deal comes weeks after GE walked away from a deal to sell the business to Sweden's Electrolux for $3.3 billion, following months of opposition from U.S. antitrust regulators. GE said the deal values the appliance business at 10 times last 12 months earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA). Whirlpool Corp is valued at 7.7 times. GE shares fell 2.3 percent in premarket trading. GE said earlier this week it would shift its headquarters to Boston, a move aimed at lowering its tax bill and tapping talent in city that is fast becoming a tech hub. For Haier, the deal means ownership of a century-old appliance business that makes refrigerators, freezers, clothes washers and dryers across brands such as Monogram, Cafe, Profile and Artistry. The business trails only Whirlpool Corp in the U.S. white goods market and reported revenue of $5.9 billion last year. The deal, Haier's biggest ever, will give a big boost to its U.S. business, which held less than 5 percent of the market last year. The company has been mostly present in the highly competitive, so-called "value segment" of the U.S. market and analysts expressed concern about the impact its bigger presence would have on the pricing dynamics. "Even if Haier doesn't have a history of dumping prices in the United States, as for example LG and Samsung has, this is still an unknown player, a Chinese player," DNB Bank ASA analyst Christer Magnergard told Reuters. "(Haier) may have a somewhat different agenda than just having high profitability in the United States in 2016." Haier said the transaction includes GE Appliances' 48.4 percent stake in Mabe, a Mexican appliance company that has a joint venture and a sourcing relationship with the business for 28 years. Story continues The deal will be subject to customary regulatory filings in China and antitrust approvals in the United States, Mexico and Argentina, said a person authorized to speak on behalf of Qingdao Haier Co Ltd, the Haier unit making the purchase. The deal is also to be approved by shareholders of Qingdao Haier as well as KKR and Haier Group, who jointly own 50.8 percent of the company, the person said. Haier will continue to use the GE Appliances brand and retain the business's headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky and its current management team, the companies said. Goldman Sachs was GE's finiancial adviser and Sidley Austin LLP was its legal adviser. (Reporting by Ankush Sharma and Sweta Singh in Bangalore, Matthew Miller in Beijing, Elzio Barreto in Hong Kong; Editing by Savio D'Souza and Sayantani Ghosh) * Egypt expected to launch big new tender, weeks away * Argentina tender result sets tone * Pricing varied due to differing cargo grades By Oleg Vukmanovic and Sarah McFarlane MILAN/LONDON, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Asian liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices sank this week after Argentina's tender result soured hopes of a recovery amid poor demand, while fresh supply began pumping from Australia. The announcement that Cheniere's landmark U.S. export plant would delay production until March left the market unfazed, March prices tumbled to around $5.60 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), even as some sellers were heard offering at lower levels. "Regarding March prices, we are receiving offers in the mid-$5's, (it's) hard to track bids as they are moving fast," one trade source said. "There is very little liquidity, not seeing a lot of transactions but the market seems on the way down," another trader said, adding that Argentina's cargo purchase for March into the Bahia Blanca terminal seemed the best guide. Argentina's YPF paid a price in the mid-$5 per mmBtu range for its March delivery into Bahia Blanca in a recent tender. Significant quality differences between LNG cargoes - supply from Australia's new export plants on Curtis Island is leaner than most other available LNG - accounts for some of the pricing variation as leaner supply is cheaper, another source said. Egypt is preparing to launch a purchase tender for additional supply, two traders said, although a formal notification could still be weeks away. A trader said Egypt may be seeking 1 year or more of supply even though it is struggling to pay for existing imports due to a shortage of foreign currency reserves. Nigeria LNG is gauging market interest for spot shipments in February, March and April, adding supply into a weak market, and was heard offering cargoes to some counterparties. Russia's Sakhalin II export plant is tendering to sell two cargoes in March, sources said, while Papua New Guinea is trying to sell a cargo loading in late February. Story continues Trinidad is said to be exploring further spot shipments. Kuwait has awarded a tender to buy a cargo for its new floating terminal for delivery at the end of February-early March. Pakistan State Oil has backed out of a nearly $1 billion deal to buy LNG from Royal Dutch Shell after receiving a lower price from Qatar. The deal shows how top exporter Qatar is being forced to become more competitive in an oversupplied LNG market as it also closes in on a bigger 15-year deal to supply Pakistan with gas. Australia's AP LNG project started production after minor initial delays. (Editing by Mark Potter) (Adds comments from Greek finmin and IMF's Lagarde) ATHENS, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Greece's European lenders will probably start a review of the country's reform programme next week, a senior official said, though talks on the debt relief that Athens craves may be several months away. To start those talks, Greece needs to successfully conclude a first review of reforms agreed last summer under its third bailout programme by its lenders, which will include both the EU executive and the International Monetary Fund. "We are ready to start the review as soon as possible, most likely next week. But we are not setting any time limit for when the review should be concluded," European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said in an interview with Greek daily Kathimerini published on Friday. Dombrovskis said that, to secure a positive progress review, Greece should implement the pension reform, set up a new privatisation fund and find measures to achieve primary budget surpluses for 2016-2018. Greece and some euro zone officials have said the first review could be concluded next month, though the chairman of euro zone finance ministers, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, said on Thursday "it would rather be months than weeks." "If Greece concludes the review, it will show it is serious with its promises, its programme is on track and this would be a very positive step so that stability is restored," Dombrovskis said. Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said he believed an agreement could be reached in four weeks, according to an interview with German newspaper Handelsblatt published on Friday. Tsakalotos has been touring euro zone capitals to explain the reform measures and seek support for an early, positive review. In the Handelsblatt interview he said he believed all the finance ministers he visited during the tour had recognised Greece's reform efforts and the country had regained credibility. Dombrovskis said the Commission was working on the assumption that the IMF would continue to be part of the Greek bailout programme. The fund offered financing for Greece's first two bailouts in 2010 and 2012. Story continues Tsakalotos said the IMF's involvement had been agreed and "we stand by this commitment". Greece had said in December that the participation of the IMF was not necessary. IMF chief Christine Lagarde told the German Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper it will probably take the fund until the second quarter to decide whether to take part in the third bailout. Lagarde said the question of debt sustainability and progress on pension reforms would be key to any participation. "It is clear that pension reform is the trigger that will prove that Greece's economic position is improving," she was quoted as saying. The IMF has not disbursed any aid to Greece since August 2014 under a previous program due to expire next March. The participation of the fund in the third bailout is a key condition for Germany, which believes the European Commission alone as the representative of creditors could be too soft on Athens when it comes to reform implementation. (Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou in Athens; additional reporting by Michelle Martin and Joseph Nasr in Berlin; editing by John Stonestreet) donald trump girl group Donald Trump's campaign typically kicks off his rallies with a playlist of bombastic pop hits. Wednesday's rally was in large part no different. Only this time, the music was accompanied by a trio of children singing and dancing to an original song dedicated to the Republican presidential front-runner himself. "Cowardice, are you serious? Apologies for freedom I can't handle this! When freedom rings, answer the call!" they blared. "On your feet, stand up tall! Freedom's on our shoulders, USA! Enemies of freedom face the music. Come on boys, take them down!" The group, which calls itself the USA Freedom Kids, was formed by Jeff Popick, a Trump supporter whose 8-year-old daughter, Alexis, is one of its members. "Donald Trump far and away is the No. 1 guy to protect our freedoms. And we need that because we're coming off the heels of a guy who doesn't even get the concept," Popick told Business Insider in a phone interview on Thursday. Popick himself wrote the lyrics for the Trump tribute song. He said it was originally written about US Army Gen. George Patton, whom he revered since he first saw the 1970 biopic, "Patton." After watching Trump's campaign-announcement speech in June, the self-described band-manager and lyricist said he was inspired to make a more contemporary alteration to the song on the fly. "I was watching when Donald Trump announced his candidacy, and he talked about the need for a strong military. And I remember him saying that, 'We're going to find the next Gen. George Patton," Popick said. "When Donald Trump said that, I was inspired to make it even more contemporary than it already was, and make it more about Donald Trump." Popick has major ambitions for the group, whose three main members are under the age of 12. Those kids have been working together for about six months after Popick and a former "Kidz Bop" employee assembled the group together during casting calls in South Florida. Story continues The group is currently in the studio recording covers of classics like "America The Beautiful" and "Grand Old Flag," and has shot a music video inspired by the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But Popick said the group is focusing most on recording re-interpretations of older patriotic songs set to what he described as a combination of "electronic dance music, hip-hop, and dub-step," an EDM subgenre. Popick said he first reached out to the Trump campaign, concerned that he could be sued over the song. Instead, they began a dialogue with the campaign that eventually led the USA Freedom Kids to open for Trump at his Wednesday-night rally. Asked about whether the children's families were concerned about the political nature of the lyrics, Popick said the parents of the other children in the band were "very supportive" of the his decision to dedicate the song to Trump, and were Trump supporters themselves. "It wasn't a requisite or prerequisite for them, but yeah, we are all on board," Popick said. Popick said he's hoping that the Trump track isn't a one-hit wonder, but is instead a launching pad for the group's patriotic and political tracks. USA Freedom Girls already released a song called "National Anthem Pt. II," a song about "riding the wave of freedom." And "there may be one other song that is, if you want to say, political," Popick said. "For me, it is all about freedom," he said. NOW WATCH: Here's how President Obama starts every morning More From Business Insider Martin Shkreli (C), chief executive officer of Turing Pharmaceuticals and KaloBios Pharmaceuticals Inc, departs U.S. Federal Court after an arraignment following his being charged in a federal indictment filed in Brooklyn relating to his management of hedge fund MSMB Capital Management and biopharmaceutical company Retrophin Inc. in New York in this December 17, 2015, file photo. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/Files By Sarah N. Lynch WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. congressional panel is asking pharmaceutical entrepreneur Martin Shkreli to testify at a Jan. 26 hearing about his company's decision to raise the price of a life-saving prescription drug, according to a Republican committee staffer. Shkreli, who became known as "Pharma Bro," created a fire storm last year after his company Turing Pharmaceuticals hiked the price of a drug called Daraprim by more than 5,000 percent. Last month, Shkreli was forced to step down as Turing CEO amid criminal and civil securities fraud charges alleging he ran a Ponzi-like scheme during his tenure at the hedge fund MSMB Capital Management and while he was the CEO of Retrophin, another drug company he previously headed. The securities fraud charges are unrelated to the drug pricing probe by the committee. The hearing before the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will primarily focus on Turing's price spike of Daraprim, and price hikes for two of Valeant Pharmaceutical's heart medications - Isuprel and Nitropress. A Democratic committee staffer told Reuters on Friday that Valeant's Interim CEO Howard Schiller is also expected to appear at the hearing. A Valeant spokeswoman confirmed that Schiller will attend, and said he looks forward to testifying and that the company is cooperating with the ongoing congressional probe. An attorney for Shkreli declined to comment. Earlier this month, House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz and Ranking Member Elijah Cummings jointly sent document requests to Valeant, Turing and Shkreli. In their requests, the lawmakers asked for documents showing each company's gross revenues and profits from the sales of the drugs in question, as well as communications by the CEOs in connection with the drugs. Since then, Turing has given tens of thousands of documents to U.S. congressional investigators ahead of the hearing, according to a Democratic committee staffer. Story continues A spokeswoman for Turing did not have an immediate comment. The committee is expected to review another batch of documents from Valeant in the near future. The deadline for submission is Jan. 22. The House Oversight panel's interest in drug pricing was sparked by Cummings, who has on multiple occasions called for the Republican-led panel to probe prescription drug pricing. Initially the issue did not get much traction, as only the political party in the majority has the power to compel testimony and call hearings. In recent months, however, the issue has generated growing bipartisan support. (Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Alistair Bell) By Anthony Esposito and Sarah Young SANTIAGO/LONDON (Reuters) - Chile-headquartered LATAM Airlines (LAN.SN) has signed joint business agreements to deepen its ties with American Airlines Group (AAL.O) and IAG's (ICAG.L) British Airways and Iberia, all members of the Oneworld Alliance. If cleared by competition authorities, the new agreements would help the airlines coordinate schedules and prices for flights, similar to the North Atlantic revenue-sharing agreement which already exists between IAG and American Airlines. Joint business deals are one way for airlines to combine to help them extend the reach of their networks in an industry where foreign ownership rules often prevent outright mergers. Within Europe, mergers have proved possible, like the one between British Airways and Iberia which formed IAG, but the big transcontinental deals which have taken place in the pharmaceuticals, automotive and oil and gas industries, have not happened among airlines. Both deals are subject to regulatory approval in different countries. American and LATAM plan to apply for immunity from antitrust law, while IAG indicated that it could take between 12 and 18 months for its agreement to be given the green light. IAG Chief Executive Willie Walsh expressed his interest in LATAM in November, when he told investors that deepening the partnership with a southern hemisphere carrier could act as a natural hedge to IAG's seasonal earnings which are heavily weighted to the northern hemisphere's summer. Davy analyst Stephen Furlong said the new agreement would give LATAM and IAG about a third of the capacity on Europe to South America routes and would likely result in cost and revenue synergies. "IAG have a track record in delivering substantial synergies," he said, noting the success of the group's joint venture with American Airlines which dates back to 2010. The agreements with LATAM, which operates LAN Airlines in Chile and TAM in Brazil, would improve connectivity between South America and the United States and Canada, in the case of American, and increase flight options between Europe and Latin America, in the case of IAG. Story continues Doug Parker, chairman and chief executive of American, said customers would benefit from more frequent and convenient schedule options than the carriers could offer individually. "Travelers headed to Latin America will soon have more seamless access to more than 100 additional destinations with LATAM beyond American's already extensive network," he said. (Additional reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in New York; Editing by Alan Crosby, Greg Mahlich) IBM Relied on Partnerships, China, and Cost Control in 2015 (Continued from Prior Part) China remained a key market for IBM in 2015 Previously in the series, we discussed how rising air pollution in China (FXI) and its impending 2022 Winter Olympics have provided an excellent growth opportunity for IBM (IBM) and Microsoft (MSFT) to showcase their expertise in cognitive computing by forecasting air quality indexes. We also discussed how the strong dollar in 2015 played havoc with the companys top line growth. As IBM derives more than half of its revenue from outside the United States, and a strong US dollar is worsening demand in China and emerging markets (EEM), its become imperative for IBM to take extreme steps to boost its operations in China. Tech players relented to Chinas pressure In October 2015, IBM finally allowed China to see and review an unspecified products source code. Of late, China has made it difficult for global technology companies to operate on its soil. Global tech players are forced to agree to rigorous security checks before their products can be purchased by Chinas state-run financial institutions. Technology companies are under pressure from China to provide access to their program codes. Program codes are confidential and carefully guarded secrets. Apart from IBM, Microsoft and Apple (AAPL) too have allowed China to peek into their software. China is considered one of Apples most important markets, which is why Apple struck a deal to allow Chinas State Council Information Office to check its software. Continue to Next Part Browse this series on Market Realist: A worker walks atop a tanker wagon to check the freight level at an oil terminal on the outskirts of Kolkata November 27, 2013. REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri/Files By Nidhi Verma NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian refiners boosted imports of African crude oil in 2015 to the highest in at least five years and slightly cut their intake from Latin America as refiners benefited from changing global oil flows caused by surplus supply. In 2015, India imported 787,700 barrels per day (bpd) of African oil with the continent accounting for about a fifth of the South Asian nation's overall imports from 16.7 percent a year ago, according to data compiled by Reuters. Middle Eastern grades accounted for about 57 percent of imports from 59 percent a year ago, remaining India's main source of oil. "We will increase imports from Africa going forward mainly from Nigeria." India's Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Friday, ahead of New Delhi hosting a two-day hydrocarbons conference with African nations next week Indian Oil Corp has doubled its annual oil purchase deal with Nigeria for 2015/16 to 60,000 bpd, its chairman B. Ashok said on Friday. India, the world's fourth-biggest oil consumer, raised its imports of African oil as the continent's mainly light, sweet crudes helped fill increasing demand for gasoline and diesel fuel. India's gasoline consumption rose 14.7 percent in 2015 while diesel climbed 5.3 percent. Falling African crude prices also spurred more interest from Indian refiners and a refinery expansion helped drive demand for light crude. African oil was cheaper relative to other regions as benchmark Brent crude fell during the year because of glut caused by surging production in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the U.S., and Russia. Brent's premium to Dubai was below $3 a barrel for most of 2015, making African oil attractive against Middle Eastern crude. India imports 80 percent of its crude needs and has traditionally relied on the Middle East for heavy, sour oil supplies and West Africa for lighter, sweet crude. West African crude prices started falling in 2014 as U.S. refiners replaced their imports with domestic light, sweet shale oil, allowing other nations to take advantage of the lower cost crude. Story continues India's imports of African oil also increased last year as IOC's new 300,000-bpd Paradip refinery mainly processed sweet oil. Global oil prices have tumbled in 2016 to their lowest level in 12 years, dropping below $30 a barrel. A number of major international banks have slashed their price forecasts. In 2015, Iran continued to be India's seventh-biggest source for crude oil although its share in the overall imports declined to 5.2 percent from 7.3 percent a year earlier. (Reporting by Nidhi Verma; Editing by Christian Schmollinger) A Yahoo logo is pictured in front of a building in Rolle, 30 km (19 miles) east of Geneva, in this file picture taken December 12, 2012. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse (Reuters) - Canyon Capital Advisors LLC sent a new letter to Yahoo Inc's board on Thursday, asking it not to waste any further capital and to prioritize a sale of its core business, a portion of its assets, or the entire company. Canyon, a Los Angeles-based investment firm and a Yahoo shareholder, wrote in a letter seen by Reuters that the internet company's board and management team have spent in excess of $3 billion on acquisitions to which, based on the its stock price, the market appears to ascribe absolutely no, or negative, value. "We believe the board must explicitly and publicly commit to preserve the company's most easily valued asset its cash," Canyon wrote in the letter, which cited media reports as examples of what it argued was the company's largesse. Yahoo did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Canyon's latest letter came after activist investor Starboard Value LP last week ramped up pressure on Yahoo, taking aim at Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer and her leadership team and raising the prospect that a proxy battle is approaching. Canyon also sent letters to Yahoo on Dec. 3 and Dec. 11. Yahoo is currently pursuing a tax-free spinoff of its core internet business, which could take at least a year. (Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis in New York; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman) What Does Irans New Diplomatic Policy Mean for Energy Investors? Why did Iran release the US sailors quickly? In the past few days, Iranian Revolutionary Guards captured ten American sailors who had entered Iranian water boundaries. Soon after the capture, they were set free by Iranian authorities. Although the entire incident might seem confined to political grounds, it did have an effect on energy investors. Iran is a passive player in the crude oil market because of the sanctions imposed on it by several countries, led by the United States (SPY). Irans controversial nuclear project has resulted into political and economic headwinds for the country. It was neither able to make revenue when crude oil was at historical highs, nor was it able to grab market share when crude fell near to 12-year historical lows. Iran is also sitting on large natural gas reserves that its not able to extract because of sanctions. Energy investors should note that Iran is setting a platform to grab market share both in crude oil as well in natural gas. The series will analyze the following points: why Iran is interested in starting a new diplomatic regime with the United States Irans strategic plan to regain regional leadership Irans plan to become the largest gas supplier to Europe and Asia how long Iran and Russias growing ties can sustain moving average analysis of different energy streams along with a look at renewables Oil and gas industry inching to new lows The United States Oil Fund (USO) fell 17.4% on a month-to-date basis, and the upstream operators ConocoPhillips (COP), Anadarko Petroleum (APC), and Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD) fell 16%, 9.3%, and 9%, respectively, on a month-to-date basis as of January 13, 2016. The graph above shows the performance of USO for the last six months. In the next part, well discuss why Iran is curious to enter the crude market. Continue to Next Part Browse this series on Market Realist: By Nidhi Verma NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's largest-ever steel export deal, struck with Iran in 2014 to allow it to buy the metal without violating Western sanctions that are now set to end, has become mired in a dispute that has seen no payments made or shipments delivered since last fall. The impasse underlines how Tehran is taking a more assertive posture in its dealings with trading partners as options open up for business and it looks to strike better deals. Iranian Gas Engineering & Development Company (IGEDC) has written to Indian state-trader STC India Ltd complaining that steel shipments have been irregular and far below terms set out in the $2.5 billion contract, according to a letter seen by Reuters. It also said in the letter, dated late last month, that it would like to deal directly with Essar Steel India Ltd, which was supplying the steel to STC for export, if the state trader did not restart regular shipments soon. "We strongly urge STC to either be more flexible to enable regular and faster shipments or allow the contract to be dealt directly between IGEDC and the manufacturer," it wrote. The complex arrangement was put in place to allow steel exports without violating sanctions that prevented private Indian companies from dealing directly with Iran. That is set to change, with Western sanctions expected to be lifted under a historic nuclear deal struck in July between Tehran, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, giving Iran far more flexibility to pursue deals. A source familiar with the matter said steel exports had been halted since Iran stopped making payments in September. IGEDC's managing director's office did not return calls seeking comment. STC did not have any immediate comment. "The contract between Essar and STC is valid and is being performed," Essar said in an email reply. STEEL DEAL Under sanctions, India has been one of the few countries willing to do business with Tehran. Story continues "When this steel export deal was done, Iran had virtually no choice than to accept it, as sanctions isolated it from the world financial system," said Robin Mills, chief executive of Dubai-based Qamar Energy. Mills said the end of sanctions would open a wider circle of trade partners for Iran, such as those from Europe and China. "So Iran would like to diversify and buy steel from other players instead of having a huge contract with India," he said. Iran expects the U.N. nuclear watchdog to confirm on Friday it has curtailed its nuclear programme, paving the way for the unfreezing of billions of dollars of assets and an end to bans that have crippled its oil exports. India is the top oil client of Iran after China, and Essar Oil, an affiliate of Essar Steel, is a key customer of the National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC). The three-year steel contract was struck in June 2014, after the Indian government, worried about its trade balance with Iran and looking to boost exports, directed trading firms STC and MMTC Ltd to help facilitate business for Indian companies. Indian refiners have been paying 45 percent of their oil dues to Iran in rupees. These rupee-funds are used by Tehran for importing goods, including steel, from New Delhi. BLAME GAME The steel deal ran into trouble in September, when Tehran failed to clear dues of about 4.5 billion rupees ($66.7 million) for steel exported to it by STC, the source familiar with the matter said. STC was supposed to supply 1 million tonnes of steel in the first year of the contract, which is for a total of 2.5 million tonnes of steel plate and coil over the three-year span. By September of last year, however, STC had supplied only about 450,000 tonnes of steel. In its Dec. 22 letter, IGEDC told STC that it needed to expedite supplies and make them regular. "Not only have the deliveries been irregular, we have not even received" the minimum quantity of 50,000 tonnes per month in most months, IGEDC wrote. The source said STC supplied the steel to Iran based on availability and demand from Tehran, which was why the shipments were far below the expected levels. STC has been regularly writing to IGEDC asking for payments and would restart supplies if Iran resumed them, the source said. ($1 = 67.4345 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Nidhi Verma; Editing by Alex Richardson and Elaine Hardcastle) BRUSSELS, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Italy continued during a meeting of EU finance ministers on Friday to block funding of 3 billion euros pledged by the bloc to Turkey to help care for Syrian refugees, the meeting chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem said. "On the... key question whether Italy has lifted its objections, the answer is still 'no'. But we hope that that is possible very, very soon," Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister, told a news conference. Dijsselbloem declined to say what Italy's objections were but said the funds were needed urgently and added that finance ministers had also discussed a need to channel more funds to help refugees in Turkey, a view also shared by Germany. EU leaders agreed to the aid grant as part of a package of measures aimed at reducing the numbers of refugees leaving Turkey and heading for Europe. Earlier on Friday, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker also said the funds were urgent but noted that the EU executive had existing funds that it could deploy for initial projects. ($1 = 0.9168 euros) (Reporting by Alastair Macdonald and Francesco Guarascio; Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Alastair Macdonald) KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Malaysia, the world's second-largest palm producer after Indonesia, will maintain its crude palm oil export tax at zero for the tenth consecutive month in February, a government circular showed. The Southeast Asian nation calculated a reference price of 2,153.74 ringgit ($489.88) per tonne for February. A price above 2,250 ringgit per tonne incurs a tax, which starts from 4.5 percent and can reach a maximum 8.5 percent. ($1 = 4.3965 ringgit) (Reporting by Emily Chow; ; Editing by Biju Dwarakanath) * S&P cuts rating to BBB+ from A-, outlook negative * Says new government weakened independence of institutions * S&P says may cut rating further in next two years * Zloty immediately falls 1.5 pct to 4-year low vs euro * Ruling party MP chides "usury-banking lobby" for downgrade (Adds finance ministry reaction) By Marcin Goettig WARSAW, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Standard and Poor's (S&P) unexpectedly cut Poland's credit rating a notch on Friday, saying the new government has weakened the independence of key institutions and the rating could fall further. The cut, the agency's first for Poland's hard currency debt, deals a major blow to the nationalist-minded government of the Law and Justice (PiS) party, which won an election in October promising more welfare and widely-shared prosperity. Poland, which joined the European Union in 2004, has gained a reputation as an exemplar of post-communist transformation in Europe, registering the highest economic growth in the bloc over the last decade as it attracted billions of dollars in foreign direct investment. But any rise in funding costs for central and eastern Europe's largest economy could now put pressure on the government's budget, already strained by promises of additional spending. S&P said it cut Poland's foreign currency rating to BBB+ with a negative outlook from A-. The A- rating had a positive outlook. The rating remains well within investment grade, but the agency said it could cut further in the next two years if the credibility of monetary policy is undermined. The cut immediately sent the zloty currency to a 4-year low versus the euro. "We expect a major Polish government bond sell-off next week," said Rafal Benecki, chief economist at ING Bank Slaski, predicting the zloty currency would weaken too. "The downgrade reflects our view that Poland's system of institutional checks and balances has been eroded significantly," S&P primary credit analyst for Poland, Felix Winnekens, said in a statement, criticising legislative changes to the constitutional court and public broadcasting under the new government. Story continues Earlier this week, the European Union began an unprecedented inquiry into whether Poland has breached the bloc's democratic standards by passing the new laws. The Polish finance ministry said the rating downgrade was "incomprehensible" in economic and financial terms. Fitch ratings agency confirmed its Polish A- rating on Friday with a stable outlook. Moody's rates Poland at A2 with a stable outlook, one notch above Fitch. But S&P said: "A law that moves the power to appoint the management ... of public broadcasters to the Treasury ... significantly weakens the independence of these institutions and has the potential to make them political instruments." "USURY-BANKING LOBBY" A PiS member of parliament and member of the lower chamber public finance committee, Janusz Szewczak, called the rating cut "a revenge of the usury-banking lobby." Government spokesman Rafal Bochenek said there were no economic grounds for the downgrade. "Nothing has changed in the economy and Poland is not experiencing any turbulence," he said. S&P has held Poland's rating at A- since 2007. It increased the outlook to positive last year based on Poland's declining deficits under the previous government and uninterrupted economic growth over the last two decades. Even after the cut, Poland's S&P rating remains three notches above 'junk' level. The agency cut Hungary's credit rating to junk in 2011, saying the policies of Prime Minister Victor Orban were unpredictable. PiS party representatives have long praised the policies of Orban, who was also accused by critics of undermining democratic checks and balances by advocating "illiberal democracy". Hungary's rating remains in 'junk' despite an upgrade last year. The Polish rating cut shocked economists who had put the odds of a simple cut in the outlook for the rating at 30 percent in a Reuters poll on Thursday. None of the 17 economists polled even mentioned a possibility of a cut in the rating itself. "The message to other sovereigns out there is very clear: don't touch the constitutional framework that has been built up over so many years, or else a downgrade and a subsequent increase in funding costs will ensue," Simon Quijano-Evans, strategist at Commerzbank said. (Additional reporting by Agnieszka Barteczko, Anna Wodarczak-Semczuk and Wiktor Szary; Editing by Toby Chopra/Ruh Pitchford) Poland protests Thousands of protesters gathered in Warsaw, Poland, last weekend, days after the Polish government, controlled by the right-wing Law and Justice Party, moved to take more control of public television and radio. That came after a similarly controversial decision regarding the appointment of judges to the nation's constitutional court. The ruling party appointed five judges directly violating previous court decisions and made changes to the court's rules that further limit its abilities, The Wall Street Journal reported. Those choices led to the European Union opening an unprecedented inquiry Wednesday into whether the Polish government has violated the group of nation's democratic standards. It is the first time the EU has launched an investigation based on its "Rule of Law" framework, and a decision to suspended Poland's voting rights in the governing body could be reached, Reuters reported. The Polish government, which was elected in October, claimed it had to make the appointments because the court was filled with political opponents. And it said it needed to take control of public media because journalists were unfair, according to The Journal. However, Politico reported that sanctions are highly unlikely. We have to have friendly and good relations with Poland, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said recently, according to Politico. Poland is an important and a full member of the EU. We are at the beginning of the procedure. Now we are in discussion with Poland and I dont want to speculate about further consequences. I dont think we will come to that point. Frans Timmermans, the commission's deputy head, wrote to the Polish justice minister Wednesday that his commission doesn't want to question the choices made by the Polish people through their voting in of the right-wing party, Reuters reported. Story continues "However, the European Union is founded on a common set of values ... which include in particular the respect for the rule of law," he wrote. "There can be no democracy and respect for fundamental rights without respect for the rule of law." Poland protest The Law and Justice party downplayed the inquiry, with Deputy Foreign Minister Konrad Szymanski saying, "We are ready for dialogue," according Reuters. Polish responses to the commission's questioning would be reviewed by mid-March, followed by a decision to press on with any further action, Reuters reported. Binding rules were not respected. This is a serious matter in a rule-of-law-dominated state. We have to clarify the situation and start a dialogue, Timmermans said in a news conference. Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, who will appear in Brussels to defend her government's actions, said her country has been wrongly accused of violations. "Its not true. Its slander. Democracy in Poland is doing well, she said, according to The Journal. The best proof that democracy is doing well are protests organized by some groups against the government and the changes were introducing. She said Thursday she doesn't think sanctions will be imposed, but she did admit the party could've gone about some of the changes in a different way. "I am not saying that we made no mistakes," Szydlo told TVN24. Jaroslaw Kaczynski The driving force behind those changes in Poland isn't Szydlo or the new president, Andrzej Duda, but the head of the Law and Justice party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski. The head of the ruling party is arguably the most powerful position in the Polish government, according to The New York Times. No pressure and hollering, no words...will turn us from this path,Kaczynski told supporters on Sunday, the Times reported. We will continue moving forward. Many in Poland fear that the tightening of the grip on society will continue past these recent moves. Private media companies in Poland feel they might be next to have their press freedom stripped, according to Vice News. We believe that culture should be free, Katarzyna Janowska, who recently resigned as head of the public television channel covering Polish culture, told the Times. They believe that culture should be used to promote something. But you cant discuss it with them because you live in two different countries, in two different realities. More From Business Insider Mogadishu (AFP) - Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab militants stormed an African Union base manned by Kenyan troops in the country's southwest on Friday, with several killed in fierce gun battles. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta that "regrettably some of our patriots in uniform paid the ultimate price" as he offered condolences to the families of those killed, without giving details of how many died. Somali army colonel Idris Ahmed said a Shebab suicide commando blasted into the El-Adde base in the Gedo region, which borders Kenya and Ethiopia, in a pre-dawn attack. "There was suicide attack followed by the fighting and it seems that the base was stormed," Ahmed said. Both Somali troops and Kenyan soldiers with the AU force, AMISOM, are deployed at the isolated base. "Our gallant soldiers reacted swiftly to protect their camp - to protect their peace and stability that they are in Somalia to secure, and to protect our country from its enemies," Kenyatta said in a statement. Shebab spokesman Abdiaziz Abu Musab claimed 63 Kenyan troops were killed, but this could not be immediately verified. "The mujahedeen fighters carried out a successful operation this morning on a military base at El-Adde, and they have killed many of the Christian soldiers from Kenya," Musab said. "We have counted 63 dead bodies inside the base." The Shebab frequently exaggerates the number of troops they kill, while AMISOM rarely gives exact tolls. The attack came as politicians met in the southern port of Kismayo, with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud leading a "National Consultative Forum" to debate planned elections due later this year. "Somalia is no longer a failed state," Mohamud said in a statement, which made no reference to the attack. "Somalia is building a strong foundation to support a better future." Local elder Hussein Adam said he heard a huge explosion followed by intense gunfire for about 45 minutes. Story continues "We don't know about the casualties, but people who went there saw many dead bodies strewn around," he said, having spoken to those who went to the base. The Shebab, fighting to overthrow Somalia's internationally-backed and AU-protected government, has launched a string of similar attacks. In September 2015, Shebab fighters stormed a Ugandan AMISOM base in Janale district, 80 kilometres (50 miles) southwest of Mogadishu in the Lower Shabelle region. And in June, Shebab killed dozens of Burundian soldiers when they overran an AMISOM outpost northwest of Mogadishu. The militants also stage frequent suicide attacks in the capital. But the 22,000-strong AMISOM force has also made significant gains against the Shebab, pushing them out of several strongholds in the southwest. The Shebab have also staged attacks in Kenya, killing at least 67 people at Nairobi's Westgate Mall in 2013 and massacring 148 people at a university in Garissa in April 2015. The militants say the attacks are retaliation for the Kenyan military presence in Somalia and "war crimes" committed by Kenyan troops. But Kenyatta said the troops would continue in their mission. "We will hunt down the criminals involved... our soldiers' blood will not be shed in vain," he said. Japans key index Nikkei ended in the positive territory for the first time this year on Wednesday. Nikkei gained 2.9%, or 496.67 points, on Wednesday after losing nearly 1,800 points from the start of this year through Tuesday. Despite hitting the highest year-end close last year in 18 years, the benchmark was struggling to finish in the green from the start of this year following China led global growth worries and the oil price slump. Reasons Behind the Rebound Better-than-expected trade data out of China, gains in the U.S. markets and decline in yens value against major currencies emerged as the main reasons behind the rebound. The General Administration of Customs reported that Chinese exports declined 1.4% in December, narrower than a 6.8% drop in November and markets estimate of an 8% decline. Though imports declined for the 14th consecutive month in December, the 7.6% drop in imports compared favorably with Novembers plunge of 8.7% and markets forecast of an 11.5% decline (read: Nikkei Hits fresh 15-Year High: 3 Japan ETFs to Buy). Meanwhile, modest gains in the U.S. markets on Tuesday also boosted Nikkei. A late rebound in healthcare and technology stocks helped benchmarks to offset a further decline in oil prices. Also, the weaker yen helped the major exporters including large-cap auto companies and tech companies to attract investors as it raised the possibility of an increase in export volumes. Will It Sustain? Sustainability of this rebound in the near term will largely depend on some key factors including the condition of the Chinese economy, movement of crude and health of the Japanese economy. Though better-than-expected Chinese trade data boosted the markets on Wednesday, decline in both exports and imports indicate that both global and domestic demand continued to remain weak. Meanwhile, the World Bank recently reduced its outlook for Chinese GDP growth in 2016 by 30 percentage points to 6.7%, below last years estimated growth rate of 6.9%. The bank also predicted that the economy may grow at a slower pace of 6.5% over the next two years (read: Forget China; Buy These 3 India ETFs Instead). Separately, given the weak outlook for the Chinese economy, which is one of the leading importers of oil, and an already oversupplied market, there is little hope of a recovery in oil prices. Crude is currently trading at a 12-year low with every indication of a slide below $30 per barrel (read: Oil and Energy ETFs That Hit All-Time Lows). In this scenario, the Japanese economic environment will play a key role in setting the course of Nikkei in the coming months. Japan opted for several economic stimulus measures last year, which proved to be more effective than the steps taken by China and the Eurozone. The economy rebounded strongly in the third quarter to register a GDP growth rate of 1%, as against second quarters contraction of 0.5%. Meanwhile, the impact of recent modifications in the quantitative easing program by Bank of Japan (BOJ) will also remain in focus. The bank opted for raising the Japanese government bonds (JGBs) average maturity from 710 years to 712 years and announced that it will allocate 300 billion yen of assets annually in purchasing ETFs that seek to follow the JPX-Nikkei Index 400 (read: Yen ETF Gains on Bank of Japan Stimulus Changes). Japan ETFs in Focus In this scenario, popular Japan ETFs and funds that closely track the performance of Nikkei will remain on investors radar in the coming months. MAXIS Nikkei 225 ETF (NKY), which tracks the performance of Nikkei 225 Index, returned nearly 9.4% last year. Meanwhile, performance of other popular Japan ETFs will also remain in focus in the near term. In 2015, iShares MSCI Japan (EWJ), WisdomTree Japan Hedged Equity ETF (DXJ) and Deutsche X-trackers MSCI Japan Hedged Eq (DBJP) returned 8.9%, 3.3% and 4.5%, respectively. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report WISDMTR-J HEF (DXJ): ETF Research Reports DEUTS-XT MS JPN (DBJP): ETF Research Reports MAXIS-NIK 225 (NKY): ETF Research Reports ISHARS-JAPAN (EWJ): ETF Research Reports To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report (Corrects paragraph 1 to say complaint was against "Northwest Arctic Borough, Alaska", not "Alaska"; Removes reference to Alaska Governor's tax hike plans) Jan 15 (Reuters) - Canadian miner Teck Resources Ltd said its unit, Teck Alaska, filed a complaint against Northwest Arctic Borough, Alaska for a tax increase that could more than triple the company's annual payments for 2016. The tax increase would negatively impact the competitiveness and longevity of Teck's Red Dog mine and put jobs at risk, the company said on Friday. Teck Alaska operates the Red Dog mine - one of the world's largest zinc mines - located in the Northwest Arctic Borough. The lawsuit filed in the Superior Court for the State of Alaska also sought a new payment agreement. (Reporting by Anet Josline Pinto in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila) One of the strongest pieces of trial evidence in favor of Making a Murderer subject Steven Avery was the vial of his blood from a previous conviction that appeared to have been tampered with. But new information makes that piece look a lot weaker. OnMilwaukee.com reports that court papers from Averys appeal show prison nurse Marlene Kraintz was set to testify in Averys trial for the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach that she punctured a hole in the test tube of Averys blood, and in fact such holes are commonplace, because thats often how the blood gets put in the tube in the first place. Averys defense team, Dean Strang and Jerry Buting, discovered the hole in the test tubes stopper. They believed it was proof that the Manitowoc County Sheriffs Department had tampered with the evidence and withdrew blood from the tube. The theory supposed that blood was later smeared in the victim's car to incriminate Avery. If Kraintz had testified, it would have gone a long way to discrediting the theory and Averys perceived innocence. According OnMilwaukee.com, she wouldve explained that its common practice to fill a test tube via syringe. But she wasnt called to the stand. We did not believe that the defense had raised the issue significantly enough [at trial], claiming that there was any tampering done to the blood vial, former prosecutor Ken Kratz told the site. Although the documentary suggests that the hole in the vial of blood was significant, everybody at the time knew and certainly the filmmakers had to know that the hole in the vial was put there by the nurse who drew the blood. In addition to Kraintz, the website interviewed two other experts who also said that its common practice to fill a test tube in that manner. Making a Murderer also shows that the vial was supposed to be in a sealed box. But when the prosecution discovered it, the seal had been broken. Manitowoc County DA E. James Fitzgerald said that he opened the box after both sides were given permission to study the evidence from Averys previous trial. Story continues For some, that might seem enough to strike down the planting argument by the defense. But the site points out that just because Kraintz wouldve testified to making the hole, theres no way to know if someone else extracted blood from the tube through the same hole. NOW WATCH: The lawyer from Making A Murderer describes whats wrong with Americas criminal justice system More From Business Insider Ben Williams Adblock Plus Popular ad blocker Adblock Plus claims that it was uninvited from the US Interactive Advertising Bureau's big conference. The IAB represents the biggest names in the digital-advertising industry: Google, Facebook, Twitter, online publishers, and ad-tech companies. Each year it holds its annual leadership meeting in Palm Desert, California. It's where the biggest names in the online-advertising industry network and thrash out their ideas on the issues and trends of the day. This year they've got Oracle executive chairman Larry Ellison, Yahoo's global revenue chief Lisa Utzschneider, and Google ads boss Sridhar Ramaswamy speaking. Adblock Plus won't be attending, though. Last week, Adblock Plus received an email saying that the company's registration fee was being returned and its registration had been canceled. When Adblock Plus said that "there must be some confusion" because it didn't ask for a cancellation or a refund, the IAB simply replied: "I'm sorry if there's any confusion. Just to be clear, there will be no ticket available for you and we've refunded your registration fee." IAB US spokeswoman Laura Goldberg told Business Insider: "The IAB Annual Leadership Meeting is for serious conversation among important digital-industry stakeholders." Here's that email exchange: 303t Writing on the Adblock Plus blog, the company's operations and marketing manager, Ben Williams, expressed his bafflement. Adblock Plus had paid its fee, had its place at the event confirmed, was even listed on the website as a participant and attended the event last year! Williams said he has contacted the IAB's CEO, Randall Rothenberg, but heard nothing back. He wrote: Sadly, if the leader of the largest advertiser trade organization does not have the cojones to allow dis-senting voices to be heard, then he does so at his own peril. Ad industry pundits have blamed themselves for the meteoric rise of ad blocking, and some of IAB's own lieutenants have called for Rothenberg's resignation. We're beginning to see why. Story continues In a notable (and noble) confession, one IAB executive even went on record saying "we messed up" by allowing online advertising to become overly aggressive, and thus helping to fuel ad blocker installs. The over 400,000,000 downloads of Adblock Plus are not going to "go away." Dis-allowing Adblock Plus from attending your event solves nothing. We will proceed to work with others to build a sustainable monetization model for the Internet. Here's a screenshot, showing that Mark Addison from Adblock Plus was originally on the attendee list: IAB STUFF NOW WATCH: 4 lottery winners who lost it all More From Business Insider Virgin Galactic Space Suits Virgin Galactic unveiled the look of its new flight suits at Spaceport America in New Mexico Thursday, announced as a collaboration with Adidas' high-end sportswear brand Y-3. The jumpsuit the company unveiled was the pilot's version, which is still a prototype, but passenger astronauts will also be outfitted with similar suits. Y-3, which is a collaboration between Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto and Adidas, will also design all other Virgin Galactic uniforms including crew members on the ground for the partnership. It's made with super high-tech fabrics. The body uses a fabric called Nomex Meta Aramid, which retains Kevlar's rigidity but is more flexible, according to Gizmodo. This makes it able to support a pilot's seated position while blasting through the atmosphere, while also staying comfortable enough to wear during long space flights. The boots are similarly high-tech, using a combination of Nomex and natural leather that is extremely lightweight. They also have special insoles for absorbing shock as well as enhanced grips on the bottom. The boots go into testing with pilots immediately, so they can provide feedback. Virgin Galactic Space Suits The outfits take clear inspiration from popular sportswear motifs, like "goth ninja" and "health goth," which also include all-black palettes and high-tech materials. Since these suits are just prototypes, it's possible the design might change completely before they go into production, but we hope they don't. Wearing flight suits this cool might just make the entire trip worth it. Virgin Galactic Space Suits NOW WATCH: Volkswagen's brand chief gave an extended apology before their CES keynote More From Business Insider donald trump During the Fox Business Network debate on Thursday, real-estate mogul Donald Trump denied telling The New York Times that he called for a massive, 45% tariff on Chinese exports to the US. "It's The New York Times. They're always wrong," Trump said after moderator Neil Cavuto quoted the newspaper about his purported tariff proposal. But The Times didn't back down after Trump made the claim. The newspaper posted audio from its editorial board meeting with Trump last week. It even published a fact-check on Trump's debate comments that blared: "The audio doesn't lie." In the audio, Trump indeed appeared to back a 45% tariff on Chinese goods. But he also rapidly bounced from topic to topic. "I would tax China coming in, products coming in. I would do a tariff," Trump said in the interview. "I love free trade but it's got to be reasonably fair. I would do a tax," he added. "And let me tell you what the tax should be. The tax should be 45%. That would be a tax that would be an equivalent to some of the kind of devaluations that theyve done. They cannot believe that we haven't done this yet." At the debate, Trump suggested that he had framed the 45% number as a hypothetical. "What I said to The New York Times is that we have great power, economic power, over China," he said. "Where the 45% comes in, that would be the amount based on their devaluations that we should get." This wasn't the first time Trump rejected the idea that he had advocated for a 45% tariff. Earlier this week, Trump did a phone interview with Cavuto in which Trump claimed he didn't "even know where the 45% came from." "I don't have a 45% [tariff.] I'm just saying that we have to take a tough stance on China. I never said I don't even know where the 45% came from," he said. "But I said that is the equivalent of what they've done with respect to their devaluations. But China has to pay a price if they don't start behaving. Because they're killing us on trade." Story continues Watch Trump's debate comments on trade below: NOW WATCH: Here's how President Obama starts every morning More From Business Insider For Immediate Release Chicago, IL January 16, 2016 Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include General Electric Company (GE), Gorman-Rupp Co. (GRC), LSB Industries Inc. (LXU) and Macquarie Infrastructure Corp. ( MIC). Today, Zacks is promoting its ''Buy'' stock recommendations. Get #1Stock of the Day pick for free. Here are highlights from Thursdays Analyst Blog: Will GEs Relocation to Boston Have Any Impact on Shares? Digital industrial goods manufacturer General Electric Company (GE) recently announced that it will relocate its corporate headquarters from Fairfield, CT to Boston, MA, lured by the depth in human capital and a more pro-business environment that would significantly reduce its tax burden. The strategic decision is likely to have several repercussions on the growth index of the company. The Driving Factors for Boston For more than three years, Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, had been scouting for an alternative to shift the headquarters from its 4-decade old abode. A formal review of the process began in June 2015, with a list of 40 potential locations that included Atlanta, Austin and Nashville. However, Boston was selected as the ideal choice based on a favorable business ecosystem, huge technology talent base, lower tax structure, a relatively better quality of life for employees and proximity to other company assets. Over the years, Massachusetts has been nurturing technology talent with over 55 colleges and universities in the Greater Boston area, arguably spending relatively more on research and development than any other region in the world. A favorable tax structure also tilted the scales in favor of Massachusetts, as it reportedly has a corporate tax rate of 8% versus an effective tax rate of 9% (due to surcharges on growth income) in Connecticut. That the company had other significant assets in the region further provided an edge in the decision-making process. Massachusetts houses nearly 5,000 employees of General Electric in businesses like Aviation, Oil & Gas and Energy Management. In addition, Boston serves as the headquarters of its Life Sciences business as well as its energy services start-up, Current. Relocation Costs The new headquarters in Boston will feature 200 corporate staff and 600 digital industrial product managers and developers from GE Digital, Current, robotics and Life Sciences departments. The company will also build a GE Digital Foundry for co-creation, incubation and product development with customers, startups and partners. General Electric, however, revealed that the relocation costs would have no material impact on its financials. In order to entice as big a company as General Electric, Massachusetts offered a warm welcome with up to $120 million in grants and other incentives and property tax savings of up to $25 million. However, the funds were pre-conditioned to be spent on developing public infrastructure facilities, including site preparation, acquisition for building and road and building improvements. In order to further offset its relocation expenses, General Electric intends to sell its offices in Fairfield and at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. A Smart Move by GE? General Electric is currently undergoing a massive restructuring program to transform itself into a digital industrial entity with a focus on core manufacturing businesses that have a digital edge. In accordance with Immelts vision, General Electric has divested most of the financial units under GE Capital. The company is betting high on the Industrial Internet as the next growth driver and its tactical moves are reminiscent of such a decisive shift. Story continues Although General Electric shares were down 1.4% yesterday to $28.24 on the impact of the news, experts believe that the move is likely to be beneficial in the long run as it focuses to improve profit from industrial operations and emphasize on the digital capabilities. We remain impressed with the continued efforts of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock to sustain its growth momentum in the near future. Some of the other notable companies in the industry worth mentioning include Gorman-Rupp Co. (GRC) and LSB Industries Inc. (LXU), both carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) and Macquarie Infrastructure Corp. ( MIC), carrying a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report >> About Zacks Equity Research Zacks Equity Research provides the best of quantitative and qualitative analysis to help investors know what stocks to buy and which to sell for the long-term. Continuous coverage is provided for a universe of 1,150 publicly traded stocks. Our analysts are organized by industry which gives them keen insights to developments that affect company profits and stock performance. Recommendations and target prices are six-month time horizons. Zacks "Profit from the Pros" e-mail newsletter provides highlights of the latest analysis from Zacks Equity Research. Subscribe to this free newsletter today. Find out What is happening in the stock market today on zacks.com. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report GENL ELECTRIC (GE): Free Stock Analysis Report GORMAN RUPP CO (GRC): Free Stock Analysis Report LSB INDS INC (LXU): Free Stock Analysis Report MACQUARIE INFRA (MIC): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. 136 out of 139 2010 & 136 out of 140 2016, 136 out of 142 2017 133 out of 138 2013, 133 out of 140 2011 & 133 130 out of 135 2015 129 out of 133 2009 126 out of 136 2008 & 2003 123 out of 134 2006 138 out of 142 2012137 out of 140 2014 & 137 out of 142 in 2017 Thanks for visiting ! 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We value your privacy. Focus Taiwan (CNA) uses tracking technologies to provide better reading experiences, but it also respects readers' privacy. Click here to find out more about Focus Taiwan's privacy policy. When you close this window, it means you agree with this policy. To activate the text-to-speech service, please first agree to the privacy policy below. Taipei, Jan. 15 (CNA) Besides electing a new president of the Republic of China, voters in Taiwan and its adjacent islands on Saturday will also decide on a new Legislature, the composition of which is far more uncertain but no less important. For Freedom From Delusion Commentaries and Series go to : https://commentariesandseries.blogspot.com/ To Be Notified of New Posts, Please Click the Follower Notification Located Below the Blog Archive Crystal Cruises announced today that it will reroute two of its upcoming voyages set to call in Turkish ports following security concerns for travel within Istanbul. The luxury cruise line has revised the itineraries for Crystal Symphonys April 24 and May 1 sailings, previously planned to include visits to Istanbul and Kusadasi, replacing those ports with Greek destinations. Earlier Disney Cruise Line also announced that they would reroute their Turkey calls. The safety and peace of mind of our guests are our primary concerns, and we do not take any risks with either, says Crystal CEO & President, Edie Rodriguez. The itinerary changes will allow our guests to continue with their planned vacations in the same standard of excellence and luxury, without the added worry of security in a particular destination. Turkish ports of call scheduled for April and November aboard Crystals new luxury yacht, Crystal Esprit, will also be changed, though the new itineraries have yet to be finalized. Effective immediately, the voyages will reflect the following itinerary changes (*=newly changed destination): April 24 (7 days) Athens/Piraeus, Mykonos, Santorini, Rhodes, *Souda Bay/Chaina, *Navplion (overnight), *Hydra and *Athens/Piraeus (overnight), Greece. May 1 (12 days) *Athens/Piraeus (overnight), *Patmos, *Rhodes, Mykonos, Santorini, Navplion and Argostolios, Greece; Crotone, Sorrento and Rome/Civitavecchia, Italy. As the annual Presidents Cruise, the April 24 sailing will also boast the distinction of being one of Crystals few voyages to focus solely in Greece. For both sailings, pre-reserved Crystal Adventures will automatically be canceled, while the line is in the process of developing a host of new excursions ashore, which will be available in the online Guest Check-In/Priority Check-In & Planning Center (PCPC) at crystalcruises.com. We do not know if we will ever again see the equivalent of the siberian traps. We can see a super volcano at work, but that is likely to be... The Gorilla Radio archive can be found at: www.Gorilla-Radio.com. G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in State and Corporate media. Gorilla Radio airs live Thursdays between 11-12 noon Pacific Time. Airing in Victoria at 101.9FM, and featured on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca and www.pacificfreepress.com. And check out Pacific Free Press on Twitter @Paciffreepress Here's some cuddly news (with photos!) to briefly take your mind off the looming L train blues: The ASPCA has given us updates on some animals who were rescued from dangerous, sometimes disturbing situations, as well as some adorable photos that, warning, may compel you to go out and find your own pet to adopt. Two years ago, the NYPD took over animal investigations from the ASPCA and the two groups entered into a partnership to combat animal abuse: The NYPD responds and investigates animal cruelty complaints while the ASPCA provides care for victims and offers forensic analysis and police training. In 2015, the NYPD and ASPCA's joint efforts resulted 158 arrests and 677 animals treated, an 18% and 60% increase respectively over 2014. Howard Lawrence, Vice President, ASPCA Anti-Cruelty Group, said, "The first two years of the NYPD-ASPCA partnership shattered past records and yielded incredible results for the citys most vulnerable animals... The combined dedication and compassion of NYPD officers and ASPCA staff saved hundreds of animals from suffering in New York City last year, but this progress relied on New Yorkers reporting animal cruelty and neglect." Here are some of the happy tales (and tails) from the ASPCA: PEANUT BUTTER LOOK AT THIS FACE! (Courtesy of the ASPCA) A year ago this month, a six-month-old puppy was found in the Bronx, buried in snow after being punched and beaten with a shovel. A 43-year-old man was arrested and the puppy was taken to the ASPCA for treatment. Now, the ASPCA says: When ASPCA employee Dara R. and her boyfriend Benjamin M. brought Lacey into their Brooklyn home in March 2015, they only intended to foster the abused pup for a little while. Given Laceys extensive injuries, ASPCA medical staff felt an experienced foster home placement would be the best to determine if the female pit bull mix puppy could manage her physical limitations outside of a hospital. It didnt take Dara and Benjamin very long to figure out this foster arrangement was destined to fail. In May 2015, they made the adoption official and renamed her Peanut Butter for her sweet and goofy demeanor and how her brown and tan brindle coat resembles a chocolate peanut butter cup. Dara says, "She became a part of our lives so quickly. We just couldnt imagine giving her back! Shes doing really, really well. Her adjustment was probably a lot smoother than anyone expected. Shes learned to get around in her own way and can compensate for some of the weakness she has from her past injuries. Her favorite thing to do is snuggle and she normally falls asleep on her back with all four legs in the air." Peanut Butter (Courtesy of ASPCA) Peanut Butter is sociable with both humans and other dogsand she loves to travel. Dara adds, "She just loves nature. We recently took her on a little hike near Asheville, North Carolina and let her put her paws in the ocean at the Rockaways last year." JUNIE Junie (Courtesy of ASPCA) A trio of seriously neglected Shih Tzus, which the authorities named Janet, Chrissy and Jack, was found in a Bronx drug den. The dogs' fur was so matted that they needed medical grooming. Bill Cook, Chief Investigator for the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor, saw the before and after photos of Junie and decided to adopt her. He and wife Maryann had recently lost their Shih Tzu of 17 years and were eager to bring a new dog into their Westchester home. According to the ASPCA, "Like most dogs, Junie enjoys stretching her legs with a good run around the familys back yard with another dog or chasing after her favorite bacon-scented squeaky ball. But more than anything, she prefers curling up on a warm lap." Junie and her "niece" Dobbie; Dobbie is the Cooks' daughter's dog (Courtesy of ASPCA) "She's our little baby," Bill Cook said. "She wakes me up each morning and comes to sleep with us each night. Everyone just loves her. You couldn't ask for a sweeter dog." SEBASTIAN (Courtesy of ASPCA) (Courtesy of ASPCA) Remember the estimated 200 other bunnies living in squalid conditions behind a Gowanus tire shop? This one and 150 others were rescued and treated for various illnesses (including syphilis) at Ani-Care Animal Hospital in Pennsylvania. Now Sebastian is healthy and back in Brooklyn, after being adopted by the Triumph family. The ASPCA reveals, "When Kelly Triumphs husband saw the announcements for rabbit adoptions on December 12, 2015, he knew that this was the time to fulfill his wifes long-time dream to own a bunny and get the familys first pet. Sebastian David as he was christened by Kellys young sonhas been a spirited addition to the family." Kelly Triumph was, as you can imagine, thrilled: "As soon as we saw Sebastian at the adoption event we knew he was the one. It was love at first sight! Sebastian is a very playful bunny. He hops around the house and plays with the children. He really enjoys pushing my sons toy car on the floor. His favorite food of all is fresh broccoli. He also knows exactly how he likes things. If you move his water bowl from its usual spot, hell pick it up and put it where hes used to it being." (Courtesy of ASPCA) PRINCE FRAGGLE Last January, an extremely malnourished pit bull puppy was found in a suitcase dumped near a trash can at a Bronx housing development. In a wonderful turn, he's living like a king in Queens these days. (Courtesy of ASPCA) The ASPCA says that the dog, which caregivers named Fraggle, "weighed only 30 pounds and could not walk or eat on his own for several weeks." At times it was uncertain if the shy dog would even make it, but by May 2015 he was healthy enough to begin searching for his new home. Jobanny Estrella-Elmonis and her husband were looking for another special dog to help keep their older pit bull mix, Grace, company and fell in love with Fraggles sweet face. They knew he was meant to go home with them. "When Fraggle greets me with a hug and looks up at me with this little smile that beams with pure love, I feel Gods love and blessing," Jobanny said. "I am honored to have the opportunity to love him and cannot imagine what kind of person it takes to do what was done to him. I believe there has to be a special place for people like that, because that was deliberate and took effort." Renamed Prince Fraggle, he now weighs over 55 pounds and continues to adjust with help from Grace, who "accompanies him everywhere from the dog park to the groomer." And, yes, Grace and Prince Fraggle often snuggle in the same bed. Lawrence, of the ASPCA Anti-Cruelty Group, praised concerned citizens who alert the authorities as well as those who adopt these survivors, "Not only are they speaking up on behalf of animals, but opening their homes to give victims like Fraggle, Janet, Sebastian and Lacey second chances they need and deserve." Five teens were arrested this week after they allegedly raped a young woman in a Brooklyn playground on January 7th. But one suspect claimed his cellphone video from that night shows the victim gave consent, and that the girl's father was having sex with her when the teens came upon them. The father of the alleged victim shot back at those accusations to the Post: Theyre just trying to get out of the thing they did," he told them, denying he was having sex with his daughter. "I want them to rot in jail." The NYPD says that the 18-year-old victim and her 39-year-old father were approached by a group of five young men in the Osborn Playground in Brownsville around 9:10 p.m. The father claims one of them was armed and ordered him to leave. After the father complied, police say that each of the suspects raped the woman and then fled before the father returned with police officers. The father apparently took 20 minutes to get help; while he says he asked bodega clerks to use their phones because his daughter was being raped, clerks say that he appeared drunk, never mentioned the attack and never explained he needed to call the police. "The fathers initial story just doesnt hold up to scrutiny," a source told the Post. The tabloid described the cell phone video clip of what happened before the alleged rape: In a short clip viewed by The Post, a young woman sits on the ground grinning, while young men laugh in the background. At one point, a teen asks an older man, Can we have some of that?, law enforcement sources said. A young man then tells the girl, You said, Yeah. Thats what Im saying, its lit [OK], like you know what I mean? I could tell you a freak, according to sources. The first story is never the last story, Police Commissioner Bratton, who agreed with critics who said the department waited too long to tell the public about the incident, said today. I think in this case that's certainly the case or will prove to be the case." As for the video clip, he added: "It's 9 to 11 seconds I believe it's been retrieved from one of the cell phones of the young men being investigated in this matter. It is a significant piece of evidence as we try to piece together what happened." Detectives have yet to receive the results of a rape kit (it may take up to a week more), but Bratton said on Monday, "At this juncture, we have no doubt she was raped." The suspects have all been charged with rape, criminal sex act and sexual abuse. Four of the teens are expected to be released without bail today because the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office won't meet its Friday deadline to secure indictments; the fifth teen is being held on a prior assault charge. Prosecutors have the next 180 days to build a case. New York City is well on its way toward adopting legislation that would require all single-stall restrooms to be gender neutral, a move that's being hailed as a positive step forward in the fight for equal rights and safety for transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals. This afternoon the city council's Committee on Housing and Buildings heard testimony on Intro-0871, a bill that would amend city plumbing, housing, and administrative codes to require existing single-occupancy bathrooms be usable by people of any gender. Current city code requires sex-specific restrooms in most buildings, but this legislation would give building owners the option of designating gender-neutral bathrooms instead of sex-specific restrooms. Under the New York City Human Rights Law, it's illegal to prevent someone from using a single-sex facility that's consistent with the gender with which they identify. However, this does not provide a solution for non-binary or genderqueer individuals who may not identify within the binary of male or female. That's not to mention the anxiety that many transgender people experience when using the single-sex bathroom that aligns with their own gender identity, due to a history of bathroom-based violence against transgender people and right wing-fueled fallacies that trans-inclusive bathrooms will lead to violence against women. Gender-neutral single-stall bathrooms would provide an alternative for anyone, regardless of gender identity, who does not feel comfortable using a gendered, multi-stall bathroom. Some transgender peoples appearances do not conform to widely held stereotypes about how men or women should look, and not everyones a man or a woman some of us are nonbinary, said Ezra Cukor, testifying before the council committee. Cukor noted that a lack of gender-neutral restrooms can prevent transgender and gender-nonconforming people from accessing social services and medical care, and can also impact their performance at work, particularly if they have to leave the premises every time they want to use the bathroom. The committee also heard testimony from Nellie Fitzpatrick, who directs the mayor's office of LGBT affairs in Philadelphia, where a similar law was signed into action in November. Fitzpatrick noted that in Philadelphia, there was some question about whether the law was necessary, given that the city's laws, like New York, already allow anyone to access either gendered bathroom based on their gender identity. The very simple answer to that is that bathrooms without designated gender or without signage labeling them as accessible to either men or only women benefit individuals who are not comfortable...when facing gendered bathrooms," Fitzpatrick said. According to Fitzpatrick, there has been virtually zero pushback against the city's gender neutral bathroom law, but the city does have the ability to fine anyone who does not comply. Bobby Hodgson, an attorney at the New York Civil Liberties Union, recommended that the City Council incorporate some sort of enforcement measure into the bill, as well as a requirement that new or renovated city buildings have a single-stall restroom in the first place, which they currently do not, according to Patrick Wehle of the Department of Buildings. The council also heard testimony from Rocco Sanabria, a student at Maspeth High School who said that during his elementary school years at PS 58, he was forced to identify as a girl and use the girls' bathroom. (The state's education department has since issued new guidelines that prohibit schools from forcing students to use restrooms or locker rooms that do not align with their gender identity, in accordance with Title IX law.) "The only times Ive ever felt truly comfortable in a public bathroom is when using a more gender neutral, single occupant bathroom," Sanabria said. "Its upsetting that when it comes to speaking in front of [the city council] and using a public bathroom, Im more afraid to use a public bathroom." With 27 sponsors so far, the bill stands a good chance of making it into law. If it does pass, New York City will join cities such as Philadelphia, Austin, and Washington, D.C. in offering a neutral option to gendered restrooms. We rely on your support to make local news available to all Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2022. Donate today 12-year-old Eldridge Street dance bar and performance venue Fontana's will shutter sometime this spring, with the owners citing economic woes. The Lo-Down reported on the impending closure todayowners Holly Ferrari, Mary Finn and Deannie Wheele offered the blog the following statement: We would like to thank our loyal customers, the bands that have played and our family of employees for an amazing 12 year run. As proprietors its been wonderful to serve the community in which weve lived, worked and played for over 23 years. It has become increasingly hard to be an independent business in New York city without compromising your vision. Choices get made due to economic strain and we are no longer willing to bend to that pressure. We set out to operate a neighborhood rock bar and that has become economically unfeasible. Its been a wild ride. Please stop by so we can say goodbye. Fontana's was a popular bar with locals, and once hosted a number of regular events, including the Feeling Gloomy dance partiesa weekly U.K. import featuring sad songs from the likes of The Smiths, Pulp, and The Cureand it was a swell spot for a birthday party, provided you started off with shots and ended by raging on the dance floor. Still, the owners say rent increases on the multi-level space are pushing them out, and now they'll join a list of dearly departed LES stalwarts that includes the original Max Fish, Lolita Bar, Motor City Bar, and Pink Pony. But at least we have...this? Last spring, as the clock ticked down on New York City's controversial rent regulation laws, thousands of NYC tenants and advocates marched over the Brooklyn Bridge to voice their opposition for 421-a: a '70s-era tax abatement that gives developers multi-year freezes on their real estate taxes, in exchange for building new "affordable" apartments. Those same tenants let out an audible groan in June, when the rent laws were renewed almost verbatim. Landlords retained their legal right to deregulate apartments, albeit at a slightly higher rent threshold, and 421-a was extended for four years with a few minor adjustmentsdevelopers would have to set aside 25-30% of their units as affordable, for example, rather than 20%. But the abatement was renewed on a conditionreal estate executives and union officials would have to come to an agreement by January 15th as to whether construction workers on 421-a build projects would be guaranteed a union-level wage. If an agreement isn't reached by tomorrow, the abatement will expire. From the unions' perspective, the Mayor's ambitious goal of building or preserving 200,000 units of affordable housing in 10 years could be, at best, a boon for workers. However, a report issued by union-backed Real Affordability for All in November documented labor abuses ranging from stolen wages to unsafe working conditions on affordable construction sites throughout the city. The real estate industry, on the other hand, faces significant production cost increases if wages are raised. A report released this week by the city's Independent Budget Office found that union-level wages on affordable housing projects would increase the construction costs associated with the Mayor's affordable housing plan by $2.8 billion. Today the NY Times reports that Real Estate Board President John Banks, negotiating on behalf of the real estate industry, told Board members on January 7th that a deal was unlikely. Gary La Barbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council and negotiating on behalf of the unions, declined comment for this story. Advocates have long argued that 421-a lines the pockets of developers while failing to ensure adequate affordable housing for New Yorkers. According to its guidelines, developers must include a small portion of affordable apartments in each new project. "Affordability" is determined by the median income across the metropolitan area, and is therefore inaccessible for many low-income New Yorkers. For example, when the Mayor's office proudly announced the creation and preservation of 20,325 affordable housing units in July, about 15% of those units were preserved for New Yorkers who make $38,500/year or less. For context, 36.3% of New York households make less than $35,000 a year [PDF]. Of the 40,204 affordable housing units preserved or created as of this January, about 15% are deemed affordable for New Yorkers who make $38,850 or less. Tenants take the Brooklyn Bridge to protest 421-a in May (Emma Whitford/Gothamist). Mayoral spokesman Wiley Norvell has called recent adjustments to 421-a a "game-changer," though. The abatement has contributed to the creation of 5,000 affordable units to date. At an unrelated press conference on Monday, Mayor de Blasio fielded questions about the possible expiration of the abatement. His office has spoken out against the prevailing union wage in the past, arguing that it could jeopardize as many as 17,000 affordable apartments. "There is still time for a positive result," the Mayor said, adding, "This is not the first time that 421-a has been on the brink." Indeed, the city has recently expressed confidence that the loss of 421-a would not inhibit its ability to achieve affordable housing goals. According to Department of Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Vicki Been, the abatement has "been threatened with expiration basically every four years, so it kind of works out over time." Some developers told Politico that they would be more inclined to construct condos if 421-a were to expire, because such units would be more profitable than rentals in the absence of the tax abatement. The expiration of 421-a could "cost the government more money to provide the affordable units they're promising," Jerilyn Perrine of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council told the Times. This anxiety is lost on many advocates. Kerri White, a spokeswoman for UHAB, said that many tenants are fed up with late-in-the-game squabbling over a tax abatement that is barely enforced as it is. She cited a recent investigation into Two Trees Management's property at 125 Court Street, where tenants were overcharged an estimated total of $368,000, despite 421-a tax abatements. And in July, the NY Attorney General announced that nearly 200 city landlords were illegally charging tenants market-rate rents on units for which they received significant tax breaks. "The tenant community was pretty against 421-a getting renewed at all, and it's probably gotten worse considering the news of late," White said. "This is a broken program and it's gone past the point of reform. It's always frustrating to see all of this political energy going towards making these subsidies work." "Both sides [real estate and unions] have a lot invested in making sure 421-a moves forward," said Katie Goldstein from Alliance for Tenant Power. "To us, it's a giveaway to luxury developers. We're interested in a program that helps tenants." "We remain committed to working with stakeholders for a program that will allow much more affordable, or below-market, rental housing to be built, ensure construction workers are treated fairly and create job opportunities for residents of New York City," said Banks in a statement to the NY Times. Last night while the entire population of New York City was snorting drugs and overpaying for small portions of delicious food, the Republican presidential candidates denigrated our way of life, as if theyve never paid a guy in Hells Kitchen $47 dollars (all I got is singles, sorry) to rub their genitals on a recently harvested human liver. Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who must defeat Donald Trump in order to become the king of Rage Mountain, was asked by the FOX News moderator what he meant when he said that Trump was an embodiment of New York values and thus ill-suited to lead the United States. I think most people know exactly what New York values are, Cruz said. Youre from New York so you might not, but I promise you in the state of South Carolina, they do, Cruz said, as the Charleston crowd lustily fired muskets into the air and threw tobacco-stained dentures onto the stage. Everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro-gay marriage, focus around money and the media, Cruz continued. I guess I can frame it another way: Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan. Im just sayin. Like a New Yorker extracting their fist at the first whisper of a safe word, Donald Trump sprung into action. New York is a great place. Its got great people. Its got loving people, wonderful people, Trump began. When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York. Yes, Donald Trump played the 9/11 card. But this time it came across as nuanced, thoughtful, even human. Only in New York. Thousands of people killed and the cleanup started the next day, and it was the most horrific cleanup probably in the history of doing this, in construction. I was down there. And Ive never seen anything like it. And the people in New York fought and fought and fought, and we saw more death and even the smell of death; nobody understood it. And it was with us for months: the smell, the air. And we rebuilt downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched, and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers, and I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made. And it's true! Trump was there, as this interview with a German TV station shows. (Stick around to the end to see him SPEAK ANOTHER LANGUAGE THAT ISN'T AMERICAN.) That's Ameritude. Trump's eloquence was such that Mayor de Blasio offered this statement in support of the candidate. "I find myself, for once, in agreement with Donald Trump," de Blasio said. "I think it was right for Donald Trump to defend New York City, and to talk about the heroic actions of the people of this city after 9/11." Donald Trump: racist, ruthless, New Yorker. David Bowie died last Sunday at the age of 69, and the past week has been long and sorrowful, compounded by the fact that Alan Rickman (and others) also died. But if you've been listening to Bowie non-stop like us, then you might be interested in a few screenings of his work this weekend. The Film Society at Lincoln Center will host a free screening of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence today at 6:30 p.m. and a free screening of The Man Who Fell to Earth at 9 p.m.both screenings will be at the Walter Reade Theater. Then the Paley Center For Media will host screenings of David Bowie: Sound & Vision retrospective for the last three weekends in January (Jan. 16 & 17, 23 & 24, 30 & 31). The five-part screening series, which was originally shown in 2002 there, was culled from archives around the world as well as Bowies own library, and features tons of TV appearances, live performances, music videos and more. You can get the full information about those screenings, including times of screenings, at their website here. In addition, there will be two Bowie tribute concerts later in the spring, including a show on March 31st at Carnegie Hall and a show April 1st at Radio City Music Hall. Musicians participating include Michael Stipe, Laurie Anderson, Cat Power, the Roots, Jakob Dylan, the Mountain Goats, Cyndi Lauper, Bettye LaVette, Perry Farrell, Robyn Hitchcock, Ann Wilson of Heart and more. The Carnegie show is already sold out, but there may be tickets left for Radio City Music Hall stillcheck here. And here's a nice moment from a week agolongtime producer Tony Visconti calling Bowie during a Holy Holy tribute show to wish him a happy 69th birthday. And a couple other neat things: here are some rare photos of Bowie from the Thin White Duke era; you can get his only video game, Omikron: The Nomad Soul, for free until Jan. 22nd; an my favorite random anecdote, which concerns Bowie's efforts to avoid attention in public around NYC: In the days since 32-year-old Richard Oates slipped from his skateboard in what authorities believe to have been a fatal "skitching" accident, the Brooklyn father of two has been remembered by friends, family and colleagues as a talented chef and businessman committed to his wife and young children. "Richard was an amazing father and husband. He touched the lives of many people with his contagious smile and his sense of humor," his widow Marisa Kompar told us this morning via text message. Oates's sister-in-law Alicia Kompar added that the love between her sister and Richard was palpable. "He wrote letters to my sister all of the time," she wrote. "You could really see the love he had for her. We really can't imagine our lives without him." He was "stubbornly selfless," added his brother Dan in an e-mail to the NY Times. Oates attended the French Culinary Institute before serving as chef de cuisine at both Freemans on the Lower East Side and the Left Bank in the West Village. But he left the restaurant business over a year ago, to open East River Skate Shop in Greenpoint with his wife Marisa, a school teacher. The couple has two childrenFinnegan, 4, and Theodore, 10 months. The skate shop, Oates explained, was a venture that he hoped would allow for more family time. "I spent the past decade working in kitchens, and I'm taking a hiatus from it. We just had a baby, and we have a three-and-a-half year old, so I wanted to be available as a father," he said in a promotional video for the shop published over the summer. "He was extremely kind, generous and was pursuing his dream of owning his own skate shop," wrote the blog NY Skateboarding. "He'd put in hard work the past few months trying to make his shop on Greenpoint Ave. a success and was starting to get more involved in the skateboarding community." "He was such a kind, humble, carrying, enthusiastic, funny person," eulogized Femme Skate, a collective of female skaters in NYC. Oates was riding his skateboard on Tuesday afternoon, gripping the passenger side of a green Mack truck as the driver headed west on Delancey, according to a preliminary NYPD investigation. Shortly after 1:15 p.m., Oates fell off of his skateboard and was run over by the truck's rear passenger-side wheels. EMS responded to the corner of Norfolk Street and transported Oates to Bellevue Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. One witness told DNAInfo that the driver did not immediately stop when Oates was struck. "It appeared like the guy in the... truck didn't know he hit him," the witness said. However, a spokesperson from the NYPD later stated that the driver remained on the scene. The driver of the truck, whose name has not been released, was not charged. According to New York State vehicle and traffic law, "No person riding upon any bicycle, coaster, in-line skates, roller skates, skate board, sled, or toy vehicle shall attach the same or himself or herself to any vehicle being operated upon a roadway." Richard Naviasky, a 15-year veteran of the FDNY, was on his way to work on Tuesday when he witnessed Oates's fall. "He lost control and went under the truck," Naviasky wrote in an open letter published Friday in the Daily News. "Life can be so fleeting," he added. "Just a happy guy in a happy life until one dangerous move he'd probably done a hundred times before." Naviasky also expressed his gratitude for a woman who rushed to Oates's aid on the street. "There was a lady holding his head stabilized, comforting him, praying for him... I never asked her if she was ok and I regret that so much. She was a wonderful person, giving him comfort if he could hear her, comfort if he could feel her hands. I believe he could." A GoFundMe page launched in Oates' honor has raised $33,869 of its $35,000 goal as of this writing. All proceeds will go to his wife and children. The cold weather just can't quite stick this winter, but it's not giving up. For the second time this month cold Canadian air tried to do its thing but gave up after a couple of days. A warm front is moving north through the city this morning, and as it passes we should warm to the upper 40s, if not the lower 50s, in the city and on Long Island. The warm weather will be accompanied by a soaking rain late this evening into tomorrow morning as we'll be on the western fringes of a nor'easter. Temperatures on Saturday will again reach the upper 40s. As the nor'easter moves up the coast we'll get a brisk wind coming out of the northwest, making for a blustery afternoon and evening. Tropical Storm Alex, which was the first Atlantic hurricane to form in January since 1938 and only the third January hurricane on record, is way too far out to sea to affect our local weather. Following quickly on the heels of the passing nor'easter an upper-level trough will rotate through the northeast. That trough should bring us the longest spell of cold weather so far this winter. Sunday could warm to the upper 30s, which is normal for mid-January, but Martin Luther King Day and Tuesday look to remain below freezing all day. We might see a few snow showers late Sunday night into Monday as the first of several Alberta Clippers run through the region but no accumulation is expected. Measurable snowfall has yet to be seen this winter in Central Park. It looks like temperatures will return to close to normal by next Wednesday or Thursday and stay there through next weekend. No significant snowfall is expected for at least the next couple of weeks. If that forecast holds this will be the least snowiest start to a winter since the El Nino-influenced season of 1997-98, which only had a half-inch of snow through January. Did you, too, suffer a mini-meltdown this week after learning about the looming L'apocalypse, on top of those 30 station closures and wonky N-train service we can all look forward to over the next few years? Don't worry: the ever-thoughtful MTA is here to ease you into your misery by acclimating you to subway hell this weekend, with changes on the 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, A, C, D, E, F, L, N, Q, and R lines. But hey, at least the L will be going between Brooklyn and Manhattan...for now. Here's what to expect: 3 trains will skip Rockaway Av and Van Siclen Av in both directions. Shuttle buses will available to and from both stations. 4 trains will also skip Rockaway Av and Van Siclen Av in both directions. Additionally, Brooklyn-bound 4 trains will run express from 14 St-Union Sq to Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall, from 11:45 p.m. on Friday to 7:30 a.m. on Sunday and again from 11:45 p.m. on Sunday and 5 a.m. on Monday. 5 trains will run every 20 minutes between Eastchester-Dyre Av and Bowling Green from 6 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. on Saturday and from 8 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. on Sunday. Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall bound 6 trains will run express from 14 St-Union Sq to Brooklyn Bridge, starting at 11:45 p.m. on Friday and ending at 5 a.m. on Monday. Hudson Yards-bound 7 trains will run express from Mets-Willets Point to 74 St-Broadway, starting at 3:45 a.m. on Saturday, January 16 and ending at 5 a.m. on Monday. A trains will be rerouted via the F in both directions between W 4 St-Wash Sq and Jay St-MetroTech, and will run local in both directions between W 4 St-Wash Sq and 59 St-Columbus Circle, starting at 11:45 p.m. on Friday and ending at 5 a.m. on Monday. From 11:45 p.m. on Friday to 6 a.m. on Sunday and from 11:45 p.m. on Sunday to 5 a.m. on Monday, Manhattan-bound A trains will run express from 59 St-Columbus Circle to 125 St. Brooklyn-bound A trains will skip 111 St and 80 St. C trains will also be rerouted via the F line in both directions between W 4 St-Wash Sq and Jay St-MetroTech, from 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Also in that time frame, Manhattan-bound C trains will run express from 59 St-Columbus Circle to 125 St. There will be no D train service between 59 St-Columbus Circle and Coney Island-Stillwell Av, starting at 11:30 p.m. on Friday and ending at 5 a.m. on Monday. FNQR trains and shuttle buses will provide alternate service. E trains will be rerouted via the F line in both directions between 21 St-Queensbridge and W 4 St-Wash Sq, starting at 11:45 p.m. on Friday and ending at 5 a.m. on Monday. Free shuttle buses will run between Court Sq-23 St and 21 St-Queensbridge, with stops at Queens Plaza. Additionally, from 12:01 a.m. on Saturday to 5 a.m. on Monday, E trains will run local in both directions while in Queens. F trains will run local in both directions between Forest Hills-71 Av and 21 St-Queensbridge from 12:01 a.m. on Saturday to 5 a.m. on Monday. L trains will skip Atlantic Av in both directions. There will be free shuttle buses to and from the Broadway Junction station at all times. Astoria-Ditmars Blvd bound N trains will skip 86 St, Avenue U, Kings Hwy, 20 Av, 18 Av, New Utrecht Av, and Fort Hamilton Pkwy, but will stop at Bay Pkwy and 8 Av. This change will go into effect at 5 a.m. on Monday and last until 2017. Additionally, N trains will be rerouted via the D line in both directions between Coney Island-Stillwell Av and 36 St, starting at 11:30 p.m. on Friday and ending at 5 a.m. on Monday. Free shuttle buses and R trains will provide alternate service. Manhattan-bound Q trains will run express from Sheepshead Bay to Kings Hwy, starting at 3:45 a.m. on Saturday and ending at 10 p.m. on Sunday. 36 St-bound R trains will stop at 53 St and 45 St, from 11:45 p.m. on Friday to 6:30 a.m. on Sunday and from 11:45 p.m. on Sunday to 5 a.m. on Monday. Opinion Destination Sharjah Come November and all roads will lead to Expo Centre Sharjah. Every year, we wait for this moment to arrive. The 41st edition of Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) is all set to begin from Nov.2. Everybody in the UAE is super excited for SIBF. Lots of authors of international repute will grace the much-loved event. A total of 1,632 exhibitors from 83 countries will attend the event. I am also looking forward to meet and listen to a few of them. The recent cold snap in the Hamptons is predictable. The possible failure of the Nest thermostat at your second home, not so much. Yesterday's New York Times reported about a systemic failure of the web-enabled Nest thermostat, which plunged homes into the cold: Homeowners who installed a Nest in a weekend home, or who were on vacation, were also concerned that their pipes could freeze and burst, causing major damage. So what are homeowners to do? For tips on protecting your East End seasonal home from the perils of winter, we talked with Stephen Poux, Senior Vice President and Head of Risk Management Services and Loss Prevention for high net worth insurer AIG Private Client Group. What's the biggest threat to an unoccupied house? Water damage is the most frequent cause of homeowner's insurance claims. Install an automatic shut-off system designed to stop water flow when a leak occurs. There are companies, such as Water Security Solutions, that specialize in identifying and installing the most appropriate devices for your property. If feasible, shut off your water supply entirely while you're away. If you'll be away for an extended period during cold weather months, have someone check your home at least once a day. Make sure he/she knows the location of the main water shut-off. To prevent exterior faucets from freezing, shut them off from inside the home and drain remaining water from the pipes. Exterior irrigation systems should be blown out and winterized. What about temperature settings? During extended periods of sub-freezing temperatures, increase thermostat settings to at least 60 F throughout the home to help ensure adequate temperatures are maintained in colder spots. Open bathroom or kitchen cabinet doors that run along outside walls so that warmer room air can circulate through them. These measures can help lessen the chances of frozen (and burst) pipes. Add several low temperature sensors to your central station alarm system. Place them in remote areas of your home. Are generators a good idea? Yes. Install a back-up electrical generator to maximize comfort and avoid depending on candles. If you must use candles, do not leave them burning in unoccupied rooms of the house. How should security be handled in the winter? Conduct a professional security assessment to ensure that the existing alarm system provides the most optimal protection against burglary, fire and low temperatures. Advise family members to use social media wisely. Don't announce that the Hamptons home is vacant to friends and followers. Any other tips? Have your property manager check the home perimeter and seal any air leaks with caulk and weather-stripping. Add additional insulation in the atticmost homes need at least 12-15 inches. And make sure to consider your current insurance coverage. If you had to rebuild your home in today's market, would you have enough homeowners' insurance to sufficiently cover the expense? Many properties are insured based on values that are vastly underestimatedespecially those that have undergone extensive home improvements and renovations. An independent insurance agent can help you ensure that you are fully protected. Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold [NYT] AIG Private [Official] Hands Across the Sea is a non-profit organization serving children and their families in Haiti. Founded and run by Karen Huxter, HATS includes an orphanage, a school serving children from preschool to grade 10, serving over 400 children, many of whom are sponsored by individual donors in Canada and the U.S. The children receive a high-quality nutritional drink and a hot lunch each school day. Finally, HATS-Haiti provides ongoing support to families in the community with financial aid in times of crisis, nutrional support, clothing distribution, and assistance with medical costs at the nearby hospital. This was passed along from Bob B. and also credit to Kevin Sorbo. For me When the State tells you its safe to go to Home Depot to buy a ... A year full of Saturdays Helisher It's not hard to figure it out, I love travelling and love being on the move. I've had the good fortune to have travelled extensively in the last several years, now its time to share the 'Lifetime full of Saturdays' with my wife and son. View my complete profile The Helena Area Chamber of Commerce honored 2015 award winners at its annual awards luncheon Thursday and got a surprise visit from Montana Gov. Steve Bullock. Bullock showed up to announce the award for the chambers 2015 Hospitality Hero, Tim Crawford, manager of Gates of the Mountain tours. In his younger days, Bullock worked with Crawford at Gates of the Mountain Tours as a tour guide and recalled the joy both he and Crawford had at their work. Other than the job I have now, the best job I ever had in my life was being a tour boat driver, Bullock said. Crawford still has as much excitement today about the tours and the area as he did those many years ago, the governor said. Crawford was one of several winners announced at the annual luncheon, which was attended by more than 300 people. The luncheon was emceed by outgoing chamber president Jim Enyeart of Home Beautifiers and closed with comments from new board president, Bob Morrison of Morrison-Maierle Inc. The winners John Ulberg Membership Artist of the Year Quinton Mergenthaler, First Interstate Bank Don Fredrikson Volunteer of the Year Pat McCutcheon, Payne West Insurance George D. Anderson Business Person of the Year Steves Cafe, Penny and Steve Vincelli Small Business of the Year Westmont, Kris Bakula, executive director Business of the Year In accepting the business of the year award, Bakula echoed what many award winners said, that success is a group and community effort. We couldnt do it without everyone in the Helena community who supports us on a regular basis, she told the crowd. In his closing comments, Morrison spoke to the effort by the chamber board and staff to continue to provide a great service to local businesses by promoting its members and the overall Helena community. Another focus will be expanding chamber membership. Out of about 3,500 businesses in Helena, the chamber has 750 members. Morrison sees the opportunity for growth, and with growth will come more strength. Were really only effective as a strong team and working together to help business in Helena, he said. The Revenant At the Cinemark (R) Grade: A- Envelope please. And the winner is: Leonardo DiCaprio. Runner up: The mama grizzly. More on Jack Dawsons rise from the Atlantic later. *** For Montanans who grumbled during our cold stretch because of spinning wheels and snowy driveways, may I suggest that the Big Sky winter of 1823 was tougher. Case in point: trapper Hugh Glass traipsed across Montana and South Dakota in frigid cold, barely able to walk after being mauled by a giant mama grizzly. He gutted a dead horse and slept inside the carcass to keep warm. Makes the walk to the mailbox on the ice seem tame, yes? "The Revenant" is a gorgeous and bloody journey through Alberta, almost 200 years ago. The storys set in Montana/Dakota, but most of the filming was done north of our border. The Kootenai River near Libby does get some screen time, though -- even though local Libby-putians suspect that an Argentine mountain has been edited into their landscape. The tale is one of revenge. After Hugh is nearly killed by the bear, he cannot walk. Three members of his trapping party stay behind in hopes hell live, or to bury him if he doesnt. But one of the three is a soulless loner who, after killing Hughs son, throws Hugh in a shallow grave and sets out to save himself. But Hugh survives and sets out to crawl his way back to get his revenge. Along the way arrows will fly over his shoulder, and he will nearly starve. But, as locker room signs remind us, when the going gets tough, Hugh gets going. Hugh is one of two revenants in the story. The term revenant, a descendant from French, means coming back, sometimes as a ghost or a long-lost memory. Hugh is clawing his way back to civilization, but another revenant is at his side: the ghost of his wife, a Pawnee Indian who was killed. She mystically offers encouragement and wisdom to her grieving husband. When we stand near a tree in a storm, his ghostly wife says to Hugh, we may worry that the branches are in peril. But when we look at the trunk and the roots, we know the tree is strong and will survive the winds. Hughs branches are beaten and his body nearly dead, but his roots are strong. Against all odds, he will survive -- and seek his revenge. "The Revenant" has its bloody moments, starting with an exquisitely choreographed battle between American Indians and trappers that leaves few survivors on both sides. But amidst the violence come moments of stunning tenderness, always surrounding the relations with American Indians. Hughs relation to his son is tender and protective. Anyone who speaks ill of his half-American Indian son is walking on the fighting side of Hugh. One of the most touching scenes comes during Hughs exhausting crawl back to civilization. He comes upon a Pawnee Indian in open icy country and is immediately assumed to be an ugly American apt to kill first, ask questions later. But High puts his hands high and falls to the ground, begging mercy. The Indian senses a wounded soul, and spares his life. He then cooks a meal for them both and offers to share his horse for a distance. Trust and friendship is born between men who as members of their respective tribes were bitter enemies. All it took was to meet, eye to eye, for the hatred to subside. "The Revenant" is filled with such overtures of friendship within a landscape of hatred. Alejandro Inarritu, a Mexican director, weaves reconciliation into a script which features blood-stained snow. The cinematography and score are also powerful, paying tribute to our Rocky mountain terrain. Emmanuel Lubezki, who has won two straight Oscars for camerawork for Gravity and Birdman, may add a third here. Reports say Lubezki shot only in natural light -- and his editing of action is breathtaking. Some crew members quit because Lubezki set the bar so high. Film is a collaborative art: Actors, photographers, musicians, costume designers and endless others try to weave a quilt that doesnt show the seams. "The Revenant" is an example of the parts fitting together handsomely. The film settles for a rather cliched ending, however. Inarritu forgoes poetry for muscle in the final act. We hear the words of letting God decide, but in truth Hugh will dispense justice on his own terms. Hughs battle with the grizzly was sufficiently real to make me tighten up and cringe. Living a short drive from Glacier Park, we know this could happen on our next hike. And finally we come to the acting, and Leo. A battle of critics has erupted over whether DiCaprios performance is acting or just suffering. He goes an hour without words while he tries to regain enough health to crawl forward. We have endless close ups of his eyes. His pain is shot into us intravenously. We hurt, too. Give Leo the Oscar now and lets get on with the rest of the decisions. Words never win Oscars -- eyes win Oscars. To the critics who say Leo didnt talk enough, I say, affectionately: Zip it -- Leo will say a few words on Feb. 28. Tom Hardy is gripping, too, as the villain. A friend says Hardy went over the top, and thats fair at the end, but for most of the film hes believably a man without a soul. The bear deserves a nod, too -- she has clawed her way into our nightmares. We cant end without noting that "The Revenant" is blood poetry whereas The Hateful Eight is just bloodthirsty. Tarantino should take notes on the difference. Hugh Glass was a trapper and his survival is legendary. Its worth noting that he survived in Montana 200 years ago. Its fair to classify "The Revenant" as Montana geographic history. American Indians tell us that the land speaks -- and Canadas Rocky Mountain landscape sings a 156-minute choral requiem in Alejandro Inarritus Revenant. Join Linda Piccolo on two fabulous European tours. The first tour is a trip to Venice and a seven-day Royal Caribbean Cruise to Croatia, Greece, and Kusadasi beginning on Aug. 31. All meals, flights, ground transportation, bilingual tour director, and a choice of cabins are included. The visit includes ancient Dubrovnik, a walled city over 1,300 years old. Spend two days at sea exploring the floating city that is the Splendor of the Seas, one of the luxury ships in the Royal Caribbean fleet. Tour breathtaking Santorini and the ancient site of Olympia, Greece. Tour the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, Turkey and walk in the footsteps of St. Paul in one the seven wonders of the ancient world. BILLINGS -- Mining companies say a federal decision to stop leasing coal on public lands has bottled up Montana and Wyoming coal projects. The leasing suspension announced Friday by the Department of the Interior has put expansion plans in doubt at the Spring Creek Mine in southeast Montana, and Antelope Mine in Wyoming, developer Cloud Peak Energy said. Cloud Peak was trying to determine whether the lease suspension would stop a 1,602-acre lease adjacent to Spring Creek Mine. The lease, involving 198.2 million tons of mineable coal, is beyond preliminary approval, but is still under environmental review, which might not be far enough to avoid suspension. A proposed lease adjacent to Antelope Mine, 60 miles south of Gillette, was to receive a regional hearing before the Powder River Basin Regional Coal Team later this month. "We believe this review process is not warranted and is aimed at delaying leases to ensure the coal is never mined, denying its economic benefits to the nation," said Colin Marshall, Cloud Peak CEO. "We do not believe this announcement will have any immediate impact on our operations, and we will continue serving our customers to provide safe, reliable and affordable electricity for our nation." Cloud Peak has strong coal reserves, the company said, including non-federal reserves that aren't subject to Interior's suspension. In announcing the suspension, the DOI said it needed time to determine whether mining companies are paying the public a fair amount for coal taken from federal lands. Also, the federal government wants to determine if the bidding process for public coal is truly competitive, and whether coal policy contradicts federal climate change policy, among other things. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said the suspension shouldn't halt coal mining or suspend current leases. The suspension does not involve coal leases on Indian land. Federal coal from the Powder River basin in Wyoming and Montana accounts for 85 percent of federal coal production. Just a few miles from Spring Creek, applications expanding the Decker Mine by Lighthouse Resources also appeared to be in doubt. Utah-based Lighthouse Resources, which only makes itself available by email, didnt respond to Billings Gazette inquiries. Lighthouse was working on a 460-acre lease modification to expand its current mining of federal land near the Montana-Wyoming boarder. Because lease modifications involve land already under development, new tracts are often in the shadow of a mining company's dragline coal shovel. DOI exempted lease modifications 160 acres or smaller from Friday's announced suspension. Lighthouse had a 40-acre lease modification in the works, which seemed unaffected. The lease suspensions shouldn't be a job killer, said Chris Saeger of Western Values Project. "The sky is neither falling, nor is this a new dawn," Saeger said. "It's not going to end coal mining on public lands, whether you like it or not." The suspension of new leases comes as Interior retools the way royalties are assessed on public coal. U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., said the lease suspension targeted Montana and Wyoming coal. "It is an unprecedented assault on one of Montanas most important sources of good paying jobs and tax revenue that will likely shut down coal development in Montana and Wyoming's Powder River Basin," Daines said. "I will do everything I can do stop Pres. Obamas radical effort to shut down Montana coal. The federal government has suspended coal leasing before, under Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat, also blasted Obama for this latest decision on coal. "Pres. Obama is wrong, and once again Montanas working families are left bearing the brunt of his unilateral action," Bullock said. "Of course American taxpayers should get their fair value from coal leases and of course there should be transparency in the process. But you dont shut down a program just to tinker with it -- you fix as you go." This the second time in six months that Bullock as balked at Obama coal policy. In August, Bullock accused Obama of "moving the goal posts" on carbon pollution limits from power plants. Pollution reductions for Montana's power plants were stronger than initially expected Interior employees will review six different federal coal policy issues during the suspension. In addition to the fair return, competitive leasing and climate change issues outlined by Jewell, employees will look at how coal sales to foreign companies have changed coal industry profits and whether the public is benefiting from those changes. Social and economic impacts of coal, including job creation will be reviewed. Finally, coals role in meeting U.S. energy needs will be addressed. All six issues were brought up last year in DOI public hearings in Western coal states. In Billings, the DOI hearing drew several hundred people, with emotionally charged arguments both for and against federal coal policy. One of those testifying was former Montana Department of Revenue Director Dan Bucks, who said the miscalculations in coal royalties was costing Montana $30 million over five years. Bucks said Friday the suspension would benefit everyone. A complete assessment of the federal coal program is overdue. There are a host of energy, environmental, social, fiscal and managerial issues that need to be addressed, Bucks said. The coal industry, coal workers and communities, and the public deserve answers to the many questions that create uncertainty for this source of energy. The suspension will also put an end to federal mineral rights swaps with private parties that can be devastating to people living above coal, said Jeanie Alderson of Birney. Because mineral rights and surface rights are often not held by the same person, such swaps with the federal government can expose a surface owners to mining they cannot stop, said Alderson a member of the Northern Plains Resource Council. The state of Montana is already planning to ask for an extension on the September deadline to submit its plans on how it will cut carbon dioxide emissions to meet new federal guidelines. The date for states to submit their Clean Power Plan compliance plans to the Environmental Protection Agency is Sept. 6, which is also the deadline to file an initial outline and request a one- or two-year extension. The EPA will issue plans for states that do not submit plans or ask for extensions. It is our intent that we will ask for an extension and make a case for getting an additional two years to fully develop the plan, Tom Livers, director of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, told a legislative subcommittee Thursday. But we have to demonstrate we have made sufficient progress to be able to get an extension. The Interim Clean Power Plan Advisory Committee announced by Gov. Steve Bullock two weeks ago in Colstrip will probably have its first meeting in late February, Livers said. Scheduling is going to be a challenge, Livers said of the 27-member committee. He said the committee hold two to eight two-day meetings and still should have enough time to make recommendations by its July deadline. The committee dissolves July 6. Livers said whatever plan the committee comes up with is nonbinding and its ultimately the responsibility of the DEQ to submit a plan that meets EPA requirements. Members of the subcommittee, which is a part of both the Energy and Telecommunications Interim Committee and the Environmental Quality Council, also passed on a 5-3 vote a resolution to send a letter to those committees that urges the state Attorney General to continue using all means at your disposal to challenge the legality of the federal Clean Power Plan. State Sen. Jim Keane, D-Butte, said the letter is an important step. Were the third branch of government. We cant sit on the sidelines and do nothing while the attorney general and executive branch says we need to do something. I think it is important for the Legislature to say we have a say in this and power in this. State Rep. Tom Steenberg, D-Missoula, questioned the letter as premature as lawsuits against the Clean Power Plan progress through court. Arent we still looking for information thats going to come out at a later date? Dont we need to see how montana plans can affect this before we are concerned? Keane, State Sen. Duane Ankney, R-Colstrip, State Sen. Cary Smith, R-Billings, State Rep. Keith Regier, R-Kalsipell, and Scott Aspenlieder, the public member on the council, voted yes. State Sen. Robyn Driscoll, D-Billings, State Rep. Janet Ellis, D-Helena, and Steenberg voted no. Montana is one of 27 states that have sued the federal government over the EPAs plans. Gov. Steve Bullock has supported this lawsuit, while also saying Montana needs to develop its own plan and not let the federal government dictate what happens here. Possible Republican governor candidate Greg Gianforte attended part of the meeting while a floor up in the Capitol rotunda, Republican legislative candidates held a press conference on filing day. Gianforte said he was at the meeting to learn about the issue. If the rules are enacted, we stand to lose 7,000 good-paying jobs and electric bills will go up 20 percent, Gianforte said. One year of forest fires contributes more than a thousand years from Colstrip. Bernita Dowd Lackman was born November 14, 1920, to Clarence and Laura (Aikin) Dowd. She grew up near Victor, MT. and graduated from Victor High School with the class of 1938. Bernita attended Kinman Business College in Spokane, WA and worked for 2 years at Cabin City, MT. She then moved to San Francisco where she worked for 2 years in her uncles CPA firm of Farquhar and Heimbucher. On September 20th, 1942, she married Eldon Garner of Brady, MT in Roswell, NM. Eldon an Army Air Corp pilot, was later killed in action over Sicily on July 5, 1943. Bernita returned to Hamilton, where she worked as an office secretary at the Rocky Mountain Laboratory, where she met Dr. David B. Lackman. They were married in Hamilton on June 10, 1947. Bernita and family lived in Hamilton for 20 years, where Bernita was active as a leader in both Girl Scouts and 4-H clubs. She was a member of the Methodist Baptist Federated Church where she taught Sunday School and took part in the ladies Circles and support groups. Bernita was a member of the American Legion Auxiliary for 57 years and was a past president of the Hamilton Unit #47. The Lackman family moved to Helena in 1967, where Bernitas husband David had accepted a job as Director of the State Microbiology Laboratory. Bernita became involved with the local weavers and spinners group and was a member of the Sugar Loaf Sewing Club for 35 years. Bernita and her family were members of Plymouth Congregational Church in Helena. Bernita was preceded in death by her parents Laura Aikin Dowd and Clarence B. Dowd, her husband David B. Lackman, and her sister Dorothy Dowd Lee and Bernadeen Dowd. She is survived by daughters Gloria Gaye White, Laurena Lackman, Lisa Brouwer and their husbands, daughter Arloa Rivera and 5 grandchildren. A Celebration of Life Reception will be held at the Plymouth Congregational Church in Helena, Tuesday, January 19, 2016, at 2 PM. The interment will be held at the Victor Cemetery in Victor, MT at a later date. Brothers Mortuary and Crematory are honored to serve the family. Condolences and memories may be shared with the family at www.brothersmortuary.com Candidates didnt exactly clamor for seats left up for grabs by state legislators in and around Helena and Butte Thursday. Only six hopefuls registered for five soon-to-be abandoned statehouse posts, including a pair of Republican-held house seats and a senate spot held by term-limited Democrat Christine Kaufmann. Democrat and outgoing state Sen. Jim Keanes seat in District 38 remained unsought by the end of the first filing day, one of six area posts that failed to attract an incumbent or challenger. Democrats Hal Jacobson, a former Montana house member, and Joshua Manning, a state civil rights investigator, filed in Kaufmanns Senate District 40. Republicans Becky Beard, of Elliston, and Patrick Johnson, of Helena, will seek term-limited Rep. Mike Millers seat in House District 80. Johnson, a water engineer, failed to top Miller in the 2014 primary. Democrat Quinlan OConnor, an attorney with the Montana Department of Labor and Industry, was the sole filer in term-limited Rep. Chuck Hunters House District 83. Republican Rep. Christy Clark, who served three terms in House District 17, took a job at the Montana Department of Agriculture and does not plan to seek re-election. Registered Independent David Brownell, who filed for Clarks seat as a Republican, ran as a Democrat in a failed bid to take state Sen. Llew Jones' seat two years ago. He'll face Republican Ross Fitzgerald, of Fairfield. Helena Rep. Mary Ann Dunwell, a Democrat, was the first in line to register Thursday morning. Shell be opposed in House District 84 by Republican Steve Gibson, who Dunwell narrowly topped in 2014. Democratic incumbent Reps. Moffie Funk of House District 82 and Jenny Eck of House District 79 also filed on opening day. Neither drew a challenger. Nor did two-term Rep. Kirk Wagoner of House District 75 or fellow Republican state Sen. Scott Sales of Senate District 35. Candidates must file by March 14 to appear on the ballot. Montana's state government spent approximately $12.7 million responding to 381 wildfires in 2015. In an annual report to the Environmental Quality Council on Thursday, Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation Forestry Division Administrator Bob Harrington told legislators that 2015 stretched firefighting resources thin. As I look out my window in Missoula and we have pretty good snow cover, its difficult to remember the challenge of this wildfire season, but it was a very challenging season for us at DNRC and in particular for our local partners in government, he said. Nationally, it was one of the more challenging fire seasons ever, not only from the number of fires and acres burned but from the availability of resources. Initial attack for wildfires is divided across Montana among federal, state and county or local jurisdictions. DNRCs season began on March 9 and lasted through October, when it had direct protection responsibility on 355 fires and 25 county assists. While the number of fires was 26 percent above the 5-year average, acres burned totaled 41 percent below, Harrington said. Through our aggressive initial attack both on the ground and through the air, we were able to catch the vast majority of those fires, he said. The $12.7 million price tag leaves $70.5 million in firefighting reserved funds, he said. DNRC kept 94 percent of fires at fewer than 10 acres. The goal is 95 percent, but with many of the conditions firefighters faced this year, Harrington said he was proud of the success rate. Acres burned in the U.S. topped 10 million acres from 68,000 fires, although Harrington stressed that half of that total was burned in Alaska. The fire season meant virtually all resources were committed across the country, he said. One of the take-homes from this fire season is that we did really test the national mobilization system and Montana was right in there with them both sharing resources, Harrington said. Im happy to say the system worked. Those investments and improvements weve made over the last decade in this program we tested them this year and they really made a difference. Gov. Steve Bullock declared a fire emergency on Aug. 16, which mobilized the National Guard and provided two additional engines, a pair of Blackhawk and pair of Chinook helicopters. DNRC aviators logged nearly 1,500 hours of flight time dropping 2.2 million gallons of water. Montana was fortunate that no fatalities or serious injuries were reported, Harrington said. Our partnerships and relationships with local governments are as good as theyve ever been. Theyre an essential part of providing wildland suppression, he said. Montana has been fortunate in recent years that extreme fire seasons have largely been limited to either east or west of the Continental Divide, but not both, Harrington said. Continuing concerns are longer fire seasons, more fires, larger fires and more extreme fire behavior, which fire managers are documenting, Harrington said. Change in demographics of rural Montana also continues to challenge volunteer departments from recruiting and retaining firefighters, he added. BILLINGS -- After a long battle with cancer, 6-year-old Aiden Roundstone has his sights set on Disney World. With help from a Montana organization, that wish will come true. Roundstone and his family will take off for Florida this week after the Montana Hope Project chose him as a gift recipient. He officially received his tickets and best wishes at a ceremony Wednesday evening. His guardian, Karin Helmig, said that Roundstone has been doing great after years of hospital treatments. "He just completed his three years of treatment for ALL (acute lymphocytic leukemia)," Helmig said. In October, Roundstone "rang the bell," signifying he had finished the course. During that time, Helmig said that she heard about the Montana Hope Project from a friend. She applied with the organization but didn't think they'd be chosen. Roundstone loves superheroes and Disney characters, Helmig said, so it was natural that he wanted to visit Disney World. "He was super excited" about getting the news, Helmig said. On Wednesday, Roundstone was a bit shy with all the attention focused on him, but with his family nearby, he accepted the gift. Along with his sister, Roundstone was adopted by Helmig and her husband, Scott. Trooper Dave Munson and Sgt. Buck O'Neill of the Montana Highway Patrol gave Roundstone a camera to document his travels. The project's backbone is the Association of Montana Troopers. The Montana Hope Project was started in 1984 after Montana Highway Patrol Troopers took two kids with life-threatening illnesses on a van tour of Glacier National Park. It has since grown to a wish-granting organization for hundreds of kids. Roundstone's is the 418th wish for the Montana Hope Project, said Dave Evans, the area coordinator for the organization. He said that most of the children they learn about come through referrals from friends and medical professionals. The ceremony included gifts to the Montana Hope Project from two other organizations. Jimmy Brown, president of the Independent Automobile Dealers Association of Montana, presented a check for $2,000 from a beef raffle. The association split the proceeds half for the Hope Project and half for a scholarship program. "We have a pretty strong commitment for ethics, including giving back to the community," Brown said. Devon Plant and Dan Michaelis, who run the Montana Vapor Outlet, also made a donation. They gave $1,800, which came from an auction of products they had held. Plant said that the money was raised quickly and the business matched the amount. The Montana Hope Project holds an annual motorcycle ride, the Ride for Hope, which raises money for the organization. BUTTE -- A 32-year-old man arrested last month in a drug bust distributed more than 40 pounds of methamphetamine over a five-month period in the Mining City, county prosecutors said. The drugs had an estimated street value of at least $640,000, said Sheriff Ed Lester. In an interview with law enforcement after his arrest, Lester Oxendine admitted he was dealing drugs in Butte, according to an affidavit filed in district court Jan. 7. He admitted that he was selling some major weight in the community, the affidavit states. He indicated that no one would mess with him because he would shoot at them. County Attorney Eileen Joyce alleges Oxendine, who moved to Silver Bow County from South Dakota last summer, distributed the meth from July 5 to Dec. 10, 2015, at various locations in the city. Oxendine was also charged with criminal possession of meth with intent to distribute after the police seized about four pounds in a drug-raid operation Dec. 10 in Uptown and at his home in Centerville. Seven firearms were also seized as well as three grams of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. A third felony charge, assault with a weapon, stems from Oxendine allegedly firing a gun at an unidentified partner two days before his arrest, missing her head by inches. Oxendine was to be arraigned Thursday before Judge Brad Newman, but his attorney requested a continuance to next week. Chief Deputy County Attorney Samm Cox said Wednesday that the investigation took time. In the affidavit, he wrote Oxendine was responsible for selling major quantities of methamphetamine to people in the area. Lester had said Decembers drug raid was triggered by information received by a police department investigator. The affidavit states the detective learned that Oxendine and his associates had traveled to Las Vegas and purchased a large amount of meth. An investigation of Oxendines alleged illegal activities began in August 2015 and was assisted by Southwest Montana Drug Task Force agents. Oxendine indicated to investigators during the interview that he moved to Montana to sell drugs his sole source of income. He traveled to Las Vegas at least one a month since July 2015 and would return with five to 10 pounds of meth, which he would then turn and sell to drug users, the affidavit states. Oxendine admitted that the meth found at his residence at 937 Sutter St. in December was received on Dec. 1 or Dec. 2 from a source in Nevada. He was fronted a total of five pounds of meth to sell, according to the affidavit. During the interview, Oxendine stated that he would take the proceeds from the drug sales and deposit the money in various accounts at Wells Fargo Bank. Oxendine also told investigators he shot at an individual in Anaconda-Deer Lodge County. Police Chief Tim Barkell on Wednesday declined to comment on Oxendines admission. Oxendine is being held at the Butte-Silver Bow Detention Center on $225,000 bond. DECATUR Those looking for a quick revitalization of the Northgate Shopping Center after its purchase by U-Haul may have to wait a little longer. The company bought the mall at 2800 N. Water St. in December and is remodeling the space, part of which it hopes to lease out. However, zoning for the area isn't compatible with truck rental and indoor storage uses, a fact city officials said were made clear to the company before the purchase. Aaron Freeman, president of U-Haul Company of Illinois, said the company is preparing for talks with the city, though he couldn't say whether it would seek zoning changes or a special-use permit. Current zoning allows sale of boxes and moving supplies, something the company also plans to offer. It's still too soon to really even determine what direction to go in until we get our information and our ducks in a row here on our side, Freeman said. The mall was held for years by an asset management company with several active leases, Assistant City Manager Billy Tyus said. In December, the Decatur City Council voted to rezone the eastern section from M-1 Intense Commercial/Light Industrial District to B-2 Commercial District, which is retail-oriented. The move made zoning consistent throughout the property and is in line with the city's efforts in recent years to promote the Pershing Avenue corridor for retail redevelopment. Tyus said the former owner and U-Haul were both told about the change and the uses allowed in the area. The M-1 zoning also would not have allowed truck rental as a primary use. Freeman said there was confusion over the way the zoning ordinance was written, and the company had thought that the truck rentals would be allowed. Tyus said city officials are looking into where in the city those uses should be permitted under the zoning ordinance. We're looking at where indoor storage should be allowed and where truck and trailer rental should be allowed. That's the question for us as planners, Tyus said. ... We're not telling them 'no.' What we are telling them is, this is what the zoning ordinance currently says. We're looking at where this type of use should be able to occur. City Manager Tim Gleason said the matter would ultimately come to the council. It could, for example, create a special use condition within existing zoning, which might include fees for vehicle and equipment rentals. DECATUR -- A former Illinois transportation secretary could help Macon County and the city of Decatur acquire valuable funds for road projects. Ann Schneider, who served as head of the Illinois Department of Transportation from 2011 until 2014, is set to be hired as a consultant to act as a project coordinator for the Macon County Beltway Project and the citys Brush College Road project to coordinate and identify funds at the state and federal level for construction for both projects. The plan was approved unanimously by the Macon County Board during its Thursday night meeting, with board Chairman Kevin Greenfield saying afterward he was excited someone with Schneider's experience was available. We hit a home run with her, he said. The hiring is a joint venture with the city of Decatur, which is expected to take up the plan at its next city council meeting. If approved there, each governing body would pay $30,000 for the first year, with an option to renew for a second year. The city would being the signatory on the contract. Greenfield said after several discussions with city officials, it became apparent the two sides could partner on the plan to prevent the chance of the two fighting over the same grants and funding sources. Its important that we are on the same page, that we both benefit, he said. Schneider, who was appointed director of DOT in October 2011 by Gov. Pat Quinn, resigned in 2014 after questions swirled about political hiring in the department. She later put the blame on the hiring issues on the Quinn administration. In other business, the county will also move forward on a plan to train dislocated workers in manufacturing, transportation, distribution and logistics. The program is available after a $450,000 grant was received by the countys Workforce Development Department, with a goal to emphasize on career services and occupational training to earn credentials recognized by industries. Greenfield said it was a no-brainer. It helps with our unemployment, and it gets people a chance to get off welfare, he said. Officials said the work force investment department is working with Richland Community College to develop customized training, and that accelerated training and working with employers to hire the individuals are also planned. The program would run until June 30, 2017. If you think you are sick of the presidential candidate parade now, just thank your lucky stars you are not living in Iowa. We spent a weekend in Des Moines recently and the barrage of ads to go along with the coverage of candidate appearances around the state is absolutely staggering. If you watch an hour of television, particularly around news time, there is no escaping it. The weekend we were in Iowa, there were no fewer than three candidates in Des Moines. The coverage of their appearances was sandwiched around ads for a variety of candidates. First, Hillary Clinton, then Marco Rubio, then Ted Cruz, then Rubio, again, and then repeat as necessary. All of this effort and expense is done in the name of winning the caucuses. But, I'm not sure winning the caucuses really means much. Before getting into that, a lot of people outside of Iowa have no idea how they work. Essentially, people gather in schools, churches and private homes within all of the state's 1,681 precincts and elect delegates to county conventions. The county conventions then select delegates to congressional district conventions as well as the state convention, where the delegates for the presidential nominating conventions are actually chosen. The caucuses are held every two years, this year on Feb. 1, but the only ones that draw any attention are those held when presidential preferences are named. AS A NATIVE Iowan, it is tantamount to sacrilege to commit this to paper, but I cannot fathom why so much effort is put forth to win something that often does little more than winnow the field. In 2012, Rick Santorum secured a tight victory over eventual nominee Mitt Romney, with Ron Paul a close third. In 2008, Mike Huckabee won decisively over Romney with eventual nominee John McCain finishing fourth. Those two years are not anomalies. U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., won the caucus in 1988, but not not much else. Republican Pat Robertson did extremely well in 1988, but he used his organization to reach into churches whose members filled caucus spaces, and Robertson faded quickly. In 1992, favorite son and then-U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin won an overwhelming victory and Bill Clinton couldn't beat Paul Tsongas and barely topped Nebraska's Bob Kerrey. Jimmy Carter trailed uncommitted in 1976. The caucuses have given some candidates momentum. George McGovern in 1972 and George H.W. Bush in 1980 used the caucuses as a springboard. The win helped Bush take the White House, but it set up McGovern for a monumental defeat to Richard Nixon. I'M ALSO NOT sure Iowans always enjoy the attention. Much like anything else, there is such a beast as too much of a good thing. I was a member of the working press in Iowa in 1980, 1992 and 1996. On the positive side, I met and interviewed politicians such as Bush, Howard Baker, Ted Kennedy, John Connally and Walter Mondale. On the negative side, I also was given the chance to interview the likes of the nephew of Ted Kennedy's cousin and John Connally's brother's stepson. It becomes old hat to walk into a smalltown cafe and see any given candidate. One year, I was in my office when Pat Buchanan wandered up the stairs to the newsroom, unannounced, to chat with me. All things considered, I'm content to spend presidential election years in Decatur. Outside of a rare appearance in Central Illinois, most of the candidates stick to Chicago. I'm predicting 2016 will bring more of the same. And I'm fine with that. Dear Abby: I lived with my mother, who passed away recently. I invited my cousins over to the house for Thanksgiving. One of them invited a cousin-in-law I had never met. When I woke from a nap, the cousin-in-law was here and asked me about our walk-in bathtub, which means that while I was asleep on my mother's bed, she had entered my mother's bedroom and private bathroom. I was flabbergasted. She also asked to keep a program I showed her from Mom's service. I wanted to refuse (I still haven't sent programs to out-of-state friends and relatives and am unsure how many I may need), but I let her keep it. Should I say something to let her know how inappropriate it was for her to give herself a tour of my home before she even met me? -- Invaded in California Dear Invaded: No, but you should absolutely say something to the cousin who invited a stranger to your Thanksgiving dinner without permission, and compounded it by leaving that person unsupervised while you slept. While you may not be able to teach either of them better manners, at least you will have made clear that you won't tolerate that kind of rudeness in the future. Nail biter Dear Abby: I'm a 31-year-old nail biter and have been one for as long as I can remember. As an adult, I'm now attacking my cuticles to the point that they bleed. If I feel a hangnail, I have to push it down or rip it out. It may be stress-related, but sometimes I don't even realize I'm doing it. I have stopped biting my nails twice, but that's because I used to get manicures weekly. I can't afford them anymore. The stuff that "tastes bad" doesn't taste so bad it stops me. I'd like to be able to show off my future wedding band. A co-worker said she thinks I have some sort of OCD. Could she be right? I know I need help. Do you have any suggestions on how I can help myself? -- Diana in San Diego Dear Diana: I do have one that may be helpful. Keep an emery board and cuticle scissors nearby at all times, including in your purse, at your desk and where you watch television. That way, if you break a nail or get a hangnail, you can smooth it out immediately and you won't feel so compelled to chew. Try it. Others have told me it fixed their problem. Still a virgin Dear Abby: I am a 25-year-old virgin and have never been in a relationship. I would like to wait to have sex until I'm married. Do you think I'll regret it, since it doesn't look like I'll be married before I'm 30? Do you have any thoughts on when to tell a man I'm dating that I'm still a virgin? Should it be on the second or third date, when we become exclusive, or after that? And if I ever get exclusive, how would I tell that person I've been single all of my life without sounding like I'm weird? -- Still Single in Wisconsin Dear Single: There's nothing "weird" about a 30-year-old man or woman being single these days. People are marrying later than in years past, so you shouldn't feel defensive about it. As to when to reveal that you are a virgin, the time to discuss it would be when a relationship progresses to the point where physical intimacy enters the picture. n n n What teens need to know about sex, drugs, AIDS and getting along with peers and parents is in "What Every Teen Should Know." Send your name and mailing address, plus check or money order for $7 to: Dear Abby, Teen Booklet, Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. (Shipping and handling are included in the price.) A member of the 10/15 polling stations election commission has been charged with voting in the stead of two individuals during the December 6 vote for the constitutional referendum in Armenia. On the day, the Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center had posted a news item that a voter noticed that someone had signed the voter registry for his wife and brother and had casted ballots in their stead. It turns out that a member of the local election commission, G. Toumanyan, had illegally signed and voted for them. Toumanyan has been charged with violating Article 153 of Armenias Criminal Code- Voting more than once or instead of another person. A group of employees at the scandal ridden Byureghavan Boarding School have petitioned Armenian Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan to reinstate a number of colleagues fired from the school by Gayaneh Margaryan, the institutions former director. The authors of the open letter claim that immediately after being appointed director in May 2014 Margaryan tricked a number of employees into signing three month employment contracts and then discharged them. In November of last year Margaryan was arrested and charged with using torture against children under her care and for financial misconduct during her term in office. They claim that Margaryan then proceeded to hire her relatives and friends as replacements. Armenias Ministry of Health reports that two patients on artificial respirators have died from the Influenza H1N1 virus. The ministry says that the two individuals were admitted to local hospitals yesterday after their symptoms had severely worsened and that both had suffered from diabetes and cardio-pulmonary deficiencies. The ministry reports that currently 98 patients are being treated in intensive care units with severe respiratory ailments and that nine of them are on artificial respirators. While the ministry denies that a flu epidemic exists, one sees people in Yerevan walking the streets wearing facial masks in an attempt to ward off contracting the virus from casual contact. The Legend..... but should danger ever come, then Holger Danske will rouse himself, and the table will burst asunder as he draws out his beard. Then he will come forth in his strength, and strike a blow that shall sound in all the countries of the world. - Hans Christian Andersen News, commentary, and analysis of current events in Honduras where cultural forms intersect with political interests, with links to the work of Honduran writers and scholars. Share your opinion on this topic by sending a letter to the editor to tctvoice@madison.com. Include your full name, hometown and phone number. Your name and town will be published. The phone number is for verification purposes only. Please keep your letter to 250 words or less. The Williamson Magnetic Recording Company, located at 1019 Williamson St. opened in November as Madison's only analog-exclusive recording stud Guadalupe Cabello, with her daughter, Jossi, 10, who has cerebral palsy, listens to interpreter Guadalupe Mangin, center, as they meet with Dr. Deb McLeish, right, at American Family Children's Hospital. Mangin, who has been trained and certified as a health care interpreter, is one of seven Spanish language interpreters who work for UW Health. The field of health care interpreting is becoming more standardized as health systems treat an increasingly diverse range of patients. First Lady Michelle Obama sits next to a vacant seat to honor victims of gun violence during President Barack Obamas State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016. Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy is at left, Army veteran Naveed Shah is at right. Second row, from left are, activist Ryan Reyes, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, community college student Jennifer Bragdon and Air Force Staff Sgt. Spencer Stone. HOLMEN Doug Schober and the Holmen Area Fire Department have reached an agreement in which Schobers resignation as fire chief is effective Dec. 31, 2015, and he receives a payout for accrued sick leave. The board, composed of members from the village of Holmen and the towns of Onalaska and Holland, suspended the 15-year chief in November after firefighters complained of mismanagement. In December, it decided to hire an investigator to examine the complaints. The Holmen Area Fire District Association Board approved the agreement Monday night. Schober said in an emailed press release Tuesday that the parties are grateful to have resolved the matters between them and are thankful to those on both sides who worked towards that effort. The release emphatically referred to the end of Schobers employment with the district as his retirement. This is a draft of a mutual agreement which would result in Schobers resignation as of Dec. 31, 2015, said Jessica Kirchner of OFlaherty Heim Egan & Birnbaum Ltd., legal counsel for the fire district. The agreement includes a payout of benefits he (Schober) accrued. He has accrued sick leave over the years, and (the agreement waives) any claims he might file against the fire department or fire association. The agreement outlining the conditions of Schobers resignation resulted from an investigation into the management of the fire department under Schober. The HAFDA board voted in December to hire an outside investigator to look into charges of mismanagement brought by firefighters against Schober. I think this is the right thing to do, said HAFDA board member Chuck Olson. Olson represents the village of Holmen on the board. Assistant fire chiefs Bill Bulawa and Wes Linberg assumed the Schobers duties after he was suspended, and Rolly Bogert, the fire district board chairman, said the association will not advertise for the position of fire chief at this time. Were staying with the current set-up at this point, said Bogert. The claims of poor management were brought to the HAFDA by firefighters and members of the public during a special meeting in September. UPLAND, Ind. (AP) Taylor University has cancelled a student trip to Turkey in the wake of a suicide bombing in Istanbul that killed 10 tourists. Students and faculty in the school's biblical studies department were supposed to leave Thursday for Turkey. But their trip was cancelled amid safety concerns following Tuesday's deadly bombing blamed on a man affiliated with the Islamic State group. The trip's participants were slated to visit Turkish sites mentioned in the New Testament's Book of Revelation. Biblical studies department chair Michael Harbin says everyone who signed up for the trip was "extremely disappointed, but understood the reason for the decision." He hopes the trip can be rescheduled for next January. In a case that spurred uncommon community interest, Madison School Board members voted Thursday to expel a sixth-grader who allegedly brought a BB gun to Cherokee Heights Middle School, but with immediate reinstatement possible. Nick Gansner, an attorney for 12-year-old Dereian Brown, said he hopes that means the boy will miss only an additional day or two while the process moves forward. Dereian already served a 15-day suspension. He had returned to school awaiting Thursdays expulsion decision. In ruling as they did, board members eased off on recommendations from an independent hearing examiner and from district administrators. The hearing examiner suggested early reinstatement at the start of the second semester Jan. 25; district administrators sought reinstatement no sooner than summer school. Gansner said that while he and Dereians family appreciate that the length of the expulsion was reduced, they are extremely disappointed that the board upheld the expulsion recommendation. They believe there was scant evidence to prove Dereian even had a BB gun at school. We will speak with Dereian about pursuing appeal options to help him get this unfair expulsion off of his permanent record, Gansner said. School administrators say Dereian confessed after the fact to having brought a BB gun to school, though they acknowledge the boy never threatened anyone, that police were not called, and that no one actually saw the boy in possession of such an object. Rachel Strauch-Nelson, a district spokeswoman, said a district policy allows for a students record to be cleared of an expulsion one semester after returning to school if the student meets certain criteria. Dereians parents took the unusual step of waiving their right to confidentiality, which allowed the expulsion case against their son to be heard publicly. They thought expulsion was too harsh, they said, and they sought wider community understanding of the usually secret disciplinary process. The case triggered an online petition arguing against expulsion, now signed by 844 people. Two local organizations, the YWCA Madison and Families United for Public Education, implored the board to let Dereian stay in school. The independent hearing examiner, Hamdy Ezalarab, heard more than 4 hours of testimony on Jan. 4 and issued his recommendation a week later. The School Board had 30 days to approve, reverse or modify Ezalarabs recommendation. The board met for about two hours Thursday in closed session. In limited comments after the meeting, board president James Howard suggested public opinion in the case did not sway the outcome. We follow board policy, he said. Public perceptions, emails, lawyers they dont really affect us. Howard called an expulsion probably the worst thing a board member has to deal with, even worse than budgets. The districts behavior code calls for a mandatory suspension and a recommendation for expulsion when there is possession of a gun of any kind, including BB guns, pellet guns, flare guns and air rifles. Supporters noted that Dereian has a reputation as a dedicated student, one with no prior discipline or behavior problems. Inspired by an incident in November in Mount Horeb, more than two dozen sites in eight states held readings Thursday of the transgender childrens book I Am Jazz. The readings took place at schools, churches and community centers, including at eight Madison public schools, according to the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, the national LGBT advocacy group that organized the event. A reading Thursday night at the Rosemary Garfoot Public Library in Cross Plains drew 21 people, a library employee said. In November, an elementary school in Mount Horeb canceled a classroom reading of the book following legal threats from Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit organization that bills itself as protecting religious freedom and the sanctity of the family. The school had scheduled the reading to support a student who had just publicly transitioned from a boy to a girl. In response, a parent organized an evening reading of the book at the Mount Horeb Library, attended by more than 600 residents. Later, the Mount Horeb School Board adopted measures to fully accommodate transgender students. I Am Jazz tells the story of a transgender girl and was co-written by Jessica Herthel and transgender teen Jazz Jennings. Herthel hosted a reading Thursday at a library in Orange County, California, according to the Human Rights Campaign. She had read the book at the Mount Horeb event in December. Mount Horeb parents and school leaders acted with courage and showed that love, indeed, conquers hate, said Mary Beth Maxwell, the campaigns senior vice president for programs, research and training. Liberty Counsel Chairman Mat Staver said Thursday it is irresponsible to promote that book, especially to young people. It is dangerous and fictitious to suggest you can change your sex. You cant, he said. People are free to read that book, but people are free to do stupid things as well. The eight Madison schools that had readings were: Lincoln, Shorewood Hills, Van Hise, Schenk, Nuestro Mundo and Chavez elementary schools, and OKeeffe and Hamilton middle schools. Rachel Strauch-Nelson, spokeswoman for the Madison School District, said the schools are all part of a national initiative called Welcoming Schools, sponsored by the Human Rights Cam- paign. The schools have been discussing diversity, gender stereotyping and ending bullying, so they have a strong foundation for conversations like these, she said. The town of Deerfield is asking Dane County officials to intervene in quarry blasting that some residents say is responsible for damage to homes, a historic Norwegian church and a cemetery. For the past two years, residents and town officials have looked for ways to mitigate the effects of increased mining activity at the Oak Park Quarry in eastern Dane County. County staff say the property at 3522 Oak Park Road has been a quarry since 1981. But neighbors of the site say the quarry was far less active and briefly went dormant prior to 2010, when the property was purchased by Jon Halverson for use by his company Forever Sandfill & Limestone. Owners of seven nearby properties, including the 163-year-old St. Pauls Liberty Lutheran Church, believe their buildings have been damaged by increased blasting at the quarry, said Deerfield resident Brian Berninger. Berninger, who owns a home about a quarter-mile north of the quarry, said in the last six years hes experienced boards pulled away from the wall, torn drywall, loosened chimney bricks and widespread cracking in his driveway and garage. Ive owned homes for the last 30 years, one at a time, and Ive never seen cracks spread like this before, he said. Earlier this week, the Cemetery Association for St. Pauls Liberty Lutheran Church filed a property loss report with its insurer, stating that about 45 headstones and monuments have been dislodged on their stone or concrete foundations. The claim refutes the shifts were caused by maintenance, vandalism, or freezing and thawing cycles and expresses suspicion the cause was ground vibrations from blasting. With complaints like those in mind, the county, which handles zoning for towns, is in the process of reviewing the permit with the possibility of revoking it. Its not an action that we see very often, said Dane County Zoning and Land Regulation Committee chairman Sup. Patrick Miles, 34th District-McFarland. For the town of Deerfield and residents around the quarry, its been a significant issue. In 2009, the county approved a new 10-year permit for the quarry that included conditions. Halversons critics have alleged violations of several of those conditions, including failure to obtain all necessary permits and operating outside of specified hours. A recent county staff report said that since a complaint was filed in 2014 the quarry has operated within allowable hours and has adhered to state guidelines for blasting intensity. But county staff determined the quarry is not in compliance with licensing requirements because it does not have necessary permits from the town of Deerfield, which enacted its own ordinances regulating blasting and non-metallic mining last February. The blasting levels allowable under the towns new ordinance are an estimated 70 to 90 percent lower than the state restrictions, said Mindy Ochs, an engineer with Endpoint Solutions, a consultant for the quarry. We believe the conditional use permit would apply to the laws that were in place when the permit was issued, Ochs said. The operators also believe the Oak Park site is a legally nonconforming quarry, meaning it existed before the county started regulating quarries in 1968 and should be exempt from county-imposed restrictions. But Ochs said Halverson intends to find ways to protect St. Pauls Liberty Lutheran Churchs stone structure. So far, hes proposed insuring the church and hiring an independent consultant to determine appropriate blasting levels. The town didnt really respond to that. Were hoping that they will because we think thats the best way to have an independent fair review that everyone can agree to, Ochs said. Michelle Jensen, president of the church council, said the stone building has recently experienced falling mortar. Some members have also attributed cracking in the stained-glass windows to blasting, but she was more hesitant to draw parallels between the quarry and the aging structure. Its really hard to determine damage if you have no data to begin with, Jensen said, adding that the church council is considering Halversons proposals. At its Tuesday meeting, the county Zoning and Land Regulation Committee unanimously delayed a decision until April on whether to revoke the conditional use permit. Halverson has applied for licenses through the town, and Miles said its county practice to allow permit holders a window to regain compliance.Miles said hes hopeful that the added time will allow the town, its residents and Halverson to broker a deal. If there was communication between the parties, there wasnt a lot of understanding happening, Miles said. A new Republican proposal that would allow concealed carry permit-holders to bring weapons onto school grounds faces a tough road with opposition from educators, reservations from law enforcement, and slim chances of a vote in the Assembly. The measure, unsuccessfully proposed in 2013, also comes at a time when lawmakers are up for re-election and in the waning months of this legislative session. I know that from a political standpoint, its not what the speaker would like to see right now because were all going for re-election, said bill co-sponsor Rep. Jesse Kremer, R-Kewaskum. But theres also a concern that, hey, we have this bill ... if were sitting on it and something happens, how are we going to sleep at night? Im here just to do what is right, and whether that means releasing something at a non-politically correct time or not, so be it, he said about his own motives for bringing the legislation forward. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said Thursday hes open to the proposal but that its unlikely to get a vote on the Assembly floor this session. A spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, did not respond to a request for comment. I think its probably unlikely that its going to move forward, said Vos. But we havent talked about it, so well have to sit down and talk about it as a caucus. The bill, also sponsored by Sen. Mary Lazich, R-New Berlin, and Rep. Robert Brooks, R-Saukville, would allow anyone who has a license to carry a concealed weapon to bring a firearm on the grounds of a school. Local school boards could ban them from buildings but must post a gun-free sign. Its separate from another bill that would allow people to carry guns on college campuses, which Kremer also co-authored. The new school bill was circulated for co-sponsorship on Wednesday. Kremer said the measure would enhance safety for schools by potentially allowing permit-holders to help stop a school shooter. For rural school districts, a long response time on the part of law enforcement for such situations could be made less deadly if a person with a concealed weapon was on site, he said. But law enforcement and education officials arent on board. Law enforcement officers are certain to have some reservations as to whether this bill would make their jobs more dangerous, and whether it will do anything to improve the safety of our schools, said Jim Palmer, executive director of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, who added that allowing more guns in schools would create a less safe environment. Palmer said concealed carry-permit holders simply dont have the significant training and experience in responding to dangerous situations like law enforcement officers do, and that should be a concern for anyone who genuinely believes that allowing more guns in schools will make them any safer. What if a person mistakenly perceives a threat and uses their weapon? Kremer said law enforcement officers are trained to go into a tactical situation (and) are trained to figure out who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. Department of Public Instruction officials oppose the measure, saying it would reverse years and years of work to improve school safety. What is the problem being solved here with this legislation? I dont see it, said DPI spokesman John Johnson. He said there are already hundreds of police officers who are assigned to schools right now in the state of Wisconsin. Johnson said other measures, such as providing schools with money to build more secure entrances, would do more to enhance safety. Rachel Strauch-Nelson, spokeswoman for the Madison School District, said officials in that district are very much opposed to this bill. There is no good argument for more guns in our schools. Were very concerned about the dangerous situations it could create, she said. Dan Rossmiller, lobbyist for the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, said the organization also opposes the bill. In a statement, Lazich described the bill as a technical fix to an unintended consequence created by the states concealed carry law. The bill takes advantage of a federal law that allows states to permit concealed-carry license holders to carry weapons on school grounds. It also grants school districts the authority to pass policies about whether permit-holders may carry weapons inside school buildings, she said. This issue was brought to my attention by school administrators and school board members in my district, Lazich said. A spokesman for Brooks did not respond to a request for comment. Palmer said Lazichs characterization that the bill corrects an oversight is inaccurate. He said the federal law was specifically addressed in an amendment when the states concealed carry law was passed in 2011. A similar proposal was made in 2013 as an amendment to a bill that would have allowed retired and off-duty police officers to carry weapons on school grounds. That bill failed because the amendment would have allowed concealed carry-permit holders to carry weapons on school grounds but did not allow schools to pass policies to ban guns if they wished. Palmer said thats a sensible improvement (to the current legislation) for which the bills authors deserve some credit. Assembly Education Committee chairman Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt, R-Fond du Lac, declined to comment. Senate Education Committee chairman Luther Olsen, R-Ripon, said, Im not sure we need to do that. Gov. Scott Walkers administration still wont explain what happened to text messages sought by the Wisconsin State Journal related to a failed taxpayer loan to a business owned by a top Walker donor. The refusal comes despite a reversal this week by the state Public Records Board of an earlier decision over what constitutes transitory public records and when such records can be destroyed. The administration cited the revised policy shortly after it was changed in August in explaining why the text messages werent available. The text messages could shed more light on an effort by then-Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch to press for the questionable Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. loan, which has yet to be repaid. What happened to the text messages is also significant because state law prohibits government agencies from destroying records after a request has been made for them. Anyone who intentionally destroys public records can be subject to criminal penalties. Without answers from the Walker administration about what happened to the records and when, its unclear whether the administration followed the law, said attorney Bob Dreps, an expert on the state Public Records Law who also has represented the State Journal in such cases. Dreps said the administrations use of the Public Records Boards initial policy shift was a fig leaf to cover up what had happened to the text messages. But he said state law doesnt give the public recourse unless a requester can prove that the records were destroyed after a request was made for them. Attorney General Brad Schimel also expressed concern Thursday that state law doesnt provide a remedy in cases where records are destroyed prematurely. He made the comments at a meeting of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council. That doesnt make sense to me, Schimel said of the lack of a remedy. This is one area where it makes sense to update the law. The Public Records Law itself provides penalties if a public official destroys a record after it has been requested, but it remains unclear if or when the DOA text messages were destroyed. Administration spokesman Jim Dick this week declined to provide answers about what happened to the texts the newspaper requested. Ive looked into your questions. For the request you referenced, DOA complied with the Public Records Law, Dick said Friday. DOA will continue, as weve always done, to comply with the Public Records Law. Request denied twice On April 29, the State Journal asked DOA for all of its records regarding Building Committee Inc. or its owner William Minahan since December 2010. Some records were provided shortly before the newspaper published a report on May 17 about WEDCs $500,000 loan to BCI, which noted that Huebsch sought unsuccessfully to provide the company with even more money. On June 19, DOA responded further to the State Journals records request with about 200 pages of documents, including an Aug. 30, 2011, email in which DOA Deputy Secretary Chris Schoenherr indicated that he had been sending texts about Minahan. Just talking (I should say texting) about you, Schoenherr wrote to Minahan. Secretary Huebsch wanted to touch base with you tomorrow on developments on our end is there a time and number that would work best? On June 22, the State Journal asked DOA for all text messages between Schoenherr and Huebsch related to BCI. On July 3, DOA said it had no records responsive to the request. On July 28, the State Journal filed a slightly amended request for Schoenherrs text messages, to which the administration said on Aug. 25 it had no records on file. In a follow-up email, then-DOA spokesman Cullen Werwie added: Its worth noting transitory messages are not required to be retained. Asked for a statutory citation, he referenced the Public Records Boards policy for retaining transitory correspondence, which had just been changed Aug. 24. Previously, transitory correspondence was to be retained until no longer needed. The change meant transitory correspondence didnt have to be retained at all. On Oct. 29, in response to a separate request for records by liberal advocacy group One Wisconsin Now, DOA lawyer Elisabeth Winterhack also cited the new transitory records retention policy in explaining why police logs of anticipated visitors to the Governors Mansion werent maintained. Jenni Dye, research director for OWN, said she doesnt believe the police logs meet the definition of transitory records. The State Journal reported on those two examples in early December, after which the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council filed a complaint with the Dane County District Attorneys Office alleging the board violated the states public meetings law by not noticing the transitory records changes or recording them in the meetings minutes. On Monday, the board reversed its decision after receiving nearly 1,900 emails from the public criticizing the change. On Wednesday, Walker said he has not received, nor has he asked for, an explanation of what happened to the text messages, while acknowledging that his administrations policy is to make such communications available as required by the Public Records Law. The bottom line is we expect people to follow the law and if they dont we expect there to be consequences, Walker said. Right now in the state of Wisconsin, if you ask for information about state business and it came in on whether its official email, personal email or text message, the expectation is that information from my office or anyone else in our administration should be provided. State GOP lawmakers have softened a controversial bill that would enhance the rights of landlords and property owners, especially in the area of historic preservation. The new version would still make property owner consent part of future landmark and historic district designations but no longer affect how existing designations are governed by local ordinances.It would let cities continue to have systematic building inspections and provide more information on eviction notices. The initial legislation proposed by Rep. Rob Brooks, R-Saukville, and Sen. Frank Lasee, R-De Pere, has been supported by landlord and real estate organizations, but many elements were strongly challenged by municipal leaders, fire officials and historic preservationists across the state. Critics said it would ban important routine apartment building inspection and registration programs, make it too easy for landlords to evict tenants, and devastate historic preservation programs in Madison and across Wisconsin. The League of Wisconsin Municipalities voiced opposition because it preempts local rule. After hearings, the lawmakers promised changes that have now been laid out in a substitute to the bill, AB 568. They have responded to our most important requests, said Curt Witynski, assistant director of the League of Wisconsin Municipalities. We have shifted our position from opposition to neutral. The league, Witynski stressed, is still combing over details of the revision. Madison city attorney Michael May said he is still analyzing the changes. Some of the worst things are gone, he said. It still may be a pretty bad bill. Its unclear how the changes will be broadly received. The sponsors dont anticipate further hearings and expect committee decisions could be made later this month with floor action in February. The biggest changes come in the area of historic preservation. We heard from people across the state that historic preservation is important to them, said Lasee spokesman Lars Fiorio. They thought the legislation went a bit too far in knee-capping local government. The original bill would have prohibited the designation of a new landmark without the property owners permission and, critics argued, effectively undermined the power of local ordinances to regulate changes to designated landmarks or buildings in historic districts without property owner consent. The amended bill would require municipalities to notify owners on proposals to designate landmarks or historic districts and provide a form by which the owner could vote for or against the designation or inclusion within 60 days. An owner could block a landmark designation while a historic district designation would require approval from the owners of two-thirds of principal structures. The revision eliminates language that critics felt would gut municipal authority to run historic preservation programs. Sam Breidenbach, president of the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation, said that while the new version is definitely an improvement, the potential for unintended consequences still remains. Theres some really fundamental problems. The initial bill had significant changes for tenant-landlord law, including: Banning municipalities from establishing apartment inspection programs, with inspections based on tenant complaints. Banning municipalities from registering, certifying or licensing landlords unless uniformly applied to properties, including owner-occupied properties. Letting landlords more quickly evict a tenant. The revision allows building inspections based on complaints by any person and regularly scheduled inspections, which should satisfy municipalities, Witynski said. Thats a positive for us, Madison building inspector George Hank said. Im fairly pleased with the way they handled it. The amended proposal lets municipalities register landlord information including a name, contact, address and phone number, sponsors said. It also provides more information on eviction notices, which would have to include the basis of the eviction, description of any alleged criminal activity and contacts for assistance. The tenant-landlord revisions dont go far enough, especially in the area of evictions, said Brenda Konkel, executive director of the Tenant Resource Center. She said the bill is still too broad and would give landlords the ability to evict for minor offenses without the involvement of law enforcement or arrest. In a nondescript rental unit in earshot of where Interstate 90 meets the Beltline, Paul Asper spends late nights developing hard cider he hopes will fill a niche in the craft-alcohol trend booming throughout the Madison area and across the nation. The 37-year-old veteran started Restoration Cider Co. with his wife, Lissa Koop, in 2013 with a mission to ferment a dry, crisp hard cider more akin to a white wine to stand apart from the sweet, soda-like ciders that dominate the market, Koop said. In quintessential mom-and-pop fashion, Asper and Koop run all aspects of the business from marketing to product development. At the same time, they balance professional careers, Asper as an emergency room nurse and Koop as a corporate attorney, while raising two young daughters. Koop said her husband does the large majority of the duties for Restoration Cider and often works until 3 a.m. after his regular job and spending time with family. But as a member of the Minnesota Air National Guard, Asper is gone a few days a month, leaving some tasks in her hands, Koop said. Youd be hard-pressed to find another business owner who works harder than Paul, both in time-wise and coming up with creative solutions to keep this affordable, Koop said. To help manage it all, Koops mother and stepfather, Lynn Breunig and Dave Tremble from Prairie du Sac, regularly watch their granddaughters when the couple is occupied. I like Lissa to be able to enjoy some of the cider-related outings, to be able to go and participate in that, because shes mainly focused on the kids and her office, Breunig said. Even Aspers parents, Vergie and Al, make the trip from their home in Albert Lea, Minnesota, about once a month to visit and offer to watch the children. Through all the effort, Restoration Cider last summer sold its first kegs to local bars and restaurants, but in 2016, Asper said he hopes to ferment about 10 times the volume after restoring 40-year-old dairy tanks to meet his needs. Currently, the company makes two products, Starkweather and Sugar River. The former is a completely dry cider made from Wisconsin apples high in tannin, a compound that contributes a bitter flavor. The latter is the same base cider but with fresh-pressed juice added to give it a hint of sweetness. I never really saw myself as a cider drinker. I had tried other ciders but didnt order it out, said Lynn Breunig, Koops mother. I love the Starkweather, the very dry cider. Its delicious, so Im a convert, actually. Both beverages are named after water sources in the Madison area, a trend Asper said he plans to continue when creating more products. Inspiration from abroad Paul Asper said he was always just a beer guy, not very interested in cider because of its sweet taste. It seemed kind of fake, like it was a wine cooler, he said. But his sentiments toward cider changed a few years ago after the couple visited northwest Spain. While at a store, they purchased a dirt cheap bottle of a regional cider, Koop said. The animated clerk was enthusiastic about their purchase and instructed them how to properly pour the beverage into a glass from at least a meter high, Asper said. The first couple sips, we didnt know what to think of it, Asper said. Then it just grew on us, and we fell in love with this stuff. The Spanish cider, which Asper described as dry, tart and maybe vinegary, was impossible to find in the U.S., he said. But one day when Asper saw some derelict apple trees, he decided to use the fruit to reproduce the taste they fell in love with while in Europe. It turned out remarkably good and remarkably close to the Spanish cider, he said. From late 2011 into early 2012, Asper said he fermented 200 gallons of his cider and began to think it was something the newly engaged couple could make a living doing. After getting positive feedback from friends and family, Asper and Koop incorporated Restoration Cider in 2013. Vergie Asper said her son was always interested in chemistry and hands-on projects, so she was not surprised when the couple decided to make a go at the business. The retired French teacher said she does not like hard cider but found her sons creation tasty and drinkable. I knew if my mom said it was good, then we have a future, Asper said. Charitable endeavors While serving as a mechanic for the Wisconsin Air National Guard, Asper traveled to Iraq twice. During his one day off a week, he said he visited the emergency room and witnessed the human cost of war. When I came back, I was fine, but I felt sort of this blackness, this sort of darkness that the hue of the world had changed a little bit. I got into fly fishing shortly after. It just helped me remember how beautiful the world is and put things back into perspective, Asper said. Asper and Koop said when Restoration Cider starts to see a profit, 5 percent of it will go to stream restoration programs and organizations throughout Wisconsin, especially those focused on the Driftless Area, to preserve a hobby that has been cathartic for the veteran. Paul was pretty adamant when he started the business that he wanted some sort of charitable component to it that would benefit those streams, Koop said. The couple said the company has raffled off guided fly fishing tours and participated in other charitable events. Aspirations for the future Although the cidery is just budding, the ambitious duo have plans to widen the companys reach. They would like to open a tasting room and are optimistic about the chances of its success. It seems like this city is ready for something like that, Koop said. Given all the microbreweries this town supports, I think one cider tasting room could be supported. Asper said the tasting room would be filled with stream motifs and outdoor-related decorations, though he said they have no plan on when a tasting room could be open by. Hopefully, in the future, the business will kind of serve to educate people about that natural resource thats so unique to this area, Asper said. Restoration Cider will bottle its products in the spring to be sold in the Madison area. In the meantime, the company touts its beverages at festivals and events, including the Isthmus Beer and Cheese Fest on Saturday at the Alliant Energy Centers Exhibition Hall. A wintry mix of fog, freezing rain and a snow flurry or two was making for an interesting Friday morning commute in south-central Wisconsin, but bitter cold will be the weather story this weekend, forecasters say. Wind chills could drop to 30 below by Sunday morning, as the coldest air mass so far this winter descends from the north. The National Weather Services said wind chill advisories should be expected in south-central Wisconsin Sunday and Monday, with actual temperatures barely breaking out of negative territory. Residents along the Rock River near Afton and Janesville are also fighting high water, as ice dams formed on the water, backing up the river flow behind the dams, but water levels were receding as of Friday morning, the Weather Service said. The frigid air is expected to stick around through Tuesday, with temperatures moderating closer to normal come Wednesday. Friday's predicted high of 32 in Madison will be the warmest day we see for a while. Saturday's high in the mid-teens should come early in the day, with temperatures falling to around 9 by 5 p.m., the Weather Service said. The low Saturday night could drop to 4 below, and Sunday's high is forecast to only reach 0. Sunday night's low could be the coldest of the winter, down to 10 below, and Martin Luther King Day on Monday should be frigid still, with a high of 4. Monday night's low is expected to drop to 8 below, and Tuesday's high is forecast to top out at 13, said 27 Storm Track meteorologist Brian Olson. Olson said highs should be 20 on Wednesday and 23 on Thursday. Other than the mixed bag of precipitation on Friday, skies should be quiet Saturday through next week. Thursday's high in Madison was 35, 9 degrees above normal and 13 degrees below the record high of 48 for Jan. 14, set in 1928 and tied in 1952. The low on Thursday was 14, 3 degrees above normal and 40 degrees above the record low of 26 below for the day, set in 1963. No precipitation (rain plus melted snow) fell at the airport, keeping the January total at 0.56 inches, 0.01 inch below normal. The record precipitation on Jan. 14 was 0.52 inches in 1930 and 1940. For the meteorological winter of December through February, Madison has received 3.89 inches of precipitation, 1.58 inches above normal. Snow totals stayed at 2.1 inches for the month, 3.7 inches below normal, 9.5 inches for winter, 9.8 inches below normal, and 13.6 inches for the snow season, also 9.8 inches below normal. The record snowfall on Jan. 14 was 9.4 inches in 1940. Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 16-01-15 Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article From: The Athens News Agency at CONTENTS [01] ND leader on social security proposal: Govt punishing working people [02] Tax revenue at 39% of GDP in Greece, Eurostat [03] Running water restored to Iraklio's 'Lions Fountain' [01] ND leader on social security proposal: Govt punishing working people Main opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, fresh from his victory in an internal party election for president, sharply criticized the government on Friday for crushing, as he charged, self-employed professionals, recently hired people and pensioners with its policies. He made the statement after a meeting with the president of the Athens Bar Association, Vassilis Alexandris. The two men reportedly discussed a hotly contested proposal by the government to increase social security contributions in order to shore up Greece's feeble pension system. "In other words, the government is punishing the work of the people that the Greek economy so desperately needs to restart. Every day that goes by, it is made more obvious that the SYRIZA-ANEL coalition governmnet is seriously hurting Greece," he said. [02] Tax revenue at 39% of GDP in Greece, Eurostat Tax revenue, including social contributions, stood at 39 pct of GDP in Greece in 2014, up from 33.5 pct in 2010 and 38.3 pct in 2013, Eurostat said on Friday. The EU executive's statistics agency, in a report released here, said that the ratio of tax revenue and social contributions to GDP in the Eurozone was 41.5 pct and in the EU 40 pct. The ratio of 2014 tax revenue to GDP was highest in Denmark (50.8 pct,), Belgium and France (both at 47.9 pct), while the lowest shares were recorded in Romania (27.7 pct of GDP), Bulgaria (27.8 pct) and Lithuania (28.0 pct) as well as Switzerland (27.1 pct). Between 2013 and 2014 decreases in the tax-to-GDP ratio were observed in eight Member States (Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden and the United Kingdom) as well as Norway and Switzerland. The largest decreases in the tax-to-GDP ratio were observed in Norway (-1.0 percentage points), the Czech Republic (-0.7 pp.), the United Kingdom (-0.5 pp), Belgium and Slovenia (both -0.3 pp.). For Luxembourg and Switzerland, the observed decreases were very slight (below -0.1 pp.). For Portugal, a decrease of -0.2 pp. between 2013 to 2014 followed a 2.7 pp. increase between 2012 and 2013. Increases in the tax-to-GDP ratios were observed in twenty Member States as well as Iceland and Serbia. In percentage points, the highest increases in percentage of GDP from 2013 to 2014 were recorded by Iceland (2.9 p.p.), Denmark (from 48.1 to 50.8 pct of GDP, or approximately 2.75 pp. of GDP), Cyprus (2.6 p.p.), Malta (1.4 p.p.) and Serbia (1.0 pp.). While Cyprus and Malta reported a comparatively low tax-to-GDP ratio, Denmark increased a relatively high tax-to-GDP ratio. [03] Running water restored to Iraklio's 'Lions Fountain' ANA-MPA -- Running water flowed in Iraklio's Venetian-era Morosini Fountain - better known as the Lions Fountain - for the first time in 10 years after the water supply was reconnected on Friday, restoring the landmark to its former glory. . One of the historic landmarks of the old quarter of the Cretan city, located in Iraklio's Eleftherios Venizelos Square, the water line was reconnected on a pilot basis. The water flows through a special zeolite filter to ensure that it does not damage the monument, which will be monitored and regularly cleaned. The project aims to showcase both the monument and the historic centre of Iraklio, as the fountain is considered one of the finest examples of 17th century sculpture on Crete. The fountain was commissioned by the greatest Venetian commander of the 17th century, Franceso Morosini, with the aid of engineers from Venice, and includes works to transport water from the Giouhta springs above Kamares and along the Arab-Byzantine wall to the fountain. Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article The movie Thank You, Dad by Hrach Keshishyan tells a story of an American-Armenian girl, named Virgy. Although, she had hardly ever see... We are gathering information for the 2022 general election. On desktop, click "election information" on the right side of this pag... "Last night, Ted Cruz said that not many conservatives come out of Manhattan. They sure do come out of Chicago," Cleveland, who also serves as co-chairman of Illinois' Cruz campaign, said. Picking up in the wake of the "New York values" feud that made its way into a heated discussion between Cruz and businessman Donald Trump , Chicago GOP Chairman Chris Cleveland tossed a little fuel onto the fire with a comment exclusive to Illinois Review: Onto the report by IR citizen journalist Mark Weyermuller - Last night the Chicago Young Republicans held their debate watch party at the Old Crow, a tavern on Kinzie Street in the River North neighborhood. It ended up being a standing room only crowd watching on 20 televisions while munching on beef brisket sliders and drinking speciality beers. Jeff Haim (CYR President) gave a warm up speech from a balcony asking people to cheer and boo in true tavern debate tradition. He was joined by Chicago GOP chairman Chris Cleveland. The event was co-hosted by the Chicago Republicans Women's Network and the Chicago Northside Republicans. The event was also attended by students including several from the DePaul College Republicans. The Chicago Northside Republicans are a new group, an extension of the Chicago GOP. The CNRs are responsible for building grassroots support on north-side of Chicago. It is co-chaired by Paul Laliberte and Christopher Grozev. They are sourcing volunteers and fielding qualified candidates for a number of offices, and increasing the footprint of the Chicago GOP on the north-side. The breakdown of the CYR presidential straw poll which was held during the debate at Old Crow. It is not necessarily an indication of who won or lost the debate but more of the preference of the people attending. Ted Cruz 31.9% Marco Rubio 26.4% Donald Trump 16.7% Rand Paul 9.7% John Kasich 8.3% Chris Christie 1.9% Ben Carson 1.9% Rick Santorum 1.9% Carly Fiorina 1.9% Jeb Bush 0% Mike Huckabee 0% Some details include Rand Paul coming in fourth while not attending either debate last night. The 1.9% represents those receiving just one vote. Also notable is Huckabee and Bush receiving zero votes. 72 attendees participated in the straw poll. Other upcoming CYR events include a viewing of a new film: "13 hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, at the AMC River East 21 Theater (322 East Illinois Street, Chicago) Sunday, January 17 at 11:30 a.m. Purchase tickets on your own through Fandango ($6.37 each). Meet in the lobby at 11:00 a.m. Earlier in the week, President Obama gave his annual State of the Union address leaving one chair empty as a symbol of victims of so call "gun violence." Many people question this term as an attacked on the Second Amendment (the right to keep and bear arms) and often consider it "people violence." We set up four empty chairs at our house for the four victims of the attack on our embassy on 9-11-2012. The film "13 Hours" surely will be a major film that will bring the attention back to President Obama and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's actions or lack of actions back in the headlines. LEBANON, IL - Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) is endorsing State Senator Kyle McCarter for the Illinois 15th Congressional District race. ALIPAC said they are endorsing McCarter because of his support for America's existing border and immigration laws, and his opposition to any form of amnesty for illegal immigrants. I am honored to be recognized by ALIPAC for taking a stand for legal immigration and defending the American worker, said McCarter. In a press release to media outlets Tuesday, the organization criticized McCarters opponent Congressman John Shimkus for his failures on the immigration issue. WASHINGTON - These prisoners were considered "high risk" by the Bush administration, but evidently something's changed in the past nine years. Now these same prisoners - called "bad boys" by military analysts - are on their way to Oman, very close to Yemen, back where they started. Fox News reports: The Obama administration on Thursday quietly transferred 10 Yemeni detainees from the prison at Guantanamo Bay to neighboring Oman so quietly, in fact, that the news was first reported by state-run Middle East news agencies. And once the news got to Capitol Hill, it set off alarm bells given the host countrys proximity to Al Qaedas most active branch. Scary? See blogger's recommended suggestions. View Russian superiority in weapons here: Then see our only hope, the real Putin: Russia Is Preparing a Military Response to the Expansion of NATO Translated by Ollie Richardson for Fort Russ 12th January, 2016 Original Here In response to the creation of the mobile forces of NATO, Russia can dispatch heavy military equipment in a Western direction. The beginning of 2016 marked a new escalation in military tensions near the borders of Russia. Yesterday in Lithuania, as part of operation "Atlantic Resolve", alongside the standard armaments, the main part of the American battalion of NATO troops from the 2nd cavalry regiment of the US army, stationed in Germany, arrived. The Northern Atlantic Alliance does not hide the fact that the military presence in the Baltic states will grow. Yesterday the Minister of Defence of Poland Antoni Macierewicz, on the Polish radio station 'Maryja', once again expressed the hope that in the near future at the NATO summit in Warsaw will overcome the "German veto" on the formation throughout the country of permanent military bases of the Alliance. In response, Russia continues to improve its forces, using the elements of hybrid war. Moscow is worried about the bellicose attitude of Poland. This country has already approached NATO with a request to place nuclear weapons on its territory. According to the Deputy Minister of Defence of Poland, Tomasz Siemoniak, the Alliance has a program in which NATO members can have nuclear weapons in the country-ally. This is highly likely, and not only in Poland or Lithuania, but also in other countries of Eastern Europe. This unequivocally was made clear recently by the Supreme commander of the allied NATO forces, General of the U.S. air force, Philip Breedlove. He said that, in regards to Russia, it is time for "tough measures". Rigidity must manifest itself in the sending of American troops to Europe and "high-quality" training of the armed forces of the United States for a possible fight with a "former enemy in the cold war". Operation "Atlantic Resolve" began in the spring of 2014, i.e. from the time that Crimea became a part of Russia. In Lithuania and other Baltic States leaders then claimed that a similar thing could happen to them, and appealed for help to NATO. Since then, the soldiers of the Pentagon are on a rotating basis, ever present in the region. According to open sources, rotational troops deployed in Rukla (Kaunas district) consist of a mixed mechanized infantry battalion "Iron wolf". Here, on the 14th of January, there will be a delivery of military equipment, including armored Stryker, armored SUVs and trucks. Basically it is a wheeled machine, equipped with automatic grenade launchers, heavy machine guns, and means of concealment. In fact, the Americans have a unit in Lithuania for action in a local armed conflict. But there is already a concentration of offensive weapons. According to open data, NATO, in the village Munici of Siauliai district, there is already heavy American military equipment Abrams tanks and Bradley IFV. According to the latest plans of the Alliance, they should use units of rapid reaction forces, which are composed of national contingents of NATO. The same equipment was placed in Latvia and Estonia. In addition, the fleet in the Lithuanian Siauliai was replenished with 16 NATO fighter jets. In all Baltic States units are placed from the American military, the function of which is to carry out military and pre-war actions. At the borders of the Russian Federation elements of electronic intelligence of the Alliance were deployed. That is, the U.S. and its allies continue to build up military strength at the borders of the Russian Federation. The defense Ministry of Lithuania reported that, according to the decisions of NATO for collective defence, allies of the US will remain in Lithuania until such a time where the situation demands security. Judging by the situation in Eastern Europe, their presence will be there for a long time. The American media is now actively raising the issue of the "Russian Bear", which is supposedly "very dangerous". They say it's time "to stop him from hugging". This theme fits well with, according to the Pentagon, the new national security Strategy of the Russian Federation (NSC RF), which was signed on December 31st by President Vladimir Putin. In the document the military activities of the USA and other NATO countries are viewed as "a threat to the national security" of Russia. The previous NSS of the Russian Federation was adopted in May 2009, and it was supposed to guide the next 10 years. But political and military conditions have changed so a new document for the first post-Soviet times gives a hard-hitting assessment of the U.S. and the North Atlantic Alliance. Judging by what was said to German journalists the other day by Putin, such a valuation has existed for a long time, but it was not transparent, and here it was voiced. The head of Russia believes that the main mistake of Western politicians after the collapse of the USSR was "the development of military structures to the East" and NATO''s desire to "reign" on the continent. That's why "now we are discussing the crisis", said the President of the Russian Federation. Such conclusions are, it seems, based on facts. It is difficult to refute what has been said at the annual meeting of the Defense Ministry last December. The Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that in NATO countries bordering Russia, "During this year the aircraft contingent has increased eight times, and the number of military personnel by 13 times". To the borders of the Russian Federation "300 tanks and Infantry Vehicles were additionally deployed and missile defense systems by Aegis Ashore. In varying degrees of completeness are 310 aircraft-carriers capable of carrying about 200 U.S. nuclear bombs". "Tanks and 300 BMP's are a technique for a full-fledged division. And she hosted and saw deployment in Eastern Europe in less than a year. While aircraft capable of carrying nuclear weapons have the flight time to our industrial areas and cities of just 5 minutes" said military expert Lieutenant General Yury Netkachev. "Creating tasks to further militarize is the problem", the General says, "NATO will only exacerbate the situation, prompting Russia to respond". What the steps will be, you do not have to guess. Despite the severe economic crisis, Moscow made a decision not to reduce spending on defence and security. Sergei Shoigu, reporting on the 11th of December 2015, to the President, stressed that next year will see the continued "building up of combat capabilities of the Armed forces." According to him, measures will be taken "to strengthen military forces in the West, southwest and Arctic strategic directions". From open sources it is known that in 2016, in addition to Arctic areas and the strengthening of groups in the Crimea and the Northern Caucasus, the formation and management of basic compounds of the 1st tank army of the Western military district will be completed. The 6th (Leningrad region) and 20th (Voronezh) combined arms army w ill be strengthened by new connections . Apparently, Moscow will respond to NATO plans to establish mobile units of the Alliance on the borders of the Russian Federation . On January 3rd, 2016 the commander of the Airborne Troops Colonel-General Vladimir Shamanov said that the air assault brigades and divisions "assumed the formation of six tank divisions," as well as "units of unmanned aerial vehicles, including shock army" and two divisions of electronic warfare. A similar set of weapons is necessary for a hybrid war. Their possible presence in the Airborne shows the mobile component is being referred to. Shamanov said that the strengthening of the combat capability of the Airborne Troops will be discussed at the board meeting of the Ministry of Defense on January 29th. It can be noted that Mahindra was among the leading auto industry chieftains to flag concerns around taxi aggregating apps in September last year. The onus, Mahindra said, is on the auto industry to build cars "passionately" to ensure demand for cars doesn't go away. By Press Trust of India: After calling taxi-hailing services like Uber and Ola as a threat to industry, Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra on Friday said their penetration will not lead to extinction of individual auto buyers. "Despite the Ubers and the Olas, individual buyers of city and commuter cars are not going to become extinct," Mahindra said in a video message at the launch of the company's compact SUV here. ALSO READ: Mahindra launches KUV 100 for Rs 4.42 lakh Though he conceded that overall volumes of commuter and city users may drop because of the "sharing economy", there will "indeed remain many buyers who would want to own a car and enjoy the experience of driving". On heightened sensitivity to pollution, he said, "There is going to be enormous societal pressure to use vehicles in cities with small footprint, both in terms of carbon and space occupied." advertisement It can be noted that Mahindra was among the leading auto industry chieftains to flag concerns around taxi aggregating apps in September last year. "The ease of access being offered by taxi-hailing apps like Uber and Ola is the biggest potential threat to the auto industry. Since these apps operators have made transportation a commodity, (auto) sales could be hit and volumes may be impacted," he said. The onus, Mahindra said, is on the auto industry to build cars "passionately" to ensure demand for cars doesn't go away. "The market is becoming polarised and I am not a strong believer in the sustained growth of the mid-sized sedan market," he added. Uber is keen to increase its India presence from the current 18 cities. Industry estimates peg Uber's daily rides at around 2,00,000. ALSO READ: Mahindra working on various options of mitigation after SC verdict Despite initial hiccups in India, the US-based taxi-hailing app is investing USD 1 billion to ramp up its operations by March next year. Its domestic rival Ola, which leads the market in terms of number of taxis, drivers and users by a wider margin, is also getting millions of dollars of investments to increase its market share. Volkswagen has two main options in trying to bring its diesel cars into compliance. It can install a bigger exhaust system to trap harmful nitrogen oxide, or it can retrofit a chemical treatment process that cuts pollution. Volkswagen was forced to admit last year that about 600,000 vehicles were sold with illegal software designed to trick government emissions tests. By AP: Volkswagen CEO Matthias Mueller told workers at the German automaker's lone US plant in Tennessee that recovering from a diesel emissions cheating scandal "won't be a walk in the park," but that the company is committed to turning around its prospects in what he called a core market. Mueller spoke to workers Thursday, one day after meeting with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy about the company's efforts to bring diesel cars into compliance with US law. Volkswagen was forced to admit last year that about 600,000 vehicles were sold with illegal software designed to trick government emissions tests. "We've made a mistake, and we have to fix this mistake," Mueller told The Associated Press after the speech on the floor of the Chattanooga factory. ALSO READ: Volkswagen CEO to update board committee on scandal advertisement "Because it's so complicated, it takes a little time," Mueller said in the interview conducted in German. "I understand the impatience that exists. I'm impatient, too. I'd also like a faster solution, but we have to proceed with care." Mueller said the company has agreed with regulators not to discuss the next steps in public. In Detroit on Wednesday, EPA Director of Transportation and Air Quality Christopher Grundler said VW's proposed fixes fell short "in a lot of different areas," and the discussions are continuing. Grundler wouldn't get into specifics, but said the agency and the California Air Resources Board are insisting on expeditious repairs that won't have an adverse effect on owners. "We're not there," he said. Volkswagen has two main options in trying to bring its diesel cars into compliance. It can install a bigger exhaust system to trap harmful nitrogen oxide, or it can retrofit a chemical treatment process that cuts pollution. ALSO READ: Volkswagen creates US diesel emissions claims program The bigger exhaust will likely hurt performance and gas mileage. But the chemical treatment, while saving acceleration and mileage, needs a clumsy storage tank and multiple hardware changes to work. In either case, almost a half-million cars would have to be recalled for the repairs. Experts say both options will be expensive, perhaps so costly that it will be cheaper to buy back some of the older models. Mueller was unwilling to speculate on what specific steps Volkswagen will take. "I don't want to get ahead of any decision," he said. "Our responsibility is to find the best possible solution for our customers and for the environment, so we can move confidently into the future." Mueller told workers the company is working to "win back trust" with customers in the US and around the world. "It's not only our cars we have to fix," he said. "We have to repair our credibility, too. This won't be a walk in the park." Volkswagen is placing great hope in the new midsized SUV that the Chattanooga plant is scheduled to begin producing at the end of the year. It's part of what Mueller called the company's "largest ever SUV offensive for this market." ALSO READ: VW scandal could kill US diesel car market, says Continental CEO Mueller took the helm of what had become the world's No. 1 automaker after his predecessor resigned amid revelations of the emissions cheating scandal last year. Mueller said the crisis has presented an opportunity to overhaul Volkswagen's governance by giving more autonomy to managers of the company's brands and regions. A new engineering centre being established in Chattanooga will help meet that goal for the US market, he said. "In a nutshell, Volkswagen here in the US needs to become more American again," Mueller said. With the launch of home delivery services, the customers can now get a car delivered and picked-up by Zoomcar executives at a location of their choice, be it office, home or any other place. The decision comes after the launch of Zoomcar services in Chandigarh last month. By Press Trust of India: Zoomcar, a self-drive car renting company, today launched doorstep services for its customers across in major cities such as Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad. Besides, customers of Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune and Chandigarh would also get a car for use delivered by company's officials and members of the corporate team, Zoomcar said in a statement. With the launch of home delivery services, the customers can now get a car delivered and picked-up by Zoomcar executives at a location of their choice, be it office, home or any other place, it said. The decision comes after the launch of Zoomcar services in Chandigarh last month. Speaking on the occasion, Greg Moran, Co-founder and CEO, Zoomcar said, "We are constantly upgrading our services to enhance customer comfort and convenience and to leave them with a memorable experience of self-drive time and again." advertisement The Bengaluru-headquartered company rents out cars for an hour, day, week, or month. At present, its services are available in Delhi and NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Chandigarh, Hyderabad and Bengaluru,. Its vehicle catalogue offers a wide and extensive variety of cars for self-driving in India, ranging from hatchbacks to SUVs to luxury sedans. The company's fleet is currently clocking over 2200 cars, it added. Plans to use high-tech gadgets and extra security forces to curb cheating at exams in Bihar might make it a thing of the past, if implemented. By India Today Web Desk: Cheating in Bihar might become a thing of the past, if proposed plans are implemented to use high-tech gadgets and extra security forces in order to stop examination cheating. Mass cheating has been a major issue in Bihar for years, with various reports coming up in media showing proof of guardians helping their wards to cheat. The education department, however, is taking major steps to stop these practices from the upcoming Class 10 and Class 12 examinations in the months of February and March. The examination centres will have CCTV cameras and a live webcasting will be carried out, along with the deployment of additional security forces, according to the Chairman of the Bihar School Examination Board, Lalkeshwar Prasad Singh. Moreover, not more than three students would be sharing a bench during exams. Guardians, friends and family will also be kept away from the examination centres, and no illegal gatherings will be allowed there from an hour before the commencement of the exam. To ensure this, district magistrates and police superintendents have been asked to invoke Section 144 of the CrPC, which prohibits 10 people assembling in an area. advertisement State Education Minister, Ashok Choudhary said that such malpractices won't be tolerated anymore and strict measures will be taken against anyone attempting to cheat. Chief Secretary, Anjani Kumar Singh said that exams would be cancelled in case of cheating reports from any centre. Officials and teachers at the centre would also undergo strict action. The centres reporting widespread cheating would be blacklisted. The education department suspended four headmasters of government run schools last month, due to reports of large-scale cheating taking place in 2015. This move could, however, cause a massive decline in the pass percentage. Back in 1996, when the High Court took action against the rampant cheating in Bihar, only 12 per cent students could pass the board exams. According to official reports, around 15 lakh students will sit for the matriculation exams in March this year. Check Mumbai University colleges do not have Principals Click here to get more education news. Get latest updates on exam notifications and scholarships across India and abroad here. By India Today Web Desk: Army Day is celebrated on January 15, every year to commemorate the day when Lieutenant General K M Cariappa took over as Commander-in-Chief of India on January 1949. He took over the position from General Sir Francis Butcher. The day is observed to honour the brave soldiers of the Indian Army, both living and dead, who risk and sacrifice their lives to guard our country. Army Day is celebrated at every Army Command headquarters situated in the country and in the national capital. The celebrations in Delhi begin by paying tributes to the martyred soldiers at the Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate. Indian Army Day 2020: Motto The motto of the Indian Army is 'service before self' and its mission is to ensure national security and national unity, defend the nation from external aggression and internal threats, and maintain peace and security within its borders. advertisement The tribute is followed by military shows which feature the technology and achievements of the Army. Bravery awards such as Unit credentials and Sena Medals are also distributed to the soldiers on this day. Some interesting facts about the Indian Army: A great example of selfless service and brotherhood, and above all, love for the country is what the Indian Army is all about. Read: Indian Army Day 2020: Date, significance and inspirational quotes The UIIC (United India Insurance Company Limited) has earlier conducted the written exam for selecting candidates for the posts of Assistant on August 30, 2015. By India Today Web Desk: The UIIC (United India Insurance Company Limited) has earlier conducted the written exam for selecting candidates for the posts of Assistant on August 30, 2015. The qualified candidates then appeared for the interview for the final selection. The result of the interview round has been declared on the official website. Candidates who have appeared for the same can check it from the website www.uiic.co.in. Steps to download the marks Log on to the official website of UIIC Click on the link 'Assistant Final Marks 2015' The final list of selected candidates will be displayed on the screen Check it and save it for further reference The final appointment would be subject to satisfactory medical report and validity of documents on verification of certificates regarding age, qualification, community certificates (in case of reserved candidates), disability certificates (in case of PwD candidates)and service/relevant records (in case of XSM/D-XSM candidates). advertisement Further advice regarding pre-employment medical examination would be intimated separately to the candidates by the company. For OBC/SC/ST candidates of Maharashtra origin, the appointment would be further subject to production of certificate from the Scrutiny Committee as required under the regulations. No communication shall be entertained from those candidates whose names do not appear in the above list. About UIIC (United India Insurance Company Limited) UIIC, under Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance (India), is a public sector General Insurance Company of India and one of the top general insurers in Asia. The company has more than seven decades of experience in non-life insurance business and reached its present form by the merger of 22 companies. As Congress gets its first non-Gandhi chief, Mallikarjun Kharge, in 24 years, we raise these questions on the show: Can Mallikarjun Kharge bring change? Is Mallikarjun Kharge stop-gap chief? What will be Gandhis' role? Watch as panelists debate these and more on this episode of News Today. Bengaluru's popular Cauvery theatre was on Friday evacuated following the bomb threat. By India Today Web Desk: Bomb scare at a popular Bengaluru theatre turned out to be a hoax following a thorough search conducted by bomb squad and local police on Friday. Bengaluru's popular Cauvery theatre was on Friday evacuated following the bomb threat. Bomb disposal squad reached the spot immediately after people informed the police about an unidentified box which was lying near the theatre. No explosives were found at the said spot, the police said. The city has been kept under alert following the bomb scare. ALSO READ: Police arrest 3 men on suspicion of links to Jakarta attack NIA suspects JeM's involvement in 2015 Samba, Kathua terror attacks By Vipra Shrivastava: After three days of being out of focus, Mandana Karimi once again managed to draw everyone's attention towards her; that too over a 'towel'. In the process, she also taunted Prince Narula for using Kishwer Merchant for his own benefit. Prince, who had had enough of the 'you misuse relationships' taunts by now, lost his cool with her. It so happened that after a tiring day of the boot camp task, the housemates were relaxing when Mandana created a ruckus about someone using her towel. Keith admitted that he might have used her towel by mistake and even apologised to her but Mandana went on with her 'I am sick of this house' rant. Prince, who was taking a shower, while this drama was going on in the bathroom area, came out and tried to calm her down by asking why she was creating an issue about a small thing. But, as always, she started fighting with him. The argument over a towel soon turned into a war zone with personal taunts flying thick and fast from both sides. Also read: Is Imam Siddique really being paid this much for Bigg Boss 9? advertisement Mandana accused Prince of forging fake relationships in the house and using them to his advantage. Prince accused her of following a 'use and throw' policy. To this, Mandana said, "Maine fake bhai nahi banaya. Look at yourself in the mirror, what you've done to Kishwer". Hearing this, Prince lost his cool and blasted her. He warned her not to utter Kishwer's name ever, adding that only he and Kishwer know the reality of their relationship. Also read: Bigg Boss 9: Mandana's boyfriend will not be present even if she reaches the finale Later, Imam Siddiqui, who ironically has been sent into the house to ruffle feathers, ended up acting as a mediator between the two and asked them to sort out their difference. As expected, Mandana once again failed to understand anyone else's point of view. Also read: Bigg Boss 9, day 91: Salman Khan declares all contestants unsafe from nominations Prince tried to explain to her that she doesn't need to make personal comments over a petty fight, while Mandana insisted it was natural to say the worst things when one is angry. The conversation ended with Mandana storming out of the Sky Lounge, saying, "I am sorry for making a personal comment, I am done with this now." Also read: Bigg Boss 9 winner: Whom are you placing your bets on? Meanwhile, Imam tried his best to keep the housemates on their toes by putting them through physically draining activities during the boot camp task. However, he could not achieve his target of getting them to give up the task. Will she, won't she? The gossip mills are working overtime to figure out whether Katrina Kaif will promote Fitoor on Bigg Boss 9, a show hosted by her former lover Salman Khan. By India Today Web Desk: Celebrity reality show Bigg Boss has become a mandatory stopover for Bollywood stars for movie promotions. Be it megastar Shah Rukh Khan, A-listers like Deepika Padukone, reclusive actors like Sunny Deol or freshers like Karan Singh Grover; all of them ensure they make an appearance on Bigg Boss 9, hosted by none other than Salman Khan. The latest big release happens to be Fitoor, starring Katrina Kaif and Aditya Roy Kapur. Now, given Salman and Katrina's history, it was but natural that tongues would start wagging, wondering if Katrina would appear on his show to promote her film. Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif on Bigg Boss 4. Picture courtesy: Colors TV So, at a recent event in Mumbai, someone asked her the question that was on everyone's mind. But Katrina being Katrina, she gave a diplomatic answer and chose to keep everyone guessing. "We will go wherever the promotion teams tells us to go and that's how it is. I would like to promote it everywhere," is what she said. advertisement Though Katrina and Salman are friends in real life, with her attending his sister Arpita's wedding in Hyderabad, to visiting his family at their home, their public appearances have ranged from being controversial to awkward. Also read: Priya Malik declared second finalist? The last time Katrina appeared on Bigg Boss with Salman as host, was to promote the Farah Khan directed Tees Maar Khan in 2010. And as you would recall, she had a tough time deflecting Salman's jokes targeted at her beau Ranbir Kapoor and their relationship. It may also be recalled that Ranbir Kapoor had allegedly refused to promote his film Tamasha on Bigg Boss 9 after being reportedly snubbed by Salman Khan at Anil Kapoor's 2015 Diwali party. Also read: Mandana's boyfriend will not be present even if she reaches the finale Also read: Who do you think will win Bigg Boss 9? Chalk N Duster is classic proof of how to shoddily treat topics which merit attention: the mistreatment of teachers in the private education system and the commercialisation of the education system. By Suhani Singh: Cast: Shabana Azmi, Juhi Chawla, Divya Dutta Direction: Jayant Gilatar Ratings: (1.5/5) Sometimes movies with the right intent misfire badly. Chalk N Duster is classic proof of how to shoddily treat topics which merit attention: the mistreatment of teachers in the private education system and the commercialisation of the education system. The result is that instead of seriously dwelling on the occupational hazards of the profession and the dire straits the system finds itself in, audiences are left with moments to chuckle and wince at. Welcome to Kantiben High School, a private school run by a Gujarati trust. Vidya (Shabana Azmi) is an algebra teacher with a different educational approach so much so she uses a rhyming song to explain a formula to the students. But she is no Jack Black from the School of Rock. advertisement She is a serious, devoted teacher who uses the crowded Mumbai local daily to commute, shop for veggies and play chess with her wheel-chair bound husband (Girish Karnad). Jyoti (Juhi Chawla) is a happy-go-lucky science teacher who mimics her colleagues and Bollywood actors but is also worried about the authoritarian new principal (Divya Dutta), who is but obviously called "Hitler" behind her back. For a film that wants to change the system, Chalk N Duster is unapologetic in resorting to stereotypes. Hitler here wants Kantiben to be number one which means to open the school's doors to kids of the rich and famous, hike the fees, hire "young, pretty, smart, upmarket teachers" and force the existing staff out. Supporting her decisions is the trust's director (Aryan Babbar), who wears a badge like "Suits suck". Things go further downhill from here. Chalk N Duster is the sort of film where a hospital is named Health Care Hospital, in which a TV news reporter (Richa Chadda) just walks in and takes video byte of a distressed relative and a woman in ICU. A Principal makes bewildering statements such as "I hate question marks. I like full stops" and says "out of the blues". A husband refers to himself as "the hard disk" and his child as "the processor". It's idea of comedy is when a teacher imagines beating up her supervisor and laughing like a loony. Students here express gratitude to their teachers by sending them SMSes saying, "Good Morning" and walking with placards reading "We Love You". Rishi Kapoor is roped in to make a bid for the next host of Kaun Banega Crorepati. One can't help but feel sorry for the actors as they are given one silly line after another to say. It's no surprise then that Shabana Azmi has a red eye by the end of the film's two hour running time. Gilatar's directorial approach is amateurish to say the least with the general knowledge quiz contest a real low in the film. Chalk N Duster is overtly preachy and mawkish. It likes to get its point across - urgent call for reform - by shouting from the rooftops. Poorly shot and sloppily edited, Chalk N Duster is a film with relevant issues which are sadly presented like a dated saas-bahu show on TV. Over the past one year, the Congress social media team learnt the rope and expanded its presence. According to sources, the party got two to three crore hits on Facebook and around 10 million impressions on Twitter. After BJP's aggressive social media campaign in 2014, Congress built up a team of volunteers across states. The team has learnt the tricks of the trade and can get a topic trending in a few hours, leaders claim. By Amit Agnihotri: Outfoxed by BJP prime minister nominee Narendra Modi's aggressive social media campaign in the 2014 national elections, the Congress has come a long way in registering its presence on the fast-growing platform. Though plans for a Congress social media presence were made as early as January 2013, when Rahul Gandhi was made the party vice-president, the slow start cost the Grand Old Party dear in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls as young IT-savvy voters sided with Modi. Sources acknowledged the late start but said that by the time the AICC put up its social media team, the rivals had spread enough "negativity" against it. "The initial challenge was to fight the fake and paid volunteers of the BJP," AICC secretary Girish Chodankar told MAIL TODAY. "We were using social media but our resources were scattered. I tried to build up a team of volunteers across states," NSUI member Hasiba Amin, who monitors social media and coordinates with the AICC team, told MAIL TODAY. advertisement Over the past one year, the Congress social media team learnt the rope and expanded its presence. According to sources, the party got two to three crore hits on Facebook and around 10 million impressions on Twitter. "We can now trend a hashtag in a few hours," Congress MP Deepender Hooda, in charge of AICC social media team, told MAIL TODAY. Sources claimed they are now able to beat both BJP and AAP in trending issues. The results are better as proper systems have been in place, including a small team in Delhi to decide on the strategy with coordinators at the state level followed by small groups at the district level. The effort, said party leaders, was required as communication from a political party has become a daily affair and plays an important role in shaping public opinion and countering rival parties. Most of the social media volunteers comprise elected office-bearers of the NSUI and the Youth Congress and are the first to respond to any issue related to students. Though the party view is usually followed, there are exceptions as well. "Recently we posted messages against the party view on changes to the juvenile justice law as students were deeply concerned over it," said Hasiba. However, on issues like the National Herald case and India-Pakistan relations, the AICC team takes over. Congress sources said the Modi government came to power based on high expectations but has been low on delivery. "The BJP usually is rhetorical. We counter them with facts," said a source. Though the Grand Old Party has made a social media comeback, sources involved with the process said all this was regular work and there was a lot of room for improvement. "We have not done anything out of the box, just regular work. There are miles to go," said a senior leader who did not wish to be named. As the second edition of the Crime Writers Festival begins in the national Capital today, die-hard fans can look forward to a thrilling weekend of suspense and nail-biting sessions on plots, styles, films and characters. come one come all to the Crime Writers Festival, which is starting from today. Picture courtesy: crimewritersfestival By Indo-Asian News Service: Going by the stellar line-up of crime and thriller writers, filmmakers and script-writers from across the world, the three-day festival, an initiative of the Crime Writer's Forum for South Asia, is sure to provide edge-of-the-seat excitement to audiences. The highlight of the event would be a session paying tribute to the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, by Kathryn Harkup, a British forensics expert who will examine the different kinds of poisons used by Christie in her novels. Harkup will be in conversation with Dom Hastings, director of Bloody Scotland, Scotland's International Crime Writing Festival. Also read: An ocean of books awaits you at the World Book Fair 2016 "We are thrilled that writers from France, Israel, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the UK are here for the festival--apart from some great Indian writers. Among the many highlights is the the session by Kathryn Harkup, as we are celebrating 125 years of Agatha Christie. This year, we also have a special session on the badlands of Bollywood, with filmmaker Sudhir Mishra," said festival director Kishwar Desai. advertisement Other highlights will be sessions by Veronique Ovalde, a leading French crime novelist who will bring a huge dose of urban mystery; while Liad Shoham, an Isreali lawyer-turned-crime novelist examines legal thrillers with Supreme Court advocate Karuna Nundy and lawyer Niharika Karanjawala. Now, a crime writers festival would be incomplete without discussing detectives--a special session between Italian writer Piergiorgio Pulixi and Spanish author Clara Penalver where they will talk about the sleuths they have created. Interestingly, the festival will also discuss the rising crime figures in metropolitan cities like Delhi. Also read: Karan Johar's first book, plus 14 other books to read in 2016 "In the session on urban crime with author Veronique Ovalde, we will discuss the cityscape in Delhi, which leads to anger, aggression, and even murder. Delhi shares some similarities with other capital cities around the globe," Desai said. Crime writers in Hindi would be represented by well-known authors like Amit Khan. Writer and filmmaker Piyush Jha feels there is a significant increase in readership for crime fiction. "I am excited about the festival as it is a gathering of fellow Indian and international crime writers who are at the top of their game. It's a place to chat and bond and even pick each other's brains. It is also a great place to meet crime-fiction fans and engage and understand from them their likes and dislikes," said Jha, who will be releasing the book, Raaksha: India's No.1 Serial Killer, during the festival. Desai attested to the fact that the genre of crime fiction is on the rise. Also read: Cinderella to Sleeping Beauty: Remembering Charles Perrault's iconic stories on his 388th birthday "We have so many more authors wanting to participate than even last year and so one knows the genre is expanding. Earlier, writing crime fiction was something to be frowned upon, now everyone wants to be a crime novelist! Or make a film based on crime. In fact, almost every successful Bollywood film has a crime at the heart of it," Desai added. The event is being held at Oxford bookstore and Alliance Francaise, Delhi. Going beyond literature and fiction, the festival will also showcase movies which explore how crime-in-the-real has been fantasised by pop culture. There will be Gulzar's Achanak (1973). Another film, The French Connection (1971), a William Friedkin's classic, is based on Robin Moore's real-life expose of drug trafficking between France and the US. The third film, The Fifth Estate (2013) based on the Julian Assange affair, gives an idea of contemporary cinema's attitudes towards real crime. "Lot of people talk about how great the system is in Singapore, elsewhere... but odd-even proved the same can be done here," Kejriwal told reporters and urged Delhiites to continue the plan voluntarily. By India Today Web Desk: The 15-day trial of Delhi government's ambitious odd-even vehicle rationing plan to combat air pollution came to an end at 8 pm on Friday. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal called it a huge success. "Lot of people talk about how great the system is in Singapore, elsewhere... but odd-even proved the same can be done here," Kejriwal told reporters and urged Delhiites to continue the plan voluntarily. "Pollution did go down, yes... but there was also less traffic congestion," Kejriwal claimed. While the CM and his party - AAP - are busy in lauding themselves for what they claimed to be a successful implementation of a difficult task, many are pointing towards the negatives the plan exposed. Has the scheme been a game-changer which can be emulated across this country or it was just a gimmick of the AAP? advertisement "The scheme has set the ball rolling" AAP leader Ashutosh argued that the scheme should not be labelled as controversial as there was large scale concensus over it. He said both the Delhi High Court and Supreme Court backed Delhi government over the odd-even scheme. "We have seen the kind of public support that the scheme received. Media has also supported it. This is one issue which has galvanised everyone. World over, odd-even plan is just an emergency provision. The experiment in Delhi has made people realise that pollution is a very big issue, and this is a major success," Ashutosh said. "15-day nonsense" Former Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju, however, countered the Kejriwal's government's claims that the 15-day trial of odd-even plan helped in cleaning Delhi's toxic air. "As regard to reduction of traffic on roads, people were scared of driving due to challan of Rs 2000. A lawyer has to go to court everyday, he can't decide that I will go to court only on odd day or even day. Have you any idea what it means to board a metro. It's so overcrowded" Katju said. "This man Kejriwal is a pure stuntman. Unfortunately, most people of the country are gullible emotional fools," Katju added. "More stringent act was needed" Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director, Centre for Science and Environment said that while reports suggest that pollution level did go down to a certain extent, the Delhi government should have taken more stringent measures to make the scheme's impact more visible. "What we have found that the peaking of the pollution level has been much lower. There is evidence to suggest that if you remove vehicles from roads, you will reduce pollution. Understand the emergency not just from the pollution levels, but in a city where there is a death per hour due to air pollution related diseases ... this is a kind of emergency response we need. More stringency in action was needed," Roychowdhury said. Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) which measured air quality and traffic volumes at five important locations in the city said while air pollution levels "increased" in the first week of January, and in the second week despite being marginally better air quality it still remained poor. The CEEW worked in collaboration with the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC). "There is no conclusive evidence to prove that the odd-even policy improved Delhi's air quality or reduced traffic congestion. On the basis of data collected from low-cost air pollution monitors, indicates that the average air pollution levels increased in the first week of January as compared to the previous week," the independent think tank said. The Dakshina Kannada district jail in coastal Karnataka has been in the news for the last one year for several violations. By Aravind Gowda: The Dakshina Kannada district jail in Mangaluru was raided by the police, who recovered drugs, mobile phones, and SIMs from the inmates this morning. An inquiry has been ordered against the jail staff for serious violations. The district jail in coastal Karnataka has been in the news for the last one year for several violations. Recently, two inmates were killed in group clashes inside the jail premises. Though the security was strengthened, the jail continues to remain a hub of illegal activities. The raid was carried out by the Mangaluru City Police Commissioner Chandrashekar. The police also found mobile phone chargers, spare SIMs, ganja and other drugs. Was this loss in Pathankot attack inevitable? Could it not been averted if the NSG commandos had proper modern fighting devices? By India Today Web Desk: The January 2 Pathankot terror attack by carried out by Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) killed seven Indian security personnel. 5 Defence Security Corps men, an IAF Garud commando and one National Security Guard was killed in the pre-dawn strike on the air base before the 6 attackers were neutralised. While 200 NSG commandos were expected to act swiftly and flush out the terrorists, they took over 70 hours to sanitise the airbase completely. Was this loss inevitable? Could it not been averted if the NSG commandos had proper modern fighting devices? The Pathankot operation not just questioned National Security Adviser Ajit Doval's decision to send the NSG into the airbase, but also pointed towards the mismanagement and vulnerabilities of India's premier anti-terrorist force - NSG. advertisement India Today Magazine cover story, Eyes Wide Shut, exposed the shocking vulnerabilities of India's premier counter-terrorist force. India Today has also accessed exclusive government documents which highlights that the NSG lacked 72 equipments, which the force was promised long back. The investigative report which is put together by India Today's Sandeep Unnithan says, a Rs 1,400-crore modernisation plan that would have transformed it into a modern fighting force by 2017, still remains a pipe dream. The NSG is a force hollowed out by years of neglect, lurching from one crises to another. The force continues to be bedevilled by a shortage of cutting edge equipment and training aids. Unnithan says, "Not even 1 percent of what was promised have been allotted to the force so far." All that the NSG has acquired for its commandos since then are sniper rifles, submachine guns and pistols. Lt General (Retired) General Katoch says, "During 26/11 we lost many soldiers because we never had long-range night vision devices and conditions haven't changed yet, we've seen it in Pathankot." What the NSG lacks Long-range night vision devices and hand-held thermal imagers which would allow them to track the terrorists at night. They did not have the drones that could fly continuously to scan the target area for suspects. There was no command centre from where they could monitor the progress of operations. For the last 33 years, successive governments in Delhi kept the people of Rangpuri village in Mehrauli waiting for the plot and ultimately denied them the benefit in the year 1983. Delhi government had even issued allotment letters to the villagers at a public function but backtracked saying it did not have any land to allot. By Sneha Agrawal: The Delhi High Court has come down heavily on the Delhi government and has ordered initiation of contempt proceedings against it for failure to provide residential plots to 170-odd villagers and keeping them engaged in protracted legal battle for over 20 years. The division bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Jayanth Nath observed that for the last 33 years, successive governments in Delhi kept the people of Rangpuri village in Mehrauli waiting for the plot and ultimately denied them the benefit in the year 1983. The villagers of Rangpuri work as labourers and are earn their livelihood from menial jobs today would have been the owners of the land that could cost Rs 1.5 crore each. Sources said the current market price of the said land would amount to Rs 1.5 crore to 2 crore for each 120-sq yard plot. advertisement To make things worse, the government had even issued allotment letters to the villagers at a public function but backtracked saying it did not have any land to allot. The residential land was announced under the 20- Point Program scheme the possession of plots ad-measuring 120 sq yards were to be handed over the landless villagers for the residential purpose. The bench said, "It appears to us that no genuine effort is made to locate the land which can now be made available for achieving the purpose of 20-Point Programme of the government...the difficulty sought to be projected for the implementation of the orders by single judge is not genuine but only an attempt to circumvent the said directions." During the legal battle that went on for over two decades with 176 petitioners claiming for their right through advocate RK Saini, the High Court and the Supreme Court ticked off the Delhi administration for not standing to its promise and shying away from not only its legal obligation but also its social responsibility. It was observed that 52 petitioners entitled for the land have already passed away. The Delhi administration in its affidavit said that resolution passed by Gaon Sabha in respect of the certain portions were part of the private parties. And it without verifying the actual position issued the allotment letters to the landless villagers. Therefore, as the resolution passed was not with respect to the subject land, the mere issuance of the allotment letter does not confer any right in favour of the villagers. However, the high court in 2011 ruled in the favour of the villagers and asked the administration to set up a committee and find out the procedural lapse and also locate the land that could be allotted. When the Delhi administration challenged it before the Supreme Court in 2012, the apex court upheld the challenged order and ticked it off calling the petition a frivolous one and also causing a burden on the exchequer. It saddled the cost of Rs 2.5 lakh to be paid to the petitioners and transferred the case to the division bench of the court. The matter was then heard in July 2012 by a division bench, it was observed that allotment of land on paper at a public function was an attempt by the Delhi administration or the political parties ruling the administration to draw mileage out of such welfare schemes and also won elections on such pedestal. "The portions from the Gaon Sabha land that were allotted to us on paper under 20-Point Program of the government but they never got the physical possession for the same. After the land was allotted to us on paper, we were told that they would allotted the land after the demarcation. However, when we tried ascertaining whether the land has been demarcated we were manhandled and also charged for constructing on the government land," says 58-year-old Nand Kishor, resident of Rangpuri. By David Frawley: Being Hindu is not an easy identity to explain. It cannot be described according to a simple doctrine of faith, belief or creed. It includes religion and spirituality but extends to many intricate aspects of knowledge and culture over thousands of years. Being Hindu has long been regarded, even in India, as backward and regressive. There is the impression that it is communal to say one is a Hindu. Yet we are faced with a strange contradiction. Since Swami Vivekananda as a Hindu monk brought Hindu Yoga to the world in 1893, we find Hindu based teachings at the forefront of spiritual thought and new thinking globally. In addition, Hindu immigrants have performed extraordinarily well in all walks of life and are honoured in their new countries of residence. Reflecting this background, Hindol Sengupta's Being Hindu provides a bold and innovative perspective that links ancient and modern, cultural and philosophical Hinduism, into a vast panorama according to a deep personal narrative that is both fascinating and thought-provoking. advertisement Sengupta is not an academic who criticises Hinduism for not living up to the modern standards of social correctness, nor a Hindu priest or guru who stays on the level of religious discourse. Sengupta embraces the new innovative modern Hindus who use internet and social media, are knowledgeable of the world and politics as well as spiritual and cultural issues. His book teaches us that Hinduism is not vague but a spiritual science, art and philosophy, with transformative teachings for personal and collective growth. Being Hindu contains a number of gems of wisdom that can bring peace and harmony into the world. "Hindus fundamentally believe that there is no one true God. There is, therefore, no false God. And if you don't have a one true God or a false God, then you have no unbelievers." Put into a political context, without unbelievers, the divine can be honoured in all. Hinduism accepts all paths to the divine and all formulations of the divine but in a larger context that the divine is the self of all beings. On the other hand, Rearming Hinduism by Vamsee Juluri is a provocative title that aims at reawakening the Hindu mind and global respect for Hindu dharma. It encourages Hindus to defend themselves in the information age and its poignant media battles in a decisive and detailed manner. Juluri is a noted American academic of Indian origin, a professor of media studies at the University of San Francisco and an author of several literary works. His defence of Hinduism is not based upon any group-funded agenda or political concerns. He is writing as one who understands how the media works and what its power is. Hinduism is the least aggressive of the world's religions. While anti-Islamic stereotypes are routinely criticised, anti-Hindu stereotypes are uncritically defended and promoted. Juluri exposes such "Hinduphobia", its origins, consequences and dangers for Hindus, civilisation and the world of nature. Juluri has taken upon himself the cause of rearming Hinduism at an intellectual level and does so with clarity, comprehensiveness, and a deeper passion of the heart, well aware of challenges, criticisms and the potential political incorrectness of his views in the leftist-dominated academic world. He makes it clear that rearming Hinduism is a matter of Hindu survival, not Hindu aggression. Juluri's book is the best study available on the challenges to Hindu dharma in the media age, and richly deserves a wide examination in order to correct prevailing misconceptions about Hinduism. It raises important questions for the anti-Hindu forces that have long controlled the narrative on Hinduism and made distortion into the accepted fact. Sengupta and Juluri represent a new generation of Hindu writers from complementary perspectives. They reflect the new internet generation that no longer accepts the old anti-Hindu propaganda and can speak up against it with reason and determination. Both are original thinkers with new insights that can benefit not only Hinduism but the world. David Frawley is the director of the American Institute of Vedic Studies. Experts agree that there is a growing threat from radicalised Muslims inspired by Islamic State, some of whom may have fought with the group in Syria. Indonesian police bomb squad members walk to the site of a bomb blast at Thamrin business district in Jakarta on January 14, 2016. (Photo: Reuters/Beawiharta) By Reuters: Indonesia must strengthen its defences against Islamic State and work with neighbouring countries to fight it, Jakarta's police chief said on Friday, a day after an attack by suicide bombers and gunmen in the heart of the Southeast Asian nation's capital. Just seven people were killed in the three-hour siege near a busy shopping despite multiple blasts and a gunfight, and five of them were the attackers themselves. Nevertheless, it was the first time the radical group has targeted the world's most populous Muslim nation, and the brazenness of the attack suggested a new brand of militancy in a country where low-level strikes on police are common. Police chiefs across the country were put on high alert, and security was stepped up on the resort island of Bali, a draw for tourists from Australia and other Asian countries. advertisement "We need to pay very serious attention to the rise of ISIS," Jakarta police chief Tito Karnavian told reporters outside the city's oldest department store, Sarinah, where the attack unfolded on Thursday. "We need to strengthen our response and preventive measures, including legislation to prevent them ... and we hope our counterparts in other countries can work together because it is not home-grown terrorism, it is part of the ISIS network," he said, using a common acronym for the Syria-based group. Experts agree that there is a growing threat from radicalised Muslims inspired by Islamic State, some of whom may have fought with the group in Syria. However, they said the low death toll on Thursday pointed to the involvement of poorly trained local militants whose weapons were crude. An Indonesian and a man of dual Canadian-Algerian nationality were killed. Twenty-four people were seriously wounded, including an Austrian, German and a Dutchman. Islamic State said in its claim of responsibility that "a group of soldiers of the caliphate in Indonesia targeted a gathering from the crusader alliance that fights the Islamic State in Jakarta". Karnavian confirmed that Islamic State was responsible and named an Indonesian militant, Bahrun Naim, as the mastermind. Police believe Naim leads a militant network known as Katibah Nusantar and is pulling strings from the Syrian city of Raqqa. "We were informed by intelligence that an individual named Bahrun Naim ... instructed his cells in Indonesia to mount an attack," Karnavian said. "His vision is to unite all ISIS supporting elements in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines." Islamist militants from those three countries have a record of working together and several Malaysians are known to have carried out suicide attacks in the Middle East. Echoes of Paris Indonesia has seen attacks by Islamist militants before, but a coordinated assault by a team of suicide bombers and gunmen is unprecedented and has echoes of the sieges seen in Mumbai seven years ago and in Paris last November. In a recent blog post, entitled "Lessons from the Paris Attacks", Naim had urged his Indonesian audience to study the planning, targeting, timing, coordination, security and courage of the jihadis in the French capital. Australian Attorney-General George Brandis, who was in Jakarta recently to bolster security coordination, told the Australian newspaper he had "no doubt" Islamic State was seeking to establish a "distant caliphate" in Indonesia. The country had been on edge for weeks over the threat posed by Islamist militants, and counter-terrorism police had rounded up about 20 people with suspected links to Islamic State. Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population, the vast majority of whom practise a moderate form of Islam. The country saw a spate of militant attacks in the 2000s, the deadliest of which was a nightclub bombing on Bali that killed 202 people, most of them tourists. Police have been largely successful in destroying domestic militant cells since then, but officials have more recently been worrying about a resurgence inspired by Islamic State. Alarm around the world over the danger stemming from Islamic State increased after the Paris attacks and the killing of 14 people in California in December. On Tuesday, a Syrian suicide bomber killed 10 German tourists in Istanbul. Authorities there suspect the bomber had links to Islamic State. Harits Abu Ulya, a expert on militancy who knows Bahrun Naim said he expected more attacks. "This is an indication that he has been learning from the Paris attacks and he has studied the strategy," he said. "I still have doubts about the capability of the local militants to carry out attacks on a bigger scale. But it is a possibility. advertisement ALSO READ: Jakarta terror attack: All you need to know Jakarta blasts: Suicide bombers, gunmen kill at least 6, 4 suspects held The attack started with a suicide car bomb, and then heavy gunfire was heard as militants stormed into the base, he said. By AP: Heavily armed fighters from the Islamist extremist group al-Shabab attacked a base for African Union peacekeepers in southwestern Somalia on Friday, blasting their way into the compound and exchanging fire with peacekeepers, a Somali military official said. Dozens of al-Shabab fighters started a complex attack on the military base which is run by Kenyan troops who are part of the African Union force in the town of El-Ade, not far from the Kenyan border, Ahmed Hassan told The Associated Press by phone from Elwak, a town near the scene of the latest attack. The attack started with a suicide car bomb, and then heavy gunfire was heard as militants stormed into the base, he said. Fighting is still going on inside the base, he said. He had no details about any casualties. advertisement Al-Shabab reported on its online radio that its fighters had managed to penetrate the base and were fighting African Union troops. Despite being pushed out of Somalia's major cities and towns, al-Shabab continues to launch deadly guerrilla attacks across the Horn of Africa country. The group, which has ties with al-Qaeda, has also carried out many deadly attacks inside Kenya. By Abhishek Bhalla : Parliament attack mastermind Afzal Guru's hanging has breathed life into Pakistan terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Indian intelligence sources have told MAIL TODAY. JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar is apparently using it as a tool to motivate acts of terror against India. Masood has been making fiery speeches seeking revenge for Guru's hanging, recent intelligence inputs indicate. Guru was hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail in February 2013, after which JeM formed the Afzal Guru Squad, a crack fidayeen team with the sole objective of avenging his death. Within months, fresh waves of terrorists started crossing the border and attacking security forces. JeM, which espoused the Kashmir separatist cause, has its roots in Bhawalpur in Pakistan's Punjab province. It was formed in 2000 after a split in Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. Majority of those who broke away joined Masood Azhar. advertisement The terrorists who carried out the Pathankot attack are also suspected to be from the Afzal Guru Squad. Sources said the Pakistan phone numbers that the terrorists dialled had been traced to JeM leaders. These calls were made using a taxi driver, Ikagar Singh's phone. Singh was killed by the terrorists who later attacked the Air Force base. Security agencies feel that not just Azhar, but his brother Abdul Rauf Asghar too was the Pathankot mastermind. The brothers were also the brains behind the IC-814 hijack. Azhar and two other terrorists, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, were released by India after Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu was hijacked and taken to Kandahar in 1999. According to Indian intelligence agencies, JeM has risen in the last couple of years, replacing the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) which has been facing heat from across the world. "After Guru's hanging, JeM is raising its head again and are getting a push from the Pakistan army," said a top South Block official. There was a clampdown on JeM after they attacked former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in 2002. That was when Lashkar-e-Taiba came to the frontline of Pakistan-sponsored jihad. Intelligence reports say that not just the Pathankot attack, several other attacks on security forces over the last two years can be attributed to the Afzal Guru Squad. In all these attacks, the method was similar - terrorists in army fatigues crossed the border and targeted security forces. The first such attack happened in September 2013, in Samba, Jammu, when terrorists attacked a police station and an army camp. Nine such attacks have been carried out since, believed to be the handiwork of the Afzal Guru Squad. This and many other attacks that followed carried JeM's imprint (in some cases, the bags carried by the attackers had JeM printed on them), sources said. Investigators are trying to establish similarities between the attack in Pathankot and earlier ones. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has also approached the Punjab Police, asking them to share details of the terror strike at Dina Nagar in Gurdaspur district on July 27 last year after investigators found similarities with the Pathankot attack. It is suspected that three heavily armed militants in army fatigues, who infiltrated from Pakistan, took the same route to enter India last year. The terrorists sprayed bullets on a moving bus and stormed a police station in Dina Nagar, killing eight, including a superintendent of police. All three were shot. There are also striking similarities between Pathankot attack and the police station strike in Samba, as also the attack on an army camp in Kathua in March. Inputs indicate that JeM is planning more Pathnakot-like attacks. Sources said India had told Pakistan that they must to go after these groups. "It has been communicated to Pakistan that it must launch a massive offensive against terror groups targeting India, as they did after the Peshawar school attack, and only then can bilateral relations improve," said a senior government official requesting anonymity. Also Read: How Babri demolition triggered the jihad in Masood Azhar From government schools to Indian Railways, police forces, Indian airlines and government hospitals-the indigenous natural fabric might soon be used at all these departments in some from or the other. By Kumar Vikram: The handspun Khadi is no longer meant just for politicians and the elderly. From government schools to Indian Railways, police forces, Indian airlines and government hospitals-the indigenous natural fabric might soon be used at all these departments in some from or the other. In a bid to promote PM Narendra Modi's 'Make in India' campaign and boost the rural economy through employment generation, the khadi village industries is all set to spread its wings. Last week, the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) wrote to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) requesting to promote khadi in government schools. Besides, talks are on to promote the use of khadi products in various other departments including police forces, government hospitals, railways and airlines. The MSME ministry has said that there is a big market for school uniforms in the country and promotion of khadi uniforms will lead to the growth of the rural economy. It has also said that khadi will become a fashion statement if school students wear khadi uniforms. advertisement Arun Kumar Jha, CEO, Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), said that khadi has become a fashion statement because of PM Narendra Modi's affinity for the fabric. "The best thing with this industry is that khadi fabric production is mostly labour intensive and human input is the prime factor. More production will boost rural economy and the KVIC is in talks with various departments. We want to promote khadi among police forces, in government hospitals, in schools and in Indian airlines. Indian Railway is already using khadi. All this will create a wider platform for employment generation," said Jha. The MSME ministry in its letter has also talked about the benefits of khadi. Higher production of khadi will also mean that the industry will require more workers who are skilled in tailoring and production. These workers will be trained through skill development programmes. National carrier Air India has already decided to use the natural and eco-friendly khadi products for its international flights and placed orders worth Rs 1.21 crore with the KVIC for 25,000 units of amenity kits. The kits are going to be provided by Air India to its first class and business class passengers, flying on the airline's international network. Jha said that KVIC is also in the process of opening khadi outlets at some airports in the country. Officials said that Airport Authority of India has also given its consent for allotting space at important airports to develop the outlets. Indian Railways is already using khadi bed-sheets. There will be more KVIC products that will be used in the railways over time. Recently a meeting was held among Indian Railways officials and KVIC. There is a demand of boots for particular employees. Similarly, they can make curtains and bed-sheets for hospitals and uniform for police forces, said officials. On October 3, 2014, Modi had advocated the khadi products as homage to Mahatma Gandhi. He had asked people to use at least one khadi product. "We must promote the use of khadi. Buy at least one khadi article. If you buy khadi, you light the lamp of prosperity in the house of a poor person," the PM had advocated. Following Modi's appeal there was an exponential rise in the sales of khadi clothes. Khadi sales figures were in the negative zone in the first half of 2014-15 as compared with the previous year. The corresponding figures witnessed a sudden jump in the second half of the year. In first two quarters of 2014-15 (April to September) sales went down from Rs 500 crore (year 2013-14) to Rs 417 crore. However, over the next two quarters the figures went up from Rs 581 crore to Rs 753 crore. Khadi's high fabric porosity allows it to absorb perspiration better in humid conditions making it one of the best fabrics for summer months. Khadi is also more 'fuller' or more voluminous than mill fabrics, as it is hand-woven. The average yarn diameter of hand-spun yarn is always more than that of millspun yarn. Also Read: Basic to bespoke: Khadi has finally broken out of its humble moorings By Aravind Gowda: A Bengaluru-based businessman alleged that the Shivajinagara police have illegally detained his son, who is studying MBA, after he complained to the Lokayukta about their extortion racket. In his complaint to the State Human Rights Commission, Balamurugan said that his son Senthil was taken into custody by the police in the wee hours of Wednesday. He claimed that the police had not filed any charges, but kept him under detention illegally. He alleged that the police were exacting revenge, as his son had brought to the notice of the Lokayukta, the corrupt practices of the Shivajinagara cops. The Human Rights Commission has ordered a probe into the case. The police, however, claimed that Senthil was trading in stolen goods, which he bought from burglars. A formal case had been registered in this connection, they said. --- ENDS --- Fifty-six-year-old Mehbooba Mufti, president of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) and unquestionably the most firebrand among Jammu & Kashmir's mainstream politicians, finds herself in a place she was always destined for. That she would succeed her father was never in question. Now poised to take charge as the first woman chief minister of India's troubled frontline state-hastened by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's untimely demise on January 7-it is a succession singed by grief. Tears flowing freely, she stands before his grave shaded by a resplendent canopy of chinar and walnut trees inside Bijbehera's Dara Shikoh Park, clearly oblivious of her surroundings or the biting January chill blowing across the Kashmir Valley. But even as she struggles to cope-amid a flood of mourners representing every hue of Kashmir's violently divided political spectrum-with the loss of her closest confidante and mentor, she must also contend with the equally real prospect that she has to continue what Mufti left unfinished. Sonia Gandhi meets Mehbooba to offer condolences, in Srinagar advertisement In doing so, Mehbooba faces a decidedly daunting set of challenges. Being sworn in as chief minister on a date and time of her choosing will be the easy part. For any success past that, she must embark on impossible balancing acts-between the Valley and Jammu; between Srinagar and New Delhi; between her predominantly Muslim PDP and the primarily Hindu BJP-something that Mufti Sayeed attempted and only partially succeeded at when he chose to ally with the BJP after PDP had emerged as the single largest party in the 2014 Assembly polls. Unfortunately for Mehbooba, she must attempt to accomplish all this with neither Mufti Sayeed's patient tutelage nor the benefit of the close, spanning the-spectrum relationships that he had built over six decades in politics. And with no direct experience of administration or governance, many believe she could very easily find herself adrift and floundering. "Somehow everyone is failing to register the fact that it is Mehbooba Mufti who created and built up the PDP to where it's at today," Haseeb Drabu, the JNU-trained economist who resigned as chairman of the J&K Bank to re-emerge as the state's finance minister in March last year, tells India Today. Known to be close to both father and daughter, Drabu insists that 20 years in politics (16 in the vanguard of the party) have equipped Mehbooba with a hard political nose that is up to the most formidable tests, political or administrative. The oldest of Mufti Sayeed's four children and his anointed political heir, Mehbooba can however hardly be cited as another 'dynast' of Indian politics. Although she contested her first election from Bijbehara in 1996 when her father, the then state Congress chief, found that few were willing to represent the party after six horror years of President's Rule, Mehbooba quickly matured into a politician in her own right. By 1999, when Mufti decided to part ways with the Congress, she was right beside him, taking the lead in building a whole new party from scratch. Narendra Modi and Rajnath Singh pay tribute to Mufti at Palam Airport in Delhi Working in concert, Mufti crafted his Kashmir-centric strategy in Srinagar, while Mehbooba tirelessly articulated it on the ground, rapidly emerging as the most familiar face of the PDP. Just three years old in 2002, PDP won 16 seats and the chief ministership for Mufti in a three-year swap arrangement with the Congress. In 2008, Mehbooba pushed up her seat tally to 21 and spent the next six years relentlessly taking on the National Conference-Congress Alliance, progressively directing public ire against its chief minister Omar Abdullah. The die had been cast by early 2014 when the PDP swept all the three Lok Sabha seats in the Valley. Seven months later, with 28 seats, the party was right back in the reckoning and government, albeit this time in a hitherto unconceivable alliance. An unlikely partnership in which the PDP and a stridently "nationalist" BJP mutually agreed to step back and refrain from overtly articulating contentious positions. While for the BJP, which swept the Hindu majority constituencies of Jammu taking 28 seats, the alliance was an unprecedented opportunity to ensure its constituents there a share in governance, Mufti premised his decision to shun the PDP's Kashmir-centric-and oftentimes borderline-separatist pitch-as the only way to respect the mandate delivered by the deeply fractured polity of Jammu and Kashmir. Ten months on, Mufti Sayeed is dead-buried under majestic Chinar trees of Mughal vintage in his favourite corner of the Dara Shikoh Park, not far from the house where he was born in Bijbehara's Baba Mohalla. There has been little progress in implementing the Agenda of the Alliance-a 16-page document that spells the raison d'tre of the PDP-BJP partnership. advertisement But the ideological impasse remains as stark as ever, erupting every now and again in controversy-the release of jailed separatists, the beef ban, and most recently sharp differences on the use of the state flag prescribed by the J&K Constitution. As chief minister, that is precisely where Mehbooba's future troubles could begin. Her task is decidedly onerous. Besides the political balancing act, as CM Mehbooba will need to deliver governance to a people increasingly disaffected both by the ongoing turmoil and corrupt governments. While thousands of victims of the September 2014 floods await rehabilitation, the state has failed miserably in providing basic public services like healthcare and education. Meanwhile, industrialist are suffering the first scheduled power cuts in over two decades. And though police and security agencies are playing it down, the bounding resentment and growing radicalisation amid the Valley's youngsters is visible, much of it engendered by widespread unemployment. Mehbooba must address all this and more. Narendra Modi at Mufti Sayeed's swearing-in ceremony in March 2015 advertisement While Mufti, the astute politician that he was, had mastered the fine art of patience and letting irritants provoked by fringe elements on either side resolve themselves naturally, Mehbooba is unlikely to display her father's restraint. Widely viewed as a reluctant participant, never really in favour of teaming up with the BJP, her decision to remain out of the public glare (only occasionally venturing out as she did to defend Mufti following the huge furore over his "us paar ke log" comment at his inaugural news conference in Jammu) lent credence to the notion. The idea took hold when she personally intervening to have Hurriyat leaders released from preventive detention after they accepted invitations to meet with Pakistan's National Security Advisor Sartaj Aziz in August 2015. Though much of this was deliberate strategy to pre-empt the alienation of the PDP's own cadres, long fed on political rhetoric painting the saffron party as Kashmir's worst nightmare, it caused considerable unease in both Jammu and Delhi. Also, Mehbooba's past politics that includes visiting families of slain militants-some say even providing them safe shelter against Ikwani (statesponsored vigilante) gangs-too does not inspire confidence amid the saffron ranks. advertisement Many believe that the BJP will find it far more difficult to engage with Mehbooba as the chief minister. Ram Madhav, the party's general secretary in-charge of J&K affairs, who called on her on January 8, a day after Mufti's funeral, was already guarded. "I am tempted to say it will be smooth, (but) we would like to know what they (PDP) are thinking. The PDP has to be forthcoming," he said on January 11. Known as the man who conveys Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah's writ to the party's rank and file in the state, Madhav however says his party is "in favour of continuing with the arrangement" in J&K. That said, there is a fear that unless Mehbooba is prepared to pare down the political rhetoric, the BJP and the Central government may be forced to re-evaluate present positions on the alliance. Temporarily 'unemployed' after the imposition of Governor's Rule on the night of January 9, many ministers from the Mufti cabinet appear a trifle uncertain. While none of them claim to know Mehbooba's mind, there is evident unanimity that continuing the alliance with the BJP would be "far simpler and less complicated" than any possible arrangement involving the Congress. Meanwhile, as the PDP's main interlocutor, who put together the agenda of the alliance in a prolonged series of secret parleys with Madhav over January and February last year, Drabu scoffs at suggestions that Mehbooba wasn't fully onboard. "Yes, it was Mufti Sayeed's decision to go with the BJP, but this alliance would not have happened if Mehbooba had the slightest reservation," he says. "She has a mind of her own and strongly held opinions but she has been taking a long view of issues over the past 10 months," he says. There is hardly anyone in the ministry who believes that as CM, Mehbooba will not be substantively different from Mufti. "She has her own style of working," and that they say will be the only change. Her supporters point to Mehbooba's tempered tenor, particularly in recent months after Mufti's health began failing. Addressing an early December summit in Delhi for instance, Mehbooba spoke of "dialogue with Pakistan" in the Vajpayee years, but she also praised the Modi government for restarting the peace process by deciding to send external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj to Islamabad. With similar candour a week later, the PDP chief declared, "The majority of Kashmiris have realised that the gun cannot solve their problems." Also echoing Mufti's own words, she rooted for the PDP-BJP alliance as "a window of opportunity in Jammu & Kashmir". Click here to Enlarge Unfinished legacy: The first 10 months of the PDP-BJP Alliance under Mufti Mohammad Sayeed saw little movement on key issues that were included in the agenda both parties signed unfinished legacy off on in March 2015 Mufti's unexpected demise has the PDP's entire rank and file backing Mehbooba (some say temporarily) as his "only natural successor". Even known dissenters in the party's old guard-Baramullah MP Muzaffar Hussain Baig and Tariq Hamid Karra who vanquished Farooq Abdullah in the LS election in Srinagar-who were seen as opposed to Mehbooba's anointment, have turned stout supporters. "I think she will do even better than her father. She will earn more laurels," Baig said in an almost lyrical prophesy in Srinagar on January 10. The opposition too, in deference to her personal grief, was cordial. "Why should we automatically assume that Mehbooba is not in a position to take this alliance forward? She was part of the consensus that built the alliance," said ex-CM and arch rival Omar Abdullah in an interview predicting nonetheless that things will get "trickier" in the coming days. Analysts believe that more than the BJP and the Centre, Mehbooba's biggest challenge will be to retain credibility amid the core constituency she has so painstakingly carved for the PDP in the Kashmir Valley and Muslim predominant areas of Jammu, selling promises of self-rule and a Line-of-Control (LoC) that would be nothing more than a line on the map. This will not be easy in a state where the average 25-year-old does not remember a single day free from violence, and a palpable sense of anger and alienation amid young people is leading to irretrievable radicalisation. Mehbooba's ascent also bears the potential to blossom into a watershed moment that her father stopped short of. Unlike Mufti, she steps into head a government flush with funds from the belated Rs 80,000 crore package Modi announced in Srinagar on November 7. Ironically, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley signed the file to release the first Rs 1,200 crore tranche meant to rehabilitate thousands of victims of the 2014 floods on January 4. The money was transferred the next day. Sadly Mufti, who had asked about the "flood cheques" every waking moment in the ICU in AIIMS, was by then too far gone. But the package is a big opportunity for his daughter to make a real difference. Perhaps actually winning hearts and minds like Mufti wanted to through development free from corruption. Although few will count the 10 months of his second tenure as CM as particularly accomplishing amid unfulfilled promises of rehabilitation and equitable development of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's lasting legacy must include his success in mainstreaming the BJP vis-a-vis J&K. With every other major party holding broadly similar positions, the BJP was the only political outlier in the context of J&K. Mufti insisted on stitching an alliance with the BJP in the wake of the overwhelming mandate it got in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, as a means to bring J&K closer to the rest of India. In government for the first time, BJP leaders started appreciating the complexities of local situations and politics. Indeed, state officials say it was amazing to witness BJP ministers demand the transfer of local NHPC power projects to the state during a meeting with Prime Minister Modi. Across the alliance, the BJP's "ghar wapsi to J&K" counts as Mufti Sayeed's big victory. Eighty-year-old moderate Hurriyat leader Abdul Gani Bhat, an old classmate from Aligarh Muslim University and Mufti's lifelong friend despite political differences, sees much promise in Mehbooba. The wiry old separatist, who defied protocol on January 8 to travel to Fairview Cottage, Mufti's official residence on Srinagar's Gupkar Road, to pay his respects, says, "She is a woman with imagination. She will find answers." A lot, he says, will depend on the future of the Indo-Pak dialogue. Successful talks will translate into success for Mehbooba and the alliance, Bhat says. "Otherwise I have only prayers for her," was his ominous postscript. Follow the writers on Twitter @Asitjolly and @naseerganai By Amitabh Srivastava: It was barely six weeks back that Nitish Kumar was sworn in again as chief minister of Bihar. But already the 'mahagathbandhan' (grand alliance) that he had stitched together with the RJD's Lalu Prasad Yadav seems to be under stress. The Jai and Veeru (of Sholay fame) comparisons are over, so too the talk of the Biharis who crushed the "bahari" BJP. Just a month in and already a game of oneupmanship had started between the alliance members. As BJP leader and former deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi puts it, "Nitish is chief minister but Lalu is already acting as the super chief minister." It hasn't helped that the RJD has a slight edge in the assembly, with Lalu's 80 seats compared to Nitish's 71. A flicker of what was to come was visible as early as December 29 when Lalu expressed concern at a press conference over the spiralling crime wave in the state, even suggesting a list of dos and don'ts for the CM on how to tackle it. As expected-and coming from Lalu-it raised the hackles of the Nitish camp. JD(U) spokesperson Niraj Kumar and state unit president Bashistha Narain Singh were quick to react, telling Lalu off in no uncertain terms. The latter even took a backhand swipe at the RJD boss, commenting that everyone knew what kind of mess Nitish had pulled Bihar out of. advertisement The exchange of fire continued but the fact that senior leaders of both sides came out swinging seemed to suggest that it had the go-ahead of the party bosses on both sides. Results over statistics Nitish with Lalu at a rally in Patna. Photo: Ranjan Rahi In all this, a usually calm and composed Nitish was also suddenly showing signs of strain. The first review meeting of the revenue and land reforms department in this term was a case in point. As the CM settled down with a cup of tea, Principal Secretary Vyas Ji rolled out a detailed PowerPoint Presentation about the land acquisition process. Although everyone agrees the presentation was impressive, it did not have the desired impact on the CM as he responded with a smile: "All this is known to us. How much of a difference will all this make? We must facilitate the actual land acquisition process. Take the case of the Ganga Driveway. The department should work in close coordination with road construction and the Patna district administration to complete land acquisition." Moments later, Nitish was telling off another overzealous IAS officer, who had piped in. "Aapko yahaan par le aayenge to saara land acquisition ho jayega na (If I bring you to the revenue and land reforms department, will all land acquisition take place)?" Though Nitish had cushioned the jibe with a smile, the disapproval was not lost on the nearly dozen IAS officers present in the room. In his fifth term as Bihar chief minister, Nitish Kumar, who turns 65 in March, seems increasingly weighed down by thoughts that he cannot afford to slip up. Six days after the aformentioned meeting, on December 28, the CM was equally terse with a group of top police officers who had gathered at his doorsteps for a meeting. Not only did he refuse to watch a presentation they had prepared, he turned away most of them-all senior IPS officers-telling them to "return to your offices and do what you are expected to do". Upset with law and order in Bihar being in a state of freefall, especially after the killing of a supervisor of a private power company and shooting down of two engineers in Darbhanga (after their road construction company reportedly refused to pay extortion money), Nitish minced no words. "I don't want statistics on the crime rate. I am not here to earn disrepute just because you people don't do what you are expected to. I want results. Arrests are not enough, confiscate their properties." Though the chief minister maintained his calm demeanour, there was apparently no mistaking the steel in his voice. Lalu as back seat driver? It's early days, but the RJD boss so far has not been overtly interventionist in matters of governance. But his stamp on the government has been unmistakable. Though Nitish heads the general administration department, Lalu already has his trusted IAS officers, Sudhir Kumar and R.K. Mahajan-the two were with him when he was the railway minister-to man the departments his two sons, Tejaswi and Tej Pratap, head. Secretariat sources also say that Lalu has a say in placement of officers; but that's understandable for the leader of the single largest party in Bihar. advertisement The Bihar establishment these days also appear divided by the government departments the parties control: both Nitish and Lalu have 12 ministers in a 29-member cabinet that includes the chief minister. The rest are Congress ministers. Many have now started believing that the ultimate wellsprings of power in Bihar no longer flow from just one house. The internal competition between the two centres of power also seems to have had contrasting effects on the two leaders: Lalu with all the power but no responsibility is enjoying himself whereas the strain of power with-responsibility seems to be weighing on Nitish. In fact, the man looks to be on overdrive to set things right. The decision to ban liquor in Bihar, announced within a week of taking over office on November 20, being a case in point. It marks a sharp shift for a chief minister, who in his previous stints had pushed the authorities to monitor sales to boost revenue (the liquor sector is expected to deliver revenues of Rs 4,000 crores in 2015-16). Nitish today is ready to take the cash hit, but is it all just to steal a march on Lalu in the popularity takes? If so, it's done the job for now, boosting his ratings over Lalu. Bihar will first ban countrymade liquor from April 1 followed by imported liquor from September. advertisement Symbol over substance Nitish is well aware that perception about his government carries as much weight as reality. Symbolism is as important as substance. Recently, he even excluded himself from the list of VIPs allowed to use a beacon in a convoy. The consummate politician that Nitish is, he also understands that his political profile is no longer that of just a chief minister, but as a perceived alternative for every anti-BJP formation in the country looking for a credible central leader in 2019. After all, having won three consecutive terms in office, Nitish has matched what Narendra Modi did in Gujarat. There's also the visible achievements of his earlier stints to show the marked improvement in roads, education, energy and health sectors. Which perhaps explains his pro-active take on governance in the new term. Rather than playing second fiddle to Lalu, Nitish has taken on the aggressor's role. Sources say one of his plans is to give tenure security to a handful of performing officers. Underperforming departments like urban development and industries are also in his crosshairs. advertisement This isn't the first time that Nitish is heading a government with fewer MLAs than the alliance partner backing him. In his first term as Bihar chief minister-in March 2000, when the government lasted for just seven days-Nitish had just 34 MLAs against BJP's 67. But that was a different time. Even when the BJP backed Nitish as a junior partner, it was he who called the shots while his saffron partner operated in the shadows. It could be a different ball game with Lalu as alliance partner, and the dominant one at that. In the coming days, the chief minister may find that winning the assembly elections was the easy part, keeping the Lalu storm in check while also giving his central ambitions wings maybe his toughest ask yet. Follow the writer on Twitter @amitabh1975 Noida is flooded with instances of banking frauds with the police registering 343 cases in 2015, at the rate of almost one case per day. By Mail Today: Bank customers are being targeted in an elaborate new scam designed to trick them into handing over their account details. Noida is flooded with instances of banking frauds with the police registering 343 cases in 2015, at the rate of almost one case per day. Bank customers have turned a vulnerable lot with a spurt in cases of unscrupulous elements stealing their bank details and siphoning money from the accounts. At least four such cases were lodged in Noida on Thursday itself. According to the Noida police, in 2015 a total of 105 complaints were registered claiming theft of Rs 37 lakh through this channel. The police's cyber crime cell recovered almost 80 per cent of it, Rs 28,000 and returned it to the aggrieved customers. One such victim, Dr Satish Ray told Mail Today, "I got a call from one Priyanka Sharma on January 7 saying she was calling from my bank - a public sector bank. She informed me that she needed my net banking password as the bank had decided to stop the 'bonus points' scheme and was redeeming every account holder's existing points. She had all my details including the first four digits of my credit card; I had no reason to not trust her." advertisement Within minutes of sharing the password, Rs 9,000 was debited from his account. When he checked with the bank he was informed that he had been duped. In another case, Manjari Singh, a software professional said, "A man called me to say that my credit card had expired and its details needed to be updated. He insisted that I tell him the last digits of my credit card immediately, or else my card would be blocked for six months." On giving the details, Rs 1 lakh was withdrawn from her account immediately. Noida Superintendent of Police Dinesh Yadav said, "It is a rampant business these days. Financial information of crores of individuals is easily available on the Internet. In fact, various websites and mobile apps, where you feed your details, auction them for Rs 10,000 per 1 lakh customers. With enough facts to convince you, they call and seek your passwords. Sometimes even that is not required, and money is withdrawn without a call to anyone." "Often, we see young graduates who have worked in banks or call centres, and have acquired the technical know-how for such illegal money-making routes, do this. Public sector banks also outsource credit card/debit card printing to various vendors. Their employees also do this," a police officer said. "The privacy laws in our country are very lax. Our IT laws only say that those websites and banks which have access to our financial info should maintain 'due diligence'. However, there is nobody to account for that due diligence and such info is sold on the internet grey market for a cheap price," SP Yadav added. Also Read: Delhi sees rise in cyber crime cases, police on backfoot Fake online shopping portals cash in on Diwali rush Four members of Hindu Sena ransacked the fifth floor office of Pakistan International Airlines at Narayan Manzil in Barakhamba Road around 3:15 pm damaging computers, furniture and other items. Policemen inspecting inside the Pakistan International Airlines office after Hindu nationalists reportedly vandalized it in New Delhi. (Photo: PTI) By PTI: Hindu Sena chief Vishnu Gupta was arrested today by Delhi Police in connection with the vandalism of Pakistan International Airlines office in New Delhi by the members of the outfit. Gupta has been arrested under Sections 120B (being party to a criminal conspiracy), 147 (rioting), 149 (being the member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 427 (mischief causing damage to property)and 452 (house-trespass after preparation for hurt, assault or wrongful restraint) of IPC, said police. "The police are still looking for the other Hindu Sena members who were involved in the vandalism," DCP (New Delhi) Jatin Narwal said. Yesterday, four members of Hindu Sena, a fringe right-wing group, ransacked the fifth floor office of Pakistan International Airlines at Narayan Manzil in Barakhamba Road around 3:15 pm, damaging computers, furniture and other items. advertisement Police later arrested one member of the group, who was identified as Lalit Singh, while three others fled. The members also left pamphlets which said,"There should be no talks with Pakistan unless they take stern action against people who have caused damage to India and hand over people like Dawood Ibrahim and Hafiz Saeed to India." The incident prompted Islamabad to take up the issue with the Ministry of External Affairs. Owning responsibility of the incident, Gupta had vented anger at Pakistan holding it responsible for the attacks at Pathankot air base as well as at the Indian consulate in the Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif recently. Gupta was also arrested last October, days after his complaint that "beef" was being served at Kerala House canteen here was found to be false. In Hissar, Haryana, several bravehearts were honoured on Army day during the The Sapta Shakti Command Army Day Investiture Ceremony. By India Today Web Desk: Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the service of the Indian Army to the nation on the occasion of Army Day on Friday. "Saluting the indomitable valour, determination and dedication of our Army on Army Day," Modi tweeted. In Hissar, Haryana, several bravehearts were honoured on Army day during the The Sapta Shakti Command Army Day Investiture Ceremony. A total of 17 officers, junior commissioned officers (JCOs) and soldiers including one war widow were presented with gallantry and distinguished awards by Lieutenant General A K Sahni, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, South Western Command, an official statement said. The awardees included officers and other ranks from all parts of the country, and from all denominations of the society. The Army Commander congratulated all the awardees on being felicitated and upholding the national spirit of integration. advertisement At the investiture ceremony, 11 Sena Medals were awarded for individual act of bravery and exceptional devotion to duty, two Sena Medals and four Vishisht Sewa Medals were awarded for distinguished service of a high order, it said. A total of 14 Officers and three JCOs and other Ranks were felicitated, the statement added. Few of the brave hearts felicitated include Major P N Sujay Kumar and Sepoy Raghuwinder Singh who while performing their duties in Chirang district in Assam displayed exceptional courage, field craft and determination and gunned down terrorists at a close range. Major Roop Singh and Rfl Roman Singh Ale displayed courage beyond the call of duty at Baghbela area of Jammu and Kashmir wherein they gunned down two terrorists. Major Vikas Varyaniwas awarded Sena Medal (Gallantry Posthumous) for guiding his helicopter away from the populated areas which has suffered rotor failure thus saving many lives, the statement said. The officer exhibited indomitable valor and extreme courage while showing utter disregard to his personal safety. Ceremony was also marked by social functions and performances of the play "Chanakya" by renowned actor Manoj Joshi. Also read: 68th Indian Army Day: Some interesting facts about the Indian Army Here's all you need to know about Pongal, the harvest festival of Tamil Nadu, being celebrated this week. By Shreya Biswas: India is a land of diverse culture, and we have heard that line to death. We also know along with the different cultures come numerous festivals spreading across the calendar. Before we're done celebrating one, another comes right around the corner. Likewise, just as we got over Lohri, Pongal has arrived. But in North India, some of us might not know about this festivity that is wrapped around few amazing traditions. If you're one of them, here's all you need to know about Pongal celebrations, which is being observed right now in southern India, especially Tamil Nadu, and in many places across India: What is Pongal? Pongal is a four-day-long harvest festival celebrated in Tamil Nadu, which falls in the month of Thai (that is, the January-February season) when crops like rice, sugarcane, turmeric etc. are harvested. advertisement The term 'pongal' in Tamil means "to boil", and this festival is celebrated as a thanksgiving ceremony for the year's harvest. Pongal, one of the important Hindu festivals, falls around the same time as Lohri every year, which is around mid-January. Pongal also happens to be the name of a dish consumed during this festive time, which is sweetened rice boiled with lentils. The first day of Pongal - The Bhogi festival The Bhogi festival is celebrated in honour of Lord Indra, the god of rain, and the lord of lords. The ritual of Bhogi Mantalu is also observed this day, during which useless items of the household are tossed into a bonfire traditionally made of cow dung cakes and wood. Bhogi Mantalu being celebrated. Photo: Pinterest The second day - Thai Pongal This day, a special ritual is performed where rice and milk are boiled together in an earthen pot - to which a turmeric plant is tied - out in the open as an offering to the sun god. Along with this, sticks of sugarcane, coconuts and bananas are also offered. Another important aspect of this day is the kolam, the traditional design hand-drawn at the entrance of houses with lime powder. This auspicious drawing must be done early in the morning and only after a bath. Young girls cooking rice in an earthen pot on Pongal. Photo: PTI The third day - Mattu Pongal Mattu Pongal is the day celebrated in the name of cows. The cattle are adorned with bells, sheaves of corn and garlands and worshipped. Legend has it that Lord Shiva had once sent his bull, Basava, to earth with a message for the mortals, asking them to have an oil massage and bath daily, and to eat once a month. Basava, however, mistakenly announced Shiva has asked people to eat daily and have an oil bath once a month. Enraged, Shiva banished Basava to the earth forever, cursing he would have to plough the fields to help people produce more food. Hence, the association of this day to cattle. A cow adorned for Mattu Pongal. Photo: Pinterest The fourth day - Kaanum Pongal Kaanum (or Kanu) Pongal marks the last day of Pongal. On this day, a ritual is performed where the leftover sweet Pongal and other food are set out in the courtyard on a washed turmeric leaf, along with betel leaves, betel nuts and sugar cane. Women of the household carry out this ritual in the name of their brothers, asking for their prosperity. The ritual of Kaanum Pongal. Photo: YouTube So, now that all that has been said, we would like to wish you all a very Happy Pongal! President of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir Sardar Muhammad Yaqub Khan has extended invitations to both separatists and pro-India leaders to attend a two-day round table conference to discuss issues related to Kashmir in Pakistani capital Islamabad. By Naseer Ganai: President of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir Sardar Muhammad Yaqub Khan has extended invitations to both separatists and pro-India leaders to attend a two-day round table conference to discuss issues related to Kashmir in Pakistani capital Islamabad. The conference is scheduled to begin on January 20 at the Convention Centre, Islamabad. The agenda for discussion includes Kashmir conflict, its ramifications for Indo-Pak relations and peace, Hindutva and emergence of Hindu extremism in India, proposed abrogation of Article 370 and Article 35A of Indian Constitution and its impact on Kashmir dispute. Delhi-based NGO We The Citizens, through its president Sandeep Kulkarni filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging Article 35 (A). The petition argues that Article 35 (A) was added to the Constitution of India through an executive order in 1954 without knowledge of Parliament. advertisement An RSS-backed think tank known as Jammu & Kashmir Study Centre first came up with the idea to target Article 35 (A) to further erode Article370 of the Constitution, which gives J&K special status. Separatist leaders including Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Aga Syed Hasan, Muhammad Yousuf Naqash and others are invited for the conference. However, majority of them do not have a passport. Mainstream politicians, including MLA Engineer Rasheed and MLA Muhammad Yousuf Tarigami have also received invitations. According to reports, the Prince and his ex-lovers were at Bunga Bunga club, in Battersea. Harry who had admitted to being "infatuated" with F1 presenter Natalie Pinkham, was seen with her at a recent party. Picture courtesy: Reuters By India Today Web Desk: Prince Harry has the reputation of being on good terms with most of his ex-flames, and he proved it yet again when he was recently spotted partying with not one, but two of his former love interests--in one night. Daily Mail UK reports that the Prince and his ex-lovers were at Bunga Bunga club, in Battersea. The aforementioned lovers, who were present at the club, were F1 presenter Natalie Pinkham and Astrid Hardbord. The three of them were reportedly at the club to attend the birthday celebrations of "society girl Anneke Gilkes in South West London." Daily Mail UK goes on to say that Prince Harry was seen exiting the club "looking bleary eyed." Also Read: Prince Harry and Pippa Middelton dating each other claims US tabloid advertisement The news of sparks between Harry and Natalie first surfaced in the year 2006. According to Hello magazine, the former couple were "first linked in the summer of 2006, after pictures surfaced of the pair enjoying a night out together." The magazine also mentions that on one occasion Prince Harry had admitted to being "infatuated" with the popular Formula 1 host--who had, in turn, maintained that they were nothing more than good friends. Natalie is married to Owain Walbyoff and is currently expecting her second child. Post the Prince's break-up with long-term girlfriend Chelsy Davy in 2009, he was also linked to Astrid Harbord for a short time. Astrid is the daughter of the late aristocrat Charles Harbord. Also Read: Prince Harry living dangerously, falls from his pony The party also saw Prince Harry's cousin Princess Eugenie attending, plus the Duchess of Cambridge's brother James Middleton, Holly Branson and Denise van Outen. A US tabloid had recently claimed to have exclusive information about Prince Harry and Kate Middleton's sister Pippa Middleton seeing each other. The protesters claimed that they were cheated, while calling this a Black Pongal. By India Today Web Desk: Around 200 people held a protest on Friday demanding permission for bull-taming sport Jallikattu at Avaniapuram, 15 km from Madurai city. The protesters claimed that they were cheated, while calling this as a 'Black Pongal', while letting bulls loose on the road in protest. This happened in response to the Supreme Court continuing with the stay order on Jallikattu in Tamil Nadu. When the notification arrived from the Environment ministry on Jan 7, Jallikattu was slated to be held here at Avaniapuram on Jan 15. An apex court bench comprising Justice Dipak Misra and Justice N.V. Ramana declined to lift an earlier order that put on hold a central government notification allowing Jallikattu and bull races. Rejecting the contention of petitioner Radhakrishnan, the bench said they were not inclined to vacate their order of Tuesday prohibiting Jallikattu -- on grounds of cruelty to the bulls. The court said they were "unimpressed" by the submission made by the petitioner seeking a lifting of the stay. advertisement Appearing for the petitioner, counsel N. Raja Raman told the court that Jallikattu was a part of Tamil tradition and culture and was being carried on for thousands of years. The Supreme Court had on Tuesday passed a stay order on the Modi government's lifting of four-year-old ban on holding of Jallikattu in poll-bound Tamil Nadu. The court had said that Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and the Centre should file a detailed response within a week. The court was responding to a petition filed by Animal Welfare Board of India, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India and a Bangalore-based NGO against the practise. The decision to allow Jallikattu, days before the traditional harvest festival of Pongal begins along with bullock cart races in other parts of the country, had come through a government notification despite strong objections by animal rights groups. Jallikattu, also known Eruthazhuvuthal, is a bull-taming contest played in Tamil Nadu as part of Pongal celebrations on Mattu Pongal day. Also read: Jallikattu duel not over yet: The culture vs cruelty debate Centre allows Jallikattu despite massive protests Taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi today questioned his silence on problems being faced by the poor and claimed the BJP government's credibility has eroded very quickly. By India Today Web Desk: Taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi today questioned his silence on problems being faced by the poor and claimed the BJP government's credibility has "eroded very quickly". "It is very well to give speeches but Modi is silent on problems faced by the poor," Rahul said, addressing a rally of party workers in suburban Malad in North Mumbai. "Modi spoke of 'Clean India'. Modiji and his ministers took up 'jhadus' and cleaned the roads but in Mumbai, there are tonnes of solid waste. You won't be able to clean Mumbai by speeches and staging events," he added. Rahul also asked party men to shun internal differences and work unitedly to ensure that Congress comes back to power. He used the Marathi greeting on Makar Sankranti "Til gul ghya, god god bola" (eat sweets, speak cordially) to appeal to the Congress leaders to put an end to factionalism. "It takes two-three-four years for the credibility of a government to decline but the BJP government's credibility has eroded very quickly," Rahul said. advertisement There are talks of "start-ups and connect India". These talks are nice but there are poor people, domestic workers. India is theirs also. The government has forgotten them, he said. Ask anyone about the situation faced by farmers. They will cry while narrating their plight. "You can't leave the poor people, the hawkers behind," he said. In Uttar Pradesh, many people have demolished toilets built under the Clean India Mission, he said. The budget of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is in thousands of crore but this government gave just Rs 100 crore to make Mumbai a Smart City, Rahul said. "When we were in power, we gave a city like Nanded Rs 2,000 crore," he said. Congress will have to get its candidate elected to the post of Mayor in Mumbai if the city is to be developed, he said. "First we will win Mumbai then the state, and then form government at the Centre," he added. Rahul said during his padyatra in Mumbai tomorrow "we will put pressure on the government on the issue of electricity tariff for the poor". Chiefs of NSA, Intelligence Bureau (IB), National Investigation Agency (NIA) and Director Generals of the BSF and the NSG also attended the Home Ministry meeting. By India Today Web Desk: In the wake of the Pathankot terror attack, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Friday held a high-level meeting in New Delhi to assess internal security. Chiefs of NSA, Intelligence Bureau, National Investigation Agency and Director Generals of the BSF and the NSG also attended the Home Ministry meeting. Parrikar discussed security related issues with DGMO and vice-chiefs of the Indian Air Force. Singh and Parrikar discussed the modalities of the Pakistani investigation team coming to India for probe into Pathankot terror attacks. My greetings & felicitations to the Indian Army on the occasion of 68th Army Day.Indian Army is the epitome of exemplary courage & sacrifice&; Rajnath Singh (@BJPRajnathSingh) January 15, 2016 Rajnath Singh on Friday greeted our jawans on the occasion of 68th Army Day. advertisement "My greetings and felicitations to the Indian Army on the occasion of 68th Army Day. Indian Army is the epitome of exemplary courage and sacrifice," Singh tweeted. ALSO READ: Pathankot attack: Defence minister Parrikar admits to gaps in security Will give befitting reply to any attack on India, says Rajnath Singh Pathankot attack: How security agencies failed to connect the dots Deepika Padukone is all set make her Hollywood debut with XXX: The Return of Xander Cage. By India Today Web Desk: After Priyanka Chopra and many other Bollywood actors venturing into Hollywood, the latest one to join the bandwagon is Deepika Padukone. Bajirao Mastani actor is all set make her Hollywood debut with XXX: The Return of Xander Cage. And now director DJ Curaso has revealed that she has begun her physical training for the series. He took to micro-blogging site Twitter to share the news with the fans: Earlier DJ Curaso had also revealed that Deepika will start shooting for the series in Feburary. When Deepika Padukone first shared a picture of hers with Vin Diesel, it became an instant rage. And as the news broke the net, her fans went crazy over it. advertisement Deepika is said to be playing the role of huntress in the series. A few years ago, it was said that Deepika Padukone was offered a part in Fast and Furious 7. But Deepika Padukone turned down the offer as the dates clashed with her Happy New Year. Deepika hasn't signed any films for this year. In an interview to PTI, Deepika had said, "Expect nothing, because I have signed no films for 2016." Deepika was last seen in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's film Bajirao Mastani opposite Ranveer Singh. ISO/Columbia RecordsIn the wake of David Bowie's death this past Sunday, the influential rocker's new album, Blackstar, has conquered the U.K. album chart. According to the Official Charts Company, Blackstar notched nearly 150,000 combined sales in its first week of release, becoming Bowie's 10th #1 album in his home country. Blackstar also is the fastest-selling album of the New Year so far in the U.K. While Bowie's passing undoubtedly helped spike sales on his new studio effort, the Official Charts Company reports that Blackstar easily was on pace to top the album chart even before word of David's death was announced. Meanwhile, Bowie recordings amassed a total of 623,000 combined sales and streams in the U.K. during the past week, with nine of his albums reentering the top 40 of the Official Chart. They include the 2014 compilation Nothing Has Changed -- The Very Best Of at #5, 1997's The Best Of 1969/1974 at #11, 1971's Hunky Dory at #14, 1972's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars at #17 and the 2002 retrospective Best of Bowie at #18. You can check out an article offering a comprehensive look at the history of Bowie's charting albums and singles at OfficialCharts.com. Copyright 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Shahid Kapoor, who is currently shooting for Vishal Bhardwaj's Rangoon, has reportedly been injured on the film sets. By India Today Web Desk: Shahid Kapoor, who is currently shooting for Vishal Bhardwaj's Rangoon, has reportedly been injured on the film sets. Kapoor and a Japanese actor were hurt during a fight sequence, and the shooting came to an abrupt halt for two days. ALSO READ: Shahid Kapoor begins shooting for Rangoon ALSO SEE: Saif Ali Khan's look from Vishal Bhardwaj's Rangoon According to a report in Mumbai Mirror, the actor was shooting on the sets of a bombed-out village. The fight sequence went awry, the Japanese actor was rushed to the hospital after being hurt in the chest. Bhardwaj informed the tabloid, "The Japanese actor was hurt in the chest and rushed to the hospital. X-rays revealed a slight inflammation and he has been advised rest. But he's an energetic fighter and will be up and running soon." advertisement As for Shahid, the actor has hurt his finger and is down with fever after he had to stand in the rain for more than six hours during the shooting of Rangoon. Bhardwaj told the tabloid, "We were hoping he'd be back today (January 15) but I've just got a call from his doctor informing me that his temperature is still high and he won't be able to resume work." Rangoon, which is Vishal Bhardwaj's tale of a love triangle set against the backdrop of the second World War, has Shahid, Kangana Ranaut and Saif Ali Khan in the lead roles. Shahid plays an officer of the Indian Army in Rangoon. Shahid had taken to Instagram to share his look from Rangoon a few weeks ago: Now that it's out I guess I can post it #rangoon A photo posted by Shahid Kapoor (@shahidkapoor) on Dec 23, 2015 at 2:33am PST While earlier there were speculations that Rangoon might be inspired from the 1942 Hollywood classic Casablanca, Bhardwaj had said that the film was not. The shooting for Rangoon kicked off in November last year. AIIMS forensic head Sudhir Gupta in 2014 had said that Polonium-210 or Po-210 might have been used to kill Sunanda Pushkar. By India Today Web Desk: The latest FBI report confirms findings of AIIMS post-mortem report given by Dr Sudhir Gupta in 2014 in the Sunanda Pushkar case. The report says Sunanda died due to poisoning - caused by Polonimum-210 or Po-210. From India Today magazine: Candle in the Whirlwind The Delhi Police sources on Friday said the report is almost on the same lines and in their report they have detected one more poison which is dangerous to heart. The AIIMS doctors' body which was asked to give its opinion on FBI viscera report on the possible cause of Sunanda Pushkar's death on Friday said overdose of anti-anxiety drug Alprazolam killed her. The AIIMS report also slammed the FSL and CFSL over their failure to detect poisioning in Sunanda's body. advertisement However, AIIMS forensic head Sudhir Gupta in 2014 had said that Polonium-210 or Po-210 might have been used to kill Sunanda. Po-210 is a rare and highly radioactive isotope that is not easily available and extremely hard to detect. The Special Investigation Team (SIT), which is probing the Sunanda Pushkar case, may question Sunanda's husband and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor once again in the case. Delhi Police chief BS Bassi said, "The medical board report has been received and merits shall be ensured in the case. "I can say with certainty that the death was not natural." Amid conflicting information about what caused her death, the FBI was asked to help analyse Sunanda viscera samples. Sunanda's samples were sent to the US for testing after traces of radioactive isotopes were found in her body during the post-mortem examination. The eight-page FBI report, received around nine months after the samples were sent for examination, had ruled out radiation poisoning in Sunanda's case. The investigators have so far conducted polygraph test on six persons, all prime witnesses in the case, including Tharoors' domestic help Narayan Singh, driver Bajrangi and Sanjay Dewan, a close friend of the couple. Tharoor was not subjected to the test but was questioned. Sunanda, who married Tharoor in 2010, was found dead under mysterious circumstances inside a room at the Leela Palace Hotel in Delhi on January 17, 2014. Police registered a murder case on January 1, 2015. Prior to her death, Sunanda was embroiled in a spat with Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar, whom she accused of stalking her husband. ALSO READ: From India Today magazine: Candle in the Whirlwind Sunanda case: Polygraph test conducted on Tharoor aides Was asked to change Sunanda's autopsy report: AIIMS doctor Here's what you have to do to set your alarm without opening app By Priya Pathak: Dozy eyes, tucked in your warm bed and then suddenly you remember that you haven't set the alarm yet! No, it's not a tedious task. However, sometimes unlocking the phone, going all the way to the app section and then trying to set the alarm with the heavy eyes when it's nearly impossible to see even our own hands can be a big bedtime woe. So what are the options. Either force your eyes open, almost ruining the precious nap-time, and set the alarm or wait for AI butler that one day would reach your doorstep and help you wake up on time. Well, there is another way, as Google suggests in its latest tips that the company has shared with Android phone users. It is something a little more convenient! It involves OK Google. So, to set alarm in an Android phone, here is what you have to do. advertisement The usual way 1. Go to the clock app 2. Set the time you want to 3. You can select your ringtone or vibration if you want to 4. Touch the OK button Your alarm is set with these four steps. Now, a better way is... 1- Go to Google settings 2- In the settings, go to Search and Now 3- Go to Voice 4- go to OK Google Detection > From any screen Once you have enabled OK Google, just hold your phone slightly closer to you and speak out clearly to set the alarm. For example you want to set an alarm for 7am. So say, "OK Google, set alarm for 7am." That is all. Done! Your alarm is now set for 7 am. You may also like: Tech Tip:Here's how to go invisible on WhatsApp Tech tip: Never lose your phone contacts again By India Today Web Desk: Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party government in Uttar Pradesh has issued a new notice stating Urdu teachers having two wives will be considered non-eligible for the post. The notice for appointment of 3,500 Urdu teachers says, "All those who have two wives, both living, will be considered non-eligible for the post. Also, female candidates who are married to a man who has two wives, both living, will also be considered non-eligible" reports News Karnataka. Government officials say this move is to avoid confusion about widow or widower's pension, but Muslim clerics aren't satisfied with this explanation. Imam of Lucknow's Eidgah and member of the Muslim Personal Law Board, Maulana Khalid Rasheed Firangi Mahali, told TOI the government cannot impose such conditions for recruitment. He says, "There is a provision for four marriages in Islam," and suggests if a man leaves behind two wives, the pension could be divided among them. --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari Thursday floated an idea that a simple click of the mouse or a snap on WhatsApp about an accident or the site itself can help the government machinery swing into action and thus, save lives. He exhorted people to leverage the Internet to make India accident-free. "I do not want anyone else to suffer as I did after a road accident. It deeply pains and hurts me to see India top on global list with 5 lakh accidents every year," the Road Transport and Highways Minister said while attending a road safety forum here. "Come join the government in drive to make the nation accident-free like Sweden." Launching a Facebook page to generate awareness, Gadkari made a strong case for using the Internet technology to alert authorities about accidents, regardless of such mishap spots. advertisement A Road Safety Authority, he said, is also on the anvil and the Prime Minister has given his nod for it. "We are committed to minimising deaths due to road accidents by 50 per cent in 5 years and government has identified 726 black spots where at least 50,000 people have lost their lives," he said. Gadkari disclosed that the government has already got on to the frontfoot to address critical issues, be it faulty designing or lack of over- or under-passes on roads, and Rs. 11,000 crore will be spent to fix the same. India sits on the top of the heap as it accounts for the highest number of 5 lakh road accidents in a year, in which 1.5 lakh lose their lives and another 3 lakh are maimed for life. "It pains me to see the huge number of accidents as such magnitude of casualties neither happens in a war or extremist killings," the minister pointed out. He went on to add that not just 30 per cent of driving licences in India are "bogus", but a large number of government drivers suffered from cataract problems. He put the shortage of drivers in India at 22 per cent. He was clear that government is committed to addressing all these issues and will set up 3,000 driving, vehicle fitness and pollution certification centres across the country where driving licences will be issued only after computerised tests. Also, he asked NGOs to impress upon people the need to adhere to traffic norms, safe driving and the like. Those doing exemplary work on road safety issues will be chosen for annual awards, the minister added. "We have constituted annual awards system for NGOs doing exemplary work in road safety with Rs. 10 lakh for the winner and Rs. 5 lakh and Rs. 3 lakh for second and third slots, respectively," he said. Also, talks are on with state governments for mandatory lessons to school kids on road safety, besides an all-India exhibition through a train, for which consultations are going on with the Railways Ministry. Sources say with the recent findings of Alprazolam poisoning, Delhi Police will now explore all the possible angles but with a focus of suicide and abetment to suicide theory. By Atir Khan: Delhi Police's probe into the mysterious death of Sunanda Pushkar will focus on suicide and abetment to suicide theory. With the Delhi Police chief BS Bassi claiming that her death was "certainty not natural", the probe team will soon be scanning Sunanda's medical history and quizzing doctors of a Kerala hospital. Sources say with the recent findings of Alprazolam poisoning, Delhi Police will now explore all the possible angles but with a focus of suicide and abetment to suicide theory. From India Today magazine: Candle in the Whirlwind Sunanda Pushkar did consume Alprex which has Alprazolam but for fatal dosage 5 to 6 gms of Alprazolam is required. Empty foils of Alprex were also found in the hotel room. A person has to consume at least sixty tablets for such amount of medicine. advertisement The chemical is very bitter. If it is mixed with any food such as soup it will make it extremely bitter and cannot be consumed. It is also not possible for any one to force-feed sixty tablets to someone. Sources say the police will also explore the angle of anybody forcibly giving Sunanda and overdose of Alprazolam. Police will explore another important angle into this case. Alprazolam poisoning could also happen due to an adverse chemical reaction with some other medicines. Delhi Police will also look into Sunanda's medical history. She was reportedly treated for lupus in a Kerala Hospital. The police wants to find out which medicines were recommended to her by the doctors there and whether she was consuming those medicines when she died. This to ascertain whether those medicines could have had fatal reaction with Alplrex. ALSO READ: From India Today magazine: Candle in the Whirlwind Sunanda case: Polygraph test conducted on Tharoor aides Was asked to change Sunanda's autopsy report: AIIMS doctor General Electric Co agreed to sell its century-old appliance business to China's Qingdao Haier Co Ltd for $5.4 billion in cash. By Reuters: General Electric Co agreed to sell its century-old appliance business to China's Qingdao Haier Co Ltd for $5.4 billion in cash, a month after abandoning a deal with Sweden's Electrolux. The $3.3 billion-proposed deal with Electrolux fell through following months of opposition from U.S. antitrust regulators. The deal, which will boost Haier's presence in the United States, values the business at 10 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) in the last 12 months, GE said. The deal, so far the biggest by Haier, will be subject to "customary regulatory filings in China and antitrust approvals in the United States, Mexico and Argentina," said a person authorized to speak on behalf of Qingdao Haier. The transaction is also to be approved by shareholders of Qingdao Haier - KKR and Haier Group, who jointly own 50.8 per cent of the company, the person said. advertisement Haier will continue to use the GE Appliances brand and retain its headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky along with its current management team, the companies said. The transaction includes GE Appliances' 48.4 per cent stake in Mabe, a Mexican appliance company that has operated a joint venture and has had a sourcing relationship with GE Appliances for 28 years, Haier said. "We expect the (deal) confirmation to increase concerns on the dynamics in the U.S. appliances industry," Morgan Stanley analyst Lucie Carrier wrote in a note to clients. Haier has limited presence in the United States, hence the acquisition would be complementary to its existing range of products and operations, the person added. "The GE acquisition will give the white goods maker better sales channels in the U.S. and a better relationship with retailers," said David Cogman, a Hong Kong-based partner with McKinsey. "You also have the potential over time to create cost synergies from such things as sourcing and shifting manufacturing," he added. GE said it expects the deal to generate an after-tax gain of about 20 cents per share upon closing, which will be offset by restructuring in 2016. In 2014, GE Appliances had about $5.9 billion in revenue and $400 million in EBITDA. The company employs about 12,000 workers globally, 96 percent of whom are based in the United States. Goldman Sachs was GE's finiancial adviser and Sidley Austin LLP was its legal adviser. " " . State-run enterprise Ukrspyrt in January 2016 signed a contract to supply 50,000 decaliters of spirit to Poland's Destylacje Polskie. The company said in a press release on Thursday that the contract envisages the expansion of shipments. "Our ambitious goal is to reach the figure for supplies to foreign markets in the first quarter of this year at least the same as for the past year. This would give not only profits to the company, but it would add efficiency to the employers. I will remind that in 2015 around 200,000 decaliters of products were shipped to foreign markets," the press service said, citing Ukrspyrt Deputy Director Serhiy Bleskun. He said that the focus on exports is also important, as it is anticipated that activity of consumers on the domestic market would fall due to the large increase in the excise duty on spirit (by 50%). Bleskun said that around 80% of Ukrspyrt's spirit on the domestic market is sold to liquor and vodka producers, which makes the state of the spirit sector depending on the liquor and vodka sector. The increase of the exports share would offset the risks. He also said that boosting of the export share is one of the top priorities of Ukrspyrt's operations for 2016-2017. At present, negotiations are being held on supply of methyl spirit to Poland and ethyl spirit to Turkey. The company has agreements on shipments of ethyl spirit to Hungary. Ukrspyrt is subordinated to the Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry. In 2014, its distilleries produced around 15 million decaliters of spirit. The entire volume of spirit was sold on the domestic market. Ukrspyrt Acting Head Roman Ivaniuk said that the company's distilleries in 2015 produced 25% less alcohol compared to 2014. The loss in 2014 was UAH 550 million, while net profit in 2015 was UAH 300 million. Germany to promote idea of elections in parts of Donbas beyond Ukraine's govt control Germany, which in 2016 holds OSCE Chairmanship, will focus its work on achieving of progress in the work of the Trilateral Contact Group's political subgroup to ensure holding of the elections on the territories of Donbas beyond Kyiv's control, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. During his press conference in Vienna on Thursday, the German diplomat has said that a progress in the work of political subgroup should be achieved especially the group should discuss local elections in Donbas. He promised that Germany would focus on this issue when fulfilling its obligations as a part of the OSCE chairmanship. The German minister stressed that in general he was satisfied with the meeting of Trilateral Contact Group in Minsk on January 2016. According to him, it is important "to build a trust in settlement of the conflict" and do not discredit present tools of resolving the crisis. Besides, the minister announced a prompt continuation of the work of the foreign ministers of 'Normandy Four' meant to settle the conflict in east of Ukraine. President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has said there is still a threat that Russia can fail to implement Minsk Agreements. "Is there a threat that Russia fails to fulfill some of the items of the Minsk Agreements? I will be frank with you it [threat] really exists," the head of state said at a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday. Speaking on the response, which is to follow if Russia disregards its commitments, Poroshenko said: "Sanctions to be continued, and if the situation is getting worse sanctions will be toughened." As a result of the explosion in an apartment in Ukrainsk of Donetsk region, a five-year old child was killed under obstructions, a press service of prosecutor's office of Donetsk region reported. "As of 1220, a woman born in 1983 and a nine-year old girl with injuries have been brought to the hospital. Another girl born in 2011 also was free from the obstructions, but she died at a hospital due to grave injuries received. Moreover, a five-year child killed under obstructions on a site. Now the rescuers attempt to take his body out of the obstructions," said the report. Time to reveal my first investment in a truly Japanese company (that is bought with Yen and only listed in Japan). What really triggered me to pull the gun... * PermaKat Eleonora Rosati received the 2022 Adepi Award * PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the World Intellectual Property Review's "Influential Women in IP" of 2020. * PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2018. * IPKat founder and Blogmeister Emeritus Jeremy Phillips listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2005, 2011, 2013, and 2014. * Recommended by the European Patent Office as reading material for candidates for the European Qualifying Examinations, 2013. * Listed as "Top Legal Blog" in The Times Online, March 2011. 2010 ABA Journal 100. * One of the only two non-US blogs listed in the Blawg100. * Court Reporter Top Copyright Blog award winner, November 2010. * Number 1 in the 2010 Top Copyright Blog list compiled by the Copyright Litigation Blog, July 2010. * Selected by the United States Library of Congress for inclusion in its historic collections of Internet materials related to Legal Blawgs as of 2010. * Top Patent Blog poll 2009: 3rd out of 50 in the "Favourite Patent Blog" poll and 2nd out of 50 in the "Most-read" poll. Blog of the Year, 20 August 2008. * ComputerWeekly IT Law and Governance, 20 August 2008. This moggy has just finished reading his copy of Mr Justice Birsss decision Accord Healthcare Limited v. medac Gesellschaft [2016] EWHC 24 (Pat). Accord, a generics manufacturer, initiated proceedings, seeking revocation of medacs patent ( EP 2046332 ), which related to the use of methotrexate for subcutaneous administration in the treatment of inflammatory autoimmune diseases, wherein the methotrexate is administered in a pharmaceutically acceptable solvent at a concentration of about 50mg/ml. The patent contained Swiss and second medical use claims. After 132 paragraphs of discussion, Birss J ultimately held that the subject matter was obvious in view of Russo; a journal article published 6 years before the priority date. To understand the reasoning behind the decision requires a certain understanding of the facts, so please bear with me dear reader. Methotrexate was known at the priority date to be used in high doses for cancer treatment and low doses in the treatment of autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and juvenile chronic arthritis (JCA). Methotrexate was known to have potentially serious side effects. On the evidence before him, Birrs J considered that these were known to the skilled person to be systemic in nature and thus dependent on the total dose administered (rather than localised in nature, in which case they would be dependent on the manner of administration). Subcutaneous administration of up to 25mg was the highest known dose for the treatment of autoimmune ailments (where longevity of treatment is a key factor and minimising side effects is important). The prior art, Russo, refers to parenteral administration of methotrexate and reports a study in which several patients reported pain at the injection site, but does not indicate the methotrexate concentration in the injected fluid. Birss J found that the skilled person would see the reference to parenteral as disclosing subcutaneous and/or intramuscular administration and that any and all of these administration routes are obvious in view of Russo. Medac argued that: the proportion of patients reporting pain in Russo (20%) is too low to incentivise the skilled person to create a new formulation; even if he were seeking to address the reported pain, several aspects of an injection are known to influence pain including the needle size and shape, the injection technique and the volume of injected fluid, and so it would not be obvious to increase the concentration to lower the dose volume; and the skilled person would have no expectation of success if the concentration were increased because of anticipated side effects, and so it would not be obvious to try increasing the concentration. Medac also pointed to the 6 year interval between the Russo publication and the priority date, asking if the invention was obvious, why was it not done before?. Accords clinical expert, whom Birss J found to be more persuasive than medacs, explained that given an increase in concentration, the side effects which might be relevant would be local side effects (rather than systemic side effects) but that the skilled clinician would have no specific concerns about local side effects of subcutaneous methotrexate. Accords formulation experts evidence was that part of the formulators common general knowledge was that a smaller injection volume caused less pain and that he would target 0.5 ml. The average dose described in Russo is about 26 mg, which requires a 52 mg/ml concentration in a 0.5 ml volume (i.e. close to the 50 mg/ml figure recited in the claims). The expert evidence indicated that, whilst such a concentration would need to be tested before administration, there would be a high expectation of success and thus it would be obvious to try such a formulation. Birss J therefore saw a powerful obviousness case over Russo, subject to consideration of the secondary evidence. Birss J then went on to consider medacs secondary evidence (why had it not been done before?) but found several reasons why the higher concentration subcutaneous preparation might not have been developed between Russos publication and the priority date. These included: s ince methotrexate is a generic drug, there was limited commercial interest in investigating new formulations, with research being primarily focussed on new biologics; simply that clinicians (and/or nurses depending on the identity of the person administering the drug) who form part of the skilled team might not have been aware of the problem of pain, since most methotrexate administered in the UK before the priority date was taken orally; and that Russo might simply not have been read by a skilled person looking to address the issue of the invention, and that this could be the sole reason for it not having been done before. In order for such a why had it not been done before? position to have weight, the patentee would need to show that the Russo document had been read and its content appreciated by the skilled person, who had nevertheless not pursued the route taken by the inventors. Having found the claims invalid, Birss J then commented on Accords argument that the invention was obvious in view of the common general knowledge. Indeed he was quite disparaging: The problem with arguments over common general knowledge alone is that the combination of features relied on is always and necessarily one created with hindsight knowledge of the invention, and worse, is one which the person attacking validity has not been able to find as a pre-existing combination in the concrete prior art. If they had they would have relied on that concrete prior art. Either the combination has not been made in the concrete prior art at all or it only appears with additional inconvenient details. If an invention is not obvious over the concrete prior art which is relied on, the court is entitled to be sceptical that an argument that it is nevertheless obvious over common general knowledge alone is correct. The problem is illustrated in this case. Sometimes an invention belongs to a field which is not well documented but in this case Accord did not lack possible starting points. It has pleaded two documents and could easily have pleaded others. However the documents contain what might have been thought of as "inconvenient" details. Russo does not mention subcutaneous administration by name and is aimed at JCA rather than RA. Russo is also a small study and was published six years before the priority date. Jansen does mention subcutaneous and is for RA but it does not mention pain. That the "inconvenient" details in Russo have not led to a finding of non-obviousness is not the point. To invent as a starting point in the prior art an amalgam of the best bits of the two cited documents while leaving out the inconvenient aspects, which is in effect what the argument was, created a combination which did not hitherto exist Birss J also discussed an insufficiency / inventive step squeeze argument proposed by Accord. The patent was entirely silent regarding the side effects of methotrexate and simply stated that the reduced injection volume was intended to reduce pain. Accord argued that, had the argument about side effects materially contributed to a finding that the claims involve an inventive step (i.e. if it was not obvious to try the higher concentration preparation due to the risk of side effects), then the avoidance of side effects was not plausibly demonstrated in the patent. The judgement states at paragraph 131: If it was not obvious to a skilled person to make a 25 mg dose using a 50 mg/ml concentration in a 0.5 ml volume in order to reduce pain, such a finding would not reveal a sufficiency problem not least because the patent explains that the reduced volume reduces pain. However the position with side effects is different. If it was not obvious to administer a 25 mg dose using a 50 mg/ml concentration in a 0.5 ml volume subcutaneously because of a concern about the risk of side effects, then the patent does not give such a skilled person any comfort at all about that risk. If that skilled person would not administer the formulation to treat [rheumatoid arthritis] due to the risk, they would still not do it after reading the patent, and the claim to the use of that formulation would be insufficient. Finally, Birss J dismissed the proposition that the identity and reputation of the patentee could make a disclosure sufficient (as was suggested by Medacs expert): [medacs expert] explained in his evidence that he regarded the invention as plausible because the holder of the patent, medac, was a well respected pharmaceutical company. Medac relied on this evidence. It is not relevant. As a matter of law, the identity of the inventor or patentee cannot have anything to do with sufficiency in general and plausibility in particular. The issue is an objective legal standard. It is based on the technical disclosure only. Writing in Wednesdays edition of Investors Business Daily, Blackwell argues there will be a release of billions of dollars of Irans frozen assets following the loosening of sanctions, however, he warns, the agreement does not specify who will receive this money. As well as these assets being unfrozen, Western businesses will begin investing in Iran, especially due to Rouhanis visit to Europe. However, Blackwell argues, virtually all Western businesses that invest in Iran will be contributing to the expenses of the Revolutionary Guards, including financial aid to the Assad regime in Syria. Crucially for Blackwell, when Rouhani visits Italy and France later this month, hell try to entice European entities into doing more business with Iran. Even if hes successful, Irans economy will remain engulfed in such crises that theres no prospect for serious changes without major political alterations, which seems as unlikely as ever. This is because, in reality more than 50% of Irans gross domestic product is controlled by 14 entities, all of which are affiliated with the military and security apparatus and controlled by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. This is according to the Paris-based Middle East Studies Foundation. Therefore virtually all Western businesses that invest in Iran will be dealing with these entities and contributing to the expenses of the Revolutionary Guards, including financial aid to the Assad regime in Syria. The money to be released from sanctions wont seriously boost that economy or improve the lives of everyday Iranians. It will be at the disposal of the Guards and other entities that dominate Irans economic infrastructure. Blackwell continues, Its real effect will be to provide for the expenses of this regimes terrorism, export of fundamentalism and suppression of the Iranian people, including dissidents such as members of the Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran. Proof of this is seemingly abundant, for example in September, the French Accor hotel chain signed a contract with the Iranian company Aria Ziggurat on the management of two 4- and 5-star hotels, Ibis and Novotel. Aria Ziggurat is 100% owned by the Segma tourism investment group, the Persian abbreviation for Iran Cultural Heritage & Tourism Investment Group, a branch of the Revolutionary Guards companies. The deferral of Iranian wealth to the Syrian and Iraqi battlefields is obligatory for the Iranian government. The supreme leader has outlined his 6th Economic Plan, which will be implemented on March 21, calling for a portion of the countrys oil income to be placed on deposit to provide support for revolutionary entities, i.e. the Guards and foreign militias. Blackwell warns any such siphoning of Irans new revenue streams is sure to have a negative impact on the domestic economy, since the prospective recovery is already severely limited. As Mr Blackwell suggests, its The Revolutionary Guards and the Assad regime that stand to gain by the loosening of the sanctions and Hassan Rouhanis investment seeking visit to Europe. Source: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-on-the-right/011316-789679-sanctions-relief-cannot-revive-irans-economy.htm Research and Markets: Global Cloud Security Network Market 2015-2021 - Increase in Adoption of Cyber Security Solutions for Protecting Energy Utilities and Critical National Infrastructure Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/nq28rf/global_cloud) has announced the addition of the "Global Cloud Security Network Market by Country (United States, Canada, India, China, Japan, United Kingdom), Company Profiles, Share, Trends, Analysis, Opportunities, Segmentation and Forecast 2015 - 2021" report to their offering. Demand for Cloud computing is strong from corporate data centers as it enables data centers to work in similar manner to the Internet through the process of enabling computing resources to be accessed and shared. Among diverse end-use commercial ventures, IT and telecom fragment is the biggest and represent total market. Besides, IT and telecom portion is required to witness solid development amid the estimate period. The utilization of distributed computing among telecom transporters is relied upon to increment because of expanding reception of android-based telephones among end-clients. Cloud computing helps SMBs to access these resources and minimize or expand services as the requirements change. Thus, growing demand for cloud computing by SMBs is propelling the market growth for cloud security solutions and services during the forecast period. However, skeptical nature of the enterprises towards the adoption of cloud services and lack of awareness are some f the factors restraining the market growth. Geographically, North America was the largest market for cloud security in 2014 that accounted for maximum share of the global cloud security market owing to the increase in adoption of cloud security services in enterprise environment. The cloud security market is portioned on the premise of administrations into information misfortune aversion, email and web security, cloud IAM, cloud database security, system security, virtualization security and others. The others fragment incorporates SIEM, BCDR and encryption administrations. Market Segmentation for this report is done by Security Type which includes Network Security, Content Security, End-point security, wireless security, Application Security, Cloud Security Market, By Solution that includes IAM (Identity And Access Management), Encryption, DLP (Data Loss Protection) Antivirus and Anti-Malware Intrusion (News - Alert) Prevention System Risk and Compliance Management Firewall Unifies Threat Management System Web Filtering By Service: Consulting, Design and Integration, Managed Security Service, Training and Education and By Industry Application: Aerospace Banking, Financial service and insurance (BFSI) Government Departments Telecom IT Healthcare Retail Manufacturing. Key Topics Covered: 1. Introduction 2. Market overview 3. Market determinants 4. Sector Analysis 5. Market Segmentation 6. Geographical analysis 7. Company Profiling: - (Over, SCOT analysis, strategic review) - Booz Allen Hamilton (News - Alert) - CA Technologies - Cisco System INC - Clearswift - CSC (Computer Science Corporation) - Cyren - EMC (News - Alert) - Fortinet, Inc - Hitachi - HP - IBM Corporation - Intel Corporation - Juniper - Lockheed Martin - McAfee - McAfee Inc - Microsoft - Northrop Grumman (News - Alert) - PaloAlto Networks - Panda Security SL - Perspecsys - Sophos - Spybot - Symantec Corporation - Symplified Inc - Trend Micro - Trustwave Holdings, Inc - Vaultive - Voltage Security (News - Alert) - ZScaler For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/nq28rf/global_cloud View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160114005998/en/ [January 14, 2016] 53rd Design Automation Conference (DAC) Inaugurates Silicon and Technology Art Show We all know the creativity it takes to conceive of and then design functioning leading-edge electronic systems and components. The results can be beautiful as well as elegant. This year, the Design Automation Conference (DAC) -- the premier conference devoted to the design and automation of electronic systems -- is hosting a silicon and technology art show to showcase that beauty. The 53rd DAC will be held at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas from June 5 - 9, 2016. The DAC 2016 invites members of the design automation community to submit digital images related to EDA and semiconductor worthy of framing and display by March 24th, 2016. DAC will handle all framing, display the images at DAC, and let submitters take the final printed and framed piece home with them after the conference. Examples of what the DAC Executive Committee is looking for include, but are not limited to: Die photoshots of silicon designs Design floorplans and placements 3D wiring or clock-tree visualizations Lithographic images Thermal maps Congestion maps Interesting logic structures Each piece submitted will be framed and displayed at the Art Show starting on Monday, June 6th. Pieces will be judged in several categories, and winners for each category will be announced on Monday night at the Art Show reception being held at the Austin Convention Center. Categories include: Best visualization Best silicon photo Most inspiring Most insightful Most artistic "Working in the design automation community, we see breathtaking images every day," said Chuck Alpert, 53rd DAC General Chair. "We look forward to showcasing these images so that the rest of the world can see the beauty of electronic devices with billions of transistors, complex algorithms, data visualizations and clever data structures." Art Show judges Michael Dunn of UBM/ EETimes, Brian Fuller of ARM (News - Alert), Bryon Moyer of EE Journal, Dan Nenni of SemiWiki and Ed Sperling of Semiconductor Engineering will award a winner in each category with a trophy. A grand prize will be awarded to the one best piece, which will be submitted for display at a technology museum. Click here -- https://dac.com/content/dac-silicon-art-technology-show-submission -- to submit a piece of artwork. About DAC The Design Automation Conference (DAC) is recognized as the premier event for the design of electronic circuits and systems and for electronic design automation (EDA) and silicon solutions. Since 1964, a diverse worldwide community of many thousands of professionals has attended DAC. They include system designers and architects, logic and circuit designers, validation engineers, CAD managers, senior managers and executives as well as researchers and academicians from leading universities. Close to 60 technical sessions selected by a committee of electronic design experts offer information on recent developments and trends, management practices and new products, and methodologies and technologies. A highlight of DAC is its exhibition and suite area featuring leading and emerging EDA, [embedded systems], silicon, intellectual property (IP), automotive, security and design services providers. The conference is sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the Electronic Design Automation Consortium (EDAC), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE (News - Alert)), and is supported by ACM's Special Interest Group on Design Automation (ACM SIGDA). Design Automation Conference acknowledges trademarks or registered trademarks of other organizations for their respective products and services. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160114006203/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 14, 2016] Worldwide Cloud IT Infrastructure Spend Grows 23.0% to $7.6 Billion in the Third Quarter, According to IDC According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Cloud IT Infrastructure Tracker, vendor revenue from sales of infrastructure products (server, storage, and Ethernet switch) for cloud IT, including public and private cloud, grew by 23.0% year over year to $7.6 billion in the third quarter of 2015 (3Q15). The overall share of cloud IT infrastructure sales climbed to 33.8% in 3Q15, up from 28.7% a year ago. Revenue from infrastructure sales to private cloud grew by 18.8% to $2.9 billion, and to public cloud by 25.9% to $4.6 billion. In comparison, revenue in the traditional (non-cloud) IT infrastructure segment decreased by -3.2% year over year in the third quarter, with declines in all three technology segments (server, storage and Ethernet switch). All three technology markets showed strong year-over-year growth in both private and public cloud segments, with server experiencing the highest growth in private cloud at 24.3% and Ethernet switch with the highest growth in public cloud at 37.8%. Public cloud spending on storage grew 26.7% year on year. "IDC (News - Alert) continues to see healthy double-digit growth in cloud IT deployments in the market with an increasing preference for public cloud infrastructure," said Kuba Stolarski, Research Director for Computing Hardware and Platforms at IDC. "Customers are modernizing their infrastructures, having a progressively larger number of viable options for cloud deployments either on or off premises. These customers depend on a mix of as-a-service offerings and traditional infrastructure to help meet the IT transformation requirements of their organizations. As public cloud offerings continue to evolve and improve in reliability and security, customers are becoming more comfortable with the flexibility that they get by deploying certain workloads in these elastic environments." At the regional level, vendor revenues from cloud IT infrastructure sales grew fastest in Japan at 47.1% year over year, followed by Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) at 35.3%, Western Europe at 22.1%, Canada at 22.0%, and the United States at 20.1%. Central and Eastern Europe declined at -10.2% year over year as the region continues to go through political and economic turmoil, which impacts overall IT spending. Top 5 Corporate Family, Worldwide Cloud IT Infrastructure Vendor Revenue, Q3 2015 (Revenues are in Millions, Excludes double counting of storage and servers) Vendor 3Q15 Revenue (US$M) 3Q15 Market Share 3Q14 Revenue (US$M) 3Q14 Market Share 3Q15/3Q14 Revenue Growth 1. HP $1,184 15.7% $925 15.0% 28.0% 2. Dell (News - Alert)* $783 10.4% $649 10.6% 20.7% 2. Cisco (News - Alert)* $731 9.7% $596 9.7% 22.6% 4. EMC $548 7.2% $511 8.3% 7.4% 5. NetApp** $259 3.4% $263 4.3% -1.3% 5. IBM (News - Alert)** $256 3.4% $441 7.2% -41.9% 5. Lenovo (News - Alert)** $250 3.3% $30 0.5% 744.9%*** ODM Direct $2,226 29.4% $1,800 29.3% 23.6% Others $1,328 17.5% $935 15.2% 42.0% Total $7,565 100% $6,149 100% 23.0% IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Cloud IT Infrastructure Tracker, January 2016 Notes: * Dell and Cisco both ranked number 2 in a statistical tie. IDC declares a statistical tie in the worldwide cloud IT infrastructure market when there is less than one percent difference in the revenue share of two or more vendors. ** NetApp, IBM, and Lenovo all ranked number 5 in a statistical tie. IDC declares a statistical tie in the worldwide cloud IT infrastructure market when there is less than one percent difference in the revenue share of two or more vendors. IBM's divestiture of its x86 business to Lenovo on October 1, 2014 has a highly positive impact on year over year comparisons for Lenovo for 2Q15. In addition to the table above, an interactive graphic showing worldwide market share for the top 5 cloud IT infrastructure vendors in 3Q14 and 3Q15 is available here. The chart is intended for public use in online news articles and social media. Instructions on how to embed this graphic can be found by viewing this press release on IDC.com. IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Cloud IT Infrastructure Tracker is designed to provide clients with a better understanding of what portion of the server, disk storage systems, and networking hardware markets are being deployed in cloud environments. This tracker will break out vendors' revenue by the hardware technology market into public and private cloud environments for historical data and also provide a five-year forecast by the technology market. Taxonomy Notes: IDC defines cloud services more formally through a checklist of key attributes that an offering must manifest to end users of the service. Public cloud services are shared among unrelated enterprises and consumers; open to a largely unrestricted universe of potential users; and designed for a market, not a single enterprise. The public cloud market includes variety of services designed to extend or, in some cases, replace IT infrastructure deployed in corporate datacenters. It also includes content services delivered by a group of suppliers IDC calls Value Added Content Providers (VACP). Private cloud services are shared within a single enterprise or an extended enterprise with restrictions on access and level of resource dedication and defined/controlled by the enterprise (and beyond the control available in public cloud offerings); can be onsite or offsite; and can be managed by a third-party or in-house staff. In private cloud that is managed by in-house staff, "vendors (cloud service providers)" are equivalent to the IT departments/shared service departments within enterprises/groups. In this utilization model, where standardized services are jointly used within the enterprise/group, business departments, offices, and employees are the "service users." For more information about IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Cloud IT Infrastructure Tracker, please contact Lidice Fernandez at 305-351-3057 or [email protected]. About IDC Trackers IDC Tracker products provide accurate and timely market size, vendor share, and forecasts for hundreds of technology markets from more than 100 countries around the globe. Using proprietary tools and research processes, IDC's Trackers are updated on a semiannual, quarterly, and monthly basis. Tracker results are delivered to clients in user-friendly excel deliverables and on-line query tools. The IDC Tracker Charts app allows users to view data charts from the most recent IDC Tracker products on their iPhone and iPad. The IDC Tracker Chart app is also available for Android Phones and Android Tablets. About IDC International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,100 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. IDC's analysis and insight helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based technology decisions and to achieve their key business objectives. Founded in 1964, IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research, and events company. To learn more about IDC, please visit www.idc.com. Follow IDC on Twitter at @IDC. All product and company names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160114006391/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 14, 2016] Fitch Affirms Madera USD, CA's GOs at 'AA-'; Outlook Stable Fitch Ratings affirms the following general obligation (GO) bonds of the Madera Unified School District, CA (News - Alert) (the district) at 'AA-': --$23.7 million (election of 2002) GO bonds series 2005; --$3.2 million (election of 2002) GO bonds series 2006; --$15.6 million (election of 2006) GO bonds series 2007; --$12.1 million GO refunding bonds series 2012. The Rating Outlook is Stable. SECURITY The bonds are supported by an unlimited pledge of ad valorem tax on all property within the district. KEY RATING DRIVERS SOUND FINANCIAL POSITION: The district's finances are balanced, budgets are conservatives, and reserve levels remain healthy. RISING REVENUES: Enrollment growth has contributed to ongoing increases in per-pupil revenues. In addition, the district receives enhanced funding under the state's Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) due to its high proportion of English-language learners and low-income students. AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY: The district's economy is concentrated in agriculture and related industry, with low wealth and income levels and high poverty rates. Employment levels and home values declined sharply during the last recession but have shown notable improvement over the past several years. MANAGEABLE LONG-TERM OBLIGATIONS: Carrying costs for debt service and employee retirement benefits are affordable, but pension costs will continue to rise over the next several years to address substantial unfunded liabilities. RATING SENSITIVITIES FINANCIAL FLEXIBILITY: The rating is sensitive to the district's ability to maintain financial flexibility while addressing growth pressures. Continued strong financial performance would raise upward pressure on the rating, while a material decline in operating balance or reserves could cause downward pressure. CREDIT PROFILE The Madera Unified School District is located in California's Central Valley, 24 miles northwest of the city of Fresno, and encompasses the city of Madera and adjacent unincorporated portions of Madera County. While agriculture has long been a mainstay of the Central Valley region, the economy has experienced increasing diversification along with steady population growth. The district has an enrollment of approximately 20,000 students in 27 schools, with a total population of 89,000. SOUND FINANCIAL POSITION The district maintained a sound financial position throughout the last recession, steadily raising reserves despite reduced state funding and deferrals of revenues. Unrestricted fund balance peaked at $40.5 million in fiscal 2014, equivalent to 25.4% of general fund spending. The district recorded another strong operating performance in fiscal 2015, transferring $12.9 million in reserves to funds dedicated to new school construction and deferred maintenance, while maintaining $40 million in unrestricted general fund balance. Multi-year projections provided by the district reflect continued balanced operations over the next several years under conservative revenue assumptions. RISING REVENUES State funding provides the majority of district revenues and the district has benefited from the recent improvement in state finances. In addition, steady enrollment growth has contributed to rising per-pupil revenues over the last several years. This trend appears likely to continue based on ongoing housing and population growth in the district. Revenues have also been boosted by the state's Local Control Funding Formula, which targets enhanced funding to districts based on the proportion of their school population identified as English-language learners or low-income. Nearly 90% of the district's students qualify under these categories, contributing to a projected 50% increase in revenues over the five-year period between fiscal years 2013 and 2018. AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY The district's economy is concentrated in agriculture and related industry, and wealth and income levels are correspondingly low. Median household incomes are 62%of the state average, and poverty rates are elevated. Local employment and housing markets were hit hard during the last recession but have seen notable improvements over the past several years. Employment growth for the city of Madera outpaced state employment between 2011 and 2014, reducing the local unemployment rate to 9.5% in 2014. Local unemployment was still well above the state rate of 7.5% in 2014 but reflects a substantial decline from the city's peak unemployment rate of 18.8% in 2009. Taxable assessed values (TAV) exceeded their pre-recession peak in fiscal 2016 after five years of steady growth. Median home values reported by Zillow increased by 4.4% year-over-year through December 2015 but remain approximately 42% below their pre-recession peak. Non-residential properties, including industrial and agriculture parcels, account for nearly half of the district's tax base, helping to insulate TAV from home price volatility. MANAGEABLE LONG-TERM OBLIGATIONS Overall debt levels for the district are moderate at 3.1% of TAV and $1,848 per capita. Amortization is below average, with 45% of principal and accreted interest on capital appreciation bonds repaid in 10 years. The district is currently engaged in several school construction projects but has no near-term plans for issuance of additional debt. The district participates in two state-sponsored employee pension plans with substantial unfunded liabilities. Carrying costs for debt service and retiree benefits are currently affordable at 16.3% of governmental expenditures in fiscal 2015, but are likely to rise over the next several years due to scheduled increases in pension contribution rates. In addition, the district had an unfunded OPEB liability of $27.5 million (0.5% of TAV) at the end of fiscal 2015. Additional information is available at 'www.fitchratings.com'. Fitch recently published an exposure draft of state and local government tax-supported criteria (Exposure Draft: U.S. Tax-Supported Rating Criteria, dated Sept. 10, 2015). The draft includes a number of proposed revisions to existing criteria. If applied in the proposed form, Fitch estimates the revised criteria would result in changes to less than 10% of existing tax-supported ratings. Fitch expects that final criteria will be approved and published by the end of the first quarter of 2016. Once approved, the criteria will be applied immediately to any new issue and surveillance rating review. Fitch anticipates the criteria to be applied to all ratings that fall under the criteria within a 12-month period from the final approval date. In addition to the sources of information identified in Fitch's applicable criteria specified below, this action was informed by information from CreditScope and Zillow Group. Applicable Criteria Exposure Draft: U.S. Tax-Supported Rating Criteria (pub. 10 Sep 2015) https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/reports/report_frame.cfm?rpt_id=869942 Tax-Supported Rating Criteria (pub. 14 Aug 2012) https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/reports/report_frame.cfm?rpt_id=686015 U.S. Local Government Tax-Supported Rating Criteria (pub. 14 Aug 2012) https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/reports/report_frame.cfm?rpt_id=685314 Additional Disclosures Dodd-Frank Rating Information Disclosure Form https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/press_releases/content/ridf_frame.cfm?pr_id=997897 Solicitation Status https://www.fitchratings.com/gws/en/disclosure/solicitation?pr_id=997897 Endorsement Policy https://www.fitchratings.com/jsp/creditdesk/PolicyRegulation.faces?context=2&detail=31 ALL FITCH CREDIT RATINGS ARE SUBJECT TO CERTAIN LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS. PLEASE READ THESE LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS BY FOLLOWING THIS LINK: HTTP://FITCHRATINGS.COM/UNDERSTANDINGCREDITRATINGS. IN ADDITION, RATING DEFINITIONS AND THE TERMS OF USE OF SUCH RATINGS ARE AVAILABLE ON (News - Alert) THE AGENCY'S PUBLIC WEBSITE 'WWW.FITCHRATINGS.COM'. PUBLISHED RATINGS, CRITERIA AND METHODOLOGIES ARE AVAILABLE FROM THIS SITE AT ALL TIMES. FITCH'S CODE OF CONDUCT, CONFIDENTIALITY, CONFLICTS OF INTEREST, AFFILIATE FIREWALL, COMPLIANCE AND OTHER RELEVANT POLICIES AND PROCEDURES ARE ALSO AVAILABLE FROM THE 'CODE OF CONDUCT' SECTION OF THIS SITE. FITCH MAY HAVE PROVIDED ANOTHER PERMISSIBLE SERVICE TO THE RATED ENTITY OR ITS RELATED THIRD PARTIES. DETAILS OF THIS SERVICE FOR RATINGS FOR WHICH THE LEAD ANALYST IS BASED IN AN EU-REGISTERED ENTITY CAN BE FOUND ON THE ENTITY SUMMARY PAGE FOR THIS ISSUER ON THE FITCH WEBSITE. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160114006405/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Please try the following: Click the Refresh button, or try again later. If you typed the page address in the Address bar, make sure that it is spelled correctly. To check your connection settings, click the Tools menu, and then click Internet Options . On the Connections tab, click Settings . The settings should match those provided by your local area network (LAN) administrator or Internet service provider (ISP). menu, and then click . On the tab, click . The settings should match those provided by your local area network (LAN) administrator or Internet service provider (ISP). If your Network Administrator has enabled it, Microsoft Windows can examine your network and automatically discover network connection settings. Some sites require 128-bit connection security. 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Ralph Thomas Saieg: Exigimos saber como y por que murio un fiscal de la Nacion A Little Note about the Photography All images on this site are copyrighted by James Shaw Photography, LLC. If you want to use my images just ask and I will most likely say yes! Credit for my work and a link is all I ask. Thanks! Endless Night: First Floor Index ENDLESS NIGHT A Fantasy Core Adventure Jerry Harris 2014 Published here as Open Game Content. (This link will take you to the Fan... St. Petersburg ALMS race: Something Missing I was planing on writing an Indy 500 blog and decided Im only commenting on other non-NASCAR races if I saw something worth writing about. ... Fantasy Core RPG FANTASY CORE PDF of Fantasy Core Rules Character Creation Rules , Spell Lists Weapons & Armor , Equipment , Travel & Transport ... 5e Confessions [I'm off Monday. I plan on doing sports posts next week, and then posting the new setting mentioned here.] Ive got one last new set... 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This page has found a new home About Plan International www.plan-international.org Working in over 50 developing countries across Africa, Asia and the Americas, Plan Internationals mission is childrens rights, with a special focus on girls and disadvantaged children. Our goal is to reach as many children and young girls as possible, particularly those who are excluded or marginalised, with high-quality programmes that deliver long-lasting benefits. We are looking for dynamic individuals with a good understanding of trends in the development and humanitarian sectors and a proven ability to engage and influence key audiences, to fill in the roles described below. The Role The Regional Advocacy Specialist will lead on the advocacy ambition, providing strategic and technical support and leadership to Plan Internationals advocacy work in the region. The position provides support to Plan Internationals global advocacy campaigns and policy engagements, including Because I am a Girl (BIAAG) and other major campaigns as needed. The person will lead on advocacy work designed to strengthen the systems of guarantee for childrens rights in the region as well as provide advocacy support during major humanitarian emergencies such as conflicts, food crisis and population displacement. The role will further support the development of current advocacy work, guide the Country level teams in planning and achieving advocacy related projects and objectives, as well as identify additional advocacy opportunities relevant to Plan Internationals work. The Person You will have a track record of influencing policy, particularly in child rights and gender equality at national and international levels and a proven ability to build networks with diverse partners in pursuit of common goals. Substantial experience in influencing and negotiation, including an ability to deal with people at all levels with credibility, tact, and diplomacy; convene groups; forge consensus and drive activities are essential skills for the role. You will have a First Degree in International Development, Communications, Politics or International Relations. A Masters Degree in a relevant field is desirable. Documented experience in advocacy and lobbying work with international actors and in implementing and monitoring child rights in a national /international context is required. You will additionally have experience in partnership management and project management. In depth knowledge of current arguments around sustainable development and child rights is essential, as is an ability to think strategically, analyse complex information and offer creative, practical and high-impact solutions. Location: The post holder will be based in any of the countries where the Regional Office has a presence within East, Central and Southern Africa. For full Job Descriptions and specifications for the above positions, please go to: https://plan-international.org/jobs/regional-advocacy-specialist Contract Period: Fixed Term 3 years Plan International Call for Hygiene & Sanitation Promotion Experts Plan International is a global organization that works side by side with communities in 50 developing countries to end the cycle of poverty for children and their families. Plan works at the community level to develop customized solutions and ensure long-term sustainability. Our solutions are designed up-front to be owned by communities and range from clean water and healthcare programs to education projects, economic empowerment, child protection initiatives and youth civic engagement. Across program areas, Plans activities are guided by a Child-Centered Community Development (CCCD) approach, which is rights-based, holistic, gender-sensitive, and inclusive. Plan International is seeking expressions of interest from motivated and talented senior-level Hygiene & Sanitation Promotion Experts for an anticipated three to five year Transform: WASH project in Ethiopia. Plan is seeking highly qualified candidates with extensive experience working on Hygiene & Sanitation Promotion development projects funded by USAID/USDOL or other bilateral donors for either long or short term technical assistance positions. Plan is an Equal Opportunity Employer and as such qualified female candidates are highly encouraged to apply. Further, Qualified Ethiopian nationals, including those living in the diaspora, are highly encouraged to apply. To apply please submit a cover letter, USAID 1420 biodata form, and resume in English to https://plan-international.org/about-us/careers-plan-international. Applicants who fail to meet the application criteria may be disqualified. The deadline for applications is January 29th, 2016. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. Position: Senior Project Officer Agricultural Risk Management (Short Term) Term of Employment: Short Term- 6 months with possible extension Duty Station(s): Addis Ababa Required Number: One Salary & Benefits: Competitive Application Deadline: January 24, 2016 BACKGROUND: The Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) has been established by the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) to identify and address systemic bottlenecks to Ethiopias agricultural development. The Agency does this through problem-solving, implementation support, and capacity building of stakeholders involved in implementation of interventions that address the systemic bottlenecks. The Agency reports to a Transformation Council chaired by the Prime Minister and whose co-chair is the Minister of Agriculture. The programmatic focus of the Agency responds to a core set of needs identified by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Transformation Council. Within the Agency, issues are divided into three different groups: Production and Productivity which includes Inputs and Crop Protection, Livestock, Research and Extension, Mechanization and Rural Finance; Agribusiness and Markets including Market Support Services, Commercial Farming, Agro-processing & Market Development, and Cooperatives Development; and Environmentally Sustainable and Inclusive Agricultural Growth including Natural Resource Management, Sustainable Land Management, Gender Equality and Nutrition, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management, and Planning and MLE. Across the programs, the ATA engages public, private and non-governmental stakeholders to support strategic planning, manage and strengthen implementation capacity and test innovative models. Our Culture We have an exceptional team of employees with a proven track record of success in managing complex activities and achieving transformational results. Our culture is one where talented individuals are committed to doing their best and work together to achieve excellent results. At ATA, we provide an exceptional platform for people who want to achieve their highest potential and make a meaningful contribution in changing the countrys agricultural sector. We offer rewarding work in a young, fast-paced growing organization with passionate, motivated colleagues and excellent career development and training. We recognize our most valuable assets are our people and are committed to providing our employees with the tools and training necessary to achieve their career goals. POSITION SUMMARY: The Senior Project Officer for Agricultural Risk Management is expected to assess and analyze the systemic agricultural risk factors and come up with a portfolio of initiatives suggested as most appropriate intervention for agricultural risk management. ESSENTIAL DUTIES: Save the Children is an exciting and dynamic organization that follows a holistic approach to achieve more for children and use its resources in an efficient and sustainable way. In every programming we aim to achieve results at scale, build partnership to influence others and increase our impact; look for innovate solutions to the problems children faces, campaign for better practice and ensure that Childrens voices are heard. Save the Children is an organization for talented people with different backgrounds and perspectives. We are proud that our people are representative of the children we work with and we thrive on our diversity. We are an equal opportunity organization dedicated to our core values of Accountability, Ambition, Collaboration, Creativity and Integrity. Our culture is embedded in these values, along with a strong commitment to our Child Safeguarding Protocol, ensuring that all representatives of Save the Children demonstrate the highest standards of behavior towards children both in their private and professional lives. Save the Children offers sound employment conditions with opportunities for personal growth and development. If you are interested to work in an organization that is determined to achieve dramatic change for the most vulnerable children, we encourage you to look through the job profile below. Job Title Senior-Regional Capacity Building and Monitoring, Evaluation Coordinator Code 0901 Place of Work Dollo Ado Programme/Unit DFAP Monthly Salary in ETB As per the organization scale No. of Positions One Length of Contract 5 months JOB Summary The coordinator will be play coordinating role in the technical provision and support to all staff of government and SC technical people in the area of M&E and Capacity Building (CB) by adapting and implementing the PSNP PIM, which developed program-wide Food Security M&E and Early Warning information system. S/he is responsible to provide training to concerned program staff on the use of M & E system and Food Distribution quality assurance; conduct rapid assessments and analysis of field-based programs to monitor program activity and produce reports at Sub Office level and submit to Country Office. He/she will support woreda/sub office technical staff in their day-to-day job by providing appropriate and up-to-date information regarding the program implementation particularly on the use and application of the program guideline. The RCB&MEC in collaboration with Regional Program Manager (RPM) and other respective technical staff in the sub office will manage and administer all food security related survey contracted by DFAP and internal scurvies with significant role of coordinating hired supervisors and enumerators during data collection, organizing of the data and submit to country office accordingly for the internal survey and facilitate for the contracted one. She/he will develop field staff capacities to employ a learning approach to their work. She/he will also be actively involved in promoting learning through documentation of lessons learned and developing approaches for community analysis and utilization of data for decision-making. As part of the assignment the coordinator is expected to assist relevant technical staff in gathering information that could help in the policy, advocacy and research in the respective areas. As required form time to time she/he will support the design of follow on and/or complementary programs by ensuring lessons and ideas are documented and conceptualized throughout the program interventions. KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY: Capacity Building Strategy Leadership Develops, updates and implements a capacity building strategy for government and communities for theT2FS DFAP program Make sure all relevant CB activities are incorporated in the Woreda DIPs Designs appropriate tools for identifying capacity gaps, designing relevant capacity building intervention and measuring success of CB activities. Tracking and Coordinating Capacity Building Interventions Work with Satellite office/Woreda Mangers to prepare annual capacity building schedules Approve all CB events and offer support to the facilitation and logistical processes Assess the availability of program documents at community, government office and provide with updated documents for further references. Ensure synergies are developed in all capacity building interventions to achieve efficient, Coordinate all CB activities in and out that proposed by country office TA and other actors in relation to PSNP, Follow whether CB activities are properly cascaded down to the community and provide all required technical supports to woreda level experts. Monitoring and Evaluation Works closely with Woreda M&E and FDQA officers to ensure monitoring and evaluation guidelines are adhered to. Technically oversees the work of woreda level M&E FDQA officers in their day-to-day involvement activities and ensures challenges are resolved t and deadlines are met. Builds capacity of government and program M&E staff in the use and application of different monitoring tools, tactical softwares and assure its implementation at all level, Ensures that M&E capacities and knowledge is cascade to DAs, Government M&E point persons and community based PME by M&E and FDQA officers Support and evaluate the implementation of woreda and community level Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation (PM&E) and ensure that lessons are generated to support program implementation process and assure sustainability. Is the custodian of and maintains up to date and quality M&E documents specifically DIP and IPTT in their operational areas. Aware government and other partners the approach SC went through to strengthening the compliant issues particularly with commodity management and usage by recruiting FDQA staff at ground, Pay special attention to support the FDQA staff to make them effective in their day-to-day compliant handling mechanism, Create synergy among and within the M&E and FDQA staff and other woreda level officer to provide support to the new quality assurance approach designed by the program. Program components Design Works with regional program manager to initiate and supports the improvement of current components and development of new program activities that complement and enhance the impact of the JEOP and T2FS-DFAP programs, Actively involved during survey questionnaire development for quantitative and qualitative PDM, annual, mid-term and end evaluation periods at all level, Leads surveys and other outcome level assessments and ensure findings are feedback to stakeholders and incorporated into new activity plans. Develop important documents to assure the direct involvement of the target community and government sectors during the designing process of periodic plan and circulate information in-and-out. Learning Develops innovative ways of building learning culture within the program teams at field offices, shared with the M&E and FDQA officers, guide RPM, Addis Ababa team on how can it replicate to the other filed offices, Offers practical capacity building to field level teams to support their learning and reflection, Adopt best practices in generating formats and documents to capture appropriate information on periodic level, Organize studies of success stories, case studies and other qualitative assessments so as to meet the demand of the target community and the program, Facilitate research and studies with close collaboration of with the Addis technical teams by providing practical support to the field staff M&E and other technical people. Documents trends emerging from program implementation and offers suggestions for enhancement of positive outcomes as wells ways to address challenges emerging. Initiate experience sharing in an areas we best practice similar to what DFAP is currently operating for better learning, Crate strong link with research institutions around the operation areas to adapt best practice for quality program implementation, Reporting and documentation If you are walking - slow down.....if you are running, run faster. Tom Henning, chairman, president, and CEO of Lincoln-based Assurity Life Insurance Company, is one of three people who will be inducted into the 2016 Nebraska Business Hall of Fame. Henning has more than 30 years of financial experience and has been an active leader in many civic organizations, including serving as chair of the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce and the University of Nebraska Foundation, and co-chair of the Lincoln Partnership for Economic Development. He also was a driving force behind Lincolns Vision 2015 group. Henning serves on several corporate boards, including Nelnet, Lincoln Industries and Great Western Bancorp Inc. In addition to Henning, the other inductees are Omaha car dealer Maurice Beardmore, who's being inducted posthumously, and Owen Palm of Scottsbluff, president and CEO of 21st Century Holdings. The inductions will take place Feb. 4 during the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce and Industry's annual meeting in Lincoln. Fred Ballinger is a retired composer and orchestra conductor. His best friend, Mick Boyle, is a movie director. Theyre spending their summer vacation together in the Swiss Alps. If this was a Hollywood film, much hilarity would ensue from the high jinks of Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel. But Youth isnt a senior-citizen buddy comedy, nor does it offer up Hollywoods pat observations of aging. Rather it is written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino, the Italian director of The Great Beauty, and it is a serious, very European film. Ballinger (Caine) is sharing his room with his daughter/manager Lena (Rachel Weisz), who is putting him through a routine of massages and medical tests at the spa-like luxury hotel. Boyle (Keitel) is piecing together a screenplay for his next movie with a team of young writers, but is stuck for an ending. The duo eats together, observes other hotel residents and deals with the issues of being creative, old and well known. The film, for example, opens with Ballinger rejecting knighthood and a performance of his most famous composition, claiming hes retired. Lena, who is married to Boyles son, finds herself dumped by her husband on the verge of a vacation. Boyle calls in his son for a dressing down, but little changes. Also ensconced at the hotel is American actor Jimmy Tree (Paul Dano) whos preparing for a new role, while hating the fact he became noted for playing a robot -- just one of the many commentaries on film that Sorrentino slips into the picture. Over the course of a few weeks, those issues are clarified, if not fully resolved, as the characters and their back stories are patiently revealed. Thats a perfect showcase for the actors, and theyre universally strong, with Caine and Weisz particularly standing out. Set primarily in the hotel and the surrounding area -- its beautiful and beautifully shot -- Youth isnt exactly the fastest-moving film. There are scenes of bath-robed guests parading toward the sauna and swimming pool, multiple visits to lunches and dinners and long walks around the grounds. Thats not the stuff of cinematic excitement -- the only action comes in dreams -- but theres plenty of low-key drama in the lives of Ballinger and Boyle --- and the story doesnt get wrapped up into a pretty package. This is, after all, a European film about a pair of old friends, who arent looking for Youth. A prediction about 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi: Hillary Clinton wont be nearly as upset about her role in the movie as whomever Bob (played by David Costabile) is. You dont hear Clintons name once during the 144 minutes (argghhh) of 13 Hours. (The first three sentences of this review, however, will ensure that the batting average of stories about 13 Hours mentioning Clintons name remains at a robust 1.000.) But Bob, the CIA annex chief, gets plenty of screen time as the sniveling bureaucratic foil to the private security contractors whose bestselling book, "13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi," provides the basis for this thing. Bob doesn't have a last name in "13 Hours" and has never been identified in real life, and he only gets a few redemptive moments while the militant attacks that began late on Sept. 11, 2012, unfold. He, like all the Americans suddenly under siege, wants to get his people out of there. The rest of the time he is portrayed with about the same degree of nuance as McBains fun-hating precinct captain in The Simpsons many spoofs of cop movies -- the one who once held up a rule book in the cartoon and bellowed, In this department, we go by the book, only for McBain to shoot the book and say, Bye, book. Bob plays by the CIAs rules. He doesnt much care for the six private security contractors -- joke-cracking lethal weapons he describes as animals -- who beef up the skeleton crew in Benghazi. And he orders them to stand down for 20 or so excruciating minutes as chaos -- chaos that actually unfolded fewer than four years ago -- breaks loose first at the U.S. consulate housing the ambassador to Libya and then at a CIA annex just down the road. No joke, Bob even says that this is his last assignment before retirement. This is as good of a time as any to say that 13 Hours was directed by Michael Bay. And here, the ultra-politicized Benghazi attacks get the kerbloom-kerplow action movie treatment I anticipated from the man who gave us "The Rock" (thank you), "Transformers" (lol), "Armageddon" (woof) and the Divinyls' video for "I Touch Myself" (huh). Bay's "13 Hours" is at times ridiculous, cliche-ridden, heavy on gore porn and, in the few moments you are allowed to breathe and consider that this is based on an actual tragedy, harrowing. Those harrowing moments include ignored pleas for backup and a stand-down order that the surviving contractors swear by yet differ from congressional inquiries and reports. Bay here gives the last word and pretty much every other word to the contractors -- Jack Silva (John Krasinski), Tyrone "Rone" Woods (James Badge Dale), Kris "Tanto" Paronto (Pablo Schreiber), Dave "Boon" Benton (David Denman), John "Tig" Tiegen (Dominic Fumusa) and Mark "Oz" Geist" Max Martini -- who are played with loads of charisma (and beards). But it must be irresistible for Bay to Bay up his movies, and so it goes in Benghazi. The seat-rattling soundtrack to "13 Hours" dwindles to a piano twinkle as a bus explodes. The bass drops as a militant flicks on the Zippo lighter that sets the consulate ablaze. The camera lingers on a sedan as bullets light it up. A swimming pool fills with blood. Bones are exposed. Abs, too. I am all about it when in "Bad Boys" Martin Lawrence tells a drug lord, You forgot your boarding pass before shooting a drum of ether to blow up his plane and send flaming money fluttering through the muggy Miami sky. That is stupid, stupid fun. I am taken aback when a hail of gunfire based on real gunfire is interrupted by one of the contractors yelling "Easy, Forrest Gump" at a guy who comes bounding into the frame. Such rejoinders are as rapid-fire as the machine guns in Bay's Benghazi. If you enjoyed the POV shot of a Japanese bomb dropping during "Pearl Harbor," you're gonna love Mortar Vision in "13 Hours." If you are uneasy about the fact that a recent siege that claimed the lives of four people, including the Ambassador to Libya, is being played up for cinematic effect, maybe read the book by the surviving contractors. A Nebraska lawmaker says refugee resettlement groups should be held financially liable for crimes committed by people they help to bring here from high-risk countries. A measure state Sen. Bill Kintner of Papillion introduced Thursday in the Legislature lists 34 nations in that category, but one stands out, he says. Its aimed at Syria. Conservative leaders across the U.S. raised security concerns about Syrian refugees following deadly terror attacks in Paris in November that were attributed to Islamic State extremists. Gov. Pete Ricketts joined Republican governors across the country who called for halting resettlement of Syrians here. Even before the attacks, FBI Director James Comey told Congress he saw a risk with Syrian refugees because background checks relied on information that might be incomplete, largely due to a lack of cooperation by the Syrian government. "That's a problem," Kintner said Thursday. "That's a real problem. ... There's a very good chance that Islamic jihadists are bringing in a few bad guys." His bill (LB966) would require resettlement agencies in Nebraska there are three to prove they can afford to pay up to $25 million if they resettle refugees from the named countries. And the state Department of Insurance could fine agencies, which can't prove that financial capacity up to $1,000 per day for each refugee they've resettled in the previous five years. "I don't know how we would afford an insurance policy like that, if it was even available," said Ann Marie Kudlacz, executive director at Omaha's Refugee Empowerment Center. She called the proposal unreasonable: "How can we guarantee anybody in life isn't going to do anything wrong?" Omaha Sen. Burke Harr said the bill wouldn't prevent criminal activity or terrorist attacks by refugees. "It just pays if something does happen," he said. High-risk countries, according to the bill, include: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Egypt, Eritrea, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Morocco, Nigeria, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Yemen and "The Palestinian Territories." The list is based on one from a bill Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., introduced last year that would have suspended the issuance of visas to refugees from those countries pending strict background checks. The Senate rejected the measure. A committee will schedule a public hearing on the bill in the coming months. Nebraska has received resettled refugees from at least eight countries on the list over the past five years, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services. Resettlement agencies have yet to formally resettle any Syrian refugees here since that country became engulfed in civil war in 2011. But Syrians have arrived by other means, including work or school-related visas. Ricketts met with resettlement groups soon after the Paris attacks to learn more about the process. His office has yet to announce any changes to his request that those groups not assist refugees seeking to come to Nebraska. Kudlacz said she fears the impact Kintner's bill could have on Sudanese people who have waited for decades to start new lives in America. Her agency started in 2000 and at that point resettled exclusively Sudanese refugees. The process slowed for several years she noted one man who waited three years for his wife and children to join him here, which they did late last year but has just recently started to speed up following complications overseas. "It would just be awful if that had to stop," Kudlacz said. Gov. Pete Ricketts took his turn Thursday to talk about spending and tax cut proposals during his State of the State address to the Legislature. Now, the Legislature digs in to address his adjustments for the second year of the states two-year budget and its own priorities. The Appropriations Committee that recommends spending to the full Legislature will begin next week to weigh its adjustments against the governor's. Their recommendations are due by March 9. Hurdles lie ahead, said Appropriations Chairman Heath Mello. Ricketts talked about property tax cuts and needed spending for road improvements and state prisons, and borrowing from the states rainy day fund. There will be considerable debate on those proposals, Mello said. Also, while the governors budget addressed a $110 million projected shortfall, that amount is now closer to $140 million. Senators said Ricketts proposal provided a solid footing for the decisions the committee will have to make in coming weeks. "I think that the Appropriations Committee can work with him to get where we need to go in terms of addressing the shortfall and still meeting our state responsibilities," said Lincoln Sen. Kate Bolz, a member of the committee. Some are questioning the governor's proposed future use of $150 million of the states rainy day reserve to help fund an infrastructure bank to pay for needed roads improvements, in particular an expressway system that has been promised for years. Using the cash reserve in that way may be a challenge if there are economic pressures, said committee member John Stinner of Gering. It looks like the caution lights are on, so to speak, about our economy, he said. The committee is expecting another downward forecast of tax receipts Feb. 26, when the Nebraska Economic Forecasting Advisory Board meets. Ricketts proposes addressing the states shortfall by taking back $87.5 million that agencies didn't spend, particularly in Medicaid funding. He would also reduce new spending by $5.7 million, spread over a number of agencies. And he would move $8 million in each of the two years from two cash funds to the general fund. Sen. John Kuehn of Heartwell said he was pleased the governor had followed the lead of the committee in proposing to use, rather than carry over, certain funds. Its good to see that both branches took the same fundamental approach, he said. In his speech, Ricketts emphasized controlled spending so the state can give tax dollars back to Nebraskans. To get those tax cuts, he would tighten limits on budget growth and tax levy increases for all local governments, and slow the rise in government-assessed cropland values across the state. The valuation change would trigger millions of dollars in additional state aid to school districts, Ricketts said. Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte said Ricketts proposal to cap valuation increases at 3 percent to get some property tax relief doesnt go far enough. That doesnt do anything for the homeowner in Lincoln or a businessman in Omaha or North Platte, he said. Theres too much of a burden on property taxpayers, he said. More pressure needs to be on the state for funding education, which is 49th in the nation in aid to education. Appropriations Committee member Tanya Cook of Omaha said she would hesitate to sacrifice public education in pursuit of property tax cuts. Kids living in poverty require more resources to learn and compete. I would have to read the proposal, but my immediate response is: Not on the backs of school children, Cook said. Ricketts didnt mention income tax cuts. Im surprised, honestly, he didnt talk about income tax relief. Not one word, said committee member Dan Watermeier of Syracuse. In the past, Ricketts had said income tax cuts would be a priority, along with property tax cuts, Watermeier said. He could miss the support of senators who want both. Its fair game to talk about income tax relief, he said, because a certain group of the population just doesnt benefit from property tax cuts. The governor took a swing at Medicaid expansion, saying it is one of the biggest long-term risks the state faces. He said the most recent proposal would cost the state $158 million over six years. Lincoln Sen. Kathy Campbell disagreed, saying Medicaid expansion for about 77,000 Nebraskans, most of them so-called working poor, would infuse $2.1 billion of federal funding into the state over the next five years and create 10,000 sustainable jobs. The governor said the state couldnt rely on the federal government to keep its commitments on funding for expansion. But, Campbell said, she doesnt hear the same mantra about the federal government not living up to its promises on roads funding. Thirty-two cents of every dollar in the Nebraska budget comes from the federal government, she said. From wristbands that tell us how well we slept and how much exercise we get in a day to digitally enhanced underwear, technology is fast becoming part of our daily attire. "Wearable Technologies" is the topic for the next Sunday with a Scientist program from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. Sunday at Morrill Hall, 645 N. 14th St. Families can learn all about e-textiles -- fabrics that incorporate conductive fibers or elements directly into the material. As part of the program, children will be able make their own light-up wearable hair bow or bow tie, create an electronic card with a paper circuit, use alligator clips to light LEDs, and make a squishy circuit using conductive dough. Families will also be able to explore the coding -- i.e. computer programming -- of simple components that make a light-sensor guitar. Activities are included in the price of admission to the museum: $6 for adults; $3 for ages 5 to 18; and $13 for a family (up to two adults and children through age 18). For information go to museum.unl.edu or call 402-472-2642. Also happening * Schools are closed Monday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and the Railyard Ice Rink is opening at noon to give bored kids something to do. From noon to 1 p.m., skate attendants will offer group lessons for kids ages 12 and under. Cost of lessons is $10. The ice rink will remain open until 9 p.m. Monday. For information go to facebook.com/TheRailyardLincoln or call 402-477-6767. Coming up * Pioneers Park Nature Center will host an open house for its nature-based preschool and pre-kindergarten programs from 10 to 11 a.m. and again from 1 to 2 p.m. Jan. 21 at 3201 S. Coddington Ave. The program teaches children through hiking, climbing, digging, building and exploring. Registration for the 2016-2017 school year begins Feb. 1. In case of inclement weather, the open house will be held Jan. 28. For information call the preschool director at 402-441-8669 or go to parks.lincoln.ne.gov/naturecenter. * Families are invited to test their archery skills at the Archery Fun Shoot from noon to 4 p.m. Jan. 23 at the Nebraska Game and Parks Outdoor Education Center, 4703 N. 44th St. Cost for kids ages 8 to 15 is $3 and includes one hour of range time, plus equipment; cost for ages 16 and older is $10 for an hour of range time and equipment. People are free to bring their own archery equipment. No pre-registration is necessary. For information, go to outdoornebraska.gov/outdooredcenter/. Beautifying Cornhusker Highway, from the Lincoln Airport east to downtown, became a priority for Mayor Chris Beutler and other Lincoln officials. Inspired by similar works completed near the Omaha Eppley Airfield, the city wanted to make Lincolns entrance full of impact. Mark Canney, an urban designer for Lincoln Parks and Recreation, helped coordinate the project. Initially, Clark Enersen Partners completed a study to determine the potential for making this plan possible as well as unique to the capital city. Giving people a quick introduction to Lincoln using cultural, historical and natural elements was certainly a challenge. The projects focal point became unique district markers, designed by the Parks and Recreation planning and construction division, with Canney as the lead designer. These would be statues of sorts that would add a substantial presence, issuing a welcome to visitors and community members alike. Having worked with local TMCO on several park projects, Canney knew that it was just the company to fabricate the markers and create a grand entrance. Much to his surprise, not only was TMCO willing to create the markers, but owner Roland Temme insisted on donating all of the labor and materials to the city. Without his generosity, the project would not have been as high of quality, TMCO collaborator Emily Brodersen acknowledged. Architect Pat Birch from Schemmer Associates was signed on to develop the construction drawings based on the concept drawings provided by Canney and the parks planning and construction team. After renderings were complete, Brodersen, of TMCOs Metal+Art division, modeled the assembly in 3D and created shop drawings and fabrication instructions for the TMCO production floor. The first crucial element was the light aspect. Canney noted that Just as pioneers used the light of the stars in the sky to find their way, we wanted to guide people to our downtown. As lanterns are reminiscent of those first settlers wanting to establish home, the glow provides a warm welcome as you enter town. To form the base of the statues, Cor-Ten steel was determined to be the best material. This symbolically connects the statues substance to the pioneer plows and windmills utilized for previous Nebraskans survival. For practical purposes, as the markers remain in natural form, no repainting will ever be required. Although the markers may appear rust colored, over time this type of steel darkens and deepens. Since this is the same material used to clad the Lincoln Airport terminal, a uniform look will eventually occur. Rather than making all of the district markers the same, the design team decided to vary the inset panels. The majority feature ears of corn to emphasize the uniqueness of Cornhusker Highway, as well as the prairie aspect of our capital. Nearest the airport, one marker features Nebraskas state bird, the meadowlark, and one shows off a bi-plane. At the edge of the Haymarket, a locomotive is featured symbolizing the important part that trains played in settling Lincoln. By using the same vertical element, all of the markers imitate the Capitol building and are connected together. After the designs were finalized, TMCO began the hard work of turning conceptualized ideas into reality. Brodersen conveyed that For each of the 50 or so unique sub-components of the markers, a three-dimensional computer model was created, and those components were assembled into a virtual 3D model of the complete assembly. Every single piece needed to fit together perfectly, and we were able to make sure they did before any metal was cut. Drawings and virtual models of each component were then sent to TMCOs state-of-the-art production floor. The internal structure is made of Cor-Ten angle iron, which was cut on TMCOs tube-cutting lasers. The Cor-Ten sheet metal skins were cut on sheet lasers and formed with CNC press brakes. Then TMCOs welders fitted together all 200 components of each marker. Said Brodersen, While a lot of aspects of production are controlled by computers, creating a high-quality finish on this project ultimately fell in the hands of the welders. They are the ones who ensured every joint was structurally sound, while also beautiful. Once the markers were welded, they were sandblasted to bare metal to clean off the mill scale and oxides from welding. At this point, they were gray metal. Because Cor-Ten steel actually has a memory, how it rusts initially is how the rusting process will tend to continue. Since the weathering needed to be even, a misting process was developed to wet the markers consistently. Over the course of a week, the district markers were literally watered, dried and watered again. Getting them to pre-rust evenly was a very controlled process, Brodersen said. Another element of beautifying the highway involved natural elements. The addition of 800 trees, primarily native oak, along the road will add shade. Canney picked out hardy, native plants that, again, connect the highway to landscape experienced by the native peoples. By lining the medians with native landscape, the plantings will continue to add life to that primarily industrial corridor. Although some of the funding was from the city budget to improve the infrastructure, such as curbing and roadwork, the majority of the financial contributions were privately donated. Besides TMCO, many area businesses did their part to fund this project. Canney said that seeing private and public resources coming together to make a positive change for the community was the best part of this project. Those who were involved with this effort are fittingly proud of the now-welcoming entrance to Lincoln. Archer Daniels Midland Company has donated $5,000 to the YMCA of Lincoln. The donation will go toward starting afterschool programs at the new Copple Family YMCA, which will be attached to the new Moore Middle School in Southeast Lincoln. They are set to open in 2017. The YMCAs afterschool programs aim to keep youth safe, their minds engaged and their bodies active, so they can grow into contributing and engaged adults. All children deserve the opportunity to discover who they are and what they can achieve, under the guidance of adults who care about them and believe in their potential, said Barbara Bettin, president and CEO of YMCA of Lincoln. About the YMCA The Lincoln YMCA is one of the largest human service nonprofit organizations in Nebraska. It has served Lincoln and its many surrounding communities for more than 140 years. The Lincoln YMCA directly reaches over 82,000 members of the community each year through its programs and services. The new Copple Family YMCA, located near South 84th Street and Yankee Hill Road, will allow the organization to serve even more. About ADM Cares The donation was given through ADM Cares, a social investment program that directs funds to initiatives and organizations that drive meaningful social, economic and environmental progress worldwide. The program comprises three focus areas: supporting the responsible development of agriculture, improving the quality of life in ADM communities and fostering employee giving and volunteer activities. RACINE COUNTY Average ACT scores among high school juniors at public schools in Racine County ranged between 17.8 and 21.5 during 2014-2015 school year the first year all 11th-graders attending public schools were required to take the test. That is down from a range of 20.2 to 23 for the 2013-2014 school year when the only 11th-graders who took the test were those who elected to do so. It is in line with the decrease seen across the state with the average lowering from 22 to 20, as all 64,323 public high school juniors in the state were required to take the test for the first time. In the Racine Unified School District, the average composite score for the more than 1,200 high school juniors who sat for the test last March was 17.8, the district reported. Students at Walden III High School had the highest score among Unified 11th-graders, netting an average composite score of 20.8. Park High Schools average composite score of 17 was the lowest. Eleventh-graders at Waterford High School had the highest average composite of all juniors in the county. The average composite score of the schools 281 students that sat for the exam was 21.5, the school reported. The average score for juniors at Union Grove High School where 230 juniors sat for the test was 20.3, according to the school officials. And at Burlington High School, where 271 of the districts 11th-graders sat for the exam, the average score was 19.8, the district reported. The ACT is scored on a scale of one to 36 and consists of five subject area tests: English, reading, writing, mathematics, and science. The scores are reviewed by most four-year colleges and universities in the Midwest when considering applicants, and are often considered a good gauge of college readiness. District responses In a press release issued this week, Unified Superintendent Lolli Haws said the latest scores provided valuable baseline data. The ACT score reflects the college- and career readiness of our students, Haws stated in the press release. Our focus in the coming months and years, as we transform our high schools into Career Academies, will be to improve many data points ACT score is one of them. Noting that Waldens average composite score exceeded the state average, Haws said the district wants to see every high school in the district exceed the state average. Asked what the district was doing to achieve that goal, district spokeswoman Stacy Tapp pointed to the ACT preparedness courses Unified has developed, among them free ACT boot camps. The daylong courses are designed to prepare students for the roughly four-hour exam. Unified high schools are also working to incorporate the skills needed for successful ACT test taking into their core curriculum, Tapp said. The district administrator for Union Grove High School, Al Mollerskov, said he liked it better when students chose to take the test, because they had a vested interested in really trying. What if the kid doesnt care? he asked. Nevertheless, this school year the school will be trying something new to prepare the students for the test: a multiple-week, online test preparation course. Last years scores During the 2013-2014 school year when only 11th-graders who elected to take the test took it scores were higher than during the following school year. Statewide, the average score among the 40,367 students who elected to take the test during the 2013-2014 was 22.2. In Unified, where 773 of the districts 11th-graders took the test, the average composite score across the district was 20.2. At Burlington High School, where 166 of districts 11th-graders took the test, the average composite score was 22.3. In Union Grove High School, where 156 of the districts 11th-graders took the test, the average composite score was 21.8 At Waterford High School, where 168 of the districts 11th-graders took the test, the average composite score was 23. RACINE A frozen water pipe resulted in water pouring from a Racine County Jail smoke tower Thursday afternoon, sending water into the adjoining Law Enforcement Center and canceling criminal cases. The countys burst pipe was the only major weather-related pipe damage Thursday despite the roller coaster temperatures, which can trigger such problems, a water utility spokesman said. Racine County Sheriffs Lt. Steve Sikora said an alarm went off at 1:10 p.m. at the Law Enforcement Center, 717 Wisconsin Ave., because the pipe burst, sending water pouring from the sprinkler system. Whatever is in the sprinkler head system is coming out, he said, adding the water was flowing for 10 to 15 minutes. The water was shut off and removed or dried up before 5 p.m. Thursday, Sikora said. Most of the water, which Sikora described as a ton, was in the jails four-story smoke tower, which is on the outside of the jail, connected to the LEC and Sheriffs Office in the block-long complex across the street from the Racine County Courthouse. If theres a fire in the jail, this is a place where inmates and staff go. Basically, you cant get out of it, he explained. There isnt much in them, except for the pipes. Water poured out of the smoke tower at the northeast corner of the LEC closest to C wing in the jail into a LEC hallway that then funneled down a stairwell into the basement. When that smoke tower door was opened Thursday afternoon, more water poured out as Racine firefighters used tools to sweep and squeegee it out a side door. The initial appearances area and two judges criminal courtrooms are in that basement. Many court dates are being rescheduled for those who had initial appearances, and for other cases that were set for Thursday afternoon in front of judges Michael Piontek and Eugene Gasiorkiewicz, whose courtrooms are in the basement. The courthouse and first floor of the LEC remained operational and other judges still were hearing cases in other parts of the building and across the street in the courthouse. The Fire Department decided no one should go through the water, said Circuit Judge Allan Pat Torhorst, who serves as chief judge of the Second Judicial District. However, the law requires (that) courtrooms are open during proceedings. Because anyone not already down in the basement was barred from entering the flooded area to access the stairs or elevator to the basement, I said adjourn all proceedings until we have a courtroom. ... Its got to be open to the public, which it wasnt, Torhorst said. Those cases will be rescheduled, he added. Anyone with a court date set for Thursday in the LEC basement should still plan on going to the Law Enforcement Center and stop at the traffic window to reschedule their court date, said Racine County Clerk of Courts Sam Christensen. Avoiding potential problems The mild temperatures of November and December have left the ground relatively unfrozen said Keith Haas, general manager of Racines water utility. And that can cause pipes to burst. The frost line is pretty shallow. The cold from the last few days has probably taken the ground freeze down to six or seven inches, Haas said. Most pipes are between 4 and 6 feet deep in the ground. So far we havent had any problems. Were keeping our fingers crossed. Homeowners can avoid potential pipe problems by following the city and state plumbing codes, said Mark Yehlen, Racines Department of Public Works director. Per the state code, water pipes are not allowed to be located in exterior walls, Yehlen said. The code is written to minimize the chance of pipe freezing or failing, Yehlen said. Pipe problems usually occur in unheated, vacant homes, or at properties in which the furnace or electrical power has failed, Yehlen said. Homes and buildings could be facing more chaotic climate change next week. While the mercury hit 38 degrees Thursday afternoon, it could crash below zero with wind chills of 30 below zero by next Monday, according to the National Weather Service forecast. Journal Times reporter Mark Feldmann contributed to this report. Assembly Republicans late Wednesday scrapped a bill that would have expanded who could bring guns into Wisconsin schools, a day before it was scheduled for a committee vote. The move came after Rep. Joel Kleefisch, R-Oconomowoc, introduced an amendment to allow anyone with a concealed carry permit to bring a gun to school. School and law enforcement officials immediately lined up against the proposal. The original bill that was scheduled for a vote on Thursday would allow retired, out-of-state and off-duty police officers to also carry guns in school. Then Kleefisch said he would seek a vote on his amendment, which, if passed, would have been one of the most sweeping exemptions to weapons-free school zones in the nation. Currently under Wisconsin law, weapons are banned on school grounds except for on-duty law enforcement officers. Kleefisch said he met with Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, on Wednesday, and they agreed to pull back the legislation. He said he needed more time to talk to law enforcement, educators and gun rights advocates. A good legislator knows when a bill or idea is not ready for prime time and this bill is not ready, Kleefisch said Wednesday night. Were going to pull the bill back and continue the discussion about what we can do in the future to make sure that our schools and our children are not sitting ducks for those who care to do harm to them. Kleefisch did not offer a timeline for when a future bill would be introduced and said it was too early to say whether any future iteration of the bill would include concealed carry permit holders. Kit Beyer, spokeswoman for Vos, told The Associated Press late Wednesday that the bill would not be voted on by the full Assembly, but declined to say why. The bill had been scheduled for final action by the Assembly on Tuesday. Kleefischs proposed amendment to Assembly Bill 9 would have still allowed school boards to ban weapons on the grounds and buildings of their K-12 schools, said Larry Konopacki, an attorney with the nonpartisan Legislative Council. The Assembly Criminal Justice Committee, which Kleefisch chairs, was scheduled to vote on AB 9 and proposed amendments Thursday morning. The bill had a public hearing Oct. 10 before the amendment was proposed so no public testimony was scheduled. The bottom line is, right now, someone with (the) intent to harm children knows they can attack a school without any weapons inside, Kleefisch said in an interview earlier Wednesday explaining why he sought the amendment. That bad actor doesnt care about the law when he decides to take a gun on school grounds. Even so, Kleefisch acknowledged then he had not lined up the votes on the Republican-controlled committee to pass his amendment, which was opposed by the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators and other education groups. Steven Riffel, president of the Wisconsin Chiefs of Police Association, said his group supported the bill but did not support Kleefischs amendment. He said the typical concealed carry permit holder is not trained to confront an armed intruder in a school. Police officers are highly trained, said Riffel, chief of the Sheboygan Falls Police Department. They take an oath. Theyre certainly capable of handling dangerous situations. Thats what a police officer does on a daily basis. In all, 40 states have some type of exemption to weapons bans on school property, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Most of those allow police officers, security guards hired by the schools or others with permission from school officials to carry guns. Eight states allow any concealed carry permit holder to be armed in school, but two states, Kansas and Kentucky, let districts ban weapons by conspicuously posting signs on school grounds. Kleefisch said he offered the proposal to get the conversation going about how to protect children in schools, which he called soft targets. The United States has seen a spate of mass school shootings in recent years, the worst of which occurred Dec. 14 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where 20 children and six educators were killed. Committee member Rep. Evan Goyke, D-Milwaukee, called Kleefischs amendment a terrible idea. Goyke said most of the 202,000 concealed carry permit holders do not have training in how to assess threats or how to defuse situations without violence. Goyke also noted that mass shootings sometimes occur in places where people carry weapons, such as the Nov 5, 2009, shooting at the Fort Hood, Texas, military base where 13 people were shot to death and 30 injured by a single gunman. These things happen anywhere, and more guns doesnt make it safer, Goyke said. Ronald Stephens, executive director of the National School Safety Center in Westlake Village, Calif., said it would be an asset to a school to have trained and certified law enforcement officers who are armed. But Stephens is leery about arming teachers or having less well-trained members of the public running around with guns. Despite all the public attention on shootings at school, Stephens said they remain the safest places for children to be. He said roughly 500 students have been killed at school over the past 20 years, which he called a very, very small number considering there are 130,000 public and private schools in the U.S. Luis Yudice, school safety coordinator for the Madison School District, said allowing non-police officers to come onto school grounds armed would endanger children and staff. School personnel and students in Madison are trained to call 911 and go to a secure place if they see anyone besides a police officer with a gun, he said. If other armed people are allowed to enter Madison schools, it could cause confusion and delay in identifying people who are threats, Yudice said. And arming teachers is no answer either, he said. We go back to our belief that the only people who should be able to carry weapons in schools are well-trained police officers, Yudice said. RACINE The chance that a Racine man whos served time in prison for drugs and in connection with his best friends murder wont commit more crimes is about as likely coming true as me winning the Powerball, a judge said Friday. This was a vicious assault on an elderly person. And it was a mismatch: a big, younger guy and a frail old man, retired Judge Stephen Simanek told ex-con Everett D. Goodlow, 45, before sentencing him for robbing an electronics and jewelry store and allegedly attacking its elderly owner. The public has to be protected from that type of behavior. For robbing Wisconsin Discount, 2724 16th St., Racine, and allegedly attacking its then-74-year-old owner on July 12, 2014, Simanek sentenced Goodlow to five years in prison. Simanek, who was filling in for Racine County Circuit Judge Michael Piontek on Friday, also sentenced Goodlow to three years on extended supervision and granted him credit for about 10 months behind bars. During his sentencing on Friday, Assistant District Attorney Rebecca Sommers recommended a prison sentence, but didnt specify an amount of time to serve. Goodlows defense attorney, Laura Walker, recommended an imposed and stayed sentence, meaning if Goodlow violated his probation, he would be sent to prison to serve that time. Goodlow told Simanek he wanted five years probation. I am not, I repeat, I am not a menace to society, Goodlow said during his sentencing, adding hes a recovering drug addict. Im not asking for any breaks. Im asking for a chance. I know that I can do this. Goodlow pleaded guilty on Nov. 16 to robbery, a felony punishable by a maximum of 10 years in prison plus five years on extended supervision. He reportedly was in the store, showing the owner a penny and asking him about a Playboy before jumping over the counter, grabbing the owner by the neck and stealing an undisclosed amount of cash, according to his criminal complaint. Goodlow then struck the man because a buzzer needed to be pressed to open the shops door so he could leave, the complaint states. Sommers said it is unknown how much cash Goodlow stole. Would jump at the chance Goodlow said Friday that he was working as a private demolition contractor at Porters in Downtown Racine when he found a penny and a 1972 issue of Playboy magazine. He said he took the items to the shop to sell them, but the store owner said (they were) worth nothing. Goodlow disagreed. I know in my heart if I hadnt been under the influence of drugs, I never would have done anything like that, Goodlow said. If (the owner) were here today, I would jump at the chance to apologize to him. The store owner, now 76, didnt attend the sentencing. Goodlow was convicted of being a party to the crime of felony murder in 1992 in Milwaukee County, which Walker said occurred when Goodlow and his best friend went to confront drug dealers and his friend was killed during a shootout. Goodlow, however, said it was his friend who bought bad drugs from his dealer and after Goodlow drove him to the drug house, Goodlow served about 19 years in prison for witnessing my friend get killed. He also served time for possession of heroin with the intent to deliver after being convicted in Cook County, Ill., he said. But Goodlow sold drugs to support his then-5-month-old daughter, said the father of seven. I can guarantee that I will not re-offend. No matter what anybody says, Goodlow said. Gov. Scott Walkers administration has found another novel method to deny the public access to government records. In at least two recent cases, the administration says it doesnt have to keep certain transitory records and therefore cant release records it doesnt have. That judgment is based on the decisions of an obscure eight-member body appointed by the governor and other state officials to oversee state records retention policy. But open government advocates and experts on the states Public Records Law dispute that interpretation of the policy for the records at issue, which include text messages between top administration officials related to a failed $500,000 state loan to a struggling Milwaukee construction company owned by a top Walker donor. If theyre not keeping text messages as a matter of course, that seems wrong to me, said Christa Westerberg, a lawyer and vice president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council. If theyre texting about an applicant for a state-sponsored loan, that is in the state record. The fact that its a text message shouldnt be the deciding factor. Whats being discussed should be. The Department of Justice doesnt prohibit the use of text messages, but advises that other communication methods such as email be used to avoid the challenges of saving text messages that must be retained, according to spokeswoman Anne Schwartz. She didnt clarify what recourse the public has if it disagrees with a government agency deeming something transitory and discarding it prematurely. Its unknown how many times members of the public have sought records considered transitory. Records custodians arent required to explain why a record doesnt exist, Gregory D. Murray, chief legal counsel for the state Department of Administration, said in a Dec. 4 letter to the Wisconsin State Journal. Officials declined to answer questions about how administration officials communicate electronically and how they retain those records, other than to say that state government officials primarily communicate by email, though some people may conduct limited business using other methods of electronic communication. Those types of communications still need to be retained according to the appropriate retention schedules, said Cullen Werwie, a spokesman for the state Department of Administration. The denials come in the wake of other attempts by the Walker administration to redefine government records in ways that would limit public access to the decision-making process of elected officials. In one case, the liberal advocacy group Center for Media and Democracy filed a lawsuit to obtain records related to the Walker administrations proposed changes to the University of Wisconsin Systems mission statement, known as the Wisconsin Idea. The Walker administration, which pulled back on the changes, denied the group and media outlets, including the State Journal, access to the records by saying they were part of a deliberative process. The Walker administration also worked with Republican lawmakers in the waning days of the state budget deliberations on language that would have gutted the state open records law. The changes were adopted by the Legislatures budget committee on the eve of the Fourth of July weekend, but quickly rescinded after a public outcry. Transitory text messages? One of the recent examples involving transitory records is related to the $500,000 WEDC loan to Building Committee Inc. that the State Journal first reported in May. The loan was pushed by Walkers then-top Cabinet secretary, Mike Huebsch, after BCI owner William Minahan gave a maximum donation to Walkers campaign and hired a well-connected lobbyist. Hundreds of pages of emails obtained under the state records law showed Huebsch, who now sits on the Public Service Commission, aggressively trying to help the company secure state funding. The emails contain a reference to former top DOA aide Chris Schoenherr texting about Minahan. On Aug. 25, the Walker administration denied the State Journals request for Schoenherrs text messages referenced in the email. Werwie explained at the time, its worth noting transitory messages are not required to be retained. The response and explanation came a day after the state Public Records Board, which oversees records retention for public bodies, agreed to change the states definition of transitory correspondence. Under the previous definition, such records had to be retained until no longer needed, but under the new definition they dont have to be retained at all. Examples under the old definition included routine requests for information that require no policy decision, special compilation or research are transitory to the sender and the recipient. The new definition is expanded to include emails to schedule or confirm meetings or events, committee agendas and minutes received by members on a distribution list, interim files, tracking and control files, recordings used for training purposes and ad hoc reports for individual use. The examples dont specifically reference text messages. A separate records board policy requires that business-related correspondence of top state officials be retained for three years after the official leaves a job. Text messages present an emerging challenge for public records custodians, according to Curt Witynski, a lobbyist for the League of Wisconsin Municipalities. I suspect it is something that needs to be thought about and addressed, Witynski said. The thought of trying to set up a method for retaining every text message by staff and elected officials for a seven-year-period is mind-boggling. The city of Madison in recent years updated its ordinances to discourage elected officials and staff from using text messages for official business, unless they are able to store those messages. The changes came after the State Journal reported on City Council members discussing policy matters via text message during public meetings. Matthew Blessing, administrator of the division of library-archives for the Wisconsin Historical Society and chairman of the records board, didnt return calls last week for comment. Visitor information The other recent example of the transitory explanation involved daily Capitol Police reports showing a list of anticipated visitors to the governors executive residence in Maple Bluff. In response to a request from liberal advocacy group One Wisconsin Now, the Department of Administration released the reports since April 8 which showed Walker meeting with presidential campaign staff at the residence, as permitted by the Government Accountability Board but said prior reports are transitory records under the same section of the records retention policy that was updated by the records board in August. Capitol Police has no need or legal obligation to keep each days sheet beyond the next day, lawyer Elisabeth Winterhack wrote in response to OWN. The groups executive director, Scot Ross, said his group likely wont file a lawsuit over the records because there are no court penalties for violating the law that could be used to recoup the cost of litigation. Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, sent a letter to Winterhack on Nov. 2 asking for an explanation of her response. As of Saturday he hadnt received the explanation. In an interview, he said nothing in the new records retention policy suggests that information about visitors to the executive residence or text messages related to a state loan would fall under the definition of transitory correspondence. He pointed to other sections on visitors logs and correspondence that would apply and require the records still be retained. Lueders said though there may not be a legal remedy for state or local governments that dispose of records prematurely, the consequences of not retaining records could be worse than a lawsuit. A new Republican proposal that would allow concealed carry permit-holders to bring weapons onto school grounds faces a tough road with opposition from educators, reservations from law enforcement, and slim chances of a vote in the Assembly. The measure, unsuccessfully proposed in 2013, also comes at a time when lawmakers are up for re-election and in the waning months of this legislative session. I know that from a political standpoint, its not what the speaker would like to see right now because were all going for re-election, said bill co-sponsor Rep. Jesse Kremer, R-Kewaskum. But theres also a concern that, hey, we have this bill ... if were sitting on it and something happens, how are we going to sleep at night? Im here just to do what is right, and whether that means releasing something at a non-politically correct time or not, so be it, he said about his own motives for bringing the legislation forward. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said Thursday hes open to the proposal but that its unlikely to get a vote on the Assembly floor this session. A spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, did not respond to a request for comment. I think its probably unlikely that its going to move forward, said Vos. But we havent talked about it, so well have to sit down and talk about it as a caucus. The bill, also sponsored by Sen. Mary Lazich, R-New Berlin, and Rep. Robert Brooks, R-Saukville, would allow anyone who has a license to carry a concealed weapon to bring a firearm on the grounds of a school. Local school boards could ban them from buildings but must post a gun-free sign. Its separate from another bill that would allow people to carry guns on college campuses, which Kremer also co-authored. The new school bill was circulated for co-sponsorship on Wednesday. Kremer said the measure would enhance safety for schools by potentially allowing permit-holders to help stop a school shooter. For rural school districts, a long response time on the part of law enforcement for such situations could be made less deadly if a person with a concealed weapon was on site, he said. But law enforcement and education officials arent on board. Law enforcement officers are certain to have some reservations as to whether this bill would make their jobs more dangerous, and whether it will do anything to improve the safety of our schools, said Jim Palmer, executive director of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, who added that allowing more guns in schools would create a less safe environment. Palmer said concealed carry-permit holders simply dont have the significant training and experience in responding to dangerous situations like law enforcement officers do, and that should be a concern for anyone who genuinely believes that allowing more guns in schools will make them any safer. What if a person mistakenly perceives a threat and uses their weapon? Kremer said law enforcement officers are trained to go into a tactical situation (and) are trained to figure out who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. Department of Public Instruction officials oppose the measure, saying it would reverse years and years of work to improve school safety. What is the problem being solved here with this legislation? I dont see it, said DPI spokesman John Johnson. He said there are already hundreds of police officers who are assigned to schools right now in the state of Wisconsin. Johnson said other measures, such as providing schools with money to build more secure entrances, would do more to enhance safety. Rachel Strauch-Nelson, spokeswoman for the Madison School District, said officials in that district are very much opposed to this bill. There is no good argument for more guns in our schools. Were very concerned about the dangerous situations it could create, she said. Dan Rossmiller, lobbyist for the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, said the organization also opposes the bill. In a statement, Lazich described the bill as a technical fix to an unintended consequence created by the states concealed carry law. The bill takes advantage of a federal law that allows states to permit concealed-carry license holders to carry weapons on school grounds. It also grants school districts the authority to pass policies about whether permit-holders may carry weapons inside school buildings, she said. This issue was brought to my attention by school administrators and school board members in my district, Lazich said. A spokesman for Brooks did not respond to a request for comment. Palmer said Lazichs characterization that the bill corrects an oversight is inaccurate. He said the federal law was specifically addressed in an amendment when the states concealed carry law was passed in 2011. A similar proposal was made in 2013 as an amendment to a bill that would have allowed retired and off-duty police officers to carry weapons on school grounds. That bill failed because the amendment would have allowed concealed carry-permit holders to carry weapons on school grounds but did not allow schools to pass policies to ban guns if they wished. Palmer said thats a sensible improvement (to the current legislation) for which the bills authors deserve some credit. Assembly Education Committee chairman Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt, R-Fond du Lac, declined to comment. Senate Education Committee chairman Luther Olsen, R-Ripon, said, Im not sure we need to do that. State Journal reporter Mark Sommerhauser contributed to this report. A state open government watchdog group has filed a complaint alleging an obscure board made changes to the states records retention policies in August in violation of the state open meetings law. Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, wrote Monday in a complaint to Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne that the Public Records Board changed the definition and treatment of records deemed transitory without proper notice or record in its minutes of motions and votes. Under the states open meetings law, public bodies are required to announce the time, date, place and subject matter of a meeting in such form as is reasonably likely to apprise members of the public and the news media thereof. Typically, 24 hours notice is required under the law. You can look at that agenda and have absolutely no idea that they are intending to change the definition of transitory records in a way that would have a significant impact, Lueders said in an interview. He noted that Gov. Scott Walkers administration has already used the new definition of transitory records to justify denying records that existed at one time, but were not maintained. One of those cases involved text messages related to a failed $500,000 state loan to a struggling Milwaukee business. The Wisconsin State Journal first reported on the change to the records retention policy last week. Walker administration spokesman Cullen Werwie didnt respond to a request for comment on the complaint, but last week he said while we do not agree that there was any violation, to the extent the Department of Administration provides administrative support to the Public Records Board, we plan on working with (the Department of Justices) Office of Open Government to implement best practices for both the agenda and meeting minutes moving forward. Matthew Blessing, Public Records Board chairman and library archives division administrator for the Wisconsin Historical Society, said Monday the board agreed with a committee of state agency records custodians that determined the states definition of transitory records was previously too vague and imprecise. That item was part of the agenda under the Records Management Committee report, though it doesnt provide specifics on all of the proposed changes. Blessing said the state has thousands of public records retention schedules across various agencies, so it relies on the committees recommendations for the multitude of changes that come up at each quarterly meeting. Ozanne said his office received the complaint Monday morning but otherwise did not comment. Christa Westerberg, a lawyer and vice president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, said a judge could void a decision by a public body that takes action in violation of the open meetings law. How long to keep records? The Public Records Board sets policy for how long state agencies must minimally retain public records before destroying or archiving them. Records custodians determine how to apply those rules to records generated within their agencies. On Aug. 24, the board met to adopt what the agenda describes as the committees 3rd Quarter Index. According to the minutes, the board was told the committees proposed changes were very typical with two exceptions, neither of which dealt with transitory records. The board approved a motion to adopt the changes unanimously. The general records schedule shows the definition of transitory records was changed at that meeting. Under the previous definition as of July, transitory records were defined as correspondence and other related records of short-term interest which have no documentary or evidentiary value. Under the new definition they are records of temporary usefulness that have no ongoing value beyond an immediate and minor transaction or the preparation of a subsequent (final) record. They no longer have to be retained, whereas previously they were to be maintained until no longer needed. The day after the board changed the definition, Gov. Scott Walkers administration denied a State Journal request for text messages from a former top DOA official related to a failed $500,000 loan to a now defunct Milwaukee construction company. Werwie, the DOA spokesman, explained at the time that such transitory messages are not required to be maintained, citing the newly revised records retention policy. In another case DOA denied a liberal advocacy groups request for police records of visitors to the Executive Residence in Maple Bluff prior to April 8. A DOA lawyer said the records dont have to be maintained because they are transitory. D efinition in dispute Open government experts dispute DOAs interpretation of the records retention policy, which doesnt explicitly mention text messages or police visitor logs. Blessing, the records board chairman, also raised questions about the text messages being deemed transitory records, noting another section of the records schedule calls for correspondence between top administrators to be retained for three years after they leave office. Agencies may not pick out specific elements from any general records schedule such as transitory records and apply it selectively, Blessing said. Blessing said the intent of the change was to specify what transitory messages are, not to allow all text messages to be discarded as transitory. If its a policy-level matter, they shouldnt be using text messages, Blessing said. At the end of the day, its the records management within each of the state agencies that is responsible for determining whether its transitory or a policy-level decision. It remains unclear what happened to the text messages from former DOA deputy secretary Chris Schoenherr related to the $500,000 loan to Building Committee Inc. Former DOA Secretary Mike Huebsch pressed the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. to assist the company. BCI owner William Minahan, a top Walker donor who had hired a well-connected lobbyist, had made false statements on his loan application and told a luxury car-leasing company that he would repay debt with state funding. Officials wont comment The Walker administration has not responded to State Journal questions about what happened to the text messages and why they werent retained. Huebsch, a Public Service Commissioner, also has declined or not responded to multiple interview requests. On Friday, Walker referred a question about whether Schoenherrs text messages were public records to lawyers. He said he doesnt have an explanation for what happened to them. I havent talked to them about that, Walker said. I asked that overall for our administration, the bottom line is I expect everyone in this administration to follow the open records laws now and into the future. 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JURIST Guest Columnist Alexander Burns of Valparaiso University discusses growing pains associated with law enforcement body cameras use, implementation, and pending Indiana legislation In this article I will address several legal and practical issues presented by law enforcement body cameras including: privacy concerns for victims, juveniles and witnesses, especially when an officer is interviewing a witness or victim in a private residence, the logistics and problems associated with storing and managing an influx of video data and the need for effective legislation in Indiana to address these issues. Post-Ferguson, around the country, the knee jerk reaction is this: we need law enforcement body cameras and we need them yesterday. Across the country, law enforcement implementation of body cameras is the new norm. Generally, reactions to body cameras are positive; they are perceived as an effective tool that offer protection to the officers wearing them as well as the citizens encountered. But implementing body cameras is not always an easy task. Law enforcement is feeling the pressure, not only to implement body cameras, but also to do so quickly. It is easy to see why they are struggling to adapt. If a department is able to figure out how to pay for the physical cameras, they soon realize they also need new training, new policies, software to manage and retain all that data, and likely a full-time officer tasked only with making decisions on what video to save, for how long and how to pay for the massive data storage. Additionally, under certain circumstances, body cameras may unintentionally reduce privacy protection for certain citizens. Currently, inadvertent public disclosure of otherwise protected juvenile information in body camera video is another issue that remains unresolved in the Indiana Code. As nearly every news outlet and human rights group calls for camera implementation, the Indiana legislature is trying to catch up and sort out the legal issues and logistics of quickly and effectively implementing law enforcement body cameras in society. Initially, the proposition that every law enforcement officer wear a body camera was as an overwhelmingly positive policy change. More evidence, in video form, of officer and civilian encounters offers protection for the officers wearing the cameras as well as the citizens they encounter. The analysis is: cameras are good, therefore it follows, logically, that we must implement them now. Unfortunately, that is where most peoples analysis stops. Until recently, I personally could not and did not think of any drawbacks to more cameras and more footage. This summer, however, when working as an intern for the Tippecanoe County Prosecutors Office [official website], I realized several drawbacks and additional considerations for law enforcement body cameras which must be addressed. As an intern, some of my duties involved the laborious task of watching, redacting and disclosing police videos for current and pending litigations. The majority of the media I worked with was traditional dash camera and breath test room video. Occasionally, in addition to the more traditional media, body camera videos were also in the mix. As I watched additional videos, I began to realize just how much time and money viewing, redacting and disclosing more video could cost taxpayers. Imagine a DUI investigation lasting approximately thirty-minutes: two squad cars and four officers arrive on scene, each vehicle and each officer is outfitted with a camera and the officers then investigate and arrest the suspect for operating while intoxicated. During the course of any litigation, resulting from the arrest, there will be approximately three hours of video and at least another thirty-minutes of breath test room video, which someone, likely a lowly intern, must watch, redact and disclose. All the watching, redacting and disclosing is time paid for by taxpayer money, time that is currently already allocated and cannot be easily fit into the already jam-packed schedule of the average deputy prosecuting attorney. The only solution is to hire more people to deal with the influx of videos. The work I did got me thinking: what happens to the countless hours of videos not part of pending litigation? Those videos do not have an intern to watch them, then redact sensitive personal information, and they are all subject to public disclosure. From my legal studies at Valparaiso School of Law, I knew any police video not part of a pending investigation or litigation is subject to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by any member of the general public for no reason at all. I then realized this issue presents major privacy concerns and is more significant implications than use of taxpayer resources. Specifically, personal information, images and video of juveniles documented by body cameras are freely accessible by the media orany citizenvia a Freedom of Information Act request. Imagine a scenario where an officer encounters a lost child. Before making contact, per department policy, the officer turns on their body camera. The officer then attempts to find the childs parents by asking the child for personal information including name, age, telephone number, parents names and address. The video of the encounter and all the juveniles personal information then become a public record, which is accessible by anyone via a FOIA request. As police departments across the country continue implementing body cameras, further policy considerations and legislative protection of juveniles information is the paramount issue. All images, video and private information of juveniles depicted in body camera video should be afforded the same protection as in court proceedings and statutorily protected from public disclosure. Currently, inadvertent public disclosure of otherwise protected juvenile information in body camera video is an issue that remains unaddressed in the Indiana Code. Our legislature, however, is taking steps to address these very important privacy concerns with the help of a special committee hearing testimony from those on the cutting edge of the complexities created by body cameras. Fortunately for Hoosiers, specifically those of us from Tippecanoe County, our very own West Lafayette Police Department [official website] (WLPD) is quite literally writing the book on implementation of body cameras. I recently spoke with West Lafayette Police Chief Jason Dombkowski [official website] about law enforcement body cameras. Chief Dombkowski just arrived home from a trip to Alaska, where he spoke at a law enforcement conference about West Lafayette Police experience with body cameras, beginning in 2013 as part of a Purdue Graduate Program. Dombkowski said that WLPD first started testing body cameras in 2013 because of the proliferation of cell phones with video capabilities. Videos of police encounters shot by bystanders often only show part of the encounter and therefore do not tell the whole story. The main objective behind WLPD officers starting to wear body cameras was to document the full encounter. Because WLPD had a head start, they are one of two departments in Indiana able to fully implement body cameras within 30 days after Ferguson in September of 2014. Now WLPD is using what they learned to help other departments implement body cameras and tailor department policies based on their own trial and error as well as a few studies from the Department of Justice and the ACLU. Chief Dombkowski, also recently testified before a joint Indiana House and Senate Committee about WLPDs experiences and issues with the cameras. Chief Dombkowski told lawmakers in the year since his department equipped officers with body cameras, the number of police incidents involving force has dropped dramatically, from 29 in 2013 before cameras were used to seven this year: Well the proof is in the pudding there, Dombkowski said in an interview . I have to believe everybody behaves differently when they know theyre on camera. As far as legislation is concerned, the first regular session of the 119th Indiana General Assembly [official website] convened on Tuesday, January 6, 2015, during the session legislators proposed bills to address this issue. Early in the session, bills from the Indiana House Bill 1225 [PDF] and the Senate Bill 454 [PDF] urged the legislative council to take immediate action by assigning a study committee regarding public records requests for police body camera video. Those two bills lead to, Legislative Council Resolution 15-01 [PDF], which birthed a joint Interim Study Committee on Government [PDF] tasked with addressing the issue of public records requests for police body camera video: Whether additional exemptions are needed in the open records law (Indiana Code 5-14-3 [PDF]) to prevent the disclosure of private information caught on police body camera video, including interiors of private homes, medical information, juveniles, witnesses, and victims The committee met at the State House a total of four times beginning in August 2015 and ending on October 15, 2015. During their sessions the committee explored a number of relevant topics by reviewing exhibits, scholarly articles, studies from the DOJ, ACLU and policy from Indiana police departments with prior body camera experience. The committee also called expert witnesses. The agenda, witness list and exhibits may be found here. The committees first and second meeting involved discussions about the current statute [PDF], whether it is now obsolete, and data issues and how they interact with public record requests. Testimony was heard from law enforcement and the courts. The committees final report [PDF] was published on Tuesday, October 6, 2015. Overall Indianas legislature is being as proactive as they can in dealing with this novel issue. However, any legislation sent down the pipeline will not become law until July 1, 2016 at the earliest. Until then, and likely after, body cameras present an ever-evolving set of issues. But, lets not forget that all the struggles and growing pains are necessary to implement what may prove to be the most useful tool for serving justice in our modern society. Alexander Burns is a third-year law student at Valparaiso University. He studies legal journalism and interned at the Tippecanoe County Prosecutors Office in West Lafayette, Indiana. Suggested citation: Alexander Burns, Body Camera Growing Pains, JURIST Student Commentary, Jan. 14, 2016, http://jurist.org/dateline /2016/01/Alexander-Burns-Body-Cameras.php. JURIST Guest Columnist Craig Welch of LWC Policy Consulting, Inc. discusses legislation regulating tobacco packaging in the international context, and related health and safety issues A recent Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) decision in Singapore represents a major setback for tobacco companies in their fight against plain packaging legislation. But are the implications of this case as important as some commentators have suggested? In 2011, JURIST Guest Columnist Allyn Taylor [JURIST] from Georgetown University Law Center quite reasonably suggested that a successful ISDS case could prove to be a chilling blow to governments attempts to enforce public health measures such as the plain packaging of tobacco products which precludes brand differentiation and prevents the use of cigarette packets as an advertising medium. At that time the case in question was that of Philip Morris (PM) Australia in the Permanent Court of Arbitration, a dispute that was launched the same day that the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act 2011 (Cth) came into effect. Concurrently PM intervened in a High Court case in which two other major tobacco companies (JT International and British American Tobacco) were suing the Australian Government, claiming that the tobacco packaging legislation amounted to expropriation of their intellectual property rights (mainly trademarks). The High Court determined in 2012, by a six to one majority, that the actions of the Government did not constitute the acquisition of property, in that there was no property of the kind specified in 51(xxxi) of the Australian Constitution. The ISDS case, held in Singapore by arbitrators appointed by both parties, was neither a continuation of nor an appeal against the High Court Case, but was brought separately under the terms of a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) between Hong Kong and Australia. It was arguably doomed to fail, as the corporate re-shuffling to enable an action to be brought under this particular BIT took place after the Australian Government had foreshadowed its plain packaging agenda. The Singapore judgment has garnered headlines worldwide, but the perception of the outcome as a win for public health and a loss for the tobacco industry is illusory. The case was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, after an application for bifurcation was allowed. It addressed neither the merits of the legislation nor the subsequent effect on tobacco use and importantly, offers no legal precedent. Nor can either of the two cases be appealed. Together, what these two cases should do however is to prompt questions about the validity of the widely mooted concept of regulatory chill. Implicit in this concept is that governments are less likely to legislate or regulate in an area where ISDS or similar provisions might allow a challenge from Big X, where X might be tobacco, pharma, food, fossil fuel and so on. Regulatory chill, it is claimed, hinders the ability of Governments to pursue sound public policy, including public health policy. The Australian Government itself complained about regulatory chill in a World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting of the Dispute Settlement Body [PDF] in November 2014, referring to a plethora of disputes as a well-known tactic of the tobacco industry to avoid countries implementing tobacco control measures. Whether or not this chill has had an effect, it has arguably been put in the freezer by the two cases discussed. Australia is also being challenged by Cuba and others under the WTO dispute settlement mechanism, primarily based on allegations of breaches of the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) and Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreements. A Dispute Panel has been formed and is expected to hand down its decision in the first half of 2016. Important considerations here are that the High Court of Australia found the Governments actions legal; the ISDS action was a sham; and there are valid defenses to the WTO action in that there are exceptions to the relevant treaty obligations [PDF] including when necessary to protect human, animal or plant life or health. There is another extant dispute similar to that which failed against Australia. Philip Morris has raised a dispute against Uruguay, under the Switzerland Uruguay BIT [PDF]. One unfortunate aspect of ISDS cases is that they frequently take some years to conclude. Although there was a hearing two months ago on the merits, the matter is currently held up in procedural arguments. Importantly though, to date no ISDS case relating to tobacco plain packaging has been either won or lost on its merits. This particular BIT contains a pro-vision recognising each others right not to allow economic activities for reasons of public security and order, public health or morality, , as do most BITs. It hardly bears mentioning that tobacco use is a major public health issue. All of the above cases, concluded or not, are part of the scene currently being set in the United Kingdom. In May 2016 the Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Products Regulations 2015 comes into effect and predictably, on December 10 a challenge was mounted in the UK High Court to the validity of the regulations by almost the same group of players involved in the Australian domestic challenge. Perhaps the regulatory chill is turning into a regulatory grill as the plain packaging movement gains momentum. May 2016 also marks the entry into force of Irelands Public Health (Standardised Packaging of Tobacco) Act 2015, which provides a one year wash-out period for labelled stocks to be depleted. That same month also sees the advent of Frances corresponding Act, Projet de Loi de modernisation de notre systeme de sante [translation: Bill of Modernization on Our Health System]. 2016 becomes a watershed year with legislation along the same lines coming into force in in Burkina Faso [PDF, in French], and Hungary being the first of many other countries that are planning their own implementations. And in the background is the EU Tobacco Directive [PDF] (2014), which contains provisions for standardized packaging, as well as other measures relating to e-cigarettes, menthol flavors, among others. Frances actions are a national implementation of the Directive. In a significant move, prior to an upcoming judgment in the Court of Justice of the European Union, the Advocate General Juliane Kokott recently gave her support to all components of the Directive, including packaging. Her opinion [opinion, PDF] is not binding, but the Court generally takes such opinions very seriously. Those bringing the challenge to the Directive include the usual tobacco parties (some as interested parties) as well as Poland and Romania. Whether it is the strength of the public health agenda or the weakness of the case being prosecuted by the tobacco industry, there is little evidence to date that regulatory chill is undermining the resolve of governments around the world. However whether one can conclude that efforts to pit public health against the commercial interests of powerful industries other than tobacco will not be undermined by ISDS provisions, remains to be seen. Craig Welch is an Australian LLM student in the final stages of his degree with the University of Liverpool. Previously, Welch was a senior business executive working in Southeast Asia and Australia, and managed Australias first listed software country (Sausage Software) through its pioneering days of developing some of the worlds first e-commerce software solutions. Suggested citation: Craig Welch, Tobacco Plain Packaging Legislation, JURIST Professional Commentary, Jan. 15, 2016, http://jurist.org/hotline/2016/01/craig-welch-tobacco-plain-packaging.php The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] and the ACLU of Louisiana [advocacy website] filed a class action lawsuit [complaint] on Thursday against the New Orleans Public Defenders Office and the Louisiana Public Defender Board [official websites] due to the lack of available public defenders for individuals with no access to an attorney. The ACLU claims that as a result of the lack of state funding for public defenders, individuals are forced to wait months in jail without counsel or accept bail and plea negotiations which can have irreparable effects on their case. The ACLU alleges that this is a violation of constitutional rights guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment [text] guarantees of due process, equal protection and competent representation. This is not the first time the New Orleans County Public Defenders Office has struggled to adequately provide enough enough public defenders, who represent close to 80 percent of criminal defendants in New Orleans. Due to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, 31 of the offices 39 public defenders were laid off and the annual budget was dropped from $2.5 million to $500,000. The financing system was accused of being unconstitutional because it relied heavily on surcharges from traffic tickets, which were abandoned since Hurricane Katrina, and forced poor people to pay for the system. Many cases involving public defenders were suspended [JURIST report] and a petition was granted to free a prisoner facing serious charges because the suspect lacked counsel. Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti, Jr. launched an investigation [JURIST report] in 2006 into the dire finances of the states indigent defense system. Brazils Federal Police have accused seven people and three companies of environmental crimes in its probe into the major Fundao dam collapse that occurred on November 5. The collapse, which has been termed the worst environmental disaster in the nations history, released a flood of sludge burying rural villages, killing 19 people, and polluting more than 400 miles of the Rio Doce basin. Among the accused [WSJ report] are mining giant Vale SA, its joint-venture Samarco Mineracao SA [corporate websites], Samarcos chief executive Ricardo Vescovi de Aragao and its director of operations Kleber Luiz Mendonca Terra. Vogbr Recursos Hidricos e Geotecnica Ltda. [corporate website in Portuguese], an engineering consultancy firm that provided a report in mid-2015 declaring the Fundao dam to be stable, and the engineer responsible for that report were also cited. Brazils attorney general had already announced his intention to file a USD $5 billion civil lawsuit against Samarco, Vale and another other joint-venture partner BHP Billiton Ltd. [corporate website] of Australia in November, although BHP has denied responsibility for the collapse stating that Samarco was solely responsible. The present allegations represent a step toward formal criminal charges marking the beginning of a deeper investigation by police. Brazil has been the subject of several corruption scandals in both politics and business in recent years. In October Brazils Federal Accounts Court determined [JURIST report] that President Dilma Rousseffs government accounting practices were illegal. In September a Brazilian court sentenced [JURIST report] former treasurer of the countrys governing Workers Party Joao Vaccari Neto to 15 years and four months in jail for charges stemming from his connection to the Petrobras corruption scandal. In November Brazils highest court ordered [Reuters report] the arrest of Andre Esteves, the then chief executive of the countrys largest investment bank, and that of Delcidio do Amaral, a powerful senator of the countrys ruling party. Both individuals were accused of obstructing the course [JURIST report] of the investigation [BBC News report] into bribery and corruption affiliated with Petrobras [official website], a state-run oil company. That eventually renewed the vigor to implicate President Dilma Rousseff [BBC backgrounder] in the Petrobras scandal and begin impeachment proceedings [JURIST report] against her. A judge for the Superior Court of California in the County of San Francisco [official website] ruled [order, PDF] Thursday that requiring a Catholic hospital to perform a tubal ligation sterilization would violate its religious freedom. The plaintiff, Rebecca Chamorro, requested to have the procedure performed at the hospital after the birth of her third child as a preventative measure. Chamorro filed a lawsuit [complaint, PDF] after the hospital declined her physicians request to perform the sterilization.The hospital has performed the procedure before, but there is no evidence whether the prior procedures were done purely for contraceptive purposes or for other medical reasons. The judge also held that a sex discrimination claim by Chamorro was insufficient, because the medical centers serialization policy applies to men, as well as women. The plaintiff is joined by Physicians for Reproductive Health and is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy websites]. Reproductive rights are often at odds with religious freedom. In 2014 the US Supreme Court ruled that for-profit businesses that are closely held may be exempted [JURIST report] from the birth-control mandate of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) if the owners have a religious objection to one or more mandated birth control devices or method. In September a judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled [opinion, PDF] that employers may refuse to provide insurance coverage for contraception for moral reasons, rather than restricting the ability to refuse to those with religious objections [JURIST report]. In May the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled [JURIST report] that the University of Notre Dame shall not, at the time being, be exempted from the federal governments birth control mandate. In April Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito issued a temporary stay [JURIST report] preventing the federal government from requiring the Roman Catholic dioceses and its affiliates in Pittsburgh and Erie, Pennsylvania, to comply with the birth control mandates of the ACA. In November 2014 the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled [JURIST report] that religious non-profit groups rights were not violated when required to certify that they are opting out of the contraception mandate of the ACA. Planned Parenthood [advocacy website] filed a lawsuit [complaint, PDF] on Thursday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] against anti-abortion activists. The organization claims criminal misconduct by the activists who produced undercover videos [BBC report] discussing the handling and sale of fetal tissue at several Planned Parenthood clinics. The group, Center for Medical Progress [advocacy website], released several secretly recorded video in July alleging that Planned Parenthood sold fetal tissue to researchers for a profit. Planned Parenthood has denied these allegations and claims only a few of its clinics provide fetal tissue for research and that the only compensation they receive is reimbursement for costs incurred. The suit claims that the group is guilty of making recordings without consent, registering false identities with state agencies and violating non-disclosure agreements, as well as engaging in wire fraud, mail fraud invasion of privacy and trespassing.The lawsuit seeks compensation in the form of punitive damages and legal fees. Abortion related issues have been a heated topic since the release of the controversial videos. Earlier this month President Barack Obama vetoed legislation [JURIST report] that would have defunded Planned Parenthood. In August Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] in the US District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, alleging that Alabama Governor Robert Bentleys termination of Medicaid provider agreements for the facility violates a federal law that requires Medicaid beneficiaries to have a choice in provider for family planning. Also in August the Alaska Superior Court struck down [JURIST report] a state law it says would have unfairly burdened low-income individuals by limiting Medicaid funding for abortions. [JURIST] A court in Lisbon, Portugal, ruled on Friday that a former CIA operative shall be extradited to Italy to serve a seven-year sentence for her involvement in the 2003 kidnapping and rendition of Egyptian terror suspect Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr. Operative Sabrina De Sousa was one of 26 former agents convicted [AP report] in absentia for the infamous event, and she recently filmed [Vice News report] a documentary regarding her long struggle to clear her name. In October officials detained De Sousa in a Portuguese airport without warning and seized her passports pending the courts decision. De Sousas lawyer expressed his intention to appeal the case to the Supreme Court and move to the Constitutional Court if necessary. De Sousa hopes to receive a pardon from Italian President Sergio Mattarella, who recently pardoned another CIA operative involved in the matter. Mattarella is scheduled to speak with US President Barack Obama in March about various issues, which may include De Sousas case. Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, was seized on the streets of Milan in 2003 by CIA agents with the help of Italian operatives, then allegedly transferred to Egypt and tortured by Egypts State Security Intelligence before being released [JURIST reports] in February 2007. In September 2009 the US Department of Justice [official website] filed a motion to dismiss [JURIST report] a lawsuit brought by De Sousa seeking diplomatic immunity against the Italian charges. De Sousa was one of many operatives whose sentences were increased [JURIST report] from five to seven years in 2010 by an Italian intermediate appellate court and upheld by the Italian Court of Cassation in 2012. The trial of former Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra [BBC profile] began in the Supreme Court of Thailand on Friday, as she appeared in court to face corruption charges involving mismanagement of a rice-subsidy program. The charges against Shinawatra include [AP report] dereliction of duty and failure to stop the corruption in connection with the rice-subsidy program, which is estimated to have cost the government billions of dollars. Shinawatra pleaded not guilty [JURIST report] to the charges in May. The rice-subsidy program was seen as playing a major role in the election victory of Shinawatras Pheu Thai Party in 2011. Shinawatras campaign stated at the time that the program was aimed at helping poor farmers who were paid about 50 percent above the international market rate for rice, but the program suffered severe losses. Prosecutors say that Shinawatra ignored multiple warnings from several government agencies about the potential for corruption. Her prosecution is widely viewed as a political effort by the ruling junta to undermine the influence of Shinawatras family, and Shinawatras supporters believe the courts are playing a key role in this effort. Shinawatra faces up to 10 years in prison if found guilty. Thailands political system has been unstable since the 2006 military coup [BBC report] by the Royal Thai Army against then-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra [BBC profile], brother of Yingluck Shinawatra. Yingluck Shinawatra herself was removed from office in May 2014 shortly before the military seized control [JURIST reports] of the government. After the military overthrow, the junta has been accused of violating human rights in its attempts to maintain order. Martial law was instituted on May 20, 2014, two days before the coup that ousted the former Thai government and installed General Prayuth Chan-ocha [BBC profile] as the countrys new prime minister. Since then, political demonstrations have been banned, and hundreds have been arrested for protesting the junta. A group of Thai human rights activists denounced the countrys state of martial law in February, accusing the ruling military junta of imposing a judicial twilight zone [JURIST report]. The current Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha announced in April that the countrys military government would lift the martial law [JURIST report] and replace it with a new security order. Also in April, Thailand completed an initial draft [JURIST report] of a new constitution, which, if ratified, would be the countrys twentieth since 1932. [JURIST] UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein [official profile] expressed his concerns on Friday regarding rising conflicts Burundi that have given rise to gang rapes, torture, ethnic repression, mass graves, and secret detentions and disappearances. Zeid reports that 432 people have been killed [AP report] in Burundi since last April. He has called for the investigation of human rights violations and nine mass grave following violent attacks that took place in Bujumbura last month. Zeids comments follow the UNs urges [JURIST report] last month to form a nationally-led and owned effort to find a solution to the violence the country has faced. Violence in Burundi began in the wake of President Pierre Nkurunzizas announcement that he would seek a third term of office, which he was voted into [JURIST report] in July. Earlier this month the UN Human Rights Council approved a resolution [JURIST report] to dispatch experts to investigate human rights violations in Burundi, condemning violence in the country, use of excessive force by officials and restrictions on freedoms. Last month Zeid condemned [JURIST report] the suspension of 10 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Burundi. Also in November the UN Security Council unanimously adopted [JURIST report] a resolution condemning the political violence and killings currently afflicting Burundi. Shortly before, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement calling for [JURIST report] an end to the political violence and killings in Burundi. In October the UN human rights office shared concerns [JURIST report] over the rapidly worsening security and human rights situation in Burundi, noting that 198 people have been killed in the nation since April. Anil Giri is a reporter covering diplomacy, international relations and national politics for The Kathmandu Post. Giri has been working as a journalist for a decade-and-a-half, contributing to numerous national and international media outlets. Big 3 taskforce asked to draft final deal text Chiefs of three major parties have entrusted their taskforce with the task of drafting a text of a final agreement for floating as an offer to the agitating Madhes-based parties so that a solution to ongoing political crisis can be found at the earliest. Indian police men enter Nepal in search of most wanted fugitive A team of Indian police entered Nepal via Bara border in a bolero jeep informing Nepals Armed Police Force stationed at border that they were visiting renowned Gadhimai temple situated at Bariyarpur in the district. Luintel takes over as Aspac chairperson For the first time since becoming a Unesco member in 1953, Nepal chairs the regional group of the Asia and Pacific Countries (Aspac) for 2016. Maiden National Yoga Day marked A rally has been organised in the Capital on the occasion of the first National Yoga Day on Friday. Taskforce meeting inconclusive A meeting of the joint taskforce comprising representatives from government, main opposition Nepali Congress and agitating Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha (SLMM) ended inconclusively on Friday. NC not in haste to claim govt leadership- Deuba Nepali Congress senior leader and former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has made it clear that his party would not hasten to claim government leadership now. NOC team leaves for IOC HQ Following Indian Oil Corporations (IOC) assurance to provide petroleum products at any quantity, Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) has sent its delegation to the IOC headquarters in Delhi to place the demand. Daniel Zuchnik/Getty ImagesNow that Lady Gaga's been nominated for an Oscar, what are the chances that she'll actually win one next month? Actually pretty good, based on the Academy's past behavior. Gaga and hitmaking songwriter Diane Warren are up for Best Original Song for "Til It Happens to You," from the documentary The Hunting Ground, about sexual assault on college campuses. Billboard notes that only one song from a documentary has previously won an Oscar -- Melissa Etheridge's "I Need to Wake Up," from An Inconvenient Truth -- but there are mitigating circumstances. As Billboard notes, this is Warren's eighth nomination, so the Academy obviously likes her, and she's never won before. So why not finally reward her for an emotional song with an important social message, sung by one of the world's biggest stars? A remixed version of the track also just hit #1 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart, so it's commercially successful as well. As for their competition, Sam Smith's "Writing's on the Wall," from the James Bond movie SPECTRE, is nominated, but only one previous Bond theme has ever won an Oscar -- Adele's "Skyfall." And since that was very recently, Billboard notes, voters may not want to repeat so soon. The other pop song that's nominated, The Weeknd's "Earned It," may be hurt by the fact that the movie it's from, Fifty Shades of Grey, was universally reviled. In a Hollywood Reporter podcast, Gaga and Warren talked about collaborating on the song, and their own experiences with sexual assault and abuse. Gaga explained that Warren wrote the song and played it for her over the phone, but when they met in person, she contributed enough to be listed as its co-writer. "I started to play it and sing it and I would say, 'Diane, what do you think of this? Do you like this little bit here, this little melody?' she said on the podcast. "There was, like, some melodies that I wanted to bring in at the very end. And we spent time taking what was already, I think, a beautiful song and making it more, I think, triumphant." Warren agrees, saying Gaga made the song "epic." During the podcast, Warren reveals that she was molested at age 12, and Gaga opens up about being sexually assaulted when she was 19. She was already calling herself Lady Gaga, she notes, but wasn't a world-famous star yet. "It was someone that I knew and it was done to manipulate me in conjunction with money and my music," she revealed. "And it was terrifying. And I was really young." "I cant say who [did it] and Im not interested in that, to be honest," she explained. "Its something that changed me forever and it made me question everything about what I had done. I thought to myself, 'Did I do something wrong?' These painful experiences make "Til It Happens to You" the most personal song either woman has ever written. As Gaga notes in the podcast, "I am so sick of people walking in and out of my life telling me that I'm 'gonna be okay,' because I am still in so much pain that you can't understand. The person that I'm singing to [in the song] is the person that wants to heal me I'm telling them that they can't." The Oscars will air on ABC February 28. Chris Rock is the host. Copyright 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. US donates $1.2m for construction of crisis management centre The US, in partnership with the Nepal government, on Friday started digging ground for the construction of Regional Crisis Management Centre (RCMC) and warehouse at Nepal Army Chaunni Barracks in Kathmandu in observance of Nepal Earthquake Safety Day. Regmi is associated with the Nepal Youth Foundation. What could have been Energy is an area where all the countries of South Asia can gain through cooperation 1. Yes. Its important to cast my votes early and avoid the lines on Election Day. 2. Yes. With nearly two weeks of early voting, its a more convenient way to take part. 3. No. Its better to wait until Election Day, in case any last-minute information surfaces. 4. No. Im not planning to vote early or on Election Day. It isnt worth my time. 5. Unsure. It depends on how the campaigns are shaping up. Ill play it by ear. Vote View Results It is just hours now to the long awaited presidential debate organized by the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda. The Council Secretary General Joshua Kitakule insists that they are still expecting all the 8 presidential candidates. This is despite claims by the NRM party that it had officially sent notification to the council about its candidates inability to participate in the debate. Kitakule says attendance of the debate to be held at the Serena Conference Center will only be by invitation and they expect over 1000 people. The council has organized two debates with the first one scheduled for today, while the second one will be held on 10th February 2016. Todays debate will focus on the economy, good governance, rule of law and social welfare. While for the second one emphasis will be on peace and security, foreign relations, East African integration, the Great Lakes region and terrorism. The candidates who are expected to participate in the debate are Benon Biraaro, Dr. Abed Bwanika, Maureen Kyalya, Joseph Mabirizi, Prof. Venansious Baryamureba and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, while the stand of Yoweri Museveni remains in balance. Meanwhile, the NRM party has dismissed claims that their presidential candidate has skipped todays presidential debate due to fear. The partys deputy spokesperson Ofwono Opondo says president Museveni is not a coward as some members of the opposition are alleging, further advising them to focus on issues and what they intend to do for Ugandans. Relatedly, Civil Society Organizations are calling on all presidential candidates to ensure they attend the debate in person. The coordinator of the Citizens Election Observers Network Uganda Martin Mwondah argues that failure by any candidate to attend the debate will be disrespectful to Ugandans. He adds that the debate provides a platform for the candidates to share how they intend to contribute to free and fair elections come February 18th 2o16. Story By Dianah Wanyana The US has expressed concern over the increasing reports of election related violence in the different parts of the country. Speaking at a national dialogue by the Young African Leaders Initiative on peace, the Charge de Affair of the US Embassy in Uganda Ms Patricia Mahoney says they have seen use of excessive force at political rallies and clashes between rival political supporters. She says they are also concerned about the reported attempts to limit the freedoms of expression and assembly. Mahoney now challenges everybody to work for peace. She further maintains that the US government does not support any candidate but is interested in supporting a free and fair electoral process. Story By Benjamin Jumbe Welcome! You have come to the right place. Khmerization is a home to the Cambodian daily news, which is updated twice daily. Please take a tour and enjoy yourself. Thank you. To contact Khmerization please send an email to: Trollfest '09 Trollfest '07 was such a success that Jackson Jambalaya will once again host Trollfest '09. Catch this great event which will leave NE Jackson & Fondren in flames. Othor Cain and his band, The Black Power Structure headline the night while Sonjay Poontang returns for an encore performance. Former Frank Melton bodyguard Marcus Wright makes his premier appearance at Trollfest singing "I'm a Sweet Transvestite" from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." Kamikaze will sing his new hit, How I sold out to da Man. Robbie Bell again performs: Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be Bells and Any friend of Ed Peters is a friend of mine. After the show, Ms. Bell will autograph copies of her mug shot photos. In a salute to Dancing with the Stars, Ms. Bell and Hinds County District Attorney Robert Smith will dance the Wango Tango. Wrestling returns, except this time it will be a Battle Royal with Othor Cain, Ben Allen, Kim Wade, Haley Fisackerly, Alan Lange, and Big Cat Donna Ladd all in the ring at the same time. The Battle Royal will be in a steel cage, no time limit, no referee, and the losers must leave town. Marshand Crisler will be the honorary referee (as it gives him a title without actually having to do anything). Meet KIM Waaaaaade at the Entergy Tent. For five pesos, Kim will sell you a chance to win a deed to a crack house on Ridgeway Street stuffed in the Howard Industries pinata. Don't worry if the pinata is beaten to shreds, as Mr. Wade has Jose, Emmanuel, and Carlos, all illegal immigrants, available as replacements for the it. Upon leaving the Entergy tent, fig leaves will be available in case Entergy literally takes everything you have as part of its Trollfest ticket price adjustment charge. Donna Ladd of The Jackson Free Press will give several classes on learning how to write. Smearing, writing without factchecking, and reporting only one side of a story will be covered. A donation to pay their taxes will be accepted and she will be signing copies of their former federal tax liens. Ms. Ladd will give a dramatic reading of her two award-winning essays (They received The Jackson Free Press "Best Of" awards.) "Why everything is always about me" and "Why I cover murders better than anyone else in Jackson". In the spirit of helping those who are less fortunate, Trollfest '09 adopts a cause for which a portion of the proceeds and donations will be donated: Keeping Frank Melton in his home. The Keep Frank Melton From Being Homeless booth will sell chances for five dollars to pin the tail on the jackass. John Reeves has graciously volunteered to be the jackass for this honorable excursion into saving Frank's ass. What's an ass between two friends after all? If Mr. Reeves is unable to um, perform, Speaker Billy McCoy has also volunteered as when the word jackass was mentioned he immediately ran as fast as he could to sign up. In order to help clean up the legal profession, Adam Kilgore of the Mississippi Bar will be giving away free, round-trip plane tickets to the North Pole where they keep their bar complaint forms (which are NOT available online). If you don't want to go to the North Pole, you can enjoy Brant Brantley's (of the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance) free guided tours of the quicksand field over by High Street where all complaints against judges disappear. If for some reason you are unable to control yourself, never fear; Judge Houston Patton will operate his jail where no lawyers are needed or allowed as you just sit there for minutes... hours.... months...years until he decides he is tired of you sitting in his jail. Do not think Judge Patton is a bad judge however as he plans to serve free Mad Dog 20/20 to all inmates. Trollfest '09 is a pet-friendly event as well. Feel free to bring your dog with you and do not worry if your pet gets hungry, as employees of the Jackson Zoo will be on hand to provide some of their animals as food when it gets to be feeding time for your little loved one. Relax at the Fox News Tent. Since there are only three blonde reporters in Jackson (being blonde is a requirement for working at Fox News), Megan and Kathryn from WAPT and Wendy from WLBT will be on loan to Fox. To gain admittance to the VIP section, bring either your Republican Party ID card or a Rebel Flag. Bringing both and a torn-up Obama yard sign will entitle you to free drinks served by Megan, Wendy, and Kathryn. Get your tickets now. Since this is an event for trolls, no ID is required. Just bring the hate. Bring the family, Trollfest '09 is for EVERYONE!!! This is definitely a Beaver production. Note: Security provided by INS. The chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee called Thursday for significantly tightening financial screws on North Korea to punish the regime for its nuclear test and drive home a message that it should "disarm or perish." Rep. Ed Royce made the appeal in an article contributed to the Orange County Register, urging the Senate to act quickly to follow suit after the House earlier this week overwhelmingly passed his legislation calling for strengthening financial sanctions on the North. "The world is watching. And our allies, starting with South Korea, are counting on us to lead. We must send the message to the Kim regime that it can either reform and disarm, or perish," Royce said. "By cutting off Kim Jong-un's access to the hard currency he needs for his army and his weapons, we can squarely present Pyongyang with that choice." The congressman accused Obama of being too soft on the North, saying the administration's response to the North's massive hacking attack on Sony Pictures was too weak, despite Obama's promise to respond "proportionally" to the provocation. He said the answer to the problem is "not patience or proportionality but more pressure." "We cannot stand by and allow North Korea to send nuclear-armed submarines to sit off our shores, or to arm missiles putting California and the rest of the country at risk. The Obama administration's approach of 'strategic patience' has failed," Royce said. "The Kim (Jong-un) regime has learned that when it pushes, the administration backs down," he said. Royce cited as a good example of effective financial sanctions the 2005 blacklisting of a Macau bank with ties with the North, which scared away other financial institutions from dealing with Pyongyang for fear they would also be blacklisted, and cut off the North from the international financial system. The measure is considered the most effective U.S. sanction on the North yet. "We must once again learn from this lesson and use financial pressure to end North Korea's threat to its own people, to our South Korean allies and, ultimately, to us," Royce said. Royce called for enactment of his legislation. "This bill now moves to the Senate, which should move quickly to put this legislation on the president's desk. Because this isn't just about North Korea. Pyongyang has been a top proliferator, and has worked with Iran in the past," he said. The legislation calls for mandatory sanctions against people that have materially contributed to North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile development or engaged in other destructive activities, including importing or exporting material related to weapons of mass destruction. It also levies mandatory sanctions on those who import luxury goods into North Korea, or enable its censorship efforts or continuing human rights abuses, as well as those who have engaged in money laundering, the manufacture of counterfeit goods or narcotics trafficking. (Yonhap) INTERNATIONAL FALLS, Minn. (AP) A northern Minnesota man is dead after authorities say he refused to leave a burning convenience store that he was accused of illegally entering. The Koochiching County Sheriff's Office says authorities responded to a report of a break-in late Wednesday at the Y Knot Quick Stop gas station at Pelland Junction, southwest of International Falls. Authorities say 26-year-old Colton Tammi was inside, and allegedly told dispatchers that he would shoot responding officers. Authorities say the store began burning after deputies surrounded it. Sheriff Perryn Hedlund said that firefighters could not enter due to the threat of gunfire. The fire was put out and Tammi's body was found inside. His cause of death and the cause of the fire are being investigated. Hedlund says there are many unanswered questions. The owners of the Village Shopping Center at the corner of State Road and Losey Boulevard asked the La Crosse Common Council for permission Thursday to tear down part of the building at 1509 Losey Blvd. VSC Corp. property manager Karen Dahl submitted an application for a conditional use permit allow for the demolition of half the structure to make way for additional parking for the Village Shopping Center Festival Foods. The council referred the application to committee. If approved by the city, VSC would remove the eastern portion of the building, which houses Village Kitchen as well as two empty storefronts. The plans will leave the portion of the building closest to Losey Boulevard, which houses GNC and ABR Employment Services, intact. Dahl declined to elaborate on VSCs plans Thursday, but a letter from Dahl to the city explains the demolition would allow for 80 more parking spaces in the area to serve Festival Foods employees. The building that houses Festival Foods is owned by VSC. The customer traffic at the Village Shopping Center Festival Foods has greatly exceeded expectations and continues to create a parking shortage, Dahl wrote. VSC leases 55 spaces from Kmart across the street for Festival employees, but thats not enough to address the parking need. If approved, VSC hopes to begin the project after Village Kitchens lease expires April 30. VSC would construct a new exterior wall on the remaining part of the building and then demolish 9,960 square feet of the building. The company intends to have the paved parking lot in use by July 1, according to Dahls letter. The portion of the building that will be removed is worth just less than $350,000, according to the permit application. Village Kitchen owner Rick Hawkins said he learned of the plans Monday and declined to say anything about the restaurants future until after speaking with restaurant staff. The restaurant was opened by Hawkins parents, Ruth and Richard Hawkins in 1966 as a Country Kitchen but dropped the franchise in 2010 when Hawkins bought the restaurant from his mother. Hawkins also owns Huck Finns Restaurant on French Island with his son Chet. The vacant storefronts previously housed Royal Thai, which closed in spring of 2015, and Full Circle Supply, which moved downtown in November 2014. The request for the permit will be investigated by La Crosse Senior Planner Tim Acklin before going before the City Plan Commission and Judiciary and Administrative Committee in February.The full council will decide whether to issue the permit after it goes through the committee process. Acklin will look into the impact on both the citys tax base and the surrounding area caused by losing the building, then bring a recommendation to the plan commission. They are all evaluated on a case-by-case basis. As planners, we look at what is the impact on the place and the surrounding area, Acklin said. At this point, we dont know where we are at with this particular one. The city typically discourages demolishing buildings for parking lots due to the affect on the tax base, surrounding businesses or residences, and visual appeal, Acklin said. That end of the building will still buffer the parking from the road which is a point in its favor, Acklin said. The neighboring Subway and Dominos locations which stand between the building and State Road would be unaffected, according to plans submitted with the permit. MADISON Gov. Scott Walkers administration still wont explain what happened to text messages sought by the Wisconsin State Journal related to a failed taxpayer loan to a business owned by a top Walker donor. The refusal comes despite a reversal this week by the state Public Records Board of an earlier decision over what constitutes transitory public records and when such records can be destroyed. The administration cited the revised policy shortly after it was changed in August in explaining why the text messages werent available. The text messages could shed more light on an effort by then-Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch to press for the questionable Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. loan that has yet to be repaid. What happened to the text messages is also significant because state law prohibits government agencies from destroying records after a request has been made for them. Anyone who intentionally destroys public records can be subject to criminal penalties. Without answers from the Walker administration about what happened to the records and when, its unclear whether the administration followed the law, said Bob Dreps, an expert on the state Public Records Law who also has represented the Wisconsin State Journal in such cases. Dreps said the administrations use of the Public Records Board initial policy shift was a fig leaf to cover up what had happened to the text messages. But he said state law doesnt give the public recourse unless it can prove that the records were destroyed after a request was made for them. Attorney General Brad Schimel also expressed concern Thursday that state law doesnt provide a remedy in cases where records are destroyed prematurely. He made the comments at a meeting of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council. That doesnt make sense to me, Schimel said of the lack of a remedy. This is one area where it makes sense to update the law. The Public Records Law itself provides penalties if a public official destroys a record after it has been requested, but it remains unclear if or when the DOA text messages were destroyed. Administration spokesman Jim Dick this week declined to provide answers about what happened to the texts the newspaper requested. Ive looked into your questions. For the request you referenced, DOA complied with the Public Records Law, Dick said Friday. DOA will continue, as weve always done, to comply with the Public Records Law. DOA denied request twice On April 29, the State Journal asked DOA for all of its records regarding Building Committee Inc. or its owner William Minahan since December 2010. Some records were provided shortly before the newspaper published a report on May 17 about WEDCs $500,000 loan to BCI, which noted that Huebsch sought unsuccessfully to provide the company with even more money. On June 19, DOA responded further to the State Journals records request with about 200 pages of documents, including an Aug. 30, 2011, email in which DOA Deputy Secretary Chris Schoenherr indicated that he had been sending texts about Minahan. Just talking (I should say texting) about you, Schoenherr wrote to Minahan. Secretary Huebsch wanted to touch base with you tomorrow on developments on our end is there a time and number that would work best? On June 22, the State Journal asked DOA for all text messages between Schoenherr and Huebsch related to BCI. On July 3, DOA said it had no records responsive to the request. On July 28, the State Journal filed a slightly amended request for Schoenherrs text messages, to which the administration said on Aug. 25 it had no records on file. In a follow-up email, then-DOA spokesman Cullen Werwie added: Its worth noting transitory messages are not required to be retained. NEW YORK (AP) Wal-Mart is doing some rare pruning. The worlds largest retailer is closing 269 stores, including 154 in the U.S. that includes all of its locations under its smallest-format concept store called Wal-Mart Express. The other big chunk is in its challenging Brazilian market. The stores being shuttered account for a fraction of the companys 11,000 stores worldwide and less than 1 percent of its global revenue. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said the store closures will affect 16,000 workers, 10,000 of them in the U.S. Its global workforce is 2.2 million, 1.4 million in the U.S. alone. The store closures will start at the end of the month. The announcement comes three months after Wal-Mart Stores Inc. CEO Doug McMillon told investors that the worlds largest retailer would review its fleet of stores with the goal of becoming more nimble in the face of increased competition from all fronts, including from online rival Amazon.com. Actively managing our portfolio of assets is essential to maintaining a healthy business, McMillon said in a statement. Closing stores is never an easy decision. But it is necessary to keep the company strong and positioned for the future. Michael Exstein, an analyst at Credit Suisse, described the moves as baby steps in his report published Friday, but he believes they are positive ones. He noted that this is the first mass closing that Wal-Mart has announced in at least two decades. It is a sign that Wal-Mart has begun the process of dealing with unproductive locations in a much more tangible and coherent way, he wrote. But we continue to believe that Wal-Mart needs a much larger restructuring of its store base in order to narrow its focus as it seeks to improve its sales and returns, especially internationally. Wal-Mart has seen sales perk up for a key revenue measure for the last few quarters in its U.S. business. But it warned last October that its earnings for the fiscal year starting next month will be down as much as 12 percent as it invests further in online operations and pours money into improving customers experience in the stores. The company has been building bigger fulfillment centers devoted to e-commerce orders and expanding online services. The following editorial was published in Wednesdays Wisconsin State Journal: The state Assembly wisely voted Tuesday to lift an unnecessary restriction on nuclear power production in Wisconsin. The Senate should now pass Assembly Bill 384, which enjoys bipartisan support. Building another nuclear reactor in Wisconsin would be expensive and difficult, given strict regulation to ensure safety. But thats no reason to remove it as an option for the future. Technology could help bring down the price and diminish the danger of radioactive waste. In fact, researchers are studying ways to recycle used nuclear fuel to create low-carbon electricity. Wisconsin gets about half its electricity from burning coal, which spews carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. The federal government is restricting carbon pollution, forcing utilities to find alternatives. Thats why Wisconsin power companies support AB 384 because it provides flexibility in meeting ambitious clean energy goals. Lots of business groups and unions favor the bill, too, because they want reliable energy and jobs. Some environmentalists are supportive because nuclear reactors dont emit greenhouse gasses, which are warming the planet. AB 384 would lift a 1983 moratorium on the construction of nuclear plants. The moratorium demands a federal storage facility for nuclear waste before Wisconsin can build more reactors. The federal government has stopped pushing for a nuclear waste repository in Nevada. So the moratorium is effectively a ban on modern facilities here. Wisconsin has three aging nuclear plants, only one of which still produces energy near Two Rivers, about 45 miles southeast of Green Bay. The other plants in Kewaunee and Genoa have closed because of market forces, including lower-priced natural gas. Like the Point Beach nuclear plant in Two Rivers, they continue to securely store spent fuel rods on site. With improving technology to reduce and recycle nuclear waste, Wisconsin shouldnt let the federal governments inaction on a repository stop it from considering new ways to produce low-carbon energy. Nor should Wisconsin fear scare tactics by opponents of AB 384 who suggest the bill will open the door to a nuclear waste dump here. If the federal government cant locate a repository in the barren Nevada desert, it doesnt stand a chance of doing so in beautiful, lake-rich Wisconsin. The 1983 moratorium, adopted in the wake of the Three Mile Island accident, forbids modern reactors from being built here if they burden ratepayers. Thats a subjective restriction that could be applied to any form of energy to stop progress. Critics of nuclear power say Wisconsin should focus on solar and wind energy instead. But utilities are already doing that, and its only making a dent in carbon emissions. The two reactors at Point Beach produce more electricity than solar and wind projects combined. Moreover, AB 384 would continue to prioritize conservation, efficiency and renewable energy ahead of nuclear power. If an advanced nuclear reactor were ever built in Wisconsin, it almost certainly would go on the site of an existing reactor. AB 384 doesnt grant permission for anything. It merely allows Wisconsin to keep its energy options open as the world strives to reduce its reliance on dirty coal. The Beat is New Mexico!---Do we have to be stuck at the bottom of the barrel?--- Perspectives from Southern NM and the border region On 14 January Brazils foreign minister, Mauro Vieira, paid his first visit to Buenos Aires since the appointment of his Argentine peer, Susana Malcorra, last month.Both Vieira and Malcorra announced the re-launch of bilateral diplomatic relations, which had grown strained under the previous Kirchnerista Argentine administration led by former president Cristina Fernandez (2007-2015), despite ideological affinities. They also announced a joint plan to combat drug trafficking. Since Malcorra was appointed when President Mauricio Macri came to power on 10 December last year, the new Argentine government has stressed that deepening integration within the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) regional trade bloc is one of its foreign policy priorities, rolling back years of protectionism by successive Kirchnerista governments and opening Argentina up to boost trade. The accord on drug trafficking zeroes in on another one of Macris key stated priorities, and coincides with his decision to shake up the security forces in the wake of a mistake-laden pursuit ( and eventual recapture ) of three prisoners connected to the illegal trade in ephedrine, who escaped from a maximum security prison in the province of Buenos Aires on 27 December 2015. End of preview - This article contains approximately 386 words. Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article Not a Subscriber? Choose from one of the following options Biddeford-Saco-OOB Courier Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird created the series in Dover, New Hampshire. The negatives for that first comic, printed in 1984, have surfaced and the owner, a Colorado collector, came to Biddeford In September to look around. Arab League foreign ministers said they support Saudi Arabia in its dispute with Iran. Tensions increased after Saudi Arabia executed a top Iranian Shiite Muslim religious leader January 2. Demonstrators attacked and burned parts of the Saudi embassy in Tehran and in other countries after Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr was executed with 46 others. Eight Arab countries have weakened or ended diplomatic relations with Iran because of the attacks. The foreign ministers and diplomats gathered Sunday in Cairo. They applauded when United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah Ben Zayid strongly criticized Iran during the meeting. He said Iran uses religion to cause tensions between countries in the Middle East and inside Arab countries. He said Iran creates and supports terrorist groups that spread violence in the Middle East. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Jubeir said Iran helps people in Arab countries work against their governments. He said Iran should stop interfering in (the) internal affairs of its neighbors. He said Saudi Arabia does not want conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. He accused Iran of worsening tensions between the two groups after its revolution in 1979. And, he said Saudi Arabia opposes the creation of tension between the groups. Last week, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called the attack on the Saudi Embassy wrong and against the law. He also said the execution of al-Nimr was a crime. Al-Nimr had publicly criticized the Saudi royal family. Nabil El Arabi leads the Arab League. He said Iran can reduce tensions with its neighbors. He said Iran must take steps to show it wants to improve relations and not interfere in the governing of other countries. Hilal Kashan is a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut. He told VOA the Arab League meeting will probably not produce any results. He said, the Saudis simply wanted a statement of solidarity (from the Arab League) and they got it. They did not really ask for more or expect more. He notes that Iran suspended some police officials in Tehran after the Saudi embassy was attacked. Pakistan also ended diplomatic relations with Iran after the embassy attack. Saudi Arabia wants Pakistans support in its dispute with Iran. But Pakistan has large numbers of Sunnis and Shiites and must have good relations with both Saudi Arabia and Iran. Time magazine reported that Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has suggested that Pakistan could help Saudi Arabia and Iran negotiate an end to their conflict. Im Jim Tedder. Edward Yeranian in Cairo reported on this story for VOANews.com. Christopher Jones-Cruise adapted his story for Learning English. He also used information from Time. Kathleen Struck was the editor. Write to us in the Comments section, or visit our Facebook page, about this issue. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story applaud v. to strike the hands together over and over to show approval or praise internal affairs n. events that take place inside a country solidarity n. a feeling of unity between people who have the same interests, goals, etc. The survival epic The Revenant and the science fiction tale The Martian are among the top nominees for Academy Awards this year. The Oscar nominations were announced early Thursday in Beverly Hills, California. The Revenant and The Martian are among the eight nominated for best motion picture. The others include Mad Max: Fury Road, the latest in the Australian series of post-apocalyptic drama, and Bridge of Spies, based on a true story of spying during the Cold War. Best actor nominees Leonardo DiCaprio, star of The Revenant, and The Martian lead Matt Damon will compete for the best actor Oscar. The two also face Bryan Cranston in his portrayal of the Hollywood writer and title character of Trumbo. The Academy also honored Eddie Redmayne with a best actor nomination. He plays a transgender person in The Danish Girl. Actor Michael Fassbender is also up for the award for playing the Apple company founder Steve Jobs in the movie of the same name. Best actress nominees Best actress nominees include Cate Blanchett for Carol, a story of a romance between two women, and Jennifer Lawrence for Joy. Lawrence plays the real inventor and successful businesswoman Joy Mangano. Actor Brie Larson is also nominated for her role as a mother held captive with her child for years in the film Room. Oscar nominees for supporting performances include Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams for Spotlight. The film is based on the true story of the journalists who uncovered the child sex crimes in the Catholic Church. Rooney Mara was nominated for Carol, Tom Hardy for The Revenant, and Christian Bale is up for his part in The Big Short. Sylvester Stallone is also nominated for Creed in which he returns as the boxer, now trainer, character Rocky Balboa. Honored directors and the ignored Nominees for best director include George Miller for Mad Max: Fury Road, Alejandro Inarritu for The Revenant, and Tom McCarthy for Spotlight. As always, there were snubs. Ridley Scott did not make the list of best directors, although his film The Martian was honored with several nominations. Michael Keaton failed was not nominated for his supporting role in Spotlight. And Johnny Depps starring role as the true-life gangster Whitey Bulger in Black Mass was not recommended for an award. African-Americans were once again notably missing. Among the surprising omissions was director F. Gary Gray for the hip hop story Straight Outta Compton. Foreign language nominees This year's foreign language nominees include the Arabic-language Theeb from Jordan. It is about a Bedouin boy who travels with a British officer through the Arabian desert during World War I. Hungarian entry Son of Saul is a Holocaust drama. Embrace of the Serpent, from Colombia, is about an Amazon healer. Denmark is represented with A War, which tells of Danish soldiers in Afghanistan. The final nominee, Mustang, is a French film set in Turkey. It tells the story of five orphaned sisters. And the Oscar goes to... The Oscars are considered the top award in the American movie industry. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present the awards in a televised ceremony February 28 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. Im Jim Tedder. VOAs Mike OSullivan reported this story from Los Angeles. Caty Weaver adapted it for Learning English. Kathleen Struck was the editor. Did you see any of the nominated movies? What are your thoughts about the group? Let us know in the Comments section or on our Facebook page. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story post-apocalyptic adj. of, relating to, or involving conditions following terrible violence and destruction Cold War n. the nonviolent conflict between the U.S. and the former U.S.S.R. after 1945 revenant n. one that returns after death or a long absence romance n. an exciting and sometimes short relationship between lovers journalist n. someone who has a job collecting, writing, and editing news stories for newspapers, magazines, television, or radio snub n. the act of ignoring (someone) in a deliberate and insulting way gangster n. a member of a group of violent criminals omission n. something that has not been included or done : something that has been omitted Taiwanese voters are choosing a new president Saturday after an intense campaign centered on the island's slowing economy. They will also choose 113 lawmakers from more than 550 candidates. Voters want higher salaries, less costly housing and more jobs. Both top candidates say they have solutions. Taiwan slipped into recession in September. Export orders are the lifeblood of the islands economy, and they have fallen for nine months. Economic Issues Worry Taiwans Voters Workers are unhappy. They say they cannot afford apartments in Taipei on wages as low as $600 a month. They also say they cannot pay to care for children and aging parents. These issues have followed Taiwans two major party candidates as they have looked for support before Saturdays elections. Taiwans opposition Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, candidate is leading in public opinion polls. Wang Yeh-lih is political science professor at National Taiwan University. He says voters are looking to the next president for a more comfortable living. He said he believes the economy is a leading election issue as people demand higher incomes. They are seeking more job opportunities and are pressing other issues related to their personal finances. Wang adds that many people are unhappy with the Nationalist Party, or KMT. Taiwan industrialized in the 1960s, but living standards lag those in Japan, South Korea and other places that took the same course. Still, land and labor cost enough to cause some investors to look in other places. This takes capital out of Taiwan and reduces the number of local jobs. Current President Ma Ying-jeou disappointed voters by missing targets to raise salaries, lower unemployment and expand the economy. Since 2008, Mas Nationalist Party government has sought to increase economic ties with China. The two sides have signed 23 deals aimed mainly at lifting trade, tourism and investment. China and Taiwan have been rivals for nearly 70 years since the end of Chinas civil war in 1949. Chinas economy has grown to become the world's second largest. Opposition Party Currently Leads in Polls Opposition Democratic Progressive Party candidate Tsai Ing-wen leads in public opinion polls by at least eight percent over the Nationalist candidate. She has said she would move to help Taiwan's smaller enterprises. She has promised them assistance in the domestic market and overseas. In May, her party suggested changing laws to increase wages and shorten work hours from 84 every two weeks to 40 per week. She also has called for helping families by creating jobs through a network of neighborhood caretakers for children. The opposition candidate also wants to build 200,000 units of affordable housing to ease worries about high land prices. Apartments in Taipei are priced similarly to other major world cities. The Nationalist candidate, Eric Chu, has promised to raise the minimum wage slowly from $600 a month to almost $900 a month by 2020. Chu suggests opening neighborhood senior care centers to look after elderly adults when their adult children go to work. A party spokesman says he would push for low-cost housing in existing units rather than building new ones. Taiwan election officials are to announce the new president Saturday and the winner will take office in May. Current president Ma cannot run because his term is limited. I'm Mario Ritter. Ralph Jennings in Taipei reported on this story for VOANews.com Mario Ritter adapted his report for Learning English. Kathleen Struck was the editor. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story afford v. to be able to pay for something polls n. an activity or study in which people are asked about their opinions or their plans to find out what most people think about specific issues comfortable adj. not causing pain, producing physical comfort lag v. to move more slowly than others network n. a group of people who are closely connected with each other LEXINGTON, Neb. The Dawson County Childrens Museums January program was held on Saturday morning at Lexington Public Library. The theme lesson and interactive feature were Kaleidoscopes. Students who attended the free event hear about the math and science involved in a Kaleidoscope and learned how to make their own from scratch. The word Kaleidoscope comes from the Greek word that means viewing beautiful form. The cool thing about Kaleidoscope is it combines math and science, said Pat Longly, director of the Dawson County Childrens Museum. Merriam-Websters Dictionary defines a Kaleidoscope as an instrument containing loose bits of colored material (as glass or plastic) between two flat plates and two plane mirrors so placed that changes of position of the bits of material are reflected in an endless variety of patterns. Longly showed students how to make a Kaleidoscope from items that can be commonly found at home. For the cylinder, she had students canisters from Pringles brand potato chips. To provide the necessary reflection in the tunnel of the cylinder, Longly said students could use either aluminum foil or the inner foil found inside potato chip bags. To provide the necessary reflections and combinations of views, the foil inside the cylinder needed to be folded with three folds, equaling 360 degrees, she said. Finished Kaleidoscopes made by students at the event featured decorated wrapping paper and colored paper on the outside of the cylinders. The bottom of the cylinders, where the eye reaches the end of Kaleidoscope, had little chambers filled with glittered pieces of stars and other tiny designs. Students also received coloring sheets featuring Kaleidoscope designs for them to color. Kay Garrelts also spoke at the event about different types of Kaleidoscopes. Kaleidoscopes use reflections out of mirrors. Making a Kaleidoscope is like putting Math and Science together to make art, Garrelts said. Google Android may have been developed as a smartphone operating system (and later ported to tablets, TVs, watches, and other platforms), but over the past few years weve seen a number of attempts to turn it into a desktop operating system. One of the most successful has been Remix OS, which gives Android a taskbar, start menu, and an excellent window management system. The Remix OS team has also generated a lot of buzz over the past year, and this week the operating system gained a lot of new alpha testers thanks to a downloadable version of Remix OS that you can run on many recent desktop or notebook computers. But Remix OS isnt the only game in town. Phoenix OS is another Android-as-desktop operating system, and while its still pretty rough around the edges, there are a few features that could make it a better option for some testers. Some background I first discovered Phoenix OS from a post in the Remix OS Google Group, although Ive also found mentions of the operating system at the xda-developers forum, and from the makers of the UP single-board computer with an Intel Cherry Trail chip. Phoenix OS is available as a downloadable custom ROM that you can install on a Google Nexus 9 or Nexus 10 tablet. But you can also download an x86 version that can be loaded on a USB flash drive and run on a computer. I took the x86 version for a spin, and found that, like Remix OS for PC, Phoenix OS(x86) seems to be a heavily customized version of Android 5.1 Lollipop based on Android-x86 project code. But unlike Remix OS, you can easily boot Phoenix OS on computers that have 32-bit or 64-bit chips. So far, Remix is a 64-bit only operating system. Update: Whoops. It does *not* support 32-bit chips. I was mistaken because the download page says the operating system is 32-bit, and it loads on an older laptop that would not work with Remix OS, but that laptop does have a 64-bit processor. When I tried Phoenix OS on a netbook with a 32-bit Intel Atom N270 processor, the operating system would not run. Update 2: It looks like one of the first devices to ship with Phoenix OS may be the Alcatel Xess 17.3 Android all-in-one computer. How it looks The basic layout of Phoenix OS should be familiar to anyone thats used Remix OS (or Windows, for that matter). Theres a taskbar and a desktop. You can access a menu with a list of your apps as well as shortcuts for settings, computer information, and power options by clicking the Phoenix logo in the bottom left corner. And there are status icons on the right, including a notification icon that brings up a notification window from the right side of the screen. The first time you launch the app menu it will run in full-screen mode, but you can tap an arrow icon to shrink it so that it just hangs out in the corner of your screen. Most Android apps can be run in Phoenix OS, but instead of launching in full screen mode, theyll typically launch in smaller windows. You can maximize most apps to have them fill the whole screen, and some apps and games will only run in this mode. But if you want to view multiple apps at once, you can do that: just drag the sides of the app until the window is the size and shape youd like and position a bunch of windows around the screen so that you can, for instance, write a Word document while reading your email or surfing the web. Sometimes when resizing a browser window, I noticed that text/font sizes didnt automatically adjust to the new size, so I had to refresh the web page. And sometimes after resizing a window, I found it tricky to drag and drop that window to a new position on the screen without accidentally maximizing it. But overall the window system seems to work pretty well. The version of Phoenix OS(x86) I downloaded does not include Google Mobile Services, so theres no Google Play Store, Gmail, Chrome, or other Google apps. But you can easily download and install apps from third-party sources such as APK Mirror. Theres also a Chinese app store included, but Ive found that it can be tough to navigate if you dont read Chinese, and some apps may not be what you think they are. How to run Phoenix OS(x86) These instructions assume youre using a Windows computer. You may need to improvise a bit if youre using OS X or Linux. 1. Plug a USB flash drive with at least 4GB of disk space into your computer. Make sure to save any important data, since youre going to wipe all data from the drive in step four. 2. Download the latest Phoenix OS(x86) ZIP from the download page. 3. Download the USBMaker tool from the same page. 4. Run USBMaker.exe and select the ZIP file you just downloaded, the drive letter for your flash drive, and then click the write box. If you cant read the Chinese characters in the USBMaker.exe tool, the button next to the top line says browse and this is what you click to locate your ZIP file. The second entry is for the drive letter. Select the appropriate option. The button next to the third line says Write, and this is what you click to start preparing the disk. Youll see a green progress indicator in the box next to the Write button, and when the process is complete there will be a pop-up to let you know its safe to remove your drive or reboot your computer. 5. Once thats done, just plug the USB flash drive into the computer you want to run Phoenix OS on, boot the computer, and choose the USB flash drive from the boot options menu. On my Samsung laptop, I hit F10 during boot to choose the flash drive. On an Asus model, I was able to do the same thing by hitting Esc. Your procedure will vary depending on your computer, and not every PC is guaranteed to work. You might be able to get an idea of whether your system will run Phoenix OS by checking out the hardware compatibility page on the Android-x86 site. 6. The first time you run Phoenix OS youll probably be greeted by some Chinese characters. This is a drop-down box that lets you select your language. Just click the box and choose English if youd prefer to change the default language. Initial verdict I dont know that much about Phoenix OS. It sure looks a lot like Remix OS, but there are a few key differences in settings manager, default file browser, and the way window management works. At this point it seems to support a wider range of hardware than Remix OS, works with a 4GB USB flash drive (Remix recommends 8GB), and doesnt seem to have problems running on devices with USB 2.0 ports (Remix recommends USB 3.0). Like Remix OS, this operating system runs from a USB flash drive and doesnt make any changes to your computer. You can pull out the flash drive and insert it into another computer and all of your apps and settings will be available. Everything runs in what Remix calls resident mode, which means that if you install an app or login to an account, it will all be available next time you boot into Phoenix OS. Those features certainly go in the Pro category. But the developers of Remix OS have released their own hardware and worked with tablet and notebook makers to release official builds of the operating system for those devices. So theyve got a lot of expertise in this area and the company that develops Remix OS was founded by three former Google employees who are still in touch with folks at their former employer to make sure their software is compatible with Googles guidelines. Given that I dont know very much about the developers of Phoenix OS, I wasnt particularly anxious to try loading Google Mobile Services on the device and enter my Google account credentials. But I dont really have a problem doing that with Remix OS. Still, Phoenix OS definitely seems like a project worth keeping an eye on. Hi Everyone! Welcome to the adventures of Lilly My Cat. Here's some info that might be helpful: Cats of CharactersLilly - My beautiful Maine Coon CatPat - Me, who is the author of this blogFouad - My dear husbandHeidi - My lovely daughterTony - My wonderful son-in-lawAndrew - My great sonOliver - My little grandson whom I adore! New Delhi: BJP leader Ram Madhav Thursday denounced actor Aamir Khans remarks on intolerance, saying he should not only preach to an auto-rickshaw driver about the countrys prestige but also to his wife. Madhav also said the government would ensure that in future no need arises for award-wapsi, and asserted that there will be no compromise on the security of the countrys borders and self respect. In an apparent dig at Aamir, who recently courted controversy over his remarks on perceived intolerance in the country, Madhav said, It will not work that you preach to an autowallah how the countrys prestige has to be saved, but not tell the same to your own wife. Madhav, who was addressing students at Delhi Universitys SGBT Khalsa college, said: No one needs to return the awards, everyone will be taken care of, but the country should be respected. The individuals should also take care of the nations prestige. He said: We are dedicated to the security of the country. We want good relations with our neighbours. But with regard to the security of the countrys borders and its self-respect, no compromise will be accepted we will take care that no need arises to return awards years later. Maintaining that in articulation of dreams for the country, sometimes one can be politically incorrect too, the BJP leader said: We feel pained that we are living in such an atmosphere that we cannot see dreams, you cannot talk four good things about the countrys future as it has to be politically correct it has to be secular Madhav said. Swami Vivekananda had asserted in his address in Chicago that Indians not only tolerate but also accept and validate. Every American citizen is respected because of his countrys image in the world. Similarly, we want to make India an honourable nation. Not that the honour of our citizens is not our concern our main aim is to bring honour to India across the world, he said. There is no need of award wapsi. You do not safeguard your country like that. Every citizen should be respected here and if anything wrong happens, that will be taken care of, said Madhav. The BJP leader said ever since Narendra Modi took over as the Prime Minister, the image of the country has improved globally. He further said both his party and the government advocate development for all, which is why the Prime Minister always endorses Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas. PTI New Delhi: Infosys on Thursday appointed Punita Kumar Sinha, wife of Union Minister Jayant Sinha, as an Independent Director on its Board, and rejected charges of nepotism, asserting that the company will benefit from her vast professional experience. In a regulatory filing, India's second-largest software service exporter said it has "appointed Dr Punita Kumar Sinha as an Independent Director. The appointment is effective from 14 January, 2016." Punita Sinha is the Founder and Managing Partner of Pacific Paradigm Advisors, an independent investment advisory and management firm focussed on Asia. She is also a senior advisor and serves as an independent director for several companies. Her husband is Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha. The appointment was criticised on social media, with Congress MP Rajeev Shankarrao Satav raising the issue of nepotism. Infosys Appoints Punita Sinha, Wife of Jayant Sinha, as Director. Clear case of #Nepotism? https://t.co/qH1xSLGyGg RAJEEV SATAV (@SATAVRAJEEV) January 14, 2016 Infosys, however, defended the appointment, saying that the former senior managing director of Blackstone "will bring valuable perspectives to the Infosys Board". "We look forward to benefiting from her vast experience and understanding of the financial markets and investment banking. "The nominations committee of the Infosys Board has a well instituted process of identifying and evaluating individuals who could bring varied skills and expertise to the Board. Dr Sinha's appointment follows this process," it said. Netizens took to Twitter to criticise the appointment of the wife of a politician on a day when Infosys posted stellar third-quarter performance and provided better revenue guidance, beating the outlook by bigger rival Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). "If it is correct for Punita Kumar Sinha w/o Jayant Sinha to take up ind director's post at Infosys, how was Nalini Chidambaram wrong?," one of the tweets said. #Infosys appointed a Govt of India Minister's Wife as Independent Director Who will verify their Balance Sheets now? Shuvankar Mukherjee (@shuvankr) January 14, 2016 Remember the fuss when Nalini Chidambaram appeared as senior counsel for IT department when PC was FM? https://t.co/cyRh08uojj SANJAY HEGDE (@sanjayuvacha) January 14, 2016 Err she was a senior MD at Blackstone .... Infosys Appoints Punita Sinha, Minister's Wife, As Director https://t.co/E9R8toJ6X6 fortweetwo (@Doubledecacorn) January 14, 2016 "Her husband has a day job - Union Minister of State, Finance, and she is privy to govt's financial policies," tweeted one Pankaj Tiwari. Infosys also re-appointed Jeffrey S Lehman as an Independent Director for a term of two years with effect from 14 April, 2016 to hold office up to 13 April, 2018, and not be liable to retire by rotation. Lehman's current term of office as an Independent Director expires on 13 April, 2016. The appointment is subject to the approval of shareholders, the filing added. An independent director on board of Infosys earned at least Rs 1 crore annually in sitting fee and other remuneration, according to the company's Annual Report for 2014-15. PTI In a major and perhaps the boldest so far step to curb vehicular pollution, India is moving directly from Euro IV emission norms for petrol and diesel to Euro VI standards and the oil PSUs plans to invest Rs 28,750 crore for the transition. The decision was taken at an inter-ministerial meeting on 6 January to advance the date by four years to 1 April, 2020 for the implementation of Bharat Stage VI (equivalent to Euro VI norms followed globally) for supply of cleaner auto fuel, by altogether skipping the Euro V grade norms. The auto emission norms are emission standards which are adopted by the government of a nation to check the air pollutants released from any internal combustion engine equipment, including motor vehicles. According to the Centre for Science and Environment, the move to Bharat Stage-VI will bring down Nitrogen Oxide emissions from diesel cars by 68 per cent and 25 per cent from petrol engined cars. Cancer causing particulate matter emissions from diesel engined cars will also come down by a phenomenal 80 per cent, reports NDTV. The decision has been taken at a time when an intense debate is going on rising level of pollution, while an innovative odd-even formula is being tried in the National Capital to check vehicular pollution. Bharat Stage emission standards, introduced by the Union government in 2000 are used to regulate output of air pollutants from internal combustion engine. These norms were introduced in India in 2000, when the Bharat Stage norms were adopted by the then government, based on the European emission norms. Each stage specifies a certain limit on the pollutants released, which is controlled by the type of fuel made by the oil companies and the upgradations and modifications made by the auto firms to their vehicles to control the pollutants released from the vehicle. India currently has Bharat Stage-III (equivalent of Euro-III specifications) across the country and BS-IV in major cities. BS-IV will be supplied in most big cities by April 2016 and all over the country from April 2017. While Auto Fuel Policy had recommended implementation of BS-VI norms by 2024, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in October 2015 stated that his ministry will go straight from BS-IV to BS-VI by 2020 as there was not much difference in specifications of Euro-V and Euro-VI fuel. Refineries will be able to supply BS IV to the entire country only next year and then upgrade directly to BS VI, leapfrogging the intermediate stage of emission norms. The refinery upgrade, which reduces sulphur content by one-sixth, will mean big business opportunities for firms such as Larsen & Toubro and Engineers India, along with foreign technology suppliers, reports The Economic Times. State-owned Indian Oil Corp (IOC) will also invest Rs 21,000 crore in upgrading six refineries to produce Euro-VI grade petrol and diesel by April 2020, its director (Refineries) Sanjiv Singh said on Thursday. The investment on upgradation will raise the production cost of petrol by Rs 1.40 per litre and diesel by Rs 0.63. IOC, the nation's largest oil firm, is investing Rs 7,000 crore in upgrading fuel quality from Bharat Stage-III, equivalent to Euro-III emission norm, to BS-IV by next year, he said. Another, Rs 13,000-14,000 crore will be invested in six units to upgrade fuel quality straight to BS-VI or Euro-VI, he added. However, the Transport Ministry in a draft notification in November put the date for supply of BS-VI fuel at 1 April, 2021. BS-IV fuels contain 50 parts per million (ppm) sulphur, while BS-V and BS-VI grade fuel will have 10 ppm sulphur. Automobile industry body SIAM, which has been opposing the skipping of BS V to jump to BS VI, said it would comment only after seeing the notification. With inputs from agencies By Sony Joy In the last couple of years, India has been getting a great amount of capital that is funding start-ups. Unlike many decades earlier, the best global funding agencies are also coming to India and some of the leading multinationals have also set base in India. Technically, we have never had such a good opportunity like this ever. This gold rush to and in the country has also unfortunately thrown up a lot of people to start up who lack basic fundamentals and whose founders do not have good content. In 2016, with the government being proactive about the sector, it is hoped that checks and balances will be in place. In some sectors, the competition is so intense that many have had to shut shop. The food delivery business, for instance. This will lead investors to rethink their strategy and reconsider where and whom to fund in this nascent sector in India. There is also the risk of some good people missing the fund bus now. Earlier, start-ups were a phenomenon that was witnessed largely emerging out of metro cities of the country. Bengaluru remains the start-up capital of the country. But the initiative to start-up and come out with innovation products and services has percolated to Tier 2 and 3 cities. A person living in a small town who realises that a Flipkart or Snapdeal cant deliver there comes up with an idea that works for the big giants and also reaches to the far-flung customers in the country. The cost of starting up is at an all-time low. What do you need? Just a website, a mobile connection, a server. All this is available on the cloud. If you have a brilliant coding guy, he can start-up. A decade ago, starting up was a costly affair. Now the ecosystem is evolving and there are a host of support systems that enables the sector. To be able to get the right capital at different stages of the start-up is crucial. If the capital is less, the start-up suffers but if it gets more than it deserves, it ends up spoiling it for itself and also for others in the sector. We have a tendency to focus on the success stories. But for every one start-up that hits the bulls eye, there are 1000 that does not. The attitude towards start-ups too has changed in the country. This change has happened recently and it may not last for long. In this scenario, it is the time to push forward with schemes and plans from the government to benefit the sector. There is good penetration of smartphones in the country and that brings in a lot of customers to the start-up ecosystem. This is only increasing by the day and consequently the opportunities are growing like never before. The government should benchmark what is being provided to customers so that customer complaints can be solved. For instance, telecom regulatory authorities should ask companies why there is call drops and customers severely affected by it. I expect the government to put such regulatory norms in place so that there is accountability at all levels. The government should proactively involve itself in ensuring that infrastructure and raw material sourcing is made easier so that the start-up ecosystem can thrive vibrantly in the country. Just by having one million people we are not going to build one billion companies. We need infrastructure, access to capital, ease of doing business norms to be able to function at optimal level and rise to the top ranking in start-ups globally. Start-ups are not only about tech but also about education and how it can be introduced in the curriculum in school and colleges. The government should take a proactive step in making entrepreneurship a viable and attractive option for students. Though the government is taking a good first step by being proactive to the start-up sector, it should not be too involved with the sector, too. The government should play the role of an enabler, come out with the right policies and ensure that these are implemented on time and focus on giving a fair play arena to all those who wish to start-up. The author is CEO & Founder, Chillr, a Mumbai-based payment app company New Delhi: Countering the claim of Delhi Police, the head of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) forensic department, Dr Sudhir Gupta, has said that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) report "did not rule out the presence of radioactive substances" in Sunanda Pushkar's viscera samples. Due to the degraded condition of the viscera samples, however, the agency could not read the intensity of the substances, he said. "Both the possibilities are there: Somebody could have poisoned her or she may have consumed it on her own. The police should investigate it," Gupta told IANS over phone in New Delhi on Friday. Gupta said the FBI had "confirmed AIIMS report of poisoning" and added that "Delhi Police had sent us the FBI report for review and we've further confirmed the cause of death as poisoning". "The FBI found a few radioactive substances in the viscera. But due to degraded viscera, they could not read its intensity," he added. Asked what could have been the substance that caused death, Gupta said, "Those substances can't be easily detected." However, earlier on Friday, commenting on the FBI report, Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi said: "None of the samples contained radio-active elements, according to the FBI." Bassi also said that Sunanda Pushkar did not die a natural death and that was for certain. Pushkar, 52, wife of senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor was found dead in a south Delhi hotel room on January 17, 2014. The AIIMS medical board in its second opinion in 2014 had listed poisonous substances such as thallium, polonium-210, nerium oleander, snake bites, photolabile poisons, and heroin, which were said to be either undetectable or difficult to detect at Indian laboratories. According to Gupta, "These substances were listed to broaden the scope of investigation for the police." The report given by the board had also stated that "the cause of death was poisoning and the viscera was positive for ethyl alcohol, caffeine, acetaminophen and cotinine". Pushkar's viscera samples were sent to the FBI lab in Washington DC, US, in February last year to determine the poison that may have killed her. Earlier, an AIIMS medical board identified poisoning as the reason for her death. The FBI report was received from the US via email in October 2015. IANS Sunanda Pushkar's body contained a "dangerous chemical" when she died, says the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), endorsing the AIIMS report of poisoning as the cause of death. The sensational case of Shashi Tharoor's wife's death has come back into the headlines with the Delhi Police chief coming out with new details after the FBI sent in its report. Sunanda, 51, was found dead at five-star hotel suite in South Delhi on the night of January 17, 2014, a day after her spat with Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar on Twitter over Tarar's alleged affair with Tharoor. Delhi Police registered a case of murder. Disclosing the receipt of the AIIMS report analyzing FBI's conclusions, Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi said Sunandas death was "not natural" but he ruled out the presence of radioactive material in her viscera. Sudhir Gupta, head of AIIMS Forensic Science department, said the FBI report also said the death was because of poisoning. One thing is clear that the death was not natural" One thing is clear that the death was not natural. It was unnatural as per our investigation till now and evidence collected so far. I can say that with certainty, Bassi told reporters here. He further said, I have no knowledge on the mention of any dangerous chemical in the FBI report. The FBI report had said none of the samples contained any radioactive material. I can confirm theres no radiaoactive material but certain other findings are there. We had given the entire report to the medical board which has examined and gave us a report. Same poison in all samples Gupta said FBI has not ruled out completely the presence of radioactive substances in viscera samples. But due to degraded condition of the viscera samples, they could not read the intensity of the substances. He said the FBI analysis of stomach, spleen, liver, kidney and urine has endorsed the cause of death saying that the same poison is present in all the viscera. It also endorsed the AIIMS post-mortem report saying cause of death is poisoning. However, FBI additionally mentioned the presence of a dangerous chemical which may be cause of the death if given injectable, Gupta said. In January last year, Delhi Police had registered a case of murder in connection with the death of Sunanda. Radiation levels within safety norms An AIIMS medical board had found poisoning as reason for Sunanda's death after which the police had sent her viscera samples to an FBI lab in Washington last year. There was speculation that Sunanda may have died as a result of poisoning through radioactive substances. The FBI had sent its report to Delhi Police two months ago. The report said the radiation levels in Sunandas viscera samples were within the standard safety norms besides mentioning other details. As police could not firm up about cause of the death based on the FBI report, they requested a medical board of AIIMS to analyse the contents of the report. Bassi said the case will be taken to its logical conclusion soon and all possible angles are being examined. The medical board has submitted to us a 11-page report with 32 pages of annexures which are to be examined. They have mentioned about certain conclusions which are now to be investigated, he said. FBI report had said that radioactive levels were within acceptable range. It had ruled out the radioactive angle. Certain other chemical compounds were found by the FBI lab. The medical board has given certain conclusions. We will investigate those, Bassi said. The Delhi Police Commissioner today held a meeting which was attended by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the case. Special Commissioner of Delhi Police (Law and Order) Deepak Mishra briefed about all related angles in the case. Have been told that Medical Boards advice in late Sunandas case has been received, Bassi tweeted. He added Mishra was reviewing the progress in the case. The investigators have so far conducted polygraph test on six persons, all prime witnesses in the case, including Tharoors domestic help Narayan Singh, driver Bajrangi and Sanjay Dewan, a close friend of the couple. Tharoor was not subjected to the test but was questioned thrice in the case. The FBI report had ruled out the theory of the variant of a radioactive element named Polonium having caused Sunandas death, noting that radiation levels in her viscera sample were within the standard safety norms. In January last year, police had claimed that Sunanda was poisoned, and registered a murder case against unknown persons. Three others S K Sharma, Vikas Ahlawat and Sunil Takru, had also undergone the polygraph test. The police team probing the case has so far questioned at least 15 people. Tharoor, his staff members and close friends were among those questioned by Delhi Police. Sunandas son Shiv Menon was quizzed by the SIT on February 5 last year. The AIIMS medical board in its second report submitted to police on September 30 in 2014 had listed substances such as polonium-210, thallium, snake venom, nerium oleander and heroin, which they said to be either undetectable or difficult to detect at Indian laboratories. The medical board had examined all the injuries on her body out of which injury number 10 was termed as a mark caused by the needle of a syringe. The reports mentioned 12 injury marks on Sunandas body, including the injection mark on her hand and marks of a bite. With Agencies Amritsar: The sound of gun shots pierced the peace of Amritsar's famous Golden Temple and a stray bullet narrowly missed an SGPC 'sewadar' (worker) on Thursday where the holiest of Sikh shrines Harmandar Sahib is located. The bullet, according to police officials in Amritsar, pierced the turban and jacket of the worker, Gurpreet Singh, who was standing near the marbled periphery of the complex. The bullet scratched Singh's chest, he was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. Bullet fired by an unidentified person from outside Golden Temple hits an SGPC employee on duty in Golden Temple. pic.twitter.com/e4DHolekgL ANI (@ANI_news) January 14, 2016 The incident set off panic among a section of devotees as the bullet landed on the floor. Hundreds of devotees had thronged the shrine on the day of Makar Sankranti. Senior police and SGPC officials rushed to the spot. "We are investigating the origin of the bullet. It is still a mystery from where it came," a police officer said. IANS New Delhi: Juvenile offenders aged 16 to 18 years can now be tried as adults in cases of heinous crimes like rape and murder with a new law in this regard coming into force from Friday. The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Bill was passed by Rajya Sabha in the Winter Session and signed by the President into Act on 4 January. Under the Act, those aged between 16 and 18 years may be tried as adults if they commit heinous crimes. Under the juvenile justice system till now, even those accused of heinous offences like rape could be tried only by Juvenile Justice Boards and, if found guilty, sent to correctional homes for not more than three years. The JJB has been given the option to transfer cases of heinous offences by such children to a children's court after conducting preliminary assessment. Among other key provisions of the law are -- change in word from 'juvenile' to 'child' or 'child in conflict with law' to remove the negative connotation associated with the word 'juvenile'. The revised law includes several new definitions such as orphaned, abandoned and surrendered children, and petty, serious and heinous offences committed by children. It also provides enhanced clarity with regard to powers, functions and responsibilities of JJBs and Child Welfare Committees (CWCs) and clear timelines for their inquiries. The demand for reducing the age for trying juveniles who are said to have committed serious offences was made following the 16 December gangrape case, in which a paramedical student was brutally gangraped and assaulted in a moving bus in the national capital. PTI Mumbai: Hamid N Ansari, a techie from Mumbai who went missing in Pakistan on 10 November, 2012, is reported to be alive and in custody of the Pakistan Army, an activists' group said on Thursday. "We are relieved and happy to hear that he's safe. But we are uncertain of the future. We want our son to return soon," his happy father Nehal Ansari told IANS. The Pakistan India Peoples' Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) said "it is heartening to know that young Hamid N Ansari is alive". "Deputy Attorney General of Pakistan, Mussaratullah Khan on Wednesday informed the Peshawar High Court that the defence ministry had informed him about Ansari who was in the custody of their army and was being court-martialled," PIPFPD India general secretary Jatin Desai said. The aged parents of then 27-year-old Hamid, a resident of Andheri West suburb of Mumbai, left no stone unturned trying to locate him. He had reportedly entered Pakistan illegally through the Afghanistan border as he was in love with a girl from Kohat whom he had befriended on social media networks. Since the girl's parents were planning to get her married soon, Ansari took the risk of entering Pakistan illegally to meet her but soon went missing. The PIPFPD claimed that everyone who tried to help out in this case were targeted, and at least one local media person, Zeenat Shehzadi, is also reported missing. "There is no doubt that it is only through a sustained judicial effort that brought the Pakistan Army and government to respond to the court and acknowledge that Hamid N Ansari is in their custody, though he should have been produced in a court long back," Desai said. His overjoyed family members received the information on Thursday afternoon and are praying that he is released as soon as possible. Hamid, an engineer and an MBA, had been lured by an airlines job in the operations sector, and had gone to Kabul on 4 November, 2012 and promised to return within a week. After he went missing, his family feared he may have been abducted by some terror groups and moved the state and central governments for help to trace him. "We recognise the humanitarian efforts of friends, well-wishers and lawyers. It has been a long struggle for Hamid's parents. We appeal to the Pakistan government to release him as he has been already in custody for more than three years," Desai urged. The PIPFPD also requested the Pakistan government permit Ansari's parents and family to meet him and said both the Indian and Pakistani governments must view this issue through a humanitarian perspective. IANS The issue about whether or not women of 'reproductive age should be allowed to enter the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple in Kerala has been hotly debated across the country over the past decade, and two clear arguments have emerged. The first of these is the tradition argument (read this piece by MA Deviah) and the second is the womens sexuality argument (read this piece by Urvashi Butalia). However, developments over the recent days threaten to render them both moot. At the centre of the storm is a 2006 public interest litigation (PIL) placed before the Supreme Court by the Indian Young Lawyers Association (IYLA). The petition called for women of all ages to be allowed entry to the Sabarimala temple, and has been listed for final disposition by the countrys top court, with the next hearing scheduled for Sunday. However, over the past few days, Delhi-based president of the IYLA advocate Naushad Ahmed Khan and advocate Ravi Prakash Gupta who filed the petition have been on the receiving end of over 500 threat calls. I am receiving threatening calls since Wednesday on my mobile number. Callers are from different numbers, different parts of the country and even international numbers, including internet calls, said Khan. A large percentage of these numbers originate from West Asia and the US. Not entirely unexpectedly, Khans protests that he was not the petitioner fell on deaf ears. Callers have threatened me saying that they would blow up my house and kill me I am being targeted as a Muslim lawyer when I have no say in the matter, he told The Daily Mail. Its interesting that these death threats are only just cropping up. Perhaps, its because the Supreme Court is set to deliver its verdict soon. Or maybe its got something to do with the fact that the three-judge Special Bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Dipak Misra, observed on Tuesday that unless the Travancore Devaswom Board that manages the temple has a constitutional right to prevent women from entering, they may not prohibit the entry of women. Clearly, this didnt sit well with the 500+ callers who sensed that the side of the debate that they espoused was in danger. That the solution to tackling someone with a different view of how-things-should-be is to wipe them off the face of the Earth is not even shocking anymore. After all, were seeing this solution being deployed in West Asia every day. Were seeing it in Europe. Weve seen it in India. The idea that the pen is mightier than the sword, but the sword is more effective is one that not only defeats the purpose of debate, but destroys any hope of having all viewpoints heard. And that is exactly what is happening to the Sabarimala PIL. The atmosphere has become vitiated to the point where the debate was overshadowed by these threats of violence. And (justifiably) fearful for his life, Khan approached the Supreme Court seeking to withdraw the petition. Fortunately, the apex court stepped in and made it that much harder for the sword to cut down the pen. Recognising the serious nature of the threats to Khan and Gupta, the Supreme Court announced that it will appoint amicus curiae to decide on the PIL constitutionally. Regardless of the eventual verdict, this is a step in the right direction and it sends out the message to those threatening violence that ideas are indeed bulletproof BEIRUT/GENEVA The U.N. Children's Fund UNICEF on Friday confirmed cases of severe malnutrition among children in the besieged western Syrian town of Madaya, where local relief workers reported 32 deaths of starvation in the past month. A mobile clinic and medical team of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent was on its way to Madaya after the government approved an urgent request, and a vaccination campaign is planned next week, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. Two convoys of aid supplies were delivered this week to the town of 42,000 under a months-long blockade. The United Nations said another convoy was planned to Madaya, sealed off by pro-government forces, and rebel-besieged villages of al-Foua and Kefraya in Idlib next week, and that regular access was needed. "UNICEF ... can confirm that cases of severe malnutrition were found among children," it said in a statement, after the United Nations and Red Cross had entered the town on Monday and Thursday to deliver aid for the first time since October. UNICEF spokesman Christophe Boulierac told a news briefing in Geneva that UNICEF and WHO staff were able to screen 25 children under five and 22 of them showed signs of moderate to severe malnutrition. All were now receiving treatment.A further 10 children aged from 6 to 18 were examined and six showed signs of severe malnutrition, he said. UNICEF staff also witnessed the death of a severely malnourished 16-year-old boy in Madaya, while a 17-year-old boy in "life-threatening condition" and a pregnant women with obstructed labor need to be evacuated, Boulierac said. Abeer Pamuk of the SOS Children's Villages charity said of the children she saw in Madaya: "They all looked pale and skinny. They could barely talk or walk. Their teeth are black, their gums are bleeding, and they have lots of health problems with their skin, hair, nails, teeth. "They have basically been surviving on grass. Some families also reported having eaten cats," she said in a statement. "A lot of people were also giving their children sleeping pills, because the children could not stop crying from hunger, and their parents had nothing to feed them." She said her agency was working to bring unaccompanied and separated children from Madaya to care centers in quieter areas just outside the capital Damascus. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three people in critical condition were evacuated to a hospital in the city of Latakia, on Syria's government-controlled Mediterranean coast, from Kefraya and al-Foua on Friday. DYING OF STARVATION World Food Programme (WFP) spokeswoman Bettina Luescher said that the local relief committee in Madaya had provided figures on the extent of starvation, but it could not verify them. "Our nutritionist...was saying that it is clear that the nutritional situation is very bad, the adults look very emaciated. According to a member of the relief committee, 32 people have died of starvation in the last 30-day period." Dozens of deaths from starvation have been reported by monitoring groups, local doctors, and aid agencies from Madaya. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday Syria's warring parties, particularly the government, were committing "atrocious acts" and he condemned the use of starvation as a weapon of war in the nearly five-year-old conflict. "It can also be a crime against humanity. But it would very much depend on the circumstances, and the threshold of proof is often much more difficult for a crime against humanity (than for a war crime)," U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville told a briefing in Geneva on Friday. The United Nations says there are some 450,000 people trapped in around 15 siege locations across Syria, including in areas controlled by the government, Islamic State militants and other insurgent groups. (Reporting by John Davison and Tom Perry in Beirut; Writing by Stephanie Nebehay and Mariam Karouny; Editing by Mark Heinrich) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Jakarta: Following the attacks on Thursday morning, police authorities on Friday announced the arrest of three people suspected to have been involved in the attack. Here's what happened after the attacks: 9.10 am on Friday Police have told an Indonesian TV channel that they have arrested three men on suspicion of links to the attack in Jakarta. Depok area police chief Colonel Dwiyono told MetroTV that the men were arrested at dawn at their homes in Depok on the outskirts of Jakarta. Dwiyono, who goes by one name, says the men are suspected militants and are being questioned over possible links to the attack Thursday that killed seven. MetroTV broadcast footage of the handcuffed men being escorted by police. ___ 8 am on Friday The secretary general of the United Nations has condemned the bombings and gun attacks in Jakarta and expressed "his solidarity with the government and people of Indonesia." A statement released by Ban Ki-moon's spokesman said the secretary general "reaffirms that there is absolutely no justification for such acts of terrorism. He hopes the perpetrators of today's attacks will be swiftly brought to justice." Thursday's attack in central Jakarta left seven dead, five were the attackers and two were civilians and Indonesian and a Canadian. ___ 3.38 am on Friday The United States is condemning the terrorist attack in Jakarta "in the strongest terms." Ned Price, a spokesman for President Barack Obama's National Security Council, says the US will stand by Indonesia's government as it works to bring those responsible for the attack to justice and as it works to build a more secure future. Price says that the nation's thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of the victims. ___ 10.50 pm on Thursday Indonesians are visiting the site of Thursday's attack, leaving flowers and messages calling for prayers and national unity. A large LCD screen on top of the building that houses the attacked Starbucks was broadcasting messages that said "#prayforjakarta" and "Indonesia Unite." Some people left flowers near the traffic police post that was attacked along with a wreath that read "Deep condolences. We are not afraid." One man held up a placard that said "After a dark night, there will be a bright sunlight in the morning, don't be afraid God is with us. #pray4jakarta #indonesiabrave" ___ 9.30 pm on Thursday Islamic State group backers have circulated a claim of responsibility for the Indonesian suicide attacks resembling the extremist group's previous messages. The claim was shared on Twitter late Thursday. The U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group said it also circulated among pro-Islamic State groups on the message app Telegram. The message said four attackers carried out the assault in Jakarta and had planted several bombs with timers. It said they also wore suicide belts and carried light weaponry. The statement could not be independently verified by The Associated Press, though it resembled previous claims made by the group, which controls territory in both Iraq and Syria. Indonesian police said five not four attackers and two other people were killed in explosions and gunfire Thursday in downtown Jakarta. ___ 8.30 pm on Thursday The top diplomats of Saudi Arabia and the United States, who are meeting in London amid tensions between the kingdom and Iran, have condemned the Jakarta attack. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir says the attack should "strengthen our resolve to work effectively together to combat the scourge of terrorism." Speaking to reporters at the same hotel in London, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry echoed him. "These acts of terror are not going to intimidate nation-states from protecting their citizens and continuing to provide real opportunity, education, jobs, possibilities of a future," he said. "There is nothing in any act of terror that offers anything but death and destruction." ___ 8 pm on Thursday The chief of the U.N. Environment Program says a Dutch man who was seriously injured when attackers set off suicide bombs and exchanged gunfire outside a Starbucks cafe in Jakarta is "fighting for his life." The UNEP said the man works for the organisation in Jakarta and is a "renowned expert in forestry and ecosystems management" who is part of a U.N. team supporting the Indonesian government in tackling peat land fires. The man's identity has not been released. UNEP chief Achim Steiner said the organisation "condemns in the strongest possible terms these senseless acts of terror." The Dutch Foreign Ministry earlier said the man was in surgery. It had no update on his condition Thursday afternoon. Five attackers and two other people were killed in explosions and gunfire Thursday in downtown Jakarta. ___ 7 pm on Thursday In the Philippines, the military went on "heightened alert" following the attacks in neighboring Indonesia, although it said no specific terrorist threats had been monitored. Police also beefed up security in train stations, bus terminals, airports and shopping malls and asked for public vigilance. The Philippine government condemned the attacks. "We stand by in solidarity with our Indonesian brothers and sisters in this time of tragedy," The Department of Foreign Affairs said. Militants from at least four small Muslim groups in the country's south have pledged support to the Islamic State group, although the Philippine military says there is no evidence of direct contact or active collaboration. Five attackers and two other people were killed in explosions and gunfire Thursday in downtown Jakarta. ___ 6 pm on Thursday The Aamaq news agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic State group, is quoting an unnamed source as saying the group carried out the attack in Jakarta. The news agency has been used as a source for the IS militants in the past. However, according to SITE, which tracks militant websites, the Islamic Group has not yet issued a communique claiming responsibility for the attack. The report in Arabic said that a source told Aamaq that "fighters from the Islamic State carried out this morning an armed attack that targeted foreigners and the security forces tasked with protecting them in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta." ___ 5.50 pm on Thursday Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz has strongly condemned the attack in Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, and expressed grief and sorrow over the loss of lives. In a statement, Sharif says the people and government of Pakistan "share the pain of Indonesian brethren at this critical moment". He says terrorism is a common threat to Muslim countries and to fight it is their collective responsibility. AP As social media lit up with tributes, Radcliffe, a known-social media introvert, offered a rare insight on the loss of Rickman, who died from cancer on Thursday. The death of the revered 69-year-old actor has sparked an outpouring of shock and grief from fans and celebrities around the world. On screen they spent six films locked in a passionate hate for one another, as Professor Severus Snape and Harry Potter, but in life the bond between the late Alan Rickman and Daniel Radcliffe could not have been stronger. "Alan Rickman is undoubtedly one of the greatest actors I will ever work with. He is also, one of the loyalest and most supportive people I've ever met in the film industry," Radcliffe said in a post on Google+, the only online social network in which he participates. Rickman and Watson in in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004). Credit:Warner Brothers "He was so encouraging of me both on set and in the years post-Potter. I'm pretty sure he came and saw everything I ever did on stage both in London and New York. He didn't have to do that." Radcliffe spoke of the perceptions created of actors, as a result of the roles they play. "It might surprise some people to learn that contrary to some of the sterner (or downright scary) characters he played, Alan was extremely kind, generous, self-deprecating and funny. And certain things obviously became even funnier when delivered in his unmistakable double-bass." Radcliffe was just 10 years old when he made his on-screen debut in the first Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Alan Rickman began his career in the theatre and returned to it throughout his life, however it is work in film that brought him international acclaim and recognition. He displayed extraordinary range, excelling as both arch villains and dashing romantic heroes, appealing to both adults and children alike. Here is a small selection of some of most memorable film roles. Action films of the 80s and 90s almost always needed a dastardly bad guy with a thick foreign accent and sadistic streak to play against the usually much more bland all-American hero. Hans Gruber, the ruthless German terrorist/thief of Die Hard, is the ultimate villain of this genre, and Rickman's performance helped turn the film into a modern classic. He brought his serious theatrical training to the role, turning in a performance that was both funny and menacing, and full of slick swagger and camp sophistication. "And when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer," he quotes at one point, before quipping, "Benefits of a classical education." The audience is rooting for Bruce Willis' John McClane in the film, but everybody loves Gruber. Jamie, Truly, Madly, Deeply (1990) In the romantic comedy Roger Ebert called "Ghost for grownups", Rickman played Jamie, a cellist who dies but returns in ghostly form to his girlfriend Nina (Juliet Stevenson). Unlike the overwrought Ghost, the British film from Anthony Minghella treats the subject matter with good humour as well as sensitivity and pathos, as Jamie slowly gets on Nina's nerves and makes her realise that perhaps what she needs to do is give up the ghost. Rickman proved to American audiences, who only knew him as Gruber, that he was more than just a villain in this film, bringing charm to the role and helping make the film an arthouse hit. The Sherriff of Nottingham, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) The famous HK-based actress Lynn Xiong is the new Star Ambassador of the Hollywood-inspired resort, Studio City. Ms Xiong made her first appearance as Star Ambassador yesterday while visiting the resort. She had the opportunity to participate in the final act of the The House of Magic show, contributing in the on-stage pop-up of a replica of a famous supercar. The teleporting act brought to an end the three-stage show, which included the famous illusionist Xiong and entertainers like Danny Cole, Kyle Knight & Mistie, Luis de Matos and Michael Turco, the last of whom is the man in charge of the main stage of The House of Magic by Franz Harary until the end of this month. Visiting the resort, Lynn said, As a professional actress, I dedicate myself to the art or movie-making, but it never dawned on me that there could be an integrated resort [like this] right here in Asia. It is marvelous and seemingly real, like a Hollywood movie scene. It was a very exciting surprise. Lynn seemed especially impressed with The House of Magic and with the fact that she could be a part of it. She said she was very nervous through the whole act. However, she also claimed that she felt honored to have participated in the show and that she had invested some extra care into the rehearsal, hoping that all would run perfectly. The tour ended with a trip in the Golden Reel, the number 8 shaped Ferris wheel that is one of the iconic features of Studio City. This is a place that the actress said she had read so much about and that she is planning to visit with the family at a later date. RM MUNFORD, Tennessee (AP) An unprecedented USD1.6 billion Powerball jackpot that became a national fascination will be split three ways, by mystery winners in Florida, Tennessee and California. The winners did not immediately identify themselves today (Macau time), but they bought their tickets in Munford, a town of about 6,000 in Tennessee; the modest Los Angeles suburb of Chino Hills; and at a supermarket in Melbourne Beach, Florida, where residents of a nearby housing development were heard partying loudly after Wednesday nights drawing. Spains massively popular Christmas lottery, known as El Gordo, is ranked as the worlds richest, though it doles out millions of prizes rather than one large jackpot like the Powerball. The winners of the world-record Powerball jackpot overcame odds of 1 in 292.2 million to land on all the numbers: 4-8-19-27-34 and Powerball 10. They can let the jackpot be invested and thereby collect 30 annual payments totaling an estimated $533 million, or split $983.5 million in cash all at once. The huge draw also produced eight $2 million Power Play winners and 73 $1 million winners nationwide who matched all five white balls but missed the red Powerball, said Sally Lunsford of the Kansas Lottery. The California ticket was sold at a 7-Eleven; the Florida ticket at a Publix grocery store. Tennessee officials did not immediately say which of the three Munford stores offering Powerball tickets produced the winner. That store will get a $25,000 check; Floridas store collects $100,000, and California lottery spokesman Alex Traverso told The Associated Press that a $1 million bonus will be shared between the Chino Hills store owner and the 7-Eleven company. The amounts that follow each states rules. TV trucks from Memphis quickly arrived in Munford, where people marveled over the winning ticket and joked about what they would have done with the money. Auto body shop worker Jerry Caudle said he was freaking out when he heard a winning ticket was sold in his town, but then saw that he matched only two numbers, for a prize of $14. He wore a wistful smile as he left the Munford Short Stop gas station and convenience store, which offers Tipton Countys best chicken on a stick for $3.69. Its been tough, Caudle said. The hardest winter for me here in 17 years. The California store and its surrounding strip mall suddenly became a popular gathering spot in the rural suburb of 78,000, where cows still graze on hillsides. Hundreds of people crowded the store and spilled into its parking lot, cheering and mugging for the television cameras and chanting Chino Hills! Chino Hills! Store owner Balbir Atwal worked as an electronics salesman after emigrating from India in 1981, and bought his first 7-Eleven franchise at the age of 27. Now he owns four. He said he has sold winning tickets before, but never like this one. Every time we say, oh, this is time, Atwal said. I was just joking, I said, this is the time someones going to hit it. Michael Fahim, 48, real estate broker from Chino Hills, said he bought 20 lottery tickets Wednesday night just up the street. Im happy its in Chino Hills. I think it put us on the map all over the world, he said, adding that his brother called from Australia overnight to learn if he won. Some took selfies with the store clerk, who became an instant celebrity and may well have been the man who sold the ticket. Im very proud that the ticket was sold here, the clerk, M. Faroqui, told the local San Bernardino Sun. Im very happy. This is very exciting. In Melbourne Beach, neighbors were gossiping that the winner might be someone in a housing development several miles from the Publix where loud partying could be heard, according to Lisa Londini, a professional caregiver who was shopping at the market Thursday. The winner could be as close as your neighbors! she said, visibly excited. I wish it was me! JEROME Prosecutors have dropped the case against a Wendell man accused of leaving a crash that killed a 2-year-old boy in Jerome on Sep. 12, 2014. Sergio Garcia, the toddlers father, said prosecutors told him Wednesday there wasnt enough evidence to continue with the case. Bernave Avila-Romero, 26, was charged with one felony count of leaving the scene of an accident resulting in injury or death. He was arraigned Aug. 31, almost a year after the death of Damian Garcia Eudabe on 21st Avenue East in the Stoney Ridge subdivision west of Tiger Drive. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for Thursday in front of Magistrate Judge Jennifer Haemmerle, but instead of proceeding with that hearing, the case was dismissed on a motion by a deputy prosecuting attorney. Haemmerlre ordered the case dismissed without prejudice, meaning Horgans office has the option to refile charges against Avila-Romero. But Jerome County Prosecutor John Horgan has a policy of not speaking to reporters, so its unclear if his office intends to pursue new charges or not. The prosecutors told us we have five years to file a new case, Garcia said in Spanish in a phone interview Thursday night. Garcia wasnt sure if he spoke with Horgan or someone else from the prosecutors office. We want justice, Garcia said. The prosecutors are in agreement with that, but they said they didnt have sufficient evidence. The deputy prosecuting attorney who motioned for dismissal answered no comment when asked about the case after Thursdays hearing. When pressed whether the prosecuting attorneys office planned to refile charges, she did not respond. Horgan said through a secretary he didnt have time to speak with a reporter. Rockne Lammers, the defense attorney for Avila-Romero, also said through his secretary he had no comment. Mark Maxa, a neighbor who lives down the street from where Damian was killed, said thats a terrible thing when informed Thursday the case was dismissed. My personal opinion is that justice was not served, Maxa said. I just dont believe justice was done for the child who tragically lost his life, or for the family. Jerome Police Chief Dan Hall called the situation a tragedy. His officers were the first to respond to the crash, but Idaho State Police took over the investigation because of the agencys expertise in these types of situations. As far as I know, no one in our department was involved in the decision making process, Hall said of Horgans decision to drop the charge. Residents in the Stony Ridge subdivision expressed concern last summer about people driving dangerously in their neighborhood. But Maxa did note that since Damians death, theres been a lot more vigilance about the way people drive in the neighborhood and fewer people passing through. Jerome police are proactive and aggressive about enforcing traffic laws and writing tickets when theyre warranted, Hall said. But I cant say weve done more traffic enforcement on that street than any other residential street, Hall said. Damians mother, Guadalupe Eudabe, told the Times-News through an interpreter in July that law enforcement officials havent sought justice and she thinks its because her family is Hispanic. According to court documents, her son was struck by a black Dodge Ram pickup that continued east and turned onto Tiger Drive after hitting the boy. Jerome police arrived within two minutes of the call, but it took 21 minutes for emergency medical services to arrive. Avila-Romero turned himself in the next day. TWIN FALLS One of four people charged with robbing a man hours before he was found dead in his home has pleaded guilty to a robbery charge and agreed to cooperate in the prosecution of the other three people charged in the case. Katie Lynn Pingree, 20, of Twin Falls pleaded guilty Thursday morning in Twin Falls District Court to aiding and abetting robbery. As part of the plea agreement, Pingree admitted to helping two men bind, gag and beat Tigre Martinez in his Twin Falls home May 25, but prosecutors agreed not to charge Pingree with any other crime including homicide in connection to the case. The plea deal is a rule 11 agreement, meaning District Judge Richard Bevan will be bound during sentencing by the conditions of the deal. Pingree has agreed to serve three to five years in prison. Pingree also agreed to cooperate with law enforcement in providing information about the identity, location and involvement of three other suspects: Caleb Hinton, Dwayne McCormick and Laaken Draper. According to court documents, the four planned the robbery at Pingrees house then went to Martinezs house where they tied him up, taped a rag into his mouth and beat him with a piece of wood or billy club. After stuffing Martinezs belongings into bags and pillow cases, they untied Martinez, but his body went limp, court records said. A roommate found Martinez dead later that morning. Asked why she was pleading guilty to the charge, Draper denied the robbery was planned at her house. She told Bevan she was in Jerome when she got a call to help move Hinton and Drapers belongings and said she was letting Hinton and Draper live with her because they were homeless. Pingree told the court that when she got to Martinezs house, she started moving things out on Hintons orders. I reviewed the probable cause affidavit, Bevan told Pingree. It indicates you were interviewed by police and admitted to handing something to Caleb Hinton at his request with which to restrain Mr. Martinez. Is that accurate? Yes, sir, Pingree responded. During the process of the robbery, you did hand what to Mr. Hinton? Bevan asked. Rope? Tape? Cloth? Like I told (police), I dont really recall, Pingree answered. We were all under the influence of methamphetamine. Deputy Prosecutor Rosemary Emory said Pingrees answers werent satisfactory. We also think the evidence would show Ms. Pingree was present while Mr. Hinton and Mr. McCormick did tie up Mr. Martinez and did beat him, Emory said. And that after that point in time she also assisted in removing items that belonged to Mr. Martinez. Ms. Pingree, lets break that down then, Bevan said. Were you present while these two gentlemen tied Mr. Martinez up? Yes, sir, Pingree answered. And did you assist in removing items from the home after he was beaten? Yes, sir, Pingree answered. Nobody has been charged in Martinezs death, and the plea agreement Bevan accepted Thursday ensures Pingree will not face homicide charges in connection with Martinezs death. Hinton, McCormick and Draper are each scheduled for preliminary hearings Friday. Pingrees sentencing is tentatively scheduled for Monday, Feb. 29, but Bevan said the hearing will likely be changed to another date. TWIN FALLS Actor Henry Winkler will come to Twin Falls in August to speak about learning disabilities and his own experience with undiagnosed dyslexia. Hes best known for his role as Arthur Fonzarelli on Happy Days for 10 seasons, from 1974-84. Accolades include two Golden Globe awards and three Emmy nominations. Winkler will speak Aug. 15 to Twin Falls School District employees during their opening day ceremony. Then, hell give a presentation that evening to other area educators and community members, tentatively slated for 7 p.m. at Twin Falls High Schools Roper Auditorium. The Twin Falls School District is bringing in Winkler because of his knowledge on learning disabilities, said Bill Brulotte, director of federal programs, policies and grants. He grew up with learning disabilities, but didnt realize it until he was an adult and his son was struggling in school, Brulotte said. Winkler will share his story, concerns involving his sons education and what he learned about himself. A book signing event and reception where community members will have a chance to meet Winkler are also in the works. Details about costs and how to get tickets will be released later this school year. Linda Watkins, executive director of the Twin Falls School District Education Foundation, spoke with a community member months ago who heard Winkler speak. That sparked the idea to see if hed come to Twin Falls. Watkins approached a local charitable foundation which she declined to name with a proposal. The foundation provided money for several requests, including Winklers appearance. In addition to his acting career, Winkler is an author. He and Lin Oliver wrote Hank Zipzer: The Worlds Greatest Under-Achiever a childrens book series. Winkler also published I Never Met an Idiot on the River in 2011 and released the first in a series of childrens books Ghost Buddy #1: Zero to Hero in 2012. BOISE Few lawmakers attended a speech Thursday at the Capitol by a controversial anti-Islam pastor who warned that states must protect their citizens from Muslim extremists because the federal government will not. Pastor Shahram Hadian was joined by Christopher Holton, a vice president at the Center for Security Policy, who said the Muslim Brotherhood has influenced politicians on both sides of the aisle, law enforcement, federal anti-terrorism and security agencies and the media, to the point that federal officials wont look at the ties between terrorist acts and Islamic doctrine or the views that motivate Islamic State followers to commit acts of terror. We can say it has nothing to do with Islam but they (ISIS) obviously have a different idea about that, Holton said. Holton and Hadian invited all 105 state lawmakers, but only a few more than a dozen attended. A handful of lawmakers briefly stopped by to listen to parts of the presentation, including House Majority Assistant Leader Brent Crane, but did not stay until the end. The speech drew about 100 listeners fewer than the number of protesters who gathered in the Capitol hallways, some carrying signs welcoming refugees. The event took place during the first week of the 2016 Idaho Legislature. No legislation regarding refugee resettlement has been presented, nor have legislative leaders hinted any bills are coming soon. State and local law enforcement have become the tip of the spear in this war, Holton said, as jihad supporters have switched from carrying large-scale terror attacks to smaller ones in Western countries, like the ones in San Bernardino, Calif., and Garland, Texas. Hadian told the crowd to pressure lawmakers at the state and federal levels to do what many of them have already said they want to do stop refugee resettlement. He cited the 32 states including Idaho whose governors called for changes or for a halt in refugee resettlement after the Paris attacks, and read a statement U.S. Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, released after the attacks calling for a halt in refugee resettlement. Some in the crowd inside the Lincoln Auditorium were enthusiastic, clapping along and cheering with Hadians points his attacks on the media went over particularly well. Others, mostly the people sitting in the rows farther back, sat stoically as he spoke. Rep. Heather Scott, R-Blanchard, and Sen. Sheryl Nuxoll, R-Cottonwood, both of whom have spoken on their concerns about Islamic law, urged their colleagues on the floor Thursday morning to attend Hadian and Holtons presentation. Attendees in the auditorium were outnumbered by protesters lining the hallway walls outside and holding signs proclaiming solidarity with Muslims and with refugees with slogans such as Refugees Welcome, Too Great to Hate and Islam is Not Terrorism. Hadian asked at the beginning for no outbursts, saying he wanted everyone to hear what he had to say and judge the facts for themselves. During the speech, one man shouted You lie! You lie! He lies! as Hadian spoke about al hijra, an Islamic doctrine the pastor said tells Muslims to move to other countries, establish separate communities and eventually take over. The presentation was mostly focused on security policy, refugee resettlement and the threat of ISIS and other jihadist groups, and didnt have as much of an emphasis on theology, which is the focus at some of Hadians public appearances, including one in Filer last year. Hadian spoke at length about the refugee resettlement process, what he says are flaws in the vetting process and the programs cost both to the federal government and to states and local communities. Hadian, who was raised Muslim and whose family fled Iran just before the Iranian Revolution imposed an Islamic state there, converted to Christianity about 16 years ago. He took issue with being characterized in the media as anti-refugee or hateful, and also with the idea that he doesnt know what hes talking about he still has family who live in an Islamic state, or who died thinking their purpose was to die in service to Allah, he said. Protesters and the media can say whatever they want, he said. But I want you to hear it from my mouth. Im not against refugees. But I am against this particular program as it stands, and I think many people in this state feel the same way. iStock/Thinkstock(OAHU, Hawaii) The U.S. Coast Guard says it has responded to a report of a military aircraft collision involving two helicopters off the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii, Chief Petite Officer Fara Mooers told ABC News. Responders are searching for 12 people in a debris field 2 miles off the coast of Haleiwa. Each helicopter was carrying six people. The Coast Guard received a call from the Marine Core Air Station, Kaneohe Bay, at 11:38 p.m. local time Thursday requesting assistance. Officials launched Coast Guard aircraft a MH65 helicopter and an HC130 Coast Guard airplane from Oahu. The Coast Guard is searching the debris with assistance from a Navy helicopter crew and the Honolulu Fire Department with a helicopter and rescue boat on scene. They have not located any personnel at this time and are continuing to search. ABC Breaking News | Latest News Videos Copyright 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. TWIN FALLS Two men who led sheriffs deputies on a chase Wednesday night that ended near downtown with a rollover crash and foot pursuit were each charged with two crimes Thursday. Kugar Alan Parrott, 20, of Twin Falls was arraigned in Twin Falls County Magistrate Court on felony counts of eluding a peace officer and possession of a stolen vehicle. Lawrence Ramon Johnson, 21, of Twin Falls was arraigned on a felony count of possession of a controlled substance and a misdemeanor count of resisting arrest. Both men were listed as homeless and from Twin Falls on court documents, but the sheriffs office said they are both from Salt Lake City. The Jeep Parrott was driving was reported stolen from Midvale, Utah, earlier this month. The chase started at 9:05 p.m. Wednesday when a sheriffs deputy tried to pull over the Jeep after seeing it run a light at Second Avenue South and Jerome Street, court records said. The Jeep accelerated away, turned off its headlights and ultimately swerved and rolled, coming to a rest on Third Avenue West near Wills Toyota. Sheriffs deputies later learned from the Twin Falls Police Department the Jeep was involved in a hit-and-run crash just minutes before fleeing from the deputy, court records said. Two men got out of the crashed Jeep and ran from the deputy, who followed them in his vehicle, court records said. Parrott, the driver, escaped momentarily after jumping over a fence to get inside an apartment complex. Johnson was the first to be arrested, near Reds Trading Post at 203 5th Ave S., court documents said. Parrott was later arrested near the same area, thanks in part to two witnesses who followed him after seeing him running. Both men were in custody at 9:18 p.m., and both were treated at St. Lukes Magic Valley Medical Center for cuts and injuries, court records said. During a search, deputies found a broken meth pipe in Johnsons pocket, court records said. A Twin Falls police officer also found the wallet belonging to Joshua Mullins in the back seat of the Jeep, and officers were investigating the statement of a witness who said a third person exited the Jeep after the crash. Parrott told police he dropped off Mullins earlier that night and Mullins wasnt in the Jeep when it crashed, court records said. Its not every day that two unrelated issues I care passionately about can be discussed in one Op-Ed. But last week, the issues of land management in the West and federal sentencing reform were central to the events in eastern Oregon. The standoff in Harney County has become a big story, landing on the front page of The New York Times and filling the cable news programs. I have called the protesters actions civil disobedience. Some have objected to this characterization, but I will leave it to Henry David Thoreau and the other great philosophers throughout history to have this debate, not to the liberal hacks of the Idaho and Washington media. At least we should agree that the protesters should leave the federal property peacefully and will have to face the consequences of their actions. I hope and pray that the protesters and law enforcement quickly reach a peaceful conclusion. But when the dust settles, important lessons must follow. Westerners are well aware that onerous federal land management has stripped hardworking Americans of the ability to profit from the fruits of their labor. But because of the injustice that sparked the standoff the outrageous five-year federal prison sentences for two fires that burned 140 acres of federal land the rest of the country is starting to learn more about this issue. Some liberals have demonized the protesters, calling them domestic terrorists, Yall Qaida, YokelHaram and Vanilla ISIS. Sadly, such demeaning talk makes it easy for the elite media and liberals to ignore the wrongs underlying the protests. At a town meeting in Burns, Ore., Louis Smith told reporters that he was pleased the media are finally paying attention to the plight of rural America. These guys, I hate to say it, theyve woke every one of you guys up, said Smith, whose ancestors homesteaded near the site of the protest, the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Every day of their working lives, families like those of the two men convicted Dwight Hammond and his son, Steven feel the heavy hand of burdensome laws and regulations enforced by detached bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. Those in the East have a hard time understanding what its like out here. In Idaho, 64 percent of the land is in federal hands. In five of the counties in the 1st Congressional District, more than three-quarters of the land is federal, topped by Valley County at 88 percent. Harney County, where the Hammonds live, is larger than Maryland, and 72 percent of it is owned by the feds. Restrictions on grazing, logging and mining have plagued eastern Oregon, just as they have my district, costing jobs and forcing young people to leave their families and the landscape they love. Inadequate land management has contributed to devastating wildfires. In 2012, the Miller Homestead Fire burned 160,000 acres in Oregon. Last year, the Soda Fire burned 284,000 acres in Southwest Idaho and eastern Oregon. The Hammonds admitted they started two small backfires to protect and improve their private grazing land. These fires moved to federal lands. Overzealous federal prosecutors charged them with arson under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 and sought the mandatory minimum sentence of five years. U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan refused to impose the five-year sentence, saying to do so would violate the Eighth Amendment barring cruel and unusual punishment. Hogan called such a penalty grossly disproportionate to the severity of the offenses here. Hogan also said, It would be a sentence that would shock the conscience. Hogan sentenced Dwight Hammond to three months and Steven Hammond to one year. They did their time. But the federal government appealed and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered that they serve the full five years. Both reported to federal prison last week, prompting a protest march in Burns and the subsequent takeover of refuge headquarters. When the EPA spilled 3 million gallons of toxic waste into a river from a Colorado mine, no one in the federal government was held accountable. But when a couple of ranchers start a fire on their own lands that moves to federal land, they are prosecuted under an anti-terrorism law. The good news is the country is now paying attention, and I believe two of the most important initiatives Ive worked on in Congress could right these wrongs. The first is shifting control of management of federal lands. I expect momentum to build for my bill to allow local officials to manage up to 2 percent of U.S. Forest Service lands as pilot projects, as well as other reforms to restore public lands to health and productivity. Second, the Hammond case highlights the need for broad criminal sentencing reform. I am proud to have introduced legislation to reduce mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and have worked closely with members of Congress on both sides of the aisle on legislation to further reform criminal sentencing requirements. Reforming mandatory minimums should not end with drug offenders. Mandatory minimums is not just an urban issue. This incident shows that mandatory minimums have been inappropriately applied to a variety of crimes undeserving of the excessive punishment. I will continue to work on legislation to ensure judges have the power to sentence offenders based on the facts and circumstances of each case. Millions of Americans are beginning to learn why we Westerners are so frustrated. One day, I hope well look back at the events in Oregon and see them as an important step toward restoring balance in federal land management and criminal sentencing practices. So, whatever happened to the Sangguniang Panlalawigan of Marinduque's "final decision" to junk the unacceptable proposed settlement agreement between PGM and Barrick Gold? It seems that to the very end and up to this day, the august SP appeared too scared to run against the wishes of their 'real bosses' to adopt a Resolution - in black and white - truly rejecting the deal, such that they were overtaken by the real final decision from the Supreme Court of Nevada dismissing the case that has been characterized by a series of unending request for negotiations to continue, one that saw Marinduquenos being "pushed to the wall". 'Agreement'. But nothing formal issued by SP that it was overtaken by events in Nevada? In June 2015, the Nevada court imposed conditions of dismissal, including the waiver of a time-limit on the claim to ensure that another forum could be found to hear the case. The next step is to re-file the case in another venue to therein argue its merits. The procedural question alone has taken 10 years, the case having been filed in October 2005, in Nevada. Philippines or Canada? Where to next? Philippines or Canada? Whether it's the Philippines or Canada, discussions should now indeed focus on the merits of re-filing the case in any of the two countries. It would be best for those directly connected with this case to avoid, especially at this point, when this matter is being carefully considered now, (hopefully not unceremoniously rushed or hushed), raising false claims such as those so thoughtlessly propagated by certain counsels of the provincial government and other persons in authority on the idea of re-filing the case in Canada or the Philippines. Read here and here and here Cases already filed in the Philippines against Placer Dome and Barrick Gold by some individuals that were apparently held in abeyance pending the outcome of the now failed settlement negotiations, should probably be revisited to protect the interest of the parties concerned. USGS Scoffed The Nevada lawsuit was supposedly more encompassing for it not only covers the Boac environmental disaster but included damages to Mogpog and Calancan as well. Environmental damages and remediation based on the USGS independent study in 2004, and it may not help if the PGM legal counsel himself scoffs at this study. Read here The office of U.N. rights chief Zeid Raad al-Husseins sounded the alarm Friday that the ethnic dimension of the crisis in Burundi was increasing. All the alarm signals, including the increasing ethnic dimension of the crisis, are flashing red. The office said that it was analyzing satellite images to shed light on allegations about the reported discovery of nine mass graves. The office also cited growing signs that Tutsis were being targeted in the Hutu-majority country neighboring Rwanda. Violence has worsened in Burundi since President Pierre Nkurunziza sought a third term in office last year , leaving the country on the brink of civil war. Some 432 people have been killed in violence since April 26 and 200,000 have fled. There has been a wave of extra-judicial killings that human rights activists blame on the security forces. In December a senior military officer announced that he had formed a rebel group that aims to oust Nkurunziza. Western powers and African states fear the crisis that has so far largely followed political allegiances could spiral into a renewed ethnic conflict. Burundis 12 year civil war, which ended in 2005, pitted an army led by the Tutsi minority against rebel groups of the Hutu majority. South Africas National Union Mineworkers (NUM) calls for actions against a plan by mining company ASA Metals to lay off hundreds of workers. ASA Metals, a Chinese company that operates the Dilokong Chrome Mine near Steelpoort, Limpopo, plans to retrench 700 workers and put the operation into care and maintenance after a protracted strike last year amid falling chrome prices. According to the Union, the company had not followed legal processes in issuing a section 189 notice in terms of the Labour Relations Act and provisions in the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act. We want to appeal to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration to prioritize this matter and do the correct thing by calling the parties to a facilitation process, the Union said in a statement. The NUM requests Minister of Mineral Resources Mosebenzi Zwane to intervene immediately. In a letter to the NUM, ASA Metals said that a three-day unprotected strike in October last year by 253 members of the union that staged an underground sit-in had resulted in a 15 percent production loss. The company said the process to lay off hundreds of mineworkers and contractors was unavoidable. South Africas mining sector contributes around 7 percent to Africas 2nd largest economy. A stunning 19-year-old Brazilian teen is looked up to by just about everyone around her. Standing at an amazing 6ft 9 in, she is the tal... Your digital subscription includes access to content from all our websites in your region. Access unlimited news content and The Canberra Times app. Premium subscribers also enjoy interactive puzzles and access to the digital version of our print edition - Today's Paper. A federal appeals court has ruled that tobacco companies had no basis to challenge a Food and Drug Administration report on menthol cigarettes, which the industry alleged was written by experts with conflicts of interest. The decision by a three-judge panel overturns a lower court ruling that barred the FDA from using the report and ordered the agency to reform its committee of tobacco advisers. The 2011 report from the agency's Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee concluded that menthol flavoring leads to increased smoking rates, particularly among teens, African Americans and those with low incomes. The report said removing the flavoring would make it easier for some smokers to quit. Cigarette makers Lorillard Inc. and Reynolds American Inc. sued the agency, alleging conflicts of interest by several members who had previously testified against tobacco companies in court. But Judge Stephen Williams, writing for the court, states that the companies had no legal basis to challenge the makeup of the committee. Williams rejected company arguments that they could be damaged by the apparent conflicts as "too remote and uncertain." The opinion was issued Friday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Despite the victory for the federal government, the ruling may have limited impact on the FDA or its panel. Last year the FDA announced that four members of its tobacco products advisory panel had either resigned or were removed, following the previous court ruling against the agency. In 2013, the FDA conducted its own review of menthol cigarettes, concluding they pose a greater public health risk than regular cigarettes. But it did not make a recommendation on whether to limit or ban them. Reynolds American acquired Lorillard last year in a deal worth $25 billion. Reynolds, which is based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, now sells Lorillard's top-selling menthol brand, Newport cigarettes. A spokesman for Reynolds declined to comment, noting "this is pending litigation." Explore further Judge lets challenge to FDA tobacco panel proceed 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Haiti's health ministry said Friday the country has been hit by an outbreak of the Zika virus, a mosquito-borne ailment similar to dengue fever that is rapidly spreading through the Caribbean. Health Minister Florence Duperval Guillaume confirmed the outbreak at a press conference, saying that she too, was recovering from a bout of the illness. "Even I fell ill," the minister said, although she did not have the diagnosis confirmed by testing. A health lab in Trinidad and Tobago confirmed on Thursday that five out of 11 Haitian blood samples tested positive for the diseasea finding suggesting that it could be rampant in this impoverished nation. There have been no known fatalities from Zika, but the virus is of particular concern to pregnant women, because it can lead to birth defects and miscarriage. Zika is spread by the Aedes genus of mosquitoes, some varieties of which also spread dengue virus, yellow fever virus and Chikungunya. A female mosquito bites an infected person and then carries the virus to the next person she bites. Symptoms, which usually are relatively mild, can include fever, rash, conjunctivitis and headache. In more serious cases, they can include muscle pain, swelling and an itchy rash. Haitian officials have been taken to task for what critics said has been a slow response to the outbreak. Explore further El Salvador issues alert against illness-bearing mosquitos 2016 AFP A water crisis in Flint has focused mostly on the impact of drinking supplies containing lead that had leached from old plumbing after the city switched sources to save money. But Michigan officials stunned the community this week when they also reported an increase in Legionnaires' disease cases over the past two years in Genesee County, where Flint is located. There were at least 87 confirmed Legionnaires' cases, including 10 deaths, from June 2014 to November 2015, compared to only 21 cases in 2012 and 2013. Michigan health officials said they can't conclude that the increase was related to Flint's water, although concerned residents blitzed the county health department with phone calls Thursday. Flint pulled water from the Flint River for 18 months until last fall but didn't use treatments that could have reduced corrosion and possibly removed other contaminants. Local officials declared a public health emergency in October in response to elevated levels of lead in children. Lead can cause behavior problems and learning disabilities in children as well as kidney ailments in adults. Some questions and answers on Flint's water crisis and Legionnaires' disease: WHAT IS LEGIONNAIRES' DISEASE? The illness is a type of pneumonia caused by bacteria that infect the lungs. The bacteria live in the environment and thrive in warm water. People can get sick if they inhale mist or vapor from contaminated water systems, hot tubs and cooling systems, but the bacteria don't spread from person to person. The elderly and people with chronic illnesses are most at risk. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that between 8,000 and 18,000 people are hospitalized with the disease each year, usually in summer and early fall. COULD IT BE LINKED TO BAD WATER IN FLINT? Michigan health officials said they can't conclude that the increase in Legionnaires' cases was related to Flint's water. But Marc Edwards, an environmental engineering professor at Virginia Tech who investigated high lead levels in Flint, tells The Associated Press it was "very likely." He said the risk of exposure to Legionella bacteria appeared to be low in homes and small buildings, based on his tests last year, but high levels were detected in larger buildings before the city switched back to the Detroit water system last fall. "This problem is probably behind us," he said on a Flint water study website. COULD OTHER ILLNESSES BE RELATED TO THE WATER? There's a key reason why officials know about Legionnaires' in the Flint area: Doctors and hospitals must report cases to public health agencies. Other illnesses that might be related to bacteria in water or soil typically don't have to be reported. "One could never draw the association," Edwards said. Speaking generally, Mark Valacak, chief health officer at the county health department, said his agency is always monitoring for communicable diseases. WHAT RESPONSE IS NEEDED? Flint residents already are being urged to use drinking water filters, which are being distributed for free along with bottled water. No additional remedy is recommended for the Legionella bacteria because the illness isn't considered a present threat. Unfiltered tap water for baths and showers is considered OK. Parents have asked Edwards about showers, and he agrees it's no riskier showering in Flint than in any other U.S. city. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is consulting with state and local health officials about the Legionnaires' cases. 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The mysteries of the teenage brain. Mexican doctoral student Lucia Magis Weinberg at the University College London (UCL) researches how the brain develops during adolescence. In this stage of life, the brain undergoes important development and brain maturation occurs at different speeds among different areas. These differential maturation states generate an imbalance that impacts their behavior: "The part of the brain that could be compared to the gas pedal of a car is related to emotions and rewards, and matures before the brakesthe prefrontal cortex, which has a slower rate of maturation." Magis, a student in cognitive neuroscience, explains that this imbalance in adolescents makes them more likely to take risks and make bad decisions when faced with many emotions or situations with multiple rewards, such as drug use, the desire to impress their peers, or attending a party. Lucia, who studied at the Faculty of Medicine of the National University of Mexico (UNAM), always wanted to do research in neurology and psychiatry. "I am particularly interested in neurodevelopmental research on healthy people. I searched for laboratories that do this kind of work and found a lab in UCL. Here, I studied for my masters with support from the Mexican government, as I am doing with my Ph.D. " Magis says that her research compares adolescents with adults. She invites them to go to the laboratory and practice computer games. There, she measures their memory, attention span and impulse control, to observe their behavior. Participants can be tested sitting in front of a computer or inside an MRI machine, a neuroimaging technique to indirectly measure oxygen consumption to quantify brain activity. This allows the researchers to compare how the patterns of brain activity associated with the possibility of solving these tasks are different between adolescents and adults. "In one of the latest experiments, subjects performed memory tests and we measured how many errors adolescents and adults make when there is an economic reward. Then we compare how much the financial reward affects them to how well they perform on the memory task. " Using magnetic resonance imaging, researchers can see which brain regions are activated and which are not during the tests to compare activity patterns in adolescents and adults. During adolescence, the ability to regulate behavior is much more susceptible to the environment, particularly if there are rewards or strong emotions involved. "I would like to understand how the adolescent brain works during particularly vulnerable moments in order to know how the brain could better control the behavior. This comparative perspective of age groups would help us to have a better understanding of the processes of addiction and its development during adolescence as a time of particular risk." It is noteworthy to mention that it was not until the 1990s that noninvasive imaging techniques allowed children and adolescents to be studied. In the last two decades, it has been found that the structure and functioning of the brain changes a lot. It was with the development of MRI techniques that specialists obtained evidence that the adolescent brain changes, and this partly explains their behavior. This was what attracted Lucia Magis to study neuroscience, and once she completes her Ph.D., she hopes to return to Mexico and continue this line of research. Parallel to this, she works on science communication activities for the blog Neuromexico.org. Explore further Study charts development of emotional control in teens The Zika virus, possibly linked to serious birth defects in Brazil, has the potential to spread within the Americas, including parts of the United States, according to a research letter published in The Lancet today by Dr. Kamran Khan of St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto. Credit: Courtesy of St. Michael's Hospital The Zika virus, possibly linked to serious birth defects in Brazil, has the potential to spread within the Americas, including parts of the United States, according to an international team of researchers who track the spread of infectious diseases. The Zika virus, native to parts of Africa and Asia, has for the first time been introduced into the Americas where it is spreading locally among people who have not travelled abroad. There is no vaccine against the virus or antiviral treatment. "The summer Olympic Games in Brazil in August heighten the need for awareness of this emerging virus," Dr. Kamran Khan of St. Michael's Hospital wrote in a research letter published today in The Lancet. Zika is generally a mild illness, spread by a day-biting mosquito. However, there is a worrisome, but as of yet unproven, association of infected mothers in Brazil giving birth to babies with small heads and underdeveloped brains, Dr. Khan said. There has been a 20-fold increase in the number of babies born with this condition, known as microcephaly, since Zika first appeared in Brazil in May 2015. The virus has since spread across more than a dozen countries in South and Central America and up into Mexico. A case was confirmed in Puerto Rico in December in an individual who had not recently travelled, meaning he or she was bitten by a local infected mosquito. The Centers for Disease Control say some travellers returning to the United States from Zika-affected areas have also been infected with the virus, which has the potential of allowing the virus to then spread locally. To predict where Zika might spread, Dr. Khan and his team mapped the final destinations of international travellers leaving airports in Brazil from September 2014 to August 2015. Of those 9.9 million travellers, 65 per cent were going to the Americas, 27 per cent to Europe and 5 per cent to Asia. Traveller volumes were greatest to the United States, followed by Argentina, Chile, Italy, Portugal, and France. China and Angola received the highest volume of travellers in Asia and Africa, respectively. Members of the team from Oxford University mapped the global geography of (Aedes species) mosquitoes capable of transmitting Zika virus and then modeled the worldwide climate conditions necessary for the virus to spread between Aedes mosquitoes and humans. They estimated that more than 60 per cent of the populations of the United States, Argentina and Italy live in areas conducive to seasonal transmission of Zika virus. By comparison, Mexico, Colombia and the United States have an estimated 30.5 million, 23.2 million and 22.7 million people respectively living in areas conducive to year-round Zika virus transmission. Dr. Khan said that with no vaccine or antiviral therapy available, possible interventions include personal protection (i.e., repellent use); daytime avoidance of mosquito bites (especially by pregnant women until more is known about the association between Zika virus infection and microcephaly) and community-level mosquito surveillance and control measures. "The world we live in is very interconnected now said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, a tropical infectious disease specialist at the Toronto General Hospital who contributed to the study. "Things don't happen in isolation anymore. Infections from the farthest corners of the world can quickly arrive on our doorstep." Explore further El Salvador issues alert against illness-bearing mosquitos SOCAR says no talks on commercial supplies of Iran gas via TANAP The supply of Iranian gas via the Trans-Anatolian pipeline (TANAP) was discussed only at the political level and not in a commercial context, Vagif Aliyev, the head of the SOCAR Investment Department, said in an interview with Azerbaijani ANS TV channel.He said that the TANAP pipeline is primarily being built for the export of Azerbaijani gas from the second phase of the Shah Deniz field."At the first stage, its capacity will be 16 bcm of gas a year, he said. But the pipeline can be expanded to 31 bcm to supply from other possible sources. Technically, this will enable to supply more gas to Turkey. However, the commercial supply of Iranian gas via TANAP has not been discussed up till now."While commenting on the possibility of increasing the supply of Azerbaijani gas to Turkey amid deteriorating Ankara-Moscow relations, Aliyev said that currently Turkey has no problems with gas supply.However, we are considering the opportunity of increasing the supply. These issues will be resolved as far as possible," he added.The TANAP project envisages the transportation of gas of Azerbaijans Shah Deniz field from the Georgian-Turkish border to the western borders of Turkey.The initial capacity of the TANAP pipeline is expected to reach 16 billion cubic meters of gas per year. Around six billion cubic meters of this gas will be delivered to Turkey and the remaining volume will be supplied to Europe.Turkey will receive gas in 2018, and after completing the construction of Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), it will be delivered to Europe in early 2020.Currently, the shareholders of TANAP are: the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) 58 percent, Botas 30 percent and BP 12 percent. Donald Trump and Ted Cruz jabbed over whether the Canadian-born Cruz is eligible to run for president, while Cruz faced criticism as a flip-flopper from Marco Rubio at Thursday's Republican presidential debate. The event, hosted by the Fox Business Network from North Charleston, S.C., provided many heated moments. And plenty of opportunities for PolitiFact's Truth-O-Meter. Trump wrong on refugees Donald Trump repeated a false notion that the flight of Syrian refugees and other migrants is largely men. Trump was asked by Fox Business moderator Neil Cavuto about his proposal to ban Syrian refugees and others from entering the United States. Trump rattled off incidents around the world, including in Indonesia and France, and said that migration could be a "great Trojan Horse." "When I looked at the migration, when I looked at the line where are the women?" Trump said. "There look like very few women. Very few children. Strong, powerful men. Young. And people are looking at that and saying, Whats going on? " Trump made a similar claim in October. It was False then, and its False now. Turn to PolitiFact to see our debate fact-checks. The Florida Supreme Court on Friday refused to delay the scheduled Feb. 11 execution of condemned killer Cary Michael Lambrix on a 6-0 decision, with Justice Peggy Quince recused. Lambrix, 55, had sought a stay of execution in light of Tuesday's U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Timothy Lee Hurst that struck down Florida's death penalty sentencing system as unconstitutional. Attorney General Pam Bondi, on behalf of the state, argued that Lambrix should die as scheduled. The state's highest court has scheduled oral arguments for 9 a.m. on Feb. 2 on the question of whether the Hurst decision applies retroactively to Lambrix's case. State lawyers argued Friday that if the case were applied retroactively, it would have a "severe and unsettling impact" on Florida's justice system. As lawyers for the state noted, the Hurst decision was based on an earlier case, Ring v. Arizona, and the state Supreme Court has previously ruled that the Ring case cannot be applied retroactively in Florida. "Because the United States Supreme Court expressly found that Ring was not retroactive, Hurst, which applied Ring to invalidate Floridas statute, is also not retroactive," the state's petition said. "This Court specifically noted the severe and unsettling impact that retroactive application would have on our justice system [with nearly 400 death sentenced prisoners]." Florida has 390 inmates on death row. Lambrix has been on Florida's death row since 1984 for the murders of a man and woman in Glades County in 1983. @MichaelAuslen Gov. Rick Scott is doubling down trying to convince lawmakers to issue stiff penalties against hospitals that charge high rates. Friday morning, he sent an envoy of supporters, including Chief of Staff Melissa Sellers, to presentation for members of the House Select Committee on Affordable Health Care Access. Mary Beth Vickers, the governors health care policy coordinator, made the case that hospitals are price gouging consumers by billing them at high rates. Price gouging is not characteristic of a free market at all but its the most egregious example of price fixing, Vickers said. This is the latest in an ongoing campaign against hospitals that Scott himself a former CEO of Columbia/HCA, which was fined $1.7 billion in a Medicare fraud case under his leadership has put forward in the last year. After Vickers presentation Friday, Scotts office put out a press release about a new hospital price website published this week by the Florida Hospital Association. And Vickers said a video about people who have been victims of price gouging will come out soon. She highlighted several of those victims in her presentation to the House committee Friday, including at least one who reported price gouging after being treated at a nonprofit hospital. Scott has targeted nonprofit and for-profit hospitals alike in his rhetoric and in proposed changes to how Medicaid money is distributed. He wants to enforce criminal penalties against hospitals that try to collect a patient bill worth more than 115 percent of the average cost of a procedure at that facility. And as he and his staff discuss price gouging, they point to data that shows that Florida is home to 20 of the 50 worst price-gouging hospitals in America. What they dont point out is that every one of those hospitals is a for-profit hospital. In fact, just one of the 50 biggest price-gougers is a nonprofit, and it is in Pennsylvania. Fourteen of the 20 worst price-gougers in Florida are HCA hospitals. Rep. Mia Jones, D-Jacksonville, went as far as to ask Vickers what the biggest price gougers all have in common Friday. Were you able to identify anything about that 20 that seemed to be consistent? Jones asked. Not necessarily, Vickers replied. Not that we could see that there was a method behind the madness." via @LightmanDavid CHARLESTON, S.C. -- The first Republican presidential debate of the new year Thursday kicks off the campaigns serious and uglier season, with the smallest GOP field yet. The 9 p.m. EST faceoff on the Fox Business Channel will include just seven top-polling contenders, a small enough group to allow more elbow room for those on stage. With voters getting ready to start making their choices in just weeks, every charge and countercharge will be magnified. Already since the year began, the personal side of the campaign has escalated with questions about Ted Cruzs citizenship, a pro-Jeb Bush ad mocking Marco Rubios high-heeled boots, and Chris Christie accusing Rubio of a slime campaign. On the main stage, the top tier will include real estate mogul Donald Trump and Sens. Cruz of Texas and Rubio of Florida. Also, four others in a fight for survival: New Jersey Gov. Christie, former Florida Gov. Bush, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. A 6 p.m. debate will feature Republican contenders whose poll numbers were not strong enough to make the main stage: former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former business executive Carly Fiorina and Rick Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, dropped from the top debate, declined to attend the undercard event. The stakes for the top-tier candidates: More here. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham endorsed Jeb Bush today although questions remain about how the former Florida governor will be faring by the time of South Carolina's primary. "I have concluded without any hestitation, without any doubt, that Jeb Bush is ready on day one to be Commander in Chief," said Graham of South Carolina Friday morning. But by the time South Carolina's GOP primary is held Feb. 20th, elections would have already been held in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. Bush, who is in the single digits in many polls, has invested heavily in New Hampshire so if he fares poorly there he will face questions about whether he will remain the race. Although Florida's primary is March 15, Floridians start voting by absentee and early voting in February. The race lately has been the Donald Trump vs Ted Cruz show -- as demonstrated by the Fox Business Network debate in North Charleston Thursday night. Graham dropped out of the GOP presidential primary in December. In a press conference when asked why he didn't endorse Sen. Marco Rubio for president, Graham said: "I think Marco Rubio will be president of the United States one day....At 44 I wasn't ready to be president." When Bush was asked a question about Rubio's 2013 attempt at immigration reform, Bush said: "Marco Rubio did the right thing. He asked me to support that bill by the way that Lindsey and others worked on. ... I supported that even though my ideas were clearly different particularly on the path to legalization. I wrote a book about it. My views haven't changed from that book being published more than four years ago. Marco cut and run. Plain and simple for whatever reason. There may be legitimate reasons but he cut and run. He asked for my support on a bill and he but and run -- and he cut and run on his colleagues as well." But both Rubio and Bush have tweaked their messages about path to citizenship. And Rubio still supports changing immigration laws -- but now says it has to be done through a piecemeal approach. Rubio unveiled his own immigration-related ads today and called Bush "desperate." Graham also snuck in an attack on Donald Trump, the GOP frontrunner: "Trump doubled down on the idea that we as a nation should ban every Muslim in the world at least temporarily from coming to our country. ... I can't think of a worse idea." (Here is some background about what Trump said in November related to a registry.) @NewsbySmiley Miami commissioners urged the federal government Thursday to provide "financial aid" to local governments and community organizations bracing for the arrival of thousands of Cuban migrants currently stuck in Central America en route to the United States, and likely South Florida. Some 8,000 Cubans hoping to make a circuitous route from Cuba through Central America to the U.S. in order to avoid the perilous journey across the Florida Straits have been jammed for months at the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. A plan was developed to transfer the migrants by plane to El Salvador, where they continue their trek toward Mexico, then the U.S. border. The flights to El Salvador began Tuesday night with 180 migrants aboard. Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado has been warning for weeks about a potential strain in homeless and social service resources. He spoke Wednesday to the Miami-Dade School Board, which voted to ask for additional federal dollars to fund classroom services for migrant children. The resolution approved unanimously Thursday by Miami Commssioners was brought by Commissioner Francis Suarez. @ByKristenMClark A plan to improve job opportunities for Floridians with disabilities is on its way to Gov. Rick Scott's desk after earning unanimous favor in the Florida Senate on Friday. The legislation was the third and final bill House and Senate leaders aimed to get off their plates during the first week of the 2016 session. Scott plans to sign it Thursday, along with two others the Legislature sent over yesterday: a sweeping water policy bill and a bill promoting educational opportunities for people with disabilities. The jobs bill, like the education bill, was a priority for Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando. Among the bill's highlights, it: -- creates a financial literacy program to help people with developmental disabilities -- requires state agencies to report annual progress toward increasing employment of women, minorities and people with disabilities -- requires the state to develop workforce programs to enhance job training and work experience for people with disabilities -- and, establishes the Florida Unique Abilities Partner Program to identify businesses that hire people with disabilities and encourage other businesses to do so. "We need to lead by example so were going to do that, but we also need to recognize businesses that are doing it and track and make sure that individuals with unique abilities are getting jobs, which is obviously a priority for us and the governor," Gardiner told reporters. He called the first week of the 2016 session "a really, really good week," and told senators to rest up over the long weekend for what's to come. "Its been a good week for the residents of the great state of Florida," he said during this morning's session. "These bills and the water bill and others, were changing lives with that. ... Next week and every week after is going to get a little tougher and theres going to be a little more stress." The Senate returns for session Tuesday afternoon, following the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday. @PatriciaMazzei Its Donald Trumps and Ted Cruzs presidential primary, and the rest of the Republican candidates are just living in it. The GOPs leading contenders twice turned a seven-way debate Thursday night into a two-man show, leaving their lagging rivals even further behind on a national political stage. Cruz unleashed a torrent of a response after a Fox Business Network moderator asked him if hes eligible for the presidency a question Trump has raised because the Texas senator was born in Canada to an American mother and Cuban father. You know, back in September, my friend Donald said that he had had his lawyers look at this from every which way, and there was no issue there. There was nothing to this birther issue, Cruz said. Now, since September, the Constitution hasnt changed. But the poll numbers have. Cruz, a constitutional attorney now ahead of Trump in polls in the first caucus state of Iowa, then referred to extreme theories that contend one can only be a natural-born U.S. citizen if both parents were born on U.S. soil. Under that theory, not only would I be disqualified, Marco Rubio would be disqualified, Bobby Jindal would be disqualified and, interestingly enough, Donald J. Trump would be disqualified. Because Donalds mother was born in Scotland. She was naturalized. But I was born here, Trump interjected. Big difference. On the issue of citizenship, Donald, Im not going to use your mothers birth against you, Cruz continued, having just done exactly that. (Because it wouldnt work, Trump opined.) Youre an American, as is everybody else on this stage, Cruz concluded. And I would suggest we focus on who is best prepared to commander in chief, because thats the most important question facing this country. With that, the Cruz-Trump truce that had lasted six months of the campaign came to a definitive end. More here. Photo credit: Rainier Ehrhardt, Associated Press @PatriciaMazzei One of Marco Rubio's strongest moments -- in terms of rhetoric, anyway -- in Thursday night's Republican presidential debate came in overtime. Around 11 p.m., the usual end time for debates, Rubio got asked about immigration, one of his weak spots among GOP primary voters. He gave what has become his latest argument on the issue, that legal immigration must be reviewed in light of the ISIS terrorist group's latest attacks. "The issue is a dramatically different issue than it was 24 months ago," contended Rubio, one of the sponsors of 2013 immigration-reform legislation in the U.S. Senate. "Twenty-four months ago, 36 months ago, you did not have a group of radical crazies named ISIS who were burning people in cages and recruiting people to enter our country legally." Rubio rival Ted Cruz spied an opening and took it. "Radical Islamic terrorism was not invented 24 months ago; 24 months ago, we had Al Qaida," he said. "We had Boko Haram. We had Hamas. We had Hezbollah. We had Iran putting operatives in South America and Central America." Cruz had put Rubio on the defensive on an issue Rubio has struggled with for years -- and will apparently continue to wrangle with. But Rubio nevertheless came right back at him. Got some ideas about economics, policy, science, art or whatever, and you can write? Let us know here , we're looking for contributors! A prototype of the latest version of the MQ-1C Gray Eagle will be headed to Europe soon for a series of demonstrations, according to the ... For its next production, Missoula Community Theatre chose a musical wrapped within a comedy that spoofs and pays tribute to the tropes of 1920s musicals. If that meta layer didn't hint already, "The Drowsy Chaperone" is a relatively new play, having grown out of the Toronto Fringe Festival in the late 1990s. MCT artistic director Joe Martinez saw it on Broadway in 2006, and thought it was a good title for the theater's January slot, when they find Missoula inversions typically call for light-hearted escapism. The play begins with an unnamed modern-day character, called the Man in the Chair, sitting in his apartment. "He breaks the fourth wall," said Martinez, who's also directing the play. "He talks directly to the audience." Feeling depressed, he throws on a vinyl cast recording of his favorite play, "The Drowsy Chaperone," an old 1920s musical. Once the cast of the imaginary musical comes on stage, the Man in the Chair provides commentary. Robert Harsch, who stepped into the role, said "somebody described it very well: 'I'm a one-man Greek chorus.' " Harsch likes to think that his character is providing the equivalent of program notes about his favorite play, a jazz-era musical about an oil tycoon, his actress fiancee who wants to retire and the gangsters who want her to stay in the play. The Man in the Chair comments not only on the musical, but on the cast itself, which riffs on musical icons: In the play within the play, the actress portraying the fiancee's chaperone is Beatrice Stockwell, a parody/homage of Martha Raye or Ethel Merman. Harsch said the goofy gangsters, too, remind him of a character he played in Cole Porter's "Anything Goes" for MCT. Even people who won't recognize the references will recognize the type, he said. The show has its fair share of jokes about political correctness some reference the present and are voiced in the present by the Man in the Chair, and others are illustrated by the 1920s-era play. The 1920s wasn't a politically correct time, Martinez said, and "2016 is still not very politically correct time no matter how hard we try." And so the show mocks the more modern-day Man in the Chair's occasional slip-ups for comic effect. "I think that's what made the show so popular on Broadway," Martinez said. "People were able to laugh and laugh at themselves." The music, written by Lisa Lambert and Don McKellar, falls into jazz-era styles that are uptempo and lighthearted, Martinez said. University of Montana professor David Cody is acting as music conductor. While the ensemble piece has a large cast of 20, the scenes almost all take place within the Man in the Chair's apartment. Heather Adams of the Downtown Dance Collective created original choreography for the show, including two to three full-company numbers in the relatively cloistered space. Martinez and Karsh, who've worked with MCT for decades each, said the "Chaperone" cast illustrates the talent pool in Missoula. "Having done about two dozen MCT shows, especially in the '90s," Karsh said, "The talent pool in Missoula has always been pretty good. It seems like it's gotten deeper and richer over the years." Three wildlife areas in western Montana got additions after the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission met Thursday. The Fish Creek Wildlife Management Area south of Alberton got a 320-acre expansion when a landowner along the west fork of Fish Creek offered to sell his property, which was completely surrounded by the public land. It includes 2.5 miles of spawning stream important to bull and cutthroat trout, 72 acres of riparian and wetland habitat and connections for wildlife to reach winter range. The cost was $1.4 million, with federal Pittman-Robertson Act grants covering 75 percent of the cost and money from Habitat Montana paying the remaining quarter. FWP will contribute payments equal to the annual private property taxes for ranch or timber land in Mineral County, Commission Chairman Dan Vermillion said. Last year, the 34,573-acre Fish Creek Wildlife Management Area received about 3,000 big-game hunter-days and 4,000 angler-days. The proposal received 32 public comments, of which 28 were in support of the purchase. Near Kalispell, the North Shore Wildlife Management Area received another 76.6 acres from a private seller. The property expands wetlands used by migrating waterfowl along the 189-acre wildlife area and the adjacent 160-acre North Shore State Park. It cost $489,000 after the owner discounted the price by 25 percent. Money for the purchase comes from federal Pittman-Robinson Wildlife Restoration Act funds. Thirteen of the 14 public comments received supported the acquisition. The third project involved adding 760 acres of Clear Creek timber land to the 739-acre Nevada Lake Wildlife Management Area between Helmville and Avon. The property was acquired by the Nature Conservancy from Plum Creek Timber Co. as part of the Blackfoot Community Project. FWP would pay $562,500 using a grant from the U.S. Forest Service Forest Legacy Program and a 25 percent price donation from The Nature Conservancy. The land holds winter range for deer and elk, as well as a travel corridor for grizzly bears moving between the southern Rocky Mountain Front and the Garnet Mountain Range. It abuts the Dalton Mountain conservation easement, which protects about 4,900 acres of wildlife habitat, as well as large swaths of U.S. Forest Service land. Of the 21 public comments received, 19 were in support of the purchase. This is a great opportunity to achieve more and better public access, Commissioner Matthew Tourtlotte said. I applaud the department for putting this together, and hope the Legislature takes note of the overwhelming public support. Fresh snowfall and wind Wednesday night moved western Montana mountain slopes to considerable avalanche danger Thursday. And conditions in the southern Mission Mountains, southern Swan Mountains and central Bitterroot mountains was moved to high, according to Dudley Improta of the West Central Montana Avalanche Center. The southern Missions and Swans both received about 16 inches of new snow Wednesday night, while the region received an average of 6 inches. The central Bitterroot Mountains got 10 inches of new snow, with forecasts calling for additional accumulation through the day. That combined with westerly mountain winds averaging 20 mph with gusts up to 30 mph. Mountain temperatures were in the low to mid-20s. We toured the Rattlesnake and found cold snow capped by a wind crust on the west and east-facing slopes, Improta said. On the south aspect there was a sun crust overlaying surface facets. (Two other surveyors) found a buried surface hoar layer 6 inches from the surface at Lost Trail keep that in mind if youre in the southern Bitterroots. Those conditions tend to build storm slabs, wind slabs and large loose sluffs, especially on wind-loaded lee-side slopes. I would avoid all steep slopes today, Improta said. Travel on or under steep slopes is not recommended. Three out-of-bounds skiers were caught in an avalanche in the St. Regis Basin near the Lookout Pass Ski Area on Wednesday. Mineral County Sheriff Tom Bauer said the most seriously injured of the three suffered a compound fracture in one of his legs and a second man was buried to his neck (see related story). After a brief break in the weather at midday Thursday, more snow was expected through Friday night. Yet another snow storm is forecast for Saturday. LOLO Douglas Darell Moeller, of Lolo was born on June 18, 1936, and left us on Friday, Jan. 8, 2016. He was born in Brittin, South Dakota, to Wilbur and Vera Moeller. Doug led a very interesting life, in 1958, he joined the U.S. Army where he served in Korea. When he was honorably discharged, he went on to doing what he loved most operating heavy machinery, from the smallest to the largest. He logged for 28 years all over western Montana, and drove plow trucks for the state of Montana. In 1980, Doug left Montana and began working as a Mine Mechanic in Gabbs, Nevada. Later, he then moved on to the oil fields in Evanston, Wyoming, as a heavy Equipment Operator, then to Wildhorse, Nevada, where he continued working as a heavy equipment operator and was also a night supervisor of 30 employees. After that, he worked for a while in Elko, Nevada, before moving back to Montana in 1999 where he was employed by LM Neilson Excavating as a heavy equipment operator in Missoula before moving on to Advanced Earthworks in Hamilton. Doug played hard too. He loved to snowmobile, boat and even drove stock cars in Pablo and Kalispell. He is preceded in death by his parents, his brother and stepson. He is survived by his wife, Vicki Gates; six children; two stepsons; 16 grandchildren; 19 great-grandchildren, many nieces and nephews and pets. At Dougs request, there will be no services held at this time. Arrangements have been under the care of Cremation and Burial Society of the Rockies. DEER LODGE George Paul Rainville, known by most as Blondy, passed away on Sunday, Jan. 3, 2015. He was born Oct. 8, 1928, to Hector and Margaret (Sestrich) Rainville in Deer Lodge. Except for a short period in 1974 and again from the spring of 1981 through 1983, Blondy lived his entire life in Deer Lodge. He attended St. Marys Academy through the eighth grade then moved on to Powell County High School and graduated in 1946. Blondy worked at the Deer Lodge Drug for a number of years and became interested in pharmacy. Upon graduating from high school, he attended the University of Montana in Missoula with a desire to become a pharmacist. However, while home from a school break, Blondy hired out as a fireman on the Milwaukee Road and did not return to complete his education. He was promoted to a locomotive engineer in 1957 and worked for the Milwaukee until it shut down in 1980. He loved running trains through the mountains of Montana, Idaho, Nevada, California and Washington. After the Milwaukee shut down, Blondy hired on with the Union Pacific in Las Vegas and lived there from 1981 until his return to Deer Lodge in 1983. He then hired on with the Montana Rail Link and retired in 1992. Blondy married Donna Finn on June 5, 1956, and they had three children, Paula, Don and John. They divorced in 1983. In his retirement, Blondy enjoyed raising and riding his Arabian horses, did wood work, and enjoyed hunting and snowmobiling in the fall and winter. George is survived by his three children, Paula (Steve) Meyer and their children Maggie and Pat; Don (Betsy) Rainville and their children Katie and EJ and Dr. John (Debbie) Rainville of Rochester, Minnesota, and their son Jackson. His siblings also survive him, Cleo Seaman of Missoula, Jeanette (Wally) Atkinson of Hamilton and Tom (Davis) Rainville of Everett, Washington, and numerous nieces and nephews. His parents Hector and Margaret and his brother Bob precede him in death. Blondys family extend a special thank you to Blondys team of care providers at Riverside Health Care Center for their care, concern and kindness during his convalescence there. Cremation has taken place and planning for a memorial service is underway and will be scheduled for late spring/early summer. I was disappointed by the impression of my views and actions created by the recent (Jan. 11) Lee newspaper article on the proposed retreat for the Democratic caucus. John Adams broke the story when he learned that I had objected to the retreat. As he reported in a Montana Public Radio interview on Jan. 8, I told him that my personal analysis on whether a caucus is a public body or a political entity doesnt matter. A court of law has ruled that our caucus is governed by Montanas open meeting laws and thats what matters to me. I have always urged, as I did in this case, that my caucus provide public notice of its meetings so that everyone in the caucus (especially me!) can participate. Sen. Mary Sheehy Moe, Senate District 12, Great Falls Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan is scrambling to deal with a terrible water crisis created by his administration in the city of Flint, which is poor and has a black majority. The damage to the nearly bankrupt city and its nearly 100,000 residents by lead-tainted water caused by corrosion in the pipes has yet to be totaled, but there is no doubt that the state has a moral obligation to provide clean water immediately for the citizens and to devise a long-term solution, no matter how costly. The governor, a Republican, did virtually nothing to help the city until an outpouring of rage from Flint residents, city leaders, journalists and independent researchers forced him to wake up and focus on the calamity, which started more than a year ago. He had turned a blind eye, possibly because it was a destitute city whose elected officials had little political power and were under the thumb of an emergency manager Mr. Snyder had appointed. Or possibly because he wanted to maintain state control, he failed to call on the most obvious source of assistance, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He finally sought, and got, aid from FEMA, which this week agreed to help with a long-term recovery plan. Because of the states actions, some part of the water distribution system within Flint, possibly all of it, may need to be replaced at a cost that city officials estimate could be as high as $1.5 billion. And thousands of children with potential brain damage from lead poisoning may need monitoring, nutritional support and special education to mitigate the harm caused by this man-made disaster. That trajectory has turned. Last year, share prices of the computer makers Acer and Asustek plummeted 43 percent and 22 percent as the PC market sagged, while HTC plunged 45 percent. Taiwan electronics exports have been falling since February 2015, and in the third quarter, the countrys gross domestic product contracted partly because of weakness in the tech sector. As voters went to the polls and elected a new president over the weekend, a rare point of agreement between Taiwans fractious political parties was that the tech industry needs help. Just days before the election four years ago, major Taiwan tech figures took to television to argue that the policies of the incumbent president, Ma Ying-jeou, to improve relations with China would lift the industry. Yet rising competition from Chinese manufacturers and slowing growth there have had a mixed impact on Taiwan tech since. With the Democratic Progressive Partys Tsai Ing-wen who won a decisive victory in the presidential election on Saturday vowing to renew Taiwanese innovation and build out a new tech hub here, a crucial part of Taiwans immediate political future depends on whether it can be turned around. Taiwans tech problem, as Mr. Lin sees it, is the result of a culture and government that have failed to generate the talent and flexibility to move beyond the manufacturing prowess that made the island a tech hub in the 1980s and 90s and forward to the software and Internet industries driving Silicon Valleys current boom. The dilemma became apparent to him in 2009 when he saw a commercial for Apples iPhone. The commercial said whatever you want to do, theres an app for that, Mr. Lin said. Immediately, I realized thats the end of Taiwan. Were so good at making cheap computers and phones, but were so bad at making an app for anything. Dove Carnahans mother named her after a brand of soap, so its no wonder that ANGELS BURNING (Gallery Books, cloth, $25.99; paper, $16), which is told from her perspective, takes an almost obsessive interest in parent-child issues. Tawni ODells Appalachian mystery is vividly set in the economically depressed region surrounding the town of Campbells Run, abandoned after a 300-foot-deep sinkhole erupted from an underground mine fire. But Dove loves both her ramshackle community and her neighbors the kind of folks who buy $3,000 TVs on credit and toss their old ones in the front yard and serving as chief of police is proof of her loyalty. That loyalty is sorely tested when the body of a teenage girl is found in one of the still smoldering holes at Campbells Run, and Dove is forced to question members of the victims family, a surly clan that has little respect for her authority and no use whatsoever for the law. But Doves penetrating eye finds redeeming qualities in just about every person she interviews, from the despondent Vietnam vet who lives on a bare lot by the side of the road (not a tree, not a bush, not a single burst of dandelion yellow or a sprinkle of violets) to the chatty old ladies at the nursing home, who play gin at 8 oclock in the morning and gossip at all hours of the day and night. Theres a depressing sameness to mysteries about missing children. A detective is bound to become obsessed with the case, one of the frantic parents is sure to come under suspicion, and theres only a 50-50 chance the child will be found alive. The British writer Gilly Macmillan introduces some smart variations on the theme in her debut mystery, WHAT SHE KNEW (Morrow/HarperCollins, paper, $14.99), in which 8-year-old Ben Finch disappears while on a walk in the woods with his mother, Rachel. Besides letting Detective Inspector James Clemo of the Avon and Somerset constabulary share the storytelling with Rachel, Macmillan enlivens the narrative with emails, newspaper headlines, passages from professional journals, even transcripts from Inspector Clemos sessions with a psychotherapist. But her best move is to include vicious blog posts that go viral. Guilty or innocent, once Rachel is put on trial by Internet, her fate may be sealed. Belinda Bauer riffs on the missing-child theme by taking it into the spooky realm of the supernatural. In THE SHUT EYE (Grove, paper, $14), a psychic holds out hope to Anna Buck that he can find her 4-year-old son, Daniel. (The Dead Are Waiting to Speak to You, his flyer reads.) But the clients who show up at Richard Lathams spiritualist church are more likely to be looking for lost dogs. As Anna descends into madness, stealing money to pay the psychic, Bauers novel takes a bizarre turn, drawing on uncanny coincidences to connect missing children not only with one another but with missing pets. Bauer is an imaginative writer, and before she lets the story spin off into outer space, she offers sensitive insights into maternal love and grief and cutting observations about some of the people who presume to offer them comfort. Galaxy Gaming Obtains Key Approval in Pennsylvania Company Also Provides Update Regarding Other Regulatory Matters LAS VEGAS, Jan. 14, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Galaxy Gaming, Inc. (OTC:GLXZ), announced today that the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board granted certification to Galaxy as a Gaming Related Gaming Service Provider at its regularly scheduled meeting held on January 13, 2016 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Galaxy Gaming is the world's second largest manufacturer and provider of casino table games and enhanced gaming systems. The Gaming Control Boards action provides Galaxy Gaming with permanent certification to offer its products to casinos statewide. After a comprehensive background investigation and a thorough review of our business, including our key personnel, the Pennsylvania gaming regulatory authorities have determined Galaxy Gaming suitable to conduct business with casinos in their state, said Robert Saucier, Galaxy Gaming's CEO. This approval opens the door for us to aggressively expand our presence in the Keystone State. I want to commend all of the staff at the Gaming Control Board for their professionalism and courtesy, added Mr. Saucier. In addition to Pennsylvania, Galaxy Gaming is approved to conduct its gaming business in approximately 100 gaming jurisdictions in the U.S. and abroad. In 2013, the Company experienced a regulatory setback in California. While that matter is not final and is under appeal, Galaxy submitted a new application seeking a finding of suitability for California in 2014. The California regulatory body accepted that application and a new investigation is currently being conducted. The Company is optimistic it will be found suitable and be able to commence business in California later this year. In addition, the Company is seeking to expand its North American footprint into additional gaming jurisdictions, including Ohio, which is also working to complete its investigation of the Company sometime this year. Galaxy is also seeking to expand its role in Nevada and is in the midst of its background investigation there. After recognizing that we could enhance our regulatory compliance program, we made it a top priority, stated Mr. Saucier. We have invested heavily in strengthening our regulatory compliance program and recruited former gaming regulators and corporate regulatory compliance executives to join our team. Whilst we continue to make improvements and make our regulatory compliance a model program, the significant gains we have already made provides us with confidence to seek new approvals in new jurisdictions. The recent Pennsylvania approval underscores this commitment, concluded Mr. Saucier. About Galaxy Gaming Headquartered in Las Vegas, Galaxy Gaming (galaxygaming.com) develops, manufactures and distributes innovative proprietary table games, state-of-the-art electronic wagering platforms and enhanced bonusing systems to land-based, riverboat, cruise ships and online casinos worldwide. Through its iGaming partner, Games Marketing, Ltd., Galaxy Gaming licenses its proprietary table games to the online gaming industry. The Company is also expanding its global presence through its partnership with WPT Enterprises, Inc., owner of the World Poker Tour. Galaxy Gaming is also the exclusive provider of SpectrumVision, a proprietary technology used to detect invisible markings on playing cards. Galaxy's games can be played online at FeelTheRush.com. Connect with Galaxy on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. CONTACT: Galaxy Gaming Gary A. Vecchiarelli (702) 939-3254 Copyright 2022 HT Digital Streams Ltd All Right Reserved ALECIA COHEN, TRAVEL DESIGNER: The Best Private Tours. Where To Shop, Where to Eat, What to See. Motoring-Malaysia.blogspot.my is an award winning Malaysian motoring / automotive / car news & reviews website or auto blog. It is where we rant and rave about cars, trucks, buses, motoring, motor vehicles and any interesting automotive industry related stuff. Unswayed in our point of view and darn proud of it! It's not about the numbers...it's about passion. Since 2006 and going strong. Warning. Many plot descriptions for every film contain spoilers. In case you have not seen the film, skip the first paragraph describing solely the plot, and just read the review below, in the second paragraph . Grades: ++++ Masterpiece+++ Excellent++ Good+ Watchable- Bad While I'd love for you to freely share any information, photos and stories you find here with friends and family, please contact me before printing or for public use. Thank you! The views expressed on this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of OMS International nor of Emmaus Biblical Seminary. MISSOULA A team of local entrepreneurs that developed a smartphone app to fight skin cancer has won the University of Montana's annual Fall Startup Pitch Competition, a program designed to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship as a viable career path. Ryan Duarte of Victor founded Montana Root Applications with Evin Ozer, a computer science graduate student at the University of Montana. They enlisted a group of other people to develop the SolarScreen Android app. The app detects the sun's intensity based on the user's location different strengths of solar radiation hit our skin depending on the time of day, latitude and altitude. The app sends the user an alert when UV intensity is above the user's preset limit, and also when it's time to put on more sunscreen. Ozer competed against nine other contestants at the pitch competition and was selected as the overall winner. He received $1,500 and automatic entry in the larger statewide John Ruffatto Business Startup Challenge held each spring at UM. Duarte said the issue of skin cancer prevention hits close to home for him. "My dad got skin cancer on his face pretty bad," he explained. "There's no warning system for it if you're in danger. I set out early this year to create a team to solve this problem, to reduce skin cancer on a global scale." Since Ozer won the competition, Duarte said investors have come calling. The company has been speaking with cancer foundation representatives and physicians at the Mayo Clinic. The company is working on setting up office space in Missoula as well. "Our team is nine people and we have eight people on our board of advisers, which includes three professional athletes," Duarte said. He said the concept of the application is simple, but it has the ability to save countless lives. "We did it by attacking the problem of skin cancer," he said. "As soon as you are at risk, your phone gives you a reminder. When the intensity of the sun has increased past a preset threshold, it sends you a reminder. So, on a scale of 1 to 11, I set my threshold to 4. A little update, a push reminder, on my phone tells me to put on sunscreen and tells me when to reapply." Ozer said that the app provides an avenue for parents to better protect their children, because they may not be paying attention to how much sun they're getting. The pitch competition was hosted by Blackstone LaunchPad and the Montana Academy of Distinguished Entrepreneurs. For more information visit solarscreen.com. Annual arts symposium set for Jan. 22 The Butte Arts Symposium starts at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 22, at the Imagine Butte Resource Center, 68 W. Park St. The annual event is dedicated to uniting Butte's creatives to survey and support ongoing projects while celebrating the exchange of new ideas. The program will feature eight short presentations from Butte artists and community organizers. The event will also feature community mind mapping walls within the IBRC's Foreground Gallery. Tech features La Captive Jan. 26 Montana Techs CINEMAtech Film Series continues at 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 26, in the library auditorium at 1300 W. Park St. with Chantal Akermans La Captive. Susan Sontag called it one of the years top films, 2000. Described as one of the boldest cinematic visionaries of the past quarter century, the feminist filmmaker, who died in October, takes a profoundly personal and aesthetically idiosyncratic approach to the form, using it to investigate geography and identity, space and time, sexuality and religion. English professor is guest speaker The Montana Tech Public Lecture Series will feature Prageeta Sharma, professor of English at the University of Montana, at 4 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 4, at 1300 W. Park St. Sharma, who moved to Missoula in 2007, from Brooklyn, N.Y., will address themes and theories of race that are shaping and producing contemporary literature and art. This free talk is a springboard for a larger conversation about how to initiate dialogue, share skills and resources, and create community and alliances that make minority voices work a central component of canonical and innovative work, and not work to discuss only in terms of its content and pedagogical (teaching/educational) message. Details: Professor Isabel Sobral Campos at icampos@mtech.edu. Authorities say those responsible for bomb threats that forced the Butte-Silver Bow Courthouse to be evacuated Thursday and Friday could face felony charges if caught. More than 100 employees had to leave the building Friday morning just as they did Thursday afternoon because of phoned-in bomb threats. Searches turned up nothing. A justice court employee fielded a call Thursday and said it sounded like a recording in a males voice saying there were bombs in the building. It said if all prisoners were not released within 30 minutes, there will be a massacre. Sheriff Ed Lester said a different employee, this one in district court, took what appeared to be a recorded phone call Friday morning saying there were bombs inside. It did not mention prisoners. Both callers have been male, and it appears they were either repeating themselves or it is a recorded message, Lester said. A similar threat forced evacuation of the courthouse in Helena on Thursday, but Lester said there had been no repeated threat in that city as of late Friday morning. Lester held a news conference at noon Friday with Butte-Silver Bow Chief Executive Matt Vincent; Fire Chief Jeff Miller; and Dan Dennehy, director of emergency services, to discuss the threats. Lester said his officers are working with the FBI and federal Department of Homeland Security in an attempt to locate the source of the calls. They don't feel there is any imminent threat but said protocol and evacuations must be followed just in case. Vincent said the threats were more than an inconvenience since they forced more than 100 courthouse employees to leave the building. Miller said six to eight firefighters responded to each call, and Lester said at least six of his officers were on scene. Vincent said the lost work time for courthouse employees alone was thousands of dollars, not to mention tying up police and firefighters from other duties. Lester said the incident would at least be a misdemeanor false report offense locally, but because emergency responders had to rush to the scene and put others at risk en route, it could be considered felony endangerment carrying more than a year of jail time. Federal charges also might come into play, he said. State 2015 graduation rates have increased, and state dropout rates have gone down, Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau announced earlier this week. But the Butte public school district lags behind in graduation and dropout numbers. Statewide, the graduation rate has improved to 86 percent an all-time high, compared to 85.4 percent, the previous high, since OPI started keeping such records in 2000. Buttes graduation rate for 2014-15 stands at 83 percent nearly three percentage points behind the state average. Our graduation rate is down a smidge, said Butte Superintendent Judy Jonart. We were on an upward movement. In 2013-14, Buttes graduation rate stood at nearly 85 percent the highest for the district in a five-year span from 2010 to 2015. Increasing graduation rates is the prime objective of Graduation Matters Montana, an OPI initiative. Im proud to say the community-building work of Graduation Matters Montana is making a difference, said Juneau at a press conference at Sentinel High School on Wednesday. Other good news: Montanas overall dropout rate has been cut down to 3.4 percent since 2009, when the statewide graduation rate was under 81 percent. But Buttes dropout rate is 5.4 percent two percentage points worse than the states. Buttes dropout rate has gotten worse, up from 4 percent in 2013-14. In the past five years, Buttes lowest dropout rate was 3.65 percent in 2012-13. Notably, the district improved considerably since its five-year high of 6.6 percent in 2010-11. Compared to other Class AA schools, Butte ranks sixth of seven in graduation rate at 83.4 percent. Missoula County Public Schools leads with an 89 percent graduation rate while the Billings district led with the most dropouts with 208. But enrollment varies among each class AA high school. Jonart emphasized that the Butte district has only one high school while Missoula has three, Billings three and Great Falls two. Comparing Butte with those districts doesnt necessarily correlate. Whitehall High School, at 92 percent, has a higher graduation rate than the state. Superintendent John T. Sullivan said his district has been relatively consistent for the last five years. As a district, we strive to have a 100 percent graduation rate, said Sullivan. We are constantly updating curriculums and have put measures in place to make sure we make solid connections with every student. Sullivan said he counts on two new counselors and two new administrators to make positive changes in the district. For example, district leaders are updating math, language arts and science curricula as part of a kindergarten-through-grade-12 initiative. Our students will have the most recent, data-proven textbooks and materials to enhance their learning, he added. We are a small school, 129 students, and we will strive to make genuine connections and positive relationships with each and every student, he said. It is those connections that keep students in school and on track for graduating. Hanna Nieskens is the new Whitehall High School principal. Britt McLean is the new kindergarten-through-grade-eight principal. Whitehall is a class B school. For Anaconda, no current OPI statistics were available, but the district decreased its dropout rate from 5 percent in 2011-12 to 3.8 percent in 2012-13. Anaconda Superintendent Gerry Nolan was out of town and unavailable for comment this week. 2015 Graduation rates in other southwest Montana schools: Powell County, 97.73 percent up from 90 percent in 2013-14. Granite County, 94.74 percent no 2013-14 comparison. Beaverhead County, 94 percent up from 86 percent in 2013-14. West Yellowstone, 92.3 percent equal to 2013-14. Whitehall, 91.67 percent up from 91.43 percent in 2013-14. Anaconda, 90 percent up from 76 percent in 2013-14. 2015 Dropout rates in other southwest Montana schools: Beaverhead County down 2.92 percent from 3.1 percent in 2013-14. Anaconda no current OPI statistics, but the district decreased its dropout rate from 5 percent in 2011-12 to 3.8 percent in 2012-13. Powell County down 3.4 from 3.6 percent in 2013-14. DEER LODGE During the past couple of years, the City of Deer Lodge has successfully addressed a number of challenges and contentious issues, and officials said they are looking forward to a progressive new year. Significant progress was made in the financial situation. The finance committee reports the budget is now functional and monitored. Mayor Zane Cozby said the city is finally in a place where I feel it is ready to explode into the future. Right now the iron is hot, and we need to strike. If not for the dedication of the city employees and the council, we would not be where we are right now." Achievements include: Finances Audits completed from 2008-2014. Balanced budget. Timely, accurate 2015 reports filed with the State of Montana. Wastewater Treatment Plant Slip-lining of the main sewer collection line and waterproofed manholes to reduce groundwater infiltration is complete. In December, accepted a bid from Sletten Construction of Great Falls to build a new water treatment plant to replace the failed plant that is out of compliance with state requirements. The project will cost $14.3 million. Available cash from grants, loans and city funds is $13.3 million. Deferring sludge removal until the project is complete will result in a $1 million savings at this time. The bid and funding package is being reviewed by Rural Development, but no rate increases other than the $8.78 increase that goes into effect this month are anticipated in the near future. City Well Replacement Contracted with Water & Environmental Technologies of Butte to complete production and water quality testing at the Park Street well that is offline and to site a new municipal well. Cost, $18,810. Public Safety Andy Scharf appointed as fire chief. Appointed 10 new firemen 25 men on the roster including the chief; increased training has been implemented. City awarded bid to Pierce Manufacturing Inc. of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, for a new Saber FR PUC Pumper truck for $432,116 with several potential discounts that could reduce the price. Funding includes: City capital fund, Rural Fire Department contributions of $40,000 per year, and possibly a grant. Police Chief Rick Johnson hired. Department has five officers including himself. Recently purchased three used, fully equipped patrol cars with low mileage costing less than one new car. 2,800 cases investigated in 2014 with 220 arrests and 2,200 cases in 2015 with 280 arrests. Growth and Economic Development A new growth policy for the city completed by Land Solutions, with input from the public, to guide city renewal and future development. Land Solutions hired to develop an annexation policy to bring the city into compliance with state law; funded by a $15,000 grant. Economic Growth and Development Committee established to work with groups and individuals interested in the development of Deer Lodge. Staff Changes City clerk and treasurer duties were separated after discrepancies resulted in dismissal of former clerk. New council members Carri Roselles and Caleb Burton and re-elected members Rex Anderson and John Mollendyke were sworn in Jan. 4. Council member Kurt Sager resigned citing family reasons. Letters of interest for the position are being accepted. Outgoing councilmen Dave Austin and Tom Goddard were thanked for their service. Friends of longtime county attorney Bob McCarthy remembered him Thursday as an architect of Butte-Silver Bows consolidated government, an expert in local law, a master Butte historian, and a strong Irish Democrat. And man, could he tell stories. He had that Irish in him, said Butte District Judge Brad Newman, who worked as a deputy county attorney under McCarthy for 18 years. He had that bit of blarney in him but also a lot of facts. McCarthy died Wednesday in St. James Healthcare of a heart attack, his family confirmed Thursday morning. He was 74. McCarthy served 28 years as county attorney, winning his first election in 1980 and holding the office until he announced his retirement in 2008. Even before that, as a chief deputy county attorney and adviser to the council of commissioners, he played a leading role in the consolidation of city and county government in 1977. He wrote more than 40 ordinances to get the charter government underway, but everything was not in place when the merger became official in May 1977. That that was OK, he said. We could not afford to sit back and devise an optimum solution to every problem, McCarthy told The Montana Standard later that year. We had to continue to pay the bills and provide services as well as developing a plan for operation of the new government. Lori Maloney, the longtime clerk of Butte District Court, said McCarthy knew everything about Butte. He was a great historian, she said. There was so much history in that mans head. He was also a great talker. He kind of rambled on sometimes and told you more than you really wanted to know, but he wanted to make sure everyone knew the true story, Maloney said with a laugh. McCarthy was born in Helena on Sept. 15, 1941, and graduated from Butte High School in 1959. He served in the Army from 1964 to 1966. He attended Gonzaga University in Spokane and the University of Montana-Missoula, where he graduated with a degree in business administration in 1968. He earned his law degree from there in 1973. He was deputy county attorney for Silver Bow County in 1973-74, joined the law firm of Henningsen Purcell and Genzberger in 1974, and also was a public defender. He was appointed city attorney in 1975 and stayed on as chief deputy after the government merger in 1977. Newman went to work for McCarthy in 1987 and a year later became chief deputy attorney for Butte-Silver Bow, a post he held for 18 years. McCarthy was not only an architect of Buttes consolidated government, he was known statewide for his expertise in local law in Montana, be it zoning, planning, bonding or other issues. When county attorneys elsewhere had questions, Newman said, They would call Bob. He was also atypical of county attorneys, Newman said. Most county attorneys, they want to be where the cameras are rolling and the pads and pencils are out, but he was more than content to hire good people and let them do that while he worked down in his office, he said. Eileen Joyce, who succeeded McCarthy as county attorney after he retired, said she often turned to him when confronted with gray areas in local law. She had thought of calling him with a question Wednesday night. He dedicated his entire career to public service," she said. "He had all this institutional knowledge." Zena Beth McGlashan, an author and fellow Butte historian, said McCarthy was a Butte boy through and through who loved the city and its history. She was among several members of the Butte Burros Club of local Democrats who took a trolley ride through town during a pouring rain a few years ago listening to McCarthy tell them about this and that. He had a photographic memory, and he knew all the neighborhoods, she said. It was just delightful to hear him talk about Buttes history and tell stories that havent been written down and the gossip and all the names. Jim Harrington, a Butte attorney and longtime friend of McCarthys, said he was a real gentleman who was active in the Catholic Church and Buttes Ancient Order of Hibernians. He knew more about the history of the Irish in Butte than anyone I have ever met, Harrington said. I always loved to be in his company at gatherings and events. I always tried to get a chair next to him because he was so entertaining to talk with. Newman said McCarthy was busier after he retired because he had his hand in every charitable and community organization you can think of. Bobs passing is a huge loss to the community, he said. McCarthy was widowed and remarried. He and his late wife Loretta had four grown children Jerome, Julie, Steven and Willie and 10 grandchildren. Arrangements are pending at Duggan Dolan Mortuary. Ski day slated Saturday at Moulton The Mile High Nordic Ski Club is hosting a free Learn Moulton Day on Saturday, Jan. 16, at the Moulton Ski Area, north of Butte, to show people around the ski area. People are asked to meet at 11 a.m. in the parking area. Beginner and intermediate tours will be available as well as an off-trail adventure. A cabin will be available for people to warm up in. Wear appropriate clothing and bring your own gear. Moulton is about eight miles north of Butte at the end of Moulton Reservoir Road. Jodi Peretti named best speaker At this weeks meeting of Uptown Toasters, Toastmasters Club 9765, competition winners included Jodi Peretti, best speaker; Sarah Crain, best evaluator; and Bev York, best table topic respondent. The next meeting will be at noon Tuesday, Jan. 19, at the Archives. Details: 406-782-6605. Dance set Jan. 24 at Anaconda Elks Lodge ANACONDA The Highlights will play for a dance at the Anaconda Elks Lodge from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 24. Cost is $7.50 to Lodge No. 239 members, and $10 for the general public. Dance school plans bingo fundraiser Jan. 23 Miss K's annual bingo fundraiser is 7 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 23, at the Butte Elks Lodge, Montana and Galena. Bingo cards are $5 for 10 games (three cards for each game); specials will also be played. Door prizes, silent auction, 50/50 and concessions also are planned. Proceeds go towards dancers' competitions fees and travel fees. Details: 406-491-8485. People who are so ill that they are a danger to themselves or others shouldnt have guns. A Gazette opinion concluded with that statement last summer after a Montana woman who previously had been involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital was charged with mailing a loaded handgun to U.S. Sen. Jon Testers Washington office. Last week, as part of President Barack Obamas executive actions to require background checks on firearms purchasers, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services revised a federal health information privacy rule. According to the Associated Press, the revision is intended to encourage states to help prevent involuntarily committed mental patients from acquiring guns. For 50 years, federal law has forbidden involuntarily committed mental patients from owning firearms. But states are not required to list such individuals as prohibited from purchasing guns in the federal database that lists convicted felons who arent supposed to own guns. MONTANA, WYOMING GAPS Forty-four states have opted to list persons who have involuntary psychiatric commitments. Montana and Wyoming are among the six that dont. Last year, a bill that would have closed that gap in Montana died in House committee. House Bill 530 was carefully drafted to protect individual privacy and to limit listing to only folks who had been adjudicated as an eminent danger to themselves or others by a District Court. Importantly, the bill also provided a way for an individual to get off the no-buy list by getting a court order that he was no longer a danger according to the preponderance of evidence. The bill didn't apply to people who merely seek counseling, medication or other treatment for mental illnesses. It was narrowly focused on the small percentage of mentally ill people who have been involuntarily committed, or who are so ill a court found them unfit to proceed in a criminal case, or who have been found not guilty by reason of mental illness. A fiscal note for HB530 estimated that Montana courts make about 100 involuntary commitments per month. None of those peoples names would show up in a background check if a firearms dealer checked before selling them guns. HB530 would have required District Court clerks to send the names of those involuntarily committed, unfit to proceed and not guilty by reason of mental illness to the Montana Department of Justice. The bill also would have required the clerks to notify the state DOJ when courts lifted the gun possession prohibition. RISK OF SELF HARM In an average year, 209 Montanans take their own lives. Two-thirds of those deaths are by firearms. It makes no sense to sell a gun to a person who is suicidal. It make no sense to give firearms to a person who is so ill that a District Court has ordered him secured in a hospital for treatment because of the danger his illness poses to himself or others. The Montana House committee heard last year of a Montana case in which a man who had been involuntarily committed was released, bought a gun and fatally shot a woman. That risk would be reduced with legislation like HB530. A much greater risk is that a seriously ill individual would turn a gun on himself. In Wyoming, the 2014 legislative session rejected a bill to require reporting of involuntary commitments to the federal background check system, according to the Associated Press. Both Montana and Wyoming have responsibility to protect their citizens. Legislatures in both states should carefully revise their laws to reduce the risk that people adjudicated as dangerously unstable dont get the same access to guns as everyone else. -- The Billings Gazette Scott Olson/Getty Images(NORTH CHARLESTON, N.C.) -- The war of words between presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz spilled onto the GOP debate stage, ending the "bromance" the two men once shared. In the spin room following Thursday nights Republican presidential debate in North Charleston, South Carolina, Trump told ABC News he was a little bit surprised by his confrontation with Cruz. When asked if the one-time "bromance" between the two men was over, Trump said, I guess it is. Cruzs campaign said that Cruz was the only candidate to confront Trump on the debate stage and walk away a winner. For months, the two men have openly praised each other. When Trump took hits from GOP rivals about controversial comments about illegal immigrants, Cruz defended him. The Texas senator often mentioned to the press that Trump was a friend. The two men even held a private meeting last summer vowing to not let presidential politics get in the way of their friendship. Cruz would often tell the media that he wasnt interested in a cage match with Trump. But after days of attacks by Trump on Cruzs faith and questions about whether he is a natural born citizen, Cruz took the gloves off and landed his biggest public punch on Trump. Cruz let loose after being asked whether his Canadian birth to an American mother makes him ineligible to be president. Back in September, my friend Donald said he had his lawyers look at this from every which way and there was no issue there. There was nothing to this birther issue. Now since September, the Constitution hasn't changed, but the poll numbers have, Cruz said. I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling in Iowa. Trump has raised questions in recent days about whether Cruz is a natural born citizen, a requirement to be president of the United States. Hes suggested that Cruz should get a declaratory judgment to avoid any legal challenges from Democrats about his eligibility. Cruz told Trump Thursday night that he wouldnt be taking any of his legal advice soon. He also attempted to debunk birther questions by arguing that Trump's logic could exclude the real estate mogul himself from the White because Trump's mother was born in Scotland. Trump retorted, But I was born here. Trump admitted on the debate stage that Cruzs rise in the polls had something to do with him putting niceties aside. Now, he is doing a little bit better. No, I didn't care before. He never had a chance. Now he is doing better. Hes got probably four or five percent chance, Trump said. Both men traded barbs about choosing each other as their vice presidential pick. I choose him as my vice presidential candidate and the Democrats sue, because we can't take him along for the ride. I don't like that. Okay? Trump said. Cruz countered, And I'll tell you what, Donald, you very kindly just a moment ago offered me the VP slot. I'll tell you what. If this all works out I'm happy to consider naming you as VP. Trump said hed rather go back to building buildings. The two also debated the meaning of New York values. Cruz said Trump embodies New York values, which, he explained, are "socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro-gay marriage, focus around money and the media. Cruz went further, saying, Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan. That was a dig at Trumps attack on Cruzs faith that not a lot of evangelicals come out of Cuba. Trump went on the offensive, invoking the terrorist attacks of 9/11 to describe the resilience of New Yorkers. New York is a great place. It's got great people, it's got loving people, wonderful people. When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York, Trump said. I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made. Some New Yorkers agree. Cruzs remarks got the cover treatment of the New York Daily News with a headline that said Drop Dead Ted. Copyright 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. The 2016 election season officially started Thursday the first day Montanans could register as candidates for dozens of top state posts, ranging from governor and Chief Justice of the Montana Supreme Court to legislators and district judges. In total, 124 people filed to formalize their candidacy, Secretary of State Linda McCulloch said. Opening day is an unofficial holiday for Montana pols. Dozens of people from across the state from Culbertson to Missoula drove to Helena to register in person as candidates. Many incumbent legislators already were at the Capitol for a week filled with interim committee hearings. Candidates must register before 5 p.m. March 14 to appear on the ballot for June 7 primaries. Many will wait until that deadline or announce on a different day over the next two months, in part so they do not have to share the spotlight. That might be the plan of incumbent Democrat Gov. Steve Bullock, who is expected to seek re-election, and Greg Gianforte, a presumed top Republican candidate who has said he will announce this month whether to make his exploratory campaign an official gubernatorial bid. Legislative leaders from both parties leveraged filing day as an opportunity to tout campaign themes and priorities for the next legislative session in press conferences at the Capitol rotunda. Sen. Robyn Driscoll of Billings touted that Democrats had gained legislative seats in the last two election cycles and pledged to do so again. She said the partys diverse legislative membership is a key reason why Democrats are better equipped to serve all Montana residents, noting more than half are women and seven are Native Americans. Id implore you to pay attention through March to the candidates that file for each party, and I ask you to think about what a difference it makes when we have a diverse Legislature, Driscoll said, noting that fewer than 20 percent of Republican legislators are women and just one is a Native American. Each Democratic candidate stepped to the lectern to name their promises for the 2017 legislative session: to support public education from Pre-K to college, fight privatization of public lands, protect voting rights, and invest in infrastructure. Rep. Austin Knudsen, R-Culbertson, said his partys priorities include simplifying the tax code, removing red tape on resource development, and lowering taxes for all Montanans. Today we take the first official step toward delivering majorities in the Montana House and the Montana Senate Montanans are fed up with radical Democrat policies, Knudsen said. Alluding to Gianforte, he added, Were excited about the prospect of having a successful businessman and Republican in the governors office. Although Gianforte was in the Capitol during the Republican rally, he did not stand with legislators in the rotunda. One floor down, he sat in a subcommittee meeting on the EPAs Clean Power Plan and its potential effects on Colstrip. Im trying to learn about the issues, he said. The Commissioner of Political Practices also capitalized on the crowds of filers to host training sessions on the states online campaign finance reporting system. Although versions have been available for years, this is the first election cycle that candidates in state-level races must use the system and follow new, stricter disclosure rules. From the website, voters and campaign staff can instantly see reports on who donated to which campaigns and how candidates have spent the money they raise. Obi-Wan Kenobi is going to be running, joked Program Supervisor Mary Baker as she led a training session. We created some pretty weird names to test the system, explained Kym Trujillo. The filing-day fun started early as six people waited outside the Secretary of States locked office at 7:30 a.m. to formalize their candidacy. Its a huge honor to serve Montanans, so I decided to be first in line, Rep. Mary Ann Dunwell, D-Helena, said, carrying a new backpack she bought at Staples for the re-election efforts ahead. Its going to be a long campaign. Opening day of candidate filing is one of McCullochs favorite days of the year. A flag garland hangs above the door, patriotic tinsel lines the desks, and candidates are encouraged to take a red or blue cookie before leaving. McCulloch, wearing a sparkling blue cardigan, red shirt and flag-themed scarf, sits ready to review filing documents and to give each candidate a handshake. The decorations are, I think, a reflection of the fact you have an elementary school teacher in the Secretary of States office, said McCulloch, who is in her final term at the post. Actually, this is kind of bittersweet because, after eight years, this is my last candidate opening day. Rep. Kathy Kelker, D- Billings, approached McCullochs desk and handed her a clipboard. The secretary of state ran her finger down the registration form, asked her to make a quick fix, then smiled as she offered a handshake. Congratulations, McCulloch said. You are officially a candidate. Dave Palmer and Matt Vincent made their bids for chief executive of Butte-Silver Bow County official on Thursday, the first day for local and state candidates to file for office in Montana this year. The filing period runs through March 14, so candidates have plenty of time to join the race. Some likely will wait until the final day, but at least one person in Butte planned to file first thing Friday morning. Tom Powers, chief deputy in the Butte District Court clerks office, said Friday is his mothers and daughters birthdays and I figured it might bring me some good karma. He hopes to succeed longtime District Court Clerk Lori Maloney, who is not seeking another term. Vincent is seeking his second term as chief executive while Palmer, a longtime commissioner, is running for a first. Montanas primary election is June 7 with the general election set Nov. 8. Several local incumbents filed for re-election Thursday, including Butte-Silver Bow County Sheriff Ed Lester and County Attorney Eileen Joyce. Also filing were Assessor Dan Fisher; Clerk and Recorder Sally Hollis; Justice of the Peace Ben Pezdark; and Cathy Maloney, who is seeking another term as superintendent of schools. Former county Budget Director Jeff Amerman and Sheryl Ralph, who won re-election as a commissioner in 2014, filed for auditor. Longtime Auditor Danette Harrington is not seeking another term. Lori Baker-Patrick filed for county treasurer, a post held by Pat Callaghan for the past 36 years. He plans to retire Feb. 29 his leap-year birthday so commissioners will have to fill his seat temporarily until the November election. James Reavis filed for city judge, and Commissioner Brendan McDonough filed for re-election to the council representing District 8. Five other commissioner seats are on the ballot this year. In the Montana Statehouse, state Sen. Jim Keane, D-Butte, filed for a House seat in District 73. Rep. Ryan Lynch, D-Butte, filed for re-election in District 76. Amanda Curtis, a Butte Democrat who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 2014, filed for state House seat 74. She served in the House from 2013 to 2014. Republican Rep. Ray Shaw, R-Sheridan, filed for re-election in House District 71. Republicans Brooke Erb and Tom Welch of Dillon filed in District 72. Rep. Kathy Swanson, D-Anaconda, filed in District 77 while Rep. Gordon Pierson Jr., D-Deer Lodge, filed again in District 78. State Rep. Pat Noonan. D-Butte, filed for Public Service Commission District 3. Noonan has served for the past eights years as a member of the Montana House of Representatives. PLEASE NOTE: This is a draft version of the MAGIC Governing Board minutes; an official version of the minutes will not be available until after the MAGIC Governing Board approves them at its next quarterly meeting. Anyone who desires a copy of the official, approved minutes is encouraged to contact MAGIC after the next regular quarterly meeting. MAGIC quarterly meetings are held on the second Monday in the months of January, April, July and October. MAGIC Governance Board Minutes for Quarterly Meeting January 11, 2016 - 4:00 p.m. Muscatine Power & Water Auditorium Present (Board Members): Vice-Chair Susan Eversmeyer, Matthew Bonebrake, Phil Fitzgerald, Scott Natvig, Doyle Tubandt Absent: Scott Sauer Present (Staff): Keith White, Dale McCrea, Executive Secretary Mark Warren, Mark Yerington Absent: Bill Riley, Dennis Astley CALL TO ORDER Vice-Chair Susan Eversmeyer called the meeting to order at 4:00 p.m. WELCOMING TO NEW BOARD MEMBERS Vice-Chair S. Eversmeyer introduced Doyle Tubandt as a new MAGIC Board member from the MPW Board of Trustees and Scott Sauer from the Muscatine County Board of Supervisors. ELECTION OF OFFICERS FOR 2015 Vice-Chair S. Eversmeyer asked M. Warren to review the history of Board elections for MAGIC. According to past precedent, Vice-Chair S. Eversmeyer would be next in line to Chair the MAGIC Board and re-appointed City Council member S. Natvig would become Vice-Chair. P. Fitzgerald moved to elect S. Eversmeyer as MAGIC Chair and S. Natvig as Vice-Chair for 2016. M. Bonebrake seconded the motion. By roll call vote, the motion passed unanimously. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Chair S. Eversmeyer asked for comments on or corrections to the minutes of the regular quarterly MAGIC Board meeting on October 12th 2015. S. Natvig moved to approve the minutes, followed with a second by D.Tubandt. Motion carried unanimously. COMMUNICATIONS, HEARINGS, REPORTS M. Yerington and M. Warren updated the board on multiple ongoing or upcoming projects. 1) M. Warren explained that they have been working with MUSCOM to update their address information for the Statewide NG911 initiative. Along with this MAGIC has been working with GeoComm, the vendor hired by MUSCOM to install new mapping interface for the dispatchers. 2) M. Warren stated that MAGIC had also been working with the City of Muscatine Community development department to get their new online permitting software set up. MAGIC has been working with the vendor GovQa to finalize the mapping side of the software, and is waiting on GovQA to set up a webinar for MAGIC staff to discuss GovQAs GIS needs from MAGIC. 3) MAGIC has been working through the setup and configuration of their new database server that was purchased in late 2015. They are hoping to have this finalized by the end of the month. 4) M. Warren stated that MAGIC has been working through various engineering data requests that are a part of all the large projects that will be carried out over the next few years on the Mississippi Dr. Corridor area. 5) M. Yerington stated that MAGIC has been working with MPW to update their service addresses prior to the installation and setup of the new Business Systems software. Along with this MAGIC has been working with county and city organizations to formalize a way for notification of new addresses so MPW is kept up-to-date with these changes.. Regarding customer requests and data sales, M. Warren noted that there was one large data sale to MUSCOM for GIS services up to November 2015 for $10,389.78. There was also a data sale that said a City of Muscatine payment was received. M. Warren was going to check into what this was for. Chair S. Eversmeyer asked for comments on the 2nd Quarter MAGIC Financial Statement. M. Warren explained the MAGIC cash balance and basemap fund to give the new board members some background on MAGIC operations. M. Warren also explained the new GASB Statement 68 pension provision line item that was added this year for reporting standards. Chair S. Eversmeyer asked for a motion to approve and file the MAGIC quarterly financial statement, which P. Fitzgerald provided, followed by a second from D. Tubandt. Motion was unanimously approved. OLD BUSINESS M. Warren updated the board on the status of the cancellation of web subscription payments. M. Warren informed the board that the MAGIC Beacon website is now open to everyone to have full search capability where no login is required. M. Warren provided background so new board members understood why this was taking place. NEW BUSINESS M. Warren informed the new board members that MAGIC staff typically provides new board members with an orientation presentation towards the end of January. M. Warren will contact S. Sauer to see when he will be available to meet. APPROVAL OF BILLS M. Warren recommended that the Board approve payment in the amount of $45,975 per year for a 3 year contract to ESRI for the Multi-Jurisdictional Enterprise license agreement for GIS software. S. Natvig moved to approve, seconded by D.Tubandt. The motion carried unanimously. M. Warren recommended that the Board approve payment of an invoice for $2,415 from the Schneider Corporation for Web mapping services for the 3rd quarter of FY 2015-16 (January 1 thru March 31, 2016). P. Fitzgerald moved to approve, seconded by S. Natvig. The motion carried unanimously. OTHER BUSINESS There was no other business. ADJOURN Meeting was adjourned at a 4:45 PM. Respectfully submitted, Mark S. Warren, MAGIC Executive Secretary Susan Eversmeyer, MAGIC Chair COLUMBUS, JUNCTION, Iowa It was pretty much routine business for the Columbus Junction City Council on Wednesday, with several beginning-of-the-year appointments approved by the council. Mayor Dan Wilson announced he was appointing most of the representatives of the city council to the same boards and commissions they held last year. That included incumbents Harold Prior, library board; Phil Kaalberg, planning and zoning; and Mark Huston, board of adjustment. New council member Andy Wink was appointed council representative to the community development committee; and Jason Payne, another new council member, was appointed to the parks and recreation board. New members appointed to the various city commissions and boards by Wilson were Jose Estrada, planning and zoning, term expiring Jan. 1, 2020; Bernabe Rodriquez, board of adjustment, term expiring Jan. 1, 2019; and Mike Pavey and Jose Estrada (re-appointments), parks and recreation, both terms expiring Jan. 1, 2020. The council approved all the appointments. Wilson also presented his list of appointments to five city council committees. Utilities: Huston/Kaalberg; Streets and sidewalks: Kaalberg/Payne; Finance: Prior/Huston; Public Safety: Wink/Prior; and Community Development: Payne/Wink. The chair of each committee was identified first. Wilson also announced he was reappointing Huston as mayor pro-tem; and Kaalberg was re-appointed to be the citys representative on the Louisa County Solid Waste Commission, 911 Board and Emergency Management Board. In other action, the council approved the appointment of the Columbus Gazette as the official newspaper; the official banks as the Washington State Bank and Community Bank; and Jim Everett as the citys Hometown Pride Committee representative. Everett replaced Jim Gabriel who moved from the community. Huston was also re-appointed to be the citys representative on the Southeast Iowa Regional Planning Commission. The council also approved and accepted the citys fiscal year 2015 audit. Officials said the auditors had not found any significant issues that needed to be addressed. Wilson also announced he would present his annual state of the city report at the councils next meeting. Also during committee reports, Huston suggested the city should start showing that it was setting aside a portion of its Road Use Tax to help construct an upcoming bridge replacement project on Locust St. According to earlier discussions, the bridge will be replaced by a box culvert at an estimated cost of around $475,000. The city will be responsible for 20 percent of the cost, with grant funding expected to cover the remaining amount. In final action, Wilson reported he and Huston had visited earlier in the week with the Columbus School Board and the Louisa County Board of Supervisors on a tax-increment financing (TIF) issue. The city is asking the other two taxing authorities to approve a five-year extension of an existing 10-year TIF; and approve a new 15-year TIF. The TIF extension would cover Phase I of the New Heritage Subdivision, while the new TIF would cover Phase II of the subdivision. Officials said street and other improvements would be financed through the two TIFs. MUSCATINE, Iowa The only bid received for Muscatine's downtown Community Development Block Grant revitalization project was about $190,000 more than the engineer's estimate and was rejected by the Muscatine City Council at Thursday night's meeting. The lone bidder was Woodruff Construction LLC, of Iowa City, according to Adam Thompson, the city's planning/community development coordinator. The base bid for the facade improvements came in at just less than $400,000. The engineer's estimate of cost was $345,000. The engineer's estimate for the cost of the stormwater improvements was $45,000. Woodruff's bid was $177,200. Thompson said some of the alternate items like windows and doors will be removed to try and cut the cost of the project. He thinks breaking the project into two may help when it goes out for bid for a second time. "We are making changes with how we're out to bid this next time. When we bid this the first time, we bid the stormwater improvements and the facade improvements all together in the bid package. We had several bidders that were interested in bidding in the stormwater part of it but their specialty was not in the facade so we are breaking those two elements out as we move forward with the next bidding," Thompson said. He said the scope of the project may have created the problem. "It's a complicated project," Thompson explained. "You are dealing with 26 different properties, each property needing different work done to it. It is a complicated project. It's not a straightforward project like constructing a road is." The plans and specifications will come back to city council next week for approval. The project will then be sent out for bid. Thompson said the plan is to open bids on Feb. 11. In other business, the city council declined to change the council rules to permit an invocation at the beginning of each council meeting. Mayor Diana Broderson had asked City Administrator Gregg Mandsager to bring up the issue during Thursday's in-depth session to see what the will of the council was on the issue. The practice was started during the term of Mayor Evelyn Schauland, according to councilman Phil Fitzgerald. It was stopped at some point while Dick O'Brien when pastors and ministers were not available at council members found themselves in charge of getting someone to do the invocation or doing it themselves. There was no invocation during the four-year term of Mayor DeWayne Hopkins. MUSCATINE, Iowa The city of Muscatine has announced it is expected to be awarded a $100,000 Linking Iowas Freight Transportation System (LIFTS) Grant in February. According to the Iowa Department of Transportation, the city has received its recommendation to be one of six out of 25 total LIFTS Grant applicant projects to be funded, a press release from the city stated. The LIFTS program seeks to address gaps in multi-modal funding to assist in bolstering the freight transportation system be that by truck, train, barge, airplane, or other modes. Being awarded the grant means the city would be able to conduct a feasibility study to support the establishment of a multi-modal container terminal port facility on the Mississippi River in Muscatine. The port would allow for the sending, receiving and trans-loading of inter-modal container freight and smaller bulk items utilizing the river, highway, warehousing or rail. In September 2015, the city announced intentions to explore the development of an inter-modal container port. This grant is a step toward reaching that goal. The LIFTS Grant is an 80/20 match, meaning the grant would provide $80,000 in funding which will be paired with $20,000 from private sources, totaling $100,000 that will be used for the feasibility study. The feasibility study is a necessary first step toward establishing a port authority in Muscatine because it has the potential to provide justification to move forward with applying for larger grants from the U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Economic Development Administration. In September, we established that our next step was to study where to put the port and the economic impact it would have on the entire region and here we are on the cusp of fulfilling our first objective, Community Development Director Dave Gobin stated in the press release. Although the City is only one of six grant requests to be awarded out of 25 applications, it awaits final approval in February before they can enter into a definitive grant agreement with the IDOT. MUSCATINE, Iowa Rebuilding Together Muscatine County will host a trivia night fundraiser Friday, Feb. 19, at the Rendezvous, 3127 Lucas St. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and trivia starts at 7 p.m. The cost is $10 per player for teams of six to eight players. There will be cash prizes and raffle drawings. MUSCATINE, Iowa What started as a small idea has gained some downhill momentum as a local group is working to bring an adult soapbox derby to Muscatine this summer. "It was a small snowball that just kept rolling and kept getting bigger," Onken said. This year's Leadership Muscatine class is planning the race for July 4. Leadership Muscatine is program by the Greater Muscatine Chamber of Commerce and Industry that selects a small group for classes that meet twice monthly for seven months "as a way to educate rising leaders in Muscatine on community history and to develop skills that will lead to lifelong success," the chamber's website states. The program culminates with a community involvement project, explained Josh Onken, one of the five members of the class. Other class members working on the soapbox derby project are Kelsey Hodapp, Tony Kelly, Mike Moyer and Matt Wendt. Onken said he had the idea of a pinewood derby competition for adults, recalling when he worked in St. Louis knowing several parents of Boy Scouts who made a version of the handmade toy car race for adults as a fundraiser for their children's troop. As the Leadership Muscatine group researched pinewood derbies it came across soapbox derbies and learned that they are growing in popularity, especially in towns like Portland, Oregon, and Nevada City, California. As the group then researched soapbox derbies, they learned there's a history of it in Muscatine. Children raced in a soapbox derby each year from 1937-1966, with the except of a couple years during World War II, according to Onken. "It was a big event in town," Onken said. In fact, Onken's neighbor has a soapbox derby car in his basement from the 1950s. While the group is still working on the details, the plan is currently to have teams compete from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. July 4 in downtown Muscatine, ending in time for the Independence Day parade. "Trying to keep people downtown through the whole Fourth of July," Wednt said, "and experiencing Muscatine downtown is our goal, for the most part." They're asking for teams of at least three to consist of a driver, pit crew and volunteer. The group is still working on specifications for how the soapbox cars can't be built and getting approval from the city for use of streets and other needs. But they're looking for community support now including fundraising. "We want the event to be fun, but we want it to be safe," Onken said. He said the money raised would be used for fences, hay bales and barriers to keep spectators and racers safe as well as providing T-shirts and refreshments for volunteers. There's also a fundraising element. They hope to collect money from entries to donate for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (commonly known as STEM) materials and programs in Muscatine Community School District. "It's definitely different," Hodapp said. "It's an event that would draw a lot of adults, young adults ... to be really involved in their community." Leadership Muscatine members said beyond just being fun, they're excited about the benefits it would provide for the town. "We always travel to Iowa City, the Quad Cities for dinner, for events and we wanted to have an event in Muscatine something we would stay for, something that would bring people from Iowa City, from the Quad Cities to Muscatine rather than the other way around," Kelly said. For more information, visit www.muscatinederby.com there are links to the group's Facebook and Twitter pages in addition to fundraiser and contact options. This just in: Nothing boosts circulation or enhances ratings like a sex scandal. The more prominent the actors and the more prurient the allegations, the better. Whatever factual adjustments become necessary to keep the narrative going, many journalists are eager to play along. For example, how did the current spat between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton over her husband's well-known sins begin? Was it when Hillary, unwisely rising to the bait, criticized Trump's "penchant for sexism"? Or was it earlier, when Trump described her taking bathroom break during a TV debate as "disgusting"? Most would say Trump's bizarre insult jump-started things. However, if you watch "Morning Joe" or read accounts of Hillary's supposedly "enabling" Bill Clinton's transgressions, it's pretty much all her fault. Always was. Even the New York Times, in an editorial arguing that "Trump is way out of line bringing up Mr. Clinton's philandering," couldn't restrain itself from scolding her for allegedly attacking Bill's paramours. "When Mr. Clinton ran for president in 1992," editors chided, "Mrs. Clinton appeared on television beside him to assert that allegations involving Gennifer Flowers were false. In 1998, he admitted to that affair under oath." Actually, no, he did not. In the famous "60 Minutes" interview, Bill Clinton had acknowledged "causing pain in my marriage." He added that most adults would understand what that meant. Testifying in 1998, he admitted a single backseat tryst with Flowers, very far from the 12-year relationship she'd claimed. In her own deposition, she testified to earning more than $500,000 posing as Bill Clinton's mistress. Besides claiming college degrees she'd never earned, beauty titles she'd never won, and even a twin sister who never existed, Flowers also managed to write an entire book without stipulating a single time and place where she and her famous paramour were ever together. Fans of MSNBC's "Hardball" have evidently forgotten the August 1999 episode in which Flowers was permitted to accuse Bill Clinton of having political opponents murdered, while host Chris Matthews told her how hot she was. "You're a very beautiful woman," Matthews panted. "He knows that, you know that, and everybody watching knows that. Hillary Clinton knows that!" See, where Lewinsky was a star-struck amateur, Flowers was a seasoned professional. Echoing Trump, who's been going around describing Hillary as an "enabler," who "totally destroyed" women that accused Bill Clinton, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd depicted her as a hypocrite for "running as a feminist icon" after smearing women who truthfully maligned him. And who would those be? Dowd provides exactly one example, the unfortunate Monica the most reluctant "accuser" imaginable. And did Hillary not describe Lewinsky as a "narcissistic loony toon"? Apparently so, but in a private communication with her close friend Diane Blair, a University of Arkansas professor whose papers became available after her untimely death. It's the press that turned it into a smear. If that's the worst thing a middle-aged wife ever said about a young thing who threw herself at her husband, she should get the Nobel Peace Prize. So am I so naive that I believe Bill Clinton innocent of all charges? Certainly not. However, my suspicion is that like most public men with what the old Johnny Cash song called a "wicked wandering eye," he waited for the woman to make the first move, and rarely had to wait very long. Indeed, I long ago learned that the way some women act around famous, powerful men athletes, actors, musicians, politicians contradicts almost everything your Mama (and every feminist since time began) said about how women behave. I have even witnessed women at writers' conferences trying to trip novelists (and even the odd journalist) and beat them to the floor. I've also noticed that some can get vengeful when they don't get what they want. Or even if they do. That's why Hillary Clinton in particular ought to avoid academic-accented cant about women never lying about sexual assault. All human beings lie, and sex is one of the commonest things they lie about. Again, sorry, but there it is. Meanwhile, some reporters appear keen to return to those thrilling days of 1998 the way others yearn to experience Woodstock. I recently read a screed by a Vox reporter who was 8 years old when this all went down: Linda Tripp, Kathleen Willey, Michael Isikoff, the "Elves," Kenneth Starr, the lot. He made a brave show of arguing that it would be "misleading and pernicious" to doubt the ever-changing tale of Juanita Broaddrick, an Arkansas nursing home owner (and Trump supporter) who claims that Bill Clinton raped her 40 years ago, but has also given sworn statements denying it. He appears unaware that a veritable army of jackleg private eyes and right-wing political operatives (many employed by Kenneth Starr) ransacked Arkansas for years without proving a thing. Please, not again. Arkansas Times columnist Gene Lyons is a National Magazine Award winner and co-author of "The Hunting of the President." Readers can email Lyons at eugenelyons2@yahoo.com. Yes, you can transfer your domain to any registrar or hosting company once you have purchased it. Since domain transfers are a manual process, it can take up to 5 days to transfer the domain. Domains purchased with payment plans are not eligible to transfer until all payments have been made. Please remember that our 30-day money back guarantee is void once a domain has been transferred. For transfer instructions to GoDaddy, please click here. Les emplois a Rennes sont abondants et varies. Il y a quelque chose pour tout le monde. Que vous soyez a la recherche dun emploi [] Les blattes ou cafards (Blatta orientalis) sont des insectes qui appartiennent a la famille des Blattoptera. Ils se caracterisent par leur forme allongee, leurs ailes [] South Africas two biggest mobile networks are gearing up to attend Parliament hearings on possible regulation for over-the-top services in the country. Vodacom and MTN will attend hearings on January 26 in which Parliaments Portfolio Committee on Telecommunications and Postal Services will discuss possible regulation of OTT services. The hearings have been scheduled following requests from mobile networks, the committee said in a statement on Thursday. Maya Makanjee, who is Vodacoms [JSE:VOD] chief officer of corporate affairs, said her company will be attending the hearings on January 26 but that it wont be delivering a presentation. Vodacom is supportive of a review of the regulation similar to the view expressed by the European Commission, articulated in the Digital Single Market strategy, that rules must be simpler, future proof and must also ensure a level playing field between traditional telecoms companies and new players where they compete in the same market, Makanjee told Fin24. Responding to questions from Fin24, MTN South Africa [JSE:MTN] said it would also be present at the hearings. MTN believes that telecommunication operators and over-the-top (OTT) operators can co-exist in an agreed and mutually beneficial relationship, the company said. MTN is committed to establishing an amicable relationship with OTTs. MTN will make a representation to the Portfolio Committee on Telecommunications and Postal Services on its viewpoint regarding (OTT) operators, the company added. Previous calls for regulation The chief executive officers of both Vodacom and MTN South Africa have previously made calls for OTT regulation. A lot of your data growth is driven by the same people who are trying to cannibalise you, Shameel Joosub, Vodacom Groups CEO told Fin24 in an earnings call in November last year. Joosub, at the time, went on to call for OTT operators to face greater scrutiny. It needs to be carefully considered from a regulatory perspective there should be some rules and regulations around it, he said. Meanwhile, the CEO of MTN SA, Mteto Nyati, told Fin24 in October last year that regulators also need to step in regarding OTTs in South Africa. You have these players which are getting huge benefit out of an industry without making any investment. How do we level the playing fields? Nyati told Fin24. Nyati went on to call for regulators to ensure the playing fields are level between us, the network operators and the over-the-top players. Cell Cs different stance Fin24 reported on Thursday that South Africas third largest network Cell C also plans to attend the hearings but that it looks set to take a different position. We strongly believe that this (regulating OTT players) could be to the detriment of the industry and consumer at large, Cell C chief executive officer, Jose Dos Santos, told Fin24 via an email response. It is key for mobile operators and OTTs to find innovative ways to work together and we look forward to building on our existing partnerships with the OTTs, he added. Other opposition to OTT regulation could come from the public after online womens magazine, All4Women.co.za, launched a petition that has already notched up over 4 000 signatures. OTT is not just becoming a hot topic for networks in South Africa though. In Morocco this month, reports have emerged about all three mobile networks in that country restricting the use of voice over internet protocol (VOIP) services that include Viber, Skype and WhatsApp. Fin24 More on Vodacom and MTN Here is how much Vodacom knows about what you do on the Internet Why should WhatsApp pay MTN when users already pay for data? Eskom said on Friday that Lesotho and Swaziland, with which it has firm power supply agreements, should lower consumption as the power utility attempts to help its regional neighbours offset crippling power shortages. Eskom has jumped to the rescue of Zimbabwe and Zambia, agreeing to supply both countries with 300 MW each of off-peak power in line with statutes under the Southern African Power Pool. The agreements to supply Zimbabwe and Zambia are under discretionary conditions, the power utility said on Friday. However, Eskom wants Lesotho and Swaziland to reduce electricity consumption to help South Africa avoid load shedding which could become necessary if the countrys power supply faces constraints. Eskom also has non-firm power supply agreements with Namibia and Botswana. Firm supply agreements (Swaziland and Lesotho) continue to be supplied, but they are urged to reduce consumption. However, if rotational load shedding is required in South Africa, they are required to undertake proportional load shedding, Eskom said. Eskom has now notched up about five months without power supply disruptions, a luxury its neighbours are unable to afford. Zimbabwe and Zambia are gripped with power shortages that have curtailed mining and industrial productivity. It added that it has signed a bilateral agreement with Zambia, which allows us to supply up to 300 MW off-peak and more than 50 MW standard at peak when demand/supply dynamics permit. 730 miners face retrenchment The power supply situation in Zambia has been worsening, with Canadian miner First Quantum Minerals which operates the Kalumbila copper mine saying on Thursday that it is to lay off about 730 miners because of power utility Zescos plans to restrict electricity supplies. Experts have urged southern African countries to prioritise investment in the private power producer sector. Zimbabwes government has disclosed plans to raise electricity tariffs by 49% to cover production costs. Fin24 More on Eskom Eskom wants to be a major renewable energy player South Africans will see red if Eskom increases prices As owner of this blog, I bear no responsibility to what other contributors/bloggers may post. I encourage all to speak freely without indulging in libel or defamatory content. Anyone who feels offended by any posting can email me and I will remove the offending article if appropriate. Contact me at redbeansg@yahoo.com redbean Advertise Here Be seen advertise here. Contact us. GUATEMALA CITY TV comic and political neophyte Jimmy Morales was being inaugurated as Guatemala's next leader on Thursday amid uncertainty over how he plans to run the Central American nation beset by entrenched poverty, rampant corruption and violent criminal gangs. Morales has yet to say who will make up his Cabinet, and he already suffered one political setback when prosecutors formally asked for the equivalent of impeachment proceedings against an allied lawmaker suspected of human rights violations dating to Guatemala's civil war. "He is a president who takes office without a party, without well-qualified people he trusts and with a state apparatus that's really in financial and institutional ruin," said Edgar Gutierrez, an analyst at San Carlos University in Guatemala. Morales won office in a runoff Oct. 25 after huge anti-corruption demonstrations forced former President Otto Perez Molina and his vice president from office. Both are behind bars and facing prosecution, and the outsider's triumph was seen as a punishment vote from an electorate that wanted a fresh break. Two and a half months later, Morales' most visible activities have included a tour of Central American nations and a visit to Guatemalan migrants' advocacy groups in the United States. He was entirely out of the public eye for the last two weeks until Tuesday, when he appeared at a ceremony to hand over 30 houses to survivors of a deadly landslide in October. He announced that two currently serving ministers will remain to finish homebuilding efforts related to the disaster. But Morales didn't follow through on a promise to name key Cabinet posts such as education, economy, health, defense and the interior in December. Until Guatemalans know who those lieutenants will be, they worry that Morales could end up tapping what they see as a discredited political class. Gutierrez said the president-elect would have been well-advised to spend the last two months creating alliances to construct a government, "but he didn't do that." Morales spokesman Heinz Heimann vowed that the incoming team will be of the high quality necessary to respond to Guatemalans' needs and expectations. "There is nothing suspicious about our actions," he told The Associated Press via text message. "The government reserves the right to give information in a pertinent manner to keep the people informed." One list of possible Cabinet appointments was published by a local newspaper Wednesday, but it was not confirmed by officials. Heimann promised the Morales administration will be marked by "strict adherence to the law" and called on different sectors of civil society to play a role in leading the country, but did not advance any more information on the new government's plans. Daniel Pascual, leader of an umbrella organization for rural and indigenous Guatemalans, said Morales has not reached out enough to those groups about how to address social demands. "He has said there are some indigenous people with him, but not those of us who have come to make proposals for structural changes," Pascual said. "It's shaping up to be a weak government incapable of forming alliances." Prosecutors last week moved to lift the immunity of office for Edgar Justino Ovalle, a lawmaker and adviser to the president-elect. He and others are suspected of human rights abuses during the 1960-1996 civil conflict when some 245,000 people were killed or disappeared, many of them indigenous Guatemalans slain in countryside massacres. More than a dozen retired military figures were arrested in the same case. Many of them are members of a veterans' group that supports the National Convergence Front, the party Morales ran with during the campaign. Ovalle is a party founder. Although Morales has denied links to the former military officials, some say the allegations amount to a black eye for his new administration. "You can read it as saying: 'Look, Mr. Morales, do a better job of picking your allies ... because these are unqualified people who have serious accusations against them,'" Gutierrez said. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is scheduled to be present Thursday as the highest-level Washington official to attend a Guatemalan inauguration in 30 years of civilian-democratic governments. Biden visited the country last year for talks with Central American leaders about a billion-dollar aid package requested for the region that aims to improve security and quality of life, and lower migration rates after the surge of unaccompanied minors showing up at the U.S. border. Those impatient for reform have signaled they intend to hold Morales to his promises to clean up government. A public protest has been called for Saturday, just two days after the inauguration, to remind the new president of his campaign slogan: "Neither corrupt nor a thief." "We are not going to wait very long," Pascual added. "The people are already calling for protests, to make him see that we are here." SAN FRANCISCO Authorities in California plan to temporarily reduce water deliveries for up to 25 million in Central and Southern California. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says current water conditions in the California Delta pose especial peril for the state's nearly-extinct Delta smelt. The endangered smelt were once plentiful, but giant water pumps pulling from the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers delta have helped make them endangered. Thursday's actions means authorities will start reducing water deliveries from the California Delta on Friday. Water deliveries are an intensely political topic in the state, with farmers often vying with environmental groups. North Korea offered to stop nuclear testing if the U.S. suspends joint military drills with South Korea, as the United States and Japan ratchet up their diplomatic efforts to punish the isolated regime for its fourth nuclear test. North Korea will not provide anyone with its nuclear weapons, transfer-related technology or use its bombs recklessly, its Foreign Ministry said Friday in a statement released through the official Korean Central News Agency. The country will still arm itself with the ability to attack and retaliate with nuclear bombs and the U.S. should get used to North Korea as a nuclear-armed state, it said. Senior U.S., South Korean and Japanese diplomats plan to meet in Tokyo on Saturday to consider tougher sanctions against North Korea and winning Chinas backing. North Koreas statement outlines its terms for the first time since the Kim Jong Un regime detonated what it claimed to be a hydrogen bomb Jan. 6. Its not a very convincing offer that we will offer not to be even more the monster and more provocative, John Nilsson- Wright, head of the Asia Programme at Chatham House, said by phone. By stepping back from that very provocative position, they can appear to be looking conciliatory, but I would argue any demand from the North that the U.S. suspend its long-term military drills on the Korean peninsula is a non-starter. The U.S. has maintained that its military exercises in South Korea are purely defensive while North Korea says they are preparations for invasion. The government in Pyongyang repeated its demand for a peace treaty with the U.S. to formally close the 1950-53 Korean War, which technically continues to this day because it ended in a truce. The latest nuclear blast prompted South Korea to resume propaganda broadcasts against the Kim regime in the demilitarized zone and the U.S. to fly a B-52 bomber south of the border in a show of force against the Pyongyang government. On Wednesday, the nuclear negotiators of the U.S., South Korea and Japan met in Seoul to start discussions on drawing up tougher sanctions against North Korea at the United Nations Security Council. China is a veto-wielding member of the council and North Koreas only major ally. ARBOR ALLIANCE Join us Sundays at 5 p.m. Child care will be available. We share the Christian & Missionary Alliance Church at 721 Trancas St., Napa. Come get acquainted and be refreshed. Info, thearborchurch.org, 530-304-4704. BEIT ABBA Messianic Jewish ministry of The Fathers House is held the first and third Friday of each month at 7 p.m. Join us Jan. 15 for a Shabbat service with Myles and Katharine Weiss. The Fathers House, 2557 Napa Valley Corporate Drive, Napa. Info, tfh.org/beitabba . CARMELITE MONASTERY Mass times: Sunday 9 a.m.; Weekdays 8 a.m. (except for the first Saturday of the month, Mass will be at 11 a.m.). Morning of recollection every first Saturday of the month: Spiritual Talk 9-10 a.m.; Confessions 10-11 a.m.; Mass 11 a.m. Bible study, on Tuesdays with Father Michael Buckley: Tuesdays, 8:30-9:30 a.m. following the 8 a.m. Mass (Contact the office to confirm time and day at 944-2454, ext. 103). Confessions-English: Monday, Wednesday, Friday; 10 a.m.-noon, 3-5 p.m., 8-9 p.m. Confessions-Spanish: Wednesday 10 a.m.-noon., 3-5 p.m., 8-9 p.m. 20 Mount Carmel Drive, 0.9 miles west of Highway 29, off the Oakville Grade; Info, 944-2454; oakvillecarmelites.org. Services are open to the public. CENTER FOR SPIRITUAL LIVING Services are 9 and 10:30 a.m. with youth program at 10:30. Rev Jay Lang's topic: "There is Only One Life." Teen Winter Camp Jan. 15-18. MLK Jr Activities will begin Monday, Jan. 18 at St. John Catholic Church, 9 a.m. Open Meditation Wed 6:30 p.m. Life Talks follow at 7:15. Ten week class in The Essential Ernest Holmes facilitated by Rev. Jay begins Thursday, Jan. 21 6:30-9:30 p.m. New member Class Sunday Jan. 24, 12:15-1:45 p.m.. 1249 Coombs, 252-4847. CHRISTIAN & MISSIONARY ALLIANCE CHURCH Adult Sunday School class begins at 9:30 a.m., (coffee available) in the fellowship hall. Morning worship for the whole family starts at 10:45 a.m. and our congregation sings mainly from traditional hymnals a rare treat. Located at 721 Trancas St., Napa. Info, 224-6717. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH Sunday service and Sunday school for youths up to age 20 at 10 a.m. The Wednesday evening service is at 7:30. Child care provided at all services. New hours for the Reading Room, located in our church building,: open to the public weekdays except Wednesdays, 1-4 p.m. All current Christian Science literature, including the writings of Mary Baker Eddy and the renowned Christian Science Monitor are available to all to read or purchase; 2210 Second St., Napa. Info, 255-5255. CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS, NAPA SECOND WARD Sacrament meeting is Sunday at 9 a.m. Young mens and young womens programs are on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. Twelve-step addiction program is on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. 2590 Trower Ave., Napa. Info, 758-8085. COMMUNITY CHURCH OF LAKE BERRYESSA Gerald Chan will be speaking in place of Pastor Bob. He is bringing a message on Intentional Living. We are a non- denominational Christian church welcoming all to enjoy the life changing power of Jesus Christ. A weekly food distribution is available along with groups and activities. Address is 6008 Steele Canyon Road at Moskowite Corners. Info, 252-4488. CONGREGATION BETH SHALOM On Friday, Jan. 15 at 7 p.m., Rabbi Lee Bycel will officiate at Shabbat services accompanied by Music Director Gordon Lustig. Saturday morning at 9:15 a.m., Rabbi Bycel leads the congregation in a conversation devoted to the weeks Torah portion. On Monday, Jan. 18 we celebrate an ecumenical birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, 960 Caymus St, in Napa. We at CBS are proud to mark the occasion with a coalition of over 30 faith based and non-profit organizations. Community service projects will follow until Noon. Congregation Beth Shalom is located at 1455 Elm Street, Napa. For more information check our website: cbsnapa.org. CORNERSTONE MINISTRIES Sunday service at Cornerstone Ministries is at 10:15 a.m. Our Spanish Church begins at 1:30 p.m. Sunday school and childcare is available. Middle School and High School Study is on Wednesday nights at 6:30. On Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. at 3305 Vista Ave. Freedom From Bondage meets. Info, cmnv.org, 252-2909. COVENANT PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH Sunday worship services are offered at 10:30 a.m. at Covenant Presbyterian Church, Napa. On Jan. 17, the preacher will be the Rev. Dr. Donald MacInnes, assisted by liturgist Bill Lockhart. Covenant Choir, under the direction of Mark Teeters, will present special music. Weekly Sunday School class is offered for preschool- 8th grade students in a One Room Schoolhouse format. For more information about CPC: 255-9426; www.cpcnapa.org; or facebook.com/cpcnapa. CREEKSIDE COMMUNITY CHURCH Weekly worship service is Sunday at 10:30 a.m. Services and attire are casual with a blend of fellowship, music and teaching. Child care and childrens church offered during service. 1050 Hagen Road, Napa. Info, CreeksideChurchNapa.org; 255-7266. CROSSWALK COMMUNITY CHURCH Join us at Crosswalk Community Church for our series on Making Sense of the Bible. Dont miss out on this incredible teaching series. Services at 9 and at 10 a.m. with Childrens programs available during the 10 a.m. service. Crosswalk also has Crosswalk Food Pantry offering fresh produce and providing grocery bags with several meals once a month at 2590 First St. Info, 226-1812. FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH First Christian Church of Napa welcomes you to attend our service this Sunday. At 8:45 and 10:30 a.m., Pastor Allen continues our series The Voice: Tune Out the Noise, Tune in to God. Street address: 2659 First St., Napa. Church website: fccnapa.org. Swerve Student Ministry: Middle SchoolWednesday 7-8:30 p.m., High SchoolThursday 6:30-8:30 p.m. FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH This Sunday, Pastor David will lead us in the study Jesus Ministry Begins, chapter 24 in the chronological Bible, The Story. Please join us in the gym at 9 a.m. for the traditional service, with hymns and choir. The contemporary service with praise music will be at 10:30 a.m. Sunday School: 9 a.m. Youth, and 10:30 elementary-school age children. Birth through kindergarten-age childcare at both services. The Coffee Meet-and-Greet is at 10 a.m. 1333 Third St., Napa; 224-8693 or fpcnapa.org. GRACE CHURCH OF NAPA VALLEY Sunday services: Worship service at 9 and 10:40 a.m. Adult Sunday school classes at 9 a.m. Childrens service at 9 and 10:40 a.m. Nursery and preschool care available. Junior high ministry meets Tuesday, 7 p.m.; high school meets Wednesday at 7 p.m. 3765 Solano Ave., Napa. Info, 255-4033, GraceNapa.org. HILLSIDE CHRISTIAN CHURCH We meet at 9 a.m., 11 a.m., and 6:30 p.m. at 100 Anderson Road, Napa. Info, 255-3036. HOLY GROUND CHRISTIAN CENTER Sunday worship begins at 10 a.m., and Bible study is Wednesday at 7 p.m. 3860 Broadway, Suite 111, American Canyon. Info, 373-2015. MEMORIAL CHAPEL AT VETERANS HOME OF CALIFORNIA, YOUNTVILLE Sunday worship service, 10:15 a.m. Coffee fellowship one hour before the service. Bible study on Wednesday at 1 p.m., Fellowship Room, with refreshments served; prayer meetings Thursday, 1 p.m. The memorial chapel is on the Veterans Home Yountville campus on California Drive, across from the administration building. Info, 944-4840. NAPA COMMUNITY SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST CHURCH Saturday, 11:15 a.m. service. 1105 G St., Napa. Education Day with Napa Christian Campus of Education. The sermon will be Essentials: Prayer by Pastor Miguel Verazas. Info, 252-2444. NAPA METHODIST CHURCH Napa Methodist Church holds two Sunday morning services: a 9:30 a.m. Traditional service held in the sanctuary and an 11 a.m. Fusion Worship service held in the Asbury Room. This Sunday we invite you to hear Michael Herzog preach the message: "Peace on Earth" at our 9:30 a.m. Sanctuary service. At our 11 a.m. Fusion Worship service, we invite you to hear Austin Eikenberry preach on Noah as part of our continuing series: "Covenants." GRAPE Express Children's Worship and Nursery are available during both services. Silent Meditation is Mondays at 5:30 p.m. in the Sanctuary. The Labyrinth, located on the 4th Street side of the Bonner Building and accessed through the Asbury Room, is available anytime during office hours. 625 Randolph Street. Info: napamethodist.org or 253-1411. NAPA-SONOMA FRIENDS MEETING (QUAKERS) Sunday worship at 10 a.m. Silent meeting in the custom of Friends. Meet at the VOICES Youth Center, 780 Lincoln Ave. Enter at parking lot on left side of building, using door at end of wheelchair ramp. Quaker signs will be posted on Sunday mornings. We welcome visiting friends or those who are new to Quaker practice. Info, nvquaker@napanet.net; 257-0509. NAPA VALLEY BAPTIST CHURCH Sunday Bible study for all ages at 9:30 a.m. Worship service, along with a kids program, begins at 10:30 a.m. Info, NapaValleyBaptist.org; 252-2100. NAPA VALLEY BIBLE CHAPEL Pushpan Pappu, who evangelizes and ministers to Indians around the world, will speak at our 11 a.m. service Sunday, Jan. 17. We start Sunday services by remembering the Lords death, burial and resurrection during a time of worship and thanksgiving at 9:30 a.m., followed by a time of fellowship starting at 10:30 a.m. At 11 a.m., we enjoy a time of Bible teaching. Sunday School is available during this service for children and young teens. On Wednesdays at 6 p.m., we meet for a brief Bible study and a time of prayer. 1559 Second Street, Napa. Info, napavalleybiblechapel.com or 258-8606. NAPA VALLEY COMMUNITY CHURCH What is the foundation of Joy? The good life? Fortune? Success? The absence of problems? According to the Bible, knowledge of Gods Word is the essential element, the foundation if you will, of true and lasting joy. Join us this Sunday as we open our Bibles to Philippians 1 and learn more about the essentials of lasting joy. Our Sunday service is at 10 a.m., child care and Sunday School are provided. Open forum is at 11:20 a.m. 4149 Linda Vista Ave, Napa. 337-4328, napavalleychurch.org. NAPA VALLEY LUTHERAN Sunday worship at 10 a.m. Fellowship time follows. All are welcome because all belong to God. The church is located at 1796 Elm St., Napa. Info, 226-8166, napavalleylutheran.org. NAPA VALLEY UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS Sunday, Jan. 17, 9:30 am: Thinking About Religion with Jim Craig. "Conversation with a Muslim" -- We welcome a guest speaker, Omar Salem, a leader of the local Napa Valley Muslim community, for a discussion of how local Muslims have been impacted by anti-Islamic sentiment and for a different understanding of Islam--different, that is, from that of the extremist Islamists. 11 am: Choosing Death with Rev. Anne Odin Heller and Worship Associate Norma Neil. In the early nineties when Rev. Heller was a parish minister in Minneapolis, she wrote two sermons, which she gave back-to-back: Choosing Death, and Choosing Life. She is now 81 and lives at the Meadows, where the wheel of life turns faster. Infant care, child care, and religious education provided. 1625 Salvador Ave., Napa; Info: nvuu.org; Tel: 226-9220. NEW LIFE TABERNACLE Sunday school at 10 a.m., followed by worship service at 11 a.m. Sunday evening service the first Sunday of every month. Bible study on Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. at 2625 First St., Napa. Info, 255-1062; NewLifeNapa.com. ST. JOHNS LUTHERAN CHURCH Sunday, 8:30 a.m. and 10:15 a.m. Childrens Church during the 10:15 a.m. service. 3521 Linda Vista Ave., Napa. Info, 255-0119; StJohnsLutheran.net. ST. MARYS EPISCOPAL CHURCH Worship on Saturdays at 5:30 p.m. or Sundays at 8 a.m. or 10 a.m. (organ and choir). Childrens Chapel (Sunday school) is at 9:50 a.m. Sunday. Nursery care is provided during the 10 a.m. service. Coffee hour follows the worship services on Sunday. 1917 Third St., Napa. Info, 255-0991; StMarysNapa.org. ST. STEPHENS ANGLICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH Hope you all will come and worship with us at 1250 Oakville Grade Road, Oakville. Info, 953-9369. ST. THOMAS AQUINAS CHURCH Mass times are Saturday 4 p.m. (English), Sunday 8 a.m. (English), 11 a.m. (English) and 1:30 p.m. (Spanish). Daily mass is 9 a.m. except on the first Friday, which is at noon and in English. 2725 Elm St, Napa. Info, 255-2949. SALVATION ARMY Join us for services Sundays at 10 a.m. 590 Franklin St., Napa. Info, napasalarmy.org. THE FATHERS HOUSE Messianic Jewish ministry of The Fathers House is held the first Friday of each month at 7 p.m. Child care provided for ages infant to 7 years old. The Fathers House, 2557 Napa Valley Corporate Drive, Napa. Info, tfh.org/beitabba. UNITY SPIRITUAL CENTER IN NAPA VALLEY Sunday, 10 a.m. Service. Join us as we celebrate Unity and spiritual growth. Prayer Chaplain Emeritus Susanne von Rosenberg delivers this Sundays Message entitled Happy All the Time: Choosing To Be Happy. Music for our Service selected and performed by Lon Eakes. No Forum after the Service on 3rd Sundays when we enjoy our monthly Potluck banquet. Third Sundays are also when we collect non-perishable food donations for the Napa Valley Food Bank. Sunday Service held at the historic Grange Hall, 3275 Hagen Road (1/2 mile east of the Silverado Trail), Napa. Parking next to the building. Information: UnityinNapaValley.org , 255-6881. YOUNTVILLE COMMUNITY CHURCH Sunday, Jan. 17, Contemporary Worship, 9:30 a.m. and Traditional Worship, 11 a.m. Lead Pastor Bart Pense continues a seven part series in the book of Revleation: God Wins! Love Letters Part 1. An Adult Bible Class, 9:30 a.m. in the Callison Ministry Center, Room 3. Childrens classes, 9:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. Jesus and Me. (birth-kindergarten), and first-fifth grades are offered. Vertical Student Ministry 11 a.m.; fifth-eighth grades and high school students. Church office hours, Monday-Thursday 8 a.m.-4 p.m.; 6619 Yount Street, Yountville, 944-2179. ing, or add your church? Please contact Register Editor Sean Scully at 256-2246 or sscully@napanews.com. Weekly deadline is Wednesdays by 5 p.m. A merger involving the largest and fourth largest wine and spirits distributors in America could make things easier for big wine companies but even tougher for small wineries and those trying to break into the market. The Federal Trade Commission last week announced that it had no objections to the merger. According to Shanken Communications, Southern Wine & Spirits, the industrys largest distributor with $11.8 billion in sales last year, and Glazers Inc. with $3.7 billion, according to Impact Newsletter, merged this week to create a wholesale network serving 41 U.S. states plus Washington, D.C., Canada and the Caribbean. The combined annual sales was $15.5 billion, and the combination also just signed a deal with Bacardi that will bring in $1 billion more. The new company, Southern Glazers Wine & Spirits LLC, will have 20,000 employees, including 12,000 sales representatives, and will sell more than 150 million cases of wine and spirits annually, and serve more than 350,000 retailers and restaurants. Southern Glazers will have nearly a 30 percent share of the $52 billion U.S. spirits and wine market in dollar terms. It and the other three largest distributors, Wirtz/Charmer (which also recently merged), Republic and Youngs Market (the leader in California), will have more than 60 percent of the total market. This could impact smaller wineries as distributors focus on their bigger accounts, leading many companies to try to increase direct sales to consumers. Others may turn to specialty distributors, brokers and marketing firms. Still others will try direct sales to the trade where its allowed. Thats legal in California, but few other states. Top winery and vineyard deals in 2015 I mentioned last years 10 biggest wine stories in the last Business End column Jan. 1, but it was also a busy year for winery and vineyard deals in Napa Valley. Here are some (the first two were also among the biggest overall wine stories): Liquor and Guinness beer giant Diageo sold most of its wine brands to Treasury, the Australian-based owner of Beringer, Stags Leap Winery, Etude, Chateau St. Clement and other wineries, for $552 million. The deal didnt include vineyards or wineries, as it had already sold them in a lease-back deal, letting Treasury acquire the Beaulieu, Sterling, Acacia, Provenance and other brands at a bargain price. E&J Gallo Winery bought The Ranch Winery large custom-crush facility near St. Helena. Gallo also bought 258 acres of Pope Valley vineyards from Flora Spring in May. The Schmidheiny family, which owns Cuvaison Estate Wines, moved its winemaking to its Carneros winery and sold its property in Calistoga to St. Helena-based Criswell-Radovan. The new owners renamed the property Fairwinds Estate Winery. Livermore Valleys Auburn James Winery bought 100,000-case Hill Wine Co. winery at 1001 Silverado Trail for $11.2 million. Owner Jeff Hill had filed for bankruptcy. This is unrelated to Doug Hills reputable Hill Family Estate. Joseph Wagners Copper Cane Wines sold the Meiomi brand to Constellation Brands for $315 million. Wagner is the son of Chuck Wagner, owner of Caymus Vineyards. Chanel entered the U.S. wine business by buying Rutherfords St. Supery Estate Vineyards & Winery from the French Skalli family. It already owns vineyards in France. Heitz Cellars bought Triere Estate vineyard from Burgess Cellars. Duckhorn Vineyards sold its Howell Mountain Candlestick Vineyard to Robert Craig Winery. GI Partners sold two properties owned by California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) and once managed by Pacific Vineyard Partners. It sold Sugarloaf East Vineyard to Silverado Investment Management Co., and Circle S Vineyard to a private party. Yao Family Wines bought the Bello Family Vineyards tasting room at 929 Main St. in St. Helena. Rudy von Strasser, who sold his winery and property on Diamond Mountain and bought small Lava Vine Winery at 965 Silverado Trail in Calistoga. Other unverified sales are the Garvey family (Flora Springs) and Araujo (now part of LaTour of Bordeaux) each buying part of Red Hen Vineyards, Trinchero buying a chardonnay vineyard on Salvador Road and Treasury/Beringer selling the 20-acre Abbotts Vineyard in Carneros to Caymus (they say its in escrow but wont confirm the buyer yet). Unified Wine & Grape Symposium The Unified Wine & Grape Symposium will be held Jan. 26-28 at the Sacramento Convention Center. Along with the largest exhibit of grapegrowing and winemaking equipment, products and services in North America, it will include an extensive educational program. Sure to be top draws are the keynote luncheon with Fred Franzia, the man behind Two-Buck Chuck and the Bronco Wine Co., and the state-of-the-industry session. Its a must event for business and technical managers in the wine business. Get information and register at UnifiedSymposium.org. When Brazil-born winemaker Elizabeth Vianna crafts wine, music is on her mind. Music is an important part of my background, and I use it as a metaphor to better understand the aesthetics of wine, said Vianna, winemaker and general manager of Chimney Rock Winery located in the Stags Leap region of Napa Valley. Vianna and her new assistant winemaker, Laura Orozco, share a passion for winemaking and of being two of only a handful of Latina winemakers in California. They spoke while tasting wine in one of the courtyards at Chimney Rock Winery. Behind them lay rolling hills covered with brown leafless vineyards. The sky was full of gray clouds, the muted background in sharp contrast to the shimmering red wine in their wineglasses. Music has its own harmony, rhythm, texture and intensity, and so does wine, Vianna said. In both cases, when these elements are put together, well, they can tell a story of where they came from. Wine and music can certainly tell a story of their origin, which often also includes the histories of the people who create it. Vianna and Orozco have intriguing histories. Vianna was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil. But because her father was in the export business, she spent her childhood split between the United States and Brazil. By the time I was 8, Id lived in Los Angeles, Illinois and Boston, but then we moved back to a small mountain town in Brazil just outside of Rio de Janeiro. The music, food and environment were very different. At 16, Vianna and her family moved from Brazil back to the United States, where she was eventually accepted at Vassar College in New York. There she studied biology, intending to become a doctor. After I graduated college, I worked in New York City while I prepared for medical school. My roommate introduced me to wine and, like music, wine actually took my breath away. But I didnt really know how people became winemakers, so I started going to wine events. One day, I heard Christian Mouiex talk about making wine in Bordeaux and at his winery in Yountville, Dominus Estate. He also talked passionately about the wine program at UC Davis and thats when I knew what my next move would be. A few years later, Vianna had obtained her masters degree in winemaking from UC Davis, and for the last 14 years she has been at Chimney Rock Winery, becoming the official winemaker in 2005. In 2015, she brought on Orozco as her assistant. I am excited to be here; I have always wanted to work with Elizabeth, said Orozco. Orozco grew up in Michoacan, Mexico, while her father made his way to Napa Valley to work in the vineyards. After a harvest accident left her father unable to work, Orozcos mother found a way to bring her and her young brother to the states. My mother was finally able to get a short-term visa, and she was so worried that it might be revoked at any minute, she said. We left Mexico without even saying goodbye to my friends and grandparents and moved to Yountville. That was very hard. I didnt see them again for 10 years, not until we gained our status and could travel freely. My dad was in so much pain, and it was really tough at the beginning. The four of us lived in a single bedroom in a tiny apartment with my uncle and aunt in the other bedroom. Our room only had two beds, a dresser and a small space to walk between, Orozco said. Back then, my mother took care of us and worked while my father healed. Even though she spoke no English when she arrived in the Napa Valley, Orozco was placed into the local schools. The community embraced me, she said. Even with my heavy accent, they treated me like one of them. But I never shared my familys story with anyone back then. I felt accepted, but even though I tried to integrate into the culture on the outside, on the inside I was another person. I didnt really come out with my true self until I was in college when I felt like I could freely express my ethnicity, express that I was proud to be Mexican. Like Vianna, Orozco had intended to pursue medicine after college. But she also found the pull of the wine industry drawing her back home. Growing up, winemaking seemed mysterious, but after college I started to really understand and enjoy the process. I thought, I can do this. And she did. After seven years at Franciscan Winery Orozco was hired as enologist at V. Sattui. Within a year, shed become assistant winemaker and by 2014, winemaker. The wines tasted that day included the 2012 Stags Leap District Estate cabernet sauvignon ($76 per bottle) and the 2012 Elevage ($95 per bottle), which is a blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc and petit verdot all grown on the Chimney Rock estate. The estate cabernet shimmered in the glass, its ruby-red color reminiscent of velvet. Aromas of rich dark red fruit drifted up and in the mouth the wine was satiny and had flavors that reached a crescendo of currant, black cherry and a hint of candied violets. The Elevage wine was dark in the glass, with aromatics of coffee, cinnamon, black tea and vanilla. In the mouth, chewy tannins accompanied flavors of dark blackberry, fresh tobacco and a savory spiciness. The wine finished with dark cocoa and spice cake. Our goal is to make wines that tell a story about where they come from and that highlight the various rhythms and harmonies of this place, said Vianna, when she had finished and put her glass on the table. As the two winemakers gathered up their glasses, a longtime Chimney Rock wine club member, Peter Ghishan, stopped by. Both Vianna and Orozco listened as the man talked about his love of the outstanding wines. I mean, he said emphatically, I put my nose into the glass and I am transported to Stags Leap every time. By the broad smiles on Viannas and Orozcos faces, that must have been music to their ears. Eric Christopher Maczko passed away peacefully in his home on the morning of January 3 surrounded by the love and comfort of his wife and close friends. Born July 6, 1975 in New Jersey, Eric spent his childhood skateboarding and hanging out with his many friends. He earned his culinary arts degree at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY and came to the Napa Valley seeking adventure in 2000. Eric worked as a chef at Pine Ridge Winery and most recently Round Pond Estate. Erics quick wit endeared him easily to those with whom he came in contact. His years of hospitality, wine sales and travel earned him many friends far and near. He was a certified sommelier and chef and always enjoyed cooking and sharing wine with his friends and family. Eric was also a gifted artist and enjoyed painting as well as held a deep appreciation for visual design and beauty. After a long courtship, Eric proposed to Melisa Ramirez in July of 2013. He was diagnosed three months later with a glioblastoma brain tumor. Eric and Melisa were married on October 10, 2014 in Napa. Melisa has been his number one support through two years of surgeries, chemo and treatments. Preceded in death by his mother, Susan Maczko, Eric is survived by his father, John Maczko; brothers, John and Pat, their wives and children; and his Yorkshire Terrier Latour. Eric will be interred at Tulocay Cemetery in Napa. A memorial service will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, January 23 at Grace Episcopal Church in Saint Helena, and a celebration of life at 4:00 p.m. that same day at Round Pond Estate. In lieu of flowers, donations may be given to the National Brain Tumor Society, http://braintumor.org/. Condolences may be sent through www.tulocaycemetery.org. The boyfriend of the woman found dead last fall at a Calistoga bed and breakfast was sentenced for domestic abuse this week in Napa County Superior Court. Kevin Leslie Jones, 41, of Altadena, was arrested on Sept. 18 after Calistoga Police officers found his girlfriend, Gena Penney, 41, dead at the Pink Mansion in Calistoga. Penneys death was determined to be an accident caused by acute alcohol and prescription drug intoxication, said Capt. Steve Blower with the coroners office. Jones pleaded no contest last month to domestic violence that occurred prior to his girlfriends death. On Tuesday, Jones was sentenced to a total of two years in a state prison. He received 236 days of credit for time served and good behavior in the Napa jail, according to court documents. Jones and Penney, also of Altadena, had been vacationing for two days at the Pink Mansion on Foothill Boulevard, police reported. Penney was found dead, lying face down on the floor of the room they had been sharing. She had signs of rigor mortis, with visible bruising and swelling to her right eye, according to the police report. Officers noted an open bottle of wine on the table and several pill bottles near Penneys body along with a plate that had a white powdery substance on it, police said. That morning around 8, Jones had left the Pink Mansion with his suitcase, stating that he was leaving to get his dogs and that Penney was intoxicated in their room, according to the report. Penneys body was found after the 11 a.m. checkout time. That afternoon, Jones was stopped by the Nevada Highway Patrol while driving east on Interstate 80, east of Sparks. Police reported that Jones was driving with the two dogs in Penneys vehicle. He was arrested in Reno on suspicion of domestic violence. Police discovered that the couple had been fighting the night before at The French Laundry restaurant in Yountville. Jones told detectives that he had slammed Penneys head into the dashboard of the car because he was frustrated and upset with her. He had noticed her eye swelling, he said, but continued avoiding her since they werent getting along. Jones said that Penney, whom he had been dating for a year, was on the floor when he left in the morning, but he didnt know her condition, police said. In addition to his two-year sentence, Jones was ordered to pay restitution fines totaling $600, a domestic violence fine of $250 and a $250 fine to the battered womens shelter, according to court documents. He was also ordered to participate in a counseling or education program with a substance abuse component while imprisoned. A 31-year-old Arizona man was arrested for his possible relationship with a 17-year old student in American Canyon on Thursday. The man, identified as Michael Jackson, and the female student were supposedly caught making out in the bleachers at American Canyon High School by a campus supervisor, according to American Canyon Police. Jackson was contacted on school grounds by officers at about 12:30 p.m. Thursday. Jackson and the student admitted to starting an online relationship years ago, which included exchanging nude photos and videos with each other, police said. Police said that Jackson drove from Arizona to meet the girl in American Canyon. He was arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor annoying or molesting a child and felony distributing lewd material to a minor and was booked at the Napa County jail. Police did not immediately have a middle name or specific address to further identify the man. Before I leap into the boiling cauldron of the gun controversy againoh boy and deep-fry all my fondest hopes for social accord, I want to remind everyone of the one goal we all share, regardless of our position on the gun issue: public safety and the general welfare. To arrive at that goal, we are constantly asked to weigh against each otherand to prioritizethe various rights enshrined in the Constitution. For instance, freedom of speech is not absolute. As Oliver Wendell Holmes said in a 1919 Supreme Court decision, it is not legal to falsely shout Fire! in a crowded theater. The public good in that situation outweighs the right to speak freely. We have the right to peacefully assemble, too, but not in the middle of Interstate 80 at rush hour. The public good of a commuters right to go about her business and not be subjected to a huge traffic snarl supersedes that right. It is unfortunate that, in the last few weeks especially, the gun issue has drifted into even more polarized and antagonistic territory, farther and farther away from a compromise that weighs the rights accorded by the Second Amendment against public safety and welfare. There appears to be no middle ground. While those favoring greater regulation of guns talk about registering, licensing, and more thorough enforcement of existing laws, the more strident gun enthusiasts talk about the virtues of arming more people, e.g., the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. The latter is the issue Id like to address, principally because I think it is an unfortunate fantasy to imagine that more people packing weapons will provide greater security in our society. Those who disagree with me have many arguments, most of them stemming from either a basic mistrust of law enforcement, or the notion that police are on the scene only after they are truly needed. The idea is that these citizens can provide better security than the local police or sheriffs department. And certainly better than further controls on gun purchases. Id like to offer a scenario explaining why this is essentially bunk. Lets say we now live in a community where both open and concealed carry is the law. Lets also say that on a particular Sunday, in pursuit of the general welfare and safety we all seek, you bring your family to the waffle restaurant for a relaxing brunch, and you bring along your open-carry handgunjust for protection. There are about 60 diners in the room, and, say, 10 of them are carrying openly. How many more have concealed weapons? Impossible to say; you cant help but look around to assess the situation. What about that guy eating the strawberry waffle? He seems kind of sweaty and nervous. And that old guy with the shifty eyes, he looks pretty angry about something. Wait, hes reaching inside his jacket! Oh. Just getting his reading glasses. Still, maybe I should take the safety off my handgun, just in case. What about that couple whispering in the corner? Theyve got a Smith & Wesson on the table, and they look kind of foreign. Definitely need to keep an eye on them. What can you say to this scenario? Bon appetit? And its a scene that would be repeated to a greater or lesser extent in just about every public venue you can imagine, from movie theaters to restaurants to churches. And how about bars? What better combination than alcohol and guns? A series of bad Quentin Tarantino movies waiting to happen. Is this what we really want, for ourselves and our children? A potentially lethal, updated version of the Wild West myth, where everybody can feel powerful with his finger on the trigger of a gun? A vigilante world where you just know youll have to shoot first, before that bad guy starts spraying rounds all over the room? Will you be the good guy when you shoot somebody who is carrying a squirt gun? Or when you take down a suspicious-looking person reaching for his reading glasses? All this potential mayhem is brought to you by a nation in which it is harder to get a drivers license, or to buy cold medicines, than it is to buy a gun. Lets be crystal clear: no one is coming for your guns. But, without depriving the Second Amendment of any of its substance, it is the obligation of all of us to find a way to balance its guarantees with the rights of citizens to a well-ordered society, one in which they are not perpetually surrounded by firearms and the unnecessary risks they bring. Moser lives in Napa. Lions and tigers and bro-country butts, oh my! Tyler Hubbard of Florida Georgia Line and his wife Hayley recently headed down to Africa for some much deserved R&R. While there, the pair have gotten up close and personal with some amazing animals and even visited an orphanage. However, its a photo of Tylerserm, full moon that is garnering quite a bit of attention. Hayley captioned the photo of her hubs in an outdoor shower on Instagram, Be looking for our blog post later today as we Well, Tyler bares all in the outdoors! ? #thevoguetriptravel #fullmoon #ourafricanadventure. Welp, weve officially crossed a (Florida Georgia) line with this pic The Military Committee, NATOs highest Military Authority, will meet in Chiefs of Defence (CHODs) Session on 21 January 2016, at the NATO Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium. General Petr Pavel, Chairman of the Military Committee, will chair the meeting. The Chiefs of Defence will review the RESOLUTE SUPPORT mission, discuss NATOs Future Strategy, Posture and Adaptation and meet with their Mediterranean Dialogue counterparts to exchange views on the security developments in the region and practical military-to-military cooperation. The one day meeting will allow for the Chiefs of Defence to discuss and debate issues of contemporary strategic importance to the Alliance ahead of the forthcoming Defence Ministers meeting in February. During the session in RESOLUTE SUPPORT format, the Chiefs of Defence will be briefed on the security situation and the performance of the Afghan security forces. The CHODS will also discuss the future military contribution to the enhanced Enduring Partnership. In the subsequent session with the Mediterranean Dialogue Partner Nations, the Chiefs of Defence will exchange views on the regional security situation which will set the scene for further deliberations on ongoing practical cooperation between NATO and the Mediterranean Dialogue partners. The final sessions of the day will centre on NATOs Future Strategy, Posture and Adaptation as well as the consensus-based military advice and guidance that will be given to the North Atlantic Council and Defence Ministers in the run up to the NATO Summit in Warsaw in July 2016. General Petr Pavel will be supported in each session by General Philip Breedlove (Supreme Allied Commander Europe or SACEUR) and General Denis Mercier (Supreme Allied Commander Transformation or SACT). The Military Committee meets twice a year at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, at the level of Chiefs of Defence to discuss NATO operations and missions and provide the North Atlantic Council with consensus-based military advice on how the Alliance can best meet global security challenges. It also meets once a year in an Allied country. On a day-to-day basis, the work of the Chiefs of Defence is carried out by permanent Military Representatives at NATO Headquarters in Brussels. Media Opportunities Thursday 21 Jan 2016 07:30-07:45 Media Pool pick up in the NATO Press Area 08:00-08:10 174th Military Committee in Chiefs of Defence Session - Opening remarks by General Petr Pavel, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee 18:00-18:30 Joint Press Conference in the Luns Theatre with General Petr Pavel, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee (CMC), General Philip M. Breedlove, Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) and General Denis Mercier, Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (SACT) Imagery Photos and video of all opening sessions will be available online at www.nato.int/ims shortly after each meeting. The Joint Press Conference will be made available on the NATO website after the event, on request by broadcasters through EBU and after the event by contacting content@natochannel.tv Accreditation Media representatives holding a valid 2015 or 2016 NATO Media pass will have access as usual to the NATO HQ. Media representatives not in possession of a 2015 or 2016 NATO Media pass and wishing to attend the media opportunities available are invited to contact the NATO IMS Public Affairs Office via email or fax (ronaynecasimiro.lara@hq.nato.int ,fax number + 32 2 707 5713) with a completed accreditation form no later than 1700 on 19 January 2016. Media passes will not be mailed to applicants; they must be collected in person at the Media Accreditation Office upon presentation of an ID card or passport and a valid national press pass (or accreditation letter from a recognized media organization). Media representatives will be given their accreditation at the main entrance of NATO Headquarters. Passes must be worn visibly at all times, and security personnel may ask to see another form of ID at any time. Media representatives are informed that security personnel will examine and may test equipment and personal effects carried onto the site and are advised to arrive with sufficient lead time to clear security checks. Enquiries Points of contact for the Chairman of the Military Committee: Dr Eva Svobodova, Public Affairs and Strategic Communications Advisor to the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee and NATO International Military Staff Tel: + 32 2 707 59 83 E-Mail: svobodova.eva@hq.nato.int General press arrangements: Ms. Lara Ronayne-Casimiro Tel: +32 2 707 5423 Email: ronaynecasimiro.lara@hq.nato.int White House is puzzling over how to avoid meeting between Putin and Biden at G-20 summit Eduard Aghajanyan: Once again I remind that Armenia was deprived of opportunity to protect rights of people of Artsakh U.S. says that limiting Russian oil prices is not aimed at OPEC OSCE sends mission to Armenia to assess situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border Jeff Bezos warns that U.S. economy may face recession Kiev says nearly 40% of Ukraine's energy infrastructure has been damaged Raisi: Iran will use all its capabilities and potential to end war in Ukraine Qatar gets first pandas in Middle East Armenian president delivers lecture at St. Kliment Ohridski University in Sofia More than half of Britons think Liz Truss should resign Bloomberg: Putin and Erdogan's cordial relationship arouses Western anger Dutch government invests up to 3.5 billion in military procurement Erdogan discusses latest developments in Ukraine with Zelenskyy School in Paris expels student from class for denying Armenian Genocide Germany would like to participate in EU observer mission to Armenia U.S. is considering plan to co-produce weapons with Taiwan Poland to buy K239 Chunmoo from South Korea Air defense system repels several missile attacks by Ukrainian troops at Kakhovskaya HPP Baku court does not definitively terminate criminal prosecution of Yunus spouses Liz Truss has no plans to resign CSTO countries agree on draft agreement on standardization of military equipment EU countries agree to sanction eight people and organizations over Iranian drones Congressman David Price meets with rector of Yerevan State University Chairman of Amsterdam City Court visits Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex in Yerevan ASPU supports process of unification of universities Deputy Chief of Police on new draft law: 'Citizen of Azerbaijan' is extremely relative notion Benny Gantz: Israel will not supply weapons to Ukraine Saudi Arabia lifts ban on Turkish soap operas Armenia lawyer arrested Remains discovered during renovation of Ministry of Culture building in Tbilisi are transferred to Armenian Pantheon Dollar goes up, euro falls in Armenia IRGC special forces conduct helicopter operations on third day of exercises on border with Azerbaijan MFA: France position on achieving Armenia-Azerbaijan peace is unchanged Foreign Minister: Iran will not allow blocking its communications with Armenia Kremlin: Russia does not intend to close borders amid introduction of martial law in four regions EU mission delegation visits some border communities of Armenias Gegharkunik Province (PHOTOS) Armenias Papikyan attends defense ministers assembly in India Brusov university rector: Armenia education minister offered me a high position in new university, I declined Putin imposes martial law in new territories of Russia Yerevan to host Eurasian Intergovernmental Council meeting Putin holds meeting of Security Council Armenia MOD spox: Azerbaijan still preventing search operations Iran announces retaliatory sanctions against EU Russian Defense Ministry reports on strike on military facilities in Ukraine Artsakh Foreign Minister receives Ruben Vardanyan Israel calls Australia's refusal to recognize Jerusalem as capital of Israel 'pathetic decision' Armenia to tighten penalties for overloading of trucks Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkey army elite units conduct demonstration military drills Luxembourg parliament speaker: Azerbaijan aggression is direct attack on Armenia sovereignty Russia Investigative Committee chief confirms theory of Crimean Bridge explosion accomplices Uruguay vice president: We express our solidarity with Armenian people GeoProMining's ZCMC has tripled tax payments to the state budget of Armenia Yerevan judge to be arrested Paul Krekorian unanimously elected as LA City Council President ThePrint: Armenia eyes procuring Akash missiles, loitering munitions from India Armenia MP to international colleagues: Azerbaijan intends to carry out new aggression Ukraine military hits Energodar city hall Armenia PM: We hope Azerbaijan will cooperate in clarifying destiny of our compatriots Newspaper: Where is 1991 declaration by which Armenia, Azerbaijan once recognized each other's territorial integrity? Azerbaijan fires at Armenia positions at midnight PACE lawmakers call for Azerbaijan militarys immediate withdrawal from Armenia Australia reverses decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel capital Armenia MPs meet with European Parliament colleagues, reflect on recent Azerbaijan attack Nouriel Roubini: In some sense, World War III has already started EU considers paying Elon Musk to provide Starlink Internet to Ukraine U.S. will continue to take practical, aggressive steps to make it difficult for Iran to sell drones to Russia German Prosecutor's Office searches Deutsche Bank headquarters Head of Germany's national cybersecurity agency fired amid reports of ties to Russia Uruguayan Chamber of Deputies condemns Azerbaijan's invasion of Armenian territory Spanish minister: EU is far from solution to energy crisis Fake Azerbaijani names of Syunik province communities removed from Google Maps and Google Earth apps Artsakh President presents details of meetings held in Yerevan to MPs Lavrov: Russia sees no point in maintaining its previous presence in Western countries UAE: OPEC+ decision has no political motive Opposition to David Price: Right to self-determination is the right of people of Artsakh to survive Iran is ready to negotiate with Ukraine to resolve ambiguities Deputy Speaker of Armenian National Assembly: 47 PACE deputies made written statement condemning Baku's aggression Lapid will discuss Kiev request for Israeli systems with Kuleba Morawiecki: Poland is not afraid of losing EU funds Armenian President meets with Sofia Mayor Speaker of Armenian National Assembly to Norway FM: Withdrawal of Azerbaijani Armed Forces from Armenia is a priority Nikol Pashinyan receives delegation headed by Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt Iran responds to Borrell's garden and jungle statement: EU needs to accept realities or it will continue to wither Pashinyan: No one can accuse Armenia of evading its obligations Congressman: U.S. was not active in terms of security in Armenia, but now situation is changing Indian defense company Solar group says it has received orders from Armenia for 'Pinaka' missiles Price: U.S. military aid to Azerbaijan will not be used for offensive purposes against Armenia Military expert assesses possibility of new hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan Russian Embassy: Armenians' attitude towards Russians who moved to Armenia remains very friendly Clarification by Price: What Could Armenian-American military cooperation look like? Armenian Defense Minister visits DEFEXPO exhibition in India President of Artsakh talks about results of discussions held in Armenia Borrell angers UAE with his comparison of world outside Europe to 'jungle' Public Council formed in Artsakh China Daily: Party's anti-graft efforts generate fruitful outcomes Price: We demand that Azerbaijan return to its initial positions Aghajanyan: This visit should be seen as another stage in dynamic development of Armenian-American relations Ukraine will officially ask Israel for transfer of air defense systems Head of National Assembly Commission: 2023 state budget turned out to be biggest in Armenia's history Turkey conducts test launch of its own ballistic missile over Black Sea YEREVAN. At Thursdays meeting of the Commission on Religion, Diaspora and International Integration Issues of the Public Council of Armenia, it was decided to respond with a statement to Russian Patriarch Kirills statement that the Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire were not annihilated. Public Council member Karine Danielyan, who is the person behind this proposal, told the aforesaid to Armenian News-NEWS.am. We need to respond to this statement and expect a more serious explanation, since the explanation given by the Moscow Patriarchate is insufficient, Danielyan noted. She added that at Fridays meeting of the Public Council, they will decide on the format of the adequate response they will demand regarding this statement by Kirill I, Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia of the Russian Orthodox Church. I think that we need to petition to the Russian embassy [in Armenias capital city of Yerevan] with an open letter, Karine Danielyan said. Now, we are working on making additions to the [respective] statement [of ours]. The Russian Patriarchs recent TV interview, during which he had made the abovementioned statement, caused protests among the Armenian society. Subsequently, the Patriarchs spokesperson commented on the given part of this interview. He noted that the Russian Orthodox Churchs stance on Armenian Genocide was repeatedly expressed through official announcements and the Patriarchs remarks, whose evidence is the Russian Orthodox Churchs participation in the Armenian Genocide Centennial commemorations in 2015. On 10 November 2015, the European Court of Human Rights communicated the case of Mamikon Khojoyan, a 77-year-old Armenian citizen who inadvertently crossed the border into Azerbaijan in 2014. The Against Legal Arbitrariness NGO of Armenia issued a respective statement on Friday. He was allegedly held by Azerbaijani authorities for over a month, and subjected to torture and ill-treatment by a group of unknown persons on the basis of national and religious hatred. He died two months after he was handed over to Armenian authorities and returned home. The [case] applicants [i.e. Khojoyans three children] complain that their father was subjected to physical violence and was injected with drugs during his detention, which constituted torture and degrading treatment, and posed a danger to his life, serious breaches of Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). They argue that this treatment eventually led to his death. They also claim a violation of the procedural aspects of both Articles as there was no investigation by Azerbaijan into the circumstances of Mr Khojoyans detention and treatment. With regards to their own mental suffering, they claim that seeing their fathers injuries on television and the internet both during his detention and after his release constitutes an additional violation of Article 3. Moreover, Mr Khojoyans children argue that their elderly father was unlawfully deprived of liberty during his five week detention, and was not informed of the reasons why he had been detained; nor was he brought before a judge. With regards to this and the above violations, they maintain that they did not have an effective remedy (Article 13 ECHR). Finally, they claim that their rights, and the rights of their father, were violated by the Azerbaijani authorities because of his ethnic Armenian origin, a violation of the prohibition of discrimination (Article 14 ECHR). The Azerbaijani Government are due to respond to the allegations and the Courts questions by 8 March 2016, the statement specifically reads. Mamikon Khojoyan, 77, a resident of Verin Karmiraghbyur village of Armenias Tavush Region, was taken captive by Azerbaijan on January 28, 2014. He suffered from mental illness. Azerbaijan returned the elderly to Armenia on March 4 of the same year. Preliminary medical examination, however, revealed that Khojoyan had multiple fractures and injuries as well as numerous wounds and cracks. All the injuries indicated that he was tortured while in captivity, and the elderly man died on May 20. Site: zorpia From: mazim Dec 22, 2015 hello i will like to know more please write to me, jibomazim@hotmail.com please try and write to me now on my email or send me your email i will tell you more and the help, i am waiting for your email now, JIBOMAZIM@HOTMAIL.COM From: jibo mazim Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2015 15:22:06 +0000 Subject: please more about you and i will tell you more and the help hello dearest and lovely honey, please i am writing to you with pleasure and i will like to know about you a little, so that i can tell the help i need you, and your age is noting to me i am in a big problem here, and i want to come over there if you can help me, i speak english and french, once again my name is Miss Jibo Mazim, a citizen of Ivory coast. I am 26 years old, my birthday was 1st January 1989. i am presently residing and living in senegal tambacounda in a church camp grand here, I hold a certificate in general nursing, i am hoping to further my education in this career. I am never married and don't have any children, I am a confident, well rounded, responsible, intelligent, and very hardworking mature girl. I am easy to please, if you treat me with respect and honest. I was about enrolling to have a master's degree in nursing and midwifery before myself and my family suffered a tragedy out of civil war in my country and several political was killed. my late father Dr Mazim Kuloma, was a successful business man in my country, he deals in importation of foodstuff, he was unfortunately assassinated together with my lovely mother and two bothers by the wicked rebels in the midst of the civil war. It was only me that is alive for now out of a family of five. because i was in school and managed to make my way to country Senegal where i am leaving now in the middle of the war. I have decided not to go back to my country for anything even when the war is over but because there are still political instability killings and several unrest. I lost so much, my parents, and my two lovely brothers as well as some other relatives and family capital investments. I wish if you can help me out of this problem and you will never regret it in your life, I never like tragedy and i never wish to witness it ever again in my life. life is really so hard over here and presently the Senegalese government have been so kind to grant me asylum and i am presently residing in the church camp grand here. Here is very restricted and no one is never allowed to move out to the country without this country's residence permit or passport. and i really want to get all this, because i lost my own in the war, and i really need a big assistance from you, but i will like to know more about you first, because i have something that you will assist me to do, i will tell you the help and the assistance once i hear from you, And I can be contacted by the telephone of the church through the pastor who provides moral rehabilitation to the inmates of this church. his name is pastor Kins Tulu, and their office phone is +221781800329 you call him and tell him that you want to talk to me, I WILL TELL YOU MORE AND THE HELP I NEED FROM YOU? have a nice day and hope to hear from you, is me Jibo, please try and send me your more pictures, From: jibo mazim Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2015 16:37:44 +0000 Subject: Please i really need your assistance and i want to come over there please help me hello my lovely and dearest, how is everything and your farmily over there, your age is noting for me for me i am 26 years and i am from Ivory coast but presently residing and living in a church because of my condition i told you, please like what i told you in my last mail, i am presently residing and living in senegal dakar, in a church camp grand here, but i really want to come over there, that i really need your help; and this is what i need from you please, and i am tell you all this with trust and i really know that you will not treat me bad, and you will be very surprises but is how my mine and my God tell me after all my prayer's, and i believe you will do it for me, Please i would like to let you know that i have got with me here, my late father's statement of account and death certificate here with me which i will like to send to you latter, because when he was alive he deposited some amount of money in a bank here which he used my name as the next of kin,the amount in question is $3.7M (Three Million Seven Hundred Thousand US Dollars)a nd I will like you to know that i have mapped out 20% for your assistance and 5% for any expenses that might come up in this transfer, So i will like you to be aware of this and see how possible you can assist me get this money transferred to your account from it you can send me some money for me to get my traveling documents and passport please, and go out from here please, i want to come over there, if your can assist me to get this money, i kept this secret here. i am telling you all this with turst and as a man. and for you to know if you are able to assist me to transfer this money and help me to come over there, and have a good life please. please try and call me with the phone number i gave to you +221781800329 or you send me your phone number because i will like to hear your voice, For me love i am single, i love cooking, i love children. I enjoy going to dinner, tv movies at home, sports, beaches, music, i don't have kids but i want to have, i am not doing anything for living is very hard here, and i love a man who is lovely and caring for a woman he love, and i will give you all my love forever, mostly. Have a nice day and think about me. I will be waiting to hear from you soonest. Jibo. I will send you the information about the bank so that you will contact the bank and know what you do to assist me, i love and i want to come over there From: jibo mazim Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2015 20:23:08 +0000 Subject: PLEASE FOR YOU TO BE SURE CONTACT THE BANK NOW AND KNOW WHAT YOU WILL DO. Hello,my lovely and dearest, How is everything over there with you again, hope everything is fine. I am more than happy to read from you today. and i want you to be sure and know what you will do, i have gave you all my turst and love to you.so please try all you best for me i want to be there soon with you.please I would like you to write to the bank with this information on my father thanks. I have already told the bank that you that you are my partner and you want to know what you will do to transfer the money very easily. Like the name of my late father is Dr. Mazim Kuloma and the account number is 2029-56165301, and my name is Miss Jibo Mazim so I would like you to write to the bank now that you are my partner. and you want to know if this money is in this account.and what is the possablity of transfering the money into your account. with this information, the bank will respond to you and tell you what you will do to transfer the money, please contact the bank now today please. i really love to be there with you. If you write to the bank, please let me know, so will just wait until the bank's response and know what you will do Please. The contact information of the bank is as follows, Royal Bank of Scotland INTERNATIONAL Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mr. Ross McEwan. Telephone number. +447976836929 Email. royal.bankscot@aol.com Account No. 2029-56165301 Contact them now on how to transfer the $3.7 million dollars deposited by my late father of which i am the next of kin. I have mapped out 20% for your assistance and for any expenses that might come up in this transfer. My dear i am glad that God has brought you to see me out from this situation and i promise to be kind and will equally need you in every area of my life plus investing and manage this money. As i told you before, this camp is just like a prison and my prayers is to move out from here as soon as possible. Please make sure that you contact the bank so that after the transfer you can send some money from that money for me to prepare my traveling documents to meet with you in your country. Awaiting to hear from you soonest jibo Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2015 03:46:47 -0500 From: royal.bankscot@aol.com Cc: jibomazim@hotmail.com Subject: From Royal Bank Of Scotland Plc. To And Miss Jibo Mazim. ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND PLC. The Royal Bank of Scotland plc. Registered in Scotland No.90312. Registered Office: 36 St Andrew Square, Edinburgh EH1AD. Telephone: +447976836929 Date, 23.12.2015 Our Ref: International Remittance, The Royal Bank of Scotland plc: Your Ref: Mr. . Sir, I have been directed by the Director of Foreign Operation/Wire Transfer to write you in respect to your mail which we have received. Actually, we have earlier been told about you by Miss Jibo Mazim that she wishes you to be her trustee/representative for the claim of her late father's deposit with our bank. Late Dr. Mazim Kuloma is our late customer with account No. 2029-56165301 substantial amount ($3,728,000.00 USD) of deposit with us. Hence you have been really appointed as a trustee to represent the next of Kin. However before our bank will transact any business concerning the transfer of the fund with you, we will like you to send us the followings document through email attachment: 1. A power of attorney and affidavit of oath from the Federal High Court of Senegal permitting you to claim and transfer the funds to your bank account on her behalf. These documents must be endorsed by Miss Jibo Mazim and a Senegalese resident lawyer which she can help you to get one. 2. The death certificate of late Dr. Mazim Kuloma (Her deceased father) confirming the death. 3. A copy of statement of account issued to Dr. Mazim Kuloma by our bank. 4. Miss Jibo Mazim international passport copy. 5. Attach below is RBS application form, you are required to fill the form together with Miss Jibo Mazim and return it back to us immediately, Please if you can not be able to fill the form, send us your information; Note that the above are compulsory, and are needed to protect our interest, yours, the next of kin after the claims. These shall also ensure that a smooth, quick and successful transfer of the fund is made. We promise to give our customers the best of our services. Should you have any question(s) please contact our chief executive of RBS United Kingdom, Mr. Ross McEwan, on Hot line: +447976836929 or Email: royal.bankscot@aol.com for more directives/clarifications. Yours Faithfully, Mrs. Janis Kong. (Account Department RBS) From: jibo mazim Date: Fri, 25 Dec 2015 09:14:28 +0000 Subject: PLEASE HONEY CONTACT THIS LAWYER NOW PLEASE TODAY. hello my lovely and dearest honey happy christmas, how are you again i am very happy to hear from you. i hope fine please i want to tell you that the Pastor Kins Tulu help me and give me a lawyer here.and i have tell the lawyer what the bank needed in your name as my partner.and the lawyer have agree to get the documents for us. but the lawyer said that you will contact him with this informations here. because he will take all your information to the high court here and know the cost of the documents and tell you how you will send the money to him.s o please really i don't know how much it will cost you to get the documents but i really want to be sure from you if you are able to assist me. because i have gave you all my trust. and i believe you will not disappoint me. because i am not going to disappoint you.so please if you are sure.that you are able to assist me and you turst yourself as i have gave you all the turst and my love. please contact this lawyer now with all this information about you here. 1. Full name............................. 2. Date of birth.................... 3. Yuor full cantact address .................... 4. Phone number..................... 5. Occupation........................... 6. Your bank name ..................... His contact information are as follows, Kaka Azuzu, 20 Route Almadies Dakar Senegal Email addresses: (bar.kakaazuzu@yahoo.com) Office telephone number +221773910927 So, i will like you to contact him for the preparation of the power of attorney and affidavit and my passport, Please try and contact him now please. hope to hear from you. is me your lovely and sweet honey, jibo, Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2015 09:07:44 +0000 (UTC) From: Kaka Azuzu Subject: kaka law chambers the cost from high court of senegal. OUR REF: JLC/08845 YOUR REF: LMC/549 DATE:.... 28/12/2015. KAKA LAW CHAMBERS. Attention, . Sequel to your email which i received on how to prepare a power of attorney and swear an affidavit of oath from the federal high court here for you and your partner (Miss Jibo Mazim) who is presently of refugee status here in senegal, Your partner with reveren father of the senegalese international refugee camp, made a consultation to me to discuss about the inssuing to you an authorization latter and affidavit of oath that will enable you to stand on her behalf to transfer her money from the royal bank of scotland plc. to your account in your resident country or elswhere. Prior to my inquiries from your partner and the federal high court here in dakar senegal, I was made to understand from royal bank of scotland plc. that there are four documents and her passport required by them before the transfer of the money to your account. 1.a copy of death certificte, 2. a copy of his statement of account, (which will sent to you after). It's now remaining the other two documents, which is the power of attorney and affidavit of oaths and her passport, which will enable the bank to deal with you on behalf of your partner. In view of above and from my inquiries,i want you to understood that it will cost you the following sum of money. EURO 350.00 for the registration and authentication of the power of attorney, and EURO 270.00 for swearing of the affidavit of oath at the federal high court here before it becomes valid. her international passport and permit. EURO 270.00, and EURO 120.00 for notary stamping at the notary office,(before it will go out from here) and for my legal processing fee will be pay to me after the transfer, The total of EURO 1010.00 equivalent, to get all your required lagal documents prepared, My noble law firm wish to bring to your notice that before we can proceed with this services,you are required to transfer this money immediately through money gram or western union money transfer with my name below. (www.moneygram.com) or (www.westernunion.com) Name......................Kaka Azuzu Address..................20 Route Almadies Dakar Senegal Note, you have to call or send me a mail immediately you send the money and give me the secret code number and the question and the answer, for us to proceed with the preparation, and registration and authentication of the legal documents, which will take two working days to be completed. Thanks for your co-operation. yours sincerely in service. Note, you have to call or send me a mail immediately you send the money and give me the code number and the question and the answer, for us to proceed with the preparation, and registration and authentication of the legal documents, which will take two working days to be completed. Thanks for your co-operation. yours sincerely in service. Kaka law chambers. Advocates & solicitor. 20 Route Almadies Dakar Senegal Tell, +221773910927 Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2015 13:33:47 +0000 (UTC) From: Kaka Azuzu Subject: THE BANK ACCOUNT OUR REF: JLC/08845 YOUR REF: LMC/549 DATE:.... 28/12/2015. KAKA LAW CHAMBERS. Attention, . Thanks for your information, This is the bank account you will send the money,once you send the money try and send the payment slip, ACCOUNT HOLDER....... ... CAMARA OUSMANE NAME OF THE BANK..... .... BANK OF AFRICA SENEGAL BANK ADDRESS.............. YOFF DAKAR SENEGAL ACCOUNT NUMBER............ 05007960000 BANK CODE..................... SN100 CODE AGC..................... 01022 RIB..................... 77 SWIFT CODE..................AFRISNDAXXX IBAN.......................... SN08 SN10 0010 2200 5007 9600 0077 Thanks for your co-operation.yours sincerely in service. Kaka law chambers. Advocates & solicitor. 20 Route Almadies Dakar Senegal Tell, +221773910927 From: jibo mazim < jibomazim@hotmail.com > Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2016 10:06:09 +0000 Subject: I can never forget you like that jibo mazima Good afternoon my dear, I am very happy to inform you about my success in getting the fund transferred under the cooperation and help of a new partner in paraguay. Presently I am in paraguay for investment projects with my own share of the total sum, that is why i never send you mail for long now. Meanwhile, I didn't forget your past efforts and attempts to assist me in transferring the funds and how to bring me out from camp despite that it failed us some how. I appreciated your efforts at that time very much. I know there is nothing that i will give you that is enough for your support and care towards the time i was in difficulty in Senegal. I can't give you the whole world, but I as promised you, I appreciate all your effort, care and love which you render to me thank you and god bless you. Now you will need to contact the Rev. father whom i took as my father when i was in Dakar, his name is Jones Martins and her email address is (rev_jm@yahoo.com) and telephone number +221776284118.Ask him to send you the draft cheque sum of $200.000.00 USD which I kept for your compensation for all the past efforts and attempts to assist me in this matter. I appreciated your efforts, so feel free and get in touched with Mr. Jones Martins and instruct him where to send you the money. Please do let me know immediately you receive it so that we can share the joy after all the sufferings at that time. In the moment, I am very busy here because of the investment projects which me and mine new partner are having at hand because i want to finalize everything and go back to school to make sure that i become what i want to be in life. Finally, remember that I had forwarded instruction to the reverend father on your behalf to release the draft cheque for your compensation. Therefore feel free to get in touch with him and he will send the money to you without delay. God Bless you. Yours truly Jibo, If you received a similar letter, please ignore it. Do not answer it. If you do, you will end up on more of the mailing lists used by the criminals behind this fraud. Read more.... "Summer Read" painting in header courtesy of Michael Steirnagle . Many thanks, Michael. A new Emory clinical trials website includes easy-to-access information about nearly 1,000 clinical trials currently seeking volunteers. At clinicaltrials.emory.edu, potential participants may easily search for trials related to a specific health condition, or browse topic areas such as cardiology, cancer, or the neurosciences and view quick facts about each of the individual trials available at Emory. The new website is available to the entire Emory community as well as to interested external participants. Although many clinical trials are seeking patients who have a particular disease, many others are seeking healthy volunteers. Information about each clinical trial includes its purpose, timing, investigators, process, and certain key eligibility criteria. Potential volunteers may click on a link to the leader of each individual trial and send a message asking to participate or requesting additional information. A link to the NIH clinical trials database clinicaltrials.gov is available for those seeking more detailed information. The clinical trials website also includes frequently asked questions about volunteering, information on additional resources at Emory for potential participants, and National Institutes of Health information about clinical trials. Individuals also may register through ResearchMatch.com, a national database that connects potential volunteers to new clinical trials seeking volunteers. "Clinical trials are a key part of Emory's research mission, which helps lead to the approval of new lifesaving medicines, medical devices, and treatment protocols," says David Stephens, vice president for research in Emory's Woodruff Health Sciences Center. "As an academic medical center, Emory stands out in its ability to conduct numerous clinical trials sponsored by both the National Institutes of Health and industry." "Emory's ability to develop improved therapies through clinical research is a key component of our clinical mission and gives patients access to the most advanced treatments available," says Jeffrey Lennox, MD, associate dean for clinical research in Emory University School of Medicine. "This new clinical trials website will allow more people within Emory and the broader community to learn about and participate in the wide range of available clinical trials." Public interest lawyer Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, receives a standing ovation at the end of his talk as the 2016 Anne and Loren Kieve Distinguished Speaker. (Photo: L.A. Cicero) Bryan Stevenson highlights racism, inequity in criminal justice system in Stanford talk Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative, said Americans need to better understand the deep racial problems in the criminal justice system and their societal consequences. Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative, brought his rallying cry for justice to Stanford on Wednesday as he discussed the motivations and challenges behind his decades-long advocacy for the poor and incarcerated. "We are all carrying this illness, this disruption that has created a narrative of racial indifference, and because of that, we continue to suffer," Stevenson said, referring to how the legacy of slavery continues to haunt our society. "Slavery has not ended; it's evolved." As such, Americans need to resurrect the narrative about race because the consequent problems of bias persist not only in the criminal justice system but also in our daily lives, he said. "On Monday, I won't get to celebrate Martin Luther King Day because in Alabama, it's Martin Luther King/Robert E. Lee Day," he said, adding how 59 markers of the Confederacy remain in downtown Montgomery, Alabama. Stevenson, author of the New York Times bestseller Just Mercy, is a public interest lawyer whose efforts and leadership have resulted in major legal victories eliminating unfair sentencing and confronting abuse of the incarcerated. He is a law professor at New York University and a graduate of Harvard Law School. His talk, "Just Mercy: Race and the Criminal Justice System," marked the 11th Annual Anne and Loren Kieve Distinguished Speaker Lecture at Stanford and was jointly sponsored by the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity and the university's new OpenXChange initiative. In addition to the 600 audience members who filled Cemex Auditorium for the lecture, nearly 900 others tuned in to the live webcast of the event, which is still available for viewing. 'America's Mandela' Award-winning journalist and Stanford parent Katie Couric introduced Stevenson: "Bryan's been called 'America's Mandela' not too shabby, huh?" At times sobering, at times humorous, Stevenson shared tidbits of his life that inspired him to continue his advocacy work from his personal encounter with Rosa Parks and his defense of a 14-year-old being tried as an adult to his more recent legal representation of a death row inmate who was found to be innocent and was freed last year after 30 years of imprisonment. America has the highest rate of incarceration in the world more than 2.3 million people are behind bars in the United States and there are "collateral consequences to mass incarceration," he said. One in three black males born in the United States are expected to go to jail or prison, which creates an environment of despair, he said. Meanwhile, presumptions against people of color perpetuate racial bias and lead to instances of police brutality. Stevenson recalled how a judge once told him to step away from the defense counsel table because the lawyer hadn't arrived yet when in fact Stevenson was the lawyer, representing a young white kid in the case. Even within the context of the civil rights movement, trouble remains, Stevenson said. "I hear people talking about the civil rights movement and it sounds like a three-day carnival," he said. "On day one, Rosa Parks did not give up her seat on the bus. On day two, Martin Luther King led a march in Washington. And on day three, we just changed all the laws." Yet, he said, much work lies ahead to create more justice. "The reality is that for decades, we humiliated people regularly," he said. L.A. Cicero Jennifer Eberhardt, a 2014 MacArthur Fellow and associate professor of psychology, was one of the faculty members who joined Stevenson in a panel discussion. Stanford scholars who joined Stevenson in a panel discussion agreed, saying how research studies have indicated how modern discrimination issues are systemic and partly the result of policy. Jennifer Eberhardt, a 2014 MacArthur Fellow and associate professor of psychology, said research conducted at the frontlines of law enforcement have prompted some police departments to emphasize different approaches less heavy-handed enforcement and more community involvement. Political scientist Gary Segura, the Morris M. Doyle Centennial Professor, cited how a recent "stop-and-frisk" study found that the number of police stops of black people in New York City outnumbered the city's entire population. "So black people were getting stopped more than once," he said. "That's insane." Robert Weisberg, the Edwin E. Huddleson, Jr. Professor of Law and co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, said police are not the only ones who need scrutiny. Prosecutors have the power of sentencing but are "infamously immune to being studied," Weisberg said in an explicit hint to students. Changing the narrative To achieve justice, Stevenson contended that Americans would have to get close to the underlying problems, change the nation's narrative, brave some discomfort and muster hope. "We need to get closer to those places where there's poverty, abuse and neglect," Stevenson said. "There's power in proximity." Society's narrative also must change so people do not turn toward the exits if the issue of segregation or race crops up, he said. And without hope, progress will not ensue, he added. "Hope is what gets you to stand when other people are telling you to sit down." Stevenson's appearance at Stanford helped to fulfill the mission of OpenXChange to provide a forum for students and community members to focus on today's societal challenges, said Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Harry J. Elam, Jr. "These events can educate students and get them thinking about issues they face as global citizens of the 21st century," said Elam, who heads the OpenXChange initiative. According to attendees, Stevenson delivered. "I've been to a number of events where others talked about the prison-industrial complex, and I found this to be the most powerful by far," John Ribeiro-Broomhead, a junior studying public policy, said after attending the lecture. "Just hearing [Stevenson's] call for proximity felt very relevant to me as a Stanford student, to engage in that analysis and that fight for justice." Speaking on DawnNews talk show 'News Eye', Sanaullah, while responding to a question, confirmed that Masood Azhar was taken into protective custody by the counter-terrorism department, the report said. Asked if his custody can be termed an 'arrest', the provincial law minister explained on Thursday that Azhar will only face arrest and legal action if his involvement in the Pathankot attack is proved beyond doubt. India says that the six terrorists who attacked the Indian Air Force (IAF) station in Pathankot in Punjab on January 2, killing seven security personnel, were Pakistanis and allied to the JeM. --Indo-Asian News Service pku ( 134 Words) 2016-01-15-08:37:34 (IANS) Pongal marks the beginning of the tenth month of the Tamil calendar "Thai" and the festivities go on for three days. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Minister J.Jayalalithaa and various leaders have greeted the people on the occasion. Tomorrow is "Maattu pongal," a day to honour bulls for their help in farming. However, the Jallikattu ban comes as a disappointment for the enthusiasts of the adventurous game. The celebrations end with "Kaanum Pongal" on Sunday when people spend the day together at prominent picnic spots as families. Also, the Sri Lankan government has decided to release all the 104 Indian fishermen from its prisons in view of Pongal. (ANI) The Army Day is annually celebrated on January 15. It marks the day in 1949 when Lt.Gen. K.M. Cariappa took over as the first commander-in-chief of the Indian Army from the last British commander-in-chief. "Saluting the indomitable valour, determination & dedication of our Army on Army Day," Prime Minister Modi tweeted. Army Chief Genral Dalbir Singh, Navy Chief Admiral Robin Dhowan and Air Force Chief Arup Raha paid homage to the martyrs by laying wreaths at the Amar Jawan Jyoti. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi also greeted the armed forces and described them as defenders of 'billion hopes and dreams'. "My tribute to our soldiers, officers and ex-servicemen on Army Day. You fight for India's freedom &liberty, and lay down your lives to defend a billion hopes &dreams.You make us proud," he tweeted. The day is celebrated in the form of parades and other military shows in the national capital as well as all headquarters. Army Day marks a day to salute the valiant soldiers who sacrificed their lives to protect the country. (ANI) After getting approval for two Sainik schools in the state, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has shot off a letter to Defence Minister Manohar Parikar demanding two more Sainik Schools, one at Rampur, the constituency of senior Samajwadi Party leader Mohammad Azam Khan and another at Kannauj, the parliamentary constituency of his wife Dimple Yadav. In a letter sent recently to the Defence Minister, Mr Yadav said opening of Sainik Schools in Rampur and Kannauj would certainly give boost to the youths who want to serve the nation through armed forces. According to sources, the letter sent to the Defence Ministry early this week, suggests that UP government will bear all the cost of these two schools if approved. The UP government will give free land and bear the cost of the building and other infrastructure. Earlier, Mr Khan had written to the state Secondary Education Department for a Sainik School in Rampur which was forwarded to the Chief Minister by the department. Later, the Chief Minister wrote letter to the Defence Minister demanding Sainik School in Rampur besides adding another one at Kannauj. Earlier, the Defence ministry had sanctioned three Sainik Schools in UP at Amethi, the Parliamentary constituency of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, Mainpuri- the erstwhile political constituency of Samajwadi party president Mulayam Singh Yadav and at Jhansi, the centre of the backward Bundelkhand region. Of the three- UP CM had already laid the foundation stone for the Mainpuri Sainik School on September 5, 2015. The Mainpuri Sainik School is likely to cost around Rs 200 crores. UP Sainik School in Lucknow was the first such school in the country to be established in 1960 and since then, has given several top armymen who had served the nation and even sacrificed their lives at the border.UNI MB SV RK1125 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0196-539288.Xml Voices of dissent are reportedly rising within the core executive committee of Brussels-based trade union group, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). According to ITUC's Indian representative and vice president, G. Sanjeeva Reddy, this global body has fallen off track with regard to protecting the rights of workers across South Asia, Europe, and other regions. Reddy said, "Trade unions are supposed to come together to support each other in the workplace, negotiating with employers to improve pay, terms and conditions, and ensure fair and equal treatment. And, if you are a top global body, your responsibilities become that much more significant. On questions of basic survival, ITUC has fallen off track, and executive committee members have begun to express their dissatisfaction with General Secretary Sharon Burrow's style of functioning behind closed doors." Suggesting that the time may have come for Burrow to step down, Reddy added, "There are more people in ITUC who are disagreeing with her than those who agree, but they don't want to express this openly like me. She has to realize why the organisation is not growing, why the membership is not growing, why Communist trade unions are developing again. ITUC has failed to strengthen the labour union movement in democratic countries." When reminded of the complaint filed to ILO Kathmandu against ITUC by Nepal's leading trade union body, INDECONT, for negligence of duty, Reddy said their experience has been the same. "Where were they when floods hit Chennai, in Uttarakhand a few years back, during Manipur earthquake and many such tragedies? Sharon Burrow and ITUC have been insensitive. They didn't even visit once to show solidarity on the ground. It is only about lip sympathy," Reddy said. He further said, "Coming from an Australian and British culture, she (Burrow) has never worked closely with ground-level industrial workers. She comes from a teaching community, so, hardly has any experience with industrial and unorganized agricultural workers. She has also failed to gain the confidence of trade unions in developing countries." "The actions of Ms. Burrow are affecting the unity of trade union bodies in Asia. There is disillusionment among ITUC members. We are trying to pursue her to do right by the workers. If she listens, fine, otherwise we will see how it goes." (ANI) "History created-for first time #LCA-Tejas flies into foreign airspace to participate in Bahrain AirShow," the Defence Ministry announced in a tweet. Two LCA aircraft (LSP-4,LSP-7) landed in Bahrain yesterday at 1650 local time. Both aircraft landed perfectly at Bahrain airport after brief stopover at Muscat for refueling. The Bahrain International Air Show (BIAS) is scheduled from January 21-23 at the Sakhir Airbase, where the LCA will showcase its might. Interestingly, India's fighter will be parked at BIAS, adjacent to two Pakistan's JF-17s, jointly developed by Pakistan Aeronautical Complex and Chengdu Aircraft Industry Corporation of China. A large team of ground crew, including technicians and engineers were deployed all along the flight route, starting from Jamnagar to Muscat and Bahrain for the historic flight of Tejas.UNI MK ADG 1420 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0090-539524.Xml American multinational provider of on-demand Internet streaming media Netflix announced Friday that it will be taking new steps to stop customers from streaming content that's only available outside their own country. The company's vice president of content delivery architecture, David Fullagar, was quoted by The Verge, as saying that customers using proxies and un-blockers will only be able to access the service in the country in which they reside. In the blog post, Fullagar, also said that he was confident that the change in policy at Netflix would not impact members who were not using proxies. Fullagar further stated that the internet streaming industry still had a long way to go insofar as offering people the same films and TV series everywhere. He said most of the new original shows on Netflix will be available globally on day one, but added that licensed films and television shows pose a bigger challenge. For a start, Fullagar said Netflix will block IP addresses associated with popular VPN and proxy services similar to the way Tor is sometimes blocked. (ANI) In a first, the FMC license allows Amazon China to legally be an ocean transport intermediary. Under the license, Amazon will ship its own goods as well as ship goods to the United States for other companies. However, according to The Verge, the grant of a license is just half the battle won for Amazon, and it may take months, or even years for the company to actually commence shipping operations to the United States. Currently, ocean-bound shipping is cheap and delivering Amazon items directly into the retailers fulfilment centers across the United States is seen as an enticing prospect for Chinese firms. By getting into ocean shipping, Amazon hopes to stay on top of the online retail game, which is getting increasingly competitive. It is being said that Amazon's move into ocean-based shipping of its products could undercut Chinese retail behemoth Alibaba, which has been making inroads into the United States. The objective is to allow manufacturers to sell directly to American consumers without the interference of a tortured delivery process. (ANI) The minister appealed to the people to give the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti achance in the upcoming Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation elections. He said that the TRS government had embarked upon a number of schemes for thewelfare of the poor people.The TRS government was marching ahead taking with itall sections of the people, he added.UNI SMS VV JK1531 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0415-539739.Xml :Union minister for urban development M.Venkaiah Naidu today said that only the centre could ensure the all-round growth of the city of Hyderabad. He said the people of the city would decide about the real strength of the parties in the coming Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation elections. The minister hoped that the people would support those parties which were opposed to communal forces. He said Prime Minister Narender Modi was not partial towards any state in the country.UNI SMS VV JK1542 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0415-539744.Xml The woman was travelling with her mother in Bilaspur-Indore Narmada Express when the ruffian snatched the purse from the woman, who was asleep, near the outer Bhopal railway station. The ruffian got down from the compartment and she followed him but fell from the train. However, as the train was moving slow, she sustained minor injuries, Superintendent of Police (Government Railway Police) Awadhesh Goswami told UNI. The woman was admitted to Hamidia Hospital here for treatment, he added.UNI GV-BDG AE AN1523 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0044-539681.Xml The Australian High Commission today welcomed 34 Indian and Australian educators to build stronger ties between the Australian and Indian school systems and deepen engagement on two pioneering exchange programs. Funded by the Indian and Australian Governments, with support from the Asia Education Foundation, the Australia-India School Leaders' Professional Learning (SLPL) Program involves reciprocal visits of principals and teachers, while the inaugural BRIDGE program aims to build teacher capacity in intercultural understanding, establish durable school partnerships and enhance ICT skills to provide students with personal, real-time connection with peers in the region. Australian High Commissioner to India, Patrick Suckling, welcomed the strengthening of partnerships between school leaders, teachers and school communities. "The Australia-India education relationship is strong and vibrant," Mr Suckling said. "Almost 500 school leaders from both countries have now participated in the SLPL program, with 16 teachers involved in BRIDGE. The relationships forged through these exchange programs help to build enduring ties between our school systems and between our two countries." Dr Sudarshan Rao, Joint Secretary (Academics and Training) of India's Central Board of Secondary Education, accompanied the Indian group during their visit to Australia under the SLPL. "The SLPL program exposed Indian school principals to the education system of another country and highlighted alternative teaching practices such as the use of new technology, strategic planning, and staff and student assessment," Mr.Rao said. Ms Kamalika Bose from Bluebells School International participated in this year's inaugural BRIDGE program to Australia, announced by the Australian Minister for Education and Training during his visit to India in August 2015. "The Australia-India BRIDGE program created opportunities for teachers and students of two different countries and cultures to meet face to face, and not only learn from each other but also build trust and friendship," Ms Bose said. More information about SLPL, BRIDGE, the AIEC and the Schools Working Group can be found at www.australiaindiaeducation.com. (ANI) A crowd attacked policemen, forced them to stay inside the police station and then torched vans and bikes after a sand-laden lorry mowed down a tribal youth at Mayureswar in Birbhum district today.The trouble began when the local people in hundreds blocked the highway protesting the mishap, prompting the local police station at Mayureswar to rush to restore the situation. But the angry protesters turned towards policemen hurling stones and brickbats, forcing them to retreat into the police station. The mob then torched some vehicles and bikes parked at the police station alleging the police did not act on time.Later the SDPO summoned a re-inforecement to set free the policemen.Police arrested three people for committing offense in the public places and attacking the uniformed men.UNI XC-PC PL AE 1635 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0386-539851.Xml The main aim of the exercise, which was jointly witnessed by Indian Coast Guard Director General Vice-Admiral H C S Bishtand Japan Coast Guard Vice Commandant Vice-Admiral Hideyo Hanamizu and Coast Guard Region (East) Commander InspectorGeneral S P Sharma, was also to further refine the joint operating procedures between the two Coast Guards. The Japan Coast Guard Ship 'Echigo', which arrived herea couple of days back, participated in the joint exercise,the highlight of which encompassed the scenario of hijacking a merchant vessel and subsequently rescued in a combined coast guard operation of both the countries. Operation of Indian Coast Guard helicopters from JapanCoast Guard ship and vice-versa, cross deck landing, interdiction of pirate vessel, cross boarding, SARdemonstration, stream past and external fire fighting were also demonstrated as part of the exercise. In addition, the Indian Coast Guard ships and aircraft demonstrated their prowess before the Japanese delegation. MORE UNI GV VV JK1645 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0415-539956.Xml Police nabbed a Bangladeshi near Passport office under Rajiv Nagar police station area here today. Senior Police Superintendent of Patna Manu Maharaj told UNI that the Bangladeshi was arrested when he was loitering around the Passport office. He said a fake Aadhar card and other documents were recovered from him. He added the police is trying to find out his identity. The foreign national, who reached from Kolkata along with one of his associatestried to hoodwink police by claiming that he was on his way to Saudi Arabia. Mr Maharaj said, "Why should he come to Patna when he wanted to go to Saudi Arabia". He also said the police had also launched a search operation to nab his associate, Nadeem. adding that the Bangaladeshi would be sent to jail after interrogation and his arrest has come close on the heels of nabbing of seven Bangladeshis with suspected terrorist links from Makhdoom locality under Town police station area in Siwan district.UNI DH PL SA AE NS1610 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0211-539609.Xml Haryana State Vigilance Bureau nabbed Head Constable Dalbir Singh, posted at police station city Dadri, district Bhiwani red-handed while accepting a bribe of Rs 5,000 from Vinit Kumar, a resident of Dhani Phogat, for releasing a motorcycle confiscated in criminal case at police station city Dadri. While giving this information here today, a spokesman of the Bureau said a case has been registered against him under sections 7 and 13 of Prevention of Corruption Act at the Bureau Police Station in Hisar. UNI NC VJ SA VP1646 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-539902.Xml The grant was announced for the years 2016 and 2017 by the WFP Deputy Country Director, Nguyen Duc Hoang during a recent meeting with Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake , reports the Lanka Page web site. The discussions focused on the need for improving nutritional status of school children in particular of the rural and plantation areas. The WFP promised for further assistance to improve nutritional levels of rural communities triggered by natural disasters.(ANI) Buoyed by the success of the odd-even rule, which is coming to end by the evening, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Transport Minister Gopal Rai on Friday expressed their gratitude towards Delhiites for making the first phase of the plan successful. "It was a tough call," said Kejriwal, "but the people of Delhi stood by it, followed it." "I congratulate the people of Delhi from the bottom of my heart. They are very nice. The only need is the governance to come out of the secretariat," he said. "Not only the people of India, but the entire world was watching whether the odd-even implementation is successful or not. So, the people of Delhi have set an example before the world," said Kejriwal, adding that they did not abide by the rule due to fear of Rs. 2,000 fine, but understood the motive behind it, and thus, followed it. He also expressed his gratitude towards the Delhi Police, Public Works Department (PWD), Transport Department and the Delhi Metro for their cooperation, and congratulated the Civil Defence volunteers for their patient percussion to the commuters to abide by the rule. He also congratulated the media for starting a debate in this connection and pointing out shortcomings in the implementation, which we tried to do away with. The chief minister hailed the role of the judiciary, which extended their cooperation to the Delhi Government. "The most overwhelming response was from the Chief Justice of India and the Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court, who despite being exempted from the odd-even rule, pulled their car. Besides them, many SC and HC judges walked to the court, leaving their vehicles behind at their residences, which boosted the morale and inspired several lakhs people to follow the rule. We salute the judiciary and judges who wholeheartedly participated in the process," he added. Pollution level came down, but decongested roads were one of the things that people admired, he said. He said the Delhi Government would be holding a public meeting at Chhatrasal Stadium here at 3p.m on Sunday to express his government's gratitude to the people, volunteers and all agencies involved in the odd-even implementation. (ANI) Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmer Welfare Mohanbhai Kundariya has urged farmers in Manipur to take up organic farming if they are keen on having a good and healthy society. Kundariya was addressing participants and farmers at the Central Agricultural University after inaugurating a new academic block in the complex recently. Manipur Agriculture Minister Abdul Nasir, Lok Sabha MP Th Meinya and CAU Vice Chancellor Professor Premjit were also present on the occasion. The dignitaries visited the museum, soil testing laboratory, seed processing unit and the agriculture expo set up by the CAU. Kundariya said the Centre is giving more emphasis to organic farming and Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently announced a special scheme for the welfare of farmers that gives a fillip to organic farming. He further said that the excessive use of chemical fertilisers in agriculture and vegetation items is not only harmful for the people but also harms the soil. Calling on farmers to take full advantage of the welfare schemes of the Centre, Kundariya appealed to them to stop using poison pesticides and insecticides. He asked the farmers to consult experts for more innovative and effective techniques to increase production rather than using harmful chemicals. He also said that increasing dairy production was another aim of the government. He said the farmers of Manipur should join the dairy popularisation movement. Kundariya said he and his team had compiled a report of the grievances of farmers in the state which will be submitted to the Prime Minister. He said that this way the Prime Minister will be able to act accordingly. "This visit was made in accordance with the Prime Minister's advice to visit every state and take an assessment and help in implementing the centrally-sponsored schemes in the states," Kundariya said. A USDA study team has defined organic farming as "a system which avoids or largely excludes the use of synthetic inputs (such as fertilizers, pesticides, hormones, feed additives etc) and to the maximum extent feasible rely upon crop rotations, crop residues, animal manures, off-farm organic waste, mineral grade rock additives and biological system of nutrient mobilization and plant protection". The FAO has defined organic agriculture as "a unique production management system which promotes and enhances agro-ecosystem health, including biodiversity, biological cycles and soil biological activity, and this is accomplished by using on-farm agronomic, biological and mechanical methods in exclusion of all synthetic off-farm inputs". Organic farming system in India is not new and is being followed from ancient time. It is a method of farming system which primarily aimed at cultivating the land and raising crops in such a way, as to keep the soil alive and in good health by use of organic wastes (crop, animal and farm wastes, aquatic wastes) and other biological materials along with beneficial microbes (bio-fertilizers) to release nutrients to crops for increased sustainable production in an eco friendly pollution free environment. Indian farmers were basically organic farmers before the advent of inorganic fertilizers and chemical pesticides. Overtime the use of these synthetic inputs has come to the level of causing a concern to the environment and human health. Consequently, it is felt necessary to advocate the use of the age-old practice of organic farming not only to ensure uncontaminated food production but also to sustain the agriculture by keeping the land in a healthy condition. (ANI) They contended that the state government has no authority to pass such an order. The Delhi government had earlier scrapped management quotas for admissions to private schools, a move that offers more seats for those seeking general admission. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said it was important to remove the management quota, dubbing it as "the biggest scam" in India's education system. "There will be only 25 percent reservation for economically weaker sections; the rest 75 percent will be made available to the general public. We noticed during our inspection that a few schools have made just 25 percent seats available for the general public. We are now opening 50 percent more seats for them," said Kejriwal. "We found 62 unjust criteria, which we have declared null and void. Schools can redraft criteria of admission points and it should be just, transparent and fair. They cannot reserve seats or decide admission criteria according to their whims and fancies," said Kejriwal. In December, the Delhi government allowed private schools to decide their own admission criteria and update the same on their websites. (ANI) Britain received a final payment of 740 million pounds ($1.06 billion) on Friday from the estate of Landsbanki, an Icelandic bank that collapsed during the 2008 financial crisis.The government has now received 4.6 billion pounds from the Landsbanki estate and litigation cases, a statement from the Treasury said. Landsbanki had big retail operations overseas, accepting deposits in Britain and the Netherlands under the Icesave brand.When it failed, Iceland's banking insurance scheme was unable to cover those deposits, setting the stage for years of international litigation. REUTERS PS AS1827 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-540179.Xml Four memoranda of understanding (MoUs) were inked in the island city-state. Singapore will invest Rs 7,000 cr in the renewable energy sector. Other MoUs relate to urban planning, skill development, capacity building and food processing, said Mr Chouhan while talking to reporters at the state hangar soon after his return. The first MoU was inked between Madhya Pradesh's Directorate of Town and Country Planning and Singapore Corporation Enterprises. The second one was signed between Madhya Pradesh's Technical Education and Skill Development Department and Singapore's ITE Education Services. Likewise, Madhya Pradesh's Renewal Energy Department signed MoU with Singapore's Sembcorp Green Infrastructure Limited. Besides, an MoU was entered between Singapore-based LT Foods India Limited and DSM Nutrition Products. Singapore Prime Minister Lee Husien Loong evinced interest in collaborating with Madhya Pradesh in five sectors. These include renewable energy, urban planning, capacity building, food processing and information technology sectors, said Mr Chouhan. Discussions revealed the need for creating an international brand for the state. Deliberations were held about basmati rice in this regard, he said.More UNI SN-PS AE AN1758 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0044-540074.Xml A city-based youth, who was reported to be missing since 2012, has been found in custody of the Pakistan Army. The news about the arrest of Nehal Hamid Ansari in Pakistan was confirmed today by his mother Fauzia Ansari here. "Indian government has been very supportive, they showed us many letters which they sent to Pakistan High Commission," she said. While narrating the story of her son to the mediapersons, Fauzia said, "Nehal had gone to Kabul looking for a job. After a long struggle, when we came to know that he is safe there under the watch of government. We are at least satisfied that he is fine. He is very talented, but he never got a desired job. He didn't have job satisfaction." In 2012 Nehal went to Afghanistan for a job at Kabul airport, she said and informed that "for the first ten days he was in touch with us, but after that there was no contact." He had reportedly entered Pakistan illegally through Afghanistan as he was in love with a girl from Kohat district whom he had befriended on social media networks, the youth's mother said. Since the girl's parents were planning to get her married soon, Ansari took the risk of entering Pakistan illegally to meet her but soon went missing, she said. To enquire about their 28-year-old son, the parents contacted Indian embassy in Afghanistan and found out that he was trying to help a tribal girl who was being ill-treated in Pakistan, she said. The parents had filed a petition in the Peshawar High Court. The public interest litigation (PIL) said that Nehal got in touch with the girl through Facebook. Fauzia further says that some of her son's Pakistani friends had advised him to enter the country without visa. According to reports, a division bench of the Peshawar High Court disposed off the case of Hamid Ansari after the government confirmed that he was currently in army custody and facing a trial in a military court.UNI AAA SS DJK AS1831 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-540109.Xml The Governor of a state had restricted powers and could not regulate compositions of the state assembly or its proceedings, counsel for ousted Arunachal Pradesh Speaker Nabam Rebia stated in the Supreme Court today. Senior lawyer, Kapil Sibal, appearing for Mr Rebia, told the constitution bench of Justices Jagdish Singh Khehar, Dipak Misra, Madan B Lokur, Pinaki Chandra Ghosh and Justice NV Ramana, "Governor has a limited role to play in the affairs of the assembly. ''He is not a sentinel. ''He is not a moral authority on the state assembly."The Apex Court was hearing Mr Rebia's petition challenging the role of the Governor, Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa, in the political battle in the state of Arunachal Pradesh involving feuding factions of the Congress legislature party.The hearing will continue on Monday. Mr Rebia asserted that he was illegally removed from the post of the state Speaker by 14 rebel Congress MLAs and some BJP legislators on December 16 in an Assembly session presided over by the Deputy Speaker in a Community Hall in Itanagar. Mr Sibal further told the court that, "there is no power vested in the governor by the constitution to prepone an assembly session and in the instant case, he did it at the behest of the Opposition".At this, the court observed, "and if he does it, then validity of the decision can be decided by the court." The Governor cannot monitor the Speaker's "quasi judicial powers" it held.Mr Sibal said that the constitutional functionary can not convene, prorogue or dissolve the Assembly at his discretion. The Apex Court had yesterday decided to refer the matter to a larger five-judge constitution bench as it related to the rights of the Governor, the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker.UNI XC RP1930Rebia had approached the Apex Court challenging the Gauhati High Court's decisions of the Governor and Deputy Speaker of his removal from the Speaker's post. Rebia had, in his petition, alleged that the Acting Chief Justice of the Gauhati High Court "had erroneously rejected" his plea. He had also sought recusal of Justice B K Sharma from hearing his plea. On January 7, the Apex Court had asked Rebia to argue on the maintainability plea in connection with his alleged removal. "How can you (Rebia) challenge it? This is an administrative order which you are assailing in the Special Leave Petition (SLP) under Article 136 of the Constitution. You (Rebia) argue on the plea of maintainability," the SC had observed.ENDS -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0400-540451.Xml Russia is likely to scale back volumes of gas it plans to ship to China later this decade, sources close to energy giant Gazprom say, due to the dive in global energy prices and uncertainty hanging over the Chinese economy.The sources insist the hugely expensive pipeline project - part of President Vladimir Putin's strategic shift eastwards - will go ahead on time. However, they acknowledge sales to China will initially be lower than envisaged when Moscow reached the 400 billion dollars deal with Beijing in May 2014."We will start fulfilling the deal in 2019, but the volumes could be less that initially expected," a source at Gazprom told Reuters.At the time of the deal, crude oil was trading above 100 dollars a barrel but has since plunged to 30 dollars. In this period growth in the Chinese economy has also slowed sharply, with its currency falling and its stock market now in turmoil.Moscow is keen to "pivot to the East" to reduce its reliance on exporting energy to the West due to a series of rows, notably over Russia's annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.China is in a buyer's market. Abundant energy supplies are now available from other sources, such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar and Australia and pipeline gas from Central Asia, and this is undermining the Kremlin's plans.Gazprom's media relations team did not comment on emailed questions from Reuters although the state-controlled company, which has a monopoly on Russian pipeline gas exports, has said the project to ship gas from eastern Siberia to China is on track.Flows through the Power of Siberia pipeline, which starts in East Siberia, are due to start at 5 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas, rising to 38 bcm annually under the 30-year deal - just below what Gazprom's top gas buyer, Germany, now gets.The pricing mechanism for what China will pay has not been revealed. Sources and analysts say the oil breakeven price for the Russian gas exports to China is around $80 per barrel, a level that is unlikely to be reached in the foreseeable future."In any case, the volumes will be lower (than announced)," said another source, who is close to Gazprom and familiar with the talks with China. "Gazprom has taken on an uphill task and failed."TURKMENISTAN BEATS RUSSIA TO MARKETSeveral industry sources have said Gazprom was hoping to sell gas to China for $10-$11 per mmBtu - an energy measure. By contrast, China is understood by analysts to be paying $9 per mmBtu to Turkmenistan, the former Soviet republic in Central Asia that beat Gazprom to the Chinese market.No one knows where energy prices will be at the end of this decade or what state the Chinese economy will be in. But all bets seem to be off for now after oil's 70 percent plunge in the past 18 months. Benchmark Asian spot LNG is trading at $6.50, down from over $13 in May 2014.Analysts see a delay as the likely outcome. "The parties are likely to postpone the project commissioning into the late 2020s," Mikhail Korchemkin, a director of U.S.-based consultancy East European Gas Analysis.He sees the breakeven price for Russian gas exports to China, as measured by the benchmark Brent crude price, at $75-$85 per barrel - but only if the pipeline construction is done by Chinese contractors, whose involvement promises to cut costs.It is not clear whether Moscow will accept foreign contractors or will insist on Russian firms doing the work on its territory.Gazprom had initially planned to invest $55 billion in exploration and pipeline construction to China's border. The costs may have since been cut due to a slide in the rouble's value which has pushed up the cost of imported equipment.The project includes building a huge gas processing plant needed to provide methane of the required quality and clear it of helium, which is abundant in the east Siberian gas fields.In a sign of increasing difficulties for the Kremlin's energy champion, sources have said Gazprom has asked other Russian gas producers to help it out to honour the deal.CHINESE TURMOILChen Zhu, Beijing-based managing director of consultancy SIA Energy, said the economic turmoil in China makes the project less attractive. "There is no doubt the project is strategic but on the China side, the demand outlook is not that rosy as the economy is slowing," she said.Chen said 2020 is a more realistic date for gas to start flowing. "Due to very high costs required to develop the large gas fields in Russia, China and Russia share the understanding that neither side is in urgent need," she said.The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies also said in research published in September that Beijing was in no rush to allow Russian gas into its market."It would increasingly appear that Gazprom is at the mercy of its Chinese counterparts, who are operating in a buyers' market, have the lure of financing to offer, and have every incentive to adopt a wait and see policy in gas import negotiations," it said.REUTERS PS AS1946 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-540579.Xml A 400-odd jawans from Punjab Police, BSF and CRPF conducted a search operation in Thanewal, Mustfabad, Bahian, Talwandi Virk, Alawalpur and Peer di Sen villages alongwith the Tibri cantonment area. The joint search operation was led by Tibri police station SHO Kapil Kaushal. However, no movement of any suspicious person was detected by the security forces so far. Farmer Satnam Singh of Pandher village claimed to have seen two suspected militants in Army uniforms on January 6, while a migrant labourer also claimed that he had seen five suspected militants in Bahian village on January 10. Six Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists in Army uniforms had attacked the Pathankot Air Base on January 2, leading to an encounter that lasted over four days. Gurdaspur was also targeted by Pakistani terrorists in July last year also when they struck at Dinanagar police station.UNI XC DB AE AS2003 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-540558.Xml Punjab Revenue Minister Bikram Singh Majithia today said the non-performing Arvind Kejriwal's days as Delhi Chief Minister were now numbered. You will soon realise that brave Punjabis are not afraid of threats of jail terms and political vendetta and that it is you, who will face jail term on charges of defamation. In a statement here, Mr Majithia said Arvind Kejriwal, who had behaved more like a Natwar Lal during his past one year tenure in Delhi, should realise that Punjabis had always risen up against oppressors and outside forces, who had tried to dominate them. Forget jail, even facing bullets is in our Punjabi blood. If Kejriwal thinks he can scare me, the SAD or the people of Punjab by such intimidatory tactics, he is living in a fool's paradise, the minister said. Asking Kejriwal not to count his chickens before they hatched, Mr Majithia said he would hold up the AAP leader to every statement made yesterday. You will have to prove what you said or face a jail term as a common criminal, as per the law of the land, he added.MORE UNI NC RJ AN2047 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-540693.Xml Majority separatist leaders, including chairmen of both the factions of the Hurriyat Conference (HC), Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) besides two MLAs were invited for two day Round Table Conference being held in Islamabad, Pakistan from January 20.The two-day conference will discuss The Kashmir Conflict-its Ramifications for Pak- India Relations and Peace and security of south Asia. The Kashmir Dispute, Hindutve and emergence of Hindu Extremism in India. Proposed Abrogation of Article 370 and Article 35-A of Indian constitution- Impact on Kashmir Dispute.The invitation letters sent to Kashmiri leaders were signed by by Sardar Muhammed Yaqoob Khan, president of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir(POK).Chairman of moderate Hurriyat Conference (HC) Mirwaiz Moulvi Omar Farooq has not passport so he cannot travel to Pakistan to attend the conference, media advisor of the amalgam chairman Advocate Shahidul Islam told UNI.Chairman of hardline HC Syed Ali Shah Geelani, under house arrest, also cannot attend the conference since his passport has also lapsed. His passport was issued for one year only to visit his ailing daughter in Saudi Arabia, which too was suspended, when he was invited for OIC meeting.General Secretary of the HC, led by Geelani, Shabir Ahmad Shah and chief of Dukhtaran-e-Milat Asiya Andrabi also have no passport.However, independent member from Langate in the frontier district of Kupwara Er Sheikh Abdul Rashid said he will attend the conferenceThe senior Communist Party of India (M) leader and MLA from Kulgam in south Kashmir said he has also received an invitation from Mr Khan.''I have not yet decided,'' he told UNI this evening. A similar conference was held in Muzaffarabad, capital POK, in 2008 which was attended among others, by Mr Tarigami, former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, PDP leader Moulvi Ifthikar Ansari and Independent MLA Hakeem Yasin. UNI BAS ASM CJ RJ 2121 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0400-540782.Xml Jammu and Kashmir Police is going to host 27th Police-Public Mela would be held here on February 21. This was decided in a meeting of senior police officers held here, which was chaired by Director General of Police K Rajendra Kumar. Mr Rajendra said that Police Public Mela is a big event organized by the Jammu and Kashmir Police Wives Welfare Association (JKPWWA) each year and added that the event has gained much popularity among people both at Srinagar and Jammu. People from various shades of life visit these Melas and get the opportunity to buy different items from all regions of the State at one place. These Melas also help bring police and public together, he added. The DGP informed that the Mela which will be held in Jammu on February 21adding that Raffle Draw will also take place at the venue and prizes would be given away among the winners on the spot on production of original tickets. The amount earned out of such Melas is utilized for welfare of police martyrs families under various welfare schemes adopted by Police including free education to their wards, said the Police Chief.UNI VBH CJ -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0400-540872.Xml About 250 cigarettes and bidis vendors today staged protest against Himachal Pradesh government, blaming it for making vendor's registration compulsory and regulating sell of tobacco products in the state.Member of Bidi Cigarette Vikreta Sanga said that state government imposed licensing system on number of small traders or sellers who are engaged in at selling of Tobacco products.Mr. Sharma alleged that it would damage their business, take away source of livelihoods moreover it would allow government officials to extort money from small sellers.Around 200 vendors of cigarettes, backed by regional cigarette distributors, under the banner of Bidi Cigarette Vikreta Sangh, staged the protest.The state cabinet meeting held here yesterday accorded the post facto approval to complete ban on the sale of loose cigarette and beedis in the state.Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh also asked the health department to draft a legislation for registration of retailers of tobacco products. Banning of sale of loose cigarettes also would make a licence compulsory for sellers of packed tobacco products, including cigarettes. State government likely to bring a legislations in this regard in the legislative assembly in up coming budget session.Association also submitted a memorandum to the chief minister, protesting against the proposed legislation as it would badly hit our businesses .The state on November 4 last year decided to ban the sale of cigarettes and bidis in singles and twos.The vendors say the licensing system for selling cigarettes will increase corruption among government functionaries.Health Minister Kaul Singh has said the objective of the ban was to dissuade youth from using tobacco.Participating in the 46th Union World Lung Health Conference in Cape Town in South Africa last month, he said he had urged the Indian union government to earmark budget for tobacco control for all the states.Mr Thakur said that state already been using the money collected as fine by enforcing Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce Production, Supply and Distribution) Act of 2003.UNI ML RJ AS2141 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-540739.Xml Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today reiterated her demand that the truth about last days of Netaji must come out. It is a matter of national shame that we know the date of birth of Netaji but not the date of his death, Ms Banerjee said The chief minister wondered if Netaji died in 1945 why did snooping on Bose family continue after independence. She said some light must be shed on whether he visited Russia after his disappearance. Ms Banerjee iterated the demand of DNA test on the ashes at Renkoji temple. She said Netaji was a popular figure globally and the next generation must know the full truth about him. Chief Minister today inaugurated an exhibition to mark 75 years of Netajis Great Escape at Netaji Bhavan, the residence from where in 1941 he had escaped house confinement. She also unveiled a marble plaque in front of the entrance of Netaji Bhavan to commemorate the route Netajis nephew Sisir Bose had taken to drive him out. Earlier, the Netaji Research Bureau has arranged a week-long programme to mark the 75th anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Boses Great Escape starting from today.. This years Netaji Oration would be delivered by Gordon on January 22, The Red Fort Trial: Justice by a Dying Colonialism at the Netaji Bhawan. On Netajis Birthday on January 23, actress Sharmila Tagore will inaugurate an album consisting of 15 songs which were Netajis favourite, out of a list of 17. Netaji used to listen to them when he was at the Mandalay Jail in 1925-27.UNI BM RJ AS2316 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0214-540920.Xml Bespectacled and gently spoken, more don than politician, Tsai Ing-wen is almost certain to be voted Taiwan's first woman president on Saturday and, with China pointing hundreds of missiles at the island, thrust into one of Asia's toughest and most dangerous jobs.If she wins, she will lead an island which China claims as its sacred territory and will have to balance the superpower interests of China and the United States with those of her freewheeling, democratic home.As the head of the opposition, independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Tsai risks antagonising China if she attempts to forcefully assert Taiwan's sovereignty and reverses eight years of warming China ties under incumbent China-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou.Tsai has the tide of history against her. Ma and predecessors, including firebrand Lee Teng-hui and convicted opposition DPP president Chen Shui-bian, all failed to bring about a lasting reconciliation with China, which considers Taiwan a rogue province to be taken by force if necessary. Shots were traded between the two sides as recently as the mid-1970s.At stake are relations with an ascendant and increasingly assertive China under President Xi Jinping."If (you) don't vote for the Nationalists, the future is really uncertain," said Ma in a final push for votes for his Nationalist Party in Taipei, a leafy, vibrant city splashed with billboards of Tsai and Nationalist rival Eric Chu, along with candidates contesting 113 parliamentary seats island-wide."Our policy is aiming for peace and stability. We can ensure everyone that there won't be a war across the Strait," Ma said.Tsai, a trained lawyer, was fast-tracked to senior posts from a young age - first as Taiwan's chief trade negotiator in her 30s, then as Taiwan's main China affairs minister in her 40s. Those in her inner circle speak of a strategically-minded and cautious individual with a firm grasp of details and a pragmatic long view."I walked out of a Taiwan that was under the Nationalists' martial law and I was washed in America's democracy. That is how I established my identification of what is a nation," said Tsai in her 2011 autobiography.She travelled to China in the late 1990s for the first time as a translator for Taiwan's top cross-Strait negotiator who met former president Jiang Zemin.Ever smiling, though sometimes barely audible when chatting with ebullient supporters on the campaign trail, Tsai has rebounded from defeat in the 2012 election to Ma to what opinion polls have predicted could be the biggest ever margin of victory for a Taiwan leader."SMARTEST IN THE ROOM"While the Nationalists have attacked Tsai and the DPP as a grave threat given the party's independence-leaning stand, some say she could confound her critics."There is no question she has a tremendous amount of capability," said a Taipei-based foreign official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "It really depends on what else happens on the mainland. It will be things that will be outside of her control."This week, China's influential state-run tabloid the Global Times said that while Tsai was more moderate that Chen, uncertainty lay ahead. Beijing would take a watch-and-see approach."Taiwanese society will suffer the most if peace across the Taiwan Strait is overturned," it said.In biographies, two written by her and one semi-authorised, a picture emerges of Tsai as a patient negotiator unwilling to score quick points or concede too much."My experience has shown me that with enough patience and intelligence, I will wait for the right timing that benefits me before making a decision," said Tsai in her 2011 book.Despite this, the United States has expressed concerns about the danger of worsening China-Taiwan ties, at a time when China's navy is increasingly flexing its muscles in the South China and East China Seas and expanding territorial claims.US President Barack Obama's deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes called on Taiwan and China to avoid an escalation of tensions. But he stressed Washington did not take sides in the poll and wanted Taiwan-China issues dealt with peacefully, whoever won.Poised as one of the most prominent female leaders of the Chinese-speaking world since the Qing dynasty Empress Dowager Cixi, however, has not convinced a wide swathe of domestic constituents and foreign allies that she'll steer a stable course in ties with Beijing. She has been ambiguous on her China policy, merely pledging, in public anyway, to maintain the status quo."She won't box herself in to a particular formula or phrase," said a former senior Western diplomat who has known her for 20 years. "As an actual leader, certainly having someone who is thoughtful and reflective is not necessarily a bad thing," he added. "This leaves room for negotiation where otherwise (being too passionate) it may be seen as inflexible or problematic."In the traditionally independent-minded and nationalistic south, long a stronghold of the DPP, are an older generation of Taiwanese, who see themselves as true natives unlike the defeated Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek fleeing China to the island in 1949.How Chang-cheng, 60, a former engineer, fishing on a bridge, spoke of his sadness, with both sides having sacrificed so much over the decades."China talks about resolving the tensions, but they are still pointing some 700 missiles towards us. One could come flying over any time," said How, sweeping his arm towards the horizon beyond which lay the coastline of China's Fujian province."We must try to protect our democracy. China will try to take it away from us. But if we step over the red line, there could be war. Maybe that's why we need someone who's calmer like Tsai. Maybe she can make a difference."REUTERS MI KU RAI0422 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0387-539131.Xml One of two Iraqi-born men arrested last week on federal terrorism related charges was indicted by a federal grand jury in Sacramento for lying about traveling to Syria and assisting a militant group.Aws Mohammed Younis al-Jayab, 23, who was arrested in Sacramento, is accused of making a false statement when he said he had gone to Turkey to visit his grandmother in late 2013 and 2014. In the indictment released yesterday, prosecutors said that after going to Turkey, al-Jayab went to Syria and became a member of a "rebel group, militia or insurgent organization."Al-Jayab was one of two men from the Middle East who came to the United States as refugees and were arrested on federal terrorism charges last week in California and Texas of supporting Islamist militant groups.Both men are Palestinians born in Iraq. The man arrested in Houston, Omar Faraj Saeed Al-Hardan, entered the United States as an Iraqi refugee in November 2009, according to a court document.Al-Jayab, 23, came to the United States in 2012 as a refugee from Syria, court documents said.Al-Jayab's lawyer, Ben Galloway, said the community college student planned to plead not guilty in a federal arraignment proceeding set for January 22."The allegedly false statements relate exclusively to a brief trip overseas two years ago," Galloway said.Both the FBI and Galloway said al-Jayab was not believed to have plotted any attack against the United States.The indictment, which charges al-Jayab with a single count of making a false statement involving international terrorism, lists several instances in which he allegedly lied about his trip and ties to militant organizations.It accuses al-Jayab, who was arrested last week, of also lying about providing material support to the group, which was not named, and assisting in a group where people used or threatened to use weapons against others.Al-Jayab also gave false information about providing material support to a militant group and about having "called for, helped with or committed the killing of any person," according to the indictment.The indictment does not say why al-Jayab went to Syria, but an FBI affidavit filed last week alleged he communicated online with friends, family and associates while in the Middle East, telling some that he was fighting in Syria's civil war.If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of eight years in prison and a 250,000 dollar fine. REUTERS MI KU RAI0756 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0387-539181.Xml China's growing military presence in the South China Sea has drawn warnings from the United States that Beijing is seeking to exert control over one of the world's most important sea lanes, but so far the shipping industry seems less concerned.Beijing has been increasingly assertive in staking its claim to almost the whole of the sea, though which trillions of dollars of trade passes each year.This month China landed its first test flights on a new 3,000 metre (10,000 ft) runway it has built on a reef in the Spratly Islands, drawing protests from Vietnam and the Philippines which have overlapping claims in the area.Despite the diplomatic tensions, merchant shipping says operations are, as yet, unaffected."For ship owners, it's business as usual," said Captain Bjorn Hojgaard, chief executive officer at Anglo-Eastern Univan Group, one of the world's biggest ship management companies."From our point of view, it's just another military base. It's only politics, commercially it makes no difference."The deep waters of the South China Basin between the Spratly and also-disputed Paracel Islands are the most direct shipping lane between northeast Asia's industrial hubs of China, Japan and South Korea and Europe and the Middle East.The geography of the region offers few economically viable alternative routes for large oil tankers, dry-bulk ships and container vessels.Reuters shipping data shows that, counting just Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) super-tankers, some 25 VLCCs are passing between the Spratly and Paracel islands at any time, with enough capacity to carry the equivalent of about 11 days' worth of Japanese demand.The US military, which remains by far the most powerful naval force in the region, has warned that Beijing is seeking to establish a level of de facto control over the South China Sea that threatens freedom of navigation for international shipping.Speaking to reporters aboard a US aircraft carrier in Japan last week, Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin, commander of the US Seventh Fleet, said that already merchant shippers "are kind of using China national rules for international (navigation)" in the sea.Admiral Scott Swift, commander of the US Pacific Fleet, had said in December that ships nearby these islands were now "subject to superfluous warnings that threaten routine commercial and military operations".Chinese President Xi Jinping said in November that freedom of navigation for shipping would never be a problem in the South China Sea.SABRE-RATTLING?Tensions in the South China Sea have risen over the last year as China has stepped up construction and reclamation to create man-made islands on reefs and atolls it controls."It seems that the new strategically located islands reportedly constructed by China would give China more security leeway in the disputed waters and make it difficult for other forces to assert sea control," said Jonathan Moss, head of transport at law firm DWF, who acts for insurers and shipping companies.Michael Frodl, of the US based consultancy C-Level Global Risks, said China's goal was to use "air power to project into the waters" around the artificial islands.So far, however, there are few signs that the commercial shipping is being affected."Ships have the right of free passage... and even if China does eventually take over the South China Sea, this shouldn't affect the passage of merchant ships," said Arthur Bowring, managing director of the Hong Kong Shipowners' Association, whose members operate or manage about 8 per cent of the global merchant fleet.Khalid Hashim, managing director of Precious Shipping , one of Thailand's largest dry cargo ship owners, said that "despite all the sabre-rattling by the USA" shipping activity in the South China Sea remained normal."I don't think the current tensions will escalate any further," he said, adding that the region's shipping lanes were too important for China's economy to be disrupted.Ship insurers also said had been no impact on the region's trading.Simon Lockwood, deputy managing director of marine at leading global insurance broker Willis Towers Watson, said the South China Sea area was not listed as a high risk area by the industry's influential Lloyd's Joint War Committee, which underwiters follow closely."And as such insurers will not (and cannot) charge additional premiums for vessels operating in the region," Lockwood said.The 2014 "Sailing Directions" for the South China Sea produced by the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency gives extensive details on the Spratlys.It declares some 135,000 sq km as "Dangerous Ground" due to inadequate surveys and bad weather. It also notes that sovereignty in the area is "subject to competing claims which may be supported by a force of arms".Some shippers believe a greater Chinese presence could actually improve safety."At the moment Hong Kong, with helicopters and fixed wing aircraft, has the responsibility for co-ordinating search-and-rescue activities in much of the South China Sea," one shipper in Singapore said."If China is to base search-and-rescue assets on the (disputed) islands then there would potentially be faster response times, improving the chances of rescue and survival."REUTERS MI KU RAI0812 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0387-539184.Xml Indonesian police arrested three suspected militants in a pre-dawn raid and hunted down others across the country today, a day after an attack by Islamic State suicide bombers and gunmen in the heart of the Southeast Asian nation's capital.Just seven people were killed in yesterday's late-morning siege near a busy shopping district despite multiple blasts and a gunfight, and five of the dead were the attackers themselves.Nevertheless, it was the first time the radical group has targeted the country with the world's largest Muslim population, and the brazenness of the attack suggested a new brand of militancy in a country more used to low-level strikes on police.Police chiefs across the country were put on high alert, some embassies in Jakarta were closed for the day and security was stepped up on the resort island of Bali, a draw for tourists from Australia and other Asian countries.Chief security minister Luhut Pandjaitan confirmed media reports that three people suspected of plotting an attack were arrested at a house in the city of Depok, just south of Jakarta.However, Metro TV quoted Depok's police chief as saying that the men - which it described as a bomb-maker, a firearms expert and a preacher - were not linked to the Jakarta attack.Raids were also underway across other parts of the populous island of Java and on other islands to round up suspected militants."Now we are sweeping in and outside Java, because we have captured several members of their group, and have identified them," National Police spokesman Anton Charliyan said.Returning to the area outside Jakarta's oldest department store, Sarinah, where yesterday's attack unfolded, the city's police chief said the rise of Islamic State was a cause for serious concern."We need to strengthen our response and preventive measures, including legislation to prevent them ... and we hope our counterparts in other countries can work together because it is not home-grown terrorism, it is part of the ISIS network," Tito Karnavian said, using another acronym for the Syria-based group.Pandjaitan, the security minister, said his office was working with parliament to make changes to legislation that would allow preemptive arrests.Experts agree that there is a growing threat from radicalised Muslims inspired by Islamic State, some of whom may have fought with the group in Syria. However, they said the low death toll yesterday pointed to the involvement of poorly trained local militants whose weapons were crude.An Indonesian and a man of dual Canadian-Algerian nationality were killed along with the attackers. Twenty-four people were seriously wounded, including an Austrian, a German and a Dutchman.Islamic State said in its claim of responsibility that "a group of soldiers of the caliphate in Indonesia targeted a gathering from the crusader alliance that fights the Islamic State in Jakarta".Police confirmed that Islamic State was responsible and named an Indonesian militant, Bahrun Naim, as the mastermind.They believe Naim leads a militant network known as Katibah Nusantara and is pulling strings from Raqqa, Islamic State's de facto capital in Syria."His vision is to unite all ISIS supporting elements in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines," Jakarta police chief Karnavian said.Islamist militants from those three countries have a record of working together and several Malaysians are known to have carried out suicide attacks in the Middle East.ECHOES OF PARISIndonesia has seen attacks by Islamist militants before, but a coordinated assault by a team of suicide bombers and gunmen is unprecedented and has echoes of the sieges seen in Mumbai seven years ago and in Paris last November.In a recent blog post, entitled "Lessons from the Paris Attacks", Naim had urged his Indonesian audience to study the planning, targeting, timing, coordination, security and courage of the jihadis in the French capital.Australian Attorney-General George Brandis, who was in Jakarta recently to bolster security coordination, told the Australian newspaper he had "no doubt" Islamic State was seeking to establish a "distant caliphate" in Indonesia.The country had been on edge for weeks over the threat posed by Islamist militants, and counter-terrorism police had rounded up about 20 people with suspected links to Islamic State.There was a spate of militant attacks in Indonesia in the 2000s, the deadliest of which was a nightclub bombing on Bali that killed 202 people, most of them tourists.Police have been largely successful in destroying domestic militant cells since then, but officials have more recently been worrying about a resurgence inspired by Islamic State.Many experts believe that Indonesia, a vibrant democracy where the vast majority of Muslims practise a moderate form of Islam, is not likely to be tipped into a cauldron of militancy."It is true that a tiny number of the country's army of poorly educated, desperately underemployed young men are attracted to the guts-and-glory narrative spun by ISIS," author and long-time Indonesia foreign correspondent Elizabeth Pisani wrote in the Financial Times. "But their discontent is based on economic rather than religious or political marginalisation."REUTERS DS RK1221 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0177-539379.Xml Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump and top challenger Ted Cruz ended a longstanding truce in spectacular fashion with bitter exchanges during what may have been Trump's strongest debate performance to date.The New York billionaire and the Texas senator appeared to have a split decision by the end of the night, a sign that for all the bluster, little took place that could derail Trump from his lead position with a contest in Iowa on February 1 to begin the search for a Republican presidential nominee.Projections that the debate would be a free-for-all were accurate. Beyond the Trump-Cruz theatrics, US Senator Marco Rubio of Florida turned in a pugnacious performance with attacks on Cruz and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Florida Governor Jeb Bush presented himself as a voice of reason against Trump.A Google snap poll showed viewers believed Trump, who in the most recent debates was at times less engaged, won the night with 37.3 per cent to Cruz's 26.6 per cent and Rubio's 12.1 per cent.Until the Fox Business Channel debate in North Charleston, South Carolina, Trump and Cruz had been friendly because they have both been chasing conservatives of the Tea Party movement and did not want to anger them.With Trump now needing to fend off Cruz's rise in Iowa, he pushed his charge that Cruz may not be constitutionally qualified to serve as president because he was born in Canada. The US Constitution says only "natural born" citizens can become president of the United States."Who the hell knows if you can even serve in office?" Trump told Cruz, drawing a scattering of boos in the audience.Born in Calgary, Alberta, to a US citizen mother and a Cuban father, Cruz accused Trump of bringing up his birthplace simply because Cruz was leading some polls in Iowa.Cruz said Trump, who led the movement questioning whether the Hawaiian-born President Barack Obama was really from the United States, had asked his lawyers to look into the issue of Cruz's birth in September and concluded there were no issues."Since September, the Constitution hasn't changed, but the poll numbers have," Cruz said. "And I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are dropping in Iowa, but the facts and the law here are really clear."Trump said Democrats would sue if Cruz were on the Republican ticket, putting their party's chances of winning at risk.Cruz shot back that he had spent many years studying constitutional law: "I'm not going to be taking legal advice from Donald Trump."The birthright issue has dogged American politics before: 2008 Republican nominee John McCain survived questions about his birth in Panama because he was born on a US military installation there and it was judged to be US soil.In 1967, Republican candidate George Romney faced questions about his birth in Mexico, but his candidacy never advanced far and the issue was abandoned.'NEW YORK VALUES'While Cruz seemed to have parried the attack for now, he was stung by Trump on another issue: Whether people who live in New York City have the same values as other Americans. Cruz has lately begun denouncing "New York values" to connect Trump to the city's famous liberalism."Everyone understands that the values of New York City are socially liberal, are pro-abortion, are pro-gay marriage," Cruz said.Trump, in perhaps his most heartfelt remarks of the night, harked back to New York's response to the September 11, 2001, attacks to defend his home city."The people in New York fought and fought and fought, and we saw more death, and even the smell of death... And it was with us for months, the smell, the air."And we rebuilt Downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers. And I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made," Trump said.Rubio, in third place behind Trump and Cruz in Iowa and hoping a strong outcome there will help him in the New Hampshire primary on February 9, frequently inserted himself into arguments and tried to put pressure on Cruz.He accused Cruz of proposing a value added tax as part of his tax plan and of being soft on immigration."That is not consistent conservatism," he said. "That is political calculation."He attacked Christie as well, accusing him of have liberal positions on education policy and abortion. Christie interrupted a Rubio-Cruz exchange with this blast:"I'd like to interrupt this debate on the floor of the Senate. You had your chance, Marco you blew it," he said.Cruz, who has taken the lead in some polls of Iowa Republican voters, did well on social media. Social media monitoring tool Zoomph saw total positive mentions for Cruz climb by more than 150 per cent while he sparred with Trump.Trump is far ahead nationally.A Reuters/Ipsos rolling national poll on January 12 showed Trump had 39 per cent of the vote, Cruz 14.5 per cent, Bush 10.6 per cent, Carson 9.6 per cent, while 6.7 per cent favored Rubio.REUTERS DS RK1223 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0177-539384.Xml Pakistan today reacted sharply to US President Barack Obamas observation that both Pakistan and Afghanistan were among the countries that would continue to face instability and turmoil for decades."Whatever the US President said about instability in Pakistan and Afghanistan are his predictions and have nothing to do with ground realities," Pakistan Prime Ministers Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz told a breakfast meeting with Chinese scholars, diplomats and media persons organised by a think-thank here.In his last State of the Union address on Tuesday night, President Obama had warned: Instability will continue for decades in many parts of the world in the Middle East, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in parts of central America, Africa and Asia, he said.Disagreeing with the US Presidents view, Mr Aziz said, "Pakistan is taking decisive action against terrorism and militancy and days to come will witness more stability here."As far as Afghanistan was concerned, he said, "instability exists but Pakistan is making all out efforts for establishing peace and stability there."Speaking about the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Mr Aziz said Pakistan would foil all sinister designs against this project, which would help the country overcome energy crisis. Answering a question, Mr Aziz said there was no competition between Chabahar port in Iran and Gwadar port and the two ports have been declared "sister ports". "Gwadar provides a shorter route to Central Asia than Chabahar," he remarked. UNI XC AT 1346 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0177-539527.Xml The Russian Foreign Ministry called today for all sides in the Syria conflict to use their influence to ensure that humanitarian aid was delivered to areas blockaded by militants.It said the situation in three places -- Madaya, Fua and Kafraya -- was a source of particular concern, saying they were besieged or blockaded by various militant groups.The ministry said it had been working with the Syrian government to try to help resolve the situation and had been encouraging them to cooperate with the United Nations, efforts it said had produced results.REUTERS PS VP1534 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-539762.Xml The European Union does not have a problem with Poland but with actions of the new, Eurosceptic Polish government, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said, adding these actions were very much the business of the EU as well.In an unprecedented move, the European Union executive arm launched an inquiry on Wednesday into whether Poland's new right-wing government has breached EU democratic standards in taking more control of the judiciary and public media."Let's not mix up Poland and the new Polish government," Juncker told a news conference."I don't want the Polish people to have the impression that all the EU is rising up against Poland. Poland is a country which inspires a great deal of respect and admiration in my case."But he noted that as member of the 28 nation EU, Poland's issues also needed to be viewed in light of EU treaties."This saying in Poland that this is a matter for the Polish legislature and that it has no relation whatsoever with European competences is a totally wrong idea," Juncker said.The EU's rule of law monitoring, launched in the case of Poland, could end up in Warsaw's voting rights in the EU being suspended, if the country ignores possible suggestions from Brussels under the so-called Article 7 of an EU treaty.But Juncker played down that possibility."We are in a dialogue, in a consultation process. It doesn't make sense to draw the attention to the application of Art 7. If it has to happen, it will happen, but it is not my assumption." REUTERS PS VP1608 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-539824.Xml Italians used to be the leading EU cheerleader, seeing Brussels as a refuge from the dysfunctions of their state. Years of recession and austerity have turned them into fierce critics.Feeding off this anger, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has launched a sustained attack on European Union rules and rigidity over the past month, arguing that without change the 28-nation bloc might disintegrate.His barrage of complaints are partly designed to fend off critics at home after continued weak economic output, but the public remonstrations are alienating EU allies who are anxious to restore calm after recent turbulent years."I think that the Italian Prime Minister is wrong to criticise the Commission from every street corner," Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said in Brussels today, suggesting "domestic political theatre" might be at play.In unusually blunt language, Juncker accused Renzi of trying to steal the credit for one of his own budget initiatives, adding: "I am keeping my bitterness, which is big, in my pocket."Rome's grievances with Brussels reach in many directions, including Europe's confused response to the migration crisis, its demands for budget rigour, new rules aimed at increasing the euro zone's financial stability and EU gas strategy.Italian officials say they do not get the respect befitting an EU founding member and have started to throw their weight around in a way that they have never done before.Underscoring the new, combative mood, EU officials said on yesterday that Italy was obstructing a plan to give Turkey 3 billion euros (3.3 billion dollars) in aid in exchange for Ankara's commitment to stem the flow of Syrian refugees into Europe.Italy says it is merely seeking clarification on a project championed in November by German Chancellor Angela Merkel."The time when Europe could give us lessons or homework is over. Italy is back and will make itself heard," Renzi said at the weekend in an open letter to his supporters. "We are in a position to say that some things have to change in Europe."BUDGET WOESRenzi opened fire on Brussels last year after his cabinet had to apply new EU norms in the rescue of four small banks, which wiped out the savings of thousands of retail investors and set off a political firestorm that hit his personal standing.The regulations are aimed at shielding taxpayers from having to pick up the tab in bank bailouts, as happened in Ireland in 2010, but Renzi said they were too rigid and introduced without thinking through the likely consequences.Perhaps his main gripe with Brussels is budget austerity.Italy has just emerged from its longest recession since World War Two, but the forecast growth rate in 2015 of 0.8 per cent is well below the output figures seen in other EU peripheral economies Spain, Ireland and Portugal.Renzi blames the sluggish recovery in part on European Commission demands for continued deficit cuts.Aware that pro-austerity governments in Spain and Portugal were both voted out of office last year, he has put Rome on a collision course with Brussels by approving a 2016 budget that is forecast to generate a deficit of 2.4 per cent of gross domestic product against an initial commitment of 1.8 per cent.The Commission is yet to comment on the budget. However, with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 133 per cent -- the highest in Europe after Greece -- Italy will come under severe scrutiny from eurozone partners anxious to avert a new sovereign debt crisis."Italy cannot expect the same sensitivity and leniency that other countries might get because of the sheer size of our debt," said Francesco Galietti, founder of the Policy Sonar consultancy and a former Italian finance ministry official.The EU Economics Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said on yesterday Italy already enjoyed more leeway than any other state and urged Rome to seek cooperation not conflict.Renzi chose the path of conflict at a heated EU leaders' summit in Brussels in December, openly criticising Germany's stance on banking, energy, migration and Greece.After the heated meeting, Merkel took Renzi aside and invited him to Berlin in early 2016 to discuss their differences, an Italian official said.CHARGED CALENDARThe budget row will come to a head in Brussels in May. In the meantime, the European Commission will also discuss whether Italy breached state aid rules by propping up its biggest steel maker, ILVA, and will review a revised Italian plan to help its domestic banks offload a mountain of non-performing loans.It will also investigate whether Rome is flouting EU rules by failing to fingerprint all migrants reaching its shores.While Brussels sees the implementation of rules as vital for the smooth functioning of Europe, freewheeling Italians see the blind adherence to regulations as potentially limiting.Although Italians hailed the euro when it hit the streets in 2002, the love affair did not last. The latest Eurobarometer survey from October shows that the country had the most negative view of the single currency among the 18 nations that use it.Italy's two largest opposition parties, the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and anti-immigrant Northern League, are both anti-euro and say they would look to revert to the old lira should they win the next election, due in 2018.By adopting his own tough stance against EU policy-making, Renzi is tapping into this public hostility. However, unlike his outspoken domestic rivals, he has portrayed himself as a pro-European who wants reform rather than revolution.The contours of what that reform should look like are fuzzy.European Affairs Minister Sandro Gozi said this week that Italy sought a two-speed Europe that would let countries which desired closer integration forge ahead. He said Rome also wanted a single economy minister for the euro zone answerable to elected politicians not the unelected Commission.Work on this should start in 2017, Gozi told daily la Repubblica, acknowledging it would require a change to EU treaties and referendums in a number of countries.A day later, Renzi said it would be "mad" to embark on treaty changes that required potentially fraught referendums."Renzi has yet to develop a clear strategy to raise Italy's standing within Europe," said Riccardo Alcaro, a senior fellow at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) thinktank."At present he is putting on a show of confrontation. That might help him on the domestic front, but it won't see him advance within Europe." REUTERS PS AS1939 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-540524.Xml The UN children's fund UNICEF today confirmed cases of severe malnutrition among children in the besieged Syrian town of Madaya, where local relief workers reported 32 deaths of starvation in the past month.A mobile clinic and medical team of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent was on its way to Madaya after the government approved an urgent request, and a vaccination campaign is planned next week, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.Two convoys of aid supplies were delivered this week to the town of 42,000 affected by the months-long blockade. The UN said a convoy was planned to Madaya, which is besieged by pro-government forces, and two rebel-besieged villages of Foua and Kefraya in Idlib next week and that regular access was needed."UNICEF can confirm that cases of severe malnutrition were found among children," it said in a statement, after the United Nations and Red Cross had entered the town on Monday and Thursday to deliver aid for the first time since October.UNICEF spokesman Christophe Boulierac told a news briefing in Geneva UNICEF and World Health Organization staff were able to screen 25 children under five for malnutrition and 22 showed signs of moderate to severe malnutrition. All were now receiving treatment.A further 10 children aged from 6 to 18 were screened and six showed signs of severe malnutrition, he said.UNICEF staff also witnessed the death of a severely malnourished 16 year old boy in Madaya, while a 17 year old boy in "life-threatening condition" and a pregnant women with obstructed labour needed evacuation, Boulierac said.DYING OF STARVATIONWorld Food Programme (WFP) spokeswoman Bettina Luescher said that the local relief committee in Madaya had provided figures on the extent of starvation, but it could not verify them."Our nutritionist...Maxwas saying that it is clear that the nutritional situation is very bad, the adults look very emaciated. According to a member of the relief committee 32 people have died of starvation in the last 30 day period."Dozens of deaths from starvation have been reported by monitoring groups, local doctors, and aid agencies from Madaya.UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday Syria's warring parties, particularly the government, were committing "atrocious acts" and condemned the use of starvation as a weapon of war in the nearly five-year-old conflict."It can also be a crime against humanity. But it would very much depend on the circumstances, and the threshold of proof is often much more difficult for a crime against humanity (than for a war crime)," UN human rights spokesman Rupert Colville told the briefing today.The United Nations says there are some 450,000 people trapped in around 15 siege locations across Syria, including in areas controlled by the government, Islamic State and other insurgent groups."Let us not forget that in addition to Madaya, across Syria there are 14 other Madayas and these are locations where different parties to the conflict have been using siege as a tactic of war, depriving children and innocent civilians from accessing life-saving supplies and services," Boulierac said. REUTERS PS AS1950 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-540594.Xml More than 2,000 Mozambicans have fled to Malawi to escape fighting between government forces and rebels in the coal mining province of Tete in the last three weeks, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said on today.UNHCR spokeswoman Karin de Gruijl said refugees had told of soldiers attacking villages they believed were harbouring opposition party members and had burned down houses, in one case killing an elderly woman trapped inside her home."Some parents also stated they have been separated from their children during flight and they have not been able to find them," de Gruijl told a news conference in Geneva.Two thirds of the 1,297 registered refugees were women and children, UNHCR said. A further 900 were waiting to register.Mozambique's main opposition party, Renamo started out as a guerrilla force backed by neighbouring then-Rhodesia's white-minority government and later apartheid South Africa, on its southern border, to counter the communist Frelimo movement.The two sides fought a civil war from 1976 to 1992 in which a million people died.Frelimo has dominated politics since the end of the fighting but Renamo never completely disarmed and launched a low-level guerrilla campaign in late 2012 that analysts said was designed to extract political concessions before 2014 elections.Since then, there have been few reported outbreaks of violence in former Renamo strongholds in the southern African nation's central belt or around Tete, a major coal mining centre.It is not clear what sparked the latest fighting.There was no immediate comment from the Mozambique government or Renamo. REUTERS PS AN2013 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-540685.Xml A California teachers union case being argued before the U.S. Supreme Court this week has American labor unions bracing for the worst. Many predict its decision this summer could cripple the ability of public sector unions to collect mandatory dues from the employees they represent under collective bargaining agreements. While an adverse ruling for unions would certainly be bad news for organized labor, the expected setback need not be as dire as some are predicting, suggests Jake Rosenfeld, PhD, a labor union expert at Washington University in St. Louis. There is no sense in being Polyannish about the likely consequences of the Courts decision this summer, Rosenfeld writes in a post this week at the OnLabor blog. Many unions will be hurt, and all will have to divert resources away from ongoing campaigns to maintain dues collection. But it will prove devastating only if organized labor believes it will, and gives up on the hard work of convincing government employees of the labor movements value. That hard work is worthwhile regardless of whether the collection of fair share fees is allowed or not. The case in question, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, hinges on whether mandatory union dues are a violation of workers freedom of speech. The case could overturn a 1977 Supreme Court ruling (Abood v. Detroit Board of Education) that unanimously protected the right of public workers to form unions and required those employees who refused to join the union to pay a mandatory fair share of monthly dues to cover the unions cost of bargaining on their behalf. Some have argued that the consequences of an adverse ruling for unions in the Friedrichs case would have national consequences on par with the catastrophe that befell Wisconsin public sector unions following similar changes put in place there a couple years ago. Not necessarily so, argues Rosenfeld, associate professor of sociology in Arts & Sciences and author of What Unions No Longer Do, a recent book on the social and economic ramifications of Americas declining labor unions. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walkers signature effort to cripple public sector unions represents Friedrichs on steroids a piece of legislation that not only takes away unions ability to collect fair share fees but also restricts most government unions all except those that represent police officers and firefighters from doing many core union functions, he explains. While the loss of fair share requirements would pose a major challenge to unions, it need not be a death sentence for unions willing to rise to the challenge, Rosenfeld said. Here the scores of recent union-supported victories in raising minimum wages, passing paid sick leave legislation, and pressuring low-road employers such as Walmart to increase pay should prove vital, he argues. These wins provide clear evidence of the labor movements value and of the need to maintain membership rolls to sustain momentum on behalf of American workers. In the weeks and months ahead, unions should trumpet these victories, taking Wisconsins state motto as their guide: Forward! Monica J. Allen, JD, associate vice chancellor, deputy general counsel and chief litigation counsel at Washington University in St. Louis, has been appointed vice chancellor and general counsel, announced Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton. Her appointment is effective July 1, 2016. Allen will succeed Michael R. Cannon, JD, who has announced that he will conclude his tenure June 30 as executive vice chancellor and general counsel after 23 years in the position. Cannon will continue full time with the university as professor of practice in Arts & Sciences and special assistant to the chancellor. Monica Allen is an accomplished legal professional recruited to Washington University by Michael Cannon about 10 years ago, Wrighton said. I am thrilled that we have in Monica a job-ready person, with the experiences at Washington University and earlier in her legal career that prepare her for the role of vice chancellor and general counsel. Michael Cannons contributions to our success as a university have been large in number and in consequence, Wrighton said. Personally, he has provided me wise and important counsel during my 20-plus years as chancellor, and he has provided me with the confidence needed to make the right decisions on numerous occasions and on a diverse set of issues. No one is smarter, and no one has been more dedicated to excellence, Wrighton said. He has a characteristic that I strongly embrace: He is attentive to every detail, large and small, in dealing with the many complex issues before us. He has built an outstanding team, and he has developed a well-deserved reputation as the best general counsel in U.S. higher education. I am proud to have had the opportunity to work closely with Michael and to learn from him. As vice chancellor and general counsel, Allen will serve as chief legal officer to the universitys Board of Trustees and chancellor and provide legal representation and counsel to all other academic and administrative components of the university, including the School of Medicine and its faculty practice plan. She will manage a legal department of 22, including 14 attorneys, and also oversee the claims-handling work of a risk management staff of nine. Allen will report to Wrighton and be a member of the University Council, Washington Universitys senior-most leadership team comprising academic leaders and managers of vital administrative areas. I am honored to have been selected to serve as Washington Universitys vice chancellor and general counsel, Allen said. Michael Cannon has been an exemplary leader and has built a team of very talented attorneys. I am looking forward to working with Associate Vice Chancellor and Deputy General Counsel John Powers and the rest of the legal team to continue providing the highest quality legal support to the universitys many exciting initiatives. Allen, who holds three degrees from the university, joined the Office of Executive Vice Chancellor & General Counsel in 2006 as assistant vice chancellor and senior counsel. She was promoted to associate vice chancellor, deputy general counsel and chief litigation counsel in 2008. She also served as acting general counsel from May through October of 2014 when Cannon was on sabbatical. Allen earned a bachelors degree in 1980 and a masters degree in 1985, both in comparative literature in Arts & Sciences, from the university. She earned a juris doctoris from the School of Law in 1992, graduating second in her class of 223. A member of the Order of the Coif, she also served as primary articles editor for the Washington University Law Quarterly. Allen clerked for the Honorable Jean C. Hamilton in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri from 1992-94, where she drafted district court opinions and bench memoranda and managed a court docket of approximately 250 cases. That was followed by positions in St. Louis with the law firm Shands, Elbert, Gianoulakis & Giljum (1994-95) and the Federal Reserve Bank (1995-97), where she was responsible for litigation management, personnel issues, contract negotiation and providing guidance to the Department of Supervision and Regulation regarding banking laws and regulations. In 1997, she joined Haar & Woods LLP as an associate before becoming partner in January 2002. Her focus there was on litigation, handling a wide array of commercial, regulatory, professional liability and employment matters. From 2001-07, she also served as an adjunct professor in the School of Law, which awarded her its Distinguished Young Law Alumni Award in 2010. According to Cannon, Monica couples her extensive legal expertise and experience with deep wisdom and an unflappable temperament, all of which positions her well to serve the university with high distinction as its new general counsel for years to come. Leader in higher education Cannon, also an Arts & Sciences graduate, came back to the university as its general counsel in 1993 after being in private practice 13 years at law firms in Washington, D.C., specializing in insurance contract litigation, counseling and negotiation. He began his career as a trial attorney in the U.S. Department of Justices Criminal Division handling the investigation and prosecution of high-profile public official corruption cases. Cannon earned a bachelors degree in economics in Arts & Sciences in 1973 from Washington University, where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa and won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University. After earning a graduate degree in politics from Oxford, he went on to Yale Law School, where he earned his juris doctoris in 1978. According to Wrighton, Cannon has consistently and impressively led his legal team for over two decades in providing counsel on a staggeringly broad range of associated legal issues, including assuring compliance with all laws and regulations affecting education, health care and employment. Under Cannons recommendation, the university implemented in 2000 what is believed to be the first voluntary university-wide compliance plan at an American university, becoming a national model. In another case of successfully predicting national regulatory enforcement trends, Cannon launched a revision of the universitys protocols for responding to campus sexual assault allegations to expedite and professionalize those investigations, and did so before the issues surrounding such controversies became a matter of national attention and enforcement action. Cannon and his team also successfully defended numerous lawsuits and established important legal precedents in areas affecting faculty research autonomy and clinical care. In addition to his vast responsibilities handling the myriad complex legal issues facing a major research institution with an academic medical center, Cannon has held a wide range of other leadership roles during his tenure, including at one time overseeing the universitys human resources and environmental safety operations and chairing or serving on numerous executive-level search committees. He founded and chaired for five years the universitys committee on postgraduate fellowships and scholarships, which identifies and mentors serious candidates for Rhodes, Marshall and other prestigious scholarships. He continues to provide one-on-one mentorship to several candidates each year. Cannon, who was promoted to executive vice chancellor in 2000, created a post-graduate Fellowship in Higher Education and Health Law position in his office, providing top graduates from the universitys School of Law with a rare opportunity to work in a university legal office and receive extensive mentorship from an experienced legal team. He helped launch collaborative academic programs between the university and IDC Herzliya in Israel, providing new study abroad opportunities for Washington University students. As an adjunct professor in the law school, Cannon created and taught a course on insurance law and policy for 10 years. This past fall, he taught an upper-level Arts & Sciences course on legal conflict in modern American society. He created the course to address what he saw as a need for undergraduates to have a baseline legal literacy, providing context for legal conflicts they read about or may encounter in their personal and professional lives. Considered one of higher educations leading general counsels in the United States, Cannon received the General Counsel of the Year Award from the St. Louis Business Journal in 2015. He also received a Distinguished Alumni Award from Arts & Sciences in 2011. Your digital subscription includes access to all content on our agricultural websites across the nation. Access unlimited content and the digital versions of our print editions - This Week's Paper. Where would we be without Google? We have discussed the companys impact on the world a number of times here, but this post likely sums it up best. Where Googles core product is concerned, its a safe bet that every single person who will read this article either regularly uses Google search or at least uses it occasionally. Google search became as popular as it is now due in large part to its simplicity, and the service remains wonderfully simple to this day. But as simple as Google search seems on the surface, it packs a wide range of functionality just waiting to be explored by savvy users. And if youre not already a savvy Google search user, you will be by the time youre done with this post. MUST SEE: 20 apps you need to have on your iPhone home screen There are hundreds of features just waiting to make your life easier, but its impossible to remember all the little tricks you need in order to take advantage of them. Were not going to overload you by listing hundreds of tips in a single post, but we will address 20 tricks in particular that every user should know. Some will save you time, some will make your life easier, and others are just fun little tricks, but youll be glad you learned each and every one of them. To start things off, were going to go over some Google tricks we covered in earlier posts. Why? So you can bookmark this article for reference without having to jump around from post to post. First up, we have five tricks we first shared with you back in May of last year: Convert Do you have a dedicated app on your phone just to convert inches to millimeters and U.S. dollars to Japanese Yen? Well, delete it. Just about any conversion you can perform in an app can also be done right from within a Google search box on your phone or PC. Just search something like 2500 USD in GBP and Google will take care of the rest. Screen Shot 2015-05-11 at 10.45.26 AM Define Dictionary apps are gigantic and they can also be annoying to navigate. Forget about them Simply type something like define googol into a Google search: Story continues Screen Shot 2015-05-11 at 10.53.00 AM Stock quotes If youre looking for a quick quote, just type a ticker symbol into the Google search box. Heres the result for GOOG: Screen Shot 2015-05-11 at 10.56.15 AM Calculate We told you about Googles ability to quickly convert units for you, but you can also do quick calculations with Google. Dont bother with that dedicated calculator app, just type something like 5243 times 312 into the Google search box. Screen Shot 2015-05-11 at 10.58.41 AM Time zones Not sure if its too late to call your cousin in Kuala Lumpur? Dont just guess and dont bother trying to do the math in your head just ask Google what time is it in Kuala Lumpur? Screen Shot 2015-05-11 at 11.01.36 AM Next up, we have another five great tips from just last month: Turn your phone into a level with one simple search If you do a search for bubble level in a mobile browser, Google will bring up a graphic of a green bubble that will tilt depending on the angle youre holding your phone. Find out the exact day of the week in a certain number of days Ever wonder what the exact day of the week it will be on a certain date? Now you dont have to open up your calendar instead, just ask Google what day is it in 143 days and youll be informed that it will be a Friday. Screenshot (28) Learn a random piece of cool information by typing two tiny words Type fun facts into Google and youll be given a random fun fact at the top of the page, as well as a box that gives you the option to ask another question. If you do click on the box, it will bring you more interesting factoids. Screenshot (29) Get your search results Star Wars-style This one is delightfully simple: Just Google a long time ago in a galaxy far far away and youll be given a Star Wars-style moving crawl of search results that looks like this: Screenshot (32) Find your Android phone using only a Google search Cant find your Android phone? No problem: All you have to do is search for Find my phone and Google will locate your device as long as you have a recent version of Android. It will also give you the option of having it ring at full volume. Tips like the ones above are great ones you might never find on your own, but there are some more basic search functions in Google that many people are unaware of. Youll find 10 of the most important ones below, as listed in a recent post by The Guardian. Weve covered most or even all of them before here on the site, but it never hurts to run a refresher: Use quotes to search for an exact phrase. Ex: 20 Google search tricks every user should know will land you right here. Adding a - before a word will exclude it from your results. Ex: Apple iPhone -5s will show you results for iPhone models other than the iPhone 5s. Use OR to find results with one key word or the other. Cant remember who starred alongside Seth Rogen in Neighbors? Try searching neighbors zac efron OR epstein (Its OK, people confuse us all the time). Adding a ~ before a word will find you synonyms, so searching plumbing ~university will also surface colleges. site: attached to a domain before a search will only surface results from that site. Ex: site:bgr.com iphone 6s. Use * as a wild card, just like you do when you create email filters. Ex: whose * is it anyway episodes. Adding a .. between terms will search a range. Ex: us president 1980..2000 will return results for presidents between those years. Looking for articles with a certain term in the headline? Search intitle:iphone 6s. Do you enjoy a new site youve found and you want to see other similar sites? Try related:google.com. And last but not least, dont forget that you can combine two, three or even more of the tips you learned above to get the best results for tricky searched. Related stories New study shines light on one of the iPhone's biggest advantages over Android Is it crazy to buy any Android phone other than Google's Nexus 5X? Google Maps will predict your destination before you even ask for directions More from BGR: 20 apps you need to have on your iPhone home screen This article was originally published on BGR.com Los Angeles (AFP) - The following are reactions from some of the nominees for the 2016 Oscars. The list of nominations was revealed Thursday, ahead of the February 28 ceremony: Champagne and Mezcal "I am in London and just heard the good news! We gave it our all on this film and this appreciation from the Academy means a lot to me and my colleagues who made it possible. Champagne and Mezcal will run tonight!" -- Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu -- nominated for "The Revenant," the leader among all films with 12 nods -- said in a statement. Determination "Making 'The Revenant' was one of the most rewarding and collaborative experiences of my life. None of this would have been possible without Alejandro's talent, vision, and determination. Our dedicated crew also deserves to share in this moment. Together, they have created a truly unique cinematic experience." -- Leonardo DiCaprio on his nomination for best actor, which is expected to bring him his first Oscar. Thanks for the invite "The crew is responsible for making this movie, and I'm glad they're being recognized in this way. (...) I would never have thought this would have happened. It's really nice to be invited to the party." -- George Miller, to The Hollywood Reporter, on his dystopian action movie "Mad Max: Fury Road," getting 10 nods, including for best picture and best director. Alice in Wonderland "I am feeling incredible ... I can't even believe it. I am just sitting here in complete and utter shock over all of this. I feel like I'm in a very bizarre Alice in Wonderland dream right now." -- Brie Larson, who got a best actress nomination for "Room," in which she plays a kidnapped mother living with her child in captivity, told NBC's "Today" show from Australia. Tears of joy "I was asleep and my mom ran in and she was crying and so it was either good news or bad news and it was great news. I'm going to start crying now, but to get Best Actress and to get Best Picture means the absolute world to us." Story continues -- Saoirse Ronan -- nominated for best actress for "Brooklyn," about a young Irish immigrant navigating her way in 1950s New York -- to "Good Morning America." Full circle "It feels like it's come full circle. It's great that this character that has carried me along all these years is getting respect." -- Sylvester Stallone, nominated for a best supporting actor award for "Creed," told Variety magazine. 'Strongest of spotlights' "You have given our film the strongest of spotlights on a subject matter so crucial for many women across the world today. Thank you to the five young actresses of Mustang for their courage and their persistence in defending freedom." -- Deniz Gamze Erguven, the Franco-Turkish director of "Mustang," which is among the nominees for best foreign language film. Joy in Jordan "Everyone in Jordan is overjoyed at this historical moment for our film and country. There is a huge celebration and we are very grateful to the Academy for this honor." -- Naji Abu Nawar, the writer and director of Jordanian film "Theeb," nominated for best foreign language film, told AFP. A first for Colombia "It is very significant that Colombia's first Oscar nomination comes from a film spoken in indigenous languages, which for us are also foreign languages. I hope that this wonderful moment becomes an opportunity for us to value and respect the infinite traditional knowledge of the peoples of the Amazon, who are the real stars of this film, and with whom we share the joy." -- Director Ciro Guerra, whose film "Embrace of the Serpent," was nominated for best foreign language film. By Kaye Foley Its 2016, and you know what that means. The election is kicking it into high gear. But before we choose the 45th president of the United States, there are a few stops along the road to the White House. There are more debates on the horizon. Before April, there will be three more Democratic debates and six Republican debates. Then, in February, voting for each partys nominee gets underway with a series of caucuses and primaries. When it comes to caucuses, attendees listen to speeches, then make their decisions. The Democrats cast their votes by arranging themselves behind their top picks. Republicans vote by a show of hands or paper ballot. Primaries, however, are just a simple vote at a polling place. First-in-the-nation status goes to the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1 and the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 9. A lot of significance is placed on these two states as indicators as to how the rest of the country will vote although critics say Iowa and New Hampshire arent diverse enough to clearly predict nationwide results. Votes are cast in the rest of the states up until mid-June. Then, the next stop is the conventions. This year the Republican National Committee is holding its convention in Cleveland, July 18-21. The Democratic National Committee convention is being hosted in Philadelphia, July 25-28. At these four-day events, delegates pledge support to the candidate of their choice and the partys nominee is officially selected. The finish line is in sight, but before Election Day, there are the presidential debates. The first is on Sept. 26 in Dayton, Ohio. The second is on Oct. 9 in St. Louis, and the last debate is in Las Vegas on Oct. 19. Then, Election Day is Nov. 8. The president-elect waits until Jan. 20, 2017, to be sworn in as the next commander in chief. So no matter whom youre voting for, when you look ahead at the 2016 presidential election calendar, after watching this video, at least you can say, Now I get it. By Meagen Collins / Travel Freedom Network Its 2016 and many of you will most likely be making those two big New Years resolutions: 1. Lose weight and 2. Travel more! Well, we are here to help you with the second one. Not only are we going to inspire you to travel more, but we want to inspire you to outdo your friends this year and discover some of the best off-the-beaten-path European destinations. And guess what? They all are stunningly beautiful and theyre super affordable too! Score! These unexpected European destinations will give you a serious case of wanderlust, and will have you packing your bags, booking a flight, and discovering the great unknown this year. 1. Kosovo Prizren is a must-visit city. (Photo: Travel Freedom Network) Kosovo, in particular the city of Prizren, is our new favorite spot in Europe. When we were there in November, winter was approaching and the days were becoming colder. But even so, the people were still out enjoying the limited hours of sunshine they had every single day. We discovered locals drinking coffee in the numerous coffee shops around town, restaurants full every night, and bars offering cheap drinks and a chilled atmosphere. A must-see is the view from the Kalaja Fortress. If its a nice day bring a picnic and hang out with the locals, many of whom are happy to chat with foreigners. What to eat: Try pljeskavica, grilled meat stuffed with cheese. We had this dish at Te Syla restaurant and it is seriously the best in town so good we went back the next day and had it again! The prices is less than five dollars, and many restaurants serve it with salad and fries. Pljeskavica stuffed with cheese is a delicious and inexpensive meal. (Photo: Travel Freedom Network) Fun fact: Kosovo is the youngest country of the 21st century. It officially declared independence from Serbia on February 17, 2008. Related: The Best Value European Destination Youve Never Heard Of 2. Albania If you want the beauty of the Greek islands with a more affordable price tag - then book that plane ticket to Albania today. (Photo: Travel Freedom Network) Story continues We visited Tirana and Shkodra, but the coastal towns of the Albanian Riviera are a popular place to visit during the warmer months. This country is jam-packed with so much natural beauty it would be a shame to leave it off any European trip. The people are all welcoming, and go above and beyond to help any foreigners in need of assistance. Cheap eats: one buck for a rice pilaf dish. (Photo: Travel Freedom Network) What to eat: Veal appears to be the specialty of Albania or 'the baby cow as it is usually described. We recommend giving the Albanian pilaf a try, rice cooked in seasoned broth. It usually costs around $1 for a small serving. Fun facct: Albania, Armenia, Macedonia, and Vatican City are the only European countries without a McDonalds branch. 3. Republic of Macedonia Skopje is a beautiful European capital city. (Photo: Travel Freedom Network) The first thing to realize is that there are two Macedonias in Europe. In fact they are side by side. One is the the Republic of Macedonia (sometimes called the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia or FYROM), and the other is a region of Greece. Its best not to get these mixed up otherwise you might encounter some rather upset locals. We visited the capital of the Republic of Macedonia, Skopje, and though it is a city under construction, its still beautiful to visit. Its going to be incredible once its finished. You can wander the streets admiring the architecture and art bridges, or head into the Old Bazaar or Bit Pazar area to get a taste of the local market scene. Macedonian food is well worth trying, even though it seemed to us that most locals were more interested in international cuisine. (Photo: Travel Freedom Network) What to eat: Make sure you try pastrmajlija this is a fried dough pie that is covered with salted and cubed meat pieces and sometimes cheese or egg. Often youll get a couple so chili peppers on top as well. The dish is so tasty theres even a festival for it every fall. A small serving cost around $3 and fed both of us! Fun fact: Of all the Yugoslav territories, Macedonia is the only one that gained independence peacefully. Related: The Cheapest Places in Europe for Just About Anything 4. Montenegro Montenegro offers beautiful coastlines, stunning mountains, and historic old towns. (Photo: Travel Freedom Network) One of the fastest growing tourist destinations in the Balkans, Montenegro offers beautiful coastlines, stunning mountains, and historic old towns to explore. Whilst not as cheap as some other Balkan destinations, you can certainly still get some bang for your buck if you go about it the right way. In the summer months prices go through the roof, but come during the off season and prices of accommodation can sometimes be negotiated. Food: Seafood, especially squid known as lignje, is popular in Montenegro. Due to its positioning there is also a lot of Italian influence in local cooking, with Turkish coming in a close second place. The cuisine also revolves around fresh produce including olive oil, olives, and cheese all of which are divine. Seafood and fresh produce dominate dishes in Montenegro. (Photo: Travel Freedom Network) Fun fact: Montenegro features in the James Bond movie Casino Royale but in name only. Bond supposedly bullet trains to the small European country and then joins a high-stakes poker tournament at a hotel there. But the filming was actually done in the Czech Republic. Related: The World is Not Enough: How to Travel Like James Bond 5. Romania Impress your friends: tour Draculas castle, a.k.a. Bran Castle. (Photo: Travel Freedom Network) We spent close to four months living in Bucharest in 2015, and we fell in love. The people are friendly, the countryside is captivating, and it doesnt hurt that the cost of living is quite reasonable. Plus, being able to say youve visited Draculas castle will make you instantly cool with your friends trust us. What to eat: When heading out for a meal in Romania know this: You will never leave the restaurant hungry. Romanian food is incredible, and the portion sizes are insane. Prepare to be stuffed. But save room for papanasi, a fried pastry filled with cheese or jam. (Photo: Travel Freedom Network) Make sure you try the grilled minced-meat rolls called mititei (meaning small ones). We also liked sarmale, which is minced meat with rice wrapped in either pickled cabbage leaves or vine leaves; its served with a few slices of ham or bacon and a nice big helping of polenta. For dessert, order papanasi, a boiled/fried donut of sorts thats been smothered in jam and cream heavenly. Fun fact: In 1889 the Romanian city of Timisoara became the first in Europe to have electric street lighting. So there you have it, Europes best off-the-beaten-path destinations to visit in 2016. I recommend adding these countries to your itinerary straight away, and as soon as possible too they wont be quite so 'unvisited in the coming years. WATCH: Expert Opinions: 16 Places Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2016 Let Yahoo Travel inspire you every day. Hang out with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. jesse owens adidas Adidas PR While most of the shoe world was off covering the Jordan 30 release, adidas quietly dropped a few special edition kicks of its own. In advance of Black History Month, the brand created special editions of the D Lillard 2, D Rose 6 and the Crazylight Boost 2.5 honoring the great Jesse Owens. All three shoes prominently feature gold, which is an understandable and important touch considering Owens won four gold medals in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. According to adidas, Owens won his gold medals in leather spikes created by founder Adi Dassler. adidas All Three Adidas PR The sets look clean and reserved, letting the gold do the talking against a backdrop of white and black, and the extra accents give the Olympic great an appropriate tribute (as appropriate a tribute as a pair of shoes can be). All three shoes have the number 733 the bib number Owens wore in Berlin on the tongue, and other features, like the crowd shot inside the D Rose 6 edition, the track uniform-inspired design of the D Lillard 2, and the lace jewel and lace tips on the BHM Crazylight Boost. All are nice nods to the spectacular athlete they help commemorate. James Harden, Damian Lillard, Derrick Rose and other adidas brand players will be wearing the shoes during all the MLK Day games, and the shoes will continue to make appearances throughout Black History Month in February. The D Rose 6 ($140) and D Lillard 2 ($105) roll out in January at adidas.com. adidas Crazylight 1 Adidas PR adidas Crazylight 3 Adidas PR adidas Lillard 1 Adidas PR adidas Lillard 2 Adidas PR adidas Rose 1 Adidas PR adidas Rose 3 Adidas PR The Atlantic Ill remember him, always, as Snape. His career stretches further than the Harry Potter films, but there is just something unforgettable about him moving through Hogwartss hallsthe all black, the villainy in his cloak swelling around his ankles like a shadow. All his love hidden until the very end. A lesser-known film role for Rickman was Franz Anton Mesmer, the famous German physician with controversial healing methods. In a review of Mesmer in the February 1998 issue of The Atlantic, Lloyd Rose reveled in Rickmans brilliance: Rickman is always a strong screen presence, but hes hard to classify. You can relegate most actors either to the string section or to the brass, but Rickman somehow combines a dark, sonorous tone with something haunting and faraway, as if hed mixed a cello with a French horn. His specialty is fusing opposing traits: hes mannered yet honest, too much yet reserved, bored and curious, high-strung and animal-still. This sort of complexity isnt always useful to an actor, but its invaluable in roles that call for genius or mysticism. And certainly Rickman has all the equipment required to play Mesmer: charisma, intelligence, sensuality, pride, and what one critic called the face of a Magusanachronistic features that make him look at home in an earlier century. (He made his reputation in a play with an eighteenth-century setting, Les Liaisons Dangereuses.) Read more from The Atlantic: This article was originally published on The Atlantic. Bankrupt retailer American Apparel reportedly has rejected a $300 million takeover bid offered by investors aligned with the company's controversial founder and former CEO, Dov Charney. American Apparel's board the same board that fired Charney back in 2014 after reports of sexual harassment, mishandling of finances and other misconduct has rejected an offer put forth by Hagan Capital and Silver Creek Partners, The New York Times reported, citing sources. Read more Ben Stiller and Penelope Cruz Strike 'Zoolander' Poses on Vogue Cover Hagan Capital and Silver Creek made known their faith in Charney's abilities as a leader and a businessman and reportedly planned to reinstate him in an undisclosed capacity within the company. However, despite the buzz, Hagan Capital managing partner and group president Chad Hagan released a statement saying that the deal is still in the works. "Negations are ongoing, and we are confident that American Apparel will accept our superior business model that centers on long-term value, ethical management and preserving American manufacturing jobs," he said in the statement published by WWD. If it doesn't accept the bid, American Apparel's board will continue with its current turnaround strategy starting by getting approval of its reorganization plan at a hearing on Jan. 20. The company didn't immediately respond for a request for comment from Pret-a-Reporter. By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The frozen carcass of a woolly mammoth found in Siberia with unmistakable signs of spear wounds is providing evidence that people inhabited Arctic regions thousands of years earlier than previously known. Russian scientists on Thursday said the male mammoth excavated from a bluff on Yenisei Bay on the Arctic Ocean was killed by hunters 45,000 years ago, providing the earliest indication of the presence of humans in the Arctic. Until now, the oldest evidence of humans in Arctic regions dated to "more or less 30,000 years ago," according to Vladimir Pitulko, senior research scientist at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute for the History of Material Culture in St. Petersburg. The people who endured the harsh Arctic conditions likely lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, Pitulko said. Mammoths, the close elephant relatives that were the largest land creatures in the region, represented an important resource for them. "Indeed, these animals provide an endless source of different goods: food with meat, fat and marrow; fuel with dung, fat and bones; and raw material with long bones and ivory," Pitulko said. "They certainly would use them as food, especially certain parts like tongue or liver as a delicacy, but hunting for the ivory was more important," added Pitulko, with the ivory substituting for wood in the treeless steppe landscape. The mammoth, excavated in 2012, had injuries indicating it had been killed by people. Damage to its ribs appears to have been caused by spears thrown by hunters, while shoulder-blade and cheekbone injuries probably came from hand-held thrusting spears, Pitulko added. There also was damage to the right tusk that may have been caused by people chopping at it after the mammoth was killed. "The main part of it is that the mammoth was really killed by humans, and evidence for that is unbeatable," Pitulko said. Scientists think mammoth-hunting may have been a critical factor in enabling people to survive in the Arctic and trek across northernmost Siberia, helping them reach the vicinity of the Bering land bridge that at the time linked Siberia to Alaska. The first humans to reach the New World crossed that land bridge, then spread through the Americas. The fact that humans populated Arctic regions sooner than previously known suggests the possibility that people also crossed the Bering land bridge earlier than currently suspected, Pitulko added. The research was published in the journal Science. (Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Sandra Maler) The situation in the South China Sea continued to escalate this month, with China charging that a December 10 flight by one of two U.S. B-52 bombers flew within two miles of one of its "islands" in the the contest territory. The Pentagon claimed it was looking into the incident and has stated if true, the violation of Chinese territorial sovereignty was unintentional. China described the incident as a "serious military provocation" and warned such actions "must be prevented." Over the past 18 months, China has used dredgers to enlarge several reefs in the South China Sea. Under international law, terrain features that disappear at high tide do not count as sovereign territory, with a 12 mile territorial boundary and 200 mile economic exclusion zone. China has used these artificial islands-and the boundaries they project-to support its claim to approximately 90 percent of the South China Sea. Other countries in the region, and the United States and Australia, have been pushing back against these claims. The U.S. Navy and Air Force have run several "Freedom of Navigation" exercises, sailing and flying right up to the boundaries of China's claimed airspace, as allowed under international law. Last week, a Royal Australian Air Force P-3C Orion maritime patrol plane flew a similar mission in the South China Sea. In response, the Chinese state newspaper Global Times stated, "Australian military planes better not regularly come to the South China Sea to 'get involved'it would be a shame if one day a plane fell from the sky and it happened to be Australian." The Pentagon claims the flight was a "routine training mission" and not a Freedom of Navigation exercise, and that bad weather might have been to blame for the bomber veering off course. A B-52 will cover 9.4 miles a minute at cruise speed, meaning it would take being off course for just one minute to make such a mistake. That's not a lot of time. On the other hand, a lot of factors should have prevented such an error. B-52 bombers have a dedicated navigator crew member, and GPS is generally unaffected by bad weather. Further, any flight near claimed Chinese territory in the South China Sea would almost certainly be painstakingly plotted and navigated in order to avoid just this kind of international incident. The U.S. had previously told China that there would be no more Freedom of Navigation voyages by U.S. Navy ships until 2016. In hindsight, the statement makes a curious omission: it makes no mention of flights by aircraft. MADRID (Reuters) - Holders Barcelona will continue their bid for a fourth King's Cup triumph in eight years with a quarter-final tie against Athletic Bilbao, the team they have beaten in the final three times since 2009, including a 3-1 success last season. Friday's draw pitted the record winners, who lost to Real Madrid in the 2011 and 2014 finals, against the Basque side, whose 23 Cup victories, their most recent coming in 1984 against Barca, are only bettered by the Catalan club's 27. The sides face each other in La Liga on Sunday at the Nou Camp before the first leg of the cup tie will be played at Bilbao's San Mames stadium on Wednesday, with the return at Barca a week later. Atletico Madrid, the 2013 winners, were drawn to play Celta Vigo, who have never won the competition, while Gary Neville's Valencia, whose most recent and seventh win came in 2008, will meet Las Palmas. Second-division Mirandes, the only non-La Liga side left in the competition, will play Europa League holders and 2010 Spanish Cup winners Sevilla. Barca director Javier Bordas told reporters the club were hopeful their appeal against a two-match ban handed to Luis Suarez over a fracas after the first leg of their last 16 tie against Espanyol would succeed and allow the Uruguay striker to feature on Wednesday. Suarez missed this week's 2-0 victory at Espanyol in the return game, which sent Barca through 6-1 on aggregate. Barca lost 5-1 to Bilbao in the two-legged Spanish Super Cup in August, the only trophy of six available in 2015 that they failed to win, and Bordas said that proved the Basques were a tough proposition. The semi-finals will be played over two legs at the start of February and the final on May 21 at a yet-to-be-determined venue. (Writing by Iain Rogers, editing by Toby Davis) ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF VASELINE HEALING PROJECT. Almost two years ago, when many people in the U.S. were still blindly unaware of what was really happening in Syria, two dermatologists, Grace Bandow, MD, and Samer Jaber, MD, went on a medical mission to the Syrian refugee camps in Jordan. You might be thinking, Why derms? People in the camps need food, water, and medicine, but skin care? Skin care may not seem as obvious as those other necessities, but the close conditions in these camps can cause many skin-related issues. Before they left, Dr. Bandow and Dr. Jaber armed themselves with the necessary medicine to combat lice, scabies, and parasitic and bacterial infections. But what they didnt expect was that the item they found themselves needing most, as well as the one most requested by their patients, was Vaseline petroleum jelly yes, that unassuming jar sitting in most every Americans medicine cabinet. Related: Hello, Gorgeous! The Best Beauty Blogs Ever Until we were working in the refugee camps ourselves, we didnt realize how important and useful Vaseline was, explains Dr. Bandow. Vaseline is used as a skin protectant to help soothe eczema, psoriasis, burns, and dry, cracked skin and lips. Refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war are walking miles through hot deserts, often in open rubber sandals that leave their feet exposed. We saw many patients with deep, painful cracks in their skin, which made walking or working painful, and sometimes impossible Thousands of Syrians are living in crowded tents and cooking over open flames and sadly, burns are commonplace. Vaseline provides protection and an emollient effect to the burns as they are healing. Upon their return to the States, the derm duo cowrote an article for The Washington Post detailing their experience. They told stories of a man with burns on his hands, another with deep and painful cracks on his feet, and a 12-year-old girl with blistering skin all of whom benefitted from something as basic and inexpensive as Vaseline. In this type of environment, even issues more minor than these, like small cuts and dry skin, can become serious or even life-threatening if not properly cared for. The primary problem we encountered was severely dry skin, says Dr. Bandow. Dry skin is not only uncomfortable, but it leads to greater problems including fissures, or deep cracks that wont heal, secondary infections like impetigo, and worsening of primary skin diseases like eczema or psoriasis. Story continues After the article was published, Vaseline brand director Kathleen Dunlop was flooded with emails about the story. The Unilever-owned company was already very involved in philanthropy, but this showed that theres a need for its product, not just its profits. And if it could help people in refugee camps, it could also benefit victims of natural disasters and those living in extreme poverty. And thus, the Vaseline Healing Project was born. Vaseline decided to partner with top international aid organization Direct Relief in an effort that would provide dermatological care, Vaseline products and other medical supplies, and health-worker training to people around the world. Direct Reliefs mission is to improve the health and lives of people affected by poverty and emergency situations by mobilizing and providing essential medical resources needed for their care, explains Dunlop. So this partnership was a no-brainer. Dr. Bandow and Dr. Jaber joined the endeavor. Related: Make Waves, Not War, With Your Hair Texture One of the most important aspects of the project is teaching local healthcare workers how to identify and treat basic and common skin conditions, says Dr. Bandow. Current mission efforts, although well-intentioned, often provide brief, temporary relief. By teaching local caregivers on the ground, the Vaseline Healing Project can provide a lasting impact for these communities. Last March, the Vaseline Healing Project went to Jordan on its first mission (pictured directly above), where the two docs treated 1,000 people, most of whom were Syrian refugees, in six days. Next, they went to rural Kenya (pictured top left) and an area in the Philippines that had been particularly affected by 2013s Typhoon Haiyan. The project aims to heal the skin of five million people by 2020. In 2015 alone, one million units of Vaseline personal-care products were donated through the initiative. Today, the project is launching Not So Ordinary, a short film that shows just how much a little jar of Vaseline can do which you can watch exclusively on Refinery29, above. The company has also just named Viola Davis (who narrates the video) its first celebrity spokesperson. If you want to help, head to Vaselines website, where you can build a medicine kit that contains a jar of Vaseline plus whatever supplies (rubbing alcohol, gauze, hand sanitizer, and more) you choose to donate. These basic things can truly make an extraordinary difference. Refinery29 is committed to covering the human beings behind the headlines of the Syrian civil war and refugee crisis. Read the full multimedia feature Behind the Headlines: Daughters of Paradise here. More coverage on the human faces of the worlds refugee crisis can be found here. By Megan Cahn Related: Transform Your Hair With This Braidy Bunch Preppy American brand Tommy Hilfiger has unveiled its spring/summer 2016 campaign starring one of the brand's hottest faces of the moment, Bahati Prinsloo, accompanied by five male models. True to the spirit of the brand, this new collection is inspired by a casual style and a laid-back lifestyle. For its spring/summer 2016 campaign, Tommy Hilfiger left the US and headed for the Caribbean -- more precisely, to the island of Mustique, part of a group of islands called the Grenadines. The campaign was shot by fashion photographer Craig McDean, who captured the summery landscapes of this paradise island with its long white sandy beaches and the turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea. Namibian model Behati Prinsloo can be seen sporting a selection of highly feminine, brightly colored pieces from the spring-summer 2016 collection, alongside male models Miles McMillan, Marlon Teixeira, Nathan Owens, Jordan Barrett and Dariues Trabalza Haynes. Entitled "Wish You Were Here," the campaign puts particular focus on flagship pieces from the brand's summer collection. These include maxi dresses, strappy bikinis and monokinis, long shirts and flower-print dresses from womenswear, and Hawaiian-print swim shorts, polo shirts, short-sleeved shirts and floral trousers from menswear. Behati Prinsloo, who has recently modelled for Victoria's Secret, Juicy Couture and Lancaster Paris, has been picked as the face of Tommy Hilfiger for the third consecutive season. Next season's collection will be fronted by Gigi Hadid, who was named brand ambassador in December 2015. Check out the campaign video here: https://youtu.be/v7WiXWaYs8M Berlin (AFP) - Hundreds of David Bowie fans on Friday flocked to a memorial event for the pioneering rock artist held at the Berlin studio where he recorded three of his landmark albums. In a bittersweet atmosphere, they grieved and celebrated the life and work of Bowie, who succumbed to a secret battle with cancer on Sunday, in a service at Hansa Studios near where the Berlin Wall once divided the city. On stage in the wood-panelled grand hall stood a large photo of the iconic star, framed by white roses, church candles and a black ribbon with the message "We can be heroes, forever and ever". It's a refrain line from the Cold War anthem "Heroes" which Bowie recorded during the three years he spent in the city, self-exiled from the Los Angeles rock 'n' roll lifestyle, broke and trying to kick cocaine and liquor habits, together with his friend US rock musician Iggy Pop. Some fans had painted their faces with the flash symbol of 'Aladdin Sane', one of the many characters invented by the chameleon-like star, while others performed their favourite Bowie songs. "The beautiful thing about Bowie is that he transcends his time," said writer Beatrice Hanssen, who was first in the queue, clutching a picture of the singer, songwriter and actor. "He captured the spirit of his time but was also always a step ahead of it." - 'Completely heartbroken' - Many fans said Bowie's death at age 69 touched them like that of a close friend or family member. "He did everything and he never stopped. He never stopped challenging himself or his audience, and I think that's incredibly special," said Ruth Bartlett, 33, a Berlin-based designer from London. "I mean when you look at today's artists, no-one is pushing it like that." When she learnt of Bowie's death, she and many friends were "completely heartbroken. All of Monday, everyone was just messaging each other, constantly and just really in pieces. Story continues "I've never seen anything like it. It's almost embarrassing. I haven't cried like that in the longest time." Bowie holds a special spot in Berliners' hearts, and has in turn credited his 1976-78 stint there with fuelling one of his most creative phases, the Berlin trilogy of albums "Low", "Heroes" and "Lodger". He would return, two years before the Wall fell in 1989, for a show at the Reichstag as fans also massed on the other side of the Cold War-era divide, shouting "The Wall must go", before they were beaten by East German police. Germany's foreign ministry marked Bowie's death by tweeting: "Good-bye David Bowie. You are now among #Heroes. Thank you for helping to bring down the #wall." Bowie had stunned Berlin again when he released the song "Where Are We Now?" on his 66th birthday, with a video that featured the Reichstag, Potsdamer Platz and his old West Berlin flat. - 'Forever and ever' - Bowie's former home in Hauptstrasse 155 has now become a shrine, with a mountain of flowers and candles growing outside. One fan on Friday announced an online petition to change the street's name to David-Bowie-Strasse, an idea that earned thundering applause. Leading the eulogies was former sound engineer Eduard Meyer, 72, who worked with Bowie, remembering him as "relaxed, human and warm-hearted". In the studio, he recalled, Bowie would cut pages of his song lyrics into strips and then "rearrange the text like a puzzle". "We looked straight onto the Wall and there were guards with binoculars who could see everything that was happening, because in summer we worked with the windows open," said Meyer. It was here that Bowie famously spied a couple locked in a passionate embrace, which inspired a line in Heroes: "I can remember/Standing by the wall/And the guns shot above our heads/And we kissed, as though nothing could fall." "It was a terrible and important time in Berlin, and Bowie captured it," said Hanssen. "The Berlin Wall isn't there anymore, but in a way he immortalised it," she said, adding with a smile, "forever and ever". Sydney (AFP) - Plunging global energy prices forced BHP Billiton to Friday book a US$7.2 billion pre-tax writedown against the value of its struggling onshore US assets, as the mining giant works to reign in costs and reduce risk. The decision came as miners globally struggle to cope with collapsing commodity prices and China's once insatiable appetite -- boosted by an unprecedented investment boom in the world's second-largest economy -- waning. Sharp falls in oil prices have ravaged the bottom line of miners across the world, pushing smaller players to the brink while tearing billions in revenue out of the budgets of resources-dependent economies such as Australia. BHP spent US$20 billion in 2011 on shale oil and gas assets in the United States, but the move increasingly appears to have backfired with a dramatic fall in prices over the past 18 months hammering profits. The hefty writedown, which will be booked in its next half-yearly accounts due in February, equates to US$4.9 billion after tax and follows BHP, a major player in the US oil and gas industry, taking a US$2.8 billion pre-tax hit on the same assets last year. Chief executive Andrew Mackenzie blamed "significant volatility and much weaker" prices, adding that the company had been forced to reduce its medium- and long-term price assumptions. "Oil and gas markets have been significantly weaker than the industry expected," he said in a statement to the market. "We responded quickly by dramatically cutting our operating and capital costs, and reducing the number of operated rigs in the onshore US business from 26 a year ago to five by the end of the current quarter. "While we have made significant progress, the dramatic fall in prices has led to the disappointing writedown announced today." The writedowns will reduce the book value of BHP's US net operating assets to about $US16 billion. - Well-positioned - The firm's shares were nevertheless 2.08 percent higher at Aus$15.19 in afternoon trade, having risen around six percent in London. Story continues CMC Markets chief analyst Ric Spooner said the market had already priced in the move. "While many may regret the timing and pricing of this investment, its reduced value has already been reflected in BHP's lower share price," he said. "News that BHP will further reduce its rig count is evidence that management remains focused on cost and risk reduction in response to lower prices." However, BHP's share price plunged more than 40 percent last year, hit by falling commodity prices, while rival Rio Tinto slid 26 percent. CLSA's head of resources research Andrew Driscoll warned "there's potential I think for further writedowns if oil prices don't recover". "Probably more importantly is that you'll expect that BHP will be managing its US onshore business for cash. So we'd expect rig counts to continue to decline and it's likely that capex (capital expenditure) this year will be less than their guidance of US$1.4 billion," Driscoll told AFP. Mackenzie said the diversified miner's investment and development plans for the remainder of the year were under review as it desperately looks to preserve cash with no sign that the commodity price rout was over. Oil and gas prices have fallen dramatically in recent months, with the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate hovering near 12-year lows at around US$31.20 a barrel as investors worry about prolonged global oversupply and an uncertain demand outlook. Gas prices have also been under intense pressure. Despite this, Mackenzie said he remained "confident in the long-term outlook and the quality of our acreage". "We are well positioned to respond to a recovery," he added. PARIS (Reuters) - Portugal-based Bial lab is the manufacturer of the experimental medicine that sent six male volunteers in a trial of the drug to hospital in France, French Health Minister Marisol Touraine said on Friday. Touraine said the drug, which was being tested in a Phase I trial in France by Biotrial for Bial, contained neither cannabis nor any substance derived from cannabis. A person familiar with the situation had said it was a cannabis-based painkiller. The minister said the drug was meant to act on the body's endocannabinoid system, which deals with pain. One person has been left brain dead and five others are in a serious condition after taking part in the clinical trial in western France, the French health ministry said earlier. (Reporting by Ingrid Melander and Matthias Blamont; Editing by James Regan) Brasilia (AFP) - Police in Brazil said Thursday they have brought criminal charges against two mining companies and seven executives over a mine waste spill that buried a village and killed 17 people. Federal police accuse Brazilian iron ore giant Vale, mine operator Samarco and company officials including Samarco's chief executive, Ricardo Vescovi, of violating Brazil's environmental crimes law in connection with the disastrous November 5 collapse of a waste reservoir. The law provides for prison sentences of up to five years for environmental contamination that "causes or may cause damage to human health or cause the death of animals or significant destruction of plant life." Samarco, which runs the mine, is a joint venture between Vale and Australia's BHP Billiton, the world's largest mining firm. All three companies have been under fire since the dam burst at the waste reservoir, which unleashed a torrent of muddy water that virtually wiped out the village of Bento Rodrigues and polluted water supplies across a large swath of southeastern Brazil. In addition to the 17 killed, two people are still missing. The contaminated water and mud traveled down the Doce river into the Atlantic Ocean, killing thousands of animals and devastating large swaths of protected tropical rainforest. Police also brought charges against the security chief charged with monitoring the dams and the engineer who inspected them in 2015. Vale said it was "surprised" by the charges. "The federal police's assumptions about Vale's supposed responsibility are based on premises that do not have an actual causal connection with the accident," it said in a statement sent to AFP. Samarco likewise said the cause of the disaster was still unclear. The Brazilian government is suing Samarco and its owners for $5.2 billion to pay damages to victims and clean up the river basin. A police officer went above and beyond the call of duty to save a babys life. Officer Luisa Fernanda Urrea, who recently became a mom herself, was called to a scene in a remote forest in Colombia after an abandoned infant was found. A local woman, Edinora Jimenez, discovered the crying baby in the undergrowth of the forest. I was collecting some oranges when I heard something crying, Jimenez told a local news source, as reported by the Huffington Post Thursday. STORY: When a Parent Abandons Kids: What Led a Mom to Leave Her Children at a Firehouse? She added, I thought it was a cat until I looked closer and saw that it was a baby girl. The infant, who still had part of her umbilical cord attached, was starving and facing hypothermia, so Urrea breastfed her, saving her life. Im a new mother and I have milk, and I recognized the needs that this poor little creature had, Urrea told the local news. I think any woman would have given her nourishment in the same circumstances. The Colombian Family Welfare Institute is now caring for the infant while it finds an adoptive home for her. In the meantime, police are searching for the mother, who may face criminal charges. Orphanage director Jhon Arley Murillo said, We could be dealing with a case of attempted homicide, although its the prosecutor who will decide the charge. (Photos: CEN) Please follow @YahooParenting on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Have an interesting story to share about your family? Email us at YParenting (at) Yahoo.com. Paunguriai (Lithuania) (AFP) - Britain could hold a referendum on its EU membership before the summer holidays, a senior minister said Friday, but warned that fears triggered by the bloc's record refugee crisis are fuelling support for a "Brexit". Europe Minister David Lidington said the crucial vote could be held in June or July if British and other EU leaders reach a deal on reforms at a summit next month. "It would take about four months minimum between the end of negotiations and us announcing a date and the referendum taking place," he told AFP. "No decisions have been taken about the timing of the referendum, but a February deal would mean that a referendum before the summer holiday period is possible," he added on the sidelines of a closed-door security policy conference west of the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. His comments came as European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Friday voiced confidence of securing a deal when EU leaders meet on February 18-19. "I am quite sure that we'll have a deal -- not a compromise, a solution, a permanent solution -- in February," Juncker, the head of the executive branch of the European Union, told a Brussels press conference. Lidington said he saw a "greater political energy" to seek an accord, but warned there were still sticking points in the talks. These include Britain's bid to prevent citizens from other EU states like Lithuania or Poland from claiming welfare benefits during their first four years in the country. Critics say the plan is discriminatory and threatens freedom of movement in the EU. Lidington said Prime Minister David Cameron "has always been very open" to looking for alternative solutions, but insisted that EU must address "a sense of unfairness at access to benefits by very large numbers of people who never paid into the system". Cameron also wants safeguards against more EU political integration, protection for countries like Britain choosing to stay outside the eurozone and greater economic competitiveness. Story continues Lidington also pointed to the EU's record migrant crisis as a key factor boosting support for a British exit, or "Brexit". "I think that there was a definite connection between the closer opinion poll findings about EU membership and what we saw with immigration," he added. A November opinion poll found that 52 percent of Britons want to leave the EU. According to the United Nations, around one million migrants and refugees made the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe in 2015, sparking the continent's biggest migration crisis since World War II. By Mathieu Bonkoungou OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) - Burkina Faso has issued an international arrest warrant for Guillaume Soro, the speaker of Ivory Coast's parliament, on charges related to a failed coup last year, Burkinabe military sources said on Friday. The warrant against the ex-rebel leader turned politician risks raising tensions between the two neighbouring West African nations, which share a history of close, if often fraught, economic and political ties. Authorities based the decision to issue the warrant on an audio recording of a conversation allegedly between Soro and Djibril Bassole, a political ally of Burkina Faso's deposed longtime ruler Blaise Compaore. In the recording, which was posted on the Internet last year, the two men discuss ways to support the coup against Burkina Faso's interim government led by Compaore's former spy chief General Gilbert Diendere. Last September's week-long power grab by the elite Presidential Security Regiment temporarily derailed the country's transition back to democratic rule following Compaore's ouster. It failed after regular army troops marched on the capital Ouagadougou. "I confirm that the warrant was issued at the beginning of the week," said a source within the military tribunal, who declined to be named. Diendere and Bassole are already in custody in Burkina Faso. "Only the government can give information on this. I am not aware of (the warrant)," Soro told Reuters. Ivory Coast's government spokesman was not immediately available for comment. Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast were once part of the same French colony. Around 4 million citizens of Burkina Faso live in its wealthier southern neighbour, many of them farmers who have helped make Ivory Coast the world's leading cocoa producer. Soro and his New Forces rebels controlled northern Ivory Coast for eight years following a 2002 civil war and were accused by then Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo's allies of receiving support from Compaore. Burkina Faso denied the allegation. The New Forces played a crucial role in Ivory Coast's 2011 civil war, backing President Alassane Ouattara's claim to leadership after Gbagbo refused to recognise his election defeat. Compaore has mainly lived in Ivory Coast since he was forced to flee Burkina Faso in October 2014 by popular protests against his bid to change the constitution and extend his 27-year rule. Burkina Faso issued a warrant for Compaore's arrest last month. Ivorian authorities have yet to comment publicly on the case. [nL8N14A3GM] (Additional reporting by Joe Bavier; Writing by Makini Brice; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Andrew Roche) NAIROBI (Reuters) - A former Burundi defense minister and three other generals were sentenced to life in jail on Friday for their role in a coup that was foiled in May, state radio reported. The men were among a group of 28 officers and others on trial for their part in the attempt to topple President Pierre Nkurunziza, who plunged the nation into a crisis last year with his bid for a third term which he secured in a disputed vote. U.N. officials say the crisis has brought the poor nation to the brink of a new civil war, after it emerged from a 12-year, ethnically fueled conflict just a decade ago. As well as sentencing former Defence Minister Cyrille Ndayirukiye and three other generals, the court jailed nine others in the group to 30 years in jail and eight more to five years, state radio reported. Seven people who were acquitted by the court in Gitega, about 100 km (60 miles) east of Bujumbura. Justice Ministry spokeswoman Agnes Bangiricenge had previously said the group faced charges that included "an attempt to unseat the country's constitutional institutions", as well as assassinations and other violent acts. The coup was launched on May 13 by military officers led by Major General Godefroid Niyombare, the former intelligence chief, while Nkurunziza was abroad. It was swiftly quashed. Niyombare's fate is unclear. He has not spoken publicly since the coup, although another general who fled after the coup attempt has said he was alive and still leading a rebellion. The former defense minister, like several others in the group, pleaded guilty during the trial to attempting a coup but denied other charges, such as killing police officers or providing arms to civilians. Ndayirukiye told the court during the trial that those behind the coup "acted within the Arusha agreement and in a bid to protect the population," a reference to the Arusha peace accords that ended Burundi's civil war in 2005. (Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Andrew Heavens) CHICAGO (Reuters) - The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is closely monitoring individuals who may have been exposed to the new strain of bird flu that has been found in a flock of turkeys in Indiana, a CDC health official said on Friday. Dr. Michael Jhung, a medical officer at the CDC, said there is no evidence of human infection related to the new bird flu strain known as H7N8, but the agency and local health officials are not taking any chances. "There's always the possibility of implications to human health when you see a new flu virus in animals, like we're seeing now in turkeys," Jhung told Reuters in an interview. Jhung said the CDC and local health departments are already implementing a program designed after last year's large bird flu outbreak in poultry, and will monitor people in close contact with infected birds. (Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Chris Reese) SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's ruling Communist Party will sustain the pressure in its graft-busting campaign this year and will make corrupt officials in key posts priority targets and aim to investigate all central-level party and government bodies. The party's internal corruption watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, said the investigations of former security tsar Zhou Yongkang and Ling Jihua, a one-time aid to former President Hu Jintao, had "removed hidden political dangers". Following a three-day annual planning meeting the commission warned late on Thursday that problems remained. "Those who hold important posts and are likely to be further promoted but have not stepped back from their serious corrupt behaviors will be 'top priority'," the state news agency Xinhua reported, quoted the commission as saying. Xinhua said 47 inspection teams had looked into major central party and government agencies, and the commission would aim to cover all of them this year. The president and party boss, Xi Jinping, has made the fight against corruption, long viewed as a threat to the Communist Party's grip on power, a centerpiece of his leadership over the past three years. Dozens of senior officials have been jailed and tens of thousands of officials nationwide have been investigated and punished. Zhou Yongkang, once one of China's most powerful politicians, was imprisoned for life last year. Xi this week said the anti-corruption drive had shown good results and increased public confidence in, and support for, the party. The long arm of the party's crackdown has even reached abroad. On Thursday, China announced that it had secured the return of a top corruption suspect who had been in Britain, the latest person from a list of 100 overseas fugitives repatriated during the graft crackdown. (Reporting by John Ruwitch; Editing by Robert Birsel) By Michael Martina BEIJING (Reuters) - China on Friday acknowledged for the first time that it is communicating with the United States about the case of Ling Wancheng, the brother of a one-time senior aide to then President Hu Jintao, in a case that could complicate ties. Authorities have been tight-lipped about revealing any information about the man, Ling Wancheng, who is in the United States, sources have told Reuters. China has demanded his return, the New York Times had earlier reported, in a case that could strain Sino-U.S. ties if he were to seek to defect. The government has given no details of any crime Ling is suspected of and he has not appeared on any wanted lists. Last month, Liu Jianchao, who runs the ruling Communist Party's anti-graft watchdog's team trying to repatriate graft suspects, told reporters Ling Wancheng's case had nothing to do with him and he did not know who was in charge of it. But on Friday, in response to a question from Reuters at a news conference, Liu confirmed for the first time contacts with the United States about the case. "As for the case of Ling Wancheng, the Chinese side is handling it and is communicating with the United States," Liu said. Ling was in the United States, Liu told Reuters later. On anti-corruption cooperation between China and the United States, Liu praised a "very positive" U.S. attitude. Last July, China said it would prosecute Ling Wancheng's brother, Ling Jihua, a one-time senior aide to Hu, after an investigation found that he took bribes and engaged in other corrupt behaviour. Another brother, Ling Zhengce, has also been accused of corruption. Ling Jihua's case has presented a dilemma for Beijing. His position is particularly sensitive because of his connection with Hu, President Xi Jinping's predecessor. Since assuming power in late 2012, Xi has pursued a relentless campaign against corruption, warning that the problem could threaten the party's ability to retain power, though some analysts say he is also eliminating rivals. China's efforts at repatriating corrupt officials overseas have long been hampered by Western countries' reluctance to sign extradition deals, partly out of concern about its judicial system. Rights groups say Chinese authorities use torture and the death penalty is common in corruption cases. Separately, Wu Yuliang, deputy secretary of the watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, said the governor of China's populous southwestern province of Sichuan, Wei Hong, was suspected of serious "discipline violations", a euphemism for corruption. (Writing by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Robert Birsel) By Michael Martina BEIJING (Reuters) - China on Friday acknowledged for the first time that it is communicating with the United States about the case of Ling Wancheng, the brother of a one-time senior aide to then President Hu Jintao, in a case that could complicate ties. Authorities have been tight-lipped about revealing any information about the man, Ling Wancheng, who is in the United States, sources have told Reuters. China has demanded his return, the New York Times had earlier reported, in a case that could strain Sino-U.S. ties if he were to seek to defect. The government has given no details of any crime Ling is suspected of and he has not appeared on any wanted lists. Last month, Liu Jianchao, who runs the ruling Communist Party's anti-graft watchdog's team trying to repatriate graft suspects, told reporters Ling Wancheng's case had nothing to do with him and he did not know who was in charge of it. But on Friday, in response to a question from Reuters at a news conference, Liu confirmed for the first time contacts with the United States about the case. "As for the case of Ling Wancheng, the Chinese side is handling it and is communicating with the United States," Liu said. Ling was in the United States, Liu told Reuters later. On anti-corruption cooperation between China and the United States, Liu praised a "very positive" U.S. attitude. Last July, China said it would prosecute Ling Wancheng's brother, Ling Jihua, a one-time senior aide to Hu, after an investigation found that he took bribes and engaged in other corrupt behavior. Another brother, Ling Zhengce, has also been accused of corruption. Ling Jihua's case has presented a dilemma for Beijing. His position is particularly sensitive because of his connection with Hu, President Xi Jinping's predecessor. Since assuming power in late 2012, Xi has pursued a relentless campaign against corruption, warning that the problem could threaten the party's ability to retain power, though some analysts say he is also eliminating rivals. China's efforts at repatriating corrupt officials overseas have long been hampered by Western countries' reluctance to sign extradition deals, partly out of concern about its judicial system. Rights groups say Chinese authorities use torture and the death penalty is common in corruption cases. Separately, Wu Yuliang, deputy secretary of the watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, said the governor of China's populous southwestern province of Sichuan, Wei Hong, was suspected of serious "discipline violations", a euphemism for corruption. (Writing by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Robert Birsel) By Michael Martina and David Brunnstrom BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China will invite private investment to build infrastructure on islands it controls in the disputed South China Sea and will start regular flights to one of them this year, state media said on Friday, moves likely to anger other claimants. A U.S. research institute, meanwhile, said China appeared to have stepped up construction work on artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea and was close to finishing two more military-length airstrips on them. China claims almost all of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of maritime trade passes each year. The Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia and Taiwan have overlapping claims. In 2012 China set up what it calls Sansha City, based on Woody Island in the Paracels, to administer its islands there. Sansha's deputy mayor, Feng Wenhai, said they will welcome private investment and "will initiate public-private-partnership programs", state news agency Xinhua said. "The city will also push forward the planning and construction of a maritime medical rescue center. Submarine optical cables will be laid and put into use this year, and Wi-Fi will cover all inhabited islands and reefs," Feng said. The airport on Woody Island will also this year launch regular flights, Feng added, without elaborating. China took full control of the Paracels in 1974 after a naval showdown with Vietnam. Asked about Chinas investment plans, Gabrielle Price, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman, said Washington continued to call on all claimants to halt land reclamation, construction of new facilities, and militarization of outposts in the South China Sea. Though China calls it a city, Sansha's permanent population is no more than a few thousand, and many of the disputed islets and reefs in the sea are uninhabited. Hundreds of Vietnamese demonstrated in Hanoi when China established Sansha and invited oil firms to bid for blocks in offshore areas that Vietnam claims as its territory. Tensions between China and Vietnam have flared again in recent weeks, after Chinese civilian aircraft conducted test landings on the disputed Fiery Cross Reef, one of three runways China has been building by dredging sand up onto reefs in the Spratly Islands to the south of the Paracels. Vietnam says China's landings were on an "illegally" built reef, and has vowed to defend its sovereignty through peaceful measures. CIVILIAN VISITORS Chinese state media on Friday showed pictures of what it said was the first batch of civilian passengers to arrive by plane on Fiery Cross, family members of troops based there, though it only appeared to be two women and two young children. "Everyone rapturously looked around at the island's beautiful scenery," read a caption underneath one of the pictures on the website of Chinese news portal Sina. It showed the four standing in front of two civilian aircraft. The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative of Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank published satellite images on Friday showing airstrips on two other artificial islands - Mischief and Subi Reefs - close to completion. It said the work was progressing faster than expected. While the strip at Fiery Cross had taken at least seven months to complete, that one on Mischief Reef was nearly finished after only three to four months, AMTI said in a report. The construction included housing, cement plants, docking facilities, and an area of artificial turf that could be used for sports or as a parade ground, AMTI director Greg Poling said. The work would be of particular concern to the Philippines, given the proximity of the strips to Philippine occupied features, the AMTI report said. The United States, a treaty ally of the Philippines, has criticized Beijing's building of artificial islands in the Spratlys and has conducted sea and air patrols near them. (Reporting by Michael Martina in Beijing and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Ben Blanchard and Nick Macfie) By Ben Blanchard TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan looks set on Saturday to elect an independence-leaning opposition leader as its first woman president who could usher in a new round of uncertainty with China, the massive neighbour that claims the self-ruled island as its sacred territory. Tsai Ing-wen, leader of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), is expected to be thrust into one of Asia's toughest and most dangerous jobs, with China pointing hundreds of missiles at the island, decades after losing Nationalists fled from Mao Zedong's Communists to Taiwan in the Chinese civil war. She will have to balance the superpower interests of China, also Taiwan's largest trading partner, and the United States with those of her freewheeling, democratic home. Tsai risks antagonising China if she attempts to forcefully assert Taiwan's sovereignty and reverses eight years of warming China ties under incumbent China-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou of the Nationalists, who ruled all of China until the retreat to Taiwan in 1949. "Democracy is not just an election," Tsai said at her last campaign rally on Friday in drizzling rain. "Democracy is our way of life." The election comes at a tricky time for Taiwan's export-dependent economy, which entered recession in the third quarter last year. China is also Taiwan's top trading partner and Taiwan's favourite investment destination. Support for the DPP has swelled since 2014, when hundreds of students occupied Taiwan's parliament for weeks in protests against trade pacts negotiated with China in the largest display of anti-China sentiment the island had seen in years. Tsai has the tide of history against her. Ma and predecessors, including firebrand Lee Teng-hui and convicted opposition DPP president Chen Shui-bian, all failed to bring about a lasting reconciliation with China, which considers Taiwan a rogue province to be taken by force if necessary. Shots were traded between the two sides as recently as the mid-1970s. At stake are relations with an ascendant and increasingly assertive China under President Xi Jinping. Tsai, a trained lawyer, would be one of the most prominent female leaders of the Chinese-speaking world since the Qing dynasty Empress Dowager Cixi. Parliamentary polls are also being held and if the DPP wins those too, Tsai will get an even stronger mandate. She has been ambiguous on her China policy, merely pledging, in public anyway, to maintain the status quo. Beijing has warned repeatedly in the run-up to the elections that hard-earned peace across the Taiwan Strait could be affected by a Tsai win. The United States has expressed concerns about the danger of worsening China-Taiwan ties, at a time when China's navy is increasingly flexing its muscles in the South China and East China Seas and expanding territorial claims. China has held out the "one country, two systems" formula, under which the British colony of Hong Kong returned to China in 1997, as a solution for Taiwan. But both the Nationalists and DPP have rejected the idea. (Additional reporting by J.R. Wu; Editing by Nick Macfie) Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran next week, Beijing's foreign ministry said Friday, as the world's second-largest economy seeks greater diplomatic heft in a crucial and tense region. Spokesman Lu Kang said in a statement that Xi would visit the three Middle Eastern countries over five days from Tuesday. The trip, Xi's first to the region as president, comes amid mounting tensions over the war in Syria and after protesters ransacked and burned the Saudi Embassy in Tehran over the execution of a Shiite cleric. China depends on the Middle East for its oil supplies but has long taken a back seat in the region's diplomatic and other disputes, only recently beginning to expand its role, especially in the Syrian crisis. "China is the biggest importer of Middle Eastern oil," Zhu Feng, professor at Peking University's School of International Studies, told AFP. "So stability in the Middle East is what China would most like to see." As China's economy has grown, its dependence on imported oil and natural gas has increased, making the Middle East a crucial part of Beijing's strategy as it seeks to expand its influence through Xi's signature foreign policy initiative, known as "One Belt One Road". The massive investment scheme aims to increase China's footprint from central Asia to Europe through the use of loans to build infrastructure and transport networks. Touted as a revival of ancient Silk Road trade routes, the initiative underscores China's ambition to wield geopolitical power to match its economic might. "Xi Jinping is very committed to projecting Chinas image overseas, to boosting Chinas international footprint to a level which is commensurate with its fast-growing economic and military power," Willy Lam, professor of politics at Chinese University of Hong Kong, told AFP. Beijing was trying to project power and influence in the Middle East, seeing an opening in the troubled region as US policy "hasnt been very successful under (US President Barack) Obama", he said. Story continues China was presenting itself as "a mediator with no strings attached", added Lam, in contrast to Washington, which has "vested interests in that part of the world going back four, five decades". - 'Rare opportunity' - This week a Chinese diplomat urged "calm and restraint" between Saudi Arabia and Iran, but Xi's trip was most probably organised before the discord erupted between Riyadh and Tehran, Zhu said. "Clearly now there are tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, so he will be going there in the role of persuader" seeking cooperation against in the fight against the Islamic State jihadist group, Zhu said. "China will try and do what it can, but it still won't play a main role." In a commentary, the official Xinhua news agency said: "Although China never takes sides, it will be a rare opportunity for China to call for calm and restraint from both sides." In the past month, Beijing has hosted high-level members from both the Syrian regime and its opposition. It has consistently urged a "political solution" to the Syrian crisis, despite being seen as having long protected President Bashar al-Assad, and four times vetoed UN Security Council measures aimed at addressing the conflict. Last year, China helped broker a landmark nuclear deal with Iran, which has begun to emerge following years of international isolation. Days after the signing of the historic framework agreement, Iran was approved as a founding member of the Beijing-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which is expected to provide funding for One Belt One Road. On Wednesday, China published its first official Arab Policy Paper, claiming a "broad consensus on safeguarding state sovereignty and territorial integrity, defending national dignity, seeking political resolution to hotspot issues, and promoting peace and stability in the Middle East". CAIRO (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to discuss potential investments in infrastructure projects with Egypt during his upcoming visit in the fields of transport, electricity, housing and agriculture, the government spokesman said on Friday. Hossam al-Qawish said in a statement that possible projects include train lines worth $1.5 billion. Xi will visit Saudi Arabia, Iran and Egypt on a Jan. 19-23 tour, China's Foreign Ministry said. It provided no other details. Egypt needs foreign investment to strengthen an economy that was battered by political turmoil triggered by the 2011 uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak. (Writing by Michael Georgy; editing by Susan Thomas) (Reuters) - Popular burrito chain Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc will close its restaurants for a few hours next month to hold a meeting on food safety with employees, company executives said. Chipotle, which has been plagued by a series of food poisoning outbreaks, will hold the meeting on Feb. 8, the executives said at the ICR Conference on Wednesday. Chipotle is confident that steps being taken to tighten food safety will prevent future food poisoning outbreaks, the executives said. (Reporting by Subrat Patnaik in Bengaluru; Editing by Kirti Pandey) The Islamic State group said Thursday it was behind an attack on a Pakistani television station that injured one person, in a claim warning the media against "concealing facts." Two assailants on a motorbike threw an explosive device that appeared to be a grenade and fired gunshots at the ARY Pakistani TV offices in Islamabad late Wednesday, but fled when security guards fired at them, the station said on its Facebook page. One employee was wounded when his head was struck by shrapnel, the station added. Pamphlets in Urdu and English tossed by the attackers during the assault urged media not to side with "apostate army and government of Pakistan in their global crusade against Islam... by concealing facts." A radio broadcast from the Islamic State group later claimed the assault. Police said no arrests have been made so far and that they were probing the attack. "We are busy with investigations and have found some leads and are working on them," local police station head Sajjad Bokhari told AFP. He added that police were not sure that a grenade had been used and they were trying to confirm the nature of the device. Reporters without Borders (RSF) Thursday called upon Pakistani authorities to respond to the attack on ARY "swiftly". "We reaffirm our support for ARY News and all of its staff," Benjamin Ismail, the head of RSFs Asia-Pacific desk said in a statement. "As well as providing the TV channel with better protection, the authorities must take measures to prevent men armed with weapons of war from circulating in the capital," he said. "We also totally reject the justification given by this attacks instigators. The media are not military targets and the use of armed violence against them can only be described as horrifying attacks on media freedom." Security analyst Amir Rana said the IS group is trying to bolster its foothold in the country by ramping up attacks and called on Pakistan to do more to curb their influence. Story continues "At the moment their visibility is low, so it is the time for authorities to move swiftly against IS people before they launch any big attack," Rana told AFP. Pakistani police said in December they arrested eight suspected IS extremists after a raid in the central province of Punjab, accusing them of planning attacks. In May last year, the jihadists claimed responsibility for an assault that killed at least 43 members of the Shiite Ismaili minority in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi. Islamabad has officially denied the Islamic State organisation is operating in Pakistan, but authorities have expressed fears the extremists could find recruits among the country's myriad Islamist militant groups. By Karl Plume CHICAGO (Reuters) - The U.S. Coast Guard temporarily halted shipping traffic on the Mississippi River in New Orleans on Friday after a tow boat struck stationary barges in a fleeting area, marking at least the fifth barge accident this week on the flood-swollen river. High water has severely restricted barge shipping traffic on the river and several tributaries since a late-December storm slammed the central United States. [nL1N14J0JR] The rivers have been closed to navigation at various points since the storm as floodwaters flow south toward the Gulf of Mexico. Shipping restrictions remain in place on much of the lower Mississippi, including limits on the number of barges per tow, specific navigation times and minimum tow boat horsepower requirements. "The Coast Guard works very closely with the Army Corps of Engineers and the inland marine towing industry to manage the elevated navigation safety risks associated with the strong currents noted during high river stages," said U.S. Coast Guard Captain Timothy Wendt. The waterways are key arteries for shipments of grain, coal, oil and other commodities. Some 60 percent of all U.S. corn, soybean and wheat exports exit the country via the Gulf Coast. The tow boat Lucia struck several stationary barges early on Friday near the Crescent City Connection Bridge and six barges broke free, the Coast Guard said. All have been recovered and secured and the river reopened to navigation. A barge tow hauling ethanol struck a highway bridge in Helena, Arkansas, on Monday, resulting in 292,000 gallons of the biofuel spilling into the river, the Coast Guard said. From Tuesday to Thursday, barge tows hit the same railroad bridge in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on three separate occasions. Barges broke free and sank in two of the incidents. Although the river problems caused headaches for shippers, the impact on grain shipping costs was muted by the current sluggish pace of exports from the United States, industry sources said. "The grain pipeline is running at half-speed at best, but we're not seeing it in the rates because exports are so slow," said a barge broker. The river crested at more than 50.2 feet in Vicksburg on Friday, within 7 feet of a record, according to the National Weather Service's Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service. In New Orleans, the river crept up to flood stage on Friday and is expected to remain at that level through at least through the middle of next week. (Additional reporting by Vijaykumar Vedala in Bengaluru; Editing by Dan Grebler) Many of today's college graduates won't spend adulthood working in an established company and following a well-traveled professional path to success. They will forgo tradition and join the startup community, according to a recent report from the Kauffman Foundation, which supports entrepreneurship and innovative approaches to problem solving. The study's authors found that in 2014, 33 percent of new entrepreneurs were college graduates, up from 23.7 percent in 1996. A number of undergrads start working on new ventures and participating in business competitions while simultaneously earning their bachelor's degrees, which requires a certain kind of passion and focus. [Find out which schools have the best undergraduate business programs.] "You ask them what their spring break plans are and, for the large part, if they're app-minded or tech-minded they're not going to Cancun. They're going to Silicon Valley to just hang out and network," says Mark Pottschmidt, who oversees one of the U.S. regions for the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards, which run regional, national and global competitions for college entrepreneurs. Some schools specialize in supporting young entrepreneurs and readying them for life at a startup. Prospective students interested in working with or creating a new business should consider institutions that will provide this type of support, experts say. At Syracuse University's Whitman School of Management, undergraduate students can major in entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises to learn what it takes to start a company. "You're going to have this entrepreneurial mindset which will allow you to be innovative, be bold, be proactive and create your own future," says says Alex McKelvie, chair of the entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises department at Whitman, of students in the major. Students have the option of studying entrepreneurship in a broad way or through one of four specialized tracks: new venture creation, corporate entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship and family business. Story continues [Decide as an undergraduate business major if you need an MBA.] They work on their own business ideas, look at case studies and do entrepreneurial audits of real corporations to evaluate how the companies are succeeding at maintaining an entrepreneurial spirit. Students are also required to have an internship to graduate, says McKelvie. Gabriela Escalante, 28, was impressed with Whitman's nurturing approach to budding entrepreneurs and moved from El Salvador to attend the school. While researching colleges and universities online, she found that Whitman offered an education for entrepreneurs that other schools didn't. "They were talking about being exposed to other businesses and having these consulting classes where you can help another entrepreneur. And they had an incubator in-house," says Escalante, who finishes school in May. Before coming to Whitman, she started a T-shirt business, but since coming to the school she's branched out. She's now in charge of the activewear clothing company EB Active. She encourages prospective college students who are also interested in starting a company to consider schools that focus on hands-on learning opportunities. "There's no textbook that can tell you what to do as good as the opportunity to be there and get your hands dirty and actually learning by doing," she says. [Apply to these scholarships if you're a future entrepreneur.] Applicants should also look for schools that will help them interact with people from various businesses, she says. "For every entrepreneur, it's important to network," Escalante says. "You want to find a university that's going to provide you with the opportunity of meeting more people and getting exposed to different industries and has a variety of networking events." For Connor Bernstein, the network that comes with focusing on entrepreneurship as an undergraduate at Georgetown University has been an important part of his college experience. Bernstein is one of the school's entrepreneurial fellows. "It's really been incredible, the amount of resources that we've been able to take advantage of," says Bernstein, who graduates this year. He can speak with the school's entrepreneurs-in-residence, for example, about fundraising, pitching, how much to charge for a product and other topics that can be challenging for a business owner. "These questions just kind of come up on a regular basis," says Bernstein, whose company Connor's Kits for Kids offers science kits for children. At Georgetown, students can't major or minor in entrepreneurship, but the entrepreneurial fellows program is one way for students to learn more about this career path, says Alyssa Lovegrove, associate director of the university's entrepreneurship initiative. "They can apply to the program, and if they're selected they take a series of entrepreneurship electives. They also have the opportunity to work in a startup environment." Speaking with current students can help college applicants learn if a school they're considering will give them these types of opportunities, experts say. During a campus visit, applicants can ask, "How much help have the faculty and staff been for helping you achieve your goals? What have been the biggest issues that you've faced at that university or at that school trying to get your startup running?" says McKelvie of Syracuse. It often comes down to one factor when searching for a college as a soon-to-be business innovator. "Try to look for a place where entrepreneurship actually matters," McKelvie says. Searching for a college? Get our complete rankings of Best Colleges. Delece Smith-Barrow is an education reporter at U.S. News, covering graduate schools. You can follow her on Twitter or email her at dsmithbarrow@usnews.com. Freetown (AFP) - The World Health Organization confirmed Friday a new death from Ebola in Sierra Leone just a day after west Africa celebrated the end of an outbreak which killed 11,000 people. A 22-year-old woman, named as Marie Jalloh, was taken ill near the Guinean border on Thursday last week and died on Tuesday, local health officials said as the WHO issued a statement from Geneva confirming she was killed by Ebola. A total of 27 people have been placed in quarantine in a bid to prevent the spread of the disease, health ministry officials said. Augustine Junisa, the chief local medical officer, told reporters the student became ill while on holiday in the village of Bamoi Luma and was taken by relatives to hospital. The official said the woman "died at home" but did not say why she had been released from the hospital in Magburaka, the capital of the northern Tonkolili district. However, a nurse at the Magburaka Hospital told AFP that the victim was not admitted but was "given some medication as she showed signs of severe cold", and sent home. "The swab test on the victim after her death was done three times and all proved positive," Langoba Kelly of Sierra Leone's office of national security told reporters in Freetown, appealing for calm. The WHO had announced on Thursday that the two-year Ebola outbreak that killed 11,315 people and triggered a global health alert was over, with Liberia the last country to get the all-clear. - 'Really worried' - UN chief Ban Ki-moon cautioned that the region could expect sporadic cases in the coming year but added "we also expect the potential and frequency of those flare-ups to decrease over time". Residents in Magburaka, a town of around 40,000 people, voiced shock and distress over the announcement. "It was not expected and came at a time when we had thought that the virus is nowhere within our land," groundnut farmer Allieu Kamara told AFP. Story continues The deadliest outbreak in the history of the feared tropical virus wrecked the economies and health systems of the three worst-hit west African nations after it emerged in southern Guinea in December 2013. Sierra Leone was declared free of Ebola transmission on November 7 last year and Guinea on December 29. The agency said the 42-day countdown to Sierra Leone being declared free of transmission once more would begin again from the date of the latest victim's burial if no more cases were uncovered. Meanwhile investigators are likely to focus on whether the latest victim had sexual contact with an Ebola survivor, only recently recognised as a possible source of infection, and if she crossed the border to Guinea in the days before becoming sick. Rumours have circulated in Sierra Leone media over the resumption of the practice of eating bush meat, banned because bats and other jungle-dwelling mammals are thought to be natural reservoirs for the Ebola virus. - Lax hygiene - But Ian Mackay, associate professor of virology at the University of Queensland, said the practice had been in existence long before the outbreak and a relaxation of hygiene precautions like handwashing was more of a worry. "The WHO was mentioning that yesterday, that handwashing has just become just a little bit more lax and that really needs to pick up to help combat the return of this and other infections," he told Britain's BBC Five Live radio station. At its peak, Ebola devastated Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, which between them suffered more than 99 percent of the global cases, with bodies piling up in the streets and overwhelmed hospitals recording hundreds of new cases a week. Ten countries in total registered cases, including the United States and Spain. Liberia, the country worst hit by the outbreak with 4,800 deaths, discharged its last two patients from hospital -- the father and younger brother of a 15-year-old victim -- on December 3, 2015. Africa's oldest republic was the last country still afflicted by the outbreak that infected almost 29,000 people and claimed 11,315 lives, according to official data. The real toll is suspected to be much higher, with many Ebola deaths believed to have gone unreported. Ebola causes severe fever and muscle pain, weakness, vomiting and diarrhoea. In many cases it shuts down organs and causes unstoppable internal bleeding. Patients often succumb within days. From a Guinean infant who was the first victim, the epidemic quickly spread into neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone, notching up more deaths than all other Ebola outbreaks combined. BRAZZAVILLE (Reuters) - Congo Republic's opposition has conditionally agreed to run against President Denis Sassou Nguesso in an election in March, even though it is widely seen as unlikely to secure what would be the first change in leadership in nearly 20 years. Congo's veteran leader has ruled the oil-rich former French colony for 31 of the past 36 years in two separate spells and is widely expected to run in March and win comfortably, whether or not the opposition participates. Opposition parties boycotted an October referendum on whether the president could legally seek a third consecutive term, a vote that Sassou Nguesso won by a landslide. Some observers expected them to also refuse to participate in the March vote. "We are working on the best strategy on behalf of our political family in order to win the presidential election," said Charles Zacharie Bowao, a former defence minister now in the opposition, at the meeting late on Wednesday. He added that the opposition, which in the past has suffered from internal divisions, have not yet decided whether they will present a single opposition candidate or several. The two main opposition alliances Initiative for Democracy in Congo and The Republic Front for the Respect of the Constitutional Order and Democratic Transition (FROCAD) will participate so long as there is an independent electoral commission and voter lists are reliable, among other conditions. Congo Republic is deemed "not free" by U.S.-based democracy watchdog Freedom House. Security forces fired on anti-government protesters during the October referendum, killing at least four people, while some opposition leaders were placed under house arrest by presidential guards. The government said detentions were necessary to restore order and accused the opposition of planning an insurrection. Attempts by other veteran African leaders to extend their mandates have also led to unrest such as in Burundi where President Pierre Nkurunziza's decision to run for a third term has sparked violence, killing more than 400 people. Analysts said that the risk of street violence in Congo's polls would be greater if the opposition participates, since they are more likely to denounce irregularities and provoke public anger. (Reporting by Christian Elion; Writing by Emma Farge; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky) The idea of pursuing a second MBA degree may sound strange, but it happens with a small number of applicants during every admissions season and can make sense under the right, very specific, circumstances. Some applicants consider a second degree after earning an MBA from a for-profit university or an unaccredited program. They may find they have hit a ceiling with their employment prospects as they vie for positions against candidates from better-known schools. More often, people who seek a second degree are international candidates who have discovered that their professional dreams cannot be fulfilled with their current degree alone. [Use these three tips as an international applicant for U.S. MBA programs.] In India, for example, it's common for a student to jump into an MBA program straight out of university, which makes for a very theoretical learning experience rather than a practical one in which to contextualize management problems. Once these MBA grads get into the workforce, they discover they must further develop various skills to become strong business leaders. For professionals working in international firms who aspire to relocate abroad, a degree earned in-country will not open doors the way a highly ranked MBA from a name-brand university will. A second MBA is seen as an efficient way to move out of a stagnant career and enhance their competitiveness, allowing the degree holder to shift into a new function, industry or geography after completing their studies. Creating a rich classroom experience through diversity is a huge focus of the top business schools, offering students the opportunity to interact with peers from an array of countries and professional backgrounds. While the educational component of the degree in South Asian business schools, for example, may sometimes rival their international counterparts, the ability to create networking ties across the globe is nowhere near as strong. For career switchers looking to break into competitive industries such as finance or consulting, earning an MBA from a globally recognized brand becomes paramount. Story continues As with any blip or oddity in candidates' background, they need to think through their story as they prepare application essays. What did you not get from a prior MBA that you can get this time around? How is the target program different, or a better fit? Or maybe it's a matter of timing, and the first one was a mistake you need to acknowledge. What skills are you looking to gain, and why couldn't you acquire them with your first degree? An applicant needs to show why it would make sense to repeat the same degree from a different school. It can be a hard narrative to flesh out and tell in a compelling way, but it's not impossible. [Know when to write an optional business school application essay.] When I first read through the profile for our client Vijay, I saw strong academic numbers, volunteer involvement, an interesting entrepreneurial venture -- and that he already had an MBA from one of the Indian Institutes of Management. My first question was the same any admissions committee member would ask him: "Why do you need a second MBA?" Vijay entered an IIM program when he was a university student to supplement his engineering coursework. While he had received an MBA credential, he considered the degree as an addendum to his undergraduate diploma. Also, his degree did not provide the same career advantages he would get from one of his target schools in the U.S., which were the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania and University of Michigan--Ann Arbor's Ross School of Business. For his career goals essay, we discussed exactly what this second MBA degree would do for Vijay's career. We also used the optional essay to clearly outline how specific coursework in entrepreneurship, international experience and networking opportunities at each program made a second MBA absolutely necessary. His hard work and compelling argument paid off, and Vijay pursued his second MBA at Sloan, where he made some great contacts for future entrepreneurial ventures. [Define your career goals before applying to an MBA program.] Many top business schools in the U.S. and Europe welcome applicants who already hold an MBA degree. If your first MBA is from a smaller international school, the elite programs are well aware of their advantages over the initial degree. Fortunately, your prior MBA degree won't be a problem for on-campus recruiting, though you should be able to explain why you needed the two degrees. Assuming you have a solid story, the emphasis will be on your work experience and skills. If you are admitted to a strong program, the degree -- combined with your skills -- will enable you to land a great job come graduation. Contact the admissions department at the programs you are interested in to find out the specifics for each school, and be ready to make a rock-solid case for why a second MBA is the next logical step for you. Amazon Amazon plans to celebrate its Golden Globe win for its original series "Mozart in the Jungle" by giving out a big, one-weekend-only discount. Friday through Sunday, Amazon's shopping club, Prime, will cost $73, down $26 from its usual $99 annual price tag. ($73, because this was the 73rd annual Golden Globes.) Walmart will close 269 stores, including 154 in the United States. The move will affect more than 16,000 employees, including 10,000 in the US. This is part of the retailer's efforts to shift resources to Walmart's supercenters and smaller-format Neighborhood Market stores American Apparel's former CEO, Dov Charney made a $300 million bid to buy back his former company. However, Bloomberg has reported that the company has rejected his attempts. Charney was backed by Hagan Capital Group and Silver Creek Capital Partners, and their private equity unit PressPlay Group, Business Insider learned in a press release earlier this week. In separate American Apparel news, Deutsche Bank has admitted that it is responsible for the retailer's recent payment scandal. A copy of the memo was obtained by Business Insider. When Kelly Blue Kinkel tried to return a coat she purchased from the online retailer, the customer service representative she spoke to agreed to refund her money but he said the company wouldn't take back her coat. He asked that she give her coat to charity or someone who truly needs a coat. She posted the story on Facebook, and now it's going viral. US Weekly reported the story first. Story continues With all 12 months in, we now know that 2015 was the worst year for retail sales since 2009. "A disappointing headline and even worse details suggest that spending in Q4 will likely drag GDP down even further," BNP Paribas' Bricklin Dwyer wrote to clients. "The December retail sales report implies a downward revision to our tracking estimate of consumption spending in Q4." Pure Pizza of Charlotte, North Carolina, is generating buzz for an unexpected reason: a note hanging inside its unisex bathroom. "We have a UniSex bathroom because sometimes gender specific toilets put others into uncomfortable situations," the note reads. Fireball Whiskey's sales are soaring. It's the sixth-most popular liquor brand in America by retail sales, putting it ahead of classic brands like Grey Goose and Jim Beam, according to CNN Money. That doesn't include sales in bars. Hsieh believes that the employees who chose to leave are happier, regardless of what caused them to take the severance package. "We want to make sure that employees aren't here for just a paycheck and that they truly believe that this is the right place for them," he said to Business Insider. At the ICR Conference in Orlando, CEO Laurent Potdevin said that the company sold 90% of its apparel at full price between Cyber Monday and Christmas, Sapna Maheshwari of Buzzfeed reported. This is notable, as most retailers often have to resort to heavy promotions during the holiday season. More From Business Insider A new US study suggests that placing health warning labels on soda packaging, similar to those already found on cigarette packets, may help to dissuade parents from buying sugary beverages for their children. Some US states have already passed a bill requiring sugar-sweetened beverages to display a health warning label, however until now there has been little data collected to suggest how effective these labels are, and which type of label has the most influence. A new study, led by the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, is the first to examine the possible influence of these labels. To conduct the research, the team recruited 2,381 parents who had at least one child between the ages of six and 11 years old. The participants were from diverse backgrounds, with many from racial and ethic minorities, groups. The participants were divided into six groups, which included a control group, who saw no warning label on the drinks; the "calorie label" group, who saw the drink's calorie label but no warning label; and four "warning label" groups, who saw one of four health warning labels which all cautioned about the drink's possible negative health effects. All of the participants were then asked to complete an online survey, which involved being asked to choose a drink to buy for their child. The results showed that although the specific text and information on the label had no effect on the parent's choice to purchase the drink, the presence of the label itself was enough to make a difference. When there was no health warning label present 60% of participants said they would choose a sugar-sweetened drink for their children. However when there was a health warning label present, this number dropped to 40%. And of those parents that only saw the calorie-label, 53% said they would choose the sugary drink, showing a health warning label to be more effective. The study also asked parents on their opinion on adding health warning labels to sugar-sweetened beverages, and found that 75% of parents were in support of warning labels being added to packaging. The researchers are hoping that the promising results will encourage further research in this area, which could provide a new method for tackling the rising levels of obesity, as well as other health problems associated with high sugar consumption such as diabetes and tooth decay. The study was published online in the journal Pediatrics. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. That's not meant to evoke Charles Dickens, but rather to sum up the vastly different views of America as expressed by politicians this week. On Tuesday night President Obama, in his State of the Union address, tried to convince the country that things were going pretty well. In Thursday night's GOP debate the candidates basically proclaimed that the world is going to hell. As if they had ingested a heavy dose of political Viagra, the candidates used the president's speech to deliver blistering attacks on him, and by extension, Hillary Clinton, in the opening segment. "On Tuesday night I watched 'Storytime with Barack Obama,' " Chris Christie sneered. Obama lives in an "alternative universe," Jeb Bush pronounced. Read More: TV Ratings: Latest GOP Debate Fetches 18 Million Viewers for CNN "Hillary Clinton is disqualified from being commander-in-chief," Marco Rubio fumed. He also announced that he would rely on the advice of "the most powerful intelligence agency in the world" to fight terrorism. Presumably he meant Israel's Shin Bet, since our former CIA director assured George W. Bush that it was a "slam dunk" that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Speaking of mass destruction, Ben Carson took the opportunity while answering a question about terrorists to deliver a detailed description of how they could cripple America by such methods as attacking our electrical grid. If any members of ISIS were watching, they were probably taking notes. The candidates often seemed like vultures circling the dead. Donald Trump referred to the critically injured victims of the Paris and San Bernardino attacks as if he couldn't wait for them to expire and raise the body count. And several of the candidates mentioned how many Supreme Court Justices the next president would be appointing, no doubt prompting those currently on the bench to immediately call their physicians and urgently request check-ups. Story continues But enough about the issues. The evening was far more notable as a Cruz/Trump smackdown. The pair, previously involved in a heartwarming bromance, went at each other furiously after the former was asked about Trump's attacks on him for not being a natural born citizen and thus ineligible for the presidency. Read More: 'SNL' Spoofs Trump, Candidates in GOP Debate Sketch Referring to Trump's mother's birth in Scotland, Cruz told his rival, "I'm not going to use your mother's birth against you." Trump, clearly flustered by the loud booing directed toward him, said that he hadn't cared about the issue before, but did now "because [Cruz's] doing a little bit better" in the polls. Even he seemed to be laughing at the absurdity of his argument, which included telling Cruz he should get a good lawyer to thoroughly vet the issue. "I'm not taking legal advice from Donald Trump," Cruz responded, even as the two men jokingly offered each other their VP slots. But it was Marco Rubio who got the biggest laugh when he piped in, "I hate to interrupt this episode of Court TV." Meanwhile, President Obama, who famously had to deal with the birther issue himself, was presumably in the White House laughing his ass off. The two men also got heavily into it over Cruz's attack on Trump about having "New York values." The Donald, who looked aggrieved if he had to answer any question with anything more than a yes or no, took the opportunity to deliver a passionate defense of his state and city, citing the heroic response to the 9/11 attacks as an example. Cruz, perhaps suddenly doubting the wisdom of insulting one of the country's most populous states, was uncharacteristically sheepish. He finally conceded that there were many "wonderful people" there. Cruz was also asked about the recent story in the New York Times exposing his senatorial campaign for not reporting a $1 million loan from Goldman Sachs, where his wife works. "The New York Times and I don't exactly have the warmest of relationships," Cruz pointed out, before dismissing the issue as a mere "paperwork error." Read More: Fox Business' Neil Cavuto Talks GOP Debate Questions, CNBC Backlash, Trump's "Nuanced" Economic Plan Trump later picked up the attack against the Gray Lady when posed a question about the paper's reporting that he was proposing a massive tariff on Chinese imports, huffing, "It's The New York Times, they're always wrong." Tomorrow's editorials in the paper were writing themselves. The evening's other main slugfest was between Rubio and Christie, who frequently attacked each other over issues ranging from Common Core to immigration to gun control. The latter uncharacteristically, and more than a little disingenuously, seemed to settle the issue when he announced "I like Marco Rubio." Not surprisingly, gun control was a major topic, with all of the candidates competing with each other to see who could sound the most strident. Rubio won handily, referring to the Second Amendment so often in one answer that it seemed like he was trying to win a private bet. (Incidentally, was it really necessary for moderator Maria Bartiromo to namecheck Dylan Roof while asking a question about the horrific Charleston church massacre? The psycho killer was probably high-fiving his fellow white supremacists while watching the debate in prison.) Read More: Critic's Notebook: GOP Debate or Schoolyard Brawl? The foreign policy segments were particularly strange, with Lindsay Graham's positions evoked so thoroughly by the moderators that the former candidate, sitting in the audience, was probably contemplating reentering the race. Trump referred to the Syrian migrants as a lot of "strong, powerful men," which just sounded creepy. And Jeb Bush yes, he was there too apparently reconsidered the wisdom of his previous attacks on Trump's position about banning Muslim immigrants. Instead of calling the idea "unhinged," as the moderators reminded him he had done, he implored Trump, "I hope you'll reconsider," sounding like a pimply teenager begging his girlfriend not break up with him. There were the usual surreal moments. Carson informed us that "secular progressives" don't have "values or principles." But then again, he wasn't likely to get the atheist or agnostic vote anyway. With a question that would no doubt appear in the dictionary if you looked up the word "irony," Bartiromo actually asked Christie about how to best to fix the country's "ailing roads and bridges." Uh, here's an idea. How about not closing them? Cruz plugged his proposal to take away the citizenship and passports of Americans who traveled overseas and engaged in terrorist activities. Or, as Obama might point out, you could kill them instead. Trump, when asked about whether he would put his financial assets into a blind trust if he was elected president, responded that he would put his beloved companies in the hands of his children, including Ivanka, who were sitting in the audience. "Run the company, kids, have a good time," he grandstanded, having apparently never seen a performance of King Lear. And in his closing statement, Cruz managed to get in a plug for the movie 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, opening the following day. So much for Hollywood's liberal agenda. Read More: GOP Debate: Donald Trump Interrupted by a Heckler At the Republican debates last night, Donald Trump argued that fellow Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz might be ineligible to be U.S. president, given that the Constitution requires the president to be a "natural born citizen" of the country. (Cruz was born in Canada, though his mother was an American citizen at the time of his birth.) Some have argued that a 1952 law deems people with one American parent born outside the United States as nationals and citizens of the U.S. at birth. Others argue that the framers of the U.S. Constitution clearly meant someone born on American soil. One man, Houston attorney Newton Schwartz Sr., has even filed a suit against Cruz, aiming to settle the question before the primaries or party conventions get under way, Bloomberg Business reported. Whatever your opinion may be, it is true that all of the presidents to date have been born in one of the 50 U.S. states. Live Science took a look at where the presidents were born. While the tally may have a lot to do with chance, the overall trends do reflect changes in the population, politics and attitudes of Americans over the years. [Map: See Where All the U.S. Presidents Were Born] Proud to be an American It's no surprise that all 44 presidents were born on U.S. soil: The requirement for a president to be a "natural born citizen" is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. The current debate about what that means stems from the fact that there's no document trail to reveal what, exactly, the Constitution writers meant by that statement. "This wasn't one of the big, burning questions at the Constitutional Convention," said James Melcher, a political science professor at the University of Maine at Farmington. However, an early letter from Supreme Court Justice John Jay to George Washington reveals that the founders were likely trying to avoid foreign influence on American politics, Melcher said. At its birth, America was incredibly weak and insecure, and had recently been in a fight for its life against the British, Melcher said. "It was a little itty-bitty thing; it only had 5 million people," Melcher told Live Science. Story continues So the law reflects distrust that a foreign power could unduly influence the course of the country and even command its armies, Melcher said. "What [the founders] were trying to say is, 'We don't trust the British; they could try to infiltrate this new America and bring us down from the outside,'" said Larry Sabato Jr., director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. "They were worried about a Manchurian candidate except not Chinese, but British." Electoral changes, population changes All of the early presidents, except the John Adamses, hailed from Virginia, and eight presidents, or nearly one in five, were born in the state. "Virginia was the most populous state in the country in the 18th century, and you had just a remarkable collection of intellectual firepower and leaders coming from there," Melcher said. However, that early lead has since dissipated, and the last president from Virginia was Woodrow Wilson, who governed from 1913 to 1921. Ohio is also disproportionately represented, claiming seven of the country's presidents. That reflects Ohio's historical brand of politics, as well as its more populous and prominent past, Melcher said. "Ohio used to be a more central state in the country than it is now," not too far north or south, east or west, Melcher said. In addition, the swing state's moderate, unheated and even bland political style played better in early electoral politics, Melcher said. Prior to 1968, state politicians got together in smoky rooms to pick presidential candidates, while primaries counted for relatively little. These backroom deal makers often picked someone who most of the state party leaders could get behind often the opposite of someone with strong points of view, according to Melcher. Superstition may have played a role in the decision, too. Once one Ohioan made it to the Oval Office, state leaders might have decided that Ohioans were more likely to win, and thus might have been more willing to select a Buckeye State resident as their preferred presidential candidate, Melcher said. However, since Warren G. Harding (who many blame for corruption scandals), no Ohioans have made it to the Oval Office. That likely reflects its dwindling population relative to the growth of the overall U.S. population, as well as changes in how presidential candidates are selected. With primaries playing a more central role in the process, winners tend to be more extreme candidates who can "fire up the base" and that doesn't tend to jive with the mild-mannered Ohio strain of politics, Melcher said. [The 5 Nastiest, Strangest Political Elections in History] Meanwhile, some of the most populous states such as California, Texas and Pennsylvania claim relatively few presidents. That is part history, part geography and part luck. California earned its statehood in 1850, but the rest of the Southwest and the Rocky Mountain states took decades longer to become part of the United States. "You had a lot of empty country and didn't have a lot of communication," Sabato said. Therefore, anyone from California would have headed east to have any hope of winning the presidential election, Sabato said. But Pennsylvania is even more bizarre. It was one of the original colonies (the Constitutional Convention occurred there), had a large population from the beginning and is even a swing state. Yet it has produced just one U.S. president James Buchanan. Though Buchanan is considered by many to have been a "terrible" president who helped bring on the Civil War through inaction, it's a mystery as to why Pennsylvania hasn't produced more leaders, Sabato said. Born at home While Abraham Lincoln may have been the only president to have been born in a log cabin, his birth at home was completely unexceptional. All but four of the presidents were born at home: Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. The home-birth trend mirrors changes in American society. For instance, while just 1.36 percent of babies born in 2012 entered the world at home, about 95 percent were born at home in 1900, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But by 1944, less than 44 percent of births occurred at home, according to the CDC. But the stats on presidents' birth states can be a little misleading, Sabato said. Many presidents spent little time in their home state before heading off to greener political pastures. (For instance, although Ronald Reagan was born in Illinois, he first rose to power in California. And although George W. Bush was born in Connecticut, he came into big-league politics when he became the 46th governor of Texas.) Beyond that, there have been almost 1 billion Americans in history, and just 43 have occupied the country's highest office, Sabato said. (Grover Cleveland gets counted twice.) Therefore, because the group of presidents is so small and there are so many factors affecting the outcome, it may be hard to draw any conclusions about how birthplace affects the odds of becoming president, he said. "It is a haphazard process," Sabato said. "Politics is haphazard." Editor's Note: This article was updated to add information about last night's Republican debate and the lawsuit filed against Ted Cruz. Follow Tia Ghose on Twitterand Google+. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science. Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Chicago (AFP) - Republican White House hopeful Ted Cruz faced a legal challenge to his eligibility to be president Friday in a lawsuit filed over his birth in Canada. It comes after frontrunner Donald Trump -- a 'birther' who famously challenged President Barack Obama to produce his Hawaiian birth certificate -- has been hammering away at the hardline Texas senator's eligibility. Cruz insists he has met the constitutional requirements to be a "natural-born" citizen because his mother was born in Delaware. During a presidential debate Thursday night, he accused the real estate mogul of manufacturing a crisis to retain his lead in the polls. "Back in September, my friend Donald said he had his lawyers look at this from every which way and there was no issue there," Cruz said. "Now since September, the constitution hasn't changed. But the poll numbers have," he added. "Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling in Iowa." He went on to point out that Trump, whose mother was born in Scotland, was disqualifying himself. Trump shot back: "As you know, Ted, in the last three polls I'm beating you. So you shouldn't misrepresent how well you're doing with the polls." "You have a big lawsuit over your head." The lawsuit filed in federal court in Texas is seeking a judgment on Cruz's eligibility, arguing that the case law is simply not clear on the definition of a natural born US citizen. "The entire nation cannot afford such constitutionally (sic) confusion and uncertainties overhangings (sic) the electorate process," the suit filed on behalf of Texas resident Newton Boris Schawtz argues. Cruz was born in 1970 in Calgary, Alberta to an American mother and a Cuban father who returned to live in the United States after a year. Cruz renounced his Canadian citizenship last year. In 2008, a man unsuccessfully challenged the eligibility of Republican contender John McCain, who was born on a US military base in Panama. Story continues As a precaution, the Senate unanimously adopted a resolution recognizing McCain as a natural citizen. The lawsuit noted that despite the fact that Obama's mother, like that of Cruz, was indisputably an American citizen, his eligibility remains in doubt among conservative critics who still believe he was actually born in Kenya, the country of birth of his father. "It was his birth in Hawaii that was decisive and not his mother's," the lawsuit contends. "That is why it has been under constant attack for eight years, including by Donald Trump publicly." Tenzin Seldon has the fire of a Tibetan warrior. Her presence is quiet yet commanding, and her words haunting especially when she speaks about her much embattled motherland and the slow silencing of our cause. With flowing dark tresses and an ever serene vibe, shes got some Angelina Jolie in her: burning gaze, humanitarian devotion. But instead of raiding tombs in Siberia and Cambodia, Seldons main battlefront lies in the isolated, mountainous hinterlands of southwestern China. Although Tibet became embroiled in conflict long before Seldon was born, the 26-year-old consultant at the United Nations in Bangkok is helping broker peace between China and Tibet. Shes part of a generation of young Tibetan leaders who are both estranged from their motherland and intimately connected to its future. And though Seldon, the headstrong daughter of refugees, has yet to actually set foot in Tibet, shes already brushed shoulders with the Dalai Lama, whom shes met more than 10 times. In fact, Lobsang Sangay, the prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile, says that Seldon a Rhodes scholar and the first-ever Tibetan to receive the Truman scholarship is well on the course to extinguishing one of the worlds longest-blazing conflicts. She is not only highly educated, but her heart is at the right place for Tibet, says Sangay, the political successor to the Dalai Lama. Tenzin seldon 3 Tenzin Seldon shows her Tibetan prayer beads. Source: Lillian Suwanrumpha for OZY Politics for the Tibetan diaspora is never quite business as usual. China and Tibet have crossed swords for more than half a century over a huge tract of land thats roughly the size of Peru. While the numbers depend on which side you ask, an estimated 1.2 million Tibetans have been killed and hundreds more continue to flee every year, according to the Central Tibetan Administration. So much of the country lives far from its physical home: in Dharamsala in northeast India where the Dalai Lama (whose office did not reply to request for comment) is in exile and in the southern part of India, in Mysore, a town studded with monasteries, where monks may not even speak the local language. You can find Seldons version of the nation in dignified protest around the world: Shes gathered 100-plus Tibetan and Chinese students to debate censorship and suppression under the moderating hand of His Holiness himself; she speaks out at multilateral delegations. She appears as the young, fresh face of Tibet in documentaries. And, of course, at the endless protests in the U.S. and the U.K., which find her quietly presiding no megaphones or pickets here. Story continues Seldons is perhaps the most high-profile political marketing job in the world, grander than the work of an average press secretary when you dont have a physical country with borders to protect and defend, your job becomes defining those borders. For decades, the Dalai Lama and the exiled Tibetan governments strategy has been a kind of public evangelism for the Tibetan cause. Their success depends on world leaders acceding to their pressure. And if youre not self-immolating, the next most important task is to present a face of peace and tranquility as an unofficial diplomat of sorts. She has a hint of flower child to her, preaching faith, compassion and peace wherever she goes. From her apartment in Bangkok, Seldon tells me about her refugee-kid days. An Indian-born child, she first attended boarding schools on the subcontinent before finding herself in the U.S. as a preteen. Here, she encountered her mother, whod left her in India a decade earlier. Seldon says she never quite fit in anywhere and always felt confused. She has a hint of flower child to her, preaching faith, compassion and peace wherever she goes. Buddhism touched her early she grew up hearing her grandmother recite prayers at 5 or 6 a.m. every day and she attends an annual silent meditation retreat. Tenzin seldon 5 Tenzin Seldon outside of the UN building in Bangkok, Thailand, where she currently works as a consultant. Source: Lillian Suwanrumpha for OZY Seldons father who remained in India as the minister of education took her to vigils and protests as a 5-year-old, before she could even spell nonviolence. She attended a small public school in Minnesota, moved to California in high school and then headed to a local community college for two years before starting at Stanford. Seldon has the sensibilities of the West, of America, says Tenzin Tethong, the president of the Dalai Lama Foundation and former prime minister of Tibet. Naturally, Seldon hasnt gone unnoticed: Chinese hackers have infiltrated her computer and emails, hampering her ability to champion the Tibetan cause from anywhere in the world. Moreover, that outsider status might work against her, Tethong muses: It could be a challenge to go into a community that has different life experiences from what you have. Seldon replies that theres dignity in refusing to enter a country where you dont have autonomy or human rights, until we get all of our freedoms. After all, thats the cold reality for young Tibetans like Seldon. We dont have a choice, she says. For the most part, the future of Tibet hinges on these next-generation politicians who are born and bred in exile. Even if one is enlightened, Seldon says, it would be difficult to know what will happen. So, what is Seldon certain of? Her lifes work will always be underpinned by her dream to finally visit a free Tibet with more autonomy one day. As she explains, Im just laying the bricks to the house that I want to build. Related Articles Theres an exciting new rumor going around that says our favorite Star Wars villains of all time is returning to the universe in the near future. Darth Vader, complete with original costume and the voice of none other than James Earl Jones, is supposedly going to make a comeback and youve probably guessed where the Dark Lord might appear. DONT MISS: Watch the leaked trailer of J.J. Abrams Cloverfield 2 In addition to the remaining episodes in the new Star Wars trilogy, Disney will produce at least three spin-off movies between now and 2020, one of them being Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. You can learn about every new Star Wars movie that will be released over the next five years right here. The action in Rogue One takes place in between episodes III and IV, at a time when Darth Vader is still alive and well, having fully transitioned from Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader. According to a report from Marking Star Wars, theres a Darth Vader Dream Team for Rogue One. Apparently, the team has recreated an exact replica of the Darth Vaders costume seen in A New Hope. By all accounts the costume is so close to the original everyone is very happy and very impressed with the work done by Brian Muir and his team, the news site says. Also interesting is Joness involvement. After all, Darth Vaders voice is an iconic element of Star Wars villainy. Star Wars Rogue One Its not clear at this time who will be the actor inside the Darth Vader costume in the movie, or what kind of screen time Darth Vader will receive. The site says that most of the current rumors have him as a prominent player in a few scenes and something to fear for the heroes. After all, one does not simply go about stealing the plans of the Death Star without getting Darth Vaders undivided attention. Not to mention that Darth Vader is really interested in getting the stolen plans back at the start of A New Hope. This seems to support the idea that Rogue One will feature the iconic villain in some capacity. Story continues Furthermore, Disney is rumored to be working on a CGI version of the Grand Moff Tarkin for the spin-off movie. And you know whos usually around the Governer Tarkin? Youve guessed it, Darth Vader. On a different note, lets also not forget that Disney is working on a standalone Han Solo movie, and Darth Vader might also be needed there though thats just speculation on our part at this time. Related stories Forget the Force, here's why almost everyone should have died at the end of Star Wars New video shows 'The Force Awakens' before and after special effects are added What it's like being the most hated man in 'Star Wars' More from BGR: 10 paid iPhone apps on sale for free today This article was originally published on BGR.com By Umaru Fofana FREETOWN (Reuters) - A body has tested positive for Ebola in Sierra Leone, a spokesman for the Health Ministry said, just hours after the World Health Organization said transmission of the virus in West Africa had ended. Two swab tests carried out on the deceased person by British health organisation Public Health England came back positive in the Tonkolili district east of the capital Freetown, the spokesman said late on Thursday. Neither the gender nor the age of the deceased person was released. It was not clear how many people the patient had been in contact with before the virus was detected. The tests reinforce concerns about flare-ups of the virus that has killed more than 11,300 people since 2013 in the world's deadliest outbreak of Ebola. Almost all the victims were in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, but all three countries had been declared free of the virus: Sierra Leone on Nov. 7, Guinea late last year, and Liberia on Thursday. The World Health Organization warned on Thursday that despite the absence of known transmissions of the disease in over two months, there could still be cases of Ebola in the region. This was because survivors can carry the virus for months and pass it on. The WHO on Friday confirmed the new Ebola case in Sierra Leone but did not immediately provide details or say whether there was a risk of others being infected. While it has said that another major outbreak of the disease is unlikely, it reiterated its message of caution. "WHO stresses ongoing risk of flare-ups due to the re-emergence of the virus throughout 2016 due to persistence of the virus in the survivor population," a spokesman said. (Reporting by Umaru Fofana, additional reporting by Tom Miles and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Edward McAllister; Editing by Mark Trevelyan) The best trade for technology investors of 2015 is off a bumpy start in the new year. Facebook (FB), Amazon (AMZN), Netflix (NFLX) and Alphabet's Google (GOOGL), known collectively as FANG, averaged an 83% gain last year while the overall market barley budged. But so far in 2016, the popular group of stocks has lost more than 9% each on average through Wednesday, slightly lagging the 8% drop in the S&P 500. The best-performing stocks from one year rarely outperform the following year, but could FANG break the pattern? After all, each of the four companies continues to dominate at least one massive and growing market, whether it's Facebook's reign over social networking, Google and digital ads, or Netflix and streaming video. Amazon has a grasp over two: e-commerce and cloud computing. Investors last year certainly recognized the four for their success. The gains made by just those four stocks collectively added 3.7 percentage points to the return of the S&P 500 Index for the year, according to Yahoo Finance calculations with data from S&P. The index only gained 1.4% for the year, so absent the FANG group, the benchmark would have shown a loss for 2015. But the superior gains have also driven the stocks to hefty market capitalizations and pricey valuations, increasing the risks for investors looking to the future. And the strong performance has created the kind of uniformly positive outlook on Wall Street that can also signal excessive optimism. Not a single one of the dozens of analysts covering Facebook, Google or Amazon rates any of the three a "sell" currently, according to FactSet. Just 3 of 42 analysts following Netflix rate it a "sell." In the entire U.S. stock market, Google's $488 billion market capitalization trails only Apple (AAPL). Amazon, at $273 billion, and Facebook, at $270 billion, are both in the top 10. Netflix, at $45 billion, remains a relative pipsqueak by that measure. Shares of Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google, known collectively as FANG, skyrocketed in 2015. But on price-to-earnings ratios, Netflix is more impressive, trading at a jaw dropping (to some) 282 times its profits. Amazon, too, trades at an almost unheard of 843 times profits. Both numbers are deceptive, however. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings are both known for steering potential profits back into their businesses to fuel growth instead of the bottom line. Facebook's P/E of 96 and Google's of 33 seem positively down to earth compared to Amazon and Netflix, while the entire S&P 500 trades at 20 times profits. "It's a challenge when you're investing in companies that generally are in favor and executing well," says Tony Ursillo, an equity analyst at Loomis Sayles. "Sentiment tends to drive the stocks to valuations levels that in the short term might be extended." But Ursillo and other investors with a long-term outlook say that despite the recent drops, they still favor the four stocks. Few other tech companies are growing as quickly and -- barring a recession -- nothing has appeared yet to slow them down. "I still feel confident and very bullish on these companies," says Paul Greene, manager of the T. Rowe Price Media & Telecommunications Fund. The strong performance of 2015 is irrelevant to Greene, though. "I never look at the past [performance]," he says. "If you did that at any point in time for a company like Amazon or Netflix, you would probably miss out on a lot of the return." (As of Dec. 31, the $3.6 billion fund's top holding was Amazon, second-biggest position was Alphabet and Facebook was its 5th-largest holding. The fund hasn't disclosed smaller positions since Sept. 30, when it held $55 million worth of Netflix shares.) That's not to say the volatility won't continue, especially as the overall markets remain in turmoil amid growing fears that the global economy could slip into recession. Peter Bourbeau, co-manager of the large-cap growth and all-cap growth strategies at ClearBridge Investments, says he has "zero clue" if the FANG stocks will beat the market this year, but says they'll still be outstanding bets over the long term. "In calendar 2014, Google did zero, Amazon was dreadful," he says. "They kind of go up in a stair step fashion. Its not going to be linear. Story continues Risks ahead Still, that's not to say that long-term investors aren't on the lookout for for specific risks that could change their outlook. U.S. and European antitrust regulators could pose a challenge to further growth, particularly at Facebook and Google, which have relied on some critically important acquisitions in the past, including Instagram, YouTube, and even the Android software for smartphones. "You wouldn't want to see the EU and [Department of Justice] breathing down their necks on every deal," says Clearbridge's Bourbeau. Shares of Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google, known collectively as FANG, have dropped so far in 2016. At Google's parent Alphabet, the company plans to start separating the results of its money-losing, long term bets from its core search and advertising businesses starting with its upcoming fourth-quarter report. That could demonstrate the growing profits of the core businesses, which include search, Android, YouTube and display ads. But it could also highlight how much money is being sucked up to develop self-driving cars, Internet service via blimps and a cure for cancer. The new disclosures could hurt the stock more than they help it, says Scott Kessler, an analyst at S&P Capital IQ. "A lot of the good news is already in the stock," Kessler says. "And a lot of these experiments are going to look somewhat premature at this point." Amazon benefitted from Bezos's decision last year to invest a little less in new businesses and report some actual profits on the bottom line. But the CEO could decide to return to heavy investment mode in 2016, says Loomis analyst Ursillo. And while that wouldn't change his long-term positive outlook on the stock, investors with a different time horizon might get jumpy. "In the short run, if you're expecting that margins are going to ramp up materially, they may not," he says. "And that's probably not going to be received well by investors." Netflix, which just announced an earlier-than-expected expansion into 130 new countries, including India and Russia, could run into problems if its subscriber growth rate slows. Hollywood could also become a challenge as some movie and TV moguls have made noise about charging Netflix more or withholding some popular content to help prop up the cable industry. What's next? Even as they fret about FANG's outlook, investors are searching for the next set of superior stocks. RBC Capital Markets has already picked a mix of new and old favorites and created a new acronym, BAGEL, which (imperfectly) stands for Alibaba (BABA), Amazon, Google, Expedia (EXPE) and LinkedIn (LNKD). LinkedIn, the premier site for recruiting and job networking, deserves "equal billing" with the FANG stocks due its dominant position and strong management team, says Ursillo. "There's really no other professional networking site out there to compete with them long term," he says. Beyond the BAGEL stocks, some investors point to Microsoft (MSFT) as a possible outperformer this year. It did quite well last year -- the stock gained 19% -- and it's P/E ratio is a more modest 17, attracting some investors with concerns about FANG's outlook. CEO Satya Nadella has pivoted the software giant away from some of his predecessor Steve Ballmer's defensive moves and toward high-growth areas like cloud services and mobile apps. "Hes deemphasized all of Ballmers nonsense and hes emphasizing the cloud, says Bourbeau, a Microsoft fan. Travel site operator Priceline Group (PCLN) lost 2% last year, even as sales grew 11% over the most recently reported 12 months. Some investors are worried about growing competition for hotel bookings from the still-private home and apartment sharing service, Airbnb, but that threat has been exaggerated, says T. Rowe manager Greene, whose firm has invested in both companies. That will become clear once Airbnb eventually decides to go public and investors can compare financial results on an even footing. "We used to say one of the best things for Google's stock price would be if Facebook could come public," he notes, recalling when similar competitive fears of a rising but private competitor dogged the search giant. "The same is true here." (Correction: This story was updated on Jan. 15 to correct that the top holding in the T. Rowe Price Media & Telecommunication Fund as of Dec. 31 was Amazon, the second-largest holding was Alphabet and Facebook ranked fifth.) By Gene Emery It's long been known that cancer survivors -- people alive five years after diagnosis -- face a higher risk of premature death, and doctors have made efforts over the decades to reduce those deaths. A new study of childhood cancer cases suggests that the effort has been successful, at least to some degree. Most people "kind of assume that if you hit the five-year time point, you've beaten your cancer and the story's over," chief author Dr. Gregory Armstrong of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis told Reuters Health by phone. "I think the first thing this paper does is show on a national scale that beyond five years there's a very significant risk of mortality. That should be a big wakeup call for most of the primary physicians who are taking care of these patients." "At the same time," he said, "this paper comes along and shows the good news part of the story - modern survivors are doing better, even though they still have an elevated risk of mortality compared to the general population." The study was published online in the New England Journal of Medicine. The analysis of 34,033 patients whose cancers were diagnosed before age 21 and who survived to the five-year mark found that the odds of death from any cause, including due to a recurrence or progression of a cancer, declined for children treated in the 1980s compared to those treated in the 1970s. When treatment was initiated in the 1990s, the death rates were lower still. For survivors diagnosed in the 1970s, the odds of death at the 15-year mark were 10.7%. With treatment in the 1980s, the rate declined to 7.9%. For the 1990s it was 5.8%. When the researchers looked exclusively at death from recurrence or progression of the cancer, the death rates at 15 years were 7.1% for treatment in 1970s, 4.9% for the 1980s and 3.4% for the 1990s. Changes in the way radiation and chemotherapy are delivered, along with better follow-up care, are believed to be responsible. "What we had hoped was it would ultimately increase their lifespan and the risk for late mortality," said Dr. Armstrong. "In fact, it did." The improvement underscores the dramatic gains in pediatric cancer therapy seen since the 1960s, when fewer than half of children diagnosed with cancer survived for five years. The rate is now 83%. The new findings are based on data collected for the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study covering children treated at 31 institutions in the U.S. and Canada. Half the patients in the study were tracked for at least 21 years. Overall, 3,958 cancer survivors had died; 2,002 had succumbed to a recurrence or progression of their initial cancer. Another 746 died from developing a different type of cancer. The researchers also measured the rate of death from all other health-related causes, a category that included deaths from heart and lung problems. Those death rates were 3.1% for people treated in the '70s, 2.4% in the '80s and 1.9% in the '90s. "The 2000s ought to bring even more marked improvements because we've seen new technologies and new deliveries of radiation therapy, and better and more appropriate use of chemotherapy, along with a reduction in certain chemotherapies that cause toxicity," Dr. Armstrong said. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1Q0IzJ6 The New England Journal of Medicine, online January 13, 2016. By David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Taliban in Afghanistan have yet to decide to join renewed peace efforts despite an urgent need to get talks going before the spring fighting season begins in April, a senior U.S. administration official said on Thursday. Delegates from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States held talks in Pakistan on Monday to try to resurrect efforts to end nearly 15 years of bloodshed in Afghanistan. They plan to meet again in Kabul on Monday. "We are very keen to emphasize the urgency of having talks going in view of the need to be talking and getting a process going during the lull in the fighting season," the senior official said. He said the four countries had agreed that no Afghan groups would be excluded from the talks and that there would be no preconditions for joining. "It's clear that the Taliban have not yet decided to join the reconciliation process, but we are proceeding on the basis that we have to test the proposition," the official said. It was up to the Afghan government to discuss what incentives the Taliban could be offered, he said, adding there were indications the militant group wanted to avoid the international isolation it felt when in power before 2001. Despite intensified battles, the Taliban had been unable to hold onto territory they had seized, the official said. "It is by no means certain they necessarily can win on the battlefield," he said. If the Taliban sought a degree of legitimacy, "that can only be achieved by them negotiating a place on the political table." On Tuesday, Afghanistan's chief negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Karzai, said he was hopeful the insurgents would join the process but warned that public support would wane if there were no quick results. A previous round broke down in July after it became known that the Taliban's founder and leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, had been dead for two years and his deputy Mullah Akhtar Mansour had been in control. The news badly damaged trust between Kabul and Islamabad, which many in Afghanistan believed had taken part in the cover-up, and set off a bloody leadership struggle within the Islamist movement. A substantial faction led by Mullah Mohammad Rasoul has rejected Mansour's authority. Militants close to Mansour have said they may consider joining talks, but so far Rasoul's faction has ruled out any such efforts involving foreign powers. (Reporting by David Brunnstrom and Jonathan Landay; Editing by Howard Goller) Donald Trump is all about protecting our troops and being tough on foreign leaders. So it stands to reason that when 10 U.S. sailors were detained by Iran (after their boat crossed into its territorial waters earlier this week), the GOP frontrunner would take to Twitter to demand that the Americans be released immediately, or else. We want our hostages back NOW! he tweeted. And just to be sure he typed now using ALL CAPS You know, to make sure the Iranians knew he was dead serious. Also Read: Donald Trump Is a Dream Candidate, Except for One Thing Just one problem with that. The sailors had already been released hours earlier. The U.S. Department of Defense released a statement this morning at 3.43 a.m. EST to say that the sailors had been released and were not harmed. However Trump must have missed it because he posted this tweet around 7 a.m.: Iran toys with U.S. days before we pay them, ridiculously, billions of dollars. Don't release money. We want our hostages back NOW! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 13, 2016 Also Read: 'The View': Joy Behar Blasts 'White Anger' in Presidential Field According to Business Insider, Trump said that the Iranians like to taunt us because they dont have respect for our leaders and that he would be much tougher than President Obama has been on Iran. The Navy is launching an investigation into why the sailors ended up in Iran after their boat reportedly had mechanical issues. Related stories from TheWrap: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders Talk Iowa Caucus in 'Courting Des Moines' Trailer (Video) Gov. Nikki Haley Deftly Dismisses Trump in Powerful State of the Union Response Donald Trump Has a Mock Job Interview With Jimmy Fallon (Video) Donald Trump is giving Iowans free tickets to a showing of Michael Bay's new movie, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. Trump's Iowa co-chair Tana Goertz said the real estate mogul turned Republican presidential candidate is renting space at the Carmike Cobblestone 9 Theater in Urbandale. Mr. Trump would like all Americans to know the truth about what happened at Benghazi, Goertz told the Des Moines Register. The film focuses on the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that led to the deaths of four Americans. It doesn't mention Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, but Clinton critics are looking forward to the movie. Director Michael Bay and Paramount say 13 Hours is apolitical, although the marketing campaign for the film is aimed largely at conservatives. This event got very politicized, Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore told The Hollywood Reporter, referring to Benghazi. Conservatives will say this film makes the Democratic decision-making at the time look bad. That is not our focus or our goal. Our goal is to show this amazing heroism that has been pushed into the background because of the politics. Read More: '13 Hours' Benghazi Movie Being Marketed to Conservative Moviegoers BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Italy's dispute with the European Union heated up on Friday as Prime Minister Matteo Renzi rejected calls by the head of the bloc's executive to tone down his criticism of EU policies on migration, banking and the budget. "We won't be intimidated by sound bites," Renzi said in a pre-recorded interview with Canale 5's evening television news to be shown later on Friday, according to a Tweet by the channel's director. "Italy deserves respect," Renzi reportedly added. He was responding to comments from European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker earlier in the day. "I think that the Italian Prime Minister, whom I respect a lot, is wrong to criticise the Commission at each street corner," Juncker told reporters in Brussels, hinting at possible domestic reasons for the criticism. "I keep my bitterness, which is big, in my pocket," Juncker added. Caught between the crossfire of two anti-euro opposition parties in Rome and wrestling with stubbornly low economic output after three years of recession, Renzi has opened up disputes with the EU on several fronts. Italy on Friday stood by its position to block an EU plan to set up a 3-billion-euro fund to help Turkey stem the worst inflow in decades of asylum seekers into Europe. CRITICISM OF MERKEL Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan, following a meeting of finance ministers in Brussels, said resources to help Turkey can come from the EU budget and there needs to be more certainty on how the money is spent. In recent weeks, 41-year-old Renzi has openly attacked Europe and Germany for policies that he sees as biased towards Berlin, and Renzi criticised German Chancellor Angela Merkel at an EU summit in December. Italy is also in talks with the Commission on whether it can be granted more fiscal leeway in its 2016 budget. "We have introduced a dose of increased flexibility against the will of some member states. Italy benefits from all the flexibility that has been introduced," Juncker said. In his interview with Canale 5, Renzi said the EU opened up to the idea of loosening the budget reins only after much insistence on Italy's part, Canale 5 director Clemente Mimun said on Twitter. The Commission will take a formal decision on the Italian budget in spring. To calm relations, Juncker will go to Italy at the end of February, in what will be his first visit to the country as president of the EU Commission. (Reporting by Francesco Guarascio, Alastair Macdonald and Steve Scherer; Editing by Ralph Boulton) Quito (AFP) - Ecuador said Friday that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can leave his hideout in its London embassy and go into exile in the South American country if Swedish prosecutors do not charge him after questioning him. "If they don't charge him, he can leave. We hope we won't have any problem with the United Kingdom. He would likely come to Ecuador, because he has already been granted asylum in our country," said Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino in an interview on public radio. Assange, who faces a rape allegation in Sweden, has been in hiding at the Ecuadoran embassy in London since 2012. The 44-year-old Australian refuses to travel to Sweden to answer the allegation, saying he fears he would then face extradition to the United States and trial over the leaking of hundreds of thousands of classified US military and diplomatic documents in 2010. Ecuador granted Assange asylum in 2012, after he sought refuge at its embassy while facing extradition to Sweden. British authorities have vowed to arrest him if he sets foot outside the embassy. Sweden said Wednesday it had formally requested permission to interrogate Assange at the embassy, after months of diplomatic wrangling finally yielded a Swedish-Ecuadoran deal on legal cooperation last month. Patino has said Ecuador will cooperate with Swedish prosecutors, but that the questioning will be conducted by Ecuadoran officials under Ecuadoran law. Swedish prosecutors dropped a sexual assault probe against Assange in mid-August after the five-year statute of limitations expired. But they still want to question him about a 2010 rape allegation, which carries a 10-year statute of limitations. Assange has denied all the allegations and insisted the sexual encounters were consensual. Today in One Paragraph Republican presidential hopefuls are gearing up for tonights debate. For some itll be an opportunity to make a much-needed impression, including Ben Carson, whose finance chair resigned hours before the gathering. Overseas, a terrorist attack killed seven, including five attackers, and injured at least 19 in Indonesia. In legal news, a federal judge ordered the release of a video that shows a Chicago police officer shooting and killing a black teenager in 2013, and Planned Parenthood sued the group that took and posted undercover videos alleging the organization profited from selling fetal tissue from abortions. Top News Back in the Ring. Fox Business Network will host one of the last Republican debates before the Iowa caucuses. The debate, which takes place in South Carolina and begins airing at 6 p.m., will feature seven candidates on the main stage. Rand Paul, who was demoted to the undercard debate due to low polling numbers, said he will not participate. (Russell Berman, The Atlantic) Recommended: Marco Rubio Sells Out His Principles Attack in Jakarta. Secretary of State John Kerry condemned todays attacks on Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, saying that acts of terror are not going to intimidate nation-states. A message allegedly from the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks, which left seven dead, including five attackers, and injured at least 19. (Fred Barbash and Brian Murphy, The Washington Post) More Questions for Chicago. Videos that show a Chicago police officer fatally shooting 17-year-old Cedrick Chatman were released by the city Thursday afternoon, a day after the city reversed course on more than two years of fighting to keep the video private. (Jason Meisner, The Chicago Tribune) Another One Bites the Dust. Ben Carsons finance chair, Dean Parker, resigned amid questions about his use of campaign funds and criticism from Carson allies and donors. This is the latest in a string of staff departures from the Carson campaign. (Kyle Cheney, Politico) Story continues Served. Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit accusing the anti-abortion group, the Center for Medical Progress, of unlawful behavior ranging from secret taping to trespassing. (Sarah Ferris, The Hill) Tomorrow in One Paragraph: Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Rand Paul, and Carly Fiorina will be in New Hampshire. Bill Clinton will stump for Hillary Clinton in Iowa, where Martin OMalley and Donald Trump will also be campaigning. Mike Huckabee will be in South Carolina. Follow stories throughout the day with our new Politics & Policy page. And keep on top of the campaign with our 2016 Distilled election dashboard. Top Read: Politically speaking, Garrett is a fascinating anomalya bit like encountering a penguin in the desert. His views are those of a rural Alabama conservative, yet he represents a prosperous New Jersey district just over the George Washington Bridge from Manhattan thats home to many bankers, brokers, and financial analysts. Bloombergs Joshua Green on how the anti-gay views of Republican Representative Scott Garrett, the chair of the capital markets subcommittee, are presenting a challenge to Wall Street. Top Lines Seeking Approval. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are vying for the endorsement of Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has said she will pick a candidate in the primaries. Why? The liberal senator, best known for her positions on banking reform, is one of the few national figures who carry real sway with Democratic base voters. (Annie Linskey, The Boston Globe) Recommended: How Would the Supreme Court Rule on Ted Cruz's Eligibility Question? Wooing the Disillusioned Voter. National Reviews Henry Olsen argues that the GOP establishment shouldnt be turned off by the blue-collar voters backing Trump. Instead, the party should try to win their support, but that means gaining their trust, and that means first affirming the core elements of their worldview. (Henry Olsen, National Review) Top Views #Trending. Track what emojis are being used to describe the presidential candidates on Twitter during tonights GOP debate here. (Andrew McGill, The Atlantic) We want to hear from you! Were reimagining what The Edge can be, and would love to receive your complaints, compliments, and suggestions. Tell us what youd like to find in your inbox by sending a message to newsletters@theatlantic.com. Read more from The Atlantic: This article was originally published on The Atlantic. By Yimou Lee and Sui-Lee Wee TAIPEI/BEIJING (Reuters) - Taiwan presidential frontrunner Tsai Ing-wen sought to reassure she'd seek peaceful relations with China if she won Saturday's election, as Beijing again warned the self-ruled island against any moves toward independence. Since the 2008 election of the China-friendly Ma Ying-jeou from the Nationalist Party, ties have improved rapidly, with a series of landmark trade and business deals signed and Ma held a historic meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in November. But Tsai and her independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) are looked at with great suspicion by China, which considers Taiwan a rebel province to be brought under its control, by force if necessary. The White House this week called on Taiwan and China to avoid an escalation of tensions from elections in Taiwan if the DPP wins. Speaking on a campaign stop in the central city of Taichung, Tsai said it was everyone's responsibility to maintain peace across the Taiwan Strait. "We hope cross-strait relations can be peaceful, can develop, and at the same time maintain the status quo for all parties, including mainland China," said Tsai, who would become the island's first woman president. "All countries must work hard together to maintain peace in the Taiwan Strait." Tsai has been at pains to stress stability with China, saying she would, if elected, work to communicate with China and other diplomatic allies. China, however, warned it would not tolerate any moves by Tsai to undermine China's sovereignty claims. "We want to stress that we always uphold the 'One China' (policy), oppose Taiwan independence, oppose two Chinas," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in response to a question on a probable Tsai victory. "No matter what changes take place on the island, this position will never change and has not changed." The DPP says the future of Taiwan is for its 23 million people to decide. Beijing takes to mean it wants independence. The Nationalists on Friday warned the election was fundamentally about stability. Ma, the incumbent president, took to Facebook to urge people to vote for the party of "stability". "Only the Nationalists can maintain the stability of Taiwan and peace across the strait," Ma said. Andrew Hsia, the head of the Mainland Affairs Council, Taiwan's ministry in charge of China policy, said he believed Beijing would have "many questions about the outcome of the elections", and that both sides could possibly liaise via a telephone 'hotline' that was set up late last year. In a blitz of advertisements carried in newspapers on Friday, the final day before polling begins at 8 a.m. (0000 GMT) on Saturday, the Nationalists showed pictures of an anxious looking child clutching a Taiwan flag with the words: "I hope this vote will enable us to no longer feel afraid". (Additional reporting by Faith Hung; Writing by James Pomfret; Editing by Nick Macfie) By Julia Fioretti BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union privacy regulators aim to agree next month on whether and how data transfers to the United States should continue as the European Commission weighs Washington's latest proposals on a new EU-U.S. data-transfer pact. European data protection authorities will gather in Brussels on Feb. 2 to find a common position on which legal channels companies can use to shuffle personal data across the Atlantic after the simplest system, known as Safe Harbour, was quashed by the top EU court due to concerns about U.S. snooping. The 15-year-old Safe Harbour framework used by over 4,000 firms to transfer Europeans' data to the United States was declared invalid by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on Oct. 6 because the court found U.S. national security requirements trumped privacy safeguards. This meant that the data were not adequately protected. Under EU data protection law, companies cannot transfer EU citizens' personal data to countries outside the EU deemed to have insufficient privacy safeguards, of which the United States is one. Revelations of mass U.S. surveillance programs where American authorities collected private information directly from big tech firms like Apple, Facebook and Google riled Europe two years ago, and set the stage for the ECJ ruling. As Washington and Brussels stepped up discussions on a new pact, EU data protection authorities gave businesses a three-month grace period in which they could set up alternative legal systems to transfer data across the Atlantic. These would cover binding corporate rules within multinationals, model clauses between companies or requests to people for their consent. EU data protection authorities also urged the United States and EU to agree a new data transfer framework in the same period, failing which they could start taking enforcement action against companies if they decided that alternatives such as model clauses offered no greater protection against U.S. snooping than the old Safe Harbour did. The United States submitted a package of proposals on a new Safe Harbour deal this week. These included a letter from U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker explaining U.S. commitments on the oversight of a possible new framework by both the Department of Commerce and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, according to a person familiar with the discussions. If acceptable to the EU, a new framework could be submitted for approval by all 28 EU commissioners on Feb. 2 to coincide with the regulators' meeting, the person said. However, further details may need to be ironed out after that. EU regulators have been analyzing the legality of transfer mechanisms such as binding corporate rules and should reach a common position on Feb. 2, said a spokeswoman for the French data protection authority, which will chair the meeting. "It is evident that we will sanction any transfers of personal data which are solely based on the old Safe Harbour decision," said Johannes Caspar, head of the Hamburg data protection authority in Germany which polices Google and Facebook. He said a new Safe Harbour framework would have to include a number of legal safeguards such as an effective judicial review and independent oversight. (Reporting by Julia Fioretti; Editing by Mark Heinrich) Brussels (AFP) - The European Union is ready to lift damaging economic sanctions against Iran as soon as the UN confirms Tehran has met the terms of a historic nuclear deal, diplomatic sources said Friday. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is expected to announce shortly, possibly later Friday or over the weekend, that Iran cannot now acquire nuclear weapons, as it agreed with world powers in July in return for ending sanctions. The diplomatic sources told AFP that everything was being put in place so that the 28-nation EU, alongside the United States and the United Nations, can end its sanctions regime on what is known as "Implementation Day" for the July agreement. "When the report from the IAEA is published, the European Union will be ready," one of the sources said. The source said member states were agreeing the precise instruction which would then be finalised by the Netherlands as holder of the six-month rotating EU presidency. In a key step, Iran said on Thursday it had removed the core of its Arak heavy water reactor and filled in part of it with cement, meaning it could not be used to produce a nuclear weapon. Iran has always insisted its nuclear programme was purely for peaceful purposes. The EU chaired the talks between Iran and the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany. EU, US and UN sanctions have proved damaging for Iran, blocking billions of dollars in assets overseas and starving the oil-dependent economy of much-needed technology and investment. Brussels (AFP) - European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Friday he was "quite sure" the EU and Britain would reach a deal at a summit in February on reforms that London has demanded to stay in the bloc. "I am quite sure that we'll have a deal -- not a compromise, a solution, a permanent solution -- in February," Juncker, the head of the executive branch of the 28-nation union, told a press conference. "I am neither optimistic nor pessimistic. I know that we have to deliver," adding that "my knowledge" allowed him to be confident of a deal. But Juncker warned that all of the demands by British Prime Minister David Cameron -- who is set to hold a referendum later this year on his country's membership of the European Union -- would be tough to reach agreement on. "The issues put on the table by the British prime minister are all difficult issues," said Juncker, a former Luxembourg premier. "Don't think there is one issue which would be particularly difficult - although it is and that's the welfare issue -- and that the other points mentioned by the British will be less important, and easy. They are not," he said. "Even ever-closer union, the role of national parliaments, the relations between the ins and the outs in the euro system, all these are very, very difficult issues and we have to work hard in thiese days to come to agreements." Cameron's most controversial proposal is a four-year ban on top-up benefits for EU migrants working in Britain, which critics say is discriminatory and threatens freedom of movement in the EU. He also wants the EU to give Britain safeguards against more political integration, to protect countries that do not use the euro currency and to boost economic competitiveness. COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Europe's human rights and democracy body said on Friday it was "deeply concerned" at proposed changes to Danish immigration laws that make it harder for migrants to stay in Denmark. The proposals include using migrants' valuables to pay for their stay, delaying family members joining migrants for three years, allowing detention in some cases and adding "integration potential" as a condition for accepting asylum claims. Parliament is expected to vote on Jan. 26 on the proposals, which the United Nations has also criticized. In a letter to Immigration Minister Inger Stojberg, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muiznieks, said, "I have repeatedly stressed that asylum seekers and immigrants should not be considered as criminals," he wrote, in reference to proposals to detain migrants in "special circumstances". Referring to the plan to use migrants' assets to pay for their stay in Denmark, he wrote, "I believe that such a measure could amount to an infringement of the human dignity of the persons concerned." On Thursday, Swiss broadcaster SRF reported that migrants arriving in Switzerland are obliged to give authorities any assets worth over 1,000 Swiss francs ($995). It showed a photograph of a receipt one refugee received for his cash. (Reporting by Sabina Zawadzki; Editing by Louise Ireland) Brussels (AFP) - European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Friday he was confident the EU and Britain would reach a deal at a summit in February on reforms that London has demanded to stay in the bloc. A British minister meanwhile told AFP the referendum on a possible "Brexit" from the European Union could be held before the summer holidays this year, if an agreement is reached next month. Juncker warned however that there were still difficult issues with Prime Minister David Cameron's proposed changes to the 28-nation union, which he wants resolved before holding the vote. "I am quite sure that we'll have a deal -- not a compromise, a solution, a permanent solution -- in February," Juncker told a press conference. The former Luxembourg premier said that the Commission, the powerful executive branch of the EU, was "making suggestions" on how to reach an agreement between Britain and its partners. "What allows me to consider that a deal, a solution could be operational in February? My knowledge is allowing me to tell you that," Juncker added. - 'Very, very difficult' - Cameron's most controversial proposal is a four-year ban on top-up benefits for EU migrants working in Britain, which critics say is discriminatory and threatens freedom of movement in the EU. He also wants the EU to give Britain safeguards against more political integration, to protect countries that do not use the euro currency and to boost economic competitiveness. "The issues put on the table by the British prime minister are all difficult issues," said Juncker. "Don't think there is one issue which would be particularly difficult - although it is and that's the welfare issue -- and that the other points mentioned by the British will be less important, and easy. They are not," he said. Cameron has said he wants a deal by February so that he can campaign to stay in a "reformed EU" in the referendum, which he has promised to hold by the end of 2017 at the latest. Story continues Britain's Europe Minister David Lidington said the crucial vote could be held in June or July this year if there is a deal at next month's summit. "It would take about four months minimum between the end of negotiations and us announcing a date and the referendum taking place," he told AFP in Lithuania on the sidelines of a security conference. "No decisions have been taken about the timing of the referendum, but a February deal would mean that a referendum before the summer holiday period is possible." - States 'failed' on migrant crisis - Meanwhile Juncker, who was speaking in his New Year press conference, accused EU states of failing to deliver on resolving the migration crisis, the biggest of its kind to face Europe since World War II. He tackled them over a deal to relocate thousands of asylum seekers from Italy and Greece, under which just 272 asylum seekers have been moved to other countries out of the 160,000 that EU nations agreed to relocate. "It's not the commission that has not delivered," said Juncker. "But a number of member states have failed to fully deliver on what we need to do and what needs to be done.". Juncker vowed not to abandon the relocation scheme, which was finally approved in October over opposition from several eastern European capitals, in a bid to tackle a flow of over a million migrants over the last year, mainly from the war in Syria. Juncker said that instead of working together, member states were reintroducing border controls that ultimately threatened the Schengen system of passport-free travel and the broader EU project. "Who kills Schengen will eventually put the internal market to the grave," Juncker said. Three more children drowned overnight while taking a boat from Turkey to the Greek islands, the main route for refugees and migrants to reach Europe, Greek police said. The International Organisation for Migration says 3,771 migrants and refugees died crossing the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe in 2015. More than one million migrants made the crossing last year, it says. By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - NASA cut short a spacewalk on Friday at the International Space Station after one of the astronauts reported a leak in his spacesuit helmet, the U.S. space agency said. Tim Peake, who on the mission became the first astronaut from Britain to walk in space, and U.S. astronaut Tim Kopra had finished the primary goal of their outing when Kopra reported a water ball had formed in his helmet. The astronauts were not in any danger, but NASA curtailed the spacewalk as a precaution, flight director Royce Renfrew said during an interview on NASA TV. Peake, 43, a former army major, blasted off to the station as part of a six-month mission for the European Space Agency in December, becoming the first Briton in space since Helen Sharman travelled on a Soviet spacecraft for eight days in 1991, and the first to do so under a British flag. His mission has attracted widespread attention in Britain, with news channels beaming live coverage of the spacewalk. "We're all watching, no pressure! Wishing you a happy stroll outdoors in the universe," British musician Paul McCartney said on Twitter. About three hours into Fridays spacewalk, Kopra, 52, reported that his helmet pad was damp and a ball of water had collected in his helmet, prompting NASA to end the mission. The leak increased as Kopra and Peake returned to the airlock. It was quite noticeable, Kopra later told ground controllers. NASA tightened its flight rules after a spacesuit worn by Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano leaked during a spacewalk in July 2013, nearly causing him to drown. NASA eventually tracked down the source of the problem and outfitted the helmets with absorption pads and breathing snorkels as additional safety measures. Chief astronaut Chris Cassidy, who was Parmitanos partner during the aborted 2013 spacewalk, said the cold temperature of the water indicated a leak from somewhere in the spacesuits backpack, which contains a cooling system. In an interview on NASA TV, Cassidy called it a significant concern. Kopra and Peake had replaced a failed voltage regulator in the station's power system shortly after leaving the stations airlock at around 8 a.m. EST/1300 GMT. They were scheduled to spend more than six hours outside the station, a $100 billion research laboratory that flies about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth, on other maintenance chores. That work will be rescheduled, NASA said. (Additional reporting by Michael Holden in London; Editing by Letitia Stein Stephen Addison, and Andrew Hay) By Hilary Russ (Reuters) - New Jersey taxpayers will owe $2.62 million for roughly a year's worth of work by a team of professionals called in to help turn around the distressed gambling hub Atlantic City, according to invoices obtained and compiled by Reuters. It is not clear what taxpayers have to show for it. Despite the work by a state-appointed emergency manager and the law and accounting firms he hired, so little progress has been made in reversing the seaside resort's fortunes that lawmakers are now considering a full takeover of city operations. Reuters reported in September that the amount was $2.15 million, but invoice reports since then for additional work by restructuring lawyers at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom have pushed the total up by 20 percent. Reuters obtained the documents through a public records request. Governor Chris Christie appointed Kevin Lavin as emergency manager on Jan. 22, 2015. Since then, Lavin's team has produced one report, in March. The Press of Atlantic City this month obtained a non-public draft of a follow-up report. A spokesman for Lavin told Reuters last week that a report is expected "within the coming weeks." Four of the city's eight casinos closed in 2014, pummeled by competition from neighboring states. That contributed to a 70 percent reduction in the city's property tax base, to a projected $6 billion this year from $20.5 billion in 2010. Lavin and his team - including Skadden, Ernst & Young LLP [ERNY.UL], and mediator Donald Steckroth - were to review and propose solutions to the city's immediate fiscal crisis, suggest possible longer-term fixes and negotiate with labor unions. Separately, the state had already appointed a monitor and had to approve the city's budget and hiring. But lawmakers are seeking an even firmer grasp. On Tuesday, they introduced legislation that would strip Atlantic City's elected officials of most of their control, except for the ability to file for municipal bankruptcy. "You can't justify a $262 million budget for 40,000 people. It's obscene," Senate President Steve Sweeney, a co-sponsor of the bill, said earlier this week. "(The mayor and city council) need to make the tough decisions now." Mayor Don Guardian and city council members denounced the takeover proposal. Guardian said on Wednesday the city trimmed $14 million from its 2015 budget and expects to cut $16 million more this year. (Reporting by Hilary Russ; Editing by Daniel Bases and Lisa Shumaker) By Liana B. Baker and Malathi Nayak (Reuters) - Spanish telecommunications company Telefonica SA has expressed interest in buying AT&T Inc's pay TV assets in Latin America, which could be valued at around $10 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. AT&T bought the Latin American assets as part of its acquisition of DirecTV last year. The business includes satellite and cable television services in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina and several other countries. The U.S. telecoms company has yet to decide if it will explore a deal with Telefonica or another company, the people familiar with the matter said. Other parties are interested in AT&T's assets in specific countries, and the company may choose to run several sale processes, one of the people said. One potential buyer could be Liberty Global Plc, that person added. The sources asked not to be identified because the deliberations are confidential. Telefonica and AT&T declined to comment. Liberty Global could not immediately be reached for comment. AT&T has about 19 million pay TV subscribers in Central and South America, making it the biggest player in the region. But profits have been pressured by depreciating currencies in Brazil and other Latin American countries. Chief Executive Randall Stephenson said at an industry conference in December that AT&T would consider selling the Latin American business, but that the company was patient. "So if somebody were interested in talking about a strategic combination of those assets with a different product, we would have to look at it. Would we consider selling them? Yes, but we are in no rush," Stephenson said. Telefonica, which has debt of about 50 billion euros ($54 billion), has been shuffling its portfolio in recent months. It agreed to sell its O2 UK business to CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd for 10.3 billion pounds ($15 billion). It is also planning to sell or spin off its Spanish infrastructure unit, including wireless towers, later this year, Reuters previously reported. Story continues The Spanish company is a major wireless player in Latin America under the brands Movistar in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Mexico; it also owns Vivo in Brazil. Telefonica's regional pay TV operations, however, are smaller, and trail AT&T and American Movil's Claro. AT&T owns about 93 percent of Sky Brasil, the largest satellite provider in the region's biggest economy. It owns PanAmericana, which offers satellite TV services under the DirecTV brand in countries including Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Puerto Rico. It is also a shareholder in Sky Mexico, which is controlled by Mexico's Grupo Televisa. (Reporting by Liana B. Baker and Malathi Nayak in New York; Additional reporting by Andres Gonzalez in Madrid; Editing by Tiffany Wu) Comment Policy Advance Indiana allows you to post comments via this blog subject to the guidelines set forth herein. You understand that any comments you post are your own and are not those of Advance Indiana. You further understand that Advance Indiana is not responsible for the content of any external sites referenced in your comments. Unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive, or otherwise objectionable comments are not acceptable. If you think any content posted or otherwise included in Advance Indiana violates the guidelines set forth herein, then please alert Advance Indiana. Advance Indiana reserves the right to pre-screen, edit, and remove any post as it deems appropriate. You specifically acknowledge that Advance Indiana has no obligation to display any post submitted or otherwise provided via Advance Indiana. U.S. efforts to keep nuclear explosive materials out of the hands of terrorists are losing steam and will be undermined without a concerted new diplomatic push, an independent nonprofit group in Washington, D.C., warned on Jan. 14. The chill in U.S.-Russian relations and a range of problems elsewhere bureaucratic inertia, inadequate funding, public distraction, and a weak grasp of the peril in some nations have combined to slow international progress towards locking down all the building blocks of a potential terrorist bomb, the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a nonprofit organization, said in a new report. We are in a race between cooperation and catastrophe, and the worlds leaders must run faster, said former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), who helped found NTI and played a leading role in organizing U.S. assistance for nuclear security efforts in Russia after the Cold War, In an introduction to the report. Nunn, speaking at a cavernous Washington building where the Obama administration is scheduled to convene its fourth and final international summit to promote nuclear security measures in late March, sounded an unusually dour note as he surveyed the status of those efforts. He said nations with lower nuclear profiles look to Russia and the United States for cues, and both nations are now updating their nuclear arsenals while curtailing their diplomatic contacts. At the same time, brutal attacks and incidents by ISIL, al Qaeda, Boko Haram and other organizations are on the rise, raising the specter of catastrophic nuclear terrorism if they or other terrorists get control of dangerous nuclear material, Nunn said. And of course, thats what the world must prevent. Reports like The Center for Public Integritys article in November that disclosed worries about exposing a missing trove of Soviet-era highly enriched uranium (a nuclear bomb fuel) should provide all the impetus needed to act swiftly, Nunn said. NTIs new study is the third such analysis by the group since 2011, and it again ranked key nations based on detailed assessments of their safeguards for keeping nuclear explosive materials plutonium and highly-enriched uranium out of the wrong hands. Among the 24 nations with enough material for bomb, Australia again got the top mark, while North Korea came in last. Story continues Indias overall rank was 21st in that group, and South Africa was 16th. Worrisome activities by both countries were detailed in articles published this year by the Center. Japan, which was separately profiled by the Center last year, improved its ranking somewhat (to 12th place) by publishing nuclear security laws and regulations and hosting a review of its precautions by experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency, a UN group. Seven of the 24 nations have never had such a peer review, the report noted. But the report also expressed concern that Japan like India, Pakistan, the Netherlands, North Korea, and the United Kingdom is increasing its stocks of weapons-usable nuclear materials, a circumstance that only adds to the burdens of locking them safely away. The report further noted that more than 80 percent of all nuclear explosive materials are held by militaries, whose practices and safeguards are not covered by international agreements on the security of such materials. It urged all the nuclear weapons-states to agree on a set of security precautions they would each implement. For the first time, the report also included a detailed and alarming analysis of the susceptibility of nuclear sites around the globe including reactors, storage facilities, and factories to cyberattack and sabotage. Among 47 nations with the most nuclear materials or power plants, the report said, twenty dont require even the most basic cybersecurity measures, it said. Terrorists, it warned, could exploit computer vulnerabilities either to overcome security precautions and gain direct access to nuclear materials, or they could deliberately disable a reactors cooling systems, provoking a disaster on par with the Fukushima plant meltdown in March 2011. Nations with new or developing nuclear energy programs, such as Chile, Egypt and Indonesia, are particularly susceptible to sabotage because their legal and regulatory structures are immature, undermining oversight and enforcement of sound safeguards. The NTI gave the United States a fairly high rating for cybersecurity a 6th place ranking but internal government audits have been more critical. The Energy Departments inspector general, for example, reported in a November audit that officials had failed to properly report about contractors computer systems, impeding oversight. A separate audit in June 2015 faulted the nuclear weapons laboratories for weak cybersecurity practices, including a failure to test systems for vulnerabilities and to protect against insider threats by ordering frequent password changes. An audit released this week by Nuclear Regulatory Commissions inspector general of cybersecurity at its Secure Operations Center, which contains sensitive details about nuclear power plants and generators in the U.S., showed attempts to gain unauthorized access or to insert malicious computer code had increased by 18 percent from fiscal years 2013 to 2014. Over the same period, cyberattacks throughout the U.S. government grew by 9.7 percent. This story is part of Nuclear Waste. A look at the worlds faltering efforts to control dangerous nuclear explosives. Click here to read more stories in this investigation. Don't miss another National Security investigation: Sign up for the Center for Public Integrity's Watchdog email. North Koreas ranking at the bottom of the cybersecurity list as well as the nuclear security list was not surprising, according to Leo Abruzzese, director of global forecasting at public policy at the Economist Intelligence Unit, an offshoot of The Economist magazine that gathered and analyzed data for the report. North Korea is averse to the type of international cooperation and transparency that provides security assurances that the index rating system rewards, he noted, calling the country dead last by a wide margin. Samantha Pitts-Kiefer, senior program officer for scientific and technical affairs at NTI, said the three summit meetings convened by the Obama administration so far have been helpful. A dozen nations have eliminated all nuclear explosives from their territories since the first summit, although only one acted in the past two years. She and her colleagues said they worry that global leaders will be less attentive to the risks after the final summit this year. The results of this report should sound a warning not only that the work of securing all weapons-usable nuclear materials is unfinished, the report said, but also that attention and commitment to preventing a terrorist from building and using a nuclear weapon must intensify. This story is part of Nuclear Waste. A look at the worlds faltering efforts to control dangerous nuclear explosives. Click here to read more stories in this investigation. Related stories Copyright 2016 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C. (Reuters) - The sixth televised Republican presidential debate, hosted by Fox Business Network on Thursday night, had millions on social media weighing in on immigration, guns and jobs, among other issues. Here are the talking points that went viral: TWITTER The most-tweeted topics during the #GOPDebate were, in order: 1. Foreign affairs 2. Gun control 3. The economy The three most-tweeted moments were, in order: 1. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's punchy statement directed at President Barack Obama: "We're going to kick your rear end out of the White House." 2. The comment by Ted Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, about New York "values" and real estate mogul Donald Trump's response, which referred to the city's recovery from the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. 3. Trump and Cruz's sparring over polls. FACEBOOK On Facebook, the top issues discussed during the Republican debate were, in order: 1. Iran 2. Immigration 3. Islamic State (ISIS) 4. The economy 5. Guns GOOGLE TRENDS Trump, front-runner in the race to be the Republican nominee for the November presidential election, was the top searched candidate during the debate, followed by Cruz and Florida Senator Marco Rubio, according to Google Trends data. (Reporting by Melissa Fares; Editing by Frances Kerry) (Reuters) - Taiwan goes to the polls on Saturday to elect a new president and parliament. China, which considers Taiwan a renegade province and part of its territory, will be watching the outcome closely. Following are key facts on ties between Taiwan and China: POLITICS - China has claimed self-ruled Taiwan through its "one China" policy since the Chinese civil war forced the defeated Nationalist forces to flee to the island in 1949 and has vowed to bring it under Beijing's rule, by force if necessary. - China, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council formally known as the People's Republic of China, has about 170 diplomatic allies. Taiwan, formally known as the Republic of China, has 22. - Ties were badly strained when Chen Shui-bian from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was Taiwan president from 2000-2008 because of his independence rhetoric, even as he tried to maintain positive relations with Beijing. - Relations warmed considerably after Ma Ying-jeou, from the China-friendly Nationalist Party, took office as president in May 2008. Ma steps down this year due to term limits. The DPP's Tsai Ing-wen is favored to win the presidential vote. In 2014, hundreds of students occupied Taiwan's parliament for weeks in protests nicknamed the Sunflower Movement. They demanded more transparency in trade pacts negotiated with China in the largest display of anti-China sentiment the island had seen in years. TRADE - China, including Hong Kong, is Taiwan's top trading partner, with trade totaling just over $170 billion in 2014, official data from Taiwan shows. About 40 percent of Taiwan's exports, such as tech components and chemicals, go to China. - Since 2008, when Taiwan President Ma came to power, Taiwan and China have signed about 23 agreements covering business and tourism, including an Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement in 2010, aimed to further deepen ties between the two sides. - China, with its 1.3 billion people, is also Taiwan's favorite investment destination with Taiwan companies investing over $100 billion there, private estimates show. About 55 percent of Taiwan's export orders are made in factories overseas, such as China. MILITARY - China and Taiwan have nearly gone to war three times since 1949, most recently ahead of the 1996 presidential election. Then, China carried out missile tests in waters close to the island hoping to prevent people voting for Lee Teng-hui, who China suspected of harboring pro-independence views. Lee won by a landslide. - The military balance has shifted in China's favor. China's armed forces are 2.3 million strong while Taiwan has about 215,000 full-time troops. - China has deployed more than 1,000 short- and medium-range ballistic missiles as well as cruise missiles in coastal areas facing the Taiwan Strait, according to Taiwan's defense ministry. - The United States is obliged to help Taiwan with the means to defend itself under the U.S. Congress 1979 Taiwan Relations Act. China always reacts angrily to U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and has repeatedly demanded they stop. - China has more than 2,000 fighter aircraft, including Russian Su-30 and Su-27 fighters. Taiwan has about 300 fighter jets and the backbone of its air force is made up of U.S.-made F-16s, French-built Mirage 2000s and Ching-kuo Indigenous Defence Fighters. Sources: Reuters, Taiwan government, GlobalSecurity.org (Reporting by Beijing and Taipei newsrooms; Editing by Robert Birsel) (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday issued draft guidelines to medical device makers on how to protect patients from cybersecurity vulnerabilities in their devices. "Cybersecurity threats to medical devices are a growing concern," the agency said in a statement. "The exploitation of cybersecurity vulnerabilities presents a potential risk to the safety and effectiveness of medical devices." The draft guidance, which is not legally binding, recommends companies take a number of actions, including monitoring and assessing risk, coordinating efforts by companies, government and other groups do disclose vulnerabilities, and taking measures to address cybersecurity risk early. Most cybersecurity vulnerabilities are considered routine and can be remedied by updates or patches which would not need to be reported under the proposed guidance, the agency said. Companies would be required to report vulnerabilities that could compromise clinical performance of the device and risk a patient's health. The guidance covers how companies should monitor devices once they have been cleared for marketing. The agency previously issued guidance for companies still in the development stage to help inform design choices. Joshua Corman, founder of I Am The Cavalry, a cybersafety advocacy group who worked with the FDA on the guidance, said he was extremely encouraged by the agency's action. "I have found the FDA has been very forward thinking to get out in front of this and not wait for proof of harm before acting," he said. The proposed guidance will be open for public comment for 90 days, after which the FDA will issue final guidance. The agency is holding a public cybersecurity workshop at its headquarter in Silver Spring, Maryland on Jan. 20-21. The workshop will focus on "unresolved gaps and challenges that have hampered progress in advancing medical device cybersecurity." (Reporting by Toni Clarke in Washington; editing by Paul Simao and David Gregorio) SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Trucks carrying commodities and other exports were unable to reach the Guaruja side of Brazil's largest Port of Santos on Friday, a day after containers holding chemicals caught fire and sent poisonous gases into the sky. A port spokeswoman said access would be restricted while firefighters snuff out the blaze that hit up to a dozen containers at the terminal operated by logistics company Localfrio. The fire, which caused dozens of people to go to the hospital after breathing the noxious smoke, is considered under control, the spokeswoman said. With trucks unable to reach the Guaruja side of the port, terminals there may have to rely on stocks, although some products are arriving by train. Santos is Brazil's main commodities exporting port, but is still a few weeks away from receiving new crop soybeans to export. Brazil is the world's top exporter of soybeans, sugar and coffee and the No. 2 corn exporter. Besides the Localfrio terminal, a neighboring container terminal operated by Santos Brasil halted operations due to the fire. But the other 53 terminals are operating normally with stocks, the port spokeswoman said. Representatives at TEAG and TEG bulk sugar and grain terminals in Guaruja said late on Thursday that loading continued despite the nearby fire. Firefighters are trying to extinguish the blaze without water because the fire started when rainwater mixed on Thursday with the chemical compound dichloroisocyanuric acid at the port. More than 50 people sought medical attention from inhaling gases released by the fire, according to local media. The mayor of Guaruja has urged residents to stay inside or cover their faces with cloth if they need to go out. Fires have been common at Santos in recent years. A blaze at a neighboring fuel tank facility in April took a week to snuff out, preventing trucks from unloading soybeans. (Reporting by Roberto Samora; Writing by Caroline Stauffer; Editing by Phil Berlowitz) Miami (AFP) - The first few dozen of thousands of Cubans trying to reach the United States after being stranded for months in Costa Rica crossed the Mexican border into Texas Friday, ending a dangerous odyssey. They were processed in a Mexican immigration office in the border town of Nuevo Laredo and walked out on the other side of the frontier in Laredo, Texas. Migrants group Cubanos en Libertad, an organization which helps Cubans arriving in Texas, said 59 had crossed the border. Most came to join family members already living in the United States, many of them in Florida, said a representative of the group, Alejandro Ruiz. "Last night 12 arrived after traveling by plane to Nuevo Laredo and this morning another 47 arrived by bus," he said, after the 40-hour drive from the southeastern state of Chiapas. Under US law, they automatically get permission to stay and are put on a fast track to permanent residency after one year. That welcome is the sweet reward the Cubans sought after a grueling trek through South and Central America that was fueled in part, and ironically, by the thaw in US-Cuban ties. "We are happy because we achieved our goal," said one of the Cubans, Randy Cuevas, 29, in a video posted on the Facebook page of Cubanos en Libertad. "This was my dream, the dream of all Cubans," said another, 20-year-old Lilian de Gonzalez. The dozen who arrived late Thursday and early Friday were among 180 who set out from Costa Rica this week, first by plane to El Salvador -- skipping over Cuba ally Nicaragua, which would not let them pass -- and then by bus through Guatemala to Mexico. That bus trip alone took 13 hours. It was organized by regional governments and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). They were allowed to travel to Mexico after its government reached an agreement with various central American countries. - Thousands still stranded - But nearly 8,000 others remain stranded in Costa Rica, waiting since late last year to make the trip north to the United States and the lure of a better life. Story continues Thousands of Cubans have left the Communist island in recent months over concerns that the re-establishment of US-Cuban diplomatic relations will prompt Washington to drop its policy of giving them automatic residence when they set foot in the United States. For many of the Cubans, their trip began in Ecuador, where until recently they could travel without a visa. From there they made their way through Colombia, into Panama and then Costa Rica, often traveling along smuggling routes. Many of the Cubans experienced extortion and kidnapping threats along the way. The trip through Mexico is particularly daunting: there, crime and drug gangs are known to prey ruthlessly on migrants, often kidnapping and holding them for ransom and then killing them if no one back home pays up. "It has been a tough fight. I have been putting up with this since October. But in the end I made it, thank God and thank everyone," new arrival Cuevas said of his trip. "It was a tough odyssey." In the midst of the current debate over Ted Cruzs eligibility for the presidency, Constitution Daily looks back at five other birthplace controversies involving candidates. Carthur640 Currently, GOP front runner Donald Trump wants Cruz to legally prove that the Canadian-born Senator is qualified to run for the White House. Cruz has insisted that the son of a U.S. citizen born abroad is a natural-born citizen. Article II, Section 1, of the U.S. Constitution requires that [n]o person except a natural born citizen shall be eligible to the Office of President. Cruz was born in Canada in 1970, with his father being from Cuba and his mother coming from Delaware in the United States. Recent thoughts from constitutional experts seem to side with Cruzs argument, but not all experts agree including Cruzs own law professor from Harvard. Laurence Tribe recently told the Guardian in a series of email exchanges that there is no single, settled answer. And our Supreme Court has never addressed the issue. A related issue is the eligibility of a candidate born in the United States to foreign-born parents. Specifically, the first sentence of the 14th Amendment reads, All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. A later Supreme Court decision, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, seemingly reinforced the theory than people born on American soil are American citizens. But not everyone agrees with that, pointing to the clause subject to the jurisdiction thereof as proof the 14th Amendments drafters has limited intent when drafting that provision. In 2012, Trump has publicly doubted President Barack Obamas eligibility to hold office, siding with theories that Obama might have been born outside of the United States, giving birth to the term birther. Heres a look at five other birthplace controversies, going back to the original birther debate in 1880. Story continues Chester Alan Arthur In 1880, Arthur ran as the vice presidential candidate on the James Garfield ticket for the Republican Party. Arthur became President after Garfields death in 1881 and there were rumors spread by campaign rivals that Arthur had been born in Canada, and not Vermont, as he claimed. Arthurs father was born in Ireland and his mother was born in the United States. If Arthur was born in Canada, his opponents claimed, there was a citizenship issue. Marquette Law professor J. Gordon Hylton pointed out in a 2009 blog post that if Arthur was born in Canada he was technically foreign-born, and in 1829, citizenship in such cases passed to the child only if the father was a United States citizen, and, of course, at this point Arthurs father was still a citizen of the British Empire. Charles Evans Hughes There was also a birthplace controversy over the 1916 presidential candidacy of Charles Evans Hughes, the Republican who narrowly lost to Woodrow Wilson. There were claims that Hughes was ineligible for office because his father was born in the British Empire in Wales. Hughes was born in Glen Falls, New York, and his mother was also born in New York state; he was also born before the 14th Amendment was ratified. An attorney, Breckinridge Long, apparently challenged Hughes qualifications in a 1916 Chicago Legal News article. Barry Goldwater The 1964 Republican presidential candidate was born in the Arizona Territory in 1909 before Arizona was admitted as a state. Goldwater was born in an organized incorporated territory that was formed in 1863, an act that is interpreted to grant U.S. citizenship to folks born there. For more on the citizenship distinction between incorporated and unincorporated territories, see the recent news coverage about the efforts of American Samoa residents to become full American citizens. George Romney As a candidate for the 1968 presidency, Romney faced questions because he was born in Chihuahua, Mexico in 1907 at a Mormon colony. His parents were born in the Utah Territory before Utah became a state, and they were American citizens. Romneys parents chose United States citizenship for their son. The Romneys left Mexico when George Romney was very young, due to the Mexican Revolution. Democrats questioned Romneys ability to run for President in 1967 when congressman Emmanuel Celler, a Democrat, publicly expressed serious doubts about Romneys eligibility. A New York Law Journal article later sided with Romney, who insisted he was a natural-born citizen. John McCain Senator McCain faced questions in the 2008 election, since he was born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936. His parents were born in Iowa and Oklahoma. McCains father was a Navy admiral. In addition to having two parents who were American citizens, McCain was born in a region that was under the control of a United States treaty agreement, which was considered as a sovereign United States territory. In 2008, Tribe and Theodore Olsen, another well-known legal expert, wrote in a law journal article that the circumstances of Senator McCains birth satisfy the original meaning and intent of the Natural Born Citizen Clause, as confirmed by subsequent legal precedent and historical practice. Still, there was on-going talk during the McCain campaign on the Internet that the Senator wasnt eligible for the White House, which led to several unsuccessful lawsuits. The Senate passed a nonbinding resolution declaring McCain as eligible to be President. Recent Stories on Constitution Daily Explaining the natural-born presidency controversy Constitution Check: Is natural-born citizenship sometimes not a fundamental right? Birthright citizenship looming as a campaign, and constitutional issue MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish police arrested a former ally of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto on Friday in a money-laundering probe, potentially raising awkward questions for his ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Humberto Moreira, who was PRI chairman in 2011 before he stood down after a debt scandal was uncovered in Coahuila, the northern state he had previously governed, was arrested at Madrid's international airport, Spanish police said. His detention was part of an operation against money laundering and other crimes, according to a Spanish court official who spoke on condition of anonymity. In an apparent reference to Pena Nieto's Tweet to announce the capture of drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman a week ago, Spanish police tweeted news of Moreira's detention with the hashtag "mission accomplished", echoing the president's words. Details of the Spanish probe were not immediately available, but it raised hopes among opposition politicians that Moreira might face prosecution over the debt debacle. "Nobody in the Coahuila government has explained what happened to that money," said Senator Ernesto Cordero of the opposition National Action Party (PAN), an ex-finance minister who led initial investigations into the debt. Moreira is not wanted by the law in Mexico, and a presidency spokesman said he had no information on the arrest. In 2014, Moreira's former finance secretary in Coahuila pled guilty to federal money laundering charges in Texas, and the man who completed his term as governor is also wanted in the United States on suspicion of embezzling millions. Moreira was in office from 2005 to early 2011, a period in which Coahuila's debts more than tripled to a sum then worth around $3 billion. Some of the loans were contracted by the state congress with falsified documents, Cordero said. Moreira maintained he had been misled by officials and denied any wrongdoing. Guillermo Anaya, a senior PAN politician in Coahuila, said there was concern that the loans could have ended up helping the PRI to fund state and even national election campaigns. Elected president in July 2012, Pena Nieto's campaign to be the PRI candidate gained momentum under Moreira. Pena Nieto has faced criticism for failing to go after PRI officials accused of graft, including three of its former governors indicted in the United States. The PRI said it had "little information" on the matter, but added: "The institutions are not responsible for the acts of those who form part of them." (Reporting by Dave Graham and Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City and Rodrigo de Miguel in Madrid; editing by Chris Reese and Alistair Bell) Fox Business Network hosted the first Republican presidential debate of 2016 on Thursday, marking the sixth time the GOP candidates have gathered on stage to face off. Thursday's event took place in North Charleston, South Carolina, and began with an undercard debate at 6 p.m. Eastern, followed by the main stage event at 9 p.m. Eastern. Though Thursday was a critical moment for the Republican presidential hopefuls, as it marked the first debate of an election year, the GOP candidates are scheduled to gather for another six debates in the long race for the White House, and a lot can change in ten months. A total of 12 Republican candidates are still in the running at the start of 2016 business tycoon and party frontrunner Donald Trump, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore. The last time the GOP candidates gathered to debate was at the CNN debate on Dec. 15 in Las Vegas. Since then, the pool of candidates has diminished by two, after Sen. Lindsey Graham withdrew from the race on Dec. 21 and former New York Gov. George Pataki called his supporters on Dec. 29 to announce the end of his campaign. Staging the debate: Despite the relatively large number of presidential hopefuls still in the running to win the Republican nomination, recent poll numbers show that although there's a large pool of candidates, voter support is heavily weighted toward the top two candidates Trump and Cruz. According to a Wall Street Journal poll published on Thursday, only four GOP candidates were polling above 10%, and Trump's enjoying a 13 point lead on his challengers. New WSJ/NBC poll: Trump 33% Cruz 20% Rubio 13% Carson 12% Christie 5% Bush 5% Fiorina 3% Kasich 3% Paul 3% http://on.wsj.com/1mZ6Llh And perhaps another indication that the pack of leading GOP candidates is tightening was the division of candidates between the main debate and undercard stages on Thursday. For the first time in a Republican presidential debate, Fiorina was bumped from the main stage to the undercard debate, joining Huckabee and Santorum. Paul chose not to participate in the debate. Check back as Mic will be live-blogging a recap and highlights from the debate here. ONE HOUR AWAY! Tune in at 9pm ET for the Fox Business #GOPDebate. Here's how to watch: http://bit.ly/1Q6s0gM pic.twitter.com/i4utW3Y3r8 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CYuQAdTWMAAXKdF.jpg:large Taking the stage right on time, the candidates took their position according to their poll numbers Trump took the center podium flanked by Cruz on his left and Rubio on his right. Rather than peg the candidates for opening remarks, moderators Neil Cavuto and Maria Bartiromo jumped right in with a question for Cruz concerning jobs and economic growth in America. However, Cruz chose to first answer a question he was not asked, and instead used the bulk of his time to criticize President Barack Obama for no mention during his SOTU of the U.S. Navy sailors who were held captive overnight by the Irani military earlier this week. Source: Mic/Fox Business Network The question was more or less recycled to Kasich, who proposed that corporate and individual tax cuts, fiscal discipline and minimal regulation as solutions. "I think we should freeze all federal regulations for one year, except for health and safety," he said, arguing these steps would both raise wages and increased job creation. Christie spoke next, lamenting Obama's hopeful tone during his final SOTU speech. "I watched story-time with Barack Obama, and it sounded like everything in the world was going amazing," Christie said. "The fact is a number of things the next president will have to do to clean up this mess." Speaking next, Bush agreed with Christie on a less than rosy outlook for the nation, citing recent acts of terrorism, and the state of U.S. relations with countries like China and Russia. "In this administration every weapons system has been gutted," Bush said. "We can't even go down to level where we can't project force. Our friend no longer think we have their back and our enemies no longer fear us. We're in much different position than we should be. For the life of me i have no understanding why the president thinks that everything is going well." Rubio agreed, and even went so far as to "disqualify" Clinton from running for president saying, "Someone who can not handle intelligence information appropriately, can not be commander-in-chief and someone who lies to the families of those four victims in benghazi can never be president of the United States." Carson jumped in next, saying, "I was very happy to get a question this early on I was going to ask you to wake me up when the time came," before continuing on to discuss, among other things, war strategy in the 21st century. The discussion turns to the refugee crisis: Cavuto pressed Trump on his stance on refugees and whether he would refuse anyone fleeing terror and seeking asylum in the U.S. "It's not fear and terror," Trump answered, "It's reality." Trump described the immigrant crisis as a "Trojan horse" situation, added that when he looked at the line of people hoping to enter the U.S., he sees "very few women. Very few children." He said he saw "strong, powerful men" instead. About 30 minutes into the debate, the conversation veered toward the question of Cruz's "eligibility" as president, according to Trump, who contests that Cruz is a natural born American. The resulting discourse saw tensions escalate between Cruz and Trump that dissolved into what sounded like petty bickering. "I already know the Democrats are going to be bringing a suit," Trump told Cruz. "You have a big lawsuit over your head while you're running and if you become the nominee, who the hell knows if you can even serve in office." Source: Mic/Fox Business Network "I spent my entire life defending the constitution before the U.S. Supreme Court and I'll tell you I'm not going to be taking legal advice from Donald Trump," Cruz hit back. Source: Mic/Fox Business Network Not long after, Rubio was given a chance to speak, but, like Cruz's opening response, the candidate instead spent the majority of his time tearing down Obama. Cruz also used his talking time as an opportunity to attack Christie, claiming his opponent supported many of Obama's policies, including such "liberal" agendas as gun control and common core. Christie called a spade a spade when he basically quoted Bush who, during the fifth GOP presidential debate in December told Trump that he wouldn't be able to insult his way to the White House, and tried to "set the facts straight" saying he has never funded Planned Parenthood and pointed out that he has vetoed a proposed statewide I.D. system for gun owners in New Jersey. Nearly an hour into the debate, the candidates onstage seemed to remember who they're really up against in the race for the White House the Democrats. "I like Marco Rubio," said Christie. "He is a good guy, a smart guy and he would be a heck of a lot better president than Hillary Rodham Clinton." "I know Bernie [Sanders] and I can promise you he will not be president of the United States," added Kasich. A bright moment for Carson came when the moderators asked the former neurosurgeon to comment on whether or not it's accurate to label Clinton "an enabler of sexual misconduct," considering her husband Bill Clinton's White House sex scandal. "Is this America anymore," Carson responded, not taking the bait. "Do we still have standards? Do we still have values and principles?" Instead, Carson spoke about the divisiveness and hatred that's permeating American society, pointing to racial tensions, income equality, racism and gender discrimination as examples. "We have people at each other's throats," Carson said. "And our strength is actually in our unity." Perhaps predictably, considering proposed executive orders from Obama last week that aim to rework gun legislation in the U.S., the conversation turned to gun control. Candidates trumpeted the importance of the Second Amendment, a that spiraled into candidates basically arguing over who would honor the amendment most fiercely. Evoking 9/11: Next, when Cruz tried to suggest Trump's policies were more leftward leaning than his challengers, based solely on the fact that the real estate mogul is a New Yorker. "Everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro-gay marriage," Cruz said, alluding that Americans in South Carolina were somehow more hardworking, or vaguely more conservative. But Trump turned the attack on its head by evoking New Yorkers' indestructible spirit, as evidenced by their response to the 9/11 terror attacks. "New york is a great place, it's got great people, it's got loving people, wonderful people," Trump said. "When the World Trade center came down, I saw something that no place on earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York." Given recent, global-wide acts of terror at the hands of the Islamic State Group, or ISIS, the candidates were asked to comment on the best strategies for defeating the threat of jihadist-bred violence. Responding first, Carson argued for military escalation in Syria and Iraq, saying that the caliphate empowers and legitimizes terrorists and arguing for a need to disassemble is through the use of military force. Jumping in on the topic of Syria, Christie took aim at Syria's commander in chief, Bashar al-Assad, arguing that the U.S. government should attack if Assad were to use chemical weaponry. "We're not going to have peace in Syria," Christie said. "We're not going to be able to rebuild unless we put in a no-fly zone, make it safe... so we don't have to talk about refugees anymore. The Syrians should stay in Syria." Speaking of refugees, the moderators pressed Trump to comment on the fact that his proposed ban on a nation-wide shutdown of Muslims entering the U.S. According to the moderators, the proposal was the most talked-about incident in Trump's campaign, according to the volume of discussion on Facebook. The debate hosts asked Trump if he would reconsider that proposal in any way. Yet on the issue, Trump was bullish. "I want security," he responded. "I'm tired of seeing what's going on between the border where the people flow over, people come in, they live, they shoot." adding that radical Islam is a "tremendous problem," not only in the U.S., but around the world. At least Cruz and Trump agreed on one thing during Thursday night's debate. "I understand why Donald made the comments he did and I understand why Americans are feeling frustrated and scared and angry when we have a president who refuses to acknowledge the threats we face and, worse, who acts as an apologist for radical Islamic terrorism," Cruz said. After a discussion of Sino-American relations, particularly on the state of finances and foreign trade, a long portion of the debate was dedicated to talk of tax reform. In the resulting remarks, the candidates trumpeted what they said they believed to be their tax reform plans' differentiating factors. Toward the end of the candidates' remarks on tax reform, Carson jumped in to say that "many reputable journals," the Wall Street Journal among them, voted his campaign's plan ahead of the competition. Nearing 11 p.m. Eastern, the debate moderators touched on how Trump planned to balance his enormous wealth and the business empire he's built with his responsibility to prioritize America above all else should he be elected as America's next commander in chief. "If I become president, I couldn't care less about my company," Trump said. "It's peanuts... I have Ivanka and Eric and Don sitting there, run the company, have a good time, I'm going to do it for America." In what some on Twitter argued sounded like a long goodbye before the candidates were even handed their 60-seconds of allotted speaking time to voice their closing statements, the discussion onstage cycled back through some topics that had already been discussed, during which time some in the audience broke in, booing and chanting "We want Rand." In closing, Kasich promised to continue fighting for those Americans who feel powerless, regardless of socio-economic standing, while Bush said that results, detailed plans and credibility all matter, and argued that he's got a proven track record in all three areas. Christie returned to criticizing Obama for painting America's state of affairs as a "fantasy land," and pledged to wage a war on insecurity and terrorism, Carson went for the glass-is-half-full approach, asking voters to join him "in truth and honesty and integrity." Rubio spoke of America's greatness, and blamed a shift away from faith in "the american miracle" on how President Obama has led the country since 2008. Cruz addressed mothers and fathers of soldiers fighting for the U.S., while Trump got the last world. "If I'm president, there won't be stupid deals anymore," Trump said. We will make America great again. We will win on everything we do." New York (AFP) - US industrial giant General Electric will sell its appliances business to China's Haier Group for $5.4 billion, it said Friday, in one of the largest Chinese acquisitions of an American firm yet. The transaction epitomises the changing nature of the global economy, with a 100-year-old US company selling what was once one of its core units to a Chinese upstart that emerged from a refrigerator factory that was nearly bankrupt 30 years ago. Haier is seeking to establish itself as a global brand, while China is looking to re-balance its economy more towards consumption and away from the infrastructure and investment-driven model of the past. The Chinese firm was "committed to growing the business globally", GE chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt said in a statement, calling the agreement "a good deal which will benefit our investors, customers and employees". GE had previously been due to sell the unit to Swedish rival manufacturer Electrolux for $3.3 billion, but the deal ran into opposition from US competition authorities. Haier Group is China's second largest electronics manufacturer, and emerged from the Qingdao Refrigerator Factory, in the eastern port of the same name, which its CEO Zhang Ruimin was appointed to run in the mid-1980s. Zhang is renowned for his reaction to a customer complaint, when he examined the firm's warehouse and found 76 fridges out of more than 400 in stock were substandard. He ordered the personnel to smash them to pieces, personally leading the destruction with a hammer. "If I allow the 76 fridges to be sold, it would imply that I would allow 760 or even 7,600 such substandard fridges to be produced tomorrow," he was quoted as saying by the official news agency Xinhua. The tool Zhang wielded is now in a national museum, Xinhua said. Haier's methods have been studied in business schools including Harvard, but its exact ownership structure remains opaque. Story continues Officially, the group is divided into several units which are collectively owned. It has two quoted subsidiaries, Haier Electronics in Hong Kong and Qingdao Haier in Shanghai -- which is the vehicle for the GE acquisition. Haier has close ties to the ruling Communist Party, and Zhang Ruimin is an alternate member of the party's elite central committee. - 'World brand' - The deal is the latest major Chinese acquisition of a US company, and comes in the same week that Wanda Group, founded by China's richest man Wang Jianlin, acquired Hollywood studio Legendary Entertainment for $3.5 billion. Previous major acquisitions have included 2013's $7 billion purchase of Smithfield Foods by Shuanghui, and Lenovo buying IBM's PC business for $1.75 billion. Haier says it is the world's biggest large household appliance brand, with a 10.2 percent global market share, and also has businesses in communications, logistics, finance and real estate. It had a global turnover of 200.7 billion yuan ($30.47 billion) and total profit of 15 billion yuan in 2014, according to its website, with activities and customers across 100 countries and regions. Haier bought the white goods operations of Japanese company Sanyo in 2011, the first time a Chinese firm has bought major business segments from a large Japanese manufacturer. But it had just a one percent share of the US consumer appliance market in 2015, the state-run China Daily cited market analysts Euromonitor as saying. The GE deal will boost Haier's ambitions of becoming a "world brand". "The deal will create more diversified and better quality home appliance products for world consumers that better suit their needs," it said in a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Friday. Qingdao Haier's shares have been suspended from trading since October pending news of major corporate transactions. After the Electrolux transaction fell through, a sale to an Asian buyer is seen as more likely to get regulatory approval, reports say, as Asian competitors in the industry generally have lower market shares. Chinese companies, often with state links, have been stepping up their acquisitions of foreign firms in recent years as growth in the domestic economy slows. "It may be a step for the Chinese company to build up an international network, while its overseas exposure now is still small," Andrew Song, an analyst in Guotai Junan Securities Co., told Bloomberg News before the announcement. Berlin (AFP) - Most Germans now doubt their country's ability to cope with a record migrant influx, and fear refugees more, after the New Year's Eve mass assaults on women in Cologne, opinion polls released Friday show. A survey by public broadcaster ZDF found that 60 percent of respondents believe Germany cannot cope with the large numbers of new arrivals, which reached 1.1 million in 2015. The Cologne attacks clearly had an impact, the broadcaster said, as only 46 percent of people surveyed in December felt that way. The poll of 1,203 people over January 12 to 14 also found that a majority (56 percent) are now dissatisfied with German Chancellor Angela Merkel's refugee policies, up from 49 percent in December. Seven people in 10 fear the influx will lead to more crime, compared to 62 percent in October. And a growing minority, now at 42 percent from 33 percent in October, say they fear their cultural values are under threat. A separate survey by the group DeutschlandTrend for the state TV ARD found that 51 percent of German adults said they do not believe Merkel's repeated claim -- "we will manage" -- that Germany can absorb the inflow. In October, 48 percent of respondents said they had this view. The poll also found that 48 percent of those surveyed said they were afraid of refugees, while 50 percent said they did not have this view. That question was not asked in October. The survey covered 1,000 people who were interviewed by phone on January 12 and 13. Hundreds of women were groped and robbed in a throng of mostly Arab and North African men outside the main railway station of Cologne. The tally of criminal complaints reached 652 by Thursday, including 331 sex-related crimes, Cologne prosecutors said. The case has inflamed tensions in Germany, which took in nearly 1.1 million asylum seekers in 2015, mainly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, and put pressure on Merkel for her welcoming stance toward refugees fleeing war. President Obama isnt the only one frustrated by federal gun laws. Sixty-two percent of Americans say they are dissatisfied with U.S. laws or policies on the purchase and use of guns, according to a new Gallup poll, marking the highest percentage of dissatisfaction since the polling organization first began asking the question in 2001. Related: Obama -- Gun Control Wont Happen During My Presidency Overall, more than twice as many Americans are frustrated with gun laws because they are not tough enough than because they are too tough. According to the poll, 38 percent of Americans believe that gun laws need to be toughened, while 15 percent say they want gun laws watered down or loosened. And in a sign of increased polarization on the gun control issue, these figures are at or near 16-year highs. Few issues are more contentious in Washington than gun control. And despite a spate of mass shootings, Obama and some congressional Republicans have been thwarted by the National Rifle Association from passing even modest measures to expand background checks on gun buyers. The usually stoic Obama shed a tear during a Jan. 5 White House ceremony announcing a series of executive actions to try to address gun violence while recalling the murders of 20 first-graders and six staffers three years ago by a lone gunman with an assault rifle at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. "Every time I think about those kids it gets me mad," Obama said as his eyes welled up with tears. "And by the way, it happens on the streets of Chicago every day." Republican presidential candidates and congressional leaders have largely dismissed efforts toughen gun control laws as misguided, saying federal efforts and resources would be better placed in identifying and treating mentally ill people who typically carry out mass shootings. Related: Clinton Throws Down a Challenge to Obama on Guns The Senate Judiciary Committee plans to hold a hearing on Jan. 26 on a mental health reform bill authored by Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the Senate Republican Majority Whip. Republicans and Democrats view reforming the nations mental health system as one of the few areas of possible compromise during Obamas final year in office. Story continues But gun control has emerged as a hot topic on the Democratic presidential campaign trail, as former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has repeatedly attacked Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for being soft on gun control and unwilling to stand up to the NRA. Clinton has unveiled her own ambitious gun control agenda. She wants to close a major loophole in the federal gun law that allows high volume sellers of semi-automatic weapons at gun shows and on the Internet to avoid being licensed and having to do background checks of prospective buyers, as is required of retail gun dealers. Her plan would also repeal a law that protects gun manufacturers from being held liable for gun violence. She has sharply criticized Sanders for supporting that measure in 2005, when it came up for a vote in the House. Clinton also called for closing another loophole that enables a convicted felon to skirt a prohibition on purchasing guns if a gun dealer fails to complete a background check within three days. Dylan Roof -- the 21-year-old white supremacist who shot and killed nine members of an historic black church in Charleston, S.C., last June -- managed to slip through that loophole to purchase the gun he used in the killings. Related: 19 Unbelievable Facts About Guns in America According to Gallup, Republicans are the least dissatisfied with gun laws across political party groups, with 54 percent saying they are not happy with the nations gun laws, largely because they are too restrictive. Dissatisfaction among independents is only slightly higher at 59 percent, while Democrats are the most dissatisfied, at 75 percent. Guatemala City (AFP) - Guatemala's new president, Jimmy Morales, said Friday he wants "justice, not revenge" meted out to ex-army personnel accused of atrocities during his country's 1960-1996 civil war. Following an armed forces ceremony recognizing him as commander-in-chief just one day after he was sworn in, Morales added that he did not want to see action that would "prejudice" the country's values. "What I want, as do all Guatemalans, is that justice be done -- but justice, not revenge," he said, answering questions by reporters. Eighteen retired soldiers were detained last week on accusations of participation in massacres of indigenous people and in the disappearance of a boy during the civil war. Among them figure Benedicto Lucas Garcia, the armed forces chief during the 1978-1982 presidency of his brother Fernando Romeo Lucas Garcia, who ruled over the darkest years of the conflict. A lawmaker who helped found Morales' party, former officer Edgar Ovalle, is also implicated in the atrocities. Prosecutors have asked that his parliamentary immunity be lifted so he can face charges. Guatemala's long civil war resulted in 200,000 people killed or registered as missing, according to the United Nations, which attributed more than 90 percent of the atrocities committed to the armed forces. During the military ceremony Friday, Morales announced that he was giving the army the task of rebuilding 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) of roads in rural parts of the country. The decision cuts out private contractors that had traditionally been given funds to carry out such work. Mexico City (AFP) - Mexico's president declared "mission accomplished" when drug baron Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was recaptured. Cabinet ministers hugged at the news at a meeting with diplomats, where people spontaneously sang the national anthem. While President Enrique Pena Nieto's administration has basked in the triumph of returning Guzman to prison, critics and analysts are reminding him that the arrest will not fix the country's security and corruption problems. Some have compared Pena Nieto's reaction to images of former US president George W. Bush standing under a "mission accomplished" banner when he announced the end of major combat operations in Iraq in May 2003. "That's why it was not a good decision by Enrique Pena Nieto to announce the capture of the drug trafficker who escaped twice from prison as 'mission accomplished,'" historian Lorenzo Meyer wrote in Reforma newspaper. Nobody -- not even government officials -- believes that drug trafficking will suddenly come to a halt, or that Guzman's powerful Sinaloa drug cartel will abruptly fall apart. And Pena Nieto is still haunted by the unresolved case of 43 students who were abducted by corrupt police and allegedly killed by a drug gang in September 2014. Pena Nieto acknowledged in his New Year speech on Monday that, despite the arrest of 98 of the country's 122 most wanted criminals, "we still have challenges, but we are confronting them with vision and determination." While the government says murders have dropped since he took office in December 2012, experts have questioned the data. - Mission 'not' accomplished - "When Pena Nieto's six-year term ends (in 2018), the capture of 'El Chapo' will have done nothing to resolve the problem of drug trafficking and violence will not have come down, and it could increase," said deputy Victor Manuel Sanchez Orozco, of the leftist Citizens Movement. Story continues "The mission has not been accomplished." Other opposition lawmakers said that while the recapture was a success, the government must combat the corruption that likely contributed to Guzman's escape. Pena Nieto's administration was humiliated when Guzman escaped a maximum-security prison through a tunnel on July 11, just 17 months after marines had arrested him in his native northwestern state of Sinaloa. The authorities launched a massive manhunt that led to his recapture a week ago in the seaside Sinaloa city of Los Mochis -- a triumph that ended up having to share headlines with US actor Sean Penn's bombshell revelation that he met Guzman three months before his capture. While putting Guzman back behind bars was a major victory, "it merely rectifies something that went wrong," Jose Antonio Crespo, political expert at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching, told AFP. "It will improve his public image... It gives the government a breather," but a likely bump in approval ratings will be short-lived, Crespo said. Crespo pointed to a poll in El Universal newspaper showing that 77 percent of Mexicans believe Guzman will escape prison again, which shows that "the distrust in the institutions continues." Pena Nieto's administration, which had balked at shipping Guzman to the United States before his escape, has now launched extradition proceedings while boosting security at the prison. - Organized crime - Christopher Wilson, deputy director of the Washington-based Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said Guzman's arrest was "an absolute triumph" for Pena Nieto. "At the same time, he's just one person. Mexico's problems are not solved by putting one person behind bars," Wilson said. "They're solved by creating institutions like the police, the judges, the prosecutors that can on a day-to-day basis withstand the pressures of organized crime." Pena Nieto's administration has taken steps to overhaul the judicial system, and his economic reforms have won international praise, but he will end up with a "mixed legacy" on security issues, Wilson said. While capturing Guzman is a victory, Wilson said, it is "not the type of thing that changes the trajectory of a presidency." Donald Trump speaks at a convocation at Liberty University, as Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr., left, and Rep. Michele Bachmann, right, in Lynchburg, Va., on Sept. 24, 2012. (Photo: The News & Advance, Parker Michels-Boyce/AP) In the face of opposition from students, Liberty University officials are defending the schools invitation to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to speak on campus Monday Martin Luther King Jr. Day. A peaceful protest is planned by demonstrators who will hold signs and sing when Trump speaks at one of Liberty Universitys convocations, a thrice-weekly student gathering at the evangelical Christian school in Lynchburg, Va. Law student Eli McGowan is an organizer of the protest. I immediately felt that it was somewhat inappropriate, and then I started to hear from people who felt the same way, McGowan said in an interview with Yahoo News. Mr. Trump, by his actions and his words, hes really revealed that he is antagonistic to the ideals that Dr. King lived for and ended up dying for. Mark Hine, the senior vice president for student affairs at Liberty University, said the school always holds a convocation on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and it usually includes a video to honor his memory. I think this one was picked to afford Mr. Trump the opportunity to, among other things, honor Dr. King. It wasnt like we said, Lets go find someone who would be anti-Martin Luther King, Hine told Yahoo News. I dont know that absolutely everything Trump would say aligns with Martin Luther King, but I dont see him in any way as being the total opposite. McGowan, who identifies as a libertarian, said Trumps actions over the years appear to conflict with Kings message and legacy. He said Trump has been accused of discriminating in rental policies, calling for the death penalty for black teenagers convicted (and later exonerated) of rape, and demeaning undocumented immigrants. Trump has denied these charges, and, for his part, claims to have a great relationship with the blacks. Story continues Mr. Trump is someone who enjoys and profits from dividing people among racial, gender, national and ethnic lines, and mocking those he doesnt have much in common with. Whereas Dr. King was a great unifier and sought to understand even his enemies, McGowan said. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speaking at a press conference in Chicago on March 24, 1967. (Photo: Charles Harrity/AP) Hine said he sees people trying to silence others who disagree with them on American campuses or shaming schools into not inviting certain guests to the campus. But at Liberty, he said, convocation speakers cross the political spectrum. We want to give students exposure to all kinds of ideas from all different fronts, Hine said. "And we take it on the chin, by the way, for doing that from the left and the right. The protesters do not think Trump should be barred from speaking on campus altogether. They had no problem with his visit in 2012. They just wish for him to speak on a different occasion. From Hines perspective, the list of allegations against Trump stretching back to the 1970s seemed more like gotcha politics than anything. Joel Ready, an alum of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, part of the university, said in a Facebook post that he supports having speakers with diverse opinions visit the school but was disappointed in the Trump invitation. Citing scripture (1 Corinthians 5:9-13), Ready said that those who profess to be believers but are immoral or greedy should be expelled. Trump is the grotesque personification of everything that is wrong with American political discourse, and his repeated claims that he is a Christian should disqualify him from speaking at Liberty, he wrote. Trump identifies as Presbyterian and says that the Bible is his all-time favorite book (his second favorite book is his own business advice book, The Art of the Deal.) When asked, he has declined to name his favorite biblical passage but told the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) that he benefits from profound wisdom in the Book of Proverbs. A cross erected on Candlers Mountain overlooks Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., Tuesday, April 21, 2015. (Photo: Steve Helber/AP) Despite his braggadocio and flamboyant lifestyle, Trump has been polling strongly among white evangelicals with 33 percent support in a recent NBC News/Survey Monkey survey. Last week, in response to the uproar, Liberty Universitys Student Government Association said that the student body should be able to hear from any person who is influential in his or her field of work. Regardless of whether we agree with their views and opinions it is our responsibility to show Christian hospitality and respect. Showing someone who we disagree with hospitality and respect doesnt forsake our values as followers of Jesus, but helps our witness, the group said in a post on Facebook. The Student Government Association encouraged students to engage with other viewpoints that might cause them turn to the Bible in search of truth. Every guest we host for convocation affords us this opportunity, the statement continues. Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr., the son of late televangelist and university founder Jerry Falwell, says he thinks Trump upholds the principles of equality King enunciated in his famous 1963 I Have a Dream speech, making him an appropriate speaker for Kings birthday. Falwell told the Lynchburg News & Advance, Liberty stands for that principle and I believe that Mr. Trump does as well. To court evangelical votes, other presidential candidates have already spoken at the Christian university this election cycle: retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz all Christian Republicans as well as, perhaps surprising to some, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent running as a Democrat, who is Jewish. In a recent Fox News appearance, Falwell Jr. revealed that his favorite White House hopefuls are Trump, Carson and Cruz. I think Trump reminds me so much of my father. He says exactly what he thinks no matter what anybody cares, Falwell told host Sean Hannity last month. Carson is so intelligent and so levelheaded. And Cruz is just I love Ted Cruz. So Im still undecided, but those are definitely my three favorites. The convocation, considered the largest thrice-weekly gathering of Christian students in North America, hosts more than 80 guest speakers per year. It is held on campus at the Vines Center, where regular attendance is mandatory for residential undergraduate students and free to the general public. CBN reports that Trump will get another opportunity to win over more young evangelicals on February 24, when he is scheduled to speak at Regent University, a Christian school in Virginia Beach, Va. Related video: One reason the plague was able to spread so massively across Europe during the Middle Ages may have been that the bacteria that caused the disease lay hidden, in some unknown animal reservoir, for centuries, a new study reports. In the study, researchers in Germany hypothesize that the bacteria Yersinia pestis, which causes plague and killed millions of people, may have survived in Europe in an unknown host during the second plague pandemic, which lasted from the 14th to the 17th century. The idea came after the researchers analyzed the DNA from the skeletal remains of 30 plague victims who were buried at two grave sites in Germany. The researchers compared the data from the genetic analysis of these plague victims to the results of previous genetic analyses of skeletal remains of European plague victims from other countries. They found that five of the German plague victims were infected with genetically identical Y. pestis bacteria, even though they lived about310 miles (500 kilometers) and 300 years apart. The German plague victims also had Y. pestis that were genetically similar to that of far-away plague victims, in Britain and France, according to the research, published today (Jan. 13) in the journalPLOS ONE. It has become evident in recent research on plague DNA collected from people infected during each of the three major pandemics that all of the pandemics originated from Central Asia (China), said study author Holger Scholz, a molecular biologist and infectious disease researcher at Bundeswehr Institute of Microbiology in Munich, Germany. But the question on the researchers' minds was why the second pandemic lasted such a long time three centuries and wiped out about one-third of the continent's population, he said. [7 Devastating Infectious Diseases] New research on old disease The previous explanation of how the plaque reached Eastern Europe is that the bacteria were introduced via the major trade route from Asia, known as the Silk Road, Scholz said. From there, the bacteria was thought to be transported by sea and introduced to other parts of Europe in several waves, he said. Story continues Rats on the ships and their infected fleas, which can transmit the plague bacteria when they bite people, could have played an important role in disseminating the disease, Scholz told Live Science. But in the new study, the researchers excavated human remains from victims of the second plague pandemic, including the period between 1346 and 1353 known as the "Black Death." This is when bubonic plague was at its peak in Europe. "Our findings show that at least one genotype of Y. pestis bacteria may have persisted in Europe over a long time period in a not-yetidentified host, possibly rodents or lice," Scholz told Live Science. This is new thinking, suggesting there might have been "good conditions" in Europe for the plague agent to survive there, he explained. It is likely the second plague pandemic resulted from a combination of the infectious agent being continually reintroduced in waves to Europe, as well as the agent surviving for long periods in an unknown host, Scholz said. New explanations People who have bubonic plague develop symptoms such as fever, headache, chills and weakness as well as swollen and painful lymph nodes in the areas closest to where the bacteria first enters their body, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These days, plague cases still occur, but can be treated with antibiotics. Scientists can now use modern methods to investigate ancient medical problems, and the first detection of Y. pestis in the remains of plague victims from the Middle Ages occurred in 1998. Since that time, researchers have been working to pinpoint the causative agents of plague for each of the three major pandemic periods. But not everybody is convinced that the new explanation proposed in this study is supported by the available evidence. The question the researchers are trying to address in this new study did the plague hang around in a reservoir in Europe, or was it continually reintroduced from Asia during the second pandemic is an interesting one, said James Bliska, a professor of molecular genetics and microbiology at Stony Brook University in New York, who was not involved in this research, but has conducted studies on Y. pestis and plague. [10 Deadly Diseases That Hopped Across Species] However, "the results in this paper are limited and preliminary," Bliska said. The data from this analysis doesn't strongly suggest that genetically related bacteria were necessarily persisting in a host in Europe, and it still could be that independent reintroductions of the same bacteria were occurring, Bliska told Live Science. The study's sample size is small and there are alternative explanations to their finding of identical strain genotypes of the bacterium in these plague victims, he said. The findings could be due to chance and a larger number of samples may have showed more genetic diversity in the bacteria, he also noted. For the people in Europe during the Middle Ages, it made little difference whether they were dying from plague continuouslyintroduced to the continentor from plague that was introduced only once or twice, Scholz said. But this might be a modern-day worry for scientists should additional research find that given the right conditions, it's possible for plague to persist for a long time, he added. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science. Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. KISSIMMEE, Fla. The galaxy's fastest stars may have just become easier to pick out of a crowd. As they race away from their stellar siblings, some speedy stars push material in front of them to create a visually striking, half-circle formation that a group of astronomers has used to identify a large number of fast-moving candidates. "Over the past year, we have identified hundreds of hot, massive star candidates streaming at supersonic speeds," William Chick said last week at a press conference at the 227th annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Kissimmee. [Top 10 Star Mysteries] Chick, a graduate student at the University of Wyoming, is part of a team of astronomers that pored through archived images taken by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Spitzer Space Telescopes in search of the wavelike structures, then identified fast-moving stars as their source. "Using Spitzer and WISE, we have identified hundreds of hot dust structures with arclike shapes, revealing a previously uncategorized group of objects," Chick said. Speeding stars Most stars move on a fairly predictable path through the galaxy, moving away from the region where they were born slowly and without fanfare. But hypervelocity stars travel at a much faster clip. Zeta Ophiuchi, a bright star in the constellation of Ophiuchus, moves at around 67,000 mph (30 kilometers per second) compared to background material. By comparison, the sun travels at only about 43,000 mph (19 km/s). If they travel fast enough, such stars can even leave the Milky Way galaxy. Finding a fast-moving star in the galaxy may initially be a task much like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. But as Zeta Ophiuchi and stars like it zoom through the slower surrounding dust and gas, they push the matter in front of it, creating a striking bow shock in the cooler material. "It's similar to jets moving at supersonic speeds, causing the material to pile up in front of them," Chick said. Story continues Chick and his colleagues identified more than 200 fuzzy features captured in infrared light by Spitzer and WISE. They then used the Wyoming Infrared Observatory to follow up on 80 of the objects, examining the arc-shaped features in search of stars that could create them. Although they anticipated these stars would influence the formation of some of the arcs, they were startled to see just how prominent a role they played. "We were surprised that over 95 percent of them were, in fact, hot, massive stars, as we predicted," he said. "It appears that bow-shock nebulae are an extremely efficient method of locating these hot, massive runaway stars." An energetic kick Zeta Ophiuchi is a young star, five times hotter and 20 times more massive than the sun. Like the sun, it likely formed in a cluster with other young stars. But something happened to kick Zeta Ophiuchi from its original path. "To get something the size of these stars up to these speeds, there needs to be a pretty energetic event to get them moving," Chick said. Although scientists aren't completely certain of what provided the energy boost, two methods rise to the top of the list. As a star travels through space, it may pass a massive object such as a black hole. Gravity kicks in, slingshotting the star into space at accelerated speeds. Alternatively, two stars in a binary system may age together, until one dies young in a violent supernova. The explosion may have enough energy to propel the survivor outward at supersonic speeds. Chick and his team can't rewind time to see the events that booted their bow-shock-forming stars, but they can trace the star back through space to find its birthplace and try to determine what sent it packing. For instance, if the speedy star was kicked out by a companion supernova, the remnant should be visible when the astronomers backtrack. According to Chick, it's very likely that both mechanisms play a role in ejecting these stars. He said that the team has already identified several likely cases for both scenarios, though additional observations are needed for any individual case. "It may be that our Milky Way is swarming with these hot, runaway stars," he said. Follow Nola Taylor Redd on Twitter @NolaTRedd or Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com. Copyright 2016 SPACE.com, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. By Shadia Nasralla and Arshad Mohammed VIENNA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An IAEA report verifying that Iran has kept its promises under last year's nuclear deal with world powers and triggering sanctions relief for Tehran is likely to be issued on Saturday, a diplomatic source said on Friday. The report, if issued, would mark the consummation of the July 14, 2015 nuclear agreement. Under the deal, Iran agreed to shrink its atomic program in exchange for the lifting of some EU, U.S. and U.N sanctions, which would allow billions of dollars of investment to flow into the country. In a sign its implementation may be at hand, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini will meet in Vienna on Saturday, the U.S. State Department said. "All parties have continued making steady progress towards Implementation Day of the JCPOA, which will ensure the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program," said State Department spokesman Mark Toner, referring to the formal title of the deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Iranian and other officials had previously said they expected the report from the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, to come out on Friday. "Almost all details are ironed out," said another diplomatic source, based in the Austrian capital. The IAEA is in charge of verifying that Iran has carried out all of the nuclear-related steps required in the deal it struck with the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany. It must release a report once it has done so. The IAEA declined comment on the timing of the report. Iranian officials have said Zarif and Mogherini would issue a statement on Saturday or Sunday on the "Implementation Day" of the nuclear deal and the lifting of sanctions. Since July, Iran has drastically reduced the number of centrifuges installed at its enrichment sites, shipped tonnes of low-enriched uranium materials to Russia and dismantled the core of its Arak nuclear reactor. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said there could be a meeting in relation to Iran on Saturday in Vienna, where the July 14 deal was reached, but did not elaborate. "There may be some sort of a meeting tomorrow in Vienna, after which, if everything goes well, we will issue a statement from the Secretary-General," he told reporters. In another sign implementation may be near, U.S. President Barack Obama delegated authority to Kerry to take steps to ease some sanctions. However, a U.S. official said this was "one of many preparatory steps" Washington had to take to ease sanctions once the IAEA verifies Iran has met its nuclear obligations. (Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; Editing by Andrew Roche and Frances Kerry) By Randy Fabi and Fergus Jensen JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesian police killed one suspected militant and arrested two more in raids across the country on Friday, a day after an attack by Islamic State suicide bombers and gunmen in the heart of the Southeast Asian nation's capital. Just seven people were killed in Thursday's late-morning siege near a busy shopping district, despite multiple blasts and a gunfight, and five of the dead were the attackers themselves. Nevertheless, it was the first time the radical group has targeted the country with the world's largest Muslim population, and the brazenness of the attack suggested a new brand of militancy in a country more used to low-level strikes on police. Police chiefs across the country were on high alert, some embassies in Jakarta were closed for the day and security was stepped up on the resort island of Bali, a draw for tourists from Australia and other Asian countries. "It's clear that the (Jakarta attackers) didn't set this up themselves. For this, we are searching for the networks and who was involved in this action," said Anton Charliyan, national police spokesman. Security forces killed one suspected militant in a gun battle in Central Sulawesi, while two others were arrested in the city of Cirebon in West Java. The three were believed to be Islamic State supporters, but not directly connected to the Jakarta attack, police said. Returning to the area outside Jakarta's oldest department store, Sarinah, where Thursday's attack unfolded, the city's police chief said the rise of Islamic State was a cause for serious concern. "We need to strengthen our response and preventive measures, including legislation to prevent them ... and we hope our counterparts in other countries can work together because it is not home-grown terrorism, it is part of the ISIS network," Tito Karnavian said, using an acronym for the Syria-based group. In response to the Jakarta attacks, Philippine President Benigno Aquino ordered security forces to strengthen defenses of "soft" targets. Malaysia placed the country on its highest alert. Experts agree that there is a growing threat from radicalized Muslims inspired by Islamic State, some of whom may have fought with the group in Syria. However, they said the low death toll on Thursday pointed to the involvement of poorly trained local militants whose weapons were crude. An Indonesian and a man of dual Canadian-Algerian nationality were killed along with the attackers. Twenty-four people were seriously wounded, including an Austrian, a German and a Dutchman. Islamic State said in its claim of responsibility that "a group of soldiers of the caliphate in Indonesia targeted a gathering from the crusader alliance that fights the Islamic State in Jakarta". Police confirmed that Islamic State was responsible and named an Indonesian militant, Bahrun Naim, as the mastermind. They believe Naim leads a militant network known as Katibah Nusantara and is pulling strings from Raqqa, Islamic State's de facto capital in Syria. "His vision is to unite all ISIS supporting elements in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines," Jakarta police chief Karnavian said. Islamist militants from those three countries have a record of working together, and several Malaysians are known to have carried out suicide attacks in the Middle East. ECHOES OF PARIS Indonesia has seen attacks by Islamist militants before, but a coordinated assault by a team of suicide bombers and gunmen is unprecedented and has echoes of the siege in Mumbai seven years ago and in Paris last November. In a recent blog post, entitled "Lessons from the Paris Attacks", Naim had urged his Indonesian audience to study the planning, targeting, timing, coordination, security and courage of the jihadis in the French capital. The country had been on edge for weeks over the threat posed by Islamist militants, and counter-terrorism police had rounded up about 20 people with suspected links to Islamic State. There was a spate of militant attacks in Indonesia in the 2000s, the deadliest of which was a nightclub bombing on Bali that killed 202 people, most of them tourists. Police have been largely successful in destroying domestic militant cells since then, but officials have more recently been worrying about a resurgence inspired by Islamic State. Many experts believe, however, that Indonesia, a vibrant democracy where the vast majority of Muslims practise a moderate form of Islam, is not likely to be tipped into a cauldron of radicalism. (Additional reporting by the Jakarta bureau and Manuel Mogato in MANILA; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Robert Birsel and Mike Collett-White) MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Fighters from Somali militant group al Shabaab rammed a suicide car bomb into the gates of an African Union base in Somalia and fought their way inside early on Friday, the group and the Somali army said, and fighting was still going on. There were no immediate reports about casualties from the attack in Ceel Cado, in the south of the country, about 550 km west of Mogadishu, near the Kenyan border. Al Shabaab, a group aligned to al Qaeda, said the base had Kenyan soldiers serving as part of an African Union force battling the Islamist group in Somalia, a country mired in conflict since civil war broke out in 1991. "Our fighters went in and after heavy exchange of gunfire we took over the base," Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaabs military operations spokesman, told Reuters. Musab added that AU soldiers fled from the base. But a Somali military official said the fighting in the base continued. Residents said they could hear sporadic gunfire. "A suicide car bomb exploded at the gate of the base and their fighters went in. There is heavy gunfire going on inside the base," Major Hussein Abdulle, a military officer stationed about 100 km from the Ceel Cado base, told Reuters. Al Shabaab has in the past year staged multiple attacks against African Union bases in Somalia, part of a guerrilla-warfare strategy to drive out foreign troops and impose its harsh version of Islamic law across the Horn of African nation. (Reporting by Abdi Sheikh and Feisal Omar; Writing by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Robert Birsel) Rome (AFP) - Italy eased up slightly on cannabis growers Friday, decriminalising those who violate agreed terms on cultivating the plants for therapeutic purposes. "This does not decriminalise those growing weed on their terrace," warned Justice Minister Andrea Orlando. Under the new bill, people who abuse their permission to cultivate cannabis will be slapped with a fine rather than a prison sentence. Those caught growing their own personal crop without a license still face up to a year in jail and a four-million euro fine. The aim is to help ease Italy's notoriously congested justice system and "make sanctions more effective", Orlando said. In July, over 200 parliamentarians from across the political spectrum submitted a bill to legalise the cultivation of a small amount of cannabis for personal recreational use. One company, betting on cannabis use becoming legal for all in Italy by the end of the year, launched a website this week to recruit people interested in the idea of setting up a franchised shop. Nativa said Italians consume "some three million kilogrammes of cannabis a year" -- grounds for a potentially rich business. By Aubrey Belford and Kanupriya Kapoor JAKARTA (Reuters) - This week's militant attack in the heart of Indonesia's capital at first appeared to bear the hallmarks of recent spectacular strikes by Islamic State: a meticulously planned, multi-stage assault designed to sow confusion and take many lives. But things may not have gone completely to plan. In interviews with witnesses and authorities, as well as video obtained by Reuters, a picture emerges of a calculated attack that swiftly fizzled out due to the militants' lack of sophisticated weaponry and amateurish execution. Police say the five militants who attacked a Starbucks cafe and police post in central Jakarta came lightly armed, with just two pistols and about a dozen low-yield homemade bombs. Over half an hour in which all the militants died, they succeeded in killing two people, and wounding 31. The assault was "planned and organised but did not have the maximum impact," national police spokesman Anton Charliyan told reporters on Friday. He said the attack was "a new style of terrorism in Indonesia" modelled on the radical group's attack in Paris in November, in which coordinated attacks by gunmen armed with automatic rifles killed 129 people. "But these were guns and small bombs carried by individuals on motorbikes, (so) they couldn't fit many," he added. According to witnesses and video, the shooters appeared to frequently miss their targets, and most bombs did little damage. The largest explosion came at the denouement of the attack, when the militants appeared to blow themselves up by accident. Security experts said the attackers appeared to be locals who were not trained or battle-hardened on Islamic State's front lines in Syria or Iraq. Kevin O'Rourke, a respected commentator on Indonesia, said Islamic State leaders may conclude the attackers demonstrated "relatively weak prowess" with their weapons, and this could "blunt the impetus for attempting other such operations with Indonesian suicide attackers". "EVERYONE SCATTERED" Despite all this, witnesses described an attack that initially followed a clear script, and was carried out with chilling brutality. At about 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, one militant emerged from a toilet in a Starbucks cafe and detonated a suicide bomb, killing himself and injuring several others, police said. "The sound was incredibly loud and I could feel the tremors. I saw two women running out of the building, they were hysterical, screaming 'help' and 'there's a bomb'," Urip Hidayat, a security guard at a nearby bank, told Reuters. Within minutes, two other suicide bombers entered a nearby police post and blew themselves up. As a crowd of bystanders and police gathered to take in the scene, two gunmen approached from behind and mingled with them. One, dressed in a black shirt and wearing trainers and a red backpack, pulled out a pistol and began shooting, photographs published in the local media showed. "Everyone scattered," Naldo Januario Tuwaidan, a security guard who watched from across the road, told Reuters. "When the crowd cleared there was just a body lying in the road." "READY TO DIE" With three suicide bombers dead, the two remaining militants headed the 50 metres to the Starbucks as the streets cleared out. Unchallenged by police, they stalked their victims in the area near the cafe, said Ronny Gunawan, 38, who watched from a nearby office tower. The men sauntered in and out of a nearby building with chilling calm, he said. "They were ready to die." By a fence, Gunawan saw what appeared to be a foreign man lying wounded. "An Indonesian tried to help him, but while he was trying to drag the guy away, one of the terrorists ... came up and shot both of them point-blank in the head," he said. A roughly 25-minute video obtained by Reuters shows what happened next. As police closed in, the militants huddled by their two victims, exchanging gunshots and hurling homemade bombs that exploded in puffs of white smoke but causing little apparent damage. Twice, the militant wearing the red backpack approached the prone victims and shot them again. A police bullet then appeared to hit a second militant who reached towards his colleague and took an object. Seconds later, both men were consumed by an explosion. In the tower across the road, Gunawan and his friends cheered. "The terrorist seemed to reach for another bomb, but blew himself up by accident," Gunawan said. Police then advanced cautiously, firing dozens of shots into the two dying militants. About half a dozen bombs were later recovered on the dead men - signs of preparation for a longer battle. NO RESOURCES OR SKILLS Indonesian authorities have identified Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian believed to be with the Islamic State in Syria, as the likely mastermind of the attacks. Police said Naim hopes to stage spectacular attacks in order to stake a claim to the leadership of the group in Indonesia, where militant groups have floundered in recent years in the face of police crackdowns and ideological splits. The most recent major attack in Indonesia was a bombing of two luxury hotels in Jakarta in 2009 that killed seven people, including three foreigners. Todd Elliot, an expert on militancy at Concord Consulting, said Thursday's assault showed local militants are still struggling to emulate that attack, or another Paris. "The weapons they used were crude home-made weapons," he said. "It seems they don't have the resources or skills to buy or create more powerful explosives." (Reporting by Kanupriya Kapoor and Aubrey Belford; Additional reporting by Cindy Silviana, Wilda Asmarini Fransiska Nangoy and Fergus Jensen; Editing by John Chalmers and Ian Geoghegan) Washington (AFP) - US Secretary of State John Kerry heads to Vienna on Saturday for talks with his European Union and Iranian counterparts on the Iran nuclear deal, officials said. The trip comes amid speculation that the Vienna-based IAEA nuclear watchdog is about to announce Iran has fulfilled its side of the deal to put an atomic bomb beyond its reach. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Kerry will meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini to discuss the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran's nuclear program. "As we've said, all parties have continued making steady progress toward 'Implementation Day' of the JCPOA, which will ensure the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program," Toner said. International and US officials have refused to confirm that implementation of the agreement will begin Saturday, but agree that it will start in the coming days and Iran expects it before Sunday. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet Iran's foreign minister and the European Union's foreign policy chief in Vienna on Saturday to discuss the Iran nuclear deal, the U.S. State Department said on Friday. "All parties have continued making steady progress towards Implementation Day of the (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Iran nuclear deal), which will ensure the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a brief statement announcing Kerry's plans to meet Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini in Vienna. (Reporting by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Eric Walsh) kobe bryant Getty Image Its no secret that when Kobe Bryant finally retires, hell likely look to fellow Lakers legend Magic Johnson as an example for using his competitive acumen to build a business empire. But it seems like hes not even waiting until hes played his final game to start snatching up property or at least, intellectual property. Kobe is trademarking the phrase "Friends Hang Sometimes Banners Hang Forever" https://t.co/6Z3V4hKYJC pic.twitter.com/6Ld1QOTE4q Becca Laurie, PI (@imbeccable) January 15, 2016 The saying is actually Kobe paraphrasing his own quote from after the end of last season, when he said, Friends come and go, but banners hang forever. And you gotta admit, the new version is a lot catchier. A perfect phrase for those neon-colored, block-lettered t-shirts that Nike has made so popular in the last few years. Except you cant have this one, Nike! Kobes all over this one. And of course, the saying is very Kobe he covets immortality like hes in a movie about ancient Greece. Trademarking phrases and branding them, of course and filing patents is an easy thing for Bryant to get his lawyers to do while hes still playing, but we cant wait for Mogul Mamba to make some honest business moves once his career is over. Magic owns the Los Angeles Dodgers now, so Kobes going to have to do something huge to top him and you know Kobe wants to top him. By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin slid by 10 percent on Friday after one of its lead developers, Mike Hearn, said in a blogpost that he was ending his involvement with the cryptocurrency and selling all of his remaining holdings because it had "failed". Hearn, one of five senior developers who has spent more than five years working on the web-based currency, said he would no longer be taking part in development. "Despite knowing that bitcoin could fail all along, the now inescapable conclusion that it has failed still saddens me greatly," Hearn said in his post on blog-publishing platform Medium. Along with Gavin Andresen, who was chosen by bitcoin's elusive creator Satoshi Nakamoto as his successor when he stepped aside in 2011, Hearn has been locked for months in a battle with the other lead developers over whether the "blocks" in which bitcoin transactions are processed should be enlarged. Each block currently has a capacity of one megabyte, which Hearn says is "an entirely artificial capacity cap", and allows a maximum of just three payments to be processed per second. In August, Hearn and Andresen released a rival version of the current software, called Bitcoin XT, which would increase the block size to 8 megabytes, allowing up to 24 transactions to be processed every second. While that is still a fraction of the 20,000 or so that Visa can process, it would increase every year, so that bitcoin could continue to grow. But the new software has not been adopted by the "mining" computers that secure the network, the majority of which are in China, according to Hearn. Hearn says the bitcoin network is about to run out of capacity as the volume of transactions increases. And when that happens, the network will become unreliable, with payments unable to be processed and vulnerable to fraud. "If an IT system runs out of capacity like that then all kinds of things go wrong all hell breaks loose," he said in an interview with Reuters in late December. Hearn reckons the bitcoin community has "failed" in its governance of the crytocurrency's code. "What was meant to be a new, decentralised form of money that lacked 'systemically important institutions' and 'too big to fail' has become something even worse: a system completely controlled by just a handful of people," he wrote. SUDDEN DEPARTURE Just months ago, in August, Hearn told Reuters that whether or not Bitcoin XT was adopted, the crypocurrency would live on. "If we thought it might be the end of bitcoin, we wouldn't do it," he said then. Bitcoin was trading at around $390 on the itBit exchange by 2000 GMT, down from $430 before Hearn's blog post was published. In his December interview, Hearn said that when people realised that the bitcoin network was at breaking point, the price would fall. "The current price of bitcoin is supported almost entirely by people speculating on its future, in the assumption that this could be the money of tomorrow," he said. "So if the network starts to collapse, then a lot of people are going to look at it and say: well maybe we've miscalculated (its) future value." Hearn is now working for the R3CEV consortium of banks working on using the blockchain technology that underpins bitcoin in financial markets. Stephan Tual, the former chief operating officer of blockchain firm Ethereum, who now works at blockchain-based app developer Slock.it, also reckons bitcoin's future looks shaky. "Bitcoin is outdated technology - almost prehistoric by crypto standards," he said. "It's because of petty quarrels such as these that it hasn't been able to evolve in five years." Others were more upbeat. "I'm not ready to declare that Bitcoin has failed," wrote U.S. venture capitalist Fred Wilson. "Sometimes it takes a crisis to get everyone in a room... So if we are going to have a crisis, let's get on with it. No better time than the present." (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Ruth Pitchford) The sagging presidential campaign of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush rolled out the endorsement Friday morning of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who withdrew after struggling to muster any support in the polls. At a press conference in on Friday, one day after the Republican presidential debate in North Charleston, Graham touted Bush as the candidate with the "most comprehensive and well-thought-out" plan to defeat the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, lauding Bush for opposing frontrunner Donald Trump's proposal to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States. The endorsement: "I can't think of a worse idea in terms of how to fight and win this war," Graham said. "Many of the people running for president are nearly silent on this issue," he added, saying that Bush "made the most sense" in discussing the topic at Thursday night's debate. "Last night, [Bush] demonstrated somebody who, in my view, is ready on day one to be commander in chief," Graham said. S What it means: While Graham won't deliver Bush a large Republican constituency he dropped out of the race in December at 0.5% in the national polls and wasn't doing much better even in his home state the Bush campaign hopes to tap Graham's fundraising and organizing network in the Palmetto State, whose closely watched primary follows the contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. Bush currently stands at fifth place in South Carolina with 8.5% support, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average. Story continues Bush nabbed endorsements from some key Graham backers after the senator quit the race, but given Bush's dire position in the polls, it was unclear whether Graham himself would publicly offer his support, particularly with a more viable candidate like Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida sounding many of the same hawkish foreign policy themes that animated Graham's bid. Little to lose: Sitting at about 5% support nationally and struggling to break into double digits in the crucial New Hampshire contest, Bush understandably finds a high-profile endorsement like Graham's welcome news. But the Though Graham has often stridently hawkish views on national security and foreign policy, he's also broken with conservatives on issues like immigration reform and climate change, angering right-wing constituents. Alluding to Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz's anti-immigration rhetoric, Graham praised Bush on Friday for not attempting "to get ahead in a contested primary by embracing demagoguery." Trump, for his part, mocked the Graham endorsement on Twitter, noting Graham's low poll standing when he left the race: Jeb Bush, who did poorly last night in the debate and whose chances of winning are zero, just got Graham endorsement. Graham quit at O. With Trump and Cruz leading in the polls, Bush has struggled to convince conservatives that he's in tune with the base's sentiments, and given that Trump has only grown his lead since terror attacks in Paris, France, and San Bernardino, California, there's little compelling evidence that the national security pitch Graham offered Friday will revive Bush's bid. Too late? As Graham announced his support, the Bush campaign found itself dealing with a decidedly less flattering bit of news: Politico reported, based on interviews with upwards of 20 Bush donors, that many of Bush's financial backers are quietly waiting for the moment they can jump ship and lend their backing to candidates like Rubio. "I'm resigned to it being over, frankly. It's really disappointing," a Bush supporter on Wall Street told Politico. "I'd urge him to get out after New Hampshire if he doesn't do well, but he probably won't." The seven top Republican presidential candidates met for the sixth primary debate of the 2016 cycle on Thursday night, just 17 days before the Iowa caucuses kick off the nominating contests. The candidates arrived in North Charleston, South Carolina under much of the same circumstances they faced prior to their debate last month in Las Vegas, with businessman Donald Trump decisively leading the polls, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas holding steady in second place and the party's establishment struggling to coalesce behind a clear alternative to the Trump/Cruz wing of the GOP. Thursday night's debate came amid recent spats over the Canadian-born Cruz's "natural-born" citizenship and eligibility to serve as president, and with the party still bitterly divided over issues like immigration, the issue that catapulted Trump to front-runner status. We'll be tallying the debate's most essential moments below. 1. Cruz opened by hitting Obama on Iran. Cruz got the first question, and opened with an attack on President Barack Obama over the brief Iranian detention this week of 10 American sailors who had ventured into Iranian waters. "Today many of us picked up our newspapers ... to see the sight of 10 American sailors on their knees with their hands on their head," Cruz said. "In that State of the Union, President Obama didn't so much as mention the 10 sailors that had been captured by Iran. President Obama is preparing to send $100 billion or more to the Ayatollah Khomeini." "I will tell you, it was heart-breaking, but the good news is the next commander-in-chief is standing on this stage," Cruz said. Closing on a hawkish note, Cruz added, "And I give you my word, if I am elected president no serviceman or servicewoman will be forced to be on their knees and any nation that captures our fighting men and women will feel the full force and fury of the United States of America." Luke Brinker Story continues 2. Jeb Bush sharpened his attacks on Hillary Clinton. Erstwhile frontrunner Jeb Bush went aggressively after Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, dinging her foreign policy record and suggesting her email scandal could lead to a criminal prosecution. "To be honest with you Hillary Clinton would be a national security disaster. Think about it: she wants to continue down the path of Iran, Benghazi, Russian reset, Dodd-Frank, all the things that have gone wrong in this country," Bush said. "She would be a national security mess, and that is wrong. You know what? Here's the problem. If she gets elected she is under investigation with the FBI right now. If she gets elected, her first 100 days, instead of setting agenda she might be going back and forth between the White House and the courthouse. We need to stop that." Luke Brinker 3. Rubio slammed Clinton as "disqualified" for the presidency. Rubio came out of the gates blazing, using his opening words to describe Clinton as entirely unqualified for a White House run. "[Clinton] wouldn't just be a disaster. Hillary Clinton is disqualified from being commander-in-chief of the United States," Rubio said to roaring applause. "Someone who cannot handle intelligence information appropriately cannot be commander-in-chief, and someone who lies to the families of those four victims in Benghazi can never be president of the United States." Rubio went on to slam Obama's foreign policy agenda as a concession to ISIS, and promised to ramp up the war on terror dramatically, including giving a "one-way ticket to Guantanamo" to any captured terrorists abroad. Zeeshan Aleem 4. Cruz defended himself against the New York Times. Asked by moderator Maria Bartiromo about a New York Times report Wednesday night that Cruz failed to properly disclose a Goldman Sachs loan to his 2012 Senate bid, the senator slammed the Gray Lady. "You know, the nice thing about the mainstream media, they don't hide their views," Cruz said. "The New York Times a few weeks back had a columnist who wrote a column saying anybody but Cruz. That same columnist wrote a column comparing me to an evil, demonic spirit from the movie It Follows, that I'm apparently going from body to body possessing people. So, you know, the New York Times and I don't exactly have the warmest of relationships." "Now, in terms of their really stunning hit piece, what they mentioned is when I was running for Senate, unlike Hillary Clinton, I don't have masses of money in the bank, hundreds of millions of dollars," he went on. "When I was running for Senate, just about every lobbyist, just about all the establishment opposed me in the Senate race in Texas. And my opponent in that race was worth over $200 million. He put a $25 million check up from his own pocket to fund that campaign. And my wife Heidi and I, we ended up investing everything we owned. We took a loan against our assets to invest it in that campaign to defend ourselves against those attacks." Luke Brinker 5. Defending his questioning of Cruz's eligibility to serve as president, Trump encountered fierce boos from the crowd. Watch the #GOPdebate audience LOUDLY boo Donald Trump! pic.twitter.com/u9ovZxGZXU "Laurence Tribe and numerous from Harvard said there is a serious question as to whether or not Ted can do this, okay? There are other attorneys that feel, and very, very fine constitutional attorneys, that feel that because he was not born on the land, he cannot run for office," Trump said. "Here's the problem. We're running, we're running. He does great. I win. I choose him as my vice presidential candidate and the Democrats sue, because we can't take him along for the ride. I don't like that." "OK? The fact is, and if, for some reason he beats the rest of the field, he beats the rest of the field who is see, they don't like that. They don't like that," Trump said, referring to the crowd's booing. "They don't like that he beats the rest of the field because they want me. If, for some reason, Neil, he beats the rest of the field, I already know the Democrats are going to be bringing a suit. You have a big lawsuit over your head while you're running and if you become the nominee, who the hell knows if you can even serve in office. So you should go out and get a declaratory judgment. Let the courts decide." Luke Brinker 6. Trump said he will "gladly accept the mantle of anger." When asked how he felt about being called out by South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in her response to the State of the Union, during which she warned against "the siren call of the angriest voices" in the GOP, Trump chose not to defend himself, but to embrace her characterization. "I'm very angry because our country is being run horribly and I will gladly accept the mantle of anger," Trump said defiantly. "Our military is a disaster. Our health care is a horror show ... Yes, I am angry. and I won't be angry when we fix it but until we fix it, I'm very, very angry ... I'm angry because our country is a mess." Zeeshan Aleem 7. Cruz hit Trump again for "New York values." Elaborating on a recent attack on Trump, Cruz defended his use of the phrase "New York values" under questioning from Bartiromo. "You're from New York? You might not [know what 'New York values' means]," Cruz said. "But I promise you, in the state of South Carolina, they do. And listen, there are many, many wonderful, wonderful working men and women in the state of New York. But everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro-gay marriage, focus around money and the media." Trump fired back, saying Cruz's jabs at New York were "insulting" given the hit the city took in the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. Luke Brinker 8. Cruz warned that Clinton wants to confiscate everyone's guns. When asked what his plan was for cracking down on mass shootings and an alleged uptick in violent crime, Cruz made it clear that he believed gun control was not the answer, and that Democrats' gun control measures were merely a guise for eventually eradicating Americans' gun rights. "[Obama] appointed Eric Holder as attorney general, he viewed his mission as brainwashing the American people against guns," Cruz said. The Texas senator then went after Clinton. "Hillary Clinton said she agrees with the dissenters, the Supreme Court dissenters in the Heller case. There were four dissenters and they said they believe the Second Amendment protects no individual right to protect and bear arms whatsoever," Cruz said. "Which means if their view prevailed and the next president gets one, two, three, maybe four Supreme Court justices, the court will rule that not a single person in the room has any right under the Second Amendment and the government can confiscate your guns." Zeeshan Aleem 9. Bush slammed Trump for anti-Muslim policy. When Trump was asked if he had any second thoughts about his polarizing plan to temporarily ban the immigration of Muslims into the country, he had a single-word answer: "No." Citing the alleged approval of his proposal from some of his "great Muslim friends" and impatience for a culture of "political correctness," the real estate magnate defended a temporary ban as the surest way to prevent the U.S. from being "laughed at all over the world." As he has in the past, Bush voiced forceful disagreement. "Donald, I hope you reconsider this, because this policy is a policy that makes it impossible to build the coalition necessary to take out ISIS," Bush said. "The Kurds are our strongest allies they're Muslim you're not going to allow them to come to our country? The other Arab countries have a role in this, we can't be the world's policeman, we can't do it unilaterally." Bush, who has advocated for a controversial religious test for refugees coming into the U.S., said that a blanket ban on Muslims was one step too far. "We don't have to have refugees come to the country, but all Muslims, seriously?" Bush said. "What kind of signal does that send to the rest of the world that the United States is a serious player in creating peace?" Zeeshan Aleem 10. Christie to Rubio: "You blew it, Marco." New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie went after Rubio hard, accusing the Floridian of flubbing his answer on the national debate. "There was a question on entitlements, the reason you had your chance, and you blew it, Marco," Christie said, as Rubio attempted to jump in. "Here is the thing. The reason why that no one wants to answer entitlements because it is hard, a hard problem." The New Jersey governor touted his plan to reform entitlement programs, a centerpiece of his campaign since he launched. Christie added that Clinton is "one or two more poll drops down" against Sanders "from moving further left than she has already moves" on economic issues. Luke Brinker 11. Carson said "the evil government" is to blame for society's ill, "not the evil rich people." When Carson was asked how he would deal with the the problem of corporations evading their financial responsibilities through offshore tax havens, Ben Carson responded with a description of his ambition to create a flat tax system. "I would suggest a fair tax system, that is what we have proposed. A flat tax, for everyone, no exemptions, no deductions, no shelters," Carson said. While creating a flat tax system doesn't address the question of enforcing tax evasion, a practice that the super rich have been using to save themselves tens of trillions for decades, it did allow Carson to score points for attacking government bureaucracy. And that bureaucracy, not inequality, is the true culprit behind America's ills, according to him. "Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton will say, 'it is the evil rich people!'" Carson said. "It is not the evil rich people, it is the evil government that is putting these regulations on us." Zeeshan Aleem 12. Protesters briefly interrupted the debate, shouting "We want Rand!" Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) was excluded from the main stage of the debate, and chose to skip the undercard debate in protest. Several people shouted their support while Cavuto was asking a question, then abruptly stopped: 13. Rubio finally managed to lay a punch on Cruz. In one of his most forceful attacks on Cruz to date, Rubio slammed Cruz as a cynical opportunist, not the principled conservative he purports to be. "Ted Cruz, you used to say you supported doubling the number of green cards, now you say you're against it. You used to support 500% increase in the number of guest workers, now against it. You used to support legalizing people here illegally. now against it. You used to say you were in favor of birthright citizenship. Now you are against it," Rubio said. Not ready to relent, Rubio continued: "Not just on immigration: you used to support [fast-track trade authority], now you are against it. I saw you on the senate floor flip your vote on crop insurance because they told you it would help you in Iowa. And last week we saw you flip the vote on Iowa for the same reason. That is not consistent conservatism. That is political calculation. When I am president, I will work to keep this country safe, Rubio also hammered Cruz's national security record, saying that unlike Cruz, he'd never call NSA leaker Edward Snowden a "public servant" and blasting Cruz for voting with Paul and Sanders against surveillance measures. Cruz was ham-handed in his response, bizarrely saying that "at least half" of Rubio's attacks were untrue. Luke Brinker Skopje (AFP) - Macedonia's Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski handed in his resignation Friday, paving the way for an early election in April in line with an EU-brokered deal to end a political crisis. The move came as European Commissioner Johannes Hahn arrived in Skopje to encourage political parties to stick to the agreement reached in July last year, which was designed to end months of turmoil in the Balkan nation of about 2.1 million people. According to the deal between the government and opposition, Gruevksi was required to hand power to a caretaker government at least 100 days ahead of a parliamentary election scheduled for April 24. But the date of the polls has not been officially called, and Gruevski said in a televised address late Thursday that his resignation would only take effect "100 days before the elections". The date of the vote is set to be a crucial point of discussion for Hahn, particularly as main opposition leader Zoran Zaev has said that conditions have not yet been met for fresh polls. "The imperative of the agreement is to have a crystal-clear electoral and pre-election process and that must be fulfilled," Zaev said late Thursday. A parliamentary source confirmed to AFP that Gruevski had handed in his letter of resignation. His VMRO-DPMNE party has nominated its general secretary Emil Dimitriev as an interim premier until the new parliamentary election. After Macedonia's last vote in 2014, won by the VMRO-DPMNE, Zaev's Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) boycotted parliament saying the polls had been marred by fraud. Last year the crisis deepened when the SDSM accused Gruevski of wiretapping around 20,000 people, including politicians and journalists, and said the tapes revealed high-level corruption. The government denied the accusations and in return filed charges against Zaev, accusing him of "spying" and attempts to "destabilise" the country. Story continues Thousands of supporters on both sides took to the streets of Skopje in protest. The ex-Yugoslav republic faced further turmoil in May last year, when police in northern Macedonia clashed with an ethnic Albanian armed group whose members were mostly from Kosovo. Eighteen people were killed in the clashes, including eight police officers. Macedonia has been in a decade-long stalemate in the process of accession to both the European Union and NATO due to a veto by Greece, which claims a historical right to the name Macedonia. By James Oliphant NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) - Two weeks before the first contest of the 2016 presidential race, Republicans and business leaders who fear the party has been hijacked by the likes of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz found little to comfort them in the latest debate. Both candidates, one a billionaire developer with no political experience and the other a U.S. Senator from Texas with a reputation for clashing with his colleagues in Washington D.C., stood center stage Thursday night and, for the most part, dominated the proceedings. More mainstream hopefuls such as former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Ohio Governor John Kasich, and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio from Florida were left nipping at their heels and squabbling. With characteristic bravado, Trump dubbed himself the winner on Friday. Speaking to 250 people at Living History Farms in Iowa, he called the debate "interesting" and said "even the pundits last night were treating me nicely." Trump told MSNBC the overnight polls showed him winning the debate, saying Cruz was "very strident" and made "inappropriate" comments. "I don't know that he's a nice guy," Trump said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program. "I think he hurt himself last night." Trump, 69, and Cruz, 45, whom opinion polls have locked in a tight struggle to win the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses, clashed at several points, befitting their leading-men status. That left little room for rivals hurriedly trying to close the gap before voting begins for real to choose the party's nominee for November's general election. "They are digging themselves a bit of a hole," said Fergus Cullen, the former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party. "Its entirely possible the final two candidates will be Trump and Cruz, and people like me will be despondent." Business leaders expressed concern about the direction of the party. Xenophobic views about Muslims and Latinos, fanned by Trumps national dominance in the Republican race, risked undermining business hopes of immigration reform, for example. Rhetoric about the countrys income gap and China have also eroded prospects for business-friendly solutions on trade and tax reform, some said. "Policy and politics in this country have become bogged down in a sort of quicksand. Its almost like the harder we push the deeper we sink," said David French, senior vice president for government relations at the National Retail Federation. Dan Danner, president and chief executive officer of the National Federation of Independent Business, a Washington group representing 330,000 small businesses that employ around three million people, said he was also worried. "Small businesses probably represent every ethnic group and are more diverse than many large corporate entities. I dont think theyre for walling us off from the rest of the world, he said. "And small businesses vote. And they vote in much higher proportions than the overall population." Both Trump and Cruz have called for cracking down on legal and illegal immigration. Trump has also advocated a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country after the Dec. 2 shooting deaths of 14 people in San Bernardino, California inspired by Islamist militancy. Thomas Donohue, CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is often viewed as the country's most powerful mainstream business lobby group, fretted in a speech in Washington on Thursday that the rhetoric in the Republican primary campaign was "damn serious and sometimes a little scary." New Hampshire holds its primary about a week after Iowas caucuses and perhaps offers the best chance for a more moderate option to surface as a prime challenger. Iowa Republicans historically tend to favor more conservative candidates. 'SPLINTERED' But in New Hampshire right now, the mainstream Republicans are as splintered and scattered as ever, Cullen said, leaving open the possibility that Trump could win that state as well. Indeed, there seemed to be some acknowledgement during the debate that only one more serious contender might emerge from the rest of the field. That had Christie and Rubio, both of whom hope to win New Hampshire, repeatedly locking horns. They know what lane theyre in and who they're fighting, said Chip Felkel, a Republican strategist in South Carolina, which also holds its primary next month. Its Trump and Cruz, and the other four jockeying for some momentum. Trump and Cruz dominated social media mentions in the debate. And according to Googles analytics, which tracked audience responses, Trump and Cruz came out the winners. More and more, this is coming down to a two-man race. The polling, the support, it is more and more looking like it is Donald Trump and me, Cruz said in an interview on Fox Business Network afterwards. Even before the debate there were signs of establishment concern about Trump and Cruz, who are both vying for support from the Tea Party movement, which advocates for smaller government and fewer taxes. Peter Wehner, who worked in the last three Republican presidential administrations, wrote a scathing op-ed in the New York Times slamming Trump on Thursday. In a shift, most of the field left Trump alone during the debate, and at times praised him. Even Trump's statements about prohibiting Muslim immigration drew a strong rebuke only from Bush, with other candidates such as Cruz and Rubio sounding notes of sympathy with Trumps position. New Hampshire's Cullen held out hope that Rubio, or someone else, might still find time to take on his partys more extreme elements. But, he lamented, the odds are dropping. (Reporting by James Oliphant, David Morgan, and John Whitesides; Eiting by Richard Valdmanis, Paul Thomasch, Grant McCool and Frances Kerry) Manila (AFP) - The Philippines said Friday it was concerned that Islamic State jihadists could recruit its nationals working in the Middle East, a day after militants linked to the group carried out an attack on Jakarta. President Benigno Aquino told reporters that Philippine intelligence authorities would ask their Middle East counterparts to monitor possible radicalisation within the Filipino community in the region, which numbers up to two million. Aquino said there was no "credible threat" of attacks by the Islamic State group (IS) in the Philippines in the wake of Thursday's attacks in the Indonesian capital, which left two civilians and five attackers dead, but warned of a "general threat". "We need to be prudent. We will coordinate with (Middle Eastern) intelligence agencies to monitor these communities to see if they have been influenced by ISIS," he said, using another acronym for the group. "We can't be like an ostrich, which burrows its head in the ground to avoid seeing the problem," he said. "Is there a credible threat? Is there a specific threat? There is none. Is there a general threat? Yes. We are not immune from the extremism problem." In particular, he said a Filipino-Lebanese and a Filipino-Saudi, both of whom were living abroad, had attempted to join the jihadist group. This month, the Philippine-based Abu Sayyaf extremist group released a video pledging allegiance to IS. Aquino, however, belittled the group's claim and said they were riding on IS's notoriety. The group had previously been associated with IS rival Al-Qaeda, he noted. The Abu Sayyaf, a group of several hundred fighters notorious for kidnapping foreigners for ransom, is also responsible for the worst terror attacks in the Philippines. In 2004, it bombed a passenger ferry off Manila Bay killing over 100 people. ATLANTA (Reuters) - Officials at a U.S. Air Force base in Georgia apologized on Friday for using an image of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. to advertise a "fun shoot" gun practice. Robins Air Force Base officials issued a statement saying King's picture on the flier was "an honest mistake." The shooting session is scheduled for Monday, the annual national holiday to commemorate King's birthday. King, an Atlanta native who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts at ending segregation, was assassinated in 1968. "We offer our heartfelt apology to those affected by our thoughtlessness," base spokesman Roland Leach said. "We hold the legacy of Dr. King in the highest regard. "We're deeply sorry for any offense or harm caused by our insensitivity and failure to provide appropriate oversight of our marketing process." The advertisements for the Robins Air Force Base Trap and Skeet Club's event have been pulled and those responsible for the marketing will receive training to prevent a future similar incident, Leach said. (Reporting by Rich McKay; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Bill Trott) Berlin (AFP) - Chancellor Angela Merkel will host Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu for talks next Friday, her spokesman said, with discussions to centre on the suicide attack in Istanbul that claimed 10 German lives. Tuesday's "attack in Istanbul will play a central role" in the talks, said Steffen Seibert, spokesman for Merkel. The two leaders will also discuss issues on both countries' priority lists, including their fight against terrorism and a record refugee influx to Europe. The talks are part of a series of so-called government consultations that Germany has with only a handful of countries, including India and China. Friday's meeting would be the first with Turkey's cabinet and will include interior, foreign and defence ministers from both sides. Turkey has a special relationship with Germany as the biggest EU economy is not only home to around three million people with Turkish roots, but also its biggest trading partner. Turkey, which shares a border with war-torn Syria, is also a key player in the current record migrant influx to Europe, with EU countries needing Ankara's help to stem the flow. It has also stepped up its involvement in the US-led coalition against the Islamic State group, through air strikes as well as the hosting of war planes. Mexico City (AFP) - Mexican authorities said Friday they found alive 21 men who had been kidnapped by armed groups in the crime-plagued south of the country. "They are alive, very tired and with injuries to their feet, but they are alright," the governor of the state of Guerrero, Hector Astudillo, said on television. The men were found near the municipality of Arcelia with foot injuries that indicated they had walked a long way. They were taken to report their ordeal to prosecutors who would investigate their abduction. Officials said gunmen seized 16 of the men on December 9 after stopping a convoy of families in cars heading to a wedding. Security officials said at least two men were killed during the abduction. The other five men located on Friday were teachers who were dragged from their school by armed men in a separate incident on Monday. Guerrero has been plagued by violence and multiple cases of missing people, including the notorious disappearance and presumed massacre of 43 students in September 2014. Opium poppies are grown in the mountains and drug cartels, such as the Guerreros Unidos and Los Rojos, are fighting fierce turf wars in several towns. Witnesses told police the abductors who attacked the wedding party identified themselves as members of "a new group". The men said they were taking away the men because they suspected them of belonging to a rival cartel. The mayor of Arcelia, Adolfo Torales, rejected that claim. "They are working people, humble people who have to go out to work every day," he said. Beirut (AFP) - Aid workers scrambled Friday to help a hunger-stricken Syrian town where a teenager became the latest victim to succumb to starvation, as Western powers sought UN action on lifting blockades. The plight of Madaya and other besieged areas has prompted the UN Security Council to call an emergency meeting for Friday, amid warnings that the use of starvation as a weapon constitutes a war crime. A mobile clinic with medics on board was dispatched to Madaya on Friday to treat people suffering from malnutrition, the World Health Organization said, a day after a second aid convoy reached the town. Madaya's 40,000 inhabitants have been living under a crippling siege by pro-government forces that has made even bread and water scarce for months. More than two dozen people have reportedly died of starvation since early December. A teenage boy became the latest victim of hunger, the UN's child agency said. "The UNICEF team, which included a doctor, witnessed on Thursday evening in a makeshift clinic the death of Ali, a 16 year old, who was suffering from severe malnutrition," said UNICEF spokeswoman Juliette Touma. "It was sad and shocking," she told AFP. Another 17-year-old boy in a "life-threatening condition," and a pregnant woman who will give birth soon, are both "in urgent need of evacuation," UNICEF said. There are an estimated 20,000 children living in Madaya, according to UNICEF. At least 22 children under five showed signs of moderate to severe malnutrition, it said. - Starvation 'war crime' - The UN agency said Madaya's doctors were "emotionally distressed and mentally drained, working round the clock with very limited resources". "It is simply unacceptable that this is happening in the 21st century," it said, adding that 14 other besieged and starvation-hit areas existed across Syria. A convoy of 44 aid trucks loaded with food and medicine on Thursday entered Madaya, where the UN says hardships are the worst seen in Syria's nearly five-year war. Story continues UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned that any forces using starvation as a tactic of war in Syria were guilty of a "war crime". "All sides -- including the Syrian government which has the primary responsibility to protect Syrians -- are committing this and other atrocious acts prohibited under international humanitarian law," he told reporters. Syrian authorities have repeatedly denied that starvation is taking place in Madaya. On Friday, the mobile clinic provided preliminary medical services to Madaya residents and returned to Damascus in the afternoon, according to the Syrian Arab Red Crescent's head Tamam Mehrez. Mehrez said his group was in the process of opening a permanent medical centre in Baqin, adjacent to Madaya, but the opening date had not yet been announced. - 'Humanitarian tragedy' - With international pressure mounting, France, Britain and the United States called for an emergency meeting of the Security Council to push demands for an end to sieges. French Ambassador Francois Delattre told AFP the meeting, to be held Friday from 2000 GMT, "will draw the world's attention to the humanitarian tragedy that is unfolding in Madaya and in other towns in Syria." Fuaa and Kafraya, two government-held villages in northwest Syria, have been under siege by rebel groups for months. On Thursday, about 17 trucks delivered aid to Fuaa and Kafraya's residents, including 6,000 children. More than 260,000 people have died in Syria's conflict, which began in March 2011 with anti-government protests but has evolved into a multi-sided civil war. Humanitarian aid access is seen as a key confidence-building measure ahead of a new round of Syrian peace talks due later this month. The UN said the next aid delivery would take place on Sunday. Russia, which is carrying out a bombing campaign against rebels to support its ally President Bashar al-Assad, said it had launched "humanitarian operations" in Syria, claiming that inhabitants were returning to a "peaceful life" there. "In this context, the implementation of humanitarian operations will be a new line of work for the Russian armed forces in Syria," said senior military official General Sergei Rudskoi. Moscow also revealed that it had signed an agreement with Syria in August giving it the right to retain an open-ended military presence there. Washington (AFP) - Islamic State jihadists will likely increase the tempo of attacks around the world as they come under increased pressure in Iraq and Syria, a top US general warned Thursday. General Lloyd Austin, who currently heads the military's Central Command (CENTCOM) overseeing Middle East operations, made the argument that recent IS-claimed attacks like the ones this week in Istanbul and Jakarta are in fact evidence the group is faltering. "ISIL has assumed a defensive posture in Iraq and Syria," Austin said at a news conference in Florida. "Going forward, we can expect to see him rely increasingly on acts of terrorism such as we saw this week in Baghdad and in Turkey, and most recently in Jakarta," he added. The IS group, which swept through vast regions of Iraq and Syria in 2014 and 2015 and captured a string of cities, has seen recent setbacks across its self-proclaimed caliphate, including the loss of the key Iraqi city of Ramadi to US-supported local forces. A US-led coalition has also been hammering the group's oil infrastructure, including by blowing up hundreds of trucks used to ferry illicit crude oil around Syria, and this week bombing a financial facility in the Iraqi city of Mosul that US officials said held millions of dollars in cash. Austin, who has headed CENTCOM since March 2013 and will shortly be stepping down, said the IS group is upping its overseas actions to distract from such losses. "ISIL wants to draw attention away from the growing number of setbacks" that it is experiencing," Austin said, using an alternative name for the IS group. "It is important to understand that these terrorist acts don't necessarily mean ISIL is getting stronger," he added. "ISIL by its nature is a terrorist organization and by conducting these attacks, he is attempting to produce an image of invincibility in the wake of setbacks. So overall, we are making progress." Story continues Pentagon chief Ashton Carter said he will recommend that President Barack Obama nominate General Joseph Votel to replace Austin. Votel currently heads the Special Operations Command. His nomination would reflect the increased role special operations troops are carrying out in the region as elite US commandos launch raids against IS jihadists. "General Votel has a wealth of in-depth, politico-military experience -- that is working with foreign governments and militaries -- and is therefore well-equipped to handle the complex challenges of CENTCOM," Carter said. Thinkstock Years ago, the fellow running the IRS told Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine that he figured millions of taxpayers overpaid their taxes every year by overlooking just one of the money-savers listed here. We've updated all the key details in this popular slide show to ensure that your 2015 return is a money-saving masterpiece. Cut your tax bill to the bone by claiming all the breaks you deserve. State Sales Taxes Thinkstock You may hear that this tax break expired . . . which it does regularly, only to be just as regularly revived by Congress. That's exactly what happened for purposes of 2015 returns. The break expired at the end of 2014 and then was revived retroactively in December 2015 to cover 2015 returns. But this time, Congress actually found the courage to make this break permanent. This is particularly important to you if you live in a state that does not impose a state income tax. You see, Congress offers itemizers the choice between deducting the state income taxes or state sales taxes they paid. You choose whichever gives you the largest deduction. So if your state doesn't have an income tax, the sales tax write-off is clearly the way to go. In some cases, even filers who pay state income taxes can come out ahead with the sales tax choice. The IRS has tables that show how much residents of various states can deduct, based on their income and state and local sales tax rates. But the tables aren't the last word. If you purchased a vehicle, boat or airplane, you may add the sales tax you paid on that big-ticket item to the amount shown in the IRS table for your state. The IRS even has a calculator that shows how much residents of various states can deduct, based on their income and state and local sales tax rates. Reinvested Dividends Thinkstock This isn't a tax deduction, but it is an important subtraction that can save you a bundle. And this is the one that former IRS commissioner Fred Goldberg told Kiplinger millions of taxpayers miss . . . costing them millions in overpaid taxes. Story continues If, like most investors, you have mutual fund dividends automatically used to buy extra shares, remember that each reinvestment increases your tax basis in the fund. That, in turn, reduces the taxable capital gain (or increases the tax-saving loss) when you redeem shares. Forgetting to include reinvested dividends in your basis results in double taxation of the dividends--once in the year when they were paid out and immediately reinvested and later when they're included in the proceeds of the sale. Don't make that costly mistake. If you're not sure what your basis is, ask the fund for help. Funds often report to investors the tax basis of shares redeemed during the year. In fact, for the sale of shares purchased in 2012 and later years, funds must report the basis to investors and to the IRS. Out-of-Pocket Charitable Deductions Thinkstock It's hard to overlook the big charitable gifts you made during the year, by check or payroll deduction (check your December pay stub). But little things add up, too, and you can write off out-of-pocket costs incurred while doing work for a charity. For example, ingredients for casseroles you prepare for a nonprofit organization's soup kitchen and stamps you buy for a school's fund-raising mailing count as charitable contributions. Keep your receipts. If your contribution totals more than $250, you'll also need an acknowledgement from the charity documenting the support you provided. If you drove your car for charity in 2015, remember to deduct 14 cents per mile, plus parking and tolls paid, in your philanthropic journeys. SEE ALSO: IRS Audit Red Flags You Need to Know Student-Loan Interest Paid by Mom and Dad Thinkstock Generally, you can deduct interest only if you are legally required to repay the debt. But if parents pay back a child's student loans, the IRS treats the transactions as if the money were given to the child, who then paid the debt. So as long as the child is no longer claimed as a dependent, he or she can deduct up to $2,500 of student-loan interest paid by Mom and Dad each year. And he or she doesn't have to itemize to use this money-saver. (Mom and Dad can't claim the interest deduction even though they actually foot the bill because they are not liable for the debt.) SEE ALSO: 6 Tax Breaks for College Costs Job-Hunting Costs Thinkstock If you're among the millions of unemployed Americans who were looking for a job in 2015, we hope you were successful . . . and that you kept track of your job-search expenses or can reconstruct them. If you were looking for a position in the same line of work as your current or most recent job, you can deduct job-hunting costs as miscellaneous expenses if you itemize. Qualifying expenses can be written off even if you didn't land a new job. But such expenses can be deducted only to the extent that your total miscellaneous expenses exceed 2% of your adjusted gross income. (Job-hunting expenses incurred while looking for your first job don't qualify.) Deductible costs include, but aren't limited to: Transportation expenses incurred as part of the job search, including 57.5 cents a mile for driving your own car plus parking and tolls Food and lodging expenses if your search takes you away from home overnight Cab fares Employment agency fees Costs of printing resumes, business cards, postage, and advertising. SEE ALSO: 15 Best States to Find a Job in 2016 Moving Expenses to Take Your First Job istockphoto Although job-hunting expenses are not deductible when looking for your first job, moving expenses to get to that job are. And you get this write-off even if you don't itemize. To qualify for the deduction, your first job must be at least 50 miles away from your old home. If you qualify, you can deduct the cost of getting yourself and your household goods to the new area. If you drove your own car on a 2015 move, deduct 23 cents a mile, plus what you paid for parking and tolls. For a full list of deductible expenses, check out IRS Publication 521. Military Reservists' Travel Expenses Thinkstock Members of the National Guard or military reserve may write off the cost of travel to drills or meetings. To qualify, you must travel more than 100 miles from home and be away from home overnight. If you qualify, you can deduct the cost of lodging and half the cost of your meals, plus an allowance for driving your own car to get to and from drills. For 2015 travel, the rate is 57.5 cents a mile, plus what you paid for parking fees and tolls. You may claim this deduction even if you use the standard deduction rather than itemizing. SEE ALSO: 10 Best Financial Benefits for Military Families Deduction of Medicare Premiums for the Self-Employed Thinkstock Folks who continue to run their own businesses after qualifying for Medicare can deduct the premiums they pay for Medicare Part B and Medicare Part D, plus the cost of supplemental Medicare (medigap) policies or the cost of a Medicare Advantage plan. This deduction is available whether or not you itemize and is not subject to the 7.5% of AGI test that applies to itemized medical expenses for those age 65 and older. One caveat: You can't claim this deduction if you are eligible to be covered under an employer-subsidized health plan offered by either your employer (if you have a job as well as your business) or your spouse's employer (if he or she has a job that offers family medical coverage). SEE ALSO: 11 Common Medicare Mistakes Child-Care Credit Thinkstock A credit is so much better than a deduction; it reduces your tax bill dollar for dollar. So missing one is even more painful than missing a deduction that simply reduces the amount of income that's subject to tax. In the 25% bracket, each dollar of deductions is worth a quarter; each dollar of credits is worth a greenback. You can qualify for a tax credit worth between 20% and 35% of what you pay for child care while you work. But if your boss offers a child care reimbursement account--which allows you to pay for the child care with pretax dollars--that's likely to be an even better deal. If you qualify for a 20% credit but are in the 25% tax bracket, for example, the reimbursement plan is the way to go. (In any case, only amounts paid for the care of children younger than age 13 count.) You can't double dip. Expenses paid through a plan can't also be used to generate the tax credit. But get this: Although only $5,000 in expenses can be paid through a tax-favored reimbursement account, up to $6,000 for the care of two or more children can qualify for the credit. So if you run the maximum through a plan at work but spend even more for work-related child care, you can claim the credit on as much as $1,000 of additional expenses. That would cut your tax bill by at least $200. Estate Tax on Income in Respect of a Decedent istockphoto This sounds complicated, but it can save you a lot of money if you inherited an IRA from someone whose estate was big enough to be subject to the federal estate tax. Basically, you get an income-tax deduction for the amount of estate tax paid on the IRA assets you received. Let's say you inherited a $100,000 IRA, and the fact that the money was included in your benefactor's estate added $40,000 to the estate-tax bill. You get to deduct that $40,000 on your tax returns as you withdraw the money from the IRA. If you withdraw $50,000 in one year, for example, you get to claim a $20,000 itemized deduction on Schedule A. That would save you $5,600 in the 28% bracket. SEE ALSO: States with the Scariest Death Taxes State Tax Paid Last Spring Did you owe tax when you filed your 2014 state income tax return in the spring of 2015? Then, for goodness' sake, remember to include that amount in your state-tax deduction on your 2015 federal return, along with state income taxes withheld from your paychecks or paid via quarterly estimated payments during the year. Refinancing Points istockphoto When you buy a house, you get to deduct in one fell swoop the points paid to get your mortgage. When you refinance, though, you have to deduct the points on the new loan over the life of that loan. That means you can deduct 1/30th of the points a year if it's a 30-year mortgage. That's $33 a year for each $1,000 of points you paid--not much, maybe, but don't throw it away. Even more important, in the year you pay off the loan--because you sell the house or refinance again--you get to deduct all as-yet-undeducted points. There's one exception to this sweet rule: If you refinance a refinanced loan with the same lender, you add the points paid on the latest deal to the leftovers from the previous refinancing, then deduct that amount gradually over the life of the new loan. A pain? Yes, but at least you'll be compensated for the hassle. SEE ALSO: Solutions to 7 Common Mortgage Problems Jury Pay Paid to Employer istockphoto Many employers continue to pay employees' full salary while they serve on jury duty, and some impose a quid pro quo: The employees have to turn over their jury pay to the company coffers. The only problem is that the IRS demands that you report those jury fees as taxable income. To even things out, you get to deduct the amount you give to your employer. But how do you do it? There's no line on the Form 1040 labeled "jury fees." Instead, the write-off goes on line 36, which purports to be for simply totaling up deductions that get their own lines. Include your jury fees with your other write-offs and write "jury pay" on the dotted line. Like this: Jury Pay American Opportunity Credit istockphoto Unlike the Hope Credit that this one replaced, the American Opportunity Credit is good for all four years of college, not just the first two. Don't shortchange yourself by missing this critical difference. This tax credit is based on 100% of the first $2,000 spent on qualifying college expenses and 25% of the next $2,000 ... for a maximum annual credit per student of $2,500. The full credit is available to individuals whose modified adjusted gross income is $80,000 or less ($160,000 or less for married couples filing a joint return). The credit is phased out for taxpayers with incomes above those levels. If the credit exceeds your tax liability, it can trigger a refund. (Most credits are "nonrefundable," meaning they can reduce your tax to $0, but not get you a check from the IRS.) This credit was scheduled to revert to the less-valuable Hope Credit limits in 2018, but in 2015, Congress made the better-for-you American Opportunity Credit permanent. SEE ALSO: 10 Best College Majors for a Lucrative Career A College Credit for Those Long Out of College Thinkstock College credits aren't just for youngsters, nor are they limited to just the first four years of college. The Lifetime Learning credit can be claimed for any number of years and can be used to offset the cost of higher education for yourself or your spouse . . . not just for your children. The credit is worth up to $2,000 a year, based on 20% of up to $10,000 you spend for post-high-school courses that lead to new or improved job skills. Classes you take even in retirement at a vocational school or community college can count. If you brushed up on skills in 2015, this credit can help pay the bills. The right to claim this tax-saver phases out as income rises from $55,000 to $65,000 on an individual return and from $110,000 to $130,000 for couples filing jointly. SEE ALSO: 7 Things You Must Know About Lifetime Learning Those Blasted Baggage Fees istockphoto Airlines seem to revel in driving travelers batty with extra fees for baggage, online booking and for changing travel plans. Such fees add up to billions of dollars each year. If you get burned, maybe Uncle Sam will help ease the pain. If you're self-employed and travelling on business, be sure to add those costs to your deductible travel expenses. SEE ALSO: How to Avoid Paying 21 Annoying Fees Credits for Energy-Saving Home Improvements Thinkstock There's no longer a tax credit to encourage homeowners to save energy by, for example, installing storm windows and insulation. But the law still offers a powerful incentive for those who install qualified residential alternative energy equipment, such as solar hot water heaters, geothermal heat pumps and wind turbines. Your credit can be 30% of the total cost (including labor) of such systems installed through 2016. SEE ALSO: By Alan Baldwin BIRMINGHAM, England, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Formula One has performed a U-turn and put mid-race refuelling, banned in 2010 and voted against by teams only last year, back on the discussion agenda among other proposed changes for 2017. International Automobile Federation (FIA) president Jean Todt told Reuters on Friday that refuelling, dropped for reasons of cost and safety, would be discussed at a meeting of the sport's core Strategy Group in Geneva on Monday. "We (will) re-address (the subject of) is it right not to have refuelling?," he said. Formula One is currently discussing ways to make cars faster, louder and more aggressive-looking in what has been billed as a rules revolution for 2017 to improve the show and make it more exciting for fans and drivers alike. The idea of bringing back refuelling had stemmed from a desire to increase engine horsepower, which would require more fuel and either bigger tanks or the chance to put more in during the race. The topic appeared to have been ruled out last year when the Strategy Group decided refuelling would not improve the show and would only increase costs at a time when some teams were struggling financially. Todt suggested the objections could be overcome, however. He said technology had improved since the days when highly inflammable fuel was pumped under pressure into a racing car with red-hot exhausts and brakes in a pitlane overlooked by spectators. "We are talking about 50,000 euros ($54,825.00) a year," he said of the additional costs of freight. "If it is good for the show, I'm in favour of reducing the cost, but that is not a key point in the global costs of Formula One. "At least we should discuss it." Williams technical head Pat Symonds remained opposed and questioned Todt's figures. "It costs a hell of a lot more than 50,000 euros per team to bring back refuelling," he told Reuters. "It wouldn't even pay the freight, let alone buying the equipment and maintaining it. "And you've got to have one person looking after that equipment. There's your 50,000 euros gone and more before you've done anything else." Symonds said a return to refuelling would also negatively impact on strategy. "When we had refuelling the strategies were far more deterministic than they are now," he said. "At the moment, you can alter your strategy just based on what your tyres are doing and vary things as you wish. "The moment you've got refuelling, you can't vary your strategy. You obviously can't stop any later than you are fuelled for and if you stop earlier, you are paying a ridiculous penalty. "When we got rid of refuelling, I think you got a lot better racing as a result. I'd be very sorry to see it come back." Formula One's commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone and Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne have both voiced support for refuelling. The Strategy Group includes Ecclestone, Todt and the sport's six leading teams. Any decisions taken by it then go to the broader Formula One Commission for approval. ($1 = 0.9120 euros) (Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Toby Davis) By Thin Lei Win MYITKYINA, Myanmar (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - For more than six months in 2011, Ywe Ja refused to leave her village in Myanmar's Kachin State despite heavy fighting. It was where she was born, and she had built a life there as a teacher with a farmer husband and a young child. Fighting between the ethnic insurgent group the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the Myanmar army in the country's north erupted that year after the breakdown of a 17-year ceasefire. "Then the authorities started seeing Kachins as part of the KIA," Ywe Ja said. "Business and social rivals could accuse you of having links with the KIA and the army would arrest you without any investigations." Worried that her husband would fall prey to these suspicions and heavily pregnant with her second child, she finally left Tar Law Gyi, a village about two hours' drive from Myitkyina, the Kachin state capital, in March 2012. Two weeks after arriving at the St. Paul Jan Mai Hkawng camp, she gave birth. "I never thought I'd end up staying here so long," she said, sitting in the thatched-walled meeting room of the camp that she now helps to manage with the support of local group Karuna Myanmar Social Services, run by the Catholic Church. Fighting has died down in her village, but her family has not returned, fearing the continued presence of the army and land mines in the area. Now, for the first time since leaving her home, Ywe Ja says she has hope, which rests with Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, the party that won the November election in a landslide. "I woke up really early to vote. I'm very happy that the NLD won. I think they will prioritize the peace process," she told Myanmar Now, an independent news service supported by the Thomson Reuters Foundation. UPROOTED Fighting has displaced around 100,000 people in Kachin and northern Shan States since June 2011 after a ceasefire fractured over long-held grievances. Life in camps for people uprooted by fighting is becoming increasingly difficult. "There are no jobs nearby...Foreign aid has been reducing and because everything is up in the air," said Phyu Ei Aung of the Metta Foundation that has been providing aid since 2011. Violence against women is rife, in the majority of cases husbands taking out their frustration on their wives, she added. It is little wonder then that many have been galvanized by the election results, where the NLD's strong showing in ethnic states surprised observers. In Kachin, the party won 22 of 30 parliamentary seats and more than half of the state legislature, giving it a strong mandate to govern at both local and national levels. "All the displaced are looking forward to the new government to create (a country) where everyone is able to live happily and peacefully regardless of their race and religion," said Ja Khun Ya, a 40-year-old from the same village as Ywe Ja. LIVES INTERRUPTED Since fighting resumed, the internally displaced people (IDPs) have been languishing in small, hastily-built shelters that flood in monsoon and become unbearably hot in the summer, facing dwindling aid support. The United Nations' World Food Program, which provides food assistance to IDPs in Kachin, told Myanmar Now it is facing a $51 million shortfall in funds. The IDPs say they are willing to work, but jobs are few and far between. They say most end up working in construction sites for a daily wage of around $2.30 for women and $4.70 for men. "The employers sometimes pay us less. They would say, 'You are receiving support from aid agencies so 2,000 kyats ($1.50) is enough.' We don't have a choice," Ja Khun Ya said. In the bigger Zi Un camp, where 710 people are supported mainly by the Kachin Baptist Convention, dozens of women make money sewing traditional Kachin headgear, which allows them to stay close to their children. It is a time-consuming task, taking 40 to 50 minutes to earn 100 Kyats ($0.08) for each colorful headpiece. LINGERING SCARS Suu Kyi said in an Independence Day speech this month that the peace process would be the first priority of her new government, which is due to take power in March. As hundreds of representatives of guerrilla groups, the military and members of parliament gathered in the capital Naypyidaw this week for the second stage of talks aimed at ending decades-long ethnic conflicts, she said more of Myanmar's rebel groups should be brought into peace talks. The outgoing semi-civilian government of President Thein Sein signed what it called a nationwide ceasefire agreement in October, but seven of 15 rebel groups invited to participate declined to sign, including some of the most powerful. Aid workers in Kachin State warned against setting expectations too high. "I don't think we will see any drastic changes for a year or two. Even if the IDPs can go back to their villages because the political situation is now good, we would still need to assist them so they can go back to making a living like they did before the fighting," said Metta's Phyu Ei Aung. Lu San, a 39-year-old mother of four who used to run a small store, said she went through the lengthy bureaucratic process to gain approvals to briefly go back to her village across the river from Myitkyina a few months after fleeing. They had left the shop and hundreds of baskets of paddy behind. "There was nothing left. All the valuable stuff had been looted. I heard later the army took them," she said, her voice rising at the memory. Born in 1942, Hkun Baw La recalls fighting in Kachin in the 1960s. Yet ordinary citizens forged lasting friendships and in his village, home to Shan, Kachin and Bamar, and a Christian church and a Buddhist monastery stood side-by-side before the fighting flared up again. Now Kachin militias roam many villages, including his own, and the Shan and Bamar had received weapons from the army to protect themselves against the KIA. (Editing by Paul Vrieze and Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org) It dont mean a thing if it aint got that swing, Rex Lewis-Clack croons, his head joyfully bobbing in time with the Duke Ellington standard. The 20-year-old musician accompanies himself on a grand piano, deftly striking the keys with a dexterity reminiscent of the Duke himself. Then he segues into an exquisitely executed rendition of Chopins Fantaisie Impromptu. Lewis-Clack has the sweet-faced, blonde good looks of a teen heartthrob. But the haunting melody that seems to flow from his fingertips is masterful. It fills the high-ceilinged living room of the Los Angeles beachfront condo he shares with his mother, Cathleen Lewis. After the last strains echo through the apartment, he rocks back and forth on the piano bench and flaps his hands in excitement, seemingly elated, and flashes a wide, triumphant smile. This cherubic young man was born blind, due to a congenital condition called septo-optic dysplasia. He had serious cognitive disabilities as a child, and severe symptoms of autism: Even the faintest noises would make him scream, and he was so sensitive to touch that he kept his hands balled up in fists. On his third Christmas, we had to go out of the room to open presents because he couldnt stand the ripping sound of the wrapping paper, recalls Lewis. He wouldnt eat solid foods and pretty much lived off liquids for his first few years. It seemed like he was a prisoner in his own body. His doctors predicted he would never walk or talk. More From Our Partners Spectrum News When he was 2, Lewis-Clacks father gave him a piano keyboard. It became his gateway to the outside world. Lewis-Clack taught himself to play the piano, says Lewis, and would play until he dropped from exhaustion. When he began formal lessons at age 5, his teacher noticed his remarkable gifts. Lewis-Clack has perfect pitch, a phenomenon that occurs in about 1 in 10,000 people: He can identify a musical note immediately, even when he hears it completely out of context. Although he cannot see and cannot read music, he only needs to hear most songs once to play them back perfectly. And he has whole libraries of music stored in his brain. One day, Rex sat down and played through all 21 of Chopins nocturnes, and played them perfectly even though he had only studied or played six of them [before], says Lewis. Unbeknownst to her, he had memorized the other 15. Story continues Lewis-Clack doesnt talk much, responding to most questions with short sentences. I crack the eggs, he amiably offers when asked how hell help his mom prepare a pumpkin pie for the holidays. He communicates mostly through his music: He played in his first concert at age 7 and now travels around the world to perform in fundraisers to benefit people with disabilities. Because of his exceptional musical talent and his intellectual disability, he is considered a savantone of those unusual people who struggles with tasks that most people find simple, yet has extraordinary abilities that few could hope to attain. Recommended: How Sleep Deprivation Decays the Mind and Body Savant syndrome is a loose term that refers to people who have a combination of significant cognitive difficulties, often stemming from autism, and profound skillsislands of genius, in the words of Wisconsin-based psychiatrist Darold Treffert, an independent scholar who has studied savants for more than half a century. Once thought to be rare in people with autism, found in no more than 1 out of 10 individuals, research over the past few years suggests savantism may be more common: As many as one in three people with autism may possess exceptional abilities. Exactly how and why savantism happens is unclear. But some evidence suggests that savants may have experienced an undetected injury to the left hemisphere of their brain in utero or in infancy, triggering compensatory recruitment in the right brain that unleashes unusual abilities. Most savants have special abilities in musical, artistic, mathematical, or mechanical domains, coupled with extraordinary memory. Stephen Wiltshire, for instance, a British savant and artist who was diagnosed with autism at age 3, has been called a human camera because of his ability to draw landscapes from memory after seeing them only once. Other savants possess the uncanny skill of calendar calculatingquickly computing the day of the week of any arbitrary date in the past or futurehighlighted in the 1988 Oscar-winning movie Rain Man. Still others may have a facility with foreign languages, the ability to measure distances or heights with precision without using instruments, or exceptional map-reading skills. But only a handful possess Lewis-Clacks extraordinary gift. Recommended: Is There a Right Way for Men to Talk About Periods? * * * Savants were described in the medical literature as early as the late 18th century, but the past few decades have provided a better understanding of the phenomenon. An extensive survey in 1978 suggested the 1 in 10 estimate, and it became an article of faith. Lewis-Clack and his mother, Cathleen Lewis (Patrick Fallon / Spectrum News) But research in the past 10 years has generated some controversy about the actual incidence of savantism. Some researchers say these seemingly extraordinary abilities may just reflect the fact that many people with autism have a different skill set than their typical peers do. People with autism are natural specialistswhen they dig in, they quickly become expert, says Laurent Mottron, a psychiatrist at the University of Montreal. People with autism tend to do poorly on standardized tests of intelligence that have time limits and rely on verbal instructions, cultural familiarity, and social interactions. Evaluations such as the Ravens Standard Progressive Matrices, which measures reasoning and creative problem-solving, provide a better gauge of intelligence. When researchers use these more appropriate methods of assessing intelligence, the peak abilities thought to be a sign of savantismthe islands of genius in people believed to be profoundly impaireddisappear. There is a bell curve in savantism, just like the bell curve of intelligence, says Mottron. The high-scoring end of the bell curve in autism includes a few people whose exceptional abilities in certain domains exceed those of most people without autism. We dont know an awful lot about people with autism who manage well in the world because we study [those] who havent managed too well. This interpretation is in line with that of a 2009 study conducted by psychologist Patricia Howlin of the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College London. In that study of 93 individuals with autism, parent reports and test scores indicated that 39roughly 40 percenthad exceptional skills, both in comparison with their other abilities and with skill levels found in the general population. Those abilities include what are called splinter skills, such as the capacity to perform complex mathematical calculations mentally without pen and paper. Howlins study included two different measures: The participants either had a savant skill, such as superior mathematical, musical, or artistic abilities, or a memory for dates, places, routes, or facts, or they had exceptional cognitive skill, defined as an intelligence quotient (IQ) two standard deviations above the mean score of 130. A few individuals fit both categories. Recommended: The Indonesian President's Remarkable Response to Terrorism Traditional studies of people with autism may be skewed, Howlin points out, because many of the participants are from a self-selected population: the people who are referred to psychologists because of their severe deficits. Meanwhile, those with autism who are functioning well may be under-studied simply because theyve integrated well into society and arent brought to the attention of researchers. The trouble is that we dont know an awful lot about people with autism who manage well in the world because we study the individuals who havent managed too well, says Howlin. * * * Where the exceptional talents of people with autism stem from is an enduring mystery, but some of the puzzle pieces are starting to fall into place. More than 30 years ago, pioneering San Diego psychologist Bernard Rimland developed the worlds largest database of people with autism, with more than 34,000 individuals. Rimland noticed that their savant skills, such as artistic expression or the ability to mentally manipulate three-dimensional (3-D) objects, were most frequently right-hemisphere faculties. Their difficulties, such as trouble communicating, often appeared in functions controlled by the left hemisphere. In many types of brain injury or in dysfunction caused by stroke or neurodegenerative diseases, doctors have noticed that a defect in the left hemisphere may lead to a compensatory improvement in typically right-hemisphere functions. Its as if the injury is releasing the brain from the tyranny of the left hemisphere, in Trefferts words. No longer held in check, right-hemisphere abilities appear to suddenly blossom. Brain imaging provides glimpses into the mechanism underlying the emergence of these exceptional talents. Some early clues came from imaging studies of acquired savantism: ordinary people of average intelligence and ability who suffered a severe brain injury and suddenly developed new skills, such as musical talents, the ability to speak foreign languages, or superior skills in mathematics or art. Bruce Miller, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco, witnessed this phenomenon firsthand when some of his elderly patients who suffered from frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a degenerative brain disorder that primarily affects the front left-side portion of the brain, spontaneously developed an interest in art. As the dementia progressed, these individuals became gripped by the urge to create, and their paintings improved. The 9-year-old savant showed loss of function in the left temporal lobe, paired with heightened activity in regions of the right brain. Miller and his colleagues used single-photon emission computed tomography, a technique that captures blood flow changes in the brain and reflects neuronal activity, on a dozen people with FTD who had developed new artistic talents. The scans revealed damage to the anterior temporal lobe of their left hemisphere and the orbitofrontal cortex, regions associated with logic, verbal communication and comprehension. Miller and his team theorized that the selective brain degeneration essentially released dormant abilities in the right brain, which is dominant for some key features of artistic expression, including visual construction the ability to copy drawings or put puzzles together and some forms of creative thinking. When they compared these scans with those from a young artist with autism who had had a compulsive urge to draw since early childhood, the researchers found remarkable parallels. Like the people with FTD, the 9-year-old savant showed loss of function in the left temporal lobe, paired with heightened activity in regions of the right brain that process sensory inputs and visual information. Imaging studies by Mottrons team and others shed more light on savantisms possible neurological underpinnings. Mottrons group has found that people with autism who have average IQ scores are nonetheless up to 40 percent faster than their peers without autism at solving complex logical problems. Their analytical skills may account for this superiority in manipulating numbers. The team has also found that people with autism possess enhanced perceptual abilities: They excel at discerning patterns against the backdrop of complex environments, spotting embedded details that others miss, and often have exceptional ability in mentally manipulating 3-D shapes. The well-known animal-behavioral scientist Temple Grandin, who was diagnosed with autism as a child, has said that she thinks in pictures. In a 2012 meta-analysis of functional-imaging studies, Mottrons group found enhanced activity in people with autism in brain regions associated with visual processing, object recognition, visual imagery, and visual expertise, the ability to differentiate between similar objectsfor example, different types of birds. These results suggest that enhanced reliance on visual perception has a central role in autistic cognition, says Mottron. Famously, the well-known animal-behavioral scientist Temple Grandin, who was diagnosed with autism as a child, has said that she thinks in pictures. She says her acute vision enables her to notice details that most people gloss over but animals detect and may be frightened of, such as shiny objects that reflect the suns rays. This heightened visual processing helps her in her work designing low-stress environments for livestock. When Lewis-Clack was a baby, doctors predicted he would never speak. (Patrick Fallon / Spectrum News) Mottron says enhanced perception may contribute to logical ability, which might explain the superior skill of some people with autism in solving complex logical puzzles. Heightened perception could also aid in the acquisition of three abilities associated with savants: perfect pitch, hyperlexiaprecocious reading ability in a very young childand synesthesia, a condition in which sensory stimuli is jumbled so that hearing a sound might produce a visualization of a color. Mottrons team summed up all these changes as the functional re-dedication of perceptual brain regions to higher-order cognitive functionsin other words, the brain seems to redeploy its resources, so that regions normally engaged in one purpose are recruited to take on more advanced tasks. Essentially, what this means is that the brains of people with autism are more flexible than those of their peers. (This plasticity doesnt help them overcome their social deficits, however, because the intricacies of social interactions cannot usually be processed perceptually or logically, Mottron says.) In general, people with autism recruit different neural pathways than controls do to accomplish a particular task. They also may have more activity in regions associated with perception. In the same way that losing one sensory faculty, such as eyesight, may prompt the brain to compensate by reallocating more neural resources to produce exceptional hearing ability, the brains of people with autism may be better able to reorganize. That leads to enhanced perception; if that faculty is combined with knowledge and other forms of expertise, the result is savant skills. This, Mottron says, may be our best hint as to how savant abilities are acquired. * * * In 1998, Joanne Ruthsatz, then a graduate student in psychology, stumbled upon a possible explanation of the roots of savantism during a chance meeting in a fast-food joint in southern Louisiana. She had traveled to the bayou country to interview a 6-year-old musical prodigy who was playing guitar at music festivals across the South. After undergoing a battery of IQ and aptitude tests, all the guitar phenom wanted to do was go to McDonalds. So the triothe boy, his mother, and the scientisttrooped out to the local hamburger emporium. Just by chance, the childs aunt and his teenage cousin came in, Ruthsatz recalls. While the two sisters talked, the cousin grunted and flapped his hands. Later, the mother told me her nephew had severe autism. And I thought: What are the chances of them being first cousins like that? As it turned out, the odds are quite significant. In a 2007 study, Ruthsatz distributed the Autism Spectrum Quotient, a test devised by British researchers to measure traits associated with autism, to three sets of people, each including 10 individuals: One group included prodigies and their first-degree family members (parents or siblings), another included individuals with autism and their family members, and the third included individuals without any diagnoses and their family members. The prodigy families and the families of those with autism both scored higher on traits associated with autism, including difficulty with social skills, difficulty switching attention (the ability to multitask), and enhanced attention to detail. Because individuals with autism are often keenly attuned to seemingly extraneous details, Ruthsatz found it especially interesting that the prodigies outscored them on this characteristic. One prodigy had two siblings, a father, grandmother, and an aunt on the autism spectrum. Since that fateful meeting, Ruthsatz, now a psychologist at Ohio State University in Mansfield, has collected extensive profiles on 30 children who were deemed prodigies (she identified them through the Internet, via press attention and by referral). By the end of 2011, she had discovered that three of the first nine prodigies she investigated had been diagnosed with autism early in life but no longer met the criteria. They no longer qualified for a spectrum diagnosis, says Ruthsatz. Whats more, five of the nine had at least one close family member with autism. One prodigy had two siblings, a father, grandmother, and an aunt on the autism spectrum. It means that the two conditions may have a common genetic root, says Ruthsatz, coauthor of the upcoming The Prodigys Cousin: The Family Link Between Autism and Extraordinary Talent. Further research added detail to the earlier findings. In a 2012 study of eight prominent child prodigies, Ruthsatz documented many characteristics that are often found in children with autism, such as difficulties in social settings and obsessive attention to detail. The prodigies also had remarkable skills in working memorythe ability to manipulate information stored in short-term memory banksscoring two standard deviations above the mean. Six out of eight of the prodigies scored in the 99.9th percentile. In 2015, Ruthsatzs team identified a potential genetic link between prodigies and people with autism. In genetic samples from 11 prodigies and from the family members of people on the autism spectrum, they discovered a common mutation on chromosome 1, in a region known as 1p31-q21. The research team has yet to pinpoint the exact location of the genetic variant, and as yet has no theories about how the variant may contribute to some of the characteristics shared by prodigies and savants. The team is searching for a genetic modifier in the prodigies that might be protective against autism, which might explain why they no longer have the diagnosis. In the meantime, scientists and the public alike continue to be fascinated and inspired by people such as Rex Lewis-Clack, who straddles the world of the prodigy and the savant. Lewis-Clack has perfect pitch and an exceptional memory for songs. (Patrick Fallon / Spectrum News) In 2013, Lewis-Clack and his mother launched a foundation for after-school programs for blind children with autism in southern California. His mother talks about all the things he has done, such as performing at fundraisers for Best Buddies International, serenading Vice President Joseph Biden and his family at their Washington, D.C., residence for a reception honoring Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and being greeted like a rock star at a music festival in Freiburg, Germany, where the whole town turned out to hear him play. That made me feel great, Lewis-Clack says, beaming. The affable young man spends most of his days immersed in music, taking voice and piano lessons, and learning improvisation techniques. Lewis-Clacks gifts transformed him from a timid toddler into a celebrated performer who plays to packed houses at concert halls throughout the world. After the Chopin, I ask him if he would play another tune. No, he responds, firmly but not in an unfriendly way. I ask his mother if it would be okay to ask if I can give him a hug as a way of expressing my appreciation for the mini-concert, and she smiles and nods vigorously. Lewis-Clack rises from the piano bench, arms open wide, and gently envelops me, as if its the most natural thing in the world. This post appears courtesy of Spectrum . Related Video A new documentary follows seven children on the autism spectrum as they create their own animated film. Read more from The Atlantic: This article was originally published on The Atlantic. By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - NASA hired a third company to fly cargo to the International Space Station, adding an innovative space plane built by Sierra Nevada Corp to the commercial fleet, the U.S. space agency said on Thursday. Privately owned Sierra Nevada will join incumbents Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, and Orbital ATK in ferrying supplies to the space station beginning in late 2019, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said. Terms of the contracts were not disclosed, though the overall value of the three awards is capped at $14 billion. Each company is guaranteed a minimum of six flights between 2019 and 2024. NASA estimates it will need about four cargo runs per year, but expects to spend significantly less than $14 billion overall, station program manager Kirk Shireman told reporters on a conference call. Price was very, very important in terms of selecting these three companies, but they are so diverse in their capabilities, Shireman said. Adding Sierra Nevadas Dream Chaser space plane, which lands on conventional runways, to the fleet opens new opportunities for biological and other research, said station chief scientist Julie Robinson. There are a lot of reasons to use animal studies to look at things like balance and sensory motor effects (of microgravity), and those are going to change so rapidly on return that we need to have the animals back right away, she said. To reach the space station, Dream Chaser will blast off aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket from Florida and land like an airplane at the Kennedy Space Center, or another site, Sierra Nevada Vice President Mark Sirangelo said in an interview. SpaceXs Dragon capsules currently splash down in the Pacific Ocean, though the company expects to be able to touch down on land as well. Orbitals Cygnus capsules, which can launch on the companys Antares rocket from Virginia or an Atlas 5 from Florida, burn up as they fall through the atmosphere, giving NASA an opportunity to remove trash from the station. Boeing and Lockheed-Martin, which are partners in United Launch Alliance, failed in individual bids to win space station cargo delivery contracts. Shireman said launch accidents by Orbital and SpaceX factored in to NASAs decision to add a third company into the mix. (Reporting by Irene Klotz; Editing by Will Dunham and Phil Berlowitz) Thirty-eight years ago this week, NASA announced the names of 35 new astronaut candidates, including the first group of women to officially belong to a new astronaut class. The picture above shows the six female astronauts in January 1978, at the start of their training period. All six women would eventually fly on at least one mission. In 1983, Sally Ride (far right) became the first American woman to fly in space 20 years after Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to orbit the Earth. While officially recognized as the first female members of an astronaut class, these six were not the first female astronaut trainees. In the early 1960s, another group of women, dubbed the "Mercury 13," were selected for astronaut training. [Major Milestone: 50 Years of Women in Space] Geraldyn (Jerrie) Cobb was the first woman ever selected for astronaut training, and was later joined by 12 other women whom Cobb nicknamed FLATs, which stood for Fellow Lady Astronaut Trainees, according to NASA. The women were all pilots, and were subjected to the sometimes strange tests that had been devised to evaluate a person's ability to withstand the demands of spaceflight, even though no human had yet flown in space. Unfortunately, none of the Mercury 13 were ever given the opportunity to fly in space. Two books have been written about the program and the 13 trainees "Promised the Moon," by Stephanie Nolan, and "The Mercury 13," by Martha Ackermann. The astronaut class of 1978 (NASA's Astronaut Group 8) was the first new group of astronauts selected since 1969. Ride would become the first American woman in space; Judith Resnik was the first Jewish-American astronaut; Kathryn Sullivan was the first American woman to perform a spacewalk; Shannon Lucid was the first American woman to visit the Mir space station; Sullivan and Ride were also the first two female astronauts to fly on a mission together. Resnik flew her first mission in 1984, and was killed in the Challenger disaster in 1986. Story continues In 2013, NASA announced its newest class of astronauts, consisting of eight candidates, four of whom are women. This is the largest percentage of women in an astronaut class in history. NASA is currently taking applications for its next class of astronauts. Follow Calla Cofield @callacofield.Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com. Copyright 2016 SPACE.com, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Washington (AFP) - NASA split a multi-billion-dollar contract to resupply the International Space Station between three US firms: SpaceX, Orbital ATK and Sierra Nevada -- a newcomer with reusable spacecraft. President Barack Obama pledged in 2010 that the US space agency would increasingly work with private companies, placing them in competition in order "to make getting to space easier and more affordable." "Today's announcement is a big deal that will move the president's vision further into the future," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement. "NASA has awarded three cargo contracts to ensure the critical science, research and technology demonstrations that are informing the agency's journey to Mars are delivered to the International Space Station (ISS) from 2019 through 2024," the statement said. Each firm is contracted to launch at least six flights to the ISS between 2019 and 2024, NASA said. The resupply contracts, worth a total of around $14 billion, also include funding ISS integration, flight support equipment, special tasks and studies, NASA said. "This will ensure that we can keep the ISS fully stocked for crew to fully utilize the ISS as a laboratory," said the space station program manager at NASA, Kirk Shireman. SpaceX and Orbital have been supplying the ISS since 2010 as part of a public-private partnership with NASA. They will now be joined by the lesser-known newcomer Sierra Nevada, which is entering its first commercial partnership with the space agency. The Nevada-based company said it was "humbled" to be one of the trio of firms chosen by NASA. "SNC is honored to be selected by NASA for this critical US program," said Eren Ozmen, president of Sierra Nevada. The company's space-shuttle-like vehicle, called the Dream Chaser, was last year closed out of the competition to carry astronauts to the ISS, losing out to Boeing and SpaceX. Story continues Sierra Nevada's spacecraft is designed to launch vertically on a rocket and come back down to land horizontally on a runway, making it reusable -- something SpaceX is also working to achieve in order to bring down the cost of rocket launches. "In such a major competition, we are truly humbled by the show of confidence in SNC and look forward to successfully demonstrating the extensive capabilities of the Dream Chaser spacecraft to the world," Ozmen said, calling participation in the program "an American Dream come true." Orbital, one of the US space agency's established partners, said it was also delighted to be renewing its relationship with the US space program. "We are grateful for NASA's continued confidence in our ability to provide reliable and affordable commercial cargo transportation services to the International Space Station," said David Thompson, Orbital ATK's president and CEO. "With our flexible cargo delivery system now up and running, our team is well prepared to deliver essential supplies to the International Space Station for years to come." SpaceX and Sierra Nevada will primarily be launching from Cap Canaveral in Florida, while Orbital ATK will mostly use the Wallops Island space center in Virginia, on the US east coast. Former Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana was a scourge of the Affordable Care Act and spent considerable time during his unsuccessful bid for the GOP presidential nomination vowing to eviscerate President Obamas signature national health insurance program. Jindals Democratic successor, Gov. John Bel Edwards, embraced Obamacare wholeheartedly and fulfilled a campaign pledge by signing an executive order on Tuesday expanding Medicaid coverage. Louisiana is now the 31st state along with the District of Columbia to adopt the expanded Medicaid program, providing health care insurance to millions of poor Americans. Related: Some GOP Governors Flip for Medicaid Funds -- on Their Terms Obama appeared with Edwards in Baton Rouge on Thursday to praise the new governor and to put in a plug for his controversial program. "He's already delivering for the people of Louisiana," Obama said. With just a year left in his presidency, Obama is scurrying to lock in key elements of the Affordable Care Act to make it more difficult to dismantle if the Republicans manage to win control of the White House or expand their majorities in the Senate and House. A week ago, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that more than 11.3 million people had signed up for health coverage under Obamacare in all 50 states and D.C. with several weeks remaining in the 2016 enrollment period well ahead of projected enrollments for 2016. HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell argued that Obamacare was finally catching on with the country, despite polls showing that roughly 50 percent of Americans still disapprove of it and many complain about rising premiums and copayments. Now the administration is dangling new incentives to lock in an expansion of Medicaid benefits authorized under the three-year-old Affordable Care Act program. Related: Nearly Half of Obamacare Co-Ops Are Closing The Obama administration late Wednesday floated a plan that would enable states that have yet to sign up for expanded Medicaid to qualify for three years of full federal funding if they take part in the program the same deal granted to the 31 states already on board. After that, they would be responsible for covering 10 percent of the total cost. Story continues Nineteen Republican run have refused to participate in expanded Medicaid, which entitles non-elderly single people, including students who earn up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, to benefit from the program. Obama intends to seek legislative authority for this incentive as part of his fiscal 2017 budget submission next month, according Office of Management and Budget Director Shaun Donovan. This common-sense proposal makes the expansion as good a deal for states that expand now as it is for the states that have already done so, Donovan wrote in a blog post. It is further evidence of the Administrations willingness to work with states to build on recent progress in improving health coverage and making Medicaid affordable to states and taxpayers alike. Related: The Unintended Consequence of Expanding Medicaid Prospects for passage of this legislative authority are slim at best in a Republican controlled Congress that just recently sent Obama a bill that would have repealed the 2010 Affordable Care Act. The president vetoed the measure. However, there are signs that the expanded Medicaid program is gaining in popularity and staying power. A handful of states that initially opposed the offer including Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa and Michigan subsequently obtained waivers in order to tailor the program to more conservative tastes. In some cases, dramatic changes were made to the program, including imposing premiums and cost sharing on some beneficiaries depending on their incomes and other measures to bring down the overall cost. Newly ensconced Kentucky Gov. Gov. Matt Bevin, a Tea Party Republican, announced plans to shut down a state-run Obamacare program and turn over operations to an insurance exchange run by the federal government. However, he backed down from his vow to end the Medicaid expansion program, although he may seek a waiver as well. Meanwhile, Republican governors in two other hold-out states Wyoming and South Dakota are trying to convince their state legislatures to expand the Medicaid program. Edwards, the lone Democratic governor in the Deep South, ran as a conservative but pledged to try to relieve the plight of the roughly 300,000 Louisiana residents who live in poverty or struggle to make ends meet. This will not only afford them peace of mind, but also to help prevent them from slipping further into poverty and give them a fighting chance for a better life, Edwards said in signing the Medicaid executive order, according to The New York Times. Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel's popularity has dropped after sexual assaults in Cologne on New Year's Eve that have been blamed on migrants, and a majority of Germans now believe she is doing a poor job managing the refugee crisis, a poll showed on Friday. The Politbarometer survey for public broadcaster ZDF was released as senior figures from the Social Democrats (SPD), her coalition partner, broke ranks and challenged her optimistic "we can do this" mantra in the face of a record influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees. "I am not as sure as Angela Merkel that we can do it,", former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told the German newspaper Handelsblatt, calling it an "illusion" to think that Germany could cope without introducing a formal cap on the number of migrants it allowed in. Stefan Weil, the SPD premier of the state of Lower Saxony, told the newspaper Die Welt that Merkel would have to "correct herself" over the course of the year, because her efforts to find a European solution to the crisis did not appear to be working. A day after support for Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) dropped two points in a survey for public broadcaster ARD, the new poll for ZDF made for even grimmer reading. It showed 56 percent of respondents believe Merkel is doing a poor job in the refugee crisis, up from 49 percent the month before. On a scale of +5 to -5, Merkel's own popularity slid to 1.0 from 1.7 in December, well below the level of her foreign and finance ministers, who both came in at 2.0. Support for her conservative bloc fell to 37 percent, its lowest level in over two years. The anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) shot up to a record high of 11 percent. The poll was published two weeks after groups of young men in Cologne surrounded and groped women in the square next to the city's cathedral on New Year's Eve. Police have blamed the assaults on migrants, mainly from North Africa, but so far no one has been formally charged. A total of 1.1 million migrants entered Germany in 2015, far more than any other European country. Under pressure from her conservative party, Merkel has vowed to "measurably reduce" the numbers this year. But she refused to introduce a cap, arguing that this would be impossible to enforce without closing German borders, with disastrous consequences for the European Union. Instead, she has tried to convince European partners to take on quotas of refugees, pushed for building "hotspot" reception centers on Europe's external borders and led an EU campaign to convince Turkey to keep refugees from entering the bloc. But progress has been slow on all fronts. "We either manage to curb numbers of arrivals on an international level, or we will have to do things nobody wants and which will harm Europe," Weil said. The ZDF poll showed that 60 percent of Germans no longer believe Merkel's "we can do this" pledge, up sharply from 46 percent in December. (Writing by Noah Barkin and Tina Bellon, editing by Larry King) Orbital ATK Inc (NYSE: OA), an aerospace and defense company, announced on Thursday it has won a second contract with NASA that is valued at $1.2 to $1.5 billion. Orbital ATK noted that it was selected by NASA to provide commercial cargo delivery and disposal services to and from the International Space Station (ISS) to be carried out beginning in 2019. Orbital ATK has already delivered approximately 16,000 pounds of cargo to the ISS during four successful missions since 2013. Orbital ATK added that NASA could award additional contracts for the period 2021 through 2024, depending on the operational requirements of the ISS. "We are grateful for NASA's continued confidence in our ability to provide reliable and affordable commercial cargo transportation services to the International Space Station," said David W. Thompson, Orbital ATK's President and Chief Executive Officer. "With our flexible cargo delivery system now up and running, our team is well prepared to deliver essential supplies to the International Space Station for years to come." See more from Benzinga 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. By Daniel Wallis (Reuters) - Gifts of sex toys, glitter and nail polish are not what the armed protesters who seized a U.S. wildlife refuge in Oregon were expecting when they put out a public call for supplies to help get them through the winter. The occupiers, who took over buildings at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Jan. 2 in the latest conflict over the U.S. government's control of land in the West, had been hoping for snacks, fuel and warm clothes when they provided sympathizers with a local mailing address. Instead, as they angrily showed online, they received sex-related toys and food that would be of little use as they braced for a long standoff with federal law enforcement agents who have kept watch from a distance. "It was really mind-blowing to me that people would actually spend their money ... on all this hateful stuff to send out to us," one of the occupiers, Jon Ritzheimer, said in a Facebook video this week in which he displayed items including a large sex toy and a bag of penis-shaped candies. "It's really ridiculous," he said, before sweeping the pile of packages off a table and onto the floor. "We're going to continue to do work and do good for our country. We're not going to be deterred." The occupation has drawn ridicule from critics on social media who have assigned the group nicknames including #YallQaeda and #VanillaISIS in a play on militant labels. Some online opponents delighted in the potential to send the protesters an array of packages stuffed with glitter, nail polish, pedicure socks, and perfume. A Chicago-based designer posted an online order he made on Wednesday for a 55-gallon drum of "passion" lubricant costing more than $1,000 and addressed: "ATTN. OREGON MILITIA." "I hope nobody shoots me with a gun," the designer, Max Temkin, tweeted afterward. The Malheur occupation has also drawn anger from bird-watchers and wildlife photographers who would normally be able to enjoy viewing the species on show at the refuge. In an open letter last week, one bird-watcher warned the protesters their every move was being watched. "You will never see us, but we and our cameras will always see you," wrote the author, who went by the username Norwegian Chef. "We will #takebackmalheur from you terrorists, and will not rest until every one of you thugs and poachers is behind bars where they belong." (Reporting by Daniel Wallis in Denver; Editing by Peter Cooney) While many spacecraft get by just fine on solar power, it won't work efficiently past about Jupiter. Most deep space spacecraft rely on a radioisotope thermoelectric generator, an internal nuclear power source. But for a few decades, NASA has been unable to produce new plutonium-238, an element essential in RTGs that keeps Cassini, the Voyager probes, and New Horizons going. Now, for the first time in 30 years, new plutonium-238 has been enriched at the Oak Ridge National Labs. The 50 grams produced by the lab need to be verified, but if the process is found to work efficiently, the lab can move up to building more plutonium-238. The plutonium isotope is efficient for spacecraft power systems both because of its relatively low radiation for handlers, its ability to produce plenty of heat to keep instruments warm, and an 87.7 year half-life that can power spacecraft for several decades but not provide lasting damage in case of an accident. . If ORNL is unable to produce more RTG fuel, NASA only has two to three missions worth of viable plutonium left, barring exploration of the outer solar system, whether a return mission to Pluto, the upcoming Europa mission, any potential mission to Enceladus to search for life, or any possible future voyages to Uranus or Neptune. However, the fuel is also used on many Mars missions, including Curiosity, as well as on the Apollo missions. Plutonium-238 was swept up in a wave of nuclear disarmament around 1988, when the last batch was produced. This is despite the unsuitability of the fuel for nuclear weapons. Since then, NASA has relied on its own stockpile as well as purchasing some from Russia. With production of plutonium-238 again, NASA can begin to look into the farther reaches of our solar system for exploration opportunities again. By Oleg Vukmanovic MILAN, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Pakistan State Oil has dropped plans to buy 60 liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargoes from Royal Dutch Shell after receiving a lower price from Qatar, two trade sources with knowledge of the matter said on Friday. Pakistan was to buy from Shell (LSE: RDSB.L - news) after the oil major submitted the lowest price in a tender finalised late last year. Before officially awarding the cargoes, Pakistani officials managed to clinch a more favourable deal with Qatargas even though it was not in the original tender, sources said. Pakistan's minister of petroleum, while finalising a delayed long-term LNG import deal with Qatar, in parallel arranged for the additional 60 shipments, the sources said. Qatargas will supply the cargoes at a price of 13.37 percent of a barrel of crude oil, one of the sources said. (Reporting by Oleg Vukmanovic; editing by Jason Neely) Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif vowed Pakistan would eradicate "evil" honour killings as he congratulated director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy on her Oscar nomination for a harrowing documentary on the practice. "A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness", which follows the story of a rare survivor, was nominated in the documentary short category of the Academy Awards on Thursday. Hundreds of women are murdered by their relatives in Pakistan each year on the grounds of defending family "honour". Their male murderers are then "pardoned" by relatives under the country's controversial Islamic blood money laws that allow murderers to escape punishment. A statement from the prime minister's office late Thursday offered Chinoy, who made history in 2012 when she won Pakistan's first Oscar for the another documentary, Sharif's congratulations. "Honour killings, the theme of the film, afflict several segments of Pakistani society," it quoted Sharif as saying. He "expressed the government's commitment to rid Pakistan of this evil by bringing in appropriate legislation", the statement continued, adding that Chinoy's "insights" could prove helpful. Chinoy said on Twitter that she was "delighted" that Sharif had made the commitment. "Next step is to push all the politicians to call a joint session & get the anti honor crime bill passed that has lapsed in parliament!" she said in another tweet. "There is no Honor in Honor Killing- It is not part of our religion or culture- It is a stain on our society," she said. Chinoy was feted across Pakistan in 2012 when she won the country's first Oscar for "Saving Face", a 40-minute documentary that exposed the horrors endured by women who survive devastating acid attacks. It focuses on two women, Zakia and Rukhsana, as they fight to rebuild their lives after being attacked by their husbands, and British Pakistani plastic surgeon Mohammad Jawad who tries to help repair their shattered faces. Acid attacks, which disfigure and often blind their overwhelmingly female victims, have long been used to settle personal or family scores in Pakistan, with hundreds of cases reported each year. The attacks along with honour killings fit a wider pattern of eroding women's rights in the conservative Muslim nation, where women are frequently treated as second-class citizens and there is no law against domestic violence. By Mubasher Bukhari LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani authorities have shut down several religious schools run by the Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group accused of masterminding an attack this month on an air base in India, the provincial law minister said on Friday. The crackdown in Punjab province, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's power base and the headquarters of Jaish-e-Mohammad, follows the arrest this week of several members of the militant group, including its leader, Maulana Masood Azhar, an Islamist hardliner and long-time foe of India. Pakistan has said it is clamping down on Azhar's group, which India has long accused Pakistani authorities of tolerating, while it investigates Indian assertions that the Jan. 2 attack on the Pathankot air base was the work of the Pakistan-based militants. "Officials of the Counter-Terrorism Department raided the Jamiatul Nur seminary in the Daska area on Thursday and arrested more than a dozen people," Rana Sanaullah, the law minister of the Punjab province where Jaish-e-Mohammad is headquartered, told Reuters. "The seminary has been sealed off and documents and literature have been confiscated from the premises." Sanaullah said several other offices and seminaries run by Jaish-e-Mohammad had also been raided and shut down, with many of its staff arrested. He declined to share further details. In a TV interview on Thursday, Sanaullah confirmed that Azhar had been taken into "protective custody" and said legal action would be taken against him if his involvement in the Pathankot attack was proved "beyond doubt." The Jan. 2 attack on the base in Pathankot was followed by a raid on an Indian consulate in Afghanistan that has also been linked to Jaish-e-Mohammad, or the Army of Mohammad. India has demanded that Pakistan take action against the group and on Thursday announced that the two countries would reschedule talks between their foreign secretaries while the investigation into the air base attack was carried out. Jaish-e-Mohammad militants are blamed for a 2001 attack on India's parliament that nearly led to a war between the nuclear-armed rivals. (Writing by Mehreen Zahra-Malik; Editing by Tommy Wilkes) Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Two Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli forces during protests along the border with Gaza on Friday, the Palestinian enclave's health ministry said, following a three-month spike in violence. Mohammed Abu Zaida, 18, was shot in the neck and Mohammad Qita, 26, was hit in the stomach, ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said. Fifteen other Palestinians were wounded by Israeli fire during the clashes east of the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, he said. The Israeli army confirmed it had fired on protesters after they breached the "buffer zone" along the border. "Dozens of rioters have breached the buffer zone and are attempting to damage the fence," a spokeswoman said. "Forces shot rioters posing a threat of infiltration and the riot is ongoing." Israel and the Palestinian territories have seen a wave of violence in recent months, with 23 Israelis and 154 Palestinians killed since October 1. Most of the Palestinians have been killed carrying out attacks, while others were shot by Israeli forces during protests and clashes. An American and an Eritrean have also died in the violence. Fridays are known as a day of protest across the Palestinian territories. Jerusalem (AFP) - Former Israeli president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres was making an "excellent" recovery on Friday after treatment for a heart problem, his surgeon said. "His condition is excellent, the widening of the artery was successful," professor Victor Guetta, who performed the procedure on Peres at Sheba hospital near Tel Aviv, told public radio. "He is feeling well this morning... and we shall be able to send him home in a few more days," he said. The radio said that Peres, 92 and known as a workaholic, planned to fly next Wednesday to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he had scheduled 15 meetings with world leaders and international officials. "Technically he could fly to Davos... (but) that would not normally be our recommendation," Guetta said. "I imagine that he will be persuaded not to do it." He added that Peres, currently resting in intensive care, was expected to get out of bed later on Friday. The Jerusalem Post reported that shortly after the procedure Peres asked that a book on Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's daughter be brought to his bedside for him to continue his "riveting" read. He also felt hungry and ordered a meal from the hospital menu, it said. The elder statesman and towering figure in Israeli politics for decades was hospitalised Thursday "after experiencing chest pains", his spokesman said. Michael Eldar, head of the cardiology institute at Sheba, told reporters that Peres had suffered a "mild cardiac event". A co-architect of the 1993 Oslo peace accords, Peres won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated the following year, and then-Palestinian president Yasser Arafat. The last of Israel's founding fathers, Peres has held nearly every major office in the country, including prime minister twice and president from 2007-2014. The Philippines has called for joint patrols with the United States in the disputed South China Sea, where Manila has festering territorial dispute with Beijing, a defence department spokesman said Thursday. The remarks came after the Philippine's Supreme Court upheld a 10-year security agreement opening the door for the US to operate more troops and equipment out of the Southeast Asian archipelago. "There is a need for more collaborative presence in the South China Sea. Thus, in addition to freedom of navigation operations of the US, we are also suggesting that we patrol the area together," spokesman Peter Paul Galvez told reporters. Galvez did not specify where in the South China Sea the joint patrols would be conducted. China has conflicting territorial claims with the Philippines in the waters, as well as Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam. While the United States does not support any of the claims, it has warned China against trying to restrict air and sea passage through the Sea -- a major shipping lane, rich fishing ground and potential source of mineral resources. Tensions flared last month when the US flew two B-52 bombers close to flashpoint islands that have been artificially built up by China, reportedly by mistake. Philippine and US foreign and defence secretaries have also just concluded a meeting in Washington to discuss their security ties. The Philippine defence department said in a statement the meeting had concluded "with the US side reiterating the US ironclad commitment to the defense of the Philippines." "The US side emphasised that it will not allow China to control the South China Sea and will act to ensure that freedom of navigation is respected," it added. The Philippines, which has one of the weakest militaries in the region, has been seeking closer defence ties with the US, accusing China of increased aggressiveness in the disputed waters. In April 2012, after a tense stand-off with Philippine ships, Chinese vessels took control of a shoal just 220 kilometres (135 miles) off the main Philippine island of Luzon. By Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Aukkarapon Niyomyat BANGKOK (Reuters) - Political divisions and allegations of corruption are fuelling an unholy battle for the leadership of Thai Buddhism. Religion is becoming a proxy war for the color-coded politics that Thailand's junta has quashed since taking power in 2014 in a bid to end a decade of political violence. The frontrunner for Supreme Patriarch, head of the country's 300,000 monks, is a 90-year-old abbot who is under investigation for a tax scam involving luxury cars. He has ties with the wealthy Dhammakaya Temple, which is dogged by a scandal of its own and which some devotees claim is a power base for ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his red-shirted supporters. Leading the campaign against him is a firebrand monk best known for his part in street protests backed by the royalist military elite who revile Thaksin and helped usher in the junta. Stuck in the middle are millions of Buddhists whose religion has been shaken by repeated sex and money scandals, and now the nation's divisive politics. The pro-establishment cleric leading the charge against frontrunner Somjed Phra Maha Ratchamangalacharn says the military government must honor a pledge to stamp out corrupt practices that critics say were allowed to flourish during the Thaksin years, starting with the Supreme Patriarch nominee. "Allegations of corruption following this nominee could be seen as a direct endorsement of corrupt practices," said the activist monk, Buddha Issara, who this week submitted a petition with 300,000 signatures calling for the removal of the top nominee. Mayanee Thaitae, 33, a royalist activist, said Thailand's main religion should not be politicized. "How can you have a nominee who has ties with the red shirts? One who supports a temple that has corruption cases against it?" " she said, referring to supporters of Thaksin and his sister, former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra whose government was ousted by the army in 2014. TAINTED Ailing King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 88, is known as the "supreme patron" of Buddhism and he used to preside over the country's most important Buddhist ceremonies. National anxiety over the royal succession has been reflected in the years of political instability which has divided society and now contributed to religious division too. Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has said he wants the dispute resolved but seems reluctant to meddle in Buddhist affairs. The prime minister must forward a nomination for Supreme Patriarch from a Supreme Council of monks which the king must then approve. Thai Buddhism has for years been tainted by reports of misbehaving monks and mishandling of temple donations, allegations some worshippers say have eroded its relevance in the deeply spiritual country. In the past, the Supreme Patriarch and the council have shown scant interest in tackling what many feel is a moral crisis in the religion. The country's last Supreme Patriarch, Somdet Phra Nyanasamvara, died in 2013 aged 100. He was widely viewed as a paragon of humility who shied away from material excesses, a comparison not lost on those opposed to the current frontrunner who is being investigated for fraud. Dhammakaya, whose headquarters is a sprawling, futuristic temple in north Bangkok, has been dogged by allegations of corruption for years. The monastery's abbot was cleared by Thai Buddhism's governing body last year over allegations he embezzled millions of dollars in donations. The abbot rejects fraud allegations. Despite opposition to the current frontrunner, the National Office of Buddhism said outsiders would not influence any decision. "What the Supreme Council wants to do is the business of the Supreme Council, normal people have no business and no say in this," said Somchai Surachatri, spokesman for the National Office of Buddhism. "There are traditions that need to be respected and opposition groups can protest all they want." (Additional reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat and Pracha Hariraksapitak; Editing by John Chalmers and Robert Birsel) London (AFP) - Prince William's wife Kate is to guest-edit the UK section of The Huffington Post to highlight child mental health issues, Kensington Palace announced Friday. The Duchess of Cambridge will sit in the news website's hot seat for a day in mid-February, their official residence said. Kate will use the opportunity to highlight the work being done by parents, teachers, researchers, and mental health professionals, the palace said. "The Duchess of Cambridge has made the mental health of young children a key focus of her work in recent years," a spokesman said. "She is delighted that The Huffington Post will help put a spotlight on this important issue. "The Duchess will be commissioning contributions from a number of leading figures in the mental health sector as well as from young people, parents, and teachers." The 34-year-old has campaigned against the stigma surrounding childhood mental illness, and is a patron of several related charities. Last year, Kate visited charities helping vulnerable children, and publicly spoke about the cause on several occasions. Stephen Hull, editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post UK, said they were "thrilled" that the duchess was joining the team. "Dealing with mental health issues has been a major editorial focus for us and I'm very excited to be working together on such an important project." Aleppo (Syria) (AFP) - Syria's government is launching a major assault in the northern province of Aleppo, seeking in part to cut off rebel access to Aleppo city, a security source told AFP. "Through its operations, the army is trying to broaden its security zone around the city," and prevent the rebels from receiving supplies and reinforcements from the suburbs, the source said. Once Syria's commercial hub, Aleppo city is now divided between government control in the west and rebel control in the east. The broader province is split as well, with the Islamic State jihadist group present in parts of the east, along with the regime, and rebel groups and Syria's Al-Qaeda affiliate, Al-Nusra Front, in the west. But with backing from Russian air strikes and foreign fighters, Syria's armed forces are slowly advancing south and southeast of the city. One commander with pro-government forces said they were currently fighting on seven fronts across Aleppo province, and the operation was expected to expand further. "This will be the biggest military operation in Syria since the beginning of the war," he told AFP. Washington (AFP) - Puerto Rico's economy is collapsing, US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said Friday as he announced a visit to the US territory two weeks after its debt default. In a letter to Congress, Lew urged passage of bankruptcy legislation for the Caribbean island weighed down by $70 billion in debt and the effects of a decade of recession. "Although there are many ways this crisis could escalate further, it is clear that Puerto Rico is already in the midst of an economic collapse," Lew said in the letter, addressed to Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan. "In order to assist the 3.5 million Americans living in Puerto Rico, Congress must pass legislation for the president to sign into law before the end of March." He noted that Puerto Rico's government is now shifting funds away from one creditor to pay another, and has stopped payments altogether on some of its bonds. After it missed $37 million in payments early this month, and pulled another $163 million from escrow for some bonds to service government debt, creditors have filed suit, complicating the situation. Meanwhile, Lew said, the island's government is cutting back spending and raiding pension and other assets to keep going, exacerbating both its financial and economic problems. "The worsening fiscal and economic situation means real suffering for the people of Puerto Rico: basic healthcare, legal, and education services have been impaired," Lew said. "To address the crisis, Puerto Rico needs federal legislation that pairs an orderly process to restructure its debts with strong, independent fiscal oversight to remedy its history of fiscal mismanagement." Lew will visit the island on Wednesday to discuss the situation with top officials. But he warned that without action in Congress, the US federal government has few options for supporting the island. "Only Congress can enact the legislative measures necessary to fully resolve this problem.... It is time for Congress to act to provide order to a chaotic and worsening situation. By Anjali Athavaley and Melissa Fares NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ted Cruz - be careful who you mess with. Never shy in defense of their city, New Yorkers came out swinging - via social and traditional media - on Friday after the Texas Republican's comments about "New York values" during a presidential debate. Cruz's remarks, aimed as a put-down of campaign rival Donald Trump during Thursday evening's sour-toned Republican debate, sparked a backlash from city and upstate dwellers, politicians and ordinary citizens alike. James Smith, husband of Moira Smith, a New York police officer who was killed on 9/11, wrote in a Facebook post: "I invite you to come to the National 9-11 Memorial and Museum and see for yourself, and perhaps learn something about, the values of New Yorkers and the Heroes who defended American values on September 11th, 2001." One theme emerged in particular as New Yorkers piled in: the idea that the senator may be less fastidious when it comes to financing his campaign to be his party's nominee for the November presidential election. "Im sure Ted Cruz was very negative about New York money," New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told NY1 anchor Pat Kiernan, calling on Cruz to apologize to all New Yorkers. "Im sure hes not going to accept any money from any New Yorker. Im sure if he has, hes going to return all of those contributions," said Cuomo, a Democrat. Cruz, top challenger to front-runner Trump in the Republican race, has lately been denouncing "New York values" to try to connect the real estate mogul to the city's liberalism and to reinforce his own standing as a conservative. During Thursday evening's debate, Cruz said on the values issue, "And listen, there are many, many wonderful, wonderful working men and women in the state of New York. But everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro-gay-marriage, focus around money and the media." Trump responded with an emotional tribute to the resilience his home city showed in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. According to Twitter Inc data, that exchange between Cruz and Trump was the second-most tweeted moment during the debate. Among tweets shared on Friday was the cover of the New York Daily News, which curtly told Cruz: "Drop Dead, Ted." Michael Bruno (@MikeJBruno) tweeted on Friday: @tedcruz you, sir, wouldnt last 2 minutes in New York. We dont take kindly to people like you. And thats our #NewYorkValues. Nicholas Dyer (@NicholasDDyer), who identifies himself as a Comedy Central producer on Twitter, said: "@tedcruz is the kind of guy who takes his family to the Times Square Applebee's for dinner. #NewYorkValues." He was referring scathingly to a chain restaurant that is normally filled with tourists from out of town. 'TOLERANCE, ECCENTRICITY, SLEAZE...' "My #NewYorkValues: Tolerance, eccentricity, sleaze, pizza, bagels, dancing, not making eye contact," tweeted Lindsay Goldwert (@lindsaygoldwert). Many on Twitter perceived Cruz as having targeted the city's Jewish and gay communities. Zack Ford (@ZackFord), the LGBT editor at the progressive blog Think Progress, tweeted, "So...#NewYorkValues...Do you just pick a state you know you probably won't win and belittle everyone from it?" He added, "Cruz knows Trump's not Jewish, right?" Cameron Gray (@Cameron_Gray) said, "As a Jewish conservative born in Brooklyn, I proudly have #NewYorkValues. Some local businesses piggybacked the theme to advertise. Drama Book Shop, a theater book store in midtown Manhattan, tweeted: "The #DramaBookShop is proud to have had #NewYorkValues for 99 years." Others sought to distinguish the politics of the city, which is liberal and overwhelmingly votes Democratic in presidential elections, from the rest of the state. Josephine (@notmyname02) said on Twitter, "Unshackle Upstate New York. We have nothing to do with New York City values. We have mid-West values. #NewYorkValues." To be sure, some thought the backlash against Cruz was not warranted. Wesley23 (@50th_President) tweeted: "I still think people are overreacting to #TedCruz and his #NewYorkValues line. He clearly meant it was a blue (Democratic) state (and) not very conservative." It appeared that neither Cruz nor Trump may have benefited from the exchange. Overall, conversations about the Republican candidates during the debate were negative on social media, according to analytics firm Zoomph. (Additional reporting by Gina Cherelus; Editing by Dan Burns, Frances Kerry and Andrew Hay) Washington (AFP) - Senator Lindsey Graham, the hawkish Republican whose 2016 primary campaign fizzled despite his persistent call for resetting US national security policy, announced Friday he is endorsing Jeb Bush for president. "I have concluded without any hesitation, without any doubt, that Jeb Bush is ready on Day One to be a commander-in-chief worthy of the sacrifices of the one percent who have been fighting this war," Graham said at a press conference with Bush at his side. Graham throughout his own campaign advocated a military intervention of some 10,000 US troops in Syria to battle so-called Islamic State extremists. Bush, he said, "understands that America can't go it alone, but of all others running for president I think he has the ability to bring the world on board." Graham dropped out of the race last month, registering about one percent support. It may not be the most coveted of endorsements -- 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney's would be far more valuable. But Graham hails from South Carolina, and his nod could be important for Bush's chances in the state, which votes February 20, third in the primary race after Iowa and New Hampshire. Bush, brother to one president and the son of another, is languishing at about five percent in national polls, substantially trailing frontrunner Donald Trump, who enjoys 35 percent support and other rivals, including senators Ted Cruz and March Rubio. Graham took a shot at bombastic billionaire Trump, slamming his call for a ban on Muslims entering the United States as disastrous. Jeb "hasn't tried to get ahead in a contested primary by embracing demagoguery. He is not running to be commander in chief by running people down," Graham said. "On February 20, we're going to give Jeb Bush the momentum that he needs and deserves to win the nomination," Graham added. He also said he liked Rubio, the youthful Cuban-American from Florida in his first term in the Senate, but suggested he is too inexperienced to be commander in chief. "I believe Marco Rubio will one day be president of the United States," Graham said. "But at 44 I wasn't ready to be president." By Susan Cornwell BALTIMORE (Reuters) - The prospect of running for re-election with Donald Trump at the top of the Republican ticket was worrying some party lawmakers as they huddled for an annual retreat, where a few forecast trouble if Trump becomes the party's presidential nominee. "Heaven help us," Representative Peter Roskam said when asked about it by a reporter. But the Illinois Republican quickly added, "I'm not going to comment on the presidential candidates at this point." That reticence was shared by many lawmakers asked about running on Trump's coattails during an event in Baltimore where Senate and House of Representatives Republicans gathered to talk through their priorities for a coming year whose highlight is the November election. Some were not reluctant to express concerns. Trump would not help Republicans if he topped the ticket, despite his appeal to Americans fed up with politicians, said Representative Justin Amash, a favorite of the conservative Tea Party movement who has endorsed Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul for president. "He does appeal to the anger," Amash said of Trump, the outspoken real estate mogul who is front-runner to be the party's presidential nominee. But he said Trump's "policy prescriptions will take us in the wrong direction, and it wont be long before many of those people are angry at him and angry at Republicans again." The idea of Trump capturing the Republican nomination seemed highly unlikely just months ago, but it was sinking in as an actual possibility this week across the Republican Party. In addition to voting for a new president, Americans will elect members of the Senate and the House on Nov. 8. In U.S. politics, a party's presidential nominee has a big impact on the campaigns of candidates for both chambers of Congress. TRYING NOT TO TALK ABOUT TRUMP At the party gathering, Republican leaders were keen to talk policy, not presidential politics. "What happens above us on the presidential ballot, you really don't control," Senator John Thune, a senior party leader from South Dakota, told reporters. House Speaker Paul Ryan, of Wisconsin, said: "We are not sitting here thinking about who the nominee is going to be. We don't have time to think about that." But in the hallways of the retreat, at a hotel on Baltimore's restored waterfront, Trump was often the hot topic. He is leading national opinion polls ahead of the Feb. 1 Iowa caucus, the first step in the nominating process. Representative Jason Chaffetz said it was important to have a presidential nominee who will not "embarrass" the rest of the party's candidates as they defend the Republican majorities in both congressional chambers. Chaffetz, who is from Utah, has endorsed Marco Rubio, a Republican senator from Florida. Polls show Rubio in third place behind Trump and Texas Senator Ted Cruz in Iowa. "Marco Rubio is not going to embarrass us ... He's not as sensational in his comments as the others, but there's a good quality to that, and I think that's also something you look for in a president," Chaffetz said. Among other proposals, Trump has called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States and a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico to stop the flow of illegal immigrants. Representative Tom Cole said Republicans' fate will be linked closely to the Republican nominee, whoever it is. Trump would be a wild card, said Cole, of Oklahoma. "I don't know what he (Trump) will do. I can see a situation where he could be a great asset, because I do think he will bring some people out (to vote) who have not been brought before." Representative Peter King of New York agreed that Trump is "more of a gamble" at the top of the ticket. "The conventional wisdom is that he would hurt more than he would help," said King, who was unable to attend the retreat but spoke by telephone. "But on the other hand, he is tapping into something (among voters) out there." (Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, Caren Bohan and Frances Kerry) Researchers at the University of Michigan recently unveiled a new Braille-enabled prototype tablet that makes it possible for those with vision problems to read text on a full display . The tablet itself features fully refreshable pages containing raised bumps, a marked improvement from current devices that can only display one line of Braille text at a time. DONT MISS: Want to save money by buying your own modem? Comcast will attack you with unstoppable pop-ups Led by professor Dr. Sile OModhrain, researchers at the University of Michigan are also planning to add the ability for individuals with vision impairment to read graphs, photographs and other non-text items. You cant do much with a single line, University of Michigan grad student Alexander Rossomanno explained. Its hard to read for one, but you also cant do things like graphs, you cant do spreadsheets, you cant do any kind of spatially distributed information. What makes the Universitys new Braille prototype so exciting, aside from allowing multiple lines of Braille on a single page, is that current Braille devices are incredibly expensive. According to OModhrain, a single line Braille device typically costs between $3,ooo and $5,000, a full-page display can cost upwards of $55,000. By employing different methods to raise the bumps (either air or fluid), OModhrain is confident the prototype device will be much more affordable. You can check out a more in-depth video of how the device operates and how it may be revolutionary below. Related stories Samsung is reportedly working on a truly massive iPad Pro rival Watch this moron steal a tablet live on camera on Fox Sports Sony XPERIA S tablet launching with boatload of accessories More from BGR: How to watch the first Republican debate of 2016 online tonight This article was originally published on BGR.com (Reuters) - India's Rohit Sharma burnished his reputation in limited-overs cricket with a second successive century but could not stop Australia from winning the second one-dayer by seven wickets on Friday to consolidate their lead in the series. For the second time in three days, India rode Rohit's elegant century to post a 300-plus total before watching George Bailey help the hosts mount a clinical chase to put Australia 2-0 up in the five-match series. Rohit showed the kind of form he is in, hitting a sparkling 124 and featuring in century stands with test skipper Virat Kohli (59) and the selfless Ajinkya Rahane (89) to help India post 308-8. Yet, the satisfaction of a team victory eluded him as Bailey (76 not out) saw Australia home after Aaron Finch and Shaun Marsh had given the hosts a 145-run opening stand. Mahendra Singh Dhoni opted to bat after winning his second toss of the series and opener Shikhar Dhawan again fell cheaply to pace with Joel Paris claiming his first ODI wicket in his second match. Rohit and Kohli were once more left to rebuild the innings, which they did with some elegant shot-making. The duo, who had forged a 207-run stand in India's five-wicket defeat at the WACA, added 125 before Kohli paid the price for attempting to steal a non-existent second run. Rohit was lucky to reach his 10th ODI century, after snickometer confirmed he, then on 89, had edged Paris but Australia's caught-behind appeal was turned down by the umpire. Rahane proved a perfect foil for Rohit, shunning risks and still finding the ropes to bring up a run-a-ball fifty in their 121-run stand when boundaries flowed from both ends. Rohit's 127-ball knock ended in bizarre circumstances when Rahane's straight drive brushed bowler James Faulkner's fingers before hitting the stumps with the non-striker out of his crease. After stemming the tourists' run flow in the last 10 overs, Australia returned for a strong start to their chase with Finch and Marsh denying India an early breakthrough with some fluent yet risk-free batting. To make things worse, Ishant Sharma dropped Marsh when the batsman was 19. Australia's opening pair eventually fell in quick succession after identical knocks of 71, but Bailey added 78 runs with skipper Steven Smith (46) and George Maxwell (26 not out) hit the winning run to complete the chase with one over to spare. Bailey followed his 112 in Perth with a 58-ball knock that included six boundaries and a six. Melbourne hosts the third match on Sunday. (Reporting by Amlan Chakraborty in New Delhi; Editing by Toby Chopra) By Andrew Osborn MOSCOW (Reuters) - A politician who called an ally of President Vladimir Putin "Russia's disgrace" made a groveling public apology on Friday, after saying he had received strong hints he might otherwise be murdered. Konstantin Senchenko, a local politician in the Siberian Krasnoyarsk region, made waves on Thursday by posting a fierce online critique of Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya. Senchenko said Kadyrov, a former Chechen rebel turned staunch Kremlin ally, had discredited Russia by calling Putin's opponents "enemies of the people". The Stalin-era phrase is associated with a period in the 1930s when the Soviet authorities shot dead almost 700,000 people. Kadyrov, Putin's strongest ally in the mostly Muslim North Caucasus area of southern Russia, had also said he thought the liberal opposition should be put on trial for sabotage, angering and frightening Kremlin opponents. On Friday, in a U-turn just a day after publishing his original comments, video footage of an anxious-looking Senchenko appeared on Kremlin-friendly news sites talking to someone off camera in a restaurant. "I apologize. I was wrong. I acted hastily and emotionally. I am really sorry," said Senchenko. He said he had realized the error of his ways after talking to "representatives of the Chechen people". In an interview to a Russian radio station, Senchenko described chats with individuals he declined to name in which he said strong and unmistakable hints had been dropped that he could suffer the same fate as late opposition leader Boris Nemtsov. Nemtsov was shot dead in February last year while walking across a bridge near Moscow's Red Square. "In the course of these conversations various hints were made and certain things became obvious," said Senchenko. "For example I was asked whether I liked to walk across Red Square." Starved of access to state media and restricted by strict laws on protests, Russia's liberal opposition is still reeling from Nemtsov's assassination. One of the suspects awaiting trial for carrying out the shooting, Zaur Dadayev, used to serve in Chechnya's police and was described by Kadyrov after the killing as a "true patriot of Russia". Nemtsov's daughter has said she wants police to question Kadyrov in connection with the case. Kadyrov told a Russian radio station in October the idea he was a suspect was "total nonsense." Kadyrov on Friday posted Senchenko's apology to him on social media and wrote, with the aid of numerous smiley emoticons, that he accepted it. (Editing by Andrew Roche) By Sharon Bernstein SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - One of two Iraqi-born men arrested last week on federal terrorism-related charges was indicted by a federal grand jury in Sacramento on Thursday for lying about traveling to Syria and assisting a militant group. Aws Mohammed Younis al-Jayab, 23, who was arrested in Sacramento, is accused of making a false statement when he said he had gone to Turkey to visit his grandmother in late 2013 and 2014. In the indictment released on Thursday, prosecutors said that after going to Turkey, al-Jayab went to Syria and became a member of a "rebel group, militia or insurgent organization." Al-Jayab was one of two men from the Middle East who came to the United States as refugees and were arrested on federal terrorism charges last week in California and Texas of supporting Islamist militant groups. Both men are Palestinians born in Iraq. The man arrested in Houston, Omar Faraj Saeed Al-Hardan, entered the United States as an Iraqi refugee in November 2009, according to a court document. Al-Jayab, 23, came to the United States in 2012 as a refugee from Syria, court documents said. Al-Jayab's lawyer, Ben Galloway, said the community college student planned to plead not guilty in a federal arraignment proceeding set for Jan. 22. "The allegedly false statements relate exclusively to a brief trip overseas two years ago," Galloway said. Both the FBI and Galloway said al-Jayab was not believed to have plotted any attack against the United States. The indictment, which charges al-Jayab with a single count of making a false statement involving international terrorism, lists several instances in which he allegedly lied about his trip and ties to militant organizations. It accuses al-Jayab, who was arrested last week, of also lying about providing material support to the group, which was not named, and assisting in a group where people used or threatened to use weapons against others. Al-Jayab also gave false information about providing material support to a militant group and about having "called for, helped with or committed the killing of any person," according to the indictment. The indictment does not say why al-Jayab went to Syria, but an FBI affidavit filed last week alleged he communicated online with friends, family and associates while in the Middle East, telling some that he was fighting in Syria's civil war. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of eight years in prison and a $250,000 fine. (Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Peter Cooney) Teachers often ask kids in school what their parents do or to draw a picture of their family. Its a curriculum that seems harmless enough, but for students with incarcerated parents, activities like these can cause a great deal of pain, without instructors even knowing it. Matt Haney, president of the San Francisco Unified School District, recalled how one student was asked to write a story about his family and made it up instead of writing about his imprisoned father. Even with parent-teacher conferences, teachers will ask, Wheres your parent? or How come theyre not here? Haney told TakePart. As a school district, were not really talking about it or how teachers need to handle those situations. This year, Haney says, the school board conducted its first training session for counselors and social workers working with students with incarcerated parents. Youths and older adults who had family members in correctional facilities led the training, talking about experiences they had in school and which ones increased feelings of anxiety or stigmaone example being when they were asked what their parents did for a living. The training was so well received by participants that the school board wanted to expand it, and with it came a new plan of action to help better the lives of those kids currently in school who had imprisoned parents. Under the recently introduced plan, proposed by Haney and Shamann Walton, commissioner of the San Francisco Board of Education, the school board would create a series of programs, curricula, and training sessions focused on students with parents in prison. On Tuesday, the two officials proposed a resolution aimed at expanding San Francisco school districts efforts to support youths with incarcerated parents, especially in schools with high concentrations of these students. Details of how city schools would go about connecting imprisoned parents with students and teachers are still being figured out, but Haney says one goal is to have a staffing liaison with One Family, a program that provides family services to incarcerated parentsboth those with child custody and those withoutat San Francisco County Jail. Story continues "There are a number of parents with students in our schools who are a part of that program, said Haney. Weve worked with them, and if they want access to report cards, to participate in parent-teacher conferences, were helping them do that. According to Haney, a citywide estimate found that this past year more than 17,000 children had parents who were incarcerated, though thats representative of all childrennot just studentsin San Francisco. Nationwide, nearly half of all childrenbetween 33 million and 36.5 millionhave at least one parent with a criminal record, according to a recent Center for American Progress report, and more than half of the 2.3 million people imprisoned in the nations state and federal prisons have children under 18. Children with imprisoned parents experience a number of economic and emotional setbacks that can contribute negatively to their performance in school. A recent study found that more than 60 percent of families affected by incarceration struggled to meet basic financial needs: Families of the imprisoned person often have to pay the costs of incarceration, and expensive phone calls and prison visits have sent as many as one in three families into debt. These costs can have a damaging and sometimes long-term effect on studentsless money means the family might have to move to a cheaper apartment in a poorer area or cut back on spending for recreation or new school clothes. There is an emotional toll too: Students with incarcerated parents often experience a great sense of loss as a result of separation. The sudden loss of a parent can lead to feelings of loneliness or anxiety and other mental health concerns, which can result in children acting out in school or secluding themselves, according to a report prepared for The Annie E. Casey Foundation. In San Francisco, the Academy of Arts and Sciences' ROOTs program is a theater group that helps students cope with having a family member whos incarcerated. Its one of the programs that the school board is looking to as a model for those it wishes to create. We want to work with the city and develop programs that are specifically for these students, said Haney. The curriculum will hopefully start next year, but were still looking at developing additional services and doing more intense training in schools. Related stories on TakePart: Obama Steps Up Efforts to Help Ex-Prisoners How Women of Color Pay for the Hidden Costs of Prison Families to Benefit From New Cap on Prison Phone Rates Original article from TakePart Moroni (Comoros) (AFP) - Indian Ocean archipelago and Saudi Arabia ally the Comoros said it had cut diplomatic relations with Iran over what it termed Tehran's "aggression" towards Riyadh. A foreign ministry statement said the Comoros viewed Tehran as "interfering" in "the internal affairs of certain countries" and "not respecting diplomatic conventions". Comoros' foreign ministry said it had called on the Iranian ambassador to clear his desk. The move came a week after the Comoros, a member of the Arab League, recalled its own ambassador from Tehran judging that Iran has created a climate of "gratuitous aggression" towards Riyadh. Relations between majority Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia dived after the January 2 ransacking of the Saudi embassy in Tehran and the Saudi consulate in Mashhad, Iran's second city. The ransacking came amid anger over Riyadh's execution of Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent cleric from the kingdom's Shiite minority. Following the execution Riyadh severed diplomatic relations with Tehran. Several Arab countries followed suit and severed or reduced relations with Iran. "One cannot violate with impunity the sovereignty of diplomatic missions," the Comoros foreign ministry director general Ahamada Hamadi told AFP, referring to the ransacking. The three islands of Anjouan, Grand Comore and Moheli that make up the Comoros have a total population of just under 800,000 people, nearly all of whom are Sunni Muslims. Since gaining independence from France in 1975, the impoverished archipelago has witnessed more than 20 attempted coups, four of which were successful, but it has enjoyed relative stability in recent years. Rome (AFP) - Scooter owners are up in arms in Genoa, birthplace of the iconic Vespa, after the Italian city's mayor banned models produced before 1999 in a bid to tackle pollution. The hashtag #handsoffmyvespa went viral on social media, with furious riders in the northwest coastal city -- which boasts more motorcycles per capita than any other Italian city -- taking up the slogan: "Born in Genoa, dies in Genoa". Mayor Marco Doria signed off in December on an anti-smog initiative due to come into force in February, which would have stranded close to 20,000 riders of the two-wheeler, whose name in Italian means "wasp." But the measure banning their use in large areas of the city centre between 7am and 7pm has sparked such a backlash it has been suspended until April to give people time to organise alternative transport -- and may yet be scrapped. "This really shouldn't be happening," Vittorio Vernazzano of the Vespa Club Genova told Corriere della Sera daily. "Especially not in 2016, the 70th anniversary of the birth of the Vespa, and in Genoa, where it was produced in 1946 by a Genovese entrepreneur, Enrico Piaggio." The city has fewer cars than any other in Italy -- apart from Venice, where the main mode of transport is boat or gondola -- and pro-Vespa campaigners say the public transport services are poor. But environment assessor Italo Porcile is determined not to give in to the pressure. "I love the Vespino, I used to have one myself," he said. "But the 'Euro 0' (a model produced before 1999) pollutes terribly and public health is more important". Piaggio, which started off producing locomotives and then fighter planes, came up with the Vespa after the Second World War, when the country's roads, severly damaged by bombing, were crying out for an alternative to cars for the masses. With its distinctive pressed steel frame, the Vespa was made famous outside Italy by the 1953 film "Roman Holiday," starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, who use it to take a wild ride around the Eternal City. Sean Penn has opened up about his meeting with drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman in an interview with CBS' Charlie Rose. In an excerpt of the sit-down that aired on CBS This Morning, Penn said that the idea that he helped with El Chapo's recapture by Mexican authorities a week ago is a "myth" and that it wasn't as if he and his team were able to find Guzman before the authorities did. "There is this myth about the visit that we made, my colleagues and I with El Chapo, that it was as the Attorney General of Mexico is quoted 'essential' to his capture," Penn told Rose. "We had met with him many weeks earlier ... on October 2nd, in a place nowhere near where he was captured." The actor added: "We know that the Mexican government ... they were clearly very humiliated by the notion that someone found him before they did. Well, nobody found him before they did. We're not smarter than the DEA or the Mexican intelligence. We had a contact upon which we were able to facilitate an invitation." Penn said he thinks the Mexican government released information about his meeting with El Chapo in part because they want him blamed and targeted by the cartel, but the actor said he's not afraid for his life. Read More: El Chapo's Lawyer Criticizes Sean Penn For "Stupidities" During Rolling Stone Interview Penn also explained that he wanted to meet with El Chapo to "begin a conversation about the policy of the war on drugs." "This is somebody who ... upon whose interview could I begin a conversation about the policy of the war on drugs. That was my simple idea," Penn said of his goals with his Rolling Stone interview. "We're going to put all our focus forget about blame we're going to put all our focus, all our energy, all our billions of dollars on the 'bad guy,' and what happens? You get another death the next day the same way," Penn added, elaborating on his views on the war on drugs. Story continues Now that the discussion around the interview is about the role Penn played in El Chapo's capture, how he was able to get access to the drug lord and other questions about legal issues and journalistic ethics, Penn feels that he wasn't able to accomplish his goal. He told Rose he has a "terrible regret" about the interview. Read More: Sean Penn's El Chapo Interview: Gonzo Spectacle Trumps Journalism (Guest Column) "I have a regret that the entire discussion about this article ignores its purpose, which was to try to contribute to this discussion about the policy on the war on drugs," said the actor. "My article has failed." Rose explained that Penn's deal and trip were led by Mexican actress Kate del Castillo, who had contact with the drug lord. Penn contacted her, Rose said, and he believes that contact enabled him to meet with El Chapo. In a second clip from Penn's interview that aired later on the CBS morning show, he talked about those who've criticized him for his lack of journalistic qualifications and Rolling Stone for letting El Chapo review the article before it was published. "When you get the story that every journalist in the world wanted, there's a lot of green-eyed monsters who are gonna come give you a kiss," Penn told Rose, confirming he was referring to, as Rose put it, "jealous journalists." Rose said Penn described himself as an "experiential journalist" who writes about his own experiences and has "no regrets" about how he spent his seven hours with El Chapo. "Of course I know that there are people who don't like me out of the gate," Penn said, consenting to Rose's characterization of the actor as being "not without controversy." "At the same time, when 'journalists' who want to say that I'm not a journalist well, I want to see the license that says that they're a journalist." The full interview is set to air on Sunday's 60 Minutes and also will air on Rose's eponymous PBS program on Monday night. During their full discussion, Rose said Penn talks about how he negotiated with El Chapo, the deals he made, why he went and what he thought of the drug lord. Penn's sit-down with Rose is his first TV interview about his meeting with El Chapo. Rose explained at the Television Critics Association's winter press tour on Tuesday that he would be interviewing Penn during his trip to California but he didn't know when the interview would occur. The two sat down on Thursday night in Santa Monica. Read More: Will Sean Penn Face Legal Trouble for Secretly Interviewing El Chapo? Jan. 15, 8:10 a.m. This story has been updated with the second clip of Rose's interview with Penn. Washington (AFP) - Hollywood actor Sean Penn has expressed regret that the article he wrote after interviewing Mexican drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman failed to spark new debate about the US war on drugs. Penn said his goal in meeting with Guzman was to shine a light on America's role in the international drug trade. "We are the consumer. Whether you agree with Sean Penn or not, there is a complicity there," Penn said told journalist Charlie Rose, in an interview scheduled to air in full Sunday on the CBS program "60 Minutes." Excerpts were broadcast on Friday. "If you are in the moral right, or on the far left, just as many of your children are doing these drugs," the actor said. "How much time have they spent in the last week since this article came talking about that? One percent? I think that'd be generous." Penn added: "I have a regret that the entire discussion about this article ignores its purpose, which was to try to contribute to this discussion about the policy in the war on drugs." His interview was published last Saturday in Rolling Stone, triggering a barrage of criticism, including condemnation of Penn himself. Among other things, the ire has centered on Penn's letting Guzman review the piece before it ran; seeming to glorify -- or at least go easy on -- a man blamed for thousands of deaths in Mexico's drug-related violence and contributing to drug addiction in America. Other critics fault him with having engaged in self-aggrandizing gonzo journalism while real reporters covering the drug trade in Mexico risk their lives daily. Penn challenged the Mexican government's assertion that the interview -- held in an undisclosed location in Mexico -- helped the authorities track down Guzman, who was captured the day before the article was published. "There is this myth about the visit that we made, my colleagues and I with El Chapo, that it was -- as the attorney general of Mexico is quoted -- 'essential' to his capture," the actor said. Story continues "We had met with him many weeks earlier...on October 2, in a place nowhere near where he was captured." Penn also said he thinks much of the criticism he has drawn in the media reflects jealousy over the big scoop he landed in interviewing Guzman. "When you get the story that every journalist in the world wanted, there's a lot of green-eyed monsters who're gonna come give you a kiss," Penn said. (Reuters) - Actor Sean Penn regrets the fallout from his Rolling Stone article on Mexican kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, which was aimed at discussing the drug war, Penn said in an interview released Friday with journalist and talk show host Charlie Rose. "I have a terrible regret," Penn told CBS This Morning co-host Rose in the interview recorded late Thursday in Santa Monica. "I have a regret that the entire discussion about this article ignores its purpose, which was to try to contribute to this discussion about the policy on the War on Drugs." Guzman was recaptured last week, six months after staging a spectacular prison break through a tunnel in his cell floor. While on the run, Guzman met secretly with Penn at a jungle hideout - a move the government says was "essential" to his capture. The article based on the interview by Penn, 55, was published in Rolling Stone magazine on Saturday, and quotes Guzman boasting about his drug shipments and the laundering of money through major Mexican and foreign companies. The actor refuted claims that his interview led to El Chapo's arrest. "There is this myth about the visit that we made, my colleagues and I with El Chapo, that it was... 'essential' to his capture," Penn said. He said he had met with Guzman "many weeks" and in a location far from the capture. Mexican officials wanted to encourage drug cartels to blame Guzman's capture on the meeting, Penn said, because the government was embarrassed that Penn and his coworkers found the drug kingpin before they could. Penn said he could be in danger but was not afraid of potential threats. He did not say who had organized the meeting with Guzman, but said he had a contact "facilitate an invitation." (Reporting by Laila Kearney; Editing by Bernadette Baum) By Keith Coffman DENVER (Reuters) - Colorado prosecutors on Thursday charged the second of two 16-year-old girls as an adult with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in connection with plans to attack their high school, authorities said. Brooke Higgins appeared in Douglas County District Court where she was formally accused of plotting to kill classmates and staff last month at Mountain Vista High School, said Assistant District Attorney Mark Hurlbert. Her alleged accomplice, Sienna Johnson, also 16, was charged last week in adult court with identical charges. Prosecutors held off filing charges against Higgins last week pending the completion of a psychiatric examination. Both girls attended the school in the Denver suburb of Highlands Ranch, and they were arrested in December after two anonymous tipsters alerted authorities to the plot, police said. Douglas County District Court Judge Paul King has set $1 million bonds for both teens. Prosecutors said the seriousness of the alleged crimes warranted trying the cases in adult court, but lawyers for both girls are seeking to have their cases sent back to juvenile court. At Thursday's hearing, Hurlbert said prosecutors told King that Higgins was fascinated with the Columbine High School massacre, where two students in a neighboring county shot dead a teacher and 12 students before killing themselves in 1999. Higgins wrote in a journal that she wished she could have taken part in that massacre and even snapped a photograph of herself outside Columbine High, Hurlbert said. Higgins also searched online for how a juvenile could buy firearms and told a friend she would warn her to stay away from the school when the attack was imminent, he added. Prosecutors said last week that investigators had seized a journal from Johnson in which she allegedly drew a map of the school and recorded the movements of security officers. She also took steps to acquire firearms, prosecutors said, and had gone target shooting with a pellet gun. Story continues Higgins' lawyer, Dagny Van Der Jagt, issued a statement distancing her client from Johnson. "The girls were casual school acquaintances who had associated with each other for a brief time," the lawyer said. "They have different backgrounds, personalities, motivations and behaviors." Van Der Jagt said Higgins' parents have cooperated with authorities by allowing their home to be searched for weapons -none were found - and by voluntarily submitting their daughter to the mental-health evaluation. Neither girl has entered a plea in response to the charges. (Reporting by Keith Coffman; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Cynthia Osterman) By Mathieu Bonkoungou and Nadoun Coulibaly OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) - Security forces in Burkina Faso battled suspected Islamist fighters late on Friday who were holding hostages at a hotel used by foreigners in the capital, Ouagadougou, gendarmes and witnesses said. The attack, claimed by al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), would be the first by Islamist militants in the capital of Burkina Faso. It follows a deadly raid on a hotel in Mali last November as well as attacks by militants in other countries in West Africa. The gunmen stormed the five-story Splendid Hotel in Ouagadougou's business district, burning cars outside and firing in the air to drive back crowds before security forces arrived, prompting an intense exchange of gunfire. Some of the wounded arrived at a local hospital, but there were so far no confirmed reports of deaths. The hotel is sometimes used by French troops with Operation Barkhane, a force based in Chad and set up to combat Islamist militants across West Africa's vast, arid Sahel region. "It is continuing at this time. We are trying to know how many attackers they are to better coordinate our actions," said a senior official with the national gendarmes who asked not to be named. "Hostages have been taken. The operation could take several hours." A Reuters witness saw gunmen emerge from the hotel and fire into the air. A vehicle carrying security personnel arrived and shortly afterward an intense gun battle began. "We had just opened and there were a few customers we started to serve when we heard gunshots ... There were three men shooting in the air," said Vital Nounayon, a waiter at a restaurant across the street from the hotel. "Lots of people left their cars and motorcycles and ran. They (attackers) set fire to the vehicles. They also fired on the Capuccino Restaurant across from the hotel before setting it on fire," he said, adding that the attackers wore turbans. Amateur video footage showed a burning car on an empty street in front of the hotel. Gunfire and explosions could be heard. The landlocked West African state has endured political turmoil since October 2014 when longtime President Blaise Compaore was overthrown during mass protests and elite troops launched a one-week coup in September 2015. But it has been largely spared violence by Islamist militants, who have staged attacks in Mali, a country with which it shares a 600-km (375-mile) border. WARNING SIGNS Burkina Faso, which produces gold and cotton, is diverse in religious terms and has a population that is around 60 percent Muslim, according to government figures. The attack presents a significant challenge to President Roch Marc Kabore, who was elected in November 2015 as Burkina Faso's first new leader in decades. Earlier, the Ministry of Defence issued a statement saying that about 20 armed men killed a gendarme and a civilian in an attack on the village of Tin Abao in northern Burkina Faso. It was unclear whether the attack was by militants. The French Embassy in Ouagadougou issued a statement on its website telling its citizens not to go outside and said it was setting up a crisis unit. The country gained independence from France in 1960. French Ambassador Gilles Thibault said he had been informed that a curfew is in place from 11 p.m. local time (2300 GMT) to 6 a.m. The Foreign Ministry in Paris said it was assessing the situation. France has up to 200 special forces troops in the country. The embassy in December warned French citizens against traveling to a national park in eastern Burkina Faso after reports that Malian jihadists were threatening to kidnap foreigners. An Islamist militant group Al-Mourabitoun said in May 2015, it was holding a Romanian man kidnapped from a mine in northern Burkina Faso the previous month. Around 50 unidentified gunmen attacked a Burkina Faso gendarmerie brigade near the country's western border with Mali in October 2015, killing three in an attack the then government blamed on the leaders of a failed coup one month before. Islamist militants have staged attacks in a number of West African states bordering the Sahel in recent years. Two militants killed 20 people from nations including Russia, China and the United States at a luxury hotel in Mali's capital on Nov. 20, 2015, before being killed by the security forces. Three Islamist groups including al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility for that attack, the most prominent by militants who are based in the north of the country and have staged a series of attacks over the last year. Boko Haram have killed thousands in northeastern Nigeria during a six year insurgency and in 2015 extended its attacks into neighboring countries Chad, Niger and Cameroon. (Additional reporting by Brice Makini in Dakar, Joe Bavier in Abidjan and John Irish in Paris; writing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg, editing by G Crosse) BOSTON (Reuters) - Several Boston-area schools were evacuated following a series of telephone bomb threats, police and media said on Friday No injuries or explosions were reported. Boston police were called to Boston College High School after school officials received a recorded threat and students were put on lockdown, according to a Boston Police Department spokeswoman. St. Agnes School, a Roman Catholic elementary school in the Boston suburb of Arlington was also evacuated following a bomb threat, Arlington police said. Two middle schools in Weymouth, a suburb south of Boston, were also evacuated following bomb threats, the Boston Globe reported, citing school officials. (Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Bernard Orr) Some people just cant seem to grasp the concept that social media posts are social. We see people get themselves in trouble time and time again for oversharing, but it looks like a new king of poor social media judgement has just been crowned. Meet Malik First Born Allah Farrad, who will be spending the next 15 and a half years of his life in a federal penitentiary because of a single Facebook post. DONT MISS: 20 apps you need to have on your iPhone home screen Farrad, born Marvin Buckles, was sentenced on Thursday to 188 months in a Tennessee federal prison following his 2015 conviction of being a felon in possession of a gun. The longtime criminal was last convicted of federal gun and drug charges back in 2000 after police found firearms and crack cocaine in his possession. Farrad was released from prison after serving out his sentence. Before that, he had a long history of arrests and convictions that began at age 14, the Knoxville News Sentinel reports. His most recent misstep is likely his saddest, however, as authorities never would have known Farrad was breaking the law had he not posted evidence on Facebook. Malik First Born Allah Farrad In 2013, the ex-con posted a selfie on Facebook, pictured above, that showed him holding a .45-caliber pistol and aiming the reflection of its laser sight at his own forehead. Of course, its illegal for a convicted felon to carry a firearm, and Farrad posted concrete evidence of his crime on Facebook for all the world to see. Unfortunately for him, the FBI was investigating him for suspected illicit conduct at the time, and digging through his social media accounts was part of the investigation. Farrads conviction on Thursday carried a minimum sentence of 10 years in federal prison, and judges can tack on additional time from 5 years to life in prison at their discretion. In light of Farrads criminal history, the judge presiding over this case sentenced him to an additional 68 months without the possibility of parole. Story continues Related stories How to see everything Facebook thinks it knows about you Twitter's rumored character limit increase takes a page out of Facebook's playbook WhatsApp users need to know about these 2 key threats More from BGR: 20 apps you need to have on your iPhone home screen This article was originally published on BGR.com By Wayan Sukarda DENPASAR, Indonesia (Reuters) - Indonesia's President Joko Widodo ordered more police at hotels, airports, shopping malls in the resort island of Bali and across the country after Thursday's attacks in Jakarta by Islamic State militants. Government officials fear the Jakarta attack, in which seven died including all five militants, could revive memories of Bali bombings in 2002 and 2005 and hinder the president's efforts to nearly double tourist arrivals to 20 million people by 2019. Indonesia's economy is already growing at its slowest pace since the financial crisis. "I'm a little scared but honestly there is probably more police out there right now," U.S. tourist Mike Rosenthal told Reuters on one of Bali's famously beautiful beaches. "I'm probably safer now - just got to be careful, stay low and avoid tourist areas." Travel and tourism directly contributed around $23 billion to Indonesia's economy in 2014, or about 3.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), according to a report from the World Travel & Tourism Council. At Bali's airport, tour guides said they were confident that any drop in business would be only temporary. "There is no problem. Bali is safe," said Yan Xiang Zhao, a tourist who had flown in from Taiwan with two friends. (Additional reporting by Sri Lestari; Writing by Michael Taylor; Editing by Randy Fabi/Ruth Pitchford) JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa needs to make tough decisions about how it runs its finances and next month's budget will inspire confidence in a struggling economy, finance minister Pravin Gordhan said on Friday. South Africa has stumbled in recent months with slowing growth, a tumbling rand, rising government spending and waning investor confidence in the ability of its political leaders to revive Africa's most developed economy. "We'll have to make some tough decisions about how we run the finances of the country," Gordhan told 702 Talk Radio. "I can assure you that we are working together on a budget that is credible and can inspire confidence in our country." Gordhan returned in December to the portfolio he held from 2009 to 2014 in a chaotic week when President Jacob Zuma sacked Nhlanhla Nene as finance minister in favour of untested David van Rooyen, before recalling Gordhan after markets tumbled. A major concern among investors is unsustainable government spending and rising public debt. An ambitious plan to build a fleet of nuclear power stations at a cost of as much as 1 trillion rand ($60 billion) has many economists worried. When asked about the nuclear deal, Gordhan refused to be drawn on whether he supported it but stressed that South Africa would not enter into an agreement it could not afford. "We all recognise that we can only do what we can afford. If you have 1,000 rand in your pocket, don't pretend you can spend 2,000 rand," he said. Gordhan said on Thursday that South Africa would not slip into recession, rejecting predictions by some economists that sharp falls in the rand and poor growth in key sectors of the economy pointed to a contraction this year. The rand, among the most volatile of major emerging market currencies, slumped to a record low during Asian trade on Monday on fears that China wanted to weaken its currency aggressively, though it has since recovered some ground. Gordhan highlighted agriculture, mining and manufacturing as sectors in "great difficulty". ($1 = 16.53 rand) (Reporting by Joe Brock; Editing by Ed Cropley) Seoul (AFP) - South Korean and Chinese defence ministry officials discussed North Korea's latest nuclear test on Friday, as pressure intensified on Beijing to take a tougher line with ally Pyongyang. The director-level defence talks are held every year, but were completely overshadowed this time around by the North's fourth nuclear test last week, which triggered global condemnation and the promise of fresh UN sanctions. "China expressed its willingness to take part in adopting a UN Security Council sanctions resolution," the head of the South Korean delegation, Yoon Soon-Ku, told reporters afterwards. "China reiterated that it thoroughly rejects the North's nuclear development and nuclear testing," Yoon said. The talks came two days after South Korean President Park Geun-Hye urged China to step up to the plate and support genuinely punitive sanctions that would help bring Pyongyang to heel. "I believe China is aware that if its strong determination is not put into actual, necessary actions, we will not be able to prevent a fifth or sixth nuclear test," Park said. China is North Korea's chief diplomatic protector and economic benefactor, but traditional ties have become strained as Beijing's patience has worn thin with Pyongyang's behaviour and unwillingness to rein in its nuclear weapons ambitions. But China's leverage over Pyongyang is mitigated, analysts say, by its overriding fear of a North Korean collapse and the prospect of a reunified, US-allied Korea directly on its border. US Secretary of State John Kerry has also urged China to take a stronger line with North Korea, warning in a call to his Beijing counterpart last week that it can no longer be "business as usual". North Korea says the January 6 test was of a miniaturised hydrogen bomb -- a claim largely dismissed by experts who argue the yield was far too low for a full-fledged thermonuclear device. Story continues But whatever the nature of the device, it was North Korea's fourth nuclear test since 2006, and further evidence of Pyongyang's intention to continue developing its nuclear weapons capability in the face of international censure. Since taking office in early 2013, Park Geun-Hye has actively courted closer ties with Beijing, and sought to build a personal working relationship with President Xi Jinping. The two leaders have held numerous summits, and Park was the only leader among major US allies to attend a mass military parade in Beijing to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. But while relations have warmed, the North Korean issue remains an extremely delicate one for China, and South Korea will be wary of pushing Beijing too far and too fast. We hate to kick a dead horse but unfortunately, Android fragmentation is an issue that continues to rear its ugly head. Time and time again we see problems arise that call Googles Android strategy into question, and fragmentation has to be at the top of the list for consumers. Because of the nature of Googles mobile software, new versions dont typically reach end users for several months or even several years after release. Why? Because updates have to be tweaked and thoroughly tested by device vendors and then again by wireless carriers before they reach end user handsets. This means that the latest and greatest features Android has to offer wont even reach users with brand new flagship smartphones for two, four, even six months or more after release. And now, a new study once again reminds us that this is a big pain point for consumers. DONT MISS: I just saved $146 on an Amazon purchase without lifting a finger Android 6.0 Marshmallow was first released to the public in early October, more than three months ago. According to Googles latest Android version distribution data, which is current as of January 4, 2016, Marshmallow is currently installed on just 0.7% of all Android handsets that access the Google Play store. The most popular version of Android is currently Android 4.4 KitKat, which was released in October 2013. Meanwhile, Apples latest major release came less than one month prior to Android 6.0 in September of last year. In the same amount of time it took Marshmallow to reach 0.7% of devices, iOS 9 was installed on 75% of all iOS devices that access the App Store as of January 11th, 2016, according to Apples data. Apple doesnt have the same barriers as Google when it comes to distributing software updates, and end users benefit as a result. Why are we bringing this issue up again? The results of a study conducted recently by researchers from the University of British Columbia and the University of California, Berkeley are yet another reminder of the issue. Story continues As relayed by CNET, the study found that 80% of respondents want the ability to block apps they install from being granted certain permissions. For example, an app might request access your photos, contacts and location upon installation. Rather than grant all of these permissions to an app, 80% of people would like the ability to grant some but block others, as is the case in iOS. Heres the problem: Android already has this functionality, its just that more than 99% of Android users dont yet have access to the updated version of Android that includes this feature. Android 6.0 Marshmallow, first released in 2015, will not be the most popular version of Android among users until late 2017 into early 2018. By then, Android 8.0 will have been released and people on Marshmallow will be using software that is painfully old and outdated. Meanwhile, the vast majority of iPhone and iPad users will be on Apples just-released iOS 11 software, and theyll have access to all of the new features that come with it. Related stories New York bill would force Apple to include encryption backdoors in new iPhones 11 paid iPhone apps on sale for free right now You can finally hide Apple's default iPhone apps in iOS 9.3 - here's how More from BGR: 20 apps you need to have on your iPhone home screen This article was originally published on BGR.com MUSCAT (Reuters) - Ten Yemenis released by the United States from prison in Guantanamo Bay have arrived in Oman, the Gulf monarchy's state news agency reported on Thursday, citing an official of its foreign ministry. The men will remain in Oman for humanitarian reasons until their transfer back to Yemen, which is gripped by civil war, the Oman News Agency reported. In December, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter told Congress his department would transfer a wave of detainees from the prison in Cuba at the beginning of 2016. Pentagon officials have said transfers were expected soon and were likely to bring the number of foreign fighters in the prison below 100. Four detainees have already been moved from the prison this month. President Barack Obama, who campaigned on a pledge to close the prison, views it as a damaging symbol of detainee abuse and detention without charge that was inherited from Republican President George W. Bush. However, his efforts to close it have been hindered by fierce opposition in Congress and difficulties in transferring detainees to countries that were unwilling to accept them or provide adequate security guarantees. (Reporting by Fatma Alarimi; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) What good is the Internet if you cant read? Thats not a question many Americans think about, but in developing countries such as Ukraine, Nigeria, Nicaragua and Cambodia, theres growing concern about being left out of the digital revolutionnot just because it started someplace else, but also because those not riding the digital wave sometimes get swamped by it. An exhaustive new report by the World Bank assesses the winners and losers of the digital revolution -- not by occupation or education level, but by country. Not surprisingly, advanced nations such as the United States and most of Europe are capturing most of the benefits of digital technology. In theory, that new technology ought to be lifting up developing countries, too, as it trickles out to them. Instead, however, the banks report finds that income inequality may be worsening in poorer nations, as those with digital-era skills pull ever further away from those without. Although [digital] technologies are becoming widespread, the economic payoffs are not, the report reads. The poor almost exclusively use only mobile phones not connected to the Internet. And even if they do have access to the Internet, they lack the skills to use it productively, with many unable to read in the first place. The Internet is nearly universal in the U.S. economy, so it may come as a surprise to learn how much of the world remains unconnected. Nearly 60% of the worlds population does not have access to the Internet, for instance. Of the worlds 7.4 billion people, only about 15%, have high-speed Internet access. More have cellphones, which are the basis for connectivity in many poor countries, even if theyre not smartphones. Countries losing the most from the digital revolution are those that lack the analog foundationthings like business-friendly policies, accountable government and ready capitalthat allow companies and individuals to optimize the value of technology. So the countries faring worst are those that usually rank poorly on openness and transparency, such as Venezuela, Russia, Ukraine, Nigeria, Iraq and Afghanistan. But many other countries that ought to be up-and-comers instead show signs that digital technology is having a net negative impact on workers, with Poland, Mexico, Hungary, Estonia and Bahrain topping that list. Story continues Excluded from the digital economy The problem in such places is an intensified version of a phenomenon many Americans are familiar with: technology is displacing many lower-skill jobs, without creating other jobs to replace them. In the U.S., we have safety-net programs meant to ease the burden of economic displacement: unemployment insurance, food stamps, job retraining in many areas, Obamacare for people who lose company-provided health insurance. Those types of programsimperfect, to be sureare supposed to provide a bridge during hard times and help people refocus their careers in more productive directions. In countries without such programs, new technology that puts people out of work can push prosperity even further out of reach, often with no way to claw back. In rigged economies that favor apparatchiks and the well-connected, digital technology can tilt the playing field even more than usual by widening the gap between favored operators and outsiders. Because the economics of the Internet favor natural monopolies, the World Bank report says, the absence of a competitive business environment can result in more concentrated markets, benefiting incumbent firms. Imagine, for example, that a state-run energy firm in Russia has full access to the Internet, but a competitor that lacks the Kremlins blessing doesnt. The solutions are familiar, and also improbable: Encourage the more repressive nations of the world to open up, allow more competition and improve Internet connectivity for their citizens. Let more information in and empower the little guy. In developed nations, make it easier for people who lose their jobs to move where the jobs are, perhaps through mobility subsidies. Improve education. Authorities everywhere are just now beginning to grapple with the second- and third-order consequences of the digital revolution, more than 20 years after it first became apparent a new kind of gold rush was on. Economists typically point out that every kind of technological progress destroys old jobs, while creating new ones; most of the time, living standards rise and its a net gain for humanity. But as President Obama and many others have pointed out, it can be painful along the way and living standards sometimes fall permanently for the losers. Finding compassionate, effective and affordable ways to lift up those economically harmed by innovation has always been a challenge, and it remains one that even digital technology hasnt yet solved. Rick Newmans latest book is Liberty for All: A Manifesto for Reclaiming Financial and Political Freedom. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman . Paris (AFP) - Paris Saint-Germain captain Thiago Silva will miss Saturday's trip to Toulouse in Ligue 1, while Angel Di Maria has also been ruled out. Silva hurt his knee in last weekend's 2-0 victory over Bastia and sat out the capital club's midweek win over Lyon that saw them advance to the semi-finals of the League Cup. Di Maria set up Lucas for the winning goal in Wednesday's 2-1 victory at home to Lyon after coming on as a substitute, but the Argentina international was unable to train on Thursday after sustaining a knock to his right foot. Runaway leaders PSG were a huge 20 points clear at the top of the French league before second-placed Angers went to Nice on Friday and are unbeaten in their last 36 domestic outings, a run stretching back 10 months. GENEVA (Reuters) - More than 2,000 Mozambicans have fled to Malawi to escape fighting between government forces and rebels in the coal mining province of Tete in the last three weeks, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Friday. UNHCR spokeswoman Karin de Gruijl said refugees had told of soldiers attacking villages they believed were harbouring opposition party members and had burned down houses, in one case killing an elderly woman trapped inside her home. "Some parents also stated they have been separated from their children during flight and they have not been able to find them," de Gruijl told a news conference in Geneva. Two thirds of the 1,297 registered refugees were women and children, UNHCR said. A further 900 were waiting to register. Mozambique's main opposition party, Renamo started out as a guerrilla force backed by neighbouring then-Rhodesia's white-minority government and later apartheid South Africa, on its southern border, to counter the communist Frelimo movement. The two sides fought a civil war from 1976 to 1992 in which a million people died. Frelimo has dominated politics since the end of the fighting but Renamo never completely disarmed and launched a low-level guerrilla campaign in late 2012 that analysts said was designed to extract political concessions before 2014 elections. Since then, there have been few reported outbreaks of violence in former Renamo strongholds in the southern African nation's central belt or around Tete, a major coal mining centre. It is not clear what sparked the latest fighting. There was no immediate comment from the Mozambique government or Renamo. (Reporting by Stephanie Ulmer-Nebehay; Writing by Ed Cropley in JOHANNESBURG; Editing by Louise Ireland) The budget travel landscape is ever-changing, and a new year is a good excuse to look into the best wallet-friendly places to visit around the world. With tourism, flights, currency and major events affecting the cost of a trip to your dream destination, I advise doing plenty of research before you journey somewhere new. If you're still on the hunt for a place to travel this year, why not try one of the following destinations: Barcelona, Spain The U.S. dollar is strong against the euro, which means that many European cities are more affordable than they have been in recent years. One of these is Barcelona, Spain. The city has plenty to offer in culture, delicious food and proximity to the coast. You can travel locally on the cheap by using the metro, and if you want to save on lodging check out one of many apartments for rent. Try visiting in May before the temperatures get too warm; there will be plenty of festivals to see yet you'll still beat out the official tourist season. Greece Speaking of Europe, Greece is one country with plenty of budget-friendly areas to visit. You can even soak in the beauty of a tropical vacation while you learn about Greece's fascinating history by traveling to the Aegean Islands. Crete is the largest, and offers unlimited activities and sights to see. You can dine at one of the many tavernas for a less expensive, but equally delicious meal. Consider visiting in early fall when it's still warm enough to head to the beach, but rates are dropping after summer crowds head out. Iceland If you're headed to Europe, you might want to take advantage of Icelandair's offer of a free seven-night stopover on the way. You might use a bit more vacation time, but it will be worth it with Iceland's incredible scenery and sights. See the Northern Lights, trek through waterfalls and lagoons, or walk through a city like Reykjavik. With this extra addition to your trip, just make sure you don't go over your travel budget. Check out the area's hostels and take advantage of the free sightseeing so your wallet doesn't regret the detour. Story continues New Mexico Want to stay stateside but still travel somewhere with an exotic feel? New Mexico offers warm weather, tons of free outdoor activities and plenty of American, Native American and Mexican history. Santa Fe offers comfortable temperatures and plenty of festivals in the fall, including the famed Whole Enchilada Festival and the Native Treasures Indian Arts Festival. Make sure you go hungry, because there is plenty of delicious yet inexpensive food to go around. Puerto Rico Flights to this Caribbean island are wallet-friendly, and the currency is the U.S. dollar. There is much more to discover than the tourist-ridden walkways that serve those exploring the area on a day trip from their cruise. You can explore beaches and try the local food, and savvy travelers often suggest the West Coast for less crowds and more affordable lodging. Vietnam If you want to head out on a true adventure at little cost, consider Vietnam. It's one of the more popular budget travel destinations for a reason. The landscape is beautiful, there is much to see and most everything is very inexpensive. Ho Chi Min City and Hanoi are two cities that cater often to tourists and backpackers, and have plenty of cheap lodging options and street food. Recent reports suggest you can get by for $20 or less per day! There are also many vacation packages available for multi-city tours. I hope you'll find one (or more) of these frugal destinations in line with your own travel plans for 2016! Jon Lal is the founder and CEO of coupons and cash back website BeFrugal.com, which saves shoppers an average of $27 per order thanks to coupons plus an average of 7 percent cash back at more than 4,000 stores. (Reuters) - Canadian daily Toronto Star is closing its printing plant in Vaughan, Ontario, affecting about 285 jobs, parent Torstar Corp said on Friday. Torstar has reached a deal to outsource printing of the Toronto Star to Transcontinental Printing, making it the latest Canadian newspaper whose printing is to be outsourced amid slowing readership. Transcontinental is Canada's largest printer and prints newspapers such as the Globe and Mail, the Montreal Gazette and the Vancouver Sun as well as the San Francisco Chronicle in the United States under contract. Transcontinental also owns of community newspapers in Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan and the Atlantic provinces. Torstar owns the Star Media Group led by the Toronto Star, and also owns online publications such as thestar.com, among other holdings. The outsourcing move was aimed at reducing costs and improving the production quality of the newspaper, John Cruickshank, publisher of the Toronto Star, said in a statement. Torstar said it planned to launch a sale of the 43-acre property in Vaughan The company said it has begun talks with unions representing the affected employees, 220 full-time and 65 part-time staff, to develop a transition plan. Torstar expects to take a job cut-related restructuring charge in 2016. (Reporting by Amrutha Gayathri in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Savio D'Souza) By Steve Holland and James Oliphant NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) - Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump and top challenger Ted Cruz ended a longstanding truce in spectacular fashion on Thursday night with bitter exchanges during what may have been Trump's strongest debate performance to date. The New York billionaire and the Texas senator appeared to have a split decision by the end of the night, a sign that for all the bluster, little took place that could derail Trump from his lead position with a contest in Iowa on Feb. 1 to begin the search for a Republican presidential nominee. Projections that the debate would be a free-for-all were accurate. Beyond the Trump-Cruz theatrics, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida turned in a pugnacious performance with attacks on Cruz and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Florida Governor Jeb Bush presented himself as a voice of reason against Trump. A Google snap poll showed viewers believed Trump, who in the most recent debates was at times less engaged, won the night with 37.3 percent to Cruz's 26.6 percent and Rubio's 12.1 percent. Until the Fox Business Network debate in North Charleston, South Carolina, Trump and Cruz had been friendly because they have both been chasing conservatives of the Tea Party movement and did not want to anger them. With Trump now needing to fend off Cruz's rise in Iowa, he pushed his charge that Cruz may not be constitutionally qualified to serve as president because he was born in Canada. The U.S. Constitution says only "natural born" citizens can become president of the United States. "Who the hell knows if you can even serve in office?" Trump told Cruz, drawing a scattering of boos in the audience. Born in Calgary, Alberta, to a U.S. citizen mother and a Cuban father, Cruz accused Trump of bringing up his birthplace simply because Cruz was leading some polls in Iowa. Cruz said Trump, who led the movement questioning whether the Hawaiian-born President Barack Obama was really from the United States, had asked his lawyers to look into the issue of Cruz's birth in September and concluded there were no issues. "Since September, the Constitution hasnt changed, but the poll numbers have," Cruz said. "And I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are dropping in Iowa, but the facts and the law here are really clear." Trump said Democrats would sue if Cruz were on the Republican ticket, putting their party's chances of winning at risk. Cruz shot back that he had spent many years studying constitutional law: "I'm not going to be taking legal advice from Donald Trump." The birthright issue has dogged American politics before: 2008 Republican nominee John McCain survived questions about his birth in Panama because he was born on a U.S. military installation there and it was judged to be U.S. soil. In 1967, Republican candidate George Romney faced questions about his birth in Mexico, but his candidacy never advanced far and the issue was abandoned. 'NEW YORK VALUES' While Cruz seemed to have parried the attack for now, he was stung by Trump on another issue: Whether people who live in New York City have the same values as other Americans. Cruz has lately begun denouncing "New York values" to connect Trump to the city's famous liberalism. "Everyone understands that the values of New York City are socially liberal, are pro-abortion, are pro-gay marriage," Cruz said. Trump, in perhaps his most heartfelt remarks of the night, harked back to New York's response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to defend his home city. "The people in New York fought and fought and fought, and we saw more death, and even the smell of death... And it was with us for months, the smell, the air. "And we rebuilt Downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers. And I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made," Trump said. Rubio, in third place behind Trump and Cruz in Iowa and hoping a strong outcome there will help him in the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 9, frequently inserted himself into arguments and tried to put pressure on Cruz. He accused Cruz of proposing a value added tax as part of his tax plan and of being soft on immigration. "That is not consistent conservatism," he said. "That is political calculation." He attacked Christie as well, accusing him of have liberal positions on education policy and abortion. Christie interrupted a Rubio-Cruz exchange with this blast: "I'd like to interrupt this debate on the floor of the Senate. You had your chance, Marco you blew it," he said. Cruz, who has taken the lead in some polls of Iowa Republican voters, did well on social media. Social media monitoring tool Zoomph saw total positive mentions for Cruz climb by more than 150 percent while he sparred with Trump. Trump is far ahead nationally. A Reuters/Ipsos rolling national poll on Jan. 12 showed Trump had 39 percent of the vote, Cruz 14.5 percent, Bush 10.6 percent, Carson 9.6 percent, while 6.7 percent favored Rubio. For more on the 2016 presidential race, see the Reuters blog, Tales from the Trail (http://blogs.reuters.com/talesfromthetrail/) (In paragraph 5, corrects to Fox Business Network from Fox Business Channel) (additional reporting by Emily Stephenson, Ginger Gibson, and Megan Cassella; Writing by Jeff Mason; editing by Grant McCool) A pensive President Obama with members of his foreign policy team during a recent meeting between U.S. and Turkish officials in Paris. (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP) A top White House official agreed Friday with Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush that Donald Trumps proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the United States is weakening the U.S. fight against the so-called Islamic State. We have an over-60-country coalition fighting [the Islamic State], with a substantial number of Muslim-majority fighters who are absolutely essential to succeeding in that effort, said Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser to President Obama. Rhodes spoke in answer to a question at a lunch with journalists hosted by Bloomberg News about how much the White House planned to respond to Trumps rhetoric in the coming weeks. Trump leads national polling in the Republican presidential primary and in New Hampshire, the second state in the primary process. Trump narrowly trails Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in the first state to vote, Iowa, which caucuses on Feb. 1. We reject any rhetoric that stigmatizes Muslim-Americans, Rhodes said. Not only is that not representative of who we are, its certainly not helpful to the fight against ISIL. (The Islamic State is also referred to as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, and as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.) Rhodes assessment echoed the critique made by Bush, the former Florida governor, at the sixth Republican debate on Thursday night in North Charleston, S.C. Bush said that Trumps idea to keep all Muslims out of the U.S., even temporarily, makes it impossible to build the coalition necessary to take out ISIS. The Kurds are our strongest allies. Theyre Muslim, Bush said. Youre not going to even allow them to come to our country? The other Arab countries have a role to play in this. We cannot be the worlds policeman. We cant do this unilaterally. We have to do this in unison with the Arab world. Story continues And sending that signal makes it impossible for us to be serious about taking out ISIS and restoring democracy in Syria, Bush said. Trump responded with something of a non sequitur, stating simply: I want security for this country. Rhodes also spoke about what Obama hopes to accomplish during his final year in office in the fight against ISIS. He noted that the Iraqi Armys retaking of the city of Ramadi just two weeks ago was an important step for the Iraqi government. It both takes away a significant population center from ISIL but also provides them with a sense of confidence and momentum as they look to Mosul and other parts of Iraq that they need to take back, Rhodes said. Rhodes expressed hope that ISIS territory, constituting much of northeast Syria as well as areas straddling the countrys eastern border with Iraq, can be squeezed by the coalition from every direction to retake other cities, such as Mosul and Raqqa. I think you can see a pathway to doing that, Rhodes said. At which point what youre dealing with is a large-scale counterterrorism operation, where you have ISIL no longer controlling large swaths of territory, which they depend on to resource themselves, because their resourcing is oil and taxes. And then essentially you have the capabilities your air power, your special forces and then our partners on the ground to essentially grind them down and destroy the network as weve done with al-Qaida in different places. Thats going to take a longer period of time, Rhodes said. Even if we were able to take some of these bigger chunks of territory back, this is a multiyear effort, he said. I think what the president would like to do with his remaining time is essentially put them on that path to defeat, where we have shrunk their space, taken away resources they depend upon and put in place an infrastructure that can just grind them down. Rhodes noted that as the anti-ISIS coalition has gained some victories in Iraq, the group has sought to expand into other countries, such as Libya, and also put more effort into launching terrorist attacks in other parts of the world, such as, in recent weeks, Jakarta, Istanbul and Paris. The best thing about Thursday nights Republican presidential primary debate, the sixth of twelve currently on the schedule for 2016, is that it means we are halfway to having no more Republican primary debates. Viewers who suffered through the entire two and a half hours of the event last night were presented with a smorgasbord of soaring demagoguery, sneering ad hominem attacks, and occasional seemingly accidental detours into discussion of public policy. Related: Cruzs Unreported $1 Million in Bank Loans Wont Help His Bid for President With a field narrowed to seven participants, after host Fox Business News tightened the standards for allowing candidates to appear in the prime time debate, some sort of clash between the two frontrunners, Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, seemed inevitable. But the moderators took no chances, assuring that the two were forced to lock horns directly, albeit over fairly trivial issues. Trump, for the past week, has consistently harped on the fact that Cruz was born in Canada, raising questions about whether he meets the Constitutions requirement that U.S. presidents be natural born citizens. Asked to respond, Cruz first noted that Trump had previously said that Cruzs birth in Canada was a non-issue. The constitution hasnt changed, but the poll numbers have, Cruz said, adding that he recognizes that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers have fallen in recent weeks. Cruz then claimed that there might be some question about Trumps eligibility for president because his mother was born in Scotland. Related: Is Nikki Haley Hitching Her Wagon to lone Star Ted Cruz? On the issue of citizenship Donald, Im not going to use your mothers birth against you, Cruz said. (One of many Ronald Reagan references in the debate, for those keeping score at home.) Trump responded by sticking to his claim that Cruz has a potential problem that needs to be addressed in order to avoid what Trump predicts are inevitable lawsuits should he become the nominee or actually win a presidential election. Story continues Theres a big question mark on your headyou cant do that to the party, Trump said. Shortly afterward, Cruz was asked to defend one of his comments about Trump a seeming throwaway line about the billionaire real estate moguls New York values. Related: Why a Trump-Sanders Race Is Suddenly a Real Possibility Asked what he meant, Cruz waffled a bit, comparing New York to South Carolina, the state where the debate was being held. Finally, he said, Everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal, are pro-abortion are pro-gay marriage, focused around money and the media. Cruz ended with what he seemed to think was a bit of a zinger saying that not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan, in a reference to Trumps frequent observation that Cruzs Cuban born father, an evangelical Christian minister, is a bit of an oddity, because not a lot of evangelicals come out of Cuba. But Trump, to his credit, treated Cruzs comments about New York the way Alex Rodriguez treats a hanging curveball in Yankee Stadium. Invoking the 9/11 attacks, he said, When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely, than New York. Related: Why Presidential Election Years Are Bad for Stocks He said, The people of New York fought, and fought, and fought, and we saw more death, and even the smell of deathand it was with us for months, the smell, the air. And we rebuilt downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched and everybody in the world loved New York, and loved New Yorkers, and I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made. It was, possibly, only Trumps second best line of the night probably his strongest rhetorical performance in any of the debates so far. At another point in the evening, he was asked to respond to South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haleys State of the Union response, in which she advised her fellow Republicans against listening to the siren song of the angriest voices in the race. She later confirmed that she was referring to Trump. I will gladly accept the mantle of anger, he said, rattling off a litany of his complaints about how the country is being run. Yes, I am angry, he said to considerable applause. Related: Heres Why Clintons Lead Over Sanders Is Shrinking Fast Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who has struggled to gain traction in the election, had a reasonably good night by playing the role of adult in the room when the other candidates went off the rails. He hammered Trump on his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States, saying that it undermines the ability of the U.S. to form coalitions around the world particularly against the terror group ISIS. Sending that signal makes it impossible for us to be serious about destroying ISIS, he said. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio spent much of the night attacking not his primary opponents, but rather President Obama. Among other things, he accuse the president of actively seeking to diminish the countrys standing in the world, trying to weaken the military, plotting to take away all Americans firearms, and pretty much everything short of rolling back history to 1783 and giving the country back to the British. Related: Is Obamas Positive Spin on the U.S. Economy Catching On? Rubio did get into a tense exchange with Cruz near the end of the debate, attacking the Texas senator for changing his position on various issues for political reasons and for voting against funding the military. Cruz parried the attacks, accusing Rubio of misrepresenting his record. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie continued with what has become his standard posture bellicosity on foreign policy and disdain for Washington. He attacked President Obama, calling him a petulant child and attacking him for always giving accused criminals the benefit of the doubt over law enforcement officials. Some, who like the idea of people being innocent until proven guilty, might see that as a good thing, but it didnt come up in the discussion. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and Ohio Gov. John Kasich were also present on the stage, but they mainly distinguished themselves by delivering rambling, sometimes incoherent, answers to the moderators questions. Their answers, in fact, raised one very specific question of their own: Why are these guys still here? Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has questioned whether his main rival Ted Cruz should be allowed to stand for President. He said the fact that the Texas Senator was born in Canada raises questions about his eligibility. "There's a big question mark over your head," he told him during the latest televised debate for White House hopefuls. Under the constitution the President of the United States must be a "natural born citizen". Mr Cruz replied that the definition of "natural born citizens" included people with an American parent such as himself. He was born in Calgary to an American mother and a Cuban father. He said: "You know, back in September, my friend Donald said that he had had his lawyers look at this from every which way and there was no issue there. There was nothing to this 'birther' issue. "Now, since September, the constitution hasn't changed, but the poll numbers have." But Mr Trump refused to budge, saying a Harvard law scholar had raised doubts about the issue and Mr Cruz could face lawsuits from Democrats. "The fact is, there's a big overhang, there's a big question mark on your head, and you can't do that to the party," he said. "You have great constitutional lawyers that say you can't run. I'm not bringing a suit, I promise, but the Democrats are going to bring a lawsuit." Mr Cruz replied: "I've spent my entire life defending the constitution before the US Supreme Court, and I'll tell you I'm not going to be taking legal advice from Donald Trump." The debate in North Charleston comes just two weeks before the first real test of the campaign, when voters in Iowa pick their Republican and Democratic choices for president. Mr Cruz is leading some of the polls there. Hosted by Fox Business Network, the debate saw the other candidates attack President Barack Obama's State of the Union address earlier this week. "Tuesday night I watched story time with Barack Obama, and I've got to tell you, it sounded like everything in the world was going amazing," quipped New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to laughs from the audience. The other candidates on stage were Florida Senator Marco Rubio, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Ohio Governor John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. Tunis (AFP) - The trial of 24 Tunisians accused of the 2013 murder of prominent opposition leader Chokri Belaid was adjourned Friday, as some of the defendants alleged they had been mistreated in detention. "The judge decided to delay the trial until March 15 and agreed to free one of the accused according to a demand from his lawyer," Kamel Barbouche, spokesman for the attorney general, told AFP. The legal team of Belaid's family had called for proceedings to be delayed, citing "new material" for the trial, one of the defence attorney's, Ali Kalthoum, said. The prosecutor also had requested an adjournment saying more time was needed -- 20 days to a month -- to complete the investigation. Belaid, who was gunned down outside his home on February 6, 2013, was a staunch critic of the then ruling Ennahda party, a moderate Islamist group. His murder triggered deadly protests and a political crisis that brought down Islamist prime minister Hamadi Jebali. Authorities pinned the blame on jihadists and a year later said they had killed Belaid's alleged murderer. Only 17 defendants appeared in court on Friday -- others refused to be present in protest over what they said was their ill treatment while in prison, according to lawyer Rafik Ghak. One of those present at the hearing, Riadh Ouertani, compared the Mornaguia prison where the defendants are being held to the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. "It's two and a half years since I went to prison and they beat me morning and night," he told the court. Speaking to AFP, prisons spokesman Kais Soltani denied that the detainees had been mistreated or tortured, accusing them of seeking the "pity of the judge". Extremists linked to the Islamic State group claimed to have killed Belaid and another opposition member, Mohamed Brahmi, in July 2013, but Belaid's family says there are "grey areas" in the investigation. Istanbul (AFP) - Turkish police detained at least 18 academics who signed a petition criticising a military crackdown in the Kurdish-dominated southeast, triggering new alarm about freedom of expression in the country. In a rare rebuke to Washington's NATO ally, the US ambassador to Turkey expressed alarm over the investigations, with Western concern on freedom of expression already riding high due to the detention since November 26 of two prominent opposition journalists. They were arrested in raids targeting 21 academics accused of disseminating "terrorist propaganda" by signing a petition denouncing military operations against Kurdish rebels. Fifteen academics and lecturers from the University of Kocaeli, near Istanbul, were initially detained, with another three academics from Uludag University in western Bursa province later held in their offices, Dogan news agency said. The academics were questioned for a day before being released, Dogan reported late Friday. Prosecutors on Thursday launched a vast investigation into over 1,200 academics from 90 Turkish universities for engaging in "terrorist propaganda" and "inciting hatred and enmity" by signing the petition. Entitled "We won't be a party to this crime", the petition urged Ankara to halt "its deliberate massacres and deportation of Kurdish and other peoples in the region", angering President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. - 'Cruel and despicable' - Turkey is waging an all-out offensive against the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), with military operations backed by curfews aimed at flushing out rebels from several southeastern urban centres. But Kurdish activists say dozens of civilians have died as a result of excessive force and the operations have become the subject of huge controversy in Turkish society. Erdogan on Friday launched his strongest attack yet on the signatories, accusing them of supporting the Kurdish rebels and thus being a "party" to the crimes of the PKK. Story continues "Those standing by the perpetrators of the massacres are a party to the crime," he told reporters after Friday prayers in Istanbul. "Our people must understand who is who -- having a PhD title doesn't necessarily make you an intellectual. These are people in the dark. They are cruel and despicable." Critics have denounced the move as the latest attempt by Erdogan to stifle dissent, with the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) condemning "the steps taken by the Turkish government that are plunging Turkey into a deep darkness". "These operations... which are only seen in undemocratic regimes are very dangerous and unacceptable," the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) added in a statement. - 'Be quiet' - US ambassador to Ankara John Bass expressed concern over the "pressure having a chilling effect on legitimate political discourse across Turkish society regarding the sources and solutions to the ongoing violence". "In democratic societies it is imperative that citizens have the opportunity to express their view, even controversial or unpopular ones," he said in a statement. "Expressions of concern about violence do not equal support for terrorism. Criticism of the government does not equal treason," he added. Ankara's controversial mayor Melih Gokcek, a member of Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), hit back at Bass by telling him to go home and saying he was "a wrong choice for the US in Turkey." "You are trying to make an enemy (of Turkey). At least you should learn to be quiet," he wrote on Twitter. Universities opened internal probes into over 60 academics in at least seven cities across Turkey that could potentially lead to their dismissal, reports said. A number of academics targeted in the probe withdrew their signatures Friday, with Kemal Inal, an associate professor of communications at the Ankara-based Gazi University, saying: "I agree that some statements in the petition are harsh." "But I'm in favour of peace, brotherhood and friendship," he said in a statement quoted by the Anatolia news agency. "We just don't want anyone to die." The petition was also signed by dozens of foreigners, among them American linguist Noam Chomsky and the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek. They are not currently under investigation. The US and European Union have already expressed concern over the imprisonment pending trial of the editor of the Cumhuriyet newspaper and the daily's Ankara bureau chief for publishing articles alleging the government delivered weapons to Islamists in Syria. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and its allies conducted two dozen strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria on Thursday in the U.S.-backed coalition's latest daily assault on the militant group, according to a U.S. military statement. Nineteen strikes near nine Iraqi cities hit numerous IS tactical units and fighting positions, as well as a headquarters and improvised explosive device factory, the Combined Joint Task Force leading the operations said in the statement released on Friday. In Syria, five strikes near three cities hit an Islamic State gas and oil separation plant, among other targets, the statement said. (Reporting by Washington newsroom; Editing by Alan Crosby) By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon blasted Syria's warring parties on Thursday, particularly President Bashar al-Assad's government, for committing "atrocious acts" and "unconscionable abuses" against civilians. Speaking after briefing the U.N. General Assembly on his 2016 priorities, Ban said harrowing images of starving civilians in the besieged town of Madaya reflected a new low in a war that had already reached "shocking depths of inhumanity." "Let me be clear: the use of starvation as a weapon of war is a war crime," Ban told reporters. "I would say they are being held hostage, but it is even worse. Hostages get fed." The U.N. Security Council will be briefed on Friday on the besiegement of some 400,000 people in Syria, diplomats said. The meeting was requested by Britain, France and the United States. Aid was delivered to Madaya and two Shi'ite villages on Monday for the first time in months. Madaya is besieged by pro-Syrian government forces, while the two villages in Idlib province are encircled by rebels. More aid reached both areas on Thursday. "All sides - including the Syrian government, which has the primary responsibility to protect Syrians - are committing atrocious acts prohibited under international humanitarian law," Ban said. He said U.N. teams in Madaya had seen "scenes that haunt the soul." "The elderly and children, men and women, who were little more than skin and bones: gaunt, severely malnourished, so weak they could barely walk, and utterly desperate for the slightest morsel," Ban said. He said some 400 men, women and children in Madaya were in such a dire state from malnutrition and other conditions that they were in danger of dying and needed immediate medical attention, including possible evacuation. Some 400,000 people in Syria were besieged - about half in areas controlled by Islamic State, some 180,000 in areas controlled by the Syrian government and about 12,000 in areas controlled by opposition armed groups, Ban said. "In 2014, the U.N. and partners were able to deliver food to about 5 per cent of people in besieged areas. Today, we are reaching less than 1 per cent. This is utterly unconscionable," Ban said. He urged key regional and world powers, specifically the International Syria Support Group, to press Syria's warring parties for sustained and unimpeded humanitarian access and an end to the use if indiscriminate weapons in civilian areas. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by David Gregorio and Lisa Shumaker) By Jake Spring BEIJING (Reuters) - Uber Technologies Inc's China unit boosted its valuation to $8 billion after it raised more than $1 billion in its latest funding round, although the U.S. ride-hailing app is not yet profitable in the mainland due to intense competition. Uber and its larger China rival, Didi Kuaidi, have spent heavily to subsidize rides to gain market share, betting on China's Internet-linked transport market becoming the world's biggest. Travis Kalanick, CEO of Uber Technologies, told reporters in the Chinese capital on Friday he recognizes that spending on subsidies is "how you win" in China and that the company aims to beat Didi Kuaidi by spending subsidies more efficiently. "I worry about it every day," he said, regarding the heavy spending on subsidies. Uber currently operates in 22 cities in China but Kalanick said it does not turn a profit in any city. Didi Kuaidi, backed by Chinese Internet heavyweights Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Tencent Holdings Ltd, has the country's biggest market share of car-hailing apps. Uber China's recently-closed Series B fundraising brought in "well over $1 billion", Kalanick said. A spokeswoman for Uber said the series had raised over $1.2 billion but declined to give an exact figure. "I thought we did remarkably well especially given some of the macro trends that were going on," Kalanick said. In September, Kalanick had said the unit had already raised $1.2 billion. The CEO did not comment on Friday on precisely how much had been raised in the four months since then. Before the latest fundraising, Uber's China unit was valued at $7 billion. Kalanick warned that the market for fundraising would calm down at some point and the current high spending on subsidies cannot continue forever. Uber's profits in other markets can be invested in Uber China and that income will eventually become a more important source of investment than fundraising, he said. (Reporting by Jake Spring; Writing by John Ruwitch; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman) Washington (AFP) - A US Army probe blames a general and several other officials for contributing to an anthrax scandal that saw live samples of the deadly bacteria shipped across the United States and overseas, the Pentagon said Friday. The investigation followed the May 2015 discovery that low levels of live anthrax spores had been discovered in an Army shipment supposed to only contain dead spores. The samples originated from the Dugway Proving Ground research center in the Utah desert, and officials later determined live anthrax had, over a period of about a decade, been sent to 194 other research laboratories in all 50 US states as well as nine foreign countries. A 150-page report into the issue found that, while the public was never put at risk and no single person was directly responsible for the unauthorized shipments, sloppy work practices and leadership shortcomings exacerbated the crisis. "Leaders identified in the ... investigation report created conditions allowing a culture of complacency to flourish," the report states. "As a result, laboratory personnel did not always follow rules, regulations, and procedures." Personnel at Dugway identified in the investigation "routinely failed to take appropriate steps or actions that could have limited the inadvertent shipment" of anthrax samples, the report adds. The investigation is especially critical of Brigadier General William King, who led Dugway as a colonel from 2009-2011. "Colonel King was unwilling to take a deeper look at the operations he commanded, and ultimately perpetuated a complacent atmosphere," the report states, adding that he "repeatedly deflected blame and minimized the severity of incidents." King told the USA Today newspaper that he couldn't comment on the matter, but said safety was of the "utmost importance." Eleven other people are singled out in the report, but their names are redacted. Story continues Major General Paul Ostrowski, who headed up the probe, told reporters a variety of factors including "gaps in science," institutional issues and personal accountability had contributed to the problem. In explaining the science issues, Ostrowski said the Army needs to investigate the irradiation process used to inactivate anthrax spores, review safety protocols and conduct new research into testing procedures. Officials have recommended that Dugway no longer produce material for external customers. Moscow (AFP) - Top US and Russian officials met Friday in Russia's westernmost outpost to discuss the Ukraine crisis amid a fresh international drive to bolster a fragile truce in the east of the ex-Soviet country. US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and top Kremlin aide Vladislav Surkov met near the city of Kaliningrad in Russia's exclave bordering European Union members Lithuania and Poland, a source familiar with the situation told AFP. "The meeting is closed to the media. The topic is Ukraine," the source said. The meeting took place in Russia because Surkov is subject to Western sanctions over the Kremlin's role in the Ukraine crisis and is unable to travel to the EU, the source said. US State Department spokesman John Kirby confirmed the meeting, saying Nuland and Surkov had met to discuss "the need for the full implementation of the Minsk agreements," a package of measures agreed by the leaders of France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia in the Belarusian capital last February. "Assistant Secretary Nuland's meeting with presidential advisor Surkov is part of our continued efforts to work with Russia to ensure full implementation of the Minsk agreements, in close coordination with the other Normandy powers - Ukraine, Germany, and France," Kirby said in a statement. No other details were immediately released. The meeting came after Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama discussed the Ukraine crisis by phone earlier this week. The White House said the Russians needed to "live up to the commitments that they made in Minsk -- to end their support for separatists that are destabilising Ukraine right now." Putin for his part said the Ukrainian authorities must establish "direct dialogue" with separatists in the east and agree constitutional amendments with them. - 'Intensification of efforts' - The meeting came amid an apparent international push to shore up the brittle truce amid sporadic fighting in eastern Ukraine. Story continues A senior Ukrainian official told AFP that representatives of French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are expected to visit Moscow and Kiev in the coming days to hold talks on the crisis. The negotiations -- to follow Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's phone talks with Merkel and Hollande this week -- will touch upon the fragile ceasefire, the completion of the withdrawal of heavy weapons, access for OSCE observers to rebel-controlled territory and the release of prisoners, the Kiev source said. "This is an intensification of efforts that was planned at the end of last year," the source said. Poroshenko on Thursday said he wanted the EU and US to help secure the return of Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, and vowed to win back the separatist east this year. Moscow did not immediately confirm the planned meetings. More than 9,000 people have been killed and over 20,000 injured in the conflict in Ukraine since April 2014, according to the United Nations. A series of truce agreements that started in September have helped to reduce the fighting in eastern Ukraine significantly, although sporadic clashes continue on the front line. The West and Kiev have accused Russia of fuelling the separatist insurgency in the east and sending regular troops across the border, claims that Moscow has repeatedly denied. Cape Town (AFP) - American rapper Mos Def appeared in a South African court Friday after being arrested for allegedly using an illegal "world passport" as he tried to leave the country, officials said. The 42-year-old hip hop artist, actor and activist, whose real name is Dante Terrel Smith, was taken into custody overnight for contravening immigration laws. The Department of Home Affairs says the actor, whose birth name is Dante Smith but now goes by Yasiin Bey, entered the country with a legitimate American passport, but outstayed his visitors permit. He was granted bail of R5,000 (about $300) when he appeared at Bellville magistrates' court, local media reported. "Mr Smith attempted to depart the country from the Cape Town International Airport by producing an unrecognised 'World Passport'," said a statement from the department of home affairs. "Further investigation into the matter revealed that Mr Smith's wife, mother and four children had overstayed and were sojourning in the country illegally." His wife and children had been given two weeks to leave the country, the statement said. It added that Mos Def had entered the country on a tourist visa using a US passport. He is believed to have been living in Cape Town for several years. In 2014 Mos Def cancelled a planned tour of the United States due to what his publicists called "legal and immigration issues". In his acclaimed hip-hop career he produced classic solo albums and LPs with Talib Kweli as Black Star. A video of three young girls singing about cowardice and crushing enemies at a Donald Trump rally has gone viral, garnering more than 2 million views on YouTube. The girls are part of a five-girl band called "USA Freedom Kids" and the song they performed at the rally in Pensacola, Florida, is entitled "Freedom's Call." "President Donald Trump knows how to make America great," sing the girls onstage. "Deal from strength or get crushed every time." Other lyrics include "Cowardice! / Are you serious? / Apologies for freedom? / I can't handle this," and a chant about "Ameritude" and American pride. The video has been shared by multiple users across social media platforms, and the hashtag #Ameritude was used on Twitter, but not always to say complimentary things. "Unsurprisingly, American fascism is kind of tacky," Huffington Post reporter Paul Blumenthal tweeted. The Atlantic's Sophie Gilbert said, "To quote New Girl, this is what every day is like in North Korea." Other people expressed shock, disbelief or confusion. "I don't. Is this. What," said NPR pop culture panelist Glen Weldon. To me, freedom is everything, the group's manager Jeff Popick told the Washington Post. He is also the father of 8-year-old Alexis, who performed at the rally. Thats what this group is about. Thats what Im about. Freedom for everybody. Thats the inspiration. Read More: Donald Trump Rents Iowa Movie Theater to Show Benghazi Movie '13 Hours' Picking a real estate agent could spell financial disaster if you choose the wrong one. After all, the goal is to make money on your home -- not lose it. But how do you know if you've picked the right agent? With more than 86,000 real estate brokerage firms in the U.S. as of 2012, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, you have quite a few resumes and websites to wade through. Follow these recommendations for vetting potential real estate agents, and you'll find the selling process far smoother. Treat it like a job interview. Signing with a real estate agent is effectively hiring someone to perform a service, so treat it like any job interview -- where you're the employer. Ask questions, interview more than one candidate and make a decision when you find the right person for the job. Joe Manausa of Joe Manausa Real Estate in Tallahassee, Florida, says as many as 2 out of 3 buyers and sellers select the first agent they meet, which can easily end in disaster. "They put so little value in the quality of the people they're going to work with that they end up getting screwed," Manausa says. Pay attention to how they communicate. Your real estate agent's ability to understand your needs as a client is imperative to selling your home, and possibly finding you a new one. Richard Ruvin, a real estate agent and team leader for Coldwell Banker in Milwaukee, recommends paying attention to how the agent listens, responds and follows up to your questions, requests and needs. "Almost always the complaints revolve, or the frustrations revolve, around those three," Ruvin says. Not only should agents do all three in a timely manner, but in a way that you prefer, too, whether it's by phone, email or face-to-face meetings. Ask around town. As with any job interview, you should check for references. Ask the agents you're interviewing for the contact information of previous clients, and take it one step further -- call around to other professionals in the local market to get a feel for their reputation. Story continues Ruvin explains the ability of an agent to work with others in the business is key to the success in selling your home -- if you hire someone who doesn't play nice with his or her peers, you might find few agents willing to show your house to their buyer clients. "We invest so much effort in developing relationships with other agents in Southeast Wisconsin," Ruvin says. "And that way, if we get to a point where it looks like a deal isn't going to come together, we can rely on the good will we've created with the other side, so to speak, to keep chipping away and working towards a win-win situation. The agent's reputation will reflect on you as well, says Shannon Sharpe, broker and owner of Sharpe Realty in New Orleans. If you sign with a broker who makes closing a deal difficult, you could find yourself struggling to do more real estate deals in the future. "You want it to be a reflection of how you conduct business," she says. Talk about marketing and what you can do. In the initial meeting with a potential agent, you should expect her to present everything she plans to do to help you sell your home, including her marketing strategy and what you can do to prepare your home for tours. Expect a large portion of marketing to be online, as print advertising has largely fallen out of style in a world of to-the-minute listing updates and Instagram ads. "This has become very much an online business. Most of the print advertising out there is designed to pick up listings, and the online listing is designed to pick up buyers," he says. Listen to money talk with a skeptical ear. Real estate agents will typically give you an estimate on your home's value when they make their pitch, but don't let dollar signs in your eyes cloud your judgment. Picking a real estate agent based on promises of a higher sale price can leave you with a bad fit, and if an agent is making a higher estimate to try to lure you in, he's probably not a great agent to begin with. Sharpe says a promised price doesn't mean buyers will actually be willing to pay it. "If it doesn't go under contract and it doesn't sell, then it's Monopoly money," she says. Sharpe adds that selecting an agent who agrees to the lowest commission rate isn't necessarily a smart decision, either. Buyer agents, who will split the commission with the listing agent, can see the commission amount, and may not be inclined to show your property if they know they wouldn't get much reward for their work. Go with who you trust. Your real estate agent will be privy to a good deal of personal and financial information about you, so only sign with the one you are confident will work with your best interests in mind. Manausa explains he works best when he has open communication with clients about their financial situation and reason for moving. As a result, he can secure the deal that meets their needs, "Tell your agent everything, but only after you hire one," he adds. When you find the agent you feel comfortable with, you can maintain the relationship for the next time you decide to move, and refer him or her to friends who are buying or selling as well. Ruvin says his team pays particular attention to establishing long-term connections with clients. "They invariably feel like we're trying to develop a relationship," he says, "and that the questions we're asking and the efforts that we're going through, one wouldn't go through if they were simply looking at a single sale." The rapid spread of a disease called Zika virus urgently requires attention, two leading researchers say. Zika virus is the most recent in a list of viruses that were formerly confined to remote niches of the world but are now expanding their reach into the Northern Hemisphere. Much about these viruses is still poorly understood, wrote Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and Dr. David Morens, senior scientific advisor for the NIAID, in an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday (Jan. 14). Zika virus is carried by mosquitos and causes generally mild symptoms like fever and rashes. However, it has recently been linked to an alarming rise in newborns with microcephaly a condition causing reduced brain development and abnormally small heads in Brazil. Ten times as many cases were reported there in 2015 than in previous years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In their new article, Fauci and Morens evaluated the extent of the threat posed by this fast-spreading virus. Health officials have been aware of Zika virus for 60 years, but it is only within the past year that data gathered from infected populations hinted at the more severe consequence of infection, the researchers said. [Tiny & Nasty: Images of Things That Make Us Sick] In French Polynesia, an epidemic of diverse neurologic conditions happened concurrently with Zika virus outbreaks, suggesting an association between the two. And some public health officials have attributed the recent and alarming spike in infants with microcephaly in Brazil to Zika infections contracted by women while they were pregnant. However, Fauci and Morens warn, it's too soon to conclude that Zika virus is definitely responsible for these conditions. Commercial tests for Zika are yet to be developed, and it is possible that a closely related disease, like dengue virus, actually caused some suspected Zika infections, the researchers said. Story continues "Intensive investigative research" is required to look at the possible link between the virus and the birth defects, Fauci and Morens said. But even if no link is discovered, researchers must learn more about Zika, they said. Expanding north On Dec. 31, the CDC reported the first locally acquired Zika virus case in Puerto Rico, farther north in the Americas than ever seen before. And on Monday (Jan. 11), a traveler who had recently returned to the United States from Latin America was diagnosed with Zika in Houston, according to the Texas' Harris County Public Health and Environmental Services (HCPHES). Harris County officials stated that the infected person had symptoms "that are often associated with the Zika virus, which include fever, rash and joint pain." This case isn't a cause for alarm Zika can't spread directly between people, and as of Jan. 14 there have been no reports of anyone acquiring the illness while in the United States, according to the CDC. However, one species of the mosquito group known to carry Zika, the Aedes genus, is common across North America. This bug, called the Asian tiger mosquito, carries viruses related to Zika, such as chikungunya and dengue, and is especially common in U.S. states that border the Gulf of Mexico, as shown by a species distribution map created by the CDC. As yet, there is no vaccine against Zika and no cure for the infection. But Fauci and Morens wrote that they are skeptical about the benefit of pursuing a vaccine to halt Zika's spread, suggesting that vaccines are an inefficient solution to epidemics that appear seemingly out of nowhere. Vaccinating entire populations could be prohibitively expensive, the authors added. The more promising course, they wrote, would include implementing public health strategies that respond more quickly to contain infections before they reach epidemic proportions, and developing broad-spectrum antivirals, rather than following the more traditional treatment approach of "one bug, one drug." A global effort Perhaps the most unusual thing about Zika is that "it's not so unusual anymore," said Dr. Bruce Hirsch, an infectious disease specialist with Northwell Health in New York, who was not involved in writing the new editorial. "These exotic infections like Zika, dengue, West Nile and chikungunya are becoming very well-known and familiar," he told Live Science. Hirsch explained that global warming is likely allowing the mosquitos that carry Zika to range farther north. And as human populations grow and live closer to each other, the risk of disease transmission and the possibility of emerging epidemics increases, Hirsch said. Perhaps the key to beating these viruses lies in better-coordinated global efforts, Hirsch added. If infections in remote locations can reach the United States' doorstep in a matter of months or weeks, then the global health care community must pay closer attention and respond more immediately to health crises as they develop, no matter where in the world they are, he said. "We need to understand that monitoring the health of people around the planet is a way to keep our local community safe," Hirsch said. Follow Mindy Weisberger on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science. Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Believe it or not, for the very first time during this exhausting election cycle, were finally going to see a primary debate in the same year that a candidate will actually be elected president. Tonight at 9 p.m. ET, Fox Business Network will broadcast the first Republican debate of 2016. SEE ALSO: New video shows The Force Awakens before and after special effects are added Despite the fact that the field has shrunk significantly over the past several months, there are still too many Republican candidates to fit on a single stage. Therefore, Fox Business will once again host a first debate at 6 p.m. ET featuring Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum. Rand Paul was originally scheduled to appear in the undercard round as well, but once he found out he hadnt made the main stage, he decided to skip the debate altogether. The primetime debate will kick off at 9 p.m. ET, where frontrunner Donald Trump will take the stage in the North Charleston Coliseum and Performing Arts Center in North Charleston, South Carolina alongside Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush, John Kasich and Chris Christie. Fox Business says that the debate will focus on economic, domestic and international policy issues, as its inaugural debate did in November. If you dont have a cable subscription, you can live stream the debate on FOXBusiness.com on a desktop or mobile device. The Fox News App for iOS and Android will also feature the stream of the debate. Related stories Highly anticipated 'X-Men' spinoff movie lineup potentially leaked How to watch the final Democratic debate of 2015 online tonight How to watch the final CNN GOP Debate of 2015 online tonight More from BGR: Want to save money by buying your own modem? Comcast will attack you with unstoppable pop-ups This article was originally published on BGR.com VHS tapes arent normally thought of as weapons of the oppressed, but communist Romania was a special case. Nicolae Ceausescu reigned over the Central European nation for nearly a quarter-century between 1965 and his death by firing squad a few days before Christmas 1989, with resistance building ever more during his final years in power. This came from all corners, including bootleg copies of Hollywood movies. The gradual effect these films had on the populace was powerful in spite of how inconsequential it might have appeared or, as one interviewee in Chuck Norris vs. Communism would have it, Its because they were deemed trivial that they had such a big impact. Ilinca Calugareanu was 6 years old when her parents first acquired a VCR, and like many others, she sought refuge in the glowing images it provided. Her documentary about this phenomenon is expanded from a short she made for the The New York Times bearing the more accurate titleVHS vs. Communism. The state strictly monitored all television broadcasts, and the few movies that aired via official channels were heavily censored. The demand for unfiltered cinema was there; naturally, a subversive supply chain followed. People wondered what she looked like, speculated as to her true identity, made up stories about her. Except it wasnt entirely unfiltered. Literally thousands of these imports were dubbed by a woman named Irina Nistor, who quickly emerges as Chuck Norris vs. Communisms de facto hero. Working within the strictures of an unpredictable regime, she ended up serving as the literal voice of the people. Nistor was also proof that there was life beyond what the people watching at home experienced on a day-to-day basis; that she was faceless only made her a more powerful figurehead. She could literally be anyone. Interviewee after interviewee speaks of the effect this unseen presence had on their lives. Its almost enough to redefine movie magic. So familiar and comforting was her high-pitched voice, which filled in for everyone from Robert De Niro to Kim Novak, that coming across a tape dubbed by someone else was tantamount to an early version of the uncanny valley. Story continues Nistor was so indirectly omnipresent, in fact, that her voice literally became the most recognizable one in the country after Ceausescus. People wondered what she looked like, speculated as to her true identity, made up stories about her. She was as mythic as the Hollywood movie stars, but, unlike them, she was a fellow Romanian enduring the same highs and lows as her audience. Calugareanus subjects describe Nistor with a genuine fondness, and the filmmaker wisely holds off on showing the woman herself until weve had time to form our own image of her. To be sure, few of the men and women involved in the illicit smuggling of clamshell cases through security checkpoints did so to undermine the government. They were fulfilling a need, which in this case happened to be Dirty Dancing and action flicks. But seeing a glamorized version of the West even one filtered through the sensibilities of a dubber who never liked to curse or make explicit references to sex had a cumulative effect that was all the more remarkable for how unintentional it was. VHS vs. Communism: In Romania, a Voice of Freedom Related Articles The discovery of water in a US astronaut's helmet brought an early end Friday to the first ever galactic walkabout by his British colleague, astronaut Tim Peake, NASA said. "A small water bubble" in American Tim Kopra's helmet led mission control to wrap up about two hours early out of an abundance of caution, NASA commentator Rob Navias said. "The crew is not in any danger whatsoever," he said. However, the situation brought back memories of a harrowing incident in 2013 when Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano's helmet began rapidly filling with water and risked drowning him. "This is nowhere near as severe as that incident was," said Navias, as he narrated Kopra's return to the airlock live on NASA television. Kopra had reported a high carbon dioxide reading in his spacesuit earlier in the outing, but felt no symptoms, and mission control decided the alarm was due to a faulty sensor. The liquid showed up about four hours into the six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk. Kopra said the wet spot was about four inches long and two inches high (10 by five centimeters). Peake checked his colleague's appearance while they were outside the International Space Station and described what he saw as a "film of water." Kopra said it was cold water, indicating the leak may have come from a cooling loop inside the suit, said Navias. Shortly after flight director Royce Renfrew at mission control learned that Kopra was feeling dampness in his helmet, he decided to cut short the spacewalk. By that time, the team's main mission -- to replace the broken voltage regulator -- had already been completed. The spacewalk officially ended after four hours and 43 minutes. - Historic outing - The outing was historic for Peake, the first Briton to walk in space. As Peake climbed out of the space station, American astronaut Scott Kelly positioned a camera from inside so that the British flag on the arm of Peake's spacesuit was visible to viewers watching live on NASA television. Story continues "Great to see the Union flag out there," said Kelly. "It's great to be wearing it," answered Peake. "It's a privilege." Peake's job was to haul a bulky component called a sequential shunt unit, contained in a white bag as big as a suitcase. He carried the unit, which would weigh 200 pounds (90 kilograms) on Earth, to the far end of the space station's truss, about 200 feet (60 meters) from the exit. Kopra, 52, making his third career spacewalk, toted the tools needed to remove the old unit and replace it with the new one. The team's work was precisely timed to coincide with a nighttime pass of the space station to avoid sparks from any residual electrical current in the solar-powered equipment. The ISS circles the Earth every 90 minutes, spending 31 of those minutes on each pass in the dark. - 'No pressure' - Peake said in a blog post Thursday he felt "exhilarated" about his upcoming spacewalk but had "no time to dwell on these emotions." Following in the footsteps of Britain's Helen Sharman, who flew to the Russian Mir space station in 1991, Peake has drawn plenty of attention from his compatriots. Among them was the Beatles legend Paul McCartney, who offered a message of "good luck" on Twitter. "We're all watching, no pressure! Wishing you a happy stroll outdoors in the universe," McCartney wrote. (Reuters) - West Ham United striker Andy Carroll has been ruled out for a month with a hamstring injury, the Premier League club confirmed in a statement on Thursday. The injury-prone forward only returned to first-team action in September after spending seven months on the sidelines following knee surgery. His latest setback came 15 minutes into Tuesday's 3-1 Premier League win over Bournemouth, which moved the Hammers up to fifth in the standings, ahead of Manchester United. Carroll's injury means he will miss Saturday's game at relegation strugglers Newcastle United, as well as the visits of Manchester City and Aston Villa, and trips to Southampton and Norwich City. He will also miss a fourth-round FA Cup tie against either Liverpool or Exeter on Jan.30. Striker Nikica Jelavic will come into the side in Carroll's absence, with manager Slaven Bilic now unlikely to sanction a January move for the Croatian, who has made just one Premier League start this season. (Reporting by Simon Jennings in Bengaluru; Editing by John O'Brien) By Jeff Mason WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House has received an updated proposal from the Pentagon to close the Guantanamo prison for foreign terrorism suspects, and is in the "final stages" of reviewing it before releasing it to Congress, an administration official said on Friday. The administration has been trying for years to make good on a pledge Obama made at the beginning of his presidency in 2009 to close down the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but has faced stiff political opposition. Its latest plan, which includes a recommendation that prisoners who cannot be prosecuted or transferred to other countries be sent to a U.S.-based prison, has been delayed for several months. Obama told the Pentagon to reduce the cost in its latest draft, which is now at the White House. "The president's national security team is in the final stages of reviewing the proposal recently submitted by the Pentagon," said the senior administration official. The White House declined to say when the plan would be released. Lawmakers, especially Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, have been calling for the plan for some time. The prison was opened in 2002 by Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, to house foreign terrorism suspects but quickly drew international criticism from human rights activists and many foreign governments. There are 93 prisoners still housed there. Republicans and some Democrats in Congress largely oppose proposals to move any of the prisoners to U.S. soil, an option currently prohibited by law. U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Thursday he had proposed to Obama bringing some detainees to a secure location in the United States, adding Congress had indicated a willingness to consider such a proposal. Senator Kelly Ayotte, an ally of McCain's, said the administration's plan should involve keeping the prison open. If the Obama administration were to move Guantanamo detainees to the United States, that would ignore the will of the majority of Americans, make all of our citizens less safe, and represent a blatant and serious violation of the plain language of the law," she said in a statement. The plan was not filled with surprises and would be presented to Congress and the public when it was ready, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters. Echoing an argument the administration has made frequently, he said it cost $4 million a year per prisoner to keep the prison open. The White House believes closing it would reduce costs and take away a recruiting tool for militant Islamist groups overseas. (Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Phil Stewart, and Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Frances Kerry) By Dan Whitcomb LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Yosemite National Park will change the names of several of its buildings and landmarks, including the Ahwahnee Hotel and Curry Village, over a trademark dispute with the company that formerly ran its concessions, the park's superintendent said. The move prompted an outcry from Yosemite visitors, who expressed dismay at seeing their beloved sites renamed and called the claims by the Delaware North Companies greedy. Delaware North sued the park service in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C. earlier this month, claiming that rights to Yosemite's intellectual property, including the famous names, were worth $50 million. "While it is unfortunate that we must take this action, changing the names of these facilities will help us provide seamless service to the American public during the transition to the new concessioner. Yosemite National Park belongs to the American people," Park Superintendent Don Neubacher said in a statement on Thursday. According to the park the famed Ahwahnee Hotel, which was built in the 1920s, would be renamed The Majestic Yosemite Hotel and Curry Village would be called Half Dome Village. The Yosemite Lodge at the Falls was being renamed Yosemite Valley Lodge and the Wawona Hotel would be known as Big Trees Lodge. "(Delaware North) is shocked and disappointed that the National Park Service would consider using the beloved names of places in Yosemite National Park as a bargaining chip in a legal dispute between DNCY and the NPS involving basic contract rights," the company said on Friday. Delaware North said it purchased the rights in 1993 for $115 million "in today's dollars" and had offered the park service free use of the names while the dispute played out in court. A Yosemite spokesman told the Los Angeles Times that the park service hoped to restore the names if it prevails in court. "Shame on @delawarenorth for greedily trying to exploit a national park. As a travel writer, I'm shocked," Twitter user Sara Benson tweeted under the handle @indie_traveler. Notable guests of the Ahwahnee have included Queen Elizabeth II, U.S. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, as well as entertainers Desi Arnaz, Lucille Ball, Charlie Chaplin, Judy Garland and Will Rogers, according to the historic-hotels-lodges.com website. The word ahwahnee was reportedly the name used by the Miwok Indians to describe Yosemite Valley, according to a written account by Craig Bates, longtime Yosemite Indian ethnologist and museum curator. (Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Diane Craft) Grande man shot dead 20th murder for 2016 According to a police report, at about ten oclock Wednesday night, Ramsaroop was sitting outside his Toco Road, Vega de Oropouche house when a man entered the yard, pulled out a gun and opened fire. As shots continued to be fired, Ramsaroop got up and ran towards his car in an attempt to drive off. But he was shot and collapsed. He died at the scene while the gunman disappeared into the night. Residents who heard the gunshots contacted the police and a party of officers arrived a short while later. The body was viewed by the District Medical Officer (DMO) who ordered it removed to the Forensic Science Centre in St James for an autopsy. Acting Inspector Ken Lutchman and Constables Gadar, Jennings and Fraser of the Sangre Grande CID, with the assistance of Crime Scene Investigators recovered two spent nine millimetre shells at the scene. Homicide detectives are still trying to ascertain a motive behind the murder. Corporal Thayne of the Homicide Division Region 2 is continuing investigations. No arrest has been made. Tobagonian tipped for top cop post Newsday also understands that Tobago-born Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Vincel Edwards who has over 30 years service and is currently in charge of the Homicide Bureau is being tipped to be this countrys new Commissioner of Police. Edwards previously served at Port-of-Spain CID, Fraud Squad and other arms of the TT Police Service. Contacted for comment yesterday, ACP Edwards laughed loudly and then told Newsday he could not speak as he was in a meeting. Edwards was detailed last year to lead investigations into the conduct of police officers involved in the total policing fiasco which saw motorists being stranded in miles of traffic for hours due to road block exercises throughout the country. In his report, Edwards coined the term malicious disobedience against some officers who took part in the day of total policing, but added the action was not linked to salary negotiations with the Chief Personnel Officer (CPO). Edwards was also detailed last year to investigate the murders of British lawyer Richard Wheeler and his Trinidadian wife Grace. He led a team of officers last October in that probe which saw three persons being detained mere days after the horrific killings in Tobago which made international headlines. Two men were later charged for the murders and the matter is still before the courts. OTHERS INTERESTED Newsday understands that several other officers are expected to apply for the post of CoP. Other officers, sources said, include Snr Supt Glen Hackshaw, Inspectors Wendell Lucas, Richard Taylor, President of the Police Social Welfare Association Anand Ramesar and Association Secretary Michael Seales and others. Sources also revealed that the Acting Commissioner reportedly applied to the PNM government for his vacation leave to be bought out, but this was refused. Government has stated it is not interested in buyiing out the leave of any officer or Permanent Secretaries. Yesterday, Insp Ramesar confirmed he will be applying for the position of CoP. Ramesar has a Masters degree in criminology and criminal justice from the University of the West Indies and is also an attorney. He is also pursuing studies in Human Resource management. There is a rumour that the person to be Commissioner of Police may have already been selected, Ramesar said, adding that an organisation such as the TTPS should not be compromised by such rumours The TT Police Service will continue to do its best and stand for what is right, both externally and internally. Should it be the case that Edwards or any other police officer is selected from a process that demonstrates reliability and integrity, then the PSWA and its membership will support the selection 100 percent. Should it be otherwise, then support will be an issue, Ramesar said. Esperance fire victims appeal for help Reports are at about 11 am on Wednesday, residents heard a loud explosion, and upon checking saw flames on the top floor of the wooden house in which Sonny Sooklal, 59, lived with his wife, Rita Ramlochan-Sooklal and their adult son, Capildeo. Downstairs Sooklals son, Boodram, lived with his wife, Lisa and their three children- Brandon,12, Sacha, six, and Avinash, three. Within seconds the fire ravaged the wooden structure, and spread to two nearby wooden structures, one at the back, and the other next door. Homeless are Sunil Sooklal, 36, his common-law wife, Bissondaye Mohan, 33, and their two kids namely Shania , six, and Kelly- ann, three, who lived at a house located at the back. Seeram Ramdan, his wife and their two adult children, Kevin, 25, and Reshma , 19, who lived next door were also homeless. Two cars parked in the yard of the Sooklal family were also damaged. When Newsday re-visited the site yesterday, an obviously distraught Sonny Sooklal said the family had not been able to salvage anything from the destroyed buildings, and he was appealing for assistance from members of the public, to rebuild their house. We get mattresses from the [Penal/ Debe Regional], Corporation already, but we have to rebuild, because we cant stay by relatives all the time, Sooklal said. He was also appealing for school supplies for one of his grandchildren, Brandon, who is expected to write the SE A examinations later this year. Interested persons can contact 472-7558/ 348-4515/ 321-0111. January 28, date for Highway Re-route talks More than three years after Kublalsingh and the HRM filed a constitutional motion challenging the decision of the government to construct the Debe to Mon Desir portion of the Point Fortin Highway, the lawsuit is yet to go to trial. The State has strongly objected to the application, saying there is absolutely no need for cross examination. Once Justice Aboud gives his ruling on this - the last of the interlocutory applications before him, a date will be set for the hearing of the substantial claim. Justice has repeatedly said he wanted to avoid the prolongation of the case and is likely to set trial dates for the hearing of evidence when the matter comes up for a case management hearing on February 22. In February of last year, Justice Aboud ruled against a previous application by Kublalsingh and the HRM for the admission of statements from their expert witnesses. The judge ruled that Kublalsingh and the HRM will not be able to rely on the affidavits of five persons they wanted to be deemed as experts. He has also ruled against the granting of a conservatory order which would have stopped construction work at the controversial portion of the highway. Since construction of the highway began, Kublalsingh has embarked on two hunger strikes in protest. His second lasted 288 days. His first hunger strike was in 2012 and that lasted 21 days, all in protest of the construction of the Debe to Mon Desir section of the highway. He is expected to be one of the witnesses to testify at the trial. In their constitutional motion filed on August 3, 2012, the group is contending that the Government contravened its constitutional rights to life, security, enjoyment of property, to freedom of expression and freedom of association by building the highway without consulting them properly. 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Confirming years of under-the-radar suspicions, AFRICOM commander Gen. David Rodriguez told The Hill that the logistics hub and airfield will let China extend their reach into Africa over the course of an initial 10-year contract. Currently, The Hill observed, China cant do much more than stage some naval patrols out of Djibouti ports. * China gets first overseas military base but has a long way to go to catch up hundreds of US bases * China is the second largest economic power in nominal terms and first in purchasing power parity * despite Chinas slowdown it should still grow faster than the USA over the next few decades * China will be using trillions in investment and trade to get more overseas bases and access * China is and will build many ports, airports and global infrastructure * China military base presence will expand As Decembers Forum on China-Africa Cooperation revealed, the Middle Kingdom wants to ensure privileged access to that kind of future. Although its hard to unravel the details, Beijing used the Forum to pledge $60 billion in loans and export credits. AFRICOMs (USA military command in Africa) top three priorities reach from one end of Northern Africa to the other: neutralizing the jihadist al-Shabab group in Somalia to the east, while containing enemies like ISIS in Libya and containing Boko Haram, to the west, in Nigeria and the greater Lake Chad region Although al-Shababs influence has been significantly reduced, nearby Ethiopia just booted the U.S. out of a drone base Washington had hoped to expand in the southerly town of Arba Minch. In other words, as China sets up shop in Djibouti, the U.S. finds itself restricted to that country for its eastern African operations. Djibouti hosts the largest American permanent military base in Africa, Camp Lemonnier, which is home to more than 4,000 personnel mostly part of the Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa. Even though France and Japan also launch operations from the Djibouti-Ambouli International Airport, it is Chinas military ambitions that are piquing interests. In 2013, trade between China and Africa totaled roughly $200 billion, with Chinese electronics goods and textiles flowing into African nations, while African natural resources were shipped off to China. Remarkably, Chinese-African trade was more than double the trade level between the United States and Africa. In August 2015 Obama announced that U.S. companies had committed to invest $14 billion in Africa. China had made an estimated $75 billion in investments China has made in Africa from 2000 to 2011. The 2000 to 2011 total does not include the recent infrastructure projects that China is building. DARPA has awarded the contracts for its robotic sub-hunter project called the ACTUV. ACTUV will be an umanned surface warship tasked with locating and trailing hostile submarines, keeping tabs on their movements. One day, ACTUV might be armed and assigned kill missions but for now the mission is strictly Look, dont touch. The USA will use robotic sub hunters to counter $100 million to $1 billion diesel electric submarines with Air independent propulsion (AIP). AIP submarines can stay underwater for months and can be quieter than even nuclear submarines. DARPA awarded the ACTUV contract to prime contractor Leidos. Leidoa is one half of the defense contractor formerly known as SAIC. (Note: The other half of that company inherited the company name, and remains SAIC today.) In so doing, DARPA listed several requirements for ACTUV. Among them, ACTUV must be: Cheap. It should be only a fraction of the size of a diesel sub, and a fraction of a subs cost as well. Long-legged. ACTUV will need to range thousands of kilometers across the seas, for months at a time. Independent. Manned operators will have only sparse ability to keep tabs on ACTUV, so the vessel must be able to conduct its mission autonomously, robotically following all maritime laws and conventions for safe navigation even as it maneuvers to keep track of an intelligent adversary. ACTUV must be able to fulfill its mission, and maintain robust continuous track of the quietest submarine targets over their entire operating envelope. Leidos hired Raytheon to develop a Modular Scalable Sonar System (MS3) for ACTUV the eyes (or rather, ears) that it will use to identify and track enemy submarines for mounting aboard its trimaran prototype (construction of which was in turn subcontracted to Oregon Iron Works). Raytheon says it delivered a completed MS3 system to Leidos in November. Welcome to the new Enlightenment, an era when suppressed science, hidden history and the enlightening nature of reality are all revealed to those with eyes to see and ears to hear. These are the thoughts and ideas of New Illuminati - bold forerunners and pioneers of new awareness all over the globe. Notes on new emerging paradigms from the NEXUS New Times Magazine Founder R. Ayana, who lives in a remote Australian rainforest (and is no longer involved with the magazine) - Catching drops from the deluge in a paper cup since 1984. Follow us via Facebook, Google+, Friend Connect, rss, Networked Blogs, Twitter or join the mailing list below for regular updates. We won't use your address for anything else. Please COMMENT at the end of any entry and see the realtime CHAT ROOM below this column, where you can find plenty of STREAMING VIDEOS. Together we can create the best of all possible worlds! It's been quite a year. And I make no predictions about the one to come. I do know that it will -- at least where we are -- start ou... If someone were to be asked about self-driving cars 20 years ago, they probably wouldnt be able to say much. Now, these cars are the prime example of what kind of cars are seen today. While self-driving cars are convenient, they arent the safest to use. Big car companies, such as Tesla and " ... How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public... " [From George Washington's farewell address.] Other Quotes: "Don't worry about genius and don't worry about not being clever. Trust rather to hard work, perseverance and determination. The best motto for a long march is ' Don't grumble. Plug on.'....Be honest. Be loyal. Be kind. Remember that the hardest thing to acquire is the faculty of being unselfish. As a quality it is one of the finest attributes of manliness." Sir Frederick Treves "...To be clear, the Constitution of the United States of America is the United States of America. They are one and the same. Any individual or agency which seeks to subvert the Constitution and wage political and/or rhetorical war on it, are self-declared enemies of the United States of America, as they are subverting and waging war on the United States of America." - Pat Dollard The truth to the matter is that Obama lies but he does it with such finess that the easily fooled are easily fooled. ~ Norman E. Hooben "Going for the grandest illusion of all, [Obama] ... told the New York Times: 'We've actually been operating in a way that has been entirely consistent with free-market principles.' Excuse me while I pick my jaw off the ground. Everyone knows -- or should know -- that putting more and more of the government in charge of more and more of the economy is entirely inconsistent with free-market principles. This means that the president's statement to the contrary is what is known as a big lie." --columnist Diana West When you trust a stranger more so than your friend, you become stranger than the stranger; Barrack Husein Obama is a stranger. - Norman E. Hooben We the peopleWe the people now have a New World Order that we the people did not order. Norman E. Hooben "We are now in a great civil war of words and you have the honor of participating as a true patriot. The battle has not been won but you will be there when we are victorious. The pen is mightier than the sword and you will inscribe your name in the book of freedomand that, my friend is an honor "If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves ." - Winston Churchill It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first. - Ronald Reagan Thomas Sowell For those who promote a race they are called, "racists". For those that promote American they are called "American". For 'American' is a 'concept' and no racial tones are tolerated either in shades or sounds. -Norman E. Hooben (In reference to Lourdes Galvan of San Antonio, Texas racial bigotry regarding American military heroes.) Note to NATIONAL COUNCIL OF LA RAZA ( Hola! I know you are watching): Will Rogers never met Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid. - N. E. Hooben, July 2008 Harvard University was once an all boys school...today they have no balls at all. - N. E. Hooben I will stand with the Constitution For The United States of America should the political winds shift in an ugly direction Politicians are like vampires... Whether its blood or money they want to suck it out of you till you die. ~ N. E. Hooben (Norman E. Hooben in response to a writer who complained of not having the honor of serving in the U.S. Military)Back in the days of "The Lone Ranger" program, someone would ask, "Who is that masked man?" People need to start asking that question about Barack Obama. -N.E. HoobenThe Police State of Massachusetts is now imposing laws against nature. Massachusetts is by far the most un-Constitutional government of the State, by the State, and for the State than any among the the fifty that hold a star on the banner of freedom. It is run by Socialists and hypocritical so-called Christiansthe worst among them are the Catholics who go to Church on Sunday and forget what they Prayed for on Monday. - Norman E. Hooben - "A proud Catholic proud of my Faith. A proud Catholic NOT so proud of my Church!" - July 16th 2008 N. E. Hooben When a people are satisfied with receiving gifts paid with their own taxes as a way of life Anarchy is sure to follow. - Fred Boutin 2008 From the first time I heard about the boogey-man as a child to the first time I got shot at in Vietnam, nothing in my entire lifetime, THAT'S NOTHING! has put more fear into me than this man Obama. - Norman E. Hooben - July 2008 We are here for only a mini-second in the sands of time. Then we become the dust that makes the sand; and the Hand of God molds us anew. Take care my friend and may God Bless... - Norman E. Hooben on the death of our dearly beloved pet dog, Stirling The evidence is overwhelming! In order to save America we must destroy the Socialst Marxist Party... - N. E. Hooben "America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within." -- Josef Stalin -- When it comes to lying, prudent people are guided by a Higher Authority driven by thou shall not written in stone. Whereas Bill Clinton has no Higher Authority to guide him, thou shall not has no conscious objections; for without a conscience there is no guilt. - Norman Hooben The victor will never be asked if he told the truth. - Adolph Hitler The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. - James Madison, the Federalists Papers There was a Chemistry professor in a large college that had some Exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab the Prof noticed one young man (exchange student) who kept rubbing his back And stretching as if his back hurt. The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a new communist government. In the midst of his story he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked,'Do you know how to catch wild pigs?' The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said this was no joke. 'You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly, the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity. The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/Socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. while we continually lose our freedoms- just a little at a time. One should always remember 'There is no such thing as a free Lunch!' Also, 'You can never hire someone to provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself. You apparently don't share a sense of patriotism, Americanism, freedomism, or whatever kind of 'ism' that true Americans believe in... You do however, display a bit of socialism, communism, marxism or whatever kind of 'ism' that you make excuses for... ~ Norman E. Hooben (in response to an Obama supporter's views about the ACS census) A nation that knows not from where it came, knows not where it is going! Today, Americans know too little about the foundations of our nation. The result is a nation now in chaos, its people unable to discern what is wrong with the transformation (paradigm shift) of our society and form of government that, if left unchecked, will destroy every facet of freedom, liberty and justice. The price of freedom is vigilance; the price of vigilance is knowledge. Many of America's founding documents are now available on the web. ~ Learn USA Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz has promised to quit power at the end of his term in 2019, reports say. President Ould Abdel Aziz announced his decision during a meeting with Western diplomats accredited to Nouakchott. Former army general Ould Abdel Aziz came to power following a military coup in 2008 which toppled former President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi. He won elections and became President in 2009 after heading the High Council of State which he established after deposing President Abdallahi. He was re-elected in August 2014 for another five-year term. President Ould Abdel Azizs decision to respect the constitution may placate speculations and anger of the opposition which went public to denounce the President when he recently indicated that he was ready to discuss constitutional changes. For the opposition this only means that he seeks to stay further in power. The opposition deems President Ould Abdel Azizs regime undemocratic and dialogue proposed by the regime to ease tensions has been delayed with major political parties doubting Nouakchotts real faith. Sweden has given up its plan to recognize the Sahrawi Republic proclaimed by the Polisario, reports say. The Swedish government, which examined the possibility of recognizing SADR, gave up the idea, said Thursday the SVT public television. Sweden will not recognize the Western Sahara, wrote the TV on its website, adding that according to information it gleaned, the Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom will make public this decision shortly. This diplomatic victory for Rabat heralds more serene relationships between the two countries which turned sour last year after the Swedish Parliament announced its intention to recognize the SADR. According to SVT, the Swedish government which angered Morocco last year in September following the Swedish Parliaments intention to recognize the Sahraoui Republic, has decided to abandon the plan. The TV also said that Wallstrom should also highlight the geopolitical and legal criteria leading to the recognition of a State by Sweden. The TV commented that Swedens decision has been governed by many considerations including Moroccos strategic role in the Arab world and Swedens desire to resume economic and trade ties with Morocco which were frozen since it was hinted last September that Stockholm would change its stand on the Sahara issue. Rabat mobilized its diplomacy and political parties to rein in Sweden and at the economic level froze the opening of the first Swedish mall in Casablanca, initially slated for last fall. With the Swedish TV announcement, Morocco and Sweden have seemingly managed to overcome a difficult chapter in their bilateral relations and opted to further consolidate the momentum of dialogue and cooperation. The history of relations between the two Kingdoms dates back to the 18th century with the signing on May 16, 1763 of the first legal instrument written in Arabic that Sweden ever concluded. The accord resulted in the opening of a Moroccan consulate in Sweden and a Swedish consulate in Morocco. The Secret to Happiness is the Joy of the Lord; and the joy of the Lord is His manifest presence in your life. It is our Privilege and Responsibility to Glorify God; and we glorify God by manifesting His character every moment and in every situation. Humility and Pride You can tell a humble man that he has a problem with pride and he will agree with you; but if you tell a proud man that he has a problem with pride, he becomes your enemy. This one thing I know for sure, that whenever there is a problem with my relationship with the Lord, it is not His fault. Some people are just plain lazy; some people are just overly sensitive to gravity; others are simply economical with their energy. It's not enough to preach the Gospel; you must be the Gospel. If you can describe your life in a nutshell, there's a good probability that you're a nut. As a good Canadian, I'd like to apologize in advance for anything I might say that offends you; sometimes my mouth hits high gear while my brain is still in low. Never allow the thought, "I am of no use where I am"; because you certainly can be of no use where you are not. Oswald Chambers We cannot even begin to approach the Truth until we are willing to go wherever the Truth leads us. The newest object of idol worship is 'my opinion'! Suffering is the only experience we have in common with every other human who ever lived. As 2015 came to a close, a development hit the market to make the case for modular construction in New York City: Carmel Place, the city's first all-micro-unit building made up of 55 modular units constructed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Construction at the Kips Bay site began in 2014 and apartments were ready to be "stacked" by the next spring. Stacking the micro units only took about four weeks and the finished product, by Monadnock Development and nArchitects, was deemed impressive upon its launch this November. And in a city that's pushing an aggressive affordable housing policy, being able to quickly stack apartment units seems like one viable way to quickly build. But this March, the company that designed said modular units, Capsys Corp., will shutter its Brooklyn Navy Yard warehouse due to rising rents, after finishing a modular development in East New York. That leaves one modular manufacturer in the city, Forest City Modular, which announced potential layoffs for this year. Robby Kullman, manager of Capsys Corp., is not about to lament the decline of modular construction in New York, even though Capsys is about to sell its intellectual property to a Pennsylvania company, discontinue the business, and close up shop in the Brooklyn Navy Yard after 20 years. "The demand is really high," he says. In the past four weeks, notes Kullman, 12 different companies approached him to inquire about modular construction. And it makes sense, considering that if done correctly, factory-built housing promises more environmental efficiency in construction, affordability, and shorter building times. [Capsys's Brooklyn Navy Yard factory, which will close later this spring. Photo by Max Touhey for Curbed] "The biggest challenge is that New York City is an expensive place to do business," says Kullman. It's become impossible for Capsys to stay in New York because of drastically rising rents, plus the large amount of space required for a modular factoryideally 180,000 to 200,000 square feet, according to Kullman. Capsys was renting 100,000 square feet for around $4 per square foot, which is reportedly well under market value for the industrial park. The Navy Yard decided not to renew its lease to give the space to another tenant, Steiner Studios. But, as Kullman points out, the modules don't have to be constructed in New York; part of the appeal of modular construction is its portability. The Stack, a Washington Heights development, was built entirely in Pennsylvania by Deluxe Building Systems. Fifty-six modules, constructed and outfitted in a controlled environment, were shipped to the construction site after the foundation and first-floor supports were built, and hoisted into place in a mere 19 days. Currently under construction in Poland are modules for the Pod Hotel, set to be shipped to Red Hook, trucked to Williamsburg, and then stacked on Driggs Avenue this year. "A few years ago, I never thought a project like that would happen," says Kullman. [Pod Hotel rendering via Garrison Architects] Of course, just because modules can be shipped from around the world doesn't necessarily mean developers and architects want to go that route. The European company building the Pod Hotel modules, Polcom Modular, was chosen for its familiarity in modular hotel construction. But Jim Garrison, principal at Garrison Architects, who previously worked with modular for New York's post-disaster housing prototype, says working overseas "has not been easy." It's a big benefit if architects can check in as modules are assembled; regular check-ins can't happen if the process takes place far away. In one instance, Garrison Architects found Polcom's structural frames on the modules to be inflexible and inefficient, and Garrison's design team needed to develop frames that were much stronger and lighter. Shipping or trucking in modules from far distances can also add extra time or costs to the project, and then there's a matter of storing them once in New York. "The more demanding thing [than transporting them] is how the modules are stored and choreographed at the building site," says Garrison. "They have to be in a regular queue so they can be lifted into place on a predictable schedule." Architects face other learning curves when building modular. At Carmel Place, the city had to waive zoning and density rules to allow for prefab constructionzoning called for a setback at the fifth floor, but "modular construction is continuous and goes against that," says Ammr Vandal, of nArchitects. "Construction was very difficult when doing it for the first time," she says. Also, because modular units are stacked on top of each other, the floors are significantly thicker than conventional floors, meaning that modular projects end up being taller than normal, despite having no additional square footage. However, Mayor de Blasio's proposal to amend zoning for affordable housing aims to increase building heights, an incentive designed to make modular construction more attractive to developers. With Capsys closing, the spotlight is now shifting to Forest City's modular team, which is currently at work on B2, the 32-story modular tower in the Pacific Park mega-development. When the project was announced in 2011 it was said to be the tallest modular high-rise in the world; since then, a 57-story office and residential modular tower opened in China. "I would love for Forest City Modular to become wildly successful," says Garrison. "It would make things much easier for us." The division emerged in 2014 after a legal battle between Forest City Ratner and Skanska, the massive construction company that was tapped to work on B2; after several lawsuits, Forest City assumed control of Skanska's modular division, which also operates out of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. FC Modular faced a monumental learning curve in designing a modular high-rise. Unlike lower-rise modular buildings, the tower requires an internal steel bracing frame to support all the modules stacked on top of one another, allowing the structure to meet seismic codes, wind-load and lateral-bracing requirements. Simply put, the construction process is a lot more complicated than the fast-paced "stacking" that's come to define other modular projects. FC Modular's inexperience with the type of construction, not to mention the conflicts with Skanska, have caused construction hold-ups. As Garrison says of the delays: "They picked a very difficult project without ever doing modular." (Garrison Architects is not part of the B2 design team.) Susan Hayes, the president of FC Modular, is hoping that B2 will become "the most powerful advertisement for modular" upon its completion. "Today, we have a number of potential [modular] projects in the pipeline that we hope to announce in the near future," she said in an email. But the company is facing hurdles of its own: In December, it announced potential layoffs for more than 200 people if more work didn't materialize for the modular division. According to Hayes, "These potential layoffs are a reflection of a cyclical industry. However, it is our ultimate goal to create a pipeline of work at the factory that can support the workforce on an ongoing basis." The biggest hurdle she sees in the growth of modular in New York? "A dearth of available, affordable space, which is necessary for a modular construction factory." Another thing to remember: the modular market is about much more than housing units. "The volumetric boxeshousing modulesare flashier and show up in the big stories," said Amy Marks, president of XSite Modular, a New Jersey-based company that consults for prefabrication projects around the world. "There are an infinite numbers of prefab construction elements possible"anything from pre-fabricated electrical wiring to stairs to bathrooms. The industry, she says, is on the upswing, but "there's still a gap in the skill set." Marks brought up the Pod Hotel modules, being constructed in Poland before the shipment to Brooklyn. "Other countries are innovating faster, and bringing it to us," she says. "The demand for pre-fabrication is there, and eventually U.S. consumers will start looking for it elsewhere." To Vandal, there's the lingering question of, "Can construction and design teams make this leap [to build modular]?" Garrison echoes the sentiment: "We need one or two projects that can establish a good modular system and approacha building needs to first demonstrate the advantages of modular." New Yorks Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. Photo: Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images American Episcopalians will not be allowed to participate in the internal decision-making of the international Anglican church for the next three years, as a punishment for their vote last summer to allow religious weddings for same-sex couples. CNN reports that archbishops from the Anglican Communions 38 provinces met Thursday in Canterbury, England, where they issued a statement censuring the Episcopal Church, its American branch, for violating its mother churchs doctrine, which upholds marriage as between a man and a woman in faithful, lifelong union. The 1.8 million Episcopalians in the U.S. make up a fraction of the Anglican Communions 85 million members worldwide, many of whom adhere to a much more conservative line on biblical teachings about sex and sexuality. The Episcopal Church, long considered the religion of the American establishment, has been ahead of other churches on LGBT issues for some time, electing its first openly gay bishop in 2003. Photo: CJ Gunther/EPA/Corbis Harvard University, like most elite private colleges, has basically become an academia-themed investment firm. By ushering so many of our nations best (or most privileged) young minds into highly lucrative professions and then convincing those alumni to give their surplus millions to the university instead of somewhere desperately needy Harvard has built up a $37.6 billion endowment. Now a slate of candidates for the schools Board of Overseers is calling for the school to draw on that immense bank accounts earnings and make Harvard the first tuition-free Ivy League school. Oh, and end affirmative action. The group was assembled by Ron Unz, a conservative California software entrepreneur. Before he began pushing to establish free higher education, Unz sponsored ballot initiatives to ban bilingual education, the New York Times reports. Unz, along with three of the other candidates, have all voiced fierce opposition to affirmative action. The fifth person on their slate is Ralph Nader. Unifying the slates two planks, which are summed up in the slogan Free Harvard, Fair Harvard, is a commitment to a certain vision of meritocracy. Unz argues that Harvard presently fails to field the best possible student body, because brilliant low-income students are scared off by the schools $45,000 published tuition and because the school discriminates against better-qualified Asian-American students to achieve its goals for racial diversity. That latter charge is the basis of an ongoing federal lawsuit against the university. Even if the slate wins a place on Harvards second-most-powerful board, they will have a hard time getting the school to spend the money. Although the 30-member Board of Overseers has veto power over many of the universitys strategic plans, the schools smaller, supreme governing body, the President and Fellows of Harvard College, has more power to propose new ones. There is a common misconception that endowments, including Harvards, can be accessed like bank accounts, used for anything at any time as long as funds are available, Jeff Neal, a Harvard spokesman, told the Times. In reality, Harvards flexibility in spending from the endowment is limited by the fact that it must be maintained in perpetuity and that it is largely restricted by the explicit wishes of those who contributed the endowed funds. For Unz & Co. to convince Harvard to test the flexibility of its endowment spending, theyll probably need some help from Congress. Republican New York congressman Tom Reed has pushed a proposal that would require the 90 colleges with endowments of over $1 billion to spend roughly 25 percent of their annual earnings for tuition assistance or else forfeit the tax exemption they presently enjoy on those earnings. According to the Congressional Research Service, college endowments held $516 billion in 2014. The average annual return on those endowments was 15.5 percent, only 4.4 percent of which was spent on the actual academic institutions behind those funds. Reed told the Times that, at a school as wealthy and investment-savvy as Harvard, his law would essentially wipe out any tuition bill that a child would be responsible for. Meanwhile, the only free private college in America, Cooper Union, gave up the ghost in 2013 and started charging tuition for the first time in 150 years. Its board is reportedly groping its way toward a plan to return to the full-scholarship-for-all model. Photo: Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images Ted Cruz opened Thursday nights debate by promising that if he were president, we would be at war with Iran by now. Today, many of us picked up our newspapers, and we were horrified to see the sight of ten American sailors on their knees, with their hands on their heads, the Texas senator said, referring to photographs of Iranian soldiers taking U.S. Navy personnel into custody. (He had just been asked a question about economic growth.) I give you my word, if I am elected president, no service man or service woman will be forced to be on their knees, Cruz continued. And any nation that captures our fighting men will feel the full force and fury of the United States of America. Related Stories Defense Secretary Says Detained Sailors Entered Iranian Waters by Mistake That would seem like a reasonable, if bellicose, reaction to the abduction of American soldiers from an embassy or military base. But the ten sailors kneeling in those horrifying photos were captured after their vessels drifted into Iranian waters right outside an Iranian naval base. Imagine an Iranian military vessel showed up in U.S. waters unannounced. Imagine America nonviolently apprehended the soldiers on that vessel, then released them within 24 hours. Would such a humiliation give Iran cause to launch its full force and fury against the American people? As Politicos Michael Crowley observed, Cruzs apparent position is that the United States should have the right to violate an enemys territory at will, with impunity. Which would entail the full-scale abandonment of international law. Of course, its possible that Cruz was simply ignorant of the circumstances behind the sailors capture. Maybe he reads the newspaper for the pictures, not the articles. Or maybe he just counts on his audience having such a habit. Bornheim will extend its nein indefinitely. Photo: Sven Hoppe/AFP/Getty Images The city of Bornheim, in western Germany, has banned all male asylum-seekers older than 18 from its one public pool, the Washington Post reports. Officials announced the ban after a number of sexual-assault cases were reported there. Markus Schnapka, the citys head of social affairs, said that no one has been charged in the assaults but that the ban will remain in place until the message has come across. Bornheim is host to about 800 refugees just a fraction of the many thousands residing in Germany whove fled Syria and surrounding countries. Schnapka announced the decision in person at a local refugee center; Bornheim also plans to hold meetings to discuss things like sexual-assault prevention and respect for women. I know that I do an injustice to most people, but I do not see an alternative way to send this clear message, Schnapka said. The citys announcement comes as the German city of Cologne is still reeling from more than 100 reports of sexual assault on New Years Eve. As of last week, 31 people were under investigation in those attacks, 18 of whom are asylum-seekers or migrants. Police reports from the chaotic scene indicate one man claimed to be Syrian, but the group of men called in for questioning also includes Algerians, Moroccans, Iranians, Iraqis, and Germans. Reactions to the New Years Eve assaults have been largely mixed, but many blame Chancellor Angela Merkels pro-refugee policy for the uptick in sexual assaults. I am embarrassed for my fellow believers, an unnamed refugee reportedly told a local TV station in Bornheim. Such things must not happen. The eyes of a man who got a great deal on his ottomans Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images Former Maryland governor and Democratic presidential candidate Martin OMalley is under investigation on account of some furniture he purchased from the Annapolis governors mansion at the end of his term last January, the Baltimore Sun reports. Wes Adams, the states attorney in Marylands Anne Arundel County, just south of Baltimore, is carrying out the investigation, which OMalley campaign spokesperson Haley Morris called a bogus political attack in an email to the Sun. Last August, the Sun reported that upon moving out of the governors mansion in January, OMalley had carried off armoires, beds, chairs, desks, lamps, mirrors, ottomans, tables and other items for which taxpayers had shelled out $62,000, but paid only $9,638 for them. The transaction violated state rules against selling state-owned property to government officials. It soon emerged that the Maryland Department of General Services, which had designated the furniture junk, had not charged OMalley tax, which also violated state rules. OMalleys former chief of staff told the Sun at the time that proper procedure was followed, as the items had been formally declared unserviceable before OMalley had asked to buy them. However, that entire process, which normally takes several days or weeks, appears to have been concluded on the same day the OMalleys moved out. Adams, a Republican, would not comment on the investigation but his spokesperson, Heather Epkins, denied that it was politically motivated. Our office performs due diligence on any complaint given to us, Epkins told the Sun. We dont have the option of picking and choosing. OMalley, who is polling under 3 percent nationally, barely qualified for Sundays Democratic debate. Hell likely struggle once again to get a word in edgewise but hey, maybe someone will ask him about this furniture thing! For a candidate at odds with the GOP base on immigration, anything that blurs the old lines is welcome! Its now old news that Donald Trump is leading much of the GOP presidential field into a conflation of immigration and terrorism as an integrated and urgent threat to Americas security and identity. The once-fanciful idea that ISIS is deploying hordes of agents as illegal immigrants and refugees flooding across our porous borders to turn America into one vast San Bernardino is now becoming an accepted fact in conservative discourse. And the would-be GOP presidents are mostly responding with less-bigoted variations on Trumps proposal to bar entry to Muslims, not to mention his rhetoric of the U.S. as an embattled and thoroughly breached fortress where we should all look with fear and suspicion toward our dusky new neighbors. No one is happier at this turn of events than Marco Rubio, whose long march back from a fatally miscalculated stand as a champion of comprehensive immigration reform a.k.a. amnesty has now culminated in the retroactive claim that the terrorist threat justified his abrupt about-face on the subject. It is clear, he said in last nights Republican candidates debate, that all border crossings, legal or illegal, must now be given fresh scrutiny: The issue is a dramatically different issue than it was 24 months ago. Twenty-four months ago, 36 months ago, you did not have a group of radical crazies named ISIS who were burning people in cages and recruiting people to enter our country legally. They have a sophisticated understanding of our legal immigration system and we now have an obligation to ensure that they are not able to use that system against us. The entire system of legal immigration must now be reexamined for security first and foremost, with an eye on ISIS. Because theyre recruiting people to enter this country as engineers, posing as doctors, posing as refugees. We know this for a fact. Theyve contacted the trafficking networks in the Western Hemisphere to get people in through the southern border. And they got a killer in San Bernardino in posing as a fiance. This issue now has to be about stopping ISIS entering the United States, and when Im president we will. As Ted Cruz quickly rejoined, the timing doesnt quite work out well for Rubio to claim that some new threat of terrorist infiltration forced him to change his positions and his attitude: [R]adical Islamic terrorism was not invented 24 months ago; 24 months ago, we had Al Qaida. We had Boko Haram. We had Hamas. We had Hezbollah. We had Iran putting operatives in South America and Central America. Its the reason why I stood with Jeff Sessions and Steve King and led the fight to stop the Gang of Eight amnesty bill, because it was clear then, like its clear now, that border security is national security. Thats more than a little disingenuous, too; its reasonably clear Cruz & Co. were more concerned about (to use Kings memorable phrase) those drug mules with calves like cantaloupes than anyone who might face Mecca to pray. But beneath the jockeying for position here there is a party-wide drift far, far away from the debate Republicans were having just a few years ago on whether a path to citizenship or some guest worker program (or in the absence of either, self-deportation) is the right way to handle undocumented immigrants. Now legal immigration is in question, and for the candidate who desperately wants to blur all the old lines on the issue that nearly wrecked his national political career, thats progress. You didnt build that. Photo: Joseph Kaczmarek/AP/Corbis Its hardly news that Barack Obama can do no right in the eyes of his conservative critics. But this example really takes the cake: Dave Brat, the tea-party congressmen known for having upset thenHouse Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a 2014 Virginia primary, is angry at the president for quoting the Bible, because conservatives own that holy book and the entire tradition surrounding it. Thats right: own. Right Wing Watch reports that Brat was very plain in an interview with American Family Radios Sandy Rios: Brat expressed his anger that Obama cited Christian teachings when he criticized Republicans for their attempts to block the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the U.S. The president, Brat said, is using the Christian tradition and trying to bring about compassion by bonking Republicans over the head with the Bible. Its almost a comedy routine on what compassion and love is. Hes mocking his enemies in order to compel a larger federal state using the tradition of love. He said that the conservative movement needs to reeducate its people that we own the entire tradition of Christian love, because liberal professors have rejected natural law and religious ideas. The idea here is that because some Ivy League professors had repudiated natural law tenets that people like Brat have imported into Christianity (not to mention the Constitution), those Brat chooses to associate with said professors are barred from quoting the Bible or, presumably, calling themselves Christian. Good thing we have Brat to avoid the travesty of anyone arguing that Jesus Christ wouldnt have met those refugees at the border with an assault rifle. I guess there could be some friction with the 36 million or so Americans who attend the churches of the liberal Protestant denominations, or the roughly half of U.S. Catholics who arent conservatives, or the untold number of non-conservatives who attend conservative churches or, for that matter, liberal Jews who for some strange reason feel they might own the Hebrew Scriptures more than Dave Brat does. But I guess well all get over it and hand over the Judeo-Christian tradition in this country to those who are so sure they own it. This is no longer New York City. Photo: MGM Ted Cruz, in lacerating mode at the debate last night, made a move to wound Donald Trump with the three nastiest words he could come up with. Everybody understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal and pro-abortion and progay marriage, he said. And focus on money and the media. Trumps answer added up to nuh-uh, as it usually does. Governor Cuomo hit back this morning, too. New York City. Theres a long tradition of treating us as Babylon-on-the-Hudson, of course, and of our uneasily attempting to laugh it off. Think of the foul place pictured in Midnight Cowboy or Panic in Needle Park or Taxi Driver or Fort Apache, the Bronx: All use the rotten city not just as a backdrop but practically as a character, and not one in charming dishabille but really one thats sick and rotten. I think especially of The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three, in which the subway dispatcher Kaz Dolowicz is not merely a smartass and a cynic but an actually unpleasant presence. (Spoiler: He gets shot, in part for mouthing off.) Woody Allen certainly an archetype of questionable New York values summed it up neatly in Annie Hall: Dont you see the rest of the country looks upon New York like were left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers? I think of us that way sometimes, and I live here. Except that most of the country doesnt see us that way, not quite, not anymore. In my own 20-odd years here, the public perception of New York and New Yorkers has seen a tidal shift. The public perception of us is not Travis Bickle but Ross Geller: a few neuroses, maybe a little un-Christian when it comes to sex, but fundamentally a big, ordinary small town. City life is no longer perceived as quite so alien, and somehow this biggest, toughest city is seen as one of the friendlier ones in America. The rotting-city-on-a-hill archetype, these days, feels weirdly dated. When a right-wing politician wants to invoke a big town full of gunplay, he cant drop New York anymore; usually he offers Chicago, or maybe Detroit. The nastiest New York character a lot of people can come up with is George Costanza, and hes hardly monstrous. Hes just a pain in the ass. Its also arguable that the perception of New Yorkers as nicer folks comes from the ending of openly displayed, socially acceptable anti-Semitism. The view of New Yorkers as fast-dealing business sharks is not without racist roots as the columnist Cynthia Heimel once noted, the cultural elite was a lightly coded way of saying Jews. As the right has gradually recast itself as Israels best friend, it has had to cast out the Bircher anti-Semites within its ranks. Youll notice that, whereas a generation ago, conservatives routinely spoke of our traditional Christian values, that phrase today has always become our Judeo-Christian values. Thats no accident. Last night, Donald Trump hit back at Cruz by invoking 9/11, and in doing so, he neatly identified the moment when middle Americans accepted that New Yorkers were, in fact, American citizens. Theyd been softened up by years of Friends and Seinfeld and Carrie Bradshaw, but that was the demarcation line. Nothing brings sympathy like a wounded soldier, and suddenly New York was on its knees. Blue-collar guys, breathing ash and poison, started to put it back together, and even one of the most disagreeable public figures we have ever spawned one who was so abrasive that he had been widely considered a failure by September 10 became its hero, and everyone briefly thought he might have a chance at the White House. Caricatures of cities take a generation to break down. People who wish to evoke London still use bowler hats and red cast-iron phone booths, both of which are all but extinct. The French havent surrendered to anyone else in years, no matter how the jokes go. (It goes both ways, too. Judging by a French magazine I saw on my last visit, Parisians still seem to think Manhattan is full of people who listen to le jazz hot in little clubs and go to see art-house movies at the Elgin.) Outdated readings of the world tend to linger longest, of course, among the elderly, whose minds can grow settled and stubborn. And, of course, thats the Republican base and Ted Cruz himself, a prematurely old man whose worldview, his college classmates say, has changed not one speck since 1989. Cruz, by picking on New York, was working a perception that falls to hand easily for his voters, even if that perception, and those voters, are slowly dying of old age. He may not have thought this through, however: After all, the loudest, brashest, New Yorkiest New Yorker on that stage is the one whos winning. The sailors in Iranian custody. Photo: Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter admitted on Thursday that the U.S. sailors detained by Iran earlier this week had in fact strayed into Iranian waters by mistake. According to the New York Times, Carter said the sailors were not on a covert mission and had known not to cross into Iranian sea territory but obviously had misnavigated. Carter gave no other details about the incident, which the Navy is currently investigating. The ten sailors were detained on Tuesday after their two vessels went off course near Farsi Island, where Irans Revolutionary Guard Corps has a naval base. An administration official told the Times that the situation never entered the red zone and that the Iranians had not behaved provocatively in phone calls with their American counterparts. Nonetheless, a retired admiral told the Times, the episode suggested a failure of oversight at Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain. The sailors spent Tuesday night in Iranian custody but were released promptly the next day along with their boats and cargo. Despite its apparent nonseriousness, anti-Iran hawks in the U.S. were quick to paint a picture of the incident as an Iranian provocation, if not an outright hostile act. Many pointed to images and video Iran released of the soldiers detention, which the Washington Free Beacon, for example, characterized as humiliating. Why wont you be friends with me? Photo: Scott Olson/2016 Getty Images The Fox Business Network staged what was easily the most boring Republican debate of 2015, so our expectations for Thursday nights forum in South Carolina were low. But Donald Trump and Ted Cruz saved the day by finally putting aside their faux-friendship and attacking each other on mostly non-substantive matters. After Trump turned the Obama birther narrative on Cruz, the Texas senator tried to flip it back on the front-runner, with limited success. Then Cruz launched into an antiNew York diatribe only to wind up clapping when Trump reminded him about 9/11. Meanwhile, Chris Christies violent threats have stopped making sense, and we learned that like the rest of us, Ben Carson finds online comments scary and confusing. Here are the highs and lows. Biggest Proposed Violation of International Law: In the last debate, Ted Cruz revealed that hes up for committing some war crimes, saying hes in favor of carpet bombing Raqqa, though its home to hundreds of thousands of civilians. While the U.S. admitted that its sailors accidentally strayed into Iranian waters this week, Cruz opened the debate by vowing that any nation that captures our fighting men will feel the full force and fury of the United States of America. Least Inspired Insult: TRUMP: We dont need a weak person being president of the United States, okay? Because thats what wed get if it were Jeb I tell you what, we dont need that. If low energy aint broke, dont fix it. Boldest Argument for Disqualification From the Presidential Race, Non-Birther Related RUBIO: Hillary Clinton is disqualified from being commander-in-chief of the United States. Someone who cannot handle intelligence information appropriately cannot be commander-in-chief and someone who lies to the families of those four victims in Benghazi can never be president of the United States. Ever. Boldest Argument for Disqualification From the Presidential Race, Birther-Related Cruz was well-prepared for the inevitable question about whether hes eligible to run for president. First he noted that Trump defended him just a few months ago. Now, since September, the Constitution hasnt changed, he said. But the poll numbers have. Then he argued that if you go deep enough down the birther rabbit hole, Trump isnt eligible to run for president either because his mother was born in Scotland. Donald, Im not going to use your mothers birth against you, Cruz said, to which Trump replied, Okay, good. Because it wouldnt work. If we go back far enough, are any of us really natural-born citizens? (Jeb Bush, probably.) Most Surprising Revelations About President Obama: RUBIO: Barack Obama does not believe that America is a great global power. Barack Obama believes that America is a arrogant global power that needs to be cut down to size. RUBIO: I am convinced that if this president could confiscate every gun in America, he would. I am convinced that this president, if he could get rid of the Second Amendment, he would. Most Counterproductive Jab at the Moderators: Ben Carson responded to his very first question with, Well, Im very happy to get a question this early on. I was going to ask you to wake me up when that time came. Best Use of New York TimesBashing When asked about his failure to report a massive loan he took from Goldman Sachs, where his wife works, to fund his Senate campaign, Cruz described it as a paperwork error and dismissed the report as a hit piece. Honorable mention goes to Trump, who denied calling for up to 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods, saying, Thats wrong. They were wrong. Its the New York Times, they are always wrong. Saddest Attempt to Get a Word In: CARSON: Neil, I was mentioned too. CAVUTO: You were? CARSON: Yeah, he said everybody. Biggest Waste of a Clinton-Bashing Opportunity: While most people onstage would jump at the chance to attack Hillary Clinton, when asked if shes an enabler of sexual misconduct in light of Bill Clintons past indiscretions, Carson pivoted to rambling about all the divisiveness and the hatred that goes on in our society. Is this America anymore? Do we still have standards? Do we still have values and principles? he mused. Most Enlightening Admission: The answer wasnt a total waste, as we learned that Carson reads online comments sections. Most Unnecessary Threat: Chris Christie, addressing President Obama: We are going to kick your rear end out of the White House come this fall. Hes being forced out by term limits, Christie doesnt have to physically assault him. Best Use of the 9/11 Card: When asked to explain his attack on Trumps New York values, Cruz said, Everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or progay marriage, focus around money and the media. The crowd loved the antiNew York rant, until Trump reminded them that they love invoking 9/11 more. Cruz wound up literally applauding Trump for attacking him. Lamest Name-Drop: KASICH: I served on the Defense Committee for 18 years, and by the way, one of the members of that committee was Senator Strom Thurmond from South Carolina. Most Unexpected Plug for a Michael Bay Movie: Cruz, in his closing remarks: 13 Hours tomorrow morning, a new movie will debut about the incredible bravery of the men fighting for their lives in Benghazi and the politicians that abandoned them. Thankfully, he did not segue into his impression of Sean Connery from The Rock. This guy chose panic. Photo: Andrew Burton/Getty Images The Dow Jones fell by more than 400 points on Friday afternoon. Oil plunged beneath $30 a barrel for the second time this week. The default risk for junk bonds soared to a three-year high. Financial news networks ran lots of B-roll of traders putting their heads in their hands. And you surfed the internet looking for someone to tell you whether you should freak out. Here is a quick tour of four reasons to stare in panic at the scrolling ticker on CNBC, and four reasons to just put on Netflix and chill. Panic: Our economy is vulnerable to a crisis in China. If you had to summarize the cause of all this trouble in one word, that word would be China. Earlier this week in the Washington Post, Larry Summers laid out the grim state of the the Chinese economy: Over the past year, about 20 percent of Chinas growth as reported in its official statistics has come from its financial-services sector, which has mushroomed to the point where it is about as large relative to national GDP as in Britain, and Chinese debt levels are extraordinarily high. This is hardly a case of healthy or sustainable growth. In recent years, Chinas growth has come heavily from massive infrastructure investment; indeed, China put in place more cement and concrete between 2011 and 2013 than the United States did in the whole of the 20th century. This growth, too, is unsustainable, and even if it is replaced by domestic services, Chinas contribution to demand for global commodities will fall way off. Robert Samuelson, also in the Post, explains that a collapse in Chinese growth will likely induce the government to devalue its currency, making U.S. exports less competitive in the global market. While exports dont make up a huge percentage of the U.S. economy, weakened American manufacturing combined with a global growth crisis could continue tanking U.S. stocks. Large losses could cause a negative wealth effect, Samuelson writes. When people feel poorer, they spend less (similarly, when they feel richer, they spend more). Economists have long believed that the wealth effect for stocks is small about 2 or 3 cents for each dollar of profit or loss. With the U.S. growing at less than 3 percent annually, that wealth effect could be enough to trigger a recession. Especially since were overdue for one, anyhow. Dont Panic: Our economy is invulnerable to a crisis in China. Exports make up only 13 percent of the U.S. economy, and a very small percentage of those exports go to China. So any falloff in Chinese demand is unlikely to hit the United States very hard. And a devalued Chinese currency would redound to the benefit of U.S. consumers, who will save money on Chinese imports. Considering how much a strong dollar and low oil prices economic conditions that would be facilitated by a struggling China would save retailers like Walmart, the always low prices Americans are used to could get substantially lower. And sure, Chinas big. But as CNBC points out, it isnt much bigger than Japan was at the end of the 1980s, in terms of each nations share of global gross domestic product. And while Japan spent the 1990s mired in a lost decade, the United States was wracking up surpluses and imagining it had reached The End of History. In the long run, a collapse of Chinese growth may even be in the global economys best interest. In our view, the risk in China is not that growth will tank in a hard landing, but that the authorities will keep growth too high for too long, shrinking their space for policy maneuver and increasing the number of impaired assets and making the economy more vulnerable to a shock, Paul Gruenwald, S&P chief economist for Asia-Pacific, told the network. Panic: Cheap oil could set the world on fire. Oil has fallen beneath $30 a barrel, and the sudden influx of Iranian exports into an already-glutted market threatens to send that price as low as $10. The world still runs on crude, and extreme changes in its price have the power to fundamentally reshape the international order. The Guardian notes that the collapse of oil prices in the mid-1980s helped bring down the Soviet Union and inspire Saddam Husseins invasion of Kuwait events that have reverberated through the ensuing decades. The papers editorial board writes that the current collapse of energy prices dims hopes that emerging powers might continue their growth and modernisation, simultaneously becoming solid stakeholders in a stable international order. Petrol-dependent economies like Brazil and Nigeria could face social upheaval as living standards decline in the latter nation, that upheaval could increase the proliferation of jihadist forces in the region. While a weakened Russia might strike some as a geopolitical boon for the United States, authoritarian regimes have a habit of deflecting domestic tensions with foreign misadventures. Which raises ominous questions of how Saudi Arabia will behave, in a moment when the kingdom is already engaged in multiple proxy wars with Iran. No one knows how all of this will shake out, but considering that the current international system was more or less designed by the U.S. to advance its own interests, unpredictable change is undesirable as are heightened poverty rates in oil-dependent economies and, ya know, world wars. Dont Panic: Cheap oil will give Americans a raise. America has a big domestic energy industry, but at the end of the day, this is a consumer economy and low oil prices give consumers more money to spend. According to MarketWatch, current crude prices would save the average two-car household $1,000 a year on gas, allowing the middle class to increase its spending on restaurants, tourism, and other discretionary purposes. And those rock-bottom prices offer even greater relief at the very bottom of the income scale. As Yahoo Finances Andy Serwer noted last year, households with incomes of less than $50,000 spent 21 percent of their earnings on energy in 2012, while those making more than $50,000 spent only 9 percent. And as for all that geopolitical fearmongering: The international order should be able to hold out for a few months. Which is about as long as Goldman Sachs believes it will take for a bull market in oil to reemerge. Panic: Indicators suggest we could be headed for recession. The manufacturing sector is contracting. The amount of unsold goods that businesses have been stockpiling has steadily risen since 2012. And the spread between the risky corporate bonds and safe government bonds is going up something that typically happens about 18 months before a recession. Dont panic: Indicators suggest were nowhere near recession. Uh, did you see Decembers jobs report? Employers hired nearly 300,000 people last month, and the unemployment rate is near 5 percent. Plus, the quit rate the measure of Americans willingness to ditch their jobs for something better is holding steady. Ahead of a recession, the quit rate slows down as workers perceive fewer opportunities in the labor market. Finally, the number of people applying for unemployment benefits is quite low not something you typically see ahead of a recession. Panic: Writhing on the floor in abject terror at the prospect of future loss is a really good way to burn calories. Dont Panic: Dancing is better. There are many good Vines, but few perfect ones. Cats, dogs, pranks, visual trickery, six-second operas theres no shortage of great work on the video platform that created the Loop, a new type of video format. Vine was founded in January 2013, and its first year, like any growing platform, came in fits and starts. But I never really understood the mesmerizing nature of the loop until I saw Back at It Again at Krispy Kreme, the best Vine of all time. Two years ago, on January 13, 2014, the Vine account Fab Cheerleader posted a video captioned He hit the sign, and it is incredible. In the first shot, a man holds a Krispy Kreme hat up to the camera and says that famous line, Back at it again at Krispy Kreme. In the second shot, he does a back handspring into a neon Krispy Kreme sign, knocking it from its housing. Roughly a quarter-second afterward before the sound of the sign being wrenched from the wall has even finished the video begins again. It is a masterpiece. I love many things about this Vine. First of all, the punch line is insane. Back at it again at Krispy Kreme, we hear. What does it mean? I can all but guarantee that nobody assumed the phrase meant back handspring into a neon sign. I love how it ends before the sign hits the floor. We get just enough to know that the handspring impressive in and of itself has caused some damage. But we dont know the extent of the damage, nor how our stuntman reacted, or how the employees of Krispy Kreme reacted. Its a blank space that our imagination fills made all the more dramatic by the eternal, endless loop of Vine. So much of what made Back at It Again at Krispy Kreme fantastic besides the guy crashing into the sign can be attributed to the odd formal characteristics of Vine, chief among them the lack of context. Vines create an odd tension in the viewer: Each video is a mere six seconds, but it loops on endlessly. You develop an intimate knowledge of the six seconds youre given through the peephole of the Vine but are left totally in the dark about the context and resolution. Theories and speculation abound. The viral Vine economy, where Vines are copied and reuploaded with no credit or explantion, only heightens the mystery. Vine purists, if such a thing exists, might insist that such mystique is essential to a Vine. But as much as I could admire the delicate artistry of the unresolved disaster in Back at It Again at Krispy Kreme, I still needed to know: What the hell happened after he kicked the sign down? So, on its two-year anniversary, I set out to find the origins of this incredible Vine as well as learn its aftermath. Of course, as is often the case with Vines, it wasnt going to be easy. While Fab Cheerleader was the account on which the Vine went viral, it didnt create this video its just a page filled with freebooted (that is, ripped and reuploaded without credit) clips of cheerleading and tumbling. On a site called FunnyVineVideos.com, I was able to find a better-quality version of the original Vine one that had been posted a week before Fab Cheerleaders. But, like Fab Cheerleader, FunnyVineVideos didnt credit the original author of the video. I decided to take a different tactic. I called up the scene of the crime: Krispy Kreme. In the first shot, one can clearly make out a building number for the Krispy Kreme location: 9301. A quick Google query will direct you to a Krispy Kreme location in Matthews, North Carolina. (Credit where credit is due: This deduction is not my own. I vaguely recall seeing someone having done this on Tumblr months ago.) I spoke on the phone with Heath, a manager at the Krispy Kreme location who about knew the incident I was describing. He was, however, slightly surprised that I knew of the video. Actually, that video was supposed to have been removed from the web, he told me, so Im surprised its still out there circulating. I told him that the video had millions of loops, and that I wanted to follow up on it, see what the aftermath was. At this point, Heath said that he could not tell me anything, and said he would have to direct me to Krispy Kremes corporate office. I called the phone number, which presented me with a list of options that did not include viral video response. I had no luck. I followed up with an email to Krispy Kremes media contacts, but have not heard back. Back at it again at krispy kreme guy is such an iconic figure. He truly changed peoples lives. Melgazar (@MelgazarS) November 10, 2015 (Wakes up) Back at it again at krispy kreme hedge fund (@finerhour) October 24, 2015 I couldnt stop thinking about that video, though the best Vine of all time. So I turned to Twitter, searching for posts that contained the words kicked and sign, as well as the URL string vine.co and restricted results to before the date of Fab Cheerleaders vine. What I found were a number of tweets, all of which reference the same now-removed Vine. Many included the hashtag #tumblingislife, and a few referenced the user @TumblingIsLife1. The man who runs that account, Aaron, is the hero of our story the man who kicked the sign off the wall at Krispy Kreme. Aaron, who originally hails from the Bronx and now lives in Atlanta, told me that he took up tumbling at an early age. He was inspired by watching his cousin tumble, and also by Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. He now teaches tumbling to others. I kicked the sign at Krispy Kream double full #tumblingislife https://t.co/AFNRO0SBE1 King Kumo (@TumblingIsLife1) January 5, 2014 I can try to tell the story of that infamous night any number of ways, but none of them can compare to how Aaron described the incident to me firsthand. It is an amazing story. In his own words: Oh my God, let me tell you about that night. So I have a free coupon to get like a dozen doughnuts, so I go, All right, say no more. I go make moves were all in line, were just talking. I was like, Yo, Im about to make a video, Im about to do a flip. So I give them my coupon, Im like, Stand in line, get the dozen doughnuts, Im gonna go over here and make this video, and all that. So it was me and my two friends. I tell them to set up at the table. I was like, Oh, I gotta get my intro real quick. I did my little intro Back at it again at Krispy Kreme and I was like, Yall ready? Then we flipped the camera around. I back up. I told myself, Im not gonna hit anything. So I do my flip, but the second flip that I did the back handspring, the back one with hands going into the spin I stretched it out too long. So when I went into the air and started spinning, my left leg hit the sign off the wall clean, and it dropped behind the counter. And it was like [glass shattering sound effect]. It was packed. There was a good hundred, a hundred and some change, people inside. Everybody was talking. As soon as that thing dropped, everybody didnt talk for a good 30 seconds. It was nothing but silence. As soon as I landed I didnt fall after that, you saw me, I landed on my feet. I looked up and I saw that it fell, I didnt look at nobody, I just kept walking, and I walked out the door. Everybody was like, What the heck? Oh shoot, he just kicked down the sign! Everybody started going crazy. Then I was just outside chilling. Three people from behind the desk that were making doughnuts or whatever ran outside and it was like, Yo, that shit crazy, bro! And he was like, Bro, I think somebody in theres calling the cops, or whatever. So they called the cops on me, and I had to do a little whipping and running. They didnt find me, and then that was it for the night. In the aftermath, Aaron said that he did get a visit from law enforcement. The sheriff came to my house, and we talked about it, but he was like, You dont have to pay for anything like that, just dont do anything like that again. And that was it. Afterwards, Aaron deleted the video from his account in order to avoid attention from law enforcement, but it still lives online. And thank God it does, because it is the best Vine of all time. The phrase Back at it again at Krispy Kreme is still referenced on a daily basis. That famous sentence is now a mantra every time you inject a little bit of extraordinary flair into the mundane, you, too, are back at it again at Krispy Kreme. back at it again at krispy kreme thump, thump, boo-WHUP rabidrodent (@rabrodent) January 13, 2016 Asked if he had any other thoughts to add, Aaron stated, as a matter of fact, Tumbling is life. Goddess. Photo: Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images Goddess Amal Clooney graced NBC News with her first American network-television interview this week, not to discuss what she was wearing (a dress sewn by angels) or how her hair gets so perfect (each morning tiny birds comb it with their delicate beaks), but to bring attention to her client, former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed, in his quest to be released from prison. Clooney met with politicians in D.C. this week to try to convince them to impose sanctions on the Maldives until they release Nasheed from jail. When asked in a roundabout way by NBC if her celebrity marriage has affected her or her work in any way, Amal told it like it is. I dont really see myself in the same way because Im still doing the same job that I used to before, she said. If theres more attention paid for whatever reason to that, then I think thats good. At least now we finally know what the goddess is doing putting up with George. WTI and Brent hit fresh lows on Friday over persistent fears of oversupply. The latest thing to drag down oil is the prospect of Iran quickly returning some significant volumes of oil to the market. That is because Implementation Day, the day that Iran fulfills all necessary requirements stemming from the historic nuclear agreement reach last year, is expected imminently. U.S. Secretary of State said on Wednesday that the achievement would be reached within the next coming days. The IAEA is expected to issue a report as soon as today that will affirm Irans compliance. Related: Another $165 Million Deal Signed In This Emerging Oil Hotspot That means the sanctions on Iran could be lifted as soon as next week, and as such, Iran could quickly bring back some oil production and exports. Iran has promised to ramp up oil exports by 500,000 barrels per day almost immediately. Iranian officials have also said that within a year of the removal of sanctions, it could bring back 1 million barrels per day. At the same time, Iran has dialed back the ambition in recent weeks, saying that it will only produce as much as global demand justifies. For now, oil markets are taking in the news and expecting more price pressure. WTI and Brent dropped nearly five percent during intraday trading on January 15. By Charles Kennedy of Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: January 2016 saw an acceleration of the movement of ISIS fighters out of Syria and into Libya. There were profound reasons for this flight to safety by ISIS, in seeking a new haven as pressures in-creased on its territorial holdings in Iraq and Syria, but there were also significant ramifications for Lib-ya, its neighbors, and for sub-Saharan insurgencies, particularly in Nigeria. ISIS sees in Libya the opportunity to seize oilfields in Cyrenaica, in Libyas east, to compensate for the loss of control it has experienced over captured Syrian and Iraqi oil supplies, which had been chan-neled by tanker trucks through Turkey for sale on the international market. Russian air strikes and pub-licity over the ISIS oil supply line to Turkey and to Bilal Erdo?an, the son of the Turkish President have severely inhibited ISIS revenues and strategic viability. There is justifiable speculation as to the extent of support for ISIS moves to strengthen its base in Lib-ya from the Turkish intelligence service, Milli Istihbarat Teskilati (MIT), but there is little doubt that MIT had been assisting ISIS (and its foundational groups), both in Syria and Iraq, as well as in Libya and elsewhere for several years. Turkey has come under increasing pressure to limit its visible ISIS linkage closer to home, largely as a result of Russian and to a lesser extent Western military depreda-tions of the ISIS force, and Russias strong exposure of the links which ISIS has had with the Turkish leadership and MIT. Moreover, the ambiguous links which ISIS has maintained with Turkey and its other foreign sponsors has meant that the Islamist group has also felt that it could bite the hand that feeds it from time to time. There has been speculation and that is all that it is that Turkish reports of cooperation in the in-ternational fight against ISIS have been meaningless and just lip-service. Turkish military operations in this regard have, however, provided an excuse for Turkey to intervene in Iraq and Syria to suppress Kurdish militant groups and to fight those jihadi groups which were working against ISIS. But with ef-fective Russian, Syrian, and Western military action against ISIS targets, the future viability of ISIS as a geographic entity have been thrown into doubt. Related: Leading Copper Producer Announcing Drastic Cuts The upsurge of ISIS strength in Libya, particularly centered around its major geographic holding, the city of Sirte, has come not only from combatant transfers from Syria and Iraq, but also from militants in Egypt, Tunisia, Sudan, and Mali. It is also understood that fighters from ISIS stated ally (or compo-nent), Boko Haram, may be preparing to move out of north-eastern Nigeria to join the group in Libya as Boko Harams territory has become compromised by increasingly efficient Nigerian Armed Forces operations against them, coupled with united action by the NDjamena-based Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) comprised of forces from Nigeria, Chad, Niger, and Cameroon. U.S. intelligence sources reportedly told Washington journalist Bill Gertz that at least two jihadist groups had announced in late December 2015 that they were aligning with ISIS in Libya: The Ajdabiya Revolutionaries Shura Council, in Ajdabiya, and a second terror group based in Misrata. Egypts Position: The move has direct security implications for Egypt, not merely because of the prox-imity of the ISIS operations on its border, but because of the parallel functioning (or perhaps identity of interests) between ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan), which has committed itself to the overthrow of the present Egyptian Government of Pres. Abdul Fatah al-Sisi. The governing Turkish Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (Justice and Development Party: AKP), which has been covertly supporting ISIS, is, by definition, a Muslim Brotherhood party, and has been outspoken in supporting the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Freedom and Justice Party (Hizb al-Hurriya wa al-Adala), and urging that it be restored to office in Egypt. Related: Saudi Aramco IPO More About Geopolitics Than Finance Turkey has been actively supporting Egyptian Muslim Brothers in exile in Sudan, so there is a clear con-nection between the surge of its members coming from there to Libya. Moreover, MIT has been ac-tive in Sudan, working not only with the Egyptian Ikhwan, but also with other groups, such as Boko Ha-ram, in Nigeria. Egypt has responded militarily against ISIS in Libya in the recent past, when either Egyptian expatriate workers there were seized or threatened by ISIS, or when Ethiopian Christian expatriate workers there were under threat by ISIS. Six Egyptian Air Force (EAF) Lockheed Martin F-16s hit ISIS targets in Derna and Sirte on February 16, 2015, when ISIS released a video (on February 15, 2015) showing the beheading of 21 Coptic Christian Egyptians. Significantly, the Libyan Air Force coordinated with the EAF, also striking ISIS targets. Egypt had not co-ordinated its actions with the U.S. Government, but did call for the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS to broaden the scope of its activities to include ISIS components in Libya. The U.S. was cool to the Egyp-tian-led strikes, and has declined then and subsequently to intervene against ISIS in Libya. It is worth considering whether Egypts actions in Libya could, for a period, be constrained by the pro-cess of building a new Government in Libya as a result of the December 17, 2015, accord between the Council of Deputies the internationally-recognized Government of Libya and the New General National Congress to create a new nine-member Presidency Council and a 17-member interim Gov-ernment of National Accord, with new elections to be held within two years. As a result of this, a peri-od of indecision within the rival Libyan factions could also be seen as a period of opportunity for ISIS to consolidate its position, but it could also ensure that there was no decision-making partner for a pe-riod, in Libya, with which Egypt could coordinate strikes against ISIS. Related: Get Ready for Irans Oil: Sanctions Could Be Removed Next Week As a result, any new Egyptian strikes, if they occurred, might be unilateral in nature, and would almost certainly be criticized by Turkey and the U.S., acting in harmony (given the unequivocal nature of sup-port by the current U.S. Barack Obama Administration for Turkey). The history of covert White House-run operations in Libya, working directly with the Turkish and Qatari governments, to arm and move in al-Qaida (and later ISIS) linked jihadists to achieve the overthrow of former Libyan leader Muammar al-Qadhafi in 2011, and the subsequent moves by the three governments to consolidate the imported jihadist groups there, makes the Obama White House a hostage to fortune (and Ankara) in any actions in Libya. Egypt, however, would likely be discreetly supported in operations against ISIS and the Ikhwan in Libya by the Russian Government and possibly by the Saudi Arabian Government, which could see a threat to Egypt as a threat to the Kingdoms main strategic partner. France would also support Egyptian oper-ations in Libya. Nigerian Position: A strengthened ISIS in Libya would ultimately enhance support for Boko Haram fighters in northern Nigeria, and could also help revive jihadist operations in Mali. But a consolidation of ISIS in Libya may take too long to save Boko Haram, and in the short-term the process of winning control of Libyan oilfields would be a major priority for ISIS. This would likely draw in Boko Haram fighters now facing an uncertain future within Nigeria, Chad, and Cameroon. In Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad, and Mali, France is also cognizant of the Boko Haram-ISIS links, and would likely work with Egypt to take a holistic view of the conflict. This begs the question, then, as to why Ni-geria has not yet begun coordination of its intelligence sharing with Egypt to counter ISIS links from Libya and Sudan into Boko Haram. By Gregory Copley via Defense and Foreign Affairs Special Analysis More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The renovation process started in August at TomKens Bar and Grill, 8001 W. Greenfield Ave., and was completed, for the most part, this week. The business, which is owned by the Felten family, opened in 1991 and is known for its fried chicken and wing nights. Brian Felten, the son of the original owner, manages the food operations. He says the impetus for the renovation was primarily to move and expand the kitchen. The new kitchen is twice as large as the old one and now located on the south side of the building which was formerly an apartment. By moving the kitchen into the former living quarters, the bar and dining space is bigger and more open, with 36 more dining seats available, an expanded bar with built-in cell phone ports and 16-foot ceilings. The bathrooms were also renovated and are now wheelchair-accessible. Other upgrades include repainted walls, LED lighting and butcher-block-topped tables. Felten says the menu will largely stay the same, but he plans to feature more fresh, homemade appetizers in the future. "The wings and the chicken will not change," says Felten. "Since that's what we are known for." TomKen's 50-cent wing night is every Monday and Thursday starting at 4 p.m. Brian has created more than 350 sauces, which he rotates spontaneously from week to week. Brian also created a build-your-own taco night on Wednesdays called "Nacho Average Taco Night," the Friday "West Allis fish fry" featuring New Glarus beer-battered fish and homemade potato pancakes and a 501 Club steak sandwich which is a tribute to the 5 0'Clock Steak House, 2416 W. State St., in Milwaukee. The bar now has 10 taps instead of six. We will have six Wisconsin craft beers and four of them will rotate," says Felten. TomKen's will host an official opening of the remodeled space in March. Stay tuned to OnMilwaukee for the exact date and time when it becomes available. "Its been a lot of work," says Felten. "But were very pleased with the results." Again? Really? The hashtag #OscarsSoWhite made the social media rounds once more this year after the Oscar nominations were announced bright and early this morning and not because "The Revenant," this years nomination leader with 12, takes place in a snow-covered forest. Unfortunately, for the second straight year, the Academy selected an almost entirely white crop of nominees in its high-profile categories. No people of color in any male acting field. No people of color in any female acting field. No Best Picture candidates fronted by people of color. The only non-white person in any of the major categories is Alejandro G. Inarritu, the Mexican director of "The Revenant." And yes, the NWA biopic "Straight Outta Compton" got a Best Original Screenplay nod but its screenwriters are white. Otherwise, once more, a significant portion of the movie-consuming population is looking at another year of the supposedly finest performers and best stories with no one representing them, another year of their stories and characters ignored. Its not like there's nothing to choose from either. I and many others expected Idris Elbas devilishly charismatic turn in "Beasts of No Nation" to take one of the Best Supporting Actor nominations, not only because hes fantastic and deserving but also, cynically, because I couldnt imagine the Academy not being so unaware to let themselves get into this situation yet again. I was clearly wrong. Meanwhile, Michael B. Jordan in "Creed," Benicio del Toro in "Sicario," Jason Mitchell in "Straight Outta Compton" and many, many others were all just as deserving and, as you may have noticed reading that list, not in small movies that could be easily missed. And all, after Thursdays ceremony, were left just as wanting. At least there was some improvement from last year in the writing categories with several very deserving female screenwriters Emma Donaghue of "Room," for instance getting credit. But overall, one year later after getting roundly called out, the Academy once again dressed up its biggest stage only to demonstrate its unfortunately limited view of the world. Not that any of this is on purpose or some racist, nefarious scheme; after all, Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs is black, and the actually awards will be hosted by none other than Chris Rock who I imagine had a fun afternoon of joke-writing after the chosen alabaster few were announced. But it is something that needs to be fixed, whether that means more moves toward making the notorious old white boys club that is the Academy more diverse or shaking up the overall Awards season coverage and mindset that doesnt invite deserving candidates like "Chi-raq," "Tangerine" or "Creed" director Ryan Coogler to the table (quite literally). I look forward to the day when we can talk about the Oscars snubbing movies and performances, rather than entire swaths of people and experiences. And speaking of snubs, there certainly were some notable ones Thursday morning. Johnny Depp earned a lot of buzz for supposedly acting again in "Black Mass." The Academy apparently disagreed, leaving him out for Matt Damon in "The Martian." Aaron Sorkin was seen as another early lock for his predictably sharp and snappy "Steve Jobs" script, but as with everything about that second Jobs biopic (save for the actual film itself) the supposed excitement didnt add up to much. "Carol" was a critics darling and seen as a potential early front-runner for Best Picture, but the Academy left it out of the running for the big prize not to mention Todd Haynes for Best Director. Speaking of getting left out of director, many expected this to be the year for Ridley Scott to win his Martin Scorseses "The Departed" Legacy Oscar no, he didnt win for "Gladiator" but while "The Martian" wrangled seven nominations, Best Director was not one of them. "Room" director Lenny Abrahamson likely took Scotts spot, a surprise for even the dramas biggest supporters (*raises hand*). While early buzz pegged the psychological parenting drama as a frontrunner, the whispers as nomination day approached noted some Academy members were avoiding "Room," now wanting to deal with the dark, emotionally exhausting material of a kidnapped woman and her child of rape. After Thursday morning, however, that seems to be all they were: whispers. "Room" not only scored a directing nod as well as a heavily predicted Actress nod for the excellent Brie Larson but it also netted nominations for Screenplay and Best Picture. Does that give it enough to push it back into frontrunner status? Eh, unlikely though the race is certainly wide open, perhaps the most unpredictable one in years. Most years theres been a clear favorite or two going into the final stretch "12 Years a Slave" in 2013, the combination of "Birdman" and "Boyhood" last year but this year, no one seems certain. "Bridge of Spies" and "Brooklyn" are both lowest on the totem pole, both nice and well-crafted movies but seemingly no ones favorite. For a while, I was concerned the former was going to be forgotten altogether; it certainly feels that way a crazy thing to say about a Steven Spielberg movie. "Room" can probably be crossed off as well; its win will come in Best Actress for Larson and the fact that it pulled off a Best Picture nomination in the first place (the first for its young distributor A24). Then theres "Mad Max: Fury Road," which, what a day! What a lovely day! They actually did it! How freaking awesome is it that a two-hour action movie featuring an flame-throwing electric guitar is an Academy Award nominated feature and one of the most nominated at that with 10. Frankly, it couldve even been more if Charlize Therons already iconic performance and its on-point score got the credit they deserved but I think theyll be fine with double-digit noms. I doubt that was in mind when they crafted this: I cant imagine "Mad Max" taking the next step in its insane and insanely worthy awards run and snagging Best Picture. However, I think it could be one of the overall big winners, likely nabbing a ton of technical awards throughout the evening. That leaves us "The Martian," "The Revenant," "Spotlight" and "The Big Short" to truly duke it out during this home stretch. "The Martian" serves as the dark horse. Normally, losing out on a directing nod would be a bad sign, but as "Argo" proved, if you play the angle right, it could instead lead to a surge. Plus, "The Martian" is the kind of movie that could win: Its brainy, its gripping, its inspirational and its an optimistic crowd-pleaser thats made a lot of money, making it the peoples choice and, hell, the presidents choice. Its a movie that people like to like, with very few detractors. Package all of that together, and youve got a solid run at Best Picture prize. It helps that the current frontrunner, "Spotlight," has been losing steam like mad so much so that calling it the frontrunner seems wrong. The journalism drama earned rave reviews and plenty of critics awards, and it has six nominations. But its just not a movie people seem in love with. It doesnt grab the audience and demand its appreciation (unlike a certain other candidate coming up). Its un-showy, unexceptionally exceptional filmmaking, and thats wonderful. Its a great film dont get me wrong but thats not quite a great Oscar-winning formula. Toss in a distributor Open Road Films running its first Best Picture campaign, and I see this being a slow slide off the top of the podium. Odds are good for Best Original Screenplay though. What could supplant "Spotlight" at the top? How about the current glory boy "The Revenant," leading the pack with 12 nominations and riding high off of a good Golden Globes showing (that means nothing as the Academy and HFPA are two completely and utterly separate groups). Its hard to imagine the Oscars going back-to-back Best Pictures from the same director even harder considering "The Revenant" has many more detractors than "Birdman" did and doesnt have the show business angle the Academy traditionally loves. Still, unlike "Spotlight," "The Revenant" is the kind of movie that wants to wow and impress you with every single shot and thinks its got some big ideas to go with its firmly enforced grandiosity and claims of hard-earned artistic perseverance (oh, you filmed in cold temperatures? Thats cute; an entire natural location for "Mad Max" a decades-long project was washed away by unprecedented floods). Obviously, for a lot of people, its working just like it did with "Birdman." It certainly feels like the actual frontrunner, but well see how the guild awards turn out. But as for Leo? Mark him down as a lock. That leaves "The Big Short," the hard-charging last person to the party. The star-studded economic dramedy sure built up a lot of steam over the holiday season, going from awards season unknown to sudden multi-category player. It rode that energy to five nominations, nudging into Best Director and Best Editing, two categories that often serve as key places for frontrunners. People seem to love it, and its the kind of movie that leaves you walking out feeling a strong emotion, probably anger and a desire to share it with others. Thats a good attribute for an Oscar winner, and it doesnt have the baggage recent wins, loud detractors that "The Revenant" carries. Id bet "The Big Short" makes a whole lot of noise before late February arrives. But I guess we shall see. As for the rest of the nominations? Im happy to see "Inside Out" in more categories other than Best Animated Film which it will win while Tom Hardys nomination for Best Supporting Actor in "The Revenant" was a nice surprise. Im glad an actually good performance from that movie will get some attention. I was also happy to see Roger Deakins get his thirteenth Oscar nomination for "Sicario." Hes has to actually win one of these years, but 2016 wont be it; Lubezkis all natural light work on "The Revenant" is too much to deny, giving him a crazy three in a row. And while were on the subject of "Sicario" a great movie that I wish got more Oscar play, but oh well I was quite pleased to see Johann Johannssons murky, imposing score creep in for a nomination as well. Most happily of all, though, baffling perennial Academy favorite Tom Hooper didnt get nominated for "The Danish Girl." So maybe the Oscars did okay after all. For more "Making a Murderer" coverage, including the case's unanswered questions and other potential suspects, click here MANITOWOC Was Steven Averys sweat found on Teresa Halbachs RAV4 vehicle and key? Its complicated. They found Averys DNA. But what kind? Maybe, the defense said, the DNA came from his toothbrush. Or mouth swabs. Maybe, the states DNA analyst said, it was blood. Or not. The blood spatter evidence is complicated, too; a state expert thought Averys blood came from active bleeding. The "Avery sweat" angle is a case study in how all sides have, at times, boiled down the very complex CSI forensics in the case, so OnMilwaukee decided to take a closer look at the crime scene investigation. The jury, of course, saw a fuller picture. In the wake of the sturm and drang over the "Making a Murderer" Netflix documentary, then-prosecutor Ken Kratz told the media that Averys sweat was found under Halbachs vehicle hood and on her vehicle key, which was belatedly found in Averys bedroom by James Lenk, the Manitowoc County Sheriffs detective the defense has accused of planting stuff which he denies. Defense attorney Dean Strang then countered in the media that the sweat angle was not proven. He declined a request, through a PR spokeswoman, to discuss the specifics of the DNA. In court, the defense floated at least three theories to explain why Averys "touch DNA" might be on the infamous key and hood latch including that a cop smeared it on the key using Averys toothbrush. As for the documentary? The documentary pretty much ignored the "touch DNA" debate, making the audience think that any planting came from an old Avery blood vial, a far simpler narrative. Touch DNA is non-blood DNA that comes from a persons skin cells sloughing off, sometimes with sweat contributing to its presence. It was previously used to exonerate Jon Benet Ramseys parents. What do the court records show? OnMilwaukee decided to take a look at the massive files. They show that its true the sweat angle was not conclusively proven, according to the DNA analysts testimony. Sherry Culhane, the DNA analyst who testified about touch DNA, said she could not conclusively rule out the possibility that it was residual blood in very small amounts because she didnt test the hood latch or key swabs for blood, in part because the samples were so small and because she did not visibly see blood. Defense attorney Jerome Buting asked at one point, "So you cant rule out the source of that DNA being a blood drop or a blood smudge of some sort can you?" Culhane responded, "No, I cant." Also not disproved and not thoroughly explored by the documentary was the possibility that Averys DNA on the hood latch and key came from his skin cells/sweat, which is known as "touch DNA" or non-blood DNA. This was debated extensively in court and remained a live possibility at the end because Culhane also testified that she did not see any visible blood on the key or hood latch as she did with other samples inside the Halbach car. She said thats when she moved on to looking for touch DNA on the items. She then found Averys DNA. It should be noted that in one of his controversial, unrepresented confessions, Averys teenage nephew Brendan Dassey said he saw Avery lift the hood after an interrogator asked him about it. He also said that he saw Avery put the victims car key in Averys bedroom. In closing argument, the defense attorney said, "The source of Mr. Averys DNA in his house is plentiful. Toothbrushes, razors, all kinds of personal items in ones home. If Mr. Lenk and Mr. (Andrew) Colborn wanted to put Mr. Averys DNA on that key, that was easily available." Why this all matters: If some of the Avery DNA was "touch DNA," the frame job would have to be more complicated. Now youve got cops obtaining Averys skin cells/sweat, not just his blood not to mention a killer who is someone else, to buy the defense theory, planting Halbachs burnt bones into the bonfire that Avery coincidentally had that night, a double frame. But how could cops get Averys touch DNA? Maybe, floated defense attorney Buting, the cops rubbed Averys toothbrush on the key. He also floated the idea that other household items could have contained Averys non-blood DNA. Buting: "If one was to rub a toothbrush up against a key, that might also transfer some low level amount of DNA to the key right?" Culhane: "That would be possible, however in my experience toothbrushes are not a real good source of DNA." Buting: "There are many ways, many personal items that someone might rub against a key that might also shed and deposit a lot amount of DNA such as you found on this key?" Culhane: "Yes, it's possible." The defense also solicited testimony that showed that buccal swabs containing Averys DNA from his mouth from the earlier wrongful conviction case had been sent back in 2003 to the Manitowoc County Sheriffs Department by the state Crime Lab. They were kept there in a locked communal evidence room. At one point in court, Buting told the judge, "This witness (Culhane) has testified that theres DNA found on items that she said she didnt see any blood, which could have come from buccal swabs. So shes already testified to that, so it's in play, whether or not the Manitowoc County Sheriffs Department had any of Mr. Averys DNA in another form, which they did." Prosecutor Norm Gahn inquired, "Are we saying that the planting did not come from the blood, but the planting now came from the buccal swabs of Steven Avery?" Buting responded, "Judge, this is not new. We have alleged look, they brought up, on direct, that there was DNA that she discovered that she said did not appear to come from blood. So it had to come from another source. This is another source, that according to this record at least, was sent back to the Manitowoc County Sheriffs Department ..." At another point, Buting said, "Judge, I dont mean to cut counsel off, but it is in response to testimony they elicited here, that some of it, some of the DNA apparently did not come from blood. Now we have a right to respond to that, and this is a response. It is not an explanation for the blood in the RAV4. Maybe an explanation for some of the other." The judge decided to allow the evidence that the packet of buccal swabs was sent to the Sheriffs Department, saying, "My recollection is that the previous contested hearing involved the blood vial I believe the evidence first came up at that point that there was some DNA evidence of Mr. Avery apparently not from blood that was found, if I recall correctly on the Toyota key and on the hood latch I think it is relevant. I will allow the defense to pursue this matter." However, when the evidence packet was brought into court, Culhane testified the seal was not broken on it. The defense additionally argued that state blood spatter expert Nick Stahlke might have transferred Averys DNA from the Halbach vehicle to the hood latch. Stahlke testified that he lifted the hood to see why the car wouldnt start and saw the battery had been disconnected. However, Stahlke testified he was wearing surgical gloves to protect any evidence. The defense argued he should have changed them and could have transferred residual blood from the vehicle to the hood, the court transcripts show. Of course, that wouldnt explain the possible touch DNA on the key. Other interesting CSI arguments that the documentary didnt get into much or at all, according to the court transcripts, include: The blood spatter expert thought Averys blood came from an active bleeder Recall that, in addition to the possible touch DNA under the hood latch and on the key, Averys blood was found in six places inside Halbachs car. The DNA analyst could visibly see these stains before testing. Stahlkes testimony was interesting because he also testified that the Avery blood inside the Halbach vehicle came from an "active" bleeder, not old, planted blood. He said he came to this conclusion after analyzing blood patterns. Avery had a cut on his right hand at the time of the murder. Stahlke also testified at one point that he found a passive drop of Averys blood in the vehicle, meaning blood had dripped off the person who left it. The defense asked whether it was possible that someone could have dripped the blood with an eye dropper. Stahlke said that was possible. "The pattern on the dashboard is this pattern consistent with someone who could be actively bleeding on their right hand?" asked Gahn. Stahlke responded, "Yes, it is consistent with that." As to the passive drop on the passenger side door frame? "Is this type of drop consistent with being left by a person who is actively bleeding?" Stahlke responded, "Yes, it is." Averys "fresh" blood was found in a Grand Am, too Stahlke also said that Averys blood was found in Averys Grand Am on the property. Stahlke testified this blood on the gear shaft appeared fresh. He also testified that he concluded this blood came from an active bleeder, too. That, of course, begs the question: If the cops planted Averys blood in Halbachs car, why would they also plant it in Averys own Grand Am? What would that get them? Or you have the extraordinary coincidence of Avery having an actively bleeding cut in one car he owned, while cops were allegedly planting his old blood in another car owned by the victim in a way that fooled a blood spatter expert into thinking it was also from an active cut. Culhane helped convict and then exonerate Avery Youre getting the picture. The CSI in the case was very complex. Culhanes background is too. Culhane was featured mostly in the documentary for admitting she contaminated a belatedly found bullet unearthed in Averys garage with her own DNA (the bullet had Halbachs DNA, she testified). She is a more complex figure than was shown; her testimony on hair evidence helped lead to Averys wrongful conviction. However, she also performed analysis that led to his exoneration. Lenk and Colborn didnt work for the Sheriffs Department when Avery was wrongfully convicted Also, in the court files: the information that Lenk was not even on the Sheriffs Department yet when Avery was wrongfully convicted in 1985. This fact was confirmed by the Sheriff Robert Hermann, who said Lenk was hired in 1988. Andrew Colborn, the other defense accused cop, wasnt on the department then, either. Hermann said he was hired in 1992. Both were deposed in Averys civil suit, though, shortly before the murder because of a later call that indicated someone else might have done a sexual assault. Culhane testified about why the Halbach key might not have had Halbachs DNA on it The key had Averys DNA on it. It did not have Halbachs DNA on it. Internet theorists have argued this would be impossible. It was Halbachs key, so where was her DNA? However, in court, the defense asked Culhane about studies that show "that the last person who touches an item may leave the major portion of DNA thats left on there." Buting asked, "Theres still a mixture and a minor contributor as well right?" Culhane responded, "No, I would disagree with that. In some cases, yes, its very difficult. Theres no way to really predict that. If you have someone who's a good shedder and sheds a lot of DNA when they touch something, a lot of studies show that is going to be the last person is going to be the DNA you pick up. If you dont shed a lot of DNA, then you may not find anything at all." Why werent Averys fingerprints found in the Halbach car if he was actively bleeding? Stahlke said it was possible he was wearing gloves but still bled in the car. "I have no expectation to see fingerprints from somebody that is just actively bleeding," he testified. "I dont know that I have ever seen been to a scene where theres been active bleeding or passive drops in the same scene, seeing bloody foot bloody fingerprints." He said its possible Avery had gloves on but "if he is bleeding profusely, there is a possibility that the glove has a hole in it or a cut in it, and they are bleeding through the glove." There was an unexplained fingerprint on the Halbach car Michael Riddle, a fingerprint examiner with the Wisconsin State Crime Lab, testified there was a fingerprint found on the hood of Halbachs car that did not match Steven Avery. The defense asked if hed compared it to Scott Tadych, the then boyfriend of Brendan Dasseys mother. The state said it was irrelevant, and the court sustained the objection. However, Riddle said that he had compared the prints to those of Averys dad, his two brothers, his mother, Avery himself, three of the Dassey brothers, Barb Janda and Scott Bloedorn, Halbachs roommate. None of those people matched the mysterious fingerprint. In closing argument, the defense pointed the finger mostly at Bobby Dassey and Scott Tadych. Yes, its complicated. by Sen. Doug Whitsett Once again, Oregons Democratic leadership is planning a further attack on our Second Amendment rights to own and bear firearms. Legislative Concept 250 (LC 250) is scheduled to be introduced as a Judiciary Committee bill this week. It is nothing less than a major gun control act camouflaged as relating to mental health reporting. Moreover, as currently written, the proposal may violate other provisions of our Bill of Rights. LC 250 would automatically prohibit the purchase of a firearm by any person who has been reported to the Oregon State Police (OSP) Firearms Unit as experiencing a mental health emergency and posing a danger to themselves or others with a firearm. The automatic prohibition would be in force for 30 days from the time the report is made. The LC Draft requires the Firearm Unit to establish a telephone number or website where the report may be made. Those authorized to make such a report to the Firearms Unit include physicians, health care providers, licensed mental health professionals, K-12 educators and principals, college and university administrators, professors and instructors or any member of the persons immediate family. OSPs Firearms Unit would be prohibited from disclosing the identity of the reporter and the reporter would be immune from all civil liability as long as the report is made in good faith. Knowingly making a false report would be a Class A misdemeanor. The firearm Unit is also prohibited from notifying the person that his or her ability to purchase a firearm is on hold. The only way for the person to discover he or she is prohibited from purchasing a firearm would be to attempt to purchase a firearm. The LC Draft offers the person two methods of being granted relief from the firearm purchase prohibition. Documentation from a health care provider may be obtained and offered as proof that the person is not a danger to themselves or others. The Firearms Unit is required to lift the firearm prohibition upon receipt to that documentation. The potential liability to the health care provider who makes such a determination is not addressed in the LC Draft. Alternatively, the person may file a petition for relief from the firearm purchase prohibition in circuit court upon payment of the appropriate filing fee. A copy of that petition must also be served upon the Firearms Unit. The Circuit Court must schedule a hearing for the petition within five judicial days. The person is required to prove to the court by clear and convincing evidence that he or she is not a danger to themselves or others. The judge will decide whether the relief from firearm prohibition shall be granted. The LC Draft appears to be silent on how a second or subsequent report alleging danger to themselves or others would be processed. It appears that the same or another authorized reporter would be able to simply file another report with the Firearms Unit even if a medical care provider or a judge determined that a previous report was without merit. LC 250 has an emergency clause that will prohibit any opportunity for it to be referred by the voters to decide. Both our state and federal constitutions require the prosecution to prove guilt or culpability in a court of law before sanctions or reduction of rights may be carried. As it is currently written, this proposed bill appears to require a person accused of being a danger to themselves or others to prove they are not guilty. While that level of proof is not beyond reasonable doubt, the clear and convincing level of proof required is certainly more difficult to achieve than the preponderance of evidence required in most civil procedures. Further, LC 250 appears to prohibit the person from access to virtually any remedy to the significant harm caused to them by the implementation of the proposed law. They would even be prohibited by the law from being allowed to face their accuser. Oregonians Second Amendment rights were deliberately targeted during the 2015 session with the passage of Senate Bill 941. This was allegedly done, at least partially, at the behest of former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his affiliates after they provided some of the resources to fund anti-gun bills and their supporters campaigns. All indications are that Oregon Democrats will continue to do the bidding of out-of-state billionaires, regardless of how it may infringe upon citizens Constitutional rights. Oregonians would be wise to oppose this proposal, and remember all of this come November. Senator Doug Whitsett is the Republican state senator representing Senate District 28 Klamath Falls Please click here in order to read our guidelines on commenting to the blog. The Union Peace Conference, being held from January 12-16, marked the beginning of a political dialogue between the Burmese government and the countrys eight non-state armed groups who signed the controversial Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) in October 2015. The meeting was attended by over 1000 representatives from government, parliament, military, political parties, civil society organizations and international representatives. Boycotting the event were over 100 civil society organizations, in protest of ongoing conflict, and the ethnic armed groups who were not signatory to the NCA on the grounds that it was not inclusive. How to withdraw money from paypal to sri lanka About Penplusbytes www.penplusbytes.org is a registered non profit since 18th July 2001. Vision "To be the leading institution for promoting effective governance using technology in Africa". " " While the rest of Ecuador grew increasingly modern under European rule, the Shuar managed to remain isolated and remote, thanks to an uprising in 1599. Hulton Archive/ Getty Images There are very few things more strongly associated with the darkest corners of the most remote jungles than shrunken heads. Probably only cannibalism is capable of evoking more dread and discomforting imagery, yet some anthropologists still dispute whether cannibalism was ever widely practiced as a custom in any culture. There is evidence that humans have, across the globe and at different times in history, eaten other humans. Yet, these instances may have taken place during times of extreme social stress, like famine. The jury is still out on the kind of cannibalism most people assume took place among indigenous tribes. This is not the case with shrunken heads. Shrunken heads are an actuality. Ritual head shrinking is well known and widely documented -- you can visit them in museums around the world. And its practice isn't spread out across time and space: While groups from Europe, Oceana, North America and Africa have long taken the heads of enemies killed in battle, a single tribe, the Shuar, who live in a region of the Amazon basin that straddles Ecuador and Peru, are the only group known to shrink heads. They continued this practice until as recently as the 1950s. Advertisement Much of the world has long held a fearful image of the Shuar tribespeople. The idea of a person who, under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs, will drive a spear through your throat, cut your head from your body, and wear it, shrunken, is indeed fearsome. Beginning in 1599, the Shuar were one of the few groups to successfully repel and maintain freedom from colonial rule. In that year, the Shuar killed 25,000 colonists during a revolt. From then on, the tribe lived as it pleased in relative isolation from the rest of the world, warring with one another. This isolation and the Shuar's practice of creating shrunken heads -- called tsantsas -- has given them a fearsome reputation with the rest of the world. Yet, as with any culture whose practices are viewed as gruesome to most other cultures, a deeper look reveals reasons and explanations that escape first notice. The Shuar shrink the heads of their dead enemies, yes, and such a ritual deserves a deeper look. Media Report : During a stormy session at the Scottish Parliament , former top judge Lord Brian Gill - who twice refused to face a Holyrood probe on judges secret wealth, connections & links to big business - demanded MSPs close proposals to require judges to register their interests as called for in Petition PE1458: Register of Interests for members of Scotland's judiciary . Video footage of Lord Gills stormy evidence session with MSPs can be viewed here: Evidence of Lord Gill before the Scottish Parliament 10 November 2015 The proposals, backed by cross party MSPs during a debate in the Parliaments main chamber on 9 October 2014 - Debating the Judges - call for the creation of a publicly available register of judicial interests containing information on judges backgrounds, their personal wealth, undeclared earnings, business & family connections inside & outside of the legal profession, offshore investments, hospitality, details on recusals and other information routinely lodged in registers of interest across all walks of public life in the UK and around the world. Submersible remote-controlled machines are to be created that will accelerate the clean-up operation at nuclear sites such as disaster-stricken Fukushima Daiichi. When built, the technology will, for the first time, be able to assess radiation particularly neutron and gamma-ray fields - under water to check the safety and stability of material within submerged areas of nuclear sites. The technology could also be used to speed up the removal of nuclear waste from decaying storage ponds at the Sellafield Reprocessing facility in Cumbria shortening decommissioning programmes and potentially delivering significant savings for taxpayers. Led by engineers at Lancaster University, and involving colleagues at the University of Manchester, Hybrid Instruments Ltd. as well as Japanese partners, the international research project, which is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, will develop a remote-controlled vehicle that can go into these harsh submerged environments to assess radiation levels. When Fukushima was hit by huge Tsunami waves in the wake of the most powerful earthquake ever to hit Japan, the cores of three of the six reactors were damaged and had to be flooded by sea water to keep them cool to prevent more extensive damage. Nuclear fuel debris needs to be removed to enable safe decommissioning of the reactors, however it is not known how much there is, its condition and the likelihood of accidental reactions being triggered. New detection instruments developed through the project will help identify nuclear fuel and help operators to deal with it safely. Malcolm Joyce, Professor of Nuclear Engineering at Lancaster University and lead author of the research, said: "A key task is the removal of the nuclear fuel from the reactors. Once this is removed and stored safely elsewhere, radiation levels fall significantly making the plant much more safer, and cheaper, to decommission. "Our research will focus on developing a remote-operated submersible vehicle with detection instruments that will be able to identify the radioactive sources. This capability does not currently exist and it would enable clean-up of the stricken Fukushima reactors to continue." Engineers at Lancaster University have expertise in radiation detection technology and experts at the University of Manchester will concentrate of developing the remote-operated vehicle. Barry Lennox, Professor of Applied Control at the University of Manchester said: "A key challenge with the remote-operated vehicle will be to design it so that it can fit through the small access ports typically available in nuclear facilities. These ports can be less than 100 mm in diameter, which will create significant challenges." This two and a half-year international research project also involves Japanese partners, including the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, the National Maritime Research Institute of Japan and the Nagaoka University of Technology. There is potential for the resulting technology to also be used by the oil and gas sector for assessment of naturally-occurring radioactive material in offshore fields. Professor Philip Nelson, Chief Executive of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, said: "The disaster at Fukushima has created massive challenges for Japan, the safe removal of the fuel rods from the site is just one, but it is a critical step in decommissioning the plant and its material. This EPSRC-funded research will provide the authorities with the tools to assess the site and prepare for removal. EPSRC is proud to be assisting this international project." Explore further French group to help Japan dismantle nuclear reactors Machimosaurus rex had bullet-shaped teeth shaped with blunt tips and wrinkles, thought to have been used to crush carapaces of marine turtles. Credit: Davide Bonadonna A five-foot-long skull discovered in war-torn Tunisia has led to the identification of a new species. University of Alberta PhD student Tetsuto Miyashita is among seven scientists to report the largest crocodile ever known to swim the Earth's seas. Named Machimosaurus rex, the new species was the largest and the last survivor of crocodiles that lived in oceans during the dinosaur age. The crocodile's skull was more than five feet long, with its total body measuring about 35 feet. With a body length of about 35 feet, Machimosaurus rex was larger than any other known crocodiles known from oceans of the dinosaur age. Machimosaurus had bullet-shaped teeth shaped with blunt tips and wrinkles, thought to have been used to crush carapaces of marine turtles. "These teeth weren't for cutting or piercing flesh," says Miyashita, "they were built for crushing bones." Machimosaurus rex was not only the largest but also the last of its kind. Its closest relatives lived more than 30 million years earlier in the sea that is today's England. Marine crocodiles were formidable predators during the Jurassic Period, but many of them went extinct when these habitats were lost across today's Europe. Machimosaurus rex survived in the remaining shallow sea habitat in northern Africa. In 2014, a team of Italian and Tunisian scientists unearthed the specimen from 130-million-year-old rocks some 30 miles south of Tataouine, Tunisia. "We have been digging in that area since 2011 because the rocks there are nothing like other places," says Federico Fanti, assistant professor at the University of Bologna and lead author on the study. "Globally, good fossils are rare from this age130 million years ago." Miyashita received a Skype call from Fanti after the dig and was shown a photograph of the crocodile skull in the ground. "There was a neck attached to it, and then the back, and the tail, and the limbs sticking out sideways. The whole crocodile was there," says Miyashita. Then he realized that an object that looked like a toothpick in the photo was actually a hammer. "That gave me the sense of how big this animal was," he says. "I could tell the whole length of the skull must be about my height, 5.5 feet. That's larger than the skull of T. rex." Miyashita was invited to join the dig after the first team had only managed to collect the skull. Tataouinewhere George Lucas filmed his Star Wars moviesis pinched by Libya to the east and Algeria to the west. Like Lucas's planet Tatooine in the films, it is a remote, sparsely populated desert province. Since the Arab Spring in 2012, the region's security has been unstable. The Fanti-Miyashita duo was set to return to southern Tunisia in early 2015 to retrieve the rest of the body from the ground, but political turmoil in the region derailed their plan. After being grounded in Italy for a week, Fanti and Miyashita decided to fly to Tunisia anyway. The skull from the 2014 dig greeted the two in Tunis. They had only three days to clean up the giant skull and just one day to study it. "We had to work very hard to finish what would normally take weeks of work," Miyashita recalls. "But that was enough for us to be convinced it's a new species." Fanti and Miyashita remain hopeful to dig up the rest of Machimosaurus rex someday. A series of setbacks has forced the two to postpone the next expedition several times already. Barely a week after their return from Tunis, gunmen attacked Bardo National Museum in that city, killing 22 and wounding 42. "Sometimes we are reminded that our endeavour to unlock the ancient mysteries is only possible through peace, freedom and sheer goodwill of people," Miyashita says. "We were touched by the kindness and hospitality of Tunisians when we were there. Nothing could make me happier than us working together again to get to that big monster." The new study was published in the journal Cretaceous Research. Explore further Competition may have led to new dinosaur species in Grande Prairie area Credit: Blazej Lyjak Since Edward Snowden revealed the existence of internet surveillance programmes such as XKeyScore, Prism and Tempora, there have been many discussions of digital snooping and its implications for privacy, freedom and civil rights. Public discourse has focused on the dangers of the emergence of a surveillance-industrial-complex, in which secret services, global communications corporations and private security companies collaborate. This focus has somewhat distracted public attention from another form of snooping that affects many of us in everyday life: employee surveillance. A recent ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has alerted us of the developments in this realm of surveillance: a Romanian engineer complained to the ECHR about his dismissal in light of his personal use of Yahoo Messenger on a company device during working hours. He had not just messaged professional contacts, but also his family. The ECHR rejected the complaint that the company's monitoring of the employee's communications violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects everyone's "right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence". Who's watching you work? Companies' surveillance of employees' online communication is widespread. According to a survey of 300 company recruiters, 91% of British employers check job applicants' social media profiles. Another poll showed that in the US, 66% of employers monitor their employees' internet browsing and about a third have fired workers for internet misuse. But why is there so much employee surveillance today? Companies in general tend to favour the surveillance of communications of job applicants, their workplace and staff, property, consumers and competitors in order to ensure control over the production, sale and consumption of their commodities, thereby guaranteeing the accumulation of capital. Surveillance and control are inherent features of capitalism. The key point in the ECHR's ruling is that there has been "no violation of Article 8 of the convention" because the court found "that it is not unreasonable for an employer to want to verify that the employees are completing their professional tasks during working hours". It is important to note that the ECHR's judgment was taken acknowledging that the company monitored two Yahoo Messenger accounts of the dismissed employee, one used for professional and one used for private purposes. The implication is that employers are legally allowed to monitor all employee communications during working time on company-owned devices. Always on the job The ECHR's legal judgment seems to disregard changes to working life in the digital age that do not allow us to strictly separate working and leisure time. Under the conditions of neoliberal digital capitalism, the boundaries between working and leisure time, the workplace and the home, labour and play, production and consumption, and the private and the public have become blurred and liquefied. Employees tend to also access and answer e-mails at home as well as on the way to work and back home. Many people search for job-related information on the internet out of regular working hours at home, in cafes, on the train anywhere you care to imagine. Social media profiles often have no clearly private or professional character because social media are convergence media our online contacts and communication involve people from different social contexts, including our family life and friendship groups and involve our working life, politics, civil society engagement and the rest. The general tendency is that there is a 24/7 always-on culture that benefits companies' profits and turns ever more leisure time into labour time. Given that under such conditions many employees tend to complete professional tasks out of regular working hours, it is ethically unreasonable to grant employers the legal right to monitor all employee communications on company-owned or other devices. It is also not reasonable to assume that all employees can carry around multiple privately and company-owned laptops, mobile phones and tablets that they use either for personal or professional purposes with separate private and professional social media and email accounts at clearly defined and separated times of the day in order to communicate with neatly separated groups of private and professional contacts. Need for flexibility An employee messaging a personal friend via social media on a device owned by the company he works for, using either his personal or professional ID, is taking a break from work. Given the complexity of today's economy and the emergence of flexible working times, it is feasible to assume that employees' breaks also need to be flexible. Company rules, regulations and legislation need to be brought up to date with these complexities. The unfortunate reality seems, however, to be that many employers, legislators and judiciaries assume that large parts of the day have to be seen as labour time that employers are allowed to monitor. In my view, such surveillance practices do not merely undermine the right to privacy and the right to private and family life, but also the "right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours". They furthermore advance a workplace culture of suspicion, distrust and control that harms both employees and companies. Adequate protection of workers' rights in the digital age is a key political task. It can only be achieved by strengthening existing protections at the European and global level in the interest of working people, not by undermining such rights in the interest of corporations. In the digital age, labour time continues to be a strongly contested realm of human life. Explore further European court rules employers can monitor online communication This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. A new Golden State Poll shows California voters rank dealing with water problems and strengthening the state's economy as top policy concerns facing the state. As California begins a new year and a hectic legislative session in Sacramento, a new Golden State Poll conducted by the Stanford University-based Hoover Institution finds California's voters most concerned with the ongoing drought and the state's economic recovery. "California's electorate is, in a word, adult," said Hoover Institution research fellow Bill Whalen, who follows California politics and policy. "Despite the distractions of an election year and surplus revenue to spend in Sacramento, it expects lawmakers to act responsibly and sensibly." The latest Hoover Golden State Poll, administered by the survey research firm YouGov and designed in conjunction with Stanford's Bill Lane Center for the American West, sampled 1,800 Californians (age 18 and above) statewide from Nov. 30 to Dec. 13. Among the poll's questions, voters were asked to prioritize 21 policy concerns facing the state. The top finishers were dealing with California' water problems, strengthening the state's economy, improving the job situation and balancing the state's budget. The full poll results for the survey, which has a margin of error of +/-3.31 percent for the full weighted sample, can be found here. In addition, the survey tested three items that will be debated in California in 2016: a mileage tax on automobiles, Gov. Jerry Brown's Delta water-tunnel proposal, and whether funds from the construction of California's high-speed rail should be diverted to other infrastructure projects. Results and findings The poll showed that: By a 2-to-1 margin (56 to 27 percent), voters opposed replacing the current state gasoline tax with a mileage tax. Given more information about privacy concerns associated with validating miles driven, opposition grew to 65 percent. Voters split on California Gov. Jerry Brown's push for the Delta water tunnel: 33 percent supported the governor's handling of the issue, 34 percent opposed, and 33 percent neither supported nor opposed. 51 percent of Californians would vote for a ballot measure ending high-speed rail and using the unspent money on water-storage projects. Hoover Institution research fellow Carson Bruno said, "Whether it is continuing to fund the high-speed rail, pushing forward with the Delta tunnels, revisiting how to reduce petroleum use or designing a new model for funds for transportation infrastructure maintenance, Gov. Brown and the legislature will find difficulty in convincing the public that their approach is the best." Bruno added, "While elected officials obviously have their preferred policy causes, they must not forget the priorities of those who sent them to Sacramento." Economic views As has been custom since the survey's inception, the Golden State Poll gauged Californians' financial and economic mindsets. Among the findings are the following: Asked how they've fared financially the past year, 24 percent said they're better off, 24 percent said worse off. Job mobility also yielded mixed results: 48 percent expressed some confidence in being able to make a lateral job move in California within six months, 46 percent weren't confident. "Right track/wrong track" also yielded a split verdict: 27 percent said California was better compared to a year ago, 38 percent said a little or a lot worse. The January-February issue of Eureka, a Hoover Institution publication focusing on policy and political and economic issues confronting California, was released in conjunction with the Golden State Poll. The volume centers on the culture of Sacramento's governance and how it may affect two major policy issues in 2016: transportation infrastructure funding and further action on climate change. Explore further California temporarily curbing water to spare vanishing fish This is a composite image of the lunar nearside taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in June 2009, note the presence of dark areas of maria on this side of the moon. Credit: NASA The European Space Agency's new boss elaborated Friday on his vision for a multinational research village on the Moona leading contender for a project to succeed the International Space Station. For now, it is just an ideacalled "crazy" by somebut one that Jan Woerner said was being widely discussed as the end of the ISS looms large. The broad concept is a base for lunar exploration by humans and robots, potentially a stopover for spacecraft and possibly even a mining site. "It's not to build some small houses over there and then to have a city hall and a church and whatever," said Woerner, who took over as ESA director general last July. The Moon Village would have "multiple uses and multiple users", he told journalists in Paris. "Maybe one country is more interested in science, another may be a private company interested in mining... and another may be interested to use the Moon as a stepping stone for further exploration," he explained. "This is the overall scheme, and we are now discussing of course worldwide whether there is enough interest in that to go ahead with it," said Woerner. The timing, he added, would be "post-ISS". The orbiting science station is a joint project of Europe, Canada, the United States, Japan and Russia. All members but the European Union have agreed to operate and finance the ISS to at least 2024. Liking 'crazy' Woerner insisted Friday the ISS "has its value" and said he hoped to convince member states that "ESA should continue" its involvement in the project. Europe is currently committed until 2020. As for the future, "I see the Moon Village as the ideal successor of the International Space Station for... exploration," said Woerner. "So far, there is no competitive proposal on the table." Unlike the ISS, he explained, a lunar village required no "formal decision" among countries. "It is more an understanding of many nations to go together to the Moon." What is important, however, is a discussion on the best location to settle. "Is it the far side? Is it the near side? Is it the poles?" Once a spot is chosen, said Woerner, individual countries or space agencies will decide how they want to take part in the project. Who would take part? "Russia has some lunar missions planned, so why not have them as part of the Moon Village?" asked Woerner, noting also that "the Chinese are planning some lunar missions." He also said he did not mind that some think his idea hare-brained. "The word 'crazy' is exactly something I would like," he said. "We have to think out of the box. That means new ideas." Woerner said he had mooted his idea at two space gatherings last year, in the United States and in Israel, and "I've had several organisations worldwide saying to me: 'How can we participate?'." The scheme will come up in talks with the space agencies of the US, Japan, Canada and Russia in the coming weeks, on the future of the ISS. "And we will have discussions with other countries and states worldwide," said Woerner. "We need an idea of where to go and what to do." Explore further Russia confirms will use International Space Station till 2024 2016 AFP Your horns are showing. Credit: Daderot/Wikimedia Commons Part of dinosaurs' popularity has to be their fascinating, bizarre appearance. There's the Stegosaurus with the famous row of plates down its back, the Triceratops with its giant frilled skull, and the "duck-billed" hadrosaurs with their peculiar and diverse array of crests. Palaeontologists have been trying to decipher the function of these extravagant traits for many years. The Stegosaurus plates have been described as a way to regulate body temperature and it's even been suggested that the hadrosaur crest might have been a kind of snorkel. More recently, it has become increasingly popular to see these kind of features in the same way as the enlarged fins of male Siamese fighting fish or the plumes of birds of paradise. These are best explained as traits that evolved not because they improve survival but because they improve the mating success of the bearer. My colleagues and I at Queen Mary University of London have now found what we believe to be some of the best evidence of unusual dinosaur features that were primarily used in this way. Sexual selection "Sexual selection" explains how animals can evolve features that may even reduce the bearer's survival. For example, some male birds such as widowbirds or pheasants have extraordinarily long tail feathers that require a lot of protein to grow and reduce the male bird's ability to fly. Because the females of these species choose the males with the longest tails to father their chicks, those males have the highest evolutionary fitness despite being effectively handicapped by their ornaments. Credit: Rebecca Gelerenter/QMUL We now know that sexual selection is the driving force behind the great majority of the extravagant, ornamental and showy traits that we find in the animal kingdom. This has led more and more palaeontologists to ask whether sexual selection might also be behind the apparently ornamental traits that we find in many extinct species. The problem is that it's extremely difficult to tell if a particular feature of an extinct, prehistoric animal gave it an advantage in the mating game. What's more, there are examples of apparently pointless features of animals that have turned out to have had "normal" functional roles, such as the protruding snouts of paddlefish used as sensory organs. If we just decide that anything that seems a bit strange and inexplicable on a dinosaur fossil must have arisen by sexual selection, we run the risk of misinterpreting odd-looking but functional traits in these ancient animals, and palaeontologists have avoided using sexual selection as an explanation for the evolution of extravagant traits for this reason. One thing we can do to try to work out if a feature has evolved through sexual selection is study its size compared to the rest of the animal's body. When something gets proportionally bigger as an animal gets bigger we say that it has positive allometry. Although it's by no means a universal rule, there seems to be a strong tendency for sexually selected traits, especially those that function as signals for attracting females or intimidating rivals, to be positively allometric. Positive allometry is also quite rare among traits that are not sexually selected. Measuring the allometry of these extravagant traits in dinosaurs isn't possible for many species because most extinct animals are only known from one or a few fossils. Complete specimens of dinosaurs are the exception and it's difficult to even tell males from females. One of the few species we have decent numbers of specimens of is the dinosaur Protoceratops andrewsi. This smaller relative of the famous Triceratops had a skull that elongated into a large frill. My colleagues and I were able to put together a set of 37 Protoceratops fossils ranging in size from tiny juveniles up to the largest adults. By measuring the specimens' skulls, we found that bigger Protoceratops had proportionally longer and wider frills positive allometry. What's more, larger animals seemed to have frills that spread more widely around the head whereas those of smaller animals were almost flat against the neck. Colourful animals This information strongly supports the idea that the frills of these animals, and by extension those of other related dinosaurs, were primarily a signal for other members of their species. Most likely they were associated with mating, although we can't rule out other functions such as establishing social hierarchies (the bigger the frill, the more important the dinosaur in the group). Dinosaurs are often reconstructed as plodding, grey giants. If we start to think about them as active animals with complex social lives then perhaps we should move away from this picture. If these frills were primarily used as signals, maybe they were as colourful as similar traits found on modern birds. Protoceratops had several other unusual traits that might also have been involved in signalling and either attracting mates or establishing social position. They had some surprisingly long teeth and their tail vertebrae have long processes on the top, meaning that they were high and probably conspicuous. Considering these features, we can start to imagine these dinosaurs as social, active and brightly coloured rather than the dull plodders that we are used to thinking about. Explore further First demonstration of sexual selection in dinosaurs identified This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. General Electric Co announced on Wednesday it will move its headquarters to Boston, leaving the sprawling suburban Connecticut campus it has called home over the past four decades for a technology-rich city it says better fits its ambitions as an innovation leader. Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt said GE, one of the best-known companies in corporate America, wanted to be "at the center of an ecosystem that shares our aspirations". The announcement comes three years after the $130 billion high-tech global industrial company said it began considering a new composition and location for its head-quarters, and more than seven months after the firm threatened to leave Connecticut, complaining about the state's tax environment. GE plans to initially move headquarters employees to a temporary location in Boston, starting in the summer of 2016. The full move is expected to be completed in several steps by 2018. The announcement was mourned in Connecticut, but Massachusetts officials rejoiced. "We won Powerball today here in Boston by having GE come here," Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said. "For two decades, we've had companies move out of our city. Now we have companies moving into our city." Various states competed for the company's headquarters in Fairfield. GE, which ultimately reviewed a list of 40 potential locations, said in June it was considering a move after Connecticut law-makers passed some business tax increases. The General Assembly later scaled back some of the increases after other companies voiced concerns, including Aetna Inc and the Travelers Companies Inc. Connecticut Governor Dannel P.Malloy, a Democrat, also met with GE executives and offered an incentive package in hopes of keeping the iconic headquarters in the state. Malloy acknowledged being disappointed in GE's decision and said he knows many in Connecticut share that disappointment and frustration. While Malloy said he was assured by Immelt in a phone call on Wednesday morning that GE will keep many workers in Connecticut and continue working with various suppliers in the state, the headquarters relocation is a signal Connecticut must continue trying to adapt to a changing business climate and attract and retain more employers. "You win some and you lose some, and luckily we've won more than we lost. But this hurts," Malloy said. The company employs about 5,000 people in Connecticut, including 800 at the Fairfield location. It currently employs nearly 5,000 people in Massachusetts. It was unclear how many of GE's Connecticut workers would remain in the state. Seth Martin, a GE spokesman, said the Boston location will become home to 200 corporate employees and 600 digital industrial product managers, designers and developers. He said an unspecified number of corporate employees will stay in Connecticut and be moved to GE's offices in Norwalk. A cheer went up in the Massachusetts House of Representatives on Wednesday afternoon when Speaker Robert DeLeo announced GE's decision. DeLeo earlier told reporters he was unaware of any legislation that would be required to facilitate the move. Massachusetts offered GE incentives up to $120 million through grants and other programs, while the city of Boston offered up to $25 million in property tax relief, according to the mayor's office. Additional incentives include $1 million in workforce training grants; up to $5 million for an "innovation center" to help forge relationships between GE and Massachusetts research institutions and schools; and assistance to eligible employees looking to purchase homes in Boston. Republican Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker said discussions with the company began in earnest last summer and, at one point, about 200 state and city officials were involved in the negotiations. "Keep in mind this is not the kind of decision that a company the size and scale of GE makes without spending a lot of time thinking about it," Baker said. Connecticut Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney, D-New Haven, said GE is shifting its business model away from heavy industry and financial services to technology. He said the relocation has "nothing to do with taxes or even business costs and shouldn't be seen as a referendum on Connecticut's economy". Others in Connecticut disagreed, worried the announced move will further hurt the state's reputation despite efforts to attract out-of-state companies and change the tax structure. "We've got to make the environment here more attractive. I know that that doesn't sound real sexy, but that's the reality," said Joe Brennan, CEO of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association. GE said its new headquarters will be in Boston's Seaport District, which has been undergoing a commercial construction boom in recent years. To offset the cost of the move, the company said it will sell its offices in Fairfield and at Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. United Airlines Launches Payment via Alipay Editors note I booked a ticket on an airline the other day and noticed that Alipay was now a form of payment. I was quite intrigued. Guess we will be seeing a lot more of Alipay now. United Airlines Launches Payment via Alipay to Best Serve Chinas Fast-Growing Travel Market Offers Chinas Most Trusted Payment Method to Make Online Bookings Easier Beijing, January , 2016 As Chinas fast-growing outbound travel market continues to rise, United Airlines today announced that it has joined forces with Ant Financial to offer Chinas leading online payment service Alipay on its United.com Chinese language website. Effective today, the Alipay payment function will offer more efficient and secure online payments for Uniteds customers in China. The U.S. is an increasingly popular destination for Chinese travelers, who represent the worlds top-spending and fastest-growing tourism source. With more than 2.56 million visitors from mainland China to the U.S. in 2015, an even greater increase is expected after the 2016 China-U.S. Tourism Year, a cooperative tourism initiative led by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the China National Tourism Administration to expand and shape travel between the two countries. Recognizing a growing trend of sophisticated Chinese travelers utilizing booking on international platforms and favoring independent travel over packaged tours, United Airlines launched a Chinese language website in 2010 to offer easier booking in local language and now offering local payment. Walter Dias, Uniteds managing director of Greater China & Korea, Sales said: This exciting new partnership with Ant Financials Alipay is another good example of our strong commitment as the most-friendly U.S. airline in China, as we prepare to celebrate 30 years of doing business in China in 2016. I am confident that this service enhancement will offer more Chinese consumers the chance to travel to the U.S. along with our convenient China-U.S. flight schedules and Chinese services, both on the ground and in the air. Alipay, the largest online payment platform in China with over 400 million registered users, makes purchasing flight tickets via Uniteds Chinese language website (united.com) even more convenient. Customers simply log in to Uniteds website, choose their flights, and can pay with Alipayvia debit card, credit card or their Alipay balance. Jingming Li, President of Alipay U.S., added: We are very pleased to partner with United and help them make online booking from China a hassle free experience. By enabling the option to use Chinas most trusted and secure payment system, Chinese travelers using Uniteds website can expect the safe, easy, and consistent experience they have come to expect, while avoiding any currency barriers. United has been a bridge between the U.S. and China for several decades. It has helped to promote trade and friendship, as well as exchange between people and cultures and between the two countries since 1986 and will celebrate its 30th anniversary of service between China and the U.S. in 2016. United will continue to focus on increasing awareness of its role as the most-friendly U.S. airline for Chinese travelers. United is proud to have customer-friendly products and services, both on the ground and in the air, including Chinese language-speaking customer service agents and flight attendants, as well as exquisite onboard Chinese cuisine. About Alipay Alipay is the worlds leading third-party payment platform, with over 400 million registered users and more than 200 financial institution partners. With mobile payments accounting for more than half of Alipays transactions per day, the company most recently launched Alipay 9.5 as its latest smartphone app. In addition to traditional online payment functions such as online shopping, money transfers, and utility bill payment, Alipay is expanding its applications to include wealth management services, and provides local services to over 500,000 restaurants, shops and offline merchants. As of December 2015, Alipays barcode payment is accepted in about 50,000 overseas retail stores, and tax reimbursements via Alipay are supported in 24 countries. Other payment news: For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Here are the instructions how to enable JavaScript in your web browser Heres a quick peek at what you can expect on Saturdays front page: - Well be showing our readers what the ski conditions are like on Gore Mountain. - We also have an update on the Washington County prison guard who was leaking information about a criminal investigation. - If youve been following the wild and wacky story of the Sean Penn interview with the Mexican drug lord, well tell you what he told 60 Minutes. - And if you are worried about your investments, experts says the market volatility will continue. On the local front, Features Editor Rhonda Triller will profile the new curator at The Hyde, and we have learned the location of the new Planned Parenthood offices in Queensbury. And if you are looking ahead to Sunday, well have another look at the debate over tipping waiters and waitresses. - Ken Tingley GLENS FALLS | A New York City man who police have been seeking for weeks in connection with a knifepoint home invasion at a Glens Falls home surrendered himself to officers on Friday. Jashawn J. Rotella, 25, of Queens, turned himself in at Glens Falls Police station, accompanied by lawyer Terry Kindlon. He faces felony counts of first-degree burglary and third-degree criminal possession of a weapon and misdemeanor menacing in connection with a Dec. 14 incident at a home on McDonald Street, in which he allegedly forced his way in and threatened people with a knife before he fought with someone inside. No serious injuries were reported. Police had issued a "wanted" poster online Jan. 5, seeking the public's help locating Rotella. Rotella was arraigned and sent to Warren County Jail WARRENSBURG | A Chestertown man was arrested following an altercation with another man over a sexual act with an underage girl, police said. Warren County Sheriff Officers said they were called to a disturbance on Aug. 31 at the trailhead of Hackensack Mountain. Police said the other man who was not identified witnessed the act. Following an investigation they arrested Justin E. Ackley, 28, of Friends Lake Road, and charged him with second degree criminal sexual act, a class D felony. The victim was a 14 year old girl with whom the defendant was acquainted with. The legal age for consent in New York state is 17 years old. Ackley was arraigned in Warrensburg Town Court and released on his own recognizance. He is due back in court at 9 a.m. Jan. 20. CAMBRIDGE Police have asked federal prosecutors to consider federal charges against the village public works superintendent who was arrested last week on charges of possessing child pornography. Federal child pornography charges can bring heftier prison sentences than charges filed in state court. The charges filed against Michael J. Telford, 46, can bring up to 11 years in state prison, but up to 30 years in federal prison if federal counts were pursued. Cambridge-Greenwich Police Chief George Bell said a determination on whether federal charges will be filed had not been made as of Thursday, and it may depend on what is found by an analysis of the laptop seized from Telfords home the morning of Jan. 8. Authorities discussed the matter with the U.S. Attorneys Office on Jan. 8, but had not gotten an answer on whether the agency would take the case, Bell said. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Barnett said he could not discuss the case as of Thursday. Telford, 46, faces felony counts of possessing a sexual performance by a child and promoting a sexual performance by a child and misdemeanor marijuana possession in Cambridge Village Court. Bell said an investigator from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security questioned Telford, as Bell opted not to be involved with that aspect of the investigation because of his familiarity with Telford. Bell said Telford has apparently been telling friends and family that someone else must have hacked his computer to download the material. But the chief said Telford confessed to the federal investigator who questioned him Jan. 8 that he had downloaded the pornography. Washington County District Attorney Tony Jordan said analysis of the computer by State Police was ongoing, and what that analysis finds will likely influence the U.S. Attorneys Offices interest in the case. He said investigators will also try to determine whether village property or time at work was used when illegal material was obtained. From our perspective, we are treating it as a felony in our local court, Jordan said. Prosecutors can also file charges in both state and federal court, since the crimes are violations of both state and federal law. Telford is free on bail, pending further court action. Telford has been with the village DPW for at least 18 years, and served as head of the department for nearly 10 years. He was taking paid personal leave in light of the arrest and pending disciplinary action. GLENS FALLS A year ago, with the memory of the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown and Tamir Rice still fresh, there was an urgency to the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration. Last year, there was a lot going on around the event, said Mary Gooden, president of the local chapter of the NAACP. The community has really come together. Last year, the march focused on the participation of members of law enforcement as a way to combat the black people vs. police officers theme that was overtaking the country at the time. This community, I am very proud of it, said NAACP member Lee Braggs. We have made an effort to talk about the issues. If you talk about it, progress can be made. Sundays event will be the 21st annual local celebration of Kings birthday. It will begin at 3 p.m. at City Hall with speeches, then those taking part will march to Christ Church United Methodist at 54 Bay St., where the main program will begin at 4 p.m. The event is titled, Expressing the Dream through the Arts, and will include vocal groups from Glens Falls, Queensbury and Hudson Falls high schools, with additional contributions from local students. Mezzo-soprano Gisela Montanez-Case will be featured, and there will be artwork from the World Awareness Childrens Museum. The Rev. Leonard Oates of Faith Tabernacle Baptist Church said that, while issues remain regarding police treatment of minorities, he hopes this years spotlight can shine more brightly on the students. We hear the voices of our young people in light of what Dr. King has done and where we need to go, Oates said. But we do still center on keeping alive the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King. We have not arrived. We have come a long way, but we have a long way to go. Braggs agreed, saying, There is still a lot of work to be done. We are not there yet. The Greater Glens Falls Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Choir, prepared and directed by Dr. Dexter Criss of SUNY Plattsburgh will perform as well. Criss has held one practice with the local group, and he has three more planned before Sundays concert. We are going to pull off another great chorus, said Criss, who works with the music program at Faith Tabernacle Church in Glens Falls and will also lead gospel-choir events honoring King at Plattsburgh State University and at the University of Vermont. Among the songs planned for Sundays event are Bob Dylans Passing On, Old Time Religion, and a jazz piece called Nobody but the Lord. The event is free, and the entire community is invited to attend and participate. GLENS FALLS | Democrats for Bernie Sanders will hold a rally in support of the Democratic presidential candidate at 7 p.m. Jan. 28 in the community room in the basement of Crandall Public Library in Glens Falls. A video of a Sanders speech to volunteers will be shown. Cake will be served to celebrate the birthday of an 18-year-old who will be signing a voter registration form at the rally. The rally is open to the public free of charge. Campaign volunteers will be available beginning at 5 p.m. to assist with voter registration or with signing nominating petitions to get Sanders on the ballot in the April 19 Democratic presidential primary in New York. GLENS FALLS The Adirondack Regional Chamber of Commerce is seeking a new leader, after the abrupt departure Thursday of President and CEO Peter Aust. The exit was publicized with a press release Thursday afternoon, a week after the chambers board of directors voted in new officers for 2016. I cant believe it, said Paul Bricoccoli, co-owner of the Bullpen Tavern on Glen Street and the Talk of the Town restaurant on Hudson Avenue. Peter was in for lunch yesterday and didnt say a word to me. He keeps a good secret. Greg Chanese, the chambers marketing and communications manager, said Aust submitted his resignation, effective immediately, during a board of directors meeting on Thursday. Chanese said Aust was leaving to pursue another career opportunity, although he would not disclose what that opportunity was. A press release announcing the departure included a prepared statement attributed to Aust. The ARCC is my hometown chamber and Im thrilled to have played a role in its proud history, particularly leading the celebration of its 100th anniversary in 2014, Aust said. At this point, I have accomplished much of what I set out to do when I took the job five years ago, and Im ready for some new challenges. The chamber will always be close to my heart, and I look forward to watching the organization continue to grow and evolve and make our region a great place to live, work and play for generations to come. Aust did not return several calls for comment placed to his cell phone Thursday afternoon. On Jan. 7, the chamber announced the election of Thomas Albrecht, of Hilltop Construction, as chairman of the board. Glens Falls Hospital President and CEO Diane Shugrue was elected to the position of chair-elect. Shugrue could not be reached for comment Thursday. Brian Bearor, CEO of Family YMCA of the Glens Falls Area and a member of the chambers board of directors, said he was at Thursdays board meeting, during which Aust resigned. But he would not comment on the development, saying all such communication had to come through Albrecht. Albrecht also would not comment on what Aust said at Thursdays meeting. Everybody wants to find reason behind something so sudden, Albrecht said. I cant offer any more information because this all happened in 24 hours. Weve all day been responding to putting pieces in place that we need to carry on the chamber in a successful, professional manner, and thats what were doing. Thursdays board meeting was Albrechts first as chairman, he said. He is going to take on day-to-day oversight of the chamber until a new chief can be found, he said. Bricoccoli said he has been a member of the chamber since shortly after a fire destroyed the bar, in June of 2014. But hes known Aust for a long time, he said. I certainly wish him the best of luck, he said. Hes done great things for the chamber; hes been great for us for our business. After something as traumatic as the fire, the support we got from everybody in the community, but certainly from the chamber itself, led by Peter, was awesome. Aust was named president and CEO of the chamber in December of 2010, after nearly 10 years leading the Chamber of Southern Saratoga County. He replaced Todd Shimkus, who left to take the helm of the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce. During Austs time at the chamber, the organization celebrated its 100th anniversary and launched the Adirondack Craft Beverage Trail. It also created the Adirondack Nonprofit Business Council, the Adirondack Health & Wellness Council and collaborated with the Adirondack Civic Center Coalition to privatize management of the Glens Falls Civic Center, according to a prepared statement. The ARCC has about 1,000 members, predominantly in Warren, Washington and Northern Saratoga counties. GLENS FALLS A catalyst project on South Street in downtown Glens Falls could get a second chance for state funding in a proposed consolation round for regions that did not win in Gov. Andrew Cuomos Upstate Revitalization Initiative in 2015. But in this round, which is part of Cuomos new state budget, the competition could be with another nearby city instead of other upstate regions. On one hand, it would appear that were ready to go one-on-one with that little city of Albany going forward. Were trying to get clarification, said EDC Warren County President Edward Bartholomew. The governors new budget proposal includes $200 million to fund top projects in runner-up regions that did not receive the top prize of $500 million in additional state economic development funding awarded in 2015 to three regions, state Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Basil Seggos said Thursday in a presentation at Crandall Public Library. The Capital Region Economic Development Council, which includes Warren and Washington counties, was one of the four regions that did not win. Seggos, in an interview after the presentation, said Glens Falls in general could benefit in the consolation round, without mentioning the South Street project specifically. We think that if the Legislature is willing to support us on this, we can ensure that the priority projects, many of which came out of the Glens Falls area, get the kind of funding they deserve, he said. The South Street project would undertake a mixed-use redevelopment project in collaboration with Mazzone Hospitality and the SUNY Adirondack culinary program, according to last years Capital Region application, which identified the South Street project as an immediate priority. 2015 priority projects are not necessarily synonymous with 2016 top projects, Seggos said in the interview. Its too early to say that. Its going to come back to the regional development councils to re-establish the priorities, he said. Albany also had an immediate priority project in 2015. Bartholomew said he is in contact with the governors office to get clarification of just how the funding would be decided. I believe that we may obtain some credit, he said. Theres also a question of how many within each region will qualify for that. Bartholomew said the South Street project appears poised to benefit from initiatives in Cuomos budget, one way or the other, even if it is not funded specifically through the Upstate Revitalization Initiatives second round. What theyre telling me is that there are some other rounds of funding that may relate to what were trying to do in the city of Glens Falls for any water and sewer improvements, street improvements some low-interest loans to developers, he said. The presentation in Glens Falls was part of a series of forums the governors cabinet members are making around the state to elaborate on the budget priorities Cuomo outlined Wednesday in a speech in Albany. Seggos said hes excited Cuomo proposed $300 million, to come from the general fund, for the states Environmental Protection Fund. That is an increase from $177 million in the current budget and $134 million in 2011. That is going to help us help you transform your green spaces, he said. According to Adirondack Council, an environmental group, EPF funding for land purchases and conservation easements would increase from $26.5 million to $40 million, and funding for invasive species control would increase from $5.8 million to $10 million. Farmland protection funding would increase from $15 million to $28 million, and funding for maintaining state land would increase from $18.5 million to $28 million. A new $32.5 million climate change funding category would be established. Seggos said the governors proposed breast cancer screening initiative includes funding for additional health care workers and to provide education about prostate cancer in men. He said removing state pensions from government officials convicted of a felony in relation with official duties is a priority reform for Cuomo. This is one of the core and most important reforms that we can pull off this year, he said. Seggos said Cuomos proposed family leave program would be a voluntary program that would be funded by a $1-per-pay period contribution from employees who choose to participate, not by a tax on employers. This is not on the backs of the employers, he said. On the broadcast of Gov. Andrew Cuomos State of the State/State Budget speech on Wednesday, Matt Ryan, managing editor of WMHT public televisions New York Now program was pointing out various notable legislators as they entered the auditorium. Pointing out state Assemblyman Dan Stec, R-Queensbury, who is much taller than several other legislators he walked in with, Ryan called him the gigantic Dan Stec who represents Queensbury. Full slate Matt Funiciello, who is laying groundwork for a repeat Green Party bid for Congress, said Monday he expects to formally announce his candidacy at the Warren County Green Party Gala at 5 p.m. March 12 at Gold Shade banquet hall on Warren Street in Glens Falls. He doesnt expect to be the only candidate making an announcement. We are talking about the possibility we might have a full slate of candidates, he said. That would mean Green Party opponents to state Sen. Elizabeth Little, R-Queensbury, and Assemblyman Dan Stec, R-Queensbury, in November. Cost of the gala is $20 per person. Formal attire is not required. Funiciello, a bread company and cafe owner from Hudson Falls, will run against U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Willsboro. Mike Derrick, a retired Army colonel from Peru, is seeking the Democratic nomination. Committee chair State Sen. Elizabeth Little, R-Queensbury, on Wednesday announced she has been appointed chairwoman of the Senate Housing, Construction and Community Development Committee for 2016. A new year, a new committee and a new opportunity to learn about issues, Little said in a press release. In the North Country, affordable housing has been an issue for many families, given the pressure sometimes exerted by the second-home real estate market. Little will continue to serve on the following other committees: Crime Victims, Crime and Corruption; Education; Energy and Telecommunications; Environmental Conservation; Finance; Health; and Rules. She previously was chairwoman of the Cultural Affairs, Tourism, Parks and Recreation Committee. State author, poet Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Friday announced the selection of Edmund White as state author and Yusef Komunyakaa as state poet for 2016 and 2017. These talented, inspiring writers have each made remarkable contributions to the literary community in New York, Cuomo said in a press release. Their work is a tremendous asset to us all and has served as a touchstone for many around the world. White has written more than two dozen works of fiction, memoir and criticism, including the classic novel A Boys Own Story. Komunyakaa lives in New York City and is distinguished senior poet in the Creative Writing Program at New York University. He served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War and received a Bronze Star for his work as editor and correspondent for the military newspaper Southern Cross. The Emperor of Water Clocks, his latest book of poetry, was published in October. New York State Writers Institute at University of Albany selected the state author and poet. Cuomo announced that, separately from the selections, Joseph Tusiani has been named poet laureate emeritus, recognizing his contributions to American and Italian literature. Tusiani, 92, of New York City, has published poetry in four languages: Italian, English, Latin and Apulian. Read the All Politics is Local blog on poststar.com for more updates and observations about regional politics. Hogan honored Warren County District Attorney Kate Hogan has been chosen as the New York State Bar Associations prosecutor of the year. Hogan, the countys district attorney since 2001, was chosen by a committee of attorneys as the bar association considers lawyers from around the state for its annual awards. She has received a number of other statewide honors over the years, including being chosen the states prosecutor of the year in 2012 by the New York State Prosecutors Training Institute. The bar association gives out its awards at its annual meeting each January in New York City. Hogan is to receive the award at this years meeting Jan. 27. The Bar Association would not comment on the award, pending an announcement at the annual meeting. Broome County District Attorney Gerald Mollen received the award last year. Don Lehman Deer-eating dogs Despite some complaints from supervisors, Washington County passed its annual dog quarantine Friday, requiring all dogs to be kept under control until May 1. The goal is to stop dogs from killing deer, which is easier for them to do in winter. Its the snow. The problem with the crust is the dogs can run on top of it and the deer cant, said Chairman and Argyle Supervisor Bob Henke. And the dogs do a terrible job of it. They basically eat them alive. He added that owners must keep their dogs under control either physical or voice control to protect the deer, because even good dogs will be tempted by deer. Deer have got the second strongest body odor, he said. The strongest? Porcupine. Kathleen Moore More help for Santa Pete Brock was a little concerned as he entered the last few weeks of fundraising for Operation Santa Claus last year. I had set a goal of $17,000, but it looked like we were going to come up really short, said Brock, who runs Sam's Diner on Dix Avenue in Glens Falls and is annually one of the biggest fundraisers for the event. Then the last couple weeks, people just kept pouring in with donations. Brock wound up raising more than $21,000 for Operation Santa Claus through its Small Business Challenge program, which provides coats, hats and mittens for hundreds of local children. Bill Toscano Public hearings The town of Lake George Comprehensive Plan Committee had its first public hearing earlier this month on the draft update to the plan, but if you missed that, another public hearing is planned for 6 p.m. Jan. 28. The most recent draft is available on the towns website, www.lakegeorgetown.org. Planning and Zoning Director Dan Barusch said at the last Town Board meeting that it is expected the committee will complete the draft on Jan. 28 and send it to the Town Board, recommending adoption. He said it may require county and Adirondack Park Agency review as well. Amanda May Metzger Inside the box Town Board member Marisa Muratori said at Mondays Town Board meeting the town plans to have monthly staff meetings now to go over any concerns or issues brought up by the staff. The board also set up a suggestion box that staff can use to share ideas or concerns. I understand the first suggestion in it is to move the suggestion box, Muratori said. Amanda May Metzger Ice, ice, please? The warm winter has pushed the second annual Fort Ann Ice Fishing tournament to Jan. 23, and Town Board member Gretchen Stark said the event will be canceled if there is not enough ice on Hadlock Pond by that date. The event, which includes ice-rescue demonstrations and a bonfire, will include prizes for adults and children who catch northern pike, yellow perch and black crappie. Registration is at 6 a.m. at Hadlock Inn, and the event will run from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. The entry fee is $10 for adults and free to children. Proceeds benefit Fort Ann youth programs. Bill Toscano Inventory needs to be managed and managed well, or you are going to get in recurring trouble, and lose your credibility and hard-earned conversions, whether Read more Chinese environmental authorities summoned leaders from five cities over the past two days to reprimand them for severe pollution in their jurisdictions and for illegal - and damaging - mineral explorations in nature reserves. The sessions bared sharper teeth as the central government pushes to protect the environment. The Ministry of Environmental Protection conducted the talks on Wednesday and Thursday. Among the problems, the ministry found severe damage in five national nature reserves through satellite monitoring and field investigations. The reserves are located in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region's Xilin Gol grassland, on Xiao qinling Mountain in Henan province, Helan Mountain in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, Changdao Island in Shandong province and Danxia Mountain in Guangdong province, the ministry said on Thursday. In Xiao qinling, Henan, at least 10 mining companies have worked inside the national nature reserve, leaving more than 20 million metric tons of mineral waste residue covering large areas and destroying the surrounding environment. Illegal explorations also happened on Helan Mountain, where 35 mining companies worked illegally inside the reserve. In addition, the ministry exposed three hydropower stations inside the Danxia Mountain that had failed to get environmental impact assessments, the first process before a project is approved for construction. The ministry ordered the governments to release plans to the public outlining efforts to halt illegal mineral explorations, to stop polluters and to restore the damaged environment. Officials accountable for the loose supervision and illegal projects should receive severe punishments, it said. In 2015, the ministry summoned 16 city leaders to address severe pollution problems, Chen said. Since the start of the year, inspection teams have had greater power to summon provincial leaders. Hebei province represents the first use of that power. zhengjinran@chinadaily.com.cn (China Daily 01/15/2016 page4) A few years ago, Gordon Austin, a Georgia dentist from the small town of Carrollton, about 50 miles west of Atlanta, was indicted on multiple charges stemming in part from Medicare fraud and in part for a series of incidents in which he beat patients with a dental instrument. According to several witnesses, he sometimes did not sufficiently anesthetize his patients, which led them to cry out while he was operating on them. He would them tell the patients to be quiet so they would not disturb others in his waiting room. And when patients were not quiet, it was charged, he would hit them, even children, with a dental instrument. In the end, Austin was allowed to plead guilty to the Medicare fraud charges while the charges of assault and cruelty to children were dismissed. Austin was placed on five years probation which forbade him from practicing dentistry for a period of years, except in the federal service; and paid roughly $15,000 in fines, fees and reimbursements to Medicaid. Georgia's dental board pulled his dental license; and he was pushed out of the Naval Reserves. Back in 2009, there were a spate of news stories about Austin, including a two-part newscast on the Atlanta local Fox station, which had two of Austins victims, as well as a former employee, on camera relating their experiences. Most of the news stories can now be accessed only on the Wayback Machine, and the TV program can no longer be found on the Fox stations own web site. However, back in 2009, an anonymous individual using the pseudonym GordonAustinsaCoward posted the TV series to YouTube, where it can be viewed today . Here is a transcript of the video . This fall, out of the blue, Austin, represented by a pair of lawyers from the firm of Coles Barton , filed a defamation against the anonymous poster. It is not at all clear why Austin suddenly revived his interest in the adverse story; a Carrollton lawyer to whom I spoke speculated that Austin might have retained that same firm to help him get his license back. Perhaps the suit might have been intended to exercise the right to be forgotten by pushing a compelling account of the previous charges against him out of the public eye. Apparently, Austin and his lawyers have no understanding of the Streisand effect . I became involved because Austin has subpoenaed Google to produced identifying information about the poster. Yesterday afternoon, with the assistance of Phil Malone at Stanford Law Schools IP clinic, I filed a motion to quash the subpoena , pointing out that the lawsuit that the subpoena purports to advance was filed more than five years after the statute of limitations expired. Another problem with the subpoena is that California follows the Cahill variant of the well-known Dendrite standard governing subpoenas to identify anonymous Internet users, and thus Austin will be required to show that the video contains false statements about him. In the course of investigating the case, I have tracked down a set of interviews with the victims, and although I did not receive them in time to file those with the court, I expect to have them in hand shortly for filing at the reply stage.Ordinarily, I would not take one of these subpoena cases to litigate at the trial court level in California because the law is so well settled there, but there is an aspect of the case that is more interesting. Several years ago, the California Court of Appeal ruled, in a case we handled involving a subpoena from the so-called randy rabbi, Mordecai Tendler , that Californias anti-SLAPP statute cannot be used to strike subpoenas sought in support of litigation in a different state. The California legislature responded by amending its Code of Civil Procedure to provide that, when the target of such a subpoena successfully moves to have the subpoena quashed, the court "award attorney fees. This statutory provision can help encourage lawyers to take subpoena cases as, for example, the inclusion of a special motion to quash in DCs anti-SLAPP law has encouraged lawyers to take on such motions pro bono . And equally important, it can create a disincentive for the issuance of groundless subpoenas to the California ISPs that can only be subpoenaed in California. But, so far as I have been able to determine, that statute has not yet been applied. In order to fortify the disincentive, we intend to argue that, like any other attorney fee award under the discovery rules, that the lawyer can be held responsible along with the client.I personally urged the lawyer who signed the subpoena, John Autry (whose name does not appear on his firms web site), to withdraw the subpoena. I am willing to assume that, given the nature of the legal practice described on the Coles Barton web site , their research might never have brought section 230 immunity to their attention, but Mr. Autry certainly knew that the defamation action was time-barred; he was defensive about that aspect of the case when I first spoke to him. Moreover, however much Mr. Autry might be willing to let his client proclaim his innocence whenspeaking under oath, he cannot possibly doubt that the anonymous poster had at least some reason to believe that Austin was guilty of the charges for which he was indicted, and which were described in detail during the television broadcast. I don't see how he can possibly expect to make out a prima facie case in support of his clients causes of action, and he can fairly be held responsible for not having noticed that California requires the plaintiff to present sufficient evidence to make out a prima facie case before an online poster can be outed. Thus Austins lawsuit has no realistic chance of success, and Mr. Autry can be faulted for lending his position as an officer of the court to obtain issuance of a subpoena that represents pure bullying, perhaps undertaken in the hope that the anonymous user might be unable to find and afford counsel to have it quashed in California.It is a shame that Austins lawyer was neither able to persuade his client to drop the subpoena, nor willing to withdraw his own participation in this travesty. At this point, however, it seems likely that the lawyer will have to join his client in paying a financial price for that bullying. M WAQAR..... "A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary.Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." --Albert Einstein !!! NEWS,ARTICLES,EDITORIALS,MUSIC... Ze chi pe mayeen yum da agha pukhtunistan de.....(Liberal,Progressive,Secular World.)''Secularism is not against religion; it is the message of humanity.'' Speaking at the launch of a commercial agriculture investment guide for the northern savannah ecological zone of the country in Accra, Dr. Ahmed said appropriate financing was needed to enhance the economic fortunes of the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) and that financial institutions must provide solutions tailored to both small scale and large scale commercial agriculture. He said commercial agriculture is important in the transformation of the countrys developmental agenda and the need to create business opportunities in the sector. Mr Sulley Adam, Chairman of SADA, speaking at the launch said SADA has been re-oriented to focus on its core pillars- facilitation, catalysation and co-ordination- to improve performance. Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected! Gathering at the Forum Responding to a question from some of the participants on whether the first lady is a shareholder of the embattled microfinance company, Mr. Amanafo categorically denied the assertions saying there's no registration document with the Bank of Ghana suggesting any links between the first lady and DKM Microfinance company. " Please when making comments about this issue, let's stick to the facts. There is no document in the Bank of Ghana supporting claims that the first lady, Lordina Mahama is part of the management of DKM Microfinance. There is no registration document with the first lady involved." he stressed. On when depositors who have money with DKM Microfinance will not get their investments until the all asserts of the companies and the monies refunded according to a list provided by the liquidated. Gathering at the Forum The Bank of Ghana froze the accounts of DKM Microfinance for breaching the Banking Act by collecting more deposits than their asserts can support. " We are in the process of liquidating the assets of the company. After this is done, we will do a list, through the help of a liquidator of all the customers who have to be paid. We will pay through the liquidated funds." Speaking to the gathering at a forum organized by the Bank of Ghana in Sunyani to address concerns of customers in the region, Mr. Amanfo said customers will get their monies once the assets and property of DKM and their owners are liquisdted. " It is therefore important for us to get a hold of the assets and property of the company. I will appeal to the traditional leaders and the public to help us locate them." Mr. Amanfo also hinted that it is common for culprits to try changing documentation of their properties in order to hide it. " We will appeal to the public to inform us if anyone related to these companies acquire any expensive property all of a sudden, and help us with adequate information that will help us trace it." The Head of Banking Supervision at the Bank of Ghana disclosed that DKM Microfinance had only 5.7 million Ghana Cedis in their accounts when they had collected over hundreds of millions of Cedis in deposits. Presenting awards to the winners from the Greater Accra Region, Chief Commercial Officer at ADB, Edward Ian Armah- Mensah congratulated the winners and hoped that many more will take part in the promo. Mr. Mensah urged both new and existing customers to continue participating in the promotion in order to win, noting at ADB, Everybody is a winner. To enter the promotion, customers are expected to deposit GH300 into their new or existing ADB Bank savings or current accounts and win free air time and amazing prizes ranging from mobile phones , 42, 32 inch LED Television sets and branded ADB souvenirs Our success as a bank is attributed to the strong trust our customers have in us as a truly reliable bank. Its time for us to also reward them. The deposit promo was designed to show appreciation to our customers. Also, it is to educate our customers on the need to deposit and save money in the bank An award winner, Mr. Mamudu Hamidu of the Tema branch of the bank as grateful for the kind gesture and urged other customers to also participate. Heroine cop, Luisa Fernanda Urrea from La Marina, Colombia had been called to a remote forest settlement when locals found the baby in the undergrowth. Medics say that without her maternal support, the hours-old baby might have succumbed to starvation and hypothermia. She told local media: 'I'm a new mother and I have milk and I recognised the needs that this poor little creature had.' She added: 'I think any woman would have given her nourishment in the same circumstances.' Edinora Jimenez, 59, who found the baby, said: 'I was collecting some oranges when I heard something crying. 'I thought it was a cat until I looked closer and saw that it was a baby girl.' Local police commandant, Javier Martin told how the baby was so recently born she still had part of her umbilical cord attached. He added: 'The girl had some lacerations and was suffering from hypothermia. However, she was treated quickly and is now in good health.' The infant is now being cared for by the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare, which is searching for an adoptive home. Police and health officials are also searching for the baby's birth mother, who may face attempted murder charges. But, speaking on TV3's Hot Issues, the Head of press information at the US Embassy in Ghana Daniel Fennell, said the cost of the upkeep for the two is a shared responsibility by the two countries. "We are contributing some money towards that and the government of Ghana is making all the arrangements and taking care of them. "Is that so difficult to imagine that Ghana would pay for something that is happening in Ghana? I think it is laudable we should be proud of Ghana. " It is think it is a shared expense. The government of Ghana under the constitution is responsible for the security of everything in Ghana. So they are keeping track of it; they are better at it; they are smart and we think they are doing an excellent job," he said. President John Mahama had earlier denied allegations levelled against him for taking $300 million before accepting the ex-Guantanamo detainees in Ghana. According to Mahama, "There is no monetary consideration. The US would have disclosed it. What they are saying on social media, is absolutely untrue that I collected 300 million." Family support in Ghana was lacking so he moved to Nigeria to live with an aunt. He went to school in the day and then worked until 11pm, and all weekend as a cleaner at a restaurant. One fateful day he made a humiliating mistake which ended up changing his life. He accidentally threw out a chefs sauce, the chef went ballistic, a terrible experience Elijah says. I broke down and started crying. I was crying and in the whole restaurant customers were hearing me. As I was crying I just busted out and shouted back at the chef do you think if my parents were to be alive I would even be working here at this age? When I made that statement the chef also started crying with me, Elijah recalls with a laugh. The chefs life story was similar to his own, and a long friendship was born with that chef helping and training Elijah to become a chef. I started researching and learning about it, I earned the reputation in the restaurant as a doctor in the kitchen. Its ten years since he was screamed at by that chef and during that decade his passion for the cheffing profession has grown. Elijah loves to feed people and has done so in some of Ghanas top restaurants. But, he soon found feeding those who were able to afford his carefully prepared food wasnt enough, and a chance encounter with a mentally challenged man further changed his life. Elijah met the man when on his way to work at a restaurant. The man was collecting leftovers from food vendors which he would then distribute to other mentally challenged people on the streets. Elijah started thinking about the amount of food wasted in the country. He had seen it a lot through his cheffing career. As someone who had also once struggled to eat, he felt inspired to redistribute the excess food he was seeing. He started approaching companies for donations and over the past year has been feeding those in need through his not-for-profit Food for All Ghana, which seeks to create sustainable means of nutrition for the vulnerable in society. He has a three prong approach to halting food waste and ensuring everyone gets to eat. Theres the free breakfasts and soup kitchens which make use of donated foods, a farming programme designed to help the vulnerable help themselves through sustainable crop and livestock farming, and thirdly, a forum for stakeholders within the food industry to combat supply inefficiencies within the food supply chain. Pulse.com.gh went along to one of Food for All Ghanas Share Your Breakfast events at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital, where oats, biscuits and milk were served to severely disabled children in the childrens wards, aside from bringing the food, Elijah and his volunteers personally help feed the children. With the supplies it has sourced, Food for All Ghana is able to feed three different wards, with patients clearly enjoying their meals. Elijah is happy to see the patients enjoy the food which he says many of us easily take for granted. What pains me is the fact its not everyday they get this food, he says. The idea for the event, which began last year and happens every weekend around Ghana, is to go to institutions and communities in Greater Accra, the Central Region, Volta Region and parts of the Eastern Region to cook a nutritious breakfast for those in need. With a team of six and a base of 120 volunteers to call on, Elijah is working to make change in his corner of the world. We believe it is a responsibility.a shared social responsibility in the sense that these people are part of our society, you cant take them out of society. They are part of society. What we should consider is money might be for individuals but resources that we have in our society is for everyone. This should especially be true for food the sustainer of life he says. We shouldn't be wasting food when there are people who really need it and that is the concept for Food for All Ghana. Like when he talks about food, helping the vulnerable makes Elijah beam. He believes it brings hope to those who are receiving it. I see it as doing what Jesus came and did because there is food sitting down somewhere, the fact [is] people are not buying the food it is going to waste. They also demanded that the Board of Directors of the Ghana Railway Company Limited be dissolved. Speaking to Accra-based TV3, General Secretary of the Railway Workers Union, Godwill Ntarmah said they will resume work on Friday, but warned that they are likely to suspend operations if the board is not dissolved. "As at today, government has managed to released funds that can easily pay for the three months salary in arrears...we have decided to start the operations of the trains from tomorrow [January 15] while waiting for the ministry of transport to work on the dissolution of the board," he said. "We are very serious about the dissolution of the board. We are appealing to the ministry of transport to take our concerns serious. We have taken the salaries, we are reciprocating by running the train from tomorrow. If the dissolution of the board does not come at the end of the month, another cause will come on board," he added. Meanwhile, the first trains are expected to leave Nsawan for Accra at 5:30am Friday and from Tema to Accra at Below is his full statement on Facebook:Good morning folks! We are just under two weeks into the new year and it is as if events in Ghana have shot off the starting blocks faster than Usain Bolt! Firstly, it was revealed, at the end of last week, that our Government had agreed to host for two years, two former detainees from the infamous Guatanamo Bay penitentiary which houses America's most dangerous military prisoners. This was an unbelievable gesture to many Ghanaians. What in the world, would make our ruling powers take such a decision? This was the question on the lips of the informed and uninformed in our society. Well, yesterday, our esteemed President in a press conference to mark the third anniversary of his assumption to the Presidency of Ghana, gave his reasons for accepting the two, deemed as terrorists by America, into our fold. President Mahama, cited moral and compassionate grounds, as well as arcane, diplomatic and top secret considerations in granting asylum to the men from the Middle East. My take on the matter is, any which way you can, Ghanaians in the main are not happy and my Government did not handle the process well, however good intentioned.The second event which also caught the headlines, was the "case of the heroic taxi driver". The media is all agog with the taxi driver who foiled an armed robbery by using his vehicle as a battering ram to push the miscreants off their motorbike as they tried to escape the crime scene. Plaudits to the taxi driver came from far and near, former President Rawlings, Vice President Amissah Arthur and Koala, the company whose employee was attacked all got in on the act in lauding the newly minted hero. I read in the papers that he has been rewarded with a new car from the aforementioned company. Our President has also promised him a house. Great largesse eh! Some amateur comedians in our midst are warning of a possible avalanche of crime fighting by taxi drivers in the hope of reaping such rewards. I join in congratulating the daring driver but believe there is an element of overkill with regards to his compensation.The third event that comes to mind is the arrest of protesting nurses and teachers in front of Flagstaff house, home of the presidency. Twenty one aggrieved Ghanaians who feel let down by the system, go on a peaceful demonstration in a security zone and are apprehended by the police, I believe they should be cautioned and let go. I say this, because all governments in Ghana brag about their great achievements in the education and health sectors, so why the hell are we not employing qualified teachers and nurses, pronto, to man all the structures we are building!Folks, Sometimes, one has to put the sweetness and light aside when it concerns this great country of ours. Rose tinted spectacles could lead you into a ditch. On a final note JDM smoked yesterday! Good on you chief! Till next time, be careful out there! What drove the camels back is when we had started engaging them on the PURC decision on electricity and water tariffs, we met once and it was an inconclusive meeting. It was adjourned to the 12 [of January] then they [government] came out with this fuel levy. It was an indirect way of telling us that look even though we are meeting with you, you can go to hell, he told Accra-based Joy FM. Foreign Affairs Minister, Hanna Tetteh had earlier indicated that the two former terror suspects do not pose any threat to Ghana's security. But, a report on the two - Mahmoud Omar Mohammed Bin Atef,36, and Khalid Shayk Mohammed, 34 compiled by the US whistle blower WikiLeaks suggests that the former inmates took active part in the operations of the terror group AI Qaeda. In an interview with Accra-based Starr FM, Foreign Affairs Minister, Hanna Tetteh said the document that was made available to Ghana during the long year discussion with the US about the two was only the assessment of the two detainees. She said the information from WikiLeaks were not part of documents made available. "I think that at this point, they are here; this other information has popped up, we are looking into it. We will have a response. Once we have a response, I will be in a better position to know what this is all about," Hanna Tetteh added. The two ex-detainees: Mahmud Umar Muhammad Bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih Al-Dhuby, arrived in Ghana on Thursday January 7, 2016 for a two-year stay as part of a deal reached between the United States of America and the Government of Ghana. According to him, the debate over whether Ghana should reject or accept the two detainees should be approached in terms of the security of the nation. Several religious bodies including the Christian Council and Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches have called on government to return the two detainees for fear they might pose a security threat. But, the National Chief Imam, Sheikh Osman Nuhu Sharubutu has urged the Muslim community and Ghanaians to accept the detainees on humanitarian grounds. He said accepting to receive and protect the two Gitmo detainees was in line with the Islamic mission of compassion and humanitarianism. "The Chief Imams position is that Ghana is known for these excellent attributes of hospitality, compassion, respect for human rights and those accolades are things that single out Ghana in the comity of nations. By receiving and protecting them, we give more credence to these attributes," Sheikh Armiyawo Shaibu, spokesperson for the National Chief Imam said. However, speaking to Accra-based Joy FM, Most Rev. Prof. Asante said religious polarization on the issue of the ex-Guantanamo Bay detainee should be avoided. I dont think we should use religion as a means of addressing this issue Security of the nation should be the prime concern of all of us. And we do not accept people just because they belong to our religion or we do not reject them just because they do not belong to our religion, but we should look at it in terms of the security of the nation. At a press conference in Accra Thursday, Campaign Manager of the party, Mr Peter Mac Manu, said they wanted President John Mahama to know that they were ready to lead a campaign to get him removed from office. However, the EC in a response to the NPP said, the five-member Panel set up to look into concerns surrounding the call for a new voter register "finds the arguments for a new register unconvincing and therefore does not recommend the replacement of the current voters register." But the NPP accused the EC of not acting as an independent body. Read below the full official response of the NPP to the refusal of the EC to compile a new voters' register for the 2016 general elections. According to her, "President Mahama did the right thing to bring the two detainees here in Ghana. I am really proud of him." She, however, questioned the flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party, Nana Akufo-Addo saying that the two detainees; Mahmud Umar Muhammad Bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih Al-Dhuby who are believed to be terrorists with low risks are not "more dangerous than Nana Akufo-Addo in anyway." But Akua Donkor speaking on Neat FM on Friday morning questioned; "If Ghanaians can live in Ghana with Akufo-Addo, why cant they live with the detainees?" The decision by government of Ghana to accept the prisoners into the country for resettlement has sparked outrage among Ghanaians. Several religious bodies including the Christian Council and Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches have called on government to return the two detainees for fear they might pose a security threat. Reports say the police have prepared a secret file containing official statements from both Cosby and his alleged victim Andrea Constand. But the most damning evidence? A hidden surveillance camera posted on Cosbys multimillion-dollar property Which means the entire attack may have been captured on videotape! Prosecutors in Pennsylvania are planning to use their secret file to put the 78-year-old comedian behind bars for good after filing and arresting him for three felony charges of aggravated indecent assault against him on December 30. According to authorities, the TV dad assaulted Constand, in 2004 while they were alone in his suburban Philadelphia mansion. He tweeted today, thanking top Nigerian celebrities such as Don Jazzy, 2 Face, Wizkid, Dbanj, Iyanya, Tekno, Harrysong, and more for signing up to perform for free at his upcoming birthday party. In two tweets, he said: "I'd like to thank @official2baba, @wizkidayo, @iamdbanj, @Iyanya, Tekno and Harrysong for signing up to perform at my birthday for free! "I also want to thank the Don, @DONJAZZY, @timayatimaya, @MAVINRECORDS and @OfficialWaje for signing on to perform for free at my birthday." Following his tweets of appreciation, Vic O had retweeted Murray Bruce's tweets before asking in reply to the tweets, if the senator had no plans of inviting him to the party. Vic O tweeted saying: "Don't you want me to perform at your birthday also.... Every song i sang was a hit from 'After Party' to 'Uche face'." The man who has been identified as 42-year-old James Onuoha, who also doubles as the landlord of the house the minor lives with her guardians, was arraigned at an Igbosere Magistrates Court on four counts of rape and indecent assault. The case was brought to public knowledge by Women Association of The Good People, a Non-Govermental Organisation, after Onuoha had allegedly gone to the house located on Samuel Amoore Street, Idowu Estate, Oke-Ira Nla, Ajah, knowing that his tenants would not be at home at the time. On meeting the girl at home with a three-year-old chil belong to the couple, Onuoha allegedly forcefully had carnal knowledge of her in the presence of the kid who later narrated the incident to the parents when the came back. Initially, when the case was reported to th police and they invited him for questioning, Onuoha refused to make himself available and it took the intervention of the management of his company before he reported at the station. In the court presided by Chief Magistrate O.A. Ogunbowale, the police prosecutor, Inspector Asu Feddy, said the offences were punishable under sections 134, 258, 135 and 137 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, Nigeria, 2011. When the charges were read to him the accused pleaded not guilty and elected summary trial. His defence counsel asked for his bail in liberal terms, arguing that the offence was bailable. Ogunbowale, therefore, admitted him to bail in the sum of N2 million with two sureties in like sum, adding that he should be remanded in the Kirikiri Prison pending the perfection of his bail. Ajisoloye whose age and residential address were not given, however, denied the two-count charge. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Ajisoloye had no legal representation in court. The prosecutor, Mrs A.B. Awosika, told the court that the accused committed the offences on Aug. 10, 2014 at Marvina Hotel in Abule-Egba, a suburb of Lagos. According to her, "The defendant proceeded to have an unlawful sexual intercourse with the victim without her consent." She said that the offences were in contravention of Sections 258 (1) and 261 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011. NAN reports that Section 258(1) states that, 'Any man who has unlawful sexual intercourse with a woman or girl, without her consent, is guilty of the offence of rape and liable to imprisonment for life.' Trust readers for always wanting some sensational stuff as they jumped on the story about how a mob in the Fadeyi area of Lagos apprehended four deadly armed robbers and beat them to a pulp before they were rescued by the police. But they later died in police custody. A police officer tried to prevent a crowd from harming his friend who happened to be a well known Internet fraudster was himself killed by a mob after he shot and killed two people. In far away Zimbabwe, the world was shocked to read about how a woman snatched another woman from her husband. Nigerian transgender, Stephanie Rose is yet to stem her hatred for God and Jesus Christ and once again, she poured some more tirade on the almighty. In case you missed them, here we go! Four armed robbers who had been apprehended after a failed attempt to rob a woman, not too far from Fadeyi bus stop, Yaba, Lagos, has reportedly died in police custody. The suspects had been severely beaten within an inch of their lives, after a mob had quickly mobilised to stop them when their robbery attempt was noticed. A thief being beaten by a mob Photo Credit: Pulse The Nation reveals that the suspects, identified as - Ahmed Fatai, Rafiu Mogaji, Godwin Uzong and Bayo Kadiri, have died following their mobbing after their failed attempt to rob a woman, at the Onipanu Police Station. They are reported to have died due to the injuries they sustained from bullet wounds and more, inflicted on them by the angry mob. A police officer attached to the Special Anti-Rpbbery Squad (SARS), of the Lagos State Police Command, Corporal Sunday David, was reportedly killed by a mob in Agege area of the state after he tried to save the life of an Internet fraudster popularly called 'Yahoo-Yahoo Boy', reports The Nation. Late Corporal Sunday David Photo Credit: Th Nation According to the report, David, also known as Iku Sunday, who was said to be a close friend of the scammer, had allegedly shot and killed two people while trying to rescue his friend and as he tried to escape with the man, the angry crowd chased after them in his new Toyota Camry car and they were caught in a traffic snarl along Salawu Street, Orile-Agege, and was shot in the head while his friend was also shot dead. Nigerian transgender, Stephanie Rose, seem not to be done yet with the castigation and insults she pours on God and His son, Jesus, at every given opportunity. The avowed God-hater who was born as a man named Dapo Adaralegbe, before he underwent surgery to become a woman, still think that God is evil, wicked and that Jesus is a fraud that never happened. Nigerian transgender, Stephanie Rose Photo Credit: Facebook Quoting copiously from the Bible, (s)he said that God is the devil himself for allowing disasters, strife and tribulations. (S)he also said that the entire story of Jesus Christ is a mere myth and retelling of other mythical man/gods that predated Jesus like Horus, Mithiras, Dionysus and Attis who were all fictional man/gods. "JESUS CHRIST NEVER HAD AN EXISTENCE AND THAT EXPLAINS WHY THE ENTIRE STORY CONTRADICT SENSE," (s)he said. A self professed lesbian from Zimbabwe, Elizabeth Moyo, has snatched a married woman, Dayton Jackson, from her husband, reports MyZimbabwe. But the affair has not gone down with Jackson's father, Ray, who has reportedly vowed to kill Moyo. Lesbians doing their things Photo Credit: Pulse She told the police: Ray Jackson who is Daytons father told my landlord that he will douse me with acid if I continued seeing his daughter. As a result, I am now scared. I live in constant fear. Jackson came to my home with her bags saying she no longer wanted to stay with her husband but she wanted to stay with me. She also brought a laptop which she had stolen from her husband. I know homosexuality is not allowed in the country but its only fair that she gets arrested as well because we are in this together, besides its something that I had no control of. I love her and she loves me as well, so I will not leave her because of her father." Two Nigerian fraudsters, Emmanuel Adanemhen, 50, and his brother-in-law Eduwu Obasuyi, 40, were jailed for 14 years for taking part in a 25 million pound Internet fraud involving victims from 55 countries. The two fraudsters Photo Credit: Pulse Dr Shehu Bawa, Director Veterinary Services, state Ministry of Agriculture, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Kano. He said 10 poultry farms had been affected, while five samples from another five farms had been sent to the National Veterinary Research Institute (NVRI), Jos, for confirmation. "At the moment, we have 10 positive cases from 10 farms and all the affected farms have been depopulated, Bawa said. He said the department would continue with the disinfection activities to prevent further spread of the disease. He, however, advised farm owners to continue to practice bio-security effectively to ensure adequate protection of their farms. He said the state government had directed security agencies to arrested anyone caught selling infected birds. This was revealed by Dr Alex Gasasira, the WHO Representative in Liberia. Leadership Newspapers, reports that Dr Margaret Chan, the WHO Director-General, in a statement said But our work is not done and vigilance is necessary to prevent new outbreaks. Adding that To date, 10 such flare-ups have been identified that were not part of the original outbreak, and are likely the result of the virus persisting in survivors even after recovery. Evidence shows that the virus disappears relatively quickly from survivors, but can remain in the semen of a small number of male survivors for as long as 1 year, and in rare instances, be transmitted to intimate partners. We are now at a critical period in the Ebola epidemic as we move from managing cases and patients to managing the residual risk of new infections. The risk of re-introduction of infection is diminishing as the virus gradually clears from the survivor population, but we still anticipate more flare-ups and must be prepared for them. A massive effort is underway to ensure robust prevention, surveillance and response capacity across all three countries by the end of March, the statement said. The World Health Organisation is a specialised agency of the United Nations that is concerned with international public health. Reports say the virus was first discovered in 1969 in the town of Lassa, in Borno State. The disease is said to incubate in the body for six to twenty-one days, before an illness that affects vital organs occurs. Recently, the Plateau state Government reportedly called for support from stakeholders in its effort to eradicate Lassa fever in the state. The Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole also revealed that the disease has been recorded in 10 states across Nigeria. On Thursday, January 14, 2016, another death was recorded in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. Here are the 7 symptoms of Lassa fever you should know: 1. Nausea 2. Vomiting (bloody) 3. Diarrhea (bloody) 4. Stomach ache 5. Cough 6. Chest pain Dr Olutayo Haastrup, spokesperson of the hospital, disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Abuja. "The hospital is fully prepared, measures have been taken and as soon as we have any suspected case of Lassa, we will be proactive in handling it. "We have created isolation wards in the hospital being the apex referral centre in the FCT and all the necessary kits and facilities have been procured, Haastrup said. According to him, the hospital has trained 200 health personnel to raise more awareness on the treatment and management of the virus. He said the government will certainly look into the $49bn oil money, that was reported missing by the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido. Amaechi said Even before Sanusi and President Goodluck Jonathan began to quarrel, I had to leak that letter. Sanusi wrote that letter to the President in September, I leaked it sometime in January, and that letter was personal: Mr. President, $49bn was missing, and I got a copy of that letter. He also said Instead of the Federal Government to say we are going to address this, they began to debate with the CBN governor and Nigerians join in the debate. Oh, it is not possible. Now, they have seen that is possible. The former Rivers state Governor, was recently accused of spending N82 million on a dinner for Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka. Attaine was speaking against the backdrop of the Armed Forces Remembrance Day, celebrated on January 15. He told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Thursday that the countrys fallen heroes should be adequately remunerated to boost the morale of the officers and men of the armed forces still in active service. "If you celebrate past heroes very well and then the families of past heroes are adequately taken care of, it will become incentive. "It will give them some kind of positive feeling; it will motivate the other officers, who are still in service and even encourage those yet to join the armed forces to do the country proud. "These people have laid down their lives in the past for the survival of our country, since independence in 1960. "A lot of Nigerians died during the civil war, yet our country is not celebrating these people enough. "It is not enough for the country to roll out drums on every Jan. 15 and begin to deliver speeches that are not backed by action. "From now on let us look forward; the country should spell out what each officer stands to gain in the event of falling on the battle field; what the family will have as benefit and how they will be catered for. "These are the issues that should always agitate the mind of the Federal Government. Attaine also called on corporate organisations, the state and local governments to assist the Federal Government in boosting the welfare of the families of fallen heroes. He made the comments while addressing journalists in Enugu on Thursday, January 14, 2016, Punch reports. The People of the South-East have invested so much in Nigeria to want to pull out now. The Igbo nation is not ready for any secession now because most of us have invested so much in Nigeria as a whole and we cannot abandon our investments, Chukwuma said. We in the South-East dont want any war. We are not pushing for secession, we are not asking for sovereignty at all. I am not in support of the agitation for Biafra the pro-Biafra agitation is misguided. Those who were marching for Biafra are mostly youths who have been frustrated, so many of them have been used and dumped by politicians. They are misdirected youths who felt that was the only way to express their frustrations. They were not given proper representation by those they elected constituency offices are non-existent. The agitation for Biafra is just a camouflage, it is a protest against bad leadership. The Federal Government should not see the agitation as a rebellion we (Ndigbo) are for one Nigeria. We are committed to the unity of an undivided Nigeria, but all we ask for is equity and justice. Equity, fairness and justice should prevail. Inasmuch as they are saying that we did not vote for him (Buhari), that is a sentimental thing but we have embraced him now. The President should try as much as possible to understand that Igbos support his administration. We support his anti-corruption campaign. The Federal Government should try not to be vindictive, he added. The renewed Biafra protests are believed to have been caused by the arrest and detention of Radio Biafra boss, Nnamdi Kanu. The men, who claimed that they were farmers are not terrorists, were armed with various weapons, according to Punch. The police spokesperson for the state, Femi Joseph said that the mens defence was being investigated and would release them if they were indeed found to be farmers. We have to be completely sure that they are not members of the Boko Haram sect before we can allow them to go, Joseph said This was disclosed on Thursday, January 14, 2016, via a statement released by the acting Director of Defence Information, Brigadier General Rabe Abubakar. It reads: The Nigerian Military authorities have discovered that the Boko Haram terrorists are determined to continue letting off bombs and have resorted to masquerading as fruits and vegetable vendors wheeling Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) as groceries into crowded areas. The terrorists now hide IEDs under vegetable wares in carts and wheelbarrows and move to crowded places where they detonate them for maximum casualties. The recent terrorists attack in the North East is a case in point. Having been effectively dislodged and decimated the BH terror group has begun some systematic isolated attacks mainly on soft targets in their desperation to remain relevant. Defence Headquarters hereby advises the general public to constantly be alert to this latest terrorist tactics and to report promptly any suspicious persons or objects to the nearest security agency. While commending the general public and the media for their continuous support so far, all citizens are once again reminded that security is everybodys concern therefore, they should join hands with the security agencies to eliminate the remnant of the terrorists. A statement said a panel would be announced soon by the National Security Advisor. The decision comes after parents of the girls and the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) movement marched to the presidential villa to demand a meeting with Buhari earlier on Thursday. "I assure you that I go to bed and wake up every day with the Chibok girls on my mind," Buhari was quoted as saying in the statement after meeting some of the marchers. "Securing the Chibok girls is my responsibility. The service chiefs and heads of our security agencies will tell you that in spite of the dire financial straits that we found the country in, I continue to do my best to support their efforts in that regard." There was a global outcry and threats by Boko Haram to sell the girls. Former president Goodluck Jonathan was heavily criticised for his slow reaction and Jonathan's wife at first said she doubted the kidnapping had actually happened. READ: After nearly a month, Jonathan set up a fact-finding committee that went to Chibok to establish whether the abduction happened and how many girls were missing. Buhari's panel will have the remit to "unravel the remote and immediate circumstances leading to the kidnap of the girls by Boko Haram terrorists as well as the other events, actions and inactions that followed the incident", Thursday's statement said. BBOG has kept the memory of the incident alive with frequent marches and Nigerian newspapers keep daily track of the number of days they have been missing. Buhari said at the end of December that he was open to negotiating with Boko Haram for the return of the girls if credible representatives of the group could be identified. Boko Haram has been waging a six-year insurgency to establish an Islamist state in the northeast of Africa's biggest economy and pledged allegiance to Islamic State last year. In the second half of 2014, it took over vast swathes of territory, mainly in Borno state where Chibok is located. Nigerian troops recaptured most of it with the help of forces from Chad, Niger and Cameroon, who themselves were increasingly being targeted by the Islamists. Speaking to newsmen on Thursday, Jan. 14, at the national secretariat of the APC in Abuja, he said that nowhere in the world is free money given to citizens, noting Nigeria will not be an exception. He said: We also have the programme on the commission cash transfer. Though even you, the press, has said it, we wont pay N5,000 for people to be indolent. No country in the world would pay people to go home and sleep and collect cash. So, Nigeria would not be an exception. We will pay some people N5,000, we will pay some N10,000, and even for people in teacher conversion scheme, we will pay more than N10,000 and N15,000 as stipend while in training, and then after the training, they are going to be employed by state government and the Federal Government in different institutions. It is not a programme we shall run alone, the state governments are going to buy into it. They are going to synchronize with us. We are going to do it in synergy. He added that some of the programmes will span through Ministry of Education, Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Labour. Agriculture, because we have some agricultural universities, we will convert some people to teach the relevant agricultural science. Many, particularly in the oil sector, feared an end to the amnesty programme could trigger fresh unrest there. President Muhammadu Buhari indicated in his inaugural speech last May that he would let it expire and replace it with other investments. Buhari, a northern Muslim, defeated the incumbent Goodluck Jonathan, a southern Christian, on an anti-corruption platform in the March 2015 presidential election. His intention to end the programme has caused tensions between his administration and Delta leaders. Despite being home to Nigeria's vast oil and gas resources, the Delta states remain underdeveloped and frequent oil spills have devastated the ecosystem and local fishing communities. Instead of closing it down, the government will streamline the amnesty programme launched to give 30,000 former militants a chance to find productive work. "We're in the last phase of the amnesty to reintegrate those who have gone through various programmes and trainings, a gradual wind down," programme spokesman Owei Lakemfa said. The programme is helping about 17,000 who have finished training to set up a business or find jobs, out of which 10,000 are expected to go through this process by the end of this year. The rest will stay on until they complete their courses. The spokesman did not give an end date for the programme. For those who want to start a business, the programme will budget 2.3 million naira ($11,500) per beneficiary, providing training in running a business, renting premises and getting government permits. "For fish farming, for instance, there will be provision of a pond," said Dortimi Kester Tawari, who is running this part of the programme. "For welding, equipment will include materials to be used for the first 3-6 months." The programme is also changing how beneficiaries will receive their monthly 65,000 naira ($325) stipends, which were previously distributed through former militant leaders. You will recall that an order summoning the ex-militant warlord to appear in court on Thursday, January 14, 2016, was issued. Tompolo, while reacting to the news of his summons, denied knowledge of any court order. Counsel for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Festus Keyamo, said the anti-graft agency will apply for a bench warrant for Tompolos arrest. He said The 1st accused person has consistently, even at the point of investigations, spurned all invitations to make statement to the commission. Keyamo also said We have extended an invitation to him to come and answer charges, but like an outlaw, he put out a full page advert, saying that nobody should push him to war; in a country with laws. The judiciary will not take such nonsense from anybody in a country governed by law and that is why we are applying for a warrant for his arrest to let us know if he is an outlaw." Leadership Newspapers reports that Senator Abaribe cut the Senate President, Bukola Saraki short while he speaking, and said The matter that I refer to is what is in every newspaper today and everywhere in all the talkshows in the radio of a missing budget. Therefore Mr President, I want to bring to you attention and all my colleagues that yesterday in our closed session, this matter also came up. Adding that Some of us who are worried have been inundated by messages from our constituents who are really worried about what their fate will be in 2016, and are asking us, where is our budget? That is why Mr President, I think it is definite and it is urgent that we look into this matter. He also said that though it was not up for discussion, he was going to comment on it. His words: Because of the importance of this, I will make an exception. You know we are all part of the decision at the close session yesterday and part of that decision we are still waiting for those we have referred to carry out the assignment to come back to us. I think they will come back to us by tomorrow. I think they will come back to us by tomorrow and we will go into a closed session and finish up the report and we will be able to debate it properly. The PDP called for Buharis impeachment and the resignation of the Ministers of Finance and Budget and National Planning over the current controversy surrounding the 2016 budget proposal The APC made its comments via a statement released by National Secretary, Mai Mala Buni. It reads: The attention of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has been drawn to Thursdays comical statement credited to the acting National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Uche Secondus calling for the removal of President Muhammadu Buhari, resignation of two ministers and the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria by the National Assembly. The APC wishes to remind the PDP that Nigeria is not a Banana Republic, but a country governed by laws. It is confusing and worrisome that the PDP calls for an investigation into the budget issue and at the same time calls for the removal and resignation of the aforementioned. In both content and context, PDPs statement constitutes a distraction to the National Assembly. The APC is confident that the 8th National Assembly will not be distracted by the PDP in its new desperate plot to divert attention from the ongoing investigation into mind-boggling cases of corruption perpetuated under its defunct 16-year rule. Nigerians are still shocked and recovering from the wanton looting perpetuated in the last 16 years under the PDP. We invite the PDP to supports current efforts aimed at social, economic and institutional reforms. Confusion arose concerning the 2016 budget after it was reported missing from the National Assembly. The PDP also called on the Ministers of Finance, Budget and National Planning to resign from their positions due to the recent controversy over the 2016 budget proposal. This was contained in a statement released by the partys Acting National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus on Thursday, January 14, 2016. It reads in part: The National Working Committee of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, rose from a meeting Thursday (yesterday) charging the National Assembly to commence impeachment of President Muhammadu Buhari for the various constitutional breaches, especially the submission of two versions of the 2006 budget. The party said the National Assembly should thoroughly investigate the shameful act, including the distortion and banding of figures to accommodate their personal interest and ensure that appropriate sanctions is meted to whoever has a hand in the dubious action that has brought embarrassment to the legislative body. We sympathise with Nigerians who are seriously undergoing terrible hardship because of the now obvious inept leadership of APC despite the promise of one naira to a dollar. What hope can a government that allows its currency to break a 43-year-old record crashing to over N300 to one dollar offer and yet does not show it has clear focus of what to do? The party also urged the national assembly to thoroughly investigate the shameful act, including the distortion and banding of figures to accommodate their personal interest and ensure that appropriate sanctions is meted to whoever has a hand in the dubious action that has brought embarrassment to the legislative body. Confusion arose concerning the 2016 budget after it was reported missing from the National Assembly. Oshiomhole, while speaking at a meeting with leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Thursday, Jan. 14, revealed that Jonathan threatened to cage him after the last general elections, which luckily for him did not go in favour of the People's Democratic Party (PDP). He said: The former President, Goodluck Jonathan told our National Chairman, Chief John Odigie Oyegun to inform me that after the election, he will put me, Adams, the son of Oshiomhole in a hole and I told Chief Oyegun to inform him to dig that hole very deep because although I am short, in the course of pushing me into the hole, nobody knows who will get there first. Since he is taller than me, he needs to dig the hole deep enough so that either of us can get in. In the end, he is inside the hole and I am busy putting dust into that hole. Oshiomhole continued, In this hall, around this time last year, we held a meeting to share information about what was going on in various local governments and the specific challenges in each of those local government in order to fashion out appropriate response. Some of the statements that we shared in those meetings included threats that by June, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole would have been impeached because PDP would write results whether we liked it or not. They would overrun the House of Assembly and once the House is proclaimed in June, before the end of June, Comrade would be banished to his house in the village and from there to prison. Those who made those threats, who supervised those processes, even now in their early 90s are writing letters to explain how they shared money meant for defence. Every evil weapon they fashioned against me did not prosper and even the ones they are fashioning now will not prosper. He recalled how the APC languished in obscurity while the PDP called the shot, both at states and federal level. When we came in about 7 years ago, my party had no control even of one ward. We had no control of one local government, but today, we control wards, local, state and by the special grace of God, federal. Things have changed. The one who tamed a lion with bare hands, now with automatic weapons, no antelope can dare us in our own forest. This the latest in a series of attacks blamed on Boko Haram militants. Midjiyawa Bakari, governor of the Far North Region of Cameroon, said Muslims should be on guard at mosques to help avert the kind of attacks that have plagued Muslims attending morning prayers. READ: Suicide bomber kills at least 10 in Cameroon mosque Bakari also suggested that all prayer sessions in mosques should be divided into two, with the first group praying and the second group keeping watch. The groups would then switch. He also said unknown people should not be given access to mosques. Muslim cleric Imam Ahmidou Moustapha of Kolofata said asking a Muslim not to pray with others of their faith is contrary to their religious teachings. But he says it is an option when they are faced with terrorist acts. The group gave the advice in a statement signed by its National Coordinator, Alhaji lbrahim Abdullahi, on Thursday in llorin. The group was reacting to alleged refusal by some security men to allow Muslim women to wear the Hijab. It said in the statement that the act could lead to religious crisis. "Following President Muhammadu Buharis comment on `wearing of Hijab during the Presidential Media Chat recently, some unpatriotic Nigerians have started harassing Muslim women in some parts of the country. "There were reports of some soldiers stripping women of their Hijab in Lagos and some Muslim nurses and patients were not allowed to wear their Hijab at Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi, Lagos, the group lamented. It also noted that National Identity Card Management Commission (NIMC) in Ibadan had refused to register women wearing Hijab. The group, therefore, called on the president to direct law enforcement agencies to warn the general public to desist from threatening public peace. More than 600 women in several cities across Germany filed complaints ranging from sexual molestation to theft in attacks on the New Year's weekend and police investigations are focused on illegal migrants from North Africa as well as asylum-seekers. The incidents deepened public doubts about Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to open Germany's doors to refugees and migrants, whose numbers reached 1.1 million last year. The prosecutor's office in Cologne said on Thursday more details about the reward for helping find suspects would be communicated by the police this week. German police said they had so far been able to identify 32 people suspected of roles in the violence in Cologne, including 22 who were planning to seek asylum in Germany. But identifying perpetrators has been a challenge for police, who have been smarting from criticism that they failed to stop the attacks. The Cologne police chief has been sacked over the matter. Violence has worsened in Burundi since President Pierre Nkurunziza decided to run for a third term - a move opponents say was illegal - and won a disputed election in July. At least 439 people have been killed and 200,000 have fled. Western powers and African states fear the crisis that has so far largely followed political allegiances could spiral into a renewed ethnic conflict. Burundi's 12-year civil war, which ended in 2005, pitted an army led by the Tutsi minority against rebel groups of the Hutu majority. "The 11 December attacks against three military camps and the large-scale human rights violations that occurred in their immediate aftermath appear to have triggered new and extremely disturbing patterns of violations," Zeid said in a statement. "All the alarm signals, including the increasing ethnic dimension of the crisis, are flashing red," he said. Zeid said the United Nations had documented 13 cases of sexual violence with a pattern of security forces allegedly entering the victims' houses, separating the women and raping or gang-raping them. During the searches, police, army and Imbonerakure militia forces also arrested many young men who were later tortured, killed or taken to unknown destinations, Zeid said. The United Nations is also analysing satellite images to investigate witness reports of at least nine mass graves in and around Bujumbura, including one in a military camp, containing more than 100 bodies in total, all of them reportedly killed on December 11, 2015. Parliament is expected to vote on Jan. 26 on the proposals, which the United Nations has also criticised. In a letter to Immigration Minister Inger Stojberg, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muiznieks, said, "I have repeatedly stressed that asylum seekers and immigrants should not be considered as criminals," he wrote, in reference to proposals to detain migrants in "special circumstances". Referring to the plan to use migrants' assets to pay for their stay in Denmark, he wrote, "I believe that such a measure could amount to an infringement of the human dignity of the persons concerned." The convoy was transporting food for people displaced by insecurity in the West African state. Three soldiers were wounded and three attackers were arrested, military sources said. "While vigorously fighting back, the FAMA (Malian armed forces) killed four terrorists and wounded three," a Ministry of Defence statement said. "Armed men entered the area shooting everywhere," said Diarran Kone, the ministry spokesman. He said at least one person had been killed. Militants based in the desert north killed 20 people in an attack on a luxury hotel in the capital on Nov. 20, 2015, and kidnapped a Swiss citizen from a house in Timbuktu on Jan. 8. Tuareg separatists seized control in the north in 2012 before ceding power to Islamist militants. French-led forces drove the Islamists out of the cities a year later, but militants continue to stage attacks. The government and rebel leaders signed a peace accord in June 2014 intended to address the separatists' grievances but it is yet to be implemented in full. Obama's 2014 executive action, taken after Congress failed to pass bipartisan immigration legislation, was blocked by lower courts after Texas and 25 other Republican-governed states sued to stop it, contending he exceeded his presidential powers under the U.S. Constitution. The justices must decide whether to take up the administration's appeal of a November ruling by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld a February 2015 decision by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville, a city along the Texas border with Mexico, to halt Obama's action. Obama's executive order lifting the threat of deportation against more than 4 million illegal immigrants was directed at people with no criminal record whose children are U.S. citizens. Those eligible would be able to work legally and receive some federal benefits. States were not required to give any benefits. With some of his major legislative initiatives stymied by Republican lawmakers, the Democratic president has resorted to executive action to circumvent Congress on issues including immigration, gun control, climate policy and the Obamacare healthcare law. These steps have antagonised Republicans, who accuse him of unlawfully taking actions by executive fiat that should be the purview of Congress. U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli wrote for the administration in court papers that if the justices endorse blocking Obama's plan, it would "allow states to frustrate the federal government's enforcement of the nation's immigration laws." Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton countered in court papers by saying, "Executive agencies are not entitled to rewrite immigration laws." The recent motion filed by the state of Nevada to formally end the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository project has sparked both support and outrage among Nevadans. Yucca Mountain has been a subject of national controversy for more than 40 years since the projects environmental review process began. Exposing the dark side of social media is the topic of a NyE Communities Coalition workshop this month. Sgt. Raymond Spencer of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department will give a presentation on Internet crimes against children at the coalitions activities center from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at their 1020 East Wilson Road location on Tuesday, Jan 26. Resource Coordinator Alicia Lewis has attended previous presentations and urges parents of young children and teens to attend. She said many area children who received Christmas gifts last month will likely be accessing social networks with their new gadgets and devices. We have a new generation of kids that are just now learning about the tablets, iPads, and cell phones, she said. One of the biggest concerns about students using the Internet, is that they never know who is on the other side of that computer. They dont know if its really a 14-year-old student that maybe they just havent met, or whether its a 35-year-old man who may live in another country. Thats the biggest danger, you dont know whos on the other side of that screen. Instances of individuals using social media to lure children and teens, or commit other crimes is not uncommon in the Pahrump Valley. In 2014, Nye County Sheriffs deputies arrested a man for allegedly trying to lure a minor to have sex with him through the social media site Facebook. The man was arrested on one count of luring a child after investigators said he agreed to meet a female Facebook user who identified herself as being 14 to engage in sexual activities. Last year, a social media posting led to the arrest of a Pahrump man and woman on solicitation and prostitution charges after police responded to a Craigslist ad. Investigators said the advertisement depicted a photo of a young woman who was 18 and looking for a guy, providing sex and was always available. Lewis said Spencer will talk about some of the new apps that are very popular among children and teens. There are a lot of apps the kids are using that the parents may not be aware of, she said. I thought I was a little bit computer savvy and up to date with stuff like that, but when he did his presentation, there were several apps that I have never even heard of. To see the youth in the audience who knew all about these apps was a little alarming to me. Among some of the apps Lewis mentioned were Kik and Whisper. Kik is strictly an app, so you cannot access it through an actual computer, she said. It is strictly an app on your mobile phone and its very private. With Facebook and Twitter, you have profiles of different people and you can see common interests, but Kik is like sending a private message, so you really have no way of knowing who they are, where they are, or how to trace it. At least with Facebook you can see where they are posting from. Lewis said the Whisper app is similar. I also had never heard of that one, she said. Whisper was one that kids would log onto and it would automatically let the child know who in their area is on that app. Anyone who was not in their immediate area was not on that. And thats a little alarming as well. Additionally, Lewis said parents, such as herself, should always be aware of their childs social media activities, even if it requires the children not knowing. For me personally, there are no secrets, she said. If you are under 18 years old, you are a minor child and my responsibility and I will have their pass codes. If I find out they changed their passcodes for something they shouldnt be on, then I take it. Another thing that is recommended is for parents to actually take their kids phones at night and charge them in their own bedrooms because it gives kids the downtime where there is that no access point. Online predators aside, Lewis said Spencer will also discuss other problematic issues relating to social media. Cyber-bullying is something that is huge nowadays, she said. If you take the phone from your child at night, at least they get that eight or 10 hours where they cannot be reached or harassed or bullied. Parents really have to take charge and remember that we are parents and not friends. Additionally disturbing, according to Lewis, is whats known as sexting, where teens engage in conversations and share sexually provocative images, at times of themselves and others. Unfortunately, sexting is popular among kids today, she said. When I checked out the Whisper app to see what it was all about, a lot of it was texting, but it was in a public open forum so it wasnt just one student sending those inappropriate messages to another student. It was a whole room full of them so that should be a definite concern among parents. Lewis noted that parents who attended the last presentation should do so again this year, as the landscape of social media is always changing. Even if they did come the first time, I would highly recommend that they come again because Sgt. Spencer has to go through and update all of his information about every 3 to 4 months because its always changing, she said. I would almost be willing to bet that there will be a lot of new information on new technologies out there that he will cover. The presentation is free and no RSVP is necessary. Contact reporter Selwyn Harris at sharris@pvtimes.com. The financial straits of Nye County have affected a Beatty school trip to Washington, D.C. Funding has been requested from Nye County commissioners for 12 Beatty High School students and one chaperon to attend Close-Up Foundation, Washington, D.C. in March. Steven Sullivan is a math teacher from Beatty schools and a former graduate of Beatty High School who participated in the program when he was a student about 10 years ago. These memories and experiences I still cherish today. I still remember meeting senators Ensign and Reid to document them about issues in Nevada on Capitol Hill. I remember challenging students with different beliefs than me from across the country who also challenged my beliefs. I remember the sights I saw. I went to the National Archives and saw the Declaration of Independence to see how this country all started. And the cost that is on this country by visiting Arlington National Cemetery. I just cant say enough about the experience and fortunately for me, I was able to come back to this county and now Im an employee and a resident still in this county and I just want to keep this 30-year tradition, he said. Beatty High School students have been going on this trip since 1986. And I just want to keep that tradition alive at Beatty (High School). Its an experience these kids will never get on their own and we just hope that you will strongly consider helping us in any way you can to get us there, Sullivan said. By attending the meeting officials said they were able to get a number of verbal commitments from a number of businesses in the area. Several Beatty High School juniors and seniors are participating in the Close Up Washington, D.C. program. Close Ups high school program is a one-of-a-kind opportunity for students to experience their government in action. From visits to Washingtons famous monuments, memorials and institutions, to meetings with their Congressional delegation on Capitol Hill, Close Up students get a first-hand look at the American political system, and then consider what role they, as students, play in our democracy. Close Up is not just a tour, nor is it a series of lectures. Close Up takes what students learn in the classroom and brings it to life. Beatty High School Close Up students are requesting the sum of $12,000 ($1,000 per student) plus tuition for one adult chaperone, $1,674, for a total of $13,674 from the Nye County Board of Commissioners. This amount, combined with students personal contributions, funds from several community fundraisers, and other community donations, will assist the group of 12 juniors and seniors to participate in the government studies trip to Washington, D.C. They have selected the program week of March 27-April 2. Contact reporter Daria Sokolova at dsokolova@pvtimes.com. On Twitter: @dariasokolova77 How much, really, is two acre feet of water? That unit of measurement has been used in these pages since I arrived 16 months ago, and Im sure for decades before me. But how much, exactly is two acre feet? According to my trusty online calculator, an acre foot is roughly 326,000 liquid gallons. So right now in Pahrump, domestic well owners can pump nearly 652,000 gallons of water under state law. That is an insane amount of water that I guarantee no homeowner on or off a well in the Pahrump area uses. So how much water is two acre feet? According to the U.S. Geological Surveys Water Science School, old showers use up to 5 gallons of water per minute, while water-saving shower heads produce about 2 gallons per minute. So lets split the difference and say your shower uses 3.5 gallons per minute. If you got up, went in your shower and turned it on and didnt return until mid-May, that would use just under two acre feet. Or if you want a more proactive experiment, flush the toilet 217,000 times and you will get in the ballpark of using two acre feet. So why are we talking about this now? Because there are close to 11,000 household domestic wells in the Pahrump basin that the state would like to take conservation measures on by cutting the allocation to 0.5 acre feet and place meters on the wells. According to the state, 0.5 acre foot is less than what the average home in the Las Vegas Valley uses annually. This obviously has some domestic well owners concerned. The problem is that water is not an unlimited supply, and the state is in an unprecedented drought. In late September, there was a three-day summit and public workshop about drought and water rights in the state. And almost everyone believes there will be a intense discussion in the 2017 Legislature over state water management. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, an eight-member drought forum was created by Gov. Brian Sandoval in April to analyze Nevadas water situation and recommend ways the driest state in the nation can prepare for sustained drought. Sandoval has said he will take the forums suggestions and probably incorporate them into his offices 2017 legislative agenda. Jason King, Nevadas state water engineer, who has a lot of vocal detractors in Pahrump, is trying to wade through growing water concerns not only in Pahrump but statewide. As many domestic well owners here remember, King sought unsuccessfully for authorization to cap and meter wells in overly-taxed and distressed groundwater basins such as Pahrump. Most urban and town residents such as myself have water meters, but domestic wells in the state have remained unregulated even though they are limited to that two acre feet by the state. If you cant measure it, you cant manage it, King said late last year. Why shouldnt we know how much water were using? Some domestic well owners in Pahrump would answer him with a variety of answers ranging from personal rights to fear of setting the stage for municipal or utility control of water, to well meters would move the town a step closer to incorporation. The last two are cost-prohibitive so it really is only the personal rights issue, in my opinion. This is a discussion that will continue well into the next Legislature and beyond. But the water problems are a statewide problem, and the household domestic well owners of Pahrump may be left feeling all wet. Arnold M. Knightly is the editor of the Pahrump Valley Times. Contact him at akinghtly@pvtimes.com. On Twitter: @KnightlyGrind A Davenport man was sentenced Thursday to more than eight years in federal prison in connection with a shooting and police chase in November 2014. Leonard Fisher Jr., 25, must serve three years of supervised release once he completes his prison term. There is no parole in the federal system. Fisher pleaded guilty in September to one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm in U.S. District Court, Davenport. According to court records: About 12:18 a.m. Nov. 29, 2014, police were called to a dance club in the 1100 block of West 3rd Street for a report of shots fired. Officers who arrived to the club began to chase after a car that sped out of a nearby alley. During the chase, occupants of the vehicle threw an object our of the vehicle and hit a parked car. The chase ended at Genesis Medical Center-East Rusholme Street, Davenport. The front-seat passenger was identified as Fisher and notified police that the backseat passenger, Kevin West, 27, has been shot. Officers who helped West get out of the car saw a gun in the passenger back map pocket. Officers discovered a loaded .38-caliber handgun with an obliterated serial number, two bags of marijuana and indicia, or distinguishing marks, for Fisher, according to court documents. Fisher has prior felony convictions of possession with intent to distribute, possession of a firearm by a felon, furnishing a controlled substance to an inmate and possession of a controlled substance in a jail. Another man, Cameron Cortez Howard, 28, pleaded guilty in Scott County District Court last year in connection with the shooting and was sentenced to up to 15 years in prison. According to court documents, Howard pointed and fired at least two rounds from a .380-caliber handgun at West while in the crowded dance club. West was hit in the abdomen and back by at least two bullets. SIOUX CITY, Iowa Sen. Ted Cruz's "disastrous" position on renewable energy could cost the Texas Republican support in Iowa's first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses, GOP Gov. Terry Branstad said Thursday. Branstad also weighed in on the Democratic race for the White House, saying he expects U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders to beat national front-runner Hillary Clinton in the Feb. 1 caucuses. Branstad, who has no plans to endorse any of the Republican contenders, told the Sioux City Journal editorial board he is wary of assessing campaigns, since his guiding principle is that there should be a wide-open race. But the governor said his friend and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who won the 2008 Iowa caucuses but has been mired in low single digits in the polls this time around, could post a surprise finish on Feb.1. "Huckabee has been to all 99 counties. I think he is going to do better than people think. I could see him cutting into Cruz's support, because Cruz's position on renewable fuels is disastrous. He opposes ethanol, he opposes wind energy, and those are really important to our state; those are a lot of jobs in this state," the governor said. Branstad noted that his eldest son, Eric, is state director for America's Renewable Future, a group that has criticized Cruz, who hails from oil-rich Texas, for supporting subsidies for the petroleum industry but not ethanol and other renewable fuels. Cruz has eased his position on renewable fuels in recent days. For the first time, at a recent campaign stop in northwest Iowa, he promised to keep, through 2022, the Renewable Fuels Standard, which sets a mandate on the amount of ethanol blended in gasoline. Cruz, a first-term Texas senator has been leading most recent Iowa polls, but a Quinnipiac University survey released Monday had billionaire businessman Donald Trump on top with 31 percent, followed closely by Cruz at 29 percent. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, of Florida, was further back in third place in the 12-candidate Republican field. Polls show a tightening Democratic race in Iowa. A Public Policy Polling survey released Tuesday had Clinton leading Sanders, 46 percent to 40 percent. A Quinnipiac poll also this week had Sanders in front, 49-44. URBANDALE, Iowa Donald Trump and his campaign leaders are imploring supporters to make sure they caucus for him in a little more than two weeks, when Iowans start the process of selecting the nations next president. Trump and his Iowa campaign co-chair Tana Goertz made the pleas Friday morning to a crowd of roughly 250 people at a campaign event at Living History Farms in Urbandale. Trump frequently draws much larger crowds, but this event was held in a small space, inside the venues visitor center. Democrat Hillary Clinton drew a similarly sized crowd here in December. Trump is engaged with Ted Cruz in a close race for the Republican vote in Iowa, according to recent polls. His and Goertzs pleas Friday may have been motivated by media reports, including a piece by The New York Times, that showed the Trump campaigns grassroots organization may be lacking and some of his supporters may not turn out on caucus night. We have to win Iowa. We have to get out and go to the caucuses, Trump said Friday. The only thing the pundits say is, Maybe (Trump supporters) wont show up. And maybe they wont show up to vote. I dont know. Trump then said he thinks his supporters will turn out on caucus night and he actually will out-perform his poll numbers. I think theyre going to show up, Trump said. I have a feeling were going to actually do better than the polls are saying because theres a movement. This is actually a movement, and there is a feeling out there that is so strong, so powerful. Goertz, who was a contestant on the reality television show The Apprentice with Trump, made a similar pitch to the crowd. We know the media is saying youre not going to go out and caucus, Goertz said, pledging shortly after, Your life will change forever if you go vote for him on Feb. 1. Goertz also made an apparent attempt to assuage any fears that potential supporters may have of backing Trump in public. She explained that Republican caucus-goers submit their choice by secret ballot, which she said should ease concerns for those of you who might be a little chicken. You dont have to worry that anyones going to hear (your vote), Goertz said, adding that she cant imagine why anyone would be hesitant to support Trump publicly anyway. Trump was back in Iowa mere hours after participating in Thursday nights Republican debate in South Carolina. Trump, who said he did not sleep at all Thursday night, appeared on a cable news program early Friday morning from downtown Des Moines. At Living History Farms, he spoke for roughly a half-hour and then took questions from the crowd. Mike Lose, a former Polk County Deputy Sheriff, spoke in support of Trump ahead of the candidates appearance. Lose is paralyzed from a 2005 incident in which he was shot several times by a Mexican man whom Lose, while off duty, had pursued after witnessing the man speed through his neighborhood. Ive come out to speak on behalf of Donald on his illegal immigration stance. I was shot by an illegal alien that had been here several times in and out of the state, Lose said. Im going to do everything I can to make sure that he gets elected and takes care of us. Protestors disrupted Trumps early-morning cable news network interview, and protesters also rallied outside his event in Urbandale. Police dispersed the latter at the request of Living History Farms management, Urbandale police said. SPRINGFIELD A commission working on ways to reduce Illinois' prison population by 25 percent over the next decade has issued its first set of recommendations to Gov. Bruce Rauner. Among the 14 recommendations in its initial report are improving the collection and sharing of data among units of government, giving judges more discretion to give probation in certain lower-level felony cases and setting up a way to place terminally ill or incapacitated prisoners in home confinement or medical facilities. The Illinois State Commission on Criminal Justice and Sentencing Reform, which the first-term Republican governor created last year during his first month in office, met Wednesday in Springfield. Rauner made a brief appearance at the meeting to thank the group for its recommendations and encourage panel members to keep at it. "This is critically important work," Rauner said. "This is not partisan work. This is good government work, and this is human service work. This is helping the people of Illinois all the people of Illinois. "Everybody makes mistakes. Some people make more serious mistakes than others, but everybody deserves a second chance." The report groups recommendations under four broader goals: Ensuring the validity of sentencing and programming. Reducing prison admissions. Reducing the length of prison stays. Reducing recidivism by increasing the chances of successful re-entry into society. Some would require approval from the General Assembly, but others could be implemented through administrative action at departments the governor controls. For example, said Rodger Heaton, the commission's chairman and a former federal prosecutor, improving programs dealing with mental health, substance abuse and other issues in the prison system could be done through reallocating money within the Department of Corrections. But it also could require additional funding, which the Legislature would have to appropriate. Heaton said the group is charging forward with its work in spite of the state's budget standoff, now in its seventh month. "We're trying to look at the system under the assumption that at some point the budget impasse will be resolved and what do we need to do to move the state forward in criminal justice reform?" Heaton said. "So, while we're aware of it, it's not changing our calculus." Democratic Rep. Scott Drury of Highwood, one of several lawmakers on the panel, said that although the budget dispute has gotten a lot of the attention, the governor and the General Assembly have been able to agree on several important issues, passing measures dealing with juvenile justice and public safety. "My hope is that this commission and its recommendations are treated separately from what's going on with the budget issues," Drury said, noting that the group includes lawmakers from both parties and both chambers. He said the hope is to find consensus on the recommendations and bring them up for votes in the House and Senate. A greater concern, Drury said, is that it might be difficult to convince other lawmakers to vote on potentially controversial issues in an election year. The commission will meet in Feb. 18 in Chicago and plans to issue the second part of its recommendations later this year. MAQUOKETA, Iowa Jackson County has the only courthouse in the 7th Judicial District that does not have a full-time bailiff every day. Chief Judge Marlita Greve wants the county to change that. The 7th District includes Jackson, Scott, Clinton, Cedar and Muscatine counties. Greve has asked the county to provide a deputy or bailiff in the courthouse all day on Fridays when District Court is in session. Beginning March 1, Greve has asked that a bailiff or deputy be on duty all the days a judge or magistrate is in the courthouse, which could be three or four days a week. "I did not issue an order (to that effect)," Greve said. "I asked them (county officials) to provide the officers. I asked Chief Deputy Steve Schroeder if that was possible, and he said they could do that. There was an order issued in April 1997 which said there will be a bailiff in the courthouse on Fridays. That's never been totally followed. If we called, deputies would come." Last Friday, Sheriff Russ Kettmann served in the bailiff position and was in the courthouse all day. Kettmann said he's not sure what his department will do after March 1 to provide security, but it will do so. Funding for an armed bailiff is not in the department's budget. There have been suggestions that the bailiff be a retired officer, but Kettmann said he knows of none right now who would be interested. He said it has to be a trained person because he or she will carry a firearm. Jackson County has a security committee that has been meeting for more than a year. At the November meeting, the committee passed a resolution asking for a bailiff or deputy to be in the courthouse all day every day. Supervisor Chairman Larry "Buck" Koos is a member of the security committee. Supervisors have not acted on the resolution, and it has not been on an agenda for discussion. "We may have to hire a permanent person. We are not getting any money from the state," Koos said this week. Greve said the state took over the Clerk of Court offices in the late 1980s and that's money the county does not pay. She said the state contribution in Jackson County is for 3.5 employees and one-third of the county clerk's pay. The total is $250,000. One reason employees and the judges are concerned about security is a shooting at the courthouse last year. A man with a gun attempted to shoot then-Auditor Deb Lane. He missed and was taken down by those in the room; he ultimately shot himself. Schroeder said another incident came up at a recent security meeting concerning a drug dealer who was to be sentenced but left the courthouse and shot himself at his home. "People think he was in our custody. He was not. He had previously bonded out," Schroeder said. "At no time was he in custody or had a gun at the courthouse." Greve said she understood the circumstances of that incident. But she pointed out that Judge Nancy Tabor has said the judges can be alone in their offices in the courthouse and are concerned for their safety. Greve said a deputy brought a person involved in a domestic assault with a weapon case to Tabor's office, then left. Nothing happened, but Tabor told Greve she was uncomfortable. Greve said she asked the county to close all the courthouse entrances but one. She said she understands the county could not afford a metal detector machine, although most counties have them. "Jackson County is the top third in the state for activity in a courthouse," Greve said. "There are a significant number filings in the court. We are dealing with defendants and emotionally charged issues. You can't say it won't ever happen again." Schroeder said the committee is looking at upgrading the cameras in the courthouse. Hardware to close two of the six doors at the courthouse has been purchased but not installed, according to Koos. The doors would become emergency exits, but people could not use them to get into the courthouse. Also, a deputy had been attending the county supervisors' Tuesday meetings but has not been there for several weeks. Koos said the deputy "wasn't necessary." SPRINGFIELD Gov. Bruce Rauner on Friday took the first steps toward having an impasse declared in contract negotiations with the largest union representing state workers. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Council 31, meanwhile, rejected the idea that the talks are stalled and said it is prepared to continue negotiating. Representatives of the Republican governor and the union have been at the bargaining table for nearly a year, and each side accuses the other of refusing to budge on wages, health care costs and other issues. The nearly 40,000 state workers the union represents have been working without a contract since July. The Rauner administration on Friday filed an unfair labor practices charge against ASFCME with the Illinois Labor Relations Board and asked the board to determine whether the talks have reached an impasse. Under an agreement signed by both parties, if the board ultimately makes that determination, it could clear the way for the administration to impose its "best and final offer." In a series of interviews this week marking the first anniversary of his inauguration, Rauner touted his administration's agreements on "innovative new contracts" with 17 other unions, which together represent more than 5,000 state workers. Those deals implemented merit bonuses and froze wages for four years for many workers. He accused AFSCME of intransigence in 67 negotiating sessions. "They've rejected every proposal that we've made and very adamantly," Rauner told the Quad-City Times Springfield bureau. "They've offered no compromises from their opening position whatsoever, and they're asking for a lot in terms of raises and increases." The administration said in Friday's announcement that the union last week "refused to seriously negotiate for the 24th bargaining session in a row." But AFSCME said it has offered many counterproposals to the governor's negotiators. "It's regrettable and damaging to the public interest that the governor has chosen a confrontational path," the union said in a written statement. "Just as Gov. Rauner is holding the state budget hostage, his 'my way or no way' demands of state employees are the obstacle to a fair agreement." The administration has made "more than 200 extreme demands" during negotiations, including a four-year wage freeze, according to the union. Bob Bruno, a labor relations expert at the University of Illinois, said pushing for a declaration of impasse is a risky maneuver. "The term in chess is a gambit, a big move that comes with some risk but that can transform a series of iterative actions," he said. "So this feels to me like a gambit on the part of the governor." Rauner risks having to return to the bargaining table with an unfavorable ruling, Bruno said, and he also risks repercussions, such as a possible strike, if he succeeds and is able to impose the changes he's seeking. Proving his case will be difficult because "impasse" is a technical term in labor relations that goes beyond a simple lack of agreement, Bruno said. "It's a fairly high bar to cross," he said. Melissa Mlynski, executive director of the labor board, said her agency received the governor's charge and has begun its investigation. DES MOINES It wasnt lost on Iowa lawmakers that Gov. Terry Branstad and Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Cady doubled up on a call for criminal justice reform in their annual messages to the Legislature. Branstad used his Condition of the State speech Tuesday to urge legislators to make sure that in Iowas criminal justice system race does not play a role when punishing lawbreakers. He wants the Legislature to act on recommendations made by a bipartisan working group he appointed to research justice policy reforms. Ensuring the fundamental fairness of our system is a worthy goal, the governor said, noting taxpayer dollars may be better spent on rehabilitation rather than incarceration. On Wednesday, Cady called on lawmakers to end racial disparity in the criminal justice system and modernize the jury system. Racial disparity is a community problem requiring community solutions, he said. That puts the issue on lawmakers radar, House Justice Systems Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Gary Worthan, R-Storm Lake, said. I think were on the same page, Worthan said, but lawmakers will struggle with funding those at the rapid pace they want to advance. Business courts, drug courts and family courts are fairly labor-intensive, time-intensive, Worthan said. Family courts, for example, require judges with additional training and staff to meet with people in on a regular basis to monitor their progress and make sure they arent backsliding. So they may be on a little faster track, but we cant argue with the success these things are showing, he said. Given the success of the special courts, Rep. Todd Taylor, D-Cedar Rapids, said the state cant afford not to find funds to make changes. Theyre awesome, Taylor said. They're effective, people want them, and they deliver justice. Like Taylor, Senate Justice Systems Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Tom Courtney, D-Burlington, sees an upside not only for criminal justice, but for budgets, too. If we can get real, true sentencing reform going Iowa, we can make a lot of difference, and it will help all of our budgets and the people were trying to help, Courtney said. The question, Courtney said, is whether the governor and Cady can get buy-in from the Republican-controlled House. House Speaker Linda Upmeyer, R-Clear Lake, thinks so. I think there are many things, many things in criminal justice that the governor brought forward that we have already talked about a lot, she said during taping of Iowa Public Televisions "Iowa Press." Upmeyer appreciated Branstad raising the issues without a lot of specifics. Bringing people together to decide where we might go on this topic is the right way to approach this. Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, said its important to be smart on crime. Smart means use barbed wire and steel bars to keep dangerous people out of circulation, he said. But lower-level offenders can be helped through drug treatment and other programs whatever it takes and reintegrate those folks back into their community when they're not a danger to others. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Chip Baltimore, R-Boone, and Worthan said one challenge will be changing the attitude of lawmakers and the public about criminal justice issues, especially sentencing reform. Weve talked tough on crime and mandatory minimum sentences for years, Worthan said. Its hard to backtrack from those positions. Were going to have to bring the public along on those things. Rep. Ako Abdul-Samad, D-Des Moines, welcomed the comments by Branstad and Cady as conversation starters. The door has been opened, he said. "The question is whether we are going to take the opportunity to make real change." Technology and statistical information make it harder to ignore the racial disparities in law enforcement and the court system, Abdul-Samad said. Its no longer in the eyes of the beholder, he said. Even if lawmakers agree change needs to be made, Baltimore said it will take time, probably more than one session. Its a complex system, Baltimore said. Its not exactly something that we sit down over a cup of tea and scratch out some stuff on a napkin and all of the sudden there you go and youve solved it. Waleed Omar, an 18-year-old pre-med student at Loyola University in Chicago, recently returned from Jordan where he volunteered at the United Nations-run Zaatari refugee camp. The native of Bettendorf, Iowa, sat down with the Quad-City Times on Thursday, Jan. 14, and discussed his trip. JC: Why did you feel this need to reach out to me? WO: I feel like I havent recovered from what I saw. I feel a moral obligation to say something about it. I owe it not just to myself, but I owe it to the people I saw there to say something about it. And I owe it to the people in this community, however they see this story. Its not because Im trying to make a headline. JC: What made you want to go in the first place? WO: To be honest, I didnt know what to expect going into it. On a professional level, my dad was like, hey, this would be a good experience for you, medically speaking. So, I went with that intention, which wasnt necessarily a good thing. But while I was there, my intentions changed completely. I left there with more of an emotional attachment toward the environment I was in. I mean, its not like I didnt know about these situations, but its another thing to actually see it for yourself and see other people suffering. JC: You mention the environment. How would you describe the overall conditions at these camps? WO: I was disgusted when we arrived. They basically live in shacks. And its cold outside. Mind you that Jordan has a lot of mountains, so its not this hot, desert-like area that people may think it is. Theyre in the midst of winter and its approximately 20 to 30 degrees outside and kids are walking around barefoot. JC: I know youve visited family in Jordan several times, but Im curious how you were received this time around? WO: When we would walk in the streets, they looked at us as if they were praising us and Im just a volunteer translating. Its not like I did anything special. Dont get me wrong, I felt like I accomplished a lot during this, but like, I didnt feel like I was above them by any means. If anything, we should be treating them like royalty. I dont think I could survive this long in these conditions. Suicide would definitely cross my mind. Without question. JC: Did you ever sense any threats of terror there? WO: Not even close. What I saw as an ailing, hopeless population of people who had absolutely nothing. Even if they wanted to be terrorists they cant because they had nothing. Theres nothing to fight with. On top of that, their intentions were very beautiful. They were very good people. Very welcoming. JC: Is all this effort worth it, and would you return if you had the chance? WO: Are we doing great things? I feel like our organization is doing great things, but we can only do so much. And we need help. And I think that at the end of the day until whats going on in Syria ends, yeah, people will die, but I feel like its not our job just to create results. I left those camps and I felt awful. But, if someone asks me before I die what I did, I can say exactly this is what I did, and I did what I could. Hopefully I can go back. Gov. Bruce Rauner's first year in office isn't the "failure" that so many pundits like to call it. On the contrary, Rauner's oft-derided stubbornness has forced Springfield to face the fiscal pit into which Illinois has fallen. "Gridlock" has consumed the Capitol, they say. The Republican's "Turnaround Agenda" is stalled in a Democratic-run General Assembly. He's "failed" to get a budget passed, an indication that even the most basic function of state government has ground to a halt with Rauner at the helm. The critics miss the point. Illinois's credit rating plunges with the regularity of a sunset. Its roads crumble. Billions of dollars worth of unpaid bills continue to mount. Roughly 20 percent of the general fund goes toward keeping the pension fund solvent. Its largest city, Chicago, is nearing financial ruin. Rauner has stubbornly clung to the notion that Illinois can't afford to continue as it has, taxing and spending with no long-term goals or planning. He's lambasted a legislative leadership so cozy with special interests that operating the state takes a backseat to their party's political class. Dubbed "anti-worker," his negotiations with public unions will save the state piles of cash. And his refusal to capitulate to Illinois's largest public union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), is refreshing in a state going broke. Rauner's style isn't elegant. It's not seasoned. It's sometimes blunt and unyielding. That's typically a problem in politics. But Rauner is the exception, thanks largely to Illinois's sad condition at this point in history. Former Gov. Pat Quinn probably would have griped if the General Assembly sent yet another budget to his desk with a $4 billion deficit. Quinn would have pushed back here and there. Maybe there would be a line-item veto or two. But, ultimately, he would have signed it. Quinn would have given in to AFSCME after a few months, when the protesters got too loud and the Legislature too troublesome. Quinn would have blasted the status quo that's strangling services to pay for handouts. And then he would have maintained it. Rauner is a different sort. He's a wealthy CEO who is used to getting what he wants, observers often complain. But a little pigheadedness at the top might be just what Illinois needs right now. Frankly, Rauner has shown a greater affinity for occasional compromise than the likes of House Speaker Mike Madigan. For example, late last year, he reversed devastating cuts to the state's child care assistance program. Perhaps the prospect of Republican defectors and a possible veto-override fueled the reversal. Any cynic can see the political damage Rauner would have suffered had General Assembly Republicans rebelled. Regardless, he sat down with Senate Democrats and got the program funded. Just maybe, Rauner realized that the cuts were a counterproductive swipe that drove single mothers from the workforce. While Madigan and his ilk fight only for a busted status quo, Rauner marches for a necessary shift in paradigm. There's no budget. Illinois is still bleeding money. And almost all of Rauner's "turnaround agenda" collects dust in some committee room. But the strife that's infected Illinois precedes Rauner by decades. It's his unwillingness to cave that has forced Illinois to look into the mirror. And, in Illinois, simply gazing at the ugly reality is, at this point, an accomplishment. Apparently, the Quad-City Times editorial board has decided to ignore the responsibility of actually investigating stories before commenting on them. Your paper has refused to research just what the governor has offered during the negotiations between AFCSME and Gov. Rauner. Allow me to educate you on one huge difference with the ongoing negotiations, if I could encourage you to take your corporate pom poms away from your editorial board's ears. The unions that the governor has reached agreements with have their own insurance plans, thus health care has not been an obstacle in negotiations. The health plan that Gov. Rauner is offering includes putting state employees in the unenviable position of having one of the worst insurance plan in the nation, hands down. The governor is part of the problem here and all of your cheerleading on behalf of your corporate sponsors will not absolve him of his responsibility. Your editorial board makes the statement that state employees work for the citizens of Illinois, that is true. News flash: So does the Governor and he, along with the Legislature, bears responsibility for this mess. It certainly is not labor's fault. Your editorial further states that unions are political machines and nothing more. Actually it should be argued that newspapers like yourselves are the true political machines when you seek out avenues to pursue your own agenda without following the journalistic responsibility of fact checking. By the way, history clearly shows that unions are much more than political machines and work much harder to get the truth out than your editorial board. Gregg Johnson Not counting the news outlets or websites along the full range of accuracy and veracity, I follow multiple actual individuals' handwritten blogs. (Bot news aggregators don't thrill me.) Looking them over, many are current serving or former military and a couple are some variation of high-speed low-drag elite forces ninjas. Or cops. Or just funny as all. Because life without humor is just despair. So in other words, the same folks I trusted in the military not to wet the bed, sh*t themselves, or otherwise run around like headless Nancys, are the same folks I trust on the interwebz, for demonstrating pretty much the same trustworthiness and circumspectly responsible behavior. Color me shocked. Comments Comments are fully moderated, due to idiots and trolls. Grown up discussion here will appear just as soon as I have the time to push it through. No warning shots will be fired. If you can't maintain decorum and polite behavior, I won't toy with you, I'll squash you. If one of your comments disappears, you f**ked up. If all of them do, it's time for you to go. Disagree with the points made, on the merits, and you're good. Go after me personally, or other commenters, and your comment will never see daylight here. My tolerance for skirting the line is at absolute zero, and will remain there. Don't f**k up. Tri-State Livestock News and The Fence Post are hosting an ag-industry job fair HIRED during the Black Hills Stock Show with educational workshops for both job seekers and employers. The workshops will be held Feb. 3, 2016 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Holiday Inn Rushmore Plaza in Rapid City. HIRED consists of two one-hour workshops; "Job Seeking Education" aiming to give tips on resume writing and interviewing, and "Needing to Hire" aiming to give tips on the hiring process and how to conduct an effective interview. Presentations are scheduled by David Scarborough and Susan Dana of Black Hills State University and the South Dakota Department of Labor. The agriculture industry provides jobs for nearly one million workers annually and every operation demands a unique set of requirements, work style and identity, said Kelsey Snyder Ruzicka, HIRED director. We hope to provide the valuable tools to help find the right job or employee for unique and individual needs specific to agriculture. There will be employment vendors and job postings showcasing opportunities available in the ag-industry in a whole new way. The event is free to job seekers and on-site resume writing help will be provided by the South Dakota Department of Labor. Even the best resume can use a tune-up. Refreshments will be provided. If interested in participating as an employer or for more details and great benefits to the HIRED event, contact Ruzicka at 877-347-9109 or kesnyder@swiftcom.com for more info. QUANTICO, Va. (AFNS) | More than 650 people overflowed the U.S. Marine Memorial Chapel here Jan. 7 to mourn the loss and remember the lives of the six Airmen killed by a suicide bomber near Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, Dec. 21. The four Air Force Office of Special Investigations special agents and two security forces defenders were fatally wounded when their joint patrol was attacked by a bomber riding a motorcycle. Brig. Gen. Keith M. Givens, the OSI commander called it, "our command's darkest day." During the memorial service each of the fallen were eulogized by Givens for their bravery, patriotism and selfless sacrifice in supporting Operation Freedom's Sentinel. "What gives someone the courage to leave the confines of a defended base, travel into uncertain territory, understanding terrorists like the Taliban are lurking and dismount their armored vehicles to engage the population in order to find those terrorists intent on killing fellow Americans?" the general asked the chapel gathering. Givens said the answer lies in the armed forces' Code of Conduct. Its first article states, "I am an American, fighting in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense." "To live under this code it takes a special person, a special American," the commander said. "They lived under this code accepting their life was worth sacrificing for others ... there is no greater calling." The OSI agents killed in the attack were: Special Agent Adrianna M. Vorderbruggen, 36, of Plymouth, Minn. She was assigned to the Air Force OSI, 9th Field Investigations Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. Special Agent Michael A. Cinco, 28, of Mercedes, Texas. He was assigned to the Air Force OSI, 11th Field Investigations Squadron at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, Texas. Special Agent Peter W. Taub, 30, of Philadelphia. He was assigned to the Air Force OSI, Detachment 816 at Ellsworth AFB, S.D. Special Agent Chester J. McBride, 30, of Statesboro, Ga. He was assigned to the Air Force OSI, Detachment 405 at Maxwell AFB, Ala. The agents will be permanently remembered in the Headquarters OSI Hall of Heroes here. The total number of OSI fallen heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice in the 67-year history of the command is now 14. The two security forces defenders killed in the attack were: Tech. Sgt. Joseph G. Lemm, 45, of the Bronx, N.Y. He was assigned to the 105th Security Forces Squadron at Stewart Air National Guard Base, N.Y. Staff Sgt. Louis M. Bonacasa, 31, of Coram, NY. He was assigned to the 105th SFS, Stewart ANGB. The pair served alongside the special agents at Bagram Airfield, supporting missions outside the wire. For their ultimate sacrifice they were named honorary OSI special agents by OSI senior leadership. It marked the first time active-duty security forces or Air National Guard brethren were bestowed that title. They will also be given a permanent tribute in the OSI Hall of Heroes. Among the many distinguished visitors attending the memorial Givens introduced one in particular to be recognized. "Three other team members were significantly wounded in action (on Dec. 21). They came home and are still with us," he said. "One of those wounded heroes is with us today, Special Agent John Jackson." Jackson received a standing ovation. The Marine Memorial Chapel service was part of the healing process for OSI headquarters personnel. Many knew the fallen. One of its members, retired Special Agent Richard Miller, delivered highlights from each fallen hero's military career. Givens concluded the eulogy by saying each fallen hero, "lived a life that mattered. Many warriors have said over time what is done in life, echoes in eternity. Their service will echo in eternity." PIERRE | In the first address to a joint session of the Legislature from a South Dakota tribal leader, Cheyenne River Sioux Chairman Harold Frazier on Thursday denounced racism, applauded the governor's pursuit of Medicaid expansion and urged lawmakers to provide more funding for roads in Native American Country. State and tribal officials called the speech "historic." Leaders from other South Dakota tribes, including the Crow Creek, Lower Brule and Oglala Sioux, also attended the event, at which Frazier spoke of the difficulties tribal members face across the state. "We are born pure of heart. How we treat each other is taught and learned," Frazier said in the inaugural State of the Tribes address. "It is time we re-learned to treat each other with the respect that's deserved rather than with hatred and racism. Only then can we become nations working together for the health and welfare of our people." He asked the state to help fund county roads on the reservations, recalling that a tribal councilman had joked that driving on one felt like he was "shooting a machine gun." "We drive it every day, we live it every day, and that's what gets us by ... is humor," he said. "If you don't have that humor, you're going to have a sense of hopelessness." He lamented the suicides that have plagued South Dakota tribes and discussed efforts to fight methamphetamine use on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, including the tribe's commitment to dis-enroll and banish for life anyone convicted of dealing, making or trafficking the drug. He also noted the "health crisis" that tribes are facing and said that the often-criticized Indian Health Service has continually failed Native Americans. Frazier asked state lawmakers to consider, before they cast their votes, how proposed laws affect Native Americans in South Dakota. Tribal officials took the opportunity in front of state legislators to back the proposed expansion of Medicaid, which provides health coverage to disabled and low-income people. Frazier, who mentioned the expansion in his speech, and Crow Creek Sioux tribal Chairwoman Roxanne Sazue wore buttons saying it "makes sense for South Dakota." Oglala Sioux tribal President John Yellow Bird Steele, who spoke ahead of Frazier, called expansion a "win-win" for the state and the tribes. Gov. Dennis Daugaard has said the state's costs for expansion would have to be covered by savings in part by expanding Native Americans' access to services that are fully funded by the federal government through Medicaid. That would free funds for boosting potential enrollment by about 50,000 residents. The deal needs the backing of the federal government, the Legislature and the tribes, which are a key part of the plan. Tribal members would see more accessible and improved health care if the changes go through, according to a group Daugaard established to study expansion. Democratic Sen. Troy Heinert, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, said the address felt historic. Republican Rep. Don Haggar, who pushed to establish the "monumental" event, said he thinks it will continue. "One hundred and twenty five years, (and) we've never done it," Heinert said, "so I'd say it's pretty historic." It was a chilly Thursday afternoon with intermittent rain, but the dozens of military veterans who crowded into the back room at the downtown Rapid City Veterans of Foreign Wars headquarters had to be thinking about the weekend forecast: a low of 8 below on Saturday, a high of 8 above on Sunday. The VFW, at 420 Main St., was giving away donated boots and winter coats to veterans who otherwise might shiver through the weekend. Nearly 500 coats and jackets were piled onto tables situated in a horseshoe shape, and vets, mostly Vietnam era and older, were trying on coats that fit the predominant flannel-shirts-and-blue-jeans style. Dan Benter is 55, and he shows the physical toll of a hard life. His four years in the U.S. Army ended in 1982, but not his troubles. Traveling by bus with a group of 20 from the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Hot Springs, he came to Rapid City seeking a pair boots. He is in treatment for alcohol addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder. He has been sober for 3 months and credits the program with getting his life back on track. He joined the Army at 17, looking to explore the world outside his home town of Winner. He spent his tour in Germany during peacetime, but felt unfulfilled with a life of taking orders. When his tour expired, he left the Army and moved to Sioux Falls to start his new life. It wasn't always a happy life. He installed dry wall, then drank to blow off steam and self-medicate his pain. Poor health caught up with him; in the last 15 years, he has had four heart attacks. His body is a medical storehouse, with a pacemaker and five cardiac stents. His inability to keep a steady job or stay healthy for any long period only worsened his dependence on alcohol. After years of trying to cure his anger and alcohol problems with self-help books, he finally sought help. Sober today, he is planning on moving permanently to the Rapid City area where most of his family still lives. Benter recalled seeing Vietnam veterans being scorned by their communities when they got home, so the Thursday giveaway marked an about-face. "I think its a very good thing that communities really care," he said. "It's only right." And he was thrilled to walk away with a pair of boots. Volunteer and former state Sen. J.P. Duniphan, handing out donated cookies and coffee, said she was delighted with the turnout and the generosity of local residents. "So many people have donated coats and sweaters and hats," Duniphan said, "and it's just indicative of our community." Jim Schneider, canteen manager at the VFW, said the idea for the coat drive began as bar talk. After gathering support from other local veterans organizations, Schneider about a month ago began promoting the drive. He said he was impressed by the high quality of the donated goods, saying with a laugh, "There are coats out there that cost more than my pickup." He said that events such as Thursday's are important because they bring veterans into a system of support. Pointing to a veteran trying on a new coat, Schneider said, "He's got the sense now that someone does care." The standoff in eastern Oregon brings back bad memories for Montanans. Once again, some folks have decided that they are above the law, armed themselves and demanded that the government give them what they want even though it would be against the law. Back in 1993-94, a dozen or so Freemen in Garfield and Musselshell counties flooded local courts and county offices with bogus claims, appointed themselves justices and issued arrest warrants, offered a bounty for detention of elected local officials and threatened federal officers. The FBI ended the 81-day standoff on the foreclosed ranch near Jordan with arrests, but nobody got shot. In the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge of Oregon, about 20 people were camped in the main refuge building in the cold, high desert after marching through Burns, Ore., to demand amnesty for two ranchers convicted of deliberately burning federal grazing land. The ranchers, a father and son, distanced themselves from the marchers, and showed up to serve their court-ordered sentences. Yet, Ammon Bundy, the leader of the small, armed occupation, said he will go home when a plan is in place to turn over management of federal lands to locals. Bundy has called for the 187,000-acre refuge to be divided up among local residents. The Oregonian has reported that this federal tract brings significant money into the community as it is. According to the Oregonian, members of Bundys group are armed and have said they'll defend themselves if "attacked" by law enforcement. The Associated Press quoted Bundy saying: It is our goal to get the logger back to logging, the rancher back to ranching. But Bundy, son of the rancher who organized an armed standoff in Nevada rather than pay standard federal grazing fees, isnt a local. He traveled from Arizona where he has a small business financed with a U.S. Small Business Administration loan, a wife and six children. He is not getting anybody back to work, hes disrupting lives in at least two, small Oregon communities where schools and other public buildings were closed this week as a precaution against possible violence. The idea that certain individuals or even states are entitled to own federal lands would deprive all other Americans of property that is their birthright. Whether its Freemen setting up Justus township in Montana, or other armed, anti-government activists holed up in an Oregon wildlife refuge headquarters, this isnt the way government of the people works. U.S. citizens elect (and reject) representatives at the ballot box. We participate lawfully in government to make it responsive to our needs. The United States has prevailed for 240 years because the rule of law is respected. Bundy and companions should go home before somebody gets hurt. The public servants who staff the wildlife refuge and the residents of Burns, Ore., deserve to be left in peace. Billings (Mont.) Gazette The Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region plans to start preliminary work on a railway linking China with Iran via Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan within five years. The railway is expected to run from Xinjiang's Kashgar to Afghanistan's Herat, then go through Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and finally connect with the Iranian railway. Conducting preliminary work on the railway has been listed in the draft of the region's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) that is likely to be passed by the regional people's congress on Saturday. The central government positioned Xinjiang as the core region on the Silk Road Economic Belt, which was proposed by President Xi Jinping in 2013 and aims to revive the trade route that once connected China with Europe via Central Asian countries. Representatives of transport ministries and railway departments from the five countries signed a document on the railway in a meeting in December 2014, Xinhua News Agency reported. To better construct transportation corridors on the southern part of the economic belt, Xinjiang also began preliminary work on the China-Pakistan railway and the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, the draft said. Both railways will start at southern Xinjiang's Kashgar, which borders Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan. Kyrgyzstan and China have been discussing for many years the possibility of constructing a China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway. Xinjiang will also launch more flights connecting Central Asia, Western Asia and Europe. With 17 airports, Xinjiang currently has more airports than any other province or region. By 2020, the number of airports in the region will reach 28. Because of its strategic location, the region will build four more gas pipelines connecting eastern parts of China, one of which will transport Russian natural gas to China. The coal-rich region will continue to support China's development by transmitting electricity generated by thermal plants to other parts of the country via high-voltage power lines. By 2020, 30 million kW of electricity will be transmitted out of Xinjiang. cuijia@chinadaily.com.cn (China Daily 01/15/2016 page5) Ban on Church of Scientology appealed in Russian Supreme Court MOSCOW, January 15 (RAPSI) - The Church of Scientology Moscow filed an appeal challenging the Moscow City Courts ruling banning the organization, the courts spokesperson Ulyana Solopova told RAPSI on Friday. The appeal will be considered by Russias Supreme Court. In November, Moscow City Court Judge Mikhail Kazakov granted a motion filed by the Russian Justice Ministry and ordered the liquidation of the branch of the Church of Scientology within six months. The Justice Ministry found during an audit that the charter of the Church of Scientology Moscow runs counter to the federal law on the freedom of religion, and that the word Scientology is a registered trademark of the US Religious Technology Center. Following the audit, the ministry requested that the Moscow City Court outlaw the Church of Scientology Moscow. Dianetics and Scientology are a set of religious and philosophical ideas and practices that were put forth by L. Ron Hubbard in the US in the early 1950s. The scientific community never recognized it as science. A resolution passed in 1996 by the State Duma, the lower house of Russias parliament, classified the Church of Scientology as a destructive religious organization. The Moscow Regional Court ruled in 2012 that some of Hubbards books be included on the Federal List of Extremist Literature and prohibited from distribution in Russia. HELENA Though the buzz in Colstrip last week was over the uncertainty facing the towns coal-fired power plant posed by a federal mandate that Montana cut its carbon dioxide emissions almost in half by 2030, other forces that could shutter two of the plants units loom much larger in the near future. An interim legislative committee meets this week to talk about the Clean Power Plan and meet the governors new council that will by July make recommendations on how Montana can comply with the new federal rules. Some 630 miles away in Olympia, Wash., on Monday, that states Legislature kicks off a 60-day session during which a bill is expected to be introduced that could allow a utility in that state to close Colstrips older Units 1 and 2, possibly before 2030. The two situations involving Colstrip and the 350 jobs of the men and women who work in Units 1 and 2 are both complicated in their own right, and they are intertwined. Washington Sen. Doug Ericksen, R-Ferndale, is chair of that states Senate Energy, Environment and Telecommunications Committee. He said theres draft legislation that would allow Puget Sound Energy to purchase a bigger stake in Colstrips newer units, 3 and 4, something the utility is prohibited to do by Washington law. If the utility wants to shut down Units 1 and 2 it owns 50 percent of each it would need power from somewhere else, like Unit 3, to meet the demand of its 500,000 customers. Thats one scenario of the draft legislation passing, though Ericksen said there are other possible results like the utility continuing to run the older units and selling that electricity on the open market. There are a lot of different options out there, he said. Its difficult to say right now. There are a lot of moving pieces. Montana legislators have been invited to a hearing of his energy committee this session, he said. Plans also are being made to set up a weekly conference call with Montana lawmakers and people who live in Colstrip. There are a lot of moving pieces on down to the state level, so we are going to be looking for solutions that can protect the long-term energy future for Montana and Washington and protect jobs in both states. Ericksen said his concern is to protect Washington ratepayers by making sure utilities have access to a reliable, cost-effective energy grid. He isnt sure what sort of outcome to expect if the legislation is heard in his committee. In this hyper-politically charged atmosphere of 2016, I have great concerns about this, he said. Back in Colstrip Last week Montana Gov. Steve Bullock announced his Clean Power Plan Advisory Council from Colstrip City Hall. The meaning of that location, just blocks from the stacks of the the coal-fired power plant that cast a long shadow over town, wasnt lost on state Sen. Duane Ankney, R-Colstrip. Ankney praised Bullock for announcing the council, which has been criticized as not having enough clean-energy advocates, in the house that coal built. Well, someday is Ankneys response to the question of whether the older Colstrip units will be phased out. But I dont think thats in the near future. Ankney has been in contact with Washington lawmakers to stay on top of their plans. Montana lawmakers brought four of their counterparts in Washington to tour the older units in Colstrip the week before Thanksgiving. The information they were given out there in Washington is these plants were ready to fall apart, Ankney said. They were astounded at the condition of these plants, how clean they were. One Washington staffer was worried about her asthma, but didnt have any trouble during the tour. She did that whole thing and it never affected her a bit, Ankney said. For her to go back to Washington and say These things are clean. We had a very good meeting with them, we have a very good rapport. Ankney is on Bullocks council. He wants to see that group work to keep the plant open in both the near and more distant future. My goal is to pursue different avenues that will keep these plants moving, he said. If theres technology, is there a way that we can get some type of help to put measures on these plants, whether its additives in the coal, whatever it is, to get them cleaner-burning. Utility regulators investigate In June, Washington states Utilities and Transportation Commission, which is similar to Montanas Public Service Commission, opened an investigation into the costs of retiring the Units 1 and 2, which were built in 1975 and 1976. That commission said it was essential to understand how consumers electricity rates might change if Puget Sound Energy shuts down the older units after three bills that that would allow the utility to do so failed in the 2015 Washington Legislature. That report is expected to come out in the next few weeks. The commission said at this point its an open investigation and what happens next will depend on whats in the report. Anne Hedges, deputy director and lead lobbyist for the Montana Environmental Information Center, said she thinks economic forces will help shut down the older units at Colstrip. In 2013, Talen Energy, which owns half of Units 1 and 2, cut the market value of its stake in Colstrip by 87 percent. Talen, unlike Puget Sound and the other three utilities with ownership in Colstrip, sells its power on the open market and cant pass along costs to consumers. Low natural gas prices have also delivered a hit to coal-fired power plants. A representative for Talen Energy, a spinoff of PPL Montana, said Friday that the company cant yet speculate on what would happen with its ownership in Units 1 and 2 if Puget Sound ever moves to shut them down. It would either need to be enacted or not enacted, and at that time we would have a basis to make a business decision, said Todd Martin, Talen media relations manager. Martin said that Talen employees are working on the other force that could change operations at Colstrip, the Clean Power Plan Advisory Council, which includes Talen environmental and engineering compliance director Gordon Criswell. We expect to be productive participants in the plan, Martin said. When recommendations are made, when the state of Montana comes up with an implementation plan, that is the time we would be able to make a business decision. Bullock would not speculate on how Washington legislation could affect any work by his council or if a move by Puget Sound Energy to close the older Colstrip units would help Montana meet its emission reduction goals. "Given the nature and complexity of the CPP, there are too many moving parts to speculate on what impact hypothetical legislation would have on Montanas plan at this point," he said through spokeswoman Ronja Abel. The council will meet for the first time in early February, and the recommendations are due in July. "The council does have a lot of work to do and we envision several multiday meetings with numerous opportunities for public input as we work towards providing Montanas initial submittal to the EPA by September 2016," Abel said. COLSTRIP In the shadow of one of the West's largest coal-fired power plants, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock announced Tuesday the members of an advisory council that will help shape the way the state plans to meet cuts in carbon dioxide pollution required by new federal rules. No matter what ones opinion is of the Clean Power Plan is, we cant afford to ignore it, Bullock said. We have far too much at stake. The 27-member panel will make recommendations to the state Department of Environmental Quality and Bullock, who must submit a plan to the EPA by Sept. 6 that details how Montana will cut its CO2 emissions 47 percent by 2030. Bullock signed an executive order Nov. 12 establishing the council. Montana is one of 24 states suing the federal government over the new rules, but the state still needs to create its own path to compliance, Bullock said. We must not let the federal government ultimately dictate a plan for us, and thats whatll happen if we dont come up with our own plan written by Montanans in a way that works for our state. The new standards did single out Montana and move the goalposts on us. Ive said time and time again its not fair for Montana. Bullock, speaking at City Hall in Colstrip, made several references to this regions long ties to and reliance on both coal mining and the four units at the coal-fired electric plant that looms large over the town. This is the house that coal built, so its very appropriate to have it here, said state Sen. Duane Ankney, a member of the panel who lives in Colstrip. Ankney, a 32-year veteran of coal mines, said he wishes it was 20 years ago, when we worried about getting coal from point A to point B. But today is a different day. Personally, I hope they throw the whole thing out, but that being said we will have a plan. Kathy Hadley, the executive director of the National Center for Appropriate Technology in Butte and conservation advocate and a council member, said the effects of climate change already are harming Montana. NCAT coordinates many energy efficiency programs, including partnering with NorthWestern Energy to audit electricity use, identify financial incentives to make homes and business more energy efficient and recommending changes for NWE's customers. Weve seen the increase in wildfires, we've seen the prolonged hoot-owl restrictions we all had last year, and that has huge impacts on our fish and wildlife resources, Hadley said. If nothing is done, climate change could cost 11,000 jobs in Montana, she said, quoting numbers from a December report by Donovan Power Consulting and commissioned by the Montana Wildlife Federation. Bullock said members of the council come from diverse backgrounds, including energy producers, utilities, organized labor representatives, conservationists, hunters and anglers, tribes and small business owners. The governor implored members of the council to focus not on their differences and divisions, but the future. As Montanans, value the perspective of folks who may not always see things the way that we do, he said. He stressed the preservation of Montanas existing energy-production landscape, as well as the need for the state to adapt efficiency measures. Were fortunate to have some of nations largest coal reserves, highest-rated wind potential and a legacy of hydroelectric power, Bullock said. He said the state doesnt have to choose between addressing climate change and continuing to produce power from coal. Thats a false choice, Bullock said. I know that we can do both. But we need to stop assigning blame and we need to work together to find Montana solutions. Anne Hedges, deputy director and lead lobbyist for the Montana Environmental Information Center, called the council a huge disappointment. Its not going to come up with any solutions to the problem, she said. They appointed the same people who created the problem in the first place. Hedges was referring to people on the council who are associated with the coal mining and coal-powered electricity industries. The Clean Power Plan requires solutions and that means renewable energy, energy efficiency, clean energy and there are not representatives from the wind, solar and geothermal industry. Hedges said the council and governor are incapable of creating a plan that will reduce emissions in Montana. Id rather have a federal plan than the status quo, she said. The economics of the electricity market will help create solutions going forward as well, Hedges said. Its far more expensive for NorthWestern Energy to get power out of Colstrips older units than it is from the Judith Gap wind farm, she said. The market is taking care of itself. While Montana works toward compliance with the Clean Power Plan, a more immediate issue threatens operations at the Colstrip plant. A bill supported by Puget Sound Energy, a Washington state company, that could result in the closure of two of Colstrips four units will be heard by that states Legislature later this month. PSE, which owns 50 percent of Colstrip Units 1 and 2 and 25 percent of Units 3 and 4, wants to buy out Talen Energys share of Unit 3, which means PSE would own 55 percent of Unit 3, and decommission the older Units 1 and 2. Puget Sound, which is is being sued by the Sierra Club over alleged violations of the Clean Air Act, needs approval from Washingtons Legislature because of laws in that state that prevent utilities from buying electricity from coal-fired power plants to be used in that state. A group of lawmakers from Washington toured the units at Colstrip in late November, Ankney said. A conference call will take place soon between Montana and Washington state legislators to discuss whats next, Ankney said. My issue is, if you prematurely close this, not because of economic reasons or anything else, youre leaving about 350 people out of work, about 100 homes that dont have buyers, so youre really putting some economic hardship on the folks in Colstrip, Ankney said. LEWISTOWN, Mont. Snow may be falling outside, but inside, the Montana Winter Fair is warming up those cold January days with agricultural and family events.It is a winter celebration of Montana agriculture, and our fabulous quality of life, said Karen Kuhlmann, member of the Lewistown Downtown Association that holds the Montana Winter Fair each year. We have lots of fun events and several new events planned for the whole family.The 71st annual Montana Winter Fair will be held from Wednesday, Jan. 27 through Sunday, Jan. 31 in Lewistown in central Montana.We are really excited about the show this year, Kuhlmann said. We have it in January because we need a fun, family event like the Winter Fair to break up the cold, winter days, before we have to get ready for calving and start planning spring work.Some 28 events will be held at several different locations around the city, with the main events at the fairgrounds, Kuhlmann said.Yes, there are 28 events, and they all get lots of participants, and many people come to watch, as well, she said.Farm succession planning forumOne of the most popular events this year is a special Farm Forum presented by Kevin Spafford, financial planner, speaking on succession planning for farmers, ranchers and ag business owners.The farm and ranch succession planning workshop will be held on Wednesday, Jan. 27, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Eagles Grand Hall.We are so excited to have Kevin Spafford speaking on farm succession. It is a huge topic right now, and several ag producers asked us to have that kind of presentation, Kuhlmann said.In 2005, Spafford wrote Legacy by Design: Succession Planning for Agribusiness Owners, and in 2008, he helped launch the Farm Journal Legacy Project. In 2011, the Legacy Project won the prestigious Grand Neal Award for excellence in business journalism.The Farm Forum is free to all.One of the largest ag shows in MontanaAs one of the largest ag shows in Montana, the fair brings in not just local folks, but people from all over the region and the state.The Montana Winter Fair has many dedicated sponsors who help make the show as big and successful as it is.Kuhlmann said the Montana Winter Fair continues to grow each year with participants, young and old, coming from Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota and North Dakota as well as Canada.Events will be held around the city, including the art center, the Eagles Grand Hall, Chokecherry Lane, the Pavilion, the Trade Center, the Draft Horse Barn, Old McDonalds Barn and the Ag Building.If you havent experienced the Montana Winter Fair as a participant or spectator, we hope you do so this year, Kuhlmann said.Lots to eat, see, buy at Trade Show, Vendor ShowThis year the popular Trade Show and Vendor Show will be held at the Trade Center at the Fergus County Fairgrounds.The great smells of cupcakes and cinnamon rolls always greet visitors to the Trade Show, Kuhlmann said.The Trade Center is totally handicapped accessible and heated with plenty of parking. There will be plenty of food offerings, as well as food competitions and even fun events such as the rabbit agility contest at the Trade Show.The trade show opens on Friday, Jan. 29, beginning at 2 p.m., and closing at 6 p.m., and runs through Saturday, Jan. 30, at the Trade Center at the fairgrounds. On Saturday, the trade show is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.The Dutch oven competition and tasting, and the Cupcake/Muffin Combat contest will be held at the Trade Center.After the contest, those delicious cupcakes and muffins will be for sale, she said. The cupcakes will be sold on Saturday at the trade show at 2 p.m.Other competitions that are always popular include the Cinnamon roll contest and Chili Cook-off.There will be everything from clothing, unique western items and gifts to agricultural innovations, equipment, machinery, ag products, ranch saddles and tack, among other products and services at the show.Venders will be on hand to answer questions and help visitors find what they need in the way of ag tools, machinery or farm and home products, Kuhlmann said. If you are looking for ag services or equipment or a gift for a friend, you will find it at the Montana Winter Show.Natural Horsemanship Clinic is newNew this year is a Natural Horsemanship Clinic, conducted by James Cooler. It will be held on Friday, Jan. 29, at the Central Montana Fairgrounds Pavilion.This is a very special event for horse riders, Kuhlmann said.American Kennel Club dog challengeThe whole family will be excited about the American Kennel Club dog challenge.This event is going to be really fun for the kids and kids are invited to bring their dogs, all dressed up or not, to the event, Kuhlmann said.There will be a fashion show for dogs following the American Kennel Club Canine Good Citizen Challenge Course on Friday, Jan. 29, at 4 p.m.Debbie Larson, dog breeder, AKC competitor and expert groomer, will head up this new event.New Ice Queen event for kidsKids will be able to have a photo of themselves taken with the beautiful 71st Montana Winter Fair Ice Queen.We appreciate being able to have a beautiful Ice Queen for our Winter Fair this year, Kuhlmann said. The Ice Queen will be holding court at the Trade Center on Saturday afternoon, Jan. 30, and she will inspire both young and old.Idle Ranch Hands classic country concertThe Idle Ranch Hands concert is a classic country and honky-tonk band and brings back the songs of George Jones, Merle Haggard, Lefty Frizzel and Buck Owens, Kuhlmann said, adding the band is from Missoula, Mont.The Friday night concert will be held at 7:30 p.m. at the Grand Hall of The Eagles. Tickets at $15 are available at Dons Store in Lewistown and online at MontanaWinterFair.com.Luminary walk for life lights up streetThe 71st Montana Winter Fair will feature a lighted walk down Lewistowns beautiful Main Street on Thursday, Jan. 28,, at 5 p.m., led by Lewistowns Relay for Life team. Celebrants will walk down Main Street from The Moose to Brooks Market where treats will be served.Our Relay for Life team has been so successful in helping raise awareness for cancer, Kuhlmann said.Quilt, fiber arts show a favoriteOne of the favorites by both viewers and participants alike is the quilt and fiber arts show where fabulous quilts in all kinds of colors and fabrics are displayed each year at the Lewistown Art Center.Lots of clothing made from exotic yarns like camel, yak and buffalo, as well as traditional yarns will be displayed. Also, items made of yarn like toys or bags, tablecloths or other unique items will be entered. Kuhlmann encouraged everyone to come and see this always-popular show and watch the unique demonstrations.Stick Horse Rodeo, Fiddle ContestOn Saturday, Jan. 30, the Back Country Horsemen of Judith Basin will produce a big favorite for kids aged 4 to 8 the Stick Horse Rodeo, which will be held in the sale ring. Registration is at 10-11 a.m., with the Stick Horse Rodeo starting at 11 a.m.The state open fiddle contest, another highlight of the Winter Fair, will also be held during the day Saturday with the finals that night at the Eagles Grand Hall. Kids, tweens and teens all compete.They are fantastic. Some of the fiddles are almost as big as the kids, said Kuhlmann.Something for everyone at fairThroughout the fair there will plenty of other things to do and enjoy.Other popular events include: Team Sorting; Youth Beef Show; Polar Plunge for Special Olympic; Tough Enough to Wear Pink Breakfast; Old McDonalds Barn with kids and their animals; Re-Creations Show; Rabbit Agility; Archery Shoot; Elk-calling presentation; Pinewood Derby for kids; Carnegie Library used Book Sale; and the Photography Contest.Also on Sunday, Jan. 31, a Cowboy Church will be held at Celebration Community Church in Lewistown. The church is home to the Montana Cowboy Poetry Gathering, the second oldest gathering in the country. Everyone is welcome and doughnuts and coffee will be served.The Montana Winter Fair really is exciting. We always have something new, and bring back all the popular events for a good time for everyone, said Kuhlmann, adding that celebrating agriculture is important to continue our western high-quality way of life.Lewistown is honored to host this fantastic show each January and we invite everyone to come and participate or simply come and enjoy, she said.More information and updates about the Montana Winter Fair are posted at http://www.montanawinterfair.com. Comments and links to reports on science, and its applications. Photo Advertisement Continue reading the main story Mexico City ON the morning of Jan. 2, a team of hired killers set off for the home of 33-year-old Gisela Mota, who only hours before had been sworn in as the first female mayor of Temixco, a sleepy spa town an hour from Mexico City. Ms. Mota was still in her pajamas as the men approached her parents breezeblock house. She was in the bedroom, but most of her family was in the front room, cooing over a newborn baby. As the family prepared a milk bottle, the assassins smashed the door open. Amid the commotion, Ms. Mota came out of her bedroom and said firmly, I am Gisela. In front of her terrified family, the men beat Ms. Mota and shot her several times, killing her. Such violence has plagued areas of Mexico during the decade-long blood bath we know as the Mexican drug war . But Ms. Motas killing illuminates some worrying features of how this conflict is changing. While the global media is fascinated by billionaire kingpins like Joaquin Guzman Loera, known as El Chapo, who was recaptured on Jan. 8 after his second prison escape (and a secret interview with the actor Sean Penn), the war is evolving far beyond the drug trade. Cartels now fight for political power itself. After arresting two of the men suspected of killing Ms. Mota, the police said the murder was part of a regional campaign by Los Rojos to control town halls and rob the towns resources. Five days after the killing, Ms. Motas mother, Juana Ocampo, joined a march through Temixco along with hundreds of residents dressed in white. Ms. Ocampo, a veteran community activist, knew her daughter had taken a dangerous job; hired killers, known as sicarios, have killed almost 100 mayors in Mexico in the last decade. But Ms. Mota had been undeterred. Since Gisela was a child, she wanted to get into politics, to change things, Ms. Ocampo told me. Ms. Mota had called for an end to corruption in Temixco and for police reform, which may have made her a target. Still, Ms. Ocampo said, I had never imagined that something like this could happen. Ms. Ocampo, her face strong, held back her pain and tears. I hope there is justice. Or we will have to take actions to demand that justice is done and the case is cleared up. Marchers held banners proclaiming, I am Gisela. Ms. Motas murder is the latest turn in the evolution of the Mexican drug business, a process that American and Mexican officials seem unable to grasp. For a decade, Mexican troops have worked with American agents to pursue kingpins, in what is known as the cartel decapitation strategy. Flamboyant gangsters with nicknames like Tony Tormenta, the Engineer and the Viceroy have been shot down or arrested. El Chapo, or Shorty, has been detained twice in less than two years. Yet while these kingpins rot in prisons and graves, their assassins have formed their own organizations, which can be even more violent and predatory. Photo Morelos State, which is home to Temixco, is a bloody example. Dotted with green valleys and hot springs, it had long been used by a drug lord called Arturo Beltran Leyva, alias the Beard, to fly in cocaine from Colombia before taking it north. Mr. Beltran Leyva was an ally-turned-enemy of El Chapo who rivaled him in his capacity to move product. But during the early 2000s, while Mr. Beltran Leyva built his empire in Morelos, murder rates were relatively low. Advertisement Continue reading the main story In 2009, American agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration got intelligence on Mr. Beltran Leyvas whereabouts. The D.E.A. gave the address to Mexican marines an elite American-trained force who stormed in, killing Mr. Beltran Leyva and four of his accomplices. A senior D.E.A. official told me they paid their informant a $5 million reward for the information that led to the takedown taxpayer money spent to try and win the drug war. Without their leader, sicarios who had worked for the Beard formed their own splinter cartels, including Los Rojos and Guerreros Unidos, or Warriors United, and went on a killing rampage. The two cartels now fight over turf in Morelos and neighboring Guerrero State, leaving piles of bodies. Last year, Guerrero had the highest number of murders per capita in Mexico; Morelos was fourth. These new cartels continue to traffic drugs, some switching from Colombian cocaine to Mexican heroin to feed an epidemic sweeping parts of America. But they have also used their armies of assassins to move into new endeavors: rackets, extortion, oil theft , even wildcat iron mining . And they are now muscling in on one of Mexicos most lucrative businesses of all: local politics. Ms. Mota isnt the first politician to fall afoul of the cartels new business interests. In a Jan. 11 news conference, the governor of Morelos, Graco Ramirez, revealed that Los Rojos had threatened 13 more Morelos mayors in recent months, and are using the murder of Ms. Mota as a somber warning. It was a deliberate and premeditated action that aims to sow an environment of terror, both among authorities and citizens, he said. The cartel makes telling demands of the mayors, Mr. Ramirez said for example, contracts for valuable building projects or the right to name the town police chiefs. And they are forcing mayors to give them 10 percent of their annual budgets. As Mexicos government provides much of the financing, this means the cartels are feeding from the federal pot and in turn from the United States, which provides the Mexican government with about $300 million a year in drug-war aid. Corruption in Mexico is as old as the country itself, and traffickers have been bribing politicians during the century that they have been smuggling drugs to Americans. Mayors, governors and federal officials have turned a blind eye to opium fields and meth superlabs. In 1997 , the federal governments drug czar himself was arrested on suspicion of taking bribes. But now gangsters are flipping this century-old deal. Instead of handing out bribes, they are making the mayors pay them. Politics is not just a way to help their criminal businesses; it is a business in itself. And as they take control of these politicians, the cartels transform themselves into an ominous shadow power, using the tools of the state to affect anyone who lives or works in its jurisdiction. Photo With more than 2,000 mayors in Mexico, most of whom have little protection, the cartels have a big market to tap. The combined booty is potentially worth billions of dollars a year. And, indeed, the tactic of shaking down mayors appears to be expanding beyond Morelos. In 2014, it was revealed that the bizarrely named Knights Templar cartel, based in Michoacan State, was also forcing mayors to hand over a percentage of their budgets. Videos and photos even emerged of the Templars leader, Servando Gomez, also known as La Tuta, sitting down and talking with various mayors. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Advertisement Continue reading the main story Sometimes cartels cut out the middleman and put one of their own directly in the town hall. This was allegedly the case in the Guerrero city of Iguala, whose mayor, Jose Luis Abarca, is now in prison on organized crime charges, accused of being a member of Guerreros Unidos. Dozens of his police officers are also in jail, accused of being sicarios in uniform. In September 2014, the Iguala police and sicarios reputed to work for the Guerreros killed or disappeared more than 40 students in one of the most heinous crimes in modern Mexico. After federal police officers arrested the mayor, residents searched for family members who had disappeared under his rule. Some 130 bodies have been dug up in Iguala since. These atrocities provoked thousands to march on Mexicos streets. Some protesters set fire to the Iguala town hall. International companies continue to operate in such cartel-dominated areas, especially in mining and increasingly in gas and oil. They have to work with mayors to coordinate operations and regulatory compliance; as a result, an American executive for one mining company in Guerrero told me, businesses have no choice but to deal with suspect officials (though they try to identify and avoid working with the worst of them). Company bosses prefer not to talk publicly about the level of cartel control, as it offends their political partners in Mexico. But last year Rob McEwen, the chairman and chief executive of the Canadian company McEwen Mining, broke the silence after gangsters stole more than $8 million worth of his gold from a mine in northwest Mexico. The cartels are active down there. Generally, we have a good relationship with them, McEwen told the Business News Network . If you want to go explore somewhere, you ask them, and they tell you, no, but then they say come back in a couple of weeks, weve finished what we are doing. After protests from Mexican politicians, Mr. McEwen retracted his statement, saying he was referring to a good relationship with local property owners and community members rather than gangsters. As cartels have entrenched themselves in Mexicos local politics, finding a solution to the drug war mess has gotten even tougher. Drug policy reform, meaning wider legalization of some drugs, like marijuana, and better addiction treatment to reduce the use of others, like heroin, can help bleed the gangster financing. But with cartels now diversified into a portfolio of crimes and taking over the political establishment, it wont stop them. The most obvious response is to build an effective justice system to crack down on sicarios. Police reform, including incorporating Mexicos city-level officers into unified state forces, a step that Ms. Mota had supported, could help confront cartels. City police alone are too weak against the firepower of the gangster militias. Such a reform would also take some heat off mayors if they didnt command their own police forces, they would be of less use to the crime bosses. Yet, Mexico also needs to fight the narco corruption that infests its police and politics at state and federal levels. Tragically, many of the biggest parties have had members with alleged links to cartels, including the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and the opposition. The fight against this rot needs to be a national struggle, and could last a generation. Party leaders have to support investigations into their own people. Groups such as Transparencia Mexicana can help by lobbying for politicians to reveal their assets. And the United States should use its drug-war aid to push harder for such reforms. Mexico also needs local politicians who can stand up to both the silver of bribery and lead of bullets. Unfortunately, the sheer brutality of murders like Ms. Motas is a chilling example for those brave young people who might venture to follow her. 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Ltd. is the organization dedicated in the field of printing, publishing service since 2001. As part of media, we've been publishing Review Nepal, an English medium weekly registered at District Administration Office (DAO) Kathmandu with registration number 130-162-163 and reviewnepal.com as an online digital newspaper, with registration number 849-075-076 at Department of Informational and Broadcasting (DIB) from Kathmandu, Nepal since 2003. Contributions to the Turner Report/Inside Joplin can be sent to: Randy Turner, 2306 E. 8th, Apt. G, Joplin, MO 64801. Send information, news tips, documents, or comments you prefer not to share on the blog or on Facebook to rturner229@hotmail.com. UN envoy: No date set for next Yemen negotiations SANAA, Jan. 14 (Saba) - The UN envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh left Sanaa on Thursday, after a few-day visit to the country in an effort to hold new round of talks between the Yemeni warring parties. No date was determined for holding the coming consultations, Ould Cheikh said in a statement to media before departing Sanaa International Airpot. However, he described his talks with the political parties in Sanaa as positive in their most, confirming keenness to implement all the outputs of the negotiations held last December in Switzerland. The UN envoy asserted that he would continue the consultations with Ansarullah and the General Peoples Congress (GPC) in order to reach additional steps regarding confidence-building in prelude for the next negotiations. It was agreed, during the visit, on sending a delegation from the United Nations headed by the humanitarian coordinator to visit Taiz province and a number of the afflicted provinces in order to provide aid and deliver them to the affected people in those provinces, he said. He stated that his visit to Yemen is not the first and will not be the last, but there will be future visits especially to Taiz and other provinces soon. Ould Cheikh affirmed the release of two foreigners had been held in Yemen, as well as Abdulrazaq al-Ashwal and four of political activists and journalists, pointing out that he got official assurances from Ansarullah on the safety of each of Mahmoud al-Subaihi, Nasser Mansour and Fisal Rajab. The UN envoy arrived on Sunday in Sanaa to hold talks with Yemeni political parties in order to resume a new round of negotiations. BA Saba Facebook Facebook Twitter Twitter Whatsapp Whatsapp Telegram Telegram Email Email Print Print [15/January/2016] The Sahih Al Islam Blog is a platform to share in an easily available format the sermons and writings of Hadhrat Munir Ahmad Azim (aba) of Mauritius, the Holy Founder of Jamaat Ul Sahih Al Islam International. Bestowed with sublime spiritual titles such as Muhyi-ud-Din, Mujaddid and Khalifatullah, Imam Azim (aba) is Divinely-ordained with the task of inviting all people to the wisdom of Islamic teachings in every day life. Most certainly, Islam promises Mercy, Grace and Blessings for those who follow the Divine Light in their midst. Apart from being a depository record of the Jamaat events and social engagements of its members, the Blog also publishes a variety of other writings on issues of spiritual and social concern. Is Turkey Using Hamas Members to Spy on Lebanon? Moshir Salah Hassanein is said to be Egyptian and a Muslim Brotherhood member. Hamas File photo (SALEM, Ore.) - Sources report that Lebanese security agencies have discovered some Hamas movement members in this country collect information to provide to the Turkish intelligence service. According to the news agency, Panorama Al-sharq Al-Awsat, these Palestinian members collect the needed information and provide it to the Turkish intelligence service known as MIT. In order to collect the news and information in Lebanon, the Turkish intelligence service is served by a proxy named Moshir Salah Hassanein, said to be Egyptian and a Muslim Brotherhood member. They say this person is in close contact with Osama bin Hamdan, a Hamas foreign relations officer, and that a part of his information comes from this relationship. It is believed that in order to advance its goals of intervention in Syria and Lebanon, Turkey has taken every opportunity to gain insight into Lebanese affairs, while maintaining a close alliance with Israel, and instead of supporting Palestinian groups in occupied territory conflicts, they use Hamas forces as a tool for their own purposes. _________________________________________ Activists Say Israel May Be Behind Attacks in Paris Activists say the French are paying the cost for having voted against Israel in a recent European boycott against Israeli commercial goods. Photo courtesy: awdnews.com (SALEM, Ore.) - A human rights activist, referring to Israel's anger over a European boycott against its commercial goods, has accused the Israeli regime of involvement in the Paris deadly attacks. AWD News, a European news website, reports that after multiple attacks in Paris, Mary Hughes Thompson, a leader of the Palestinian liberation movement, said she believed that Israel was behind these deadly attacks. In the aftermath of the attacks, Thompson wrote on her Twitter page: "...Israel is accused of participating in the attack, and I know that Netanyahu is angry over the European boycott, and that for a regime that kills thousands of children and women in occupied territories, killing hundreds of people in Europe is not difficult." Hughes Thompson, who believes Israel is the main culprit in the terrorist attacks in Paris, and the "Charlie Hebdo" magazine headquarters, wrote recently on her Twitter account: "We cannot afford to pay attention to false and deceptive information Mossad spies tell us." Greta Berlin, another human rights activist and a member of the Free Gaza Movement, also accused Israel of involvement in the attack on Charlie Hebdo headquarters and said: "Mossad attacked Charlie Hebdo to divert public opinions". Berlin added that Israel had warned France that voting, "...in favor of Palestine will have consequences in international forums and that even a 4-year-old can understand who is responsible for this attack." _________________________________________ SNc Channels: Search About Salem-News.com Jan-15-2016 00:09 TweetFollow @OregonNews Two Noble Sanctuaries' Security in The Hands of the Zionists In the Jalma and Maskoubieh interrogation centers, which are also serviced by G4S, not even children are spared from torture. Photo courtesy: BDS (SALEM, Ore.) - Sheikh Akrama Sabri, head of the Supreme Islamic Council in Jerusalem, says he will protest against the Saudi government for hiring the company (G4S) for Hajj security. He said that the company has been active in occupied Palestinian territories for years. According to the G4S Website, they are an American company, while Wikipedia claims G4S is based in the UK. According to reports, Sheikh Sabri spoke to Muslims at a gathering in Germany, saying, "(G4S) is a security company that equips and maintains the Zionist detention centers and jails where Palestinian political prisoners, including children, are held and tortured. "G4S is complicit in Israel's occupation. Those who help the occupation must be held accountable and are complicit in the crime, as those who help aggressors also are aggressors. How (can) Saudi Arabia call itself a pro-Islamic and Arab nation while it hires G4S, (an) accomplice to Israeli torture for Hajj security?" G4S company headquarters are located in Jeddah. This company also has contracts with the Israeli government to provide equipment and services to checkpoints in the occupied territories. The company was heavily targeted by the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement in recent years due to its tactics against Palestinians incarcerated in Israel. In the Jalma and Maskoubieh interrogation centers, which are also serviced by G4S, not even children are spared from torture. Under Israeli military law, prisoners can be detained for investigation for 60 days without access to a lawyer, which means that lawyers cannot witness interrogation methods used against their clients. All these practices and more are facilitated by G4S. G4S Israel supplied luggage scanning equipment and full body scanners to several checkpoints in the West Bank. G4S also operates in the Israeli settlements, catering to businesses and private citizens. The company provides security systems and centralized control systems to the Hasharon-Ramonim prison, which contains a section for Palestinian political prisoners. G4S has installed a central command room in Megiddo Prison, in addition to supplying a wide array of security services to the Damon and Ketziot prisons. _________________________________________ Foreign-affairs | Human-rights | Military | Business | Most Commented on Articles for January 14, 2016 | Articles for January 15, 2016 | Articles for January 16, 2016 Tiny house being built in Salina to help homeless people in Missouri For the fifth year and second in Salina, a local group is partnering with Tiny House Ministries to help homeless people in Missouri. 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. Wiredu was born 03 of October 1931 in Kumasi, Ghana. It was at Adisadel College in Cape Coast, Ghana that he discovered philosophy through the works of Plato and Bertrand Russell. After his secondary schooling, Wiredu attended the University of Ghana, Legoni in the vicinity of Accra where he obtained a BA (1958). After graduating, he went to University College, Oxford where he obtained his M.Phil (1960). While at Oxford, Wiredu wrote his thesis on Knowledge, Truth and Reason, and upon graduating he was appointed to a teaching post at the University College of North Staffordshire (now the University of Keele). After a year, Wiredu returned to Ghana to teach philosophy at the University of Ghana, his old university. He remained at the University of Ghana for twenty-three years, during which time he became first Head of Department and then Professor. In 1983, Wiredu became a member of the Committee of Directors of the International Federation of Philosophical Societies. Additionally, from 1985 and 1986, Wiredu has been a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars and the National Humanities Centre, North Carolina respectively. Since 1987, he has held a professorship at the University of South Florida in Tampa in the United States of America (US) and remains there today. He is also Vice-President of the Inter-African Council for Philosophy. Click On Our Advertisers Ads Most of our ads have links to take you directly to their Websites. Just click on an ad and away you go. Author's Note A literary vent, a one-sided, free-wheeling discussion, everything posted on this blog is true. Don't mistake that to mean everything here is fact. Frequently, I paint with a broad brush, coloring things to a degree of my own choosingfor the sake of art. My characters remind me of what Dr. J. Kennedy Schultz once said--and they insist I post it here: When I say something about you, it may or may not be true about you, however, I always reveal something of myself. Judging from some of the comments people have made to me, I wish to remind them this works in BOTH directions. Thank you. If you are currently a print subscriber but don't have an online account, select this option. You will need to use your 7 digit subscriber account number (with leading zeros) and your last name (in UPPERCASE). High school courses aren't just reading, writing and arithmetic anymore. High schoolers in Washtenaw County have the opportunity to study a plethora of unusual subjects and to learn more traditional material in unconventional new ways. After poring over local high school course catalogs Concentrate picked five of the most innovative high school course offerings in the county. Take a look:Forget about reports and class presentations; the final and only project for the juniors and seniors in Ann Arbor Public Schools' (AAPS) Homebuilding class is the construction of an entire house. Students must apply and undergo an interview process to take the class, which accepts only 30 students per year. This year's class is currently working on a four-bedroom colonial house in the Sumerset neighborhood in northwest Ann Arbor, where previous Homebuilding classes have built several other homes. The program is a partnership between AAPS and the nonprofit Ann Arbor Student Building Industry Program , which purchases land for the program and sells the finished homes.John Birko, who has taught the class for 10 years, says the course is valuable because it presents a very real-world application for a variety of subjects that students otherwise have a mostly abstract understanding of, like mathematics. "I had a student tell me one time: 'This isn't even real math. This is just shit we use to get work done,'" Birko says. "That's an educational problem. We're not doing a good enough job explaining why this is important."Everyone reads The Catcher In the Rye and The Great Gatsby in high school, but Dexter High School's Popular Literature course aims to inspire new readers with more contemporary material. Teacher Stephanie Nolan developed the class about 10 years ago and pitched it to school administrators when she started working at Dexter. Each year she takes students' requests for new books to feature in the class, which has tackled popular texts including the Hunger Games novels and the works of The Fault In Our Stars author John Green.Although the material may be somewhat unusual, Nolan's approach is the same as it would be in any conventional literature class, leading students through an examination of the books' themes, characters and plots. The literary merit of young adult fiction inspires occasional debate , but Nolan says it's "great" as long as her students (some of whom have admitted to her that they've never finished an entire book before in high school) are at least reading something. "For a good chunk of the kids it's just all about finding what interests them...and then they stick with it after that," she says.Subjects at Ypsilanti's New Tech High School are pretty standard: Composition, Chemistry, Art, et cetera. But there's a unique twist in the way the school combines subjects into "integrated" classes with portmanteau names like PhysiComp and ChemStat. The approach, developed in the late 90s by Napa, Calif.'s New Tech Networ k , promotes collaboration and encourages students to note complementary elements of seemingly disparate disciplines.New Tech's BioArt class provides a particularly striking example of the school's approach. "People really struggle," says principal Scott Snyder. "How do you put biology and art together? That doesn't really make any sense.'" Kathy Fisk, who teaches the art portion of ninth-grade BioArt at New Tech, says the disciplines actually complement each other very well. Her students are currently in the midst of a genetics unit. Students will correspond with individuals who have genetic disorders through the New York-based nonprofit Positive Exposure , and then create their own artistic representation of what beauty is. Fisk says that when she's taught that activity in past years, the students' art displayed an increased sense of "empathy and awareness.""They're not just making art for a pretty picture," she says. "They're making art to communicate something specific. They're making art to make a connection to biology and life, because that's what biology is. It just makes for a deeper learning experience."Saline High School teacher Jamie Vollrath describes his Zines class as "a mini-media empire." Working in teams of three, Vollrath's students develop their own topics for online publications, or "zines," and pitch them to the class. Students edit their own zines, but also must compete to work for their classmates' publications as freelance writers. "I'm sort of a guide, butif there's a bad idea from the get-go the students will tell each other," Vollrath says. "The market sort of runs itself."The result is a truly diverse assortment of zines , ranging from the vintage-focused " Old But Gold " to the highly popular zombie zine " SurvivALL ." Vollrath originally developed the course as a smaller-scale activity while teaching English at Tahoma High School in Washington State, and pitched it as a course unto itself when he started teaching in Saline in 2013. His original inspiration was a former fellow Tahoma High teacher who made traditional paper zines with her students in the '90s. Vollrath says he was excited by the concept's potential for getting students excited about writing. "The purpose is to give them an authentic writing experience, to push the students who need a little more push, and to further inspire those who want to try writing in different ways," he says.Avenged Sevenfold, Keith Urban and Florence and the Machine are all typical ways for high schoolers to occupy themselves outside the classroom. But in Rachael Wismont's Songs as Poetry class at Chelsea High School, those artists and many others are all part of the curriculum. Wismont starts the class off with an overview of the history of music over the last century and then opens the floor for her students to bring in their favorite music for the class to study. "The relationship between music and poetry is so close," Wismont says. "Because music is so powerful and strong for students, it's a really nice way in for students to be able to look for poetic devices in the music they already listen to and like."And that knowledge sticks with them, as exemplified by a story Wismont tells of running into a former student who has now graduated high school. "She was like: 'Oh my gosh, Ms. Wismont, I just have to tell you that I don't listen to music the same way anymore,'" Wismont recounts. "'Now whenever I listen to music I'm noticing, there's some kinesthetic imagery, or there's some expressed identity metaphors.' That was a really nice compliment to hear, because that's part of the goal: to activate a part of the brain that maybe wasn't active before." 365 Retail Markets has made a name for itself by reinventing the vending machine market, and it's getting ready to push that envelope a little more this year with the launch of a new product, Verii The Troy-based startup makes self-checkout micromarkets, essentially replacing the vending machine in corporate campuses. Customers simply have to choose their snack from a cooler or shelf, self scan it, and then swipe a credit card to pay for it at what the company is branding NanoMarkets. No cashier. No fuss. Just a quick way to get the food they want and go.365 Retail Markets' newest version of these NanoMarkets is Verii, an in-office snack station for companies with less than 150 employees. Verii's distinguishing feature is an easy-to-use mobile app that enables employee purchases, inventory tracking, and product re-ordering. It's all controlled by a company-designated administrator."We know the customers like this and prefer this method of commerce," says Joe Hessling, CEO of 365 Retail Markets . "We are just filling that need."The company plans to focus on launching Verii this year. It had acquired two other firms last year to help supplement its growth, which was rapid. 365 Retail Markets grew its revenue by $7 million (45 percent) in 2015, bringing its annual revenue to $25 million. It also hired 25 people last year, expanding its staff to 104 employees."Last year we hired a person every 11 days," Hessling says. "There is always something going on."Source: Joe Hessling, CEO of 365 Retail MarketsWriter: Jon Zemke Jackie Zimmerman helped launch Girls With Guts in 2012 with the idea of helping women battling Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Today her side project has turned into her full-time job.Zimmerman has been working as a contractor for one of the Big Three in recent years while working to establish Girls With Guts on the side. Last fall the organization grew to the point where she was able to leave her day job to serve as the nonprofit's full-time executive director."We had this great problem of having a lot of money but not enough time to do anything with it," Zimmerman says. "We had to make a change of risk losing everything we had built."Girls With Guts got is start at Wayne State University, where Zimmerman recently graduated from, with the help of Blackstone LaunchPad . The initial concept was simple: create a haven for women dealing with Inflammatory Bowel Disease. It accomplished that by helping educate these women on the basics of managing the disease, finding new solutions to live a healthier life, and sharing information.One of Girls With Guts' most popular programs is its annual retreat, which attracts dozen of women every year. The nonprofits online presence has steadily grown, too. Its Facebook page had 7,000 likes a little more than a year ago. Today it has more than 10,500.Zimmerman and her team of volunteers are now working on grant applications to raise more money. They are also working to expand the offerings of Girls With Guts, including planning its fourth annual retreat."Our growth plan for 2016 is extensive and will likely grow exponentially the further we get in," Zimmerman wrote in an email. She adds, "We have expanded our programming a lot in the last two months."Source: Jackie Zimmerman, executive director of Girls With GutsWriter: Jon Zemke Apple is calling a shareholder call for increased diversity among higher management "unduly burdensome" and unnecessary. In an official statement issued earlier this month in preparation for an upcoming February 26 shareholder meeting, the company claims it has already demonstrated how committed it is to inclusion, and as such it needn't adopt any measure designed to de-whiten the ranks of its senior management. The proposal, submitted by a shareholder named Mr. Antonio Avian Maldonado, is short and to the point. "Shareholders request that the Board of Directors adopt an accelerated recruitment policy requiring Apple Inc. (the Company) to increase the diversity of senior management and its board of directors, two bodies that presently fails to adequately represent diversity (particularly Hispanic, African-American, Native-American and other people of color)." Questions relating to diversity, or a lack thereof, in the tech industry are now becoming more frequent. In 2014, Facebook released data detailing the diversity breakdown of its company around the same time that Twitter announced it's predominantly run by white guys. Apple, for its part, says that the company "[believes] that the proposal is unduly burdensome and not necessary because Apple has demonstrated to shareholders its commitment to inclusion and diversity, which are core values for our company." It doesn't need to adopt the diversity resolution, the argument goes, because the company is already so inclusive. Got it. The Greenlining Institute, a policy and research organization working on issues of racial justice, calls out Apple's move in a blog post highlighting the hypocrisy of a company so outwardly dedicated to inclusion formally opposing a move to increase internal diversity. "Since the company released its diversity numbers in 2014, its constantly pledged a deep commitment to increasing the representation of women and people of color in the workforce," it reads. "Apples website features beautiful language on the benefits and significance of diversity like, 'This means fostering diversity not just at Apple but throughout our entire ecosystem, from the customers we welcome in our stores to the suppliers and developers we work with.'" Greenlining calls bullshit. "Apple, let me make sure I fully understand," the post continues. "Inclusion is important throughout your entire ecosystem, but diversifying decision-makers is too hard and unimportant?" It seems that diversity is to be celebrated when it comes to emoji, but for those in charge of actually running the company, well, that's apparently an entirely different story. Related: Jesse Jackson Demands Racial Breakdown Of Twitter Layoffs As Last Black Engineering Boss Departs Zuckerbergs S.F. neighbors miffed by security team parking https://t.co/u6Z87s84BA SFGate (@SFGate) January 14, 2016 The location of Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan's recently completed manse on historic Liberty Hill in San Francisco, about two blocks away from Dolores Park, has until now been only discussed generally, out of respect for the couple's privacy. But a new dustup begun by some disgruntled neighbors over the parking spaces that Zuck's security detail permanently occupy on 21st Street, which SFist reported on yesterday via a letter leaked to BuzzFeed, has led the SF Chronicle to go ahead and publish the first photos of the finished house that we know of. Please don't stalk them, stalkers. The new photos were shot for the Chronicle by one Anthony Falzone, who is not a Chronicle staff photographer but appears to have contributed here.* It does not appear that he has any connection to the letter to neighbors, which encouraged everyone to lodge complaints with the SFMTA about two silver SUVs that do not have neighborhood parking permits and never leave their curbside spaces. Up until now, if you roamed the neighborhood or stalked around Google Streetview via various clues in the media (it's on 21st, on Liberty Hill proper, at Fair Oaks), you could have easily figured out that the home was this one shown below, under heavy construction for the better part of two years, and masked by tarps and scaffolding. But the reportedly $10 million home is now finished, and even though the Zuckerberg-Chans likely aren't there full time they also have a large home in Palo Alto, closer to Facebook HQ, and they just had a baby there is round-the-clock security, and some security guards are probably sitting pretty in there most days watching TV on a sweet entertainment system. So, I guess we're just publishing photos of the house now. This is what happens when you anger too many San Franciscan neighbors, clearly. But perhaps Zuck should consider himself lucky as SFist contributor Beth Spotswood noted in 2014, the last time the neighborhood was up in arms over the constant construction at this house, "If this were in Pacific Heights, the Zuckerberg-Chans would be finding themselves knee-deep in a lawsuit from the Gettys." Update: It's looks like the house directly next door is for sale! For a mere $5 mil. And no mention of who the neighbors are, of course. Previously: Zuckerberg Neighbor Wages War Over Liberty Hill Parking Spots Mark Zuckerberg's San Francisco Neighbors Have Just About Had It With Him * This post has been corrected to show that this was not Anthony Falzone, in-house counsel for Pinterest. Another one bites the dust, and this one's sad. One of the more charming remaining gay dives in the vicinity of Polk Street and the Tenderloin one of only two remaining holdouts, in fact, from the bygone era when Polk was a hustler-filled gay district has apparently been sold to straight owners, and seems likely to close very soon. Gangway, which has been a gay bar since at least 1961, and has been a bar for 106 years straight, since 1910, was on the market as of about six months ago according to Tablehopper, and via a liquor license license transfer application dated January 6, it looks like a bar called Daddy Bones may be the next business to take over or at least that's the working title right now. As Ms. Tablehopper also notes, the new owner is a company with the ominous name of Breaking Chad, Inc. UGH. Gangway is a well loved but rarely busy old-man bar which has consistently landed on SFist lists of beloved dives and Best Old Man Bars. And along with The Cinch, it's the last of two gay bars in the Polk Gulch environs, which was home to about a half dozen as recently as the last decade. In the 1960s and 70s, before the Castro became the city's gay ghetto, it was the Polk where the first Gay Pride parade happened, and where the center of gay life existed each night. Sadly, even though San Francisco was once a city that boasted gay bars tucked into neighborhoods all over town, from the Financial District to Pacific Heights, that's no longer the case. Other holdouts like Marlena's in Hayes Valley (now Brass Tacks) have closed in recent years and seen similar fates as what seems to be befalling the old Gangway. I'm sorry everyone. It may be Sober January but this just might drive me to drink, slumped over the bar as one should be at this place, regaling anyone who'll listen with a story about going home with Peter Berlin in 1978 and spilling all the poppers on his jeans. Update: Hoodline spoke with the current owner, Jung Lee, whose deceased wife was the longtime manager of the bar, who says his decision to sell was partly motivated by a disgruntled employee who sued him for back wages after a misunderstanding about the minimum wage. The sale is not final, and we still don't know what the potential new owners have planned, but it seems all but guaranteed to become a not-gay bar, mostly likely one with craft cocktails. Gangway - 841 Larkin Street at Geary Dr. Mary Kay Brewster bought the three- to four-foot-long python in Salinas, all cash. According to the Contra Costa Times, the 58-year-old Monterey woman with what KSBW reports was a well-regarded gynecology practice was devastated by a split from her unfaithful husband. Brewster's estranged spouse suffers from an extreme phobia of snakes, as prosecutors explained to the court. Seeking revenge, they argued, Brewster left the python along with several rats in the bedroom her husband shares with his new girlfriend while the couple was away on vacation. Monterey doctor sentenced for stalking with python https://t.co/BxQZO8s6OW pic.twitter.com/k5EyLTePAq SLO News (@slonews) January 14, 2016 It was the girlfriend who has received threatening texts from Brewster and endured other harassment like poisoned plants and a mailbox destroyed by acid who found the snake, slithering along the shutters. She "screamed and fled the residence," according to prosecutors. "A search warrant of [Brewster's] home turned up a journal detailing [her] obsessive preoccupation and hatred of both victims," explained Prosecutor Steve Somer presumably before immediately resting his case). Indeed Somer did prevail, and Brewster was convicted of two counts of felony stalking and one count of felony vandalism (i.e. the python part). Now the Chronicle reports that Brewster has been sentenced to 180 days in prison and felony probation, although reports from the Contra Costa Times say it's just 150 days in the hoosegow. The Medical Board of California has not made a decision on whether Brewster will be allowed to continue her practice when she's released. Brewster must also pay restitution to the SPCA for Monterey County: The agency is caring for the snake and one rat that survived the ordeal. Related: Spurned Husband Allegedly Torches Groomsmen's Cars, Leaving Lube, Joker Cards Divisadero's onward march toward becoming Valencia 2.0 continues with the news that a small nigiri-only sushi bar is coming to the former KK Cafe space at 252 Divisadero (at Haight). As Hoodline has it, it's going to be called Ijji, and it'll be headed up by chef-owner Billy Kong of Noe Valley's Saru. It will just be a wee, 16- to 18-seat affair, and Kong says he wants to keep things really simple. "There's been so much sushi opening up in San Francisco the past few years, with very high-end omakase," Kong tells Hoodline. "Every time you go, it takes an hour and a half to three hours. I just wanted to do a simple, nigiri-only restaurant." Ijji joins a list of new spots opening this year on the corridor, taking the trend of Divisadero's foodie-ness to new heights in the coming months. First up we'll be seeing a new second location for Hayes Valley's Souvla (531 Divisadero), a Namu Gaji spinoff tentatively called Namu Stonepot (553 Divisadero), Tsunami Sushi expanding next door at 1300 Fulton (at Divis), the new cocktail spot from those former Bourbon & Branch guys Horsefeather (528 Divisadero), the coming transformation of the Harding Theater (616 Divisadero) into an arcade bar called Emporium, and eventually a big Italian spot called Che Fico (838 Divisadero) from a pair of restaurateurs from New York and Chicago, moving into a space that was not previously a restaurant. Brace yourselves. SINGAPORE 60's: ANDY's POP MUSIC INFLUENCE IS A PERSONAL MUSIC, MEMORY TRAIL. BLOGGER DOES NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO VIDEOS, AUDIO TRACKS AND IMAGES. THEY ARE UPLOADED FOR FUN, EDUCATIONAL, ILLUSTRATIVE PURPOSES AND HAVE BEEN CREDITED. BLOG IS NOT SPONSORED IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER. INFORM BLOGGER OF COPYRIGHT ISSUES AND POST WILL BE DELETED IMMEDIATELY. DO NOT COPY THE POSTS; GET PERMISSION N CREDIT ME IF YOU DO. ANDY LIM LA (NOVEMBER, 2008) - () VATICAN CITY | Oscar-winning actor and director Roberto Benigni gave Pope Francis two thumbs up this week, delivering one of his rapid-fire monologues and praising the pope as a fountain of mercy who is "dragging the whole church toward Christianity." At perhaps the most unusual Vatican book launch ever, Benigni was joined by the Vatican secretary of state, the Vatican spokesman and the Vatican publisher, as well as a Chinese prison inmate, to premier "The Name of God is Mercy." Francis' book-length conversation with Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli is being released in 86 countries as part of the pope's Holy Year of Mercy. Benigni, whose 1999 "Life is Beautiful" won three Oscars, joked that he wanted to be a priest as a child but realized he had to become a comic instead after friends laughed when he said he wanted to be pope. In recent years, Benigni has entertained television audiences in Italy with poignant monologues spliced with dramatic readings of Dante, the Italian constitution, and most recently, the 10 Commandments. The performances, carried on RAI state television, have shown him to be a man of obvious humor but also one of deep faith. It was his Christmastime performance on the 10 Commandments that earned Benigni a phone call from the pope and an invitation to help launch the book. "As soon as they called me and said, 'the Holy Father would like...' 'YES!' I said without letting them finish. Whatever he needs: If he needs a Swiss Guard, a driver for the popemobile, anything at all for this pope, I am ready. I will never say no." Gesturing wildly, Benigni praised Francis for living the message of mercy, going to visit the "least of the least" in Lampedusa, ground zero in Europe's migration crisis, and launching his jubilee year of mercy with the "poorest of the poorest of the poor" in Central African Republic. "He's a fountain, a waterfall of mercy," Benigni said. "In such an unrecognizable world, that wants hatred and condemnation, Francis responds with mercy." Benigni, who delivered his memorable Oscar acceptance speech after clambering over the chairs of the audience, said Francis is clearly a pope on the move, "dragging the whole church toward Christianity." The high-profile book launch was a clear indication of the importance the Vatican places on the book and Francis' overall message of mercy. The event featured a Chinese man who converted to Catholicism last year while serving a 20-year prison sentence in Italy. Francis, who has made prison ministry a mainstay of his life's vocation, has directed the jubilee year in a special way to prison inmates, saying God's mercy extends to them as well. Screenings Free blood pressure screenings, 9:30 to 11 a.m. Wednesdays at Countryside Senior Living, front lobby. No appointment necessary. Programs/Self-help groups Al-Anon Information Center, call 255-6724. Al-Anon and Alateen, meetings locally. For times, dates and locations of area meetings, call 255-6724. Alcoholics Anonymous, beginners information, call 252-1333. Arc of Woodbury County, serving the mentally challenged, 5:15 p.m. meeting, second Monday of the month at Mid-Step Services, 4303 Stone Ave. For families and interested persons. Child Care Resource and Referral, provides resources, education and advocacy for children, parents, and child care providers. Assists in child care needs. For more information, call 712-277-1180. Co-dependence Anonymous, 7 p.m. Mondays and Thursdays at First Lutheran Church, Fireside Room. Co-Dependents Anonymous (CODA), 10 a.m. Saturdays at Hawkeye Club, 420 Jones St. Compassionate Friends, 7 p.m. fourth Wednesday of each month (third Thursday in November and second Sunday December) in Mercy Medical Center's Leiter Room. For families who have lost children. Contact Nancy Webb 712-212-4032 or Don Mulder 712-541-5512. Children of Divorce, to help children cope with the challenges of parental separation or divorce. Call 712-279-2373 for more information. Clinics Siouxland District Health immunization clinics, call for appointment, 712-279-6119 or 1-800-587-3005. Information Dual Recovery Anonymous, 12-step peer support meeting, 4 to 5 p.m. Wednesdays at 625 Court St. Framework of recovery for those with addiction and emotional or psychiatric illness. For more information, call Mike at 255-1691. Family and Addictive Illness series, for more information, call 234-2300. Iowa Fathers, 6 to 8 p.m. fourth Tuesday of each month at Hope Lutheran Church, Education Building, 218 W. 18th St., South Sioux City, Neb. Support group to help single, divorcing and divorced parents residing in the state of Iowa. Mercy Pathways Outpatient Program, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, on the third floor, Mercy's Central Medical Building, 801 Fifth St., Suite 360. Provides hope, help, opportunity to connect through group therapy for individuals experiencing personal, relationship, psychiatric issues. For more information, call 712-279-5991. Narcotics Anonymous, meetings daily, various times, dates and locations. For more information, call 712-279-0733. Overeaters Anonymous, 7 p.m. Mondays at Floyd Valley Hospital, Lower Level, 714 Lincoln St. NE, Le Mars, Iowa; 1 p.m. Tuesdays at Wesley United Methodist Church, 3700 Indian Hills Drive; 6 p.m. Tuesdays at St. John's Lutheran Church, 402 Lane Ave., Storm Lake; 7 p.m. Tuesdays at Church of the Nazarene, 226 N. Main St., Viborg, S.D.; 5:30 p.m. Thursdays and 9 a.m. Saturdays at Newman Center, 320 E. Cherry St., Vermillion, S.D.; 10:30 a.m. Saturdays at Hawkeye Club, 420 Jones St. A 12-step recovery program for people who have problems with food and weight. No fees. St. Lukes Outpatient Behavioral Health Program, 9 a.m. to noon Monday, Tuesday and Thursday on fifth floor of St. Luke's, located at 2720 Stone Park Blvd. Offers several levels of outpatient care including partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient, and group therapy. This program provides support and integrated treatment to individuals experiencing personal or relationship issues as a result of their mental illness. For more information and admission criteria, call 712-279-3906. Sobriety By Faith, 8:30 a.m. Saturdays at Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church, 1421 Geneva St. For more information, call James Mothershead at 712-577-9715. The Link-Recovery and Freedom, at PMA Building, 6000 Gordon Drive; 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Saturday workshop, and Christian 12-step meeting 7 to 8 p.m. Tuesday. For all ages. Call Dee at 389-7432. Women in Recovery, meets monthly at Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church, 1421 Geneva St. For details, call 712-255-4623. Tarahouse Meditation Center, 8 a.m. Mondays through Thursdays; 6:30 p.m. Fridays; 10 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays, all at 3112 Rebecca St. Three easy 10 minute sessions in small group; beginners welcome. For more information, call 490-6410. Blood pressure and blood sugar screening, 9 to 11 a.m. Wednesdays in the lobby at Westwood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. Free to public. Support Groups NAMI Siouxland (National Alliance on Mental Illness), 6:30 p.m., second Tuesday of the month, Friendship House, 1101 Court St. For individuals and family members dealing with mental illness. 712-255-4209. Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous, 7-8:30 p.m. Wednesdays at Hawkeye Club basement, 420 Jones St. For more information, call 277-5935. Celebrate Recovery, Bible-based 12-step recovery group. Thursdays at 6:30 at Sunnybrook Community Church, 5601 Sunnybrook Drive. Daycare provided. 712-490-3343. PFLAG of Siouxland (Parents & Friends of Lesbians and Gays), 7 p.m., fourth Monday of January, March, May, July, September and November. St. Mark ELCA Church, 5200 Glenn Ave., in the upstairs meeting area. 712-258-3116. Singles widowed and divorced, all ages, 4 p.m., Sundays. McDonald's at Sixth Street and Lewis Boulevard. 712-252-2675. HIV/AIDS Support Group, meets weekly. For more information, call Darla or Teri at Siouxland Community Health Center, 712-252-2477 or 888-371-1965. La Leche League of Siouxland, breastfeeding support group meets every third Thursday at 11 a.m. at Morningside Lutheran Church. Children are welcome. For more information, call Mary at 712-546-7280 or Jacquie at 712-255-2998. Living Each Day Cancer Support Group, 7-8 p.m. second Thursday of the month, Floyd Valley Hospital, Conference Center Room 2, Le Mars, Iowa. Open to all cancer patients, cancer survivors and family members. No charge. Pre-register by calling 712-546-3441 or 800-642-6074, ext. 441. Mom and Baby Support Group, 10-11 a.m. last Monday of the month at the Orange City (Iowa) Hospital, lower level. For new moms and babies. 712-737-5260. Tri-State Sober Project 12-step meeting, 7:30-8:30 p.m., Tuesdays, Friendship Community Church, 305 Sergeant Square Drive, Sergeant Bluff. 6-7 p.m., Thursdays, Transitional Services of Iowa, 1221 Pierce St., Sioux City. Doug's Donors Support Group, information for organ donors and recipients, 12:30-1:30 p.m. Wednesdays, 5:15-6:30 p.m. second and fourth Thursdays of the month at Mercy Cafeteria Woodbury Room. 712-277-1050. Divorce Care, noon Sundays starting Jan. 10; GriefShare, 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays starting Jan. 12; Single & Parenting, 6:30 p.m. Thursdays starting Jan. 14; all at Sunnybrook Community Church, 5601 Sunnybrook Drive, Sioux City. 712-276-5814. Multiple Sclerosis Support Group, 1:30-3:30 p.m. first Saturday of the month at the CNOS, Dakota Dunes. For anyone with MS and/or their families. Call Janet Limoges at 605-217-2726 prior to attending. New Life Life Support Group, 3:30 p.m. every Saturday at 2929 W. Fourth St. Spiritual 12-step program. For more information, call Donald at 712-574-1744 or James at 712-255-7624. Post Polio Support Group, 11 a.m. first Thursday of the month at Perkins Restaurant by Menards. 712-490-8213. Relationship Support Group, 7 p.m. Fridays at Marketplace Mall. For more information, call 239-3129. Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence, Individual and Support Groups. For more information, call CSADV in Sioux City at 712-258-7233; Plymouth County at 712-546-6764; Monona County at 712-423-3443. Advocacy and support available 24 hours a day at 1-800-982-7233. All services free of charge and confidential. Sickle Cell Disease Support Group, 11 a.m. third Saturday of each month at St. Luke's Hospital, meeting room 1. For patients, their family and any concerned member. Call La'Keshia Rainey at 712-203-2019 for more information. Sioux City Association of the Deaf, 7 p.m. third Saturday of the month at Morningside Church of Christ, 5015 Garretson Ave. Regular meeting, September-May; no meeting, June, July, August and December. Siouxland Autism Support Group, second Thursday of the month at Northwest Area Education Agency, 1520 Morningside Ave. For more information, call Julie Case at 712-490-8939. Siouxland Epilepsy Support Group, 5 p.m. third Tuesday of the month at Prestwick Apartment Clubhouse, 4230 Hickory Lane. For anyone diagnosed with seizures or epilepsy and family or friends. For more information, call Steve at 274-6927. Siouxland IC support group, meets quarterly in Sioux City. For patients struggling with interstital cystitis. For more information, call Jacque Dundas 316-641-9766. Siouxland Informational Group for the Blind, 2-5 p.m. second Tuesday of the month at Northern Hills Retirement Community, 4002 Teton Trace. For more information, call 712-266-8926 or 258-8151. Grief support group, 5:30-7:30 p.m., beginning Oct. 5 for 13 weeks (may join at any time), Crescent Park United Methodist Church, 2826 Myrtle St., Sioux City. Scott, 712-899-6315. Siouxland Ostomy Association, 2 p.m. first Sunday of each month (except September, which will be second Sunday; and no meetings June, July, August), in Room 300 at Mercy Medical Center, 801 Fifth St. For more information, call Dick Lindblom at 251-2453. Siouxland Parkinson Disease Support Group, 1 p.m. fourth Monday of the month at Siouxland Center for Active Generations, 313 Cook St. For more information, call at Jack Scherrman at 712-277-9337. Sojourners, support group for families of persons with life-threatening illness, 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays at St. Luke's Regional Medical Center, Room 416. For more information, call Marjorie Jarvill at 402-241-8637. South Sioux City Weight Support Group, 8:30 a.m. Wednesdays at St. Paul United Methodist Church, South Sioux City. For more information, call 494-1401 or 494-2133. Support groups at Disabilities Resource Center of Siouxland, 520 Nebraska St., Suite 101: Women's Support Group, 1:30 p.m. first Wednesday of the month; LGBT Support Group, 1:30 p.m. first Friday of the month; Adult ADHD, 6 p.m. second Tuesday of the month; Advocacy Group, 1:30 p.m. third Tuesday of the month. For more information, call (712) 255-1065. Take Off Pounds Sensibly, group meetings various times, days and locations in Siouxland. For information on the chapter in your area, call 1-800-932-TOPS. Voice Disorder Support Group, meets as needed at Mercy Medical Center, Buena Vista Room. 712-279-2686. Women's Peer Support Group, in Wayne and South Sioux City, Neb., for those who have experienced domestic abuse. For more information, call the Wayne office at 402-375-4633 or 1-800-440-4633; in South Sioux City, call 402-494-7592. Help and support available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Services free and confidential. Woodbury County D.M.D.A., noon-2 p.m. first Saturday of the month at Country Friendship Acres, 4501 West St.; 7-8 p.m. first Tuesday of the month at 515 Court St. in the Community Room; 7-8 p.m. second Tuesday of the month at 441 W. Third St. in the Community Room; 7-8 p.m. third Tuesday of the month at 409 W. Third St. in the Community Room. Support group for people with disabilities and mental disorders. Natural Mamas in Siouxland, 1 p.m., third Tuesday of each month in the Garretson room of the Morningside Public Library. All ages of children are welcome to come with moms. For sharing natural living tips, recipes, natural remedies and health, homemaking, mothering, etc. For more information, call 402-913-0038 or visit their Facebook page. A Step Beyond support group, 3:30 p.m. second Tuesday of the month, except for August, November and December when it meets at 5:30 p.m. (no meeting in January) at the Christy-Smith Resource Center, 1819 Morningside Ave. For more information, call 712-276-7319. Divorce care, 5 p.m., Sundays. Fireside room, Morningside Lutheran Church, 700 South Martha St. Gamblers Anonymous meetings, 4 p.m. Thursday at Immanuel Lutheran Church, 315 Hamilton Blvd.; 7 p.m. Wednesday, Morningside Presbyterian Church, 4327 Morningside Ave.; 7 p.m. Tuesdays, St. John Lutheran Church. 712-277-2901. Art therapy support group, 5:30 p.m. second Thursday of the month at the June E. Nylen Cancer Center. Registration required, call 252-9387. After Breast Cancer Support Group, 5:30 p.m. third Tuesday of the month at the June E. Nylen Cancer Center. For more information, call Brenda, 252-9370. After Prostate Cancer Support Group, 5:15 p.m. first Tuesday of the month at the June E. Nylen Cancer Center. For more information, call 252-9426. Alzheimer's Association Big Sioux Chapter Support Group, 2 p.m. second Tuesday of the month; 4 p.m. third Tuesday of the month (under age 65) at 201 Pierce St., Suite 110 (Famous Dave's building); and 6 p.m. first Tuesday of the month at the Barnes and Noble Cafe. For more information, call Emily Lord at 712-279-5802. Christy-Smith Funeral Homes of Sioux City, extensive grief library at the Morningside location. Open to the public during weekday hours. For more information, call 276-7319. Chronic Pain/Chronic Illness Support Group, 7:30 p.m. fourth Wednesday of the month in the lower level of the Orange City Hospital. For more information, call 712-737-5260. Connections Area Agency on Aging and Mercy Medical Centers Older Adult Services Welcome to Medicare, 1:30-4 p.m., the first Friday of every month at Connections Area Agency on Aging, 2301 Pierce Street. To pre-register, or for more information, contact Connections Area Agency on Aging at 712-279-6900. SIOUX CITY | The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity will be celebrated Monday through Jan. 25. The theme is "Called to Proclaim the Mighty Acts of the Lord." Events are scheduled as follows: Tuesday, 10 a.m.-noon at St. John Lutheran Church, 2801 Jackson St.; Wednesday, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. at New Life Lutheran Church, First and Baker streets, Sergeant Bluff; Thursday, 5:30-7 p.m. at Trinity Lutheran Church, 1122 Jackson St.; Jan. 24, 7 p.m. at Grace United Methodist Church, 1735 Morningside Ave. MINNEAPOLIS | If a man was proclaiming religious ideas from a soapbox on Hennepin Avenue, what would you or Jesus do? Perhaps you could try pondering the issue over a brew. A small group imbibed and pontificated on this scenario recently in a northeast Minneapolis living room. Booze, scripture and YouTube helped anoint the latest Bible and Brew hosted by Nicholas and Kristin Tangen, both 30 and members of Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran Church in the Northeast neighborhood. We really try and look at the intersection of faith and life, Nicholas Tangen said of the group he founded last summer. I think that fits well with sitting around a table with some beer. The gathering is one of many monthly events across the Twin Cities area combining faith-based activities and alcohol. Some are local, such as Humble Walk Lutheran Churchs Beer and Hymns, which is in its fifth year at Shamrocks in St. Paul, Minnesota. Others are chapters in national series, such as Theology on Tap, hosted by parish cooperatives West Metro Young Adults in Minneapolis and Cathedral Young Adults in St. Paul. Some are aimed at specific audiences, such as a womens Wine and Dessert night at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Minneapolis. Others focus on craft beers, including St. Andrews Lutheran Church in Mahtomedi, which hosts What Would Jesus Brew? Were not trying to lure you as a bait and switch into our organization, said the Rev. Jodi Houge of Humble Walk Lutheran Church in St. Paul. If you show up, youre already in. Theres no secret agenda. The groups all uncork ideas in spaces outside Gods house, and drinking is neither encouraged nor required. As the number of U.S. Christians wanes, according to studies by Pew Research Center, the groups offer alternative ways to strengthen religious worship, reaching out to people who are looking for something beyond the traditional. Its much more likely for twenty-somethings to get together at a local pub for food, fellowship and faith, rather than a church basement, said Peter Engelmeyer, 27, of West Metro Young Adults. Its a lot more of a relaxed atmosphere. The weekly events, held most recently at Champps in Minnetonka, allow Catholics to connect with one another and explore their faith, including a grill the priest opportunity, organizers say. When youre preaching from the pulpit, its a very one-sided conversation, said the groups adviser, the Rev. Joseph Johnson of Holy Family Catholic Church in St. Louis Park. Instead, theres a give-and-take in conversation, so that you can hopefully flesh out what questions people have. WIDE-OPEN SPACES A night at the Tangens roundtable deep-dives into economics, politics and social issues. To prompt the 7:30 p.m. discussion, Nicholas Tangen toggled a PlayStation 2 remote to play a video of a street performer in New York City. In the video, performer Matthew Silver plays John the Baptist. Shirtless and bearded, he bellows at the crowd, Live in the moment! Dont get old! Dont judge people! Nicholas then read the gospel (Luke 3:7-18). The group of 10 debated: Does mortality pack the same punch these days as during New Testament times? Theres a sense of non-urgency around death now, Kristin Tangen said about an hour into the groups three-hour chat. That same attitude might apply to being proactive about goals or recognizing the threat of global warming, she said. We all nestle comfortably into modernitys promises, she added. Her husband added, Live today like its your last sounds so trite, but does it have credence? He wondered: Should we dismiss such simple adages? Where does YOLO [you only live once] fit into all of this? posed Josh Meuwissen, 25, another congregation member. The conversation, complemented by snacks, stewed more questions: What makes a prophet? Suddenly enlivened, Tanner Hall interjected: People who use strategic communication they make their point in a way that made people want to write it down. Someone felt motivated to transcribe biblical preachings, the group noted, right? Was John the Baptist this autonomous person who had full agency in making things this way? Hall wondered. It was almost 9 p.m. by then, and his glass was half-empty. Or maybe half-full. COME ONE, COME ALL The Tangens started hosting Bible and Brew because its ingredients existed: a rich beer culture in northeast Minneapolis and a desire to connect over subjects often left unspoken. They also pointed out that their faiths founder, Martin Luther, was known to dwell in pubs. Bubbly people, the Tangens who are hoping to expand with a pedal pub during the spring direct the conversation into fluid, judgment-free zones. Alyssa Meuwissen, 25, started attending the meetings because she missed the intellectual conversations at her alma mater, the College of St. Benedict. For Adithya Connerton, a first-timer, the gathering was another pillar in her ongoing struggle with Christianity. Connerton, 29, belongs to a Presbyterian church and is married to an atheist, who has taught her kindness and patience, she said. The group discussed misunderstanding parents, work-life balance, questions of systematic discrimination and effects of social media. And they talked about the stranger shouting on Hennepin Avenue. Is this orator a soothsayer? Is he beckoning for attention? Or, perhaps, mentally ill? And would you ignore him or stop and listen to the diatribe, maybe even dropping a coin in his bottom-up hat that was serving as a collection plate? There were no easy answers. Thats the question we should leave with here tonight, Hall said. Forceps helped bring Cristin Taylors first child into the world, a joy that outweighed the pain of the fourth-degree tear Taylor suffered in her perineum during the birth. The wounds closed, but Taylor still struggled with urinary incontinence. Shed leak when she ran, coughed or brushed her teeth. A decadelong battle with her bladder raged through Kegel exercises, the birth of another daughter and physical therapy (not with a pelvic floor specialist). Taylor resorted to surgery to insert mesh support, in hopes of correcting what had been diagnosed as a tilt in her bladder neck. After six weeks of recovery, the incontinence continued now accompanied by numbness that dulled her sex life. It was like a foot that had fallen asleep. In 2011 Taylor and a friend tried a new fitness class at a gym near her home in Satellite Beach, Fla. Called Fluidity, the class uses an adjustable-height barre to strengthen all muscle groups but particularly the lowest and innermost structures of the core, what Fluidity founder Michelle Austin calls the inner unit. Michelle talked a lot about the pelvic floor and alignment awareness, Taylor said. They had three classes a week, and I came every time I could. Within six months, I was noticing huge changes in my life, including a wonderful, more connected sex life with my husband. Women like Taylor were the original target for Austins Fluidity regimen, which has been taught at gyms and rehabilitation centers around the country for over a decade. But in the last year Fluidity has been noticed and recommended by Microgate USA, a company that specializes in movement analytics to help everyone from professional athletes to the elderly and Parkinsons patients. Anyone can benefit from the regimen, Austin said, which revolves around a barre with a backboard that rises from the floor. The ability to adjust the Fluidity barre to hip height is key, Austin said, because it reduces the tendency to perform exercises in a posterior tilt, which compromises alignment and effectiveness of some barre workouts. Fluiditys goal: to correct pelvic instability that can contribute to chronic complaints such as incontinence, back pain, sexual dysfunction and loss of balance as we age. The concept emerged from Austins resolve to rehabilitate herself after cancer and a full hysterectomy at age 42, combined with her training in the Lotte Berk barre method, which Austin taught in the 1990s in New York City. In hysterectomies, theyre taking out an organ, if not several, and theres no rehab, Austin said. Its ridiculous. Fluidity classes now are held at rehabilitation centers and gyms around the country. An at-home counterpart includes a collapsible barre, DVDs, mat, ball and bands. The pelvic-floor muscles often become dysfunctional after childbirth, gynecological surgery, illness such as urinary tract infections, or just from disuse, says Cindy Neville, a physical therapist specializing in womens health who is on clinical faculty at the University of Northern Florida. That dysfunction can contribute to pelvic organ prolapse, where the vaginal walls or cervix drop, as well as incontinence, estimated to affect 30 to 40 percent of middle-aged women and 30 to 50 percent of elderly women. Many women suffer in silence. If they seek treatment, doctors sometimes recommend a surgery like Taylors. Of the 400,000 pelvic floor surgeries annually in the U.S., 120,000 of those are repeats, Neville said, suggesting that surgery isnt solving the problem. But people are afraid to talk about the pelvic floor muscles; its like breast cancer 20 years ago; to say the word breast was almost pornographic in our culture, she said. Neville recommends Fluidity to some of her patients. In Fluidity theres not an emphasis on bending forward or rounding forward, its more balanced with the front and back of the body, versus always being the front of the body, which so many things focus on, Neville said. The neutral pelvis and engaging the deep core, including the pelvic floor, are very effective. Peter Gorman, the president of Microgate USA who holds several patents on heart rate monitors, met Austin at a deli counter in Florida over Thanksgiving in 2014. I didnt know what Fluidity was, but she and I were speaking the same language, he said. As you lose integrity in your core, especially your inner core, things happen; you can get physiological changes from anatomical deficiency. He was curious enough about her method to observe her Fluidity class, where Austin guided participants into what she calls the neutral pelvis position: Wrap thumb and index finger around the right hip and around the left hip and tilt the pelvis all the way forward and all the way back. When you find the position where the wrist feels relaxed between those two places, thats neutral pelvis. In that position, the muscles can contract and relax more effectively to not just tone the body but re-establish the stability of the inner core and pelvic floor. Gorman thinks the Fluidity regimen has applications beyond fixing incontinence, which he views as an early warning sign for problems that become life-threatening as we age. As we march through life, we lose our balance control, Gorman said. The average 53-year-old should be able to stand on one leg with eyes closed for 15 seconds. If she cant, shes at a higher risk (of deadly falls). So, what if we put her in a program where besides just feeling good and losing some pounds hey, lets all go to Ipanema together! but also, her balance, timing and coordination improved? By doing that shes basically learned to grow younger. A year after starting Fluidity, Taylor visited a cranial sacral therapist who evaluated her muscle control. She reported I have 360 degrees of strength in my pelvic floor, which to her was phenomenal, regardless of what I recovered from, Taylor said. Fluidity isnt a cheap or instant cure, she noted. When she is busy and goes on hiatus from her Fluidity workouts, she notices her bladder control starts to lapse. Its one reason she invested in the barre system for her home. I feel like I have this tool, Taylor said, and I can always heal myself. SIOUX CITY | Nestled in the hills of rural Woodbury County north of Sioux City, a small shed on stilts overlooks a field where deer frequent. The deer blind, complete with a ramp to provide access for wheelchairs, was built by the Sioux City Elks Lodge 112 to help disabled veterans once again enjoy hunting. Bill Hanson, past exalted ruler of the lodge, said the project was brainstormed about two years ago as members of the lodge were thinking of ways to serve veterans. I had knowledge from being a hunter that the (Iowa Department of Natural Resources) promotes hunting to vets from out of state for the same cost as a resident, Hanson said. We wanted to do what we could for them. Hanson said the blind is one of two in Iowa approved by the state -- the other is English River Outfitters, a non-profit based in Washington, Iowa. The hunting blind cost about $10,000, with much of the labor donated by contractors, and materials donated by local lumber dealers, Hanson said. About 10 members of the lodge spent more than 300 hours building the blind, he said. As a whole, its dedicated to show respect and appreciation to veterans, Hanson said. Out-of-state vets get compensated hotel stays during their trip, and half off on taxidermy services. It also serves area veterans, like Todd Landen of Sioux City. Landen, 46, served three tours of duty overseas, and was injured in Iraq by an improvised explosive device in 2006. The injuries he suffered have made tasks like walking and sitting for long periods of time difficult, Landen said. So when the U.S. Army veteran got to harvest a 10-point buck 20 minutes after settling in at the blind, he was actually disappointed he didnt get to wait longer. I was hoping it was going take a while, Landen said with a laugh. But Ill take it. Completely insulated, the blind is heated and has removable handrails so those with wheelchairs can sit right up to the window to see, aim -- and if lucky -- bag a deer. It allows the hunter to be concealed from the deer, which helps considering their sharp eyesight and heightened sense of smell. Hanson said a second hunting blind with similar features, but on wheels so its portable, has been built. Its already been used by a bow hunter and veteran, Carl Smith of Colorado, who also got a deer, Hanson said. A third one, also mobile, is in the works. We havent moved the second one yet, because theres so many deer where its at, so why bother? Hanson said. Landen said the Elks Lodge knows about the struggles he and other wounded vets live with, and said the blind made the process of hunting a seamless one. I dont know how to thank them enough, Landen said. Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said Monday that security at the Mexican border needs to be tightened not just to halt illegal immigration but to stem terrorist groups he said are sneaking across into the U.S. SIOUX CITY | Sen. Ted Cruz's "disastrous" position on renewable energy could cost the Texas Republican support in Iowa's first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses, GOP Gov. Terry Branstad said Thursday. Branstad also weighed in on the Democratic race for the White House, saying he expects U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders to beat national front-runner Hillary Clinton in the Feb. 1 caucuses. Branstad, who has no plans to endorse any of the Republican contenders, told the Journal editorial board he is wary of assessing campaigns, since his guiding principle is that there should be a wide-open race. But the governor said his friend and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who won the 2008 Iowa caucuses but has been mired in low single digits in the polls this time around, could post a surprise finish on Feb.1. "Huckabee has been to all 99 counties. I think he is going to do better than people think. I could see him cutting into Cruz's support, because Cruz's position on renewable fuels is disastrous. He opposes ethanol, he opposes wind energy, and those are really important to our state; those are a lot of jobs in this state," the governor said. Branstad noted his eldest son, Eric, is state director for America's Renewable Future, a group that has criticized Cruz, who hails from oil-rich Texas, for supporting subsidies for the petroleum industry but not ethanol and other renewable fuels. Cruz has eased his position on renewable fuels in recent days. For the first time, at a recent campaign stop in Northwest Iowa, he promised to keep, through 2022, the Renewable Fuels Standard, which sets a mandate on the amount of ethanol blended in gasoline. The first-term Texas senator has been leading most recent Iowa polls, but a Quinnipiac University survey released Monday had billionaire businessman Donald Trump on top with 31 percent, followed closely by Cruz at 29 percent. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, of Florida, was further back in third place in the 12-candidate Republican field. Polls show a tightening Democratic race in Iowa. A Public Policy Polling survey released Tuesday had Clinton leading Sanders, 46 percent to 40 percent. A Quinnipiac poll also this week had Sanders in front, 49-44. Branstad said Clinton has had too many "staged" events, which he said runs counter to the tradition of Iowa people wanting a chance to question candidates in grassroots campaign stops. "I think she's in trouble. I really think she is gonna get beat by Bernie Sanders. I think full well, it could happen. Iowans have this sense of who's honest and genuine and all that kind of stuff, and she just doesn't ring true," Branstad said. HOLSTEIN, Iowa | Robert Siegel, host of National Public Radio's "All Things Considered," visited Holstein on Tuesday for a segment on the Iowa caucuses. Siegel and producer Art Silverman recorded remarks by Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina before commencing a round-table discussion of likely voters. The segment will most likely air at some point between 4-6 p.m. today (Friday). "All Things Considered" can be heard on KWIT-FM 90.3 and KOJI FM 90.7 in Sioux City. Later that day, Siegel gathered data and comments at a Donald Trump rally in Cedar Falls, Iowa, which was attended by an estimated 1,000 people, a contrast to the 50 adults, 24 kindergarten students and 2 teachers that listened to Fiorina at the Midwest Deli on Holstein's Main Street. Fiorina fielded eight questions from the crowd in Holstein and answered each one, according to Siegel. Zero questions came from the crowd at the Trump campaign event. "With Trump, it's entirely a show," Siegel said. "Trump performs and the people listen, most of them quite happily. They enjoyed the show. "In New Hampshire and you folks, in Iowa, you're the only people who get to do retail politics with presidential aspirants," he continued. "The rest of us watch TV commercials and the occasional debate." Siegel labeled voters in Iowa and New Hampshire as "focus groups," people who do the work of vetting and, with their first-in-the-nation events, pare the field for the rest of the country. Siegel wasn't the only national media presence in Holstein on Tuesday morning. A crew from CBS News filmed the Fiorina event, from start to to finish, for a story on the Iowa Caucuses that aired on Wednesday. LE MARS, Iowa | A judge has ruled that Jonathan Neunaber is mentally competent to stand trial for the death of his mother. District Judge Steven Andreasen said in his ruling that he believes Neunaber is able to make rational decisions and is capable of understanding the charge he faces, the consequences and is able to assist his attorney in his defense. "... the court finds and concludes that (Neunaber) has not proven by a preponderance of the evidence that he is incompetent to stand trial," Andreasen wrote in his nine-page ruling, filed Friday morning in Plymouth County District Court. Neunaber, 45, of Akron, Iowa, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder for the death of Esther Neunaber, 80. Her body, along with that of her husband, Donald Neunaber, 83, was found July 9, 2014, in their rural Akron home. It's believed the Neunabers had been dead for two weeks before their bodies were found. Autopsies determined that Esther Neunaber died of blunt-force injuries and that Donald Neunaber died of natural causes, namely cardiovascular and pulmonary disease. All case proceedings had been stayed since May, when Andreasen granted Plymouth County Attorney Darin Raymond's request that Neunaber be evaluated. Neunaber's attorney, public defender Billy Oyadare, had already by that time requested a hearing to determine his client's mental competency. Neunaber was examined by Dr. Tim Kockler for the state and Dr. Angela Stokes for the defense. Their findings were presented during a closed hearing in December. Andreasen said it was clear that both mental health professionals agreed that Neunaber has a factual understanding of the charge and legal proceedings because he has been able to recall details of the alleged crime, explain the circumstances and give accurate factual information to his attorney. However, Stokes diagnosed Neunaber with Asperger's disorder and dependent personality disorder, conditions that negatively affect his ability to make rational decisions and render him unable to effectively assist his attorney, Andreasen said. Andreasen ruled that Stokes' arguments, even if he were to agree with her diagnoses, failed to prove Neunaber was incompetent to stand trial. Andreasen lifted the stay in the case and said he would set dates for trial and any additional hearings in a separate order. SAC CITY, Iowa | An accident involving a school bus and a pickup injured five people near Sac City Thursday afternoon. The accident occurred around 4:15 p.m. at the intersection of Rolf Avenue and U.S. Highway 20, according to a release from the Sac County Sheriff's Office. Officials said an East Sac County school bus driven by Debra Dettman, 64, of Sac City, was northbound on Rolf Avenue when it collided with the pickup, driven by August Bach, 40, of Newton, Iowa, westbound on Highway 20. The collision sent both vehicles into the ditch and trapped Bach in his vehicle, the release said. He was extricated by the Sac City Fire Department. Bach and a passenger, 38-year-old Jennifer Elliot of Cedar Rapids, and Dettman were taken to Loring Hospital in Sac City. Of the four students on the school bus, two were also taken to the hospital for minor injuries, the release said. Dettman was charged with failure to yield from a stop sign. SIOUX CITY | Teachers in the Sioux City school district have proposed pay increases for the coming year as contract negotiations opened on Thursday. The Sioux City Education Association, which represents the teachers, requested the district increase annual teacher base salaries, currently $33,894, by 5 percent. The SCEA, represented Thursday by Bruce Lear, also requested an hourly rate increase from $30 to $35 when teachers perform duties outside of their regular contract. An emphasis was also placed on pay for substitute teachers. Lear said one solution to attract more qualified substitute teachers to the district could be an increase in pay. The proposal called for giving former district employees who agree to substitute the highest of three substitute teacher pay scale steps. No matter how much we try we just dont have enough subs, Lear said. We need qualified people who will be in the classroom and teach. Additionally, active teachers who substitute a class period would receive $50 an hour instead of the current such rate of $30. We just dont have enough subs, he said. That means teachers have to cover for other teachers. When you do that, the job youre leaving goes begging. Lear said that the contract suggestions made Thursday are the first step in the bargaining process. Much also relies on the actions of the Iowa Legislature. Currently, Gov. Terry Branstad has proposed a 2.45 percent increase in supplemental state aid for districts. Lear said Branstads proposed percentage increase is not conducive to the districts needs, but said he was hopeful more aid will be approved. Im optimistic that they (legislators) have to know schools cannot be strangled and at 2.45 percent, I believe they are strangling schools, he said. We need more than that to keep everything running. As far as an agreement between the SCEA and the district, Lear said he is confident the two could reach an adequate deal. Superintendent Paul Gausman, too, said he believes both sides will be able to settle on a contract. We have very strong relationships between management and labor in the district and Im very thankful for that, he said. We intend to keep those strong relationships going through a thorough process where we talk about matters that need improvement. Gausman said the school board will soon be presented with the SCEAs proposal and the districts rebuttal will be presented on Jan. 28. [Photo/IC] On January 16-18, the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is scheduled to launch its inaugural ceremonies and hold a Board of Directors meeting to start operations. As early as Feb 25, 2015, the AIIB Articles of Agreement were signed by different nations. It's the first China-initiated multi-lateral financial institution, which is headquartered in Beijing. The bank's founding had gone smooth. In October 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang had proposed to establish the AIIB during their trips to Southeast Asia. In 2014, Beijing contacted other nations to move ahead on AIIB. In October, 21 Asian nations, including China, India, Malaysia, Pakistan and Singapore signed The Memorandum of Understanding on Establishing the AIIB. From November 2014 to March 2015, bank negotiations were held in Yunnan, China, Bombay, India and Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan. The meetings had outlined policy making, business and operational systems, governance structure and the rules for acceptance of new members. It took less than two years to form the bank. Meanwhile, it is widely-known that Eurasia did not enjoy balanced development in the past few decades. China, Japan and South Korea in East Asia have been grown rapidly, making two economic highlands together with European developed economies in east Eurasia, while there is a large valley in between. The countries in between remain underdeveloped, esp. in the fields of infrastructure that hinder local markets to integrate in Eurasia. There's stronger demand for infrastructure development within and outside Asia. AIIB offers an alternative approach to finance that differs from Western powers. So, some countries have worried that AIIB would challenge the established financial order. Accordingly, the US and Japan have not joined the Beijing-based bank. Among 57 founding member states, four of them are permanent member states of the United Nations Security Council - China, United Kingdom, France and Russia - and a majority are G20 members and all BRICS (Brazil Russia, India China and South Africa) countries have signed up. This shows that the AIIB is widely welcomed. Rather than being a competitor, the AIIB would complement the current international economic order to cooperate with existing multi-lateral banks to promote sustainable development of the regional economy. As a pillar of economic growth, infrastructure investment is endowed with commercial investment opportunities. The AIIB would aid infrastructure construction of Asia-Pacific countries, and potentially other nations as well. The bank would finance the infrastructure projects of each country in different ways, including loans, equity investments and guarantees, to promote the fields of transportation, energy, telecom, agriculture and urban development. China is the second-largest economy of the world. The AIIB would enable China to join the international financial system, which would also include its efforts for the Chinese currency Yuan going more international and supporting the Silk Road Economic Belt. It would also enable China to take more global responsibility. The AIIB stands in line with the interests of all founding members, and is endowed with broad prospects. Dr. Yang Jin is an associate researcher of Institute of Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences MOORHEAD, Iowa | A rollover accident near Moorhead Friday morning claimed the life of a Moorhead teen, the Monona County Sheriff's Office said. Shelby Montange, 16, of Moorhead was found dead at the scene, a release said. Two other occupants of the car, Braiden Solberg, 12, and the driver, Sidney Solberg, 15, were injured and taken to Burgess Hospital in Onawa. The accident occurred around 7:30 a.m. when Sidney Solberg, driving a 2001 Chevy Monte Carlo, rolled in the north ditch along County Road E-54, the release said. Solberg told authorities she was driving westbound on E-54 when she lost control on a patch of black ice and went into the ditch, the release said. Montange and Braiden Solberg were not wearing seat belts and were ejected from the car, the release said. The Monona County Sheriff's Office was assisted by the Iowa State Patrol, Moorhead Fire and Ambulance and the Burgess Health Center Ambulance. The accident remains under investigation. -- Jordan Gonzalez WASHINGTON -- The most venomous part of the Republican Party has seized control of the national dialogue. This forced President Obama to use his final State of the Union message on Tuesday to battle against intolerance, anger, pessimism and despair. Even more tellingly, the Republican designated to reply to him, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, effectively joined hands with a man she otherwise criticized. She implored her party to reject "the siren call of the angriest voices." For one moment, at least, Obama had realized his dream: A part of red America came together with his blue America to share responsibility for the nation's frustrations. Yet the limits of this cease-fire were brought home with a speed facilitated by the technology of instant communication: Haley had barely issued her plea against rage when Twitter was engulfed by it -- directed her way by voices at the right end of her party, particularly from enthusiasts for Donald Trump. The siren call struck back. There were paradoxes and ironies galore in the president's address. A dispassionate perspective might acknowledge the successes of a president who took over when the nation's economy was in free fall and a new global Great Depression was a genuine possibility. Obama was not wrong to assert that unemployment has been cut in half on his watch, that the United States "has the strongest, most durable economy in the world," and that "anyone claiming that America's economy is in decline is peddling fiction." But Obama, like all Democrats, is caught up in a dilemma. It involves problems that he and his party know they have an obligation to solve. As the president himself said, globalization and technological change mean that "workers have less leverage for a raise. Companies have less loyalty to their communities. And more and more wealth and income is concentrated at the very top." The very ire that Obama and Haley want to contain is thus being fed by economic forces that progressives and social democrats around the world are having great difficulty taming or redirecting. This frustration is aggravated by fear of terrorism, global disorder and the mass movement of people across national boundaries. Obama did a far better job Tuesday than he has in recent months in defining and defending his approach to foreign policy. His driving question: "How do we keep America safe and lead the world without becoming its policeman?" And after citing Pope Francis' injunction against imitating "the hatred and violence of tyrants and murderers," the president warned that the nation is only weakened and its safety compromised "when politicians insult Muslims, when a mosque is vandalized, or a kid [is] bullied." Obama expressed regret that "the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better" during his presidency. It was useful for him to support a variety of reforms in how campaigns are financed and legislative districts are drawn. In light of attacks on voting rights by the Supreme Court and in some Republican-held states, it was especially important that he stressed the need to make voting easier rather than harder. But his diplomacy and self-criticism understated the deep costs of the obstruction directed his way by partisan opponents throughout his presidency. If you wonder why Americans are so dispirited, consider a Pew survey finding that on the political "issues that matter" to them, 79 percent of Republicans and those who leaned that way thought they were "losing," but so did 52 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaners. Overall, those who saw themselves on the losing end outnumbered winners, 64 percent to 25 percent. When nearly two-thirds of us feel like losers, it should be no surprise that the current rage is rage. Haley's comments and the reaction they drew from the GOP's rejectionist caucus suggest that leaders of the Republican Party may realize they miscalculated in spending years stoking indignation among the faithful. Who, really, can blame rank-and-file Republicans for taking their alienation seriously and turning to Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz as the most forceful expressions of it? The media and the Democrats also bear responsibility. The networks see Trumpian wrath as a ratings magnet and act accordingly. Democrats have stashed their debates in the far corners of the television schedule and have not found a way to balance touting their achievements with answering legitimate discontent. The president took a stab at this on Tuesday. It was a decent effort. It will take a lot more to subdue the furies. WASHINGTON -- What boxer Sonny Liston's manager said of him (Sonny had his good points, the trouble was his bad points) is true of Marco Rubio. His strengths include intelligence, articulateness and, usually, cheerfulness. His misjudgments involve, in ascending order of importance, the Senate immigration bill of 2013, sugar, Libya and S-590. Together these reveal a recurring penchant for ill-considered undertakings. Rubio's retreat, under withering political heat, from the immigration bill was undignified but not reprehensible. The bill had 1,197 pages because the 906-page Affordable Care Act had not slaked the congressional appetite for "comprehensive" solutions to complex problems. The immigration bill solved everything, down to the hourly wage of immigrant agricultural sorters ($9.84). Rubio shared this serene knowingness. His sugar addiction is a reprehensible but not startling example of the routine entanglements of big government and big business. He has benefited from the support of Florida's wealthy sugar producers, who have benefited from sugar import quotas and other corporate welfare that forces Americans to pay approximately twice the world price for sugar. What is, however, startling is Rubio's preposterous defense of this corporate welfare as a national security imperative: Without our government rigging the sugar market, "other countries will capture the market share, our agricultural capacity will be developed into real estate, you know, housing and so forth, and then we lose the capacity to produce our own food, at which point we're at the mercy of a foreign country for food security." This promiscuous invocation of national security brings us to Rubio's enthusiastic support of the Barack Obama/Hillary Clinton intervention in Libya, which Rubio faults for having been insufficiently enthusiastic. This 2011 plunge into a tribal society's civil war, this eight-month assassination attempt using fighter bombers, this supposedly humanitarian imperialism appealed to Secretary of State Clinton and other progressives precisely because it had no discernible connection to any vital U.S. interest. Rubio supported this third adventure in regime change in the Muslim world since 9/11, perhaps on the principle that practice makes perfect. Today, his sensible complaint is that the Obama administration (like the previous administration regarding Iraq) had no plans for preventing chaos after the Libyan regime was decapitated. His not-at-all sensible implication, however, is that America should have buckled down to nation-building there. Rubio's misjudgment regarding Libya indicates a susceptibility to slapdash foreign policies. His support of S-590, the Campus Accountability and Safety Act, indicates a susceptibility to trendy temptations, carelessness regarding evidence, and indifference to constitutional values. Wielding irrelevant laws, spurious social science and financial coercion, the Obama administration is pressuring colleges and universities to traduce standards of due process when dealing with students accused of sexual assault. Claiming that a 1972 law prohibiting sex discrimination in education somehow empowers the government to dictate institutions' disciplinary procedures, the administration is dictating that a mere "preponderance of the evidence," rather than "clear and convincing" evidence, be used in determining a life-shattering verdict of guilt. Stuart Taylor Jr. and KC Johnson -- a lawyer and an academic, neither Republicans -- write that the administration justifies this by citing a single "resoundingly discredited" study purporting to prove an epidemic (involving one in five women) of campus sexual assaults. The administration opposes allowing accused students to cross-examine their accusers, and favors a form of double jeopardy -- allowing accusers to appeal not-guilty findings. Rubio is one of 12 Republican senators collaborating with the administration by co-sponsoring legislation that would codify requiring improvised campus disciplinary proceedings to supplant law enforcement and the criminal justice system. Proposed by Democrat Claire McCaskill of Missouri, the legislation is, as Taylor and Johnson say, "designed to advance the administration's agenda." The legislation's language radiates prejudgment: By repeatedly referring to accusers as "victims," it presumes the guilt of the accused. Taylor and Johnson write: "America's universities are in the grip of a dangerous presume-guilt-and-rush-to-judgment culture. ... An entire generation of college students is learning to disregard due process and the dispassionate evaluation of evidence. And dozens of clearly or at least probably innocent students, whose cases we will detail in a book we are now writing, have been branded sex criminals, been railroaded out of their universities, and seen their hopes and dreams ruined." By co-sponsoring S-590, Rubio is helping the administration sacrifice a core constitutional value, due process, in order to advance progressives' cultural aggression. The next Republican president should be someone committed to promptly stopping this disgrace, not someone who would sign S-590's affirmation of it. SOUTH SIOUX CITY | The South Sioux City school district, one of Nebraska's most "property poor" public schools, could benefit from a boost in state aid over the next two fiscal years, Gov. Pete Ricketts said Thursday. Just hours after delivering his annual condition of the state speech at the state Capitol in Lincoln, Ricketts spoke to about 25 South Sioux City leaders at the Marina Inn Hotel & Conference Center. Superintendent Vernon Fisher asked Ricketts how he would address spending growth in the South Sioux district, where less than 5 percent of the citys property tax is generated from agricultural land. Weve been a good steward of taxpayer money with spending growth less than 4 percent, Fisher said. When you look at the increase in aid to education, we rank 49th in the nation. As part of his proposed budget, the Republican governor said he will allocate $17 million for fiscal 2017 and $25 million for fiscal 2018 into the Tax Equity and Education Opportunities Support Act. TEEOSA is the states formula to calculate how much state aid goes to public schools. I think its about managing the priorities just like everything else, Ricketts told Fisher. If you look at the budget, when we do address the state aid for instance, the issue would be ag land valuations. But Mayor Rod Koch and other local leaders were worried South Sioux City could get the short straw of the deal because the city has historically received little help from the state. In South Sioux City, we depend a lot on state aid here, Koch said. We are one of the poorest school districts as far as money coming in so we depend a lot on state aid. In recent years, the school district has eliminated positions and trimmed salaries in an effort to stay afloat with rising education costs and little state aid to offset the difference. In our school district, state aid has been flat for five years, and were a growing school district, which is creating more pressure on us, Fisher said. We havent come out on the positive end on any impact in state aid in the last five years, and were concerned that trend will continue. Earlier Thursday in his condition of the state address, Ricketts reached out to repair relations with state senators after a bumpy first year. The first-term governor achieved his priorities while losing a number of high-profile veto battles. His top goals this year include additional property tax relief and more transportation infrastructure. He proposed to fund goals, along with additional prison reforms, through state budget adjustments without taking any money from the state's "rainy day" cash reserve fund. Ricketts called for support for property tax relief and infrastructure funding proposals, something he and legislative committee chairpersons had already agreed upon. The governor said the property tax plan would tighten spending and levy limits while limiting the statewide aggregate growth of agricultural property valuations to 3 percent. He added the transportation infrastructure bank would speed up expressway construction, improve county bridges and help companies with economic development. Ricketts said his proposed mid-biennium budget adjustments would manage an anticipated budget shortfall by "tightening our belts in the state agencies." It will return reappropriated funds to the state's tax-supported general fund. No money from the cash reserve is needed to fund ongoing operations. The governor revisited many of those topics during his visit to South Sioux City, one of a series of cities around the state he planned to fly to Thursday and Friday. I think itll be challenging to keep that lid of 3 percent, Koch said of property valuations. -- The Lincoln Journal Star contributed to this report. MOUNT VERNON, Iowa | He may be in single digits in the polls, but Martin OMalley is confident Iowans arent relying on pollsters to tell them who to support in the Feb. 1 caucuses. Rarely is there a time that the results turn out to look like what the polls said a month before, the Democratic presidential hopeful said in Mount Vernon ON Friday. Maybe this is one of those times, but I think things are still pretty volatile. So the former Maryland governor will continue to make the case that hes the change agent in the race for the Democratic nomination. I have a candidacy to offer new leadership, the sort of leadership that can bring us together, heal the divisions in our country, OMalley said after speaking to more than 100 people at Cornell College. Compared to Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, OMalley said, hes the only one with a track record of actually getting progressive things done and accomplished. Hes putting his confidence and his presidential hopes in the hands of Iowa Democrats who, OMalley said, have shown a propensity to sort through the noise. Eight years ago, Iowans lifted up Barack Obama to make the country stronger and thats exactly what hes done. Many of the students and community members said they liked what they heard. For senior Sam Martinez, who grew up in Texas, OMalleys plans to bring 11 million illegal immigrants out of the shadows through immigration reform is why she supports him. Central and South Americans, she said in her introduction of OMalley, are not coming for jobs, but to escape the crime and violence in their homelands. They shouldnt be subject to immigration raids and live with the threat of driving while brown. As a U.S. citizen, I dont carry my birth certificate with me, she said. Michael Dunn of Mount Vernon said he liked OMalleys approach to curbing gun violence. As governor, OMalley helped enact gun safety legislation, including banning assault weapons and limiting the magazine capacity of guns. However, he remains undecided. OMalley is closest to him ideologically, Dunn said, but he wondered if hes electable because hes so far behind. OMalley acknowledged that some Iowans hesitate to make him their first choice because of the electability questions. Oftentimes, the candidate that surprises on caucus night is the candidate that was everyones second choice, OMalley said. The people of Iowa always have a way of surprising the pollsters and the pundits. I've seen it time and time again where this decision can turn in the last seven to 10 days. He said his challenge over the next two-and-a-half weeks is to shift the dynamics of this race from this current sort of two-person posture and turn it into a three-person race by being the candidate that beats expectations on caucus night. Twitter can be a great platform for promoting your small business. And this week, it added a few new features, including hashtag ads and Periscope integration, that could make it an even better option for communicating your message. Read about these updates and more in this weeks Small Business Trends News and Information Roundup. Social Media Twitter Introduces Hashtag Ads If you use social media to help promote your business, then chances are you have used hashtags at some point. These content labels can be a great way to promote and locate topics of interest. Big News: Periscope Now Added Directly to Twitter Feed Are you familiar with Periscope? This social media platform lets you go live from your mobile device anywhere, broadcasting videos and audio to viewers as you are on the go. The company was purchased by Twitter not so long ago and now a recent announcement is giving the heads up that the two platforms will work even better together. Employment Business Fined Whopping $1.75 Million for Docking Wages A Pennsylvania telemarketing firm that pitches newsletters and other products to businesses has been hit with an order to pay employees for allegedly docking their pay for things like stretching after long periods of time sitting in one spot and restroom breaks. The U.S. One in Four Workers Now Freelances (Full or Part Time), Study Finds Flexibility and work-life balance are contributing to the rapid growth of the freelance economy according to the Staples Advantage Workplace Index, a new study of office workers in the U.S. The study found that nearly one in four employees freelance in some capacity. It also revealed overall, 12 percent of employees work as freelancers as their primary source of income. Small Biz Spotlight Spotlight: Niche Video Media Offers a Secure Video Platform You are likely already aware of the huge impact video marketing can have on the success of your business. But not every business necessarily wants to broadcast all of its messages for the world to see on YouTube. For those businesses that want a more controlled and secure platform for videos, theres Niche Video Media, LLC. Finance Small Business Loans Now Twice As High At Big Banks, Says Biz2Credit Big banks are now approving twice as many small business loans as they were two years ago. Thats according to the latest Biz2Credit Small Business Lending Index data for December 2015. In fact, the small business loan approval rates at big banks and institutional lenders are again at new post-recession highs. Could New York Actually be Planning Small Business Tax Cuts? New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has proposed a series of tax cuts for small businesses as part of his 2016 agenda. The governor announced his plans during a speech in Rochester where he said the tax concessions will benefit a million small businesses across the Empire State. Small Business Operations Watch Out! 3,000 Business Regulations Coming In 2016 Another year, another roll of red tape for small businesses to cut through. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, over 3,000 new regulations are in the pipeline for 2016 on top of the 3,300 issued in 2015. Small Business Accounting Grows Up And Other 2016 Trends The year 2016 will be the year that small business owners no longer need to hear move to the cloud. Why? Its because small businesses are already deep into the cloud. In fact, todays younger entrepreneurs may not even remember a time when most software came in boxes. All they know is software accessed through a Web browser or mobile app, i.e., software in the cloud. Small Businesses Expect 26 Percent Revenue Growth, Yelp Poll Says Small businesses are upbeat about 2016 according to a new survey, the Yelp Small Business Pulse. The new annual Yelp Small Business Pulse survey says that 85 percent of American small businesses active on Yelp expect their revenues to grow, estimating a 26 percent increase in 2016. Mobile Technology New Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge Add Water Resistance, More Battery Life Now that the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge are old news, the rumors are beginning to fly about the next new thing in the Galaxy lineup, the S7 and S7 Edge. Ah the world of mobile technology, you never slow down. According to a report from VentureBeat, the next generation of Galaxy phones could be including water resistance, extended battery life and microSD card slots. HP Elitebook Folio May be the Thinnest Laptop Ever If you are on the lookout for the thinnest laptop available, the HP Elitebook Folio might be the answer. At less than 0.5-inches thick the device is supposed to be even thinner than the MacBook. This latest version of the Elitebook offers some obvious benefits in terms of mobility and reports say its aluminum body looks pretty, too. Lenovo ThinkPad Now Has Integrated Projector for Presentations If you want a laptop to give live presentations without lugging along a lot of separate equipment, Lenovo introduced a solution at the Computer Electronics Show (CES) last week in Las Vegas from January 6 to 9, 2016. In advance of CES, Lenovo announced special Modules for its ThinkPad X1. Edit Livestreamed Video Real Time With New Movi Camera Every day, millions of people around the world use their smartphones to live stream and share events with friends and family all around the world. Live streaming was one of the biggest trends last year and will probably continue to be as we get into 2016. The Meerkat app was impressive, but its Periscope that stole the show. Technology Trends Acupressure Hoodie AiraWear Relieves Tension of Commuters, Workers That morning commute can be killer. So can sitting at a desk all day. Muscle aches and a sore back are familiar companions to many an office worker or small business owner who spends most of their day sitting. But a new product that will soon be hitting the crowdfunding circuit is promising some relief from all those aches and pains. Cab Company Claims Uber Helping Drive It Toward Bankruptcy Yellow Cab Co-Op, San Franciscos largest taxi company with about 530 medallion-holding drivers, is filing for bankruptcy, the San Francisco Examiner reported earlier this week. News of the bankruptcy is perhaps the clearest indication of the growing dominance of ride-hailing apps Uber and Lyft in the city. New York Subways To Get WiFi by End of 2016 In a bid to improve the way New Yorkers communicate, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced last week that the entire city of New York will be connected by WiFi by the end of this year. The initiative would include the New York subway system, which is the worlds largest. U.S. Internet Connection Speeds Triple but Still Lag Behind, FCC Says Time and again, American enterprises have blamed slow Internet speeds for hurting their business. Luckily, the situation seems to be improving now even though the United States has a lot of catching up to do. According to the FCCs 2015 Measuring Fixed Broadband America report, Internet speeds have tripled between March 2011 and September 2014, jumping to 31 Mbps from 10 Mbps. See Also: Former Googler Named Twitter Executive Chairman Drupal Alert: All Versions Have Vulnerabilities, Says Report Drupal, one of the Internets Top 3 CMSs is flawed by several bugs in its update process and this could allow hackers to poison installations via update packages and, in worst case scenarios, the attackers might even take over servers. Cant Attend the Meeting? Send Your Robot As technology continues to improve and make our lives better, the future of business meetings through virtual presence has stepped up as well. Research and innovations company Double Robotics has launched its new and improved robot named Double 2 featured at the recent Consumer Electronic Show (CES) 2016 in Las Vegas. Get the latest headlines from Small Business Trends. Follow us on Google News. A skeptical leftist's, or post-capitalist's, or eco-socialist's blog, including skepticism about leftism (and related things under other labels), but even more about other issues of politics. Free of duopoly and minor party ties. Also, a skeptical look at Gnu Atheism, religion, social sciences, more. Note: Labels can help describe people but should never be used to pin them to an anthill. As seen at Washington Babylon and other fine establishments There are many fitness goals out there that we desire. Some of us want to be leaner and others wish to put on muscle mass. The thing is, for you to achieve your fitness goals, you need to The Swedish state is funding a sniper training course for recently-arrived Third World refugees as part of their integration programdespite the ever-growing refugee-terrorist attacks across Europe. The almost unbelievable plunge into insanitystarted two years ago alreadywas reportedin a positive pro-refugee light by the Allehanda newspaper in Sweden, under the title Fired up for Sniping, (Laddade for prickskytte, literally Charged up for Sniping) and shows a large number of Third Worlders being taught how to target shoot with sniper rifles on a formal shooting ground in Solleftea, central Sweden. The Allehanda informs its readers that the sniping course began on a small scale in the Fall, but then for reasons which are obvious, but which the Swedish newspaper ignores, interest exploded among the nonwhite invaders to take the course. When the Allehanda visited the shooting range, more than 50 immigrant youths were on the course, honing their shooting skills. Even more incredibly, the sniping course is being paid for by Swedens state-funded Migration Agency as an integration program into Swedish society. Young people from all over the worldSyria, Afghanistan, Africa, [and] South America are taking sniping lessons, the Allehanda said, and some of them are interested and very talented, the paper quoted course supervisor Birgit Hoglin as saying. The program is offered as part of the language course at the local upper secondary school, Hoglin said, saying that the benefits of the program are much more than just teaching the invaders how to use sniping rifles. Here they talk Swedish in other social contexts, meet new people, and hang out. It is especially good for their vocabulary, Hoglin said. It seems of no concern to these liberals that every single terrorist attack on Europe in 2015 was carried out by refugees. State-funded sniper training for young immigrants seems so out of place that such an undertaking is firmly in the realm of the insane, and would, if not actually happening, be the subject of some bizarre joke. Unfortunately, it is not. School buses lined up in a parking lot. LA PLATA, Md. (Jan. 14, 2016)Charles County Public Schools saw an increase of 49 students this school year.The official enrollment count for the 2015-16 school year stands at 26,307 students, a jump from 26,258 last year. This is the first time in four years enrollment grew in the county.Mary H. Matula Elementary School had the largest primary school enrollment with an additional 65 students bringing the total to 633. C. Paul Barnhart Elementary School's enrollment went up to 610 students, Berry Elementary School enrollment increased to 877 students, J.P. Ryon Elementary School's student population grew to 620 students and Gale-Bailey Elementary School's enrollment is 357 students.Milton M. Somers Middle School grew to 996 students and Matthew Henson Middle School enrollment went up to 704 students this year. Piccowaxen Middle School's student body is made up of 439 children.With the addition of a senior class, St. Charles High School has the second largest enrollment in the county with 1,264 students, behind North Point's 1,814 students. Thomas Stone has the third highest enrollment with 1,204 students.Of the more than 26,300 students enrolled, 54.3 percent are African-American, 28.2 percent are white, 6.9 percent are Hispanic, 6.8 percent are multiracial and 3.1 percent are Asian, according to enrollment reports. Native Americans make up 0.5 percent of the student population and 0.2 percent of students are native Hawaiians.Throughout the state, enrollment in public schools has been on the upswing, according to a Maryland State Department of Education news release. Nearly 880,000 students attend public schools in the state, hitting a new record, the release states.Of the 24 school systems in Maryland, 12 reported an increase in enrollment. Public schools in the state have seen an enrollment increase of 35,740 students since 2008. Stock photo of a Chesapeake Bay Retriever. ANNAPOLIS (Jan. 14, 2016)A St. Marys County man was charged Tuesday with two counts of animal cruelty after he shot a dog and cut its throat at Newtowne Neck State Park on Christmas Day, the Maryland Natural Resources Police said.Marcus S. Stauffer, age 20, of Leonardtown was deer hunting from a tree stand when he saw the dog, a year-old Chesapeake Bay retriever, and shot it twice with a muzzleloader. He climbed down from the stand and cut the dogs throat.The dog and another retriever are owned by the ranger who lives at the park. The dogs, which wore collars and tags, were confined to a porch while the ranger patrolled the park but broke free.The ranger found the one dog and, with along with a Natural Resources Police officer, searched the park for the second dog without success.Hours later, the ranger encountered Stauffer, who said he thought the dog was a stray and that he shot it for the public.He and a family member retrieved the dogs body from a marshy area.The charges of animal cruelty, aggravated animal cruelty and destruction of property under $1,000 were reviewed and approved by the St. Marys County States Attorney and Stauffer was served with a criminal summons yesterday.A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Feb. 26 in St. Marys District Court. If found guilty of all three charges, Stauffer faces a maximum sentence of three years and a fine of $6,500.The Department of Natural Resources Wildlife and Heritage Service has rescinded Stauffers permit to hunt on southern Maryland public lands that require a permit. Event will honor 9 folks who make a difference Florida Youth Pride Coalition holds its annual Icon Awards Gala on Saturday Jan. 23. This years theme is Celebrate Unity and the event will honor nine people who make a difference in the community, including youth and adults. They come from diverse backgrounds and in their own way each has contributed greatly to improving the world around them. We have an amazing group on honorees this year, says William Falce, of the Florida Youth Pride Coalition. Both the adult group and the younger group have made a real impact in our state. Georgia Foster will receive this years Ally Award. Websters Dictionary defines foster as to care for or cherish. When it comes to caring for people with HIV/AIDS, Georgia lives up to her surname. In 1990 she co-founded a nonprofit organization that provided housing for people with HIV. Foster began her nonprofit work following the death of her HIV positive son Gerry. Proving you can triumph over tragedy, Foster named it Think Life to inspire those with HIV/AIDS to think about living, not dying. The group also opened a childcare center in Broward County for the families of those who are HIV positive. In addition, she began a transportation program that included 2 passenger vehicles and 4 passenger buses. Being honored with this years Ally Award is one of the most awesome things that has happened to me having raised a son who was an intelligent, religious young man who was gay Georgia Foster told SFGN. I could go on and on about my son but I am so honored and humbled. This is why I am assisting the youth organization because I know what he went through. If I can help just one person, I am happy and fulfilled. This years Spiritual Leadership Award goes to the Reverend Grant Ford. Thirty years ago, Ford became pastor of Floridas MCC Fort Lauderdale, which later became Sunshine Cathedral and went on to become the MCCs largest congregation. He ultimately served as dean of the cathedral until 2008. During which time Sunshine Cathedral helped to serve the community with its many religious, educational and social programs, as well as through its derivative organizations, Light University and SunServe. When he left Sunshine Cathedral, Grant moved to Jacksonville where he became lead pastor of the Odyssey Church. Prior to becoming such an influential figure in South Florida, Ford help organize fundraisers in Chicago to help fight the Anita Bryant-back gay referendum in Miami-Dade County. Broward County will always have a special place in my heart, Reverend Ford said. Being honored by a new generation is very special to me. It makes everything worthwhile. Luigi Ferrer is another honoree. He is a bisexual HIV/AIDS activist who currently works as Program Director and Director of HIV Services at Pridelines Youth Services; Vice President of BiNet USA, a national bisexual advocacy organization; a member of the National Bisexual Leadership Roundtable; and Board member of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Miami. John William Calcaterra is better known around South Florida as Pompano Bill. He is best known for as a popular photographer whos taken pictures at countless events around South Florida. His photos have been published in magazines such as SFGN, Scoop, Outlook, 411, Buzz and Hotspots. Community advocate Miss Vicky Keller is another of this years honorees. As a straight ally in the gay community, Kellers accomplishments are plentiful. Over the past three decades her work includes serving on the board of Pride South Florida, but being one of the founders of the countys first AIDS agency, Center One. A member of SAGE since 1993, Keller has also served as the Regional Director of the International Association of Lesbian and Gay Pride, founded Womynsong: Lesbian Chorus. Last year, Keller learned how much she is revered by the community when her financial struggles came to light and a GoFundMe page was created and raised more than $9,000 to help. Other 2015 Icon Honorees include Lindsy (Sitca) Campbell, Jasmine Chandler, Mariah Rivera, and Elijah Alexis-Range. The Annual Icon Awards Gala takes place Saturday, Jan. 23 from 7 p.m. 11 p.m. at Signature Grand, 6900 West State Road 84, Davie. The Afterhours party is from 11 p.m. 3 a.m. at Stonewall National Museum, 2157 Wilton Drive, Wilton Manors. Tickets can be purchased online at FloridaYouthPride.org or by calling 954-842-1008. For more information visit Facebook.com/FloridaYouthPrideCoalition. History was never as straight as we are told. Recording our history means reporting the truth. FAG (short for faggot): Its mainly used as an offensive term for homosexuals. It is considered a hateful slur. Because fag is such an offensive word, the other meanings are uncommon, but fagging has also meant working hard and getting tired, as in fagging out. A fag especially in England is also a cigarette, and in British boys schools, fags are servants for older boys. FAIRY: Usually disparaging for a male homosexual. SISSY: Pejorative term for a boy or man who violates or does not meet the standard male gender role. BENT: A term used within the U.K. as a slang for homosexuals. It also means predisposition, abnormal or unorthodox behavior. Of late the term has been reclaimed and many groups and publications proudly use the term "Bent" as a source of gay pride. FINOCCHIO: Literally fennel, the vegetable. Italian derogatory term for gay. Used by straight men and women to insult gay men or to question the masculinity of straight men. Comparable to faggot also a crude word for transvestites, comparable to tranny but more rude. Other derogatory terms are: Frocio, Checca, Culatone, Ricchione. FIKUS: Literally ficus, the plant. Swedish derogatory slang, equivalent to faggot . PANELEIRO: Portuguese word for gay, derived from the word meaning "One who sells pots and pans. PANDULA is another common slang for a homosexual in Portugual. ABARTIGE: Deviants, abnormal; Tunte: fairy, queer; Schwuchtel: queen; Warmer Bruder (lit. "warm brother"): homosexual, gay man. Some Germans, Austrians, and Swiss, particularly members of right-wing neo-Nazi, or other hate groups, express their dislike of gays with derogatory German slang terms like those above. PEDE: French slang for homosexual. Comes from the word Pederaste, and is considered derogatory. Other French terms are Pedale, Tapette, Tarlouse. PEDAL: From pederast in Polish . Slang of faggot. Derogative intention. Also Pedzio. PIDOR: a rude and offensive term meaning gay or homosexual. Short for pederast in Russian. OKAMA: Japanese slang for gay man, particularly in reference to very effeminate gays. The word can also mean "drag queen." It comes from the slang for anus. It is not always considered insulting, and drag performers will sometimes-even use it in reference to themselves. VIADO: Faggot, gay, homosexual man, derogatory in Brazil, also BICHA. MARICON: Derogatory term in Spanish; crude word for a gay man, used by straight men and women to insult gay men or to question the masculinity of straight men. Comparable to faggot. Also a crude word for transvestites, comparable to tranny but more rude. ANUSRIDDER: Means knight of the male rectum in Dutch. Used to insult homosexuals. Interchangeable with Anaalridder, depending on the region. TONGXINGLIAN: Chinese word for homosexuality. Considered offensive as being too clinical and having pathological connotations. CHI CHI MAN: Jamaica and the Caribbean, slur for gay man. JOBBY JABBER: Scottish slur, with jobby referring to excrement. POOF: The poor man's term for homosexual. Variations include: poofter, pouf, poove, pooftah, pooff, puff in U.K, Australia, New Zealand. Dear Friends, January is declared as Human Trafficking Awareness Month in Florida. At DBPR, we are dedicated to ensuring employees of licensed businesses, employed minors and farm workers are all protected and educated in the workplace. I want to remind consumers how important it is to be aware of the common signs of human trafficking and how we can all improve the safety of employees in work environments. The best way for DBPR to help combat human trafficking in the state of Florida is by educating our inspectors who work in the field. DBPR inspectors statewide attend many human trafficking awareness trainings, either hosted by local law enforcement agencies or human trafficking experts. For example, the Lee County Sheriffs Department has a number of vendors who attend their quarterly meetings, including DBPR, the Department of Health, the Department of Children and Families and local retail vendors. To ensure our inspectors can easily identify the common signs of human trafficking and report it to the appropriate authorities, our regional offices attend several outreach events focusing on the detection, prevention and reporting of suspected human trafficking situations in multiple industries. DBPRs Child Labor Program was established to specifically protect young workers from employment situations that may interfere with their safety, wellbeing or educational opportunities. To accomplish this goal, DBPR inspectors use their skills to recognize signs of child labor violations or concerning working relationships for minors at licensed establishments. DBPRs Farm Labor Program also ensures, through a system of compliance and enforcement, that Florida farm workers are protected from harmful work situations and exploitation. This is accomplished through routine inspections and investigations as well as partnerships with other organizations including the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, U.S. Department of Labor, Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation (MBI) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Some of the common signs of human trafficking at places of business include indications of employees living within the place of business, several immigrant workers being on site and a lack of worker identification for employees. Farm labor investigators also commonly discuss the working environment with farm workers to ensure healthy working conditions are being met. In the event that DBPR inspectors suspect human trafficking is taking place at an establishment, the situation is reported immediately to the appropriate law enforcement authority. Safety is a top priority for Florida workers and consumers. At DBPR, we strive to ensure that Floridas licensees, employed minors and farm workers are protected from the dangers of human trafficking. For support, Florida farm workers are encouraged to disclose any information or file complaints by calling the Florida Farm Workers Helpline at 1-800-533-3572. Consumers are also encouraged to report signs of human trafficking by calling 1-800-342-0820. Unfortunately, human trafficking is something that still takes place in 2016. I highly encourage Floridas employers and citizens to become aware of the common signs of human trafficking and aid in the protection of the victims of these unfortunate situations. DBPR will continue to be proactive in making referrals to the appropriate agencies to further protect the safety of Floridas hardworking residents. Ken Lawson Secretary for the Department of Business and Professional Regulation State of Florida Tallahassee, Florida The Campbell Foundation, a Fort Lauderdale-based organization dedicated to funding HIV/AIDS research, is pleased to announce the promotion of Ken Rapkin to Executive Director. Mr. Rapkin has served as the foundations Program Officer since its inception in 1995. Ken has made significant contributions to The Campbell Foundation, demonstrating his commitment to our mission as well as his personal desire to find a cure for HIV/AIDS, said Campbell Foundation Trustee Bill Venuti. Through his continued leadership and vision, The Campbell Foundation is well-positioned to achieve its goals and continue to fund ground-breaking cure research in years to come. Prior to joining the foundation, Mr. Rapkin was office manager for Campbell Laboratories in Deerfield Beach, Fla., where he worked directly with the company and foundations founder, the late Richard Campbell Zahn. Its been a privilege to be a part of Richards original vision of funding novel and groundbreaking research into HIV and AIDS since we started in 1995, said Mr. Rapkin. The direct interaction with researchers, our Peer Review Board and Board of Directors (as well as our End-of-Year community partners), has been among the most rewarding experiences of my life. At a time when many people think AIDS is over, our mission of funding is as important as educating the public about the ongoing need to find a cure and eradicate HIV and AIDS once and for all. Mr. Rapkin was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and moved to Fort Lauderdale at the age of 13 where he has lived ever since. He served in the U.S. Navy for seven years and then returned to Florida where he earned a bachelors degree in criminal justice from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. This week we get to write about a living subject, for a change. Bryan Silva, at last count, is still alive. The former porn actor is being held in solitary confinement pending a preliminary hearing into his role in a standoff with police. Silva, reportedly, performed in a scene for Next Door Studios under the stage name Max Payne. He gave a bizarre interview to a Virginia television station last week claiming his jailing is a big mix up stemming from big confusion while repeatedly stating free me. Charlottesville, Va. police arrested Silva, 25, on Jan. 3 on charges of abduction and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Silva, allegedly, barricaded himself inside his home while holding his 17-year-old girlfriend hostage and threatening her with a firearm. The slim Caucasian, credited for coining the term Gratata, gained social media notoriety for his thuggish six-second Vine videos. In the videos, posted under the handle @OutterSpaceSwag, Silva often poses with various firearms and is quite showy with his ample amounts of cash. In one video, Silva blows his nose with twenty dollar bills. What compels an individual to behave in this manner, you ask? In an interview with the website Queerty, Silva reveals his alpha male personality led him to get into the porn business. Im a hood nigga, he told Queerty. Im street. Silva does have prior felony convictions for destruction of property and marijuana possession. A preliminary hearing on his new set of charges is slated for February. Jacksonville The debate over an LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinance in Jacksonville swerved down a dark and disturbing road when a speaker attempting to fight the proposal confessed to molesting children. Roy Bay, 56, approached the podium during public comment at a Jacksonville City Council meeting Jan. 12. The topic was adding gender identity and sexual orientation to an existing antidiscrimination ordinance, a measure that has been hotly debated for months. Bay told the council that he had been molested in the past, and in turn, he molested children. I entered into the life of homosexuality and did the same thing, because thats what I thought life was all about, Bay said. Going to the bathroom, in places and businesses, and sexually assaulting kids. Bay said he never went to jail for his crimes and further claimed that in 1985, he had an epiphany that molesting children is unacceptable and so I became a born again child of God and God set me free from that lifestyle. At this, several people in the audience began to applaud and cheer until they were quickly silenced by a council member. Bay concluded his remarks by stating that if the LGBT-inclusive ordinance passes, his former, unacceptable lifestyle will become more acceptable than what it is now. Jimmy Midyette, with Jacksonville Coalition for Equality, says Bays remarks were shocking and upsetting for many in attendance. We were especially disappointed that he arrived with a church group, a group that is leading the opposition to our civil rights, Midyette says. When his fellow church members applauded his statements it was like we were in the twilight zone. That church is Evangel Temple Assembly of God, and after his speech, Bay left the meeting in a church van, according to First Coast News out of Jacksonville. First Coast contacted Garry Wiggins, the churchs pastor, who said he was shocked to hear Bays testimony and that theyre taking actions to keep Bay separate from children at the church. According to Action News Jax, Bay went to church the evening of Jan. 13, where he sat in the back and left, protected by security, shortly before the service ended. According to First Coast News, the Jacksonville Sheriffs Office is looking into Bays statement. Ultimately, I dont believe [Bays] comments were helpful to the City Council, says Midyette. Further, conservative watchdog group Media Matters debunked the bathroom myth by asking Florida cities and counties whether expanding protections to include sexual orientation and gender identity has led to increased sexual assault in womens bathrooms, or men pretending to be transgender to gain access to womens restrooms. Not a single incident of either was found. The LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinance has been a contentious issue for Jacksonville. In late 2015, Mayor Lenny Curry hosted three Community Conversations on the topic. After the first meeting, a man was arrested for a bomb threat and the KKK distributed anti-gay fliers in Jacksonville neighborhoods. In December, following the meetings, Councilman Tommy Hazouri filed the bill that would expand the protections to cover sexual orientation and gender identity. The Jan. 12 city council meeting was their first discussion of the proposal. The council is holding special committee of the whole meetings Feb. 4, Feb. 18 and March 3, with a vote expected March 3. NEW YORK (AP) - A Brooklyn man has been sentenced to 20 years behind bars for an assault on a transgendered woman that left her with severe brain injuries. Prosecutors say 26-year-old Mashawn Sonds struck the victim, Kimball Hartman, in the head with a sheet of acrylic in October 2014. He was convicted in December with assault as a hate crime. Authorities say the victim was attacked while walking with a gay male friend in Bushwick. Prosecutors say it was the first trial conviction secured by the Brooklyn district attorneys Hate Crimes Unit created last year. DES MOINES, Iowa (CNN) -- Bernie Sanders launched his presidential campaign in 2015 by promising not to go negative -- either on the stump or in ads -- against Hillary Clinton. But as the race for the Democratic nomination gets tighter and nastier, Sanders' campaign is confronting that promise when it considers how to respond to attacks from the Clinton campaign, walking the fine line between drawing contrasts with the former secretary of state and outright attacking her. "I have never run a negative radio or television ad in my life. It is my very strong hope that I never will," Sanders said at a New Hampshire town hall Thursday night. "And I believe, if people are distorting my record, as is the case right now, we are going to deal with it and I have dealt with it and we will continue to deal with it. Sanders' tightrope act was demonstrated Thursday when the his campaign released an ad that suggested Clinton's practice of taking money from big banks makes her unlikely to take on those same financial institutions as President. Titled "Two Visions," Sanders says in the ad that there are "two Democratic visions for regulating Wall Street." One, Sanders says looking straight into the camera, "says it is okay to take million from big banks and then tell him what to do," a not-very-subtle jab at Clinton. The second vision, of course, is Sanders' plan to break up big banks, close tax loopholes and make the wealthy "pay their fair share." "Will they like me? No," Sanders says in the ad, another jab at Clinton, who said at a debate in December that "everyone should" like her. "Will they begin to play by the rule if I am president, you better believe it." Sanders is still leading in New Hampshire and a new poll released Thursday shows Clinton up by only 2% in Iowa. His campaign has also done better than even it expected, and raised $73 million in 2015, well exceeding the goals it when the campaign launched. Meantime, the tone of the Democratic race has grown more combative, with Clinton's campaign turning up the heat as well, running an ad that indirectly call out Sanders on gun control. Ahead of Tuesday's State of the Union address, Clinton called indirectly challenged Sanders to "pick a side" on guns -- either with the gun lobby or with President Barack Obama. "I am with him," Clinton says in the ad of Obama. And Clinton used the bulk of her stump speech Tuesday in Iowa to contrast herself with Sanders, knocking him on guns, taxes and health care. "Don't talk to me about standing up to corporate interests and big powers," Clinton said of Sanders in Ames. "I've got the scars to show for it and I am proud of every single one of them." But neither Clinton nor her campaign aides, however, ever expressly promised not to go negative in the Democratic race. In an interview with CBS in September, Clinton said she "had no interest" in attacking Sanders. Sanders and Clinton have long emphasized their differences with one another, but going to air with contrast ads was something Sanders' aides thought would be out of the question at the start of their campaign. "If we do that, we're done," Tad Devine, Sanders' senior strategist, told Mother Jones in June. "If we do a classic comparative ad, it's over. We'll have to be smarter." In New Hampshire, Sanders again said he doesn't want to go negative. "I believe the American people deserve campaigns which are based on the issues that are impacting their lives," he said. "They don't wanna see candidates go around saying, I'm great and everyone else is terrible and awful. That's not the type of campaign I've run or will run." And Sanders' campaign rejects that idea that its latest ad, which will run in Iowa and New Hampshire, is directed at Clinton or breaks the candidate's pledge. "It makes contrasts that both drew on the Des Moines debate and he made in the New York City speech but this is not an ad directed at Secretary Clinton exclusively," Michael Briggs, Sanders' spokesman, said Thursday. "It's about people in the Democratic establishment who believe you can take Wall Street's money and then somehow turn around and rein in the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior. Obviously she is part of the establishment that Wall Street has showered with financial support. Bernie is not." Clinton campaign aides said scoffed at the notion that the ad is not directed squarely at Clinton, with some feeling the Wall Street line is more of a personal critique of Clinton -- questioning her commitment to her platform -- than an attack on a policy position. Tone shift started with Jefferson-Jackson dinner This tension between the different kind of campaign Sanders hoped to run and the realities of a presidential race have been building ever since Sanders used his speech at the Iowa Jefferson-Jackson dinner to lambast Clinton's past positions, implying that the former secretary of state took poll-tested positions based on political expediency. "I pledge to you that every day I will fight for the public interest, not the corporate interest. I will not abandon any segment of American society -- whether you're gay or black or Latino or poor, or working class -- just because it is politically expedient at a given time," he said. Ever since that speech -- which saw some Sanders' aides get in on the Clinton bashing on social media -- the tone of the Sanders campaign has been decidedly more negative than the operation he and his aides sketched early in 2015. Days later in an interview with Charlie Rose, Sanders listed his differences with Hillary Clinton and asked voters to consider who will champion those positions. "And if people think Hillary Clinton is that candidate, go for it," he said sarcastically. Sanders then started to turn his differences with Clinton, particularly on the consistency of the positions they have held, as a blunt object to hit her with. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Sanders said consistency on issues "does speak to the character of a person," a comment that irked many in the Clinton campaign as Sanders questioning their candidate's character. Sanders aides have indicated that the candidate does not want to go negative in the race, pointing to his past races as proof positive that he does not enjoy that kind of campaigning. "Look, I have worked for him off and on for 30 years, I managed his Senate mapping in 2006, a very vicious race where we were attacked on television and elsewhere," Jeff Weaver, Sanders' campaign manager, said. "We never went negative and I think voters appreciated that." But does that mean Sanders' campaign won't go after Clinton on issues they think she is weak on? No, said Weaver. "We do think it is fair for him to offer contrast on positions and issues between the two candidates," Weaver added. "I mean, this ultimately is a selection, an election is a selection, right? And I think it is fair to highlight to voters what you think are the differences on policy between your candidacy and your opponents candidacy." The-CNN-Wire & 2016 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved. Artist's impression of PSO J318.5-22 Beijing Planetarium / Jin Ma Right now, astronomers are viewing a ball of hot gas billions of light years away that is radiating the energy of hundreds of billions of suns. At its heart is an object a little larger than 10 miles across. And astronomers are not entirely sure what it is. If, as they suspect, the gas ball is the result of a supernova, then its the most powerful supernova ever seen. In this weeks issue of the journal Science, they report that the object at the center could be a very rare type of star called a magnetarbut one so powerful that it pushes the energy limits allowed by physics. An international team of professional and amateur astronomers spotted the possible supernova, now called ASASSN-15lh, when it first flared to life in June 2015. Even in a discipline that regularly uses gigantic numbers to express size or distance, the case of this small but powerful mystery object in the center of the gas ball is so extreme that the teams co-principal investigator, Krzysztof Stanek of The Ohio State University, turned to the movie This is Spinal Tap to find a way to describe it. If it really is a magnetar, its as if nature took everything we know about magnetars and turned it up to 11, Stanek said. (For those not familiar with the comedy, the statement basically translates to 11 on a scale of 1 to 10.) The gas ball surrounding the object cant be seen with the naked eye, because its 3.8 billion light years away. But it was spotted by the All Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN, pronounced assassin) collaboration. Led by Ohio State, the project uses a cadre of small telescopes around the world to detect bright objects in our local universe. Though ASAS-SN has discovered some 250 supernovae since the collaboration began in 2014, the explosion that powered ASASSN-15lh stands out for its sheer magnitude. It is 200 times more powerful than the average supernova, 570 billion times brighter than our sun, and 20 times brighter than all the stars in our Milky Way Galaxy combined. We have to ask, how is that even possible? said Stanek, professor of astronomy at Ohio State. It takes a lot of energy to shine that bright, and that energy has to come from somewhere. The honest answer is at this point that we do not know what could be the power source for ASASSN-15lh, said Subo Dong, lead author of the Science paper and a Youth Qianren Research Professor of astronomy at the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Peking University. He added that the discovery may lead to new thinking and new observations of the whole class of superluminous supernova. Todd Thompson, professor of astronomy at Ohio State, offered one possible explanation. The supernova could have spawned an extremely rare type of star called a millisecond magnetar, a rapidly spinning and very dense star with a very strong magnetic field. To shine so bright, this particular magnetar would also have to spin at least 1,000 times a second, and convert all that rotational energy to light with nearly 100 percent efficiency, Thompson explained. It would be the most extreme example of a magnetar that scientists believe to be physically possible. Given those constraints, he said, will we ever see anything more luminous than this? If it truly is a magnetar, then the answer is basically no. The Hubble Space Telescope will help settle the question later this year, in part because it will allow astronomers to see the host galaxy surrounding the object. If the team finds that the object lies in the very center of a large galaxy, then perhaps its not a magnetar at all, and the gas around it is not evidence of a supernova, but instead some unusual nuclear activity around a supermassive black hole. If so, then its bright light could herald a completely new kind of event, said study co-author Christopher Kochanek, professor of astronomy at Ohio State and the Ohio Eminent Scholar in Observational Cosmology. It would be something never before seen in the center of a galaxy. ### Ohio State co-authors on the study include John Beacom, professor of physics and astronomy and director of the universitys Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics (CCAPP); graduate students Thomas Holoien, Jonathan Brown, A. Bianca Danilet and Gregory Simonian; and Ohio State alumni Ben Shappee, now at the Carnegie Observatories, and Jose Prieto, now at the Universidad Diego Portales and Millennium Institute of Astrophysics. Other co-authors, including both professional and amateur astronomers, hail from Rutgers University, Las Campanas Observatory, Liverpool John Moores University, Coral Towers Observatory, Osservatorio Astrofisico di Catania, Observatoire de Strasbourg, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Morehead State University, Variable Star Observers League in Japan, The Virtual Telescope Project, Mt. Vernon Observatory, Universidad Andres Bello, Warsaw University and Los Alamos National Laboratory. This work is primarily funded by the National Science Foundation and CCAPP. Additional support came from the Mt. Cuba Astronomical Foundation and private donations from retired Homewood Corp. CEO George Skestos and the Robert Martin Ayers Sciences Fund. ASAS-SN telescopes are hosted by the Las Cumbres Observator Pluto's limb NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI This processed image is the highest-resolution color look yet at the haze layers in Plutos atmosphere. Shown in approximate true color, the picture was constructed from a mosaic of four panchromatic images from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) splashed with Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) four-color filter data, all acquired by NASAs New Horizons spacecraft on July 14, 2015. The resolution is 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) per pixel; the sun illuminates the scene from the right. Scientists believe the haze is a photochemical smog resulting from the action of sunlight on methane and other molecules in Plutos atmosphere, producing a complex mixture of hydrocarbons such as acetylene and ethylene. These hydrocarbons accumulate into small particles, a fraction of a micrometer in size, and scatter sunlight to make the bright blue haze seen in this image. As they settle down through the atmosphere, the haze particles form numerous intricate, horizontal layers, some extending for hundreds of miles around Pluto. The haze layers extend to altitudes of over 200 kilometers (120 miles). Adding to the stark beauty of this image are mountains on Plutos limb (on the right, near the 4 oclock position), surface features just within the limb to the right, and crepuscular rays (dark finger-like shadows to the left) extending from Plutos topographic features. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute Larger image SLOVAK President Andrej Kiska received representatives of Slovak Churches and religious communities together with Muslim community representatives in the Presidential Palace in Bratislava on January 14, TASR learnt on the same day. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Their meeting delved into the current situation in Europe and in the world. Other topics discussed included the migration crisis as well as the spread of fear based on prejudice and stereotyping. Today we add to our domestic political dictionary the word Muslim as a synonym for fear and danger, said Kiska in his speech, as quoted by TASR, adding that such generalisations based on the faults, failures and crimes of individuals do not belong in a modern society. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Precitajte si tiez: Precitajte si tiez: Fico rejects creation of compact Muslim community in Slovakia Read more They cant be justified and they awaken the demons of our past, Kiska said, as quoted by TASR, adding that Churches can significantly contribute to addressing this misconception by spreading love and understanding among people. Kiska also warned that peace and the peaceful cohabitation of people are not to be taken for granted. The Church would like to help in creating structures to resolve the migration crisis, according to Slovak Bishops Conference (KBS) chairman and Bratislava Archbishop Stanislav Zvolensky. Meeting with refugees and developing a better understanding of their needs would lead to respect for their human dignity and a change of negative stances, said Zvolensky, as quoted by TASR. Slovakias Central Union of Jewish Religious Communities' (UZZNO) chairman Igor Rintel warned that terror leads us towards thinking of migrants as threats, sources of terror and the beginning of the end of western civilisation. We call for respect for all people and religions, Rintel said, as quoted by TASR. Only respect and tolerance will lead to a better situation. Precitajte si tiez: Precitajte si tiez: Fico could be prosecuted for anti-Muslim statements Read more Kiska also discussed the issue with Slovakias Islamic Foundation chairman Mohamad Safwan Hasna. This is big gesture [of good will] for us and we really appreciate that, Hasna told the press. Hasna went on to say that a small number of people from Muslim community in Slovakia have already left the country due to the worsening situation and that more of them are thinking about doing so. They are mostly doctors, engineers, and technically competent people, explained Hasna. Everybody is nervous, but I strongly believe that the recent declarations werent meant seriously and that the situation will calm down after the general election, Hasna said, as quoted by TASR. OIL prices are at a 12-year low, drivers are enjoying cheaper petrol and diesel, and this favours businesses as well, the Hospodarske noviny daily reported on January 14. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Lower fuel prices mean lower costs for transport companies, which can then afford to lower their prices. While in December 2014 the level of the fuel surcharge was 17.5 percent, in December 2015 it was only 13 percent, said Maria Dzundova, marketing director of courier delivery services company TNT, as quoted by the TASR newswire. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement DHL also confirmed an adjustment to its price list. The daily notes that this trend is set to continue in the next few months. The price of diesel at petrol stations in Slovakia is under 1 per litre, while for petrol its below 1.20. Passengers can also look forward to cheaper travel, partly thanks to market competition. For example, Student Agency has begun to sell tickets on the Bratislava-Vienna bus route for 4, while other bus carriers are charging 5-8. It was possible to set prices at this level partly thanks to lower fuel prices. Despite this, the route is profitable, said Ivana Kasicka from Student Agency, as quoted by TASR, adding that public transport in Slovakia is overpriced by 15-20 percent. US Major-General Gregory J. Lengyel, Commander of Special Operations Command Europe (SOCEUR), visited the 5th Special Forces Regiment HQ in Zilina on January 12. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled He was accompanied by Major-General Pavol Macko, Deputy Chief of General Staff of the Slovak Armed Forces. Macko introduced Lengyel to the history of the regiment, its purpose, structure and current tasks at home and abroad, regimental spokesman Mario Pazicky told the TASR newswire on January 14. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement General Lengyel had the opportunity to view the equipment and weapons that the Zilina soldiers are using at the moment, but they also showed him arms from the past, said Pazicky, as quoted by TASR. A dynamic training display of some of the tasks carried out by the elite soldiers within foreign operations included the elimination of hostile forces in a raid on an alleged terrorist cell that operates against its own citizens and coalition forces, according to Pazicky. Macko described US Special Operations as a strategic partner with which Slovak special forces have been cooperating since 2010. We prepared together for deployment in Afghanistan, where our special forces performed very well in battle, said Macko, as quoted by TASR. Currently, were cooperating in deployment as an advisory group in Operation Resolute Support. He added that the purpose of this visit was, among others, to assess our so-far extraordinarily intensive cooperation. We discussed boosting the capacities and abilities of the regiment and also opportunities for future cooperation, said Macko, as quoted by TASR. We also spoke about anti-terrorist tasks, which are the responsibility of the 5th Special Forces Regiment. Also discussed was the proposed expansion of the regiment and its future commitments regarding operations in NATO. During his visit General Lengyel expressed appreciation for the fact that the Slovak special forces are a fully-fledged member of the family of the Alliances special forces, said Pazicky, as quoted by TASR. About Me I became involved in SPUC after graduating, when I established a branch in south London in 1974. I have worked full-time for SPUC for 42 years. I became chief executive of SPUC in the UK in 1996, having been general secretary since 1978. I was elected vice-president of International Right to Life Federation in 2005. At UN conferences in Cairo, Copenhagen, Beijing, Istanbul and Rome, I helped coordinate more than 150 pro-life/pro-family groups resulting in pro-life victories in Cairo, Istanbul and Rome. I was educated at Salesian College, London, before going to Oxford where I graduated in English Language and Literature. I qualified as a teacher, becoming head of English at a secondary school. I am married to Josephine. We have a grown-up family and we live in north London. MOSCOW (Sputnik), Svetlana Alexandrova Terrorism remains a challenge for Tunisia, despite its democratic achievements, Tunisian Ambassador to Russia Ali Goutali told Sputnik on the 5th anniversary of Tunisian (Jasmine) Revolution. "Many, thousands of people gathered in Tunis today to mark the fifth anniversary of the Revolution. When it comes to the political pluralism and democracy, I think we made a great progress on that path if we judged by our achievements. We have a multi-party parliamentary assembly, we have a very progressive and democratic constitution that initiates new things for the Arab world such as gender equality, freedom of expression and freedom of press," Goutali said. The ambassador stressed, however, that despite Tunisias achievements and the democratic election of a president for the first time in the countrys history, many challenges remain, particularly the threat of terrorism. "The pattern was similar in all cases: security forces allegedly entered the victims houses, separated the women from their families, and raped in some cases gang-raped them," he said. He added that following the attacks, the countrys army forces arrested large numbers of young men in different provinces, who were later tortured, killed or went missing. Zeid also noted that at least 130 people were killed in Burundi in December, which doubles the November estimates. Burundi has been in turmoil since late April, after President Pierre Nkurunziza announced his bid for a third term in office, although constitutionally he had to step down after two terms. His third-term bid was followed by an attempted coup in May. At least 439 people were killed in Burundi since April 2015, according to the high commissioner. The popular Black Sea resort of Anapa as well as the entire Krasnodarsky Territory have turned into the Russias largest wine-producing region. Someone driving across the region can easily confuse it with Europe, the article read. The wine-producing industry in the region has been modernized, with some manufacturers even hiring specialists from France. Wines are not on the list of Western sanctions against Russia, but Russian people have once again turned to domestic-made products. "In Russia, public preferences are often dictated by the government, a peculiar phenomenon which can hardly be seen in other countries. Nevertheless as a result, the quality of Russian-made foods is getting better," the author wrote. He also brought up Russian craft beer, including those brewed in Moscow, Krasnodar, and Yekaterinburg etc. At that "patriotic" restaurant the price tag of a bottle of Russian craft beer is about 500 rubles ($6.5) which can be considered high. But it is worth it, Sugavara wrote. This is not to say that the craft beer and wine boom in Russia stems from the sanctions, but the fact that the patriotic trend is increasing in Russian restaurant culture is very nice to witness, according to the article. By now, the Justice Department has targeted three of the largest US financials, Citi, Bank of America, and JP Morgan Chase & Co., suggesting the joint payoffs by the aforementioned institutions might reach at least $37 bln in cash relief and consumer-related benefits. The main reason these banks are supposed to be responsible for the subprime meltdown, the US government believes, is that the banks consciously mislead investors into believing some of their mortgage securities were less risky bonds than they actually were. Goldman, in their turn, agreed to pay some $2.39 bln in civil penalties, $875 in cash and $1.8 bln in consumer benefits to those affected by the subprime crash as provided by their agreement with the government. Such an outcome, although impairing Goldman's 2015 financial results, is seen as a better solution than any further court proceedings with the government. During the first three quarters of 2015, the bank had lost some $2.41 bln in legal and litigation costs, nearly equaling that during the previous two financial years combined. The final settlement, therefore, will only negatively influence Goldman's Q4 earnings, with the prospect financial results unaffected in 2016, allowing for a brighter outlook. That is, unless the US government decides otherwise, filing potential new probes into the institution, as the payoffs are almost negligible compared to financial losses sustained by the economy at the height of the subprime crisis, when Washington had to interfere and bailout key institutions. However, Goldman is aiming at a final resolution with all parties involved, including existing and potential claims from the US Department of Justice, the New York and Illinois Attorney Generals, the National Credit Union Administration and the Federal Home Loan Banks of Chicago and Seattle. Recently it has become known that similar assaults took place on a mass scale earlier last summer in Sweden , and went unreported. The most disturbing fact about these assaults is not the assaults themselves, or the fact the assaults seem to have been carried out mainly by immigrants and refugees from Muslim countries. Nor is it the silence of Western politicians, seemingly embarrassed by a bad consequence of their immigration and refugee policies. Nor is it even the bizarre behavior of some Western feminists unsparing in their criticism of Julian Assange against whom nothing has been proved whilst rationalizing and relativizing the criminal behavior of immigrants and refugees from Muslim countries who carried out the assaults. It is the silence of the European media. The Western media routinely boasts of its independence and immunity from political pressure. It routinely criticizes the lack of independence of the media in other countries. The Russian media especially comes in for unsparing criticism. It is routinely misrepresented as a lackey of the Russian government a fact that completely disregards its diversity and it is repeatedly accused of suppressing facts and opinions critical of the Russian government. The last point is completely untrue, as the Russian media's reporting of the issue at the heart of the events in Cologne immigration shows. Though the fact is little known in the West, Russia is the world's second biggest destination for immigrants after the US. The Russian media have openly debated this issue, and the social tensions this wave of immigration is causing. Peter Dreier, head of the southeastern Bavarian town of Landshut, sent a bus packed with 31 refugees to Angela Merkels office in Berlin in a protest against the governments migrant policy, German TV channel N24 reported. The refugees were put on a bus in the town of Landshut and sent on a seven-hour journey to the German capital. Earlier, Dreier said that if Germany is ok accepting one million refugees his district would accept only 1,800. The rest, he said, will be packed in buses and sent directly to Merkels office. He followed the bus in his car. As a result Israel suspended contact with EU bodies involved in peace talks with Palestinian authorities. Israeli-Swedish Ties Highly Strained On top of criticism of the EU as a whole, Netanyahu also has also taken aim at Sweden, in particular Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom, labeling her calls for an independent probe into the killing of Palestinians as "absurd" and "stupid." During an address to Swedish parliament in December, Wallstrom raised concerns over the prospect of heavy-handed reprisals against Palestinian people due to the recent spate of knife attacks. "The response [to Palestinian attacks] must not be of the kind and this is what I say in other situations where the response is such that it results in extrajudicial executions or is disproportionate in that the number of people killed on that side exceeds the original number of deaths many times over," Wallstrom said. However, Netanyahu, who interpreted Wallstrom's speech as an accusation that Israel was carrying out "extrajudicial executions" was highly critical of Stockholm. "It's outrageous, it's immoral and it's stupid [] People are defending themselves against assailants wielding knives who are about to stab them to death and they shoot the people and that's extrajudicial killings?" he said. Since the beginning of October there have been near daily attacks on Israeli citizens from people armed with knives or other weapons. About 150 Palestinians have been killed as a result, with Israeli officials saying that more than 90 of those were assailants, while others were killed in clashes with security forces. Since October, the Palestinian attacks have led to the deaths of 24 Israeli citizens and one American. "This means it should be used as a tool for change. There are groups of tech startup activists who get this but many people in the humanitarian aid sector don't yet understand the potential". 'Techfugees' A number of technology experts in the industry have formed a series of not for profit 'Techfugees' conferences to encourage Silicon Valley style startups to collaborate with each other and build mobile services for refugees. #Techfugees is a tech community response to the European refugee crisis. Sign up here https://t.co/0bt89rUUhb Techfugees (@Techfugees) December 2, 2015 "Mike Butcher from Techcrunch wants to activate the startup communities to become an integral part of solving the refugee crisis," Aape Pohjavirta, co-founder of Funzi told Sputnik. "Techfugees represent services that can be used on smartphones and services, like Funzi, which I believe can help solve the problem. I think the solution to the refugee crisis will come from this community." "We didn't flee because we are poor" testimony by Hassan, Syrian Refugee, 90 days to make it to the UK #techfugee pic.twitter.com/mqZQd9ZOaE Alain Falys (@AlainFalys) December 2, 2015 'We Don't Judge, We Remain Neutral, We Don't Take Sides' The website and mobile app were launched at the beginning of 2016, in collaboration with the Finnish Immigration Service and includes five learning courses about Finland and steps on how to navigate the country's immigration process. "We had 2,500 new users in two days, suggesting around ten percent of asylum seekers in Finland have signed up to the service, which means the take up is really fast." "The beauty of mobile Internet services is that it scales up very well. We are seasoned tech startup companies we know how to build stuff that works, having 100 million users is possible look at Angry Birds. We are digital engineers in the mobile sector and we're pretty good at it, Aape Pohjavirta, co-founder of Funzi told Sputnik. The conduct of some asylum seekers has been placed under scrutiny in Finland, following complaints from women that migrants had groped their breasts and kissed them without permission on New Year's Eve. "This phenomenon is new in Finnish sexual crime history," Ikka Koskimaki, deputy chief of police in Helsinki told London newspaper The Telegraph. Learn about sexual equality and sexual health and rights in Finland with Funzi and Finnish Immigration ServiceThe Posted by Funzi on Tuesday, January 12, 2016 Funzi, the company behind the mobile learning site for asylum seekers recently posted on their Facebook page: "Learn about sexual equality and sexual health and rights in Finland with Funzi and the Finnish Immigration Service. "The course topics are Finnish legislation and relationship, sexuality and the act of sex, sex education, sexual violence and harassment and taking care of sexual health." The content of the website is based on official information from the Finnish immigration office. "We are a tool to deliver that information," Aape Pohjavirta told Sputnik. "We don't judge, we remain neutral, we don't take sides. We collaborated with the Finnish authorities and representatives from many organizations to address issues around the subject of sexual health and sexual harassment and behavior." As a privately funded European Union organization, the company stores and manages analytics and data in accordance with EU law. "Our analysis of the data doesn't allow us to individualize certain behavioral patterns." "It's available in Arabic and we plan to roll out the information in six or seven more languages. "Germany and Turkey are key markets for us. They're the countries who will decide what's going to happen in the future of the refugee crisis. By the end of 2016, we hope to launch a similar service in the Middle East and other countries in the European Union," Pohjavirta told Sputnik. Responding to the Refugee Crisis Digitally Looking at the reality of the refugee crisis through virtual eyes, Aape Pohjavirta suggests there are three separate aspects to the problem. "Firstly, there is the need for assistance, humanitarian aid, support, shelter, food and information. "Secondly, it's about delivering skills and this is where you can use smartphones to educate refugees and asylum seekers to become more employable through a faster route than the classical method of education." "Thirdly, if asylum seekers are returning to their country of origin, we need to teach and educate these people so they can go back as leaders of their own communities, to make their society better," he said. "In the digital world, we should create services for people regardless of where they are. There needs to be a concept of nation building when you start implementing digital services into the refugee crisis." Adopting a different approach to the one offered by 'Techfugees' to tackle the refugee crisis, people in Finland who are concerned about the increased numbers of migrants arriving in the country have taken to the streets. Unarmed militia groups wearing black jackets and hats carrying the emblem "Soldiers of Odin" have emerged in towns across Finland, where asylum seekers are living. The group claim they want to protect citizens from "Islamic intruders." Finnish interior minister Petteri Orpo has condemned their actions. The employees of the Diakonissalaitos Foundation, which runs the center, found out about the case after they started wondering where the refugee boys got the money for cigarettes and other things. Questions asked by the refugee boys also raised their suspicions. "One boy once asked, if it's the case in Finland, that women are allowed to kiss whenever they want." Taina Cederstrom said that she could not recall anything like that happening in Finland before; 30- and 40 year-old Finnish women, apparently intelligent and wealthy, now come to the station to buy sex from teenage boys. We are trying to explain to the asylum seekers how they should treat women and this is what we see happening now, she said. Cederstrom also fears that the young migrants will now spend more time hanging out at the sation where they could get into trouble. She said that they could be offered to sell drugs for money. On Thursday Finnish newspapers wrote about another sex scandal, this time between a female Red Cross worker and an asylum seeker. The head of the Finnish Red Cross, Pekka Annala, said that sexual relations between FRC workers and asylum seekers were an absolute taboo, adding that the immigration authorities would stay out of it as the case was strictly an internal affair for the organization. The sad irony of this is that on January 11, the Finnish Immigration Service launched a mobile learning course about sexual equality and sexual health and rights suitable for all asylum seekers. The easy-to-use service is currently available in English; other languages will be added in the future. The course topics are Finnish legislation and relationships, sexuality and the act of sex, sex education, sexual violence and harassment and taking care of sexual health. The purpose of the course is to give asylum seekers information about equality and sexuality, general rights and obligations as well as legislation and manners in Finland. According to the article, the Serbian militarys request will be considered by the bilateral commission on technical and military cooperation. Its first meeting is expected to take place before the end of January. Belgrade turned to Moscow after Croatia announced its willingness to put US-made MGM-140 ATACMS tactical missile launchers into service with its armed forces. These are capable of hitting targets at a distance of up to 300 kilometers, sources told Kommersant. "The Serbian military believes that deployment of such a weapon to the Balkans would change the balance of power in the region. And they did not receive any help from those calling for Serbia to join NATO. As result, they were forced to turn to Russia," a source said. "Serbia will not ask for concessions, but we have reasons to expect a lot from Russia. We will not wage war against Croatia. It would be a pointless war by Serbia against NATO," President Tomislav Nikolic underscored during his meeting with Rogozin. The requests of the Serbian military are predictable. According to Kommersant, Serbia wants to buy medium-range air defenses like Buk and Tor missiles as well as short-range air defenses like the Pantsir-S1. Deliveries of S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems were not even discussed in Belgrade, as the Serbian defense budget cannot afford them. Moreover, the Serbian Defense Ministry wants to upgrade its air force fleet to include several MiG-29 jet fighters. Currently, the Serbian military operates 10 MiG-29 jets (six of them were bought from Russia in 2013), 11 MiG-21s (they are due to be mothballed in 2018) as well as several dozen J-22 Orao aircraft. Weil's comments come amid growing anger within Germany at Merkel's refusal to set a cap on the number of refugees the country will accept and the recent series of attacks in Cologne and several other cities. More than 500 complaints have so far been made following a series of sex attacks, assaults and robberies at Cologne station on New Years' Day by a large number of men of North African and Arab appearance, leading to huge demonstrations against the refugees. "It was a low blow in several ways. For the affected women who have suffered a veritable gauntlet. For the state, which must regain confidence, and for the vast majority of refugees and the people who help them. You run the risk of them undeservedly falling into disrepute," Weil told Die Welt. For 7 patients who submitted claims to court, lawyers from Strasbourg established a compensation for material costs, which varies from 73 thousand to 350 thousand euros. The lawyers noted that Italy as a nation has violated the right to equality of the parties in the judicial process, accusing Italy of disrespect for property rights. However, for the remaining 364 cases of infection, the court mandated that Italy pay as little as 20-35 thousand euros in damages, depending on the length of the procedures carried out with patients. As for the other cases that were filed, totaling about 500, the court rejected the appeal, thus leaving patients and their families without any help at all. Our struggle has continued for more than 30 years, Angelo Magrini told the newspaper Corriere della Sera. Although today's judgment is important in terms of human dignity, to the end we are not satisfied. Angelo Magrini, President of the Association of Victims of transfusions, was infected with hepatitis C in 1991 through a blood transfusion and is now suffering from liver cancer. In our claims to Strasbourg Court we demanded compensation of 630,000 for the families of deceased who were infected and 430,000 for the victims who were still living. The court however, awarded an amount which is significantly less and only for the living. But over 30 years, 4,500 people have died without receiving a single euro, Magrini concluded. CHISINAU (Sputnik) Earlier in the day, Moldovan President Nicolae Timofti appointed Filip, Minister of Informational Technologies and Communications, as a candidate for the post of prime minister. His candidature won support from 55 out of 101 lawmakers. "The consultations with parliamentary factions will be held in the next few days. They will most likely start since Monday. We will try to make everything faster, taking into account the existing terms. But currently I can not say the date, when the program of the Cabinet of Ministers is submitted," Filip said at a briefing. Moldovan opposition has widely opposed Filip's nomination, threatening to organize mass protests against the decision. MOSCOW (Sputnik), Svetlana Alexandrova Tunisian Ambassador to Russia excluded in an interview with Sputnik the possibility of his country supporting the efforts of the Saudi Arabia-led anti-terrorism coalition with any military action. "Tunisia is a part of this coalition but not militarily. Should need in any military action arise, we can support by intelligence sharing and looking for the strategy to cope with the root causes of this phenomenon but never militarily," Ali Goutali told Sputnik. Saudi Arabia announced the creation of an Islamic military alliance of 34 states, including Tunisia, to fight terrorism in December 2015. According to preliminary estimates, some 34,000 tons of citric fruits will be shipped to Russia each month with the final volume expected to be even bigger. Latakia and Tartus Syrias two main port cities provided the bulk of the countrys consumption of citric fruits before the outbreak of the outbreak of the civil war in 2011. Virtually untouched by the ongoing war, the local farms keep working hard turning out some 2,500 tons of fruits and vegetales each day, most of which are sold on the domestic market. Around a million tons of citrus fruits were grown in Latakia in 2015, which is 50 percent of all lemons and organges grown in the country, Munzir Gerbek emphasized. Fares Chehabi, head of Syria's Chambers of Industry, said on Tuesday that other Syrian goods, such as textiles would also be exported to Russia. Turkey has opened a training camp for the armed groups of extremists and has been receiving money from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and some other countries to arm them and, subsequently, send to Syria, he stated. Despite Ankaras declared desire to fight the Daesh terrorist group, Turkey used it as a pretext to attack Kurdish militias in northern Syria and Iraq, Muallem noted. "We used to produce five years ago around 400,000 barrels of oil, we consume inside Syria some and we export some. Now this oil is stolen by Daesh and sent to Turkey," the minister added. According to Muallem, should Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar implement the provisions of a UN Security Council resolution seeking to cut off sources of funding for terrorist groups in Syria, the four-year-long civil war in the country would be over. The resolution, targeting in particular the Daesh extremist group, which is prohibited in numerous countries including the United States and Russia, was adopted unanimously on December 17, 2015. "If these neighboring countries, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar implement the Security Council resolution to counter terrorism, 70 percent of our crisis will be finished and the 30 percent I promise you to end them before the end of this year," Muallem stressed. Saudi Arabia, alongside Turkey and Qatar have been repeatedly labeled by numerous experts, media outlets and NGOs as the main sponsors of terrorism, benefiting from the instability in the countries' shaken by the insurgents' activities. Russia and the United States co-sponsored the 2253 UNSC resolution that expanded the so-called Al-Qaeda Sanctions List to include Daesh as a separate entity instead of an al-Qaeda affiliate. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) The US-led coalition against Daesh conducted 24 airstrikes in Syria and Iraq resulting in the destruction of the terrorist groups infrastructure, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a press release on Friday. "In Syria, coalition military forces conducted five strikes using attack, fighter, and remotely piloted aircraft," CENTCOM stated. "Separately in Iraq, coalition military forces conducted 19 strikes coordinated with and in support of the Government of Iraq using attack, fighter, bomber, and remotely piloted aircraft against ISIL [Islamic State] targets." Airstrikes near three Syrian cities Raqqa, Manbij and Mara, were carried out on Thursday, and destroyed Daesh tactical units and gas and oil separation plant, according to the press release. In the wake of the mysterious recent attack in Istanbul which left at least ten people died, Turkey claims to have launched a major offensive in Iraq and Syria, German newspaper Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten (DWN) reported An explosion in Istanbul's historical center on Tuesday claimed the lives of at least 10 people, injuring 17 more. Among the victims were at least 10 German nationals. Following the attack on tourists in Istanbul, Davutoglu said: "Any attack on Turkey's guests will be punished." Vanessa Beeley, an investigative journalist and peace activist, told Radio Sputnik in an exclusive interview that the hype around Madaya is nothing but a propaganda campaign launched by George Soros NGOs and Western countries, which are interested in perpetrating regime change in Syria. The town received first aid on January 11, but it was seized by local rebels supported by the West. They have raised prices to an unbelievable level a kilogram of rice costs $250. In her article, Beeley pointed out that the Western media failed to notice the plight of the villages of Kafraya and Foua in Idlib province, where the situation is worse. "The army planned to carry out a powerful strike against IS [Daesh] in this direction and, first and foremost, to cut off the supply paths because it would have a key role in weakening this group and take away its ability to advance, thereby eliminate it as soon as possible," Suleiman added. The general explained that the operation was not publicized out of military concerns. He also praised the Russian Aerospace Forces' contribution to the Syrian Armys fight against Daesh terrorist group. "The Russian aviation has played a very positive role in field operations and combat actions on the ground, with support of the Syrian Air Forces. All airstrikes carried out by the so-called coalition led by the United States had no effect on fighting the Islamic State," General Samir Suleiman, political chief of the Syrian Army, said. Daesh militant group, which is outlawed in many countries including Russia, has taken over large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq amid the civil war in the country. Syrian authorities have repeatedly accused Turkey of letting extremists enter Syria through its border, as well as supporting them. After the explosion, it would be much more difficult to achieve peace in Southeastern Turkey, as Erdogan now would use the blast to justify his government's policies in the region, Insel explained. Meanwhile, the Turkish government's crackdown on academics continues. Earlier on Friday, at least 12 academics were detained due to alleged terrorist propaganda after they had signed a declaration condemning the government's military campaign against the Kurds and calling for peace in Southeastern Turkey. "What's happening in Turkey right now can clearly be described as attacks on democratic freedoms," Insel told Sputnik. Seeing dissent among the members of academia, the Turkish government has sought to mobilize nationalist and pro-regime forces to suppress any opposition sentiment in the society. Government measures taken against academics should not only be considered from the standpoint of academic freedom, but as part of a larger attack against freedom of speech and democratic values in Turkey, Insel explained. A total of 1,128 academic from Turkey and around the world signed the document urging the Turkish government to stop the massacre in Kurdish-dominated provinces. Noam Chomsky, a renowned US scholar, was among those who signed the declaration. The system is equally effective in day and nighttime in all weather conditions. The involvement of the operator is minimal as the system can be controlled remotely. The smart system can chose the type of weapons and reload the module. It also provides target tracking and fire management. Currently, prototypes of the new weapon are being tested, TV channel Zvezda reported. In real life, the new module would be mounted on warships, combat speed boats, armored vehicles, and various stationary systems. President Xi announced plans in September to cut the number of Chinese troops by about 300,000 to approximately 2 million soldiers. In light of the new reforms, it is worth mentioning that under the previous organizational structure, the Central Military Commission, with the assistance of a small staff called the Central Military Commission General Office, set policies for the armed forces and exercised supreme command. The mission of executing the commission's decrees fell to the Four General Departments four separate headquarters that served collectively as the PLA's joint staff and de facto ground force headquarters. The system was cumbersome and completely dominated by the army. Even more concerning for Beijing, this command structure was resistant to Party leadership and prone to developing political fiefdoms, according to an article by the website Stratfor. Following the reforms, the new joint staff, directly attached to the Central Military Commission will replace the Four General Departments, forming 15 functional departments instead a significant expansion from the domain of the General Office, which is now a single department within the Central Military Commission staff. The current global conditions and rising tensions in the South China Sea may have been what trigered Chinas military reforms. The newspaper Global Times said that new conditions require a strong army and cited the United States as a reason. If China has a big gap with the US in terms of military prowess, this will affect its international position and other countries' attitude toward China, it said in an editorial posted on its website Saturday. China has made efforts to refrain from military campaigns and it has not been an aggressor for many years now. As the magazine The Diplomat put it, China has been a supporter of providing financial assistance and offering capacity building support to local armed forces to contribute to counterterrorism efforts instead of directly participating in military campaigns. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) The US government has suspended from consideration as a ballistic missile interceptor base a site in Maine by designating it as an "alternative not carried forward," the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) said in a statement. "[The MDA] has designated the Center for Security Forces Detachment Kittery Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape Facility (SERE East), Redington Township, Maine as an Alternative Not Carried Forward for a potential additional missile interceptor site," the statement said on Friday. The SERE site in Maine presented "irreversible environmental impacts, significant constructability concerns, and extensive costs" associated with developing infrastructure in a remote area, the MDA explained. "About the only specific difference is that Bush renditioned suspected terrorists and water-boarded them, Obama just kills them with drones. The Ukraine crisis, in which Obamas administration has played a destabilizing role, festers," he argued. Obama had passively accepted, Jatras noted, the disastrous policies and commitments he inherited from Bush. "This continuity reflects the fact that Obama doesnt much care about foreign policy. He reads what [US Ambassador the UN] Samantha Power and [National Security adviser] Susan Rice (and before that, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) put on his teleprompter," he said. Obama also remained committed to a disastrous "open door" immigration policy that would Islamic extremists to flood into the country and destroy domestic security, Jatras predicted. The US president "wont be happy until his mistake, like [German Chancellor] Angela Merkels, duplicates in America what we saw on New Years Eve in Cologne," where hundreds of German women were attacked by a mob of around more than a thousand Muslim men, Jatras said. Obama had made great strides in transforming the United States from a center-right, basically conservative country with a recognizable national culture and historic traditions into a mini-United Nations: a multiethnic, multiracial, multi-religious, microcosm with no defining core, he observed. "All in all, Obama should go down in history as our second worse president ever. I make that caveat only because first prize should go to his predecessor [George W. Bush]. Of course it might get even worse if Hillary Clinton is our next president," Jatras added. Obamas contempt for the traditional American identity was palpable, he concluded. "Ms. Merkel's open door policy will only work if it is accompanied by a concentrated effort at integration which preserves her nation's postwar values. Germany and its chancellor cannot tolerate another Cologne," The Financial Times warns. On the other hand, experts suggest that currently there is no alternative for Merkel as a powerful EU leader. "Merkel has arguably been Europe's strongest leader since the financial crisis and was front and center handling issues like the Greek crisis and negotiating the Minsk Agreements in the last year," Elena Holodny of Business Insider notes. She quotes Citi's global political analyst Tina M. Fordham, who argues that "although in our view the Chancellor could very well weather yet another test of her leadership and go on to win a fourth term, we regard a Merkel-exit ahead of German elections (due in 2017) as one of the most destabilizing political risks for the EU, and one with the potential to impact markets." American political scientist Ian Bremmer, the president and the founder of Eurasia Group and the group's Chairman Cliff Kupchan, echo Fordham's concerns in their Top Risks 2016 report. "Merkel's extraordinary welcome to refugees will draw fewer followers inside her own country, and virtually none outside it. This will undermine her political position, and could encourage a domestic challenger over the coming months. It creates a dramatic change in how Europe interacts with itself and with the rest of the world," they underscore. Asylum-seekers in Germany, 2015: 1.1 million pic.twitter.com/826cuePCmO ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) 8 2016 According to the scholars, a "weaker Merkel" will make it more difficult for the EU to cope with increasing challenges and will leave Europe less able to respond collectively to crises. Is this the end of Europe's open borders? @TinaFordham1 joins #WDYM on the political fallout from the #ParisAttacks pic.twitter.com/caZS6xNDDr Colby Smith (@colbyLsmith) 16 2015 "More resentment toward Germany from others in Europe will undermine its political capital," the scholars add. The question remains open whether Merkel's potential resignation would have ended the ongoing refugee crisis. Indeed, the EU does need a strong leader. Unfortunately, the German Chancellor apparently has no clue how to bring the crisis under control. During her recent speech at an event in Mainz, Angela Merkel admitted: "Now all of a sudden we are facing the challenge that refugees are coming to Europe and we are vulnerable, as we see, because we do not yet have the order, the control, that we would like to have." "This is what everyone is talking about in muffled tones in Washington right now: a new 'Sunnistan'. It is not going to be a safe zone for the Syrian people; this is going to be a safe zone for terrorists," Henningsen emphasized. The idea to create "safe zones" for "rebel fighters" in Syria has also been voiced by the Brookings Institution, an influential Washington-based think tank, in June 30, 2015. "The idea would be to help moderate elements establish reliable safe zones within Syria once they were able Creation of these sanctuaries would produce autonomous zones that would never again have to face the prospect of rule by either Assad or ISIL (Daesh). They would also represent areas where humanitarian relief could be supplied, schools reopened, and larger opposition fighting forces recruited, trained, and based," Brookings defense research fellow Michael E. O'Hanlon wrote in his essay "Deconstructing Syria: A new strategy for America's most hopeless war." Bangkok-based geopolitical analyst Tony Cartalucci has repeatedly called attention to the fact that both the "no-fly" zone initiative pushed ahead by Ankara and the Pentagon's "safe" or "buffer" zones project pursue one and the same goal the balkanization of Syria and Iraq. Apparently, the 'Sunnistan' concept has its origins in the US Defense Intelligence Agency's 2012 report. The document indicates that two years before the emergence of the uncontrollable terrorist group Daesh, Washington, Ankara and their Gulf allies harbored the creation of a "Salafist principality" in Syria in order to "isolate" Bashar al-Assad and curtail Iran and Iraq's Shiite "expansion." "If the situation unravels, there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist Principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition (the West, the Gulf countries and Turkey) want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran)," the DIA report reads. . If you do not agree with the blocking, please use the Access to the chat has been blocked for violating the rules . You will be able to participate again through:. If you do not agree with the blocking, please use the feedback form The discussion is closed. You can participate in the discussion within 24 hours after the publication of the article. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) US President Barack Obama is undermining the Constitution of the United States with his excessive use of Executive Actions on a wide range of issues, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump said in a candidates debate. "This president is undermining the constitutional standing of our country," Trump, a billionaire businessman and media personality told the latest debate of the seven leading Republican candidates in opinion polls held in Charlotte, North Carolina on Thursday night. Trumps attack on Obama was echoed by other candidates speaking at the debate. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) US Senator Marco Rubio promised to keep the military-run detention center for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay open as a jail for al-Qaeda prisoners in the Republican candidates debate in Charlotte, North Carolina. "[I]f we capture any of them alive, they are getting a one-way ticket to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and we are going to find out everything they know," Rubio told the sixth nationally televised Republican debate on Thursday night. Rubios remark was the only reference to the Guantanamo issue in the more than two hour debate of the seven Grand Old Party (GOP) frontrunners in opinion polls. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) Russian national Ravil Mingazov has not been approved for transfer from the notorious US detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and must wait until the United States is confident he no longer threatens the countrys national security, a State Department official told Sputnik. "He is not currently approved for transfer," the official said on Thursday. "He is eligible for review by an interagency body that is named the Periodic Review Board, which determines whether or not a detainee poses a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States and whether or not detainees are approved for transfer." Mingazov has been detained in Guantanamo since 2002 without any charges pressed. In November, the Russian Foreign Ministry's Human Rights Ombudsman Konstantin Dolgov said that Moscow expected the United States to release Mingazov at once given he was designated in the "not dangerous" prisoner category. Measured in parts per billion (ppb), there is no safe amount of lead that can be found in a water supply, but the EPA recommends action be taken to reduce anything over 15 ppb though even levels of 5 ppb can be dangerous. In some cases, the study found levels of 158 ppb, over 10 times the EPA limit, but that wasnt the worst. More than half of the readings came in at over 1,000 ppb, and some even hit 5,000 ppb the level at which the EPA considers water to be toxic waste. The highest level the researchers found was a massive 13,000 ppb, more than double what is considered toxic waste. Photos published by the researchers show particles and contaminates that are clearly visible to the naked eye. Despite not drinking the water, one familys 4-year-old child was poisoned by lead. It is possible that in this unusual case, that the level of lead in the water was so high, that her children did not have to drink it to be exposed. Ingesting the lead indirectly, after washing their hands, showering, bathing or even washing dishes, may have caused the high lead in their blood, the researchers wrote. MOSCOW (Sputnik), Svetlana Alexandrova Tunisia plans to launch a direct flight to Moscow in an effort to boost trade with Russia and increase tourism flow, Tunisian Ambassador to Russia Ali Goutali told Sputnik. "We have a representative of Tunisair who has arrived to Moscow and who is working on the establishment of the direct flight from Moscow to Tunisia," Goutali said, explaining that the carrier had a direct flight that was cancelled two years ago and "now it will be resumed with a possibility of putting freight services." According to Goutali, there are a lot of opportunities for Tunisian businesses to export to Russia, particularly in view of the food embargo that Russia has imposed on a range of states, however, some of Tunisias trade options are limited because there is no direct maritime link with Russia. UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik) The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Friday it helped about 10,000 Syrian refugees from Lebanon and Jordan resettle in Canada from December 11, 2015 to January 12, 2016. "IOM assisted in the safe and orderly resettlement of 10,000 Syrian refugees from Lebanon and Jordan to Canada between December 11th and January 12th some 40 per cent of the 25,000 refugees Canada committed to resettle by early 2016," IOM spokesperson Joel Millman was quoted as saying in a statement published on the agency's website. The international migration watchdog has been working with the Canadian authorities, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) as well as with Beirut and Amman since late November 2015 to register the refugees for further resettlement, Millman noted. Reports indicate a barn fire just outside Mount Forest, Ont. claimed the lives of at least 12 Arabian horses on Thursday night. The fire broke out at a private barn. According to Mount Forest fire chief Dave Guilbault, one or more horses did escape the blaze and one person was taken to hospital for precautionary purposes due to "smoke inhalation and anxiety." A nearby house was sheltered from the blaze by a water curtain. Early reports have yet to pinpoint the cause of the blaze, but Guilbault told The Canadian Press that the speculative cause of the blaze at this stage is a tractor that might have caught on fire. The Ontario Fire Marshal's office has been called in to investigate. This blaze in Mount Forest -- just northwest of Guelph, Ont, -- is the second such event in the first half of the month. The harness racing industry is still reeling from the barn fire at Classy Lane Training Centre in Puslinch, Ont. that claimed the lives of 43 horses on Monday, Jan. 4. Please join Standardbred Canada in offering condolences to those affected by this tragedy. This Page has moved to a new address: Sorry for the inconvenience Redirection provided by Blogger to WordPress Migration Service Whoever wins the US election in November and takes office in January will be the oldest president ever inaugurated. Trump was the oldest president to win a first term in 2016, and if he wins a second term he'll by 74 at his 2021 inauguration. If Biden wins, he'll be 78. That's pretty old! But septuagenarian presidents are a common occurrence in Africa. When Robert Mugabe was forced from office at age 93 he was the oldest head of state in the world. I posted the ages of all the presidents in ECOWAS countries two years ago. Five out of 15 were 70 years or older. Todd Moss and Stephanie Majerowicz of the Center for Global Development speculated that large gaps could lead to public anger, protests, and government turnover. We can test that hypothesis over the past two years. Below is the list from 2018; if the president hasn't changed I just posted the new age, and if he was recently re-elected. If the president did change, I post the new president with his new age, an PRAYER SHOULD BETHE KEY OF THE DAY AND THE LOCK OF THE NIGHT. He who does not pray when the sun shines will not know how to pray when... It is with a heavy heart that we have to share this regretful news with you. Following the announcement by the UN Secretary-General o... This swiftlet farming blog started sometime in 2007 November. I created it as my personal diary on all those things that I discovered. After a number of calls received I decided to make it more like a reference site to those newbies who wanted to get into the swiftlet industry.It has been kept as a secret industry where no one wanted to share their knowledge. May be with my small contribution I hope more and more people will open up their mind and willing to share what they know. I am not a "Consultant" or a "Sifu" but just a person who loves swiftlet farming. All what I wrote are from my own discoveries and I hope they are useful to all who stumbled onto this blog. My aim is to provide as many information as possible so that it will reduce the current failure rate by 3-5%. I have discovered many new ideas and gadget on how to pull those birds into your new BH and how to make them stays. Please help me to reduce the failure rate. The best you can do is refer this swiftlet blog site to your friends and if you can try to attend my once a two months Swiftlet Farming Seminar.You will be a totally changed person once you attended my seminar. Trust me. I will share everything that I know about swiftlet farming. The South Bays economy is in a strong place, but continued inflation and a likely recession are among the future challenges, experts predict. Fish habitat restoration agencies have received $1.3 million for work in Cowlitz County, with other projects in neighboring counties. Nearly $1 million has been awarded to the Cowlitz Indian Tribe, which will do projects in Cowlitz and Pacific counties. The funding is part of the statewide total of $44.3 million awarded by the Washington Salmon Recovery Funding Board. The board awarded grants for 141 projects in 28 counties. The grants will be used to remove barriers that prevent salmon from migrating, increase the types and amount of habitat for salmon, conserve pristine areas and replant riverbanks so there are more places for salmon to spawn, feed, rest, hide from predators and make the transition from freshwater to saltwater and back again. Cowlitz County Germany Creek The Cowlitz Conservation District was awarded $185,300 to place logjams in Germany Creek to increase the number and types of habitat. The logjams will span the river channel and create pools in the center of the channel, which will be used for rearing and spawning. The work is being done in a private forest owned by the Mark Andrews and Richard Woods Trust. Germany Creek is used by fall Chinook, coho and winter steelhead. The Cowlitz Conservation District will contribute $33,100 in a state grant and donations of labor and materials. In a separate grant, the Cowlitz Conservation District also was awarded $260,625 to place tree root wads and logs in Germany Creek and its tributaries, on the Smith Ranch. The woody materials will be placed in two side channels to improve connectivity and help maintain the channel. The conservation district plans to plant trees along the shoreline of Germany Creek and the tributary streams. The conservation district will contribute $46,000 in federal and state grants and donations of labor and materials. Abernathy Creek The Cowlitz Indian Tribe was awarded $810,907 to install whole trees and wood accumulations in 1.3 miles of upper Abernathy Creek and Ordway Creek. The creeks are used by winter steelhead, coho and chinook. The tribe also will work with the landowner, the Washington Department of Natural Resources, to thin crowded trees that have short lives along the creek banks. The thinning is designed to improve the success of trees that will live longer and provide better wood materials to the stream and improve stream bank function. Several rivers The Lower Columbia Fish Enhancement Group was awarded $51,703 to place fish carcasses in rivers to increase food for salmon. The Fish Enhancement Group will use this grant over three years to place at least 70,000 hatchery salmon carcasses in the Kalama, North Fork Lewis, East Fork Lewis and Washougal rivers. At least 90 river-miles will receive the carcasses. Placing dead fish in rivers mimics what happens when fish spawn and die in the wild. Their carcasses provide food for insects and small fish, which later will be eaten by salmon. The Lower Columbia Fish Enhancement Group will contribute $40,000 in donations of labor and materials. Clark County East Fork Lewis River The Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership received $254,590 to improve habitat for salmon in the East Fork Lewis River and at two unnamed side channels. The partnership will lower the bed of the side channels and place trees with root wads and large logs in the river to increase habitat. The river is used by chum, coho and fall chinook, and summer and winter steelhead. The Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership will contribute $80,400 in a state grant. Lewis County Lacamas Creek The Lewis County Public Works Department will use a $125,735 grant to develop a preliminary design for a project that will reconnect a historic side channel to Lacamas Creek. Historically, a side channel of the creek carried water from the area 200 feet west of the intersection of Jackson Highway and Frost Road through an unconfined channel, nearly 2 miles in length, before reconnecting to Lacamas Creek. Reconnection of this historic side channel would provide rearing habitat for winter steelhead and coho. The design also would include plans to restore a 100-foot buffer on either side of the channel and installation of tree root wads and logs in the channel. Lewis County will contribute $23,365 in donations of cash. Pacific County Chinook River The Columbia Land Trust will use a $450,500 grant to buy 250 acres of fish habitat on the Chinook River, just off the Columbia River estuary outside of the town of Chinook. The land is next to the 600-acre Fort Columbia State Park and 1,000-acre Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Chinook River Wildlife Area. Purchasing the land will ensure habitat connectivity. The land contains one mile of the Chinook River, three fish-bearing tributaries, and 210 acres of wetlands. The acquisition will enable habitat restoration and support fall Chinook, chum, coho and steelhead, as well as smelt. The Columbia Land Trust will contribute $89,500 in a federal grant. Grays River The Cowlitz Indian Tribe, in partnership with Rayonier, will use a $55,997 grant to abandon .65 mile of road, pull back .67 mile of fill and replace four culverts, which carry streams under roads in private forests. The preventative road treatment project will reduce the risk of landslides that could dump large amounts of sediment into the Grays River. The river is used by winter steelhead. The Cowlitz Indian Tribe will contribute $55,997 in donations of cash. East Fork Grays River The Cowlitz Indian Tribe will use a $124,300 grant to develop preliminary designs and install vertical pilings to capture and keep large tree root wads and logs in the East Fork Grays River. The river is used by winter steelhead spawning adults and rearing juveniles. The tribe will contribute $23,400 in donations of materials. Stringer Creek The Pacific County Anglers will use a $382,354 grant to remove a culvert that carries Stringer Creek under Hyland/Stringer Road and build a new channel for the creek. Removing the pipe will open 6.6 miles of high-quality salmon habitat. In addition, the new, 750-foot-long channel downstream from the pipe will have meanders, pools and riffles, increasing the types of habitat salmon need to survive. Stringer Creek is used by chum, chinook, coho, steelhead and cutthroat trout. Pacific County Anglers will contribute $68,048. A female mountain lion that surprised biologists when she traveled some 450 miles from southeastern British Columbia to central Montana has been legally killed by a lion hunter in the Big Belt Mountains east of Helena, according to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. The lion, called Sandy after being captured 10 months ago by the British Columbia Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, was fitted with a GPS collar. The distance of her cross-country trip surprised biologists in both countries who were tracking her movements with great interest. Although young males have been documented traveling hundreds of miles to stake out new territory, young female lions typically do not disperse so far to find home ranges. Its just a lion that happened to be harvested, said Jay Kolbe, a wildlife biologist with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, who called the harvest completely legal. The winter mountain lion season had opened Dec. 1. The lion was shot Dec. 11 in Confederated Gulch east of Canyon Ferry Reservoir on the Missouri River in the Big Belt Mountains 30 miles east of Helena. The female harvest quota in the lion management unit where the lion was shot had not been met, Kolbe said. Montana has 3,500 to 4,000 lions, and hunters take 400 to 500 annually. Hounds (which arent allowed in Oregon and Washington) typically are used to hunt lions in the winter. Adam Grove, a FWP wildlife biologist in Townsend, knew before the hunter reported the harvest that the lion from Canada was likely dead. Thats because Canadian wildlife authorities had already notified him that the cats GPS collar had sent out a mortality signal, which occurs when there is no movement for 12 hours. The hunter was not aware of the lions history, Grove said. It reaffirms the capacity of lions to disperse and remain genetically connected, Kolbe said of the great distance the lion traveled. Weve seen this with other research projects. The cats movements demonstrate how lion populations are genetically connected across North America, Kolbe added. While males travel longer distances to establish home ranges, females typically have home ranges closer to the home range of their mothers, Kolbe said. The average dispersal for a female is more on the order of 25 to 40 miles if they disperse at all, Kolbe said. Thats part of what makes this case so interesting, he said. Lions breed all 12 months of the year and typically have their first litter before 3, but it did not appear as if the lion had bred or lactated before it was shot, Kolbe said. British Columbia wildlife authorities previously said the lion was about 2 years old and weighed about 90 pounds. The lion eventually moved north again east of Canyon Ferry Reservoir, where she was shot. GPS coordinates indicated she appeared to have set up a home range in that area. As the crow flies, the lion traveled about 300 miles, British Columbia wildlife officials said previously. Including the movements east and west during the journey south, the lion actually traveled about 450 miles. Two people have together been awarded $10.4 million at trial after a jury found they suffered hearing loss and emotional trauma when they narrowly escaped a natural gas explosion in Portland. Lawyers for gas leak investigator Eric Rader and Dosha stylist Kristen Prentice said both suffered life-altering changes after an excavator hit a buried gas pipeline Oct. 19, 2016. Rader had found high levels of gas inside a bagel shop and warned firefighters to flee shortly before the blast obliterated the three-story commercial building and gutted a neighboring structure. Contractor Loy Clark Pipeline Co. lawyer Mark Scheer said the company apologizes to everyone affected but denied that its work crew acted recklessly. Spring chinook angling in the lower Columbia River is projected to last through about April 9 before the early season closes and sportsmen wait until a May update of the salmon forecast. Under the state, federal and tribal management agreements, guidelines and catch buffers, sport fishermen downstream of Bonneville Dam have an initial allocation of 7,515 upper Columbia-Snake spring chinook, according to Ron Roler, Columbia River policy coordinator for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Assuming fishing regulations are similar to the past five seasons, and that catch rates and fishing effort is similar to 2014 and 2015, that allocation would provide for spring chinook retention through April 9, a Saturday. Washington and Oregon officials shared the projection Wednesday with the bistate Columbia River Recreational Advisor Group in Vancouver. The states will adopt the 2016 spring chinook fishing regulations at a hearing beginning at 10 a.m. Jan. 27 at the Washington State School for the Blind, 2214 E. 13th St. Fishing is anticipated to be open for boaters from Tongue Point, east of Astoria, to Beacon Rock in the Columbia Gorge, and for bank rods from Tongue Point to Bonneville Dam. Closures are likely on March 29 and April 5 to accommodate commercial fishing. The early gillnet allocation is 1,222 upper Columbia chinook, probably one day of fishing. Jeff Whisler of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said the projected sport catch of upper Columbia-Snake spring chinook would be 7,130, leaving a balance of 385. The overall spring chinook kept catch through April 9 is projected to be 9,100 adding in salmon headed for the Willamette, Sandy, Cowlitz, Lewis and Kalama rivers. A run of 188,800 spring chinook is forecast to enter the Columbia River destined for waters upstream of Bonneville Dam. Predictions are for another 70,100 to head for the Willamette River in Oregon. For the Washington lower Columbia tributaries, the predictions are 25,100 to the Cowlitz, 4,900 to the Kalama and 1,000 to the Lewis. Jack Glass, a Troutdale, Ore., guide, predicted it will take until about April 14 to catch the allocation. I think we can bank on high water this year, Glass said. Canada has a big snowpack. Trollers dont do as well in those conditions and youve got to anchor. I think it will last about five days longer than expected. State fish and wildlife managers are asking people in coastal communities to attend a public forum next month to share their views on the values and priorities that should guide the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. The meeting will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. Feb. 4 at the Willapa Harbor Community Center, 916 W. First St., South Bend. We hope to hear from commercial fishers, charter boat operators, people active in recreation and tourism, and others who care about fish and wildlife management along the coast, WDFW Director Jim Unsworth said in a news release. This is a chance for the public to tell WDFW managers what we are doing right, where we need to improve, and where we should focus our efforts and our funding over the next five to 10 years. The meeting will be the seventh public forum conducted through WDFWs ongoing outreach initiative, Washingtons Wild Future. More information is available online at http://www.wdfw.wa.gov/wildfuture. Unsworth, along with senior WDFW managers and regional staff, will be available to hear residents views on fishing, including commercial gillnetting in the Columbia River, Grays Harbor, and Willapa Bay, and Pacific Ocean fisheries, and hunting, razor clam management, habitat protection and restoration, licensing, law enforcement, and other fish and wildlife issues. Participants will be invited to talk in small groups with representatives of the departments Fish, Wildlife, Enforcement, Licensing, and Habitat programs, as well as Unsworth and his staff. Comments will also continue to be accepted on WDFWs website at http://wdfw.wa.gov/wildfuture/form.html and by email to WildFuture@dfw.wa.gov. Letters to the Editor In favor of fireworks Please do not pass or support House Bill 2310 or any other attempt to ban fireworks in this state. It has been an American tradition for over two centuries for citizens of this country to help them celebrate the founding of this great nation. There are also many charitable organizations such as the Lions or Fraternal Order of Eagles that help support many charities with funds from the sale of these products. Fred R. Caron Castle Rock Energy reality vs myth We are witnessing the limits of North Americas fossil fuel energy revolution. Contrary to the TV advertisements, fracking and shale oil production in the US and heavy oil production from Canada will not produce cheap or economical oil with current technologies. Saudi Arabia, is the worlds swing producer and they are reminding us of their market power. To influencing the market, a swing producer has to have low production costs and lots of capacity. A true swing producer is a price maker. Americas new oil production utilizes fracking technology and is comparatively expensive. This technology is uneconomic at price much below $75 a barrel. The current prices are about half that level. These prices will continue to reduce the output of our relatively costly production. Unless price expectations dramatically improve, exploratory and development drilling in areas requiring fracking technology will continue to decline, as will production. The Bakken oil reserves will become stranded reserves absent technological change or higher prices. Canadas heavy oil is also unprofitable at these prices and will enjoy the fate of the Bakken reserves. North Americas high cost oil reserves and production capacity can put a ceiling on oil prices and that ceiling is probably north of $100 a barrel, given current technologies. We are the marginal producer of crude oil. We are price takers. Saudi Arabia will continue to be the price maker in the worlds crude oil market. Welcome to reality. Ed Phillips Kalama Whose side? Benghazi has become a political issue again. The real question should be: Why did President Obama and Hillary Clinton go to such deliberate and extensive attempts to cover-up the attack at Benghazi? The bombing of Gadaffis military was supposed to have been in support of the resistance. It was a total failure. Instead of helping the resistance, it facilitated the take over of Libya by the terrorists. They should have known better. Had Obama and Clinton listened to the military advisors and our intelligence, they would have known that Gadaffi was helping the United States with valuable intelligence on the ISIS threat. He was fighting ISIS when Obama-Clinton directed the bombing of military installations. Benghazi was the revelation of their tragic blunder. One might question our policies in Syria also. For sure Assaad is a tyrant. However, he tolerated Christians. ISIS cuts their heads off, Assaad was at war with ISIS. He has been a tyrant against ISIS. Might we have been better off to put our support in Assaad in exchange for him more tolerant of the moderate resistance? Let him fight with ISIS instead of creating a home base for ISIS to attach Iraq. Some 10 million have fled Syria to escape and ISIS established their home there. We have been reluctant to counter Irans threats in the Middle East for fear of up setting the nuclear agreement that does nothing for the West. With all the cover ups, we need to determine: Whose side are we really on? Kelly C. Niemi Kelso Actions, not words If Bernie Sanders is the longest serving Independent party member serving in the House of Representatives, why did he suddenly become a Democratic candidate for the president of the United States. Every registered Democrat should be questioning his motives. Actions speak louder than words. Bernie Sanders portrays himself fraudulently. Kathleen A. Johnson Kelso While the rest of downtown Kalama returns to normal after it was flooded in a December storm, the post office on First Street may take another three weeks to open. And while local business owners and residents have been confused by the hold-up, they say getting mail at the Longview Post Office is much less of an ordeal now than it was right after the flood because lines have gotten shorter. Though U.S. Postal Service spokesman Peter Hass said he has heard the rough deadline by word of mouth, he said he hasnt received a formal deadline for reopening. The USPS estimated that 100 pieces of mail, including some packages, were damaged during The Flood of 2015 and had to be destroyed because of potential contamination by hazardous floodwaters. Hass said the USPS isnt involved in the cleanup. It leases the office from the buildings owner, Joanne Hansen, who is responsible for the cleanup. Hansens address on file with the assessors office is in Fountain Hills, Ariz. The Daily News was unable to reach her. Were doing our best, Hass said, adding that the post office is still delivering mail to street addresses in Kalama. We hope, just as they (customers) do, to have this rectified and be back open soon. The buildings floor tiles and baseboards have already been ripped up by Michigan-based Belfor Property Restoration. While work is ongoing, Kalama residents are making the trek to the Longview Post Office to fetch their mail. The first time she stood in line at the Longview post office the week of flooding, Shanara Schmidt said it took her an hour and a half only to be told the post office didnt have her daughters Christmas present, which was supposedly delivered that week. Schmidt, 71, said standing or sitting in one place for that long becomes painful because her fibromyalgia inflames her muscles. Now, besides the 30-mile roundtrip to get her mail, Schmidt said the line at the post office is relatively quick. Schmidt, who lives in rural Kalama at the end of a long driveway on Mountainview Road, makes the drive about once every two weeks. I dont go very often because of the mudslides, said Schmidt, who has been caught behind slides on her way into town at three times in the past. Im very hesitant now to go down the hill. Schmidt initially thought her daughters present was a lost cause, but three weeks ago, the post office handed her the gift untouched. She said she didnt lose any more packages and is unsure if she lost any other mail during the flood. Georgia Knight-Powell, who owns TLC Deli, Coffee Shop and Laundromat on First Street, said she sympathizes with the post offices troubles. Her own shop, which wasnt damaged by flooding, was closed for nine days because some of her employees had a hard time getting into work due to road problems. Knight-Powell and her husband also were stranded in their home on Laverne Drive for four days while waters receded from their door. Its not as easy as having our own down the street, she said of getting her mail in Longview, which she said takes 10 to 15 minutes compared to the at least 30 minutes it used to. Compared to what it was, its not stressful. Its having a drive and making a special trip there (thats hard). I understand what theyre having to go through. Knight-Powell was unsure if she lost any mail due to flooding. If customers insured their mail, they can file a claim with the USPS for compensation at www.usps.com/onlineclaims. The USPS isnt responsible for compensating customers for uninsured mail. Kalama residents can pick up their mail 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the Longview Post Office at 1603 Larch St. Naina Khedekar Over the past several months, we've read a lot on net neutrality, the freedom of choice and Free Basics. So what exactly was the debate around, you wonder? To be specific, it's around the right to expression we are left with. Last year was revolutionary in the Indian Internet space. Finally, netizens had a voice, and we were being heard! It all began when Airtel Zero, an open marketing platform that allows customers to access some mobile apps for free with data charges being paid by the firms offering them, popped its ugly head. While Airtel still fights for the zero plan and clearly calls it a way to combat its revenue-eater, Facebook decided to play the 'noble' card and called its such similar platform Internet.org aka Free Basics a means to connect billions. Here's the problem some apps will be made available for free, while others who do not get on to these schemes or dont have the money to will be left behind. Facebook on the other hand now calls its platform open (which can be a debate by itself), but we dont want people believing Internet is Facebook, do we now? So, the past half year has kept telcos, Internet companies, regulatory body and many free online thinkers busy with this debate, among other things. Now, Trai seems to be taking its own course at tackling, whatever it plans to. It began with Trai floating a consultation paper seeking views if differential pricing should be allowed, amidst the whole net neutrality debate. The regulator wanted to know what steps should be taken to ensure principles of non-discrimination, affordable Internet access, competition and so on if differential pricing is allowed. After some media coverage connecting differential pricing to net neutrality, Trai quickly put out a statement saying the paper issued is not on net neutrality, but on a specific matter about differential pricing. Effectively what has happened is that telecom companies in a way are creating a differential pricing regime for different websites, so that is the question which we have asked in the consultation paper whether it is appropriate or not, Trai Chairman RS Sharma had said. After spending almost half of last year debating over net neutrality in India, the focus slowly seems to be shifting on the differential pricing. Now, isnt differential pricing essentially a part of the overall net neutrality debate? But that just stays non contextual here because Trai wants to only emphasis on differential pricing and nothing other than that. In fact, IAMAI has also clearly said that different pricing models mentioned in the consultation paper of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) are not only violating the core principles of Trais pricing regulation but also the principles of net neutrality. Surprisingly, industry body IAMAI members include Facebook, Google, Twitter, and other Internet companies. But isnt Facebook among the ones supporting differential pricing? Yes, it is. Telcos have written to Trai, explaining differential pricing is essential for promoting innovation and growth of data services, and find support from Facebook. While most voices out there, from startups to netizens, are against differential pricing, telcos have found support from Facebook. "The short answer is yes. Differential pricing, as the term is used in the consultation paper, should generally continue to be allowed," Facebook said in its comments submitted to telecom regulator TRAI. As counter comments, "This consultation is examining the issue of Differential Pricing for Data Services. At the very outset, it must be said that the vague responses and claims made by Telcos with regard to 'Level Playing Field' are irrelevant to this question and can be ignored," Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who has been quite vocal about net neutrality said. SFLC.in (Software Freedom Law Centre, India) - a not-for-profit legal services organization that works to protect civil liberties in the digital space has filed counter comments stating how Internet cannot be treated like cable television. Regulator's job is not to save old and dying business models but keep anti-competitive and other misbehaviour by players in check. Differential Pricing as proposed by Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to split the Internet into various slices and to price them separately violates their license agreements to provide Internet access, it states among other things. Meanwhile, PMO has also decided to step into the ongoing discussion over differential pricing with Digital India being its pet project and wants to ensure what would work best to get the ball rolling faster in the digital space. Now, differential pricing means, different prices for different content aka apps, which violates net neutrality. So, differential pricing and net neutrality dont go hand-in-hand. And, we can say the same about Free Basics or any other similar platform. Differential pricing wont just change the way weve always used Internet, but blatantly unfair and discriminating. After all, companies such as Facebook were born out of the neutral nature of Internet. It isn't very difficult to decipher that net neutrality and differential pricing are co-related. On the brighter side, if differential pricing isnt given a go-ahead, will other similar policies (read Free Basics) be booted out of the country? Only time will tell. hidden India's third international internet gateway, after Mumbai and Chennai, would be operational in Agartala within a month, BSNL chief general manager (North-East one circle) K.K.Saxena said. Union Communications and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on July 11 last year laid the foundation stone here for the third international internet gateway (IIG) through Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh. "Laying of the optical fibre cable (OFC) link between Akhaura (along Agartala) and Cox's Bazar has been completed and the final testing is now going on. This would be the country's third international internet gateway after Mumbai and Chennai and it would be operational in a month," Saxena told reporters. He said: "When the IIG would be operational, there would not only be a sea change in the internet and telecommunication connectivity in northeast India, but the other parts of the country would also be benefited by getting additional internet bandwidth." The official said the Indian government has spent Rs.20 crore to create the infrastructure, including laying of OFC to avail the 10 gigabit bandwidth from Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL). He said: "India had to give around Rs.8 crore per year as rental fee to BSCCL to avail the telecommunication linkages." In the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bangladeshi Premier Sheikh Hasina, an agreement was signed in Dhaka on June 6 between the BSCCL and BSNL for leasing of international bandwidth for internet at Akhaura. Akhaura is the second largest trading point and checkpost between India and Bangladesh after Petrapole-Benapole trade centre and checkpost along West Bengal. "After more than four years of diplomatic and political parleys, the deal was signed between BSCCL and BSNL," the BSNL official added. The official said so far northeastern states have been getting internet connectivity through Mumbai and Chennai international internet gateway but the distance was creating lots of problems, including very weak speed and drop of linkages. "The internet connectivity from Bangladesh would be unimpeded and have high-speed with large bandwidth besides most reliable." Chief Minister Manik Sarkar had on a number of occasions written letters to Modi and former prime minister Manmohan Singh for alternative telecom routing through Bangladesh for improving feeble telecommunication facilities in the northeast region. The Bangladesh Telecommunications Company has laid optical fibre cable of the 30 km distance from Brahmanbaria to Akhaura, which adjoins Agartala, while the BSNL will set up international long distance (ILD) gateway at Agartala along with associated equipment. India had set up a multi-purpose integrated checkpost at a cost of around Rs.80 crore in Agartala adjacent to Akhaura. The Indian government has also embarked upon to laying 15-km railway track to link Agartala railway station with Akhaura railway station in eastern Bangladesh. IANS tech2 News Staff Chinese brand Letv (or LeEco) has begun to tease Indian fans by releasing teaser images about its upcoming launch event. The images show silhouettes of Letv smartphones that are expected to launch in India on the 20 January in Delhi's Kingdom of Dreams. The silhouettes in the teaser looks similar to the Letv smartphone range that was recently announced at CES 2016. These include the Le 1, Le 1Pro, Le Max and Le 1s. So we can conclude that at least three of these models will be announced on the launch day. We managed to get our hands on the gigantic Letv Le Max and our first impressions turned out to be quite positive. Still then, it will be interesting to see how Letv plugs in its content chops, that it is known for in the Chinese market. For those who are unaware, Letv is a content giant in China and clearly, the devices that it began announcing since last year will be a means of pushing out its content and become media consumption devices. The Chinese brand runs its 'Letv Ecosystem' in China that consists of content and applications, all of which run on its own devices. In fact, it will be more interesting to see how Letv plays the pricing game in India especially in the presence other Chinese brands like Xiaomi, that have already taken the market by storm. Letv had also released a couple of teaser video of its Le Max smartphone, you can have a look at one of them below: hidden By Asheeta Regidi Privacy concerns take two forms: data privacy and surveillance. The first is an issue that is being addressed, with laws in place protecting and restricting the collection of data. The issue of surveillance by the government, such as by the Central Monitoring Service in India and the National Security Agency in the USA, is an issue under debate. The laws on this, though controversial, are also in place. Surveillance in the workplace, on the other hand, is an unregulated area. It is not addressed either by Indian cyber laws, which so far contain provisions specific to the government, or by Indian labour laws, which deal with subjects like industrial disputes, employee wages, non-discrimination and so on. There is no guidance on this subject from case law either, since this is yet to come up before Indian courts. Consider a situation where the employer suspects that an employee is passing on clients to a rival company. Unknown to the employee, the employer launches an investigation against him. A private detective agency is hired for this purpose. The employees personal information: his name, date of birth, address and contact number is handed over. Using this, the agency acquires the telephone records of the employee from the carrier. The agency is also given access to the employees device at the company. Using this, the agency accesses his internet activity, and both private and company emails. This brings two questions to mind. First, if the employee is guilty, is the employers action justified? If the employee is innocent, then is the action not justified? Every employer would want to safeguard his clients, and have a means of ensuring that his employees are not endangering his business. This means that the employer would need a legitimate method of monitoring his employees activity. At the same time, an employee would want to safeguard the personal information which he provides to the employer, as well as that which is inevitably accessible to his employer during his use of the employers computer systems. In the American case of Lawlor v. North American Corporation of Illinois, on which this example is roughly based, both the employer and the employee were found guilty; the employer for invasion of the employees privacy, and the employee for violating her duty of faith towards the employer. Under Indian cyber laws, the issue of data privacy has been addressed to a large extent. Companies collect a lot of information from their employees, personal details like date of birth, financial information like credit card details, health information and so on. Section 43A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 imposes the responsibility of protecting this information on the company collecting it. This section provides a legal remedy to an employee affected by a company that fails to protect his data. The IT (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information) Rules, 2011 contain detailed guidelines restricting the information that can be collected and the reasons for collecting such information. The employees express consent is required before the collection of the information, and also before any disclosure of the information is made. Government surveillance is covered under Indian laws in the form of Section 69 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and various rules such as the IT (Procedure and Safeguards for Interception, Monitoring and Decryption of Information) Rules, 2009. Workplace surveillance is completely unregulated. The cases abroad regarding surveillance at the workplace bring out the two main issues: accessing employee emails, messages, voicemail and the like, and accessing employee internet activity, such as browsing history. Generally, monitoring by an employer during work hours is considered to be valid. Company emails and all other information on the companys device are, in fact, considered to be the companys property. This gives the company the right to check these devices and monitor and restrict their illegal use. The European Court of Human Rights recently held that there was no violation of human rights when a company fired its employee for his private use of e-mail during work hours. In order for such surveillance activities to be valid, however, the companies must inform their employees that their activities are being monitored. Monitoring without informing employees was held to be illegal in several cases abroad. In the absence of relevant laws in place, companies follow certain general practices, along the line of laws abroad, to ensure that their surveillance is legal. Companies have written privacy policies and social media policies in their offices. Filtration and blocking of websites is another common method used to restrict employee online activity. The use of a company device at work quite reasonably permits surveillance and access of company devices and protects personal devices. The increasingly popular Bring-Your-Own-Device system the use of your personal device at the workplace in companies today presents a completely different set of challenges. For instance, an employee may not be willing to have an employer dictate what activities are to be performed on his personal phone or have company security and surveillance systems installed on his phone. If an investigation is launched against the company, can an employees personal device be seized? Who is responsible in case of loss of data because of a virus entering the device? One solution may be to impose restrictions only when the employee is on the company premises. However, the issue will remain unresolved in instances where the employee takes work home, which is common practice. An increasing number of companies have BYOD policies in place to differentiate between these issues. The government needs to issue specific laws on workplace surveillance along the lines of the laws on government surveillance. These are essential in order to bring uniformity to company practices and provide a remedy for employees in case of invasion of privacy. The author is a lawyer with a specialisation in cyber laws and has co-authored books on the subject. The next part of this Firstpost series will examine defamation and social media. hidden The U.S. Transportation Department said on Thursday it may waive some vehicle safety rules to allow more driverless cars to operate on U.S. roads as part of a broader effort to speed up development of self-driving vehicles. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx unveiled the new policy guidance for self-driving vehicle testing in Detroit. Major automakers, and technology companies led by Alphabet Inc's Google, are racing to develop and sell vehicles that can drive themselves, but they have complained that state and federal safety rules are impeding testing and ultimate deployment of such vehicles. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which Foxx oversees, told automakers it is willing to exempt up to 2,500 vehicles industry-wide from some auto safety standards for up to two years in a move that could allow Google to get its self-driving cars on U.S. roads. Safety regulators will write guidelines for self-driving cars within six months, Foxx said. The administration may seek new legal authority to allow deployment of autonomous vehicles "in large numbers," when they are deemed safe, the department said. Sen. John Thune, (R-South Dakota), chairman of the Senate committee that oversees transportation, said in a statement on Thursday that Congress and the Obama administration should collaborate on efforts to accelerate vehicle automation. Automakers backed the changes, including General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co. "We are committed to working with the government and the rest of the industry on standards," GM said in a statement. Good roads need a clear path and they need guardrails," said John Krafcik, head of Google's self-driving project. "What we heard from the secretary today was their willingness to provide both of those things." The agency will also consider requests by automakers for approval to go ahead with specific technology. NHTSA said a BMW remote self-parking feature meets federal safety standards. Regulators will require that companies demonstrate that their autonomous cars can operate safely. Under current California rules, for example, Google test cars must have steering wheels and pedals - a requirement the company said excluded people "who need to get around but cannot drive." Krafcik would not say whether Google will ask regulators to allow vehicles without brake pedals and steering wheels. "Our obligation is to make sure that everyone who is going to inform the discussion and decision on this really understands how our technology works," Krafcik said. Reuters tech2 News Staff Xiaomi is on a roll! After confirming Redmi Note 3 India launch, it has now announced to have slashed the price of the 16GB Mi Pad to Rs 10,999. This means a price cut of Rs 20,000 from its previous price tag that read Rs 12,999. It is now available exclusively on the official Mi India store and Flipkart. This could also be a hint at the companys plans to launch the Mi Pad 2 in India sometime in the near future. Know more about the latest Mi Pad 2 here. The new price tag makes the original Mi Pad more lucrative with a spec sheet that includes 7.9-inch 1080p IPS high resolution display with 326ppi pixel density, with a layer of Gorilla Glass 3, Nvidia Tegra K1 2.2GHz quad-core processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB onboard storage, 8MP rear camera with back-illuminated (BSI) sensor, 5MP front camera and 6700mAh Lithium-ion Polymer battery. Manu Jain, India Head, Xiaomi said, We are overwhelmed with the warm reception that the powerful and versatile Mi Pad has continuously got from Mi Fans. We are happy to make the Mi Pad even more accessible to fans now. We also feel privileged to have a great partner like Flipkart to reach out to a wider set of people. Adarsh K Menon, VP Electronics, Flipkart said, Tablets as a category is growing due to increased consumer preference for a 'compact all purpose device'. They are small and light but more than capable for viewing movies, listening to music, gaming & even reading magazines. Flipkart has always been the leading destination for electronics and we are excited to continue our exclusive association with Mi India for Mi Pad. Mi Pad with its high resolution display, great battery life & brilliant performance even for gaming, is an excellent recommendation for people looking for a tablet and has always been one of the best-selling tablets on Flipkart. We look forward to provide an amazing device to our consumers with an even better price point and hope to make this relationship stronger in the coming time. Dedicated to the Restoration of Progressive Democracy Perendale Publishers Limited produces a range of services for the aquaculture industry as well as the global grain, feed and flour milling field. To find out more please visit: www.perendale.com Refrain from disturbing activities Bangladesh has asked Pakistan to refrain from any 'disturbing' activities as it has received reports that diplomats and staff posted at two Bangladesh missions in Islamabad and Karachi are being kept on 'unnecessary and excessive' watch. Bangladesh has also continued to convey its deep concern over Pakistan's efforts to harass diplomats and staff at the Bangladesh High Commission in Islamabad and Deputy High Commission in Karachi through 'various channels'. Pakistan High Commissioner in Dhaka Shuja Alam was summoned on Monday at a state guesthouse when Bangladesh strongly protested the ' disturbing' activities. Secretary (Bilateral, Training and Consular) Mizanur Rahman conveyed the Dhaka's protest note to the Pakistani envoy, said the source. Meanwhile, Bangladesh will soon send a diplomat as Counselor Political at the Bangladesh High Commissioner to Pakistan, said another diplomatic source. However, it could not be known who is going to Islamabad from Bangladesh. Bangladesh High Commissioner to Pakistan Suhrab Hossain will return home once the new diplomat joins there, said the source. The post remained vacant as Maushumi Rahman shifted to Lisbon, Portugal to join Bangladesh Embassy there as its Counselor. Earlier, Pakistan 'requested' Bangladesh to withdraw Maushumi from Islamabad without showing any valid reason, an attempt which was 'incomprehensible' to Bangladesh. On December 23, Pakistani diplomat and Second Secretary (Political) at the Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka Fareena Arshad who was reportedly involved in financing militancy left here for Islamabad following. Senior BNP leader RA Gani is dead bdnews24.com: Senior BNP leader RA Gani has passed away at the age of 89. A Standing Committee member of the party, Gani was the state minister for science and technology in founder Gen Ziaur Rahmans Cabinet. He was battling with heart disease under intensive care at Square Hospital. BNP Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi told bdnews24.com that Gani lost the battle at 12:15am on Friday. BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and Acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir in separate messages have expressed their sorrow and condoled with his family in their loss. An engineer by training, Gani is survived by a son and three daughters and many well-wishers. His family says he will be laid to rest once one of his daughters arrives from abroad. The body will be kept at the Square Hospitals mortuary until then. ORGANIsATION SNIPPETS City Desk : Sammilito Sangskritik Jote A rally organised by Sammilito Sangskritik Jote was held in front of TSC of Dhaka University on Thursday in protest against activities of communal evil forces in Brahmanbaria. President of the jote Golam Quddus presided over the rally . The programme was addressed, among others, by cultural personality Syed Hasan Imam, General Secretary of the organisation Hasan Arif, President of Ganosangeet Samonnoy Parishad Fakir Alamgir and President of Bangladesh Pathnatok Parishad Mannan Hira. Bangladesh Jatiyatabadi Krishak Dal An emergency meeting organised by Bangladesh Jatiyatabadi Krishak Dal was held at the party central office in the city on Thursday with General Secretary of the organisation Shamsuzzaman Dudu in the chair. While speaking Dudu said present government is engaged in killing democracy by grabbing power through holding voter less election. He called upon all to be united to overcome this crisis. The meeting was participated, among others, by Vice-President of the organisation Nazimuddin, Joint General Secretary Takdir Hossain Jashim and Krishak Dal leader Advocate Nasir Haider. BCS Audit and Accounts Association A cultural function and dinner of BCS Audit and Accounts Association was held at the Institution of Diploma Engineers auditorium in the city on Thursday. Comptroller and Auditor General of Bangladesh Masud Ahmed was present as chief guest while Senior Secretary of Finance Division as special guest. President of the Association Md Mosharrf Hossain Bhuiyan presided over the function. Members of the Association and high officials of the Finance Ministry attended the function and dinner. Bangladesh Muktijoddah Sangsad Maj Gen( Retd) Helal Morshed Khan Bir Bikram and Emdad Hossain Matin, Chairman and Secretary General ( Admin) of Bangladesh Muktijoddah Sangsad respectively in a joint statement to the press yesterday congratulated Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for her address to the nation. They said, the Prime Minister mentioned in her address that no affront to the Liberation War and freedom fighters by anyone would be tolerated and stern action would be taken against those who will make defamatory comment on Liberation War and freedom fighters . They termed it as a timely speech and congratulated her. Excited two friends after getting nomination Sheikh Arif Bulbon :In media, there is news that Veet star Hasin Roushan Jahan and Lux superstar Mehazabien Chowdhury are very close to each other. They are very good buddy. Earlier they worked together in two plays. But they did not get the nomination for a common award giving ceremony.This time Hasin and Mehazabien got the nomination primarily for RTV Star Awards in two separate categories. Hasin got the nomination to perform against Mahfuz Ahmed in a play titled Celebrity. Mehazabien got the nomination in the category of dance artiste after performing in RTVs a special dance programme. The RTV Star Awards giving ceremony is scheduled to be held at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in Dhakas Sher-e-Banglanagar on January 21. These two friends are very much excited after getting the nomination. While sharing her feelings in this regard Hasin told this correspondent, In media, Mehazabien is my best friend. We always share everything - our joys, sorrows, pains, incidents those happen in our lives with each other. When we informed the news about our nomination we really became excited. We dont know what will be happened at last. But we are really feeling happy to inform the news.Mehazabien shared her feelings by this way, It is really a great pleasure for me that we got the nomination for RTV Star Awards in two categories. But it will be more joyful matter for us when we will be able to receive the awards together on the award giving ceremony. We are waiting now for that moment.Meanwhile, Hasin on Friday went to Rajshahi to see her ailing maternal grandmother. She is very sick now. Hasin requests all to pray for her grandmothers early recovery.On the other hand, Mehazabien acted a serial titled Superstar is being aired on Maasranga TV right now.Therefore, last week Mehazabien finished shooting of a faction play under Moniruzzamans direction. She acted against Sajal in the play, Mehazabien said. Contents of written instrument is more admissible than oral evidence APPELLATE DIVISION : (Civil) Syed Mahmud Hossain J Md Imman Ali J Gopal Goyala and another ..... Appellants vs Molina Rani and others...........Respondents* Judgment November 20th, 2014. Evidence Act (I of 1872) Section 92 The oral and extraneous evidence contradicting the contents of a written instrument is not admissible. . ..... (15) Shameem Khaled Ahmed, Advocate, instructed by Md Zahirul Islam, Advocate-on-Record-For Appellants. Abdul Hoq, Advocate, instructed by, Md Nawab Ali Advocate-on-Record-For the Respondent No.1. None Represented- Respondent No. 2&3. Judgment Md Imman Ali J : This Civil Appeal, by leave, is directed against the judgment and order dated 15-6-2002 passed by a Single Bench, of the High Court Division in Civil Revision No. 5450 of 1998 making the Rule absolute. 2. The facts of the case, in brief, are that the respondent No. 1 as plaintiff filed Other Class Suit No. 151 of 1992 in the Court of Senior Assistant Judge, Sadar, Mymensingh, praying for specific performance of contract alleging, that her husband taking lease of the suit land from the admitted owner defendant No.1, used to possess the same by installing Rice Mills, Flour Mills and Lathe Machine thereon. 3. Thereafter, defendant No. I decided to sell the said land and the plaintiff proposed to purchase the same at a consideration of Taka 45,000. Defendant No.1 executed a bainapatra in favour of the plaintiff No. 1 on 8-11-1989 receiving Taka 2,000 as baina money. The defendant also received Taka 3,000 on 23-1-1989, Taka 5,000 on 4-4-1991 and Taka 5,000 on 10-6-1991 by acknowledging the same on the back page of the bainanama. She repeatedly requested the defendant No. 1 to execute the sale deed accepting the remaining consideration money, but the defendant made pretext. Lastly, on 27th June, 1992 the defendant No. 1 in collusion with defendant No.2, declined to execute the sale deed. So plaintiff filed the instant suit. 4. Defendant Nos. 1, 2 and 4 contested the suit by filing three sets of written statement. The case of the defendant No. 1 is that he proposed to sell one decimal of land and structure thereon of plot No. 845 to the husband of plaintiff at consideration of Taka 45,000 and accordingly receiving Taka 2,000 he executed a bainanama. He did not execute any bainanama for the land of plot No. 846. The husband of the plaintiff was a tenant of defendant No.1 and having had good faith on him he without reading and understanding the contents of bainanama put his signature therein. Earlier the husband of the plaintiff took loan of an amount of Taka 30,000 but he did not repay the same and denied to pay the rent to the defendant No. 1 in such view of the matter, the suit was liable to be dismissed. 5. The case of the defendant No.2, in short, was that in order to sell the suit land the defendant No. 1 executed a bainanama in favour of the defendant No.2 on 25-9-1983 and in pursuance of bainanama he executed a sale deed in favour of defendant No.2 on 10-8-1992. At the time of execution of the said bainanama this defendant took delivery of possession of the suit land and he has been possessing the same. The added defendant No. 4 in his written statement stated that in order to sell 1/2 decimal of land, the defendant No. 1 receivjng an amount of Taka 2,000 on 6-5-1988 executed a bainanama in favour of this defendant. As this defendant trusted the defendant No. I very much, so no bainanama was executed, thereafter receiving the remaining consideration of Taka 4,000 the defendant No. 1 executed and registered the sale deed in favour of the defendant No.4 in respect of that 1/2 decimal of land on 29-8-1992. This defendant has been possessing the said 1/2 decimal of land. 6. During trial the plaintiff examined two witnesses, defendant No. 1 examined one witness and defendant No.2 examined 2 witnesses in support of their respective cases. 7. Considering the facts, circumstances and oral and documentary evidence on record, by his judgment and decree dated 6-10-1993 the learned Senior Assistant Judge, Sadar, Mymensingh decreed the suit. 8. Against the said judgment and decree, the defendant No. 1 preferred appeal being Other Class Appeal No. 253 of 1993. After hearing the parties and considering the materials on record the learned sub-ordinate Judge, Ist Court Mymensingh, allowed the appeal setting aside the judgment and decree of the trial Court. 9. Being aggrieved by and dissatisfied with the judgment of the appellate Court the plaintiff preferred Civil Revision No. 5450 of 1998 before the High Court Division and obtained Rule. By the impugned judgment and order the High Court Division made the Rule absolute. 10. Against the said judgment and order of the High Court Division, the Defendants as petitioners filed Civil Petition for Leave to Appeal No. 1240 of 2002. 11. Leave was granted on the following submissions of the learned Advocate appearing for the petitioner: "It has not been considered either by the High Court Division or the trial Court that the bainapatra in favour of the defendants-petitioners in respect of 31/2 decimals of land of Plot No. 845 and 1/2 decimal of land of plot No. 846 respectively was earlier in point of time than that of the bainapatra in favour of the plaintiff-opposite party No. 1 and that in pursuance of the said earlier bainapatra the defendant-petitioners having obtained two kabalas executed and registered even after the suit for specific performance of bainapatra in favour of the plaintiff-opposite party No. 1 was filed. The registered saf-kabala in favour of the defendants-petitioners operative from the date of the bainapatra in their favour under section 47 of the Registration Act and, therefore, no decree could have been passed in the said suit in favour of the plaintiff." 12. Mr Shameem Khaled Ahmed, learned Advocate appearing on behalf of the appellant made submissions in line with the grounds upon which leave was granted. The learned Advocate further submitted that the High Court Division erred in making the Rule absolute without reversing the findings of the lower appellate Court. 13. Mr Abdul Hoq, learned Advocate appearing on behalf of respondent No. 1 made submission in support of the impugned judgment and order of the High Court Division. He further submitted that when the defendant No. 1 admitted the execution of the bainanama, which was produced and marked as exhibit 1, and also admitted the entry on the reverse of the said bainanama, he cannot now go back on his agreement on a flimsy excuse that he acted in good faith and did not verify the quantum of land written in the said bainanama. He further submitted that defendant No. 1 did not produce the bainanama alleged to have been executed before the bainanama of the plaintiff, nor did he adduce any evidence in support of such agreement for sale. The learned Advocate pointed out that the alleged bainanama of defendant No.1, though produced before the appellate Court, the same was not considered or accepted as a valid document. He finally submitted that the registered deeds in favour of .defendant Nos. 1 and 2 both postdate the filing of the suit by the plaintiff and therefore are of no legal value, especially since the basis of the said deeds, being the alleged bainanama of defendant No. 1 and oral agreement of defendant No. 2 were not proved in accordance with law. 14. We have considered the submissions of the learned Advocates appearing for the parties concerned and perused the impugned judgment and order of the High Court Division and other connected papers on record. 15. We note from the impugned judgment that the High Court Division elaborately dealt with the evidence on record and carefully scrutinised the judgments of the courts below. We also note from the materials on record that defendant No. 1 produced a bainanama before the lower appellate Court, which had apparently been executed in the year 1983, but the corresponding deed of sale was not executed until 1992, after the plaintiff filed the suit for specific performance of his contract. Moreover, we find that the High Court Division correctly observed that the appellate Court admitted into evidence the bainanama of defendant No. I but did not at all consider the same and against such non-consideration the defendants did not take any step. We also find it curious that the bainanama of defendant No. 1 having been allegedly executed in the year 1983 the agreement was not put into effect until almost 10 years later, and there was no explanation why such a delay occurred. In any event the lower appellate Court in allowing the appeal of the defendants in the suit did not take into consideration the alleged bainanama of the year 1983. Furthermore, the High Court Division correctly referred to the provision of section 92 of the Evidence Act and held that the oral and extraneous evidence contradicting the contents of a written instrument is not admissible. 16. The claim of defendant No. 2that there was an oral agreement for sale prior to the bainanama of the plaintiff was not proved. Moreover, in cross-examination defendant No.2 stated that the case land is separate from the land purchased by him, and therefore, he had no interest in the case land. In view of the above discussion, we do not find any illegality or infirmity in the impugned judgment and order of the High Court Division. Accordingly, the appeal is dismissed, without however any order as to costs. Indiscipline in police is dangerous for law and order THE police must not deviate from their constitutional role as law enforcers. If they do not remain law enforcers, they will be law breakers and criminals. The higher police officials must not allow police to become criminals and make the country governed by the criminals. A report in The New Nation on Thursday said Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Atiur Rahman, in a letter to Inspector General of Police (IGP) has called for exemplary punishment of the Police Sub-Inspector (SI) of Mohammadpur Police Station of the capital and make sure that no innocent person will fall victim of police atrocities in future. The central bank governor apparently acted out of the way but he was equally dismayed by the horrifying story of how the SI picked a young Bangladesh Bank officer from the city streets and demanded Tk five lakhs as extortion money. The SI even threatened to put him in crossfire and subjected to untold torture despite he made his present identity as a central bank officer known to the SI and also told about his earlier career as a young media reporter. He even evoked his closeness to many ruling party men but nothing worked. The central bank officer is now receiving treatment in Dhaka Medical College Hospital with many injuries in his body. The incident has shocked the nation but such stories are also a regular phenomenon to show how the nation has become hostage to police accesses at all levels. It is appreciable to see that the accused SI has already been closed and the IGP's assurance to the central bank governor that the matter is being investigated and the accused would be put on trial if the allegations were found correct, makes sense to avoid any misgiving. But policemen in the streets are bringing one after another harassment to the police administration only to reflect the break down of the command and control system in a highly charged political situation. But no sooner had the police brutality to the central bank's officer come to be defused, four policemen have this time severely beaten a South City Corporation's inspector at Saidabad on Friday morning. He was on a round riding his bike to supervise cleaning when the plain clothed policemen showed sign to stop. Since they were not in uniform, the inspector tried to speed away taking them as muggers. But he was halted and mercilessly tortured to the ground despite he made his identity known to them. Only psychologists can explain why police beat people like a beast. Police torture and mugging galore every day in media reports and the central bank officer's account on what he saw during his six to seven hours' night time captivity is indeed terrific. The SI moved him in the police van at different places holding his life at risk; while picking many others demanding ransom and warned of implicating in false cases if they failed to pay. Once high police officials are used as footman of political leaders, police as law enforcers are finished. There will be no law enforcers, then who will? India hails Pak probe team, talks deferred First Post : Aware of public anger after the terror attack in Pathankot, India has deferred Friday's foreign secretary level talks with Pakistan but was clear that it "would take place in the very near future." The idea is to cool temperatures keeping in mind the hard line supporters of the ruling BJP and its extended family. It is not a mere coincidence that the Pakistan International Airlines office in Barakhambha in the heart of Delhi was on Thursday vandalised by a right wing group. After the initial flip-flop over Pakistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to have settled in favour of playing the peace card. The fact that discussions with Pakistan have not been called-off in a typical knee-jerk reaction, is a positive sign. But it is important for Modi and his policy advisers to think through the process and insulate it from entrenched interests who will try to disrupt any move towards normal ties. Foreign office spokesperson Vikas Swarup was at pains to clarify that the decision to postpone the talks was arrived at mutually when both foreign secretaries spoke over the phone on Thursday morning. India also welcomed Pakistan's "actions" with Swarup dubbing them as "initial positive steps." "We welcome the statement issued by the government of Pakistan on Wednesday on the investigations into the Pathankot attack. The statement conveys that considerable progress has been made in investigation being carried out We note the apprehension of Jaish-e-Mohammed members. The action taken against JeM is an important and positive first step," Swarup said in his opening statement during Thursday's weekly briefing. Reports from Pakistan indicate some members of JeM, the terror group responsible for the attack on the Pathankot air base, have been arrested. Their office forcibly sealed. More importantly, India is ready to welcome a special investigating team (SIT) from Pakistan to follow up on the leads given by New Delhi. "We look forward to SIT visit and our investigating agencies will extend all necessary co-operation to bring the perpetrators of the Pathankot attack to justice," he said. Quader rules out changing of metro rail route BSS, Dhaka :Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader yesterday ruled out the possibility of changing metro-rail route in the capital."The main work of metro rail would begin in March. So, there is no scope for changing the route (of metro- rail)," he told journalists yesterday after attending a function at Dhakeswari temple in the city. The minister's comments came as the students of Dhaka University have launched movement for changing the route of the metro- rail, as they think it would hamper educational atmosphere on the campus.Quader said, the design of the metro- rail was finalised after holding discussions with Dhaka University authorities in phases. The minister said the metro-rail will be made soundproof in the important areas like Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban, Jatiya Press Club and Dhaka University."Why would the metro rail impede the cultural activities?...I would like to request all to stop any more arguments," he added. Earlier, speaking at the function titled "Mahanagar Paribar Dibas", the minister said a 15-member committee has been formed on national road safety.Those who work on creating mass awareness about road accidents including Ilias Kanchan, Syed Abul Maksud and journalists representatives have also been incorporated in the committee for the first time, he said, adding that the body would cooperate with the government and put forward suggestions.Quader held reckless driving responsible for most of the road accidents. Putting emphasis on creating mass awareness to check road accident, the minister urged the drivers not to drive over 30 to 40 kilometer speed in fog. "Vehicles should be remained stop in dense fog," he opined.While talking about the risky curves on the highways, Quader said the risky curves (on the highways) have been identified and these would be made risk- free (soon). About the attacks on the temples, the minister said the government is very tough against those who would carry attack on the temples or grab their lands. DSCC official beaten up by cops Staff Reporter :Only a week into the alleged torture of a Bangladesh Bank official by cops, on duty policemen on Friday morning beat up an inspector of Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) in city's Jatrabari area leaving him critically injured.Bikash Chandra Das, 40, was admitted to Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH). His condition is stated to be critical as police hit him in the head with revolver butt and stick. On duty physician of DMCH Mozammel Huq said Bikash's condition is stated to be critical as he received serious head injuries. Earlier on Saturday, a sub-inspector of Mohammadpur police Masud Shikder abducted Bangladesh Bank official Golam Rabbi and tortured him for refusing to give bribe of Tk 5 lakh. Rabbi is now under treatment at the DMCH.According to victim Bikash and his family, like other days riding official motorbike Bikash left his Doyaganj residence at about 5:00am to oversee the road cleaning works and he came under police attack at Mirhazirbagh.His family said several police personnel of Jatrabari Police Station, including Sub-inspector Arshad Hossain, had beaten him in the head. "Riding my official motorcycle I left my Doyaganj residence at about 5:00am to oversee the road cleaning works. Police wearing plainclothes asked me to stop but I didn't follow their instruction as I considered them as muggers. At one stage they waylaid me and hit my head with revolver's butt and stick even after giving my identity as an inspector of DSCC," Bikash told journalists at DMCH. Victim's wife Swarashati said when as her husband did not follow the instruction of the plainclothes police, they waylaid him and beat him mercilessly. "I want justice." Being informed Swarashati reached there and found her husband lying in a pool of blood on a van like a dead man. "Instead of rushing my husband to the hospital they were trying to suppress incident," said Swarashati, who was sitting besides her husband at bed number 11, Ward 201, DMCH. "Blood was rolling down from my husband's head, nose and other parts of the body. And law enforcers left him in a pool of blood for about one hour," she said.When Swarashati put pressure on the policemen, they allowed her to take the victim to the DMCH. Victim's brother Chandan Das told journalists that as soon as Bikash crossed the Sayedabad area and reached Mirhazirbagh a number of plainclothes police, including Sub-Inspector Arshad Hossain Akash, waylaid him and started hitting his head with revolver's butt and stick. When contacted, Abani Shankar Kor, Officer-in-Charge of Jatrabari Police Station tried to play down the incident and termed it as 'misunderstanding'. The OC, however, said if any policemen are found guilty, stern action would be taken against them. 53 Bangladeshis arrested in Haldia Kolkata24.com, Haldia :Highlighting a severe problem of Bangladeshi influx in West Bengal, police on Wednesday night arrested 53 illegal Bangladeshi migrants from Sutahata area in West Bengal's Haldia. The migrants were living in the area without any valid documents, said police.The arrested includes 13 women and were employed at a brick kiln. Police also arrested four people including the owner of the kiln for employing illegal migrants. West Bengal which borders Bangladesh is severely burdened by illegal Bangaldeshi migrants who crossed into the state and then spread across the country. Intelligence reports have also cited that Islamic terrorists also used to sneak in the country from Bangladesh through West Bengal. BGMEA trashes TIB report Staff Reporter :Rejecting the recent research study report of Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) about the country's readymade garment (RMG) sector, leaders of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) have termed it as false, fabricated and intentional. "We have rejected outright the allegations of corruption in the RMG sector and condemned the research report of TIB. Its research and findings are false, fabricated and intentional," BGMEA President Md Siddiqur Rahman said this at an emergency press conference held in its auditorium in the city on Friday afternoon. Siddiqur Rahman also raised question about methodology of the research of TIB as he said that it did not follow the process properly in its research. "Hundreds of owners, buyers and workers are related to the RMG sector. But the TIB took 74 persons' interview to find out the corruption in the sector which is unexpected," the BGMEA president said.He also said that the TIB did not talk with any BGMEA leaders in this regard. Senior Vice President of BGMEA Faruque Hassan, Vice President (Finance) Mohammed Nasir, Directors Inamul Haq Khan (Bablu), Abdullah Hil Rakib, Mahidul Islam Khan, Md Ashikur Rahman (Tuhin), Iqbal Hamid Quraishi (Adnan), Md Munir Hossain, Anwar Kamal Pasha, Md Nasir Uddin, Md Rezwan Selim, Syed Sadek Ahmed and Anowar Hossain (Manik) were present at the press briefing, among others. Siddiqur Rahman said, "We work to ensure good atmosphere in the factories under the supervision Accord, Allaince and NAP. The second review of sustainable compact will be held on January 28 in Dhaka. In the report, he said, "TIB also raised question about the interiority of RMG owners, buyers and workers which is totally undesirable and not favourable for the sector." "We never expected such report from TIB when we have been trying to restore image and to develop the RMG sector after Tazreen and Rana Plaza tragedies. The report will hamper overall development of the sector," he said. The BGMEA chief said, "As per I know that the TIB collects money from the foreign donors for doing research. It is spending the money to destabilise the RMG sector instead of research activities." When asked about plan to take any legal action against TIB, Siddiqur Rahman said they had no plan to do that. "We just protested the remarks of TIB about the RMG sector because we are related to the industry. We will decide in our board meeting what can we do," he said. The BGMEA president said that they would be looser due to the false research report and the sector would also suffer. About the illegal sub-contract in manufacturing system, he said only compliant factory has the right to manufacture the garment goods. The factory will be black listed if any factory manufactures the goods from non-compliant factory, he added. It may be mentioned that the TIB study report on Thursday said irregularities and corruption engulfed the entire procedure of supply chain in readymade garment (RMG) sector. "Corruption in the apparel industry has taken an institutional shape mainly due to lack of transparency, accountability and good governance," Dr Iftekharuzzaman, Executive Director of TIB, said. Process initiated to send back Daud Merchant to India Sagar Biswas : Process has been initiated by police and other concerned departments to send back international mafia don Abdul Rauf Daud Merchant to his home country India freeing him from all sorts of charges. Daud Merchant alias Rauf Raja, an alleged 'hitman' of the Abu Salem gang and also a close aide of Dubai-based Indian mafia Daud Ibrahim, is now in Kashimpur high-security prison being rearrested by Bangladesh police on December 2, 2014 under section 54 soon after he was freed getting bail. A source close to Detective and Criminal Intelligence Division told The New Nation on Friday that police had already submitted prayer to Chief Metropolitan Magistrate court in Dhaka to free him [Daud Merchant] from all charges, earlier filed by police for entering Bangladesh with fake passport, visa and identity card. The hearing in this regard is likely to be held on January 31. And if, Daud Merchant gets relief from section 54, there will be no bar for his release from jail. He would be sent back to India like ULFA [United Liberation Front of Assam] insurgent leader Anup Chetia, the source said. "Daud Merchant was rearrested by the detectives in 2014 as a suspect under section 54. As no allegation was proved against him till the date despite intensive investigation, the detective branch on December 9 applied to the court seeking his relief from section 54," Maruf Hossaion Sardar, Deputy Commissioner, Detective and Criminal Intelligence Division, said. A Mumbai Court on April 29, 2002 sentenced Daud Merchant to a life term with 10 years' rigorous imprisonment following his conviction for gunning down the music baron, Gulshan Kumar, in Mumbai on August 12, 1997. But he was reported absconding by Mumbai police after being released on parole for 14 days in April, 2009 to see his sick mother in Mumbra, a tiny township about 40 km from Mumbai. Being absconded, he crossed the border and illegally entered Bangladesh. In this backdrop, the Detective Branch of Bangladesh arrested Daud Merchant along with his accomplice Zahid Sheikh on May 27, 2009 from the residence of one Kamal Mia at Mourail in Bramhanbaria district. According to police, both Daud Merchant and Zahid Sheikh managed Bangladeshi passports and fake nationality certificates. Not only that, Zahid also had managed a national identity card. Daud Merchant adopted the name Abdur Rahman and Zahid took the name Arif Sheikh on their Bangladeshi passports, police added. Interestingly, the detective branch had sought remand for Daud Merchant after he was rearrested under section 54 saying that he was moving around Bangladesh without valid passport and visa probably to commit any sort of crime. Meanwhile, some legal experts of Bangladesh have termed the overall process as 'unlawful' while police did not file any case against Daud Merchant for entering Bangladesh illegally. They said it is highly illegal to keep anyone in jail for 14 months under section 54 without any valid charge. "So far as I realise, the police have applied to court breaking conventional norm of criminal procedure act. We believe, the job has been done playing hide and seek game for serving mere personal interest of some police officials," Barrister Shafique Ahmed, former Law Minister, said. Echoing the same, another legal expert Sanjida Khanam MP, told The New Nation last night, "Police can't keep anyone more than 24 hours. At the same time, police cannot send prayer to court seeking relief of anyone from section 54. In that case, the family member of the accused can submit prayer to the court, not the police." This post is a bit of a cheat because it is the same one posted a few days ago. The reason why I am doing this is because after re-read... . NEWS AND VIEWS THAT IMPACT LIMITED CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT "There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty." - - - - John Adams If you are looking for the new Immoral Minority posts, you should know that they can be found here at our new home Please stop by to get caught up on politics, join the conversations, or simply check out the new digs. Thirty years ago Mayor Dud Lastrapes dropped in to complain about a report in our biz pub of the time, New Business Magazine. We had published a story about disturbing trends in the energy industry, indicating an imminent and serious downturn. Thirty years ago Mayor Dud Lastrapes dropped in to complain about a report in our biz pub of the time, New Business Magazine. We had published a story about disturbing trends in the energy industry, indicating an imminent and serious downturn. Concerned that such predictions would become a self-fulfilling prophecy, he wanted us to rethink the story. After reviewing the facts with him, we politely declined. You know the rest. Like many in that boom time, we had expanded our operations, choosing Shreveport and San Antonio, energy-based economies vulnerable to the same trends that slammed Lafayette. After the bust we too worked relentlessly to salvage what we could as the world around us kept shrinking. In the end we divested, retreated, downsized and ultimately flourished with our home base here diminished but intact. Those of us who made it through remember the We Believe in Lafayette campaign, launched by the Lafayette chamber and paid for by the handful of members who could still afford it. Oui, Believe in Lafayette may have been better messaging for French South Louisiana. No matter. It soon morphed into We be leavin Lafayette. And soon after: Would the Last One to Leave Lafayette Please Turn Off the Lights? During that dark time Cajun and Creole food and music became cool. Tourists flocked to Acadiana, and our culture became a very real and emerging economic asset for us to rally around. Local business owners learned about efficiency, resiliency and adaptation. Bankers and real estate professionals emerged with long memories that later shielded us from the disastrous excesses in the sub-prime mortgage industry that nearly wrecked the nations financial foundation. They resisted the temptation to overbuild, over-lend or over-leverage investments even as oil prices soared into triple digits. Compared to the 80s, our economic base is indeed more sound and diversified into health care, higher ed, retail, finance, technology and tourism. Experts say it should soften the blow. But with 45 percent of our base still dependent on a nonrenewable resource that is now predicted to slowly return to $50 a barrel by 2020, the question is: Have we done enough? But something else is different. Mega investors like Bill Gates are expediting the development of alternative energy. The cost of that technology is coming down faster than expected as the world produces more oil than it needs. We can ignore the signs or we can embrace this trend with the wildcatter mentality that has served us so well for 100 years. We call ourselves The Energy Coast. Our engineers and entrepreneurs created much of the technology that built the oil and gas industry across the world, and we have the capacity to do the same in the renewable resource space. I believe in Lafayette. It is possible to emerge as a global leader as we transition the planet from the old to the new. Isnt it time to have that conversation? Tweet this. LEDA allocates significant time and resources to business retention and expansion efforts because most new jobs in a community are created by existing companies. We find that the best opportunities for growth often stem from existing relationships. Last August, Bell Helicopter cut the ribbon on their SLS assembly facility adjacent to the Lafayette Regional Airport. That day was a milestone in a relationship that LEDA has been cultivating with a division of Bell Helicopter, formerly known as Aeronautical Accessories, since 2002. In 2011, we began working with Bell Composites and Jones Lang Lasalle to identify a site for the consolidation of several Bell facilities in the region. It was through that successful project Bell Composites opened in LEDA Industrial Park in Broussard in 2014 that LEDA and Louisiana Economic Development (LED) laid the groundwork for the first modern-era, final assembly project in the state. With Lafayettes and Louisianas long-standing history in aviation and the continued leadership of executives such as Al Gonsoulin, PHIs chairman and CEO, the project seemed to be a perfect fit for the community. We needed to demonstrate that to company officials. We do this in two key ways; through a workforce comparison illustrating the competitiveness and availability of our workforce and an economic impact analysis calculating direct and indirect impact. Workforce Comparison A key element LEDA needs to illustrate is our communitys compatibility with a companys workforce needs. In many cases, workforce availability is at the forefront of a companys concerns. By accessing data from the Louisiana Workforce Commission, post-secondary institutions and other resources, we are able to quantify the current available workforce and identify the types of workers who are being trained for future employment. For the Bell Helicopter project, LEDA provided a detailed workforce comparison between Lafayette and a site in Alabama that was also under consideration. Chart 1 shows the availability of Aircraft Mechanics and Aircraft Assemblers and other occupations that can quickly transition with minimal training. Within a 30, 60 and 90 minute drive time radius, the Lafayette region had 2,000, 9,600 and 4,800 more workers than in Alabama. Another plus for Lafayette is the fact that Louisiana has three FAA-certified maintenance schools which could help transition workers in related fields. While the first concern when thinking about where to locate a company is the availability of labor, the next question is, At what cost? As part of the workforce comparison for this project, a wage analysis was done for targeted occupations. Wage data collected from the Economic Research Institutes Salary Assessor shows that within a 90-minute drive radius wages in Lafayette are competitive (chart 2). When a company can see their bottom line improving, it makes a real impact during the decision making process. Economic Impact Were often asked about the impact a specific company has, or could have, on the local economy in dollars and jobs created. Our client provides specific details on earnings, spending and employment; and we match that data with the corresponding RIMS II multipliers to formulate the estimated impact of the existing or proposed business. A multiplier summarizes the total impact that can be expected from change in a given economic activity. For example, a new facility or an increase in production are economic changes which can prompt ripple effects or spin-off activities. Think of multipliers as showing you how much bang you get for your buck. LEDA calculated that Bell Helicopter will have a total economic impact of $415 million on the local economy over the next ten years. A companys direct impact to a community is important, but so is its indirect impact. By creating 115 new, direct manufacturing jobs, Bell Helicopter will stimulate the creation of 72 indirect jobs in complementary industries in the area. New income generated through the jobs created will be spent on goods and services in the retail, administrative, management and health care sectors. Based on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the largest number of indirect jobs will be created in the manufacturing industry and management industries (11 jobs each), followed by health care (7 jobs) and retail (7 jobs). Chart 3 illustrates the full breakdown of where all of the new jobs will be created as a result of the Bell Helicopter manufacturing facility. An aircraft manufacturer, like Bell Helicopter, will undoubtedly work closely with local businesses for supplies. The company has worked closely with LEDA to cultivate relationships with local companies by encouraging quality and process certifications necessary to become a qualified aviation vender. We participated in their supplier meeting last April and have continued to work with contacts we met at the meeting. I also recently wrote about the Aviation Certification seminar we hosted last year and the success some local businesses have already had in securing their certifications. Preparing a workforce analysis and an economic impact study are just two steps in the process LEDA goes through when working with recruitment, expansion and retention prospects. Our staff prepares a customized proposal for each prospect. We conduct extensive property searches to meet the clients facility or land needs. We facilitate meetings with representatives from other economic development, government or educational organizations. The staff walks our clients through each step illustrating along the way that Lafayette and Acadiana is the place to be. All of that hard work paid off with the Bell Helicopter project. Jubal Smith, who handled the project for Jones Lang Lasalle said, LEDA demonstrated and executed a winning strategy in the recruitment process of Bell Helicopters SLS manufacturing facility. LEDAs knowledge of the market and its competitive position, greatly aided our efforts in evaluating and ultimately selecting Lafayette over many competing cities and states. Big projects like Bell Helicopter, CGI and Halliburton are energizing to the community, but they only come along once every few years. Its important to always remember that its the smaller projects existing businesses growing with the Parish and new businesses relocating or starting up in the area that keep Lafayettes economy fresh, vibrant and diversified. Gregg Gothreaux is president and CEO of the Lafayette Economic Development Authority. Tweet this. Quality Companies USA, a Youngsville-based oil and gas contractor operating in the Gulf of Mexico and throughout the U.S., was awarded the ISO 9001:2008 certificate for its commitment to continuous improvement and quality. Quality Companies USA, a Youngsville-based oil and gas contractor operating in the Gulf of Mexico and throughout the U.S., was awarded the ISO 9001:2008 certificate for its commitment to continuous improvement and quality. Quality Companies, which last year ranked No. 18 on ABizs list of the Top 50 private companies in the region ($123 million in 2014 revenues) comprises Quality Construction and Production, Quality Production Management and Traco Production Services. ISO 9001:2008 is an international standard for quality management systems, which include a set of policies, processes and procedures to help an organization meet customer requirements. As part of the certification, an accredited third party auditing organization validated that the internal quality management system of Quality Companies USA complies with the ISO 9001:2008 standards set forth for the industry. Safety Management Systems, through a recent transaction with Petrofac, is establishing a Houston training facility to begin offering major emergency management training and additional health, safety and environmental training. SMS, a sister company to Acadian Ambulance, is a provider of highly rated and comprehensive training programs for the oil and gas industry. It offers additional training facilities in Shreveport and San Antonio, Texas, as well as providing on-site training for customers around the world. Sara Tannehill Zuschlag has been promoted to partner at Andrus, Boudreaux, Landry & Coussan, a full-service real estate law firm. Zuschlag is a 2009 graduate of Southern University Law Center and a 2004 graduate of Northwestern State University. After law school, she clerked for Judge Donald W. Hebert in St. Landry Parish and continued her legal career practicing in civil defense before joining Andrus Boudreaux in 2012. She now primarily focuses on residential and commercial real estate transactions. Global Data Systems has again made the World Teleport Associations list of the Top Teleport Operators for 2015. The Fast Twenty ranks all teleport-operating companies based on year-over-year revenue growth in their most recent fiscal years. GDS rose from No. 6 to No. 2 on the WTA Fast Twenty with a 68.89 percent rise in satellite-based revenue year over year. For the first time GDS was also included on the WTA Independent Top Twenty, coming in at No. 20. Last year GDS ranked No. 37 on ABizs list of the Top 50 Private Companies in the region with $42 million in 2014 revenues. Kristy Doucet-Touchet has joined Home Bank as vice president/human resources director. Her background includes roles as HR director, senior recruiter and advertising and brand manager. She most recently worked for Quality Companies USA in Youngsville. She has an MBA from UL Lafayette, serves on the board of the Acadiana Society for Human Resources Management and will serve as the president-elect for 2016. Touchet also holds Professional in Human Resources and SHRM-CP certifications. Home Bank also announced that Angela Badeaux has joined the company as first VP/property and facilities manager. Badeaux has more than 27 years of banking and facilities management experience; for 25 years, she served in several key roles for Teche Federal Bank, including identifying locations and designing and building branches. She most recently was VP-corporate real estate/property manager for IberiaBank. She is a graduate of Vanderbilt Universitys Graduate School of Banking and is a Certified Training Professional from UL Lafayette. Additionally, Natalie Lemoine has joined the bank as VP/marketing director. Lemoine has more than 18 years of marketing experience. As VP/media director of the Graham Group, she helped clients develop innovative marketing and media approaches for building their brands with a focus on increasing their customer bases. She holds a bachelors degree in public relations from Loyola. Capital One Bank is investing $18,000 in South Louisiana Community Colleges application software development program. The banks funds will be used for program recruitment, certifications and programming devices for hands-on skill development. The two-year associates degree program at SLCC began in 2014 and gives students skills in application development, game development, and computer programming. Courses are focused on teaching various programming languages such as Java, Python, and C++, as well as languages like HTML that build websites. With more than 23,000 software jobs being created in Acadiana by 2030, this program meets the growing and critical demand for entry-level application software developers in the workforce, Sam Harb, SLCC dean of business, IT and professional studies, said in a press release. With companies like CGI, Perficient, and Enquero coming into Lafayette and bringing immediate, well-paying jobs, the benefits of this program are endless. The median annual wage for these developers is $63,000, making this a high-wage, highdemand program. The Capital One grant will provide three-fold funding: marketing dollars to recruit students interested in ITrelated fields to the new program; JAVA certifications for up to the first three cohorts of Application Software Development students; and Android devices for student developers to write, test and deploy applications into the target platform environment. Dat Dog's future location at 201 Jefferson St. (Side note: The building also once housed The Times of Acadiana when IND Publishers Steve and Cherry Fisher May owned it back when it was a newspaper.) Christiaan Mader Downtown, open your hearts to Dat Dog, the beloved NOLA frankurtery that will soon palpitate your chest with desire. Being that its a hot dog restaurant, I wont try to oversell it. But lets just say that the massive temple to tube meat could change the face of Downtown forever. Sure, thats a bald exaggeration, but its one rooted in fact. With the northeastern end of the Jefferson Street strip slated to serve as the entry point for travelers conveyed to Downtown from the Lafayette Connector, Dat Dogs vibrant color splash of family friendly, Hawaiian shirt dining will be a decidedly different greeting than the districts traditional bar scene booze, lawyers, and boozed up lawyers. Theres a lot of crossover there. Current plans for the 15,000-square-foot eatery at 201 Jefferson St., across from Reve Coffee Roasters, include not just the eponymously delicious lineup of frankfurters and alternative proteins, but also patio dining abutting Jefferson Street, a live music venue, a bar serving Louisiana craft brews like Bayou Teches Dat Biere crafted especially for Dat Dogs New Orleans operations and more toppings than you can fit in a canoe. With prices fixed at the cost of your dog, you can attempt to drown their deliciously sweet bun in whatever mound of regret you want. I assume the same goes for their impeccable fries. In the interest of expediency Ill list just a few of the 28 available toppings: andouille sauce, shredded cheddar cheese, chili, Creole or yellow mustard, dill or sweet relish, dill pickle spears, guacamole, hummus and crawfish etouffee. Compounding your interest in this bespoke line of heart cloggers excepting, of course, the veggie options are the dog varieties, a menu fixture that varies from spicy porcine delights like Bratwursts both spicy and mild, Kosher beef franks, tubes of turducken, veggie patties and seadogs made of battered cod. Keeping the math simple, Ive calculated that if you limited your self to five toppings, youd have 98,280 different possible combinations for each frank. Multiply that by the number of available types, 18, and you get 1,769,040 possible hot dog combinations featuring five toppings. To be sure, Ive limited myself to a calculation of five toppings in the interest of both brevity and my disgust for mathematics. For the record, I used this online combination calculator. It took 10 minutes to figure out if I was performing a permutation or a combination, and only four to remember the horrendous disappointment I must have been in my college statistics class. But I digress. Here we are talking hot dogs, and Im cheating on my math homework. Ive spent far too much time at the Dat Dog on Freret Street, the first of the NOLA staples three Crescent City locations. Lafayettes Downtown location will mark Dat Dogs first foray outside of New Orleans, with Baton Rouge and Hattiesburg, Miss., also recently considered. Ill restrain myself from a customary take that aimed at both our state capitol and Mississippis Hub City. I spoke not long ago with Dat Dog COO Bill DiPaola, and he positively beamed about the companys new home. I grilled him then to give me the scoop about Dat Dogs rumored landing spot in Laffy, and the potential for late night eats. The gregarious fella just wouldnt shut up about how much he loved our town. If theres one thing I want to get across is that everyone we met in Lafayette has left us with a knockout impression, DiPaola told me. Thats the sort of place you want to do business with. I then begged him to give me a confirmation, and he asked me to stop crying. Dat Dog will provide late night dining for the waning constitutions of Downtowns beleaguered drinkers, as well as a great place to have a wholesome hot dog eating contest. As a company, Dat Dog has a reputation for assimilating its outlets into neighborhood fabrics, so Downtowners can expect a stand-up neighbor and great group of dudes to hit up for parking meter money. Realtor Mark Van Eaton of Beau Box Real Estate, who brokered Dat Dogs purchase of the building that currently houses Tipitinas Co-Op, says Dat Dog may begin a trend of notable New Orleans eateries making homes along Jefferson Street. With commercial building stock providing a host of viable options, Dat Dogs arrival on a block of Jefferson Street that also features a record shop, a yoga studio and a coffee roaster may mark the beginning of new chapter in Downtowns historic development. Dat Dog will arrive in Lafayette sometime in mid-to-late 2016 with an opportunity to perform countless other pointless calculations in my case a Weight Watchers number crunch describable in only scientific notation. Lafayette City Marshal Brian Pope, flanked by his deputies, held on Oct. 7 what may go down as the most peculiar press conference in the history of local law enforcement. From left are deputy marshals Joe Caillet, Phil Conrad (chief deputy), Pope, Rodney LeBlanc and Dean Morgan. Photo by Robin May At a hearing on Jan. 4, ABizs parent company, IND Media, was awarded attorney fees and court costs in its ongoing public records dispute with Lafayette City Marshal Brian Pope. Ruling that Popes failure to produce email records requested by IND Media was both arbitrary and unreasonable, Judge Jules Edwards III, of the 15th Judicial District Court, also awarded maximum allowable penalties. IND attorney Gary McGoffin has filed an affidavit with the court documenting $31,899 in fees and costs for which the marshal would be liable in solido with his office, pending judicial order. Pope will be personally responsible for penalties of $100 per day from the receipt dates of each of the requests, beginning with the original IND request dated Oct. 8 and including an additional $100 daily penalty for the media groups second request Nov. 30. Penalties will accrue until Pope satisfies that request with an adequate production of documents. At a Feb. 29 contempt of court hearing, Edwards will take up the matter of Popes public records, mandamus and injunction violations he incurred by withholding records in a Dec. 18 courtordered records production. The marshal could face further financial penalties as well as jail time and/or community service resulting from the contempt hearing and any future criminal prosecution stemming from the dispute. Since October, IND Media has sought records of emails exchanged between Pope and the sheriff campaign of Scott Police Chief Chad Leger, that would indicate that the city marshal organized and staged an Oct. 7 press conference attacking Legers then-opponent, Mark Garber, who went on to win the election and will take office in July. Pope delivered the attack on Garber from a podium in his office carrying the marshals seal and flanked by four deputies. It is illegal for an elected official to use the authority of his office or his position to support or oppose the election of a candidate for political office. The press conference, which alerted media to a video showing Garber in Honduras allegedly promoting unlawful migration, was advertised with a media advisory distributed by a mailing list service called Campaigner. Legers campaign manager, Hilary Joe Castille has used Campaigner to send press releases for his clients, including Leger. IND Media has alleged and a later records productions and Popes testimony in the Jan. 4 hearing appear to prove that Castille wrote the press advisory and press statement associated with the conference. IND Medias Oct. 8 request asked for emails containing the key words Garber, Neustrom, Chad, Leger, immigration, Honduras, worker, compensation, illegal, alien, haven, Castille, Team Leger, personal injury, campaign, campaigner and mailing list in the sender, recipient, cc, bcc, subject or content fields of any account Pope uses to conduct the business of city marshal. Responding to that request, Pope first claimed an exemption from production on the grounds that the records sought were part of an investigation into immigration issues facing the city marshals office. That claim was never substantiated in court. He next indicated that no records existed, and yet later that only some records existed in the form of email responses to his press advisory sent via mass distribution via third party vendor across the country, as Popes attorney wrote in an October response to the public records request. Pope would later testify that he had no knowledge of any use of a third party vendor to distribute the press advisory or statement, that he had never heard of Campaigner, that any use of his email address by that service would therefore be unauthorized and that the marshals office notified media of upcoming press conferences only by telephone. At a Dec. 14 hearing, Edwards ordered Pope to conduct a more thorough search of his email. Pursuant to the courts order, Pope produced a stack of 588 pages of documents responsive to the original public records request. Among them were emails confirming that Pope communicated with media outlets about the conference via email, and that he was aware of a press release distributed in his name by Campaigner. That production also uncovered Popes use of marshals office employees and resources to draft fundraising letters for his own campaign. By way of a parallel request on Lafayette Consolidated Government, the marshals email service provider, IND Media received documents withheld from Popes Dec. 18 production. Among them were email communications between Pope and Castille in the days leading up to the Oct. 7 press conference. On Oct. 5, Castille sent Pope a draft of the media advisory and the statement Pope read at the press conference before fielding questions from the media (our audio from the presser confirms he read the statement verbatim). Both were sent to Pope for his approval from [email protected] chadleger.org to Popes official @lafayettela. gov email address. The LCG production also uncovered an automatic confirmation reply Pope received from Campaigner on Oct. 6, directing him to follow a link to validate the use of his @lafayettela.gov address for a mailing campaign. Ten minutes after the confirmation email was sent from Campaigner to [email protected], the media advisory from Popes email arrived in inboxes across Lafayette and likely beyond. In a video deposition taken in advance of the Jan. 4 hearing, Pope held fast under oath to his claim that he had no knowledge of Campaigner and further insisted that he or someone in his office wrote the press advisory and statement. Once confronted with documents from the LCG production in the deposition, Pope walked back his claim, admitting that Joe Castille had written the press statement, but still suggested that the marshals office had written the media advisory, directly contradicting his testimony that he never emailed an advisory. Despite evidence of direct correspondence between Campaigner and Pope, the marshal has maintained his position that he has never used the service, speculating that his email account may have been spoofed. Given the revelations in the deposition and hearing that Pope lied under oath about the authorship of his press conference materials and his use of Campaigner, and evidence that he used his office for the benefit of Legers campaign and his own fund raising, the city marshal could face criminal charges of abuse of office, malfeasance in office and perjury, according to Title 42 of the Louisiana Revised Statute, as well as an investigation from the Louisiana Board of Ethics. Tweet this. Monet rahapelien ystavat ovat viime vuosina loytaneet netticasinot ja olleet ihmeissaan. Verrattuna kotimaisen Veikkauksen kivijalkarahapeleihin puhutaan aivan eri tason palautusprosenteista ja lisaksi pelaaminen on aarimmaisen helppoa ja turvallista. Netticasinoiden maara on tana paivana todella suuri ja niita loytyy jokaiseen lahtoon, suurin ongelma aloittelevalla pelaajalla onkin tehda valinta siita, minka netticasinon valitsee. Kaikkien netticasinoiden mainospuheet naet lupaavat kauniita asioita ja niiden lapinakeminen on tietysti tarkeaa. Nyrkkisaantona voidaan kuitenkin jo kattelyssa todeta, etta jos valitsemasi netticasino on lisensoitu ETA-alueella, sen kanssa ei tule olemaan ongelmia, ellei niita itse jarjesta. Kay tutustumassa parhaisiin netticasinoihin osoitteessa www.ilmaiskierroksia.info! Ensimmainen nyrkkisaanto on siis varmistaa, etta valitsemallasi netticasinolla on ETA-alueen lisenssi. Suurimmassa osassa tapauksista se on Maltan eli MGA:n lisenssi. Myos Viron, Englannin ja Gibraltarin lisensseja nakyy ja naissa valvonta on jopa Maltaa tiukempaa. Lopputulema on kuitenkin se, etta ETA-alueen lisenssi takaa suomalaisille verovapaat voitot seka sen, etta niita valvotaan kontrolloidusti. Maailmalla on iso nippu Curacaon lisenssilla toimivia netticasinoita ja niistakin suurin osa on laadukkaita. Ne eivat kuitenkaan ole suomalaisille asiakkaille verovapaita, joten emme suosittele niita. Tana paivana markkinoille on ilmaantunut paljon ETA-alueella toimiva netticasinoita ilman rekisteroitymista. Jos tarkoitus on vain pelata yksittaisia pelikertoja, on varsin helppo suositella naita. Netticasinot ilman rekisteroitymista tarjoavat palvelun tunnistautumisen verkkopankin avainlukulistan avulla ja saman palvelun kautta tapahtuvat talletukset ja mahdolliset voittojen nostot silmanrapayksessa. Normaaleihin netticasinoihin pitaa asiakkaan rekisteroitya, tehda talletukset ja tunnistautua dokumenttien avulla. Tama on lisenssiehtojen mukainen kaytanto, eika kovinkaan monimutkainen, mutta silti monet asiakkaat haluavat yksinkertaista ja nopeaa palvelua. Toki normaalit netticasinot tarjoavat usein asiakkailleen laadukkaita talletusbonuksia ja erilaisia kampanjoita, joten kannattaa tarkkaan punnita, kumman ratkaisun valitsee. Kannattaa myos muistaa, etta tunnistautuminen tehdaan vain kerran, joten mikaan jatkuva riippakivi se ei ole. Suomalaiset asiakkaat ovat netticasinoille tarkeita, joten kaikilla vahankin laadukkailla netticasinoilla on suomenkieliset sivut seka suomenkielinen asiakaspalvelu suomenkielisyys kannattaakin ottaa netticasinoa valittaessa nyrkkisaannoksi. Vaikka tana paivana englanninkielisyys on harvoille ongelma, on suomenkielisten netticasinoiden maara niin valtava, etta suosittelemme niiden kayttoa. Rahansiirrot ovat tana paivana niin hyvassa mallissa, etta niiden kanssa tuskin tulee mitaan ongelmia. Kolme tarkeinta segmenttia: Suomalaiset verkkopankit, luottokortit (Visa, Mastercard) seka nettilompakot (Skrill, Neteller) loytyvat jokaisesta laadukkaasta netticasinosta. Viime vuosien trendiksi noussut verkkokauppa on kehittanyt rahansiirrot niin laadukkaiksi ja nopeiksi, etta niiden suhteen ei ole enaa vuosiin ollut ongelmia. Luonnollisesti netticasinot kayttavat naita samoja palveluita ja hyotyvat kehityksesta. Naiden isojen linjojen jalkeen netticasinon valintaan vaikuttavat luonnollisesti tarjottavat tervetuliaisbonukset uudet asiakkaat saavat tana paivana kovan kilpailun myota merkittavia etuja netticasinoilta ja niita kannattaa luonnollisesti vertailla. Erilaiset talletusbonukset, ilmaiskierrokset seka ilmaiset pelirahat tuovat suuriakin rahanarvoisia etuja ja niiden vertailu on ehdottomasti kannattavaa. Myoskaan useampien tilien avaaminen ja tervetuliaistarjousten kayttaminen ei missaan nimessa ole huono idea. Kun edella mainitut asiat ovat mieleisia ja vaihtoehtoja on vielakin jaljella, mennaan jo nyansseihin. Toki pelivalikoima on yksi kriteeri, mutta taman paivan netticasinoissa tamakin asia on paasaantoisesti varsin samanlainen. Toki useamman samantasoisen netticasinon vertailussa kannattaa yleensa valita se, jossa on eniten peleja tarjolla. Vaikka omat suosikit loytyisivatkin useammasta, voi tulevaisuudessa mielenkiinto nousta joihinkin muihin peleihin ja silloin on tietysti mukavampaa, etta ne loytyvat valikoimista. Viimeisena voidaan nostaa esiin kaytettavyys joidenkin netticasinoiden sivut ovat vilkkuvia, valkkyvia ja epakaytannollisia. Omaan silmaan ja kaytettavyyteen sopiva sivusto on luonnollisesti aina se paras valinta. Tarjonta netticasinoissa on tana paivana valtava ja jokaiselle loytyy varmasti se oma netticasino onnea matkaan! Love the article on Gaddaf i Samosa Iyoha Hello from Johannesburg I was amazed to find a website for Africans in Hungary . Looks like you have quite a community there. Here in SA we have some three million Zimbabweans living in exile and not much sign of going home ... but in Hungary??? Hope to meet you on one of my trips to Europe; was in Steirmark Austria near the Hungarian border earlier this month. Every good wish for 2011. Geoff in Jo'burg I'm impressed by ANH work but... Interesting interview... My comment to the interview with his excellency Mr. Adedotun Adenrele Adepoju CDA a.i-- B.Ayo Adams click to read editor's mail We must rise above tribalism & divide & rule of the colonialist who stole & looted our treasure & planted their puppets to lord it over us..they alone can decide on whosoever is performing & the one that is corrupt..but the most corrupt nations are the western countries that plunder the resources of other nations & make them poorer & aid the rulers to steal & keep such ill gotten wealth in their country..yemen,syria etc have killed more than gadhafi but its not A good investment for the west(this is laughable)because oil is not in these countries..when obasanjo annihilated the odi people in rivers state, they looked away because its in their favour & interest..one day!I think from what have been said, the Nigerian embassy here seem to be more concern about its nationals than we are for ourselves. Our complete disregard for the laws of Hungary isn't going to help Nigeria's image or going to promote what the Embassy is trying to showcase. So if the journalists could zoom-in more focus on Nigerians living, working and studying here in Hungary than scrutinizing the embassy and its every move, i think it would be of tremendous help to the embassy serving its nationals better and create more awareness about where we live . Taking the issues of illicit drugs and forged documents as typical examples.. there are so many cases of Nigerians been involved. But i am yet to read of it in e.news. So i think if only you and your journalists could write more about it and follow up on the stories i think it will make our nationals more aware of what to expect. I wouldn't say i am not impressed with your work but you need to be more of a two way street rather than a one way street . Keep up the good work... SylviaHe is an intelligent man. He spoke well on the issues! Thanks to Mr Hakeem Babalola for the interview it contains some expedient information.. The sextoy market is growing quite rapidly in India right now. Although it is not a big trend, it is a hot topic on the internet as it is secretly expanding its market. In this article, we will focus on sextoy and introduce recommended sextoy for Indian beginners of sextoy by gender. India, the birthplace of the Kama Sutra, is very strict about sex. Also, premarital sex is basically not allowed. Therefore, there are many people who are sexually restricted. But what happens when you continue to be sexually restricted? Frustration may build up and you may end up taking your sexual stress out on your partner. If you are able to adopt sextoy in a timely manner, you can get rid of those problems. I want to have more exciting sex than Im having now. I want more variation in masturbation I want to get even stronger pleasure than I do on my own. If you have any of these problems, please stay with me until the end. What is sex toys for Indian? Sextoy, as the name implies, is a toy used during sex and masturbation. It is a generic term for vibrators, Egg-vibrators, Electric massagers, dildo, handcuffs and condoms. They are used to make regular sex more exciting or to make masturbation more pleasurable. Because sextoy is very stimulating, it can help you to get rid of the problems and frustrations of being in a rut of sex with your partner for a long time, or if you are unhappy with the lack of pleasure in sex with your partner. The ability to satisfy your desires with movement, texture, and size, which cannot be done by a normal human being, can help you to be satisfied with sex and, as a result, improve your relationship with your partner. It is also said to help improve sexual dysfunction (inability to get an erection or ejaculate) and difficulty in feeling during sex (insensitivity), which is attracting more attention than in the past. In recent years, the demand for sextoy has increased due to the spread of smartphones and the Internet and the increasing number of people using online shopping. Even those who are concerned about the appearance of sextoy (and find it difficult to purchase) can now easily obtain it by using mail order. In the case of online shopping, most of the stores have taken steps to ensure that the contents of the products delivered to you are not revealed, so you can purchase them without your family members knowing. Until a while ago, you had to go to the store where the adult goods were sold to buy them, so it was quite a hurdle to overcome. Also, many people may have an image that sextoy is somehow embarrassing to own. But nowadays, some of them are so stylish and cute that you cant believe they are sextoy at a glance. More and more people are using them for travel and outdoor use because they are not too bulky and are suitable for carrying around. Sextoy situation in India Before introducing the recommended sextoy for Indians, lets talk about one of the sextoy situations in India in recent years. In India, due to the high concentration of population, the following six cities have particularly high sales of sextoy in India. Mumbai Kolkata Bangalore Delhi Chennai Hyderabad These cities account for roughly 70 percent of sextoy sales in India. In the future, the percentage of sextoy use will gradually increase in other cities in India as well. If you never talk about sextoy publicly, that girl in your neighborhood might be a sextoy user too. If you are interested in sextoy, you dont have to suppress your desire for it. What are Sextoys for beginner? Among all sextoys, sextoy for beginners are vibrators, dildo, masturbators, Sex Lubricants, and condoms. Sex Lubricants and condoms, which are familiar to people who have had sex, are also a great beginners sextoy. I will explain the details of each toy later, but there are many sextoy products that are painful to use and can only be used after some anal expansion. I assume that the Indian readers of this article are people who have not had much experience with sextoy. If such people use professional sextoy suddenly, they are at risk of injury or trauma. Therefore, to introduce sextoy, you need to start with a beginners version and gradually become familiar with it. Advantages of using sextoy for Indians There are three advantages of using sextoy for Indians You can masturbate in a wide variety of ways. Can have stimulating sex Can develop new sexual zones If you try to masturbate with your own fingers or hands, it tends to be a pattern. However, with sextoy, you can easily masturbate in a variety of ways. You will definitely be fascinated by the attraction of new stimulation. Also, your daily sex life will be more exciting than ever. There are many things in sextoy that are visually stimulating and give you a strong and intense feeling of pleasure. This allows you to see your partners promiscuity in a way that you wouldnt normally see it. When you are in a relationship, sex with your partner may become a pattern, but it can also eliminate these problems. It can also lead to the development of new sexual zones (which is the training of sexual stimulation to allow you to feel orgasms). For more information on the development of new sexual zones, see the following articles [Women's Erogenous Zone]How to find and develop, 7 hidden sexual zones !![In India] In this issue, we will dissect the female erogenous zone! ..." Many of you may be like that. Men, in particular, shou... Thus, the use of sextoy can only be a good thing for the men and women of India. Sextoy for beginner men in India So, lets continue with the recommended goods for Indian sextoy beginners. For ease of understanding, we will introduce them by gender. Lets start with the men! The following five goods are recommended for novice Indian sextoy men Masturbator Cock rings Love Doll Sex Lubricants Toys for the prostate Lets check each one in detail. Masturbator The masturbator is a sextoy for men that elaborately reproduces a womans vagina, mouth, and anus, and is one of the most popular sextoy products. It is used by men to masturbate, and it is popular because it provides stronger stimulation and pleasure more easily than using hands. Most are made of good quality silicone, and their softness is something that cannot be achieved with ones own hands. They can provide stronger pleasure than a real womans vagina, so be careful not to overuse them. (You wont be able to have an orgasm in a womans vagina anymore.) Again Male masturbators are a wonderful toy. I do not need any favourite timing, bothersome bargaining. You do not have to worry too much. Revolutionize your masturbation time! ! ! Made in Japan is a wonderful kinky toy.#sextoysindia #SexToyIndia #Japanhttps://t.co/4k70QGzoTP pic.twitter.com/tRVdxTKPpa SEXToys India PR (@SextoysIndia) November 12, 2018 Some of them are disposable, while others can be washed and used over and over again, so its fun to buy a few to use depending on your mood. If you want to know more about masturbator, please click here Really pleasant male masturbation and how to do it Are you in a rut with your daily masturbation routine? I'm going to show you five ways men masturbate that you might ... [For Beginners] How to choose and use a male masturbator without fail Gentlemen.Have you ever used a masturbator? The person who sees this article is probably the one who has not experien... Cock Ring A cock ring is literally a ring-shaped sextoy that is worn on a mans penis. It maintains an erection by binding the penis with a ring of rubber and blocking blood flow. It is sometimes used as an accessory to be worn on the penis, and may be made of metal or plastic as well as rubber. In some cases, cock rings have parts or vibrators attached to them that stimulate the vagina, so they kill two birds with one stone, giving a woman pleasure while maintaining an erection. Cock rings are also sometimes used to treat erectile dysfunction. It can help with erectile dysfunction, where the penis doesnt get hard when you get an erection or doesnt last long when you try to insert it. Men who are prone to breakage or who are unsure of the hardness and size of their erections can use a cock ring to increase the size of their penis and maintain an erection for a longer period of time. Cock rings vary in price from around RS700 to over RS2000 with a vibrator function. Some of them do not fit your penis, so you should check the size of the cock ring before you buy. You should know the size of your partners or your own penis when it is erect. [Penis enlargement] What is a cock ring? Types and usage Cock rings can make your penis bigger and harder. It also makes sex with women more fulfilling and increases your sat... Love Doll Love dolls, also known as Dutchwives, are dolls with the appearance of a woman who can experience simulated sex. There are dolls that look like a woman, but they have no face and only have their breasts and lower torso cut off, and some dolls are so realistic that they can actually be mistaken for real women. Some expensive dolls can cost more than 1 million yen, and the quality of the doll is easily influenced by the price. The higher the price, the higher the quality of the doll will be, the closer it will be to the real woman, and the cheaper the doll will be, the less elaborate it will be, making it look like a real doll! Something is wrong! That is also true. You cant go wrong if you choose a balance between price and taste. There are stores that allow you to make custom-made love dolls, so you can create a girl of your choice. You can make a girl of your choice. You can start with inexpensive love dolls at first, and once you get used to it, you can try custom-made love dolls. If you want to know more about Love doll, please click here Thorough explanation of the charm of sex dolls! Have you ever heard of sex dolls that are used primarily for pseudo-sex purposes? It is a doll that is quite close to... Sex lubricants Sex lubricants are used as a substitute for lubricating fluid during sex or as a lubricant for men to use masturbator rules. It is not uncommon for women to have difficulty getting wet, depending on their physical condition, or to have difficulty getting wet due to their constitution. Forcing the penis into the vagina at such times can cause painful intercourse. There are various types of Sex Lubricants, some with a warming effect, some with a cooling effect, and some with a scent. Changing the Sex Lubricant used during play is recommended as a good sex accent. If you want to learn more about Sex Lubricants, click here. What is sex lubricant?Explain the difference and usage of each ingredient The word "sex toy" may seem like a hurdle to overcome, but lotion is actually one of the most familiar sex toys. Many... Toys for the Prostate Another sextoy for men is prostate toys. The most famous prostate toys include Enemagra, which was originally a prostate massager developed by an American urologist to treat an enlarged prostate line. Modern prostate toys are imitations of Enemagra that have spread as sextoy for men. Many people think of prostate toys as being used by gay men, but in fact they are often used by straight men. What is the prostate? The prostate is an organ found only in men. It is a walnut-sized organ located deep in the pelvis, just below the bladder, and its primary role is to protect and nourish sperm. You cannot touch the prostate gland from outside the body, but you can touch it by inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus. By inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus and touching the prostate and developing it, you can feel intense orgasms. Orgasms felt in the prostate are mainly dry orgasms, which are orgasms that do not involve ejaculation. (You can also feel orgasms with ejaculation through prostate stimulation.) The prostate is called the male G-spot, and dry orgasms can be much more intense than ejaculation. Therefore, men who are able to develop a prostate can become addicted to the pleasure. sextoy for beinner women in India The following are the recommended goods for Indian women who are new to sextoy. The following three are recommended for use by women who are new to sextoy. Vibrator. Dildo Electric Masserger Lets check out what each one is in detail. If you want to check out womens toys, click here. [BEST25]Sex Toys for Women in IndiaThat Can Help You Have an Orgasm There are many women who pretend to feel orgasm during sex. But don't worry, you don't have to pretend to feel orgasm... Vibrators A vibrator is a sextoy that vibrates with an Egg-Vibrator to provide stimulation and is often referred to simply as a vibrator. Some vibrate as well as rotate, and there are many variations of sextoy. It is quite a popular sextoy, and is well recognized by people who do not know much about sextoy. Its usage is similar to that of a massager, but it is more compact and easier to carry than a massager, and many of them look as cute as a lipstick or a macaroon, so they are popular among women. For a while, a famous influencer on twitter said, This is good! You may have heard of the topic of this article by introducing the recommended vibrators. Vibrators are great for women to use on their own, but they are also recommended for men who have difficulty satisfying women with sex. Since it is powered by electricity, it is far less tiring than moving your hands by yourself. This makes it easier to satisfy a woman with sex because you can caress her for longer than usual. Vibrators are mainly used on the female side, but they can also be used on men. When used on men, they are used to attack the nipples and glans, and in both cases it is recommended to wear a condom for hygiene reasons. Introducing how to use the vibrator, its purpose, and how to choose it! Vibrator uses the vibrations caused by the rotation of the motor to provide stimulation. It is one or two of the most... Dildo A dildo is a model sextoy made to mimic a male penis. It can be made of silicone, elastomer (think of it as a material similar to PVC), metal or glass. A dildo can be used by a man for his female partner during sex, or by a woman for masturbation to get pleasure from it. They are mainly inserted into women, but some can be used in the male anus as well. It is sometimes used synonymously with vibrators, but the vibrator is not the same thing as a vibrating device. A model of a penis that does not vibrate is a dildo. Some of them have suction cups that can be attached to the floor or wall so that you can enjoy realistic masturbation without using your hands. For fun, there is a dildo made in the shape of your partners penis. This one is also popular as a gift, and if youve been together for a long time and are having trouble finding a gift for your partner, you might want to pick one. To learn more about dildo, please click here. What is Dildo: Orgasms with Dildos for Men and Women A dildo is a model of a male organ that is used by women for masturbation and by men to stimulate the prostate gland. Th... Electric Masserger A Electric Masserger is a hand-held electric massager, also known as a handheld massager, and can usually be purchased at electronics stores. It was originally designed to relieve stiff shoulders and back pain, so the hurdle of buying one in a physical store is quite low. Many people may have seen or used it in some form or another, as it is often installed in leisure hotels. Such a massager is highly recommended for beginners because it is easy for women to get pleasure from it when they use it during masturbation. It is larger than Egg-Vibrator and vibrations are stronger than those of Egg-Vibrators and vibrators, so even just hitting the clitoris can give you a great deal of pleasure. For those women who have never had an orgasm during sex with their man, the massager may be a good way to get a feel for what it feels like to have an orgasm. It looks and feels like an electric massager, so you wont have to feel awkward if your roommate finds out. If you are in a rut of having sex with your partner, if you want to feel an orgasm through masturbation, or if you are thinking of using a sextoy, why dont you try it from a simple massager? To learn more about Electric Masserger, click here. What is a massager? Introducing types, selection methods, and usage Originally, the Magic-wand vibrator and the massage machine were sold as a home massage machine used for the back and th... How to choose a sextoy for Indian Now that weve covered the different types of sextoy, heres how to choose one. Especially if you are trying sextoy for the first time, pay attention to the following three points: Does the size fit you (the partner)? Does the size fit you (your partner)? Is the environment able to produce sound without problems? Price range First of all, the choice of size is quite important. Most sextoy are used against or inserted into the genitals, but the genitals are very delicate organs for both men and women. For this reason, using an inappropriate size may cause damage. Secondly, the environment should be able to produce sound without problems. Some sextoys not only wear, but also rotate and vibrate. Its easier to get pleasure from something that moves than something that doesnt, but the fact that it moves means that the internal rotors make some noise. If you live in a house with thin walls or if you have roommates, you may not be able to concentrate because of the noise, so it is best to choose one that is silent or has a low noise level. Especially in India, where many people live with their families, it is very important that you dont have to worry about sound when you use it. Finally, there is the price range. The price range of sextoy ranges widely, from around RS500 at the cheapest to RS10,000 or more at the highest. Its good to consider how much money you can afford and how much you want to buy. Do you want your family to not find out about sextoy? I live with my family and want to use sextoy without them finding out! If you are a man, you should buy a camouflage sextoy that does not look like a sextoy at first glance. For men, there are many masturbators that do not look like a sextoy, and for women, there are vibrators that only look like cosmetics. If you choose such a type, youll be safe in case your family members find out. How to buy sextoys in India The best way to purchase sextoy is through online shopping. For more information on how to purchase sextoy, please see the article below. Sextoy is one of them. Therefore, you can easily get sextoy in India by using online shopping. SexToysINDIA is a long established and stable sextoy store and you can have sextoy delivered to any place in India. They also offer cash on delivery, so those who are worried about shopping with a credit card do not have to worry. Of course, the latest security is in place, so your information will not be taken out when you use your credit card. To begin with, many people may be concerned about whether they are legally allowed to purchase sextoy. ikmAs it turns out, its not illegal. Right now, it is not open to the public because the Indian adult market is still in the development stage, but it will gradually spread from now on. Take advantage of sextoy and open the door to new pleasures and culture. Cautions for Indians using sextoy When using sextoy, keep the following three things in mind Keep sex toys clean Watch out for electrical leakage Beware of the heat generated by the body while using a sex toy As I mentioned earlier, many sextoy products are used for the delicate zone. Therefore, it is most important to keep the sextoy itself clean. It is very important to keep the sextoy itself clean, because if a slight scratch is created by friction, bacteria can enter and breed there. It is safe to wear a condom when using the masturbator, just in case. In addition, many sextoy devices are powered by a power source, so if they are not waterproof, there is a possibility of electric shock or malfunction due to wetness. Some may even develop heat during continuous use. If the fever becomes too much, you may get burned, so be careful. If you get a fever during use, stop driving the sextoy immediately and refrain from using it. You will enjoy sex more if you keep it safe and use it correctly. Summary What did you think? In this article, we have introduced the recommended sextoy for the beginners of sextoy in India. The sextoy market is growing rapidly in India and it will continue to grow steadily in the future. As India is a rather closed-minded country, it can be difficult to be open about ones sexual habits and values. However, being faithful to ones desires by properly dissolving ones sexual desire is very effective for ones physical and mental health. If this is your first time to learn about sextoy, or if you are interested in using sextoy, why not give it a try? Indian Sextoys for ur best! will introduce you to sextoy and other trivia about sextoy, sexuality, and sexuality for men and women. I want to read more! If you think its a great idea, please bookmark it. CAIRO Mayor Tyrone Coleman on Thursday called for the resignation of the Alexander County Housing Authority board chairman and another member, as well as the release of the top 10 applicants for the position of executive director for the housing authority. The mayors statements come about a week after board Chairman Andy Clarke announced that a majority of the board, by consensus, had tentatively chosen Sesser Mayor Jason Ashmore as its next executive director. Coleman said he knows that another applicant from Cairo with extensive experience in housing also had applied, but wasnt one of four candidates called for an interview. Clarke maintains that Ashmore was the most qualified of all the candidates. He said he believes the person to which Coleman refers was not qualified, and they may not know her past." No one has publicly stated the name of the applicant, and so the newspaper is not naming her at this time, but people on both sides of the debate are referring to the same person. Clarke said he would only release names of the other applicants if its determined that would not be a violation of personnel privacy rights for people who were not selected. As for the mayors call for his resignation, Clarke said he would not dignify that with a response. Coleman also called for the resignation of board member Monica Smith, who could not be reached for comment Thursday evening. There are people from this community who are qualified who have worked in that profession, in housing, and who have applied, Coleman said after Thursdays press conference. They should have had a shot at it, and Im just tired of seeing people coming in from the outside and we just overlook people here. Special board meeting called The housing authoritys board has a special meeting scheduled for 9 a.m. Tuesday in Cairo. The only item on the agenda is to approve or disapprove hiring of Jason Ashmore as executive director. The board is planning on taking a vote on Ashmores hiring even though a HUD executive has rejected the hiring of Ashmore. Maurice McGough, the Region V director for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Developments Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, must agree to the choice for executive director before the board makes a final offer to a candidate. That's required under the terms of a voluntary compliance agreement entered into between the housing authority board and HUD to resolve findings that the housing authority, on multiple occasions, violated civil rights laws with discriminatory practices in housing and hiring of African-Americans. McGough, in a letter to Clarke dated Jan. 8, declined to accept the selection of Ashmore, saying the chosen candidate should live within Alexander County, and be able to demonstrate technical expertise in affordable housing programs. He directed the housing authority to consider the other applicants. I expect that you will complete this process by the end of the calendar month, the letter stated. Ashmore planned to commute from Sesser, and retain his position as mayor. He has never worked in housing. Federal funds at stake McGough noted that the housing authority faces unique challenges, including that HUD has listed its status as troubled and that it is in violation of various civil rights laws. Under terms of the compliance agreements, failure to follow the agreements could result in the denial of federal funds for the housing authority, and other remedy measures that could include appointment of a third-party receiver to administer the housing authority. Clarke said hes aware of the stipulations of the agreements, and voted for them under duress because HUD was otherwise going to pull all funds. But even knowing the ramifications of defying HUD and hiring Ashmore anyway, Clarke said its about doing the right thing and hes willing to let the dice roll. Clarke said he didnt know if the votes were there to hire Ashmore in the wake of HUDs denial letter, but that he would lobby board members to do so at Tuesday's meeting. Though Ashmore lacks experience in housing, Clarke said what he brings to the table in financial and management know-how in a government setting is more valuable, and he believes Ashmore would quickly pick up on housing rules and regulations. Ashmore most recently worked for the Illinois Department of Transportation at its Carbondale location, and was the assistant to the regional engineer. He was let go in February, after Gov. Bruce Rauner came into position. He has been without full-time employment since then, but said that's because he wanted to focus on his mayoral duties. Cairo Councilwoman Constance Williams, who attended Thursdays news conference with the mayor, said she doesn't think Ashmore is a good fit. We want someone who knows Cairo, who has a vested interest in seeing things done, not somebody whos coming in for money, she said. Anybody can do that. Ashmore: It's not about money Ashmore said that he is not motivated by money when it comes to this job. The advertisement for the position states it would pay between $65,000 and $75,000. Ashmore said thats not enough money to make him want a job he isnt truly passionate about. If I was only doing it for the money, thats not enough money to do it for, Ashmore said, noting he also has other offers for jobs awaiting him, but this was his top choice. Id really like an answer to move forward one way or another. The housing authority has been without a full-time executive director for more than a year. The news conference at which Coleman spoke was at the location of the Martin Luther King, Jr., memorial at McBride Place, one of the housing authoritys apartment complexes at the center of the controversy. That complex and Elmwood Place, both of which are family housing developments that primarily house black residents and their children, are in the worst conditions, and may have to be torn down. The mayor was flanked by about eight other African-American community leaders and activists as he read a two-page prepared statement, which was provided to the newspaper. Living large on the public dime CAIRO Hundreds of people here rely on public housing for shelter, with the average income He asked Clarke and board member Monica Smith to resign stating it was because of their deep social and political ties to James Wilson and because of their inability to properly represent the interest of tenants of the Alexander County Housing Authority. Coleman also said Clarke should have to answer to why he accepted more than $8,000 in travel voucher reimbursements from when he served previously on the board. Clarke previously stated that Wilson, the authoritys former longtime executive director who was in charge during much of the alleged mismanagement and misspending, was the one who handled reimbursements for travel, and he assumed Wilson understood the rules and how to allocate money for travel. For years, South Anna Street has been one-way. Tuesday, West Frankfort City Council voted to make it a two-way street. City Commissioner Tara Fasol-Chambers was told the businesses on the street requested the street be made one-way from Main Street. But things change with time. The building that housed Kelleys Lounge fell in. The city already owned property at the corner of Oak and South Anna streets. Then, the city took over more property and demolished a building. Only one small building is left standing at the end corner of the street. Its a really good location for someone to buy or establish a business, Fasol-Chambers said. While working with some businesses and discussing space available in town, Fasol-Chambers heard complaints from potential business owners. It has kind of outlived its need, she said. Opening South Anna Street to two-way traffic will give members of Harvest Field Church and people visiting the depot museum more options. We talked about it in the meeting. Depending on what kind of business would go there, we would need to reevaluate the parking. It is currently set up for a one-way street, Fasol-Chambers said. She added that this makes the area a lot more appealing for anyone interested in opening a business there. We hope that happens soon and is something amazing, Fasol-Chambers said. In other business, the council approved bids for demolition of 15 properties taken over by city through tax sales and its remediation process. Fasol-Chambers said the properties were dilapidated, abandoned and eyesores. We awarded all 15 bids to have these demolished in the very near future. The properties will be put back on the market through closed bid auction. Proceeds will go back into a fund to support the ongoing process of tearing down and cleaning up the city, Fasol-Chambers said. Since starting this process, West Frankfort has cleaned up around 30 properties. Its done leaps and bounds more to clean up the community than anybody had anticipated, she added. They also voted to purchase a new fire chief vehicle. It is an SUV that is equipped as a fire vehicle. West Frankfort City Council meets at 7 p.m. the second and fourth Tuesday of each month in city hall. A Michigan man faces up to an additional five years in prison after pleading guilty Thursday in federal court in Benton to an indictment charging him with escaping the Federal Prison Camp in Marion. Prisoner who escaped from Marion Prison Camp in custody in Poplar Bluff An escaped prisoner from the minimum-security Federal Prison Camp in Marion is in custody We The U.S. Marshals Service launched a manhunt after Jeffrey Roetzel, 30, was reported missing by authorities on Nov. 8 from the minimum-security camp. Roetzel was taken into custody in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, on Nov. 11. At the time of the escape, Roetzel was serving a 70-month prison sentence imposed in 2012 in the Western District of Michigan for numerous federal firearms offenses. Sentencing for the escape is set for April 20 at the U.S. Courthouse in Benton. In addition to a possible five more years in prison, Roetzel also faces up to a $250,000 fine, and three years of supervised release following his incarceration. Roetzel was returned to the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons to await sentencing on the escape charge. Molly Parker A commission working on ways to reduce Illinois prison population by 25 percent over the next decade has issued its first set of recommendations to Gov. Bruce Rauner. Among the 14 recommendations in its initial report are improving the collection and sharing of data among units of government, giving judges more discretion to give probation in certain lower-level felony cases, and setting up a way to place terminally ill or incapacitated prisoners in home confinement or medical facilities. The Illinois State Commission on Criminal Justice and Sentencing Reform, which the first-term Republican governor created last year during his first month in office, met Wednesday in Springfield. Rauner made a brief appearance at the meeting to thank the group for its recommendations and encourage panel members to keep at it. This is critically important work, Rauner said. This is not partisan work. This is good government work, and this is human service work. This is helping the people of Illinois all the people of Illinois. Everybody makes mistakes. Some people make more serious mistakes than others, but everybody deserves a second chance. The report groups recommendations under four broader goals: ensuring the validity of sentencing and programming, reducing prison admissions, reducing the length of prison stays, and reducing recidivism by increasing the chances of successful re-entry into society. Some would require approval from the General Assembly, but others could be implemented through administrative action at departments the governor controls. For example, said Rodger Heaton, the commissions chairman and a former federal prosecutor, improving programs dealing with mental health, substance abuse and other issues in the prison system could be done through reallocating money within the Department of Corrections. But it could also require additional funding, which the Legislature would have to appropriate. Heaton said the group is charging forward with its work in spite of the states budget standoff, now in its seventh month. Were trying to look at the system under the assumption that at some point the budget impasse will be resolved and what do we need to do to move the state forward in criminal justice reform? Heaton said. So, while were aware of it, its not changing our calculus. Democratic Rep. Scott Drury of Highwood, one of several lawmakers on the panel, said that while the budget dispute has gotten a lot of the attention, the governor and the General Assembly have been able to agree on several important issues, passing measures dealing with juvenile justice and public safety. My hope is that this commission and its recommendations are treated separately from whats going on with the budget issues, Drury said, noting that the group includes lawmakers from both parties and both chambers. He said the hope is to find consensus on the recommendations and bring them up for votes in the House and Senate. A greater concern, Drury said, is that it might be difficult to convince other lawmakers to vote on potentially controversial issues in an election year. The commission will meet in Feb. 18 in Chicago and plans to issue the second part of its recommendations later this year. WASHINGTON The Obama administration is halting new coal leases on federal lands until it completes a comprehensive review of fees charged to mining companies and coal mining's impact on the environment. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said Friday that companies can continue to mine coal reserves already under lease. The coal leasing program has not been significantly changed in more than 30 years and needs to be modernized to ensure a fair return to American taxpayers and to account for climate change, Jewell said. "It is abundantly clear that times are different than they were 30 years ago, and the time for review (of the coal leasing program) is now," Jewell told reporters in a conference call. Officials also need to take into account new scientific data available on the impact of fossil fuels on the environment and on climate change, Jewell said. Roughly 40 percent of the coal produced in the United States comes from federal lands. The vast majority comes from Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico. Arch Coal files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection NEW YORK Arch Coal, which has been hurt by the weakening demand for coal, filed for Chapte It's unclear what impact the moratorium will have on U.S. coal production, given the declining domestic demand for coal and the closure of numerous coal-fired power plants around the country. Coal companies have already stockpiled billions of tons of coal on existing leases. Even so, environmental groups cheered the announcement. The groups have long said the government's fee rates for coal mining on federal land encouraged production of a product that contributes to global warming. The administration held a handful of public hearings last year to get feedback on the adequacy of the fees charged companies for coal mined on federal lands. The government collects a 12.5 percent royalty on the sale price of strip-mined coal, a rate that was established in 1976. The money is then split between the federal government and the state where the coal was mined. Coal companies also pay a $3 fee annually for each acre of land leased. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said taxpayers are being shortchanged on royalties that do not reflect the true costs of mining, both in terms of the economic value derived by mining companies and mining's impact on the environment. Getting royalty rates right is especially important "given how much coal comes off federal land," said Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. "I'm glad to see the president take this action. We need to stop the sweet deal (mining companies) have been getting," Cantwell said. US coal production falls to lowest level in nearly 30 years WASHINGTON U.S. coal production has fallen to its lowest level in nearly 30 years as cheap Government auditors for years have questioned the adequacy of the royalty rate and whether it provided an appropriate return to the government, although they did not make specific recommendations to raise it. Industry groups counter that any increase in royalty rates will hurt consumers and threaten high-paying jobs. President Barack Obama said during the State of the Union address that he would push to change the way the federal government manages its oil and coal resources. Jewell and other officials said Friday that reviews of the federal coal program have occurred twice before once in the 1970s and again in the 1980s and pauses on the approval of new mining leases accompanied each review. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said the moratorium on coal leases shows that Obama's repeated claim to support an "all-of-the-above" energy agenda "was an election-year lie." The administration "should be putting our nation on the path of continued energy strength not undermining our energy security at the bequest of radical environmentalists who wish to keep our resources under lock and key," Bishop said. "Unfortunately, the president's bid to solidify his legacy with the extreme left will come at the expense of America's energy needs and will make the lives of people more expensive and more uncomfortable." House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said coal on federal land "belongs to all Americans" and Obama is "denying people access to their own abundant, low-cost energy source." Obama's policies "have already ravaged coal country, destroying jobs and people's way of life, and this will increase that suffering," Ryan said. Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, applauded the administration's action. The coal-leasing program is broken, outdated and does not consider the threat of climate change in our communities," Brune said. "Thanks to the Obama administration's leadership, we can proudly say that Big Coal's destructive reach over our public lands is coming to an end." This is getting serious. Population flight is killing Illinois. As the story in Thursdays Southern Illinoisan pointed out, no state lost more residents than Illinois in 2015, and at this rate we will forfeit at least one congressional district in Congress after the 2020 census makes the decline official. What does that mean? It means the state loses representation and influence in Washington. It means larger districts in our end of the state, which means each of us will have less access to our representative. Our voice, individually and collectively, will be diluted. If you care about democracy, this is a big deal. This is not something we can blame the current governor or Legislature for unless we indict them all for doing nothing to stanch the bleeding because this is not really a new phenomenon. Illinois has been losing population and representation in Congress since 1980. But what is new and astounding is the size of the decline last year. The net loss in population the sum of those moving out minus the number of instate births was 22,194 in 2015. Thats almost the population of Carbondale. Imagine losing one Carbondale every year in Illinois. Why are people moving? One of the reasons is the loss of jobs to other states. The Illinois Policy Institute, a nonprofit Libertarian think tank, reported that the state lost 14,500 manufacturing jobs last year. People will go to where the jobs are. And there are fewer here. People will also go where the taxes arent so high. Illinois has the second highest real estate taxes in the nation, which probably contributes to the foreclosure rate, one of the highest in the nation. The financial news corporation 24/7 reported that state debt equals more than three-quarters of the states annual revenue. Voice of the Southern: Cynicism and gun violence Its easy to be cynical about any executive action taken during the final year of a lame duc Its small wonder why 1 out of 4 Illinoisans think Illinois is the worst place to live in the nation. A Gallup survey found that out. We have the highest percentage of loathing citizens of any state. So what can we do? Well, we could stay put, for one thing. Seems like a weak answer, sure, but its as good an answer as youll find in Springfield. Frequently cited in surveys about Illinoisans despair is their loss in confidence in Illinois government and the level of political malfeasance and corruption. We suspect political recalcitrance might also figure in somehow. Where is the will? Does anyone in the Capitol really care? But recently there was some good news. No longer is Illinois considered the worst-run state in the nation, as it was designated by 24/7 in December 2014. By December 2015, though, Illinois moved all the way up to the second worst-run state in the nation. With progress like that, who needs governance in Springfield? South Carolina Advocates for Agriculture, a 501c3 organization, has announced the establishment of Plant it Forward South Carolina, a private relief fund for South Carolina farmers severely affected by the 2015 flood. The S.C. Department of Agriculture, Clemson University, S.C. Farm Bureau Federation and Palmetto Agribusiness Council are program partners. Plant it Forward SC will reimburse farmers for a percentage of their seed costs used to plant crops destroyed during the 2015 rain event, as well as reimburse livestock producers for a percentage of their hay losses due to the 2015 rain event. The amount of funds distributed to producers will be contingent on the amount of donations received. All assistance is subject to the availability of funding and the amount awarded may be capped per applicant. A brief, two-page application and more information can be found at plantitforwardsc.org. Farmers will need to provide supporting documents such as seed invoices, certification of loss and documentation of acres planted. All information is confidential, and no tax or insurance documents are required. While Plant it Forward SC will not completely negate the industrys losses, significant donations are being received. Farmers are encouraged to take advantage of the opportunity. The deadline to apply is Jan. 31, 2016. Contact Stefanie Kitchen at skitchen@scda.sc.gov or 803-734-2210 with questions. S.C. Realtors report positive November COLUMBIA -- South Carolina Realtors released November 2015 real estate market reports showing that residential real estate experienced the best year for that month since the recession. The year is wrapping up to have the best national showing since 2006. New listings were up 5 percent to 6,880 and pending sales increased 1.4 percent to 4,561. Inventory shrank almost 7 percent to 36,371. Prices moved higher as median sales price was up slightly more than 7 percent to $174,400. Days on market decreased 6 percent to 107 days and months supply of inventory was down almost 18 percent to six months. 2016 is projected to be a good year, but inventory and affordability challenges coupled with mortgage rate increases will likely slow growth a little bit. However, these changes will also keep home prices from increasing too rapidly to maintain economic stability," SCR CEO Nick Kremydas said. In the Southern Midlands Region, which includes Orangeburg, Calhoun and Bamberg counties: Sales for November were down 20.8 percent and are down 1.4 percent for the year. The median price for homes sold was up 26.6 percent in November and is up by 18.8 percent for the year. Average days on the market for November were up 21.6 percent and are up 16.8 percent for the year to 223. S.C. State Region SBCD sponsoring Feeding Innovation Orangeburg A competition sponsored by the Small Business Development Center of S.C. State University Region will help grow small businesses while increasing access to healthy food to those who live in underserved communities in South Carolina. The business plan challenge, Feeding Innovation Orangeburg, is designed to support entrepreneurs interested in developing or expanding healthy food businesses in underserved areas of the state, also called food desert. Participants selected will attend the eight-week entrepreneurial course, NxLevel, which is widely recognized as the go-to program for educating entrepreneurs and aspiring business owners. At the culmination of the course, participants will pitch their business idea to a panel of judges. The winner, whose plan must include strategies to serve communities in Orangeburg County, will be awarded seed capital in the amount of $12,500 to help cultivate the business. The S.C. Community Loan Fund, which is partnering with the S.C. State Region SBDC, will award the grant. The S.C. State Region SBDC views the competition as an innovative means to address the prevalence of obesity-related problems from which many South Carolinians suffer and to enhance the areas economic development. Feeding Innovation Orangeburg will help develop the business sector in Orangeburg, creating better livelihoods, and the idea of getting locally grown, healthy foods to individuals and families in Orangeburg County, who has little to no access to such food is just a good thing to do, said Jim Johnson Jr., region director of the S.C. State SBDC. Participation is limited to 10 business owners. Business plans will presented in late April. All interested participants should complete an application, found at www.scsu.edu, and email it to Anna Hamilton Lewin at anna@sccommunityloanfund.org by Jan. 14. The SC State University Region Small Business Development Center provides no-cost guidance and training to assist small business owners and potential owners in starting and growing a successful business. The center operating at S.C. State serves Orangeburg, Bamberg, Calhoun, Allendale, Barnwell, Hampton and Colleton counties. Trucking Association supports hike in gas tax The president and CEO of the South Carolina Trucking Association supports an increase in the states portion of the gasoline and diesel tax to improve the condition and safety of the states roads and bridges. Rick Todd has watched and studied the issue for 37 years and says a long-term funding solution is easy, right in front of our policy makers, and the time is ripe. Our road system is aging and strained to the point of crisis due to negligent under-funding, and our industrial, tourism and population growth has made much of it inadequate and unsafe. Todd said the sense of urgency cannot be dismissed. It takes years before we can enjoy roadway improvements, because of the legal, regulatory and construction processes involved. The longer we wait to act, literally, the longer well have to deal with todays traffic conditions. The trucking group represents fleets and their drivers who operate increasingly in an interstate environment. They claim that other states are far ahead of South Carolina in terms of investment in highway infrastructure. Just look at whats happening right across our borders. Georgia and North Carolina both have fuel taxes which are effectively double ours. You get what you pay for. A crowd of barbers and patrons greeted philosopher and activist Dr. Cornel West with a round of applause as he stepped into Barber Tech Academy on Thursday. As West began to greet the crowd, he referenced the event that has come to be known as the Orangeburg Massacre, which took place on Russell Street just a few feet away from the barbershop. When they told me that it was next to the bowling alley, I said, Oh, we need a moment of silence! Yall know about the three precious ones who were shot Feb. 8, 1968, right? West asked. Three students died and 27 people were injured when highway patrolmen opened fire on a protest over a segregated bowling alley. That had to do with folks straightening their backs up, trying to tell the truth and bear witness, but it was out of a deep love, West said. The 62-year-old said justice is what love looks like in public. When youre on the love train, youre concerned about everyday people and everyday people are catching hell, he said. West came to Orangeburg on Thursday in support of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders. West also spoke at South Carolina State University. He said he supports the Vermont senator because Sanders is concerned about alleviating poverty. Thats my major issue, West said. Alongside that is putting a stop to police murder, police terror and police abuse. The third one is dealing with Wall Street. West says when he was 21 years old, the top 1 percent of people in America owned 19 percent of the wealth. Now, that 1 percent owns 42 percent of the wealth. Thats greed. Thats the reason why weve got social neglect and economic abandonment, and the wealth has gone to the top, he said. The activist says the government neglects funding for education and jobs, but supplies money for wars and prisons. The question is how do we keep pressure on politicians because most of these politicians, I dont have nothing to do with, because theyve sold out, West said. West says he also focuses on how he can let young people know that they are loved. How are we going to have a black president, a black attorney general and a black head of Homeland Security and yet the black brothers and sisters are still getting shot like dogs and not one policeman go to jail? he asked. Thats a problem! West spoke against the bailout of the financial system in 2008. Im against bailing out Wall Street. They got $20 trillion from the Federal Reserve. They got $700 billion from your taxes for free, he said. West says he wants to bail out Main Street, as 240,000 black people lost their homes never got a penny. Thats wrong to me. Im with Main Street. West said that President Barack Obamas State of the Union speech failed to mention poverty, police violence or ensuring jobs have a living wage. All these people are catching hell. This is a state of emergency out here. Its a sense of urgency out here, he said. West highlighted Sanders college affordability plan to make an education at public institutions tuition-free. They say Oh, Sanders is a socialist! Martin Luther King Jr. was a socialist! It aint about the ism, its what youre fighting for. Thats the key, he said. West says the Democratic Party has been mainstream for so long thats its hard for the party to think outside of the box. Bernie Sanders has been over against the mainstream, because hes been concerned about poverty, Wall Street and institutional racism, West said. West says Sanders opponent, Hillary Clinton, is just like her husband, former president Bill Clinton. Shell say all kinds of things to win and be doing something else, he said. Hillary gave a speech saying, I call for stopping mass incarceration. It turns out she got $130,000 given to her by the two corporations who are promoting prisons, with them making profits on them. The more sales they produce, the more bodies they have to have in order for them to make a profit on Wall Street, West said. How are you going to say you want to stop mass incarceration when you got $100,000 coming from the very folk who are making profit for expanding the jails? he asked. West says Sanders says all profit-driven prisons must stop and he promises to cutback in the prison population. Thats simple, but thats crucial, he said. West says there is also an issue about Muslims who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq. As a Christian in the name of Jesus, a Muslim is made in the image and likeness of God. A Muslims life has the same value as any other human life, West said. Leonard Pelzer and Dashawn West, partners at Barber Tech Academy, said the barber students seemed very receptive to Wests speech. For one, they seemed glad and excited to meet Dr. West. The students were heeding to his words, Dashawn West said. They were very thrilled and informed. Barber Tech Academy has students from all walks of life. Some served in the military, in a trade program or are from the Department of Probation and Parole through the Reentry Program. Pelzer says the students can relate to the issues that West spoke about. Wests speech was motivational. He actually had us in class. He listened to us. It was more interactive, and in that respect, I just think thats the mark of a good teacher, he said. Theyre trying to get out of poverty. Theyre trying to make their life better through education. Theyre trying to do the right thing. Thats why were here, Pelzer said. The Rev. Steve Dees was disappointed to discover that guitars that held sentimental value for him were stolen from his office following a recent string of church burglaries, but he had something else on his mind. Dees, the pastor of St. George Baptist Church in Cope, said the thieves who took his instruments need prayers. "Those guitars were pretty special to me, but I feel worse for the value of their soul than I do for what they took. What I'm going to start doing and have told my people here at the church to do is pray for these people," Dees said. One of his guitars featured inspirational stickers that had been given to him by a young child, while another had a strap that was made and given to him by a young man who had already lost a lot in his own life. "It's things like that that can't be replaced. Awakening a man's ability to care about that is something God's gotta do," Dees said. St. George Baptist Church on Shillings Bridge Road was one of six churches in the Cope area that were broken into during a 24-hour period beginning Sunday. The other churches included: Emanuel AME Church, Hudson Road; Canaan United Methodist Church, Slab Landing Road; Canaan Baptist Church, Cannon Bridge Road; Mount Zion Baptist Church, Neighbors Road; and Mount Olive Baptist Church, Wood Olive Street. Ebenezer Baptist Church in Cordova, Willow Swamp Baptist Church in Norway and the Orangeburg-Calhoun Baptist Association building in Orangeburg were also targeted by thieves in a 15-hour period that ran from 11 a.m. Sunday morning to 2 p.m. Monday afternoon. Three churches have also been burglarized in Bamberg, including Word of Life Pentecostal Holiness Church on North Street, Mount Zion UMC on Pulpit Road and Spring Branch Baptist Church on Deacon Road. Dees, a former law enforcement officer, said while he is not sure, he believes the burglary at his church may have been done by kids. "It just looks like they may be. I believe they're just kids being kids, but I'm afraid this behavior will bring them a lifetime in jail if somebody doesn't get to them. I really would love to talk to them," he said, noting that the church's mission is to promote positive change in a sinful world rather than hate sinners. "That's kind of what my perspective is. If getting caught would change them where they'd learn and change, that would be worth 10 guitars. The guitars are just things and can be replaced, but souls can't be replaced," Dees said. The Rev. Dr. Charles McLamore, pastor of Emanuel AME Church, said his frustration is tempered by faith. He said he is seeking to meet with the pastors of the other churches in the Cope area so they can all pray together. "Something can be done. We don't have to take this sitting down. I would love the opportunity of going into prayer," McLamore said. "I believe with all my soul that God and Jesus will turn it around." "I'm frustrated as a clergyman that anyone would be so out of touch with faith that they would come into a holy place and have no fear or reverence for God. That angers me, but it drives me to a zeal of wanting to mount up with wings like eagles and begin to pray down the strongholds of Satan," he said, noting that he and his congregation prayed for the perpetrators on Sunday. The Rev. Darryl Waymyers, pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church, said the rash of burglaries is a "vivid display" of the persecution that the Bible said the church would have to endure. "We have to deal with individuals who are lost in darkness. The lives of so many people are completely dark. There's no hope, and they see the church house as the place where people thrive," Waymyers said. "They assume the church has so much, and the sad thing about that is when churches function the way they should function, it's hard for them to accumulate much of anything because they consistently try to change lives with what resources they do have," he said. Waymyers, who said his office was "destroyed" in the recent burglary, added, "It's kind of disturbing to see how an individual could be in such darkness when church leaders are consistently trying to bring light into their life." He said Mount Zion leaders are considering increasing security at the church, where he said an existing alarm likely scared the burglaries away from taking the church keyboard. "We just can't allow perpetrators to take what God is building up in the area that we're in. My prayer and my belief is that people should seek to know Christ in a different way. It would change their life and cause them to do things differently," Waymyers said. That change cannot be found in material goods, he said. "I want to encourage all the parishioners of all the different churches to not be discouraged by this. The church will go through a persecution process for the sake of Christ," Waymyers said. "We have to keep teaching and preaching, but take necessary precautions to secure the property that we do have." The Rev. Brian Self, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Cordova, said he is not angry, but rather saddened by the burglaries. "It just kind of goes to show the evil and sin that's in the world right now. I'm not mad at all. As a matter of fact, I've been in prayer for whoever may be involved in it," Self said. The laptop computer that was stolen from the church had gospel messages that Self said he hopes the thieves will read. "My prayer is that if they're going to be using that laptop, that they would see the gospel through all of that so that there might be some conviction and a change of heart," he said. "I hope that some good can come out of it not just for whoever might be involved in it, but even for churches as we kind of learn from this and put in the proper safety measures that we may need," Self said. "Those are things that we'll be discussing with our leadership." Dr. Richard Porter, director of missions at the Orangeburg-Calhoun Baptist Association, said the perpetrators need prayer even as legal justice is sought. "I hope they come to justice but also come to Jesus. We will not only pray or them, but we hope they'll get caught and hopefully change the way they live," Porter said. "We also pray for them because these are trying times for those in law enforcement. I'm hoping that the thieves and others realize it's not too late for them to have a change of lifestyle." DENMARK -- The Rev. Jesse Jackson encouraged a room full of Voorhees College students on Thursday to continue to rebel by exercising their right to vote. "We rebelled by voting," Jackson told enthusiastic students during a morning assembly and voter registration drive at Massachusetts Hall. "It was a counterrevolutionary act." Asking the students to repeat after him, Jackson said, "I have the power to elect the next president. I have the power to elect the next governor." Jackson, a former candidate for president, provided the students with an overview of the history of African Americans in the United States and the struggle to obtain the right to vote. "Black lives did not matter for a long time," Jackson said. Jackson said 1.2 million African Americans are eligible to vote in South Carolina, but only 900,000 are registered. He has started an initiative to get another 100,000 African Americans registered to vote and turn out in the upcoming primaries. Voters must be registered by Jan. 27 to participate in the upcoming South Carolina presidential primaries. The Republican primary will be held on Feb. 20 and the Democratic primary is scheduled for Feb. 27. Jackson encouraged the students to not only vote but also to get educated about the election process and to continue their studies. "Learning to read and write is revolutionary," he said. Jackson asked the students to repeat: "If I don't choose to learn to read or write I am volunteering to be a slave." "High school students should vote because it will mean more scholarships for them. College students should vote because student loans add to greater credit card debt. Adults should vote because medical needs are unpredictable in their coverage and their costs," he said. Jackson declined to say who he supports, but did say the candidates on the Democratic Party ticket understand the needs of the African-American community. Jackson was joined by motivational speaker Keith Mr. Im Possible Brown, who had the audience laughing, clapping and shouting words of approval. Brown encouraged the young men and women to focus on things of value and not material wealth and to know that it is not important to have a certain number of friends, but friends you can be certain of. "The company you keep will determine the levels you reach," he said. "Stop hanging around with those who devalue you, but those who celebrate you." Junior biology major Akirah Hills was one of the several dozen students at the rally who was not registered to vote. Hills forgot to register upon turning 18 when she received her driver's license and has not registered since. But Jackson and Brown both inspired her to get involved in the political process and register. "What I learned today is that I really need to get out there and register to vote, Hills said. Junior computer science major Jeremey Spann, 22, said he sees voting as a way to help others. "Some folks don't get the help they need," Spann said. "By voting you can express your voice and let those people know how you feel so you can do something for your community. Orangeburg County Sheriffs Office A Charleston Highway property owner reported a green Craftsman lawn mower and numerous tools are missing from her shed. The woman called deputies on Wednesday at 4:01 p.m. to report the theft. She said she did not know when the items were taken. The combined value of the lawnmower and the tools is $1,000. In other reports: A deputy responded at 8:35 p.m. Wednesday to Miracle Faith Temple, 1755 Branchdale Hwy., Holly Hill, where a parishioner reported that someone had shattered a glass window pane on a rear door of the church. The parishioner told the deputy the window on the door was intact at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, but when it was checked after the Wednesday evening service, it was discovered the pane had been broken. The deputy told the parishioner there would be more patrolling of the area. A Cannon Bridge Road man called deputies at 1:20 p.m. Wednesday to report someone broke into his home and stole two shotguns. He said he left his residence at 9 a.m. and when he returned at 12 p.m., he noticed someone had forced their way into his home through a rear door and took a Remington 110 12-gauge shotgun and another 12-gauge shotgun of an unknown model. The combined value of the shotguns is $750. Damage to the rear door of the home was estimated at $200. According to a report released on Thursday, deputies conducted a knock and talk at 7:15 p.m. on Jan. 6 at a residence on Belleville Road after a concerned citizen complained that illegal drugs were being sold there. Deputies spoke with the homeowner, who gave verbal consent to search her residence. During the search, deputies discovered a quantity of crack cocaine on a table in a room; however, no one in the residence said they knew anything about it or to whom it belonged. Deputies spoke with three males who were in the residence. None of them claimed ownership of the crack cocaine. One of the subjects said another man had left it there, but he said he didnt know the males name nor where he went. Deputies seized the crack cocaine. Investigators believe that Derrick Lamont James Jr. and Christopher Lyndell Pressley Jr., both 18, are responsible for a two-day violent crime spree. Orangeburg County Magistrate Peggy Doremus denied bond on the pair, both teens from Orangeburg, during a hearing Thursday afternoon. Doremus said the men are a danger to the community. Investigators charged the pair with four counts of attempted murder, alleging they shot at multiple victims on Jan. 4. The pair is accused of holding a Georgia trucker at gunpoint at 3:15 a.m. on Jan. 6, less than 48 hours later. These men have proven themselves to be dangerous, Orangeburg County Sheriff Leroy Ravenell said. Weve been working this case day and night until we identified our suspects. In the Jan. 4 incident, Orangeburg County Sheriffs Office deputies were initially called to a Mingo Street location at 7:09 p.m. where several men reported being fired at by several subjects in a vehicle. One man told deputies he hid for a while but came out when he though the gunmen were gone. When he did, he said he heard someone yell before more shots were fired. He was struck in the arm as he fled. Victims advocate Alexis Guinyard said at the bond hearing that two of the four victims are juveniles. They all experienced a high level of fear. They had to hide behind trees and under houses, Guinyard said. Then, according to authorities, James and Pressley held a 60-year-old trucker at gunpoint in the early morning hours of Jan. 6. In that incident, the truck driver had eaten a meal at Waffle House in the 3200-block of Five Chop Road, used the restroom and then exited the restaurant to approach his truck, which was parked at the gas station next door. As he checked the rear of his truck to ensure that everything was in order prior to returning to the road, James and Pressley approached him with handguns and demanded that he give them everything he had or they would kill him. Guinyard told the court the men held the trucker on the ground and pointed a gun at his head. He felt like he was going to die, Guinyard said. The trucker handed over $80, his personal keys and keys to his truck, debit cards, credit cards and his personal identification cards to the teens. Investigator Rob Boyne said in court that neither James nor Pressley had any regard for public safety during their alleged commissions of crimes during the two-day spree. Theres nothing they will not do, Boyne said. He said the pair is expected to appear in court again on Friday on more charges. The Calhoun County Sheriffs Office will charge James and Pressley with another robbery that occurred about two hours after they purportedly held up the trucker in Orangeburg. After the trucker was held at gunpoint, the pair allegedly robbed another traveler at gunpoint at 5:16 a.m. at the Wilco Hess station located at 1600 Burke Road at Exit 139 on I-26 near St. Matthews. Boyne said Calhoun County investigators plan to charge the men sometime on Friday. Calhoun County investigators named James as a suspect early in the investigation. These individuals simply had no regard for life during this spree, Ravenell said. Theyll be paying the consequences now, however. President Barack Obama gave his last State of the Union address Tuesday, delivering a speech that was filled with hope and optimism. More important, the president reminded us that we the people emphasizing all people want opportunity and security for our families. Obama has consistently reminded us throughout his presidency that we are bound by a common creed, and that our American values of equality, fairness and justice should be available to all, not just the few. Obama has largely fulfilled his promise to broaden opportunity to more American families. Whether you look at his accomplishments in regards to supporting working families, reforming the nations health care system, addressing climate change, improving Americas education system, or tackling our broken criminal justice system, his policy choices over the course of his administration reflect the goal of improving America and moving our country forward. Underlying each of these policy successes is a commitment to creating a more equitable society. Importantly, Obama demonstrating his commitment to ensuring that all people truly encompasses all has worked to ensure that the needs of people of color are meaningfully addressed in such policy decisions. Historically, people of color have been systematically removed or blocked from participating fully in this country. And, recognizing the harmful legacy of policies that have too often forced communities of color to the margins, Obama has used his bully pulpit to raise the issue of race on the national level and forced us to confront some of our country's darkest moments. In order for all to have an opportunity to succeed, it is necessary that we continue the process of fixing deep structural systems through judicial and legislative actions whether in the context of voting rights, housing discrimination, economic inequality, or other issues disproportionately affecting communities of color. This takes time and perseverance. In one of his most powerful speeches in Charleston, South Carolina, after the horrific shooting of peaceful churchgoers last summer Obama called on the nation to look deeper into root causes for inequality. In doing so, the president compelled each of us to face hard truths about the injustices affecting people of color today, and to question whether we as a nation were doing our very best to expand opportunity for all Americans including the opportunity for a healthy life, a full education and job attainment. Leading by example, Obama has also created the most diverse cabinet in the history of this country, and has worked to ensure that our courts have immensely qualified judges that are not only reflective of society but have a diverse career background. As our nation becomes more and more diverse, the collective effect of Obamas legacy has laid the groundwork for his successor to continue to move our country forward on racial equity. Addressing inequalities in our country is not only the right thing to do, its the smart thing to do. By 2044, there will be no clear majority among the American people. This means that, if we want to ensure a strong union, we can no longer continue to support policies or practices that leave people of color behind. Government and the policies that it enacts should reflect the needs of the entire electorate, not just those with the most influence. Instead of treating people of color as an afterthought, we must include them in policy discussions and decisions in a meaningful way. Doing so will only bring success for our country as a whole. In fact, a 2013 report by the Center for American Progress and PolicyLink shows that, if racial and ethnic differences were eliminated, average total personal income in 2011 would have increased; the nations gross domestic product would have been at least $1.2 trillion higher; millions of people would have been lifted out of poverty; and tax revenue at the federal, state and local levels would have increased nearly $200 billion. As President Obama stated at the end of Tuesdays State of the Union address, unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word. As the president navigates his final year in office, he must continue elevating discussions around race and structural barriers that fail to support the growing minority populations in America. Moreover, these discussions must spur policies that create a more equitable nation. Ultimately, it will be up to his successor to determine if they will continue to build on the great work for racial equity in this country, or instead let opportunity slip by. If you wish to assess the political divide in the United States, consider reactions to President Barack Obamas State of the Union address and the Republican response delivered by South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, both of whom stepped beyond pure partisan politics. South Carolina Republican U.S. Sen. Tim Scott on Obama: "Instead of offering serious solutions to keeping our nation safe and ensuring that every family has access to the American Dream, tonight we heard the political wish list of a lame-duck president. I heard a president unconcerned with governing by executive order, and who will attempt to continue ignoring the will of Congress and the American people. To put it as simply as possible, the policies of the past seven years have been incredibly damaging for the American people. But we now have a chance to change that. A partisan response by Scott, while not surprising, might be better received had the words of Gov. Haley not been such a direct and necessary challenge to Republicans and Democrats. The governor cited the inspiration brought to so many Americans by Obama, even as she did as expected in saying he has failed in many instances. Haley chastised Republicans in Washington for being part of the problem. She said leaders on both sides of the political fence must do better in governance and ending divisiveness, which Obama acknowledged has grown worse in his tenure as president. But dont for a minute think Haley is being universally praised for an address for which she should be. Those on the right are contending the governor should have used the national forum to strongly ridicule Obama and his legacy and strongly endorse the GOP as the alternative that will change things for the better. Critics say there was no place for criticism of the GOP in her address. She endorsed the GOP but spoke out about rejecting the angriest voices and extremism, with her words applying to Republicans as well as Democrats. But South Carolina Democrats will have nothing of praise for Haley. In purely partisan form, S.C. Democratic Party Chair Jaime Harrison reacted to Haleys speech: Gov. Haley's response represents a Republican Party whose values do not match up with their rhetoric. Gov. Haley would like our nation to believe that she is a unifier, committed to helping South Carolinians and working families across the country, yet she's peddling the same trickle-down economics that only benefit the very wealthy. We've tried that before and it failed. "On all of the issues, Gov. Haley has chosen to side with a rigid and radical ideology over the welfare of the people she was elected to serve. This is not the record of someone who is being considered for vice president. America and South Carolina deserve better." South Carolinians do not agree, as the governors approval rating continues to be high, even among people who likely did not vote for her in either of her electoral victories. Obamas words Tuesday night are important for the nation. His presidency is not a failure and will not be viewed as such by history. Yet in looking ahead, the words of Haley are every bit if not more important. She is a model for the nation: a relatively unknown female state lawmaker who as a tea party favorite shocked the GOP political establishment in storming to election as governor; a governor who has taken on her own party while becoming more mainstream, and a leader who has held firm to conservative positions she promised to champion even as she has shown willingness broaden and alter her stands to embrace all South Carolinians. There is plenty of room to disagree with the policies and positions of Obama on the federal level and Haley in South Carolina, but America is badly in need of hearing the message of both about rejecting divisiveness. The Orangeburg Branch NAACP invites the community to attend its first Martin Luther King Jr. Day in Orangeburg. The event takes place at 9 a.m. Monday, Jan. 18, at Mount Pisgah Baptist Church, 310 Green St. The theme is: "A Call for Education Equity: Are You on Board?" The event will include remarks by Orangeburg Mayor Michael C. Butler and others. The keynote speaker will be Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge of the 11th Congressional District of Ohio. She serves on the House Committee on Agriculture and the House Committee on Education and Workforce. Fudge consistently fights for equitable access to a quality education from preschool through post-secondary programs. She was an early and consistent voice for voter protection and remains a steadfast advocate to strengthen and preserve Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Musical performers will include the Orangeburg Community Choir under the direction of Ministers of Music Sandye Spann, Rosemary Griffin and Kristen Jamison. You have a tremendous opportunity in front of you, but its up to you to determine how you are going to take advantage of it. That was the message Orangeburg County Development Commission Executive Director Gregg Robinson shared with new students at Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical Colleges Spring Assembly on Jan. 7. Robinson talked about how the growth of advanced manufacturing in Orangeburg County and across South Carolina and the close proximity of the new Volvo plant in Berkeley County will lead to increased career opportunities not only in manufacturing, but across a wide range of fields like healthcare and small business. Youd be surprised at how many people get here and are amazed at what we have to offer, Robinson said, citing Orangeburg Countys geographical location, the quality of its workforce and the abundance of infrastructure as assets in drawing industry to the area. Orangeburg has one of the highest concentrations of industrial growth in the state. We have one of the highest concentrations of international investment in the state. From an international perspective, we are the coast, he said. Any field tied to manufacturing is a safe bet for a great career, he continued, including logistics, truck driving, sales, marketing and other administrative duties. Also needed are engineering and computer-aided design skills for infrastructure. For every manufacturing job that is generated in this state, there are, on average, five related jobs that are created. For every one manufacturing job, there has to be retail, food, beverage, healthcare, dry cleaners there has to be those types of spinoffs, he said. There are growth opportunities. We have to have you ready for whats next. A technical education is important, Robinson said, and so are soft skills like punctuality and the ability to communicate well. He encouraged students to take advantage of apprenticeship opportunities and tackle any weaknesses that they may have in STEM courses to make the greatest impact on their future. Weve got to make sure that the people in this room are getting educated to the point where you can add value, he said. Weve got to make sure that individuals who are training for these potential jobs are the best candidates. What were trying to do here is be work-ready. The impending retirements of many in the manufacturing field will be a boon for current and future students, he said. Thats a lot of expertise thats walking out the door, Robinson said. The next generation has got to step up and have that expertise in order for that manufacturing to succeed. The nursing program is also a wonderful program to consider, because those baby boomers are going to have to be cared for. Its a cycle. How you address and embrace the cycle is how you benefit. Larry Smith said he is preparing for those increased opportunities now. He began OCtechs mechatronics program as part of the new Evening College. The spring semester began Monday, Jan. 11. The Navy veteran was a commercial driver, but felt it was time to move on. Thats why Im at OCtech, to learn something new, Smith said. He said the new Volvo plant is just an exit away from his home in Berkeley County, making it an obvious choice for a career change. He currently works full-time as a baker at Publix. Im looking at a three-year program, and thats fine with me because thats when Volvo is going to start hiring anyway, Smith said. Lakeshia Hunt of Vance has been working in child care since 2009. She is enrolled in OCtechs associate degree transfer program in early childhood education. I have enough experience in the field to know what I am getting into, said Hunt, who works at Wright Way Child Development Center in Eutawville. Im excited about this opportunity. Registration for online courses and computer, engineering and advanced manufacturing programs continues through Friday, Jan. 15. Mini sessions begin Feb. 1 and March 14. The college will hold an instant admissions day from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 21. For more information about OCtech, call 803-535-1234 or visit www.octech.edu. This list is a work in progress. '70s Fairground Mirrors 8 Track Tapes Agency Photos Audio Fidelity Vinyl Books by Fred Vermorel Bootleg DVDs Cassette Singles CD Long Box Packaging Charity Singles Coloured Vinyl Variants Compilations (Various Artists) Contact Sheets Counter Display Boxes Fanzines Flexi Discs Japanese "Promo" CD Boxes Jukebox Promos Laser Discs Mass Market Posters Media Starr Comics Mirror Badges ('70s/'80s) Music Magazines Phone Cards Photo Negatives Polish Postcards Presentation Records/Discs of any kind Print Ads Printer's Proof Promo Banners Promo Display Boards Promo Lighters/Matchboxes Sew On Patches ('70s/'80s) Sheet Music Books Slides Splatter Vinyl Standees Subway Posters Test Pressings (LP, 12" and 7") Trading Cards/Stickers T-Shirts (Promo/Mass Market) Unofficial Box Sets for The Red Shoes I'm currently putting together a list of things that I've never collected, in case people are looking for some of these things on here. While I've collected the odd thing here and there from this list, I generally had no interest in collecting these things over the years. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. Believe it or not, Thoughts On The Parsha is over I am looking forward to another year of learning the parshiyos and sharing my thoughts with you. Thank you again. Years Old! Thanks to all of you who have encouraged me to write each week. We started the first week three year's agowith about 30 readers. Now,, Thoughts on the Parsha has expanded and directly reaches hundreds of people each week and shared with many many more! There are readers across the United States, Israel, Russia, Central and South America, England, France, and Australia! An insider has informed Nigeriafilms.com that female rapper is in for another trouble in her career. According to what we were told, the... /By AzerNews/ By Nigar Orujova Health tourism is one of the developed forms of traveling around the world. While some countries experience lack of credible healthcare institution, prices for medicine in others force people to seek medical help abroad. This type of tourism is well developing in the modern world, as it combines health with pleasure: recreation combined with medical check-ups or treatment if needed. The CIS residents prefer Germany, Israel, Austria, Switzerland, the U.S. and South Korea countries whose medical institutions offer regular checkups, targeted diagnostics, conservative and surgical treatment and complex rehabilitation. Azerbaijan that is developing its tourism potential has a lot magnificent places to show to visitors. Turning the country into the international center of medical tourism is a win-win idea, as it will be profitable for the state and advantageous for the population. The country having a number of professionals in the field strives to provide its population with well-deserved medicine. We have to make sure that people throughout Azerbaijan can receive quality medical care, Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev said while opening the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic Hospital last December. The head of state noted that despite the fact that some people travel abroad to receive treatment, Azerbaijan should aim to become a country, where people come for examination and treatment from abroad. The country has long-term plans to focus on further developing the medical facilities, which can be privatized, according to Deputy Prime Minister Ali Ahmadov. He noted that in recent years the government reconstructed and renovated hospitals and supplied them with the most modern equipment. "Azerbaijan spent huge funds and they [hospitals] must be sold at enough high prices. Therefore, these health facilities will remain in state ownership; at least until their depreciation period expires, he believes. If there evolves a need for the reconstruction of medical institutions, the country will decide on the transfer of its major part to the private sector in consistent with the practice of neighboring countries. Many health facilities have been renovated in the country. More than 500 objects related to this area were built and renovated in Azerbaijan over the past 10 years. The National Health Center is expected to open in Baku in 2016. However, Azerbaijan has all conditions to develop health tourism. Azerbaijani nature, which attracts several millions tourists a year, can also be healthy. The fresh mountain air, pure water, organic fruits of the Azerbaijani regions and beach recreation on the Caspian Sea Shore have already known among many tourists. The oil producer Azerbaijan also offers unique medical institution that treats with Naftalan crude oil, renowned for its curative properties. This center of medical tourism in Azerbaijan has unique natural treatments that cannot be seen anywhere else in the world. Medical specialists believe that this oil kills viruses, bacteria, and fungi. Numerous scientific studies along with more than 100 years of treatment experience confirm curative properties of this oil. Ashraf Hasanzadeh, PhD, surgeon, graduate of the First Moscow Medical University after I.M. Sechenov, said there is a prospect in turning Azerbaijan into the center of medical tourism. There is a prospect and in some areas it is already topical. This applies to cardiovascular surgery, particularly surgery in Azerbaijan. This direction is at a high level. There are prospects in other areas as well and the price of treatment can be of a particular importance here. The price for treatment in our country is not very expensive. So, I think, certain results can be achieved if we work in this direction, he noted. The special attraction of Azerbaijan is not only in price for treatment, Hasanzadeh believes, but also in the aspiration of the Azerbaijani doctors to learn and gain experience abroad. Speaking of the neighboring countries, we can compete in a certain area with Iran, especially in terms of oncology. With Georgia, it is difficult to compete due to comparably lower service prices. We probably can leave them behind, but it will take a lot of time, he added. Moreover, return of the Azerbaijani specialists who studied abroad could add incentive. The state has sent a very large number of different professionals, not just doctors, to study abroad, Hasanzadeh said, noting that he also studied in the framework of this program in Russia. In general, in the coming years up to 1,000 physicians studying in Germany, the U.S., UK, and France will return to Azerbaijan with the most advanced technology and knowledge, he noted. The surgeon believes that their return will be an additional incentive to attract patients from abroad. First, it will be our compatriots living abroad, then their neighbors, friends and so on. I think that such a scheme is possible. Speaking about the current situation in medicine, Hasanzadeh said it also depends on certain areas. He also noted a problem that is running into the lifestyle of Azerbaijanis, who refuse to anatomize dead body of their relatives. For this reason, it is very difficult to judge the causes of morbidity and mortality in the country. Hasanzadeh said that Azerbaijanis are free to go abroad for medical purpose especially with certain diseases which treatment have not succeeded yet in the country as compared to the best European, American or Japanese clinics. However, he believes that there are diseases where good results have been achieved in Azerbaijan. Now it is difficult to say that the whole system is well built, but the system is young, 20 years old, and it could not mature during this time. Now in Azerbaijan it is difficult to say that the whole system is well built, the system is young, it is not mature yet. Today it is at the stage of maturity and there are certain medical conditions where success has been obtained, he added. For instance, 10 years ago there were no specialists in Azerbaijan dealing with eye ground pathology, he said, while today there are at least two specialists who treat this disease at the level of the best clinics of Israel and Canada. Moreover, the price is lower. The price is definitely lower, but even if the price is the same as there, people do not pay for the road, visa, and stay abroad, he stressed. The construction project of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway will contribute to the revival of the economy of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan and reduce the consequences of the fall in the world oil prices, Talgat Mamyrayymov, the former head of the Real politik analytical service, the independent political analyst from Kazakhstan, told Trend Jan. 14. He also said that the project implementation will contribute to further strengthening the positions of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan in the international arena. He said that Kazakhstan is very interested in the BTK project implementation as it will give an opportunity to use one of the routes of the Silk Road Economic Belt. "After the project implementation, the goods from China will be supplied to the European markets through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, and vice versa - through the port of Aktau," he said. The expert said that China is greatly counting on Kazakhstan in the Silk Road Economic Belt project. He said that facing with economic problems, China will attempt to improve the situation in the country through the BTK railway project. Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway is being constructed on the basis of a Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement. Azerbaijan allocated a loan of $775 million for the construction of the railways Georgian section. A new 105-kilometer branch of the railroad is being constructed as part of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project. The peak capacity of the corridor will be 17 million metric tons of cargo per year. At the initial stage, this figure will be equal to one million passengers and 6.5 million metric tons of cargo. Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India show an interest in the BTK project. The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway can be used as part of the Trans-Caspian transport route. It envisages the transportation of goods through a container train from China through Kazakhstan via the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan and then to Georgia, Turkey and Europe. /By Trend/ /By AzerNews/ By Nigar Orujova After some stagnation in bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and Ukraine, the two countries need to update a platform for cooperation and reboot partnership. The two countries enjoy mutually fruitful cooperation within international organizations both in bilateral and multilateral formats and plan to breathe a new life into the economic cooperation. Ukraine shows a very strong interest [in widening cooperation] indeed and this is especially felt in the last two years, Head of the Economic Department of the Ukrainian Embassy in Baku, Vadim Sidyachenko told AzerNews, Mentioning the three-fold devaluation of the Ukrainian hryvnia, which resulted in a sharp difference between the domestic price and the price of agricultural products on world markets, he spoke about profitability of exporting agricultural products to various countries including Azerbaijan. We receive offers on a regular basis [concerning the export of Ukrainian goods to Azerbaijan, as well as opening joint ventures and Ukrainian businesses in Azerbaijan] and we guide them to Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation, the Azerbaijani Confederation of Employers, and individual companies, he said. Ukrainian products, not conceding on quality, have proved to be much more competitive in price than even products from neighboring Russia and Kazakhstan, Turkey and Iran, Sidyachenko said. That is why the Ukrainian enterprises have set their sights on many markets, including in Azerbaijan. What Ukraine can bring to Azerbaijan? There are wide export opportunities of Ukraine, which is rich by nature, to enter the Azerbaijani market. All products Ukraine is growing and producing have its consumers in Azerbaijan, Sidyachenko said. We have different climatic zones, which offer various types of fruit and vegetables, not counting the common plants. For instance, last spring recorded export of even the Ukrainian potatoes, which is very cheap. Even if to take into consideration the transport fees, the Ukrainian potatoes are low in price and justify the export. At present, about 70 percent of walnuts in the Azerbaijani market are from Ukraine. Various groats including buckwheat and semolina can be delivered from Ukraine at lower prices as compared to the above mentioned countries. Ukraine is the world's third producer of grain and prices of grain and all flour products are low respectively, he added. Sidyachenko went on to say his country could also supply Azerbaijan with confectionery and alcoholic beverage products. Ukrainian vodka is globally recognized for its highest quality, even higher than the Russian vodka because of better wheat and the latest technologies. Moreover, more and more meat from Ukraine is exported in frozen, chilled and even live weight, primarily cattle. Ukraine is also interested in the cooperation in the fields of agricultural, transport, energy and construction, the department head said. We can also set up joint ventures in the construction field, as there are many points of common interest such as building of various objects including road, infrastructure, construction of offices, and the development of the Baku Metro. We assume that Baku needs a new distributing centre for sewage waters and collection and discharge of water from the streets. Here, Ukrainian companies can participate in tenders and joint construction projects, he noted. What can Azerbaijan offer Ukraine? Famous as a country rich with hydrocarbons, Azerbaijan now is focused on the non-oil sector on the background of the constant decrease in oil prices. Today Azerbaijan plans to increase export of its fruits and vegetables in the region. We are also exploring the possibility of creating regional logistics centers, to supply Ukraine with tropical products: citrus fruits, pomegranates, persimmons, figs, fresh and dried, hazelnut. We are interested in this because we have always developed trade relations with Azerbaijan and we have a free trade regime, Sidyachenko said. Ukraine is keen to develop joint tourism services so Azerbaijanis can relax in Ukrainian tourist resorts, primarily Truskavets and Zakarpatye. On the other side, Ukrainians can travel more and discover Azerbaijan: Baku the Caspian Dubai, mountain resorts, the sea, both summer and winter tourism, and the historical places as well, he added. Moreover, Azerbaijani investors plan to put about $50 million to Ukraine. Joint industries expected to open in Azerbaijan The Ukrainian Grain Association plans to hold the Black Sea-Caspian Sea Agrarian Congress at Baku Marriott Absheron hotel in April 2016, to discuss a number of issues that will not be related only to grain, the diplomat said. A lot of grain has died because of the drought in Azerbaijan a year ago. Ukraine has a variety of grains for the southern regions of the country that are resistant to drought. They can be cultivated here, he assured. Ukraine can supply and grow breeding stock and provide strong support for the revival of viticulture in Azerbaijan. Ukraine also plans to start joint industries in Azerbaijan. One of them is assembling of agricultural machinery that is produced in Ukraine. There are many enterprises in Ukraine producing a lot of agricultural machinery for small farms We can organize the supply of vehicle kits and assemble them in Azerbaijan. It would be cheaper in terms of delivery and in sharing production. The Azerbaijani Agroleasing company can further deliver them to farmers, he noted. These small tractors, seeding and winnowing machines for small areas are cheap because of the small engine power, and consume little fuel, Sidyachenko explains. However, these machines are of high reliability as engines are not only of Ukrainian, but also of the European production, and sturdy Ukrainian metal is reliable, and can be exploited for decades. Thus, it would be very convenient for farmers and not costly for Agroleasing. There are also possibilities to produce equipment for cattle drinking bowl, milking machines, and equipment for greenhouses. This equipment is just the same as its European one, but twice cheaper in price. In current situation when the manat unfortunately devalued, the issue of price and quality assumed a particular importance. In this context, Ukrainian products, that is equal in quality to European but with much lower price, will always be beneficial to Azerbaijan, Sydyachencko believes. Is Azerbaijani business environment attractive for foreign entrepreneurs? The diplomat said that reforms in Azerbaijan are going in the right direction when freedom of business is increasing and this allows us to develop the business. In general, many businessmen both Ukrainian and Azerbaijani told me that they have breathed freely and it became easier to work especially in the second half of 2015, especially in the fall, when the head of state had a serious reform of the tax system, the customs system, in fiscal matters, and inspections of enterprises, he added. Ukraine is also attracted by the opportunities of the industrial parks created in Azerbaijan that suggests an opportunity of working seven years without paying income tax, land tax and property tax. In addition, equipment and technology used in such parks are not subject to VAT. "We are interested in the technology parks and want the Ukrainian businessmen to establish joint productions precisely in the tech parks," he added. Azerbaijan a key to Asia for Ukraine Azerbaijan is attractive for its location on the crossroad of East and West, as Ukraine is today out of touch with Asian markets. Ukraine attended a meeting of heads of the railroads of Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Iran, and Georgia for the development of the North-South transport corridor on January 12, and participated in negotiations between the heads of railways of Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Georgia to develop the transport corridor East-West on January 14. When Russia has banned transportation of Ukrainian goods through their country, Caucasian corridor Black Sea-Caspian Sea is becoming strategic for Ukraine, Sidyachenko said. We applause a good decision by the Azerbaijani president to establish the Coordination Committee, because it became a single window through which we can solve and we have already solved certain issues on tariffs and transportation, he said stressing that Now we have even informed the Ukrainian government about this experience to create the Ukrainian analogue to this structure. The Ukrainian Ambassador Alexander Mishchenko has already met with the Minister of Economy and head of the Committee Shahin Mustafayev, and they have managed to solve all needed issues. We have close business ties with the leadership of the port of Baku. We are maintaining the ideas on the development of the Baku Sea Trade Port as a transport hub of the Caspian and the Caucasus regions. We have already brought Ukrainian shipping transport companies so they were acquainted with the work of the port and hauled loads in this direction, he noted. In the future, Ukraine plans to carry up to 2-3 million tons of cargo annually through Azerbaijan to Central Asia as well as in Iran and later in India and the Persian Gulf. High-level visits continue Talks on the governmental level are expected to continue in March during the 11th session of the Intergovernmental Commission, with participation of Azerbaijani first Deputy Prime Minister Yagub Eyubbov and Ukrainian Vice-Prime-Minister Gennady Zubko. Moreover, the first visit of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to Baku is expected in April-May, following invitation of the Azerbaijani President. /By AzerNews/ By Aynur Karimova Azerbaijan has achieved a stable output of oil and boosted natural gas production in 2015. Energy Minister Natig Aliyev stated about this in his article published on the official press, adding that the country produced 41.6 million tons of oil against forecasted 40.7 million tons. Some 31 million tons of oil was extracted from the giant Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli field, 2.3 million tons from the Shah Deniz field (condensate) and 8.2 million tons by Azerbaijan's state energy company SOCAR. Touching upon the export figures, Aliyev said that in 2015, Azerbaijan exported 38.1 million tons of oil to world markets. "Azerbaijan International Operating Company exported 36.9 million tons of crude oil, while SOCAR - 1.2 million tons," he said. "The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline carried not only oil from the ACG field and condensate for the Shah Deniz fields, but also from Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan." The minister went on to add that Azerbaijan extracted 29.1 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2015. "Some 12.3 billion cubic meters of gas was extracted from the ACG field and 9.9 billion cubic meters from the Shah Deniz field. Thus, Azerbaijan's gas production exceeded the forecasts for 14.2 million cubic meters last year," he stated. Currently, energy-rich Azerbaijan's daily oil production stands at 120 million tons, while daily gas production figure amounts to 89 million cubic meters. Oil and gas are extracted from the onshore and offshore fields, as well as from the ACG, Shah Deniz and Umid fields, which are developed together with foreign companies. Aliyev also revealed oil and gas production forecasts for 2016. He informed that SOCAR's gas production for the current year is projected at 6.3 billion cubic meters. Also gas production from the Shah Deniz field is expected at 10.1 billion cubic meters and from the ACG field - at 12.9 billion cubic meters. Earlier Azerbaijan's energy giant SOCAR also revealed the figures showing how many new wells it drilled in 2015. SOCAR reported on January 6 that in 2015, it put into operation 73 new wells in the fields, developed independently by the company. "In 2015, some 73 wells were drilled and after the construction were handed over to miners. In December last year this figure stood at 10," the company said. The volume of drilling works conducted in 2015 by SOCAR (with the exception of joint ventures and operating companies) amounted to 104,411 meters against 127,346 meters in 2014. SOCAR also said that some 103,411 meters out of total drilling works conducted last year (104,411 meters) were operational drilling, while 1,000 meters - exploratory drilling. Azerbaijan exports oil through four routes the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, Baku-Supsa (western route) and Baku-Novorossiysk (northern route), as well as by rail. In 2015, the company exported about 17.93 million tons from the Turkish Ceyhan port compared to 20.48 million tons in 2014. SOCAR exported over 2.79 million tons of oil via the Baku-Supsa pipeline compared to 2.96 million tons in 2014. It transported 1.27 million tons of "black gold" in the northern direction (Baku-Novorossiysk) for the reporting period compared to 932.15 million tons in 2014. /By AzerNews/ By Aynur Karimova Azerbaijan has achieved a bright milestone in its history, becoming a transport hub and increasing the cargo flow and the influx of currency into the country. The country has reached an agreement with Kazakhstan, Georgia and Ukraine on the realization of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route. The four countries have signed a protocol on setting competitive preferential tariffs for cargo transportation via this route. The protocol was signed by Javid Gurbanov, the Head of Azerbaijani Railways CJSC, Askar Mamin, the Head of Kazakhstan Railways JSC, Mamuka Bakhtadze, the Head of Georgian Railway JSC and Aleksandr Zavgorodniy, the acting Chairman of Board of Ukrainian Railways JSC at a meeting in Baku on January 14. The document envisages setting the competitive preferential tariffs for cargo transportation via the Trans-Caspian route, carrying out comprehensive measures to facilitate the movement of trains via the route, and increasing cargo turnover. The signing of the protocol means opening a new route from the Izov station on the border of Ukraine and Poland till the Dostyk station on the border of Kazakhstan and China," Gurbanov told journalists after the signing ceremony. A similar bilateral protocol was also signed separately by Azerbaijan and Georgia. A uniform tariff policy for cargo traffic from China to Europe through Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine will be agreed by mid-February after determining the distance from Ilyichevsk or Odessa to Georgian ports of Batumi and Poti. The Trans-Caspian International Transport Route enjoys an opportunity to become attractive and profitable for consignors from European countries. This route will transport approximately 300,000-400,000 containers by 2020, bringing hundreds of millions of manats in profit to Azerbaijan. The first container train on this route arrived at Baku International Sea Trade Port from China in August. The train, consisting of 44 wagons, departed from the Alashankou export station of the Chinese Urumqi-Xinjiang province and arrived in Tbilisi in eight days transiting through the territory of Azerbaijan. An agreement creating a coordinating committee to develop a Trans-Caspian International Transport Route was signed by Kazakh, Georgian, and Azerbaijani representatives in late 2013. The project is being implemented by Kazakhstan Temyr Zholy, China Railways, Azerbaijan Railways, Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping Company and Baku International Sea Trade Port. The State Oil Fund of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOFAZ) sold $ 200 million to 35 local banks through the auction of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) Jan. 15, SOFAZ said Jan. 15. Moreover, the CBA sold $100 more million to the banks via the auction Jan. 15, the statement said. Thus, SOFAZ will continue selling foreign currency via auctions in 2016. From now on, the CBA holds auctions three times a week - on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The foreign currency is sold as part of SOFAZs transfers to the state budget of Azerbaijan, which are envisaged in the amount of six billion manat in 2016. SOFAZ was established in 1999 and its assets were equal to $271 million that period. As of October 1, 2015, SOFAZ assets reduced by 6.38 percent compared to early 2015 ($37.1 billion) and were estimated at $34.74 billion. Under SOFAZ's regulations, its funds may be used for the construction and reconstruction of strategically important infrastructure facilities, as well as solving important national problems. The main goals of the State Oil Fund include: accumulation of resources and the placement of the fund's assets abroad in order to minimize the negative affect on the economy, the prevention of "Dutch disease" to some extent, promotion of resource accumulation for future generations and support of current social and economic processes in Azerbaijan. /By Trend/ /By AzerNews/ By Laman Sadigova A memorial evening dedicated to the outstanding Azerbaijani composer, Tofig Guliyev, was held at the Azerbaijani Cultural Center in Vienna. The project entitled Rapprochement with the phenomenon of Tofig Guliyev (Tofig Guliyev: Annaherung an ein Phanomen) was jointly realized by the Culture Meeting Point together with the Azerbaijan Cultural Center, with the assistance of the Azerbaijani embassy in Austria and the Azerbaijani Culture and Tourism Ministry. Director of Azerbaijan Cultural Center in Vienna Leyla Gasimova and Head of Culture Meeting Point Farah Tairova have addressed the event, and informed the guests about works of Tofig Guliyev, who has made a significant contribution to the development of Azerbaijani music. The speakers noted that the phenomenon of Tofig Guliyev is that he managed to conquer the hearts of millions of music lovers through his beautiful and emotional music. Such legendary musicians like Bulbul, Rashid Behbudov, Fidan and Khuraman Gasimova, Muslim Magomayev, Vagif Mustafazadeh, Chingiz Sadikhov, the famous jazz orchestra of Eddie Rosner are among unique interpreters of the composer's works. His magic songs have turned into masterpieces. The event also featured a documentary film about the life and work of famous composer. Later, the guests were able to enjoy a concert program with the participation of people's Artist of the USSR Fidan Gasimova and People's Artist Khuraman Gasimova, who performed Tofig Guliyevs masterpieces. The performance got terrific applause from the audience. Born in 1917 and raised in Bakus Icherisheher (Old City), Tofig Guliyev was one of the most appreciated Azerbaijani classical composers of the twentieth century. Guliyev had the perfect ear for music and a phenomenal musical memory. This talented musician was often referred to as the dean of Azerbaijani composers. Guliyev greatly contributed to the national music industry. He is one of the first composers who transferred Azerbaijani Mugam, a unique musical and poetic phenomenon, into musical notes. He is a founder of the composer music genre in 20th century Azerbaijan. His splendid songs are still young, modern, and will never go out of style. He has had invaluable contribution to Azerbaijani national culture, and from 1930 the outstanding composer began to collect, record, and publish national folklore in his music. The song and dance materials that he gathered from visits to the countrys regions were further included in a collection. The Azerbaijani national dances collection published in 1951 involved many dance melodies, and in 1955 he published another collection called 15 Azerbaijani national dances. An unspoken rule of travel is that, no matter what, you must avoid boring destinations. If youre going to endure the sundry hassles of travel from the cruel middle seat to the temporal whiplash of jet lag you might as well go someplaceinteresting, right? Not necessarily. Interesting is a relative term, and one that lies largely in the eye of the traveller. Boring can be and I realise this is heresy good. In fact, thumbing through passport stamps and other travel ephemerae recently, I realised that it was the boring places that stirred some of the fondest memories. Geneva? Deadly dull. I loved it. Bhopal, India? Nothing special. I had a great time. Ditto Izmir, Turkey and Cleveland, Ohio. I know this sounds insane. Isnt travel all about escaping boredom, about making a headlong rush away from the dull and toward the invigorating? No, its not. Travel, I believe, means confronting boredom, staring it down, and emerging not only unscathed but revitalized. We live in an age that has little patience for monotony. Tethered to our iThings, we text and tweet the days away, secure in the knowledge that we need never experience that unsettling ennui that is, lets face it, part of the human condition. Travel presents an opportunity to untether, and that is best done in less interesting places. Thats because such destinations are completely distraction free, unencumbered by even the distraction of beauty and, yes, beauty can be distracting, as anyone who has ever stepped foot in Italy can attest. Boring places are like gyms. Theres a reason we join, and that reason has little to do with immediate gratification. Unfortunately so-called boring places get a bad rap. On a recent visit to Geneva, my daily walks through the city streets were punctuated by, well, nothing much: no Arc de Triomphe or Trafalgar Square or any other sight that might warrant a guidebook mention. I was accustomed to being entertained, especially on the road, and Switzerland refused to deliver. No drama. No fireworks, literal or metaphoric. At first, this annoyed me. As the days passed, I grew increasingly restless. Dang it, Switzerland, entertain me! Soon, though, this irritation subsided, and I realised the hidden benefit of a place like Switzerland: its challenging not in a K2 way, of course, but, still, the Swiss lay down their own gauntlet: make your own excitement, they say. Were not going to help you. And so we do. For instance, at a dinner party in Geneva, I pressed the guests about my obsession at the time the cultural roots of happiness and, after some prodding, they responded with many thoughtful comments, about everything from the local music scene to Switzerlands controversial policy of assisted suicide. The Swiss, I realized, arent so much boring as they are reticent. It ended up being an interesting evening, because I took the initiative and helped make it so. My issue with so-called exciting destinations is that theyre crowded, swarming with fellow travellers in search of that very same exhilaration. If youve visited Florence during the summer, you know what I mean. Boring places, by contrast, are fresher, less thumbed-through, and therefore more receptive to our trespasses. A few miles off the coast of Bali, for instance, lies the lesser-known Indonesian island of Lombok, where I spent one of the happiest weeks of my life. Lombok may lack Balis colourful Hindu culture and its artist colonies, but it makes up for these excitements with a frumpier authenticity. As I criss-crossed the island, imbibing its less-trodden beauty, I experienced a sense of exploration that Bali, for all its beauty, has long ago foregone. When you relinquish the spectacular, you are rewarded with the quieter joy of the ordinary. Theres another problem with exciting and beautiful destinations or heaven forbid, breathtaking ones. They create expectations, and expectations are the enemy of happiness. These places raise the bar so high that your experience there is bound to fall short. Were told, again and again that Paris, for instance, is a romantic city, so if it proves to be anything less were disappointed. But in boring places, the bar isnt only set low; often there is no bar. Any joy we squeeze from their lacklustre sites, their tedious landscape, their humdrum cafes is pure gravy. Boring places lower expectations and, from a happiness perspective, thats a good thing. On a visit to Dijon, France, I arrived knowing nothing about the city (other than its famous mustard) and, so, was delighted to discover a clutch of serviceable museums, art galleries and cafes. I would be lying if I claimed these were on par with anything Paris has to offer, but as the days passed, unhurriedly, I found myself, in an odd way, savouring their ordinariness. Rather than asking Dijon to entertain me, I had recalibrated my notion of what constituted entertainment. I experienced a similar mental adjustment on a visit to Cleveland. The city, like my hometown of Baltimore, gets a bum rap. Cleveland has its charms, as any city does, and those are best experienced unencumbered by labels. So I did, eating in trendy cafes that were blissfully unaware of their trendiness, and walking leafy streets that are in no guidebook. Preconceptions even positive ones hamper the travel experience more than all the lost luggage in the world. With no expectations, you are open to whatever comes along. To be clear: Im not suggesting that we travel to the Clevelands of the world with low expectations. I suggest we go with no expectations. Theres a difference. With low expectations, you are playing a head game with yourself, trying to forestall disappointment. With no expectations, you are open to whatever comes along. This latter approach is, in fact, a very Buddhist way to travel. The Dalai Lama travels an awful lot, including to many dull destinations, yet Ive never seen him exude anything other than unalloyed joy. Philosophers have, through the ages, elucidated the benefits of boredom. A certain amount of boredom is essential to a happy life, wrote British philosopher Bertrand Russell. His fellow Briton, the author and seasoned traveller Aldous Huxley, agreed. Your true traveller finds boredom rather agreeable, he said. It is the symbol of his liberty his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically but almost with pleasure. I concede that we dont normally equate boredom and pleasure but think about it. We travel in order to change the rhythm of our lives, and that means embracing the lulls as well as the storms we encounter on the road. More than that, boring places stretch our travel skills, forcing us to find beauty and meaning and, yes, excitement too in the ordinary. They alter our muscle memory our natural inclination to grow accustomed to anything and, in the process, make us stronger, better. Isnt that why we travel in the first place? /By AzerNews/ By Sara Rajabova Germany has vowed to participate in settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as OSCE chairman. As it took over the rotating OSCE Chairmanship in 2016, Germany has revealed its top priorities, announced by Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier. The German chairmanship voiced commitment to working towards solving the protracted conflicts in the OSCE region, including the long-standing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which is source of threat for security in the South Caucasus region. Steinmeier asserted that his country will make the best use of the OSCEs current negotiating formats and mechanisms in resolving the conflicts. Despite the long-lasting efforts, no tangible result has been achieved towards the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which emerged in 1988 over Armenias territorial illegal claims against Azerbaijan. As the conflicts resolution is lingering, such a situation forces the parties that is interested in the soonest settling of the problem to seek new ways to end the lasting stalemate in the negotiation process. Earlier, Azerbaijani officials voiced the possibility of using potential of European Institutions and Germany in conflict resolution. Some officials and experts even put forward an initiative to include Germany and Turkey in the OSCE Minsk Group as co-chairs. Last year, Germany also voiced an interest in playing an active role in resolving the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Therefore, Germanys involvement in the peace talks raised hope for some positive developments in the conflict resolution. Steinmeiers vows on Germanys participation in settlement process of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict refer to this countrys chairmanship of the OSCE. Azerbaijani MP Aydin Mirzazade believes that Germany will attach an attention to the conflict only during its six-month chairmanship period. Germany as a rule does not tend to take part in resolution of the conflicts. Despite the fact that Germany is a member of the OSCE Minsk Group, but it has never put forward its own particular positions for solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Moreover, it is unlikely that he will be one of the co-chairs, Mirzazade told AzerNews in a phone conversation. The MP noted that during their short period in OSCE chairmanship, the foreign ministers of all countries voice such an opinion, but unfortunately, no concrete progress was observed in this issue. He also added that there is no alternative to change the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs. Because, there are a few countries able to change the situation in South Caucasus, of which three are the U.S., France and Russia. They were elected as co-chairs mainly for their opportunity to influence. Though Azerbaijan has not been satisfied with their activity, in any case they demonstrate some diplomatic activity, Mirzazade said. He further added that Turkeys being as one of the co-chairs would have a serious impact on the conflict solution, however, the consent of parties to the conflict both Azerbaijan and Armenia- is required over this issue. He said Armenia doesnt let Turkey to be the co-chair. Mirzazade went on to say that currently the countries are focused on financial crisis and the fall in the global oil prices. However, the MP added that delay in the solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict seriously hampers the solution of some issues. The MP stressed that nonetheless, if Germany pays attention to this issue during its six-month chairmanship period, then this fact itself should be assessed positively. The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen held a meeting in Berlin to discuss the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on the eve of Germanys OSCE chairmanship. The Minsk Group, the activities of which have become known as the Minsk Process, spearheads the OSCE's efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. In 1994, the OSCE Budapest Summit established the so-called Minsk Group, which spearheads the OSCE's efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. It is co-chaired by France, the Russian Federation, and the United States. The groups permanent members are Belarus, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Finland, and Turkey, as well as Armenia and Azerbaijan. On a rotating basis, also the OSCE troika is a permanent member. Azerbaijan`s Ambassador to Indonesia Tamerlan Garayev has met the country`s House of Representatives deputy speaker Fadli Zon. They discussed a range of issues, including cooperation between the two countries in public administration field. The ambassador spoke about Azerbaijan Service and Assessment Network. ASAN Service has created an innovative model of public service delivery, where numerous services by government agencies and private companies are delivered from single physical locations called ASAN Service centers. Fadli Zon, in turn, stressed the importance of studying the activity ASAN service. The Deputy Speaker was informed about the history and consequences of Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The Ambassador said as the result of Armenian military aggression Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounded territories were occupied. Armenia shows destructive position in negotiations moderated by OSCE Minsk group and trying to hinder talks. Armenia must fulfil the four resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council on immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Armenian armed forces from Azerbaijan`s occupied lands. He said. /By AzerTac/ /By AzerNews/ By Amina Nazarli Citizens of Japan will be able to travel to Azerbaijan on a simplified procedure starting from February 1. Japanese can obtain entry visa upon arrival, valid for 30 days stay, at the Bakus Heydar Aliyev International Airport. Azerbaijan and Japan enjoy fruitful cooperation in various fields and their mutual relations are developing both in the political, economic and cultural fields. The diplomatic relations between the two countries were established in 1992. Japan was one of the first countries to support Azerbaijan's forward-looking oil strategy. Today two major Japanese companies Itochu and Impex are involved in the Contract of the Century. Leaders of Japanese business, Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Marubeni, and Sojits are involved in energy and infrastructure projects in the country. Azerbaijan is considering further cooperation with Japan in the field of high technology, particularly in the field of manufacture of innovative production, with their further entering the regional markets. So far, Japanese companies were involved mainly in projects in the energy sector, but in recent years their interests to cooperate in areas such as petrochemicals, oil refining, energy, medicine, high-tech and space industry have increased. /By AzerNews/ By Sara Rajabova Azerbaijans efforts to prevent the illegal activities of the separatist regime established in the countrys occupied territories have yielded results. "Charters" signed by several French cities with the Azerbaijani towns, which are under the Armenian occupation will be canceled. Hikmet Hajiyev, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman said under the ministrys instructions, the country's embassy in Paris carries out steady work in relation to the visit to France of Bako Saakyan, the head of the separatist regime in Azerbaijans occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region, and signing of "the charter on cooperation" with the French provinces and cities. A number of French communities have inked so-called charters of friendship with the local communities of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic during the visit of Saakyan to France in mid-March 2015. The signing of the charters of friendship is illegal in accordance with Article L. 1115 of the Code of Local Communities of France. This step is also contrary to international obligations of France, which does not recognize the independence of the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh. The French government sent circular to local prefectures and the high commissioners at the level of ministers of foreign affairs and internal affairs on July 2, 2015. The mentioned document, which contains a warning on boundedness of powers of local self-government bodies in the field of international cooperation, bans signing of documents on international cooperation with the illegal regimes unrecognized by the French government, including the self-proclaimed "Nagorno Karabakh regime, Hajiyev said. The spokesperson further added that Armenian lobbying circles in France and several individuals under their influence, did not hesitate to violate the laws of this country and the commitments it has undertaken at the international level, thereby carrying out activities contrary to the official state policy of France. Hajiyev stressed that Azerbaijans foreign ministry immediately takes under strict control and examines any illegal activities carried out in the occupied territories of the country. If activities of legal and physical persons of any state revealed, the government instructs the respective diplomatic missions and the question is raised in front of these countries and the necessary diplomatic and legal steps are taken, he added. For over two decades, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in conflict which emerged over Armenia's territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. A fragile ceasefire has been in place since 1994, but long-standing efforts by OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs have been largely fruitless so far. Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's four resolutions on its pullout from the neighboring country's territories. /By AzerNews/ By Sara Rajabova As a solution of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict lingers further the international community and Azerbaijani government is looking for new ways to end the long-lasting stalemate in the peace talks. The United States sees the way to reduce tensions between the sides in increasing people-to-people contacts, especially among the communities of Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenias destructive position in the negotiation process, which has been lasting for 25 years, is a big hindrance in a way to peace. The efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, tasked to find a peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, have been largely fruitless so far. Armenians and Azerbaijanis lived side-by-side for generations. The co-chairs support programs that will promote these people-to-people contacts as a way to rebuild trust, the U.S. State Department told AzerNews via email. The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs have repeatedly called for establishing a dialogue between the Azerbaijani and Armenian communities of Nagorno-Karabakh to accelerate the negotiations. However, efforts in this direction havent yielded results as the Armenian side with all possible means tries to prevent such a dialogue supporting the current status quo that is unacceptable. Despite repeated calls by the international community and Baku to contribute to meaningful dialogue between the two communities as a real confidence-building measure, Yerevan impedes the contacts between the Azerbaijani and Armenian communities of Nagorno-Karabakh. The talks between Azerbaijani and Armenian communities on Nagorno-Karabakh earlier were held in 2007 and 2009. Since then, no meeting took place between the communities due to Armenias rejection of such talks. The State Department further said the U.S. will continue its active engagement with the sides through the Minsk Group process to advance a peaceful and lasting settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Our longstanding policy, shared by the Minsk Group co-chairs, is that a just settlement must be based on international law, which includes the Helsinki Final Act and the principles of the non-use of force or threat of force, territorial integrity, and self-determination, the State Department underlined. Washington believes that the responsibility for peace falls on the shoulders of the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan. We were pleased that the presidents met on December 19 in Bern under the auspices of the Minsk Group co-chairs, and expect the presidents to continue their dialogue on a way forward in 2016. The Minsk Group will continue to support this dialogue, the State Department said. The U.S. Co-Chair of the Minsk Group, James Warlick has recently said the co-chairs are determined to continue work on a new meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents. The State Department also voiced concern over the recent escalation of violence and the use of heavy weapons along the contact line of two countries troops and Armenia-Azerbaijan border is unacceptable. We call for the sides to strictly adhere to the ceasefire regime and to take every precaution to avoid civilian casualties, the department said. The intensive ceasefire breaches on the contact line have increased and the situation has worsened even more in recent years. Azerbaijans positions come under intensive fire of the Armenian armed forces on a daily basis. Armenia captured Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions from Azerbaijan in a war that followed the Soviet breakup in 1991. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and nearly 1 million were displaced as a result of the war. The peace talks have been largely fruitless so far despite the efforts of the co-chair countries over 20 years. The sides to the conflict currently hold talks based on the renewed Madrid principles, which envisage return of occupied territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijani control, ensure the right of all internally displaced persons and refugees to return to their former places of residence, future determination of the final legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh and etc. Iran could abolish visa regime for tourists arriving in the country from Russia on a unilateral basis, Iranian Ambassador to Russia Mehdi Sanaei said Jan.14, Sputnik international news agency reported. Russia and Iran enhance bilateral cooperation in different spheres, working together in trade, energy, military and technical cooperation. Moscow and Tehran also intensified cooperation in a number of international issues, including Syrian crisis. "[Abolishment of visas] is a serious proposal. We will discuss it and we will support it for sure [at the level of the embassy] to abolish visas for tourists as a first step," Sanaei told reporters. He added that the representatives of the Iranian embassy to Russia would send a proper request to the Iranian Foreign Ministry. /By Trend/ On a visit to Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan, I found myself sitting across from a man named Karma Ura, spilling my guts. Maybe it was the fact that he was named Karma, or the thin air, or the way travel melts my defences, but I decided to confess something very personal. Not that long before, seemingly out of the blue, I had experienced some disturbing symptoms: shortness of breath, dizziness, numbness in my hands and feet. At first, I feared I was having a heart attack, or going crazy. Maybe both. So I went to the doctor, who ran a series of tests and found... Nothing, said Ura. Even before I could complete my sentence, he knew that my fears were unfounded. I was not dying, at least not as quickly as I feared. I was having a panic attack. What I wanted to know was: why now my life was going uncharacteristically well and what could I do about it? You need to think about death for five minutes every day, Ura replied. It will cure you. How? I said, dumbfounded. It is this thing, this fear of death, this fear of dying before we have accomplished what we want or seen our children grow. This is what is troubling you. But why would I want to think about something so depressing? Rich people in the West, they have not touched dead bodies, fresh wounds, rotten things. This is a problem. This is the human condition. We have to be ready for the moment we cease to exist. Places, like people, have a way of surprising us, provided we are open to the possibility of surprise and not weighed down with preconceived notions. The Himalayan kingdom is best known for its innovative policy of Gross National Happiness; its a land where contentment supposedly reigns and sorrow is denied entry. Bhutan is indeed a special place (and Ura, director of the Centre for Bhutan Studies, a special person) but that specialness is more nuanced and, frankly, less sunny than the dreamy Shangri-La image we project onto it. Actually, by suggesting I think about death once a day, Ura was going easy on me. In Bhutanese culture, one is expected to think about death five times a day. That would be remarkable for any nation, but especially for one so closely equated with happiness as Bhutan. Is this secretly a land of darkness and despair? Not necessarily. Some recent research suggests that, by thinking about death so often, the Bhutanese may be on to something. In a 2007 study, University of Kentucky psychologists Nathan DeWall and Roy Baumesiter divided several dozen students into two groups. One group was told to think about a painful visit to the dentist while the other group was instructed to contemplate their own death. Both groups were then asked to complete stem words, such as jo_. The second group the one that had been thinking about death was far more likely to construct positive words, such as joy. This led the researchers to conclude that death is a psychologically threatening fact, but when people contemplate it, apparently the automatic system begins to search for happy thoughts. None of this, Im sure, would surprise Ura, or any other Bhutanese. They know that death is a part of life, whether we like it or not, and ignoring this essential truth comes with a heavy psychological cost. Linda Leaming, author of the wonderful book A Field Guide to Happiness: What I Learned in Bhutan About Living, Loving and Waking Up knows this too.I realised thinking about death doesnt depress me. It makes me seize the moment and see things I might not ordinarily see, she wrote. My best advice: go there. Think the unthinkable, the thing that scares you to think about several times a day. Unlike many of us in the West, the Bhutanese dont sequester death. Death and images of death are everywhere, especially in Buddhist iconography where youll find colourful, gruesome illustrations. No one, not even children, is sheltered from these images, or from ritual dances re-enacting death. Ritual provides a container for grief, and in Bhutan that container is large and communal. After someone dies, theres a 49-day mourning period that involves elaborate, carefully orchestrated rituals. It is better than any antidepressant, Tshewang Dendup, a Bhutanese actor, told me. The Bhutanese might appear detached during this time. They are not. They are grieving through ritual. Why such a different attitude toward death? One reason the Bhutanese think about death so often is that it is all around them. For a small nation, it offers many ways to die. You can meet your demise on the winding, treacherous roads. You can be mauled by a bear; eat poisonous mushrooms; or die of exposure. Another explanation is the countrys deeply felt Buddhist beliefs, especially that of reincarnation. If you know youll get another shot at life, youre less likely to fear the end of this particular one. As Buddhists say, you shouldnt fear dying any more than you fear discarding old clothes. Which isnt to say, of course, that the Bhutanese dont experience fear, or sadness. Of course they do. But, as Leaming told me, they dont flee from these emotions. We in the West want to fix it if were sad, she said. We fear sadness. Its something to get over, medicate. In Bhutan theres an acceptance. Its a part of life. Uras lesson, meanwhile, stuck with me. I make it a point to think about death once a day. Unless I find myself especially stressed, or engulfed in an unexplained funk. Then I think about it twice a day. Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit Iran on January 22, said the message on Iranian president Hassan Rouhani's official website. The upcoming visit will be the first visit of Chinese president to Iran in 14 years. The Chinese president reportedly will arrive in Iran heading a big delegation of political and economic representatives. The visit will last for two days. "The sides will discuss bilateral political and economic relations, regional and global issues as well as pawing ways to boosting ties with signing several memorandums in economical, cultural, political and legal spheres," said the message on Rouhani's website. Chinese president will visit Saudi Arabia and Egypt as well. /By Trend/ Welcome to Trading for a Living, a technical analysis blog on stocks listed in Singapore Stock Exchange(SGX). Objective of this blog is to share ideas in trading stocks. Please note postings in this blog are based on my personal opinions which are neither investment advice nor inducements to trade. The blog owner does not accept any claim for any loss incurred by any reader acting on these postings. You are encouraged to seek professional advice when in doubt. Good Luck and Happy Trading! The Obama administration announced a moratorium on new coal leases Friday, delivering a significant victory to environmentalists who have called for a halt to mining on federal land and a blow to an industry already struggling amid a dramatic downturn in the market. The moratorium is expected to last three years as Department of Interior officials conduct an environmental analysis of the federal coal program. Administration officials said the examination is needed to assess the coal programs impact on climate change and to ensure taxpayers are receiving a fair return on coal mined from public land. They noted the last review was completed in 1984, and pointed to a string of recent reports that identified deficiencies in the program. That was a time 30 years ago when our nation had very different priorities and needs. The result was a federal coal program designed to get as much coal out of the ground as possible, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said in a conference call announcing the change with reporters. And in many ways, thats the program weve been operating ever since. Some three decades later it is time now to take a careful look at how we can strengthen our policies to best serve the needs and priorities of today. The pause on new leases is not expected to immediately impact mining operations. Coal companies working in the Powder River Basin generally operate with 20 years of leased reserves. The announcement nevertheless represents a potential watershed moment in the way America consumes electricity. Roughly 40 percent of U.S. coal production comes from federal land, the vast majority of which is located in Wyomings Powder River Basin. Environmentalists and government watchdog groups have long called for changes in the federal coal program. A pair of reports from the Government Accountability Office and the Interior Departments inspector general have identified shortcomings in the program in recent years, questioning the manner in which the U.S. Bureau of Land Management evaluates leases. The 2013 inspector generals report said leases sold below market value had shortchanged taxpayers $60 million since 2000. The GAO report did not list a revenue figure, but U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat and climate hawk, said his offices review of a private version of the study estimated the loss to taxpayers at $200 million. This was Enron accounting and not post-recession accounting, said Theo Spencer, senior policy advocate at the Natural Resource Defense Council. Problems in the program were severe enough that the Nixon and Reagan administrations issued moratoriums. But the fixes made were not meaningful enough or adhered to and the program has remained broken. The president is to be praised for what is a bold and meaningful step. Ryan Alexander, president of Taxpayers for Commonsense, echoed those comments, saying projections of lost revenue show the system is not working effectively. The current leasing program allows companies to identify which tracts of land should be mined. The government should instead identify what parcels of land are mined to ensure taxpayers are receiving maximum value on their assets, she said. Its appropriate to step back, say this program has been flawed for many years and now we have a chance to do something about it, Alexander said. Critics respond Industry groups have repeatedly challenged those criticisms, noting that for every $1 of coal sales in Wyoming, 39 cents was sent to the government in the form of taxes and lease payments. The Wyoming Mining Association called Interiors study misguided, saying this measure will make federal coal uneconomical to mine, thereby locking up Americas most abundant and reliable source of electricity generation, the group said in a release. Wyoming politicians and industry representatives blasted the plan, saying it is part of the administrations wider war on coal. Gov. Matt Mead, a Republican, noted the proposal was the latest in a long line of environmental measures aimed at the coal industry, including EPAs regional haze, mercury and carbon cutting regulations. Each of those individually are problematic. Add them together, theyre very problematic, said Gov. Matt Mead, a Republican and outspoken coal supporter. Now the final thing here. The president, as he goes out of office, he can say there was no new coal mining going on. Id like to say Im surprised, I dont know that Im surprised. Im as frustrated as Ive ever been with this administration. Coal represents the backbone of Wyomings economy. The industry employs roughly 23,000 people, both directly and indirectly, and contributes $1 billion in annual tax revenue to the state. U.S. Rep. Cynthia Lummis, a Republican, said GOP lawmakers were examining the proposal in attempts to identify a means of stopping it. She called the plan mean spirited, saying in an interview it will truly hurt lower income and middle income families. The pause is limited to new leases. More than 30 leases applications, including six in Wyoming, were identified as impacted by the change in a list released by federal officials. However, the document noted environmental analyses of each lease can continue during the moratorium. A final decision on the leases will not be made until the program-wide study is complete. Abandoned leases Coal companies have abandoned new leases in growing numbers in recent years, as they struggled to navigate an oversupplied market plagued by weak prices. Peabody Energy abandoned a 1 billion ton lease expansion of its North Antelope Rochelle Mine in October. That decision followed Arch Coals move to withdraw its application for a 957 million ton lease near its Black Thunder Mine. The two mines are the first and second largest in the country respectively. No new lease applications have been filed in Wyoming since 2012. The Cowboy State already faced a conundrum over school construction, paid for by new coal leases, prior to Fridays announcement. The lack of new leases in recent years means Wyoming will run out of funding for school construction by 2018 if no new leases are filed. Two new leasesone for Cloud Peak Energys Antelope Mine in Wyoming and another for Lighthouse Resources Decker Mine in Montanaare set to be reviewed by the Powder River Basin Regional Coal Team on Jan. 27. A BLM official said Friday the meeting will move forward. The group includes the governors of Montana and Wyoming, along with BLM officials from both states. Their votes are treated as a recommendation, kicking off the process of vetting a new lease. Uncertain market Industry analysts said the moratorium would likely have little near-term impact on mining operations. Coal mines typically secure leases years before they begin mining to ensure a stable source of supply. Peabody Energy released a statement Friday noting it has a 20-year supply at its Powder River Basin operations, North Antelope Rochelle and the Rawhide mine. But analysts said the move would likely sow uncertainty in the market, making utilities less likely to sign long-term contracts and mining firms hesitant to pay the millions of dollars necessary to secure new leases. Who is going to want to pay out $1 billion over five years for coal that they arent going to mine for 10 to 15 years, said Bob Burnham, an industry consultant. Its the disruption of the pipeline of coal becoming available through the leasing program. The Powder River Basin has the lowest costs of production of any coal basin in the country. The region has yet to witness any of the mine closures or widespread layoffs that have affect its eastern counterparts, despite the bankruptcies of leading producers like Arch Coal and Alpha Natural Resources. But if mining costs were to increase by $1 per ton as a result of new leasing rules, utilities may switch to natural gas in greater numbers, said James Stevenson, director of North American coal research at IHS Energy, a consultancy. If we had an outlook for natural gas that was $3 and something this wouldnt have an effect, he said. But we have sub-$3 gas until the end of the decade. Taken in combination with the Clean Power Plan, President Obamas initiative to cut carbon emissions by a third by 2030, an increase in severance taxes and royalty payments will impact the demand of PRB coal, Stevenson said. Jim Thompson, director of U.S. Coal at IHS, said power plants burning Powder River Basin coal could likely absorb higher leasing costs and remain competitive. It is hard for me to imagine there wont be a solution that is agreeable to all parties, Thompson said. Youre still talking about hundreds of millions of tons to secure the electrical grid. You cant take that Powder River Basin out, because its a huge slice, and not have a huge impact elsewhere. Kindle Fire basics The Natrona County Library will offer a Kindle Fire Basics class Thursday at 5:30 p.m. in the Crawford Room. Bring your own Kindle Fire tablet and learn how to use the touch screen, settings, and keyboard as well as discover how to download and use common Apps. Call 577-READ ext. 2 for more information. Following in Buddhas footsteps American Buddhist Monk, Gen Kelsang Rinzin returns to Casper from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., on Saturday, January 23, at the Healthy Life Studio in the Sunrise Shopping Center, 4200 S. Poplar St. He will be teaching on following in the Buddhas footsteps. Class includes a guided meditation, the teaching, a Q & A and some fellowship time. Study materials are available for purchase. A $15 donation is requested, but no one has ever been turned away. We are a friendly and diverse group of people who seek to bring peace to the world by starting with ourselves. Celebrate Recovery every Friday Looking for a nontraditional approach to recovery from your hurts, habits and hangups? Celebrate Recovery meets every Friday at 5:30 p.m. at Highland Park Community Church, just south of Elkhorn Valley Rehabilitation Hospital on East Second Street. Join us in a welcoming, positive environment where you can come as you are! We start with a family meal, followed by praise and worship. At 7 p.m., theres either a lesson from Celebrate Recoverys planned curriculum or a testimony by a person who has found recovery through Christ. Then, people go to gender-specific small groups until 8:30 p.m., when dessert and fellowship conclude the evening. Child care is available at no cost. For more information, contact Chris at 265-4073. Veterans help available Alisa Cochrane, a state of Wyoming veteran service officer, is available to meet with veterans and their families to discuss state and federal veterans benefits, Department of Veteran Affairs claims or VA healthcare at the following places and times: Casper: Jan. 19, and 26, Vet Center, 1030 N. Poplar, Ste. B, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Jan. 20 and 27 at the VA Clinic, 4140 S. Poplar, 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.; Jan. 25, Casper College Veterans Center, Goodstein Foundation Library, Room 108A, 1 to 4 p.m. Douglas: Jan. 21 and 28, Workforce Center, 311 N. Russell Ave., 9 a.m. to noon. If there is inclement weather, please check with the staff at the outreach locations to ensure Cochrane will be available. In addition to the scheduled outreach, she is available at other times by calling 472-0212. Saturday morning watercolor Art 321, Casper Artists Guild has reopened with our first exhibit of the new year, Anything Goes. Saturday morning watercolor classes have begun, 10 a.m. to noon, with the following lineup of classes: January 23, using photos for reference; January 30, practice session; February 6, trees, instructed by Jennifer Morss; February 13, practice session; February 20, reflections and shadows; February 27, practice session. For more information or questions about these classes, please call Ellen Black at 265-6783. We are looking forward to our next busy year of classes, workshops, exhibits and the making and sharing art! Discard unused meds safely Please bring your expired or unused medications to the Casper Senior Center, 1831 E. Fourth St., from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday. These medications will be safely disposed of so you dont have to worry about them ending up in the wrong hands or the water supply. This event is open to the public. For more information, call 472-5991 or send a message on Facebook to PMO Natrona County (Prevention Management Organization). QuickBooks for business A class focusing specifically on using QuickBooks to prepare the books and payroll for the year-end is being offered through the Center for Training and Development at Casper College on Friday, Jan. 22 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Taught by Tabetha Berge, CPA, the class QuickBooks: Year-end (CEU 1155 60) will focus on using QuickBooks to process W-2s and 1099s, annual and quarterly payroll reports, adjust payroll tax percentages, reconcile balance sheet items to the year-end trial balance, adjust inventory, close equity accounts, and set a closing date. The cost is $95 per person and those attending will also earn .4 continuing education units. For more information or to register, contact Ann Dalton, workforce training specialist at 268-2085 or adalton@caspercollege.edu. Order trees from extension office Premium quality seedling trees, shrubs and perennials are available for windbreaks and wildlife habitat enhancement from the UW/Natrona County Extension. Order forms are available at the Agriculture Resource and Learning Center, 2011 Fairgrounds Road, Casper, WY 82604. For more information, call Rose Jones at 235-9400. There are 40 species available: Bareroot species are 25 for $30; large tubed species, 30 for $83; small tubed species, 30 for $70; small trays are 50 for $99; XL potted species are $12 each. Order now for best selection with May delivery. Healing seminar set A Conscious co-creation/self-transformation and healing seminar taught by Cathy Hazel Adams, practitioner in Intuitive Quantum Transformation and Energy Healing, will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Feb. 20-21 at the Agricultural Resources Learning Center, 2011 Fairgrounds Road. Price is $130. For more information or to register, visit www.cathyhazeladams.com or call 307-797-9677. Stop stressing and start living After the long dark nights of winter and pressures of the holidays, we invite you to join us in bringing more light into your life. Come learn some great stress reduction/ self care techniques with professionals, teaching some yoga, acupuncture, meditation, drumming, nutrition, breathing exercises and more. Saturday, January 23, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., at the United Church of Christ-Casper, 1511 South Melrose. Please RSVP to Dan ODell at 307-247-1962 or Dee Lundberg at 406-930-1099 so that we have enough food available. This will not be a full blown lunch but generous healthy snack. Free will donations appreciated to cover costs. Free tax help begins The Wyoming Free Tax Service (VITA) will be opening January 26, 2016, and running through April 13, 2016. Our hours will be Tuesday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. We will be closed on Sunday and Monday as well as Easter Weekend, Friday March 25, and Saturday, March 26. Our location is the Aspen Creek Building, 800 Werner Court, Suite 180. This is a first come, first serve service so no appointments will be scheduled. Please bring your social security card, photo identification and appropriate paperwork that is needed, or we will not be able to assist you in your tax return. If you have any questions, please feel free to call (307) 315-1830 during our hours of operation. www.wyomingfreetaxservice.org Parkinsons support group Rocky Mountain Therapy is offering a Parkinsons support group. Please join us at 5:30 p.m. on the second Tuesday of each month at Rocky Mountain Therapy, 2546 E. Second St., Building 500. This support group is open to anyone with Parkinsons or caring for someone with Parkinsons. The next meeting will be at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. An informal question and answer discussion will be our program. To RSVP, call 577-5204 and ask for Jerri or Shannon. Rocky Mountain Therapy is offering a Parkinsons exercise program from noon to 1 p.m. Thursdays. Thursdays class is tailored for the individual with more advanced Parkinsons and focuses on improving endurance, safety and managing symptoms. We are open to all ages and can tailor the class to meet varying exercise needs. The cost of the exercise class is $5. To RSVP, call 577-5204 and ask for Jerri or Shannon. To find out about Rocky Mountain Therapy please visit our website at www.rockymountaintherapy.org. Powerful tools for caregivers free Wyoming Dementia Care is offering family caregivers of those with dementia-related illnesses, including Alzheimers, a new self-care education program called Powerful Tools for Caregivers. The free class will meet each Tuesday for six weeks, beginning Tuesday, February 2 and ending on Tuesday, March 8 from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. at Central Wyoming Senior Services, 1831 E. 4th St. Powerful Tools for Caregivers is a nationally recognized, evidence-based program that provides caregivers with the tools and strategies they need to better handle the unique challenges of caregiving. The six-week curriculum includes self- care options for relaxation and exercise, ways to reduce emotions like guilt and anger, how to confidently manage caregiving demands and suggestions on how to use local resources. The three hour per week class is provided at no cost to caregivers by Wyoming Dementia Care in collaboration with Powerful Tools for Caregivers, with partial funding from a Wyoming Geriatric Education Center grant. Class size is limited and pre-registration is required. Call Dani Guerttman at Wyoming Dementia Care, 265-4678, for information. Open Sky Meditation Saturday Morning Sits Open Sky Meditation Group is offering a three-hour meditation practice on the second Saturday of each month through May. Meditation will start at 9 a.m. and end at noon. First hour will be meditation instruction. Second hour will be open meditation. Third hour will be a guided meditation. On Feb. 13 and May 14, we will meet in the yoga room 101 at Skelton Energy Institute, Casper College. On March 12 and April 9, we will meet in room 217 of Strausner Hall, Casper College. These sits are open to all. Please feel free to come and leave as your schedule dictates. We hope to see you there. If you have questions, feel free to call Gale Sleep at 307-251-6959. BB&B recruiting restaurants now Its time again for Caspers favorite palate pleasing event, Bubbles Baubles & Beans, benefiting Natrona County Meals On Wheels. It will be held on Friday, January 29, 2016, from 4 to 8 p.m., at the Parkway Plaza Hotel and Convention Centre. We hope youll join us for this beloved event. In addition to providing our community with a great activity in January, the funds raised help offset the ever-expanding gap between the cost of providing meals to homebound residents and the money that our seniors can afford to pay towards the cost of these expenses. But most importantly, this is a great opportunity to promote your restaurant! Remember to bring marketing materials, coupons or other items to hand out. We would also love to see you decorate your booth! For more information, contact executive director Jamie Loveall at 265-8659. Here and Now: Dementia-focused monthly art class Every third Tuesday of the month from 1 to 3 p.m. There is no charge. Here and Now is a program made possible through a collaboration between Wyoming Dementia Care and the Nicolaysen Art Museum. It is designed to provide a supportive environment for people with dementia and Alzheimers and their loved ones. The class offers a chance to experience sensory and intellectual stimulation, communicate through art and explore various art media including paint, clay, collage and printmaking. To register for class contact Dani with Wyoming Dementia Care 265-4678, ext. 106, or at wyodementia@casperseniorcenter.com or Zhanna Gallegos at 235-5247 or at zgallegos@thenic.org City seeks boomer input The City of Casper is updating a 2008 study that evaluated how boomer friendly the Casper community is and what services or programs are needed to support that population. Casper area residents aged 50 and older are asked to complete a survey to help identify what has changed from 2008 and how the city can best help to meet the needs of this growing population segment. The survey can be picked up at the Casper Senior Center, Casper City Hall or the Casper Recreation Center or can be accessed online at the following link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/CprSrSurvey. The survey link can also be found on the City of Casper and Casper Senior Services websites. Public forums and focus groups will follow the survey process. The study committee is scheduled to meet on the fourth Wednesday of every month from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Casper Senior Center. The meetings are open to the public. Recommendations from the study will be presented at public meetings for additional input prior to submission to the City Council. The plan is slated for completion in late spring of 2016. Adult learning hours Fall hours for the Adult Learning Center at Casper College are from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday and Wednesday and from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday. The center is closed between 11 a.m. and noon each day and all day Friday and weekends. The Adult Learning Center offers free assessment and instruction to out-of-school adult students, 16 years old and older, who need to improve their basic reading, writing and math skills in order to reach their educational and employment goals, said Chelse DePaolo-Lara, director. According to DePaolo-Lara, the Adult Learning Center also provides classes for people who want to improve their English language skills or prepare to take the citizenship exam. English as a Second Language classes are offered from 9:30 to 11 a.m. and noon to 1:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday. An evening session is also offered from 6:15 to 7:45 p.m. Tuesdays. The Adult Learning Center at Casper College is located in the Werner Technical Center on the Casper College campus, and all programs offered at the center are free of charge. For more information, call the center at 268-2230 or visit caspercollege.edu/alc. Casper Family Literacy program A local nonprofit organization, Casper Family Literacy is a free program designed to give families an opportunity to earn their HSEC/GED or ESL. While parents are attending classes, we take care of their children in a high-quality preschool and infant/toddler program. Come see us at 500 S. Wolcott St., suite 103, or call us at 472-5640 for more information. We look forward to hearing from you! Food pantry open Poverty Resistance Food Pantry, 450 S. Wolcott St., in cooperation with the Wyoming Food Bank of the Rockies, has fresh produce and other perishable food items for distribution to low-income families. The pantry is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day except Sunday to make the food more accessible to low-income working folks. Food availability info is posted on Mary Anns Facebook page whenever a new shipment arrives. Income guidelines and verification are less rigid than many other programs. Generally, if a family is eligible for free lunch or CHIP, they are eligible for the food pantry. Monthly healing service Christ Episcopal Church, 415 W. Cedar St. in Glenrock, announces the addition of a monthly healing service to our schedule. A Public Service of Healing is a traditional liturgy in the church, and all are invited to come for comfort and support. The service will be held at 6 p.m. on the first Wednesday of each month. For info, call Deacon Leigh Earle, 258-2524. The Episcopal Church welcomes you! Flag drop box The American Legion Post 2 of Casper has a flag drop box (for retired flags) on Seventh Street off Center Street in front of the Elks Lodge. It is a red, white and blue old mailbox that was donated by the Sons of the American Legion. The flags are collected and disposed of in the proper manner. God bless America and our brave service members, past and present. This Just In New to Town Crier. Saturday support meetings Alcoholics Anonymous: 9:30 a.m.,500 S. Wolcott, Ste. 200; 10 a.m., 328 E. A St.; noon, 500 S. Wolcott, Ste. 200; 7 p.m., 500 S. Wolcott, Ste. 200; 8 p.m., 328 1/2 E. A St. (upstairs); 8 p.m., 917 N. Beech, nonsmoking; 8 p.m., 328 E. A St.; 8 p.m., Douglas, 628 S. Richards #5. Unless otherwise noted, all meetings are open. Casper info: 266-9578; Douglas info: (307) 351-1576. Al-Anon: 10 a.m., 4600 S. Poplar, Shepherd of the Hills Church. Narcotics Anonymous: Noon, 500 S. Wolcott, 12-24 Club; 6 p.m., 500 S. Wolcott, 12-24 Club, closed; 7 p.m., 15th and Melrose, at the church. Web site: http://www.urmrna.org. NAMI: 4 p.m., 133 W. Sixth St. NAMI C.A.R.E. (Consumers Advocating Recovery through Empowerment) Support Group for individuals with mental illness. Info: 234-0440. Adult Children of Alcoholics: 1:30-3 p.m., 12-24 Club, 500 S. Wolcott St., Suite 200. MLK Day Monday 11 a.m., march from City Park at 7th & Wolcott to First United Methodist Church across from the Natrona County Public Library, hosted by Casper NAACP & ServeWyoming. Make a sign or placard with the name or photo of a civil right advocate to carry in the march, organized by The Peace Collective. Keynote speaker at church is Rev. Johnny Young, "A Vision & A Dream." Light snacks & disability awareness poster-making in downstairs social hall, Organized by ServeWyoming and NCSD Parent Resource Center. Nonperishable donations of food for the Holy Cross Food Bank collected at the beginning and end of the march by AmeriCorps*VISTA members. Guided Labyrinth Walk, 5:15 p.m., at the Bart Rea Learning Circle in Amoco Park. The Bart Rea Learning Circle is within Amoco Park between the antique oil derrick and the Pumphouse on the bank of the North Platte River. Walk led by Elliott Ramage from Healthy Life Studio & Om on The Range. Meditation, 6:15 p.m., at Wyoming Food for Thought, 900 Saint John Street, led by Theresa Wiegand from Healthy Life Studio. Kirtan, 7 p.m. at Wyoming Food for Thought, 900 Saint John Street, led by Michele Heaphy from Healthy Life Studio and Om on the Range. Bathroom breaks longer at Tate Pumphouse Thanks to a grant from the Natrona County Recreation Joint Powers Board, Platte River trail users now have access to the public restrooms at the Tate Pumphouse Trail Center during daylight hours seven days a week. The PRTT Board realized that walkers, runners, cyclists and kayakers were using the Pumphouse before and after regular business hours and we wanted to make their experience more enjoyable, sayid Angela Emery, Platte River Trails Trust executive director. The effort involved the installation of two security cameras, a security gate and timed locking system on the west door of the Pumphouse. The enhancement to the Pumphouse is part of a larger initiative to activate the Tate Pumphouse Trail Center. The Rec Board grant, along with donations from private individuals, will also assist with the construction of a new outdoor exercise area at the Tate Pumphouse this spring that will include a Lat Pull & Vertical Press Machine, a 2 person ski machine and a pendulum machine. The PRTT Board also has plans for a fenced dog park on the west side of the Pumphouse property. For more information on upcoming trail events and projects visit the Platte River Trails Trust website, www.platterivertrails.com and drop into the Platte River Trails Trust Annual Meeting scheduled for 4:30 to 6:330 p.m., Wednesday, February 17, at the Tate Pumphouse Trail Center. For more information call the Trails office, 577-1206. Insurance makes Habitat donation Farmers Insurance has presented a check to Habitat for Humanity in support of local Farmers employee Donielle Beard, a single mother of three children who is the recipient of a Habitat home currently under construction. Donielle Beard is a customer service representative/personal lines specialist at Sandy Widmer Farmers Insurance Agency. The $5,000 check was presented at the ribbon cutting for Beard's Casper home by Widmer, who is the agency owner. The donation is comprised of funds from the Sandy Widmer Farmers Insurance Agency and the Farmers Insurance corporate office in Los Angeles. Donielle was selected by Habitat for Humanity to participate in the Homeownership Program that allows qualified families to purchase a home on a zero-interest mortgage. The construction of the home is conducted by community volunteers who are led by a site supervisor who is a licensed contractor. Independent film Tuesday The Librarys Independent Film Series will feature If You Don't, I Will at 6:30 p.m., Tuesday in the Crawford Room. Two of Frances busiest and most talented actors, Emmanuelle Devos and Mathieu Amalric, star in this smart, modern romantic comedy from acclaimed director Sophie Fillieres. Call 577-READ ext. 2 for more information. Synopsis: Pomme and Pierre have been together a long time, long enough that passion and spontaneity have given way to predictability and cold shoulders. On a hike together one afternoon, Pomme declares her independence by staying in the woods rather than returning to an underwhelming life at home. Pierre, despite his concern for Pomme, seems all too capable of adapting to life as a bachelor, a worrisome realization. Teen Book Club Tuesday A young adult book discussion, sponsored by the Natrona County Library, will be held on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at Metro Coffee Co. January's novel is "Ten" by Gretchen McNeil. The group is open to teens in grades 9-12. Participants receive a free drink, courtesy of the Friends of the Library. To participate, pick up a copy of "Ten" in the Library's Teen Zone. The Teen Book Club meets the fourth Tuesday of every month and new members are always welcome. Call 577-READ ext. 101 for more information. After school with penguins Elementary-age students are invited to attend our weekly "After School at the Library" program Wednesday at 4 p.m. in the Natrona County Library's Crawford Room. January 20 is national Penguin Awareness Day, so we'll celebrate all things penguin! Call 577-READ ext. 122 for more information. Afternoon Book Club for tweens An afternoon book discussion will be held Thursday at 4 p.m. at Metro Coffee Co. Participants will read "Uglies" by Scott Westerfeld. The group is open to teens in grades 7-8. Participants receive a free drink, courtesy of the Friends of the Library. To participate, pick up a copy of "Uglies" in the Library's Teen Zone. Call 577-READ ext. 101 for more information. Kindle Fire basics The Natrona County Library will offer a Kindle Fire Basics class Thursday at 5:30 p.m. in the Crawford Room. Bring your own Kindle Fire tablet and learn how to use the touch screen, settings, and keyboard as well as discover how to download and use common Apps. Call 577-READ ext. 2 for more information. Genealogists hear about air base The Natrona County Genealogical Society will meet Thursdayd at the Casper Senior Citizens Center at 1831 East 4th St at 7 p/m. We will begin our new year with Douglas Cubbison of the Wyoming Veterans Memorial Museum enlightening us on the early history of the Casper Airbase. He will talk primarily about the years from 1942 to 1946 and the post years of World War II. Our air force base in Casper was the main training area for the B-17s and B-24s during the war. Did you have family or friends that worked or trained there? There is a lot of history and genealogy to be discovered by attending this presentation. As always, guests are welcome. Our help desk will also be open at 6:30 p.m. for any of you that be experiencing a research block or some advice on proceeding forward on your search. For more information please call Marcia Stroh 265-5568. Wyoming Legislature 101 Would you like to better understand how your government works? A Legislature 101 session will be held from 1-3 p.m. on Saturday, January 23 at the Natrona County Library. Presented by Cheyenne League of Women Voters member Marguerite Herman, Legislature 101 is a non-partisan overview of the Wyoming legislative process and opportunities for the public to stay informed and participate. The event is free and open to the public, sponsored by the Casper League of Women Voters. Call 577-READ ext. 2 for more information. NARFE meets Jan. 26 Casper Chapter #358 of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE) will have a business meeting at noon on Tuesday, January 26, 2016, in the meeting room at the Casper Senior Center at 1831 East 4th Street. The guest speaker will be Carol Crump. She will be making a presentation on the progress of the boomer study in Casper. This is an update of the 2008 study that evaluated how "boomer friendly" the Casper community is. NARFE has social Casper Chapter #358 of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE) will have a no-host Social Meeting on February 23, 2016 at noon in the meeting room at the Casper Senior Center at 1831 West 4th Street. RSVP looking for volunteers Happy New Year! Is one of your New Years resolutions to become more involved in your community, meet new people or to help others? The Prairie Mountain Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) is for you. The mission of RSVP is to offer adults 55 and better the opportunity to share your time and talents on a regular basis in a variety of settings throughout your community. As a RSVP volunteer you will matched with a rewarding opportunity that fits your skills, interests and schedule. Not only will you be helping others, but you will also be helping yourself. Through service, you can add to the quality and health of your life. You will be giving your time, talent, wisdom and experience to your community and neighbors who need YOU. If you are interested in volunteering, you need volunteers, or you have any questions about RSVP, give Theresa Bush, R.N., Prairie Mountain RSVP Program Director, a call at 232-0124. A Casper law firm filed a federal class action lawsuit Wednesday against Volkswagen on behalf of Wyomingites who bought cars installed with software designed to cheat emission tests. The German automobile manufacturer admitted last year to installing defeat devices in its vehicles to evade clean air standards. The suit, filed by attorney Jason Ochs, contends Volkswagen deceived its customers by requiring them to pay high prices for vehicles marketed as clean, fuel efficient and powerful, according to the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of Wyoming. In fact, the cars emitted up to 40 times the amount of nitrogen oxide allowed under United States law. The devices were installed in VW cars dating back to 2009. Ochs filed the suit on behalf of Casper resident Ron Weiss, who purchased in 2013 a Volkswagen Jetta from Fremont Volkswagen in Casper. Weiss bought the diesel version of the Jetta specifically for the lower emissions marketed by VW, according to the lawsuit. A defeat device was installed in the car. People thought they were buying clean diesel vehicles that would be efficient and not only safe for the environment, but also safe for their health, Ochs said during a phone interview Thursday. In order for Wyomingites to seek their day in court, there needed to be someone and some firm to step up and represent them. My firm is honored to represent Wyomingites all over the state, any of whom have been victims of these corporate decisions. Ochs said Weiss reached out to his firm for legal assistance. Weiss was unavailable for comment Thursday. Had Weiss known about the defeat devices before purchasing his Jetta, he would never have bought the car, Ochs said. Nitrogen oxide pollutants have been linked to respiratory- and cardiovascular-related illnesses, the lawsuit contends. A phone call to Mario Guerreiro, executive vice president of group communications for Volkswagen of America, went unreturned Thursday. Officials became aware of Volkswagens actions after a clean air group tested the emission levels of certain diesel cars. The International Council for Clean Transportation found in 2014 that the levels of nitrogen oxide emissions by Volkswagens diesel models were significantly higher than permitted by federal regulations, according to the lawsuit. The group notified the Environmental Protection Agency of its findings. The California Air and Resources Board commenced an investigation into the reasons for the elevated emissions. Meanwhile, Volkswagen asserted the higher emissions were related to technical issues, and issued a recall of the cars. In May 2015, testing to determine the effectiveness of the recall found that nitrogen oxide emissions were still significantly higher than they should be. Eventually, Volkswagen admitted to installing the defeat devices. The lawsuit claims Volkswagen knew the devices were meant to bypass emission standards. This is because, during federal tests, the emission control system operated at its highest levels, but it operated at lower levels when the car was not undergoing official testing. The EPA has ordered Volkswagen to recall nearly 500,000 cars with the defeat devices and modify them so they comply with emission requirements. The lawsuit requests a judge order Volkswagen to buy back the cars purchased by Wyomingites that contain the defeat devices, or institute a free replacement program for the cars, or remove the defeat devices and ensure the cars comply with emission standards while also retaining their promised fuel efficiency and drive performance. U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer in San Francisco has been tasked with overseeing consumer lawsuits filed throughout the country against Volkswagen. Ochs said if his case were to go to trial, it would be tried in in front of a Wyoming jury. The race for Wyomings lone U.S. House seat has another contestant. Mike Konsmo, an English professor at Northwest College in Powell, announced his candidacy Thursday. The Park County Republican is the latest to join the field looking to fill the seat being vacated by Rep. Cynthia Lummis. In a phone interview Thursday, Konsmo said hed be vocal in his campaign about education, stabilizing the oil industry and supporting second amendment rights. He also highlighted the need to keep students, graduates and young people in the state. I have a lot of ideas, but todays more about the announcement to me, Konsmo said. Lummis, also a Republican, announced last year she would not run for re-election. She was first elected as Wyomings representative in 2008. Casper pizzeria owner Charlie Tyrrel, veterinarian Rex Rammell, state corrections officer Jason Senteney and State Rep. Tim Stubson have already announced their respective campaigns. State Sen. Leland Christensen and Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney have also expressed interest in running. Im all for a crowded field and all for as many people from as many nonpolitical backgrounds as possible, Konsmo said. For now, Konsmo said hell continue teaching and campaign full time in the summer. The primary is Aug. 16. Washakie County Republicans will hold the first debate for GOP candidates on Jan. 23, and Konsmo said he plans to participate. The 38-year-old said he intended to run for the U.S. House seat even before Lummis announced she would not run for re-election. On Thursday, he shook off any notion that hed have trouble competing with more established political figures in the Cowboy state. I dont think people will vote for Liz Cheney, Konsmo said. ... Im not a career politician, Im not a political commentator. Im a real person. A crash involving a semi-truck occurred Thursday night at the Wind River Canyon, causing delays of up to an hour for motorists traveling on U.S. 20/Wyoming 789 on Friday as officials work to clean up the debris. The crash happened around 11 p.m. last night in an area called Big Windy inside Wind River Canyon, Russ Dowdy, Wyoming Department of Transportation maintenance foreman in Thermopolis, said in a press release. Its my understanding the driver of the truck is OK. The truck was hauling bulk sugar. According to the release, most of the semi-truck did not crash into the Wind River, but it overturned above the river about 10 miles south of Thermopolis. No damage occurred to the road, but 400 to 500 feet of guardrail was destroyed. It was snowing Thursday night in the canyon, and the road was slick, according to the release. Wyoming Highway Patrol was on scene Friday and repairs were expected to begin as early as Sunday. A temporary reduced speed limit of 45 mph and 30 mph is in effect until the guardrail is repaired. The speed limit will return to 65 mph when repairs are complete. Cheyenne Councilman Richard Johnson has launched a Facebook group, Get Rid of All Incumbents in Cheyenne Government. It was then, in the elections of 2000, that we first began interviewing candidates for office. What we quickly came to see was that our longtime position in favor of term limits was wrongheaded. Some of the new candidates were woefully unprepared to serve. Yet we would throw out incumbents, who often have the knowledge and experience needed to run government, for those who are unqualified? That didnt make a lot of sense. The WTE since has reversed its position on term limits, and we now weigh incumbents based on their performance, experience and knowledge. Some deserve to be re-elected; some dont. Indeed, there even is some irony in Mr. Johnsons Facebook group. He, apparently, does not intend to seek re-election. Yet he is a great example of a qualified candidate. He cares, he is engaged, he does his homework, he works hard to get his constituents involved and he challenges the status quo. He also stands in for a group of voters that often is not well represented on the council young people. As we said in our Agenda 2016 editorial here on New Years Day, this community needs good candidates for local offices. Cheyenne deserves a mayor and City Council with vision, those who can look into the future and see where this city should go and help it get there. More has to be done to ready this community for the young professionals whose energy and creativity are so sorely needed. It will take amenities, a change in mindset, a vibrant downtown. Those wont come from people who want to maintain the status quo, yet there will be candidates who support just that position running in the fall. Vision has been lacking for far too long on the City Council. Members have done a good job of squaring up the budget and trying to ease city development processes. But they have not given residents much to get excited about. A couple of exceptions have been the West Edge project and Councilman Scott Roybals push to open up the Belvoir Ranch. True, money has been, and will be, tight. But that doesnt mean time should not be spent dreaming, and planning, so that when opportunities do arise grants, windfalls, optional sales taxes they can be taken advantage of. Working on the budget and the streets is important, but without vision, numbers and asphalt will not move Cheyenne into the future. and Alia Beard Rau PHOENIX Gov. Doug Duceys threat to withhold revenue from cities and towns that enact their own wage and employment laws got big applause during his State of the State address, but some local officials suggested it was an overly aggressive attempt to exert control over them while others said the threat was unnecessary. Ducey called on cities to put the brakes on ill-advised plans to create a patchwork of different wage and employment laws, saying doing so would harm the Arizona economy. The governor then vowed to use every constitutional power of the executive branch and leverage every legislative relationship to protect small businesses and the working men and women they employ up to and including changing the distribution of stateshared revenue. Arizona shares 15 percent of collected taxes on income, sales and transportation with cities, towns and counties. That money is critical to local governments and funds significant portions of their budgets. The move opens the governor to criticism about his commitment to local control, a theme he frequently preaches when it comes to perceived federal overreach on state issues. You so frequently have the Republican Party complaining about the federal government, but they want to stamp out any kind of local control by municipalities, said Flagstaff attorney Mik Jordahl, who represented a group pushing to raise that citys minimum wage in a lawsuit against the state. But Senate President Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, argued the comparison between federal and state control is faulty. While states give the federal government its authority, Biggs said, local jurisdictions are subdivisions of the state. Ducey doesnt yet have the power to make good on his threat. The Legislature would have to approve a bill changing state statute to grant state leaders the authority to adjust a complicated funding formula to deny disobedient cities and towns state revenue. Biggs said he might file such a bill. Ducey staffers have said the governors concern is focused on efforts to increase the states $8.05-an-hour minimum wage, or expand paid time off. No Arizona city or town has passed such an ordinance. And some called Duceys statement a solution in search of a problem. A Tempe City Council subcommittee is looking at requiring earned sick leave. The subcommittee has held public and stakeholder meetings, but has not yet determined if or when it will ask the City Council to vote on an ordinance. The Tucson City Council is also looking at mandatory paid time off for illnesses. While Duceys staffers said the governor was taking aim at wage and employment benefits, Phoenix officials viewed Duceys speech as an attack on cities attempts to protect LGBT workers and people with disabilities from discrimination. In 2013, Phoenix adopted a broad non-discrimination ordinance that expanded protections for gay and transgender residents. Far from being a job killer, this has been tremendously positive for our economy and for other leading cities that have adopted similar ordinances, said Robbie Sherwood, a spokesman for Mayor Greg Stanton. Flagstaff, Tucson and Tempe have similar anti-discrimination ordinances. Other cities, including Mesa and Scottsdale, are considering similar measures. In Flagstaff, residents last year began pushing to raise the minimum wage. The group filed a lawsuit against the state asserting cities rights to set their own minimum wage. The Flagstaff City Council voted 4-3 not to get involved. The group is working to take the issue directly to Flagstaff voters in November. Flagstaff Mayor Jerry Nabours, who said his city received $8 million in state-shared revenue last year, said he sympathizes with the governor but disagrees with him. The Flagstaff City Council is not talking about raising the minimum wage, and I dont see the voters doing that either, Nabours said. But, he added, if the voters did ... the courts have said thats up to the cities to decide and so I dont think its actually fair to use the state-shared revenue as some kind of leverage on that. Last year, Attorney General Mark Brnovich agreed to a Maricopa County Superior Court judgment tied to the Flagstaff dispute. It confirmed cities and towns have the right to raise their minimum wage. According to the judgment, a 2013 law limiting minimum-wage increases conflicts with Proposition 202, a measure Arizona voters approved in 2006 allowing cities to regulate wages and benefits via ordinance. Chandler Mayor Jay Tibshraeny, a former Republican state lawmaker and current vice president of the Arizona League of Cities and Towns, said he believes the minimum wage should be set at the state level. He said he was concerned Duceys statement gave the public the impression cities across the state are moving ahead with changes to employment laws. He said no city has voted to change wage regulations. Tom Rex, associate director of the Center for Competitiveness and Prosperity Research at the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, said if Ducey follows through with his threat, it would be just one more action on top of others that state leaders have taken against municipalities since the recession. Cuts to state-shared revenues just put the burden on, instead of one government body the Legislature youre putting it on the counties and incorporated areas in the state, Rex said. A 30-year-old man is in critical condition at the Arizona Burn Center in Phoenix after he was burned in an explosion in a Marana mobile home park, authorities said. Shortly before 10 p.m., paramedics responded to Valley of the Sun Mobile Home Park, 13377 N. Sandario Road, to a report of an unknown explosion that burned a man, said Capt. Adam Goldberg of the Northwest Fire District. The man was flown by medical helicopter to the burn center at Maricopa Medical Center, where he is being treated for life-threatening burns, Goldberg said. The explosion was confined to a large shed alongside a mobile home, and crews found no sign of active fire when they arrived at the scene, within minutes of receiving the call from dispatch. Six nearby mobile homes were evacuated, and Sandario between West Greer to Gaudette roads was temporarily closed, Goldberg said. Hazmat crews with Northwest Fire District and Arizona Department of Public Safety bomb squad members spent several hours in the shed and surrounding areas before clearing the area as safe from additional explosions at about 3 a.m. The man was the only one injured, but his mother, father and girlfriend were inside the home at the time of the explosion, Goldberg said. The suspected robber of a northwest-side Walgreens was carrying a BB gun when he was shot and critically wounded by a sheriff's deputy, officials said Thursday. The wounded man was identified as Masoud Madhoush, 28. He was shot outside the Walgreens at North Oracle and West Ina roads on Tuesday. Madhoush remains in critical condition at Banner-University Medical Center. The sheriff's department said Madhoush was carrying a BB gun that resembled a Desert Eagle handgun. The department on Thursday provided a photograph of the gun officials said Madhoush was carrying. Shortly before 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, a 911 caller reported a robbery at the Walgreens. Deputies arrived at the store in under two minutes. The robber was inside the Walgreens and at the time deputies did not know the type of threat he was posing so they walked into the store, Rodriguez said. Deputies learned the robber had climbed over the counter and demanded Percocet, a painkiller that contains oxycodone. Other 911 callers reported the man was armed. Deputies chased him out of the Walgreens. Deputy Jay Korza, a 15-year veteran, fired his rifle and struck the robber in the lower back, said Rodriguez. No customers or deputies were injured in the incident, she said. Pima County is set to approve an incentive package with a space-exploration and tourism company that wants to expand its operations to a new facility near Tucson International Airport. Tucson-based World View Enterprises plans to construct a 120,000-square-foot corporate headquarters and manufacturing facility on Aerospace Parkway south of Raytheon Missile Systems and Tucson International Airport. The company has about 25 workers but says it plans to expand to as many as 400 employees. Its a charter member to our Sonoran Corridor project, said Pima County Supervisor Ray Carroll. World View develops high-altitude balloons for manned near-space travel. Company officials did not want to comment on the plan before the Board of Supervisors Jan. 19 vote on the deal. The incentive package before the board would have the county fund construction of the facility and spaceport launch site. World View would pay back the countys $14.5 million investment over 20 years of lease payments totaling more than $23.6 million. World View would have the option to purchase a portion of the property after 10 years, excluding the spaceport. Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said the spaceport or launch site would be a public asset open for use by other companies with an interest in space exploration. In the event World View isnt successful in this venture, Huckelberry said the county would simply seek a new client for the facility. Thats the one risk in this, he said. Suborbital spaceflight The company website notes: With our proprietary high-altitude balloons, World View offers an accessible, affordable way to access near space. As a Voyager, you will enjoy a suborbital spaceflight unlike any other. The flights last five to six hours in a pressurized capsule set aloft with a helium-filled balloon. The balloon ascends more than 100,000 feet, or nearly 20 miles, above the Earths surface. In addition to space tourism, the flights have been used to conduct scientific research for universities and private companies. The cost for the experience stands at $75,000 per person. The company was founded in 2013 by Jane Poynter and Taber MacCallum, both original crew members in the Biosphere 2 experiment. Veteran NASA scientist Alan Stern and astronaut Mark Kelly also work for World View. I am absolutely ecstatic about having the only spaceport in the state of Arizona, Pima County Supervisor Ramon Valadez said. Valadez said the announcement shows the countys efforts at economic development have worked. The plan is bearing fruit, he said. Sun Corridor Inc. (formerly known as TREO, or Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities) President and CEO Joe Snell, who worked with the county on the deal, said the possible expansion represented a victory for the region. This is a tremendous opportunity to land a sought-after space technology corporate headquarters, with growth plans for hundreds of high-wage jobs, Snell said. The announcement marks the inaugural location of a business in the newly realigned Aerospace Parkway, formerly the Hughes Access Road. County leaders began purchasing property in the area in 2011 in preparation for the road realignment. The plan to move the roadway south about a half mile was done at the request of Raytheon, which required a large buffer zone to its south. Attracting industry For regional leaders, World Views announcement stands as a win for the Aerospace Parkway concept. It validates the concept, Carroll said. The idea has been to attract defense, aerospace, manufacturing and logistics companies to the region and especially the undeveloped areas south of the airport. That effort coincides with a longer-term plan to build an adjacent highway connecting Interstates 10 and 19 in the hopes of attracting manufacturing and other large-scale employers. The proposal, for the so-called Sonoran Corridor, has the backing of all the area municipalities, Arizonas congressional delegation, state House officials representing the region and business organizations. The plan recently was included on the federal transportation funding plan as a high-priority project. Huckelberry estimates total construction costs could exceed $600 million for the 14-mile connection. An attempt to add local funding to the project failed at the ballot in November. It was part of the bond election where voters rejected all seven questions included on the $815 million package. Regional leaders have not given up the idea of local funding, however, openly debating a potential single-question bond to fund a portion of the plan to help connect the regions major transportation networks highway, rail and air. Its an indication of the momentum that can build at the Sonoran Corridor, Tucson City Councilman Steve Kozachik said. Kozachik said expansion of World View into the Aerospace Parkway and Sonoran Corridor area aligned well with existing employers like Raytheon and at the UA Tech Park near I-10 and Rita Road. And World View potentially backstops millions of research dollars the state chiseled from the UA and the UA Tech Park. All of the private-sector development we see out there continues to send the message of just how key that area is to our long term financial health, Kozachik said. Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild also was supportive of the proposed incentive plan. Its compatible with what we want to do to expand our reputation as a technology center on the cutting edge, Rothschild said. The county could break ground on the project as soon as February. It turns out you dont have to take up arms and occupy federal offices to fight D.C. overreach. Last week I wrote about the confused vision of some of the constitutionalists in Arizona who propose new authorities for constitutional interpretation. There are the Oath Keepers and the constitutional sheriffs, for example, who claim the local sheriff should be handing down Supreme Court-like judgments. And there are the people who dream the undying dream that an armed showdown will make the American people rise up against federal tyranny. But there are also equally passionate people like Jeffrey Utsch, a northwest-side resident who for years has been pushing a different solution to federal overreach. He is part of a movement asking the states to band together to force a convention to amend the Constitution. Utschs favored strand of this movement is the Compact for America, which wants enough state legislatures to pass resolutions to force a constitutional meeting at which only a balanced-budget amendment would be considered. Hes also a fan, though, of the Convention of States, a group pushing the legislatures to demand a convention, but one where the agenda is not quite so limited. Article V of the U.S. Constitution establishes a process for states to force a meeting to consider constitutional changes. Two-thirds of the state legislatures must apply for the meeting, which Congress must call. Any amendments passed there must be approved by three-fourths of the states to become part of the Constitution. If we were able to call the founders down and whine and complain to them about our current situation, they would basically say, Have you used the tools weve given you to set it straight? Utsch said. Article V, calling a convention through the states, is the biggest tool theyve given us. We have not taken advantage of it. The founders envisioned that at some point this could be used to correct errors that had been made, or that there would inevitably be concentration of power, Utsch said. If youve noticed, I havent called this a constitutional convention. Thats on Utschs advice. He says that phrase refers to a broader convention to rewrite the constitution, which isnt the idea here. The Compact for America group has designed language that each state could pass to call for a convention and limit it to just considering a balanced-budget amendment. The Convention of States supporters, on the other hand, are trying to call a convention on a broader subject: limiting the power of the federal government. Either idea could likely pass the Arizona House of Representatives, where Republican Rep. Kelly Townsend of Mesa got a convention-of-states resolution passed last year and has introduced another this year. Fellow Republican Rep. Mark Finchem of Oro Valley told me hed support a convention of states bill, provided that any amendments coming out of the convention apply to single issues only. However, Republican Senate President Andy Biggs of Gilbert even though he is an anti-big-government conservative is not a fan of plans to amend the Constitution and has blocked all efforts so far. His argument, which he detailed last year in a book called, The Con of the Con Con, is that whats wrong with the country isnt a result of problems in the U.S. Constitution, and so it shouldnt be tinkered with. But Utsch is confident that the balanced-budget amendment, once passed, could open Americans eyes to the possibilities in using Article V. Id rather see one amendment we can get through, about not robbing the next generation, setting a template for what should be done, he said. Me, Im not sure I support any of these ideas. But theyre the process we have and a lot more responsible than taking up arms against the federal government. INTERDICTION AGAINST ADDICTIONS Hearing Gov. Doug Duceys State of the State speech twice allowed me to gauge better what got me most riled up. It wasnt the economic issues I wrote about in Wednesdays column. And it wasnt the idea of publicizing deadbeats who owe lots of child support. Though at first this idea struck me as bad because it involves public shaming, I later learned that only people with outstanding arrest warrants and big debts will be publicized. This could help some kids get money theyre owed. What bothered me the most was Duceys continued attempt to link his idea for a state Strike Force against border crime to helping solve the states opioid addiction problem. Lets stand together this session and provide law enforcement especially our border county sheriffs the resources they need to ramp up the fight against the bad guys and end this scourge on our state, Ducey said. I wrote about this last month, but I wish the governor would take this point to heart: Interdiction of illegal drugs has no impact on addiction. To suggest that putting more cops on the border will help our addiction problem is drug-war rhetoric from decades ago that rings hollow in 2016. CD1 CLOWN CONVOY Its well-known that in Arizonas first congressional district, a big group of candidates is running for the Republican nomination. The truth is, its a pretty strong slate. Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu is the leading contender, a new poll shows, followed by rancher and businessman Gary Kiehne, former Secretary of State Ken Bennett, Speaker of the House David Gowan and Navajo businessman Shawn Redd. Now an additional candidate, Wendy Rogers, who previously ran in the 9th Congressional District, has also joined the race, making six Republican candidates. The Democrats now have three candidates of their own, though only one of them well-known. Former legislator Tom OHalleran is the leading contender, and is joined in the race by previous candidate Miguel Olivas and James Maloney. Help India! By Kashif-ul-Huda, TwoCircles.net To meet an original Delhi-wala and listen to the Urdu spoken hundred of years ago in Delhi, you have to leave your vehicle on the Mathura Road and walk towards the oldest continually inhabited place of Delhi. This basti is more than 700 years old and now named after its most famous resident Hazrat Khwaja Nizamuddin Auliya. This is Basti Hazrat Nizamuddin. Some families have been living here since the time of the famous Sufi saint. Support TwoCircles Religion is very important in the lives of majority of Indians, but there are very few religious places where Indians of all faith can come together. Dargahs or tombs of Sufi saints provide that space for millions of Indians. Syed Kabiruddin Nizami is a descendent of the sister of Hazrat Khwaja Nizamuddin. He is one of the khadims of the Dargah Nizamuddin attending to the spiritual needs of devotees who come from all over the world. While talking to Syed Kabiruddin Nizami sahib about Hazrat Nizamuddin, Sufism and contribution of Sufis to India, I couldnt help but notice that people of all faith, culture, language, and class come here. From a modern looking businessman from Mumbai who is in Delhi to make a multi-million dollar deal to a blind beggar who is singing songs in praise of Hazrat Nizamuddin. A lot of people in this hustle and bustle are from outside Delhi but quite a few from nearby who come here on regular basis. Away from politics, communalism, terrorism, and all kinds of fanaticism, a harmonious India emerges here. Dargah Hazrat Nizamuddin Nizami informs me about the origin of Sufism and links it back to the Prophet of Islam. He denies that Sufism is anything different from Islam. He explains that Sufism is nothing but the spiritual aspect of Islam. Worship of Allah and serving the humanity is the principle of Sufism. There are four main Sufi orders in India- Chishti, Qadiri, Suhrawardi, and Naqshabandi. While other orders emphasize zikr (remembrance of Allah), Chishtia order puts more emphasis on serving the people. Even now, dargahs of Chishti order serve free food in daily langar. Hazrat Nizamuddin belonged to the Chishti order. Nizami talks about Prophet Muhammed being called a Mercy to the Mankind in Quran and he says that this mercy is visible in khanqahs (Muslim monastery) and Sufi dargahs as they serve all humanity irrespective of their religious belief. He is quick to say that dargahs are the only platform in India where people of all communities can come freely. Born in Badayun in about 1238 AD, Hazrat Nizamuddin migrated to Delhi along with his sister and mother. He wanted to become a Qazi in Delhi but his spiritual quest led him to Baba Farid Ganjshakar in Pakpattan, Punjab. After getting khilafat from Baba Farid he returned to Delhi and established his monastery in Ghayaspura locality of Delhi. This area now bears his name and is called Basti Hazrat Nizamuddin. One of the famous disciples of Hazrat Nizamuddin was Amir Khusro. Khusro is credited with development of Urdu that led to its popularization; he started Qawwali, a form of Sufi devotional music. His contribution in literature and classical music is immense. He loved his teacher so much that he lies buried a few meters from Hazrat Nizamuddins grave. Sufism in India not only provided a platform for spiritual needs of Indians but also served the people by providing them with a language to communicate in large parts of India, thus they were able to travel, trade, and find employment. Sufis enriched our life with brining literature closer to the people and adding new instruments like Sitar and Tabla and new elements and forms to Hindustani classical music. As we look at the almost thousand-year-old history of Sufis in India, we see that they not only infused spirituality in India but beyond politics, wars and sultans they gave us the idea of India that still exist within us. Watch Syed Kabiruddin Nizamis interview: Syed Kabiruddin Nizami can be reached at [email protected] or phone # 9891855326 Help India! By Nigar Ataullah for Twocircles.net Bengaluru: When you walk into the premises of the Banjara Academy, a counselling centre, you could be forgiven into believing that you have been tricked into a pleasant surprise: it feels more like an old friends home, complete with the informal and humble company of Ali Khwaja, a sexagenarian with an amazing zeal for life who has helped transform thousands of lives by providing them valuable counselling. Support TwoCircles The walls of Khwajas room are covered with little motivational notes about life and a pretty chart depicting caricatures of facial expressions with the question: How do you feel today? A counsellor often needs to put on a thinking cap, which explains why the shelves are full of headgear of different shapesa cowboy hat, a Himachali cap and many others. One of the first things you notice about Khwaja is that his positivity is mind-blowing. He attributes two years studying in a Montessori school in Mumbai in 1958 and 1959 as the reason behind this.There, I learnt how important it is to have a mind of your own, rather than blindly following what people tell you to do or want you to become, says Khwaja. I am the youngest, with three older siblings, a brother and two sisters. My father was in the civil services and my entire family, down through seven generations, served the government. But I turned out to be the baa-baa black sheep in the family! he says, laughingly. When his father was posted in Osmanabad (Maharashtra), Khwaja, who was then around 9 years old, spent his time wandering around villages. After completing his pre-university studies in Hyderabad, he enrolled at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Povai, to become a metallurgical engineer. Khwaja confesses that he did not wish to become an engineer and if anything, those five years of B. Tech. taught him why. Engineering was followed by a two-year stint working with a friend, who had set up a fertilizer factory in Hyderabad. This was followed by a foray into the world of publishing: he bought a printing press and began a paper in Hyderabad. It was a 16-page tabloid. I really enjoyed writing stories about people, their lives and about the city. The tabloid was called Hyderabad the city, says Khwaja. However, the honeymoon period was over soon, and it was shut down due to lack of finances. But destiny had something else in store for Khwaja, who was actually destined to become one of Indias most popular counsellors. I have been a good listener since I was a teenager, when my sisters began confiding with me about their little secrets. Many of my sisters friends would come to me with their worries or problems and I would listen to them. While this was a small beginning for me as a novice counsellor at home for my sisters and their friends, the real professional break as I call it, came when Dr. Lakshmi from Sneha Counselling Centre in Madras came to Hyderabad for a workshop to train volunteers in 1989. Though it was just a 3-day course, it gave me valuable skills in counselling, Khwaja recalls. Shifting to Bangalore in 1990, Khwaja was fortunate to meet Alice Saldanha (who passed away two years ago), who had initiated Helping Hand as a free counselling centre. It was an informal set up, with 12 people, mostly Alices friends, working as volunteers. As Alice was getting old, she handed over the baton of Helping Hand to Khwaja in1992, who was then managing a construction company under the name of Banjara. After many people told him that they wanted to be equipped with counselling skills, Khwaja and some friends began a counselling training course at Banjara. It began first as a three-day course. Later, Banjara went on to offer a range of counselling courses, of varying duration, and, recently, even an online training course. To focus completely on this mission, Khwaja wound up the constructions business in1995 and focused on the counselling courses. The 2015 batch of counselling skills students are the 17thbatch from the Banjara Academy. So far, several hundred people have trained as counsellors through the Academy, which is an autonomous institution. With a small team of committed individuals who are regular staff members, the Banjara Academy today is a sought after place for people of all age groups who wish to do the one year course. Many go on to become professional counsellors, including in schools and offices. Others use the skills they receive here in their day-to-day lives, helping transform many lives, their own and that of others. Says Khwaja, We may not be able to solve everyones issues or problems, but they may want someone to just listen to their woes and worries. People walk into Banjara for counselling for every issue under the sunfrom emotional troubles to career choices. Our counsellors who are all volunteers give people who come to us unconditional attention. Life as a counsellor may not bring big awards, Khwaja says, But that does not matter to us at all. In school or college we are never taught how to handle issues of lifea hurt, a heartbreak, a downslide of self-esteem or fears. As we grow up, we face all these issues at some point of time and then we breakdown. Some take the extreme step of ending their lives, yet others wallow in self-pity and depression. Our mission through Banjara is to let them know that we are here to listen to you. We may not rescue you from your problems, but we try to give you a direction and help you to take lifes decisions on your own and have your own mind. Khwajas love and compassion for his fellow beings was the driving force behind the setting up of the Banjara Academy, which is now the sole mission of his life. Most of Khwajas work is in Bangalore, where he is invited by schools, organizations, colleges and corporates to present talks on various issues in life. Occasionally, on invitation, he also travels for short trips to other places. The writer is based in Bangalore and is Associate Editor, Islamic Voice English Monthly. Nigar also likes to write on nature, environment and animals. Related: TCN Positive page Police in Harare, Zimbabwe have confirmed that they have arrested a businessman who is assisting them with inquiries regarding ivory poaching and trafficking. The Herald newspaper reported that the man is George Seremwe, who owns a hunting concession as well as a lodge in the suburb of Avondale. Seremwe was arrested in connection with the alleged smuggling of six elephant tusks, which may have come from the Parks and Wildlife stockpile. Sources told media, and general rumor in Harare has it that Seremwe was approached by Chinese people to arrange the paperwork or facsimiles for the tusks to be moved out of the country. It's alleged that he received $50,000 for his services and that he demanded a further payment for a government minister to get the deal done. If this is the case, Seremwes co-operation with the Police inquiry could lead to more people answering awkward questions in the near future. The Police are unable to confirm the full details of the arrest as they are still investigating the case. It's not known whether there are any Chinese accused in custody, or whether the tusks have been seized as evidence. At this time, it would appear that the tusks have been smuggled into Asia. Zimbabwe is cracking down on poaching and the illegal trade of animal parts such as rhino horn, ivory, and lion paws. Recently they arrested a gang of rhino poachers who were operating in the southeast of the country. The gang was led by a state security man who's currently in court. In the same incident, one of the accused was sent away to prison for 35 years. Earlier this month, police officers posing as buyers trapped a man who possessed two elephant tusks worth $1380.00. Cyanide (which is becoming a common weapon by poacherswanting to kill elephants) is readily available in the backstreets of the cities and in mining areas in the country. As part of the joint National Parks and Police wildlife crime operations, police have seized over a ton of the poison. The Hwange elephants have been targeted by poachers, but there are reports that it's used in other rural areas. In November 2015, a tragic poisoning event took place in the Mana Pools World Heritage Site where nine of the red data listed African Wild Dogs died after a water hole was poisoned. The killing of Zimbabwes wildlife, whether by poisoning or shooting, or by the use of traps will continue to take its toll on wildlife until the syndicate leaders are jailed and taken out of the cycle. It'sencouraging to note that in Zimbabwe at present, their efforts to bring dealers, traders, and poachers to justice are targeting the right people, regardless of their social standing or connections. China defends exchange rate policy Updated: 2016-01-16 05:18 (Xinhua) BEIJING -- China on Friday defended its currency exchange rate policy after US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump called for higher tariffs on Chinese goods to offset RMB devaluation. "China opposes currency war, or competitive devaluation," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei said at a regular news briefing when asked to comment on Trump's remarks. China will keep the RMB exchange rate "basically stable at a reasonable and balanced level" as it seeks to continue financial reform and perfect the currency exchange rate formation mechanism, Hong said. Hong reaffirmed that China has always adhered to a managed floating exchange rate system, which is market-oriented and formulated in reference to a basket of currencies. The central parity rate of the RMB, or yuan, has weakened against the US dollar since August last year. To reduce the market's fixation on the yuan-dollar rate and better reflect the market, China Foreign Exchange Trade System (CFETS) began to release a yuan exchange rate composite index in December that measures the currency's strength relative to a basket of 13 currencies, including the US dollar, euro, and Japanese yen. On November 30, the index stood at 102.93, which means the yuan has appreciated 2.93 percent compared to the level at the end of 2014, the CFETS said. Fashion searches in vogue among Chinese netizens Updated: 2016-01-09 03:05 By XU JUNQIAN in Shanghai(China Daily USA) Chinese netizens made a total of 800 million searches for fashion-related items and topics on Baidu.com in 2015, a surge of 40 percent from the previous year, according to a report released by the country's largest search engine in December. About half of the searches were for jewelries and watches, or what has been classified as hard luxury. While fashion-related searches made by mobile devices enjoyed a 93 percent increase in 2015, those made using personal computers were hit by a 21 percent decline, according to the report, which was revealed at the Digital Fashion Ceremony 2015 in Shanghai. Last year marked the second time that Baidu had partnered with the China Fashion Association and Chinese Travel Channel to host the ceremony. Organizers hoped that the event, together with the report, could shed some light on digital marketing. The fashion and luxury industries have witnessed, and will continue to witness, one of the fastest growth rates of searches made by mobile devices. That is largely due to the fact that searches of this kind happen mostly on a whim, spurred by a celebrity street snap, or a fashion item carried by a passerby, said Hou Libin, vice director of Baidu Institute of Marketing. According to latest statistics from the China Internet Network Information Center, while people aged from 20 to 29 account for just 31.4 percent of the total netizen population in the country, Baidu noted that people from this age group had contributed to 72.61 percent of the total search volume for fashion. Hou characterized this group, known as Generation Y and which comprises people born after 1985, as materialistically rich and mentally independent or uninhibited. As a result, they are more interested in tailor-made or limited edition items. China Fortune Character, a Beijing-based luxury goods market research institute, said that China swooped up 46 percent of luxury goods sold around the globe in 2015, spending a total of $116.8 billion. The Chinese word dingzhi, which means personalized or couture, experienced a 126-percent increase from 2013 to 2015 in terms of searches. With regard to the most searched fashion item, white lace dresses enjoyed equal popularity both in the US and China, based on data from Google and Baidu over the past two years. Searches for the dress experienced a similar fluctuation during the 12 months in both countries, peaking in spring. Vintage wear, however, has apparently never been in fashion in China, judging from the number of searches on Baidu. This is a stark contrast to the US where netizens often use Google to search for such items. Baidu is ranked fifth globally in terms of online traffic by Alexa Internet, an Amazon-funded company specializing in analyzing business in the virtual world. Research firm iResearch estimated that Baidu enjoys 78 percent of the market share among the search engines available in China, 60 percent higher than Google. China to land probe on dark side of moon in 2018 Updated: 2016-01-15 07:26 (Xinhua) The photo of the Yutu moon rover taken by the camera on the Chang'e-3 moon lander during the mutual-photograph process after the successful landing of the moon probe on the moon on Dec 15, 2013. [Photo/Xinhua] BEIJING - China has officially begun a new round of lunar exploration and will send the Chang'e-4 probe to the far side of the moon in 2018, China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) announced Thursday. The far side of the moon is never visible to Earth because of gravitational forces and has never been explored by humans. Chang'e-4 will be the first mission in human history to embark on this expedition, said Liu Jizhong, chief of the lunar exploration center under SASTIND. China already boasts mature science and technology for sending a probe to the far side of the moon, and is open to cooperation with international society, said Liu. China achieved its first soft-landing on the moon with Chang'e-3 in December 2013, and it is still sending messages back to Earth. Liu said Chang'e-4 is very similar to Chang'e-3 in structure but can handle more payload. It will be used to study the geological conditions of the dark side of the moon. China sent a letter of intent of cooperation to foreign countries in early 2015. China also plans to launch its Chang'e-5 lunar probe to finish the last chapter in China's three-step (orbiting, landing and return) moon exploration program. The Chang'e-5 lunar probe is now being developed by Chinese scientists, Liu said. Record numbers leaving mainland during Spring Festival Updated: 2016-01-15 07:44 By SU ZHOU(China Daily) Chinese tourists take pictures of themselves standing in front of the Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia, in September. DAVID GRAY/REUTERS World tourism destinations are expected to see nearly 6 million visits by Chinese tourists, possibly the highest number on record, during the coming Spring Festival holiday that begins on Feb 7. Ctrip, a leading online travel service, released its tourism outlook for Spring Festival on Thursday. The report said more than 60 percent of Chinese tourists will spend Spring Festival overseas. The farthest destination is the Antarctic. Spring Festival is one of the peak seasons for the Chinese outbound tourism industry. Despite being a traditional season for family reunions, many have chosen to spend the holiday traveling. According to the China National Tourism Administration, Chinese tourists paid more than 120 million visits overseas in 2015, with 5.18 million of those paid to foreign countries and regions during Spring Festival, an increase of 10 percent year-on-year. The reasons behind the rise are loosened visa requirements for Chinese, better flight connections and preferential policies to facilitate overseas consumption. "Those overseas destinations that have simplified the visa application process for Chinese have seen more bookings, including the United States, Singapore, Thailand, Japan and Vietnam," said Yan Xin, a publicity officer at Ctrip. "In the seven days of the holiday, Chinese tourists will visit more than 100 countries and regions, with the farthest being the Antarctic." According to Ctrip, eight of the 10 most popular overseas destinations are in Asia, including Thailand, Japan and South Korea. Zhang Ying, 28 from Wuxi, Jiangsu province, said she would visit Thailand with her family during Spring Festival because of the holiday spirit there. "Some of the Asian countries share a similar Spring Festival culture with China, and that's what I don't want to miss during my holiday," said Zhang. "It is exciting to experience a different Spring Festival in another Asian country." Over 1,000 fugitives extradited to China in eight months Updated: 2016-01-15 11:34 By Cao Yin(chinadaily.com.cn) Anti-corruption watchdog said on Friday that it has made great progress in the eight-month-long "Skynet" campaign by successfully bringing back 1,023 fugitives to the country by the end of 2015. Of the fugitives extradited to China, 18 were on the most-wanted list, said Wu Yuliang, deputy secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China, the country's top discipline watchdog. "It's the first time that the number of the fugitives brought back to the country is more than the figure of new fugitives," Wu said at a press conference organized by the State Council Information Office. "The fear of corruption has set in, and efforts are underway to end corruption completely," he added. The countries that have extradited fugitives include the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Wu also said China investigated 330,000 cases of graft or frugality violation in 2015, and punished 336,000 officials, a record high annual number in the past 20 years. Among the punished, more than 14,000 people, including 42 senior-level officials, suspected of violating laws were handed over to judicial authorities, he said. "Both the numbers of people being punished last year, and the investigated number of centrally administered officials, are the highest since China's reform and opening-up (in the late 1970s)", Wu said. Oral-B makes its debut in China Updated: 2016-01-16 03:07 By xu junqian in Shanghai(China Daily USA) American oral hygiene brand Oral-B announced on Jan 8 in Shanghai that it had launched its first toothpaste in China. The new product, one of the most expensive toothpastes sold in Chinese mainland, retails at 159 yuan ($25). It is researched, developed and manufactured in the United States. While it will be sold globally later this year, executives from the oral care division of Oral B's parent company Procter & Gamble (P&G) said that the new product is specially tailored for Chinese consumers, who have been found to be neglecting their oral health. "Chinese consumers have been buying the most number of premium luxury, skincare and haircare products, but when it comes to oral care, there appears to be a huge gap when compared with consumers in Western countries," said Ouyang Qingqiu, president of P&G Great China's oral care division. "It seems that the only reason for a Chinese to visit a dentist is when they have a toothache, which is often too late," he added. Statistics from China's third nationwide oral health and plaque research showed that 77 percent of Chinese adults have suffered from bleeding gums, while only 14.2 percent of those polled have not encountered any problems. Ouyang estimated that an average Chinese person's annual budget for oral health is about three to four times lower than that of their American counterparts. Moreover, the oral care kit used in most households in China is much more rudimentary, comprising just a normal toothbrush and toothpaste. But this situation is set to change, as Ouyang and his team described the oral care industry as "a sunrise industry not only in China, but also around the world". He noted that electric toothbrushes have enjoyed the fastest growth rate among all segments of P&G China in 2015, although its penetration rate is still quite low. Ouyang estimated that only two out of every 100 households in China have owned or used electric toothbrushes. In first-tiered cities like Beijing and Shanghai, the proportion is around 18 percent, while in Europe, it's above 36 percent. With regard to the new toothpaste, the company differentiates it from its key brand, Crest, as a more premium product that is targeted at office workers, professionals and society's elites who are indifferent to the price and want an "equally premium toothpaste to complement their several-hundred-yuan electric toothbrush". The launch of this toothpaste is being dubbed as a breakthrough in the oral care industry as the products, offered as a pack with two separate pastes, urges users to take one more step of gum care after brushing by applying a second layer of paste to prevent enamel erosion. According to research firm Euromonitor, P&G took the lead in China's fragmented oral care industry with a value share of 17 percent in 2014. The industry is expected to register a steady compound annual growth rate of 6 percent from 2015 to 2019, driven mainly by upgrades to more premium toothpaste and more frequent toothbrush replacements. Chinese-made satellite launched for Belarus Updated: 2016-01-16 03:16 By Zhao Lei(chinadaily.com.cn) A Chinese communications satellite was launched for Belarus on Saturday morning, marking the first Chinese satellite made for a European country. The BELINTERSAT-1, the first communications satellite to be operated by Belarus, will contribute to improving radio, television and telecommunications, as well as Internet service, in the Eastern European nation and its neighboring regions, said China Great Wall Industry Corp, major contractor of the project. The satellite was lifted atop a Long March 3B rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province. It was developed by the China Academy of Space Technology based on the DFH-4 satellite platform. Carrying 38 transponders, the satellite has a designed life span of 15 years, according to the company. China first sold its communications satellite to an overseas buyer in 2007 when the NigcomSat-1 was launched and then handed over to Nigeria. Since then, the country has exported communications satellites to a host of developing nations, such as Venezuela, Pakistan and Bolivia. Saturday's launch was China's first space mission of 2016, a year that will witness more than 20 Chinese space activities, including the Shenzhou XI manned spacecraft mission and the missions of the Long March 5 and Long March 7 rockets. China has launched 43 rockets to put 49 satellites into orbit for 20 foreign clients since 1990, when it made its first commercial launch, of a communications satellite atop a Long March 3 rocket. zhaolei@chinadaily.com.cn A year on from going through a sweeping corporate overhaul, the sprawling business empire of HK tycoon Li Ka-shing is poised to break new ground in growth, the occasional hiccup notwithstanding. Oswald Chan reports. Li Ka-shing, Hong Kong's richest man and redoubtable business demigod, had kicked off 2015 by announcing in January the biggest overhaul of his $100 billion empire, by creating two new Hong Kong-listed companies to streamline corporate structure and enhance shareholder value. And so a new holding company, CK Hutchison Holdings (CKH Holdings), was created the following March to merge the businesses of Cheung Kong (Holdings) - the real estate arm controlled by Li - and Hutchison Whampoa, the subsidiary conglomerate controlled by Cheung Kong (Holdings) , which was delisted in May last year after 37 years of trading on the Hong Kong stock market. CKH Holdings, registered in the Cayman Islands and listed in Hong Kong, is a conglomerate with a market capitalization of HK$403 billion, according to Bloomberg estimates. Its business is spread over 50 countries and includes all non-property assets of the two merged companies, focusing on the telecoms, infrastructure, energy, retail and port-related services sectors. Property giant The real estate businesses of the two companies were spun off to create another new entity, Cheung Kong Property Holdings (CK Property), which listed in June last year. CK Property is one of the top developers in Hong Kong with a land bank of 170 million square feet (15.8 million square meters) and the largest hotel owner-operator listed in the SAR. It also owns the city's second-largest rental property portfolio. The Financial Times in January last year said the revamp was expected to add enough value to the shares in the two new groups to restore Li to his position as Asia's richest man, a distinction he lost in 2014. "Cheung Kong and Hutchison Whampoa have grown substantially in size and scale over the past decade. The reorganization will place the companies in an even stronger position for future growth and development," Li said in the press release on Jan 9, 2015, explaining the corporate revamp plan as chairman of Cheung Kong and Hutchison Whampoa. A 70-page filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange said the move aimed to create shareholder value in allowing all group assets to be fully reflected and remove the "layered holding structure" between Cheung Kong and Hutchison Whampoa. However, market whispers are that Li wishes to protect his empire from any economic volatility in Hong Kong and mainland. And local tycoons appear to be taking his lead, selling mainland business assets and implementing an organizational overhaul of their holdings as a precaution. Cheng Yu-tung, the New World Group patriarch, sold mainland properties worth 20.4 billion yuan ($3.2 billion) through his property arm New World China Land (NWCL) to Guanzhou-based developer Evergrande Real Estate Group in December. That came after Cheng had already offloaded NWCL assets in second- and third-tier mainland cities to Evergrande for 13.5 billion yuan in all. Cheng is banking on mainland companies' property-buying spree on either side of the border to offload his real estate portfolios to get cash back and unlock investment value faster. Cheng has also transferred his personal stakes in six Hong Kong-listed companies valued at about HK$3.8 billion to a family-held holding company, almost four years after declaring his retirement from the group in 2012. "Injecting Cheng's personal investments into the family holding company may pave the way for personal estate management," said Terence Chong Tai-leung, executive director of the Chinese University of Hong Kong's Institute of Global Economics and Finance. As for the reorganization of Li's empire early last year, investment bank analysts generally hailed the corporate revamp, saying it would benefit both new business entities and investors. After the revamp, CKH Holdings will benefit from enhanced liquidity and CK Property will have a clean capital structure and a separate fundraising platform as a pure property play. Vincent Lam Siu-yeung, managing director and chief investment officer at VL Asset Management, noted: "The share price discount of a holding company (Cheung Kong) is generally 15 to 25 percent or more. Changing that structure should remove the discount." Goldman Sachs noted that the overhaul can bestow greater business transparency, better capital allocation, aligning of management responsibilities and a clearer demarcation of the group's property and non-property divisions. Retail and institutional investors will also benefit from the reorganization, investment banks reckoned, as they all gave the company a "buy" rating at the year-end. "There are three benefits to shareholders, including removing the holding company discount, optimizing capital structures and raising dividends - always popular with investors," said Paul Louie, head of property sector equity research Asia ex Japan at Barclays. Win-win all around Goldman Sachs agrees, saying the corporate restructuring will improve the two new business companies' cash flow and the ability to increase dividends for investors. The conglomerate's share price can reach to HK$126, given there is a 31 percent discount between the company share price and its net asset value. "The conglomerate is a value creator as it grips every market opportunity to spin off its assets or enter into merger and acquisition deals to create business value. We assign it a "buy" rating with a target share price of HK$123.5," brokerage DBS Vickers said in its research report in December, adding the group may spin off retail assets to raise shareholder value. In August, CKH Holdings announced its first interim result. The new conglomerate posted a recurring net profit after tax of HK$14.9 billion for the six months ended June 2015, 46 percent more than the Hutchison Whampoa result during the same period in 2014. On Dec 31, CKH Holdings closed at HK$104.6 per share, a surge of 39.4 percent for the whole year of 2015. It closed on Thursday at HK$100.4. However, Li's corporate revamp plan has not been unchallenged. Efforts to merge Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings (CKI) with Power Assets Holdings (PAH) collapsed last November after Institutional Shareholder Services, an influential proxy advisory firm, recommended that investors reject the $12.3 billion buyout offer, saying CKI should give a better share offer deal to PAH shareholders. The proposed merger would give CKI access to $8.7 billion in cash and equivalents held by PAH to push for more aggressive overseas infrastructure asset acquisitions and consolidate the 11 projects where both CKI and PAH have interests. It will also maximize the value of co-owned assets and support a potential re-rating of CKI. Contact the writer at oswald@chinadailyhk.com (China Daily USA 01/15/2016 page6) Chinese Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai (center back row) and more than 20 students from the embassy's Sunshine School gathered on Thursday afternoon outside the Chinese embassy building to show support for eight-year-old canccer-stricken American boy Dorian Murray of Westerly, Rhode Island. Dorian has told his parents that his wish is to be famous in China and to see the Great Wall, which he called "kind of a bridge. People walk on it." The message, which was posted by his parents on Facebook, has drawn responses from countless Chinese netizens standing on the Great Wall in Beijing and holding signs saying "#D-Strong." Cui and the Sunshine School students also sent their best wishes to Dorian. The Chinese embassy building in Washington, designed by noted Chinese American architect I.M. Pei, resembles the beacon structure on the Great Wall. Chen Weihua/China Daily New US rule on pricey properties is downplayed Updated: 2016-01-15 12:52 By Amy He in New York(China Daily USA) The US Treasury Department's move to identify and track buyers of high-priced real estate in New York City and Miami-Dade County in Florida over money-laundering concerns is not expected to have a major impact on those markets, according to real estate professionals. "What the government is requesting in terms of the title companies providing information on beneficial owners, we've been doing that already," said Edward Mermelstein, international real estate attorney with Rheem Bell & Mermelstein LLP. "This is not something that is new in our market, especially in Manhattan." In a press release on Wednesday, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the US Treasury Department said that its Geographic Targeting Orders (GTO) "will temporarily require certain US title insurance companies to identify the natural persons behind companies used to pay 'all cash' for high-end residential real estate in the Borough of Manhattan in New York City, New York, and Miami-Dade County, Florida". "FinCEN is concerned that all-cash purchases - i.e., those without bank financing - may be conducted by individuals attempting to hide their assets and identity by purchasing residential properties through limited liability," the release said. The GTOs will be in effect for 180 days, from March 1 to Aug 27. Mermelstein said the initiative is not a timely response to anything specific, just "background noise" from the media and possibly a reaction to pressure from other countries' governments looking to slow the pace of real estate investment into the US. "It's not something that is timely in the same way that banking regulations with respect to mortgages came in after the market collapsed," he said. "If you're looking to do something, do it in real time when it's happening, rather than after the fact. "Based on all the due diligence that we've been doing - and the brokers in the business have been doing, as well as banks where the money has to be deposited into - all of this has been addressed for many years," he continued. "We're not all of a sudden changing the way we do business in our market because of what the government is proposing - it's just another form that's being filled out, and it doesn't really affect us in any way whatsoever." Buyers purchasing properties for more than $1 million in Miami and more than $3 million in New York will need to be identified, according to a spokesperson at FinCEN. Liz Gagliardi, senior vice-president of Jones Lang LaSalle's capital markets division, said that disclosures are already happening with the real estate firm's clients. "The vast majority of Chinese buyers - and in particular our clients - are legitimate buyers," she said. "We anticipate these buyers will understand that this is part of the acquisition process for purchasing properties in the US, and we'll comply as needed." "As we are marketing properties into Asia Pacific and into China, we're encouraging them to consult with both legal and tax advisers in their home countries and in the US as part of the acquisition process so they can determine what holding real estate assets mean, and doing that typically leads to those types of disclosures that are being required as part of those initiatives," she said. Gagliardi also said that the majority of the firm's clients purchase properties at prices between $750,000 and $2 million, so she does not expect the announcement to have any impact in the New York market. Government officials were motivated by a New York Times investigation that looked at shell companies being used by foreign buyers to hide their money in the US, according to the paper. "We are seeking to understand the risk that corrupt foreign officials, or transnational criminals, may be using premium US real estate to secretly invest millions in dirty money," said Jennifer Shasky Calvery, FinCEN director, in the release. "Over the years, our rules have evolved to make the standard mortgage market more transparent and less hospitable to fraud and money laundering," she said. "But cash purchases present a more complex gap that we seek to address.." Chinese buyers make up the largest group of foreign buyers of US real estate, according to the National Association of Realtors, and buy every one in 14 homes worth over $1 million. In the year ending March 2015, Chinese buyers spent $28.6 billion on US homes. In total, Chinese have spent about $6 billion on real estate in the US last year, $4.5 billion of which was in New York. Miami is a market of interest for Chinese buyers looking beyoned US gateway cities, although only 2 percent of international buyers in Miami are from China, according to the Miami Association of Realtors. amyhe@chinadailyusa.com Chinese want lottery tickets, too Updated: 2016-01-15 12:52 By Hezi Jiang in New York(China Daily USA) The $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot went to ticket holders in California, Florida and Tennessee. The result was a letdown for the rest of the buyers in the United States and those more than 7,000 miles away in China. With the jackpot getting bigger every day, Chinese wanted in on the chance to win, so lotto daigou emerged. Daigou is the Chinese name - translated roughly into "buying on behalf" in English - for overseas shoppers who purchase items for customers back home. A search for "Powerball" on China's eBay, Taobao and Weidian, produced sellers who had a daigou in the US to purchase Powerball tickets for people in China. It is illegal in China to sell or buy a ticket online for its lotteries; they must be bought in a store. But there is no regulation about a daigou lottery service. Huang Weiyu in Beijing normally sells props online for real-life room escape games, but for the past two days, he had been busy selling Powerball lottery tickets in his virtual store. He quadrupled the US ticket price, charging 50 yuan ($8) for a randomly generated ticket and 63 yuan ($10) for a ticket of self-picked numbers. Both cost $2 in the US. Huang handled customers in Beijing, while a friend in Chicago acted as the daigou, buying the tickets. "I've sold to more than 200 people. Each of them bought up to five tickets," Huang said on Wednesday evening. China has several lotteries, and the largest-ever jackpot won in China was $86 million. Wednesday's Powerball prize was 19 times that amount. "A tour guide from California said his Chinese tourists suggested they skipped outlet shopping to get lottery tickets," said Tiara Jing, a senior manager at Dealmoon, the largest US-based deal site targeting Chinese consumers, of a Weibo post. Amy Wu, 28, who lives in California, said she sold more than 100 tickets to some 20 Chinese people via WeChat, China's equivalent of Facebook. As a shopping agent, Wu seeks out quality foreign products such as bags or shoes for Chinese consumers. But in the past three days, nothing was more popular than lottery tickets. "I will definitely take it as a serious business if more Chinese are interested in buying into overseas lotteries," she said. Huang said his shop would also get 3 percent of any winning prize. Four of the hundreds of tickets he sold won a $4 prize each on Wednesday night, so he collected 48 cents. Ma Si contributed to this story. hezijiang@chinadailyusa.com China Telecom has big US plan Updated: 2016-01-15 12:52 By Hezi Jiang in New York(China Daily USA) The booth of China Telecom Global at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. HEZI JIANG/China Daily An emerging player in the US mobile space is quietly expanding its user base by tailoring its services to the Chinese population. China Telecom Global launched CTExcel - its US mobile service - in May, making the telecommunications giant the first Chinese mobile virtual-network operator in the US. The move pits the state-owned enterprise against American giants Verizon Communications Inc and AT&T Inc. "After several months of work, we have established the foundation," said Feng Sun, director of mobile business for China Telecom Americas, based in Herndon, Virginia. "The growth rate is speeding up, and we are expecting a boom this year." Marketed as "Customized for Chinese", CTExcel offers four packages to US-based customers. For $45 a month, a user not only can make unlimited domestic calls but also unlimited calls and texts to China. The package also includes three gigabits of 4G LTE data. The economical rate is achieved by the technology of dual number, explained Sun. When buying a CTExcel SIM card in the US, a user also will be assigned a Chinese virtual number for calls forwarding between China and US. "It also enables your family and friends in China to call you without worrying about the international fee because they are calling a Chinese number," Sun told China Daily. "This is our distinctive advantage compared to the American service providers. We have access to the Chinese numbers. They do not." Soon the service will also work the other way around. When a US-based user goes to China, he or she will be able to get a Chinese SIM card that has the original US number assigned to it. "When someone calls your American phone, you can pick up with your Chinese SIM card in China," he said. "The callers won't be able to know that you are actually in China." There are four target groups for China Telecom's mobile services: the more than 4 million Chinese Americans; the 2 million Chinese tourists visiting the United States annually; the 300,000 Chinese students at US colleges; and the more than 1,500 Chinese enterprises in America. Sun said that China Telecom Americas has paired with student organizations at more than 100 US colleges. Starting with freshmen, the company hopes to gradually convert all Chinese students to China Telecom. For 2016, he said the primary goal is to expand in the Chinese-American community and appeal to Chinese tourists. "We have customer service in both Chinese and English," he said. "This greatly helps travelers and immigrants who don't speak English." CTExcel services can now be purchased at a dozen of telecommunications retail stores in the San Francisco Bay Area, and by the end of January, they will expand to more than 20 vendors, Sun said. China Telecom Global had a booth at this year's CES 2016 in Las Vegas, where about 1,000 Chinese exhibitors flew in from China for the consumer electronics event. For $28, a Chinese traveler can make unlimited calls in the US and to China for 14 days, along with unlimited international texts and 1 gigabit of 4G LTE data. "We told [the Chinese attendees] about our packages, and they were excited," Sun said. "They blamed us for not telling them earlier, because some of them have already bought expensive packages from American providers. Next year, we will do a better job. They will all be able to get the service before getting here." hezijiang@chinadailyusa.com Yichang, Hubei province cited for sustainable transit Updated: 2016-01-15 12:52 By Hua Shengdun in Washington(China Daily USA) Yichang in Hubei province is the winner of the 12th annual Sustainable Transport Award. The award recognizes leadership, vision and achievement in sustainable transportation and urban livability. The ceremony was held at the Walter Convention Center on Tuesday in Washington. Moscow and Rosario, Argentina were the other two finalists. It was the second time that a Chinese city has won the award since its inception in 2005. Guangzhou, Guangdong province, was the 2011 winner for its Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, which opened in February 2010. Guangzhou, the third-largest city in China, was described that year as "the system that breaks the mold of low to medium capacity BRT that was becoming entrenched in Asia, and is the first 'metro replacement' level BRT system outside South America". Drastic improvement" has been made over the past year in Yichang because of the BRT system, according to Clayton Lane, chief executive officer of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), which oversees the award. The long and narrow terrain of Yichang, a prefecture level city, and its unevenly distributed population make designing an efficient public transportation system a difficult task for city planners, according to Mao Chuanqiang, vice-mayor of Yichang. The city opened two BRT corridors in 2015, from the city center southward for 13 kilometers with 22 stations, and northward for 10 kilometers with 15 stations to address Yichang's geographic features. "Although the construction is complicated and in a large scale, with the help of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), we completed the three-year project in one year," Mao said. "Furthermore, we not only built up the BRT system according to the original plan but improved our subway system to make the whole traffic system more interconnective." The reason why Yichang was chosen over the other cities was for the tremendous positive impact in people's daily lives, said Jose-Luis Irigoyen, transport director at the World Bank. The distance on bus routes in the city was reduced by 7, 400 kilometers. Twenty percent of BRT users switched from private cars and taxis to public transportation to commute to work and travel. In its first full month of operation, the Yichang BRT averaged 240,000 daily passenger trips on 362 BRT buses, 200 of which are new BRT buses with doors on both sides. Mao said that designing an efficient public transportation system has been a focal point for the local government for a long time. At the time ITDP happened to be looking for a medium size city to experiment whether BRT could work out under their model. Technical support and an $ 200 million infrastructure loan from ADB make the task so much easier for Yichang to be a convenient and vibrant city, according to Mao. "In terms of public spaces, pedestrian safety, bicycle network, parking reform, Yichang has gone well beyond the BRT system itself. And it is really developing a model for they further." Lane said. Children at Chinese embassy send best wishes to US boy with cancer Updated: 2016-01-15 08:36 By CHEN WEIHUA in Washington(chinadaily.com.cn) Chinese Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai joins some 20 students of the Chinese embassy's Sunshine School outside the embassy to send their best wishes to Dorian Thursday. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] The wish of 8-year-old cancer-stricken American boy Dorian Murray to be famous in China and see the Great Wall has triggered strong response inside China where countless netizens posting pictures of themselves standing on the Great Wall in Beijing and holding signs reading "#D-Strong". The news has also drawn the attention of a group of Chinese children only 370 miles away from Dorian's home in Westerly, Rhode Island. Outside the Chinese embassy in Washington on Thursday afternoon, 9-year-old Lv Yige said she wants to tell Dorian to hold on and get well soon so they can climb the Great Wall together. "The structure which resembles the Great Wall is splendid. It will bring him good luck," Lv said, pointing to the embassy building. Designed by noted Chinese American architect I. M. Pei, the huge embassy structure looks just like the beacons on the Great Wall. Lv is one of some 20 students of the embassy's Sunshine School who gathered outside the embassy to send their best wishes to Dorian. They are all children of diplomats and staff working at the embassy. "Dorian, we all love you, we love you, stay strong," the students, holding a painting of dragon-shaped Great Wall with the hashtag "D-Strong," shouted their greeting. Chinese Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai joined the students in extending the best wishes. "It is quite moving to see Dorian being optimistic and strong. I sincerely hope he defeats the disease and realizes his wish of seeing the Great Wall," said Cui, who also asked his staff to send a greeting card and a photo album of Great Wall to Dorian. Dorian had told his parents that his wish "before going to heaven" was to be famous in China and to see the Great Wall, which he called "kind of a bridge. People walk on it." The message, which was posted by his parents on Facebook, has spread fast in China. Rui Yiwei, also from the Sunshine School, said she hopes Dorian will stay strong and live happily. "Miracle will happen," said the 11-year-old. Wilson Wang, who is 8-year-old same as Dorian, said he got the news from his mom's iPhone and he wanted to tell Dorian that the Great Wall is really cool. "I'm Wilson, so stay strong and get well, we two can climb the Great Wall together," he said. Qi Mutong, 10, said she wants to tell Dorian not to give up and get well soon. "Though he might not be able to get to the Great Wall, we all could help him to see the Great Wall, and other attractions in China," Qi said. She hopes more people will show their love to Dorian such as by sending him pictures so he can travel around the world. "I want to tell him that the Great Wall is significant and it takes stamina to climb it. You have to persevere to climb the Great Wall and never give up, otherwise you won't see the most beautiful scene from the top," Qi said. Please turn JavaScript on and reload the page. Loading... Checking your browser before accessing the website. This process is automatic. Your browser will redirect to your requested content shortly. Please wait a few seconds. Amazon I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. The sixth Republican prime-time debate, at the North Charleston Coliseum in the important primary state of South Carolina, took place at a tense time for the Republican field, with the clock ticking toward the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses, the first contest in choosing the party's nominee for the Nov. 8 general election. Tighter eligibility rules for Thursday's main debate, hosted by the Fox Business Network, resulted in a smaller cast of candidates, the top seven candidates ranked by Republican voters: New York real estate businessman Donald Trump, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Republicans have one more debate scheduled before voting begins in Iowa, a Jan. 28 event in Des Moines. Nearly every candidate had a bone to pick with one or more of the others this week. Beyond the Trump-Cruz theatrics Trump and Cruz are locked in battle for first place in Iowa Bush has blasted Trump and Rubio, Rubio has slammed Bush as well as Cruz and Christie, and Christie has attacked almost everyone else. On Thursday night, Trump and Cruz clashed over the Texas senator's eligibility to serve as commander in chief and the businessman's New York values, ending months of civility between fiery contenders seeking to tap into voter anger and frustration. Two hours of prime-time argument presented voters with a sharp contrast to the optimistic vision of America that President Barack Obama painted in his State of the Union address earlier this week. The candidates warned of dire risks to national security and challenged claims of recent economic gains for the middle class. Heated exchanges between Trump and Cruz dominated much of the contest, with the real estate mogul saying the senator has a big question mark hanging over his candidacy, given his birth in Canada to an American mother. You can't do that to the party, Trump declared. Cruz suggested Trump was turning on him only because he's challenging Trump's lead, particularly in Iowa. The senator was on the defensive about his failure to disclose on federal election forms some $1 million in loans from Wall Street banks during his 2012 Senate campaign, saying it was little more than a paperwork error. Cruz renewed his criticism of Trump's New York values, a coded questioning of his rival's conservatism. But the biting barb appeared to backfire, eliciting an unexpectedly emotional response from Trump about his hometown's response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. No place on earth could have handled that more beautifully, more humanely than New York, Trump said. That was a very insulting statement that Ted made. At times the contest between some of the more mainstream candidates seeking to emerge as an alternative to Trump and Cruz was just as fiery, particularly between Rubio and Christie. Rubio likened Christie's policies to Obama's, particularly on guns, Planned Parenthood and education reform an attack Christie declared false. Seeking to undermine Rubio's qualifications for president, Christie suggested that senators talk and talk and talk while governors like him are held accountable for everything you do. Rubio entered the debate as the top target for most of the other establishment-minded candidates. He largely escaped the criticism of his Senate voting record and immigration policies that have dogged him on the campaign trail and in television advertisements blanketing airwaves in early voting states until near the end, when Cruz confronted him on immigration. Rubio fired back by accusing Cruz of switching positions on issues, preferring for the most part to stick to his trademark rapid-fire, policy-focused answers. Rubio and Christie are hoping to break out of the establishment pack, particularly in the New Hampshire primary, which take place the week after Iowa caucuses. Thursday night's debate came at the end of a week that has highlighted anew the deep rifts in the Republican Party. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a rising GOP star, was widely praised by many party leaders for including a veiled criticism of Trump's angry rhetoric during her response to Obama's State of the Union address only to be chastised by conservative commentators and others for the exact same comment. Trump said he wasn't offended by Haley's speech and argued his anger is justified. I'm very angry because our country is being run horribly, he said. And I will gladly accept the mantle of anger. He stuck with his controversial call for temporarily barring Muslims from entering the United States because of fear of terrorism. He said he had no regrets about the proposal and noted his poll numbers rose after he announced the plan. Bush, who has emerged as a frequent critic of Trump, urged the front-runner to reconsider the policy. What kind of signal does that send to the rest of the world? said Bush, who has struggled to gain momentum in the race and often appeared overshadowed Thursday night. Kasich also broke with Trump on the Muslim ban but, like the entire GOP field, called for at least a temporary halt to the Obama administration's plan to allow thousands of Syrian refugees into the country. I've been for pausing the Syrian refugees, Kasich said. But we don't want to put everybody in the same category. On the economy and national security, the candidates offered a sharp contrast to the optimistic portrait of the nation Obama outlined in his State of the Union address and warned that sticking with Democrats in the November election could have dire consequences. On Tuesday night, I watched story time with Barack Obama, and it sounds like everything in the world was going amazing, Christie said. Cruz accused Obama of painting a rosy picture of the country's economic situation while working Americans are being left behind and said Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton would continue Obama's policies. Bush suggested the country was less safe under Obama and declared Clinton would be a national security disaster. Rubio went even further, saying Clinton was disqualified for being commander in chief, accusing her of mishandling classified information and lying to the families of Americans killed in the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya. In an earlier debate of low-polling candidates, Republicans Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum largely focused their criticism on Democrats rather than one another. They were all in agreement that Obamas strategy toward Iran, the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and his executive actions last week to strengthen gun control were flawed and should be changed. Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO who was demoted from the main stage because of faltering poll numbers, said she is honored to be onstage with Huckabee and Santorum, two former Iowa caucus winners. The clear implication: Neither man's presidential ambitions have survived the nomination process, leaving them in the lower tier of candidates this year. Then she took a shot at the only other woman in the race, Clinton, a former secretary of state and the wife of former President Bill Clinton. Fiorina sniped, Unlike another woman in this race, I actually love spending time with my husband. Sen. Paul Rand of Kentucky opted out of the undercard debate and said instead he would host a town hall session on Twitter during the main debate. Wire services THE OTTOMAN ENDGAME: WAR, REVOLUTION AND THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MIDDLE EAST 1908-1923 Author: Sean McMeekin Publisher: Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books Pages: 550 Price: Rs 1,799 The Ottoman Empire lasted for six centuries. At its height in the 17th century, it included Southeast Europe, most of West Asia and North Africa and the Caucasus region. It played a major role in the politics of Europe, with its capital at Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) the centre of diplomacy and war. Its sultan, as the caliph, was for 600 years the spiritual leader of the world's Muslim community. The empire went into decline in its last century as a result of poor leadership and intellectual and institutional stagnation, which reduced its military capabilities and eroded its capacity to hold its diverse population within the imperial realm. In this period of decline, the separatist aspirations of its various religious and ethnic minorities were actively encouraged by western powers. This book is the narrative of that last painful period when this empire was in its death throes and, finally, was eased out of history. The story is one of complex intrigues, byzantine politics, vile chicanery, extraordinary cruelty and occasional flashes of heroism and even greatness, as an old empire died and a new nation took its place. As early as 1853, Czar Nicholas I had described the Ottoman Empire as a "Sick Man" as he proposed its partition among the major European powers. In the second half of the 19th century, most of the Balkans broke free, costing the Ottomans 40 per cent of their territory. At this time, Germany emerged as their principal European partner and so, as Europe went into the Great War, the Ottomans, facing an immediate threat from Russia and its Balkan allies, had no choice but to ally themselves with Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Though the main action in the war was on the Western Front, the empire was the locale of several major battles that ultimately not just decided the fate of the Ottomans and shaped a new Turkey, but also gave birth to new nations all across West Asia. The latter resulted not so much from the bloody battles that were fought in different West Asian theatres - Mesopotamia, the Arabian Peninsula, the Suez Canal and Palestine - but from the behind-the-scenes diplomatic shenanigans involving Britain, France and Russia, who together decided on the distribution of the Ottoman territories amongst themselves. McMeekin rightly stresses that the final territorial distribution did not follow this plan: in the final settlement, many more powers were involved; the Russians did not assert their claims since they opted out of the conflict and the later territorial settlement after their revolution; the final shape of Turkey was quite different from what had been envisaged in the agreement, and the borders finally drawn in West Asia were also different from what the Anglo-French diplomats had planned. All true, but the fact remains that the principle of territorial distribution between Britain and France, broadly agreed to by Sykes and Picot, (with the exception of the "Jewish homeland", pursued a little later by the British), were actually implemented on the ground. Before this, of course, the empire's demise was marked by defeat, extreme cruelty and widespread tragedy. In the period 1911-23, the Ottomans lost about half a million soldiers, while their population went from 21 million to 17 million. Over half a million Armenians paid the price for their support of Russia in the war. A few million Greeks and Turks were forcibly "exchanged" after the war as part of a "collective population transfer", so that their new nations were denuded of other communities that for centuries had lived side by side. Turkey, in fact, was at its best after the Great War, when its defeated and demoralised forces were re-organised by Mustafa Kemal and, in a series of hard-fought battles across Asia Minor, were able to re-claim their homeland from the Greeks backed by Western powers, re-establish themselves along the Black Sea, and above all retain their hold over the Bosphorus and their traditional capital, Constantinople, across the straits in Europe. This book is primarily a military history, covering in considerable detail the various battles involving the Ottoman forces in different theatres, which are embellished with excellent maps. But, contrary to its title, there is very little about the "making of the modern Middle East" in the book. The last chapter, titled "Lausanne and the Ottoman Legacy", devotes only five pages to West Asia and just does not do justice to the emergence of the Arab states (initially under Anglo-French tutelage), whose present-day confrontations and conflicts suggest a possible unravelling of the regional state system. The few comments McMeekin does make about contemporary West Asia are superficial, even inane: he suggests that Iraq's multi-ethnic and multi-faith order had been sustained only by the harsh authoritarian system, but fails to mention that the present-day sectarian divide is largely the result of deliberate divide-and-rule policies of the US occupation from 2003. His remarks relating to Palestine are particularly shallow: he says that the last Western troops left this territory well before the first major war started, but does not note the US's consistent backing of Israel's violence and its maximalist agenda at the expense of the rights of the Palestinian people. In West Asia, with continued Western interventions and depredations, the legacy of Sykes-Picot is still a palpable reality a hundred years later. The author is a former diplomat Greece "fully accepted" today that the hardline IMF take a role in its massive third bailout, backing away from one of the last battle lines splitting Athens and its eurozone creditors. Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem announced the decision at talks with the 19 eurozone ministers in Brussels and hailed the Greek government for all its "hard work" since agreeing to a strict 86-billion-euro ($92 billion) bailout programme in July. "(Finance Minister Euclid) Tsakalotos confirmed to me that the Greek government accepts that the IMF needs to be part of the process," said Dijsselbloem, who is also Dutch finance minister. "It was absolutely clear to him, it was part of the agreement this summer," Dijsselbloem said. Tsakalotos confirmed the decision in an interview with Germany's Handesblatt newspaper, which followed a stern warning by Pierre Moscovici, the EU's top economics affairs official, that Greece must not "play games" over the IMF. "The IMF's participation is planned. We are sticking to this commitment," Tsakalotos told the daily. Greece's leftist Syriza government is taking a far softer stance with its partners as it works through a three-year rescue programme agreed after six months of bitter talks that nearly saw Athens evicted from the euro. But Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had previously argued that the IMF was no longer needed, in defiance of the eurozone's most powerful member Germany and other hardliners such as Finland and the Netherlands. In July, the Greek government signed its strictest-ever rescue programme after the country looked to be on the brink of crashing out of the eurozone. The Washington-based IMF teamed up with the EU on Greece's first two bailouts in 2010 and 2012, but held back from the latest one citing insufficient reform pledges on pensions from Athens and Europe's reluctance on restructuring the country's huge debt pile. The IMF said it was ready to support Greece but did not give any timescale for a return to Athens. "We remain engaged in policy discussions with the Greek authorities on a continuous basis since the summer," IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said in Washington. "Looking forward we stand ready to support Greece not only with advice, not only with technical assistance but also with financing once (...) a comprehensive set of policies and credible debt relief are in place. We need the both legs." Tsipras said in December that funding from the institution, known for its hard line, was not necessary and that IMF expertise was also no longer needed. Spanish prosecutors asked today that former IMF chief Rodrigo Rato be jailed for more than four years for allegedly misusing credit cards for personal use while head of a bank that was later bailed out. Rato is one of 66 accused in a scandal that allegedly saw executives and board members at Caja Madrid and Bankia -- the group whose near-collapse sparked an EU bailout of Spain's financial sector -- spend around 12 million euros ($13 million) on themselves between 2003 and 2012. They are accused of criminal conversion, or the wrongful possession or disposition of another's property as if it were one's own. Today, prosecutors at the Audiencia Nacional, Spain's top criminal court, asked for a six-year jail sentence for Miguel Blesa who headed up regional savings bank Caja Madrid until 2010 and is accused of starting the practice of giving out credit cards for personal use. In Spain, prosecutors announce the jail terms they want for suspects after the probe ends and before the trial starts. They are also seeking four-and-a-half years for Rato who succeeded him and allegedly continued the practice, even when he became board chairman of Bankia, which was formed in 2010 through the merger of seven regional savings banks including Caja Madrid. Rato, once a member of Spain's incumbent conservative Popular Party and a former finance minister, was also head of the Monetary Fund from 2004 to 2007, which played a leading role in tackling the eurozone's financial crisis. Prosecutors said today they were also seeking 9.3 million euros in compensation from Blesa and 2.7 million euros from Rato -- amounts allegedly spent on credit cards when they were in charge. Media reports last year said that the executives and board members spent the money on items such as safaris, meals at luxury restaurants, art, clothing as well as massive cash withdrawals. When questioned in court in 2014, however, Rato denied any wrongdoing and said the credit cards were for discretionary spending as part of the pay deal for executives in Caja Madrid. A court in Burundi jailed four ex-generals to life in prison today for a failed coup, with nine others jailed for 30 years for their role in the unrest. The small central African country descended into bloodshed in April when President Pierre Nkurunziza announced his intention to run for a controversial third term, sparking the failed coup in May. Coup leader, ex-general Godefroid Nyombare, is on the run, but those sentenced at the Supreme Court today included four key deputies. Among them are three ex-army generals -- former defence minister Cyrille Ndayirukiye, Zenon Ndabaneze and Juvenal Niyungeko -- and one police general, Hermenegilde Nimenya. The court, which described them as the "coup organisers", were found guilty of the three counts of launching an attempted coup, killing soldiers, policemen and civilians, and the malicious destruction of buildings. Nine officers, from both the army and police, were sentenced to 30 years in prison for "having cooperated" with the coup leaders. All were also banned them from holding public office for 10 years. Eight soldiers, including drivers and bodyguards of the jailed generals, were sentenced to five years for their roles. However, seven others were acquitted, including general Prime Ngowenubusa. Prosecutors had demanded life sentences for all 28 on trial. During the trial, leaders cited the violent repression of anti-government protests to justify their attempted takeover of power. They also said they had not been given proper access to lawyers. All were present at the reading of the verdict in the court, held under high security in Gitega, some 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of the capital Bujumbura. Ndabaneze said he took part in the coup to "defend the constitution and the peace agreement" of Arusha, which paved the way to end more than a decade of civil war in 2006. Months of street protests in Burundi have devolved into regular armed attacks with gunfire disrupting the nights and dead bodies appearing on city streets almost every day. Attacks targeting the security forces have escalated, with rebels armed with assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars attacking police convoys and targeting government installations. Today, UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein voiced alarm at the spiralling violence in Burundi over "extremely disturbing" allegations of security forces gang raping women, ethnic killings and mass graves. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder is asking President Barack Obama to issue an emergency and major disaster declaration amid the Flint water crisis. Snyder's office said in a statement late Thursday night that it had asked for the declarations and is seeking additional federal aid for both individuals and public agencies involved in the effort to provide Flint residents with clean drinking water. Snyder's request will be reviewed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which will advise the president on whether the declarations should be granted, the statement said. If it is approved, the individual assistance could include grants for temporary housing and home pairs, and the public assistance would help agencies such as city schools and the water system. The request came after busloads of residents from Flint, Michigan, traveled Thursday to the state capitol building in Lansing to protest Flints water crisis and demand Snyders resignation. Local media showed dozens of people protesting over the city's tainted water, widely blamed on a state decision to save money by switching Flints water source from Detroits system which draws from Lake Huron to the local Flint River. Many residents and activists say officials failed to properly treat the Flint River water for its corrosive content, which apparently caused the water to pick up lead from aging pipes that connect water mains to houses and businesses. Blood lead levels in some children in the city, which is majority African-American, more than doubled, it was found in 2015. Lead poisoning can cause developmental delays and learning difficulties in children. Snyder your legacy is murderer, read one sign held by a protester in Lansing on Thursday. Another read: Arrest Snyder. Snyder has apologized for the states handling of the water situation, and in December he accepted the resignation of the head of the states Department of Environmental Quality which had approved the decision to switch water sources. Flint switched back to the Detroit water supply in October. But in December, the city found that water lead levels were still well above the acceptable federal level in many homes. Snyder on Tuesday activated the states National Guard to distribute bottled water door-to-door. But Flint residents say Snyder has moved too slowly in addressing the crisis. Get him and the federal government to assist and bring in water, so that we dont have to get just one jug or two cases at a time, Arthur Woodson, a water activist and rally organizer, told ABC 12 in Lansing. We need for him to relieve us of [state] emergency managers so we can make our own decisions, because hes moving slow with his decision making, Woodson said. Many residents and activists say Flint's water crisis is one of the consequences of decisions by state emergency managers, state appointees whom Michigan sends to help manage financially distressed municipalities. In addition to the lead poisoning, Flint has experienced a spike in Legionnaires disease that has resulted in 10 deaths and may or may not be related to the water crisis, officials said Wednesday. Genesee County, which is home to Flint, had 87 cases of Legionnaires from June 2014 to November 2015. State officials told reporters they couldnt rule out the possibility that it resulted from the water supply switch. Legionnaires is a type of pneumonia transmitted when people inhale water mist infected with the bacteria sometimes from air-conditioning units in large buildings, as was the case last year in the outbreak in the Bronx in New York City that left 12 dead and dozens sickened. The Legionnaires outbreak just adds to the disaster we already are facing in Flint, Snyder said. With wire services Keep connected with Sky News Australias live audio simulcast on iHeartRadio with direct access to breaking news and Australias award-winning journalists and commentators. If you've missed your favourite Sky News show on Foxtel or would prefer to catch up in a podcast, a selection of programming is available here or on your favourite podcast app. WATERLOO Exactly a year ago, Ron and Mary Esther Pullin had to be wondering about the future. An early-morning fire at their farm at 2185 W. Shaulis Road swept away a pole barn containing a flock of 40 sheep, including a prized ewe. It took two generations of sheep, Mary said, noting the couple were down to about 60 head. It was the Pullin farms second fire in five years, Ron noted. The first one happened during the day, and we didnt lose any livestock; this time, it was 2 in the morning and Mary said, I smell smoke, and when we looked out, the barn was fully engulfed. I saw a ewe on fire, and I just turned away. Mary watched a little longer, and I really think it affected her a lot more than me. Rebuilding was never a question, Ron said. Weve been doing this for so long I was born and raised on raising sheep, he said, noting the Pullin family operation has been going for nearly 8 decades. Now, things are looking up. A new barn is built, and the Pullins are waiting for a fresh shipment of lambs. The couple celebrated their 56th wedding anniversary Dec. 28, in part, with news they are the newest inductees in the Association of Iowa Fairs Hall of Fame. Farming and agriculture fairs has been a passion for the couple for nearly a lifetime, Mary said. The two met at the 1955 Indiana State Fair, where both were showing livestock. We grew up that way both of us, Mary, 75, said. Both of us grew up on farms Ron in Orange Township and me in Indiana. I was a 10-year 4-Her a two-generation one. Rons family was involved in 4-H. Our love of livestock and fairs in particular has always been strong. Ron, 78, has been a member of the National Cattle Congress board of directors for 26 years. The Pullin-Simonsen Arena on the Cattle Congress grounds is named, in part, after Rons father, Don, a longtime Cattle Congress board member and 16-year president. The Pullins have been involved with the National Cattle Congress and the Black Hawk County 4-H & FFA Fair for more than 26 years. Both have served in many capacities while serving both fairs, including as officers and department superintendents. Inductees are noted for having made significant contributions to the fair industry and made contributions in leadership and education. Association efforts have helped to keep Iowas annual fair vibrant at a time when other state fairs have lost their original appeal and focus, Ron said. Theyve kind of lost the reason they had fairs theyre really just shutting the livestock off to the side. Now, some say its nothing but a food and beverage place anymore. Iowas fair also has maintained local control, rather than shifting the organization to a state bureau, Ron noted. In Iowa, were so fortunate, he said. The fair board has two people from each reporting district and the people from each district elect them to the board. We have a ground-root support for the fair, because we elect the members from the districts. In addition, the Pullins also are involved with other area organizations, serving as 4-H leaders and showing champion sheep for many years. Their work with the sheep industry has manifested itself through encouraging and assisting many area youth in pursuing sheep as a project during their 4-H and FFA years. In addition to working for their local fairs, the Pullins serve as officers of the Association of Iowa Fairs Northeast District. Ron is the vice chairman and Mary is secretary/treasurer. Both have held their positions with the district for many years. CEDAR RAPIDS A Canadian citizen who prosecutors had fought for years to extradite back to the United States in connection with a ring that smuggled high-quality marijuana from British Columbia has been sentenced. Jason Leonard Boyacheks punishment time served in jail while awaiting the outcome of the case appeared to be in line with the defense claims he was a shy, low-level money courier with no criminal record who never handled marijuana and was easily swayed by acquaintances. Judge Mark Bennett handed down the sentence Thursday in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids, granting requests for leniency. It included three years of supervised release and a $100 special assessment. Boyachek, 42, was remanded to federal marshals to be delivered to immigration officials. Authorities said the ring, which had links to Canadian chapters of the Hells Angels, moved more than 8,000 pounds of hydroponically grown marijuana dubbed B.C. Bud into the United States using secret compartments in semi trucks. Some of the product was unloaded at a rented farm shed near Delaware, Iowa, before it was divided up and moved on to Chicago, Boston, New York and other cities. The Iowa shed was raided in 2007 after border agents intercepted a 600-pound shipment crossing into the United States through North Dakota. Defense attorney Leon Spies said in court records Boyachek had met David Downing, another person who would later be convicted in the federal B.C. Bud probe, in 2000 in Vancouver, British Columbia. He initially turned down Downings request to smuggle marijuana into the United States but eventually agreed to carry drug proceeds from Chicago to Seattle, where the cash was then moved into Canada by others. In May 2003, law enforcement stopped Boyachek as he prepared to board a train to California with $237,000 in cash, which was seized, according to court records. Boyachek remained in Chicago, where he worked for a building company and apparently kept his distance from Downing. Then in 2006, authorities found $738,650 in cash inside a Chicago storage locker Boyachek rented, records state. Spies said in court records Boyachek had rented the locker to prepare for a move back to Canada. He said a friend of Downing had access to the locker and had stored the money when Boyachek was visiting a friend in Canada. A federal grand jury indicted Boyachek in 2009. Canadian authorities found him in 2011, and he battled extradition until giving up in 2014. He arrived in the United States in 2015 and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute marijuana later that year. A money laundering charge was dismissed. DES MOINES | A legislative oversight panel will take a bipartisan approach to investigating a conference for gay and transgender youth, the panels chairman said Thursday. Iowa Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, R-Wilton, who leads the House Government Oversight Committee, on Tuesday appointed two legislators each to four issues he expects the committee to investigate during the legislative session. Among the subjects is the Iowa Governors Conference on LGBTQ Youth, which is put on annually by the nonprofit advocacy group Iowa Safe Schools and is designed to inform high-school students about issues related to gay and transgender youth. Kaufmann and other Republican legislators raised concerns about last years conference, saying they heard reports of vulgar and inappropriate content, such as guidance on how to find orgies and calls to vandalize the property of people who disapprove of the gay and transgender lifestyle. Kaufmann initially scheduled a hearing on the conference but later postponed the session. He said Thursday he wants a bipartisan tandem of legislators on the oversight committee to investigate the conference and report back to the committee. I specifically am doing it this way because I wanted Democrats to be involved, Kaufmann said. I want whatever happened to be brought out to light. Whatever that is. Im not going to try to twist it to be one way or the other. And theres nothing wrong with asking questions as to what happened. And if something did happen, what do we do to make sure that taxpayer dollars arent being used to push content thats not suited for minors without parental notification. Rep. Ruth Ann Gaines, D-Des Moines, the ranking Democrat on the oversight committee, said she is pleased the body will look into the conference using a bipartisan panel rather than in a hearing. I dont think theres enough there for a hearing. Plus, I dont know if Government Oversight really has the legal ability to hold a hearing about a school function like that, Gaines said. But we still are going to talk about it, and that will give the people planning that conference a better approach for future years. Nate Monson, executive director of Iowa Safe Schools, has defended the conference and said he is concerned any inquiry will become an attack on gay and transgender youth. Kaufmann insisted that is not the intent, nor is it his intent to stop the conference. This years event is scheduled for April 29 in Des Moines. Fighters from the Al-Shabab group in Somalia attacked a base for African Union (AU) troops in southwestern Somalia on Friday, military officials and insurgents said. Al-Shabab said dozens of Kenyan soldiers were killed, but the Kenyan military said in a statement that the rebels had attacked Somali government soldiers who were stationed near the base run by the Kenyan contingent. That statement also said that the Kenyans helped the Somalis counterattack. The attack happened in the town of El-Ade, not far from the Kenyan border. Kenya has provided a major contingent to the AU force that is fighting Al-Shabab and assisting the elected government of Somalia. Al-Shabab spokesman Abdiaziz Abu Mudan said on the group's online radio that at least 63 soldiers have been killed in the attack. Ahmed Hassan, speaking to The Associated Press by phone from Elwak, a nearby town, said the attack started with a suicide car bomb, and then heavy gunfire was heard as fighters stormed into the base. Despite being pushed out of Somalia's major cities and towns, Al-Shabab continues to launch deadly guerrilla attacks across the Horn of Africa country. The group, which has ties with Al-Qaeda, has also carried out many deadly attacks inside Kenya. Al Jazeera and Reuters DES MOINES Republican leaders said they will keep an open mind when considering Gov. Terry Branstads proposal to share future school infrastructure sales tax revenue with water-quality projects, but Democrats expressed hesitation and concern over protective language in the original law. Leaders of both political parties addressed the governors proposal Thursday in meetings with Statehouse reporters. The governor plans to submit legislation that would use some revenue from the 1 percent sales tax for school infrastructure toward improving the quality of Iowas impaired waters. Branstad has called it one of the boldest plans he has put forth during his six terms as governor, but it has received at best a lukewarm reception from state lawmakers. I think were kind of between a rock and a hard place, only because every one of us believes we need to work on water quality, said Senate President Pam Jochum, D-Dubuque. Were going to find some way to deal with water quality. This may not be the best avenue. Jochum noted local voters had to approve the 1 percent sales tax in each county, and they did so with the understanding it would be used only for school infrastructure projects. Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, said there is a provision in the law that requires approval of two-thirds of state lawmakers in each chamber to alter how the sales tax revenue may be spent. Branstad will work with lawmakers to design legislation that allows future school infrastructure sales tax revenue to also be used for water quality projects, his spokesman said Thursday. House Speaker Linda Upmeyer, R-Clear Lake, said Republican legislators will examine the governors proposal and also generate their own ideas for how to fund water-quality projects. DES MOINES Senate President Pam Jochum, D-Dubuque, said Thursday she expects the Senate to enact safeguards and measures for Iowas privately managed Medicaid system, should the system get federal approval. Branstad administration officials had planned to implement a switch to private managed care companies Jan. 1. But federal regulators spelled out readiness provisions the state and those companies have to meet for the change to take place March 1. Jochum expects legislative efforts to establish benchmarks to compare the current fee-for-service system with the privately managed system to measure whether outcomes and services have improved, access has expanded and costs actually have been stabilized. In addition, she said senators want to look into Iowas government contracting procurement system to see why companies who had defrauded taxpayers in other states had been awarded state contracts here and put in place safeguards against similar situations in the future. Oversight change A legislative oversight panel will take a bipartisan approach to investigating a conference for gay and transgender youth, the panels chairman said Thursday. Iowa Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, R-Wilton, who leads the House Government Oversight Committee, on Tuesday appointed two legislators each to four issues he expects the committee to investigate during the legislative session. Among the subjects is the Iowa Governors Conference on LGBTQ Youth, which is put on annually by the nonprofit advocacy group Iowa Safe Schools and is designed to inform high-school students about issues related to gay and transgender youth. Kaufmann and other Republican legislators raised concerns about last years conference, saying they heard reports of vulgar and inappropriate content, such as guidance on how to find orgies and calls to vandalize the property of people who disapprove of the gay and transgender lifestyle. Kaufmann initially scheduled a hearing on the conference but now says he wants a bipartisan tandem of legislators to investigate the conference and report back to the committee. Biofuel credits Iowa is better positioned than many domestic competitors to capitalize on the next frontier of U.S. bio-processing, according to a white paper released Thursday by Iowas Cultivation Corridor and the Biotechnology Association. The report found Iowas first-generation biofuels have been a major economic driver, with ethanol production alone accounting for $2.23 billion per year and 8,693 jobs in Iowa. Officials attending a Statehouse news conference Thursday to release the findings called for legislative support of economic development incentives, such as a bio-renewable chemical production tax credit, tailored to address the unique needs of the growing industry. According to the report, at least five potential bio-based chemical production projects were identified through an industry interview process and each indicated that a tax credit would be fundamental in decisions whether to locate in or outside of Iowa. Anti-bullying measures House Speaker Linda Upmeyer said Thursday most Iowa school administrators believe Gov. Terry Branstads executive order dealing with problems associated with bullying have resolved their issues and no further legislative action will be required. Branstads order established the Governors Office for Bullying Prevention through the University of Northern Iowas Center for Violence Prevention. The new office is responsible for implementing a variety of measures to reduce bullying through support for schools, students and parents. Gas, oil prices Declining crude oil prices hovering near $30 a bushel are translating into lower prices at the pumps for Iowa motorists. According to AAA, the price of regular unleaded gasoline averaged $1.87 a gallon across Iowa on Tuesday. That was five cents lower than one week ago and down nine cents compared to a year ago. The national average Tuesday was $1.95 per gallon, down a nickel from last week. Retail diesel fuel prices in Iowa were five cents a gallon lower Tuesday with a statewide average of $2.02, compared to $2.20 nationally and $2.81 a gallon one year ago. Propane prices were unchanged from last week with a statewide average of $1.01 per gallon, while home heating oil fell four cents from last week to a statewide average of $1.52 a gallon and natural gas prices increased six cents to $2.38. WATERLOO The St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Worker House will host a fundraiser for its need more room at the inn project. The goal is to raise money to buy a third house supporting the communitys shelter needs. The fundraiser will be from 6 to 10 p.m. Jan. 22 at the Knights of Columbus, 1955 Locke Ave., Waterloo. The event will feature a dinner and music from the Cedar Valleys Brazilian 2wins. Tickets cost $25. Organizers encourage people to buy tickets in advance. For more information or to purchase tickets, call 239-2338 or email jules2338@hotmail.com. Money raised will go to buy a house near the agencys other locations to address additional need for homeless men to stay in the community. Q. We saw on TV they were talking about the new school proposal and a surtax of 4 percent being added to taxes, but it wouldnt cost anybody anything. Can you explain this surtax? A. The surtax will have a cost for most individual income tax filers who live in the Waterloo Community School District. It is intended to offset a property tax increase of $1.27 per $1,000 of taxable value proposed to pay for the bond issue residents will be voting on in a Feb. 2 referendum. School bond issues must be repaid through property taxes, but the Board of Education has committed to using a surtax to ensure residents see no increase in their property taxes. The surtax is based on a percentage of state income taxes owed by individuals. Every 1 percent of a surtax offsets 23 cents of the property tax increase. The average Waterloo resident, who pays $1,330 in Iowa income tax, would have an additional $53.20 surtax at the 4 percent rate, the rate the board is expected to set. A portion of the property tax increase would also be reduced using the districts 1 percent sales tax revenues. nnn Q. I see Cedar Falls Schools is going to have a third vote on the bond issue. How many times can they vote on this, or is there a limit? A. There is no limit. The decision to hold a bond issue referendum is made by the locally elected board of education. The state only limits how soon a referendum can be put on the ballot after one fails and designates specific dates they can be held in a given year. nnn Q. How much has the budget of the Waterloo Community Schools gone up since the time before they started the 1 percent sales tax to the time it is now, including the proposed $47 million budget increase plus their 5 percent surcharge on our income tax? A. The Waterloo district had a total budget of $68 million for the fiscal year starting July 1, 1998, according to Courier files. The local option sales tax started in October 1999 after being approved by Black Hawk County voters that May. The districts current budget is $164.16 million. The $47 million bond issue would be paid for through future budgets if approved Feb. 2. It would not add $47 million to the budget, because the bonds would be paid off over 20 years. The Board of Education is expected to set the state income tax surcharge at 4 percent if the referendum passes. nnn Q. When were the Waterloo school salaries printed? A. Wages paid to school employes from July 2014 through June 2015 were published July 23, 2015. nnn Q. Is the Sheards reality show on BET coming back with their series? A. As far as we can tell, there are no plans for the show to return. nnn Q. What is the address to contact the corporate office of Dollar General? A. Write to 100 Mission Ridge, Goodlettsville, TN 37072. Questions concerning issues are taken on a special Courier phone line at 234-3566. Questions are answered by Courier staff and staff at the Waterloo Public Library. Egyptian authorities are rounding up activists before the fifth anniversary of the Jan. 25 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak and have detained at least five people this week. Among those detained were three activists, including prominent physician Taher Mokhtar, who were detained in police raids at their apartments in downtown Cairo on Thursday, according to lawyer Mukhtar Munair. A fourth person, poet Omar Hazek, was detained and quickly released but barred from leaving the country, according to a Facebook posting. Also, the managing editor of the privately owned Masr al-Arabia news website, Ahmed Abdel-Gawad, was detained after security forces raided its office on Thursday, according to a statement from the outlet. He was released on Friday, a second statement said. The detentions are the latest in what has been a persistent and extensive crackdown on Islamic and secular activists alike, launched after the military's 2013 ouster of Mubarak's successor, the Muslim Brotherhoods Mohamed Morsi. The Egyptian government labeled the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization in 2014. Thousands of Brotherhood members have been sentenced to death or life imprisonment, and others are standing trial or being detained without formal charges. As in past years, Egyptian authorities fear mass protests on the anniversary of the anti-Mubarak uprising, and former army chief turned President Abdel Fattah El Sisi warned such protests could result in chaos. In addition to the crackdown on activists, authorities have raided arts venues and galleries popular among youth activists. Wire services Police chiefs across the country were on high alert, some embassies in Jakarta were closed for the day and security was stepped up on the resort island of Bali, a draw for tourists from Australia and other Asian countries. It's clear that the (Jakarta attackers) didn't set this up themselves. For this, we are searching for the networks and who was involved in this action, said Anton Charliyan, national police spokesman. Security forces killed what they said was one suspected militant in a gun battle in Central Sulawesi, while two others were arrested in the city of Cirebon in West Java. The three were believed to be ISIL supporters, but not directly connected to the Jakarta attack, police said. Returning to the area outside Jakarta's oldest department store, Sarinah, where Thursday's attack unfolded, the city's police chief said the rise of ISIL was a cause for serious concern. We need to strengthen our response and preventive measures, including legislation to prevent them and we hope our counterparts in other countries can work together because it is not home-grown terrorism, it is part of the ISIS network, Tito Karnavian said, using another acronym for the Syria-based group. In response to the Jakarta attacks, Philippine President Benigno Aquino ordered security forces to strengthen defenses of soft targets. Malaysia placed the country on its highest alert. Experts agree that there is a growing threat from radicalized Muslims inspired by ISIL, some of whom may have fought with the group in Syria. However, they said the low death toll on Thursday pointed to the involvement of poorly trained ISIL supporters whose weapons were crude. An Indonesian and a man of dual Canadian-Algerian nationality were killed along with the attackers. Twenty-four people were seriously wounded, including an Austrian, a German and a Dutchman. ISIL said in its claim of responsibility that a group of soldiers of the caliphate in Indonesia targeted a gathering from the crusader alliance that fights the Islamic State in Jakarta. Police confirmed that ISIL was responsible and named Bahrun Naim, as the mastermind. They believe Naim leads a network known as Katibah Nusantara and is pulling strings from Raqqa, ISIL's de facto capital in Syria. His vision is to unite all ISIS supporting elements in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, Jakarta police chief Karnavian said. Fighters from those three countries have a record of working together, and several Malaysians are known to have carried out suicide attacks in the Middle East. Indonesia has seen attacks before, but a coordinated assault by a team of suicide bombers and gunmen is unprecedented and has echoes of the siege in Mumbai seven years ago and in Paris last November. In a recent blog post, entitled Lessons from the Paris Attacks, Naim had urged his Indonesian audience to study the planning, targeting, timing, coordination, security and courage of the perpetrators of the massacre in the French capital. The country had been on edge for weeks over the threat posed by ISIL and similar groups, and counter-terrorism police had rounded up about 20 people with suspected links to ISIL. There was a spate of attacks in Indonesia in the 2000s, the deadliest of which was a nightclub bombing on Bali that killed 202 people, most of them tourists. Police have been largely successful in destroying domestic insurgent cells since then, but officials have more recently been worrying about a resurgence inspired by ISIL. Al Jazeera and Reuters Two former diplomats have an article in the Miami Herald, arguing that the United States needs to punish Latin America more. For example, we need to punish Bolivia for kicking out the DEA and the ambassador: "the Obama administration has shown mostly patience, offering meager assistance to those seeking democratic change." I was unaware that expelling U.S. officials was undemocratic. That Evo Morales is democratically elected also goes unmentioned. Patience, meanwhile, is apparently a vice. This is the Bush years doing their best to bubble back up. It's amazing, really, because that era was tremendously unproductive and damaging to U.S. interests. But we do have aid programs and preferential trade agreements in place and we can suspend or alter many of them. We also could work to create a hemispheric free-trade zone for those countries that subscribe to and practice good governance. And we could speak out, unabashedly, from the White House and State Department, about our belief in basic liberties, human rights, and democracy. If that makes us unpopular, or if it leads to the bankrupt charges of Yankee imperialism or interventionism, so be it. Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article54799360.html#storylink=cpy Sheez, people. They rail against Ecuador and Bolivia but they've long been out of the Andean Trade Preference Act. Nicaragua is part of CAFTA but there is no simple mechanism for targeting one country within it for punishment, even if you thought it would be a productive move. As for good governance, what about Mexico? Its governance is worse than Bolivia's. As for the FTAA, remember how that worked out. But even if you really like FTAs, there are major initiatives going on.As for "speaking out," Obama does it all the time. He even imposed sanctions on officials in Venezuela. That's pretty "unabashed."In sum, their arguments consist mostly of empty whining. U.S.-Latin American relations are stronger than they've been for a long time. Incumbents are getting nailed in Latin America because democracy--while imperfect--is working. The last thing we need is a return to the Bush years. When a manager wants to quash a union drive, one of the most effective tools to do that is the captive audience meeting that is, a meeting held on company property during regular working hours, with compulsory attendance by all employees. A captive audience meeting can be an opportunity for management or anti-union consultants to cajole, persuade and sometimes subtly threaten workers into rejecting unionization. Without the ability to call their own staff-wide meetings on company property, unions have little to counter the captive audience tactic. But that may soon change if some of Americas leading labor law experts have their way. On Friday, 106 labor scholars including law professors, historians and industrial relations experts from universities across the country filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) asking the administrative body to reform regulations around captive audience meetings. Under their proposed rule, employers would be penalized if they held captive audience meetings without giving the union an equivalent opportunity to address employees, according to the petition. If an employer fails to provide equal time to the union during an organizing drive, and the union subsequently failed to secure a majority vote, the NLRB would have grounds to invalidate the results and call for a new election. Marquette University labor law professor Paul Secunda, the primary co-petitioner, says that he doesnt see this as a radical pro-union position. Its just about saying that in order to have a fair election, employees need to have information from both sides of the debate in order to make an informed choice, said Secunda. I think thats pretty uncontroversial." Unions had no involvement in the decision to file the petition or its drafting, according to petitioners. In the first few years following the passage of the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, the NLRB found captive audience meetings to be a violation of that statute. But the board reversed its position in 1953; when it revisited the question of whether to regulate captive audience meetings 13 years later in a separate dispute, it left open the possibility that it would set a new precedent but never did so. Since then, the meetings have become a frequently used anti-union weapon. Between 1999 and 2003, captive audience meetings were held in almost nine out of ten unionization campaigns, according to a 2009 Economic Policy Institute study written by Cornell University labor scholar Kate Bronfebrenner, one of the signatories to Fridays petition. Unions won 73 percent of the campaigns in which employers did make use of the tactic, Bronfebrenner found. Where bosses did hold captive audience meetings, the win rate for unions dropped to 47 percent. Secunda said he thinks the NLRB has a decent chance of adopting the petitioners recommendation. Theres three members on the [typically five-member] board who believe that the current election process is not completely unfair, and kind of tilted toward the employer, said Secunda. Increasing the odds in the petitioners favor is the fact that the NLRB has spent the past two years issuing a flurry of union-friendly decisions and regulations. But Democratic member Kent Y. Hirozawas term is set to expire in August, leaving two vacancies and only two Democrats left on the board. It is unlikely that either Hirozawa or Republican Harry I. Johnson, III, whose term expired in August 2015, will be replaced under this president. google You might know Google Maps as "that thing which lets you virtually navigate your own street whenever you're bored" (seriously, just go outside), or as "the essential application for anyone looking to track down famous celebrities in order to stalk them for an unprecedented amount of time" (whatever), but it's also proven itself to be rather adept at capturing some surprisingly shocking and unexpected things that just so happened to be occurring at the exact moment when those Google cars decided to snap a few pictures of our good planet Earth. That's to say, given the fact that Google Maps' purpose is to render the entire world in a series of still, inter-connecting virtual images, it's entirely possible to stumble upon all kinds of bizarre scenarios, objects and - yes - unidentified anomalies as you randomly navigate the globe online. The chances of you stumbling upon one of these instances on your own are pretty slim of course, unless you spend an inordinate amount of time looking at maps (in which case, get out more), which is why it's good that someone else has put the hard work in and found 10 of the most shocking things that you can currently see on Google Maps. Who knows what else is out there, just waiting to be found? "Perhaps, in the future, if Bullet Club were to arrive on Monday Night Raw, there would be no better way for Finn Balor to make his debut than with his best friends by his side." With WWE openly promoting rumours of The Bullet Club coming to Raw, the former leader of the group has been angling himself to come up with them. NXT Champion Finn Balor was what first got the New Japan faction over, and he has told WWE.com that:Industry insiders such as Bryan Alvarez are expecting that Balor and the Bullet Club will indeed be making there way to Raw. Dave Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer has commented that WWE are likely to do it as the 'Balor Club', based on the fact it is a big opportunity to make some serious coin on merchandise. Balor Club t-shirts are sure to be a hot seller in 2016. So it looks like this Finn Balor faction is happening, but what exactly will go down when they invade Raw? Who will the actual members be? Who will they be feuding with? And what is the long-term future of this potentially huge new stable? There's several big questions that need answering, and already there's a few clues on what to expect. 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in Madrid The Women Poets International Movement (Mujeres Poetas Internacional MPI) Inc. Invites to the opening acts of the 6th Woman Scream International Poetry and Arts Festival under the theme "Desert Flowers", a tribute to the Iranian Soraya Manutchehri victim of stoning, as well as all the victims of ancestral torture methods such as ablation, acid attacks, crimes of honor, among other practices. The city of Madrid will be for the fist time the host of the renowned festival in a series of events that will take place the days 2, 4, 5, 6, 10 and 12 of March 2016. The 6th. Woman Scream-Madrid will include exhibitions, concerts, theater, music, dance, and the presenting a collective anthology with participant poets. The events will be conducted in locations such as the Cultural Center of Buena Vista, Foundation Poetry Center Jose Hierro, the Public Library Eugenio Trias, The Ateneo of Madrid, among others. Festival events will be free and open to the public. As a main entrance, the MPI will celebrate, in the halls of RafaelHoteles Ventas 4* scheduled in March 5 at 21:30 hrs., the 1st. MPI International Movement Meeting, where for the first time, Spanish speaking members, friends and supporters of the MPI and the Woman Scream cause, will enjoy a gala dinner, an award ceremony for featured coordinators and ambassadors of WS, and will have an intimate space for poetry reciting and sharing. Woman Scream contemplates since 2011, a long chain of simultaneous events in over 500 countries across the 5 continents. It is coordinated from the Dominican Republic by the MPI, paying a tribute to women during every month of March, and sending messages of self-esteem, respect and zero tolerance to violence. It would be easy to sum up Thursday nights Republican presidential debate as a battle within a battle: Two outsiders duked it out for the top spot, while the GOP establishment continued its struggle to coalesce around a single candidate and to be heard. Those outsiders businessman Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz did spend much of the two-and-a-half-hour gabfest attacking each other. Meanwhile, the party faithful, represented by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, tried to jump into the fray. Cruz also tosses a sort of branded hat into the political ring. He, too, styles himself as an outsider perhaps surprisingly, considering he is a U.S. senator, a former high-priced attorney and a graduate of some of Americas most elite schools. And he is considered a master debater who, while in college, humiliated his opponents, a cunning litigator who has argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Yet while saying so little, Trump seems to stand for so much. The man who brags about his business acumen has himself become a brand. And not just any brand but the kind of wildly successful product whose name becomes synonymous with its category, the way Kleenex can mean facial tissue or Coke stands in for any soda. Trump is Trumps style of politics, his collection of beliefs, the feeling voters get, negative or positive, when his name is raised. Campaigning on an ever-escalating series of emotional one-liners calling for border walls and Muslim bans the real estate baron and reality TV star has been condemned for being short on details and policy proposals. But to paint it in those broad terms is like critiquing the actors without ever naming the movie. Trump may have successfully defined himself as the anti-establishment front-runner, but in doing so, he has made it harder to understand just what an establishment Republican is. Issues with issues Yes, there was a wonky exchange between Rubio and Cruz, with the senator from Florida insisting the value-added tax proposal offered by the senator from Texas would hurt seniors causing Cruz to fight back with the kind of arcane detail that must have had his advisers begging for Cavuto to interrupt again. For the so-called establishment candidates onstage, issues were almost all they had. But were they really the issues of the establishment? And that issue-free back and forth made up almost the entirety of the Cruz-Trump clash. In fact, when Trump tried to explain one of his objections to Chinese trade policy, moderator Neil Cavuto of debate host the Fox Business Network interrupted, saying, Youve lost me. Trump stood by his birther attack, giving Cruz the opening to quote Trump from just last year, when he said Cruzs citizenship was not an issue. And Cruzs New York rhetoric handed Trump one of the nights most authentic moments, when the candidate from the Big Apple sang the praises of the citys response to the events of Sept. 11, 2001. Yet for all these two candidates supposedly bring to a presidential campaign, almost all they brought to the stage in North Charleston, South Carolina, on Thursday were narrow, ad hominem attacks. Trump, by his own admission feeling the heat of a surging Cruz, has made the senators birth status practically the sole point of attack. Cruz was born in Canada which, Trump contends, makes Cruz ineligible to be president. Not Trump Rubio used to believe in some form of comprehensive immigration legislation, but now he accuses Cruz of being too soft on undocumented migrants. Kasich wanted to modify Trumps proposed ban on allowing Muslims to enter the U.S. by focusing only on Syrians, while Christie wants the ban to apply to Middle Eastern refugees and their families. Even Bush, who was perhaps the most directly critical, calling Trumps stance unhinged, has proposed accepting only Christian refugees into the country. There was little talk of trade policy or global finance, more typical concerns for establishment Republicans, and discussions of U.S. military posture were almost exclusively limited to the countrys undeclared war on the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. The harsh words everyone onstage had for Obama tended toward the hyperbolic adjectives most associated with Trump and far surpassed any criticisms the establishment candidates had for the front-runner. That is not in itself strange; this is the opposition party, after all. But in the headlong rush rightward on the issues and the light touch most used on Trump the man, you see a Republican establishment caught in not only an ideological bind but an electoral one as well. For while every pundit will tell you that the establishment is desperate to knock Trump out of the race, the Republican Party is desperate to keep his supporters. Most GOP successes of the last 20 years have relied on motivating turnout among a committed base of religious conservatives and rock-ribbed pro-business Republicans, but Trump appears to draw his support from a different group. Perhaps angry, as Trump describes himself, and feeling abandoned by elected government at almost every level, the people who gave Trump early momentum and now seem to be pushing his national poll numbers to record heights, are citizens who rarely feel motivated to vote. This election cycle, many might be voting for the first time if they get to vote for Trump, that is. If, however, the GOP establishment or any Republican candidate is seen to be too actively aiming to take Trump out, then it risks taking his supporters out of electoral process too. And that, for a party already facing demographic challenges as the country grows younger and more ethnically diverse, is a paralyzing prospect. So the reason no establishment candidate has emerged as a Trump killer is that no one wants to be identified with Trumps demise. That makes for a field of timid also-rans cautiously jockeying for position, drafting behind the energetic front-runner and a looming marketing disaster. In the marketplace of products, one of the worst things to be is a not brand. A not brand is one known primarily for its not being the brand that dominates the category. By definition, it is not a leader, and by necessity, its identity is defined by the brand it wants to overtake. And this is what has become of the Republican establishment. Its candidates are careful not to stray too far from the positions that seem to stir the hearts of Trump supporters, and their communications teams have yet to craft any attack ads hitting the wealthy, thrice-married, Democrat-supporting, business-bankrupting Republican front-runner. Those candidates have instead chosen to play at the borders of Trumps spreading territory, looking for fine details and modulations of tone to differentiate themselves. None are a thing in and of themselves anymore; they are simply and increasingly self-identified as not Trump. The AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy maintains this blog to disseminate information relevant to astronomers who identify as women and share the perspectives of astronomers from varied backgrounds. If you have an idea for a blog post or topic, please submit a short pitch (less than 300 words). The views expressed on this site are not necessarily the views of the CSWA, the AAS, its Board of Trustees, or its membership. Crisis Phone Numberspecial noticeIf you are a veteran in emotional crisis and need help RIGHT NOW, call this toll-free number 1-800-273-8255, available 24/7, and tell them you are a veteran. All calls are confidential.1-888-899-9377A Crisis Intervention Hotline has been established by the VA Heartland Network to assist veterans who may be dealing with a mental health crisis or difficult issue in their lives. The hotline will also aid family members or friends of veterans who need help in assisting a veteran in crisis. Youve got a decent hand. Youre sure of it, but you dont want to bet everything on it because you know the game and know that youll lose. What do you do? That depends in part upon how strong your hand is (or isnt). For example, if you have an ace low flush, you might be tempted to fold, knowing you probably wont make money betting with it. On the other hand, if you hold a pocket pair, you may have enough confidence in the strength of your hand to bet all-in, hoping for a full house or better. In order to get the most from your hand, you need to understand what the odds are against each possible outcome. Heres how you can figure out whether or not you should push your luck with a particular hand. The decision of the player to do the okbet login will provide him good return in the future. This is the platform that is considered as the reliable option. It provides the players with the high stake of the winning. Even a representative is there who will work to serve the people. The Value of A Pair Lets assume weve just dealt two cards and one player has three suited cards and another has four. If the first player bets, then hes going to win about half the time (assuming everyone else folds), so his expected return is 50 percent. The second player has a much tougher time. Hell have a good chance of winning only when he gets three of a kind, which happens 1/4th of the time. So he has a 25 percent chance of winning. When he makes the call, the third player has a 55 percent chance of winning. His expected return is 45 percent. Of course, if the first player loses, then the chances of the third player winning go way up about 80 percent. All of these percentages are based on the assumption that all players will fold. The value of the hand is calculated by taking the probability of winning times the amount you would win if you did win. This gives us a number between zero and 100. Well use $5 as our basic unit for calculating the value of the hands. If you had 10 chips and could choose any five, what would you pick? Well, wed obviously take the top hand, which is worth $50. The second best hand is a little bit worse $45 since youre giving up some equity for the opportunity to win more. So now lets calculate the value of the remaining hands. If the second player chooses a third card, his expected gain is $25, which represents the difference between the two hands. A fourth card increases the expectation to $30, while adding a fifth card drops it back down to $20. Since there are no sixth cards, the value of the hand is equal to the average of the five cards, which is $24.60. The value of a suit We can also figure out the value of a suit by looking at the value of each individual card within that suit. Lets say were dealing a standard deck of 52 cards. One person holds a KQ; the next person has a 7D; and the third has a 2S. Each person has a 20% chance of winning. What is the expected return of having this group of cards? Well, the KQ has a 5% chance of winning, the 7D has a 4% chance, and the 2S has a 3% chance. So the total expected return is 25%. The same logic applies to the other suits, where the probability of winning goes up as the value of the card decreases. For instance, the Aces have a 9% chance of winning, Kings have 8%, Queens have 7%, Jacks have 6%, and Tens have 5%. So the expected returns add up to 36%. Now lets add all of these numbers together to get an estimate of the value of a hand. Assuming that each hand was equally likely to come up, our total would be 60 percent. But we know thats wrong! Not every hand is created equal. It turns out that a royal flush beats the rest of the pack pretty consistently. So were going to adjust our calculations to reflect this fact. Royal Flushes So far, weve assumed that all of the cards were equally likely to come up. Actually, most poker players believe that Royal Flushes are extremely unlikely. In fact, many experts estimate their frequency at less than 0.1 percent. To account for this, lets increase the probability of winning for each card in a Royal Flush by 10 percent. Now when we calculate the value of a Royal Flush, well find that its actually worth 62.5 percent of what it used to be. The value of the cards in each rank will still add up to 100, but theyre now weighted differently. So what does this mean for you? Well, if you hold a Royal Flush, youre probably going to win about 75 percent of the time. And if you hold a hand like QJT, youll win about 75 percent of the time too. And if you hold a straight, youll win nearly 70 percent of the time. In short, the bigger your hand, the more likely you are to win. Of course, even though youre getting a higher hit rate, youll also tend to lose more often. So if you hold a straight, youre almost guaranteed to lose. But if you hold a Royal Flush, youre going to win about one-quarter of the time, and youll win about twice as much money. So youre almost certain to profit from such a hand, but youll also take a lot of losses. Now, I mentioned that youll lose money on any hand. In fact, youll lose money roughly half the time. So if you hold a straight, youll lose about 25 percent of the time. If you hold a flush, youll lose about 40 percent of the time. And if you hold a pair, youll lose 35 percent of the time. In addition, if you hold a set one of the two highest ranks youll lose 35 percent of the time. Finally, if you hold a high card in the lowest rank, youll lose 30 percent of the time. But the interesting thing is that youll lose less money on those losing hands than you do on winning hands. Why is that? Well, suppose you hold a straight. Theres a 65 percent chance youll win. But suppose you hold a pair instead. Theres a 65 percent chance youll win. But you lost on your last hand. So theres now a 75 percent chance that youll lose again. On the other hand, if you hold a straight and lose, theres still a 65 percent chance youll win again. So youre only losing about 15 percent of the time. This means that you can minimize your losses by playing only hands that are reasonably likely to win. So if you hold a straight, youll probably lose around 25 percent of the time. But if you hold a flush, youll probably lose around 40 percent of the time. And if you hold a pair, youll probably lose around 35 percent of the time. And if you hold a set, youll probably lose around 35 percent of the time. But if you hold a high card in the lowest rank, youll probably lose around 30 percent of the time. In summary, the higher the probability that youll win, the lower your loss percentage will be. And the lower the probability youll win, the higher your loss percentage will be. So the optimal strategy is to play only hands whose probability of winning exceeds your expected return. If you hold a straight, theres a 65 percent chance of winning, so youll lose around 25 percent of the time. If you hold a flush, theres a 65 percent chance of winning, so youll lose around 40 percent of the time. And if you hold a pair, theres a 65 percent chance of winning, so youll lose around 35 percent of the time. But if you hold a set, theres a 65 percent chance of winning, so youll lose around 35 percent of the time. And if you hold a high card in the lowest rank, theres a 65 percent chance of winning, so youll lose around 30 percent of the time. Of course, you shouldnt ignore your opponents actions entirely. You should always give them credit for being smart, making decisions, and doing whatever it takes to beat you. But just remember that youre being punished for having a decent hand. To be sure, the path to Kurdish sovereignty runs steeply uphill, with Iraqi unity remaining the official U.S. policy and the KRG beset by internal divisions and an economic slowdown. But Kurdish leaders say their case for sovereignty whether as an independent state or as part of a confederation with the rest of Iraq has never been stronger than it is entering the new year. Late last month, KRG President Masoud Barzani instructed his party, the KDP, to organize a referendum on independence. A few months earlier he said at a think tank in Washington, I dont know whether it happens next year or when, but independence is certainly coming. This newfound confidence stems from a variety of factors. One is that the ISIL crisis has convinced many in the United States that Iraqs federalist system, in which Baghdad has executive power over everything from oil revenues to foreign policy, is a failure a case the Kurds have made for years. Washingtons opposition to breaking up the Iraqi state after toppling Saddam Hussein, under what has come to be known as the one-Iraq policy, has been perhaps the biggest obstacle to Kurdish sovereignty. But Baghdads failures to incorporate Iraqs ethnoreligious communities has been laid bare by ISILs success, which exploited local Sunni minority resentment toward the sectarian, Shia-led central government of thenPrime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. I dont think the U.S. will ever initiate the breakup of Iraq, but the question is whether theyd stop opposing it, said Djene Rhys Bajalan, a lecturer at the American University of Iraq in Sulaimani in Kurdistan. The dysfunctional Iraqi government and its growing ties to Tehran have made it impossible to make the case to support Baghdad I think the legitimacy of the one-Iraq policy is deteriorating, and people are gradually seeing it as untenable. Meanwhile, the Kurds exploits on the battlefield, including their high-profile victory in the Syrian town of Kobane, have endeared them to many American policymakers fed up with the failures of the U.S.-backed Iraqi army several divisions of which fled their posts in June 2014 as ISIL approached. In an effort to capitalize on this moment of pro-Kurdish sentiment, Kurdish lobbyists have deployed to Washington to advocate legislation that would allow the U.S. to arm the Kurds directly rather than through the government in Baghdad. That bill has accrued considerable bipartisan support in the House, where its backers have framed the bill as critical to defeating ISIL. The 2016 GOP presidential candidates are also on board, with Florida Gov. Jeb Bush saying at last months CNN debate, We need to arm directly the Kurds [They] are the greatest fighting force and our strongest allies perhaps referring to both the Iraqi peshmerga and Syrian Kurdish factions, which the U.S. is also backing. But changing minds on Capitol Hill is just one battle. New challenges to Barzanis KDP have emerged in the form of looming internal crises, including a severe economic slowdown that has been exacerbated by the war on ISIL and low oil prices. The World Bank recently announced that the KRG needs at least $1.4 billion in aid to stabilize the economy after growth plummeted to 3 percent in 2014, from 8 percent in 2013. In recent months, the government has had to cut off pay to civil servants, most notably the much-celebrated peshmerga fighters who are risking their lives on the front lines against ISIL. His government argues that much of the economic drag is due to Baghdads withholding oil revenues from the Kurds as well as foreign aid for the 1 million displaced people who have taken shelter in Kurdish lands. Critics, however, accuse Barzani of mounting a renewed independence campaign precisely in order to distract attention from these more pressing internal questions. He has already used the fight against ISIL as justification for remaining in his post past his scheduled term limit, stoking a succession debate that briefly erupted into violence in August. As Kawa Hassan, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the EastWest Institute, put it, Iraq is a failed state, but Kurdistan is also a failed region. So severe are the KRGs internal crises that some politicians have suggested Barzani suspend the independence talk until the economy and fight against ISIL stabilize. Though independence will always be a rallying cry for the Kurdish population, said Bajalan, people are increasingly concerned with bread-and-butter issues like corruption and the constitutional crisis. Even so, analysts say Kurdish military successes against ISIL have led to new facts on the ground that would be more conducive to a sovereign Kurdish state. Among the over 8,000 square miles of territory the Kurds have captured are several cities that are disputed among Iraqs ethnic patchwork but that the Kurds consider historically theirs, including Sinjar and the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. There are new economic realities too, including the beginnings of a Kurdish petro-state in defiance of Baghdad's orders. The Kurds have long sought to expand their independent oil exports, which are technically banned by Iraqi law and opposed by the U.S. and other regional powers. But after the Kurds claimed the regional oil capital of Kirkuk in 2014, they immediately began to pump out hundreds of thousands of barrels per day via a pipeline into Turkey. In early January, Erbil announced it would increase independent oil exports to cover budget shortfalls and would stop delivering to Baghdad. This oil could be critical in swaying Ankara to come on board with the idea of an independent Kurdish state in Iraq, even amid Turkeys escalating crackdown on its own Kurdish insurgency, the PKK. Though Turkey has formally opposed any form of Kurdish sovereignty in the region significant because an independent Iraqi Kurdistan would be landlocked and reliant on Turkey (in addition to Baghdad) for trade, especially of its oil the KRG has a complicated relationship, at best, with the PKK. And analysts note that Ankara is particularly keen to wean itself off Russian energy exports at the moment, given heightened tensions over Syria and Turkeys shooting down of a Russian fighter jet that allegedly crossed into its airspace in November. Kurdistan watchers say there are too many wild cards to know for sure where this current sovereignty push is heading. Hassan, who is also a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said he saw a fragmented future for the KRG. But he has learned at least one lesson from the past year and a half. I dont dare to make any predictions, he said. Who thought a couple of months back that Russia would enter the war in Syria? That Turkey would down a Russian jet? Who thought Saudi [Arabia] would start a war in Yemen or build a new coalition against [ISIL]? The Middle East is changing so rapidly and so fundamentally, he said. And this provides an opportunity for the Kurds to try and push for independence or at least some kind of confederation between Kurdish areas. If they are united, they can capitalize on this opportunity. That the ISIL crisis has brought mixed blessings to the Kurds is not lost on Bakir, the foreign minister. How can you talk about sovereignty when one-third of your territory is under the control of [ISIL]? he asked. But he noted that the peshmerga have shed more blood in liberating our land than anyone else. Sovereignty is not an opportunity, he said, but rather it is the right of a people, the right of a nation that history has betrayed. Today we have an opportunity to benefit. The fallout from Saudi Arabias Jan. 2 execution of cleric Nimr al-Nimr is starting to threaten the Syrian peace process, with key players Saudi Arabia and Iran openly renewing hostilities. A fresh round of sectarian violence could put progress on a Syrian deal on hold for months to come. Even when negotiations on Syria resume, they will at best be the start of a complicated, slow process that could take months or years. But there is something the United States can do right now to help Syrian civilians: It can press Turkey to allow human rights advocates and refugees seeking protection to cross the border from Syria. President Barack Obama got one thing dangerously wrong in his Dec. 7 televised national address when he billed the border closure as an achievement in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). In fact, its the opposite. Listening to Syrian human rights activists in the Turkish border city of Gaziantep, it seems the closure doesnt deter ISIL from crossing in and out of Syria. Rather, it prevents civil society activists from doing their vital work in the fight against ISIL and against the repression of Bashar al-Assads regime. To the limited extent that international attention has been paid to the danger of Turkeys border closure, it has focused on the very real harm to refugees trying to flee Syria. Even less discussed is the threat to Syrians trying to support civil society in their country. Gaziantep has become a hub for such activists, who are running dozens of programs in Syria that promote good local governance, expose corruption and fight sectarianism. In other words, theyre trying to prevent exactly the sort of grievances that ISIL feeds on. Activists can dissuade potential recruits from joining ISIL if they can reach them. If civil society leaders are prevented from offering people a credible alternative for a brighter future, ISIL wins. The effective closure of legal crossings since last July for all but humanitarian emergencies and a few other exceptions is strangling the work of these activists. Very few can cross through the legal checkpoints, and it can take weeks to get permission to get on the humanitarian list approved for crossing. Councillor Andrew Burns e-mail Andrew at ... andrewdburns[AT]btinternet.com Finding stuff on the blog ... The monthly archive (down below) goes back many years if you're after something and know the month it was likely to have been posted ... if not, please do try the blogger search-box in the top-left corner for items of obvious interest, such as 'allotment' :-) Facebook history to follow soon ... Twitter history also to follow soon ... Here's my 1st BLIPFOTO diary - which was for 2013/14 ONLY! https://www.blipfoto.com/RunAndrewRun & there's also an ongoing (from June '14) BLIPFOTO DIARY :-) https://www.blipfoto.com/AndrewDBurns About Me Andrew Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom Really bad blog & equally bad photos! View my complete profile Edinburgh Labour Archive Feedburner . "I am in love with this world" - John Burroughs "I am in love with this world ... it has been my home. It has been my point of outlook into the universe. I have not bruised myself against it, nor tried to use it ignobly. I have tilled its soil, I have gathered its harvests, I have waited upon its seasons, and always have I reaped what I have sown. While I delved, I did not lose sight of the sky overhead. I have climbed its mountains, roamed its forests, sailed its waters, crossed its deserts, felt the sting of its frosts, the oppression of its heats, the drench of its rains, the fury of its winds, and always have beauty and joy waited upon my goings and comings." Jan 14, 2016 | By Tess In certain complicated criminal cases, such as the shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice by a police officer in 2014, the visualization of the occurrence is paramount to understanding what happened and judging whether a crime was committed. Traditionally, investigators and prosecutors have depicted these scenes to juries with the help of photographs and descriptions, which are undoubtedly helpful but leave gaps in the scene and are not often exhaustive. In recent years, however, a new technology has become increasingly important to criminal investigators, especially in the case of Tamir Rices killing, and has allowed them to more accurately convey crime scenes to juries. What I am referring to, of course, is 3D scanning technology. Since 2009, 3D scanning technologies have become more and more prevalent in U.S. law enforcement and criminal investigations. They have been used in many notable and controversial cases that took place last year, such as the shooting and killing of Tamir Rice, the killings of New York City cops, and the recent massacre in San Bernardino. For those unfamiliar with the Tamir Rice case, the 12 year old Cleveland citizen was fatally shot by police officer Timothy Loehmann, who mistakenly thought Rice was holding a loaded gun. Though Rice was only carrying a toy bb gun while sitting in the park outside of Clevelands Cudell Recreation Center, a precautionary call was made to police by someone who noticed the young teen. Unfortunately, some information from the call, the fact that Rice was a youth, and that the witness thought the gun was likely fake, were not relayed, so when police officers Garmback and Loehmann drove up to the scene, they almost immediately shot and killed 12 year old Rice. While an undeniable tragedy, the case remained complicated as prosecutors tried to determine whether Loehmann and Garmback were actually guilty of criminal misconduct. During the trial, a surveillance video of the shooting was presented though its evidence was not clear or conclusive. To help understand the case further and to give jurors as much information as possible, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) turned to 3D scanning technologies in order to recreate a virtual model of the setting where the shooting took place. As Joseph Frolik, the director of communications and public policy for Cuyahoga County prosutors office who dealt with the case, says, We used [3D scanning] in two ways: to make accurate measurements of objects at the scene, and then they recreated vantage points, so there would be a rough approximation of what you would have seen at the scene. Surveillance video and virtual rendering of park where Tamir Rice was shot The 3D scanners used, which have been supplied by tech company FARO, which specializes in 3D measurements and 3D scanning, are able to effectively scan crime scenes, collecting minute details and capturing everything that can be visually detected. Mike Russ, a crime scene specialist with San Bernardino County sheriffs department explains, It is the most complete documentation tool, aside from digging up the house and bringing the entire house with me. The Faro 3D scanner works by placing it on a tripod in the center or the edge of a crime scene, from there the scanner emits three laser beams and sweeps up and down and around the space. As the laser beams reach certain objects, they are recorded with a light detector which compiles the data. The FARO 3D scanner is also capable of simultaneously capturing images, to help the scene be as detailed as possible. Theyll capture up to 1,000 feet of data in each direction, plus full color photographs, with an accuracy of 2 millimeters, explains Kelly Watt, a regional manager of FAROs forensic division. For the best results, the scene can be captured from many different vantage points in order to collect the most data possible for a crime scene. One scan can collect up to 44 million data points traditionally, so when a scene is scanned 50-60 times, the investigators have billions of data points to work with. When the scanning is complete, the data is put through a computer program which stitches together the data and images to make a virtual 3D space of the crime scene. The technology has been of utmost importance in helping jurors and others involved in the case to visualize what could have taken place at the scene of the crime. Using the images captured by the 3D scanner, one can virtually be taken through a crime scene, whether to see how things were strewn about, or even to understand the perpetrator or victims perspective. As BCI special agent supervisor Dennis Sweet, says of the 3D technology in relation to Tamir Rices case, Were able to show the officers point of view or sometimes the victims point of view, which just wasnt able to happen before. We were able to take pictures before, but the scans allow us to take a look at angles and aspects that we never had access to before. Not only that, however, the 3D scanning technologies can also help to uncover elements of a crime scene by zooming in on certain details such as bullet casings or glass or better demonstrate them to a jury. The software used by criminal investigators with the 3D scans is also capable of detecting blood spatter patterns and can determine where and how a person was impacted based on the blood. Outside of the crime scene context, the Secret Service also reportedly uses FARO 3D laser scanners when casing and securing an area before a presidential visit, to make sure that there are no potential threats or weapons in the vicinity. The scanners are also being successfully used to reconstruct a persons likeness based off of a scan from a skull, which has been useful in autopsys as well as in solving cold cases. As the 3D scanning technology is supposed to measure and represent every detail in the space it is scanning, the images it puts forth are said to be unbiased, a crucial element in convicting or acquitting people. That being said, the technology can also be used to bolster an argument. As Eugene Liscio, a 3D forensic specialist says, 3D reconstructions are certainly more powerful. Its much less likely that a jury will dispute a version of events with a 3D reconstruction versus a version of events backed by 2D photographs. Since 2009, the FBI, Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security have spent nearly $1 million on the 3D scanners, which is quite significant considering the most expensive FARO model costs $59,000, and can be as low as $11,000. As 3D scanning technology continues to gain sway in the law enforcement world, it is also important to remember that not every public defender or attorney will have access to a 3D scanner for their crime scene, which can mean an imbalance in certain cases. For instance, in the Tamir Rice case a 3D scan that depicted his point of view was not made, which can be seen as a slight disadvantage. Despite this, we are sure that as 3D scans and virtual models of crime scenes become more commonplace in the United States, and can be used by all defenders and prosecutors, the technology will help to present the most exhaustive evidence possible. Posted in 3D Scanning Maybe you also like: John Dee wrote at 1/15/2016 2:49:35 AM:"The technology has been of utmost importance in helping jurors and others involved in the case to visualize what COULD have taken place at the scene of the crime." Trying to blind the jurors with science more like, the video was pretty damning in my eyes, gun's where drawn far too quickly, I think before the car even came to a halt, shoot first ask questions later. I once did some visualizations for police forensics and while it may help the police to explain their version of events, it is prejudicial and not really evidence. Camera's can lie, but in this case the cops where bang out of order. Jan 15, 2016 | By Alec 3D printing has a reputation of being very futuristic, in part because designers tend to go all out with sci-fi inspired designs. However, as Japanese artist Taketo Kobayashi likes to remind us, it is also a fantastic tool for reaching back towards the dawn of human art. While Taketo has been using 3D printing for combining the very old with the very new throughout his oeuvre, and his latest Visions of the Universe project actually revolves around 3D printed replicas of pottery from the Jomon period in Japanese history (approximately 12,000 BC to 300 BC). If Taketo Kobayashi sounds familiar, thats probably because we have reported on his amazing 3D printing projects before. Readers might recall the intriguing works of the Tokyo-based modern artist and his quest to harmonize Japan's rich history and culture with modern technology and sub-cultures through 3D printing. His projects have covered and combined everything from the culture and art of the Shogun era to modern day anime (and everything in between). Over the past year or so, this has already resulted in a modern interpretation of the age-old Japanese tea ceremony involving 3D printed utensils, several highly artistic 3D printed prosthetics in the More Than Human project (in collaboration with visual artist Yoshinori Sakamaki as XSENSE). He has also created a gorgeous series of 3D printed Buddha statues that reflect several elements of traditional Japanese beliefs. Throughout his work, however, Taketo has been trying to find links to modern day sub-cultures, including the well-known anime and manga sub-cultures. This has been no different for Visions of the Universe, as Taketo explains to 3ders.org. I mixed the shape of Jomon itself and contemporary Japanese subcultural design, to express it in one shape. Connecting the ancient and contemporary creates a postmodern identity and art, he says. I take Japanese subcultural design and break it down into elements, then reconstruct it in abstract way. And the canvas he was working with is truly remarkable. The artifacts in question come from the Jomon period of Japanese history, which starts around 14,500-12,000 BC and ends around 300 BC. That period is famous for the large volume of art it produced, and fortunately large numbers remain. Especially Jomon Doki (period pottery) and Jomon Dogu (clay figures) can be found in Japanese museums, and represent the oldest and most original art form of the countrys long history. With the help of the Yamanashi Archeological Museum, Taketo has been able to work with some of these Doki pots, specifically SuienmonDoki (water marks) that has been excavated in the Yamanashi prefecture (the cultural center of Japan at the time) and is at least 5000 years old. As Taketo explains, the unique patterns found on this pot could have several meanings, and there isnt an academic consensus on what they represent. I believe the people of Jomon tried to express their view of the world, how they experienced the nature, life and the universe, on the clay, he says, something he feels is linked to contemporary cultural expressions as well. I have my own theory that Japanese subcultural design and concepts are descended from Jomon. It is based on the animistic belief and feeling of the Jomon period, fused and mixed with influences from the Asian mainland, like Buddhism, to create a unique culture. This is something even visible in the robotic designs you can see in anime, he argues, that are not expressions of industrial machinery, but vessels of a higher power and of man. Of course he wanted his creation to reflect that cultural convergence, but he was obviously not in a position to modify the Doki in any way. But with digital technology we can do something traditional art couldn't do. I believe this is the one of the value of post digital Art, he says. With the help of Japanese 3D printer service provider Apistect, he therefore turned the Doki into a slightly more modern, repaired version that you can interact with yourself, bringing that ancient cultural expression back into the hands of the modern man. But of course this wasnt easy to 3D print, as it had to capture that unique feel of the original. Visions of the Universe therefore consists of 11 parts, that have been 3D printed over the course of 270 hours. Polymax PLA was used during printing for its good mechanical properties and quality results. PolyMax PLA is especially known for its high impact resistance (up to nine times higher than regular PLA) and has excellent overall mechanical properties too (of a better quality than ABS). A Babel FDM 3D printer was used, which features a 300200200mm build space and two printing heads. Posted in 3D Printing Application Maybe you also like: " " Does a dog understand the passing of time in the same way a human does? See more pictures of dogs. Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/ Getty Images Most dogs are never late for a meal -- they know exactly where to be at the same time every day. They also know when to expect their owner home and, like clockwork, place themselves patiently at the door for that arrival. When you witness this behavior, you assume dogs have a sophisticated understanding of time. But what is time really like for a dog? They say a human year is equivalent to about seven dog years. But what does this common theory tell us about a dog's perception of time? Actually, very little. The idea of "dog years" comes from the life expectancy of dogs compared to humans. So it wouldn't be correct to apply this idea to the concept of time perception. Advertisement To understand how dogs perceive time, we first need to understand how humans perceive time. Arguably, each person experiences the passing of time in different ways at different times. Albert Einstein once explained the principle of relativity by saying, "When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute -- and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity" [source: Shapiro]. Even though the experience of time is relative for every individual, all humans think about time in similar ways. For instance, our memories are inextricably tied to how we understand the passing of time. Our ability to remember events in a particular order plays a large part in our perception of time. We're also able to predict things. Though we don't all claim to be psychic, each of us counts on certain events in the future -- even as simple as assuming that the sun will come up tomorrow. These abilities have important implications -- for instance, memory and prediction allow us to have a sense of continuity, personal history and self-awareness. Do dogs and other animals have these same abilities? If you climbed inside a dog's mind, would you be presented with the memory of eating a raw hide bone earlier this morning? Read the next page to find out what it would feel like to be a dog. Jan 15, 2016 | By Alec Over the past few years, the military branches of various nations have been very interested in metal 3D printing as a cost and time saving manufacturing option, and the US has been no exception. While the US Army and Air Force having been looking at their own options, the US Navy has been particularly interested in getting 3D printers on board of warships with an eye on emergency repairs. In 2014, a metal 3D printer was installed on the USS Essex, with two more metal 3D printing experiments launching on board the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman and the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge just a few weeks ago. However, those earliest experiments must have made an excellent impression on Navy engineers already, as DVIDS the media source for the US military just revealed that metal 3D printing has already been taken into operation in the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) and Combat Direction Systems Activity (CDSA) Dam Neck, and is expanding across the Navys own scientific and engineering community. We have a suite of varying 3D capabilities across the base, said Ricky Moore, Lead Mechanical Engineer for NSWCDD's Disruptive Technologies Branch. We are developing lessons learned with regard to fabrication and design. The impact of metal 3D printing is expected to be so significant, that the Navy even hosted a 3D Print-A-Thon back in December, to get experts and engineering talking about design guidelines and the technologys capacity. We are on the ground floor of 3-D printing, NSWCDD Technical Director Dennis McLaughlin told the 3D Print-A-Thons participants at the time. We need to move past the trinket stage and come up with examples that senior leaders can see. Let's come up with ideas for what else we can do. At the event, several experimental creations by the NSWCDD metal 3D printer the first warfare center to be equipped with one of these machines were also on display, showing just what can be expected in the near future. As was revealed, the Navy particularly sees metal 3D printing as a time and cost reduction tool that enables rapid deployment of equipment replacements. On display, among others, was a replica of a warship command center design console, and fleet layout models which are currently still created by hand. Even more impressive was the exhibited HexPod Robot, which is still in a development phase. Its goal is to offer several advantages to warfighters, such as low-power movement through difficult terrain. An initial concept was turned into a full 3D printed prototype within just four weeks (which would normally take up to three or four months). Interestingly, the engineers made some quick weight-saving adjustments just 12 hours before the event, because they felt it was too heavy. However, 3D printing with an eye on medical solutions is also being recognized. At the event, instrumentation engineer Kevin Streeff demonstrated how easy it was to make a 3D scan of an injured soldier. Not only could this be used to quickly make surgical models (a plastic bust was created on stage during the event), but more importantly it can be used for making custom cosmetic and corrective prosthetics, custom fit masks, and even face pieces all with the help of quick 3D scanning and 3D printing. On a more general note, 3D printing is seen as an in-the-field solution for equipment problems. The ability to move additive manufacturing into the field would allow for equipment to be made on demand, reducing the overall footprint on the ground and dramatically increasing flexibility, said Jason Phillips, an NSWCDD engineer in the Disruptive Technologies branch. 3D scanning of existing mechanical problems with the purpose of quickly manufacturing corrective parts is also being looked at. In short, it seems like the navy is definitely working hard to realize a request by President Obama, who in 2013 called for 3D printing to revolutionize the way they make just about everything. Though some additive manufacturing options have been looked at by the NSWCDD for years, their 3D printing efforts only really got underway in 2013, when programs kicked off to use the technology to solve fleet problems. That same year, the Navy hosted the Print-the-Fleet event to raise awareness for what the technology could do for them. While it might still take some time before the sailors start noticing changes in their daily lives, it is thus clearly being recognized as a legitimate tool for the near future. Posted in 3D Printing Application Maybe you also like: JF Parnell wrote at 5/3/2016 4:51:54 AM:Bang on Mark. 3D printing, or as they love to call it "Additive Manufacturing" has it's place, but it is no panacea of manufacturing. The material properties, dimensional stability and accuracy just aren't there even on the most sophisticated systems. But there are those in the Navy that are hyping this technology to the fullest extent. This doesn't even take in to account who will do all the 3D modeling of the parts to be created. 3D scanning is a very labor intensive way to go about creating parametric models. It is way better than the old point cloud days, but it is by no means easy as point and shoot.Mark wrote at 4/8/2016 9:03:34 PM:Interesting article on the use of 3d printing technology. I see the application for prototyping and replacement of critical components, however I do not think we will reach the panacea of using this technology to replace bench stocks of traditional machined or manufactured parts. While the cost of printing small parts may be within an organizations budget, the cost for producing volumes of parts could bankrupt a business or organization. By shifting the production costs to the consumer they will lose the benefit of scale provided by mass production. Also, the operator will have to be able to quality control and inspect the produced parts to ensure compliance with any standards of performance. finally, the customer will need to have a variety of raw materials available for each part produced, again requiring a bench stock; possibly negating any initial savings. Sudip Bose at The American Scholar: It wasnt the concept of the blockbuster that I had found troubling 20 years ago, but the idea of making Vermeer the subject of such a show. Few artists seem more unsuited to a hurried and harried viewing experience. One must shut out the noise of the wider world to enter the mysterious worlds portrayed in his small canvases. Consisting of no more than a few figures, but typically showing just a solitary woman engaged in some domestic activity, these pictures are as tranquil as still lifes. A young woman pouring milk from a jug, reading a letter, holding a pitcher of water, making lace, or gazing into a mirrorVermeer imbues these everyday rituals, by virtue of his mastery of color and the expressive possibilities of light, with great feeling and poetry. They are intimate, quiet scenes, and almost all of them are enigmatic in some wayto puzzle out their mysteries requires time and attention. InWoman in Blue Reading a Letter, for example, the questions come almost at once. Why are the womans pearls laid out on the table, partially covered by a sheet of paper? What does her letter say? What causes her to adopt that curious pose, lips parted, head tilted ever so slightly? Has the letter been sent by a lover, someone at sea perhaps, as suggested by the map of the Dutch states of Holland and West Friesland hanging behind her? Most compelling of all: Is the woman pregnant, as Vincent van Gogh had suggested in 1888? Or is her bulbous blue jacket simply typical of the oversized clothing worn by Dutch women in the 17th century, a time when pregnancy would not have been depicted in art? Nothing about this canvasor Vermeers other paintings, for that matteris easy or clear. more here. Appointment and Resignation of Director Sydney, Jan 15, 2016 AEST (ABN Newswire) - KBL Mining Limited ( ASX:KBL ) is pleased to advise that Mr Charles Brown has been appointed as a non-executive director of the Company. Mr Brown's appointment follows the resignation of Mr David Laing as a non-executive director due to business commitments. The Board of Directors would like to thank Mr Laing for the valuable contribution he has made to the Company. Mr Brown is a mining professional with over 40 years of extensive, international experience in operations, project development and corporate management. He holds the position of Executive Vice President, Mine Engineering, with Quintana Resources Capital ULC and brings both business acumen and hands on, mining operations experience to our Company. Prior to joining Quintana Resources Capital, he worked for developing and producing mining Companies including: Great Panther Silver (Vancouver/Mexico), NewGold (New Afton, BC), Crystallex (Venezuela), Outokumpu (Tara Mines, Ireland), Giant Yellowknife Mines (Timmins, Ontario) and Sherritt (Lynn Lake, Manitoba). Most recently, Mr Brown has held the positions of Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice President, Corporate Development for Great Panther Silver. During this period, he was involved in developing the Company into a growing and profitable silver producing Company. As Managing Director of Tara Mines Ltd. in Ireland, for Outokumpu, Mr Brown was responsible for Europe's largest and highly mechanized, underground zinc mine. During that time he oversaw significant productivity and cost improvements, along with major technical advances in mining and metallurgical performance. Throughout his career, he has been involved with M&A activities and metal market research, conducting technical due diligence on several base metal and precious metal projects and operations. Mr Brown holds a BSc. Honors Degree in Mining Engineering from the University of Nottingham, U.K. About KBL Mining Ltd KBL Mining Ltd (ASX:KBL) is an Australian resource Company listed on the ASX with a focus on producing precious and base metals. KBL's main assets include the Mineral Hill copper-gold-silver-lead-zinc mine near Condobolin in New South Wales and Sorby Hills lead-silver-zinc project in Western Australia. The Company has been operating the refurbished processing plant at Mineral Hill since October 2011 to produce copper-gold concentrates and in 2013 commenced producing a separate lead-silver concentrate. Sorby Hills (KBL holds 75% with Henan Yuguang Gold & Lead Co. Ltd (HYG&L) holding 25%) is a large near surface undeveloped silver-lead deposit close to port infrastructure and a short distance from Asian markets. (Bloomberg) Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clintons call Tuesday to increase taxes on the wealthy and close loopholes didnt address the candidates own moves to shield at least part of the value of her New York home from the estate tax. Bloomberg News reported in 2014 that Hillary and Bill Clinton created residence trusts in 2010 and shifted ownership of their Chappaqua, New York, house into them in 2011, according to federal financial disclosures and local property records. Such trusts offer tax advantages, in which any increase in the houses value can be excluded from the Clintons taxable estate. The trust could save the couple hundreds of thousands of dollars in future estate taxes, a tax specialist told Bloomberg News in 2014. The trusts, as well as the loopholes she proposed closing in other areas on Tuesday, are legal under current tax rules. Brian Fallon, a Hillary Clinton spokesman, said, Their tax rate was over 35 percent in 2013, and she is proposing policies that would raise their taxes further. The minimum value of the Clintons financial assets is $11 million, according to Hillary Clintons most recent campaign disclosure, which requires reporting within broad ranges of value. The couple has earned at least $30 million since January 2014, according to the disclosure. That income places them among the top .01 percent of American taxpayers, based on Internal Revenue Service data. Campaign disclosures show that the Clintons also own life insurance trusts, which can also reduce estate-tax bills. Under current law, estates worth less than $5.45 million per person, or $10.9 million per married couple, are exempt from the 40 percent estate tax. Clinton on Tuesday proposed making more estates taxablethose worth more than $3.5 million per person or $7 million per couple. She also wants to raise the rate to 45 percent. The increased tax would apply to four out of every 1,000 estates in the country and raise $200 billion over 10 years, according to a Clinton campaign aide who asked not to be named. On Monday, Clinton proposed creating a 4 percent tax surcharge for people with annual incomes of $5 million or more, a measure that would target just .02 percent of U.S. taxpayers and raise $150 billion over 10 years, the aide said. Clinton also said Tuesday she wants to close loopholes that create tax benefits for hedge-fund managers and the wealthy. Specifically, she wants to make it more difficult to build multimillion- dollar individual retirement accounts, and prevent hedge funds from getting tax benefits by investing through Bermuda-based reinsurance companies. After Clintons estate-tax announcement Tuesday, Michael C. Short, a Republican National Committee spokesman, tweeted a link to Bloombergs previous reporting on the Clintons residence trusts. With assistance from Jennifer Epstein. By Derrick Broze On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security released updated information regarding the national identification card known as the REAL ID. Beginning January 22, 2018, all airline passengers will need identification cards that are in compliance with the more secure features required by the REAL ID Act of 2005. The REAL ID Act was passed in response to the 9/11 attacks, as part of the global War on Terror. Until this deadline, all states drivers licenses and passports will be valid for airline travel. Currently, five states and one territory Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, Washington and American Samoa do not comply with Real ID standards. Several other states are reportedly taking steps to update their identification cards between now and the deadline. These standards include invasive biometric measures. Travelers in states that do not comply with the stricter security measures will be forced to use an alternative form of identification recognized by the Transportation Security Administration. These options include a permanent resident card, an airline-issued identification or a tribal identification. Most unnerving of all is the fact that the REAL ID requirements extend to driving privileges in addition to airline travel. Thats right. If your state drivers license does not meet REAL ID standards, you will need to carry another acceptable form of identification, and likely will not be able to legally drive. When announcing the new guidelines, Jeh Johnson, Secretary of Homeland Security, offered a firm call to states that would dare challenge the federal governments plan. Over the next two years, those states that are not REAL ID compliant are strongly encouraged to meet the requirements of the law for the benefit of their residents, Johnson told USA Today. Jonathan Grella, Executive Vice President of Public Affairs at the U.S. Travel Association, told USA Today that the new guidelines are welcome because growing misinformation was not helping anyone. Grella also said, Striking the correct balance between security and convenience is not and should not be a zero-sum policymaking game. There are currently 23 states complying with REAL ID. Twenty-seven states and territories have been granted extensions to comply with the rule changes. For a full list of the compliant states and the various deadlines, please see this link. Despite the more restrictive measures, the TSA admits you can fly without a valid form of identification. I have personal experience flying without ID, and can say that despite the victory of flying without the intrusive REAL ID (or identification in general), the alternative is equally frustrating. When you arrive at the airport without an identification card, TSA agents might ask you to fill out a form with your name and current address. More than likely, they will ask you a number of pesky questions, like, What was the name of the elementary school you went to? When I was undergoing this line of questioning, the TSA officer assigned to me was on the phone with someone evidently formulating the questions. When I asked who he was speaking to, he informed me it was DHS. Once I answered all the questions, I was free to fly without additional harassment. The history of the implementation of the REAL ID Act has been plagued with controversy and resistance from the public, politicians, and civil liberty advocates. Quite simply, this identification card is just another step towards a technocratic control grid wielded by power-hungry politicians who have little interest in stopping terrorism, but rather, controlling and dominating the population at large. It will be interesting to see which states stand their ground against the federal government and which ones cower in fear. 10 Strategies to Survive and Thrive During Economic Collapse - Subscribe To Get Your Free Copy Email address: Yes - I consent to receive emails Leave this field empty if you're human: Subscription is FREE and CONFIDENTIAL - Subscribe To Get Your Free Copy Each of us has to decide what we are willing to accept in order to participate in airline travel. Perhaps for some, it is less time-consuming to simply update your identification card to comply with the proper REAL ID security measures. Others may feel strongly about their principles and will willingly accept extra harassment if it means not obtaining a national identification card. If you choose this route, be aware the process is extensive. I would recommend arriving even earlier than you typically might. For many of the awakened hearts and minds across America, this represents a breaking point. Will we be forced to accept the latest attack in a long line of affronts on our privacy and freedom of movement? Will we stand strong together and find ways to fight back against the increasingly tyrannical demands of the United States government? I know where I stand. How about you? Also Read: This article (A National ID Card Is Coming Soon and You Will Need It to Fly and Drive) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Derrick Broze and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org. By Jay Syrmopoulos In spite of French-led U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 creating a no-fly zone over Libya with the express intent of protecting civilians, one of the over 3,000 new Hillary Clinton emails released by the State Department on New Years Eve, contain damning evidence of Western nations using NATO as a tool to topple Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi. The NATO overthrow was not for the protection of the people, but instead it was to thwart Gaddafis attempt to create a gold-backed African currency to compete with the Western central banking monopoly. The emails indicate the French-led NATO military initiative in Libya was also driven by a desire to gain access to a greater share of Libyan oil production, and to undermine a long term plan by Gaddafi to supplant France as the dominant power in the Francophone Africa region. The April 2011 email, sent to the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by unofficial adviser and longtime Clinton confidante Sidney Blumenthal with the subject line Frances client and Qaddafis gold, reveals predatory Western intentions. The Foreign Policy Journal reports: The email identifies French President Nicholas Sarkozy as leading the attack on Libya with five specific purposes in mind: to obtain Libyan oil, ensure French influence in the region, increase Sarkozys reputation domestically, assert French military power, and to prevent Gaddafis influence in what is considered Francophone Africa. Most astounding is the lengthy section delineating the huge threat that Gaddafis gold and silver reserves, estimated at 143 tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver, posed to the French franc (CFA) circulating as a prime African currency. The email makes clear that intelligence sources indicate the impetus behind the French attack on Libya was a calculated move to consolidate greater power, using NATO as a tool for imperialist conquest, not a humanitarian intervention as the public was falsely led to believe. According to the email: This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden Dinar. This plan was designed to provide the Francophone African Countries with an alternative to the French franc (CFA). (Source Comment: According to knowledgeable individuals this quantity of gold and silver is valued at more than $7 billion. French intelligence officers discovered this plan shortly after the current rebellion began, and this was one of the factors that influenced President Nicolas Sarkozys decision to commit France to the attack on Libya.) The email provides a peek behind the curtain to reveal how foreign policy is often carried out in practice. While reported in the media that the Western-backed Libyan military intervention is necessary to save human lives, the real driving factor behind the intervention was shown to be the fact that Gaddafi planned to create a high degree of economic independence with a new pan-African currency, which would lessen French influence and power in the region. The evidence indicates that when French intelligence became aware of the Libyan initiative to create a currency to compete with the Western central banking system, the decision to subvert the plan through military means began, ultimately including the NATO alliance. h/t Levant Report Jay Syrmopoulos is a political analyst, free thinker, researcher, and ardent opponent of authoritarianism. He is currently a graduate student at University of Denver pursuing a masters in Global Affairs. Jays work has been published on Ben Swanns Truth in Media, Truth-Out, Raw Story, MintPress News, as well as many other sites. You can follow him on Twitter @sirmetropolis, on Facebook at Sir Metropolis and now on tsu. By Claire Bernish In the United States, we have become so inured to ironically-titled legislation, the majority of us simply assume legislators find dystopic, tongue-in-cheek humor in toying with our hopes think: USA Freedom Act, the sole freedom of which lies in the governments green light to spy on the populace however it chooses. Similarly, a set of bills purporting to reform the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act makes no exception to that practice, as the Senates version, The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, bears the name of the late New Jersey senator who espoused strong environmental policy. But these bills do anything but protect the environment or the people; in fact, states would have a far more difficult time regulating dangerous chemicals on their own, and would be prohibited entirely from doing so while waiting for often snail-paced evaluation by the EPA. Maines 2008 Kid Safe Product Act could serve as an excellent example for potential pitfalls in these ostensible improvements. Though the state has since used that law to list over 1,700 chemicals of concern and has required manufacturers to divulge when they employ some of those even prohibiting the use of other toxic substances altogether when safer alternatives exist the federal bills would nullify such vital protections in certain scenarios. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are flame retardants found in everything from foam furniture cushions to plastic housings for TVs, computers, and electronics. PBDEs are also common in automotive parts and childrens toys. Their chemical structure closely resembles notoriously toxic PCBs, dioxins, and furans, and can leach and evaporate into the environment over time. This process has led to rapid bioaccumulation in fat tissue of humans and animals. Since their discovery in living organisms in 1981, [T]hey have been found in birds, fish, shellfish, amphibians, marine mammals, sewage sludge, sediments, air samples, meats, dairy products, and even vegetables in numerous North American and European locations, as well as in Japan. Most alarming, however, has been their discovery in human blood, fatty tissue, umbilical cord blood, and breast milk in every region where scientists have conducted studies. Furthermore, in many areas, concentrations have been increasing exponentially. PBDEs are linked to low birth weight, thyroid disruption, and permanent behavior problems and brain damage; but there is a dearth of investigation despite suspicion concerning potential carcinogenic properties. Though no current federal regulations are in place for PBDEs, California imposed restrictions on their manufacture and distribution and Maine has banned them altogether. Bisphenol A (BPA) is the ubiquitous principle building block of polycarbonate plastic used in the resin lining of all food and beverage cans. It can be found in a wide assortment of products from baby bottles and sippy cups to dental fillings and medical devices. It can even be found in cash register receipts. But its widespread use doesnt equate with safety, as BPA is linked to a number of health problems and is a likely human carcinogen. As the Natural Resources Defense Council stated, More than 90 percent of the general population has BPA in their bodies. Maine led the nationwide effort to rein in use of the toxic substance, which received so much attention even the giant toymaker Hasbro wound up removing BPA from all its products, reported The Intercept. There are several ways proposed reforms to the TSCA could undermine consumer safety. Of particular concern would be the inability for states to enact regulations while waiting for the EPA to complete investigations into substances toxicity PBDEs and BPA are still under consideration, for example. Though some already-established restrictions on certain chemicals would be allowed to remain in place, once the EPA lists others on its priorities list, states would be prohibited from imposing such rules and then, the EPA has seven years to take action on a harmful substance. Most disturbingly, that prohibition on state action would remain in place even in cases where the EPA fails to take any action whatsoever. Further, if the EPA does find a substance to be harmful, before federal restrictions can be imposed, the agency must offer evidence the product containing it causes significant exposure a nebulous term left undefined, and thus open to interpretation, in the bill. No terms defined here, nor is the scope of products spelled out, explained Mike Belliveau, Executive Director of the Environmental Health Strategy Center. Again, data gaps on chemical use often prevent EPA from knowing which products are the worst offenders. If the chemical is unsafe, EPA should have freedom to restrict any source, without having to conduct a second safety assessment just on products. If the bill stands, expect a classic move from the industry playbook. Theyll disaggregate the risk into smaller and smaller categories until nothing is significant. Or theyll sue EPA for failing to meet its new burden [of proof]. If consumers were hoping for relief via EPA restrictions on chemicals already known to be hazardous, it wont come from this reform legislation. Of some 62,000 chemicals grandfathered into the original TSCA and an additional 20,000 that have come to market since, without sufficient safety and health assessments at least 2,000 are known to be hazardous. With stipulations in the proposed Lautenberg reforms requiring only 10 dangerous chemicals be tested in the first year, and just 25 every three to five years after that [a]ssuming no delays, it will take EPA about 400 years just to assess the safety of the chemicals we already know are dangerous to human health and the environment. If a toxic substance somehow jumps through all these hoops and winds up banned by legislation, foreign companies seeking to import products containing that substance wont have much difficulty doing so. Not only would the EPA be required to assess the health risks of that specific product, it would also have to determine whether restricting it would be considered an impediment to trade and commerce. Regardless of the substances status as illegal, there would be no mandate for importers to certify their products dont contain it. Is it any wonder chemical groups and their lobbyists have been eagerly pushing to reform the TSCA? In fact, as SFGate discovered, the legislations digital footprints point to none other than the American Chemistry Council, the leading trade organization and lobbyist for the chemical industry. Were apparently at the point in the minds of some people in the Congress that laws intended to regulate polluters are now written by the polluters, themselves, said president of the Environmental Working Group, Ken Cook. Senators David Vitter and Tom Udall may be responsible for authorship of the bill, but according to an article in The New York Times, Udalls political supporters now include the chemical industry, which has donated tens of thousands of dollars to campaigns and sponsored a television ad that praised his leadership. And though the senator has been chief negotiator for the bill, Some of Mr. Udalls Democratic Senate colleagues and prominent environmentalists say he has helped the industry write new regulations in a way that protects profits more than peoples health. Though digital signatures can be changed, as ACC spokeswoman and vice president Ann Kolter told SFGate, Cook and Senator Barbara Boxers office both claimed their copies of the bill bore the same electronic signature. As SFGate reported, a Senate IT staffer told Boxers office, We can confidently say that the document was created by a user with American Chemistry Council. Their name is specified as Author and their Organization is specified as American Chemistry Council. Cal M. Dooley, former representative from California who is now lobbyist for and president of ACC, which represents Dow, DuPont, and other behemoths of the $800 billion-per-year chemical industry, said of Udall, The leadership he is providing is absolutely critical. As Belliveau explained, the past decade has seen 35 states pass restrictions on harmful chemicals in household products, such as mercury thermometers, toxic flame retardants in couches and televisions, lead and phthalates in toys, BPA in baby bottles and cadmium in jewelry. State leadership on chemicals has protected the public in the absence of federal leadership and driven the chemical industry to the TSCA reform table. Unfortunately, many of those efforts will be undermined by the attempted covert marriage of that industry and the very leadership supposedly tasked with being its watchdog. How Congress manages to put profit and capitulation to industry interest ahead of public health and safety is unconscionable yet apparently its the strikingly bold reality of life in U.S., Inc. As Belliveau lamented: In either case, the bill makes it harder to regulate consumer products that are a known source of chemicals that fail the safety standard. This article (How Congress Is About to Make It Easier for Chemical Companies to Poison Us) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org. Nomads legacy in Desert Storm The Nomads have a heritage of air dominance, none more notable than their actions in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm where they secured the first aerial victories of the Gulf War. In August 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait to annex the countrys rich oil reserves, President George H. W. Bush ordered ground, sea and air forces to Southwest Asia to stabilize the region and persuade Saddam Hussein to withdraw his invasion force. Lt. Col William Thiel, 58th Tactical Fighter Squadron (TFS) commander, was notified shortly after the invasion that his squadron was tasked to deploy. We were going to deploy to a basenext to the Red Sea, Thiel said. The mission to get over there was nonstop, about 15 hours in the air. Thats a long time to be sitting down. We almost needed a crane to get us out of the cockpit, because we were all kind of stiffed up. Nomads of the 33rd Tactical Fighter Wing began flying Operation Desert Shield missions in late August from northwest Saudi Arabia with 769 personnel and 24 F-15C Eagles. During this operation Airmen familiarized themselves with desert terrain and participated in joint training with aircrews from the U.S. Navy and the Royal Saudi Air Force. The United States objective was to bring the invasion and occupation of Kuwait by Iraq to an end and to restore the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Kuwait, according to Security Council Resolution 661. Thiel said the 58th TFS had completed two combat training exercises-- Red Flag in Las Vegas and Maple Leaf in Canada -- before they deployed, which simulated war time air tactics. [Deploying] was a bit scary because youre always worried about a lot of things but we were very well prepared, said Thiel. At midnight on Jan. 17, 1991, the Nomads launched into Operation Desert Storm with a surprise attack over Baghdad. Their mission was to clear the skies of enemy aircraft over Bagdad and open a corridor for a second force to strike. During the first strike, Capt. Jon Kelk, 58th TFS pilot, earned the first aerial kill of the war destroying a MiG-29 twin-engine fighter jet with an AIM-7 Sparrow medium-range air-to-air missile. Shortly thereafter, Capt. Robert Graeter, 58th TFS pilot, shot down two Iraqi Dassault Mirage F1s for the second and third kills of the war. Later that day, Capt. Rhory Draeger, 58th TFS pilot, and Capt. Charles Magill, U.S. Marine Corp exchange officer with the 33rd, intercepted and destroyed two MiG-29s west of Baghdad. In a post deployment interview with Air Force Public Affairs, Capt. Larry Pitts, 58th TFS pilot, who flew in these missions, said he and other aircrew members were greeted with relief and excitement by their comrades after the first sortie. Everyone was pretty excited, even more so because we were able to bring everyone back home, said Pitts. It was our first combat sortie and we actually expected a pretty sophisticated threat from the [enemy]. Everyone was glad all of us came home. Nomads continued to make an impact during the war until Feb. 27, 1991, when President Bush issued the cease-fire order. On March 3 the Gulf War ended. The 58th TFS had the greatest number of aerial victories in one squadron, 12, and the most pilots with multiple victories in one squadron, 4. They flew over 1,182 sorties and logged over 7,000 combat hours in direct support of the U.S. objectives. But for Thiel, the most memorable part of the war was bringing home the same number of people and airplanes they deployed with--no fatalities. War is a terrible thing, but if you have to go to war its nice to go to one where youre well prepared. You can do your job and bring everybody home, Thiel said. We so overmatched the enemy, which made it less frightening, and we were able to do a great job and be very effective. Desert Storm: 2nd Bomb Wing leads the air war In the early morning of Jan. 16, 1991, the 2nd Bomb Wing deployed seven B-52G Stratofortresses and crews to Iraq in a single, secret mission that would mark the beginning of Operation Desert Storm. This opening salvo, launched by the 596th Bomb Squadron, paved the way for American forces to defeat Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, whose troops had invaded neighboring Kuwait. Strategic Air Command called the classified 35-hour mission Operation Senior Surprise, known as Secret Squirrel to the operators who would fly the mission. The bombers traveled more than 14,000 nautical miles nonstop and was the longest combat mission in history at the time. Twenty-five years later, many of the Secret Squirrel aircrews continue to serve the 2nd BW. "The 2nd BW's warrior Airmen who delivered the opening punch of the first Gulf War stand tall in our unit's storied history," said Col. Kristin Goodwin, the 2nd BW commander. "While technology and tactics evolve over time, the bravery, determination and skill demonstrated during that mission are timeless and continues to inspire everyone who wears our wing patch." Col. Trey Morriss, the 307th Bomb Wing vice commander, was a new captain when he served as a B-52G electronic warfare officer during the Secret Squirrel mission. The Secret Squirrel mission was used to blind Iraq by eliminating certain power and communication nodes throughout the country. This severely hampered their response in the initial phase of the war, Morriss said. We proved to U.S. citizens, our allies, coalition partners, and even to our enemies that we will do what we say were going to do. In doing so, we solidified the B-52 in the realm of long-range strike capability. During Desert Storm, the 2nd BW employed a new weapon against Iraq: the AGM-86C, Conventional Air Launched Cruise Missile. This marked the first time GPS had ever been used to guide a missile toward a target. On Jan. 17, 1991, the B-52 crews launched 35 CALCMs, rendering Saddams forces and striking key points of communication infrastructure. The B-52 provides a great first-strike capability in any conventional war, Morriss said. It gives us the ability to degrade the enemy with the first attack and press in with other capabilities. We also proved to the world that we were on the threshold of a new type of modern warfare with GPS-guided weapons. The results speak for themselves. One Secret Squirrel copilot, Russell Mathers, faced unpredictable risks when flying to the Middle East, but maintained confidence in his training. Those risks included potential enemy action, landing into friendly territory that may not have been prepared to accommodate U.S. military aircraft or any number of system failures within the aircraft. The risks were the unknown, Mathers said. We didnt know if anyone was going to take a shot at us. After Desert Storm, SAC learned valuable lessons about long-range combat missions, according to Mathers. What we learned as a bomber community is that the bomber is still a huge viable weapons system. We also learned how difficult it is physiologically, to fly these missions and prepare the human body to fly 30 or 40 hour missions, said Mathers. Once Secret Squirrel kicked off Desert Storm operations, the B-52 continued playing a critical role throughout the campaign. Nearly 70 B-52G crews flew 1,741 missions totaling 15,269 combat hours during which 27,000 tons of munitions were dropped. Jim Bowles, an Air Force Global Strike Command program analyst, served as a B-52 instructor pilot and aircraft commander during Desert Storm. Bowles said he was fortunate to fly with a copilot, radar navigator electronic warfare officer, and gunner, all of whom were instructors in their respective duties. We knew our aircraft, and we knew our training. While there was some apprehension about going into combat and the potential for not coming home, there was also a confidence because we knew we could do our mission. When I look back on Desert Storm, it feels like yesterday. Its a memory deep within myself and my family. Its a defining moment that shaped me for the rest of my Air Force career. For Bowles, mission success during Desert Storm isnt only a victory for Secret Squirrel aircrews, but for the Airmen and their families who provided critical support at home while combat continued overseas. When those bomber crews go off to do their mission, they need the support of every Airman behind them making sure they can get their job done, he said. Without the support of the Airmen and their families, its a lot more difficult when conducting your mission downrange. Operation Desert Storm: 25 years later, AMC doing more with less Iraqi forces attacked Kuwait Aug. 2, 1990, setting into motion a massive military response from a coalition of nations to protect Saudi Arabia from invasion with Operation Desert Shield. After Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein refused to withdraw from Kuwait, Desert Shield gave way to Operation Desert Storm Jan. 17, 1991, and soon concluded with a ceasefire at the end of February. Twenty-five years later, Mobility Air Forces are continuing to fuel the fight and provide airlift with most of the same airframes the Air Force used during Desert Storm. Jan. 17 marks the 25th anniversary of the total force performing the most rapid airlift movement in history. Nearly 472,800 people and approximately 465,000 tons of cargo were deployed to the Persian Gulf in eight months. The buildup Airlift and air refueling enabled the rapid arrival of the first U.S. forces in Desert Shield. Two F-15 Eagle squadrons from Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, arrived in Saudi Arabia on Aug. 7, 1990. Military Airlift Command launched its first airlift mission that day as well, a C-141 mission from Charleston AFB, South Carolina, carrying airlift control elements. Within the next 24 hours, ALCEs were in place in Saudi Arabia to manage the airlift flow. The ALCE personnel and cargo were carried on 37 C-141s, 10 C-5 Galaxies and 10 C-130 Hercules missions. U.S. Transportation Command completed the largest unit deployment ever via air with 412 strategic airlift aircraft. From Aug. 8-26, the Strategic Airlift Command airlifted the 82nd Airborne Division to Saudi Arabia while simultaneously moving the 101st Airborne Division from Aug. 17-25. In a little more than two months, the XVIII Airborne Corps, consisting of an airborne division, an air-assault division, two heavy divisions, an armored cavalry regiment, and the requisite array of combat support and combat service support assets, deployed. The arriving inventory included more than 120,000 troops, 700 tanks, 1,400 armored fighting vehicles, and 600 artillery pieces. Not long into the operation, a lack of spare parts impeded the buildup to Desert Storm. To help cope with priority deliveries, TRANSCOM established a special code 9AU and an airlift system to support. On Oct. 30, 1990, Mobility Air Forces began a special airlift operation called Desert Express to provide daily delivery of spare parts considered absolutely crucial to the war effort. This was a new concept of airlift operations, which involved C-141 deliveries from Charleston AFB to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. With a stop for refueling, the journey took about 17 hours one way, according to a document titled "So Many, So Much, So Far, So Fast: United States Transportation Command and Strategic Deployment for Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm." On Dec. 23, the airlift sustainment backlog peaked 10,300 tons. On Feb. 13, USTRANSCOM began flying a second C-141 flight per day to tackle the backlog until it was discontinued May 20, 1991. By the end of the war, Desert Express flew nearly 135 missions. Operation Desert Storm Directed by USTRANSCOM, the Military Airlift Command managed the Desert Shield/Desert Storm strategic airlift. MACs active-duty force joined with MAC-gained aircraft and crews from the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard to make up a total strategic airlift force. The "surge" of total force and the first activation of the Civilian Reserve Airlift Fleet was essential to the Desert Shield/Desert Storm success. There were 12,894 strategic airlift missions during both operations. Commercial airline augmentation was also crucial to the airlift effort. The Civil Reserve Air Fleet was activated for the first time during Desert Shield/Desert Storm and flew 3,309 missions. Altogether, commercial aircraft delivered 321,005 passengers and 145,225 tons of cargo, including 64 percent of passenger movements, according to the USTRANSCOM historical document. On the military airlift side, the C-130 supported intra-theater needs and is credited with 1,193 tactical airlift missions. More than 145 C-130 aircraft deployed in support of Desert Shield/Desert Storm. The C-130s flew 46,500 sorties and moved more than 209,000 people and 300,000 tons of supplies within the theater. The C-141 was called the "workhorse" of Desert Shield/Desert Storm, according to the USTRANSCOM document. It flew 8,536 strategic airlift missions, followed by the C-5 with 3,770; the KC-10 with 379 and the C-9 with 209. The C-141 and C-5 accounted for 361,147 tons, or 66 percent of the cargo airlifted in support of the Gulf War. Gen. Hansford T. Johnson, the MAC commander at the time, compared the first few weeks of deployment effort to airlifting a small city. "We moved, in essence, a Midwestern town the size of Lafayette, Indiana, or Jefferson City, Missouri," Johnson was quoted as saying in the MAC history book. "In addition, we've also moved the equivalent of all their cars, trucks, foodstuffs, stocks, household goods and water supply." The Strategic Airlift Command led refueling missions during Desert Shield/Desert Storm. "Once the deployment order was given on Aug. 7, 1990, tankers played an integral role in getting forces and aircraft to the deployed theater of operations," retired Air Force Gen. Kenneth Keller, the former SAC director of operations, said during a 2009 AMC Tanker Living Legends Speaker Series. Seven B-52Gs from Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, dropped the first bombs to initiate Operation Desert Storm Jan. 17, 1991. The bombers launched 35 conventional air launch cruise missiles, flew 14,000 miles for more than 35 hours without landing. These were the first combat sorties launched for the liberation of Kuwait in support of Operation Desert Storm, and it marked the longest combat sortie flight totaling 14,000 miles in 35 hours and 24 minutes. This mission required multiple four inflight refuels outbound and four returning, according to the Air Force Global Strike Command. "Without the phenomenal tanker support we had for the war, we could not have accomplished what we did," retired Lt. Gen. Patrick Caruana said in the Tanker Living Legends Speaker Series. Caruana was the U.S. Central Air Forces' air campaign planner and commander during Desert Shield/Desert Storm. Tankers flew 4,967 sorties and off-loaded more than 28.2 million gallons of fuel to 14,588 receivers during the 132 days of Desert Shield buildup, according to the Air Force History Office document "Seventy-Five Years of Inflight Refueling." The 43 days of Desert Storm included 15,434 sorties and dispensed 110.2 million gallons of fuel to U.S. and allied aircraft. "Desert Shield and Desert Storm demonstrated the U.S. Air Force's capability to respond to crisis and contingency situations in times of intense demand with limited resources," said Gen. Carlton D. Everhart II, the AMC commander. "Today, Headquarters AMC planners evaluate these operations to determine more efficient methods of providing rapid global mobility and enhance AMC's agility." Evolution of Air Mobility Command Following Desert Storm, SAC and MAC merged to form Air Mobility Command. One constant through the years is the demand for rapid global mobility through aeromedical evacuation, airlift and aerial refueling. Today, AMC is meeting high demands with a smaller force and older fleet. In the past 25 years, AMC retired the C-141B/C and the C-9A; made improvements to current airframes, C-5, KC-135 Stratotanker, C-130 and C-17 Globemaster III; and adopted a new airframe, the KC-46 Pegasus. Mobility Airmen are off-loading more fuel now in support of the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant than what was offloaded when U.S. forces were on the ground in Iraq, operating with only 27 percent of the KC-135 fleet size originally assigned to AMC in 1992. During 2010, at the height of Operation Enduring Freedom, Mobility Air Forces moved 856,208 short tons of cargo -- the most in OEF history, compared to 543,548 short tons moved in the Gulf War. That same year, AMC had 429 aircraft assigned, less than half of the number of aircraft assigned at its inception in 1992. "For the past 25 years since Desert Storm and Desert Shield, the (United States) has been in a state of continuous conflict," said Terry Johnson, the Air Mobility Commands air, space and information operations deputy director on Scott AFB, Illinois. "As we come out of Southwest Asia and shift from a constant state of continuous conflict, (Air Mobility Command's) focus needs to return to maintaining readiness especially after a period of fiscal austerity. Today, theres one Mobility Air Forces departure every 2.8 minutes, every day, 365 days per year. "The Air Force puts the 'rapid' in global mobility," Gen. Everhart said. "AMC is still required to support an increasingly demanding operations tempo while preserving the capability to surge if called upon. Without our total force and Civil Reserve Air Fleet partners, surge operations would be almost impossible." SecAF speaks at CSIS for Smart Women, Smart Power series Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James spoke at the Center for Strategic and International Studies as part of its Smart Women, Smart Power series Jan. 14. SWSP launched in December 2014 and convenes top-level women leaders to discuss critical and timely issues in their respective fields, reflect on their professional experiences, and share ideas and insights. With the 25th anniversary of the start of Desert Storm on Jan. 16, James recalled lessons she learned from that particular operation. I remember being in awe of the first time the fantastic combination of stealth and precision weaponry (was used), all of which was enabled by space, James said. That was the first time that the investments that had been made, in some cases a decade or two decades, actually came together on the battlefield and for the first time the world saw what the United States military could do in this new era. Among many things, James was asked about setting up no-fly zones in Iraq and Syria as well as the limits of the air campaign in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. I would first tell you all, its very much a whole of government approach, James said. There are more than 60 countries involved with the coalition doing different aspects of the work and, of course, its a joint situation. But make no mistake; it has been very heavily the United States Air Force that has covered this air campaign, she continued. This is everything from striking the targets to the very important intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance to the assets in space that enable everything that goes on. The strategy is we are going to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL. With technology being key in maintaining air superiority, the Air Force is focused on the Defense Departments third offset strategy which is finding the next key technology that will help ensure the U.S. maintains the advantage over adversaries. Think of super computers that can crunch data and make sense out of different databases, I think that will be part of it, James said. I think another piece is likely to be, Ill call it, human machine collaborations. Human interfaces with technology in different, new and creative ways. When asked about China and Russias hand in space, James said the Air Force is shifting people and resources toward space. We are going to start treating space the way we treat everything else in the U.S. military, James continued. That is, we need to get our heads around the fact that one day there could be a conflict on Earth that, in some way, bleeds into space. We are going to start experimentations, the various types of practice things that we do in other domains in the military to make sure that we can defend appropriately our constellation in space. At the conclusion of the event, James answered questions from the audience that ranged from maternity and paternity leave, women in combat roles, and the use of remotely piloted aircraft. A look back at Desert Storm, 25 years later Twenty-five years ago, the Air Force participated in Operation Desert Storm, the largest air campaign since the conflict in Southeast Asia. The campaigns purpose was to drive the Iraqi military out of Kuwait, release the country from Saddam Husseins invasion and reestablish its sovereignty. On the morning of Aug. 2, 1990, Iraq invaded nearby Kuwait. In less than four hours, Iraqi forces occupied the capital, Kuwait City, and Hussein soon annexed the country as the 19th province of Iraq. The U.S. government initiated Operation Desert Shield in response. Several months later on Jan. 16, 1991, following Congressional concurrence with United Nations efforts to enforce a resolution that demanded Iraqs withdrawal from Kuwait, Desert Storm was launched. The real mission, the immediacy of that mission was to deploy as many forces as possible to deter further aggressiveness by the Iraqi military and of course the Air Force was the first on the list, along with the Navy and the aircraft carriers, to deploy in the region, said retired Lt. Gen. Bruce A. Orville Wright, a Desert Shield/Storm veteran. It was a rapid deployment of forces from the continental United States (and some forces from Europe) to put enough airpower in place so the Iraqi military would be discouraged, if not deterred. We took out their eyes and ears, their control capability, he continued. The entire ground operations lasted about 100 hours and thats a credit to the joint coalition airpower that was employed against the Iraqi military. We were all excited, thats what we trained for our whole career. To take 24 F-16s and a squadron of very capable highly-trained pilots and maintenance professionals and defeat what was then the largest ground force. The air campaign marked the initial phase of the war and for the Air Force, air superiority was the goal. With more than 68,800 total force Airmen being rapidly deployed in support of Desert Storm, there were approximately 69,406 sorties flown by 30 different types of aircraft. I remember thinking, Saddam Hussein has no idea whats coming, and after the first 60 minutes of the war, he will be largely disconnected from his tactical forces and he was. They tried to reconnect, but in many ways we began the decapitation of the leadership within the first 15 minutes of the war, said Maj. Gen. Paul T. Johnson, an operational capability requirements director and Desert Shield veteran. I really hope we can remember how we came together as a joint and a coalition team, nations from all over the world, all of the services supporting each other, generating effects for one another to achieve an effect in an incredibly short period of time. Desert Storm marked the first conflict in history to make comprehensive use of stealth and space systems support capabilities against a modern, integrated air defense, allowing the Air Force to succeed in their endeavor of air superiority. Over time I have come to understand the enabling capabilities that came to us from space, came to us out of stealth (and) that came to us out of new weapons and ammunitions that allowed us to do things in ways that we hadnt done them before, Johnson said. Our ability to dynamically command and control across an entire theater there were things that, looking back now in hindsight, fundamentally began the transformation of airpower. There are so many things that we take for granted today that saw their beginnings in Desert Storm. As with any mission, operation or task, there are lessons learned. Desert Storm taught the Air Force that being on the cutting edge of revolutionary technology is critical to success. That was the first time the investments, that had been made in some cases a decade or two decades earlier, came together on the battlefield and for the first time the world saw what the United States Air Force could do, said Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James. Looking back and learning from Desert Storm, it is more important than ever before that we continue to modernize our force, gaining the advantage to defeat any adversary we may face in the future. On Feb. 28, 1991, following six weeks of air attacks and 100 hours of a ground campaign, President George H.W. Bush declared a cessation of operations and announced that Kuwait had been liberated. The memories and lessons learned from Desert Storm continue to define today who we are, Wright said. We have the ability to defend the nation thats founded on, not just the history of Desert Storm but the history of airpower from World War I to World War II to Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm and today. We have been in this fight now for 25 years and those Airmen who are out there today are critical. They are critically important to the safety of our fellow citizens and critically important to the future of the United States of America. In the early morning of January 16, 1991, the 2nd Bomb Wing deployed seven B-52G Stratofortresses crews to Iraq in a single, secret mission that would mark the beginning of Operation Desert Storm. This opening salvo, launched by the 596th Bomb Squadron, paved the way for American forces to defeat Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, whose troops had invaded neighboring Kuwait. Strategic Air Command called the classified 35-hour mission Operation Senior Surprise, known as Secret Squirrel to the operators who would fly the mission. The bombers traveled more than 14,000 nautical miles non-stop and was the longest combat mission in history at the time. Twenty-five years later, many of the Secret Squirrel aircrews continue to serve the Mighty Deuce. "The 2nd BW's warrior Airmen who delivered the opening punch of the first Gulf War stand tall in our unit's storied history," said Col. Kristin Goodwin, 2nd BW commander. "While technology and tactics evolve over time, the bravery, determination and skill demonstrated during that mission are timeless and continues to inspire everyone who wears our wing patch." Col. Trey Morriss, 307th Bomb Wing vice commander, was a new captain when he served as a B-52G electronic warfare officer during the Secret Squirrel mission. The Secret Squirrel mission was used to blind Iraq by eliminating certain power and communication nodes throughout the country. This severely hampered their response in the initial phase of the war, Morriss said. We proved to U.S. citizens, our allies, coalition partners, and even to our enemies that we will do what we say were going to do. In doing so, we solidified the B-52 in the realm of long-range strike capability. During Desert Storm, the Mighty Deuce employed a new weapon against Iraq: the AGM-86C, Conventional Air Launched Cruise Missile. This marked the first time GPS had ever been used to guide a missile toward a target. On Jan. 17, 1991, the B-52 crews launched 35 CALCMs, rendering Saddams forces and striking key points of communication infrastructure. The B-52 provides a great first-strike capability in any conventional war, Morriss said. It gives us the ability to degrade the enemy with the first attack and press in with other capabilities. We also proved to the world that we were on the threshold of a new type of modern warfare with GPS-guided weapons. The results speak for themselves. One Secret Squirrel copilot, Russell Mathers, faced unpredictable risks when flying to the Middle East, but maintained confidence in his training. Those risks included potential enemy action, landing into friendly territory that may not have been prepared to accommodate U.S. military aircraft or any number of system failures within the aircraft. The risks were the unknown, Mathers said. We didnt know if anyone was going to take a shot at us. After Desert Storm, SAC learned valuable lessons about long-range combat missions, according to Mathers. What we learned as a bomber community is that the bomber is still a huge viable weapons system. We also learned how difficult it is physiologically, to fly these missions and prepare the human body to fly 30 or 40 hour missions, said Mathers. Once Secret Squirrel kicked off Desert Storm operations, the B-52 continued playing a critical role throughout the campaign. Nearly 70 B-52G crews flew 1,741 missions totaling 15,269 combat hours during which 27,000 tons of munitions were dropped. Jim Bowles, an Air Force Global Strike Command program analyst, served as a B-52 instructor pilot and aircraft commander during Desert Storm. Bowles said he was fortunate to fly with a copilot, radar navigator electronic warfare officer, and gunner, all of whom were instructors in their respective duties. We knew our aircraft, and we knew our training. While there was some apprehension about going into combat and the potential for not coming home, there was also a confidence because we knew we could do our mission. When I look back on Desert Storm, it feels like yesterday. Its a memory deep within myself and my family. Its a defining moment that shaped me for the rest of my Air Force career. For Bowles, mission success during Desert Storm isnt only a victory for Secret Squirrel aircrews, but for the Airmen and their families who provided critical support at home while combat continued overseas. When those bomber crews go off to do their mission, they need the support of every Airman behind them making sure they can get their job done, he said. Without the support of the Airmen and their families, its a lot more difficult when conducting your mission downrange. Remembering Desert Storm: Where we are today in the Total Force Continuum See all those contrails heading north, captain? the salty lieutenant colonel asked me on Jan. 16, 1991. Yes sir! I replied flying as a brand new aircraft commander in the C-141B Starlifter. The contrails covered the darkening sky and seemed like hundreds of fingers reaching north into Iraq to grab Saddam Hussein. That means we are at war, said the colonel, as the cockpit fell silent and each crewmember pondered the greater implication of the contrails. That was a quarter of a century ago this week, marking the opening salvo in Operation Desert Storm. The operation was an American shock and awe campaign to evict Hussein from Kuwait and displayed airpower that the world had not seen since Operation Linebacker II over Vietnam. I was honored to be part of the largest air bridge in history, often flying 24-hour airlift missions from Torrejon and Zaragosa, Spain, or Ramstein Air Base and Rhein Main, Germany, to locations in Saudi Arabia such as Dhahran or Riyadh. The ramps at these locations were so full and it was sometimes difficult to find the assigned aircraft to preflight. Loading crews were challenged to keep up with the volume of cargo and people necessary for the fight. We would often augment our crews with pool pilots -- additional pilots to extend our crew duty day. Each day was long and hot; our ground times downrange were short but filled with the apprehension of dreaded Scud missile alerts. Tired crews would return to Europe for a short rest before repeating the process. We were all supported by the greatest cast the world has ever known, filled with maintainers, aerial porters, fuelers, logisticians and services Airmen. All told, the total force flew over 69,000 sorties in support of Desert Storm. The operation also saw the first comprehensive use of stealth and space technologies integrated with precision guided weapons. Twenty-five years later, my C-141B has long ago been retired, replaced by the C-17 Globemaster III. While much of our Air Force has been modernized since that first night in the desert, our average aircraft age today stands at 27 years. We have gone from having 188 fighter squadrons during Desert Storm to 54 today. Aging combat aircraft such as our B-52 Stratofortress and KC-135 Stratotanker are slated to keep flying for a decade or more. In Operation Desert Storm, I was an Airman in the regular component when it consisted of over 600,000 Airmen; today, it has decreased to approximately 313,000 Airmen. Even with that size, Desert Storm required more than 48,000 Air Reserve component Airmen to remove Hussein from Kuwait. As a result of a smaller force, our Air Reserve component consisting of over 105,000 Air National guardsmen and 69,000 Air Force reservists have gone from a strategic reserve force to one that provides daily operational capability and surge capacity where needed. These figures do not include the vital capability our Air Force civilian Airmen bring to the fight. Southwest Asia is no less secure and in some ways is more complex and dangerous even though Hussein is long gone. Commitments to our friends and allies are not decreasing, so we will continue to rely on the total force more, not less. In my current role in the Total Force Continuum Air Staff office, our team is looking for the most efficient mix of regular, Guard, and Reserve Airmen in each primary mission area. In the aggregate, our analysis shows that our Air Force is at least 12 percent too small for current requirements. Just as during the peak of Desert Storm, we are all in and have cleared the bench to meet current requirements. We are also looking at policy and legislative ways to make our total force more integrated by preserving and leveraging the strengths and efficiencies of each individual component. Programs that will allow transitioning between Air Force components, provide career development opportunities, and feature our three components working more closely together will become the norm over the next 25 years. In commemoration of Desert Storms largest air campaign this week, make sure you thank a veteran for serving in the operation, and ask a wingman or relative who participated about their experiences. If youre reading this and not part of the worlds greatest Air Force, consider joining either the regular, Reserve or Guard component. We may be smaller than in 1991, but were the most lethal air, space and cyber force; and there is no question our total force will continue to answer our nations call! Operation Desert Storm was an exceptional example of Total Force integration in support of combat operations with an all-volunteer force. Jan. 16, 2016, marks the 25th anniversary of Desert Storm, the coalition effort to free Kuwait from the grips of an Iraq invasion force. Below are some factoids on Air Force Reserve contributions to the campaign, courtesy of the Air Force Reserve Command History Office. In the build-up to Desert Storm, Reservists provided fully 50 percent of the Air Forces strategic airlift aircrew and aerial port capability, 33 percent of its aeromedical evacuation aircrews and 25 percent of its tactical airlift forces.By August 1990, more than 15,300 Reservists had volunteered to serve, about 22 percent of the Air Force Reservists.The first Reserve assets to reach the theater of operations was a C-141 Starlifter aircrew that landed in Saudi Arabia on Aug. 8, 1990. By the eve of Desert Storm, Air Force Reserve aircraft and crews flew more than 107,000 hours, moved more than 135,000 passengers, 235,000 tons of cargo and delivered five million pounds of fuel.On August 29, 1990, an Air Force C-5, flown by an all-Reserve, all volunteer crew from the 68th Military Airlift Squadron, 433th Airlift Wing, Kelly AFB, Texas, crashed on takeoff from Ramstein Air Base, Germany. Thirteen people died and four were wounded. Ten of the 17 were Reservists. Of those 10, nine died and one was injured. Staff Sgt Lorenzo Galvan, Jr., a loadmaster, earned the Airmans Medal for his efforts to rescue other crash victims. The nine who died were the only Reservists to lose their lives during the conflict.On Aug 22, 1990, President Bush authorized the call-up of 200,000 reservists for 90 days under Title 10 US Code Section 678b. The decision, the first significant, conflict-related call-up of the Reserve component since 1968, marking the beginning of a process that would eventually see more than 20,000 Air Force Reservists called to active duty.By February 1991, more than 17,500 Reservists were on active duty. Roughly one in four was a woman; approximately 1,800 were Air Reserve Technicians, 1,300 were individual mobilization augmentees, and more than 500 were members of the individual ready reserve. More than 7,800 of the Reservists called up were in medical specialties. In expectation of massive casualties that never came, all Air Force Reserve medical units were called to active duty.Mobilization reached its peak on March 12, 1991 with almost 23,500 Air Force Reservists on duty. Of these, more than 20,000 were assigned to 215 Reserve units; 2,300 were IMAs, 960 were IRR or retirees. Most of the Ready Reserve were medical personnel.The Air Force Reserves first (and only) tactical fighter unit to be recalled was the 706th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 926th Fighter Group, Naval Air Station New Orleans. The A-10 squadron deployed to Saudi Arabia in mid-January just before the beginning of the air campaign against Iraq.Capt Bob Swain, a pilot with the 706th TFS, scored the first-ever A-10 air-to-air kill when he destroyed an Iraqi helicopter. During one day of combat, Lt Col. Greg Wilson, 706th FTS and 1st Lt. Stephan K. Otto of the 354th Tactical Fighter Wing, Myrtle Beach AFB, S.C., destroyed 10 mobile Scud launchers and a pair of ammunition dumps and helped AF/A-18s destroy 10 more Scuds.Crews from the 1650th Tactical Airlift Wing (Provisional), drawn largely from the 914th Airlift Wing, Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station, New York, and 927th Tactical Airlift Group, Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Michigan, flew more than 5,000 hours, and 3,200 sorties in 42 days of combat.Tactical airlift forces played a major role in the redeployment of forces in northern Saudi Arabia as commanders set up what became the dramatic left hook into Iraq. A-10s operating from bases close to the front lines, attacked a full range of ground targets including Scud missiles. Reserve AC-130 Gunships and HH-3E helicopters also supported special operations as well as search and rescue missions.The Department of Defense authorized commanders of the gaining major commands to demobilize Reservists, consistent with military requirement, on March 8, 1991. Most Reservists had been demobilized by late June, but a handful remained on active duty through August and beyond. Reunions are special times to renew friendships and reminisce over our shared experiences. As the veterans of a B-52 mission affectionately dubbed Secret Squirrel by those who flew it 25 years ago gather in Shreveport Jan. 15-17, we will certainly jest about receding hair lines and expanding waist lines, but we will also honor several men who have gone west in the two- and-a-half decades since we flew into combat together. Through the fall and early winter of 1990-1991, our families prepared for Thanksgiving and Christmas. These same families prepared to joyfully ring in a new year, despite the unknown of a pending military action against Iraq. In the backdrop of individual family preparations for the holidays and a time when ideally we should wish the Christmas proclamation Peace on Earth and goodwill toward men, Airmen at Barksdales 596th Bomb Squadron were quietly preparing for war. Sworn to secrecy, I can attest we could tell no one not our wives, parents, children, friends or even uncleared coworkers what exactly we were preparing to do. It was a time of internal compartmentalization for each individual. I was certainly aloof and brooding as often I questioned what I could and could not say, so I opted just to say nothing. While the personal dedication of preparing to execute a special mission was exhilarating and satisfying, it was still a double-edged sword to keep my own family in the dark and yet realize that if my preparations indeed played out into mission execution, several Iraqi families would grieve over the loss of loved ones. Over a two day period, Jan. 16-17, 1991, preparations and opportunity met as seven B-52s took to the skies for the longest combat mission in the history of aerial warfare up to that point. The men and their machines would ultimately fly more than 14,000 miles in 35.4 hours, refuel in the air four times and launch 35 AGM-86C Conventional Air Launched Cruise Missiles in their first-ever combat debut. The missiles destroyed early warning and communications systems and were among the first salvos of weapons into Iraq. Yet, even upon return, the veil of secrecy remained and we could not tell our families why there were two days missing in our lives. Now, 25 years after the fact and with grateful appreciation to the Strategy Alternatives Consortium and Louisiana State University-Shreveport, our families will hear the story during a symposium on the LSUS campus on Jan. 16th. The symposium is open to the public and we hope the historic perspective will spark renewed interest in the United States long-range strike capabilities. Grissom Airmen share their Desert Storm stories Jan. 16 marks the 25th Anniversary of Desert Storm and Airmen from Grissom were there to fuel the fight. Operating out of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, members of the 434th Air Refueling Wing joined coalition forces to launch a crippling air campaign against Iraqi forces who invaded Kuwait. In all, nearly one out of every seven Air Force Reservists was on active duty during that time according to Air Force Reserve officials. At Grissom, personnel assigned to the 72nd Air Refueling Squadron, 434th Consolidated Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, 434th Headquarters Squadron, 434th Security Forces flight, 434th Clinic members and others. "When the air campaign kicked off literally everything on the ground launched, and that was sustained for about three weeks straight," said Chief Master Sgt. Tony Hoffman, 434th Maintenance Group superintendent, and a staff sergeant crew chief at the time. "We literally had planes in line, with engines running, waiting to come into parking spots for fuel and maintenance," he said. "As fast as you could turn the aircraft you had aircrew ready to take off and go back up. I'll never forget that continuous sustained surge. It took a while to get used to the tempo, eventually it became a daily 12-hour routine." "The amount of sorties flown by the tankers and the B-52s," is what Senior Master Sgt. Tim O'Brien, 434th Logistics Readiness Squadron superintendent of plans and integration said he remembers most."I had been on some very busy Air Force bases prior [to that], but never saw that many aircraft flying that many sorties in one location." As a staff sergeant at the time and an aircraft ground equipment mechanic O'Brien said he recalls the heat and humidity. "I had never been to a place that was that hot and humid," O'Brien said. "As soon as the cargo door opened, I instantly started sweating. We actually had to wear gloves to touch the AGE equipment because it was so hot." Senior Master Sgt. Darin Schenher, 434th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron production superintendent, was a crew chief and a technical sergeant at the time. He was also deployed to Jeddah during the initial invasion. One of Schenher's most vivid memories was a Grissom KC-135E aircraft 58-0013 that lost two engines, and the aircrew was still able to land with no loss of life. Shortly after takeoff crew encountered jet wash, a kind of turbulence that builds behind large aircraft. The unexpected jet wash pitched them so violently from side-to-side, that somewhere in the process, both engines on the left side of the tanker were torn free, leaving the fully loaded tanker with very serious control problems. Then staff sergeants, Rich Miller and Rusty Owens both recovered 58-0013 from an earlier mission and pumped on fuel before crew members came out to taxi for launch. "When I got back to the compound I took the phone call that two engines had departed the aircraft," said Miller who is now a senior master sergeant with the 434th AMXS. The entire crew was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for their skill in safely landing the aircraft. "They tried to duplicate the feat in the simulator and crashed every time," Schenher said of the flight. Dawn Everett was a navigator and first lieutenant at the time. "I was the only female crewmember from Grissom to deploy to the theater for Desert Storm," she said. "I remember the briefing we received the day before the "war" kicked off and the huge unknown, it was a bit scary," she said. "After the first combat mission was under our belt, it was business as usual!" At the beginning of the gulf crisis, the 434th AREFW provided volunteer aircrews and maintenance personnel who deployed to forward operating locations in New England and Europe within 12 hours of the first phone call from Air Force Reserve Headquarters. The wing, along with other units, served as a 'transatlantic air bridge" to provide inflight refueling to fighter and transport aircraft travelling to the Middle East. After the massive movement of aircraft was completed the unit switched its operations to Saudi Arabia. The 434th AREFW banded with other reserve, active and Air National Guard refueling units to form one of the world's largest tanker task forces. The 434th and its partners flew more than 7,000 refueling missions with over 30,000 hours of flight time offloading nearly seven million pounds of fuel to more than 25,000 receivers! "To this day I have not seen that capability repeated with all the activations and deployments since," Hoffman said. In addition to having members in Saudi Arabia, the 434th AREFW had security forces members deployed to Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota, and medics deployed to Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. "Desert Storm would be the first of many deployments and operations the wing would be participate in," said Col. Doug Schwartz, 434th ARW commander. "The 434th has served with distinction in every campaign since then." Gen. Merrill McPeak, Air Force chief of staff at the time, recognized the unit as well, saying "your strength in peace and your courage in battle have earned you the respect of the free world." The 434th ARW is the largest KC-135R Stratotanker unit in the Air Force Reserve Command. Airmen and aircraft from the 434th ARW routinely deploy around the world in support of the Air Force mission and U.S. strategic objectives. Stay connected with the 434th ARW on Facebook and Twitter. Horse carriages, popularly known as Victorias, would continue to serve joy rides to tourists in the city for some more time as the Bombay High Court granted further time to Maharashtra government to file an affidavit on complying with its earlier order banning them. A division bench of justices A S Oka and A K Menon was hearing a PIL filed by city-based NGO Animals and Birds Charitable Trust. The government was to file a compliance report on rehabilitation scheme for horses, but did not file any affidavit, following which the judges gave more time to the government. However, the time-frame has not been given to the authorities for reporting compliance. The court had completely banned Victorias from plying on Mumbai roads a year after its order issued on June 8, 2015. However, some horse carriages are still seen plying in the city, the petitioners said. The high court had banned the Victorias as they were illegal and violated the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. The high court had directed the authorities to ensure that use of horse driven carriages and Victorias in Mumbai be completely stopped from June this year. The court had also directed the stables to close down by then, while directing the government to formulate a rehabilitation scheme for the horses by December 31, 2015. The government is yet to reply whether it has come out with such a scheme. The court had also specified that the ban on Victorias and horse-drawn carriages from June this year was only for the city of Mumbai and ruled that in other cities such carriages may be used for other purposes too. But if it is noticed that the carriages are used for joyrides, then that should be stopped by the concerned authority, the court had said. Naushad Ahmed Khan, the lawyer who is seeking entry for all women and girls in the Sabarimala temple in Kerala, on Friday informed the Supreme Court that he has received 500 threatening phone calls. Naushad Ahmed Khan, President of the Indian Young Lawyers Association (IYLA), said the calls included threats to blow up his house and warned him to drop his petition in the Supreme Court. Earlier this week, the top court, in response to Mr. Khans appeal, said the ban on women worshippers appears to be unconstitutional. Judges said today that they will decide on Monday on what sort of security should be given to Mr. Khan; for now, he has been given a guard by the Delhi Police. The top court, however, said a PILs could not be revoked and decided to appoint an Amicus Curiae to resolve the case. The Supreme Court, earlier on Monday had questioned the age-old tradition of banning entry of women of menstrual age group in the temple, saying it cannot be done under the Constitution. The temple cannot prohibit entry (women), except on the basis of religion. Unless you have a constitutional right, you cannot prohibit entry. Anyway, we will examine it on February 8, a bench of Justices Dipak Misra and N V Ramana said. IYLA President Naushad Ahmed Khan said he had since received over 500 death threats on his cell phone prompting police to provide him with a personal security guard. I have received more than 500 telephone calls, including some calls from international telephone, since Wednesday. These callers are (trying to) force me to withdraw the petition, Khan said. I am the president of the IYLA, and the plea has been filed by the organisation. I have never been personally involved with this petition, he said, adding that the question of whether the petition would be withdrawn had not arisen. This is not the first time the Sabarimala temple and its decades-old ban on women has hit the headlines in India. Late musician, Mohammed Rafis son Shahid Rafi joined Congress Party on Friday in the presence of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi in Mumbai. Gandhi was in Mumbai to address a meeting of party workers in Malad. He also inaugurated the Murli Deora Hall at the Mumbai Regional Congress Committee office in South Mumbai. Shahid Rafi had contested last Assembly Election on AIMIM seat against Amin Patel of Congress from Mumbadevi, which has a sizeable number of Muslims voters. Talking to AV, Shahid Rafi, who is into garment business said, I always wanted to serve poor people. As people know my father used to help people. Im individually helping poor sect of society, but I thought by becoming an MLA, I could better help them. Many parties have come and gone, but nothing has changed. I request people to give me a chance. Talking at the event vice president said that Congress aims for a cleaner Mumbai. He said, Congress wants to bring in change, want to make Mumbai cleaner but for that first we will have to win elections. Rahul also attacked Modi led government and took a dig at his Swacch Bharat project. He said, Modi ji had talked about Swacch Mumbai, that cannot happen with broom alone, solid waste needs to be eliminated. Balance is required to take nation ahead. But India has weak sections, sad part is that the present Govt forgets these people. Segregation, collection and disposal of garbage is a very important subject but neglected by the public, BMC and the government. The government merely speaks about development but do not give thought to creation of a welfare state. We have failed to take the population growth very seriously and no concrete steps are being taken to address this issue. In a city as big as Mumbai, proper policy must be devised to dispose garbage effectively. The metropolis generates approximately 7,500 metric tonnes of garbage daily and every resident of the city generates about 630 grams of waste everyday. Even though the quantity of waste generated in Mumbai will only increase the metropolis doesnt have the necessary infrastructure for managing it. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had asked residents to segregate wet and dry waste but they are not following these norms. As per the Development Planning Regulations prepared by the civic body, the projected population in 2020 will be approximately 1, 35, 00, 000 and hence the garbage generated will be 9,000 MT per day i.e. 20% more than the present quantity. Providing a special educator in each secondary school is a good idea. The experienced faculty can interact with school children studying in secondary medium and give them insight into practical things like garbage management, fire prevention, first aid techniques and other things like issues connected with water and electric power etc. If the students wish to learn a particular skill, arrangements for that can be made. For e.g. if a group of students want to learn about refrigerators and air conditioners or simple things like tube lights etc; the school can invite the manufacturers to give demonstration. Thus students can gain more knowledge about these devices and their functioning. District authorities, the police and ward officers must check illegal Bangladeshi population staying along railway tracks. Why do the state government and the Railway authorities permit construction of shanties next to the tracks? Most of them possess documents like PAN card, ration card, aadhar card. Public health and education are the issues that characterize a welfare state but the nexus between self seeking politicians and bureaucrats negates all efforts. The whistle blowers connected with the Vyapan scam deserve to be congratulated because they are bringing to light the obnoxious side of our governance, despite risking their own lives. The collapse of moral values in our officialdom (who prefer to align with the corrupt politicians) is matter of grave concern. All of us must take steps to control the rising population. (The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.) Lahore: Punjab (Pakistan province) Law minister Rana Sanaullah has confirmed that Jaish-i-Mohammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar is under their protective custody and assured of his arrest only if his involvement in the Pathankot attack was proved. Azhar, was named by India as the mastermind of the Pathankot airbase attack. According to Dawn, Sanaullah confirmed on a talk show that Masood Azhar was taken into protective custody by the counter-terrorism department. When asked if his custody can be termed as an arrest, he explained that Azhar will only face arrest and legal action if his involvement in the Pathankot attack is proved beyond doubt. Amid reports that Azhar had been detained, Pakistan announced the arrest of Jaish members and started sealing the organisations offices. However, the Foreign Office has said that its not aware of the arrest of Azhar. On its Facebook page, the terror outfit declared: Disbelievers and hypocrites across the world are celebrating our arrest, but the arrest never happened. In a statement in Urdu, JeM added: Even if they happen, what difference will it make? No difference, except one. Allah willing, there will be more enthusiasm and excitement among people of the faith, and the work of jihad will gather more strength and energy. Azhar was arrested in India in February 1994, but New Delhi was forced to release him and two others Mushtaq Zargar and Umar Sheikh in December 1999 in exchange for passengers and crews of an Indian flight that was hijacked by militants linked to Harkatul Mujahideen from Kathmandu and forced to land in Kandahar. Following his release and subsequent return to Pakistan, Azhar split with Harkatul Mujahideen in 2000 and formed his own militant outfit Jaish-i-Mohammad. Speculations are rife that Chhagan Bhujbal and Narayan Rane may rejoin Shiv Sena, as both of them are being sidelined by their respective present political parties. I remember, once Balasaheb Thackeray used a line from Marathi poem in his editorial Ya Chimanyano Parat Phira Re (all sparrow returned to your next) which was meant for Raj Thackeray. However by that time, Raj had feelings that he is no longer a CHIMANI (sparrow, a small bird) but a GARUD (eagle) so he didnt respond to his call. Raj Thackeray resigned from his uncles party in January 2006 and announced his intention to start a new political party. On 9th March 2006 in Mumbai, Thackeray founded a party named Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. At the time of the partys foundation, Thackeray stated that he does not want to have hostilities with his uncle who was, is and always will be (his) mentor. There after Raj had his rise and fall, and even Balasaheb is now no more. Section of Marathi Media has used the line with reference to rumours of Bhujbal and Rane rejoining Shiv Sena. In 1991, when Chhagan Bhujbal left the party, he was so scared of a violent Sena backlash that he went into hiding for nearly a month. Then Narayan Rane was expelled from the Sena, not only did he remain in the public eye but also paraded his grievances before the TV cameras. While Thackeray announced Ranes expulsion at a meeting of Sena corporators and MLAs at the Rangsharda Hall in Bandra (W), Rane retaliated by addressing a press conference barely a stones throw away from the Mumbai suburb where he accused the Sena chief of putra prem (blind love for his son, Uddhav). Due to Uddhav, all grassroots level leaders quit Sena and joined different political parties. It was big setback for Shiv Sena. Now, anyhow Uddhav has managed to take the control of the party in his hand but still Shiv Senas future remains uncertain. Congress has no leader of Narayan Ranes calibre and popularity in Maharashtra, so Rane has better prospects in Congress instead of Shiv Sena. However for the Bhujbal, it is different cases. Bhujbal have many cases and he remains neck deep in corruption cases and in such circumstances he will not be welcomed by Sena, rather party will lose its ground. Bhujbal and Rane are two senior, mature, experienced and egoistic leaders to work under Uddhavs leadership. Moreover, Uddhav has also grown by age but not by wisdom, he will not take any suggestions or orders from these leaders. Meanwhile irony is that, Uddhav is surrounded by many unwanted people who always fed him wrong things. Moreover, Uddhav is also known for his weak ears. The party originally emerged from a movement in Mumbai demanding preferential treatment for Maharashtrians over migrants in the city. The issues slowly with time took a backseat. Although the partys primary base is still in Maharashtra, it has tried to expand to a pan-Indian base. In the 1970s, it gradually moved from advocating a pro-Marathi ideology to one supporting a broader Hindu nationalist agenda, as it aligned itself with the Bharatiya Janata Party. The party started taking part in Mumbai (BMC) Municipal elections since its inception. In 1989, it entered into an alliance with BJP for Lok Sabha as well as Maharashtra assembly elections, the latter of which was temporarily broken in October 2014 Assembly elections but it was undone soon and Shiv Sena became part of the BJP government in Maharashtra in December 2014. It has been a coalition partner in the National Democratic Alliance since 1998, including the Vajpayee Government during 19982004 and the present Narendra Modi Government. The party has a powerful hold over the Bollywood film industry. It has been referred to as an extremist, chauvinist, as well as a fascist party. Shiv Sena has been blamed for the 1970 communal violence in Bhiwandi, 1984 Bhiwandi riots and violence that occurred during the 1992-1993 Bombay riots. After the Independence of India in 1947, regional administrative divisions from the colonial era were gradually changed and states following linguistic borders were created. Within the Bombay Presidency, a massive popular struggle was launched for the creation of a state for the Marathi-speaking people. In 1960, the presidency was divided into two linguistic states Gujarat and Maharashtra. Moreover, Marathi-speaking areas of the erstwhile Hyderabad state were joined with Maharashtra. Mumbai, in many ways the economic capital of India, became the state capital of Maharashtra. On one hand, people belonging to the Gujarati community owned the majority of the industry and trade enterprises in the city. On the other hand, there was a steady flow of South Indian migrants to the city who came to take many white-collar jobs. The Shiv Sena especially attracted a large number of unemployed Marathi youth, who were attracted by Thackerays charged anti-migrant oratory. Shiv Sena cadres became involved in various attacks against the South Indian communities, vandalizing South Indian restaurants and pressuring employers to hire Marathis. The Sena started placing more weight on the Hindutva ideology in the 1970s as the sons of the soil cause was weakening. Sena was the opposition party in the state along with the BJP from 1999 to 2014. The Shiv Sena-BJP combine governs the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. Traditionally the main strongholds of Shiv Sena have been Mumbai and the Konkan coastal areas. However, in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections the result was reversed. The Shiv Sena made inroads in the interior parts of the state, while suffering losses in Mumbai. If Shiv Sena has to sustain further it needs strong leaders and leadership. Seven years ago the British supposedly found the missing adult horde with autism using survey questions. It didn't settle the issue at all, but it continues to be used to calm worries of an unprecedented epidemic of neurologically impaired children. By Anne Dachel The really big lie about autism--that it's always been here like this, we just didn't notice--is being promoted everywhere in the media. Stories about making public facilities and events "autism-friendly" are in the news daily. It's important to now focus on adults on the spectrum. What better way to put the heated vaccine controversy on simmer than to somehow show the same rate in older Americans. (See, more vaccines haven't really caused neurological damage.) Most of the stories you hear about people on the autistic spectrum feature them being diagnosed as children. (Indeed, that's where all the unscientific fuss about vaccines causing autism comes from. And no, that is not true.) It's definitely common for signs of autism to first be noticed in childhood, when autistic kids don't do much pretend play and find social interaction difficult. But it's also perfectly possible for people, particularly those with more functional forms of autism (like Asperger's Syndrome), to reach adulthood without ever knowing they actually have a place in the autistic community. When we talk about "the autistic spectrum," we're referring to a very wide range of disorders under the one banner of autism. There's no one way to present autistic signs, which is why diagnostic tests about the possibility of autism in adults tend to be seriously involved. One quiz, offered by Psych Central to determine whether you might want to seek diagnosis from a medical professional, offers 50 different questions, from social interaction to patterns and empathy. But the basics of autism of any kind, according to The National Autistic Society, are three difficulties: with social communication, social interaction, and social imagination. (The Psych Central quiz asks things like: When I'm reading a story, I can easily imagine what the characters might look like, I find making up stories easy, and I don't particularly enjoy reading fiction.) The 9 signs that you could be on the spectrum in Bustle.com had similar things to consider: When You Have An Interest, It's Intense And All-Absorbing You Notice Patterns Everywhere You Often Find Sarcasm, Puns, And Irony Difficult To Understand This was followed by points about preferring to be alone and having routine, avoiding pretend play as a child, and sensitivity to noise. All of this is a gross and desperate cover-up of what autism is really like. The public is being taught that social awkwardness and personal idiosyncrasies define autism. It easy to believe that people with ASD have always been around. I have lots of friends and relatives whose answers would put them on the spectrum---but they really don't have autism. If the Bustle.com survey were truly a valid look for autism in adults, it would have to ask about things that no competent person could respond to, like: When you were a child, you were normally developing until about age two when you suddenly and inexplicably lost learned skills. You are officially classified as "non-verbal." You are in diapers currently. You have a tendency to flap your hands and rock for extended periods. You have major health problems like seizures, sleep disorders and GI issues. I'm sure many people reading my made up autism survey would wonder what in the world this has to do with autism. That's because they have been taught well that autism is merely "a lack of communication skills and difficulty with social interaction." I'm not alone in my frustration over what's happening. On Sept 28, 2016, Psychology Today published the story, Please Stop Whitewashing Autism--NeuroTribes calls autism a "gift," but parents paint a much different picture, by Amy S.F. Lutz. Few things are more surreal to the parent of a severely autistic child than the neurodiversity rhetoric that recently culminated in Steve Silbermans book NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity. To call the disorder that has left our children with profound impairments in cognition, communication and behavior a strange gift, as Silberman does, is truly mind-boggling. ... Heres what we know about the autistic population in the United States: According to the CDC, 40% are also intellectually disabled. Autism Speaks reports that 30% are nonverbal, and a 2013 study published in the journal Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders found that over half of autistic children suffer from aggressive and/or self-injurious behavior. So this is not a small fraction, although readers might be forgiven for assuming as much after finishing NeuroTribes. As Jennifer Senior noted in her review for The New York Times, We dont see autism in some of its more devastating forms. But its exactly those forms that need to be confronted before concluding that much of the suffering associated with autism is the result of the ways that autistic people and their families are habitually denied the services they need, as Silberman does, rather than the result of brutal neurological symptoms that often necessitate a lifetime of care. I'm inclined to think that the whitewashing is only going to get worse, especially if this becomes a major political issue in the presidential election. I'm sure all the candidates will want to appear "autism-friendly" and be seen with high functioning young adults and cute children on the spectrum. We won't see the unimaginable struggles many parents face on a daily basis. The cover-up continues..... Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism. WASHINGTON, Jan. 15, 2016 - A new strain of the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAI) that caused the depopulation of more than 48 million birds last year has been detected in Indiana. The new strain - H7N8 - was detected in a Dubois County, Ind., commercial turkey flock. Department of Agriculture officials confirmed the detection Friday after testing at the Indiana Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory at Purdue University. Most of the detections in the 2015 HPAI outbreak involved the H5N2, H5N8, and H5N1 viruses. This is the first detection of any strain of HPAI in almost seven months and the first in Indiana almost eight. According to a release from USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the flock has been quarantined and officials have already begun depopulating the approximately 60,000 birds at the facility. Officials say it is their goal to finalize depopulation within 24 hours of initial detection, which happened Thursday night. On a call with reporters Friday afternoon, T.J. Meyers, associate deputy administrator of APHIS Veterinary Services, said in more than 25,000 samples of wild bird surveillance collected since July, there have been a few detections of low pathogenic H7 strains of the virus, but not all H7N8s are the same. Birds from the infected flock will not be allowed in the food system, and there are no known cases of H7N8 infections in humans. As part of a plan to prevent further potential outbreaks, APHIS officials are encouraging poultry producers to review their biosecurity protocols and take steps to help prevent their flocks from being infected. APHIS is also reminding consumers to fully cook chicken and egg products to kill bacteria and viruses including HPAI. After last years outbreak, there was some talk about a potential vaccine against the virus, but Meyers said the two vaccines purchased by APHIS were safeguards against H5 strains of the virus. The vaccines that we purchased did not include an H7 vaccine . . . that was not something that we were necessarily anticipating, Meyers said. He noted that the H7 strain of the disease had been detected in Canada and Mexico, but never in the U.S. Indiana State Veterinarian Bret Marsh said he is hopeful this is a one time event, and were doing everything we can to keep it that way. In 2015, more than 48 million birds were depopulated as a result of HPAI infections. The disease was introduced by wild birds migrating north, so there was concern that the same wild birds would spread the disease as they migrated south in the fall and winter. #30 Story updated at 3:50 WASHINGTON, Jan. 15, 2016 President Barack Obama has asked Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to lead a coordinated, interagency effort to curb heroin and opioid abuse in rural America. The White House said Vilsack will tackle these issues with the help of the White House Rural Council. Obama established the WHRC in 2011 to streamline and improve rural programs as well as to coordinate private sector partnerships to spur job creation and economic development in rural areas. As the Obama administrations only original cabinet member still in his original office, Vilsack will also be charged with developing policies to help rural areas fight increasing suicide rates, poverty and declining physical and mental health. Obama, who spoke about heroin abuse in Tuesdays State of the Union, announced more than 40 public-private partnerships aimed at addressing prescription drug and opiate abuse in October. The president also issued a memorandum in October, requiring federal departments and agencies provide training to federal healthcare professionals on the prescribing of controlled substances, and to improve access to treatment for prescription drug and heroin abuse. Did you know Agri-Pulse subscribers get our Daily Harvest email Monday through Friday mornings, a 16-page newsletter on Wednesdays, and access to premium content on our ag and rural policy website? Sign up for your four-week free trial Agri-Pulse subscription. In their October announcement, the White House cited statistics showing that more Americans die each year from drug overdoses mostly prescription pills than in motor vehicle crashes. Heroin use, while a public health concern nationwide, has increased particularly in rural areas, in part because prices have dropped. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration estimates heroin use in 2014 among people aged 12 or older was higher than the estimates for most years between 2002 and 2013. #30 For more news, go to: www.Agri-Pulse.com (AINA) -- Assyrian organizations in Europe have issued a joint statement on the attack by the YPG Kurdish militia on Assyrian security forces in Qamishli, Syria. One Assyrian fighter was killed in the battle (AINA 2016-01-12). The statement condemns the attack and urges the Kurdish forces to cease their attempts to control the affairs of Assyrians. Following the terrorist attacks targeting Assyrian restaurants in Qamishli on December 30th, which claimed the lives of 14 Assyrians and led to dozens of other injuries, the need for Assyrian security forces to control the security of Assyrian neighbourhoods became even clearer. The decision taken by the Sootoro/GPF to increase security in the overwhelmingly Assyrian Wusta neighbourhood, where these terrorist attacks took place, was, however, met with suspicion and harassment by the YPG. When Assyrians objected to the YPG attempt to forcibly dismantling the GPF checkpoint erected in Wusta, this suspicion turned to violence. The YPG ambushed the GPF at around 1:00 AM, leading to the murder of Gabriel Dawood and the maiming of Gabriel Barsom. The GPF had no choice but to defend themselves in response. The desire of the PYD for total control over the security and administrative affairs of Gozarto stands in marked contrast to their own principles. If the purpose of the self-administration is to allow communities to direct their own affairs in a participatory manner, free from centralised control, why must the self-administration impose itself by force on those who do not submit to it? Assyrians have the same right as Kurds in Gozarto to steer their own fate and protect themselves in the face of upheaval. We urge the PYD and the YPG to cease the harassment, intimidation, and murder of Assyrians seeking to manage the protection and affairs of their beleaguered communities, and to adopt a democratic and diplomatic approach to their engagement with Assyrians, in line with the purported ideals that have helped garner them international support. We urge the international sponsors and supporters of the PYD and YPG to echo this call, and to not allow the presence of Islamism in the region to deter them from scrutinising the actions of the actors they support in the struggle against it. Assyrian Confederation of Europe Etihad Airways has welcomed a ruling by Germanys higher administrative court reversing an earlier judgment that had called a halt to codeshares with airberlin. Etihad said that the Luneburg court today ruled that the Middle Easter airline could continue operating 26 out of the 31 codeshare flights it has with airberlin for the full Winter Schedule, which ends on March 26. Together with the other 50 approved codeshares with airberlin, 76 of the 81 codeshares are now approved once and for all, that is 94% of the codeshares applied for, Etihad said. The other five codeshares are on German domestic routes. The courts interpretation of the UAE-Germany Air Services Agreement also means that Etihad Airways will be able to continue with all those codeshares beyond the winter schedule, Etihad said. Etihad Airways president and chief executive James Hogan said: "We are pleased with the ruling which confirms 94% of Etihad Airways codeshares. "We remain strongly committed to our strategic partner, airberlin, and will redouble our efforts to provide a strong competitive alternative to the dominant German carrier, Lufthansa. "We would like to encourage German consumers to support airberlin and its 8,000 staff, who have been seriously damaged by this sustained attack on their business." Etihad first started codesharing with airberlin in 2012 when it took 29.2% share in the business. Lufthansa had appealed against the codeshare arrangement. Share this story In the morning, I realise that only rooms with attached bathroom have hot water supply. The manager looks at me lazily when I ask him for some hot water. He says that there is no hot water. I ask him so what should I do? I need at least a bucket of hot water. He then, still lazily, agrees to heat up a bucket of water on gas stove. I am convinced. At 6:30 AM, Tadashi and I set off on our scooters. The long stretch of road from Jaffna fort towards the tip of the island is just beautiful. Along the road we spotted locals jogging and some taking a leisure morning walk. The fishermen have already begun their work. We are surprised by a group of Flamingos. There are other birds like painted storks, herons and egrets as well all through this stretch. This 37 km ride from Jaffna city to Kurikadduwana was one of the most scenic rides I have had in Sri Lanka thus far. Most of the land here appear undisturbed. From here, one takes a ferry to cross the sea and reach the island called Nainathivu in Tamil and Nagadeepa in Sinhalese. It is believed to have been inhabited by Naga people. There are frequent ferries to the island and everyone must wear life jackets. I am totally impressed with Sri Lankans about following rules. Following this discipline is the way to move forward. In the island are two holy shrines - One of the Buddhists and other of the Hindus. Both are connected by a road with shops selling shells and other artefacts by its side. According to the Buddhists, Buddha visited this island five years after his enlightenment and brought his preachings to the Naga people. It now houses as Nagadeepa Purana Viharaya. At the Buddhist temple, Tadashi is requested to pay an entry fee. They assume me to be a Sri Lankan. Tadashi is not happy on this frequent demand of money in every Buddhist temple. I take a glance at the temple without stepping inside and it looks fairly new with renovations and attached museums, so return back as well. We take the road connecting the Buddhist temple to the Hindu temple. Thankfully here we enter without an entry ticket. The Hindu temple called Nagapooshani Amman temple is dedicated to goddess Parvathi who is known as Nagapooshani. It is one of the Shakti Peetham. However, the original temple was damaged, looted and destroyed during Portuguese invasions like many other cases in the country either by the Portuguese, Dutch or the British. From here we return by another ferry. There is no proper system to control the ticketing in this ferry yet everyone makes sure to pay the ferry driver standing outside after landing. On my ride back to Jaffna, I stop by this old man who is selling something different. I learn from him that it is palmyra sprouts. He allows me to taste one and refuses to take any money in return. I am touched by his kindness and thank him before leaving. You get to meet these kind people only in the villages of India these days and that makes me wonder in what direction our cities are progressing. We are trusting people less and less, we are becoming more arrogant, greedy and selfish day by day. This thought makes me extremely sad but also is a learning to conduct myself in a certain way. We stop at a commercial bank in a small village on our way, to exchange some money for Tadashi. At Jaffna we stop at a restaurant in a busy street at the town center and have Masala dosa. The dosas are prepared and stored thus making it inedible. But again, I cannot expect Indian food to taste better elsewhere. The tea is extremely sweet as in every part of this country. I learn that the best way to go is to order Ceylon black tea that cannot go wrong. On our way to Keerimalai Springs, we stop at a few places - I am happy to see a Hanuman statue and temple finally in Sri Lanka. Hanuman plays a crucial role in reuniting Sita with lord Rama per the epic story of Ramayana. We also take a deviation at Chunnakam to reach a historic site called Kantarodai ruins filled with several small stupas. This is a controversial site. Originally flat-topped and low to ground, the stone structures were built upon by Sri Lankas department of archeology in 1978 - Some say to restore the orignal dagoba shape that the ancient Buddhist community here has created and others think of it as a statergic move to impose a Buddhist history on an ancient culture that may have been a burial site or of other traditional significance. "Who was here first?" seems like an important question to the Sri Lankans rather than their present. This is not something unseen of in other countries. Every country has its own similar arguments and fights. But what is more shocking is that this site is fenced and is guarded by two Sri Lankan army men. I realise the tension in this area but as I have always argued, the past must be an experience to learn from but should not be the major decision maker for our present and future. On our way to Keerimalai spring, we accidentally miss the deviation and ride directly into the controversial army camp of Palali KKS that also houses an airport. A few guards and army men smilingly approach us and ask us where we intend to go. They direct us to the right way and we make a U-turn. More than 25,000 families are believed to have been evicted out to form this base camp between 1983 and 1993 which now sits on a prime agricultural land. Everything around this region was either destroyed or converted for military use. At the point where you take deviation to Keerimalai spring is Maviddapuram Kanthaswamy Kovil that has survived bombing during the war. It is now flourishing again. Keerimalai spring became famous during the 7th century visit of a Chola princess whose disease was cured when she bathed in this water and prayed to lord Murugan. But at this time the pond or spring is under renovation. The beach is amazingly pristine here. I also visit the Naguleshwaram Shiva temple next to the spring. I enquire with the main priest there about its back ground and he tells me that it is one of the Panchalingas in Sri Lanka (One of the five main Shiva temples in the country). Somehow he learns that I am an Indian. He tells me that our prime minister Modi was here about six months ago to inaugurate the Jaffna library. He tells me that on his way back to the airport PM Modi stopped at the temple. I later learn from my lonely planet book that this temple was bombed by the army in 1990 and most of the structures were destroyed. Everything is under reconstruction now. I decide to take this coastal route to Pedro Point but we end up circling around in army area. We find ourselves in a very scary area with ruined buildings, fences on either sides of the road and no people around. At times we see army officials guarding one side of the fence. After riding a few kilometres on this unpaved road we decide to head back to the main road. But the remains of the war is so predominant here. Some villagers seem to be returning back to start their life behind the fences. A long road leads us to Pedro Point, the northern end of the island country. I realise that India is only 40kms away from here. But as such there is nothing much around here other than a lighthouse in ruins and deserted beaches. People are mostly to themselves and they do not react to the tourists like in other parts of the country. I feel the wound of war very significantly in these parts of the country. For the first time, I see a lot of trash on the beach. Tadashi jokes that it comes from india and I noticing them to be fresh deny it and add to the joke by claiming that it comes from developed nations that dump their trash in poor countries. Back at the hotel, I chat a little with the old lady caretaker. Upon me complaining about the mosquitos she brings me some mosquito coils. With innocence and curiosity she asks me - Are there mosquitos in India too? That makes me smile while saying "yes , Sure." Upon learning my plans to visit Mannar the next day she tells me that her sister lives there and she often makes that trip. There are buses every half an hour starting at 5:30 AM. The Manager had misguided me by telling that there is only one bus to Mannar and it would be better to take a train to some point and then change to a bus. Per my earlier plan, I was to be in Jaffna during a weekend and thus had requested for hosts through Couchsurfing. One of the locals had agreed to host me. But since my plans got changed and I arrived on a weekday, I did not want to disturb him. But I sure wanted to meet J if he could stop by for a while. I leave him a note and he plans come visit me. When J arrives, he and I discuss our travels and experiences with Couchsurfing. He tells me that I should have contacted him and could have stayed at his place. He keeps mentioning that there are not much amenities in his house and I keep telling him that that would not have been an issue anyways as comfort is not a priority in such arrangements with locals. He also says that he could have given us his bike or asked a friend to lend their scooter instead of we paying for it. It is very nice of him but for me it is better this way than troubling others. He is a very well mannered and kind Sri Lankan I have met here. Tadashi, he and I decide to dine together at Cosy again. Over dinner, we discuss the civil war that recently ended. J tells me that he has suffered a lot. There was always curfews. A three year degree took him more than 5 years to complete due to the prolonged war. He does not acknowledge this makeover renovation and reconstruction by sri Lankan government in the name of development after the wound has been already made. Thousands of Sri Lankan Tamils still live outside of the country he says. He also thinks that LTTE had governed the area very well. The education under their rule was never compromised. Additionally, he acknowledges the moral support they get from India. PM modi has handed over 27,000 houses to the war affected Tamilians in Sri Lanka. "That moral support means a lot to us", he says. Even though it is a distant past, he says that he feels sorry for the mistake LTTE did by assassinating one of our ex prime ministers Further, he indicates that the younger generation do not care about politics. But when I ask him who else would represent them in the country, he says, there are similar MP and MLAs but the younger generation prefer to stay out of the politics. He does not think that even after the war the Sinhalese have changed thus hinting towards a continued discrimination in one manner or the other by the majority. He tells that in the north, people are more connected to Indian politics than Sri Lankan. Moreover, we discuss the seed sown by the British while leaving Sri Lanka. Per their policy of Divide and rule they favoured the Tamils by providing them education and giving them higher posts in their councils. This somewhere resulted in growth of insecurity amongst the Sinhalese and then followed their brutal steps of discrimination through the "Sinhalese only" act of 1959. Several Tamils had to vacate the country. The worst effected being the Plantation Tamils, who where brought to the country by the British to work on tea plantations and now were denied citizenship in this country. As far as the British go, what they did to India was no different. The Muslims and Hindus were turned against one another during the time of independence. "But you got your separate countries", notes J. "Yes, but that was right from the beginning." I add. Tadashi thinks wars are always because of a dispute over territories and never because of religion. He thinks no religion asks people to kill. I disagree. In a surface level any war may seem like a territorial dispute but imagine if the people living in this country were all of same religion, same ethnicity, spoke the same language would they have fought similarly? So the differences is not about the land we own but the ethnicity we belong to. And having read some holy books myself, I know that certain religion even today calls for war and killing to promote their religion and some other call for forced conversion. So assuming that the religious preachings are always the most moral is foolishness. We discuss how all this could be bridged for a better future. Time is the only healer, we conclude. This conversation has moved me a lot in many ways. In J, I see a mix of frustration and sadness. Yet he is so compassionate and modest in acknowledging the moral support his country is receiving from the neighbouring country. He did not have to speak apologetically to me for LTTEs mistake of killing our ex-prime minister after it has been more than 20 years but he chooses to. I am touched by his sensibility. However, it also worries me that they seem connected to India more rather than their own country. This is dangerous for the integrity of a nation. But who is responsible for this thought to originate in the people? What is the impact of addressing a problem in a wrong way? By solving issues in a wrong way are we not sowing seeds to several more issues? The ex president of Sri Lanka is facing several cases of war crimes but in places where damage has already been made, several bad seeds have already been sown. We always hope that time would heal but not until we stop living in the past and that holds good to both the parties in a conflict. Route - Jaffna ->Kurikadduwan -> Nagadeepa Island -> Jaffna -> Keerimalai -> Pedro Point -> Jaffna January 14, 2016 CAIRO In an interview with Al-Monitor Dec. 22 , Egypt's Tourism Minister Hisham Zazou said the This Is Egypt" campaign, launched in early December to boost tourism to Egypt, will not include Russia and Britain at this stage. He confirmed that Cairo hired global consultancy firm Control Risks, which specializes in assessing risk at airports, to obtain an international certificate accredited by a neutral party to attest to Egyptian airports compliance with international safety standards. Zazou said this step was not taken as a result of weakness in the safety and security system at Egypts airports, which he described as very good. Since the Oct. 31 crash of the Russian Airbus A321 in the Sinai Peninsula that killed 224 people, Cairo has faced a crisis in the tourism sector. Tourism is an important source of foreign currency revenue for Egypt and provides thousands of jobs. The crisis was exacerbated when a number of countries, including Britain, suspended flights to Egypt and Russia amid doubts that Egypts airport security was sufficient and concern over international reports favoring the theory that the crash was caused by a bomb smuggled aboard the plane by the Islamic State. The full text of the interview follows: Al-Monitor: What is the size of the losses incurred by Egypts tourism industry in the wake of Britain and Russias suspension of flights to Egypt in the aftermath of the Russian airplane crash in Sinai? Zazou: Egypt has incurred monthly losses of 2.2 billion Egyptian pounds [$281 million] since the crisis began. Russian and British visitors represent 70% of the total flow of tourists to Egypt. This is why we are keen on clarifying several security-related fallacies about Egyptian airports, blown out of proportion by the Western media. This contributed to the decline in Egypts hotel occupancy rates and caused the tourism industry to incur these losses. Al-Monitor: Cairo launched several promotional campaigns to revive tourism, most notably the This Is Egypt campaign. What is the strategy underpinning these campaigns, and do they go hand in hand with the measures to ensure safety of travelers at airports? Zazou: I will start with the second part of the question, because this is the root of the crisis. Several fallacies and lies were spread about poor security measures in our airports. We are confident that we have a very good traveler and visitor safety system at our airports, but we want to send out a message of reassurance to the world and to Egyptian citizens. This is why we resorted to the services of Control Risks, which specializes in the field of safety risks and consulting services. This company will review and assess the security situation at the airports in Cairo and Sharm el-Sheikh as a first stage, and will issue its report within two to three months. We hired this company to obtain a certificate by a neutral international party that enjoys credibility and asserts the reliability of our safety system. We will not abandon our current security system at airports, but we will apply the recommendations that will be issued by the company to modernize the management of our system, and to allow our airports to keep pace with the highest international standards. We concentrated all of our efforts to develop the campaign called This Is Egypt, which uses all methods of tourism promotion and marketing to boost Egypts foreign and domestic tourism. We developed several attractive packages for tourists and special tours for beaches, resorts and archaeological sites. This $68 million campaign is expected to continue until 2018. We will be using traditional and modern advertising tools along with a peer-to-peer advocacy approach by encouraging Egyptians to share their favorite photos of Egypt on social media. We are currently promoting domestic tourism through subsidized packages allowing all Egyptian social classes to visit all touristic sites. The campaign targets 27 tourism markets in the world, but in light of the recent crisis, the campaign will not be covering Russia and Britain at this stage; they will eventually be covered at a subsequent stage. I recently returned from Saudi Arabia after the launch of the campaign there. We count on having a promising Arab tourist season during the current period. I will soon be touring several European countries, including Spain and Germany. Al-Monitor: In some of your statements you accuse the United States and Britain of orchestrating the Egyptian tourism crisis by allegedly spreading harmful rumors about the Russian plane crash. How do you think Russia, one of Egypts international allies, is handling this crisis? Zazou: I talked about campaigns in the Western media aimed at plotting against Egypt and anticipating the results of the investigations. The Arab Republic of Egypt respects all of the decisions of other governments that collaborate with it. There is a current positive inclination at the level of Egyptian-Russian negotiations to end the travel ban to Egypt imposed on Russian tourists. We are hosting Russian committees tasked with assessing the airports' security systems. We will spare no efforts in this respect. Egypt was in a transitional phase and there are many countries that experienced stages of transition, including Russia itself, but I believe we managed to pass through this phase within a relatively short period. We are now reviving all of the sectors of our country, including tourism. Al-Monitor: Does Egypt benefit from the decision to halt Russian tourism flights to Turkey? What is your plan to bring back Russian tourists to Sharm el-Sheikh? Zazou: We never discussed the possibility of benefiting at the expense of others, but the mere lifting of the travel ban to Egypt will improve the influx of tourists. Egypt has the basic components of an excellent destination. In light of the ongoing negotiations, I assure you that the Russian ban will be lifted and Russian tourists will very soon be flocking to Egypt, but I do not have a specific date yet. Al-Monitor: How popular is domestic tourism in Egypt? Is it true that Egyptians are reluctant domestic tourists? What are the current pillars of your packages to promote domestic tourism in Egypt? Zazou: Who said that domestic tourism in Egypt is stagnant? On the contrary, during the past five years the majority of hotels and tourist attractions were occupied by Egyptians. Domestic tourism represents 18-20% of the tourism sector in Egypt, and the next plan of action pursued by the ministry and Egypt Tourist Authority is counting on domestic and Arab tourists to be the alternative to make up for the current crisis experienced by the foreign tourism market. Al-Monitor: What do you think of the term "halal tourism" that is based on resorts having separate facilities for women and men, and is favored by families from the Gulf states? Zazou: Describing a given category of tourism as halal implies that the other categories are not. I refuse to use the term. However, we offer a product that fits the demands of a particular market of tourists. The private sector is required to offer this product to meet such demands and to maintain a good international competition level. January 14, 2016 The Free Syrian Army emerged in late July 2011 after a number of officers defected from the Syrian army in protest against President Bashar al-Assads use of military force to suppress peaceful protests that had erupted March 18 that year in Daraa to demand his ouster and shortly thereafter spread across the country. Numerous formations and armed factions in northern and southern Syria now operate under FSA's umbrella, which espouses a national rhetoric and first raised the revolutionary flag with three stars. The FSA is currently fighting on two major fronts: against Assad and his allies, and against the Islamic State. On Jan. 10 via Skype, Al-Monitor interviewed Osama Abu Zeid, the FSA's legal adviser, who discussed the army's current situation, relations with the United States and Russia and views on Syria's future. The text of the interview follows: Al-Monitor: Who comprises the FSA? In which areas does it operate? Which factions does it include? Abu Zeid: The FSA is deployed from Syrias south to its north. It is mostly present in Daraa and Quneitra, represented by the Southern Front, and in the capital, Damascus, the FSA is positioned in the Jobar neighborhood, one of the most contested areas. Al-Rahman Corps and the Shuhada al-Islam Brigade [Martyrs of Islam Brigade], which are also part of the FSA, are stationed in western and eastern Ghouta. In northern Syria, the FSA is significantly present in Aleppo, represented by Thuwar al-Sham, al-Sham Front and Sultan Murad Brigade. [The FSA-affiliated] Jaish al-Nasr [Victory Army], the Glory Army and the Central Division are stationed in Hamas countryside, while the largest number of FSA fighters deployed on the coast is represented by the 1st and 2nd Coastal Squads and the 10th Brigade. The FSA consists of many factions, which are all participating in the tireless efforts to establish a military council, alongside moderate Islamic factions led by Jaish al-Islam, which recently started to issue joint statements with the FSA under the banner of the revolution. I would like to note that the absence of a unified FSA leadership is not due to any internal reason. Rather, it is due to supporters policies, which exploit our need for weapons. Al-Monitor: The FSA has recently returned to the forefront. Its role re-emerged in the battles in Latakia, Hama and Aleppo. How do you explain the timing of the resurgence? Abu Zeid: The true face of the Syrian revolution is the one that returned to the fore after the Russian aggression. Russia is known to be in disputes with the European Union and the United States. Thus when Russia enters any region, the media is bound to focus on it. When the focus is on Syria, it is only normal for the public to take notice when revolutionaries are fighting a global force, like Iran and Russia, and the thousands of foreign fighters in addition standing their ground against IS. The FSA has not changed since the outbreak of the revolution, and we will fight anyone who stands in the way of Syrian demands, whether in the name of religion, such as IS, or under a secular banner, such as Russia, both of which have come to destroy the Syrian revolution under false slogans. Al-Monitor: Turkey announced its desire in September 2014 to create a safe zone in northern Syria. What is hindering the establishment of this zone? Would it stop the flow of refugees leaving Syria? Abu Zeid: The one hindering the establishment of this safe zone is none other than the US. This is not just an allegation. Rather, repeated statements were issued in this respect, [including] by Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, who said on July 1, 2015, that at that moment, the US did not see a need for the establishment of a safe zone in Syria. Meanwhile, the regimes air force dropped dozens of barrel bombs on Aleppo and Darayya, and the killing of civilians led to daily waves of displacement. Indeed, if a safe zone were established, more than 70% of the people heading to Europe by sea would change their minds. Syrians are not thrilled about the suicide journey to Europe, but they are in search of a safe haven. If such a zone is established, many Syrians will return to this region. We are people who love their country, and we have our culture and our own professions. The only reason Syrians are migrating is that for four years now, we have been killed by the deadly weapons of Assads regime, and we have lost hope of being saved by the international community. Al-Monitor: In December 2015, the FSA made significant progress against IS near the Turkish border in northern Aleppo. Can we link this progress to the safe zone? Do you think it might be established soon? Abu Zeid: The FSA has been fighting IS since before 2014, even before anyone in the world ever thought of fighting this organization. Our fight against IS in the northern countryside of Aleppo and in other areas is independent of any international plan. We will continue our battle whether there is a safe zone or not. As a matter of fact, we do not feel that a safe zone is a viable option, at least at the current stage. Al-Monitor: Why did the Pentagons project to train and equip Syrian opposition groups to fight IS fail? Abu Zeid: Simply because we are independent and responsible toward our people to the extent that we can say no, even to the US, which sought through this program to make us fight IS only and to forget the criminal called Bashar al-Assad, who has killed more than 300,000 Syrians over the past years, displaced 10 million and is still detaining more than half a million Syrians. Although the US gave us some support, we refused its offer and confirmed that this program would fail, and it ultimately did, since it is a US project that does not meet the aspirations of the Syrians. We have a Syrian project to combat all forms of terrorism, including IS and Assad, and we accept any offer of help. IS cannot be eliminated without the FSA. We have a history of struggle against all of those who killed Syrians. Therefore, no one can question the FSAs objectives when it fights IS, because its project is purely Syrian, and it aims to protect Syrians rather than serve other agendas. Al-Monitor: How do you perceive US policies in the region? Abu Zeid: The US is gradually moving from a neutral position toward being a partner in crime as it allows Assad and his allies to kill Syrians. Scary massacres are being committed against Syrians, who have been left to starve to death under siege in the city of Madaya and [killed] by chemical weapons. Syrians are paying a high price as a result of the US policy failure in Iraq and its weakness in the Middle East in general. It is not required that the US send fighters on the ground. This is not what we want. What we want is for Assad to be prevented from targeting civilians and for the [supporters] of the Syrian revolution [i.e. Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia] to be allowed to provide rebels with qualitative weapons. The US supports the Syrian Democratic Forces, which include al-Sanadid Army, one of the regime's militias. We, however, do not trust these forces, and they not surprisingly getting weapons that are hundreds of times more numerous than the weapons received by the FSA. Al-Monitor: The FSA factions supported the decisions from the Riyadh conference, which brought together the Syrian opposition on Dec. 10, 2015. Do you think it is possible to reach a political solution with the regime? What is the solution, in your opinion? What system are you trying to recreate in the new Syria? Abu Zeid: As rebels, we believe that Assad and his allies will not contribute to any solution that will ultimately lead to the departure of Assad and his clique. The assassination of Jaish al-Islam commander Zahran Alloush a former member of the negotiating body that supported a political solution is clear evidence that the Russians are not seeking a political solution. The FSA is making every effort toward a political solution based on the Geneva I communique regarding the formation of a transitional governing body, the departure of Assad and his clique, the dismantling of the security establishment and the restructuring of the military establishment. These points cannot be disregarded. As far as the regime is concerned, the Syrian people will determine its shape in the new Syria. Our sole current mission is to topple the Assad regime. When the revolution achieves its objectives, it will form a committee to draft a constitution and present it to the people. Only the people, not us or anyone else, will have the final say on the form of government. Al-Monitor: The FSA receives support from several countries in the region, and you are accused of being influenced by foreign countries. What do you say to such allegations? Abu Zeid: My response is part of this interview. We refused to take part in the US training project, and the US is the biggest power in the world, which confirms that the FSA is independent. The withholding of sophisticated arms such as anti-aircraft [weaponry] is evidence that there are a lot of concessions that we declined to make. Why havent we until this day had arms airdrops for the FSA, like the ones received by the regime forces? This is simply because the FSA does not believe in the same [things] as the international forces, but it shares the same [hopes] as the Syrian people. We advocate any proposal or solution that advances the interests of the Syrian people. Al-Monitor: About three months have passed since the beginning of Russias military intervention in Syria. It seems that the Russian airstrikes have been concentrated on the opposition-controlled areas. How has this affected you? Abu Zeid: True. The airstrikes held off the advance of the FSA in favor of IS. The Russians' almost daily airstrikes targeted our locations on the demarcation line in Aleppo's northern countryside in the towns of Marea, Jarez and Ihras, among others. However, the greatest impact of the Russian raids was the destruction of the infrastructure of the liberated areas and the killing of larger numbers of civilians, causing waves of displacement, as was the case in Aleppo's southern countryside and the northern Hama countryside. Al-Monitor: In the first military operation by the Syrian regime in the wake of the Russian intervention, a violent attack was waged in northern Hama without making any progress. However, the regime took over large and strategic areas in the southern countryside of Aleppo. How do you interpret that? Are you able to hold off the regime with your weapons? Abu Zeid: The difference between Aleppo and Hama is simple. In Hama, we are fighting against the regime and its allies on a single front, while in Aleppo there are three fronts [IS, Kurdish militias and the regime and its allies]. Nevertheless, our retreat favoring the regime in southern Aleppo was not because of direct confrontation, but because of the heavy shelling and shooting. The regime and the militias fighting alongside it have a renewable supply of human resources, bringing in mercenaries from outside Syria from Iraq, Lebanon, Iran and Afghanistan and recently from Africa. The balance of weaponry is tilted in favor of the regime, which has the sophisticated Russian air force at its side in addition to advanced armored vehicles. Some are made in the US and are from Iraqi militias fighting us in Syria, such as the Hezbollah al-Nujaba movement and the [Brigade] of Abu al-Fadl al-Abbas, among others. As for us, on the other hand, the most advanced weapons we have are TOW missiles, available in limited quantities. We also confront different enemies, each with a different and particular tactic in fighting. I can objectively affirm, however, that the military balance is indeed tipped in favor of the regime, but the confrontations are in our favor because of our faith in the cause we are sacrificing for. Al-Monitor: In several television interviews, you have rejected working with Russia. The chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia, Valery Vasilevich Gerasimov, said, however, on Dec. 14, 2015, that Russia is providing air cover to some of the FSA groups. Is this true? Did you change your position? Abu Zeid: I personally refused to meet with the Russian president's special representative for the Middle East, Mikhail Bogdanov, in Geneva about two months ago. Perhaps, in the eyes of Russia, Assad is the commander of the Syrian revolution. Russias declaration that it supports the FSA is ridiculous as all facts prove the contrary. Russian airstrikes are ongoing around the clock, targeting our sites and locations. Our position is clear: We will not coordinate or cooperate with Russia. January 14, 2016 Former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told a Washington audience Jan. 13 that President Barack Obama erred when he called for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to step down early in the Syrian civil war. While Assad is a brutal dictator who must eventually leave office, Hagel said, the United States should have learned from the chaos that followed the abrupt removal of Iraqs Saddam Hussein and Libyas Moammar Gadhafi that taking out authoritarian leaders without knowing who will take their place is not the best solution. We have allowed ourselves to get caught and paralyzed on our Syrian policy by the statement that 'Assad must go,' Hagel said, adding, Assad was never our enemy. Asked by Al-Monitor what it would take to bring stability to Syria after the deaths of 300,000 people many at the hands of Assads forces and the countrys fracturing into battered ethnic and sectarian enclaves, Hagel said it would require working with the Russians, Iranians and Saudis. All have to come together with enough common interest to stabilize things, he said. Hagel, a decorated Vietnam veteran and the first non-commissioned officer to run the Pentagon, was pushed to leave the Obama administration after only two years on the job after a series of disagreements over policy and process. While gentler in his criticism of Obama the evening of Jan. 13 than he was in a recent interview, he also criticized the president for declaring a red line against Assads use of chemical weapons and then failing to carry out missile strikes in 2013 when Syrias massive use of such arms was confirmed. I think it did hurt the credibility of the president, Hagel told a large crowd at the Atlantic Council in his first extended public appearance since leaving the Pentagon a year ago. When a president of the United States says something, it means something. To make those kinds of pronouncements and not follow through affects the credibility of the president. Hagel expressed support, however, for Obamas emphasis on diplomacy, particularly with adversaries such as Iran. Asked by Atlantic Council President Fred Kempe for his views on the Iranian detention and quick release of 10 US sailors following intense US-Iran contacts, Hagel said that while there will need to be a full investigation of the circumstances that led the Americans to stray into Iranian waters and their treatment by the Iranians, "Its good news that our sailors are out of there." He added, I have supported strongly the Iran nuclear deal and failure to free the sailors would have very much put in jeopardy the future of that agreement. Hagel was admonished by the White House and ridiculed by many when he called the Islamic State a threat beyond anything weve seen in the summer of 2014, after IS had just taken Iraqs second-largest city, Mosul. On Jan. 13, he suggested that events had vindicated him. IS, he said, is the most spectacular nonstate actor weve seen due to its use of social media, ample finances and sophisticated military tactics. It was a force we had never been up against and we didnt know how to deal with it, Hagel said. He offered no solutions, however, beyond working with regional and other powers to stabilize Syria and shoring up the Iraqi government. Were not going to solve this problem just by bombing, bombing, bombing, Hagel said. He repeated criticisms of the White House for trying to dominate Cabinet departments and holding too many meetings. If you want to bring in the best people you are not going to get the best people if they think that they are going to be constantly second-guessed, overloaded with micromanagement or their time wasted in endless meetings, he said. Hagel also had harsh words for the Republican-led Congress. Just three days after he took office in 2013, a series of draconian budget cuts known as sequestration went into effect. Those cuts, and a 16-day government shutdown that occurred when Congress refused to pass new spending measures, hurt US national security, Hagel said. An old-school moderate Republican and former senator from Nebraska, Hagel complained bitterly about partisanship and about those who come to Washington seeking, he said, to tear the system down. He chided Republican presidential candidates in what he called this goofy political season and compared their antics to a mass gong show, a reference to a comic talent contest that ran on television in the 1970s and 1980s. As he did in an interview with Al-Monitor in 2012, Hagel said that he was not sure what the Republican party stands for anymore. In his latest remarks, he added that the party reminded him of the Sioux nation made up of many different tribes. He said he doubted the party would sort itself out for another four years. Asked what advice he would give to Donald Trump, the current front-runner in Republican polls, and other candidates, Hagel said, Focus on uniting the country, not dividing it. January 14, 2016 WASHINGTON Iran has removed the core of its Arak plutonium reactor and filled it with cement, taking one of the final steps that pending verification by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors will make way for implementation day of the landmark Iran nuclear deal over the weekend, Iranian officials said. The core vessel of the Arak reactor has been removed, IAEA spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said Jan. 14. IAEA inspectors will be in Arak this evening, and they will verify Irans measures and their report will be sent to the IAEA, Kamalvandi said. We are in the final phases, and the job will be done today or tomorrow and we will enter into an important era. Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, in a Jan. 12 phone call with US Secretary of State John Kerry, reported to me that the calandria of the plutonium nuclear reactor is now out, Kerry said in a speech at the National Defense University on Jan. 13. And in the next hours it will be filled with concrete and destroyed. All of their enriched material has been put on a ship and taken out and gone to Russia for processing. Kerry said, Implementation day is going to take place very soon, likely within the next coming days somewhere. Kerry, who was in London on Jan. 14 to meet with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, seemed to suggest implementation day might be formally announced somewhere, perhaps in Europe, with his foreign minister counterparts from Iran and the P5+1 the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany though diplomatic sources said plans were fluid and fast moving. Implementation day will be very, very soon, a senior US administration official told Al-Monitor on Jan. 14. The Iranians seem to have done all of those physical things required but there are still some other requirements, much of it paperwork, Robert Einhorn, former arms control adviser on the US-Iran nuclear negotiating team, told Al-Monitor. They have to reach agreement with the joint commission on some important details. There are lots of people in Vienna now trying to iron out those details. While some policymakers had previously predicted there could be hitches and challenges to details of the agreement even in the runup to implementation day, the process has gone more smoothly than many expected, current and former officials said. All the parties managed to work through [difficulties that arose] in a reasonable way, Einhorn said. I think those who support the agreement believe that it has been working effectively and been implemented effectively, and that inevitable problems that arose have been ironed out. Many difficult tasks have been completed to make way for implementation day, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister and lead Iranian nuclear implementation coordinator Seyed Abbas Araghchi said Jan. 13, predicting implementation day would be officially announced on Jan. 16 or Jan. 17. While implementation day looks set to come before the end of the month, the sanctions relief it will unleash will not come soon enough to significantly impact the Iranian economy before Iranian parliamentary elections in late February, veteran Iran analyst Ali Vaez said. This is already too late for the tangible impact of sanctions relief to be felt by the electorate, and thus will not significantly affect the election results, Vaez, senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, told Al-Monitor. Nevertheless, given that sanctions are costing Iran $150 million per day, the sooner they are lifted, the better for the government that is also struggling to cope with falling oil prices. January 14, 2016 Last month, Turkmenistan began construction of an ambitious $7.6 billion pipeline to export natural gas to India via Afghanistan and Pakistan. The project, known as TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India), will supply 33 million cubic meters of gas per day to India through a 1,814-kilometer (1,127-mile) pipeline. If finished on schedule, it is slated to become operational by the end of 2019. Some energy analysts see the long-delayed launch of TAPI as the death knell to the stalled Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) project, which similar to TAPI has seen years of planning and negotiations and was supposed to supply India with almost the same amount of natural gas per year. Despite the failure of IPI, Irans ambition to export natural gas to the Indian subcontinent is alive and well. Indeed, in the same week that Turkmenistan announced the start of TAPIs construction, Indian and Iranian officials resumed serious negotiations to jumpstart a giant project to export Iranian natural gas to Oman and India via an undersea pipeline. This development has been preceded by months of increasingly intense discussions. In August, the chairman of the Confederation of India Industrys northern region, Shreekant Somany, at a joint meeting with the Oman Chamber of Commerce, said that the undersea project with the Iranians should be expedited. Then, in November, the head of the National Iranian Gas Export Company, Alireza Kameli, told Iranian media that Tehran is in serious negotiations with New Delhi to construct such an Iran-India pipeline. Two weeks later, on Dec. 9, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif met with his Indian counterpart, Sushma Swaraj, at the Heart of Asia conference in Islamabad. The two discussed the possibility of expanding their countries mutual economic cooperation, particularly in regard to Iran exporting natural gas to India. Subsequently, on Dec. 28, the Iranian minister of economic affairs and finance met with Swaraj and signed a 73-article agreement to expand bilateral cooperation, and particularly in the field of energy. The $4.5 billion project to pump Iranian natural gas to India envisages the export of 31.5 million cubic meters a day via an undersea pipeline originating from Chabahar Port in southeastern Iran, traveling through the Sea of Oman to Ras al-Jafan on the Omani coast, and after traversing the Arabian Sea, ending at Porbandar in South Gujarat in India. The project, known as the Middle East to India Deepwater Pipeline (MEIDP), is slated to be completed in two years. According to Subodh Kumar Jain, director of South Asia Gas Enterprise Pvt. Ltd., which came up with the idea of an underwater project, the 1,200- to 1,300-kilometer pipeline is the best energy option for India. Iran, which has already started building a pipeline from Turkmenistan to its Chabahar port, has plans for a gas swap with Turkmenistan and to then export the gas to India via MEIDP. New Delhi has already agreed to finance and develop Chabahar Port in preparation for this arrangement. India has strong incentives to engage in serious energy cooperation with Iran, which holds the worlds second-largest natural gas reserves. Experts say Indias natural gas demand will double to 517 million cubic meters a day by 2021. Indeed, energy analysts estimate that India will become the worlds second-largest energy consumer sometime in the next 30 years. Under such a scenario, MEIDP could help India satisfy a significant portion of its increasing hunger for natural gas. India could also save about $1.50 to $2 per million British thermal units once liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports are replaced by gas supplied through MEIDP; this would result in a significant windfall. MEIDP holds several benefits, including security incentives. For instance, TAPI traverses Afghanistan and Pakistan before reaching India. The current security situation in Afghanistan is not encouraging, especially after the recent clashes between government forces and the Taliban, in addition to the confrontations between the Islamic State and the Taliban and local tribes. This situation has made India feel the need for a more secure route and the undersea MEIDP is the best option. Moreover, MEIDP bypasses Pakistan, too. Although the TAPI route runs south of the unstable South Waziristan tribal agency in Pakistan, there is no guarantee that al-Qaeda-affiliated groups and Pakistani Taliban wont attack the pipeline. TAPI also would go through Balochistan province, which has been hit by severe clashes between Pakistani government forces and Balochi nationalist militia ever since Pakistans founding in 1947. MEIDP would also help India diversify its energy supplies. While supply diversification is universally sought, it has become even more urgent among energy consumers after the recent clashes between Russia and Turkey. Once Russia imposed sanctions against Turkey as a result of the downing of a Russian warplane, the Turkish government started to negotiate with Israel, Qatar and the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq to replace Russia, which supplies 57% of Turkeys natural gas imports. Similarly, the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline is a project that attempts to reduce European countries dependency on Russian gas. It appears that India has learned from Turkey's and Europes lessons and is trying to avoid over-reliance on a single supplier. MEIDP can also usher in other, non-energy benefits, such as increased trade. For instance, thanks to MEIDP with its associated development of Chabahar Port and the linking of Chabahar to Turkmenistan via railway Iran, India and Turkmenistan alike can expedite their trade with Central Asia without needing to use the Bandar Abbas railway, and at a faster and cheaper rate. Finally, MEIDP would not only be mutually beneficial to Iran and India, but also to their common friend on the Arabian Peninsula: Oman. In 2009, Iran signed a memorandum of understanding to build an undersea gas pipeline to export gas to Oman. On March 12, 2014, this memorandum was upgraded to a preliminary agreement between the two countries to build a 200-kilometer undersea pipeline worth $1 billion. This project is expected to be finished in 2017 and would facilitate the export of about 10 billion cubic meters of gas to Oman annually. Of note, a September 2008 agreement signed between Tehran and Muscat stipulates that Oman will convert part of Iranian natural gas imports to liquefied natural gas and export it to world markets. Although the 2008 agreement focused on gas supplied from Irans Kish Island in the Persian Gulf, it could be expanded to the Iranian gas exported via MEIDP. Oman currently has an LNG facility and imports gas from Qatar via the Dolphin pipeline. Muscat hopes that after MEIDP enters the operational phase, besides the increase in Omans revenue as a result of tariffs and exports, it will have more gas for its growing domestic use, and particularly for its power generation sector. Moreover, Oman could also use a portion of its income from MEIDP to cover its budget deficit. In conclusion, while TAPI may sound the death knell to the IPI project, MEIDP is a promising initiative that would help secure mutually beneficial energy cooperation between Iran, Oman and India, and also paves the way for the expansion of broader trade and diplomatic cooperation not only between the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, but also with Central Asia. January 15, 2016 TEHRAN, Iran Amid warnings by some experts of the possibility of a further slump in oil prices in 2016, crude oil prices briefly hit 12-year lows this week, selling for less than $30 per barrel. With the imminent lifting of Western sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, the oil market is anticipating an inflow of Iranian crude in coming weeks. Amid these anticipations, there are also speculations that the already oversupplied market could see prices drop to as low as $20 due to a potential price war between exporters bent on keeping market share. Iran is in a relatively good position in terms of oil dependency. For instance, in response to the sanctions, the Iranian government initiated efforts to reduce such dependency by focusing on expanding other sources of revenue. Among these measures was the emphasis on the export of non-oil goods, such as the output of the countrys mining and petrochemical industries, to make up for much needed revenues. These efforts appear to have had effect. On Jan. 5, government spokesman Mohammad-Bagher Nobakht told reporters that the dependency of next years budget (March 20, 2016-March 20, 2017) on oil revenues will drop to a new low of under 25% down from highs of nearly 70% only a decade ago. Another measure the government has been taking is to increase tax revenues. Despite the economic advances Iran has made over the past decades, the countrys economy suffers from an underdeveloped tax system, and financial transparency remains a challenge. Indeed, tax revenues in Iran only account for less than 7% of gross domestic product. However, it should be noted that September 2015 reports said the governments tax income had exceeded oil revenues for the first time in nearly half a century. This trajectory is widely supported, even in the current, difficult economic climate. Although increasing taxes during an economic recession would have a negative effect on economic growth and is not recommended, increasing tax revenues through identifying new tax bases is a positive step, Ali Sadeghien, a university lecturer in Tehran, told Al-Monitor. Irans efforts to maximize tax revenues come at a time when only 40% of the countrys economy pays taxes. Indeed, last month, Ali Tayyebnia, minister for economic affairs and finance, stated that some 43% of the Iranian economy is currently enjoying a wholesale exclusion from paying any taxes. According to Tayyebnia, the governments low tax revenues stems from the lack of an economic and fiscal database as well as the wide range of tax exemptions granted to a large number of companies and individuals. Moreover, Ali Askari, the former head of Irans National Tax Administration, has publicly stated that some 40% of the economy is legally exempt from taxes, while another 20% is made up of underground businesses that the tax authorities are unable to keep under their radar. Amid the governments stepped-up efforts to boost tax earnings, it is expected that it will generate more revenues from tax as opposed to oil exports in the next Iranian year. However, while the focus on tax revenues is broadly welcomed as a great achievement, some experts say it will only be effective if it is lasting. If the government continues this policy when the prices of oil and gas are high again, then we can say it has been successful, Sadeghien said. But if the prices go high again and it loosens its pressure to collect taxes, then were back to square one. Allah Mohammad Aghaee, an adviser to Irans minister of economic affairs and finance, told Al-Monitor he believes that the countrys tax regime is miles away from where it should be, but that he remains hopeful about the near future. Tax reforms have been underway for an extended period. Under a project that started back in the 1990s, a major study into some of the best-practiced tax systems was initiated. The studying phase dragged on for more than a decade, but it finally entered the practical phase in 2005 with the cooperation of Deloitte Canada as the projects main consultant. Later, a French information system company, Bull, was awarded the contract to develop the countrys Integrated Tax System (ITS). The implementation of the ITS, which has since turned into one of the main information technology projects in the country, began in 2010. The system will establish a database of Iranian taxpayers, which would also serve as the foundation of further comprehensive tax reform. Weve used the latest technologies for the ITS project, and it has been implemented in accordance with international standards, with the cooperation of major Western companies, Aghaee told Al-Monitor. He added that the system, which has been implemented in several provinces including Tehran, is expected to be completed by the end of 2018. Other than the ITS, President Hassan Rouhanis administration has taken the major step of amending the countrys tax law so that among others conglomerates controlled by Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and religious foundations, such as the Astan Quds Razavi foundation, will start paying taxes from the next Iranian year. There are other important elements to the tax form, too. Under the new tax law, income tax rates would also be lowered to 15% to 25%, down from the previous 15% to 35%, Aghaee told Al-Monitor. He added that Iran has sought to expand its tax base under its comprehensive tax plan to boost justice and transparency, and also equal opportunity to compete. Another notable amendment in the new tax law addresses tax evasion and any form of assistance to others to evade taxes, recognizing the latter as a crime for the first time. In this vein, the amendment obliges the judiciary to form special courts for crimes related to tax evasion. Indeed, the Ministry of Intelligence announced on Jan. 9 that it has busted a major ring that offered clients advice on how to evade taxes. Yet despite all these measures, some believe that the low cultural acceptance of the concept of taxes, and a considerable lack of economic knowledge among the public, will continue to prove to be major challenges. Aghaee told Al-Monitor that to lower the risk of a possible backlash against the new tax reforms, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance, along with the economic commissions of both the administration and parliament, has been in close consultation with the private sector and all related nongovernmental organizations during the process of the drafting of the new tax laws. Although the government has not yet met the deadline to submit the next Iranian years budget bill (March 20, 2016-March 20, 2017), there are reports that its tax revenues will reach 860 trillion rial (over $23 billion) in 1395 (2016). Whether this materializes may be less important than the broader efforts to shed dependency on oil in favor of tax reform. January 14, 2016 The swift release of American sailors who had entered Iranian waters was hailed by many as a sign of the improved relations between Iran and the United States. Critics, however, believe "improved" is the wrong word. As Al-Monitor's Laura Rozen reported Jan. 13, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif spoke on the phone five times over the course of 10 hours Jan. 12 to secure the sailors' release. The incident has dominated Iranian newspapers. The last time foreign sailors were taken by Iran was in 2007 when 15 British sailors were held for 13 days. With the implementation of the nuclear deal and the removal of sanctions expected to be announced within days, the fate of 10 American sailors in the hands of the hard-line Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) could have turned into a long and costly crisis. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and US President Barack Obama both have invested heavily in the nuclear negotiations, and each has paid a price at home in their pursuit. Iran Newspaper, which operates under the Rouhani administration, wrote a detailed account of the incident, covering the Kerry-Zarif consultations and the gratitude of American officials in resolving the issue in a timely manner. Reformist Etemaad Dailys top story was headlined Boat Diplomacy." The article said, A day that began with serious fear of a new conflict between the United States and Iran ended with the unveiling of a new chapter from the promising results of diplomatic efforts. While the negotiations between Kerry and Zarif lasted 21 hours, they were the result of 21 months of nuclear negotiations, the story said. Etemaad concluded, Again, diplomacy, in the heart of the worlds bloodiest region, between two staunch opponents on the global scene, was able to show that it is still the best substitute for fighting. Not all Iranian media were happy to see the successful efforts of diplomacy, however. Raja News, which is linked to the Endurance Front, a hard-line political group and Rouhanis most vocal critic in parliament, wrote that the negotiations between Kerry and Zarif had violated Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameneis guidelines that bilateral negotiations between Iran and the United States should be restricted to the nuclear issue. Raja referenced Khameneis March 2015 speech in which he said, The negotiations with America are about the nuclear issue and nothing else. The article said Western media reported the pending release of US sailors after Zarif and Kerry spoke by phone. IRGC officials later said those reports were "speculation" and pointed out that no Iranian official had yet publicly confirmed that the sailors would be released. The articled argued that this was not the first time that non-nuclear discussions between the United States and Iran had taken place. Raja claimed that when Iran diverted its aid ships meant for Yemen to Djibouti in May, it was due to US pressure and came after a conversation between Kerry and Zarif. Raja said the recent phone discussions between Kerry and Zarif are evidence that the Rouhani administrations primary project is to expand ties with America at all levels. January 15, 2016 On Jan. 10, the Israeli Cabinet approved the appointment of Aryeh Deri as minister of interior. Deri, chairman of the ultra-Orthodox Shas, which represents Mizrahi Jews of Middle Eastern and North African origin will also continue in his role as minister in charge of developing the periphery. Deris appointment follows Silvan Shalom's resignation as head of the Interior Ministry after the publication of testimony by women who claimed that he had sexually harassed them. Deri, who had been minister of economy before resigning that post Nov. 1, returns to head the Interior Ministry 22 years after he left the same post, in September 1993, under indictment for corruption. Deri was ultimately convicted of graft, fraud and breach of trust, and served close to three years in prison. Deris return to the scene of the crime, as some media outlets have described the situation, has become a moment for joyous celebration among the ultra-Orthodox community that backs Shas and views his appointment as righting a historic wrong. At the same time, to organizations and others advocating clean government, Deris return to the Ministry of Interior represents a severe decline in public standards and ethics. The Movement for Quality Government in Israel has petitioned the Supreme Court to nullify the appointment, which had been green-lighted by Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein. Deri and Shas supporters find immense symbolism in his return to the ministry where he began his meteoric political rise in government in 1988, when at the age of 29 he became (and remains) the youngest minister in the countrys history. Deris return is proof to his supporters that he has overcome all those who in their eyes allegedly tried to steer him away from his destiny. The public will never understand our joy, former Shas spokesman Itzik Sudri told Al-Monitor. As far as Aryeh Deri is concerned, this is truly a return to the scene of the crime, a crime of which he was the target. Aryeh Deri was thrown in jail not because he is Aryeh Deri. He was thrown in jail because of us, because he led the struggle of the Mizrahim. He became a threat to the Ashkenazi [Jews of European origin] establishment, and he paid a price. His return to the Ministry of Interior is a true victory, even beyond the symbolism. Sudri is convinced that Deris comeback will benefit the broader public, especially minorities, including Israels Arab citizens. Deri was the first to talk about discrimination against Israeli Arabs. [Prime Minister] Yitzhak Shamir wanted to fire him for that. Thats why the Arab representatives in the Knesset have nothing but praise for this appointment. Deris return to the Ministry of Interior is a victory for anyone wishing to champion Israels disadvantaged populations. Among Shas backers, theres almost a sense that the Messiah has arrived. Deris return to the Interior Ministry provides a sense that Shas is returning to its glory days, Asher Medina, Shas' Knesset faction secretary, told Al-Monitor. This is certainly coming full circle. Very many people felt for years that he had been done an injustice, and for us this move symbolizes a final resurrection from that crisis that befell Shas. Shas voters and supporters are now awaiting the Supreme Courts ruling on the petition against Deris appointment. If the court blocks Deri from taking office, all hell will break loose. People will take to the streets, Jerusalem resident and Shas supporter Itzik Bouhbut told Al-Monitor. If that happens, Shas will double its strength in the next elections, and this move will prove that he is being persecuted for personal reasons. The legal elites are the ones who sent him to jail for trivialities, and now they are trying to prevent him from coming back to serve the public that elected him, even though his period of disgrace is over and even after he served his sentence. Following his conviction, Deri had been banned from holding public office for seven years. Mordechai Kremnitzer of the Israel Democracy Institute believes that Deri does not belong in politics, in any position, in light of the offenses for which he was convicted and because he never expressed regret for his deeds. Kremnitzer told Al-Monitor, Despite the public support for Shas, and its voters desire to see Aryeh Deri back in the Interior Ministry, this is still damaging to the rule of law and sends a troubling message to the legal and law enforcement systems in Israel. In the political arena, little opposition has been voiced against the appointment. Zionist Camp Knesset members Eitan Cabel and Mickey Rosenthal are among those who noisily opposed the appointment, but most other lawmakers have not been keen to publicly share their views on the subject. From my experience in the Knesset, Rosenthal told Al-Monitor, members of the Knesset prefer not to deal with these issues. Tomorrow someone will need something from Deri, so people say, Why mess with him? But this does not make the whole thing kosher. This appointment is very problematic. Think what would happen if [former President] Moshe Katzav were appointed president after leaving jail. Katz is currently doing time for a rape conviction. Rosenthal remarked that Deris people had asked him to stop using the expression return to the scene of the crime, and he has obliged. This is nothing personal against Deri, he explained. Its a question of the kind of people you want to see in our politics. According to Shas' Medina, Deri has been surprised by the mildness of the public opposition to his appointment. He said, The public has already accepted the fact that Deri was a Cabinet minister, and it sees nothing wrong in him being minister of the interior. One must remember that there is no connection between the offenses for which he was accused and the Ministry of Interior specifically. Medina reckons that the top court will reject the petition against Deri's appointment. Its not a legal matter, he said. Its a public matter, and the public has expressed itself at the ballot box and chosen Deri. This is the epitome of democracy. Any [judicial] intervention in this case would be unusual and inappropriate. Shas is without doubt a unique party. The narrative that defines the party's identity, even compared to that of other ultra-Orthodox parties, is not ideological in its essence, but rather sectoral. This sectoral basis is, of course, overlaid with additional social and other ideas. Perhaps this is why Shas members attach such importance to the symbolism of Deris return to the Interior Ministry. Many in the party speak of the pride that Shas provides for Israelis of Eastern origin compared to the discrimination and humiliation they felt before its establishment in 1982. When a partys central platform is to provide sectoral pride, one can assume its backers will not easily forgive a humiliation such as blocking the path of their leader to an important ministerial position. January 14, 2016 Jordans Muslim Brotherhood and its political arm, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), face unprecedented challenges after prominent members and mid- and low-level cadres tendered resignations from the party during the last week of December. On Dec. 28, about 400 members, including veteran members and founding leaders, resigned from the party. Other resignations followed as the Consultative (Shura) Council of the IAF attacked defectors and refused to admit that the 70-year-old group is going through a serious crisis. The Brotherhood's predicament began in 2013 when members mostly from the East Bank of the kingdom launched on Oct. 5, 2013, what became known as the Zamzam Initiative. They called for massive structural reforms while demanding disengagement from the international body of the Muslim Brotherhood established in Egypt in March 1928 and participation in the countrys political life. The Brotherhood had boycotted legislative elections in Jordan, the most recent in 2013, in protest of the election law, which they saw as working against them. In addition, Zamzam participants accused the current leadership of the Brotherhood of intransigence and of loyalties that go beyond the borders of the kingdom. When their initiative was rebuffed, their leaders were ousted from the Brotherhood, but they remained in the IAF until they joined others in resigning on Dec. 28. Now those behind Zamzam are considering establishing their own political party. In March 2015, another faction led by former general overseer Abdul Majeed Thneibat defected and applied for a license under the name of the Muslim Brotherhood Society (MBS). The government approved their request and said that the Brotherhood had never officially registered with the government, casting doubts over its legality. Attempts by the MBS to claim the groups material assets, including its properties, were later rejected by court. To add to the Brotherhoods deepening crisis, a number of veteran members of the IAF, later named the Group of Elders, threatened to resign from the party on Dec. 29, citing internal problems and irreconcilable differences with the Brotherhoods leadership, which has control over the IAFs affairs and policies. Prominent Brotherhood leader and former head of the IAFs Shura Council Abdel Latif Arabiyat, who is also one of the Group of Elders, said that internal reforms of the IAFs election bylaws had come a long way, but there are parties that want to divide us in order to reach leadership positions. He told Al-Monitor, There is recognition that the Muslim Brotherhood is going through a crisis, but in return there are many initiatives that aim at reconciliation, unity and reforms [launched by the moderates within the Brotherhood]. Arabiyat added that one of the controversial issues is IAF elections, which usually result in polarizations and divisions. He said that he has suspended a decision to resign from the IAF, hoping that compromises will be reached soon. Meanwhile the group and the party will remain even if I was the only member, he said. But the leader of the Zamzam Initiative, Rahil Gharaibeh, disagreed. He told Al-Monitor that the Brotherhood had faced challenges before, but today it is actually collapsing because of the intransigence of some leaders [namely the general overseer, Hammam Said] who are loyal to persons rather than ideas. He said that the recent mass resignations are proof that members had no other options since the path to dialogue has been closed. Gharaibeh accused the current leadership of the Brotherhood which he described as a crisis group of loyalty to outside parties (the Brotherhoods international organization) at the expense of the Jordanian state. Zamzam wants the Brotherhood to participate in legislative elections and sever ties with outside parties such as Hamas. Gharaibeh added that the Group of Elders, who represent the moderate flank within the Brotherhood, presented many initiatives but the current leadership did not listen. The root cause of the divisions is demographic since Hamas [the Palestinian movement in Gaza] penetrated the group in Jordan for many years and forced its own agenda, Gharaibeh said. Eventually the group will have to evolve and decide where its true loyalties lie, he added. Islamist writer Hussein al-Rawashdeh is convinced that the Brotherhood will break down, producing various currents and fragments. He told Al-Monitor that the main group will lose its significance while Zamzam and the Group of Elders are likely to form a new Islamist party that will compete with the IAF. The IAF will remain, but it will continue to go through more defections, Rawashdeh said. Eventually there will be a separation between the clerical and the political within the group while the [Muslim Brotherhood] Society will continue to lack popular support, he said. Islamist commentator Hilmi al-Asmar criticized the Brotherhoods system of blind submission to the leadership, which in his view is archaic and nondemocratic and has been undermined by deep changes that have taken place in human society including the revolution of social media. He told Al-Monitor that the Brotherhood has failed to appreciate the repercussions of the tremor-like event in the form of the big setback that the organization suffered in Egypt [in 2013], which has exposed major flaws in the way the group functions and its relationship with the party, which is its political arm. Asmar said that Jordans Brotherhood has adopted the Egyptian system, where the party lacks independence and is treated as an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood. The duality of the party and the jamaa [group] made these parties ineffective while putting the historic leaderships in front of difficult choices as young members drifted toward extreme dogmas, he said. But he warned the government of the price of fighting political Islam because any weakening of moderate Islamists will benefit the takfiri [those who accuse other Muslims of being apostates] groups, which will come at the expense of regimes and people alike. The current leadership of the Brotherhood has evaded calls for carrying out internal reforms. Political analyst Orieb al-Rintawi accused them of going through a state of denial. In his piece in Addustour daily on Jan. 3, he wrote that current Brotherhood general overseer Said has refused to resign even after three major breakaways that have rattled the group and its political party. The group has failed to keep pace with major regional development, and its submission system of obeying the leadership is undemocratic, he wrote. Furthermore, it has failed to examine the Islamist experiment in Tunisia and Morocco and ignored the lessons of the debunked Egyptian experience, Rintawi added. He was referring to the relative success in both countries by Islamist parties in forming governments and engaging in politics. In his view, the Brotherhood was unable to separate between "playing politics and proselytizing (dawa) the latter being a cornerstone of the groups objective for a slow Islamization of society. In addition to this, Rintawi wrote that the Brotherhood has failed to distinguish itself as a nationalist movement concerned with local issues away from the general concepts of the umma (nation) and caliphate. There are signs that last-minute attempts will be made to preserve the unity of the IAF and, by extension, the Brotherhood. On Jan. 5, the IAFs Shura Council announced that it had started discussions over regulations to allow members of the general assembly to take part in the secretary-generals election, scheduled for March of this year, and increase the participation of women and young members through a quota system. The deputy general overseer of Jordan's Brotherhood, Zaki Bani Arshid, announced that he was about to launch a new reform initiative of the group with the aim of ending internal rifts. Bani Arshid was speaking on the day of his release, Jan. 4, from prison after serving 18 months for publishing a comment on his Facebook page that was deemed to hurt Jordans relationship with the United Arab Emirates. He had criticized the UAEs campaign against Muslim Brotherhood activities there. Bani Arshid is a rising star inside Jordan's Brotherhood, and while he is considered a hard-liner, he still carries influence with moderate members. His initiative may be a last ditch attempt to save the Brotherhood from further fragmentation. January 15, 2016 Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom was quoted Jan. 12 in the Swedish media as demanding an investigation into the circumstances under which Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces in the current wave of violence. Her comment generated furious reactions in Israel that reflected a grim absence of coherent and effective foreign policy in the diplomatic battle with the Palestinians. In a formal response to Wallstroms comment, which was similar to others she has made in the past, Swedens ambassador to Israel was summoned to the Foreign Ministry for a reprimand. But even as Israel was taking its required official measure, senior Likud figures made a wild, unfocused and ineffective attack that served their political needs but could be damaging to Israeli foreign policy. Science Minister Ofir Akunis, for example, suggested recalling the Israeli ambassador from Stockholm to Jerusalem for consultations. Recalling an ambassador is an extreme measure reflecting a deep diplomatic crisis. This comment by the Swedish foreign minister, severe though it may be, to our best knowledge does not reflect the views of the entire Swedish government and thus does not appear to merit such a move. In any case, Akunis, who does not have any official role in foreign policy, spoke of his own accord and added fuel to the fire. The embarrassing reaction of Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, reflecting her own views and voiced without consultation with her ministry staff, was more serious. Hotovely launched a sharp all-out attack on Sweden, accusing it of encouraging terrorism and the Islamic State organization. Hotovely even declared that in the wake of Wallstroms remarks, Israel would close its gates to official visits from Sweden. Astounded, the Israeli Foreign Ministry was quick to issue a clarification to prevent further deterioration of Israel's relationship with Sweden, saying there had been no decision by the Foreign Ministry to cancel Swedish visits. Hotovely herself also tried to mend the rift, and her office made clear that she had meant that only Wallstrom and her team would not be allowed in. This is what happens when there is no full-time foreign minister and the prime minister, who fills the role, doesnt really like his deputy and isn't in tune with her. Another contributor to the assault on Sweden is former Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, who does not hold any office but whose past as foreign minister lends a certain international resonance to his reaction. In media interviews, Liberman called on Israelis to boycott Ikea and accused the Swedes of double standards, institutionalized anti-Semitism and collaboration with Nazi Germany. The Israelis, by the way, were not impressed and have continued to throng the stores of the popular Swedish furniture chain. Netanyahu has no control over Liberman, but he should have control over his Cabinet ministers who leveraged the incident with Wallstrom for their political needs. As far as Israels foreign policy goes, it makes no sense to pull in different directions. As for the prime minister himself, he took advantage of the scheduled meeting with the foreign press on Jan. 14 to launch an attack on the Swedish foreign minister. Netanyahu labeled her remarks scandalous, immoral, unjust and misleading, and he wondered out loud, People are defending themselves against assailants wielding knives who are about to stab them to death and thats extra-judicial killings? All in all, his reaction was reasonable. He did not lash out at the Swedish government or announce a recall of the Israeli ambassador, nor did he call for a boycott of Ikea. He defended Israels conduct in the face of the so-called lone-wolf terrorism. The problem is not with this reaction, but with the fact that Israel does not have an effective foreign policy vis-a-vis the diplomatic tsunami it is facing. It has, instead, domestic policy and political interests of this or that minister or, sometimes, of the prime minister himself. Therefore, when it responds to harsh comments by the Swedish foreign minister, Israels reaction is emotional and wrong. Netanyahu, of all people, the No. 1 expert on public diplomacy, should understand that instead of generating a diplomatic crisis with Sweden, Israel should be trying to explain its side of things to the Swedes, and to Europeans in general. Instead of threatening to shut Israels gates to official Swedish visits, Israel should be inviting the Swedes in and showing them what its like to live in the constant shadow of terror. A Jan. 11 meeting between Deputy Knesset Speaker Yoel Hasson of the Zionist Camp and Deputy Speaker of the Swedish parliament Esabelle Dingizian is a good example of how Israel should be conducting itself. Dingizian was in Israel as part of a large Swedish delegation, arriving the day before the scandal du jour with her countrys foreign minister. Even without the latest contretemps, the meeting would have been overshadowed by the tensions between the two countries ever since Sweden recognized a Palestinian state in 2014. I told her that the minute Sweden decides to take sides, it actually takes itself out of the sphere of influence in the Middle East, Hasson told Al-Monitor. I also said that unilateral moves do not promote resolution of the conflict; instead they give the Palestinians an excuse not to enter into negotiations with us. When I told her that I think the Swedish foreign minister is wrong, she answered that she understands me and is not at all certain the things reflect the whole [Swedish] governments views. I also spoke with her about the [boycott, divestment and sanctions movement] and told her that boycotting plants in the settlements hurts perhaps 1% of Israels economy, but directly hurts thousands of Palestinians who work there. I came away with the feeling that what I said about BDS in the settlements made an impression and influenced her, he added. This, in my view, is the way to conduct Israeli public diplomacy: to invite as many Swedish parliament members as possible to visit and not to boycott them. This kind of wild behavior is the exact opposite of what we should be doing now. Its OK to rebuke the Swedish ambassador, because what the foreign minister said is outrageous and illogical. But if I were Netanyahu, I would invite all of Swedens leaders to visit, meet with them and present our case to them. We can prove to them that they are missing out. January 15, 2016 Turkey's Diyanet, or Religious Affairs Directorate, announced through its website on Jan. 8 that it would be seeking legal advice on how to deal with people making allegedly perverted and twisted comments about the agency. Soon thereafter, media outlets began posting a link to Diyanets Question and Answer section, fingering it as the reason behind the notice. Within a few hours, Diyanet became the center of yet another controversy. The newspaper Birgun shared a screen grab of a Diyanet Q&A in which an anonymous visitor to the interactive site had posed the question, Would my marriage be void if I lust for my own daughter? The Quran (4:23) prohibits incest, as does Turkish law, making the answer of an unidentified ulama (religious scholar) to this question all the more shocking. He stated, There is a difference of opinion on the matter among Islam's different schools of thought. For some, a father kissing his daughter with lust or caressing her with desire has no effect on the man's marriage. He went on to assert that according to the Hanafi school of Islamic thought, the mother would be forbidden to such a man. After elaborating in graphic and disturbing detail about girls' attire, he suggested, The girl should be over nine years of age. He also referred to writings by particular religious scholars and gave a concluding explanation about differences in sexual arousal between males and females. Although the religious ruling, or fatwa, appeared on Diyanets own website for all to read, the directorate appeared to be more upset at the press for publicizing it and the people who shared it on social media. The reactions by those trying to defend Diyanet were as mind-boggling as the fatwa itself, which was removed from the website Jan. 8. Hilal Kaplan, a columnist for the pro-Justice and Development Party (AKP) daily Sabah, issued a series of related tweets. In one she wrote, The question raised here is whether or not the marriage commitment would be nullified. The enemies of Islam, those who want to hurt Diyanet, are the ones reflecting on the answer as halal, 'permissible.' [They] are the real perverts. They must be the ones writing this question, as they are the ones spreading the private answer written in a private conversation. In addition to ignoring or overlooking that the question as well as the answer were not private, but posted on a Diyanet Web page accessible to the public, Kaplan attempted to compare civil law with religious law, asking which is more perverted. She finished her tweets stating, There are no lessons for Muslims from those who have chosen perversion as their religion. The tweet elicited harsh and slur-filled reactions. Another Sabah columnist, Meryem Gayberi, took things a step further, assigning blame for the answer to the AKP's rival, the Gulenist movement, accused of being a parallel structure by AKP supporters. Gayberi tweeted, The questions posed to Diyanets fatwa link, and the answers, and how promptly they appeared in the press indicate that Diyanet is not yet cleared of parallel [Gulenists]. While dozens of replies rolled in ridiculing Gayberi, Minister of Justice Bekir Bozdag concurred with her on Twitter. Bozdag admonished everyone not to take sides without understanding the matter and claimed the episode was an attempt to taint Diyanets reputation. He alleged that Gulenists, their supporters, people uncomfortable with religion and pious people were responsible for perpetrating the incident. Many courageously responded to him, knowing that any criticism of Diyanet, because it is a government institution, would be sufficient to be labeled an Islamophobe or an enemy of Islam by defensive AKP trolls on social media. With most of the public outcry focusing on the pedophilia and incest implied by the Q&A, and although Diyanet had acted to remove the lust fatwa from its website, no pronouncement was immediately forthcoming from the director or any other government office. Diyanet did not even attempt to clarify the fatwa's content. In fact, due to protests, Diyanet's director, Mehmet Gormez, canceled a TV appearance the same day the fatwa became the news. #SapikDiyanetKapatilsin (Shut down pervert Diyanet) began trending, generating millions of tweets and social media comments. Prominent columnists, among them daily Hurriyet's Ayse Arman, chimed in, asking for an apology from Diyanet. Prominent cartoonists mocked the fatwa. In Ankara, a group of women protesting outside the directorate were taken into custody Jan. 9. On Jan. 12, newspapers reported that the Hello Fatwa phone line had been disconnected, and Diyanet was investigating an alternative method for responding to the publics questions that would not permit abuses. Finally, on Jan. 14, Gormez acknowledged the controversy, admitting that a mistake had been made and saying that the person who had responded to the question was under institutional investigation. Diyanet has repeatedly been at the center of controversy. Its growth, through increased financial support and personnel, have led to closer public scrutiny of its agenda, but without concrete results as of yet. Diyanet has made headlines on a number of recent occasions. On Dec. 31, the directorate made the news with its engaged couples fatwa, warning that couples should not be left alone, nor should they hold hands, during their engagement. When Al-Monitor asked a prominent imam about the rationale behind the fatwa, he replied on the condition of anonymity, We are under pressure from young couples and their parents to perform religious weddings [which are not legally binding]. Once they get the religious approval, if the marriage is consummated and the couple breaks up [before their civil ceremony], then the young women become victims. Diyanet is well aware that the demand for religious marriage comes with a cost, and it is therefore trying to persuade couples to refrain from sex prior to officially being married in the eyes of the state. A medical doctor told Al-Monitor, I am not surprised about this announcement from Diyanet. Vaginal reconstruction surgeries have skyrocketed in the last couple of years among the most conservative groups. And frankly, most of these women are victims of failed religious marriages [without the legal protections of recognized marriage]. It is a lucrative sector, as private doctors set their own prices depending on the level of confidentiality required. The headlines on Jan. 4 reported that Diyanet had declared marriage to Alevis impermissible. According to Islam, a Muslim woman can only wed a Muslim man, Diyanet responded to a question on the matter. A week later, on Jan. 10, Diyanet was reported to have announced that anyone having an abortion should donate 5 camels or 221 grams of gold. Several womens groups have demanded that Diyanet stop obsessing about womens bodies and sexuality and instead focus on corruption, bribery, rape, sexual harassment, childrens rights, murder of women, poverty and hunger. In addition, opposition parties have asked for Gormez' resignation and an investigation into lavish spending by the directorate. So far, their pleas have fallen on deaf ears. January 15, 2016 The Jan. 12 suicide attack on Istanbuls tourism center of Sultanahmet Square starkly illustrates how Turkey's preoccupation with other battles has dangerously shifted its radar away from the Islamic State (IS). The attack, which targeted a foreign tourist group, killed 10 people and wounded 15 others. Most of the victims were German. Speaking that day, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, "I strongly condemn the suicide bombing originating from Syria." The Justice and Development Party (AKP) governments deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus first said the suicide bomber was a Syrian born in 1988. One hour later, the identity of the suicide bomber was revealed as Syrian Nabil Fadli and reports said he was born in Saudi Arabia. There were three IS-related suicide bombing attacks in Turkey during 2015: in Sultanahmet last January, in Suruc in July and in Ankara in October. But there are major differences between those attacks and the recent Sultanahmet bombing. First, one striking difference is that the bomber and all of the victims of the Jan. 12 attack were not Turks. This raises the question of whether IS which is now on the defensive in Iraq and Syria wants to shift its battlefield in part to Turkey. If IS is trying to ease the pressure it is under in Syria and Iraq by spreading its activity to Turkey, then similar operations are to be expected. Another difference of the Jan. 12 bombing was that, while it appears to have been inspired by IS, it has not been definitely linked to the group. The 2015 attacks were blamed on local IS cells in Diyarbakir and Bitlis, and particularly on the IS "Dokumacilar network" based in Adiyaman in southeast Turkey. In those attacks, authorities not only were able to establish the bombers' passages to Syria, but their roles in IS and Turkey were clearly exposed. But the background and IS connections of Nabil Fadli, identified as the perpetrator in the latest attack, remain a puzzle. Security sources Al-Monitor spoke to said Fadli was not on the list of people monitored by Turkish intelligence or the list of potential suicide bombers. Moreover, there is no information on his contacts with IS. It is even possible that Nabil Fadli was a false name used to conceal his identity. That may explain why German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, who was in Turkey a day after the attack, appeared dissatisfied with the information he was given, saying the bomber's identity was not clearly established. Security sources said they are trying to reach the family members of Fadli and conduct DNA investigations to determine his true identity. Media reports said the bomber so far identified as Fadli entered Turkey illegally from Syria to the border cities of Kilis and Gaziantep. He then went to Ankara, where he stayed three or four days before moving to Istanbul. From there, he is said to have traveled with four other people to the Zeyntinburnu office of the Immigration General Directorate on Jan. 5 to identify himself as a refugee. He said many of his family members had been killed in an IS assault in Syria, and his intention was to go Europe. The question that certainly needs an answer is why a person who came to Turkey for a suicide bombing operation would go to an official agency to offer his fingerprints. Is there any proof, apart from his statement, that he was actually a Syrian? Which IS cells in Turkey was he in touch with? Since there are no answers to these vital questions, the Sultanahmet bomber is still a ghost. With the dense fog over the affair, the Sultanahmet attack is not yet fully attributed to IS but is instead categorized as an IS-inspired attack. The third feature of this attack that sets it apart from earlier ones is seen in the technical details. Bombs used in the Suruc and Ankara bombings were professional, manufactured systems with electrical detonators. Eyewitnesses at Sultanahmet on Jan. 12 said the bomber pulled out the pin of a hand grenade and the blast followed three to four seconds later. That is why the casualty toll was minimized; some tourists noticed him and shouted warnings. The bombing shows how Turkey's polarized society has lost its understanding of IS. According to pro-government sources, the bomber "was a spearhead of [IS] or a Russian tool or a subcontractor of the Assad regime and Iran in Turkey." According to supporters of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), it was the work of a "deep state mechanism" that serves the political agenda of Erdogan and his AKP with such IS operations. Opposition parties say the national intelligence service MIT was responsible because of its incompetence. The Jan. 12 attack demonstrated once again how Turkeys misperception of the bombers as merely "IS subcontractors" has resulted in two fatal mistakes. First, such a misguided approach leads political decision-makers and society to ignore the substance of the problem. Second, it encourages Turkey to ease up on its struggle against IS. Sterile political arguments following the attack point to some basic realities we have to bear in mind. Such debates dont allow room to deal with structural needs such as developing an integrated and comprehensive combat strategy against IS; reinforcing border security; addressing deficiencies in the Turkish legal system, which still doesnt identify IS as a terror organization; and clearing the intelligence fog over IS. By prioritizing its struggle with the PKK, Turkey automatically pushed combat with IS to the back burner hence, the lack of field capacity and strategy to deal with IS. January 15, 2016 A petition signed by 1,128 Turkish academics and supported by scores of world-class intellectuals ranging from Noam Chomsky to Immanuel Wallerstein and Etienne Balibar has exposed the prevailing nationalistic and jingoistic frenzy in Turkey. But much more important than that, it indicated that the authoritarian drift of the Turkish regime is moving into a stage of totalitarianism that reminds one of passages from George Orwells "1984." It all began with a press conference held simultaneously in Istanbul and Ankara by academics from various Turkish universities. They announced the petition signed by 1,128 academics from different fields at universities in Turkey and abroad, including Turkish scholars affiliated with Harvard University, Cambridge University, Humboldt University of Berlin, Paris-Sorbonne University and many others from Stockholm to Los Angeles, Amsterdam and Milan. They stated that they were part of the Academics for Peace Initiative. The strong-worded petition in both Turkish and Kurdish under the title We do not want to be partners to the crime demanded that the government lift the curfews which have been in place for weeks or even months in some places in various Kurdish towns in the southeast of Turkey, where an armed confrontation is raging between Kurdish militants and the Turkish security forces. Casualties from the civilian population and security forces dangerously drift the country into a civil war. While accusing the Turkish government of its heavy-handed approach to the Kurdish issue, the petition also invited all parties involved to sit down at the negotiation table to seek a political and peaceful settlement to the conflict. It did not take long for them to be rebuked and reprimanded by, not surprisingly, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Employing an extremely harsh wording that has been a characteristic of his speeches and discourse for a long time now, Erdogan attacked the academics and labeled them as so-called intellectuals, unscholarly during the annual Ambassadors Conference in Ankara. His speech came only hours after the suicide attack in Istanbul on Jan. 12. He only paid a lip service condemnation to the Islamic States terror victims. Erdogan said the academics who signed the petition were shadowy instead of being enlightened, and to him, those so-called intellectuals were merely tools of propaganda of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers Party. What they had committed was treachery. The next day, Sedat Peker, a crime boss who was imprisoned for several years for organized crime connections, showed solidarity with the president and announced that the bloods of those so-called intellectuals will be spilled, and that he would be delighted to take a shower with their blood. Ultranationalist Peker had made similar remarks in Turkeys Black Sea province of Rize Erdogans ancestral hometown just a day before the Ankara massacre that took the lives of 102 people in the heart of Turkeys capital on Oct. 10, 2015. The blood of Turkeys academics, whose numbers have climbed to more than 2,000 signatories on the petition following the accusations and insults by the president, perhaps has not been spilled yet, but Erdogan has unleashed a McCarthyist campaign of slander, threats and even physical assaults endangering their lives unprecedented persecutions are underway against them. In the central Anatolian towns of Sivas and Kayseri, two professors who signed the petition were attacked by knife-wielding assailants and were forced to leave their university positions. They likely will not be able to go back to those cities. At many other universities, administrative measures are being taken to expel the signatories of the petition. On Jan. 15, Turkey woke up to the news that 14 academics of Kocaeli University in the northwestern province of Izmit, some 60 miles from Istanbul, were taken into custody for alleged terror propaganda and insulting the government. In the Mediterranean province of Mersin, 20 academics were rounded up, and five academics from the southeastern province of Gaziantep near the Syrian border met the same fate. These latest arrests followed Erdogans second round of accusations against the Academics for Peace Initiative. The president said Jan. 14, Certain institutions of the state will do whatever is needed in order not to leave those so-called academics, ignorant people untouched. Reminiscent of the darkest days of German academics, particularly those of Jewish descent during the early period of Nazi power, the wave of intimidation and the unprecedented witch hunt against the Turkish intellectuals is likely what Turkey will be witnessing in the near future. How this might affect Turkish nationals who live abroad and who signed the petition is uncertain at this time. Would they be detained and dragged to their homeland for investigations, or would they be forced to seek political asylum in their place of residence? A global solidarity campaign is currently being organized in support of the Turkish academics; the "Solidarity of the Literary Personalities" campaign by famous novelists, short-story and essay writers had reached 558 signatories at the time of writing this article. A campaign by actors and filmmakers has so far reached 400 signatories. This is a kind of civil war between the president, staunchly nationalist body politics and segments of Turkish society with its liberal, leftist, progressive intellectuals and with hundreds if not thousands of academics from every field and of every age. Turkey has never lived such an episode before. Therefore, it is impossible to know how long this civil war will last and how it will end. January 14, 2016 The military chief of the pro-opposition Syrian Islamic Front (SIF), Zahran Alloush, was killed Dec. 25 in an airstrike believed to have come from a Russian warplane in the village of Uthaya to the east of Damascus. Until 2013, Alloush had been the leader of Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam) before it merged with other armed opposition groups within the SIF, which is seen as the most powerful among the opposition groups in Syria. Alloush was described by US politicians such as former US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford, as well as in media outlets, as a moderate opposition leader backed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey. He visited Turkey on several occasions and attended public meetings there, including a ceremony at the Sham Khotaba Association in Istanbul in April 2015. He is also believed to have been one of the key figures in the Turkey-Saudi alliance project to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Following the arrival of Alloush in Turkey in April 2015, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who is close to the Saudi regime, said that with the arrival of Alloush, the Saudi-Turkish-Qatari alliance was ready to start. What was interesting about Alloush was that he relied on religious prophecies about the future in Syria in particular, and the region in general. His political and military behavior was influenced by his religious visions, which had a significant impact on his political and military decisions, as well his domestic and regional alliances. In a video published in September 2013, from a place called the Palace of the 10th Umayyad Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, located in the city of Resafa, southwest of Raqqa, Alloush announced the re-establishment of the Umayyad caliphate in the Levant and other Muslim countries. The Umayyad had ruled the Islamic world from 661 until 750, founding an empire that stretched all the way to China. They were known for their persecution of the first Shiites, which caused the latter to despise and distance themselves from the Ummayyad. We will bury the heads of impure Shiites in Najaf, God willing. The Umayyad glory will return to the Levant in spite of you, Alloush said in the video recording. He continued his anti-Shiite speech basing his statements on a prophecy mentioned in the Sunni accounts about the Prophet Muhammad. Matters are not up to you, the prophet had foreseen that you will become ordered soldiers in the Levant, Yemen and Iraq. [The prophet said:] 'The Levant is Gods finest land, and he has entrusted me [Prophet Muhammad] with it and its people.' Alloush then added, Shiites have claimed that no state shall emerge again along the lines of the Umayyad state. However, as the Umayyad had previously broken your heads, the Levantines will break them again, you impure rejectionists. Alloushs rhetoric reproduced the Salafi vision in the system of governance a vision of reinstating the caliphate and fighting against Shiites. There is no doubt that his Salafi educational background had much to do with his behavior and actions. Alloush grew up in a well-off Salafi family in Syria and pursued his religious studies at the Islamic University in Saudi Arabia that teaches Salafi Wahhabi approaches as part of its curriculum. In an interview with Al Jazeera in November 2013, Alloush was clear about his opposition to democratic systems in general and republics in particular, calling for the establishment of an Islamic state after the departure of Assad. He also called for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate, stressing the need to adopt Sharia, including religious penal laws. Alloush had also managed religious courts in the areas under his control in Syria. Thus, it was surprising that he was described as a moderate leader. Perhaps these statements were made based on the fact that he did not oppose cooperating with Western regimes to overthrow Assad and because he was not hostile to the Saudi and Arab regimes, unlike the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda. IS rejects any cooperation with Sunni regimes and the West, even if there is a common enemy such as Assad in the case of Syria, or the Shiite government in the case of Iraq. However, Alloush appeared to have rallied behind Jabhat al-Nusra which is the official front of al-Qaeda in Syria and met many times with its well-known leaders. Alloushs ideology can only be understood in the Salafi and jihadi contexts, as he ultimately espoused this religious dogma that is known for its extremism, given the violence it employs in political life. Salafi movements have a common prophecy about the future according to the following chronology: In the beginning, there were the prophets successors, followed by kings and princes, only for the caliphate to be reinstated. Most Salafi groups believe in this prophecy and are waiting for the return of the Islamic caliphate. However, there are some differences in how these groups view the realization of the caliphate. While the likes of Alloush believe that the caliphate will re-emerge gradually and pragmatically in the end times and will be along the lines of the Umayyad caliphate, others, such IS, have a more utopian and radical vision. IS believes that a revelation will take place in the end times, which will lead to the establishment of an Islamic state that is radically different from the caliphates of Islams entire history except for the era of the prophet and his companions. On the other hand, Alloush and other Islamic groups believe the future caliphate will be in line with the Sunni models of governance that were established throughout the history of Islam, up until more recent models, such as the one in Saudi Arabia, which Alloush did not oppose cooperating with. Thus, what is described as moderate in Alloushs approach boils down to his approval of dealing with Western and regional countries and accepting their aid so as to achieve the prophecy. Meanwhile, the more radical groups, such as IS, squarely reject any dealings with these countries. Yet the difference between the two sides remains in the preliminary tactic and not in the basic principles and ultimate goals. There are different orders in Salafi jihadism, all working toward the same ultimate goal of establishing the Islamic caliphate. It is true that the means to achieve this dream differ, but they share the same ideological denominator, which is obvious in their arbitrary handling of citizens civil and intellectual rights. Therefore, labeling some less politically extremist groups as moderate and supporting them regardless of their ideology will eventually lead to anti-democratic practices, the abolition of human rights-related issues and freedoms and the promotion of radical trends. Chipotle Mexican Grill FILE - Chicken Burrito with Guacamole. Chipotle Mexican Grill located at 5900 University Drive NW in Huntsville.(The Huntsville Times/Glenn Baeske) Amidst lawsuits and scandals related to E. coli, Chipotle Mexican Grill will close all of its locations on Feb. 8 to hold a company-wide meeting on food safety, the Oregonian reports. The Denver-based fast casual chain has been under fire since October, when E. coli cases were linked to locations in Oregon and Washington. In December, more cases were reported in California, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. At least nine lawsuits have been filed against the chain, the Oregonian reports. Chipotle is under a criminal investigation tied to a norovirus outbreak at a restaurant in Simi Valley, California, according to the Associated Press. Sales fell 30 percent at established locations in December, Chipotle said earlier this month. In December, Chipotle announced it was implementing a food safety program for its restaurants and throughout its supply chain. The program includes testing all of its fresh produce before it's shipped to restaurants; testing ingredient samples to make sure they are not past their shelf lives; and enhancing food safety training for employees. Chipotle recently opened a new location in downtown Birmingham at the bottom of the 20 Midtown development and is preparing to open a restaurant in Vestavia Hills on Feb. 18. The Von Braun Center Propst Arena was brimming Friday morning as leaders celebrated the top downtown Huntsville project, event and advocates of 2015. Yellowhammer Brewing and Earth and Stone Wood Fired Pizza took the coveted Downtown Huntsville, Inc. Project of the Year award, given annually to a business or an individual who brings innovation to the city center. The businesses opened in December at Campus No. 805, a mixed-use development at the former Stone Middle School in west Huntsville. In an AL.com poll used to determine Friday's winners, 31.08 percent of readers chose the Yellowhammer/Earth and Stone expansion as their favorite downtown project. U.G. White came in second with 22.32 percent of the vote, followed by Mason Dixon Bistro and Bakery, 21.27 percent; Clinton Row, 13.71 percent; Appleton Learning, 6.06 percent; and Wild Bean Coffee Co., 5.56 percent. A total of 1,998 votes were cast. Yellowhammer General Manager Ethan Couch accepted the award, saying they have "come a long way in the past two years." Stiff competition "We're just really excited for all the projects that are going on in downtown Huntsville," he said. "The competition for this event was stiff and we really appreciate all the effort that everybody's put in to make downtown something special." The new 10,000-square-foot brewhouse, bier garten and taproom allows Yellowhammer to immediately double its production capacity. For Albertville-based food truck Earth and Stone, it is the company's first brick-and-mortar business. Big Spring Crush, an annual wine festival in downtown Huntsville, was also honored by Downtown Huntsville, Inc. as the 2015 Event of the Year. Organized by Homegrown Huntsville, the event took 27.21 percent of the vote on AL.com. Whistlestop followed closely behind with 23.63 percent of the vote, followed by Yuri's Night with 16.67 percent; Pro Bono Brews, 11.79 percent; Battle of the Buffalo, 10.6 percent; and Slide the City, 10.1 percent. Homegrown Huntsville Ashley Ryals, founder of Big Spring Crush and creator of Homegrown Huntsville, said she started her business about four years ago to collaborate with local businesses and restaurants to create signature events the community can enjoy. Homegrown also offers signature trolley events Dine & Dash and Beer Hop. "I just want to say thank you to all of the local restaurants and breweries and businesses that I've gotten to work with over the last few years to make these events happen," Ryals said. "I couldn't do it without you guys." Belk Hudson Lofts developers Charlie and Sashy Sealy won the Downtown Advocate of the Year, an award selected with input from a group of downtown advisers. The couple is building The Avenue, a $34 million project featuring 197 upscale lofts and 21,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space at the corner of Jefferson Street and Holmes Avenue across from the federal courthouse. Downtown Renaissance Site work began in May at The Avenue, which will offer a resort-style swimming pool, 400-vehicle parking garage and large sidewalks to encourage outdoor dining and pedestrian walking in downtown. "This duo has done a lot since I've been here and even before I got here," said DHI CEO Chad Emerson, who was hired in 2013. "Their project probably really kicked off the Renaissance you've seen lately." Winners received rocket-shaped trophies made by Drop Metal, a design and fabrication studio in Huntsville. Julie Schumacher, deputy to the Commander for U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC), was the keynote speaker for the third-annual event. The Women's Fund of Greater Birmingham has awarded $155,000 in grants to seven local nonprofits for programs that support single women and their families. Each grant addresses poverty, said the organization's president, Jeanne Jackson. "By providing job skills training, affordable housing, childcare and mentorship, women have greater opportunities to move into financial independence," she said. "These grants unlock human potential." The Women's Fund's 2016 grant recipients include: Childcare Resources, for a supplemental childcare program that offers childcare subsidies for working mothers. Children's Aid Society, for a project that supports young homeless women and their children. East Lake Initiative, for a program that helps low-income mothers interested in homeownership, providing financial education and a mentor. First Light Inc., for a program that provides housing for homeless women and their children. Jefferson State Community College and St. Clair County Head Start, for dental assistant training for single mothers. Jimmie Hale Mission/Jessie's Place, for shelter services for women and children. The Salvation Army, for a program that helps women move into permanent housing by assisting with deposits, furniture and other needs. Britain Anglicans Protestors demonstrate against the decision by Anglican Primates to punish pro-gay equality churches in North America, in front of the Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, England, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. Anglican spiritual leader Justin Welby is set to lead a task force that will focus on rebuilding relationships after religious leaders temporarily restricted the role of the Episcopal Church in their global fellowship as a sanction over the U.S. church's acceptance of gay marriage. Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is expected Friday to explain the decision to bar Episcopalians from any policy-setting positions in the Anglican Communion for three years. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein) (Frank Augstein) Several scholars at Samford University's Beeson Divinity School who have ties to Anglicans and Episcopalians spoke to AL.com this morning about the vote on Thursday by the Anglican Communion to sanction the U.S. Episcopal Church. The Anglican Communion, the worldwide group which includes the U.S. Episcopal Church, has suspended the American branch of the church from voting at church meetings for three years because of its approval of gay marriage. "The traditional doctrine of the church in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds marriage as between a man and a woman in faithful, lifelong union," the Anglican Communion said in a document released Thursday during a meeting of primates, or church leaders, in England. "The majority of those gathered reaffirm this teaching." Alabama Bishop Kee Sloan responded to this decision in an interview this morning with AL.com: "It doesn't affect anything we're doing in Alabama," Sloan said. "Each congregation is able to discuss whether or not they want to offer marriage for people of the same sex. They can ask for permission from me to be a parish that offers same-sex marriage. Some congregations have decided that would be an important part of their ministry and they've asked for permission. Some have decided that's not what they want to do. They have not asked permission and that's fine." Conservative Anglican bishops from Africa and South America have long advocated taking a harder line against the U.S. Episcopal Church's steady move toward embracing gay rights. It's not clear what effect the sanctions will have. "The bottom line is I don't think we know what it means," said Lyle Dorsett, the Billy Graham professor of evangelism at Samford University's Beeson Divinity School. "It's in a sense a three-year probation." Dorsett in 2007 founded Christ the King Anglican Church, affiliated with the Anglican Mission in America, which has drawn many defectors from the Episcopal Church. He noted that past Anglican reprimands about the Episcopal Church consecrating its first openly gay bishop in 2003 had little effect. "It has been no more than a shaking of the finger - naughty, naughty," Dorsett said. "We have to watch and see." The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, addresses the media during a press conference in Canterbury, England, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. Anglican spiritual leader Justin Welby is set to lead a task force that will focus on rebuilding relationships after religious leaders temporarily restricted the role of the Episcopal Church in their global fellowship as a sanction over the U.S. church's acceptance of gay marriage. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein) Beeson Professor Gerald McDermott, Anglican chair of divinity at Samford, noted that three-fourths of the primates, or regional church leaders, voted in favor of the sanctions. "That was a long time coming," McDermott said. "If the Anglican Communion is to retain its theological integrity, they had to take a stand. There's a growing sense of unity among the Orthodox and the sense they cannot continue with this ambiguity of what it means to be an Anglican." The vote coincided with greater recognition of American Anglican Bishop Foley Beach, who attended the primates' meeting. Beach serves as archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America, a group that includes many churches who left the Episcopal Church over the gay issue. "It is the tacit admission by the primates that the Episcopal Church can no longer claim to be the sole representative of the Anglican Communion in North America," McDermott said. "It is questionable that the Episcopal Church can continue to represent Anglicanism after the votes of last year. The Episcopal Church sanctioned same-blessings and officially approved a new marriage liturgy. This was the straw that broke the camel's back." The Episcopal Church General Convention voted to approve gay marriage last year. The next national meeting of the U.S. church will be in 2018. "My hunch is they are giving the Episcopal Church three years to make adjustments to its canon law," said Mark Gignilliat, associate professor of Old Testament at Beeson Divinity School and canon theologian at the Episcopal Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, the seat of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama. "If that doesn't happen, I'd be curious to see what the next step is. The Communion has been slow to move on this." Most observers think it unlikely the Episcopal Church will back down on its stance affirming gay marriage. "The implicit threat is it will be expelled," McDermott said. "This is huge. It's quite doubtful that the Episcopal Church will rebuke its actions." The U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage nationwide last year also adds to the pressure to make a theological stand and makes backing down less likely. "This has become a matter of civil rights and social justice," Gignilliat said. "No one wants to be perceived as homophobic. Those are strong sentiments. A lot of Christians feel that pinch. No one wants to be hostile to their gay and lesbian friends." But being a representative of the larger Anglican Communion requires some level of theological agreement. "It would be good for the Episcopal Church to think about what it means to be part of a larger Anglican Communion," Gignilliat said. "Being part of a communion, one submits oneself to an authority outside our own." That hinges on the Bible, he said. "Every contrary view tends to have a verse you can point to," he said. "The harder work is listening to the overall message. Think of all the areas in which the Bible is complicated. When it comes to the issue of same-sex attraction, it's clear. The overarching view of the Bible is we're born in sin, everyone is born in sin. The fact we're born with predilections for certain behavior shouldn't be surprising. The church should have open arms to people with same-sex attraction. The church should be a welcome mat. The church under the Lordship of Jesus Christ should also submit to authority of the Bible. The Bible's clear on this particular matter. It doesn't equivocate." The possibility looms that the Episcopal Church could be expelled from the Anglican Communion if it doesn't change its stance in three years. "There's been talk of disciplinary action before," Gignilliat said. "We'll just have to see what happens." Gadsden State Community College will hold its 18th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Health Fair Monday, Jan. 18 from 8 a.m. to noon in the East Broad Campus' administration building auditorium. Free health screening and health education will be available free to the public. Information will also be available on substance abuse, diabetes, senior care information, breast cancer, balance and hearing, podiatry, prostate cancer, kidney disease, dental needs, home health and hospice care. Quality of Life Health Services will provide information about the Affordable Care Act and enrollment. Students from Gadsden State's therapeutic massage program will offer free massages. Members of the Retired Seniors Volunteer Program will also be available to assist with filing federal and state tax returns for 2015. Fair participants can also participate in an American Red Cross blood drive. Those interested in donating can complete pre-reading and answer donation questions online with RapidPass prior to coming to the health fair. Go to the rapid pass site here. A man who told police he went outside to smoke a cigarette Thursday night in Gadsden was shot twice in an apparent robbery. According to police reports, a 44-year-old Lillington, N.C. man visiting family in Gadsden at Colley Homes on North Sixth Street went outside to smoke about 6:40 p.m. The man told police he was confronted by two men, once dressed in all black clothing, the other man shorter, wearing gold chains, came up suddenly. One held a gun to his head and ordered him to hand over his wallet. When the victim reached for his wallet, he was shot in the right thigh. The gunman began to pistol whip him, causing a cut on his forehead. The victim was also shot in his right forearm. The victim was taken to Gadsden Regional Medical Center. His injuries are not believed to be life-threatening, police said. A Bessemer teen is charged with murder in the shooting death of a Mike Gilotti, a 33-year-old husband, father and Iraq war veteran. Just 10 days after the killing, Hoover police announced charges against 16-year-old Charleston Everett Wells. He is currently in the Tuscaloosa County Jail on charges related to a stolen Ford F-250 pickup and several car break-ins and is awaiting transfer back to Jefferson County. A murder warrant against the teen, who up until recently attended Bessemer City High School, was signed just after 10 a.m. today and Wells' arrest was announced this afternoon in a joint press conference held by The Hoover Police Department and The Jefferson County District Attorney's Office in Bessemer. Wells was arrested in Bessemer on Wednesday by the U.S. Marshals Gulf Coast Regional Fugitive Task Force. He has been charged as an adult and will be held without bail on the murder warrant. Wells is just one of several suspects, authorities said, and they are not yet saying Wells pulled the trigger. Three others, including two juveniles, are in custody on other charges. "Since this terrible crime occurred, this has been the top priority of the Hoover Police Department,'' said Hoover Police Chief Nick Derzis. "From the beginning, we said we were going to do whatever it takes to solve it and hold those responsible accountable for their actions." "A lot of work has been done so far, and I'm extremely proud of the support shown by the Hoover community and all our partner agencies,'' Derzis said. "We will continue to place all of our focus and efforts on this case until all that were involved are locked away where they belong." "These groups of predators, whether they're gang members, wannabe gang members, or just individuals robbing and shooting people, when you can't go get a cheeseburger, or come out of your house to go work out without getting robbed or shot, it seems to me they have declared war on us,'' said Bessemer Cutoff Chief Assistant District Attorney Bill Veitch. "We're declaring war on them. We're going to prosecute these crimes like our lives depend on it, because they do,'' Veitch said. In all, 15 law enforcement agencies assisted with the investigation, including the Bessemer Police Department, Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Office, The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, The Jefferson County District Attorney's Office (Bessemer Division) and the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force. Hoover police Capt. Gregg Rector said Wells' arrest is just the first step. "We still have a way to go on this case. We said from the beginning we were determined to find justice, he said. Rector held up photos of Gilotti while he spoke, emotional at times. "While I'm heaping praise on some of these law enforcement agencies, this is the reason we're here today,'' he said. "This is Mike Gilotti, Iraqi war veteran. Mike Gilotti, 33-years-old, was minding his own business. He's a hard working guy, he's got a family, two small boys. He's getting up early to work out and then go to his job. He runs into a group of car burglars who instead of running and fleeing, as you would expect thieves to do, these individuals obviously turned on him, shot him. He dies in front of his house and we're determined to seek justice for Mile Gilotti's wife, for his kids, and for his entire family. Justice means when each and every one of the people involved in this crime is behind bars." Investigators said several possible suspect names emerged very early in the investigation and it became apparent all of them had ties to the Bessemer area. Law enforcement agencies throughout the Birmingham area have recovered four stolen vehicles in the past 10 days, all affiliated with the group of suspects. The group is being investigated for their involvement in crimes in other cities. The suspects range in age from 16 to 20. "Sadly it's not anything new to us. We're seeing young people committing acts of violence,'' Rector said. "You don't have to look far, you see kids committing acts of violence all the time." Rector said the other suspects in the case are jailed in various jurisdictions in the Birmingham area. "They are certainly high on our suspect list for this crime,'' he said. The U.S. Marshal's Gulf Coast Regional Fugitive Task Force arrested Wells in Bessemer while he was in a vehicle. He was taken into custody without incident. "I can't give Bessemer PD enough credit,'' Rector said. "They have been phenomenal." Of the suspects, Rector said this: "These young people may be gang-related, I would call them common street criminals,'' he said. "These are criminals who steal cars, this is what they do. They steal cars. They break into cars. They use drugs. They sell drugs. It's their lifestyle. It's what they do. In this case they obviously took it one step further and we're not going to stand for it. We're not going to tolerate it until all of them are brought to justice." Of Wells' arrest, he said, "I hope it sends a message to others involved in this case that they're next." Gilotti was shot to death about 4:55 a.m. on Jan. 5 just outside his home in the 5500 block of Park Side Circle in Hoover's Lake Cyrus subdivision. He was heading to the gym for a morning workout when police say he encountered one or more suspects breaking into his car. One shot was fired, and Gilotti collapsed on his doorstep. He was later pronounced dead on the scene. The investigation has been the Hoover Police Department's top priority since Gilotti's slaying. Home surveillance video obtained from a neighbor gave investigators a vehicle description and, just six hours after the killing, Bessemer police were notified of an abandoned truck near the intersection of Roland Avenue and Elmore Street near the Jonesboro and Burstall communities. It was the older Ford F-250 pickup seen leaving the Lake Cyrus area very close to the time of the shooting. At that time, police said four unknown black male suspects were seen walking away from the truck and getting into a dark colored Jeep Cherokee. Hoover police Capt. Gregg Rector has said the abandoned Ford F-250 was stolen late the previous night in a residential area of Tuscaloosa County. There were also multiple vehicle break-ins reported in the same area where the truck was stolen. These crimes occurred in the Alabama Highway 69 / Inverness area of Tuscaloosa County. It appears the suspects committed these crimes earlier in the night, prior to coming to Hoover. On Jan. 8, Rector released photos of two of the men wanted for questioning in Gilotti's death. The photos were taken after the suspects left the Tuscaloosa area, and just prior to them returning to the Bessemer/ Hoover area. One of the young men, wearing a dark-colored hoodie with "FLY" on the front, was believed to be a 19-year-old who attended Bessemer City High School. Rector said today Wells was, indeed, in those photos. Authorities said he was known to frequent the McCalla / Tannehill area, as well as Arlington Avenue and Roosevelt Park areas in Bessemer. Rector at that time also had strong words for the killer or killers: "For the suspects involved in this crime, it's time to worry, and it's time to be concerned about what the next few days may bring,'' Rector said. "It's also time to think long and hard about the exact role they played in this murder. I think it's safe to say that one of them has more to worry about than the others. We have a very clear goal that we're working toward and we're not stopping until we get it." Gilotti served as a U.S. Army tank commander, first lieutenant and platoon leader in the 12th Cavalry Regiment. An Avon, Connecticut native, Gilotti worked at the State Farm claims office on Lakeshore Parkway. He and his wife had two young sons, ages 5 and 1. Co-workers said they were not authorized to speak about Gilotti but said the entire office is devastated. "Our hearts go out to his family, friends, and coworkers and he will be greatly missed," said State Farm spokesman Roszell Gadson. His wife of eight years, Heather, heard the shot and called 911. His two young sons, Russell and Kevin, were inside the home. Gilotti's funeral was held on Sunday, Jan. 10, and hundreds of people stood along Alabama 150 to pay their respects. Hoover police escorted Gilotti's family from their Lake Cyrus home to Riverchase United Methodist Church. Hoover police investigated five homicides in 2015. The city has had 21 murders over the past 10 years, and hasn't had an unsolved murder since 2004. Rector acknowledged the concern in the community following Gilotti's slaying. "It would certainly be nice if I could say this is not going to happen in your neighborhood, this is not going to happen in Hoover, this is not going to happen in Vestavia, but that's certainly not something we can say,'' Rector said. "Mike Gilotti lived in a very nice neighborhood, he had a good job, drove nice cars. To me, I look at Mike Gilotti as someone who is living the American Dream. He's got a wife, he's a decorated war veteran and if this can happen in Mike Gilotti's neighborhood then it certainly has the potential to happen anywhere." "It's just a sign of the times,'' he said. "We're seeing a lot of violent people committing terrible crimes and this is just one example of those crimes." Anyone with information about the case is asked to call Sgt. Keith Czeskleba at 205-739-6795 or the Hoover Police Department at 205-822-5300. If you wish to remain anonymous and be eligible for a cash reward you may contact Crime Stoppers of Metro Alabama at 205-254-7777. Tuscaloosa Murder Suspects.jpg Orin Cruckshank, left, Robert Jones, right (Tuscaloosa Metro Homicide) Tuscaloosa police have made two arrests in this week's slaying of a Louisiana teen, authorities announced today. Daniel Torry was fatally shot Wednesday afternoon at the Heights of Skyland Apartments on 18th Avenue East. Police were dispatched to the complex, and found the teen wounded. He was taken to DCH Regional Medical Center, where he was later pronounced dead. Investigators today said Torry was driving from Louisiana to Nashville to visit his girlfriend. He pulled off of the interstate in Tuscaloosa to buy marijuana for personal use, said Tuscaloosa Metro Homicide Unit Capt. Gary Hood. Torry drove around the area and encountered two men at the apartment complex. He yelled to them that he was looking for weed, and they told him to pull in and that they could help him. Once Torry parked his car, one of the men shot and robbed him, Hood said. They took $200, Torry's wallet and some other belongings. "It was just a senseless act,'' Hood said. After an intense investigation, Orin Cruckshank, 23, was taken into custody Thursday night. Robert Lee Jones, II, 19, turned himself in to authorities about 8:30 a.m. today, said Tuscaloosa Metro Homicide Capt. Gary Hood. Torry was just traveling through Alabama, and investigators haven't yet determined how he ended up at that apartment complex. Later Wednesday, investigators released footage of a vehicle seen leaving the scene and asked that anyone in the area between 1 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. is asked to call police. "We know from surveillance video of the area that there were a number of people that were out there during the time of this case, and may have seen something that may help us bring this investigation to a successful conclusion,'' Tuscaloosa police Chief Steve Anderson said at a Thursday press conference. "This young man killed yesterday was not from our community. He was traveling through Tuscaloosa. We owe it to him and his family to solve this crime." Hood said investigators found the silver Honda Accord about 2:30 p.m. Thursday in Eutaw. It was there they were able to identify people that had information about the case. They interviewed several people, and obtained the identities of Cruckshank and Jones. About 11 p.m. Thursday, lawmen learned where Cruckshank. He was taken into custody by Tuscaloosa police, Tuscaloosa County sheriff's deputies and the U.S. Marshal's Gulf Coast Regional Fugitive Task Force when they made a traffic stop. Cruckshank and two others were in the stopped vehicle. Cruckshank then jumped from the rear seat of the vehicle into the driver's seat and took off. Hood said he led officers on a lengthy chase through west Tuscaloosa. He was finally stopped on Highway 11 South near B.F. Goodrich after running over spike strips deployed by police. Investigators recovered the gun used in Torry's slaying. Cruckshank is now charged with capital murder and remains held in the Tuscaloosa County Jail without bond. Jones is now being questioned by detectives after his surrender. Updated at 10:50 a.m. with additional information from the Tuscaloosa Metro Homicide Unit. This story will be updated when additional information becomes available. A state appeals judge is urging lawmakers to end the practice of common-law marriage in Alabama. Civil Appeals Judge Terri Willingham Thomas issued a dissenting opinion in a divorce case Friday saying the practice of recognizing weddings without a marriage license or ceremony is outdated. Thomas says common-law marriages are legally cumbersome and lead to confusion and court fights. She says anyone can get married now, so common-law marriage isn't needed. The opinion came in a case from Shelby County where a woman challenged a lower court decision that concluded she wasn't married by common law to her longtime partner. The appeals court upheld the decision, ruling there wasn't public recognition of the couple's relationship as a marriage. Thomas says legislators should consider ending the practice in Alabama. A Center Point man who claimed he heard voices commanding him to shoot his neighbor in 2014 - the man died - this week was sentenced to serve five years in prison after he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge. Alfred Davis, 25, had been charged with murder in the July 7, 2014 shooting death of 40-year-old Agila Lee Flennory and attempted murder in the shooting of the man's teenaged nephew during the incident. Davis was set to go on trial this week for the murder charge but agreed on Monday to plead guilty to a reduced charge of reckless manslaughter. Jefferson County Circuit Judge Teresa Pulliam, under the plea deal with prosecutors, sentenced Davis to 20 years, split with five years to serve, followed by three years of supervised probation. Davis also pleaded guilty to second-degree assault - reduced from attempted murder - and was sentenced to 10 years split with two years to serve. Both sentences are to run concurrent. Davis is to turn himself in to begin serving his sentence on Feb. 16. Pulliam also recommended in her sentencing order that Davis serve his sentence at the Alabama Department of Corrections facility in Hamilton so Davis' mental health needs can be met. Once Davis is released on probation he will have to continue mental health treatment, including the taking of all medications, she stated. The Jefferson County District Attorney's Office had agreed to reduce the charges against Davis with the victim's families' approval, Pulliam noted in her order. Davis had been declared competent to stand trial and enter the plea. Davis' attorney, Victor Revill, said it was a difficult case. "I think it is the best outcome for my client," he said. If Davis had been found not guilty for reasons of mental defect he could have spent a decade or longer locked up in a mental treatment facility, Revill said. "It is obvious that my client had some mental issues going on," he said. Davis was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic, which was compounded by a brain injury about eight years ago, Revill said. Davis had a long history of "command hallucinations" where voices would tell him to do something, he said. "He was hearing voices telling him to shoot this guy," Revill said. The shooting happened about 6:30 a.m. on July 7, 2014. Deputies were dispatched to Flennory's home on 21st Avenue N.W. on a report of someone shot. They found Flennory dead in his back yard. Jefferson County Sheriff's deputies learned Davis had come to the back door of the home and asked to speak to Flennory. When he was told that Flennory was asleep, he asked that someone wake him up because it was an emergency. Flennory got up and went out into the backyard along with his nephew to speak to him. Davis shot Flennory, who fell to the ground. The nephew ran, but was shot in the leg. He was later treated and released from the hospital. A woman who ran over and killed her boyfriend in the Fairfield Police Department parking lot in November 2014 will not serve any prison time. Britne M. Henly, 25, of Fairfield, was sentenced Wednesday by Bessemer Cutoff Circuit Judge David Carpenter to a 12-month jail sentence after she pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide. But the sentence was suspended and she was placed on two years unsupervised probation. Henly, who was indicted for criminally negligent homicide for the death of 26-year-old Marquittas Wyatt, was to have gone on trial this week. A defense attorney and a prosecutor had not responded to requests for comment prior to publication of this story. Fairfield police previously gave this account to AL.com about what happened on Nov. 19, 2014: That morning Wyatt and Henley got into argument which reportedly became physical. Henley managed to leave the apartment unharmed. When she returned a short time later, Wyatt reportedly confronted her on the street in front of their home, brandishing a gun. Henley fled the scene after witnesses screamed at Wyatt. The girlfriend stayed away for a while, but returned once again and was confronted by Wyatt, who was joined by a friend of his. Henley again fled the scene, with Wyatt and his friend pursuing her in an effort to get her to stop. The woman called 911. Once dispatchers learned she was close to the police department, they gave her instructions to come there. She got to the police department at 10:45 a.m., still being followed by Wyatt and his friend. Once in the parking lot, Wyatt again confronted her while she was still in the vehicle. During the confrontation, she drove her vehicle into Wyatt. In a statement given to police, she said she thought the car in reverse but it was still in drive. Officers and medics rushed quickly to the scene and detained her and the friend who was with Wyatt. Wyatt was transported to UAB Hospital with visible injuries. He was pronounced dead at 11:15 a.m. Thursday. Authorities said a gun was recovered from the car Wyatt was in. A previous defense attorney for Henly has said that Henley did everything she needed to do. She left the scene, called 911 and went to the police department. Once there, Anthony said, Wyatt jumped on Henley's car. His client, he said, claimed she thought the car was in reverse when she stepped on the gas. A Limestone County couple was arrested Thursday after investigators found more than 50 meth labs and a stolen gun inside their home, where a young child was also living. Stanley Matthew Scott, 29, and Dustie Rose George, 23, both of Athens, are each charged with first-degree unlawful manufacturing of a controlled substance, possession with the intent to distribute a controlled substance, possession of a controlled susstance, possession of drug paraphernalia, receiving stolen property and chemical endangerment. According to the Limestone County Sheriff's Office, bond has been set on some, but not all, of the charges. Investigators went to the couple's home in the 22000 block of Carey Road on Thursday after the Alabama Department of Human Resources received a complaint about the couple's child living in a home where methamphetamine was being manufactured on a regular basis. Limestone County deputies found 51 small meth labs, guns and other drugs in an Athens home on Thursday. (Limestone County Sheriff's Office) When deputies and a DHR caseworker went to the house, they found a marijuana bong sitting on a shelf in plain view, the Sheriff's Office reports. There were also 51 small plastic bottle-based meth labs, more than eight grams of meth and six firearms, including one with was stolen, in the house. Investigators also found a variety of illegal prescription medication in the home, along with large amounts of the items used to cook meth. The parents were taken into custody and the child was turned over to a relative by DHR. Scott and George are being held at the Limestone County jail. Missing Scottsboro teens Dylan McQueen, 17, and Brennan Shankles, 16, were last seen Thursday morning at McDonald's before school started. They may be driving a black 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Authorities in Scottsboro and Jackson County are searching for two teenagers who were reported missing Thursday. Dylan McQueen, 17, and Brennan Shankles, 16, were last seen Thursday morning at McDonald's before school started. They may be driving a black 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee. McQueen is black with black hair and brown eyes, and he is 5'10" tall and weighs 165 lbs. Shankles is white with brown hair and hazel eyes, and he is 5'6" tall. Anyone with information regarding their whereabouts can call the Scottsboro Police Department at 256-574-3333, Donna McQueen at 256-609-4204 or Gerald Mount at 256-599-4773. A Morgan County man who overdosed on heroin in his baby daughter's Cincinnati hospital room earlier this month has been indicted on drug and weapons charges. Wesley Scott Landers, 32, of Trinity has been indicted on charges of having a weapon while under disability, possession of heroin, possessing drug abuse instruments and carrying a concealed weapon, according to WCPO in Cincinnati. Landers' wife, 31-year-old Mary Ann Landers, was found dead Jan. 7 on the floor of their 7-month-old daughter Lucy's hospital room at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. A syringe was still in her arm when she was found. Wesley Landers was found unconscious in the hospital room's private bathroom, also with a needle in his arm. Two additional syringes of heroin were on the bathroom sink. Mary Ann and Wesley Landers are pictured with their 7-month-old daughter Lucy. (Facebook) Landers, who has a previous criminal history, had a loaded gun in his pants pocket and police found a gun in Mary Ann Landers' purse. The couple were in Cincinnati with their daughter to see her through tracheal reconstruction surgery. The little girl, who has an older sister, was born with an airway that was too narrow. Mary Ann Landers posted a picture of her daughter resting in her room after she'd made it successfully through surgery. Hours later, she was dead. Wesley Landers remains jailed in the Hamilton County, Ohio jail in lieu of $500,000 bond. Pro-life activists braved the cold Friday to "remember and rededicate" themselves to stopping the killing of unborn babies in Alabama. Led by abortion opponent Rev. James Henderson, the group carried "Defend Life" and other signs in front of the Madison County Courthouse in downtown Huntsville. Henderson held a model of a 20-week-old baby in the womb while he reminisced on the landmark Roe v. Wade case, which legalized abortion 43 years ago this month. Since the 1980s, Henderson said the number of abortions in Alabama has dropped from about 18,000 to 9,000. "How many people would agree with me we're not going to be happy until we get down to zero?" Henderson asked the small crowd. "We want to see zero abortions not only in this state and this town, but in our nation." He said the protests are about saving babies and helping their mothers. If a young woman cannot afford prenatal care, pro-life supporters have made a commitment to help her have a healthy pregnancy. "I don't believe that's as understood by the public as it should be," he said. "I wish everybody could see the love and commitment of the pro-life people on the sidewalk in front of the abortion clinic. We are there with a loving presence and we're there in a respectful way." U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson has previously written that sidewalk rallies in Huntsville have crossed "beyond run-of-the-mill protests" by confronting pregnant women arriving for regular OB-GYN visits. He has also said they are trying to put abortion doctors and clinics out of business by cutting in to their cash flow, according to Henderson. Henderson, a member of the Alabama State Republican Executive Committee, said he has submitted a resolution to be voted on next month calling for Thompson's impeachment. "It's only right," he said. "We believe that federal judges should stick to their business and stay out of our business." Henderson also touched on a piece of legislation introduced last year by Rep. Ed Henry, R-Hartselle, that would allow the Alabama Department of Public Health to not issue or refuse to renew a health center license to an abortion clinic or reproductive health center located within 2,000 feet of the property or campus of a public school. The legislation aims to shut down Huntsville's abortion clinic on 4831 Sparkman Drive, which is located across from the former Ed White Middle School that is being renovated as a magnet school. "We think that's a disgrace that there's an abortion clinic directly across the street from a public school," Henderson said. "We have good pledges from our legislators to help get this through the system." Henderson said Gov. Robert Bentley has put the bill on his legislative priority list for 2016. Linking the Cyprus issue to the Kurdish issue of Turkey is the only effective way to [a] uncover Turkish hypocrisy on her approach to majority-minority community relations [b] bring about a fair and permanent settlement to Cyprus' Turkish problem and [c] help bring community status recognition for the close to 20 million Kurds of Turkey. A win-win-win for the Kurdish, Turkish and Cypriot peoples. It may also bring about the first ever truly democratic constitution in Turkey's history! andrew hugine Alabama A&M President Andrew Hugine at the school's 2015 December graduation. (Bob Gathany/bgathany@al.com) A new state audit, to be publicly released Friday, slammed Alabama A&M University on two fronts and appeared to indicate President Andrew Hugine misled the school's board of trustees in how the school handled a harsh 2015 audit. The compliance audit by the Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts issued nine new findings against the school for the 2014 fiscal year. The new findings focused primarily on financial mismanagement, including diverting $800,000 earmarked for the university to the Alabama A&M Foundation - the school's fundraising arm. Another $137,500 in university funds was placed in foundation accounts from 2009-2013 without the approval of the board of trustees, according to the audit. See the full audit below. Additionally, the audit also listed four of the 14 findings in a March 2015 audit as "unresolved." Among the unresolved findings are issues the examiners found regarding Hugine reporting all of his income to the IRS for tax purposes as well as concerns within the foundation. There were seven "unresolved" findings altogether in the new audit, with three of the unresolved from a previous audit that took place before Hugine was hired in 2009 but still included in last year's audit. AL.com obtained a copy of the audit on Wednesday. "Alabama A&M University is in receipt of the report issued by the Examiners of Public Accounts for fiscal year 2014," the school said Thursday in a statement. "Since the report covered two fiscal periods ago, many of the findings have already been addressed. The University remains committed to the review process, and the continuous yearly improvement across its institutional processes." The seven unresolved findings appear to be a direct contradiction of what Hugine told the school's board of trustees in June 2015 when he assured them that the examiners and the office of Gov. Robert Bentley were satisfied with the school's plan of action. The 2015 audit prompted Gov. Robert Bentley to state he had "serious concerns." The governor's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday. The school submitted its action plan to the examiners on April 21, 2015. "This (response and action plan) document has been forwarded to the office of the governor," Hugine told trustees June 25, 2015. "This document has been forwarded to Mr. Jones at the Department of Examiners of Public Accounts. We have had conversations with both of them. They are satisfied with the response's action plan." The next day, Hugine echoed those sentiments in an interview with AL.com. "What we have outlined is what we intend to do to be sure our policies and practices are consistent in those areas we have agreed on and that brings closure other than the implementation thereof," he said. The 2015 audit also led to the indictment of Kevin Rolle, executive vice president and chief operating officer. According to the indictment, Rolle forged moving expenses of more than $6,500 when he relocated to accept the job at Alabama A&M. He scheduled for trial on theft and forgery charges in Madison County circuit court on April 4. Among the unresolved findings from the audit released in the 2015 audit was $2.3 million in the foundation accounts that were reclassified as funds available to the university, which did not match up with previous foundation audit reports, according to the examiners report. The school dismissed the examiners concerns over the foundation last year when the school's outside financial auditors declared the examiners' interpretation as "totally incorrect." Among the new findings: Alabama A&M deposited $800,000 in grants and contributions from service provider Aramark into the accounts of the school's foundation, not university accounts as the contract with Aramark mandates. Alabama A&M received $137,500 from the city of Birmingham in 2013 as part of the Magic City Classic football game contract. That money was deposited in the foundation accounts without approval of the board of trustees. Examiners outlined concerns about how money was handled within the foundation that conflicted with state law, including none of the investment income by a $1 million endowment was allocated to the accumulated endowment interest available. Alabama A&M violated state law in overpaying travel expenses to the Magic City Classic in Birmingham, which led to $7,972.08 being repaid by the foundation before the conclusion of the audit. Alabama A&M failed to properly document travel advances and expenditures, resulting in an employee repaying the school $1,034.81. Alabama A&M violated school policy in providing more free football tickets to some employees and failed to document more than 2,700 students who received free football tickets. Alabama A&M did not adequately account for the $85 enrollment fee paid by all first-year students. The fee, unlike all other tuition and fees, were not posted to a student's account and the school did not take steps to ensure all enrollment fees were paid. Alabama A&M spent more than $10,000 on two Christmas parties for faculty and staff, failing to follow an attorney general's opinion that stated school funds be spend only on business-related events. Alabama A&M failed to report non-overnight per diem amounts on employee tax forms as required by federal tax laws. Alabama A&M failed to account for 50 assets, including 45 vehicles, with a historical value of $422,489 when taken to a salvage yard. The school could not provide receipts from the salvage yard. Corrected Jan. 19, 2016 at 12:10 p.m. to show that Alabama A&M received $137,500 from the Magic City Classic in 2013, not $937,500 from 2009-13. Alabama lawmakers are seeking tougher penalties for those convicted of abusing young children in the state. State Sen. Clyde Chambliss and state Rep. Paul Beckman have pre-filed bills for the 2016 legislative session, both referred to as "Winston's Law," that would create the crime of aggravated child abuse of a child under the age of 6. The offense would be a Class A felony, which carries a prison sentence of no less than 10 years. Chambliss said children under the age of 6 aren't typically in school where officials are required to report suspected abuse. "They are the most vulnerable of all children," he said. "We need to do everything we can to protect them." Chambliss said the bill adds a stiffer penalty of those "who are guilty of that type of heinous crime. "If we can't protect our young innocent children, it is a sad day for our society," he said. The legislation is named after a Wetumpka 4-year-old who was found unresponsive and suffering from multiple injuries in the truck of his mother's boyfriend in Panama City, Fla. in September. The boy's mother, Hallee McLeod, was recently indicted on aggravated child abuse and chemical endangerment charges. Her boyfriend, Scott Hicks, is charged with child neglect with serious injury. Hicks had traveled to Florida to resolve two outstanding warrants, and deputies found the child left in his vehicle. The child had multiple bruises, a laceration on his head and dried blood on his lips. "Children are suffering and will continue to suffer from abuse. While we may not be able to prevent child abuse in itself, the reality is the effects of it lasts a lifetime for these young victims," Winston's father, Joey Crampton, said in a statement. "Those who perpetrate these types of crimes need harsher punishments to deter them, but also because the children, unfortunately, will carry the effects into adulthood and may never be able to develop in a healthy, normal way. Sadly, the perpetrators of the crimes go on with their lives. What better way to serve this vulnerable population, by seeking much needed change through new legislative efforts in Winston's honor. This ensures what Winston has endured will not be in vain." Current Alabama law lists child abuse as a Class C felony and aggravated child abuse as a Class B Felony. District Attorney Randall Houston who serves Autauga, Chilton and Elmore counties first proposed the new law. Chambliss expects the bill to be passed early in the session and without opposition. state house mug by julie.JPG (Julie Bennett/jbennett@al.com) Key state agencies told Alabama legislators this week they need increases from the General Fund totaling more than $225 million to maintain services next year. It's not clear yet how closely the supply of General Fund dollars will match the demand. Official revenue estimates will be announced when the legislative session starts Feb. 2. What is clear is that there won't be the push for tax increases like last year. And no one is expecting a surge in revenues that would meet all the needs. Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, predicted a budget "train wreck." Orr has chaired the Senate General Fund committee for five years. "It's a complete divorce from reality, because the money, unless we want to start the printing presses down in the basement of the Capitol, it ain't there," Orr said about the agency requests for funding. Orr is moving to the education budget committee when the session begins, swapping seats with Sen. Trip Pittman, R-Montrose, who is taking over as General Fund chairman. "Right now I think the best scenario is level funding," Pittman said. The Alabama Medicaid Agency told lawmakers it needed a $157 million increase to maintain services and to continue a transition to managed care that's been in the works for several years. Lawmakers asked state agencies for a "continuation" budget, the amount needed from the General Fund to avoid cuts in services. Besides Medicaid, by far the largest General Fund spender, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said it would need $23 million more this year. The Department of Human Resources said it would need $20 million more than this year, and the Department of Corrections said it needed $18 million more. The Department of Mental Health said it would need $7 million more, and the state court system said it would need $2 million more. For years, the state has relied on money from other sources, like the state's oil and gas trust fund, to keep the General Fund afloat. Then last year, Gov. Robert Bentley called for an end to that practice, asking initially for $541 million in tax increases. In the end, after two special sessions, legislators raised the cigarette tax and moved a share of use tax revenue from education to the General Fund. They passed a budget that cut General Fund spending by 4.5 percent. Rep. Steve Clouse, R-Ozark, who chairs the House Ways and Means General Fund Committee, said he does not expect any serious tax increase proposals or any more transfers of education money to the General Fund. "Just speaking from a House standpoint, there's going to be zero appetite to raise any additional money," Clouse said. Clouse said the changes made last year, including the cigarette tax and use tax transfer, should produce about $165 million in recurring revenue for the General Fund, a little less than a 10 percent increase in the $1.8 billion fund. Clouse said those changes, while far short of what Bentley sought as a long-term solution, should be enough to delay a "train wreck." "I think you're going to see the train just start slowing down gradually over the next couple of years to the point where we may be at that point again of a train wreck in the next few years," Clouse said. Last year, the Senate was more resistant to the tax increase proposals than the House. Pittman said there is no support among Republicans for tax increases this year. He said he was "adamantly opposed" to moving any more education dollars to the General Fund. Pittman said government will have to be more efficient if it is going to provide the same level of services. "People expect government to lean itself out," Pittman said. Pittman said he plans to move the General Fund budget early in the session. He said he hopes to move it out of committee in about three weeks and out of the Senate in about four weeks. The session can last up to 15 weeks. A change in the way the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps, is administered means some recipients will now be required to work if they want to keep their benefits. The change comes after the expiration of a federal waiver that allowed some states - including Alabama - to grant exemptions to work requirements for a segment of SNAP recipients. The Jan. 1 change requires all able-bodied unemployed adults ages 18-49 who aren't disabled or raising minor children to work at least part time in order to maintain their benefits. According to Berry Spear of the Alabama Department of Human Resources, there are 44,386 individuals in the state designated as able-bodied adults without dependents that are impacted by the change. The work requirement for these people began at the first of the year but they will continue to receive benefits for up to three months after that time. In Alabama, the change means affected people could see their SNAP benefits end April 1. Those recipients receive $194 a month in food stamp assistance. Previously, states with exemptions due to concerns about unemployment granted SNAP access year-round. The expiration of the exemption limits that to three months within a 3-year time unless recipients are working or participating in a work or training program for at least 20 hours a week. There are exceptions for those who are physically or mentally unable to work; are pregnant; are the parent or other household member with responsibility for a dependent child under age 18 or someone who is physically or mentally disabled; is caring for an incapacitated person; is a student at least half-time in a school or training program; or is participating in an alcohol/drug treatment program. Spear said the work requirement is not in place in 13 Alabama counties - Greene, Hale, Perry, Dallas, Lowndes, Wilcox, Monroe, Conecuh, Clarke, Washington, Choctaw, Sumter, and Barbour - due to the high unemployment rate in those areas. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities , the end of the work exemption means as many 1 million people nationally could be cut off from SNAP during 2016. Of those, 40 percent are women and about a third are over age 40. One quarter of those affected have not completed high school with close to 40 percent living in urban areas, 40 percent in suburban areas, and over 20 percent in rural areas. An Amish minister and cabinetmaker confessed on Sunday to Kentucky police to poisoning and killing his wife nine years ago. Samuel Borntreger, 39, of Barren County, Ky. "was just burdened with it," Barren County Sheriff Kent Keen told the Bowling Green Daily News. Borntreger, a well-known cabinetmaker, said he poisoned his wife, Anna, when they lived in Harrison County, Mo. A warrant was later issued for his arrest there on the charge of first-degree murder. "He told us that he had fallen out of love with her... (and) put antifreeze in some type of liquid that he gave her to drink," Keen told The Huffington Post. The couple had four children at the time of Anna's death. "We were aware she passed and supposedly she had a liver disease of some sort," Harrison County Sheriff Josh Eckerson told the newspaper. "We didn't have any idea what was going on until ... he confessed. He had told some other people what he had done." In his more than 20 years in law enforcement, Keen said he has never had someone call and confess to a homicide. A member of the Aryan Brotherhood who sold drugs to an undercover officer and then offered to be a hit man was arrested and charged on a murder-for-hire scheme, the FBI said Friday. Jeffery A. Howard was arrested Thursday afternoon in Pearl River, Louisiana, a small town on the border with Mississippi, the FBI said in a news release. The FBI would not disclose his age, race or hometown, but said Howard was from Mississippi. Howard was a known member of the Aryan Brotherhood, a violent white supremacist prison gang, the FBI said. He was arrested after he sold drugs to an undercover law enforcement officer several times and then offered to be a paid hit man, the agency said. The FBI said Howard was arrested by an FBI SWAT team at 3:45 p.m. The agency said a domestic terrorism investigation led agents to Howard. Howard was charged with a murder-for-hire scheme and placed in the custody of the U.S. Marshal's Service. The agency also said Howard was involved in trafficking methamphetamine. Howard was to make an initial court appearance later Friday in federal court in New Orleans, said FBI spokesman Craig Betbeze. He declined to provide more details about the case. Howard's arrest record was under seal. Bond information was not immediately available and it was unknown whether he is represented by an attorney who could comment on the case. Also involved in the arrest were the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office and the Pearl River County Sheriff's Office, the FBI said. Both offices declined to comment. Agriculture officials in Alabama said they are closely monitoring reports that a highly infectious avian-influenza virus has been confirmed at an Indiana turkey farm. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service confirmed H7N8 was found in the commercial flock. The virus is different from the H5N2 strain that decimated many flocks last year and led to import restrictions against U.S. poultry. USDA said the Indiana flock has been quarantined and the birds were euthanized to prevent the spread of the virus. There are no known cases of H7N8 infections in humans. The finding marks the first case of bird flu reported in the U.S. since June 2015. Alabama Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries John McMillian said State Veterinarian Dr. Tony Frazier is in contact with the USDA in regards to the outbreak. "Our (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza) Preparedness and Response Plan is in place and every flock of chickens in Alabama is tested for avian influenza before it is processed for human consumption," McMillian said. McMillian said anyone involved with the poultry industry should review health and safety measures. Bird owners are advised to prevent contact between their flocks and wild birds and report illnesses or unusual deaths to the state veterinarian. Consumers are advised to cook poultry and eggs to an internal temperature of 165 degrees in order to kill bacteria and viruses, including HPAI. Spencer Collier Secretary of Law Enforcement Spencer Collier at a press conference about the state's 2016 budget in Scottsboro on Aug. 24, 2015. (Lee Roop/lroop@al.com) Legislators questioned Alabama Law Enforcement Secretary Spencer Collier for more than two hours on Thursday about his agency's budget needs. They spent much of that time seeking answers on whether a consolidation of state law enforcement that took effect last year is saving money. Collier said the consolidated agency does its enforcement and investigative work more efficiently. But he said the legislation that brought about the consolidation protects some jobs that could otherwise be eliminated. "I don't think it was the intent, but we have created a super class of employees within this legislation that says they can't be affected," Collier said. Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, outgoing chairman of the Senate General Fund committee, urged Collier to bring any such concerns to the Legislature. "If there's anything in the legislative process we need to change, please let us know," Orr said. Collier said ALEA has identified 104 supervisors at middle management or above whose jobs will be eliminated. But he said he has to wait for them to leave or retire. "We're trying to find things for them to do," Collier said. "But as I read it, I can't take them off the payroll simply because I don't need them anymore." The Legislature passed the bill in 2013 to consolidate about a dozen agencies under the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency. The sponsor, Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh of Anniston, said it would save money by eliminating duplication and overhead. But Marsh said then it would take time for savings to be realized because the bill included language protecting employees from the legacy agencies transferred to ALEA. Collier appeared on the third day of General Fund budget hearings at the State House, as legislators prepare for the start of the session on Feb. 2. ALEA said it needs a $23.5 million increase from the General Fund next year to maintain the current level of operations and begin addressing what Collier said is a woeful shortage of state troopers. Legislators haven't received an official revenue estimate for fiscal year 2017, but they expect needs to far exceed the available dollars. And unlike last year, Gov. Robert Bentley is not calling for tax increases to close the shortfall. Legislative leaders are not expecting any serious push for measures to increase revenues. "We are in a new day, and we are looking at another train wreck in the General Fund," Orr said. "But in addition to that, we're not looking at any new revenue measures. We're not looking at any education money, so that leaves us with cuts." Orr made that comment after Collier said it has been common practice for state troopers to drive from north Alabama to Montgomery to get an oil change, a glaring example of government inefficiency. Collier, who became law enforcement secretary in 2013, said that's not happening anymore. "I was trying to give them a snapshot of how business used to be done and some of the changes we're trying to make," Collier said. Collier said ALEA has 420 state troopers. A study by the University of Alabama Center for Advanced Public Safety determined that the state needed 1,016 troopers. "If you don't want to believe their study - say they're half wrong - well, we're still woefully understaffed," Collier said. ALEA said part of the $23.5 million requested increase would be to hire 50 state troopers next year. The expected net gain would be about 20 troopers, though, because others are retiring or leaving the agency. Collier said ALEA hired 13 troopers last year, and hired them with federal funds. He said the agency cannot depend on federal grants to establish a long-range plan to hire troopers. About $6 million of ALEA's requested funding increase is cover an unfunded liability in a state trooper retirement program. The 2013 consolidation legislation created the unfunded liability, according to ALEA. Legislators asked only a few questions about ALEA's decision last year to stop sending driver's license examiners to 31 part-time county offices. The move drew heated criticism last year. Collier said it was a matter of keeping examiners in the offices that do most of the testing, rather than sending them on certain days to offices that give far fewer tests. He said the estimated savings, $100,000 in travel expenses, were not the point. "It's the allocation of personnel," Collier said. "How do we best use that personnel? "The answer is, hire the adequate number of examiners to keep all the offices open," Collier said. He said the driver's license division has 104 vacancies, about one-third of the needed staff. After the announcement that testing would stop at the county offices, Bentley later announced the offices would offer testing at least one day a month. A Georgia Air Force Base is apologizing after a flyer advertising a "fun shoot' in honor of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King's birthday was hung up on post. Robins Air Force Base said it has removed the flyer, which featured a photo of King next to the words "fun shoot" in all capital letters. The flyer was advertising a trap and skeet contest at the base's shooting range. King was assassinated by a gunman in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968. His birthday is commemorated Monday. In a statement provided to Air Force Times and local media, a base spokesman apologized for the flyer. "We're deeply sorry for any offense or harm caused by our insensitivity and failure to provide appropriate oversight of our marketing process," Robins spokesman Roland Leach said."The flyer does not represent the values, opinions or views of the Department of Defense, the Air Force or Robins Air Force Base leadership and its employees." Leach said the advertisements were taken down shortly after it was posted. "There was no malice of forethought in the flyer's creation and it was never the base's intention to portray Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in a negative light," Leach said. "It was an honest mistake, to which we've personally counseled the parties involved and will provide them with remedial training and appropriate oversight to prevent this sort of inattention from occurring in the future." The event was planned by the 78th Force Support Squadron at Robins. The shoot is still listed on the squadron's website but there is no mention of King. A Georgia psychiatrist has been arrested after 36 of his patients died, a dozen of whom died of prescription drug overdoses. Dr. Narendra Nagareddy was taken into custody after DEA agents raided his Jonesboro office on Thursday. Jonesboro is located in Clayton County, about 20 miles south of Atlanta. WSB-TV Channel 2 reports that Nagareddy is accused of running a pill mill, including prescribing pain medications that are beyond his purview as a psychiatrist. Clayton County jail records show he is charged with unlawful prescribing of narcotics. "He is a psychiatrist in Jonesboro who has been overprescribing opiates and benzodiazepine and the last several years has had a multitude of overdoses and overdose deaths," Clayton County Police Chief Mike Register told the news station. Former and current patients of Nagareddy have admitted to investigators getting pain medications for which they had no medical need. Court documents show that 36 of his patients have died while being prescribed narcotics, and autopsies confirmed at least 12 of them died of overdoses. Aside from the criminal charges, the Clayton County District Attorney's Office has also filed a RICO civil action to seize Nagareddy's assets. Investigators searched his home after they were done with his office. Longtime patients of Nagareddy's expressed disbelief on social media, some showing concern over having to find a new doctor. Others offered prayers for those affected by the deaths in the case. "I am so thankful that over the last nine years, while he was killing the people who trusted him, God kept me and my Dad safe," said one woman who had been a patient at Nagareddy's practice since she was 17. "I am truly shocked that someone would kill innocent people just to make money. I pray for God to be with the victims families, and for everyone affected by this horrible tragedy and betrayal of trust." blog of the State Geologist of Arizona A Georgia toddler died on Tuesday after being left too long in a hot car. Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson told WRBC that a Rossville, Ga. grandmother left her 13-month-old grandson inside a parked car when she went to visit friends. The 47-year-old grandmother told police the toddler was asleep at the time, and she left the car running and the heat on low. Police, however, said the grandmother didn't go back and check on the child. She returned after five hours and found the child Shadoe Braxton Pate, wasn't breathing. "I guess it's obvious, for whatever reason, she chose not to go back out and check on him. Which is difficult to understand and comprehend I guess," Wilson told the news station. According to reports, the child died from hyperthermia. "The inside temperature of that car swelled way past 100 degrees Fahrenheit," Wilson said. The grandmother's friends knew the child was in the car and apparently encouraged the woman to check on him. No charges have been filed against the grandmother at this time. Police are waiting for the results of drugs and alcohol. A woman is accused of assaulting customers inside a Kennesaw, Ga. Waffle House and taking off her clothes. Jennifer Mary Nicholson allegedly punched a woman in the face, breaking her nose after she told Nicholson to leave her alone, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution report. Police also say she threw plates at customers and a police officer inside the restaurant on Jan. 8. A witness told 11 Alive that Nicholson preached to customers inside the store. "The accused stripped off all of her clothes off in front of Waffle House staff and patrons during a suspected excited delirium state," her warrant states. While being arrested, police also say Nicholson scratched an officer on the chin. Nicholson was charged with aggravated battery, criminal damage to property, simple assault, obstruction, simple battery and public indecency. undefined undefined Don't Edit Samuel Wilson Time for change The Flint city council voted 7-1 in March 2013 to stop buying Detroit water and join the Karegnondi Water Authority, a new pipeline project that will deliver water from Lake Huron. The state agreed with the water switch, which was projected to save the city $19 million over eight years. Emergency manager Ed Kurtz officially signed the agreement April 16, 2013. Don't Edit Michelle Tessier Detroit backs out The day after joining the KWA, Detroit notifies Flint it will stop selling the city water as of April 2014. With the KWA not expected to be completed for roughly 3 years, Flint was forced to find a new source of drinking water. In the eight months following the Detroit mnotofication of shutoff, the city invests more than $4 million into its water plant. Don't Edit Sarah Schuch | MLive.com To the river In the months leading up to Detroits water shutoff, there are discussions about where Flint will receive its water. In mid-March 2014, the Flint River is announced as the new source of Flints drinking water. Leaders, including city council members, city employees and state officials, gathered at the citys water plant for the official groundbreaking. Mayor Dayne Walling says the plan for the switch was implemented by state-appointed Emergency Manager Darnell Earley. Don't Edit Samuel Wilson The river plan Flints new drinking water plan calls for the city to pump water from the Flint River into the citys water plant, where it would be treated for distribution. The plan required millions of dollars in upgrades to the plant, since the city was previously purchasing already-treated water from Detroit. The switch was proposed to save the city $5 million in less than two years. Don't Edit Don't Edit Dominic Adams | dadams5@mlive.com Push the button On April 25, 2014, after brief permitting and disinfection-system delays, Mayor Dayne Walling officially turned off the Detroit water feed. Water is an absolute vital service that most everyone takes for granted, Walling said. Its a historic moment for the city of Flint to return to its roots and use our own river as our drinking water supply. Don't Edit Erin Kirkland | MLive.com Complaints pour in In the weeks following the switch, some residents begin buying bottled water as they complain of poor-tasting and- smelling city water. The city adds extra lime to the water in an attempt to combat hardness, but Mayor Dayne Walling and state-appointed emergency manager Darnell Earley continued to tell residents the water is safe. "It's a quality, safe product," Walling said. "I think people are wasting their precious money buying bottled water." Don't Edit Erin Kirkland | MLive.com Boil your water Nearly four months after the switch, the city issues a boil-water advisory after fecal coliform bacteria was discovered in water on the citys west side. More boil-water advisories are issued as testing reveals more bacteria in the water system. "Usually, coliforms are a sign that there could be a problem with the treatment or distribution system, the city said in a statement. The city added chlorine, a disinfectant, in the area of the advisory and attempted to flush the system by opening hydrants. Don't Edit GM says no Complaints continue about the citys new water supply. General Motors, on Oct. 13, 2014, said it will no longer use the river water at its engine plant because of fears it will cause corrosion. The company reached a temporary agreement to buy Lake Huron water from Flint Township for Flint Engine Operations on West Bristol Road. Don't Edit TTHM arrives On Jan. 2, 2015, the city mails a notice to its customers saying it is in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act due to the elevated presence of trihalomethanes -- or TTHM -- a group of four chemicals that are formed as a byproduct of disinfecting water. Over many years, the chemicals could cause liver, kidney or central nervous system problems and an increased risk of cancer. Three samples in 2014 were so high they guaranteed a quarterly average more than the law allows -- even if there's no trace of the contaminant in fourth-quarter testing in February 2015. Don't Edit Don't Edit Call for change Less than a week after the TTHM warning was released, some city council members called for the city to stop using Flint River water. Emergency Manager Darnell Earley announced he would hire a water consultant to try and improve water quality. The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department tells the city it is "ready, willing and able" to start selling Lake Huron water to Flint again, and wouldn't charge a $4 million reconnection fee. The city declines Detroit's offer. Don't Edit Full-blown controversy The controversy surrounding Flint water reaches a fever pitch Jan. 20, 2015, when environmental activist Erin Brockovich weighs in on the issue on Facebook. "Now is not the time for the blame game ... Detroit has failed and Flint jumped ship. So much for local control ... everyone is responsible from the top down: USEPA, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, the State of Michigan and the local officials," Brockovich's Facebook message says. Protests and complaints continued from residents. Don't Edit Addressing the problem After Mayor Dayne Walling asked the state for help addressing the water concerns, state officials reassured the city it was working on the problem. "(Emergency manager) Jerry Ambrose and his management team are working diligently to ensure Flint residents have access to clean, safe water," spokesman Terry Stanton said. Walling claims the challenges of treating river water were "underestimated" by those who made the decision. Don't Edit Looking for a fix The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department director says she's willing to talk about providing emergency water to Flint -- even without a long-term deal between the two cities. But emergency manager Jerry Ambrose on Jan. 29 says Detroit is not in the city's plans. Gov. Rick Snyder awarded Flint $2 million on Feb. 3 to find leaks in city water lines and to replace a wastewater incinerator -- moves officials said will free up money for improving the quality of Flint water. Don't Edit Sam Owens | MLive.com Experts weigh in Water expert Bob Bowcock, who was sent to the city by activist Erin Brockovich, calls for the city on Feb. 17 to switch back to Detroit water. Representatives from Veolia North America, a city-hired water consultant, say the next day Flint has problems with sediment and discoloration in its water but it is safe to drink and meeting all state and federal standards. The city announces it is meeting TTHM guidelines for the first time since the switch to the river. Don't Edit Don't Edit Investing in change On March 18, city-hired water consultant Veolia North America calls for roughly $3 million in changes at the water plant to get TTHMs in check. The next day, the city announces it will restructure four drinking water bonds, allowing it to postpone $2.2 million in payments and spend the available cash on water safety and quality. A new $1.6 million carbon filter system will be installed in July. Don't Edit Samuel Wilson Still not assured Despite the citys proposed investment in the water system, the city council voted 7-1 to "do all things necessary" to reconnect Flint to Detroit water. "It is incomprehensible to me that (seven) members of the Flint City Council would want to send more than $12 million a year to the system serving Southeast Michigan, even if Flint rate payers could afford it. (Lake Huron) water from Detroit is no safer than water from Flint, emergency manager Jerry Ambrose said in response to the vote. Don't Edit CHRISTIAN RANDOLPH, To the courts A lawsuit is filed in early June asking a judge to order Flint to reconnect to the Detroit water system. A federal judge declines when he denies a preliminary injunction. The suit is eventually dismissed. However, Genesee Circuit Judge Archie Hayman issues an emergency injunction Aug. 7 in a separate lawsuit ordering the city to roll back water and sewer rates by 35 percent, to end a ready-to-service fee, to repay its water and sewer fund by more than $15 million, and to stop water disconnections and liens for past-due bills, effective immediately. Don't Edit Jake May | MLive.com Lead leaching in Despite continued water quality protests, fears are renewed when Virginia Tech Professor Marc Edwards claims Sept. 2 that the corrosiveness of the water is causing lead to leach into residents water. "On a scientific basis, Flint River water leaches more lead from plumbing than does Detroit water," the report concludes. The state and city say the water meets state and federal safety standards, but will introduce a lead-reduction plan by 2016. Don't Edit Jake May | MLive.com TTHM levels fall The city was notified it was no longer in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act on Sept. 2 after the city was able to drop TTHM amounts to acceptable levels. The city will no longer have to send water customers notices warning about TTHM levels. The state claimed improved filter technology and optimization of water treatment plant and distribution system processes helped lead to the drop. Don't Edit Don't Edit Lead levels spike Despite claims the water is safe, testing data obtained Sept. 19 shows 10 percent of homes tested in the city saw an increase in lead after the switch to the Flint River. Findings released Sept. 24 by Hurley Medical Center shows more Flint infants and children are found with elevated levels of lead in their blood since the city switched to using the Flint River. State officials dispute the findings. Mayor Dayne Walling says Flint will issue lead-in-water warnings. Don't Edit Erin Kirkland | The Flint Journa Public health emergency On Oct. 1, Genesee County officials declare a public health emergency urging residents to not drink the city's water until it is checked for lead or they have installed an approved water filter. The commissioners said they are hoping their declaration will move Gov. Rick Snyder to declare a state of emergency to handle Flint's water crisis. Don't Edit Danny Miller | MLive.com Governor's action steps The next day, Gov. Rick Snyders administration announces it is committing up to $1 million to purchase water filters for Flint. The plan also includes immediate testing of water at Flint schools at state expense, expansion of lead exposure testing for individuals and expediting treatment of Flint water to better control pipe corrosion. Snyders plan does not include switching back to Detroit water, although it is reviewing the option. Don't Edit How lead gets in Don't Edit Gary Ridley | gridley@mlive.com Return to Detroit? Just five days after Gov. Rick Snyder's administration promised $1 million in water filters for Flint residents, the city's Technical Advisory Committee recommended the city return to the Detroit water system. "We need to switch to a different water source, and right now. The quickest way to do that is (the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department)," said Dr. Lawrence Reynolds, president and chief executive officer of Mott Children's Health Center. "We can't stay in the spot we are in right now." The panel's meeting was largely closed to the public and media, but it was viewable via an online video stream. Don't Edit Don't Edit Gary Ridley | gridley@mlive.com Back to Detroit Gov. Rick Snyder announced Oct. 8 a multi-million dollar plan for reconnecting Flint to the Detroit water system. The plan calls for buying nine months of water from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department with at least $6 million coming from the state, $4 million from the foundation, and $2 million from the city. On Oct. 31, 2013, we shared the story of Porter Heatherly, the 1-year-old boy with a rare genetic disease called gangliosidosis type 1 or GM1. The inherited disorder, for which there is no cure, progressively destroys the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. Life expectancy is about two years. Porter passed that milestone Sept. 14, 2014, celebrating with a huge Auburn-themed birthday bash complete with Aubie. In September, Porter marked another remarkable year, celebrating his 3rd with 200 people and former AU stars Will Herring, Brandon Cox, Ben Leard and Rob Pate. Because time is so precious, Sara and Michael Heatherly, high school sweethearts from Cullman who now live in Opelika, use months to celebrate birthdays. They celebrate Porter's Sept. 14, 2012, birthday every month on the 14th. They have agreed to share updates on Porter's health on these birthdays. On Thursday, his 40-month birthday, Sara filed this update: Happy 40th Month Birthday to our precious Porter! What a glorious day the Lord has made! The past month has had a few ups and downs as far as Porter's health is concerned, but today Porter is stable. We started a round of steroids due to a persistent cold that he couldn't shake off. His digestion continues to decline and there isn't much we can do to help him in that regard. Porter had physical therapy today, and we are continuing to work on joint mobilization and stretching. Over the past few months his right shoulder has wanted to start turning inward causing his pectoral muscle to become very tight. We have started daily massage to try to loosen that muscle, along with a few positional changes. Another area of concern has been his elbows, knees and ankles. We have been keeping a close eye on those areas and using joint mobilization to help increase his rotation. This past month the GM1 community lost a beautiful little girl named Fiona. She was 4 1/2 years old. We have been following her life since day one of Porter's diagnosis, so to see her lose her hard fought battle with GM1 just two days before Christmas, hit home. We know our time with Porter is precious and we are very thankful for each day God gives us with him. ******************************************************************* How to Help Auburn University is pioneering research into GM1 and related diseases. You can help by sending a donation made to the Scott Richey Research Center. Please note on the check "Research for Porter." Send to: Scott Richey Research Center, College of Veterinary Medicine, 1265 H.C. Morgan Drive, Auburn, AL 36849 Also you can help with Porter's medical expenses. Make checks to The Community Foundation of East Alabama, specifying GM1 in the memo line. The Community Foundation of East Alabama, Inc. P.O. Box 165 Opelika, Alabama 36803-0165, info@tcfeastalabama.org (334)-705-5138 The internet was abuzz yesterday with the news that a California nurse with seven children had won a share of the $1.5 billion Powerball prize with a ticket she received as a gift from her boss. Turns out, the story was just one of those children playing a prank. The New York Post reported yesterday a 56-year-old nurse at Park Avenue Health & Wellness Center in Pomona, California had won the Powerball jackpot. Now, media reports said the woman was the victim of a prank by her son, who had even sent her photos of the supposed winning ticket. "It's a joke. It's a prank...by my brother," the nurse's daughter, Jennifer, told the New York Daily News yesterday. "It's embarrassing. This is too much for us." Yesterday's story, which quickly went viral, claimed the woman had been given the winning ticket by her boss, Shlomo Rechnitz, a high-profile California businessman. Rechnitz reportedly gifted about 18,000 Powerball tickets to his staff. Family members later said the woman's son had played a prank on her by telling her she held the winning ticket. Rechnitz, who described the prank as "despicable" said he will buy the nurse an all-expense paid vacation for the nurse and her family. As of Friday morning, none of the winners have presented their winning numbers to the states where the tickets were sold. Winning tickets were sold in Tennessee, California and Florida. The three winners will end up with about $529 million each before taxes. Tennessee winners? Meanwhile, a Tennessee couple are claiming they are the winners from that state. The Tennessee winner has 180 days from the date of the drawing to claim the prize. Martha Roby U.S. Rep. Martha Roby addresses the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce. (Howard Koplowitz/hkoplowitz@al.com) Rep. Martha Roby, R-Montgomery, gained the backing of Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., for her re-election to Congress in her primary race against Wetumpka Tea Party founder Becky Gerritson, who announced her own high-profile endorsements this week from the national group Tea Party Patriots and its affiliated super PAC. In endorsing Roby, Sessions singled out the congresswoman's work in holding the Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System accountable. Alabama's junior senator is arguably the most highly sought after endorser in the state. "Martha took the VA head on to make sure veterans in our state get the quality care they deserve," Sessions said in a statement. "It's rare to see someone stand up to a federal agency and get results the way she did. Martha works hard every day for our military, especially at our key Maxwell and Ft. Rucker bases, and she is known as one of the strongest pro-life advocates in Congress." Earlier in the campaign, Roby rolled out the endorsements of 36 mayors in the district, the Alabama Farmers Federation and the tea party group Alabama Patriots. Meanwhile, Gerritson, who gained national prominence in 2013 after testifying that her tea party group was targeted by the IRS over its seeking of nonprofit status, earned the support of the Tea Party Patriots and the group's founder, Jenny Beth Martin, who runs the Tea Party Patriots Fund super PAC. She previously received the backing of 2010 Roby primary challenger Rick Barber, former Alabama Republican Party official Troy Towns, the conservative PAC The Madison Project, the Alabama TEA Party and Conservative Coalition, and the conservative website Our Liberty Elections. "The great people of Alabama's Second Congressional District deserve a Representative who doesn't just understand and live the values of America's working families, but who will be a tireless fighter for those values right from the start," said Martin. "We urge all voters in Alabama's Second District to vote for Becky Gerritson, the conservative leader they deserve in Congress." Both campaigns downplayed the significance of their rival's most recent endorsements. "I have a great respect for Sen. Sessions, and that will never change for myself or for the conservative Alabamians who are so proud to have him as our Senator. However, this is no surprise," Gerritson said in a statement. "We expected all along that Martha would have a 20-1 spending advantage over us and that she would line up a multitude of politicians to come out in support of a fellow incumbent. Politicians circle the wagons. That's why this year is so important; it's time to break up the Washington Cartel and remove the 'buddy system' in exchange for issues-based representation. It's clear Senator Sessions is intent on keeping peace within the party, but it's also clear that he's not completely on-board with Martha Roby's politics--their votes divide on almost every issue most important to conservative voters." Roby's campaign dismissed that claim, pointing out that both Sessions and Roby voted against the latest budget and for the reconciliation package that would have repealed Obamacare and defunded Planned Parenthood. They also voted to replace No Child Left Behind, the controversial Bush-era education policy. "We've expected national political groups to get involved [with Gerritson's campaign] because Martha votes to support the interests of her district, which often goes against a lot of national special interests," said campaign spokesman Todd Stacy. "Whether it is her role in passing a new, improved Farm Bill, or opposing her own party leadership on the budget bill that led to sequestration military cuts, Martha votes to put Alabama first and that goes against what a lot of these national political groups want." Indictment Speaker Lance Bell, left, newly announced lead lawyer for Mike Hubbard, walks with Mike Hubbard and his wife Susan Hubbard as they leave the Lee County Justice Center after a hearing on Friday, Jan. 8, 2016, in Opelika, Ala. Lee County Circuit Judge Jacob Walker handed down a gag order to prevent lawyers from speaking to the media in the ethics case against indicted Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard. (Albert Cesare/The Montgomery Advertiser via AP) (Albert Cesare) An attorney for House Speaker Mike Hubbard, R-Auburn, today filed a motion to postpone Hubbard's ethics trial, which is scheduled to begin March 28, until the latter part of fall. Lee County Circuit Judge Jacob Walker had set today as the deadline for Hubbard to seek a continuance. Hubbard attorney Lance Bell said in a five-page motion that the postponement is needed because of the withdrawal of the lead law firm from Hubbard's defense team last week, as well as the number of pending motions in the case. Prosecutors said at a hearing last week they opposed any delay in the trial. A Lee County grand jury indicted Hubbard in October 2014 on 23 felony ethics counts, accusing him of using his public positions for personal gain. He has pleaded not guilty. As it stands, Hubbard's trial would take place during the legislative session, which begins Feb. 2 and could last until May. On Jan. 10, the Alabama Republican Party steering committee passed a resolution asking Hubbard to step down as speaker until the ethics case is resolved. GOP Chair Terry Lathan said she did not want the trial to be a distraction from legislative business or Republican Party policy goals. Hubbard called the resolution "ill-advised and premature." Walker already postponed Hubbard's trial from October 2015 to March at the request of the defense and over the objections of prosecutors. The judge has not ruled on Hubbard's motions to dismiss the case. Updated at 3:334 p.m. to say that request is to postpone trial until latter part of fall. YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. The national currency that depreciated the most against USD among former Soviet Union countries was the Azerbaijani manat. The Armenian dram, in contrast, was the currency to devalue the least. The Azerbaijani manat devalued with 98.7% January 1 to December 30, 2015. The Armenian dram dropped down with only 1.8%. In the depreciation list, Azerbaijan is followed by Kazakhstan (85.7%), Uzbekistan (57.1%), Belarus (55.9%), Ukraine (50.9), Tajikistan (32.1), Russia (29%), Kyrgyzstan (28.7%), Georgia (27.7%), Moldova (26.3), Turkmenistan (14.3%), Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia (9.6%). Economist Tatul Manaseryan told Armenpress that the main countries that suffered losses from the devaluation of national currencies are those exporting and importing oil: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia. Certainly, devaluation did not bypass Belarus, Turkey and Turkmenistan either. All the countries have suffered devaluation. In case of Armenia, there are many factors, but I attach more importance to the balanced policy that the Central Bank has executed in recent years, the economist said. As Manaseryan pointed out, despite all the backbiting and undue criticism, the life showed that in this case Armenia and Azerbaijan found themselves in completely opposite poles. That is to say, the only exception among the post-Soviet countries is Armenia, where dollar exchange rate fluctuated from 471 to 482 AMD. The latter factually does not have any significance even in terms of percentage. On average, stability has been manifested, the economist emphasized. He added that the aforementioned is also dependent upon the fact that the business world, despite of all the obstacles and complications existing in the economy of Armenia, has had rather serious results recently. YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf tops this week's "Bestseller Books List" introduced by "Armenpress" News Agency. It is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf. First published on 24 October 1929, the essay was based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton College, two women's colleges at Cambridge University in October 1928. While this extended essay in fact employs a fictional narrator and narrative to explore women both as writers of and characters in fiction, the manuscript for the delivery of the series of lectures, titled "Women and Fiction", which was published in Forum March 1929, and hence the essay, are considered non-fiction. The essay is generally seen as a feminist text, and is noted in its argument for both a literal and figural space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by men. The Little Prince" by French author Antoine de Saint-Exupery comes next on the list. The novella is both the most read and most translated book in the French language, and was voted the best book of the 20th century in France. The book was translated into more than 190 languages. The Art of Dedication or Dithyramb to a Rose written by Edgar Harutyunyan occupies the third position in the list. "Love in the Time of Cholera" by Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez comes the fourth on the list. In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career he whiles away the years in 622 affairs--yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again. ''The Book of Lamentations'' by St. Gregory of Narek is the fifth on Bestseller Books List introduced by "Armenpress" News Agency. The pearl of the medieval Armenian literature is also known to the public as "Narek" for short. The mystical poem "Book of Lamentations" has been translated into many languages and has played a significant role in the development of the Armenian literary language. This masterpiece by St. Gregory of Narek has always been included in our bestseller books list. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green comes next on our list. Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazels story is about to be completely rewritten. Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning-author John Greens most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love. The book was translated into Armenian by Edit Print Publishing house, by Alina Mirzoyan. Peter Handkes Slow Homecoming is next on Yerevan Bestseller list. A provocative, romantic, and restlessly exploratory, Peter Handke is one of the great writers of our time. Slow Homecoming, originally published in the late 1970s, is central to his achievement and to the powerful influence he has exercised on other writers, chief among them W.G. Sebald. A novel of self-questioning and self-discovery, Slow Homecoming is a singular odyssey, an escape from the distractions of the modern world and the unhappy consciousness, a voyage that is fraught and fearful but ultimately restorative, ending on an unexpected note of joy. The book begins in America. Writing with the jarring intensity of his early work, Handke introduces Valentin Sorger, a troubled geologist who has gone to Alaska to lose himself in his work, but now feels drawn back home: on his way to Europe he moves in ominous disorientation through the great cities of America. The second part of the book, The Lesson of Mont Sainte-Victoire, identifies Sorger as a projection of the author, who now writes directly about his own struggle to reconstitute himself and his art by undertaking a pilgrimage to the great mountain that Cezanne painted again and again. Finally, Child Story is a beautifully observed, deeply moving account of a new fathernot so much Sorger or the author as a kind of Everymanand his love for his growing daughter. Blaze Minevski is a Makedonian author of novels and short stories. His The Mark occupies the eighth position on our list. The book is about two snipers - a man and a woman. Fyodor Dostoyevskys Short stories comes next on the list. "Steppenwolf" novel by German-Swiss author Hermann Hesse closes Yerevan Bestseller book list. Originally published in Germany in 1927, it was first translated into English in 1929. Combining autobiographical and psychoanalytic elements, the novel was named after the lonesome wolf of the steppes. The story in large part reflects a profound crisis in Hesse's spiritual world during the 1920s while memorably portraying the protagonist's split between his humanity and his wolf-like aggression and homelessness. Hesse would later assert that the book was largely misunderstood. To complete the bestseller list, the following bookshops have participated in the survey: New Book (093-60-40-64), Noahs Ark (56-81-84), Armenian Book (54-07-06), Narek (51-91-36), Bookinist (53-74-13), Antares (091-90-01-23) and Zangak (23-25-28). Yerevan Bestseller presented by Roza Grigoryan Civil rights icon and Confederate general are being celebrated on the same day, signaling lingering effects of slavery. It is perhaps one of the best examples of the deep racial divide in the United States and the lingering effects of slavery that continue to shackle parts of the country. On Monday, people in three states will take a holiday to celebrate two very different figures in US history. Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama will honour the birthdays of civil rights leader Dr Martin Luther King and Confederate General Robert E Lee on the same day. Kings actual birthday is on January 15 and the national holiday in his name occurs every year on the third Monday of January. General Lee was born on January 19. In Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama, the state holiday celebrating his birth also occurs on the third Monday of January. That has upset a lot of people. Its insulting, says Dale Charles, Arkansas President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. For years, Charles has been at the forefront of an effort to get Arkansas to separate the holidays. So far, they have been unsuccessful. But they now have a powerful ally in the states governor and are hopeful change will come. Racially divisive General Lee commanded the secessionist Confederate Army from 1861-1865 in the American Civil War. Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama all sided with the Confederacy. Many people associate Lee with racism since he and his military fought unsuccessfully to preserve the institution of slavery. Still, many white people in southern states take pride in their Confederate heritage and have struggled to keep its symbols, like the battle flag, and its leaders in the public eye. Race in the US: Know your history But for many African Americans, like Charles, General Lee is a representation of the ugliest of acts and linking him to King someone who stood for the exact opposite of everything Lee did reflects a deep denial within Arkansas over its racist past. How can you hold onto this and pray to Almighty God? asks Charles. In January 2015, an Arkansas state committee introduced a bill to separate the two dates. Nate Bell, a white former police officer and state representative, was one of the people who championed the cause. General Lee was a good man who chose his state over the federal government, Bell tells Al Jazeera. But putting the two holidays together is racially divisive which is why he got involved in the effort to make the change. Bell faced threats and angry opposition, even moving his family heirlooms out of his house after he received anonymous messages it would be burned down a haunting reminder of the tumultuous civil rights era of the 1950s and 1960s when activists received similar warnings. Does he think his state has a race problem? I dont believe so, says Bell. His bill was voted down in committee largely due to vocal opposition from white, pro-Confederacy groups. This isnt just about history, says Robert Miller, chairman of the Arkansas branch of the League of the South, one of the groups that opposed the bill. Its an attack on the southern people themselves. Miller thinks efforts to change the holiday are part of a broader campaign of cultural genocide against southerners referring to General Lee as one of the Godliest and most humane men. He believes any change is an attempt to eliminate official celebration of Lees birthday. In June, the momentum began to swing the other way after a white man gunned down nine African Americans at the Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina. READ MORE: What will it take to change the US gun culture? Dylann Roof, the alleged shooter, is now awaiting trial and faces the death penalty. Photos on social media showed Roof posing in front of the Confederate flag, igniting a national debate about the countrys racist past. In Arkansas, that meant addressing the holidays. The acts of violence in Charleston have sparked national debate on numerous issues, wrote Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson to Dale Charles less than a month after the massacre. As Governor, I will do what is in my power to strive for an exclusive Martin Luther King Jr Day. He renewed his pledge this month in front of reporters. JR Davis, the Governors spokesman, told Al Jazeera that under the rules of the Arkansas state legislature, a new bill cannt be introduced until 2017. He is confident it will have much more support this time and that having the holidays on the same day sends the wrong message. Groups like the League of the South and Sons of Confederate Veterans have vowed to fight any new measure. Davis would not say whether the Governor would support a separate state holiday for General Lee if the two are eventually separated. I havent spoken to him about that directly, he says. But Charles is pretty clear on the subject. There should not be an official holiday for Lee at all. I would be ashamed to own it, he says of those who back it. A smaller field, a brighter spotlight and some of the angriest exchanges of this long nominating process. The latest Republican Presidential debate in South Carolina showed as that as this race tightens, it is going to get nasty. There were several noteworthy exchanges mainly between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz . Alan Fisher looks back at the night. Jeb Bush: The former Florida Governor had Donald Trump telling him to his face he was weak. He argued passionately again Trumps plan to temporarily ban all Muslims from entering the US. But the reality is Trump has found an issue which resonates with the Republican party. The other candidates offered watered down versions of the Trump plan. He had perhaps his best night, with clear answers on the economy and immigration but it may be too late. Ben Carson: The former neurosurgeon started with a joke about his reputation for being sleepy and laid back and did nothing to dispel that. He struggles on foreign policy and national security. His best moment of the night was when he jumped into an argument in response to another candidate to grab some time. It got a big laugh but voters are looking for more. Chris Christie: Took on Rubios claim that he was too liberal and skillfully beat off the attack. But he does keep fact checkers busy. Says he did not tighten gun laws as Governor in New Jersey. He did. He says he did not support the appointment of a liberal Justice to the Supreme Court. He did. His comment to President Obama that were going to kick your rear end out of the White House played well in the hall but would not have endeared him to many Americans who may disagree with the President, but respect the office. Ted Cruz: Took the first question on the economy and turned it into an attack on Barack Obamas foreign policy. Neatly waved off Trumps attack that he isnt qualified to run for President because he was born in Canada and awkward questions about the financing of his Senate campaign. But the best debater on stage looked slightly rattled when his attack on Trumps New York values, code for being too liberal, was turned by Trump into an insult of the citys recovery from the 9/11 attacks. And when Marco Rubio claimed he had flip flopped on several key issues. A problem for the Texas senator may be his tax plan and that may come back to haunt him. Still had a very good night. John Kasich: The Ohio governor tried to stay about the squabbling and the arguments and seemed less of the angry old man he has been in the previous two debates. He tried to focus on the economy. He tries to steer his party to more central ground where he believes the presidential election will be won. But he wont be running for President if he cant win the Republican nomination. He had a solid performance which was lost in the noise. Marco Rubio: The Florida senator has an immigration problem. In 2013 he was one of a gang of eight senators who tried to streamline immigration laws which would give a path to citizenship to a large numbers of undocumented workers in the US. Now he says his positions changed because of threats to the country from a radical jihadist group and immigration is a huge security issue. Ted Cruz attacked him on that. Rubio aggressively rounded on Cruz to provide his best moment of the night. But the reality is mainstream Republican voters dont like the position he had and his own Hispanic base do not like where he is now. He has to find some way to neutralize the issue. Donald Trump: The billionaire businessman has become a better debater as this process has gone on. He seemed to struggle under Cruzs response to his birther attack but quickly regained his feet, and his response on New York brought cheers. For the first time, there were significant boos in the hall to some of Trumps answers. And its clear he doesnt quite have a full grasp of some complicated issues resorting instead to soundbites and tried and tested lines he knows will play well with the base. If he fails to win Iowa, and hes behind in the polls, he may see support which has been strong and consistent since the summer leak away to other candidates. Where the candidates concentrate their attacks give an idea of who they see as a threat. No one attacked Kasich or Ben Carson. Rubio went after Christie and that was returned. Both are whats consider the Establishment wing of the party. He also hammered Cruz when he could. Cruz wont go full out against Trump believing his supporters will move to him if the businessman drops out, but hes happy to hammer Rubio. Now the candidates head to Iowa. Another debate, another battle and the first real test from the voters. Of all the European countries affected by the refugee crisis, perhaps Sweden is the most conflicted. This country, after all, refused to have anything to do with the 2003 Iraq war but then took in thousands of the refugees it caused. And many of those people, who have been settled in Sweden for a decade, must desperately want to see family members who did not get out then but who have been part of the current exodus. In the migrant reception centre in Malmo they explain that towards the end of last year, 10,000 people a day were trying to register. They were completely swamped. They were getting 100 media inquiries a day as well. The notion of Sweden being so welcoming became overwhelming, and the countrys resources could not cope. Consequently, on January 4, the country did the very last thing it wanted to it reintroduced border controls with Denmark for the first time since the 1950s. It meant that people crossing the famous Oresund bridge linking Copenhagen in Denmark to Malmo in Sweden would face passport checks. It became a sort of death of Schengen moment in Scandinavia. One week into the controls and the migrant reception centre had received 1,000 people, so clearly it was stemming the flow. But some are still getting across, either because they have the correct papers or because they are being smuggled in car boots. But a third way has opened up too a new and unbelievably hazardous sea route. Last Sunday, the Swedish police confirmed that they had made an arrest after an inflatable RIB, a big dinghy of the sort used between Turkey and Greece, had come ashore on the Swedish side of the Oresund strait. If it had capsized it would have meant almost certain death in the freezing waters. Consequently the Swedish coastguard, which has had a ship on patrol in the Mediterranean, is now on high alert and having to police its own waters. They find this enormously strange and wonder if they will meet the same people they came across thousands of kilometres south. Criminals Equally, Danish activists who own yachts and who think it enormously unfair that refugees wanting to see their families in Sweden are blocked from doing so have begun smuggling them across. I understand that they have taken many dozens. It is not only far safer than a RIB but it is also free of charge, which the activists say makes a description of their work less to do with smuggling and more about mercy missions. That said, in Denmark the right wing sees them as criminals. The Danish Peoples Party wants them arrested. It sees no comparison between Denmarks history, when fishermen smuggled Jews out of Nazi-occupied Copenhagen to Sweden, and the present day in which people fleeing groups such as ISIL are transported to be with pre-existing family members in Malmo or elsewhere. Both Denmark and Sweden have extended their short-term border controls and there is every chance of them continuing. If the activists have to stop their operations for fear of arrest, then it is perfectly possible paid-for smuggling operations could take their place. The Swedish coastguard really hopes not, for they know just how desperate a journey that would be. Taiwan will soon go to the polls in an election that could see it get its first female president. Taipei, Taiwan On January 16, citizens of Taiwan will vote for their next president. The most recent polls published in the local newspaper Apple Daily and conducted by Shi Hsin Universitys polling centres show the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate, Tsai Ing-wen, holding a considerable lead, suggesting that she could become Taiwans first female president. But she still faces significant opposition. The ruling Nationalist Party (KMT), which favours friendly ties with China, trails behind the DPP even though their candidate, Eric Chu, is the popular mayor of the countrys most populated municipality, New Taipei City. The third candidate on the election ticket is the Peoples First Party (PFP) candidate James Soong, a political heavyweight who has campaigned for the presidency twice before. He unsuccessfully ran for president in 2000 and 2012 and for vice president in 2004. In 2012, Soong only garnered only 2.76 percent of the votes. In addition to the election of a president, Taiwanese voters will cast secondary and tertiary ballots to elect regional politicians and the leading party. Elected politicians will pass bills in the legislature. Meanwhile, the party-list ballot will determine how many legislator-at-large seats each political party will have. To be eligible for party representation in the legislature, a party must receive a minimum of 5 percent of the votes. A mirrored percentage of the legislator-at-large list will make it into the new legislature based on vote percentages. Tsai Ing-wens platform The island nation of 23 million people lies north of the South China Sea. Local television news station TVBS estimates a voting rate of 75 percent, which would mean a total vote count of 13.78 million ballots. The channels polls show Tsai with a 53 percent support rating, translating to roughly seven million votes. This is still lower than the 7.66 million votes that sent Ma Ying-jeou to the presidential office in 2008. As the Ma administration wraps up its second and final term, media reports indicate that Mas support rating had fallen to 9 percent over the past eight years. However, after the historic meeting between Ma and Chinese President Xi Jinping in November, a poll commissioned by Taiwan Thinktank and done by Trend Survey & Research showed Mas approval rating sitting at 19.9 percent. The Kuomintang [Nationalist Party] has been in office for seven years and under this government, not only has Taiwan not improved, it has regressed, Tsai said on her campaign website. The economy has lost motion and society lies within insecurity. People are worried about food safety, long-term elderly care, pension reform and fiscal discipline. Watch: Taiwan Election But the government has not addressed any of these issues, she added. Under her public policy platform, Tsai wants to see 200,000 rental-only units of affordable public housing built within the next eight years. With recurring food scandals plaguing Taiwan, Tsai said that the government must regulate food safety from farm to table. The origins of food, list of additives and other relevant information must be provided to consumers. The ageing population of Taiwan needs to be taken care of through preventative care, Tsai added on her campaign website, proposing community wellness centres equipped with elderly day care, meal services and transportation. There is also high demand for public child daycare centres, and Tsai has suggested that meeting this demand will help to create jobs. The making of a politician Tsai, who studied at Cornell University in the United States and the London School of Economics, previously taught law in Taiwan. She did not begin her formal political career until May 20, 2000, when she was appointed chairwoman of the Taiwan Mainland Affairs Council. Tsai vaulted into the legislature in 2004 after being listed on the DPPs legislator-at-large list. Moving through the ranks, she was also the cabinets vice premier under President Chen Shui-bian and became the DPPs first female chairwoman. Although the DPP has long presented its pro-separatist sentiment as crucial to the partys identity, Tsai has avoided taking too hard a line on this during the campaign. Instead, she has reiterated her commitment to maintaining the status quo in Tawain-China relations, leading to criticism from the KMT, which has accused her of being vague. A new political generation Young voters and the influence of social media in Taiwan has seen the creation of many smaller parties. On this years party ballot, there are a record 18 political parties duelling for representation in the legislature. The commitment to political activity among Taiwans younger generation was seen in 2014, during the 23-day social movement that arose in response to the KMTs trade pacts with China that became known as the Sunflower Movement. Many Taiwanese now believe that the country should move beyond the ancient DPP-KMT rivalry and enter an era of non-partisan ideologies. The bipartisan system presents the question of being independent from China or reuniting with China, said Jiho Chang, a participant in the Sunflower Movement, who says that most citizens under the age of 35 identify as Taiwanese. But young people have other concerns, other issues that they wish could be addressed like gender issues, environmental issues. Ko Wen-je, Taipei city mayor, a former doctor praised for his lack of political pedigree, is one independent candidate who has been voted into office. Kos penchant for brashly speaking his mind, regardless of political correctness, has appealed to voters tired of polished politicians with party agendas. Last Novembers 9-in-1 elections devastated the KMT, which lost ground in former strongholds. In 22 municipalities, the KMT held on to six seats, while the DPP swept won 13 seats. Out with the old Dissatisfaction with the Ma administration and surging voter consensus to move beyond bipartisan relations has meant big losses for the KMT. The KMT supports the 1992 consensus, an understanding between Taiwan and China reached in 1992 that ensures peaceful and steady development. According to the agreement, each side could interpret the term One China in its own way. In his election promises posted on his campaign website, Chu says that he believes Taiwan needs to forge a win-win situation with China that allows mutual respect and peaceful negotiations. The website adds that he wants to speed up negotiations on trade pacts with China, which he says will increase Taiwans global competitiveness and its chances of joining the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Chu, who has a doctorate in accounting from New York University, is seen by many KMT backers as the face of the partys new era. Similar to Tsai, Chu returned to Taiwan to take up a professorship before serving in the cabinet and then as a magistrate and mayor. In his platform, Chu proposes raising the minimum wage to stimulate the economy. During his televised policy presentation on December 23, Chu said he wanted to promote an open market to attract domestic and foreign investments by lowering taxes for start-ups. In 2012, Tsai lost the presidential election to Ma by 797,561 votes despite a 45.63 percent support rate. With four additional years of grassroot campaigning under her belt, Tsai could well become Taiwans first female president. What a difference a year makes. When, in October of 2014, China and 20 other Asian nations signed a memorandum of understanding to create a new global lending organisation, the reaction from the United States was swift and hostile. In Beijing, discreet leaders murmured reassurances and denied accusations that their intent was to undermine the existing global financial infrastructure. A little more than 12 months later, the new institution, now with 57 member countries, was signed into being with nary a comment from Washington DC, and Chinas President Xi Jinping is preparing to step into the spotlight to trumpet the agenda of what is being described as one of the most significant geopolitical initiatives of recent times. In retrospect, its not hard to understand why the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank proved such an attractive proposition to so many countries even those with the strongest ties to Washington. Whats harder to explain is how the US government managed to misread the geopolitical sentiment so badly. New global lender For AIIB supporters, the practical need for a new global lender was self-evident, glaringly so. According to the Asian Development Bank (ADB): Only three out of 10 people [in the Asia-Pacific] have access to telephone services and only 53.4 percent of the total road network in Asia of 5.66 million km is paved. (The total road network in the US is 6.5 million km in an area the size of China alone.) ALSO READ: The new Asian bank and a new world order By the ADBs own estimate, developing Asia needs a mind-boggling $800bn each year in infrastructure investment, and until now the ADB itself has been the primary source of those funds. By the ADB's own estimate, developing Asia needs a mind-boggling $800bn every year in infrastructure investment. by But ADB resources are and have been woefully inadequate. From a total capital base of just over $175bn, the ADB made direct loans of just $13bn in 2014, up from $7.5bn in 2012. Even if you added in the resources of the World Bank, and allocated them all to Asia, the gap would remain huge. The World Bank lent $42bn last year, across all sectors, across the globe. It is pretty obvious, then, why the developing countries were quick to jump at the possibility of a new bank with an estimated $30bn a year to lend, and even those nations with reasons to be wary of China can appreciate the knock-on benefits of regional economic development. Distant developed countries have no similar need for such investment or engagement, so why was Britain so quick to sign up with the AIIB, especially when it meant defying the express wishes of its decades-old patron and partner? And why did so much of Europe follow? Corporate interests Perhaps one answer lies in corporate interests. Of the top 25 construction companies in the world, companies that will profit handsomely from $800m of infrastructure spending every year, 15 are European. (Those behemoths also gain indirectly from the four Chinese companies in the top 25, who buy considerable supplies and technologies from them.) Only three companies in the top 25 are from the US. But for Washington, corporate pressure or the absence of it was never the major consideration, politics was. As Lawrence Summers, President Barack Obamas former economic adviser, characterised it last March, the establishment of the AIIB was the moment the United States lost its role as the underwriter of the global economic system. Summers comment highlighted US fears of ebbing global dominance, but also served to expose the double standard at play. Having benefitted enormously from its own domination of the existing multilateral system, Washington was actively strangling Asias development potential by trying to prevent China from taking up the lending slack. It didnt take long for the world to see the reality. Singapore was among the first to take a position that the AIIB would be a complement to the existing global institutions (a fact that those institutions themselves quickly conceded) and that the best way to ensure transparency in the new body would be for everyone to join it, not to boycott it. Even Japan now says it will review its position later in the year. What happens next? So now that the AIIB is a reality, what happens next? Well, the truth is that even this bank will not have enough money to plug the lending gap in Asia, and however much pomp and ceremony Beijing decides to deploy when announcing its first loans, their immediate impact will be barely noticeable. Long term, however, few experts are betting against the proposition that Chinas development agenda will re-shape most of the economic and trading status quo around Asia. Beijings One Belt, One Road programme has already been transforming rail, road and internet connectivity at home and in selected countries, and in the decades to come AIIB money and European construction expertise will combine to build capacity, output and consumption throughout the continent. As for Washingtons worst fears, of a much darker and more threatening agenda, well Beijing has been working to address these, too, even well before the AIIB was even mooted. As the man nominated to be the first chief of the AIIB Jin Liqun told me more than five years ago, This does not mean that now its our time to tell you to do this and that. I dont think that is the spirt of international cooperation. We are members of the international community, and countries big or small should work together on an equal footing. Teymoor Nabili is a Singapore-based journalist and commentator, and CEO of TheSignal.Asia. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy. Richard Giragosian is the founding director of the Regional Studies Centre, an independent think tank in Yerevan, Armenia. Following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks by al-Qaeda, Western security officials were seriously concerned by the possibility of terrorists acquiring radioactive material for use in making a radiological, or dirty bomb. That security concern was driven by two worrying factors the potential ease of building such a mass-casualty weapon and the availability of radioactive material throughout much of the former Soviet Union. In the South Caucasus and Central Asia, for example, there was a fairly extensive legacy of Soviet-era military laboratories and nuclear research facilities. In many cases, these Soviet military facilities had ample supplies of cesium, strontium and other related radiological materials. And more troubling, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, most of these facilities have been only minimally protected, with meagre security precautions or safeguards. Throughout Russia and Ukraine, there has been significant Western assistance aimed at disposing of such radioactive material. But the Caucasus has been a lower priority and in Georgia, for example, these facilities have been largely abandoned and neglected. Nuclear material in the Caucasus Nevertheless, there is a long record of proliferation cases involving radioactive material in the Caucasus. The most recent case was back in April 2013, when three men were detained in the Georgian capital Tbilisi on suspicion of selling a small amount of the radioactive material 241Am, an isotope of americium. READ MORE: Is war imminent in the Caucasus? But there was a more serious incident in March 2010, when Georgian security arrested a criminal group linked to Russian organised crime. That group, arrested in an undercover sting operation, attempted to sell highly enriched uranium in Tbilisi. The US has bolstered security in Georgia, as well as in Armenia and Azerbaijan, providing border monitoring equipment capable of detecting both nuclear and other radioactive materials. by According to unidentified Georgian government sources at that time, an April 13 blog report by The Guardian newspaper stated that the material was over 70 percent enriched, which would be of high enough quality to create a crude nuclear bomb. In 2006, in an undercover operation similar to the 2010 case, Georgian security forces succeeded in thwarting an attempt by a smuggler from neighbouring North Ossetia in Russia to sell some 100 grammes of highly enriched uranium in Georgia. Given this record of radiological proliferation, to date, the United States has bolstered security in Georgia, as well as in Armenia and Azerbaijan, providing border monitoring equipment capable of detecting both nuclear and other radioactive materials. Little evidence of a dirty bomb Since the heightened post-9/11 concern over the danger of radiological dirty bombs, there has been little evidence and even less success of terrorists acquiring and constructing such a low-tech, high-casualty weapon, however. But the absence of any cases of terrorists armed with dirty bombs should no longer breed complacency. The arrest of three suspects in Georgia in recent days for attempting to sell radioactive material highlights the emergence of a significant new threat. The threat is rooted in the new security context, not of a global threat from al-Qaeda, but from the local connections between the Caucasus and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). More specifically, with the direct links to the region a number of citizens from Georgia and Azerbaijan are now serving in the ranks of ISIL the South Caucasus may become a new and tempting target, not for operational attacks but as a source of new deadly radiological weapons. For the countries of the region, that threat also poses a new challenge to their largely under-funded and generally unprepared security services. Richard Giragosian is the founding director of the Regional Studies Center, an independent think-tank in Yerevan, Armenia. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy. Heavily armed fighters from the al-Shabab group launch coordinated assault on the base in the town of El-Ade. Fighters from the al-Shabab group have attacked a base for African Union peacekeepers in southwestern Somalia, blasting their way into the compound and exchanging fire with peacekeepers, a Somali military official told Al Jazeera. Dozens of al-Shabab fighters on Friday assaulted the military base, which is run by Kenyan troops who are part of the AU force in the town of El-Ade, not far from the Kenyan border. The troops are currently fighting the terrorists to push them back, LT. Col. Paul Njuguna, spokesman for African Union mission in Somalia told Al Jazeera. The counter-attack operation is still ongoing. The assault started with a suicide car bomb, and then heavy gunfire was heard as fighters stormed into the base, he said. Dozens killed Al-Shabab said their fighters killed dozens of Kenyan troops in the attack. Mujahideen fighters from the Commander Saleh An-Nabhani Battallion stormed the Kenyan Defence Forces base in the town of Eel-Adde, Gedo region, over-running the base and killing more than 63 Kenyan crusaders. the group said in a statement seen by Al Jazeera. However, the African Union denied the claim. Everyone is familiar with al-Shababs propaganda. They will claim that they have taken over the camp even though they have not, Njuguna told Al Jazeera. Once we come to an end of this battle, we will have information on number of casualties and proper account of what happened. The Kenyan army said it wasnt their base that was attacked but that of the Somali army. Al-Shabaab militia attacked the Somali National Army (SNA) camp which is in close proximity to Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) camp at Elade in Somalia, Kenyan army said in a statement. The SNA camp was overrun and the KDF troops under AMISOM counter-attacked in support of SNA. the statement added. Despite being pushed out of Somalias major cities and towns, al-Shabab continues to launch deadly guerrilla attacks across the Horn of Africa country. The group, which has ties with al-Qaeda, has also carried out many deadly attacks inside Kenya. Jimmy Morales takes reins of power riding on the back of public anger at rampant corruption among political elite. A former TV comedian has been sworn in as Guatemalas new president on the back of widespread public anger at government corruption. Jimmy Morales used his inaugural address on Thursday evening to promise more transparency in the countrys political system but cautioned that it would take time for change to come. A new Guatemala is possible, and its worth the struggle. Of course things could be better, but I want you to bear in mind things dont change overnight were passing from the darkness of corruption to the dawn of transparency, Morales said. Morales won elections in October last year on a platform of putting an end to the countrys spate of multimillion-dollar corruption scandals. In August protests erupted against former President Otto Perez Molina after investigators accused government officials of taking bribes from businesses looking to avoid paying import duties in a scandal known as La Linea (the line). Molina later resigned and has been jailed pending a decision on whether he will stand trial on corruption charges. Morales was the surprise winner of Octobers vote, taking most votes in the first round and then beating former vice-president Sandra Torres in the runoff. Obstacles to reform Despite the win, analyst Roberto Wagner told Al Jazeera that Morales will struggle to push through the reforms needed to satisfy those who voted for him. It is the make or break year, definitely. Were finally going to know what Jimmys made of, Wagner said. Were finally going to know if he is able to make up a team of people that are going to support him. Al Jazeera spoke to some of the hundreds of protesters who had been in the capital Guatemala Citys central park on Thursday, many eager to stress the importance of Morales keeping his promises. This year we are starting by demanding that the government is transparent and that it is honest, like it should be this is our main objective, the protester said. Al Jazeeras David Mercer, reporting from Guatemala City, said the biggest obstacle Morales faced was passing his proposals through a deeply divided congress. With his party having less than 10 percent of the seats, and with Congress already highly fragmented, experts predict that it will be incredibly difficult for him to push through any significant reforms. One person clinically dead, five others severely ill after medical trial for painkiller in Rennes, health ministry says. At least six people are critically ill in France after a trial involving a new medical treatment went wrong, the French health ministry said. The patients became ill and were admitted to hospital earlier this week after taking a trial drug developed by a private medical laboratory in the northern city of Rennes, the French TV channel TF1 said on Friday. This test was carried out at a private facility specialised in carrying out clinical trials, the ministry said in a statement. One of those affected was described by the health ministry as being in a state of clinical death. Calling it a grave accident, the ministry said that Marisol Touraine, Frances health minister, would travel to Rennes, where the trial was taking place, on Friday afternoon. French media outlet BFMTV said eight people were believed to have taken part in the trial, with two of those given placebos. In total, 90 people have taken part in the trial. All trials on the drug have been suspended and all volunteers who have taken part in the trial are being called back. Another media outlet, iTele, said that the trial was for a painkiller containing cannabis and took place at a laboratory in Rennes. At least three activists detained in run-up to fifth anniversary of January 25 uprising, lawyers and relatives report. Egyptian authorities have arrested activists two weeks before the fifth anniversary of the January 25 uprising, which led to the deposing of President Hosni Mubarak. According to lawyer Mukhtar Munair, three activists including Taher Mokhtar, a prominent physician, were detained after police raided their apartment in downtown Cairo on Thursday. Omar Hazek, a poet, was also detained and banned from leaving the country, a relative said in a Facebook posting, the Associated Press news agency reported. The managing editor of a privately owned news site called Masr al-Arabia was arrested after security forces raided its office on Thursday, according to a statement from the site. Egypt has led an extensive crackdown on both Muslim Brotherhood and liberal activists since the 2013 military deposing of President Mohammed Morsi. Morsi, who belonged to the Brotherhood, was arrested and put on trial with most of the groups leadership and thousands of its supporters. A number of high-profile liberal activists have also been arrested and jailed, including Alaa Abdel Fattah and Ahmed Douma, for their criticism of the countrys military and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. January 25 marks the anniversary of the first day of mass protests in Cairos Tahrir Square in 2011. Tens of thousands of Egyptians convened in the area demanding Mubarak step down, which he did shortly after on February 11. Last year at least 20 people were killed in clashes with police on the anniversary of the uprising. YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. The Electoral Code of the Republic of Armenia that is currently undergoing reforms and is to be adopted during the upcoming months will substantially improve the election processes. MP of Armenia National Assembly "Republican" (RPA) Faction Khosrov Harutyunyan told Armenpress that in the new Electoral Code much attention will be paid to the organization of the election process in the country. In particular, it is suggested to apply modern technologies in order to prevent double-voting. For instance, the latter was implemented in Kyrgyzstan and it was pretty successful, but we suggest a better system. They only voted with ID cards which was shown on the screen, but we will not only vote with ID cards with the results shown on the screen, but also after the voting the voters data will become blocked in the entire system without the possibility to vote in any other place. Everything will be under control to prevent any doubts, Harutyunyan said. The MP also expressed an opinion that the new Code will promote the self-fulfillment of the parties, thus interparty democracy will develop. You can see that the parties are active only in Yerevan, and the regions participate in the political processes only during the elections. One of our goals is to integrate the regions potential into active political circulation. In that regard, very interesting solutions are proposed in the new Electoral Code. We are not reinventing the wheel. Those suggestions are mainly taken from the experience of the Scandinavian countries, where in addition to the so called national list, there are also regional lists of the party in question, and voting is realized by those lists. We mainly base on this principle, Harutyunyan added. The parliamentary elections will be held in Armenia in 2017. The Electoral Code according to the reformed Constitution must be adopted by June, 2016, a year before the national elections. Police say Indonesian Bahrun Naim working for ISIL funded deadly attack that killed two civilians and five attackers. Police have named an Indonesian, Bahrun Naim, as the mastermind of Thursdays deadly attack in Jakartas main business district after it arrested three men in a pre-dawn raid. The arrests on Friday came less than 24 hours after the shooting and bombing rampage, the first such attack in the worlds most populous Muslim nation since 2009, which killed seven people. Five of the dead were the attackers themselves. Police said Naim, who spent one year in jail for illegal possession of weapons in 2011, funded the attack. He is now believed to be in Syria fighting for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). His vision is to unite all ISIS-supporting elements in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, Jakarta police chief Tito Karnavian said. The police chief of Depok, where the arrests were made, told Metro TV that the men which he described as a bomb-maker, a firearms expert and a preacher were not linked to the Jakarta attack. Raids were also under way across other parts of the populous island of Java and on other islands to round up suspects behind the attack, Reuters reported. Now we are sweeping in and outside Java, because we have captured several members of their group, and have identified them, National Police spokesman Anton Charliyan told Reuters. At least 20 people were wounded when at least five attackers opened fire near a Starbucks coffee house in the city. Those killed included an Indonesian and a Canadian. Officials said the attackers were armed with light weapons and suicide belts. Six blasts occurred about 50 metres apart in the central business district, which also houses a United Nations office. The attacks were claimed by the ISIL group in a statement on Thursday, in which the group claimed it had killed 15 people. Al Jazeeras Sohail Rahman, reporting from Jakarta, said many circumstances surrounding the attacks on Thursday remained unclear. Theres not a state of emergency but certainly a heightened level of alert three individuals are being questioned at the moment. Whether there were any that got away is one line of inquiry. Who are they, where did they come from, how did they get into Jakarta, who helped them get in, did anyone house them? The munitions that were used, the rifles and the explosives, where did all of that come from? Thats whats being looked into by investigators. Being small actors in a great game of regional powers will put limits on Kurdish ambitions, analysts say. Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan As rivalries between Saudi Arabia and Iran reach new heights following the execution of Shia religious leader Nimr al-Nimr on January 2, Iraqi Kurds see opportunities and threats arising from the sectarian turmoil and the tectonic geopolitical changes in the region. Kurdistan should warm up to those who accept Kurdistans future and its efforts for statehood, said Khasro Goran, a Kurdish member of the Iraqi parliament from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the dominant faction in the Kurdish autonomous government in northern Iraq. Massoud Barzani, KDPs leader, who serves as the Kurdistan regions president despite some internal opposition regarding the legality of his tenure, made a diplomatic splash in December by visiting Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Both Riyadh and Ankara received Barzani in a manner normally reserved for visiting heads of state. Saudi Arabias King Salman held talks with Barzani in the presence of the senior members of the Saudi royal family. And in a first act of its kind in the countrys history, Turkish authorities raised Iraqi Kurdistans flag during Barzanis visit to Ankara. Goran praised the dramatic shift in the Arab states stance towards the Kurds in Iraq, countries that had for decades opposed the emergence of a Kurdish entity in northern Iraq. INFOGRAPHIC: Major Kurdish factions Although the regional settings appear to be shifting in the Kurds favour, domestically, Iraqi Kurds have failed to formulate a united position towards these developments. Kurdistan must not join one side of this conflict against another side ... If we take sides, Kurdistan will turn into another arena of the conflict in the region and we will have much to lose from that. by Farid Assasard, member of PUK's leadership council Whereas the KDP has tilted more towards the so-called Sunni Arab powers in the region, its key domestic rivals, such as the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), have grown closer to the opposing Iranian-led camp, while some have refrained from articulating a clear preference. Saudi Arabia and Turkey want to redefine the Kurds role from a Sunni perspective and not as Kurds, said Sardar Aziz, a parliamentary adviser for Gorran Movement, a major Kurdish political faction in rivalry with the KDP. And we see the KDP wanting to play along with that discourse. The majority of Iraqs Kurds are Sunnis but there are also Shia and Yazidi Kurds. After returning from his visits to Riyadh and Ankara, Barzani instructed his party officials in late December to work with other Kurdish parties to create a mechanism for holding a referendum on whether Iraqi Kurdistan should become an independent state. As Iraqi Kurds ponder what they can gain from the expanding regional conflict, some prescribe caution. Being smaller actors in a great game of major regional powers means that there will be limits to Kurdish ambitions and their ability to capitalise on the changes, analysts say. Kurdistan is internally fragmented, Farid Assasard, a member of PUKs leadership council, told Al Jazeera. Kurdistan must not join one side of this conflict against another side If we take sides Kurdistan will turn into another arena of the conflict in the region and we will have much to lose from that. WATCH: Iraqs Kurdish forces call for more support to fight ISIL Another major consideration for Iraqi Kurds is how the rising tide of regional sectarian tensions might affect their ongoing war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Despite initial setbacks in the face of ISIL attacks in summer of 2014, Kurds have now pushed ISIL fighters from the bulk of Kurdish-controlled areas seized by the group. However, ISIL is still uncomfortably close to major Kurdish-controlled urban areas such as Erbil and Kirkuk. Given the ability of Kurdish Peshmerga forces to stand up to ISIL, some believe sectarian-motivated geopolitical competitions in the region will not have a bearing on the Kurds fight against ISIL. I dont think the sectarian escalation will affect the war against [ISIL] because Kurdistan enjoys the backing of Western and regional nations, said Goran, who leads KDPs bloc in Iraqi parliament. The war is essentially being fought on the ground by the Peshmerga forces with air support from the Western coalition. Assasard said that the last time Iraqi Kurds picked sides in a regional conflict was in the 1970s when they sought assistance from the governments of Iran and United States to force the then Iraqi government into conceding political and cultural rights to them. But when Iran and Iraq reached a deal on redrawing certain parts of their disputed border areas, Iran and the US cut off their support leading to the ending of the brief experiment in Kurdish self-rule agreed between the Kurds and Baghdad. Amid the sectarian maelstrom gripping the region, some believe the Kurds will ultimately opt to stay on the sidelines, since historically their ethnic identity has been the primary consideration rather than religious or sectarian affiliations. Kurds make around 20 percent of Iraqs population while the remainder are mostly Shia and Sunni Arabs. [Kurds] are pragmatic enough to understand that picking sides for certain short-term gains be it economic or military will not serve political unity inside Kurdistan in medium to long term, said Athanasios Manis, a senior research fellow at Middle East Research Institute, a think-tank based in Erbil, the capital of Iraqs Kurdish region. And it might complicate further Erbils relations with Iraqs Arabs [both Shia and Sunnis]. Federal emergency declared in Flint after class-action lawsuit over almost two-year-long lead-poisoned water crisis. US President Barack Obama has declared a federal emergency over the Michigan city of Flints lead-poisoned water crisis that has affected its almost 100,000 residents, with children suffering the most, over almost two years. The White House on Saturday authorised the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief efforts to alleviate the hardship and suffering of Flints residents. The agency can now provide water, filters, and other necessary items to the city through federal funding. The announcement came days after Michigan Governor Rick Snyder asked Obama to issue the emergency declaration. On Tuesday, a class-action lawsuit was launched against the state of Michigan and Snyder for allegedly ignoring Flints water crisis since it began in April 2014. The plaintiffs, including residents who have suffered severe illnesses from consuming the toxic water, are also suing Flints administration as well as other local officials. The suit accuses the parties of breaching the contractual obligation to supply about 30,000 households with potable water. It also says that residents are still being billed for receiving the contaminated water. The state administration has denied allegations of negligence. The crisis erupted after Flint stopped receiving its water supply from the neighbouring city of Detroit due to unaffordable increases in rates and started sourcing from the local Flint River in April 2014 as a cost-cutting temporary measure. Critics have blamed the state administration for failing to apply essential corrosion control to make the water from Flint River safe for consumption by preventing the antiquated pipelines from leaking lead. Even though Flint switched back to Detroits water system, residents say that it is still not drinkable and continue to use bottled water to even bathe and cook. Snyder called in the countrys national guard to help provide potable water for the citys households after declaring a state of emergency over the crisis. He also offered $10M in aid for Flint. David Murray, press secretary for Snyder, told Al Jazeera the state administration had been working closely with the city to focus on health issues affecting children and other city residents, and address water infrastructure challenges. But many say his efforts came too late and there have been recent protests calling for Snyder to resign and face charges over negligence allegations after an independent investigation by Michigans Auditor General that found state officials had failed to react to numerous red flags since the very early stages of the crisis. Michigans Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) had reportedly continued to tell Flint residents that the water was safe for drinking despite warnings from local doctors who had found alarming amounts of lead levels in people. Cover-up Marc Edwards, a water quality expert who is leading an independent investigation into the scandal, told Al Jazeera that the countrys Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] also played a role in trying to cover up Flints crisis. EPA knew about this in April last year Children continued to drink from the water and they [EPA] did nothing about it until after October, he said. The primary blame is clearly the MDEQ, but the EPA played an unconscionable role in covering up what was occurring. In a statement sent to Al Jazeera, the agency said that it had fulfilled its duty of referring complaints of lead contamination to the MDEQ. In February 2015, EPA received a call from a Flint resident expressing concern about the results of a test conducted by the Flint water utility showing high levels of lead in her tap water. EPA immediately conveyed those concerns to MDEQ because MDEQ is the agency responsible for implementing and enforcing federal drinking water regulations in Michigan, it said. On Thursday, officials announced a spike in Legionnaires disease cases that resulted in at least 10 deaths. More than 80 people have contracted the bacterial pneumonia infection since the water crisis began. Nick Lyon, the director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, has said that about half the cases were connected to Flint water, and half were not. Dr Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician conducting research on the health crisis in Flint, told Al Jazeera that her main concern was how thousands of children have been affected, since they are the most vulnerable to the life-altering and irreversible damages of lead poisoning. First of all, there is no safe level of lead. Our research showed that lead levels doubled in most children screened. In the poorer neighbourhoods, those levels tripled, said Hanna-Attisha. Lead poisoning has long-term impacts. It affects your cognitive development, your intelligence, and it is directly linked to violent behaviour. She added: The people have been traumatised and lied to for 18 months. They are angry and have little trust in government. Trump and Cruz go at each other over conservative values and eligibility to be elected in key debate before Iowa ballot. US Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump and his top challenger Ted Cruz have clashed over Cruzs Canadian birth and the business tycoons New York values during a tense debate. With the February 1 nomination ballot in Iowa, a swing state coming into sharp focus, the debate on Thursday was a key one to influence voters, who will start to pick the partys nominee to run for the White House in November. Texas Senator Cruz, who was born in Calgary, Alberta, to a US citizen mother and a Cuban father, accused Trump of bringing up his birthplace simply because Cruz was leading some polls in Iowa. READ MORE: Republican debate scorecard Cruz said Trump, who led the movement questioning whether the Hawaiian-born President Barack Obama was really born in the US, had asked his lawyers to look into the issue of Cruzs birth in September and concluded there were no issues. Since September, the Constitution has not changed but the poll numbers have, Cruz said. And I recognise that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are dropping in Iowa, but the facts and the law here are really clear. Call to go to court Trump said Democrats would sue if Cruz were on the Republican ticket, putting their partys chances of winning at risk. I am not going to be taking legal advice from Donald Trump. by Ted Cruz, Texas governor He urged Cruz, who is a lawyer, to ask a court to put the question to rest. I am not going to be taking legal advice from Donald Trump, Cruz retorted. Trump has been making an increasing issue of Cruzs Canadian birth, suggesting it violated the constitutions requirement that only natural born citizens can be president. The business tycoon openly accepted in the debate that he was bringing the issue up because Cruz was doing better in the polls. In addition to fighting back over his presidential eligibility, Cruz accused Trump of not being a conservative because he was born in New York and still lives there. Everyone understands that the values of New York City are socially liberal, are pro-abortion, are pro-gay marriage, Cruz said. Cruz in rise The top seven candidates ranked by Republican voters took part in the debate: Trump, Cruz, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Ohio Governor John Kasich. Cruz has taken the lead in some polls of Iowa Republican voters. A victory at the debate could propel him higher in the national race. The other candidates sought to gain traction in the debate with criticism of Obamas policies on gun control and also threw barbs about his State of the Union address on Tuesday. In that speech, Obama sought to offer a more optimistic vision for the USs future, and he singled out Trump, without naming him, for calling on the US to ban Muslims temporarily from entering the country. Bush urged Trump to change his views on the issue. Trump, who noted that his poll numbers rose after making that policy proposal, said his mind was made up. A Reuters/Ipsos rolling national poll on January 12 showed Trump had 39 percent of the vote, Cruz 14.5 percent, Bush 10.6 percent, Carson 9.6 percent, while 6.7 percent favoured Rubio, once viewed by the Republican establishment and many donors as a rising star. At least 15 detained after petition signed by more than a thousand academics calls for end to battle against PKK rebels. Turkish authorities have detained at least 15 academics after they called on the government to stop breaches of rights during the armys military offensive against Kurdish rebels in the countrys southeast. Fridays detentions over the petition, which was signed by more than 1,000 academics, targeted those working for a state university in the northwestern city of Kocaeli. The probe launched into the academics on Thursday looks into possible charges of insulting the state and engaging in terrorist propaganda on behalf of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is engaged in a bloody battle with Turkish forces. State media reported that further detentions were to follow. We ask the state to put an end to the violence it has been inflicting on citizens right now, the petition released earlier this week said. We, as academics and researchers of this country, declare that we will not be silenced [and] become a party to this crime, it added. Q&A: Turkeys fight against terrorism legitimate The petition, which was also signed by renowned foreign academics such as Noam Chomsky and David Harvey, also called on the government to stop declaring military curfews in the region and punish violators of human rights within the security forces. It also called for payment of compensation to citizens who suffered during the operations and for the preparation of conditions for peace talks to commence. Unfair Ertan Aydin, an MP with the governing Justice and Development Party, told Al Jazeera that the declaration was unfair, merely criticising the state and sympathising with the armed group. The language of this text has nothing to do with peace. It openly supports a group recognised as a terrorist organisation by the world, he said. The petition falls short of criticising the PKK and only bashes the state as if the group does not carry out all the horrible atrocities going on in the region. The declaration does not mention the outlawed PKK in any part of the text. Turkey and PKK announced a ceasefire in 2013 but it collapsed last July. Fighting has since resumed, with Turkey running an air campaign against the group that launched an armed rebellion more than 30 years ago. The operations have been criticised by rights groups for alleged disproportionate use of force and civilian deaths, a claim denied by Turkish officials, who blame the PKK for civilian deaths. Cengiz Aktar, one of the signatories of the declaration, told Al Jazeera that Turkeys southeastern region was going towards secession because of the wrong policies followed by the government, adding that the petition called for an end to this. The state has always been trying to resolve the Kurdish issue through force since the establishment of the republic, apart from the recent short ceasefire, the Turkish associate professor of political science said. We are at a point of spiralling violence. One sides violence against the other has been creating further counter-violence The region is in the process of becoming the next Kosovo, which broke away from Serbia, after a long time of violence. The sides should start negotiations right away in order to avoid this. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu have sharply criticised the petition, and Erdogan even called on the judiciary to act against the treachery of the signatories. Vague laws Aktar, the academic, told Al Jazeera that regulations in Turkey on insulting Turkishness and terror propaganda are vaguely defined. These can be used against any sort of remarks to start an investigation. Anything easily can be included or excluded from their coverage, he said. READ MORE: Deadly car bomb targets police post in southeast Turkey In the latest violence in the conflict, a car bomb blast near a police building in the Kurdish-majority province Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey killed six people, including children, and injured at least 39 others on Thursday. The ruling party MP Aydin said that the state, of course, can be criticised, but the text is totally unfair. The PKK kills civilians. The attack in Diyarbakir yesterday, which killed children, is the most recent proof of that, he added. The group has been fighting against the Turkish state since 1984, initially for Kurdish independence, although it now presses for greater autonomy and rights for the Kurds. Follow Umut Uras on Twitter: @Um_uras After petition called for presidential hopeful to be rejected on account of hate speech, politicians will hold debate. British MPs are set to debate whether US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump should be banned from entering the UK, after a petition calling for him to be barred gathered more than 500,000 signatures. Politicians will discuss the motion on Monday in the House of Commons and debate, for three hours, whether Trump should be prevented from entering the UK because of what the 573,149 signatories called his hate speech. Having received more than 100,000 signatures, the petition had to be considered for debate by parliament under British law, and requires a written government response. READ MORE: Donald Trump calls for halt on Muslims entering the US The UK has banned entry to many individuals for hate speech, the petition read. The same principles should apply to everyone who wishes to enter the UK. If the United Kingdom is to continue applying the unacceptable behaviour criteria to those who wish to enter its borders, it must be fairly applied to the rich as well as poor, and the weak as well as powerful. The campaign was launched in response to a call made by the 69-year-old presidential hopeful to ban Muslims from entering the US until, in his words, our countrys representatives can figure out what is going on a thinly veiled reference that Muslims were responsible for terrorism. Suzanne Kelly, who launched the petition, said on Friday: However the debate goes (and I never thought it would get this far), increasing mistrust and fuelling hatred are not going to solve the problems of terrorism, and violent fanaticism which every sane person condemns. Writing on her Facebook page, she added: Win or lose, that so many people from so many backgrounds came together to speak out against hate speech is a source of great happiness to me. The UK parliament will also debate a far less popular petition, which argued against the ban on Trump, and gathered only 42,593 signatures. After Trump made his anti-Muslim comments, the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, said that while they were unsavoury, he did not support a ban. Jocelyn Howorth, an associate at the immigration law specialist Westkin Associates, told Al Jazeera: If it was someone else, I think it [the ban] could happen. The solicitor added that she expects the issue to fizzle out quickly once the debate is over. Realistically, the UK Home Secretary Theresa May cant ban a US presidential candidate without massive repercussions. I dont think that will happen. READ MORE: Business as usual for Trump partners in Dubai, Istanbul The Trump Organization, the company owned by the presidential hopeful, said in a statement earlier this month that a ban would result in the conglomerate pulling developments and investments it claimed are worth 700m ($998 million) from Scotland. Westminster would create a dangerous precedent and send a terrible message to the world that the United Kingdom opposes free speech, said the statement. Howorth added that even if parliament agrees that the former reality television star should be banned from entering the UK, May would have to make the final decision. Trumps comments, she said, amount to hate speech. The result of [the comments] is so hugely discriminatory towards one group of people that they do amount to hate speech. Other people have been refused entry for similar reasons. We are entitled to freedom of speech, but where that incites hatred, that is not allowed. Follow Anealla Safdar on Twitter: @anealla Open confrontation between two rivals is a real possibility, a former adviser to Saudi royal family tells Al Jazeera. The world should be worried about an open conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia, a former adviser to the Saudi Arabian royal family has told Al Jazeera. The hate, the anger, the killing they have the ingredients for a major confrontation, Jamal Khashoggi said in an interview with Al Jazeeras flagship current affairs show UpFront. Saudi Arabia severed relations with Iran after an attack on its embassy in Tehran last week following the kingdoms execution of Shia religious leader Nimr al-Nimr, who was put to death along with 46 mostly Sunni Muslims convicted on terrorism charges. Saudi, a predominantly Sunni kingdom, and Shia Iran have accused each other of backing proxies in the war in Yemen and Syria. READ MORE: How much support will Saudi Arabia win against Iran? Khashoggi, who served as media adviser to Prince Turki Al-Faisal, put the blame for escalating tensions squarely on Iran. It all happened because of a simple reason: Iranian expansionism, the veteran journalist based in the oil-rich kingdom said. It was the straw that broke the back of a very strained, very bad relationship, and experiences we have had with the Iranians. Its all about expansionism, not anything else, he added. No war Dismissing war as an option, a former Iranian diplomat, however, has told Al Jazeera that the issue between the two sides can be resolved through diplomacy. I dont believe we should be worried. I dont believe there will be a war, Seyed Hossein Mousavian, the former head of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, told UpFront. Last week Saudi Arabias Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told a British magazine that the kingdom would not go to war with Iran. Salman, who is also the defence minister, told The Economist that an Iran-Saudi war would mean catastrophe for the Middle East. Mousavian said that the rise of what he called terrorism was a major threat to peace, security and stability in the region. He accused Saudi Arabia of supporting terrorists, adding that the Syrian crisis was the result of Saudi backing of opposition groups with money and weapons. Tehran is a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has backed Damascus through the five years of civil war that has displaced nearly half of the population and killed more than 250,000 people. With too much global supply and the lowest price in nearly 20 years, there is anxiety about a possible oil market meltdown. US crude prices fell below $30 a barrel on Tuesday, before settling down, but only a bit. While most major oil companies are slashing their budgets and jobs, some of the biggest oil companies like Saudi Aramco have not cut back on production. And some OPEC states, like Iran and Iraq, are looking to increase production. In the past year, the price of a barrel of oil has fallen by more than 50 percent. The highest price in the last 12 months was $110 a barrel. Some investment bankers are now warning that oil could crash to $10 a barrel. So, whats behind the falling price of oil and what does it mean for consumers? Presenter: Peter Dobbie Guests: Cornelia Meyer CEO of Meyer Resource, A Macro-Economic and Energy Policy Advisory. Bismarck Rewane Managing Director of the Financial Derivatives Company. Mamdouh Salameh International Oil Economist and Consultant. UF construction students will bring their own mock company to compete against 35 schools in a national management competition. UFs College of Design, Construction and Planning is set to compete Tuesday at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The schools tasked students with creating the mock company in September. During the annual Residential Construction Management Competition, universities from throughout the nation will present their plans. Last year, UFs student division of the National Association of Home Builders placed third. UF hired Richard Smailes, an M. E. Rinker, Sr. School of Construction Management senior lecturer and the teams faculty adviser, in 2004, and he became involved with the competition soon after. He said construction management and interior design students rarely work together, and this competition bridges the gap. The whole point is when students leave school, they will all end up working together, so it is nice that at a student level they are able to see the other students point of views and where they are coming from, Smailes said. Austin Anderson, a 23-year-old construction management senior, is the teams project manager. We have been doing things that our classes havent taught us and have been able to work together as a group to learn completely new concepts, Anderson said. While Anderson looks forward to using his newfound skills in the future, hes keeping his mind on the competition. I cant wait for all our hard work to pay off, and I am thrilled to be able to represent the Rinker School of Construction Management along with my fellow classmates, Anderson said. Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox Subscribe Now Gainesvilles Cold Night Shelter Programs admission acceptance ended Wednesday after temperatures rose. The program opened Sunday and offered Gainesvilles homeless residents shelter, breakfast and blankets for four days. The shelters, situated at St. Francis House and Grace Marketplace, close when temperatures rise above 45 degrees. To prepare for these nights, volunteers stored mats and cleared rooms for extra space at St. Francis House, said John Miller, a staff member at St. Francis House. William Deitenbeck, the case manager for St. Francis House, said they try to see how many people can fit on the floor with cots and mattresses. During the four days, 169 people stayed at St. Francis House, he said. The shelter holds as many people as it can. It is unfortunate that there are no more facilities, Deitenbeck said. But we manage with what we have. At Grace Marketplace, people slept on the chapel pews and on the floor, said Theresa Lowe, the executive director of the Alachua County Coalition for the Homeless and Hungry. There is no max for the CNS Program, Lowe said. We open up extra buildings, and we havent run out of space yet. She said about 18 people stayed the first night, and about 30 people stayed each night after. Harvey Elmore, who stayed at St. Francis House on Wednesday, said hes been homeless for about four years. Elmore, 56, said it is somewhat of a palace for me. Ramime Dehgan, 50, said hes been homeless for about 15 years. He doesnt like to stay in shelters but was forced to Wednesday when temperatures dropped. Sometimes its nice to feel taken care of, he said. Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox Subscribe Now YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. Italy is blocking a European Union plan to provide Turkey with 3 billion euros in aid in exchange for a commitment to stem the flow of migrants into Europe, two European officials said on Thursday, as Armenpress reports citing Reuters. The move marks a further escalation in Italy's combative position on EU issues. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi blasted German Chancellor Angela Merkel at an EU summit in December over EU policies on energy, banking and migration. Since then, Italy has reiterated its opposition to the funding of the EU plan to stem migrants coming to Europe from the Middle East and Asia through Turkey, officials said. The plan is strongly backed by Germany, which is the final destination of most. The draft plan foresees that one third of the 3 billion euros should come from the EU budget and the remaining 2 billion from EU states. EU states gave initial backing to the aid plan at a summit with Turkey in November and the EU summit last month. 2005 .. Informations Honble Chief Justice Supreme Court of India , New Delhi Alwihda Info | Par Hem Raj Jain - 15 Janvier 2016 Bengaluru, India Open petition to Chief Justice of India about prison escapee Maulana Masood Azahar To Honble Chief Justice Supreme Court of India New Delhi Sub:- An open petition :- (i)- To ensure Maulana Masood Azahar (escaped from prison through IC 814 hijack) serves remaining term in Indian prison (ii)- To ensure Maulana faces fresh charges about IC 814 hijack (iii)- To question Governments of India & J&K and Pakistan (through its High Commissioner at Delhi) when they came to know about presence of Maulana in Pakistan and punish the guilty for not ensuring Malauna faces justice in India. Your Honor -- I am an Indian citizen aged 70 years and humbly submits the following:- (1)- That in December 1999, Maulana Masood Azahar got himself freed from Kot Bhalwal (J&K) Jail pursuant to demands of hijackers that Government of India (GOI) could exchange him for passengers on the hijacked Indian Airlines flight 814 (IC 814, scheduled from Nepal to Delhi which was hijacked by his terrorist colleagues) that had eventually landed in Kandahar, Afghanistan. (2)- That as per law any country who found Maulana was supposed to apprehend him and hand over to India in order to (i)- serve remaining term in Kot Bhalwal (J&K, India) prison (ii)- To face fresh charges of being complicit beneficiary of IC 814 hijack as Maulana did not surrender before Kot Bhalwal Jail authorities (through Indian Embassy / High Commission / Consulate) after getting separated from hijackers. (3)- That for the last two days Indian print & electronic media is full of reports (the judicially noticeable facts and otherwise too) that Maulana is in Pakistan and on the request of GOI the authorities in Pakistan are questioning him in relation to January 2, 2016 attack at Pathankot air base. (4)- That whether Maulana is complicit or not in said Pathankot attack the GOI / Government of J&K and Government of Pakistan (GOP) are under legal obligation to ensure that Maulana comes to India to serve remaining prison term and to face said fresh charges. But the GOI / GOJ&K and GOP have derelicted in discharging their legally mandated duty. (5)- That as in case of marines of Italy (accused of killing Indian fishermen) the Honble Court has brought Ambassador of Italy under its jurisdiction similarly the Honble Court can bring Pakistan High Commissioner too under its jurisdiction in Maulana related extremely serious criminal matters. Therefore in view of the above mentioned Your Honor is requested to Kindly take the cognizance of this matter and Kindly :- (i)- Order GOI to demand from GOP to immediately handover Maulana Masood Azahar to India to serve remaining prison term in Kot Bhalwal (J&K, India) prison and to face said fresh charges about IC 814 hijack. (ii)- Summon Pakistan High Commissioner at Delhi to inform the Honble Court that when GOP came to know about presence of Maulana in Pakistan and why GOP did not hand over Maulana to India when GOP found Maulana in Pakistan. (iii)- Summon GOI / GOJ&K to inform the Honble Court that when they came to know about presence of Maulana in Pakistan and when it came to be know that Maulana is in Pakistan why GOI (and GOJ&K through GOI) immediately did not ask GOP to hand over Maulana to India. (iv)- Punish the derelict & complicit public servants of GOI and GOJ&K and take appropriate legal action against the derelict and complicit authorities of GOP for the offense of not bringing Maulana to justice. (v)- Any other relief commensurate with facts and circumstances of the case. Regards Hem Raj Jain (Petitioner) Bengaluru, India January 15, 2016 Dans la meme rubrique : < > India should enter into military-treaty to get US-boots on ground for retrieving Indian territory from China & Pakistan and for independence of Tibet Tchad : 17 membres du bureau executif de lUDT, allie a la majorite presidentielle, jettent leponge Tchad : un mort et plusieurs blesses dans un accident routier a l'Est Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena) AR's Editor Joe Shea Talks About Elections On Iranian TV Bear Stearns Saved By Fed As Lehman Bros. Falters; Major Bank Failure Looms Over Wall Street, Sends Markets Into 200-Pt. Dive Lie Upon Lie Five Years Into the Iraq War The Administration Still Churns Out Lies by Randolph Holhut A Small Tragedy Even at 90, As Friends Turn Cool She Knows the Show Must Go On by Joyce Marcel I'll Take Me Imagine John Wayne or Arnold In Heels, Silk and a Girdle by Elizabeth Andrews Sen. Nelson Calls For New Fla. Primary; Gov Crist Backs 'Do-Over' Who'll Win? Ask Spock Spock.com Engine Predicts Winners By Site Searches; It Can be Wrong by Jay Bhatti Chatting Up The Cat God Gave Me Dominion Over Him But I Think He's a Non-Believer by Constance Daley Death of a Thug The Life and Horrors of Suharto by Andreas Harsono ___________________________ This Just In Sierra Club: McCain Ducked All 15 Key Votes On Green Laws (AR) A Work By AR's T.S. Kerrigan Is Chosen As 'Best Poem' By Wordpress Site Murder At Mile 63 The Deadly Assault and Bush Administration Cover-Up by S. Eben Kirkesby and Andreas Harsono 5427 14th St. West, Bradenton, FL 34207 $6.99 Fish Fridays! Manatee Co.'s Only 24-Hr. FREE Wi-Fi Paid Advertisement On Native Ground AFTER 5 YEARS, WE'RE STILL LIED TO ABOUT IRAQ by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Next week is the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. And it is likely that sometime in the next couple of weeks, the 4,000th American soldier will die in Iraq. [MORE] Momentum OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. - It's 1931, and a 14-year-old girl is standing alone on a stage. She's small and lively with dark curly hair, widespread hazel eyes, slender wrists and an open, eager face filled with the wonder of performing. Her name is Rose, and one day she will be my mother. But now she is performing an Eugene O'Neill monologue called "Before Breakfast" for a ladies' club in a wealthy suburb of Long Island. [MORE] One Woman's World COMFORTABLE WITH MYSELF by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- I'm not sure but I think I may be socially incorrect. [MORE] On Native Ground ENOUGH FOR A WAR, NOT FOR A PEOPLE by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Last week, the National Governors Assn. met in Washington, D.C. One of the tasks the NGA had on its agenda was to ask President Bush to increase federal spending on roads, bridges and other public works projects as a way to stimulate the economy. He rejected their pleas out of hand, claiming that infrastructure projects wouldn't offer any short-term economic boost. [MORE] Brasch Words BEWARE THE SELF-REVERENTIAL PRESS by Walter Brasch BLOOMSBURG, Pa. -- Shortly before the primary votes this past week, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter called Sen. Barack Obama's surge to the Democratic nomination "inevitable." It also called for Hillary Clinton to "start her campaign for Senate majority leader." [MORE] Constance A CONVERSATION WITH MY CAT Constance Daley ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. -- Normally, when the cat starts his evening rant of meowing continuously until he makes his point, I just take it as long as I can, pick him up, and put him in the garage for the night. He doesn't want to go, but the meowing stops and I don't care if he likes it or not. [MORE] Momentum OUT OF STRUGGLE, ART by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Here we are again at the crossroads of art and social change, having the opportunity to watch good and great films about the lives of women in support of the Women's Crisis Center. [MORE] Campaign 2008 HOW TO PREDICT SUPER TUESDAY II WINNERS? ONLINE SEARCH by Jay Bhatti NEW YORK, March 4, 2008, 7:00PM ET -- With the outcomes of the Texas, Vermont, Ohio and Rhode Island primaries to be decided tonight, how possible is it that online searching can predict who will win tonight's primaries? [MORE] One Woman's World DON'T VOTE; IT ENCOURAGES THEM by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- Call me angry and disgusted but don't call me un-American because I won't be voting come November. [MORE] On Native Ground BUSH AND THE KEYBOARD COMMANDOS by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- As the days tick down toward the eventual departure of President George W. Bush from the White House, it's a hopeful sign that most Americans are no longer moved by his Administration's constant exploitation of terrorism for political gain. [MORE] Momentum WHICH AMERICA DO YOU LIVE IN? by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- It's a little confusing. [MORE] Make My Dat THE LAWYER THAT ATE NEW YORK by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- I used to know a guy who, quite literally, didn't get hyperbole. He didn't understand exaggeration. As a result, he missed most jokes that came his way. [MORE] On Native Ground FIDEL RETIRES: NOW THE COLD WAR IS REALLY OVER by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Maybe now, we can finally say the Cold War is over. [MORE] Make My Dat THE LAWYER THAT ATE NEW YORK by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- I used to know a guy who, quite literally, didn't get hyperbole. He didn't understand exaggeration. As a result, he missed most jokes that came his way. [MORE] One Woman's World POLITICS IS NO PARTY by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- Are you having a hard time focusing your eyes? Do you have faint red spots all over your body? Is there a ringing in your ears and do you see wavy lines when you look at your television set? Do your hands shake when you try to hold a cup of coffee? And have you recently been forgetting what day of the week it is - or what year? [MORE] Make My Day FOR BETTER OR WORSE ... A LOT WORSE by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- "Marriage: It's Only Going to Get Worse." [MORE] Constance YOU CALL THESE RIGHTS? by Constance Daley ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. -- When you express an opinion you hope to persuade others to your point of view. It doesn't always happen but still, opinion writers try. [MORE] Momentum THE BRIDGE WOMAN by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. - Out there in America - yes, still - is a generation of women who were born in the 1940s, raised in the 1950s, and who came to radical consciousness in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I am one of them. Hillary Clinton is one of them. [MORE] On Native Ground OBAMA AND MY GENERATION by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- I originally planned on voting for Dennis Kucinich in the Vermont Primary on March 4. [MORE] The Willies: WARNING: THIS MEDICATION MAY MURDER YOUR FRIENDS by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla. -- You've heard the warnings, haven't you? Stop Prozac and you may take a shotgun, an Uzi or an AK-47 and mow down your family and friends, or even a whole classroom full of your fellow students. You didn't? Well, that warning is not on the bottle, but like countless mass-murder incidents before it, Friday's shootings at Northern Illinois University, as well as the Virginia Tech shootings that killed 32 last year, was probably precipitated by the effect of stopping medications that suppress anger and other powerful emotions but do not relieve the underlying cause. Isn't it time we started warning people - or stopped prescribing these medicines? [MORE] One Woman's World DON'T KNOCK ON MY DOOR by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- I wish I could feel delight in my poet's mansion being like Grand Central Station all the time, but I can't. And I wish my place was such a place that someone would one day write: "Her door was always open and she always made you feel all fuzzy and warm in her presence. She could make a cup of coffee seem like a banquet." [MORE] Reporting: Panama PANAMA'S VIOLENT LABOR UNREST INTENSIFIES Mark Scheinbaum PANAMA CITY, Panama, Feb, 15, 2008 -- After just one day of relative calm, wildcat construction strikes by some members of Panama's largest union flared up again Friday morning, four days after a police sniper shot one worker. More than 140 demonstrators have been injured and at least 500 arrested, authorities say. [MORE] Brasch Words TO STIMULATE ECONOMY, BUY A CHINESE-MADE U.S. FLAG by Walter Brasch BLOOMSBURG, Pa. -- Walking down Main Street, pushing a grocery cart loaded with clothes, toys, and appliances was Marshbaum. Fastened to the right front corner of the cart was an American flag tied onto a three-foot ruler. [MORE] Make My Day THE TOOTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TOOTH by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- To commemorate the death of noted shark exploder Roy Scheider, and the "Jaws" movies that resulted in Erik never setting foot in the ocean again, we are reprinting this column from 2003. Shark Experts 0, Sharks 1 [MORE] Momentum THE WINTER OF MY DISCONTENT by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. - As I write this, it's raining ice. Maybe a half a foot of snow and ice has already landed up here in the woods of Dummerston. Our cars are encased in it, and the door to the house is blocked. The satellite dish that brings in our Internet service quit about 20 minutes ago - frozen solid. [MORE] The Willies AMERICA TO HILLARY: GET OUT! by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla., Feb. 13, 2008 -- Sen. Hillary Clinton has adopted the Rudy Giuliani strategy, and it's working - for Sen. Barack Obama. It turns out to be the strategy all Democrats are seeking - an exit strategy. But it's not for Iraq. It's for her exit from the race for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination. [MORE] Constance CONFESSIONS OF A DISAPPOINTED VOTER by Constance Daley ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. -- A week ago at just about this time, I completed an article and was about to submit it as scheduled to The American Reporter. I was feeling rather elated, ready to show up on Super Tuesday morning, firmly touch the X next to Rudy Giuliani's name and get on with my day. He was my choice; he would get my vote. [MORE] Reporting: Florida SIERRA CLUB SET TO SUSPEND FLA. CHAPTER by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla., Feb. 10, 2008 -- The national Sierra Club is set to suspend its Florida chapter after years of divisive infighting, the president of the national club told Florida members in a letter delivered to some this weekend. It is the first time in its 116-year history that such a step has been considered by the club, according to news reports. [MORE] One Woman's World PLANT A NEW WORLD THIS SPRING by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- For a little while, the men will just have to toss and turn in their fear-free-women beds. For a small space of time Hillary Clinton will just have to trudge on toward the White House without my faint applause in the background. [MORE] On Native Ground VERMONT AND THE 5 STAGES OF CONSERVATIVE GRIEF by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- First, Vermont tried to convince the nation to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney. [MORE] Make My Day REBEL WITHOUT A TONGUE by Erik Deckers INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- Kids' brains work in amazing ways. At times, they can grasp complex concepts and make impressive discoveries. Other times, you have to wonder how we ever survived as a species. [MORE] The Willies FOR DEMOCRATS, NOW IT'S ABOUT RACE, INCOME AND GENDER by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Feb. 6, 2008 -- It's not a good time to be a Democrat. As the Super Tuesday results demonstrated, the presidential race between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton has divided the partly along clear racial, income and gender lines - the very distinctions the party has sought to erase in principle but has emphasized in its pursuit of diversity. [MORE] Momentum SUPER TUESDAY BLUES by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Super Tuesday has come and gone and I still can't get excited about the upcoming presidential elections. [MORE] The Willies ON THE BRINK OF HISTORY, YOUR PUSH IS NEEDED by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla., Feb. 5. 2008 -- I'm expecting a sea change tonight. I believe that for the first time in this nation's history we will once and forever banish racism as the deciding factor in the destiny of African-Americans, and indeed adopt diversity as our path to the future. [MORE] Campaign 2008 AT 88, EVERY VOTE REALLY COUNTS by Ted Manna DENVER, Feb. 5, 2008 -- Pearl Turner will caucus for Mitt Romney tonight in Denver. [MORE] One Woman's World STAND BY YOUR WOMAN by Elizabeth T. Andrews CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- The black vote. The gay vote. The fundamentalist vote. The Hispanic vote. [MORE] An AR Special SUSPECTS IN BENAZIR ASSASSINATION HAVE TIES TO MUSHARRAF by Ahmar Mustikhan WASHINGTON, D.C. -- When Gordon Brown this past Monday feted coup-leader-turned-President Pervez Musharraf at 10 Downing Street, Britain's new prime minister probably didn't ask the Pakistani dictator a question that is now on many minds: Did you order the murder of Benazir Bhutto? [MORE] Momentum TO THE VERMONT DELEGATION: WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR US LATELY? by Joyce Marcel DUMMERSTON, Vt. Back when President George W. Bush and Dick Vice President Dick Cheney were building up to their loathsome war in Iraq, very few people were brave enough to call the bullies' bluff. [MORE] On Native Ground IF BUSH HAS HIS WAY, WE'LL NEVER LEAVE IRAQ by Randolph T. Holhut DUMMERSTON, Vt. - In his final State of the Union address on Jan. 28, President Bush cautioned against accelerating U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq, saying that it would endanger the process that has been made over the past year. [MORE] Campaign 2008 CLASH OF COMMENTS AND PROTESTORS AT CLINTON, OBAMA RALLIES IN DENVER by Ted Manna DENVER, Feb. 1, 2008 -- At least four presidential campaigns of both partiers rolled into in Denver this week ahead of the Feb. 5 "Super Tuesday" primaries in 22 states, but it was the Democratic presidential contenders who drew the big crowds and duked it out Wednesday. If sheer numbers are any indication, Sen. Barack Obama - preceded by a buoyant and beautiful Caroline Kennedy - won the round handily. He is the overwhelming favorite to win the Colorado primary next Tuesday. [MORE] The Willies WHY THE FLORIDA PRIMARY STINKS by Joe Shea BRADENTON, Fla., Jan. 30, 2008 -- I was with my wife and daughter driving the back way from Miami home to Bradenton when we stopped at a McDonald's in Clewiston, the only big town along the vast shore of Lake Okeechobee, the state's precious freshwater reservoir. The McDonald's had three televisions at a central seating area, each tuned to a different network, and our table was in front of CNN as the very first election results started to pour in around 7:30PM. With them, almost as counterpoint, suddenly came such an overwhelming odor of cow plop that my wife started to throw up as we all ran to the parking lot. [MORE] Passings: Suharto DEATH OF A KEMUSU THUG by Andreas Harsono JAKARTA - A few minutes after hearing that former president Suharto had died in his hospital bed, Marco, a militia leader in downtown Jakarta, raced to Suhartos house, wearing his jungle camouflage and began guarding the Suhartos residence on Cendana Street. [MORE] Constance I REMEMBER YOU by Constance Daley ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga.. -- It seems to be more often lately that the sentiment is spoken but it's always been out there: "You never get over the death of your child." This is true. But the heartfelt expressions come from some who cannot fathom the notion of losing a child; their own child is who is in their mind, not another mother's child. [MORE] YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. First lady Michelle Obama will never run for president, her husband said Thursday. Armenpress reports the aforementioned, During a town-hall meeting a high school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a man who identified himself as the father of a Secret Service agent asked the president, Since you cant run again for another term, is there any way that we as a group can talk the first lady into running? The audience responded with loud cheering and a standing ovation. But President Obama immediately answered, No. There are three things that are certain in life: death, taxes, and Michelle is not running for president, Mr. Obama said. That I can tell you. The president said hes proud of the work his wife has done around reducing childhood obesity, [and] the work that she and Jill Biden have done on military families. I am certain shes going to be really active as a [former] first lady, he said. Unlike me, she looks young. Photo by RIA Novosti YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. Jeb Bush says a Hillary Clinton presidency would be a national security disaster and she'd be more busy dealing with the FBI than running the country. As Armenpress reports, referring to NBC news, former Governor of Florida expressed such an opinion. Hillary Clinton would be a national security disaster Bush stated. She would be a national security mess, Mr. Bush said, adding that her legal troubles could haunt her if elected. United States Senator from the state of Florida Marco Antonio Rubio, who also runs for the US president, supported Bush. During the sixth Republican primary debate Sen. Marco Rubio said Hillary Clinton has disqualified herself from being commander-in-chief due to some of her actions as Secretary of State, Wall Street Journal report. Photo by AP YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. Sedat Peker, a notorious figure who has been convicted on organized crime charges, has threatened academics who recently called for an end to violence in Turkey's southeast, saying on Tuesday that their blood will be spilled. As Armenpress reports, statement was shared by a number of academics on Monday criticizing the violence in the southeastern region of the country. In a declaration published on his website, sedatpeker.com, Peker labeled the academics "so-called intellectuals," and went on to say: "You should thank to the police and military that you tried to discredit. This is a beginning of frightening times for you. The bell will toll for you all. We will spill your blood!!" In a similar statement last year, Peker addressed crowds during an anti-terrorism rally in the Rize province and threatened those who criticize President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government by saying that they will pay the price for their critical stance. In his remarks, Peker said, "We will spill barrels and barrels of [Kurds'] blood. Peker's threatening remarks against the academics came after Erdogan criticized their declaration, calling the academics who were a party to it traitors. The statement was signed by 1,128 academics from 89 universities and called for an end to the conflict that has inflicted devastations on residential areas of several predominantly Kurdish-populated towns. YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. The EBRD financed a record volume of projects in Armenia in 2015, providing strong support to the countrys economy in a challenging economic environment that was affected by the regional crisis. As Armenpress was informed by the EBRD Office in Armenia, EBRD financed 14 projects with total investments reaching US$ 140 million for the year, unprecedented level in the 24 years that the Bank has worked in Armenia, and a clear indication of both the investment opportunities in the country and strong demand for EBRD funding. The investment activities of the EBRD were strongest in the areas of financial institutions, transport, municipal infrastructure, industry, commerce and agribusiness. The EBRD also had another notable year of working with banks to provide trade finance to the Armenian corporate sector. In line with its strategy, the EBRD assisted its clients by increasing the level of local currency financing, helping to further develop capital markets, and supported consolidation of the banking system. In addition, the EBRD participated in a landmark international syndication for Zvartnots International Airport which will provide significant new resources for further investment in Armenia. In trade finance, Armenia became the active user of the EBRDs Trade Facilitation Programme, with a total of US$ 48 million in support of local businesses. Focusing on environmentally friendly, commercial provision of public resources, the EBRD signed two municipal projects with the City of Yerevan and the government of Armenia. The Yerevan solid waste project included grant support from the European Union and Yerevan street lighting won the first E5P Fund grant in Armenia. Commenting on the record level of investments, EBRD Head of the Yerevan Office, Mark Davis, said: "The EBRDs ability to attract increasing financial resources to Armenia is testament to the bankability of our clients and the overall investment climate in Armenia. In a challenging external environment we have consistently focused on allocating resources in ways that are innovative, strategic and add value to investment partners and high quality businesses. The EBRD has consistently proved to be a steady partner. In 2015, the EBRD also published a new four-year strategy for Armenia that aims to enhance private sector competitiveness; develop capital markets and local currency financing; further develop infrastructure; and commercialise the provision of public services. While 2016 is likely to be a challenging year, I see a number of new opportunities in Armenia to add to our client base, and several deal prospects are already maturing. Overall I am optimistic, especially about capital market development and the emergence of more private equity investment activity. Meanwhile, we are delighted with the execution of our deal counterparties, including corporate clients, government authorities, and donors, all of whom have helped make 2015 such a productive year, continued Mr Davis. Since the start of its operations in Armenia in 1992, the EBRD has invested over $1.13 billion in 148 projects in the countrys financial, corporate, infrastructure and energy sectors, with 88 per cent of these investments being in the private sector. YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. The political life will be active in Armenia this year. Political scientist Sergey Minasyan expressed such an opinion on January 15. The political life will be active in connection with serious changes to happen in political structures, political forces and political arena in general. The explanation of the latter is very simple; parliamentary elections are expected in 2017, the significance of which, basing on the results of the Constitutional reforms, increases. I think, 2017 elections, will be one of the most important elections of the newly independent Armenia, he said, adding that the elections will integrate the meaning, significance of both parliamentary and presidential elections. According to him, all the political forces both the opposition and that of the leading Republican party- will do their best to get ready well for the elections. The political scientist also emphasized that we might have new political alliances, coalitions in summer. He outlined that some political forces might weaken. In contrast, the political forces will become more active before the elections. YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. Republic of Armenia Justice Minister Arpine Hovhannisyan received Minister of Justice of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic Ararat Danielyan on January 14. As Armenpress was informed by the Department of Information and Public Relations of Armenia Justice Ministry, the ministers discussed a number of projects directed towards deepening and developing bilateral cooperation in justice sector. Armenia Justice Minister Arpine Hovhannisyan highly appreciated the current cooperation between partner institutions of the two countries and expressed readiness to expand and intensify the cooperation. Justice Minister of Nagorno Karabakh Ararat Danielyan emphasized that there is a big potential for fostering the cooperation, while discussing with his Armenian counterpart the framework of cooperation as well as their future steps to be taken. YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijani authorities will not resume large-scale hostilities this year. Political scientist Sergey Minasyan expressed such an opinion during the meeting with journalists on January 15. Now there is a situation when Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's position weakened in his own country. And, maybe, he will not give up its policy of keeping the situation tense on the border but he will not launch military operations which risks are too big. Especially when all the leaders of Azerbaijan, ruling before Aliyev, lost their positions after the outbreak of hostilities. In this situation it is better for him to keep him quiet as the socio-economic situation in Azerbaijan sharply worsened, Minasyan emphasized, as Armenpress reports. Referring to the proposals of installing an investigative mechanism in the Karabakh-Aazerbaijani contact line, which OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs repeatedly voiced, but was not accepted by Azerbaijan, the political scientist emphasized that as long as there is no serious pressure on Azerbaijan in this regard, any progress will not be possible to record. YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. Vice President of Armenian National Assembly (NA), head of Lithuania-Armenia Parliamentary Friendship Group eduard Sharmazanov had a meeting on January 14 with Deputy Speaker of the Seimas Gediminas Kirkilas and Chair of the Seimas Committee on Foreign Affairs Benediktas Juodka. As Armenpress was informed from Armenian NA Vice President Eduard Sharmazanovs staff, interlocutors shared ideas on the mutual cooperation of the parliaments of 2 countries. They stressed the importance of mutual visits which, as the sides are convinced, provide new quality and content to bilateral relations. NA Vice President thanked his Lithuanian counterpart for the support for passing the exhibition dedicated to the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in Museum of Genocide Victims in Vilnius. Lithuania was the first in the world to recognize Armenia's independence and the only Baltic country which condemned Armenian Genocide, Eduard Sharmazanov mentioned. The sided also referred to Armenia-European Union relations. Eduard Sharmazanov mentioned that Armenia is ready to continue the political dialogue with the European partners. YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Hovik Abrahamyan visited Synopsys Armenia company on January 15. As Armenpress was informed from Information and Public Relations Department of the Government, the head of the Government toured in the educational and industrial departments of the leading IT company, got acquainted with current and prospective projects of the company, as well as with new initiatives aimed at the development of the IT sector. Particularly, the head of the educational department Vazgen Melikyan provided detailed information to the PM on the educational program based on industry-higher educational establishment cooperation. The program is implemented in collaboration with the National Polytechnic University of Armenia which gives an opportunity to replenish the industry with graduates with necessary knowledge and skills. Executive director of Synopsys Armenia Hovik Musaelyan mentioned that the majority of the graduates work in the company, as well as in other companies operating in Armenia and the region. In his words, the overwhelming part of those studying at the educational department also works for the company. During the exchange of ideas with the students, PM Abrahamyan inquired over the effectiveness of the program and assured that the Executive will continue supporting initiatives aimed at the development of IT sector. During the tour in the industrial department Hovik Abrahamyan was introduced to the activities of Synopsys Armenia, its achievements and future plans. The Prime Minister talked to the employees of the company, familiarized himself with their achievements and hailed the application of new ideas and approaches. Afterwards, a round-table discussion took place, during which issues of implementation of new projects and the future development of the IT sector were raised. In an interview with the journalists the head of the Government stated that the sector of Information Technologies has a great potential in Armenia and it is necessary to maximum support its utilization. The Government will consistently continue supporting the development of IT sector. Now we discuss the issue of elaborating a national strategy and we must do our best to bring it into life, Hovik Abrahamyan mentioned. Attaching great importance to the model of industry-higher educational establishment cooperation, the Prime Minister considered it as effective in terms of preparing qualified specialists and mentioned that the Government will make the companys cooperation with other higher educational establishment a subject for discussion. YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. The Director of Caucasus Institute Alexander Iskandaryan thinks that the current situation in Azerbaijan is preconditioned by the flaws in the government system of the country, law level of awareness of public problems. Armenpress reports that Iskandaryan emphasizes that the Azerbaijani crisis will not end soon, as it is too deep and consists of serious issues. Iskandaryan confesses that the developments in Baku remind him of the situation at the beginning of the 90s. The crisis will last long and the solution will be dependent upon oil prices. I am sure that the economic and political developments are connected in Azerbaijan. The reserve fund has decreased 3 times in the Central Bank of Azerbaijan, Iskandaryan said, adding that its hard to forecast what impact the situation will have on the country. What is happening now in Azerbaijan is an economic collapse, the political system of the country is also to blame for that. The Azerbaijani elite conduct an incompetent policy to get out of the situation. It is a fact that the difference between the rich and the poor is enormous in Azerbaijan. Thus, this situation leads to a social explosion as a great number of people are being arrested, exchange points are being closed. This will bring to bad consequences, Iskandaryan said, adding that the situation in Azerbaijan might impact the regional developments. YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. Armenian 5 wine-making companies Zorah, Triniti, Voskeni, Karas and Armenia, by the support of Armenian development fund, were presented in Wine Professional Exhibition 2016 held on January 11-13 in Amsterdam. As the Press, Information and Public Relations Department of the Armenian MFA informed Armenpress, Armenian Ambassador to the Netherlands Dzyunik Aghajanyan and the general director of the exhibition carried out the opening ceremony. In her opening speech Armenian ambassador welcomed the presentation of Armenian wines in the European market especially in the professional sector which became possible due to making available millennia-old tradition of wine production to the wide range of consumers by Armenian young specialists with application of modern technologies providing an opportunity to enjoy their smell and the whole richness of flavors. Within the framework of the exhibition Armenian wine-makers had an opportunity to present their produced wines and the peculiarities of their preparation. YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. Two cases of child trafficking were registered in Armenia last year, Head of the 3rd Department of the General Department of Criminal Intelligence of the Republic of Armenia Police, Mrs Nelli Duryan informed on January 15. No child trafficking cases have been registered in 2014, Armenpress reports, Duryan said. Regarding children without parental care, Mrs. Duryan said that the number of those children is not so great, thus issues connected with them are discussed separately and solutions are found. She added that a special group of representatives of the interested structures, local self government bodies, public sector, has been created to examine the issues of children without parental care. YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. There is no epidemic connected with acute respiratory infections in Armenia. As Armenpress reports, therapist, pulmonologist Andranik Voskanyan informed the journalists. Epidemic can be announced, as Voskanyan said, only when 5% of the population in a given territory is infected. If more than 1 million people live in Armenia, 50% of the population comprises 50 thousand. As 5% is not infected, epidemic is out of the question, Voskanyan said. He urged the media to raise public awareness of the disease and the preventive measures. He noted that one of the widely spread mistakes is reducing the temperature immediately. The latter can lead to the doctors misunderstanding that if the patient has normal temperature, it means the patient has simply caught a slight cold. He emphasized that the employees must also have the right approach to the issue, as those employees who are ill, must be immediately sent home. Those who are ill must remain at bed rest and use much water. he patients room must be frequently ventilated, he/she must follow doctors prescriptions without using unprescribed medicine. YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. World famous rock musician Serj Tankian congratulated the State Youth Orchestra of Armenia on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the establishment. I would like to specifically congratulate the State Youth Orchestra of Armenia and its Artistic Director Sergey Smbatyan on the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the Orchestra. Congratulations! I hope to work with you some day, Armenpress reports Serj Tankian said in a video release. The State Youth Orchestra of Armenia celebrates 10th anniversary of establishment. A festive evening will be organized on January 25 on the occasion, which will be attended by world famous composer Krzysztof Penderecki. The Youth Orchestra of Armenia was founded in November 2005, with the efforts of the students of the Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory. Sergey Smbatyan, violinist and prize-winner in international competitions, is the chief conductor and artistic director of the orchestra. In the concert programme of the Youth State Orchestra are included the works of Armenian, Russian and West-European composers of different epochs. In 2008 on the special decision of the Government of the Republic of Armenia the orchestra was granted the title of State Orchestra for their high professionalism and expansion of contemporary music. Since 2009 SYOA has been a member of European Federation of National Youth Orchestras (EFNYO). Starting from 2010 the State Youth Orchestra of Armenia has been holding the Armenian Composers Art Festival under the high patronage of the President of the Republic of Armenia. YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. Security forces of Azerbaijan have used water cannons and tear gas against protesters in Azerbaijan's northeastern Quba district amid an outbreak this week of national unrest over worsening economic conditions. Armenpress reports, citing RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service, in the latest unrest, authorities on January 15 deployed a large number of security forces, police officers and Interior Ministry special forces. Checkpoints were also established on highways leading to Quba and on other major roads in the province. Scores of protesters and several opposition activists have been detained this week as protests broke out, sparked mainly by price hikes of goods. The manat has depreciated by one-third against the U.S. dollar, prompting the Central Bank on January 14 to ban independent currency-exchange outlets from operating. The rising price of flour has been a lightning-rod issue during the protests that have taken place this week in several districts -- Fizuli, Aqsu, Aqcabardi, Siyazan, and Lankaran, accompanied by clashes with the Police. Scores of people were arrested on January 13 after taking part in the protests, which authorities labeled "illegal. Aliyev's government has faced increased criticism about rights abuses. Several journalists and rights activists have been jailed over the past year on charges such as hooliganism, tax evasion, and illegal business activities. Rights groups say the charges are often trumped up and leveled in retaliation for opposition activities and criticism of senior government officials. The sharp rise in prices of all types of goods, including consumer goods, started by the devaluation of Azerbaijani national currency manat, which is explained by the economic crisis in the country caused by decline of oil prices. There are protesters who go so far that even threat with suicide. 95% of Azerbaijani exports comprises of gas, oil and crude. 75% of the state budget is formed from the revenues obtained from energy exports. Earlier, On January 13, Azadlq newspaper informed that the Azerbaijani TV channels are prohibited to broadcast information about the mass protests all over the country against increase of prices caused by manat devaluation. YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. Popular Spanish El Confidencial newspaper published an article headlined End of caviar politics? which touches upon the economic and political situation in Azerbaijan. Armenpress reports the first part of the article authored by Daniel Iriart refers to the economic losses of Azerbaijan, which is in dire dependence from oil revenues, resulted by drop of oil prices, as well as to the sharp devaluation of the manat. The author mentions that 90% of Azerbaijani revenues depend on oil industry. As a result, if oil prices do not rise in 2016, Aliyevs distrust towards its forces will increase, and it is possible that the regime will become more intolerable to any kind of opposition or domestic criticism. According to the article, as a result of economic worsening, Azerbaijan intends to close its embassies and trade offices in Columbia, Uruguay, and Cuba, as well as honorary consulates in Genoa, Bratislava, Santa Fe and Kharkov. In addition, opening of diplomatic missions in Thailand, Afghanistan, Iraq and Oman has been postponed for an indefinite period. To the conviction of the author the economic hardships may also greatly impact the caviar diplomacy, in other words, the huge amount of sums that is spent by the Aliyev regime to clear its reputation. Daniel Iriart states the regime is considered as one of the most corrupt and repressive ones in the world by Transparency International or Human Rights Watch. According to the second part of the article, the Azerbaijani authorities, anyway, succeeded to some extent in PR campaigns. The example is the Eurovision 2012 or the European games. But, in order to avoid the awkward assessments over the country, the Aliyev regime has banned the entry of the representatives of Amnesty International and The Guardian reporters to Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan spent millions of dollars only for PR goals in the USA during the last years. All those transactions are regulated by Azerbaijan America Alliance organization, which is considered an independent body, but it is clear for everyone that it operates as a lobbyist for the Aliyev regime. The author mentions also that surprisingly the caviar diplomacy is also applicable for the European Union. He states that the position of many of their members coincides with the official position of Baku in an unusual manner, and in some cases they become the disseminators and protectors of those positions. The article ends with a detailed description of rising human rights abuses and political imprisonments in Azerbaijan. The author sums up indicating that despite all these many European states pretend that they are not aware of what is going on in Azerbaijan. YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. Representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) visited Armenian prisoner of war in Azerbaijan Arsen Bagdasaryan on January 13. During the visit information about his family was conveyed to the prisoner, as well as he conveyed some information to his family, Armenpress reports Communication Officer of the ICRC Mission in Nagorno-Karabakh, Eteri Musayelyan, told about the aforementioned. "The visit was conducted in line with the standard ICRC procedures. According to its mandate, the ICRC visits detainees to monitor their treatment and conditions of detention and help to ensure that they are able to maintain contact with their families," she informed. Arsen Baghdasaryan was taken into Azerbaijani captivity on December 26, 2015. YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. On January 13, King Msvati III of Swaziland officially transferred the Holy Resurrection Armenian Chapel and the lands pertaining to the Chapel to the Catholicosate of Etchmiadzin. Armenpress reports, citing the source of the Ministry of Diaspora Hayern Aysor. A year ago, representatives of the local Armenian community submitted to King Msvati III of Swaziland a petition with the request to transfer the Holy Resurrection Church to the Catholicosate of Etchmiadzin. A year later, the Armenian chapel of Swaziland truly became an Armenian chapel and one that will legally pertain to the Catholicosate from now on. The Armenian Church in the distant African kingdom was constructed in 1989, thanks to Grigor Derbelyan. Grigor Derbelyan, citizen of Swaziland, was born in 1914 in Aintab. During the Armenian Genocide, with her 20-day-old son in her hands, Grigors mother reached her husband in Cairo by foot and died a couple of months later. Finishing his studies at the Armenian university in Cairo, for 12 years, Grigor worked in Khartum (Sudan) where there was quite a large Armenian community. Later, he started working for the Olivett company in Johannesburg, South African Republic. When he matured, Grigor Derbelyan decided to settle in Swaziland where, according to him, he discovered a wonderful place called Pine Valley, which is not far from Mbaban, the capital of Swaziland. Seeing the place, Grigor decided that it is here where he wants to spend the rest of his life and die. In the center of Pine Valley, the landscape of which reminded him of Armenia, Grigor purchased an 11-acre land, built a small Armenian chapel and plants 1,770 pine and fir trees. A small river flows aside the chapel. Grigor refered to the river as the Arax River and even placed a panel named Arax River. Construction of the church was launched in 1985 and ended in 1989. About 60 people made contributions for construction of the chapel, including Olivetti Company, which hired Grigor for 12 years. The small church has two cupolas. Local construction materials were used to build the chapel. Interestingly, the part in the back of the chapel leans on a large stone that serves as an altar, like the Saint Geghard Church in Armenia. Today, there is a small Armenian community of eight members in the small African Kingdom. The Armenians of the neighboring South African Republic help the Armenians of Swaziland care for the chapel and the lands pertaining to the chapel. ...Upholding the truth, and for the service of Yahweh and humanity. Gelegele (gay men in Tok Pisin) take on traditionally female roles in society, such as cooking, washing clothes and participating on the womens side in cultural rituals and traditional festivals. Around 30 gay men permanently live in the village, a collection of traditional-style Papuan houses on stilts. Other PNG homosexuals have moved there from other places around the country. HANUABADA village is one of few places that gay and transgender men can live in relative safety in Papua New Guinea, a country where homosexuality is illegal. In PNG homosexuals are mostly accepted by coastal inhabitants, but are targeted in areas populated by highlanders. Violence against them, such as biting and rape, is common; there have been a number of reported murders. Members of the Hanuabada LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community say that if a gay person reports a rape to the police, he may be blamed instead of the perpetrator and arrested for practicing homosexuality, which is punishable by up to 14 years in prison. However, there have not been any official reports of long imprisonment directed at LGBT persons during the last few years. Although there are few nightclubs in Port Moresby that allow gay and transgender people to have gay nights, for safety reasons, most of the Hanuabada gay population prefer not to leave the village at night, organising parties near their houses instead. Such village parties are popular among local men, who approach gay men for sex. Sometimes teenage boys come to gay men in search of their first sexual experience, since they feel too shy to approach girls. PNG men dont classify these encounters as homosexual in nature; for them, being gay is much more about a man playing a womans role in society. You can link to the full photo-essay and a multimedia presentation here CHARLES YAPUMI | PNG Loop PAPUA New Guinea will not support the current Pacific agreement on closer economic relations agreement (PACER Plus), says its trade minister Richard Maru. PNG and Fiji, which have the two biggest economies in the Pacific apart from Australia and New Zealand, are against the trade agreement. According to the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, PACER Plus negotiations offer an opportunity to help Pacific Islands Forum countries benefit from enhanced regional trade and economic integration. The agreement was introduced by Australia and New Zealand at a Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting in 2009. But Mr Maru is not keen. Warning: May contain traces of soy, wheat, lecithin and tree nuts. That you are here strongly suggests that you are either omnivorous, or a glutton. And that you might like cheese-doodles. Please form a caseophilic line to the right. Thank you. AUBURN | Hours before Sam Roberts, a former Syracuse-area assemblyman and current commissioner of the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, visited the city to present Gov. Andrew Cuomo's plans for this year, there was a water main break in the downtown area. It isn't the first. It won't be the last. Cuomo, as Roberts explained, is aiming to address at least some of the state's aging water infrastructure. The governor is proposing an investment of $250 million for drinking water and wastewater infrastructure projects, mostly in upstate areas. For bridge and road repairs, Cuomo wants $22 billion over five years. This funding would benefit upstate communities, including Auburn and Cayuga County. Auburn City Councilor Debby McCormick said, right now, the city is putting Band-Aids on its aging infrastructure. "We really need to invest," she said. For Cayuga County Legislature Chairman Keith Batman also views the increased focus on infrastructure as a positive development for the region. He singled out the broadband portion of Cuomo's plan, which will provide $500 million in state funding to expand high-speed Internet access to underserved or unserved areas. The state has already issued a request for proposals as a first step in its goal to provide broadband access to every New Yorker by 2018. "That's going to be a great help," Batman said. "Again, it's an infrastructure issue. It's a huge economic driver for rural communities like ours." Roberts touted other upstate investments, including a proposed $200 million to make improvements at five airports Syracuse Hancock International Airport is eligible for the funding and $25 million for 10 cities to combat poverty. He also mentioned some of Cuomo's big ticket items, including raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and providing 12 weeks of paid leave to workers. "It's a great budget for upstate," Roberts said. The series centers on Steven Avery, a Manitowoc County, Wisconsin man released from prison in 2003 after a wrongful conviction for murder and sexual assault. Two years later, he's arrested once again, this time for the murder of photographer Teresa Halbach. That trial and its questionable prosecution by the state of Wisconsin comprises the majority of the series. One of the newest tenants at Fingerlakes Mall is no stranger to the Aurelius shopping center. Indeed, Mark Soper said he has brought baked goods and treats to several mall community events over the years through his business, Bradford Heights Delights. The Auburn bakery sells cakes, breads, brownies and other goods. Bradford Heights Delights returned to the mall this past November for a month-long stay, appealing to holiday shoppers with pastries and cookies, among other wares, from Black Friday until two days before Christmas. The holiday experience went well for Bradford Heights, Soper said. Hoping to replicate his success, the bakery has claimed a mall spot for what Soper hopes will be a long haul. "If there's any indication that my Christmas sales are what I'm going to have year-round, then it's definitely going to be taking off for me," he said. Soper started Bradford Heights in 2004, working out of his home on Bradford Street in Auburn. He is a participant in Auburn's annual farmers market, from which his business has grown and currently provides custom cake and catering services. An opportunity for a storefront appeared with a new small business initiative from the Fingerlakes Mall, Soper said. He said he worked with Vin Gleason, the mall's marketing manager, to bring Bradford Heights Delights to Aurelius for a year-long lease with a reduced rent rate. "I've had the experience down there and I know what kind of support I've gotten from the customers at the mall," Soper said. "I didn't really hesitate when Vin made the offer." Soper said the bakery has moved into the spot of the former Bath & Body Works, next to Subway. Bradford Heights Delights celebrated its grand opening Thursday and its new storefront will be open three days a week Thursdays through Saturdays to start. Along with its own baked goods, Bradford Heights Delights offers goods from other participating businesses in the Auburn farmers market, which Soper has helped manage. He said these items include maple syrup, herbs, spices, coffee and extracts, among others. Soper said his family helps him with the business, and his two college-age children will hold down the fort at the Fingerlakes Mall location once farmers market season returns. The goal is to open seven days per week, but Soper said he will have to decide whether to hire more staff to do so. In the meantime, Soper is hopeful that Bradford Heights Delights can pick up west-end Auburn customers that used to frequent Rose Bakery, which closed this past Christmas after more than 100 years in business. "It's gonna be an opportunity for me to build my business up," he said. As highlighted in a Dec. 23 Citizen article by Carrie Chantler, the New York State DEC issued its two draft general permits for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) (www.dec.ny.gov/permits/6285.html). The public is invited to comment on these by Feb. 7. The new permits are scheduled to be in effect July 1. The Owasco Watershed Lake Association would like to share its position on certain portions of these newly proposed permits. As many readers know, OWLA is a citizen-based association that promotes cooperation and leadership in the comprehensive management of land use, water quality, recreation, agriculture and a host of other issues as they pertain to Owasco Lake and its 203-square-mile watershed (third largest in the Finger Lakes). We want to stress our commitment to cooperation with all stakeholders in protecting, preserving and restoring the water quality of Owasco Lake. Since these revised permits are designed, to quote acting DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos, to effectively protect the environment, the OWLA leadership believes certain terms and provisions in these permits need to be more exactly defined. This will allow less ambiguity for both the DEC and the agricultural community in implementing the requirements of these permits. Each CAFO (there are 23 in Cayuga County), must develop a CNMP designed specifically for its use, which must comply with the guidelines of the permits. A CAFOs ability to operate efficiently and environmentally responsibly will be enhanced under more specific and less ambiguous rules. 1. Most importantly, OWLA recommends that the new permit process contain a method for all Certified Nutrient Management Plans to be monitored with clearly defined measurable water quality metrics and outcomes compliant with the Federal Clean Water Act. This would provide a mechanism for defining the success or failure of the nutrient balance and application schedules for fertilizer and manure within the CNMP. 2. Spreading manure on frozen or saturated ground should be prohibited and the new permits need to clearly define these terms. The ambiguity in the proposed permits is a disservice to all parties, especially the agricultural community. 3. There is no provision proposed for any independent third party review of a CNMP. OWLA proposes that New York state provide resources for this review in such a way that increases the assurance of compliance. 4. Currently, copies of a CNMP are maintained only by the farm and by the CNMP planner. In the interest of transparency, OWLA proposes an additional copy be made available to authorized reviewers through secure informational technology mechanisms. Proprietary business information, if any, can be minimally redacted. 5. The proposed permits state that the overflow of manure is a violation if it is discharged into the surface waters of the state. This includes all ditches where they intersect these surface waters." OWLA advocates water quality testing at these intersections. 6. The permits require CAFO operators to notify DEC if they increase their herds by 20 percent. It is OWLAs position that 20-percent growth is too significant to go unreported. OWLA advocates a smaller 5-percent limit. OWLA shares with agriculture, the dual goals of increasing sustainability and protecting the regions water resources. The new permits must make these goals inseparable. The Cayuga County Water Quality Management Agency is sending a list of similar opinions to the Legislature for its consideration and endorsement. OWLA respectfully requests the same endorsement from the Auburn City Council, the Owasco Lake Watershed Management Council and the agricultural business community. AUBURN | Speaking before Cayuga County-area elected officials, labor representatives and emergency responders, the two men introduced themselves. They were James Breuer, president of the Syracuse-based Hueber-Breuer Construction Co., and Auburn developer Joseph Bartolotta of the R&M Real Estate Group. With William Gilberti Jr., chief executive officer of Gilberti Stinziano Heintz & Smith, P.C., the three are the principals of First Response Developers, LLC. The corporation has formulated the recommended development proposal for the city of Auburn's plans to lease a complex constructed for public safety agencies in the county. Developers spoke before the Auburn City Council Thursday during a presentation of early project details. Gilberti wasn't present for the discussion. Breuer said First Response Developers initially presented about five locations for the endeavor, though did not specify what those were. Eying a private-public partnership, city officials are looking to task the developers with project construction after negotiating a long-term lease agreement. Members of the Auburn City Council will be asked at their meeting next week to authorize lease negotiations with First Response Developers. Officials said those could be finalized, along with other project details, toward April while an estimated two-year construction period could begin as early as late summer. The idea was conceived as both a means to replace Auburn's current fire and police station a nearly 85-year-old facility as well as a method of governmental collaboration in a downtown-area location. "As an aside, my compliments to the police department and the fire department for the facilities that they're working under," Breuer said. "It's just amazing as we see other facilities that are out there and the working conditions others are working with." Preliminary plans call for two neighboring structures to house the city's public safety departments, Auburn City Court, Cayuga County Probation Department, Cayuga County Emergency Management Office and 911 services. County officials have yet to formally commit to the project, however. Christina Selvek, the city's director of capital projects and grants, said recommended floor space for the county's services was drafted through a needs assessment, but only city programs are committed to the project thus far. "The facility maybe gets a little smaller (if the county doesn't participate) or, like we said, we had offered to talk to the Department of Corrections," she said. "Maybe we can have the opportunity to re-engage them." Members of the county Legislature's Judicial & Public Safety Committee were among other county representatives to attend Thursday's session, as were Administrator Suzanne Sinclair, Sheriff David Gould and Legislature Chairman Keith Batman. The Judicial & Public Safety Committee met for their own meeting Thursday on Auburn City Hall's third floor. Jay DeWispelaere, director of the county probation department, then explained how his office is at "maximum capacity." The probation department has 15 employees with only 1,400 square feet of office space, according to Selvek. "The long and the short of it is, we have absolutely no place to put new staff given our current limitations," DeWispelaere said. "Currently, I'm turning down people who would like to come serve as interns." Selvek said county representatives would need to commit by around April when project details are further finalized. A cost has not been identified; city officials said the city received four project proposals with cost estimates ranging between $22 million and $28 million. Along with exploring outside funding, city officials plan to limit leasing expenses by giving developers the current police and fire station as credit against future payments. In undertaking the design of the collaborative complex, developers were required to also propose a method to reuse the aging structure, which officials have deemed obsolete as a public safety facility. Representatives from the Auburn police and fire departments spoke Thursday to the condition of their respective stations. Fire Chief Jeff Dygert said the fire department has little room for community space and is not compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act due to a lack of an elevator. Additionally, the garage has historically struggled to bear the weight and size of new-age fire apparatuses, he said. Lt. Shawn Butler said the police station also has ADA compliance issues. Beyond those and a crumbling infrastructure, Butler said the station's main lobby funnels foot traffic through the police department, be it the public, victims, witnesses or suspects which, he said, can lead to tense situations. "I am stressing this is not a want for the police department," Butler said. "This is something that we need, not only for ourselves police and fire but the community that we serve." Staff writer Gwendolyn Craig contributed to this report. The word African specifically relates to the indigenous people of the African continent and their descents in the Diaspora ( Caribbean , Americas , Arabia , etc). The race-nationality model such as that currently employed by African-American, African-Brazilian and African-Caribbean communities more accurately describes the identity whilst fully articulating the history and geopolitical reality The miscellaneous usage of the label 'Black' within this site reflects its contemporary use as a means to denote a specific sociocultural and political context. It is recognized as a colloquial term that was fashioned as a reactionary concept to derogatory racial epithets in the 1960's. It is offensive when used as a racial classification code word to denote African people. Other such denigrating terminology when made in reference to African culture, heritage or identity are 'Tribe', 'Sub-Saharan Africa', or 'black Africa '. WASHINGTON | The real surprise about the New Year's Eve riots targeting German women, now definitely attributed to Middle Eastern and North African immigrants, is why there should have been any surprise at all. Yet for days, everyone on the scene was amazed. And worse, they were silent, even though the police released a report about a chaotic and shameful evening in which women were forced to "run a 'gauntlet' through masses of heavily intoxicated men that words cannot describe." The police in Cologne did not even mention the assaults for days until the press did and so many women came forward. Later reports added that the police had not called for backup. Still later reports had the innocents-at-home asking in Germany, had men who came to Europe supposedly for refuge attacked hundreds of women in front of the exquisite Cathedral of Cologne, the greatest insult possible? Then, little by little, it began to dawn on people at the dawn of the New Year and perhaps also the dawn of a new European age that their assumption that Middle Eastern men would act just like European men was what was fatally flawed. Even as the mayor of Cologne was advising women to keep "an arm's length" from men, other voices were more appropriately worried. The right-wing Alternative for Germany party blamed Chancellor Angela Merkel's liberal "multicultural" policies for the assaults, declaring on its website that the "violence of New Year's Eve was the first result of a dangerous mix of uncontrolled immigration, inexcusable failure of government and political interference." And Mina Ahadi, head of a campaign group, the Central Council of Ex-Muslims, spoke of the "problem" radicalized Arab and other Muslim men often have with women. "For them, women are dirty," she was quoted in the Financial Times. "They are sex objects to be enjoyed in the home and allowed outside only in the burka and in the company of a man." I have covered the Middle East in long visits since 1969. I find it fascinating, and often, emotionally engaging. But one of the first things a correspondent learns is, "Don't get in the middle of an Arab crowd." The advice was sound. Recall, please, the case of Lara Logan, a beautiful and respected CBS foreign correspondent, who was sent to Cairo in February 2011 to cover the first blossoming of the Arab Spring, where 100,000 or so people jammed Tahrir Square. Although Lara had taken every precaution, she soon lost her guards and fellow journalists as the celebrators of "liberation" turned to murder. First her clothes were torn off her, her panties ripped into ribbons; then they were "raping me with their hands" and smashing her muscles, as she later testified in a "60 Minutes" interview. After about half an hour, Lara was helped to escape the horrors of "Liberation Square," but only through the intercession of black-robed Egyptian women. She was in the hospital at home for days and still suffers from the grotesque attacks. And Egyptians, in everyday life, are the sweetest and kindest of the Arabs. While the Syrians have always had a reputation similar to the Iraqis, whose demographic history they share, as a clever, but cruel population always ruled by a dictator. In allowing into their country this mixed bag of Syrians, Iraqis, Nigerians, Eritreans and Arabs of all stripes the Germans obviously did not understand that this sort of attack happens regularly across the Arab world. Even more interesting, it now turns out that they have already occurred in Denmark, Sweden and other European countries with Middle Eastern immigrants, not to speak of Stuttgart, Hamburg and Berlin for that selfsame New Year's Eve "celebration." Giving form to the fantasies of multiculturalism is the idea that all men (and supposedly, all women) are alike. Culture? Oh, that will fall off! Historical memories? What are those compared to our noble intentions? Experience? Heck, maybe those men in Cologne had headaches when they went out this New Year's, or they were going to the cathedral to understand Christianity better! Europe this New Year's thus began what is surely going to be a long journey into remaining Germans, French and English, or becoming, and in the not-too-distant future, a mishmash of peoples whose values and virtues are simply to be stomped upon by foreigners with their own agendas. SKANEATELES | At least seven village of Skaneateles property owners sent word to the village Board of Trustees that they will stop operating illegal short-term rentals as part of the village's efforts to stamp out the activities. During Thursday's village board meeting, Village Attorney Mike Byrne said Brody Smith, the village's special counsel for code enforcement, sent 27 cease-and-desist letters to owners of illegal short-term rentals following the Jan. 6 operations meeting in which the board hired two part-time deputy zoning inspectors. Smith, Code Enforcement Officer John Cromp and the inspectors Patty Carroll and Beth O'Sullivan met Jan. 11 and reported that they heard from seven of those people that said they would close their short-term rentals. "They indicated they were going to comply and not engage in rentals," Byrne said. "The enforcement will continue daily as needed." Byrne said the group plans to meet every two weeks, meaning it should meet again Monday, Jan. 25 and should provide a report in time for the village board's regular meeting the following night. "I don't expect this is gong to be resolved in a matter of months," he said. "This is going to take some time, but we are beginning to see some progress." MEETING NOTES After architect Bob Eggleston reported that a landlord-tenant dispute regarding renovations at Basin Associates' 18 W. Genesee St. property, Byrne said he felt the plans met the critical impact requirements and the board subsequently approved the property's critical impact permit. Two representatives from the Heroin Epidemic Action League expressed interest in hosting a rally and display in the village, and the board suggested the Skaneateles YMCA and Community Center as the site for the rally and other locations for the group's static display. Director of Municipal Operations Shannon Harty reported that two village residents put together a sidewalk inventory to help the village develop a sidewalk program for improvements slated for later this year. Cromp reported that he tallied five vacant properties in the village, only one of which on Griffin Street needs to be marked so that firefighters know not to enter the structure in the event of a fire there. The board scheduled a public hearing for 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 25 to consider a local law to create a parking and guest services trust fund and discussed possible revisions to the draft legislation in the meantime. Skaneateles Village Police Lt. Dan Coon advised residents to call 911 immediately in the event of an emergency or even non-emergency concern, noting that some residents call the police station the next day and officers cannot do anything about the issue at that point. Walmart and Sams Club are staying in Flagstaff for now. Walmart announced this morning that it was closing 154 locations in the U.S. and 115 stores outside of the U.S. A list of the stores was published around 10 a.m. The list includes Walmart Express, Walmart, Supercenters, Neighborhood Markets and Sams Clubs in just about every state in the U.S., except Arizona. Most of the stores are expected to close on Jan. 28, with a handful expected to close on Jan. 17. Walmart will also close 115 stores outside of the U.S. including 60 in Brazil. The company said in a press release that it will start focusing on its Supercenters and growing its e-commerce business. The company plans to open 50 to 60 Supercenters, 85 to 95 Neighborhood Markets and seven to 10 Sams Clubs in the U.S. starting Feb. 1. It also plans to add 200 to 240 new stores internationally in the new year. Walmart estimates that 16,000 employees will be effected by the store closures, with about 10,000 of those employees coming from U.S. stores. The company said it plans to help those employees find new jobs at other local Walmarts. If that isnt possible the Walmart said it will give employees 60 days pay and, if eligible, resume and interview training. It should have been a good year for turning wood and waste into electrons. A record-setting drought forced California growers to bulldoze thousands of acres of trees, and hardly anyone in the states Central Valley has permission to light bonfires anymore. But more than trees have withered in Californias sun. The states biomass energy plants are folding in rapid succession, unable to compete with heavily subsidized solar farms, many of which have sprouted up amid the fields and orchards of the valley. Paul Parreira is painfully aware of the irony. The third-generation grower and almond processor is running out of dirt roads where he can spread ground-up almond shells, even as he expands a one-megawatt solar array on six acres of his familys property. The waste-to-energy facilities where Parreira used to send about 50,000 tons of shells per year are vanishing. Six have closed in just two years, the latest in Delano, which shut down last month, after San Diego Gas & Electric ended its power purchase agreement. Twenty-five people were laid off, and 19 will remain to complete closure of the plant, said Dennis Serpa, fuels manager of the 50-megawatt plant, owned and operated by Covanta. The Rio Bravo biomass facility south of Fresno is taking some of the fuel that would have gone to Delano. But short of a miracle, the 25-megawatt plant run by IHI Power Services Corp. will burn its last wood chips in July, when its power purchase agreement with Pacific Gas & Electric Co. expires. The Sacramento Municipal Utility District, meanwhile, is locked in a dispute with the 18-megawatt Buena Vista biomass facility in Ione, and has threatened to terminate its contract, according to district spokesman Christopher Capra. The closures have forced the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District to consider allowing more agricultural waste to be burned in open piles, which produces particulate matter and ozone-forming compounds associated with cardiovascular illnesses. Air quality already is notoriously bad throughout the district four of the five dirtiest metropolitan areas, based on ozone and particulate measures, are in the valley, according to the American Lung Association. Based only on measures of particulate matter, the Fresno-Madera area was the worst in the nation, followed by Bakersfield, Visalia-Porterville-Hanford, and Modesto-Merced. A policy change on open burning would require extensive public hearings. But the district may have little choice. Do not underestimate the fact that state law requires that if farmers do not have an economically feasible alternative, the district is prohibited from banning the open burning of those materials, Executive Director Seyed Sadredin cautioned the districts governing board at its November monthly meeting. We have 11 farmers right now that are risking the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars if they do not find a way to dispose of that material. No one expects a wholesale return to bonfires wafting smoke across the Central Valley. But without the revenue from selling farm waste to the biomass plants, the costs of clearing agricultural debris are expected to skyrocket. Its going to triple the cost to farmers, said Frank Sanchez, who owns a tree-grinding service that is one of the top customers at Rio Bravo. Theyre going to be paying about $1,000 to $1,200 an acre just to do the same work that you were doing before for about $300 an acre. Sanchez pared his profit margin to zero in October, hoping to keep his clients until the market improves. If it doesnt, hell lay off as many as 30 workers from his Wasco-based company. Tejon Ranch, one of his clients, knocked down 160 acres of almond trees in 2015. But the debris will stay on the farm. For 160 acres, youre looking at 200 or so truckloads, said Trey Irwin, vice president of agriculture for Tejon, a conservancy that has a strict no-burn policy. Its pretty hard to find a home for 200 truckloads. Life isnt fair. That universal truth is something that children seem to understand almost intuitively at a young age, but the path through which they develop a sense of whats fair and what isnt and how they act on injustices is something that has been a puzzle for social scientists. Fairness, a willingness to sacrifice for the sake of greater quality, is an ideal that supports cooperation, resource sharing and sacrifice. But it also can lead to competition and greed. It is often talked about as the basis of human civilization, and it affects every aspect of our lives. As the gap between the worlds top 1 percent and the rest has increased to historic highs in recent years, fairness in material payoffs or inequality has become one of the most important issues of our time. In an effort to understand how much of this concept is hard-wired into our biology and how much of it is cultural, a team of psychologists and anthropologists led by Harvard University professor Felix Warneken traveled to seven countries to study how different groups of children play fair. Their work, which was published in the journal Nature, was focused on the childrens reaction to two types of scenarios that are unfair. The first, disadvantageous inequity, occurs when one receives less than a peer. The second, advantageous inequity, happens when one receives more than a peer. The theory has been that these are two distinct concepts that emerge at different ages and use different parts of the brain. But little has been known about environmental influences until this study. Both are believed to be part of the glue that holds societies together. An aversion to disadvantageous inequity can provide long-term benefits by preventing competitors from attaining a relative advantage and signaling that one will not tolerate being exploited, Warneken, a social sciences professor, and his co-authors wrote. Advantageous inequity aversion entails a larger immediate sacrifice by rejecting a relative advantage. It may signal that one is a good cooperative partner who will not exploit others. Previous studies have found that a distaste for disadvantageous inequity develops in children by the time they are 4. Advantageous inequity aversion, on the other hand, doesnt appear until closer to 8. That seems to indicate the influence of social norms. UNIVERSAL VS. CULTURAL The new study, believed to be the first to look at inequity aversion across societies in children, was seeking to find out more about which aspects of fairness might be universal and which might be culturally driven. To that end, the researchers designed an inequity game that they used to test 866 pairs of children ages 4 to 15 in Canada, India, Mexico, Peru, Senegal, Uganda and the United States. Co-author Peter Blake, an assistant professor of psychology at Boston University, explained that the experiment was specifically designed to see how children would respond to two sides of inequality and how they made decisions that affected both themselves and a peer. The rules were simple: Two children of the same gender and similar age were seated across from each other and were offered some Skittles candy. Sometimes the allocations were equal and sometimes they were not. One of the two children got to decide whether both of them accepted the allocation or rejected it. The experiment was set up to work through a machine that required the child to pull on one handle to accept the deal resulting in the candy being poured into a bowl for each child and a different handle to reject it dumping the sweets into a third bowl where neither one would get to eat it. In all seven societies which ranged from small villages with a subsistence economy to large industrialized cities the results indicated a rejection of disadvantageous inequity. That is, when the children were allocated less candy than their peers, they tended to route all the treats into the bowl that no one could access. That was expected. This seems to be a basic human response to getting less than someone else, said study co-author Katherine McAuliffe, an assistant professor at Boston College. Whether they were rejecting the candy out of frustration or meanness, the children were motivated to deprive others of an advantage, she said. EMPHASIS ON EQUALITY The reactions to advantageous inequity were more mixed. Children in only three countries the United States, Canada and Uganda had a tendency to reject unequal distributions of candy when they got more than their peers. In these societies, rejections of advantageous allocations increased with age. Given that Western societies tend to emphasize establishing and enforcing norms of equality, it is possible that children in these communities face social pressures to internalize and enact these norms earlier in development compared to other societies, the researchers wrote, noting that although Uganda is a non-Western society, the schools they recruited their subjects from tended to have Western teachers. Blake said the differing results on the two types of inequality show that different psychological processes may be at work depending on whether someone is at an advantage or disadvantage. The first text came not long after Jonathan Nichols got his new phone. Check this guy out, it said, with a link to a YouTube video of a guy making beats out of a synthesizer. It was good, Nichols thought, but couldnt have been meant for him. He was a law student at Seattle University who had just switched to a local number to prepare for the job search ahead. Thats pretty cool, Nichols, 33, texted back. But you clearly have the wrong number. Then he started getting phone calls from luxury-car dealerships Ferrari, Lamborghini, Jaguar all asking if a Mr. Anthony Ray would like to come out to the dealership and take one or two of their cars for a spin. Id love to, Nichols would tell the very polite salespeople. But I think you have the wrong guy. Im a broke law student. Then he started getting pictures of women in bikinis in various states of raunchy repose. So many that Nichols told the sender, You need to stop. Finally came the day in August when Nichols was at a softball tournament and his phone started blowing up off the hook. Photos of women with lips pursed. Texts that said Love you, and Happy Birthday. A photo of a bottle of Big Bottom whiskey. More women. More lips and kisses. And one telltale reference to the 1992 rap hit Baby Got Back. No way, Nichols thought. After the tournament, he and his friends Googled Seattle hip-hop legend Sir Mix-A-Lot. His real name? Anthony Ray. His birthday? Aug. 12. That very day. Thats when it all made sense, Nichols, 33, said one recent afternoon. The phone number he had picked out at the Verizon store just because it was easy to remember had a previous owner no one could forget: Sir Mix-A-Lot, the man behind Baby Got Back, Posse on Broadway and founder of Rhyme Cartel Records. Are you serious? Mix said when I called him on his new number to tell him about Nichols. That is hilarious. Poor fella. He was down in Las Vegas at the International Consumer Electronics Show. A single guy with no kids in Vegas. Sounds fun. Ah, its a sausagefest, he said, clearly disappointed. What would he have told Nichols before the technological torch was passed? Dont check any text messages in front of your wife, Mix advised. That would be the first thing. And dont answer any texts by saying Yes, because people take Yes differently with me. And usually you end up opening your wallet. Like with the car dealerships. Thats why Im telling him, Dont say yes. Nichols, a public-interest attorney with Moriarty and Associates who lives in Magnolia, has been tracking his adventures in Mix-land on his Facebook page. Friends have suggested he start a blog with a sampling of the texts: Hi Ray (Minista) pls info if u attending freestyle explosion and locale details. Thanks in advance. Nichols didnt respond, then got another text: O.K. silence got it brush. Another: What up bro this is SupaSam. Im having a morning show in-studio Christmas party. I need you to come through! There have also been offers for free concert tickets and visits backstage, which Nichols has found tempting. Why not just show up at the appointed place at the appointed time and see what happens? Nichols has saved only one voice message, from a woman with a New Jersey area code. He found it on his phone and handed it to me for a listen. This used to be Sir Mix-A-Lot, a woman says with a smile in her voice. You get someone calling you talking about they be Snoop Dogg, they really are. Lucky you. Nichols got the new number so he would be local when he started looking for a job. But it turned out to be a secret weapon, a way to stand out and be cool by pure coincidence. When interviewers have asked me, Whats something interesting that no one else knows? or when people I meet working political campaigns tell me about meeting Bill Clinton, I always say, I have Sir Mix-A-Lots old phone number. Its a total mic drop. And one that comes with one very specific responsibility, according to the previous owner. Tell him any really sexy pictures little in the middle, and if shes got much back give them the new number, Mix said with a laugh, then paused. But not the car dealerships. PHOENIX -- Calling evidence against her "insufficient,'' the state Attorney General's Office is dropping its criminal probe into now-resigned utility regulator Susan Bitter Smith. In a letter to her lawyers, two of the top state attorneys said they were closing the investigation "at this time.'' "We have reached the conclusion that there is insufficient evidence to warrant a criminal prosecution,'' wrote Donald Conrad, chief of the criminal division of the Attorney General's Office and Paul Ahler, who heads the Fraud and Special Prosecution Section. The decision is no real surprise. Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who pursued Bitter Smith into resigning from the Arizona Corporation Commission over what he said were conflicts of interest, has consistently said that the laws over whether she can serve in office are vastly different than the state's criminal code. Specifically, he has cited the "rule of lenity.'' That, in essence, says when reasonable minds can differ about whether certain behavior is criminal, courts -- and prosecutors -- will give the benefit of the doubt to the person charged. And there's something else different: To gain a criminal conviction, a judge or jury must believe "beyond a reasonable doubt'' that the person broke the law. Civil matters, by contrast, generally turn on a "preponderance of the evidence'' standard, meaning whether it is more or less likely that the person committed the act. There's also something else that Brnovich said binds him in all cases. "Ethically, if there's no reasonable likelihood of conviction, you don't move forward,'' he said. Attorney Tom Ryan, who had brought thousands of pages of evidence about Bitter Smith's activities to Brnovich, said he is not disappointed that criminal charges are not being pursued. "I am satisfied that she is out of office,'' he said. How busy was Flagstaff last weekend with snowplayers? Five Points Mobile on South Milton sold 150 sleds and Interstate Shell up the road 12 dozen. And that wasnt even a holiday weekend. This coming 3-day weekend, ADOT spokesman Steve Elliott is putting it succinctly: Be ready for a line. Elliott is warning travelers to prepare for heavy snowplay traffic and long delays heading into and out of the winter recreation areas along U.S. Highway 180 north of Flagstaff. Traffic reportedly backed up five miles or more last Saturday coming south in late afternoon, and trips that normally took a half-hour required two hours. Flagstaff has already experienced heavy tourism traffic along South Milton Road, Humphreys Street, Fort Valley Road and Highway 180 for most of the weekends since Christmas, and this one is shaping up to be more of the same. Elliott said the longest delays for motorists on Highway 180 will likely start as popular snowplay areas close between 4 and 4:30 p.m. People should consider leaving early, Elliott said. Local law enforcement agencies have plans to mitigate traffic congestion. As in the past, the Flagstaff Police Department will position officers along Fort Valley Road at Forest Avenue to direct drivers to alternate routes out of town. When the traffic gets backed up on (Highway) 180, well direct it up an overflow route on Forest Avenue, said FPD Sgt. Margaret Bentzen. From there, vehicles can be directed onto North Humphreys Street or diverted to the East Butler Avenue onramp for Interstate 40 via Beaver Street, North Switzer Canyon Drive or, in a pinch, Fourth Street. ADOT has put out signage directing people from Fort Valley Road to Butler Avenue as an alternate way to get onto I-40 and then Interstate 17. Hopefully, we can keep some of the pressure off Milton Road and get them up through that alternate route, Elliott said. As it has done for the past several weekends, ADOT will implement special snowplay traffic signal timing along South Milton Road from Saturday to Monday. The Coconino County Sheriffs Office will send an officer to the intersection of Highway 180 and Snowbowl Road to help Snowbowl vehicles turn onto the highway. Deputies will also be on the lookout for drivers parking along the roadway, which could pose a danger to themselves, other drivers and emergency vehicles. Please dont stop along Highway 180 to play in the snow, Elliot said. Park in the designated area. Its important for your safety. FPD officers will watch for similar parking violations within city limits, including those near businesses or on the edges of the Northern Arizona University campus. Its tough because there are lots of places in the city where (tourists) go for snowplay, Bentzen said. Were interested in keeping things safe. Are they pulled over safely? Are they creating an obstacle in the roadway? Are there kids darting in and out of the road? Those are the things well be looking for. She added that the Police Department will enforce the no trespassing signs posted at businesses near snowy hills. Snowbowl is again sponsoring special shuttle bus runs on Saturday and Sunday between downtown Flagstaff and Hart Prairie Lodge, with a stop at the base of Snowbowl Road. Mountain Express buses leave the Phoenix Avenue transit hub at 7:30, 8 and 11:30 a.m. and at 2 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. For a complete schedule, visit the Mountain Express website. ADOT is encouraging snowplay visitors to allow extra travel time and prepare for an extended period in freezing weather by bringing a fully charged cell phone, a full tank of gas, extra drinking water, and warm coast and blankets. It is also reminding all drivers to give snowplows plenty of room. Vehicles should never pass a plow that is clearing a road and should stay at least four car lengths behind it at all times. For more information on preparing for travel in snow country, visit azdot.gov/knowsnow. Updates on traffic conditions can be found at az511.gov or by calling 511. Sex offender notification The Coconino County Sheriffs Office would like to make the following Level 2 (intermediate risk to the community) sex offender notification: Blake Lomayma, 33, is living at 2451 Hano Trail in Kachina Village. Lomayma was convicted in 2005 of attempted sexual assault. He is not wanted by police at this time. Notification that Level 2 and Level 3 sex offenders are living in the community is required by Arizona law. Resident abuse of this information to threaten, intimidate or harass sex offenders will not be tolerated by the Coconino County Sheriffs Office. If residents have information about current criminal activity by any offender, contact the sheriffs office at (928) 774-4523 or visit www.coconino.az.gov/sheriff. For more information on sex offenders in the Flagstaff area, visit the Arizona Department of Public Safety sex offender website at www.azsexoffender.com. City and county residents who want to report a crime but wish to remain anonymous may call Silent Witness at 774-6111 or (877) 29-CRIME. Rewards of up to $2,000 are given for information that leads to an arrest. Sex offender notification Detectives with the Flagstaff Police Department would like to make the following Level 2 (intermediate risk to the community) sex offender notification: Charles Jackson, 37, is living at 4185 E. Huntington Drive in Flagstaff. Jackson was convicted of third-degree rape in 2001 in Snohomish County, Wash. The victim was an adult female living at a family group home where Jackson was employed. He is not wanted by police at this time. Notification that Level 2 and Level 3 sex offenders are living in the community is required by Arizona law. Resident abuse of this information to threaten, intimidate or harass sex offenders will not be tolerated by the police department. If residents have information about current criminal activity by any offender, contact the police department at 774-1414. For more information on sex offenders in the Flagstaff area, visit the Arizona Department of Public Safety sex offender website at www.azsexoffender.com. City and county residents who want to report a crime but wish to remain anonymous may call Silent Witness at 774-6111 or (877) 29-CRIME, submit a tip online at www.coconinosilentwitness.org, or text the word Flagtip along with your information to 274637 (CRIMES). Rewards of up to $2,000 are given for information that leads to an arrest. News Story not available This story has been published on: 2022-10-19. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. This story is no longer available on our site. About Me Bagsy Born Beeston, Notts 1946, my family moved to Dorset 1959. Joined the Royal Navy age 15 years and 50 days serving 10 years. In frigates firstly then over 5 years in the Submarine Service as a Seaman/Diver, reaching the dizzy heights of Leading Seaman, before leaving to join the Merchant Service, working in Ocean Salvage and Harbour Tugs, passenger / cargo ships, trials vessels, etc. Qualified as Mate (Chief Officer) in 1976 and as Master (Captain) in 1978. For my final 20 years of 47 I worked in the Offshore Oil Industry initially on the drilling rig Stena Hunter, then the accommodation barge Borgland Dolphin and finally the Floating Production Platform Buchan Alpha. On the rigs I forged a number of long lasting friendships several of whom shared some of my extensive travels. Setting foot on Caymen, Bermuda, Bahamas and The Azores in March 2013 brought my countries / autonimous regions total to 148. The best, undoubtedly, was Antarctica, followed by Australia, Mongolia, Belize, Zimbabwe, China and Madagascar, in no particular order. Love to all our readers, your in my thoughts. Bagsy View my complete profile Published by an old curmudgeon who came to America in 1936 as a refugee from Nazi Germany and proudly served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He is a former law enforcement officer and a retired professor of criminal justice who, in 1970, founded the Texas Narcotic Officers Association. BarkGrowlBite refuses to be politically correct. (Copyrighted articles are reproduced in accordance with the copyright laws of the U.S. Code, Title 17, Section 107.) Can banking self-impose and enforce ethical standards for bankers that may in turn help reverse negative public opinions about our industry? Drafting their own honor code, and having each employee and executive pledge annually to follow it in writing, could be a good first step. Adhering to high ethical standards can be challenging in any industry. Ive had my share of ethical dilemmas working as a Louisiana banking lobbyist since 1983. The fact is that everyone has moments in their personal and professional lives where a better path could have been taken. Ethical shortcomings have tarnished the financial services sector, with the most publicized scandals at high-profile institutions on Wall Street prompting Federal Reserve Bank presidents in New York and Richmond, as well as Fed Chair Janet Yellen, to publicly address the need for better culture and ethical standards among certain large institutions. More than seven years after the crisis, the prosecution of illegal behavior arising from the financial crisis has been nearly nonexistent. Since law enforcement is not taking steps to deter bad behavior, we in the industry can better focus on preventing bad behavior in the first place. I believe that high ethical behavior is the norm in community banking as I see it on a daily basis. But public opinion about banks is still fairly negative. When bad behavior gets the attention of Federal Reserve Bank presidents and Janet Yellen it bleeds over to the detriment of all institutions. That raises the stakes for all banks to speak up and promote ethical cultures. In general, banks need to communicate clearly to employees through the board of directors and senior executives that ethical behavior is a high priority. One way to do that is through a "code of ethics" document. I recently came across a cease-and-desist order from the Securities and Exchange Commission involving a banker who had allegedly traded bank stock with insider information. The order included this statement: "Each year he read and signed an acknowledgement of a code of ethics, which, among other things, prohibited the use of confidential inside information for personal gain or benefit." (The SEC order is a public document.) This was the first time I remember seeing a regulator use a banks ethics policy in this manner to highlight unacceptable behavior. It is refreshing and encouraging to see the practical application of a code signed by all of the banks personnel. An ethics code needs to mean something, and this is a good example of what happens when it is violated. For banks, an advantage of developing an ethics code is that, unlike bank regulatory policy that must be adjusted constantly depending on the jurisdiction and interpretation, ethical standards are basically timeless. In fact, the Code of Ethics crafted by community bankers at the 1928 convention of the Louisiana Bankers Association is still relevant today. This code is one of the best summations that I have come across of what community banking is. It expresses values that apply to bankers regardless of the size of the institution. Although the language is somewhat antiquated, the code contains ideals that should be revisited regularly to remind us of the public trust instilled in banks every day. None of us can escape the inevitable ethical dilemma. But having high expectations for your banks culture, and your own ethical behavior, is its own reward. It will also help restore public confidence in this profession. Robert T. Taylor is chief executive of the Louisiana Bankers Association. The first Republican candidate elected president was Abraham Lincoln. And Lincoln had to walk through the minefield of immigration politics as gingerly as todays GOP contenders. Lincoln realized he would get few votes from Irish immigrants -- they were welded since Jacksons time to the Democracy, as the Democrats were then known. So Lincoln was very careful not to alienate Americas second largest bloc of immigrant voters -- the Germans. For a time, Lincoln was so concerned to communicate with German-American voters, he even took German lessons. When that effort failed, he aligned with German editors and activists in the new Republican Party. Gustave Koerner was a Lincoln stalwart who helped gain the 1860 nomination for the Railsplitter in Chicagos Wigwam. As essential as the support of Koerner and his fellow German-speakers was to Lincolns nomination, it was also key to Lincolns sweeping the electoral votes of all the Northern states. The South in 1860 -- apart from the Shenandoah Valley and Texas -- had very few German immigrants. What lessons do we see in this history for today? Many writers are seeing the eventual contest in the Republican presidential race coming down to a clash between two Cuban-American senators -- Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas). This is beneficial in one way: Cuban-Americans have a measure of seriousness few of us can match. They know it is possible to lose your country. While liberal columnists deplore Rubio and Cruzs tone on the campaign trail, it is not out of line for the Outs to view with alarm just as the In-party regularly points with pride to the record of the previous four years. This is wholly within our American political tradition. To challenger Barack Obama, George W. Bushs executive actions were a clear and present danger to the Constitution and our freedoms and he said so. If it should come down to Rubio and Cruz, I would vote for Rubio. It is vitally important for the Republicans to win the 2016 election. Rubio fits William F. Buckley, Jr.s axiom of electoral politics: We want the most conservative nominee who can be elected. Rubio maintains a 100% record on the conservative FRCAction voter scorecard. Cruzs score is a still-impressive 92%. Both candidates, therefore, should be broadly acceptable to social conservatives. On national defense and economics, they will both campaign for a stronger U.S. military and a freer market that expands opportunity for the struggling middle class. Ted Cruz has caught a wave of discontent among grassroots who chafe at the dominance of the Republican Establishment. Cruz is an eloquent opponent of the status quo. Rubio has claims, as well, to carry the support of Tea Party adherents. He had to buck virtually the entire GOP establishment in his uphill fight against Gov. Charlie Crist (R) to win his Senate seat. He has not forgotten his outsider appeal. But unlike Cruz, Rubio recognizes the need to unite Republicans. And he will have appeal to blue-collar Democrats, as well. His compelling personal story enables him to compete with the Democratic nominee on that all-important pollsters question: Cares about people like me? Poor Mitt Romney lost out to Obama 81-19 on that crucial question. Cruz is certainly brilliant. If any of us had a family member going to trial and sought an aggressive and ingenious advocate in the courtroom, we would probably choose Cruz. But we cannot discount likeability. George W. Bush doubtless owes his two squeaker elections to things like Al Gores impatient sighs in the 2000 debates and blueblood John Kerrys haughty disdain for his opponent four years later. Ted Cruz has made a point of his willingness to buck the Establishment in Washington. Thats certainly positive. But he has seemingly bucked everyone else, too. There are virtually no endorsements of Cruz from any of his congressional colleagues. He also seems not to know how far to take his criticisms. He called his own Majority Leader a liar on the floor of the U.S. Senate. That conduct used to get a senator censured. Question: If he cannot get along with his own party members, how likely is he to get along with any of the Opposition? Ronald Reagan paired his strong conservative convictions with a personal graciousness. However much liberals savaged him -- and it was often mean and ugly -- he never responded in kind. Thus, we have in Reagan the embodiment of the Happy Warrior. Once, a puzzled journalist asked him why Americans liked him so much. Without hesitation, President Reagan said: Well, I like Americans. His White House aide, Mike Deaver, described him as warm and embraceable like an old pillow. But once you wrap your arms around that pillow, you notice theres a steel rod within. Thats Ronald Reagan. Ted Cruz has mastered the steel rod part, but not the warm and embraceable part. This will matter if hes our nominee -- a lot. It will be very hard for a Republican nominee to make the case for much tighter border security. But we will have an easier time making that case with Marco Rubio than with Ted Cruz -- and Rubio can make the case in persuasive English and Spanish. We have a grave challenge. If we do not secure the border, we cease to be a nation. And we may unwittingly leave a door open to ISIS slaughterers. But if we speak about immigration in a way that turns off millions of legal immigrants already here, we will lose the election. Its that simple. Ted Cruz is trying to compete with Trump for the anti-immigrant vote. If he succeeds, he will lead a party hopelessly branded as the anti-immigrant party. Lincolns record is not unique. Every anti-immigrant party has collapsed in this country. The Federalists. The Whigs. In the 1920s, it was said Franklin Roosevelts Rolodex looked like a Dublin phonebook, he was that friendly with the Irish. And his appeal to immigrant voters propelled him to four electoral victories over the anti-immigrant Republicans. Only immigrant-friendly Ike and Ronald Reagan have been able to overcome the Republican caricature as anti-immigrant. We need to scotch that image. Marco Rubio can do that for us. Robert Morrison is a former Reagan administration official. The people who question whether Ted Cruz is eligible to be president under the Natural Born Citizen clause fall into two categories: the sincere and the opportunists. This essay is for the sincere. Those who sincerely believe Ted Cruz is not a natural born citizen may be fed up with the Constitution being violated by the political class. Fed-up Americans may share my view that the Constitution is Americas supreme, paramount and fundamental law governing government, i.e., the law over government itself. Like me, they may see government as Americas biggest lawbreaker with no close second. Many see themselves as originalists. They dont believe in the theory of a living Constitution malleable to fit notions inconsistent with the perpetual purposes of American government to protect the liberty and security of the people, not just from foreign threats, but from abuse by our own political class, the tyranny of the majority, and of course common lawbreakers outside government but within society. This is an understanding of the rule of law shared by many originalists, even with our individual disagreements about how the Constitution is to be construed in certain instances. At the core of the sincere belief that Ted Cruz is not natural born, it appears, are the words of the great English jurist William Blackstone, whose influence on the Founders was immense. Blackstone, like his great predecessors Edward Coke and Matthew Hale, articulated the common law in various volumes. Their reliance on Magna Carta is eventually reflected in how the Founders wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, with its Bill of Rights. The chain, in reverse chronological development, is that the Constitution was influenced by the common law, which was influenced by natural law. The Constitution was an improvement over the common law, putting into one document designed to tie down and legally bind the government certain notions guaranteeing the separation of powers, federalism, and other structural protections of liberty and security from threats our own government would forever pose because that is the nature of government. Changes to this structure of government, as have occurred unconstitutionally through the courts, the legislature, and the executive branch, are threats to the liberty and security of the people, who are the ultimate sovereigns in our American republic. The common law recognized that laws governing society were capable of evolving, so long as the changes were not inconsistent with natural law and constitutional principles. From natural law we have the concepts of the security and sanctity of life, liberty, and property. Those rights are not granted by government, but instead are to be protected by government since they are inherent as given by God (natures God, hence, natural rights and the basis of natural law). Common law developed through not just acts of the legislature and decisions of the judiciary, but custom (under certain conditions). The great English jurists who articulated important concepts of natural and common law also recognized that acts of the legislature or the King could be unconstitutional if inconsistent with the protections of the liberty and security of the people. The American Constitution improved on that concept, making certain that even our elected officials were bound down by the Constitution through enumerated powers. Thus, we have a rule of law over government more perfect than Magna Carta and the common law. An originalist view of the Constitution recognizes that of course laws governing society may evolve, but that the political class is not free to amend the Constitution without going through the amendment process, and certainly must not violate the Constitution, which is our fundamental and paramount law governing government. Alas, it is frequently violated by Americas biggest lawbreaker. Those who rely on Blackstone for the interpretation of "natural born" as being born on American soil or only to the father when on foreign soil, should know that Blackstone was not construing a dictate of natural law, but was expressing an evolution of the concept of natural born. As Blackstone writes, the interpretation of the father was created by statute, and for inheritance purposes: To encourage also foreign commerce, it was enacted by statute 25 Edw. III. st. 2. that all children born abroad, provided both their parents were at the time of the birth in allegiance to the king, and the mother had passed the seas by her husband's consent, might inherit as if born in England: and accordingly it hath been so adjudged in behalf of merchants. But by several more modern statutes these restrictions are still farther taken off: so that all children, born out of the king's ligeance, whose fathers were natural-born subjects, are now natural-born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes.... Blackstone also recognized that children of the sovereign born on foreign soil were natural born. In America, the sovereign is not the King. With sovereigns inter-marrying with other sovereigns for political purposes, the allegiances of the time had somewhat different realities from today. Note also that Blackstone's interpretation of the law at the time would allow for anchor babies. He writes, "The children of aliens, born here in England, are, generally speaking, natural-born subjects, and entitled to all the privileges of such." The American law of sovereignty and inheritance is obviously different from an 18th Century English interpretation. Blackstones was not a natural law interpretation, nor a hard-and-fast rule for defining natural born that should govern an originalist interpretation. Indeed, the American law of naturalization and citizenship was intended to be left to legislative construct. The Civil War constitutional amendments applied to former slaves, and were an overdue correct application of a natural law flaw in American law, but consistent with the Declaration of Independence. A number of law professors, who probably are not originalists but whose views I believe to be sincere, have indicated that one may not be consistent in claiming to be originalist and insist that Ted Cruz is a natural born American citizen. Originalists should welcome a resurgence of Blackstones views on property rights and other aspects of natural and common law, as those views helped shape Americas organic law over government. However, originalists who understand the flow of natural law, through the common law, and eventually throughout the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution know that American law over government was an improvement over the English law. Ill also say this: Many naturalized citizens have a love and appreciation for and an allegiance to America that is stronger than some disaffected natural born Americans. They, however, are not eligible to be president by the rule of law. Ted Cruzs mother is an American, making him natural born and eligible to be president. His allegiance to America is unquestionable. His appreciation for, and understanding of, the Constitution is more on par with the Founders than many other politicians. Of all the descriptions of President Obamas last State of the Union address, the most apt and succinct that Ive seen comes from Dr. Everett Piper, President of Oklahoma Wesleyan University. He simply called it a delusional denial. Sadly, Obama fits perfectly the definition of a demagogue: someone who appeals to the lowest common denominator of a large segment of the population. Demagogues prey on the emotions of the poor and uninformed; they know how to exploit crises to enhance their own power. In the memorable words of Rahm Emmanuel (at the time he was Obamas first Chief of Staff), "You never let a serious crisis go to waste." James W. Ceaser, Professor of Politics, University of Virginia, described the difference between ordinary politicians and demagogues, While all politicians in a democracy must make occasional small sacrifices of truth, subtlety, or long-term concerns to maintain popular support, demagogues do these things relentlessly and without self-restraint. In trying to shape the historical record his tenure in office (AKA, his legacy) the 2016 SOTU was packed with distortion, misrepresentation, and demagoguery, in the expectation that future students, like todays low-information voters, will look only at his smooth rhetoric rather than jagged reality. Certainly, on the surface, it would be easy to declare the speech a success -- the president sounded good and looked confident; he even cracked jokes. A CNN poll revealed that 53 percent of viewers had a very positive response to the speech, most positive ever. Of course, it is necessary to note that the polled audience was primarily Democrats and Pro-Obama watchers (44%), but even among those viewers nearly half (48%) indicated that President Obamas presidency has fallen short of their expectations. Obama would do well to remember the memorable epigram attributed to Abraham Lincoln: You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. President Obama certainly convinced New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristoff. He tweeted, Fair for @POTUS to brag a bit domestically. Unemployment down by half. Deficits by two-thirds. 18 million have gotten health insurance. Contrast that sugarcoating with the series of nine graphs that made the rounds this Fall indicating that in nine specific areas the presidents policies had had measurable horrific outcomes. Five specific areas showed outrageous increases: Student Loans, Food Stamps, Federal Debt, Money Printing, and Health Insurance Costs. These increases affect everyones well-being in every possible way. Four areas showed dramatic, disastrous economic impact: Labor force participation has declined so much during Obamas seven years in office as to make the decline in unemployment during the flaccid recovery meaningless; Workers Share of Economy and Median Family Income have dropped significantly as did Home Ownership. No amount of glossy delusional demagoguery can obscure the impact of these outcomes for the American citizenry. Hardly anyone, other than the top 1%, is better off than they were in 2008. Certainly not the shrinking middle class. To add insult to injury, the SOTU was full of the in-your-face rhetoric deriding the public for not wholeheartedly swallowing his agenda to fundamentally transform this county that we have had to endure for far too long. He was most passionate about defending the Muslim faith and gay marriage (talk about contradictory!). On the one hand, President Obama claimed that the economy is the best its ever been, then he admits, All these trends have squeezed workers, even when they have jobs; even when the economy is growing. Its made it harder for a hardworking family to pull itself out of poverty, harder for young people to start on their careers, and tougher for workers to retire. His goal has been to cut the cost of college, yet those costs have significantly exceeded the increases in the general cost of living. He praises the Affordable Care Act and claims its working, which flies in the face of the reality that the vast majority of Americans are struggling with as they search for ways to cope with rising costs, decreasing choice and greater obstacles to getting good health care. He bragged about Americas space program -- twelve years ago (glossing over the reality that the program has been gutted). He got into the climate change debacle and the dirty energy controversy. The expressions on the faces of the militarys top brass as he talked about American military strength resoundingly repudiated his lofty rhetoric about the finest fighting force in the history of the world. If it werent so tragic, it would be laughable to hear the president claim that no nation dares to attack us when we are under attack almost daily by terrorist agents in our midst, while Iran had just seized 10 of our sailors. Likewise, his spurious claim of leading a global coalition against terrorism. Once again, he was far more emotionally invested in defending Muslims, saying, When politicians insult Muslims, when a mosque is vandalized, or a kid bullied, that doesnt make us safer. Thats not telling it like it is. Its just wrong. It diminishes us in the eyes of the world. It makes it harder to achieve our goals. And, it betrays who we are as a country. The self-righteousness fairly reeks. His biggest regret, he says, is that rancor and suspicion have become worse during his presidency, BUT its really our fault; he cannot do it alone. Oh no, we have to change our political process!! All would be well, if Americans just wouldnt fall back into tribes, scapegoat fellow citizens who dont look like us, or pray like us, or vote like we do, or share the same background. The man who has created the most division in the nations history, been the most aggressively partisan president ever, and who has tried to destroy the Judeo-Christian heritage on which this nation was founded, urged the rest of us to see ourselves not first as black or white or Asian or Asian or Latino, not as gay or straight, immigrant or native born; not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans first, bound by a common creed. But, in spite of all the ways we have failed in his eyes as American citizens to live up to the presidents goals for us, he concluded his delusional denial of reality with a passionate statement of his unconditional love and belief in us, the people. Thats why he is hopeful about our nations future and confident that the State of our Union is strong. Meh! He is still fooling a lot of folks, liberals and the readership of the New York Times; but mainstream Americans are counting the days until November and desperately longing for change! Is Gasparilla Free? Yes, Gasparilla is a FREE community event with over 100 years of history in Tampa Bay. Can I ride my bike to Gasparilla? The event site is very crowded with pedestrians, including small children, and bicycles are permitted for transportation to the event site, but within the street closure cyclists must walk their bikes. Never leave your bicycle unattended and don't lock it to private or public property. Can I bring my own food and beverages? The event will house more than 100 food, beverage and novelty vendors for your convenience. You are encouraged to support those officially licensed vendors, as their earnings go toward covering production costs of the event. Coolers and glass containers are not permitted because they are prohibited by the City of Tampa ordinance, and they can be dangerous in large crowds. Grills, except for those belonging to official vendors, are also not allowed on event grounds. You are also asked to not use or bring styrofoam cups/containers to the event. Much has been made of Nikki Haleys response to the SOTU and her attack on Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and you and me the angry voices of the conservative movement. Heres part of Governor Haleys speech: The foundation that has made America that last, best hope on earth hasn't gone anywhere. It still exists. It is up to us to return to it. For me, that starts right where it always has: I am the proud daughter of Indian immigrants who reminded my brothers, my sister and me every day how blessed we were to live in this country. Growing up in the rural south, my family didn't look like our neighbors, and we didn't have much. There were times that were tough, but we had each other, and we had the opportunity to do anything, to be anything, as long as we were willing to work for it. My story is really not much different from millions of other Americans. Immigrants have been coming to our shores for generations to live the dream that is America. They wanted better for their children than for themselves. That remains the dream of all of us, and in this country we have seen time and again that that dream is achievable. Conflating illegal immigration with immigration. Sadly, this tonic seems to work on the uninformed. Nobody in the conservative movement has animus for immigrants. We understand that we all came from somewhere. But we, as Nikki Haleys parents, came here legally. Thats where Ms. Haleys speech goes off the rails. The greatness of our nation, and alas the foundation that has made America that last, best hope on earth is not immigration. The foundation is our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, and our Bill of Rights, or more particularly the Rule of Law. Ms. Haley speaks of the opportunity to do anything, to be anything, as long as we were willing to work for it. Are there not people who work hard in other countries? Did her parents not work hard in India? You see, it is not coming here and working hard. It is the protections that one has, that ones work can result in opportunity. This opportunity exists, though, only if said protections exist. If we abandon said protections (and the personal responsibility that comes along with them), then we are left with rules of men and not the rule of law. I understand that Republican political operatives desire to appeal to immigrants. Heres an idea stand for what our ancestors stood for. Stop trying to frame a messaging campaign around what you think disparate groups want to hear. We are the greatest nation on the planet not because of our military might. We are exceptional exceptional in that we still adhere to the principles of our Founding. Or do we? In response to Iran's capture and humiliation of innocent American sailors, John Kerry stated, "I want to express my gratitude to Iranian authorities for their cooperation in swiftly resolving this matter." Granted, he made this obscene statement after the sailors were released, but it boggles the mind how this administration continues to bend over backwards to ensure that its precious Iran deal does not crater. And nothing could serve as a more stark metaphor once again than the famous scene from Animal House in which Kevin Bacon's character, while being paddled by his evil fraternity brothers, begrudgingly cries out, "Thank you, sir, may I have another?" And while Obama ignored the hijacking of the two Navy patrol boats and kidnapping of the ten sailors on board in his State of the Union address, the rest of the world is mesmerized by the incident, wondering what really happened and how in the world the U.S. continues to prop up this rogue terrorist regime. The administration has even delusionally gone so far as to use this shameful incident as an example of the wonderful relationship that now exists between Iran and the U.S. But is it really delusional, or is all of the rhetoric flying out of the White House once again a Benghazi-style manipulation to obfuscate the facts and keep the American people in the dark about Obama's real foreign policy goals? Cmdr J.E. Dyer has done a tremendous job of reporting and analyzing the incident as well as the administration's narrative about what transpired. Dyer quoted a Navy SEAL who stated: The claim by Iran that the USN boats "strayed into Iranian waters" is complete bulls***. For an open-water transit between nations, the course is studied and planned in advance by the leaders of the Riverine Squadron, with specific attention given to staying wide and clear of any hostile nation's claimed territorial waters. The boats are given a complete mechanical check before departure, and they have sufficient fuel to accomplish their mission plus extra. If, for some unexplainable and rare circumstance one boat broke down, the other would tow it, that's why two boats go on these trips and not one! It's called "self-rescue" and it's SOP. This entire situation is in my area of expertise. I can state with complete confidence that both Iran and our own State Department are lying. The "strayed into Iranian waters" story being put out by Iran and our groveling and appeasing State Dept. is utter and complete BS from one end to the other. The boats did not enter Iranian waters. They were overtaken in international waters by Iranian patrol boats that were so superior in both speed and firepower that it became a "hands up!" situation, with automatic cannons in the 40mm to 76mm range pointed at them point-blank. Surrender, hands up, or be blown out of the water. I assume that the Iranians had an English speaker on a loudspeaker to make the demand. This takedown was no accident or coincidence, it was a planned slap across America's face. Furthermore, just as everyone questions what Ambassador Stevens was doing in Benghazi the night of the attacks on the U.S. compound in Libya, Dyer questions what the boats were doing in such an uncharacteristically dangerous situation: I'm asking why such a transit happened. I can't see anyone in the chain of command thinking it was a good idea. For one very important thing, there's not a sailor alive, if he's been in the Gulf, who doesn't know that IRGCN fast boats zoom around in the northern Persian Gulf every day, operating from Farsi Island. In a period of Iranian naval adventurism and heightened tensions, why expose two lone Navy small boats to that a situation in which they could quickly be overwhelmed? Addressing what may have motivated the Iranians to take such an aggressive step just days before Obama is due to release $150 billion to these terrorists, Dyer noted the comment made by Iranian armed forces chief Major General Hassan Firouzabadi that this should be a lesson to Congress. Dyer observed: Well, what do you know. An incident that was supposed to be entirely accidental, involving a mechanical breakdown and two U.S. Navy boats straying inadvertently into Iranian waters, with the Iranians sort of implicitly seizing the boats because they were stranded at sea (although that was never clarified, but more in a minute on the topic) this culmination of total happenstance should serve as a "lesson to troublemakers in Congress" who want to impose new sanctions? Maybe Firouzabadi is suggesting that God placed broke-down U.S. Navy boats in Iran's way as a means of supernaturally rebuking "troublemakers" in Congress. It's hard to see how else an unplanned seizure of U.S. military assets could serve as a lesson to American lawmakers, especially on such a very specific topic. But the more likely explanation is the simpler realistic one: that Iran meant the seizure of the Navy boats and crewmen to be a lesson to Congress. This renews the question what really happened, and what the on-scene pretext (if any) was for the seizure. One fact with regard to this military and diplomatic fiasco, however, has been underreported. From Ace of Spades: The question [of where the boats were when captured] could be answered by the several GPS devices on the boats. The Iranians, however, chose to retain them with the US State Department's blessings, when it returned the crewmen. It's unknown whether the Iranians returned the small arms and the cryptographic and communications equipment on the boats. That the Iranians kept the GPS units suggests that our boats were in international waters. That no US ship or aircraft responded to defend them suggests that maybe they were not or resources are just too thin in the region, after a decade of dismantling the Navy. So the administration consented to the Iranians' stealing equipment off two Navy vessels. Lovely. This is on the heels of the Pentagon "losing" a hellfire missile that suddenly turned up in Cuba. Unfortunately for the Obama administration, all of their diplomatic endeavors with the Castros didn't have quite the same charm as with the mullahs, since Cuba is refusing to return the missile. And lest no one is seeing a pattern here, recall that Iran downed a U.S. drone in 2011 and built a replica that it successfully tested last year. There is no way to determine how it is that our military equipment (and thus secrets) continually falls into the hands of our enemies I mean our new allies under this administration. Stupidity, incompetence, carelessness, and any other number of possible explanations come to mind. As the FoxNews saying goes, "We report, you decide." I will leave readers with one final image, once again of Kevin Bacon at the end of Animal House: Isn't it odd when stupid people call other people stupid? I saw a little of that in the Republican debate on Thursday when Jeb! said that Donald Trump's plan to temporarily ban Muslim immigration would offend the very countries we need to cooperate with. Jeb named Indonesia, a very fundamentalist regime that follows sharia law and has radical Islamic bombers going around killing people . Jeb also pointed out that the Kurds are Muslim, too. Does that mean that the Kurds would no longer accept our support if we banned Muslim immigration? Is Saudi Arabia suddenly on the verge of cutting off funding for radical madrassas, but holding off in the wake of Trump's announcement? The fact is that a lot of Muslim governments are fundamentalist regimes who promote radicalism and will continue to promote radicalism regardless of what we do. In any event, these states simply aren't so vital to the war on terror. Who is it who goes in and bombs ISIS? Saudi Arabia? Qatar? Egypt? No, it is the U.S. Air Force. When we have "coalitions," the other members are just for show. We are the ones who do nearly all the fighting, unless we get the British or the French to send some fighter jets in solidarity. The "cooperation" from the Arab states is minimal. But Jeb Bush doesn't understand this. He thinks our number-one priority is to be worried about offending the Saudis, or the Indonesians, when we should be looking out for our own national interests first. If the Saudis want to stop funding radical schools, they will do it, whether or not we limit immigration. In the meantime, I don't see any Gulf State letting in refugees from Syria or Iraq. They aren't worried about offending anyone, because they are looking out for their own best interest. And so should we. Jeb represents the worst side of so-called "multilateralism," the feeling that building coalitions at the U.N. or resolutions produced by the Arab League will accomplish anything. It won't. Protecting our borders, using military power, and showing terrorists we mean business is the answer, and on this subject, Jeb is wrong and Donald Trump is right. Of all the things to get upset over, this takes the absurdist cake. Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) has gotten Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus in a huff ready to take a very rare and extreme move because Duffy pointed out the disproportionate number of black babies being aborted in the United States. LifeNews reports: Duffyasked members of the Congressional Black Caucus why they were not being more vocal about how their communities are targeted in abortion, The Huffington Post reports. Duffy cited the fact that African Americans are 15 percent of the U.S. population but have 40 percent of the abortions. He added that more black babies are killed in abortions in New York City than are born. Politico reports that Moore and the Congressional Black Caucus responded this week by considering a resolution that would allow them to formally condemn Duffy for what they say were racially insensitive remarks. According to the news outlet: Offering a privileged resolution to criticize a colleague is highly unusual, but CBC members say the abortion comments amounted to an attack on the black caucus making a formal criticism of Duffy fair game. But Duffy who said Tuesday he stands by his comments said the resolution talk is a distraction and he was the one who suffered a character attack. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, the chairman of the black caucus, said the CBC will discuss options in the coming weeks. The North Carolina Democrat said he found the comments disgusting. The effort is being pushed by Wisconsin Rep. Gwen Moore, multiple sources confirmed. How dare this man stand out and lecture us and to call us out. He said CBC members. That was personal, Moore told POLITICO. He did make it personal. This sounds a lot like claiming turf that no white person is allowed to disagree with the CBC leftist position. Moore stated: Rep. Duffys hypocrisy on this issue is as predictable as it is offensive. If he truly, truly wants to fight for the hopeless and voiceless, he should join us, Moore said, adding that Duffy should support the abortion business Planned Parenthood. Hypocrisy is a poor choice of words for Rep. Moore. Supporting the disproportionate killing of black babies sounds a lot likesupporting the killing of blacks. The phrase disparate impact is often thrown around to castigate policies and procedures that end up harming black people more than other groups. Well, Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood have a disproportionate impact on black babies. If it werent for the lives being snuffed out, this would be hilarious. Since the GOP controls the House, a House vote will never take place. First impressions are everything, or so the saying goes, of course, but during my second CES I couldnt help shake the feeling that this years list of gadgets and devices fall short of what the industry has come to expect from the worlds largest consumer electronics trade show. Sure attendance was just as high as usual, and roaming the show floor it felt busier than ever as we practically had to swim through the crowds of people to make appointments and meetings on time, but it almost felt as if it were over-hyped in many regards. Am I disappointed with my experience at CES? Certainly not, but the murmurings of the year of the refrigerator pretty much sum up the excitement level felt on the floor. I pretty consistently heard people say they were disappointed with the showing and the general lack of punch in the announcements from multi-billion dollar multi-national companies, and I can certainly share that sentiment to an extent. Sure there was no Galaxy S7, no new Nexus phone or tablet, and definitely nothing announced on that level by any means, but there were still plenty of interesting devices. Once we got through the sea of fitness trackers, connected IoT devices and of course the incredibly sophisticated appliances and massive TVs, there were still a few gems that really stood out among the crowd. None of these were new devices per say, rather more refined versions of devices weve seen or used before that continue to surprise with their competence and technological abilities. Advertisement Easily one of the most prominent showings on the floor was VR as a whole, taking many different forms across dozens upon dozens of booths. Some companies are using your phone to power the experience, from the excellent selling and well supported Samsung Gear VR which uses one of Samsungs popular flagship phones depending on the model of Gear VR purchased. Other companies opt for generic adapters or designs so that you can use any Android powered phone, although its obvious which companies spent more time on the design of the headsets and lenses, as some headsets are significantly more comfortable both resting on the head and for my poor strained eyes. The estimable Carl Zeiss makes quite possibly the best mobile VR headset of all thanks to some seriously incredible lenses that work well with nearly any glasses prescription (or no glasses at all in my case), yet has the ability to fit any phone in its universal case via official or 3D printed adapters. The best showings come from dedicated units though, and I got to use both the near-final Oculus Rift unit at the show and the just announced HTC Vive Dev Kit 2 (known as the Vive Pre) as well. Ive been excited about the prospects of consumer-level VR from the first moment I heard about Oculus Rift and got to use the original DK1 unit, but up until now technical limitations have really made it an experience thats more full of promise than actual deliverance. Now thats all changed with these latest hardware efforts from HTC and Oculus, and it was incredible to see how far the VR scene has come in so little time. The latest headsets eschew the headache and eyestrain inducing nature of the old models (and plenty of cheap Cardboard headsets for your phone) and replace them with an experience thats closer to perfection than it is to a work in progress. Advertisement Whats clear is that this tech is not going to be mainstream any time soon given the price tag of the Oculus itself, not to mention HTCs self-admitted more expensive platform. On top of that the $600 Oculus Rift kit doesnt even ship with the proper controllers as I used at CES, rather it ships with an Xbox One controller instead. While this isnt bad for some experiences its not what people had in mind when they thought about interacting with the virtual world, and it certainly doesnt help lend value to a package thats already considered incredibly expensive. The differences between the Oculus Rift and the Vive is more than just pricing too, as it seems HTC will only ship the Vive in its full experience form rather than the simplified version Oculus is shipping. This of course means a higher price tag but gives the Vive more baseline functionality, continuing the idea that the Vive is a more full-featured and more advanced product. The actual experience between the units felt just as wide too, and it comes down to two things that could make or break the experience for you. First off there was no movement in the Oculus demos Ive used, either in the dev kits or the more final form I had at CES. You stand in place and look around, interacting with the world from a fixed position unless youre navigating with the joysticks on the controller. The Vive, however, not only features the ability to move around the room, which translates perfectly into the VR experience, but also keeps track of whats in the room too. This gives you more of a spatial awareness as well as keeping you from running into obstacles, and even gives more interaction with the real world environment as well. The front-facing camera on the Vive and the sensors in the room to keep track of your hands and body movement simply translate into a better VR experience. Advertisement Outside of VR there were very few new devices at the show, and while the famous Kickstarter-backed Nextbit Robin isnt new by any means, its nearing final form with units scheduled to ship out in just a month or so. This is a phone backed by ex-Googlers and the brainchild behind classic phone designs at HTC like the One M7 and One M8, among plenty of others. What youll find is a phone that looks wholly unique out of the box, and one that functions quite uniquely as well. I was incredibly impressed with not just the visual style of the phone and the OS, both of which are captivating in a number of ways, but just how smoothly the software operates. Now Im not just talking about the framerate of the OS, a problem we havent had to deal with for a long time now in Android, rather Im talking just how well the cloud-based features of the Robin function. Offloading apps and other data thats taking up precious space is effortless and nearly instant, and while restoring them might take more time since the data has to be re-downloaded to the phone, its no less effortless than trying to open the app or access the data in a normal fashion. Its these experiences that make shows like CES so much more fun than simple product announcements, a thing that could happen at any old time during the year. What we found was interesting and innovative to say the least, and while theres plenty of me-too products out there, the rest of the unique ones help bring the show up in many peoples minds. Still were left to wonder where the shows direction is going as more and more mobile companies continue to pull their big announcements from Vegas and ship them off to Barcelona at the end of February. Will this one become more of a niche show as Mobile World Congress continues to grow, or will the slow shift away from the excitement of smartphones help CES turn into something more than just a place where big mobile announcements occur? Its certainly going to be exciting to see! The 12.5 billion ($17.9 billion) proposed acquisition of British wireless carrier EE by British Telecom has reportedly been given the all-clear by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) of the UK. According to the countrys competition watchdog, the merger between the two will not result in a significant lessening of competition, which is why the proposal has apparently gotten the green signal from the British competition regulator. This decision was supposed to be due on Monday, but clearly they have moved things up and given the go ahead on Friday itself. While rival telecommunication companies in the UK have been vocal in their opposition of the deal, the two companies in the midst of this merger have always argued that the deal would be good news for customers, seeing as it will allow the merged entity to offer new products and services for its customers. Critics of the deal, like rivals Vodafone and Talk-Talk, as also a section of neutral third party observers, however, point out that the merger might give rise to an all-new monopoly in the UK telecom market, by giving too much power to the combined entity that will hold about forty-five percent of the wireless market in the country with over twenty-five million wireless subscribers and about 8.8 million fixed-line broadband subscribers, giving them control of around forty percent of the overall consumer telecom market. CMA, however, counters such arguments by saying that it has spent the better part of the last year investigating concerns of other industry players and neutral third-party commentators, but the approval now shows that the organization is satisfied that nobody has anything to fear about the re-emergence of a monopoly in the UK telecom market, even though not everybody is convinced. Advertisement In a statement issued by the CMA explaining its decision, Mr. John Wotton, who chaired the watchdogs inquiry into the proposed deal, said, a combined BT/EE would not have both the ability and the incentive to disadvantage competitors such that there would be significant harm to competition. As a result of the merger, Mr. Olaf Swantee will be stepping down from his position as the company CEO, something he described as the hardest decision in his career. As for the reactions from the two companies on clearing the regulatory hurdle, both BT and EE released statements expressing their satisfaction, optimism and indeed, vindication at the CMA giving them the green light. The deal, however, is far from being done and dusted, and reports indicate that the formalities are expected to be completed by the end of FY 2015-16. Sprint announced on Friday that the 2016 edition of the Samsung Galaxy J3 smartphone will now be available for purchase at a price of $179.99 (plus taxes) on both its prepaid brands Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile USA. While the device has gone on sale with immediate effect at Virgin, Boosts retail outlets as well as some third-party retailers will start selling the device from Monday, January 18th. Sprint also says that the smartphone will be available online Tuesday, January 19th onwards. The carrier claims that the handset delivers value, performance and convenience. The Galaxy J series is Samsungs latest lineup of entry to mid-range smartphones that the company is expected to put up for sale as prepaid handsets in markets around the world. As per the listing on Sprints website, the Samsung Galaxy J3 features a 5-inch Super AMOLED display with a 720p HD resolution. The phone comes with 16 GB of internal storage, but theres no mention of the amount of available RAM. The handset is powered by a quad-core CPU thats clocked at a frequency of 1.2 GHz. While the press release from Sprint doesnt specify the exact SoC thats under the hood, the version meant for China comes with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 chipset. A device with model number SM-J3109 was certified by the FCC for sale in the US back in November, but it cannot be ascertained at this stage if the version being launched by Sprint is the same as that one. As for the rest of the hardware, theres a 5-megapixel primary camera on the Sprint-bound Galaxy J3 (2016), while a 2-megapixel front-facing shooter is poised to take care of the selfie duties. Advertisement The press release also points out that the phone comes with an Easy Mode that has an easy-to-use GUI, and helps first-time smartphone owners who are not familiar with new phone features. The handset is also 4G-enabled, and comes with support for enhanced LTE, along with the obligatory legacy 3G support. The latest entrant into the prepaid market in the US also carries a 2,600 mAh battery, which should be decent enough to get through a day of moderate usage with the HD Super AMOLED screen. Although Sprint doesnt specify the version of Android running on the Galaxy J3, the China Telecom version launched back in November, comes with Android 5.1.1 Lollipop pre-installed, with Samsungs new lightweight TouchWiz running on top. Letv is a company that has been making a lot of waves in the mobile world of late. In fact, they are a company who very recently announced a change to their branding as well as a migration over to their new LeEco name. Not to mention, they are the company who was also recently unveiled as the smartphone manufacturer who will launch the first Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 powered smartphone, in the form of the Letv Le Max Pro. That said, still under the Letv banner, the company did towards the end of last year make available a new smartphone in the form of the Letv 1s. A smartphone, which typical of Chinese manufacturers, looks to offer a decent level of specs at an affordable price. If you need a reminder of the device, the Letv 1s is one of the latest smartphones to come from the company and is one which makes use of a 5.5-inch display with a 1920 x 1080 resolution. Inside, the Letv 1s comes equipped with 3GB RAM and comes powered by a MediaTek Helio (MT6795T) X10 processor. Moving on the cameras and this is a device which offers a 13-megapixel rear camera, along with a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. Additional features on offer include 32GB internal storage, a Type-C USB charge port, fingerprint unlocking technology, dual-SIM support, 4G support and is a device which is powered by a 3,000 mAh battery. In terms of the operating system, the Letv 1s comes running on Android 5.1 (Lollipop) out of the box, along with Letvs EUI 5.5 skin on top. In terms of network compatibility, the Letv 1s supports 2G (GSM) 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, 3G (WCDMA) 850/1900/2100 MHz and 4G (FDD-LTE) 1800/2100/2600 MHz. Advertisement This is a device which has been available to buy for awhile now through GearBest. However, with the New Year now here, GearBest has reduced a number of handsets including the Letv 1s and this means that you can currently pick up the Letv 1s for only $194.99. Although, it is worth noting that there is only a limited quantity of handsets available at this price. As part of the promotion, GearBest is also offering those who buy one of the promotion-associated handsets between now and Jan 20th, the opportunity to enter a draw to win an additional smartphone for free. You can find out more details about that deal by clicking here. Those more interested in picking up a Letv 1s for only $194.99 can do so by heading through the link below. Like many of Googles offering, Google+, or more simply, G+, has undergone a number of major changes in the last twelve months. Of course, the very biggest of those changes came back in November, when Google announced a complete overhaul to the way in which Google+ looks (and even functions to some degree). At first, the update rolled straight out to the web version, although corresponding updates have also since rolled out to the Android version too. All with a view of bringing a more cohesive look and feel to Google+ and regardless of what platform you are using. Well, the initial rolling out was not really a proper roll out, but was more of the making available of a preview version. As such, instead of simply replacing the web version of Google+ completely with the new one, the redesign was an opt-in version which you had to manually activate to try out. A feature which is still in place today and allows for users to revert back to the Classic look if they prefer. Not a bad idea while the team works out the various bugs and kinks. Advertisement Speaking of which, back in December, Google also announced the newly added ability to pin posts to your Google+ account. This was an extension of the already in use feature that is available to Google+ page moderators and meant that anyone could pin posts so they remain the main and first post on their Google+ page. Well, if you had yet to see that feature specifically going live for you, then you might be seeing it this week. A post sent out yesterday by a member of the Google+ team notes that a number of changes are now going live (from Jan 14th) for the preview version of G+. One of which is the ability to pin posts to profiles. In addition, the post also details that there are quite the number of bug fixes (37 to be exact), as well as an easier way to move your posts to a Collection another one of the newer features that Google+ has introduced in recent times. And also, an easier invite to community process. Traditionally, Sonys Xperia Z line has seen subsequent models launch with few improvements over the previous version. Perhaps owing to Sonys bizarre decision to release two flagship Xperia Z devices in a single year, there have now been 11 Xperia Z devices launched including the Xperia Z Ultra, Compact models and Xperia Z5 Premium since the beginning of 2013 with the original. Even so, very few of these devices have ever made it stateside, at least where an official launch is concerned. The Xperia Z Ultra was available as a Google Play Experience device as the Sony Z Ultra, the Xperia Z1 and Z1 Compact were available on T-Mobile, as were the Xperia Z3 line. Yesterday, Sony announced that the new Xperia Z5 and Xperia Z5 Compact would be heading to the US as well, but now it appears these arent entirely the same phone as they are elsewhere around the globe. Sony reached out to the Verge following the original announcement of the devices to let them know that the Xperia Z5 and Xperia Z5 Compact would not be shipping with fingerprint sensors in the US of A. This is a pretty strange move on Sonys part, and it has us wondering what the move behind the change was. After all, its unlikely to be price, as the smaller Xperia Z5 Compact will cost $499.99, more than the fingerprint sensor-equipped LG Nexus 5X and multitudes of other devices that still make money. Advertisement Whatever the reason was, this represents the second strange move that Sony has taken with the Xperia Z line in the past couple of years. Despite being the same device, the Xperia Z1 hit T-Mobile as the Xperia Z1 S in the US, and the Xperia Z3+ was known as the Xperia Z4 in Japan, yet no Xperia Z4 smartphone launched prior to the Xperia Z5 line launch last Fall. Were sure that there was some sort of reason behind the change, but its a confusing move nonetheless, and one that will more than likely disappoint Sony fans looking forward to getting their hands on the new line of smartphones once they finally go on sale in the US next month. Android 6.0 Marshmallow updates are the talk of the internet as every customer looks for when their device will receive that coveted upgrade from Lollipop to Marshmallow. The other day, Rogers threw out a Marshmallow to owners of the LG G3 now scheduled for its upgrade as Coming Soon. Now Telus has just revised its Marshmallow update schedule with the earliest one showing the Moto G (2015) coming on January 14 but wait, that was yesterday and still no update. That would fall under the Telus disclaimer All dates are approximate and subject to change. See the Software Update Life-Cycle blog post for more information. Many love to blame the carrier for delays in software upgrades, but there is a long and complicated process to ensure that the updates do not adversely affect the users devices. It all starts with the Manufacturer Testing, where device manufacturers and software manufacturers (Google in this case) perform rigorous testing of the new software. Next, there has to be Internal Network Testing on the carriers end (Telus in this case) to test the stability on their networks. Then after the cellular carriers, device manufacturers and the OS provider all give their approval, it must past Regulatory Approvals to ensure the device meets FCC and Industry Canada regulations. Finally, it is Pushed to [the] Customers. This process can take from four weeks to six months, especially if unexpected results occur and the process starts over. Looking ahead to other Telus upgrades to Android 6.0 Marshmallow we see that up and scheduled for January 18 are the HTC One M8 and the HTC One M9, which should receive their Android M Update along with a Security Update. The Alcatel Idol 3 is looking at Audio Bug Fixes and a Security Update on that same day. The next round of updates is scheduled for February 1 just a Security Update for the Nexus 6P (which already has Marshmallow) and the Android M Update and Security Update for the LG G4. Finally, on March 14, Telus has scheduled the Android M Update and Security Update for the LG G3 the same device that Rogers is showing as Coming Soon. Hopefully, this schedule will be very close to the actual updates so that more users will get to enjoy the Marshmallow goodness. Taiwan-headquartered market research and analysis firm, TrendForce, has released its report on the state of the global smartphone market in the year 2015, revealing overall sales of as many as 1.292 billion handsets last year, which represented a year-on-year growth of 10.3 percent over 2014. While the rapid rate of growth the industry had been experiencing over the past several years slowed down significantly last year, the numbers still look better than the grim predictions made in December by American market research, analysis and advisory firm, International Data Corporation (IDC), according to which, the industry was only expected to grow by low single digits in 2015. Meanwhile, as per the TrendForce report, Chinese smartphone makers took giant strides last year, shipping as many as 539 million units worldwide, with Huawei replacing Lenovo as the third largest smartphone manufacturer in the world, after Samsung Electronics and Apple Inc. Taking a look at the TrendForce report in a bit more detail, seven out of the top ten spots on the list of the worlds most prolific handset makers are now occupied by Chinese companies. South Koreas LG Electronics is the only non-Chinese vendor other than Samsung and Apple to break into the list, with its sales improving by 7.9 percent over 2014, thanks largely to the innovative V10. The companys market share, however, dipped ever so slightly from 5.4 percent in 2014, to 5.3 percent in 2015. The other leading South Korean company, Samsung Electronics, meanwhile, saw its annual shipments actually decline by 1.8 percent last year. The companys overall market share now stands at just under 25 percent, down from almost 28 percent in 2014. Whats even more disconcerting for the company though, is the prediction that it might experience a further dip of 2.6 percentage points in its market share this year. Samsung, however, retains its crown as the largest smartphone manufacturer on the planet, having shipped about 320 million smartphones in 2015. Advertisement Another company that saw a significant decline is Chinese major Lenovo, whose sales fell an astounding 24 percent from 92 million in 2014 to just 70 million last year, resulting in a 2.5 percent drop in its market share from 7.9 percent in 2014 to 5.4 percent last year. Another interesting point to note is that Sony is now completely out of the picture, having held the number eight slot back in 2014 with a 3.9 percent share of the market. It will be interesting to see if the Japanese consumer electronics major can make a comeback this year with the launch of its Xperia Z6 flagship and its inevitable spinoffs. Amidst all the upheavals in Android land, Apple continues to remain at number 2 with a global market share of 17.5 percent with sales of 227 million iPhones. However, according to the report, the real winner of 2015 seems to be Huawei, who has not just dethroned Xiaomi to bag its pride of place as the market leader in China, but the company was able to breach the 100 million barrier for the first time in its history, having shipped as many as 108 million smartphones last year, which represented a YoY growth of around 49 percent. Xiaomi, meanwhile, was thwarted in its global ambitions because of IP-related disputes notably in India because of which, its high-volume mid-range handsets like the Redmi Note 2 were restricted to its home market, thereby losing the company a chunk of its sales in its second largest market globally. The company is currently at number four, having grown by 17.8 percent over 2014, with 72 million devices sold during the year. Xiaomi CEO has recently announced that the company has shipped out 70 million smartphones in 2015. Now, some of you might know that this basically means that Xiaomi didnt hit their sales target considering they aimed to sell between 80 and 100 million smartphones last year. This is not necessarily a bad thing though, considering the fact that Xiaomi shipped 61 million units in 2014, so this is growth after all, no matter which way you look at it. That being said, Xiaomi has started selling their smartphones in Brazil in 2015, and has expanded further into Asia. This year, however, should represent Xiaomis arrival to many more markets, including the US. Xiaomi has announced quite recently that theyll partner up with United Arab Emirates-based company called Task FZCO in order to sell smartphones, as weve announced a while back. Well, Xiaomi has partnered with that company, and a UAE-based carrier Etisalat as well, in order to sell four of their devices. The Xiaomi Redmi 2 Pro, Redmi Note 2, Mi 4i and Mi Note will be available in the UAE. Now, as far as pricing goes, these four devices will be priced at AED449 ($122), AED719 ($196), AED899 ($245) and AED1,699 ($463), respectively. FZCO will introduce these devices to Saudi Arabia as well before the end of this month. Advertisement Now, one thing to keep in mind here is the fact that Task FZCO has reach all over the Middle East and will surely be a useful partnership for Xiaomi. As already mentioned, this China-based smartphone manufacturer has a huge appetite for success, theyve managed to become Chinas number one OEM in less than 5 years. The smartphone sales in China are slowing down, and many China-based smartphone manufacturers are looking for a way to expand their business. Huawei, unlike Xiaomi, already has distribution chains all over the world, and Xiaomi is eager to follow in its footsteps. Well see what happens later this year, but you can expect to see Xiaomi hit a number of markets before the end of the year, that much is certain, which means were in for a really interesting year. The IAEA inspectors are supposed to issue their final report on Irans honoring of its commitments on Friday, Araghchi was quoted by local news agencies as saying. As agreed, Iran is now well on its way to dismantling critical elements of its nuclear facilities, Kerry said. Just yesterday, the foreign minister reported to me that the calandria of the plutonium nuclear reactor is now out and in the next hours it will be filled with concrete and destroyed. The world powers and Iran last summer struck a landmark nuclear deal, in which Tehran agreed to curb its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions.Now, Iran is poised to finally feel the effects of the accord, including an end to the EU embargo of Iranian oil imports and reestablished ties between Iranian banks and the European financial system.According to Abbas Araqchi, Irans deputy foreign minister and senior nuclear negotiator, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Friday will verify that Tehran has fulfilled all its obligations under the agreement, including unplugging thousands of centrifuges and significantly reducing its stockpile of low-enriched uranium, the Guardian reported.That report by the IAEA will trigger the announcement of an implementation day, when the lifting of US and EU sanctions will come into effect and all previous nuclear-related UN resolutions will be terminated. Tehran expects this to happen Saturday or Sunday.US Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking in Washington, said the nuclear deal is likely to be implemented in the coming days.We will ensure that the spectre of a nuclear armed Iran is removed as a threat to Middle East security and global peace, and it is not insignificant that Iran has agreed to submit to this, agreed to undertake these steps, agreed that it will not build this weapon, he added.Non-nuclear related US sanctions on Iran, such as those relating to terrorism, will remain in place. Stuffed and mounted: hunting for prostitutes business attacked by animal rights protestors To Austria, where hunters are guaranteed a happy endingon return to camp. A business has been offering hunters in the Neustift-Innermanzing municipality lots of killing in Lower Austrias Alpine foothills followed by an evening of human skin. The advert trills: After an exciting days hunting what could be better than a cosy night for two, or even three, in a remote mountain cabin. Everything is possible. The hunters return will be welcomed back by a lovely companion, and of course absolute discretion and confidentiality are guaranteed. The countrys Association Against Animal Factories (VGT) is aghast: It is hunting with prostitutes. It seems that with money anything is possible, says VGT boss Martin Balluch. The hunting company has now removed the offer. Although hunters are free to go and **** themselves. Anorak Posted: 15th, January 2016 | In: Strange But True, The Consumer Comment | TrackBack | Permalink (ANSA) - Brussels, January 15 - Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said Friday that the relationship between the EU and Italy is a "relationship between the government of one of the main countries in the EU that is addressing the (European) Commission in an open and frank way, bearing in mind that we want to reinforce the EU but at the same time that we have rights on a par with those of others and we mean to make ourselves heard". He spoke after EC President Jean-Claude Juncker's unusually frank criticism of Premier Matteo Renzi's recent stances allegedly against the EC. (ANSA) - Lisbon, January 15 - A Lisbon court has approved the extradition to Italy of Sabrina De Sousa, an ex-CIA agent who was convicted of involvement in the abduction Muslim cleric Hassan Mustafa Omar Nasr from Milan in 2003. De Sousa, who has American and Portuguese nationality, was among 22 CIA agents convicted in Italy in the case of the rendition of the Egyptian cleric, an Islamist suspected of recruiting jihadi fighters. De Sousa's lawyer told the Associated Press that she intends to appeal to the Portuguese supreme court and, if that fails, to the Constitutional Court. Nasr, whose case led to the world's first judicial examination of the controversial practice of rendition in the so-called war on terror, got a prison term of six years for international terrorism in December 2013. De Sousa, who faces six years in prison if extradited to Italy, has said in interviews the operation had been "approved by Washington" and that she had been "abandoned" by her superiors. Portuguese authorities seized her passport, pending a decision on her extradition, after she tried to leave the country in October. (ANSA) - Berlin, January 15 - Male refugees have been banned from entering a public pool in a town in Germany after a group of girls complained they were being sexually harassed, the German director for social affairs said Friday. Markus Schnapka confirmed the group of refugees will no longer have access to the pool in Bornheim, a town with 50,000 residents near Bonn in the German state of North Rhine- Westphalia. He said there would be no criminal charges as their behaviour did not constitute a crime. (ANSA) - Rome, January 13 - Interior Minister Angelino Alfano on Wednesday ordered a Macedonian national who had been living in Italy since 1998 expelled for reasons of "terrorism prevention". Police removed 39-year-old Ljimani Redjep from his home near the northern city of Treviso on Wednesday morning. Alfano said Redjep had been in contact with radical Wahabi Islamists in the Balkans who are "strongly hostile to Western customs and traditions". "(Redjep) has a deep knowledge of jihadism and is a strict observer of the rigid dictates of Salafist doctrine," said Alfano. The man was radicalized and was becoming "progressively anti-Western", Alfano said, citing Redjep's refusal to sign a letter of solidarity to France from Islamic associations in Italy condemning the November 2015 Islamist terror attacks in Paris. Redjep's son reportedly expressed support for the Paris attacks in the classroom, saying things like "now let's go to Rome and kill the pope" and "long live ISIS (Islamic State terror group)", the interior ministry said. (ANSA) - Rome, January 15 - Federica Mogherini, the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs, said Friday that both Italy and the European Commission had wanted to introduce greater scope for flexibility in the EU's budget rules. She was speaking after European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker argued that he had passed the flexibility changes, not Italian Premier Matteo Renzi, during a stinging attack on Friday. "There are lots of things that Italy and Europe have done together in the first year of the Juncker Commission," Mogherini said. "(These go) from the introduction of the rules on flexibility, which Italy very much wanted and which the European Commission very much wanted and which benefit everyone, to the great challenges at the European level on the management of immigration". (ANSA) - Rome, January 15 - Premier Matteo Renzi said Friday the time when the EU ordered Italy about by remote control was over. Speaking on TG5, he said amid a spat with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker that "Italy has completed reforms and therefore the time in which they could remote control policies from Brussels to Rome is over". He said "the time when we used to go cap in hand is over". The premier was speaking amid an unusually sharp exchange with Juncker, who had chided Renzi for criticising the EC. (ANSA) - Rome, January 14 - Abu Yusuf al Anabi, one of the leaders of North African terror group al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI), has threatened Italy for allegedly occupying Libya in the wake of the recent agreement for a Libyan government of national unity. "You will regret it," he said in the video message, according to Mauritanian agency al-Akhbar, which says it has received a copy. Italy has agreed to take a key role in helping to stabilise Libya, its former colony, following the UN-brokered deal signed in December by delegates from Libyan factions that had been in conflict. With the accords signed at Skhirat, in Morocco, Libya "has sold out to foreigners" and Italy has occupied the country and Tripoli, something it "will regret", according to the audio-video message from AQMI. Anabi defines the agreement on the new Libyan government as a "conspiracy" and attacks Rome: "To the new invaders, grandchildren of (Rodolfo) Graziani (a general who took part in the Libyan war during the Fascist regime), you will bite your hands off, regretting you entered the land of Omar al Mukhtar (hero of the Libyan resistance) and you will come out of it humiliated", the message says. In the 1920s, Graziani was appointed by the new Fascist government to be commander the Italian forces in Libya. He was responsible for suppressing the Senussi rebellion. During this so-called "pacification", he was responsible for the construction of several concentration camps and labor camps, where thousands of Libyan prisoners died. Some prisoners were killed by hanging, like Mukhtar, or by shooting, but most prisoners died of starvation or disease. His deeds earned him the nickname "the Butcher of Fezzan" among the Arabs, but he was called by the Italians the Pacifier of Libya ('Pacificatore della Libia'). Anabi's message, entitled "Roman Italy has occupied Libya" continued: "We are people who never give up, you will have to walk on our dead bodies. Either we win or we die". The message also referred to "an Italian general who now rules in Tripoli", possibly referring to Gen. Paolo Serra, military advisor to UN special envoy to Libya Martin Kobler. Anabi is considered one of the most influential leaders of AQIM. The message could not be independently verified. (ANSAmed) - WADI EL HITAN (EGYPT), JANUARY 15 - The ''Fossils and climate change museum'' was inaugurated in the Egyptian desert and presented as the only one of its kind in the Middle East and probably anywhere the world. Financed by Italian Cooperation, it was built in the area of Wadi El Hitan, the ''valley of whales'' that extends in the governatorate of Fayoum, one of the most significant fossil sites on the planet. The remains of the biggest "Basilosaurus isis" ever found, a prehistoric whale which could reach up to 20 mt in lenght, are exhibited at the centre of the museum. A path of 11 ''stations'' with explanation panels illustrating other whale fossils dating back to over 40 million years ago, runs all around it. The Egyptian site is a Unesco Heritage Site since 2005, also thanks to Italian Cooperation. "The museum is the first of its kind in the Middle East'' said a UNDP report. The UN Programme for Development followed the construction of the museum financed by Italy with approximately 500 million dollars. On the sidelines of the inauguration sources told ANSAmed that "being in the middle of the desert'' (approximately 200 km south of Cairo) and ''facing the effects of climate change'', the museum ''is the first one of its kind in the world''. The structure built with the circular profile of a dune with traditional materials fades away in the landscape like the dunes of the Egyptian ''western desert'', a low canyon. Inside, the skeletons of two Basilosaurus emerge. The bones form a double circle, around it panels and fossils illustrating other whales, prehistoric sharks, crabs and petrified mangroves, millions of years old corals. The complex is enriched by a series of structures which facilitate the reception of visitors: an information centre, a ticket office, a cafeteria, a tourist police office, a parking and toilets all built by Italian Cooperation during the course of the last few years. "We put the wall underground and the dome on top" architect Gabriel Mikhail, who built the construction "imitating the surroundings and ensuring a better temperature inside" told journalists. You come here to follow "a journey that begins with earth's creation'' through several eras, summarised Mikhail adding that this desert once hosted "a tropical forest" and ''before then'' the area ''was beneath the sea''. The museum educates visitors about ''the importance of natural heritage'' and its message is ''protect it: pay attention to climate change; if you don't do so, you shall be extinguished" just like the prehistoric whales. You reach the site after three hours by bus bypassing two prodigious lakes opening up onto the desert and 35 km of a hypnotic dirt road. As a consequence of the terrorist threat, security was guaranteed by dozens of armed policemen and two armoured vehicles. (ANSAmed). (ANSAmed) - Vatican City, January 15 - Pope Francis's visit on Sunday to the Great Synagogue of Rome carries on a tradition started in April 1986 by Pope John Paul II, the first pontiff in history to visit the Jewish temple. This year's visit coincides with the annual "Day of Judaism", a Christian-Jewish day of reflection established by the Catholic Church in Italy in 1989 and held each year on January 17, just prior to the annual "Week of Prayer for Christian Unity" held each year on January 18-25. The most recent visit by a pontiff to the Great Synagogue was by Pope Benedict XVI on January 17, 2010, and this year's visit will continue to highlight interfaith dialogue and cooperation. "Pope Francis's visit to the synagogue of Rome has within it a message that the pontiff feels is very important and that he never tires of saying clearly: it's absolutely impossible to be Christians, and at the same time, be anti-Semites," said Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. "The choice of that date for Pope Francis's visit to the synagogue of Rome highlights the importance that he attributes to Jewish-Christian friendship and the dialogue in which it is expressed," said Monsignor Bruno Forte, archbishop of Chieti-Vasto and president of the Commission for Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue of the Italian Bishops' Conference (CEI). Chief rabbi of Rome Riccardo Di Segni said he hopes that during his visit, Pope Francis will deliver the message that Christians shouldn't try to convert Jews. In an interview in the online version of Israeli daily Haaretz, Di Segni said doing so would send a clear message to Catholics throughout the world as a follow-up to the document released by the Vatican in December which stated that the Church doesn't support any missionary activity with regards to Jewish people. Di Segni also spoke to Vatican Radio, stressing the importance of respecting interfaith diversity. "I believe we have to send an essential message, which is that religious differences are a source of wealth for society, they bring peace, they bring progress," Di Segni said. During his visit, Pope Francis is expected to pray at the plaque marking October 16, 1943, the day that SS troops stormed Rome's Jewish Ghetto and took 1,024 people, including 200 children, to the concentration camps in Auschwitz. He is also expected to pray at the monument to October 9, 1982, the day Palestinian terrorists attacked the Great Synagogue of Rome, killing a two-year-old and wounding 37 others. Ruth Dureghello, president of the Jewish Community of Rome (CER), said the pope's visit is "another step in the path to closeness between our two great faiths". Pope to visit Rome Synagogue on Day of Judaism Third pontiff to visit following John Paul II and Benedict XVI (ANSAmed) - Vatican City, January 15 - Pope Francis's visit on Sunday to the Great Synagogue of Rome carries on a tradition started in April 1986 by Pope John Paul II, the first pontiff in history to visit the Jewish temple. This year's visit coincides with the annual "Day of Judaism", a Christian-Jewish day of reflection established by the Catholic Church in Italy in 1989 and held each year on January 17, just prior to the annual "Week of Prayer for Christian Unity" held each year on January 18-25. The most recent visit by a pontiff to the Great Synagogue was by Pope Benedict XVI on January 17, 2010, and this year's visit will continue to highlight interfaith dialogue and cooperation. "Pope Francis's visit to the synagogue of Rome has within it a message that the pontiff feels is very important and that he never tires of saying clearly: it's absolutely impossible to be Christians, and at the same time, be anti-Semites," said Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. "The choice of that date for Pope Francis's visit to the synagogue of Rome highlights the importance that he attributes to Jewish-Christian friendship and the dialogue in which it is expressed," said Monsignor Bruno Forte, archbishop of Chieti-Vasto and president of the Commission for Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue of the Italian Bishops' Conference (CEI). Chief rabbi of Rome Riccardo Di Segni said he hopes that during his visit, Pope Francis will deliver the message that Christians shouldn't try to convert Jews. In an interview in the online version of Israeli daily Haaretz, Di Segni said doing so would send a clear message to Catholics throughout the world as a follow-up to the document released by the Vatican in December which stated that the Church doesn't support any missionary activity with regards to Jewish people. Di Segni also spoke to Vatican Radio, stressing the importance of respecting interfaith diversity. "I believe we have to send an essential message, which is that religious differences are a source of wealth for society, they bring peace, they bring progress," Di Segni said. During his visit, Pope Francis is expected to pray at the plaque marking October 16, 1943, the day that SS troops stormed Rome's Jewish Ghetto and took 1,024 people, including 200 children, to the concentration camps in Auschwitz. He is also expected to pray at the monument to October 9, 1982, the day Palestinian terrorists attacked the Great Synagogue of Rome, killing a two-year-old and wounding 37 others. Ruth Dureghello, president of the Jewish Community of Rome (CER), said the pope's visit is "another step in the path to closeness between our two great faiths". (ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, JANUARY 15 - A reported 32 people have died of starvation over the past month in Madaya, the Syrian city 25 kilometers north-west of Damascus besieged by loyalist forces and Lebanese Shiite militias Hezbollah. The report by pan-Arab television Al Jazeera quoted a World Food Programme source. Today Unicef said that a 16 year old boy had died of hunger in Madaya. The news of his death was reported by the agency's operators who managed to enter the town and bring emergency relief. The boy "was seriously malnourished" said Unicef to international media launching an alert on the terrible conditions of children in Madaya.(ANSAmed) ISTANBUL - Turkish police arrested 12 university professors accused of "terrorist propaganda" in favour of the PKK after they signed an appeal calling for a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish issue. The arrest warrant also regards other 9 academics who have not been apprehended yet, the Anadolu agency reported. The arrest was decided after a ruling by the Kocaeli (south of Istanbul) prosecutor's office against academics from the local university. The appeal signed by the arrested professors was launched by a group called 'Academics for peace' with the title 'We will not be part of this crime!', a reference to the operations Ankara is conducting against the PKK in the Kurdish-majority south-east of the country, where hundreds of people, including many civilians, have been killed since last summer. Signed so far by 6,492 people, the appeal remains open until tonight and has attracted the support of academics and researchers from dozens of universities, many of which foreign, as well as the signature of Noam Chomsky. The Anadolu agency reported yesterday that all signatories of the appeal were under investigation. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan harshly attacked them calling their support to the appeal a sign of "treason" towards Turkey, while the Council for Higher Education (Yok) announced punitive actions. Jailed Turkish newspaper editor pens open letter to Renzi Appeals to premier not to ignore violations of human rights (ANSAmed) - ISTANBUL, JANUARY 15 - Turkish daily Cumhuriyet on Friday printed an open letter to Italian Premier Matteo Renzi written by its jailed editor-in-chief, Can Dundar, appealing to the premier to not ignore violations of human rights in Turkey in exchange for an agreement on the migrant crisis. Dundar was imprisoned last November together with Cumhuriyet's Ankara correspondent Erdem Gul for an investigative report they ran into the alleged passage of weapons from Turkey to Syria. In the letter, Dundar said "there are currently more arrested journalists in Turkish prisons than in those of Syria" and also recalled "the intimate friendship" between former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi and current Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan had said the two would "pay a high price" for having published their report. The pair are accused of espionage and terrorist propaganda. (ANSAmed). Libya: Military intervention would be big mistake- Gentiloni Minister of Foreign Affairs interviewed by Le Figaro (ANSAmed) - PARIS, JANUARY 15 - "In the current phase it's not possible. It would be a serious mistake. Americans and Europeans are squaring their bets on the stabilisation of the Country" said Italian Foreign Minister, Paolo Gentiloni, during an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro, in response to a question on possible military intervention by the coalition in Libya. Gentiloni said he "does not see an alternative" to the establishment of a government of national unity contributing to the stabilisation of the Country. "Any other scenario - warned the minister - would be dangerous for Libya and for the international community". "We can contain the terrorist threat in several ways but there are no other means to stabilise the Country and initiate its reconstruction", stated Gentiloni reaffirming the need for a government of national unity. "If in a few months we will somberly have to admit that the Libyans have renounced this scenario - he added speaking to Le Figaro - then surely an anti-Isis coalition such as the one in Iraq and Syria will have to be formed but I insist this is not on the agenda today nor tomorrow. Doing this now, would mean certifying that Libyan efforts are destined to failure. If we had to intervene against terrorism we would wish to do so after a request by the Libyan government in order to support it". In the interview the Foreign Minister stressed that "we must not underestimate the threat", but neither "describe Libya as an Isis province". (ANSAmed). Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos commented Wednesday on the "Daily Summary with Mihai Gadea" the case of the Romanian family whose children were taken by the Norway authorities."The situation is sensitive because if we put too much pressure and insist too much, the Norwegian authorities acted based on the Norwegian legislation which is very strict in this regard, the children protection (...)The important thing is to keep in touch, but not do leave the impression of pressure making, which may turn against the respective family and against the efficiency we can act with, "said the Premier."MFA, via the embassy has been in contact with the family since the problems started. (...) The embassy is also granting legal aid to the family. It is in contact with the Norwegian authorities', Dacian Ciolos added. President Klaus Iohannis wrote in a posting on his Facebook page that he is following closely with great attention and concern what is happening with the Bodnariu family in Norway."I support the efforts of the Romanian authorities and of the Romanian Government to ensure human rights compliance for Romanian citizens, wherever they are," wrote Klaus Iohannis on Facebook.The government announced on Tuesday the first steps taken in the Bodnariu case. Therefore the Bodnarius are asked to come to the Romanian Embassy in Oslo on Tuesday for assistance, to talk to our ambassador and a new lawyer, said Government spokesman Dan Suciu .The children of the Bodnariu family - of Romanian Marius Bodnariu, IT engineer, and of his Norwegian wife Ruth, a nurse - the youngest of which is only a few months old, were taken from their parents by the Department of Child Protection in Norway, Barnevernet in November after the two girls, the eldest in the family, said they receivedPhysical correction from parents.Parents are charged with abuse and religious indoctrination and the Norwegian authorities have started adoption proceedings.The petition can be read and signed here. Mihai Gadea and Adrian Ursu initiated an online petition to bring to the attention of the international bodies the situation the Bodnariu family is experiencing, whose children were taken away by social services. " In order to inform the Oslo authorities and the international organizations for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms of people and children about this, we have decided to initiate an online petition. This will be handed in to His Majesty King Harald V of Norway, to Prime Minister Erna Solberg, to the European Parliament President Martin Schulz, to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and to the President of UNICEF Maleeha Lodhi. I invite you to join this initiative by signing the petition. Let's do justice! "Mihai Gadea wrote on his Facebook page. Romania Norway together for the Bodnariu children The Bodnariu family drama, whose children were kidnapped by the Norwegian authorities, raised a wave of emotion, indignation and large protests in Norway, Romania, the USA and in many other places of the world. In order to inform the Oslo authorities and the international organizations for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms of people and children about this, many Romanian citizens have decided to initiate an open a letter. It will be handed in to His Majesty King Harald V of Norway, to Prime Minister Erna Solberg, to the European Parliament President Martin Schulz, to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and to the President of UNICEF Maleeha Lodhi. If you have been touched, outraged by this tragedy and want to make yourself heard, if you want the Bodnariu family to take back their children sooner and for such abuses not to occur anymore, you are welcome to join the endeavor by signing this petition . Your Majesty, Your Excellency, We submit this document for your kind attention in all deference, but at the same time with the hope that our message, supported by thousand, tens of thousands of signatures will touch your heart and bring about the happy end that we are all waiting for. You must have heard about the fully covered story in numerous articles in the international media about the terrible drama which a mixed Romanian Norwegian family is experiencing, namely the Bodinarius. In November 2015, the Norwegian Authority for Child Protection, together with the local judicial authorities ordered that the Bodnariu familys five children be placed in foster care, invoking ill-treatment. Both the moment of tearing the children away from their familys home a heartbreaking scene that one could barely help not bursting into tears and rage while watching, as well as the justification of this extremely cynical gesture, exceed reason and are unacceptable in a civilized society governed by laws and feelings. Existing evidence in this case demonstrates unequivocally that we are faced with a great abuse in violation of fundamental human rights, of children and family rights. The alleged reasons for it have to do with a brutal restriction of religious rights, of the freedom of thought and expression. This goes against international charters that the Kingdom of Norway has signed and pledged to observe, such as the European Convention on Human Rights or the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Article 8 of the latter clearly states that both parties undertake to observe the childs rights to preserve his/her identity, including nationality, name ad family relations, such as they recognized by law without any unlawful interference. Equally important and unfortunately flagrantly violated by the Authority for Child Protection in Norway is the content of Article 2 of the Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the fundamental document of freedom and human dignity "In the exercise of any functions which it will assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the state will observe the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical beliefs. The Bodnarius case is unfortunately not the only one. There are more and more signals from Romanian families, from Lithuanians and many other nationalities who denounce the exaggerated or even abusive treatment by the authorities who should be charged with effective child protection and not with the violent breakup of families. This explains the huge wave of revolt sparked both in Romania as well as in Norway, the US and in many European countries, street protests, demonstrations in front of Norways embassies, calls for mobilization on social networks, debates and outraged comments in the press. We call on reason, legality and humanism to end these practices which do not relate to democracy, the rules of civilization, or feelings. We count on the full support of your Excellency and on the institutional authority that you represent to restore to the Bodnarius and to the other families in the same situation, the right to life and happiness, henceforth ending any abuse. Mihai Gidea and Adrian Ursu The 2015 Cornhusker Girls State will be held June 5-11, 2016 on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus. The Beatrice Legion Auxiliary Post #27 is taking applications until Feb. 26. Applications may be obtained from Sarah Morris or Jennifer Prososki, high school guidance counselors at Beatrice High School. The Girls State program is open to any girl in their junior year of high school. There is no cost for the participant. All fees are paid completely by the auxiliary. Girls State offers training in the practical processes of good citizenship as practiced in a democratic society. The 400 participants study the local, county and state government processes by setting up their own miniature city, county and state governments. Then, they administer them according to the laws of their particular state. Activities include legislative sessions, campaigning, party rallies, debating and voting. They also receive special instructions in parliamentary procedure. They will hear many interesting speakers, including meeting Gov. Pete Ricketts. Anyone who has a daughter, granddaughter, niece, other relative or friend who is a junior girl at the Beatrice High School is invited to have that student apply for this once-in-a-lifetime experience. For more information, call Verdella Vetrovsky at 402-223-2282 or 402-223-4041. The twice-weekly service, operated by three-class Airbus A340-500 aircraft, is the only direct commercial air link between the two capital cities. With existing daily services on the Abu Dhabi Casablanca route, Etihad Airways has boosted its Morocco frequency to nine flights each week. James Hogan, Etihad Airways president and chief executive officer, said the airline was delighted to launch its second Moroccan route with the new Rabat service. This new direct air link demonstrates Etihad Airways commitment to build sustainable ties in the North African region and to deepening the strong relationship between Morocco and the United Arab Emirates, he said. Rabat is a historical city that has grown in appeal for business and leisure travellers. With our new service, we are supporting further growth flying in travellers from across our international network to our newest gateway in Morocco. Likewise, we are facilitating ease of travel from Rabat to Abu Dhabi and beyond to the many cities we serve, giving our guests the opportunity to enjoy the high levels of service that we are renowned for around the world. The UAE Ambassador to the Kingdom of Morocco, Al Asri Saeed Al Dhaheri, said: There is no doubt that the new Etihad Airways route between the two Arabian capitals is a result of joint cooperation between the two countries in civil aviation. This is a further step in the development of the relationship between the United Arab Emirates and Morocco. Direct flights will contribute profoundly to the development of trade, investment and tourism. The UAE and Morocco are united by a long history of cooperation and the growth of economic and trade relations between the two countries has developed significantly over recent years. I have noted with great satisfaction that UAE companies are increasingly turning their attention to Rabat for opportunities to cooperate, invest and do business. This is a clear sign of the positive future our business community sees for this country. We look forward to witnessing more partnerships and strategic cooperation and no doubt that Etihad Airways is a leading example of this. The court definitively ruled that 26 of the 31 codeshares are lawful. Together with the other 50 approved codeshares with airberlin, 76 of the 81 codeshares are now approved once and for all, that is 94 per cent of the codeshares applied for. The other five codeshares are on German domestic routes. The court's interpretation of the UAE-Germany Air Services Agreement also means that Etihad Airways will be able to continue with all those codeshares beyond the Winter Schedule. Etihad Airways President and Chief Executive Officer, James Hogan, said: We are pleased with the ruling which confirms 94 per cent of Etihad Airways codeshares. This ruling is a victory for consumers and competition in Germany. We remain strongly committed to our strategic partner, airberlin, and will redouble our efforts to provide a strong competitive alternative to the dominant German carrier, Lufthansa. We would like to encourage German consumers to support airberlin and its 8,000 staff, who have been seriously damaged by this sustained attack on their business. While improvements in comfort generally focus on First and Business Class, Factorydesign the agency responsible for Etihads luxurious VIP Residence suite - recognised that Economy Class customers also deserve some innovation. This is particularly relevant given the current renaissance in so-called ultra-long-haul flying. Conventional Economy Class seats rely on a hinge mechanism to give passengers around 5 inches of seat recline. The revolutionary Twister seat has a brand new patented structure that mimics the human spine, recognising that our bodies twist to get comfortable, rather than fold like a hinge. It comprises a vertical backbone with ribs along its length and along the seat pan. These ribs move as the passengers weight shifted to maintain a shape that is extremely comfortable and ergonomically sound. From your shoulders to your thighs, the seat follows your profile as you move, said Adam White, joint creative director of Factorydesign. He came up with the initial concept on a 14-hour flight from Japan in Economy Class. A passenger in a Twister seat could lean in one direction or curl up in another, and press a control button to hold the seat in that position. By releasing the button, the seat would return to the neutral position. Because the Twister seat distributes body weight more evenly, it helps avoid Deep Vein Thrombosis. You wouldnt get a pressure point under the thigh, which would be a significant health benefit, said White. Factorydesigns concept takes up the same amount of room than as a standard Economy Class seat, and operates in the same envelope. We see this as a long-haul product. This is all about duration seating, said White. He adds, There has been considerable debate about economy class seating in the media, and many concepts which dont actually seem to have considered the needs of the passenger. This design is completely centred around improving the passenger journey experience. It comes at a time when Emirates launches its 17-hour flights from Dubai to Panama City, and when Boeing and Airbus are designing extended range aircraft. Factorydesign has also worked on a number projects with leading aircraft seat manufacturers Acro and Thompson over a number of years. White adds: Over the next five years, new fuel-efficient technology, and lower oil prices will lead to a rapid expansion of long haul flights on aircraft such as the Airbus A350-900ULR and Boeing 777-8. This means there will be a pressing need for all passengers, whether they are paying for premium tickets, or flying economy to have more comfortable seats. The Twister meets that need. Next year, Emirates will launch its Dubai to Panama City flight, taking 17 hours and 35 minutes. Qantas plans to fly non-stop to Europe from Australia from 2017, and the following year Singapore Airlines will launch a Singapore to New York flight which would take around 19 hours. All these ultra-long flights present a challenge for airlines and their designers at a time that passenger-experience is all important. The challenge is to ignore pre-conceived notions about what is accepted in airline design and start from looking at what the passenger truly needs. Traditional seat design has fulfilled many needs, but studying the human body means that we have created something that will transform the flying experience. We have worked closely with ergonomists to ensure that our initial concept really does work with the body to improve comfort. The Twister also helps solve some of the health issues associated with long haul flying. As the passenger is properly supported and can move regularly to maintain that comfort throughout the flight, the problems of sitting in a fixed position are largely removed. LINCOLN A Nebraska lawmaker has renewed his quest to ban mountain lion hunting just one day after a committee rejected his latest effort. Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha introduced a bill Thursday to eliminate the states mountain lion hunting season. The Legislatures Natural Resources Committee voted Tuesday to indefinitely postpone an identical bill that Chambers introduced last year. The new bill is likely to be reviewed by the same committee. Chambers is a well-known animal welfare advocate who passed legislation in 2014 to strengthen the states animal cruelty laws. Supporters of the hunting season say its necessary to help regulate the population and to ensure that mountain lion kills are tracked, rather than hidden. The previous poll on Eastern NC NOW showcased what are many of OUR Constitutional Republic's certain obstacles to remain viable, where the top encumbrance to that continuance as a functioning Republic was the Biden /Harris Wide Open Southern Border. Understanding this overwhelming concern to real America citizens: Do you believe it important to challenge the veracity of those legislated concerns of Democratic Socialists by transporting Illegal Migrants to their Sanctuary cities, counties and states for their direct care? Yes; test the depth of their sense of well being by giving Democratic Socialists an opportunity to enact all Sanctuary provisions in their communities to test how much they truly do care. No; the Biden /Harris Wide Open Southern Border Project is designed to only inundate "Red States" to begin their Demographic Upheaval for the benefit of we Democratic Socialists, our politics. Le CBD, cette molecule active du cannabis a aujourdhui le vent en poupe. Et cela est en grande partie du au fait quil permet... The Ghost over the highway: Reservists renew bond with Desert Storm AC-130A gunship More than 20 years after two Air Force Reserve Command leaders flew into combat together over the "Highway of Death" in Iraq, they were reunited with the aircraft that took them on the mission. Maj. Gen. Richard S. "Beef" Haddad and Col. Randal L. Bright boarded the AC-130A gunship -- No. 55-0014 -- again June 12, 2014, at the Museum of Aviation at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, where the aircraft is on display for the public to see. Robins is also home of Headquarters Air Force Reserve Command. On Feb. 26, 1991, Haddad, then a captain, and Bright, a first lieutenant -- both members of the 711th Special Operations Squadron at Duke Field, Florida -- were assigned to a mission over a road connecting Kuwait City to Baghdad. In August of the previous year, Iraqi soldiers had invaded Kuwait, sparking a chain of events that soon led to the U.S. sending military members to Saudi Arabia as part of Operation Desert Shield/Storm. The 711th SOS was part of these operations. The road was crowded with Iraqi military vehicles exiting Kuwait and going back to Iraq. Two other reservists, Maj. Michael N. Wilson and Maj. Clay McCutchan, piloted the lead aircraft as the 711th SOS raced to stop Iraqi forces fleeing from Kuwait to Iraq. Wilson and McCutchan determined that they did not have enough fuel to successfully execute the mission. As a result, they radioed Haddad and implored him to "hurry up" and "get up here." While en route, Haddad noticed that his aircraft's autopilot feature was not working. Without the autopilot, Haddad and his co-pilot, Bright, faced a greater challenge than they had anticipated because they relied upon the autopilot's altitude-hold function to keep the aircraft at a fixed altitude while they banked and fired the gunship's weapons. To compensate, Haddad had to manually control the ailerons to turn the aircraft while also firing the guns. Bright, facing an equally challenging task, crouched down in his seat in order to work the aircraft's throttles and yoke simultaneously to maintain a fixed altitude. Working in tandem to complete the mission, Haddad, Bright and the rest of the reservists aboard the aircraft remained on station, firing their weapons with little resistance -- a situation that quickly changed. As they began to leave the "killbox," Haddad and company discovered that their efforts had not gone unnoticed. As they headed south, Master Sgt. Don Dew, the illuminator operator, excitedly yelled "missile launch" over the radio. In response, Haddad increased power and put the aircraft in a dive while Capt. Jose Davidson, the aircraft's navigator, released flares to counter the missile. Unaware of the navigator's actions, Haddad and Bright, hearing the noise and seeing the light produced by the flare, believed their aircraft had been hit. "My hands were gripping the throttles, thinking we were going down," Haddad said. After seeing more flashes, Haddad and Bright realized that they were in no danger. The significance of the mission they participated in that night was not immediately apparent to Haddad and his crew. However, the stretch of road that they had fired on quickly became known as the "Highway of Death" due to the enormity of the destruction caused that night. While the exact number of casualties remains unknown, the attack destroyed an estimated 1,400 to 2,000 vehicles. Haddad, Bright and the crew destroyed at least 20 enemy trucks and four armored personnel carriers. They received the Air Medal for their actions that night. More than two decades after Operation Desert Storm, Haddad, who now serves as vice commander of AFRC, and Bright, chief of the Plans Division in the Directorate of Plans and Programs at Headquarters AFRC, reflected on that eventful night in early 1991. "It was an exciting time for me and the other members of my crew," Haddad said. "That experience helped me go to war in the future as we went to OIF (Operation Iraqi Freedom) and OEF (Operation Enduring Freedom). It helped in terms of realizing the risks and what it was like to be a crew member going into that kind of environment." Like Haddad, Bright maintained that the night had a lasting impact on him and his career because it "was always something I could hang my hat on. As a youngster in the Air Force, I had seen combat." (This article was first published in the August 2014 edition of Citizen Airman) Acquisitions enterprise: Experimentation and agility A key leader in Air Force acquisitions testified Jan.7 on Capitol Hill before the House Armed Services Committee on acquisition reform, explaining how the Air Force is improving its acquisitions processes through agility and experimentation. Rich Lombardi, the acting assistant secretary of Air Force acquisition, discussed how the acquisitions enterprise needs to focus on three areas to include strategic planning, prototyping and experimentation, science and technology, as well as modular and open systems architecture. Over the past two years the Air Force has made great strides to improve the strategic planning process as evidenced by the release of the visionary 30-year strategy, Lombardi said. Were also reinvigorating the use of prototype and experimentation for the purpose of providing warfighters with the opportunity to explore novel operational concepts reduce risk and lead times to develop and field advanced weapon systems." Lombardi said the Air Forces science and technology program plays an integral role in technology development, often fielding temporary operational prototypes to meet urgent warfighter needs. However, they are not necessarily the final solution, but a stepping stone to a long-term solution that addresses aspects of producibility, reliability and sustainability. According to Lombardi, the Air Force developed a system in response to urgent warfighter needs received from the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force in Afghanistan. The Air Force developed and deployed a sensor payload on a tactical remotely piloted air vehicle. This capability has been very successful in supporting numerous activities in theater and is credited with improvised explosive device detection, weapons cache identification, and enemies being captured or killed. The use of modular and open systems architectures allows the Air Force to be more agile and adaptable which is why there is an emphasis on fielding systems more rapidly and building resilient systems that are inherently resistant to predictive failure, according to the written testimony. The Air Force has more programs than ever implementing modular and open system architecture approaches, Lombardi said. These methods can help shorten developmental timelines. Such systems are designed to later upgrade which can allow us to better manage our risk and schedule. Lombardi also addressed business-related challenges by explaining Open Systems Acquisition, a new acquisition approach prototype. It will enable aggressive competition toward rapid prototyping and utilize other transaction authority to create a consortium specifically focused on reaching non-traditional defense companies, he said. This model was tested last year as a pilot initiative for the Air Force Distributed Common Ground System, the Air Forces primary intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance collection, processing, exploitation, and analysis and dissemination system. Two teams of developers were awarded contracts for their products that were offered at less than 80 percent of the original government cost estimate. I firmly believe the Air Force acquisition enterprise has and is building an even stronger engineering and program management culture that values strategic agility as a core capability, Lombardi said. We look to capitalize on the complex and dynamic environment of today and tomorrow to ensure our Airmen have what they need to meet any challenge or any threat, anywhere in the world. I began my professional life as an arts management educator just over 20 years ago, in Fall 1995. My focus, since then, has been rather specific: effective management of (mostly) professional (mostly) nonprofit organizations that produce, preserve, present, and support creative human expression. After so many years, its embarrassing to admit that Ive missed a dramatic blind spot in teaching, management, and organizational theory until now: Humans have bodies. And yes, I know that I have a body. This isnt news to me. But what has become suddenly obvious is that the founding logics of both the academic and business world assume that we dont have bodies, or that bodies are inconsequential to personal, professional, or civic life. Sir Ken Robinson has remarked on this aspect of academia, and particularly the professors therein: Theres something curious about professors in my experience not all of them, but typically, they live in their heads. Theyre disembodied, you know, in a kind of literal way. They look upon their body as a form of transport for their heads. Its a way of getting their head to meetings. And sure, when you choose to be a university professor, youre selecting a life of the mindwhere you spend extra attention and bring focused intention to the intellect. Im cool with that. Again, this isnt news to me. Professors have long been accused of detachment from reality. But the news to me is how pervasive this detachment is, not only in academia, but also in business. On the business side, scholar Antonio Strati observes this bias throughout the history of organizational theory and management studies. And I know Im talking about theory again, but Ive worked with enough businesses and professionals to know that these assumptions are commonly held. Strati makes his point by describing the kind of insane working world these shared theories imply: as soon as a human person crosses the virtual or physical threshold of an organization, s/he is purged of corporeality, so that only his or her mind remains. Once a person has crossed this threshold, therefore, s/he is stripped of both clothing and body and consists of pure thought, which the organization equips with work instruments and thus reclothes. When the person leaves the organization, the mind sheds these work instruments and resumes its corporeality, and with it the perceptive faculties and aesthetic judgement that yield aesthetic understanding of reality, but only in the society lying outside the physical or virtual walls of the organization. (Strati, Antonio. Organization and Aesthetics. London ; Thousand Oaks, Calif: SAGE, 1999, p.3) Even in academia, that doesnt sound like my institution, nor my job. And thank goodness for that. In my work, Im informed and deeply affected by my physical environment, by all of my senses and how they make sense with each other, by the muscle memories of my external life, by the sense of myself and my peers occupying space together. This brain-but-not-body bias is not just bizarre, it can be insidious. Imagine, for example, you decided that a primary goal of public school education, or university education, was to prepare individuals for the work force, to be productive citizens through employment or entrepreneurship or the like. You would draw on your assumptions about work, organizations, and industry (or ask industry for their assumptions, which would carry this bias too), and design a system that prepares them for that impossible world. Pure intellect, with participants transported by bodies but unaffected by them, working in systems of pure intellect (sure, complicated by politics and power and such, but all described in rational/cognitive terms). Youd emphasize the skills of reason like reading, writing, math and discount anything sensuous or aesthetic. You might keep the arts, but mostly those elements that appeared to build practical skills, or elements that facilitated learning of the important cognitive capacities. But youd discount anything, including art, that strayed too far into the senses or the physical self. Even further, you might flag those things as contrary to intellect or reason, distractions perhaps, and want them out entirely. Now, imagine you did this for generations. As an alternative, lets suppose you believed public school and university education to be intended for something MORE than employmentfor whole and purposeful people, with civic vision, global understanding, deep curiosity, and the agency to integrate those things into their lives and societies. Even then, your deep-seated theories of the world might tilt toward intellect. And you would design an intervention to prepare students for a disconnected and disembodied universe that doesnt actually exist. Now, imagine you wanted to design and lead an arts organization, a durable collective effort committed to creative human expression, not only of the mind (although sure), but of the whole person or the whole community. As passionate radicals, you might even admit that the artists and audiences you serve have bodies and complex aesthetic selves. But you likely wouldnt extend that admission to yourself or your team, your board or your business partners. When doing business, you would want to behave like a business. And people in businesses dont have bodies. Imagine an organization that disregarded this rather essential bit of human reality. Or perhaps you dont have to imagine it. Perhaps you already work there. The first step in addressing a bias is to acknowledge you have one. Ive glimpsed it in myself. Im admitting I have a problem. Im stumbling to correct it. And now that Im looking, Im sensing it all around me. Dance: such a fragile artform. Written in bodies, tucked in memories, if it isnt seen, it dies. I was reminded of this melancholy fact by two recent reports. First, the Swedish choreographer Mats Ek appeared to announce that he was calling a halt both to new work and to revivals of his pieces, as he wasnt prepared either to supervise them personally or let them proceed without him. It was a surprise Ek is only 70 and a sorrow too: it seemed that a major European choreographers oeuvre might disappear at a stroke. (The decision had added poignancy as Bye, his rich solo for Sylvie Guillem, was the coda to her own farewell programme last year.) Yesterday, Lloyd Newson, director of DV8 dance theatre, announced that he was taking a break from the company he co-founded 30 years ago, and that its work would be put on hold. Newsons investigations into sexuality, religion and the limits of tolerance (most recently, John) have been ambitious amalgams of squiggling movement and highly-charged interview: they no doubt demand vast reserves of time and energy. In a subsequent interview, Ek suggested rumours of his retreat were exaggerated. He told Roslyn Sulcas that he wanted to get off the road for a while: for the next two years, I am making a definite stop to performance and production and selling my works If I want to come back to work with stage art in various forms after this experience of otherness, I will. And if not, I wont. Like Bagpuss, when the choreographer goes to sleep, all his works go to sleep too. Dance is unusual in tying works of art so closely to their creator. If a playwright takes time out, their existing texts are available for exploration. If a playwright dies, an estate may face difficult decisions about how to keep the work alive (as I discovered last year), but scripts are not interred with their author. Dance is different, especially beyond ballet companies, who can maintain work in the repertoire and have made decisive strides in ensuring it is comprehensively notated and recorded. But, especially in contemporary dance and single-artist-led companies, the work is more dependent on the creators presence. No one other than Newson will revive DV8s back catalogue (though it would be fascinating to see what would happen if they did). If Ek stuffs his dances under the floorboards, they may fade from view. Unperformed is unremembered. Last autumn, I saw an eyes-on-stalks mash-up of work by Lea Anderson, who in 2011 lost funding for her companies (pictured top in Dance of Death) the Cholmondeleys (ladies) and Featherstonehaughs (gents). 25 years of inventive, gender-savvy and hilarious work vanished in an instant. In October, Anderson devised Hand in Glove for London Contemporary Dance School students: a brilliant collage of back-catalogue snippets, including amazing Elvis retreads, Weimar visions and Egon Schiele contortions. Many of the sequins, merkins and other astonishments were designed by Sandy Powell, now garlanded film designer (Carol). Hand in Glove will also appear at the V&A in April. But, with no company to sustain her, when will we next see Anderson at work? Ive written before about how it would be wonderful to see ballet companies take a fresh look at the artforms classics, new visions of its swans and princesses. How interesting it would be to revive modern dance works in the same way to see if they are amenable to new stagings, radical new readings, being danced on new designs and bodies from another (dance) planet. Slowly, some moves are being made to break the single-artist model to save them from the Sisyphean grind of sustaining a body of work by will alone, to ensure it doesnt disappear when it all becomes too much. Film is doing a lot to widen the pool of available resource the merry archivists of YouTube are heroes against oblivion but live performance is where dance breathes. Some American companies are widening their pool beyond a single artist notably Paul Taylor and Stephen Petronio, each of whom is welcoming modern classics by other choreographers into their repertoire. But until we find a way to think about the art beyond the artist, and about the work as distinct from its creators will, then we may continue to shed brilliant dance without even noticing. Follow David on Twitter: @mrdavidjays Students with learning differences show others the path to college Patrick Young and Logan Darr from the ECU STEPP Program are redesigning the program's blog and adding multimedia to help students like them who have learning disorders. (Photos by Jay Clark) A pathway to success Patrick Young and Dr. Sarah Williams discuss the introduction to the new podcast series. Reaching out to others Connecting with their audience Not so different after all Patrick Young was told early in life that he was not college material; that he wouldn't make it. He and his parents - especially his mother, who also grew up with dyslexia - thought otherwise.said Young.He and eight other students with learning disabilities began their first semesters at East Carolina University in 2014 as part of the Walter and Marie Williams STEPP Program (Supporting Transition and Education through Planning and Partnerships). The program helps students with learning disabilities navigate enrollment and transition to campus life. Now, Young and classmate Logan Darr want to help other students like them by sharing their experiences.said Darr, who was diagnosed with ADHD and put on medication when she was 6.Darr has difficulty writing and with auditory processing, so she needs extra time for assignments and a quiet, solitary space to take exams. Quizzes and tests must be read to her, a service provided through ECU's Disability Support Services department.The STEPP Program helps students find services they need and provides peer and faculty support at ECU, but space in the program is limited to 10 new students per year.Young feels lucky to have found STEPP.he said.To ensure that students with a learning difference have access to the same information and support, Darr and Young manage STEPP's student blog and plan to expand it by adding podcasts and a YouTube channel.said Young.Darr, an art major concentrating in graphic design, has been redesigning the site to improve navigation and user experience, as well as indexing blog topics. She also answers questions in the "Student to Student" section, where students can interact directly with the blog team.Young manages the site and the team of five bloggers. He hopes to expand the number of writers and the audience, to make the blog more appealing to high school students.said Young.Their first podcast will be recorded on Nov. 30 and will discuss how to disclose a learning disability, its definition and what accommodations are available. Adding multimedia elements seemed a natural step for Young, because he has trouble reading.said Young.Future topics will include information about metacognition (understanding one's own thought processes), identifying learning disorders like dyslexia, test-taking and note-taking skills. The retooled site will also include podcasts. Young has applied for a grant that will help them create content for a YouTube channel and attract additional writers outside of ECU's STEPP program who can share their experiences.The blog site - and STEPP - are associated with a larger initiative called College STAR (Supporting Transition, Access and Retention), which includes other universities and their programs that assist students with learning disabilities. Students at UNC-Greensboro, Fayetteville State University and Appalachian State University have also worked with College STAR.said Sarah Williams, director of ECU's STEPP Program.Williams said that not all students with learning differences are comfortable sharing their experiences publically, which should be respected. The leadership of two vocal, confident individuals can make a real difference, she said.said Darr.Young added,Both Darr and Young will move forward knowing that the STEPP Program has helped prepare them, and so they are doing their part to help prepare others for the future.said Darr.said Young.The College STAR program is funded by the Oak Foundation of Geneva, Switzerland, and the N.C. GlaxoSmithKline Foundation. For more information, visit www.collegestar.org All the latest Ashbourne news. Ashbourne is an historic market town in Derbyshire. Situated on the southern edge of the Peak District, it is known as the 'Gateway to Dovedale' and the 'Gateway to the Peak District'. Ashbourne is famous for the annual Royal Shrovetide Football Match, which has been played since at least 1667, although its origins may date back centuries earlier. Ashbourne became a Fairtrade town in March 2005. The popular Tissington Trail, which follows the route of the former Ashbourne to Buxton railway, starts on the edge of town. Keep up to date with the latest news from the town by signing up for our newsletter. In a country of limited resources, where the government is no longer able to cope with this situation, the emergency "remains high", said Fr Paul Karam. Despite the bleak picture, there are some rays of hope. People help each other: young Christians and Muslims meet; families show their solidarity in small deeds; and parishes provide children with moments of leisure and celebration. Beirut (AsiaNews) For Fr Paul Karam, director of Caritas Lebanon, the refugee emergency "remains high" in the country. Faced with limited resources, a government that "is no longer able to cope with this situation," and an ongoing economic and institutional crisis, the country finds itself on the brink of collapse. Speaking to AsiaNews, he said that the local Caritas has led the way for more than four years in helping Syrian and other refugees entering the country in a never-ending flow. Indeed, despite the emergency, there are examples of solidarity, of people helping each other; situations in which young Christians and Muslims meet and talk to each other. This keeps hope for the future alive. According to United Nations figures, some 1.2 million Syrians fled to Lebanon in more than four years of war. However, these are only those who have registered with its agencies. Other sources say that Lebanon has taken in nearly 1.6 million Syrian refugees. In addition, there are at least 700 Iraqi Christian families from Baghdad, Mosul and Erbil as well as tens of thousands of Palestinians from Syria. Thus, the country of 4.4 million people is confronted with major demographic, economic, political, and security challenges, and finds it increasingly difficult to handle the situation. And things have not changed that much lately. Refugees increasingly want to flee, go to Europe, above all Germany. The risk that the Middle East might be emptied of its Christian communities remains high. For this reason, the Church continues to encourage the international community to engage in dialogue, peace, justice and mutual respect." "In the meantime, needs remain high, whilst the means to meet them are limited, Fr Karam explained. For this reason, if there are safe regions in the war-torn countries, we should encourage people to come back. Ultimately, for the clergyman, the Arab Spring has failed, causing destruction, wars, arms race and aggravated the economic and social crises in the various countries of the region. Caritas Lebanon remains committed to relief work, providing food aid but also psychological support and encouragement for Christian-Muslim dialogue, especially among young people. "Since the summer, Fr Karam explained, we have encouraged dialogue by organising meetings between young Christian and Muslim refugees from Syria, Iraq and Lebanon itself. The goal is to show them how to build countries based on coexistence, and that people can talk to each other. What we call peace building has been met by a positive response, he added. Young people want to contribute to this process, by getting rid of the fear of others." In this context of crisis, the people of Lebanon "still harbour great hope and continue to show their solidarity", even if "families are getting increasingly poor and the refugee emergency is bringing the country closer to the brink. "We need a miracle, he said. In this year of mercy, we want to encourage people to go forward, and live in hope as a people and as Christians". For Christmas, many of Lebanons parishes and dioceses have promoted significant initiatives "to reiterate the message of hope." For instance, many families took part in fundraising activities to buy food, basic necessities and gifts for the poor, Caritas Lebanons director said. Despite it being a difficult time for everyone, solidarity among people has not diminished. Many parishes organised celebrations and leisure time for children, animated by young people and Caritas volunteers." "I believe in peace based on justice and respect, Fr Karam noted. And The international community has a duty to resolve the crisis, easing tensions through diplomatic channels, not at the detriment of poor people." by Weena Kowitwanij Fr Thasanai Komkris is a biblical and Latin scholar who spent 20 years working on the edition published in July 2014. Known as "Thasanai the great", he studied for years in Rome and taught in major seminaries of Malaysia and Thailand. In 1958, he met Saint John XXIII. Bangkok (AsiaNews) Bangkok Catholics welcomed with joy the news that Pope Francis had appointed Fr Thasanai Komkris as his chaplain, an honorary title granted to long-serving diocesan priests. The pope's decision dates back to 30 November, but the archdiocese of the Thai capital made it public yesterday. Fr Komkris, who has spent 20 years working on the Thai edition of the Catholic Bible, was born on 18 September 1935 in Songkhla, southern Thailand, the first of 10 children of Louis and Elizabeth Komkris. After graduating from the Assumption secondary school, run by the Congregation of St Gabriel, he continued his studies at the Urbaniana in Rome between 1954 and 1961, where he received a degree in philosophy and theology. Ordained priest on 21 December 1960, he furthered his studies between 1973 and 1976 with a degree from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. He owes his priestly vocation, the chaplain said, to his mother. "One day she told me, If one day the war ends, Ill send you to a college where you will be taught to be a good man'." In fact, "when I was sent to the Salesian school in Rajchaburi province, I had the opportunity to be in close contact with the priests and attend mass every day, singing songs in Latin. I took on the challenge of learning Latin, and since only seminarians could learn it at that time, I decided to enter the seminary." Fr Komkris recalls a meeting he had with St John XXIII, who visited the Urban College in November 1958, a month after his election. "His Holiness told us jokingly, 'My home is right on the other side. My window is on the side opposite yours; open the window, so we'll see each other." As one of the greatest Bible scholars in Thailand, Fr Komkris contributed to the Thai version of the sacred text published in July 2014. Thanks to his knowledge of Latin, he also translated in Thai all the Church documents over the years. Academics of his generation refer to him as Thasanai the great. Speaking about his vocation, the priest said, "The blessings that God gives to each of us are different: for some, it is to profess the faith, for others, it is to teach, etc. For most of my life, I have taught at the major seminary in Penang, Malaysia, and then at the Luxmundi seminary in Bangkok. I did not do a lot of pastoral work in the Catholic community." Mgr Zenari talks to AsiaNews about his indignation over the crimes committed against civilians. He wants the media to pay more attention. Lorries carrying food and medicine have been blocked just outside besieged towns and villages. He praises international groups and members of the Church operating in dangerous areas. The Islamic State frees another 16 Christian hostages in al-Hasakah. Damascus (AsiaNews) The Apostolic Nuncio in Damascus, Mgr Mario Zenari, does not mince words about the serious crimes perpetrated for far too long across Syria. Using hunger, and thirst, as a weapon of war is a crime, a shameful thing, he said. I am surprised that the international media is just talking about it now, he told AsiaNews. In some places, people have been dying of hunger for more than a year with lorries full of food, milk, and medicines, just waiting outside. This is the case of towns under siege like Madaya (where a second aid convoy arrived yesterday), Foah and Kefraya, or the refugee camp of Yarmouk, near Damascus. All this brings shame to the media and the international community. This situation must be solved by eliminating the root cause of the conflict, he said. To do so, the world press must "pay more attention to the humanitarian question, a pressing issue that must be resolved today, he added. The bishop admits that there may be "difficulties," but "there are no excuses because there is food and medicines out there, as well as lorries, yet people are dying of hunger." For Mgr Zenari, "A political solution to the Syrian conflict could be found tomorrow, or in a month. Between now and then, internationally recognised human rights must be guaranteed and respected. The humanitarian problem, the use of hunger and thirst I would add is a crime, a shameful thing, as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also pointed out. Referring to Madaya, which recently became front-page news, the prelate said he was "astonished" that media just started covering the situation. For months, the United Nations had been sounding the alarm about what was going on in the town. The same goes for Yarmouk, just seven kilometres from the capital, where the same shameful tragedy continues in what is tantamount to an open-air prison, a refugee camp where conditions have been desperate for quite some time. "Two weeks ago, there was an attempt to evacuate the area, but it was unsuccessful, Mgr Zenari lamented. According to United Nations sources, up to 4.5 million people live in disputed areas that are difficult to reach for humanitarian agencies, including at least 400,000 in 15 places under siege. "I admit that there may be difficulties but the instrumental use of hunger and thirst is inadmissible," the apostolic vicar said. In such a difficult environment, he "welcomes and encourages" the efforts of those "working to solve some risky situations." The arrival of aid in Madaya, Foah, and Kefraya "are positive signs in humanitarian terms, even though it does touch the whole country. We must acknowledge that various bodies, including the United Nations as well as the Red Cross and the Red Crescent Society, have been working steadily and quietly to broker deals to ensure the arrival of aid." To this, we must add the efforts of the Church and individual priests, nuns and religious whose presence provides an important reference point in humanitarian terms. Meanwhile, the Islamic State (IS) group yesterday released a group of Assyrian Christian hostages captured by the group in Syrias north-eastern province of al-Hasakah in February. According to the Assyrian Network for Human Rights (ANHR), 16 people eight children, three women and five men were freed. In Syria, Assyrian Christians number 30,000 or 2.5 per cent of the countrys 1.2 million Christians. Most of them lived in some 35 villages in Al-Hasakah where IS forces, government troops and other Islamist extremist groups have been fighting for some time. "In the last few weeks, the international community has been trying to end the spiral of crises and violence in Syria, Mgr Zenari said. Let us hope that the will to do something leads to success. Three men stopped near the capital. The main suspect for attack is Bahrum Naim. A year ago he was in Syria to fight with IS. When he returned home, he published a paper online that encourages Indonesian militants to imitate Paris attacks. Jakarta (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Indonesian security forces are hunting the terror cells linked to bombings in Jakarta yesterday, which left a balance of seven dead and 26 injured. The inspector general of police General Karnavian in an interview with the BBC, in which he said that "Indonesians are safe because the perpetrators are a small group that we are monitoring and which we're after." "The attackers - he added - have been neutralized, but are linked to other cells in Java and Sulawesi." Today, three men were arrested in the vicinity of Jakarta, but it is still unclear whether involved in the attacks. Terrorism experts agree that the small number of innocent victims, despite the high number of explosions, would reveal the hand of local groups with little training. General Karnavian confirmed the statements made yesterday, that the attacks were carried out by "soldiers of the Caliphate" and were directed against "citizens of the crusading coalition ". This is why the explosions were concentrated in a high density tourist area. Indonesian authorities say the group is linked to the Islamic state (IS) lead by Bahrum Naim (see photo). According to police, he would like to unite all the groups in South-East Asia under the banner of the Caliphate. He is currently on the run. Seven years ago, Bahrum Naim ran an internet cafe in the city of Solo (Sukarta) in Central Java. In 2011 he was arrested for illegal possession of weapons and served three years in prison. Since that time it has become the benchmark of terrorist groups on the island. A year ago, Naim left for Syria to fight in the ranks of the IS. Some time ago, he posted an essay online entitled "Lessons from the Paris attacks", in which Naim encouraged the Indonesian cells to study and imitate the planning, timing and coordination of the attacks of 13 November 2015. Gen. Karnavian said about 400 Indonesians left for Syria to join the IS, of which 50 have died. There are an estimated 1000 jihadist sympathizers in Indonesia: a small number when you consider that it is the most populous Muslim country in the world, with 206 million faithful of the Koran (87%). by Christopher Sharma Delhi has blocked goods exported to the country since 20 September. The population is suffering from severe shortages of food and basic necessities. The famous Hindu festival of Dashain and Diwali celebrated in a low key. Entrepreneurs expect industrial recovery due to Christmas sales. Many catechumens will be baptized on Christmas Eve. Kathmandu (AsiaNews) - Despite the Indian embargo which is causing enormous suffering and hardship to the Nepalese people, Christmas celebrations are awakening enthusiasm and excitement among Christians and believers of other religions. Private entrepreneurs, government officials, religious leaders and lay people believe that the enthusiasm for the preparations leading up to Christmas will bring hope to a people suffering first because of the earthquake and now from the economic crisis induced by Indias embargo. The unofficial blockade of goods exported to Nepal has been in force since September 20, that is, since the Kathmandu Parliament approved the nations first secular Constitution. The economic measures decided by the government of Delhi has already ruined the famous Hindu festival of Dashain and Diwali. But now thousands of people believe that Christmas can revive the fortunes of the country. Pashupati Murarka, president of the Federation of Nepalese Chambers and Commerce Industries (Fncci), told AsiaNews: "The industries are suffering daily losses in profits. India showed no compassion during the Hindu festival and industries were blocked. But now people are regaining hope and I am excited for Christmas. The celebrations could revive industrial production due to Christmas sales. " He adds: "We pray for the country to start and pull back from the brink of crisis. Father Ignatius, a Catholic priest, confirms the growing anticipation ahead of Christmas: "The joy and enthusiasm is no less than in previous years. We are all preparing to welcome the birth of Christ. There are still many problems and obstacles caused by the embargo, but the people are ready to overcome them. " The streets of the country are filling up with decorations, as well as shops, hotels and private homes. The Bikalpa Art Centre in Bhaktapur has organized a Christmas market for 13 December. The event will also host art exhibitions and will be an opportunity for the exchange of gifts. The night of Christmas is also the time when many catechumens begin their journey of Christian faith. Diken Tamang is one of them and is preparing to receive the sacrament of baptism. He says: "After two years of catechism, I learned a lot and I'm really ready for Baptism. I'm delighted for the fact that my friends and I will receive Communion and celebrate Christmas as Catholics for the first time". Pakistani forces go after the militant Jaish-e-Mohammad group, blamed for an attack against an Indian Air Force base. The groups founder is among those detained. Peace talks with Delhi were the its target. Islamabad (AsiaNews/Agencies) Pakistan has shut down several madrassas (religious schools) run by Jaish-e-Mohammad, a militant Islamist group, and arrested 14 people, including its founder, Maulana Masood Azhar. The group is accused, among other things, of carrying out an attack against Indias Pathankot Air Force Station that left 13 people dead, following a recent meeting between Indian and Pakistani leaders. The police raid targeted a mosque and seminary near the city of Daska, ostensibly where the order was issued to launch the attack with heavily armed gunmen dressed in Indian army uniforms. The gun battle, which lasted four days, began on 2 January, some days after the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers, Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif, met in Lahore to launch a surprise peace initiative. Extremists in both countries are not keen on any rapprochement. Islamic and Hindu fundamentalists oppose normalisation between the two nations, once part of the pre-independence British Raj. Responding to the Pakistani action, India yesterday announced that it would re-schedule diplomatic talks with its neighbour, which had been postponed after the Pathankot attack. On the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Francis reflects on Mercy: "Merciful love is Gods most striking attribute condensed in the synthesis of the Gospel message, the Church's faith". The Pope announces an apostolic trip to Mexico for next February. Vatican City (AsiaNews) A prayer that no one ever fail to feel Gods tenderness and consolation, God loves us with an unconditional love, without limits, without expecting anything in return ... God does not like Pelagianism or Gnosticism, said Francis Saturday during Mass celebrated in St. Peter's for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of Latin America. After which he announced, for February 2016, a visit to Mexico "to pray at her sanctuary." God, says Francis, "loves us so much that he even rejoices and takes pleasure in us. God does not like Pelagianism He loves us with gratuitous love, love without limits, and without expecting anything in return. This merciful love is the most striking attribute of God, the synthesis of which is condensed the Gospel message, the faith of the Church.. " The word "mercy", explains, " is composed of two words: misery and heart. The heart indicates the capacity to love; mercy is that love, which embraces the misery of the human person. It is a love that "feels" our poverty as its own, with a view to freeing us of it. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 Jn 4:9-10). The Word became flesh, ... God does not like Gnosticism either... with the intention of sharing all our frailties with the intention of experiencing our human condition, even unto taking upon himself the Cross, with all the pain of human existence. Such is the abyss of compassion and mercy: a fusion, in order to make himself company, and to place himself in the service of a wounded humanity. No sin can cancel his merciful closeness or prevent him from unleashing the grace of conversion, provided we invoke it.. " Indeed, Francis added, "sin itself makes more radiant the love of God who, to ransom a slave, sacrificed his Son. That mercy of God comes to us with the gift of the Holy Spirit in Baptism, enables, generates and nourishes the new life of his disciples. For, howsoever great and grave the sins of the world, the Spirit, who renews the face of the earth, makes possible the miracle of a life that is more human, more full of joy and hope. Let us, too, shout with jubilation: The Lord is my God and Savior!. " The Lord is near, says the apostle Paul, and nothing should make us anguished. The greatest mercy lies in his being in our midst, in our being in his presence and company. He walks with us, he shows us the path of love, lifts us up in our falls, holds us to our labors, accompanies us in all circumstances of our existence. He opens our eyes to see themselves and the world miseries, but also fills us with hope. The peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Phil 4:4-7). This is the source of our life made peaceful and happy; nothing can steal this peace and joy, despite the sufferings and trials of life. Let us cultivate this experience of mercy, peace and hope during Advent, through which we are making our way in light of the Jubilee year. Announcing the Good News to the poor, as John the Baptist, performing works of mercy, is a good way to look for the coming of Jesus at Christmas. We should imitate Him, who gave everything and has given everything. This is his mercy, without asking anything in return". In Mary, God rejoices and delights in a special way. That "the sweetness of her gaze be with us in this Holy Year, so that we might rediscover the joy of the tenderness of God (Cf. Bull Misericordiae vultus, 24). We ask her that this jubilee year will be a planting of merciful love in the hearts of individuals, families and nations. Let us convert and become merciful people, and may all Christian communities be oases and sources of mercy, witnesses to a charity that does not allow exclusions. Let us implore her to guide the footsteps of the American people, a pilgrim people looking for the Mother of mercy and asks her to show them her Son Jesus". On death row for apostasy, the 35-year-old poet could be beheaded. Next week, a panel of judges is expected to review his case. His works will be read in 42 countries as part of campaign designed to secure his release. Artists and intellectuals speak out on his behalf. Ramallah (AsiaNews/Agencies) Palestinian intellectuals and writers gathered yesterday in Ramallah to read poems and call for the release of Palestinian artist, curator, and poet Ashraf Fayadh, 35, who was convicted and sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia. For fellow Palestinian poet Mahmoud Abu Hashhash, no poet "should be punished for his creation" but awarded for his art. Thursday's readings in the city of Ramallah were part of a campaign launched by the International Literature Festival in Berlin for works of Ashraf Fayadh to be read in 42 countries to press that his life be spared. Fayadhs family is originally from Gaza, but he was born in Saudi Arabia and has been living and working in the southwestern Saudi city of Abha Human Rights Watch said that Fayadh was convicted and sentenced to death on charges of blasphemy, spreading atheism spread and illicit relations with some women, whom he photographed with his mobile phone. He is expected to be executed by beheading. According to some sources, a panel of judges is set to For the Saudi authorities he is also guilty of "apostasy, i.e. renouncing the Muslim faith. During his trial, he was denied legal counsel in violation of international and Saudi law. The reasons for Fayadhs arrest and imprisonment are contested, emanating from a personal dispute with another artist, which escalated into the larger accusation of apostasy and blasphemy, including by the Saudi religious police. In February 2014, one hundred Arab intellectuals demanded his release from Saudi prison. The PEN American Center sent a letter to President Obama in December 2015 calling on him to press Saudi Arabias ruler, King Salman, to release Fayadh. Last year, Saudi Arabia executed more than 150 people. earlier this month, Saudi authorities executed 47 people accused of "terrorism, including Shia leader Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, an important Saudi dissident, whose death led to a row between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran, possibly aggravating tensions in the Middle East. For years, major human rights organisations and many Western governments have been trying to get Wahhabi-ruled Saudi Arabia to implement fairer trial procedures and more humane executions. Saudi Arabia, which enforces strict Islamic law (Sharia), is the only country in the world where the death penalty entails public beheading. Capital punishment is imposed on those found guilty of murder, armed robbery, rape, drug trafficking, as well as witchcraft and sodomy. Lesser felonies, like theft or opinion-related offences, in addition to jail time, can be punished by amputation of the hand or public flogging. By the end of the semester, you are required to write your own personal/professional commitment to social justice (7-8 pages), given all the new knowledge(s) that the course participants generated every week. The questions for this assignment are: what challenged you in the ELC-381 course? What stood out? What did you learn about yourself? Given the new understanding you have by now about society and education, what's your personal/professional commitment to social justice? More instructions and information about this assignment, if needed, will be provided later in the semester. He [the professor] should, above all, remember that his business is not to provide his students with ready made opinions, but to train them to think for themselves. The teacher should be especially on his guard against taking advantage of the students' immaturity by indoctrinating him with the teacher's own opinions before the student has had an opportunity to fairly examine other opinions upon the matters in question. "Excerpt from pedagogy of the oppressed," by Paulo Freire. "Education is politics," by Ira Shor. (Shor is a devotee of Freire.) Four selections from bell hooks (hooks is a radical feminist and race theorist; she, too, cites Freire as an important influence.). Recitatif, by Toni Morrison. (It is a short story that has nothing to do with education but is instead focused on racial privilege.) Gloria Steinem and bell hooks in a conversation. "Raising Penelope, My Transgender Son," by Jodie Patterson. "White Privilege," by Peggy McIntosh. "What Matthew Shephard Would Tell Us," by Doug Risner. Teaching Joe L. Kincheloe (Kincheloe was the "Canada Research Chair in Critical Pedagogy" at McGill University and founder of The Paulo and Nita Freire International Project). Feminist theories and education: A primer Dismantling White privilege: Pedagogy, politics, and Whiteness Undergraduate Courses: ELC 381 Institution of Education SOE 491 Introduction to Schools, Schooling, and Society WGS 490 Capstone in Women's and Gender Studies Graduate Courses: ELC 615 Foundations of Curriculum ELC 625 Seminar in Teaching Social Foundations ELC 678 Feminist Theories and Education ELC 679 History of Education in U.S. ELC 680 Transnational and Postcolonial Perspectives in Feminism ELC 686 Curriculum Theory ELC 688 Queer Theory, Queer Pedagogy ELC 698 Gender, Art, Politics, and Pedagogy ELC 722 Aesthetics, Visual Studies, and Critical Pedagogy ELC 688 Critical Inquiry, Praxis and Pedagogy ELC 688 Feminist Inquiry and the Sociological Imagination ELC 688 (De)Regulating Bodies: Bricoleur Readings WGS 651 Feminist Research Analysis. In a two-week division of the course called "Exploring Education: What are we teaching for?" a text entitled > "Social Justice in the Classroom." In a two-week division of the class entitled "Discovering Columbus, Discovering Normal," a text entitled "Planting Seeds of Solidarity: Weaving World Justice Issues into the Elementary Classroom." In a two-week division called "Class Matters," a text entitled "Decloaking Class: Why Class Identity and Consciousness Count." For a two-week division of the course called "Queering Gender," Okun wrote that "we'll be looking at issues related to gender, including sexism and homophobia, and why these issues matter in the classroom." This project may be written (5-8 pages) or completed in artistic representation (video, photo essay, dance/performance, poetry, music); it will include sharing with the class. Create a narrative about the nooks and crannies of your life. Delve into the memories and counter-memories that have been most influential on your journey. Particularly examine the ways that race, social class, gender, sexuality, and ability have evolved in your story. According to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro catalog, the course "ELC 381, The Institution of Education" is "required of students seeking teacher licensure." Unfortunately, the course often goes far beyond what is politically acceptable for an education course at a public university.When one looks at the section of ELC 381 taught by Revital Zilonka in the Spring of 2016, it becomes clear that the degree of politicization completely violates the spirit of free inquiry that is supposed to govern our schools. The syllabus for the section in question requires a Personal/Professional Commitment Statement, which reads:A public university cannot permit a professor to demand that students "commit" to a specific political perspective. And "social justice," as it is used in this case, is precisely that, a term that implies a left-wing ideology. Indeed, when Zilonka's entire syllabus is explored, it becomes clear that, going by the above statement, UNC-G is requiring students to commit themselves to, among other leftist theories, the "critical pedagogy" of the Maoist-inspired Brazilian writer Paolo Freire This is hardly a case of a school or professor exercising his or her academic freedom: the course clearly violates most accepted definitions of academic freedom. The literature of the American Association of University Professors-the professional organization that has essentially defined academic freedom in the United States-is filled with declarations against such indoctrination.For example, consider these two quotations from the AAUP's foundational document, the 1915 Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure While certainly the politicization is the worst thing about Zilonka's course, many of the required readings are also irrelevant to the study of education. One of two required books,, is described on the author's website as "a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice." It does not appear to even close to the stated goal of the course:Some other required readings and viewings in Zilonka's section of ELC 381 include:Additionally, students in Zilonka's class are told to like, among many others, the following Facebook pages:The degree of politicization is overwhelming. Looking at the syllabus, one wonders whether this is a course on the "institution of education" or the agenda of a gathering of hard left activist organizations.And it is not just a matter of a single rogue professor drawing outside the lines of acceptable teaching. The course has been offered for many years, and there are seven sections in the Spring of 2016 semester. An essay about the course on the school website by former ELC 381 teacher Sheryl Lieb says that "[T]his course is grounded in frameworks of social justice and critical pedagogy." In other words, it was openly intended to push prospective teachers to adopt left-wing ideas.The major architect of ELC 381 was Svi Shapiro, who is also the primary author of the main textbook used. Shapiro has held a variety of key administrative posts in UNC-Greensboro's Department of Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations, including the interim chair. On his UNC-G biography or single course section, he lists "critical pedagogy" as first among his interests.In general, teachers of ELC 381 seem to lean very far to the left. Teaching a section of ELC 381 in the Spring of 2016 is Leila Villaverde . She lists her "Primary Specialization" as: Curriculum Studies, Critical Pedagogy, Feminist Theories and Gender Studies, Aesthetics and Visual Studies, Histories of Education.Among her books are:Here is a list of the courses Villaverde has taught at Greensboro:Looking at past syllabi reveals that the course has not strayed far from its radical roots. In the Fall of 2009, teacher Tema Okun assigned the following readings:In the Spring of 2013, Cherese Childers-McGee assigned as a final paper an "Advocacy Project," which had studentsThe social issues are as they are for most sections of ELC 381 over the years: "Privilege, oppression, and difference," "Race and Ethnicity," (including "White privilege,") "Ableism," "Social Class," "Gender and Identity," and on and on. And to be sure, the reading selections were from authors who invariably on the far left, particularly those influenced by Paolo Freire.One assignment from a section taught in the Fall of 2011 by Kathleen Edwards was described as a "Critical multicultural autobiography":All of these obvious and impermissible attempts to influence future K-12 teachers politically beg the questionAnd, if not-and no, no public school of education should be conducting a campaign of political indoctrination in a course required for teacher licensure-then it must also be asked "how do they get away with it?" The answer of course, is that everybody who should have put a stop to it-from departments heads to administrators to UNC-G's trustees to the UNC system's Board of Governors to the legislature-have been looking the other way.Maybe it's time for those people who have some say in our university system to ask one more question: by Nirmala Carvalho Mgr Felix Machado chairs the Office for Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue of the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences. Deeply pained, he calls the Jakarta attacks, "cowardly acts against innocent people in the name of religion, which does not help either God nor the people of God. For him, inter-faith dialogue is crucial. Religions can teach the greatness and dignity of the human person by spreading a clearer sense of the oneness of the human family. Mumbai (AsiaNews) For Mgr Felix Machado, archbishop of Vasai (India), religion can only be a tool of peace, not of violence along religions, cultural, or ethnic lines. No one has the right to kill his brother in the name of the same God. The prelate was reacting to yesterday's attacks in Jakarta (Indonesia), which profoundly saddened him. Indeed, such violence only deepens and widens humanitys problems. For Mgr Machado, who chairs the Office for Ecumenism and Interreligious Affairs at the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences (FABC-OEIA), "whoever is responsible for these cowardly acts against innocent people in the name of religion, which does not help either God nor the people of God. There is no justification for violence." Islamist terrorists linked to the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the bombings in a trendy area of the Indonesian capital with the goal of imposing its dominance among the regions Islamist groups. Today Indonesian security forces announced the arrest of three suspects, as the hunt for other suspects continues. The archbishop stressed the value of dialogue in human relations. It is the only way to resolve problems." Dialogue needs the experience of God because it is deeply desired by believers of all religions and their respective leaders; at many levels, constructive interreligious dialogue has been increasingly taking place. In Asia, evidence of this is the growing network of friendship in daily life across religious boundaries, deep exchange of ideas during organised interfaith colloquia, collaboration among people of various religions for the common good at local, national and international levels and mutual respect for religious practices among believers of different religions. In concluding, the archbishop of Vasai offers his thoughts about the role of religion today. The role of religion in contributing to peace and harmony in modern society cannot be underestimated. This is why the worlds great religions need to work together to eliminate the social and cultural causes of terrorism. Religions can do this by teaching the greatness and dignity of the human person and by spreading a clearer sense of the oneness of the human family. The longing for peace is deeply rooted in human nature and is found in the different religions. Wei Hong, 61, is the second provincial leader to go under as part of Xi Jinpings anti-corruption campaign. A former protege of Zhou Yongkang, he once was in charge of the appointment of Communist Party cadres. For many observers, it is increasingly clear that the presidents anti-graft probe is turning into a power struggle. Beijing (AsiaNews) Chinese President Xi Jinpings anti-corruption campaign has claimed another victim in what many are calling a power struggle within the party. Wei Hong, governor of Sichuan province and a protege of former "security czar" Zhou Yongkang, is the latest to fall into the hands of investigators. A Zhou stronghold, Sichuan has been one of the most severely punished provinces in Beijings anti-graft campaign. A flurry of arrests followed Weis fall from grace. A fierce political opponent of the current president, the 61-year-old Wei is the second serving provincial governor to be placed under investigation for corruption amid the central governments sweeping anti-graft campaign. The authorities had announced in October that the former governor of Fujian, Su Shulin, was under investigation for alleged graft. His resignation was accepted the following month. For his part, Wei is reflecting on his mistakes, anti-corruption official Wu Liangyu told a press briefing, using a phrase suggesting the official was under investigation for bribery. Wu stopped short of explicitly saying Wei was the focus of a probe, but added he was suspected of discipline violations. Wei had been absent from several key meetings in Sichuan since December, fuelling speculation about his whereabouts. His last public appearance was in December in Beijing where he attended the central economic work conference, according to footage shown by the state-run broadcaster CCTV. Previously, Wei was a deputy in the organisation department in Sichuan in charge of the appointment of Communist Party cadres when Zhou came to govern the province in 1999. He was promoted twice before Zhou left in 2002, first as party boss in Yaan and later head of the organisation department. Zhou was sentenced to life in prison last June for corruption, abuse of power and intentionally leaking state secrets. On Tuesday, one of his close allies, Li Dongsheng, was sentenced to 15 years. The former Vice Minister of China's Ministry of Public Security was convicted for abuse of power, and taking bribes worth 22 million yuan (US$ 3.7 million) For some analysts, it is increasingly clear that Xis anti-corruption campaign is turning into a power struggle to consolidate his hold onto the party, state and military. n a statement presenting his campaign, Xi said he wanted to punish "the tigers and flies" of corruption, i.e. both high- and low-ranking corrupt officials. Yet, the actions of the powerful anti-graft authority do not seem to touch his own staff even though many observers note that corruption charges against the president's men are numerous and well documented. by Melani Manel Perera The President said he will give 100 thousand refugees "land". Sinhalese Priest: "He did not say he will restore their land. The distinction is important. " Tamil nun: "While Sirisena says that the army will return the land to its rightful owners, the military of the Navy are preparing to occupy another 617 acres of land." Colombo (AsiaNews) - President Maithripala Sirisena has promised to give land to all the Tamil refugees on which to build their homes. But his promises "are only a deception. The Tamils have been fooled in the past and still are", some Catholic priests and nuns tell AsiaNews. They are reacting to recent comments made by Sirisena, saying he would supply land to those displaced by the civil war. The head of state also said he would return private properties occupied by the army in war zones. "But this is false - says a nun - because the Navy just recently commandeered a plot of 617 acres in the northern province to convert it into a naval base." Sri Lanka was caught up in a lengthy and bloody civil war between the army and Tamil Tiger rebels from 1983 to 2009. The conflict has caused 40 thousand deaths in the latter stages alone and 200 thousand people were forced to flee their homes. According to the latest data, there are still 100 thousand IDPs. President Sirisena has promised these land within six months. The highest authority of state said he was also "responsible for not having realized the miserable living conditions in which they live Tamils". "But this is ridiculous," according to Fr. Terrance Fernando, Sri Lankan priest and activist. "It is ridiculous to hear such a comment from someone who for 27 years was a member of Parliament and also government minister in the last 17. It shows that he completely ignored the problems of the Tamils ". The priest adds that "the Tamils do not need false illusions, but of concrete actions and justice." The activist also noted that the president spoke in general of giving them "land" and not the land that rightfully belongs to the local population." A relevant distinction, he says, "that does not favor the people who lived in the eastern part of the country." Sr Nichola Emmanuel, of Tamil origin and also an activist, adds: "Sirisena said that the army will restore the lands occupied during the war. But as he makes these statements, in Mulaitivu [on the northeastern coast - ed] the Navy wants to build a naval base. The legitimate owners of the land opposed this and held a rally. Another hundred families living in the jungle Sooriyapuram, near their village of Keappaa-pulavu, demonstrated against the regular army occupying their homes". Sr Nichola reports that the armed forces still occupy various districts of the north, such as those of Beat and Mannar, and refuse to leave the territory. There are also cases of land grabs. "My impression - she concludes - is that for Tamils, the future will be bleak. The military does not leave the land, the issue of missing persons has not been resolved. The same fate also for political prisoners. Silence still shrouds everything". (Bloomberg) -- Harvard Law School accepted 55 students who transferred from other schools in 2015, according to data recently released by the American Bar Association. In the four prior years, the school never took in more than 35 transfer students. Harvard Law is one of the most exclusive law schools in the country, with its pick of the very best future lawyers in America. Class sizes generally hover at 560. Why did Harvard decide to accept so many additional transfer students last year? This summers applicant pool had exceptional academic and professional strength, said Jessica Soban, chief admissions officer. Harvard could be taking in new students at a higher rate than before simply because it can. Harvard ties with Stanford as the second-ranked law school in the country, according to U.S. News and World Report, and it consistently draws applicants with nearly perfect credentials. Still, there could be a different explanation for Harvards new appetite for transfers: Other schools current students are a safer bet than new applicants. If Harvard was not confident that it could draw enough good students from the incoming crop of law applicants to maintain enrollment numbers and test scores, it might look to students who were already at the top of classes at other schools. From a revenue standpoint, if [Harvard] wants to insulate itself against a slightly smaller class this year, having 20 more transfer students helps them do that, said Jerome Organ, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, who has studied the transfers. Michelle Deakin, a Harvard Law spokeswoman, said the choice to accept more of those students was not related to the volume of [first-year] applications the school received. American law schools have been staring at increasingly disheartening numbers in the last five years. In 2015, the law school applicant pool shrank to its lowest size in 15 years. Fewer people entered law school last year than at any point in the last four decades. What has been especially scary for administrators is that the most qualified students are becoming rarer in law school classrooms. People with high scores on the Law School Admission Test, the entrance exam for law schools, made up 41 percent of first-year classes in 2010. Now, just 33 percent are high scorers. Less-prepared students have taken their places: Low LSAT scorers now make up 23 percent of law students, up from 14 percent in 2010. The influx of low-scoring students has most obviously affected the bottom half of law schools. Many have lowered standards in order to maintain class sizes. Harvard Law can avoid doing that by plucking talent from competitors. The typical GPA of the 55 transfer students that went to Harvard in 2014 was 3.9, which is higher than the median GPA for the schools entering class. Clearly, Harvard Law is not buckling under the pressure of Americans growing disinterest in obtaining law degrees. But the fact that it is reaching deeper into an auxiliary pool of future lawyers may signal just how bad things are getting in the world of legal education. Attorney-General George Brandis is yet to fill two vacant positions on the Federal Circuit Court.The familys lawyer Hayley Williams told the ABC that her client, who is shocked and upset by the unusual situation, will incur further costs in having to have the matter heard in Brisbane.We can always instruct an agent in Brisbane but the lawyers in Brisbane are quite expensive and also they don't have the same knowledge and history as we do having carriage of the matter for years and years. It's going to be a very expensive exercise for our client, Williams said.Court dates should be allocated in a local area, if a court is in Wollongong then a date should be allocated in that area.Solicitors and family law advocates are calling for additional funding and more judges to clear a backlog in cases, saying that children are being put at risk by the failure of the government to quickly appoint more judges.I would like to implore the government to seriously consider the issue of funding the family courts, this is extremely important, I just can't stress that enough, said Williams.We've had recent matters, urgent matters being flicked to registries, not only in Sydney but also Brisbane, so wherever a judge is able to hear a matter, that is where we are getting allocated dates.Families in the Wollongong circuit court were already being given court dates two years away due to the shortage and a Brisbane hearing was the earliest date any judge could hear the matter.A spokesperson for Brandis said the appointment of two judges is being prioritised.The appointment of a judge to a federal court is an important decision to which the Government gives careful consideration," the spokesperson said.Before making a recommendation to the government and ultimately, the Governor-General in Executive Council, the Attorney-General has regard to a broad range of issues, including the expertise and background of potential candidates as well as consultation with relevant persons.While this careful consideration takes time, it ensures that all judicial appointments are based on merit. RALEIGH - I was catching up with my favorite 8-year-old recently, and the conversation turned, as so many do these days, to the election.No, not the U.S. presidential election, or the governor's race, or the 170 General Assembly seats that will be selected in 2016. There had been a student council election at her charter school, and she had some interesting thoughts to share.My granddaughter was nominated to represent her third-grade class in the council. She lost, explaining, "I think the only person who voted for me was me." Her classmate Penelope won the seat. How? "People liked her. She has a kind heart."My granddaughter went on to tell me who was elected president and the different officers of the student council. Some candidates she supported won; some didn't. When I asked her why she supported one candidate, she said she knew the guy's sister.She supported another because he seemed like a nice person -she speculated. And she supported a third because she liked the candidate's speech and her posters were colorful.All in all, she seemed satisfied with the election results and is optimistic about new leadership at her school.She was disappointed that she didn't win, but she did like that everyone who voted got a rainbow sticker. She showed me hers with a smile.With five more years to go at this school, she plans to run again. This was her first election, and she learned a lot. She'll do things differently next time.She'll explain better how to be the best representative for her class. She won't be mean to anyone, and she'll make sure they all know she has a kind heart.Her campaign platform? She'll work to make her class the top class in the school. She'll make them safer by getting additional supplies in the first-aid kit. And she'll get them everything on their wish list.I came away from this conversation with insight about our upcoming elections. We want our leaders to have kind hearts; safety is an important issue; advertising works; and personal connections matter. Some people will promise anything to get elected. The right to vote makes us feel good. Good candidates are essential for good outcomes.Well-informed candidates are better candidates. In this upcoming election, North Carolina's candidates face tough challenges and difficult questions.What does a responsible state budget look like? What is fair taxation? What is the best way to encourage economic growth and job creation? Are property rights secure? How do we ensure every child gets a good education and has every opportunity to succeed? How are long-term transportation and infrastructure needs best addressed? Can North Carolina be First in Freedom?Running for office can be overwhelming. Where can candidates go for the best ideas to tackle these tough questions? As we've done every election cycle since 2008, the John Locke Foundation is providing candidates information about public policy through educational forums and workshops - incumbents, first-timers, or anyone who may be interested in running later. (Access video of our Jan. 8 forum here.)We offer solutions and ideas based on facts and steeped in data. But we also understand public policy is more than numbers, graphs, and charts, that real people and real families are affected.Whether it's the entrepreneur worried about regulations, a student looking for the education that best fits his needs, or the taxpayer expecting accountability and fiscal responsibility - we have the ideas to ensure North Carolinians have the freedom to pursue their dreams.We understand that having a kind heart means unleashing every individual's potential. And a kind heart, as my favorite 8-year-old observed, is what we want our leaders to have. If you're interested in our candidate education forums, give me a call at (919) 828-3876. Is it possible to reconcile the global nature of the Internet with the level of security and independence traditional for a nation state? This might seem like an esoteric question but international and local developments demonstrate that this issue is very real and has practical consequences. A recent case decided by the Court of Justice of the European Union known as the Shrems decision has invalidated the use of safe harbour arrangements between Europe and the USA as a legitimate basis for personal information collected from citizens in Europe being transferred to the US. In saying that the safe harbour arrangement was inadequate the Court cited the overreach of national security activities in the US as inconsistent with the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. The highest court in Europe said the data of European citizens should not be stored in a location where the National security apparatus of the United States had access "beyond what was strictly necessary and proportionate to the protection of national security".Microsoft is in litigation with the US Depart of Justice () over whether the DoJ is entitled to access to information regarding an Irish citizen held in a Microsoft data centre located in Ireland. The DoJ delivered a court order on Microsoft in the US requiring disclosure of the information. In resisting the order, Microsoft argued in its submissions that if the German government delivered an order on Microsoft in Germany requesting information stored about US citizens held in Manhattan the US government would not consider that Microsoft should make the information available.Closer to home, a related issue is the subject of a recent legislative proposal from the Federal government. The Telecommunications Sector Security Reforms () propose new obligations on Telcos to protect their facilities and infrastructure from espionage, sabotage and interference by foreign governments and other external interference. A critical compliance issue presented by the proposed law involves the level of control that can be exercised over service providers and facilities that are located offshore. How can a local company stop a foreign government from conducting espionage or interfering with services that originate in the jurisdiction of that government? In a practical sense, information is subject to the law of the place where it is stored. That local law also applies to the delivery of services and the conduct of services providers.Significant elements of Australian IT infrastructure are dependent to some extent on offshore services. It's not just business process outsourcing like call centres but also use of offshore cloud infrastructure, shared administrative and support services that often require technical expertise that is not available in Australia at all or not available at a competitive price.The draft guidance on the TSSR says that providers will not be required to retrofit their systems unless a significant security vulnerability is found. Instead, the new security requirement will only apply when changes are made to existing systems. It seems the thinking is that we are in for the long haul and the aim is for a transition, over time, to systems that are secure from foreign interference.Perhaps the ambition to secure systems from foreign interference is not realistic. We already have an efficient and competitive industry based on an effective use of a range of offshore services. Preventing interference by foreign governments may be cost prohibitive. Also, why pick on the Telcos? Australian business is dependent on many complex services and systems originating from offshore (such as corporate storage and hosting, and over the top services) that are not subject to the new standard.Two other aspects of the proposed law are problematic. There is no threshold of significance for systems or services that must be protected from foreign interference, and, no distinction is made between services originating from allies and those located with potential adversaries. Perhaps it is too difficult to draw these distinctions.Information about the TSSR is available from the Attorney General's website. The consultation period ends on 18 January.By Patrick Fair, Baker & McKenzie partner. The widow of an American killed in Jordan is suing Twitter for giving a voice to Islamic State. Florida woman Tamara Fields said Twitter knowingly let IS maintain official Twitter accounts and knowingly allowed it to use its network to raise money and spread propaganda. She has accused Twitter of violating the US Anti-Terrorism Act. Without Twitter, the explosive growth of ISIS over the last few years into the most-feared terrorist group in the world would not have been possible, Fields said in her complaint filed in a California federal court on Wednesday. Her lawyer said he believed this to be the first time a social media company was accused of violating the Anti-Terrorism Act. While we believe the lawsuit is without merit, we are deeply saddened to hear of this family's terrible loss, Twitter said in a statement. Violent threats and the promotion of terrorism deserve no place on Twitter and, like other social networks, our rules make that clear. A University of Notre Dame law professor and former US Treasury Department official said Fields may have trouble proving that Twitter did know or should have known its site was helping terrorists. We certainly know social media plays an important role in allowing ISIS to recruit foreign fighters," said Jimmy Gurule, a University of Notre Dame law professor and former US Treasury Department official specialising in terrorist financing, he said. But at the end of the day, is there a sufficient nexus between ISIS' use of Twitter and acts of terror? I'm not saying you can't show it but it's a real challenge. An SBS report suggested the lawsuit may put pressure on other social media sites to remove posts associated with terrorist groups. Australian businesses are against labour market testing by employers who want to employ skilled labour from overseas jobs while trade unions believe it will just add an unwelcome level of red tape.The issue of labour market testing has been contentious for years, being brought in and them abolished and then considered again by various governments. Now the Chamber of Commerce and Industry has said that it should be abolished once and for all. In a report to the Productivity Commission, which issued a draft report into migration and is due to publish its final report later this year, the chamber says that misleading campaigns around the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement and the temporary skilled migration programme have created the impression that overseas skilled migrants take Australian jobs, but this fear is not borne out by the evidence.It endorses several recommendations and proposes some changes ahead of the final Productivity Commission report. One of the key recommendations is that Governments and stakeholders should do more to explain the benefits of skilled migration or risk having destructive union campaigns undermine public support."Skilled migration offers enormous social and economic benefits to Australia, and this has been rightly acknowledged through an evidence based approach by the Productivity Commission," said Kate Carnell, chief executive officer of the Australian Chamber."The Commission recognises that skilled migrants should be a significant element of the total annual quota of permanent migration. We urge the Productivity Commission to go further by recommending that governments and stakeholders work together on a communications strategy to explain the benefits of migration and debunk misconceptions that migrants reduce the number of jobs available for Australians," Carnell continued. "Migration, both permanent and temporary skilled, brings economic and social dividends. Many skilled workers on 457 temporary work visas become permanent skilled migrants under the employer nomination and independent skilled streams."We should herald the contribution of migrant workers for adding skills to the economy and assisting in training Australian workers. Because of their demographics, skilled migrants typically also make long term economic contributions to Australia through their consumption of goods and services and their payment of taxes, outweighing the benefits they receive over their lifetime."Jenny Lambert, the Australian Chamber's director of employment, education and training, called for an updated survey and analysis of the contribution of working holiday makers, given the last detailed survey is more than six years old."We also recommend the Federal Government substantially improve its labour market analysis and workforce planning, given the current lack of coordination of effort across multiple portfolios," said Lambert. "Migration planning needs to be integrated with general workforce development initiatives, including federal, state and territory investment in vocational training and higher education. The draft report gets it wrong in backing labour market testing in the temporary skilled migration program, despite the lack of evidence that this ineffective regulation achieves its aim."Requiring employers to test the local labour market before nominating a temporary skilled migrant does not achieve the objective of ensuring that Australian workers are offered the opportunity first. Instead, this is best achieved by analysing the labour market."The Business Council of Australia has consistently called for labour market testing to be abolished and the Australian Mines and Metals Association (AMMA) said that resource employers support the abolition of needless and burdensome requirements such as labour market testing. hi there, I have worked in Australia on the working holiday visa in the past but then I returned back to the UK. I am now wanting to move back out to live In Australia as my job occupation (makeup artist or even massage therapist) is listed on the consolidated sponsored occupation list. I'm just wondering is the only way to apply for this to be asked by a state? or for a company to offer you a firm offer of employment? is this pretty much impossibleThankyou! Liquid Asset Partners also won the previous auction, the one that was contested by Bruce Belfer and potential-bidder US Heritage Powersport, the winner of the first bid. However, Belfer failed to comply with the financial side of the deal despite being given two deadlines to come with the money.Judge Koss ruled in favor of Liquid Asset Partners despite the fact that Belfer had come up with a similar offer. However, because of the previous experience with Bruce Belfer, the liquidator of EBR did not recommend him to the court.Liquid Asset Partners initially made a $1.6 million (1,46 m) offer, but was forced to increase the bid to $2.05 million (1.87 m). As predicted, the final bid for EBR turned out to be smaller than what Bruce Belfer agreed to pay in the first place. Earlier, Belfer had won the EBR auction with a $2.25 million (2.06 m) bid, but was unable to secure the funds.A final sale is a godsend for EBR's creditors and employees, as the price was expected to become smaller with each new bid. Even so, the current bid represents less than 10% of what the auction would have needed to make everybody happy.We remind you that EBR had $20.4 million (18.69 m) in liabilities at the time when it entered receivership. A&R reports that the bid will be divided between the former EBR employees, who will receive $202,000 (185,100), while Mito Tech Co. of Japan will get $733,000 (671,600) and Porsche Engineering Group $390,000 (357,300).Even though a final sale increases the chances for EBR to return to making and selling motorcycles, the future is anything but clear at the moment.Bill Melvin Jr., the owner of Liquid Asset Partners, says that his company will not enter the motorcycle industry. We will not be manufacturing motorcycles, as Liquid Asset, but we will be working to put together a plan with a team that can be successful in doing that.This can only mean that Liquid Asset Partners is looking to attract investors for EBR to make it float again, or to sell it to someone else who would make better use of the iconic American manufacturer. As to how Erik Buell Racing will be "welcomed at the table" in the industry once more, only time can tell. In early January, Lorenzo and Shark Helmets announced that they signed a one-season contract, and that the reigning World Champion would be using a Shark Race-R Pro lid, the same model 2015 Moto2 Champion Johann Zarco and Suzuki's factory rider Aleix Espargaro were using.One of the first things about Jorge Lorenzo's new helmet is the simplicity of its graphic design. Frankly, it's hard to tell what's better in terms of how many sponsor decals a rider has on the helmet. On the one hand, having one or two usually means that they are very strong and are paying big bucks for their prominent position, while on the other, multiple sponsors may indicate the high popularity of the endorser.Lorenzo's lid has only four sponsor badges on it, with Monster Energy being the biggest. Green claws adorn the helmet on each side and Monster's logo is present twice on the chin bar. Under the chin vent we can see the Eurasian Bank logo, with a corresponding one in the back.The visor is adorned with 360fly and Zopo mobile logos. Zopo is a Chinese manufacturer of mobile phones and replaces Sector among Lorenzo's sponsors. Lorenzo and Sector have had certain brushes at the end of 2015, with the Spaniard saying that he does not fully understand Sector's statements, especially as the end of the contract and the Zopo deal was known to both parties.Sector, a company in the Italian Morellato Group, apparently backed off from the sponsorship contract after Lorenzo openly spoke against Valentino Rossi after the incident with Marc Marquez at Sepang. Another Italian company, clothing giant GAS ended a sponsorship contract with Marc Marquez, too.As for 360fly, we knew that the action camera manufacturer would be endorsed by Jorge Lorenzo from October 2015. 360fly is expanding their presence in the world of motorsport and has just announced it teamed up with Bell in a project that will deliver helmets with integrated 4K 360-degree cameras Jorge Lorenzo's helmet retains the iconic red X design, but to us, the lid looks rather dull. What's your take on it? The first sign of opulence is the name: Palm Edition 999. When you hear the word palm, your mind flies to Dubai and the other Arab countries where, if youre not paying attention, you might just drink oil instead of water, and where vast and unique islands are born in a couple of months, just because they can.Then, there are the details. The bodywork package entirely made of carbon, front spoiler with separately integrated LED and daytime running lights, front fenders, side skirts, a reworked rear end, they are all there.If you think precious metals were left aside, you should think again. The original cars badges were replaced with logos and plaques made from pure gold, and upon request, Mansory can gold plate all parts with a metallic surface, such as door handles, trims, sill guards, radiator grille and the Spirit of Ecstasy that rises every time you start the car.The two-tone bodywork brings the Rolls to a new level with its white and golden color scheme.The luxurious details of the exterior are also reflected inside the car. The design department from Mansory masterfully crafted leather furnishings in the same color as the exterior, embroidered the Palm logo and fitted elements hand-crafted from pure gold.The German tuner also improved Wraiths performances by upgrading the V12 engine that now provides 729 horsepower and 738 lb-ft (1,000 Nm) of torque. The car can sprint from 0 to 60 mph (0-97 km/h) in just 4.4 seconds and has an increased maximum speed of 186 mph (300 km/h), up from 155 mph (250 km/h).If youre a fan of all this stuff and you have the money, you should hurry because only nine units of this golden Wraith will be made. SUV The vehicle is naturally part of Mazdas CX family and was photographed entirely undisguised in an undisclosed facility by Popsuv . As you can see in the adjacent photos, the car is pretty close to the concept shown at the 2015 Frankfurt Motor Show . The pictures arent too good and have a low resolution, but you can perceive the general style of the vehicle.Mazdas newest crossover is expected to have a different position in the brands lineup. The Koeru-inspired model will have a sporty design with a high level of practicality. While some voices call the car CX-4, others believe it will be named CX-6. Regarding size, the vehicle is about as large as a CX-5, so the CX-6 name could be more appropriate. For now, theres no official comment on the situation.The Mazda Koeru concept continues the KODO - Soul of Motion design language with a bold twist. From its introduction, the exhibit was promised a production version that would compete in thesegment with new attributes and with its sharp design.Mazda is expected to make use of its SkyActiv technology for the engine, transmission, and chassis for the future crossover, just like the company did with its most recent releases. The SkyActiv name stands for the Japanese brands new philosophy on designing and developing new technologies. All the SkyActiv features are meant to make Mazda cars lighter, more fuel efficient, and to enhance the driving experience.We expect Mazda to unveil the official photo gallery of the new crossover in the coming months. Most likely, the company will choose the Geneva Motor Show to showcase the production version of the car pictured in the photos below. If the vehicle doesnt appear at the brands stand in Geneva, theres still a chance of it being launched this year at other important automotive events, such as the Shanghai Auto Show, or the Paris Motor Show. The JCW Hardtop's tech formula is still here, which means we get a 2.0-liter turbo dialed up to 228 hp and 236 lb-ft (Nm) of twist. In the transmission department, you can choose between a pair of six-speed units, depending on whether you want a clutch or not.Do keep in mind that the automatic Mini JCW Convertible can cover the 0 to 60 mph (96 km/h) sprint in 6.3 seconds, while the third pedal adds 0.1 seconds to that time.In the handling department, there's a standard sport suspension, with the list of optional extras including active shocks. The chassis has been gifted with the expected open-top bracing, with a stiffening plate finding its way under the four-cylinder engine.Since the automaker has always talked about how last year's JCW is a car built around its brakes, the Brembos couldn't miss one more opportunity to show up as standard.The list of standard goodies that meet the eye includes 17-inch wheels (18-inch units are optional), a cheeky bodykit and LED headlights.Climb aboard and you'll find a pair of JCW sport seats ready to keep you in place while you put the electronic front differential lock to the test, as well as an array of cool materials and hues.When it comes to the soft top, this can be operated at speeds of up to 18 mph (30 km/h), while requiring 18 seconds to go from one state to the other.Since the 2017 Mini John Cooper Works Convertible comes with a starting price of $36,450, it's hard not to wonder about the justification behind something that, financially speaking, sits in between the EcoBoost and the V8-motivated incarnations of the Mustang.Well, based on what we've felt behind the wheels of the JCW Hardtop , we can tell you the three letters aren't a marketing exercise. You see, now that the British carmaker's offerings have fully matured, you'll need the JCW to get the kind of driving thrills that use to come with the Cooper S. As for the positive or negative impact of such an evolution, we'll let you be the judge of that.What if the price tag of the JCW is too much for you? Mini already has an answer to that question, with the automaker now announcing the pricing for the complete Convertible line-up. On this side of the pond, things start at $26,800 for the Cooper, while the Cooper S takes that to $30,450. Nissans global corporate sites and Japanese domestic market site were taken down after the companys Internet administrators detected an attempted denial-of-service attack. In other words, the sites were bombarded with visits in an effort to block other users.The Japanese carmaker resorted to this measure to prevent possible leaks of customer or corporate data.As Nissans spokesman David Reuter stated, Customer privacy and security is of utmost importance, and we take any potential threat to our information systems seriously.The attack didnt appear to be officially conducted by the well-known group Anonymous but by someone associated with the international hacktivist group. In the meantime, an anti-whaling campaign spread over Twitter through the #OpWhales and #OpKillingBay hashtags, as Automotive News reports.Whaling has been practiced in Japan for ages and right after the 1986 whaling ban came into effect, the country launched its scientific whaling program, a cover-up for its ongoing commercial whaling operations, as some voices say.The Japanese whaling fleet departs twice a year, and in the North Pacific, up to 200 mike whales, 50 Brydes, 100 sei whales and ten sperm whales are being killed in the name of science. Whalers killed no less than 935 minke whales and 50 fin whales each year in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary before the International Court of Justice ruled that this is illegal.Meat from these whales is then sold in food markets or given away for free or at low costs to schools or hospitals, to encourage the consumption of such meat.Apparently, the Land of the Rising Sun is not the only country where these animals are being hunted, as Norway and Iceland are also known for whaling.We do not comment or take a stance on topics which we view as outside the scope of our business, Nissan's spokesman concluded. Better sales were, of course, expected through the end of the year especially as Ducati introduced new models at the Milan show, including the Multistrada 1200 Enduro and the amazing XDiavel cruiser Ducati's most recent record translates to 54,800 motorcycles sold in 2015. The 9,683 extra bikes represent a whopping 22% increase over the 2014 figures. The solid sales growth of the Italian manufacturer comes from the bold decisions made in the market, namely the launch of more models addressing a wider customer pool, and the new brand, Ducati Scrambler.We knew that the Scrambler quickly became the best-selling bike in Italy shortly after its introduction, and we were expecting it to have a major impact on Ducati's year-round sales. And, so it did, with the Scrambler accounting for more than a third of the sales.Ducati sold over 16,000 Scramblers worldwide, so we can say that this model was the main engine that drove Ducati's glorious year. Next in line, also as expected, sits the new Multistrada 1200, with more than 8,000 units sold around the world, followed by the Monster 821, with around 6,500 unit sold. Next in line were the 1299 Panigale, 899 Panigale, and the Diavel.With the Scrambler selling like hot cakes in Italy, it's easy to figure out that Ducati's home market recorded the biggest growth. In Italy, Ducati sales grew by a whopping 53%, with UK sales up 37%, Germany 24% and France 22%.Sales in the US went up 14%, the same as the overall growth in the Asian Pacific region. However, the Chinese market saw a 46% increase in sales, demonstrating once more the strength of the country as a player in the motorbike industry.Worldwide, the US remains the largest market in terms of Ducati unit sales, with Italy in the second position, followed by Germany, France and the UK.This impressive performance, a landmark one for Ducati, confirms the soundness of the strategy of expansion and consolidation in global markets and highlights the energy and professionalism of the over 700 dealers who cover no less than 90 countries, Andrea Buzzoni, Global Sales and Marketing Director of Ducati Motor Holding, says. Wahyu Pamungkas helped by his team of 30 workers spent a whole year, and more than 20,000 ($28,689), on creating this unique vehicle.First of all, he cut two standard Kombi vans in half and welded them back together, while also modifying the chassis. To cope with the additional weight, he then swapped the 1.5-liter engine for a 2.0-liter.The two-tone painted exterior and BBS RS rims complement the incredible interior featuring some excellent details, including cream leather couch-like seats, a mini-bar or a soft-top section that can be pushed back. The spacious interior can host up to 20 passengers.According to the Daily Mail , this is not the first Type 2 this mechanic created, as he also built a 6.9-meter-long (22-foot) Kombi van in 2009, which was later sold to an Australian for 11,200 ($16,065).Known as one of the most famous hippie symbols, the Kombi was produced for a staggering 63 years. During this time, more than 10 million vans were built. In 2013, the vehicle was only manufactured in Brazil until the countrys new legislation brought it to an end, as they required every vehicle to have air bags and anti-lock braking.To mark this event, Volkswagen offered a limited final version of the iconic car. The German carmaker built around 1,200 versions of this anniversary edition, each priced at an estimated 26,000 ($37,294).The concept for the Type 2 was designed by Dutch Volkswagen importer Ben Pon, who visited Wolfsburg in 1946, intending to purchase Type 1s for import to the Netherlands. After seeing an improvised parts-mover, he realized something better was possible using the stock Type 1 pan. Photo: JAC In early January, representatives of China-based JAC and the Algerian government signed an agreement that will establish a light-duty truck KD plant in the African country. The Algerian plant will mark the 20th overseas plant opened by JAC. The automotive company has also opened plants in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and South America. The Algerian plant is the first JAC has established in Africa, according to the company. JAC said it has invested US$128 million in the Algerian plant and expects to reach a production capacity of 10,000 units per year. The light-duty and mini trucks the plant will produced will meet new regulations recently instituted by Algeria. JAC has been doing business in Algeria since 2000, and said it has about 35,000 light-trucks on Algerian roads. While little has been revealed about Apple's interests in electric cars, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is confident that the tech giant is determined to enter the environmentally friendly vehicle field. The entrepreneur told BBC News in an exclusive interview at his design studio near Los Angeles that it is an "open secret" that Apple is looking to challenge Tesla, adding that it was "obvious" that the Cupertino, Calif.-based company would try to make its own electric vehicle. Apple has not made any official announcements regarding its production of such a vehicle, but its recent registering of automobile-related Internet domains like apple.car and apple.auto hint at the possibility. "It's pretty hard to hide something if you hire over a thousand engineers to do it," Musk said, having previously accused Apple of hiring former Tesla employees. Apple CEO Tim Cook has stayed quite about his company's involvement in the electric car market, saying in a conference call in October, when asked about building such a vehicle, that, "We'll see what we do in the future," according to NBC News. "I do think that industry is at an inflection point for massive change. Not just an evolutionary change," Cook added. Musk, however, didn't seem worried about being challenged by Apple, saying that Apple joining the EV game "will expand the industry." If Apple does decide to make its own electric car, it would join the long list of contenders that Tesla has to deal with, which includes Nissan, BMW, Internet search giant Google and China-backed startup Faraday Future, which debuted its all-electric car concept at CES 2016 last week. Anonymous has hacked two of Nissan's websites in Japan as part of its protest against Japan's continued killing of dolphins and whales. The hacking group claimed responsibility Wednesday for taking the two sites down, with one alleged member calling for the country on Twitter to "stop the killing now," according to Fortune. Other accounts backed by Anonymous called the hack "punishment" for Japan's hunting activities involving the two mammals. The Japanese automaker is the latest target of Anonymous' OpWhales campaign aimed at ending this treatment of dolphins and whales, as the collective did the same to the Japanese president and other government departments' websites in recent weeks, BBC News reported. The activist group previously launched cyber-attacks against Icelandic institutions in November for the same reason, leading to most of the country's government sites being unavailable for about 13 hours. Nissan has said that it doesn't have an opinion on hunting activities involving whales and dolphins. One of the hackers explained that Anonymous went after Nissan because it is a big corporation in Japan, adding that "we have targeted big corporations to spread awareness about the killing [of dolphins] in the cove in Taiji because the Japanese news is censoring it." "As a note for Nissan, we are not out to harm your customer data or system data," the hacker said. Targeting Anonymous has proved to be challenge for some law-enforcement agencies, since the group works through encrypted channels to assign targets and members are loosely affiliated with one another, Fortune noted. Nissan's websites in the U.S. and Europe are still online, according to BBC News. "At Nissan, customer privacy and security is of utmost importance, and we take any potential threat to our information systems seriously," a company spokesman said, adding that the automaker is temporarily suspending service on its websites to reduce further risks. "Nissan continuously monitors and takes aggressive steps to ensure the protection of our information systems and all of our data," the spokesman said. Tesla Motors is winning over the hearts of vegans with its "Ultra White" interior option for its new Model X SUV. The option is aimed at attracting customers that don't use animal products in their cars, as the leather in the seats and steering wheels of most luxury cars require the slaughter of animals, according to The New York Times. The synthetic leather is currently only available for the Model X. Tesla apparently received numerous complaints from vegans about the automaker being environmentally friendly while including animal products in its cars. Among them was Leilani Munter, a professional racecar driver and environmental advocate who said that she couldn't buy the faster, sportier version of the Model S without real leather seats. The electric automaker responded to these complaints with black cloth seats available for all models and trim packages, along with synthetic-leather-clad steering wheels, which customers can get with special requests. "We find that customers enjoy both leather and nonleather options for their Teslas," company spokeswoman Khobi Brooklyn said in an email about Ultra While. "We are committed to giving customers the ability to build the Tesla that meets their needs and lifestyle choices." Vegans previously had to settle for basic models with cloth seats and plastic steering wheels if they wanted to avoid using animal products, but they would be forced to take leather options if they wanted better engines, heated seats and new speakers, NBC News reported. Ultra White provides the luxury feel with synthetic leather seats, steering wheel and gear shift. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which is a shareholder of Tesla, praised the automaker for introducing the new option, having asked the company last year about the possibility of using synthetic leather, The Verge noted. The animal rights group said that it has "been working with Tesla" on the project ever since. "By offering a 100 percent leather-free car, Tesla is pushing its eco-friendly business even further into the future," PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman said in a statement. "PETA can now point to Tesla as a source for top-quality vehicles whose cruelty-free seats are as kind to the environment as its engines are." The Model X will have a base price of $80,000 when Tesla begins delivering the electric SUV at the end of 2016. Jessa Rhodes, who has performed in more than 450 scenes since 2012, has been going full force as a major adult star since she was one of the featured starlets in AVN magazines 2013 Fresh issue. From her blond locks and long legs to her snarly, bad-girl persona, shes got the look in spades. And she has the ambition to back it up. I love my job, she says. This is who I am and Im ok with it. And she's got multiple AVN Awards nominations to show for her work. Jessa is also a designer, showing off her flair for fashion by designing her own AVN dressincluding at the 33rd annual AVN Awards Show. Im working on things like that. Im going to do a whole hipster punk line, she says. My goal is to do an online store and then in five years have an actual boutique here in Hollywood. One of the Oregon native's best-known titles is "The Insatiable Jessa Rhodes," directed by veteran helmsman Jules Jordan. She has also essayed multiple starring roles for high-profile Digital Playground titles. Her fierce work ethic has only intensified since she debuted at 19. I love being challenged and Im always looking for the next big thing to invest my time and energy into, she said during her rookie year. What I love most is working on feature movies. Its such an amazing feeling working your ass off, literally, and seeing the result at the end is an amazing movie you had the chance to be a part of. Above, Jessa Rhodes at the 2017 AVN Awards Nomination Party, which she hosted. Photo by Jeff Koga/@KogaFoto. 15 January 2016 17:49 (UTC+04:00) By Laman Sadigova The current state of affairs between Russia and the West may impede Armenia's "dual policy conducted for many years. Used to hide behind Russia and to extort money from the West now the post Soviet country needs to interpret its priorities more clearly after the standoff between these two great powers. Armenia, which bows to its big brother Russia for much of its history, does not forget about the West, which occasionally turns its gaze to this poor South Caucasus country. The shadow of the U.S. over Armenia, and increasing need to engage in multiple partnerships, created a sense of urgency to clarify the parameters of the cooperation with Russia. Armenia lacks any resources or economic scenario, its aggressive policy towards neighboring countries led to its blockade with Turkey and war with Azerbaijan, which lands are still under Armenias occupation. Russia remains the only vital link of the country with the outside world. Indeed, the Russian support is the only reason this country still remains afloat. The northern giant receives the largest Armenian migrants and is the largest source of remittances, which accounted for more than one fifth of the national income in Armenia in 2014. Despite the transfers from Russia had negative dynamics in 2015, these funds are still the main income of the population. In addition, Russia sells natural gas to landlocked, energy-poor Armenia at quite a good price, as Sargsyan stressed. At the same time, Armenia receives free assistance from the West, assuring that this has no effect on relations with Russia. In fact, now, even those light handouts have ceased to exist. The country is now left offside, without financial aid and political support. Armenia is torn between those who support alliance with Russia and those who think that the West is most likely to save the country. But, the reality is in that in the current situation nobody needs this poor and instable country. Its decision to join the EEU was made under the guidance of Russia and brings no benefits despite wordy promises. Nobody needs Armenian goods and its economy is falling down day by day. Yerevan faced an unexpected failure in its aspiration to get a lion share in the Northern Giant's consumer market and what is the worst the amount of transfers from Russia plummeted by nearly 40 percent. The official statistics say that the trade turnover of this post-Soviet country decreased by 5.6 percent in 2015. The main share of trade reduction fell on the retail trade, which declined by 4.6 percent. If earlier the question was whether Russia would allow Armenia to cooperate with the West, now neither of them needs this post-Soviet country. The economic crisis forces to hold on the intended path firmly, but what to do if Armenia has never had any certain plan? --- Follow Laman Sadigova on Twitter: @s_laman93 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 15 January 2016 16:14 (UTC+04:00) Azerbaijans Defense Ministry has accused Armenia of spreading disinformation. The ministry announced that the Armenian sides reports about the alleged sabotage of the Azerbaijani army on the contact line of Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, as well as losses, does not correspond to reality. Such reports of Armenia aim at deceiving the public and preparing ground for future diversions, the ministrys press service told Trend on January 15. Azerbaijani Armed Forces fully control the situation on the contact line of troops, said ministry. For over two decades, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in conflict which emerged over Armenia's territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. A fragile ceasefire has been in place since 1994, but long-standing efforts by U.S, Russian and French mediators have been largely fruitless so far. Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's four resolutions on its pullout from the neighboring country's territories. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 15 January 2016 17:30 (UTC+04:00) By Sara Rajabova Hardly hit by the international sanctions imposed over its nuclear program, Iran is looking forward for lifting of all prohibitions and bans that especially hinders the countrys energy exports. In anticipation of removal of the sanctions, the Islamic republic is undertaking measures to be ready for post-sanctions period. One the main priority of the oil-dependent country in this regard is increasing the oil output. The Iranian officials has said Iran will export an additional 500,000 barrels of oil a day after sanctions are lifted under the July nuke agreement reached with the world powers last year and begin selling another 500,000 barrel per day six months later. However, the Islamic Republic is intended to keep the OPEC production ceiling intact while increasing its oil production in accordance with its production quota. Energy analyst Omid Shokri Kalehsar believes that Irans first priority is to recover its oil and gas production and export capacity before EU and U.S. sanctions are lifted. Iran expected the other OPEC members to reduce oil production and act according to the Cartel production strategy and let Iran to produce more oil in accordance with its share in OPEC basket before sanctions. According to the Iranian oil ministrys short-term plan, the countrys oil production capacity will be 450,000 bpd as Iran produced such amount by end of 2005 before former president Mahmood Ahmadinejad came to power, the expert said. Asked about the low crude prices, the expert said that Iran does not care about oil prices and wants to take its share in the world oil market. Iran believes that oil prices in coming years will increase and its share is more important than current oil prices. Iran has recently announced that it does not intend to stop oil production even if the prices fall below $30 barrel and could sell oil at these prices. Iran is prepared for the worst scenario as oil prices continue the downward spiral amid global supply glut. With selling its oil to lower prices Iran is seeking to attract more customers. Iranian crude oil experienced the greatest decline among all oils in market in early January reaching about $28 per barrel. Iran still hopes the OPEC members will manage to return to their previous production quotas and each country will produce and present oil to the market in accordance with the share allocated to it by the OPEC. However, the cartel members are not willing to make room for Iran to restore its previous positions. They ignored Tehrans repeated calls to cut export quota, which stands at 30 million barrels per day. Tehran once was OPECs second-biggest producer and now stands at the fourth place. Other OPEC member countries, especially Saudi Arabia and Iraq, as well as non-OPEC country Russia ramped up production to replace the Iranian oil. Shokri said Iran is interested in more production and export of its oil after lifting of sanctions, and in this regard the country pays no more attention to the Cartel members oil production and export capacities. Iran has own consumers in the Asian market and wants to export more to Asian market, European consumers as well, the expert said. In 2012, as the United States and the EU imposed sanctions, almost all of Iran's buyers either reduced their purchases or halted them. By 2013, Iran's crude oil and condensate exports dropped to just below 1.3 million b/d, with the main importers being China, India, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, UAE, and Syria. Iran's exports grew by almost 150,000 b/d in 2014, reflecting increased imports by China and India. Currently, Iran makes the necessary preparations for raising crude oil output after international sanctions are lifted. However, Irans return to the global energy market is expected to dramatically affect the crude market. This return is believed to cause further fall in the global oil prices, especially given the fact that the United States has also recently restored its oil exports. Iran is planning to increase its oil production capacity about 500,000 bpd during six month or a year after lifting sanctions. At present there is about 250.000 bpd of oil, and there is more production over consumption. There is no demand for such amount of production in the world oil market. More productions would be in favor of consumers. It should be noted that the U.S. exports oil to world market and it means more oil in world oil market. Irans surplus production and the U.S. oil, in addition more productions by the OPEC members and other countries such as Russia would have a negative effect on global oil market and cause further fall in oil prices, Shokri underlined. On the falling oil prices, Shokri expects that an increase in oil prices can be seen by the end of 2016, however, only if OPEC members decrease oil production. Russia also has to decrease its oil production. Economic growth in the consumer market such as China and India should continue, the expert said. -- Sara Rajabova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @SaraRajabova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 15 January 2016 15:14 (UTC+04:00) By Sara Rajabova Azerbaijans efforts to prevent the illegal activities of the separatist regime established in the countrys occupied territories have yielded results. "Charters" signed by several French cities with the Azerbaijani towns, which are under the Armenian occupation will be canceled. Hikmet Hajiyev, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman said under the ministrys instructions, the country's embassy in Paris carries out steady work in relation to the visit to France of Bako Saakyan, the head of the separatist regime in Azerbaijans occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region, and signing of "the charter on cooperation" with the French provinces and cities. A number of French communities have inked so-called charters of friendship with the local communities of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic during the visit of Saakyan to France in mid-March 2015. The signing of the charters of friendship is illegal in accordance with Article L. 1115 of the Code of Local Communities of France. This step is also contrary to international obligations of France, which does not recognize the independence of the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh. The French government sent circular to local prefectures and the high commissioners at the level of ministers of foreign affairs and internal affairs on July 2, 2015. The mentioned document, which contains a warning on boundedness of powers of local self-government bodies in the field of international cooperation, bans signing of documents on international cooperation with the illegal regimes unrecognized by the French government, including the self-proclaimed "Nagorno Karabakh regime, Hajiyev said. The spokesperson further added that Armenian lobbying circles in France and several individuals under their influence, did not hesitate to violate the laws of this country and the commitments it has undertaken at the international level, thereby carrying out activities contrary to the official state policy of France. Hajiyev stressed that Azerbaijans foreign ministry immediately takes under strict control and examines any illegal activities carried out in the occupied territories of the country. If activities of legal and physical persons of any state revealed, the government instructs the respective diplomatic missions and the question is raised in front of these countries and the necessary diplomatic and legal steps are taken, he added. For over two decades, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in conflict which emerged over Armenia's territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. A fragile ceasefire has been in place since 1994, but long-standing efforts by OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs have been largely fruitless so far. Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's four resolutions on its pullout from the neighboring country's territories. -- Sara Rajabova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @SaraRajabova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Ive been gone a while from the blogging scene. Some of my more regular readers no doubt noticed but did not hassle me about it. Thank you for that. Sinc... 6 years ago 15 January 2016 10:50 (UTC+04:00) Chief of Azerbaijan's State Border Service Elchin Quliyev has met Chief of Naval Staff of the Pakistan Navy Muhammad Zakaullah to discuss the bilateral cooperation in the field of security. The two hailed Azerbaijan-Pakistani relations, saying they reached the level of strategic partnership. They also discussed prospects for cooperation in military-technical area. Quliyev spoke of the current situation on the state border, and highlighted the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. AzerTac state news agency reported --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 15 January 2016 13:01 (UTC+04:00) By Amina Nazarli Citizens of Japan will be able to travel to Azerbaijan on a simplified procedure starting from February 1. Japanese can obtain entry visa upon arrival, valid for 30 days stay, at the Bakus Heydar Aliyev International Airport. Azerbaijan and Japan enjoy fruitful cooperation in various fields and their mutual relations are developing both in the political, economic and cultural fields. The diplomatic relations between the two countries were established in 1992. Japan was one of the first countries to support Azerbaijan's forward-looking oil strategy. Today two major Japanese companies Itochu and Impex are involved in the Contract of the Century. Leaders of Japanese business, Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Marubeni, and Sojits are involved in energy and infrastructure projects in the country. Azerbaijan is considering further cooperation with Japan in the field of high technology, particularly in the field of manufacture of innovative production, with their further entering the regional markets. So far, Japanese companies were involved mainly in projects in the energy sector, but in recent years their interests to cooperate in areas such as petrochemicals, oil refining, energy, medicine, high-tech and space industry have increased. -- Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 15 January 2016 16:37 (UTC+04:00) By Sara Rajabova Azerbaijani official has lambasted Armenia for holding destructive position in settlement process of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which led the peace talks to a deadlock. Novruz Mammadov, deputy head of Azerbaijani presidential administration, chief of the administrations foreign relations department said Armenia doesnt want to take a constructive position to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. He said President Ilham Aliyev quite clearly expressed his position on this issue at a meeting dedicated to the results of 2015. President Aliyev noted that Armenia wants to maintain the status quo as long as possible and it is unwilling to withdraw its troops from the occupied territories and accepts negotiations as a process, trying to buy time. Armenia is unwilling to peacefully resolve the long-standing conflict and is interested in and determined to maintain the current status quo that means keeping part of Azerbaijans internationally-recognized territory under occupation. Therefore, status quo was deemed as unacceptable by Azerbaijan and international community. Unfortunately, we havent seen any steps taken in this direction yet, said Mammadov. As a result, no progress was achieved during the last joint meeting of the presidents and the co-chairs. No matter how hard they try to show that they do everything possible to resolve the conflict, what they do is not enough, there is some component missing in the steps they have taken. President Ilham Aliyev has recently noted this meeting was of formal nature and yielded no results. The efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group, an international framework to settle the conflict through co-chairing of the United States, France and Russia, have yielded no efforts just in the previous years. The much-anticipated meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents last December in Switzerland also left hopes for the breakthrough in the peace talks unfulfilled for the next time. Mammadov said Armenia makes every effort to delay the resolution of the problem. On the other hand, the Armenian side doesnt want to take concrete steps to resolve the conflict, it is unwilling to take a constructive position, despite the fact that it is primarily in their interests, Mammadov said. They should understand that it is impossible to keep this situation." Mammadov further noted that Azerbaijan and the international community understand that the Armenian leadership tries to delay the conflict settlement by sacrificing the interests of the country for the sake of its own narrow interests. Armenia refuses to implement the U.N. Security Council's four resolutions on its immediate and unconditional pullout from the neighboring country's territories. Impunity for its criminal acts encourages Armenia to keep on the occupation of Azerbaijans ancestral lands and prolong the unfruitful negotiation process further. Armenia captured Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions from Azerbaijan in a war that followed the Soviet breakup in 1991. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and nearly 1 million were displaced as a result of the war. Large-scale hostilities ended with a Russia-brokered ceasefire in 1994 but Armenia continued the occupation in defiance of four UN Security Council resolutions calling for immediate and unconditional withdrawal. -- Sara Rajabova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @SaraRajabova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 15 January 2016 17:13 (UTC+04:00) By Sara Rajabova As a solution of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict lingers further the international community and Azerbaijani government is looking for new ways to end the long-lasting stalemate in the peace talks. The United States sees the way to reduce tensions between the sides in increasing people-to-people contacts, especially among the communities of Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenias destructive position in the negotiation process, which has been lasting for 25 years, is a big hindrance in a way to peace. The efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, tasked to find a peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, have been largely fruitless so far. Armenians and Azerbaijanis lived side-by-side for generations. The co-chairs support programs that will promote these people-to-people contacts as a way to rebuild trust, the U.S. State Department told AzerNews via email. The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs have repeatedly called for establishing a dialogue between the Azerbaijani and Armenian communities of Nagorno-Karabakh to accelerate the negotiations. However, efforts in this direction havent yielded results as the Armenian side with all possible means tries to prevent such a dialogue supporting the current status quo that is unacceptable. Despite repeated calls by the international community and Baku to contribute to meaningful dialogue between the two communities as a real confidence-building measure, Yerevan impedes the contacts between the Azerbaijani and Armenian communities of Nagorno-Karabakh. The talks between Azerbaijani and Armenian communities on Nagorno-Karabakh earlier were held in 2007 and 2009. Since then, no meeting took place between the communities due to Armenias rejection of such talks. The State Department further said the U.S. will continue its active engagement with the sides through the Minsk Group process to advance a peaceful and lasting settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Our longstanding policy, shared by the Minsk Group co-chairs, is that a just settlement must be based on international law, which includes the Helsinki Final Act and the principles of the non-use of force or threat of force, territorial integrity, and self-determination, the State Department underlined. Washington believes that the responsibility for peace falls on the shoulders of the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan. We were pleased that the presidents met on December 19 in Bern under the auspices of the Minsk Group co-chairs, and expect the presidents to continue their dialogue on a way forward in 2016. The Minsk Group will continue to support this dialogue, the State Department said. The U.S. Co-Chair of the Minsk Group, James Warlick has recently said the co-chairs are determined to continue work on a new meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents. The State Department also voiced concern over the recent escalation of violence and the use of heavy weapons along the contact line of two countries troops and Armenia-Azerbaijan border is unacceptable. We call for the sides to strictly adhere to the ceasefire regime and to take every precaution to avoid civilian casualties, the department said. The intensive ceasefire breaches on the contact line have increased and the situation has worsened even more in recent years. Azerbaijans positions come under intensive fire of the Armenian armed forces on a daily basis. Armenia captured Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions from Azerbaijan in a war that followed the Soviet breakup in 1991. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and nearly 1 million were displaced as a result of the war. The peace talks have been largely fruitless so far despite the efforts of the co-chair countries over 20 years. The sides to the conflict currently hold talks based on the renewed Madrid principles, which envisage return of occupied territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijani control, ensure the right of all internally displaced persons and refugees to return to their former places of residence, future determination of the final legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh and etc. -- Sara Rajabova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @SaraRajabova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 15 January 2016 17:59 (UTC+04:00) President Ilham Aliyev has signed a decree on January 15 on merging the State Flag Square Complex Department and the Baku Boulevard Department under the countrys Cabinet of Ministers. The head of state by his decree has appointed Ilgar Mustafayev to the post of head of the Baku Boulevard Department under the Cabinet of Ministers of Azerbaijan. By another decree, Afgan Shahmarov has been dismissed from the post of head of the Baku Boulevard Department. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 15 January 2016 10:00 (UTC+04:00) By Nigar Orujova Health tourism is one of the developed forms of traveling around the world. While some countries experience lack of credible healthcare institution, prices for medicine in others force people to seek medical help abroad. This type of tourism is well developing in the modern world, as it combines health with pleasure: recreation combined with medical check-ups or treatment if needed. The CIS residents prefer Germany, Israel, Austria, Switzerland, the U.S. and South Korea countries whose medical institutions offer regular checkups, targeted diagnostics, conservative and surgical treatment and complex rehabilitation. Azerbaijan that is developing its tourism potential has a lot magnificent places to show to visitors. Turning the country into the international center of medical tourism is a win-win idea, as it will be profitable for the state and advantageous for the population. The country having a number of professionals in the field strives to provide its population with well-deserved medicine. We have to make sure that people throughout Azerbaijan can receive quality medical care, Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev said while opening the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic Hospital last December. The head of state noted that despite the fact that some people travel abroad to receive treatment, Azerbaijan should aim to become a country, where people come for examination and treatment from abroad. The country has long-term plans to focus on further developing the medical facilities, which can be privatized, according to Deputy Prime Minister Ali Ahmadov. He noted that in recent years the government reconstructed and renovated hospitals and supplied them with the most modern equipment. "Azerbaijan spent huge funds and they [hospitals] must be sold at enough high prices. Therefore, these health facilities will remain in state ownership; at least until their depreciation period expires, he believes. If there evolves a need for the reconstruction of medical institutions, the country will decide on the transfer of its major part to the private sector in consistent with the practice of neighboring countries. Many health facilities have been renovated in the country. More than 500 objects related to this area were built and renovated in Azerbaijan over the past 10 years. The National Health Center is expected to open in Baku in 2016. However, Azerbaijan has all conditions to develop health tourism. Azerbaijani nature, which attracts several millions tourists a year, can also be healthy. The fresh mountain air, pure water, organic fruits of the Azerbaijani regions and beach recreation on the Caspian Sea Shore have already known among many tourists. The oil producer Azerbaijan also offers unique medical institution that treats with Naftalan crude oil, renowned for its curative properties. This center of medical tourism in Azerbaijan has unique natural treatments that cannot be seen anywhere else in the world. Medical specialists believe that this oil kills viruses, bacteria, and fungi. Numerous scientific studies along with more than 100 years of treatment experience confirm curative properties of this oil. Ashraf Hasanzadeh, PhD, surgeon, graduate of the First Moscow Medical University after I.M. Sechenov, said there is a prospect in turning Azerbaijan into the center of medical tourism. There is a prospect and in some areas it is already topical. This applies to cardiovascular surgery, particularly surgery in Azerbaijan. This direction is at a high level. There are prospects in other areas as well and the price of treatment can be of a particular importance here. The price for treatment in our country is not very expensive. So, I think, certain results can be achieved if we work in this direction, he noted. The special attraction of Azerbaijan is not only in price for treatment, Hasanzadeh believes, but also in the aspiration of the Azerbaijani doctors to learn and gain experience abroad. Speaking of the neighboring countries, we can compete in a certain area with Iran, especially in terms of oncology. With Georgia, it is difficult to compete due to comparably lower service prices. We probably can leave them behind, but it will take a lot of time, he added. Moreover, return of the Azerbaijani specialists who studied abroad could add incentive. The state has sent a very large number of different professionals, not just doctors, to study abroad, Hasanzadeh said, noting that he also studied in the framework of this program in Russia. In general, in the coming years up to 1,000 physicians studying in Germany, the U.S., UK, and France will return to Azerbaijan with the most advanced technology and knowledge, he noted. The surgeon believes that their return will be an additional incentive to attract patients from abroad. First, it will be our compatriots living abroad, then their neighbors, friends and so on. I think that such a scheme is possible. Speaking about the current situation in medicine, Hasanzadeh said it also depends on certain areas. He also noted a problem that is running into the lifestyle of Azerbaijanis, who refuse to anatomize dead body of their relatives. For this reason, it is very difficult to judge the causes of morbidity and mortality in the country. Hasanzadeh said that Azerbaijanis are free to go abroad for medical purpose especially with certain diseases which treatment have not succeeded yet in the country as compared to the best European, American or Japanese clinics. However, he believes that there are diseases where good results have been achieved in Azerbaijan. Now it is difficult to say that the whole system is well built, but the system is young, 20 years old, and it could not mature during this time. Now in Azerbaijan it is difficult to say that the whole system is well built, the system is young, it is not mature yet. Today it is at the stage of maturity and there are certain medical conditions where success has been obtained, he added. For instance, 10 years ago there were no specialists in Azerbaijan dealing with eye ground pathology, he said, while today there are at least two specialists who treat this disease at the level of the best clinics of Israel and Canada. Moreover, the price is lower. The price is definitely lower, but even if the price is the same as there, people do not pay for the road, visa, and stay abroad, he stressed. 15 January 2016 16:54 (UTC+04:00) By Aynur Karimova Azerbaijan's advantageous geographical position at the crossroads between East and West and developed transport infrastructure, attracts various countries, which wish to transport their cargoes through the countrys territory. Ukraine has recently expressed desire to use Azerbaijan's territory for transportation of cargo to the Central Asian countries. Alexander Zavgorodniy, the acting head of Ukrainian Railways, told Trend on January 12 that in the future, Ukraine plans to transport up to 10 million tons of cargo annually to Central Asia through Azerbaijan via Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, which is one of the most promising projects in the region. Earlier Ukraine offered its cargo companies to use the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route for carrying their goods to Central Asia bypassing Russia. Ukraine also plans to send a container train on January 15 from Illichivsk, for a test journey to China through Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan (across the Caspian and Black seas). The purpose [of journey] of the train is to pass the route to Dostyk station on the border between Kazakhstan and China, and by [its] movement to identify all the issues related to transportation through this route, he said. In particular, to clarify the timeframes for movement [of the train], the speed of movement on different [railway] sections, and what problems arise in the process in order to further eliminate them and to carry out transportation in line with a plan. He also added that the test train will be loaded with goods for export to Kazakhstan. This is mainly food and beverages. Estimated time for the train to reach from Illichivsk to Dostyk is about nine days. It is expected that Ukrainian test container train will consist of 20 wagons. Ukraine was forced to seek new alternative routes for delivering its goods to consumers following tensions with Russia. In this regard, Trans-Caspian International Transport Route is of significant importance for Kiev. Trans-Caspian International Transport Route enjoys an opportunity to become attractive and profitable for consignors from European countries. This route will transport approximately 300,000-400,000 containers by 2020, bringing hundreds of millions of manats in profit to Azerbaijan. The first container train on this route arrived at Baku International Sea Trade Port from China in August. The train, consisting of 44 wagons, departed from the Alashankou export station of the Chinese Urumqi-Xinjiang province and arrived in Tbilisi in eight days transiting through the territory of Azerbaijan. An agreement creating a coordinating committee to develop a Trans-Caspian International Transport Route was signed by Kazakh, Georgian, and Azerbaijani representatives in late 2013. The project is being implemented by Kazakhstan Temyr Zholy, China Railways, Azerbaijan Railways, Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping Company and Baku International Sea Trade Port. Growing interest in the transport infrastructures passing through Azerbaijan's territory is expected to make Azerbaijan a major transport hub in the region. -- Aynur Karimova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Aynur_Karimova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 15 January 2016 13:16 (UTC+04:00) By Nigar Orujova After some stagnation in bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and Ukraine, the two countries need to update a platform for cooperation and reboot partnership. The two countries enjoy mutually fruitful cooperation within international organizations both in bilateral and multilateral formats and plan to breathe a new life into the economic cooperation. Ukraine shows a very strong interest [in widening cooperation] indeed and this is especially felt in the last two years, Head of the Economic Department of the Ukrainian Embassy in Baku, Vadim Sidyachenko told AzerNews, Mentioning the three-fold devaluation of the Ukrainian hryvnia, which resulted in a sharp difference between the domestic price and the price of agricultural products on world markets, he spoke about profitability of exporting agricultural products to various countries including Azerbaijan. We receive offers on a regular basis [concerning the export of Ukrainian goods to Azerbaijan, as well as opening joint ventures and Ukrainian businesses in Azerbaijan] and we guide them to Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation, the Azerbaijani Confederation of Employers, and individual companies, he said. Ukrainian products, not conceding on quality, have proved to be much more competitive in price than even products from neighboring Russia and Kazakhstan, Turkey and Iran, Sidyachenko said. That is why the Ukrainian enterprises have set their sights on many markets, including in Azerbaijan. What Ukraine can bring to Azerbaijan? There are wide export opportunities of Ukraine, which is rich by nature, to enter the Azerbaijani market. All products Ukraine is growing and producing have its consumers in Azerbaijan, Sidyachenko said. We have different climatic zones, which offer various types of fruit and vegetables, not counting the common plants. For instance, last spring recorded export of even the Ukrainian potatoes, which is very cheap. Even if to take into consideration the transport fees, the Ukrainian potatoes are low in price and justify the export. At present, about 70 percent of walnuts in the Azerbaijani market are from Ukraine. Various groats including buckwheat and semolina can be delivered from Ukraine at lower prices as compared to the above mentioned countries. Ukraine is the world's third producer of grain and prices of grain and all flour products are low respectively, he added. Sidyachenko went on to say his country could also supply Azerbaijan with confectionery and alcoholic beverage products. Ukrainian vodka is globally recognized for its highest quality, even higher than the Russian vodka because of better wheat and the latest technologies. Moreover, more and more meat from Ukraine is exported in frozen, chilled and even live weight, primarily cattle. Ukraine is also interested in the cooperation in the fields of agricultural, transport, energy and construction, the department head said. We can also set up joint ventures in the construction field, as there are many points of common interest such as building of various objects including road, infrastructure, construction of offices, and the development of the Baku Metro. We assume that Baku needs a new distributing centre for sewage waters and collection and discharge of water from the streets. Here, Ukrainian companies can participate in tenders and joint construction projects, he noted. What can Azerbaijan offer Ukraine? Famous as a country rich with hydrocarbons, Azerbaijan now is focused on the non-oil sector on the background of the constant decrease in oil prices. Today Azerbaijan plans to increase export of its fruits and vegetables in the region. We are also exploring the possibility of creating regional logistics centers, to supply Ukraine with tropical products: citrus fruits, pomegranates, persimmons, figs, fresh and dried, hazelnut. We are interested in this because we have always developed trade relations with Azerbaijan and we have a free trade regime, Sidyachenko said. Ukraine is keen to develop joint tourism services so Azerbaijanis can relax in Ukrainian tourist resorts, primarily Truskavets and Zakarpatye. On the other side, Ukrainians can travel more and discover Azerbaijan: Baku the Caspian Dubai, mountain resorts, the sea, both summer and winter tourism, and the historical places as well, he added. Moreover, Azerbaijani investors plan to put about $50 million to Ukraine. Joint industries expected to open in Azerbaijan The Ukrainian Grain Association plans to hold the Black Sea-Caspian Sea Agrarian Congress at Baku Marriott Absheron hotel in April 2016, to discuss a number of issues that will not be related only to grain, the diplomat said. A lot of grain has died because of the drought in Azerbaijan a year ago. Ukraine has a variety of grains for the southern regions of the country that are resistant to drought. They can be cultivated here, he assured. Ukraine can supply and grow breeding stock and provide strong support for the revival of viticulture in Azerbaijan. Ukraine also plans to start joint industries in Azerbaijan. One of them is assembling of agricultural machinery that is produced in Ukraine. There are many enterprises in Ukraine producing a lot of agricultural machinery for small farms We can organize the supply of vehicle kits and assemble them in Azerbaijan. It would be cheaper in terms of delivery and in sharing production. The Azerbaijani Agroleasing company can further deliver them to farmers, he noted. These small tractors, seeding and winnowing machines for small areas are cheap because of the small engine power, and consume little fuel, Sidyachenko explains. However, these machines are of high reliability as engines are not only of Ukrainian, but also of the European production, and sturdy Ukrainian metal is reliable, and can be exploited for decades. Thus, it would be very convenient for farmers and not costly for Agroleasing. There are also possibilities to produce equipment for cattle drinking bowl, milking machines, and equipment for greenhouses. This equipment is just the same as its European one, but twice cheaper in price. In current situation when the manat unfortunately devalued, the issue of price and quality assumed a particular importance. In this context, Ukrainian products, that is equal in quality to European but with much lower price, will always be beneficial to Azerbaijan, Sydyachencko believes. Is Azerbaijani business environment attractive for foreign entrepreneurs? The diplomat said that reforms in Azerbaijan are going in the right direction when freedom of business is increasing and this allows us to develop the business. In general, many businessmen both Ukrainian and Azerbaijani told me that they have breathed freely and it became easier to work especially in the second half of 2015, especially in the fall, when the head of state had a serious reform of the tax system, the customs system, in fiscal matters, and inspections of enterprises, he added. Ukraine is also attracted by the opportunities of the industrial parks created in Azerbaijan that suggests an opportunity of working seven years without paying income tax, land tax and property tax. In addition, equipment and technology used in such parks are not subject to VAT. "We are interested in the technology parks and want the Ukrainian businessmen to establish joint productions precisely in the tech parks," he added. Azerbaijan a key to Asia for Ukraine Azerbaijan is attractive for its location on the crossroad of East and West, as Ukraine is today out of touch with Asian markets. Ukraine attended a meeting of heads of the railroads of Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Iran, and Georgia for the development of the North-South transport corridor on January 12, and participated in negotiations between the heads of railways of Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Georgia to develop the transport corridor East-West on January 14. When Russia has banned transportation of Ukrainian goods through their country, Caucasian corridor Black Sea-Caspian Sea is becoming strategic for Ukraine, Sidyachenko said. We applause a good decision by the Azerbaijani president to establish the Coordination Committee, because it became a single window through which we can solve and we have already solved certain issues on tariffs and transportation, he said stressing that Now we have even informed the Ukrainian government about this experience to create the Ukrainian analogue to this structure. The Ukrainian Ambassador Alexander Mishchenko has already met with the Minister of Economy and head of the Committee Shahin Mustafayev, and they have managed to solve all needed issues. We have close business ties with the leadership of the port of Baku. We are maintaining the ideas on the development of the Baku Sea Trade Port as a transport hub of the Caspian and the Caucasus regions. We have already brought Ukrainian shipping transport companies so they were acquainted with the work of the port and hauled loads in this direction, he noted. In the future, Ukraine plans to carry up to 2-3 million tons of cargo annually through Azerbaijan to Central Asia as well as in Iran and later in India and the Persian Gulf. High-level visits continue Talks on the governmental level are expected to continue in March during the 11th session of the Intergovernmental Commission, with participation of Azerbaijani first Deputy Prime Minister Yagub Eyubbov and Ukrainian Vice-Prime-Minister Gennady Zubko. Moreover, the first visit of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to Baku is expected in April-May, following invitation of the Azerbaijani President. __ Nigar Orujova is AzerNews staff journalist. Follow her on Twitter: @o_nigar Follow us on Twitter: @AzerNewsAz 15 January 2016 12:31 (UTC+04:00) The UK prime ministers new envoy on the development of trade relations with Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan has been appointed, the UK government reported. Lord John Jacob Astor, the new envoy, has replaced Charles Hendry. The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and the UK decreased twofold, amounting to $472.07 million in January-November 2015, according to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee Azerbaijan and the UK have benefitted from close bilateral partnership and cooperation since 1992, in the framework of international organizations such as the United Nations, OSCE, Council of Europe, and NATO. The relations have covered a wide range of issues, from high-level political dialogue to growing trade and investment, as well as strengthening cultural and humanitarian ties. Economic cooperation between the two countries, especially in the energy sector, is at the core of the relations between Azerbaijan and the UK. The UK is the largest foreign direct investor in Azerbaijan, followed by the U.S. and Japan. Azerbaijan cooperates with the UK in the exploration and transportation of oil and natural gas from the Azerbaijani part of the Caspian Sea. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 15 January 2016 15:56 (UTC+04:00) By Aynur Karimova Azerbaijan has achieved a bright milestone in its history, becoming a transport hub and increasing the cargo flow and the influx of currency into the country. The country has reached an agreement with Kazakhstan, Georgia and Ukraine on the realization of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route. The four countries have signed a protocol on setting competitive preferential tariffs for cargo transportation via this route. The protocol was signed by Javid Gurbanov, the Head of Azerbaijani Railways CJSC, Taleh Ziyadov, the Director General of the Baku International Sea Trade Port, and Rauf Valiyev, the Head of the Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping Company, Askar Mamin, the Head of Kazakhstan Railways JSC, Mamuka Bakhtadze, the Head of Georgian Railway JSC and Aleksandr Zavgorodniy, the acting Chairman of Board of Ukrainian Railways JSC at a meeting in Baku on January 14. The document envisages setting the competitive preferential tariffs for cargo transportation via the Trans-Caspian route, carrying out comprehensive measures to facilitate the movement of trains via the route, and increasing cargo turnover. The signing of the protocol means opening a new route from the Izov station on the border of Ukraine and Poland till the Dostyk station on the border of Kazakhstan and China," Gurbanov told journalists after the signing ceremony. A similar bilateral protocol was also signed separately by Azerbaijan and Georgia. A uniform tariff policy for cargo traffic from China to Europe through Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine will be agreed by mid-February after determining the distance from Ilyichevsk or Odessa to Georgian ports of Batumi and Poti. The Trans-Caspian International Transport Route enjoys an opportunity to become attractive and profitable for consignors from European countries. This route will transport approximately 300,000-400,000 containers by 2020, bringing hundreds of millions of manats in profit to Azerbaijan. The first container train on this route arrived at Baku International Sea Trade Port from China in August. The train, consisting of 44 wagons, departed from the Alashankou export station of the Chinese Urumqi-Xinjiang province and arrived in Tbilisi in eight days transiting through the territory of Azerbaijan. An agreement creating a coordinating committee to develop a Trans-Caspian International Transport Route was signed by Kazakh, Georgian, and Azerbaijani representatives in late 2013. The project is being implemented by Kazakhstan Temyr Zholy, China Railways, Azerbaijan Railways, Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping Company and Baku International Sea Trade Port. -- Aynur Karimova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Aynur_Karimova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Mining companies say a federal decision to stop leasing coal on public lands has bottled up Montana and Wyoming coal projects. The leasing suspension announced Friday by the Department of the Interior has put expansion plans in doubt at the Spring Creek Mine in Southeast Montana, and Antelope Mine in Wyoming, developer Cloud Peak Energy said. Cloud Peak was trying to determine whether the lease suspension would stop a 1,602-acre lease adjacent to Spring Creek Mine. The lease, involving 198.2 million tons of mineable coal, is beyond preliminary approval, but is still under environmental review, which might not be far enough to avoid suspension. A proposed lease adjacent to Antelope Mine, 60 miles south of Gillette, Wyo., was to receive a regional hearing before the Powder River Basin Regional Coal Team later this month. "We believe this review process is not warranted and is aimed at delaying leases to ensure the coal is never mined, denying its economic benefits to the nation," said Colin Marshall, Cloud Peak CEO. "We do not believe this announcement will have any immediate impact on our operations, and we will continue serving our customers to provide safe, reliable and affordable electricity for our nation." Cloud Peak has strong coal reserves, the company said, including non-federal reserves that aren't subject to Interior's suspension. In announcing the suspension, the DOI said it needed time to determine whether mining companies are paying the public a fair amount for coal taken from federal lands. Also, the federal government wants to determine if the bidding process for public coal is truly competitive, and whether coal policy contradicts federal climate change policy, among other things. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said the suspension shouldn't halt coal mining or suspend current leases. The suspension does not involve coal leases on Indian land. Federal coal from the Powder River basin in Wyoming and Montana accounts for 85 percent of federal coal production. Just a few miles from Spring Creek, applications expanding the Decker Mine by Lighthouse Resources also appeared to be in doubt. Utah-based Lighthouse Resources, which only makes itself available by email, didnt respond to Gazette inquiries. Lighthouse was working on a 460-acre lease modification to expand its current mining of federal land near the Montana-Wyoming boarder. Because lease modifications involve land already under development, new tracts are often in the shadow of a mining company's dragline coal shovel. DOI exempted lease modifications 160 acres or smaller from Friday's announced suspension. Lighthouse had a 40-acre lease modification in the works, which seemed unaffected. The lease suspensions shouldn't be a job killer, said Chris Saeger of Western Values Project. "The sky is neither falling, nor is this a new dawn," Saeger said. "It's not going to end coal mining on public lands, whether you like it or not." The suspension of new leases comes as Interior retools the way royalties are assessed on public coal. U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., said the lease suspension targeted Montana and Wyoming coal. "It is an unprecedented assault on one of Montanas most important sources of good paying jobs and tax revenue that will likely shut down coal development in Montana and Wyoming's Powder River Basin," Daines said. "I will do everything I can do stop President Obamas radical effort to shut down Montana coal. The federal government has suspended coal leasing before, under Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat, also blasted Obama for this latest decision on coal. "President Obama is wrong, and once again Montanas working families are left bearing the brunt of his unilateral action," Bullock said. "Of course American taxpayers should get their fair value from coal leases and of course there should be transparency in the process. But you dont shut down a program just to tinker with it you fix as you go." This is the second time in six months that Bullock as balked at Obama coal policy. In August, Bullock accused Obama of "moving the goal posts" on carbon pollution limits from power plants. Pollution reductions for Montana's power plants were stronger than initially expected. Interior employees will review six different federal coal policy issues during the suspension. In addition to the fair return, competitive leasing and climate change issues outlined by Jewell, employees will look at how coal sales to foreign companies have changed coal industry profits and whether the public is benefiting from those changes. Social and economic impacts of coal, including job creation will be reviewed. Finally, coals role in meeting U.S. energy needs will be addressed. All six issues were brought up last year in DOI public hearings in Western coal states. In Billings, the DOI hearing drew several hundred people, with emotionally charged arguments both for and against federal coal policy. One of those testifying was former Montana Department of Revenue Director Dan Bucks, who said the miscalculations in coal royalties was costing Montana $30 million over five years. Bucks said Friday the suspension would benefit everyone. A complete assessment of the federal coal program is overdue. There are a host of energy, environmental, social, fiscal and managerial issues that need to be addressed, Bucks said. The coal industry, coal workers and communities, and the public deserve answers to the many questions that create uncertainty for this source of energy. The suspension will also put an end to federal mineral rights swaps with private parties that can be devastating to people living above coal, said Jeanie Alderson of Birney. Because mineral rights and surface rights are often not held by the same person, such swaps with the federal government can expose a surface owners to mining they cannot stop, said Alderson a member of the Northern Plains Resource Council. 15 January 2016 18:09 (UTC+04:00) By Nigar Orujova Azerbaijan is ready to receive ferry traffic from Iran. Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping Company is willing to involve the existing free potential for the implementation of the ferry transportation to Iran, a source in the company told Trend on January 14. Annual potential of the companys cargo transportation by ferries is 95,000 cars, or 4.56 million tons of cargo. Considering this figure and the actual transportation of cars, which is 40,000-70,000 cars per year, with the launch of the ferry to the Iranian ports of Amirabad and Rasht the company is ready to involve the available free capacity in the directions of the Alat-Amirabad and Alat-Rasht, the source said. Currently, the company has 13 ferries on its balance, which work in the directions of Alat-Aktau-Alat and Alat-Turkmenbashi-Alat ports. The companys fleet also includes two RO-RO vessels, which work in the directions of Aktau and Turkmenbashi. It is also possible to involve the RO-RO vessels in these directions, the source said. Earlier this week, head of Iranian Railways Mohsen Pour Seyed Aghaei during his visit to Baku said Iran intends to start transportation by ferries within six months from the port of Amirabad to Baku International Trade Port in Alat. Located on the edge of the East and West, Azerbaijan wants to use the strategically favorable position to become a country conducive for goods transit by following the one contact principle. Azerbaijan has already made a nearly 40-percent reduction in the transit cost of cargo transportations by large trucks to the Aktau and Turkmenbashi ports and reduced tariffs by 20 percent in order to improve the attractiveness of maritime transportation of cars traveling from Turkey to Kazakhstan. The country also express readiness to offer more attractive price for transportation if required. Over 250 trucks have been transported by sea via Baku-Aktau route since the beginning of 2015, according to the Caspian Shipping Company. The route has transported 566 trucks in last December. At present, 11 ferryboats and two Ro-Ro vessels are operating from Baku to Aktau and Turkmenbashi ports. Azerbaijan's Caspian Sea Shipping Company is among the major ship owning companies in the Caspian basin and its main activity is cargo transportation predominantly in oil and oil products in the Caspian, Black, Mediterranean, and Marmara Seas. The company carries freight traffic through the Europe-Caucasus-Asia transport corridor from Baku. The goods are sent to the Kazakh port of Aktau in 24-26 hours and Turkmen port of Turkmenbashi in 14-16 hours, and vice versa. __ Nigar Orujova is AzerNews staff journalist. Follow her on Twitter: @o_nigar Follow us on Twitter: @AzerNewsAz 15 January 2016 16:12 (UTC+04:00) By Laman Sadigova A memorial evening dedicated to the outstanding Azerbaijani composer, Tofig Guliyev, was held at the Azerbaijani Cultural Center in Vienna. The project entitled Rapprochement with the phenomenon of Tofig Guliyev (Tofig Guliyev: Annaherung an ein Phanomen) was jointly realized by the Culture Meeting Point together with the Azerbaijan Cultural Center, with the assistance of the Azerbaijani embassy in Austria and the Azerbaijani Culture and Tourism Ministry. Director of Azerbaijan Cultural Center in Vienna Leyla Gasimova and Head of Culture Meeting Point Farah Tairova have addressed the event, and informed the guests about works of Tofig Guliyev, who has made a significant contribution to the development of Azerbaijani music. The speakers noted that the phenomenon of Tofig Guliyev is that he managed to conquer the hearts of millions of music lovers through his beautiful and emotional music. Such legendary musicians like Bulbul, Rashid Behbudov, Fidan and Khuraman Gasimova, Muslim Magomayev, Vagif Mustafazadeh, Chingiz Sadikhov, the famous jazz orchestra of Eddie Rosner are among unique interpreters of the composer's works. His magic songs have turned into masterpieces. The event also featured a documentary film about the life and work of famous composer. Later, the guests were able to enjoy a concert program with the participation of people's Artist of the USSR Fidan Gasimova and People's Artist Khuraman Gasimova, who performed Tofig Guliyevs masterpieces. The performance got terrific applause from the audience. Born in 1917 and raised in Bakus Icherisheher (Old City), Tofig Guliyev was one of the most appreciated Azerbaijani classical composers of the twentieth century. Guliyev had the perfect ear for music and a phenomenal musical memory. This talented musician was often referred to as the dean of Azerbaijani composers. Guliyev greatly contributed to the national music industry. He is one of the first composers who transferred Azerbaijani Mugam, a unique musical and poetic phenomenon, into musical notes. He is a founder of the composer music genre in 20th century Azerbaijan. His splendid songs are still young, modern, and will never go out of style. He has had invaluable contribution to Azerbaijani national culture, and from 1930 the outstanding composer began to collect, record, and publish national folklore in his music. The song and dance materials that he gathered from visits to the countrys regions were further included in a collection. The Azerbaijani national dances collection published in 1951 involved many dance melodies, and in 1955 he published another collection called 15 Azerbaijani national dances. --- Follow Laman Sadigova on Twitter: @s_laman93 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 15 January 2016 14:27 (UTC+04:00) By Nigar Orujova The long-standing efforts to promote a peaceful solution to the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia remains in the forefront of the EU priorities, as does cooperation with Azerbaijani society as a whole, EU Spokesperson told AzerNews. Armenia captured Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions of Azerbaijan in a war that followed the Soviet breakup in 1991. This war killer more than 20,000 Azerbaijanis and nearly 1 million were displaced. "We are currently working with Azerbaijan on defining the scope of a new legal basis that would replace the 1996 Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the EU and Azerbaijan," the spokesperson said. Baku has earlier presented the new draft agreement to the EU. It envisages establishment of strategic partnership relations between the two sides. Azerbaijan is now awaiting the mandate of the European Union to start the talks on signing a new strategic partnership agreement with this organization. The long-term peace talks have been largely fruitless so far despite the efforts of the co-chair countries for over 20 years. In early 2015, head of the EU Delegation to Azerbaijan Malena Mard said the current status quo in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is unacceptable to the EU. She noted that the EU attaches great importance to the territorial integrity principle. The EU supports the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, she said. This has been indicated in the agreement signed by the sides in 1996. The OSCE Minsk Group is engaged in the conflict settlement. We support its activity. The sides to the conflict currently hold talks based on the renewed Madrid principles, which envisage return of occupied territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijani control, ensure the right of all internally displaced persons and refugees to return to their former places of residence, future determination of the final legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh, etc. __ Nigar Orujova is AzerNewss staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @o_nigar Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 15 January 2016 14:06 (UTC+04:00) By Aynur Karimova Azerbaijan has achieved a stable output of oil and boosted natural gas production in 2015. Energy Minister Natig Aliyev stated about this in his article published on the official press, adding that the country produced 41.6 million tons of oil against forecasted 40.7 million tons. Some 31 million tons of oil was extracted from the giant Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli field, 2.3 million tons from the Shah Deniz field (condensate) and 8.2 million tons by Azerbaijan's state energy company SOCAR. Touching upon the export figures, Aliyev said that in 2015, Azerbaijan exported 38.1 million tons of oil to world markets. "Azerbaijan International Operating Company exported 36.9 million tons of crude oil, while SOCAR - 1.2 million tons," he said. "The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline carried not only oil from the ACG field and condensate for the Shah Deniz fields, but also from Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan." The minister went on to add that Azerbaijan extracted 29.1 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2015. "Some 12.3 billion cubic meters of gas was extracted from the ACG field and 9.9 billion cubic meters from the Shah Deniz field. Thus, Azerbaijan's gas production exceeded the forecasts for 14.2 million cubic meters last year," he stated. Currently, energy-rich Azerbaijan's daily oil production stands at 120 million tons, while daily gas production figure amounts to 89 million cubic meters. Oil and gas are extracted from the onshore and offshore fields, as well as from the ACG, Shah Deniz and Umid fields, which are developed together with foreign companies. Aliyev also revealed oil and gas production forecasts for 2016. He informed that SOCAR's gas production for the current year is projected at 6.3 billion cubic meters. Also gas production from the Shah Deniz field is expected at 10.1 billion cubic meters and from the ACG field - at 12.9 billion cubic meters. Earlier Azerbaijan's energy giant SOCAR also revealed the figures showing how many new wells it drilled in 2015. SOCAR reported on January 6 that in 2015, it put into operation 73 new wells in the fields, developed independently by the company. "In 2015, some 73 wells were drilled and after the construction were handed over to miners. In December last year this figure stood at 10," the company said. The volume of drilling works conducted in 2015 by SOCAR (with the exception of joint ventures and operating companies) amounted to 104,411 meters against 127,346 meters in 2014. SOCAR also said that some 103,411 meters out of total drilling works conducted last year (104,411 meters) were operational drilling, while 1,000 meters - exploratory drilling. Azerbaijan exports oil through four routes the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, Baku-Supsa (western route) and Baku-Novorossiysk (northern route), as well as by rail. In 2015, the company exported about 17.93 million tons from the Turkish Ceyhan port compared to 20.48 million tons in 2014. SOCAR exported over 2.79 million tons of oil via the Baku-Supsa pipeline compared to 2.96 million tons in 2014. It transported 1.27 million tons of "black gold" in the northern direction (Baku-Novorossiysk) for the reporting period compared to 932.15 million tons in 2014. -- Aynur Karimova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Aynur_Karimova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 15 January 2016 16:28 (UTC+04:00) Fire has been extinguished at another gas well on the platform #10 of the Guneshli field in the Caspian Sea, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Emergency Situations reported on January 15. Currently, the ministry of emergency situations continues extinguishing fire at other wells of the platform #10 on the field. The fire broke out on the offshore platform Dec. 4, as a strong storm damaged an underwater high-pressure gas pipeline. As many as 33 people were rescued in an ensuing large-scale operation. The bodies of 11 killed were retrieved, while 19 oil workers are still listed as missing. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 15 January 2016 16:20 (UTC+04:00) Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit Iran on January 22, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani's official website reported. The upcoming visit will be the first visit of Chinese president to Iran in 14 years. The Chinese president reportedly will arrive in Iran heading a big delegation of political and economic representatives. The visit will last for two days. The sides will discuss bilateral political and economic relations, regional and global issues as well as pawing ways to boosting ties with signing several memorandums in economical, cultural, political and legal spheres. Chinese president will visit Saudi Arabia and Egypt as well. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 15 January 2016 18:45 (UTC+04:00) By Aynur Karimova Turkmenistan, an energy-rich Central Asian nation with huge hydrocarbon reserves, discovered two new gas fields near the giant Galkynysh field. The Turkmen Geology State Corporation reported that new gas fields - Garakel and Bagli - were discovered as a result of the search-exploration operations in 2015. "The discovery of these fields testifies to an increase in the proven reserves of natural gas in the Galkynysh super-giant oil field," the corporation said. The reserves of Galkynysh field together with Yashlar and Garakel deposits are estimated at 27.4 trillion cubic meters. The corporation further added that the plan on growth of natural gas reserves was fulfilled at 132 percent in the country in 2015. In total, the search-exploration operations were carried out at 32 oil and gas areas and fields in 2015. Moreover, some 35 exploratory oil and gas wells were drilled. The Turkmen Geology has set a priority for its experts in 2016 to search and explore liquid hydrocarbons and natural gas, not containing hydrogen sulphide and carbonic gas. Turkmenistan, which has the fourth largest proven gas reserves in the world, is actively implementing an energy strategy aimed at increasing exports of the blue fuel and diversifying its supply routes to the largest global markets, where the demand for energy resources is growing. Being one of the key players in the gas market of the Caspian Sea region and Central Asia, Turkmenistan produces about 70-80 billion cubic meters of gas a year. It possesses some 17 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, with some estimates placing that figure upwards of 25 or 26 trillion cubic meters. -- Aynur Karimova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Aynur_Karimova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz HELENA The state of Montana is already planning to seek an extension on the September deadline to submit its plans on how it will cut carbon dioxide emissions to meet new federal guidelines. State plans to comply with the Clean Power Plan must be submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency by Sept. 6, which is also the deadline to file an initial outline and request a one- or two-year extension. The EPA will issue plans for states that do not submit plans or ask for extensions. It is our intent that we will ask for an extension and make a case for getting an additional two years to fully develop the plan, Tom Livers, director of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, told a legislative subcommittee Thursday. But we have to demonstrate we have made sufficient progress to be able to get an extension. The Interim Clean Power Plan Advisory Committee announced by Gov. Steve Bullock two weeks ago in Colstrip likely will have its first meeting in late February, Livers said. Scheduling is going to be a challenge, Livers said of the 27-member committee. He said the committee plans to hold two to eight two-day meetings and still should have enough time to make recommendations by its July deadline. The committee dissolves July 6. Livers said whatever the committee brings forth is nonbinding, and its ultimately the responsibility of the DEQ to submit a plan that meets EPA requirements. Greg Gianforte, who has said he's considering a bid for the Republican nomination for governor, attended part of the meeting, while a floor above in the Capitol Rotunda, Republican legislative candidates held a press conference on filing day. Gianforte said he was at the meeting to learn about the issue. If the rules are enacted, we stand to lose 7,000 good-paying jobs, and electric bills will go up 20 percent, Gianforte said. One year of forest fires contributes more than a thousand years from Colstrip. Members of the subcommittee, which is a part of both the Energy and Telecommunications Interim Committee and the Environmental Quality Council, passed on a 5-3 vote a resolution to send a letter to those committees that urges the state Attorney General to continue using all means at your disposal to challenge the legality of the federal Clean Power Plan. State Sen. Jim Keane, D-Butte, said the letter is an important step. Were the third branch of government. We cant sit on the sidelines and do nothing while the attorney general and executive branch says we need to do something. I think it is important for the Legislature to say we have a say in this and power in this. State Rep. Tom Steenberg, D-Missoula, questioned the letter as premature as lawsuits against the Clean Power Plan progress through court. Arent we still looking for information thats going to come out at a later date? Dont we need to see how montana plans can affect this before we are concerned? Keane, State Sen. Duane Ankney, R-Colstrip, State Sen. Cary Smith, R-Billings, State Rep. Keith Regier, R-Kalsipell, and Scott Aspenlieder, the public member on the council, voted yes. State Sen. Robyn Driscoll, D-Billings, State Rep. Janet Ellis, D-Helena, and Steenberg voted no. Montana is one of 27 states that have sued the federal government over the EPAs plans. Gov. Steve Bullock has supported this lawsuit, while also saying Montana needs to develop its own plan and not let the federal government dictate what happens here. Cupcake specialist Songbird Bakery is one of eight food venues selected to sit on Middlesboroughs Bedford Street. It was announced yesterday that eight eateries have been selected to open premises on Bedford Street, with Songbird as the one bakery among them. Bedford Street is a former town centre terrace undergoing redevelopment. Modelled on Londons Borough Food Market, it will feature an array of bars and restaurants, from a bakery to a burrito bar. Songbird Bakery, owned by Shelley Tyreman and Claire Philpott, is already based in the Middlesbrough and Stockton area. It makes bespoke cupcakes and giant cupcakes fresh to order. American Airlines will enter the Montana market this spring with non-stop daily, seasonal flights connecting Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport with Dallas-Fort Worth. Summer service begins June 2, ending in October. Winter service begins Dec. 15 and ends in April. Airport manager Brian Sprenger said Thursdays announcement is the culmination of two decades worth of effort by officials from Gallatin County. Obviously, it puts us on the map, particularly for the Dallas market, Sprenger said. The direct flights open up new opportunities for leisure travelers interested in visiting southwest Montana, he said. Gallatin County organizations have pledged $1.3 million in revenue guarantees to reduce the airlines financial risk in entering the Montana market. Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport is Montanas busiest, by virtue of its proximity to Yellowstone National Park, Big Sky and other tourist attractions. Last year, the airport handled more than 1 million passengers. Sprenger said Big Sky Resort, the Yellowstone Club, Spanish Peaks and Moonlight Basin, the Bozeman Chamber, Bozeman TBID and Yellowstone Country Montana contributed to the revenue guarantee. The single daily flight offered by American could eventually expand over time if market conditions justify it, Sprenger said. In the long run, it gives American an opportunity to have expanded in Montana and to understand the market better. As they gain experience, its more likely that theyll expand to other cities. Another carrier, Horizon Airlines eventually expanded its service after entering the Montana market a few years ago, Sprenger said. Billings officials traveled to Dallas-Fort Worth late last year hoping to promote Americans interest in serving the Billings market. Meetings have also taken place with officials from Delta Airlines and United Airlines about potentially expanding air service to Billings. The airlines each know what Billings is looking for and we know what the airlines need to expand in our market, said John Brewer, president and chief executive of the Billings Chamber of Commerce. For example, American Airlines knows that Billings seeks to secure daily direct service to Dallas-Fort Worth and that our data and research indicate that service would be successful here. We hope to see the flight in Bozeman go well, as that will ultimately speak to the success of the Montana market for American and feed our request for daily direct service in Billings, Brewer said. Steve Arveschoug, executive director of Big Sky Economic Development, said he was somewhat disappointed that American plans only seasonal service. Billings will continue to make the case for adding new flights, he said. Brewer said Billings has a lot of factors that make it a strong candidate for air service expansion, including a strong economy and a diverse business community. This is exciting news for the Bozeman community and the thousands of Montanans who rely on Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport for reliable air travel, said Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont. This new partnership with American Airlines wont just increase options for Montanans, but will also make it easier for Montanans to access global destinations at lower cost. It will further open Bozemans door to economic opportunities and job creation, unlocking markets for Montana small businesses. We're proud to offer this new service to Bozeman, marking American's return to Montana," said Chuck Schubert, American's vice president of network planning. "Customers from around the world will now have access to Bozeman from our largest hub." The new flight is scheduled to depart Dallas Fort Worth Airport at 10:15 a.m., arriving in Bozeman at 12:13 p.m., with the return flight leaving Bozeman at 1:02 p.m., arriving in Dallas at 5 p.m. Americans service will be operated by its American Eagle regional partners, using Bombardier CRJ-900 aircraft. BUTTE A 32-year-old man arrested last month in a drug bust distributed more than 40 pounds of methamphetamine over a five-month period in the Mining City, county prosecutors said. The drugs had an estimated street value of at least $640,000, said Sheriff Ed Lester. In an interview with law enforcement after his arrest, Lester Oxendine admitted he was dealing drugs in Butte, according to an affidavit filed in district court Jan. 7. He admitted that he was selling some major weight in the community, the affidavit states. He indicated that no one would mess with him because he would shoot at them. County Attorney Eileen Joyce alleges Oxendine, who moved to Silver Bow County from South Dakota last summer, distributed the meth from July 5 to Dec. 10, 2015, at various locations in the city. Oxendine was also charged with criminal possession of meth with intent to distribute after the police seized about four pounds in a drug-raid operation Dec. 10 in Uptown and at his home in Centerville. Seven firearms were also seized as well as three grams of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. A third felony charge, assault with a weapon, stems from Oxendine allegedly firing a gun at an unidentified partner two days before his arrest, missing her head by inches. Oxendine was to be arraigned Thursday before Judge Brad Newman, but his attorney requested a continuance until next week. Chief Deputy County Attorney Samm Cox said Wednesday that the investigation took time. In the affidavit, he wrote Oxendine was responsible for selling major quantities of methamphetamine to people in the area. Lester had said Decembers drug raid was triggered by information received by a police department investigator. The affidavit states the detective learned that Oxendine and his associates had traveled to Las Vegas and purchased a large amount of meth. An investigation of Oxendines alleged illegal activities began in August 2015 and was assisted by Southwest Montana Drug Task Force agents. Oxendine indicated to investigators during the interview that he moved to Montana to sell drugs his sole source of income. He traveled to Las Vegas at least one a month since July 2015 and would return with five to 10 pounds of meth, which he would then turn and sell to drug users, the affidavit states. Oxendine admitted that the meth found at his residence at 937 Sutter St. in December was received on Dec. 1 or Dec. 2 from a source in Nevada. He was fronted a total of five pounds of meth to sell, according to the affidavit. During the interview, Oxendine stated that he would take the proceeds from the drug sales and deposit the money in various accounts at Wells Fargo Bank. Oxendine also told investigators he shot at an individual in Anaconda-Deer Lodge County. Police Chief Tim Barkell on Wednesday declined to comment on Oxendines admission. Oxendine is being held at the Butte-Silver Bow Detention Center on $225,000 bond. Sept. 15, 2022 Even though some states have decriminalized or legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use, under federal law, Marijuana remains an illegal Schedule I Controlled Substance, with a high potential for abuse and no currently accepted medical use. Fifteen aspiring engineers with maybe a teacher, astronaut or blacksmith thrown in as well turned out to the Billings Public Library on Wednesday to take on the fuel cell challenge. In teams of two, youth were given a kit to construct a tiny car that runs not on gasoline, but on two of the most plentiful gases around hydrogen and oxygen. Each of the youth succeeded, according to Cody Allen, the librarys young adult and Tech Lab librarian. First they used their kit to construct a fuel cell car around tables in the crowded Tech Lab, then they took their vehicles downstairs to the Royal Johnson Community Room for multiple test drives. Allen said the vehicles which use distilled water to separate hydrogen and oxygen test hydrogen production and energy consumption using a proton exchange membrane fuel cell. They all seemed to work out well, Allen said of the hourlong demonstration that followed a 60-minute construction period. Some of them had drag issues, and some of them had to adjust their alignment. Some of the cars went pretty fast. Friends Shane Walton and Caleb Hagestad, both eighth-graders, constructed their car together and talked as they built. Ive wanted to learn about fuel cells, and this is a hands-on project, said Walton, who said his career aspirations include being an astronaut. A project like this puts it straight into your brain, said Hagestad, whos mulling whether hell one day be a gunsmith or a blacksmith. The kits, each of which came with a workbook, were developed by the Society of Automotive Engineers and purchased by Montana Ambassadors, which works to promote entrepreneurship across the state. Engineers and teachers worked together to develop the program, said Mary Ellen Earnhardt, director of after-school programs for the states Office of Public Instruction. Earnhardt was in Billings on Wednesday to deliver kits and set the youth up for success as they put their vehicles together and then demonstrated what theyd learned. Theyre learning teamwork and the scientific method, she said as she watched the youth begin to construct their vehicles. Instead of just talking, were walking the walk. Earnhardt said its hard for her not to jump right in when she notices students struggling with their projects. They have to learn for themselves, she said. They all have an idea of what they need to do, but they need to problem-solve to get it done. Veronica Willeto, after-school coordinator at Plenty Coups High School in Pryor, brought a pair of students who were eager to expand their minds. These are great ways to apply what theyve learned in a way thats real to them, she said. This is technology that the world needs, so its nice to see them build something and be able to take it back to the community. Montanas open government laws work best when public officials recognize their responsibility to carry out both the letter and the spirit of the statutes. Often we have seen Montana officials both elected and non-elected ignoring, delaying and fighting requests for public information. So it is remarkably refreshing when public servants take their public information responsibility seriously. Yellowstone County Clerk and Recorder Jeff Martin and Chief Deputy County Attorney Dan Schwarz deserve particular praise for their initiative to improve public information about County Commission meetings. In reviewing last years revision of open government laws, Martin and Schwarz noted that the Yellowstone County Commission wasnt in compliance for all of its meetings. Starting this week, things are changing for the better. With advice from Schwarz and Martin, the commissioners are requiring that agenda items be submitted in advance so the meeting agenda can be posted publicly at least 48 hours before it starts. The commission moved its regular discussion meeting with department heads from 2 p.m. Wednesday to 2 p.m. Thursday. Officals wanting to discuss matters will have to get on the agenda by Tuesday. Previously, the discussion agendas didnt list specific items, issues or speakers. With the latest Thursday meeting, those details were included. Its nearly impossible for the public to participate meaningfully in a meeting if they dont know whats on the agenda. The commission is taking a significant step to boost public participation. The commissions office staff has been notifying county department heads that they must get on meeting agendas in advance and that no items will be heard unless they are on the agenda. Dare we hope that the days are gone when a department head could just show up, tell the three commissioners (or maybe just a quorum of two) what he needed and have everyone agree before anyone else knows what happened? The commission has started requiring speakers to step to the microphone and state their name at meetings, so they can be recorded in audio minutes. With guidance from Schwarz and Martin, the commission is committed to posting a list of litigation cases they will discuss, including cases that will be discussed in closed session. The commission is aware that it may not close discussions of cases that involve only public entities. No litigation discussions can be closed unless the commission determines that public disclosure would be detrimental to the countys strategy. It appears that the commission is trying to make documents related to agenda items more readily available. The commission is starting out the new year on a good track. Thanks to Martin and Schwarz, open meetings are high on the 2016 agenda. We also give credit to Commissioners Bill Kennedy, Jim Reno and John Ostlund for following good advice to inform the public online and in the fourth-floor boardroom. Grave robbers stole caskets and remains from a family's mausoleum at the Italian Cemetery in Ybor City. Tampa police said it happened sometime between Veteran's Day and Wednesday night. Someone visiting the cemetery noticed the lock on the Spicola family mausoleum had been broken. When authorities arrived, they found one coffin disturbed and two others missing. "The family is devastated. Think about this, if it was your family and stole the casket from the cemetery," said John Centinaro, Italian Club Cemetery President. Charles Spicola, Jr. said the remains belonged to his great-grandfather, grandmother and aunt. "When I got there and saw, it, that was when it hit me hard. It was a very ugly site," he said. Spicola, Jr. is a former Tampa City Council member and is founder of the Tampa Rough Riders. He said his grandparents established Spicola Hardware in Ybor City and relatives also include a former circuit judge in Hillsborough County and a former state attorney. He has no idea why anyone would do something like this. "People who remove body parts, skeletal remains, we just don't know. Could be some type of religious ritual, gang initiation or they could have been looking for valuables. We just don't know," he said. The cemetery does have a security system but authorities said the thieves managed to by-pass it. "All I know is, it occurred. We just want them back so we can place them back where they belong so they can rest in peace, that's it," said Centinaro. Spicola, Jr. said his family plans to fix the mausoleum and he has a message for the thieves. "I would say that you're picking on the wrong people. Whatever it is, these people who do this kind of thing are unbelievable, perhaps un-humanlike and I would sure like to see them caught," he said. Crimestoppers of Tampa Bay is offering a reward of $3,000 for information that leads to an arrest. One person died in an early afternoon crash in Rosebud County on Thursday, according to the Montana Highway Patrol. Trooper Matthew Zellars said one person died in the crash, which involved a passenger car and a semi truck. The victim was riding in the car. According to the Montana Highway Patrol's incident reporting website, the crash happened at about 12:15 p.m. on Highway 212 a few miles west of Lame Deer. Few other details of the crash, including how it happened, were available as of 4:30 p.m. and the MHP continues to investigate. MHP's investigation is ongoing. A Clearwater Fire and Rescue lieutenant is accused of having sex with one of his firefighter medic subordinates inside a dorm room at Fire Station 49, according to a human resources report. "Anytime you have inappropriate behavior, its unacceptable to the City of Clearwater," said Mayor George Cretekos. "Our employees are held to a high standard." This is the third investigation since 2012 involving the allegation of a Clearwater Fire Department lieutenant having inappropriate relations in the fire station, according to the report. Bay News 9 is not identifying the lieutenant or fire medic because they have not been formally disciplined by the fire chief. Both parties deny the affair took place but investigators are skeptical. The report states: While it cannot be determined with certainty whether or not (the) Lieutenant (redacted) and Fire Medic (redacted) engaged in sexual relations of any kind at Station 49, the combination of the exorbitant amount of circumstantial evidence... could lead one to conclude that it is not entirely improbable. Investigators said the fire medic's husband sent them a photo of the shirtless lieutenant with his flight suit around his waist that he found on her cell phone along with text messages between the fire medic's husband and the lieutenant arguing about the affair. The report states the attempts put in place after the prior sexual misconduct investigations have not stopped inappropriate behavior from reoccurring. The city is once again recommending that surveillance cameras be installed in all the common areas of the fire stations to prevent it from happening again. It also recommends more oversight at the fire stations by the assistant chiefs, "which by their sheer presence will deter such behavior." "Were going to do our best to try to minimize this from happening again," Cretekos said. "Were going to take the steps to deal with this appropriately." The lieutenant and fire medic were assigned to separate stations in October and remain on regular duty. One reason the lengthy investigation took nearly four months to complete was because "many of the interviewees were not forthcoming," according to the report. The fire chief is expected to make a discipline recommendation within one week, according to the Clearwater Fire Department Human Resources Department. In 2012, former Fire Chief Jamie Greer was sentenced to life in prison for sexually abusing a teenager. In 2014, Lt. Stephen Coward admitted to having sex with two women in a fire station workout room and resigned his position. Here's what you need to know about today's weather in the Bay area: Advisories issued in the wake of this morning's strong storms Mostly clear to partly cloudy tonight Cloudy skies Saturday, more rain Sunday After a rainy morning across the Bay, skies have been mostly to partly cloudy. The marine forecast will be much better for Saturday. Winds will be light from the west-southwest at about 10 knots. Gale-force winds return Sunday morning though. The milder air will stick around with lows only dropping to about 55 to 62 degrees Saturday morning. Although the milder air sticks around for the first half of the weekend, we have big changes in store for the last part of the weekend. Saturday will be partly cloudy with highs in the mid 70s. Saturday evening will be variably cloudy and pleasant. Temperatures will not drop much into Sunday morning with lows again near 60. WEATHER ON THE GO: Download the Bay News 9+ app and get Klystron 9 and Safety Net alerts wherever you are. But early Sunday morning there will be a fast moving front that will bring a line of showers and storms through the area. The rain will not last long though as it will move through quickly and be gone Sunday afternoon. The highs on Sunday will hit early in the day in the upper 60s. Then we will see temperatures start to drop through that afternoon into Sunday evening as the cooler air starts rushing into the region. That will set us up for another chilly pattern for early next week. WEATHER ALERTS: Sign up to receive weather text alerts from Bay News 9. Monday morning lows will be in the 40s with a brisk northerly breeze. Monday will be mostly sunny but cool with highs only in the 50s. Monday night will be clear and cold with lows in the 30s to low 40s. Tuesday will be cold by Florida standards with highs only in the mid to upper 50s even though we will have sunny skies. There will be a continued northerly wind. Tuesday night will likely feature a freeze for northern counties with lows in the 30s. Wednesday will be mostly sunny with highs creeping back into the 60s. Wednesday night will be chilly, but not as cold as Tuesday night with lows in the 30s and 40s. Thursday and Friday of next week will feature a warming trend with highs getting back to around 70 and lows coming back up into the 50s. Clouds will increase during that time before the next front arrives. Outraged over the education policies of Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature, thousands of public school teachers marched on the state Capitol Thursday to demand reform. The event was organized by the state's teacher union, the Florida Education Association, which is taking issue with the high-stakes Florida Standards Assessment test. The test, designed in the wake of the governor's refusal to endorse an exam linked to the multi-state Common Core standards, is rife with administration and scoring problems that began to surface as soon as it was rolled out last year. In addition to questioning the reliability of the test, teachers at Thursday's rally also complained of the time they're required to spend preparing students for the test's questions. "We are testing. Every single week we are testing, and that is all we are doing," said Janan Sherer, a fifth grade teacher at Spook Hill Elementary in Lake Wales. "We don't have time to teach the children to mastery, so they're going on with poor scores and not prepared." As the test has come under increasing criticism, Gov. Scott has been forced to step up his defense of it, arguing its administration is critical to measuring whether teachers are doing their jobs and students are learning. "We ought to be proud of what's happened in K-12 education. Look at the results that our students are seeing, the achievement gains they're seeing, the accountability we have in the system," Scott said. Many teachers, however, are demanding that state leaders suspend factoring test results into school grades and teacher evaluations, at least until the exam's issues are resolved. "I would hope that they would be intelligent enough to listen and I pray that they're intelligent enough to listen," said Polk County teacher Lorinda Utter. Seminole County teachers attend rally in Tallahassee More than 100 of those teachers were from Seminole County. Amanda Clodfelter headed to the state capitol Thursday morning before most of her third graders were awake. Clodfelter is one of dozens of teachers and other Seminole County school employees who belong to the countys teacher union. They hope lawmakers will turn their concerns into legislation that will change the way the state tests students and judge teacher performance. I hope they get the memo that were there because we want the best for our kids, and thats what its all about, said Clodfelter. Some students even joined their teachers on the trip to Tallahassee. We feel like we could be learning different stuff based on what the teachers want, said Dan Shadix, an Oviedo High School senior. And, that the standardized testing isnt letting us access our full potential. Clodfelter said the trip will be well worth it if they can convince lawmakers to make changes for the better. Governor Rick Scott recently offered his thoughts on the current system. We ought to be proud of whats happened in K-12 education, said Gov. Rick Scott. Look at the results our students are seeing, the achievement gains theyre seeing, the accountability we have in the system. The commissioner, Pam Stewart, has done an outstanding job. We have a very good board of education, so I think the system we have right now is working very well. Six Magical Nights on Central Oregon Coast Include Glass Floats Published 01/14/2016 at 5:53 PM PDT By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff (Lincoln City, Oregon) - The Oregon coast is a magical place any time of year. In Lincoln City, however, spring break becomes especially enchanting during the Festival of Illusions, a week full of evening magic shows and day camps for youth at the Lincoln City Cultural Center. It's also a week of sizable glass float drops. (Photo above: Lincoln City literally glows sometimes). This year's Festival of Illusions will take place from March 20th to 25th. Each evening will feature a different professional magician performing their signature tricks and techniques to mesmerized audiences. Tickets for each show are $11 for adults, $6 for youth ages 5-18, and free for kids 4 and under. Tickets are on sale at the Cultural Center and online at www.lincolncity-culturalcenter.org. One of the festival's performers, Matt Baker, has presented his brand of alternative comedy stunt shows in all 50 states and 17 countries. A self-taught comedian, Baker holds five Guinness World Records and has appeared on Tosh.O, Comedy Central, America's Got Talent, and Last Comic Standing. He catches a bowling ball with his head, spears vegetables midair, juggles with his mouth, and tells enough jokes to be named Seattle's Funniest Alternative Comic. Baker, along with five other entertainers scheduled for the week, will be performing at the Cultural Center with doors open at 6:30 pm and the show starting at 7 pm. Each show has two sets, with one intermission, and snacks and drinks are available for purchase. The Cultural Center is also offering daily Magic Camps, from 9am to 11am, March 21 through 25. Guest artist Regina Wollrabe, aka Cha Cha the Clown, along with her assistant, Laura Green the Juggling Queen, will help young performers improve their skills in juggling, circus tricks, makeup, costumes, props, and more. The camps are open to youth ages 8 to 18, and their parents or guardians. The price for the Magic Camp is $18 per youth, per day, and includes all props and instructions. Kids can also sign up for the whole week and receive a discount. Class size is limited, so pre-registration is recommended. Magic doesn't just occur indoors in Lincoln City. Explore the seven miles of pristine beach during Spring Break, March 19 through the 27th, for 300 hand-made glass art pieces. These brightly colored glass creations will appear along the coastline in Lincoln City, between the high tide line and embankment, thanks to volunteers affectionately known as Float Fairies. This special glass drop is part of Lincoln City's signature promotion, Finders Keepers, glass floats on the beach. If you find one, you keep it. For more information on the Festival of Illusions, contact the Lincoln City Cultural Center at 541-994-9994 or visit www.oregoncoast.org/festival-of-illusions - - - . Lincoln City Hotels/Lodgings for this event - Where to eat - Map and Virtual Tour. More on the area below and at the tour. More About Lincoln City Lodging..... More About Oregon Coast Restaurants, Dining..... Coastal Spotlight LATEST Related Oregon Coast Articles Back to Oregon Coast Contact Advertise on BeachConnection.net All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright BeachConnection.net Unauthorized use or publication is not permitted Emily Ussery watched as weary faces broke into smiles for the first time in months when Sierra Leone was declared Ebola free the past November. The 34-year-old Beaumont native volunteered through a program with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to travel to the West African country in October to ensure the outbreak was coming to an end. Ussery's arrival came almost a year and a half after the epidemic began. She said nationwide hysteria and nervous parents didn't sway her decision to go. "It was a really good opportunity for me to share with them that the CDC knows how to control the Ebola outbreak," said Ussery, who is an epidemiologist. The World Health Organization estimates that 4,877 people were killed by the outbreak. Ussery's sister, Gretchen Scardino, called the epidemic a tragedy but said she was excited for the role her "brave" sister played in helping end the outbreak in Africa. "This is the pinnacle of what she could be doing," Scardino, 39, said. "She got to learn a life lesson that not many people get to learn." What struck Ussery most was the sacrifice the local medical professionals made to combat the disease. Ussery said many had been pursuing medical degrees when the outbreak shut down their schools. The students left school and began working directly with Ebola patients during the height of the outbreak. "They were really putting themselves in harm's way to go to communities and investigate these cases," she said. Seeing the impoverished villages while hearing the stories of sickness and death is what made it so significant for Ussery to be there when the country was declared Ebola free. The outbreak is considered over after 42 days have passed since the last "confirmed" case of Ebola, according to the World Health Organization. Ussery said she feels like her education in Beaumont prepared her for a career in epidemiology. As a Kelly High School student, she said she was required to do some sort of community service. Ussery worked at a cerebral palsy center in Beaumont, which she said gave her a sense of what career path to take. "I think that was the first time I realized I wanted service to be part of my life," she said. Ussery currently resides in Atlanta, where she works for the CDC to create healthy communities. Her job is to help community members improve their physical and social environments by making healthy choices easily accessible. Scardino said she never pictured her sister working in public health. "But I knew she would do something remarkable. (Emily) was always bright and very curious," she said. MHeath@BeaumontEnterprise.comTwitter.com/mheath31 Eleven Abraham Lincoln Middle School students were hospitalized Thursday with minor injuries after an accident involving a Port Arthur ISD school bus and another vehicle, a district official said. Esther Chapman, director of transportation, said none of the children's injuries were life-threatening. The driver and passenger of the other vehicle were also transported to a hospital, Chapman said. Additionally, the bus driver was being driven by family to an area hospital for precautionary reasons, Chapman said. "She is shook up, which is understandable," Chapman said. Chapman said police were still sorting out who was at fault for the bus slamming into the driver's side of another car. The accident occurred after 4 p.m. on Texas 82 near the interchange with Texas 73, Chapman said. The speed limit in that area is about 50-55 mph, she said. The school bus involved, No. 9, does not have seat belts, Chapman said. Some of the students brought to the hospital by ambulances complained of wrist and knee injuries, Chapman said. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate A federal magistrate judge expects to recommend within the next few days whether to dismiss six defendants from a federal conspiracy lawsuit brought by former Beaumont ISD contract electrician Calvin Walker and former employee Jessie Haynes. In a full courtroom, attorneys representing Beaumont attorney Wayne Reaud, The Examiner newspaper and two employees, Beaumont city council member Mike Getz and journalist Jerry Jordan argued Thursday that newspaper articles and online statements cited by the plaintiffs were not defamatory. Their defenses against the allegations included the defendants' First Amendment protections, the "substantial" truth of the statements, Texas state law encouraging citizens' discussion of public matters and the expired statute of limitations on the articles. "We contend that (the) articles are true and substantially true," said Thomas Leatherbury, a Dallas attorney representing Reaud and The Examiner defendants. But Walker's and Haynes' attorney, Maria-Vittoria Galli Carminati of Houston, contended two Examiner articles referenced in the suit implied Walker stole from and defrauded BISD. "There is no truth about the statements made against Mr. Walker," Carminati said. In 2011, Walker was tried in federal court on charges of fraud but the case ended in a mistrial. In 2012, Walker agreed to plead guilty to one misdemeanor count of failure to timely pay taxes, and the government agreed to dismiss all other charges against him. His plea agreement remained sealed until November. At the time of Walker's plea deal, the government released a Factual Basis and Stipulation signed by Walker that referenced records in possession of BISD that included an invoice for more than $380,000. According to the document Walker signed, the invoice was a quote and not an actual purchase. "Would you agree with me... that this looks bad?" asked Magistrate Keith Giblin, as he held up the Factual Basis and Stipulation. At one point, Carminati said that BISD never paid the invoice, so any implied wrongdoing was unjustified. The defendants also argued the one-year statute of limitation of the newspaper articles - published in 2012 and 2013 - and online statements has long expired. The lawsuit, filed July 16, seeks at least $22 million in damages and includes more than 30 individuals and organizations, including The Beaumont Enterprise, federal prosecutors, two FBI agents and a local union. Besides defamation, including libel and slander, the plaintiffs allege breach of contract and interference with existing and prospective contracts, civil rights violations, civil conspiracy, racketeering and conspiracy. More than 20 defendants, including the school district's seven-member board of managers and the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas, have asked to be dismissed from the civil suit. MLibardi@BeaumontEnterprise.com Twitter.com/ManuellaLibardi A Little Cypress-Mauriceville High School student was arrested and expelled from school this week for bringing weapons and alcohol on campus, according to a district statement released on Friday. School administrators received a tip on Wednesday that a student had a "fake gun" he was trying to sell on campus, the statement said. District officials later determined the student was trying to sell a BB pistol and a large knife. The student was also in possession of alcohol, the statement said. For six summers, Nola Knowles said she kept one eye on her work and the other on her cellphone just in case her kids had an emergency at home. The Lumberton mom said the state's school calendar, which includes a three-month summer break, is a burden on working parents. Knowles said she spent a considerable portion of her paycheck - almost $600 a month - on child care during the summers until her daughter hit an age where she could stay home alone and care for her little brother. "They were still young to be home alone," said Knowles. "It wasn't the best situation in the world, but it's what we had to do." Beginning next fall, Texas school districts have the freedom to change school calendars and make classes work around families' schedules. House Bill 2610, which was approved in the last Legislative session, changed the 180 days students are required to attend class to 75,600 minutes, which equates to 1,260 hours. To find out how those hours should be scheduled, Lumberton ISD recently began polling parents, students and staff, said Gerald Chandler, assistant superintendent. "You hear everyone talking about 'What if we have a four-day weekend?' 'What if we go year-round?' The survey gives us a better understanding of how the school calendar affects people's lives," Chandler said. Currently, Lumberton school days are seven hours long or 420 minutes. By changing the required in-school days to minutes, the state allows districts flexibility to have, for example, five weather days instead of two, Chandler said. Because districts will be working in minutes, lost time can be distributed among school days to make up for the extra time off. As an example, adding five minutes to a school day shortens the calendar by two days, according to Chandler. By the same token, shortening a day by five minutes allows for a longer calendar year and a shorter summer break. Chandler said shortening the school year might cost some parents, like Knowles, more money in child care. At the same time, extending the calendar might cost taxpayers more if the district has to account for more overtime of non-salaried employees, Chandler said. "All kinds of variables go into creating the school calendar," he said. Knowles supports a year-round calendar, but she doesn't think Lumberton is ready for such radical change, she said. More than 1,300 Lumberton residents, mostly parents, have completed the survey, which ends next week, said Chandler. The survey consists of 12 questions that inquire about child care, transportation, parents' occupations and holiday plans. Shorter summers, for example, might affect divorced parents in different cities whose kids need the long break to visit. Other families have relatives across the country and also use the time off to visit. By law, Texas public schools cannot start fall classes before Aug. 27 and must go through at least May 15. Chandler doesn't think the district will implement radical changes right away and expects next year's calendar to be similar to this year's. Lumberton ISD's goal is to begin the last Monday of August and go through Memorial Day, he said. The district's Site-Based Committee will meet next Thursday to approve the proposed calendar. MLibardi@BeaumontEnterprise.com Twitter.com/ManuellaLibardi President Obama appreciated Louisiana's democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards call to expand Medicaid to thousands of additional residents, according to Portland Press Herald. Here are six points: 1. Gov. Edwards' decision is in stark contrast to previous Gov. Bobby Jindal's decision to not expand Medicaid. 2. Under the Affordable Care Act, states may use federal money to offer Medicaid to more residents in need. 3. The governor's office reported approximately 300,000 more Louisianans will be able to take advantage of the expanded Medicaid. 4. Gov. Edward urges the expansion take place by July. 5. Louisiana joins 30 other states and Washington, D.C., in expanding Medicaid with federal government funds. 6. President Obama plans to ask Congress to offer federal funding for the next three years for states that choose to expand Medicaid programs. The Republican-heavy Congress will likely block the proposal. Richard Moss, MD, an otolaryngologist who practiced in Jaspar, Ind., and was an original investor in St. Thomas Surgery Center, intends to run for Congress, according to a Greene County Daily Word report. Here are five things to know: 1. Dr. Moss will challenge fellow physician and incumbent Larry Bucshon for the Republican part nomination. Dr. Moss believes the Republican leadership has strayed from their voters' wishes. 2. Dr. Moss is running for the 8th Congressional district because he has concerns over the direction the country is going and federal government behavior. 3. As an otolaryngologist, Dr. Moss is a member of the Indiana State Medical Association and fellow of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. He has traveled through Asia as a visiting surgeon. 4. He continues his volunteer work and gives multi-media presentations and slide shows of his travels to local schools and churches. 5. Dr. Moss completed his medical degree at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis. Rochester, Md.-based Mayo Clinic plans to spend $92.7 million on facilities and equipment, including more private rooms in its flagship hospital in Rochester, improved roads surrounding its Florida hospital and a new airplane to transport patients and organs, according to the Star Tribune. Here are six things to know abut the spending plan. 1. The Mayo Clinic board of directors approved the spending plan in November. The $92.7 million spending plan is in addition to the $438 million the system had in construction projects in the end of 2014. At that time, completion of the projects was expected in three to four years, according to the report. 2. The system announced the plan Tuesday, outlining seven significant projects, four of which will focus on hospital operations in Rochester. The largest project is an expansion of the St. Mary's campus that will turn all of Mayo's hospital rooms in Rochester private, rather than dual occupancy. "All rooms would be private rooms with private showers and private bathrooms, and [would be] much bigger so that family members could stay overnight in the room with the patient," Amy Williams, MD, medical director of hospital operations, told the Star Tribune. "We also have been looking at improving our efficiency here at our hospital campuses in Rochester, and this is a big step forward." 3. Mayo Clinic will also build new operating rooms on its Rochester campus. Construction will begin this year with expected completion in 2017. 4. The system is funding traffic studies in Florida and negotiating with the Florida Department of Transportation to improve highway access to its Jacksonville location, according to the report. 5. In Eu Claire, Wis., the clinic is revamping 40 inpatient rooms that were built in the 1970s. 6. Finally, Mayo Clinic's medical transport division is purchasing a Beechcraft King Air Model B350C fixed-wing airplane. The clinic will lease and operate the plane, which will replace a plane currently operated by a non-Mayo aviation team, according to the report. The new plane will provide emergency care and transportation services for patients and time-critical organs for transplant. The 29 states that expanded Medicaid by the first quarter of 2015 saw the most significant effects of healthcare coverage expansion including increased access to physicians and fewer cost-related barriers to care compared with non-expansion states, according to a recent Health Affairs report. Here are five findings from the report. States that expanded Medicaid in 2014 (Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Jersey and New York) experienced significant decreases in uninsured hospital stays and increases in Medicaid-covered stays. The states that did not expand eligibility for Medicaid (Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Virginia and Wisconsin) saw very little change in the mix of payers for inpatient care. In expansion states, the data show a dramatic rift in the trends in the proportion of people with Medicaid and the uninsured in the first two quarters of 2014. From the third quarter of 2013 and the second quarter of 2014, expansion states experienced a 7 percentage point rise in the Medicaid share and a 6 percentage point drop in the uninsured share. These changes represent a 20 percent increase and 50 percent decrease in the Medicaid and uninsured discharge rates, respectively. The proportions of Medicaid and uninsured inpatients gradually increased in the few years preceding 2014, while the proportion of inpatients with private coverage slowly decreased. This affirms pre-established trends in insurance coverage for the general population. Before Medicaid expansion, the states that would later expand Medicaid eligibility had higher shares of Medicaid beneficiaries and lower shared of uninsured people, compared to non-expansion states. However, trends in inpatient payer mix were similar in both expansion and non-expansion states. Health Affairs used newly available data on trends in payer mix for non-Medicare adult inpatient hospital stays from HCUP Fast Stats, a new online database query tool from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, to elucidate this discussion. Over the past week, Chapel Hill-based Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina has been under fire for technical problems resulting in what company executives are calling the most serious system failure in recent decades. As the deadline for coverage under the Affordable Care Act looms, the largest health insurer in North Carolina has been the cause of great frustration for customers across the state. Here are nine things to know about the debacle. 1. Consumers were put in the wrong health plans. Approximately 25,000 customers or 7 percent of all individual customers across the state were accidentally put in the wrong plans. 2. BCBS ran into numerous billing issues. While some customers have not been billed for their plans, others have been charged for cancelled policies. The insurer also administered automatic bank drafts from 3,200 customers for an incorrect amount. In many cases, this involved withdrawing more than the customer owed or charging customers for multiple plans. 3. Some customers don't know if they're insured. Because numerous BCBS customers haven't received their insurance ID cards in the mail or received them late, they don't know if they have health insurance. Nancy Willis, a BCBS customer, said her plan didn't renew for this year. "I've got doctors' appointments rescheduled I just cancelled them because I didn't have my card yet," she said, according to The Charlotte Observer. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina expects most customers to receive their ID cards by next week, according to a company statement. 4. Phone lines are backed up. BCBS of N.C. said it's experiencing a call volume of 400 percent to 500 percent higher than at this time last year. Although the insurer usually handles about 20,000 calls per day, it received 137,000 on Jan. 11 and 67,000 on Jan. 12. One customer, Stephanie Nelson, was put on hold for more than five hours while waiting for a representative to pick up, according to The Charlotte Observer. 5. The insurer has issued numerous apologies. In addition to posting an apology on Facebook, BCBS of North Carolina's CEO Brad Wilson issued a public statement. "The difficulties that many of our customers who purchased their own health insurance faced this week are unacceptable, and we are truly sorry for this experience," he said, according to The Charlotte Observer. "I want all our customers to know that we're working around the clock to address the situation bringing in more staff, expanding customer service hours and enhancing our website's capacity." 6. The problems were caused by a new system and a billing company error. BCBS of North Carolina recently implemented a new customer service record system. In addition, Mr. Wilson said the problems resulted from a mistake at Naperville, Ill.-based TriZetto, the insurer's claims processing and billing vendor. 7. A whistleblower has said BCBS of North Carolina knew about the issues in advance. The staff member said the company recently decided to move forward with a software switch to TriZetto's Facet program even though potential problems were foreseeable, according to ABC11.com. "Major problems arose two, three months ago," the whistleblower said. "Company leadership decided we are moving forward with this software no matter what the problems [are] ... It's a catastrophe." BCBS of North Carolina denied the claim, saying the transition to the Facet program began two years ago. "The system has not only been tested, it has been in operation since 2014," the insurer said in a statement. "The success rate of moving our individual customers to the system was more than 90 percent." 8. North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper (D) has gotten involved. Earlier this week, Attorney General Cooper wrote a letter to BCBS of North Carolina regarding the system failure, according to ABC11.com. In the letter, he asked the insurer's executives how and why the problems occurred, and what they're doing to fix it. BCBS of North Carolina has until Jan. 22 to respond to the information request. 9. BCBS of North Carolina has promised the issues will be fixed and customers will be reimbursed. The insurer has extended its customer service line hours and said all customers will be refunded for any incorrect charges. Earlier this week, Mr. Wilson has said the company will need until the end of the week to resolve the problems. Three new executives have joined the team at New York City-based Oscar Health, a young insurance company. Kevin Campbell has taken over as COO. Prior to his time at Oscar, Mr. Campbell served as co-COO of Westport, Conn.-based Bridgewater Associates, an analytical hedge fund, and as head of global delivery for Chicago-based Accenture, a global consulting firm. Brian West has been named president and CFO. Before joining Oscar, Mr. West was COO and CFO at New York City-based Nielsen, a global information and measurement company. He has also served in various financial leadership positions at Fairfield, Conn.-based General Electric. Joel Klein, Oscar's newest hire, has joined the team as chief policy and strategy officer. Mr. Klein is a lawyer and served as chancellor of the New York City Department of Education from 2002 to 2010, according to The Wall Street Journal. He was also CEO of Amplify, a former subsidiary of New York City-based News Corp, and ran the Department of Justice's anti-trust division under former President Bill Clinton. Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital in Lebanon, N.H., is urging 827 patients to be revaccinated after discovering vaccines at its pediatric clinic were periodically stored outside the acceptable temperature range from September 2014 to October 2015. Vaccines need to be stored at certain temperatures to maintain potency, and the hospital is concerned that some pediatric patients may have received ineffective vaccines. A state survey in August 2015 uncovered the problem, and the hospital has been working with the state since the problem was discovered. "Although there have been no instances of patients reporting a vaccine-preventable disease after receiving an immunization at our clinic, patient safety is our first concern and we have worked diligently to identify all vaccines for which we could not prove integrity with absolute certainty," Sue Mooney, MD, the hospital's president and CEO, said in a statement. The hospital has sent letters to patients for whom revaccination is recommended and also to whom revaccination is not necessary. The new vaccinations are being offered for free. Since the problem was discovered, the hospital implemented a new vaccine management plan and replaced backup thermometers. One new feature is a system that will page staff if refrigerators stray from normal temperatures. "We are very sorry this incident occurred," Dr. Mooney said. "We will do everything feasible to assure nothing like this happens again." BOZEMAN A Bozeman woman accused of stabbing a student in an apartment on the Montana State University campus has pleaded guilty to a lesser offense. Talena Shoulderblade, 28, on Thursday pleaded guilty to misdemeanor obstructing justice for cleaning up her boyfriend's blood. Gallatin County Deputy Attorney Erin Murphy amended the charges against Shoulderblade because the victim did not cooperate. As part of the plea agreement, Murphy dismissed a felony charge of assault with a weapon by accountability. Shoulderblade was arrested Oct. 13 after her boyfriend walked into the student union bleeding from the neck. Shoulderblade was found at the injured man's apartment and had been cleaning up blood. The Minnesota Nurses Association and five Twin Cities hospital systems have reached a tentative three-year contract agreement, according to a Pioneer Press report. Here are three things to know about the deal. 1. The contract, if ratified, will cover thousands of nurses at the following organizations: Children's St. Paul and Minneapolis hospitals St. Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul St. John's Hospital in Maplewood, Minn. Bethesda Hospital in St. Paul Fairview Southdale Hospital in Edina, Minn. Fairview Clinics-Riverside in Minneapolis Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park, Minn. North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale , Minn. 2. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. 3. The agreement, which was reached after the nurses association and hospital systems agreed to limit talks to wages only, is slated to take effect June 1, according to the report. More articles on workforce and labor management: To continue following the latest news and information for Bedfordshire and surrounding areas, simply enter your full postcode below Argos owner Home Retail Group issued a profits warning after sales at the chain fell amid "mixed" Christmas trading. The Argos parent group, which on Wednesday night revealed talks to sell its DIY arm Homebase and rejected a takeover approach for the wider business from Sainsbury's in November - posted a 2.2% fall in sales at established Argos stores for the 18 weeks to January 2. There are just under 20 Argos and nine Homebase stores in Northern Ireland. Despite a better performance from the Homebase chain, where like-for-like sales increased by 5%, Home Retail said group underlying profits were expected to be at the bottom end of City expectations for the year. John Walden, chief executive of the wider company, admitted it had been a "very eventful" time for the group, after it rebuffed the bid approach from Sainsbury's before Christmas and revealed advanced discussions over a 340m sale of Homebase. It said on Wednesday that it was finalising sale documents for the DIY chain with Australian retail giant Wesfarmers after the pair opened negotiations in September. Homebase has more than 270 stores, employs around 18,000 staff and turned over around 1.5bn last year. The Christmas trading woes at Argos come at a bad time for Home Retail Group as Sainsbury's considers its next move in the takeover saga. The company said that it expected group underlying profits to be at the bottom end of expectations for between 92m and 118m for the year to the end of February. Minister Jonathan Bell with Susan Jackson and Eoin Wilson from Farmageddon Brewing A beer-brewing co-operative in Co Down is investing 100,000 in equipment and marketing as part of a two-year expansion plan. Farmageddon Brewery in Comber produces unpasteurised and unfiltered ale, which is sold in off-licences across Northern Ireland. Director Susan Jackson said the firm's aim was to increase awareness by attending trade shows, such as the Craft Beer Rising festival in London next month. Invest NI is giving the firm 16,500 to fund market visits, trade shows and new staff in coming years. Ms Jackson said: "This investment is an important milestone in our development. Invest NI's assistance is enabling us to implement these growth plans and explore new business opportunities in markets such as China and Mexico. Enterprise Minister Jonathan Bell added that the investment was "welcome news for Ards and North Down, creating new employment opportunities in the region". Tesco said the figures were evidence its fightback was on track Tesco delivered the latest piece of good news from the embattled supermarket sector as it posted a shock rise in sales over Christmas. Northern Ireland's biggest grocery chain, which has around 55 stores of different sizes around the province, hailed a "strong Christmas" after revealing a 1.3% rise in UK like-for-like sales in the six weeks to January 9. Shares jumped by 5% after the update beat expectations, with some City analysts having pencilled in a sales fall of nearly 3%. Experts said the figures were further evidence that the turnaround being led by chief executive Dave Lewis is working. The update comes after better-than-forecast figures from rivals Morrisons and Sainsbury's earlier this week, pointing to a robust Christmas for the major players despite tough trading conditions. Tesco has been battling to halt a decline in sales in the face of stiff competition from German discounters Lidl and Aldi, while the sector has also been waging a fierce price war. The company's third quarter figures for the 13 weeks ending November 28 highlighted the difficult market, with group like-for-like sales down 0.5% and the UK figure down by 1.5%, although the domestic performance was hit after Tesco scrapped the "5 off 40" promotion it held in 2014. Mr Lewis said: "Our Christmas performance was strong, benefiting from lower prices on an outstanding range of products. There is plenty more to do, but we are making good progress." Market analysts at Bernstein added: "Sales turning positive over Christmas is a great result for Tesco and, combined with the strong performance in its international business, suggests that the company is well on the way to recovery." Richard Hunter, head of equities at Hargreaves Lansdown Stockbrokers, said: "With its competitors already having provided some pleasant surprises, Tesco has completed the supermarket sweep with an update which has highlighted a particularly strong Christmas trading period." Meanwhile, Sainsbury's reported a better-than-feared decline in like-for-like sales of 0.4% in the 15 weeks to January 9 on Wednesday, although it did not break down the figures for the final Christmas weeks. Tuesday saw smaller rival Morrisons deliver a surprise 0.2% rise in sales for the nine weeks to January 3 - its first festive sales increase for four years. Asda, which is owned by the American giant Walmart, does not report on its Christmas trading until next month. Eagles Of Death Metal have said they are "speechless" following their Brit Awards nomination. The US rock band, whose concert was targeted during the Paris terror attacks resulting in scores of their fans being gunned down at the Bataclan Theatre, are up against U2 in the international group category. They made a surprise return to Paris last month when they joined U2 on stage for an encore, belting out the Patti Smith anthem People Have The Power. Eighty-nine people were killed in the Bataclan out of a total of 130 murdered in bars, cafes and restaurants in the shootings on November 13. After their Brit Awards nomination was announced, Eagles Of Death Metal tweeted: "We are speechless. #BRITs Gigantic thanks to the @brits and to you all." Frontman Jesse Hughes tweeted his thanks and said the nomination was "so amazing". The California band escaped the carnage in Paris and later said they want to return to the French capital to finish their performance. They visited the concert venue - now a shrine to the dead - to lay flowers less than a month on from the atrocities. They embraced one another as they read messages in silence, fighting to contain their emotions. Hughes wiped away tears before speaking briefly to thank the small group of fans at the site, also there to pay tribute. Kate Winslet called Alan Rickman a "warm hearted puppy dog" as she paid tribute to the acclaimed actor who has died aged 69 after suffering from cancer. Winslet, who first worked with him in the 1995 adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, said her "life was enriched by knowing him". Rickman first shot to stardom in 1988 when he played Bruce Willis's adversary Hans Gruber in Die Hard, and he went on to gain a new generation of fans for his role as Professor Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films. His death was announced by his family on Thursday. Winslet added: "He was loved enormously by so many. He was an exceptionally warm and giving man and an utterly phenomenal actor and gifted director. "I remember being so intimidated by him when we worked together when I was 19 , because he had such a powerful and commanding presence . And that voice! Oh, that voice ... "But the reality of course, was that he was the kindest and best of men. Had the patience of a saint. He was a warm hearted puppy dog, who would do anything for anyone if it made them happy." Their final collaboration was 2014's A Little Chaos, directed and co-written by Rickman. Emma Thompson, who also appeared in Sense and Sensibility, said paying tribute was "hard to write because I have just kissed him goodbye". In 2003's Love Actually they played married couple Harry and Karen. "What I remember most in this moment of painful leave-taking is his humour, intelligence, wisdom and kindness. His capacity to fell you with a look or lift you with a word," she added. "The intransigence which made him the great artist he was - his ineffable and cynical wit, the clarity with which he saw most things, including me, and the fact that he never spared me the view. I learned a lot from him. "He was, above all things, a rare and unique human being and we shall not see his like again." Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling joined other stars paying tribute to Rickman on Twitter and passed condolences to his wife Rima Horton, writing: "There are no words to express how shocked and devastated I am to hear of Alan Rickman's death. He was a magnificent actor and a wonderful man. "My thoughts are with Rima and the rest of Alan's family. We have all lost a great talent. They have lost part of their hearts." Harry Potter cast members Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson also both remembered Rickman in touching tributes. Radcliffe called him "undoubtedly one of the greatest actors I will ever work with", while Watson said she felt lucky to have worked and spent time with him. "I'll really miss our conversations. RIP Alan. We love you," she wrote on Facebook. Rickman died just months ahead of a new film called Eye In The Sky in which he stars alongside Dame Helen Mirren and Aaron Paul, which is to open in UK cinemas on April 8, according to IMDb. The star had also completed another film set for release later this year called Alice Through The Looking Glass. His career began on the stage after he graduated from prestigious drama school Rada, and he frequently returned to the theatre throughout his career. Hailing from a working-class London family, he supported himself as a dresser before finding work with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Rickman's CV showcases a glittering career spanning almost four decades and featuring a list of hit films from Truly Madly Deeply to theatre credits including Private Lives and Antony And Cleopatra. He will also be remembered for his turn as the villainous Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves from 1991. A Little Chaos was the star's second outing behind the camera, 18 years after he directed Thompson in Scotland-based drama The Winter Guest. Just last year he revealed he had married high school sweetheart, Rima, after 50 years together. More members of the Harry Potter cast have paid tribute to their former co-star. Rupert Grint said he felt "so privileged" to work with him. "I am devastated to hear about the passing of Alan Rickman. I feel so privileged to have had the opportunity to work with him on numerous occasions. Even though he has gone, I will always hear his voice. My thoughts are with his friends and family at this time," he said in an official statement. Speaking at the UK premiere of The Revenan, Domhnall Gleeson, who starred as Bill Weasley and whose father Brendan played Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, told the Press Association that Rickman's death was a "huge loss". He said: "He was the star of Harry Potter and I really had a cameo. He'll be greatly missed, in the industry, by people who enjoy films, by people who enjoy theatre. He's a huge loss, but obviously he's a bigger loss to his family and friends. There's nothing I can say that will match up to what they're feeling." The Education Minister has been urged to rethink his decision to stick with letter grades for GCSEs after two English exam boards pulled out of Northern Ireland The Education Minister has been urged to rethink his decision to stick with letter grades for GCSEs after two English exam boards pulled out of Northern Ireland. DUP MLA Peter Weir blamed John O'Dowd's "folly" after the largest exam boards in England - the AQA and the OCR - announced their withdrawal. Mr O'Dowd said in November that a numerical system being adopted in England from September would not be introduced here. The AQA and OCR were only told of this decision afterwards and not consulted beforehand. Last night the boards said they would not operate two grading systems, and added they would no longer offer GCSEs here, although A-levels will continue. Around a quarter of GCSEs sat here are taken through the AQA and OCR boards. The remainder of exams are set by local exams board the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA). Mr Weir said he feared Mr O'Dowd's decision would hand the CCEA a virtual monopoly over GCSEs here. "The decision by the two largest exam boards in England to pull out of providing GCSE exams in Northern Ireland is disappointing but not surprising," he added. "It is a direct result of the inflexible approach taken to GCSE grading by John O'Dowd." He added: "The situation we now have could have been easily resolved by adjustments to our grading system, ensuring it was aligned with grades in England. "That would have allowed portability and transferability for Northern Ireland. The folly of not making that straightforward adjustment is shown today." But Mr O'Dowd hit back and accused the English boards of "choosing to put commercial interests ahead of the needs of our young people", and said schools will be advised on the next steps by the end of the month. "In particular, CCEA will be able to advise on arrangements for those pupils who are already working towards qualifications in maths and English literature provided by these awarding bodies that have now decided to leave us," he said. "Guidance will also be given on the alternatives available to fill gaps that might emerge in the range of GCSEs on offer as a result of those decisions. In many cases, the variation in subject specifications across awarding organisations is not great, and therefore there will be alternative specifications available for pupils to follow." The number of people waiting more than four months for a first outpatient appointment in Northern Ireland has soared by almost 1,500% in three years, shocking new figures reveal. In September 2013, 6,923 people across the province were faced with an anxious wait longer than 18 weeks for a test or consultation. By 2015 this rocketed to a staggering 109,288. The escalating crisis over waiting lists has been an ongoing concern for some time. But the new figures show a detailed breakdown of how the health service is continuing to miss Government targets in each hospital across the five health trusts. Ministerial targets suggest no one should wait for more than 18 weeks for a first appointment. Almost 10 times the number of people in the Belfast Trust are waiting too long, compared to three years ago. In 2013, more than 5,000 people were waiting more than the maximum government target. But within two years this had soared to 48,190. The figures emerged in an answer to an Assembly question to the Health Minister. It was tabled last October and finally published this week. Across the Belfast Trust there were 5,156 people waiting for a test, consultation or treatment in September 2013. But 12 months later this rose to 23,252. And by September 2015 it had more than doubled again to 48,190. In the west of the province the trend was the same. At Altnagelvin, there were 412 on the list in 2013 but this grew to 6,731 last September. At the Ulster Hospital it also jumped from just 60 people to 16,730 in the same period. Health Minister Simon Hamilton said he planned to use 40m given to his department in the latest reallocation of funds to tackle waiting lists. A spokeswoman for the Department of Health described it as "the start of a long journey to get waiting times back to an acceptable position". Former Health Minister Michael McGimpsey described the current situation as "bleak". "You will see a slight improvement in A&E times and diagnostics - but this will be short-term as that is where the 40m will be focused," he said. "It is a sticking plaster approach." The UUP's Jo-Anne Dobson, a member of the Stormont Health Committee, said that each of the 109,000 people waiting longer than 18 weeks have been "badly failed and totally let down by the Health Minister". "Among all those people that have been lingering on the list there will have been many anxiously awaiting a further test or consultation, as well as many others in pain and discomfort awaiting treatment," she added. "These include people who are desperately awaiting orthopaedic surgery." A Department of Health spokeswoman said: "The Minister has said it is extremely frustrating that 9.5m was being lost back to Westminster from Northern Ireland's public finances every month as a result of welfare reform being blocked. "Such a sum could have funded many thousands of assessments and procedures. "The additional funding of 40m, secured as part of November monitoring, will go directly towards tackling waiting lists to allow up to 40,000 additional assessments and between 10,000 and 15,000 additional operations to be progressed over and above ongoing regular Trust activity. "This is the start of a long journey to get waiting times back to an acceptable position and will need further funding to ensure success, but we are heading in the right direction." A child abuse public inquiry is to examine evidence relating to a Co Down detention centre when it convenes again next week. The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry will focus its attention on alleged wrongdoing at Millisle Borstal on the Ards Peninsula. HM Borstal Millisle, situated in Woburn House, Ballywalter Road, opened in July 1956 and closed in December 1980. The Prison Service College now operates on the site. Former residents of the facility are expected to give evidence during two weeks of public sessions at Banbridge Courthouse. Proceedings will begin with a short opening from retired High Court judge Sir Anthony Hart, who is chairing the long-running probe, before barrister Joseph Aiken, counsel to the inquiry, gives an overview of the issues relating to Millisle. The HIA is considering harrowing claims of emotional, physical and sexual abuse at 22 institutions in Northern Ireland over a 73-year period - from 1922 when the state was founded to 1995. It is also looking into alleged actions at homes run by the state and church, and last November an extra six institutions were added to its remit. The inquiry was established by Northern Ireland's power-sharing ministerial Executive and is expected to make recommendations on how to compensate victims. In total, some 300 witnesses are expected to give evidence during the public sessions. Investigative work is due to be completed by mid summer and the inquiry will submit its report to ministers next January. A south Belfast Tory candidate glassed in the face on a work night out fears he may go blind in one eye. Ben Manton, who works for restaurateur Michael Deane, had to have surgery to save his eye on Monday after he was said to have been in a row with a Deanes workmate in a bar on Sunday. The waiter (24) told the Belfast Telegraph he had no memory of the attack on the belated Christmas work do, but he feared he could go blind in his right eye, which was sliced open. "I feel very shaken by the whole experience," he added. Mr Manton claimed he had been out with more than 20 Deanes colleagues when the party turned into a nightmare. "Being in the restaurant trade, we wait until January to have our Christmas party," he said. "We were having a few drinks and having fun - everything was okay. I don't remember the incident, only what I have been told." The waiter said his first memory after the attack was coming to in the ambulance and being told he had been hit in the face with a glass. "I was completely disorientated and in shock - there was blood all over my shirt and jeans," he added. "I was taken to the Royal, and the police took my clothes and shoes for evidence. One of the doctors looked at my eye. I got some stitches in my forehead and cheek, and then I was brought to a ward to rest and was told I would have to have surgery." Doctors explained to Mr Manton that his eye had been sliced open and that the lens had been completely removed, meaning he would need multiple operations. It left him worried that he would go blind in the injured eye. "Either my retina could detach and leave me blind or they will be able to save my vision with surgery," the waiter said. "I don't know why it happened. We were having a good night and everyone was in good spirits until the incident. I don't have a recollection of that." Mr Manton is yet to speak to restaurateur Michael Deane about what happened on the night, but he told how office staff had been in touch with him and had been "supportive" as he recovered from his injuries at home. "Head office contacted me to see how I was getting on, told me my schedule was covered and wished me the best," Mr Manton told the Belfast Telegraph. While the restaurant worker is recovering, he is far from healed and struggles with some basic tasks. "Even day-to-day things, like going to reach for a door handle, for example, (are difficult)," Mr Manton said. "My depth perception is gone and I am missing things and I keep walking into things. It has left me worried about going back to work and paying my bills." Another concern for Mr Manton is his inability to canvass for the Tory party in south Belfast ahead of the Assembly elections in May. "Obviously, with my candidacy for the Assembly elections, I am not able to get out knocking doors," he said. Mr Manton, who has always been interested in politics and in serving the community, explained his motivation for standing for the Conservatives. "I feel the elected representatives aren't doing the job properly and that a new face can offer something different," he said. "I chose the Conservatives because no political party in Northern Ireland represented my values. I believe in centre-right economics with socially liberal values. Every party just looks to Westminster with a begging bowl, they don't look to make their own economic gains." Mr Manton is still to be interviewed by police about what happened. In the meantime, he is anxiously awaiting news about the future of his eyesight. In an earlier statement, a Deanes spokesperson said the restaurant was aware that an incident involving two employees was under police investigation. The restaurant will also conduct an independent investigation to determine if disciplinary processes need to be examined. A 32-year-old man arrested in the aftermath of an incident at the Garrick bar in Montgomery Street on suspicion of grievous bodily harm and possession of an offensive weapon had been released on police bail. Tony Blair was instrumental in a process of diplomatic detente with Gaddafi Tony Blair has declined to appear before a Commons select committee investigating links between the IRA and Libya. The former prime minister has strongly denied trying to stop victims of IRA attacks carried out with Libyan weapons from receiving compensation. Colonel Muammar Gaddafi gave arms to the republican group during the Troubles and Semtex from Libya became the IRA's most devastating threat during that time, causing the loss of many lives. Mr Blair turned down an invitation to give oral evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, claiming that his written submission to the MPs had included "all the information at my disposal". In his letter to committee chairman Laurence Robertson, he said: "These continued attempts to implicate me in deliberately trying to stop IRA victims receiving compensation are, as I have made very clear, without foundation. "I am therefore respectfully declining your invitation to appear before the committee as I have already given you the facts of the matter in my written submission and I do not believe simply repeating what I have already said in person will do anything to advance the cause of the victims and their families." Links between the IRA and Libya date back to 1972 when Gaddafi praised the group. He later provided the IRA with the weaponry to wage an armed conflict which lasted 30 years and claimed many lives. The dictator was ousted from power in 2011 and later killed during an assault on Sirte, his birthplace . During his time in Number 10, Mr Blair was instrumental in a process of diplomatic detente with the Libyan dictator. Mr Blair met Gaddafi in his desert tent in 2004, as the north African country began its return to the international community after years of isolation for supporting terrorism. As part of the process, Gaddafi renounced weapons of mass destruction, bringing to a halt programmes to develop nuclear and chemical arms. In his written submission in December, Mr Blair told Mr Robertson that Libya had made a number of admissions regarding the extent of its links with IRA terrorism between 1992 and 1995 - before he entered Number 10. Mr Blair said: "The issue of compensation for the victims of IRA terrorism made possible by the provision of material by the Gaddafi regime was not an issue raised with me, as far as I am aware. "And of course a statutory compensation scheme for victims of terrorism in Northern Ireland was already in existence, having been set up by a previous government. "The needs of victims were therefore being addressed through the existing structures and mechanisms." He said he understood why victims of IRA terrorism would have wanted their claims raised at the same time as the 2008 compensation settlement of the Lockerbie passenger jet bombing. Mr Blair said for the Americans this was never going to be made part of the settlement since they were focused on their own citizens affected by Lockerbie and a Berlin discotheque bombing and were precluded legally from such an action. He also pointed out that "I was not even in government at the time" of the 2008 settlement. Mr Blair could be formally summoned to give evidence if the committee decides that his written submission is insufficient. A spokesman for the committee said the issue would be considered when the MPs meet on Thursday. "They are going to consider it at their next meeting, when they will make a decision on the next step," the spokesman said. The date of Easter could be fixed within the next five to 10 years, according to reports. Its a yearly conundrum. When is Easter this year? Is it early or late? Well, the date of Easter could be fixed within the next five to 10 years, according to reports. Last June, the Pope signalled that he is open to changing the date of Easter so that all Christians could have a more unified celebration. Now, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said that Anglicans will join Catholics and Copts for talks to resolve the age-old problem, the Telegraph newspaper reports. Last May, Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II wrote to the papal nuncio in Egypt suggesting unified date. The Orthodox churches usually celebrate Easter a week after Catholics. Easter Sunday this year occurs on March 27, with Good Friday on March 25, and Easter Monday on March 28. Traditionally, the date of Easter depends on the phases of the moon. It is determined by the first full moon after the spring equinox, which means that Easter can fall anywhere between March 22 and April 25. Source Irish Independent A female prison officer has been arrested on suspicion of having an affair with an inmate. The woman was detained by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) on suspicion of misconduct in a public office. She has since been released on bail. The prison officer works at Maghaberry high security prison in Co Antrim. She has been suspended from duty. It is understood the alleged relationship was with a convicted killer. A Prison Service spokeswoman said: "The Northern Ireland Prison Service can confirm that a member of staff has been suspended following an internal investigation. This is now a matter for the PSNI and it would be inappropriate to comment further." A PSNI spokesman said: "PSNI have arrested a female on suspicion of misconduct in a public office." The market at Bank Square behind CastleCourt in Belfast as it closed yesterday The market at Bank Square behind CastleCourt in Belfast as it closed yesterday The market at Bank Square behind CastleCourt in Belfast as it closed yesterday Market traders in Belfast's Bank Square have said they have "had the rug pulled from under their feet" after they were moved on by police yesterday for operating without a licence. Stalls selling goat meat and fresh fruit and veg were told to pack up or face legal action. Minutes earlier a number of Irish food critics had been given a guided tour of the market. It is understood the licence for the Folktown Market expired on December 18. The traders said the market organisers had not let them know. Charlie Cole, who runs a stall selling goat burgers and artisan meats, called the shutdown an "embarrassing start" to the Northern Ireland Year of Food and Drink. "This morning a tour guide from Belfast Food Tours came round the corner," he said while packing up his stall. "She had with her 10 of the delegation from the Tourism NI launch last night for the NI year of food. There were 10 reporters all from the south who came round the corner to see what we had to offer. Two minutes later the police came over and told us to pack up. What a start for the Year of Food." Farmer Seamus Breslin was also told to pack up his fruit and veg stall. "I'm depending on this market to sell my veg," he said. "Although I do others, we've committed all year to this market to make it work. Now we're told we can't even be here. We were given the expectation we could be here all year." Seamus' wife Alicia Breslin - who sells diabetic preserves at the market - said a lack of communication between traders, organisers and the council was to blame for the closure. "We have a good group of weekly customers who come here to trade at Folktown," she added. "This leaves a bad taste in our mouths. Customers assume now the market will be closed for a long time and it will take a long time to win them back." Disappointed customer Bettie Heron said she had been forced to go elsewhere. "I'm shocked - I meant to come here to spend money and ended up having to go to Tesco instead," she added. "That's fine but it's nowhere near as good quality." Folktown Market opened in April last year, organised by the Folktown Community Interest Company, which obtained a licence to run until December 18. Sophie Rasmussen from the company denied the traders were not informed on time. "They're well aware they shouldn't be there - I certainly didn't ask them to go down and set up stall," she said. She added that the company had decided to take a break until Easter, but would consider putting in an early application for a new licence. After a century-long round-the-world search, a First World War medal left at an hotel in Belfast has been returned to the family to which it belongs. The 1914/15 Star was awarded to Captain William Young, a vet with the Australian Imperial Force. But the medal was never received as it was sent from Australia House in London to the last address Capt Young had given - Robinson's Temperance Hotel, which used to stand on Donegall Street in Belfast. The hotel was run by Coleraine man Gordon Knight's family, but as Capt Young had left no forwarding address, the family were flummoxed as to how they might get his medal to him. The decoration lay in the hotel's safe until 1972 when it shut and the building was sold to the Belfast Telegraph. Mr Knight removed the medal for safe-keeping and in the hope he might be able to return it to its rightful owner. He renewed his efforts to find Capt Young's family a couple of years ago - and was amazed to finally track them down not to Australia, but just down the road in Ballymoney. "I decided that as the centenary of the First World War was approaching I would attempt to repatriate the medal to any descendants of Capt Young in Australia," he explained. "After searching the internet I contacted the body responsible for looking after Australian service records and emailed them with the background. "Unfortunately, they were unable to assist me, as I was not a relative of Capt Young." However, Mr Knight was undeterred. "I then contacted Australia House in London and was put in contact with a very helpful lady who thought it was a very interesting story," he said. "Within a week Major Garrath Williams from the Australian Embassy in London had contacted Lieutenant Colonel Glynn Llanwarne of the Australian Army, who runs an organisation called Lost Medals Australia, and Major Tim Dawe of the Army Reserve to assist in the research. "Imagine my surprise when they informed me that Capt Young was not Australian, but in fact had emigrated to Fremantle, Australia, in 1912 from Ballymoney." Mr Knight then started researching more about Capt Young and discovered that he may have attended Coleraine Academical Institution - where, coincidentally, Mr Knight worked as bursar until last year - before training as a vet in Edinburgh. Capt Young had been working for the Agricultural Department in Perth, Australia, when the Great War broke out and decided to enlist. His visit to Robinson's Hotel in Belfast must have been a flying one, because he emigrated to the USA in 1917 and was recorded as living in New York in 1940 on the US census. Unfortunately, as Capt Young did not appear to have had children, the trail appeared to have ended. However, Mr Knight then discovered Capt Young's name on the war memorial at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Ballymoney. Local historian Alex Blair then put him in contact with two grand-nieces of the soldier. It was at Trinity Presbyterian Church yesterday morning where Mr Knight's hunt finally ended, and he passed Capt Young's medal to his grand-niece Maire Coalter. In another extraordinary coincidence, it transpired that the Young family - who owned a construction firm - had built Trinity Presbyterian Church. Retired librarian Mrs Coalter said that her sister Fionnuala Carson was the historian of the family, but added the amazing events had made her feel a real connection with history. Unfortunately, her mother Rosemary - Capt Young's niece - never lived to see the medal being handed back. "Capt Young was my mother's uncle, I remember her talking about him," she said. "My sister Fionnuala has the Young family Bible and letters, so we will keep the medal safely with those." And she added: "It has been fascinating." Mr Knight was also delighted to have at last returned the medal to the Young family, 99 years after it was left in his grandmother's hotel. He said had he not found the family, he had planned to donate it to a museum in Australia. The wreckage of the helicopter after the crash which killed four people A coroner's jury has ruled that a helicopter crash which killed Tory peer Lord Ballyedmond and three others was an accident. Lord Ballyedmond, also known as Dr Edward Haughey, was killed when the AgustaWestland AW139 came down in a field in heavy fog shortly after take-off from the estate he owned in Gillingham, Norfolk, on March 13 2014. Dr Haughey's foreman, Declan Small, 42, of Mayobridge, Co Down, Northern Ireland; pilot Captain Carl Dickerson, 36, of Thornton, Lancashire; and co-pilot Captain Lee Hoyle, 45, of Macclesfield, Cheshire, also died. On Friday a jury inquest in Norwich ruled that their deaths were accidental. Coroner Jacqueline Lake expressed her sympathies to family members, including Dr Haughey's wife Lady Ballyedmond, son Edward Haughey and the pilot's wives, who were in court throughout. Excerpts of a cockpit recording were read out during the inquest. In it, one of the pilots, who cannot be identified from the recording, is heard saying: "I don't mind telling you I'm not very happy about lifting out of here." Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) expert Tim Atkinson said that had the helicopter been at a licensed aerodrome, it would not have been allowed to take off in such fog. Private helipads are not subject to such regulations. Another AAIB investigator, Peter Wivell, said the pilot may have suffered from an optical illusion caused by the fog. A lack of visual cues could have caused him to become disorientated and he may have felt like he was pitching up when he was in fact flying level meaning he over-corrected and steered the nose down. No mechanical defects were found on the helicopter, he added. Earlier the inquest was shown mobile phone footage of the helicopter taking off. The person filming is heard remarking: "They're taking off blind." The inquest has heard Mr Dickerson had warned the helicopter needed to take off "no later than 7pm" because of bad weather. It did not in fact take off until 7.22pm as Dr Haughey oversaw the hanging of pictures as part of his renovation of Gillingham Hall. Dr Haughey, 70, who lived at Ballyedmond Castle in Co Down, Northern Ireland, was considered to be one of Ireland's richest men, with estimated wealth in excess of 800 million. Best known as chairman and founder of Norbrook Laboratories, the largest privately owned pharmaceutical company in the world, father-of-three Dr Haughey had a range of other business interests. A life peer with a seat in the House of Lords, first on behalf of the Ulster Unionist Party before switching to the Conservative Party, he had also previously sat in the upper house of the Republic of Ireland's parliament, the Seanad. James Healy-Pratt, solicitor for the Ballyedmond and Small families, said they were pleased the inquest had established the helicopter was fully airworthy and had advanced safety systems, that the pilots were fully qualified and trained, and that proper procedures were in place. He added: "It is still a mystery why the pilots did not comply with the operations manual and adopt safe take-off procedures, or why they chose to deselect the autopilot, whilst attempting to take off at night in dense fog. "The families continue to believe after this week of evidence that this was a preventable accident. "We urge the Civil Aviation Authority to expedite the application of long overdue regulations, expected to come into force in August 2016. "This is essential to prevent the loss of more innocent lives in similar circumstances." The families of Mr Dickerson and Mr Hoyle declined to comment. Ms Lake intends to write a report making recommendations about regulations governing private aircraft taking off from private airfields. The BBC said police were called in after a "covert intelligence operation" by the prison authorities. A female prison officer at Maghaberry has been arrested over an alleged sexual affair with a convicted killer. According to reports the officer has also been suspended from duty while it is understood the prisoner in question has been moved to an isolation unit within the jail. The PSNI said they had arrested a female on suspicion of "misconduct in a public office". She has since been released on bail. He and the officer had both been working in the prison kitchens at the high security Co Antrim prison. The BBC said police were called in after a "covert intelligence operation" by the prison authorities. It is alleged that they had become concerned that the pair had formed an inappropriate relationship. The officer was arrested and is facing a charge of gross misconduct in public office. It is reported the prisoner involved is Robert Young from Portadown who was jailed in 2005 for 22-years for the murder of drug dealer Jim Johnston outside his Crawfordsburn home in County Down. In a statement to the BBC the department of Justice said: "NI Prison Service can confirm that a member of staff has been suspended following an internal investigation. "This is now a matter for the PSNI and it would be inappropriate to comment further." A man who dragged a policewoman to the ground and threatened to hack her head off while high on drink and drugs has been jailed for six months. Jamie Corry also tried to knock her male colleague of his motorbike during a violent outbreak in the centre of Belfast, prosecutors said. Police came under attack from the 22-year-old and his ex-partner as they performed traffic duties during Orange Order parades on July 13 last year. The female constable was subjected to verbal abuse after being alerted to a row between the pair on May Street. Both of the accused then punched her to the head, knocking her hat off. Corry, of Woodstock Road in the city, then grabbed the officer by the hair and neck, dragging her to the ground. A prosecution lawyer said the constable was in fear, threatened to use CS spray and called for assistance. Belfast Magistrates' Court heard another officer arrived, only to face attempts to push him off his motorbike as he tried to detain the pair. It was claimed that Corry struggled violently, shouting, swearing, spitting and kicking out at the police. "Following his arrest he threatened (the female) constable that he would hack her head off, and also threatened (the male) constable that he was a dead man." Although his co-accused was not before the court today, Corry faced charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, disorderly behaviour, threats to kill, attempted criminal damage and possession of Class A cocaine. Defence counsel Sean Mullan said his client had taken too much drink and drugs, leaving him with a limited memory of events. But he accepted it was a "wholly unsavoury and nasty incident" for which Corry wanted to apologise to the police officers. The barrister continued: "This was a day out that started with good intentions and a jovial atmosphere, but quickly spiraled into a sinister set of circumstances." Corry has since split up with his co-accused, and was at a low point in his life following a previous punishment attack and exclusion from south Belfast, the court heard. Imposing the six-month prison sentence, District Judge Peter King told him: "It's quite clear you have a problem both with police officers and drug consumption." Acknowledging Corry's guilty pleas, Mr King added: "The very clearest message has to be sent out that if you engage in this way with police officers going about their lawful duty you are going to end up in prison." A police officer outside the house in Rossnareen Avenue in west Belfast where a man was shot in the head A man was shot in the head in west Belfast as part of a Traveller-related feud, a court heard. Martin Gavin remains seriously ill following the gun attack on the Shaw's Road last November. A father and son are currently charged with threatening to kill the victim days before he was targeted. Edward James McKay, 50, and Edward McKay, 19, appeared before Belfast Magistrates' Court as part of the continuing case against them. The defendants, whose address in the city is not being disclosed for legal reasons, stood together in the dock as a prosecutor provided an update on Thursday. She said: "The injured party is currently very seriously ill in hospital after he was shot (in the head) in what police believe to be a Traveller feud. "Several days prior to this incident it's alleged that these defendants sent threats to kill this injured party." Concerns were expressed about potential interference with witnesses in the court. The prosecution lawyer also confirmed detectives are examining several mobile phones as part of the case. With the McKays not accused of involvement in the shooting, their lawyer stressed both have alibis for the alleged offences against them. District Judge King ordered the pair to return to court next month. He added: "Coming from Newry, I have some unfortunate experience of the consequences of feuds and the impact they have on the community where they are inflicted." Police seal off a house while forensic experts examine the scene of a serious assault - A woman is critically ill in hospital after an assault at a house in Carnmoney, County Antrim. Picture by Justin Kernoghan Police seal off a house while forensic experts examine the scene of a serious assault - A woman is critically ill in hospital after an assault at a house in Carnmoney, County Antrim. Picture by Justin Kernoghan Police seal off a house while forensic experts examine the scene of a serious assault - A woman is critically ill in hospital after an assault at a house in Carnmoney, County Antrim. Picture by Justin Kernoghan Police at the scene of the arrest. Picture Kevin Scott. Police at the scene of the arrest. Picture Kevin Scott. Police at the scene of the arrest. Picture Kevin Scott. Police at the scene of the arrest. Picture Kevin Scott. Police at the scene of the arrest. Picture Kevin Scott. Police at the scene of the arrest. Picture: Kevin Scott. Police at the scene of the arrest. Picture Kevin Scott. A man wanted by police following a brutal assault which left a young mother seriously injured in hospital has been detained by police. The PSNI last night issued an appeal for help in tracking down 33-year-old Stephen McFarlane but warned the public not to approach him. He has reportedly made contact with a relative by telephone. On Friday morning police released a picture of a car similar to what he may be driving in a bid to track him down. Police believe the car's number plates may have been removed. This afternoon police located and detained the 33-year-old in the Newtownards Road area of east Belfast just before 2pm. Detective Inspector Chris Millar said: I would like to thank the public and the media for their assistance in this matter. We received a number of calls from members of the public throughout our search and we are grateful for that co-operation. Our investigation into this serious assault will now continue. The young mother was stabbed in a "frenzied attack" at her home in Glengormley in Newtownabbey, Co Antrim, on Wednesday evening. She was initially in a critical condition in hospital, but friends of the family last night said that the victim was now out of danger and had been able to speak to detectives. One friend of the woman's added: "She was in a very bad state when she was brought into hospital and we feared she wouldn't make it. "The medical staff fought a tremendous battle to save her life. It was touch-and-go for a long time. "Her father was desperately concerned about her. Her condition improved as the day went on. She started breathing on her own and they were able to take her off life support. "When she woke up at first she didn't talk, she just cried, but then she gathered herself together and found the strength to speak to detectives and tell them what happened." It was first thought the woman was stabbed at least seven times on Wednesday evening in her Ashgrove Road home, but when she was treated it was found she was wounded up to 27 times. Neighbours reportedly heard her screaming for help during the attack. The young mother allegedly managed to phone emergency services for assistance before her assailant snatched the phone from her and fled. Friends said she works as a classroom assistant. She had previously worked as a waitress in a north Belfast pub where she had been a popular member of staff. Her children are currently staying with relatives. Mr McFarlane, who also has children, was recently working as a mechanic in Mallusk. Police last night released a photograph of the suspect and appealed for assistance in finding him. A warrant was also issued for his arrest. Mr McFarlane is a fitness fanatic known for spending a lot of time training in the gym. He also worked for a time as a doorman. "Stephen prided himself on his appearance. He was very, very fit. At his birthday party one year a picture of a toned male torso was emblazoned across the cake," one friend said. Local DUP Assembly Member Paula Bradley, who lives close to where the attack took place, expressed her outrage at the assault. "This is a very quiet residential area and local residents in Ashgrove are shocked and horrified by what happened," she said. "My thoughts and prayers are with this young woman and I hope that she will make a full recovery." Local SDLP councillor Noreen McClelland added: "This was a vicious and despicable attack on a young woman who lived in this home with her children. "It has appalled us all in the local community. We can only imagine the terror she felt. Whoever is behind this must be found and brought to justice." One in six adults in Northern Ireland is in serious financial trouble and in urgent need of a money makeover, it can be revealed today. Image posed One in six adults in Northern Ireland is in serious financial trouble and in urgent need of a money makeover, it can be revealed today. New research from Money Advice found that almost eight out of 10 (77%) of the working age population do not have enough savings to cover unexpected expenses. It also discovered that around 193,000 individuals who have money difficulties are not getting any debt advice. The shocking statistics come after it emerged that people here spend more on a variety of goods - including clothing and footwear, children's garments, cosmetics, toiletries and electronic appliances - than anywhere else in the UK. Northern Ireland also boasts the highest regional spenders when it comes to holiday outgoings and takeaway food, according to the Office for National Statistics family spending report, published last month. Money Advice programme coordinator at Citizens Advice Kathy McKenna said that 41% of adults fail to use a household budget that could help them plan ahead. "Now the Christmas decorations have been put away and the credit card bills have dropped on the mat, this is the perfect time to shine a light on our finances," she added. "Citizens Advice has devised a monthly budget planner for 2016 that should help ordinary people better understand their income and outgoings. "January is the best time for a new year financial spring clean and hopefully this will make it easier to see where your money is going and underline areas where you can drive down costs. "Following these simple steps can help put your household bills on a steady footing for the rest of the year - and beyond." An individual is defined as being in debt if they have missed three out of six monthly payments. The Money Advice Service said it was particularly concerned that eight out of 10 adults do not have savings equal to three or more months household income. "Having a savings buffer can help build financial resilience to deal with unexpected life events such as redundancy, bereavement, divorce or other major crises," added Ms McKenna. "It can also reduce money-related stress and the effects it can have on health, relationships and a sense of wellbeing. "A good rule of thumb is to have three months' essential outgoings available in an instant access account for emergency savings. "So, if you spend 1,000 a month on mortgage or rent, food, heating bills and other things you can't live without, you should aim for 3,000 in emergency savings. "If money's short, start small. For example, saving just 3 a day adds up to 1,095 over a year." Another way of managing money effectively involves keeping a spending diary. If you save up all your receipts and add up how much you have spent at the end of each day, you might be shocked at just how much you have blown on treats and impulse buys. The Belfast Telegraph has reproduced online a monthly budget planner from Citizens Advice for anyone wishing to save a fortune with a money makeover in 2016. To complete the process, just grab your bank statements and look at all your income and outgoings, including direct debits, standing orders and bills. For a more in-depth analysis of your finances, the online Citizens Advice Budgeting tool can be found at https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/debt-and-money/help-with-debt/budgeting/budgeting-tool Case study Jenny and Tom are married and have a 13-year-old daughter. They rent their home and both work full-time. Jenny says: "I was paying minimum payments to my credit cards and loans and struggling to keep within my overdraft limit until I contacted Citizens Advice for help. "As part of the money advice process Tom and I completed a monthly budget planner. It involved writing down all our household income and expenditure - not just our monthly outlay but also irregular expenses that come up occasionally such as birthday presents, annual rates bill, visits to the dentist and annual spending on school uniform and trips for our daughter. On paper we should be managing well and we couldn't understand why we were going overdrawn each month. In the past, when our overdraft became too high, we took out a further loan but we didn't want to do that again. "When the money adviser examined our budget it became patently clear that we weren't making provision for irregular monthly bills such as the breaking down of the washing machine, Christmas presents, the annual holiday or the annual MOT and car service. "By carrying out the spending review we understood the need to budget for irregular expenditure and how important it is to set aside money each month (for example in a separate bank account) to cover exceptional expenses when they arise. "Citizens Advice helped us negotiate reduced payments with our creditors so as to resolve the situation and get back on track." Maghaberry Prison was described by one solicitor previously as being "awash with drugs" Northern Ireland's Prison Service has applied for permission to use body scanners in a crackdown on smuggling. The technology is designed to combat the trafficking of banned items into jails. Dissident republicans have protested against the strip-searching of inmates. At one stage a solicitor said Maghaberry Prison was "awash with drugs". During 2014, there were 224 drug finds at the high security institution. The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change is considering whether to give x-ray imaging the go-ahead, Stormont's justice department said. Finlay Spratt, chairman of the Prison Officers' Association (POA), said: "If they come up with something that replaces strip-searching we would be delighted." A form of scanning was trialled at Magilligan Prison in County Londonderry in 2012 but later rejected as ineffective. Full body scanners are already in use in some airports. The Department of Justice said: "NIPS (Northern Ireland Prison Service) have, as required by the legislation governing the use of ionising radiation for non-medical purposes, submitted a justification application. "NOMS (National Offender Management Service) are currently going through the justification process in regards to the use of ionising radiation. "They are submitting a report to the Department of Energy and Climate Change to ask for permission to use transmission x-ray scanners. "There will be no further progress until this process is completed. "As NOMS application is for a similar purpose, it is sensible that both should be considered together." Dissident republicans issued death threats against prison staff in recent years and shot dead long-serving officer David Black. They have campaigned to end strip-searching. Mr Spratt said his members only carried out the procedure to protect the security of the prison and staff. He added: "If they can protect the security of the prison and reduce the need for prison officers to be involved in what people would call degrading treatment, it is also degrading for prison officers, if they can come up with a body scanner that reduces that we would fully support that, we do not want to be involved in that." Police are investigating reports of shots being fire in Craigavon this evening. No-one was injured in the incident in the Clonmeen area at around 7.45pm. Inspector Lynsey Barr has appealed to anyone who noticed any suspicious activity in the area to contact police in Lurgan on the non-emergency number 101. Or alternatively they can contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 08000555111 The Northern Ireland Prison Service has applied for permission to use body scanners in a crackdown on smuggling The Northern Ireland Prison Service has applied for permission to use body scanners in a crackdown on smuggling. The technology is designed to combat the trafficking of banned items into jails. It comes after dissident republicans protested against the strip-searching of inmates. At one stage a solicitor said Maghaberry Prison was "awash with drugs". During 2014 there were 224 substance finds at the high-security institution. The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change is considering whether to give X-ray imaging the go-ahead, Stormont's Justice Department said. Finlay Spratt, chairman of the Prison Officers' Association, said: "If they come up with something that replaces strip-searching we would be delighted." Mr Spratt added that his members only carried out the procedure to protect the security of the prison and staff. Dissident republicans have in the past issued death threats against prison staff. They also shot dead prison officer David Black. A teenager who knocked a 75-year-old neighbour unconscious during a dispute over dogs running loose has been sentenced to six months in prison. Gary McKee punched the pensioner as he tried to take photos of fencing supposed to keep the animals in. The elderly victim was found slumped over the wheel of his car following the attack in Co Antrim last August. McKee, 19, of Gorman Close in Greenisland, was released on bail pending an appeal against the jail term imposed for the assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Belfast Magistrates' Court heard today that police were called out to the area over claims two of his dogs had got out and killed a cat. Officers returned the pets to the defendant before speaking to both him and the older man. But just over an hour later an ambulance was called out to deal with the 75-year-old. He said that after police left he got a camera and returned in his car to McKee's house to take a picture of the fencing. His intention was to demonstrate to the dog warden that it was too low, allowing the animals to jump over. McKee approached him while he was still in the car, asked what he was doing and then punched him, the court was told. A prosecution lawyer said: "(The victim) was knocked unconscious and was discovered by an unknown passerby, slumped over his wheel." The pensioner was taken to hospital, where he was kept in for two days. Defence solicitor Brendan Blaney described his client's behaviour as "shameful". Mr Blaney added: "He has made a fulsome and sincere apology." District Judge Peter King insisted that it could never be appropriate for a 19-year-old man to punched a 75-year-old unconscious. Imposing six months imprisonment, he said: "In order for this court to maintain the confidence of this community there's no alternative but a period of custody." However, Judge King granted a defence application to release McKee on bail until the hearing of his appeal against the outcome. PJ Mara was a key figure in Irish politics in the 1980s Former political spin doctor and strategist PJ Mara has died. Right hand man to Charlie Haughey in the 1980s and a government press secretary from 1987 to 1992, he is synonymous with Fianna Fail over three decades. Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin described Mr Mara as a true original and an honour to know and work with. "In a series of general elections as well as the referendum on the Good Friday Agreement PJ proved himself to be the most effective campaign director in Irish political history," he said. "He brought immense humour, judgement and commitment to the role." Mr Mara went on to work for businessman Denis O'Brien's Digicel corporation after stepping away from backroom politics. He was 73 and died in hospital in Dublin. Mr Mara had two children with the youngest born in 2013. His career saw him serve in the Seanad in 1981 and 1982 and run Fianna Fail's media operations through the 1980s. While he was director of elections for Fianna Fail's three-in-a-row poll victories in 1997, 2002 and 2007 he was more high profile in the latter. In the last campaign Bertie Ahern hired him as he sought to deflect questions about the former taoiseach's financial affairs. Mr Martin added: "As Government Press Secretary for five years he brought a new energy and professionalism to the role which was recognised throughout Europe during the 1990 Presidency of the European Council. "Whether it was international statesmen or a local party stalwart PJ was always available to encourage and support." Mr Ahern told Today with Sean O'Rourke on RTE Radio that Mr Mara was loyal, a good friend and fun. "PJ was a wonderful person," he said. "The first thing, he was hugely clever, smart, sometimes depicted as not so, but he was very, very bright and able to handle almost any situation. The tensest of battles in Leinster House, the toughest of days, PJ would be at the heart of it." Mr Ahern said Mr Mara would never dodge trouble or go missing in the middle of a political controversy. "But (he was) always a bit of fun too - even when the rocks were flying and the bottles were flying, PJ would see the bright side of it, whether it was some of the quips he would make or some of the schemes he'd come up with to get out of the mess," he said. Mr Ahern said Mr Mara had friends across all parties and made a huge contribution to political life. "It's very hard to think of PJ this morning without thinking of the laughs, the tricks, the camaraderie, wondering how we were going to get Charlie to calm down and save all of our skins," he said. Journalist Eamon Dunphy, who knew Mr Mara from his youth in Drumcondra, described him as distinguished and a man always with the appearance of someone going places. Innocent Facebook pictures of Irish girls have been posted on a porn website and altered to look 'obscene' A major police investigation is underway in the Republic of Ireland after pictures of teenage girls - some as young as 12 - were copied from social media and posted on a pornographic website. Almost 50 victims are understood to have come forward, saying their photographs have been copied from their own Facebook pages and posted on a US-based website that was encouraging violent and pornographic comments. Some of the horrified girls, most of whom are from Cork, say their faces have been photoshopped onto pictures of naked women. A senior Garda detective said the investigation has traced the person who uploaded the images - and they have an IP address in Ireland. The individual went by the pseudonym "Irish Exposed" and showed a preference for young girls with Irish social media addresses. One victim, 19-year-old Katie Kirwan, told Red FM that a photo of her as a 15-year old in her school uniform had been lifted and made to look "obscene" on the website. She said all the images taken from the Irish teens were innocent social shots with none being provocative or risque. Katie had virtually all her social media photos "harvested" without her permission - and the greatest number of comments and views were for the pictures taken when she was aged just 14 and 15. "It is really quite worrying. Of course you'd be concerned about who has looked at those photos and who has attempted to download and store them," she said. "Virtually all my photos are of just my face. "Some of the comments are absolutely disgusting. They are vile." Many of the photos were taken from private social media pages - and it remains unclear how "Irish Exposed" gained access to the images. One young Dublin woman, Lizzy Ryan (19), had eight friends exploited by the site. She says people are now attempting to blame the innocent, traumatised teens for it. "I find it appalling that some people out there are actually victim-blaming," she told the Irish Independent. "It is weird how people are out there saying 'it is their fault'. It is absolutely nothing to do with the girls involved." A senior Garda source told the Irish Times detectives were trying to establish whether a criminal act had taken place: "We have to assess whether or not this action involved criminality. "Its clearly a breach of their privacy, but thats a civil matter under the law and we have to establish a clear case that a criminal offence was committed." The family of a patient who died eight months after a stabbing in a mental health ward have demanded to know why health chiefs have not completed an inquiry into his death. James McGrane, from College Park, Terenure, Dublin was being treated for depression in the Rowan Ward of Tallaght Hospital when he was left paralysed when his spine was severed in the attack on May 11 2010. The 73-year-old died the following January in St Vincent's Hospital following a heart attack, which led to sepsis and pneumonia. Lawyers for the McGrane family said medical experts said these were a result of the paralysis. The unnamed patient who attacked Mr McGrane was suffering paranoid schizophrenia and had a history of violence but came into the ward unchecked and with a kitchen knife. Following an inquest at Dublin Coroner's Court, a jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing. Mr McGrane's daughter, Audrey O'Farrell, said the evidence of her father's death showed huge room for improvement in the safety and security of patients in psychiatric hospitals. "My father expressed fears for his safety to our family and staff while he was a patient in the hospital," she said. "What happened to him was entirely preventable and could have been avoided, if effective measures had been in place and proper procedures followed. "It is especially worrying that the procedures in place at the time do not appear to have been updated or improved in any meaningful way since my father was attacked." The inquest jury recommended all psychiatric hospitals review procedures for day leave patients. Ms O'Farrell said the family were extremely unhappy that health chiefs have not completed an investigation into the death five years on. "No satisfactory explanation has ever been given to my family for this," she said. Mr McGrane's family said their father was a voluntary patient and they want an independent investigation into his death. "The inquest process, while important, is extremely limited in scope," Ms O'Farrell said. "There is an obligation on the State to carry out a proper investigation into this case so that a full analysis of the facts can be carried out and appropriate lessons learned." Ms O'Farrell said the Health Service Executive (HSE) were unable and unwilling to examine the case. "Their approach has consistently been one of delay and concealment. My family and I have no confidence in the HSE as an organisation capable of investigating serious incidents in hospitals in anything like an effective manner," she said. Lawyers for the McGrane family claimed an internal investigation by the HSE was commissioned in 2010 but discontinued on a date unknown and for reasons unknown. In response the HSE said it will fully consider the findings of the inquest and the jury's recommendations. "The HSE has commissioned a full review of the incident and will be linking in with all concerned parties.," it said. Secondary teachers and lecturers have threatened to strike on one day before the general election. The Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI), which has more than 14,500 members in schools and third level colleges, revealed 89% backed industrial action amid concerns over job security, wages for newly qualified staff and cutbacks. The TUI said teaching graduates who joined the workforce from February 2012 are paid 21.7% less than those who began working before 2011. Union president Gerry Quinn said unless the demand for talks is met by Government then the action will go ahead. "To make matters worse, for several years now, second level teachers have been applying for fractions of jobs with no guarantee of being retained from year to year," Mr Quinn said. "Some 30% of second-level teachers are employed on a temporary and/or part-time basis and this proportion grows to 50% for those under 35." A date for the threatened industrial action by teachers has yet to be decided. Earlier this week the TUI revealed its members in Institutes of Technology will take a day's strike action on February 3 over serious concerns about issues within their sector. The union warned about casualisation in the education ranks where students are being taught by a succession of teachers for subjects over the course of the Junior or Leaving Certificate cycles. "Clearly, this is undesirable," Mr Quinn said. "We are hearing more frequently that it is becoming increasingly difficult for schools to attract new teachers in certain subject areas. "Graduates who had intended to undertake a masters in teaching and, increasingly, qualified teachers across a range of subjects are routinely finding better paid and more secure employment in industry." The TUI also warned students are suffering as a promotion ban continues to block the filling of posts of responsibility such as year head and the budgets for guidance counselling have also been cut. A survey of 545 teachers by the union last year found 96% of teachers agreed that their workload had increased significantly in recent years with the TUI warning the volume of box-ticking and form-filling duties has grown exponentially. "Teacher workload has increased significantly and administrative duties are deflecting teacher time from the core roles of classroom teaching and learning," Mr Quinn said. He added: " Despite the current rhetoric about economic recovery, anti-educational cutbacks continue to have a devastating effect on the quality of service to students in terms of larger class sizes, less access to one-to-one attention and less pastoral support." Some of the heirlooms stolen in a raid at Goodwood, one of Britain's most treasured stately homes. Lord and Lady March are "recovering" after being assaulted and tied up in Goodwood House by a burglar who stole 700,000 of treasured family heirlooms. The 61-year-old and his 54-year-old wife, who were attacked at their stately home on Wednesday morning, described the ordeal as "challenging". But he said they were "entirely focused" on getting back the stolen goods which have "personal significance" and "historical value". In a statement, Lord March said: "The last 48 hours have been challenging and I would like to thank Sussex Police, my team here at Goodwood and the local and national press for their support. "I am pleased to tell you that we are both recovering and entirely focused on providing the police with anything that may help recover the stolen items some of which have such personal significance and others such historical value." Lord March, who is also known as Charles Gordon-Lennox, released the statement after Sussex Police appealed for more information about the break-in at the stately home near Chichester, West Sussex. At around 4.30am on Wednesday Lady March, also known as Jane Astor, was disturbed as the intruder broke in an upstairs window using a ladder, police said. The burglar pushed Lady March before striking her husband's head causing an injury to his ear, Detective Inspector Till Sanderson said. Det Insp Sanderson added: "Lady March was then forced to open a safe and the man helped himself to jewellery. "The couple were bound before the robber escaped with the items. "This was a frightening ordeal and I pay tribute to the courage of Lord and Lady March." Lord March, who founded the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 1993, and his wife were "devastated" at the theft of "priceless" items, police said. Treasures, including an 1820 diamond tiara worth nearly 400,000, diamond necklaces and several luxury watches, including antique Rolex and Girard Perregaux timepieces, were stolen. Other items taken included an emerald intaglio and diamond ring from 1800, engraved with the Duchess's coronet and monogram CL for Louise de Keroualle, mistress of Charles II. More than 40 items were stolen including emerald, diamond and sapphire rings, earrings, bracelets and necklaces, Sussex Police said as they appealed for information. Chief Inspector Justin Burtenshaw said: "They (Lord and Lady March) are devastated at the loss of these priceless items. I would like to praise the courage of both of them, both during the ordeal and afterwards now as we investigate. "We are doing everything we can to locate the stolen treasures." Investigators were working with auction houses, stately homes, dealers and those with specialist knowledge to try to trace the heirlooms. A 26-year-old man from Hampshire has been arrested in connection with the incident and released on bail until February while investigations continue. The Archbishop of Canterbury has apologised to the gay and lesbian community for the "hurt and pain" caused by the church. The Most Rev Justin Welby said it was a "constant source of deep sadness" that people were persecuted because of their sexuality as he spoke after a meeting of Anglican leaders. Mr Welby said facing protesters, particularly those from Africa, was a reminder of the "pain and suffering of many LGBTI people around the world". "For me it's a constant source of deep sadness, the number of people who are persecuted for their sexuality," he said. "I don't have the right to speak for everyone. I wanted to take this opportunity...to say how sorry I am for the hurt and pain, in the past and present, the church has caused." Mr Welby spoke after church leaders agreed to sanction the American branch of the Anglican Communion over its views on marriage and homosexuality. A meeting of Anglican primates in Canterbury reached an agreement on measures against the US Episcopal Church, which a statement said had made a "fundamental departure from the faith and teaching" by endorsing gay marriage. The agreement upheld a "traditional doctrine" of marriage as being between a man and a woman. The summit aimed to avert a permanent schism in the Anglican Communion amid division dating back to the liberal church's consecration of Canon Gene Robinson, who is gay, as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003. The primates' statement said: "The traditional doctrine of the church in view of the teaching of scripture, upholds marriage as between a man and a woman in faithful, life-long union. The majority of those gathered reaffirm this teaching." Asked during a press conference if the church's position made it look outdated Mr Welby admitted that it did in some parts of the world, but not in others. He said: "It makes us look out of line in the US and UK, yes, but not in many other parts of the world, no. We are a global church and that means that there are different views in different places." The mistreatment of gay people in some countries, especially those where homosexuality is criminalised, remains a "major concern", Mr Welby added. Asked about steps the church would take to continue to lobby against the attitudes in these countries he said: "We are not a centralised church which orders people what to do and how much time to spend on doing it. "I spend an extensive amount of time on this subject both with fellow primates and elsewhere. It is a major concern." The spacewalk will be the first for Major Tim Peake Tim Peake said he will never forget his "exhilarating" first walk in space as he posted a space selfie of his historic feat. The British astronaut tweeted for the first time since he became the first Briton to complete an Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA) or spacewalk. He wrote: "Today's exhilarating spacewalk will be etched in my memory forever - quite an incredible feeling!" The tweet, which received hundreds of retweets within minutes, was accompanied with three photos including a selfie showing his camera in the reflection of his helmet. Todays exhilarating #spacewalk will be etched in my memory forever quite an incredible feeling! pic.twitter.com/84Dn3gHA70 Tim Peake (@astro_timpeake) January 15, 2016 Major Peake's mission ended early after a water bubble was detected in the helmet of his American colleague Tim Kopra. The British astronaut helped complete the crew's primary task of repairing a broken voltage regulator and headed back to the International Space Station (ISS) after four hours and 43 minutes instead of the planned six-and-a-half hours. Live footage showed them safely returning to the ISS's airlock area and the thermal cover being closed behind them. Major Peake, 43, from Chichester, West Sussex, who is on a six-month mission with the European Space Agency (ESA), earlier told of his pride in stepping into space with the Union flag on his space suit. After the operation was terminated by the lead Flight Director, Major Peake and Colonel Kopra were told to spend some time cleaning up their tools before heading to safety. NASA said the termination was a precaution. A tweet from its official account said: "As a precaution, spacewalk terminated due to small amount of water in Tim's helmet." The ESA said the early termination of the spacewalk was officially completed at 17.31 GMT. Colonel Kopra offered his thanks to the ground staff for ensuring their safety. Major Peake added: "Thank you very much, I just want to reiterate Tim's words there, you guys have done a great job, thanks for everybody's support." Colonel Kopra's helmet-absorption pad, along with a sample of the water bubble taken with a syringe, will be analysed to determine what caused it to form. Crew member Scott Kelly photographed Major Peake's gloves for "future reference and inspection", the ESA said, before his helmet was removed too. Earlier, Major Peake's parents, Nigel and Angela Peake, beamed with pride as they watched their son's progress from their living room in Westbourne, Emsworth, Hampshire. Mr Peake said: "It's amazing, the photographs from space are incredible. "For us, we have immense pride, but also immense gratitude to all the people who are supporting Tim and the other astronauts." New flight rules were brought into effect after a similar incident took place in 2013, when Luca Parmitano had a large amount of water fill his helmet. CO2 sensors have been fitted in the helmets of astronauts since then, and these helped alert Colonel Kopra to the problem. Major Peake thanked his colleagues again in a second tweet, following the mission. He wrote on Twitter: "Wrapping up today's spacewalk activities. Huge thanks to the ground teams who make it all possible & keep us safe out there - you guys rock!" Telecoms giant BT announced in February last year that it had agreed to acquire EE The clearance of BT's 12.5 billion buyout of mobile phone firm EE by the competition watchdog has sparked a wave of industry concern about what the mega-merger will mean for consumers. The deal was given the green light by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), and will create a combination that will have around 35 million mobile, broadband, and TV customers. John Wotton, who chaired the CMA inquiry into the deal, said the evidence "does not show that this merger is likely to cause significant harm to competition or the interests of consumers". But a number of industry and consumer bodies said the deal will create a powerful player in the UK media and telecoms market. Rival TalkTalk said: "We are disappointed, although not surprised, that the CMA has waived through the BT/EE merger, even though the new entity will be even more dominant than it was before privatisation 30 years ago." Which? executive director, Richard Lloyd, added: "Fewer players in a market is rarely a good thing, but now this deal has been approved both companies must urgently address their abysmal customer service record. "The regulator will need to keep a very close eye on this to ensure consumers really do benefit from the deal and be prepared to step in if not." The deal hands BT 35% of the mobile consumer market and a similar share of the UK's consumer broadband business. BT will be able to offer bundles of telecoms, TV, broadband and mobile to its customers to compete better with rivals such as Sky and Virgin Media. Gavin Patterson, BT chief executive, said: "The combined BT and EE will be a digital champion for the UK, providing high levels of investment and driving innovation in a highly competitive market." Last year mobile operator O2 agreed to a sale to Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa, the owner of rival operator Three, for 10.3 billion, further increasing the consolidation across the UK media and telecoms markets. Aside from this deal, regulator Ofcom is carrying out its first significant review of the telecoms sector for a decade, and is considering options including a split of BT networks business Openreach. Openreach provides the final mile of network connection into consumers' homes, and is used by rival operators. Rivals regularly complain about the service Openreach offers, but many industry analysts forecast Ofcom recommendations will fall short of splitting the business away from BT. Vodafone said: "We are reviewing the CMA's document in full. As previously stated, we believe it is imperative that the wider market concerns relating to BT Openreach raised by a number of parties and recognised by the CMA, need to be thoroughly scrutinised by Ofcom." Ofcom's Digital Communications Review is expected to be published next month. Andy Kerr, deputy general secretary of the Communication Workers Union welcomed the news, adding: " The CWU, which has members in EE as well as BT, will continue discussions with the company in terms of how our EE members will be incorporated into the wider BT Group. "While this will mean greater opportunities for BT to provide a seamless connectivity for their customers, for the CWU this creates an opportunity to grow our union and ensure our EE members are welcomed and protected within the BT family." Small-town grocers from across the state met in Mandan on Thursday in hopes of working together to help one another stay in business. Hope is what brought the grocers together, said Lori Capouch, who works with the North Dakota Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives' Rural Electric and Telecommunications Development Center as the association's rural development director. The development center provides technical assistance and grant-writing services. Capouch said the center began getting more requests from grocers for grant help with operating costs and equipment repairs. The center's staff began to think this may represent a shift in the industry and stepped in to help. NDAREC gathered data through a North Dakota Independent Grocer Survey, receiving a 45 percent response rate with 53 respondents. Results included: Respondents were in the grocery business for an average of 17 years, with the groceries they operate being in business an average of 40 years. 71 percent of respondents have one store. 93 percent operate near other groceries. Respondents were an average of 49 miles away from a major chain grocery. 62 percent of respondents reported weekly sales greater than $20,000; 10 percent reported sales between $10,000 and $20,000; 17 percent had sales between $5,000 and $10,000 and 12 percent had less than $5,000 in weekly sales. 62 percent of respondents expect sales to increase over the next three years; 20 percent expect stable sales; 18 expect a decrease. 25 percent said meeting distributors' minimum order requirements was a problem. People shopping out of town, competition from chain stores and availability of labor were the three main problems listed by respondents, followed closely by high operating costs. With this information, the Development Center staff hopes to empower grocers to work together. According to the survey, 52 percent of respondents think a statewide alliance of small, independent grocery stores may have value. By aggregating information things like what products they order and how much they purchase grocers could partner to attract a more affordable supply of groceries and make distribution more efficient. Capouch said often distributors are crisscrossing each other in the state, stopping in one small town but not the next. Along with potential cost savings, Capouch said an alliance would offer networking opportunities. "They have no way to talk with one another," she said of small grocers currently. The grocers have small staffs but address the same issues as larger stores. Working together, they could share tips to improve. An alliance could also help increase awareness when new regulations arise. "We're encouraged that we're not alone," said Shirley Roehl who volunteers, along with her husband Floyd, to help run the community-owned Star Grocery in New Leipzig. Floyd Roehl said a lot of the time the store is breaking even or dipping into the red. Recently it had four freezers and one cooler go out, and staff had to apply for grants and ask for donations just to keep going. "We want to survive," Shirley Roehl said. "When the grocery store is gone, the town really hurts." It's especially important to New Leipzig where a lot of homebound older residents depend on the community store to deliver groceries to their doorsteps when they can't drive. The Roehls are hopeful an alliance would allow them to work with stores in neighboring towns, rather than compete. North Dakota State Director for U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development Ryan Taylor said he thinks the survey shows a fair bit of optimism from rural grocers that they will be able to keep going. What he sees is interest from operators on how they can make their business work better. An anaesthetist attending a new mother after she underwent a Caesarean and further surgery ignored two more senior medics who told him to alter his treatment to improve her breathing before she died, a court heard. Dr Nadeem Azeez was told to move from "bagging" Frances Cappuccini, 30, with a face mask to more invasive and intense methods as she struggled to breathe as she came round from a general anaesthetic, two other specialists who worked on her told a jury. They gave evidence in a landmark manslaughter trial at Inner London Crown Court of South African-born consultant anaesthetist Errol Cornish, who worked on Mrs Cappuccini alongside Dr Azeez, and Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, which runs Tunbridge Wells hospital where she died. Mrs Cappuccini lost more than two litres of blood when her son Giacomo was born at the hospital in Pembury, Kent, on October 9, 2012. She was operated on but never woke up and died the same day her baby was born. The prosecution alleges Cornish and Azeez completed failed in what it said was their "elementary task" to ensure Mrs Cappuccini safely came round from the surgery. Azeez, who, the prosecution said, was primarily responsible for the care of Mrs Cappuccini, is not on trial, having left the country. Dr Raymond Chung, a senior consultant anaesthetist at the hospital, said he told Dr Azeez to intubate Mrs Cappuccini - passing a breathing tube directly into her windpipe - after speaking to him on the phone but found he had not done it when he arrived in the operating theatre ten minutes later at around 1.30pm. Dr Chung, who said he was the hospital's "man in blue" on alert to deal with serious cases said Dr Azeez then seemed to fail in an attempt at intubation, forcing the senior man to take over. He said Dr Azeez may have passed the tube into her oesophagus instead, saying: "He placed the tube into her (throat) but the oxygen measurement failed to improve. I took the decision to remove it and put it back in myself." Prosecutor John Price QC asked why it had not worked and Dr Chung said: "It may have been in the oesophagus which is the other potential route a tracheotomy tube can go down. I had already noticed that her stomach was already distended with what was probably gas." He said that when he re-intubated Mrs Cappuccini her oxygen level improved and they used a "naso-gastric tube" to expel the air from her stomach. The court has previously heard second-time mother Mrs Cappuccini had her son at around 8.40am but lost 2.3 litres of blood (around four pints) and was taken into theatre. The jury has been told heard that the tube helping Mrs Cappuccini to breathe after the operation had been removed by 12.30pm but, despite apparent difficulties with her breathing after that point, there were delays in re-intubating her. She died at around 3.15pm. A second consultant anaesthetist, Dr Garth Sommerville, told the jury on Friday he arrived to see Dr Azeez "bagging" her using a face mask and hand pump while Cornish was sitting by her side. Dr Sommerville said he spoke to them from the door and advised Azeez to instead use an laryngeal mask, a more invasive procedure which involves a device placed in the throat. He then went to change his clothes to enter, which took two or three minutes. Mr Price asked: "What you advised was done, had it been done by the time you got back?" Dr Sommerville said: "No." Mr Price asked: "What was being done as far as assisting with ventilation when you first returned from changing?" The doctor answered: "I think similar (to before). I remember just coming in and ... I took over bagging." He said that after taking over the laryngeal mask was inserted and after he shortly handed over to Dr Chung, who arrived at around the same time as him. He left the theatre at 2.15pm. He added that his diagnosis at the time was that Mrs Cappuccini was still "partially paralysed" from general anaesthetic. However, he said he could not remember if Cornish had still been present when he returned from changing. Cornish, of Holmbury Park in Bromley, south-east London, has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter by gross negligence. Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, which runs Tunbridge Wells hospital, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of corporate manslaughter. The prosecution alleges that if one or both doctors are found to be grossly negligent, causing the death of Mrs Cappuccini on October 9 2012, the trust can be said to have employed someone they knew or should have known was not suitably qualified or trained for their role. It is the first time an NHS trust has been charged with the offence since its introduction in 2008. The trial continues. Jeremy Hunt said hospitals must balance their books in order to access cash from the transformation fund Struggling NHS trusts face tighter controls and closer scrutiny if they are to gain access to a Government pot of cash, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said. The Government has already announced a 1.8 billion transformation fund to help trusts out of their financial black hole. But in a new "something for something" deal, trusts will have to demonstrate they can retain financial control for the rest of the year and are making good progress towards finding savings. In November, trusts across England announced a 1.6 billion deficit in the first six months of the financial year - the worst on record. Based on current performance, trusts are predicting they will end the financial year 2.2 billion in debt, with 156 out of 239 of them recording deficits. They have also been tasked with finding billions in "efficiency savings" as part of a wider review. Under the new deal, Mr Hunt says hospitals must meet existing financial targets for the remainder of this financial year and must balance their books in 2016/17 in order to access cash from the transformation fund. Furthermore, the cap on spending on expensive agency staff will be lowered even further, with a ban on agencies that refuse to supply workers at the shift rate cap. At the moment this only applies to nurses. Hospitals will also be told there is "no choice" between delivering high quality care and having a good grip of finances. Poorly performing hospitals will face closer scrutiny and intervention from regulators. Mr Hunt said: "We believe in the values of the NHS and are committed to its future - which is why we are investing 10 billion to fund the NHS's own plan. "But patients and taxpayers rightly expect a return on this investment, so hospitals must improve their financial performance and balance their books in order to unlock this funding. "Our best hospitals are simultaneously showing tight financial grip, reducing waste and living within their means. We need trusts to raise their sights - failure to do this is not an option." On agency staffing, Mr Hunt said the new controls would "help hospitals clamp down further on rip off staffing agencies and make our hospitals safer". He said "reliance on constantly changing agency staff who are unfamiliar with wards and their patients is unsafe". As part of the plan, trusts must deliver efficiency savings as set out by Lord Patrick Carter, who has been advising Mr Hunt on how hospital budgets can be better spent. In June he said up to 5 billion a year could be saved every year by 2020. From April, NHS trusts will be forced to publish their receipts on a monthly basis for the top 100 items they buy such as bandages, needles and rubber gloves. This will allow hospitals to compare costs and volumes with other trusts and drive down variation. The Government says this could save hospitals 1 billion a year by 2020/21. The judges said a copy of their written ruling should be sent to every chief constable Police investigations into jury-nobbling allegations must be conducted with the "highest priority and urgency", leading judges have stressed. Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas and two other Court of Appeal judges in London sent out the message to all forces in England and Wales as they criticised the "unacceptably low standard" of an investigation carried out by Merseyside police into a jury-tampering claim made during a rape trial. The judges directed that a copy of their written ruling - which sets out the duties of police when such allegations are made - should be sent to every chief constable. Lord Thomas said on Friday that "as jury-nobbling/tampering undermines trial by jury", Parliament had given trial judges the express power to order the continuation of a case without a jury. He added: "It is, in our view, implicit in those powers that it is the legal duty of the police to provide all the assistance a judge reasonably requires for the exercise of those powers. "When, therefore, a judge hearing a trial requires the police to investigate an allegation of jury tampering in that trial, the investigation must be conducted under the close supervision of a senior officer of police who must personally provide regular reports to the judge as the investigation progresses." He emphasised: "Moreover, it is essential that the investigation be conducted with the highest priority and urgency as the judge has to make a decision on whether to continue the trial with or without the jury as soon as is reasonably practicable, that is to say within a few days." Lord Thomas, Sir Brian Leveson and Mr Justice Openshaw made their general observations on the duties of police in a ruling explaining their reasons for rejecting argument that a trial judge in Liverpool "wrongly concluded" there had been jury tampering in a case involving an allegation of rape, and had "therefore wrongly exercised his powers... to order the continuation of the trial without a jury". Dismissing a challenge brought by the defendant, the appeal court ruled that the judge "had been correct in his decision", and that it was "entirely fair and in the interests of justice to continue the trial without a jury". Lord Thomas said the judge was also "plainly right to proceed on the basis that it did not have to be shown that a defendant had to instigate jury tampering". The legislation "only requires proof of jury tampering; it does not require proof of tampering by the defendant". Lord Thomas said the objective of the legislation was to prevent the tampering - "it matters not that the defendant is not involved or not proved to be involved". He ruled: " There was no reason for the judge to wait for the conclusion of the police inquiry. It added nothing material because, as is evident from the matters we have set out, the inquiry was of an unacceptably low standard." He pointed out: "The Merseyside Constabulary should never have entrusted such a serious matter to such junior policemen, particularly given the well-known problems in relation to attempts to interfere with juries in Liverpool." The Duchess of Cambridge has campaigned against the stigma surrounding childhood mental illness The Duchess of Cambridge is used to topping the news agenda, but now she is to help set it by spending a day as a guest editor. Kate will join the editorial staff at Huffington Post UK next month to help raise awareness of children's mental health. She has campaigned against the stigma surrounding childhood mental illness, and is a patron of several related charities. During her time at the publication, she will arrange contributions from a selection of leading figures in the area, Kensington Palace confirmed. The Duchess will also hope to bring recognition to the work done by parents, teachers, researchers and mental health professionals across the UK. A Kensington Palace spokesman said: "The Duchess of Cambridge has made the mental health of young children a key focus of her work in recent years. "She is delighted that The Huffington Post will help put a spotlight on this important issue." Last year, Kate visited charities helping vulnerable children, and publicly spoke about the cause on several occasions. In a message recorded for Children's Mental Health Week 2015, she called for greater support for young people struggling to cope with problems such as anxiety or depression. "The stigma around mental health means that they do not get the help they so badly need - this needs to change," she said. Huffington Post UK editor-in-chief Stephen Hull said they were "thrilled" at the prospect of welcoming Kate in mid-February. "We are thrilled that the Duchess of Cambridge is joining the HuffPost UK team for a day as a guest editor," he said. "Dealing with mental health issues has been a major editorial focus for us and I'm very excited to be working together on such an important project." 520,445 children aged between five and 11 are being taught in classes of at least 31 pupils, Labour said More than half a million primary school children are now being taught in "super-size" classes, Labour has warned. Thousands more youngsters are in classes of more than 30 pupils, the party said, while the number of so-called "titan" schools has soared in the last five years. The figures come on the deadline day for parents to submit applications for children starting primary school in September. Shadow education secretary Lucy Powell blamed the hike in class sizes on the Government's flagship free school programme, arguing that the initiative has made it harder to ensure there are enough school places around the country. Free schools are semi-independent state schools that are not under local council control. But a Conservative Party spokesman said that 500,000 more school places have been created and accused the last Labour government of cutting funding by 150 million, scrapping almost 200,000 places. Labour said that its analysis of official Government figures shows that: "Over half a million children are now in super-size classes in primary schools, as class sizes continue to rise." Overall, 520,445 children aged between five and 11 are being taught in classes of at least 31 pupils, the party said. Of these, 38,560 are in classes of 36 or more children and 14,824 are in classes with at least 40 youngsters. In 2014, there were around 500,514 children in classes of more than 30 pupils, Labour said, meaning that the numbers have gone up by 19,931 in the space of 12 months. Labour added: "There are also over five times as many 'titan' primary schools - those with over 800 pupils - than there were in 2010." These numbers have risen from 16 in January 2010 to 87 in 2015, the party calculated. Over the same period, the numbers of infants (five to seven-year-olds) in classes of 31 or more has risen by 224%, from 31,265 to 101,270. A limit on infant school class sizes was introduced by Labour in the late 1990s, stating that no more than 30 youngsters should be in a class. But under the rules, there are certain circumstances in which schools can legally waive the limit, and these have been extended in recent years, for example to allow classes to be made larger to take in twins, or the children of those serving in the armed forces. Ms Powell said: "The Government's obsession with free schools, at the expense of opening other types of school, has made it harder and harder to ensure there are enough school places everywhere. "This approach is clearly not working for parents up and down the country, with the result that come national offer day, some families applying today will go straight on to a waiting list with no offer of any school place and soaring numbers of children will continue to be crammed into ever-expanding classes, as the only option left for many schools in many areas. "The current system for planning new places is essentially broken. "It is now time for the Tories to abandon their unjustified fixation with free schools, which are evidently not addressing the growing pressure on school places nor driving up standards, and once and for all, put the urgent need for sufficient good school places in every local area first." A Conservative spokesman said: "At the same time as pupil numbers were booming, the last Labour government cut funding for school places by 150 million, scrapping almost 200,000 places. "So rather than trying to scare parents with misleading statistics, they should be backing the measures we've taken to clear up the mess they left behind "Under the Conservatives, funding for basic need has been doubled, creating 500,000 more school places. "On top of that, because of the difficult decisions we've taken elsewhere, we'll be able to invest 23 billion in school buildings over the course of this Parliament, creating hundreds of new schools." The Local Government Association (LGA) today warned that it must be given the powers to open new schools or force academies to expand in order to meet the demand for school places. Councillor Roy Perry, chairman of the LGA's children and young people board, said: "Councils have a statutory duty to ensure every child has a school place available to them but find themselves in the difficult position of not being able to ensure schools, including academies, expand. "Finding suitable sponsors with the capacity to take on the running of a successful new school is also proving a challenge." Labour's figures also indicate that the South East has the highest number of pupils in primary classes of 31 or more at 89,116 youngsters, while the North East has the lowest at 18,122. Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "The need for more school places has been known over many years. " A key duty of government is to ensure there are sufficient school places and enough qualified teachers. The Government has failed on both, thereby letting down children and parents. "This situation could have been avoided by allowing councils to build schools in areas where additional school places are needed. "The Government has poured money and resources into the wasteful and indulgent free schools programme, many opening in areas where there is no need, and many providing only a small number of places at vast cost. "The Government must produce sufficient funding and powers for local authorities to open more schools as a matter of urgency." The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) said the current system risked harming children's education and "over-stretching capacity" could see teaching standards suffer. NAHT general secretary Russell Hobby told the BBC: "Since 2011, the powers of local authorities in planning school places have been significantly reduced without an alternative system to take their place. "There is a desperate need for long-term planning that spans all sectors ... we cannot afford inefficiency and conflict." Lord Bramall is a former Chief of the Defence Staff Lord Bramall has described the past year since being interviewed by police in connection with historic child sex abuse as "really awful". The UK's former highest-ranking soldier was informed on Friday that he faces no further action as part of the Metropolitan Police's Operation Midland. The 92-year-old peer, a Normandy veteran, was interviewed under caution last April at a police station close to his home near Farnham, Surrey. The pensioner, who was not arrested, had always categorically denied the allegations. He told the Times newspaper it had been an "awful" experience. He said: "I think it's a terrible thing for someone of my age, with an impeccable record of public service ... Only now, very grudgingly, do they (the police) say they don't propose to take any action. "To have these awful, entirely untrue allegations hanging over one's head, without the police saying there is not a grain of truth in them, is really awful." Lord Bramall, as Field Marshal Edwin Bramall, was head of the British Army during the Falklands War before being promoted to the top military post. Operation Midland is part of a wider umbrella of investigations by Scotland Yard, dubbed Operation Fairbank, into allegations of abuse involving senior politicians and high-profile figures The Met released a statement saying: "Officers working on Operation Midland have today, Friday 15 January informed a man in his 90's from Farnham who was interviewed under caution on 30 April, 2015 that he will face no further action. "Following a thorough investigation officers have concluded there is insufficient evidence to request the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to consider charging the man with any offences." Islamic extremist rebels have attacked a base for African Union troops in south-western Somalia, with dozens of Kenyan soldiers reported to be killed. The al-Shabab militant group said at least 63 soldiers were killed, and Kenya's president Uhuru Kenyatta described the loss as heartbreaking. A Kenyan military statement said the Kenyans helped Somali forces counter-attack. The attack happened in the town of El-Ade, not far from the Kenyan border. Kenya has provided a major contingent to the AU force which is fighting al-Shabab and assisting the elected government of Somalia. Al-Shabab spokesman Abdiaziz Abu Mudan said on the group's online radio that at least 63 soldiers were killed in the attack. Ahmed Hassan, speaking from the nearby town of Elwak, said the attack started with a suicide car bomb, and then heavy gunfire as militants stormed into the base. Despite being pushed out of Somalia's major cities and towns, al-Shabab continues to launch deadly attacks across the Horn of Africa country. The group, which has ties with al Qaida, has also carried out many deadly attacks inside Kenya. Burkina Faso has endured bouts of political turmoil since 2014 when veteran President Blaise Compaore was overthrown in a popular protest. Gunfire has erupted near a luxury hotel in the centre of Burkina Faso's capital city and explosions can be heard, witnesses have said. The gunmen have taken an unknown number of hostages after attacking Hotel Splendide and cin downtown Ouagadougou late on Friday, a senior official with the national gendarmes said. "It is continuing at this time. We are trying to know how many attackers they are to better coordinate our actions. Hostages have been taken. The operation could take several hours," the officer said, asking not to be named. The gunmen stormed the four-story hotel, firing in the air to drive back crowds before security forces arrived. An intense exchange of gunfire between the gunmen and police followed, according to a Reuters witness. Several cars were ablaze outside the hotel, an Associated Press reporter near the scene on Friday said. A video purportedly of the Hotel Splendide on fire, appears to show flaming cars in the streets. Reports over Twitter suggest a cafe-restaurant opposite the hotel, which is popular with westerners, has also been targeted. The French embassy in Burkina Faso have called the incident a "terrorist attack" and have called on people in the area to "go home". Gilles Thibault, the French Ambassador to Burkina Faso, repeated the assertion on Twitter. The U.S. Embassy in Ouagadougou tweeted: "We are closely following the situation downtown." The hotel is sometimes used by French troops with Operation Barkhane, a force based in Chad and set up to combat Islamist militants across Africa's vast, arid Sahel region. It is not immediately clear who is behind the attack, though jihadists have attacked hotels before in neighbouring Mali, including an attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in November killing 20 people. Two militants killed 20 people from nations including Russia, China and the United States at the luxury hotel in Mali's capital on 20 November, before being killed by the security forces. Burkina Faso has endured bouts of political turmoil since 2014 when veteran President Blaise Compaore was overthrown in a popular protest. Billionaire businessman Donald Trump has raised more questions about Ted Cruz's eligibility to serve as US president, telling his rival that his birth in Canada leaves "a big question mark on your head". Thursday's Republican Party debate - the first of the year - came less than three weeks before the Iowa caucuses kick off this year's voting. Mr Trump has led the Republican field for months, confounding Republican leaders and many of his rivals. "You can't do that to the party," he told the Texas senator. But Mr Cruz forcefully defended his ability to serve as president. He suggested Mr Trump was only turning on him because he is challenging Mr Trump's lead, particularly in Iowa, which kicks off voting on February 1. "The Constitution hasn't changed - but the poll numbers have," Mr Cruz said. The senator was born in Canada, but his mother is American, which legal scholars agree fits with the Constitution's provision that only a "natural born citizen" may be president. The heated exchanges signalled an end to months of relative civility between Mr Trump and Mr Cruz, both of whom are appealing to Republican voters deeply frustrated with Democrats in Washington and sometimes with their own party leaders. Mr Cruz renewed his criticism of Mr Trump's "New York values," a coded questioning of Mr Trump's conservatism that elicited an unexpectedly emotional response from the real estate mogul about the city's response to the September 11 2001 attacks. "No place on earth could have handled that more beautifully, more humanely than New York," Mr Trump said. "That was a very insulting statement that Ted made." Mr Cruz also defended his failure to disclose loans of some 1 million dollars from Wall Street banks on federal election forms during his 2012 Senate campaign, saying it was little more than a "paperwork error". Underscoring the split in the party that has defined the turbulent Republican primary, the more mainstream candidates on stage fought to edge their way into the debate. On the economy and national security, the candidates offered a sharp contrast to the optimistic portrait of the nation President Barack Obama outlined in his State of the Union address earlier this week, warning that sticking with Democrats in the November election could have dire consequences. "On Tuesday night, I watched story time with Barack Obama, and it sounds like everything in the world was going amazing," New Jersey governor Chris Christie said. On national security, former Florida governor Jeb Bush suggested the country was less safe under Mr Obama and declared Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, would be a "national security disaster". Florida senator Marco Rubio went even further, saying Mrs Clinton was "disqualified for being commander in chief," accusing her of mishandling classified information and lying to the families of Americans killed in the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya. Mr Rubio likened Mr Christie's policies to Mr Obama's, particularly on guns and education reform - an attack Mr Christie declared false. Seeking to undermine Mr Rubio's qualifications for president, Mr Christie suggested that senators "talk and talk and talk" while governors such as himself are "held accountable for everything you do". Mr Trump stuck with his controversial call for temporarily banning Muslims from the United States because of fear of terrorism emanating from abroad. He said he had no regrets about the proposal and noted that his poll numbers rose after he announced the plan. Republicans have one more debate scheduled before voting begins in Iowa. Falah Mustafa Bakir has warned that without financial help from the US or its allies, the Peshmerga's fight against IS will be weakened (AP) Iraqi Kurds, who field one of the most effective ground forces fighting Islamic State (IS) militants, are urgently asking America to help ease their budget crisis made worse by slumping oil prices and 1.8 million people who have fled fighting in Iraq and Syria. Representatives from the Kurds' semi-autonomous region of northern Iraq said without help from the US or its allies the Kurds' fighting force, known as the peshmerga, would be hampered in their fight against IS. "Sustaining this costly war against Isis, caring for 1.8 million refugees and displaced persons with the current drop in oil prices are not things that we can sustain," Falah Mustafa Bakir, who heads the Kurdistan Regional Government's foreign relations department, said. He said the peshmerga had not been paid since August. Mr Bakir, Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the Kurdistan Regional Government's representative to the United States, and others are meeting US officials at the White House, Pentagon, state department and Congress. Mr Bakir said he was asking the Pentagon to help cover the expenses of Kurdish fighters, who with the backing of US-led air strikes have retaken significant territory from IS in northern Iraq. It costs about two billion dollars (1.4bn) a year to pay their essential expenses and salaries, he said. The Kurds, who have their own government in Iraq's semi-autonomous north, hope the state department or United States Agency for International Development (USAID) could offer Kurdistan money to provide assistance to the refugees and Iraqis displaced by the war, which the World Bank has estimated to cost 1.4 billion dollars (972m). "Nobody has said yes, but they are sympathetic," Mr Bakir said. "They are taking this issue seriously, trying to see how and what kind of help they will be able to offer." Colonel Steven Warren, chief spokesman for the US military in Baghdad, said that the US-led coalition allocated more than 2.3 billion dollars (1.6bn) to Iraq to train and equip more than 16,000 Iraqi security forces and provide equipment to the peshmerga. In a visit to Kurdistan last month , US defence secretary Ash Carter said the next major shipment to the Kurds, planned for late February and early March, will include two brigades' worth of equipment to help recapture the Iraqi city of Mosul from IS. "Our equipment is going to make that possible," he said. Denise Natali, an expert on Iraq at the National Defence University, said the Kurds needed to be applauded for fighting IS and caring for hundreds of thousands of refugees, but internal reforms were needed because fiscal mismanagement, corruption and government bureaucracy were also at the root of some of Kurdistan's financial woes. "Some of this is their own doing," she said, adding that some financial problems predate the fight against IS. "They made billions of dollars. Where did all the money go?" In December 2014, the Iraqi government reached a deal with the Kurds to exchange oil from the autonomous region for a nearly-20% share of the national budget. The agreement stipulated that the Kurdish government would release 550,000 barrels of oil every day to the Iraqi oil ministry. In exchange, the Kurds were to receive the 17% share of the national budget allocated to their region, plus instalments of as much as one billion dollars to boost the capabilities of peshmerga fighters battling IS. Mr Bakir said that earlier in 2014, Baghdad cut the stake earmarked for the Kurdish region. The Iraqi government said it reduced the money after the Kurds began transporting oil from fields inside the autonomous zone directly to Turkey. The prison population at Guantanamo Bay has fallen below 100 for the first time since America's detention centre for terror suspects opened in 2002. Ten prisoners from Yemen have been released and sent to Oman for resettlement, officials said, portraying it as a significant milestone in the long-stalled effort to shut the base in Cuba. The release, among the largest on a single day under President Barack Obama, leaves 93 prisoners at the jail which holds men suspected of links to al Qaida and the Taliban. Lee Wolosky, the US state department's special envoy for Guantanamo closure, said the America expected to transfer the remaining prisoners who are cleared to leave, about a third of the total, by the summer. Guantanamo held nearly 680 prisoners at its peak in 2003 and about 245 when Mr Obama took office, pledging to close it as a symbol of over-reach in the war against terrorism and a needless propaganda symbol for enemies of the United States. Defence secretary Ash Carter announced the release of the Yemenis at a change-of-command ceremony in Miami, Florida at US Southern Command, which oversees Guantanamo. He said the administration would submit a plan to Congress, where many want to keep the prison open, to move those who cannot be freed to a jail within the United States. "Not everyone in Gitmo can be safely transferred to another country, so we need an alternative," Mr Carter said, using a common abbreviated name for the base on the south-eastern edge of Cuba. Marine general John Kelly, who turned over the leadership of Southern Command to Vice Admiral Kurt Tidd on Thursday, said before the event that the military would still need a place to hold captured detainees indefinitely, but conceded that as the population dwindled "Guantanamo will probably close sooner rather than later". The 10 men who left Guantanamo on Tuesday were among several dozen from Yemen who could not be sent back to their homeland, which is embroiled in a civil war. All were deemed low-level enemy combatants and cleared for transfer since at least 2010. The prisoners included one who was 17 when captured and another who the government admitted had only briefly served as a Taliban medic. None was ever charged. David Remes, a lawyer for three of the men, said two, Mukhtar al Warafi and Saeed Hatim, got down on their knees and prayed in December when they learned they would be released. The third, Fahmi Ahmed, at first was not sure whether to believe it and wanted proof when he got word this week. "The men learned to lower their expectations and indeed to have no expectations so that everything good is a surprise," Mr Remes said. "But this was a joyful surprise." But Senator Kelly Ayotte, a prominent advocate for keeping the detention centre open, criticised the decision to transfer the men to Oman, which borders their homeland along the Arabian Sea. Congress has banned the transfer of any Guantanamo detainees to Yemen, as well as to the United States, a law the White House is seeking to change. "Any Obama administration decision to transfer a large number of Yemeni detainees from Guantanamo to Oman would represent a thinly-veiled attempt to undercut the will of Congress and would further endanger the American people," Ms Ayotte said. House of Representatives speaker Paul Ryan noted that the most recent defence bill signed by Mr Obama prohibits the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to American soil, adding: "And that's not going to change any time soon." Mr Carter said the decision to resettle the men in Oman was made only after a thorough security review and Ian Moss, Mr Wolosky's chief of staff, said it would be wrong to continue holding men just because of their Yemeni nationality. "If we as a government have determined that an individual can and should be transferred from Guantanamo responsibly and we've identified an appropriate resettlement location, like Oman, then we will transfer them," he said. Oman, which has cultivated closer ties to the US, has taken 20 foreign prisoners for resettlement, including 10 last year. An attack by suicide bombers in the heart of Indonesia's capital was funded by the Islamic State group, police said, as they seized an IS flag from the home of one of the attackers and carried out raids across the country. National police chief General Badrodin Haiti said Thursday's attack was funded by IS through Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian who spent a year in jail for illegal possession of weapons in 2011, and is now in Syria fighting for the group. Supporters of IS also circulated a claim of responsibility for the attack on Twitter. The radical group controls territory in Syria and Iraq, and its ambition to create an Islamic caliphate has attracted 30,000 foreign fighters from around the world, including a few hundred Indonesians and Malaysians. The IS link, if proved, poses a challenge to Indonesian security forces. Until now, the group was known only to have sympathisers with no active cells capable of planning and carrying out a plot such as that in which five men attacked a Starbucks cafe and a traffic police booth in Jakarta with handmade bombs, guns and suicide belts. They killed two people, a Canadian and an Indonesian, and injured 20 in the first major attack in Indonesia since 2009. The militants were killed, either by their suicide vests or by police. The attack "was funded by Isis in Syria through Bahrun Naim", Gen Haiti told reporters after Friday prayers. He also identified one of the five attackers as Sunakim, who in 2010 was sentenced to seven years in jail for his involvement in military-style training in Aceh, but was released early. Police conducted raids across Indonesia but was it unclear whether those arrested were suspected of links to the bombing or if officers were rounding up militants as part of a broader crackdown. They also outlined a partial reconstruction of events based on security camera video, part of which showed a Starbucks customer escaping from the grip of a bomber before he detonated his suicide bomb. Police did not identify the customer but said he or she suffered minor injuries. National police spokesman Major General Anton Charliyan said an IS flag was found in the home of one of the attackers and raids were conducted in Java, Kalimantan and Sulawesi, with four arrests made. Maj Gen Charliyan said three men arrested at dawn in their homes in Depok on the outskirts of Jakarta are no longer suspected of being linked to the attack. Gen Haiti said a suspected militant was killed in a gun battle in central Sulawesi, the hiding place of Indonesia's most wanted Islamic radical, Abu Wardah Santoso, who leads the East Indonesia Mujahidin network that has pledged allegiance to IS. He said the man was not linked to Thursday's attack. In recent years, Indonesian counter-terrorism forces have stamped out the extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah which was responsible for several attacks, including the 2002 bombings of bars in Bali which killed 202 people, as well as two hotel bombings in Jakarta in 2009 that killed seven people. Terrorism experts say IS supporters in Indonesia are drawn from the remnants of Jemaah Islamiyah and other groups. Standing in the 105-degree heat of the Arizona desert, Evan Markel could feel his socks thoroughly drenched in sweat. He spent several hours there last summer, and it was long enough for him to gain a sense of the treacherous conditions people encounter as they cross the Mexico-U.S. border without permission. Sometimes, they forge the rugged landscape with aching feet rubbed raw by worn, wet socks. An extra pair of socks is often the last thing they think to bring, Markel said. The trip inspired the 18-year-old to organize a sock drive through the Bismarck-Mandan Unitarian Universalist Church. The effort, which runs through February, has brought in 1,000 pairs so far. The socks will go to No Mas Muerte, a ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson that in English translates to No More Deaths. The organization puts them in care packages to be placed throughout the desert. This is not invested in politics, said Wayde Schafer, one of the organizers of the sock drive. These are people that have a need, and that is what we are addressing. Local UU youth spearheading the project are reaching out to the community for help. Markel, for one, gave a presentation to the Mandan High School Spanish club. A Simle Middle School student organized a campaign at high school. Other youth at Bismarck High School and Century High School plan to launch a competition to see who can bring in the most socks. They also have posted flyers at Dans Supermarkets and the library to solicit more donations. They seek socks for people of all ages, particularly ones for women and children. To donate, drop socks off in the bin outside the front entrance of the church at 818 E. Divide Ave. A woman who died this week in Sierra Leone tested positive for Ebola, officials said, in a setback for the region the day after the World Health Organisation had declared the epidemic over. The WHO had warned on Thursday that new Ebola cases were possible even after virus transmission was halted in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea - the three west African nations hardest hit by the epidemic that left more than 11,300 people dead. Already 10 other flare-ups have taken place in areas where virus transmission was thought to have ended, raising new questions about WHO procedures in assessing whether an epidemic is over. The global health body said Sierra Leone's government was moving rapidly to contain the new threat, but it was not immediately clear how the 22-year-old woman who died contracted Ebola. All known transmission chains in that country had been halted in November. Francis Langoba Kellie, a spokesman for Sierra Leone's Office of National Security, said the woman had come from the country's Northern Kambia district and had gone to the Northern Tonkolili district for medical care. Authorities are tracing her contacts and have dispatched teams to the area to investigate how she might have contracted the virus and if she might have infected others. Certain areas will be quarantined, he said. The WHO declared the latest Ebola outbreak over in Liberia on Thursday after no new cases emerged there during a 42-day waiting period. That benchmark had already been met in Guinea and Sierra Leone. "Our level of preparedness and response capabilities are very high and there is no cause for concern," said Mr Kellie. "We encourage the public to continue to practise the hygiene regulations which were in force during the period while Ebola was raging and the emergency regulations are still in force." WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said: "This really reflects what we have been saying yesterday ... that there is a risk, and this outbreak is in a critical phase right now, where we are moving from case management to management of risk." Ebola is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of people who are sick or the bodies of the dead. The WHO says flare-up cases, such as in Liberia, "are likely the result of the virus persisting in survivors even after recovery". Of particular concern is that Ebola can stay in the semen of some male survivors up to a year later. The organisation said Ebola can "in rare instances, be transmitted to intimate partners". The WHO declares Ebola transmission over when a country goes through two incubation periods - 21 days each - without a new case emerging. Countries are then placed on a 90-day heightened surveillance. Sierra Leone was first declared Ebola-free on November 7, after nearly 4,000 people had died from the virus. US defence secretary Ash Carter has said it appears a navigational error caused the crews of two navy boats to stray into Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf, where they were detained overnight. "They did not report this navigational error at the time. It may be that they were trying to sort it out at the time they encountered Iranian boats. We don't know that fully yet," he said. Mr Carter later flew to Tampa, Florida, to meet leaders of US Central Command, which oversees the US military in the Middle East, but at a news conference at Central Command headquarters, he declined to discuss the circumstances in more detail, saying it would be prudent to first finish debriefing all 10 returned sailors. Asked his view of the video released by Iranian media showing the Americans kneeling aboard their boats with their hands on the heads, Mr Carter said, "Obviously I don't like to see our people being detained by a foreign military." He said this was the scene as depicted by Iranian media and he wanted to hear from the US crews before commenting further. "We need to give these guys the opportunity to tell us what was really going on," he said. Less than a day after being detained on Iran's Farsi Island in the Gulf, the 10 US sailors were back with their American fleet. The navy said they were undergoing what the military calls "reintegration", a series of interviews and physical and mental health examinations to ease their return to duty. A navy investigation will folllow. The navy has given no indication that the 10 were injured or mistreated or that the weapons or equipment aboard the boats were tampered with while in Iranian custody. Head of Central Command, General Lloyd Austin, said: "For the most part the gear that we deployed with was largely there when we got the boats back. Whether or not there are singular pieces of equipment missing, we'll determine that once we've completed the inventory." A complete picture of what happened is unlikely to be available for days, but the central cause for the crews' entering Iranian waters was the navigational slip, which was apparently was caused by human error rather than by an equipment malfunction, defence officials said. The boats, known as riverine command boats, were on their way from Kuwait to Bahrain. The navigational error cited by Mr Carter was compounded by some sort of engine trouble aboard one of the boats, another defence source said. The engine problem did not cause the boats to go off course but apparently prevented them from evading the Iranians once the crews realised they were inside Iran's territorial waters. The navy realised the boats were missing when they failed to appear shipside in the Gulf for refuelling on their way to Bahrain, one official said. GPS devices aboard the boats enabled the navy to determine, after the fact, that they were in Iranian waters, but the navy was not immediately sure whether the crew members were safe or had gone overboard. A search-and-rescue operation was mounted and at least one US ship crossed into Iranian waters to look for the crew after alerting the Iranian navy of their intentions. The Iranians did not interfere, the defence official said. US secretary of state John Kerry used the personal relationship he has formed with Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to work out the crews' release. Mr Kerry credited the quick resolution to the "critical role diplomacy plays in keeping our country secure and strong". Mr Carter said the sailors were not on a covert mission and were simply making their way from Kuwait to Bahrain, both on the western coast of the Gulf. They ended up in Iranian territorial waters at least 50 miles offshore and were detained by the Iranian military at Farsi Island, home to an Iranian naval base. The navy said the families of the 10 crew members were kept informed of developments once it was confirmed that the Iranians were holding them. The medication was in the first phase of testing in Rennes to study safe usage One man is brain dead and three others are facing possible permanent brain damage after volunteering to take part in a botched drug test in western France. The prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into what health minister Marisol Touraine called "an accident of exceptional gravity" at the private Biotrial clinical lab in Rennes. The drug trial, which was testing a new painkiller compound, involved 90 healthy volunteers who were given the experimental drug in varying doses beginning on January 7, she told reporters. Six male volunteers aged between 28 and 49 have since been taken to hospital, including one now classified as brain dead, she said. The chief neuroscientist at Rennes Hospital, Professor Gilles Edan, said in addition to the brain dead volunteer, three others could have "irreversible" brain damage. A fifth man is suffering from neurological problems and a sixth is being kept in the hospital but is in a less critical condition, he said. Prof Edan said there is no known treatment for the experimental drug Biotrial was testing. It was a based on a natural brain compound similar to the active ingredient in marijuana. Ms Touraine said the medication was not based on cannabis, as some media reports claimed. She urged calm, saying that no drug on the market was implicated in the failed trial. She said the drug was produced by the Portuguese pharmaceutical company Bial. All the other volunteers are being contacted, Ms Touraine said. It is rare for volunteers to fall seriously ill when testing new drugs. Researchers generally start with the lowest possible dose for humans after extensive tests in animals. The French ministry statement said those who had fallen ill had taken an oral medication in the first phase of testing, which was studying safe usage, tolerance and other measures on healthy volunteers. Biotrial, with headquarters in Rennes and offices in London and Newark, New Jersey, says it has over 25 years of experience in clinical trials and uses "state-of-the-art facilities". In France, adults volunteering for Biotrial tests can earn between 100 and 4,500 euros (76 to 3,400). In 2006, Britain saw a similar incident when six previously healthy men were treated for organ failure hours after being given an experimental drug targeting the immune system. That prompted a review of procedures and resulted in the UK regulatory agency imposing new testing standards, including recommendations to use the lowest possible dose and to test new drugs in one person at a time. The six men in Britain now apparently have a higher risk of cancer and autoimmune diseases tied to their exposure to the experimental drug. Ben Whalley, a neuropharmacology professor at the University of Reading, said standardised regulations for clinical trials are "largely the same" across Europe. "However, like any safeguard, these minimise risk rather than abolish it," Dr Whalley said. "There is an inherent risk in exposing people to any new compound." After my father passed away from cancer in 2009, I sought out a volunteering opportunity where I could help those who were struggling with cancer. I ended up finding a wonderful ministry here in Charlotte called Hope Cancer Ministries. They do all sorts of things to help cancer patients and their families drive them to appointments, deliver food, even send cards of encouragement. I signed up to send cards. I wasnt sure how much of the face-to-face contact I could handle having just come off of watching my fathers body deteriorate and pass away before my eyes, but I knew I could still do something. So every month, I bought cards of encouragement, personalized them with their name and a bible verse and sent them off in the mail. Never knowing these individuals in person or even hearing their voices. Just seeing their names and addresses on a computer screen. But I knew I was doing something to help them. Even if it was only for a brief moment, I was hopefully bringing a smile to their face or some hope to their heart. Especially for those patients who were struggling with cancer alone and without any family or friends to support them. I even ended up getting a nice, handwritten note back one day from one of the women I sent cards to. She told me how much she looked forward to my envelopes in her mail and how they brightened her day. She has since passed away, but I still have the card she wrote me it makes ME smile. Sure, I would love to be able to wave a magic wand and make cancer go away altogether. Or make it so these people dont have to go through the fear and pain of chemo and radiation. But unfortunately those are things I cannot do. But there is always something that I can do. As I sat here this evening, six years later, still writing cards and sending them off, they have even more meaning having watched my mother go through stage 4 cancer and pass away from it in 2013. As I was filling in the cards and picturing what they might mean to the recipient on the other end, I remembered a story from my mothers experience with cancer My sister had taken my mom to her chemo appointment and since she liked to have something with her to do during the appointment, like her crocheting or a book, she had a tote bag with her. It was patterned with butterflies. Upon checking in, my mom noticed that one of the nurses that was helping them had butterflies all over her nursing shoes. She commented on them and the nurse told her that yes, indeed, she just LOVED butterflies. So after my sister got my mom all settled in the chemo room, my mom asked her if she had a grocery bag in the car. When my sister said yes she did, my mom asked her to go get it so she could move her stuff into it. My sister did as she wished and on the way out, my mom left the butterfly tote bag for the nurse who loved butterflies. As it turns out, the nurse had already left for the day and she didnt end up getting it until after they had left. But a nice, handwritten note from the nurse to my mom arrived at my sisters house the following week she went on and on about how much that meant to her and what a wonderful person my mother was. Unfortunately, the card arrived after my mother had passed away so she never got to read it. But even when she was just days away from death, undergoing chemotherapy, my mother did something to brighten someone elses day. Shouldnt we all strive to do the same? Women hold placards outside a damaged Starbucks coffee shop in Jakarta during a vigil for victims of a terrorist attack, Jan. 15, 2016. Indonesians rallied in Jakarta Friday to reject extremist violence as police launched a nationwide hunt for suspects in a suicide attack in the city the day before. We love peace and condemn terrorism. In fact, we are ready to be at the forefront to fight terrorists, Ferdi Irwandi, secretary general of the Organization of Ahlulbayt for Social Support and Education, an NGO representing Indonesias minority Shiite community, told BenarNews as he took part in a vigil with scores of other people. They gathered near the site of the Starbucks cafe and Sarinah department store where the attack happened on Thursday, leaving seven dead, including two civilians and five suspected militants. The Islamic State (IS) extremist group claimed it was behind the attack, its first terrorist strike in Indonesia. A Canadian and an Indonesian were killed in the attack, which injured 24 others. People from all backgrounds and walks of life took part in Fridays vigil. Many held up red signs that bore the Twitter hashtag #WEARENOTAFRAID. We are sad that there were victims, but we must not be afraid because, if we are afraid, it means the terror was successful, Indonesia Solidarity party Chairperson Isyana Bagoes Oka told BenarNews. On Friday afternoon, President Joko Jokowi Widodo visited the site of the attack in a central Jakarta business district, not far from the Presidential Palace. The most important thing, thank God, is that yesterday, in a very short time three to four hours the situation was brought under control, the Associated Press quoted the president as saying. Arrests Meanwhile, police announced the arrests of 11 people in post-attack operations mounted in Central and West Java Thursday night and Friday. According to police, nine of the 11 in custody are suspected militants, but officials did not give information about the remaining two suspects. Three of the 11 suspects were connected to the suicide attacks, which combined bombings and shootings, police said. According to Inspector General Anton Charliyan, the National Police spokesman, these three suspects were associated with Bahrun Naim, an alleged IS leader based in Syria who is suspected of masterminding the attack in the Indonesian capital. Its clear that the [Jakarta attackers] didnt set this up themselves. For this, we are searching for the networks and who was involved in this action, Reuters quoted Anton as saying. According to National Police chief Badrodin Haiti, Thursdays plot likely involved a broader terrorist network. The planners, financiers, and supporters that provide (explosive) materials, assemble the bombs, facilitate accommodations and vehicles, etc. ... of course this is the work of a team that could be big or small, he said, according to Reuters. This obviously was not conducted by five men, this takes teamwork. All of the activities involving the group that carried out the attack were funded by IS through Bahrun Naim, AP quoted Badrodin as saying Friday. Bahrun is a leader of Katibah Nusantara, an IS unit based in Syria that is exclusively made up of Malay-speaking fighters from Southeast Asia. According to Ansyaad Mbai, the former chief of Indonesias National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT), Indonesian authorities foiled 15 planned terrorist plots, including by arresting at least nine suspects in December who were taking part in an IS-linked plot to carry out a concert of attacks in Indonesia during the Christmas and New Years season. Luckily, police did a good job to disrupt the plan, Ansyaad told BenarNews. But still, yesterdays incident should be a wake-up call for us. Suspect killed Elsewhere on Friday, Indonesian police said they killed a suspected militant in Central Sulawesi province who was believed to be a supporter of IS but he was not part of the Jakarta attack. The province on Sulawesi island is a stronghold for Indonesias most wanted militant, Santoso. His Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT) group has pledged its allegiance to IS. On Jan. 9, Indonesian security forces ended their latest yearly operation to hunt down Santoso. He evaded capture, but the forces caught seven alleged MIT members and killed seven other suspects in shootouts, bringing the number of people left in Santosos band down to 32 members, police in Central Sulawesi told BenarNews last week. Keisyah Aprilia contributed to this report. Three bodies lie on the street near a police post in Jakarta following attacks claimed by the Islamic State, Jan. 14, 2016 Updated at 10:40 a.m. ET on 2016-01-19 A man jockeying for leadership of the Malay-language wing of the Islamic State is the likely mastermind of Thursdays attack in Jakarta, police and analysts say. They are connecting the dots between that individual, Bahrun Naim, and one of the gunmen caught on camera during the hours-long attack near the Sarinah Department Store that left seven dead and 24 injured. Many knew him in prison as a follower of Aman Abdurrahman, and as someone who participated in a weapons training in Aceh, security expert Nasir Abas said of the gunman, during an interview with BenarNews. Aman Abdurrahman is serving a nine-year sentence at Nusakambangan prison in Central Java for his role supporting that training, which took place in 2010. It was there that he formed a close bond with Bahrun Naim, according to Nasir, who believes Bahrun is the leader and funder of the cell that mounted the attack. The Islamic State group (IS) claimed the attack in a statement Thursday, marking the first time that the Middle East-based extremist group has been linked to a terrorist strike in Indonesia, the worlds most populous Muslim nation. Competing for leadership Jakarta police chief Tito Karnavian named IS and Bahrun Naim as the force behind the attack during a press conference at the Presidential Palace. The perpetrator network is linked with ISIS, which is based in Raqqa, Tito said, using another acronym for IS and referring to its stronghold in a Syrian city. Under its leader Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi, IS had expanded its strategy beyond Iraq and Syria. They have opened branches all over the world to carry out operations like those in France, Turkey and Southeast Asia, he said. In Southeast Asia, some figures are competing for leadership. Actions in Indonesia including Sarinah are managed by a figure named Bahrun Naim. Who is Bahrun Naim? Muhammad Bahrun Naim Anggih Tamtomo was arrested by Indonesian police in November 2010, ahead of a visit to Indonesian U.S. President Barack Obama, for possessing illegal ammunition, according to Ansyaad Mbai, the former head of the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT). He was sentenced to 2.5 years in jail. But in June 2012, he was already free, Ansyaad told BenarNews. Bahrun is an IT expert and skilled hacker who can also use hacking to steal money, Ansyaad said. He is thought to have gone to Syria sometime in 2014. I agree with the Jakarta police chief, who said he [Bahrun] wants to be the leader of the ISIS group in Southeast Asia, Ansyaad said. The groom truly has to die Bahrun is associated with Katibah Nusantara Lil Daulah Islamiyah (Malay Archipelago Unit of the Islamic State), which was formed by Indonesian and Malaysian militants fighting for IS in Syria, according to a 2014 report by the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, a Jakarta-based think-tank. The unit could spread the reach of IS in Southeast Asia, and it could also become a fighting force in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, the report warned. Bahrun is known to have been in contact with an IS cell in Bekasi, near Jakarta, and another in Solo, Central Java, where security forces foiled a terror plot in late December, according to Budi Gunawan, deputy chief of the national police. We anticipated the act planned for New Years Eve, and were able to capture them before they could carry it out, Budi said Thursday during a visit to the scene of the attack in Jakarta. Bahruns name also emerged during investigations after police arrested an ethnic Uyghur man in Bekasi in late December. Police believe the man was being groomed as a suicide bomber. Thursdays attack was similar to ones that have taken place overseas, such as the multiple attacks on civilian targets in Paris on Nov. 13 that killed 130, according to Wawan Purwanto, a staff expert at the BNPT. People groomed for suicide bombing are very hard to deter from that goal, he noted. "The groom truly has to die, it is a point of pride, Wawan said, using the Indonesian term for suicide bombers derived from the idea that such martyrs are rewarded with brides in heaven. An earlier version incorrectly identified Bahrun Naim as Bahrum Naim. ein Google-Unternehmen Google-Dienste anzubieten und zu betreiben Ausfalle zu prufen und Manahmen gegen Spam, Betrug und Missbrauch zu ergreifen Daten zu Zielgruppeninteraktionen und Websitestatistiken zu erheben. Mit den gewonnenen Informationen mochten wir verstehen, wie unsere Dienste verwendet werden, und die Qualitat dieser Dienste verbessern. neue Dienste zu entwickeln und zu verbessern Werbung auszuliefern und ihre Wirkung zu messen personalisierte Inhalte anzuzeigen, abhangig von Ihren Einstellungen personalisierte Werbung anzuzeigen, abhangig von Ihren Einstellungen Wenn Sie Alle ablehnen auswahlen, verwenden wir Cookies nicht fur diese zusatzlichen Zwecke. 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Law enforcement apprehended a 16-year-old male suspect Thursday afternoon in connection to a school shooting threat that forced Bismarck State College to go on lockdown for more than four hours. The suspect was driving north on U.S. Highway 83 when North Dakota Highway Patrol took him into into custody at 4:04 p.m., Bismarck Police Sgt. Mark Buschena said at a press conference. Officials have not yet released the suspects name because he has not been charged, though Buschena said he is not a BSC student. The lockdown went into effect at 11:30 a.m. after the FBI got word that a person posted on Twitter that they planned to shoot up a school library, Buschena said. The FBI traced the phone that sent out the tweet to the BSC campus, he said. Dozens of law enforcement officers from local, state and federal agencies swarmed campus buildings searching for suspects. As snowflakes fell and the temperature dropped into the 20s, officers armed with automatic rifles could be seen entering the Library, English and Arts Hall -- one of the newest buildings on campus. Law enforcement also searched every campus facility, releasing students and staff inside as they cleared each building. They did a search of campus going door to door, floor by floor, Buschena said. You can imagine it takes quite a while to clear all these buildings. BSC, meanwhile, kept students and staff informed via text, phone and email alerts. We had received a credible threat from the FBI that a student had threatened to shoot up the library with a machine gun, a picture of which was posted with the threat, read one of the schools messages to students. Officials called a news conference at 4:30 p.m. after many students had left campus in their cars following the all-clear in the buildings where they spent the lockdown. Its a crazy day but its behind us now, BSC President Larry Skogen said as he prepared to talk to reporters. He said he was unaware of any previous threat to campus of this magnitude but BSC administrators, faculty and staff train to know how to respond to such situations. This is the kind of thing that nightmares are made of, he said. We are so glad that our students, employees and guests are safe, and that the situation has been resolved safely. Buschena said no one was injured in connection to Thursdays threat. He was unaware of any weapons found on the suspect or in his vehicle when he was apprehended. During the lockdown, BSC canceled classes for the remainder of the day. Classes are scheduled to resume as normal Friday. When it comes to describing the theology of the Old Testament, not everyone is convinced that there is a single theology represented in these diverse books. Many scholars have, however, tried to find a point of unity for all the books, often by proposing a single unifying theme, such as covenant, or the kingdom of God, or the Messiah, or God himself. These proposals do provide genuine insights, but they are often too oversimplified to do justice to the variety of materials in the Old Testament. It will be more fruitful to understand the Old Testament as a whole in terms of an unfolding story, with a number of basic components: monotheism, creation and fall, election and covenant, covenant membership, and eschatology. This chapter will first explain these components, so that we can summarize the overarching story. Then we will consider briefly how the various parts of the Old Testament relate to this unfolding story, and consider how this provides a link to the New Testament authors stance toward the Old Testament. The goal is to articulate some of the beliefs that will enable careful readers to profit more fully from reading the Old Testament books themselves. The Components of the Story 1. Monotheism. There is only one true God, who made heaven and earth and all mankind. He made a material world that he is happy with, and he made it a fit place for human beings to live, and love, and serve. Every human being needs to know and love this God, whose spotless moral purity, magnificent power and wisdom, steadfast faithfulness, and unceasing love are breathtakingly beautiful. This one God rules over all things, and he will vindicate his own goodness and justice (in his own time). In ruling, God has not limited himself to working within the natural properties of what he has made, for he can go (and has gone) beyond these properties to do mighty deeds both in creation and in caring for his people. The Old Testament invites Israel not simply to acknowledge the existence of this one true God, but to commit themselves to him in exclusive loyalty and love, centering their lives on the inestimable privilege of knowing him (Deuteronomy 6:4-9). The fundamental character of this God is explained in Exodus 34:6-7, which focuses on his steadfast love and mercy (a passage frequently echoed in the rest of the Old Testament). The Old Testament also affirms that God is righteous, that is, morally pure and perfect. Although this righteousness certainly results in Gods work of punishing evildoers and vindicating his own moral character, the term commonly emphasizes Gods reliability in keeping his promises (e.g., Psalms 71:2; Psalms 116:5). The Old Testament does not explicitly describe God as a trinity. Rather, with its references to Gods Spirit (e.g., Genesis 1:2), its use of us/our for God (e.g., Genesis 1:26), and its indications or hints of a divine Messiah (e.g., Psalms 110:5; Isaiah 9:6; see Ezekiel 34:15-23), it lays the groundwork for the fuller declaration of divine triunity that is found in the New Testament (Matthew 28:19; 1 Corinthians 12:4-6; 2 Corinthians 13:14). 2. Creation and fall. The one Creator God made the first human beings, Adam and Eve, with dignity and purpose; their calling was to live faithfully to God and to spread the blessings of Eden throughout the earth. Because Adam and Eve betrayed Gods purpose, all people since the fall are beset with sins and weaknesses that only Gods grace can redeem and heal. 3. Election and covenant. The one true God chose a people for himself and bound himself to them by his covenant (Exodus 19:4-6; Deuteronomy 7:6-11). This covenant expressed Gods intention to save the people, and through them to bring light to the rest of the world, in order to restore all things to their proper functioning in the world God made. The land of Israel was to be a kind of reconstituted Eden, which would flourish as the peoples faithfulness flourished (or languish if the people were unfaithful). Gods covenants generally involve one person who represents the whole people (e.g., Adam, Noah, Abraham, David); the rest of the people experience the covenant by virtue of their inclusion in the community represented. The representative is required to embody the ideal of covenant faithfulness as a model for those on whose behalf he has acted. 4. Covenant membership. In his covenant, God offers his grace to his people: the forgiveness of their sins, the shaping of their lives in this world to reflect his own glory, and a part to play in bringing light to the Gentiles. Each member of Gods people is responsible to lay hold of this grace from the heart: to believe the promises (see Pauls use of Abraham and David as examples of faith in Romans 4; see also Hebrews 11), and then to grow in obeying the commands, and to keep on doing so all their lives long. Those who lay hold in this way are the faithful. These people, as distinct from the unfaithful among them, enjoy the full benefits of Gods love. Each Israelite is a member of a people, a corporate entity; the members have a mutual participation in the life of the people as a whole. Thus the spiritual and moral well-being of the whole affects the well-being of each of the members, and each member contributes to the others by his own spiritual and moral life. Thus each one shares the joys and sorrows of the others, and of the whole. Historical judgments upon the whole people often come because too many of the members are unfaithful; these judgments do not, however, bring the story of Gods people to an end but serve rather to purify and chasten that people (often by removing unbelieving members). It is important for Christian readers to sharpen their grasp of how the Old Testament uses words such as salvation and judgment. When the Old Testament speaks of God redeeming his people (e.g., Exodus 15:13) or saving them (e.g., Exodus 14:30), it refers to Gods gracious dealings for the sake of this corporate entity, the people: he calls it, he protects it, he purifies it, in order to foster the conditions under which the life of its members may flourish. The Old Testament can also speak of God giving salvation or redemption to particular persons (e.g., Psalms 3:2-7; Psalms 19:14). Generally in the Old Testament, however, such expressions refer to members of the people experiencing the benefits of covenant membership, whether that be forgiveness of sins, or deliverance from some trouble or persecution, or something elsetracing everything back to the grace of God that led him to make the covenant originally and now to keep it in effect. When Christians speak of personal salvation, they usually are thinking of individuals in isolation, and so have a much narrower meaning in mind; they should consider whether the New Testament usage is closer to the Old Testament usage than they might have realized hitherto, including both every aspect of their lives and their connections to other believers, and thus extending to a wider range of experience than simply their souls. The law, given through Moses, plays a vital role in the Old Testament. It is uniformly presented as an object of delight and admiration (e.g., Psalms 119), because it is a gift from a loving and gracious God. The law is never presented in the Old Testament as a list of rules that one must obey in order to be right with God; rather, it is Gods fatherly instruction, given to shape the people he has loved and saved into a community of faith, holiness, and love, bound together by mutual support and care. The various laws, with their penalties for infractions and provisions for repayment, were designed to protect that community from the failures of its members, and the moral guidelines gave specific form to what the restored image of God would look like in the agrarian culture of ancient Israel. Right at the heart of this system is worship at the sanctuary, with its provisions for atonement and forgiveness for those who have gone astray. Sadly, only in a very few instances in the Old Testament do we see anything that even remotely matches this ideal, whether on a large scale (Joshua 22 is an excellent example, distinctive for its rarity) or on a small one (e.g., Boaz in the book of Ruth, who embodies the Lords own kindness to a foreign-born proselyte). The prophets anticipated an era, after Judahs return from exile in Babylon, in which Gods people would really take the law into their own hearts (e.g., Ezekiel 36:25-27); the covenant renewal that the postexilic community experienced was, however, only a brief foretaste of that expectation. (Interpreters debate the way in which this relates to the spread of Christianity among the Gentilesis it focused primarily on Israel laying hold of the covenant properly, or does it describe the new arrangement that Jesuss resurrection brought in?but that is outside the scope of this chapter.) 5. Eschatology. The story of Gods people is headed toward a glorious future in which all kinds of people will come to know the Lord and join his people. This was the purpose for which God called Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3), and for which he appointed Israel (Exodus 19:4-6). It is part of the dignity of Gods people that, in Gods mysterious wisdom, their personal faithfulness contributes to the story getting to its goal (see Deuteronomy 4:6-8). The Old Testament develops its idea of a Messiah (eventually clarified as the ultimate heir of David) in the light of these components. The earliest strands of the messianic idea speak of an offspring who will undo the work of the Evil One and bless the Gentiles by bringing them into his kingdom (Genesis 3:15; Genesis 22:17-18; Genesis 24:60); the idea that kings will descend from Abraham (Genesis 17:6-16) and Jacob (Genesis 35:11) becomes focused on the tribe of Judah, to which the obedience of the peoples will be brought (Genesis 49:10). The kings in Davids line carry this idea forward. They are to embody the people: just as the people as a whole is Gods son (Exodus 4:22-23), so also the Davidic king is Gods son (2 Samuel 7:14; Psalms 89:26-27). The promise of a lasting dynasty for David (2 Samuel 7:16) becomes the expectation that a final heir of his line will one day arise, take his Davidic throne (in the last days), and lead his people in the great task of bringing light to the Gentiles (e.g., Psalms 2:8; Psalms 72:8-17 [using Genesis 22:18]; Isaiah 9:6-7; Isaiah 11:1-10; see Isaiah 42:1-9). The Parts of the Old Testament in Relation to the Story The Old Testament is thus the story of the one true Creator God, who called the family of Abraham to be his remedy for the defilement that came into the world through the sin of Adam and Eve. God rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt in fulfillment of this plan, and established them as a theocracy for the sake of displaying his existence and character to the rest of the world. God sent his blessings and curses upon Israel in order to pursue that purpose. God never desisted from that purpose, even in the face of the most grievous unfaithfulness in Israel. This overarching story serves as a grand narrative or worldview story for Israel: each member of the people was to see himself or herself as an heir of this story, with all its glory and shame; as a steward of the story, responsible to pass it on to the next generation; and as a participant, whose faithfulness could play a role, by Gods mysterious wisdom, in the storys progress. Some who have seen this category of Israels story as a key to Old Testament theology have argued for reading the entire Old Testament as a story. This does not help the reader, for the very obvious reason that not everything in the Old Testament is narrative or story. For example, there are laws (in the Pentateuch), whose purpose was to protect equity and civility in the theocracy by guiding judges in what penalties to impose and by specifying the minimum standard of behavior necessary to preserve the theocracy (many of the specific laws do not intend to spell out the moral ideal for the members of Israel, which comes from likeness to God in the creation account and from the goal of community holiness; the perfection of the laws consist in the way they serve the social fabric of Gods people); there is wisdom (in the books of Job 1, Proverbs 1, and Ecclesiastes 1, as well as in the Psalms 1), which helps the members to live well daily; there are songs (esp. the Psalms 1) that the people of God should sing in corporate worship; there are poems (esp. the Song of Solomon 1; see Proverbs 5:15-20) celebrating such wonders as romantic love; and lots more. Therefore it is better to speak of reading the parts of the Old Testament in relation to its overarching story. That is, we can see the parts in relation to the Big Story that unifies the whole. The Proverbs 1 help people to live their little stories in such a way as to contribute to the Big Story. The Psalms 1many of which explicitly recount parts of the Big Storyhelp people live as faithful members of the worshiping corporate entity, the people of God. The Prophets keep recalling the Big Story, the direction in which Israels story is headed, calling their audiences to live faithfully in its light. The Big Story tells us that Gods purpose is to restore our humanity to its proper function, and thus it reminds each person of the human nature he shares with every other human being, and of the duty and benefit of seeking the good of others. For example, enjoying the love of a faithful spouse is a way of experiencing renewed humanitya way that displays Gods goodness to the rest of the world (as in the Song of Solomon 1). All of these factors explain why it is possible for the New Testament authors both to say that the Sinai covenant is done away with (see below), because it was focused on the theocracy, which had an end in mind from the beginning (when the Gentiles would receive the light in large measure)and at the same time to affirm that this covenant has embedded in it principles that cannot pass away, because they are part of the larger story of which the Sinai covenant is one chapter. The Old Testament as Christian Scripture The Old Testament presents itself, then, as a story that is headed somewhere. The Old Testament closes with both anxiety and hope under Persian rule (see Malachi 1). The books of the Second Temple period (between the Old and New Testaments) continue this notion of Israel as Gods people chosen for a purpose, but not all strands of this material make clear what that purpose is. Some of these Second Temple books offer endings for the story (e.g., in the Qumran community as the elect); but the faithful were looking for more. (For more information on the Second Temple period, see ch. 6.) The New Testament authors, most of whom were Jewish Christians, saw themselves as heirs of the Old Testament story, and as authorized to describe its proper completion in the death and resurrection of Jesus and the messianic era that this ushered in. These authors appropriated the Old Testament as Christian Scripture, and they urged their audiences (many of whom were Gentile Christians) to do the same. There is debate over just how the New Testament authors used the Old Testament as Scripture, but the simplest summary of the New Testament authors stance would be to say that they saw the Old Testament as constituting the earlier chapters of the story in which Christians are now participating. This construct, of earlier and later chapters in the story of Gods work for his people, allows us to understand how the Old Testament era and the Christian era will have elements both of continuity and of discontinuity. The Old Testament had looked forward to an internationalized people of God, without explaining exactly how that would connect to the theocracy of Israel (see Psalms 87:4-6). The theocracy defined the people of God as predominantly coming from a particular ethnic group in a particular land; Gentile converts (sojourners) were protected (Exodus 12:49; Exodus 20:10; Exodus 22:21; Leviticus 19:10) but could not be full-status members of the theocratic community (see Deuteronomy 14:21; Deuteronomy 15:3. Numbers 34:14-15 shows that land was allocated to Israelites alone). The New Testament abolishes the distinction (Ephesians 2:19), because the theocracy as such is no longer in existence and many of its provisions are done away with (see Acts 10:34-35; Hebrews 9:11-14). At the same time, the character of the one Creator God, and his interest in restoring the image of God in human beings, transcends the specific arrangements of the theocracy; hence, the moral commands of God apply to Christians as they did to the faithful in Israel (see Romans 13:8-10). Taken from Understanding the Big Picture of the Bible: A Guide to Reading the Bible Well, edited by Wayne Grudem, C. John Collins, Thomas R. Schreiner. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, Il 60187, www.crossway.org. How do I get more out of my Bible reading? What was going on during the gap between the Old and New Testaments? How do all the books of the Bible fit together as a whole? This book answers these questions and puts clear, readable Bible study aids at your fingertips. It contains thirteen essays from some of todays best evangelical scholars, including C. John Collins, Thomas Schreiner, Gordon Wenham, and Darrell Bock. For Immediate Release, January 15, 2016 Contact: Randi Spivak, (310) 779-4894, rspivak@biologicaldiversity.org Obama to Pause New Federal Coal Leases Keep It in the Ground Movement Gains Momentum WASHINGTON The Obama administration today is announcing plans to halt new coal leases on public lands in the United States as it reexamines how the nationwide leasing program for coal is carried out. Coal has been a massive culprit in the climate crisis, so this is big news that the United States may finally be pulling back, said Randi Spivak, public lands director for the Center for Biological Diversity. But it cant end here. We need a permanent ban on new coal leases on public lands and the same for oil and gas. These fossil fuels are dangerous for our climate, and we need to keep them in the ground. The Obama administrations move will provide a temporary reprieve from pollution from coal that comes from federal land. The review of the coal program will include royalties that are paid to the federal government for extracted coal. This is a very big move by President Obama, Spivak said. Stemming the tide of the climate change crisis requires big, bold and courageous steps and that should include ending coal extraction on public land. This ban needs to extend to oil and fracked gas for all federal fossil fuels to speed the transition to renewable energy. A study commissioned by the Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Earth last year found that banning new fossil fuel leases on public lands and oceans would keep up to 450 billion tons of carbon pollution from reaching the atmosphere the pollution equivalent of about 118,000 coal-fired power plants. The analysis showed that the potential carbon pollution from any new federal fossil fuel leases would be incompatible with the United States' ability to meet its global obligations to avert the worst effects of the climate crisis. Every ton of coal, every drop of oil that comes out of our public lands will be burned and worsen climate change setting the stage for more heat waves, freak storms, rising seas and droughts, Spivak said. The Obama administration is moving in the right direction with this coal decision but well need more action and soon. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 990,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places. The Mail is reporting that universities are trying to put themselves beyond the reach of the Freedom of Information Act. Ministers in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills are consulting on whether to remove universities from the law, which obliges public bodies to respond to requests for information about their finances and how they operate. The proposal is in a consultation document on education reform and comes on top of another, hugely controversial, review of the Act ordered by the Cabinet Office. There is no point in having a publicly funded dreaming spire if the public can see that all you are doing is dreaming. Former Republican congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul provided his endorsement to Bismarck Rep. Rick Beckers gubernatorial campaign Friday. The endorsement is the most high-profile of Beckers endorsements so far, which include several conservative legislators. He understands free market economics and has a record of fighting for civil liberties in the North Dakota House," Paul said in a release issued Friday by the Becker campaign. "We absolutely must elect strong, liberty-minded governors who have the courage to stand up to federal overreach and government bureaucrats. Im honored to have the support of one of Americas leading advocates of limited, constitutional government, Becker said in the release. The message of personal and economic freedom, along with the responsibility it requires, is deeply rooted in the values and traditions of North Dakotans. Becker is seeking the partys nomination at its April 1-3 convention in Fargo along with Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem and Fargo businessman Doug Burgum. Paul ran as the Libertarian Party presidential nominee in 1988 and for the GOP nomination in 2008 and 2012. In 2012, he campaigned in North Dakota. Becker, a plastic surgeon, was elected to the Legislature in 2012. I recently read a post on social media about one unfortunate individual who had been treated very unfairly by a business. Full copyright as Brandlove. As a customer experience design practitioner, this just did not make any sense to me at the time, but the more I analysed it, the more I realised, it is quite common for brands to punish "their" customers for being loyal to them. I was really taken by the individual's status update as it was not one of those "see-if-they-will-send-me-a-voucher" customer complains, but rather a heartfelt and desperate cry by a human being who had experienced emotional distress as a result of dealing with a specific brand he has been loyal to for many years. I ask you all to put yourself in the shoes of an average consumer and then carefully consider what transpired during this customer's journey. In short, our customer has been driving a particular brand of expensive imported Japanese 4x4 SUV for more than 15 years. During this period he has purchased and owned various models and was planning on getting the new version in 2016. The way a business treats a customer should, in my opinion, not be related to the amount of money that was spent, but we need to acknowledge the fact that these vehicles trade for more than $35,790.00. Our customer made a booking well in advance with the agents for the vehicle's last service under a 60-month service plan. As the booking was for the 19th of the particular month and the plan, according to the Warranty agreement, would only expire on the 20th of that month, everything seemed in order. When he took in the SUV the agents declined to do the final service, claiming that the computer said the service plan had expired on the 18th already. After escalating the issue, the brand's customer care agent stated that the dealership had entered the wrong date in the book. The long and the short of it was that they still refused to do the service. Then the brand in question indicated that the matter was out of their hands as the warranty was underwritten by a luxury German car manufacturer in South Africa and the final decision to refuse the service lay with them. As our customer's wife owns a vehicle from the German manufacturer, two brands were now instantly involved. To quote from the post: "So Mits... and Mer... lose 2 loyal customers over a service contract date error (NOT MINE) of 1 day (for a service costing R2,500). What a brilliant business decision made by Mits... and Mer...!" I struggled to believe that two global brands so well established in South Africa could make such a terrible mistake. If they punish their loyal customers like this, how do they treat the unconverted ones? An urban myth, some of you may argue... I know I did at first, but then I did some further research and found that brands love "spanking" their loyal customers as part of their legacies, processes and ignorance. Let's count the ways: Airlines By far one of my favourite industries when one considers customer experience "journeys". Frequent-flyer miles or not, examples of punishing the customer abound. Obtaining refunds on booked flights are virtually impossible. You have to pay extra if you want to catch an earlier flight (they have to fly in any case, don't they?) You are punished when your bags are slightly overweight or are not the shape that fits in those ridiculous-looking "pipe thingies". You should be punished for this because everybody has a scale that can weigh the most awkward-shaped luggage, and surely you checked the 3D shape of your baggage before leaving your point of departure? It simply is your mistake when your luggage was not on the same flight as you were, and you should wait as long as possible to get it back. Why do you need your luggage in any case? Surely everybody carries spare underwear and toothbrushes? Call centres (of any kind, take your pick) You must be a loyal customer for this one as most call centres will only take your call if you enter your existing account number. And from the minute you punch in the hash key, you are being punished. How dare you call a brand for the simple reason that they are taking money from you for a service or product! Punish you we will, by: Letting you listen for minutes while a nearly inaudible voice on the IVR orders out options. We will punish you more for not making the correct choice by letting you listen to the menu once again. When you make your selection, we will tell you exactly how much you are going to be punished by telling you how far back you are in the queue. And if you have been really BAD, they will let you listen to some of the worst music ever recorded on the planet! Payment and monthly instalments No matter how loyal a customer you are or have been, most registered financial service providers have no time to enquire why you missed a payment, or how they can perhaps help you rectify the situation. No, they are too busy handing out punishment in the form of third-party debt collectors' letters informing you that they will take away your life as you know it if you do not pay! Subscription services I just love this form of business model. You have some sort of subscription to some sort of service, let's say to Armed Response from a leading international security brand. The more loyal you are and the longer you maintain your subscription, the more you are being punished as it increases by a certain percentage every year. The odd thing, though, is the fact that the base subscription remains low for new customers. I know of a retired couple who have been loyal to a company and after 12 years were paying almost double the subscription for new clients. I told them to give notice of cancellation and sign up again on the first day of the following month. They did just that and their subscription decreased by almost 46%! Makes sense, doesn't it? I suppose the loyal customers have to pay for the free alarm installations of the new ones! I will conclude with a very ironic last example before I start punishing my loyal readers by repetitive babblings. Loyalty programmes You have to love these! 'Let's spank our loyal customers by letting them pay subscriptions to our programme, which we use, to reward them for being so ignorant' (sorry, I mean loyal!) Most loyalty programmes are run by independent administrative companies or units that are their own cost centres. These "businesses" exist purely to make a profit from their members. Sorry, now I am confused as well. A brand starts a loyalty programme so that the loyal customers can pay more money to the brand for being loyal so that the brand can give the loyal customers a product or service on which the brand makes a buck, in order to show the loyal customers just how much the brand appreciate their loyal patronage... What the heck? Even I know a couple of people who don't mind a good "spanking" from time to time! *Note that Bizcommunity staff and management do not necessarily share the views of its contributors - the opinions and statements expressed herein are solely those of the author.* Ugandan journalists who have no university degrees would be banned from covering parliamentary proceedings as from May 2016, a report said on Thursday. According to the Daily Monitor, government issued the directive in its bid to curb what it termed "lazy journalism", after it discovered that many senior journalists had developed close ties with politicians, thus, leading to bias reporting. In a letter to media houses, the east African nation's Parliamentary Commission said they would be accrediting journalist who graduated in journalism, mass communication or a related fields to cover the 10th Parliament, the report said. "...journalists who cover Parliament must meet certain minimum requirements," parts of the letter reportedly stated. The journalists should also have a minimum of three years experience before being admitted to cover parliamentary proceedings. According to the report, this would help encourage fairness, accuracy and balanced news. A report by to the Observer indicated that the the Parliamentary Commission had already called on media houses to submit names of journalists, accompanied by relevant support documents, for accreditation to cover the 10th Parliament. Reports indicate that the Ugandan government's intimidation of journalists and activists in the country is having a "chilling effect" on free speech ahead of elections next month. Source: News 24 via News24Wire One of the first classes of the semester for Bismarck State College student Allee Vetter ended abruptly Thursday amid the campus-wide lockdown. The Bismarck Police Department came in and said, Hands on your head, she said. She estimated 30 officers swarmed the room after students had been locked down for about an hour. They patted her and her classmates down before directing them out of the Library, English and Arts Hall. Police were searching for a suspect that posted a tweet threatening to shoot up a school library, Bismarck Police Sgt. Mark Buschena said. The FBI traced the phone used to post the threat to the BSC campus. The suspect, a 16-year-old male, was later apprehended by North Dakota Highway Patrol. Vetter said an announcement over the intercom at 11:30 a.m. informed her class that the school was on lockdown. We all got in a corner where they couldnt see through the window on the door, she said. Inside the library on the ground floor, BSC admissions counselor Gentry Lee was with a group of high school students on a field trip from Minots South Prairie School when they heard the lockdown announcement. We went back into the archives room and got safe really quickly, he said. Police checked the groups IDs and phones and conducted a pat down of each person before allowing them leave, Lee said. Elsewhere on campus, students hunkered down wherever they could find a safe spot while law enforcement searched each building. In the Jack Science Center next to the LEA Hall, Gwen Lee's morning anatomy and physiology class got out early. She thought she would make use of the extra time in a study room nearby. Sitting in the room surrounded by big glass windows, she heard a similar announcement over the intercom. Knowing she needed to get to a place less visible, she and another student in the room sought refuge elsewhere in the Jack Science Center. "We were freaking out," she said. "We were wondering what we were supposed to do and where we were supposed to go." The two students found a storage room connected to a classroom and managed to lock the doors, though not the one in the hallway outside. Gwen Lee said they felt like "sitting ducks" inside the room, which was 20-by-15 feet and doubled as a staff office. "It was scary," she said. "I was shaking." Like other students, she received text and phone call alerts from the school. She also monitored events outside her building via Facebook and local news sites, and she exchanged text messages with her family to keep them updated. "My sister was extremely nervous for me," she said. More than three hours after the lockdown took effect, a voice came on again over the loudspeaker to say the building had been cleared. The two students emerged from the storage room and police at the end of the hallway told them to leave campus. Gwen Lee walked to her car and drove home, where she spoke calmly of her experience Thursday afternoon. "I'm going to go to the YMCA and work out, and go about my day as I normally would," she said. Classes for students on the BSC campus were canceled for the remainder of the day. Tribune photographer Mike McCleary contributed to this story. Ugandan Dictator Gen. Museveni -- long backed by the U.S., last July while in Ethiopia President Obama called on rulers like him to step down [Op-Ed: Uganda Elections 2016] 31 days before Election Day my post today is focusing on the attitude of some of our change craving Ugandans. It appears that many Ugandans in their desperate desire for change have resorted to begging mode. You hear people appealing to the dictator to give up power voluntarily. They are promising to reward him with a lot of niceties if he gives up power now. What's wrong with these people? What good has this dictator done for our country that can qualify him for any reward? He came to power when Uganda had an integrated transport system through the Uganda Transport Corporation (UTC). This transport system used to be supplemented by the 'Bus Za Badanda'. The country had a national airline - the Uganda Airline. Now after 30 years of stealing and economic vandalism, which some people mildly describe as extreme economic mis-management, our country's transport system has collapsed beyond repair. Those who want to reward this dictator are out of there mind. People must remember that the tools to defeat dictator Museveni is already in their hands. The smoking gun is their VOTE. There is no need to beg the dictator to give up power when you only have 31 days to deliver a devastating blow to him. No dictator will ever give up power. Dictators' like Museveni believe that the country belong to them. That no one but them is capable of leading the country. The prefer to die in power that to retire. So stop begging JUST VOTE HIM OUT. 30 years ago our country had hospitals that were well maintained. There might have been some difficulties within them but they were functioning. Now, you cannot find any functioning hospital anywhere in Uganda. For this reason, every rich individual or and especially those in power fly abroad to seek medical care and attention due to the lack of functioning hospitals in the country. As the majority of our citizens are poor and cannot afford to seek medical attention abroad, what choice do they have other than perishing helplessly. Have you seen the situation in Kitagata hospital? (I have posted a video about it with this posting so that you can comprehend what is going on in Uganda before people resort to begging a dictator who has done more harm than good to our country). The problem and neglect in Uganda's health service is not exclusive to Kitagata hospital. It is replicated in all Uganda hospitals including Mulago. What ever you see in Kitagata is what you will see if you go to Bugiri, or Moyo, or Arua, or Kayunga. So instead of begging the dictator to step down, just commit all your energy to the protection of your VOTE and be prepared to die in the process of guarding your VOTE. Dictator Museveni said he doesn't work for the people of Uganda. He said that he is only working for his children and grand children. That are his own words. So good people of Uganda why do you beg a dictator like Museveni ? People of Uganda, ITS TIME TO GROW UP POLITICALLY. Politicians should be the ones to beg you for your VOTES not the other way round. Before you vote for them please ask them what they intend to do for your area and the country at large. The only reason why voting is only extended to those above a certain age is because they expect a person of the voting age to distinguish between a liar and person telling the truth. For example when a person who has been in power for 30 years asks you to vote for him so that he can build that hospital you have craved for for the past 30 years, do you believe him? The other day Museveni said he was going to build a referral hospital in every district. This is a man who has failed to maintain the existing hospitals he found in the country 30 years ago. Any Ugandan who believes in Museveni's outlandish plans of hospital building needs his or her head to be examined by psychiatrist. Free Uganda is assuring the people of Uganda that as long as they do the right things on voting day, the dictator will have no room and no chance to maneuver. Remember casting your vote is not the end of voting. That is just the beginning. After voting you will have to ensure that your vote is properly protected and properly counted. Our opposition mobilizer's will tell the people how this will be done. Today's message is: No begging. No slacking. No complacency. No withdrawing and No surrendering. Let me end by these words from W. B. Yeats from the 'The Second Coming' "Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world". The conference, which runs until Saturday 16 January, is the biggest gathering of political forces in the country since independence in 1948, said President U Thein Sein. Among those attending the UPC opening ceremony were Vice President Sai Mauk Kham; Parliament Speakers U Shwe Mann and U Khin Aung Myint; Chairperson of the Committee for Rule of Law and Tranquillity in the House of Representatives Aung San Suu Kyi; and the Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Services, Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing. Also attending the conference were hundreds of people from stakeholder groups representing the government, parliament, military and the eight ethnic armed groups that signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Accord (NCA), as well as representatives from political parties and other players. On 13 January, the second day of the conference, the five main topics of the conference were discussed. These were: the Federal system, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), Tax and Revenue sharing, National Security, Land and Environment and Natural Resources sharing. Seven groups with representatives from the government, parliament, the military and the eight ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) that signed the NCA discussed each topic. On the third and fourth day of the conference the groups will meet up again to review and discuss their suggestions before reaching a final agreement. In total there are about 700 people attending the conference. They include 75 representatives from the government, 75 from parliament, 150 from the military, 150 from the EAOs, 150 from political parties and 50 ethnic representatives. The main objectives of the NCA are: To develop a framework for political dialogue To conduct national level of political discussions and a union peace conference To develop a union level agreement To sign the union level agreement To submit the union level agreement to parliament for approval. Edited in English by Mark Inkey for BNI The government, who signed the NCA with only eight out of over 20 EAOs on 15 October, invited the EAOs who did not sign the NCA to also attend the UPC, but only to audit the event as observers rather than as participants. U Htun Zaw, General Secretary (1) of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), an alliance of ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) founded in 2011 said: In our UNFC, there are nine [non-signatory] ethnic armed groups. But these groups wont attend. This is because there wont be anything special accomplished by the groups joining the conference; we will only be present there as special guests. We wont get the chance to take part in the discussion and decision-making. So, we decided not to attend. The eight EAOs who signed the NCA and were invited by the government to officially participate in the UPC are: the Karen National Union (KNU), the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA), the KNU/KNLA-Peace Center, the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS), the Pa-Oh National Liberation Organization (PNLO), the Arakan Liberation Party (ALP), the Chin National Front (CNF), and the All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF). The non-signatory groups that the government invited to attend the UPC as observers were: the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), the New Mon State Party (NMSP), the Shan State Army-North (SSPP), the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP). the Arakan National Council (ANC), the Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the United Wa State Army (UWSA) who are all UNFC members as well as non-UNFC members: the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA), the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khaplang (NSCN-K) and the Lahu Democratic Union (LDU). But, the government did not invite the Arakan Army (AA) or the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) to the conference. All the non-signatory UNFC members agreed that none of them would attend the conference. In an interview with IMNA General Sai La of the SSPP said: "We agree with the UNFCs decision. If all groups attend [the UPC] we will too, but if not we wont attend either. We also do not think there will be anything special at the conference and another thing is that we do not get to participate in the discussions and decision-making. The only non-signatory group that decided to attend as an observer was the NSCN-K. After analysing the NCA the UNFC issued a statement about the NCA on 5 January that said: "It [the NCA signing] is also not in accordance with Article (2-D) of the NCA, which requires all [EAOs] to sign [the NCA] and the essence of NCA has become spoiled. So long as all-inclusivity is not realised, the Framework for Political Dialogue and the so-called Union Peace Conference emanating from it will lack any meaning. Launching military offensives on the one hand and holding peace talks on the other is not the way to bring genuine, just, and honourable peace. Under these circumstances, just as democracy cannot flourish, a genuine federal union cannot be established. Edited in English by Mark Inkey for BNI "Nothing has hurt people more in this country than wanting to be in the movies." So said Edward Hayes, a sagacious New York lawyer who has been in some movies himself and been portrayed in others ("Bonfire of the Vanities"). He has also defended bad guys who have risked life, liberty and wealth (usually cash) in pursuit of stardom. To Hayes, El Chapo Mexican drug kingpin, killer and escape artist must be a familiar sort. He's just another schmuck who wants to be in pictures. For that reason, El Chapo Joaquin Guzman Loera to his mother and the police contacted Sean Penn to see about a movie. El Chapo ("Shorty") was in hiding, having gone for a shower six months earlier and vanished down the drain. He plopped into a tunnel and onto a waiting motorcycle, surfacing as a free man and, without a doubt, movie material. Through a star of Mexican soap operas, Kate del Castillo, Guzman somehow got in touch with Penn. We know this from Penn's account of their meeting, recently published in Rolling Stone. He called El Chapo "a simple man, from a simple place" engaged somehow in the complex task of keeping a good part of the world supplied in dope. Penn apparently thought there might be a movie in Guzman's tale, all those murders notwithstanding. They are unfortunate, but can be dealt with in rewrite and, of course, flashbacks to an impoverished childhood. Somewhere along the line, however, Penn decided that El Chapo's story could not make a movie. I feel this is totally wrong. I see Danny DeVito in the role, his charm and insouciance taking the edge off the occasional murder and masking the nature of the enterprise, which after all is drugs, addiction, death ... blah, blah, blah. Barring that, Penn could do a movie about himself how against great odds and risking his own life (and the livelihood of his agent) he was flown from California to Mexico and then to an airstrip in the jungle from where he went overland by car possibly past bandidos to a small village so remote only a movie star and a soap-opera actress could find it. I know, I know: Is this a comedy or a drama? It is both. To understand that, we must return to Eddie Hayes, who in 2006 was defending a certain Stephen Caracappa. Along with Louis Eppolito, Caracappa was a retired New York City cop who had augmented his meager salary by doing the odd murder for the mob. Both men were suckered into admitting their crimes when an informer, pretending to be a Hollywood producer, got them to talk about their endeavors. In Eppolito, the informer had the right guy. He had already appeared in the classic mob movie "Goodfellas" and had written a script, the so-far unproduced "Murder in Youngstown." (HBO, wake up!) So, what Hayes knew was that some people will do anything to be in the movies. The two retired cops just could not help themselves. A movie beckoned. Premieres. Stars. Banal questions from TV reporters. Maybe a broad or two. Certainly a spin in a Bentley. They talked. They opened up. They are now in prison. For life. El Chapo did something similar. The man has odd tastes, for sure homicides, drugs, widespread corruption and, the last straw, calling Donald Trump "mi amigo" but he needed verification from Hollywood. He was struck. Star-struck. He knows, as does what's left of the American mob, that you ain't nobody until you are somebody in the movies. We have it on the word of Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano that real mobsters like himself looked to "The Godfather" the way housewives do Oprah Winfrey. They used the movie's theme for their weddings, funerals and baptisms, and copped lines like "I'm gonna make you an offer..." by way of business chit-chat. The movie so thrilled Gravano that it spurred him to greater productivity, executing nearly as many people as the Saudi royal family on a slow weekend. "I only did, like, one murder before I saw the movie," he conceded. He went on to do 18 more. This story is not over yet. El Chapo risked everything for a movie and now, to the appropriate music, he may be extradited to the United States. There, Penn might visit him and take it all down. He'd better hurry, though. Soon, Penn will be too old to play Penn. (Richard Cohen writes for the Washington Post. His syndicated column appears Fridays.) NMSP Vice-Chairman Nai Hongsar (Photo: MNA) NMSP Vice-Chairman Nai Hongsar(Photo: MNA) In an interview with the Mon News Agency he said: This conference is concerned with multiple ethnic nationalities. The NMSP had its representatives participate in the UNFC [United Nationalities Federal Council] conference on 7-8 January. If all [the UNFC] members are not joining the UPC, we wont join, either. He added that NMSP representatives are not participating in the conference for reasons also cited by other UNFC members, primarily that several of the other ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) have rejected the new political dialogue framework. Originally when the political framework was first drawn up by the government and the Tatmadaw (Burma Army) there were going to be representatives from three different groups participating; the government, the EAOs and political parties, but this was then expanded to also include representatives from the Tatmadaw and parliament. Nai Hongsar said that this gave the government too much control over the outcome of the conference. According to a statement released on 5 January by over 130 civil society organizations, the political frameworks structural change threatens the forums effectiveness to address the key issues of democracy and equality for ethnic groups. The statement said: At a time when a sustained ceasefire that is inclusive of all ethnic armed revolutionary forces is yet to materialise, we, the civil society organizations, call for the postponement of political dialogue, reconsideration of the representation proportions and voting quorums in the political negotiations and the gathering of suggestions and views from those ethnic armed organizations which have not yet signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement [NCA]. According to Daw Khin Ohmar of Burma Partnership, a network of advocacy groups in the Asia-Pacific region, the Tatmadaws influence over political decision-making should be curtailed to allow ethnic armed forces and political parties to cooperatively decide on actions resulting from the current political talks. The UPC started on 12 January in Nay Pyi Taw, Burmas capital, with speeches by President U Thein Sein, Defence Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and ethnic leaders. Edited in English by Mark Inkey for BNI It looks like you have reached this page in error ... The content you are looking for has either moved, or if you typed in the address there might have been a mistake. If you believe there has been a technical error please let us know. Most Popular Destinations I thought we'd never have a reason to discuss this again, but here we are. For reasons that he clearly did not think all the way through, GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum told last night's primary debate audience that they should Google him. "Go and Google Rick Santorum and Hillary Clinton you'll see a five-minute debate. I'll let you decide who won the debate," he said during his closing statement. "I'll tell you who won, I know I'm out of time, I'm going to take some of Rand Paul's time here for a second." As much as I appreciate any dig at Rand Paul, I feel as though that's been overshadowed here. Rick Santorum can't win for losing. Fox News host Jenna Lee can't quite figure out why the Obama administration has chosen to release or transfer Guantanamo detainees to other countries rather than simply execute them. Lee apparently believes we're taking too great a risk by releasing them rather than extrajudicially executing them while they're in our custody. via Media Matters LEE: I'm not asking to arbitrarily execute people, but I'm saying if we're using a certain standard to execute them amongst innocent people overseas, then why wasn't that applied here? Because then we wouldn't have this problem. If they were deemed such a risk to America at one time, then we wouldn't even be worried about where we're releasing them, because they wouldn't be around anymore. Yes, Satan, I suppose we wouldn't be bothered with the details if we just killed them. As I'm sure you're aware, none of the suspects detained at Guantanamo Bay have been convicted of anything. That's one major reason why they've been there for so long. As much as it would undoubtedly entertain Jenna Lee, her colleagues, and the Fox News audience and give them all a jingoistic hard-on, we can't just start executing prisoners of war. I can't prove that Jenna Lee is a lizard, but that doesn't mean she isn't. Surprising Health Benefits Of Champagne Wellness oi-Staff A delightful glass of champagne comes handy whether you celebrate the victory of a dear friend, or spend a cosy night with your partner. Champagne is often regarded as a luxurious drink, fit only for the elites or is regarded as a party accessory. However, what we do not know is that champagne offers an array of health benefits too (if you drink it in moderation). From regulating your blood pressure levels to giving you a beautiful glowing skin, improving your mood or to even reduce your waistline. Yes, it is true! An average glass of champagne has only 90 calories, which are even lesser than a glass of wine. A small serving size means you end up consuming much lesser calories than an average alcoholic drink. It gives you all the more reason to pop open a bottle of bubbly, isnt it? So sit back, open a bottle of champagne and read about the surprising health benefits of a champagne. Beneficial For The Heart It is said that a glass of red wine is beneficial for your heart, but studies have also shown that a glass of champagne is as healthy. A glass of champagne contains a compound called polyphenols that is known to lower BP and protect against various heart problems. Some researchers even say that drinking as much as two glasses of champagne a day can be helpful in warding off heart diseases. Can there be better news than this? Fewer Calories Per Glass Choosing champagne over wine or beer would be a good option if you are watching your weight (unless you plan on binge drinking). An average glass of champagne contains about 90 calories, which is even less than that of an average glass of wine, and much lesser than a pint beer. Interesting, isnt it? Get A Glowing Skin Who doesnt love a soft and supple skin? But, did you know that a glass of champagne is packed with antioxidants that give you a soft and glowing skin? A glass of bubbly contains polyphenols, a type of an antioxidant that gives you a beautiful skin. It also contains antibacterial qualities that help keep breakouts at bay. You can make a glass of champagne even healthier and delicious by adding some fresh strawberries, raspberries or blackberries to it. This not only makes for a delicious cocktail, but also contains loads of antioxidants that are great for the skin. Helps In Lowering Blood Pressure Levels A study in the UK has found that champagne has health benefits similar to that of wine. Sipping on a few glasses of bubbly may reduce BP levels and reduce the chances of heart diseases. Boosts Your Mood We all have those days when nothing seems to be going our way, and we feel absolutely worthless. It is but natural to feel like crying your heart out on such days or binge watching on sad movies. Let us suggest you a wonderful alternative instead. We suggest you to instead pour yourself a glass of champagne. Champagne contains elements that are known to boost your mood (of course when you drink in moderation). It is known to positively affect your body and mind. So next time when you drink, we suggest you opt for a glass of champagne instead and experience the beneficial health benefits of this luxurious drink. GET THE BEST BOLDSKY STORIES! Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, January 15, 2016, 21:00 [IST] Makar Sankranti 2020: Rituals Followed In Southern India On This Day Festivals oi-Sowmya Shekar Pongal 2019: Importance of Festival | ? | Boldsky Makar Sankranti is a very auspicious festival that is celebrated across India and this year it will be on 14 January. For farmers, it is a harvest festival. And according to astrology, it is the time that the sun changes its direction thus moving into Capricorn. On this special festival, there are several traditions that are followed by the people celebrating it. These customs and traditions have been followed for many years now. So, today, we shall brief you on the traditions and customs that are followed, in South India. While in the northern parts of the country, taking a holy bath, worshipping the sun and making donations is the primary way, Hindus celebrate this festival, it is somewhat different in the southern regions. In Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, the festival is celebrated for three days and in Karnataka, it is celebrated for one day, while some of them celebrate the festival for two days also. Read more to know the interesting facts and rituals of Sankranti that are followed in South India. Ellu Bella Sankranti Mix The main ingredients are the ellu (sesame seeds), bella (jaggery), groundnuts, chopped dry coconut, chick peas and these are mixed together in the form of a mixture. This mixture is distributed in packets or boxes among the relatives and friends. Importance Of Sesame Seeds And Jaggery When we give the sesame seeds mix to a person it means that we are debt free and do not owe anything to that person, which is otherwise called as being runamukthalu. Jaggery symbolises that we should speak good and sweet things to others. Sugarcane Sugarcane is believed to strengthen the relationships and have a strong family bonding. It also signifies that you need to have a strong mind in whatever you do. Rituals & Traditions In Karnataka, once a girl gets married, starting from her first year of Sankranti after marriage, she is supposed to give five bananas to five married women (or muthaide) for five years. Every year the number of banana doubles up. So, for the first year, it is five bananas, for the second year it is ten and so on. For the fifth year, she is supposed to give 25 bananas to the five married women along with the yellu bella mix and sugarcane. The Tradition Of Silver Krishna Idol When a couple is blessed with a baby boy, the parents are supposed to give a silver krishna idol to their near and dear ones on the first Sankranti of the baby. If it is a girl baby, a small silver bowl or a cup is given to the near ones. The Special Feast On the day of Sankranti, the kannuma people in parts of Andra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu celebrate the festival at a larger scale by preparing a non-veg feast to mark their togetherness and to strengthen their family bonds. IMG_31442345678.jpg Moss Point Police Chief Art McClung, Nikki White, Antisha Walley, Houston Cunningham, Mayor Billy Broomfield, Dot Adams, Cathy Keeton, and Amy St. Pe' officially turn the first shovels of dirt for the new safety complex. (Tyler Carter/Gulflive.com) MOSS POINT, Mississippi --- Moss Point City leaders officially broke ground on a new safety complex Friday. About 85 dignitaries, business leaders, and residents attended the special ceremony. Officials say it's a day they've waited for a long time. The city was approved for funding for the project after Hurricane Katrina, but there were several delays along the way. "This groundbreaking is the result of patience and persistence," said Mayor Billy Broomfield. "Today, we see the first phase of this project launched." The Mississippi Development Authority (MDA) and the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) awarded funding for the $4 million dollar project. The 10,000 square foot, 2-story facility will sit adjacent to the main fire station on Bellview Avenue and will include administrative offices, court rooms, meeting space, one male holding cell, one female holding cell, and an evidence room. Police Chief Art McClung says the new evidence room will provide an opportunity for national accreditation. "We would never get accredited with what we have now," said McClung. "With the new building, we can finally start working toward accreditation, so people can respect and understand what we do here." Officials say the new building will also bring about a sense of pride for the community and employees of the police department. Both McClung and Broomfield praised officers and staff for how they have persevered in the current facility. "I am most proud of our people," said McClung. "They come in everyday, and instead of taking a step back, they take a step forward." "Our men and women have worked in substandard conditions for such a long time and have done it with all the professionalism that they can muster, never once complaining," said Broomfield. "The community is also tired of looking at that facility over there, and they're going to be proud of what they're going to see, so it's a win-win for everybody." IMS Engineers is the project manager, and the company is working with Orocon Construction. They are expected to complete the construction in January of 2017. AX206_7510_9.JPG The home of Raymond and Donna Jean Beaugez on General Pershing Avenue in Ocean Springs the day it was gutted by a fire allegedly set by their son, Timothy Beaugez, who was indicted by a Jackson County Grand Jury this week on felony charges of aggravated assault on a police officer and first-degree arson. (File photo/Gulflive.com) Timothy Beaugez PASCAGOULA, Mississippi -- An Ocean Springs man who reportedly set fire to his parents home and fired a shotgun at police has been indicted on multiple charges by a grand jury, the Jackson County District Attorney's Office confirmed Friday. Timothy Beaugez, 53, was indicted on two counts of felony aggravated assault on a police officer, one count of first-degree arson and one count of shooting a weapon into a dwelling. Beaugez has entered a not guilty plea on all charges. The incident took place on Oct. 9, 2013 at the home of Beaugez' parents -- Raymond and Donna Jean Beaugez. Raymond Beaugez, known to many as "Big Boy," is a retired police officer and Jackson County judge. Raymond Beaugez told The Mississippi Press the day of the incident that Timmy Beaugez entered the elder Beaugez' home on General Pershing Avenue and made his way to the back of the home while his father sat on the front porch with a friend. Donna Jean Beaugez was inside the home visiting with her daughter, Susan Carlat, Timmy Beaugez' sister. "The next thing I know, the dadgum house is on fire," Raymond Beaugez said at the time. He and his wife, along with their friends, escaped the home without injury. When police arrived on the scene, however, an officer went to the door and Timmy Beaugez shot at him with a shotgun which family members said he had brought with him to his father's house. Ocean Springs Police Capt. Chuck Jackson confirmed that an officer was struck in the face with pellets and drove himself to Ocean Springs Hospital for treatment. He could not confirm whether Timmy Beaguez fired through the door or if the door was open. He also would not identify the officer who was injured. Timmy Beaugez was transported by ambulance to Ocean Springs Hospital for treatment for smoke inhalation and later taken into custody. Family members, who asked their names not be used, said Timmy Beaugez had poured gasoline inside the house and lit the blaze deliberately. The house appeared to be virtually gutted from the fire. "A lifetime of work is totally destroyed," Raymond Beaugez said. The elder Beaugez said he had "no idea" why his son would set the house on fire "unless it was because his son and daughters were staying with us." Other family members on the scene said Timmy Beaugez was estranged from his own son and two granddaughters, who were staying with Raymond and Donna Jean Beaugez. There was no restraining order against Timmy Beaguez, however, to prevent him from coming near other family members, they said. Timothy Beaugez is free on bond awaiting trial. Even if Anthony had a year to analyze and dissect each piece...(he couldn't tell if it would)... stand the harsh light of public exposure. WUWT insider Willis Eschenbach tells you all you need to know about Anthony Watts and his blog, WattsUpWithThat (WUWT). As part of his scathing commentary , Wondering Willis accuses Anthony Watts of being clueless about the blog articles he posts. To paraphrase: Click here to read more. During Jallikattu, an event celebrated during the harvest festival, men hang by the humps of bulls, traumatizing the animals by pushing and pulling at them. Photo by Djoemanoj via Wikimedia Commons 337 shares This week, the state of Tamil Nadu in South India is celebrating its annual harvest festival without a traditional and gruesome spectacle: Jallikattu, an event in which men hang by the humps of bulls, traumatizing the animals by pushing and pulling at them and causing them injury, in a show of manliness. This is another signature victory for the team at Humane Society International/India, and it caps a recent streak of successful court victories that will save animals ranging from bulls to roosters to songbirds. Every day, HSI extends the reach of The HSUS and battles animal abuse in dozens of countries across the globe. Some practices are rooted deeply in tradition and religion, or are a core component of festivals, which makes these activities difficult to uproot or dislodge. But we take them on, big or small, when animal lives are at risk. We have made significant headway in ending some of the greatest abuses, like putting a stop to the killing at the religious Gadhimai festival in Nepal where half a million animals were slaughtered every five years, and slowly but surely working to end the commercial trade and consumption of dogs in some Asian countries. The fight against Jallikattu in India was won in 2014, when the Supreme Court banned the event as violating the nations anti-cruelty laws, but this year the central government attempted to reinstate it, citing its traditional significance. HSI/India, led by N.G. Jayasimha, sprang into action, petitioning the Supreme Court with six others to reinstate the ban. Their appeal succeeded just before the start of the festival, sparing hundreds of bulls agonizing injuries and trauma. In the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, where fighting roosters is a popular sport during the harvest festival, HSI/India won a long-fought battle against an attempt to lift a Supreme Court ban on cockfighting. In neighboring Telangana, our team succeeded in securing a ban on the use of nylon strings coated with glass during kite-flying contests which are popular during the celebration. The sharp strings pose a great risk to birds who often get fatally injured by the string left behind on trees or poles after the festival is over. It may be hard to visualize the use of songbirds in fights similar to cockfights, but in the northeast Indian state of Assam, during the festival of Bihu, tiny songbirds called Bulbuls are intoxicated, starved, and then made to fight for an audience. HSI India succeeded in getting the states high court to stay an earlier order lifting a ban on these fights. This victory in Assam follows one last year when HSI got a ban implemented against buffalo fights in the state. Im immensely proud of the work of our HSI/India team and their tenacity in protecting every life, great or small. Thanks to their work, just this week hundreds of animals have been spared serious injury and death. Its a reason to celebrate. 337 shares Already have an account? Log in here Two days of 2016 budget deliberations are underway at Brandon City Hall. We need your support! Local journalism needs your support! As we navigate through unprecedented times, our journalists are working harder than ever to bring you the latest local updates to keep you safe and informed. Now, more than ever, we need your support. Starting at $4.99/month you can access your Brandon Sun online and full access to all content as it appears on our website. or call circulation directly at (204) 727-0527. Your pledge helps to ensure we provide the news that matters most to your community! Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/01/2016 (2469 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. As school boards across Canada put their head lice policies under inspection, strategies at Brandon School Division schools may be out of date. Both Manitoba Health and the Canadian Paediatric Society say there is no medical reason for kids who are infected to stay away from school while getting treatment. This week, the Toronto District School Board said it was reviewing its policy, which currently excludes students with head lice. The Vancouver School Board says lice are not a major public health concern because they dont spread illness. File photo Head lice are not a major public health concern because they dont spread illness, according to the Vancouver School Board one of many across the country that are re-evaluating policies the ban students with the condition from attending school. Untreated lice can live for up to four weeks. After mating, the female lays eggs, encased in shells that are glued to the hair. The female can produce five to six eggs per day. No one representing the BSD was made available for comment on Thursday, but several division schools advise parents on procedures on their website or in newsletters available online. In its 2014-15 handbook, Green Acres School says that students are to remain at home until treatment for the condition has been received, or until a doctor has given permission for students to attend. In October 2014, Kirkcaldy Heights School noted on its website: We have a policy at KH that students cannot return to school until both the live lice and the nits are gone. After being treated, upon their return to school, students will be checked again before returning to classes. A May 2014 George Fitton School newsletter states children must be NIT free to be allowed to return to class. Its the same story at the YMCA of Brandon, whose parent handbook for before and after school programs require children discovered to have lice to be picked up immediately. They are allowed to return to the program after treatment. Evidence of treatment includes no lice or nits, clean hair and scalp, and a note from you or a physician stating the treatment used, the handbook says. Phone calls to the YMCA were not returned. That is out of sorts with what health officials now advise. According to protocol published in July 2014, Manitoba Health advises that no otherwise healthy child should be excluded from or allowed to miss school time because of head lice. For a child with head lice, the risks associated with not attending school are greater than the risk of a child transmitting head lice to others in the school setting, the document continues. The shift in recommended approach in the medical community seems to have happened in the last few years, said Shannon Whaley, a public health nurse and resource co-ordinator with Prairie Mountain Health. I think theres still some perception that there needs to be a no-nit policy and thats not the case and is also not supported by Manitoba Health, Whaley said. Whaley said public health nurses frequently field calls from concerned parents. Many still think lice are spread via bad hygiene or through long, dirty or unwashed hair, she said. Anyone can have head lice, regardless of whether your hair is clean, dirty, long or short. As long as you have hair, youre susceptible anybody can get it, its not something to be secretive about. tbateman@brandonsun.com, with files from The Canadian Press Twitter: @tombatemann Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/01/2016 (2469 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. NEAR PIPESTONE One person is dead following a head-on collision between a semi-trailer truck and minivan on Thursday. RCMP spokeswoman Holly Plato confirmed the lone occupant of the van, a 59-year-old man from Melita, was killed at the scene. Police closed Highway 83 approximately five kilometres north of Pipestone at 11:15 a.m. Pipestone is 35 kilometres south of Virden. Tim Smith/Brandon Su RCMP officers investigate the scene of a fatal collision between a semi trailer and a minivan on Highway 83 north of Highway 2 on Thursday. The Brandon Sun arrived on scene at 12:30 p.m. while traffic reconstruction analysts were investigating. Police, with the aid of Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation, set up a one-mile perimeter around the scene. From the southern perimeter, a twisted red minivan could be seen in the eastern ditch of the highway, while a white semi-truck and trailer facing south was in the west ditch. Pieces of the van, including the engine, were strewn across the highway. Paul Doerksen, office manager for Light Way Transport, confirmed one of the companys trucks and drivers was involved in the collision. Our driver is fine, Doerksen said from Austin, where Light Way Transport is headquartered. He seemed to be doing fine, but if you know how shock works, It usually takes a little time to register. The driver was transported to Virden hospital, where he was checked before being released. Tim Smith/Brandon Sun A minivan with a large portion of the front end torn off rests beside Highway 83 at the scene of the fatal collision on Thursday. Doerksen said the driver, who has been working with the company for a few months, was travelling southbound, transporting a load of potash from PotashCorps Rocanville mine near the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border to North Dakota. In a brief conversation with the driver, Doerksen said he was told that the northbound van crossed the centre passing line. From what our driver said he didnt know why the driver veered into his lane, but thats what happened with no time for him to react, Doerksen said. It was just so quick. The driver was subjected to a drug and alcohol test in Brandon following the collision in accordance with company policy, Doerksen said. Light Way Transport conducts drug and alcohol tests following all collisions involving its drivers. Doerksen said the driver will be given some time off work to ensure hes comfortable returning to the road. Were going to help him out as much as we can, Doerksen said. Tim Smith/Brandon Sun A semi-trailer rests in the ditch after it was hit head-on by a minivan on Highway 83 north of Highway 2 on Thursday. The highway was reopened at 4:45 p.m. Police are expected to release more details about the collision today. ctweed@brandonsun.com Twitter: @CharlesTweed Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/01/2016 (2469 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Remember back when everyone was predicting that this would be a warmer than average winter? Yeah, so did I. Well, at least we havent had any full-on -40 C days yet. Winters in Manitoba are cold, long and even depressing and gloomy but hey, were Manitoba! That being said, every winter I crave a nice hot vacation or a strong heavy Belgian ale that tops out at around 12 per cent ABV. Unfortunately Im too broke for a hot vacation even though Im heading to Montreal and Vermont on Monday for poutine, smoked meat sandwiches, beer and iced cider. I wish there was a tropical paradise that had a rich craft brewing history oh wait, Hawaii has several! Not only that, Maui Brewing out of Kihei on Maui Island has two completely opposite beers that you can find locally. The first is CoConut Porter, a robust porter that has rich notes of toasted coconut, freshly roasted coffee and a hint of dark chocolate. I sampled this beer at Torque Brewings brewmaster Matts place on New Years Day and enjoyed every sip of it although I wish it had more toasted coconut as it was slim to nil. Then theres Mana Wheat, a wheat ale brewed with pineapple juice to give it a sweet, citrusy zest. This is the brew Im taking on this week because well, I wish I was in a tropical destination with the roar of the ocean in my ears. With the slogan Wheres my ukelele? on the can, this is a beer that one is meant to enjoy and savour while relaxing. Pouring the Mana Wheat, its showing as a light, mostly filtered wheat ale with only a hint of cloudiness. Theres a good amount of carbonation taking place with the beer leaving a thin amount of snow white head on the top of the glass. The aroma is like being at a small oceanside cafe for breakfast with whiffs a fruit salad comprised of pineapple, apple and I think a hint of pear. Im also getting some wheat husk graininess in the aroma, as well as a very light grassy hop note, making this a very easy to uh smell beer. The taste gives off more of the graininess of the wheat as its giving me a light biscuit flavour, as well as a hint of pepper from the yeast. The tropical flavours are kind of mixed for me Im getting a great presence of pineapple juice in the beer, but also a bit of a medicinal bitterness for an aftertaste that makes me cringe. But the bitter aftertaste is only there momentarily. There are a lot of fruity wheat beers available in Manitoba, ranging from Belgian witbiers (orange), German hefeweizens (banana) and radlers (grapefruit), but this is one of the few fruity wheat ales Ive had that actually uses pineapple as one of the main ingredients of the beer recipe. Aside from the hint of medicinal aftertaste, this is a very easy to drink wheat ale that would be best suited on a beach on a hot 30 C afternoon. You can find Mauis Mana Wheat at Liquor Marts in Brandon (10th and Victoria), Dauphin and Russell for an affordable $2.75 per 355 ml can. It packs 5.5 per cent ABV. If you would also like to try Mauis CoConut porter to help with the wintertime shivers, you can find it at the 10th and Victoria Liquor Mart for $3.49 per 355 ml can. Its six per cent ABV. Pint Rating: 4 pints out of 5. Cody Lobreau is a Canadian beer blogger who reviews every beer he can get his hands on as he believes that he should try every beer twice to get an understanding if its truly good or bad. BeerCrank.ca Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/01/2016 (2469 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. WINNIPEG John Harvard was thinking out loud, remembering the very moment which may have politicized his life. He recalled the spring of 1952. His mother woke him from a deep sleep to tell him that King George VI had died. It was her tone deeply solemn, reverent, full of loss that stirred him. It struck him then that there was a big, meaningful world out there beyond the quiet, tightly knit Icelandic community of Glenboro, a world about which he knew nothing, but one he wanted to know and understand. Neither mother nor son could have imagined that the sleepy child of that long ago night would be elected to Parliament four times, and would eventually serve the next monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, as her personal representative in Manitoba. John Harvard was a relentless campaigner, an amiable winner and a hardworking constituency man, but he stepped aside to give fellow Liberal and former Winnipeg mayor Glen Murray a shot at a seat. Harvard nobody called him John told me this story with panache, as he told all the stories of his life, from all its stages. On that day, he was dapper, animated, almost theatrical in his voice and gestures, attributes which served him well in broadcast journalism, in politics, and in his ceremonial role as lieutenant-governor of Manitoba. He agreed to be interviewed for a video biography, one of a series sponsored by the Association of Former Manitoba MLAs intended to interest young people in political life. Harvard, at the moment, was dying, but he rose to the occasion of a last interview, as fully present as he was in good health. The 11th of 14 children, two of whom did not survive to adulthood, Harvard had no access to a university education. Sensing that journalism could provide a reasonable substitute, he moved quickly from rural to city jobs, first making a name for himself as an aggressive radio host with CJOB. Journalism in the 1970s was still a mans world, macho conservatism was the prevailing sympathy, and a youthful Harvard fit the bill. He surprised Winnipeggers when he joined the CBC, throwing his talents into a totally different, politically left/centrist ring. A local media reviewer for then-Winnipeg Magazine noted Harvards punchy success on the popular, supper-time current affairs show 24 Hours; his bold questions regularly stopped a fork on its way to the mouth and caused dinner to grow cold as he shredded yet another guest. Harvard would take home ACTRAs equivalent of an Oscar before he was done with broadcast journalism. A high-profile success at age 50 with superb name recognition, and admittedly tired of journalism, Harvard was a logical candidate for political office. In 1988, he again surprised Winnipeggers by running in Winnipeg St. James for the Liberals. He was a relentless campaigner, but after four victories, he stepped aside to give fellow Murray a shot at a seat. Murray lost, but Harvards prize was the role of a lifetime as Manitobas 23rd lieutenant-governor. In his last interview, Harvard lamented what he calls the professionalization of current politics. There are too many so-called advisers, consultants and what have you, boys in short pants for whom the only important thing is winning, managing appearances and who, basically, are interfering with the agenda of things that really need to be done. The highlight of his career, he says, was witnessing the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2005, which he admits was a long and tortured path through parliamentary politics. To see so many people finally escape the persistent persecution they experienced for so long that was beyond wonderful. He has high hopes that Canadas indigenous people will also find their rightful place in Canadian society. Our former LG had a closet full of enviable tributes, medals and appointments to honourable orders, but he had one few people knew about: He was the only honorary member of Winnipegs Emma Goldman Society, named for the American iconoclast and hellraiser of the early 20th century. We were a small group of uppity women writers who met for lunch to rant about injustices and energize each other to keep on keeping on, keep our faith in a better world. We all knew Harvard, his great, barking laugh and ribald sense of humour, recognized his compassion and respected, perhaps above all, his genuine ambitions for a progressive Canada. Shortly after Harvard moved into the lieutenant-governors mansion, we paid him a surprise visit, looking properly prim, complete with hats and white gloves. The staff were perplexed at the sight of us. The Honorary Emma laughed his hearty laugh and served us tea by the fire. Lesley Hughes is a Winnipeg writer and broadcaster whose column was also recently published in the Winnipeg Free Press. Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/01/2016 (2469 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. For the last several weeks, the good folks who put on the Westman and Area Traditional Christmas Dinner and Brandons firefighters have been taking some heat over a photo that ran on the Suns front page on Dec. 26. The photo showed Brandon Fire and Emergency Services acting Lt. Terry Browett and his daughter in the act of delivering a few dinners to a few of his colleagues at the No. 1 Fire Hall on Christmas Day. Browett, who was not on duty that day, spent his rare work-free Christmas holiday volunteering with the dinner not at home celebrating with his family. He and his daughter were two of some 500 volunteers who came together to put on the free holiday celebration, an annual event that has become a Brandon Christmas tradition in its own right. Browetts delivery to fellow firefighters, first responders and dispatchers at the firehall was merely one stop on a day of dinner deliveries in this city to people who perhaps were unable to leave their homes or perhaps needed a little good cheer to come in through the door. In the many interviews the Sun has conducted with long-serving volunteers over the years, without fail every one of them has told us what a wonderful feeling they have from helping spread a little good cheer to their fellow citizens. Browett told us that it was the sense of community that got his family off the couch on Christmas Day. Its just fun, you do stuff as a family together. Its something different instead of sitting around, he said. In the days and weeks that have followed the publication of that photo and the story that accompanied it, several grouchy citizens have written to the paper and made comments on social media, complaining about the special treatment given to on-duty firefighters that day. The general gist of the negative comments go something like this: They make enough money already. They dont deserve it. Theres a kitchen at the firehall; why cant they make their own? They chose the profession and knew they would have to work on Christmas Day they still celebrated with their families a different day. What about all the other people who work on Christmas Day like nurses and doctors and police? Still other comments have tried to tell the public exactly what Rocky Addison meant in starting the Christmas dinner back in 1985 it was only meant for the poor, wrote one commentator. But as we have attempted to remind people again and again, the Traditional Christmas Dinner was never meant to be exclusionary. Rocky himself said the dinner was supposed to help the poor and unfortunate, but also the lonely. And as the dinner has grown, it has always been open to anyone who wanted to have some Christmas fellowship. All of us are entitled to our opinions, of course and entitled to decide where we make our donations as well but in this instance, we think perhaps people are being overly critical of our firefighters. Keep in mind that in these pages we have wilfully excoriated firefighters, police and city officials for the high salaries that their unions have been able to negotiate with the City of Brandon. But money cant buy happiness, nor does it prevent the need for emergency folk to work national holidays, especially one of the most important holidays in Western culture. Why on earth are people suggesting they will withhold their support for the dinner an event that still feeds the poor every year and provides thousands of local people with holiday fellowship and good cheer at a difficult time of year over a few paltry dinners that have gone to working citizens? Anyone who has had to work on Christmas Day and who instead finds themselves rubbing elbows with co-workers instead of loved ones will understand what it means to have a small taste of the holiday and a small kindness given. We must also ask ourselves this question: Was anyone actually excluded from partaking as a result? We have not heard of anyone who missed a dinner because one man decided to give a little Christmas cheer to his fellow firefighters. Had there been a shortage of food, perhaps we would be having a different conversation. But that wasnt the case. So then, why not share the surplus? We suggest the community grinches remember the words of Rocky Addison himself in a letter to the editor he sent to the Sun back in 1994, as he thanked supporters and volunteers for what would be his last year of involvement in the traditional dinner: We found in the past that a meal is not the only thing missing in some peoples lives, but the want to be loved and to feel wanted and to be able to share their love and compassion with others is a gratification we all look for. If we can all learn of the hunger that there is for love, compassion and fellowship in this world, instead of trying to tear down our neighbours, that we may restore our confidence and trust in one another and start building a better world for all of us. Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/01/2016 (2469 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Buy locally People who are watching the television and see the stories about the Powerball in the United States and decide to go across the line to buy tickets make me laugh! We have enough choices in Canada to win money that would save them the rest of their lives. It is ridiculous that they would go there when we have them right here. Buy them in Canada. Speak up for a larger school A lottery system to decide who can attend a French immersion school? I dont think that this is right, as every Canadian student has the right to attend a French immersion public school. It looks like we need a larger French immersion school. Parents, if you want your children to attend an immersion school, let your voices be heard! Its better to see them with @03.2 Sound Off Body Copy:For the people that seem to complain about people driving with their fog lights on. First, if Im not mistaken, fog lights are yellow and driving lights are clear. Myself, I use my driving lights because they light up the ditch and I can see if there are any glowing eyes (animals). Im not sure of other people, but I would like good visibility when driving especially when driving the low road and other secondary highways and off streets. Lottery inquiries Our coffee group as two questions. Who gets all the other side of the lottery money and how do they spend it? I am sure there are others wondering the same thing. Anyone have any answers? Big truck, big jerk My wife and myself and another couple were in Brandon on Jan. 9 at The Keg. It was very busy and some jerk in a huge pickup truck parked on the boulevard. The Keg was very busy and all the parking spots were taken. I had to walk at least a block to park and this idiot was right outside The Keg, right on the corner, and he backs up and parks right on the boulevard. I know it is a Saturday night and the police are busy, but it is a shame that the cops or someone in the position of authority had not seen him or that someone at least flattened his tires for parking on the boulevard. What a dunce! Reason why I will not donate again When I read the Sound Off about the Christmas dinner being delivered to the firefighters, I didnt think it was against them, but I wondered why a dinner wasnt delivered to all groups that had to work on Christmas. The nurses, doctors, police, RCMP and nursing home workers. They are all away from their families. I was, however, very surprised that the radio stations were encouraging people who did not feel like cooking to bring family and friends for a free dinner. That did bother me and with that I would not donate ever again. A judge in London has made rulings on how sections of an international pharmaceuticals giant which began life as an apothecary shop in Germany nearly 350 years ago should coexist in the internet age. Mr Justice Norris said companies using the Merck name had made agreements on the use of the Merck trademark in different countries in the 1950s. The judge has made a series of detailed decisions on how commercial agreements dating back decades should operate on websites after being asked for rulings by Merck bosses and analysing the case at a High Court hearing in London. He said, in a written outline of the case, that Merck had its origins in an apothecary shop in Darmstadt in 1668. The family business had grown hugely, begun trading in the USA in 1889 and split into E Merck and Merck and Co Inc after the First World War. The judge explained: The questions that lie at the heart of these proceedings are how a co-existence agreement dating from the 1950s can operate in the age of the internet. Mr Justice Norris said Merck Global had made complaints relating to Merck US websites. Bosses said domain names including the word Merck could be accessed globally and were in breach of agreements. Merck US had disputed the complaints. He concluded that Merck US had infringed a trademark of which Merck Global was a registered proprietor. Merck Global was also entitled to injunctions against Merck & Co and Merck Sharp & and Dohme Ltd, he said. Paula Williams and her family must have almost given up hope after their puppy, Kase, had been missing for a whole month. Kase it seems had wandered away from their home in Lubbock, Texas and had been taken in, unbeknownst to the Williams family, by neighbours right down the street. They cared for Kase and kept him warm and fed according to a post on Paulas Facebook page. Cassel Vineyards of Hershey The Cassel family during a recent pose for a photo. Located in Dauphin County, near Hummelstown, Cassel Vineyards of Hershey will be one of eight wineries pouring at the Farm Show on Friday and Saturday. (Submitted) The final round of wineries will set up Friday morning and continue pouring through Saturday afternoon at the 2016 Farm Show. If there's a story with this group, it's the relative closeness of most of the wineries, with one from Dauphin County and others from Lancaster, York and Perry counties. There are some Farm Show mainstays, such as Starr Hill and Shade Mountain, and a couple of relatively new producers such as Buddy Boy and Cassel Vineyards of Hershey. Here's a skinny on the lineup, in alphabetical order: Buddy Boy Winery, Perry County: Family-owned. As unique as it gets in Pennsylvania, the midstate producer just celebrated its fourth birthday with another big catch at the Farm show judging, including a pair of golds and three silvers. Definitely a winery that leans toward sweeter, with a list of names - including Hillbilly Red, The Mutt, Four on the Floor and Plum Schmiggitty - that symbolize what this place is all about. One of PennLive's finalist last summer for best winery. Cassel Vineyards of Hershey, Dauphin County: Winner of that best winery contest last summer. This is a family that does education full time and win epretty doggone well part time on a pretty plot of ground not far from Hershey. Makes a mix of dry and sweet. Its port was a double gold winner in the recent Farm Show competition. Christian W. Klay Winery, Fayette County: A family-owned winery with an interesting history. One of the state's older wineries, it opened in 1997 on part of a 215-acre farm 60 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. The wine list is diverse and includes a couple of sweeter bubblies. Flickerwood Wine Cellars, McKean County: Heading into its 16th year of operation as the winery that rocks, with several family members known as much for their accomplishments in rock and roll as in winemaking. Looking at the wine list, there's plenty to choose from, including the hybrids Marechal Foch, Leon Millot and DeChaunac. Naylor Wine Cellars, York County: Family-owned and one of the state's oldest wineries, going back to when Dick Naylor started making his first wine out of dandelions in 1972. He opened for business in 1979 and the winery has never looked back. This producer offers a broad range of wines, from dry to sweet to dessert. Nissley Vineyards, Lancaster County: Family-owned and one that carries as much Pennsylvania wine history as Naylor, having opened a few miles from the Susquehanna River off Route 441 in 1978. Indeed, both places are known for their summer concerts and long lists of wines. Nissley is celebrating its eight medals, including a double gold for its raspberry and golds for its Valley Red (hybrid blend) and Vidal Blanc. Shade Mountain Winery, Snyder County: Run by the Zimmerman family, which put their first vines in the ground in 1989. There are now more than 68 acres of vineyards that feature 40 grape varieties: from Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah to Viognier, Riesling and Steuben. Lots of options to sample, depending on your preference. Starr Hill Vineyard & Winery, Clearfield County: Family-owned since 2005. Owner Kenny Starr told me a couple years ago that there's a reason for his wide selection. "We look at it as, if you're a winery that has six or eight choices, you're probably going to have something there that people will like," he said. "But if you have 40 choices, unless you're wine is terrible, they've got to like at least a half dozen or so of those wines." It's the only Pa. winery that has a shop inside a Walmart. That is located in DuBois. For the first time in Ireland a Muslim community has invited politicians to a pre-election debate. While the election has yet to be called - tonight election hopefuls will address a cross section of Muslims to hear their concerns on a range of issues. The High Court has heard that "infamy or notoriety is not a basis for criminal immunity" and should not prevent the prosecution of Michael Lowry. The Independent TD is trying to stop his pending trial for alleged tax offences from going ahead. Michael Lowry (pictured) is facing a number of charges in relation to a payment of 372,000 that was owed to a company of his in 2002, and paid into an Isle of Man trust account - a move with tax implications, according to the DPP. He claims he has no case to answer and is trying to put an end to his pending trial. The Tipperary North TD also claims he has been denied the right to a fair trial because of what he believes to be an"unparalleled" media campaign against him, and unprecedented State scrutiny for 20 years. Today, Remy Farrell, Senior Counsel for the DPP, described this proposition as "extraordinary" and asked if infamous or notorious people should be entitled to criminal immunity. He went on to defend the decision to have the trial heard in Dublin and insisted there was nothing to suggest the DPP didnt trust Tipperary juries. "She does so every day of the week," he said. A woman has admitted making bogus bomb threats to Aras an Uachtarain, Leinster House and the offices of various TDs. Anne Fennell of Monastery Gate Green, Clondalkin in Dublin said she was really annoyed about water rates and other things in the news at the time. Just after 9am on the morning of October 18 2014, an usher at Leinster House took a call from a woman who claimed there would be a bomb left outside the main gate at 3pm. The threat was taken seriously and the building was searched before it was eventually declared a hoax. That was just one of a series of similar calls made by Anne Fennell between March and November 2014. During a call to the Aras ahead of the Presidents historic visit to the UK in April of that year, she warned the receptionist that both Michael D Higgins and his wife Sabina would be returning to Ireland in plastic bags if they set foot on English soil. The offices of various TDs were also targeted. The court heard an assistant at the constituency office of Alan Kelly was told both he and the Minister for the Environment would get a bullet in their heads. Fennell admitted everything following her arrest and said she never intended to carry out any of the threats. A sentence will be handed down in July. Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini has denied Premier League rivals have worked his team out. City were held to a goalless draw by Everton on Wednesday despite dominating the chances and remain three points behind league leaders Arsenal. But Pellegrini is confident that was an aberration, saying: One of the things this team is not is predictable. We have so many different ways to play with two strikers, with one striker, without strikers. Weve changed the tactical system a lot of times so I think we continue being, after three seasons when Im in charge, the top scoring team of the Premier League. Not only at home but away also, we always try to be an offensive team. If we dont score once, having 17 shots at goal, its just an accident, but I dont think its because our rivals know the way they must play. Not one team in the Premier League has played against our team hand to hand, they are always waiting for us, with eight or nine players behind the ball near their box. We try to make the movement to create space. City made their first January signing on Friday with the capture of midfielder Anthony Caceres from Central Coast Mariners for an undisclosed fee. But the Australian is a low-key recruit who may come into first-team contention at some point in the future and Pellegrini again insisted he is happy with the squad he has. The European transfer market took on a different look on Thursday when Real and Atletico Madrid were both banned from registering new players for two transfer windows. They will both appeal, which will buy them some time and could potentially defer a final decision until after the summer window. The speculation is Real would then go on a spending splurge in the summer, with City striker Sergio Aguero among those linked to the Spanish giants. Pellegrini declined to comment on Aguero but insisted City are on the right track to rival Real as a destination for the very best players. The Chilean said: I think its a club that wants to be on the same level. I think we are improving every year in achievement, in the way the club is growing in every department. Real Madrid has a long and important story but I am sure this club is going in the correct way to try to do it. City face Crystal Palace on Saturday for the third time this season. They secured a late win in the league at Selhurst Park in September before a very convincing 5-1 victory in the Capital One Cup. Nigerian striker Kelechi Iheanacho has scored in both games, and Pellegrini could be tempted to give him more game time this weekend. The City boss said: I always say with young players, if they are working every day with the team and they play some games, they must take their chance, and I think every time Kelechi has played, he has done very well. We talked to the FA last season to have his work permit (sorted) because I especially think he will be a very important player. Pellegrini will select from the same squad that faced Everton, with Vincent Kompany, Eliaquim Mangala, Fernandinho, Samir Nasri and Wilfried Bony all still out. Meanwhile, Pellegrini confirmed Caceres is likely to be loaned out. He will come here but probably he will go on loan, said the 62-year-old. Hes not part of the squad at this moment. The club are always thinking about the future. An obvious destination for Caceres would be Citys A-League sister club Melbourne City. Melbourne boss John vant Schip was coy on any loan move, with the Dutchman quoted in the Australian press saying: Manchester City is getting him in. More or less, thats it. We cant comment on (a potential loan move) but of course everybody knows hes a good player, hes one of the better players in the A-League. So well just have to see. The Vineyard at Grandview One of the regional winery events on the horizon is the annual Valentine's Day pairing dinner at The Vineyard at Grandview in Mt. Joy, Lancaster County. Check the winery's Facebook page or website, or call the winery, for more details. This is a picture from last year, of boneless braised short ribs and puree of Yukon gold potatoes paired with The Vineyard at Grandview's Cabernet Sauvignon. (Facebook) The free tasting schedules have returned to normal at the midstate's Fine Wine & Good Spirits shops now that the holiday weeks are behind us. So here's what the regional stores are teeing up for sample Friday and Saturday. York store, 2547 York Marketplace 4 to 6 p.m. Friday Croatian wines, per wine specialist Patti Meckley 2014 Kozlovic Malvasia, $20.99. On the palate, the wine is fresh and vivid with lightly perky fruits, combined with length and fullness in the mouth. 2013 Bibich R5 Riserva, $21.99. Aromas of browned butter, hazelnuts and herbs. Textured and harmonious and aged in American oak for 12 months. 2013 Bibich R6 Riserva, $22.99. Ripe fruit aromas that hint at the Zinfandel heritage all three grapes belong too, but ultimately savory and chock full of smoky herbs, pepper and burnt ashes. 2012 Bibich G6, $23.99. 100% Grenache. This wine is medium bodied and both savory and fruity. Dry, mineral and filled with aromas of peppery Mediterranean herbs. Lemoyne, West Shore Shopping Center 4 to 6 p.m. Friday and noon to 2 p.m. Saturday Wine from obscure regions of Spain, per retail wine specialist Kirt Heintzelman Coto De Gomariz 2014 "The Flower And The Bee" from Avia Valley, Ribeiro ($14.99), which is 100% Treixadura. The importer says... "This wine is the entry level of Gomariz, but expresses very well the same criteria of quality of their older brothers: identity of the Avia Valley Terroirs. White peach and lemon notes, with pear and orange blossom on the nose; wonderful minerality and crisp acidity; Serve at 9oC. Seafood with some complexity as turbot, cod, salmon. White meats and cheeses with light cure." Panarroz 2014 Jumilla ($8.99), which is 80% Monastrell, 10% Syrah and 10% Garnacha. The importer says... "Bottled young to guard the fresh, intense fruit. This youthful, unoaked blend offers plenty of plummy, dark fruit aromas, with light spicy, peppery ntoes and bold fruit and a silky texture on the palate. A versatile wine that will complement most meals, Panarroz will pair especially well with tapas, grilled vegetables, flank steak, seared tuna, and teriyaki-glazed salmon." Vicente Gandia 2013 'Bo' Bobal from Utiel Requena ($9.99). The winemaker says... "This is a modern, elegant wine, with intense colour and fruit and rich cherry tones from its high acidity. In the nose it presents a range of wild fruit and toasted oak aroma. In the mouth the tannins are meaty and flavoursome, with a perfect blend between hints of fresh fruit and toasting notes, with a smooth, balanced, characterful finish. Serve with grilled fish, red meats, and semi-cured cheeses." But you might enjoy seeing the rating of 86 points from Wine Spectator (Dec 2015) with this review... "This light red delivers bright cherry and berry fruit, with leafy, smoky and gamy accents. The supple texture shows fresh acidity and just enough tannins for grip. Drink now." Chairman's Selection(r) Bodegas Quaderna Via 2009 "QV" Red from Navarra ($17.99), which is Tempranillo. Quoted at $28.00 at the winery, with their winemaker's notes... "Cherry very intense, almost opaque. In the nose, good intensity, with fine notes of toasted oak, cocoa, very ripe black fruit and floral sensations. The palate is high-bodied with good acidity, fresh, tasty, with good fruit intensity and a good ending. Superb." Steve Pollack, wine buyer for the Chairman's Selection(r) program, says ... "A very well made Tempranillo showing the depth and intensity this grape provides in wine. Try with grilled chorizo sausage and baked sage potatoes." Harrisburg, 5070 Jonestown Pike 4 to 6 p.m. Friday Inexpensive wines, per retail wine specialist Paul Robertson Leitz Riesling QBA 2014, $12.99 Snoqualmie Chardonnay Columbia Valley 2012, $10.99 Telegraph Station Shiraz Mclaren Vale 2013, $13.99 Tranvia 28 Red Blend Lisbon 2014, $8.99 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday Destination tasting, per retail wine specialist Paul Robertson Chateau Nozieres Ambriose de L'Her Cahors 2012, $13.99 Chateau Saint Louis Cuvee Gravieres Fronton 2012, $12.99 Domaine de Mirail Cotes de Gascogne Colombard 2014, $9.99 Domaine des Bories Madiran Vielles Vigne 2011, $29.99 Lancaster store, 558 Centerville Road 4 to 6 Friday West Coast reds, per wine specialist David Speakman La Fenetre La Paire Red Blend Central Coast 2010, $29.99 Lioco Indica Carignan Mendocino 2012, $19.99 Owen Roe Red Yakima Valley 2012, $25.99 Lang and Reed Cabernet Franc North Coast 2012, $25.99 2 to 4 Saturday French whites, per wine specialist David Speakman In Somalia several people are reported to have died in an attack by Al Shebab militants on an African Union base. The group linked to Al-Qaeda terrorists struck this morning in the southwest of the country. NEW DELHI: India has raised the price at which it will buy new season wheat from local farmers in 2023 by 110 rupees... Brent oil may retest a support at $91.22 per barrel, after a weak bounce into $93-$93.62 range. The deep drop on... By Judge Philip Straniere SPECIAL TO THE ADVANCE As Staten Islanders follow the final long-overdue demise of the old Staten Island Hospital on Castleton Avenue into a pile of rubble, I began to reflect on Staten Island's past, when we had more than two hospitals at three locations. We should have known the conversion of the Castleton Avenue site to a condominium in the 1980s was doomed when the developer added a top floor, encrusted in metal, completely out of character with the red brick structure. Staten Island Hospital, now called Staten Island University Hospital (SIUH), opened in April 1861, a week after the Civil War started, with the firing on Fort Sumter. Originally located in Stapleton, at the corner of Bay Street and Union Place, it was named the S.R. Smith Infirmary after Dr. Samuel Russell Smith. In 1887, Dr. George Forest donated 6 acres on Castleton Avenue for a new facility. Construction started in 1889 on the castle-like Smith Infirmary Building (which also met the wrecker's ball a few years ago). In 1917 the more familiar "high rise" structure was constructed; an addition was built in the 1960s. At this location in 1960 or '61, Dr. Melvin Victor, Bea Victor's late husband, removed my ruptured appendix. Let's just say that sewing wasn't Doc Victor's forte, as the resulting scar has kept me from being a stomach model. St. Vincent's Hospital, now Richmond University Medical Center (RUMC), opened on Thanksgiving Day in 1903, at the corner of Bard and Castleton avenues. The building, which was originally the Garner Mansion, and later the St. Austin School for Boys, is still in use. RUMC's recently announced plans to expand its emergency room seek to preserve the structure. Julia Grant looked at the Garner Mansion as a home for her and Ulysses S. Grant after he left the presidency. Rumors have it our local mosquito population dissuaded her from the purchase. SIUH South began its life as Richmond Memorial Hospital in 1927, named in honor of veterans of the World War 10 years earlier; the Dreyfus family gave the money to start the hospital. Bertha Dreyfus Junior High School in Stapleton is named for a family member. They also gave the land for Hero Park on Grymes Hill. Although no longer operating as a hospital, the Seaman's Retreat on Bay Street and Vanderbilt Avenue opened at that site in 1837. The original building is gone, but the remaining one is a landmark. In 1903 it became the Marine Hospital. The larger building on the site was constructed in the 1930s, and has many Art Deco features. Islanders will remember it as the U.S. Public Health Service Hospital. One summer in the late 1960s, I worked there as part of the Federal College Internship Program; it later became Bayley-Seton Hospital. But it too, is closed. Apparently no one could figure out how to keep its emergency room open to serve the community. The plans to build a recreational center at that site funded by the Kroc Family of McDonald's fame, remain just that, plans. Seaview Hospital on Brielle Avenue opened in November 1913 as a hospital for the treatment of tuberculosis. Although no longer used to treat that disease, and after losing some architecturally significant structures to demolition, many of its buildings have been repurposed for other public uses such as a rehabilitation center and housing. There are other hospitals that have disappeared and remain only as memories to Islanders. Fox Hills was once the site of Hoff General Hospital #41. It opened in World War I to treat veterans. The one-square-mile area had 90 buildings; it closed in 1923. New Dorp Beach was the site of Seaside Hospital. It originally opened as a nursery in 1881, and became a hospital in 1887. During World War II, it was known as the Staten Island Area Station Hospital. My father was a patient there when he developed pneumonia. It closed after the War and was demolished in the 1960s for another planned, but never built, highway from Robert Moses. Many Islanders will remember Doctor's Hospital on Targee Street; it started as Sunnyside Hospital on Little Clove Road. That site is somewhere under the Staten Island Expressway, opposite the Michael J. Petrides School. The name was changed to Doctor's Hospital at some point. After the Targee Street site was closed by Staten Island Hospital, the city acquired the property for the new Public School 48. The College of Staten Island occupies the former site of the Willowbrook State School. Selected in the 1930s as the location of a state facility for persons with disabilities, WW II saw it open as a hospital for wounded soldiers, which it remained until 1947. The hospital building stood where the Great Lawn, in front of the Performing Arts Center, is. Another long gone building was the hospital at Sailor's Snug Harbor. Anyone else notice that although part of NYC since 1898, there is no municipal hospital in our community? ISLAMABAD: The policy of import compression by the government to manage the balance of payments which was ... RABAT: One volunteer firefighter has been killed and another injured in a forest fire in northern Morocco, where new... Democratic Senator Al Franken of Minnesota wants answers from online-services giant Google about its handling of student data. Google is a dominant player in the ed-tech industry, and they offer affordable, accessible services and devices, which is great for students, Franken told Education Week. But I want to make sure that parents know what is happening with their childrens information. Earlier this week, the senator sent a letter sent to Google CEO Sundar Pichai , requesting that the company respond to questions about how it collects and uses data gathered on students. Of specific interest to Franken: What does the company do with information gleaned from students who are using school-issued Chromebooks or are logged into school-issued Apps for Education accounts, but have ventured into company services that are not education-specific, such as YouTube? And what does Google do with the aggregated information of student users of Chrome Sync (a tool to keep users browsing experience consistent across multiple platforms)? Both questions are driven by a complaint filed last month with the Federal Trade Commission by electronic-privacy advocacy group the Electronic Frontier Foundation . The group alleges that in the scenarios described above, Google is collecting and using information in ways that violate the voluntary Student Privacy Pledge , which Google and 200 other education technology companies have signed. Google issued the following statement: Weve responded to the EFF in detail and were very happy to provide Senator Franken with more information. The company has also denied that it is violating the Student Privacy Pledge. That stance is backed by the Future of Privacy Forum , an industry-aligned think tank that is a prime mover behind the pledge initiative. Still, more transparency around the companys practices would be beneficial, said Jules Polonetsky, the groups executive director. Clearly, when it comes to the general issue of whats collected, where, and why by Google and other companies, getting more information is always useful, Polonetsky said in an interview. Student data privacy concerns persist Student data privacy has in recent years become a hot-button issue in education. Dozens of states have passed new laws , and a number of proposals have been floated in Congress . In 2014, Google found itself in hot water after Education Week reported that the company had acknowledged scanning and indexing student email messages sent using its popular Apps for Education tool suite. The company says it has since stopped that practice. But concerns about Googles practices persist. At the heart of the current conflict are questions about how the company (and others) should handle information gleaned from student users of products and services that are not specifically designed or marketed to schools. Its a legal and technical gray area. What is clear is that under the terms of many state laws (such as Californias SOPIPA statute , which has been copied elsewhere) and the Student Privacy Pledge, companies may not take information gathered on students who are using educational products and services and employ that information for non-educational purposes outside of those services. So Google, for example, cant take what it learns about students who are using Apps for Education services and employ that information to target ads to those students when they later use Google Search or Google Maps. Whats less clear, however, is what companies are permitted to do when student users are moving freely between educational and non-educational services. Imagine, for example, one of the millions of students who use a school-issued Chromebook or Apps for Education account to do schoolwork. That student may very well take breaks to peek at YouTube videos, conduct Internet searches, or check a personal Gmail account. Should the company be allowed to collect the same information on that students YouTube, Search, and Gmail usage that it collects on general consumers? On that question, there are significant differences of opinion. In its complaint to the FTC , the Electronic Frontier Foundation alleges that Google is collecting students non-educational data that is stored away and used by Google for its own benefit, unrelated to authorized educational or school purposes. The group claims that such practices violate the Student Privacy Pledge. Polonetsky of the Future of Privacy Forum, however, said that even if the company is employing such practices, they would not constitute a violation of the pledge or most relevant state laws, which he said were written specifically to ensure that uses of commercial services were not covered. The reason the language is very focused on products designed and marketed for education is you dont want schools barred from buying computers that arent structured solely for student use, or from being able to go to Amazon, Polonetsky said. Google committed to keeping student information private Google, for its part, has defended its practices. In a December blog post , Jonathan Rochelle, the director of Google Apps for Education, or GAFE, wrote: We have always been firmly committed to keeping student information private and secure... Schools can control whether students or teachers can use additional Google consumer services by establishing settings on student GAFE accounts. We are committed to ensuring that K-12 student personal information is not used to target ads in these services, Rochelle also wrote. But the company has been less than forthcoming in detailing its actual practices. There are potential non-commercial uses of student information other than targeted advertising, including the construction of behavioral profiles of users. Google has repeatedly declined requests to specify whether it is using information collected on students in non-GAFE services for such purposes. Sen. Franken, who has not taken a position on whether Google is violating the Student Privacy Pledge, said he hopes to be the one who finally gets answers from the company. As the top Democrat on the Senate Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, I think its really important to ask those questions, he told Education Week. I believe that consumers have a fundamental right to know what information is being collected, how it is used, and who it is being shared with. The complete list of Sen. Frankens questions for Google: When a student is signed in to their GAFE account but is not using one of the GAFE services, what kind of data does Google collect on an individual student? When a student is using a Chromebook but is not using one of the GAFE services, what kind of data does Google collect on an individual student? If Google does collect any individualized data on a student, such as browsing information or viewing habits, when a student is using a Chromebook or is logged in to their GAFE account but is not using one of GAFE services, please address the following questions: For what purposes does Google collect this information? Is it necessary to collect all of this information for the provision of GAFE services or to deliver other valuable features that may be relevant for educational purposes? Has Google ever used this kind of data to target ads to students in Google services, either in the GAFE services or other Google services, such as Google Search, Google News, Google Books, Google Maps, Blogger, or YouTube? Has Google ever used this kind of data for its own business purposes, unrelated to the provision of Googles educational offerings Is it possible to make this data collection opt-in? Does Google share this information with additional parties? Google has indicated that it compiles data aggregated from student users of Chrome Sync, anonymizes the data, and uses it to improve its services. Can you expand on how the aggregated information is treated? For example, does this include sharing the aggregated data with third parties for research purposes or otherwise? Can you describe Googles relationship with school districts and administrators that choose to use Google for Education products and services? Apart from publicly available privacy policies, does Google offer any explanation to parents, teachers, and education officials about how student information is collected and used? Can you describe all the contexts and ways in which both school administrators and parents of students using Google for Education products and services have control over what data is being collected and how the data are being used? Photo: U.S. Sen. Al Franken chats with the media in a 2014 photo.--Jim Mone/AP-File See also: Scars on the torso of Mohammad Albederee, who has been cutting himself with a razor. Another man was found attempting to damage his wrist "with a small ring of metal" and was restrained. He tried to break free, saying, "I want to die, let me die." At Nauru in October 2014 a detainee, apparently upset after meeting his lawyer, "wrapped himself in toilet paper and attempted to get hold of a lighter". In another incident, a woman "poured boiling water over [her] lower limbs". Mohammad Albederee has been cutting himself with a razor. Also at Nauru, a man "was seen to jump from a top bunk with [a] torn sheet around his neck", while, separately, a detainee who swallowed anti-dandruff shampoo "was on the floor of the tent vomiting and ... appeared to be unconscious". In May last year a man had "sewn a heart shape design into his hand using [a] needle and thread". The rate of self-harm is even higher in Australia's onshore detention network, where there were 706 acts in 12 months - almost two incidents a day. They included asylum seekers living in the community or in community detention. At Villawood in June a detainee drank half a litre of disinfectant and took heart medication. Other detainees have swallowed washing powder, shampoo, stones, insect repellent, detergent, toilet cleaner and head lice treatment. An asylum seeker living in the community in Western Australia last July "took 250 tablets of different medications" in an attempt to commit suicide. Others have tried to injure themselves by bashing their heads against walls, mirrors, wardrobes and steel poles, or by choking themselves with plastic bags or scarves. A handful of log entries appear to be wrongly categorised or updates on previous incidents. But the figures are likely to be conservative because many acts of self-harm or violence appear to be included in other incident categories. The freedom of information requests, made by the University of Melbourne's Law Students for Refugees in conjunction with Fairfax Media, did not include logs of threatened self-harm, minor assaults or voluntary starvation. The documents suggest the rate of self-harm at Nauru - once every two days - is significantly higher than that reported to a Senate inquiry last year by Transfield Services, since renamed Broadspectrum. The controversial company, which performs key functions at the offshore camps, reported 253 incidents of self-harm over 972 days between September 2012 and April 2015, or about one incident every four days. As Fairfax Media revealed this week, the time asylum seekers spend in onshore detention has increased under the Turnbull government to a record high of 445 days, raising concern over the effect on detainees' mental health. An Immigration Department spokesman said all incidents of self-harm, no matter how significant, were reported and "any detainee who threatens to self-harm, or self-harms, receives immediate and appropriate medical care and support". He said the department supported the governments of Nauru and PNG through contractors who worked with detainees in welfare, health and medical roles. Detainees who threaten or commit self-harm "are immediately provided with both counselling and medical services". "The services provided in both Nauru and Papua New Guinea are broadly comparable with health services available within the Australian community," he said. A Broadspectrum spokesman said the company "stands behind its track record" at the offshore detention centres, where it has made "significant improvements". Anguish at heart of detention regime Plum-coloured scars criss-cross the torso of Mohammad Albederee, an Iraqi who cuts himself with a standard-issue razor and fears "I will die soon". Mr Albederee once reportedly cut open his stomach during a hunger strike to prove it was empty. Now advocates say the Manus Island asylum seeker wants to eat, but can't keep anything down. He claims he was injured by guards during an altercation and now suffers constant shoulder and kidney pain. "I can't do anything. I'm staying nine months in pain and I don't see anyone care about me," he said in a video recording obtained by Fairfax Media. "I feel very, very tired all the time. Pain my chest, pain my stomach, pain my kidney, pain my legs. Sometimes I can't move my leg; sometimes I can't leave my bed. "I'm very, very, very scared because I feel I will die soon." In November prominent human rights lawyer Julian Burnside, QC, attempted to intervene in Mr Albederee's case, saying the asylum seeker was at risk of death and must be brought to Australia for treatment. Authorities said he was receiving appropriate care and his life was not endangered. South Australian refugee advocate Jeanie Walker, who is in daily contact with Mr Albederee, said: "All he wants is surgery on his shoulder and kidneys, so he's out of pain. "There's nothing of him. He's just skin, bone and scars. He's jaundiced, his liver's not working. One in five women have experienced sexual assault since they were 15, Minister to prevent Domestic and Family Violence Minister Shannon Fentiman said on Friday. The Minister made the comment as she announced an extra $6 million over the next five years to counter domestic violence and sexual assault from the Queensland government. Deputy Premier Jackie Trad says "Queensland is determined to tackle the scourge of domestic and family violence". "We know that sexual assault is a tactic more and more in domestic violence," she said. "Having specialist face to face counselling services in Queensland to support women who are experiencing sexual assault and domestic violence is absolutely critical to tackling this issue." A day after Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan saw a dead mouse on the floor of a classroom during a school visit, he has called for a citywide inspection of all public schools. The inspections are expected to be completed by the April, according to a news release from the city. Staff will be on the lookout for electrical and fire hazards, structural problems, mold, and heating and cooling issues. When problems are found, the building department will take appropriate action to make sure that the violations are understood, along with the required repairs and the timeline for completing them, a release from Duggans office indicated. Protests by teachers upset about building conditions and other issues brought the problems to light. During his school visits, Duggan also saw students wearing coats in classrooms without inadequate heating, the Detroit News reported. This effort isnt about blaming anybody, Duggan said in the statement. Its about making sure that every child and every teacher in Detroit goes to school in a safe and healthy environment. Mired in debt, the district has been unable to complete even minor repairs in many of its schools. But school officials said they strive to inspect boilers and elevators in each school annually. Detroit schools Emergency Manager Darnell Earley said in a statement that the district welcomes any additional resources ... that the city of Detroit can help us to identify to assist the district in addressing its building capital and maintenance needs. Photo Credit: Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, center, talks with school officials officials about the conditions at Fisher Magnet Lower Academy during a visit to the school on Tuesday. --Jose Juarez/Detroit News/AP In negotiations: Coptic Pope Tawadros II, leads Christmas Eve Mass at St. Mark's Cathedral, in Cairo. Credit:AP In June last year, Pope Francis also signalled his desire to set a common date for Easter, telling a global gathering of priests in Rome "we have to come to an agreement". He joked that Christians could say to one another "When did Christ rise from the dead? My Christ rose today, and yours next week", the Catholic News Agency reported. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, right, kisses Pope Francis' head during an ecumenical prayer at the Patriarchal Church of St George in Istanbul in 2014. Credit:AP And in May, Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II wrote to the papal nuncio in Egypt proposing a common date for Easter. Mr Welby said he had discussed the idea in a recent meeting with Pope Tawadros in Cairo. Illustration: Matt Golding When did Christ rise from the dead? My Christ rose today, and yours next week Pope Francis shares a joke "The (Anglican) primates agreed this morning that we wish to join with Pope Tawadros in what looks like a promising chance of unifying and fixing the date on which Easter is celebrated by the global Church," he said. "At the moment most of us spend this part of the year saying 'now when exactly is Easter this year' Pope Tawadros has put forward the idea to churches in the Eastern tradition and the Western tradition that it be fixed somewhere around the second or third Sunday of April. "We have agreed that we support that." Pope Tawadros had also discussed the matter with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople the 'first among equals' in the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Anglican church has warned the UK government that agreement was "coming up". "I would expect (the change) between 5 and ten years time," Mr Welby said. "I can't imagine it would be earlier than that, not least because most people have probably printed their calendars for the next five years. "And school holidays and so on are all fixed and it effects almost everything you do in the spring and summer. "I would love to see it before I retired. "Equally, I think the first attempt to do this was in the tenth century, so it may take a little while." Once the churches agree, governments (including in Australia) will have to pass or amend legislation in order to put it into effect. In 1928 the UK parliament actually passed legislation allowing Easter Sunday to be fixed to the Sunday after the second Saturday in April. The same year, the premiers of NSW, Victoria and South Australia all agreed to pass an act setting a fixed date for Easter, on the same day as the UK. The Canberra Times reported in 1929 that the "vagueness" of the ancient calculation "is disturbing the business and social arrangements, and, therefore, affects us all Easter is always a matter of doubt until we are definitely reassured. There is no real reason why it should not be fixed." The story reported that there was an international push for a fixed Easter, led by a committee appointed by the League of Nations, which had approached the Holy See and the Orthodox Eastern Church. The Vatican said "it had no objection from the viewpoint of dogma", and the Orthodox church said "it would agree to stabilisation if all Christian Churches did". Then in 1929 both South Australia and Western Australia passed legislation setting Easter Day to the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April. However, the international push petered out and the legislation gathered dust. The UK Act was never activated by official proclamation and neither was the SA Act while the WA Act specified that it would only come into effect when the UK law was proclaimed. The ACT government should abolish existing taxes on motorists and trial new funding models with congestion on Canberra roads tipped to cost $400 million by 2030, according to an industry group. Infrastructure Partnerships Australia chief executive Brendan Lyon said road funding was broken in Australia and the ACT was perfectly placed to trial new initiatives and ensure better value for money. Infrastructure Partnerships Australia has called for the ACT government to trial a new road funding scheme. Credit:Melissa Adams "At its most fundamental, transport is broken because we don't have the money needed for new and renewed infrastructure and we use the networks we have very poorly," he said. With an election looming, the Liberal and Labor parties have pledged to upgrade arterial roads including the duplication of the Cotter Road at an estimated $25 million, despite opposition from the ACT Greens. A Braddon man has pleaded not guilty to an alleged one-punch attack in Civic on New Year's Day. Jordan Sharma, 20, entered the plea in the ACT Magistrates Court on Friday to a charge of recklessly inflict grievous bodily harm. The registrar continued bail and the matter will next appear in court in March. No documents outlining the allegations were tendered in court. Chinese stocks headed for a third week of losses amid lingering concern about the government's ability to manage the economic slowdown and yuan devaluation. Material and energy companies led declines. The Shanghai Composite Index slid 1.5 per cent to 2961.47 at the break, adding to a 7.1 per cent slump this week. The Shanghai gauge's losing streak is the longest since the week ended October 2. Credit:AP The yuan traded in Hong Kong fell for the first time in six days on Thursday, while data on Friday showed December new yuan loans and money supply trailing forecasts even as the broadest measure of new credit surged the most since June. The ChiNext index of small-company stocks dropped after rallying by the most in two months on Thursday after a group of listed companies pledged to support their share prices. Adding women The push has been gathering momentum since 2012, when the 30 Percent Coalition, a US group that seeks to have women make up 30 per cent of boards, began urging companies to open up. The incentive: letters signed by its members and institutional investors that collectively oversee $US3 trillion in assets. By last October, 62 of the 168 companies that had been approached had appointed women. In most cases, companies prefer to make any changes quietly, rather than put such an issue to a shareholder vote. "They don't want it to become public," says Charlotte Laurent-Ottomane, executive director of the 30 Percent Coalition. More than 80 per cent of proposals are usually withdrawn after companies negotiate with shareholders, according to Edward Kamonjoh, head of US research at Institutional Shareholder Services, the proxy advisory firm. In the past 15 years, only 57 diversity proposals have been put to a vote, and not one has passed, according to ISS. But that doesn't necessarily mean the proposals didn't have an effect. A resolution at CF Industries Holdings, an Illinois-based fertiliser company, failed to get enough votes to pass in 2013. But the company has since added two women to its board. Under pressure "The resolutions put enough pressure on the company that they have to respond in some way," says Susan Baker, a vice president of Trillium Asset Management. "And if they're voted down one year, they'll be back on the ballot the next." Trillium, which manages $US2.3 billion, successfully prodded Apple to change its charter in 2014 by adopting language vowing to make the company's board more diverse. Andrea Jung, who is Asian American and the former CEO of Avon Products, has been on the board since 2009. She was joined last year by James Bell, an African American who used to be president and chief financial officer of Boeing. Last year, not only was there an increase in resolutions, but shareholder demands got tougher, ISS's Kamonjoh says. Rather than asking companies to create diversity programs, he says, many shareholders are asking for information on how effective those programs have been. The $US162 billion New York City Pension Funds use diversity as a criterion when targeting companies for their boardroom accountability push. The funds want "to give investors a meaningful voice at companies with boards that lack diversity," says city Comptroller Scott Stringer. American Airlines and Exxon Mobil are among those being targeted in 2016. Inconvenient truths Trillium, which is focusing on companies in technology, is also asking for more transparency this year. Every US company has to report data about the racial and gender makeup to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission annually, but only some make the information public. Trillium is sponsoring a resolution that would require Adobe Systems to disclose the data. Adobe declined to comment. Transparency can point out inconvenient truths. Apple, which does disclose the data, trumpeted the percentage of new hires who were women and minorities last year. But African Americans and Hispanics, who make up more than 30 per cent of the US population, represented only 9 percent of Apple's leadership. That proportion was unchanged from 2014. Apple declined to comment. "We need to have this conversation," says the elder Maldonado, who owns 645 Apple shares and whose family uses dozens of Apple products. Some companies say they can't find qualified candidates. Laurent-Ottomane and others dispute that. She points to a database developed by the two big California public pension funds that lists women and minorities. State takeovers of large urban school districts have become more common in recent years, but theres no clear-cut evidence that the intervention leads to better student performance or fiscal management, an analysis from the Pew Charitable Trusts finds . Using Pennsylvanias 2001 takeover of the Philadelphia schools as a starting point, the Pew report compares elements of the citys school governance structure with those of 15 similar urban districts, including Baltimore, Detroit, and Newark. The Pew analysis found that no form of school governance, be it elected local school boards, mayoral control, or state takeover, provides a surefire way to address the academic and fiscal issues, and possible mismanagement, that large districts often face. There is no indication that any particular system for governing urban school districts is superior to another in improving long-term academic performance, the report authors wrote. Too many other factors, experts say, help determine what happens in the classroom, including the quality of principals and teachers, funding, and parental expectations. The research team behind the analysis did conclude that under any model, uncertainty about responsibility and accountability often impede progress. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter are among the advocates who want to abandon the state takeover and return the citys schools to local control. Wolf wants an elected school board while Nutter, who served as mayor from 2008 to 2015, wanted a mayoral-appointed school board. Currently, three of Philadelphias school board members are appointed by the governor and two by the citys mayor. A 2015 Pew survey found that 64 percent of Philadelphia residents want an elected school board; 11 percent want the school board appointed. The remaining 25 percent of residents had no opinion. Appointed school boards are rare but fairly common among the nations largest districts. Nationwide, more than 90 percent of U.S. school districts have elected school boards. Of the urban districts studied for the Pew report, 10 have elected school boards and five dont. Urban School Governance Brief FINAL Over the past decade Australia bet hundreds of billions of dollars that the rest of the world wasn't serious about tackling climate change. It looks like we lost. World demand, and in turn the prices we receive for our precious raw materials, are collapsing under the weight of the oversupply we helped cause. While demand for coal stubbornly refuses to live up to the optimistic forecasts of Australian politicians, the price of renewables keeps falling faster than its most ambitious boosters predicted. The bad bets we have made on fossil fuels will haunt us for decades but, like drunks leaving a casino with empty pockets, we are quick to focus on the "upside" of our massive losses: It was fun while it lasted. I nearly made a fortune. I think that croupier really liked me. Economists had forecast growth of 0.4 per cent in the quarter and 2.5 per cent respectively. Credit:Louie Douvis Denial is as common as it is unhelpful. The plain fact is that Australia hosed the benefits of a once-in-a-century resources boom up against the wall. While Norway managed to accumulate a trillion dollar sovereign wealth fund from the sale of its oil, we managed to give away such big tax cuts that governments now argue they have no choice but to cut spending on education. Worse still, we now enter the "renewable century" at the back of a pack that 20 years ago we led. Well played, Australia, well played. It gets worse. While our politicians drone on about how building mines "creates jobs", what history, economics and common sense tells us is that it is the quality of our investments that matter, not the quantity. The hundreds of billions of dollars that we invested in the expansion of coal and gas exports that the world doesn't want is money that we don't ever get back. It's money we didn't spend on factories, public transport or educating our kids. Our future prosperity is determined not by the size of the things we build, but the future usefulness of the things we invest in. It's not looking good. The co-ordinated assault launched by five suicide bombers and gunmen in the heart of Jakarta on Thursday lasted three hours, involved lengthy exchanges of gunfire with police as well as numerous bomb blasts, and only ended after the five attackers blew themselves up. It's miraculous then the death and injury toll was so low. Of the 22 victims, just two died of their injuries, though one person remains gravely ill in hospital. By contrast, seven gunmen and suicide bombers succeeded in killing 130 people in Paris in November, and forcing the entire city into lock-down. In a now familiar postscript, Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Jakarta attack, a link later confirmed by the city's police chief. He named an Indonesian militant living in Syria, Bahrun Naim, as the attack's mastermind. Bahrun is believed to have travelled to Raqqa (the de facto capital of Islamic State) last year after serving a three-year prison sentence for illegal arms possession, and to be the head of Katibah Nusantara, a military unit run under IS auspices but based in south-east Asia. He also runs a blog site promoting IS's plans for an Asian beachhead for its "caliphate". Police officers examine a police post where an explosion went off. Credit:AP After the Paris attacks, Bahrun published a blog explaining to his followers how easy it was to mount an attack in a major city, and on November 24, when contacted by Reuters news agency, said there were more than enough IS supporters to "carry out an action" in Indonesia and that he was "just waiting for the right trigger". That Bahrun's acolytes proved unequal to the task of killing and causing mayhem on a scale similar to Paris on November 13 is fortunate. The police response, doubtless helped by intelligence derived from chatter among IS sympathisers, probably helped. It's likely, however, that this "failure" will cause Katibah Nusantara to redouble its efforts to better train and equip its operatives. Rickman became such a familiar figure that the American cartoon show Family Guy once depicted him calling his own answering machine, reminding himself to perform mundane household tasks before ending with the chilling warning: "Do not disappoint me". The English journalist Robbie Collin attributed Rickman's reputation as "cinema's greatest silver-tongued devil" to his compelling voice "honey-smooth and homely but still flecked with threat", but often sounding "as though he's caressing a claw hammer through a silk pillowcase". One "wisp", Collin observed, "can capture any room, office, castle or witchcraft and wizardry class in which it's heard". Alan Rickman took sneering screen villainy to new levels as (among others) the scheming chaplain Obadiah Slope in the BBC's television adaptation of Trollope's The Barchester Chronicles (1982), the German terrorist kingpin Hans Gruber in Die Hard (1988), the dastardly Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) and as Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films. Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber in Die Hard. In fact Rickman did not always play baddies, and his voice was equally effective when he was Colonel Brandon, Kate Winslet's crumpled suitor in Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995), or King Louis XIV in A Little Chaos (2014, he also directed the film), set in the court of the Sun King, and also starring Winslet. To a younger generation, Rickman was best known as Severus Snape, Hogwarts' lank-haired resident master of the dark arts, a role he took on in 2001 at a time when only three books in J.K. Rowling's series had been written. Hardly anyone except the actor, who had been let into the secret by Rowling, had any idea how the character would develop. He went on to play Snape in all eight Harry Potter films, gradually evolving his portrayal from the coldly sarcastic and controlled teacher of the early films to a more complex and enigmatic character. In the final two films, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Pt I (2010) and Pt II (2011), Snape was revealed as the hero of the hour. This was perhaps just as well, Rickman claimed to dislike being typecast as the villain, although he grudgingly accepted that it was for his portrayal of unsympathetic characters that he was best known. "Being an actor is not about judging the characters you play," he said. "You don't think of yourself as good or bad just another human being who has certain needs. And you get on with being that person." Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman was born on February 21, 1946 on a council estate in Acton, West London. "My mother was Welsh and my father was Irish and I can speak both accents like a native, yet in my whole career I have never been asked to," he later recalled. His father, a factory worker, died when Alan was eight, leaving his mother to bring up four children. John Bradbury, who was drummer with the Specials, a Coventry-based multi-ethnic group that helped to lead the ska revival in post-punk Britain, died aged 62. Sylvana Pampanini, an Italian beauty queen who turned her wide-eyed good looks to advantage to become the country's most popular screen sex goddess in the early post-war years, died aged 90. Paul Bley, the pianist and composer who was a moving spirit in the "free jazz" revolution of the 1960s and an animating force in the jazz avant-garde, died aged 83. In the course of his 60-year career Bley worked with, and influenced, many of the most prominent and innovative jazz artists of the time. Olwyn Hughes, the blunt-speaking and fiercely loyal sister of the poet Ted Hughes and literary executor of his first wife, Sylvia Plath, died aged 87. (Telegraph, London) Michael W. Davidson, who used sophisticated microscopes to create stunning, psychedelic images of crystallised substances like DNA and hormones, then had the images printed on ties to finance his research work, died aged 65. "The family of David Bowie is currently making arrangements for a private ceremony celebrating the memory of their beloved husband, father and friend," the family's statement said. It gave no details about where or when the ceremony might take place. David Bowie's family said they are arranging a private ceremony to celebrate his life. A statement on Bowie's official Facebook page followed British media reports that the 69-year-old Space Oddity singer has already been cremated quietly in New York without his friends or family in attendance. David Bowie will be remembered in a private ceremony, says his family, who have thanked fans for their support after the British rock star's death from cancer on Sunday but repeated requests for privacy. "They ask once again that their privacy be respected at this most sensitive of times. We are overwhelmed by and grateful for the love and support shown throughout the world." The statement also said the family were "overwhelmed by and grateful for the love and support shown throughout the world". It added that the concerts and tributes in the coming weeks were "most welcome" but "none are official memorials organized or endorsed by the family". "Just as each and every one of us found something unique in David's music, we welcome everyone's celebration of his life as they see fit." Bowie's death after a secret 18-month battle with cancer and two days after releasing a new album caused shock and dismay around the world and sent sales soaring of both his old and new music. Studying with the recently deceased French composer Pierre Boulez left Sophie Galaise with lifelong principles for her musical journey: "Be dedicated, hard-working, very very focused aim high." The Montreal-born flautist will bring all that and a stellar stint with the Queensland Symphony to her new role as managing director of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in April. Sophie Galaise, who starts her new role as the managing director of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in April. Her first two weeks will coincide with the MSO's trip to China to perform alongside the Shanghai Symphony, and the equally groundbreaking international debut of the BBC Proms at Hamer Hall from April 13 to 16. Then begins the hard work of helping steer the MSO "from very good to great" at home and overseas. However, today further conditions were placed on the reunion: although all six of the show's central cast will be somehow involved with the reunion, they will not appear on screen together. Matthew Perry from his role in The Odd Couple . Credit:Monty Brinton Admittedly, it did not come in its expected form (the cast will reunite in a two-hour television special to honour the work of US television comedy director James Burrows, potentially alongside reunions from other shows Burrows directed, including Cheers and Will & Grace) but, after waiting 12 long, hard years for any semblance of a reboot, Friends fans have learnt not to be picky. Yesterday, Friends fans were a-buzz with the news of a long-awaited cast reunion . Matthew Perry, who played Chandler Bing on the show, has become the first cast member to give his apologies. The cast of Friends. Credit:NBC via Getty Images In an email sent to reporters on Thursday, Perry's representative Lisa Kasteler said her client would be unable to attend the reunion in person. "Matthew will not be attending as he is in London in rehearsals for his play, The End of Longing, which begins previews on Feb. 2 at the Playhouse Theatre. NBC executives were aware of this prior to their TCA announcement yesterday," Kasteler wrote. "Matthew may tape something for the tribute. In other words, this is not the reunion people have been hoping for." Asylum seekers: Self-harm in detention centres at epidemic levels, internal documents show Were sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. Were working to restore it. Please try again later. Dismiss Mr Albederee once reportedly cut open his stomach during a hunger strike to prove it was empty. Now advocates say the Manus Island asylum seeker wants to eat, but can't keep anything down. Plum-coloured scars criss-cross the torso of Mohammad Albederee, an Iraqi who cuts himself with a standard-issue razor and fears "I will die soon". He claims he was injured by guards during an altercation and now suffers constant shoulder and kidney pain. Mohammad Albederee at the Manus Island detention centre. "I can't do anything. I'm staying nine months in pain and I don't see anyone care about me," he said in a video recording obtained by Fairfax Media. "I feel very, very tired all the time. Pain my chest, pain my stomach, pain my kidney, pain my legs. Sometimes I can't move my leg; sometimes I can't leave my bed. "I'm very, very, very scared because I feel I will die soon." Federal Labor stalwart Joel Fitzgibbon and up-and-comer Pat Conroy would be found new seats but long-serving backbencher Jill Hall could be forced out of Parliament under a plan being engineered by factional heavyweights in the wake of electoral boundary changes. Mr Fitzgibbon's seat of Hunter has been effectively abolished as part of a contentious NSW redistribution announced by the Australian Electoral Commission. Labor's agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon. Credit:Damian White Mr Conroy's neighbouring Lake Macquarie-based seat of Charlton has been renamed Hunter and will take in many of Mr Fitzgibbon's electors. While Mr Fitzgibbon is overseas and has yet to comment publicly on the AEC's decision first flagged in October it's understood he is pushing hard to take over as the member for the new Hunter. Whenever there is a threat of violence on campuses, most officials opt to close the schools until it is safe to reopen them. But what about the threat to the physical health of students? Shouldnt it be taken as seriously ( Sickout by Detroit Teachers Closes Most Public Schools , The New York Times, Jan. 12)? In an action not authorized by their union, teachers in Detroit engaged in a sickout that resulted in the closure of 64 of the citys 100 schools, affecting more than 31,000 of the districts 46,000 students. The teachers did so to protest the vermin and the mold that are present in the buildings and the failure of school officials to address the problem. Critics of public-school teachers are quick to accuse them of self-interest, to the detriment of students. But here is an example of teachers taking the matter into their own hands to protect the health of students. What they describe constitutes a clear and present danger to the health of all. Yet nothing yet has been done. I can identify with the teachers. For the greater part of my 28-year teaching career in the Los Angeles Unified School District, I taught in a freestanding bungalow on the periphery of the school campus. The ceiling had waterstained tiles that hung precariously. There were rats in the ivy outside the bungalow, although they never entered while class was in session. I complained often but was told that I had to be patient because of the long list of far more serious problems. I wonder what legal liability the district would face if parents threatened to sue after their children became sick? Often times exposure to such conditions does not manifest in disease until years later. The Third World conditions in Detroits schools may not be as dramatic as an emailed threat to blow up schools, but they are too serious to ignore. I salute the teachers who participated in the sickout. Snezana is defiant in what she puts online of her girl, posting this meme shortly after. Credit:Snezana Markoski/Instagram But most were quick to jump to the Perth mother's defence with christineanile commenting: "You interpret a little girl's face, arm and a shower cap as sexualised? That's some backwards thinking right there." Online user karnabay had this observation: "Its a great photo but i feel if your going to shoot with your daughter maybe not with the boobs out on display, as she is putting on a pose. Could try something else with the daughter." Some commenters believe the image Snezana posted was provocative and that Eve was too young to be involved. Account holder lpfiftyeighth added: "I'm a mother of two young children and don't see anything wrong with this photo. I find it a bit rich for people to post hate comments in relation to people in the public eye when they are quite content to post inappropriate selfies in open Insta accounts." "Wow for some comments! Personally I think it's beautiful to see a mother and daughter bonding and her mum showing her to care for her body. In no way is it exploiting the child and if u look close to me she has bathers on? Beautiful pic ladies," mishpen82 said. Sam and Snezana got engaged in December. Credit:Instagram While journeyofpictures said it's up to the parent how they want to display their children online: "I think this is all done in good humour but I wouldn't personally have my daughter in a pic like this. But everyone is different! Snez is clearly a devoted mother, so I trust her judgement here." Instagram user chiarasonda made one of the most observant comments about the picture: "You're using your shower caps all wrong." If women had more fun with fashion, they'd stress less about their appearance, says 94-year-old American style icon Iris Apfel. "I don't know what it's like for women in Australia, but in America, they stress very badly about how they look and if, as they say, I give them courage to be creative, then that cheers me." The pin-up nonagenarian for New York's Advanced Style phenomenon was recently signed to front Australian fashion brand Blue Illusion's autumn/winter advertising campaign. The 94-year-old American style icon Iris Apfel was recently signed to front Australian fashion brand Blue Illusion's autumn/winter advertising campaign. Apfel is renowned for her oversized spectacles and exotic wardrobe that have inspired authors, photographers, curators and fashionistocrats around the world. As one of fashion's hottest stars, she is purported to inspire women, particularly "of a certain age", to be less self-conscious about their so-called flaws and more extroverted about the way they dress. "I'm not doing anything differently to the last 75 years but now, I'm hot!" Apfel winks, still delighted to be called a fashion icon. "Now I'm cool." The investing soap opera that has been unfolding around Dick Smith has made for an interesting spectacle. The company was re-born, phoenix-like, after private equity seemingly bought it for a steal from Woolworths, itself struggling to find its way out of a retail morass. The aforementioned private equiteers then managed to work seemingly sophisticated magic taking it from a poor shadow of its competitors into a retail juggernaut worth more than half a billion dollars. With disappointing Christmas sales, Dick Smith felt the crunch in the new year. Credit:Edwina Pickles For a while. And then, rather than a phoenix rising from the ashes, it became an ashes-to-ashes story a company with high expectations that simply couldn't keep the music playing. And now its creditors and gift card holders are left licking their wounds. The battle to redevelop the Avoca Beach Cinema has had more twists than the Sherlock special that screened recently at the seaside single-screen theatre an hour north of Sydney. Yet nothing, it seems, is "elementary" when it comes to the 13-year battle over plans by the theatre's owners to add another four screens. The interior of the Avoca Beach Cinema, which has been listed as one of the 10 most beautiful in the world by the BBC. Credit:Aaron Brown In the latest scene of the drama that has divided the community, cinema owners Beth and Norman Hunter lodged an appeal days before Christmas against the council's refusal last June to grant development approval. Steve Fortey, president of Avoca Beach Cinema Preservation, Inc. claims the Hunters want to destroy the cinema's charm by turning it into a "Hoyts by the Sea". "It's just getting worse and worse; it's out of control and we're losing the battle," he says. "I've got two grown-up daughters who are often asking me to think about changing jobs. My wife is extremely worried; she says she has never seen anything like it." The security crisis in NSW hospitals deepened this week, following the near-death of a police officer and security guard, allegedly at the hands of a patient in Nepean Hospital's emergency department. Michael De Guzman, himself a registered nurse who left Westmead Hospital two years ago and had been battling an ice addiction, allegedly took a female doctor hostage on Tuesday night, holding a pair of scissors to her throat. When police and security guards arrived, Guzman turned on them and, following a short struggle on the ground, allegedly pulled Senior Constable Luke Warburton's gun from its holster and fired two shots. One hit the officer's upper thigh, passing through his femoral artery and almost killing him. Security guard Barry Jennings was shot in the calf. Guards are not allowed to restrain or detain anyone and are there to 'observe and report'. Guzman, 39, has been arrested earlier that day for break and enter and assaulting three police officers. He was taken to hospital in an ice-induced state, granted bail and left in the hands of hospital staff. Police have launched a critical incident investigation and the NSW Health Minister Jillian Skinner will meet with the HSU this Thursday to discuss hospital security. "This sort of thing is happening all over the state," says Pike. "Police bring in violent and aggressive ice addicts. Then the handcuffs come off and they get handed over to us but we've got nothing. We aren't given any powers; we aren't given any equipment. I don't blame the police because they're under-resourced and they do a fantastic job but there is huge pressure on us." The number of ice-related presentations to 59 public hospital emergency departments in NSW increased more than seven-fold between 2009 and 2014, according to a NSW Health background paper released in September. In the first six months of 2015, there were 1942 ice-related presentations a 50 per cent increase on the same period in 2014. NSW Health refused to provide Fairfax Media with any data on assaults in hospitals, saying violent incidents were not categorised clearly so it would be too time-consuming to collate them. Using freedom of information laws, the Northern Star newspaper found last month that assaults on staff at Ballina Hospital had tripled in five years. The secrecy around assault data has prompted the NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association to launch their own app for members to log workplace assaults. The HSU conducted its own survey of security guards in 2013, finding that 50 per cent were responding to a duress alarm more than once per day. One in four had been spat on, three in four had been injured badly enough to require medical attention. HSU secretary Gerard Hayes says he will ask Skinner for a round-table to be convened to get a clear picture of the crisis. Skinner declined to answer any questions on hospital security before the meeting. "We've had peak-level meetings before with ministers and they have basically looked at ways of dealing with the current situation without any major changes," Hayes says. "The ministry is of the view that the security function within hospitals is adequate." In October, the NSWNMA asked NSW Health to put security guards in every emergency department. Ministry of Health workplace relations director Annie Owens declined, saying the current approach was "appropriate". Several hospital security guards have told Fairfax Media of chronic staff shortages, poor training and mandated powers that render them almost useless. Guards are not allowed to restrain or detain anyone and are there to "observe and report". They are not allowed to carry restraints such as handcuffs. Nathan Sing, a security guard at Hornsby Hospital and an HSU delegate, says the hospital usually has just one NSW Health guard and one contracted guard on duty. He says three guards are off work due to workplace injuries. On November 19, several patients in the mental health intensive care unit turned on Sing and other staff, headbutting and punching a nurse, punching an occupational therapist in the face and grabbing another nurse by the throat to strangle him. "I was tied up for 11 hours with that incident which meant the whole hospital was left unguarded," he says. "If you walk into an emergency department, there is no guarantee that you're going to be safe at all." He says violent incidents are a weekly occurrence and "about 98 per cent" related to drug-affected patients. Police data held by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research shows that assaults in NSW hospitals have increased by 5.5 per cent each year since 2012. Yet the raw number of 484 assaults in the year to September 2015 is likely to be the tip of the iceberg. Hayes says the concept of hospital security needs to be completely rethought. He wants guards to be immersed in the clinical setting and given training with a medical bent so they can add to a patient's health rather than simply act as bouncers. He says the hospital security system is still stuck in the 1970s, with security officers sometimes performing menial tasks, such as putting parking tickets on cars. The Australasian College for Emergency Medicine and Australian Medical Association have both backed a review of hospital security arrangements, saying staff face violence every day. The AMA has suggested the introduction of "rapid response" teams in emergency departments a mix of hospital staff tasked with handling volatile situations. Pike says he has asked for such a team at RPA but has been knocked back. "At the end of the day, you can't protect everyone 100 per cent of the time," he says. "But we can at least try to minimise the threat and protect staff as best as we can." For Patient A, visiting a doctor about a pain in her foot led to a 12-year affair, an addiction to painkillers and admission to hospital for mental illness. But the doctor responsible made out that he was a victim, "preyed upon by his patient" as she threatened to expose the relationship. court Zeitoun Athour, 58, had practised medicine in Fairfield in Sydney's west since 1999. But on Thursday, the Health Care Complaints Commission struck him off the medical roll after it found him guilty of "reprehensible" conduct of the most serious kind. The woman, known as Patient A for legal reasons, first came to see Mr Athour in 2001 for treatment of a foot she had injured in a car accident. Seniors and pensioners would be able to travel free on off-peak Brisbane buses under a Greens election pledge announced on Friday. The free pass would apply 8.30am to 3.30pm, and 7pm to 3am, on weekdays, along with weekends and public holidays. Greens lord mayoral candidate Ben Pennings says he'd spend $6.5 million over two years to desex 40,000 cats. Credit:Michelle Smith But first, Greens lord mayoral candidate Ben Pennings would have to climb a veritable Mount Everest to get the keys to City Hall as a result of the March 19 election. Mr Pennings said he expected the policy to be a hit with seniors and pensioners, many of whom might not normally consider voting for the Greens. The Queensland Government has decided to close its trade office in Jakarta, Acting Premier Jackie Trad has told journalists. "We extend our sympathies to the Indonesian government for this outrageous terrorist attack," Ms Trad said. Queensland has closed its Jakarta Trade Office following the terror attacks in Indonesia. Credit:Screengrab "We in the Queensland government stand in solidarity with Indonesian government against such acts of terrorism such as this." A Queensland police officer has been charged with common assault and deprivation of liberty after an eight-month investigation. The 45-year-old senior constable from the southern region was stood down in May following allegations he used excessive force during a traffic stop. A Queensland police officer has been suspended and charged with assault. He was subject to an internal investigation and was also accused of failing to treat a member of the public with respect and dignity. On Friday afternoon, police announced the officer had been suspended and would face the Brisbane Magistrates Court on February 16. A second man charged over an alleged one-punch and headlock attack on a teenager in Brisbane's nightclub district has fronted court. Travis Miller is facing one count of assault occasioning bodily harm while in company after he and a co-offender allegedly attacked 19-year-old Bailey Merz at a taxi rank in Fortitude Valley in the early hours of Thursday morning. Miller applied for bail after appearing in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on Friday, with Magistrate John Costello to deliver his decision later on Friday afternoon. In 2004 Russia's president Putin visited Ukraine and attended a ceremony of the liberation of Kiev from the Nazis. At the airport the immigration officer asked him: "Name?". "Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin". "Address?" "Kremlin, Moscow, Russia". "Occupation?" "No, this time just visiting". A Queensland hospital is leading the Australian-first trial of the world's smallest pacemaker, labelled the biggest game changer in six decades. Doctors hope the tiny device, little bigger than a pill, will drastically cut down on complications such as infection and pacemaker failure associated with the life-saving operation. Dr John Hill and patient Madeleine Johnstone. Credit:Heath Missen Previous iterations were about the size of a biscuit, 10 times larger than the new models, and sat in a pocket of flesh near the collarbone, connecting to the heart with a wire. The new technology, trialled in Australia in two very similar forms from companies Medtronic and St Jude since 2014, eliminated both the wire and the pocket, the two major causes of complications. Social networks are one of the first places people turn to for updates in the wake of tragedies. But Safety Check, a much touted Facebook tool designed to make it easier to tell friends and family members you're OK during a crisis, was not deployed after an apparent terror attack struck the capitol of one of Facebook's largest markets on Thursday. Jakarta, Indonesia, was rocked by militants who staged suicide bombings and opened fire in what may have been an attempt by the Islamic State to wage a Paris-style attack in the city. But while Facebook quickly activated Safety Check during the Paris attacks, the company didn't activate it in the hours following the violence in Jakarta, which raises questions about what it takes to trigger the tool. Facebook's decision has raised questions about what it takes to trigger the Safety Check tool. Credit:Bloomberg Facebook is huge in Indonesia: Back in 2014, the company said it had nearly 70 million users in the country. In the absence of the official Safety Check after the Jakarta attacks, some hacked together their own version of the of the feature by sharing #SafetyCheckJKT on Facebook and other social networks like Twitter. Engineers at Facebook first thought up Safety Check as a response to natural disasters like the 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan and unveiled it in 2014. The Paris attacks were the first time it was triggered in response to a terror attack and 4.1 million users checked in with the tool in the 24 hours after the attack, according to Facebook. New Delhi: Acid attack survivors in India usually wrap a scarf around their face when venturing outside the house. They shun mirrors and cameras. But 26-year-old Laxmi (who goes by only one name) is a survivor whose face will be on posters and catalogues all over India because an Indian fashion and textile company has chosen her to be its brand ambassador. Although Laxmi's face was not as badly maimed as many other victims, she is nonetheless not exactly the kind of model that fashion houses and model agencies choose for advertising campaigns. Indian acid attack victim Laxmi as she appears in a new fashion catalog. Credit:Viva N Diva But Manan Shah, director of Viva N Diva, had read about her story in the papers and wanted to use her face for his company's products to change society's hostility to acid attack victims and give Laxmi the opportunity to earn some money. "Her courage is a beautiful thing. I wanted to show people that beauty is not only external, not just the face, but who you are inside and she was perfect. By hiring her, I wanted to give confidence to other survivors that they too can work and lead normal lives," he said. Berlin: An irate politician from Germany's southern state of Bavaria took a bus carrying 31 refugees to Chancellor Angela Merkel's office in Berlin on Thursday as a protest against her open-door refugee policy. The Syrians, escorted by police, arrived after a 550-kilometre trip outside Ms Merkel 's office, where a dozen German protesters, unconnected with them, were chanting "Merkel must go" in protest at her line on immigration. Peter Dreier, head of the south-eastern town of Landshut, acted on a threat he made to Ms Merkel last year when he said his municipality could no longer cope with the number of arrivals. "I think that we have to ensure the humane treatment of these refugees," Mr Dreier said upon his arrival in the capital, travelling on the bus with the refugees. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un thinks big is best, with his aspirations for a hydrogen bomb. Credit:AP The B61 Model 12, the bomb flight-tested last year in Nevada, is the first of five new warhead types planned as part of an atomic revitalisation estimated to cost up to $US1 trillion ($1.4 trillion) over three decades. As a family, the weapons and their delivery systems move towards the small, the stealthy and the precise. Already there are hints of a new arms race. Russia called the B61 tests "irresponsible" and "openly provocative". China is said to be especially worried about plans for a nuclear-tipped cruise missile. And North Korea last week defended its pursuit of a hydrogen bomb by describing the "ever-growing nuclear threat" from the United States. More Accurate Atom Bomb Credit:New York Times The more immediate problem for the White House is that many of its alumni have raised questions about the modernisation push and missed opportunities for arms control. "It's unaffordable and unneeded," said Andrew Weber, a former assistant secretary of defence and former director of the Nuclear Weapons Council, an interagency body that oversees the nation's arsenal. He cited in particular the advanced cruise missile, estimated to cost up to $30 billion for roughly 1000 weapons. Sandia Labs mechanical engineer Ryan Schultz adjusts a microphone for an acoustic test on a B61-12 nuclear bomb surrounded by banks of speakers that expose it to an acoustic field. Credit:Randy Montoya/Sandya Labs "The president has an opportunity to set the stage for a global ban on nuclear cruise missiles," Weber said in an interview. "It's a big deal in terms of reducing the risks of nuclear war." Last week, Brian McKeon, the principal deputy undersecretary of defence for policy, argued that anyone who looks impartially at Obama's nuclear initiatives in total sees major progress towards the goals of a smaller force and a safer world themes the White House highlighted Monday in advance of the president's State of the Union address. "We've cleaned up loose nuclear material around the globe, and gotten the Iran deal," removing a potential threat for at least a decade, McKeon said. He acknowledged that other pledges including treaties on nuclear testing and the production of bomb fuel have been stuck, and that the president's hopes of winning further arms cuts in negotiations with Russia "ran into a blockade after the events in Ukraine". He specifically defended the arsenal's modernisation, saying the new B61 bomb "creates more strategic stability". Early in his tenure, Obama invested much political capital not in upgrades but in reductions, becoming the first president to make nuclear disarmament a centrepiece of US defence policy. In Prague in 2009, he pledged in a landmark speech that he would take concrete steps towards a nuclear-free world and "reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy". The Nobel committee cited the pledge that year in awarding him the Peace Prize. A modest arms reduction treaty with Russia seemed like a first step. Then, in 2010, the administration released a sweeping plan Obama called a fulfillment of his atomic vow. The United States, he declared, "will not develop new nuclear warheads or pursue new military missions or new capabilities". The overall plan was to rearrange old components of nuclear arms into revitalised weapons. The resulting hybrids would be far more reliable, meaning the administration could argue that the nation would need fewer weapons in the far future. Inside the administration, some early enthusiasts for Obama's vision began to worry that it was being turned on its head. In late 2013, the first of the former insiders spoke out. Philip Coyle and Steve Fetter, who had recently left national security posts, helped write an 80-page critique of the nuclear plan by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a private group that made its name during the Cold War, arguing for arms reductions. US allies and adversaries, the report warned, may see the modernisation "as violating the administration's pledge not to develop or deploy" new warheads. The report, which urged a more cautious approach, cited a finding by federal advisory scientists: that simply refurbishing weapons in their existing configurations could keep them in service for decades. "I'm not a pacifist," Coyle, a former head of Pentagon weapons testing, said in an interview. But the administration, he argued, was planning for too big an arsenal. "They got the math wrong in terms of how many weapons we need, how many varieties we need and whether we need a surge capacity" for the crash production of nuclear arms. The insider critiques soon focused on individual weapons, starting with the B61 Model 12. The administration's plan was to merge four old B61 models into a single version that greatly reduced their range of destructive power. It would have a "dial-a-yield" feature, with a lowest setting only 2 per cent as powerful as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. The plan seemed reasonable, critics said, until attention fell on the bomb's new tail section and steerable fins. The Federation of American Scientists, a Washington research group, argued that the high accuracy and low destructive settings meant military commanders might press to use the bomb in an attack, knowing the radioactive fallout and collateral damage would be limited. Last year, Cartwright echoed that point on the PBS show NewsHour. He has huge credibility in nuclear circles: he was head of the US Strategic Command, which has military authority over the nation's nuclear arms, before serving as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In a recent interview in his office at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington, Cartwright said the overall modernisation plan might change how military commanders looked at the risks of using nuclear weapons. "What if I bring real precision to these weapons?" he asked. "Does it make them more usable? It could be." Some of the biggest names in nuclear strategy see a specific danger in the next weapon in the modernisation line-up: the new cruise missile, a "stand-off weapon" that bombers can launch far from their targets. "Mr President, kill the new cruise missile," read the headline of a recent article by Weber, the former assistant secretary of defence, and William Perry, a secretary of defence under President Bill Clinton and an author of the plan to gradually eliminate nuclear weapons that captivated Obama's imagination and endorsement. They argued that the cruise missile might sway a future president to contemplate "limited nuclear war". Worse yet, they said, because the missile comes in nuclear and non-nuclear varieties, a foe under attack might assume the worst and overreact, initiating nuclear war. The critique stung because Perry, now at Stanford, is a revered figure in Democratic defence circles and a mentor to Defence Secretary Ash Carter. McKeon, the Pentagon official, after describing his respect for Perry, said the military concluded that it needed the cruise missile to "give the president more options than a manned bomber to penetrate air defences". In an interview, James Miller, who helped develop the modernisation plan before leaving his post as undersecretary of defence for policy in 2014, said the smaller, more precise weapons would maintain the nation's nuclear deterrent while reducing risks for civilians near foreign military targets. "Though not everyone agrees, I think it's the right way to proceed," Miller said. "Minimising civilian casualties if deterrence fails is both a more credible and a more ethical approach." Cartwright summarised the logic of enhanced deterrence with a gun metaphor: "It makes the trigger easier to pull but makes the need to pull the trigger less likely." Administration officials often stress the modernisation plan's benign aspects. Facing concerned allies, Madelyn Creedon, an Energy Department deputy administrator, argued in October that the efforts "are not providing any new military capabilities" but simply replacing wires, batteries, plastics and other failing materials. "What we are doing," she said, "is just taking these old systems, replacing their parts and making sure that they can survive." In a recent report to Congress, the Energy Department, responsible for upgrading the warheads, said this was the fastest way to reduce the nuclear stockpile, promoting the effort as "Modernise to Downsize". The new weapons will let the nation scrap a Cold War standby called the B83, a powerful city buster. The report stressed that the declines in "overall destructive power" support Obama's goal of "pursuing the security of a world without nuclear weapons". That argument, though, is extremely long term: stockpile reductions would manifest only after three decades of atomic revitalisation, many presidencies from now. One of those presidents may well cancel the reduction plans most of the candidates now seeking the Republican nomination oppose cutbacks in the nuclear arsenal. But the bigger risk to the modernisation plan may be its expense upward of $1 trillion if future presidents go the next step and order new bombers, submarines and land-based missiles, and upgrades to eight factories and laboratories. "Insiders don't believe it will ever happen," said Coyle, the former White House official. "It's hard to imagine that many administrations following through." Meanwhile, other veterans of the Obama administration ask what happened. Trevor Timm reads through the latest poll numbers and finds that Bernie Sanders is gaining on Clinton with key Democratic demographics: people under 45; women under 35; African Americans and Hispanics. Given that so many US electoral races are won by "none of the above" voters declining to cast any ballot at all the ability to mobilize voters is key to winning elections. Sanders's support among groups with traditionally low turnout is thus exciting, and Timm attributes this to his focus on substantive issues (economic inequality, taxing the wealthy, expanding Medicare and Social Security, criminal justice reform and free post-secondary education) and his unwillingness to switch focus to distracting, distant issues like ISIS. This emphasis on issues that affect the lives of Americans every day contrasts sharply with all the other would-be candidates not just the Republican slate, but also Hillary Clinton. But Clinton still stands a good chance of winning the nomination, because she is overwhelmingly supported by the Democratic party's power-brokers, the "super-delegates" who control the party convention. She also has one trump card that Sanders never will, given her establishment ties: a massive advantage in "super delegates", who make up a large percentage of the delegates who will actually decide the nomination at the Democratic convention this summer but who aren't beholden to vote the way their state's primary ended up. But it's clear that Sanders is not going to fade away, as many predicted in the fall after it looked like his support was leveling off; he is only getting stronger. Given that most voters don't even start paying attention until after the Iowa caucus, Democrats would do themselves well by putting the Clinton coronation on hold for now. Bernie Sanders is winning with the one group his rivals can't sway: voters [Trevor Timm/Guardian] (via Naked Capitalism) (Image: Bernie Sanders, Gage Skidmore, CC-BY-SA) Best of the best celebrate achievements The insurer now has a 22% share of the firm Latest News Australian Mortgage Awards 2022 broker winners reflect on big night Best of the best celebrate achievements Household Capital enters strategic partnership with Genworth The insurer now has a 22% share of the firm Considered a no-go zone in recent times as the mining boom came to an end, there are now signs the Perth market is beginning to again establish itself as a viable investment location.According to recent figures from the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia (REIWA), the December 2015 quarter saw the median house price in Perth increase by around 1% to $540,000, the first time in three quarters a rise has been recorded.Listings in the city also fell to 14,539 during the quarter, which REIWA president Hayden Groves said points to the Perth market showing signs of stabilisation.Ben Lamers, director of LMW Buyers Agency, told Australian Broker's sister publication Your Invesmtent Property that he broadly agreed with that sentiment. However, he said there were some seasonal factors that are currently affecting the market as well.What were seeing at the moment is probably a bit of a seasonal thing, When you come to that November and December period a lot of people delay making a decision, so there were probably some houses that were taken off the market or were delayed in being put up for sale which is affecting some of the figures at the moment, Lamers said.I think if you look broadly at the Perth market, prices have been declining over the past year or so, but I think weve got to the point where were bouncing along near the bottom and it will be interesting to see what happens in the first quarter of 2016, he said.Im not sure that were right at the bottom of the market, but I think were getting to the point where there is some stability in the market and I think 2016 will be the year the market starts to improve a little.That outlook seems to be one that is increasingly being shared by investors, with Lamers claiming interstate investors are setting their sights on the WA capital.The astute buyers from the Eastern seaboard are really starting to pay attention. Were getting a lot of calls from buyers in Sydney and Melbourne at the moment. That probably says they think those markets are too high and Perth is too low, he told Your Investment Property.For the median price in Perth you can get a really good property in a good location thats going to be pretty close to cash flow neutral. People are starting to think that while other markets have peaked, over the next few years Perth will start to improve.Lamers isnt the only one in the city to have noticed a popularity increase.Liz Sterzel, buyers agent with Property Wizards, also told Your Investment Property that more and more local and interstate investors are looking to buy at the bottom.We are seeing a number of enquiries from Eastern seaboard investors who feel that Sydney and Melbourne are still overheated, and that with Perths market being at a low, the time is now right to invest, Sterzel said.Local West Australian investors with a more up-to-date picture of Perth also seem to be far more positive about the Perth property market, though it is early days yet, she said.Though the heady days of the mining boom may be over, Sterzel said there are other reasons investors should be confident about Perths prospects as long as they do their research.With other industries such as tourism taking up the slack, and population growth still faster than most other states, investors are starting to see reasons to be confident in Perth, she said.Investors who do their research can still find promising properties, with the most popular strategy being to find an add value property with potential to enhance the markets natural performance.While rents in the city may not be where they were during the recent boom times, Sterzel did remind investors that they are still fairly high compared with historical returns.There are some words of caution for investors looking to Perth though, with Lamers stressing that they arent going to see a similar performance compared to what happened during the mining boom.That [mining boom] was a once in lifetime sort of thing. We saw it in the 60s and again in the late 80s and then from 2003 2008, but its not going to be like that now. Its going to be a period of more sustained growth. Latest News Australian Mortgage Awards 2022 broker winners reflect on big night Best of the best celebrate achievements Household Capital enters strategic partnership with Genworth The insurer now has a 22% share of the firm The softening property market is likely to put pressure on the Australian economy in 2016, the chief economist of a major bank has warned.According to the latest ANZ /Property Council Survey, overall property industry confidence post a modest increase in the last quarter of 2015, edging up one point to 131 in the last quarter of 2015.However, ANZ chief economist, Warren Hogan, said a number of factors that buoyed the property market and drove Australias growth through 2015 will wane in 2016.We expect that the housing sectors contribution to growth is set to ease, through softer construction activity and a reduced wealth effect from weaker price growth, Hogan said.The housing market has clearly eased through the second half of 2015. Triggered by the impact of tighter mortgage lending regulation for investors and higher mortgage lending rates, housing market sentiment has weakened sharply.On the other hand, Hogan says commercial construction is strengthening.The pipeline of commercial property construction, however is gradually growing, Hogan said.Capital growth has strengthened across most commercial property sectors, with the expectations of capital growth strongest in retail and tourist accommodation property.According to the survey, leasing conditions across commercial property sectors have broadly improved in the past year which has driven stronger tenant demand. Mos Def has 14 days to leave South Africa after he was arrested for violating local immigration laws while trying to leave the country, a government spokesman said Friday. The rapper and actor, who now goes by the name Yasiin Bey, appeared in a South African court after he was arrested at Cape Town International airport on Thursday, said Department of Home Affairs spokesman Mayihlome Tshwete. Mos Def produced an unrecognized "world passport" when he tried to leave the country, Tshwete said. The 42-year-old entertainer entered the country on an American passport in 2013 and overstayed his visitor's permit by 2014, the spokesman said. by Andrew Sacher Weezer have announced a fourth self-titled album (this time it's "The White Album"), which is presumably signifying yet another "return to form" attempt. (I wouldn't hold your breath.) It includes last year's kinda-indefensible single "Thank God For Girls," plus "Do You Wanna Get High?" and the brand-new "King of the World," which, as far as modern Weezer songs go, actually are not half bad. You can hear all three below. The album will be out April 1 (pre-order). The band have also announced an extensive tour, which excitingly includes an intimate Brooklyn show on March 30 at Warsaw. In much less exciting news, that show (and three European dates) will be followed by a co-headlining run with... Panic! at the Disco, and support from ex-Something Corporate frontman Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness. I guess at least Something Corporate's first album was more or less a Weezer album, and his new stuff is festival-ready mindie that's mostly inoffensive. But Panic! at the Disco, especially with this new extra-horrible album... why Weezer, why? The run with P!ATD and Andrew McMahon hits the NYC-area on June 30 at Jones Beach and July 2 at PNC Bank Arts Center. Tickets for that tour go on sale Friday, January 22 at 10 AM local time. If you sign up for their mailing list, you get a code for the presale starting Tuesday (1/19) at 10 AM, and you can also click through Pandora's "specially curated tour mixtape" from 2 PM on Tuesday through 10 PM on Thursday (1/21) for another chance at the presale. Tickets for the Warsaw show go on presale today (1/15) at 11 AM (password = THANKGODFORWFC). All dates are listed below... --- Weezer -- 2016 Tour Dates 3/30/15 Brooklyn, NY @ Warsaw 4/3/16 Manchester, UK @ Academy One 4/5/16 London, UK @ O2 Brixton Academy 4/8/16 Amsterdam, NL @ Heineken Music Hall 6/10/16 Houston, TX @ Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion*^ 6/11/16 Corpus Christi, TX @ Concrete Street Amphitheater* 6/12/16 New Orleans, LA @ Bold Sphere Music at Champions Square*^ 6/14/16 Miami, FL @ Bayfront Park Amphitheater*^ 6/15/16 Tampa, FL @ MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheater*^ 6/16/16 Atlanta, GA @ Aarons Amphitheatre at Lakewood*^ 6/19/16 Charleston, SC @ Volvo Cars Stadium*^ 6/20/16 Charlotte, NC @ PNC Music Pavilion*^ 6/21/16 Raleigh, NC @ Walnut Creek Amphitheater*^ 6/22/16 Virginia Beach, VA @ Farm Bureau Live at VA Beach*^ 6/24/16 Bristow, VA @ Jiffy Lube Live*^ 6/25/16 Canandaigua, NY @ Constellation Brands - Marvin Sands PAC*^ 6/26/16 Scranton, PA @ Pavilion at Montage Mountain*^ 6/28/16 Gilford, NH @ Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion at Meadowbrook*^ 6/30/16 Wantagh, NY @ Nikon at Jones Beach Theater*^ 7/1/16 Boston, MA @ Xfinity Center*^ 7/2/16 Holmdel, NJ @ PNC Bank Arts Center*^ 7/5/16 Camden, NJ @ BB&T Pavilion*^ 7/6/16 Toronto, ON @ Molson Canadian Amphitheater*^ 7/8/16 Detroit, MI @ DTE Energy Music Theater*^ 7/9/16 Milwaukee, WI @ Summerfest - Marcus Amphitheater*^ 7/10/16 Chicago, IL @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheater*^ 7/12/16 Indianapolis, IN @ Klipsch Music Center*^ 7/13/16 Nashville, TN @ Ascend Amphitheater*^ 7/15/16 Dallas, TX @ Gexa Energy Pavilion*^ 7/16/16 Oklahoma City, OK @ Zoo Amphitheater* 7/17/16 Rogers, AR @ Walmart Arkansas Music Pavilion*^ 7/19/16 St. Louis, MO @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheater*^ 7/20/16 Kansas City, MO @ Starlight Theater*^ 7/22/16 Brandon, SD @ Badlands Motor Speedway* 7/23/16 Council Bluffs, IA @ Harrah's Hotel & Casino Council Bluffs - Stir Cove* 7/24/16 Denver, CO @ Fiddler's Green Amphitheater*^ 7/26/16 Salt Lake City, UT @ USANA Amphitheater*^ 7/28/16 Burnaby, BC @ Deer Lake Park*^ 7/29/16 Seattle, WA @ Marymoor Park*^ 7/30/16 Portland, OR @ Edgefield*^ 7/31/16 San Francisco, CA @ Shoreline Amphitheater* 8/2/16 Phoenix, AZ @ AK-Chin Pavilion*^ 8/3/16 San Diego, CA @ Sleep Train Amphitheater* 8/5/16 Santa Barbara, CA @ Santa Barbara Bowl*^ 8/6/16 Irvine, CA @ Irvine Meadows Amphitheater*^ We thank our sponsor for making this content possible; it is not written by the editorial staff nor does it necessarily reflect its views. If you need a device that's great for work, school, and distracting yourself with an endless supply of memes and streaming marathons, an iPad may be your best bet. With the right READ THE REST Bridgeton police find van sought in fatal accident, driver charged A Bridgeton man was killed in an alleged hit-and-run accident in the downtown Monday night, and police say they have the driver in custody. If the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum was a business venture, her contribution to it would be termed "sweat equity," says Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, in an air-conditioned office filled with stacks of books, promotional material and documents. The Byculla museum director frequently flits among these, reaching for literature that helps outline improvements made to the 143-year-old institution under her watch. Mehta has become more vocal in this exercise after local corporators raised complaints about certain practices at the museum and attempted to oust her. The art historian and curator had joined in 2003, following a tripartite agreement between the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), heritage conservation group Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) and the Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation to revive and manage the dilapidated museum. "I don't think the corporators understand that I am not a government employee but an equal partner." The transformation of the museum was seemingly textbook, as a film playing on loop in the cafeteria shows visitors. Founded in 1872 as the erstwhile Victoria & Albert Museum, it displayed artifacts related to 19th century trade and crafts in the city. By the late 1990s, however, it turned derelict. The artifacts were without labels and the building's Palladian exterior and Victorian interiors were ramshackle. Facing financial constraints at the time, BMC agreed to rope in help. The Bajaj family poured funds into it, while INTACH, of which Mehta is vice-chairman, brought in restoration expertise. A museum trust was set up, headed by the city mayor, which included representatives of the three partners as well as eminent personalities. This public private partnership was seen as exemplary - until a year ago when the narrative became one about a bitter battle for control. Last March, Samita Naik of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) spearheaded a protest to stop a Lakme Fashion Week event from being held at the premises. Museum employees say party workers entered the gates, threatened violence and brought down part of the set-up for the show, which was hurriedly moved to another venue. Naik alleges parties are hosted after museum hours and on the weekly holiday. "Where does the money from such commercial events go?" She also protested against plans for a new wing, saying a proposed parking lot would eat up the local playground. Soon, Mumbai Mayor Snehal Ambekar said that she found irregularities in the finances of the museum trust. MNS corporator Sandeep Deshpande then put forward a resolution to remove Mehta, whom he describes as "adamant", which was supported by corporators across political parties. Following this, Mumbai Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta was said to be reviewing the public-private agreement and studying legal implications of terminating it. Mehta did not respond to a request for comment. It was later reported that BMC officials found Mehta cannot be removed since her contract runs to 2018. Unwilling to back down, corporator Naik will demand next that a committee be set up within the museum to include local corporators in the decision-making process. Instead of fashion events, the museum should showcase local dance forms like lavni or garba, MNS' Deshpande suggests. Over the phone, he often refers to the museum as a "public" institution and dismisses the private partnership as invalid. While he has no complaints about the museum's performance, he adds that Mehta should consult BMC. The manner of the protest against the fashion event did not go down well with trustees. Had the corporators' move to dismiss Mehta as director gone ahead, it would have been the downfall of the museum, says Minal Bajaj, director of the Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation. Such actions will go against the municipal corporation, and in the future they may find it difficult to get funding from corporations, she adds. Both Mehta and Bajaj claim that their experience with the previous mayor, Sunil Prabhu, and former municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte, who had been there since the time restoration began, was free from conflict. Since the Lakme Fashion Week tussle, the two sides have engaged in a cold war. The corporators have raised questions in the press, and never through calls, letters or meetings with her, says Mehta. She, too, has been candid in her responses in newspapers. Although invitations are sent out for exhibitions, BMC officials rarely visit, alleges Mehta. Mayor Ambekar has so far never been in attendance, while the new BMC chief, Ajoy Mehta, only attended one event - related to the government's Make in India initiative - for a few minutes, she observes. It all started, Mehta says, when plans for expanding the museum became known. "There is no parking lot planned on top of the playground. All parking will be underground," she says, pointing to a green patch on the map of the expansion plan. As for allegations of irregularities, the museum trust, she says, is an autonomous body that is empowered to take financial decisions on its own. Mehta's decision to give space for ad films or fashion events is guided by her efforts to get income for the museum's future growth. She makes a phone call to a team member who brings in a section of the initial legal agreement, which states that such activities may be conducted as long as earnings go straight to the museum trust. Mehta is known to host gatherings to welcome artists and guests on days of show opening, but abides by the law of no alcohol on BMC premises. Museum insiders say events are well publicised, recruitments to the small team are carefully controlled and salaries are paid following due process. Citing demands that the museum promote local culture, she points to an ongoing study about Maharashtrian artists, including an upcoming lecture on 18th-century painter Gangaram Tambat. "Everyone talks about the Bengal school of art. When it comes to Mumbai, everyone talks about the Progressives, but we want to showcase local artists even before them." The director reckons she has been amenable so far, accommodating an order to change the word "Bombay" to "Mumbai" in a 19th-century art display, even if it troubled the art historian in her. The future of the tripartite agreement is protected, she states, because it has a validity of 15 years from the time of the museum's reopening. "I should just put the deed online, make everything public." Her sweat equity, says Mehta, is "credibility and hard work", which convinces people to give money. For the last three years, Mukesh Ambani, whom she calls an old friend, has been giving Rs 60 lakh - earnings from his post on the board of the Bank of America - to the museum. The Bajaj family gives Rs 20-25 lakh each year. It has pledged Rs 20 crore towards the new wing. BMC gives Rs 2 crore annually. Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Mumbai She studied textile design at the JJ School of Art. A decade-long stint in the US involved a job at luxury chain Bloomingdale's and a liberal arts degree from Columbia University. Accolades for the museum started in 2005 when it won the UNESCO Asia Pacific Heritage award for conservation. Even today, its clean facade in celadon green and beige with tall teak doors looks like something out of a picture book. Inside, the walls bear detailing in green, red and gold. The balustrades and chandeliers seem like exhibits in themselves. A toilet was turned into a restoration lab and objects from the permanent display were conserved. Spaces were created for temporary exhibitions of contemporary and modern art. Footfalls have risen, says Bajaj. "When I had visited the museum in its dilapidated condition, all I could see were spill offs from the zoo. Now, tourists make it a point to visit the museum, even though it is so much out of the way." Outreach activities, such as workshops to engage local schools, have increased to an extent that the museum trains interns and docents to help the curatorial team. There are guided tours in English and Marathi on weekends, besides audio guides and information sheets in the two languages. Alain Zayan, director of Alliance Francaise de Bombay, which hosts monthly screenings about the history of art, says it enjoys repeat audiences of 45-50 people at every event. "I love that the museum attracts such a diverse range of visitors and not just the 'classical elite'," says Sharon Memis, director of west India for British Council, which chose the venue for two exhibitions. From a city museum about the city, its scope has grown to include collaborations with international museums and artists, says art critic Kishore Singh. Much of the programming is user-friendly and ticket prices have been maintained at Rs 20 per head, allowing access to different social strata. Singh, who was involved in two exhibitions for Delhi Art Gallery at the venue, credits Mehta for visualising the change. "Having restored the museum itself, she put in place systems, looked for sponsors, got artists to show their work." The museum has uniformly glowing testimonials from art world giants in its brochure and from common visitors on TripAdvisor or Google reviews. Mehta is known to be hands-on, keeping a keen watch on everything, from recruitments to design and introductory text for exhibitions. Museum directors in New York, Paris and Tokyo have taken note of the progress, says photographer and curator Ram Rahman, who teaches a photography course in the Byculla museum. If the management set-up changes, Rahman worries that, like the Lalit Kala Akademi in Delhi, it will be run by bureaucrats and not by art professionals. That concern is shared by artist Reena Kallat, who worked on an art piece inspired by the museum in 2013. The months of uncertainty have put a spanner in the works of some exhibitions as well as the ambitious expansion plan. The new wing, a modern building to be designed by American architect Steven Holl, will have galleries for contemporary art and travelling exhibitions. Prominent players in the corporate world, including the Tata and Birla groups, had showed interest in investing but the plan is on hold. Later in the month, the museum's artifacts are expected to go live on the Google Art project, which offers virtual tours of parts of important world museums. The museum is separately working on digitising its entire collection. For now, Mehta has no plans of her own to initiate action against the corporators or BMC if they move to terminate the partnership. "I have not done anything wrong. So I will simply continue to work." It's 10 in the morning as I wait for Induvalu Suresh to reach Bengaluru's main railway station. A resident of Ramanagara district in Karnataka, Suresh regularly flits between Mandya, Mysuru and Bengaluru on account of his granite business, but today he's a no show. A flurry of unanswered calls later, Suresh calls back. Please check WhatsApp, he says. Suresh has been making waves after he claimed to have donated his left hand's little finger to the Tirupati shrine in Andhra Pradesh. Soon after the brief call, photographs of a little finger load on my phone, along with pictures of Suresh's bandaged hand. The finger is in a ziploc bag. Another set, clearly taken in a hotel room, shows a Rs 1,000 note over the finger. And then comes a picture of Suresh with Karnatak's housing minister, M H Ambareesh. Accompanying these is a shot of a handwritten note in Kannada which explaines that he had pledged to offer his finger if Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi were let off in the ongoing National Herald case. A father of two, a boy of five and a girl of eight, Suresh is no Congress worker, though he has supported the party since high school and displays a certain degree of sycophancy. Suresh's gory offering was a well thought-out exercise, says his cousin, Mahesh N. "When we heard that Sonia and Rahul had got bail, Suresh told us he had vowed to give his finger as an act of gratitude," shares Bengaluru-based Mahesh. "No one took him seriously." On December 24, Suresh called his cousin from Tirupati and asked him to come to the temple immediately. "I left immediately. I was worried he may have done something," shares Mahesh who runs a catering business in the city. "When I reached Tirupati, Suresh had already cut and put the finger in a small pouch. He was bleeding and we immediately went to a hospital nearby. After that, we went to the temple and Suresh gave his offering," says Mahesh. This offering, besides Suresh's finger and Rs 1,000, included a letter that had his personal details and also mentioned the 'Gandhian cause' behind the act. The incident has taken on a new shade of bizarre as Suresh's offering has reportedly gone missing. "Media reports of the cut finger being dropped in the sacred hundi of the over 2,000-year-old richest hill temple in the country are completely baseless," said Chinnamgari Ramana, the deputy executive officer of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD). "We haven't gone through all the CCTV footage yet, but we would have found the finger by now if it was there," clarified another TTD official. "I don't understand why Tirupati authorities are claiming they didn't receive my offering," says Suresh. Accusations of being a fraud for personal or political gain don't really bother him though, primarily because the stunt got him invited to the housing minister's residence in Bengaluru. The minister also happens to be a Kannada film celebrity with over 200 films under his belt. And he's been Suresh's favourite ever since he was a young boy. "My first priority is Ambareesh anna. Then the Gandhi family and then god," states Suresh, who was left charmed by the Gandhi scion after his visit to Mandya last October. Though the Congress brass in Delhi has maintained silence over the incident, meeting Ambareesh made Suresh a happy man. Ambareesh reportedly called Suresh "Kalyug's Ekalavya," referring to the archer in the Mahabharata who offered his thumb to guru Drona. The dedication to the Gandhi family, explains Suresh, stems from his childhood. "I grew up seeing a portrait of Indira Gandhi that hangs in our house. Our house was built under her Garibi Hatao programme after all," shares Suresh, whose interests include Ambareesh's films and his own business. "He always says that Lord Balaji will take care of everything, including this case. The children have been told that he got hurt; they've been following the news though," says Mahesh. Has he really followed the case, we ask Suresh. "Let's not talk about that," says Suresh. He claims to have no political dreams "at present." While his bandages stay on for the time being, TTD authorities now have to deal with the case of a missing finger between tonnes of cash and gold that the temple receives. Car users are gradually switching lanes - they have been looking at ways to get the most out of government policies and other regulatory procedures. A few years ago, most car buyers were likely to have opted for diesel versions of their favourite cars simply because the government subsidised diesel. But times are changing. Mahindra and Mahindra's latest offering, the KUV100, a compact SUV, expected to retail at between Rs4 lakh and Rs5 lakh, is the only car in the Mahindra stable to be sold with a petrol engine. Car buyers in India are now having second thoughts about diesel-powered cars. They would tend to opt for petrol-fuelled cars since they not only retail at lower prices but are cheaper to maintain. In December 2015, the Supreme Court banned diesel cars with engines larger than two litres from being registered, until March 31 2016, in Delhi, ranked the most polluted city in the world by the World Health Organisation. After the government scrapped subsidies on diesel at the end of 2014, and with diesel being blamed for pollution in Delhi, petrol has become more attractive. Consequently, more carmakers are launching petrol models in India. Ford Motor Co. introduced EcoSport in June 2013 and Hyundai Motor Co. rolled out the Creta compact SUV in 2015. If petrol is the big new attraction in India, it is not the only switch. More car buyers are discovering the pleasure of the automatic manual transmission (AMT) system. The AMT system has no clutch pedal, but uses a friction clutch, and in "drive" mode a computer does the work of a clutch. Industry experts expect the ATM system to account for 15-20 percent of the Indian market by 2020. That is largely because Maruti has offered the AMT as a mid-range option, instead of top-end stereos and anti-lock brakes. Car buyers in India have been wary of automatic systems' fuel economy. They also feared that hydraulic transmissions would reduce efficiency. However, now with the AMT system offering a performance as good as manual transmission, fears have been receding. Carmakers have not been afraid to introduce the AMT system either. Maruti Suzuki is believed to have sold more than 50,000 cars featuring the ATM systems since it unveiled its model at the Delhi Auto Expo in 2014. It plans to roll out AMT variants across its product range. An industry analyst says other carmakers are following suit - Renault, Ford India and Hyundai have introduced the AMT system. Tata Motors' introduction of the AMT system in the Nano apparently helped to boost its sales. Car owners in India then may soon accelerate in the fast lane on petrol, the AMT and of course, thrill of speed. Source : BS Motoring Delhi seems to be the hub of much excitement in the motoring world. Soon it will host the Auto Expo 2016 at which several models will be unveiled. But recently, at the Road Safety Week, the government made its contribution, as well. Home minister Rajnath Singh has been reported to have said airbags will be made compulsory for every car sold in India. He expressed concern about an estimated 500,000 road accidents that occur in India every year, causing injury to about 140,000 people and death to about 100,000 people. He emphasised the need for proper training before a driving licence is issued. Addressing the Road Safety Forum 2016, the national meet of NGOs on road safety, in New Delhi minister of road transport and highways, Nitin Gadkari called on the citizens and NGOs to participate in the national campaign on road safety to create awareness about the subject in India. He said that the present system of issuing driving licenses would soon be replaced by a transparent and efficient computerised licensing system. He said driving schools were being opened across India to train drivers. The government would address the issue of fitness of drivers. He said more than 3,000 centres would be set up in rural areas to train drivers and address fitness-related issues. He also said that roadside amenities would be equipped with helipads for quick transfer of accident victims to hospitals and all busy traffic corridors would have trauma centres along the highways. Gadkari also emphasised that apart from road safety, his ministry was committed to reducing pollution in the road and transport sector. He said the government would implement Euro VI standards for automobiles from April 1, 2020. The use of electric vehicles and of bio-diesel, biogas, and ethanol as fuel was also being promoted, he said. Source : BS Motoring The Mahindra GenZe 2.0, the first connected all-electric scooter, has been launched in Oakland, California. The scooter was conceived in Silicon Valley and engineered and assembled in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It is designed to help alleviate challenges associated with urban commuting, parking, congestion, and pollution. The scooter has a removable lithium-ion battery that can be recharged at any standard electrical outlet, providing optimal freedom and ease of use. Its smart, utilitarian design offers ample rear storage space so people can get where they want and take their belongings with them. Beyond its use as a personal vehicle, the GenZe 2.0 has also attracted a lot of attention from cities and corporate campuses who are searching for efficient multi-modal and first/last mile solutions to help augment existing transportation infrastructure. Oakland is the perfect place to combine electric bikes and electric scooters, with mobility sharing and solar power, said mayor Libby Schaaf at the launch. Projects like Bike Solar Oakland and San Francisco's Scoot Networks are the type of Smart City Initiatives we are launching in Oakland. We are so happy to be working with Mahindra GenZe this is the kind of innovation and partnership we want to see finding that pragmatic but visionary intersection of business, environment and technology to equitably serve our community. The GenZe 2.0 is designed with seamless IoT communication that allows continuous monitoring of over 95 vehicle parameters, including: Battery state of charge Range estimation Remote diagnostics Alerts for theft, distress and geofence triggers Customised navigation features. These features are smartly delivered to users by an app through a GenZe hosted cloud and makes the vehicle the first truly connected electric scooter in the United States. The GenZe 2.0 launch event in Oakland recognises the creativity and determination of the Mahindra Genze team to design and develop a remarkably distinctive product, said Anand Mahindra, chairman, Mahindra Group. We are so thankful to the enthusiasm shown by early consumers, cities and corporate customers and are excited that the American public now has the ability to experience and enjoy this game changing vehicle. Source : BS Motoring Former West Bengal finance Minister Ashok Mitra has described the Economic & Political Weekly as The Economist of emerging countries. EPW has at least the imprimatur of respectability; it is supposed to be the leading social science journal coming out of Asia; it is, some say, The Economist of the emerging countries, Mitra wrote. It was this limited circulation that Ram Manohar Reddy wanted to change when he took charge of the Mumbai-based weekly in 2004. After a little over a decade as editor, Reddy is leaving, for personal reasons. A decade and more is a long time for anyone to head a journal and all publications do need to renew themselves, said Reddy in a mail. The grapevine has it that the relationship between Sameeksha Trust, the non-profit body overseeing the affairs of the venerable journal, and Reddy became uneasy after the latter decided to mark the magazines 50th anniversary in a grand way. Reddy wanted to showcase the journals history, he wanted to make a documentary film on it, there were some differences over it but that was not the reason for his resignation. The trust had started a search for his successor in August, said Aniket Alam, executive editor. Reddy was economics editor at The Hindu when selected by the trust to succeed Krishna Raj, its second editor and the person credited for the status EPW enjoys. With a socialist family background, Reddy found himself at ease at the Left-leaning magazine but unlike the political Left, was not stubborn. He understood the winds of change in the publishing industry. The journal under Reddy made its online foray and its digital subscribers rose at a steady pace, now around 7,000. Print subscription is around 12,000 but readership of the journal is estimated to be beyond 100,000, as a majority are institutional subscribers. We had once done a survey which showed 30 people read a single copy, Alam said. Academicians and colleagues of Reddy this newspaper spoke to were unanimous that his greatest contribution to the magazine was continuing the legacy of a high standard and yet adapt to change. He increased the diverse nature of articles that the journal offers, which interests readers not only from India but across the world, said Alam, whod also worked under Reddy at The Hindu. "Reddy was an outstanding editor. Himself a doctorate in economics and a journalist, he had a wide range of contacts, thus allowing him to continue the high quality of the magazine. Though the editorials always took a left-of-centre view, the reportage from different parts of the country remains excellent," said Ramachandra Guha, eminent historian and a regular contributor for EPW. In 2008, the magazine moved to a new office at lower Parel after operating out of rented premises in central Mumbai for a little over 40 years. Reddy even wanted to bring in an external marketing agency to increase circulation. Succeeding Reddy will not be an easy task, feels Guha. "The board has to look for someone intellectually capable and who also understands the changed terrain of publishing. Otherwise, we have Outlook without Vinod Mehta as an example," he said. Bengaluru-based real estate firm Embassy Group plans to divest nearly a third of its stake to raise Rs 5,000 crore to fund expansion of its new projects in commercial real estate, hospitality and warehouses across India. Embassy, backed by global private equity major Blackstone for its commercial property venture, has lined up investments of Rs 4,500 crore over the next few years in building new offices, growing its hotel business ten folds and setting up warehouses and factories for global players and e-commerce firms such as Amazon. "We have a good commercial portfolio which is good for the investors also. Instead of debt, I would rather take equity and allow investors an opportunity to make money," said Jitu Virwani, chairman of Embassy Group. Embassy has 24 million square feet of space built across cities, including 16.2 million square feet of office space leased to multinational firms such as IBM, Microsoft, J P Morgan, J C Penny and Volvo. The firm said bulk of its developments are in key metros such as Bengaluru and Pune, where office space occupancy is around 90% and supply demand gap can be met in three to six months. In Mumbai, nearly a fifth of the 101.1 million sq feet office space is vacant and would take over three years to fill the empty space, while in Delhi, it would take over 5.4 years to fill the 31% vacant office space. Besides Blackstone, Embassy has backing of $175 million from Warburg Pincus for its logistics joint venture - Embassy Industrial Parks, which will focus on building warehouses for e-commerce firms such as Flipkart and Amazon and factory space for global manufacturers who come to India. "Most warehouses currently are set up land owners who look at rent income from the property. Here, we are offering ready property with all facilities, but also have a dedicated team to service them during the period they occupy our space," said Anshul Singhal, chief executive officer of Embassy Industrial parks. Embassy plans to increase hotel rooms to over 1,500 from the existing 150 - by adding four new properties in Bengaluru, both five star and budget category with convention centres to meet demand of its clients. The firm has a 150 room hotel under the Hilton Brand in Bengaluru. Drug maker Wockhardts plans to revive its business in the United States has suffered a setback, with the US Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) raising concerns about manufacturing practices at the companys Shendra plant in Maharashtra. The drug maker, led by chairman Habil Khorakiwala, plans to use the facility at Shendra to export oral solids and injectables to the US, as its facilities at Chikhalthana and Waluj have import alerts against them. The company had sought approval from the US FDA for its Shendra plant in order to commence exports to the US and an inspection was carried out last week. The FDA issued adverse observations, known as Form 483, following its inspection. The FDA has made nine observations. These are not critical observations and we will reply within fifteen days, a Wockhardt executive said. Shendra manufacturing unit is a new facility and presently there are no supplies of products from the said unit to the US markets, the company said in a notification to the stock exchange. At present, the company exports to Ireland and Britain from Shendra plant. We have already received full clearance from United Kingdom Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency for the Chikhalthana plant, the executive added. Also, the company is awaiting clearance from US FDA for Chikhalthana and Waluj plants. Inspections at both these plants were carried out in May. At present, the company is able to export only two products from Chikhalthana to the US. Other than this, Wockhardt serves the US market from its manufacturing plant in Chicago. The share of US market as a part of total has slipped to 24 per cent from about 45 per cent two years ago, while the Britain and Indian markets are showing growth. In the last financial year, revenue form the US market dropped 50 per cent to Rs 1,087 crore. Prospects of US business revival will be hampered following the observations on Shendra plant, an analyst remarked. TURN OF EVENTS Dalmia Bharat (DBL) has signed an agreement with KKR, under which the former will acquire the latters stake in Dalmia Cement Bharat (DCBL) and bring in KKR as the largest institutional shareholder, with 8.5 per cent holding. According to a statement by DBL on Friday, following the transaction, DCBL will become a 100 per cent subsidiary of DBL. DBL will make a preferential issue of 7.5 million equity shares to KKR at Rs 825 a share, totalling to Rs 618.75 crore. It paid KKR a cash consideration of Rs 600 crore ($89 million) to acquire the latters 15 per cent stake in DCBL. KKR had paid Rs 500 crore in September 2010 to pick up the 15 per cent. Sanjay Nayar, chief executive of KKR India, said, We are proud of our association with Dalmia Bharat and continue to believe in its long-term growth. We believe the Indian macroeconomic growth and infrastructure story is poised for a significant uptick in the coming years and the consolidation in cement industry is likely to happen. Given our confidence in Dalmias strategy and execution capabilities and corporate governance, we will continue to back Dalmia Cements growth and will leverage KKRs global platform to support the companys vision of being a leader in the Cement sector. Puneet Dalmia said the company benefited tremendously from KKRs global network, strategic expertise and experience in value creation. After the investment by KKR, the company has successfully completed four acquisitions, greenfield expansions and implementation of environmentally sustainable production processes in a cost effective manner. DBL now has presence in south, east, north-east and western markets of India. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. Dalmia Bharat Limited (DBL) is into cement manufacturing since 1939. With an expanding India footprint, the company is a category leader in all kinds of cement including super- specialty cements used for oil well, railway sleepers and air strips. Dalmia Bharat Group has a strong foothold in southern and eastern India (including north east India). The Company continues to produce best quality cement at lowest cost; maximizing efficiencies and observing high thresholds of sustainability. The group with current capacity of 25 million tonnes, is one of the largest in the Indian cement industry. KKR, a leading global investment firm, manages investment across multiple asset classes including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate, credit and hedge funds. KKR aims to generate attractive investment returns by following a patient and disciplined investment approach, employing world-class people, and driving growth and value creation at the asset level. KKR invests its own capital alongside its partners' capital and brings opportunities to others through its capital markets business. References to KKR's investments may include the activities of its sponsored funds. An honest essay has numerous characteristics: original thinking, a good structure, balanced arguments, and plenty more. But one aspect often overlooked is that an honest essay should be interesting. It should spark the readers curiosity, keep them absorbed, make them want to stay reading and learn more. An uneventful article risks losing the readers attention; whether or not the points you create are excellent, a flat style, or poor handling of a dry subject material can undermine the positive aspects of the essay. The matter is that a lot of students think that essays should be like this: they believe that a flat, dry style is suited to the needs of educational writing and dont even consider that the teacher reading their essay wants to search out the essay interesting. You might want to have online essay editor service to boost your confidence in writing with an error-free output. Academic writing doesnt need to be and shouldnt be bland. The excellent news is that there is much stuff you can do to create your essay more attractive, while youll be able only to do such a lot while remaining within the formal confines of educational writing. Lets study what theyre. Have an interest in what youre writing about Dont go overboard, but youll be able to let your passion for your subject show. If theres one thing bound to inject interest into your writing, its being fascinated by what youre writing about. Passion for a subject matter comes across naturally in your essay, typically making it more lively and fascinating and infusing an infectious enthusiasm into your words within the same way that its easy to talk knowledgeably to someone about something you discover fascinating. Include fascinating details Another factor that may make an essay boring maybe a dry material. Some topic areas are naturally dry, and it falls to you to form the article more interesting through your written style and by trying to seek out fascinating snippets of knowledge to incorporate, which will liven it up a small amount and make the data easier to relate to. A way of doing this with a dry subject is to create what youre talking about that seems relevant to the critical world, as this is often easier for the reader to relate to. Emulate the fashion of writers you discover interesting When you read lots, you subconsciously start emulating the fashion of the writers you have read. Reading benefits you a lot, as this exposes you to a spread of designs, and youll start to require the characteristics of these you discover interesting to read. Borrow some creative writing techniques Theres a limit to the quantity of actual story-telling youll do when youre writing an essay; in the end, essays should be objective, factual and balanced, which doesnt, initially glance, feel considerably like story-telling. However, youll apply a number of the principles of story-telling to create your writing more interesting. consider your own opinion Take the time to figure out what its that you think instead of regurgitating the opinions of others. Cut the waffle Rambling on and on is dull and almost bound to lose the interest of your reader. Youre in danger of waffling if youre not completely clear about what you wish to mention or havent thought carefully about how youre visiting structure your argument. Doing all your research correctly and writing an essay plan before you begin will help prevent this problem. Editing is a vital part of the essay-writing process, so edit the waffle once youve done a primary draft. Read through your essay objectively and eliminate the bits that arent relevant to the argument or labor the purpose. employing a thesaurus isnt always a decent thing Avoid using unfamiliar words in an essay; theres too great a likelihood that youre misusing them. You may think that employing a thesaurus to seek out more complicated words will make your writing more exciting or sound more academic, but using overly high-brow language can have the incorrect effect. Avoid repetitive phrasing Please avoid using the identical phrase structure again and again: its a recipe for dullness! Instead, use a variety of syntax that demonstrates your writing capabilities and makes your writing more interesting. Mix simple, compound, and complicated sentences to avoid your paper becoming predictable. Use some figurative language Using analogies with nature can often make concepts more accessible for readers to know. As weve already seen, its easy to finish up rambling when youre explaining complex concepts mainly after you dont know it yourself. One way of forcing yourself to think about a couple of pictures, present it more simply and engagingly is to form figurative language. This implies explaining something by comparing it with something else, as in an analogy. Employ rhetorical questions Anticipate the questions your reader might ask. One of the ways ancient orators held the eye of their audiences and increased the dramatic effect of their speeches was by using the statement. A decent place to use a statement is at the top of a paragraph, to steer into the following one, or at the start of a replacement section to introduce a brand new area for exploration. Proofread Finally, you may write the top interesting essay an instructor has ever read. Still, youll undermine your good work if its plagued by errors, which distract the reader from the particular content and can probably annoy them. Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (ONGC), India's state-owned petroleum explorer, today said it expects capital expenditure in the current financial year ending March to come down by 10 per cent as compared to what was planned owing to sharp drop in exploration costs. This comes amid the ongoing historic crude oil price slump that has shrunk margins for exploration firms. Global oil price benchmarks have plummeted to a 12-year low of $30 per barrel on continued concerns over Chinese economy amid a global glut. "Our capital expenditure will come down by around 10 per cent as compared to the planned Rs 36,000 crore for the current financial year. This is not because of any cut in capex but only because the (exploration) costs have come down," ONGC Chairman and Managing Director D K Sarraf said, responding to a recent report that said the company will cut capex by Rs 4,000 crore this fiscal. He added ONGC would carry out the same amount of activity as it had planned -- drilling of number of wells, seismic surveys and field development -- but the money spent on these will be lower as the cost at which some of the services which are available in the market are lower now. Sarraf was talking to media persons on the sidelines of a conference organized by the petroleum ministry as a curtain-raiser for the two day India-Africa Hydrocarbon Conference that is slated to take place here from 21 January. As many as 17 countries have confirmed their participation and of these 10 countries are sending ministerial-level officials to the conference. Speaking on the occasion, oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the conference will witness talks between governments, businesses and regulators of the two nations to ramp up bilateral partnership in upstream and downstream projects apart from gas trade. "Africa is the hot-spot for investments in oil and gas sector. Partnership with Africa will be a key aspect of India's efforts to realize Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of increasing the country's energy security," Pradhan said, adding the country's oil imports from Nigeria and other African nations will increase in future. India imported 32 million tonne of crude oil from African nations last fiscal including 2.2 million tonnes from Nigeria. The country imports around 189 million tonnes of crude oil annually. The minister also said the government has set an ambitious target of opening 10,000 new LPG dealerships in 2016 on top of around 16,000 existing dealers in the country at present. "Also, the oil will open new 104 CNG retail outlets in addition to existing 350 CNG filling stations in next three months," he said. Commenting on the progress of the centre's plan to introduce Direct Benefit Transfer for kerosene subsidy in 33 districts across seven states from 1 April, Pradhan said the oil ministry will soon call a meeting of state-level officials dealing with the new scheme to get more states on board. Skoda Auto, part of Volkswagen Group, will look at re-entering the Indian small car segment it exited in 2013 by phasing out the Fabia, a premium hatchback. Skoda may bring back the Fabia, which was globally launched in 2014. The re-entry may happen within the next two years."We are much closer to having a lot of confidence in that segment than ever before. Owing to congestion and parking problems people have began to disassociate small hatchback from basic transportation needs. They are open to having a good hatchback with all the features. We are convinced that the market is ready. We do want to get back into that segment, at a later time", said Sudhir Rao, chairman and managing director at Skoda India. Fabia was launched in India in early 2008 and the company sold about 45,000 units before discontinuing production in 2013 due to dip in volumes. Volumes in 2012-13, the last complete year of operation, fell 78% to 3,343 units from 14,936 units in 2011-12. The hatchback was priced at a premium to then segment leaders like Maruti Suzuki Swift and Hyundai i20. Fabia was launched as a premium hatchback and it was a great product. Somewhere along the way we went after volumes and gave up that premium positioning. The market was not ready for premium segment then. Buyers were not ready to pay a premium price for hatchback. We decided to get out until the market evolved, said Rao. The premium hatchback market has now started showing growth. Japanese car maker, Honda, which had discontinued the Jazz in 2013, re-launched the premium hatchback in July last year. The company has already sold more than the 23,000 units achieved by the previous Jazz in four years. Maruti Suzuki launched Baleno, again a hatchback in October and is seeing a waiting period of 4-5 months. Hyundai's Elite i20 continues to see a strong pull in the market. Rao said Skoda is looking to grow at a double digit rate in the current calendar year. The company saw a growth of 4% last year to sell about 16,000 units with contribution from models like Rapid, Octavia, Superb and Yeti. "We will be launching a couple of products this year and one more next year. We increased sales last year without a launch," said Rao. Interestingly, Skoda's parent company, Volkswagen, saw its India sales decline 2.4% in last calendar year. In the current quarter, Skoda will launch the new Superb, built on a new platform. Rao did not disclose details of the second launch planned for this year and the plan for next year. Celebrity founders met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday ahead of the day-long deliberations on the start-up universe. Modi will interact with new-age companies and is expected to announce an action plan for a start-up policy on Saturday. Masayoshi Son, founder and chief executive of SoftBank, the venture capital fund that has invested in Indian unicorns like Snapdeal and Oyo Rooms, and Adam Neumann, founder of New York-based office rental start-up WeWork, met Modi soon after arriving in India. Both are panelists in Saturdays event. SoftBank plans to invest $20 billion in solar energy in India. WeWork, which is valued at $10 billion and provides office space in the US, Europe and Israel, intends to enter India soon. At a curtain-raiser event on Friday, when a Silicon Valley investor said he was hoping for some good announcements, Department Of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) Secretary Amitabh Kant said, Tomorrow (Saturday) is a day of celebrations, not a day of announcements. While the commerce ministry has promised easier norms for all business enterprises, there is no confirmation yet on the unveiling of a start-up policy on Saturday. Instead, Modi is likely to launch an action plan. According to DIPP officials, various departments and ministries have been working for the past two months to make the event a success. Thousands of representatives from startups are gathering in Delhi to be a part of the event. Expectations are high for tax incentives on investments and easier rules for opening and closing companies. Venktesh Shukla, president of the investors association TiE Silicon Valley, said a large number of startups were failing and should be allowed to shut down easily. Norms should also be eased for Indian start-ups to raise money, he said. The other members of the association asked for tax incentives in all investments coming from the US. Kanwal Rekhi, managing director of Inventus Capital, said India did not tax investments in the capital market but taxed investments in start-ups. Investments made from Mauritius are not taxed but those made from the US come in the tax ambit. We want to make investments directly from Silicon Valley to India, Rekhi said. The event has been touted by the government as one that will kickstart the next phase of Indias startup revolution. About 40 leading chief executives, venture capitalists and angel investors from Silicon Valley, including Uber Founder Travis Kalanick, will attend. Sunil Mantri, chairman and managing director of Mumbai-based Mantri Realty, who is facing trouble over Rs 300 crore dues to lenders, is learnt to have stepped down as the chairman of National Real Estate Development Council (Naredco), governed by the Union ministry of housing and urban poverty alleviation. Mantris resignation was accepted by the governing council of Naredco last month, executives of the Delhi-based organisation said. They added Mantri resigned in October the same month he was appointed chairman, according to a PTI report but the resignation was kept on hold. Naredco is expected to appoint a chairman in the next governing council meeting. When contacted, Mantri said: I resigned a few months ago and they (Naredco governing council) have accepted it. Formed in 1998 under the aegis of the ministry of housing and urban poverty alleviation, Naredco is the apex national organisation representing all stakeholders of real estate. Union urban development minister is its chief patron. Mantri is facing the heat as his company, Mantri Realty, has defaulted on loan and interest payment for the past two years to private lenders and the latter has approached the Bombay High Court. The Bombay High Court has appointed a official liquidator for all the companys assets and the liquidator has taken possession of the companys registered office in Mumbai, according to reports. I think it is a positive thing. In India, whatever happens, people do not resign. We kept the resignation on hold for two months and have not filled up the post yet. There will be ups and down in the industry. Some peoples problems come to the front, others dont, said Rajan N Bandelkar, vice-president (west) at Naredco. Bandelkar added: He is trying to sort out his issues, but the market conditions are tough. Nobody knows how the market moves. We are trying to help him in whatever ways we can. Another senior governing council member said it was not fair to give Mantri the responsibility of running the organisation when he was facing a lot of problems. He needs to devote time to the business and bounce back, said the member. A time-bound security audit will be conducted for all vulnerable installations of armed forces, para-military and police, the central government announced on Friday. This was after a hour's review meeting on the January 2 terrorist attack on the Pathankot air base. Home Minister Rajnath Singh chaired it. It was attended by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, national security advisor Ajit Doval and other top officials of security and intelligence agencies. In view of the continuing threats from hostile elements from across the border, the need to further upgrade both intelligence and preventive abilities, especially in terms of technology, was stressed, said the home ministry. The meet was a day after the Indian and Pakistani governments deferred foreign secretary talks and India gave the go-ahead to the visit of a team from Pakistan on the Pathankot attack. At the meeting, ministers and officials felt once the intelligence input in the attack had been confirmed, the response time was quick enough, both in terms of the decisions taken and in deployment of forces. Also, that many pluses displayed by all the agencies concerned, especially in terms of combined response, needed to be commended and built on, the statement added. The ministers appreciated the work done by intelligence agencies in giving advance warning of the attack and of the security agencies in effectively meeting the challenge and minimising the possible damage. However, the meeting felt the need to have a better media communication strategy. It was decided that in such happenings, the media is best briefed by authorised persons on the spot. Arrangements for this, including training, should be put in place, the ministry said. Official sources said the brass of the security apparatus also took stock of various aspects of internal security. Instructions have been given to ensure security in all sensitive locations, border areas and major urban centres, including Delhi. Where the Republic Day's main function will have French President Francois Hollande as chief guest. Chiefs of the Intelligence Bureau and the Research & Analysis Wing shared various inputs. The head of the National Investigation Agency gave a briefing on the ongoing probe into Pathankot, sources said. Both domestic and international flights have already been asked to upgrade the scale of security, with some passengers being made to undergo 'secondary ladder checking' in some. This is conducted when a passenger is about to enter the aircraft, to ensure no weapon or chemical is being carried. Uttar Pradesh (UP) Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav today announced to develop Noida as an international financial hub in the country. Addressing industrialists, entrepreneurs and bankers here, Yadav claimed the government had mooted a similar proposal about two years back, but the plan could not be put to work. "Now, we are willing to take necessary steps for developing Noida as a financial hub. We are also open to taking the help of the Centre in this regard as the Prime Minister (PM) also comes from UP," he said speaking at 'Uttar Pradesh @ Double Digit Growth - Unfolding Investment Opportunities" conclave organised by Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Industry of India (Assocham). Prime Minister Narendra Modi represents Varanasi constituency in Parliament. In his address, Yadav pitched UP as the ideal investment destination as the state was moving towards double digit growth with several development and infrastructure projects already underway. He listed projects including Lucknow Metro Rail, Agra-Lucknow Expressway and Lucknow-Ballia Expressway to buttress his point. He said work on several metro rail projects in Lucknow, Kanpur, Noida and Ghaziabad was on, while other states were grappling with single metro project at the most. "Soon, we would launch the metro rail project in the PM's constituency of Varanasi as well." Referring to the Agra-Lucknow Expressway, Yadav said two years back, the road infrastructure projects proposed under public private partnership (PPP) model through the build operate transfer (BOT) route were not getting takers in India due to the prevailing economic condition and refusal of banks to bankroll such projects. "At that time, the state government had decided to go ahead with the project out of its own resources. Today, it is touted as the biggest access control expressway project in India, which did not face any land acquisition hurdles, since it was done by mutual consent," he added. The expressway is expected to be complete before the end of this calendar. Meanwhile, Assocham President Sunil Kanoria suggested setting up of dispute resolution mechanism for industry as a proactive industry-friendly initiative in UP. "The government is making good progress in power generation, but it should also give due attention to the distribution side," he added. UP industries principal secretary Mahesh Gupta said exports from UP had risen from Rs 38,000 crore in 2012 to about Rs 90,000 crore at present. "The state government is in the process of announcing several new policies for industries," he said adding the upgraded single window system would be ready in another 20-25 days. Prime Minister Narendra Modi ambitious programme to provide a social security net to millions of farmers across the country through a crop insurance scheme might remain a pipe-dream for many unless states develop a proper mechanism to include land lease-holders within its ambit. Officials said though the scheme, in principle, includes lease-holders, it may be difficult to implement that on the ground as most states have yet not modernised and legalised their land lease systems. Land being a state subject, the best the Centre can do is to try and convince them to change existing systems. Lessee farmers in most states dont have the right to access credit, and insurance and lease agreements are also not yet standardised. Lessee farmers would become part of the scheme only if the state governments allow the same, because in most states land laws do not allow lease farmers to avail benefits from insurance or credit, a senior official said. A paper on the status of land lease agreements prepared by T Haque, a former chairman of the Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices (CACP), showed that though the area under tenancy declined from about 35.7% of the total cultivated area at the time of independence to 7.1% in 2003. Although, the number looks very small at present, but experts believe that there is large-scale concealment of tenancy and oral tenancy, which makes it all the more difficult to distinguish land-owners from tenants. Till September 2006, about 12.6 million tenants on 16.7 million acres of land were conferred either ownership or occupancy rights by Government of India, but this also prompted landlords to secure mass eviction of tenants, sub-tenants and sharecroppers. The paper said that while tenants were given occupancy right over about 4% of total land, they were evicted from about 30% of the same. Concealed tenancy or oral tenancy exists in all parts of the country who are the most insecure, the paper also added. It is these vulnerable groups of farmers who might remain deprived from the ambitious insurance scheme, even though they are most impacted by crop loss. The 59th Round of NSSO data showed that around 57% of the leased area in kharif season and 54% in rabi season were on short-term leases, that is for less than two years and did not have any tenurial security or stability. Share-cropping was the most dominant form of tenancy in the country. Incidentally, the new crop insurance scheme seeks to charge an insurance premium of 2% on all kharif sown crops from farmers and 1.5% for all rabi crops. This clearly shows that unless states move quickly and decisively on legalizing and modernizing their tenancy laws, large segment of Indias farming population would continue to remain deprived from government policies on insurance and credit, which also puts the success of the schemes like the crop insurance scheme under question. The finance ministry and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) have assured bad debt-ridden public sector banks (PSBs) of adequate capital support next financial year. Banks need to take tough measures to clean up their balance sheets and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has assured that the government will provide enough funds for banks to sort out their stressed assets problem. The tough measures the banks will have to take will cause short-term pain, particularly in the form of higher provisioning in the December 2015 and March 2016 quarters but sources said these will be beneficial in the long term to state-owned banks. "We have provided Rs 25,000 crore to the banks this financial year and promised to recapitalise them to the tune of another Rs 25,000 crore next year. If resources are there, I may provide even more," Jaitley told CNBC Awaaz. RBI sources said capital would be made available to banks and liquidity was plentiful. The promise came one-and-a-half months before the Budget for 2016-17 and on a day the bank stocks came under heavy selling pressure on stock exchanges. In July 2015, the finance ministry had said public sector banks would need Rs 1.8 lakh crore extra capital over the next four years and would provide Rs 70,000 crore of this - Rs 25,000 crore each in FY16 and FY17 and Rs 10,000 crore each in FY18 and FY19. Jaitley, however, asked the banks to take tough steps to recover their bad debts. RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan had said last month that he expected banks to clean their balance sheets by March 2017. There are three categories of problem loans. The first is specific to banks which have weak assets. The second is of system-wide debt, which could be because of delay in commencement of projects. Stressed loans in both these categories will have to be provided for in Q3 and Q4 of FY16. The third category is possible an emerging weakness in restructured portfolio, which will need to be taken up in FY17. The bad loan situation for the banking sector worsened in FY16. According to RBI's Financial Stability Report December 2015, the gross non-performing assets (NPAs) of all scheduled commercial banks increased to 5.1 per cent in September 2015 from 4.6 per cent in March 2015. The gross NPAs for PSBs stood at 6.2 per cent in September 2015. Stressed advances ratio increased to 11.3 per cent from 11.1 per cent during the same period for all banks, with PSBs recording the highest level of stressed assets at 14.1 per cent. In case banks need further assistance, other regulatory measures such as deferred tax assets etc could be provided. NPAs of PSBs 6.2% Gross non-performing assets (GNPAs) of public sector banks (PSBs) in September 2015 Gross non-performing assets (GNPAs) of public sector banks (PSBs) in September 2015 3.6% Net NPAs of PSBs in September 2015, an increase from 3.2% in March 2015 Net NPAs of PSBs in September 2015, an increase from 3.2% in March 2015 14.1% PSBs' stressed assets in September 2015 RBI's Stress test Under baseline scenario, PSBs' GNPA could go up to 6.3% in Sept 2016 & improve to 5.8% in Mar 2017 Under severe stress scenario, it may increase to 8% by Mar 2017 Source: Financial Stability Report, December 2015 The Union government plans to connect 585 agricultural produce markets under its National Agriculture Market (NAM) initiative by March 2018, a senior minister said here today. Speaking at the inauguration of Amaetheon, food and agri business summit at the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), Union Agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh said, "We have received proposals from eight states so far who want to connect their agriculture markets under the scheme. We have already released some funds for that, and by the end of this year, nearly 214 markets (mandis) would be connected to a common electronic platform which will allow farmers and traders to sell their produce to buyers anywhere in the country under the NAM initiative." He further added that within March 2017, another 200 markets would be connected using the platform, and the target was to connect 585 markets by March 2018. In July last year the Centre had approved setting up of an online national agriculture market that will provide more options to farmers for selling their produce. The Union Cabinet had approved the proposal to create a National Agriculture Market. The move is expected to give choice to farmers to sell the farm produce both in physical mandis or online platform. Currently, the Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) Acts in different states permit the first sale of crops to take place only in regulated market yards or mandis. This basically restricts the farmer to sell his produce to traders or commission agents licensed to operate in the area under a particular APMC. Singh said that having an online trading portal where farmers can offer their produce to buyers anywhere, and also know about the prevalent prices of items in different markets would enable them to fetch better prices for their produce, thus empowering them. He also added that an agency would be set up to oversee online trading and to ensure that transactions take place smoothly. Meanwhile, the government is focussing on organic farming initiatives. Groups of farmers would be motivated to take up organic farming under Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY). Fifty or more farmers will form a cluster having 50 acre land to take up the organic farming under the scheme. In this way during three years 10,000 clusters will be formed covering 5.0 lakh acre area under organic farming. Singh informed that already 8,000 such clusters have been formed till December 31, 2015. Sowing of wheat in the week ending January 15 was less than last year, because of less sowing area in the rainfed areas of Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra. Low residual soil moisture and unusually warm weather in this season has impacted rabi sowing in these parts. However, with the weather turning cold in many parts of northern India, officials said sowing might pick up in the coming weeks. Private weather forecasting company Skymet in its latest weather update said that good winter rains were expected over most parts of India in the next few days. The spell is expected to be five-day long commencing from January 16 up to January 20. Data sourced from the department of agriculture showed that till Friday, wheat was sown in 28.89 million hectares of land, down 1.45 million hectares from the same period last year. More than the area covered, it is the condition of the standing crop that is of concern. Overall rabi crops have been planted in 57.73 million hectares till Friday, which is 1.84 million hectares less than the same period last year. Mustard, the major oilseed grown during the rabi season, has been planted in 6.28 million hectares, down from 6.49 million hectares sown during the same period last year. Pulses has been sown in 13.63 million hectares, around 300,000 hectares less than the same period last year. Sowing of pulses could continue well into February. With the weather expected to turn colder in the coming days, sowing might pick up. If it does not, the fate of standing rabi crop would hang in the balance as the water level in the 90-odd reservoirs in the country is below last year's levels; it is also less than the average level of the past 10-years. Amid a raging debate on net neutrality, minister of state in the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) Jitendra Singh, minister of communications and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad and science and technology minister Harsh Vardhan met on Friday to discuss differential data pricing and zero-rated platforms, including Facebooks Free Basics. While Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is expected to come out with its recommendations on the issue by the end of this month, the PMO is closely monitoring the issue. In their second meeting, the three deliberated on the implications of differential pricing on the industry and various stakeholders. The government is deliberating on the zero-rating platforms to take a holistic view once Trais final views are out. The possibility of offering free data usage plans by the government to the first-time internet users was also discussed, said a person close to the developments. TRAI's final policy will decide future of zero rated platforms as well as Free Basics. Also, the PMO is taking keen interest in the issue because internet access is an essential part of governments Digital India programme. The issue has attracted a public debate with experts saying zero rated platforms and Free Basics violate the principles of net neutrality. Besides, Facebook undertook an aggressive campaign promoting Free Basics and asked its users to support their platform by sending mails to TRAI. Though, about 1.8 million mails sent by Facebook users to TRAI on the issue will not be considered by the regulator as it did not answer the queries raised by TRAI. Free Basics offer certain internet websites to users without incurring any data charges. Facebook had tied up with Reliance Communications for Free Basics but has been asked by TRAI to stop the commercial launch of the service till its approval. Nandan Nilekani, Paytms Vijay Shekhar Sharma are been among the big shots who have raised objections to the Free Basics plan. Not having a clear law on net neutrality has created a vacuum that many commercial interests are trying to fill with their own interpretation. We are unaware of Facebooks agenda, we are only commenting on what has been offered, and why it is against the principles of net neutrality, where everyone gets to access the full Internet in an open way, Nilekani had said. Sharma accused Facebook of attempting to be an "East India Company",a term that harkens back to the colonial rule in India. Industry bodies Nasscom and IAMAI have opposed differential pricing that allows telecom companies to offer access to select mobile applications or websites. All the telecom operators have come in support of differential pricing. Bharti Airtel had also launched Airtel Zero last year, which was not launched after a public outcry. Experts have been saying allowing differential pricing for data would amount to curbs on freedom of choice to access Internet. Prasad had earlier said that the government would take its structured view on the issue after Trai submits its report. Net neutrality implies that equal treatment be accorded to all internet traffic and no priority be given to an entity or company based on payment to content or service providers, such as telecom companies, which is seen as discriminatory. The GST Council is likely to meet in the first half of November to discuss the reports of the panel of ministers on setting up GST appellate ... Hoping that Prime Minister Narendra Modis Startup India Policy would remove the obstacles faced by budding entrepreneurs, Silicon Valley-based serial entrepreneur Karl Mehta has landed in New Delhi to be part of Saturdays mega event. Mehta, who was also part of US President Barack Obamas administration and the founder of EdCast, a professional knowledge sharing network, spoke to Karan Choudhury. Edited excerpts: What are your expectations from the Startup India event on Saturday? What sort of changes are likely in the Indian start-up ecosystem? We hope to see the government remove a lot of hassles and hurdles, which would motivate Indian start-ups to start businesses in the country and not abroad. The policy should help entrepreneurs start a company fast and scale it even faster. We hope the policy is conducive and supportive so that more people are willing to take risks. Do you expect any change in the taxation policies? The first thing we need in taxation is simplification because, as a start-up, one does not have the time or the manpower to deal with complex and complicated tax structures. Also, a small company does not want to be bothered by it. Therefore, it should be simplified in such a way that in the initial years of a start-up, companies are not bothered with taxation norms. What about the demand of more favourable policies around starting and winding down of business in India? In the US, almost 90 per cent of the start-up companies fail. The percentage might vary in India, but what venture capitalists and investors want is that when a company does not work, they should be allowed to shut it down and get out of it quickly. Policies around shutting down of company in India are very draconian and discourage foreign investors. We do not want a liability as an investor. What should the government do in a policy for start-ups? I do not know what the Prime Minister would be announcing tomorrow (on Saturday). I hope it would be a comprehensive plan and not just a drop-down policy, which would have a bottom-up approach and provide an enabling ecosystem. The government should invest in long-term research and development (R&D), which would facilitate start-ups. More investments should be made in university R&D facilities where technology developed can be commercialised fast. The government can also do a fund of funds, just like the Singapore government, which runs one of the largest venture capital funds. What would be your contribution to the Startup India initiative? Personally, I would be bringing entrepreneurship education from the Silicon Valley as part of the initiative, where we will train one million people in entrepreneurship in the next three years. We would be getting into tie-ups with IITs (Institutes of Technology), IIMs (Institutes of Management) as well as other educational institutions in India. In all, we would be partnering with around 500 educational institutions in India. Which all sectors would have more start-ups coming up in 2016? In general, the technology sector would have more start-ups coming up. Also, more manufacturing start-ups would be adopting technology. So, they, in a way, would be part of the tech start-up genre. Toshiba Corporation's Westinghouse Electric hopes to clinch a deal to build six nuclear reactors in India by end-March, Chief Executive Officer Daniel Roderick said, in time for a possible visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Washington to attend a global nuclear summit. Roderick said a Westinghouse team was already in India to negotiate the deal, but talks were likely to go down to the wire, as the crucial issue of nuclear liability insurance for suppliers remains unresolved. The aim, however, was to make a "commercially significant announcement" during Modi's expected US visit in March and sign a final contract later in the year, Roderick said, narrowing the timeline on a deal that an Indian official had said would be disclosed by June. The contract would give a big boost to India's $150-billion nuclear power programme, and a broader push to curb greenhouse gas emissions. "We need to see the details of the insurance company and how the insurance will work at a level beyond what we have seen so far," Roderick said in an interview. "And that needs to happen in the next 30 to 45 days." India has launched an insurance pool with a liability cap of Rs 1,500 crore (about $222 million) to assuage suppliers' concerns, after a 2010 law gave the state-run operator Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd the right to seek damages from them in the event of an accident. Roderick said while the concept gave Westinghouse confidence to go ahead with a potential deal, the company still needed details of how the liability scheme would work before it can agree on commercial terms. The NPCIL did not respond to requests for comment on the deal, which was put on the fast-track when President Barack Obama visited India in January last year. The Westinghouse deal would be the first nuclear commercial power project since the US and India first struck an agreement to cooperate in the civil nuclear arena a decade ago, and would underscore a growing strategic partnership between the world's two largest democracies. A foreign ministry spokesman declined to comment on Modi's travel plans. A US diplomat, however, said the US had invited Modi to the March 31-April 1 Nuclear Security Summit and that Washington was thinking of turning the trip into a full-fledged official visit, which would give the Indian leader a similar reception as Chinese President Xi Jinping. India has given two sites to US companies - Westinghouse and a nuclear venture between General Electric (GE) and Hitachi - to build six reactors each. In December, an Indian official told Reuters that GE had yet to decide on whether it would move ahead with the plan. Spokesman Christopher White said GE was still interested, but added that the March timeframe was "totally dependent on the finalisation of the insurance plan". Roderick said that if the GE-Hitachi deal did not eventually go through, Westinghouse would rather the Indian government gave it the site than "Russia or somebody else". He said that while Modi's office was driving the deal, other government authorities also had to hasten the process. "It is just going to take everyone deciding to have this done by March," Roderick added. Public sector lender IDBI Bank has raised the size of its equity share offering to institutional investors from Rs 2,800 crore to Rs 3,771 crore, in line with the governments approval. N S Venkatesh, executive director and chief financial officer, said top management of the bank will meet big domestic and foreign investors till January 25, 2016, for the qualified institutional placement (QIP). The IDBI stock was trading lower at Rs 64.3 per share on Bombay Stock Exchange. The government of India (GoI) holds 76.5 per cent stake in the bank. GoI has demonstrated continued support to IDBI through equity infusions at regular intervals. The recent equity infusion of Rs 2,229 crore was done on December 29, 2015. The Mumbai-based lender has already raised tier-II capital worth Rs 1,900 crore to strengthen its capital adequacy. The capital adequacy ratio was 11.66 per cent with tier-I of 8.04 per cent at the end of September 2015 against 11.71 per cent a year ago. Rating agency ICRA has assigned IDBI AA+ for its Tier-II bonds. The outlook is negative. It reflects the continued asset quality pressures on the banks credit portfolio. IDBIs asset quality has slipped in the past few quarters on the persistent dullness in the operating environment and relatively high exposure to the sensitive sectors of the economy, ICRA said. IDBIs gross non-performing assets (NPAs) stood at 6.92 per cent and net NPAs at 3.16 per cent at the end of September 2015. Army Day Parade -2016 . . Indian Army celebrated its 68th Army Day today. General Dalbir Singh, Chief of the Army Staff reviewed the Parade at Army Parade Ground, Delhi Cantonment and awarded fifteen Sena Medals (including five posthumously) for individual acts of Gallantry and thirteen COAS Unit Citations for commendable performance of their respective units. . . Every year Indian Army celebrates 15th January as Army Day to commemorate the day when General (later Field Marshal) K.M Carriappa took over the command of Army from General Sir F.R.R Bucher, the last British Commander-in-Chief in 1949 and became the first Commander-in-Chief of Indian Army post Independence. . . In the past six decades, the Indian Army has grown to be a professional and humanitarian force, while serving in the most adverse and diverse conditions. Indian Army also acquitted itself extremely creditably in internal security and counter insurgency operations over prolonged periods and has extended invaluable aid to civil authorities in disaster management and maintenance of law and order. . . On the occasion of Army Day, an impressive parade was organised at Army Parade Ground, Delhi Cantonment, where Army contingents including seven Mechanised (T-90 Tank, BMP II, Brahmos Missile System, Akash Missile System, Smerch Multi Barrel Rocket Launchers, Troop Level Radar and Integrated Communication Electronic Warfare System) and nine marching contingents participated. The marching contingents also included an Army Dog Contingent wherein the dogs and their trainers marched in unison past the saluting dias. The Army Dogs are utilized for specialist jobs like explosive detection, tracking, guarding and assaulting. Tableaux of Indian Army as also of the Veterans depicted their role and contributions towards the nation. Motorcycle display by the Army Daredevils was the other attraction during the parade. . . A grand finale was a combat demonstration, which showcased battle drills and combat techniques of the Army units. Combat actions included straffing runs depected by the RUDRA armed helicopter & special tactics for insertion and extraction of soldiers behind the enemy lines were depicted. . . Earlier in the day, wreaths were laid at Amar Jawan Jyoti, India Gate by the three service chiefs to commemorate the Army Day. . . Col Rohan Anand, SM. PRO (Army) CEC Inaugurates Matdaata Mahotsav of ECI . . During his inaugural speech, Chief Election Commissioner of India ( CEC) , Dr. Nasim Zaidi stated that while most of the countries have been experiencing the declining trends, India has witnessed significant increase in voters participation in recently held elections to Lok Sabha in 2014 and many State assemblies in past few years. . . Speaking after inaugurating Matdaata Mahotsav yesterday at Central park, Connaught Place in the presence of Sh. O. P. Rawat, Election Commissioner and senior officials of ECI, Chief Election Commissioner highlighted the fact that in the past 66 years, the Election Commission of India had many credible elections. With each electoral cycle it remains the endeavor of ECI to make electoral process more inclusive, accessible and voter friendly. . . He also mentioned about the efforts undertaken by the Election Commission to make NVD celebration of 2016 more colourful and festive in order to acknowledge the contribution of voters across the country. . . CEC underlined that the recently held Lok Sabha election and other state assembly elections were not only totally free, fair, peaceful and participative but also much more inclusive, ethical, voter friendly and transparent. Dr. Zaidi CEC expressed the hope that Matdaata Mahotsav would encourage ideas and suggestions for greater and qualitative participation. CEC informed that Mahotsav is truly reflecting this years theme of ECI, which is Inclusive and Qualitative Participation with the objective that no voter should be left behind. . . As a part of Mahotsav, multitude of activities like debates, discussions, music, dance, street plays, games, quizzes and contests highlighting the electoral features is being showcased to keep up the spirit of festivity. . . Additionally, there are information and facilitation centres, mock polling station and a range of interactive activities. The exhibitions provide a glimpse into best practices in various dimensions of election management- electoral roll, IT and technology, security, mobilisation of personnel and resources, voters education, election material, expenditure monitoring and many more innovations by States/ UTs in India through interactive models, three dimensional structures, digital presentations, display of publications and election material, mock set-ups, activities and role-play, graphics and films. . . EMBs from other countries shared the best practices of their country. Resident Coordinator Mr. Yuri Afanasiev UNDP and his team, Election Management Bodies of Australia, Bangladesh, Fiji, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives, Nepal and Republic of Moldova and representatives from States and UTs also participated in the Matdaata Mahotsav which will culminate on 17th January, 2016. . . Election Commission of India New Delhi : 16th January ,2016 RM/ Cochin Port Trust and CONCOR sign MOU for Weekly container train service . . Cochin Port Trust and CONCOR have entered into a MoU for the running of weekly container train service from Irugur ICD, Coimbatore to ICTT Vallarpadam, Cochin Port. . . The inaugural trip of weekly container train service from Irugur ICD, Coimbatore to ICTT Vallarpadam,Cochin Port will be flagged off on 16.1.2016 at 4 pm at Irugur ICD by Sri.G.Senthilvel, Deputy Chairman, Cochin Port Trust. The train from Irugur will start on all Saturdays and the return from Cochin on all Thursdays. The trains are scheduled to connect the direct shipping services to Far East, China, Europe and Middle East. . . CONCOR will provide storage space at very attractive terms and conditions to shipping lines who desire to stack the empty containers at Coimbatore. This MOU between CONCOR and Cochin Port will result in great advantage for the EXIM community in-an- around Coimbatore. . . Defence Minister Shri Manohar Parrikar meets the Union Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh . . The Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh and the Defence Minister Shri Manohar Parrikar met here today and discussed the take-aways from the Pathankot incident. . . The Ministers appreciated the work done by both the intelligence agencies, in giving advance warning of the attack and of the security agencies, in effectively meeting the challenge and minimising the possible damage. The Ministers also appreciated the bravery shown by the security forces in the incident and paid homage to those who sacrificed their lives in it. . . Discussions were held on the means to further strengthen the prevention, detection and foiling of such dastardly attacks. It was felt that the many strengths displayed by all the concerned agencies, especially in terms of their synergized response needs not only to be commended, but also further built upon. It was felt that once the intelligence input had been confirmed, the response time was quick enough, both in terms of decisions that were taken, and in deployment of forces. . . In view of the continuing threats from hostile elements from across the border, the need to further upgrade both intelligence and preventive abilities specially in terms of technology was stressed. It was decided that the security audit of all vulnerable stations, of armed forces, para-military forces and police would be carried out within a given timeframe. . . The need to have a better media communication strategy was also felt. It was decided that in such incidents, media is best briefed by the authorised persons on the spot and arrangements for this, including training, should be put in place, to meet such contingencies, should they happen in the future. . . Shri Ajit Doval, National Security Adviser, Shri Rajiv Mehrishi, Home Secretary, Shri G. Mohan Kumar, Defence Secretary and senior officers from the Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Defence were also present on the occasion. . . Dept of Biotech and BIRAC to Participate in the Bharat Innovation Fund Set up by IIM Ahmedabads CIIE to Support Innovative Startups . . The Government of Indias Department of Biotechnology (DBT), along with the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), today announced its participation in the Bharat Innovation Fund. This fund, launched by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi in September 2015 during the Startup Konnect event in California, will support innovation and innovative startups in areas of healthcare and life-sciences, sustainability, and digital technologies. . . The DBT will engage with the Bharat Fund, as part of DBTs efforts under the Startup India initiative, to help commercialize technologies from its labs and facilities, while also mentoring startups in the healthcare, agri-tech, and other biotech-related areas. The DBT will also invest Rs. 50 crore over the next 3 years to support startups through this Fund. . . Secretary of the DBT, Dr K. Vijay Raghavan, said Productive innovations from the department of biotechnology can make a huge impact in peoples lives, as has been seen in the advances of medicine in recent years. The DBT is committed to doing citizen-oriented research and to commercializing its research, especially through new startups that can identify market opportunities to serve the masses. We think the IIM A-CIIEs initiative in setting up Bharat Innovation Fund will provide crucial support for innovative startups that can bring the benefits of innovation to the broader populations. We hope this partnership will lead to rapid commercialization of Indian science for Indian citizens, through Indian startups. These efforts will leverage the experience of BIRAC and will foster exciting innovations" . . CEO of CIIE, Shri Kunal Upadhyay, noted that CIIEs experience since 2007 in nurturing Indian startups will be critical to the next phase of Indian entrepreneurship, when entrepreneurs identify needs of the both rural and urban Indian citizens, and provide products and services in critical sectors such as healthcare, sustainability, and digital services. The Bharat Innovation Fund will use important tools such as labs, mentorship, funding, and networking to support entrepreneurs who take on hard challenges of an ever-broadening Indian market." . . Vice-president at CIIE, Shri Mudit Narain, mentioned that Innovation-led economic development in a modern knowledge economy requires equal and consistent support from the public and private sectors. This Fund is an effort by one of Indias leading academic institutes to bring together public and private resources, such as experts, finances and labs, to provide the fertile ground for innovation that will seed the Indian multinationals of the next few decades. . . Since its launch in the Startup Konnect event, the Bharat Fund has received pledges from several government and corporate entities, such as the Department of Industrial Promotion and Policy (DIPP), Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Tata Trusts, and others. It is expected to be operational later this year, and provide a range of support to Indian startups tackling real challenges. . . About The Bharat Innovation Fund: The Bharat Fund is a public-private-academia partnership set up by Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabads Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE). The objective of the fund, inter-alia, is to support and provide funding (grants, seed capital, venture capital) and business support to innovation-driven start-ups that solve real problems faced by the masses of India through technology-enabled and rapidly scalable solutions and will focus on healthcare and life-sciences (including biotech, medical devises), sustainability (energy, agriculture, environment, water), and digital technologies (especially in manufacturing, design). . . The Bharat Fund shall be managed and coordinated by CIIE at the IIM, Ahmedabad. . . About the Department of Biotechnology: Biotechnology is a frontline area of science with immense potential for the benefit of the human kind. The Department shall devote wholly to achieve excellence in the promotion of biotechnology in the country in the areas of research, infrastructure, generation of human resource, popularization of biotechnology, promotion of industries, creation of centers of excellence, implementation of biosafety guidelines for genetically modified organisms and recombinant DNA products and biotechnology based programs for societal benefits. It also supports BIRAC as independent not for profit company. . . About CIIE: Set up under the aegis of IIM Ahmedabad, Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) helps entrepreneurs turn ideas into viable businesses. In partnership with our mentors, corporates, development agencies, IIMA community and investors, CIIE nurtures entrepreneurs by incubating, accelerating, mentoring and funding innovative start-ups. CIIE believes that entrepreneurship has an unmatched ability to bring about disruptive change in India and engages with ventures across technology and impact areas like energy, environment, agriculture, healthcare and affordable technology. . . DGFT and Commercial tax department of Bihar Signed MoU on Foreign Exchange Data Sharing . . The Commercial tax department of Bihar has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) for sharing of foreign exchange realization data. Smt. Sujata Chaturvedi, Commissioner cum Principal Secretary, Commercial Taxes Department represented Government of Bihar while Shri D. K. Singh, Additional DGFT represented DGFT. The ceremony was presided over by DGFT Shri Anup Wadhawan. . . The foreign exchange realization data is an important economic indicator as it quantifies transaction level export earnings. This is also known as eBRC (Electronic Bank Realization Certificate) data. BRC can be used by state government departments for ensuring refund of VAT to eligible exporters. . . e-BRC project enables banks to upload Foreign Exchange realisation information relating to merchandise goods exports on to the DGFT server under a secured protocol. So far 100 banks operating in India, including foreign banks and cooperative banks have uploaded more than 1.5 Crore e-BRCs on to the DGFT server. The eBRC project created an integrated platform for receipt, processing and subsequent use of all Bank Realization related information by exporters, banks, central and state government departments. Earlier, the banks issued physical copy of BRC to exporters and no data mining or analysis was possible. The process for BRC issuance and subsequent utilization were largely manual and department centric. The exporters suffered most as they had to run to banks and government departments for claiming benefits. . . So far, Commercial Tax Departments of 13 states have signed MoU with DGFT for receiving e-BRC data for VAT refund purposes. These are: (i) Maharashtra, (ii) Delhi, (iii) Andhra Pradesh,(iv) Odisha, (v) Chhattisgarh, (vi) Haryana, (vii) Tamil Nadu, (viii) Karnataka, (ix) Gujarat, (x) Uttar Pradesh, (xi) Madhya Pradesh, (xii) Kerala, (xiii) Goa. . . In addition, Ministry of Finance, Enforcement Directorate and Agricultural & Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) have also signed MoU with DGFT for receiving e-BRC data. . . Environment Ministry notifies revised standards for Common Effluent Treatment Plants (Cetps) Across industrial clusters . . The Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change has notified the revised standards for Common Effluent Treatment Plants (CETPs) operating at various industrial clusters in the country. The primary aim of the revised standards is to minimise water pollution. These standards were finalised after extensive consultations with industries and other stakeholders and detailed deliberations with the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). The revised standards were notified on January 1, 2016. . . The revised standards will help in significantly improving the performance of CETPs through implementation of design inlet quality, addressing the problems of the coastal pollution due to industrial discharges and keeping a close watch on the impact of discharge of industrial effluent on soil and ground water quality. . . A provision of soil and groundwater quality monitoring twice a year (pre- and post-monsoon) has been introduced in the standards to study the impact of disposal of treated effluent on land, in case of mode of disposal as on land for irrigation. This monitoring will be carried out by the respective CETP management. . . The mode of Discharge into sea (marine outfalls) providing very high dilution will qualify for a relaxed maximum permissible concentration of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD). The maximum permissible concentration of Fixed Dissolved Solids (FDS) by constituent units to CETP has been specified in terms of maximum allowable contribution value. . . The State Pollution Control Boards are empowered to prescribe standards for Inlet quality of effluent in respect of Bio-chemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Total Suspended Solids (TSS) and Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) considering CETP design and local needs & conditions. This provision will help in enforcing the norms for treated effluent quality for the CETP constituent industrial units. . . The draft standards had been uploaded on the website, seeking views/comments of stakeholders including general public. The standards were also studied by an Expert Committee, consisting of representatives of the Ministries concerned, environment experts and social scientists. . . Minister of Railways, Govt. of India Shri Suresh Prabhu visits Washington DC, USA" . . On the request of the World Bank, Shri Suresh Prabhkar Prabhu, Minister of Railways, Government of India is on an official visit to Washington DC, USA to deliver an address at the Plenary Session on World Bank Conference on Transport and Cities Key Drivers for Meeting Climate Goals. Apart from this, his three day tour involves a number of Seminars, Conference, Meetings and Events. . . On the first day of his visit i.e. on January 13, 2016, Shri Suresh Prabhu held a meeting with Mr. Fred P. Hochberg, Chairman and President, US EXIM Bank. On the same day, he participated in the seminar organized by the World Bank at the World Bank Hqrs. on the Railway Reforms in India". Shri Suresh Prabhu made a detailed presentation in the Seminar about various initiatives of Indian Railways. The introductory speech at the Seminar was delivered by Mr. Jose Luis Irigoyen, Director of Transport and ICT, World Bank. . . On the second day of his visit i.e. on 14th January, 2016, Shri Suresh Prabhu participated in the world bank Conference : Transforming Transportation. The specific topic of the conference was Transport and Cities - Key Drivers for Meeting Climate Goals". He was the key speaker at the conference. Later, on the same day the Indian Railway Minister participated at the Special Talk at Carnegie Endowment on: "Modernizing India's Transportation Infrastructure for Sustained Growth: Challenges and Prospects". He also held a meeting with Ms. Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer, World Bank. This meeting was followed by another meeting with officials from World Bank and International Finance Corporation (IFC) which included Ms. Laura Tuck, VP (Sustainable Development), WB; Ms. Annette Dixon, Regional VP (SAR), WB, Mr. Keshav Gaur, Director, Treasury Client Solutions, IFC, Mr. Monish Mahurkar, Director, Treasury Market Operations, IFC and Mr. Christopher Ian Twinn, Manager, Transport-Global Infrastructure Dept., IFC. On the last day of his tour i.e. on 15th January, 2016, Shri Suresh Prabhu will hold meeting with Mr. Victor Mendez, US Deputy Secretary of Transportation. He will also participate at Event on Indias Development: Governments Approach to Infrastructure Development", organized by India Club/1818 Society. He will then address USIBC Meeting. Shri Suresh Prabhu will conclude his visit by participating at Roundtable discussion at American Enterprise Institute (AEI) on "India's Drive For Development". . . Would selling an energy drink with or without a cooler at a hyper mall boost its sales? Would start-ups that use 'artificial intelligence' be able to automate business processes relevant to information technology services sector? Can the slight alteration of a tool for size conversion (for shoes & apparel) reduce high returns and bring joy to customers? Real-life case studies such as these and a few more would be judged on Saturday at the jury meeting for the Business Standard Best B-school Project Awards 2015. The jury includes Ajit Balakrishnan, chief executive officer and founder Rediff.com (chairman of the jury); Rajat Gupta, director, McKinsey & lead, McKinsey's Energy and Materials Practice in Asia; Nishi Vasudeva, chairman and managing director, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation; Sandeep Chandola, director, Deloitte Support Services; Sanjay Singh,executive vice-president and global head - human resources, Crompton Greaves; Rajesh Dahiya, group executive, Axis Bank; and Hasit Joshipura, head (corporate centre) at Larsen & Toubro. Business Standard received 193 projects for evaluation in 2015. The field has now narrowed to the final 10 shortlisted by Business Standard's knowledge partner Deloitte Support Services. The jury will shortlist the top five projects, which will make it to the finals on January 23. Each of these winners will make a presentation to the jury members at the awards function and finally a list of the top three will be announced. Business Standard instituted these awards in 2007 to honour excellence among students from India's best B-schools. A national-level competition, the award is an opportunity for B-schools to nominate one project done by their students as part of their academics. And, only the best get nominated for this prestigious honour. Around 7,500 students from the Indian Institutes of Management and other B-schools vie for the Business Standard Best B-school Project Award. With each passing year, Business Standard has raised the level of the competition. Starting with about 68 entries in the first year, the number of projects has steadily grown to exceed 150 entries. The Reliance Communications stock lost 6.29 per cent to close at Rs 73 on the BSE on Friday, as TPG Capital and Tillman Global Holdings extended their talks to buy its cell towers by two weeks. The BSE Telecom Index was down 2.5 per cent to 1,251.8 on Friday. RCom had entered into a non-binding agreement on December 4 with the two private equity players to sell subsidiary Reliance Infratels cell towers. Though the deal size was not disclosed, independent estimates put the value of Reliance Infratels 45,000 towers at Rs 20,000 crore. The Street is cautious because RCom had once failed to sell its towers. In July 2010, GTL Infrastructure had agreed to buy these assets, but could not agree on a valuation. Earlier in 2008, RCom ended an exclusive stake sale agreement with South African telecom company MTN. There are disagreements over tower lease valuations, said an analyst with a foreign brokerage who did not wish to be named. It is not just a simple sale. RCom will again use these towers on lease, the analyst added. RCom will spin off a special purpose vehicle to be owned by the two private equity players for transfer of the towers from Reliance Infratel. RCom owns about 96 per cent in Reliance Infratel and the rest of the stake is held by institutional investors. After the transfer, RCom will continue to remain the anchor tenant on the towers. This is a multi-billion dollar deal and it takes time to reach a decision. Besides, talks could not take place because of the year-end holidays and, hence, the two-week extension. The deal might come through by the end of this month, said a person familiar with the matter. The deal is crucial for RCom as it seeks to pare debts of around Rs 40,000 crore. An RCom spokesperson declined to comment on the matter. Switzerland-based InsurTech Swiss company, Andiast is all set to invest over 1.5 million for product development in India, which means more recruitment and job opportunities. This will provide Indian VCs a great opportunity to participate and support Indian entrepreneurs. Andiast is proving to be one of the fastest growing startups in Swiss with over 20 million in valuation in a matter of few months and has attracted 1.5 million investment and global leaders from Swiss Post, Yahoo, eBay and others on its management board. Andiast was founded in 2012 by Belavadi, after which Shikha Bedi came on board as co-founder and India head. Presently, the company is looked after by Frank Marthaler. With great emphasis on Hi-Tech Product Development, Andiast is now building their team in Delhi with top managements companies such as Accenture, Hughes Network Systems, Infosys and Wipro. Andiast also runs barebars.com, which is an online tool to rate, compare and analyze companies globally. It is the world's leading website to provide rating trends across all sections of the . It has already hit the road to raise another USD 30 million (approximately Rs. 200 cr.) in Series A round of financing. The Australian High Commission today welcomed 34 Indian and Australian educators to build stronger ties between the Australian and Indian school systems and deepen engagement on two pioneering exchange programs. Array Funded by the Indian and Australian Governments, with support from the Asia Education Foundation, the Australia-India School Leaders' Professional Learning (SLPL) Program involves reciprocal visits of principals and teachers, while the inaugural BRIDGE program aims to build teacher capacity in intercultural understanding, establish durable school partnerships and enhance ICT skills to provide students with personal, real-time connection with peers in the region. Array Australian High Commissioner to India, Patrick Suckling, welcomed the strengthening of partnerships between school leaders, teachers and school communities. Array "The Australia-India education relationship is strong and vibrant," Mr Suckling said. "Almost 500 school leaders from both countries have now participated in the SLPL program, with 16 teachers involved in BRIDGE. The relationships forged through these exchange programs help to build enduring ties between our school systems and between our two countries." Array Dr Sudarshan Rao, Joint Secretary (Academics and Training) of India's Central Board of Secondary Education, accompanied the Indian group during their visit to Australia under the SLPL. Array "The SLPL program exposed Indian school principals to the education system of another country and highlighted alternative teaching practices such as the use of new technology, strategic planning, and staff and student assessment," Mr.Rao said. Array Ms Kamalika Bose from Bluebells School International participated in this year's inaugural BRIDGE program to Australia, announced by the Australian Minister for Education and Training during his visit to India in August 2015. Array "The Australia-India BRIDGE program created opportunities for teachers and students of two different countries and cultures to meet face to face, and not only learn from each other but also build trust and friendship," Ms Bose said. Array More information about SLPL, BRIDGE, the AIEC and the Schools Working Group can be found at www.australiaindiaeducation.com. Reducing litigation with taxpayers has been a key focus area of the Income Tax Department. Several initiatives have been taken by the Central Board of Direct Taxes in the last three months up to December 2015 to significantly reduce disputes and provide relief to taxpayers facing long standing litigation. The significant steps taken by the CBDT include the issue of a circular revising the monetary limits for filing of appeals by the department with the objective of reducing litigation as a part of its initiatives to reduce grievances of the taxpayers. The CBDT has also directed Principal Chief Commissioners to constitute a collegiums of Chief Commissioners of Income Tax to consider withdrawal of appeals filed by the department in cases involving tax effect above the revised monetary limit from the High Courts in cases where, no question of law is involved, the issue is considered settled by the Department, or the appeal is no longer relevant in view of subsequent amendment. Besides this, the CBDT has issued a number of Circulars for withdrawing or not pressing of appeals on settled issues relating to the subjects listed below: Non applicability of Rule 9A of the Income-tax Rules 1962 in case of abandoned feature films Measurement of the distance for the purpose of section 2(14)(iii)(b) of the Income-tax Act for the period prior to assessment year 2014-15 Interest from non-statutory liquidity ratio (non-SLR) securities Allow ability of employer's contribution to funds for welfare of employees in terms of section 43(b) of the Income-tax Act TDS under section 194Aof the Act on interest on fixed deposit made on the directions of the courts Recording of satisfaction note under section 158BD/153C of the Income-tax Act Non levy of penalty u/s 271(1) (c) wherein additions/disallowances were made under normal provisions of Income-tax Act 1961 but tax was levied under MAT provisions under section 115JB/115JC, for cases prior to A.Y. Security forces on Friday gunned down four Naxals in an encounter in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur District. The gun battle ensued when the security forces were patrolling the forest under the Gangalur Police station. During the search conducted by security personnel later at the site, the bodies of the four Naxalites were found. Four rifles and four hand-grenades were also recovered during the search operation. Commenting on the rescheduling of foreign secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan, the Congress Party on Friday cautioned that the next steps should be undertaken with a degree of circumspection. "We have to hasten with great caution and circumspection, no clean chit no unconditional acceptance can be there. Pakistan has played this game once too often. It is like the story of the wolf. The person who is really detained or arrested we don't have any official confirmation yet. Even if he is arrested or detained whether there is proper sustained prosecution? Whether an FIR is lodge? Whether the prosecution will sustained long enough to properly yield or to result in a conviction," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi told ANI here. Singhvi further said that partial and cautious support is useful and right and one must wait for things to pan out because if this is just a sham or a make believe than it will fall apart very soon. "These are vital issues, I am prepared to give full benefit of doubt to Prime Minister Sharif. I am not prepared to give that benefit of doubt to anybody else in that country. So, let us wait and watch," he added. India on Thursday welcomed the steps taken by Pakistan to investigate the antecedents of the terror strike in Pathankot allegedly by the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), and pledged to extend all help to the former's special investigation team when it arrives in India. Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) official spokesperson Vikas Swarup said that India viewed the crackdown on the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorist group as an important and positive first step. Earlier, the Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said that they have no information about the arrest of Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar in connection with the recent Pathankot terror attack. However, Punjab (Pakistan province) Law Minister Rana Sanaullah has confirmed that Azhar is under their 'protective custody' and assured of his arrest only if his involvement in the Pathankot attack was proved. The North East Zonal Cultural Centre recently organized a workshop on shitalpatti and handloom products in Guwahati with an aim to empower women and enhance their skills. Handloom is a vast industry in India, particularly in the northeast, which largely contributes in uplifting the social and economic lives of the artisans. A large number of people, especially in rural and tribal areas, are engaged in handloom and handicraft works in the Northeastern states. The government has always given impetus to enhance their skills and provide suitable market for their products. Recently, the North East Zonal Cultural Centre (NEZCC) organized a workshop on handloom and Shitalpatti, literally meaning 'cool mat', at Shilpagram. The main objective was to promote women artisans' skills and upgrade those with new designing techniques, developing diversified products and to grab a larger market. "Nearly 40-50 ladies are there and they are given some skills how to weave and how to prepare from Shitalpatti (MAT) and this will go long way. After learning this, ladies can come forward and work as it will give prestige, confidence and money to them and their children," said P.B. Acharya, Governor of Nagaland and Assam. The governor expressed much interest and eagerness in the Shitalpatti work and shared his experience on the textile industry.He also interacted with the designers and artisans. "This workshop benefits poor and needy persons who are not getting any job. It is also a big problem here that even after education people are not getting jobs. So, if they learn making Shitalpatti or handloom products, they can directly sell it to the market as it does not involve any middle person," said Ranjan Bishwas, Organizer, NEZCC "This is basically a seven-day workshop in which we will train the artisans. Handloom industry is a very vast area and in a week we will train them how to make different decorative and other products with weaving," said Barnali, an expert Government of India launched a massive skill India campaign to tap the huge potential of artisans from nook and corner of the country under its Skill development mission. The Indian Government on Friday strongly condemned the terrorist attack in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, on Thursday that left seven people dead, including two civilians and five terrorists. The Government also expressed solidarity with the Government and the people of Indonesia. A statement released by the Ministry of External Affairs said, "India unequivocally opposes terrorism in all its forms. We extend our sincere condolences to the bereaved families and wish a speedy recovery to those injured." IS has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Army Chief General Dalbir Singh on Friday said the Indian Army is ready to face any challenges and is among the world's most professional forces. "Our response to natural disasters has been efficient, the world has also praised our efforts during the Nepal quake. We are ready to face challenges and are more than capable of overcoming them. Our biggest strength are our soldiers, we are counted among the most professional forces in the world," General Singh said on the occasion of the 68th Army Day. General Singh also said that good coordination between all three services(Army, Navy, Air Force) is the most crucial aspect to overcome any challenges. "We will soon establish a veteran wing at Base Hospital, where the veterans will be exclusively treated. Modernization of our weapons is very important," he added. The Army Day is annually celebrated on January 15. It marks the day in 1949 when Lt.Gen. K.M. Cariappa took over as the first commander-in-chief of the Indian Army from the last British commander-in-chief. Honouring the indomitable valour and extreme courage of the armed forces, Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted the forces on the occasion of Army Day. "Saluting the indomitable valour, determination and dedication of our Army on Army Day," Prime Minister Modi tweeted. General Dalbir Singh, Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Robin Dhowan and Chief of the Indian Air Force, Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha paid homage to martyrs by laying wreaths at the Amar Jawan Jyoti. Army Day is a day when the nation salutes the sacrifices and contributions as also the martyrdom of its valiant soldiers. The Coast Guards of India and Japan will be conducting a joint exercise called 'Sahyog-Kaijin' off the Chennai coast today. According to reports, the focus of the bilateral training would be anti-piracy, search and rescue operations and interoperability between the two forces. Indian Coast Guard (ICG) vessel Samudra Pehredar and the Japanese vessel Echigo are berthed at Chennai Port. The Director General of Indian Coast Guard Vice Admiral HCS Bisht, Vice Commandant of the Japanese Coast Guard, Vice Admiral Hideyo Hanamizu and other prominent officials would be witnessing the day-long event. Voices of dissent are reportedly rising within the core executive committee of Brussels-based trade union group, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). According to ITUC's Indian representative and vice president, G. Sanjeeva Reddy, this global body has fallen off track with regard to protecting the rights of workers across South Asia, Europe, and other regions. Reddy said, "Trade unions are supposed to come together to support each other in the workplace, negotiating with employers to improve pay, terms and conditions, and ensure fair and equal treatment. And, if you are a top global body, your responsibilities become that much more significant. On questions of basic survival, ITUC has fallen off track, and executive committee members have begun to express their dissatisfaction with General Secretary Sharon Burrow's style of functioning behind closed doors." Suggesting that the time may have come for Burrow to step down, Reddy added, "There are more people in ITUC who are disagreeing with her than those who agree, but they don't want to express this openly like me. She has to realize why the organisation is not growing, why the membership is not growing, why Communist trade unions are developing again. ITUC has failed to strengthen the labour union movement in democratic countries." When reminded of the complaint filed to ILO Kathmandu against ITUC by Nepal's leading trade union body, INDECONT, for negligence of duty, Reddy said their experience has been the same. "Where were they when floods hit Chennai, in Uttarakhand a few years back, during Manipur earthquake and many such tragedies? Sharon Burrow and ITUC have been insensitive. They didn't even visit once to show solidarity on the ground. It is only about lip sympathy," Reddy said. He further said, "Coming from an Australian and British culture, she (Burrow) has never worked closely with ground-level industrial workers. She comes from a teaching community, so, hardly has any experience with industrial and unorganized agricultural workers. She has also failed to gain the confidence of trade unions in developing countries." "The actions of Ms. Burrow are affecting the unity of trade union bodies in Asia. There is disillusionment among ITUC members. We are trying to pursue her to do right by the workers. If she listens, fine, otherwise we will see how it goes. Hindu radical outfit, Bajrang Dal on Friday, protested outside the Banga Bhawan in the capital against the Malda violence and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The demonstrators were seen climbing over the police barricades and chanting slogans against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The police tried to contain the agitating protestors, reminding them that section 144- prohibiting an assembly of more than ten people in an area- had been imposed in the area and that they should protest 'peacefully'. Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has alleged that the communal card would no longer help the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the upcoming polls, adding that Malda incident will backfire on the Mamata Banerjee government. Earlier, Violence broke out in Kaliachawk when some Muslim groups called a meeting to protest certain remarks allegedly made by a Hindu leader in Uttar Pradesh about the Prophet. The BSF vehicles were set on fire when the security forces tried to intervene. Several vehicles on the highway were set on fire by the angry protestors, who also attacked the Kaliachawk Police Station. Mamata Banerjee claimed that the incident was not that of communal violence, to which the BJP reacted strongly and accused her of trying to play vote-bank politics. The parents of a Mumbai youth Hamid Nehal Ansari, who was missing for over three years, breathed a sigh of relief after they found out that he was in Pakistan army's custody. Array Hamid's mother Fauzia Ansari said that her son had gone to Kabul looking for a job. Array "After a long struggle, when we came to know that he is safe there under the watch of government. We are at least satisfied that he is fine. He is very talented but he never got desired job. He didn't have job satisfaction," she told ANI. Array "He came to know about the job opening of manager at Kabul airport. He went to Kabul. We were in continuous touch but after 10 days there was no contact," she added. Array She said that they had approached the Afghanistan embassy to inquire about her son. They then found out that Hamid was trying to help a tribal girl who was being ill-treated in Pakistan. Array "He was trying to help her and then he contacted other friends of nearby areas. They said that the girl is from tribal area, and no one can intervene in this," she said. Array "Maybe it wasn't a right step though his intentions were good. We were so anxious whether he is dead or alive but we came to know yesterday that he is there," she added. Array She also thanked the Government of India for their efforts to help her son. Array "Indian government has been very supportive, they showed us many letters which they sent to Pakistan high commission," she said. According to reports, a divisional bench of the Peshawar High Court disposed off the case of Hamid Ansari after the government confirmed that he was currently in army custody and facing a trial in military courts. Arsenal midfielder Mesut Ozil has been named as the German player of the year for the fourth time in the last five years. The 27-year-old, who lost the award in 2014 to Real Madrid star Toni Kroos after winning it for three consecutive years, reclaimed the crown following a sensational return of form. Ozil clinched the title by a comfortable margin over defender Thomas Muller and forward Jonas Hector, goal.com reported. Ozil, who provided 16 assists and created 87 chances in Europe's top-five leagues this season, appeared in all eight of Germany's internationals this year. Pakistan have started their tour to New Zealand on a winning note as they claimed a 16-run win in the opening Twenty20 of the three-match series here at Eden Park on Friday. After being asked to bat first, Pakistan posted a target of 172, thanks to opener Mohammad Hafeez's 61 off 47 balls. Besides Hafeez, Umar Akmal and skipper Shahid Afridi also contributed 24 and 23 respectively. In reply, New Zealand were restricted to 155 in their allotted 20 overs despite brilliant efforts by skipper Kane Williamson (70) and Colin Munro (56). For the tourists, Wahab Riaz bagged three wickets while Afridi and Umar Gul claimed two wickets each. Imad Wasim and Mohammad Amir, who made his international return with the match, also chipped in with a wicket each. Pakistan have take a 1-0 lead in the series and will play their next match against New Zealand on Sunday in Hamilton. Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Friday said Islamabad has to take 'concrete and visible' action with regard to the recent terror strike in Pathankot, Punjab, and India on its parts needs to rectify it. The Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister also welcomed the fact that Pakistan has not denied its involvement of forces in the Pathankot attack. "With an attack like Pathankot we expect concrete and visible action to be taken by Pakistan and that visible action has to be rectified by our government. The first step which has been taken which we welcome is that Pakistan has not denied its involvement of forces on their sides. So, clearly that's a departure from the norm because normally they deny first and then they start accepting. In this case they have accepted that perhaps Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) is responsible," Abdullah told ANI here. Array "There are reports that Maulana Masood has been taken into custody, we are waiting to see if these reports are confirmed and if they are it that will also be a welcomed development. But please remember that this is not the first time that has happened," he added. In Pakistan, Law Minister of Punjab province, Rana Sanaullah has confirmed that banned terror group Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar is under protective custody. India on Thursday welcomed the steps taken by Pakistan to investigate the antecedents of the terror strike in Pathankot allegedly by the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), and pledged to extend all help to the former's special investigation team when it arrives in India. Array MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup said that India viewed the crackdown on the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorist group as an important and positive first step. Array Earlier, the Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said that they have no information about the arrest of Jaish-e-Muhammad ( JeM) chief Masood Azhar in connection with the recent Pathankot terror attack. Array Punjab ( Pakistan province) Law Minister Rana Sanaullah has confirmed that Azhar is under their 'protective custody' and assured of his arrest only if his involvement in the Pathankot attack was proved. Asserting that Islamabad was under intense international pressure to hold talks with India, Defence matters expert PK Sehgal on Friday said that people in Pakistan are convinced that their Army and the ISI were involved in the Mazar-i-Sharif and Pathankot attacks. Speaking to ANI, Sehgal said that it is good that talks were merely postponed and not cancelled or suspended. "In any case the decision to hold the Foreign Secretary level talks is a good, sane and sensible decision. Had the talks been cancelled as against postponed then we would have played into the hands of those who are keen to derail the talks," he told ANI. "Pakistan is under intense international pressure and pressure from its own people and media. The world over, including Pakistanis, are convinced that what happened in Mazar-e-Sharif and Pathankot, not only were the non state actors involved but also the Army and the ISI," he added. He also welcomed Ministry of External Affairs' (MEA) stance to extend all help to Pakistan's special investigation team when it arrives in India. "Under these circumstances, Pakistan's assurance, seems to have carried conviction with the MEA, they are satisfied with it thus far. Perhaps assurance has been given to government of India that Azhar Mehmood has been arrested, appropriate actions are in progress," he added. India on Thursday welcomed the steps taken by Pakistan to investigate the antecedents of the terror strike in Pathankot allegedly by the the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), and pledged to extend all help to the former's special investigation team when it arrives in India. MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup said that India viewed the crackdown on the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorist group as an important and positive first step. Earlier, the Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said that they have no information about the arrest of Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar in connection with the recent Pathankot terror attack. "I am not aware of such arrest," said MOFA spokesperson Khalilullah Qazi. He further said Pakistan condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. "Terrorism is a common threat and it is the collective responsibility of all countries to fight against it," Qazi added. Reports earlier suggested that Pakistan's law enforcement agencies had yesterday arrested 12 suspects of the banned Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), including its chief Masood Azhar, over links with the attack on Indian Air Force base in Pathankot. Honouring the indomitable valour and extreme courage of the armed forces, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday greeted the forces on the occasion of Army Day. The Army Day is annually celebrated on January 15. It marks the day in 1949 when Lt.Gen. K.M. Cariappa took over as the first commander-in-chief of the Indian Army from the last British commander-in-chief. "Saluting the indomitable valour, determination & dedication of our Army on Army Day," Prime Minister Modi tweeted. Army Chief Genral Dalbir Singh, Navy Chief Admiral Robin Dhowan and Air Force Chief Arup Raha paid homage to the martyrs by laying wreaths at the Amar Jawan Jyoti. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi also greeted the armed forces and described them as defenders of 'billion hopes and dreams'. "My tribute to our soldiers, officers and ex-servicemen on Army Day. You fight for India's freedom &liberty, and lay down your lives to defend a billion hopes &dreams.You make us proud," he tweeted. The day is celebrated in the form of parades and other military shows in the capital as well as all headquarters. Army Day marks a day to salute the valiant soldiers who sacrificed their lives to protect the country. With an aim of making Prime Minister Narendra Modi's website more attractive and informative, it has been further upgraded making. The website now includes all the latest information about the works undertaken by the Central Government over the past 20 months. The website narendramodi.in acquired a new look of Friday, said a statement issued by the Prime Minister's Office. Prime Minister Modi also tweeted, "My website has an all-new look & remains a repository of information that would interest you. Check out narendramodi.in." "All-new narendramodi.in is also very mobile friendly, so you can browse the site on your mobiles on the go," he said in another tweet. The website promises to bring to the reader all the latest information on the government, including a series of articles on the economy, Clean Ganga, Swachh Bharat, 'Make in India', the energy sector, among others. "Each article consists of the latest data and attractive imagery to corroborate the contents of the piece. In addition to this, all other information on Narendra Modi's work as Chief Minister (Gujarat) and his good governance initiatives are found on the site. It is a comprehensive repository of all governance-related information about Narendra Modi," the PMO statement said. Apart from regular features such as news updates, the website has news updates, the Prime Minister's biography, his profile and a selection of quotes from his speeches. A timeline listing the important events is a part of the site, which also offers an assortment of pictures and videos of the Prime Minister. Fresh in content and attractive in design, the website will surely bring the Prime Minister closer to netizens. Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday chaired a meeting on internal security which was attended by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval. Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and Border Security Force Director General DK Pathak also arrived at the North Block for the meeting. According to reports, the meeting will focus on the developments in the Pathankot attack. Meanwhile, the Punjab province Law Minister, has clarified that Masood Azhar, the chief of the terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed who is being touted as the mastermind behind the Pathankot attack, has not been arrested yet. He asserted that Azhar at the present was under 'protective custody' and will be arrested only after his involvement in the attack is proven. Earlier, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) official spokesperson Vikas Swarup said that both India and Pakistan have agreed to reschedule the talks in the near future. He also said that India welcomes "as a first step" the detention in Pakistan of leaders of the Jaish-e-Mohammed. Swarup informed the media that the Government of Pakistan is considering sending a Special Investigation Team to investigate the Pathankot terror attack. "We look forward to the visit of the Pakistani SIT and our investigative agencies will extend all necessary cooperation to bring the perpetrators of the attack to justice," he added while asserting that New Delhi condemns terrorism in all its form and manifestation. Sri Lanka has strongly condemned the recent terrorist attacks in Jakarta where seven people were killed. Sri Lankan government condoled the death of the victims who died in the tragedy. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) revealed its hand behind the attack, reported the Lanka Page. Sri Lanka emphasised on its stand to eradicate the scourge of terrorism in all its forms along with the International community. Sri Lanka is set to release all the 104 Indian fishermen from its prisons in view of Pongal which is being celebrated in Tamil Nadu today. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J.Jayalalithaa said that Sri Lanka has already released 55 of them and handed over to the Indian consulate officials at Jaffna. In a statement issued in Chennai, she said, the rest of the fishermen lodged in various prisons would also be released very soon. The state government has made arrangements for sending them back to their homes in Ramnad, Nagapattinam, Tanjore and Pudukottai districts once they arrive at Rameswaram. The fishermen were apprehended by Sri Lankan navy on charges of poaching from 8th November last year to the 5th of this month. The AAP on Friday slammed the Municipal Corporations of Delhi for spending crores of rupees on advertisements, saying the money could have been utilised for disbursing salaries to "starving" employees. Reacting to an MCD advertisement appealing to Delhi's Aam Aadmi Party government to release funds for its employees, the ruling party said splurging on political advertorials and not paying staff salaries amounted to criminal offence. The MCD has been trifurcated into East Delhi Municipal Corporation, North Delhi Municipal Corporation and South Delhi Municipal Corporation. "On one hand, you (MCD) say you don't have money to pay salary to your staff but you spend crores on ads for propaganda. If MCD is paying for these, then it's a criminal offence," AAP leader Dilip Pandey said. "Their employees are starving but they are spending on ads and Rs.12 crore on making a website," Pandey said. The three Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled municipal corporations of Delhi have accused the Delhi government of not releasing funds which in the past led to non-payment of salaries to their sanitation workers. However, the Delhi government has denied the charges. Dozens of activists and legislators rallied on Thursday outside a hospital in northern Israel, where a Palestinian journalist on a 51-day hunger strike was admitted in critical condition. Israel's Shin Bet security services suspect Mohammed al-Qeeq, 33, has ties to Hamas, an Islamist Palestinian movement, whereas al-Qeeq is protesting his six-month detention without trial, Xinhua reported. Al-Qeeq was recently transferred to the Ha'Emek Hospital in the northern city of Afula, as dozens of supporters called for his immediate release. "We condemn the ongoing draconian policy of arrests without trials, which are in contradiction with the fundamental principles of justice," said Yussef Jabarin, a member of parliament with the Arab-Jew Joint List faction. "Al-Qeek is emaciated and can hardly stand due to his legs' atrophied muscles. He suffers from acidic vomiting several times a day, and his hearing and eyesight are impaired," Physicians for Human Rights, an Israeli rights group, said. In addition, Al-Qeek also lost consciousness several times over the past few days, said the group. A Prison Service spokeswoman said the hospital is closely monitoring Al-Qeek's condition, but she said no more comments are forthcoming regarding his medical condition. Al-Qeeq is a correspondent for the Saudi al-Majd TV network and resides in the West Bank village of Dura, near Hebron. Little did 29-year-old Himanshu Gupta, who assists his father in the family's construction business realise when he stepped into the Barcelos casual diner here that he would end up as a franchisee of the South African group that has a global presence. The second outlet in the city that opened in south Delhi's Hauz Khas Village on Friday, also has a Sangria bar that serves 21 varieties of the cocktail. "I was fascinated when I walked in (about a year ago). Repeated visits made me realise I wanted to open one and, well, here it is," Gupta told IANS ahead of the opening of the 90-cover eatery. "I don't know a thing about the hospitality but one has to take a chance. It's going to be a learning experience for me," a confident Gupta asserted. Barcelos is a town in Portugal and hence the Portuguese theme is reflected through the interiors and designs of the restaurant, focusing on modern and antique art for the interior. Spread over 3,600 sq ft, the outlet has raw and rustic interiors. Each wall of the restaurant depicts the story of Portugal which is very unique and attractive. Famous personalities and the different shades of Portugal have been painted on the walls. Also fascinating is a 3D painting of a Portuguese street, creating the authentic ambience of a Portugal town inside the restaurant. "Each Barcelos might be different from the inside but there are four elements that have to be there: The Legend of Barcelos, a drawing of Barcelos town, a world map and the Barcelos logo," Gupta explained. The Legend of Barcelos is the story of how a dead rooster miraculously intervened in proving the innocence of a man who had been sentenced to death after being falsely accused. To this end, a stylish rooster in red occupies a prominent place in the Barcelos logo Wasn't it taking a chance opening in Hauz Khas Village, already choc-a-bloc with a variety of eateries? "Most of them are cafes or discos. We are positioning ourselves as family restaurant. To this end, we play mood music with a mixture of jazz and vocals in different languages. This music is common to all Barcelos outlets worldwide," Gupta said. Barcelos is famous for its flame-grilled Peri Peri menu and has created its own unique following by introducing to the discerning Indian foodie its own brand of innovation. Barcelos revolutionized the concept of the burger in India by presenting it in different colors! That apart, has created a niche with innovative salads, beverages like Molecular drinks, boozy shakes and by introducing India's first Sangria Bar. "We are grateful to all the love and acceptance which we have got from our first restaurant in India and hence we believe that our new restaurant will also be very well accepted here. We are happy that with a combination of superior service from South Africa with the blend of peri peri flavor, we have been successful to bring a world-class casual dining experience to the Indian customer," said Barcelos chairman Costa Mazzis. Barcelos India Business Head Rohit Malhotra said: "Since our first store (in India), we spent time in understanding our customers, working on the menu and finding right locations to open our outlets. We are looking forward to open about 40 stores by end 2019." With a single operation founded in Pretoria in 1993, Barcelos has grown exponentially and began franchising in 1998. It today has a presence in 17 countries with 120 outlets. A 26-year-old Indian Sikh was on Friday granted a special visa by the Australian government on humanitarian grounds. The special visa will allow Jaspal Singh to return to Australia after attending his father's funeral in India, ABC reported on Friday. The 26-year-old, who arrived in Australia as a student, was awaiting the arrival of his father and mother at Melbourne Airport on Monday morning when the tragedy struck. Gurdyal Singh collapsed at the arrival gate following a suspected heart attack. He died at the scene, despite the efforts of paramedics. The family was making arrangements for the funeral in India and Jaspal Singh was planning to escort the body back home. However, Jaspal Singh's case was complicated by the class of bridging visa, which meant he was at risk of being blocked from coming back to Australia. Jaspal Singh's visa had expired for three weeks in 2013 after his separation from his previous partner. He had applied for a new visa with his wife Mandeep Kaur but was waiting for approval by Immigration Minister Peter Dutton. Following an appeal from his family, Jaspal Singh was granted special visa. Describing Jaspal Singh's situation as complex, a spokesman for the Immigration Minister Dutton, in a statement said: "Mr. Singh has been given a bridging visa which will enable him to escort his father's body to India and then return to Australia." Bennett University has collaborated with edX to offer Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and online learning to its students, a top official said here on Friday. The edx is the online learning initiative founded by Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology of the US. Bennett University through its parent company, the Times Group, will work closely with edX and its consortium of global universities to increase access to high quality online for Indian learners throughout the country. Similarly, edX will Bennett University explore and test innovative approaches to learning, and support and train its faculty as they create and offer next-generation online and blended learning courses. edX chief executive officer Anant Agarwal will serve as an advisor to Bennett University. "At edX we are committed to offering high quality around the world, and India is an important and growing market for us," Agarwal said. "We are certain that Bennett University will be instrumental in extending learning opportunities to learners who lack access to and high quality resources," he added at the signing ceremony on Friday. Bennett University chancellor Vineet Jain, who is also the Times Group managing director, described edX as "an industry leader and a global bridge that connects aspiring learners with a world-class learning platofmr and high quality education". "With this tie-up, our objective is to increase access to education in India without compromising on the quality. We are confident that with the expert guidance from edX, we will unlock and explore more advanced approaches to learning," Jain said. India is home to the largest population of edX learners outside of the US with about 700,000 learners from India. The edX is a non-profit, open-source learning destination offering online courses from more than 95 member institutions, including global universities, colleges and a diverse group of prominent organisations around the world. Founded by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and based in Cambridge,Massachusetts, US, edX is focused on transforming online and classroom learning through ground-breaking methodologies, game-like educational experiences and cutting-edge research on an open-source platform. The Times Group's Bennett University launches in July this year (2016) with the promise of getting students "life and career ready". Supported by research-driven faculty, global academic partnerships and a well-rounded industry-centric curriculum, the university will prepare students to compete and prosper in a rapidly transforming world. Located in Greater Noida, Delhi's suburb in Uttar Pradesh, Bennett University will initially offer a B.Tech in Engineering (with specialisations in computer science engineering, electronics & communications, and mechanical engineering), and an MBA in management. It was one of those rare wintery nights last week when a friend walked in, rubbing his hands vigorously to keep warm. He kept looking over his shoulders nervously, like he had seen an apparition. "How did you know?" he asked, pointing a finger at me. "How did you learn about Bernie Sanders?" He is one of those committed American university types who regards any speculation on world affairs, which deviates from the rightwing script, as a conspiracy theory. The world, according to him, is kept stable by "establishments which supercede populism". Two months ago he was waxing eloquent about the inevitability of a Jeb Bush-Hillary Clinton contest for president, both establishment candidates. When I said "Bernie Sanders", he waved his hand menacingly at me. He was severe. "A socialist as a US President?" He was not alone. Conventional wisdom everywhere pointed to a Bush or Clinton candidacy. But that script has changed. Bush is nowhere around and Bernie Sanders has left Hilary Clinton yards behind him in the polls. Should he ever emerge the Democratic nominee, my friend will have to be placed under heavy sedation. Trust Fox News to needle Republicans about "a self avowed socialist" gaining traction for the Democratic nomination. The barb produced the expected response from a Republican Governor, John Kasich. "If Sanders is the nominee, Republicans will win all 50 states. I know Bernie Sanders, and he is not going to be President." Never mind if Kasich himself is polling at less than 3 percent nationally. I cited Vice President Joe Biden's thumping endorsement of Sanders as evidence of his electability. Biden said Sanders was doing a "heck of a job" on the campaign trail offering an "authentic voice on income inequality". Such fulsome praise for Sanders must be seen as some sort of a critique of Clinton. "Bernie is speaking to a yearning that is deep and real. And he has credibility on it." My friend nearly choked on his drink. He has been through other shocks this past year. He was floating on cloud nine at Lord Mandelson's interview about Jeremy Corbyn, the then candidate for the Labour Party President. "He is too far Left" said the Tony Blair acolyte dismissively. "The country will never elect him prime minister." Even after Corbyn became party president by a long margin, Mandelson and his tribe would not give up. "This is an invitation for the Conservative Party to continue their rule." Even during the worst spell of Murdochization of the world media, segments of the British media retained their character. Corbyn received balanced notices. This was not the case in, say, Spain, where, La Prensa, as a central column of the two party establishment, provided no space to Podemos, which is something of a Communist Party under its charismatic leader Pablo Iglesias. There was a similar antipathy to the Catalan nationalists headquartered in Barcelona. But despite the almighty Spanish establishment throwing its full weight behind the Peoples Party, Podemos won beyond all expectations. Without its 69 seats no government can now be formed in Spain. These developments are not inexplicable. World affairs are following a pattern. Peoples' tussle with their respective establishments has been the defining reality these past few years. In liberal democracies, establishments have consisted of two party systems, their apron strings tied to Corporates who, in turn, clasped the hands of major multinationals. This network bred crony capitalism on a large scale. Skeletons of corruption came rattling down the cupboards. Two party systems everywhere, therefore, have been in bad odour. Voters began to look for alternatives. The shift is to the Left in Latin Europe, to the Right in the Nordic north. Elsewhere the voters are simply breaking out of the two party systems which were inextricably tied to big capital. Alternating the two parties, Corporates had cultivated a system custom made for them: heads I win, tails you lose. This is the framework in which a rank outsider, President Joko Widodo's rise to power should be seen in Indonesia. Nearer home, Arvind Kejriwal's profile is, at the moment, only confined to the capital region. But the manner in which the BJP-Congress establishments have turned upon him, checkmating him at every culvert, is ample proof that establishments fear the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as an idea. My friend heaves a sign of relief that all names mentioned above are only at the cusp of change. Establishments will throw everything in the fray to resist change. The year 2016 will decide the shape of the world to come. (A senior commentator on political and diplomatic affairs, Saeed Naqvi can be reached on saeednaqvi@hotmail.com. The views expressed are personal.) --Indo-Asian News Serevice naqvi/mr Carles Puigdemont, the President of the Catalan region in the north east of Spain, denied on Thursday night on Catalan television that he was planning to declare the independence of the area in the near future. Puigdemont, a member of the pro-independence coalition Junts pel Si, was on Sunday confirmed as the Catalan president after a last minute agreement on Saturday with fellow nationalist party CUP, Xinhua reported. During his investiture on Tuesday, he had appeared to accept the roadmap designed by former Junts pel Si leader Artur Mas, which involved achieving Catalan independence within 18 months. "The independence declaration opened the constituent process and I hope by the end of the session we will have the instruments to put it into practice," he said in his investiture speech on Tuesday. However, appearing on Catalan's TV3 channel on Thursday, Puigdemont stepped back from this posture, insisting a unilateral declaration of independence "was not in the plans." "Our electoral promise was not a unilateral declaration of independence," he insisted, saying the aim was first to draw up a constitution for the region and then look for the approval of "a majority of Catalans," in a subsequent referendum. He also told the public broadcaster he had yet to speak to acting Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy or Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez, both of whom have insisted they would use the law in order to defend the Spanish sovereignty. A court in the Chinese city of Suzhou on Thursday sentenced a man to 13 years in prison for raping and harassing his stepdaughter for the last 10 years. The 22-year-old girl committed suicide at her home in Wujiang District of Suzhou in May 2015, Xinhua reported. The police found five suicide notes, including one claiming that her stepfather had been raping and harassing her for years. The stepfather was arrested and confessed to having raped the girl since 2003. About 200 sellers of cigarettes and bidis in Himachal Pradesh protested here on Friday against a government decision to make vendor's registration manadatory for selling tobacco products. The decision was effectively a licensing system that would damage business, take away livelihoods and allow government officials to extort money from the sellers of tobacco products, Surinder Sharma, a member of Bidi Cigarette Vikreta Sangh, told IANS. The state cabinet on Thursday accorded the post facto approval to complete ban on the sale of loose cigarette and beedis in the state, a government spokesperson told IANS. Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh also asked the health department to draft a legislation for registration of retailers of tobacco products, he said. After banning the sale of loose cigarettes, the government would make a licence mandatory for sellers of packed tobacco products, including cigarettes, the spokesman said. The bill in this regard is expected to be tabled in the state legislative assembly during the budget session. "We have submitted a memorandum to the chief minister, protesting against the proposed legislation as it would badly hit our businesses," Surinder Sharma said. Around 200 vendors of cigarettes, backed by regional cigarette distributors, under the banner of Bidi Cigarette Vikreta Sangh, staged the protest. The state on November 4 last year decided to ban the sale of cigarettes and bidis in singles and twos. The vendors say the licensing system for selling cigarettes will increase corruption among government functionaries. Health Minister Kaul Singh has said the objective of the ban was to dissuade youth from using tobacco. Participating in the 46th Union World Lung Health Conference in Cape Town in South Africa last month, he said he had urged the Indian union government to earmark budget for tobacco control for all the states. The minister said the state government had already been using the money collected as fine by enforcing Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce Production, Supply and Distribution) Act of 2003. A court here on Friday reserved its order on the plea of Delhi government seeking release of the documents seized from the office of Rajendra Kumar, principal secretary of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Special Judge Ajay Kumar Jain fixed January 20 for delivering order on the plea of state government. The CBI, while opposing the plea, said that the raid in chief minister's principal secretary Rajendra Kumar was not aimed at the Delhi government. Senior public prosecutor S. C. Sharma said the documents seized during the raid were relevent for the ongoing probe. The accused, who holds a top position, was possessing the documents seized by the agency, and in all likelihood, he could have tampered with them, he said, adding that the raid in the office was not aimed at the Delhi government but against an alleged corrupt officer who had misused his official position. In the application filed last month, the government said the documents were seized by the CBI from the office of the principal secretary and his personal staff. The application, filed by the Delhi government through standing counsel Rahul Mehra and Richa Kapoor, urged the court to direct the CBI to release the documents to the government seized "indiscriminately" by the CBI which are not related/essential for the purpose of investigation in the case. The plea also sought initiation of "stringent action against erring officials responsible for raiding malafidely the office of the Delhi government and seizing documents to cause immense dislocation of work in the government office". It said the entire work and functioning of the office was "greatly hampered, paralysed and dislocated". On December 15, the CBI raided the office of Rajendra Kumar in connection with a corruption case. The CBI denied Kejriwal's claim that it was searching the chief minister's office. Countering the claim of Delhi Police, the head of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) forensic department, Dr Sudhir Gupta, has said that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) report "did not rule out the presence of radioactive substances" in Sunanda Pushkar's viscera samples. Due to the degraded condition of the viscera samples, however, the agency could not read the intensity of the substances, he said. "Both the possibilities are there: Somebody could have poisoned her or she may have consumed it on her own. The police should investigate it," Gupta told IANS over phone here on Friday. Gupta said the FBI had "confirmed AIIMS report of poisoning" and added that "Delhi Police had sent us the FBI report for review and we've further confirmed the cause of death as poisoning". "The FBI found a few radioactive substances in the viscera. But due to degraded viscera, they could not read its intensity," he added. Asked what could have been the substance that caused death, Gupta said: "Those substances can't be easily detected." However, earlier on Friday, commenting on the FBI report, Delhi Police Commissioner B.S. Bassi said: "None of the samples contained radio-active elements, according to the FBI." Bassi also said that Sunanda Pushkar did not die a natural death and that was for certain. Pushkar, 52, wife of senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor was found dead in a south Delhi hotel room on January 17, 2014. The AIIMS medical board in its second opinion in 2014 had listed poisonous substances such as thallium, polonium-210, nerium oleander, snake bites, photolabile poisons, and heroin, which were said to be either undetectable or difficult to detect at Indian laboratories. According to Gupta, "These substances were listed to broaden the scope of investigation for the police." The report given by the board had also stated that "the cause of death was poisoning and the viscera was positive for ethyl alcohol, caffeine, acetaminophen and cotinine". Pushkar's viscera samples were sent to the FBI lab in Washington DC, US, in February last year to determine the poison that may have killed her. Earlier, an AIIMS medical board identified poisoning as the reason for her death. The FBI report was received from the US via email in October 2015. The Supreme Court on Friday was told tha the governor, though being a part of the legislature in an overall scheme of the constitution, had restricted powers and could not send messages to regulate compositions of the state assembly or its proceedings or order items of agenda. "Governor has a limited role to play in the affairs of the assembly. He is not a sentinel. He is not a moral authority on the state assembly," senior counsel Kapil Sibal, appearing for ousted Arunachan Pradesh Speaker Nabam Rebia, told the constitution bench of Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar, Justice Dipak Misra, Justice Madan B. Lokur, Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghosh and Justice N.V.Ramana. The bench was hearing Rebia's plea challenging the role of Governor J.P.Rajkhowa in the ongoing political battle in the state involving feuding factions of the Congress legislature party. Assailing the role of the governor for sending messages asking Rebia not to disturb the constitution of the state assembly and advance its convening to December 16 as against the scheduled assembling on January 14, Sibal told the court that "there is no power (vested in the governor by the constitution) to prepone it (assembly session) and in the instant case he does it at the behest of the opposition". At this, the court observed "and if he does it, then it (validity of the decision) can be decided by the court". Flagging the various controversial decisions of the Arunachal governor including not to proceed against the rebel Congress legislators, Sibal told the court that the governor cannot monitor the speaker's "quasi judicial powers". Assailing the governor's decision to advance the assembly session which was held in a community hall in Itanagar, Sibal said that the constitutional functionary can't convene, prorogue or dissolve the house (assembly) in his discretion and under the constitutional scheme, has to act on the aid and advice on the chief minister and his council of ministers (government). He also framed six questions to be examined by the court on the powers of the governor and deputy speaker under the constitution. Taking exception to Rajkhowa trying to direct the order of assembly proceedings, Sibal told the court that the governor has no business to interfere with as to what business was being transacted by assembly as this is decided by the house's Business Advisory Committee. Hearing will continue on Monday. Indian fashion designer Suket Dhir, who has won the 2015-2016 Menswear International Woolmark Prize, says his grandfather is the inspiration for his noted collections. Talking about his inspiration, Dhir told IANS over phone from Florence, in Italy: "My inspiration comes from my grandfather... I think he was an old school dresser. Grandparents' style gets stuck in their young age... they don't change over a period of time...." The designer added that his grandfather's style "was more of the 1940s and 1950s era, where loose pleated trousers, palazzos and pyjamas were worn along with beautiful elegant shirts and jackets in the winter". So, Dhir gave the style his own twist and presented six ensembles, consisting of western silhouettes like jackets, trousers, shorts and overcoats, at the menswear trade fair Pitti Uomo in Florence. The designer used an array of colours inspired by nature for the collection he showcased at the gala on Wednesday evening. "We picked up hues from blues from the skies and water bodies; and we had beautiful yellows from the mangoes and the mustard. We had wine colour, which comes from mango saplings and colours of the earth. But majorly it was all blues," Dhir said of his award-clinching line. He has been wished "heartiest congratulations" by Saket Dhankar, head - Fashion, IMG Reliance, who added: "He has made India proud and has put Indian fashion in the spotlight." Actor Alan Rickman's former "Harry Potter" co-stars and other fellow celebrities from Hollywood have a paid a tribute to the late actor, who famously essayed Professor Severus Snape in the British-American film series. A number of celebrities sent condolences on Twitter after Rickman lost his battle with cancer, reports aceshowbiz.com. Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Emma Thompson and "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling also paid tribute to the actor. "Alan Rickman is undoubtedly one of the greatest actors I will ever work with. He is also, one of the loyalest and most supportive people I've ever met in the film industry. He was so encouraging of me both on set and in the years post-Potter," Radcliffe wrote on his Google Plus page. "I'm pretty sure he came and saw everything I ever did on stage both in London and New York. He didn't have to do that. I know other people who've been friends with him for much much longer than I have and they all say 'if you call Alan, it doesn't matter where in the world he is or how busy he is with what he's doing, he'll get back to you within a day,'" he added. Watson shared on Facebook: "I'm very sad to hear about Alan today. I feel so lucky to have worked and spent time with such a special man and actor. I'll really miss our conversations. RIP Alan. We love you." Grint tweeted: "A huge talent and great gentleman. You will be missed, Alan Rickman." Thompson remembered Rickman as a friend who had "capacity to fell you with a look or lift you with a word". Fellow stars like Hugh Jackman also mourned Rickman's death, and shared: "Alan Rickman. Incredible actor and director. Above all, the most generous, funny, loving friend to us. @Deborra_lee and I will miss you so." Seth Meyers wrote, "There are few things I enjoyed more than watching Alan Rickman sigh in a movie. RIP." "I will miss the great Alan Rickman," Julianne Moore tweeted, while anchor-comedian Larry King tweeted: "I loved Alan Rickman. Great interviewee and tremendous actor. Played villain or hero equally well! He will be missed." Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda on Friday launched a number of e-health initiatives, including 'Kilkari' that will provide information on child care through mobile phone. A family expecting the birth of a child can choose to obtain free audio messages on pregnancy, child birth and child care on its mobile phone from the second trimester of pregnancy until the child is one year old. 'Kilkari' was being launched in Jharkhand, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and high priority districts (HPDs) of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan in the first phase, the health ministry said. Nadda also launched 'mobile academy', which is a free audio training course designed to expand and refresh the knowledge base of Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) and improve their communication skills. 'Mobile academy' allows ASHAs to ugrade their skills without the need to travel anywhere. "These health services will be a game changer in health communications. They will bring us closer to people who need our services the most," said Nadda. He said the services aimed to improve family health, including family planning, reproductive, maternal and child health, nutrition, sanitation and hygiene. Another facility launched on Friday is M-Cessation which will help those wanting to stop the use of tobacco. Nadda said the tobacco users would be helped through text messages sent on their mobile phones. "This is the first time in the world that such a two-way service is being provided as part of any mobile health initiative," said Nadda. A TB Missed Call initiative was also launched under which a helpline with a toll-free number will provide information, counselling and treatment support services for TB. "Under this campaign the callers can give a missed call or call for free to get information related to TB symptoms, treatment services available, address and contact details of the nearest treatment facility etc.," said the minister. The National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) here on Friday inked a deal with the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) to undertake cutting-edge research on enteric diseases including hepatitis C, and see through translation of research outputs for community outreach. The focus will be on public health intervention and advocacy in West Bengal. The memorandum of agreement aims to intensify research on diseases that have assumed or are expected to assume endemic proportions, such as hepatitis C (HCV) and rotaviral diarrhoea. "Under the agreement we will also work with state-run hospitals and other stakeholders so that remote areas in the state can be brought to attention. "The immediate focus is on hepatitis C and in the long-term this agreement is expected to facilitate community-based health interventions and developmental activities," said Shanta Dutta, director-in-charge, NICED , a premier institute under the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). Since Hepatitis C is under-diagnosed in India and diagnosis is expensive, the scientists will work to identify a group of people who are in need of treatment. "Working on particular group will reduce cost of diagnostics and treatments (direct-acting antiviral agents) as well. We want to see how the treatment changes the quality of life," said Samiran Panda, senior deputy director and scientist at NICED. The incidence of HCV on a global scale is not well known, because acute infection is generally asymptomatic. What makes it even more alarming is that people with HIV infection are often affected by viral hepatitis and more people living with HIV have HCV than HBV (hepatitis B). "We will work with communities such as injecting drug users and haemophiliacs and eventually hope to develop a database. The broader role will be to generate awareness on the disease which many may harbour but are clueless," added Panda. As for rotaviral diarrhoea (most common cause of severe vomiting and diarrhoea among infants and young children) which is prevalent even in developed nations, behaviourial links with the disease will also be brought under the purview of detailed research, said Panda. Ambarish Dasgupta, president, BCCI said the industry chamber will assist in mobilising funds from potential funding agencies and boost advocacy. Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Maulana Masood Azhar has been taken under "protective custody", Dawn quoted Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah as saying. Speaking on DawnNews talk show 'News Eye', Sanaullah, while responding to a question, confirmed that Masood Azhar was taken into protective custody by the counter-terrorism department, the report said. Asked if his custody can be termed an 'arrest', the provincial law minister explained on Thursday that Azhar will only face arrest and legal action if his involvement in the Pathankot attack is proved beyond doubt. India says that the six terrorists who attacked the Indian Air Force (IAF) station in Pathankot in Punjab on January 2, killing seven security personnel, were Pakistanis and allied to the JeM. Indonesia is hunting for terror cells believed to be behind Thursday's attack that killed seven people, including two civilians, here, Jakarta's chief of police said. Two civilians and five attackers died in the gun and bomb assault in a busy commercial district on Thursday, BBC reported. Insp Gen Tito Karnavian said the attackers had been "neutralised" but were linked to groups across Indonesia and were "part of a global network". The Islamic State (IS) militant earlier claimed responsibility of the attack. It released a statement online, saying it had been carried out by "soldiers of the Caliphate", targeting "citizens of the Crusader coalition" against the group. Three men were arrested near Jakarta early on Friday, police told the media. It was not immediately clear whether they had direct links with the attacks. Authorities have named Bahrum Naim, an Indonesian believed to be fighting with IS in Syria, as the suspected co-ordinator. Security forces battled militants for hours on Thursday in a major business and shopping district of Jakarta, the report said. The assault ended when two of the attackers were killed in a suicide bombing, said police, with the other three killed in gun battles. A Canadian and an Indonesian national, both civilians, also died and at least 20 people were injured. Jammu and Governor N.N. Vohra on Friday rescinded his earlier order summoning both houses of the state's bicameral legislature on January 18 for the budget session. "Governor N .N. Vohra has rescinded his earlier order dated December 11, 2015 whereby the Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council of the state were summoned to meet at Jammu on January 18, 2016," said an official statement issued here. A Raj Bhavan spokesperson said the the cancellation had been necessitated as the legislative assembly has been kept under suspended animation after imposition of Governor's Rule. Jammu and was put under Governor's rule on January 8 after no political party staked claim to form the new government following the death of Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed on January 7. Separatist groups and two Jammu and Kashmir legislators have been invited to a conference on Kashmir set to be held in Islamabad, and at least one legislator on Friday said he will attend. The invitation for the January 20-21 Round Table Conference has been issued by Sardar Muhammed Yaqoob Khan, president of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Those invited include all constituents of the separatist Hurriyat Conference, civil society members and legislators Mohammed Yousuf Tarigami (CPI-M) and Engineer Rashid (Independent) -- the latter said he will take part. A spokesman for Rashid, who heads the Awami Ittehad Party, said he would leave for Pakistan on Saturday. His party is not recognised by the Election Commission. The spokesman said: "Kashmiris being the principal party to the dispute and victims of the conflict should not waste any opportunity to put forward their viewpoint before India, Pakistan or the world community." While in Islamabad, Rashid will meet various political groups and different sections of the society over various aspects of the 68-year-old Kashmir problem, said the spokesman. Tarigami told IANS on phone that he was yet to decide about his participation. Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) leader Mohammed Yasin Malik said he was yet to get an invite. Separatist leaders invited to Islamabad include Hurriyat Conference chairman Syed Ali Geelani, Hurriyat moderate Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Dukhtaran-e-Milat chief Aisa Andrabi, and Hurriyat Conference leaders Shabir Shah, Aga Syed Hasan and Muhammad Yousuf Naqash. The invitees are expected to shed light on the Kashmir conflict and its ramifications on India-Pakistan relations as well as the "rise of Hindu right in India". A similar conference was held in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan- administered Kashmir, in 2008. That meeting was attended, among others, by Tarigami, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah, PDP leader Moulvi Ifthikar Ansari and Independent MLA Hakeem Yasin. Pakistan controls the northern third of Jammu and Kashmir state. (Aadil Mir can be contacted at aadil.hussain@ians.in) An organisation of Kashmiri pandits on Friday said the central government should provide compensation to traders and one-time relief package to persons displaced from the Valley. A delegation of Sampoorn Sangathan (SKS) met union Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office Jitendra Singh here and sought his intervention for the redressal of their demands, including on jobs for overage youth from the community, and rehabilitation of displaced Kashmiri pandits. The delegation submitted a memorandum demanding compensation for traders and displaced Kashmiri pandits in proportion to their immovable properties they left behind in the Valley. The minister assured the delegation that the Narendra Modi government was committed to ensuring a dignified return of the displaced community to the Valley, an official statement said. He also assured them that their memorandum will be forwarded to the home ministry. The delegation also sought soft loans for all categories of Kashmiri pandits for self-employment anywhere in India. The memorandum emphasised upon employment opportunities for the Kashmiri pandit youth living outside the Valley. It demanded that the youth over the age limit for government jobs should be given one-time exemption. The Kerala High Court on Friday admitted a revision petition filed by the state government in the SNC Lavalin case, in which CPI-M politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan was earlier exonerated by a special court. The Central Bureau of Investigation had named Vijayan as an accused in the case, charging that an agreement entered into in 1997 with Canadian company Lavalin when Vijayan was the power minister led to a loss of Rs.266 crore to the exchequer. However, a CBI special court exonerated Vijayan in 2013. The Kerala government moved the high court, which has now fixed hearing for mid-February. Though Vijayan's counsel argued that the government plea was aimed at making political gains, the court made it clear it was not interested in politics. The court said it saw some substance in points raised by the Kerala government and has to have a re-look. Reacting to the development, Culture Minister and senior Congress leader K.C. Joseph said he failed to understand why the opposition Communist Party of India-Marxist was jittery. "Now that the high court has admitted the petition, why can't the CPI-M just wait till the court decides on the case's merit. If Vijayan has done anything wrong, he will have to face the consequence, otherwise not," Joseph said. Senior CPI-M legislator Thomas Issac said the government had an eye on the coming assembly polls in the matter. Former chief minister V.S. Achuthanandan had taken a tough position in the Lavalin case during his term (2006-11), causing embarrassment to the CPI-M. The party national leadership subsequently dropped both from the politburo. "We are waiting to hear from Achuthanandan as to what he has to say on today's (Friday) development," quipped Congress legislator Joseph Vazhaken. Vijayan's ongoing statewide 'yatra' ahead of the assembly polls will end in the state capital next month. Top corporate leaders from Silicon Valley were hugely impressed after taking part in a 'Kerala Evening' organised there by Kerala Tourism, said state Tourism Minister A.P. Anilkumar on Friday. "It was a significant day in the history of our state's tourism sector," he said here. The executives of several high-tech companies in Silicon Valley attended the corporate meet at the Four Seasons Hotel in East Palo Alto on Thursday addressed by Kerala Principal Secretary, Tourism, G. Kamala Vardhana Rao. The US is a key market for Kerala Tourism as in-bound tourism from America to Kerala has grown about 40 percent in the past two years. "Our first-ever corporate meet in the Silicon Valley is a crucial step towards further increasing those numbers," said Anilkumar. In 2014, the number of American tourists who visited Kerala was 76,616 compared to 55,741 in 2011. The Kerala Tourism event was intended to introduce Kerala as a destination to the companies in the Silicon Valley and also to portray the state as an investor-friendly destination. Apart from the destination promotion, the various investment opportunities available in the state were also presented. Rao, who made the presentation also extended an invite to the technology community in California to visit the state as well as invest in Kerala's progress. "Kerala is growing as a destination for corporate leaders and executives around the world because of its beautiful as well as peaceful locations to talk and do business," added Rao. The Kerala Evening was also marked by the screening of Kerala Tourism's global marketing campaign films portraying village life experiences in the state. The festival of Makar Sankranti on Friday saw enthusiastic and prolonged celebrations in Madhya Pradesh with holy baths, pujas and alms giving. This year's festival, which marks the transition of the sun into the zodiacal sign of Makara (Capricorn) on its celestial path, is being celebrated over two days since Thursday. Millions of devotees were thronging the ghats of Narmada river in Hoshangabad, Jabalpur and Amarkantak for sacred baths. Pujas are being performed in temples across the state and the needy are being given food consisting primarily of ritually appropriate til (sesame seeds), dal (lentils) and chaval (rice). Cut off from their Manipuri roots for several generations, the state's people now settled in Myanmar and Bangladesh as well as Assam and Tripura are increasingly losing their distinct cultural identity. Worried over the situation, community leaders of the Manipuris settled outside the state want authorities to do something to preserve their distinct linguistic and religious identity. Manipuris have their own script, and among the mountain tribes are the only ones following the 'Vaishnavite' branch of Hindu religion since the 18th century. K. Sunder Gopal Sharma, a community leader, told IANS that the Manipuris in Myanmar were fighting a losing battle in protecting their culture. "Today, Manipuris in Myanmar hardly number 10,000 as against over one lakh decades ago. Thousands of Manipuris, including devout Vaishnavas, have since converted to Buddhism," he said. He said military rulers in Myanmar did not encourage the community members to study their own language in schools or converse in it at social gatherings. Gopal said he feared that if nothing is done, the Manipuris in Myanmar will soon see their distinct cultural identity lose out to the native population there. In neighbouring Bangladesh, Manipur natives live in a few small villages. However, they have taken to speaking the local languages and only very few are able to converse in Manipuri. A cultural link with Manipur is maintained through visits by cultural troupes from the northeastern state every now and then. There are several Manipuri villages in Assam and Tripura as well. Khaidem Kanta, vice president of Manei, an organisation of the Manipuri in Barak Valley in Assam, said the Manipuris in the state are facing cultural and linguistic problems. "The younger generation of Manipuris getting schooled in Assam cannot speak fluently or write their mother-tongue. There is job reservation for people of Manipuri origin, but most educated youths do not get through in the absence of an elected leader to champion their cause." The Manipur government and non-governmental organisations ought to do something for the promotion of arts and culture of the Manipuris in the Barak Valley of Assam, Kanta said. (Iboyaima Laithangbam can be contacted on imphalreport@gmail.com) The government's "Start-Up India" initiative along with a "Start-Up Action Plan" will be launched here by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday, an official statement said. "The launch event is aimed at celebrating the entrepreneurship spirit of country's youth and will be attended by CEOs and founders of top start-ups from across the country and abroad," the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said in a release here. The programme is aimed at promoting financing for start-ups and give incentives to boost entrepreneurship. Modi will release the Start-Up Action Plan, visit a virtual exhibition and interact with start-up entrepreneurs at the event, the statement said. In a session called "Face-to-face with policy-makers", secretaries of ministries and departments concerned will respond to queries on how an enabling ecosystem for start-ups could be created, it added. "The objective is to reinforce commitment of the government towards creating an ecosystem that is conducive for growth of start-ups," the PMO said. The event will also feature interactive sessions with global corporate leaders and venture capitalists like SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son and WeWork founder Adam Nuemann. The event will be telecast live in IITs, IIMs, NITs, IIITs and central universities and to youth groups in over 350 districts of India. Meanwhile at an industry chamber FICCI organised discussion on Friday about the new startup policy, participants said the time was ripe for India to unveil its policy to encourage startups, FICCI said in a statement here. Minister-Counselor at the US Embassy here George Sibley said at the event that the present regulatory framework in India did not offer much scope for entrepreneurship. "However, it was expected that the proposed policy would provide access to capital and a complementary IPR (intellectual property rights) regime, which would allow entrepreneurs to grow and prosper," FICCI said citing the American diplomat. Calling it a national shame that the country continues to be unaware about the whereabouts of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday demanded explanations regarding the mysterious disappearance of the nationalist leader. Speaking at an event to mark the 75th anniversary of Netaji's great escape from his Elgin Road house here, Banerjee called for raising with the Russian government, the issue of declassifying secret documents on Bose. "It has been 75 years since his great escape, but even today we don't have answers as to what really happened to him. What can be more shameful and unfortunate than the country still doesn't know about his whereabouts. "If Mahatma Gandhi is the father of the nation, Netaji is the leader of the nation. The man who gave so much for the country, it's a shame for the country in front of the whole world that we still don't know about his whereabouts. We still don't know if he is alive," she said. Referring to claims that Netaji did not die in the alleged plane crash in 1945 and escaped to Siberia, she called for a dialogue with the Russian government for unravelling the mystery. "I believe the Russian mystery is great mystery. Has there been any discussion with the Russian government about declassifying secret files in their possession," said Banerjee whose government in September last declassified 64 files on Netaji. AAA "I don't know if Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his recent visit to Russia discussed the issue or not. But I believe we need to raise the issue with the Russian government. So that we get answers on whether Netaji had escaped to the country and if yes, then how long did he stay and where did he go from there," she said. "With so much time passed, Russian government should have made public the files," she said. Asserting that the entire country deserved to know the actual fate of Netaji, Banerjee announced setting up a committee with the sole agenda of seeking explanations on Bose's whereabouts. "Today the people of the country are seeking explanation and this explanation has to be given. We will set up a committee which for the entire year will undertake various programmes with the sole agenda - seeking explanation about what happened to Netaji. We demand explanation and explanation has to be given," she said. The committee would comprise representatives from the state information and cultural affairs department and the Netaji Research Bureau. Banerjee said she did not believe Netaji died in the alleged plane crash of 1945 in Taiwan, and wondered why no DNA test was conducted on the remains claimed to be that of him preserved at Japan's Renkoji Temple. "The fact that even after Independence, extensive snooping was carried on Netaji and his family, is perhaps is a proof that the entire plane crash thing was planted and he did not die. People may have their own belief I believe he did not die in the crash. In fact I feel he may still be alive. People like him never die," she added. On the occasion she launched a book "The Oracle" and an exhibition depicting details about Netaji's escape from the city residence on the intervening of Jan 16-17, 1941 in a car to Gomoh railway station. Pakistan and India are in touch on holding talks between their foreign secretaries and new dates will be decided soon, a senior Pakistani official said on Friday. Sartaj Aziz, adviser to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on foreign affairs, said this at a breakfast meeting here with Chinese scholars, diplomats as well as journalists. The talks were to take place on Friday in Islamabad but they have been rescheduled following the attack by Pakistani terrorists on an Indian Air Force base in Pathankot. The National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED), a premier institute under the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), is in talks with the West Bengal government to introduce a cholera vaccine ahead of the peak season as a preventive measure. "We have received a positive vibe from the state government to launch the vaccine in the cholera off-season. Once the funding is available, we will go ahead with the state government's approval," said Shanta Dutta, director-in-charge, NICED. The researchers wish to apply the preventive step to a particular area, such as in the Sundarbans, to assess the effect and crunch data. Cholera is endemic to Bengal. "It is an oral vaccine and the production technology was transferred to Shantha Biotechnics in India, from a Vietnamese producer. It has an efficacy of around 55 percent," added Dutta. The harvest festival of Makar Sankranti was celebrated in the traditional way at RJD chief Lalu Prasad and his wife Rabri Devi's residence here on Friday, with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar too joining in the festivities. The Rashtriya Janata Dal leader also sent out a political message on the occasion by applying a 'tilak' of curd on Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's forehead to indicate they enjoyed cordial relations, contrary to speculation. Nitish visited the 10 Circular Road house allotted to Rabri Devi, a former chief minister. Janata Dal-United national president Sharasd Yadav also visited Lalu's family on the occasion. "Laluji is an elder brother; he applied a 'tilak' of curd on my forehead as a mark of his blessings," the chief minister said. Lalu helped Rabri Devi in serving the traditional 'dahi-chura' to party leaders and others who visited them. Their two sons - Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav and Health Minister Tej Pratap - joined both in taking care of their guests. In Patna, two big feasts were organised - one by Lalu Prasad and another by Bihar JD-U president Vashisht Narain Singh - for leaders and party workers. RJD leader Bhola Yadav said 32 quintals of curd and 32 quintals of 'chura' were arranged for the feast at Rabri Devi's official residence while JD-U leaders put the quantity used at their feast at over 20 quintals of curd and 20 quintals of 'chura'. Senior RJD and JD-U leaders, including ministers, legislators and MPs, joined the festivities while savouring traditional food items like 'chura', 'tilkut' and 'khichri'. Nitish Kumar, along with several present and former ministers, legislators and parliamentarians also joined the feast organised by Singh at New Patna Club opposite the ruling JD-U office here. Lalu Prasad visited the function organised by the JD-U leader, who is known for holding such feasts for the past many years to mark Makar Sankranti. A plea was filed in the Delhi High Court on Friday challenging the AAP government's decision to scrap the management quota in nursery admissions in the city's private schools. The plea filed by the Action Committee Unaided Recognized Private Schools held the government circular was "absolutely without jurisdiction" and should be quashed as it completely takes away the autonomy of schools. "The order is also liable to be quashed in as much as it completely takes away the autonomy of schools, which is a part of fundamental right of private unaided educational institutions to carry on occupation, guaranteed to them under the constitution," it added. "About 99 percent of private unaided recognised schools functioning in Delhi are following and have specified absolutely fair, reasonable, just and transparent criterion for admissions in their respective schools," it said. Announcing the decision on January 6, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had said the decision was taken to bring more transparency in the admission process of private schools. He said the existing provision of 25 percent seats earmarked for students from poor families will remain in place. However, he had added that schools are free to grant admission to the children of their employees and can allocate points in their criteria. Currently, the schools keep 20 percent or even more seats under the management quota, while 25 percent seats are reserved for EWS students and the rest are open for the general category children. Delhi's lt. governor had in December 2013 issued a notification abolishing management quota in nursery admissions but this was challenged by the affected schools. In November 2014, the high court quashed the admission guidelines issued by the lt. governor and gave autonomy to schools to decide on the criteria as per Ashok Ganguly Committee guidelines. The city government appealed to refer the matter to a larger bench. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to include 4,035 more villages under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY). In a letter to Modi, Patnaik urged him to advise the Ministry of Rural Development to approve the state government's proposal to include 4,035 left out habitations at an early date. He said the union cabinet had approved the revision of Core Network to include the left out habitations in 2013 following state government request to include these unconnected habitations. He said the state government has submitted detailed information on the said unconnected habitations for approval to the National Rural Roads Development Agency, New Delhi, under the ministry. "The ministry has now asked the state to submit detailed project reports of all eligible unconnected habitations for sanction under the PMGSY during the current and next financial years. "Unless the ministry approves state government proposal to include the 4,035 left out unconnected habitations, the DPRs for the said projects cannot be prepared and these habitations will be deprived of getting the benefits under the PMGSY," said the chief minister. US President Barack Obama is wrong in predicting that Pakistan and Afghanistan will face instability and turmoil for decades, a senior Pakistani official said on Friday. "Whatever the US president said about instability in Pakistan and Afghanistan are his predictions and have nothing to do with ground realities," the Dawn quoted Sartaj Aziz, adviser to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on foreign affairs, as saying. Aziz made the comment at a breakfast meeting with Chinese scholars, diplomats and journalists here. In his last State of the Union address on Tuesday night, Obama said: "Instability will continue for decades in many parts of the world - in the Middle East, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in parts of central America, Africa and Asia. "Some of these places may become safe havens for new terrorist networks; others will fall victim to ethnic conflict, or famine, feeding the next wave of refugees," Obama added. Disagreeing with the president, Aziz said: "Pakistan is taking decisive action against terrorism and militancy, and days to come will witness more stability here." As far as Afghanistan was concerned, Aziz said: "Instability exists but Pakistan is making all out efforts for establishing peace and stability there." Speaking about the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, Aziz said Islamabad would foil "all sinister designs" against the project. Pakistan won't allow its territory to be used for terror attacks and it seeks a comprehensive dialogue with India, Pakistani Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said on Friday. Radio Pakistan quoted Dar as saying that Islamabad wished "to move ahead for a comprehensive dialogue with India to resolve all issues" between the two countries. Dar added that Pakistan won't allow any misuse of its territory against any country. He told Radio Pakistan that the dialogue process between Islamabad and New Delhi "has slowed down" after the terror attack on an IAF base in Pathankot which New Delhi has blamed on Pakistani terrorists. The foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan were to meet in Islamabad on Friday but the meeting has been postponed. Minister Dar said he hoped the talks would begin soon. Portugal should apologise to Goa for exploiting it as a colony, the Public Works Department Minister Sudin Dhavalikar said on Friday. Dhavalikar was speaking during a discussion on a motion of congratulations for newly elected Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa, who is of Goan-origin. "Goans cannot forget the past. What has happened in Goa before 1961, everybody knows the history. Now if Goans have to appreciate Portuguese, I feel they should first apologise to us," Dhavalikar said. Costa, who took over as Prime Minister of Portugal last November, is the son of Orlando Costa, a Goan poet and a leftist activist. Stating it would be wrong to say that the Portuguese conquered Goa, the minister said: "Portugal was gifted parts of Goa by the then Adil Shah regime." Goa, one of the earliest colonies of Portugal, remained under its yoke for 451 years, until it was liberated by the Indian armed forces in 1961. A Goa cabinet minister on Friday demanded that Portugal apologise to Goa for exploiting it as a colony. The statement came even as Goa's Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar and Deputy Chief Minister Francis D'Souza said newly-appointed Portuguese Prime Minister of Goan-origin Antonio Costa would be formally invited to visit the state soon. Speaking during a discussion on a motion of congratulations for newly-elected Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa, who has Goan lineage, Public Works Department Minister Sudin Dhavalikar said: "Goans cannot forget the past." "What has happened in Goa before 1961, everybody knows the history. Now if Goans have to appreciate Portuguese, I feel they should first apologise to us," Dhavalikar said. Costa, who took over as Prime Minister of Portugal last November, is the son of Orlando Costa, a Goan poet and a leftist activist. Stating that it would be wrong to say that the Portuguese conquered Goa, the minister said: "Portugal was gifted parts of Goa by the then Adil Shah regime." Goa, one of the earliest colonies of Portugal, remained under its yoke for 451 years, until it was liberated by the Indian armed forces in 1961. Deputy Speaker Francis D'Souza, who also recounted a visit to Portugal where Costa, then mayor of Portuguese capital Lisbon, had accorded him a grand civic reception. D'Souza also said that at the time when Goa was colonised, Portugal was a dictatorship. "Times have changed now, Goa is now a democracy," D'Souza said. Chief Minister Parsekar also said that the Goa government would invite Costa formally to visit the state, to which the Portuguese premier owes part of his origin. "It is a proud moment for us Goans. We should not hesitate to congratulate him. My deputy chief minister has said that he should be invited. The Leader of Opposition has also said the same thing. I think this should happen. We will do this for sure," Parsekar said. People's Party of Punjab (PPP) chief Manpreet Singh Badal has merged his party with the Congress, it was announced on Friday. Manpreet, a former finance minister of Punjab, is the estranged nephew of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal. The merger comes ahead of the 2017 assembly elections in Punjab. "We are happy that the PPP under Manpreet Singh Badal has today merged with the INC," the Congress announced on Twitter. Punjab Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singh and former chief minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal reportedly welcomed the idea of the Congress-PPP merger. "We are happy that Manpreetji joined us. His entire party met (Congress vice president) Rahulji. We are starting our campaign on a good note," the Congress tweets quoted Captain Amarinder Singh as saying. The Congress, which is Punjab's main opposition party, and the PPP announced an alliance in March 2014 for elections to the 13 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Manpreet, a first cousin of Akali Dal president and Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, contested the 2014 Lok Sabha polls from Bathinda seat as an alliance candidate against Sukhbir's wife Harsimrat Kaur Badal. He lost by a margin of about 20,000 votes. The PPP earlier formed an alliance with the Left and other smaller parties under the banner of 'Sanjha Morcha' just before the January 2012 assembly elections in Punjab but neither the PPP nor any other Morcha candidate could win any seat. However, the PPP garnered a ]six percent vote share, playing a spoilsport for the Congress that ended up with 46 seats as against 56 of the Shiromani Akali Dal and 12 of the Bharatiya Janata party. Three seats in the 117-member assembly were won by Independents. Manpreet quit as the state finance minister in October 2010 and broke away from the ruling SAD later after differences cropped up with the chief minister and his deputy over governance and subsidies. He floated the PPP in 2011. --Indo-Asian News Service js/tsb/vt With a mission to urge the youth to stop littering, actor Randeep Hooda joined hands with Parle and MTV for the 'MTV Junkyard project' which engages people to change their habits and help keep the country clean. On a small stage set up in the middle of a parking lot in Connaught Place here, Randeep and New Delhi MP Meenakshi Lekhi gave a shout out to the youth present at the venue along with the crowd shopping in the heart of the city, that the initiative is simple, interactive and fun. Parle MTV Junkyard Project is using the symbol of dumping ground to communicate the message of do not litter. Soon, the dump trucks across the national capital and Mumbai will be sporting a colorful graffiti look with the message of 'Dunk That Junk'. "This year we were thinking of a way to take the idea of cleaning the country forward, which would involve the youth. Fortunately MTV also was on the same page and they came to us with this idea which was perfect to us. MTV is the face of the youth and we want to approach the youth as they are the future of our country. We will be going to 150 colleges in 10-15 cities," Parle's general manager, marketing, Pravin Kulkarnii told IANS. "It is a novel concept. It is not done very regularly. If you want to initiate a new habit, you have to do something creatively," he added. Stressing that littering is bad but anything that requires people to change their habits is not easy to communicate, Randeep says that it is a tad bit more difficult when the people in question are young. "Who knew cleaning up could be so much fun? MTV really knows how to make the most mundane of things seem exciting. Littering is bad, but anything that requires people to change their habits is not easy to communicate, especially when the people in question are young. Parle MTV The Junkyard Project is a fantastic project that's interactive and fun, and not preachy," he said. "MTV is engaging its fan base in a unique manner and mobilizing them for a good social cause. Let's take #DunkThatJunk challenges --they are simple, interactive and fun. No wonder the videos are trending on social media. I urge everyone, all you young people out there, to come and support MTV and Parle in it's efforts to make India a shining example of how to keep our country clean. And, don't be a punk, Dunk That Junk," he added. To take the campaign forward, colourful dumping trucks were unveiled at the venue as well. Lekhi said youth has the power to make a change. "Indias biggest strength are its young people and I truly believe they have the power to make change happen. Our prime minister has also called upon our youth to contribute in the development of the country and I am glad to be a part of such events which are the right efforts in this direction," she said. Supporting the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan, Parle MTV Junkyard Project launched the initiative across social media with a slogan of Dunk That Junk. Videos featuring ace celebrities dunking the junk through interesting challenges like dizzy dunk, trampoline jump dunk, blindfold dunk can be seen on social media, including the likes of superstar Shah Rukh Khan, as well as Farhan Aktar, Varun Dhawan, and Sonam Kapoor who extended their support to the campaign. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday announced it has increased shareholding in its wholly-owned subsidiary, the National Housing Bank (NHB), by contributing Rs.1,000 crore towards its paid-up capital. "The Reserve Bank has contributed Rs.1,000 crore towards the paid up capital of the National Housing Bank on January 12, 2016, thereby increasing its shareholding in the NHB from Rs.450 crore to Rs.1,450 crore," the RBI said in a release . "This would help NHB to expand its financial operations as envisaged under the NHB Act, 1987," it added. The RBI had made a provision for the amount of Rs.1,000 crore towards capital contribution to the NHB during the accounting year 2014-15. The finance ministry had in December notified an increase in authorised capital of NHB from Rs.450 crore to Rs.1,450 crore to enable the RBI to raise its shareholding in it. The move is aimed to gear up the NHB to meet the country's growing demand for housing, while the government has also set the target of "Housing for All" by 2022. Hollywood actors Eddie Redmayne and Michael Fassbender, who have been nominated in the Actor in a Leading Role category of the upcoming 88th Academy Awards, have thanked the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for recognising their work. The nominations for the 2016 Oscars were announced on Thursday. Redmayne, who won the Best Actor Award last year for his role in James Marsh's "The Theory of Everything", says he is "incredibly grateful" to the Academy as there were "so many brilliant films and performances". He is nominated this year for his role of a transgender in "The Danish Girl". "This nomination is a testament to the vision of our fearless director Tom Hooper, and the support of my fellow cast members, especially the incandescent Alicia Vikander. "Being recognised for 'The Danish Girl' is particularly special to me; if sharing Lili and Gerda's journey and their love story can in any small way be a part of positive social change - then I will be even more grateful," Redmayne said in a statement. Fassbender, who is acknowledged for his title role in biopic "Steve Jobs", said: "Thank you to the Academy, I feel very privileged for this nomination and honoured to be considered in what has been such a great year for cinema". While "The Danish Girl", "Steve Jobs" are produced by Universal Pictures, the studio has in total received 14 nominations this year. This includes nods for films like "Straight Outta Compton", "Fifty Shades of Grey" and "Room". "The Danish Girl", which released in India on Friday, received four nominations including Actor in a Leading Role (Redmayne), Actress in a Supporting Role (Alicia Vikander), Best Costume Design (Paco Delgado), and Best Production Design (Production Designer, Eve Stewart; Set Decorator, Michael Standish). Vikander, who is nominated alongside Rooney Mara ("Carol"), Jennifer Jason Leigh ("The Hateful Eight"), Kate Winslet ("Steve Jobs") and Rachel McAdams ("Spotlight"), said: "I am deeply grateful to the Academy for this honour. To be recognised alongside these actresses and their inspiring performances is humbling. To be a part of bringing 'The Danish Girl' to life was such a gift and to receive this nomination is a thrill". "Steve Jobs" is nominated for two awards including Actor in a Leading Role (Fassbender) and Actress in a Supporting Role (Kate Winslet). "Straight Outta Compton" received a nomination for Best Original Screenplay (Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff; Story by S. Leigh Savidge & Alan Wenkus and Andrea Berloff). In the Best Original Song category, the studio was nominated for "Earned It" from "Fifty Shades of Grey". Whereas,"Room" has been recognised with four nominations including Best Picture, Actress in a Leading Role (Brie Larson), Best Director (Lenny Abrahamson), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Emma Donoghue). At last, "Ex Machina" received two nominations including Best Original Screenplay (Alex Garland) and Best Visual Effects (Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris, Mark Ardington and Sara Bennett). Russia's aviation agency Rosaviatsia said on Thursday that it has found some new facts on the crash of flight MH17 in 2014, refuting the Dutch Safety Board (DSB)'s investigation report published last October on the incident. The agency posted a letter online sent by its deputy head Oleg Storchevoy to DSB, stating "some new important evidence" that had not been uncovered in the Dutch investigation was found by the Russian side, confirming that some conclusions of the DSB's final report on the crash of MH17 were unsubstantiated and inaccurate. The new facts could raise doubts about information given in the Dutch report, such as the possible presence of heavy air defense systems in eastern Ukraine that were not controlled by Ukrainian government forces, Xinhua reported. Rosaviatsia said that it is also necessary to review the conclusion of the Dutch side that the aircraft was hit by a 9M38 missile with a 9N314M-type warhead using the BUK surface-to-air missile system. The Russian side also questioned the detonation position of the missile when hitting the aircraft, as well as the missile's launching area. The DSB said last October that the warhead detonated close to the left front of the plane, claiming that additional forensic investigation was needed to determine the location of the launch. Moreover, Rosaviatsia blamed the Dutch report for ignoring the deliberate concealment and distortion of flight safety information by the Ukrainian side. Sembcorp Green Infra Ltd. will set up a 1,000 MW wind energy plant in western Madhya Pradesh under a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the state government, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan said on Friday. Sembcorp Green Infra, a subsidiary of Singapore-based Sembcorp Industries Ltd., is a result of parent company's acquisition of renewable energy firm Green Infra Ltd. in February 2015. The company has over 1,000 MW in solar and wind energy generation capacity. The MoU was signed between Sembcorp and the Madhya Pradesh government's renewable energy department during Chauhan's visit to Singapore from January 12 to 15. Another MoU was signed between LT Foods Ltd. India and DSM Nutritional Products, Singapore, envisioning a range of collaborations from urban development to capacity building, skills training and food processing, the chief minister told reporters. Chauhan said he was very impressed by the advancement Singapore had made in skills training. "It was amazing that a skills training centre I visited in Singapore provides training right from hair-dressing to repairing aircrafts. I realised then that we have been left far, far behind in this area," he said. "Singapore had agreed to our request for providing help in improving our skills training infrastructure." Rather than having the youth wait until they had earned a college degree to seek employment, his government would now try to help them get training in skills that would fetch them jobs soon after finishing school, Chauhan said. Chauhan was honoured with the Lee Kuan Yew Exchange Fellowship during his four-day Singapore sojourn. He is the fourth Indian to have been awarded the fellowship. The Sri Lankan government on Friday said it has released 55 Indian fishermen from its custody in view of Tamil harvest festival Pongal. Officials from the ministry of fisheries and aquatic resources told Xinhua that the fishermen were detained by Sri Lankan authorities after being caught illegally poaching in local waters. There are still 104 fishermen in Sri Lankan custody. They are to be released in the next few days. The Sri Lanka Navy often arrests Indian fishermen, mostly from the Indian southern state of Tamil Nadu, for violating the International Maritime Boundary Line and enter the island nation's waters for poaching. Sri Lanka's Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Mahinda Amaraweera recently said he requested the navy and cost guard to initiate strict actions after the Tamil festival, locally known as Thai Pongal, to arrest Indian fishermen who violate the International Maritime Boundary Line and enter local waters for fishing. The minister said the fishermen in the north of the country could not gather a proper fish harvest since their Indian counterparts were continuously engaging in illegal fishing methods to fish in Sri Lankan waters. People of Tamil Nadu on Friday celebrated Pongal with fervour, getting up early, donning new clothes and visiting temples. The festival of Pongal is celebrated to thank the Sun, rain and farm animals. At homes, the aroma of ghee-fried cashews, almonds and cardamom wafted through as the traditional dish of rice, jaggery and Bengal gram was made. As the ingredients of Chakarai Pongal boiled in milk, people called out 'Pongolo Pongal, Pongolo Pongal'. The mud pot or stainless steel in which the dish is cooked is decorated by tying up ginger, turmeric, sugarcane piece and banana at the neck. The Pongal dish is offered to the Sun god as thanks giving and eaten as 'prasad'. It is made at the auspicious time and in some homes conches are blown prior to the formal offering. People exchanged greetings and Chakarai Pongal with their neighbours. The Pongal festivities take place for over four days, the first day being Bhogi, which was on Thursday when people burn their old clothes, mats and other items. New paints are applied on homes. The second day is the main Pongal festival celebrated on the first day of the Tamil month Thai, that is on Friday. In villages the sweet pongal is cooked in the open ground. The third day is the Mattu Pongal when bulls and cows are bathed and their horns painted and worshipped as they play an important role in farms. Women feed the birds with coloured rice and pray for the welfare of their brothers. The fourth day is the Kannum Pongal - the day to go out and meet relatives and friends, and go site seeing. However according to reports localities like Alanganallur in Madurai district famous for Jallikattu or bull vaulting sport the Pongal celebrations were on low key as the sport was banned by the apex court. Makar Sankranti, the colourful Hindu festival, was celebrated with pomp and gaiety across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana on Friday. On the second day of the three-day festival, the countryside in both the Telugu states wore a festive look with decorated houses, kite-flying, cockfights, bull-fights and other rural sports. Villages in both the states came alive with Sankranti, considered as one of the major festivals. It was time for the families to take a break and come together in their natives towns and villages. People from different parts of the country and even abroad joined their near and dear ones for the festival. Attired in their best, men, women and children thronged the temples to offer prayers since early morning. Lakhs of people from Hyderabad left for their homes in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana for the celebrations, leaving the city's roads almost deserted. Authorities operated hundreds of special buses and trains from Hyderabad to various destinations in the two states over last couple of days to clear the festival rush. For children of those settled in cities and abroad, it is an occasion to have a feel of life in the countryside. They visit the fields and participate in various rural sports. The houses were decorated with marigold flowers and mango leaves. Womenfolk decked the front-yard of houses with Rangoli. They set cow-dung balls called as 'Gobbemma' and placed among the Rangoli patterns and also put fresh harvest of rice, turmeric and sugarcane. The women also prepared 'chakkara pongal' or rice kheer, a special dish made of new rice, jaggery and milk. The dish is allowed to boil over which symbolises abundance. In Hyderabad and other towns in both the states, the sky was dotted with colourful kites. Popular Hindi and Telugu chartbusters blared from speakers as youngsters flew the kites from rooftops. 'Haridasus' and 'Basvannas', the uniquely attired alm-seekers with ornately decorated oxen, made rounds of villages to seek alms. The farmers also decorated bullocks and worshipped them for their contribution to the harvest. Despite the court orders banning cock-fights, the bloody sport was organised openly in parts of coastal Andhra. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu celebrated Sankranti with his family members at his native Naravaripalle village in Chittoor district. He received greetings from the villagers. Naidu's brother-in-law and popular actor Balakrishna and other family members too joined the celebrations. Naidu and his Telangana counterpart K. Chandrasekhar Rao and governor of the two states E. S. L. Narasimhan greeted people on the occasion of Sankranti. Once I worked in a country where officials denied rumors that the premier was dead by announcing that: "His health is normal for a man of his age." So I pointed out in my column that the normal state of health for a 93-year-old was "dead". My editor was furious, but the guy died any way and so the discussion became moot. Death is a touchy subject, but a powerful one that can even be used to make your children revise their clothing choices (one of mine is obsessed with animal onesies). "If you die tonight, what you're wearing is what your ghost has to wear FOREVER," I say. "That's how it works." (Child rushes back to bedroom to change.) Your columnist was musing on the topic of death after reading a report about a woman arrested recently for drunk driving in Australia. A breathalyzer test showed a blood alcohol level of 0.48, above the level at which normal humans die. Police shrugged and stayed with their diagnosis of drunk driving rather than doing the obvious thing of recognizing her as an undead harbinger of the coming zombie apocalypse. Not that I'm worried. Zombies don't really do anything except wander around looking for something to eat, which pretty much describes most of my friends. Or perhaps the undead driver was a journalist, many of whom are superhuman drinkers. Last week one particular colleague of mine donated blood, and I just hope whoever gets it likes cheap Chardonnay. In one of her few lucid moments, this lady shared her outrage that a UK man was recently charged with drunk driving despite the fact that he wasn't driving, but sitting in the passenger seat advising a learner driver. Police said legal liability stands with the person giving instructions. I'm going to try this next time I'm stopped for speeding. "The kids in the back seat told me to go faster, officer. They're NAUGHTY." But going back to zombies, humans can function well with partial brains. A reader sent me a news report about a Spanish man who played the saxophone while he was having brain surgery. There was also a patient a while ago in the US who played the guitar while having his gray matter rearranged. You can see the advantages. PATIENT: "I can't remember the next verse." SURGEON: "Let me jog your memory." The medical logic is that if patients are active during surgery, doctors get useful clues as to the exact functions of the bits of brain they are slashing out. PATIENT: "I think Trump would make a classy addition to the pantheon of world leaders." SURGEON: "We must have taken out all his intelligence circuits, quick, put some back." If I ever have brain surgery I am going to ask if I can juggle live porcupines while riding a unicycle during the op. That way I'm sure of retaining sale-able skills when it's over. Still, death is not the big thing it used to be. On the list of five most frightening things in the world, I reckon death has been edged out by: 5) "Virus detected"; 4) Phone hotline robots; 3) Tyra Banks; 2) People talking in the cinema; and 1) "No connection, consult your ISP." (15.01.2016 - Nury Vittachi is an Asia-based frequent traveller. Send ideas and comments via his Facebook page) Muslim countries must confront religious extremism without drawing a line between "good" and "bad" militants, a Pakistani newspaper said on Friday. "Unfortunately, some Muslim states have either looked away as extremist groups grew in size and strength in their backyards while others have used these as proxies in geopolitical conflicts," a Dawn editorial said. "It is also true that most Muslim states - both authoritarian set-ups and democracies - have failed to deliver social, economic and political justice to their citizens, helping fuel the rise of radical movements, which want to destroy the 'system' and build it anew in their own image." The Dawn said that Muslim states must realize that the militant tide has to be confronted without differentiation between "good" and "bad" militants. While joint counterterrorism efforts were needed. any alliance built along sectarian or geopolitical lines was doomed to fail, it said. Referring to recent terror attacks in Pakistan and Turkey, it said these showed "that nearly all Muslim states - despite geographic, cultural and political differences - are vulnerable to violent religious extremism." Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump stuck to his guns over his controversial proposal to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the US as rival Jeb Bush wondered how Muslims from India, Indonesia, and other strong allies could be banned. The real estate mogul's proposal in the wake of Paris and St. Bernardino terrorist attacks by a Pakistani origin couple has created a firestorm with more than 10 million people talking about the issue, according to Facebook. Asked in the sixth Republican presidential debate in Charleston, South Carolina, on Thursday night, if there was anything he had heard that made him want to rethink his position, Trump responded with a flat "No". "We have to stop with political correctness," he said as seven top candidates sparred two weeks before the first nominating contests in Iowa, insisting he would not change his mind on the issue. Former Florida governor Bush, son of a former president and brother of another, repeatedly called on Trump to "reconsider," warning that the idea makes it "impossible" to build a coalition with other Arab countries necessary to defeat the IS. "All Muslims? Seriously? What kind of signal does that send to the rest of the world?" said Bush who had earlier suggested that Trump was "unhinged" in making such a proposal. "So, are we going to ban Muslims from India, from Indonesia, from countries that are strong allies -- that we need to build better relationships with? Of course not," he said. "What we need to do is destroy ISIS." Reminded by a host on the Fox Business Network debate that Trump's poll numbers had gone up by 11 points since he made that proposal and asked whether he considered Trump's supporters also "unhinged', Bush responded with a sheepish "no". Trump was also asked about South Carolina's Indian-American Governor Nikki Haley acknowledging that she was referring to him when in her response to the State of the Union address, she asked Republicans to resist "the siren call of the angriest voices". "Okay. First of all, Nikki this afternoon said I'm a friend of hers," Trump said. "Actually a close friend. And wherever you are sitting Nikki, I'm a friend. We're friends. That's good. "But she did say there was anger. And I could say, oh, I'm not angry. I'm very angry because our country is being run horribly and I will gladly accept the mantle of anger. Our military is a disaster." Others, including Ohio Governor John Kasich and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, said they were on board with at least temporarily not allowing Syrian refugees into the country in light of the growing threat of IS. And coming on the heels of President Barack Obama's new executive actions on gun control, several candidates offered impassioned defences of Second Amendment rights to bear arms. "The guns don't pull the trigger. It's the people that pull the trigger," said Trump. "I am convinced that if this president could confiscate every gun in America, he would," said Senator Marco Rubio. "That's not a democracy, that's a dictatorship," added Christie. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz also clashed over Trump's suggestion that he's not eligible to be president because he was born in Canada. He termed Cruz' accusation that the businessman "embodies New York values" - people with "socially liberal" views revolving around "money and media" - as "very insulting." The candidates also took plenty of shots at Obama with Bush saying the idea that the country is better off today than before Obama took office is an "alternative universe". And Rubio blasted Obama for presiding over an "arrogant" foreign policy. (Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in) Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump stuck to his guns over his controversial proposal to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the US as seven top candidates sparred two weeks before the first nominating contests in Iowa. The real estate mogul's proposal in the wake of Paris and St. Bernardino terrorist attacks by a Pakistani origin couple has created a firestorm with more than 10 million people talking about the issue, according to Facebook. Asked in the sixth Republican presidential debate in Charleston, South Carolina Thursday night, if there was anything he had heard that made him want to rethink his position, Trump responded with a flat 'No". "We have to stop with political correctness," he said, insisting he would not change his mind on the issue. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, son of a former president and brother of another, repeatedly called on Trump to "reconsider," warning that the idea makes it "impossible" to build a coalition with other Arab countries necessary to defeat ISIS. "All Muslims? Seriously? What kind of signal does that send to the rest of the world?" said Bush who had earlier suggested that Trump was "unhinged" in making such a proposal. Reminded by a host on the Fox Business Network debate that Trump's poll numbers had gone up by 11 points since he made that proposal and asked whether he considered Trump's supporters also "unhinged', Bush responded with a sheepish 'no". Trump was also asked about South Carolina's Indian-American Governor Nikki Haley acknowledging that she was referring to him when in her response to the State of the Union address she asked Republicans to resist "the siren call of the angriest voices." "Okay. First of all, Nikki this afternoon said I'm a friend of hers," Trump said. "Actually a close friend. And wherever you are sitting Nikki, I'm a friend. We're friends. That's good." "But she did say there was anger. And I could say, oh, I'm not angry. I'm very angry because our country is being run horribly and I will gladly accept the mantle of anger. Our military is a disaster." Others, including Ohio governor John Kasich and New Jersey governor Chris Christie said they were on board with at least temporarily not allowing Syrian refugees into the country in light of the growing threat of ISIS. "I've said from the beginning, we should take no Syrian refugees of any kind," Christie said. And coming on the heels of Obama's new executive actions on gun control, several candidates offered impassioned defences of Second Amendment rights to bear arms. "The guns don't pull the trigger. It's the people that pull the trigger," said Trump. "I am convinced that if this president could confiscate every gun in America, he would," said senator Marco Rubio. "That's not a democracy, that's a dictatorship," added Christie. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz also clashed over Trump's accusations that he's not eligible to be president because he was born in Canada. He termed Cruz' accusation that the businessman "embodies New York values" - people with "socially liberal" views revolving around "money and media" - as "very insulting." The candidates also took plenty of shots at Obama. Cruz criticized Obama for not mentioning in his speech the 10 US sailors who were captured by Iran earlier this week. Bush, meanwhile, said the idea that the country is better off today than before Obama took office is an "alternative universe." And Rubio blasted Obama for presiding over an "arrogant" foreign policy. (Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in) Two US Marine helicopters collided with each other and crashed off the north shore of Oahu island in Hawaii late Thursday, local media reported on Friday. The accident was initially reported at 10.40 p.m. on Thursday and the two helicopters had a total of 12 people on board, local media quoted sources with the US Coast Guard as saying. The Coast Guard and the Honolulu Fire Department have started searching for survivors at the scene of the crash. Minister of State for External Affairs V.K. Singh will now on look after all issues related to expatriate Indians in the Gulf. "All matters relating to Indian nationals in Gulf countries will now be looked after by my colleague Gen V.K. Singh," External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted late on Thursday. There are nearly five million expatriate Indians in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. A majority work as blue collar workers, and there are frequent labour-related issues. Sushma Swaraj's statement comes after the ministry of overseas Indian affairs (MOIA) that looked after issues of Indians abroad was merged with the external affairs ministry this month. When an Indian national in Riyadh tweeted he was stuck after working for 24 months in a human resource company, Sushma Swaraj advised him to give the name and address of his recruitment agent (RA) to V.K. Singh. "RA must secure your return or face arrest," she said. Sushma Swaraj said on January 7 that she suggested to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to merge the MOIA with the external affairs ministry as much of MOIA work was done by Indian missions. Modi accepted the proposal. The MOIA was established in May 2004 as the ministry of non-resident Indians' affairs. It was later renamed the MOIA. Since its creation, there have always been two separate ministers in charge of the work of the two ministries -- MOIA and external affairs. It was only in 2014 that one cabinet minister, Sushma Swaraj, and a minister of state, V.K. Singh, were handled both the portfolios. That made everyone realize that more could be done to utilise the natural synergy between Indian foreign policy objectives and outreach, and that the division between the two ministries was unnatural, resulting in duplication of work and unnecessary delays. According to external affairs ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup, even for MOIA responses to parliament questions, it needed to rely on data provided by Indian missions and posts abroad. This year, the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, which was the flagship event of the MOIA, was organised by the ministry of external affairs on January 9. Goa Revenue Minister Francis D'Souza on Friday said government records show that the state's port city Vasco da Gama was mentioned as Sambhaji in government notifications of 1971 and 2011. His admission comes days after the BJP-led coalition government denied the city's renaming after Maratha warrior king Chhattrapati Shivaji's son Sambhaji. "As per available records, the city's name is mentioned as Sambhaji (Vasco-da-Gama) in the notification of 1971 and 2011," the minister said in a written reply tabled during the ongoing monsoon session of the assembly. D'Souza said "certain areas" in Mormugao taluka (sub-district) had already been named after Sambhaji as per a notification dated February 15, 1971, and "therefore the name Sambhaji (Vasco-da-Gama) has been printed on ration cards as per land revenue records". He was responding to Independent legislator Vijai Sardesai's query whether the government had, at any time, named the city after Sambhaji, the eldest son of Chhatrapati Shivaji, the founder of the Maratha kingdom. Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama is credited with the discovering a new sea route to India after he landed in Calicut in 1498. Sambhaji is a Maratha hero credited with his battles against Muslim rulers of the Deccan region and Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. Last month, residents of Vasco da Gama protested after a fresh batch of ration cards given to them carried the name of Sambhaji. The port city is home to a cosmopolitan population of several thousand and is the state's only major port. On the backfoot following public outrage, the state BJP insisted Sambhaji's name appeared by mistake on the ration cards. Firing and infiltration has continued at the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir, but India has given a befitting reply, the army chief, General Dalbir Singh said on Friday. "The continuing cross-border firing and infiltration bids have kept the Line of Control active. You (Army) have given a befitting reply to the enemy at the border," General Singh said at the 68th Army Day parade on Friday. The General added that "vigilance" along the "border and other difficult areas", has brought down infiltration. "We have also caught large number of terrorists in surgical operations and killed many of their key leaders. We have also recovered large quantity of explosives," he said. The Army chief said this has been done "maintaining the human rights standards". The general added despite the counter-infiltration and counter-terrorist operations, the Indian Army has taken care of its primary role and is always ready to face any challenge. Talking about China, General Singh said India wants "constructive engagement" and the understanding between armies on both sides has improved. "On the northern front, India wants constructive engagement with China. Both sides are adopting confidence building measures to reduce tension at the border." He, however, added that infiltration continues in the "disputed areas" along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), and patrolling continues from our side. "However there is improvement in the understanding between the two armies," he said. The Army Day is celebrated on January 15, every year to commemorate the day when Lieutenant General K. M. Cariappa took over as Commander-in-Chief of India on January 1949. He took over the position from General Sir Francis Butcher. Along with General Singh, Indian Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha and Navy chief Admiral R.K. Dhowan were also present at the parade, along with other senior Army officers and delegates from different countries. The Army chief also inspected a parade, which showcased marching contingents including the Dog Contingent of Indian Army. Mechanised columns on display included T-90 tanks, Brahmos missiles,and AAkash missile systems. The parade was followed by a display by motorcycle team of the Indian Army, and a combat drill that brought alive a surgical operation. The Zika virus, spread by a day-biting mosquito and possibly linked to serious birth defects in Brazil, has the potential to spread within the Americas, including parts of the US, researchers have warned. The Zika virus, native to parts of Africa and Asia, has for the first time been introduced into the Americas where it is spreading locally among people who have not travelled abroad. There is currently no vaccine against the virus or antiviral treatment. "The summer Olympic Games in Brazil in August heighten the need for awareness of this emerging virus," said Kamran Khan from the St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, Canada. Zika is generally a mild illness, spread by a day-biting mosquito. However, there is a worrisome, but as of yet unproven, association of infected mothers in Brazil giving birth to babies with small heads and underdeveloped brains, Khan wrote in a research letter published in the journal The Lancet. There has been a 20-fold increase in the number of babies born with this condition, known as microcephaly, since Zika first appeared in Brazil in May 2015, the researchers said. The virus has since spread across more than a dozen countries in South and Central America and up into Mexico. A case was confirmed in Puerto Rico in December in an individual who had not recently travelled, meaning he or she was bitten by a local infected mosquito. The research team mapped the global geography of (Aedes species) mosquitoes capable of transmitting Zika virus and then modeled the worldwide climate conditions necessary for the virus to spread between Aedes mosquitoes and humans. They estimated that more than 60 per cent of the population of the US, Argentina and Italy live in areas conducive to seasonal transmission of Zika virus. It is one of those paradoxes of Indian military history that campaigns in which we did poorly, as in 1962 against the Chinese, or stalled, as in 1965 against Pakistan, are much better documented than the one that was a clear victory in 1971. The Army had named the 1971 campaign Operation Cactus Lily. I am not sure if the obvious logic would explain it: tough offensive in the east, and delicate holding posture in the western sector meanwhile. But there is insufficient writing on both sectors. Possibly it is because the pain of military disappointment inspires more creative introspection, as the rich literature on 1962 shows. Or possibly the officers brought up in the old British system also inherited its tradition of writing. Our biggest lack, on 1971, is a Sam Manekshaw memoir. Lt Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora, who led the Bangladesh campaign as GOC-in-C Eastern Command, too chose not to start writing, until Operation Blue Star and the later massacres of Sikhs in 1984 brought him into the public debate; he wrote some articles, and also a chapter in a contributory volume published by Roli Books in 1984 (The Punjab Story) in which I had a chapter too. Air Chief Marshal P C Lal wrote a brilliantly honest account of the air campaign, and much later, P V S Jagan Mohan and Samir Chopra, world-class air combat historians, closed the loop with a beautifully documented and non-partisan work. But on the land campaign the senior-most military leader to weigh in was Lt Gen J F R Jacob, who served in 1971 in the rank of Major General as Chief of Staff, Eastern Command, as deputy to Lt Gen Aurora, his GOC. As usually happens in such cases, these works -Surrender at Dacca and An Odyssey in War and Peace - suffer from an imperfection: they represent one man's view of the story with nothing of equal, or greater, weight to challenge it. Jacob's - or Jake's, as he insisted his friends, even I, 35 years younger, call him - has been widely read and admired by friends. But it was also panned by many others, including this newspaper's respected columnist on military affairs, Ajai Shukla. Even as a Jake fan, I have to concede that his account makes Manekshaw seem like an absentee landlord and Aurora as soft and passive, if not a wimp. But if none of them challenged him, he wasn't to be denied the last word. He was a clean writer, had a great memory, and was widely respected and trusted. As I got to know him better through the years - there was rarely a conversation that lasted less than a couple of hours, whether in his tiny flat in New Delhi's Som Vihar, Punjab Raj Bhavan, or our home - he regaled us with stories from Arakan in WW2 to Tejgaon, as Dhaka Cantonment was called. He did pour scorn on all seniors. But he also complained that the Government of India never gave him any honour - "no 'blooddy' honour, no 'blooddy' chakra, no 'blooddy' Padma," he would often say. Maybe that regret spoke out in his writings. That's why it was also such a special moment for him when Bangladesh gave him a national honour, at 90, in 2012 and we recorded a Walk the Talk in Som Vihar, probably his last full-length interview. But he had only gratitude and affection for the Army. He had no family in India - Jake never married - and it was a handful of Army soldiers who were seconded to look after him. I can't say for sure, but we probably first met sometime in 1991 after I visited Israel (under Scud attacks then) while covering the 1991 Gulf War. He was a great supporter of India-Israel relations. We met more often once he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on the late Manohar Lal Sondhi's advice, and became a favourite of L K Advani. In one of those conversations I once asked him why he had joined the BJP and not any other party. "Hey, boy, they were the only ones who asked me," he said, and we were in splits. He loved Israel too, but he belonged in India fully. He supported Israel on most of its policies but never said one rude thing about Muslims, expressing great affection for Indian Muslims. Israelis hailed him in their national museum as one of the greatest Jewish warriors in history. Jake let that sit lightly on his shoulders and often reminded his friends that nobody in India was conscious of his Jewish identity until Radio Pakistan, in its war propaganda phase in 1971, insinuated India had picked a Jew to negotiate the surrender to humiliate the Islamic world. The most remarkable feature of Jake's life is how he resisted migrating to the Promised Land - as most of India's native Jewish population did, leaving India with just over 6,000 at last count, its most microscopic minority. His Promised Land was India and he was its finest, most loved permanent "envoy" to Israel. As I travel to Chandigarh often, we met frequently when he was in the Raj Bhavan there - garrulous as ever, and pro-active as titular governors usually aren't. But he was too sincere and loveable a figure for the then Badal government to resent. He had us friends in splits with hilarious stories about "Cloud Senior" and "Cloud Junior" (Parkash Singh Badal and son Sukhbir Badal, if you haven't guessed already). It was at one of these meetings that he fretted over the absence of a war memorial in India. I said to him, find us a spot and we will raise the resources to build a fine war memorial here. He was game. "OK, boy," he said, "We will build one more shandaar yadgaar." The rest of the story is brief: The Indian Express appealed to its readers and raised the funds, Jake gave a great spot in the city's green lung, Leisure Valley, and the PWD built India's finest war memorial there. It was also Jake's insight that he said don't let the PWD design it. We conspired to announce a competition for architects pro-bono and it was won by two young women students at the local school of architecture. Do check out their brilliant creation on your next visit to Chandigarh. It was inaugurated by then President A P J Kalam. In my last meeting with him, in 2012, he presented me a copy of his second book. I gratefully handed him my pen to write something, which he did, and then gave an admiring look to the pen. "Hey, boy, you use a Mont Blanc fountain pen," he said. "I used to have one, my brother borrowed it, but the silly fellow lost it." I said no worries, Jake, I will bring you one from my next visit overseas. I didn't travel for some time and, sure enough, got a reminder from him on email, in his characteristic large-sized capital letters. I did finally buy one at the tiny Harrods outlet at Heathrow Duty Free and sent it to his home, shopping bag and all. He was thrilled as a baby with a new rattle, wrote me an excited mail, and then called, "Boy, you shop at Harrods! I did that also when I was younger." The truth, in my book, however is, that Jake never aged, never grew up, and never faded either. He remains among the greatest Indians I am blessed to have known as a journalist. None of the country's fund houses admit to be doing any dividend stripping, they've each told the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi). On Wednesday, the regulator had asked fund houses to confirm by Thursday if they were. The term refers to the practice of using dividends declared by a scheme to lower one's tax liability. Investors, then, essentially pocket the dividend and show a reduction in the net asset value (NAV) as a capital loss, to be adjusted against capital gains from any other investment. "Nobody has gone into the past, since the regulators e-mail does not specifically ask for past violations but only the current status, said a fund official. A few had been guilty of doing this in recent months, said sector officials. From October to December, about Rs 6,000 crore are estimated to have been collected in dividend stripping schemes, they said. Experts say what Sebi just did is futile, unless it examines the allegations and appoints auditors to inspect the schemes or fund houses that are held to have done this. It is difficult to ascertain if prior information about dividend payout has been leaked to investors but any wrongdoing can be established, based on a spike in inflows prior to the record date, a high dividend yield and outflows immediately after the dividend payout, said another fund official. By current norms, investors can claim a notional loss caused by a dividend payment if the units are bought three months before the record date or are held for at least nine months after the dividend is paid. In the past, Amfi (association of Mutual Funds in India) has warned a few fund houses but AMCs (asset management companies) have not taken the warning seriously, said the first official quoted earlier. The practice is held to have gained momentum after Amfi asked fund houses last May to stop offering a bonus option as part of their schemes, and stop taking money into such plans from immediate effect. This is supposed to have halted the practice. The personal website of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has got a new look as it has been upgraded with slick design, user-friendly navigation and engaging content. The upgraded website narendramodi.in has the latest details on governance initiatives and development schemes of the government. Modi tweeted: My website has an all-new look and remains a repository of information that would interest you. Check it out. He said, The website is also very mobile friendly, so you can browse the site on your mobiles on the go. The website has several write-ups on popular schemes like Clean Ganga, Swachh Bharat and Make in India. In addition, information on Modis work as chief minister of Gujarat and his governance initiatives can also be found easily. The website continues to have features like news updates, Modis biography, his profile, pictures, videos and audio of the radio programme Mann Ki Baat. Fresh in content and attractive in design, the website will surely bring the Prime Minister closer to the netizens, a release from the Press Information Bureau stated. It said Modis firm belief in technology has been seen time and again minutes after he read the oath of office on May 26, 2014, the Prime Ministers official website got a fresh look with a personalised message from him. His own personal website, narendramodi.in underwent a total transformation on May 16, 2014, when the election results were declared. Similar updates of the website happened in 2013 and 2012 as well. Recently, the Narendra Modi Mobile App was launched. The app particularly sought to tap into the mobile using youngsters. Modi has time and again urged the youth to share ideas on his app, the last one being for the National Youth Festival in Chhattisgarh, the PIB release said. Modis popularity on social media is at record high. His (personal) Twitter profile @narendramodi has almost 17.3 million followers and his Facebook page has 31 million likes, the release said. Recently, Facebook page of the PMO crossed the 10 million mark. On Twitter (@PMOIndia), the number of followers stands at 9.4 million. He is also active on Instragram where recently the number of his followers crossed one million. He has also invigorated other government departments with technology. The MyGov platform remains a popular platform to share inputs and ideas on matters of policy and governance, the PIB release said. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Friday exhorted party workers to forget groupism and work unitedly to win the crucial election to the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). He asked party workers to put in extra efforts to strengthen the organisation to unseat the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alliance, which has been ruling the BMC for the past 25 years. Polls to the Indian's richest civic body are slated for 2017. Taking note of the intra-party rivalary despite Congress drubbing in the Lok Sabha and state Assembly elections held in 2014, Rahul said a show of unity will help the party grow in the metropolis and help win the Mayoral post in the civic body. He was addressing workers at Malad in north Mumbai on Friday. Rahuls advice came close on the heels of noisy scenes at a party meeting held two days ago to discuss the programmes during his visit with slogan-shouting by rival factions. His visit also comes soon after the partys central leadership had sought an explanation from Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam over two articles in a party journal criticising Jawaharlal Nehru and terming Sonia Gandhi's father a fascist soldier. The disciplinary action committee of the party, headed by senior leader A K Antony, had also issued a show-cause notice to Nirupam. Taking a dig at the BJP-led government for its announcement to provide Rs 100 crore to make Mumbai a smart city, Rahul said these are mere slogans with no action on the ground. He criticised the Centre for neglecting the poor and the farmers. He targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Swachh Bharat campaign saying Mumbai would not become clean through such campaigns or the Prime Ministers speeches alone. Why is Mumbai not clean even though the BJP is in power both at the Centre and in Maharashtra? he asked. Two hardcore insurgents of outlawed NSCN(K) were today held in Senapati district of Manipur. The militants - identified as self-styled Lt Lamang Kipgen (36) of Lilen village of Nagaland's Paren district and Seminlal Kipgen (23) of Langjol village of Senapati district - were held along with one 9 mm pistol and 5 rounds of ammunition from Daili village, a defence press release said. On questioning, Kipgen confessed that he was a top leader of NSCN (K) and had joined the outfit in 1996, the release said. He was trained by the outfit and involved in recruiting cadres, it added. With the rise in activities of militant group in the District, the security forces are keeping a tight vigil in Kangpokpi, Kanglatombi, Saparmeina, Imphal Tamenglong road, junction, Sipijang and Leikop areas. Two Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli forces during protests along the border with Gaza today, the Palestinian enclave's health ministry said, following a three-month spike in violence. Mohammed Abu Zaida, 18, was shot in the neck and Mohammad Qita, 26, was hit in the stomach, ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said. Fifteen other Palestinians were wounded by Israeli fire during the clashes east of the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, he said. The Israeli army confirmed it had fired on protesters after they breached the "buffer zone" along the border. "Dozens of rioters have breached the buffer zone and are attempting to damage the fence," a spokeswoman said. "Forces shot rioters posing a threat of infiltration and the riot is ongoing." Israel and the Palestinian territories have seen a wave of violence in recent months, with 23 Israelis and 154 Palestinians killed since October 1. Most of the Palestinians have been killed carrying out attacks, while others were shot by Israeli forces during protests and clashes. An American and an Eritrean have also died in the violence. Fridays are known as a day of protest across the Palestinian territories. The husband of an Aam Aadmi Party MLA was today arrested in connection with an incident in which a central government official was allegedly obstructed from discharging his duty and also assualted in a south Delhi area, police said. On December 15, Delhi Police had registered a case based on a complaint by a CPWD official alleging that he was beaten up by several women at the behest of R K Puram legislator Parmila Tokas's husband, Dheeraj, and other party workers during an illegal slum removal drive in R K Puram Sector 12, a police official said. After receiving the complaint, the police had registered an FIR under sections 186 (obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions), 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty) and 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) of the IPC at the R K Puram Police Station, the police official said. The complaint attached with the FIR also alleged that the MLA had "instigated" the assault. Dheeraj was arrested after he failed to respond to notices sent by the police asking him to join the investigation into the case, the official said, adding Tokas has been sent a notice too and legal action is likely to be taken against her if she doesn't cooperate. Tokas could not be reached out for comments even after several attempts. Egyptian authorities are rounding up activists two weeks before the fifth anniversary of the January 25 uprising which led to the ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak. According to lawyer Mukhtar Munair, three activists including prominent physician Taher Mokhtar were detained after police raided their apartment in downtown Cairo yesterday. Omar Hazek, a poet, was briefly detained and banned from leaving the country, a relative said in a Facebook posting. The managing editor of a privately owned site called Masr al-Arabia was also detained after security forces raided their office today, according to a statement from the site. Egypt has launched an extensive crackdown on Islamists and secular activists alike since the 2013 military ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. An Afghan diplomat's house here was attacked today by two unknown motorcycle-borne militants in Pakistan's restive northwest province. The house of Humayun Yousafzai, a diplomat with the Afghan consulate, was attacked by two armed motorcyclists in posh University Town of Peshawar district in Khyber Pakthunkhwa. Initial investigation found a sub-machine gun was used to fire at the house and 29 bullet casings have been recovered from the site of the attack, he said. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack. Meanwhile in a separate incident, at least four dead bodies were recovered from a house in Peshawar today. According to police, the dead bodies with severed heads were recovered from a house in Paharipura area of Peshawar. The dead bodies include a mother, her two daughters and a son. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav today shot off a letter to Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu urging him to speed up the construction work of railway overbridges (ROBs) in the state. The Chief Minister, in his letter, requested that a section of the overbridges of northern, north-central and north-eastern railways in the state, which has to be constructed by the Railways should be expedited, an official release issued here said. Referring to an earlier letter written by him on May 11, 2015, the CM said that the pace of construction work of overbridges slated for completion in financial year 2015-2016, is slow and at some places the shifting of high tension wireline has not been carried out by the Railways, it added. Bollywood star Akshay Kumar says he got emotional while shooting for his upcoming film "Airlift", which is about the real story of evacuation of Kuwait-based Indians during the Iraq-Kuwait war in 1990. "This did happen to me. I got a little bit choked once. I think this will happen to anyone, who cares for the people and country because the film is about someone who cared for his country and sacrificed a lot. I think when the people will watch it they will also feel it," Akshay, told reporters last here night while promoting the film. On the film, which releases January 22, he said war is just the backdrop. "It's not a war film and it's not about destruction. It is just the story of how people were rescued from that war zone," Akshay said adding that the real-life hero had gone unnoticed. "He had gone unnoticed. Not many people know about him. Hope he will get recognition with this film," the actor said. The biggest heroes according to him were the pilots of Air India who had the guts to fly in a warzone to rescue people. "Hats off to the pilots who went there," the actor said. On his choice of action films, he said he wants to keep testing his abilities and will soon come up with "Houseful 3", a slapstick comedy. When quizzed about whether his films like "Baby" and "Holiday" have disturbed people from other nations he said, "I don't nation-bashing films. I hate it". In a first for a Punjab city, city administration has launched a programme to disseminate information to beneficiaries before the due date of immunisation to newborns in order to ensure 100 per cent vaccination among infants. Under the programme, an SMS alert and audio clip will be sent to the parents/guardians day before the due date of immunisation, Deputy Commissioner Ravi Bhagat said today. He said Amritsar has become the first district in the state to send prior information direct to beneficiaries so they could not forget the date of vaccination to their wards. The alert has been made especially in Punjabi language and it will also provide information regarding the nearest primary health centers for the facilitation of beneficiaries, Bhagat said. He added that 'i-Sehat' has been developed to ensure timely and complete immunisation of the child to provide total protection against diseases. A Bangladeshi national was today arrested here after he allegedly attempted to get a passport made using fake documents, police said. On interrogation it was found that the accused, Abdul Manan, had come from Kolkata and was a native of Naogaon district of Bangladesh. He was sent here by an agent based in Nawada to get a passport made from fake documents, Senior Superintendent of Police Manu Maharaj said. A fake bank passbook and an 'Aadhar' card issued in his name at Nawada was recovered from his possession, he added. His mobile phone contained photographs of several important places and institutions of Patna. Police is investigating the reason for keeping these photographs, Maharaj added. In the wake of recent Pathankot terror attack security has been beefed up around the state by Bihar Police, he added. Bennett University, a Times Group initiative, and edX, the non-profit online learning platform founded by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), today signed a collaborative agreement to provide online courses to its students. "We are delighted to announce this collaboration with edX and are confident that their expertise and global reach will greatly benefit Bennett University students," Bennett, Coleman & Co Managing Director and Chancellor of Bennett University Vineet Jain told reporters here. "This is a milestone in the Indian education forum and I firmly believe the association with edX will assist graduating students to be industry ready from day one," Jain said. The campus of Bennett University will be launched in July this year in Greater Noida. It will be supported by research-driven faculty, global academic partnerships and a well-rounded industry-centric curriculum. The varsity will prepare students to compete and prosper in a rapidly-transforming world. The university will initially offer a B. Tech in Engineering (with specialisations in Computer Science Engineering, Electronics & Communications and Mechanical Engineering), and an MBA. Over the next few years, it will expand to a comprehensive offering of undergraduate, post-graduate and PhD programs across engineering, management, media, law, design, architecture, liberal arts and applied sciences. Both edX and Bennett University will work to develop a mutually-agreeable plan for offering massive open online courses (MOOCs) to students as part of a blended curriculum. Anant Agarwal, CEO - edX and MIT Professor said, "At edX we are committed to offering high quality education around the world and India is an important and growing market for us. We are delighted with this synergetic association with Bennett University. We are certain that with the lineage of the Times Group, Bennett University will be instrumental in extending learning opportunities to learners who lack access to education and high quality resources." Signing the agreement, Vineet Jain and Anant Agarwal emphasised the growing need for innovative and international education standards in the country. The commercial tax department of Bihar has signed an agreement with the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) for sharing of foreign exchange realisation data. The sharing of this data, which is also called as eBRC (Electronic Bank Realisation Certificate) data, makes it easy for exporters to claim tax refunds like VAT from states. "BRC can be used by state government departments for ensuring refund of VAT to eligible exporters," the Commerce Ministry said in a statement. So far, commercial tax departments of 13 states including including Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Haryana have signed agreement with DGFT for receiving e-BRC data for VAT refund purposes. The statement further said that so far 100 banks operating in India, including foreign banks and cooperative banks have uploaded more than 1.5 crore e-BRCs on to the DGFT server. The eBRC project created an integrated platform for receipt, processing and subsequent use of all bank realisation related information by exporters, banks, central and state government departments. Earlier, the banks issued physical copy of BRC to exporters and no data mining or analysis was possible, it said. "The exporters suffered most as they had to run to banks and government departments for claiming benefits," it added. In addition, Ministry of Finance, Enforcement Directorate and Agricultural & Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) have also signed agreements with DGFT for receiving e-BRC data. BJP today asked Congress and Manpreet Singh Badal, who merged his outfit, Peoples Party of Punjab, with Congress, to clear their stand on subsidies as he had parted ways with Akali Dal over the issue. BJP National Secretary Tarun Chugh said that as Manpreet, the estranged nephew of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, had parted ways on the issue of discontinuation of subsidies to farmers, traders and industrialists, both he and Congress need to spell out their thoughts on it. "Has Congress changed its stand regarding subsidies to farmers and other classes in the state or has Manpreet forgotten his stand and policy just for his political survival," Chugh asked. The BJP leader said it was the height of frustration and opportunism that Manpreet took a decision to join Congress which he had been abusing from the start of his political career. Dubbing Manpreet as an "expired injection", Chugh said he has established himself as a leader rejected by not only the people of the state but also by the leaders of the party he floated. He said the defeats Manpreet suffered in 2012 Assembly elections and 2014 Parliamentary elections made him take a U-turn which he could not get approved from the few leaders left under his command and a small group of followers. Chugh said that Manpreet Badal will have to tell people how and why he opted to join a party he had been terming "enemy of Punjab". Ridiculing the merger, Chugh said the question being asked in political circles now is who out of Congress or PPP was trying to save whom. He said one is a sinking ship and the other was a boat which finally sank today. Chugh reminded Manpreet of the oath he took at Khatkar Kalan wherein he had pledged to fight Congress tooth and nail to protect the interests of Punjab. Chugh said, "It was not long ago when you misled the people of Punjab in the name of Bhagat Singh but have now joined hands with the proven corrupt and scandalous party. It tells a lot about you, your character, political ideology, if any, and also goes on to prove that you were raising the bogey of honesty and patriotism just for political gains. Delhi BJP today announced that presidents of its 130 Mandal (ward) units have been elected unanimously. The main round of organisational elections was completed today. Election of rest of Mandal presidents will be completed in the next few days, said Delhi BJP's organisational election officer Subhash Sachdeva. "Under the membership campaign of Delhi BJP, 25 lakh new members were enrolled. The task of systematic enlisting, formation of committees and verification of active members was completed honestly," he said. The presidents of district units are also expected to be picked soon, once the ward level elections are completed. There are a total of 280 ward (Mandal) units of the party in Delhi. The race for post of Delhi unit president of the party has also gained momentum with several names doing the rounds. One of the possibilities include present Delhi BJP president Satish Upadhyay being given a go ahead by national leaders for another term, party sources said. A Yemeni government spokesman says a blast hit pipelines connecting oil storage tanks with the refinery in the city of Aden, causing a huge fire. Naser Shayef, spokesman for the nation's refineries administration, told The Associated Press that the explosion took place at 1:00 am and sent thick smoke billowing over the city. Fire fighters put the fire out two hours later and only two oil pipelines were sabotaged, he said. No group claimed responsibility for the attack. This is the first time pipelines have come under attack since July when southern fighters backed by a Saudi-led coalition secured Aden and repelled Shiite rebels and forces loyal to an ousted president. Since then, the city has witnessed a series of militants' attacks, mostly claimed by the local Islamic State affiliate. Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamists have killed nearly 1,200 people in neighbouring Cameroon's far north since 2013, the communications minister in Yaounde said today. Issa Tchiroma Bakary told reporters that the group had staged 315 raids in the border region during this period and carried out 32 suicide bombings. "In total, 1,098 civilians, 67 of our soldiers and three police officials have been killed in these barbaric attacks by the Boko Haram terrorist group," Bakary said. Since July last year, Cameroon's far north has been hit by a series of attacks blamed on Boko Haram, which has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group. This year, the number of attacks in the region has increased to a near daily basis with simultaneous incursions in some areas. "In the face of such unjustified and gratuitous harrassment our defence and security forces have inflicted heavy losses on the enemy," he said, adding that the group had been so weakened that it was now taking recourse to bomb attacks, often staged by women or girls. Since late November, the Cameroon army has carried out operations in several border areas aimed at weakening Nigerian jihadists active in the region. Boko Haram in the past year stepped up cross-border attacks in Niger, Chad and Cameroon while continuing shooting and suicide assaults on markets, mosques and other mostly civilian targets within Nigeria itself. The group has increasingly targeted imams and traditional chiefs for their opposition to the Islamists. Cameroon has meanwhile banned the Islamic veil in a bid to pre-empt suicide bombings staged by attackers wearing the full-face veil. Boko Haram's six-year campaign for a hardline Islamic state in northeast Nigeria has killed at least 17,000 people and made more than 2.6 million others homeless. Despite the offensives launched by regional forces, the group maintains strongholds in areas that are difficult to access, such as the Sambisa forest, the Mandara mountains and the numerous islands of Lake Chad. Five members of Bosnia's special police have been arrested on suspicion of stealing 300,000 euros (USD 329,000) from an armoured car, a minister said today. Investigators identified the alleged perpetrators after they were alerted by their colleagues, said Dragan Lukak, interior minister of Bosnia's Serb-run entity. "The first clues came from the special police unit itself where the suspects' strange behaviour was noticed," he told reporters. The unit is tasked with handling terrorism and organised crime. The armoured car was attacked four months ago on a highway in the north of the country as it headed towards the Croatian capital Zagreb. It was transporting some 600,000 Bosnian marks (300,000 euros) belonging to a subsidiary of UniCredit, Italy's top bank. A total of seven people have been arrested so far, including an employee of a security firm who likely informed the attackers of the vehicle's movements, local RTRS radio reported. A British mother who is accused of taking her 14-month-old baby to Syria to join the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist group has gone on trial in the UK. Tareena Shakil, 26, told her family she was leaving for a holiday in Turkey in October 2014 but instead travelled to the city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of ISIS in northern Syria, Birmingham Crown Court was told this week. She is believed to be the first British woman to return from the ISIS heartland to face terror charges. "Although she booked a return flight, she was not going to come back, and this was no spur-of-the-moment decision," prosecutor Sean Larkin told the jury. "She was given a house to live in. She was provided for. She was given access to firearms, and there were images of her child wearing clothing with the ISIS logo and posing by a firearm," he said. Shakil was arrested by British police at Heathrow airport in February last year after arriving on a flight from Turkey. She told officers she was kidnapped and taken to Syria but had managed to escape. The prosecution believes that was a lie. In a message to her father, who was back in the UK, she allegedly wrote: "I can leave, but I don't want (to). I want to die here as a martyr." She also allegedly told her family: "If you don't love ISIS I don't want to talk to you anymore." Her defence lawyer, Timothy Moloney, told the court: "Her marriage had ultimately broken down and she accessed websites about life in Syria. The issue is whether she intended to encourage terrorist acts or was reckless. Her case is that she did not and was not reckless. "The second issue is whether she became a member of ISIS and her case is that she did not." Shakil's trial is expected to last three weeks. CBI has arrested three Nigerian nationals for allegedly conning a woman of Rs 18.2 lakh by luring her with purported gold ornaments. Oguama Malachie alias Michael, Ikechukua Okorie alias Nito and Tochu Kwi alias Steve were arrested from Jawahar Park area here, CBI sources said. It is alleged that they developed friendship with the woman over Facebook and other social networking sites, they said. After convincing her with their genuineness over the period, the trio called the woman claiming that they had brought valuable gold ornaments for her which have got stuck with the customs officials. The sources said they told her that they have lot of money but for the moment she can help them by depositing cash in a bank account provided by them. They said the woman was convinced about their wealth over the period so she went ahead and deposited the amount which was siphoned off within hours. The agency, after getting the complaint, investigated the case and carried out searches during which it recovered the mobile sets which were allegedly used to make phone calls to the woman, they said. It also recovered laptops and two passports which carry apparently fake Indian visas stamped on them, they said. The sources said prima facie the visas look fake but a thorough investigation will reveal whether these are forged or genuine. Fair trade regulator CCI today rejected a complaint of anti-competitive practices made against the country's largest car manufacturer, Maruti Suzuki. It was alleged that Maruti Suzuki abused its dominant market position by imposing unfair conditions for transporting its vehicles through car carrier trucks (CCTs). As per the complaint, the company produces half the country's cars and uses 50 per cent of CCTs in the country. For the case, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) considered 'market for transportation of light vehicles in India through CCTs' as the relevant market. Citing CMIE data, the watchdog said the company had a market share of about 40 per cent with a production of 13.08 lakh cars in 2014-15. The share comes down further if the transport of other new light vehicles through CCTs is considered. It slips further if the transport of old light vehicles is considered, CCI said. "Therefore, OP (Maruti Suzuki) does not appear to be a dominant consumer in the relevant market. In the absence of dominance of the opposite party, its conduct need not be examined under the provisions of the Section 4 of the Act," the Commission said in a recent order. Section 4 of the Competition Act pertains to abuse of dominant market position. According to CCI, the company may need services of CCTs of a particular description in the sense that CCT uses a particular type of VTS (Vehicle Tracking System). In comparison to the charges of CCTs, the subscription charge for VTS is insignificant, the commission said, adding that therefore, the act of securing interests through use of a particular type of VTS cannot be considered anti-competitive. It was also alleged by the complainant that the company manufactures and sells more cars in the National Capital Region (NCR) than other states. Asserting that China is ripping US on trade, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has pledged to tax Chinese goods if Beijing does not stop engaging in practices like devaluing its currency. "I'm totally open to a tariff. If they don't treat us fairly, hey, their whole trade is tariffed. You can't deal in China without tariffs. They do it to us, we don't it. It's not fair trade," Trump said appearing in the first Republican presidential debate of the year. China, he argued, is ripping US on trade. "They're devaluing their currency and they're killing our companies. We've lost anywhere between four and seven million jobs because of China. What I said then was, "we have very unfair trade with China. We're going to have a trade deficit of 505 billion dollars this year with China." "A lot of that is because they devalue their currency," Trump said. "What I'm saying is this, I'm saying that we do it but if they don't start treating us fairly and stop devaluing and let their currency rise so that our companies can compete and we don't lose all of these millions of jobs that we're losing, I would certainly start taxing goods that come in from China. Who the hell has to lose 505 billion dollars a year?" Trump said. However, two of his rivals - Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush -- questioned the merit of such a decision arguing that this would end up taxing the American consumers itself. "China doesn't pay the tariff, the buyer pays the tariff. If you send a tie or a shirt made in China into the United States and an American goes to buy it at the store and there's a tariff on it, it gets passed on in the price to price to the consumer," Rubio said responding to Trump's plan. "So the better approach, the best thing we can do to protect ourselves against China economically is to make our economy stronger," he added. Bush said there would be retaliation from China on such a move from the US. China should be careful not to step into "minefields" between India and Nepal, an article in the Chinese media said today, underlining that though it is necessary to provide aid to Kathmandu, it should not be at the cost of Beijing's interests. "Facing Nepal-India rows, China should be aware that the (India-Nepal) disputes cannot be resolved immediately. As a responsible country, Beijing ought to help address the issue in accordance with its own capacities," the article in the state-run Global Times said, referring to the row over Lipu-Lekh Pass and Nepal's new Constitution. It said that China is supposed to play a role as a mediator between Nepal and India. "On the one hand, it is necessary to provide temporary aid to Nepal. Beijing is now transporting oil to its southern neighbour to ease Kathmandu's fuel shortage. On the other, it is of great importance for China to safeguard its own interests. The aid should not be at the sacrifice of Beijing's interests," it said. "In addition, China ought to be careful not to step into the minefields between Nepal and India. Maintaining a neutral stance is of significance for Beijing," it said. The article said that the "dispute over the Lipu-Lekh Pass have been simmering for years between Kathmandu and New Delhi." "The mention of the pass in the China-India joint statement has triggered Nepalese protests. Therefore, Beijing ought to be extremely careful not to unconsciously touch on sensitive issues between Kathmandu and New Delhi," it said. Nepal's Parliament had raised serious objection over an agreement between India and China to boost border trade at Qiangla/Lipu-Lekh Pass, close to an area which Nepal claims to be part of its territory and had asked both countries to correct their pact immediately. During Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Beijing, China and India agreed to hold negotiations on augmenting the list of traded commodities, and expand border trade at the Lipu-Lekh Pass in the joint communique. On Nepal's announcement that Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli will travel to New Delhi next month on his first official foreign visit, the daily said, "Driven by vanity, the Indian government cares a lot about Oli's choice to pay a first visit to New Delhi instead of China...India expects the visiting order to reflect its dominant status in South Asia." It said that the Nepalese government was not serious when suggesting earlier that Oli may visit China ahead of India. "Kathmandu was just sounding out New Delhi's attitude. As Nepalese prime ministers have traditionally chosen India as their first destination for state visits, Nepal was attempting to find some leeway in the negotiation with India over the ongoing blockade triggered by the adoption of the Nepalese constitution, which India feels does not protect the rights of the Madhesi, an Indian-backed lowlands minority," it said. The article also said that China can absorb Nepal into some Beijing-led regional organisations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation by granting observer status. "The regional organisations will serve as a platform for Kathmandu to resolve bilateral and multilateral problems. By joining regional institutions, Nepal will find it easier to come up with a solution to strike a balance between China and India. Beijing, as a close friend of Kathmandu, has a responsibility to help its southern neighbour," it said. The second most senior official in China's populous Sichuan province is suspected of corruption, an official said Friday, the latest implicated in a high-profile anti-graft campaign. Provincial governor Wei Hong is suspected of "severe disciplinary violations", generally a euphemism for corruption, anti-graft official Wu Yuliang said, and was "reflecting on his mistakes". The allegation comes as part of a high-profile crackdown on corruption led by President Xi Jinping that has deposed several senior officials, notably former security chief Zhou Yongkang. One of Zhou's power bases was Sichuan, in China's southwest with a population of some 80 million. A number of senior officials there have been investigated in recent years. Official allegations of graft against high-level politicians are generally followed by an internal probe by China's Communist party, and sometimes lead to criminal proceedings almost guaranteed to end in conviction. With corruption widespread in China, critics say there is a lack of transparency around Xi's campaign and it has been used for political infighting. Wu, a vice chief of the ruling party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, said that such "twisted" views came from "a biased and wrong perspective", according to a press conference transcript. But he revealed that only a small minority of officials found guilty of graft and other offences by the party end up prosecuted in criminal courts. Just 14,000 party members faced legal proceedings as a result of discipline violations last year, he said, while 336,000 were punished internally. He added that China was "in contact" with the United States over Ling Wancheng, the brother of Ling Jihua, a former chief of staff to Chinese president Hu Jintao. Ling Wancheng reportedly fled to the United States when his brother became a target of the anti-corruption campaign. A Chinese court has sentenced a man to 13 years in jail for raping and harassing his 22-year-old stepdaughter multiple times over 10 years. The girl committed suicide in her home in Wujiang district of Suzhou in May 2015. The police found five suicide notes, including one claiming that her stepfather had been raping and harassing her for years, state-run Xinhua agency reported today. The stepfather, surnamed Zhang, was arrested and confessed to have raped the girl since 2003. Zhang was also deprived of his political rights for two years. Majority of Chinese would like to move India away along with Japan and a host of other neighbouring countries with whom Beijing has territorial disputes and would prefer Pakistan and Nepal as neighbours, if given a chance to 'play God' to redraw China's map. A total of 13,196 people wanted to "move away" Japan, the highest number of votes polled in a survey seeking their views to select neighbours, if they can 'Play God' and rearrange the countries at China's borders. More than 200,000 Internet users took part in the survey conducted by the Chinese edition of the state-run tabloid Global Times known for its nationalistic postures. Other countries that were "moved away" include the Philippines (11,671), Vietnam (11,620), North Korea (11,024), India (10,416), Afghanistan (8,506), and Indonesia (8,167), the results published in the daily today said. While historical disputes including the second world war atrocities by Japanese forces may have weighed in Chinese people's minds to move Japan away, the border dispute and "protection" to Dalai Lama and his associates whom China regards as separatists led to adverse view of India, Chinese analysts said. "China and India have disputes over 120,000 square kms of land and the two have not signed treaty to settle the border disputes," Sun Lizhou, deputy director of the Academy of the World and China Agendas, Southwest University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times. India-China have a disputed border stretching up to 3448 kms. China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of Southern Tibet. The recent initiatives by India and China to improve relations had little effect on Chinese perceptions. Unsurprisingly majority wants Pakistan often referred as all-weather ally by Chinese leaders and media to remain as a neighbour. "Net users used their votes to show the bond shared by China and Pakistan, with 11,831 people wanting the country to 'stay as a neighbour'," the report said. Considering the fast developing ties with Nepal, the Chinese wants it too to remain as a neighbour. The news paper gave 36 countries to choose from as options for "new neighbours". Sweden earned 9,776 votes, accounting for 5.8%. And the other six countries that netizens would most like to be closer are New Zealand, Germany, the Maldives, Singapore, Norway and Thailand. While preferring to move away Japan, ironically, Japan actually fits many of the criteria netizens said were desirable in a neighbour, such as being the fourth largest trade partner of China in addition to its wealth and stability, Sun said. Net users choose to "move away Japan" because the Japanese government has not apologised over historical issues and the dispute over the disputed islands has soured China-Japan relations, Sun said. Delhiites can get a glimpse of some exclusive handicraft items and cuisine this weekend as part of a special fair being held by paramilitary CISF here. The force is hosting a three-day 'mela' bringing together household and other items at one location from various parts of the country. The fair, called 'Navrang', was inaugurated by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh's wife Savitri Singh and will continue till January 17 at the forces' camp in south Delhi's Saket area. Gunita Singh, President of the Wives Welfare Association of the force and wife of Central Industrial Security Force chief Surender Singh, said the proceeds from the sale of this fair will be used for troops' welfare. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today held a meeting with all the three municipal commissioners of Delhi and reviewed the financial condition of the civic bodies. As per the minutes of the meeting, all corporations except the South Delhi Municipal Corporation are in deficit, and are not prima facie eligible to get the Municipal Reform Fund (MRF). Government gives MRF as an incentive to civic bodies due to improvement in their financial position. In the meeting, Kejriwal was informed by the commissioners that they have not received any funds under the MRF head for the last two years. Government clarified that 100 per cent of funds have been released to both North Corporation (NDMC) and East Corporation (EDMC) while 80 per cent of funds has been released to SDMC and the remaining amount will be given to it by January 18. "In case of education sector under plan (head), about 75 per cent of the budgeted amount has already been released to NDMC and EDMC and in case of South Delhi Municipal Corporation, about 53 per cent of the budgeted amount has been released up to December 2015," the meeting's minutes said. The chief minister has suggested that the remaining fund under education and health sector may be released to all three municipal corporations. "It was also pointed out in the meeting that about Rs 295 crore are available as an unspent balance of previous year under education and health sectors with all three corporations. "In case of Urban Development Sector, about 59 per cent of the budgeted amount has been released to all three corporations and the remaining funds will be released in this month," an official said. The Bombay High Court today issued notices to municipal commissioners of 10 districts in Maharashtra as to why contempt action should not be taken against them for failing to file compliance reports showing steps taken to ensure no illegal hoardings and banners are put up on Republic Day. A division bench of justices A S Oka and C V Bhadang issued the show cause notices to the municipal commissioners of Pune, Navi Mumbai, Kolhapur, Solapur, Malegaon, Akola, Nanded, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Bhiwandi and directed them to file their reply affidavits by February 18. The bench was hearing two public interest litigations alleging that political parties, in total disregard to the rules and laws, had put up illegal hoardings and banners all over the state thereby defacing private and public properties in the towns and cities. The court had on several occasions directed the civic bodies and councils to ensure that no hoardings and banners are put up without prior and requisite permission. It had, during the last hearing, asked all municipal corporations and councils to file compliance report on what steps they had taken to ensure that no such hoardings are put up prior to and on Republic Day. The bench was today informed that apart from the civic bodies in Mumbai, Nashik, Thane and Pimpri-Chinchwad no other corporation filed the report. The bench had earlier also issued contempt notice to some political parties for putting up hoardings despite tendering an apology and assuring the court that no illegal hoarding will be put up. Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's lawyer Anil Sakhare said the police should provide more protection to the civic body's squads which remove illegal hoardings. The HC had, on November 26 last year, asked the municipal bodies across Maharashtra to take up a special drive against illegal hoardings, posters and banners. On September 16, 2016, the court again ordered a month-long drive against illegal hoardings. This period ended today, so the bench ordered that the drive should continue until the final order was passed. The BMC said in an affidavit today that it had removed 12,486 banners in the city recently, lodged 2,855 police complaints, and police had registered FIRs in 138 cases. BMC had launched prosecution in 920 cases, and also set up a toll-free number where citizens can complain about illegal hoardings, it said. The High Court had earlier warned the political parties of action for contempt of court after it was informed that despite tendering apology and giving undertakings to the court, workers of BJP, MNS and NCP were found to have put up illegal hoardings at several places in the city. A senior RSS leader today said India should develop southeast Asia sea zone as a "friendly zone" keeping in view possible threat perception and demanded a change in names of some Andaman and Nicobar islands, which are named after "atrocious" British officers. "India doesn't face threat in Arabian Sea. But in Bay of Bengal, there are powerful countries which are always up to something...Like China and US which have installations in this region. "Hence, we have demanded that Andaman and Nicobar Islands be considered as a sensitive zone from security point of view and safeguard it and India should strive to develop the southeast Asia sea zone as a friendly zone," Indresh Kumar said. Kumar made the remarks during a briefing organised by Forum for Awareness of National Security (FANS) here. Naming Port Blair and Viper islands, he said that between 18 to 20 islands in Andaman and Nicobar are christened after British officers "who had unleashed immense atrocities" on Indians and therefore, their names should be done away with. "It is not a tribute to name the island after those who inflicted immense atrocities on our ancestors. Hence, these names should go. We have asked the administration to figure out what were the old names of islands and then the movement can be taken forward," the leader said. Kumar also insisted Cellular and Viper jails in the islands, used by Britishers to exile political prisoners, be converted into memorials to teach people what is "nationalism and patriotism". On border security issues, Kumar said the government must ensure that no human trafficking, drugs or fake currency is allowed in the region and made a pitch for setting up a commission to develop border areas. He also criticised the policy apparently followed by former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru that "if you won't fight with anyone, no one will fight with you" saying it "doesn't survive in the world". While pursuing the policy, border areas were kept underdeveloped so that intruders would find it inconvenient to make inroads, Kumar added. "The strategy was changed a bit after attack from China. The present government has given more momentum to the change. There is need to provide facilities like education, healthcare, roads, water, electricity. A commission needs to be formed to safeguard and develop our borders," he said. Kumar said the forum has already submitted a memorandum to Centre in this regard and added that it will also approach border state governments over the issue. He also batted for a "conflict-free" construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya and asked Muslims to find out about their ancestors. "Muslims of this country are not related to Babur, but Hassan Khan Mewati, Bahadur Shah Zafar and others. Muslims are related to swadeshis, not videshis. If they think on this line, the amicable solution will be there. The temple will come up without conflict," he said. He also condemned Malda violence and appealed to people to pressurise West Bengal government to ensure that law and order prevails in the state. On terror activities emanating from Pakistan, he said the neighbouring country should understand that terrorism has become a threat to itself and will disintegrate that nation. "Hence, it should live peacefully," he said. Leonardo DiCaprio, who is the front-runner at this year's Oscars in the best actor category, says working in "The Revenant" was "one of the most rewarding" experiences of his life. The survivalist drama about the 19th century fur trapper Hugh Glass is leading in the nominations with 12 nods including the best director for Alejandro G Inarritu. "I am so grateful to the Academy for their recognition of this film. Making 'The Revenant' was one of the most rewarding and collaborative experiences of my life," DiCaprio, 41, said in a statement. The actor thanked Inarritu for making the film possible, which was shot in sub-zero Canadian winter. "None of this would have been possible without Alejandro's talent, vision and determination. Our dedicated crew also deserves to share in this moment. Together, they have created a truly unique cinematic experience. Congratulations to all of my fellow nominees this season," DiCaprio said. Inarritu, who won the best director Oscar last year for "The Birdman", said it meant a lot to be appreciated for the movie. "I am in London and just heard the good news! We gave it our all on this film and this appreciation from the Academy means a lot to me and my colleagues who made it possible. Champagne and Mezcal will run tonight!," said the director ahead of its premiere here. Fox Star Studios is releasing "The Revenant" in India on January 26. The government's UDAY scheme for power distribution companies is expected to have a positive impact on the domestic electrical industry, which is facing muted demand, according to IEEMA. "UDAY is last hope to bring discoms in right shape. This will have a positive impact on the Indian electricals industry," Indian Electrical and Electronics Association (IEEMA) member Harish Agarwal said. The domestic electricals industry is pegged at USD 35 billion and IEEMA expects it to grow to USD 100 billion, he added. About 15 states have joined the Centre's electricity distribution utility (Discom) financial turnaround Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY) scheme except West Bengal. The industry will be reviving as contracts worth Rs 1 lakh crore will be signed in the next one year in the transmission and distribution sector, Skipper director Sharan Bansal said. IEEMA's eastern region committee chairman R K Shah remained optimistic about industry prospects as once health of discoms will improve due to the government scheme, the demand scenario will change. Power generation sector may take some more time to revive but government focus of T&D will see lot of investments flowing in, he said. IEEMA has also opened two new divisions -- smart grid and renewables -- and industry is working towards coming out with solutions for the new emerging opportunities. The body further said a show on electricals 'Elecrama 2016' will be held in Bengaluru between February 13 and 17. People who use electronic cigarettes, which are widely promoted and used to help smokers quit traditional cigarettes, are actually 28 per cent less likely to kick the butt, a new study has warned. Electronic cigarettes, known by a variety of names including vapour pens, are battery-powered devices that heat nicotine and flavourings to deliver an aerosol inhaled by the user. While they are promoted as a way to quit traditional cigarettes, they also are promoted as a way to get nicotine in environments where traditional cigarettes are prohibited. Researchers at the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF) reviewed 38 studies assessing the association between e-cigarette use and cigarette cessation among adult smokers. They then combined the results of the 20 studies that had control groups of smokers not using e-cigarettes in a meta-analysis that concluded that the odds of quitting smoking were 28 per cent lower in smokers who used e-cigarettes compared to those who did not. The studies included smokers who both were and were not interested in quitting, and included people as young as 15 years old. The studies included in the analysis controlled for many variables, including demographics, past attempts to quit, and level of nicotine dependence. "The irony is that quitting smoking is one of the main reasons both adults and kids use e-cigarettes, but the overall effect is less, not more, quitting," said Stanton A Glantz from UCSF. "While there is no question that a puff on an e-cigarette is less dangerous than a puff on a conventional cigarette, the most dangerous thing about e-cigarettes is that they keep people smoking conventional cigarettes," he added. The findings were published in the journal The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. Eight civilians were killed and three others injured in a series of US air strikes carried out from April to July last year against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria, the US military said today. US Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees operations in the Middle East, said the deaths came during three strikes in Syria and two in Iraq, bringing to 12 the total number of civilians the US-led coalition has acknowledged killing in the two countries in 2015. "We deeply regret the unintentional loss of life and injuries resulting from those air strikes," CENTCOM said in a statement revealing the results of their investigations. Two of the victims died April 12 near Hawijah in Iraq during a strike on an IS "tactical unit," CENTCOM said, and three others were killed in another strike near Suluk in Syria on June 11. On July 4, near the IS stronghold of Raqa in Syria, three civilians were "likely" killed during a strike against a high-value IS target. The car and motorcycle they were traveling in had crossed into the target zone after the bomb was released, CENTCOM said. Though the military used the term "likely," their statement also says that in all the strikes, "civilian casualties unfortunately did occur." Officials said they had determined that all the air strikes complied with the law of armed conflict, "and all appropriate precautions were taken." The latest announcement marks the third time since the US-led coalition started bombing IS jihadists in August 2014 that the military has acknowledged civilian casualties. In November last year, the Pentagon said four civilians had been killed in a US air strike against an IS checkpoint in Hatra in Iraq in March. The military has also acknowledged the deaths of two children in Syria in November 2014. Despite such incidents, US officials frequently boast of the accuracy of their bomb drops. As of January 10, the coalition had carried out 9,560 strikes, and the Pentagon has said more than 97 per cent of such attacks hit their proper targets. But air campaign critics claim coalition strikes are killing many more civilians than the United States has ever acknowledged. Airwars, a London-based group of independent journalists, published a report in August saying "many hundreds" of civilians had been killed. The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has asked employers to activate their employees' Universal Account Numbers (UAN) by April 1 in Madhya Pradesh. "We are not going to provide service to those employers who do not activate their staffers' UAN in Madhya Pradesh by April 1. It is the responsibility of employers to activate their employees' UAN," Regional Provident Fund Commissioner Ajay Kumar Mehra told reporters here. He said EPFO will initiate action against employers failing to comply with the directions. Nearly 16 lakh UANs have been activated in the state, but thousands of employees are failing to reap the benefits of EPFO's social security policies for want of UAN, he said. According to Mehra, around 35 lakh employees in Madhya Pradesh have provident fund accounts. In 60 per cent such accounts, provident fund contribution is coming in, while rest have become inactive. The officer said 12,000 workers engaged in construction work in Simhastha-Kumbh Mela, beginning in neighbouring Ujjain district on April 22, have been covered under the social security schemes of EPFO. Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police K Rajendra Kumar today asked the police chiefs of all the districts to ensure that the ban on the unauthorised sale of army uniform was strictly imposed. The DGP directed all district superintendents of police to strictly implement ban on unauthorised sale and use of army uniforms and combat dress in the state, an official spokesman said. Rajendra has said that anybody found involved in sale, purchase or use of army uniforms and combat dress without proper permission shall be dealt strictly under law. The DGP also asked the district SPs to strictly enforce section 144 in the areas already notified by concerned Deputy Commissioners. Top officials in Britain and the European Union say they are optimistic about striking a deal next month on reforms aimed at discouraging Britain from leaving the 28-nation bloc. EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said today that he is "quite sure" a deal will be brokered at a February 18-19 summit in Brussels. That would allow Prime Minister David Cameron to call a referendum on Britain's EU membership as soon as the summer. Cameron has promised to hold the vote by the end of 2017, and says he will argue to stay in the EU as long as he gets a new deal for Britain, including more power to curb immigration and looser ties with the Brussels-based EU. "I'm quite sure that we will have a deal, not a compromise, a solution, not a weak compromise, a permanent solution in February," Juncker said in Brussels. British Treasury chief George Osborne said the "essential pieces" of a deal were falling into place. Cameron argues the EU needs to fundamentally change the way it is run, reducing bureaucracy and handing more power to national legislatures. Other EU leaders are sympathetic to that view. Cameron's most contentious goal is to bar migrants from other EU countries from receiving some benefits until they have been in Britain for up to four years. Many other EU leaders see that as violating the fundamental principle of free movement among the bloc's member states. Juncker, who has acted as a facilitator between Britain and the other EU members, said the welfare issue would be "particularly difficult." Still, there was growing optimism on both sides of the Channel a deal could be brokered. Osborne said the Treasury was not making plans to navigate Britain's exit from the EU. He also dismissed suggestions made by London Mayor Boris Johnson, among others that a referendum vote to leave could trigger negotiations on re-entry under different terms. "There's no second vote," he told the BBC. "This is the crucial decision of our lifetimes." Britain's industry and services sector stands to lose billions in trade if the country leaves the EU. Europe would also lose if Britain departs, leaving the continent with much less diplomatic and military clout. Family of a 19-year-old youth, who was declared brain dead following a road accident, today donated his organs and ended up saving four lives. Ravidas, a resident of Paschim Vihar, was admitted yesterday to Maharaja Agrasen hospital after he met with an accident, a senior AIIMS official said. He was declared brain dead today after which the hospital authorities convinced his parents to donate their son's organs. Accordingly, the Organ Retrieval Banking Organisation (ORBO) at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) was contacted and the body of the patient was taken there, he said. A team of experts retrieved heart, liver, kidneys and cornea from the patient's body. "While the youth's heart was transplanted to a 13-year-old girl at AIIMS suffering from heart ailment, his liver was shared with the Institute of Liver and Bilary Sciences (ILBS) where it was transplanted to a 60-year-old patient suffering from liver cancer. "Of his two kidneys, one was transplanted to a 40-year-old patient at AIIMS and while was shared with Maharaja Agrasen hospital," said AIIMS Director M C Mishra. Due to fractures on the face of the deceased youth, only one cornea could be retrieved. As there was no immediate requirement anywhere, it was sent to the organ bank of AIIMS, said Dr Misra. He also said over 100 medical and para-medical staffs were involved in the process of organ transplants. The spotlight is set to shine on Agatha Christie, one of the world's best selling novelist at the second edition of the Crime Writer's Festival that begins here today. A nod to the 'Queen of Crime Writing' is being given by British research chemist Kathryn Harkup through her book "A is for Arsenic", which celebrates the use of science in Christie's novels and among the highlight of the festival. Christie used poison to kill her characters more often than any other murder method, with the poison itself being a central part of the novel. Harkup is lined up in conversation with Dom Hastings, director of Scotland's International Crime Writing Festival. The three-day event is an initiative of the Crime Writer's Forum for South Asia and co-produced by Oxford Bookstore and Siyahi is scheduled to be held at the Alliance Francaise and Oxford Bookstore here. Writers and filmmakers who work on crime and thriller fiction from across the world examine the genre writing scene in India and abroad. "While Scandanavians are renowned for their expertise on crime writing, I see that books on the genre from French and Israeli authors are gaining ground. The authors are very well known in Europe and more translations of their books into English could be a possible reason," says Mita Kapoor of Siyahi, which is co-producing the festival. Authors Namita Gokhale and Kishwar Desai are Festival Directors. Among the international participants are Liad Shoham, a lawyer and leading Israeli crime fiction author who will be in conversation with Niharika Karanjawala to talk about his realistic depictions of Israel's criminal justice. Leading French crime fiction writer Veronique Ovalde is lined up in conversation with Kishwar Desai. Bengaluru-based Swedish writer Zac O'Yeah who had participated in the innagural edition of the festival last year is also attending this year. "There were so many authors that we wanted to bring in but had to make sure that the line up was balanced to give representation to both Indian and global authors," says Kapoor. While Hindi pulp fiction great Surendra Mohan Pathak drew crowds last year, this year two other big names in Hindi crime fiction ---Amit Khan and Vivek Aggarwal have been invited. Film director Sudhir Mishra is set to launch director and writer Piyush Jha's book "Raakshas: India's No 1 serial killer." "Last year we had a session on legendary Bengali detective Byomkesh Bakshi this year we have one that looks at crime in Bollywood by Sudhir Mishra," says Kapoor Some key participants at the festival include Avirook Sen, Deepak Yadav, Jerry Pinto, Karuna Nundy, Kishwar Desai, Ravi Subramanian, Sudhir Singh etc. Organisers say the festival has gained momentum and is poised to become bigger by next year. "We have received huge demand from Mumbai to host the festival there but right now our focus is Delhi. The festival also offers an opportunity to look at society, internalise and see how we can deal with crimes be it against women, or legal or white collar crimes etc," says Kapoor. Investigation Discovery (ID) leading investigation, crime and-suspense network on television has tied up with the Festival to provide content support. "We can expect to see people dressed up as criminals and sleuths and other characters during the festival," says Kapoor A quiz on crime writing, Qrious Qrimes, will be conducted by Quizcraft Global on January 17. A package of films dealing with 'real life crime' hopes to give visitors to the festival a peek into the way in which crime-in-the-real has been fantasised by pop culture is being held today. Gulzar's "Achanak" (1973), based on the sensational 1959 Nanavati Case, William Friedkin's classic, "The French Connection (1971)" based on Robin Moore's real-life expose of drug trafficking between France and the US, "The Fifth Estate" (2013) based on the Julian Assange affair are among the films to be screened. The issue of alleged factionalism within the Mumbai unit of Congress is again in focus as party vice-president Rahul Gandhi begins his two-day visit to the city today. There were noisy scenes at a party meeting two days ago to discuss the programs during Rahul's visit with slogan-shouting by rival factions who wanted to ensure that the route of Rahul's rally covered specific areas. Some media reports claimed party legislators Naseem Khan and Aslam Shaikh came to blows, though both the leaders denied it. Before that, the Congress high command had sought an explanation from Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam over two articles in a party journal criticising Jawaharlal Nehru and terming Sonia Gandhi's father a "fascist soldier". The disciplinary action committee of AICC headed by senior leader A K Antony also issued a show-cause notice to Nirupam. Those close to Nirupam alleged that his rivals in Mumbai Congress leaked the information about the articles to the media. On arrival in Mumbai today, Rahul will be addressing a meeting of party workers in Malad and later he will inaugurate the Murli Deora Hall at the Mumbai Regional Congress Committee office in South Mumbai. On January 16, he will interact with students of a management institute in suburban Vile Parle and later participate in padyatra from Bandra Bandstand to Dharavi slum. National Fish Workers Forum today thanked the Sri Lanka government for its goodwill gesture ahead of Pongal festival to release all 104 Indian fishermen arrested by the island nation's Navy. Chairman of NFWF M Ilango said the Sri Lankan government's announcement yesterday to set free all fishermen from Tamil Nadu and Puducherry incarcerated there for allegedly poaching in their territorial waters "has come as a happy development." "The NFF thanks the Sri Lankan president and the other authorities in the country for the gesture," he said in a release here. Ilango also requested that all vessels impounded allegedly by the Sri Lankan Navy be released. The Ministry of Fisheries and Acquatic Resources had said that in view of the Thai Pongal festival, Sri Lanka would release all the Indian fishermen today. It had said the letter of recommendation for their release has been sent to the President by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. CPI(M) today said frequent cancellation and postponement of Foreign Secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan is a "dangerous trend" and the issue should never be allowed to get space for any third party but resolved bilaterally." Referring to the Foreign Secretary-level talks put on hold, CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said "frequent cancellation and postponement of talks is a dangerous trend. The issue should never be allowed to get space for any third party, but resolved bilaterally." He told reporters here that "the venue of the talks between India and Pakistan is now being shifted to foreign countries instead of holding it either here or there. India has all long been saying that the issue between the two countries should be resolved bilaterally but fixing a venue for talks on foreign soil." The National Security Advisors of both the countries had met in Bangkok in December. Yechury accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of using the Indo-Pak issue for political gains. "When there is election in Bihar, you stop dialogue and when there are no polls, the government agrees for talks. This is not acceptable. The agenda should not be political or communal, rather priority should be for the betterment of the two countries," he said. "You cannot hold talks or suspend or postpone it as per your convenience. Talks and dialogues with Pakistan should continue seeking betterment of the relationship," he said. "As far as relations with Pakistan is concerned, CPI(M) has always maintained that talks should go on," the party General Secretary said. Dubbing Modi's foreign policy as "VIP diplomacy," he said people of the two countries should be allowed to meet. A town in Germany has banned male asylum seekers from public swimming pools after complaints from women that they were being harassed by migrants. A spokesman for the local government of Bornheim said the ban on male asylum seekers above the age of 18 came after six people filed complaints "over the sexually offensive behaviour of some migrant men at the pool". The measure aimed at "making it clear to the men that the right of women in Germany is inviolable", he added. Officials have gone personally to three asylum seeker shelters near the pools to deliver of the ban and emphasise how people should behave in swimming pools, said the spokesman. The western German town would revoke the ban once it deems that the message has been drilled into the asylum seekers, he said, adding that this would be evaluated through interviews with social workers at the shelters. Authorities denied placing entire groups of people under suspicion, but said the measure was aimed at laying down clear ground rules. Public distrust of asylum seekers has grown in Germany after it emerged that hundreds of women were groped and robbed in a throng of mostly Arab and North African men during New Year's festivities in Cologne. An opinion poll for public television ARD found that 48 per cent of respondents said they were afraid of refugees, while 50 per cent said they did not feel that way. A separate poll for public broadcaster ZDF also found that seven in 10 people fear that a record influx of asylum seekers will lead to more crime, compared to 62 per cent in October. Germany took in 1.1 million asylum seekers in 2015, mostly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. The Goa government has extended the ban imposed on the entry of Pramod Muthalik, the chief of controversial right-wing outfit Sri Ram Sena, and his associates till March 16 this year to the coastal state. As per the orders issued today by District Magistrate of North Goa district, the ban on his entry is extended by another sixty days as the earlier ban expired on January 14, 2016. Muthalik and his associates are debarred from entering Goa during this period. "The ban order was reviewed. Since the report from the police department once again expressed the fear that Muthalik's and/or his members' entry might create law and order situation in the state, and hence the ban was extended," the order stated. The Goa government has banned the entry of Muthalik and his associates since 2014 fearing law and orders problems. The Goa bench of Bombay High Court had also upheld the ban imposed by the state government. Muthalik was linked with the attack on women at a pub in Mangalore in 2009. The COFEPOSA advisory board has confirmed preventive detention of eight accused in a major gold smuggling case, Customs officials said here today. Provisions of the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act (COFEPOSA) were invoked against nine accused in the Nedumbassery gold smuggling case in which about 2,000 kg of gold was smuggled through Cochin International Airport for a racket base at Muvattupuzha with the help of airport staff,including an ex-immigration officer. The Central Economic Intelligence Bureau, New Delhi has issued detention order against nine accused-- Noushad P A, Faisal P A, Salim M M, Fazil K B, Yasir Ibnu Muhammed, Syfudheen M S, Jabin K Basheer, Bibin Scaria and Shinoy Mohandas--, the officials said. Except Faisal, who is still absconding, all others were detained and imprisoned in the Central prison, Thiruvananthapuram in October last year. The COFEPOSA Advisory board, comprising three Delhi High Court judges, heard the detunes in the last week of December and confirmed detention of the eight accused, they said. Customs said it has initiated adjudication proceedings against 57 accused and showcause notice issued to all of them. The accused had allegedly smuggled around 2,000 kg gold worth hundreds of crores of rupees through the Cochin international airport in a period less than two years. The racket was busted in May last year after the Special Investigation and Intelligence Branch (SIIB) of Customs seized 13 kg gold hidden under the seats of a bus ferrying passengers from the aircraft to the terminal. Anticipating that the accused may again involve in similar illegal attempts, customs had initiated a process this July to detain some of them under COFEPOSA, which allows detention of an accused for a year without trial unless the order is quashed by a court. Over 30 persons, including several ground-handling staff at the airport who were found involved in the crime, were arrested by SIIB in the case. Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe today said his government was ready to devolve power to minority Tamils under a new Constitution and vowed to bring to justice all perpetrators of war crimes committed towards the end of the country's civil war. Wickremesinghe, in his address on the occasion of the Pongal festival in Jaffna, said more civilian lands will be freed from military control soon and the official language policy will be implemented where Sinhala and Tamil would be accorded the official language status. "We are ready to devolve power (to minority Tamils) and protect democracy," Wickremesinghe said. "The Constitutional Assembly will discuss with all, including (Tamil-dominated) provincial councils to have a new constitution. We will do that in a transparent manner," he said in a nationally televised ceremony that was attended by British Foreign Office Minister Hugo Swire. He pledged his government's commitment to address all concerns of the island's Tamil minority. Wickremesinghe's remarks came in response to the criticism by Northern Province Chief Minister C V Wigneswaran who blamed the government in his address. Wigneswaran said the Tamils remain unhappy with the slow progress of the reconciliation effort. He said more Tamil civilian lands remain under military control and the government interfered in the administration of the northern provincial council. Wigneswaran also complained about a letter sent to him in Sinhala language. Wickremesinghe, in his response, said the government keeps talking to the military about de-escalating its presence. He also pledged to recruit 500 more Tamils in the police service. On the war crimes allegations, Wickremesinghe said the government would go ahead in setting up the mechanism for investigation. "All perpetrators will be dealt with." "Who has violated (humanitarian law), it could the security forces or the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam). We will take action accordingly," the Premier said. Wickremesinghe also said that the time has now come to look at the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). "We will look at a new arrangement," he said. The Tamil rights groups have demanded the repealing of PTA as large numbers have been detained under the Act. Sri Lankan government has begun drafting a new Constitution aimed at resolving the ethnic conflict and achieving reconciliation with Tamils so that there is no repeat of the nearly three decades-long civil war which ended in 2009 and claimed 100,000 lives. A time-bound security audit will be conducted for all "vulnerable" installations of armed forces, paramilitary and police, Government today announced after a high-level meeting here reviewed the situation in the country in the aftermath of the Pathankot terror attack. Home Minister Rajnath Singh presided the meeting that was attended by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, NSA Ajit Doval and other top officials of security and intelligence agencies to discuss the take-aways from the January 2 terrorist attack on the air base. The government said that "strengths" displayed by all the concerned agencies should be further built upon. "In view of the continuing threats from hostile elements from across the border, the need to further upgrade both intelligence and preventive abilities specially in terms of technology was stressed. "It was decided that the security audit of all vulnerable stations of armed forces, para-military forces and police would be carried out within a given time-frame," a Home Ministry statement said. Discussions were held on the means to further strengthen the prevention, detection and foiling of such dastardly attacks. During the hour-long meeting, it was felt that once the intelligence input had been confirmed, the response time was quick enough, both in terms of decisions that were taken, and in deployment of forces. It was also felt that many strengths displayed by all the concerned agencies, especially in terms of their synergised response needs not only to be commended, but also further built upon, the statement said. The Ministers appreciated the work done by both the intelligence agencies in giving advance warning of the attack and of the security agencies, in effectively meeting the challenge and minimising the possible damage. The Ministers also appreciated the bravery shown by the security forces in the incident and paid homage to those who sacrificed their lives. The need to have a better media communication strategy was also felt. It was decided that in such incidents, media is best briefed by authorised persons on the spot and arrangements for this, including training, should be put in place to meet such contingencies, should they happen in the future, the statement said. Official sources said the top brass of the country's security apparatus also took stock of various aspects of internal security and analysed intelligence inputs received in recent past. Necessary instructions have been given to ensure security in all sensitive locations, border areas and major urban centres, including Delhi where the Republic Day's main function will be held with French President Francois Hollande as the chief guest. Chiefs of Intelligence Bureau and Research and Analysis Wing shared various inputs gathered by the two organisations while chief of Investigation Agency briefed about the ongoing probe into the terror attack on Pathankot air base, the sources said. Recent intelligence inputs have suggested that there could be 6 to 10 Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists who had crossed over to India from Pakistan through Punjab in recent past. Six suspected JeM terrorists were killed in the Pathankot air base after three days of fierce gun battle but there is a possibility of a few remaining at large, the sources said. Besides, according to a Punjab Police input, there could be 15 terrorists who have breached the International Border and had entered India from Pakistan. An additional 10,000 paramilitary personnel have already been deployed in Delhi to ensure greater security cover ahead of the Republic Day celebrations. Security has been beefed up in Delhi's IGI airport too after another input suggested that terrorists may try to create a hostage-like situation. Both domestic and international flights have been asked to upgrade the scale of security, with some passengers being made to undergo 'secondary ladder checking' in some flights. A 'secondary ladder checking' is conducted just when the passenger is about to enter the aircraft with an aim to ensure that he is not carrying any weapon or chemical. Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, Defence Secretary G Mohan Kumar and senior officers from the Ministry of Home, Defence, paramilitary forces were also present at the meeting. Today's meeting came a day after India and Pakistan deferred the Foreign Secretary-level talks and India gave the go-ahead to the visit of a Pakistan SIT on Pathankot attack. State-run Gujarat State Fertilisers & Chemical (GSFC) will display its two new industrial products at a roadshow in Mumbai tomorrow. The firm has also roped in Bollywood actor Akshay Khanna in their campaign to promote 'GUJCON CRF' and 'GUJCON PRF virgin Nylon-6' fibres products developed for the construction and infrastructure industries, GSFC said today. The products have major application in RCC and PCC, flooring, roads, bridges, airport runway, pre-cast structures and water-proofing, GSFC CMD Sudeep Kumar Nanda told PTI here. These secondary fibre reinforcement products are revolutionary ones in the buildings and road infrastructure space, he claimed. Recently, GSFC exported the first consignment of the two products to Myanmar while consignments are in the pipeline to countries like Sri Lanka, Kenya, Uganda, Canada, Nanda informed. He further said that similar products are "available in only two countries" -- USA and Belgium -- while India is the third country to manufacture such products. The products have been tested and approved by various research institutes including Central Road Research Institute, Gujarat Engineering Research Institute (GERI). Trial of CRF was successful in rigid pavements on Godhra-Dahod highway and Ahmedabad-Vadodara National Highway, he said, adding that National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) is likely to use CRF in their upcoming projects. "We have planned an ambitious international branding and promotions campaign for the two innovative products. We have roped in Bollywood actor Akshay Khanna for campaigning. We will be launching campaigns across the country as well as in the Middle East," he said. The head of the powerful US gun lobby, Wayne LaPierre, has challenged President Barack Obama to an hour-long televised debate on gun control. LaPierre yesterday threw down the gauntlet in a video posted on the National Rifle Association website, a week after the lobbying group rebuffed Obama's invitation to debate the issues during a CNN town hall-style meeting January 7. In the video, LaPierre scornfully dismissed the president's original offer before laying down his own debate challenge. "The president's calculation is clear: destroy the NRA before the election so Hillary (Clinton) can destroy the second amendment after it. That's why we won't get suckered into any of Obama's fixed fights," he said. "But I'll tell you what: I'll meet you for a one-on-one one hour debate with a mutually agreed upon moderator on any network that will take it," he said. "No pre-screened questions and no gas bag answers. Americans will judge for themselves who they trust and believe on this issue: you or the NRA. Let's see if you're game for a fair debate." In the video, LaPierre harshly attacks Obama and his record, and vows that the NRA will fight measures the president announced last week that tighten rules on gun sales. "We know that the president would ban every gun and bullet in America and effectively turn us into Australia," he said. "And we know if HC is elected she will make sure that happens," he said, referring to Clinton, who is leading the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. He said if Obama "really wanted to make America safer, he'd pick up the phone and tell his Justice Department to flip Chicago upside down until every criminal with a gun, criminal gangbanger with a gun and drug dealer with a gun is arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned to the fullest extent of the law. "That would make a difference, that would save lives. But he's had seven long years to issue that order and he has failed and that is why Americans don't trust the president," he said. In an exchange with the public on Twitter, Obama did not respond to several questions asking whether he would accept LaPierre's challenge. Haiti's health ministry has said that the country has been hit by an outbreak of the Zika virus, a mosquito-borne ailment similar to dengue fever that is rapidly spreading through the Caribbean. Health Minister Florence Duperval Guillaume confirmed the outbreak yesterday at a press conference, saying that she too, was recovering from a bout of the illness. "Even I fell ill," the minister said, although she did not have the diagnosis confirmed by testing. A health lab in Trinidad and Tobago confirmed on Thursday that five out of 11 Haitian blood samples tested positive for the disease -- a finding suggesting that it could be rampant in this impoverished nation. There have been no known fatalities from Zika, but the virus is of particular concern to pregnant women, because it can lead to birth defects and miscarriage. Zika is spread by the Aedes genus of mosquitoes, some varieties of which also spread dengue virus, yellow fever virus and Chikungunya. A female mosquito bites an infected person and then carries the virus to the next person she bites. Symptoms, which usually are relatively mild, can include fever, rash, conjunctivitis and headache. In more serious cases, they can include muscle pain, swelling and an itchy rash. Haitian officials have been taken to task for what critics said has been a slow response to the outbreak. The team of "Harry Potter", including the lead cast members Danielle Radcliffe and Emma Watson, has paid heart-touching homage to actor Alan Rickman, most famously known for his role of strict professor Severus Snape in the fantasy film series. Rickman has died following a battle with cancer. He was 69. Radcliffe played the young braveheart Harry Potter, who for the most part of the series found Snape against him, only to find in the end that he was his well-wisher in disguise. Remembering the brilliance of Rickman on and off screen, in a long post, Radcliffe tweeted, "Alan Rickman is undoubtedly one of the greatest actors I will ever work with. He is also, one of the loyalest and most supportive people I've ever met in the film industry. He was so encouraging of me both on set and in the years post-Potter. "I'm pretty sure he came and saw everything I ever did on stage both in London and New York. He didn't have to do that. I know other people who've been friends with him for much much longer than I have and they all say "if you call Alan, it doesn't matter where in the world he is or how busy he is with what he's doing, he'll get back to you within a day." The 26-year-old star said he liked that the veteran treated him like a colleague not a child on the "Harry Potter" set. "As an actor he was one of the first of the adults on Potter to treat me like a peer rather than a child. Working with him at such a formative age was incredibly important and I will carry the lessons he taught me for the rest of my life and career. Film sets and theatre stages are all far poorer for the loss of this great actor and man," he wrote. Watson, who played intelligent, sensible Hermoine Granger, was not far behind to express her sadness. "I'm very sad to hear about Alan today. I feel so lucky to have worked and spent time with such a special man and actor. I'll really miss our conversations. RIP Alan. We love you." Actor Matthew Lewis, who was the cute and usually timid Neville Longbottom, wrote, "I was at Leavesden Studios today when I heard the . As I walked through the canteen I thought of Alan queuing up for his lunch with us mere mortals. "I recalled the trailer in which he offered me some of the greatest advice I ever received about this mad profession we shared. He inspired my career more than he ever knew and I'll miss him." Posting a picture of Rickman as Snape, actress Bpnnie Wright, who played Harry's love interest, wrote on Instagram, "Alan. The energy shifted every time you walked onto set. You were an inspiration to us all. Haryana, which of late has been in the midst of violent labour unrest, has approved a set of labour reforms, state Industries Minister Captain Abhimanyu said today. He was hopeful that these will be passed in the budget session of the Assembly. "The labour reforms would probably be better than those of Rajasthan," he asserted. Rajasthan has already taken the lead in introducing transformative changes in central labour laws. "We in Haryana have already approved in-principle the labour reforms even probably more progressive than Rajasthan. We are waiting for our budget session. This is something which the state government has to pass in the Assembly and then we send it for presidential assent as it is a concurrent subject," Captain Abhimanyu said at a CII conference here. Courting investors, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said incentives will be offered to those setting up shops in lesser developed areas. He said an e-biz portal called investharyana.Nic.In has been launched, which will provide single-window clearances, and invited investors to participate in the Happening Haryana Summit in Gurgaon from March 7-8. "We are trying to create a better environment for ease of doing business... We have launched an e-biz platform aimed at giving all the clearances under one roof," the Chief Minister said. "Udyog is not equally distributed in the state. The land value in select pockets of Gurgaon is Rs 10 crore per acre while in some other areas, it is Rs 25-30 lakh. We are ready to give incentives to investors who set up businesses in those areas." He pitched for an early implementation of GST and assured the gathering that the state is fully geared up to make the transition to the indirect tax framework once it is rolled out. Khattar also discussed the progress of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) Project and the multi-modal logistics hub being set up on the state's border during a meeting with DIPP Secretary Amitabh Kant here. "Very soon, we are coming up with a multi-modal logistics hub on the border of Haryana," Captain Abhimanyu said. "We also discussed with the DIPP Secretary the Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) and Rapid Rail Transit System (RRTS). We have principally approved both these projects." Khattar unveiled the state government's plan to establish the 'Smartest City' in the country spread across 1,000 acres in Gurgaon in collaboration with the Centre. He demanded that Gurgaon be included in the central government's list of Smart Cities. "Faridabad and Karnal have been approved for Smart Cities. Our demand is Gurgaon should also become a part of the list. Even if it is not included, we will spend Rs 500 crore and develop Gurgaon into a Smart City," he said. Allowing Kerala government's plea, the High Court today directed posting of the SNC-Lavlin graft case, in which CPI(M) leader Pinarayi Vijayan is one of the accused, for early hearing by the last week of February. Justice P Ubaid gave this direction while considering the state government's plea seeking an "urgent" hearing of a revision petition filed against a CBI court verdict acquitting Vijayan in the graft case. The court said that even if much older revision petitions and appeals are pending consideration, being a matter of public importance, government's request needs consideration. Though counsel for accused, including Vijayan, pointed out that the state has no right to file such a petition and is 'politically motivated', the Court permitted hearing of the case by last week of February, 2016. Director General of Prosecution T Asaf Ali had filed the plea for early posting of the hearing of the revision petition earlier this week. Counsel for the accused also pointed out that it was Asaf Ali who had filed a PIL seeking a CBI probe into the graft case before he assumed office of the DGP. CBI did not take a definite stand on early hearing of revision petition. The revision plea challenging discharge of Vijayan and six others in the SNC Lavalin graft case was originally filed by one T P Nandakumar and CBI which had filed charge sheet in the case. In its petition, CBI had said there was sufficient evidence to prove the charges against the accused. The CBI special court in Thiruvananthapuram had in November 2013 discharged Vijayan and six others from the Rs 374.50 crore graft case. The special judge had ruled that CBI had failed to prove the charges of conspiracy and corruption levelled against Vijayan and other accused. The special court had stated that CBI had failed to establish the fraudulent intention, abuse of official position, criminal conspiracy and element of cheating in connection with the award of contract to Canadian firm SNC Lavalin for renovating three hydel projects in Kerala. In its plea filed under Section 482 of CrPC, government said it has suffered heavy loss in the deal. "The losses suffered by the state of Kerala and Kerala State Electricity Board are very high. Procrastination tactics adopted by the accused in the case is to be viewed seriously. There is no justification in delaying the hearing of the case on one pretext or other. Hence the matter is urgent in nature," it had said. The Bombay High Court has ordered a fresh inquiry into the case against 14 directors of Yavatmal District Central Co-operative (YDCC) Bank who have allegedly spent over Rs 60 lakh from the bank's coffers to fight the legal cases of private nature against them. Dismissing the appeal filed by these directors of YDCC Bank on the order passed against them by Maharashtra Minister Chandrakant Patil, Justice P B Warale of Bombay High Court, Nagpur bench, yesterday ordered the Divisional Joint Registrar of Amravati to conduct a fresh probe into the matter. The court also asked the Joint Registrar to submit a report in the case in two weeks time. A complaint in this regard had been filed by Sadashiv Mahajan from Ralegaon in the district. In his complaint, Mahajan had alleged that the 14 Board directors spent over Rs 60 lakh from the bank's coffers in the last four years to defend the cases pending before various authorities and courts, including the Supreme Court, despite these cases being of private nature. "These directors had been nominated to the bank eight years back through 'Seva Sahakari Sanstha' (co-operative societies) in the district, although these societies were actually YDCC Bank defaulters," Mahajan alleged. Mahajan had approached the Divisional Joint Registrar of Amravati and prayed for the disqualification and removal of these 14 directors from the bank's Board. The Joint Registrar, after hearing the parties, ordered for their disqualification. However, the directors had challenged the order in the Bombay High Court and later in the Supreme Court. Mahajan said he had also approached the state Co-operation Ministry and the present state Co-operation Minister Chandrakant Patil ordered an inquiry into their expenses. However, the directors also challenged the Minister's order in the HC. But Justice Warale dismissed their appeal and odered a fresh inquiry into the expenses. The Coast Guard's hovercraft port being set up in the Union Territory would be a "milestone" in availability of facilities of maritime defence establishments, Chief Minister N Rangasamy said here today The facility would also berth two modern hovercraft and help fishermen of the union territory, he said. The CM was speaking after laying the foundation of the Rs 27-crore hovercraft port project of the Coast Guardin neighbouring coastal village of Veerampattinam. Deputy Inspector General S C Tyagi, who is commander of the Coast Guard Headquarters in Union Territory of Puducherry, highlighted the features of the project and pointed out that it would contribute a lot to augmentingthe station's capability of search and rescue operations. Cigarette and bidi sellers in Himachal Pradesh today protested the government's decision to make registration compulsory for vendors of tobacco products. The Cabinet had yesterday decided to make registration of vendors for selling tobacco products compulsory but they alleged that the aim is to "bring the dealers under licensing system" which would harm their business. "The decision tantamount to enforcing the licensing system which would hurt their business interest, expose them to harassment and open the door for officials to extract money," Surinder Sharma, a member of Bidi Cigarette Vikreta Sangh claimed. Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh has asked the health department to draft legislation for registration of retailers of tobacco products. After banning the sale of loose cigarettes, the government would make licence mandatory for sellers of packed tobacco products, including cigarettes, an official spokesperson said. A bill in this regard is expected to be tabled in the legislative Assembly during the Budget Session. "We have submitted a memorandum to the Chief Minister, protesting the proposed legislation as it would badly hit our businesses," Sharma said. India today condemned the terror attack in Indonesian capital Jakarta yesterday and asserted that it unequivocally opposes terrorism in all its forms. "The Government of India strongly condemns the suicide attack that occurred in Jakarta. India unequivocally opposes terrorism in all its forms and expresses solidarity with the Government and the people of Indonesia. "We extend our sincere condolences to the bereaved families and wish a speedy recovery to those injured," an External Affairs Ministry statement said. Islamic State suicide bombers and gunmen yesterday struck at the heart of the capital of Muslim-majority Indonesia, executing a Westerner and killing a local while blowing up a Starbucks cafe. Five attackers also died in the ensuing firing. Claiming that India's federal system of governance is under "threat" from the Narendra Modi dispensation, CPI(M) today called upon Odisha Chief Minister and BJD President Naveen Patnaik to take a clear stand on the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre. "As the Centre abolished the Planning Commission and set up Niti Ayog, the states are forced to get funds at the mercy of the ministries, more particularly from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO). This is against the original federal structure of India," CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury told reporters here. Stating that the abolition of the Planning Commission led to economic power being centralised with the PMO, Yechury said transfer of resources to the states has been affected though the Centre has started a propaganda that flow of funds has increased. "The ground reality is totally different as the states are getting less central share. This is because the Centre has slashed the ratio of direct tax which was being distributed among the states. On the other hand, it (Centre) increased the indirect tax which directly went to the central government coffer," Yechury pointed out. As the people of Odisha also suffer due to less flow of funds from the Centre, the CPI(M) appealed to the Chief Minister to take a clear position in this regard. With no provision of the National Development Council (NDC), where the chief ministers were making demands for the welfare of their states and with abolition of Planning Commission, now the states will have to go to the PMO with "begging bowl," Yechury said. This should be strongly opposed, he asserted. Asked about the alleged CBI threat to the state government regarding the chit fund scam in Odisha, Yechury said, "Naveen Babu should fight it out. He should take a stand for the benefit of the people of the state and not for any political consideration." "Unless Naveen Babu clears doubt over the CBI threat with regard to the chit fund, the public impression will remain that the state government compromised with the Centre," Yechury said. Yechury, however, accused the BJP led government of misusing the CBI, and termed the investigating agency as "B-CBI" (BJP-CBI). Earlier Yechury had dubbed CBI as 'Congress Investigation Bureau' during the previous UPA government. The CPI(M) General Secretary announced a country wide protest to be launched against the economic policy and communal agenda of the BJP government at the Centre soon. "Efforts are being made to strengthen Left forces and present a democratic alternative before the people," Yechury said adding that after nearly two years of the elections, the BJP led government has "failed to fulfil" even a single poll promise. There has been decline in agriculture, manufacturing and all other sectors, he said adding, "the country is in the process of a slide down." BJP was, however, busy with its communal polarisation programme, he alleged. CPI(M) state Secretary Ali Kishore Patnaik said that the party will stage protest meetings all over the state over local issues including the bungling in NFSA ration card distribution on February 8. "A rally will be held at Bhubaneswar on March 12 against the failures of the state government," he said. India and Germany today signed a work plan for cooperation in the areas of food safety, solid waste management, and air and water quality management. The work plans were signed at the third meeting of the joint working group between the two countries here. The two-day meeting ended today. The Working Group was established in 2013 based on the declaration signed between Food & Consumer Affairs Ministry and German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (now Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy) for cooperation in Standardisation, conformity assessment and product safety. The work plan for cooperation in the area of Solid Waste Management, food safety, air and water quality management was signed today, the Consumer Affairs Ministry said in a statement. It outlines various activities for the next years' cooperation which also include amongst others, leather and leather products, air and water quality, product safety and toy safety, legal metrology and laboratory testing facilities. In the meeting there were delegates of both Indian and German sides comprised of the members from the concerned ministries, national standards bodies, and representatives from trade associations. India wants to have constructive engagement with China along the northern borders, Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag said today, holding that there has been significant improvement in understanding between the two countries on the boundary front. Even though intrusions have taken place in the disputed areas along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), there has been a significant improvement in understanding between the two countries, he said, addressing the Army Day parade here. "India wants to have constructive engagement with China along the northern borders," Suhag said. The Army Chief pitched for modernisation of weapons and equipment to counter different kinds of challenges facing the force. He complimented the soldiers for giving a befitting reply to the enemy at the Line of Control (LOC) which has been "active" due to cross-border firing and continuous infiltration attempts. Referring to modernisation, Suhag said that to counter different kinds of challenges and commitments, it is important to modernise weapons and equipment. He said that he was happy that the government has sanctioned a number of modern weapons and equipment in the last one year. The priority for the army was new artillery guns, upgradation of mechanised forces, enhancement of army aviation capabilities, he said, noting that better arms needed to be provided to the soldiers. Suhag said the army has already started induction of weaponised version of Advanced Light Helicopter. Earlier this week, Suhag had said acquisition of artillery guns, third generation missiles, upgrading armoured vehicles, augmenting army aviation and strengthening infantry were among "critical areas" for force modernisation which are being fast-tracked. An Indian-origin man has been sentenced to seven years in prison and ordered to be given 12 strokes of cane for robbing a money-changer here. 28-year-old Ravi Sandhira Sagaran yesterday pleaded guilty of robbing Ali Yousouf Saiboo, 35, of 6,24,036 Singapore Dollars and foreign currencies on November 5, 2014, reported The Straits Times. Four other accused in the case are still at large. A second charge was also taken into consideration for conspiring with several men, including one Tachana Moorthy Peromal, 29 and Annadurai Raman, 43, to steal a car from a parking lot. Tachana and Annadurai would go on trial next month, according to the report. Sagaran agreed to join them after being promised a share of the loot, Deputy Public Prosecutor Tan Soo Tet said. Sagaran and his accomplices tailed Saiboo's car and blocked it at the parking lot. Saiboo, whose two-year old son was with him, activated the door locks in his car, but one of the men smashed the car window with a crowbar, while another dragged Saiboo out and assaulted him. Sagaran was arrested on November 12, 2014 but the money is yet to be recovered. Army trucks thundered through Indonesia's capital today as authorities boosted security at possible terror targets and probed the suspected Islamic State cell blamed for Jakarta's deadly militant attacks. Four of the five men killed in suicide and gun assaults yestrday had been identified, and a subsequent search of one of their homes found IS-related evidence, including the group's flag, National police spokesman Anton Charliyan said. The rapid-fire series of bombings and a shootout between gunmen and police erupted in a busy part of the capital, lined with malls and foreign missions, shocking moderate-Muslim Indonesians and leaving two civilians and five attackers dead. Authorities in the world's most populous Muslim country have blamed a network of Islamic State fighters from Southeast Asia that was forged in the radical jihadist group's war in Syria and Iraq. "An alert has been imposed throughout Indonesia," said Charliyan. "National police are on their highest alert, especially in areas considered targets of terror, like police stations, government offices, and embassies, with army backup." He did not elaborate on the army's role but AFP reporters saw a convoy of a half-dozen military trucks filled with heavily armed troops in central Jakarta. Stepped-up police security was also seen at some foreign embassies, and officers in Jakarta and on the resort island of Bali patrolled in riot gear and with assault rifles. Indonesia's worst terror incident in seven years killed five attackers, a Canadian and an Indonesian man, according to police. Charliyan said the number of injured was revised upward from 20 to 24 -- three foreigners, six police officers and the rest Indonesian civilians. The attacks spilled out in dramatic fashion on a bustling street at mid-morning, transfixing Indonesia's hyperactive social-media world, as images and videos of the carnage went viral. Police have singled out Indonesian extremist Bahrum Naim as behind the assault. Army trucks thundered through Indonesia's capital today as authorities boosted security at possible terror targets and probed a suspected Islamic State cell blamed for Jakarta's deadly terror attacks. A series of bombings and subsequent gun battles yesterday between the attackers and police in a busy part of the capital lined with malls and foreign missions left two civilians and five attackers dead. ALSO READ: Police arrest 3 men on suspicion of links to Jakarta attack Police in the world's most populous Muslim country have blamed the carnage on a network of Islamic State fighters from Southeast Asia forged in the radical jihadist group's war in Syria and Iraq. "An alert has been imposed throughout Indonesia," said national police spokesman Anton Charliyan. "National police are on their highest alert, especially in areas considered targets of terror, like police stations, government offices, embassies, with army backup." He did not elaborate on the army's role but AFP reporters saw a passing convoy of a half-dozen military trucks filled with heavily armed soldiers in central Jakarta, and heightened security elsewhere, with police patrolling in flak jackets. A police car and a half-dozen officers were seen guarding the French embassy near the attack site. Charliyan added police would be conducting raids Friday as they probe those responsible for the bloodshed, which spilled out in dramatic fashion on a bustling street in the mid-morning. He declined to offer further details on the planned raids. The assault left five attackers, a Canadian and an Indonesian man dead and 20 injured, according to police, in what the country's president called "acts of terror". Police have singled out Indonesian extremist Bahrum Naim as being behind the planning. Naim, believed to be in Syria, is said by authorities to be a founding member of Katibah Nusantara, the grouping of Southeast Asian fighters there. Terror analysts warn that the group, believed to include fighters predominantly from Indonesia but also Malaysia and elsewhere in the region, has threatened for more than a year to bring the jihad home. Indonesian authorities were yet to offer concrete details from their investigations. Muhammad Iqbal, Jakarta's police spokesman, told AFP authorities were working to establish the identities and connections of the dead attackers. Indonesian police launched raids across the country today in the wake of deadly coordinated attacks on Jakarta, saying they suspected a broader extremist network helped carry out an attack claimed by the Islamic State group. The operations came as authorities ramped up security at public places following yesterday's combination of suicide bombings and shootings in the capital that left five attackers and two other people dead. Confusion has reigned in the wake of the incident, with authorities struggling to provide concrete information on the shock attack that unfurled in broad daylight on a busy street lined with shopping malls, top hotels, and foreign embassies. National police chief Badrodin Haiti told reporters the attack likely indicates the involvement of a broader support apparatus, and implying that conspirators might still be at large. "The planners, financiers, and supporters that provide (explosive) materials, assemble the bombs, facilitate accommodations and vehicles etc... Of course this is the work of a team that could be big or small," he said. "This obviously was not conducted by five men, this takes teamwork." Police said earlier today that they had identified four of the five dead attackers, and launched raids by heavily armed police in Jakarta and other locations across the far-flung archipelago that resulted in the seizure of an Islamic State flag and other unspecified "books and posters". "We've sent teams to several cities for operations against targets we identified," he told reporters. Unconfirmed reports have said the police dragnet resulted in some arrests, but these have not been confirmed by authorities. Police are yet to release the names of those identified or other details, but said two of the dead militants were fugitive terrorism suspects. But authorities in the world's most populous Muslim country have already placed blame for the attack on Katibah Nusantara, which police and terrorism analysts say is a faction of the ruthless Islamic State group that has carved out a self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq. It would mark the first attack in the region by Katibah Nusantara, which is made up primarily of Malay-speaking Indonesians and Malaysians. Authorities in Southeast Asia with significant Muslim populations have repeatedly warned of the potential for their citizens to return from IS jihad and carry out violence at home. Seeking to promote Haryana as a global destination for investment, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar today said his government was taking steps to set up an international airport in Hisar which will cater to the need of the state's western districts. After launching an e-biz portal to facilitate investment and a helpline in Japanese for investors, Khattar said the state's proximity to Delhi is an advantage and some of its southern districts are also close to the international airport in the national capital. There are other districts in the north which are close to the airport in Chandigarh. "We have also begun moving forward so that there is a new international airport Hisar" in the western part of the state, Khattar said. The chief minister said his government wants to encourage industry and it is planned that "mega projects", which entail an investment of over Rs 100 crore, could be provided special facilities. He emphasised that the state aims at creating an industry-friendly environment where services are provided in a time bound manner. Khattar said that in the previous regime, the industry had faced problems but Haryana was now keenly working to encourage it as it can provide more jobs to people. At the event, Khattar spoke to an investor from Japan in Japanese using the helpline established by the state for business people from that country. He said initiatives like the helpline in Japanese could be set up for other countries with whom the state has close business relations. Haryana Finance Minister Abhimanyu, who was also present at the event, said that Haryana aims to be among the top five states in terms of ease of doing business and launching the e-biz portal is a step in that direction. To encourage investment, Khattar is also visiting Japan and China from 17th to 24th January. Heavily armed fighters from the Islamist extremist group al-Shabab attacked a base for African Union peacekeepers in southwestern Somalia on Friday, blasting their way into the compound and exchanging fire with peacekeepers, a Somali military official said. Dozens of al-Shabab fighters started a complex attack on the military base which is run by Kenyan troops who are part of the African Union force in the town of El-Ade, not far from the Kenyan border, Ahmed Hassan told the Associated Press by phone from Elwak, a town near the scene of the latest attack. The attack started with a suicide car bomb, and then heavy gunfire was heard as militants stormed into the base, he said. Fighting is still going on inside the base, he said. He had no details about any casualties. Al-Shabab reported on its online radio that its fighters had managed to penetrate the base and were fighting African Union troops. Despite being pushed out of Somalia's major cities and towns, al-Shabab continues to launch deadly guerrilla attacks across the Horn of Africa country. The group, which has ties with al-Qaeda, has also carried out many deadly attacks inside Kenya. To a well-trained security dog, nothing is more exciting than finding a bomb. And "Nancy"--a Labrador who is part of ITBP dog squad-- did not let security personnel down today when she quickly detected an explosive, her tail wagging and looking towards her handler. The four-year-old canine was tasked to find a hidden IED. Nancy was part of the tight security drill that is in place ahead of the main Republic Day parade here on January 26. As part of a mock drill, the Improvised Explosive Device(IED) was concealed near the under-construction main VVIP dais at the India Gate lawns. Officials said the bomb was planted by the Prime Minister's security wing as part of the drill to check the prepardness of various agencies on January 26. They said the dog easily detected the presence of the dummy IED, wrapped in explosive material, kept beneath a stairway which is part of the dais for VVIPs to be seated on the Republic Day. "She communicated the alert to her handler and sat down. The PM security team was all praise for the sniffer," they said. The dog is part of a team of about 20 ITBP canines which have been deployed to secure the event and main areas on Rajpath. Security has been put at an all-time high in view of threat emanating not only from terror groups but also by concealed IEDs for the national event where French President Francois Hollande will be the chief guest in the presence of President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The top government, political and seurity brass will be also in attendance besides thousands of members of the public. The Indo-Tibetan Border Police(ITBP) has deployed an assortment of its special canines ranging from the Belgian 'Malinois' to Labradors to work with the dog units of other forces and agencies for ensuring a highly secure event. A freshly-trained contingent of 500 women personnel -- which will be the first 'mahila' squad to be deployed in high-altitude posts along the India-China border -- was today commissioned into the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) here. The women, in the rank of constable, were inducted in the border-guarding force after 44-weeks of training in battle craft and mountain survival and will now be sent to frontier areas for final acclimatisation before being deployed at ITBP posts along the 3,488-km Sino-India Line of Actual Control (LAC). These 'mahila' contingents are expected to be posted by March this year at about 20 forward locations of the ITBP situated at heights of between 8,000-14,000 feet, including at the 'Mana pass' border post, the last village on the Indian side in Uttarakhand. ITBP Director General Krishna Chaudhary, after reviewing the 'passing out parade' of the new personnel, asked them to exhibit the best skills that they have learnt during training to discharge their duties in some of the most difficult locations in the Himalayan ranges. "You will be further trained in field training and high- altitude acclimatisation before your final deployment. I am sure you will do the country and the force proud," the DG said after taking the salute at the Basic Training Centre (BTC) of the force at Bhanu here. This is the first time that India is deploying women troops right at the front, one which is considered to be the most arduous and tricky given the harsh climatic conditions and extreme mountainous terrain along the India-China border. ITBP, raised in the aftermath of the 1962 Chinese aggression, has also begun creating logistical and residential facilities for its women personnel at these posts and it is expected to be completed by early March. The force plans to have women personnel make up at least 40 per cent of its strength at these forward posts. (REOPENS DEL28) These women, who were recruited in the force last year in February, hail from various states with as many as 97 of them, the highest, coming from the hill state of Uttarakhand. Among the rest, 10 are from Himachal Pradesh, 51 from Bihar, 11 from Haryana, 22 from Rajasthan, 63 from Uttar Pradesh and 35 from Maharashtra. There are a further 11 cadets hailing from Punjab, one each from Delhi and Andhra Pradesh, 35 from Assam, six from Chhattisgarh, 21 from Gujarat, 26 from Jharkhand and three from Jammu and Kashmir, among others. Women constables were first inducted into the 70,000- strong force in 2008, but they were until now only deployed for rendering law and order duties in troubled areas and in a few instances at the Nathu La pass to facilitate traders and frisk women. ITBP has a total of 1,661 women personnel in its various ranks and branches of work with the maximum number of 1,033 being in the constabulary ranks. In the wake of the recent terror attack at the air force base in Pathankot, the Jammu and Kashmir Governor today chaired a high-level security meet to review the existing arrangements for the safety of all vital Civil and Defence establishments and installations in the state. A Raj Bhavan spokesman said that consequent to recurring terror attacks since September 2013 across the International Border (IB) and Line of Control (LOC) and more particularly the recent attack on the air base at Pathankot, Governor N N Vohra had been speaking to the State Chief Secretary, Police Chief, Northern Army Commander and senior Commanders of Security Forces. The Governor has been urging them to undertake a time-bound review of all existing security arrangements and repeatedly expressed anxiety over the recurrence of terror attacks across the Pakistan border. It was noted that since September 2013, two such attacks had taken place; three in 2014; six in 2015 and one in January this year. "It is significant that all these terror attacks targeted Jammu and Kashmir Police, Central Armed Police Forces, Army and the Air Force. In the attacks across the IB, three had taken place via Kathua; two via Samba; and one via Arnia," the spokesman said. He said that in the attacks across the LoC, one was on the Army Regimental Centre at Mohra in Uri Sector and the other two in the Tangdhar Sector. The remaining were at Udhampur, Dina Nagar and Pathankot. These twelve terror attacks, since September 2013, resulted in the killing of 51 people (Army 16; J&K Police 12; civilians 11; DSC 5; NSG 2; BSF 2; CRPF 2; MES 1) and injuring 15 BSF personnel, he said. He said that the Governor observed that post the Pathankot air base terror attack, it was of vital importance to review the existing status of the security of important Defence and state government establishments. In this context, the senior most civil, police, Central Armed Police Force, Army, IAF and Intelligence Agency officers had been invited to participate in the meeting. The meeting was attended by Chief Secretary B R Sharma, GOC-in-C, Northern CommandLt Gen DS Hooda, Special DG CRPF Dr S K Bhagat, Director General of Police K Rajendra, GOC 16 corpsLt Gen RR Nimborkar, GOC 15 Corps Lt Gen S K Dua, GOC 9 Corps Lt Gen Ashok Ambre, besides senior Police, Army and Paramilitary Force officers. Police today conducted several raids in the Delhi-NCR region in connection with the alleged gangrape of a 17-year-old girl at her residence in east Delhi's Jagatpuri area. However, no arrest has been made in the case, they said. The girl lives with her elder sister and brother-in-law and the accused, who came to her house on the pretext of looking for their pet dog, were known to them, said police. "A case under Section 376D of IPC has been registered and a police team is searching for the three who fled after the incident," DCP (East) B S Gurjar said. The incident took place around two days ago and the victim's sister and brother-in-law were not at home at that time, said police. In her complaint, the girl told the police that the accused men locked the door from inside and allegedly raped her taking turns. They also locked the room in which the victim's nephews were playing, they said. The victim managed to scream, following which one of her cousins, who lives in the neighboring house, came to her rescue. The accused also assaulted the boy who tried to stop them while they were running away, police said. Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of knowledge, arts, and wisdom is worshipped by many Indians but not in the unique way Japanese do: in the pool of water. There is a large number of shrines to Saraswati in Japan, tells art-historian Benoy K Behl at the Indian Museum here where a rare display of his photographs reveals little known facts about the influence of Hinduism and Hindu deities in that country. Due to goddess Saraswati's association with the mythical river Saraswati, she is worshipped in pools of water in Japan, Behl says. "There are scores of Hindu deities which are very actively worshipped in Japan. In fact, there are hundreds of shrines of Saraswati alone," he says. He shows a photo of the goddess with a veena at a shrine in Tokyo as he says the one in Osaka must be the most the impressive and the tallest shrine of Saraswati in the world. Saraswati is worshipped as Benzaiten, he goes on to tell, whereas Lord Ganesha is worshipped as Shoten. Garuda is known as Karura in Daiyuzan-Saijoji temple near Odawara. As he shows photographs from his last year's visit to the country for the Japan Foundation Fellowship, he says people there worship other Hindu deities, we in India rarely do. "In fact, deities we have forgotten in India, such as Vayu and Varuna, are still worshipped in Japan," Behl said. Besides religion, Japanese have also preserved the Siddham, a 5th century Sanskrit script. At Gokokuji in Tokyo, a photo shows Japanese tombs with the Sanskrit letters. "The Japanese cannot read this alphabet, but it is still used to respect the dead. It is very interesting that the 5th century Siddham script, which has disappeared in India, is still in use in Japan. At Koyasan, they still have a school where Sanskrit is taught with Siddham," the historian said. The exhibition which will run till February 21 shows innumerable photographs of goddess Lakshmi, lord Indra, Brahma, Ganesha, Garuda, and other deities. Pakistan's Punjab province Law Minister Rana Sanaullah today confirmed that banned Jaish-i-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar has been taken into "protective custody" along with his accomplices, but clarified he is "not arrested." "Masood Azhar has been taken into protective custody by the Punjab police counter-terrorism department," Sanaullah told Dawn News. Earlier, the government chose not to confirm or deny the reports that Azhar has been taken into "protective custody". "We have taken Maulana Azhar and his fellows under protective custody in connection with the Pathankot incident. However, we will arrest him if his involvement in the Pathankot attack is proved," Sanaullah said. He added that operation against banned outfits including JeM would continue under the National Action Programme. India has identified Azhar as the mastermind of the Pathankot attack on January 2. It has also blamed his brother Rauf and five for carrying out the attack in which seven Indian soldiers were killed along with all the six terrorists. India has shared this information along with two Pakistani phone numbers that were made calls to by the terrorists. According to reports, security agencies have arrested 31 activists of JeM from different parts of the province. After a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif yesterday, his office issued a statement which said that "several individuals" belonging to JeM have been apprehended in connection with the Pathankot terror attack and some of its offices traced and sealed. Today, Pakistan said that the Indo-Pak Foreign Secretary-level talks will not take place tomorrow as scheduled. Foreign Office spokesman Qazi Khalilullah told a news briefing that both sides were holding consultations to reschedule the talks. Jet Airways today said it has inked a loyalty programme pact with the Bangkok Airways under which the frequent fliers of the two carriers can redeem reward points while travelling on each other's network. The Mumbai-based full service airline flies three times a day to Bangkok from its two domestic hubs --Mumbai and New Delhi. JetPrivilege, the rewards management programme and frequent flyer programme of Jet Airways has entered into a reciprocal frequent flyer partnership with FlyerBonus, the loyalty scheme of Bangkok Airways, a release said today. "This partnership with Bangkok Airways will offer exceptional value to our guests. The new code share destinations with Bangkok Airways are an important extension to the Jet Airways international network, enhancing our product offering and providing greater choice and convenience to our guests," Jet Airways senior vice president for commercial Guarang Shetty said. As part of the pact, JetPrivilege members can now earn and redeem JPMiles when travelling across the Bangkok Airways network including on destinations like Samui, Krabi, Phuket and Luang Prabang via Bangkok. Reciprocally, members of Bangkok Airways' FlyerBonus programme can also earn and redeem their miles across Jet Airways' extensive network in India and key international destination in North America, Europe, Middle East and SAARC, the release said. The JPMiles is run under a specialized loyalty and rewards management company Jet Privilege Private Limited (JPPL), which is a joint venture company between Jet Airways and Gulf carrier Etihad. Etihad also holds 24 per cent stake in Jet Airways. With the introduction of its 29th frequent flyer airline partner, Jet Airways is offering its loyal members with greater choice and additional value when travelling with partner carriers, the airline said. "We are delighted to partner with JetPrivilege, This will bring significant benefits to passengers of both airlines. We hope and trust that this partnership will enhance their traveling experience with us," Bangkok Airways vice president for marketing Prote Setsuwan said. "Enhancing reciprocal reward benefits for our JetPrivilege members will enable us to deliver to them a seamless experience when flying domestically and internationally across the combined networks of Jet Airways and Bangkok Airways," Manish Dureja, Managing Director, JetPrivilege added. Gems and jewellery industry today sought special turnover tax regime for diamond industry, interest subvention to boost exports and PAN card requirement for transactions of above Rs 5 lakh instead of currently Rs 2 lakh in its wishlist submitted to the Finance Ministry. During a meeting with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley ahead of the budget, two industry bodies, All India Gems & Jewellery Trade Federation (GJF) Gems and Jewellery Export Council (GJEPC) sought measures for ease of doing business while raising the issue of PAN card requirement for transaction of above Rs 2 lakh. "From January 1, quoting PAN card has been made must for transaction of jewellery over Rs 2 lakh. This is hurting the domestic industry a lot. So, we have demanded the government to make PAN card mandatory for transaction over Rs 5 lakh instead of Rs 2 lakh," GJF G V Sreedhar told PTI after the meeting. Because of the PAN card requirement, local jewellery industry has lost a business by 25-30 per cent in the last 15 days, he said, adding that if this continues, the industry will be affected badly. Demanding steps for boosting gems and jewellery exports, GJEPC Chairman Praveen Shankar Pandya demanded introduction of Special Turnover Tax Regime for diamond Industry with 0.75 per cent tax on sales turnover on the lines of other diamond trading competitive nations like Belgium and Israel. This will increase the shift of capital from Belgium and Dubai by NRIs, creating more jobs and exports, he said. GJEPC recommended start of sale of rough diamonds at Special Notified Zone (SNZ) by implementing 0.25 per cent tax on sales turnover achieved at SNZ of Foreign Mining Companies. It also sought inclusion of gems and jewellery under Interest Subvention Scheme and Merchandize Exports from India Scheme (MEIS), involvement of jewellers under Gold Monetization Scheme and reduction in the difference between the import duty on gold dore bars and gold bars. "Currently, there is a huge difference of 2 per cent between import duty on Gold Dore Bars and Gold Bars. Difference in duties between the two should be brought down to 1/4 per cent," GJEPC said. That apart, the export promotion body also urged the government to create certainty of tax provisions and reduce litigation. The Coast Guards of India and Japan today conducted a joint exercise in the Bay of Bengal to "gauge inter-operability" where a series of activities, including scenarios of hijacking and rescue were performed. The joint exercise, named 'Sahyog-Kaijin-XV', saw ships, choppers and personnel from either sides engage in a variety of activities witnessed by the Director General of Indian Coast Guard Vice Admiral H C S Bisht and Vice Commandant of Japan Coast Guard Vice Admiral Hideyo Hanamizu. Speaking to reporters, Bisht said the joint exercise, part of the ongoing cooperative arrangements between the two sides for the last 15 years, was being done to "gauge inter-operability". The aim of the exercise was to "engage with each other in case of any contingency and fine tune our strategy so that we can keep larger maritime frontiers safe," he told reporters. While the threat of piracy, especially from Somalian pirates, had reduced "we cannot say with certainty that threats don't exist", and therefore the need for such initiatives arose where one side can learn from the other, Bisht said, adding one has to "keep the guard up". Hanamizu expressed satisfaction over the exercise and hailed the expanding relationship between India and Japan, especially between the Coast Guards of the two countries. The Indian Coast Guard was represented by seven surface units and two aircraft. The ships included Samudra Pahredar, Rajkamal and Rajtarang while one Dornier aircraft and one Chetak helicopter were also involved. JCG Ship Echigo participated in the joint exercise and the two Coast Guards did simulated situations of hijack of a merchant vessel by 'pirates' and its subsequent rescue, cross deck landing of helicopters, search and rescue demonstration and external fire-fighting. "The exercises focus towards acquainting the Coast Guards with each other's capabilities and strengthening their working level relationship, besides consolidating joint operating procedures," an official release said. (REOPENS MDS4) To a query on the fishermen issue, Bisht said "a large" number of them were aware of the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) with the neighbours, including Pakistan and Sri Lanka since most of them carried Global Positioning System (GPS) devices. However, due to 'stray' incidents of crossing the IMBL, the Coast Guard was conducting Community Interaction Programme to sensitise the fishermen on the importance of "respecting and honouring the sanctity of the IMBL". This has resulted in fishermen becoming our "eyes and ears" where in one instance a fishermen in Goa had informed about an unidentified boat. However, there was nothing suspicious about it since it hailed from Gujarat and only did not belong to Goa, he said, adding this was a positive result of the community interaction programme. On the security front, besides other agencies, the Coast Guard was maintaining round-the-clock vigil with a number of boats and aircraft doing the job in different coastal areas, he said. Putting its weight behind the banned Jaish-e-Mohammad, JuD chief Hafiz Saeed today chided Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's government for detaining Jaish chief and activists in connection with the Pathankot terror attack. Addressing the Friday sermon at JuD headquarters here, Saeed said that the Pakistan government is taking action against JeM to "please" India. "The arrests are regrettable as the Nawaz government is only doing so to please Modi sarkar (government). The arrests will only encourage the Indian government to put further pressure on Pakistan to backtrack it's stance on Kashmir," he said. Saeed further said the Pakistani government is ignoring "national interest" for the sake of its friendship with India. The LeJ founder also criticised the Pakistani analysts for appreciating the government for arrests made in connection with the January 2 attack on an Indian airbase in Pathankot. A key pipeline linking a refinery and an oil terminal in Yemen's second city of Aden has been severely damaged in a suspected jihadist attack, officials said today. Firefighters managed to contain a huge blaze that ripped through the pipeline overnight, an official at Aden's main oil refinery told AFP. The blast did not damage the refinery's storage tanks, located in western Aden, and there were no casualties, the official added. A security source said that an explosive device detonated by unknown assailants hit the line around 500 metres (yards) from the refinery and three kilometres from the oil terminal. A brief firefight broke out in the wake of the blast between refinery guards and gunmen, who fled the scene in two vehicles, according to witnesses. A security official said that either the Islamic State group or Yemen's Al-Qaeda branch could have been behind the attack. "We are at war with the jihadists and I don't rule out the possibility that the orchestrators of the attack could be supporters of Daesh (IS) or Al-Qaeda," the official said. Aden is being used as a base for Yemen's government, which was forced to flee the capital Sanaa in September 2014 after Iran-backed Huthi rebels swept into the city. The Huthis advanced into southern and central Yemen, prompting a Saudi-led coalition to begin air strikes in March on insurgent positions. Extremist groups have exploited the chaos to spread, mainly in Yemen's vast desert east, and witnesses report that jihadists including IS are active in some Aden neighbourhoods. More than 5,800 people have been killed in Yemen since the start of the Saudi-led bombing campaign against rebels, about half of them civilians, according to the United Nations. Lt Governor Najeeb Jung has refused to direct ACB chief M K Meena to produce records relating to the alleged CNG fitness scam before the Justice S N Aggarwal inquiry commission, set up by the Delhi government. In his letter to Justice (retired) Aggarwal, Jung said that since the Union Home Ministry has declared as "legally invalid and void" the Delhi Government-constituted Commission of Inquiry, he is "unable" to assist in this case. "I am constitutionally bound to follow the instructions of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Govt of India and am, therefore unable to assist in this matter," the Lt Governor said in his letter, dated January 8. On December 30, Justice (retired) Aggarwal had written to the LG asking him to direct Anti Corruption Branch (ACB) chief Meena to produce records relating to the case before the Commission of Inquiry (CoI). In the letter, Aggarwal asked Jung to ensure that entire record in Meena's possession be produced before it within a week so that "nobody is blamed for obstructing or unduly delaying the proceedings of the commission at a later date". In August last year, the Home Ministry had declared as "legally invalid and void" the Commission of Inquiry, saying the Delhi government was not the "competent authority" to set up any such panel. The panel was set up by the AAP government to probe the award of contract by the Sheila Dikshit dispensation for inspection and certification of commercial vehicles for fitness to a firm in 2002. It had also issued a non-bailable warrant against Meena in last September, which was stayed by the Delhi High Court. "This commission is of the view that to ensure expeditious conclusion of inquiry proceedings it is necessary that the relevant records pertaining to CNG fitness Scam in possession of Mr Meena should be produced before the commission immediately so that the inquiry may continue and brought to a logical end at an early date. "I hope you agree that nobody is gaining anything by withholding the records as by the time the inquiry may be concluded the final orders of the honourable HC would also come and that shall be binding on all concerned including the commission," Aggarwal wrote to the LG. Auto major Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) is working on "various options" to ensure sales of its flagship products do not suffer in the long-term following Supreme Court's recent ban on registration of diesel SUVs and cars above 2,000cc in the entire NCR till March 31. "We are looking at various options that we can have and I am sure our teams will come out with an option which is in line with the SC direction that would be given and we will be able to sell our vehicles back in NCR area," M&M executive president Pawan Goenka told reporters at its manufacturing plant here. The Supreme Court last month banned the registration of diesel SUVs and cars above 2,000cc in the entire National Capital Region till March 31, following heightened concerns over the pollution levels in the region. Along with multinationals like Mercedes Benz, Audi etc, M&M has been impacted by the ban as its top selling SUV offerings like Bolero, XUV5OO and Scorpio have displacement of over 2,000 CC. According to reports, the NCR region accounts for two per cent of the company's overall sales. M&M today launched its compact SUV, KUV1OO, which runs on an internally developed 1,198 cc petrol or diesel engine and Goenka said work on engines of other sizes is on. "Now we are working on 2.2 litre petrol engine both in Scorpio and XUV500 and we will be announcing that soon. Of course, doing the engine into a vehicle takes a long time even if an engine is available," he said. Apart from that, work has started on the 1.5 litre engine and it also has access to 1.6 litre engine developed by its South Korean subsidiary, Ssangyong, which is also working on a 2-litre engine. Goenka recalled how working on the KUV1OO, its team had a tough time convincing the management of the need to develop a petrol engine internally rather than buying the technology off the market. "They worked so hard to convince that in the long run, it is going to be our weapon and that our own petrol engine will stand out," he said adding that it took six months to get convinced before a decision to develop the engine was taken. Meanwhile, on the transition to cleaner BS-VI regime, Goenka exuded confidence that company's engineers will deliver in the event of regulatory mandate requiring a quicker migration. Stating that she didn't believe that Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose died in air crash, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today demanded that the 'Russian angle' in Netaji's disappearance needs to be probed. "I don't believe that Netaji died (in air crash). This is my opinion as individual. We don't know whether he is still alive or not. May be not as it had been so many years. It is a shame for the entire country as the truth is yet to be unveiled," Banerjee said. She was speaking at a programme here commemorating the 75th anniversary of Netaji's great escape from Kolkata. About reports of Netaji family under surveillance after Independence, Banerjee said, "If Mahatma Gandhi was father of the nation, Netaji was leader of the nation. Had he died in the crash then why would his family be snooped even after Independence? "I think the Russia angle needs to be probed. I want an answer regarding it," Banerjee added. "Lots of things are being said about country's foreign policy. We need to abide by it. But we also need to look into the Russian aspect into Netaji's disappearance as it is said that there are lot of files regarding Netaji (lying) there," she maintained. The West Bengal government had declassified Netaji files with the state police and state Home department last year. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi had visited Russia. I don't know whether this matter came up. Was there any discussion with the Russian administration after we declassified the files. I think India must take it up with Russia," Banerjee said. Banerjee regretted that Netaji's disappearance mystery is yet to solved. "A person dedicated his entire life to the nation and the nation couldn't find time to reveal his truth?," Banerjee said. "Today people are demanding answers about Netaji's disappearance and it has to be honoured," Banerjee said. City-based Manpasand Beverages today said it has tied up with German wholesale major Metro Cash & Carry to tap urban markets. "In continuation of our urban markets expansion strategy, this is our first major tie up with an international retail brand. "We have entered into this partnership to deepen our reach to potential business customers as METRO Cash & Carry works on an exclusive business-to-business wholesale concept," Dhirendra Singh Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of Manpasand told PTI. "We hope to deepen this partnership in future by offering our future range of fruit juice brands too," he added. This tie up will facilitate the penetration of Manpasand's flagship brand Mango Sip and recently launched Fruits Up brand, which consists of a range of carbonated fruit drinks into urban markets. The company, which got listed on BSE and NSE last year, is looking at modern retail to boost its strategy, Singh said. With modern trade on the threshold of exponential growth in India, Metro will extend its presence in existing markets by further deepening its network of customers and suppliers. Metro will also expand its footprint in the newer markets within the country, Singh said. The company has two manufacturing facilities in Vadodara, one each in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh and Dehradun in Uttaranchal. A new unit is being set up at Ambala in Haryana. Manpreet Badal, the estranged nephew of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, today joined Congress and merged his outfit, People's Party of Punjab, (PPP) with it after meeting Rahul Gandhi. Making the announcement at a press conference here, AICC general secretary and in-charge of Punjab Congress affairs, Shakeel Ahmed, said, "We are happy that PPP under Manpreet Singh Badal has today merged with Congress." He was flanked by Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh and Manpreet Badal, besides senior Congress leader Ambika Soni and former PCC chief Pratap Singh Bajwa. "We are happy that Manpreet ji joined us. His entire party met (Congress Vice President) Rahul ji. We are starting our campaign on a good note. We are now looking for an alliance for the next election. We are trying to get all secular forces against fundamentalist force," Amarinder said. He said that Congress had lost the last Assembly elections in 2012 by a 0.8 per cent vote share while PPP had got 5 per cent of the votes. "Had we come together, we could have saved Punjab," he said. Manpreet, who was the state Finance Minister in 2010, quit the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal after differences cropped up between him and his uncle Parkash Singh Badal and cousin Sukhbir Singh Badal. Talking about the development today, he said that Congress is "the right platform" for PPP's agenda, which is the growth of Punjab. He said he had quit as Finance Minister in the SAD government because he did not agree with the policies of the Akali government. "We feel Congress will be a good, and actually the right and only platform, where we can carry forward our Punjab agenda," he said at the AICC press conference. He said that neither him nor any PPP worker would accept any party position until they won the hearts of every Congress worker. "Without any pre-conditions to this alliance, I, and my PPP workers, will not take any position or responsibility in the Congress," he announced. (REOPENS DEL14) Manpreet said that PPP had tried to awaken the people of Punjab in the last few years and worked under an alliance with Congress for the past two-and-a-half years or so. "This merger (of Congress, PPP) has taken about six long months after talks with party leaders. I have met Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on three occasions on how to turn around Punjab and carry forward our agenda that was discussed threadbare." He said that he had presented an 11-point memorandum to Rahul and the Congress had accepted all the points. "This agenda is now the Congress agenda," he said. PPP had launched a movement for the betterment of Punjab and to rid it of ills like illiteracy, drug addiction and corruption, he said. Manpreet said that when he was born, Punjab was a jewel and the top state, but it has now seen a slide and is no longer the "jewel of India". Manpreet's entry into Congress and PPP's merger with the party comes after hectic parleys between him and Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh and other senior leaders. The merger was sealed today during a meeting between Manpreet and Rahul at the latter's residence here where Amarinder and AICC General Secretary Shakeel Ahmad were also present. The move can be seen as being part of Congress's endeavour to unite all secular and like-minded forces to defeat the ruling SAD-BJP combine, which has got the better of the party twice in a row in Punjab. Manpreet had unsuccessfully contested the 2014 General Elections from Bathinda on a Congress ticket against his sister-in-law and Akali Dal leader Harsimrat Kaur Badal. The High Commissioner of Mauritius in India, J Gobardhan today assured cooperation between his country and Uttar Pradesh while saying that development taking place in the state will attract more investments. "There is an atmosphere of happiness in Mauritius with the development taking place in Uttar Pradesh ...This will help attract investments in the state," the High Commissioner who met Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav said. Assuring cooperation between Mauritius and Uttar Pradesh, he said that a large number of NRIs spread all over the world belong to Uttar Pradesh and a large number of them is present in his country as well. Citing the facilities being extended by his government to NRIs, Yadav said, that he expects cooperation from Mauritius. External Affairs Ministry has asked Delhi Police to strengthen the security around the office of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) here, a day after a right-wing group vandalised it prompting Pakistan to raise the issue with India. "MEA has directed the police to beef up security near and around the PIA office," the ministry Spokesperson said today. Four members of Hindu Sena, a fringe group, vandalised the PIA office at Barakhamba Road. Police arrested one member of the group. In a statement in Islamabad, the Pakistan Foreign Office had said, "The PIA office in New Delhi was ransacked by a group of extremists. They caused damage to the property and also harassed and threatened the PIA staff." "The Pakistan High Commission immediately took up the matter with the Ministry of External Affairs, asking them to provide adequate security to the PIA offices in New Delhi and Mumbai, as well as to take action against the miscreants," the statement said, adding that Indian government assured that all necessary steps will be taken for security of these offices. The PIA office here was vandalised in August 2013 too allegedly by a right-wing group in the wake of the death of an Indian soldier in a ceasefire violation by Pakistan forces along the LoC. Chancellor Angela Merkel will host Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu for talks next Friday, her spokesman said, with discussions to centre on the suicide attack in Istanbul that claimed 10 German lives. Tuesday's "attack in Istanbul will play a central role" in the talks, said Steffen Seibert, spokesman for Merkel. The two leaders will also discuss issues on both countries' priority lists, including their fight against terrorism and a record refugee influx to Europe. The talks come as part of a regular meeting of the two countries' cabinets, including interior ministers, foreign ministers and defence ministers from both sides. Turkey has a special relationship with Germany as the biggest EU economy is not only home to around three million people with Turkish roots, but also its biggest trading partner. Turkey, which shares a border with war-torn Syria, is also a key player in the current record migrant influx to Europe, with EU countries needing Ankara's help to stem the flow. It has also stepped up its involvement in the US-led coalition against the Islamic State group, through air strikes as well as the hosting of war planes. Mexican authorities have clipped Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's wings again, seizing exotic birds such as peacocks, black swans and cockatoos from a ranch linked to the captured drug lord. The animals were found at a ranch that was raided by the authorities in November as part of investigations into the Sinaloa drug cartel and the then-fugitive, an official at the attorney general's office told AFP. The environmental prosecutor's office yesterday said that it confiscated five green peafowls, three blue peafowls, three mute swans, three black swans, two white peacocks, two blue-and-yellow macaws, two salmon-crested cockatoos and one helmeted guineafowl. The office said the green peafowls, macaws and cockatoos are listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) as animals whose trade is controlled. The birds were handed to a zoo's wildlife conservation unit in Culiacan, capital of the northwestern state of Sinaloa. Neighbours say Los Ciruelos ranch, which is located in Culiacan, belongs to Guzman, though property records do not bear his name, the official said. Guzman, 58, was recaptured in the Sinaloa seaside city of Los Mochis in a military operation on Friday, six months after he escaped from a maximum-security prison. Drug lords are well known for their affinity for wild animals. The late Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar had a private zoo at his Hacienda Napoles property, including hippos. After Guzman's first arrest in 1993, authorities found bears, jaguars, tigers and lions, among a slew of animals, in one of his properties, according to Mexican media. Michelle is not and will not run for presidency, US President Barack Obama today said, quickly adding that the First Lady would continue her work on issues like obesity even after they demit the office next January. "No," Obama said emphatically at a townhall meeting in Louisiana. "Since you can't run again for another term, is there any way that we as a group can talk the First Lady into running?" an individual who identified himself as Greg Gavins asked Obama. "No. Let me tell you, there are three things that are certain in life: death, taxes and Michelle is not running for president. That I can tell you," said the president whose second term ends on January 20, 2017. Obama's "no" was followed by a big applause from the audience. "But you know what? The First Lady, though, the work she's done around reducing childhood obesity; the work that she and Jill Biden have done on military families and making sure they get support -- I could not be prouder of her. "And I am certain that she's going to be really active as an ex-first lady. Not only is she going to be a very young ex-first lady, but unlike me, she looks young," he said. "I was looking at a wedding picture -- actually, we found the old video from our wedding. We've been married 23 years now. So my mother in law had been going through some storage stuff and found our wedding video. I popped it in. And I looked like a teenager. I realized, boy, I sure have aged. But she looked identical," he said. "Well, I am proud of her too, because most importantly, she's been an unbelievable mom, which is why my daughters have turned out so well," Obama said. The personal website of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has got a new look as it has been upgraded to make it more attractive to the people. Fresh in content and with new design, the website is aimed at bringing the Prime Minister closer to the netizens, an official said. "My website has an all-new look & remains a repository of information that would interest you. Check it out... All-new www.Narendramodi.In is also very mobile friendly, so you can browse the site on your mobiles on the go," Modi said in a series of tweets. The website brings the latest information around the work of the government in the last 20 months. A series of articles chronicle the ground covered in the economic spheres, clean Ganga, Swachh Bharat, 'Make in India', energy sector among other areas. In addition, all other information on Modi's work as the Chief Minister and his governance initiatives are found on the site. It has select text speeches and the 'Mann Ki Baat' radio programme can also be heard. All detailed information on the PM's foreign travels can be obtained through the site, the officials said. AAP today hitback at the BJP-ruled three municipal corporations for publishing advertisements, appealing the Delhi government to release funds to them, saying the money spent on it should be recovered from the mayors of the three civic bodies. "On one hand the BJP-run Municipal Corporations of Delhi (MCD) say that they don't have money to give salaries and on the other they are spending money on advertisements. The mayors should be held responsible for this and the money should be recovered from them," AAP's Delhi unit convenor Dilip Pandey told a conference. There were advertisement in a section of media in which Mayors of the three MCDs appealed Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Delhi Finance Minister Manish Sisodia to release around Rs 6,000 crore as per the recommendation of the 3rd Finance Commission. Targeting the BJP, AAP's Delhi unit treasurer Raghav Chadha said it should ask the Centre to give money as the MCDs were yet to receive hundreds of crores under the 'Swachch Bharat Abhiyan' initiative. "The Delhi Development Authority has to pay thousands of crores to MCDs, the Centre has to pay several hundred crores to the MCDs under the 'Swachch Bharat Abhiyan' initiative. But still they are targeting the BJP. The Centre is not sharing any kind of taxes with the civic bodies. "In fact, the Delhi government has released bigger amount, which was not even released during the Centre's rule (President's rule)," Chadha said. Meanwhile, SDMC Mayor Subhash Arya said he was not inclined to reply to AAP's query on money spent on advertisements. "I am not inclined to reply their question on money spent on the advertisement. What is wrong in the advertisements. When the AAP government can level allegations against MCDs and Central Government through its advertisements by spending public money, why can't we give advertisements," he said. Refusing to disclose the source of money spent on the advertisements, Arya said "let them ask us, we will give them a reply at a suitable time. Most Germans now doubt their country's ability to cope with a record migrant influx, and fear refugees more, after the New Year's Eve mass assaults on women in Cologne, opinion polls released today show. A survey by public broadcaster ZDF found that 60 per cent of respondents believe Germany cannot cope with the large numbers of new arrivals, which reached 1.1 million in 2015. The Cologne attacks clearly had an impact, the broadcaster said, as only 46 per cent of people surveyed in December felt that way. The poll of 1,203 people over January 12 to 14 also found that a majority (56 per cent) are now dissatisfied with German Chancellor Angela Merkel's refugee policies, up from 49 per cent in December. Seven people in 10 fear the influx will lead to more crime, compared to 62 per cent in October. And a growing minority, now at 42 per cent from 33 per cent in October, say they fear their cultural values are under threat. A separate survey by the group DeutschlandTrend for the state TV ARD found that 51 percent of German adults said they do not believe Merkel's repeated claim -- "we will manage" -- that Germany can absorb the inflow. In October, 48 per cent of respondents said they had this view. The poll also found that 48 per cent of those surveyed said they were afraid of refugees, while 50 per cent said they did not have this view. That question was not asked in October. The survey covered 1,000 people who were interviewed by phone on January 12 and 13. Hundreds of women were groped and robbed in a throng of mostly Arab and North African men outside the main railway station of Cologne. The tally of criminal complaints reached 652 yesterday, including 331 sex-related crimes, Cologne prosecutors said. The case has inflamed tensions in Germany, which took in nearly 1.1 million asylum seekers in 2015, mainly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, and put pressure on Merkel for her welcoming stance toward refugees fleeing war. Parents of a city-based engineer, who went missing in Pakistan in 2012, today said they hope that the Indian Government will secure the release of their son who is in Pakistan Army custody and facing a trial in military courts in the neighbouring country. Nehal Hamid Ansari went to Pakistan via Afghanistan to meet a girl he had befriended on the Internet and had been untraceable since then. His mother Fauzia and father Hamid Ansari said they lost touch with him during his stay in Afghanistan in late 2012. Fauzia, 56, said they got information yesterday, through her lawyer in Pakistan, that her son has been in Army custody. "Though our son is missing since the last three years, it was only yesterday that we got to know he has been held by the military in Pakistan," she told PTI today. She said the Central Government is in touch with them and they are hoping Nehal will return home soon. According to reports in Pakistan media, Defence authorities have told the Peshawar High Court that Nehal was being held by the Army and would be tried by a military court. However, they did not provide details what charges had been brought against the 30-year-old Indian. Nehal was 27 when he left his Versova home on November 5, 2012. Fauzia said Nehal, while leaving, had said he was heading to Afghanistan to explore job prospects. "My son is not a military officer, then why he is in Army's custody and facing trial by military courts?" she sought to know and expressed shock over the development. "We had last spoken to Nehal on November 10, 2012. He told us he would return to India very soon. When his phone went out of reach, a missing complaint was lodged at the Versova Police Station," Fauzia, a schoolteacher, added. She filed a habeas corpus petition through a Pakistani journalist in April 2014 after reports emerged he had crossed over to that country. "The journalist is missing since August last year," she said. According to media reports, Nehal had befriended a Kohat-based woman in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province through social media and crossed over into Pakistan from Afghanistan. A family member said Nehal was in touch with many people in Pakistan through Internet, including a girl who was a victim of some circumstances. He went to Pakistan to help her out, he said. Meanwhile, an official of Versova Police Station confirmed that a missing complaint was filed by Nehal's family in 2012. National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project's (NATRiP) seven automotive design and testing centres, being set up as per best global standards, will be fully operational by December 2016. "As the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has made it mandatory for vehicle manufactures in the country, especially cars, for complying with best international standards for safety of driver and passengers and set October 2017 deadline for new vehicles, NATRiP's centres will be all ready by the year-end," said NATRiP CEO Sanjay Bandopadhyay. Addressing a workshop here, Bandopadhyay said the infotronics laboratory and crash testing labs will be operational by June this year and the high-speed testing track will come up in two years. He was speaking at a two-day seminar on 'Road safety - Time for action' jointly organised by MoRTH and International Road Federation (IRF) as part of the ongoing National Road Safety Week , which concluded here today. "The seven facilities coming up at Manesar, Bengaluru, Rae Bareli, Silchar, Indore, Pune and Chennai under NATRiP are the best in the world for carrying out all safety tests including frontal and side crash test for vehicles," he said. With the focus now shifting on to safer vehicles and test facilities becoming operational, the automobile manufacturers in the country will get best of the testing facilities in the country itself, he added. He further said that with new testing facilities and new safety norms coming, vehicles will become safer and the country will be able to formulate new norms for crash test, emissions and other safety equipment like brakes, stability, noise and electro-magnetic radiations. Ministry of Road Transport has set October 2017 as the deadline for mandatory crash test for new models and October 2019 for existing cars, he said, adding that the high speed testing track is being developed at Indore centre and will be fully operational within next couple of years. Speaking on the occasion, Indian Road Federation (IRF) chief K K Kapila said that the automobile industry should rise to the occasion. "When they can export safe cars to other countries, why can't they do so for our customers. They should market their safety features for higher sale of products," he said. A Nepalese youth has been arrested after 4kg charas was recovered from his possession during checking at the Indo-Nepal border here, police said. The accused, identified as one Ramkumar, was detained with the contraband by SSB personnel at the Kodia border outpost yesterday, they said. He was later handed over to police and formally placed under arrest. A corpse has tested positive for Ebola in Sierra Leone, an official said today, the day after the World Health Organisation declared the outbreak over in West Africa. Tests on a 22-year-old woman who died earlier this month in Sierra Leone's north proved positive for the virus, Francis Langoba Kelly, spokesman for the Office of National Security, told a local radio program. She came from the Northern Kambia District and went to the Northern Tonkolili District for medical attention, he said. Authorities are tracing her contacts and have dispatched teams to the area for investigations. Certain areas will be quarantined, he said. WHO declared an end to the deadliest Ebola outbreak ever yesterday after no new cases emerged in Liberia. It had been at least a month since Ebola had been seen in Guinea or Sierra Leone. The three countries were most affected by the epidemic that began two years ago. "Our level of preparedness and response capabilities are very high and there is no cause for concern," said Kelly. "We encourage the public to continue to practice the hygiene regulations which were in force during the period while Ebola was raging and the emergency regulations are still in force." Nearly 4,000 people had died before Sierra Leone was declared free from transmission of Ebola on November 7. Guinea marked that day on November 29. Liberia was first declared free of the disease in May, but new cases emerged two times forcing officials there to restart the clock. Yesterday marked its third time being declared free from transmission. Ebola has killed more than 11,300 people, mostly in West Africa, since it emerged at the end of 2013. WHO declares Ebola transmission over when a country goes through two incubation periods 21 days each without a new case emerging. Countries are then placed on a 90-day heightened surveillance. Ebola is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of people who are sick or bodies of the dead. The National Green Tribunal has directed Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand government to identify seriously polluting industries located on the banks of Ganga and apprise it about "quantity and quality" of discharge generated by them in the river. A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar directed both state governments to inform it about the number of teams required for inspecting these "seriously polluting" industries from Haridwar to Kanpur. "Department of Urban Development of Uttarakhand shall inform the Tribunal about the complete programme in relation to discharge of any sewage or effluent into the river Ganga. It will state the quantity and quality of discharge. "Uttarakhand Pollution Control Board (UPCB) and Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) shall submit analysis report before the Tribunal positively before the next date of hearing," the bench, also comprising Justice U D Salvi, said. The green panel also ordered a joint inspection by a team consisting officials from Central Pollution Control Board, UPPCB, UPCB and a representative from Environment Ministry at points where tributaries of river Ganga from Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh meet the Ganga. "They will clearly state the quality of the water, quantum of effluent and sewage that is containing in each of these tributaries or river," the bench said. It directed Uttarakhand government to take a clear stand on industrial pockets located at Haridwar within two weeks. Earlier, the Tribunal had directed the Centre not to release funds for cleaning the river from Gomukh to Kanpur without its nod, chiding the two states for failing to identify the serious polluting locations. Irked at the lackadaisical approach of officials of the two states for failing to enumerate the causes for pollution and the locations affected, the bench had asked the Ministry of Water Resources and Ganga Rejuvenation, through National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA), not to release funds to the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand governments without its approval. On the issue of sewage management, the NGT was informed that at present 823.1 MLD sewage was being discharged without treatment directly into the river and the gap will be fulfilled after construction of proposed STPs. "30 storm water drains carrying sewage and sullage (waste water) and other wastes joining Ganga at various locations, should have flow measuring systems at the terminal points for assessing the quantity of waste water being discharged. "The identified 30 sewage carrying drains joining Ganga should be hygienically maintained and properly dredged at regular intervals. Dredged material should be disposed off properly without having any environmental impacts," it said. With regard to water quality assessment, the pollution monitoring body said that keeping in view that water quality of Ganga indicates presence of high number of fecal coliform bacteria monitoring of water quality of the river at various locations would be carried out on regular basis and monthly data be published on its website. "Till full-fledged STP are set-up, concerned bodies should set up temporary treatment systems within next six months to reduce existing pollution load," it said. CPCB said that on experimental basis, UP Irrigation Department will release some more quantity of water into Ganga from Narora barrage and monitor whether it has any consequences on other users like farmers. "The Irrigation Department will submit fortnightly report to the Ministry of Water Resources indicating the quantity of water released and quantity of water flowing in the river in various locations from Narora to Kanpur," it said. The green panel had divided the work of cleaning the river into different segments -- Gomukh to Haridwar, Haridwar to Kanpur, Kanpur to border of Uttar Pradesh, border of Uttar Pradesh to border of Jharkhand and border of Jharkhand to Bay of Bengal. On December 11 last year, the tribunal had imposed a complete ban on use of plastic of any kind from Gomukh to Haridwar along the river from February 1 and decided to slap a penalty of Rs 5,000 per day on erring hotels, dharamsalas and ashrams spewing waste into the river. Mumbai Regional Congress Committee (MRCC) chief Sanjay Nirupam has got a reprieve on publication of the controversial articles about Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira and Sonia Gandhi published in the party's mouthpiece 'Congress Darshan'. The party leadership has told Nirupam, editor of the magazine to be more careful in future, Congress sources said. Recently, Congress high command had sought an explanation from Nirupam over the issue of articles in a party journal slamming Jawaharlal Nehru and terming Sonia Gandhi's father a "fascist soldier". The Disciplinary Action Committee of AICC headed by senior leader AK Antony has issued a show-cause notice to Nirupam in the wake of the controversy. The leadership took cognisance of articles in MRCC mouthpiece 'Congress Darshan', and discussed the issue with the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee president Ashok Chavan, the sources said. The leadership feels what happened wasn't deliberate and only a slip. The leadership feels that the matter ends here, the sources said. "A senior congress leader has said he judges a person by his intention and expressed confidence in Nirupam. He told Nirupam that such mistakes shouldn't be repeated," the sources added. North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un is afraid of sharing the fate of slain dictators Saddam Hussein, Moamer Kadhafi and Al-Qaeda's Osama bin Laden, and is working on a nuclear deterrent for this purpose, a former Japanese defence minister said today. "Kim is very afraid to be killed like (Iraq's) Saddam Hussein, (Libya's) Moamer Kadhafi or Osama bin Laden," Satoshi Morimoto, who is now a national security expert, told a conference in Athens. "So as long as they maintain nuclear capability they think they can survive," said Morimoto, a professor at Tokyo's Takushoku University who served as defence minister in 2012. North Korea says it tested a miniaturised hydrogen bomb on January 6 -- a claim largely dismissed by experts who argue the yield was far too low for a full-fledged thermonuclear device. Morimoto argued that given available data, the weapon tested was likely a "small bomb with a launch missile." He recalled a similar situation in 1953, when the Soviet Union said it had tested a hydrogen bomb, but the United States considered it a smaller-scale thermonuclear weapon. Moscow's first 'true' hydrogen bomb test came two years later. North Korea "is in the process of developing a hydrogen bomb, but not yet," Morimoto said. "Despite sanctions, they never gave up nuclear development and ballistic missiles," he said. No agitation will be required for building Ram temple in Ayodhya since Narendra Modi is heading the government at the centre and he will ensure the construction by enacting a law, according to VHP president Pravin Togadia. "Till there is a government of 'Bhai Narendra in Delhi, there will not be any talk of agitation (for Ram Temple)", he told a VHP programme here. "Modi is a man of firm resolve and I am confident that he will ensure the construction by getting a law enacted by Parliament," he said. The firebrand VHP leader demanded a special session of Parliament for enacting a law for paving way for contruction of Ram Temple as was done in the case of Somnath Temple when Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel was the Home Minister. Appealing to all the political parties to help in this regard, Togadia said "Ram temple is a matter of faith and not an election issue..The benefit of framing a law for it will not go to any one party but to BJP, Congress, SP, BSP and all." On the attack on Pathankot airbase and ties with Pakistan, he said any attack on the armed forces is termed as war. "Pakistan regards India as enemy and a policy should be framed regarding an enemy in such a way..," he said. Togadia added, "we will consider that Pakistan has changed only when it hands over Dawood Ibrahim, Maulana Azhar Masood, Lakhiur Rehman Lakhvi and Hafiz Saeed to India. Confusion prevailed over whether Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar has been detained in connection with the Pathankot terror attack that led to deferring of Foreign Secretary-level talks for which Pakistan today said new dates were being worked out. Punjab province Law Minister Rana Sanaullah told Dawn late last night that Azhar, believed to be the mastermind behind the attack on the Air Force base in Pathankot, has been taken into "protective custody" and that he is not arrested. However, the federal government has not confirmed Azhar's detention. Meanwhile, Pakistan Prime Minister's Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz said Pakistan and India are working on finalising new dates soon for the Foreign Secretary-level talks. Yesterday both the countries agreed mutually to defer the talks that were to take place here today. They have agreed to hold the parleys in the "very near future". India has sought action by Pakistan on the evidence provided for apprehending the JeM terrorists suspected to have been involved in the January 2 attack. India has linked the fate of the talks to action by Pakistan. Officials said police yesterday raided and sealed a religious seminary operated by JeM in Sialkot town near the Indian border. The raid was launched by Punjab's Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), one of its officials said. "No arrest was made but some books, CDs and copies of national identity cards of some suspects were confiscated," he said. The Odisha government today decided to set up Mineral Exploration Corporation Limited (MECL) in a bid to tap virgin mining fields and streamline procedures. The decision to set up the corporation, under the provisions of the Odisha Mineral Exploration Policy, was taken at a meeting chaired by Chief Secretary A P Padhi here. Steel and Mines Secretary RK Sharma said the state government has finalised the modalities through which the G3 level mines identified for auction would be brought into G2 category as per provisions of the amended MMDR Act. Once these mines are categorised as G2, the state government can issue notifications on its own without the permission of the Centre, Sharma said. The state government is yet to issue a notification for auction of seven mines which are in G3 level. The Corporation would also play a key role in giving operational clearance and extension of leases as per the amended MMDR Act to mines which have been closed due to irregularities or lease expiry, officials said. The proposed corporation would be a subsidiary company of the state-run Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC). Chief Secretary Padhi suggested that since the proposed body would principally be a promotional agency, some revenue earning provisions should be incorporated in it from the beginning. Accordingly, it was decided that the Corporation can extend its services of scientific exploration and analysis to other states and agencies on a payment basis. Officials in the Steel and Mines Department said Odisha has around 700 sq km of virgin and freehold area which is potentially rich in minerals like asbestos, bauxite, china clay, cobalt, chromites, fireclay, graphite, limestone, manganese, mineral sand, nickel, platinum group materials (PGM), tin ore and vanadium, apart from coal and iron ore. Explored mines account for around 7 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product of the state. The vast reserves of minerals can boost the state's growth further, they said. Scientific exploration is needed to realise the mining potential of this untapped 700 sq km area. About 50 lakh meter of core drilling has to be done in this exercise. Experts say that with available technology, around 1.5 lakh meter core drilling can be done per year, thus requiring around 30-35 years for covering the entire area. Besides core drilling, other associated activities which are needed include remote sensing study, geological mapping, geo-physical investigation, core logging, sampling, 3D modelling, reserve resource estimation, among others. The approximate cost for core drilling is around Rs 200 crore per one lakh meter. As such, the financial requirement would come around Rs 300 crore per annum to achieve the target. Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik today appointed senior-most member of the state Legislative Council Om Prakash Sharma as the Protem Chairman of the House. With the term of Chairman of the Upper House Ganesh Shankar Pandey coming to an end today, the Governor appointed Sharma as the Protem Chairman of the House, an official release issued here said. Sharma will discharge the duties of the Chairman from January 16 till the day the new chairman is not elected, the release added. Over 14 lakh pilgrims today took holy dip at the Gangasagar today on the occasion of Makar Sankranti and offered puja at the Kapil Muni temple even as one person died of heart attack, a district official said. The 'snan', (dip) which began at 7:44 AM can be taken for another 16 hours, the head priest of Kapil Muni temple Mahant Gyandas said. Meanwhile, a South 24 Parganas district official said one person, from north India, died of cardiac arrest after he took the dip today, taking the death toll of Sagar-bound pilgrims to five in past four days. Including the one who died today, three pilgrims have passed away due to cardiac arrest in the fair area in the past four days, the official said, adding one death each was reported from Lot No. 8 and Kachuberia 1 near the Sagar islands. The mela, which can boast to represent mini-India, also witnessed participation from Nepal and some European nations. Gyandas claimed he had a telephonic conversation with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today and she proposed a bigger mela - 'Moksha' (salvation) Gangasagar Mela - next year. Meanwhile, 83 pilgrims were injured when two buses collided at Buldubi near Kachuberia this morning and some of them had to be taken to hospital, the district official said. Pakistan today strongly reacted to US President Barack Obama's remarks that the country could become a safe haven for terrorists and would continue to face instability for decades to come. In his last State of the Union address on Tuesday, Obama had said that "instability will continue for decades in many parts of the world - in the Middle East, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in parts of central America, Africa and Asia". He said that the US' foreign policy must be focused on the threat from the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda, but it can't stop there. "For even without IS, instability will continue for decades in many parts of the world - in the Middle East, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in parts of Central America, Africa and Asia," he said. "Some of these places may become safe havens for new terrorist networks; others will fall victim to ethnic conflict, or famine, feeding the next wave of refugees," he said. Pakistani Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz rejected Obama's comments in a breakfast meeting with Chinese scholars, diplomats and mediapersons. "Whatever the US president said about instability in Pakistan and Afghanistan are his predictions and have nothing to do with ground realities," Aziz said. He said Pakistan was committed to defeating militancy and had major successes in the fight to eliminate terrorism. "Pakistan is taking decisive action against terrorism and militancy and days to come will witness more stability here," he said. Aziz said Afghanistan faced the issue of "instability" but Pakistan was making all out efforts to bring peace and stability in its neighbouring nation. Pakistan today said it would complete the western alignment of the Chinese-built USD 46 billion economic corridor linking China to the Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea by 2018. A meeting of leading parties of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces was held under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to share information with, and address the political reservations regarding China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). According to an official statement, it was decided that the location of industrial parks will be decided in consultation with the provinces, while allied facilities and infrastructure for the industrial parks will be set up by consultation between the federal and provincial governments. It was also agreed that working on the principle of "One Corridor, Multiple Passages", the western route will be completed by July 15, 2018. The meeting agreed to increase the yearly allocation of Rs 40 billion for the project. The Western Alignment for CPEC will be a 4-lane expressway in the first phase, but with a provision for subsequent conversion into 6-lane limited access motorway, for which early finalisation of land acquisition will be the responsibility of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. A high-powered committee headed by the prime minister was constituted for periodical consultation with the provinces on matters related to the CPEC. Key federal ministers of four provinces and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa are part of it. Both Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan had expressed reservation over the route of the CPEC, alleging that it was diverted to benefit Punjab. But the government said that as CPEC has eastern and western route, the western route is now being developed on priority basis, while the eastern one is already mostly developed. The corridor passes though the strategically located Gilgit-Baltistan region of PoK which provides the only land link with China. India has objected to the project due to the disputed status of the region. A 15-year-old Pakistani boy cut off his own hand believing he had committed blasphemy, only to be celebrated by his parents and neighbours for the act, police said today. Local police chief Nausher Ahmed told AFP how an imam told a gathering at a village mosque that those who love the Prophet Mohammad always say their prayers, then asked who among the crowd had stopped praying. Mohammad Anwar, 15, raised his hand by mistake after apparently mishearing the question. The crowd swiftly accused him of blasphemy so he went to his house and cut off the hand he had raised, put it on a plate, and presented it to the cleric, the police chief said. The incident took place at a village in Hujra Shah Muqeem district, some 125 kilometres (77 miles) south of Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, about four days ago, according to the policeman. Ahmed said that he has seen a video in which the boy is greeted by villagers in the street as his parents proclaim their pride. No complaint has been made, he said, so no police report has been filed and there will be no investigation. Blasphemy is a hugely sensitive issue in Pakistan, an Islamic republic of some 200 million, where even unproven allegations frequently stir mob violence and lynchings. Critics including European governments say the country's blasphemy laws are often misused to settle personal scores. A Belgian-Moroccan man who blew himself up during a police raid days after the Paris attacks had travelled in 2013 to Syria where he joined the Islamic State group, Belgian prosecutors said today. Chakib Akrouh, a suspected gunman in the Paris attacks whose identity was released in Paris yesterday, used a one-way ticket to fly from Brussels to Istanbul on January 4, 2013, the federal prosecutor's office said. "The investigation then indicated his presence in Syria from January 2013 when he joined the ranks of the Katibat al-Muhajereen, then the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant," it said in a statement, using another name for the Islamic State. Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said yesterday that Akrouh, a 25-year-old Belgian-Moroccan dual national who was born in Belgium, was identified from DNA matched to his mother. Akrouh had been holed up in an apartment in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis with the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks, Abelhamid Abaaoud, who was also a Belgian of Moroccan origin. Akrooh blew himself up when police raided the flat, while Abaaoud and a French woman, Hasna Aitboulahcen, who is thought to have been Abaaoud's cousin, were also killed. Prosecutors initially mistakenly said the woman had been the suicide bomber. The Belgian prosecutor said a court in Belgium sentenced Akrouh to five years in jail in absentia last July over jihadist recruitment network sending fighters to Syria. Abaaoud was sentenced to 20 years in the same case, also in absentia. The Belgian prosecutor's office said "an analysis of photographs from the person seen at the side of Abdelhamid Abaaoud in the Paris metro on November 13, 2015 at 10:14 PM after the Paris attacks, allowed federal investigators to make the link on December 17 2015 with with the so-named Chakib Akrouh." It added that "a DNA test from (Akrouh's) mother was carried out on December 17, 2015 and the comparison with the DNA sample from the blast site in Saint Denis confirmed it was that of Chakib Akrouh. Punjab government today asked Deputy Commissioners to depute a Nodal Officer in each district with the mandate to receive public complaints and to ensure their quick redressal. An official spokesman said the decision in this regard had been taken during a high level meeting held under the chairmanship of state Chief Secretary Sarvesh Kaushal. In the meeting, Kaushal said written instructions have also been issued to all Deputy Commissioners whereby it had been ordered that they must notify one senior officer as the nodal officer for receiving public complaints either through applications or through emails or telephone. Detail of the office address, telephone numbers and emails of that Nodal Officer must be notified to the complainant by issuing a press note in the print as well as over electronic media, he said. Besides the nodal officer, there would be one nominated official for every public dealing office in the district who would be notified for receiving complaints of people in the same manner and the names, address and telephone numbers of such officials must be publicise through electronic as well as print media, he said. Hindu Sena chief Vishnu Gupta was arrested today by Delhi Police in connection with the vandalism of Pakistan International Airlines office here by the members of the outfit. Gupta has been arrested under Sections 120B (being party to a criminal conspiracy), 147 (rioting), 149 (being the member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 427 (mischief causing damage to property)and 452 (house-trespass after preparation for hurt, assault or wrongful restraint) of IPC, said police. "The police are still looking for the other Hindu Sena members who were involved in the vandalism," DCP (New Delhi) Jatin Narwal said. Yesterday, four members of Hindu Sena, a fringe right-wing group, ransacked the fifth floor office of Pakistan International Airlines at Narayan Manzil in Barakhamba Road around 3:15 PM, damaging computers, furniture and other items. Police later arrested one member of the group, who was identified as Lalit Singh, while three others fled. The members also left pamphlets which said,"There should be no talks with Pakistan unless they take stern action against people who have caused damage to India and hand over people like Dawood Ibrahim and Hafiz Saeed to India." The incident prompted Islamabad to take up the issue with the Ministry of External Affairs. Owning responsibility of the incident, Gupta had vented anger at Pakistan holding it responsible for the attacks at Pathankot air base as well as at the Indian consulate in the Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif recently. Gupta was also arrested last October, days after his complaint that "beef" was being served at Kerala House canteen in New Delhi was found to be false. Two petitions were today filed in the Delhi High Court seeking quashing of the AAP government's decision to scrap management and all other quotas except for Economically Weaker Sections in the city's private schools for nursery admissions. One of the pleas was mentioned before a bench of justices B D Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva which listed it for hearing before the appropriate court on January 18. The Delhi government in its order issued on January 6 had warned that institutions which violate the direction could be taken over by the education department. Seeking stay of operation of the order, a plea by Forum for Promotion of Quality Education For All, said the "order is absolutely without jurisdiction and is thus, liable to be quashed". Advocate Vedanta Varma, for the forum, urged the court that the admission is on, therefore it is necessary for the court to intervene, as it has been passed "without application of mind and is contrary to law". Besides this plea, Action Committee of Unaided Recognized Private Schools, consisting of more than 400 private unaided recognised schools functioning in Delhi, also moved the high court stating that they are also "aggrieved by the absolutely illegal, arbitrary, whimsical and unconstitutional order" issued by Delhi government's Directorate of Education (DoE). Advocate Kamal Gupta for the committee stated in the plea that the order is "without jurisdiction and is contrary to and violative of various judgments passed by the Supreme Court as well as by various benches of the High Court, relating to the autonomy of private unaided schools to regulate their admissions". The committee further said that in 1973, Parliament enacted Delhi School Education Act (DSE Act) and also framed Delhi School Education Rules (DSE Rules) thereunder, "thereby recognizing and conferring maximum autonomy upon private unaided recognized schools functioning in Delhi, to regulate their own admissions in a fair and rational manner". "A perusal of the legal provisions shows that admissions to recognized private unaided schools are to be regulated by DSE Rules, which Rules in turn confer the power to regulate admissions upon the head of every unaided school," it added. Announcing the decision taken at a meeting of the state's cabinet, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on January 6 had called the management quota the breeding ground for "biggest scandal" in the education sector in the country and said his government will not be a "mute spectator" to it. The AAP government had also scrapped 62 "arbitrary and discriminatory" criteria listed by schools on their websites for admissions. However, the 25 per cent quota for the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) will stay, the government had said. As per the Delhi government, the decision came in the midst of the admission process for nursery classes in over 2,500 private schools in the capital. Earlier, the high court, in an order, had asked the Delhi government not to micro-manage the admission process following which Education Department had allowed the schools to frame their respective criteria and put them on their websites. Kejriwal had said certain criteria put out by the schools were "very shocking" and in violation of Article 14 of the Constitution relating to equality before law. Prime Minister Narendra Modi today presented certificates to officers of the Indian Army for their innovation in areas such as communications, counter-terror operations, simulation among others. The certificates were presented by the Prime Minister to these innovators during the "At-Home function" at the residence of Army chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar was also present at the event which was attended among others by Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad. Interestingly, none of the three Congress leaders had attended the 'At Home' of both the Navy and Air Force chiefs held recently. The innovators also explained their work to the Prime Minister. The innovations displayed at the venue ranged from creative modifications for enhancing operational capability of existing weapon systems and equipment, development of Information Technology applications, simulations, expedients for facilitating operational and logistics capabilities to creating workable solutions for indigenisation of spares and components. The shortlisted innovations were based on a selection process where all Army Commands were encouraged to carry out their own in-house selections before the army-level selections for suitable innovations were made. An audacious attack by suicide bombers in the heart of Indonesia's capital was funded by the Islamic State group, police said today, as they seized an IS flag from the home of one of the attackers and carried out raids across the country in which one suspected militant was killed. National police chief Gen Badrodin Haiti told reporters that yesterday's attack was funded by IS through Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian who spent one year in jail for illegal possession of weapons in 2011, and is now in Syria fighting for the group. Supporters of IS also circulated a claim of responsibility for the attack on Twitter late yesterday. The radical group controls territory in Syria and Iraq, and its ambition to create an Islamic caliphate has attracted some 30,000 foreign fighters from around the world, including a few hundred Indonesians and Malaysians. The IS link, if proved, poses a challenge to Indonesian security forces. Until now, the group was known only to have sympathizers with no active cells capable of planning and carrying out a plot such as yesterday's in which five men attacked a Starbucks cafe and a traffic police booth with handmade bombs, guns and suicide belts. They killed two people, one a Canadian and the other an Indonesian, and injured 20 in the first major attack in Indonesia since 2009. The militants were killed, either by their suicide vests or by police. The attack "was funded by ISIS in Syria through Bahrun Naim," Haiti told reporters after Friday prayers, using an acronym for the Islamic State group. He did not elaborate. He also identified one of the five attackers as Sunakim, who in 2010 was sentenced to seven years in jail for his involvement in military-style training in Aceh, but was released early. Police conducted raids across Indonesia but was it unclear whether those arrested were suspected of links to the bombing or if police were rounding up militants as part of a broader crackdown in its aftermath. They also outlined a partial reconstruction of events based on security camera video, part of which showed a Starbucks customer escaping from the grip of a bomber before he detonated his suicide bomb. Police did not identify the customer but said he or she suffered minor injuries. National police spokesman Maj Gen Anton Charliyan said an IS flag was found in the home of one of the attackers and raids were conducted in Java, Kalimantan and Sulawesi, with four arrests made. Charliyan said three men arrested at dawn in their homes in Depok on the outskirts of Jakarta are no longer suspected of being linked to the attack. A mob today ransacked a police station, set two police vehicles on fire and allegedly assaulted constables after a man was crushed to death by a truck carrying sand in Birbhum district. The man, a local, was crushed to death while crossing Mayerswar-Rampurhat road at Mayureswar this morning, Birbhum, Superintendent of Police, Mukesh Kumar said. As the spread a large number of villagers gathered at the spot and claimed that the man was riding a motorcycle and was hit by the truck which was loaded with sand from Mayureswar river as it was being chased by a police vehicle allegedly to collect money from the driver. Police, however, rejected the claim of the villagers. When the forces reached the area and tried to take away the body the mob threw stones at them and set fire to the two vehicles, Kumar said. The policemen chased by the mob ran to Mayureswar police station, which was nearby, to save themselves. The mob then forcibly entered the police station and went on the rampage and ransacked a room, the SP added. Eyewitness, however, said the mob assaulted policemen on duty at the police station. A large police force was rushed in from Rampurhat and Suri who brought the situation under control and removed the body after about six hours since the accident. "A raid is on to catch the culprits," Kumar added. People across Tamil Nadu are celebrating the harvest festival of 'Pongal' and the first day of Tamil month 'Thai' with usual fervour today, preparing the traditional food and offering prayers. People prepare sweet Pongal, made of jaggery with rice and milk, in traditional mud pot or in brass cookware, with ginger tied on the top, and offer prayers to Sun God, along with a piece of sugarcane. The food is shared with relatives and neighbours after being offered to lord Sun. Cows and bulls would be worshipped, particularly in the southern districts of the state, for 'Mattu Pongal' tomorrow, while people visit relatives on the last day 'Kaanum Pongal'. Since the Supreme Court has banned the bull-taming sport of 'Jallikattu', normally conducted on Mattu Pongal day, the festival is expected to be low-key in Madurai and neighbouring districts, where it is widely popular. For the 'Kannum Pongal' festival, security has been beefed up at several places, including at the Marina beach Chennai, where people throng in very large numbers. Governor K Rosaiah, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, DMK President M Karunanidhi and other leaders have extended greetings to the people. Former "Power Rangers Samurai" actor Ricardo Medina Jr is charged with the 2015 murder of his roommate Josh Sutter, nearly a year after it was announced that he would not face any charges for the same case. The 36-year-old actor was arrested on January 14 on a felony complaint of murder, reported Aceshowbiz. If convicted, Ricardo actor will face up to 26 years to life in prison. Los Angeles District Attorney's office mentioned in a press release that prosecutors demanded that Ricardo's bail be set at USD 1 million. He is scheduled to be arraigned on Tuesday, January 19. Ricardo's attorney, Allen Bell, was disappointed by the charge as it is done a year after the incident happened. The actor was first arrested last year for allegedly stabbing his roommate several times. At that time, he was released after prosecutors announced that he wouldn't face any charges. Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu is on a three-day United States visit, starting January 13, on the request of the World Bank to deliver an address at the Plenary Session of the financial institution. On the first day of his tour, which involves a number of conferences and events, Prabhu held a meeting with Fred P Hochberg, Chairman and President, US EXIM Bank and also participated in a seminar organised by the World Bank at its headquarters on 'Railway Reforms in India', release said. He made a detailed presentation about the various initiatives of Indian Railways. The introductory speech at the seminar was delivered by Jose Luis Irigoyen, Director of Transport and ICT, World Bank. On the second day of his visit, Prabhu participated in the World Bank conference as a key speaker and its topic was 'Transport and Cities - Key Drivers for Meeting Climate Goals'. Later, on the same day, Railway Minister participated in a special talk at Carnegie Endowment on 'Modernising India's Transportation Infrastructure for Sustained Growth: Challenges and Prospects'. Amid a raging debate on net neutrality, Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) Jitendra Singh today met Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to discuss the issues related to differential data pricing -- a key factor in the proposed policy. While sectoral regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is yet to give its recommendations on the matter, sources said the PMO is closely monitoring the issues relating to differential pricing for data services and Facebook's controversy-ridden Free Basics platform. Sources said the PMO is taking a keen interest in the issue because any policy regarding Internet can play an important role in the success of Digital India programme. In their second such meeting, Singh along with Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan today met the Telecom Minister to deliberate on the matter and what could be the implications if differential pricing is permitted. Most of the telecom operators and Facebook have supported differential pricing for data usage, which is being opposed by net neutrality activists. The activists, however, say that allowing differential pricing for data would amount to curbs on freedom of choice to access Internet. Facebook is also running a massive campaign to project Free Basics platform as a tool to spread web connectivity. Prasad had earlier said the government would take its structured view on the issue after Trai submits its report. "The issue of net neutrality is being debated by the Trai, and we have to wait for the Trai report. Thereafter, the government will take its structured view," Prasad had said. Net neutrality talks about that equal treatment being accorded to all Internet traffic without any discrimination or priority to any company, content or service provider one the basis of payment. A debate on the issue had begun last year across the country after Airtel decided to charge separately for Internet-based calls but withdrew it later after people protested. The debate heated up after Airtel launched free Internet platform Airtel Zero and later Facebook launched its Internet.Org platform, which it later renamed as Free Basics. Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi today exhorted local party workers to put up a united face to take on the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance in the next year's elections to the municipal corporation here. Terming Congress as a "very complicated party", Rahul asked party workers to draw inspiration from the leadership of late stalwart Murli Deora, and take everybody along, but also warned against any act of indiscipline. Unitedly fight the Mumbai's civic election next year. A win in Sena-BJP-ruled Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), India's largest civic body which boasts of an annual budget in excess of Rs 30,000 crore, will be a real tribute to Deora, who passed away in 2014, he said while addressing party workers at the Mumbai Congress office. The 45-year-old Amethi MP, however, did not make any reference to alleged factionalism within the Mumbai Congress. Rahul said the country's oldest political party, which was founded in Mumbai (then Bombay) in 1885, derives a lot of idealogical strength from Maharashtra. "This (Maharashtra) has deeply imbibed Congress ideologies. When I think about whole of India, I find Congress has most deep-rooted ideological presence in this state. Even Gandhiji spoke about it. He had said Maharashtra takes lead in promoting brotherhood and inclusiveness," he said. Earlier, Rahul inaugurated the Murlibhai Deora Hall, built inside the Mumbai Regional Congress Committee office. He paid rich tributes to Deora and hailed him as a humble and successful Congress leader. "When you want to move fast then go alone, but when you want to move longer, then take everyone along with you. This noble thought I learnt from Murlibhai who we all miss now," he said. Deora successfully led the Mumbai Congress for over 22 years, and this is no mean feat, Rahul said. "I am in active in politics since 2004 and I have come across several Presidents of the party units. I have closely noticed functioning of the party and observed how the party is run and from where opposition comes from (in local units) because Congress is a very complicated party," Rahul said. "In these circumstances, he (Deora) successfully headed Mumbai Congress for 22 years. This shows there must have been something in him," said the party Vice-President, who is in Mumbai tour for two days. Rahul's visit comes at a time when MRCC, now headed by Sanjay Nirupam, is embroiled in a row over two articles in a party journal criticising former PM Jawaharlal Nehru and making uncharitable comments about Sonia Gandhi's father. (Reopens BOM17) Deora's son Milind, a former Congress MP from Mumbai South, was also present on the occasion. "I am very grateful to Rahul Gandhiji for coming to Mumbai to inaugurate a hall named after my father, who nurtured Mumbai Congress for over two decades," said Milind, a former Union Minister. Amidst factionalism in Mumbai unit of Congress, Rahul Gandhi today asked local party workers to put up a united face to take on Maharashtra's ruling Shiv Sena-BJP alliance in next year's elections to the municipal corporation here and warned against acts of indiscipline. Terming Congress as a "very complicated party, Rahul asked party workers to draw inspiration from the leadership of late stalwart Murli Deora, and take everybody along, but also warned against any act of indiscipline. Unitedly fight the Mumbai's civic election next year. A win in Sena-BJP-ruled Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), India's largest civic body which boasts of an annual budget in excess of Rs 30,000 crore, will be a real tribute to Deora, who died in 2014, he said while addressing party workers at the Mumbai Congress office. The 45-year-old Amethi MP, however, did not make any reference to factionalism in Mumbai unit of Congress. Rahul said the country's oldest political party, which was founded in Mumbai (then Bombay) in 1885, derives a lot of idealogical strength from Maharashtra. "This (Maharashtra) has deeply imbibed Congress ideologies. When I think about whole of India, I find Congress has most deep-rooted ideological presence in this state. Even Gandhiji spoke about it. He had said Maharashtra takes lead in promoting brotherhood and inclusiveness," he said. "When you want to move fast then go alone, but when you want to move longer, then take everyone along with you. This noble thought I learnt from Murlibhai who we all miss now," he said. Deora had successfully led the Mumbai Congress for over 22 years, and this is no mean feat, Rahul said. "I am in active in politics since 2004 and I have come across several Presidents of the party units. I have closely noticed functioning of the party and observed how the party is run and from where opposition comes from (in local units) because Congress is a very complicated party," Rahul said. "In these circumstances, he (Deora) successfully headed Mumbai Congress for 22 years. This shows there must have been something in him," said the party Vice-President, who is in Mumbai tour for two days. Rahul's visit comes at a time when MRCC, now headed by Sanjay Nirupam, is embroiled in a row over two articles in a party journal criticising former PM Jawaharlal Nehru and making uncharitable comments about Sonia Gandhi's father. Ahead of Republic Day, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, NSA Ajit Doval and other top officials today reviewed the security situation in the country as Delhi and many other places continue to be on high alert in the wake of Pathankot terror attack. During the hour-long meeting presided by Singh, the top brass of the country's security apparatus took stock of various aspects of internal security and analysed intelligence inputs received in recent past, official sources said. Necessary instructions have been given to ensure security in all sensitive locations, border areas and major urban centres, including Delhi where the Republic Day's main function will be held with French President Francois Hollande as the chief guest. Chiefs of Intelligence Bureau and Research and Analysis Wing shared various inputs gathered by the two organisations while chief of Investigation Agency briefed about the ongoing probe into the terror attack on Pathankot air base, the sources said. Recent intelligence inputs have suggested that there could be 6 to 10 Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists who had crossed over to India from Pakistan through Punjab in recent past. Six suspected JeM terrorists were killed in the Pathankot air base after three days of fierce gun battle but there is a possibility of a few remaining at large, the sources said. Besides, according to a Punjab Police input, there could be 15 terrorists who have breached the International Border and had entered India from Pakistan. An additional 10,000 paramilitary personnel have already been deployed in Delhi to ensure greater security cover ahead of the Republic Day celebrations. Security has been beefed up in Delhi's IGI airport too after another input suggested that terrorists may try to create a hostage-like situation. Both domestic and international flights have been asked to upgrade the scale of security, with some passengers being made to undergo 'secondary ladder checking' in some flights. A 'secondary ladder checking' is conducted just when the passenger is about to enter the aircraft with an aim to ensure that he is not carrying any weapon or chemical. Today's meeting came a day after India and Pakistan deferred the foreign secretary-level talks and India gave the go-ahead to the visit of a Pakistan SIT on Pathankot attack. Army chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag had said on Wednesday that the security environment facing the nation is becoming more "complex and dynamic" and that at least 17 terror training camps continue to be active in Pakistani Occupied Kashmir compared to 42 earlier. Parrikar recently has said that there was a need to give back pain inflicted on India by organisations and individuals in the same coin. Reserve Bank has increased its shareholding in National Housing Bank by contributing Rs 1,000 crore towards the paid capital. "The Reserve Bank has contributed Rs 1,000 crore towards the paid up capital of the National Housing Bank on January 12, 2016, thereby increasing its shareholding in the NHB from Rs 450 crore to Rs 1,450 crore," RBI said in a release today. The move is aimed at facilitating NHB to expand financial operations given the demand for housing in the country. RBI had provided for an amount of Rs 1,000 crore during the accounting year 2014-15, specifically towards capital contribution to the NHB, which is its wholly owned subsidiary, it added. "This would help NHB to expand its financial operations as envisaged under the NHB Act, 1987," RBI said further. Finance Ministry in December had notified an increase in authorised capital of NHB from Rs 450 crore to Rs 1,450 crore to enable RBI to augment its shareholding in NHB. Set up in 1988, NHB is an apex level institution for housing, keeping in view the non-availability of long-term finance to individual households as a major lacuna impeding progress of housing sector in the country. Also, the government has set an ambitious target of 'Housing for All' by 2022. Several structured remittances in the range of USD 80,000 -99,900 have been made by the same account holder very frequently from select authorised dealer branches, the central bank said. It added: "In many banks neither the concurrent auditors nor the internal auditors could find out irregularities in such a large scale, raising questions about the scope, coverage and capability of the internal control mechanisms. "What was more disquieting was the fact that the abnormal spurt in import transactions in these branches vis-a-vis the performance in previous periods has not caught the attention of the controlling or head office of the bank." Considering the "scale and spread of such transactions", banks were advised to immediately initiate a detailed internal audit of Authorised Dealers branches where such remittances have gone up significantly during the past two to three years. "The scope of audit also may cover the current accounts with huge number of inward or outward Real-time gross settlement (RTGS) and National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) transactions, not in sync with the declared turnover or business, KYC processes followed etc," it said. In reply to the RTI application, RBI has said that it is in the process of receiving the internal audit report from various banks. The airspace will remain out of bounds for commercial flights arriving and departing out of the IGI airport here for more than an hour every day beginning next week in view of the Republic Day celebrations. The airlines have already been intimated about the airspace closure through a NOTAM (Notice to airmen), issued by the Airports of Authority of India (AAI), which manages Indian airspace, sources said today. The NOTAM was issued two days ago, they said. According to NOTAM, no landing or take-off of any commercial flight will be allowed from the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) here between 1035 hours to 1215 hours from January 19 to 24, 2016 and then again for the same duration on January 26 as well. On January 26, President Pranab Mukherjee will unfurl the tricolour and take the salute of marching contingents. French President Francois Hollande will be the chief guest at the parade, which will also be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the country's top political and military brass, among others. Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) is a notice containing information concerning the establishment, condition, or change in any facility, service or procedure, among others, in airspace management. As many as 60 arrivals and departures take place at the IGIA during the period, for which NOTAM has been issued. The AAI-GMR run joint venture airport handles 1050 flights per day including international arrivals and departures. The Delhi government and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India have moved the Supreme Court against a high court verdict quashing city government's 2014 order asking the CAG to audit the accounts of three private power distribution companies. The apex court has already listed an appeal of an NGO on the issue for hearing on January 18. The AAP-led government had ordered the CAG audit of discoms Tata Power Delhi Distribution Ltd (TPDDL), BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd and BSES Yamuna Power Ltd, which supply power in Delhi, on grounds including that it has 49 per cent stakes in the discoms. Earlier, NGO United RWAs Joint Action (URJA) had filed the appeal against the dismissal of its PIL by the high court. The high court had termed as "populist" the decision of the AAP government to have CAG audit of TPDDL, BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd and BSES Yamuna Power Ltd. There can be no other audit by CAG at the instance of the state government when regulatory body, Delhi Electric Regulatory Commission, is already there to audit the accounts of discoms, it had said. "Such populist measures without considering the ultimate advantage thereof, not only end up being contrary to public interest but also put unnecessary burden on the courts," the high court had said. The court had made the observations while quashing the Delhi government's January 7, 2014 directive to carry out an audit of the three discoms by the CAG. It had also not agreed with the government's contention that the audit was ordered in public interest for determining the tariff, saying "determination of tariff is in sole domain of DERC which is well empowered to itself conduct the same or have the same conducted and the report of CAG audit of discoms has no place in the Regulatory Regime brought about by the Electricity Act and the Reforms Act". The discoms are 51:49 per cent joint venture between the private companies and the Delhi government. The RSS today organised an orientation and familiarisation session for journalists in the national capital where a top Sangh leader introduced mediapersons to the organisation's ideology and thoughts. A number of journalists from electronic and print media attended the session that lasted a few hours. RSS' prachar pramukh (communications department head) Manmohan Vaidya conducted the session and introduced journalists to the basics of the Sangh and apprised them of its history and thinking. He also answered their queries on various issues and discussed the media's coverage of Sangh. This is the first time the Sangh organised such a programme in the national capital. Such programmes under the series 'Sangh parichay varg' have earlier been held in other parts of the country like in Pune, Mumbai and Kolkata. Russia said today it had launched "humanitarian operations" in Syria where it is carrying out a bombing campaign against the Islamic State group, claiming peaceful life was slowly returning to the war-torn country. "The inhabitants are gradually coming back to Syrian cities and peaceful life is returning," General Sergei Rudskoi, a senior Russian General Staff official, told reporters. "In this context, the implementation of humanitarian operations will be a new line of work for the Russian armed forces in Syria," he said in televised comments. "Currently most of the aid is being sent to the city of Deir Ezzor which has been besieged by ISIL terrorists for a long time," Rudskoi said, using another term for IS. He said Syria's Il-76 military transport planes had airdropped 22 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Deir Ezzor using Russian equipment. "It will be distributed by local authorities," Rudskoi added. "Our work in this direction will continue," he said. "In the future we will give to the Syrian people all possible assistance when it comes to liberating the country from extremists and rebuilding peaceful life." Russia has decided to launch its own humanitarian operations in Syria because most of the aid has so far gone to rebel-controlled areas, often ending up in the hands of "extremists," Rudskoi said. "Attempts have repeatedly been seen to supply arms and ammunition and evacuate wounded fighters under cover of humanitarian convoys," he added. Moscow launched a bombing campaign against IS and other "terrorists" on September 30, saying it needed to target jihadists before they crossed into Russia. The West has criticised Russia's foray into the multi-front conflict, accusing Moscow of targeting not only the IS group but also moderate rebels fighting the regime. In August, Russia and Syria signed an agreement giving Moscow the right to retain an open-ended military presence in the war-torn country, Moscow revealed yesterday. South Korean and Chinese defence officials met in Seoul today with North Korea's latest nuclear test high on the agenda, as pressure grows on Beijing to take a tougher line with ally Pyongyang. The director-level talks are held every year, but were completely overshadowed this time around by the North's fourth nuclear test last week, which triggered global condemnation and the promise of fresh UN sanctions. "The two sides will discuss the security situation on the Korean peninsula, as well as the wider region," a defence ministry official said. The talks came two days after South Korean President Park Geun-Hye urged China to step up to the plate and support genuinely punitive sanctions that would help bring Pyongyang to heel. "I believe China is aware that if its strong determination is not put into actual, necessary actions, we will not be able to prevent a fifth or sixth nuclear test," Park said. China is North Korea's chief diplomatic protector and economic benefactor, but traditional ties have become strained as Beijing's patience has worn thin with Pyongyang's behaviour and unwillingness to rein in its nuclear weapons ambitions. But China's leverage over Pyongyang is mitigated, analysts say, by its overriding fear of a North Korean collapse and the prospect of a reunified, US-allied Korea directly on its border. US Secretary of State John Kerry has also urged China to take a stronger line with North Korea, warning in a call to his Beijing counterpart last week that it can no longer be "business as usual". North Korea says the January 6 test was of a miniaturised hydrogen bomb -- a claim largely dismissed by experts who argue the yield was far too low for a full-fledged thermonuclear device. But whatever the nature of the device, it was North Korea's fourth nuclear test since 2006, and further evidence of Pyongyang's intention to continue developing its nuclear weapons capability in the face of censure. Since taking office in early 2013, Park Geun-Hye has actively courted closer ties with Beijing, and sought to build a personal working relationship with President Xi Jinping. South Korean prosecutors today demanded a 20-year jail sentence for a US citizen charged with brutally murdering a Korean man nearly two decades ago in a high-profile case. Arthur Patterson, 36, was extradited from the United States in September to face trial in Seoul on charges of murdering Jo Jung-Pil, who was stabbed multiple times with a knife in a fast-food restaurant toilet. Patterson, who was the 17-year-old son of a US military contractor at the time, has denied his involvement in the crime in the nightlife district of Itaewon, close to the US military base in Seoul. Prosecutors, however, alleged Patterson stabbed Jo, who appeared to be a complete stranger to him, to death for no apparent reason. "The accused still shows no repentance, denying he committed the murder," a prosecutor was quoted as saying by the Yonhap agency at the trial at Seoul District Court. The accused showed "devil-like brutality", stabbing Jo nine times, according to the prosecution. Twenty years in jail is a maximum penalty in South Korea for an offender under the age of 18. The verdict and sentencing is due on January 29. Patterson has insisted on his innocence, saying his then-friend Edward Lee committed the crime. Patterson was initially tried as an accomplice, while Edward Lee, a Korean-American man who was at the scene, was charged with murder. Both accused the other of killing Jo. Patterson served 18 months in prison for lesser charges including obstruction of justice, while Lee was sentenced to 20 years in jail for murder. In 1998, Patterson was released as part of an amnesty programme, only to find himself a murder suspect again after Lee was acquitted on appeal for lack of evidence. He fled to the United States a year later after investigators failed to renew his travel ban -- a mistake that sparked a storm of criticism. The murder was made into a hit movie in 2009, refuelling public anger over the crime and forcing South Korean prosecutors to reopen the case. Patterson was formally charged in absentia with Jo's murder in 2011, and extradition proceedings began. Indian Ocean archipelago and Saudi Arabia ally the Comoros said today it had cut diplomatic relations with Iran over what it termed Tehran's "aggression" towards Jeddah. A foreign ministry statement said the Comoros viewed Tehran as "interfering" in "the internal affairs of certain countries" and "not respecting diplomatic conventions". Relations between majority Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia dived after the January 2 ransacking of the Saudi embassy in Tehran and the Saudi consulate in Mashhad, Iran's second city. The ransacking came amid anger over Riyadh's execution of Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent cleric from the kingdom's Shiite minority. Following the execution Jeddah severed diplomatic relations with Tehran. Several Arab countries followed suit and severed or reduced relations with Iran. Comoros' foreign ministry said it had called on the Iranian ambassador to clear his desk. The move came a week after the Comoros recalled its own ambassador from Tehran judging that Iran has created a climate of "gratuitous aggression" towards Jeddah. "One cannot violate with impunity the sovereignty of diplomatic missions," the ministry's director general Ahamada Hamadi told AFP, referring to the ransacking. The three islands of Anjouan, Grand Comore and Moheli that make up the Comoros have a total population of just under 800,000 people, nearly all of whom are Sunni Muslims. Supreme Court today had a word of caution for the government that any deviation from its stand that the issue of Indian Prisoners of War (POWs) languishing in Pakistani prisons cannot be taken to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), will have its own ramifications. "Government of India's stand has been that the issue cannot go to the ICJ. Can it change the stand now? It will have its own ramifications," a bench comprising Chief Justice T S Thakur and R Bhanumathi observed. The remarks came after the bench wanted to know from government's counsel R Balasubramanian whether the ICJ has any jurisdiction to go into the issue. He said the Centre has taken a stand that ICJ has no jurisdiction on the issue. The bench was told that in the past Pakistan had taken some of the issues to ICJ. The bench was hearing a batch of petitions raising the issues of POWs, the brutality meted out to Saurav Kalia during Kargil War and the beheading and mutilation of bodies of two Indian soldiers in 2013 by Pakistani army, for a direction to the union government to move the ICJ. It was also hearing an appeal filed by the Centre challenging Gujarat High Court order directing the union government to move the ICJ on Pakistan illegally detaining 54 Indian armymen in breach of an agreement between the two countries after the 1971 war to exchange all POWs. The bench today admitted the appeal of the Centre against the High Court order. The apex court had in 2012 stayed a Gujarat High Court order. The bench on September 1 last year had expressed concern over the status of 54 Indian POWs languishing in Pakistani jails since 1971. The court had directed the government to pay the salary and retirement benefits to the dependents of the PoWs, to which the law officer had said this was being done. During the last hearing, in response to a query as to why India cannot take the matter of the PoWs to the ICJ, the government had said India has not submitted itself to the jurisdiction of ICJ if the matter relates to armed conflict between it and Pakistan. Moreover, India had once successfully blocked such a bid by Pakistan, the government had said when the bench referred to the fact that once the water dispute between the two countries was taken up before the ICJ. The Centre had said Indian authorities had tried from all channels to ascertain facts about 54 PoWs, but Pakistan was not accepting that they are in their country. The MoD, in its affidavit last year, had informed the court that it has no details regarding 54 missing POWs in Pakistan jails after 1965 and 1971 wars. It had also said it cannot even identify three such army personnel since their service records, unit and family details were not known. Of the 54 missing personnel, 27 were from the Army, 24 from the Air Force, two from the Navy and one personnel from the Border Security Force, it has said, adding that while 48 out of the 54 were missing since the 1971 war, three had gone missing in the 1965 war. The affidavit was filed in response to a query by the court which wanted an updated status on the PoWs languishing in Pakistan jails following the two wars. The court had referred to the case of Pakistan raising in the ICJ the issue of downing of its spy aircraft in August 1999 by Indian forces despite New Delhi's objection which was upheld by the international tribunal. The government had said it cannot refer these cases to the ICJ as India is governed by a bilateral agreement with Pakistan based on the 1972 Shimla agreement. The chief neuroscientist at a hospital in Rennes, where a botched drug trial has left six people hospitalized, says there's no known antidote to the experimental drug they were testing. Professor Gilles Edan, the chief neuroscientist at Rennes Hospital, spoke at a press conference Friday in the western French city. French Health Minister Marisol Tourainealso told reporters that all those hospitalized were healthy men when the trial began on January 7. She said one man who has now been classified as brain dead was admitted to the hospital on Sunday. The French prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into what the Health Ministry is calling a "serious accident during a clinical test" at the Biotrial laboratory in Rennes. Shiv Sena activists today staged a demonstration near the venue of the concert of Pakistani ghazal legend Ghulam Ali who has a huge fan following in Kerala. The Sena activists, who had demanded cancellation of Ali's programme in the wake of the Pathankot terror strike linked to Jaish-e-Mohammed, were stopped nearby the venue by the police. Water cannons were used to disperse around 200 Sena activists who burnt a Pakistan flag as a mark of protest, police said. Ali, whose concert in Mumbai had to be cancelled last year following protests by the Sena, was accorded a public reception here yesterday, attended by a galaxy of state leaders, including state Chief Minister Oommen Chandy. Ali is also scheduled to perform in Kozhikode district on January 17. He is in Kerala at the invitation of socio-cultural organisation 'Swaralaya'. The programmes were arranged in association with Grand Kerala Shopping Festival Directorate. Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab militants stormed an African Union base today in the country's southwest, with several killed in fierce gun battles, soldiers said. "They launched an offensive on a military base at El-Adde and there was heavy fighting which caused casualties," Somali army colonel Idris Ahmed said, adding a Shebab suicide commando blasted a way into the base in the Gedo region, which borders Kenya and Ethiopia. Both Somali troops and Kenyan soldiers with the AU force, AMISOM, are deployed at the isolated base. "There was suicide attack followed by the fighting and it seems that the base was stormed," Ahmed said. "AMISOM can confirm that there was an attack on our troops in El-Adde," the force said in a brief statement hours after the attack began, but gave no further details. Shebab spokesman Abdiaziz Abu Musab claimed 63 Kenyan troops were killed in the pre-dawn raid, but this could not be immediately verified. "The mujahedeen fighters carried out a successful operation this morning on a military base at El-Adde, and they have killed many of the Christian soldiers from Kenya," Musab said. "We have counted 63 dead bodies inside the base." The Shebab frequently exaggerates the number of troops they kill, while AMISOM rarely gives exact tolls. The attack came as politicians met in the southern port of Kismayo, with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud leading a "National Consultative Forum" to debate planned elections due later this year. "Somalia is no longer a failed state," Mohamud said in a statement, which made no reference to the attack. "Somalia is building a strong foundation to support a better future." Kenya's defence ministry confirmed there had been "casualties" but was unable to confirm numbers, describing the assault as an "unfortunate incident". Kenyan military spokesman David Obonyo said the army "is doing all it can to consolidate the situation in the shortest time possible," without giving further details. Local elder Hussein Adam said he heard a huge explosion followed by intense gunfire for about 45 minutes. "We don't know about the casualties, but people who went there saw many dead bodies strewn around," he said, having spoken to those who went to the base. The Shebab, fighting to overthrow Somalia's internationally-backed and AU-protected government, has launched a string of similar attacks. In September 2015, Shebab fighters stormed a Ugandan AMISOM base in Janale district, 80 kilometres southwest of Mogadishu in the Lower Shabelle region. And in June, Shebab killed dozens of Burundian soldiers when they overran an AMISOM outpost northwest of Mogadishu. The militants also stage frequent suicide attacks in the capital. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has vowed to eliminate the evil of honour killings while congratulating a Pakistani director who has won an Oscar nomination for her documentary on the issue. Every year hundreds of women in Pakistan are killed by male relatives in the name of "dishonour" when they marry men of their choice or refuse to marry as per the wishes of family. Sharif congratulated director Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy whose film, "A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness" has been nominated for an Academy Award. Sharif said honour killings, the theme of the film, afflict several segments of the Pakistani society. "The Prime Minister also expressed the government's commitment to rid Pakistan of this evil by bringing in appropriate legislation," , an official statement said. Sharif said Chinoy's insights could prove very useful in this connection and invited her to the Prime Minister's House for a screening of her film. The country's leading opinion makers from different segments of society, academics, and intellectuals will also be invited for the screening. Chinoy made history in 2012 when she won Pakistan's first Oscar for another documentary, titled 'Saving Face' that dealt with the issue of acid attacks on women. Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab militants stormed an African Union base today in the country's southwest, the Somali army said, with witnesses reporting several dead. "They launched an offensive on a military base at El-Adde and there was heavy fighting which caused casualties," Somali army colonel Idris Ahmed said, adding a Shebab suicide commando blasted a way into the base in the Gedo region, which borders Kenya and Ethiopia. Both Somali troops and Kenyan soldiers with the AU force, AMISOM, are deployed at that base. "There was suicide attack followed by the fighting and it seems that the base was stormed," Ahmed said. "AMISOM can confirm that there was an attack on our troops in El-Adde," the force said in a brief statement, but gave no further details. Shebab spokesman Shebab spokesman Abdiaziz Abu Musab claimed to have killed 63 Kenyan troops in the pre-dawn attack, but this could not be immediately verified. "The mujahedeen fighters carried out a successful operation this morning on a military base at El-Adde, and they have killed many of the Christian soldiers from Kenya," Musab said. "We have counted 63 dead bodies inside the base." The Shebab frequently exaggerates the number of troops they kill, while AMISOM rarely gives exact tolls. Kenya's army said this morning fighting was ongoing, and insisted that it was the Somali army base next door to its camp that was seized. "Al-Shebab militia attacked... The KDF troops under AMISOM counter-attacked, the fighting is still going on," said Kenya army spokesman David Obonyo. Local elder Hussein Adam said he heard a huge explosion followed by intense gunfire for about 45 minutes. "We don't know about the casualties, but people who went there saw many dead bodies strewn around," he said, having spoken to those who went to the base. The Shebab, fighting to overthrow Somalia's internationally-backed and AU-protected government, has launched a string of similar attacks. In September 2015, Shebab fighters stormed a Ugandan AMISOM base in Janale district, 80 kilometres southwest of Mogadishu in the Lower Shabelle region. And in June, Shebab killed dozens of Burundian soldiers when they overran an AMISOM outpost northwest of Mogadishu. The militants also stage frequent suicide attacks in the capital. But the 22,000-strong AMISOM force has also made significant gains against the Shebab, pushing them out of several strongholds in the southwest of the country. Singapore has inked four pacts with the Madhya Pradesh government in various sectors including one Rs of 7,000 crore to produce nearly 1,000 MW non-conventional energy in two phases. It has also agreed to extend co-operation with the state government in five sectors - food processing, renewable energy, urban planning and smart city, skill development and Information Technology. "Singapore has agreed to cooperate with Madhya Pradesh in five areas including food processing, renewable energy, urban planning and smart city, skill development and IT," the State Chief Minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan told reporters here today. Chouhan, who was on a four-day visit to Singapore, was accorded a warm welcome at the airport here. He is the 50th person in the world and fourth in India to get the prestigious Lee Kuan Yew Exchange Fellowship. "We have also inked an agreement to produce 540 MW in first phase and 407 MW in second with an investment of Rs 7,000 crore wind energy with Sembcorp Green Infra Ltd.," he said. Besides, the state has also sign MOUs with Singapore in sectors like Urban Planning, Skill Development, Clean Energy and Food Processing Industry, he informed. For Urban Planning and Smart City, an agreement was inked between Directorate of Town and Country Planning and Singapore Corporation Enterprises. The second agreement was inked between MP's Technical Education and Skill Development Department and Singapore ITE Education Services, he said. The third MOU was signed in the renewable energy sector while the fourth one is in the area of food processing sector between LT Foods Limited India and DMM Nutrition Products, Singapore. He also informed that both Madhya Pradesh and Singapore have also reached an understanding to work in the IT sector. On the occasion, the chief minister also congratulated the farmers because of whose hard labour, the state has got Krishi Karman Award for the fourth time in a row and also expressed gratitude towards Prime Minister, Narendra Modi for implementing new crop insurance scheme in the country. On January 13, the Centre cleared a crop insurance scheme under which farmers' premium has been kept at a maximum of 2 per cent for foodgrains and oilseeds and up to 5 per cent for horticulture/cotton crops. Danceuse Dona Ganguly, wife of the CAB President and former India Captain Sourav Ganguly, today escaped unhurt as a loaded truck hit her car from behind near Behala Chowrasta, police said. A family source said that Dona Ganguly was going to bring her daughter from school in a Mercedes Benz when the accident took place on James Long Sarani. "A loaded truck suddenly surged from back and hit the car from behind," the source said. "She did not suffer any injury. But the car is damaged," the source said adding that a case has been filed with the Thakurpukur police station. A Kolkata police officer said the driver of the truck has been arrested and the vehicle impounded. Senior Punjab Police officer Salwinder Singh, who is being questioned by NIA in connection with Pathankot terror attack probe, will undergo a lie detector test next week after he gave consent for it. Home Ministry sources said Singh, who is at present posted as Assistant Commandant with 75th battalion of Punjab Armed Police, was questioned for the fifth consecutive day today and confronted with his cook Madan Gopal and caretaker of Dargah Somraj. Singh, shunted barely few days before the January one-two terror strike as Superintendent of Police (headquarters) of Gurdaspur and facing alleged charges of breach of discipline, has in-principle given his consent for a polygraph test, the sources said. The NIA, which has been probing the case, will move an application before a designated court here tomorrow seeking permission for conducting a polygraph test on Singh, who has been allegedly changing his statements quite frequently, the sources said. Singh's car was hijacked by terrorists before they entered the Pathankot IAF base on the intervening night of December 31 and January one. The sources said bringing them face-to-face was necessary because of "conflicting statements". While Singh had told the Punjab police he frequently visited the shrine, Somraj claimed he had seen him for the first time hours before terrorists launched the brazen attack on the Pathankot facility. Singh had said he was kidnapped by the terrorists after his visit to the shrine and later let off as they did not know his identity. Six terrorists were killed in a counter-operation by Indian forces that lasted for about three days and also claimed the lives of seven security personnel. In the meantime, the binocular recovered from the site of encounter is a stolen property of the US army. The serial number will be shared with the US to ascertain where the equipment was lost, the sources said. In the meantime, CFSL has been asked to recover the serial number of AK-47 rifles and revolvers recovered by the NIA after 80-hour long terror strike at the Pathankot IAF base so that the same could be shared with the company to ascertain the country from where it was shipped, the sources said. They said NIA has got a lot of material including clothing, shoes and other material linking them to Pakistan. The NIA was also studying details of the terror strike at Dina Nagar in Gurdaspur district on July 27 last year after investigators of the central terror probe agency found similarities with the attack on Pathankot air base. Three heavily-armed militants in army fatigues, believed to have infiltrated from Pakistan, had on July 27 sprayed bullets at a moving bus and stormed a police station in Dinanagar, killing eight people, including a Superintendent of Police before being gunned down. The case is being probed by the Punjab Police. Delhi police has received the medical board's 'advice' on the FBI lab report on viscera samples of Sunanda Pushkar, wife of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, to identify the cause of her death. According to media reports, Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi said: "I can say with certainty that the death was not natural." The report is being studied by a special team of the Delhi Police set up to investigate Ms Pushkar's death, Bassi added. He also said that the possibility of radioactive poisoning has been ruled out by the FBI. Bassi added that Special Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Deepak Mishra was reviewing the progress. "Have been told that Medical Board's advice in late Sunanda's case has been received," Bassi had earlier said in a tweet. Sunanda was found dead inside her suite at a five-star hotel here in January 2014, a day after she was involved in a spat with Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar on Twitter over the latter's alleged affair with Tharoor, the Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram. Her viscera samples were sent to the FBI lab in Washington DC in February last year to determine the kind of poison that killed her after an AIIMS medical board identified poisoning as the reason behind her death but did not mention any specific substance. The FBI report had virtually ruled out the theory of 'polonium poisoning' having caused her death. However, after Delhi police failed to draw any conclusion on basis of the findings, the report was handed over to a medical board for examination before further proceedings in the high-profile case. The investigators have so far conducted polygraph test on six persons, all prime witnesses in the case, including Tharoors' domestic help Narayan Singh, driver Bajrangi and Sanjay Dewan, a close friend of the couple. Tharoor has been questioned in the case. Realty firm Supertech today said it will develop a new project at Sohna in Gurgaon for government employees at a cost of Rs 300 crore. Faced with sluggish sales due to slowdown in the property market, the company has launched 1,000 housing units in the first phase of this project in a price range of Rs 33 lakh to Rs 46.61 lakh. It has tied up with property brokerage firm Investor Clinic for marketing of this project. "We are coming up with a new project in our 140-acre township in Sohna, Gurgaon, exclusively for serving and retired government employees," Supertech Chairman R K Arora told reporters here. Asked about project cost, he said it would be about Rs 300 crore. The project would be completed in the next 42 months. Supertech MD Mohit Arora said the company has launched the project at a lower rate seeing the current market condition. This is the second project in recent times catering to the government employees. Last month, realty firm Amrapali had also launched similar project in Noida Extension in tie up with Investor Clinic. "We sold about 4,000 housing units in the Amrapali project," Investor Clinic CEO Honey Katyal said, while expecting similar response from this project. Supertech is fighting a legal battle in the Supreme Court after the Allahabad High Court ordered in April 2014 to demolish the company's two 40-storey towers in a Noida housing project. The company is developing 36 projects in Noida, Greater Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon and Bengaluru among others. A woman in Sierra Leone is thought to have died from Ebola, officials have said, just hours after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared an end to an epidemic of the disease. The female student was taken ill in the northern village of Bamoi Luma near the Guinean border and died soon after, with an initial swab testing positive for Ebola, a senior health ministry said. "Complete findings will be made known to the public by tomorrow (Friday)," he said yesterday, adding that further tests were under way. Earlier yesterday the WHO said a two-year Ebola epidemic that killed 11,000 people and triggered a global health alert was over, with Liberia the last country to get the all-clear. The deadliest outbreak in the history of the feared tropical virus wrecked the economies and health systems of the three worst-hit west African nations after it emerged in southern Guinea in December 2013. At its peak, it devastated Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with bodies piling up in the streets and overwhelmed hospitals recording hundreds of new cases a week. "A high-level team of ministry of health officials and key partners including the World Health Organisation and the Atlanta-based Centre for Disease Control are in the area from the capital to undertake intensive investigations," Sierra Leone government spokesman Abdulai Bayrayta said following the suspected new case. Rick Brennan, the WHO's chief of emergency risk management, hailed the declaration of the end of the epidemic as an important milestone but said in Geneva that "the job is still not done" due to the persistence of the virus in survivors. UN chief Ban Ki-moon also warned that the region can expect sporadic cases in the coming year but that "we also expect the potential and frequency of those flare-ups to decrease over time". Ousted Thai premier Yingluck Shinawatra went on trial today over a costly rice subsidy policy that could see her jailed for a decade, as the ruling junta seeks to ward off a political comeback by her family. Yingluck, Thailand's first female premier, was booted from office by a court days before army chief Prayut Chan-O- Cha seized power in May 2014. She faces charges of negligence over a multi-billion- dollar rice subsidy scheme which paid farmers up to twice the market rate for their crop. Critics say the scheme cynically tapped state coffers to prop the Shinawatra's political base, incubated corruption and resulted in massive rice stockpiles. But Yingluck remains popular and was greeted by dozens of supporters at court, some in red shirts, carrying roses and shouting "We Love Yingluck". They gathered in defiance of a ban on political meetings by a junta which has cracked down hard on Shinawatra loyalists. Yingluck told supporters she was "confident" of being vindicated by the court. She was not due to address the court today. Yingluck has denied any wrongdoing, saying the rice subsidy aimed to help poor farmers after decades of neglect by Bangkok's wealthy elite. Rice farming communities in the country's poor but populous north and northeast are loyal to the Shinatwara family, who they laud for recognising their changing economic and social aspirations. Their votes have helped Shinawatra parties win every Thai election since 2001. That electoral success stirred the Bangkok-centric royalist establishment to sponsor two coups and use their proxies in the courts to remove three Shinawatra-alligned prime ministers. Fearful of a political comeback, the junta has tried to tangle Yingluck in legal rulings. She was banned by the military-appointed legislature from politics for five years and is barred from travelling overseas without permission. Yet Yingluck is still a galvanising force among Shinawatra supporters and remains in Thailand - unlike her older brother Thaksin, a billionaire former premier who lives in self-exile to avoid jail in the kingdom. Analysts say the junta is walking a fine line with Yingluck's trial. "The junta must think carefully of not provoking supporters of Yingluck in the red camp," Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a Thai politics expert at Kyoto University in Japan, told AFP, referring to the "Red Shirt" Shinawatra loyalists. Top Republican rivals Donald Trump and Ted Cruz engaged in a public spat over the latter's birth issue, with the frontrunner telling the Texas Senator "a big question mark hangs on your head" to be even eligible to be running for the coveted post. Both of them, however, offered each other the vice- presidential ticket if they were to bag party's presidential nominee this summer. At the Republican presidential debate yesterday, the first of the year, Cruz alleged that Trump is now raising the issues because his poll numbers are going up. Trump agreed. Cruz said: "I recognise that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling in Iowa. But the facts and the law here are really quite clear. Under longstanding US law, the child of a US citizen born abroad is a natural-born citizen. "If a soldier has a child abroad, that child is a natural-born citizen. That's why John McCain, even though he was born in Panama, was eligible to run for president." He added: "I would suggest we focus on who's best prepared to be commander-in-chief, because that's the most important question facing the country." Trump argued that the questions about eligibility of Cruz because he was born in Canada are being raised by eminent constitution lawyers and it is time that the Texas Senator gets it clarified by the Court or else the Democrats are getting ready to file a lawsuit against him. "Here's the problem. We're running. We're running. He does great. I win. I choose him as my vice presidential candidate, and the Democrats sue because we can't take him along for the ride. I don't like that," Trump said amidst laughter from the audience. "If for some reason, he beats the rest of the field, I already know the Democrats are going to be bringing a suit. You have a big lawsuit over your head while you're running. And if you become the nominee, who the hell knows if you can even serve in office? So you should go out, get a declaratory judgment, let the courts decide," Trump said. "The fact is, there is a big overhang. There's a big question mark on your head. And you can't do that to the party. You really can't. You can't do that to the party. You have to have certainty," he told Cruz. Responding, Cruz said he has spent his entire life defending the Constitution before the US Supreme Court. "And I'll tell you, I'm not going to be taking legal advice from Donald Trump," he asserted, but later added: "Donald, you very kindly just a moment ago offered me the VP slot. I'll tell you what. If this all works out, I'm happy to consider naming you as VP. So if you happen to be right, you could get the top job at the end of the day." "I like that. I like it. I'd consider it. But I think I'll go back to building buildings if it doesn't work out," Trump said. "Actually, I'd love to get you to build a wall," Cruz responded. Turkey is to grant work permits to Syrian refugees, an official statement said today, in a key move which could allow Syrians to build more prosperous and stable lives in the country. An announcement in Turkey's official gazette said that work permits would be granted to refugees who have fled to the country to escape the conflicts in their homeland. It did not specify nationality, but the measure chiefly applies to the over 2.2 million Syrians who have fled the almost five-year conflict for the safety of Turkey, as well as some 300,000 Iraqis. Refugees in Turkey are not allowed to work or be employed in the country without a valid work permit, the government decree published in the gazette makes clear. New arrivals will able to apply for a work permit six months after they obtained a temporary protection status, the announcement said. The regulation also applies to those who have already resettled. The number of refugees holding a work permit must not exceed 10 per cent of the total number of employees at any workplace, it said. Rights activists have long pressed Turkey to grant work permits to refugees -- most of them working illegally and for very minimal wages -- to allow then to build better lives in the country. The measure would be welcomed by EU states as it might discourage the migrants from crossing illegally into the European Union in search of better lives. Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said on Monday the move would "make life easier for Syrians" without putting a burden on employers. Turkey has become a hub for migrants seeking to reach Europe and has on occasion been criticised by its Western partners for not doing enough to limit the numbers crossing the Aegean Sea. Ankara and Brussels in November signed a plan to stem the flow by providing Ankara with three billion euros (USD 3.2 billion) of EU cash as well as political concessions for Turkish cooperation in tackling Europe's worst migrant crisis since World War II. Visiting Ankara on Monday, European Commission vice-president Frans Timmermans said the migrant flow remained "far too high. The British Parliament held a special event to celebrate Indian-origin MPs and commemorated Dadabhai Naoroji as the first Asian to be elected to the House of Commons way back in 1892. The event, organised by advocacy group Operation Black Vote (OBV), brought together many of the 41 black and minority ethnic (BME) MPs at an event in the Parliament complex in London on Wednesday. "Today we celebrate a record number of BME MPs in Parliament. British politics and British society greatly benefits when we can utilise diversity's teaming talent pool. That's why today we are announcing that in the months ahead we will begin a new MP and business shadowing scheme," OBV director Simon Woolleysaid. Naoroji's election dates back to when individuals from India were welcomed to the British Parliament as imperial guests and some became members of the House of Commons. In 1892, Naoroji, an educator and cotton trader born in Khadak, near Mumbai, was elected Liberal MP for Finsbury Central. Three years later Sir Mancherjee M Bhownaggree, son of a merchant, also from Mumbai, was elected to Parliament for Bethnal Green. Whereas Naoroji was a firm advocate of Indian independence, Bhownagree approved British rule and opposed the idea of Indian Home Rule, according to the parliamentary archives. "We should celebrate so many MPs now, but also need to inspire new communities such as the Somalis who also want to be in parliament. There is much to do," said Keith Vaz, Labour MP for Leicester East and one of the longest serving Indian-origin MPs in the UK. Cabinet minister of justice Shailesh Vara added: "I am the son of a carpenter who came here in the 1960s. I remember the racism in those days, but Britain has come a long way." "We must pay tributes to this country that has made it possible for a person like me not only to be an MP but also a minister. There were no role models in politics for our community earlier; now there are so many of us on the front bench of both parties," Vara said. A record number of BME politicians were elected to Parliament at the May 2015 elections, up to 41 from 25 in 2010. "There is a record number of black and ethnic minority MPs, more women than ever before, and an increasing number of openly gay MPs. But we still have so much further to go," added UK home secretary Theresa May. The OBV event was held to mark the increase of BME MPs from just five in 1996 when the organisation began, to a current record number of 41, which is 6.3 per cent of all MPs. The UK government today rejected demands for the re-introduction of the post-study work visa, popular among Indian and other overseas students from outside the European Union, stressing "the brightest and best of students should not come here and do menial jobs". Prime Minister David Cameron turned down the Scottish government's demand during questions in the House of Commons. "The clarity of our offer is world beating. Frankly, there are lots of people in our country desperate for jobs. We don't need the brightest and best of students to come here and then do menial jobs. That's not what our immigration system is for," Cameron told the Commons. The Tier-1 (Post-study Work), abolished in 2012, allowed students to be able to stay back in the UK for two years after completing their course to be able to work and earn some money before returning to their home country. While non-EU students can still work after their course now, they must have a specific job offer and follow tough rules on the salary criteria. The number of Indian students coming to the UK fell from 18,535 in 2010-11 to 10,235 in 2012-13, according to a report by the Higher Education Funding Council for England. Removal of the post-study work visa route has been widely recognised as one of the major off-putting factors, resulting in Indian students getting attracted to other destinations like the US and Australia. Scotland has been keen to reintroduce the scheme at least for its region to attract more students to Scottish universities. Europe and development minister Humza Yousaf, from the Scottish National Party, said the UK government's decision to rule out a return of the post-study work visa is "deeply disappointing and damaging to Scotland". He added: "Scotland has different immigration needs to the rest the UK. There is consensus in Scotland, amongst business, education institutes and across the political spectrum, that we need a return of the post-study route to allow talented students to remain and contribute to the Scottish economy." "By ruling out a return of this route, the UK government has ignored this consensus and the recommendations of the Smith Commission, and dismissed Scotland's call to positively and meaningfully engage on this issue," Yousaf said. Yousaf will now chair a meeting of the cross-party steering group on the post-study work visa and the group will consider the implications of the UK government's decision. A statement of support for the reintroduction of the post-study work visa in Scotland has gathered 265 signatures, including all 25 of Scotland's publicly-funded colleges, Colleges Scotland, Universities Scotland and representatives from 64 businesses. It has also received cross-party support in the Scottish Parliament. Ukraine today launched the first cargo train to China that will bypass Russia along a new "Silk Road" meant to counter the Kremlin's most stringent trade embargo on Kiev to date. "This is a historic event," Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Andriy Pyvovarskiy wrote on Facebook. "Now, Ukraine is not just a potential transit country between the East and West, but one that has finally realised its potential." An AFP team near the Black Sea port of Odessa saw the first shipment being loaded onto a train that was then moved to a ferry destined for the former Soviet republic of Georgia. The ceremony was attended by top ministers and Odessa governor Mikheil Saakashvili -- the former Georgia president who waged a brief 2008 war with Russia and remains a hated figure in Moscow. The 10-car and 20-container train will later cross the Caspian Sea and traverse Azerbaijan and the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan before reaching China nearly 12 days later. It is partially loaded with iron ore and is due to bring back Chinese building materials and consumer goods. Russia this month slapped new sanctions on Ukraine in response to its westward-leaning neighbour's decision to enter a much disputed free trade and political association agreement with the European Union. Moscow's latest bans include transit restrictions on Ukrainian products to other former Soviet republics in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Prime Minster Arseniy Yatsenyuk said on Wednesday that the Kremlin's most recent steps against Kiev "significantly complicated" Ukraine's trade. "An absence of several months from these markets would immediately see us lose them for good," Ukrainian Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius told reporters during the loading ceremony. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today appealed for a shift from "heavy-handed" responses to the rise of extremists like the Islamic State group as he launched an action plan to prevent violent extremism. Ban asked all countries to come up with national plans and outline steps that go beyond the narrow scope of military and security responses to the threat from IS and other violent groups. "Many years of experience have proven that short-sighted policies, failed leadership, heavy-handed approaches, a single-minded focus only on security measures and an utter disregard for human rights have often made things worse," Ban told the UN General Assembly. "We all lose by responding to ruthless terror with mindless policy - policies that turn people against each other, alienate already marginalized groups, and play into the hands of the enemy," he said. "We need cool heads and common sense," he added. Several countries have taken tough measures against convicted jihadists, imposing harsh jail sentences and stripping them of their citizenship. Ban's plan of action encompasses a broad range of measures, from boosting education to promoting human rights to counter the recruiting drives of groups like IS and Boko Haram which prey on disaffected youth. Among the 79 recommendations are measures to incite foreign fighters who have joined IS to return home by offering them education and job opportunities. Governments are encouraged to engage with social media to find ways to challenge the jihadists' messages. Ban appealed for programs to address radicalization in prisons, which have emerged as hotbeds for jihad in several countries. An international conference on countering violent extremism is expected to take place in Geneva in April to take stock of worldwide efforts to tackle the problem. Over 30,000 foreign fighters from more than 100 UN member-states have joined violent extremists like IS to fight in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Yemen, according to the UN. "The international community has every right to defend against this threat using lawful means, but we must pay particular attention to addressing the causes of violent extremism," Ban told the assembly. The UN envoy for Congo has warned of "the very real risks" of civil unrest and violence in the run-up to scheduled legislative and presidential elections in November. Maman Sidikou yesterday told the Security Council that the elections are a deeply divisive issue because there is still no agreement on an electoral calendar or a budget for the elections. In addition, he said, a national dialogue announced by President Joseph Kabila to forge consensus on the electoral process hasn't begun, in part because many major opposition groups are opposed. Congo hasn't had a peaceful transfer of power in 55 years of independence. Kabila is barred by the constitution from seeking a third term but is widely believed to be seeking to prolong his rule. Sidikou said many people he has spoken to are skeptical that the rift between the majority party and opposition parties can be bridged, which could delay the electoral calendar. "In the absence of agreement on the electoral process, political polarization has heightened tensions and contributed to an atmosphere of increased harassment and human rights violations," he said. Sidikou noted that since last year, the UN peacekeeping force in Congo has registered more than 260 human rights violations related to elections, "mostly against opposition members, civil society representatives and journalists." Eastern Congo, home to a myriad of armed groups and militias, many vying for control of the region's vast mineral resources, remains the scene of conflict. Sidikou said there has been "a significant deterioration" in the security situation in eastern Congo in recent weeks, particularly in the Beni and Lubero areas of North Kivu. He blamed the FDLR and ADF militant groups, among others, for posing a serious threat to civilians in those areas. State-owned United Bank of India today said it plans to raise Rs 200 crore plus green shoe option from debentures on private placement basis. The bank is proposing to issue unsecured, subordinated, non-convertible, redeemable, Basel-III compliant instrument in the nature of debentures for inclusion in tier 2 capital aggregating Rs 200 crore plus green shoe option on private placement basis, United Bank of India said in a regulatory filing. Top US and Russian officials met today in Russia's westernmost outpost to discuss the Ukraine crisis amid a fresh international drive to bolster a fragile truce in the east of the ex-Soviet country. US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and top Kremlin aide Vladislav Surkov met near the city of Kaliningrad in Russia's exclave bordering European Union members Lithuania and Poland, a source familiar with the situation told AFP. "The meeting is closed to the media. The topic is Ukraine," the source said. The meeting took place in Russia because Surkov is subject to Western sanctions over the Kremlin's role in the Ukraine crisis and is unable to travel to the EU, the source said. US State Department spokesman John Kirby confirmed the meeting, saying Nuland and Surkov had met to discuss "the need for the full implementation of the Minsk agreements," a package of measures agreed by the leaders of France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia in the Belarusian capital last February. "Assistant Secretary Nuland's meeting with presidential advisor Surkov is part of our continued efforts to work with Russia to ensure full implementation of the Minsk agreements, in close coordination with the other Normandy powers -- Ukraine, Germany, and France," Kirby said in a statement. No other details were immediately released. The meeting came after Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama discussed the Ukraine crisis by phone earlier this week. The White House said the Russians needed to "live up to the commitments that they made in Minsk -- to end their support for separatists that are destabilising Ukraine right now." Putin for his part said the Ukrainian authorities must establish "direct dialogue" with separatists in the east and agree constitutional amendments with them. The meeting came amid an apparent international push to shore up the brittle truce amid sporadic fighting in eastern Ukraine. A senior Ukrainian official told AFP that representatives of French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are expected to visit Moscow and Kiev in the coming days to hold talks on the crisis. On the orders of Uttar Pradesh government following an Allahabad High Court directive, the the district administration here has banned use of polythene bags from January 22. Presiding a meeting here today in this regard, District Magistrate Vimal Kumar Sharma said, following the High Court's direction, the state government had issued strict orders to prohibit polythene bags to protect the environment and public health. From January 22, no shopkeeper will be allowed to deliver goods to the customer in polythene bags. Violation of the order will attract a pecuniary fine of Rs 1 lakh and jail term up to five years, he said. The meeting was attended by administrative and police officials. The USFDA has made nine 'observations' highlighting violations of its norms at homegrown drug maker Wockhardt's new facility at Shendra in Aurangabad. The company, whose shares slumped 15.04 per cent on NSE to close at Rs 1,287.00 today, however, said being a new unit, there is no export from the Shendra facility to the US. "Inspection of our manufacturing unit at Shendra, Aurangabad by USFDA has since been completed. USFDA has made nine observations for which appropriate reply would be submitted to the inspecting authority in due course," Wockhardt Ltd said in a regulatory filing. Without disclosing details of the observations, it further said: "The Shendra manufacturing unit is a new facility and presently there are no supply of products from the said unit to the US markets." The observations were made by the USFDA in the form of Form 483, which is issued to a company management at the conclusion of an inspection, highlighting any conditions that may constitute violations of the Food Drug and Cosmetic (FD&C) Act and related laws. It emerged yesterday that 62,555 bottles of anti-biotic Azithromycin tablets manufactured by Wockhardt are being recalled by PD-Rx Pharmaceuticals Inc in the US market. The tablets are in the strengths of 250 mg (45,022 bottles) and 500 mg (17,533 bottles). Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro decreed a two-month state of "economic emergency" today, seizing the initiative ahead of a key showdown in his standoff with the opposition in the oil-rich nation. The move gives the socialist leader an edge for a few weeks in his maneuvers against the center-right opposition which has vowed to devise within months a way to oust him. "A state of economic emergency is declared across the whole territory of the nation... For 60 days," read the decree published by the official state gazette. Maduro's new economy minister, Luis Salas, was expected to give further details later today. The announcement came hours ahead of a state of the nation address by Maduro, scheduled for 2130 GMT. That will be his first face to face encounter with his rivals in the National Assembly since the opposition took control of it last week. The opposition's new legislative powers have deepened a political struggle in the recession-stricken South American nation of 30 million people. The center-right opposition vowed to launch legislative measures to oust Maduro this year and has vowed to fix the economic crisis. Maduro branded the opposition a US-backed "bourgeoisie" and vowed to defend his socialist policies. He had already promised to launch an emergency plan for the economy, which was expected to propose new forms of production to reduce Venezuela's reliance on oil exports. Venezuela has the world's biggest known oil reserves but the big fall in crude prices over the past year and a half has slashed its revenues. The institutional arm-wrestle threatened to paralyze the National Assembly legislature this week, until last-minute compromises set the stage for Maduro to deliver his annual presidential report. "We will receive him calmly and respectfully," said the new speaker of the assembly, Henry Ramos Allup, a leading opponent of Maduro. Leaders have been wary of fanning tensions during the past two weeks of political maneuvering, mindful of deadly street clashes in 2014. Maduro secured a Supreme Court injunction limiting the opposition's legislative powers to cut short his mandate. The opposition responded by giving some ground in the power struggle on Wednesday. It bowed to pressure from the court, which Maduro's rivals say is controlled by his allies. Three opposition lawmakers agreed to quit while the court investigates them over government allegations of electoral fraud. A wanted criminal was today arrested by Haryana Police after a brief encounter at Naharpur Rupa area of Jind. Two police teams raided a house in the area at 1 am today based on inputs about the presence of wanted gangster Sudharshan and four of his associates there. The criminals, however, opened fire on police personnel in a bid to escape, forcing them to retaliate. Sudharshan was arrested by police after a brief gunfight while four others managed to flee, ACP (PRO) of Gurgaon Police Hawa Singh said. Three country-made weapons, an artificial pistol and 33 live cartridges were seized from him. He was wanted in several cases including murder and extortion, Singh said. On the occasion of 68th Army Day, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje today said the citizens of the country were proud of their soldiers and felt highly secured. The Chief Minister paid floral tributes at martyrs' column and showered flower petals at Amar Jawan Jyoti here outside the SMS Stadium. In her brief address, Raje said, "We are proud of our soldiers and we feel secure everywhere because of our armed forces." Meanwhile, she also witnessed the air display of army's chetak and cheetah choppers. South West Command's General Officer in Command-in-Chief Lt General Arun Sahani also graced the occasion. Donald Trump refused to budge over his call to ban all Muslims from entering the US even as Republican presidential rivals questioned his controversial stance, with Jeb Bush wondering if the frontrunner also meant banning Muslims from countries like India and Indonesia which are strong allies of the US. Trump - whose popularity rating soared after his anti- Muslim rhetoric in which he called for banning all Muslims from entering the US - said that he would not review his decision as the security of the country is paramount for him. "I want security for this country. We have a serious problem with radical Islam. We have a tremendous problem. It's not only a problem here. It's a problem all over the world," Trump said as he refused Bush's request to review his plan. "Are we going to ban Muslims from India, from Indonesia, from countries that our strong allies -- that we need to build better relationships with? Of course not. What we need to do is destroy ISIS," Bush said during the debate with six other top candidates two weeks before the first nominating contests. Trump said, "We have to stop with political correctness. We have to get down to creating a country that's not going to have the kind of problems that we've had with people flying planes into the World Trade Centres, with shootings in California, with all the problems all over the world. "We have to find out what's going on. I said temporarily. I didn't say permanently." Bush responded, saying, "Donald I hope you reconsider this, because this policy is a policy that makes it impossible to build the coalition necessary to take out ISIS. The Kurds are our strongest allies. They're Muslim." "You're not going to even allow them to come to our country?" "The other Arab countries have a role to play in this. We cannot be the world's policeman. We can't do this unilaterally. We have to do this in unison with the Arab world. And sending that signal makes it impossible for us to be serious about taking out ISIS and restoring democracy in Syria," Bush said amidst applause. Senator Ted Cruz from Texas said Americans are feeling frustrated and scared and angry when there is a president who refuses to acknowledge the threat US faces. "If I'm elected president, we will not let in refugees from countries controlled by ISIS or Al Qaeda. When it comes to ISIS, we will not weaken them, we will not degrade them, we will utterly and completely destroy ISIS," Cruz said. Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton jumped into the debate - via Twitter. "This is Muslim Americans' country too. The next president should know that-and act like it," she said. "Let's be clear: Islam isn't our enemy. Hateful rhetoric against Muslims isn't just wrong - it plays into terrorists' hands," Clinton said in a series of tweets as the seven top Republican presidential had a heated debate on Trump's idea of banning Muslims from entering the US. Tata Motors today said it will discuss with the government to include consolidated revenues in determining eligibility to bid for Rs 50,000-crore future infantry combat vehicle project, despite being "confident" of its domestic turnover meeting the financial criteria. While private firms having capital assets in India of at least Rs 100 crore and an annual turnover greater than Rs 1,000 crore for each of the preceding three years are only eligible to bid for the project, Tata Motors said it is "confident of fulfilling all commercial / financial criteria". The company is among the 10 reported Indian firms in race for building the future infantry combat vehicle (FICV) - a tracked, armoured vehicle that will protect infantrymen riding into battle. The company's comments came in response to reports that Tata Motors may not qualify for the tender if its London subsidiary JLR's is not considered. "We note we meet all the requisite criteria for bidding for the FICV project...Notwithstanding this, Tata Motors will discuss with the government and the Defence Ministry about including consolidated revenues...," a company spokesperson said. The company said for the Future Infantry Combat Vehicle (FICV) project, the Defence Ministry's IMPT (Integrated Project Management Team) has clarified that "bidding companies must have capital assets in India, and the turnover in India will be taken into account for the threshold limit". Explaining reasons behind such a move, the spokesperson said: "...Wholly-owned subsidiaries form an integral part of the parent company, including in stock exchange listings, and its consolidated revenues offer strong financial support to the project." Tata Motors' consolidated net sales for 2014-15 stood at Rs 2,60,734.33 crore, while the standalone net sales were at Rs 35,890.50 crore. The company said evaluation of the bid is to be based on technical and financial parameters. The financial parameters only account for about 26 per cent weightage. "Tata Motors is confident of fulfilling all commercial/ financial criteria, even with the above-mentioned clarification from IMPT stating that a company's turnover from its domestic operations (excluding global operations) will be considered for the threshold limit," the spokesperson added. Insisting that the company is a contender, the spokesperson said: "With our robust technical strength, the size of our Indian assets, a strong balance sheet and the backing of the Tata group, with other group companies joining hands in the consortium, we remain confident of being a strong bidder for this project." The Rs 50,000 crore FICV project is spread over 25 years and other Indian firms, including L&T and Mahindra are in the fray for the project. The Army needs an amphibious FICV that is air-portable and can fire anti-tank guided missiles that destroy tanks at ranges of 4,000 metres. Other firms reported to be in fray for building FICV include L&T, M&M, Bharat Forge, Pipavav Defence, Punj Lloyd and the Ordnance Factory Board. Reacting cautiously, Law Minister Sadananda Gowda today said that the Centre is ascertaining the stand it needs to take in a case being considered by the Supreme Court on entry of the women in menstrual age group in the ancient Sabarimala temple of Kerala. "Since we are being a party (to the case), we are just trying to find out what stand we need to take. As a Minister of Law and Justice, I should not give my personal opinion... till I hold this position as a minister," he told reporters here to a volley of questions on the Centre's stand on the issue. Gowda said he was in the process of discussions with his senior law officers on the issue. "...I have to collect so many materials, then only I can go ahead," he said. When pointed out that the question of "gender inequality" prevails in the case, he said, "I don't think so.""Because see in various temples, churches, masjids, there are various restrictions and various rituals that are being performed since time immemorial. "But here, as far as the present petition is concerned, they said the fundamental rights are being violated. For that reason it has to be widely argued and all these areas need to be covered. So now we are collecting all materials from various corners and we will place our arguments after collecting all the materials," Gowda said. He said until the verdict comes out, he was not in a position to say anything on the matter. "We have to wait and see," the Minister said. Earlier this week, the Supreme Court had questioned the age-old tradition of banning entry of women in the menstrual age group in the holy hill shrine dedicated to Lord Ayyappa, saying it cannot be done under the Constitution. "The temple cannot prohibit entry (women), except on the basis of religion. Unless you have a constitutional right, you cannot prohibit entry. Anyway, we will examine it on February 8," a bench of Justices Dipak Misra and N V Ramana had said. The bench said this while hearing a PIL filed by Young Lawyers Association, seeking entry for all women and girls in the Sabarimala temple which, as a practice, does not allow women to enter the premises after attaining puberty. Having tasted success with his first TV project, "Khatron Ke Khliladi", actor Rajniesh Duggall says he is open to doing dance-based reality shows as he likes competing. The actor, who made his Bollywood debut with the horror-drama "1920", was the winner of "Khatron Ke Khiladi" season five. "I am open to doing dance-based reality shows. I would love to do something on those lines as I like competing, it would be very interesting," Rajniesh told PTI. The actor said he was set to feature in celebrity dance show "Jhalak Dikhla Jaa", but that clashed with his upcoming film "Direct Ishq". "I was about to go for 'Jhalak Dikhla Jaa' before 'Direct Ishq' came. I was in talks for both at the same time. But 'Direct Ishq' gave me a chance to do a different role, hence I opted out of 'Jhalak...'. If the movie was not offering me anything new then I would have participated in 'Jhalak...'," he said. The "Ek Paheli Leela" actor, however, does not see himself participating in a show like "Bigg Boss". "No, I cannot do that. I don't think I will be able to take part in something like 'Bigg Boss'... That's a different ball game altogether." As of now, the actor is in talks with a production house for a mini-series as he prefers them over long running daily soaps. "I am in talks with a production house for a mini series. I am very open to doing a limited series because you do it like a film. Work for three months or six, then come out of it and do other things. But I cannot do the long, never ending shows at this point of my career as it will be very difficult for me," he said. Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran next week, embarking on his first tour to the volatile Middle East since he took command of the world's second biggest economy in 2013. The Chinese Foreign Ministry announced today that Xi will be visiting the three countries from January 19-23, on the invitations of the heads of the three countries. Xi's visit comes at a sensitive time when Saudi Arabia and Iran are locked in a sectarian strife amid falling oil prices creating a disturbing situation in the Middle East. As one of the major oil importers China wants to increase its diplomatic heft in the oil-rich region. Xi is also the General Secretary of the ruling-Communist Party of China and heads the powerful People's Liberation Army (PLA). Ahead of Xi's visit, China issued a policy paper on Arab countries expressing its willing to coordinate development strategies with Arab states and put into play each other's advantages and potentials. "We encourage and support the expansion and optimisation of mutual investment by enterprises from the two sides," the paper said, adding, that China is ready to continue to provide foreign-aid loan on favourable terms to Arab countries, as well as export credits and overseas investment insurance." The paper said, Arab countries as a whole have become China's biggest supplier of crude oil and the 7th biggest trading partner. China's proposed initiatives of jointly building the "Silk Road Economic Belt" and the "21st Century Maritime Silk Road", establishing a "1+2+3" cooperation pattern and industrial capacity cooperation, are well received by Arab countries. The "1+2+3" cooperation pattern refers to taking energy cooperation as the core, infrastructure construction and trade and investment facilitation as the two wings, and three high and new tech fields of nuclear energy, space satellite and new energy as the three breakthroughs. By Libby George LONDON (Reuters) - Brent crude futures plunged more than 4 percent to fresh 12-year lows on Friday as the market braced for increased Iranian oil exports, with the lifting of international sanctions possible within days. Brent and U.S. crude oil were on track to close lower for a third consecutive week, down roughly 20 percent from their 2016 highs. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could issue its report on Iran's compliance with an agreement to curb its nuclear programme during a Friday meeting in Vienna, potentially triggering the lifting of Western sanctions. U.S. crude futures were down by more than 4.5 percent at $29.67 per barrel at 1219 GMT, after posting their first significant gains for 2016 in the previous session. The contract hit $29.39, their lowest since November 2003. The March Brent contract was down $1.15 at $29.73 a barrel. It hit a session low of $29.43, its lowest since February 2004. The February Brent contract, which expired on Thursday, closed higher for the first time this year at $31.03 per barrel. On Friday, the average price for a basket of OPEC crudes fell to $25 per barrel, even before unrestrained Iranian exports hit the market. "The key theme for 2016 will be real fundamental adjustments that can rebalance markets to create the birth of a new bull market, which we still see happening in late 2016," Goldman said in a report. Others were more concerned about the impact of new exports from Iran. While experts warned that not all sanctions may be lifted immediately once the agreement on its nuclear programme came into effect, any additional oil would add to a glut that has pushed prices into a deep slump since mid-2014. "In the very short term, another price drop cannot be excluded in particular after sanctions against Iran are being lifted," Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch told Global Oil Forum. "That means a drop towards $25 is quite possible, but not much lower than that." Commerzbank and BNP Paribas on Friday cut their 2016 forecasts for oil prices; the former revised its year-end expectation for Brent to $50 per barrel, down from $63, while the latter, citing economic risks, said it now expected Brent to average at $37 per barrel in 2016, $17 lower than an earlier forecast. The oil price collapse has already hammered currencies from commodity-producing nations and spooked financial markets as investors worry about the health of the global economy. Nigerian stocks were set to post their biggest weekly drop in a year on Friday, while Russian energy minister Alexander Novak said that the critical oil price level for domestic oil producers was $5-$15 per barrel, which amounted to the cost of production. Even before sanctions are lifted, Iran's oil exports were on target to hit a nine-month high in January, with 1.10 million barrels a day of crude, excluding condensate, to load. Tehran is expected to target India, Asia's fastest-growing major oil market, as well as its old partners in Europe with increased exports once sanctions are lifted. (Additional reporting by Aaron Sheldrick in Tokyo; Editing by Dale Hudson) By Devika Krishna Kumar NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices slumped more than 5 percent to below $30 a barrel on Friday, as a further fall in the Chinese stock market and the prospect of an imminent rise in Iran's crude exports deepened fears of a longer supply glut. After closing higher for the first time in eight sessions on Thursday, U.S. and Brent crude futures slumped to new 12-year lows, taking this year's losses to more than 20 percent, the worst two-week decline since the 2008 financial crisis. The slump was not over yet, some analysts warned, as the lifting of sanctions on Iran opens the door to a wave of new oil. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is expected later on Friday in Vienna to issue its report on Iran's compliance with an agreement to curb its nuclear programme, potentially triggering the lifting of Western sanctions. Shares in China, the world's No. 2 oil consumer, tumbled on Friday, with the Shanghai index ending down 3.5 percent to its lowest close since December 2014 and the yuan weakening sharply offshore. Adding to fuel demand concerns, U.S. data showed retail sales fell and industrial production weakened in December. The "ongoing worries regarding the pace of economic growth" spurred a new round of selling in the oil market, said Tim Evans, energy futures specialist at Citi Futures. Brent futures for March delivery fell $1.30 to $29.58 a barrel, a 4.2 percent loss, by 11:39 a.m. EST (1639 GMT) after earlier touching $29.30, the lowest since February 2004. U.S. crude was down $1.56 at $29.64 per barrel, a 5.0 percent loss. The contract hit $29.28 in the day, the lowest since November 2003. Even before Iran's sanctions are lifted, Iran's oil exports were on target to hit a nine-month high in January. Tehran is expected to target India, Asia's fastest-growing major oil market, as well as its old partners in Europe with increased exports once sanctions are lifted. Despite oil prices hovering around new multi-year lows, analysts say that prices have not hit the bottom just yet, with demand likely to ease in coming weeks, especially with refiners beginning to shut for routine spring maintenance. A further fall in prices "cannot be excluded", said Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch told Global Oil Forum. He warned that $25 a barrel "is quite possible, but not much lower than that." The oil price collapse has hammered currencies from commodity-producing nations and spooked financial markets as investors worry about the health of the global economy. (Additional reporting by Libby George in London and Aaron Sheldrick in Tokyo; Editing by Marguerita Choy) By Libby George LONDON (Reuters) - Brent crude futures clawed back from 12-year lows on Friday, but intense downward pressure remained as the market braced for increased Iranian oil exports once international sanctions are lifted, possibly within days. Brent and U.S. crude oil are on track to close lower for a third consecutive week, down roughly 20 percent from their 2016 highs. The International Atomic Energy Agency is expected soon to issue its report on Iran's compliance with an agreement to curb its nuclear programme, potentially triggering the lifting of Western sanctions. U.S. crude futures were down more than 4 percent at $29.90 per barrel at 1445 GMT, after posting their first significant gains for 2016 in the previous session. Earlier they hit $29.28, the lowest since November 2003. The March Brent contract climbed back to $30 per barrel, trading 80 cents lower at $30.08, after hitting a 12-year low of $29.30 earlier in the day. PVM analyst Tamas Varga said that while there could be short-covering, the focus would return to oil market oversupply. "The general long-term trend is that we are going down," Varga said of prices. On Friday, the average price for a basket of OPEC crudes fell to $25 per barrel, even before unrestrained Iranian exports hit the market. "The key theme for 2016 will be real fundamental adjustments that can rebalance markets to create the birth of a new bull market, which we still see happening in late 2016," Goldman said in a report. Others were more concerned about the impact of new exports from Iran. While experts warned that not all sanctions may be lifted immediately once the agreement comes into effect, any additional oil would add to a glut that has pushed prices into a deep slump since mid-2014. "In the very short term, another price drop cannot be excluded in particular after sanctions against Iran are being lifted," Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch told Global Oil Forum. "That means a drop towards $25 is quite possible, but not much lower than that." The oil price collapse has hammered currencies from commodity-producing nations and spooked financial markets as investors worry about the health of the global economy. Even before sanctions are lifted, Iran's oil exports were on target to hit a nine-month high in January, with 1.10 million barrels a day of crude, excluding condensate, to load. Tehran is expected to target India and its old partners in Europe with increased exports once sanctions are lifted. (Additional reporting by Aaron Sheldrick in Tokyo; Editing by Dale Hudson) By Nidhi Verma NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian refiners boosted imports of African crude oil in 2015 to the highest in at least five years and slightly cut their intake from Latin America as refiners benefited from changing global oil flows caused by surplus supply. In 2015, India imported 787,700 barrels per day (bpd) of African oil with the continent accounting for about a fifth of the South Asian nation's overall imports from 16.7 percent a year ago, according to data compiled by . Middle Eastern grades accounted for about 57 percent of imports from 59 percent a year ago, remaining India's main source of oil. "We will increase imports from Africa going forward mainly from Nigeria." India's Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Friday, ahead of New Delhi hosting a two-day hydrocarbons conference with African nations next week Indian Oil Corp has doubled its annual oil purchase deal with Nigeria for 2015/16 to 60,000 bpd, its chairman B. Ashok said on Friday. India, the world's fourth-biggest oil consumer, raised its imports of African oil as the continent's mainly light, sweet crudes helped fill increasing demand for gasoline and diesel fuel. India's gasoline consumption rose 14.7 percent in 2015 while diesel climbed 5.3 percent. Falling African crude prices also spurred more interest from Indian refiners and a refinery expansion helped drive demand for light crude. African oil was cheaper relative to other regions as benchmark Brent crude fell during the year because of glut caused by surging production in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the U.S., and Russia. Brent's premium to Dubai was below $3 a barrel for most of 2015, making African oil attractive against Middle Eastern crude. India imports 80 percent of its crude needs and has traditionally relied on the Middle East for heavy, sour oil supplies and West Africa for lighter, sweet crude. West African crude prices started falling in 2014 as U.S. refiners replaced their imports with domestic light, sweet shale oil, allowing other nations to take advantage of the lower cost crude. India's imports of African oil also increased last year as IOC's new 300,000-bpd Paradip refinery mainly processed sweet oil. Global oil prices have tumbled in 2016 to their lowest level in 12 years, dropping below $30 a barrel. A number of major international banks have slashed their price forecasts. In 2015, Iran continued to be India's seventh-biggest source for crude oil although its share in the overall imports declined to 5.2 percent from 7.3 percent a year earlier. (Reporting by Nidhi Verma; Editing by Christian Schmollinger) By Nidhi Verma NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's largest-ever steel export deal, struck with Iran in 2014 to allow it to buy the metal without violating Western sanctions that are now set to end, has become mired in a dispute that has seen no payments made or shipments delivered since last fall. The impasse underlines how Tehran is taking a more assertive posture in its dealings with trading partners as options open up for business and it looks to strike better deals. Iranian Gas Engineering & Development Company (IGEDC) has written to Indian state-trader STC India Ltd complaining that steel shipments have been irregular and far below terms set out in the $2.5 billion contract, according to a letter seen by . It also said in the letter, dated late last month, that it would like to deal directly with Essar Steel India Ltd, which was supplying the steel to STC for export, if the state trader did not restart regular shipments soon. "We strongly urge STC to either be more flexible to enable regular and faster shipments or allow the contract to be dealt directly between IGEDC and the manufacturer," it wrote. The complex arrangement was put in place to allow steel exports without violating sanctions that prevented private Indian companies from dealing directly with Iran. That is set to change, with Western sanctions expected to be lifted under a historic nuclear deal struck in July between Tehran, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, giving Iran far more flexibility to pursue deals. A source familiar with the matter said steel exports had been halted since Iran stopped making payments in September. IGEDC's managing director's office did not return calls seeking comment. STC did not have any immediate comment. "The contract between Essar and STC is valid and is being performed," Essar said in an email reply. STEEL DEAL Under sanctions, India has been one of the few countries willing to do business with Tehran. "When this steel export deal was done, Iran had virtually no choice than to accept it, as sanctions isolated it from the world financial system," said Robin Mills, chief executive of Dubai-based Qamar Energy. Mills said the end of sanctions would open a wider circle of trade partners for Iran, such as those from Europe and China. "So Iran would like to diversify and buy steel from other players instead of having a huge contract with India," he said. Iran expects the U.N. nuclear watchdog to confirm on Friday it has curtailed its nuclear programme, paving the way for the unfreezing of billions of dollars of assets and an end to bans that have crippled its oil exports. India is the top oil client of Iran after China, and Essar Oil, an affiliate of Essar Steel, is a key customer of the National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC). The three-year steel contract was struck in June 2014, after the Indian government, worried about its trade balance with Iran and looking to boost exports, directed trading firms STC and MMTC Ltd to help facilitate business for Indian companies. Indian refiners have been paying 45 percent of their oil dues to Iran in rupees. These rupee-funds are used by Tehran for importing goods, including steel, from New Delhi. BLAME GAME The steel deal ran into trouble in September, when Tehran failed to clear dues of about 4.5 billion rupees ($66.7 million) for steel exported to it by STC, the source familiar with the matter said. STC was supposed to supply 1 million tonnes of steel in the first year of the contract, which is for a total of 2.5 million tonnes of steel plate and coil over the three-year span. By September of last year, however, STC had supplied only about 450,000 tonnes of steel. In its Dec. 22 letter, IGEDC told STC that it needed to expedite supplies and make them regular. "Not only have the deliveries been irregular, we have not even received" the minimum quantity of 50,000 tonnes per month in most months, IGEDC wrote. The source said STC supplied the steel to Iran based on availability and demand from Tehran, which was why the shipments were far below the expected levels. STC has been regularly writing to IGEDC asking for payments and would restart supplies if Iran resumed them, the source said. ($1 = 67.4345 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Nidhi Verma; Editing by Alex Richardson and Elaine Hardcastle) By Nidhi Verma NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's largest-ever steel export deal, struck with Iran in 2014 to allow it to buy the metal without violating Western sanctions that are now set to end, has become mired in a dispute that has seen no payments made or shipments delivered since last fall. The impasse underlines how Tehran is taking a more assertive posture in its dealings with trading partners as options open up for business and it looks to strike better deals. Iranian Gas Engineering & Development Company (IGEDC) has written to Indian state-trader STC India Ltd complaining that steel shipments have been irregular and far below terms set out in the $2.5 billion contract, according to a letter seen by . It also said in the letter, dated late last month, that it would like to deal directly with Essar Steel India Ltd, which was supplying the steel to STC for export, if the state trader did not restart regular shipments soon. "We strongly urge STC to either be more flexible to enable regular and faster shipments or allow the contract to be dealt directly between IGEDC and the manufacturer," it wrote. The complex arrangement was put in place to allow steel exports without violating sanctions that prevented private Indian companies from dealing directly with Iran. That is set to change, with Western sanctions expected to be lifted under a historic nuclear deal struck in July between Tehran, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, giving Iran far more flexibility to pursue deals. A source familiar with the matter said steel exports had been halted since Iran stopped making payments in September. IGEDC's managing director's office did not return calls seeking comment. Essar Steel and STC did not have any immediate comment. STEEL DEAL Under sanctions, India has been one of the few countries willing to do business with Tehran. "When this steel export deal was done, Iran had virtually no choice than to accept it, as sanctions isolated it from the world financial system," said Robin Mills, chief executive of Dubai-based Qamar Energy. Mills said the end of sanctions would open a wider circle of trade partners for Iran, such as those from Europe and China. "So Iran would like to diversify and buy steel from other players instead of having a huge contract with India," he said. Iran expects the U.N. nuclear watchdog to confirm on Friday it has curtailed its nuclear programme, paving the way for the unfreezing of billions of dollars of assets and an end to bans that have crippled its oil exports. India is the top oil client of Iran after China, and Essar Oil, an affiliate of Essar Steel, is a key customer of the National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC). The three-year steel contract was struck in June 2014, after the Indian government, worried about its trade balance with Iran and looking to boost exports, directed trading firms STC and MMTC Ltd to help facilitate business for Indian companies. Indian refiners have been paying 45 percent of their oil dues to Iran in rupees. These rupee-funds are used by Tehran for importing goods, including steel, from New Delhi. BLAME GAME The steel deal ran into trouble in September, when Tehran failed to clear dues of about 4.5 billion rupees ($66.73 million) for steel exported to it by STC, the source familiar with the matter said. STC was supposed to supply 1 million tonnes of steel in the first year of the contract, which is for a total of 2.5 million tonnes of steel plate and coil over the three-year span. By September of last year, however, STC had supplied only about 450,000 tonnes of steel. In its Dec. 22 letter, IGEDC told STC that it needed to expedite supplies and make them regular. "Not only have the deliveries been irregular, we have not even received" the minimum quantity of 50,000 tonnes per month in most months, IGEDC wrote. The source said STC supplied the steel to Iran based on availability and demand from Tehran, which was why the shipments were far below the expected levels. STC has been regularly writing to IGEDC asking for payments and would restart supplies if Iran resumed them, the source said. ($1 = 67.4345 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Nidhi Verma; Editing by Alex Richardson) By Devika Krishna Kumar NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices crashed 6 percent on Friday to close below $30 a barrel for the first time in 12 years, resuming this year's breathtaking rout as Chinese stock markets fell further and traders braced for an imminent rise in Iran's exports. After closing higher for the first time in eight sessions on Thursday, U.S. and Brent crude futures plumbed new lows, taking this year's losses to more than 20 percent, the worst two-week decline since the 2008 financial crisis. The slump was not over yet, some analysts warned, as the lifting of sanctions on Iran opens the door to a wave of new oil. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is expected on Saturday to issue its report on Iran's compliance with an agreement to curb its nuclear program, potentially triggering the lifting of Western sanctions. Shares in China, the world's No. 2 oil consumer, tumbled on Friday, with the Shanghai index ending down 3.5 percent to its lowest close since December 2014 and the yuan weakening sharply offshore. Adding to fuel demand concerns, U.S. data showed retail sales fell and industrial production weakened in December. Brent settled down $1.94, or 6.3 percent, at $28.94 a barrel, sticking below the pivotal $30 a barrel mark after briefly dipping below that level in the previous two days. It fell as far as $28.82, the lowest since February 2004. U.S. crude ended $1.78, or 5.7 percent, lower at $29.42, after hitting a contract low of $29.13, its lowest since November 2003, earlier in the session. The oil market is oversold after two weeks of almost unrelenting selling, some traders said. The relative strength index (RSI) fell this week to below 30, a technical level often regarded as signalling a market that has fallen too far. Bearish traders may rush to take profits on short positions next week. Short positions in the U.S. contract rose to a record of more than 200 million barrels in the week to Jan. 12, according to U.S. data. "I think we will see a hard bounce in crude oil - two, three, four dollars back up into the mid 30s," said Phillip Streible, senior market strategist at RJO Futures in Chicago. Even before Iran's sanctions are lifted, Iran's oil exports were on target to hit a nine-month high in January. Tehran is expected to target India, Asia's fastest-growing major oil market, as well as its old partners in Europe with increased exports once sanctions are lifted. Despite oil prices hovering around new multi-year lows, analysts say that prices have not hit the bottom just yet, with demand likely to ease in coming weeks, especially with refiners beginning to shut for routine spring maintenance. A further fall in prices "cannot be excluded", said Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch told Global Oil Forum. He warned that $25 a barrel "is quite possible, but not much lower than that." (Additional reporting by Libby George in London and Aaron Sheldrick in Tokyo; Editing by Marguerita Choy) By Paritosh Bansal and Douglas Busvine NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Toshiba Corp's Westinghouse Electric hopes to clinch a deal to build six nuclear reactors in India by end-March, its CEO said, in time for a possible visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Washington to attend a global nuclear summit. A Westinghouse team is already in India to negotiate the deal, Chief Executive Daniel Roderick told Reuters, but talks are likely to go down to the wire, as the crucial issue of nuclear liability insurance for suppliers remains unresolved. The aim, however, was to make a "commercially significant announcement" during Modi's expected U.S. visit in March and sign a final contract later in the year, Roderick said, narrowing the timeline on a deal that an Indian official had said would be disclosed by June. The contract would give a big boost to India's $150 billion nuclear power programme, and a broader push to curb greenhouse gas emissions. "We need to see the details of the insurance company and how the insurance will work at a level beyond what we have seen so far," Roderick said in an interview. "And that needs to happen in the next 30 to 45 days." India has launched an insurance pool with a liability cap of 15 billion rupees ($222 million) to assuage suppliers' concerns, after a 2010 law gave the state-run operator Nuclear Power Corp of India Ltd (NPCIL) the right to seek damages from them in the event of an accident. Roderick said that while the concept gave Westinghouse confidence to go ahead with a potential deal, the company still needed details of how the liability scheme would work before it can agree on commercial terms. The NPCIL did not respond to requests for comment on the deal, which was put on the fast-track when President Barack Obama visited India in January last year. DECADE IN THE MAKING The Westinghouse deal would be the first nuclear commercial power project since the United States and India first struck an agreement to cooperate in the civil nuclear arena a decade ago, and would underscore a growing strategic partnership between the world's two largest democracies. An Indian foreign ministry spokesman declined to comment on Modi's travel plans. A U.S. diplomat, however, said the United States had invited Modi to the March 31-April 1 Nuclear Security Summit and that Washington was thinking of turning the trip into a full-fledged official visit, which would give the Indian leader a similar reception as Chinese President Xi Jinping. India has given two sites to U.S. companies - Westinghouse and a nuclear venture between General Electric Co and Hitachi - to build six reactors each. In December, an Indian official told that GE had yet to decide on whether it would move ahead with the plan. Spokesman Christopher White said GE was still interested, but added that the March timeframe was "totally dependent on the finalization of the insurance plan". Roderick said that if the GE-Hitachi deal did not eventually go through, Westinghouse would rather the Indian government gave it the site than "Russia or somebody else". He said that while Modi's office was driving the deal, other government authorities also had to hasten the process. "It is just going to take everyone deciding to have this done by March," Roderick added. ($1 = 67.4300 Indian rupees) (Additional reporting by Sanjeev Miglani in New Delhi, Devidutta Tripathy in Mumbai and Al Scott in New York; Editing by Miral Fahmy) On a sultry morning in 2005, Amit Jogi woke up in the barracks of the Raipur Central Jail with a rude kick on his back. It is already 5 (am) and you are still sleeping, fumed the barrack in-charge, a convicted prisoner, with unconcealed contempt. That was Jogis second day in prison. He had been arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation, or CBI, on July 1 in connection with the murder of Nationalist Congress Party leader Ramavtar Jaggi on June 4, 2003 in Raipur. His father, Ajit Jogi, was Chhattisgarhs chief minister when the murder took place. A late riser who hadnt seen sunrise in years, the kick was a new experience for the young man used to a life of comfort: his father was an officer of the elite Indian Administrative Service who had taken a plunge into in the mid-1980s when he joined the Congress. His rise in the party was rapid. When Chhattisgarh was carved out of Madhya Pradesh in November 2000, Ajit Jogi became its first chief minister. Being the chief ministers son can go to ones head, and Jogi was no exception. The morning kick jolted him out of his safety zone. The treatment at the barracks made me realise what I am and what is my respect; literally, I am nothing, Jogi narrated to one of his close associates while sharing his prison experiences. Once this realisation set in, it did not take him much time to adjust with the rules of the prison. He taught English to the under-trials and penned down his memoirs. Prison life reformed him. Ever since, Jogi gets up in the wee hours of the morning. After 10 months, he was released on bail and later acquitted in the case. The incarceration made Jogi combative. He went in as a soft man and came out a hardened street fighter. What didnt change was his vaulting ambition. The 38-year-old American-born politician (he became one of the handful of persons to renounce his American passport in favour of Indian citizenship in 2004, Jogis website claims) simply cannot stay out of the limelight. This meddlesome trait was visible in 2003 when Jogis name appeared in a sting that caught Union minister Dilip Singh Judeo of the Bharatiya Janata Party accepting a bribe. Judeo, who accused Jogi of conducting the sting operation, had to resign from the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. The allegation is based on the statement given by CBI in the Supreme Court in 2005. In his zeal to be in the thick of things, Jogi possible rubs some people the wrong way. Shailesh Nitin Trivedi, once a loyal aide of the Jogis and now their bitter opponent, says when it comes to dealing with individuals, Jogi fails miserably and that has resulted in many strong followers jumping ship. Trivedi finds Jogis hot temperament and inconsistent nature his biggest weaknesses. He insists that Jogi does not believe in a democratic way of functioning and his approach is autocratic. A doctor close to the family also counts arrogance as Jogis major drawback but says that it is in his nature to trust anyone. Many close loyalists may have ditched him and damaged his reputation but he still has a strong following amongst the youth. A close friend says Jogi wants instant results and doesnt have the patience to wait long for the outcome. He hears everyone out but finally takes the decision that suits him, the friend adds. And this is what caused the several run-ins with his rivals within the Congress. During the Lok Sabha elections of 2014, Jogi posed for a photograph with the BJP candidate from Korba, Bansilal Mahato, over tea. As the photograph went viral, his opponents in the Congress went ballistic. For good reason: the then Union minister and a prominent leader of the anti-Jogi camp, Charandas Mahant, was the partys official candidate. Mahant lost the election, blamed it on the Jogi camp and now leads the team that has been vocal against the father-son duo. Then last month, a purported conversation was leaked that showed Jogi and his father talking to Chief Minister Raman Singhs son-in-law, Puneet Gupta, to fix the Antagarh by-election for the ruling BJP. The Congress candidate, Manturam Pawar, withdrew from the fray at the last minute. The state Congress swung into action immediately and expelled Jogi from the party for six years and recommended to the party high command similar action against his father who he is Congress Working Committee member. The Jogis have denied their involvement in the case. Jogi looks all set to contest the decision. The party is not anybodys Bapoti (personal fiefdom) and I have been denied natural justice as the action was taken without verifying the tapes, he says. He is confident that justice will prevail once he lodges his appeal with the party high command against his expulsion. You can expect some drama as Jogi fights back: the man has a penchant for the theatrical. Thus, when he entered pubic life in June 2010, after practising at the Chhattisgarh High Court for over a year, Jogi undertook a peace march through the violence-ridden regions of south Bastar. The Marwahi legislator who won the seat with record votes of over 46,000 loves to throw surprises. When his father was the chief minister (2000-2003), Jogi stunned the entire police machinery by visiting Marwahi police station with an elderly woman whose complaint that her goat had gone missing had not been registered by the police. Those close to Jogi accept that all the negative publicity has damaged his reputation but insist that he is down to earth, helpful and a great team leader. A self-proclaimed follower of Mahatma Gandhi, Jogi says: They will laugh at you, they will disturb you, they will act against you, but at the end, you will win. The social media giant Facebook has reportedly tied up with the state-run telecom provider BSNL to tap the wi-fi market in rural areas in India. Facebook will now wear the hat of an internet service provider (ISP) in rural areas of the country with data packages as low as Rs 10, according to a report published in Business Standard. Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook has purchased bandwidth from BSNL for a period of 3 years for Rs 10 crore for its WiFi foray, the report said. BSNL's partner QuadGen will be setting up WiFi hotspots across the rural areas, which will run on an unlicensed band of frequency of 2.4 GHz. The initiative Express WiFi will encourage local entrepreneurs to buy the inexpensive hardware to provide internet access to their town or region. The locals will also be able to purchase the data packages from these local hotspots, the report said. Facebook has reportedly made the software for data usage simpler and customised for rural areas. It will also be partnering with local internet service providers to expand network access. The report said that through the initiative Facebook intends to build up of an economically sustainable and affordable ecosystem for internet access. The tie-up came post Zuckerberg's India visit in October last year. Prior to that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also visited Facebook headquarters in the Silicon Valley in September 2015. Facebook had earlier partnered with Reliance Communications to offer Free Basics, which enabled users to access some websites without incurring any data charges. But the programme ran into rough weather creating a furore on the issue of net neutrality. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) asked the company to put it on hold till further approval. Free Basics and Express WiFi are part of internet.org, through which Facebook is trying to connect people in the remotest parts of the world to internet. EU citizens would have a harder time finding jobs and the economy would suffer should Europe's internal passport-free zone collapse under the pressure of the migration crisis, the head of the bloc's executive said on Friday. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker conceded it would not be easy to curb the mass influx of migrants and refugees, a top priority for Germany - the 28-nation bloc's biggest economy and the main destination for those arriving. The migration crisis, Europe's worst since World War Two, exposed bitter disagreements between EU members and has put the Schengen zone of passport-free travel on the verge of collapse, a prospect Juncker set out to warn against. "Less Schengen means less employment, less economic growth," he told a news conference in Brussels. "Schengen is one of the biggest achievements of the European integration process." "Without Schengen, without the free movement of workers, without freedom of European citizens to travel, the euro makes no sense.. And the same applies to the link between Schengen, freedom of movement and the internal market." "If anybody wants to kill off Schengen, then ultimately what they are going to do is do away with the single market as well. And that's going to lead to unemployment issues in Europe." Juncker said the brake-up of Schengen would also make freight and business travel much more expensive as he urged member states to deliver on measures the bloc has already adopted to mitigate the crisis but largely failed to deliver on. EU members have traded accusations over who is to blame for the crisis, with Brussels and Germany accusing Italy and Greece of letting too many people in. The southern states lambasted Berlin for an open-door policy that encouraged more arrivals. Last year, more than one million arrived in the EU. The bloc had little success in creating migrant registration 'hot-spot' sites in Greece and Italy, relocating people who already arrived to other EU countries or getting Turkey to keep more of the migrants and asylum-seekers on its soil. Juncker said he would not give up seeking a European solution to prevent member states from resorting to national fixes, like reintroducing border controls within Schengen. But he admitted that would continue to be an uphill battle. "I don't have too many illusions about the year ahead because everything is going to be difficult. But I'm not going to give up, I reject the idea that this is somehow the beginning of an end," he said. (Reuters) Source: www.businessworld.ie It is looking increasingly likely that AIB will return to private ownership this year. The CEO of AIB, Bernard Byrne, today gave an interview to the Irish Times in which he stated his intention "to return AIB to private ownership. Furthermore, he claims that the bank has met investors on both sides of the Atlantic recently who indicated "very good interest" on its potential return, with the Irish economic recovery front and centre as one of the key investment drivers. The interview seems to reaffirm earlier comments from the Minister for Finance this year who said if re-elected in the upcoming general election, it will pull the trigger on an IPO later this year, possibly early summer, but more likely in the autumn. According to Goodbody Stockbrokers, "We would agree with the positive investor sentiment towards AIBs potential return to a full listing on the stock market. We have been marketing to investors over the past two weeks with a further three weeks to come and interest has been extensive." Source: www.businessworld.ie For the last three years running, Dublin has ranked in the top three European cities for real estate investment according to a report released this week. This is according to 'Emerging Trends in Real Estate Europe', a joint report published annually since 2003 by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The report provides an outlook on European real estate investment and development trends, real estate finance and capital markets, as well as trends by property sector and geographical area. It is based on the opinions of more than 500 internationally renowned real estate professionals, including investors, developers, lenders, agents and consultants. The five leading cities for investment prospects in 2016 are Berlin at the top spot, followed by Hamburg, Dublin, Madrid and Copenhagen. Dublin is still attracting plenty of capital but according to the report the consensus among interviewees is that the Irish capital has already reached its peak for opportunistic returns. Those who have already invested in the city or who choose to invest in the very near term are likely to see the highest total returns. Furthermore, Dublin offices are expected to see rental growth, but the demand for increased office space is unlikely to be satisfied for several years. The lack of assets suited to bargain hunters has made way for an increased appeal to core investors, who will now have to take on more risk when seeking higher returns. The report indicates that Dublins retail recovery has just started and the city has seen a large volume of capital seeking to acquire retail assets. Development is also expected to create value in 2016, with 78% of respondents citing development as an attractive way to acquire prime assets. More progressive developers and investors are innovating in an attempt to meet the needs of increasingly informed and demanding occupiers. The property developers, investors and operators leading the pack are paying more attention to the role the physical workplace plays in talent management and workplace productivity. PwC Ireland Real Estate Partner, Enda Faughnan commented, "Sentiment remains very positive for Dublin. Investment is coming from a pretty broad spectrum of investor types hedge funds, private equity players, pension funds, retail investors, wealth management, sovereign wealth and larger insurance companies. "Distressed bargains are no longer the attraction. We are seeing real demand from overseas companies setting up in the city centre with younger staff who want to live in or close to the city centre. That creates a lot of rental opportunities." Source: www.businessworld.ie About us The Irish version of the PwC/World Bank Paying taxes report has been published today. The ranking by PwC/The World Bank Group report is unique as it looks beyond corporate income tax to all of the other business taxes paid and is a measure of effectiveness of tax systems around the world. The Paying Taxes 2016 report measures the ease of paying taxes by assessing the administrative burden for companies to comply with tax regulations, and by calculating companies total tax liability as a percentage of pre-tax profits. It confirms that Ireland continues to be most effective country in the EU in which to pay business taxes and the sixth most effective worldwide. Ireland has a low but clear rate of tax on corporate income of 12.5%. The report highlights that this is very close to Irelands profit tax or effective tax rate of 12.4%. Total profit tax paid by companies in the EU and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) is 40.6%, comprising profit taxes of 12.6%, labour taxes of 26.5% and 1.5% in other taxes. In Ireland our total taxes are 25.9%, comprising 12.4% profit taxes, 12.1% labour taxes and 1.4% other taxes. The big difference arises on labour taxes where Ireland is substantially more competitive on the cost of employing people. Furthermore, Ireland's tax system continues to be one of the most efficient in terms of bureaucracy and administrative burden when it comes to paying, filing, time spent and the amount of tax levied on businesses. A typical Irish company spends around a quarter of its total commercial profit in taxes, spends just over two weeks dealing with its tax affairs and makes a tax payment nearly every six weeks. Globally, this compares to the typical company paying over a third of its commercial profit in taxes, spending over seven weeks dealing with its tax affairs and making a tax payment every 2 weeks. Head of Tax at PwC Ireland, Joe Tynan commented, "The survey demonstrates that, having a simpler tax systems with competitive business tax rates and a robust and transparent tax regime, gives Ireland a real advantage in the market for attracting direct investment. "The survey confirms that Ireland's tax system continues is one of the most effective and straightforward in the EU. While no-one likes paying tax, the Irish tax system makes it relatively easy to comply with the rules and is much less bureaucratic system compared to other EU countries." Source: www.businessworld.ie About us It was announced this week that Irish medical technology company, 3D4Medical, will create 70 new highly skilled jobs over the next 18 months. The company will create positions in the highly skilled technical, design and medical sectors including: software developers, 3D graphic artists and medical writers and experts, to build on the success of its world-renowned applications. The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation, Richard Bruton yesterday officially opened the companys new global headquarters in Blackrock, Co Dublin. The opening of the new headquarters will allow 3D4Medical to more than treble the companys workforce in Ireland. 3D4Medical CEO and founder, John Moore said, "As an Irish company we are delighted to be in a position to further build our research and development and technical teams from Dublin. We are committed to developing world leading products and this focus on innovation has already brought us phenomenal success across the globe with our apps being downloaded over 12 million times." Minister Bruton added, ""Todays announcement that 3D4Medical, a highly innovative and fast-growing Irish company in this area, is creating 70 extra jobs as part of its international expansion is a great example of what is possible in this area. I wish John and the team every success with this expansion." Source: www.businessworld.ie About us The annual An Post Smart Marketing Awards 2016 have been launched this week. This years awards will be held in the InterContinental Dublin, on Thursday 21st April and will be hosted by TV and Radio presenters, Dermot Whelan and Kathryn Thomas. The Awards aim to celebrate the most inventive and ambitious marketing campaigns in Ireland. Head of Mail Media in An Post, Fiona Heffernan commented, "The An Post Smart Marketing Awards are an ideal opportunity for marketing teams across all disciplines, regardless of their budget, to showcase their most innovative, intelligent and creative work from the past year." Source: www.businessworld.ie About us It was announced today that Joint receivers, Mark Reynolds and Glenn Cran of Savills have formed an executive development platform to manage the Bolands Quay project in Dublins Docklands. Bolands Quay will provide three new landmark buildings comprising approximately 36,851 sq. m (approx. 397,000 sq ft) of office, residential, retail and cultural space. The development will also involve the restoration of a number of protected mill buildings and the development of a new civic plaza looking onto the waterfront at Grand Canal Dock. On completion, Bolands Quay will accommodate up to 2,500 workers. The Bolands Quay Development Group (BQDG) is a collaboration of Savills and property development consultancy, Cleary McCabe & Associates. Michael Cleary of Cleary McCabe & Associates has been appointed Development Director of the Group and will report directly to the NAMA appointed receivers, Mark Reynolds and Glenn Cran. Michael Cleary commented, "I'm delighted that Cleary McCabe & Associates has been appointed to work on the iconic Bolands Quay project. Our extensive experience in the development sector will enable us to direct, support and promote the successful delivery of this major scheme. "We firmly believe that this project will become a landmark development in the resurgent Dublin Docklands area." Planning permission for the new development was submitted through Dublin City Councils fast track SDZ planning scheme in December 2014 and permission was granted in July 2015. Demolition works are now underway and the construction phase which is due to be completed in 2018 will commence shortly. Source: www.businessworld.ie OGDEN, Utah (AP) Champions often are made in their trials. At just 15 years old, bareback bronc riding champion Briggs Madsen already knew the formula of gain through pain before his Aug. 22 rodeo accident that shattered five vertebrae in his back. And putting his champion attitude to work ever since has brought him back to health in the same fast action for which rodeo is known. The Bear River cowboy would be hard pressed to complain about what hes been through, fighting just to re-learn to walk and then to run. I still want to be a world champion all the things I wanted before nothing has changed, he said. Its just going to take a little bit longer now. Madsen is even seeing the side-effects from his injuries as potential advantages. The surgeries to put metal rods in his body to correct the back injury likely mean he wont get any taller. They said I wont grow no more, said the 5-foot, 6-inch cowboy. Thats good. You want to be small for broncs. But even before the accident, Madsen was already known for his small stature and powerful determination. Last summer, he was the only freshman cowboy to qualify for the National High School Rodeo Association finals in the bareback riding as he and his fellow competitors were on stage before the short go-round, the contrast was stark. These kids looked like grown men, said Madsens mother, Sonya Madsen, talking about the other top finishers in the event. The juxtaposition of his performance and appearance left an impression. When this happened, all the judges and officials who were there at nationals knew who he was, Sonya Madsen said. They called him the little guy who could ride broncs.' And it appears Madsens small size and huge smile have also drawn many to his cause since the accident. Sonya Madsen said she couldnt even guess how many donations shes received from her sons concerned fans, starting from the moment the accident happened. A three-day fundraiser in the summer netted more than $50,000. I learned that people are so amazingly nice, said the mother. Sonya Madsen said her son is always smiling no matter what happens. And with a smile on his face, Madsen talks about the learning to be determined as he has fights to regain his health and the chance to ride again. He said hes going to have to wait for a year to be able to compete again. Ill definitely work at it a lot harder, he said. Going out and practicing everyday is not enjoyable. When you are in that position, you realize how lucky you are to work hard. It makes you want to try hard and work harder at it. And Briggs said hell go for the gold every time he ever gets to compete again. If Im not going to work as hard as I can to be a world champion, theres no point in doing it because there are higher risks now, he said. But win or lose in the future, those who have watched him since August have been inspired by his determination. Matt Carter, a physical therapist at Neuroworx, a spinal cord rehabilitation facility in Sandy, said Madsens positive attitude and hard work have inspired other patients there too. The teen is there several days a week for therapy. Brenda Bailey, a Fountain Green resident who accompanies her husband to therapy at Neuroworx, said Madsens efforts are often the topic of their conversations. Ive heard how amazing he is, how resilient he is and how well hes doing, she said. But amazing or not, Madsens said he will be more careful about which horses hell get on to compete, passing up any horse he draws that he believes could hurt him. He said hes more aware than ever that his favorite event is the most dangerous in rodeo. He said many people believe bull riding to be the most dangerous, but he disagrees, explaining that the tight hand-hold in a bareback rigging means cowboys have a much more difficult dismount after their ride. He also said horses can be much more unpredictable and are larger and more powerful than bulls. But despite those dangers, Sonya Madsen said she wants to support her son in doing what he loves because, after all, thats what life is about. And she said injuries happen to people no matter what they are doing. There are people here (at Neuroworx) who just got out of bed and fell and hit their head on a dresser and broke their neck, she said. And the mother said she admires her sons bravery. Hes pretty fearless is what it is, she said. But Madsen said the secret to bronc riding is actually all about fear and learning to master it. Theres not a time when you are not a little bit scared, he said. You have to learn to not show it or convince yourself that you are not scared. A new video series featuring Utah doctors seeks to alert parents about the importance of getting their sons and daughters vaccinated to protect them from HPV-related cancers. HPV is the Human Papilloma Virus. The series produced by the Utah Department of Health and University of Utah Health Care emphasizes a significant gap between awareness of the HPV vaccine and knowledge of it. The vaccine protects against cervical and several other cancers in both males and females and is recommended for girls and boys at age 11 or 12. Is the HPV virus transferred only by sexual contact? Yes, close intimate contact, said Dr. Ellie Brownstein, a pediatrician at University of Utah Healthcare, and one of the doctors featured on the videos. The virus is very prevelant, in fact most of us will be exposed at some point in our lives to the virus. The goal is to get the vaccine to folks before they are ever exposed to the virus, when it can be much more effective. The immune system responds best to the vaccine at those ages of about 11 or 12, so that is why we encourage it then. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Utah, only 25.2 percent of females and 14.4 percent of males aged 13-15 years, had completed the recommended three-dose series of shots in 2014. Parents with questions about the HPV vaccine should contact their health care provider or local health department. GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES SHARE Eric Orlando Grimaldo By staff report The armed robber shot by a 69-year-old man with a license to carry a gun has gone from a hospital bed to a jail cell, police said. Eric Orlando Grimaldo, 23, had been under police guard since Jan. 6 while he was being treated for gunshot wounds. After he was medically released, police arrested him about 6:30 p.m. Thursday on suspicion on aggravated robbery, a first degree felony and unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon, a third degree felony. Police have said Grimaldo was shot after he tried to rob a man and a woman as they arrived home in the 1300 block of Calle San Carlos. After the 69-year-old man shot him he held him down until police arrived. No charges will be filed against the man who shot the suspect, police said. Grimaldo's bail was set at $150,000, jail official said. GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES Construction Engineer Mario Garza looks for the home of Antonio F. Martinez from Bishop during a public open house hosted by FEMA on Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, at the American Bank Center in Corpus Christi. The public was invited to find out whether their property was at risk of being flooded. SHARE GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES Rose Ann Bordyn (front) gives her home location to Charla Marchuk (back) during a public open house hosted by FEMA on Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, at the American Bank Center in Corpus Christi. The public was invited to find out whether their property was at risk of being flooded. GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES Bishop Mayor Joe Morales (back right) talks to Joseph Steele (right) about changes in his area during a public open house hosted by FEMA on Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, at the American Bank Center in Corpus Christi. The public was invited to find out whether their property was at risk of being flooded. GABE HERNANDEZ/CALLER-TIMES People gather during a public open house hosted by FEMA on Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, at the American Bank Center in Corpus Christi. The public was invited to find out whether their property was at risk of being flooded. By Julie Garcia of the Caller-Times With a few years of retirement under his belt, Josef Flores and his wife are thinking of moving to another house. "I'm getting up there in age, so we want to buy a house that is easier to maintain as long as we can afford it," Flores said while waiting to talk to a representative from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "The insurance will make a difference." Flores said his property in the Casa Linda neighborhood will not be affected by newly released flood zone maps by FEMA. But depending on how long it takes for the preliminary maps to go through an appeals process and receive final approval by the Nueces County Commissioners Court, the longtime Corpus Christi resident may just stay put. "We want to stay in a low-risk (flood zone) area and not have to pay insurance," he said. "There's insurance for almost everything. Where does it stop?" FEMA, along with contractors, insurance companies and local officials, hosted a public open house Thursday at the American Bank Center. These will be the first set of new flood zone maps since 1985. About 300 houses in Nueces County have been added to the flood plain, while more than 40 will no longer be considered to be at high-risk for flooding, said Glenn Sullivan, Nueces County public works director and flood plain administrator. The maps concern the effects of storm surge and rainfall. The current maps being used show most of Bishop being a low-risk area for flooding. The proposed maps will affect between 30-40 percent of the western part of the town, said Bishop Mayor Joe Morales. There is a "seclusion area" in Bishop, and also downtown Corpus Christi, where more data has to be collected before a designation can be made. Morales plans to host at least three informational town hall meetings in Bishop for residents in the next year. He's heard that it may take up to two years to finalize permanent maps. With computers clustered together, residents quickly checked to see if their property's designation changed in the new maps. FEMA representatives explained what the map's shaded areas signified in relation to their property and then directed them to neighboring tables for more information. The new maps are 10 years in the making, said Diane Howe with Texas Coastal Hazard Analysis Resources and Technology. They include a storm surge analysis and data derived from overhead topographic snapshots of the land. An appeals process will begin in about three months after notices are placed on the Federal Register and twice in a local newspaper, Howe said. _____ To see the proposed flood maps: http://maps.riskMAP6.com Twitter: @Caller_Jules SHARE Matt Huie, Beeville Cotton crop in crisis Leadership is sometimes asked to recognize when an entire economy is in perilous danger. I believe that's the case today in U.S. agriculture, specifically in the Cotton Belt. Cotton has been a staple commodity of this country for some 200 years. However, the precipitous decline in cotton prices since 2011, combined with the cotton policies of other nations (China and India), and the removal of an effective cotton policy domestically, have created a recession or worse in cotton growing areas of this country. If action is not taken very soon to provide some relief to the industry, there will be a huge number of failures in 2016. Some failures are inevitable already. This is not simply a problem for cotton farmers. This crisis will take millions of dollars out of our local rural economy. Banks, equipment dealerships, cotton support industries, car dealerships, schools, churches and many others who count on the new money created each season by cotton farmers all will suffer. My hope is that Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will exercise his discretion to make cottonseed a covered commodity and restore a more effective policy in order to revive a rural economy that will soon be on life support. SHARE Jerry Conway, Winter Texan Federal dollars in state economy Wednesday morning I read the editorial page with much confusion. Your editorial denouncing your governor for seeking a constitutional convention made complete sense and logic. Your examples were right on. The way Texas politicians abhor the federal government, think Gov. "Oops" Perry talking secession several years ago, has me confused. Correct my if I'm wrong, but doesn't the U.S. government contribute mightily to the Texas economy? You have more military spending in the Corpus Christi area than my whole home state of Wisconsin. Yet, on the same page is a letter begging the USDA to help the plight of local cotton farmers. My confusion comes when Texas politicians slam the federal government and yet they and their citizens want a hand-out at the expense of the rest of the country. The win follows Clear Channel's recent expansion of its digital six-sheet inventory, Clear Channel Play 2.0, which encompasses 200 digital panels in Singapore. Kelly Khoo, chief executive officer of Clear Channel Singapore, said the partnership with Tower Transit enhances the scale of the companys OOH inventory of 5,000 static OOH and 200 digital OOH displays, mobile-enabled bus shelters and Orchard Road billboard. A large, diverse inventory like ours offers real advantage to advertisers, she added in a statement. We are able to draw upon our insights into audience, environment and proximity response, deliver highly targeted OOH campaigns, and create new ways to connect with consumers on-the-move. Singapores first public bus contract was awarded to the London-based Tower Transit in May 2015. The contract will see it operate 26 bus services in the Western part of the island starting mid-2016. The company recently held a carnival for the public at its new Bulim Bus Depot, where it revealed its Bus Captains uniform, chosen through an online poll. Andrew Bujtor, managing director of Tower Transit Singapore said the company has been focused on introducing new ways of doing things since being awarded the contract. We believe this partnership with Clear Channel will have that same forward momentum that will help to push the boundaries of OOH advertising, he added. Another male client, who did not want to be identified, said the shared details constituted a "major breach of privacy" and an apology did not make up for the hundreds of names and workplaces that were divulged. PENROSE Residents in Penrose learned Wednesday why at this point no charges will be filed against a former acting board of directors who allegedly mismanaged money that belonged to the Penrose Park & Recreation District. District Attorney Thom LeDoux and Sheriff Jim Beicker during the districts board meeting said they equally are as frustrated. LeDoux attended the meeting to explain his decision not to pursue charges and answer questions from some upset community members. This investigation and the prosecution of this case was significantly handcuffed before the investigation even began, LeDoux said. He said there was not enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that money was spent solely for an individuals gain or benefit. There is not a district attorney in the state of Colorado who would have filed these charges, he said. In my professional opinion, as a lawyer and a prosecuting attorney, this really wasnt even a close call. LeDoux said he feels he spent a sufficient amount of time reviewing the extensive case file before making his decision. Sheriff Beicker said Det. Dale King, the lead detective on the case, spent more resources on the investigation than typically is allotted to cases. The district attorney is a little frustrated, and I am with you, Beicker told the audience. I feel that people took public money he knows that he gets to make the decision, he is an attorney and I am not. I told the board that this case came with complications, it is very civil in naturewhen we took this case, it was already with a lot of strikes against us. Some of the complicating factors in the case were the amount of time that already had gone by, a flood that occurred in one of the districts buildings that damaged or destroyed several of the accounting records and the suspects were aware they were being investigated. The lack of evidence seems to me to be the evidence against (the targets of the investigation), but thats not how it works for the district attorney, Beicker said. That frustrates me because I think crimes have been committed. LeDoux said he looked at the case from the perspective of a defense attorney, and he tried to come up with any reasonable explanation for the expenditures and then determined whether or not there was evidence to rebut that reasonable explanation. The investigation identified or focused on a little over $200,000 in expenditures, nothing has been proven with respect to those expenditures that they were criminal in nature, he said. LeDoux said if any of the former acting board members could give any reasonable or remotely plausible explanation for the expenditures, that it was for the advancement in any way for the district, it would be a justification for the expenditures or a reasonable doubt with respect to the criminal charges. When I looked at the expenditures that were presented to my office by the investigation file, it appeared to me that there was at least a somewhat plausible or reasonable explanation for each of those expenditures, or at the very least that I didnt think that we could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that plausible or reasonable explantation wouldnt convince one member of a jury going forward, he said. He said the targets of the investigation, or anyone charged with a crime, because of the Fifth Amendment, has no obligation to explain themselves with respect to the crime of which theyve been charged. In this context, as has been suggested to me previously, I cannot just file charges and then make the former directors of Penrose Park & Rec explain what the expenditures are for, LeDoux said. They have a right to remain silent under our Constitution, and they have no obligation to explain in that context their expenditure. Some of expenditures in question were a laptop, which never was located; a heater, which also was not discovered, despite a receipt for purchase; concert tickets; and $30,000 a year spent on cell phones. Search warrants were executed in efforts to locate the laptop and the heater. Beicker said the investigation has been ongoing, and it will continue to move forward if there is information that can be utilized and not just hearsay. I would love to file these charges, I would love to make all of you happy and that would be the easy out but I simply can not in good conscience do that as your representative, LeDoux said. If we could put together the evidence that supports the charges, I will not walk, but run to the court house. The community, or the board, may choose to file civil lawsuits against the former members of the board. The cost could be upwards of $10,000. In 2010, Trina Finto, Dawn Ann Franklin, Rory York, Terri Gosnell and Jennice Fagin were declared elected. The Fremont County Board of Commissioners appointed an interim board in September 2014 after learning they were not duly elected. Penrose residents in February 2015 elected a new board. We are making strides forward, and we are exactly where we can be, we have the old board out, the new board is in, said Patrick Slawson, board vice-president. We have money, we have a master plan that is going to be unveiled within a matter of months, we have yoga classes on Thursday nights, we have open gym at the elementary school we are moving forward, even without a park. He said the interim board walked into a situation where the district was receiving collection and shut-off notices, but the district now is sitting on almost $90,000, and all bills, activities and events have been paid. Three board seats will be up for election in May. For more information on the district, visit penroseparkandrec.org or search for Penrose Park and Rec on Facebook. Carie Canterbury: 719-276-7643, canterburyc@canoncitydailyrecord.com Three college students who first met while attending a Catholic high school in Florida have launched a scholarship fund to help others experience faithful Catholic education at a Newman Guide college. As we went off to different colleges, we kept in touch and found time to catch up whenever we returned [] Our Promise: Welcome to Care2, the world's largest community for good. Here, you'll find over 45 million like-minded people working towards progress, kindness, and lasting impact. Care2 Stands Against: bigots, racists, bullies, science deniers, misogynists, gun lobbyists, xenophobes, the willfully ignorant, animal abusers, frackers, and other mean people. If you find yourself aligning with any of those folks, you can move along, nothing to see here. Care2 Stands With: humanitarians, animal lovers, feminists, rabble-rousers, nature-buffs, creatives, the naturally curious, and people who really love to do the right thing. You are our people. You Care. We Care2. The Isle of Man is a Mecca for motorists who love driving fast on two or four wheels, and who can blame them for having a blast while doing so. The island, which is located in the Irish Sea, between Great Britain and Ireland, is the place that gave us many thrilling videos over the years and now, it was visited by the jet-styled range-topper from SantAgata Bolognese. This is the Lamborghini Aventador SV, and despite being sold out in no time, Evos Henry Catchpole managed to get his hands on one as he unleashed the 750PS (740hp) and 690Nm (509lb-ft) stud on the deserted road. The 6.5-liter naturally aspirated V12 is probably one of the last of its breed and this makes the supercar even more impressive. Its performance has been detailed numerous times, but it is not that often that we get to see it in its element, put to the test in a simplistic yet elegant footage, which should keep Lambo fans warm until the company will pull the wraps off what is promised to be another marvelous creation: the so-called Centenario. Correction: The Aventador SV has 750PS (740hp) and not 770PS (759hp) VIDEO Renaults French headquarters were recently raided by environmental officials after suspicions arose that the marque may have been using emissions cheating software, like the Volkswagen Group. On the back of the VW emissions scandal, authorities from the French government began conducting tests on 100 different vehicles, 25 of which came from Renault. Testing of these cars commenced in December 2015 at the conclusion of last year, 4 Renault models had been tested by French authorities. Fortunately for the company, no evidence of its models being installed with emissions cheating devices has emerged. Despite that, initial news about the company being search by officials saw its stocks decrease by as much as 22 per cent as investors began selling in fear of another emissions scandal. Renault could still face some issues however following reports from Reuters that some of its vehicles emitted excessive emissions during initial testing. The firm hopes to resolve any issues through discussions will local officials. PHOTO GALLERY Originally introduced at the 2015 Frankfurt Motor Show, the Jeep Renegade Night Eagle Edition has now landed in select European showrooms. Similar to the bigger Cherokee Night Eagle, the new version of the Renegade wears the Night Eagle badge and is based on the mid-range Longitude trim level. It is equipped with satin-finished dark gray design elements on the fog light frames, grille, roof bars and Jeep logos, combined with exclusive 17-inch black alloy rims, wrapped in M+S tires. In addition to the regular four body colors, including Carbon Black, Glacier Silver, Solar Yellow and Alpine White, Jeep offers the new Volcano Sand. The list of standard equipment includes a leather-wrapped steering wheel, new special Bark Brown fabric seats with electric lumbar adjustment for the driver, air conditioning, cruise control, 3.5-inch display TFT instrument panel, UConnect with a 5-inch display and rear parking sensors. Depending on the market, the Jeep Renegade Night Eagle can be had with a 2.0-liter MultiJet II, in two outputs, 120hp or 140hp and with the Active Drive permanent 44 system, a 120hp 1.6 MultiJet 42 or a 140hp 1.4-liter MultiAir and two-wheel drive, paired to a manual transmission. Only 2,500 units of the special edition subcompact SUV are available for sale in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) region. PHOTO GALLERY Photo: Contributed An Oroville department store, where Okanagan residents have shopped for years, is not closing its doors. Jack Hughes, the owner of Hughes Department Store, said Thursday that they've re-organized and are going to stay open. "We are working hard at it and as of yesterday we're going to keep operating," he said. The store, originally Prince's Department Store, was founded by Ben Prince. Sr. in 1933 on Oroville's Main Street. Over the years, it grew, ending up at its current location on the north end of Oroville on Highway 97, just south of the border from Osoyoos. After 78 years, the Prince family sold Prince's Department Store, Prince's Ace Hardware and Prince's Warehouse business to Jack and his wife Mary Hughes. Business was good in the early years, but the store, which also houses a hardware store, has dealt with some tough times as of late. "We had a tough time with the low Canadian dollar, but that's just part of it," said Hughes. "The thing that really affected us was the fires this year. We didn't have a fire in Oroville, but smoke from the south of us and smoke from Canada, really stopped tourists from everywhere coming. We really rely on those summer months, so that was a problem for us." It reached the point where Hughes thought they were going to close, but since starting the closing procedure, they've done an inventory reduction which has helped. "Doing so, affected where we stand with what we owe," he said. "So it's put us in a much better position." He admits they are not out of the woods yet, and will be running lean and mean in the next few years to make the department store work. To do so, he hopes he gets the support of those who have shopped there for years. "We know a lot of people were really upset when they heard the store was going to close," he said. "We are working hard to stay open and need everybody's support. The doors are open at Hughes Department Store and hope to stay open for another 80 years." The adjacent grocery store is owned by someone else and remains open. Larry never really celebrated Canada Day, he was always anti-social, avoiding the crowds and turning to drugs. However, last year during our nations birthday the 61-year-old decided he was going to make a change after years of unhealthy choices, smoking, drinking and drugs. Sobriety wouldnt be easy and it would seem Larry may need a miracle for his life choice to work. Homeless, Larry had been camping out behind Popeyes supplement store when he spotted three large pails of weight gain powder. I thought that this is so expensive, these three gallon pails, did they just discard them? he wondered. But I wanted them, so I took them, and then I thought, I will go work out. Larry took the powder and, along with some old muscle magazines, headed to the Parkinson Rec Centre, where they helped him with a six-month-pass. I felt so guilty for taking that protein powder, I thought I want to go in and thank them. Me taking that protein powder and muscle magazines changed my way of life, explained Larry. Owner of Popeyes Jeff Macisaac wasnt mad Larry took the powder in fact he had left it there for him. We knew a couple of guys were staying out back, they had been out there for a while making dinner and stuff, said Macisaac. We had buckets of unused protein, and none of us were going to use it, so we put it out back where their stuff was in the alley and we left it for them. When Larry returned a few months later, Macisaac was shocked by what he heard. Larry came in and said I took those buckets of proteins, I found your workout magazines. I used it, I hit the gym. I put on 30 pounds of muscle, I am getting clean, described Macisaac. He found a place to live, all from finding some buckets of protein and a workout magazine. Larry said before finding the powder his life sucked, he was a drug addict. It was great. After eight weeks I had put on 21 pounds, I quit smoking, I quit my addiction, he said, adding he had been only 130 lbs at the start of last summer. Not long after Larrys fight for sobriety he was diagnosed with gallstones and was bed-ridden for months. I was so discouraged, after putting on that weight and I wasnt able to work out or do anything, he explained. Larry wasnt about to give up, he managed to recover and return to the gym. He came back in and he is shredded, he has got huge arms, he is hitting the gym, the Parkinson Rec Centre gave him a pass, said an excited Macisaac. Macisaac and his team are continuing to give Larry protein powder, supplements and workout gear that will help him keep to his goal. At 61-years-old, Larry said many people have told him what he did wasn't possible, but he feels great. All the drugs in the world cant cover the pain I had inside me, so this is wonderful. Now, Larry is hoping his story inspires others. He wants to start a group for recovering addicts who want to get fit, join him at the gym and change their lives. This Canada Day I am going to be one of those people cheering and waving the flag, he said. Photo: Deborah Pfeiffer A 30 day in custody psychiatric assessment has been approved for an Oliver man involved in a 10 hour stand off with police on Wednesday. Judge Gregory Koturbash approved the assessment for David McLaughlin, after hearing from Crown counsel Mallory Treddenick in Penticton court on Thursday. According to Treddenick, an Oliver resident reported seeing McLaughlin on his porch with a long gun in his hand at about 1 a.m., Wednesday morning. McLaughlin then made his way to a nearby trailer, and the man and his wife called 911. The police arrived on scene, and several attempts were made to get him to comply, with a negotiation process lasting until 10:57 a.m. that morning. At that time, the accused let an officer in and directed him to a loaded Winchester rifle. During the standoff, officers were also informed by residents that McLaughlin suffers from mental health and substance abuse issues. Treddenick stated that there have been previous instances of the accused barricading himself and that he has 18 mental health files. When allowed to speak, McLaughlin told the court that he was inside and went to bed at 11 p.m., and in the morning when he saw the cop there, he was quickly jolted out of bed. The judge, however, approved the assessment recommended by crown, saying it would be appropriate as the allegations are a bit bizarre and terrifying. Photo: Thinkstock.com The mayor of a Barriere says she's appalled that a pornography website acquired the Internet domain name for the local chamber of commerce. Virginia Smith said the chamber in Barriere believed the domain name was automatically renewed, but it had expired. "Their website domain was expected to roll over and it didn't and by the time they discovered it, it had been captured." The new owners of the domain name are demanding the chamber pay $9,700 before the porn site is taken down, Smith said, calling that extortion. "It's just one of those horrible tragedies." Smith said she was stunned to learn about the new site after her staff logged in as usual, only to find the "horrible" content. "I can see both sides to the story, that yes, perhaps the chamber should have been far more diligent. That unfortunately didn't happen and now we have a situation that has to be dealt with. "I think it's a horrible situation and I don't think it speaks too well of the chamber or general mankind as such, with that kind of a site." The Barriere Chamber of Commerce has a new website. No one from the chamber was immediately available for comment. Smith said the chamber has hired a lawyer, but Hasan Cavusoglu, an associate professor of management information systems at the University of British Columbia, said that may not help. Cavusoglu, of UBC's Sauder School of Business, said anyone can use a name the moment it expires, meaning there is often no legal recourse. "It can be used by porn websites and it could be used by malicious websites that are tricking people," he said, adding software is available to track sites and determine when their domain name will expire. "One can actually create a replica of the original website." He said the chamber could have protected itself by paying for an extended amount of time to own the domain name because registrars provide such options. "Since they did not show interest, someone else took the name." Domain name registrars may email a renewal reminder to whoever registered the name but that's not helpful if an employee has left a company, Cavusoglu said. "There should be an email that was attached to a department, and not an individual," he said. "They should have been more careful." Photo: CTV Vancouver Police say they are investigating a "suspicious incident" after three men were seen taking photographs inside a downtown mall on Tuesday evening. According to a police statement released on Thursday, three men they describe as "Middle Eastern looking" were seen inside Pacific Centre Mall taking photographs of the entrances and exits at about 6:30 p.m. The statement adds "there is no information to believe that these men have committed a crime" and there is no information to believe that the public is currently at risk. Police say they are interested in speaking with the men about their activity in the mall and ask that anyone with information about them call the police department. Photo: Thinkstock.com The B.C. Deer Protection Society is furious about what it says is a cull of deer, conducted without any notification, in southeastern B.C., near Cranbrook. The society and the Animal Alliance of Canada have lodged formal complaints with the Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations. Both groups allege fawns were captured in clover traps large netted traps that allow deer to enter but not escape and remained in the traps for hours before contractors arrived to euthanize them using a bolt gun. In one case, the society alleges contractors shot a fawn twice, but it was still kicking as they dragged it away for disposal. Cranbrook Mayor Lee Pratt says Cranbrook has a permit to cull urban deer but he refused comment on the latest allegations. Culling of urban, habituated deer has caused controversy on Vancouver Island and across the southern Interior, with advocates saying deer threaten humans, pets and infrastructure, while critics point to non-lethal methods to reduce deer numbers. Photo: CTV After years of intense political opposition to safe-injection sites, Health Canada has granted approval for the operation of a second clinic in Vancouver. The Dr. Peter AIDS Foundation has run a safe-injection site for its clients since 2002, but the approval gives the clinic an exemption under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. The centre cares for HIV patients who may also have complex health and social issues, including mental illness and addictions. Health Canada says international and Canadian evidence shows that safe-injection sites have the potential to save lives and improve health without increasing drug use and crime in surrounding areas. Centre executive director Maxine Davis says the clinic's exemption shows the federal government understands that supervised injection reduces the harms of drug use for injection drug addicts. The former Conservative government waged a long legal battle against North America's only free-standing safe-injection site in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside but the Supreme Court of Canada ruled it could stay open. Photo: CTV British Columbia's police watchdog says it is investigating the shooting of a male by officers of the New Westminster Police Department. The Independent Investigations Office says the male was shot just after noon on Friday in the Queenborough neighbourhood. It says he has been transferred to hospital for further assessment but provided no details of his current medical condition. Officers were responding at the time to a complaint of a man causing a disturbance in a neighbourhood not far from a shopping centre. The subject of the complaint was located by police shortly after their arrival. The watchdog says investigators have been sent to the scene and will be obtaining physical evidence and interviewing civilian witnesses. Even after his death, David Bowie continues to break records. The icon has posthumously broken a record possessed by Adele. The artist, who passed away on Sunday, at the age of 69 and cremated soon after, saddened so many who many tried to remember him by viewing his back catalgoue. According to NME, the back catalogue was offered via the streaming service Vevo. On the day his death was announced (January 11), fans have checked out the back catalogue at least 51 million times. His "Lazarus" was viewed around 11.1 million times. In Vevo history, this sets a new track record for the most views for any artist in 24 hours. Not only did Bowie's video saw a 5,198% increase in views; it has also booted out Adele's "Hello" out of the top position. "Hello" garnered around 36 million views when it was released on the streaming site back in October. Before his passing, Bowie was still able to release his final album "Blackstar" on his 69th birthday, Jan 8. Producer Tony Visconti shared with Rolling Stone Magazine that just a week before his death, Bowie was already talking to him about a "follow-up to Black Star." The producer cannot be happier and thought the artist must still have at least a few more months. Because the artist died, the producer surmised that he must have "taken ill very quickly after that phone call." "Blackstar" is currently doing well at the charts. It is already set to becoming the artist's first number one album in the United States. A boost in sales was seen after the news of his death broke out on Monday. BBC reports that in the United Kingdom, the same trends can be seen. "Blackstar" is set to become the top album, and his past albums are all anticipated to enter the top 100. The most viewed video "Lazarus" can be watched below. Check it out. Cemtech returns ICR Research By Published 15 January 2016 Cemtech Americas was successfully held at the Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Florida, on 7-10 December 2015, marking the first Cemtech event in North America since 2008. Delegates enjoyed a highly topical speaker programme, site visit to American Cement Cos Sumterville plant, vendor exhibition and full hospitality programme. Welcome back Cemtech! A lot has changed in the seven years since Cemtech last held a conference in the United States. In 2008 the world was in the midst of the global financial crisis which had devastating consequences for the global construction sector, in particular. In the US cement consumption fell by 46 per cent from a peak of 127Mt in 2005 to 69Mt in four years later. The first morning of the conference, therefore, provided a chance to fully evaluate the current status of the cement sector in the US and wider Americas region. Opening proceedings, Cary Cohrs, president and CEO of American Cement Co LLC, presented a detailed study of the Florida cement sector, where the company operates one of the most modern cement plants in the US. The state of Florida was one of the hardest hit during the Great Recession, with demand falling by 69.5 per cent from its peak of over 12Mt in 2005 to less than 4Mt in 2010. Since then the economy, now growing at 2.9 per cent marginally faster than the US as a whole has seen consumption recover to 6Mt, which is still some way below installed cement capacity of 12.5Mta. Unsurprisingly, cement imports to Florida have all but vanished from the 2005 heyday (5.75Mt) and the state could even become a net exporter. In his detailed survey of the United States cement sector, Rob Roy of ROI Economic Consulting (USA) stressed that while US consumption has bounced back to growth, consumption remains well below the peak (-29 per cent) and capacity utilisation is now below 60 per cent, versus 90 per cent in 2005. Currently, the hardest-hit states in the south and west are expanding faster than the northeast and midwest. Texas is seeing some of the strongest growth, in spite of depressed oil prices, on the back of a well-diversified economy. Interestingly, low oil prices are expected to have a net positive effect on the US cement consumption, although clearly not for the energy producing states. Going forward, annual domestic cement demand is expected to grow at around 3-5 per cent. Scott Hazelton, IHS Economics (USA), provided a range of economic insights and predicted a gradual acceleration for the world economy in 2016. The US will experience gains in housing and business fixed investments and the eurozone should benefit from continued stimulus, he said. On the other hand, he felt China would continue to slow on the back of imbalances in credit, housing and industrial markets. He further added that South America will remain hamstrung by the plunge in commodity prices which will inhibit investment and impact on construction activity. Brazil and Venezuela are expected to experience prolonged recessionary environments, and sub-par growth is anticipated in Chile, Peru and Colombia over 2015-17. Francisco Suarez of Scotiabank (Mexico) offered a view of Latin Americas cement markets. The key flashpoints are Brazil, where utilisation now stands at just 59 per cent against the backdrop of a deteriorating market, and Colombia where momentum is currently strong but economic imbalances and excessive capacity may result in pricing reversals in the medium term (2017-18). Francisco was optimistic about Mexico which, for the first time since the crisis, is showing strong growth prospects and pricing momentum. Reducing carbon emissions Cemtech Americas took place at the same time as the COP21 climate change meeting in Paris, making the presentation by Michael McSweeney, president and CEO of the Cement Association of Canada (CAC) particularly topical (view the full speech). His important contribution examined the experiences of Canada in its ongoing transition to a low-carbon economy and impact on the cement sector: In about one years time, the vast majority of Canadians, and all but one of Canadas cement facilities, will live and operate in an economy that has put a price on carbon, either through a carbon tax or as part of a larger cap-and-trade system under the Western Climate Initiative, he explained. While cement is a crucial building material, and will remain so as economies modernise, the climate agenda dictates that the cement sector must innovate to remain sustainable. Confident in the ability of the sector to deliver on this moral imperative, Michael stated: I believe in the tremendous innovative power of our sector and that our collective investments in low-carbon technologies will drastically reduce our carbon footprint. A definitive presentation on climate change and regulatory developments in the North American cement industry was later given by Josh Snead, an international trade specialist at King & Spalding LLP (US). He described Californias cap-and-trade scheme which is now in its second phase of compliance and is now grappling with the issue of carbon leakage. The industry will have to fight for adjustments to the system that allows imports from less regulated jurisdictions to compete at an unfair cost advantage with the local California producers, he stressed. Manufacturing technology As well as keeping delegates updated on market and regulatory developments, the objective of every Cemtech conference is to provide a specialist forum to explore best practice manufacturing technology. Juan Teevin of Cementos Pacasmayo (Peru) presented an overview of the companys integrated greenfield Piura cement plant project, which promises to be the most modern plant in Latin America. Equipped with a 3000tpd clinker line and 1.6Mta cement capacity, the new facility will service the high growth markets of northern Peru. The mill is now commissioned using imported clinker and Japanese slag, with final commissioning of the kiln to be undertaken at the start of 2016. Environmental issues and CO 2 reduction The impact of environmental regulations on the US industry were dealt with superbly by Carrie Yonley, Schreiber & Yonley Associates (USA), one of the foremost authorities in this area of mind-boggling complexity. She reviewed the lessons learned from the PC MACT implementation, which has placed significant pollution monitoring and testing responsibilities on the domestic industry. Looking ahead, Carrie outlined details of the Commercial Industrial Solid Waste Incinerator (CISWI) compliance regime, coming into force in February 2018, which requires kilns that burn solid waste to be categorised as waste incinerators, and adopt alternative emissions standards and operating limits to those covered by PC MACT. No fuels that are considered solid waste are allowed in a PC MACT kiln. Luiz Germano, global energy manager of Votorantim Cimentos Brazils leading player and global group with 33Mta capacity presented a unique study on CO 2 reduction. Votorantims strategy is to produce a pozzolan clinker substitute from artificial clays located primarily in the west of Brazil in specially-adapted kiln and grinding systems. Over the 2010-15 period, Votorantim has already reduced CO 2 emissions by 1.6Mt. Best practice Jeff Hook, Senior QC manager at Lehigh North, presented energy efficiency case studies from the Union Bridge plant, one of the companys best performers. One example showed how the installation of a PGNAA cross belt analyser on the raw mill collection belt ahead of a VRM was used to achieve a more consistent raw meal quality. As the LSF standard deviation was reduced, fuel consumption decreased by 3.9 per cent, resulting in a ROI of less than one year for the project. John Kline, Kline Consulting (USA), a regular contributor to ICR, provided a masterclass on understanding and evaluating different cement grinding technologies: from ball mills to VRMs. Chris Oesch, president of Gebr Pfeiffer Inc, presented the companys new focus on semi-mobile, modular grinding systems, with an optional swing-mill design allowing the same system to switch between grinding cement, slag, limestone or coal. Jorg Schrabback, Sika (Germany) a regular speaker addressing Cemtech for the final time before moving to a new role within his company presented a typically compelling argument for the use of cement additives. He explained how additives, in the right circumstances, can increase the production rate and strength of cement products, and be used to produce limestone cement with lower clinker content therefore offering a potentially great saving. Cenk Alpaslan presented the Fons Delta Cooler, a high-efficiency grate cooler with especially low wear, a special stepped air flow function design providing optimal heat recuperation and a unique seal design ensuring no clinker fall through between lanes. A case study was presented showing the retrofit of a cooler for Cimsa, Turkey, in just 11 days. David Khanna, BPI.Visqueen (UK) and Trevor Mitford, Concetti Group (UK) both exhorted the benefits of polythene packaging, arguing that the material is ideal suited for this purpose as it offers superior strength and weatherproofing over paper alternatives, as well as satisfying a higher consumer preference. Gerry Lynskey, principal and founder of SSI Consulting (USA), presented an expert guide to inspecting silo storage, highlighting potential issues such as asymmetric flows, overstressing and poor design. To ensure good stewardship and safety, silo owners should engage experts to routinely inspect their facilities, he underlined. Alternative fuels John Kline returned to the podium with a presentation outlining a strategic approach to alternative fuels. The presentation highlighted that producers should be able to respond to the changes in fuel availability over time, and be willing to innovate and adopt newer fuels as older ones become popularised and, therefore, more expensive. The US cement industry is notably behind the curve when it comes to AF utilisation, argued Ed Morton of the Evolution Environmental Group (USA). The United States consumes around 0.3t AF per tonne of cement produced, compared to 0.5t in Europe. Evolution Environmental has worked closely with Titan in the US to build a bespoke separation, shredding, and storage system at the cement producers Pennsuco plant, which has achieved a thermal substitution rate of 10 per cent. Emissions Other presentations included Gerald Hunt, Lhoist (USA), who showed how dry sorbent injection technology with hydrated lime and Lhoists Sorbacal products could help cement plants comply with HCl and SO 2 limits. Alvaro Linero, Koogler and Associates (US), examined techniques for mercury control in Floridas eight active kilns. Networking & hospitality The conference was accompanied by an international equipment exhibition featuring leading industry suppliers, plus an extended programme allowed participants to visit to American Cement Cos Sumterville plant, a world-class cement facility in central Florida. Networking opportunities were further supported by evening receptions, lunches and Gala Dinner, all set against the backdrop of the outstanding Ritz-Carlton Orlando. Cemex contributes to main trade route between Mexico and the USA 15 January 2016 Cemex announced that Cemex Mexico contributed to the restoration of the Monterrey-Nuevo Laredo highway, the main export-import route between Mexico and the US. Located in northeast Mexico, the Monterrey-Nuevo Laredo highway connects Mexico with the state of Texas in the United States. With 52 per cent of Mexicos imports and exports moving along this highway, it is one of the main trade routes across the Mexican and US border. With more than 15,000 truckloads flowing across this highway daily, its repair required extremely resistant and durable construction materials that guarantee road safety. To this end, Cemex Mexico supplied 98,000m3 of hydraulic concrete to restore an approximately 9.75-mile (15.6km) stretch of the highway. Cemexs hydraulic concrete will enable vehicles to travel more safely on the Monterrey-Nuevo Laredo highway because it provides a flat, high stiffness-bearing surface that lasts the entire service life of the product. This concrete not only maintains stiffness over time, but also supports higher volumes of traffic and loads. Moreover, concrete paving features long durability and requires minimum maintenance. Cemex Mexico solved the challenge of paving this road without stopping traffic by utilising different work shifts to minimise the potential effect on this crowded highway and, simultaneously, guarantee correct placement of the hydraulic concrete. This project, which demanded the transportation of more than 30,000t of cement over winding sections of highway, directly employed more than 100 people. Published under First vessel arrives at Zuari terminal, India 15 January 2016 The first vessel carrying a consignment of 7,612t of cement arrived at Zuari Cements new bagging terminal at Cochin Port, Kerala, on Tuesday. Cochin Port Trust Chairman Paul Antony, Deputy Chairman G Senthivel and Secretary Gowri S Nair were among those present when the ship anchored at the port, according to an article by The Hindu (India). Two other Indian cement producers, Ambuja Cements and UltraTech Cement, already operate two fully-fledged terminals at the port, while Penna Cement has begun construction of a cement bagging facility, according to the report. Malabar Cements is also said to be in discussions with the Cochin Port Trust to establish a cement bagging and clinker import facility. Published under The Tennessee location that sold one of the three lucky Powerball tickets that will share the world-record jackpot of $1.58 billion was presented on Thursday with a check for $25,000. Rebecca Hargrove, Lottery president and CEO, traveled to Naifeh's, 27 Crigger, at Munford - a small community north of Memphis. Two other tickets were sold for the historic drawing, one in California and one in Florida. Meanwhile, there is no word about who is holding the winning Tennessee ticket. Lottery officials advise that the lucky ticket-holder sign the back of the ticket, keep it in a secure location, consult with a financial advisor, and call the Lottery headquarters in Nashville before coming to claim the prize. The jackpot winner matched all six Powerball numbers drawn on Wednesday. The present cash value is estimated at $983.5 million. It is the second Tennessee Powerball winner in a row. Other Powerball jackpot winners in Tennessee were: a $259.8 million prize won in Knoxville, June 2014; $144.1 million prize won in Antioch in November 2015; $50 million won in Knox County, March 2015; $25.5 million won in South Pittsburgh, March 2005 The winner has 180 days from the date of the drawing to claim the prize. Proposed redistricting maps are displayed during a 2011 Senate Redistricting Committee hearing in Springfield a time when Democrats controlled both chambers and the governors office. A study released Thursday highlighted how Democrats kept supermajorities in the legislature in 2014 even during a strong year for Bruce Rauner and other GOP candidates. AP Photo/Seth Perlman SPRINGFIELD A broken map-drawing process has led to an increase in single-party politics, a new reform group study claims. And the best fix, according to the advocacy group Change Illinois, is a constitutional amendment that takes the redistricting power from legislators and gives it to an independent panel of citizens. The study released Thursday, Partisan Advantage and Competitiveness in Illinois Redistricting, found a discrepancy in who voters have cast ballots for and the candidates who won seats in the legislature. While legislative Republicans and Democrats split votes relatively evenly across the state in 2012, Democrats still won 60 percent of the seats in the House and about 68 percent in the Senate. A similar trend unfolded in the 2014 state legislative races with Democrats retaining supermajorities in both chambers two years after a map they drew went into effect despite a Republican winning the governors office and a national election that saw Republicans take control of Congress. Additionally, in each of the last four elections in which a new Illinois map has gone into effect 1982, 1992, 2002 and 2012 the party that drew the map has gained an average of 7.25 House seats and 4.5 seats in the Senate. Republicans drew the map used between 1992 and 2000, while Democrats drew the other three maps. Illinois partisan redistricting process undermines our democracy and discourages civic participation, said Ra Joy, Change Illinois executive director, in a statement Thursday. We need to put people before partisanship and have fair maps drawn by an impartial commission listening to voters and acting in the open. The report authored by Kent Redfield, a political studies professor at the University of Illinois Springfield, and Cynthia Canary, who heads a group that is attempting to alter the redistricting process through a voter referendum acknowledged it is tough to determine the extent to which the maps cause such disparities. In legislative elections with single-member districts, there can be a number of factors that introduce bias into the outcome: the process of creating districts itself, incumbency, political, demographic and partisan bias, the authors write. Illinois extremely large number of uncontested legislative races complicates measurement further. Canarys group, Independent Map Amendment, wants to replace the current system in which legislators approve their own district maps with a ballot question in this years elections. Broadly, the idea would create two panels of citizens who would draw the maps. Legislators from each party would have input on nominations to the panel, and parts of the process would be overseen by the auditor general. The concept needs 600,000 signatures to get on the ballot this year. To be added to the constitution, it needs approval by a majority of all voters who actually cast ballots in the election or 60 percent of all the voters who actually vote on the question that is, if it passes a probable legal challenge beforehand. In 2014, Cook County Circuit Judge Mary Lane Mikva ruled a similar redistricting amendment unconstitutional because of provisions that would prohibit people who draw maps from serving in the legislature. But she wrote in her opinion that a proposal without those ideas could pass legal scrutiny. Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner has asked the legislature for redistricting changes, but he also said he would approve of the changes being sought by Independent Map Amendment as well. Its still possible for legislators to take a look at the issue, however. At a budget meeting in December, Senate President John J. Cullerton cast some doubts about Rauners assertions that it would be an easy change to make but was optimistic redistricting changes would at least get a hearing. Weve passed redistricting reform in the past. It wasnt successful in the House, he said. And so those are things which we will definitely be talking about. The HealthCare.gov website, where people can buy health insurance, is displayed on a laptop screen in October. (Andrew Harnik / AP) Consumer dissatisfaction with the Illinois health insurance market has spilled into the new year. Much of the frustration stems from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois' decision last year to drop 173,000 members enrolled in a PPO plan. The cancellation sent individuals and families scrambling to find alternatives at the end of last year. Advertisement The transition hasn't been seamless. People with new health plans have had trouble filling prescriptions and experienced other glitches with their policies. When they call their carriers for help, they've had to deal with cable-company-like wait times. Blue Cross, the state's largest health insurer, has had trouble keeping up with the new applications, leaving people without insurance Jan. 1. The delays are causing more anger toward a company already accused of deserting thousands of consumers. Advertisement Migrating to a new plan is complicated, and mistakes happen. But some consumers have run out of patience and taken to social media to voice their irritation and ask for help and they're getting better responses. Anne Marie Anderson, a mother of three in South Elgin, bought another Blue Cross policy after the company canceled her PPO plan. She has a daughter with Type 1 diabetes who needs daily insulin, so she stays on top of her health plan. On Jan. 1, she logged on to Blue Cross' website to double-check her new benefits and doctor network. It wasn't a happy New Year's Day. "The website said my policy was canceled," Anderson said. She immediately called Blue Cross and was informed that a computer glitch had accidentally canceled some policies. Since she had bought her policy from HealthCare.gov, the online marketplace set up by the federal government for people to buy private insurance, she would have to go back to the exchange and ask to have her policy reinstated. Customer service representatives at HealthCare.gov told her that reinstatement could take up to 90 days. Anderson panicked. Without insurance, refilling her daughter's monthly insulin prescription would cost $1,476, money her family didn't have. She was leaving the country in a few days and wanted to resolve the problem before she left. She turned to Facebook. On Jan. 6, she wrote a long comment about her problem on Blue Cross' page. The next morning a Blue Cross representative replied to her post, and within 12 hours, the insurer had fixed the issue, Anderson said. "I normally don't reach out to companies on social media because I don't want to sound like a whiner," she said. "But I feel like I'm in the middle of friendly fire with all this bureaucracy. I need immediate health care. I don't care how we got to where we got. All I know is I need care today." Blue Cross spokesman Michael Deering said that while the company is not disputing what Anderson was told, it has no record of computer problems. He added that if a computer issue occurred it might have happened when files were transferred from HealthCare.gov, but he said he wasn't pointing the finger at the government. Advertisement Upset customers have taken to social media to get answers from healthcare providers like Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois. (Facebook) Deering did acknowledge that the company is at least two weeks behind in processing new applications from small businesses, delaying coverage for an undisclosed number of people. He blamed the longer-than-usual processing times on an unprecedented volume of new small-group policies. As the Tribune first reported last month, some small-business owners found a clever way to gain access to the Blue Cross PPO that was eliminated from the individual market. The insurer still offers the PPO in employer-sponsored group plans, even groups under 50. Small businesses with fewer than 50 full-time employees are not required by law to offer insurance to workers. When Blue Cross canceled the popular plan, some affected self-employed consumers who had purchased coverage on their own quickly formed a group for insurance purposes if they had one or two employees. But many are still waiting for their group applications to be approved. The process, which typically takes two weeks, may take as long as a month, Deering said. In an alert sent to insurance brokers late Thursday, Blue Cross warned that, until the group application is approved, individuals may be responsible for the full cost of any health care services. They will be able to file reimbursement claims for covered expenses, the company said in the email alert. Blue Cross said it has increased staff, expanded operating hours and added a hotline to meet the unexpected demand. Blue Cross' PPO plan was one of the most expensive policies sold on the federal exchange for Illinois residents. But it was one of the most popular plans because every hospital in the state was in its network, including academic medical centers at Northwestern, the University of Chicago and Rush that offer expensive, high-end care and often treat complex medical conditions. Advertisement The decision to drop 173,000 customers was driven by economics, Blue Cross said. The company said the plans were unsustainable after it lost $280 million in the individual market in 2014, the first year of the federal online marketplace, by paying out more in claims than it collected in premiums. Blue Cross offered those customers a replacement, but the network did not include most academic medical centers and other hospital chains in the Chicago area like Advocate Health Care and NorthShore University HealthSystem. Individuals who see doctors affiliated with those hospitals were left to find alternatives that included their providers or would have had to change providers. One option for former Blue Cross customers is startup insurer Harken Health, a subsidiary of Minnesota-based UnitedHealth Group, the nation's largest health insurer. But Harken's health plans are only available in Cook County, as part of a slow rollout in the company's first year in the market. @ReemSayes Hi Reem - thanks for your note. We're sorry for the inconvenience. DM us so we can assist you. Thanks Harken Health (@harkenhealth) January 14, 2016 A Harken representative declined to disclose how many people it enrolled for coverage that began Jan. 1. Like many young companies, Harken is having its share of customer service problems. Members have complained on Twitter of waiting hours on the phone. Some left messages with the company and waited days for a call back. Harken CEO Tom Vanderheyden said, in response to emailed questions, that the company is taking steps to improve its customer service. For instance, it is adding more people to answer phone calls from members to reduce wait times. Lisa Chatroop, a Chicago freelancer who works in content marketing, had an unusual problem after she bought insurance from Harken. She needed to see her doctor in the first week of January. Before signing up with Harken, Chatroop checked its online provider directory to make sure her doctor accepted the new carrier. But when she went to an appointment, the billing clerk was not familiar with Harken. Advertisement "The billing clerk didn't know how to bill this out," Chatroop said. @larainchicago Hi! Shoot us a DM and we can assist you. Harken Health (@harkenhealth) January 14, 2016 She has also struggled to find a specialist that accepts Harken. Some told her they had never heard of Harken, but the insurer kept telling her that the doctors she called were in the network. Vanderheyden said the issue is awareness and not the size of its PPO network. "We have multiple teams hosting face-to-face meetings with providers to remind them about Harken Health and answer any questions," he said. "Additionally, we've placed call teams in a proactive outreach role to Cook County providers." For Chatroop, 32, a newcomer to the insurance marketplace, the experience has been one to forget. "The whole process has been bizarre and not easy to navigate," she said. asachdev@tribpub.com Advertisement Twitter @ameetsachdev Drugmaker Astellas, which has a Northbrook location, is under fire for its prostate cancer drug Xtandi, which was developed using taxpayer funds and costs $129,269 a year. (Astellas) Two nonprofit groups have petitioned the federal government to take actions to increase the competition for a cancer drug, developed by a Japanese company whose U.S. affiliate is in Northbrook, that costs $129,269 a year. The groups are asking the government to exercise its right to step in when the fruits of taxpayer-funded research are not "available to the public on reasonable terms," according to U.S. law. The "march-in" rights are a last-ditch loophole that allows the government to intervene when inventions it helped create become inaccessible -- if "action is necessary to alleviate health and safety needs which are not being reasonably satisfied," the law states. The government essentially reserves the right to license patents that were made possible by federal funds to other companies in extreme circumstances -- potentially disrupting a lucrative monopoly. Advertisement The letter sent Thursday by Knowledge Ecology International and the Union for Affordable Cancer Treatment argues that the government should "march-in" on Astellas Pharma prostate cancer drug, Xtandi. Three key patents that cover the drug were granted to the University of California and were made possible by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense. "In our opinion, it is unreasonable, and indeed outrageous, that prices are higher in the United States than in foreign countries, for a drug invented at UCLA using federal government grants," the petition states, furnishing its own analysis of the difference in prices in the U.S. and other developed countries. Advertisement The letter notes that while the U.S. average wholesale price of the drug -- a list price that doesn't take into account discounts or rebates that manufacturers provide -- is $88.48 per 40 milligram capsule. In Japan, that same pill costs $26.37, and in Norway it is $32.43. Despite its considerable power, the National Institutes of Health has declined five petitions requesting its march-in rights be used as an antidote to high drug prices or shortage problems since the mid-1990s. "Drug pricing and patient access are broad and challenging issues in the United States," Francis Collins, the director of the NIH wrote in November 2013 in deciding not to march-in on the patents underlying the HIV drug Norvir, made by AbbVie. "The extraordinary remedy of march-in is not an appropriate means of controlling prices of drugs broadly available to physicians and patients." Astellas' spokesman Tyler J. Marciniak said in an e-mail that the company believes the price should reflect the innovation and benefit that drugs provide to patients. He noted that the company is committed to preserving access to drugs as well, using patient assistance programs to alleviate the cost. He noted that Astellas and Medivation, the company that jointly developed and commercialized the drug, had also made a "significant investment and have taken significant risk" in bringing Xtandi to market. "Every country has its own public health policies and medicine pricing structures, and these can vary greatly. As a result, price differences do exist across countries," Marciniak said. "Unlike many other countries, pricing in the United States reflects diverse types of purchasers, health insurance plans and funding systems." The request comes days after members of Congress sent a letter to federal health officials requesting that the federal government exercise its "march-in" rights to deal with the general problem of high drug prices. "While NIH has appropriately referred to march-in rights as an 'extraordinary remedy,' too many families and providers are facing an extraordinary challenge from unreasonably priced pharmaceuticals," the letter, led by Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D--Tex.), a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee, said. "The failure to act in the past has undoubtedly sent an unfortunate signal that prices for federally-funded inventions can be set as high as a sick or dying consumer will pay." The petition offers one such framework for how such decisions could be made: when a drug is far more expensive in the U.S. than in other countries with developed economies and high incomes. Advertisement The letter from Congress urges the development of guidelines that could predictably inform pharmaceutical companies the terms under which they would exercise their march-in rights. While high drug prices have gained intense political and news scrutiny over the past year, Holly Campbell, a spokeswoman for PhRMA, the drug industry's trade group, said total spending on medicines has been "consistent" for half a century. She urged greater focus on total health care spending and specifically on health insurers. "There also needs to be a greater focus on the critical challenge facing patients: increasingly high cost sharing and additional restrictions on access as a result of their health insurance coverage," Campbell said. NIH spokeswoman Renate Myles said that the agency had received the letter from Congress and would respond. A Colorado couple on a cross-country drive to return their 2011 diesel Volkswagen Jetta to the automakers U.S. headquarters in Virginia stopped in Chicago on Jan. 15, 2016 to raise awareness about the emissions scandal. (Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune) (Chicago Tribune) A Colorado couple on a cross-country drive to return their 2011 diesel Volkswagen Jetta to the automaker's U.S. headquarters in Virginia stopped in Chicago on Friday to raise awareness about the emissions scandal. Marcus Moench and Elisabeth Caspari of Boulder told a handful of media members who showed up outside a Near North Side dealership for a news conference that they are seeking to return their 2010 diesel Jetta to Herndon, Va. Advertisement A sign was taped to their car window with a website and various social media names: whatnextvw.org, @whatnextvw, and #makevwpay. The couple also said they'd drop off petitions with 20,000 signatures, gathered by the Public Interest Research Group, calling on Volkswagen to fully compensate consumers for the emission scandal affecting about half a million cars that had been marketed as environmentally friendly in the United States. Advertisement Earlier this month, the U.S. government alleged in a lawsuit that Volkswagen illegally installed software designed to make its diesel engines pass U.S. emissions tests. The vehicles then switched off those measures to boost performance, generating greenhouse gas emissions up to 40 times greater than U.S. environmental standards. Volkswagen admitted in September that the cheating software was included in diesel cars and SUVs sold since the 2009 model year. "It negates the reason we bought the vehicle," Moench said. Moench and Caspari said they bought the Jetta for its excellent mileage and environmental benefits. They said the company should, among other things, replace their existing vehicle with one that meets the emissions, performance and mileage standards originally advertised. Moench also said Volkswagen should take steps to curb pollution of, say, school buses as a way to make restitution for the emissions that it was allowing. Moench said he and his wife bought another car, an electric vehicle, in the interim so they'd be relying less on a polluting car. The couple stopped at Fletcher Jones Volkswagen at 1111 N. Clark St. The dealership referred media queries to Volkswagen, which couldn't be reached for immediate comment. Last fall, the couple returned their car to a dealership in Colorado, but it would keep it on their lot for only about a month, citing liability concerns. The couple's cross-country drive is coordinated with Illinois PIRG. Advertisement After starting in Denver, the couple also stopped in Austin. They'll also visit Detroit and New York before Virginia. Moench and Caspari were joined by Evanston resident David Mann, who also owns a 2010 diesel Volkswagen and is a PIRG member. Mann said it took him a week to build up the courage to tell his wife about the Volkswagen scandal. byerak@tribpub.com Twitter @beckyyerak Hello! I'm Marissa Conrad. You may remember me from such stories as "I Double-Fisted the Au Cheval and Small Cheval Burgers," "I Wished Shake Shack's Fried Chicken Sandwich Was Made With Dark Meat" and "I Tried to Eat a 12-Pound Pizza For Sport." (Also, "No One Born After 1995 Will Get This Throwback Simpsons Joke.") The point: I was as skeptical as anyone about a juice the color of a washed-out green olive that touts "chlorophyll" loudly and proudly among its super-ingredients. I'm not a houseplant, for one. But on the way out of a workout at new Studio Three in River North, a brightly colored menu drew me to adjoining Real Good Juice Co. like Katy Perry to a beach-ball dress, at which point I couldn't help but smile at drink names such as: Juice-tin Bieber. Juice Springsteen. Juicille Ball. None of the drink ingredients actually related to the parodied people, but keep in mind I am a giant sucker who once wore Benefit's Sign Prenup lipstick for a whole season because I liked the name. Advertisement When I got to the Punky Juice-ster, I could practically hear 7-year-old Soleil Moon Frye from inside the refrigerator she got trapped in playing tag telling me to order it. A few hours later, Google informed me my memory is wrong and it was actually Punky's best friend Cherie who got trapped in the fridge. Whatever. I had already bought the juice. And you know what? It was straight-up delicious. Advertisement The whole thing is only five ingredients: matcha, almonds, chia, chlorophyll and mint. A soft, pleasant nuttiness comes through as the predominant flavor, and one that pairs surprisingly nicely with a subdued hit of mint, like a Shamrock Shake on Xanax. Chlorophyll is a hot ingredient right now in Hollywood; there have be a few studies correlating it to health benefits, but I won't believe it until there's more concrete evidence. In any case, it doesn't taste like anything in the juice (or it just blends in with the mint, since it supposedly tastes minty on its own), so it's a nonissue. The sleeper hit: the chia seeds. Soaked in juice, they puff up to the point where you might mistake them for freakishly small tapioca pearls. It's like I'm drinking bubble tea, except it's good for me. The seeds unfortunately tend to collect at the bottom of the drink, but just stop every so often, recap the bottle, give it a shake and you'll be good. It was $11 for a 16-ounce juice, which seemed like highway robbery assuming the highway was full of 24-karat gold trucks, until I realized I have no qualms paying $11 for a good cocktail, which is decidedly worse for my body. Splurging on this every now and then seems almost responsible. Real Good Juice Co., 648 N. Clark St., 1647 N. Wells St., www.realgoodjuiceco.com. mconrad@tribpub.com Twitter @marissa_conrad During her last days on Earth Lois Weisberg sat in front of a fireplace in Florida. Often in her hands was a slender book: "Pink Medicine and Other Poems," a collection of poetry she had written during her long and lively life, colorfully illustrated with drawings by her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. "We all made it and gave it to her last month," said her daughter Kiki Ellenby. "She was aware that we were doing this and, of course, offered her input. She just had to have projects, had to stay engaged until the very end." Advertisement As the cultural affairs commissioner of Chicago, Weisberg was an influential and energetic champion of the city's arts/cultural/entertainment scene. She died Wednesday night in Palmetto Bay, Fla., where she was living near Ellenby's family. She had been ill for a short time. She was 90 years old. Chicago born and bred, Weisberg had a remarkable career even before being tapped by Mayor Harold Washington to become the head of his Office of Special Events for six years. In 1989, following Washington's death, she became head of Mayor Richard M. Daley's newly created Department of Cultural Affairs. She would be the longest serving member of Daley's original cabinet, finally leaving because of budget cuts and some contretemps in early 2011. Advertisement When she left, Lauren Deutsch, executive director of the Jazz Institute of Chicago, which programs the Chicago Jazz Festival, the oldest of the downtown summer music fests, said: "I think that we are all appreciative of her exceedingly creative approach to bringing an understanding of what public art means to the public." As commissioner, she created some big events who could forget the playfully colorful "Cows on Parade," the 1999 outdoor art exhibit that saw bovine beauties dotting the town? but her less splashy activities and arts advocacy made a more profound and lasting impact. She championed the World Music Festival and SummerDance programs. In 1991 she collaborated with the mayor's wife, Maggie, to create the Gallery 37 arts program for students. It became a model for similar programs across the country and globe, and, in 2000, morphed into After School Matters. She helped nurture and expand neighborhood festivals and programmed and staged Millennium Park events. "Lois was a visionary," said Jim Lasko, artistic director of bygone Redmoon Theater. "She understood that a city's image is wedded to its cultural output. More than that, she understood that its real image, its public persona, was intimately related to its free public events. I learned from her. I will miss her." Lois Weisberg, 86, former cultural commissioner for more than 20 years, shows a slice of her favorite fruit - star fruit or carambola- at her grandchildren's farm stand at Pinecrest Gardens Green Market in Pinecrest, Fla. on Feb. 5, 2012. (Cristobal Herrera / Chicago Tribune) Weisberg seemed to know everybody the comic Lenny Bruce once lived with her and that attribute was perfectly captured in the now-famous "Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg" by author Malcolm Gladwell in a 1999 article for The New Yorker, later expanded on for a chapter in his first best-selling book, "The Tipping Point." "Lois is far from being the most important or the most powerful person in Chicago," Gladwell wrote. "But if you connect all the dots that constitute the vast apparatus of government and influence and interest groups in the city of Chicago you'll end up coming back to Lois again and again." She was born Lois Porges on May 6, 1925, and raised in the city's Austin neighborhood during the Depression, the daughter of a lawyer and a homemaker; her younger sister, June Rosner, is a longtime Chicago public relations executive. It was, Weisberg would later recall, "a calm household," and she also told a Tribune reporter in 1992: "I look back on my life a lot to see how I got to be the way I am. I seem to have a lot of confidence in what I think and in what I do. It's not that I think I'm so great; I'm a humble person. But I know that I'm going to be able to get something done, and I think that image of myself comes from the fact that my parents always asked me what I thought about things and respected my opinions." Advertisement There was always something charmingly flamboyant about Weisberg in dress and in manner, so it should come as no surprise to those who knew her that when she was young she wanted to be an actress. "I was in theater productions all through grammar school and high school and loved it," she told the Tribune. "But one day while I was playing a role in Shaw's 'Arms and the Man' at the University of Illinois, I realized that I didn't really want to be out on stage. I would rather make things happen behind the scenes. I ended up going to the Northwestern School of Speech and studied to be a director. That made sense to me, being the person who used their creativity to make things happen." She met and married Leonard Solomon, owner of a pharmacy on Rush Street, at the heart of the city's nightclub district, and the brother-in-law of Irv Kupcinet, the city's premiere chronicler of stars and celebrities in his "Kup's Column" for the Sun-Times. The Solomons' Scott Street home, where they would raise two daughters, Jerilyn and Kiki, was a hangout for literary figures and entertainers, most notably Bruce. "I didn't like Lenny Bruce's work. I just couldn't stand his jokes, his act, all the words he was using," Weisberg told the Tribune in 2008. "I did like him, though, and he did have long stays in a bedroom on the third floor of our house. This wasn't always good. One day my mother rang the doorbell and Lenny answered wearing just a bath towel." After she and Solomon were divorced, she began dating lawyer (later judge) Bernard Weisberg. Advertisement "On one of our first dates he told me we were going to see Lenny Bruce. All the lawyers loved to see Lenny," she said. "What could I do? I was crazy about (Weisberg). So, we are in the first row and I do my best to keep my head down but Lenny recognizes me and all during the show he's walking back and forth. Whenever he gets close to me he leans down and says, 'Well, hello, Lois.' After the show I explained my past life to Bernie. He found it very interesting." The couple would marry and move into a century-old house in the Lakeview neighborhood where they raised their two sons, Jacob and Joseph. "When I was growing up in the 1970s, my friends' mothers were grappling with the issue of whether they could raise a family and have a career, too," said Jacob Weisberg, editor-in-chief of the Slate Group and an author. "My mother was past that and already on to the issue of how many careers she could have in one lifetime." There were plenty. She founded Friends of the Parks, a citizens advocacy group; founded South Shore Recreation, a bi-state citizens group that helped save passenger service on the Chicago, South Bend and South Shore Railroad; co-founded the newspaper Chicago Lawyer; edited and published a weekly literary publication called "the paper" and, as founder of the Chicago chapter of the Shaw Society, produced the George Bernard Shaw Centennial, an international celebration to honor the playwright on the 100th anniversary of his birth. She also has tried her hand at selling antique jewelry and worked in local political campaigns on behalf of such candidates as congressman Sidney Yates. She did public relations work for the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, prompting Dr. Henry Betts, CEO/medical director of the institute, to tell the Tribune, "I never knew a more creative public relations person. She really understood how the press and media could help alter public negative attitudes toward disabled persons." On Thursday, Jacob Weisberg said: "When (Malcolm Gladwell's) story about her came out I think she was taken aback because it had never occurred to her that she was a 'connector.' She thought of herself as creative person who tried to enrich the life of the place she lived. My mom could have multiple huge creative projects underway, but she never seemed busy. We had dinner as a family almost every night growing up, and after my brother and I left home, we all spoke to her pretty much every day of the next 30 years." He tells a story: "I remember being backstage at the Blues Festival one summer when I was in college and seeing my mom rapt in conversation with Keith Richards. He had a blonde under each arm and an open fifth of Jack Daniel's as well as a lit cigarette in his hand. As soon as their conversation ended, I rushed over to ask if she knew who she'd been speaking to. She had no idea of course, so I filled her in. 'Oh,' she said. 'But he seemed like such a nice boy.'" Her other son, Joseph, is a former CIA employee, novelist and the creator/executive producer of the FX series "The Americans." "With all her accomplishments she was always a mom first," he said. "Her kids were always the focus. She was determined, never allowing other people's opinions to get in the way of what she thought was a good idea, a good cause." Advertisement Following her husband's death in 1999, Weisberg moved into an apartment in a building on Lake Shore Drive in the Lakeview neighborhood. The apartment and a home in Michigan City, Ind., were filled with books, art, letters and antiques. The city place offered a lovely view of Lincoln Park and the lake. She was an ebullient personality, one who surrounded herself professionally not with political appointees or clout-heavy factotums but with a generation of young, independent and eager creative types, many of whom have gone off to important national positions. One is Michael Orlove, who spent nearly two decades working as a senior program director for Weisberg and is now director of Artist Communities and Presenting & Multidisciplinary Works for the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington. "We all lost a giant in the world of arts and culture. She was Chicago's artistic director, innovator and creative genius," he said. "And for me not only a former boss but a lifelong mentor and friend. She welcomed me and countless others into the DCA family and gave us the capacity, the courage and the confidence to create and make our beloved city flourish. I am forever grateful and know that those incredible experiences have helped shape my life and career." But in 2011 it all came to a bitter end, sparked by Mayor Daley's decision to merge the DCA with the Office of Special Events, part of his plan to close a $655 million budget gap. Weisberg was strongly opposed to the merger. And so she quit. To some this came as no surprise she was 85 and long had been under gentle pressure from her four grown children and her grandchildren to "slow down" the nature of the split flew in the face of what many saw as an extremely friendly relationship between Weisberg, the mayor and his wife. Advertisement "One of the main reasons I am leaving is that I am angry about the way the mayor has treated me," Weisberg told the Tribune. "Not to ask me about (the merger), not to get any input from me about something like this merger, and about privatizing the festivals, strikes me as just wrong." She then devoted her time to her eldest daughter Jerilyn Fyffe's struggle with sarcoidosis, an inflammatory disease that would take her life in April 2011 when she was 62. It was little wonder that she told a Tribune reporter in 2012: "I'm letting go of the city." And she did, bit by bit, gathering and organizing her voluminous papers and spending time not only with her sons and their families in New York City but in Palmetto Bay, south of Miami, near her daughter Kiki and son-in-law Marc Ellenby's 150-acre exotic fruit farm. "We have fruit that you never heard of," she said in that 2012 interview, explaining how she worked at a farmers market helping her grandchildren run a fruit stand. "The lychee is a fantastic fruit. Have you ever had a carambola? They are exotic and very beautiful, and they take a little getting used to. And that challenges me in the same way a program at Millennium Park would." She came back to Chicago in late summer 2014 to receive one of the city's inaugural Fifth Star Awards in ceremonies in Millennium Park. She was also honored for extraordinary support and service to theater in Chicago and received the League of Women Voters Civic Contribution Award, Governing Magazine's Public Official of the Year Award and the Harold Washington History Maker Award. Advertisement In a statement Thursday Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Weisberg "revolutionized the role that arts and culture can play in building a better Chicago." Of course, not all of Weisberg's ideas were successful. Anybody remember the "standstill Christmas parade," which involved edible floats built out of candy? Or the summer of 2000, when she decided that what the city needed was 300 ping-pong tables placed around town for public play? But when it comes to a person as full of life and abundant with ideas as Weisberg, that's a little like saying not all Picasso's paintings were masterpieces. As cellist Yo-Yo Ma, who knew Weisberg well, told the Tribune on Thursday: "I am deeply saddened by the news of her death. Lois loved meeting people and delighted in making connections that broadened everyone's world. Her commitment to making the arts accessible was unwavering and unmatched, and there is no doubt in my mind that our lives are richer for her dedication, passion and vision. She was a true champion for humanity, and she will be missed by us all." Survivors also include eight grandchildren, Adena, Aliya, Jody and Levi Ellenby; Lily, Nate and Rosa Weisberg; and Rebecca Fyffe; and three great-grandchildren. Services are scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Monday at Anshe Emet Synagogue, 3751 N. Broadway. rkogan@tribpub.com Advertisement Twitter @rickkogan Photographed in Malta, doubling for Libya, "13 Hours" begins with the usual introductions of the six GRS security personnel soon to be under siege. John Krasinski of "The Office" plays Jack Silva, the most amiable of the guys, who has left a wife and children behind to make a living, keep the adrenaline going and serve a higher cause in a dangerous place. James Badge Dale portrays the stalwart Tyrone "Rone" Woods, a natural leader and a bullheaded adversary to the sniveling CIA base chief (David Costabile) who symbolizes everything wrong with foreign policy, in Bay's eyes, under the Obama administration. Screenwriter Chuck Hogan ("The Town") leaves nothing to chance, as Costabile's soft-bellied Ivy League punk looks one of our protectors straight in the eye and says: "You're not a first responder. You're the last resort." Such moments push "13 Hours" far, far into movieland. Wisconsin prosecutor Michael Griesbach believes Steven Avery was wrongly convicted but you may disagree on how many times. Many viewers finished the final episode of Netflix documentary "Making a Murderer" feeling aghast, angry. The documentary tracks the initial 1985 wrongful conviction of Avery, who spent 18 years in prison for a sexual assault that DNA evidence later proved he didn't commit. A few years after his exoneration, he was arrested again, this time for the 2005 murder of 25-year-old Teresa Halbach. Advertisement Warning, spoilers ahead. Avery was convicted of Halbach murder in 2007 and remains in jail. Last week, he asked to be released on bond, filing an appeal claiming an improper warrant and that a juror was out to get him, The Associated Press reported. Advertisement Griesbach wrote "The Innocent Killer" for the Chicago-based Ankerwycke, a publishing imprint of the American Bar Association. The book tracks the Avery case, from wrongful conviction to his eventual conviction and imprisonment for the Halbach killing. Griesbach appears in the documentary's first episode, surprised by a former prosecutor's reaction to the exoneration. Now, Griesbach is a prosecutor in Manitowoc County, where the events occurred. And he is sure Avery was innocent one time. "Lightning did not strike twice," he said. He hopes the case will inform citizens and law students alike about the criminal justice system. He appears on panel discussions on wrongful convictions, even crossing paths with Dean Strang, Avery's former lawyer and now online celebrity due to the documentary. As Griesbach pointed out, Wisconsin is a small world. This interview has been edited and condensed for space. Q: What's it like to see a case you wrote about explode in popularity? A: It's very strange. Part of (the filmmakers') mission I feel like I share, in terms of drawing attention to some issues in the criminal justice system. What's interesting is they say, correctly, that truth is elusive in the Steven Avery case. And it really is. (But) they sort of adopt what they believe to be the truth. And they present it as the truth. And the disturbing part is they don't present it even close to thoroughly. And I understand that TV, and dramatic portrayals, you're going to approach it with a specific angle. But I think they went overboard. (For example), they didn't include very much of, if any, the cross-examination by the prosecution and the rebuttal. That's the time when evidence is really tested on both sides. They call that in the law, the truth-seeking engine. Advertisement Q: Many viewers who watch the documentary finish it feeling Avery was wrongfully convicted twice, not once. What do you think was left out, if anything? A: There were bleach stains on (Avery's nephew and also convicted in the murder) Brendan Dassey's blue jeans. People are wondering if there's a gruesome murder there, where's the blood, where's the hair? And Avery and Dassey, especially Avery I think, had a week to clean things up. That there's bleach on his pants is pretty telling, at least something that should be included, for viewers to at least know. They refer back to this cat burning. What they don't tell you, (Avery) was 22, first of all, he wasn't just a kid. They make it sound like it was just sort of horse-playing with some friends, that the cat got accidentally dropped in the fire. But in fact, Steven Avery doused the cat with gasoline and intentionally threw it in the fire. It's pretty disturbing stuff. They portray this incident when he rammed his pickup truck (into a woman's car). And then he did approach her at rifle-point, they included that. (But) they portrayed it as nothing more than Steven Avery being upset at this woman because she was spreading rumors about him and his family. Now, for the rest of the story. (According to court documents,) he had been stalking, well, observing her down the road with binoculars as she got into her car early in the morning. He even ran into the road naked one time. This is one disturbed guy. That incident was very different than how it was portrayed. Q: You write in a Wisconsin law journal that Avery bears responsibility for Halbach's death. What convinces you? A: All those viewers, they only know what's in the documentary. They don't have any other information about the Avery case. So you watch that, you're thinking lightning struck twice, he was wrongly convicted again. I totally get that, how if you knew nothing else about the case you would be absolutely convinced that he was wrongly convicted a second time. Advertisement Back up and look at the basics. He's the last one to see her; specifically he asks her to come there. Then, you have his blood, and I guess they're saying it's planted, and I can see why people believe that after only seeing these facts. But you have to believe a lot of stuff. His blood's in her car. Her blood's in her car. His DNA is on her key, in his bedroom. All those things as a prosecutor, usually when I have a case with that kind of strong both physical evidence and circumstantial evidence, it's the kind of case that guilt is just so obvious. It's an incredibly strong case for the prosecution. Q: Many viewers are troubled that some of the main physical evidence was found by Manitowoc County officers. A: (That was) some really bad judgment, in retrospect especially, but even at the time. They should have entirely removed themselves from anything having to do with the case. Q: Upsetting to a lot of people is the confession of Dassey (a developmentally disabled teenager interviewed under what many call coercive interrogation techniques). A: That was legitimately troubling to a lot of people. Those interrogation techniques that police use, those are the same techniques that are used all across the country. The whole thing assumes guilt, and then it's designed to elicit a confession instead of objectively designed to elicit the truth, or what happened. So that's problematic right off the top. Q: What do prosecutors take into account about someone's developmental abilities in these kinds of situations? Advertisement A: I'll be honest. If we have a confession, we assume it's the truth. (And) 99.9 percent of the time, the confession is true. We're supposed to do justice. So if we have even a hint that we don't believe that the confession is legitimate, we've got to back away. But I've never come across a case where the confession is false 99.9 percent of people don't generally confess to something they didn't do. If we're convinced that the evidence shows some guilt, we have a confession, what are we supposed to do, ignore our best evidence? If so much other evidence points to guilt, I don't think it's our job to say, "We're not going to believe that confession." Q: You hope people can learn lessons from this case, both citizens and attorneys. Talk about following evidence versus gut instinct during investigations. A: The whole job of police investigations would be to follow the evidence wherever it leads. And that's exactly what did not happen in the first Avery case. In fact, it was worse than that. This wasn't one of the wrongful convictions that happened by mistake. Within a couple days of arresting Steven Avery, evidence suggests that they not only knew he didn't do it, but they knew who did do it. And that's pretty scary stuff. (In the Halbach case), it wasn't unreasonable to at least have a suspicion that Steven Avery, to have him as the most likely suspect. He's the guy who called her. He's the guy who was the last person known to see her alive. Q: What do you think of everything coming out now a juror saying he felt threatened, a new attorney for Avery. Are there any open questions, do you think, for the future? Advertisement A: I don't think the juror thing's going anywhere. That is troubling, that maybe there was some intimidation. But maybe there was, maybe there wasn't, I don't think that's enough for a new trial. (The court proceedings surrounding) Dassey's confession, that'll be really interesting to see how that goes. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a filing for a new trial. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. abowen@tribpub.com Twitter @byalisonbowen Trustee Deanne Mazzochi states that she will vote yes to fire President Robert Breuder at the College of DuPage Board of Trustees Special Board Meeting in October. On Thursday, Mazzochi accused Trustee Dianne McGuire and her allies of breaking the public's trust by boycotting a third meeting. (Jon Langham / Chicago Tribune) Three College of DuPage trustees continued their boycott Thursday, preventing the board from obtaining a quorum for the third time and stopping a vote on whether to release records sought by local prosecutors. Veteran trustees Dianne McGuire, Erin Birt and Joseph Wozniak had called a special meeting for 7 p.m., but they decided to cancel after the board's three newest trustees scheduled a 6:30 p.m. meeting to discuss the records request. Advertisement Vice Chairwoman Deanne Mazzochi who was elected in April did the same thing last week, calling a special meeting 15 minutes before the veteran trustees intended to hold one. Neither of those meetings was held, again leaving the college without enough votes to pay bills, approve new hires or endorse three new certificate programs. In a statement released shortly before the meeting was to start Thursday, McGuire accused Mazzochi of playing "dirty political games" in an attempt to undermine the veteran board members' agenda. Mazzochi had promised to end the first meeting by 7 p.m., but McGuire said she could not be trusted. Advertisement "Trustee Mazzochi's dirty political games have again undermined a special meeting called by three members of the board," McGuire said. "Trustee Mazzochi's grossly unprofessional behavior gives us no confidence that she will honor her promise not to interfere with our meeting tonight." Mazzochi who had asked the veteran trustees to include the prosecutors' request on their agenda accused McGuire and her allies of breaking the public's trust. "I believe the citizens of our district, and students, faculty and staff of COD have trusted them to do their duty and show up," Mazzochi said. "They apparently lack the time. My question is, what about the public trust?" The latest boycott comes as DuPage County prosecutors have asked the college to turn over records that could shed light on a contract extension given to former President Robert Breuder shortly before he began severance negotiations. In a letter sent Monday, Assistant State's Attorney Gregory Vaci, who heads the office's civil division, asked the college to turn over minutes and a "verbatim record" from closed-session board meetings in February and March 2014. Vaci wrote that he intended to review records to see whether the board complied with the state's open meetings act. McGuire, Birt and Wozniak were in all that closed-door meeting, according to college records. In his wrongful termination lawsuit against the college, Breuder says he was informed March 7, 2014, by then-Chairwoman Erin Birt that a majority of the board had approved an extension of his contract until 2019. College records show the board had a special meeting March 6, 2014, and met in executive session for 21/2 hours to discuss personnel issues. Advertisement Breuder began negotiating a severance agreement with trustees the next month. The lawsuit's mention of the March discussion has become a flash point for Breuder critics, who have asked DuPage County State's Attorney Robert Berlin to review whether there was an illegal closed-door vote. The decision could depend on the interpretation of a trigger clause in Breuder's contract that automatically extended his three-year employment deal for another year every April unless the board opted to fire him. According to the contract, the board did not have to vote on its decision in an open meeting a caveat that arguably violates the spirit of the state's open meetings law. McGuire has said that the prosecutors' request is not urgent because the meetings happened nearly two years ago and, as such, did not need to be addressed at the meeting called by the veteran trustees. The board has been in turmoil since former board chairwoman Katharine Hamilton resigned in early December for an unspecified personal reason. Her resignation left a 3-3 split on the board, giving the three legacy trustees power they did not have in the past several months as a minority bloc on the board. The stalemate is likely to continue until someone is appointed to fill Hamilton's vacancy. If the remaining trustees cannot agree on a replacement, the Illinois Community College Board will select someone. More than two dozen people have applied for the vacancy, a college spokesman said. Advertisement In a sign that the board is unlikely to agree on a replacement and that the boycott may continue for a while, McGuire told ICCB chairman Lazaro Lopez that the college's business will not resume until the vacancy is filled. "It appears necessary for you to appoint a trustee to fill the vacant position on the COD Board of Trustees," McGuire wrote in a letter dated Thursday and released to the Tribune. sstclair@tribpub.com jscohen@tribpub.com Brian Smith, 33, pleaded guilty to one count of criminal sexual assault stemming from an incident in early 2015 involving a 17-year-old student at Plainfield Central High School where Smith was a teacher. (Will County / Handout) A former Plainfield Central High School teacher Friday pleaded guilty to allegations he had sexual relations with a student. Brian Smith, 33, pleaded guilty to one count of criminal sexual assault stemming from an incident in early 2015 involving a student, who was 17 years old at the time. Smith, who was free on bond, was taken into custody after his plea and sentenced to 4 1/2 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections. He faced a maximum of 15 years in prison. Advertisement "You are a thief," Will County Judge Sarah Jones told Smith at Friday's hearing. "You stole the trust of this young woman, the school district that hired you it's really unfortunate." Smith, whose wife was in court with him Friday, was fired from his position at Plainfield Central High School last March after he was arrested Feb. 27. Advertisement According to prosecutors, Smith allowed the student to perform a sex act on him after providing the student with answers to tests and taking a test for her in early February. Will County Assistant State's Attorney Mary Fillipitch said Smith struck up a relationship with the student in November 2014 through an online site. In their conversations, Smith used a fake name and claimed he was a friend of Smith's. He asked the student if she knew how to get a good grade in Smith's class and if she thought her teacher was sexy, Fillipitch said. Suspecting the person she was communicating with was Smith, the student approached him in school. The two then started conversing on another online site, Fillipitch said. During those conversations, Smith sent the student nude photos. Fillipitch added that it was during that time that Smith began providing the student with answers to tests. On Feb. 13, 2015, the student went to Smith's classroom to take a test, but Smith took the test for her instead. After the test was completed, the two went into a storage facility next to his classroom where the student performed a sex act on Smith, Fillipitch said. "The student began to cry, and he told her he was sorry," Fillipitch said. She noted that Smith admitted to the claims when confronted by authorities. A spokesman for Plainfield Community Consolidated School District 202 declined to comment about Smith's plea Friday. Alicia Fabbre is a freelance reporter for the Chicago Tribune. Advertisement TribLocalTips@tribpub.com Twitter: @TribLocal A plaque on the new clock in downtown Frankfort honors Paul and Vicki Lambrecht for their "preservation efforts and community service to Frankfort." The clock was donated to the village by the Frankfort Preservation Foundation. (Judy Herder / HANDOUT) The Frankfort Preservation Foundation may be best known for its old-fashioned ice cream social held annually just prior to the village's Fall Fest. But the foundation also has left its mark all over the village busts of former prominent mayors and village leaders, historic statues, structures and gardens all in recognition of Frankfort's history. Advertisement Foundation members believe that their latest project is one that will be seen, used and appreciated by everyone who comes to the downtown. Looming large over the historic shopping district and Breidert Green is a 13-foot-tall, four-sided clock on the east side of White Street, adjacent to the Old Plank Road Trail. It stands as a symbol of time, including the time devoted by community volunteers to preserving Frankfort's history. Advertisement The foundation was looking for a way to honor those who have gone "above and beyond" in their preservation efforts for the village, said Judy Herder, a member of the Frankfort Preservation Foundation and the Frankfort Historical Society. They tossed around ideas of a wall or kiosk with names, but when John Herder, Judy's husband, suggested a clock, "It seemed like a perfect way to meet a lot of needs," foundation President Harry D'Ercole said. The first honorees are Paul and Vicki Lambrecht, who spearheaded the effort to save the Frankfort water tower, which evolved into the creation of the preservation foundation in 1993, D'Ercole said. He said their names appear on a plaque on the 30-inch base of the clock, upon which more will be added. The foundation saved up money over the last five years, money raised by its volunteers who worked at a food booth during Fall Fest, he said. "It's a way of giving back to the community in the form of a clock. It honors Vicki and Paul, and it will honor those in the future who go the extra effort to preserve the historical character of Frankfort," D'Ercole said. Judy Herder said contributing to the cost of the $23,000 clock was a $1,700 donation from the Lambrechts who, upon Vicki's death, had designated that donations be made in her memory to the historical society. The society chipped in another $1,000 for the project, she said. The village provided the site for the clock and assisted with installing its brick foundation bricks saved from the old Creamery building, adding to the historic value of the project, D'Ercole said. In-kind donations came from David Easter and John Benton of Excel Electric; Chuck JaBaay and Dean Vandry of CD&ME and JaBaay's Outdoor Creations; and Chip Krusemark. Advertisement The clock was donated to the village, which will be responsible for its maintenance and liability. "It was a nice community effort. That is what is so great about Frankfort. People get together and get things done. The clock is a symbol of all that," D'Ercole said. Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday > Mayor Jim Holland said that with all the events and activities held in the downtown area, people had been saying a clock was needed. "It's a nice addition to our downtown," he said. "It's a nice addition to the whole village. People will find it useful. It fits into our community very well." The mayor said he had planned to buy an inexpensive clock and hang it on the exterior wall of the restrooms in Breidert Green. The foundation's clock "is certainly better than my idea," he said with a laugh. "This is in a far better location. It's visible from the street, from the trail and Breidert Green." Advertisement Holland said he's eager to work with the preservation foundation to recognize those who have "gone the extra step" in preserving the old buildings downtown. "Our downtown area is very special. We need to recognize people who respect it and invest in it," he said. slafferty@tribpub.com A man arrested by Evanston police at his Chicago home with 170 grams of cocaine and $2,000 in cash in 2014 has been fined and sentenced to four years in prison, authorities said. Daniel Palomares, 34, of the 7000 block of North Oakley Avenue, Chicago, was arrested by Evanston police as part of an ongoing drug investigation in February 2014, authorities said Thursday. They said the cocaine and $2,000 in cash were recovered from Palomares' Chicago home and that he was charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance and possession with intent to deliver. Advertisement On Wednesday at the Skokie courthouse, Palomares, who has been locked up since his arrest, pleaded guilty to the manufacture and delivery of cocaine and was sentenced to four year in prison, two years supervision, and fees and fines of $2,464, authorities said. Brian L. Cox is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press. Rick Thacker and his grandfather German Rivera talk about Rivera's recovery from a Dec. 28 heart attack. An Indiana State Police officer used an automated external defibrillator to restore his heartbeat and save his life. (Carrie Napoleon, Post-Tribune) German Rivera is planning to get in his car Monday and go home to Florida, without any stops to be brought back to life. After a post-Christmas heart attack left him without a heartbeat for an estimated five minutes, the 75-year-old was revived thanks to the quick thinking of his grandson, Rick Thacker, and the fast action of Cpl. Dan Becker with the Indiana State Police. Advertisement Thacker, who lives across the street from the ISP Lowell Post, brought his grandfather there Dec. 28 when he had the heart attack and Becker used the post's automatic external defibrillator to jolt Rivera back to life. Now Rivera and his wife, Barbara, are headed back to Homosassa, Fla., where the senior citizen plans to resume his volunteer work as a prison chaplain. Advertisement "I feel better," Rivera said Thursday afternoon from his favorite chair in his daughter's Lowell living room. "I look forward to going back (to the jail ministry) at least for an hour a week. They have been praying for me." Rivera has served as a volunteer prison chaplain for 20 years, working in prisons across central and northern Florida. The inmates who come to him for help and guidance have become people he cares and worries about, and the feeling is mutual, he said. Prison administrators at one of the sites worked to connect six of the inmates in Rivera's program via telephone conference call so they could pray with the chaplain during his recovery in Indiana. "I started crying. I knew those guys are real," Rivera said. He describes the relationship he shares with the men he works with as friendship. "Just because a person makes a mistake it doesn't mean you take them and throw them on the side." Thacker said the family is lucky their patriarch "Poppy" will live to see another day and return to the ministry he so enjoys. "That's my purpose," Rivera said. "To get better and better and go back. I know (God) is going to allow me to go back." Rivera was three days into his annual holiday visit with the Thacker and Rivera clans in Indiana when he suffered a heart attack in the family's car. Rivera, Thacker and his sister, Amanda, were preparing to go Lowell. Rivera got in the car first, when his grandchildren came out of the house, they found him unresponsive. Rick Thacker drove across the street to the ISP post, where he knew there would be help. Rivera's heart attack occurred in the middle of a snowstorm. After Becker revived Rivera, he was transported by ambulance to Franciscan St. Anthony Health in Crown Point from the ISP Post. There doctors sedated him and used a treatment of lowering his body temperature to prevent swelling on the brain. Advertisement "It was so sudden. I didn't know what was going on," Barbara Rivera said of that day. The couple attribute their grandson's quick thinking and Becker's actions with saving Rivera's life. Family members were unsure what would happen when the sedation was lifted two days later, but Rivera opened his eyes and now is on his way to a full recovery. "I'm not ready to give him up yet," Barbara Rivera said. Carrie Napoleon is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune. Eric Dahl, 62, of Gary is irate" at the systemic discrimination towards the black community in this region, and this country. (Handout ) Eric Dahl is irate. The 62-year-old educator from Gary is angry over the systemic discrimination against the black community by "white folks," as he calls them. Dahl, by the way, is white and has a unique perspective to share. Advertisement He's a middle-aged white man who moved into Gary, which has been hemorrhaging residents of all races for decades. He's married to a black woman, who's also an educator. His wife, Barbara, was born and raised in Gary, and the couple moved into her Glen Park home after they married a couple years ago. Their relationship has profoundly changed Dahl's life and it has altered his perception regarding race relations in this area, and this country. Advertisement Dahl is angry over the universal prejudice and discrimination against blacks, which has "brainwashed," as he puts it, the majority of white people. "Many of those white folks don't even know any black people," he told me. Before you write off Dahl and his sympathetic attitude toward the black community, as he predicts many whites will do, he wants you to know he's not some bleeding-heart liberal. "My views, politically, lean strongly to the conservative side," he said. That being said, here's why he is so upset. "First, I am irate with me," he said. For too many years, Dahl allowed systemic discrimination to describe the black community to him. And he believed every prejudicial detail hook, line and sinker. "I'm irate with me because I know, instinctively, that I have been blessed with white privilege," he said. "And I'm irate that it took too long for the truth to seep through the haze that white privilege put around my brain." Advertisement Here is where Dahl gets behind the pulpit to preach his new reborn truth, a fitting weekend to do so as our country honors the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. "All you white folks out there, pay attention," he preached. "You never had anything standing in your way of success except for stuff you put there. If you don't see that, or if you scoff when you hear the phrase white privilege, then you are really not paying attention." What prompted Dahl's rant, in part, was the recently released video of a black teen who was shot and killed by a Chicago police officer, and the case's aftermath. "As well as the lack of national media coverage while people have been protesting peacefully," said Dahl, who works in Chicago. "This really got my blood boiling and it helped me to really see some of the things my wife and friends have been trying to teach me," he said. Dahl shared his rant with them, but he was preaching to the choir on this black and white issue. They suggested he write it down and post it on Facebook. Advertisement "Their reasoning was that a white person saying these things may be heard by others, while black folks saying these same things would be ignored," he said. This is so true. I often hear from white readers who are angry about hearing the same tired "we are victims" refrain from the black community. Dahl took their advice and wrote a lengthy rant on his Facebook page, so lengthy that I can share only a short sampling of it here. You can read it in its entirety on his Facebook page. The essay is broken down into two parts white privilege and black lives matter two topics that always strike a nerve with us. "It was quite a hit," Dahl told me afterward. "One problem, though. No white people commented or shared the essay." In other words, it was quite a hit with only blacks, not whites. Not much of a surprise there. Advertisement In the essay's first part on white privilege, Dahl first points out the "figurative DNA of black folks," citing their history of oppression in this country, from being treated like animals during their slavery days to Jim Crow racism to today's systemic discrimination. "Then Martin Luther King comes along and, through his nonviolent approach, full of Biblical and commonsense wisdom (c'mon white folks, go back and listen to just one of his speeches), King got through to the mainstream of white America, and to growing young boys like me," Dahl wrote. "King showed the 'white haters' to be the fools and the protesting black folks to be the adult human beings in the room," he wrote. "The system began to change because it was outlawed, but the system just went underground and the white haters clothed themselves with politically correct verbiage on the outside while building invisible walls. Invisible to most white folks, but clearly evident to black folks." This point, I believe, is key, yet one that is too often invisible to many of us, of all races. What can be so clear and obvious to some of us can be so obscure and undetectable to others. Our race-colored glasses play a larger role in our perceptions of the same situation. "White people, please get your heads out of your butts and begin to recognize that the American experience is far different for blacks than it is for you. That is called white privilege," he wrote. Post Tribune Twice-weekly News updates from Northwest Indiana delivered every Monday and Wednesday > When I first met Dahl a couple of years ago, he shared his views on the decline of Gary and the reasons behind it. Advertisement "The people of Gary are, mostly, very high quality human beings stuck in a situation primarily created by the fears of white people. White people who took their money and their businesses out of Gary when a black mayor was elected," he told me at the time. Many readers, mostly Gary natives, disagreed with Dahl's premise that the fears of whites primarily caused the city's woes and current challenges. Those readers placed most blame on the city's black population, not the whites who fled. At the end of that column, I wrote, "Dahl, I'm afraid, is in the minority on this belief." Once again, Dahl is in the minority among "white folks" regarding his latest stance too. Let me know your thoughts and I'll share them in a future column. jdavich@post-trib.com Twitter @jdavich When "Yasmina's Necklace" opens this week at Berwyn's 16th Street Theatre, it will be another landmark in the career of playwright Rohina Malik, a Niles North High School alum. The five-character drama explores the fraught intersection of race and love in the story of a Puerto Rican-Iraqi man and a Middle Eastern woman trying to forge a relationship in a world that often seems set on keeping them apart. The piece follows Malik's acclaimed shows "Unveiled" and "The Mecca Tales," and should further cement the Pakistani-American's reputation as an emerging playwright whose work bears watching. But Malik's career as a playwright almost never happened. Advertisement "I loved theater in high school. I found my place there," she recalls. It was a place she sometimes had to fight for. Malik was 15 when her family emigrated to the United States from London, where she'd been a student at an all-girls school. "I remember trying out for 'She Stoops to Conquer' which requires an English accent. I was like, 'I've got this.' I can do an English accent better than anybody. I'm from England. And I remember the president of the drama club saying to me after auditions, 'You know, we can't really cast you because it wouldn't make sense. Your character is supposed to be related to the others and the rest of the cast is white.'" Fortunately, the student drama club chief was overruled by an instructor. Malik got the part. "Being involved in theater made me feel fully alive. Like I had a purpose," she says. That involvement ended with high school. "In college, I gave it all up. My parents were like, 'theater isn't something girls like you do. Look around. You're Muslim. You have brown skin. You cover your hair. You don't see girls like you in theater.' So I just stopped, and life went on. I got married. I had four kids. I tried to forget about theater." Advertisement Malik's parents were right brown girls with covered hair are few and far between in the world of female thespians. Malik settled in to a marriage. By 32, she had four children and a resume that featured her work as a Montessori school teacher. But as life went on, she became acutely aware that she wasn't happy. "It was horrible," she recalls, "I felt like my life was passing me by, and I was wasting it, not doing what I was supposed to be doing. At one point, it just became unbearable. So I sat down and asked myself, 'When was the last time I felt whole? What was I doing? What do I love?' And it all came back to theater." In 2008, Malik dipped a toe in the water by taking a class with beloved Chicago solo artist Tekki Lomnicki. At the end of the course, Malik had "Unveiled," a one-woman series of monologues that offered insight into the lives of five different Muslim women, ranging form a London hip-hop artist to a Moroccan lawyer. Since that fortuitous debut, Malik has performed "Unveiled" at theaters, universities and for community groups across the country. She's also earned a coveted spot as a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists, a nationally recognized incubator of new works. The Goodman Theater commissioned her to write "The Mecca Tales," a play that wound up garnering a Joseph Jefferson Nomination for Best New Work of 2010. Her family, Malik says, has long since come around to the fact that she's a theatre artist. "When my mom saw 'Unveiled,' it was like something inside of her switched. She was like 'You need to keep doing this. I'll do whatever I can to support you.' And she meant it. She's become my number one babysitter. " When Malik first started working on "Yasmina's Necklace," her youngest child now 8 was still an infant. There have been staged readings of the piece at the Goodman and Silk Road theaters, but 16th Street will be the first full production of the play. "I've been at this for seven years," Malik says, "I feel like it's ready." Malik was in a grocery story when she got the first inkling of the idea that would become "Yasmina's Necklace." "There was this checkout girl wearing a necklace that spelled out 'Iraq,' Malik says, "I thought that was so unusual, so kind of brave. Iraq has so many bad connotations in the U.S.; we associate it with war and terrorism. And here was this girl, not afraid to wear a necklace that spelled it out. " Malik draws much of her inspiration from interviewing refugees who arrive in the United States after harrowing escapes from the Middle East. "When I talk to refugees from Iraq, lots of times they'll actually whisper the word like it's so shameful they don't want anyone else to hear," Malik said. "Right now, there's so much fear-mongering about refugees. It's disturbing and upsetting. Advertisement "I hope audiences leave the theater with a better understanding of their Muslim neighbors, and I hope they can see that, at the end of the day, we are all more similar than we are different." 'Yasmina's Necklace' When: Jan. 21-Feb. 27 Where: 16th Street Theatre, 6420 16th St., Berwyn Tickets: $18-$20 Contact: 708-795-6704; www.16thstreettheater.org Parents of District 211 students speak and hold signs during a board meeting Dec. 2, 2015, in the case of a transgender student seeking locker room access. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune) The transgender student whose fight to use the girls' locker room at her suburban high school sparked a national debate on equity vs. privacy was granted access Friday. School officials in Palatine-based Township High School District 211 this week prepared for the shift, reaching out to parents and holding staff training on gender identity issues. Advertisement Friday marked the deadline to provide the student locker room access under a controversial agreement adopted by the school board last month. After a lengthy battle with federal authorities, tense negotiations and rancorous board meetings attended by hundreds, the board agreed to the settlement to put an end to the student's discrimination claim. The complaint, filed with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, triggered an investigation and an unprecedented decision in November that the district had violated Title IX, the federal law that bans discrimination on the basis of sex. The district risked losing millions of federal dollars and a possible lawsuit if it failed to reach a resolution. Advertisement "As agreed with the OCR, the District will soon provide a transgender student access to the locker room consistent with the student's gender identity based on the student's request to change in private changing stations within the locker room," the principal of the student's high school said in an email to parents this week. "The physical education locker room provides accommodating means to ensure privacy for any student when changing clothes." Neither the student's name nor high school has been identified publicly. Superintendent Daniel Cates, who argued all along against unfettered locker room access, contended that the district needed to weigh the rights of the transgender student with those of the 12,000 other students in the district. He said previously that he believed the agreement struck that balance. Some parents remain concerned, said Vicki Wilson, a district parent and co-founder of the group District 211 Parents for Privacy. "They sacrificed the basic constitutional rights of the other students," she said. "They chose to cave to the feds when the really didn't need to." School officials initially installed privacy curtains in unused areas of the locker room but have since replaced them with stalls, complete with doors, hooks and benches, district spokesman Tom Petersen said. "We decided the curtains really weren't private enough," he said. "This alternative was a better option. They're a lot like the changing areas at a department store." Both the boys' and girls' PE locker rooms each have five privacy stalls for any student to use, he said. The cost to the district was nominal, Petersen added, because the school repurposed material that was already on hand and used its maintenance crew to install. Advertisement Students seeking additional privacy can contact their counselors. Details of the changes will be included as part of an end-of-semester presentation in gym classes Friday. In addition, the district encourages parents to talk to their kids and answer any questions they may have about issues relating to diversity and gender identity. To help with such discussions at school and to comply with another of the settlement's requirements school officials have turned to Jennifer Leininger, a manager of the Gender and Sex Development program at Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, as their gender identity expert. Leininger also led this week's staff training sessions. "I think the big takeaway was how to be an ally to the transgender student," she said. "These are students who have been marginalized in schools. How can we create an environment in school where they not only feel accepted but celebrated?" Ed Yohnka, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which is representing the student, said she is looking forward to finally gaining access to the locker room. "The family has worked diligently with officials from the school district over the past several weeks to implement the settlement agreement," Yohnka said. "They hope that this agreement is the beginning of a process which will result in all students transgender and cisgender (or nontransgender) being respected and honored within District 211." Advertisement deldeib@tribpub.com Twitter @deldeib A Wilmette man who tried to rob a Sheridan Road pharmacy of prescription painkillers last April has been sentenced to probation and fined, authorities said Thursday. Barry R. Menary, 54, of the 100 block of 3rd Street in Wilmette, pleaded guilty to burglary on Wednesday at the Skokie courthouse and was sentenced to two years' probation and ordered to pay fines and fees of $699, authorities said. Advertisement Last May, Menary entered a CVS Pharmacy at the Plaza del Lago shopping center, 1515 Sheridan Road in Wilmette, approached a pharmacy technician behind the counter, implied he had a gun and handed the employee a note demanding all the pharmacy's oxycodone, authorities said. Menary ran from the store without any getting any medication and was gone by the time police arrived, authorities said. Police were able to use security video to identify Menary and he was arrested about a week later, authorities said. Advertisement Menary initially had been charged with felony attempted aggravated robbery, according to reports at the time of his arrest. Brian L. Cox is a freelance reporter. Pioneer Press reporter Kathy Routliffe contributed. By Chet Scheltema and Vivian Mao Dezan Shira & Associates, Shanghai Chinas consumer market continues to grow rapidly and the appetite for global brands and western technology is as strong as ever. Establishing a formal business presence in China presents tremendous opportunity, but, at the same time, risks are abundant and the operating environment tricky. Its regulatory environment, for instance, although not complex by international standards, is perilous to navigate. Decisions once made can prove difficult and costly to unwind and may expose a business to undesirable consequences. Therefore, it is important to think deliberately and act strategically in consultation with experienced and knowledgeable China practitioners. In the first of this multi-part series that examines key strategic considerations when establishing a formal presence in China, we discuss corporate business scope, funding and registered capital. Corporate Business Scope Whereas anything lawfully permitted might serve as an acceptable corporate charter or scope of permitted activity for an American business entity upon formation, this is not the case in China. The specific business activities of a wholly foreign owned enterprise (WFOE) must be carefully and precisely set forth in its application for registration and then submitted for review to Chinese authorities at the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), and then the Administration of Industry and Commerce (AIC). Every word will be closely scrutinized by authorities to determine if the proposed business activity is officially restricted and/or infringes upon informal barriers or otherwise displeases the reviewing authority. A negotiation will then occur where the resulting business scope will likely not be what was originally proposed or envisioned, so a good agent that communicates frequently and clearly with your team and services as an effective advocate on your behalf is essential. Another important reason to devote attention to negotiating a desirable business scope is that once it is approved and finalized, it will then be very difficult and time-consuming to alter. The initial application to the MOFCOM for incorporation (and negotiation of the proposed business scope) and the subsequent registration with the AIC would need to be repeated, as would a month or more of post-licensing formalities, including tax registration where the business scope is used to determine the WFOEs applicable tax rates. RELATED: Business Advisory Services from Dezan Shira & Associates Although its not common for Chinese authorities to censure an organization for periodically stepping outside the bounds of its officially authorized business activities to engage in auxiliary activities, the ability to issue tax invoices to its partners for the specific services rendered is very important. These clients or customers will normally insist upon a specific invoice based on a certain value-added tax (VAT) rate for use as a tax offset or deduction, and it would not be unusual for them to refuse to make payment for services rendered if the appropriate invoice cannot be issued. Therefore, because a VAT invoice cannot be issued at the relevant tax rate for activities not specified in the business scope, it is critically important to negotiate approval of a sufficiently broad and relevant business scope with careful consideration from the beginning of ones anticipated scope of business activities and clients and customers required invoicing. Funding and Registered Capital Although China has moved to eliminate the requirement of a minimum capital injection (aka, Registered Capital) as a condition for incorporating a WFOE, the reality remains that each application for incorporation will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis and Chinese authorities at MOFCOM will typically require a minimum commitment of between RMB 200k to RMB 500k for a basic consulting WFOE (A manufacturing WFOE would normally be required to inject considerably more Registered Capital). They will review a feasibility study report submitted as part of the incorporation application (a projection of expected expenses and profits for the first three years of the WFOEs life) and use it as a rough guide to set the minimum Registered Capital. Once injected, the Registered Capital monies will remain available to fund the activities of the WFOE until it achieves self-sustainability or the Registered Capital would need to be increased. There is no such thing in China as a shell holding company. All WFOEs are expected to achieve sustainability, and, if they do not, then they may be subject to undesirable scrutiny by Chinese tax and regulatory officials. For these reasons, it is important to plan the funding and sustainability of the WFOE from the moment of incorporation until profitability and to set its Registered Capital accordingly. Investors need to strike a balance between infusing the WFOE with sufficient capital to fund its initial growth but not with so much that the capital sits idle and does not earn a return, trapped in the foreign currency account of the WFOE. Investors from foreign jurisdictions might speculate the funds could merely be returned to the foreign shareholders if not needed, but reversing and returning Registered Capital from China should be regarded as effectively impossible from a practical point of view. Therefore, investors should thoughtfully consider how much Registered Capital would be needed to achieve sustainability. For those investors that do not anticipate achieving profitability and expect on-going operational costs for those investors whose WFOE unexpectedly fails to achieve its objectives, recourses may be given to alternative funding mechanisms. Of course, one option is to increase the official Registered Capital of the WFOE and inject additional capital. This is a tax-free transaction, and therefore highly efficient from a tax point of view. However, the challenge presented is that such a method would require that the business license be amended to reflect the increased Registered Capital, then the monies injected. This is a time-consuming and slow process, as it would require investors to resubmit their business plan and feasibility study to MOFCOM for approval. The business license itself would need to be reissued and a number of formal governmental registrations updated, and the WFOE may have consumed all remaining cash. RELATED: Changing the Registered Capital of a Company in China Consequently, another funding mechanism often resorted to is a related-party transaction between the parent shareholder and WFOE, whereby consulting services are provided to the parent under the terms of the consulting agreement in return for payments that fund the WFOEs operations. Because this is a current account transaction, it can be completed rapidly despite Chinas foreign exchange and capital account restrictions. The downside is that it is a taxable transaction subject to VAT of at least six percent the VAT rate for modern services such as consulting and will also be subject to corporation income tax. The transactional fees and VAT and corporate income tax would need to be anticipated and budgeted were a WFOE to be funded with this alternative funding mechanism. Despite the dodgy sounding nature of the transaction, it is a common means for WFOEs to receive funding if investors do not wish to repeatedly increase the Registered Capital. Many such WFOEs were originally intended to be cost centers that would not generate adequate revenue, if any, to be self-sustainable. Since China effectively disallows the establishment of foreign not-for-profit organizations, many of those that choose to conduct operations in China establish themselves as WFOEs (for-profit enterprises) and often resort to such a funding mechanism to maintain sufficient cash flow for operations. In the next article of this series, we discuss WFOE holding companies, WFOE corporate names and a WFOEs registered address. About Us Asia Briefing Ltd. is a subsidiary of Dezan Shira & Associates. Dezan Shira is a specialist foreign direct investment practice, providing corporate establishment, business advisory, tax advisory and compliance, accounting, payroll, due diligence and financial review services to multinationals investing in China, Hong Kong, India, Vietnam, Singapore and the rest of ASEAN. For further information, please email china@dezshira.com or visit www.dezshira.com. Stay up to date with the latest business and investment trends in Asia by subscribing to our complimentary update service featuring news, commentary and regulatory insight. An Introduction to Doing Business in China 2015 Doing Business in China 2015 is designed to introduce the fundamentals of investing in China. Compiled by the professionals at Dezan Shira & Associates, this comprehensive guide is ideal not only for businesses looking to enter the Chinese market, but also for companies that already have a presence here and want to keep up-to-date with the most recent and relevant policy changes. How to Restructure an Underperforming Business in China In this issue of China Briefing magazine, we explore the options that are available to foreign firms looking to restructure or close their operations in China. We begin with an overview of what restructuring an unprofitable business in China might entail, and then take an in-depth look at the way in which a foreign company can go about the restructuring process. Finally, we highlight some of the key HR concerns associated with restructuring a China business. Adapting Your China WFOE to Service Chinas Consumers In this issue of China Briefing Magazine, we look at the challenges posed to manufacturers amidst Chinas rising labor costs and stricter environmental regulations. Manufacturing WFOEs in China should adapt by expanding their business scope to include distribution and determine suitable supply chain solutions. In this regard, we will take a look at the opportunities in Chinas domestic consumer market and forecast the sectors that are set to boom in the coming years. Flash European Union foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini said here on Thursday the latest attack in Indonesia was a tragic reminder that the threat is global and had to be tackled internationally. "Our hearts go out to the families and friends of the victims. We stand firm by the Indonesian government and its people in their fight against violence and extremism," she said in a statement. "The EU will continue to work with Indonesia to defend peace and the values of freedom and diversity, which underpin our societies," said the statement. Seven people were killed, including five attackers, and 20 others injured in the suicide blasts in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital, on Thursday, Jakarta police spokesman Muhammad Iqbal said. The attackers launched their strikes at a police post and a Starbucks coffee shop some 50 meters away, in a busy shopping compound. "Two of them (attackers) were suicide attackers, and three others were shot dead by the police just before their planned attacks," the spokesman said at the scene. You are here: Home Flash Turkey has hit Islamic State (IS) targets across its southeastern border and killed 200 IS militants with 48 hours after the Istanbul bombing on Tuesday, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Thursday. The Turkish military operations targetted IS positions in Syria and Iraq, Davutoglu told a conference of the Turkish ambassadors in Ankara. The move came after Turkish government identified the suicide bomber of Istanbul attack as an IS member, he added. A total of 10 German tourists were killed and 17 others injured in the Sultanahmet Square attack on Tuesday. Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told reporters on Tuesday that the bomber, who was of Syrian origin and born in 1988, recently entered Turkey from Syria. Turkey has suffered from a series of deadly attacks. In July 2015, a bombing attack in the border town of Suruc in southeastern Turkey killed 34 pro-Kurdish and left-wing activists. Last October, twin suicide bombings hit the capital city Ankara, claiming a total of 103 lives. Both were blamed on the IS militant group. Flash Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday agreed to meet on Jan. 20 in Zurich, Switzerland, over international issues including Syrian crisis. The two made the arrangement in a conversation over the phone in the day. "Lavrov and Kerry agreed to meet on January 20 in Zurich," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in an online statement. "In accordance with orders by the Russian and U.S. presidents, who discussed urgent global issues in a phone call yesterday, the top diplomats continued the discussion of Syrian crisis settlement as well as the conflict in Ukraine." Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said at a news briefing Thursday that a considerable part of the meeting would be dedicated to issues of Syrian settlement. "We are proceeding from the assumption that the topic will be discussed in the most active way," Zakharova said. "We hope that the meeting will add constructiveness to the general process of Syrian settlement." The tripartite Russia-U.S.-UN consultation was held Wednesday on peace settlement in Syria, the ministry said, noting that opinions were exchanged in details on issues related to the intra-Syrian peace talks scheduled for Jan. 25 in Geneva, Switzerland. "The Russian side stressed the need for unfailingly honoring the provisions of the Vienna documents and UN Security Council Resolution 2254 on establishing an inclusive delegation of Syrian opposition that would include all influential forces committed to resolving the crisis through political means," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a press release. In particular, the list of terrorist groups should be coordinated jointly as soon as possible, while possible humanitarian measures were discussed so as to mitigate the "plight of civilians," the ministry said. In meetings held in Geneva Wednesday and Thursday on Syrian crisis, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov also met with several leaders of influential Syrian opposition groups over the organization of the planned intra-Syrian peace talks. "They pointed out that the intra-Syrian talks must be attended by delegates from the large opposition forces that are interested in finding a political solution to the Syrian crisis, so that the interests of all segments of Syrian society are represented at these talks," said the press release for the meetings. Russian President Vladimir Putin also stressed Thursday the urgent need for all interested states to consolidate actions and confront the Islamic State the extremist group and other extremist groups. In another development, Russian government earlier in the day released the full text of the agreement with Damascus, signed by the two countries in August 2015, on the deployment of a combat air force in Syria. The Russia air forces started airstrikes against IS positions in Syria on Sept. 30, 2015, with Russian aircraft deployed at Syria's Hmeimim airbase. Flash Yemen's Shiite Houthi dominant group on Thursday released a detained minister and four pro-government political activists, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, United Nations envoy to Yemen, said after he concluded a four-day visit to Sanaa to push for resuming peace talks to end over nine months of civil war. "Houthis released Technical Education Minister Abdul Razak Ashwal and four political and media activists," Ould Cheikh Ahmed said at a press conference in Sanaa airport. And for other top officials, including detained defence minister, General Mahmoud al-Subaihi, who remain key demand of the government of internationally recognized President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the UN envoy said he received assurances of their good health. Ould Cheikh Ahmed also said "no date has yet been agreed upon by the Yemeni warring sides to begin next round of peace talks." The UN envoy arrived in the capital Sanaa, which is under control of Houthi fighters since September 2014, on Sunday to negotiate Houthi group and their ally former President Ali Abdullah Saleh for sitting in the next round peace talks table. Yemen has been mired in an all-out civil war since September 2014, when the Shiite Houthi group, backed by forces loyal to the former president, invaded Sanaa and drove President Hadi into exile. The war has killed nearly 6,000 people. The warring forces held their latest talks in Switzerland in December, but failed to reach a political solution and only agreed to resume talks on Jan. 14. The Saudi-backed Yemeni government, led by President Hadi, announced Saturday that the next round of peace talks would most probably be postponed to the end of January. The move came after the former pro-rebel president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, said he would not negotiate with Hadi's government, vowing to "continue fighting to expel Saudi-led coalition forces from the Yemeni territories." Flash Rumors that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe collapsed -- and subsequently died -- while on vacation have been dismissed by his spokesman, state media reported on Thursday. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe addresses mourners who gather for the burial of National Hero Aguy Georgias at the Hero Acre in Harare, Zimbabwe, Dec. 22, 2015. [Photo/Xinhua] The state-run Herald newspaper cited Mugabe's spokesperson George Charamba as saying that it has become a tradition for rumors about Mugabe's health to surface at the start of the year during his annual leave. Mugabe is currently the world's oldest president at 92. "You can doubt that there can be a New Year, but you cannot doubt that there will be a story on the president's alleged death every January," Charamba said. Rumors about Mugabe's health started swelling Tuesday following the publication of stories on his health on some media sites. Many people took to social media to express their disgust at the rumors. Mugabe has been to Singapore on a number of occasions for eye cataract operations, but there are also unconfirmed reports saying that he suffers from prostate cancer. In the meantime, preparations are underway for his birthday celebrations in the city of Masvingo. Born in February 1924, Mugabe is Africa's iconic fighter against colonialism. He led a two-decade revolution to topple the white apartheid regime of Rhodesia, as Zimbabwe was formerly known, and has been at the helm of the government since 1980. Radio Free Asia 2016-01-14 Authorities in the Chinese capital have formally arrested another associate of the Beijing Fengrui law firm and a rights activist on subversion charges, bringing the total facing jail on similar charges to 10, a Hong Kong-based rights group said on Thursday. Fengrui administrative assistant Liu Sixin was formally arrested on Jan. 8 after being detained during a nationwide crackdown that started with the detention of prominent rights lawyer Wang Yu and several colleagues on the night of July 9 last year. Liu was formally arrested by police in the northern port city of Tianjin on suspicion of subversion of state power, the Hong Kong-based Chinese Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group (CHRLCG) said in a statement on its website. He had previously served a four-and-a-half year prison sentence for assaulting his wifes boss, who had allegedly sexually harassed her. He later divorced in order to protect his wife and child from repercussions relating to his case, according to CHRLCG. Hong Kong resident signs postcard calling for release of Chinese rights lawyers, Aug. 2, 2015. RFA Since then, Liu has been closely involved in rights activism in local communities, supporting lawyers targeted by the authorities and working as an administrative assistant at Fengrui, the group said. Rights activist Hu Shigen was also formally arrested on Jan. 8 on suspicion of subversion of state power and is currently being held at the Tianjin No. 1 Detention Center. Of the Fengrui-linked legal practitioners and employees detained in the crackdown, 11 have now been formally arrested, while three have been released on bail at the end of a six-month residential surveillance period. Fengrui boss Zhou Shifeng, lawyers Wang Yu and Wang Quanzhang, trainee lawyer Li Shuyun and legal assistant Zhao Wei have also been arrested on the same charge as Liu. Visit refused Zhous lawyer Wang Shaoguang said he has yet to confirm his clients status, as the authorities have refused requests for a meeting with Zhou, who is said by police to have confessed to the charges against him. I havent been able to confirm any of these reports that Zhou has fired his lawyer or admitted to the charges against him, Wang said on Thursday. They are all unconfirmed. They remain unreliable until such time as my client tells me face to face that he is guilty, he said. Right now, I cant even get a meeting with him, because they can refuse permission to see a lawyer in cases involving national security under Chinese law, unless it is approved by the investigating team, Wang added. Subversion of state power carries a minimum jail term of 10 years in cases where the person is judged to have played a leading role. Jailed Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo is currently serving a 13-year sentence for incitement to subvert state power. Meanwhile, Fengrui lawyers Xie Yanyi and Xie Yang and Wang Yus husband Bao Longjun have been formally arrested on the lesser charge of incitement to subvert state power, while Fengrui legal assistant Gao Yue has been formally arrested on charges of destroying evidence, a charge which carries a prison term of up to seven years in cases deemed serious by the court. He said it is still possible that the authorities may yet downgrade the charges against Zhou to incitement to subvert state power, if they have insufficient evidence to back up the more serious charge. In the case of [prominent rights lawyer] Pu Zhiqiang, they started out with all of these charges, but in the end, they only tried him on one of them, Wang said. Then he received a fairly light and suspended sentence, so I think this case will be similar. Residential surveillance Meanwhile, authorities in Beijing detained Wang Quanzhangs lawyer Wang Qiushi on Jan. 10 under residential surveillance in a police-designated location, the overseas-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) network said. According to CHRD, Wang Qiushi has worked on a number of high-profile human rights cases, including defending one of the five feminists detained ahead of International Womens Day last year. The group said the arrests and the latest detention show that the persecution of rights lawyers and activists in China continues to escalate. These lawyers and activists have been punished for exercising their rights to free expression, assembly, association, and the right to work in just and favorable conditions, as well as their right to practice their legal profession without political interference, the group said in a statement on its website. Officials have disregarded all safeguards of basic human rights in the cases of these detained lawyers, it said, citing enforced disappearance as a crime against humanity, as defined in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. As of Jan. 14, at least 317 lawyers, legal workers, and rights activists have been detained, held for questioning, or placed under some form of restriction since the July crackdown began, CHRLCG said. While the majority have been released, albeit under surveillance or with travel bans imposed, 33 remain in detention or residential surveillance, many at an unknown location. Reported by Lin Jing for RFAs Cantonese Service, and by Yang Fan for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie. China Aid Media Team Cell: (432) 553-1080 | Office: 1+ (888) 889-7757 | Other: (432) 689-6985 Email: [email protected] For more information, click here L-R: Rep Chris Smith, R-N.J., with Li Heping on Oct. 12, 2005, during Lis visit to the U.S. (Photo: China Aid) China Aid Translated by Carolyn Song. Edited in English by Ava Collins. (BeijingJan. 15, 2016) The wife of a Christian human rights lawyer wrote a Christmas letter about her hopes for the future and the happiness she has found even in the midst of her husbands situation. Li Heping disappeared into police custody on July 10 during a widespread crackdown on human rights lawyers across China. The letter from Lis wife, Wang Qiaoling, titled Happiness Never Left Me Behind, echoes another letter by she released in November, Leaving Fear Behind. The full text, can be found below. Li Hepings wife, Wang Qiaoling: Happiness Never Left Me Behind Written to my friends on Christmas 2015 December 25, 2015 If CCTV interviews me (though CCTV and I bear grudges against one another, haha), asking if I am happy, I must tell the truth: Im happy! Im not saying that ironically, I sincerely feel happy. A couple days ago, lawyer Wang Quanzhangs son had his three-year-old birthday party, and we took a group photo. Today I saw that photo, and I am so ashamed. There is no sign to tell that we are the wives of missing husbands. We are full of joy, hope, and gratitudein a word: happy! In July and August, I had two months full of pain and suffering, nervousness and fright. Gradually, I understood something more and more. Borrowing words from my 80-year old Christian grandma: Do not be afraid of them. They should be afraid of you! I remember the moment when my heart took this turn. Previously, Hepings friends, colleagues and the people he used to represent called me to express their concern. I was very surprised (I thought people would alienate me). Later, a friend said that when Heping was defending Yang Zili, there were, in fact, four defendants. Though he was a man, he said: At that time, tears were streaming down my face. I knew my friend was framed and the victim of a miscarriage of justice because the witness in that case later went overseas and said in a statement that he was forced to commit perjury. When my friend finished his sentence, my tears flowed, too. Twelve years ago, almost no lawyers dared defend such cases. Heping took this case because he read the article My Peasant Mother by Yang Zili. He was reading with tears streaming, and when he met with the Yang Zilis family, he took the initiative to represent the case. This is too great a miscarriage of justice. I dont need to say much about whether this case is just or unjust. Now the cases of injustice are so numerous that anytime I hear that a there has been a break in a big case, I frankly doubt whether it was a true break or whether the so-called suspects confessed to the false charges due to tortureanother miscarriage of justice that remains after ten years. I shed tears because Id never heard the details of that case from Heping. My friend said the words Heping wrote in the defense were very touching. My heart was filled with guilt. Yang Zilis case file was just in our bookcase, but I had never thought to look at the plea written by my husband, Li Heping. But on July 10, when the house was searched, all the files were confiscated. Now I would like to look at them, but I dont know where I could find them. I found, in guilt, that my husband has such a sense of justice and compassion. A few years ago, while I was shopping at the supermarket very close to my home, an elderly person fell down the stairs to the ground, just in front of me. I instinctively stepped forward to help him. Seeing this, a man next to me hurried over to help him, too. The elderly person got up and nothing else happened. Later, I thought of many elderly people falling for blackmail, and decided that if there is a next time, I will help. This is because I know God exists, and before God and man, I should live without ignoring my conscience. I feel that Heping handles everything instinctively, according to what he understands and knows what he has to help those who fall down. After July 9, what I have found is not my husbands stained misdeeds, but his integrity and mercy. From this perspective, I am very happy. If the elite in China, whether officials or lawyers, will permit me to tell the truth, I think I am very happy to be married to Li Heping, the lost human rights lawyer. Because those senior officials will one day be behind bars and their mountains of jewels will be on the outside, along with their flocks of mistresses. To be honest, I would rather have food and clothing and a husband living under the governments high-powered microscope of surveillance: he only has one wife. From this perspective, I am also very happy. If I talk with the children about their father in the future, no matter how much effort CCTV puts into discrediting him, they will never wipe away the brilliance of my husband from the hearts of his children and his wife. By way of analogy, my son and daughter can understand what is right and wrong. Like [the feeling one experiences when] an elderly person falls down in the street, their father instinctively felt pity and tried to help, but officials do not allow others to help. Their father insisted [on doing what is right]; the official arrested him. This analogy is so simple that a child can tell good and evil, right and wrong. Never will we avoid justice and mercy, simply because there is evil. Our children can see this [truth] through our difficulty; I understand their father gradually. Such love between parents is the greatest love for children. Can anyone say that we are not happy? Heping has never been perfect; he is just a person of ordinary conscience. My happiness is having found the charm of a clean conscience. So, I say I am happy, and happiness never left me behind and will always be on my side. Lawyer Li Hepings wife, Wang Qiaoling China Aid Contacts Rachel Ritchie, English Media Director Cell: (432) 553-1080 | Office: 1+ (888) 889-7757 | Other: (432) 689-6985 Email: [email protected] Website: www.chinaaid.org China's textile and garment exports continued to decline last year, mainly due to the good performance in the previous year and exchange rate fluctuations, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said on Wednesday. The sharply depreciated yen and Euro had a direct negative impact on textile exports, as Japan and Europe have been China's main textile export markets. From January to October in 2015, the textile industry saw positive growth in exports to the United States, Africa, South Korea. Yet exports to other markets dropped during the same period. China's textile export to the European Union reached $44.86 billion, falling by 10.6 percent year-on-year, the export to Japan reached $18.8 billion, dropping 12 percent, and the export to ASEAN countries hit $29.03 billion, slipping 1.7 percent, according to customs data. In November, retail sales revenues of clothing of China's 100 key retail enterprises fell by 5 percent year-on-year. Meanwhile, from January to November, national online sales reached 3.45 trillion yuan, surging 34.5 percent year-on-year, and sales of clothing jumped 23.5 percent, the ministry said. As China is undergoing an economic transformation, high-tech industries are springing up in China's developed coastal regions to replace labor-intensive industries such as the textile industry. "Many labor-intensive Chinese industries had already shifted to Southeast Asian countries," said Zhang Jianping, a senior researcher at the Institute for International Economic Research under the National Development and Reform Commission. "The labor costs there are four to five times cheaper than in China." In the face of new challenges and opportunities, the textile industry is looking to transform by applying new technologies and business models that cover the whole industry chain, including cotton, spinning, weaving and dyeing. In November, retail sales revenues of clothing of China's 100 key retail enterprises fell by 5 percent year-on-year. Meanwhile, from January to November, online sales of clothing witnessed booming growth, with sales revenues of clothing jumping 23.5 percent, the ministry said. During the same period, the added value of the textile industry increased 6.4 percent year-on-year, and the sector continued to expand the scale of production. But the decreasing quality of domestic cotton has forced enterprises to largely import cotton from India and Pakistan. In addition, weak domestic consumption, shortage of orders, increasing costs of labor and electricity, and environmental controls have left Chinese textile companies striving to cope with international competition. A Boeing 737-800 passenger jet of Hainan Airlines takes off at the Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing,on Dec 30, 2015. [Photo/IC] US aircraft giant ships 200 planes to China during 2015, accounting for 55% of total Boeing Co achieved a record in the China market in 2015, with the delivery of 200 aircraft to the nation, which accounted for 55 percent of the market's new aircraft deliveries during the year, the US airplane manufacturer said on Thursday. Compared with the start of 12th Five-Year Plan in 2011, Boeing's delivery numbers to China increased 80 percent in 2015, said Darren Hulst, Northeast Asia marketing managing director of Boeing's commercial airplanes group. Chinese airlines got more than 360 new aircraft in 2015 in total, which is also a record for the industry, he said. The total transport turnover of China's air traffic increased 13.6 percent in 2015 compared with 2014 and about 440 million person-trips were made, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China. The annual growth of China's air traffic in 2015 was still above the global average, said Hulst, although China's GDP growth is slowing. "We expect the strong growth trend in Chinese aviation to continue," he said, as China's economy is transitioning to the consumption and service sectors, which will drive civil aviation development. The international network growth of Chinese airlines is also a major reason for the manufacturer's business growth, Hulst said. In the first quarter of 2016, the long-haul capacity of Chinese airlines will increase 40 percent compared with the same period in 2015, which means the carriers need more widebody aircraft in the international market. "China's international growth is just beginning, and the country is the first one with outbound passenger traffic above 100 million per year," Hulst said. Boeing's main rival also got positive results in the China market in 2015. Airbus SAS delivered about 160 aircraft to China in 2015 and it is the sixth year in a row for the European aircraft builder's deliveries to China to exceed 100, with 635 Airbus products received by its 85 clients globally in 2015. In the widebody sector, Airbus remains dominant, as Chinese clients received 24 A330 widebody aircraft from Airbus in 2015 for the international market. "The A330 could cover the long-haul routes to Europe, Australia as well as the Belt and Road countries," said Eric Chen, president of Airbus China. However, the orders of both giants from the global market fell in 2015 compared with the previous year. Airbus received 1,036 orders from 53 global clients in 2015, while its orders totaled 1,456 in 2014. Boeing's worldwide orders declined from 1,432 in 2014 to 768 orders in 2015. The order reduction is attributed to the manufacturers' huge backlogs, said Hulst. Both Boeing and Airbus enjoyed fast order growth from 2011 to 2014, Hulst said, and the manufacturers need time to resolve the backlogs. By the end of 2015, Boeing's backlog totaled 5,795 and Airbus' backlog was 6,787. The two manufacturers are working on improving their production rate in order to meet the huge demand. Boeing will improve its production rate of B737 aircraft to 47 each month in 2017 from 42 currently and 52 each month by 2018. Airbus also announced it would improve its production rate of A320s to 60 each month by 2019. Despite China's cooling economy, the enthusiasm of the world's top 500 firms for setting up new business in the nation shows no signs of abating. The multinationals' optimism in China's economic outlook helped the country attract 781.4 billion yuan ($126.3 billion) in nonfinancial foreign direct investment in 2015 despite the economic slowdown, up 6.4 percent from 2014, said the Ministry of Commerce on Thursday. "The world's top 500 companies are still optimistic about the Chinese market and investment prospects, and their continuous investment and expansion in the country reflect a commitment to China's economic outlook," said Tang Wenhong, director-general of the Ministry of Commerce's department of foreign investment administration. Automobiles and auto parts, petrification, energy, infrastructure, biology, pharmaceuticals, communication, finance and software services attracted the most foreign direct investment, he said. Tang raised examples of Volkswagen AG, Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Sumsung Electronics Co Ltd, Nippon Electric Glass Co Ltd, Bridgestone Group, Itochu Corp and Intel Corp as companies which have invested substantially in the fields mentioned above in 2015. United States ride-hailing firm Uber Technologies Inc has committed to invest 6.3 billion yuan in China, aiming to break into its huge tourism industry with businesses ranging from transportation services to automotive financing, according to Reuters. Starbucks Corp is also planning to open 500 stores this year in China, its largest market outside of the US, aiming to create 10,000 jobs in the country every year through 2019. According to the ministry, foreign-invested enterprises are playing a key role in China, with investment from overseas companies currently contributing to half of all foreign trade in China, one-quarter of industrial output, one-seventh of urban employment and one-fifth of tax income. China is also attracting increased number of high-end functional organizations, including multinational companies' regional headquarters and more than 2,400 research and development institutions so far, it said. Compared with traditional heavy industries, which have been facing continuous weakness, the services sector is more favored by foreign investors, which has utilized 477.1 billion yuan of foreign investment in 2015, a year-on-year increase of 17.3 percent, said the ministry. Experts said the services sector has become a significant field of attracting foreign capital, and the rise also illustrates a further optimization of the foreign capital industrial structure as well as China's economic transformation and upgrading. The services sector represents the overall strength of a country and China should further utilize foreign capital in developing the sector, said Xing Houyuan, deputy director of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation at the Ministry of Commerce. According to the ministry, the services sector accounted for 245.2 billion yuan of foreign direct investment in 2015, with high-tech manufacturing accounting for 58.35 billion yuan, up 9.5 percent from 2014 and accounting for 23.8 percent of investment in the manufacturing sector. Barely any FDI was approved for industries including steel, cement and shipbuilding, that are suffering from overcapacity, it said. According to Tang, from January to November last year, free trade zones in Guangdong, Tianjin and Fujian attracted investment of 445.81 billion yuan from 6,040 overseas companies. China's state-owned chemical firm Sinochem International said Thursday it is discussing the acquisition of a stake in Halcyon Agri Corp, a Singaporean natural rubber giant. Sinochem International is talking with Halcyon Agri founder and CEO Robert Meyer and other related shareholders, the company said in a statement filed to the Shanghai Stock Exchange, where it is listed. According to the statement, the Chinese firm will possibly acquire 25 to 50 percent of Halcyon Agri, a global leader in natural rubber, which is an important raw material for tires and other industrial products. Halcyon Agri had $631.6 million in total assets at the end of September 2015, and earned $6.3 million in the first nine months last year. Meyer founded Halcyon Agri in 2010 and holds a 29.8-percent stake in the public company. "So far, both sides have yet to reach any deals," said the statement. Sinochem International said the natural rubber business is one of its development strategies, and it is focusing on expansion in the industry. An advertisement for flower pots on Tencent Holdings Ltd's WeChat. Chinese companies are setting up official accounts on various platforms in the hope of selling their products and solutions to ordinary consumers.DONG NAIDE/CHINA DAILY Last summer, Shanghai was constantly blighted by pouring rain, blocking some parts of the city. A taxi-hailing company came up with advertisements on social media applications which claimed that consumers could book boats from them. There were even pictures showing the locations of the available boats. However, this was nothing more than a practical joke. Some may say that this was witty and funny. But for others, it was simply taking advantage of people's inconvenience and trouble, especially for those who were stranded due to the heavy rain. Instead of these firms poking fun at the trouble they were having, they would have much preferred them to offer something substantial to get them out of the jam. This is just one example of a company launching a marketing campaign on the back of people's inconvenience or misery. There are more examples of such unpleasant and cheap commercials, like the most frequently seen cases of belittling competitors' products by picking out their flaws in exaggerated ways in order to build up their own images. Even industry leaders cannot avoid falling into this trap. The recent conflict between JD.com Inc and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd was another fine example. A quick look at the 2016 China Salary Guide recently released by global employment advisor group Morgan McKinley shows that the key words describing the hiring trend for industries such as finance, human resources or accounting, are mostly replacement and shift, but when it comes to marketing, the words used are "substantial job creation". Well, it should come as no surprise. Going through the Moments on WeChat, one can easily find plenty of accounts which post "in-depth essays" which turn out to be nothing more than exercises in pure marketing. Marketing is no longer what B2C companies stress or excel at, B2B companies are quickly catching up, setting up official accounts on various platforms in the hope of selling their products and solutions which are not easily comprehensible to ordinary consumers. Being instantly responsive is not the responsibility of news reporters, it is also the job of the marketing specialists who are required to respond to every possible news issue so that they can hype up the company's image and sell more of their complicated products or solutions. It is somehow incomprehensible and a little bit sad to see that the ways of marketing have not changed much up till now even though technology has advanced by leaps and bounds. Technology has made marketing so easy these days that marketing specialists only care about launching as many campaigns as possible with easily accessible technologies and rapidly spreading speed instead of really thinking through what is best for the consumers and what can best suit the company's image. The even more pathetic thing is that people often find they come to a commercial at the end of a piece of long text when you expect to get something substantial the moment you click open the story on your phone. A large number of highly celebrated online writers who used to provide solid pieces of insight and stories have now becoming nothing more than hired hacks publishing commercials on their own social network accounts. People talk about and resort to marketing so frequently nowadays with the easily accessible technologies that the production process has turned upside down. Too much emphasis has been attached to marketing campaigns, holding large news conferences in huge venues, rather than dedicatedly working in laboratories and talking to consumers to come up with a substantial product. For companies which have attracted rounds of financing, it is an irresponsible choice to spend too much on marketing rather than research and development. Of course it is totally legitimate for companies to launch advertising and marketing campaigns. In some sense, it is a must. But the prerequisite and the most important thing is to come out with a product that can both delight the consumers and make the company proud of it. Contact the writer at shijing@chinadaily.com.cn People talk in front of Baidu Inc, which operates China's most popular Internet search engine, in Beijing.[File Photo] As many as 36 non-government organizations have requested the Beijing industry and commerce authority to look into Baidu Inc's allegedly false advertising practice. The healthcare related NGOs together filed a complaint on Thursday to the Beijing Administration of Industry and Commerce against China's online search giant Baidu. They accused the Beijing-based Baidu of posting false medial related advice and asked the Beijing authority to launch an investigation. Baidu said in a statement on Thursday that all medical institutions that carry out online marketing via the online search giant need to be equipped with licenses and Baidu welcomes the supervision from the public. The New York listed Baidu came under media scrutiny after an Internet user accused the online search giant of selling its medical-related forums on Tieba, its online community-based group discussion service, for commercial activities. A forum for hemophilia patients, for example, has been used by 5,000 users as a platform to discuss and share information about the disease and its treatments. But by selling the forum to some unqualified medical agencies, Baidu has allowed it to be flooded with advertisements, some of them misleading. Baidu announced on Tuesday it will stop the commercialization of forums that focus on discussing the diagnoses and treatments of illnesses and invite non-profit organizations to operate them. A Chinese worker installs signs on a giant rock in front of the headquarters building of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in Beijing, January 12, 2016. [Photo/IC] BEIJING - The China-proposed Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), formally established on Dec 25 last year, is set to begin operating following an inauguration ceremony on Saturday, showcasing the commitment of the world's second largest economy to making substantial contributions to renewed global economic governance. In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping, who will address Saturday's ceremony, first proposed the global multilateral financial institution, which has now developed into a 57-member body in just two years, with further enlargement highly anticipated. To Chen Fengying, research fellow at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, the opening of the AIIB marks China's "shift from a participant of the global governance system to a contributor of it," reflecting a shift in the country's ability to manage global economic issues. David Aikman, chief representative officer in China and Greater China Member at the World Economic Forum, which holds annual meeting on the world economy in the Swiss town of Davos, said the launch of the AIIB shows China's increasing role in leading and innovating institutions to address the trillion-dollar infrastructure gap around the world. Unlike the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which are predominantly controlled by developed countries, the AIIB was proposed by China -- one of the most robust emerging economies in the world -- and includes both developing and developed member states, thus making it a truly open and inclusive entity supplementing the existing global financial framework. In response to suspicions expressed mainly by the United States and Japan that the AIIB will be more of a tool Beijing could use for its own good, Jin Liqun, the bank's president-designated, said China holds the highest voting stakes because of its GDP volume and capital contribution. As new members join in, all founding members' shares and voting stakes will be "gradually diluted," Jin added. "Although China still supports the existing global financial system, the new governance emerging from Asia, led by China, is a supplement and contribution," Ibrahim Yusuf, executive director of the Indonesia Council on World Affairs, told Xinhua in a recent interview, expressing his hope that the AIIB could serve as a new funding source for Indonesia as most western countries are suffering an economic slowdown. To Chen Gang, senior research fellow with the East Asia Institute at National University of Singapore, the first and foremost problem of the current global finance order -- based on the US-led Bretton Woods system established after World War II -- is the many hurdles it sets for developing countries, thus impeding the timely allocation of funds of which there is a desperate need, especially on a large-scale. People, mainly green grocers from China, taste mangoes at the Embassy of Republic of Peru. [Photo/chinadaily.com.cn] The first batch of mangoes from Peru has arrived in Beijing, with a tasting party held at the Embassy of the Republic of Peru on January 14. The mangoes traveled for just three days by air with FCD Industrial Co Ltd from Peru to China, and were praised as both ripe and fresh by the green grocers invited. "We hope that fruits from Peru can be better known here with more and more varieties introduced to China," said Juan Carlos Capunay Chavez, Peru's ambassador to China. He said that red grapes from Peru have become popular in China in the past two years, making Peru the second biggest red grape supplier to China. Peru is introducing more of its fruits such as mangos, cherrys, avocados, and some acidic fruits to the country. As Peru is more than 16,000 kilometers away from China, transportation is the main problem for trading fruits from there, said Hao Yu, a director of Shanghai FCD Industrial Co Ltd. She added that to keep the mangoes fresh, they chose to transport them by air, which can cost even more than the original price of the fruit. A mango trader Jian Mubo predicted that the price of Peruvian mangoes might be more expensive than those from Australia, which are the most popular in Chinese markets at present and about 50 to 60 yuan ($7.6) per kilogram. Ambassador Chavez said that two forms of transportation are available for the fruits, namely by sea or air, which obviously affects the price of the fruit. Fruits transported by the air will be fresher but also more expensive. Lin Nagy, general director of Hungary Economic and Cultural Cooperation Corp, said that the mango she tasted in the Embassy of Peru was better than any other mangoes she ate before, and was finer and smoother. Internationalexperts endorsed China's emphasis on increasing healthcare and health insurance coverage in its 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), and say that China's growing healthcare sector creates great opportunities for foreign companies. The plan focuses on encouraging more private sector participation and private capital investment in the healthcare sector, so to achieve more universal coverage. It also emphasizes directing resources towards less privileged groups to achieve a wider spread and to ensure efficient resource distribution by encouraging the growth of primary care. Seen as the blueprint for China's development for the next half-decade, the new five-year plan will be published next year. A proposed plan was adopted at a key party meeting in Beijing on Oct 29. KalipsoChalkidou, director of NICE International, part of the UK's National Health Service, says that the growth of private sector provision of healthcare services is important although good regulation is needed. "For example, it is a good idea to have private sector provision of healthcare, but at the same time it is good to have public sector insurance to cover these private sector services," says Chalkidou, referringo the UK's NHS system, which has public sector coverage but many private sector hospitals providing services within the system. In addition, she sees the plan's emphasis on increasing primary care as positive, as the UK's experience illustrate its importance. In the UK, primary care accounts for about 90 percent of encounters, but they only take up 10 percent of public healthcare budget, she says. "In order to increase primary care, the Chinese government will need to deliver good training to GPs and make sure they have the necessary skills, to build up the general population's trust for GPs, and to build a good system of referrals from GPs to specialist practitioners." Chalkidou's words are echoed by Jenny Yao, Partner and head of healthcare at KPMG China, who says Chinese government has invested in primary care as part of the new healthcare reform in 2009, but this could have been more effective if hardware investment was matched with workforce recruitment, training, development and retention. Yao says the current challenge is that the best quality doctors usually prefer to go to secondary and tertiary hospitals because the pay is higher, they receive more recognition and also have more training opportunities; the Chinese government is already taking action to change this. The National Health and Family Planning Commission has already rolled out pilot programs for creating a special post for general practitioners in some areas, with pay packages different from other government employed workers, such as teachers and civil servants, because previously all government employed workers are on similar salary packages. Mark Gilbraith, head of PwC China's Healthcare & Life Sciences team, says that as an increasingly level playing field for private hospitals is being created, overseas healthcare institutions may look more seriously at China as an expansion play. "The nature of these expansions may vary, from medical and scientific affiliations, to teaching coalitions, to consulting set-ups all the way to what we would most expect operations management ventures and entrusting through to green-field or acquisition, though capital lay-out is not the preferred mode at the moment," says Gilbraith. Gilbraith adds that some of the more recent examples of how Britain's healthcare expertise can contribute to China's Healthcare Reform include the provision of advanced proton beam technologies for the treatment of cancer, expertise in the fields of hospital operations management as well as elderly care management, both in-home and at community centers, and the provision of skills, development and technical training for medical practitioners, including allied and nursing staff, he says. Already some British healthcare organizations have already established subsidiaries in China, or established consultancy or joint venture partnerships in China. For example, Sinophi Healthcare, which signed contracts for hospital management and hospital investment worth 120 million pounds when Prime Minister David Cameron visited China in 2013, is helping Huai'an First People's Hospital build a 1,000-bed oncology hospital. Another British company, Heythorp Healthcare, is investing in the China-UK Healthcare Park in Nanjing, together with Jiangsu Far East Group. The park will comprise 56,000 square meters of mixed-use healthcare space and include nursing care, a rehabilitation center and private care clinics. NICE International has also been working over the past six years with its Chinese partners, the National Health and Family Planning Commission and the China National Health Development Research Center, to integrate international research on the treatment of chronic diseases into China's healthcare system in a way that is suitable for China's situation. Chalkidou says that in the future, as China reforms its healthcare system, there will be many more opportunities for the UK's healthcare industry. "This could happen in the form of foreign direct investment, including the building and running of hospitals, the installing of IT systems to manage patient records and the provision of healthcare services, amongst others," Chalkidou says. To contact the reporter: cecily.liu@mail.chinadailyuk.com Pakistan's Federal Minister of Finance Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar arrived in Beijing on Jan 15 to attend meetings with banking and financing institutions, particularly the inaugural meeting of the Board of Governors of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to be held over the weekend. Talking to Chinese media, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said that initially there was skepticism about AIIB from some countries, about its role, yet Pakistan believed that the AIIB would play a complementary role and the AIIB is now a reality. He said that Pakistan had been a great supporter of the idea of AIIB right from the beginning and that it will play a complementary role. This region needs roughly seventy percent of the worlds global financing for infrastructure development. Keeping in view the appetite and demand for infrastructure development in this region, AIIB's potential to bridge the need and supply gap of funds needed for infrastructure development in this region is tremendous. Visitors look at electric home appliances of Haier during an expo in Qingdao city, East China's Shandong province, July 10, 2015. [Photo/IC] Haier Group, China's biggest manufacturer of household appliances, agreed to buy General Electric Co's appliances business for $5.4 billion in cash in the country's biggest acquisition of an overseas electronics company. Qingdao-based Haier signed a memorandum of understanding on Friday with GE in the United States, according to a statement by Haier. The deal is expected to be completed in the second quarter of this year, pending regulatory approval. The statement said the operation team at GE's appliances unit will remain unchanged. Haier is authorized to use GE's brand for at least 40 years. In 2014, GE announced that it planned to sell its century-old appliances units to Electrolux AB, the Swedish appliance maker, for $3.3 billion. However, the deal collapsed last month because of opposition from the US Justice Department, forcing the US electronics giant to seek another buyer. Haier and another Chinese home appliance company, Guangdong-based Midea Group, are among suitors that submitted bids for GE's home appliances business. Zhang Yanbin, assistant director of All View Cloud, a Beijing consultancy specializing in home appliances, said that if the transaction is completed, it will be the largest acquisition by a domestic appliance maker in an overseas market. "It is inspiring news for the Chinese home appliances industry, and the acquisition, which includes manufacturing, research and development, marketing and other links of GE's appliance unit, would help Haier expand in the US market. It is a deep cooperation for both sides," said Zhang. The Chinese home appliances market is almost saturated, so domestic makers are looking overseas to find new business growth points. With a 10.2 percent market share, Haier was the world's largest household appliances brand in 2014 for the sixth straight year, according to Euromonitor, a market research company in London. The deal, which will be funded through Haier's capital and loans, will need anti-trust approval from authorities in the US, Mexico, Canada and Colombia. Contact the writers at fanfeifei@chinadaily.com.cn The growth of China's yuan-denominated lending lost steam in December, as banks started to worry about credit risk amid an economic slowdown. New yuan loans slipped to nearly 598 billion yuan ($90.8 billion) in December, down from 709 billion yuan in November and less than the market's expectation of 700 billion yuan, the People's Bank of China said on Friday. For the whole year, however, the country's financial sector has issued 11.7 trillion yuan in new loans, even higher than the 9.59 trillion yuan in 2009 after the global financial crisis. The record-high credit growth last year has prompted concerns among economists about the government's and enterprises' debt burden, which is seen as a side effect of the monetary easing to prevent a sharp economic slowdown. Liu Ligang, chief economist in China at ANZ Bank, said that credit risk is increasing this year as GDP growth may continue to decelerate to around 6.5 percent down from about 7 percent last year. This will further erode enterprises' profits and increase the possibility of debt defaults. The industrial rebalancing reform, which may lead to bankruptcy of unprofitable companies, will also increase banks' nonperforming loans, he said. Local governments swapped 3.2 trillion yuan in debt for long-term, low-return bonds purchased by banks last year, which will further reduce the banks' profitability this year, said experts. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said that the total corporate debt was more than 140 percent of GDP last year, the world's highest ratio. Total social financing, a broader measure of financial activities that also includes equity, increased by 15.41 trillion yuan last year, or 467.5 billion yuan less than in 2014, the PBOC said. Research from Fitch Rating showed that total social financing had reached about 2.5 times the total GDP by the end of last year, and it may increase to 2.6 times this year, suggesting high leverage in the economic structure. China's total outstanding credit growth increased by 15 percent last year, compared with 14.9 percent in 2014, a research note from UBS AG said. "The dual strength of both bank and shadow credit expansion likely reflects the government's recent calls for stronger financial support for the economy, and a faster pace of implementation of infrastructure projects," said Wang Tao, the Swiss financial group's chief economist in China. The photo of the Yutu moon rover taken by the camera on the Chang'e-3 moon lander during the mutual-photograph process after the successful landing of the moon probe on the moon on Dec 15, 2013. [Photo/Xinhua] BEIJING - China has officially begun a new round of lunar exploration and will send the Chang'e-4 probe to the far side of the moon in 2018, China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) announced Thursday. The far side of the moon is never visible to Earth because of gravitational forces and has never been explored by humans. Chang'e-4 will be the first mission in human history to embark on this expedition, said Liu Jizhong, chief of the lunar exploration center under SASTIND. China already boasts mature science and technology for sending a probe to the far side of the moon, and is open to cooperation with international society, said Liu. China achieved its first soft-landing on the moon with Chang'e-3 in December 2013, and it is still sending messages back to Earth. Liu said Chang'e-4 is very similar to Chang'e-3 in structure but can handle more payload. It will be used to study the geological conditions of the dark side of the moon. China sent a letter of intent of cooperation to foreign countries in early 2015. China also plans to launch its Chang'e-5 lunar probe to finish the last chapter in China's three-step (orbiting, landing and return) moon exploration program. The Chang'e-5 lunar probe is now being developed by Chinese scientists, Liu said. Rare 'Horse month of the Monkey year' sparks intense interest Chinese characters of Hou Nian Ma Yue, or "Horse month of the Monkey year". CHINA DAILY Netizens on Chinese microblogging websites are all agog for the upcoming "Horse month of the Monkey year", a calendar occurrence so rare that the phrase is a commonly used slang to refer to a date in the unforeseeable future. "Horse month of the Monkey year", or Hou Nian Ma Yue, also indicates something that cannot be done within a predictable period of time or in which the chance of success is slim. "My dad said that I can only find a girlfriend in 'Horse month of Monkey year'. I finally realized that the time is coming," micro blogger Wei Lin De Cen wrote online. Another micro blogger wrote: "My boss told me in a serious tone that my salary would not grow until the 'Horse month of Monkey year'. But when I looked at the calendar, I said, 'it's settled'." Based on the Chinese lunar calendar, each animal in the zodiac not only represents one year, but also symbolizes a particular month. For example, the rat corresponds to the 11th month in a lunar year and an ox refers to the 12th. This year, the Year of Monkey, the month of the horse falls from June 5 to July 3. As the seemingly distant future is nearly upon us, the topic has become one of the most talked about online. A topic page on Sina Weibo, a popular Chinese microblogging website, has received more than 60 million views and more than 70,000 messages were posted on the theme. Many netizens are describing 2016 as a good year, as they believe the results of their best efforts will appear in the Hou Nian Ma Yue. "It seems that many of my wishes will finally come true," wrote a Weibo user under the name Dongdong Bujiao Huidong. The "Horse month of Monkey year" only appears once every 12 years. The idiom's origin isn't clear, but the phrase is clearly popular with the public. China's top anti-graft watchdog has vowed to maintain high pressure against corruption and ensure that inspection groups cover all state organs and institutions. The watchdog reiterated an unswerving stance in the anti-corruption drive in a statement issued on Thursday after the sixth plenary session of the 18th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China. The meeting was held from Tuesday to Thursday. The CCDI said it will continue to intensify the crackdown on corruption, maintain the pace of its efforts and relentlessly strive to curb corrupt behavior. "The existing problems related to corruption must be resolved, and the number of new corruption cases must be decreased," it said, adding that the goal is to create a situation in which Party members "dare not, cannot and don't want to be corrupt". The commission said corrupt officials in key posts are priority targets of the graft busting campaign. It said that the "top priority" will be those who hold important posts and are likely to be further promoted but have not stepped back from corrupt behavior. The correlation between laws and Party discipline was a key issue discussed at the meeting. The statement said Party discipline adopts stricter standards than laws and serves as the base line for Party members. "We must stick to the principle of governing the Party strictly by the disciplinary measures, and it must be a code of conduct for Party members. They must be punished if they are found to have violated discipline," it said. Meanwhile, the commission also stressed that it is not the judiciary organ within the Party, saying "the vetting of Party members under the disciplinary codes cannot be equal to judiciary investigations. Supervision must be carried out in line with disciplinary regulations." Wu Zhongmin, a professor of socialism studies at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, said the reference suggests that Party discipline should be stricter than laws but cannot replace the laws. The three-day meeting summarized achievements of the fight against corruption in the past year and rolled out plans for this year's anti-corruption efforts. It noted that great achievements have been made during the past year, with the two biggest "tigers", or high-ranking officials, brought down so far and their bad influence on the political environment removed. Zhou Yongkang, former security chief, was sentenced to life in prison in June and Ling Jihua, former head of the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee, was held for investigation in July on corruption charges. Gao Bo, a political researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the investigation of senior officials shows the firm determination of the anti-graft authority. Their cases sent out a stiff warning that no Party member is allowed to have prerogative rights and showed zero-tolerance for corruption in the Party. Quarantine workers at Qingdao airport in Shandong province test samples for the Ebola virus. [Xie Hao/For China Daily] Chinese scientists have contributed to a new breakthrough in the fight against the Ebola virus after the deadly outbreak in West Africa in March 2014. On Thursday in the scientific journal Cell, they reported new discoveries on how the virus enters human cells, offering a new direction for drug development. The latest research found that the virus could remain in the semen of male survivors for up to nine months after infection. "We have no idea when the next outbreak of Ebola will come," said Gao Fu, deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and a researcher at the Institute of Microbiology affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences. "There are no specific clinically approved drugs against the virus, so we urgently need to be clear about the exact way in which it infects humans." The drugs used in clinical applications are only effective in relieving the symptoms such as fever, headache and diarrhea. Experiments are still underway, but the only success has been a vaccine developed by Canadian company MSD. The virus can survive only inside the cell of a victim. Qi Jianxun, co-first author of the paper, said the scientists' discovery of the way in which the virus enters human cells could help with drug development. The concept of preventing a virus from entering a cell on a molecular level has been successful in developing drugs against a number of infectious diseases, for example Tamiflu against influenza viruses such as H1N1. Wang Han and Song Jian, PhD candidates on Gao's team and co-first authors of the paper, said, "Our team started to study the Ebola virus in 2011. ... There are chances that we can develop a drug ahead of other teams in the world." Academy urged to focus on new crop varieties, livestock breeds, biotech A worker drives a made-in-China tractor to plow farmland in Zimbabwe in November. Chinese enterprises were invited to conduct agricultural cooperation with local farmers. XU LINGUI/XINHUA The Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences will establish an overseas agriculture research center to facilitate the export of more agricultural technologies and to encourage more international cooperation, the academy's president said on Thursday. Li Jiayang, vice-minister of agriculture and president of the academy, said at a work conference in Beijing that the academy will seek to establish more multinational joint agricultural labs and agricultural technology exhibition centers during the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20). The move is part of an effort to push forward a more global agricultural technology development strategy and to serve the national Belt and Road Initiative, he said. Li said the institute will first seek to establish exhibition centers in Africa and Latin America to pitch Chinese technology and products. "The export of agricultural technology is an area with huge potential," he said. The technologies should be used to tap the international market in the context of China's going global strategy, he said. The academy will first prioritize the establishment of multinational labs in areas including biotechnology, animal husbandry, veterinary medicine and agricultural resources and environment. The academy has so far been able to demonstrate and promote 70 hybrid rice varieties in 15 countries in Asia and Africa during the past five years. It has also established joint agricultural labs in countries including Brazil, Australia, Belgium and Kazakhstan. Zhang Taolin, vice-minister of agriculture, said at the conference that the academy should seek breakthroughs in key research areas, such as the development of new crop varieties, livestock breeds, smart agricultural machineries and agricultural biotechnology. The control and prevention of agricultural pollution will be another major challenge to conquer in the next five-years, as the country is faced with mounting agricultural pollution. The Ministry of Agriculture said in a guideline in April that it is targeting more than 90 percent of farmland in China using specially formulated fertilizers. It will conduct soil tests to determine how much and what types of fertilizers are needed, and has set a target of a zero increase in the use of fertilizers and pesticides by 2020. "The decrease in acreage and quality of farmland, the overuse of groundwater and pollution from agriculture will be pressing challenges the country's agricultural sector will face in the next five years," Zhang said. Overuse of groundwater now affects more than 300,000 square kilometers in China, an area approximately the size of Italy, according to the Ministry of Water Resources. Everyone knows by now that General Electric is moving its corporate HQ from Fairfield, Conn., to the Seaport District. That's about 800 people settling in to our fair region. Many will house hunt. Many will be shocked. Some, though, won't be. How do Fairfield prices stack up against Boston ones for similarly sized properties? Check out these comparisons. The Fairfield addresses you're seeing are around the city's downtown area or in its eastern reaches (translation: pretty centrally located). 56 Marne Avenue in Fairfield The 3-BR, 1.5-BA, 1,426-square-foot house is asking $499,999. 124 West Third Street in South Boston It's 3-BR, 2-BA rowhouse running to 1,578 square feet and asking $995,000. __ Unit 2 at 56 Stella Road in Roslindale This 3-BR, 2.5-BA spreads over 1,837 square feet and is asking $499,000. 21 Buckley Drive The 3-BR, 3-BA is just over 2,000 square feet ranch-style house is asking $534,900. __ Unit B603 at 1245 Adams Street in Lower Mills, Dorchester This is a 2-BR, 2-BA over 2,341 square feet asking $820,000. 206 Salt Meadow Road A townhouse-style condo, it runs to 2,308 square feet and has three bedrooms and three bathrooms. Asking price? $935,000. The Expected Ripple Effect of GE's Move to Boston [Globe] A store that sells sugar-roasted chestnuts is facing a fine of 200,000 yuan ($30,500) after advertising its products as "the best" in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. Law enforcement personnel said the store had violated the country's Advertising Law and relevant regulations when it used "the best" or "the most" in its advertising. Fang Linfu, boss of the Hangzhou Fanglinfu Sugar-Roasted Chestnut Store, said he was shocked when he received the fine on Jan 8. The ticket was written by the marketing supervision administration of the city's Xihu district. Fang, 46, said he refused to accept it. Fang said he has been using "the best products" in promotions and advertising for more than 15 years, and no one has questioned him or asked him to stop using such words in all that time. "I have said sorry to the marketing supervision administration and promised to correct the mistake, but they refused to drop the fine," Fang said on Thursday. "As a small store, I cannot bear such a large fine." "I am not well educated, and I did not know the words 'best' and 'most' were not allowed in promotions and advertisements," he said. Fang said he used the words to promote his products because he thought they really were the best in the city. He has been roasting and selling sugar-roasted chestnuts for more than two decades and his products are well-known. But Fang also said he would like to correct his mistake. When Fang refused to accept the fine, the marketing supervision administration agreed to hold a public hearing. "But they didn't tell me when the hearing will be held," Fang said, adding that his business license would be revoked if he refused to pay the fine. Fang operates three stores in Hangzhou, and all of them have used "best" or "most" in promotions and advertisements at one time or another, he said. An official from the Xihu district administration who did not want to be named told local media that the fine was the minimum and could have been as high as 1 million yuan. Zhu Yongping, a lawyer at Datong Law Firm, said Fang had erred, but the procedure used to fine him was not correct. "Fang should first be informed and asked to give up using banned words in advertisements," said Zhu. President Xi Jinping (front) waves to people as he walks on the clay pottery craftsmanship street at Huamao village of Fengxiang township in Zunyi county, Southwest China's Guizhou province, June 16, 2015. [Photo/Xinhua] A pottery maker in a remote Chinese village lifted his family out of poverty through his craft and then managed to grow his family business by three times following his handshake with President Xi Jinping in June. The southwestern village of Huamao in Guizhou, one of China's most underdeveloped provinces, is rich in clay, and has been home to clay pottery makers since the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). When the most famous Chinese baijiu, a clear liquor made from sorghum and other grains, won a medal at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, the liquor was contained in clay pottery ware manufactured at Huamao village. Mu Xiangang's family has been making clay pottery for generations, but their workshop didn't earn them a decent life until 2014 when the annual income of the nine-member family increased from less than 10,000 yuan ($1,518) to more than 50,000 yuan. "There were dozens of pottery workshops along the street in the 1970s, but it was too difficult to feed the family by selling pottery wares. So many gave up and my family struggled to keep the business running," said Mu at his family workshop at Huamao village's clay pottery craftsmanship street, which was visited by President Xi during his tour to Guizhou in June. On his tour to the village that has been lifted out of poverty in recent years, Xi visited greenhouses, financial centers, bamboo and pottery workshops to learn how poverty reduction projects were running. Xi told villagers that "a good life is created with one's own hands" and nothing will stand in their way if they are confident and determined. "After graduation from college in the province's capital city of Guiyang, I found it difficult to find a good job in big cities and I also had the small wish of helping my family grow our pottery workshop, so I chose to come back," said Mu as he sold a small cat-shaped ware to a customer at 10 yuan. Mu was bold and brave and chose to expand his family's workshop by building several workshops, which coincided with the government's policy to transform the countryside in an-all round way. So, Mu's family was quickly lifted out of poverty and Mu himself became a self-made model in the village. "I never expected President Xi would visit my workshop," said Mu, "he was supposed to spend eight minutes in my worship, but he stayed for 20 minutes." "He watched my brother make pottery base and told us the craftsmanship has cultural significance and asked us to carry it down generation by generation," Mu recalled his meeting with the President, "he also looked at our pottery products and asked us about the sales situation." Chen Guanming, who cycled through 24 countries from Asia to Europe and to America in 14 years to promote the Olympic spirit, arrives in Washington DC in 2015. [A still video image from web] "Washington DC is a young and small city. Capitol Hill and the White House surrounded by greens attract me. Its people are friendly and the air quality is good," said Chen Guanming, a Chinese farmer standing beside his tricycle with Capitol Hill as the background on a sunny October day in Washington DC, the last stop of his American tour. Chen, 60, a native from Xuzhou, East China's Jiangsu province, travelled 24 countries, from Asia to Europe and to America, on a tricycle he's been refitting for the past 14 years. So far, he's covered more than 160,000 kilometers, for promoting the Olympic spirit, environmental awareness, and world peace. "I have traveled the American continent from Canada to the US and will reach Rio De Janeiro, Brazil in 2016," Chen said. In 2001, the year Beijing won the bid to host the 2008 Olympic games, Chen set off on his long trek, which he never expected to last this long. Chen promotes the Olympic spirit among a group of university students in Taiyuan, North China's Shanxi province, on Aug 14, 2007. [Photo/CFP] "I wanted to promote the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and share the Olympic spirit. The idea occurred to me that I should visit a thousand cities and counties around China including Hong Kong and Macao regions on a tricycle," Chen said, adding that his means of transportation is environmental friendly and good for physical and mental health. Chen lived up to his word. During the period of 2001 to 2008, he traveled more than 64,000 kilometers through all provincial regions of China except Taiwan. A provincial governor who was "missing" during some key conferences has been confirmed to be under investigation for violating the Party's discipline, China's anti-corruption watchdog said in a news conference on Friday. Wei Hong, the governor of Sichuan province, who was absent from two important conferences in the province from Dec 27 to Dec 28, is self-reflecting and going over his mistakes, said Wu Yuliang, deputy secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China. "We'll deal with Wei in line with his specific case," Wu added. The 61-year-old Wei, also the deputy secretary of the CPC Sichuan Committee, is a native of Shandong province and started his work in 1970. Wu also said during the conference that they are making efforts in the case of Ling Wancheng, a wealthy and politically connected businessman, who fled to the United States. "We are in talks about the case with the US," Wu added. Ling Wancheng is the youngest brother of Ling Jihua. Ling Jihua, one of the highest-level officials caught in the anti-graft campaign, was put under investigation in July last year on suspicion of bribery. He was the former director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the former head of the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee. President Xi Jinping has made the anti-corruption drive the centerpiece of government's policy. Screen capture from the official Sina Weibo account of taiwan.cn shows the three candidates for Taiwan's leadership.[Photo/Weibo] Taiwan voters will go to the polls on Saturday to elect the island's new leader and legislature. However, voter sentiment is weighed down by uncertainties surrounding post-election cross-Straits stability. Liu Tung-lung, a retired senior government official and member of the Kuomintang (KMT), told Xinhua that he was anxious, not about the election result but the uncertainty of the island's future relations with the mainland. "I would be upset if Eric Chu [the KMT candidate] lost the election, but I could live with that. The KMT has lost before," he said. "What worries me most is Tsai Ing-wen's [Democratic Progressive Party candidate] cross-Straits policies, especially her stance on the 1992 Consensus." Candidates' cross-Straits policies have been under close scrutiny since the campaign started, especially in the televised debates. Both Chu and James Soong of the People First Party clearly expressed support for the 1992 Consensus while Tsai has remained ambiguous, so far. Tsai has repeatedly promised to maintain cross-Straits relations and in her campaign rally in Kaohsiung on Thursday she reiterated that if elected she would try her best to maintain cross-Straits stability. Yet she has avoided a clear statement on the 1992 Consensus. On several occasions, including TV debates, she said the DPP acknowledged the historical meeting in Hong Kong in 1992 but claimed that the 1992 Consensus was "not the only option but one of the options." Denying the 1992 Consensus means denying the foundation of cross-Straits relations in the past two decades, Liu said. "If the elected leader held such a stance, I would be worried about our future," he said. Several political heavyweights have expressed similar concerns. In his New Year's Day speech, Ma Ying-jeou, the island's current leader, called on his successor to carry on the current cross-Straits policies and value the 1992 Consensus. Hau Pei-tsun, former head of Taiwan's executive authority, said in an earlier public speech that voters should choose whoever upholds the 1992 Consensus and abandon those who disagree with it. The two sides of the Taiwan Straits had establish certain mutual trust since 2008 mainly because the KMT accepted the 1992 Consensus, said Tang Shao-cheng with Chengchi University, Taipei. "If the DPP candidate was elected and continued to avoid the issue, such mutual trust would be seriously undermined and this would bring huge uncertainty to the relationship," he said. For ordinary Taiwan residents, a safe and peaceful society and vigorous economy are the biggest concerns. Lien Chih-ching, a Taipei bank clerk, told Xinhua that since the economic situation is not promising now, people are hoping that closer cross-Straits cooperation can help boost Taiwan's economy. "People like me can only benefit if we live in a peaceful society with economic opportunities," he said, adding that no matter which candidate wins the election, he or she has to face this reality. Yang Li-de, a Taipei businessman, said that he expects cross-Straits relations not to return to what it was before 2008 if the DPP wins. "The two sides should not set a ceiling for economic cooperation. I hope the relations can continue to advance." Since 2008, the two sides have held 11 rounds of talks and signed 23 agreements including lifting bans on direct shipping, air transportation and postal services in 2008, and the long-awaited Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement in 2010. The two sides also lifted the ban on mainland tourists to the island. About 3.22 million mainland tourists visited the island in 2014 and in the first nine months of 2015 the figure reached 3.11 million. Wang Chih-ching, a taxi driver in Kaohsiung, has been a long-time supporter of DPP but he admitted that mainland tourists have brought him more business. "I hope cross-Straits exchanges will not cease and more mainland tourists come to visit after the election," he said. The Chinese armed forces will firmly safeguard the country's sovereignty and security interests, the Ministry of National Defense said on Friday while responding to reports from the Japanese media. The report said that ships belonging to the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force will be sent to urge Chinese naval ships to leave if they come within 12 nautical miles off Diaoyu Islands . China's position on Diaoyu Islands is consistent and clear, the ministry said, Diaoyu Islands and the affiliated islands have been China' s inherent territory since ancient times, thus the Chinese side has the right to carry out normal navigation and patrols in territorial waters off Diaoyu Islands. We urge the Japanese side not to invert black and white or mix truth and fiction, the ministry emphasized. BEIJING -- Chinese residents now enjoy the same level of health, on average, as people in medium- and high-income countries, a health official said on Friday at a press conference. The average life expectancy of Chinese is estimated to be one year more than in 2010, said Xiong Huang, deputy director of the publicity department of the National Health and Family Planning Commission. The maternal mortality rate fell to 21.7 per 100,000 in 2014 from 30 per 100,000 in 2010, and infant mortality dropped to 8.9 per 1,000 in 2014 from 13.1 per 1,000 in 2010. Xiong said China has realized the United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) ahead of schedule in terms of maternal mortality and infant mortality. The health insurance system is also improving. Xiong said coverage of the medical insurance scheme stabilized at more than 95 percent of the total population. The annual government grant for each urban unemployed citizen and each rural resident has risen to 380 yuan ($60.79). Moreover, the country has a low prevalence of HIV/AIDS and the incidence rate of tuberculosis is on decline, Xiong said, adding the prevalence of hepatitis B surface antigen, a key index indicating hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, for Chinese children under five has dropped to 0.32 percent due to HBV vaccination. Chief officer of the Winning Joy went down to the sailing boat from the cargo ship to tie ropes to connect the two vessels for the rescue. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] Bernard Couvet after his rescue by crew members of the Winning Joy. Photo taken on Aug 18, 2015.[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] A Chinese-run cargo ship rescued a 72-year-old solo French sailor after his navigation equipment broke down in the Caribbean and he drifted without food or water. The MV Winning Joy, an 87,417 ton bulk carrier run by Qingdao Winning International Management Co., came to the rescue of Bernard Couvet, aboard the yacht SV.Kaflo, three days after he ran out of food and water, and 19 days after his electronic navigation systems broke down. His diesel oil had run out and he could only maneuver the boat on wind power. He continued to transmit Mayday distress calls in hopes of finding rescue from passing ships after a tanker failed to help him and left a few days before. The story only came to light when the Winning Joy returned to its home port of Qingdoa in eastern China. The crew of the Winning Joy, picked up the distress signal on August 18, 2015, found Couvet and his yacht and managed to rescue him, with his craft, despite dangerous high winds. Li Fubin, master of the Winning Joy, said, it was his first voyage as a ship master and he would remember the salvage experience forever because he was so proud of it. "Offering timely help to those who suffer at sea is the duty and responsibility that any Chinese is obliged to take and we should all embrace our tradition and virtue of helping others," he said. Li said he was cautious at first when he received the weak and intermittent salvage request from the very high frequency (VHF) radio, as the area is known to be infested by pirates. "We contacted the boat immediately through radio and we confirmed it was a sailing boat in distress, and then we turned our ship to head to the signal source area and made the application to the ship company for rescue approval." It was 4:40 am when they discovered the signal and when they received the approval from the company at 5:20, they spotted an elderly man on a sailing boat struggling at sea. The cargo ship's crew risked huge waves and strong wind to conduct the salvage. Song Zhisong, a sailor aboard the Winning Joy, said the first rope that tied between the two vessels broke shortly after being attached was fixed because it was hard to control the relative speeds. "Then our master ordered almost the full crew to get involved and then we fired a line with a special appliance that allowed a thicker cable to successfully connect the two vessels," Song said. The crew members pull the ships closer and then threw a rope ladder down to the sailing boat. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) meets with Swiss Federal Councillor and head of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs Didier Burkhalter in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 15, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua] BEIJING-- China and Switzerland pledged to strengthen cooperation in battling corruption during the visit of Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter to Beijing. The two sides also agreed to beef up cooperation in innovation, the economy, global financial governance, and people-to-people exchanges as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with Burkhalter Friday. "We applaud Switzerland's position that it will not offer safe havens for fleeing corrupt officials," Wang said. China has invited Switzerland to take part in this year's G20 preparation work on anti-corruption and finance, according to Wang. This year's G20 summit will be held in China's eastern city of Hangzhou in September. The two countries will also hold dialogues on anti-corruption efforts, strengthen cooperation in repatriating fugitive suspects and illegal assets, and strive to ink a deal on judicial assistance in criminal matters. The two sides agreed to take advantage of Switzerland's strength in innovation and China's strategy of innovation-driven growth, according to Wang. They also decided to work jointly on the "Belt and Road" initiative, which was proposed by China in 2013 to connect the vibrant East Asian economic circle and the developed European economic circle to tap market potential. The two foreign ministers also pledged to step up efforts to facilitate visas to promote people-to-people exchanges. More than one million Chinese citizens traveled to Switzerland last year. The two sides agreed to strengthen communication and coordination in regional and international affairs, including counter-terrorism and cyber security. Hailing the sound development of bilateral ties over the past 65 years, featuring equality, innovation and a win-win spirit, Wang said he expects the two countries to enhance mutual trust and push all-round cooperation to a higher level. Burkhalter said Switzerland attaches great importance to ties with China and stands ready to cooperate more in fields such as finance, technology, innovation, education, water resources and the G20. Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi also met with Burkhalter on Friday afternoon. Officials attending a news briefing held by the State Council Information Office on Friday include (from left to right) Wu Yuliang, deputy chief of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, Xiao Pei, vice-minister of supervision, Chen Xiaojiang, director of the CCDI's publicity department, Liu Jianchao, director of the commission's International Cooperation Bureau, and Luo Dongchuan, director of the CCDI's Case Review Department. Photos by Wang Zhuangfei / China Daily China will continue to fight corruption and bring back fugitives after making great progress by having more than 1,000 fugitives returned last year, the nation's top anti-graft watchdog said on Friday. In the eight-month-long "Skynet" campaign, conducted since April by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, 1,023 fugitives were repatriated by the end of last year. Of those, 18 were on the most-wanted list. Wu Yuliang, deputy secretary of the commission, said, "It is the first time that the number of the fugitives brought back to the nation is more than the number of new fugitives." "The fear of corruption has set in, and efforts are underway to end corruption completely," Wu said during a news conference held by the State Council Information Office on Friday. One high-profile fugitive, Ling Wancheng, who fled to the United States and became a US citizen, has interested the public for some time. China continues to investigate the case and is negotiating with the US, said Liu Jianchao, director of the commission's International Cooperation Bureau. The commission has demanded that the US extradite Ling to China. Ling, a wealthy and politically connected businessman, is the youngest brother of Ling Jihua, a high-level official who was held for investigation in July on suspicion of corruption. Before the investigation, Ling Jihua was the head of the Party's United Front Work Department. Earlier, he oversaw the Party's inner sanctum as director of its General Office, a post equivalent to the US White House chief of staff, from 2007 to 2012. In addition to the US, the countries that have extradited fugitives include Canada, Australia and New Zealand. "Corruption has become a cross-border challenge that threatens the world's safety, development and prosperity, so a joint effort against graft worldwide is consistent with the interests of each country," Liu said. "On this issue, China is not an exception." "We'll contribute to the anti-corruption work with a more open mind and efforts, while trying our best to push the Skynet' campaign to return more fugitives, giving them no place to hide," he added. Guo Weimin, spokesman and deputy director of the information office, said: "The fruit of the anti-graft campaign in such a short time also shows the Chinese leadership's determination and confidence in the fight." Zhu Lijia, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance who specializes in public management and anti-graft studies, applauded the increasing number of fugitives who were repatriated last year. He attributed this to "our efforts in the campaign and more agreements signed with other countries on extradition". "I'm glad to see that the strength of the efforts against fugitives living in developed countries such as Britain and the United States has been improved and the efforts have been speeded up," Zhu said. "But there are still some key countries where fugitives are hiding that have not signed a clear extradition agreement with us, which is our main task to complete this year," he said. "The number of fugitives returned to China will, I believe, leapfrog after we reach such agreements with more countries," he added. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. Please also read our Privacy Notice and Terms of Use, which became effective December 20, 2019. By choosing I Accept, you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli (C, back) presides over a meeting on promoting the "Belt and Road" Initiatives, or the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Initiatives, in Beijing, capital of China, Jan 15, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua] BEIJING -- Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli on Friday called for closer economic and trade cooperation among countries and regions along the Belt and Road. China will try to reach investment protection deals with related countries and facilitate investment, trade and people-to-people exchanges, Zhang said at a high-level meeting on promoting the Belt and Road Initiative. China and its partners will jointly establish an international "economic cooperation corridor" via land by improving infrastructure connectivity while also building a "maritime transport corridor" by linking important sea ports along the route, said the vice premier. Zhang asked taxation, finance, customs, quality supervision and quarantine authorities to roll out preferential policies to support Belt and Road cooperation. "Promoting the Belt and Road Initiative is one of China's priorities for the next five years," said Zhang. The initiative will bring great development opportunities to China and countries and regions along the route, he added. The China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative refers to the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, which envisages the linking of development strategies of countries in Asia, Europe and Africa. Sansha, China's southern-most city, plans to further boost its tourism industry with a second cruise ship to the Xisha Islands, which officials said will be in operation by year's end. Sansha has so far received more than 10,000 tourists through cruise ships since cruises to the Xisha Islands began on April 28, 2013, the city government said. The only current cruise ship operating in the islands is the 200-bed Coconut Princess, operated by Hainan Strait Shipping. Sansha Mayor Xiao Jie said the ship cannot meet the rising market demand. [Photo provided to China Daily] After spending years in the West with reputable jewelry houses, a designer returns to his roots in more ways than one. Sun Yuanqing reports. Sitting in a studio filled with teapots and bamboo furniture, Dayu Shi hasn't stepped out of the building, where he works and lives, for four days while on his new project. As he sips tea and plays with a geometric wood carving, the award-winning designer who has just won another award, the German Design Award 2016, is not in a hurry to explain his work, either. "After all, your work speaks for itself," Shi, 51, says. Once a top-notch jewelry designer, Shi has worked with some of the world's most expensive materials. But now he is into bamboo, one of the most common natural materials found in southern and eastern China. "For me, the real challenge is to design with the most basic material," he says. His Xiao Yao Chair, which the German Design Award jury says "brings comfort and function into optimum balance", is an example. A market on water in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, during the Spring Festival.[Photo provided to China Daily] A Bite of China film crew captures Spring Festival fare around the country, Liu Zhihua reports. More than a year ago, when Deng Jie, Chen Lei and a few of their colleagues from CCTV were sipping coffee at Starbucks, they suddenly realized that while Spring Festival is widely considered the year's most important holiday for Chinese, the excitement to celebrate it is growing weaker in today's fast-paced society. Deng and Chen, documentary film directors who are wife and husband, decided to make a feature-length film to look into the holiday's traditional but less-known delicacies of nianyefan that have been enjoyed by Chinese from one generation to another at the Spring Festival Eve dinner. The film, A Bite of China: Celebrating the Chinese New Year, hit theaters across the Chinese mainland on Jan 7. Its main consultant is Chen Xiaoqing, an established filmmaker and food critic in China whose well-known works include A Bite of China, the popular broadcast series that has drawn millions of viewers to its presentations of Chinese fare. After months of toiling around the country, sharing and filming nianyefan feasts with numerous families rather than their own, the documentary team has also produced a colorful namesake book in Chinese, published jointly by Chinese National Geography and China CITIC Press. It was released earlier this month. The team of more than 20 authors includes culture researchers, food critics, writers and actors as well as members of the film production team. The writers describe their childhood memories of their families' specially prepared delicacies for the celebration, as well as how festival fare has changed as time passes. Wen Yao, a young woman originally from Shanxi province, who has been living in Beijing since she was 13, shares the story of her mother's signature "mutton hotpot", and how it combines Beijing-style hotpot with the Sichuan-style chili hotpot to stew mutton, vegetables, vermicelli and many other ingredients together with a little lard-fried chili. Without that dish, the celebration of Spring Festival is not complete, Wen says. British rock band Iron Maiden will make its China debut in April.[Photo provided to China Daily] Iron Maiden recently announced its debut in China as part of The Book of Souls World Tour this year. Members of the British heavy metal band and support staff will travel on their jumbo jet Ed Force One, piloted by vocalist Bruce Dickinson, carrying stage equipment for more than 90,000 kilometers around the world. The tour is expected to be held in 35 countries, with the China concerts beginning in the spring. "We cannot wait to get back out on tour. Maiden thrive on touring and getting out to our fans. It's also what we enjoy the most. As this will be our very first visit to China, the whole band is really excited about seeing our fans here and putting on the very best show we possibly can for you," Dickinson says in a recorded video posted on the band's website. While they have yet to decide on a playlist for China, Dickinson says that he and his fellow musicians look forward to performing new songs live. "However, we will include plenty of older fan favorites, too. I think the fans will be delighted by what we have in mind. We are also in the middle of creating the new show (world tour) and rest assured we are working hard to bring you all something spectacular, something with a lot of heart. You certainly deserve it for your patience." Founded in 1975 in London by bassist and songwriter Steve Harris, the band is immensely popular worldwide. Despite several internal changes, the band has been active all these years, releasing some 38 albums and performing more than 200 live shows around the world. Their latest album, The Book of Souls, launched in September, topped the charts in more than 40 countries. Fabrizio Alessandro Goggi, global communications director for Reda, an Italian fabric brand that displays its 2017 winter collection in Beijing.[Photo provided to China Daily] If fashion weeks point to trends for the next season, then fabric makers point even further. Italian premium fabric brand Reda recently showed its 2017 winter collection in Beijing. Inspired by the Edwardian age, the Bloomsbury Group and the paintings of Spanish master Diego Velazquez, the collection infuses freshness into the classic DNA of the brand. The main tones of green, brown and gray are mixed with brighter hues of blue and pink for a more dynamic effect. Founded in 1865, Reda has been providing fabrics for brands like Armani, Ermenegildo Zegna and Dolce & Gabbana. But it is now finding fans among Chinese designers and manufacturers who are looking for classic made-inItaly fabrics with fancy elements, says Fabrizio Alessandro Goggi, the company's global communications director. "Young designers and Chinese fashion are really trendy. They need something soft and classic to be the sustainable base for their creations," he says. Still, quality always comes first as the brand believes that fabric is a "stage" for the designers to perform on. "What they are looking for is something they can rely on. As their creations are sometimes really extravagant or even crazy, they need solid fabric in order to create what they want. And only fabrics of good quality can work," says Goggi. The brand worked with emerging Chinese designer Xander Zhou a few years ago, using his avant-garde style. "This was just the beginning. Next year we would like to find someone else who can express not only the quality of the fabric but also his (or her) own ideas," says Goggi. Laba Garlic. [File photo] This Sunday is Laba, a traditional Chinese holiday celebrated on the eight of the La Month, the twelfth month of the Chinese Lunar Calendar. Aside from eating laba congee, people in northern China will make a special snack to serve during the upcoming Spring Festival, laba garlic. What is laba garlic? Laba garlic is a vinegar-preserved, pickled snack that is prevalent in northern China. It is called laba garlic because it is usually made on the eight of the La Month, when the weather gets really cold. It often appears to be jade green in color and the garlic tastes sour and slightly spicy. The garlic is usually served with dumplings in northern China. During Spring Festival, the pickled snack almost becomes a necessity as it helps beat the greasy feeling brought about by the inevitable feast - as families unite to have a big meal. How do you make Laba Garlic? Three things are needed. A container, some garlic with pink peel and a bottle of rice vinegar. First, peel and clean the garlic. Note that the garlic should be peeled dry, without touching water. Second, put the peeled garlic into a bottle with a cap. Third, fill in the bottle with rice vinegar and seal the bottle. Once the garlic is sealed with the vinegar, place the bottle in a low temperature environment its best to be below 10 degrees Celsius. Storage time is not fixed, but its usually about 20 days, until the garlic turns green. Why is Laba Garlic green? The green color, though unusual and sort of strange, is actually an indicator that the garlic is ready to be served. As explained by He Hongju, a researcher at the Chinese National Research Center for Vegetables, the garlic will turn green because allinase, an enzyme in garlic, changes the structure of the sulphur-containing substance. The substance then produces blue and yellow colored matter, which combines and creates the color green. The green garlic, being less pungent, is more suitable for people of all ages. How do you eat laba garlic? Laba garlic is abundant in micronutrients such as kalium, ferrum, selenium, zinc and folic acid. So, aside from eating it directly as an appetizer, it is also used in Chinese medicine to prevent colds and to lower blood pressure. Note that eating too much laba garlic will make one feel weary. So, please eat it in moderation, say, no more than ten at a time. Related: Celebrate La Ba with porridge and garlic An investor at a brokerage in Beijing on Dec 7, 2015. Experts said the A-share market will be more liquidity-driven next year as policymakers in Beijing will launch more measures to stimulate the economy. [Cao Boyuan/China Daily] By ruling out immediate stock listing reform on Wednesday, China's securities watchdog may have temporarily saved the main stock indexes from falling below the lowest point reached last summer. But it is far from enough to put the stock market back on the track of healthy development. The regulatory watchdog should make efforts to clear the confusion over the implementation and effects of the new stock market policy because investor sentiment is yet to recover from the repeated plunges of Chinese shares. Though the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index barely managed to climb up the psychologically important threshold of 3,000 points on Thursday, it has lost 15 percent in the first two weeks of this year. Had the stock market been allowed to drift downward amid fears that the forthcoming shift of stock listing from an approval-based mechanism to one based on registration would lead to a surge in stock supply soon, it would have been possible that retail investors would flee the tumultuous market and undermine the hard-won mild recovery achieved in autumn and winter after the rout last summer. In this sense, it is necessary for the China Securities Regulatory Commission to take actions to prevent the stock market from falling to the point it reached last year. Yet by citing procedural reasons to assure investors that the expected stock listing reform will not be implemented shortly after March 1 as thought, the securities watchdog has only cleared the minor concerns of investors. True, there will be no imminent surge in stock supply under the new mechanism as the securities regulator needs time to draft rules for the registration-based stock listing and solicit public opinions on the draft. Also, the securities watchdog can ensure no immediate autonomy for issuers to price their shares. But all this will not help investors understand and accept the necessity of the ongoing stock listing reform which, if properly implemented and supervised, will do a lot to make pricing of shares more reasonable, stock listing more inclusive and the interaction between the stock market and the real economy more robust in the long run. The extreme volatility of Chinese shares, a result of multiple reasons, certainly calls for the securities watchdog to take crisis management measures time and again. But a clear message from the securities authorities is badly needed to explain how the stock market will be reformed and supervised to boost investors' confidence in its long-term performance. People talk in front of Baidu Inc, which operates China's most popular Internet search engine, in Beijing.[File Photo] AMID GROWING concern over their excessive commercialization, Baidu pledged on Tuesday to stop monetizing all of its illness-related forums on Tieba, an online community-based group discussion service, and said it will invite non-profit organizations to run these online discussion groups. The Chinese search engine giant has reportedly sold the operation of a number of online forums to unqualified hospitals even local governments via third-party companies. Beijing News questions some governments' desire to run such online forums: It is understandable that some local governments want to gauge netizens' opinions on local affairs, but their intervention is likely to be at the cost of sincere public participation if their involvement is known. That many local Tieba groups are popular among Chinese netizens has little to do with governments' so-called guidance. Instead, it is more a result of netizens' attempts to exchange information on a variety of social issues, especially sensitive and unconfirmed information that can hardly be found in the news, such as natural disasters and scandals concerning officials. True, local online forums are not immune to rumors and sensational hearsay, but to some extent, they are able to purge themselves of unidentified information via thorough in-group discussions. In other words, local governments could put more efforts into collecting, analyzing, and participating in relevant online discussions, as well as responding to outstanding concerns in a timely manner, instead of simply buying the operation of a Tieba forum. It is possible that these online communities may lose their magic and popularity if officials seek to block people's opinions or fabricate advantageous posts. According to the country's newly approved regulations on online information providers, Baidu is allowed to pursue profits by running online community-based group discussion services, so long as it does not maneuver the operation of such forums in any way. That being said, by selling its Tieba groups to some local governments, the Internet giant might have failed to observe the regulations. Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank's opening ceremony will start in Beijing on Jan 16.On the eve of the event, China Daily's Zhang Zhouxiang sought the views of three experts on the AIIB's role in the world financial system and its influence on the global economy. Following are excerpts from the interviews: The AIIB is both inclusive and open, and a global financial institution that believes in equality. That the Philippines joined the AIIB as a founding member on Dec 30, 2015, before the deadline, conclusively proves the bank is indeed open and inclusive, and it will boost development and cooperation in the region and beyond. It is important to note that the Philippines joined the AIIB despite having a maritime dispute with China. The bank's openness is also reflected in the flexibility for the countries that have not yet ratified the AIIB agreement. More than 17 countries have ratified the AIIB agreement to become formal members, and one cannot rule out the possibility of some countries quitting the institution for not doing so. The AIIB council, however, could accept them as observers while the bank's board of directors might allow their representatives to attend meetings, and both measures will enable them to be part of the AIIB cooperation mechanism in a certain way. In other words, the AIIB is open and innovative - very different from the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement - and will not exclude members from the trading bloc even if they fail to ratify the agreement before the deadline expires. Chen Fengying, a senior researcher at the World Economy Research Center, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) meets with British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond in Beijing of China, Jan 5, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua] As a global society, we're obsessed by initials, but MES, the latest set, hides a serious dispute between East and West that is threatening to turn the old order upside down. Let me try to explain. MES stands for "market economy status", an economy in which investment, production and distribution are all driven by the demands of the market. It's these three initials which hide a growing dispute between China and the United States, with the hapless European Union trapped in the middle. The US has argued for years that China has not yet fulfilled the criteria to be granted formal market economy status, while China argues that since it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, it was accepted that MES would follow as a matter of course. In addition, China argues that the market liberalization measures it has adopted in its transition from a centrally controlled economy to a socialist market model means that the time has come. The EU, fairly predictably, hasn't yet made up its mind, under pressure as it is from the US not to grant MES to China. And that's where the United Kingdom steps into the picture. As far back as 2004, the UK indicated it would support China in its bid to gain MES. And this is where it gets interesting. Ever since the dark days of World War II, the UK and the US have enjoyed a "special relationship", a phrase coined by wartime UK prime minister Winston Churchill. (Mind you, he also spoke of two cultures divided by a common language!). That means that by and large, the UK has followed and been supportive of the US, with one or two exceptions. The low point for many was when former British prime minister Tony Blair joined forces with the US to invade Iraq, an ill-judged adventure that still resonates and caused critics to dub Blair "George Bush's poodle". The re-emergence of China as an economic power on the world stage has meant a serious reappraisal in London of its ties with Washington. Don't forget Britain and China go back a long way - some of it good, some bad. But the relationship has survived, and in the words of Chinese and British officials, entered a "golden era". The UK's pragmatic approach means, for example, that last year it was the first Western power to become a founding member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a Beijing initiative that is seen as vital to regional development and China's Belt and Road Initiative linking Asia and Europe. The US was hugely put out, seeing the AIIB as a challenge to the World Bank, which it has controlled ever since its inception. Now the UK has again signalled it won't be bound by special ties by embracing the idea of China gaining MES this year. UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne's visit to China last autumn sent a firm signal that then UK was behind China's bid to gain MES, whatever its old ally across the Atlantic felt. I wouldn't be surprised if a quiet deal has been struck - unwavering British support for Chinese MES in return for serious investment in key British industries. The US, which I believe is inherently protectionist, blames cheaper Chinese products for the diminution of its car industry and the collapse of its once-huge steel industry. Until China gains MES, its products are still subject to huge anti-dumping fines. The EU may well take a decision this year - German Chancellor Angela Merkel, although beset by domestic problems, has indicated she would give conditional support. China's economy is on track to eventually overtake the US' in the next few years and that, I suspect, is what rankles in Washington. Well, as they say here, get over it. Embrace reality and move forward. The author is managing editor for China Daily in Europe. chris@mail.chinadailyuk.com US President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in Washington, January 12, 2016. [Photo/Agencies] In his last State of the Union address on Tuesday, US President Barack Obama talked about the need to fix domestic politics, but he could not forgo playing politics in a bid to push the US Congress to ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. With strong opposition to the TPP from most of his fellow Democrat lawmakers, Obama seems to believe that fear-mongering about China is a good way to sell the trade agreement reached last Oct 5 by 12 Pacific Rim nations. He did not say, however, that China is actually the largest trading partner for many of these 12 nations. Obama claimed that "with TPP, China doesn't set the rules in that region, we do". He seems to believe that China, the world's largest trading nation and second-largest economy, should not be included or have a say in making regional and global trade rules. That is not the type of leadership the world needs or expects from a US president. When politicians demonize others, they often betray a lack of self-confidence. Obama claimed that "people of the world do not look to Beijing or Moscow to lead - they call us." To be honest, such a self-glorifying State would not please anybody's ardent supporters because it talked only about his "great" success and hardly anything about his shortcomings or failures, and it only talked about how "great" the US is and hardly anything about the sorry state of the superpower today. While touting the progress made in cutting the government deficit, Obama did not-mention that the US national debt has surpassed $18 trillion, much of which happened during his presidency. He claimed that the US has led a coalition of more than 60 countries to fight the Islamic State group, but he did not say that many of the weapons that the IS uses are made in the US and today the terrorists group has spread to more countries. Libya, a disaster created by the Obama administration when it pursued regime change by abusing a 2011 UN Security Council resolution, has gradually become a haven for IS extremists. The US' standing in the Middle East is at its lowest compared with other parts of the world, according to 2015 Pew Center survey. It was both surprising and ironic to hear Obama proudly claiming that "we spend more on our military than the next eight nations combined". And the Nobel Peace Prize laureate was clearly excited that the US remains by far the world's largest vendor of weapons. Obama regretted that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better under his presidency. But he did not take any personal responsibility for his often divisive language that has made cooperation and conciliation difficult with the Republicans. There is no doubt that Washington has become increasingly dysfunctional under his presidency, and he has made US-style democracy less appealing in other parts of the world. As I went to New York Penn Station on Wednesday on my way back to Washington, crowds craned their necks to look at the information screens. They then poured into a narrow entrance to board their trains. During the train ride, you see rusty and dilapidated bridges, rundown buildings and roads with potholes, not to mention that the journey takes three and a half hours, a time that could by half with China's high-speed rail. This is the picture of a developing country and not the one Obama described on Tuesday night. The author is deputy editor of China Daily USA. chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com Jessica and her husband pose a photo in their apartmet. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] 2015 started off with a soft kiss at the stroke of midnight. Lying in bed, with my arm draped across you, wishing we both had the energy to stay up. Our late 20s spent working ourselves to the bone. After taking the train 37 hours through the countryside of China, we finally arrived in your hometown for Spring Festival. Wearing a heavy winter jacket, I looked quite silly in the south. Guangdong was by no means hot, but a long-sleeved shirt would have been enough. This was my second time visiting your hometown so I felt no sense of fear or nervousness. Your parents, grandparents, brother, sister, and cousins all treated me well. They were even so gracious as to give me a few red envelopes. Going to the beach, helping you dig for oysters, farming shrimp, and helping prepare family meals made me feel so happy to be with you. Even with all the sand crunching in my boots, rubbing my skin raw, I could only feel happiness inside. Through the mediocre Mandarin that I spoke to your parents, I was able to express my appreciation for their kindness and hospitality. Occasionally, you had to translate English into your hometown dialect so they could understand stories about my family in America. Your mother was so curious the whole time as to why my parents never got married. That was a funny conversation. Working in the big city, I never had time for these peaceful moments. Your hometown, a common poor village of China, gave me a sense of home. Through all the stares and glances from the locals, I still walked by your side to the local pool hall with a smile on my face. As Spring Festival passed, we returned to our apartment in Beijing. This, our fourth year together, was the most peaceful out of them all. As the year began to heat up, we grew. We began to sit down, drink tea, and have some meaningful life conversations. Having no air conditioning and only relying on a few electric fans made some days unbearable. Sometimes YouDao(a popular online translation dictionary) was needed, but we were both happy to learn from each other. I left for work and to visit family in the U.S. for two months. Even our good bye at the airport was quite uneventful. Four years and you still couldn't kiss me goodbye in public. As much as that stung, I still told you that I loved you and would call you when I arrived. I would call you nearly every day. Youre a traditional man so maybe calling you every day seemed a little too romantic. Even my multiple "I love yous" couldn't get more than an "en" out of you. So, I cut back to calling you twice a week, at your request. I kept myself occupied with the martial arts routines you recorded yourself performing so I could practice at home. Your lack of romance has always created a big rift between us. Through the tears and snot dripping down my nose, I've realized how to love differently. I dare not try to change you. We both just simply speak different love languages. I know how much you love me. When I returned from my journey, you began to cook lunch and dinner for me every day. As we'd sit there eating our ham sandwiches, two boiled eggs, and cups of soy milk for breakfast, you'd be running back and forth stirring the meat and vegetables. I'm a terrible cook so I would clean up afterwards before I left. The shared household duties improved us. Every day, I would take the food to work so while others ate from nearby restaurants, I ate delicious dishes that were made with love. You would always make my favorites: noodles and stir-fried pork with garlic. You said it was to save money, but I like to think it was because you wanted me to be healthy. This year has been a lot like our hiking trips to Bai Wang Mountain (located about three kilometers northwest of the Summer Palace in Beijing). We've had so many times together; full of ups and downs. We argued and made up a lot. We struggled together. You made me cry and then said sorry and you'll try to be better too many times for me to count. At first, it was only my love of wushu that kept us together. That is how we met, was it not? You were first my martial arts teacher, now I look at you as my life teacher. Many times I've pondered as to why you would be with someone like me. I've felt like a burden, but you continued to open your heart to me. This year you've proven how good of a man you are. I wish you knew this. I feel I can't tell you enough and hope you can understand this unspoken feeling. I work so hard, almost to the brink of exhaustion for us. We are equals in this relationship so I want to take care of you like you do me. You're right there to tell me to do more! "You can work more!" "You can exercise more! "You can read more books!" You always push me to better myself. Most others would encourage me to rest, however; you push me to the edge. Some days I want to forget you, but then all it takes is one look from your eyes to make me smile and forget my anger. This new year, we will start a new chapter in our lives. We will exchange our vows and say I do; becoming husband and wife in the eyes of the Chinese and American law. We have no house, no car, and some savings, yet, I feel I'm richer than all of China's elites because I have you. You made me a better person and as I leave 2015, the memories can never be forgotten. Beautiful sunrise at Blyde River Canyon, a landmark natural feature of South Africa. [Photo provided to China Daily] Chinese tourists don't need transit visas anymore when they travel through South Africa's OR Tambo, Cape Town, King Shaka and Lanseria international airports to its six neighboring countries Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, according to the country's embassy in Beijing. That's just one of the moves that South Africa has made to attract more Chinese mainland tourists in the past few months. Besides existing visa centers in Beijing and Shanghai, it opened new ones in Chengdu and Guangzhou last August. To strengthen business communication, it will issue 10-year multiple-entry visas to corporate executives of fellow BRICS countries Brazil, Russia, India and China if they provide sufficient documents. China has become a core market for the country in recent years. In 2013, the number of tourists from the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong reached 151,847, an increase of 14.7 over 2012. Bradley Brouwer, South African Tourism's president for the Asia Pacific region, said his agency will work closely with Chinese partners to offer more convenience to Chinese consumers, so they can enjoy the countrys natural beauty, diversified cultures and varied wildlife. Workers set a cordon to enclose a cafe after it received damage following a gun and bomb attack in central Jakarta January 14, 2016. [Photo/Agencies] JAKARTA - Suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the heart of Indonesia's capital on Thursday and the assault was claimed by Islamic state, the first time the radical group has targeted the world's most populous Muslim nation. Seven people were killed in Jakarta despite multiple blasts and a gunfight, and five of them were the attackers themselves. It took security forces about three hours to end the attack near a Starbucks cafe and Sarinah, Jakarta's oldest department store, after a team of militants traded gunfire with police and blew themselves up. An Indonesian and a Canadian were killed in the attack. Twenty people, including an Algerian, an Austrian, a German and a Dutch national, were wounded. Jakarta's police chief told reporters: "ISIS is behind this attack definitely," using a common acronym for Islamic State, and he identified an Indonesian militant, Bahrun Naim, as the man responsible for plotting it. Police believe Naim is in the Syrian city of Raqqa. The drama played out on the streets and on television screens, with at least six explosions and a gunfight in a movie theatre. But the low death toll pointed to the involvement of local militants whose weapons were rudimentary, experts said. In a sign of public unease, a bang caused by a tyre bursting triggered a bomb scare that sent police cars rushing back to the scene hours after the attack. "The president has said the nation and the people should not be scared and should not be defeated by acts of terror," said palace spokesman Ari Dwipayana. China's Global Newspaper Sorry, the page you requested was not found. Please check the URL for proper spelling and capitalization. If you're having trouble locating a destination on Chinadaily.com.cn, try visiting the Chinadaily home page A tour bus veered off a road in the central Japanese town of Karuizawa, January 15, 2016. [Photo/IC] TOKYO - The death toll of a tour bus crash in Japan's central Nagano Prefecture early Friday has risen to 14, according to the latest local media reports. Japan's top government spokesperson Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press conference that 14 people had lost their lives among the 41 people traveling on the bus that was headed to a popular ski resort in Nagano. Thirty nine of those on the bus were passengers and two were drivers, local rescue officials said. The latest reports said around 30 people had been injured and were being treated in hospital, with 6 people in critical condition. Public broadcaster NHK reported the critically injured were showing "no vital signs" with fears mounting that the death toll may rise further. The accident occurred at around 2 am local time Friday (1700 GMT Thursday) on National Route 18, about 2 km south of the JR Karuizawa station. Police and investigators confirmed that the road conditions were not icy and investigations into the cause of the accident were underway. The tour bus departed from Shinjuku in central Tokyo on Thursday night, local media said. It veered onto the opposite lane of the road, before hitting a guard rail and flipping over. The tour bus full of skiers on its way to the Kitashiga highlands in the northern part of Nagano, ended up on its side in a wooded ravine off a mountainous road between Nagano and Gunma prefectures. The emergency call to rescue services was made by one of the passengers, according to the local media. Shaanxi Provincial Tourism Administration hosted a Shaanxi tourism promotion event in New Delhi on Wednesday as part of China-India Tourism Year. Over 80 representatives of Indian travel agencies and institutes attended the function, including Rajeev Kohli, President 2016 of Society for Incentive Travel Excellence (SITE), and Subhash Goyal, President of Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO). Deputy Director of Department of Tourism Promotion and International Liaison, Fan Wenming, and Director of Shaanxi Provincial Tourism Administration, Yang Zhongwu warmly welcomed all the guests and conveyed their best wishes to future development of Shaanxi tourism. Along with Visit China Year activities held by the China National Tourism Administration, more Indians will choose to visit China. We sincerely welcome our Indian friends to visit China and Shaanxi, just like your Prime Minister Mr Modi, to explore both cultural relics and natural beauty in Shaanxi, said Yang Zhongwu. Presented by Xian China International Travel Service and Xian China Travel Service, the event introduced history, splendid culture and natural beauty of Shaanxi province and received huge response from attendees. During the event, vivid introduction were provided of scenic spots visited by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015, including the Terra-cotta Warriors and Horses, the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, the Xian Ancient City Wall and Da Xingshan Temple, arousing keen interests. Chinese calligraphy show, tea ceremony and Terra-cotta Warriors deeply impressed the attendees. Yang wrote a monkey-shaped Chinese character Shou (longevity) and sent it to Rajeev as a gift for the coming 2016, the Year of Monkey. Representatives of Indian travel agencies expressed their intention of communicating and cooperating with local travel agencies and sending more Indian tourists to Shaanxi. Shaanxi province is developing in-bound tourism by creating various new tourism products including study tour, MICE tourism and leisure tour, which include featured historical and cultural tourism resources Successful promotion events by Shaanxi Province Tourism Administration further shaped the international tourism image of Shaanxi province as the starting point of the ancient Silk Road and the hometown of the Terra-cotta Warriors and Horses. With the implementation of 72-hour visa free policy in Shaanxi, more travelers will come to Shaanxi to see the root of Chinese civilization. The US Treasury Department's move to identify and track buyers of high-priced real estate in New York City and Miami-Dade County in Florida over money-laundering concerns is not expected to have a major impact on those markets, according to real estate professionals. "What the government is requesting in terms of the title companies providing information on beneficial owners, we've been doing that already," said Edward Mermelstein, international real estate attorney with Rheem Bell & Mermelstein LLP. "This is not something that is new in our market, especially in Manhattan." In a press release on Wednesday, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the US Treasury Department said that its Geographic Targeting Orders (GTO) "will temporarily require certain US title insurance companies to identify the natural persons behind companies used to pay all cash' for high-end residential real estate in the Borough of Manhattan in New York City, New York, and Miami-Dade County, Florida". "FinCEN is concerned that all-cash purchases - i.e., those without bank financing - may be conducted by individuals attempting to hide their assets and identity by purchasing residential properties through limited liability," the release said. The GTOs will be in effect for 180 days, from March 1 to Aug 27. Mermelstein said the initiative is not a timely response to anything specific, just "background noise" from the media and possibly a reaction to pressure from other countries' governments looking to slow the pace of real estate investment into the US. "It's not something that is timely in the same way that banking regulations with respect to mortgages came in after the market collapsed," he said. "If you're looking to do something, do it in real time when it's happening, rather than after the fact. "Based on all the due diligence that we've been doing - and the brokers in the business have been doing, as well as banks where the money has to be deposited into - all of this has been addressed for many years," he continued. "We're not all of a sudden changing the way we do business in our market because of what the government is proposing - it's just another form that's being filled out, and it doesn't really affect us in any way whatsoever." Buyers purchasing properties for more than $1 million in Miami and more than $3 million in New York will need to be identified, according to a spokesperson at FinCEN. Liz Gagliardi, senior vice-president of Jones Lang LaSalle's capital markets division, said that disclosures are already happening with the real estate firm's clients. "The vast majority of Chinese buyers - and in particular our clients - are legitimate buyers," she said. "We anticipate these buyers will understand that this is part of the acquisition process for purchasing properties in the US, and we'll comply as needed." "As we are marketing properties into Asia Pacific and into China, we're encouraging them to consult with both legal and tax advisers in their home countries and in the US as part of the acquisition process so they can determine what holding real estate assets mean, and doing that typically leads to those types of disclosures that are being required as part of those initiatives," she said. Gagliardi also said that the majority of the firm's clients purchase properties at prices between $750,000 and $2 million, so she does not expect the announcement to have any impact in the New York market. Government officials were motivated by a New York Times investigation that looked at shell companies being used by foreign buyers to hide their money in the US, according to the paper. "We are seeking to understand the risk that corrupt foreign officials, or transnational criminals, may be using premium US real estate to secretly invest millions in dirty money," said Jennifer Shasky Calvery, FinCEN director, in the release. "Over the years, our rules have evolved to make the standard mortgage market more transparent and less hospitable to fraud and money laundering," she said. "But cash purchases present a more complex gap that we seek to address. These GTOs will produce valuable data that will assist law enforcement and inform our broader efforts to combat money laundering in the real estate sector." Howard Lorber, chairman of Douglas Elliman, said that he does not see these actions as a long-term concern. "We think that this will have little effect on the market; it is de minimis and will not have a significant impact," he said in a statement provided to China Daily. Chinese buyers make up the largest group of foreign buyers of US real estate, according to the National Association of Realtors, and buy every one in 14 homes worth over $1 million. In the year ending March 2015, Chinese buyers spent $28.6 billion on American homes, the association said. In total, Chinese have spent about $6 billion on real estate in the US last year, $4.5 billion of which was in New York. Miami is a market of interest for Chinese buyers looking to purchase property away from gateway cities in the US, although only 2 percent of international buyers in Miami are from China, according to the Miami Association of Realtors. amyhe@chinadailyusa.com The green light has been given to the delayed Colombo Port City project, the Sri Lankan ambassador to China confirmed on Friday. A financial hub connecting South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East is expected to be set up in the Colombo Port City, said Karunasena Kodituwakku, Sri Lankan ambassador to China in an exclusive interview with China Daily. The $1.4 billion urban complex project will cover 233 hectares adjoining the Port of Colombo. The deal was initially signed between the Sri Lankan government and the China Communications Construction Co in November 2013. However, it was suspended by the Sri Lankan government early in 2015 after Maithripala Sirisena became the country's president. A greater environmental impact assessment to allay public concern was needed, which was "not the fault of the Chinese company", reiterated Kodituwakku, the ambassador. The "incremental environmental impact" by the project is "minimal/negligible at the reclamation site and the coastal zone to the North and South of the site," said an environmental impact assessment report released by the Sri Lankan authorities in December. "The project will create employment, create tax income, and create indirect opportunity for other services. ... Everybody will benefit," said the Ambassador. Colombo Port City will become "a high-end urban complex in South Asia concentrating industries, including finance, tourism, logistics and information technology," and the whole project will create more than 80,000 jobs, said China's Ministry of Commerce in November 2013. President Xi Jinping will start a visit to the Middle East next week, marking his first official trip to the region since taking office, it was announced on Friday. Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said in a written statement that Xi will visit Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran from Tuesday to Saturday. Observers said that after the conclusion of the visit, Xi's footprints worldwide will cover all major destinations on six continents. Since this year marks the 60th anniversary of China-Arab diplomatic relations, Xi's stay in Cairo, the Egyptian capital, will be even more significant because the city is home to the headquarters of the League of Arab States. The Chinese government issued its first Arab policy paper on Wednesday. The paper elaborates on China's strategic vision and plans on cooperation with countries in the region. Li Shaoxian, a senior expert of Middle East studies at Ningxia University in Yinchuan, the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, said it is time for China to gradually step up its engagement in the Middle East, since "we have increasing economic interests, security concerns and cooperation dynamics in the region". Meanwhile, stability in the Middle East is also related to stability in the western part of China, where 20 million Muslims live, Li said. "China is willing to see a stable Middle East," Li said. China-Arab trade reached $155.3 billion in the first nine months of last year, and China imported 110 million tons of crude oil in the same period, a year-on-year increase of 4.6 percent. Nabil el-Araby, secretary-general of the Arab League, told Vice-Foreign Minister Zhang Ming earlier this month in Cairo that the Arab states are ready to work with China to further tap cooperative potential. Contact the writer at zhangyunbi@chinadaily.com.cn and wangxu@chinadaily.com.cn 150116DONA QUESTIONS BOUGAINVILLE LEADERSHIP By Aloysius Laukai The Combined Central Bougainville Council of Elders, Chairman, JOHN DONA has questioned where the Bougainvilles leaders have gone to. He said from ARAWA that he was not happy that Bougainville has been silent for too long on issues that are happening that will affect Bougainville now and in the future. MR. DONA said that many things happened when people were celebrating the Christmas and New Year festivities and not a single Bougainville leader has voiced his concern over them. He said with the coming National Election, Bougainville must make sure people who can talk on behalf of their people are voted into the last house. MR. DONA said that he meant last house, as if the people of Bougainville decide for Independence at the Referendum vote, these members will no longer be members of the National Parliament. Ends (Photo : Getty Images/ China Photos / Stringer) The Eastern Tombs of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) is one of the largest, most complete and best preserved mausoleum complex in China. Advertisement Local authorities on Tuesday confirmed that the Jingling Mausoleum for imperial concubines located at the Eastern Qing tombs in Zunhua city, Hebei province, was robbed by tomb raiders in the wee hours of October 31, 2015. Several suspects have been arrested in connection with the robbery, according to authorities. Several pieces of the cultural relics (precious jewelry, ancient clothing and other priceless artifacts) that were stolen have also been recovered. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement The Eastern Tombs of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) is one of the largest, most complete and best preserved mausoleum complex in China. It received worldwide recognition after being included in the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2000. The construction of the complex, which stretches over a total land area of 80 square kilometers, took over 247 years to complete after contruction began in 1661. The area is surrounded by the Changrui mountain, Jixing mountain, Huanghua mountain and the Yingfie Daoyan mountain. A staggering total of five emperors, fifteen empresses, 136 imperial concubines, three princes and two princesses from the Qing dynasty are said to be buried in the area, which explains the fact that the site is full of precious jewelry and other priceless materials. Nearby villagers have revealed that this is not the first time one of the tombs has been robbed. It is unclear which tomb was robbed, but it is speculated that it was the tomb of Empress Dowager Cixi, which is the most lavishly decorated among the tombs. Local authorities have now heightened security in the area. Advertisement TagsHebei, Eastern Qing Tombs, China Tomb Robbery 150116HAMAL SAWA DELIVERS WATER TANKS By Aloysius Laukai The ABG member for HAGOGOHE and Vice Minister for Community Development, ROBERT HAMAL SAWA says water is a basic need for the people of Hagogohe and that he has invested funds to purchase Water Tanks for the Village Assemblies in his constituency. He said that he will deliver 31 Tanks to the Village Assemblies this week with two more containers arriving next week. MR. SAWA told New Dawn FM that he will be working with the WORLD VISION to fix the Bore water pumps that have broken down in his constituency. He said that work on the Rural Electrification into HAGOGOHE was also progressing well and his people will be benefiting from all these services soon. Ends (Photo : Getty Images) Only 10,000 Taiwanese from Dongguan are expected to go home to vote in the upcoming presidential election. Advertisement Some Taiwanese expatriates across the world - including those in China - have have decided to pass up the chance to travel back to their native land to participate in the Jan. 16 presidental elections. Less than 10 percent of nearly one million Taiwanese nationals abroad are expected to go home to heed the call of civic duty. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement According to ABC, just 100,000 Taiwanese living in China are planning to fly home to vote in the election on Saturday. As the chances of the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party becomes dim, most Taiwanese in China don't see the point of going home anymore. Since the Nationalist KMT party came into power in 2008, the relations between Taiwan and China has improved steadily - culminating in a meeting between President Xi Jinping and President Ma Ying-jeou last year. Under President Ma, both countries have signed more than 20 trade deals. A majority of the workers in the self-governed island apparently favour the pro-business Nationalist KMT party over the independence-leaning opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). However, some pollsters have allegedly chosen to support the DPP over concerns about the island nation's growing dependence on China. Authorities in mainland China and the Taiwanese government have encouraged Taiwanese nationals all over the world to go home for the elections. However, with the DPP's Tsai Ing-wen likely to become the next president, fewer Taiwanese businessmen have decided to make the trip. In 2008, around 40,000 Taiwanese nationals in China went home to vote for President Ma to become the country's leader. All in all, almost 70,000 Taiwanese made a trip that year. David Chai, the chairman of the Taiwan Business Association in Dongguan, believes that only 10,000 Taiwanese from Dongguan will go home to vote this year despite high expectations of the KMT party that around 100,000 will make the trip. As a result, airlines have decreased prices on commercial flights to encourage more voters to go home. The South East Travel Service Co. Ltd reportedly spent three weeks just to fill a 300-capacity charter flight from Shanghai for the elections. Advertisement TagsChina Taiwan Presidential Elections 2016, Taiwan Elections, dpp (Photo : Getty Images) African exports to China slumped almost 40 percent last year. Advertisement Africa's economy suffered last year fell as China experienced a recession. African exports to China decreased by almost 40 percent in 2015. China is the single biggest trading partner of the African continent. China's demand for African commodities has sustained the latter's economic growth recently. But as China's economy went downhill briefly, Africa's exports also declined. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement This led to some strains in Africa's economy and forced some countries to resort to currency depreciation. According to Chinese Customs spokesman Huang Songping, African exports to China last year amounted to $67 billion. This is 38 percent lower compared to figures in 2014. According to BBC Africa Business Report editor Matthew Davies, China's demand for metals and minerals from Africa is falling rapidly as China's economy heads for a hard downfall, as many analysts predict. With this, commodity prices are also affected. More so, direct investment from China into the continent decreased by 40 percent in the first half of 2015. This only means that there is less money from China going to Africa. Meanwhile, Africa's demand for Chinese goods has seen an increase of 3.6 percent. During a China-Africa summit, which was hosted by South Africa last year, China President Xi Jinping stated that China will provide $60 billion worth of aid and loans to Africa. That gesture cemented China's role as a major factor in Africa's economic growth. This year, China's hopes to regain its footing once more despite many bleak predictions for its economy. Advertisement Tagschina economic growth, China-Africa Ties (Photo : Getty Images/Ulet Ifansasti) Taiwan DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (center) is seen delivering a speech during a campaign rally in Taoyuan, Taiwan, in the above photo. Tsai believes Taiwan should explore an economic strategy involving trade with a broader set of partners, including the US. Advertisement With elections just hours away, crucial economic issues have come to dominate political discourse in Taiwan, and -- as always -- the key question for both candidates and voters alike is whether Taiwan's economic future lies in closer ties with China or an autonomous national identity. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement If elections were decided by opinion polls, then opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen would have already been swept to power several times during the campaign period. The polls also indicate that Tsai's party is likely to dominate Taiwan's Legislative Yuan for the first time, which would allow the DPP to pursue its policies virtually unfettered by any opposition within Taiwan's legislature. Throughout her campaign, Tsai has criticized the incumbent Koumintang (KMT) for Taiwan's economic woes, insisting that President Ma Ying-jeou has not done enough to protect the island's enterprises against Chinese state-sponsored competition. "Workers are going overseas, and a huge number are being poached by Chinese enterprises," Tsai is quoted by the New York Times as saying. "Many of our young people abroad can't find a way home." The view is shared by many in Taiwan's opposition, who blame China for draining the island's workforce of much-needed talent. "One thing we're concerned about is that as China grows, they want to recruit more people from key industries in Taiwan," says deputy minister Kao Shien-quey of Taiwan's National Development Council. "To develop flat screens, LEDs, LCDs and solar power they came and lured away people from Taiwan." The Times reports that some 600,000 Taiwanese nationals spent more than half of the year overseas in 2013. Some 75 percent of those people spent their time abroad in China. "Beijing's strategy is to lure Taiwan deeper and deeper into China," Taiwanese editor Diane Ying told Foreign Policy Magazine recently. "But the Taiwan people don't like the way of life there." KMT's presidential nominee Eric Chu meanwhile argues that China remains important to Taiwan's economic future. Cross-Strait trade saw a tremendous increase during Ma's presidency, from around $18 billion in 2000 to some $200 billion a year currently. China now also buys about 40 percent of Taiwan's exports. But China's economic slowdown has hurt Taiwan. The numbers are yet to be made public, but experts say Taiwan's gross domestic product (GDP) grew by a mere one percent in 2015. This, some Taiwanese voters say, is why the KMT party is behind in the polls. Ling Shi-how, 30, who sells construction supplies in Taipei, says KMT has neglected Taiwan's middle class and placed too much emphasis on the island's partnership with China. "They only take care of corporations, and they want to rely on China," Ling says of the ruling party. "The truth is, for exports, we should look to Europe and the US." The DPP presidential candidate Tsai agrees, saying at one point during her campaign that Taiwan should explore an economic strategy involving trade with a broader set of partners, including the US. "We cannot simply be bound to China," Tsai said during a televised debate with her election rivals some weeks ago. "That's what worries us most about the past eight years, the sense that that's the only choice we have." Most experts agree, however, that China is sure to limit Tsai's proposed trade strategy if the DPP does win the elections by as wide a margin as the polls have predicted. Not even a DPP-dominated legislature can stop China from exercising its de facto veto power on Taiwan's participation in international trade. Noting that much of the focus during the election campaign was on socio-economic issues, Jonathan Sullivan of the University of Nottingham's School of Contemporary Studies says that, in fact, there is not much the DPP can change about the structure of Taiwan's economy without China's consent. "These policies capture the zeitgeist," Sullivan says. "But I do not see the DPP being able to -- or promoting -- a radical overhaul of the economy." Advertisement TagsTaiwan, China-Taiwan relations, Taiwan Presidential Elections 2016 (Photo : Mark Kolbe/Getty Images) The shells were found hidden inside four nappy bags at the Futian crossing on Tuesday. Advertisement More than 40 shells of the endangered Hawksbill sea turtles have been discovered at the Shenzhen border crossing in southern China. The shells were found hidden inside four nappy bags at the Futian crossing on Tuesday, according to South China Morning Post. It is unclear who was in possesion of the shells, or if any arrest has been made. The case is reportedly under investigation by the customs' anti-smuggling department. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement The Hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys Imbricata) has been tagged as critically endangered globally since 1996. In China, it is prohibited by law to catch, sell or buy the said turtle. The Hawksbill, which is known as the longevity turtle in China, is frequently hunted down for its shell, which has a distinctive pattern and design that makes it a popular choice for decorations. The Hawksbill is the only known reptile to have a biofluorescent shell in the wild, glowing with bright red and green colors in the dark. Biofluorescence occurs when an organism absorbs light from an outside source and then reemits it. This process can be seen in glow-in-the-dark stickers. Biofluorescence is different from bioluminescence, which is how other creatures such as fireflies glow. The latter is a chemical reaction that produces light. Due to poaching, Hawksbill sea turtles have almost vanished from Chinese waters. Outside the country, they have also been largely lost to illegal trade. One place, however, where they are still very healthy is the Solomon Islands, located in the South Pacific. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), the Hawksbill has reached a critically low population because of the over-exploitation of female turtles and eggs at nesting beaches; the destruction of habitats where the Hawksbill nests; the catching of juvenile and adult turtles in areas where they thrive; turtle deaths caused by marine fishing methods; and the destruction of marine habitats. Advertisement TagsHawksbill sea turtle, endangered species, endangered turtles, smuggling, Illegal trade (Photo : China Photos/Getty Images) Zhou Xiaoyun, a well-known blogger, wonders how the money, which amounted to 177 million yuan ($26.87 million USD), was spent. Advertisement A prominent Chinese blogger has filed a lawsuit demanding that authorities in Guizhou and Bijie provide information detailing how a fund allotted to help left-behind children was spent. Zhou Xiaoyun, a well-known blogger, wonders how the money, which amounted to 177 million yuan ($26.87 million USD), was spent. He reportedly demanded full disclosure regarding the funds on June 16, 2015, after four left-behind children in Bijie, Guizhou province drank pesticide on June 9, killing themselves, according to Beijing Times. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement The father of the four children is reportedly a migrant worker, who had to leave his children three months earlier to work away from home. Their mother had also left them a year earlier. This is a common trend among families in impoverished areas of China. The fund to help left-behind children was started by the Bijie government in 2012 after five children, who were left behind by their parents for various reasons, died trying to keep themselves warm by burning charcoal inside a roadside dumpster. They died of suffocation. The Chinese government allots about 60 million yuan annually to help take care of such children left behind by their parents. However, tragedies of this kind still occurs in the country. Zhou, a former investigative reporter, wonders how the money has been spent and what effects it has had in helping the children. His request for full discosure in June was turned down. The local government reportedly replied him a month later, saying that the information he is requesting does not exist." The government did say, however, that a total of 177.24 million yuan was released over three years to help care for the children. "I need more details about where the money goes and why there is still a high frequency of such offenses," Zhou said. Zhou approached the Guizhou provincial government in October, requesting that Bijie authorities are ordered to publish the relevant documents, but his request was also turned down. In December 2015, Zhou decided to file an administrative lawsuit against the authorities in Guizhou and Bijie at the Intermediate People's Courts in Guiyang. The court has agreed to hear the case. Advertisement TagsZhou Xiaoyun, 'left behind children', millions of left-behind children, left-behind, Bijie (Photo : Reuters/Petar Kujundzic) There are speculations that China could dispatch troops to Iraq and Syria and join forces with Russian troops, who are currently carrying out airstrikes in Syria. Advertisement U.S. defense officials have revealed that China may soon join the global military campaign against terrorists in Iraq and Syria as Beijing is concerned about the growing number of its citizens joining the Islamic State (IS), according to the Washington Times. China's official guidelines for dealing with counterterrorism, which was formulated in December, advocates further involvement in defense activities overseas. On Wednesday, Beijing also released a document calling on for closer defense and military cooperation with the Arab world against terrorism. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement There are speculations that China could dispatch troops to Iraq and Syria and join forces with Russian troops, who are currently carrying out airstrikes in Syria. China is worried over the rising number of extremist in the Uyghur Muslim community in the Xinjiang autonomous region in Western China, which has reportedly become a source of support for the Islamic State terrorists. According to the Turkish army, a majority of the 913 ISIS terrorists captured while crossing the Syrian border since January last year were 'Chinese Muslims.' There are speculations that Chinese forces will not be joining the US-led military coalition currently operating in Syria and Iraq but will instead join Russian forces who are involved in heavy bombing of terrorist targets in Syria. China has expressed alarm over the growing influence of the Islamic State in Xinjiang Province. Uyghur extremists have been known to conduct terrorist attacks in the country with guns and explosives prompting the Chinese military to crack down on the region. In July last year, ISIS released a rare video calling on all Uyghurs in China to join them in the Middle East. This was the first time that the Islamic State appealed to the Uyghurs in China to join their organization. Advertisement TagsISIS, Uyghur Muslim Community, 'Chinese Muslims' (Photo : Reuters) A Chinese economic fugitive, who had gone in hiding in Britain, has returned to China after she was 'persuaded' to surrender. Advertisement Chinese authorities have netted another financial fugitive, who has been hiding in the United Kingdom for three years, after the woman, suspected of money laundering, surrendered to authorities on Thursday. Chen Yijuan, 45, a former mobile phone company employee, went into hiding in Britain in April 2013 after Chinese authorities started investigating her for alleged money laundering. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement Beijing said Chen is one of three economic fugitives who went into hiding in Britain. She is the 20th corruption suspect who has returned to China from the country either voluntarily or by repatriation. China's operation Skynet 100, which is aimed at capturing the country's top 100 economic fugitives who have fled abroad, is still moving at a slow pace due to the absence of an extradition treaty with several countries. China's anti-corruption watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), said authorities persuaded Chen to return to China after three years in hiding. Authorities "successfully persuaded" Chen to return to China, an online statement from the CCDI said. "Under threat of legal action and policy pressure, Chen Yijuan chose to return to China on her own accord and surrender to authorities," the statement added. A majority of the 100 most wanted suspects on China's Skynet list are reported to be living openly in North American countries like the US and Canada. Some of them have gained the status of legal immigrants. Britain is one of the many countries that does not have an extradition treatiy with China and as such is a safe haven for corrupt officials looking to escape the arms of the law. Several western countries, who have not signed any extradiction treaty with Beijing, cite human rights concerns and the existence of the death penalty in China's legal system as their reasons from failing to handover criminals. Advertisement TagsSkynet 100, financial fugitives, money laundering charges, Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (Photo : Richard Stonehouse/Getty Images) Chinese President Xi Jinping is visiting Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt from Jan. 19 to Jan. 23. Advertisement Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to visit the tumultuous Middle East next week. He will be visiting Saudi Arabia and Iran, the two countries at loggerheads with each other, and also Egypt. Xi will be the first top Chinese political leader to visit the war-torn region in more than five years. His visit is seen as China's attempt to play the role of an "honest broker" between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement "China is trying to present itself as an honest broker between Saudi and Iran, much as it has done between the Syrian government and opposition," a Beijing-based diplomat, who is familiar with China's Middle East policy, told Reuters. Meanwhile, Xinhua noted that Beijing will be seen taking a more "proactive approach to the region" when Chinese President visits Saudi Arabia, Iran and Egypt from Jan. 19 to Jan. 23. The country has been often accused of being a bystander and not playing a greater diplomatic role to bring about peace in the region. With Xi's visit, China expects to change the perception of being a bystander whose main concern is its burgeoning energy needs. According to Xinhua, China intends to show the world that it is "committed to peace and development" in the region, which goes beyond securing its oil supplies. China published its Arab Policy Paper ahead of Xi's visit to the Middle East. The paper states that the country intends to strength China-Arab traditional friendship. China is also seeking to deepen its cooperation with Arab countries and also "safeguard peace, stability and development of the region and the world at large," according to the paper. Advertisement TagsChina Middle East Role, Chinese President Xi Jinping middle east visit BREAKING: Anglicans punish Episcopal Church over same-sex marriage 15 January, 2016 by Gregory Tomlin , | LONDON (Christian Examiner) Leaders of the Church of England have decided to punish the Episcopal Church in the U.S. for its unscriptural views and practices on same-sex marriage, a statement from the church's primates (archbishops over the churches of the Anglican Communion) said Jan. 14. The primates agreed to remain a unified church, but they acknowledged "the significant distance that remains" between churches following the biblical view of marriage and those with heretical views. The statement from the church leaders was supposed to be released tomorrow, but its content was leaked early. The primates then decided to issue the full statement of the agreement, which demonstrates the commitment of the primates "to continue the life of the Communion with neither victor nor vanquished." In the agreement, the Anglican primates said "deep differences" exist in the various churches of the Communion: "Recent developments in The Episcopal Church with respect to a change in their Canon on marriage represent a fundamental departure from the faith and teaching held by the majority of our Provinces on the doctrine of marriage. Possible developments in other Provinces could further exacerbate this situation." "The traditional doctrine of the church in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds marriage as between a man and a woman in faithful, lifelong union. The majority of those gathered reaffirm this teaching," the statement said. Recent developments in The Episcopal Church with respect to a change in their Canon on marriage represent a fundamental departure from the faith and teaching held by the majority of our Provinces on the doctrine of marriage. Possible developments in other Provinces could further exacerbate this situation. The statement also condemned the Episcopal Church's having undertaken the shift in doctrine without consultation from other church leaders, calling it a "departure from the mutual accountability and interdependence implied through being in relationship with each other in the Anglican Communion." The actions, the statement said, impaired the church and created deep mistrust in the body. As a result, primates ruled that for three years ministers from the Episcopal Church in America cannot represent the Anglican Communion in any ecumenical or interfaith organization, cannot serve on any internal committee in the worldwide church, and cannot take part in decision making on doctrine or church polity for the Anglican Communion. Michael Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the U.S., was allowed to speak to the primates gathered at Canterbury Cathedral before the vote was taken to discipline the American church. He said the sanctions would be a painful blow to Episcopalians in the U.S. "Our commitment to be an inclusive church is not based on a social theory or capitulation to the ways of the culture, but on our belief that the outstretched arms of Jesus on the cross are a sign of the very love of God reaching out to us all. While I understand that many disagree with us, our decision regarding marriage is based on the belief that the words of the Apostle Paul to the Galatians are true for the church today: All who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, for all are one in Christ," Curry said. Curry called gays and lesbians in the American church "fellow disciples of Jesus" who have been rejected by family members and the community, so he said the church opened its doors as a "sign of hope." "The pain [caused by the primate's decision] for many will be real. But God is greater than anything. I love Jesus and I love the church. I am a Christian in the Anglican way. And like you, as we have said in this meeting, I am committed to 'walking together' with you as fellow primates in the Anglican family," Curry said. Curry's desire to "walk together," however, shouldn't be considered as a sign that the church will change its approach toward homosexuals and same-sex marriage, according to Jeff Walton, director of the ecumenical Institute for Religion and Democracy. Walton said in a statement the decision of the primates to suspend the church was the equivalent of putting a child in "time out." "But the goal of 'time out' is to change behavior, and the Episcopal Church has clearly spoken that it will not deviate from its chosen trajectory," Walton said. "There will be no formal schism, but primates will continue as they have since 2003 refusing to take the Holy Eucharist with their fellow bishops due to the 'impaired' or 'broken communion' between their provinces and the Episcopal Church." "The primates who have taken this step have cited three reasons for doing so: the lack of reconciliation between the Episcopal Church and their provinces, obedience to Scripture, and the admonitions of the Book of Common Prayer. For them it's a question of faithfulness to Jesus Christ," Walton said. Giles Fraser, a liberal parish priest in London, said he was "thoroughly ashamed to be an Anglican." Fraser told the The Independent in London he was made aware of the primate's decision just after attending a same-sex marriage ceremony. He called the statement issued by the church leaders a "vanity project" that makes little difference in the way he plans to carry out his responsibilities. He also said the "fearmongering that comes from certain parts of the Communion cannot destroy and should not be able to destroy the love that two people have for each other and the way people feel the need to express that love in marriage." Retired Bishop V. Gene Robinson, whose appointment by the Episcopal Church in 2003 led the denomination down the path toward accepting same-sex marriage, commented via social media, "God's judgment against those who include too many will be less harsh than the judgment against those who include too few. I'm just sayin.'" Robinson married his longtime partner, but has since divorced. Some conservatives among the primates initially wanted to include the Anglican Church of Canada in the suspension because of the church's leftward drift toward developing a rite of same-sex marriage, but the primates passed on the idea after Canadian Archbishop Fred Hiltz said his province had not yet adopted or been able to vote on any official policies or teachings about same-sex marriage. Trump, Cruz clash over citizenship in GOP debate 15 January, 2016 by Reuters , | NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) - Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump and top challenger Ted Cruz clashed sharply on Thursday over the Texas senator's eligibility to run for the White House during a tense debate weeks before voters start to pick the party's nominee. Businessman and reality TV star Trump said Cruz's path to the presidency was in question because he was born in Canada. The U.S. Constitution mandates that only "natural born" citizens can become president of the United States. Cruz, who was born in Calgary, Alberta, to a U.S. citizen mother and a Cuban father, accused Trump of bringing up his birthplace simply because Cruz was leading some polls in Iowa, which holds the first nominating contest on Feb. 1 in the run up to the November general election. Cruz said Trump, who led the movement questioning whether the Hawaiian-born President Barack Obama was really from the United States, had asked his lawyers to look into the issue of Cruz's birth in September and concluded there were no issues. "Since September, the Constitution hasn't changed, but the poll numbers have," Cruz said. "And I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are dropping in Iowa, but the facts and the law here are really clear." Trump said Democrats would sue if Cruz were on the Republican ticket, putting their party's chances of winning at risk. "There's a big question mark on your head," Trump told his rival, with whom he has had friendly relations over the past year on the campaign trail. "The Democrats are going to bring a lawsuit." He urged Cruz, who is a lawyer, to ask a court to put the question to rest. "I'm not going to be taking legal advice from Donald Trump," Cruz retorted. Trump, who has proven to be a master at finding a perceived weakness in an opponent, has made an increasing issue of Cruz's Canadian birth. He admitted during the debate that he was doing so because of Cruz's improving political prospects. Cruz has steered clear of criticizing Trump during his rise to the top of the national polls, but that ended on Thursday. In addition to fighting back over his presidential eligibility, Cruz accused Trump of not being a conservative because he was born in New York and still lives there. "Everyone understands that the values of New York City are socially liberal, are pro-abortion, are pro-gay marriage," Cruz said. Trump rebutted Cruz's comments by referring to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. He said New Yorkers came together to support each other after thousands were killed and cleaned up the site of the destroyed 110-story World Trade Center's twin towers, enduring "the smell of death" for months. "That was a very insulting statement that Ted made," Trump said. TENSIONS HIGH The sixth Republican debate, at the North Charleston Coliseum in the swing state of South Carolina, takes place at a tense time for the Republican field. Florida Senator Marco Rubio, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Ohio Governor John Kasich rounded out the top seven candidates ranked by Republican voters on the stage. A Google snap poll showed viewers believed Trump was winning the debate more than halfway through, with 32.8 percent backing him and 28.7 percent backing Cruz. Cruz, who has taken the lead in some polls of Iowa Republican voters, did well on social media. Social media monitoring tool Zoomph saw total positive mentions for Cruz climb by more than 150 percent while he sparred with Trump. Trump is far ahead nationally. A Reuters/Ipsos rolling national poll on Jan. 12 showed Trump had 39 percent of the vote, Cruz 14.5 percent, Bush 10.6 percent, Carson 9.6 percent, while 6.7 percent favored Rubio. The other candidates sought to gain traction in the debate with criticism of Obama's policies on guns and also threw barbs about his State of the Union address on Tuesday. In that speech, Obama sought to offer a more optimistic vision for America's future and he singled out Trump, without naming him, for calling on the United States to ban Muslims temporarily from entering the country. Bush urged Trump to change his views on the issue. Trump, who noted that his poll numbers rose after making that policy proposal, said his mind was made up. The billionaire also said he would not "care less" about his company, The Trump Organization, if he became president, allowing executives and his children to run it. Rubio, once viewed by the Republican establishment and many donors as a rising star, said Cruz was a political opportunist who was not a consistent conservative. Cruz said Rubio had his facts wrong. 150116HARDLINERS QUERY PM MOVE By Aloysius Laukai The so called BOUGAINVILLE NO GO ZONE HARDLINERS have also questioned the motive by the Prime Minister, PETER ONEILL to appoint himself as the Minister for Bougainville Affairs. Hardliners Chairman, JAMES ONATO said from ARAWA that they were concerned a lot of activities were happening which requires the Prime Minister to explain to the people of Papua New Guinea. MR. ONATO said that they were concerned at the recent landing of the Government Jet, Kumul on Christmas Day, Talk about PNG Paying of RIO TINTO Shares and now the Ministerial reshuffle. MR. ONATO said that his group will not allow any intrusion by outsiders Into the NO GO ZONE areas. Ends Open Doors, a persecution watchdog group, released its annual report which noted that the violence perpetrated against Christians last year was one of the highest in recent years. Over 7,000 Christians were murdered for their faith during the past year. North Korea recorded the highest number of persecutions, followed by Iraq. North Korea has remained on the top slot in the Open Doors World Watch List over the last 14 years. Presently, more than 50,000 Christians are expected to be detained in the country's notorious labor camps. The study released on January 13 says that Iraq topped the list of Islamic countries where the persecution had risen to "a level akin to ethnic cleansing." Even though religious persecution has long been prevalent in countries such as North Korea and Eritrea, violence against Christians increased in recent years due to militant groups such as Islamic State and Al-Shabaab. Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab were the "sinister" force behind violence in four African countries, according to Open Doors CEO David Curry spoke to reporters at a press briefing about this year's findings. The other countries scoring high on persecution were Eritrea, Afghanistan, Syria, and Pakistan, while Niger and Oman ranked the lowest. Last year, Open Doors said that 2014 surpassed modern history in the level of persecution against Christians. However, the year 2015 reported an even more increased amount of violence directed towards Christians. "The 2016 World Watch List documents an unprecedented escalation of violence against Christians, making this past year the most violent and sustained attack on Christian faith in modern history. This research has concluded that after the brutal persecution of Christians in 2014, 2015 proved to be even worse with the persecution continuing to increase, intensify and spread across the globe," Curry said. According to Curry, over 2,400 churches worldwide were destroyed or damaged this year. "Religious freedom is threatened by the impact of blasphemy laws or apostasy laws in countries including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan and in a number of others as well as laws that purport to protect religious sentiments from offense," said David Saperstein, U.S. State Department's Ambassador at-large for International Religious Freedom, said at the press conference. "In far too many countries far too many people face daunting, alarming restrictions " on practicing their faith, he noted. "Every one of the numbers in this report is a human being." The United Nations and other agencies sent humanitarian-aid convoys on Monday to a Syrian town that has been under siege for seven months by the Assad regime. The United Nations and other agencies sent over 40 trucks to distribute food and medicine, being allowed into the town of 40,000 residents for the first time since October of last year. "Many people were coming cheering, shaking our hands, but some of them were shouting angrily 'why did it take you so long?'" Pawel Krzysiek of the International Committee of the Red Cross told Reuters on Tuesday. U.N. officials say that death by starvation cannot be confirmed. However, an aid group called Doctors without Borders say that at least 23 people have died from starvation since December 1, including 6 infants. Siege is a common tactic of war, one that has been used in Syrias five-year conflict by the regime, rebel groups, and Islamic State despite international laws that ban it. The second aid convoy from aid agencies -- including the International Committee of the Red Cross, the United Nations, and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent -- following Mondays delivery arrived Thursday. Most people know me as a New Testament scholar. To keep my reading of Scripture balanced, however, I do most of my devotions from the Old Testament. Indeed, I have encountered God especially deeply in prophetic books such as Hosea and Jeremiah, where God laments over his people who have wandered far from him. God intended for his people to have an intimate relationship with him, a covenant relationship that the Bible compares with marriage. In Hosea, we hear Gods broken heart, his longing for his covenant people, who were so often unfaithful to him. And they actually turned against him, the very one who helped them (Hos. 13:9). God later lamented through the prophet Jeremiah, My people have committed two wrongs: They abandoned me, the spring of flowing waters, and have dug out for themselves water pitsbroken water pits that cannot hold water (Jer. 2:13). Yet God, even in his anger, remained faithful to Israel. In his jealous love, God declared that he would strip them of what they valued, the gifts they wrongly attributed to false gods, so they could learn to depend solely on him (Hos. 2:813). Gripped by Gods love, I preached one of my first sermonsas a college studenton Hosea 11:8. Here, in the midst of pronouncing judgment on his people, Gods voice breaks with his love for them: How can I do to you like I did to Admah and Zeboiim? Admah and Zeboyim were, like Sodom and Gomorrah, cities that God had overturned in his anger and burned (Deut. 29:23). Not wanting to treat Israel like he had treated these cities, God cries, My heart is overturned within me; all my compassion grows warm! God chooses to endure the overturning and ... 1 Anglican Communion Leaders Suspend Episcopal Church "This sanction is the ecclesiastical equivalent of being placed in 'time out.'" -- IRD Anglican Program Director Jeff Walton Contact: Jeff Walton, Institute on Religion and Democracy, 202-682-4131, 202-413-5639 cell, jwalton@TheIRD.org WASHINGTON, Jan. 14, 2016 /Christian Newswire/ -- Top bishops in the Anglican Communion have voted to suspend the U.S.-based Episcopal Church from full participation in the worldwide family of churches historically descended from the Church of England. The suspension will last for three years; enough time for the Episcopal Church's General Convention to address the matter at the denomination's next governing General Convention in 2018. The gathering of leaders (known as 'primates') from 38 Anglican Communion provinces, including Anglican Church in North America Archbishop Foley Beach, was convened by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby to discuss pressing issues facing the third largest family of Christian churches. The worldwide Anglican Communion has been riven by discord since the U.S.-based Episcopal Church consecrated an openly partnered homosexual man as bishop of the diocese of New Hampshire in 2003. The consecration brought to the forefront long-simmering disagreements about scriptural authority and resulted in impaired communion between the Episcopal Church and more traditionalist provinces located primarily in the Global South. IRD Anglican Program Director Jeff Walton commented: "This sanction is the ecclesiastical equivalent of being placed in 'time out.' But the goal of 'time out' is to change behavior, and the Episcopal Church has clearly spoken that it will not deviate from its chosen trajectory. "There will be no formal schism, but primates will continue -- as they have since 2003 -- refusing to take the Holy Eucharist with their fellow bishops due to the 'impaired' or 'broken communion' between their provinces and the Episcopal Church. "The primates who have taken this step have cited three reasons for doing so: the lack of reconciliation between the Episcopal Church and their provinces, obedience to Scripture, and the admonitions of the Book of Common Prayer. For them it's a question of faithfulness to Jesus Christ. "The other major development from the Canterbury gathering is the seating of Archbishop Foley Beach among the primates as an equal with voice and vote. From the primates' perspective, the Anglican Church in North America is now a de-facto province of the Anglican Communion." www.TheIRD.org Share Tweet Leadership Journal's Final Issue Released Winter 2016 Contact: Leanne Snavely, Christianity Today, 630-260-6200 ext 7214 CAROL STREAM, Ill., Jan. 15, 2016 /Christian Newswire/ -- Leadership Journal was first published in 1980, and over 36 years and 145 issues, the journal has championed faithfulness and effectiveness in church leaders. However, Christianity Today International recently made the difficult decision to no longer publish Leadership Journal as a print quarterly. The Winter 2016 issue will be its last. As announced in the final issue of Leadership Journal, Christianity Today will be launching two new initiatives to engage and equip pastors and church leaders: First, Christianity Today magazine is deepening its commitment to local church leaders with a new special section titled "The Local Church." This special section will include a podcast, a refreshing and reinvigorating web experience, and a special print issue of Christianity Today magazine. Readers are encouraged to subscribe and get an early look at: OrderCT.com/LocalChurch or read the letter from Editor, Marshall Shelley online at www.christianitytoday.com/le/2016/winter/next-life-of-leadership.html. Christianity Today is also developing a new website for pastors and church leaders, CTPastors.com, which will offer tested wisdom on the practical skills required to do ministry in today's world. This site will feature all current and archived articles from Leadership Journal as well as new daily content. Christianity Today is a nonprofit, global media ministry centered on Beautiful Orthodoxystrengthening the church by richly communicating the breadth of the true, good, and beautiful gospel. Reaching over four million people monthly with various digital and print resources, the ministry equips Christians to renew their minds, serve the church, and create culture to the glory of God. UNC excavation crew in Galilee region of Israel uncover first known depictions of biblical heroines An excavation team in Israel has discovered the first known depiction of two biblical heroines from the Old Testament. World to reach 8 billion people in November, India to unseat China as most populous in 2023: UN By Nov. 15, the worlds population is projected to reach 8 billion, and by 2023, India is projected to surpass China as the worlds most populous country, according to a new report from the United Nations. Single, non-religious young adults are most unhappy Americans post-COVID-19: report Young adults under 35 who are single and non-religious report the highest levels of unhappiness since the COVID-19 pandemic began and since 1972, when the General Social Survey began measuring levels of happiness among Americans, a new analysis from the Institute of Family Studies suggests. Anglican Primates agree to set fixed, common date for Easter Anglican leaders meeting in Canterbury this week have agreed for the first time to work with Orthodox Christian leaders to move towards a fixed date for Easter. Helping negotiate an agreement between Christian churches to fix Easter to a set Sunday in April would end centuries of disruption around the date and endear the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby to schools, businesses, holiday companies and millions more individuals in the UK and abroad, throughout the world. Although there have been unsuccessful attempts to do this before, the latest initiative is the brainchild of Patriarch Tawadros II, Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church. Archbishop Welby said in Canterbury today: "Pope Tawadros has suggested that Easter is fixed around the second or third Sunday in April and the Primates agreed that they support that." He added: "I would love see it before I retire. The first attempt to do this was in the tenth century so it may take some time." He predicted it could be done in five to ten years, because all sorts of things such as school holiday dates for some years ahead had already been settled. Few people grasp the maths behind Easter, although this writer explains that it is calculated using both the Sun and Moon and is on the first Sunday after the Paschal Full Moon. It changes each year according to the Julian calendar used by Eastern churches and the Gregorian calendar used in the West, and only occasionally falls on the same date for both East and West. One Anglican Primate, Archbishop Mouneer Anis of the Diocese of Egypt, has from this week committed his province to following the Julian calendar or the Orthodox date for Easter as a gesture of solidarity to his Coptic neighbours in the Middle East. The earliest Easter can fall in the Gregorian calendar is March 22, not due to occur again until 2285. The latest is April 25. Easter this year falls comparatively early, on Sunday 27 March. Christian Today reported last May that the proposal to unify the date of Easter for all Christian churches was being seriously considered. Pope Tawadros made the case for unified Easter in a letter sent in May 2014 to Pope Francis. Archbishop Welby discussed the issue with Bishop Angaelos, General Bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the United Kingdom, during his visit to Egypt last year. Bishop Angaelos said last year: "In principle it is a good idea at least to show a visible solidarity, but even if it does not happen immediately at least the process shows a fellowship and intention to come closer and bring members of our Churches closer. "It is something that everyone thinks is a very good idea. We are trying to see how we might make it happen. The initial steps are just reaching out and trying to get some agreement on the principle. It is not going to be a simple process but at least if the conversation is happening, it brings us one step closer." A 1997 consultation by the World Council of Churches looked at moving towards a common date for Easter. The Orthodox Theological Society in America adopted a resolution in 2001 endorsing the WCC proposal for a common date on the basis that it accounted for the vernal equinox, for the full moon on the same basis and for the Nicene Fathers' recommendations concerning the Jewish Passover. In Britain, as long ago as 1928 Parliament passed the Easter Act which would have fixed Easter as the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April. The law has never been implemented because until now it has never been possible to get agreement from all the Churches. Archbishop of Canterbury apologises for 'hurt and pain' caused to gay community The Archbishop of Canterbury today announced the next Lambeth Conference will be in 2020, indicating the success of this week's gathering of Anglican Primates in maintaining the unity of the Anglican Communion. Archbishop Justin Welby had delayed calling a Lambeth Conference conference on the due date of 2018 because of the divisions over homosexuality which this week's meeting of 39 Primates from 38 provinces was called to address. Normally, the conferences take place every 10 years. In response to a question from Christian Today, Archbishop Welby said he had great hopes for the conference. "I hope we get the money to do it. I hope that it's a conference which affirms and does not hurt people and that glorifies God in doing that. I want it to be a conference where people celebrate the love and joy of Jesus Christ with passion." Archbishop Welby denied that "sanctions" had been issued against The Episcopal Church, which has incurred the wrath of the Global South and other conservative primates for consecrating gay bishops and approving gay marriage. The Anglican church of Canada is also moving forwards to possibly approving same-sex marriage later this year. Instead, the Archbishop said, The Episcopal Church was faced with the "consequences" of its actions of making a unilateral decision to change marriage doctrine in its province. In their communique issued today, the Primates made clear there had been no schism: "It is our unanimous desire to walk together. However given the seriousness of these matters we formally acknowledge this distance by requiring that for a period of three years The Episcopal Church no longer represent us on ecumenical and interfaith bodies, should not be appointed or elected to an internal standing committee and that while participating in the internal bodies of the Anglican Communion, they will not take part in decision making on any issues pertaining to doctrine or polity." Archbishop Welby is to appoint a task group to restore the broken relationships in the Communion, to help rebuild mutual trust and to heal the legacy of hurt. The task group will also attempt to find a way forward in unity for the Communion while exploring "our deep differences", the Primates said. They also condemned homophobic prejudice and violence, resolving to work together to offer pastoral care and loving service, and expressed "profound sorrow" they had often acted in a way that has caused "deep hurt" to the lesbian and gay community. As protestors from the lesbian and gay community chanted outside about the failure of the Primates to deliver justice, given the "consequences" enforced against The Episcopal Church, Archbishop Welby admitted at a press conference that the meeting had been "complicated". But overall, he said, the spirit of the meeting was good. Referring to the protestors, he said they "remind us of the pain and suffering" of LGBT people around the world. He added: "It is for me a constant source of deep sadness that people are persecuted for their sexuality." Archbishop Welby also apologised directly: "I want to say how sorry I am for the hurt and pain in the past and present that the Church has caused and that the love we have at times completely failed to show." The communique was achieved by majority vote only and Archbishop Welby admitted there had been disagreements. "One thing we do say simply is that we love and seek to serve Jesus Christ." On the question of the US church, he said: "The issue for the meeting was much more that they went ahead with a change to a basic understanding of doctrine ahead of the rest of the Communion." He insisted: "We are not sanctioning them. We have simply said that if any province is out of line there will be consequences in their full participation of the life of the Communion." The Episcopal Church will play a full part on moral issues, but they will not play a full role in deciding issues of doctrine and polity, which is to do with them not being part of the process of interdependence, Welby added. "We are very careful not to use the word sanctions. We don't have any power to use sanctions." Bring Back Our Girls: Nigeria announces fresh investigation into Chibok kidnappings Nigeria's president Muhammadu Buhari has ordered a new investigation into the kidnapping of 219 schoolgirls by Islamist group Boko Haram in April 2014 from the town of Chibok, the presidency said on Thursday. A statement said a panel would be announced soon by the National Security Adviser. The decision comes after parents of the girls and the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) movement marched to the presidential villa to demand a meeting with Buhari earlier on Thursday. "I assure you that I go to bed and wake up every day with the Chibok girls on my mind," Buhari was quoted as saying in the statement after meeting some of the marchers. "Securing the Chibok girls is my responsibility. The service chiefs and heads of our security agencies will tell you that in spite of the dire financial straits that we found the country in, I continue to do my best to support their efforts in that regard." On April 14, 214, Boko Haram militants raided a school while the girls were taking exams. They loaded 270 of them onto trucks. Around 50 escaped shortly afterwards. There was a global outcry and threats by Boko Haram to sell the girls. Former president Goodluck Jonathan was heavily criticised for his slow reaction and Jonathan's wife at first said she doubted the kidnapping had actually happened. After nearly a month, Jonathan set up a fact-finding committee that went to Chibok to establish whether the abduction happened and how many girls were missing. Buhari's panel will have the remit to "unravel the remote and immediate circumstances leading to the kidnap of the girls by Boko Haram terrorists as well as the other events, actions and inactions that followed the incident", Thursday's statement said. BBOG has kept the memory of the incident alive with frequent marches and Nigerian newspapers keep daily track of the number of days they have been missing. Buhari won last year's election on a promise to quash the militant group as Jonathan was seemingly unable to do. Buhari said at the end of December that he was open to negotiating with Boko Haram for the return of the girls if credible representatives of the group could be identified. Boko Haram has been waging a six-year insurgency to establish an Islamist state in the northeast of Africa's biggest economy and pledged allegiance to Islamic State last year. In the second half of 2014, it took over vast swathes of territory, mainly in Borno state where Chibok is located. Nigerian troops recaptured most of it with the help of forces from Chad, Niger and Cameroon, who themselves were increasingly being targeted by the Islamists. Boko Haram has since reverted to raiding villages for provisions or hitting soft targets like places of worship and markets and are mainly around Lake Chad, the Sambisa forest reserve and the mountainous region bordering Cameroon. Catholic peer attacks government's failure to protect Christians fleeing ISIS' 'campaign of total annihilation' A Catholic peer has delivered a blistering attack on the government for disregarding the plight of Christian Syrian refugees while prioritising Muslims and gay people. Lord Alton of Liverpool accused ministers of running a flawed refugee policy which is "one-size-fits-all" and fails to adequately protect Christians fleeing ISIS. He argued that Christians "who represent no threat to this country" are given the same opportunity as "marauding young men" who assaulted more than 500 German women on New Year's Eve. The peer joined a number of other Christian peers including the Archbishop of Canterbury in expressing concern that the government's relocation scheme only takes refugees from UNHCR camps while ignoring Christians who largely avoid the camps for fear of violence. "If gay people (rightly) qualify as 'vulnerable' then Christians should too," he wrote in a letter to Home Office minister Lord Bates over Christmas. "You will know of the considerable weight of evidence of assassinations by ISIS of Church leaders; mass murders; torture, kidnapping for ransom in the Christian communities of Iraq and Syria; sexual enslavement and systematic rape of Christian girls and women; forcible conversions to Islam; destruction of churches, monasteries, cemeteries, and Christian artefacts; and theft of lands and wealth from Christian clergy and laity." He told Lord Bates that the "complicated administrative procedure" employed by the UK government meant that in reality Christians were excluded from the chance of resettlement. In reply, Bates insisted the government did not "discriminate" on the basis of religion and encouraged Christians to register as refugees in order to seek possible resettlement. However Alton said afterwards the government's "obsession with 'non-discrimination'" makes "no sense", according to Catholic Herald. "It's far, far worse than discrimination a campaign of total annihilation is underway, which is why these minorities should be discriminated in favour of," he added. "Of course we should discriminate in favour of those most at risk, not least because we have a duty to protect the most vulnerable. "Instead of creating a false even-handed dichotomy British policy should actively search out, and be weighed in favour of, those who are suffering the most: those who are on the receiving end of the very worst of ISIS's campaign of beheadings, unspeakable violence, forced conversions, rape, and dispossession of homes, livelihoods and thousands of years of faith, culture and identity." David Cameron, who has previously expressed support for Christian refugees in Syria and Iraq, did not reply to a previous letter sent by Alton in September. The letter called for Christians to be actively included in the 20,000 refugees set to be resettled in the UK by 2020. Christians face obscene persecution let's not be afraid to say so Christians are under attack in large numbers around the world. There is a sliding scale of abuse from merely being 'second class citizens' through to torture and murder. This isn't a matter of debate. The cold hard fact is that when it comes to religious persecution, Christians are targeted in large numbers across the world. In fact, one anti-persecution charity suggests 75 per cent of the persecution that affects people because of their faith is aimed at Christians. From North America, to India, from China to various parts of Africa, it's incredibly dangerous to be a Christian in public. This week another charity dedicated to supporting persecuted believers, Open Doors, released its latest findings into persecution and concluded that "global persecution of Christians is more extreme than ever before." The data contained within the report would seem to back up what has been anecdotally evident. With the turmoil in Syria and Iraq adding to places where Christians have long been persecuted like Pakistan and China, the situation is dire. So it was with some surprise I read a Nigerian Christian's critique of the figures. Writer Enuma Okoro's piece for the Guardian took issue with the way in which Open Doors extrapolated and interpreted its findings. "Bare statistics don't communicate the full socioeconomic and political context," she said. "If we oversimplify the story of death and destruction happening far away, we risk desensitising and distancing people, which is the exact opposite of what reports such as Open Doors' set out to do." Okoro was careful to point out that the violence Christians face in Nigeria and elsewhere is increasing. She says, "Yes, religious persecution is real and growing, in Nigeria as well as globally." However, she then seemed to undermine this by appending various caveats. According to Okoro, Boko Haram (responsible for much of the violence against Christians in Nigeria) is, "a violent Islamic extremist group that, in part, fights what it sees as western ideologies and replaces them with its own belief system. But that doesn't make Christians the sole target of its terrorist activity." In other words, she claims it's too simple to suggest Christians are being killed just because they're Christians. This is of course, true. Much like ISIS, Boko Haram is a group not merely content with killing Christians. It has marauded across parts of Cameroon, Niger and Chad as well as Nigeria. It's name means "Western Education is forbidden." Clearly, there are many instances in which Boko Haram has attacked moderate Muslims and those of other faiths. More Muslims have been attacked than Christians a point made by Nigerian bishop Joseph Idowu-Fearon. Indeed, Boko Haram has attacked Mosques antithetical to its form of puritanical Sunni Islam. But this doesn't deny the fact that they target followers of Jesus, simply because they're Christian. When Boko Haram attacks a church, it is doing so to victimise the Christians worshipping inside. The congregation is being attacked because it is Christian. Of course, behind questions of religious conflict and persecution, there are often other issues. Tribal, ethnic or historic grudges can often be part of the cause. This needs to be acknowledged. Yet, if a part of someone's identity is that they and their family is Christian then we can't merely say 'It's complicated.' We must acknowledge Christians are sometimes targeted just because they're Christians. Okoro also suggests religious persecution around the world is "not just of Christians. It is important that we acknowledge and continue to track this, but we must also consider the nuances and context." This is another point which needs to be made, but can't be over-extrapolated. The persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar is a dreadful case of extremism by a military regime causing untold grief and misery to a religious minority there. Muslims are persecuted because they are Muslims and their faith plays a part in their identity. Likewise, the oppression of Falun Gong followers in China, Yazidis under ISIS or of Baha'is in Iran is perpetrated on the basis of their religion which may or may not be part of a wider ethnic identity. Christians must be vocal in their opposition to this persecution of other faiths. If we want freedom for fellow Christians to worship around the world, we need to support it for all. Indeed, Christian leaders often are among those fighting for religious freedom for other groups. However, just because other groups are sadly the victims of religious oppression, it doesn't mean we mustn't speak out loudly about the persecution of Christians, too. Christians in the Middle East for example, are facing what the Archbishop of Canterbury has described as the biggest threat to their existence since the invasion of Genghis Khan. Many have been killed, indeed beheaded and even crucified, simply for being Christian. It doesn't diminish the suffering of Shia Muslims or other groups attacked by ISIS to highlight these dreadful attacks on Christians. By commemorating the extermination of Jews at the hands of the Nazis, we don't diminish the suffering of gypsies, gay people, Slavs, disabled people and other groups who also suffered terribly. There's one final criticism lurking in Okoro's piece that speaks about the way in which data are interpreted. "I am dismayed by these statistics, but as a Christian living in Nigeria, I am surprised by them," she says. In this, she is pointing out a danger, but again probably extrapolating too far. There is a legitimate debate on how we should interpret the data. Is it true or fair to say Christians are the most persecuted group in the world? Possibly. It's right to point out that we must never massage the figures to make it appear as if Christians are being uniquely affected the real persecution many Christians endure is far too much, without us having to add to it. There is a risk that statistics can be taken too far and used as a cynical tool to smear Muslims, or indeed for other political agendas. One example of this is the absurd suggestion that Christians in the UK or USA suffer 'persecution.' While there are some cases where Christians have suffered discrimination, to use the world 'persecution' and to suggest this is even vaguely similar to the violence and suffering Christians have suffered in countries like North Korea or Egypt is laughable. There are Western groups who seem to imply that Islam is uniquely violent and oppressive. An extreme right-wing agenda can thrive on stories of Muslims abusing Christians. We mustn't use the persecution of our Christian sisters and brothers to suggest Muslims are some kind of unique threat to Western society. However, we mustn't swing to the opposite extreme either and imply that persecution of Christians is only a small problem or merely one problem among many. It is a vast issue, and I'm grateful to Open Doors for its tireless work in highlighting it. Ebola: New case in Sierra Leone just hours after West Africa marked clear of the virus Just hours after the World Health Organisation announced an end to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Sierra Leone confirmed a new death from the virus. Swab tests carried out on a body by British health orgainsation Public Health England came back positive in the Tonkolili district, east of Freetown, a spokesperson said late on Thursday. Sierra Leone was declared Ebola-free on 7 November and the entire region was declared free of the virus by WHO on Thursday when Liberia was cleared. Neither the gender nor the age of the deceased person was released and it is not clear how many people the patient had come into contact with before the virus was detected. Health officials in Freetown are now urgently looking for those who had come into contact with the victim, according to Umaru Fofana of the BBC. The tests reinforce concerns about flare-ups of the virus that has killed more than 11,300 people since 2013 in the world's deadliest outbreak of Ebola. WHO warned on Thursday that despite the absence of known transmissions of the disease in over two months, there could still be cases of Ebola in the region. Survivors can carry the virus for months and pass it on. WHO on Friday confirmed the new Ebola case in Sierra Leone but did not immediately provide details or say whether there was a risk of others being infected. While it has said that another major outbreak of the disease is unlikely, it reiterated its message of caution. "WHO stresses ongoing risk of flare-ups due to the re-emergence of the virus throughout 2016 due to persistence of the virus in the survivor population," a spokesman said Additional reporting by Reuters. Episcopal Church Primate pledges to stay in the Anglican Communion The US Episcopal Church will continue to "walk" with the 37 other provinces of the Anglican Communion in spite of being sanctioned by their fellow Primates for consecrating gay bishops and approving gay marriage. However, for the conservatives, the penalties invoked against the US Church do not go far enough. The Episcopal Church faces three years of penalties. The Primates Meeting in Canterbury agreed this week that for the next three years its bishops will "no longer represent us on ecumenical and interfaith bodies, should not be appointed or elected to an internal standing committee and that while participating in the internal bodies of the Anglican Communion, they will not take part in decision making on any issues pertaining to doctrine or polity." The Episcopal Church primate Presiding Bishop Michael Curry said the sanctions will be "painful" for many in his Church, the most liberal on gay rights in the worldwide Anglican Communion. "Many of us have committed ourselves and our church to being 'a house of prayer for all people,' as the Bible says, when all are truly welcome," he said. "Our commitment to be an inclusive church is not based on a social theory or capitulation to the ways of the culture, but on our belief that the outstretched arms of Jesus on the cross are a sign of the very love of God reaching out to us all. While I understand that many disagree with us, our decision regarding marriage is based on the belief that the words of the Apostle Paul to the Galatians are true for the church today: All who have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, for all are one in Christ. "For so many who are committed to following Jesus in the way of love and being a church that lives that love, this decision will bring real pain," he said. "For fellow disciples of Jesus in our church who are gay or lesbian, this will bring more pain. For many who have felt and been rejected by the church because of who they are, for many who have felt and been rejected by families and communities, our church opening itself in love was a sign of hope. And this will add pain on top of pain." He added: "I stand before you as your brother. I stand before you as a descendant of African slaves, stolen from their native land, enslaved in a bitter bondage, and then even after emancipation, segregated and excluded in church and society. And this conjures that up again, and brings pain. "The pain for many will be real. But God is greater than anything. I love Jesus and I love the church. I am a Christian in the Anglican way. And like you, as we have said in this meeting, I am committed to 'walking together' with you as fellow primates in the Anglican family." The Gafcon group, which represents the most orthodox of the Global South and conservative Anglican bishops, welcomed the sanctions but regretted there was not a stronger call for repentance and that Canada, another liberal province, had also not been punished. Gafcon said: "We are pleased that Archbishop Foley Beach of the Anglican Church in North America has played a full part in the Canterbury meeting of Primates and that sanctions have been applied to the Episcopal Church of the United States, recognising the need for mutual accountability on matters of doctrine within the family of the Communion. However, this action must not be seen as an end, but as a beginning. There is much that causes us concern, especially the failure to recognise the fact that the Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC) has also rejected the collegial mind of the Communion by unilaterally permitting the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of those in active homosexual relationships. We fear that other provinces will do the same. "Since the beginning of the crisis in the Communion brought about by the actions of both TEC and the ACoC, the Anglican instruments of unity have been unable to guard biblical truth and restore godly order. There must therefore be doubt about the effectiveness of the sanctions that have been agreed. "In particular, it must be recognised that the continuing brokenness of the Communion is not the result simply of failed relationships, but is caused by the persistent rejection of biblical and apostolic faith as set out in Lambeth Resolution 1.10. We are therefore disappointed that the Primates' statement makes no reference to the need for repentance." The Anglican Consultative Council, the executive body of the Anglican Communion, is financed by contributions from the 38 provinces. Of those, latest figures show the two provinces where in secular law gay marriage is legal gave the most. The Church of England topped the list of donors at 492,900 and The Episcopal Church was second at 216,540. The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby will give his response to the Primates Meeting in Canterbury this afternoon. Gay MP and former vicar quits Church of England over its stance on homosexuality A former vicar who resigned his living and became an MP after deciding being gay was incompatible with priesthood has now left the Anglican Church altogether. Chris Bryant, who celebrated the first civil partnership in the House of Commons with his partner Jared Cranney in 2010, said the Church's stance on homosexuality will one day be seen as equally wrong as its backing for slavery two centuries ago. He announced his decision to leave the Church on Twitter after the Primates of the Anglican Communion, meeting in Canterbury, voted to sanction The Episcopal Church of the US by barring it from some Anglican decision-making bodies for three years as punishment for consecrating gay bishops and backing gay marriage. The Labour MP for Rhondda in Wales tweeted: I've finally given up on Anglican church today after its love-empty decision on sexuality. One day it will seem wrong as supporting slavery. Chris Bryant MP (@RhonddaBryant) January 14, 2016 Soon afterwards he added: "A woman who calls herself Christian has emailed she is delighted I have given up on the Anglican Church because she says I'm not welcome." He also retweeted people on Twitter who made such comments as feeling "ashamed" to be Anglican after the TEC sactions were imposed. Bryant, a former Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs who returned to the back benches after Labour's election defeat, also told BBC Wales: "The whole point of the Anglican communion is that we agree in the autonomy of its churches. I think we've behaved disgracefully to the American church. This is the established Church of England taking a stance against homosexuality. Ironically the Church in Wales is much more liberal on this issue. "Church leaders should read the Bible Jesus's message was not one of hatred and division, but one of peace and understanding." Bryant, priested in 1987, served his curacy at All Saints, High Wycombe from 1986 to 1989 and then worked as a youth chaplain in Peterborough before resigning in 1991. Iraqi Shia 'firebrand' calls for Christian homes to be returned A radical Shia cleric turned politician has called for Christian homes stolen to be returned to their rightful owners. Muqtada al-Sadr, once labelled "the most dangerous man in Iraq," has called for homes belonging to Christian families which have been illegally stolen to be returned. The phenomenon of supposedly legal thefts is closely linked the mass exodus of Christians from Iraq following the US-led invasion. Scammers took possession of empty homes gaining official approval on the basis the original owners would not return. However al-Sadr has joined MPs and Christian associations calling for local governments to end the practice of giving false certificates of ownership. The leader of the Sadrist Movement and founder of the Mahdi Army was a key fighter in the resistence to the allied invasion. However in recent years the Shi'ite militia leader has appeared to moderate his approach. "In the past few years, al-Sadr has recalibrated his politics and adopted an Iraqi-first approach that transcends subnational sectarian interests and could in fact help to heal the rifts in Iraq," according to ankawa.com The former Iraqi immigration minister, who is a Christian, expressed her gratitude for the Shi'ite leader's stand on the issue. Pascale Warda, who was in the first transitional government after Saddam Hussain, has called for all Iraqi citizens to support al-Sadr's stance. Ofsted chief: Sunday schools could be inspected under counter-extremism measures Sunday schools will be inspected by Ofsted "if there are concerns" with how they are run, the chief of the body has admitted. Sir Michael Wilshaw, the Chief Inspector of Education, yesterday faced hostile questions on a radio phone-in over the government's proposals to allow Ofsted inspectors into out-of-school settings. The suggestion follows warnings that a small number of Muslim madrassas have been involved in radicalising young children. However Wilshaw confirmed fears that Sunday schools could also face Ofsted inspections under the new regulations. "If churches and religious groups want to run out of school classes then they need to register so the country and the Department of Education knows they are run properly," said Wilshaw in an interview with LBC radio yesterday. "We won't be inspecting every one of them but we will know that they exist." "If there are concerns and if whistle-blowers tell us there is an issue then we will go in and inspect," he said, marking a direct betrayal of the Conservative's manifesto promise to "reject any suggestions of sweeping, authoritarian measures that would threaten our hard-won freedoms." Ofsted is not "the thought police," Wilshaw insisted, and said the "great majority of Sunday schools would not be affected". "But", he told LBC's Nick Ferrari, "we need to know if a Sunday school is being run; is it registered and is it being run by people who have been put through proper safeguarding checks and if that is being done then we are happy. "We will only go in when we feel there is a need to do so." The comments come after a number of Conservative MPs said the regulations "could have a seriously detrimental effect on the freedom of religious organisations". In a letter to the Telegraph, they raised fears that Sunday schools and church youth groups could face sanctions from Ofsted if they taught that marriage was between a man and a woman. "This would be an intolerable but very real possibility," the letter read, "given the clear desire of the Department for Education to investigate what it calls "prohibitive activities", such as "undesirable teaching... which undermines or is incompatible with fundamental British values". "This could challenge established Christian teaching." Wilshaw cited examples of certain "unregistered settings" Ofsted had seen where a "significant number" of young people were "being educated, living in appalling conditions in a filthy environment where there was homophobic literature, anti-semitic literature and misogynistic literature and where the staff have not been vetted". "Children are at risk," he said. When challenged that these were Muslim madrassas not Sunday schools, Wilshaw retorted, "we have to deal with this in an even handed way". Wilshaw's comments could be seen as an embarrassment to the government as they directly contradict the assurances of an education minister who told peers in House of Lords yesterday: "we do not propose to regulate institutions such as Sunday schools and one-off residential settings which teach children for a short period every week." A spokesperson for the Department of Education told Christian Today: "We recognise many out-of-school education settings do a great job in supporting children's education and our proposals are about making sure that in the small minority of cases where there are concerns raised by parents and others about issues of extremism, child cruelty or inappropriate teaching the government can take action to protect children. "The Government is not proposing to regulate institutions teaching children for a short period every week, such as Sunday schools. We are looking specifically at places where children receive intensive education, to ensure that the children there are in a safe environment, which does not subject them to intolerant and hateful views." Dr David Landrum, director of advocacy at the Evangelical Alliance, said the proposals amounted to "the state regulation of private religion," however. Nola Leach, CEO of public policy charity CARE who have campaigned against the proposals, called Wilshaw's comments "staggering and revealing". "This is a major breach of religious freedom and the alarming reality of an Ofsted inspector being sent into any Sunday School to question teachers and children is intrusive and wholly unnecessary," she told Christian Today. "Ofsted does not assess the religious teaching of faith schools, so how extraordinary that it should consider assessing the religious teachings of churches in Sunday School," Leach added. "Sunday Schools are places where children are being taught about the truths of the Bible, they are not training grounds for extremists." Police: There was no 'deal' to protect Church over paedophile bishop There was no "deal" to cover up allegations of abuse against Peter Ball, the disgraced Bishop of Gloucester, a senior detective has claimed. Wayne Murdock, was a Gloucestershire Police Detective Inspector in 1993 when Bishop Peter Ball was accused of molesting young men. He denied claims made by the Sunday Times of a deal between police and the Church of England meaning Ball was cautioned but not charged at the end of an investigation in 1993. "I don't do deals and no deal was struck," he said this week. "This was a very misleading headline. It really upset me." "Who are the Sunday Times suggesting did a cover up to help the Bishop? If they are suggesting it was me then I am happy to ensure you I do not do deals." Speculation has grown as to why Ball was only cautioned and not prosecuted after it emerged many senior figures in the Church and House of Commons supported the Bishop at the time. Ball resigned and acknowledged his guilt at the end of a police investigation in 1993. He was given a police caution and assurances were given Ball would leave the country. However he never did so and instead moved into a cottage on Prince Charles' Highgrove estate. Under the headline of "Police deal shielded child sex case bishop," the Sunday Times reported it had seen a police report which said charging Ball would have "devastating effect on the Church" whereas merely cautioning him would "minimise embarrassment to the Church." "A deal was the last thing in the world I wanted - I did not want any cover up," said Murdock. "I was shocked by the paper's headline and I regard it as mischievous. Everything that took place during the investigation was properly documented and reported to the Crown Prosecution Service." Primates Meeting: What you need to know about why gay marriage could still split the Church The Primates Meeting at Canterbury yesterday suspended the US Episcopal Church (TEC) from membership for three years because of its endorsement of same-sex marriage. The move was the result of battles within the Communion over the issue which had lasted years, with conservatives particularly from Africa leading the charge for tradition and liberals from North America keen to be more relaxed. However, there's more to it than meets the eye. 1. It's not about gay marriage Much social media reaction has spun this as a rejection of gay people, if not an actual concession to homophobia. In fact it's about how the Church makes decisions and what holds it together as a Communion. TEC has led the liberal charge; Bishop Gene Robinson became the first bishop to live openly with a same-sex partner in 2003 and last year its General Synod agreed to allow religious services for same-sex couples. When Rowan Williams was the Archbishop of Canterbury he tried desperately to hold the Americans back from unilateral action, without success. His view and that of the majority of the Primates at Canterbury was that this was a step that required consensus, which was a long way away. 2. It doesn't condemn TEC's view of human sexuality The document released yesterday by the Primates was not a condemnation of same-sex marriage or of TEC's view on it. It says that TEC's actions "represent a fundamental departure from the faith and teaching held by the majority of our Provinces on the doctrine of marriage". That's just a statement of fact, as is paragraph 4: "The traditional doctrine of the church in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds marriage as between a man and a woman in faithful, lifelong union. The majority of those gathered reaffirm this teaching." The Primates Meeting didn't pronounce on TEC's theology but on its "departure from mutual accountability and interdependence". 3. Problems like this go with the territory The Anglican Communion is a strangely constituted and theologically unsatisfactory creation, reflecting its origins. The Church of England itself is a creation of the State, the product both of high principle (the new insights of the Reformers) and low politics (Henry VIII's desire to control the English Church and cut out the Pope). The Anglican Churches in other countries are all the product of the British Empire, which spread its own brand of Christianity as it expanded. So relations between its constituent parts are complicated by anti-colonialism and wider historical issues. A recurring theme of the same-sex marriage debate among African Christians is that they aren't having white English people telling them what to think. 4. No one's in charge One consequence of the messy origins of the Communion is that there is no central authority, as there is in the case of Roman Catholicism (though not in Eastern Orthodoxy). There is a historic loyalty to and respect for the English Church and for the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, but much depends on goodwill. 5. It's very complicated Theologically, the situation is bedevilled by questions of interpretation and by questions of culture (these are not always easy to separate). On interpretation, conservatives argue that TEC and, indeed, the whole Church has no authority to ignore the clear teaching of scripture on the subject of human sexuality. By allowing what God has forbidden, they say, they have put themselves beyond the pale of orthodox Christianity. For these conservatives, being in communion with those who have taken this step would be to participate in their sin. Liberals believe that advances in understanding human sexuality require a reinterpretation of traditional understandings of so-called "clobber texts", or even their outright rejection. In theory, it ought to be possible for both sides to accept the validity of different readings of scripture, even if they profoundly disagree with each other; in practice, human sexuality remains a Communion-breaking issue for Anglicans and others. 6. It's not just about theology On culture, Western countries have moved towards acceptance of same-sex relationships as normal. Many Christians anxious to make up for their past ill-treatment of gay people and welcome them in Christ's name. An open letter signed by senior clergy and released just before the Primates Meeting made this point forcefully, if not perhaps very helpfully. On the other hand in many developing countries, particularly in Africa, homosexuality is culturally unacceptable. In Uganda, attempts were made to pass a bill making homosexual acts punishable by death. The Church of Uganda said it was "sympathetic to concerns behind the bill" though against the death penalty. It said in a statement: "As a church, we support Uganda's national sovereignty and our right to self-determination in establishing this law, and will not bow to international pressure to change that part of our culture that aligns with our biblical convictions." Uganda's Archbishop, Stanley Ntagali, was the only Primate to walk out of the Canterbury meeting. The extreme divergence between the different wings means that each regards the other's views with abhorrence. 8. Church politics matter Conservatives in the Anglican Communion are represented in two main groupings, GAFCON (Global Anglican Future) and Global South Anglican. GAFCON began in 2008 when, it says, "moral compromise, doctrinal error and the collapse of biblical witness in parts of the Anglican communion had reached such a level that the leaders of the majority of the world's Anglicans felt it was necessary to take a united stand for truth". The 25 members of Global South have similar concerns. These bodies campaign for hearts and minds, just as their opponents do. 9. It's a win for Justin Welby... The decision to suspend TEC for three years is being seen by those in favour of accepting same-sex relationship as a defeat. Insofar as the Primates did not offer a ringing endorsement of gay marriage, this is true, though this was not what their meeting was about. However, it is insufficiently nuanced. At issue was the decision by TEC to disregard the appeals of the rest of the Communion and go its own way. The perception was inevitably that it believed it had a better theological understanding of the issues than everyone else and did not sufficiently value the bonds of the Communion. So the conclusion of the Primates' statement, referring to the establishment of a task group to "maintain conversation among ourselves with the intention of restoration of relationship, the rebuilding of mutual trust, healing the legacy of hurt, recognising the extent of our commonality and exploring our deep differences, ensuring they are held between us in the love and grace of Christ" is arguably a good result. 10. But maybe not for long However, the end result might still be the fragmentation of the Communion. TEC has backed itself into a corner by its unilateral action and the GAFCON and Global South Churches are in no mood to compromise. If the Communion does break up into smaller coalitions of theologically like-minded Churches it would be the end of a tradition which is not, in fact, all that long judged by the whole sweep of Christian history. It might free its constituent parts to be truer to themselves and release energies for mission and service which are at present taken up with what looks like an increasingly futile attempt to maintain a sort of unity. Follow RevMarkWoods on Twitter. The Pope took 2,000 homeless people, refugees and prisoners to the circus in Rome The Vatican hosted 2,000 homeless people, refugees and prisoners at the Rony Roller circus on Thursday afternoon, where medics were also on hand to give free check-ups to those who needed it. The show was opened by a Spanish singer-songwriter who used to be homeless himself. He dedicated the song to Pope Francis and described it as "an opening prayer and expression of gratitude to the Holy Father for this new act of closeness to each one of them." Pope Francis mentioned the circus in an address a year ago, and implied his desire to share its beauty with others. "People who perform in the circus create beauty, they are creators of beauty. And this is good for the soul. And we are so much in need of beauty!" he said in January last year. A statement released yesterday by the Apostolic Almoner's office confirmed that "a group of homeless people, refugees, prisoners and people living in poverty" had attended the show in Rome. Circus performers "with perseverance, commitment and many sacrifices are able to create and give beauty to themselves and to others," the statement added. "The gift... may encourage our poorest brethren to overcome the hardships of life, which often seem overwhelming and insurmountable." On site, doctors and nurses from the Vatican Health Services gave free medical check-ups. The sacrificial grace of Bishop Michael Curry of The Episcopal Church At the 1988 Lambeth Conference, the bishops were exercised by the possibility that The Episcopal Church of the US (TEC) was about to consecrate its first female bishop, the black divorcee Barbara Harris. Sure enough, six months later, they did. The Episcopal Church has since been rightly celebrated for championing women's ordination. The US was far ahead of so many of the other 37 Anglican provinces worldwide. Time might yet show them to have been ahead on the gay debate too. TEC ordained a gay bishop in 2003 and recognises same-sex marriages. This week it was suspended from full participation in the Anglican Communion over its liberal stance. The difference is that in 1978, the Lambeth Conference resolved that all provinces should be granted autonomy about admitted women to holy orders. In 1998, the conference did the opposite on homosexuality. It passed Resolution 1.10 which set a Biblically orthodox, conservative line on sexuality. There are important local contexts for why the Global South churches cannot at present go down the path of gay equality, even if they wished to. In Uganda, whose Archbishop was the only one to walk out of the Primates Meeting in Canterbury, carnal relations between two men is punishable by life imprisonment. In countries like this, the Church could not remain a credible force in the way it is needed, effective in social action and promoting health care, if it were suddenly to come out campaigning for gay rights. The reality on the ground in some of these places is so utterly different from ours in the West, we really do sit in judgement on them at our peril. These provinces confront problems on a scale unimaginable to us. In our nice and warm cosy liberal parishes, we can appease our social conscience on Sunday mornings by dropping a few cans into the foodbank box at the back. In some far-off parishes in the developing world, they do not even have churches. Buildings are demolished by forces hostile to Christianity, and then tents set up to replace them are demolished too. With diseases such as Aids still rampant and terrifying levels of violence and lawlessness in places, some of these provinces benefit from the muscle of the Anglican Communion behind their communities. The Communion is a relic of the Commonwealth and the British Empire but it is also more than that. Powerful and dynamic leaders like the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, can still use their position to help embattled communities in these parts of the world. Of course the LGBT community is among the suffering, in these places too, as well as in the West. The tragedy is that this has ever been elevated to a first order issue. This should never have happened. It is sad that provinces cannot allow sister churches in other parts of the world to decide their own positions on such issues, but the existence of the Lambeth Conference 1998 resolution now makes that non-negotiable. It was partly out of consideration for the wider Anglican Communion that the Church of England set itself so hard against gay marriage and secured protection against it in law. As Archbishop Welby admitted in his opening address to the Primates, this has been at considerable cost to the Church in England. The saint emerging from this sad hour is not the Archbishop of Canterbury, nor any leader of the Global South churches. It is the Primate of The Episcopal Church, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry. He has not been well. In Canterbury this week, he has appeared in the flesh, as well as in spirit, as a person enduring great suffering. He is a champion of gay rights. In response to the sanctions against his Church, he said: "I stand before you as your brother. I stand before you as a descendant of African slaves, stolen from their native land, enslaved in a bitter bondage, and then even after emancipation, segregated and excluded in church and society. And this conjures that up again, and brings pain. The pain for many will be real. But God is greater than anything. I love Jesus and I love the church. I am a Christian in the Anglican way. And like you, as we have said in this meeting, I am committed to 'walking together' with you as fellow Primates in the Anglican family." The holiness in him and in his words is tangible. It is a genuine turning of the other cheek. He is not threatening to walk away, he is pledging his Church to walk together with all the Primates of the Anglican Communion. It is his grace in the face of terrible rejection that shines out from this whole sorry episode. This grace and sacrifice is what has allowed the Archbishop of Canterbury to preserve the unity of the Anglican Communion this week. It has come at a terrible price, one exacted from The Episcopal Church in the US and from LGBT communities around the world. Understandably, a lot of people are extremely angry. But it is done, so the most helpful thing now is to focus on grace. In the three years before the sanctions expire, it might be possible to find a way forward. One way could be, for example, parallel provinces of conservatives and liberals in countries such as the US. The presence of Archbishop Foley Beach of the Anglican Church in North America throughout the meeting was significant. Europe already has two recognised but separate episcopal bodies existing side-by-side. One is a diocese of the Church of England, the other is part of The Episcopal Church of the US. Why not something similar over this issue? And could a liberal pro-gay parallel province ever exist in Nigeria or Uganda? Probably not, at the present time, but there is now time, and at least the space, to explore such possibiities. Another possibility is a move towards a more federal model, similar to that of the Lutheran churches of northern Europe and Scandinavia. Bishop Curry and TEC have through their great sacrifice bought time for Archbishop Welby to find a way to save the Communion. Amazing grace indeed. Turkey: Christians fear state interference in churches Religious minorities fear that state interference in churches could increase, after a request was made for the governmentto fund the salaries of clergy and pastoral workers. According to Fides news service, the Turkish Chief Ombudsman's Office received a joint statement from a group of religious leaders countering a request made for all religious minority communities' staff to be paid directly by the state. This request had been made by the president of the Foundation of the Armenian Church of Boyackoy, Yerits Mangants, to the Turkish Prime Minister. Currently, Christian religious and pastoral workers receive their salary from foundations connected to their churches. However, this is apparently considered by some to be an inefficient system and Mangants urged the Prime Minister to find a solution. Turkish law requires that the Prime Minister must reply to this letter within 30 days. The joint statement countering this request was made by a group of Armenian, Jewish, Assyrian and Greek-Orthodox leaders, who insist that foundations must bear responsibility for the wage distribution of religious workers. Turkey is a Muslim majority country, with Christians making up around 100,000 of the 80 million-strong population. U.S. military health officer draws complaint for writing blog post promoting prayer All military health officer Col. Thomas Hundley wanted to do was uplift the spirits of his comrades and share a touching conversation he had with his grandfather Jimmy Jordan of Millington, Tennessee. On his January 4 blog post entitled "Motivational Monday Message: A Little Something to Work With," Hundley encouraged members of the armed forces to improve their "spiritual fitness through increased prayer." Hundley was so encouraged by the wisdom shared by his grandfather about dedicating one's life to Christ that he shared Jordan's words on his post: "You don't need a whole lot to make it in this world. You just gotta give God a little something to work with. The Bible says that Jesus took two little fish and five loaves of bread and fed thousands. You know how He did that? He just gave God a little something to work with." "If you desire to improve your health in this new year, just give yourself a little something to work with. During my grandfather's story he said, 'A person can't pray for a new job and expect to get it when they haven't even filled out an application. You have to give God a little something to work with,'" he added. However, Hundley's post was met not with approval but rejection by the activist group Military Religious Freedom Foundation headed by Mikey Weinstein, who filed a complaint about it with the Army Regional Health Command in Virginia, according to Military.com. "Apparently, Col. Thomas Hundley can't figure out whether he's an active duty senior Army officer or an evangelical Christian missionary," Weinstein wrote. "Col. Hundley has absolutely no business or authority under American law to be conflating his Army officer rank, title and position with his professed evangelical Christian faith." When asked for a comment regarding the matter, the command's public affairs office did not provide any. The largest and among the finest of Lowrys pictures dedicated to sport was a centrepiece of Tate Britains 2013 retrospective of the artist THE LEAD: The gloves come off After last nights Republican debate, could you tell that Iowa is just 17 days away? Theres no question that Ted Cruz and Donald Trump lived up to the hype, dominating the broadcast with their testy exchanges and largely drowning out the other candidates. Trumps bromance with Cruz, as the billionaire mogul described it, is over but, really, that was the case well before Thursdays debate. They at least made it official last night at what may prove to be the most consequential debate in the race before Iowa voters head to the polls in two weeks. POLITICOs Eli Stokols details the Cruz v. Trump faceoff: Cruz, who no longer has the luxury of laughing off Trumps barbs after his Iowa lead eroded in the last week, hit the stage ready to fight, forcefully dismissing Trumps questioning of whether or not he could legally assume the presidency because he was born in Canada. Trump admitted that he only recently started to play the birther card against Cruz as the Texas senator has risen in the polls. Now hes doing a little bit better. Before I didnt care, said Trump, who vowed not to sue Cruz himself over citizenship questions but predicted that Democrats would should he win the Republican nomination. http://politi.co/1OuTvfa Happy Friday, Takers. Keep your eyes peeled today, the deadline to file campaign finance reports for the last half of 2015. Send your interesting finds to bobby.cervantes@chron.com or tweet me at @BobbyCervantes. -- SHOT: Greg Abbott hauls in millions in campaign cash during his first year in office, by the Express-News David Rauf. Abbott will report that he raked in about $7 million in the last six months, helping to propel his campaign coffers above the $20 million mark amassed when he announced his run for governor in July 2013. He spent around $50 million during the governor's race. http://bit.ly/1OuMTxt -- CHASER: Dan Patrick breaks campaign cash record for a lieutenant governor, by the Chronicle's Mike Ward. In a report to be filed Friday, Patrick's campaign officials said he will show having raised more than $3,500,000 between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2015. That would bring his total fundraising amount to more than $5.6 million since he took office a year ago, and more than $22.4 million since he first kicked off his campaign in 2013, his campaign said in a statement. http://bit.ly/1OuN3VF -- Democrats are girding for another expensive SD-26 battle between TMF and Jose Menendez, by the San Antonio Express-News David Rauf. The eagerly awaited rematch set to unfold over the next six weeks is expected to be more of the same: big money and big spending in what experts say will be one of the most closely watched state primary contests come March 1. Menendez and Martinez Fischer, along with an outside special interest group, combined last year to drop more than $2.3 million, with the bulk going toward TV spots and mailers that provided a constant backdrop of attack ads. However, the fundraising playing field has been substantially altered, compared with a year ago, when Martinez Fischer raised oodles of cash in the race between two House legislators vying for the open Senate District 26 seat. http://bit.ly/1OuMPxE -- State budget votes define Senate Democratic primaries, by the Express-News Gilbert Garcia. Please answer the following multiple-choice question. The current Texas state budget is: (a) a balanced, bipartisan, fiscally prudent piece of legislation; (b) a heartless Republican assault on essential social services; (c) none of the above. Your answer will determine how you view two Senate Democratic primaries that are confronting San Antonio voters. http://bit.ly/1OuNwak -- Plot twist in the Paxton case, by the Austin American-Statesman's Chuck Lindell: In an unusual and head-spinning twist, prosecutors in the criminal case against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the attorney generals office Thursday to block the release of sensitive case information that could hinder Paxtons defense but that his own agency ordered to be turned over to a Texas newspaper. Go ahead, read that sentence again. http://atxne.ws/1OuOweB -- Ted Cruz is on tricky terrain, by Texas Monthlys Erica Grieder. Cracking the establishment is the logical next step in Cruzs Katamari strategy, which is obviously going pretty well so far. So Ill just add a couple of warnings for any establishment readers who find the Texas senator vexatious. First, Cruz does well on tricky terrain. Hes mentally equipped to handle the pressure and attacks from his fellow Republicans. Second, by March 1 its going to be too late for the establishment to coalesce around a mainstream alternative to Cruz or Trump. So those who are hoping that the eventual nominee is Jeb Bush, or Marco Rubio, or Chris Christie, etc, cant afford to wait. http://www.texasmonthly.com/?p=378771 -- Debate Twittersphere: Donna Campbell endorses Ted Cruz http://bit.ly/1OuP2JF ... David Dewhurst: #GOPDebates are a valuable part of the electoral process, but I cringe when conservatives gash each other, doing the other party's work. http://bit.ly/1OuP8Rx ... For Jason Villalba, its a race between Cruz and Rubiohttp://bit.ly/1OuQonD ... Vincent Harris: Rand's digital tonight saw higher traffic and engagement for him than most of the previous debate nights. #randrally http://bit.ly/1OuR2RX -- Making the rounds this morning: The New York Daily News, which has gone after the GOP candidates in recent months, gives Ted Cruz the middle finger. See the cover: http://huff.to/1OuQDPD SPEED READ Should a Hispanic represent the 29th Congressional district? Houston Chronicle Debate, with chili, energies local GOP, San Antonio Express-News Council gives Mayor Taylor pass on ethics violations, San Antonio Express-News Texas Supreme Court hears arguments in libel fight between Abraham and AgendaWise, Quorum Report New pro-Cruz ad blitz bankrolled by mysterious super PAC, Center for Public Integrity Jeffers: Strong showing may lift Marco Rubio, The Dallas Morning News Fact check: Claims from the Republican debate, Associated Press Grading the GOP candidates, The Dallas Morning News Planned Parenthood sues over undercover videos, The Hill Paul Ryan implores Republicans to pick smarter fights, Politico House, Senate Republicans map election-year game plan, Associated Press QUOTE TO NOTE -- BRUTAL: "Hey, I need you to throw away money on Jeb out of loyalty, a Bush fundraiser told donors recently, according to Politico. http://politi.co/1OuPUOl RACE TO 2016 -- WashPosts Dan Balz: Can Donald Trump actually be the nominee? Eighteen days before the Iowa caucuses, the Republican nomination contest has come down to two big questions: Can Donald Trump actually become the partys 2016 presidential nominee, and if he falters, who can emerge to seize the crown? What was unthinkable a few months ago no longer is. Trumps durability in national polls and his standing in the early states have forced GOP leaders and all his rivals to confront the possibility that the New York billionaire and reality TV star could end up leading the party into the fall campaign against the Democrats.http://wapo.st/1OuNKhO -- Trump bolsters closing argument with most solid debate yet, by Bloombergs Michael Bender and Kevin Cirilli. The candidate who faced doubts for months over the true strength of his commanding poll numbers is proving doubters wrong on another count: With about two weeks until the presidential nominating process starts in Iowa, Donald Trump just delivered his most complete performance of the Republican primary season. http://bloom.bg/1OuPJTg -- Waiting game: Bush donors await green light to jump ship, by Politicos Anna Palmer and Ben White.POLITICO talked to nearly two dozen major donors, and most say they are waiting for what one veteran Republican and former Bush 43 administration appointee described as the family hall pass to jump to another campaign after the New Hampshire primary. http://politi.co/1OuPUOl -- Obama got what he wanted in the GOP race, by Politicos Edward-Isaac Dovere. President Barack Obama got exactly what he wanted from his gun control actions and hour-long State of the Union subtweet at Thursday nights GOP debate: Hes still at the center of the political conversation. When Hillary Clinton popped up at the sixth Republican forum, it was only as an extension of Obama. But most of the time, the GOPs 2016 presidential candidates didnt even bother with their Obamas third term talking point, instead landing right on Obama himself. http://politi.co/1OuQ9ca This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Walmart will close 29 stores in Texas, including two in Houston, a Neighborhood Market on Gessner Road and a Supercenter in Willowbrook, the company announced Friday. In all, Walmart said it will shutter 269 stores globally this year, including all 102 of its small-format Express stores. That includes 20 Express stores in Texas. Closure statewide include five Neighborhood Markets and four Supercenters. All are slated to close Jan. 28. Texas was worst hit with the number of closings, as the economy suffers from the prolonged downturn in oil prices. Other closings were across the country, with many in southern states. "Actively managing our portfolio of assets is essential to maintaining a healthy business," CEO Doug McMillon said in a statement. "Closing stores is never an easy decision, but it is necessary to keep the company strong and positioned for the future." He added that the company is also opening 300 stores this year. In Houston, Walmart opened two new neighborhood stores this week, of five openings it has planned for the area this year. The global move reflects a shift in strategy in which the retailing giant will focus more on building up its e-commerce firepower and improving its massive supercenters and its grocery-centric Neighborhood Market stores. A spokesman said the store closures would affect 16,000 jobs internationally, some 10,000 of those positions in the United States. The stores that are to be shuttered are ones that the retailer says account for less than 1 percent of global revenue. Walmart had been testing the Express concept since 2011 as a way to reach a different kind of shopper or a different kind of shopping trip. Walmart Express stores were something of mashup between a dollar store and a small grocery, offering convenience-oriented food products but not a wide array of fresh produce or meats. The idea was that it could help Walmart capture more of shoppers' dollars on smaller "fill-in trips," when a customer isn't necessarily aiming to restock their pantry. The store's smaller footprint was also a way to allow Walmart to shoulder into shopping centers and neighborhoods where a supercenter wouldn't fit. The retreat from this concept suggests the retailer did not see it getting the kind of traction in had initially hoped. As part of this strategy, the company will not move forward with plans to build two new supercenters in the District of Columbia. "Our experience over the last three years operating our current stores in D.C. has given us a fuller view on building and operating stores in the District," the company said in a statement. "This decision will not affect our three existing stores and we look forward to continue serving these customers in the future." Correction: This story previously said only one Houston store was closing. Sarah Scully contributed to this story. SEATTLE Stormy Keffeler, crowned Miss Washington USA in October, resigned her title Thursday amid a scandal that she did not disclose a drunken-driving conviction before the pageant, according to an official with the Miss Washington USA Pageant. First runner-up Kelsey Schmidt will assume the title immediately, according to Maureen Francisco, co-executive producer of Northwest Productions and Miss Washington USA. Schmidt will represent the state at the USA event later this year. "Anomalisa," one of the great films of 2015, is an R-rated animated feature about adults, made for adults. It represents a breakthrough, not in terms of technology, though it's technically expert, but in the use it makes of the animated form. Merely animating an adult subject might be interesting, but that's nothing to be excited about. Instead, "Anomalisa" finds an adult story that could only have been effectively achieved through animation, and then realizes it with precision, sensitivity and shocking humor. Adapted by Charlie Kaufman from his own radio play, "Anomalisa" takes place over two days and tells the story of a successful author who is suffering from a peculiar and dispiriting mental condition. He sees everyone as the same person. He can recognize differences in people's hair and clothing and size, but their faces are the same, and so are their voices. Even when he listens to music - such as Delibes' "Flower Duet" - it's the same voice that he hears, again and again. This voice, coming out of everyone, is played by Tom Noonan, in one of the most extraordinary vocal performances in all of animated film. Noonan's challenge was to find ways to suggest differences in the speakers' age, sex and disposition without changing the basic quality of his voice. He couldn't do what a professional book reader might do, adopt different voices for different characters. Instead he had to convey the external reality of each speaker through the filter of his own natural voice, and this he accomplishes with wit and subtlety. "Anomalisa" tells its story through the use of puppets and stop-motion animation, kind of like the old "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" Christmas special, but two generations down the line in terms of sophistication. These puppets are manipulated to portray nuanced gradations of emotion, in which they react with minute changes in expression as another character speaks. The ultimate effect is that very little is lost by having puppets and not people do the performing, while other things are gained - an eeriness, and a fascination. We can't forget that it's not real, so that even a simple sight, like watching two characters walk down a corridor, seems a little miraculous. More Information 'Anomalisa' Rated R: for strong sexual content, graphic nudity and language Running time: 130 minutes xxxxx See More Collapse And when it's not miraculous, it's funny - as when Michael (David Thewlis), the author, takes a shower in his hotel and has to keep hopping into and out of the water because it's either scalding or freezing cold. In a live-action film, it might very well be amusing to see this familiar aspect of travel cited in a movie, but the fact that it's a puppet experiencing it makes it a little more comical. We meet Michael in a miserable place in his life. Everything is drab and the same - it's boring," Thewlis says, in a tired English way that hides a world of depression behind the mask of understatement. Through clues dropped throughout, we realize that Michael has suffered from this strange isolation for at least 10 years. Now, in Cincinnati on a business trip, he reaches out to a former girlfriend, in the hope that seeing her might jar his spirit back to life. Jennifer Jason Leigh is the voice of the title character, a perfectly average person named Lisa, who becomes the anomaly in Michael's recent experience. For some reason, he can see her, and he can hear her actual voice, not Tom Noonan's. Within a compressed period of just a couple of days, "Anomalisa" becomes an urgently felt love story between a lonely woman and what has to be the loneliest man on earth. The situation has the force of metaphor, and Kaufman, who co-directed the film with Duke Johnson, keeps things vague enough to serve a number of meanings and functions. We know what afflicts Michael, but we never precisely know why. Is his a problem of perception? Very subtly, Kaufman hints that Michael's torment may be the result of his own moral failing, but even if it is, he can't address it because he can't see it. By the end, it becomes astonishing how much emotion "Anomalisa" persuades us to invest in these puppet people - just as it's incredible (until you see it) that a love scene between two puppets can have more power than 90 percent of the live-action love scenes of the past year. "Anomalisa" may simply be a brilliant one-off, but it's pointing in a new direction for animation, if anyone cares to follow it. Compton native Kendrick Lamar will be receiving the Key to the City. As Rap-Up reported, Compton Mayor Aja Brown announced the news via Twitter on Thursday. ".@kendricklamar you inspire millions + rep #Compton w/ honor!," Mayor Brown tweeted. "Excited to give you the #keytothecity Feb13th! #VisionForCompton #ComptonUp." Lamar responded to the mayor, tweeting, "I appreciate that. HUBLUV." The 28-year-old rapper was born in Compton and attended Centennial High School, where he was a straight-A student. When he was eight, he watched Tupac Shakur and Dr. Dre film the music video for "California Love," which later proved a pivotal moment for his future rap career. This isn't the first civic honor the rapper has received. He represented his hometown when he served as the 63rd Grand Marshal of the Compton Christmas Parade last year, and the California State Senate gave Lamar a Generational Icon Award in May. "It's definitely an honor to be right here in front of you guys," he told the legislature at the time. "Being from the City of Compton and knowing the parks that I played at and the neighborhoods, I always thought how great the opportunity would be to give back to my community off of what I do in music.... I thank you from the bottom of my heart for honoring me today." The city of Compton will give Lamar the Key to the City in a special ceremony, which takes place on February 13th. "Kendrick Lamar is a phenomenal artist whose work has served as a catalyst to raise a new level of consciousness for this generation," Mayor Brown said in a statement. "His message challenges the status quo and motivates listeners to rethink our society's institutions. I believe Kendrick Lamar is not only an artist, but an influencer of an entire generation. He represents Compton with great pride and I am honored to present him with the Key to the City, which symbolizes our deep appreciation for his philanthropic work and commitment to our community. "Mr. Lamar's achievements further Compton's legacy of ingenuity and excellence," the Mayor added. "Kendrick Lamar represents Compton's evolution, embodying the New Vision for Compton Purpose, Prosperity and Progress." The rapper's achievements have earned him acknowledgement beyond the city and state level. Lamar recently met with President Obama in the Oval Office. Their discussion was addressed in a video for the Pay It Forward program, which promotes mentoring inner city youth. This article originally appeared on Rollingstone.com: Kendrick Lamar to Receive Key to Compton This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate A tense police standoff ended Friday morning when the suspect driving a stolen sports utility vehicle was taken into custody on Tomball Parkway in northwest Houston. The incident began about 3:40 a.m. when patrol officers spotted a black Jeep SUV stopped in the roadway on Bingle near Hollister, said Kese Smith, a spokesman for the Houston Police Department. Smith said the driver sped away when officers tried to approach him. Officers followed the SUV. Smith said the brief chase ended when the suspect stopped in the 2700 block of Tomball Parkway near T.C. Jester after the SUV became disabled. The suspect told officers he had weapons in the SUV and he would harm them or himself if they approached him. SWAT officers were called to the scene. They tried to coax the man out of the Jeep, but he refused. Later, officers lobbed tear gas into the SUV and the man came out. He was holding a box cutter and what appeared to be a pistol. With the help of a police K-9 ,officers subdued the suspect and took him into custody. The pistol, Smith said, turned out to be a pellet gun. No injuries were reported. However, Smith said the man had cut himself in the neck with the box cutter. He was taken to Northwest Memorial Hospital. His condition was not released. Smith said officers later determined the man had two outstanding felony warrants for him and the Jeep had been been reported stolen. Details about the warrants were not released. During the chase, the man tossed something from the SUV, but officers did not yet released what it was. Tomball Parkway was blocked in both directions as the standoff unfolded. Traffic was backed up for miles. Chronicle reporter Cody Duty contributed to this article Dear Abby: Our son and his wife have blessed us with a darling 6-year-old granddaughter, "Sophie," who is the love of our lives. We live nearby and are very close. When we received her kindergarten school photo, she had on heavy lipstick and light eye shadow. My husband and I couldn't contain our shock. Her parents said they thought she looked beautiful, and Sophie was made up that way because "she wanted to." We were speechless. WOW: What Miss Universe contestants look like without makeup When we pick her up on weekends, she sometimes wears makeup, too. It makes her look like a 30-year-old. We think that wearing it while playing dress-up is fun, but doing it outside the home takes away from her natural beauty. What are your thoughts on this? Taken Aback in Kansas Dear Taken Aback: Forgive me if this seems old-fashioned, but I think that a kindergartner should be allowed to remain a child for at least a few years. I'm not only surprised that your son and daughter-in-law would send their 6-year-old to school wearing makeup, I am equally surprised that the school would allow it. And when Sophie spends the weekend with you, don't you think you should make the rules? Someone has to draw the line, but when you do, be prepared for some battles. In the first few months of life, babies are too young to be vaccinated against pertussis, also known as whooping cough. While researchers from the University of Texas at Austin are working on antibodies that could be given to infants to fight off a pertussis infection, for now, babies must rely on antibodies they can get from their mother's blood in the womb. Public health officials have urged vaccination of pregnant women against pertussis in the third trimester, and of family members who will come into contact with the baby in the first year of life. Residents were evacuated from a La Marque apartment complex Friday afternoon when police discovered "explosive material" inside one unit. La Marque police officers had entered the unit with a narcotics search warrant, but backed out when they noted the explosive material and called a bomb squad to the scene. A spokesman for the La Marque Police Department said he couldn't yet say what the explosive material was. The new city manager of Missouri City says he should have borrowed his daughter's hoverboard to help him navigate his busy schedule. During his first seven weeks at the helm of the Fort Bend city, Anthony Snipes says he has been working full days, sometimes from 7:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., as he tries to learn and listen as much as he can. But Snipes took a moment, in an interview with the Chronicle this week, to reflect on how it's gone so far. ON-BOARDING METHOD: Snipes quickly reached out to the city's seven council members upon starting in the post, trying to understand their priorities and touring their districts. He asked each to provide him with a list of more people to know. In the first 60 days, Snipes says he also intends to meet with all of the city's employees. "The most important thing has been listening, " he said. EARLY TASKS: But not everything for Snipes has been listening. So far he's been tasked with filling five management-level positions, plus tackling issues like body cameras for police and the state's new law permitting handguns to be carried opening in a shoulder or belt holster -- "all those things, big initiatives in your first month and a half," he said. "It's been very exciting but it's been daunting." LEARNING FROM THE PAST: Watching transitions in his past jobs, and being under "great tutelage," helped prepare him to be a city manager for the first time in his career, Snipes said. Past cities he's served include Dayton, Ohio and Fort Worth. "In life, there's always a first time," Snipes said. "I'm at the right place at the right time." Most recently, Snipes worked in Austin, where he stepped down from his post as assistant city manager after misogynistic remarks were reportedly made at a conference he organized on how to work with the city's newly majority-female council. In Wednesday's interview, Snipes reiterated that he did not attend the meeting other than to give an introduction, found the remarks offensive when he learned of them and stepped down because of the negative light it brought on a community he loved. "Any experience you go through, you learn of things that you could do differently, " he said. "For me, I think I've always been committed to diversity." ON DIVERSITY: Snipes is the first African-American to fill the city manager position, which has been held by six others. It's a role he says comes with "a lot of pressure" to do his best, to do the job right, for the benefit of the person to follow him, no matter what his or her race may be. "I understand that individuals like me stand on the shoulders of giants," he said. FINAL THOUGHTS: "I'm not just concerned about Missouri City today," Snipes said. "I'm more concerned about its future for tomorrow. If we do it right today, we create an environment, city that's great for our kids, the next generation of leaders, the next generation of our community." J. Patric Schneider/Freelance State Rep. Ron Reynolds has lost his bid to resume practicing law while he appeals his conviction for illegally soliciting clients. Montgomery County County Court-at-Law Judge Mary Ann Turner on Thursday denied the request by Reynolds, who argued that the bond condition prevents him from being able to financially support his family. A multiple-agency drug bust in Montgomery County has resulted in two arrests and the seizure of nearly 12 pounds of cocaine in a feed bag. The Montgomery County Precinct 4 Narcotics Investigation Team, in a joint operation with other Houston-area agencies, made a fake drug buy at about 7:39 p.m. Thursday in the 23700 block of FM 1314 in Porter, authorities said. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The FBI's Violent Crime Task Force is asking the public's help in finding four suspects who they say robbed the Woodforest Bank branch at a Gallery Furniture location on Thursday night. Just after 7 p.m. four suspects pulled up outside the Gallery Furniture store in the 6000 block of the North Freeway. One suspect stayed in the vehicle, a stolen white Ford F-250 pick-up, while three others went inside. Armed with pistols the two men demanded cash from the banks tellers while another stood watch just outside the front door. No one was injured in the robbery. The suspects soon left, driven off by the getaway driver. According to witnesses the vehicle had Louisiana license plates and was reported stolen from the northeast Houston area on Thursday. That pickup later was found abandoned in the area. Eyewitnesses were able to make partial descriptions of the suspects. The driver of the stolen truck was described as a "short, Hispanic male with curly hair, according to an FBI release. The three other men who went into the bank were described as black males. The suspect stationed outside the door of the bank wore a gray hoodie with black horizontal stripes, khaki pants and yellow rubber or latex gloves, according to the FBI. A second suspect in the bank wore a dark beanie, yellow rubber or latex gloves and a black hooded sweatshirt with the lettering And 1 on the front. A third suspect that reportedly jumped the banks counter to grab cash from tellers wore a gray hooded sweatshirt with purple horizontal stripes, black pants, black and white sneakers, gray gloves and orange boxers or shorts underneath his pants. Law enforcement is also looking for the driver of a black Dodge Challenger that drove into the parking lot behind the suspects stolen vehicle. Crime Stoppers of Houston is now offering up to $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and charging of the bank robbers. Anyone who may have information about this case should call the Crime Stoppers tip line at 713-222-TIPS (8477), or the FBI Houston Field Office at (713) 693-5000. Text TIP610 plus your tip to CRIMES (274637), or visit www.crime-stoppers.org. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The Houston school board voted 5-4 Thursday to rename four campuses named after Confederate loyalists and postponed decisions on four others amid community concerns. Trustees agreed to kickstart the process of renaming Henry Grady, Richard Dowling and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson middle schools and Robert E. Lee High School. Now, a committee at each school, including a teacher, student, parent and alumni, will be charged with proposing a new name. The policy calls for the superintendent then to make recommendations to the board for a vote to take place in May, according to the meeting agenda. Board president Rhonda Skillern-Jones had included eight schools on the list for renaming, but trustees agreed to remove four Lanier and Johnston middle schools and Davis and Reagan high schools to allow for more discussion. Trustees who represent those four schools made motions to exclude them. Newly elected trustee Jolanda Jones, who represents Lanier, posted Wednesday on Twitter that she supported changing the school's name. However, on Thursday she proposed removing the campus from the immediate renaming list, saying she wanted to host a meeting at the school. "Sidney Lanier was a confederate soldier despite what some say," Jones posted on social media. "I would vote 2 change an anti-Semitic name if asked 2." Numerous parents and students from Lanier dressed in the school's purple color and urged the board to keep the name. Sidney Lanier, they said, is better known as a poet than as a soldier in the Confederate army. They also said they had little time to discuss the issue because the school was not on the renaming list floated months ago. "This is clearly a very important question, and it brings out a lot of emotion on both sides of the issue," Adriane Arnold, president of the Lanier parent group, told the board. "It is something our kids will be discussing at Lanier moving forward." Trustee Harvin Moore tried to postpone the renaming item "indefinitely," but it failed on a 4-5 vote. Those who supported postponement and then voted against the name changes were Moore, Anna Eastman, Mike Lunceford and Greg Meyers. All five minority trustees voted for the name changes. Moore and Eastman said they were concerned that the renaming proposal and several other items were placed hastily on the board agenda by the president. "I don't think my vote represents pro-celebration of the Confederacy at all," Eastman said. Before the vote, James Douglas, president of the NAACP of Houston, urged trustees to eliminate Confederate loyalists from school names. "Do I forgive them? Yes," Douglas said. "But I don't want to honor them. I think it's a travesty that this country honors people who create treason. They were willing to destroy this country in order to treat my forefathers as inhuman." Skillern-Jones had backed the idea of renaming schools soon after the June 17 shooting deaths of nine black church worshippers by an alleged white supremacist in Charleston, S.C. State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, also had promoted name changes, after his successful push for HISD in 2014 to eliminate school mascots offensive to Native Americans. The board approved a policy in October that allowed trustees to initiate school name changes if deemed "in the best interest" of HISD. The policy says school names "must respect cultural differences and values." Skillern-Jones added several controversial items to the agenda, including banning suspensions of young students and changing the district's school funding model. Eastman, however, said: "We are in a time where our focus needs to be 100 percent on finding a new superintendent and making sure that our 89 under-performing schools have everything they need. And these discussions are important, but they have a time and place to happen." Trustees on Thursday also selected Manuel Rodriguez Jr. to succeed Skillern-Jones as the board president a particularly important post as they search for a new superintendent in coming months. Rodriguez, elected in 2003 and one of the longest-serving trustees, also was board president in 2007. On another issue, the board, split along the same 5-4 lines as in the campus naming issue, and voted to create magnet programs at 10 schools, giving them extra funding and the prestigious label. Eight campuses would be designated fine-arts magnet schools: Atherton, Crockett and Kashmere Gardens elementary schools; Dowling, Key and Ortiz middle schools; and Kashmere and Westbury high schools. Hartsfield Elementary would have a magnet program focused on environmental and animal science, and Stevens Elementary would specialize in science, technology, engineering and math. Albert Lemons, the longtime principal of Atherton Elementary in northeast Houston, told the board he had been applying to the district administration since 1996 to get an approved magnet program. The plans calls for Atherton to get a fine arts program. "I thank you for even thinking about us," Lemon told trustees. A parent from Field Elementary questioned why her Heights-area school would not get a magnet program despite applying. "The secrecy of all this suggests cronyism and corruption," said Patty McGrail, president of the parent group at Field Elementary. In addition, the board commissioned a study of all school attendance boundaries a study that could set the stage for shifting where students are zoned to attend. Former Houston Police Officer Noe Juarez was convicted Friday in New Orleans for his role in helping drug traffickers distribute cocaine and obtain military-style weapons that they used during the commission of their crimes. Juarez faces 10 years to life for the drug charge and a maximum of 20 years over firearms, which he sold to the traffickers. A Houston man who fled the courthouse Friday minutes after being found guilty in felony court was sentenced in absentia to probation, his lawyer said. Courtney Lyons was facing a sentence ranging from probation to 10 years in prison after being convicted for his part in a fatal double shooting in southwest Houston last year. The 24-year-old, who was free on $30,000 bail, asked to go to the men's bathroom after being found guilty of unlawful discharge of a firearm by a jury Friday morning. Usually defendants have their bond revoked and are taken into custody when they are found guilty, but Lyons left the courtroom during a break between the guilty verdict and the beginning of the punishment phase, officials said. Harris County sheriff's officials said Lyons will be classified as a fugitive, and an arrest warrant will be issued as a result of the bond forfeiture. Since he was not in custody, he will not be charged with escape. Prosecutors and the defense attorney in state District Judge Brock Thomas' court continued the proceedings Friday afternoon, including giving closing arguments, without Lyons. After jurors heard testimony that included evidence that he fled the proceedings, he was sentenced to 10 years probation astounding his lawyer. "Wow," said attorney Lee Richardson. "I just argued to the jury that he was a scared young man who had never been convicted of anything. I sure hope he avails himself of the second chance they have given him." When he is arrested, the judge will set the conditions of his probation and could put Lyons in jail for 180 days as one of those conditions. Lyons had been charged with murder in the fatal shooting on May 14, 2014, but a Harris County grand jury reduced the charges. He was accused in the killings of Desmond Akens, 20, and Keivan Breaux, 20 at a parking lot in the 14600 block of South Main. Three men apparently attempted to rob Lyons during an alleged drug deal, police said. Lyons started shooting, fatally hitting Akens and Breaux. He missed the third man, but shot a nearby house with a woman inside. She was not injured, but Lyons was charged with deadly conduct, a third-degree felony. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate A January electricity bill shocked a North Texas family because their home had been demolished by a tornado in December, KXTA TV in Dallas reports. The mother, father and two small children were among the thousands of victims of a late December tornado outbreak that left 11 dead and damaged or destroyed nearly 1,000 homes in North Texas. RELATED: At least 11 die from Texas tornadoes, 13 in Midwest flooding Rahbia Kashif, the resident of Rowlett, a Dallas suburb, told KXTA that her electricity bill from Reliant Energy doubled after her home was sacked. "They're billing us for electricity to the home and there was no home," she told KXTA. Unable to get a satisfactory response from the company, Kashif reached out to KXTA. When the news station contacted Reliant, it apologized, saying Kashif had been charged by mistake, and released the following statement: An Amtrak train headed from San Antonio to Chicago collided with an 18-wheeler blocking the tracks near Mesquite, killing the truck driver. The accident happened at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, delaying Train 22, the Texas Eagle, at the scene for 5 1/2 hours, an Amtrak spokesman said. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's eligibility for U.S. President could be decided by a federal lawsuit filed Thursday in Houston. Veteran Houston attorney Newton Schwartz wants the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether Cruz's Canadian birth to an American-born mother and a Cuban father disqualifies him from the nation's highest office. Cruz is seeking the Republican nomination for president. The U.S. Constitution stipulates that the president must be a "natural born citizen." Now, a court may have to decide what that means. "It's very simple, but it's amazing that no one has taken it to the Supreme Court," said Schwartz, who started his legal career as a federal prosecutor in Houston in 1955. ZINGERS: Cruz-Trump battle spawns best one-liners of GOP debate Issues over Cruz's birthplace and citizenship have flared up in recent weeks, especially as Republican rival Donald Trump persistently has raised the eligibility question. It could have a major impact on the Cruz campaign, which ranks second, behind Trump, in most major polls. In the Republican presidential debate Thursday night, Trump said that Cruz likely would face a lawsuit over his eligibility if he did not settle the issue himself. A Reuters poll, reported Friday, found that a quarter of Republicans think Cruz's birthplace disqualifies him from the presidency. Cruz has said that his mother's U.S. citizenship makes him a natural born citizen, comparing himself to children of military personnel deployed overseas. A Cruz campaign spokesman declined to comment on the lawsuit Friday. BACKGROUND: The Ted Cruz citizenship controversy explained Now, the question will go before a judge. Schwartz said he expects the case to go to the Supreme Court, given the deeply constitutional nature of the question. Peter Linzer, professor of constitutional law at the University of Houston, predicted the case would be dismissed quickly because "no judge really wants to have to decide this case." Various legal scholars have weighed in on the public debate, arguing for both sides in recent weeks. THE SPARK: Trump says Cruz's Canadian birth could be 'very precarious' for GOP Schwartz's 28-page lawsuit said, "It is undisputed, by all legal scholars, there is no U.S. Supreme Court decision or precedent: determinative of the following agreed facts of this case and controversy. 'Natural born citizen' has never been defined." Registered to vote since 1948, Schwartz said he has voted Democratic in presidential elections since he cast a ballot for Richard Nixon in 1968. "No one put me up to this," he said. He said he filed the case on behalf of the American people to avoid a messy situation in which Cruz is deemed ineligible only after winning the Republican nomination or the presidency. Other experts dismissed the merit of the case. "I'm no fan of Ted Cruz, but my view is that he's a natural born citizen," Linzer said. "If you're born to a U.S. citizen abroad, there seems to be a clear view that that is good enough." He noted that the birthplace issue has been repeatedly raised in presidential races, always with the conclusion that children of American-born U.S. citizens are eligible for the Oval Office. For example, Arizona senator Barry Goldwater was allowed to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 1964, even though he was born in Arizona in 1909, three years before the territory became a U.S. state. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr., son of the American president, was also considered a serious presidential contender, though he never sought the nomination. He was born during a family vacation in Canada. George Romney, father of Mitt Romney, sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1968 despite his birth to American parents at a Mormon community in Mexico. Sen. John McCain also faced questions during his 2008 presidential bid over his birth at the U.S.-controlled territory of the Panama Canal. Mark Jones, a fellow in political science at Rice University's Baker Institute of Public Policy, who also thought Cruz was a natural born citizen, said the question likely would continue to dog the Cruz campaign like it did for President Barack Obama throughout his two campaigns and his entire presidency. Obama was born in Hawaii, but some opponents have claimed he was born in Kenya to an American-born mother. AUSTIN -- Attorney General Ken Paxton is being investigated for alleged wrongdoing unrelated to the accusations that lead to his felony indictments last year, multiple sources confirmed Friday. A new grand jury investigation has been opened - and two new special prosecutors appointed - to look into Paxton's role in a 2004 land deal in Collin County. His attorney Bill Mateja confirmed the additional investigation, which is unrelated to his client's recent indictments, and said he believes Paxton will be found innocent of any misconduct. "We have cooperated fully with these attorneys and are confident that they will find no wrongdoing on the part of general Paxton and anyone involved," Mateja told the Chronicle. "While the attorneys investigating this might be referred to as 'special prosecutors,' at this junction they are merely investigating whether anyone engaged in any improper conduct in connection with the sale of the property." In 2004, a company called Eldorado-Collin bought a parcel of undeveloped land off Eldorado Parkway in McKinney. Paxton, then a state representative, and his college friend Greg Willis, who would later become a judge and now serves as Collin County District Attorney, were limited partners in the company. More than a year later, Eldorado-Collin sold the land to a company called Cornerstone, which sold it to the Central Appraisal District of Collin County. Eventually the county appraisal district headquarters were built there. According to a May 2014 Dallas Morning News article, "Before Cornerstone bought the property, officials from Paxton's company sought and received a critical zoning change from McKinney. That paved the way for the appraisal district building." Paxton has said he was not involved in the re-zoning effort, and Mateja on Friday said his client was not involved in the ultimate sale of the land to the appraisal district. "Importantly, the property was sold, and not by General Paxton or any business he was involved with but by a Dallas real estate company named Cornerstone with which Paxton had no involvement," said Mateja. "Cornerstone had earlier purchased the property from a limited partnership in which Paxton was merely a limited partner. Paxton was not involved in the sale of the property to Cornerstone, which is typical of the role of a limited partner." A month before Paxton was indicted on charges unrelated to the land deal, liberal interest group Lone Star Project filed a formal complaint with both the grand jury and the U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Texas regarding the land deal. Mateja said the prosecutors were brought on after "a Collin County resident asked the District Attorney's office to investigate the sale of property to the Collin County Appraisal District." Ty Clevenger, a local blogger and former U.S. Department of Justice lawyer, wrote extensively about the land deal last year and sent a letter on the issue to the grand jury that indicted Paxton. Speaking from New York City, where he recently moved, Clevenger told the Chronicle he was glad the land deal was being investigated. "The reason I kept pushing so hard on that issue is because I believe it went well beyond Ken Paxton," he said. "Greg Willis is involved in this and I believe a lot of other political players in Collin County probably had their hand in the cookie jar." Calls and emails to the office of the new prosecutors, Ft. Worth attorneys Bob Gill and David "Miles" Brissette, were not immediately returned. A Collin County grand jury last July indicted Paxton on three felony counts of violating state securities laws. He is accused of funneling clients to a friend's investment firm without being properly registered with the state, and for encouraging others to invest in a north Texas technology start-up without disclosing he was being paid by the company. Willis recused himself in that case, which was eventually handed over to three Houston criminal defense attorneys for prosecution. On Friday, they declined comment on the new investigation and two new prosecutors. Also on Friday, the Austin-American Statesman reported the three special prosecutors originally appointed to the case have sued the Office of the Attorney General to block the release of documents related to Paxton's defense. The Dallas Morning News last year requested access to these records, but the prosecutors argued they should not be released because they contain documents that could hinder the attorney general's ability to defend himself. Paxton's office countered, and in a move that could have hugely negative repercussions for the attorney general said it had to release the documents because the prosecutors didn't take all necessary steps to block their release. The prosecutors' attorney David Feldman on Thursday sued the office in district court to bar the newspaper from getting the information. Paxton, a Republican who was elected in November 2014 and indicted in July, has pleaded not guilty to all the charges and asked for a trial in Collin County. He has also appealed to the 5th Court of Appeals in Dallas a recent ruling by Gallagher not to quash his indictments. Cherokee Historic Preservation Commission seeks new member The Cherokee Historic Preservation Commission has a vacancy for a new member beginning immediately due to the departure of a... Library friends busy building Book Baskets This year will mark the 23rd year for the Book Basket Project, which is a major fundraising project for the... Pre-registration deadline for voters this weekend The voter pre-registration deadline for the general election is Saturday, Oct. 24. The Cherokee County Auditor and Commissioner of Elections... Drought worsens as harvest heats up Cherokee County continues to slip deeper into extreme drought, a trend being seen throughout Northwest Iowa as rainfall remains scarce... Photo by Paramount Pictures If only for its portrayal of hedge-fund risk-takers as something like the good guys, The Big Short deserves its Academy Award nomination for best picture. The film, based on the Michael Lewis book of the same name, is a storytelling tour de force, providing a creative tutorial on some of the factors that led to the 2008 financial crisis and an inside look at the often brutal culture of New York City financial firms. The unlikely protagonists are a group of hedge-fund managers who bet on the collapse of the house-of-cards housing market. Despite those attributes, the film tells an incomplete story of the crisis, one that absolves government housing policy of the role it played. Key parts of this policy remain in place. Even if government policy doesnt cause another meltdown, it has the potential to do great harm to its intended beneficiaries: low-income households and neighborhoods. In The Big Shorts telling, the financial crisis was triggered solely by private-sector mortgage securitization run amok. Securitization is essentially a good idea; lots of mortgages are bundled into a security that, in whole or parts, can be sold to investors, making more capital available for new mortgages. Only when investment banking firms loaded up these securities with unsound, subprime mortgages and resold them to the financially naivealong with insurance products based on themdid the process get corrupted. Ratings agencies, per the film, were enablersvouching for the soundness of investment instruments whose underlying mortgages were not being repaid. Its a plausible and convincing scenario. Plenty of liar and no-doc mortgage loans were packaged into tranches, whose inaccurately elevated ratings convinced pension fundsand even sovereign investment fundsthat potential returns outweighed the risks. Its also true, though, that large numbers of such loans wound up on the books of the two giant government-sponsored enterprisesFannie Mae and Freddie Maccharged with slurping up mortgage loans to help Americans buy homes. But these giant, federally chartered GSEs were also under regulatory pressure to buy mortgages written for lower-income homebuyers and in low-income neighborhoods. Their affordable-housing goals were initiated by the Clinton administration, expanded during the Bush years, and are still in force today. The GSEs goals could be met, in part, by purchasing the same subprime loans that are the villain in The Big Short. The GSEs affordable-housing goals were ambitious. By 2005, the Department of Housing and Urban Development required that 45 percent of all the loans bought by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac be made to borrowers with low and moderate incomes. HUD also required the GSEs to buy 32 percent of the loans in their portfolios from people in central cities and other underserved areas, and 22 percent from loans made to very low income families or families living in low-income neighborhoods. Did these requirements figure significantly in the financial crisis? In a convincing dissent to the federal 2011 Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission report, which largely follows The Big Shorts version of events, commissioner Peter Wallison of the American Enterprise Institute argued that the regulatory pressure to extend mortgage credit to those who didnt have the traditional means to assure repaymentthat is, lowering mortgage underwriting standardswas crucial: The sine qua non of the financial crisis was U.S. government housing policy, which led to the creation of 27 million subprime and other risky loanshalf of all mortgages in the United Stateswhich were ready to default as soon as the massive 19972007 housing bubble began to deflate. If the U.S. government had not chosen this policy path fostering the growth of a bubble of unprecedented size and an equally unprecedented number of weak and high-risk residential mortgagesthe great financial crisis of 2008 would never have occurred. Specifically, Wallisons dissent concluded, the GSEs books were filled with the sorts of mortgages that The Big Short portrays as helping to bring down the economy. These mortgages were originated by banks or mortgage brokers but quickly sold to the GSEs. Immediately prior to the onset of the financial crisis, the GSEs held or had guaranteed 12 million subprime and Alt-A loans, writes Wallison. This was 37 percent of their total mortgage exposure of 32 million loans, which, in turn, was approximately 58 percent of the 55 million mortgages outstanding in the United States on that date. Fannie and Freddie, accordingly, were by far the dominant players in the U.S. mortgage market before the financial crisis, and their underwriting standards largely set the standards for the rest of the mortgage financing industry. Fannie and Freddie subsequently needed the largest post-crisis federal bailout of all: $187 billion. Maybe asking whether the GSEs affordable-housing goals triggered the financial crisis is the wrong question. Perhaps we should simply agree that they may have been a factoralong with an overall bubble mentality in the market. But it is worth asking why we continue to insist on affordable-housing goals for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Those who defend themsuch as the National Community Reinvestment Coalitionassert that, absent such regulation, African-American and Hispanic borrowers will find it hard to access credit markets. In a letter just last month to the GSEs regulator, the NCRC wrote, We believe that stronger action is necessary on the affordable-housing goals and mortgages purchases affecting minority borrowers. Such advocates, however, should explain why the housing marketwhich today includes online lenders and interstate banks, as well as traditional community lenderswould turn away creditworthy borrowers of any background? Or why enforcement of fair-housing laws is insufficient protection against biased or predatory lending practices? They should also explain why we should overlook the obvious risk that, under pressure, lenders will care more about filling loan quotas than making sure borrowers are creditworthy. Nothing undermines the hard work of a homeowneror the value of ones propertymore than a neighbor who defaults on his mortgage. African-American households were particularly hard-hit by the mortgage crisis. A 2011 study by the Center for Responsible Lending found that African-American and Latino borrowers are almost twice as likely to have been impacted by the crisis. Approximately one quarter of all Latino and African-American borrowers have lost their home to foreclosure or are seriously delinquent, compared to just under 12 percent for white borrowers. More specifically, the study found that 240,000 black households lost homes to foreclosure, as did 335,000 Latino households. The Center for Responsible Lendingand defenders of affordable-housing goals and community-reinvestment requirements generallyascribe such losses to the fact that minorities were more likely to receive high risk loan products that were aggressively marketed. They overlook the possibility that quota-induced lending may have helped undermine housing values and discouraged repayment. If ones home value is underwater, the incentive to repay diminishes. The same may be true if ones neighbors mortgage is underwater, for that matter. Traditional underwriting standardsincluding significant down payments and solid credit scoresdont punish low-income and minority homebuyers. Rather, they protect their efforts both to accumulate and to protect wealth, key areas in which they trail white households. As I wrote myself in the Wall Street Journal in 2004four years before the financial crisis: The risk here, of course, is that the credit spigot will have to be opened to the marginally creditworthy, a threat both to the GSEs finances and to low-income neighborhoods, should they be hit by delinquencies and foreclosures. Or, as the National Association of Realtors has put it, the proposed rules may cause the GSEs to take actions that will distort mortgage markets, with negative results. I wish I had been wrong. I also wish The Big Short had told the whole story. Women in Online Work program pentru femeile care isi doresc sa munceasca in companii internationale, de la biroul de acasa For the 23 years Karen Meyer was a reporter at ABC 7 in Chicago, her news station covered the citys disabled population, a community important to Meyer because she belonged to it. Meyer was a trailblazing deaf reporter whose on-air reports tackled issues about wheelchair accessible playgrounds and problems with public accommodations for people with disabilities. Having a reporter on a disability beat was and still is unique, not only in TV news or Chicago, but nationwide. Often when reporters carve out specialized beats, a new organizations stays on the story as long as the reporter does. But when Meyer retired from ABC 7 in 2014, the station decided to stay on the disability beat, giving it to special projects producer Sylvia L. Jones and Hosea Sanders, a prime-time anchor at the station. We had a long history of serving that community through Karens reporting, said Jennifer Graves, vice president and news director for ABC 7. Karen Meyer blazed the trail for that kind of reporting. When she retired we felt it was important to continue to tell those stories. Once a week on Sunday morning, the station broadcasts a special report on a disability issue. My core is to do community stories of people who dont necessarily have their stories told, said Jones, who has been at ABC 7 for 10 years. She worked five years before that at WGN in Chicago. Sign up for weekly emails from the United States Project Unlike Meyer, who understood from personal experience what its like to live with a disability, Jones said she approaches the beat from a position of ignorance. I dont pretend to be an expert, Jones said. I just knew there was a community that is not heard. Before she left the beat, Meyer passed on story ideas to her colleagues, including one about a Chicago-area dentist who specializes in serving clients with special needs. A year later, Jones, who does much of the legwork, is tapped in. Shes made sources and gets tips, as the station covers subjects like a job-placement program featured on a recent segment. The term disability encompasses a wide range of impairments. One of the biggest journalistic challenges, Jones said in a recent interview from ABC 7s offices in downtown Chicago, is telling the story of someone who has difficulty communicating. Its their story, she said. Its harder to get. There are communication challenges in understanding sometimes. Gary M. Arnold, public affairs manager for Access Living, a nonprofit disability rights and service organization in Chicago featured in a report last year about the American with Disabilities Act, said the station remains a good resource for people living with disabilities, and a place where their advocates can be heard. If theres an issue or a program or an individual who we think makes sense to promote, its great to have Channel 7, he said. In another sign of the communitys reponse, one organization took to Facebook to laud the amazing job that ABC 7 reporting on a summer camp for special-needs youth. Being on the beat has changed how Jones sees the world, she said, making her more attuned to the subtle ways people with disabilities face discrimination. I definitely look at the world through a different lens, she said. On a recent trip to South Africa, she was in a bathroom and noticed that there was not a wheelchair accessible stall. Then I started to wonder where the elevator was, she said. It was a stark reminder that the entire world hasnt caught up. Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Jackie Spinner is CJRs correspondent for Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin. She is an associate journalism professor at Columbia College Chicago and a former staff writer for The Washington Post. Follow her on Twitter @jackiespinner. The impact of disruptive events, fierce market competition and cyber incidents ranked as top concerns, according to the fifth annual survey on corporate risks published by Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS), which surveyed over 800 risk managers and insurance experts from more than 40 countries. The findings indicate the risk landscape for businesses is substantially changing in 2016. According to the Allianz Risk Barometer, business and supply chain interruption (BI) remains the top risk for businesses globally for the fourth year in succession. However, many companies are concerned that business interruption (BI) losses, which usually result from property damage, will increasingly be driven by cyber-attacks, technical failure or geo-political instability as new non-physical damage causes of disruption. Market developments, which consist of market volatility, intensified competition and market stagnation, together with cyber incidents, debuted in the top three global business risks; cyber incidents also was cited as the most important long-term risk for companies in the next 10 years. In contrast, natural catastrophes dropped two positions to fourth year-over-year, reflecting the fact that in 2015 losses from natural disasters reached their lowest level since 2009. In the U.S., BI was cited by 39 percent of respondents as the top business risk, followed by natural catastrophes (33 percent) and cyber (32 percent). Business interruption continues to be the primary concern of risk managers and how well a company responds will determine how well it survives to compete, said Hugh Burgess, global head of mid-corporate and head of corporate lines, North America. As global supply chains continue to grow and increase in complexity, the threat of BI continues to incubate in numerous and increasing areas, which in turn, continues to weigh on the minds of risk managers today. Rising sophistication of cyber attacks Another area of increasing concern for businesses globally is the threat of cyber incidents, which include cyber crime, data breaches and technical IT failures. Cyber incidents gained 11 percentage points year-over-year, to move from fifth position to debut into the top three risks (28 percent of global responses). Five years ago, Cyber Incidents were identified as a risk by just 1 percent of responses in the inaugural Allianz Risk Barometer; Loss of reputation (69 percent) is cited as the main cause of economic loss for businesses after a cyber incident, followed by BI at 60 percent and liability claims after a data breach at 52 percent. While the cyber insurance market is still in its infancy in Europe albeit developing quickly, the U.S. market has already reached maturity and has experienced substantial losses. The U.S. is unique in that we have already paid losses in the hundreds of millions to cover cyber loss. Breaches happen everywhere, but the U.S. has complex regulatory regimes and an extremely active plaintiffs bar. These dynamics have driven the price of loss higher in the U.S. than anywhere else, said Emy Donavan, national practice leader cyber. Boards and C-suites in the U.S. are acutely aware of the individual risk they may have if a cyber event occurs on their watch. Litigation trends and case law are developing so quickly that potential liability associated with clients normal operations can change literally overnight. Source: Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty General Motors Co. found a deadly flaw in its ignition switches but chose to keep customers and regulators in the dark for years, a lawyer for an injured postal carrier told jurors in the first trial over the defect. The company also rejected a cheap fix that would have saved lives, even labeling the defect a convenience issue rather than a safety problem to avoid a requirement to alert the authorities, plaintiffs attorney Robert Hilliard said Tuesday in his opening statement in Manhattan federal court. You have to understand the effect and consequences of an actual conscious decision by General Motors to put a defective switch in millions of cars, Hilliard told the jury. He said the evidence would reveal the cover-up and the fraud that spanned more than a decade and ruined lives. Robert Scheuer, 49, whose 2003 Saturn Ion ran off an Oklahoma highway and smashed into a tree in May 2014, is the first plaintiff to have his case heard by a jury. He claims a defective switch caused the air bag to fail, leaving him with neck and back pain. Defective switches have also been shown to cut the power-assist to brakes and steering, leading to deadly stalls. Scheuers is also the first of six bellwether trials in Manhattan, so called because they are used to test strategies. The jurys reaction to the evidence may push either side to settle or battle out hundreds of other cases and help set the size of any settlements. There were mistakes and errors in judgment made by General Motors, GMs lawyer, Mike Brock, said in his opening statement. He said that 15 employees were eventually fired by the company and new safety programs and measures were put in place. GM wont deny mistakes were made, the attorney said. The carmakers strategy became clear in court as Brock noted that Scheuer failed to act on a GM recall notice sent a month before the accident. Brock also described the drivers history of back problems and surgeries, the painkillers he was taking, and the possibility that he simply fell asleep behind the wheel and drifted off the road. Injury Evidence GMs attorney also cast doubt on Scheuers claim to have been unconscious for about three hours after the impact, citing evidence of mobile-phone usage during that time and an absence of head injuries. Scheuer was flown from the accident scene by helicopter but was discharged from the hospital the next day with no obvious injuries, Brock said. The police officer who arrived on the scene determined the driver potentially fell asleep or stopped paying attention, based on the angle of the cars departure from the road, Brock said. GM, which has already paid more than $2 billion to resolve investigations, a securities lawsuit and injury claims, now faces at least 16 trials in 2016 on death and injury claims in U.S. state and federal courts. It has said in regulatory filings that it couldnt estimate its potential liability. Hilliard says his client missed 169 days of work, cant lift more than 20 pounds and needs surgery. One Man One man was involved in an accident in Oklahoma, but he is not the only person who has been a victim, Hilliard said. Hilliard held out his hand to show jurors the tiny part of the switch at the center of the defect called a detent plunger, which clicks the ignition between the run and accessory positions deep inside the switch. GM in 2001 made the part even smaller to improve the feel of the ignition, but ended up creating a deadly flaw, Hilliard said. GM eventually sought a replacement part but chose to deplete its existing defective switches and didnt alert authorities, the attorney said. As with any lawsuit alleging a product defect, each plaintiff must show that the incident and injuries or fatalities were connected to the flaw. Each bellwether case will be tried on its own merits, Jim Cain, a GM spokesman, said in a statement before the trial. GM engineers and lawyers knew about the bad switches for years before the recall, according to a 2014 study commissioned by the company, Americas biggest automaker. The switch could be jarred into the accessory position, shutting off the engine, disabling power steering and brakes and preventing air bags from deploying. GM, which got a $50 billion government bailout in the financial crisis, rejected a fix that would have cost 90 cents apiece, according to evidence provided to lawmakers. Federal Probe In the weeks before the trial, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman issued rulings in favor of Scheuer, allowing his lawyer to tell jurors of GMs admission of fault in its settlement of a federal criminal probe. The company admitted it failed to disclose to regulators that it was aware of a flaw and falsely represented to consumers that vehicles containing the defect posed no safety concern. The faulty switch has been linked to the deaths of at least 124 people and to injuries ranging from broken bones to paralysis. This isnt mid-level management the lawyer said. This is a conscious decision up the food chain from those who are charged with advising the company. Downed Tree Hilliard said that after Scheuer ran over rumble strip on the side of a highway to avoid a Mustang that cut him off, the switch on his car fell out of place, disabling electrical systems including the air bag as he went airborne at 45 miles an hour (72 kilometers an hour). The lawyer showed jurors blown-up photos of the vehicle crumpled against two trees, including one that was knocked over by the force of the impact. General Motors doesnt concede any responsibility for Scheuers accident and injuries, Cain said in the statement. GM will show the ignition switch did not rotate and the air bags were not designed to deploy in this accident, he said. The case is Fleck v. General Motors LLC, 1:14-cv-08176, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York ((Manhattan). Copyright 2022 Bloomberg. 'The Humans,' 'Hughie' & 'Crucible' Will Debut on Broadway Early 2016; Tickets Available Now HOLLYWOOD, CA - DECEMBER 14: Actress Lupita Nyong'o attends Premiere of Walt Disney Pictures and Lucasfilm's 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' on December 14, 2015 in Hollywood, California. (Photo : Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) Forest Whitaker onstage at the 2nd Annual unite4:humanity (Photo : Photo by Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for Variety) Although the holiday season can be less-than lucrative for Broadway, 2015 ended on a high note for the Great White Way. Wicked alone grossed nearly $3 million dollars during Christmas week and, overall, Broadway grossed over $43 million dollars the following week. This marks a .68% jump from last year and, now, a new production The Humans, Hughie and The Crucible is making their debut on Broadway in 2016. There were 20 out of 38 Broadway productions that grossed over the million dollar mark to join the Millionaires Club, and shows like School of Rock, Hamilton (which oddly didn't gross over $2 million), Les Miserables, The King and I and Beautiful did very well. With the end of the year also comes the closing of many popular productions as well, along with the opening of a handful of other promising shows for the stage. This month, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder will close on Jan. 17, and is currently averaging $244 on the secondary market. Spring Awakening will close on January 24 and currently averages $219 on the secondary market according to TiqIQ. Below is the list of shows opening in the next two months, along with their average ticket prices, with data provided by ticket aggregator, TiqIQ. The Humans | Previews: 1/23 | Opening: 2/18 | Helen Hayes Theatre | Average Ticket Price: $202 The Humans premiered off Broadway in 2015 and tells the story of Erik Blake, when he brings his Pennsylvania family to Thanksgiving at his daughter's house. During the course of the evening, secrets are exposed and tensions reach an all-time high all in an apartment in lower Manhattan. Tickets for The Humans are currently averaging $202, although as it stands, the ticket quantity is limited. Blackbird | Previews: 2/5 | Opening: 3/10 | Belasco Theatre | Average Ticket Price: $290 Blackbird, starring Jeff Daniels and Michelle Williams, is a play written by David Harrower that according to The Guardian, is "a riveting study in sexual obsession that leaves one both shaken and stirred. " Resale tickets for Blackbird are currently averaging $290, and not a single scheduled date averages under the $100 mark. Hughie | Previews: 2/8 | Opening: 2/25 | Booth Theatre | Average Ticket Price: $229 Hughie, starring Forest Whitaker in his Broadway debut, is one of Eugene O'Neill's most unknown and rarely seen theatrical masterpieces that deserves to finally be on Broadway once again. Hughie first came to The Great White Way in 1964, then again in 1975 and 1996, and tickets for the production are currently averaging $229. Diaster! | Previews: 2/9 | Opening: 3/8 | Nederlander Theatre | Average Ticket Price: $203 Disaster!, the original musical with an all-star cast to boot, will be making its Broadway debut in February at the Nederlander Theatre on 41st street. The new pop, rock, and disco musical is a play on all the fan's favorite disaster movies. The all-star cast includes Adam Pascal, Faith Prince, and Kevin Chamberlin, and tickets to Disaster! are currently averaging $203. She Loves Me | Previews: 2/19 | Opening: 3/17 | Studio 54 | Average Ticket Price: $247 The musical comedy She Loves Me, which will be making its 4th run on the Great White Way this February at Studio 54, tells the story of Georg and Amalia who constantly but heads on the job, yet are actually romantic pen pals, but neither knew it was each other they were falling for. She Loves Me, currently set to star Laura Benanti and Zachary Levi in the title roles, first came to Broadway in 1963, then again in 1993 and 2011 for a single night in December. Tickets to She Loves Me are averaging $247. Eclipsed | Previews: 2/23 | Opening: 3/6 | Golden Theatre | Average Ticket Price: $222 Lupita Nyong'o, who starred in the play while it was off-Broadway in 2015, will be making her Broadway debut in Eclipsed. The new dramatic play, written by Danai Gurira, is set amidst the Liberian Civil War, where the captive wives of a rebel officer band together to form a tragic community, until their lives are upset by a new girl coming into the picture. Tickets to see Eclipsed are averaging a pricey $222 on the secondary market. Bright Star | Previews: 2/25 | Opening: 3/24 | Cort Theatre | Average Ticket Price: $216 Bright Star is a musical that has been on the Broadway expert's radar for a few months. With music and a book written by Steve Martin, this new musical, which was also a hit while it was in D.C., is set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. The script takes place between the years 1945 and 1923 and follows the story of Billy Cane, a soldier from WWII, and Alice Murphy, an editor of a southern literary journal. Tickets for Bright Star are averaging $216, with tickets available for as low as $50. The Crucible | Previews: 2/29 | Opening: 4/7 | Walter Kerr Theatre | Average Ticket Price: $239 The Crucible, a very famous play by Arthur Miller, is finally coming back to Broadway after a 14-year hiatus. This newest of the many revivals of the all-time English literature classic will star Sophie Okonedo (who just starred as the title character in the film Brooklyn), and Ben Whishaw, who is making his Broadway debut in the production. The show, which is set in Salem, MA in 1692 during the Salem Witch Trials, has been on Broadway five times prior to this most recent revival. It started in 1953, and then came back in 1964, 1972, 1991-1992, and 2002, all of which were no longer than a 4-month run. Tickets for The Crucible are averaging $239. 2016 The Classical Art, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. TagsWicked, A Gentlemans Guide to Love and Murder, Spring Awakening, School of Rock, Hamilton, the humans, blackbird, hughie, Disaster, She Loves Me, Eclipsed, Bright Star, The Crucible Classicalite Countdown: Alan Rickman's Top 5 Movie Scenes We are all mourning the passing of acting icon Alan Rickman. His film roles mad us laugh, cry, hate him, and rethink the way we felt about characters. He was a pioneer, and when he showed up in a film, it immediately became a must-see. These are Alan Rickman's top 5 Film Scenes. How do you make a list that settles on just five scenes in the stellar career that Alan Rickman has? This was perhaps one of the toughest lists I have ever made. So, buckle up your seat belts, it is time to go on a little journey. Here are Alan Rickman's 5 best film scenes. 5. (2-WAY TIE) Marvin the Paranoid Android, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy I couldn't make this choice. In Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Marvin was the deadpan humor of this film. His brain was so big, that hanging out with other life was just depressing. His role was one of the only reasons to see this film. His dry banter will make you giggle with every line, so here is every Marvin line in the film. The Metatron gets Extinguished, Dogma This is one of my favorite scenes from a film that pushes the F-word into new heights for a religious film. Anyhow, what are you gonna do? Hit me with that fish? I loved the Metatron, the voice of the one true God, in Dogma! His wit and sarcasm is something to marvel here. Soak it in, cause it is great. 4. Alexander Dane's Panic Attack, Galaxy Quest Can you imagine William Shatner going through the same anxiety and disdain every time he is about to enter the stage as Captain Kirk for the 6 millionth time? Alexander Dane was great! His borderline suicidal Shakespearean character was spot on in his hate for being known for a bad science fiction television show. It shines in his panic attack and his reaction to the Captain's arrival! 3. Steve Spurrier Eats KFC for the First Time, Bottleshock Bottleshock was a little film that flew under a lot of people's radar. If you have yet to see the film, it is one of my favorites. This scene was great, and catalogs an Englishman living in France's trip to America to see if the Yank's know how to make wine in the 1970's. This whole movie is great, and Alan Rickman really plays a fantastic role. This scene is the perfect fish-out-of-water scene, which is the whole premise of the film. 2. Hans Gruber Meets McClane, Die Hard Little did we know that after seeing Hans Gruber on the screen for the first time, that he would turn into one of the most memorable villains ever. Not a single one of us watching the film knew that Rickman, in his freshmen appearance, would become as big as he did, but Alan knew. You see it in every frame of this scene. He is almost showing off for the camera. Not too bad, for the first time. 1. Harry Confronts Severus Snape, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows This pivotal scene in the Harry Potter Franchise was a great one. It was hard fro me to settle on just one Snape scene. I hope all of you Snapeheads out there don't criticize me too much. Rickman was the embodiment of Severus Snape. There is no doubt in my mind that he was the perfect casting for the character. Alan Rickman will be remembered forever in the hearts and minds of most movie fans. Hollywood will be hard pressed to find another actor with as much talent and love for character as Rickman. My sincere condolences go out to the family and friends of Alan, we truly lost a star. 2016 The Classical Art, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Tagsseverus snape, Alan Rickman, Harry Potter, die hard, bottleshock, chateau montelena, Galaxy Quest, Dogma, Kevin Smith, hitchhikers guide to the galaxy H2$ Daniel Radcliffe Pins Essay Obit for Former Harry Potter Co Star After Cancer Death Actor Daniel Radcliffe got his start as the titular lead in the Harry Potter film series but his experience gave him much more than just fame and fortune. In the years since the final film in the series Radcliffe maintained a close relationship with his co star Alan Rickman. Rickman, a two time Tony nominee himself, even came to support Radcliffe in his Broadway theater ventures including How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (H2$) and Equus. Rickman passed away early Thursday after a battle with cancer. In the wake of his death Radcliffe has pinned a touching essay obit about his friend. Daniel Radcliffe got really close to actor Rickman over the years. So who better to give the world a glimpse at the man behind the legend. After learning of his death, Radcliffe wrote an open essay to his former co star, writing: Alan Rickman is undoubtedly one of the greatest actors I will ever work with. He is also, one of the loyalest and most supportive people I've ever met in the film industry. He was so encouraging of me both on set and in the years post-Potter. I'm pretty sure he came and saw everything I ever did on stage both in London and New York. He didn't have to do that. I know other people who've been friends with him for much much longer than I have and they all say if you call Alan, it doesn't matter where in the world he is or how busy he is with what he's doing, he'll get back to you within a day". Radcliffe finishes his obit by describing what it was like working with Rickman at such a young age: As an actor he was one of the first of the adults on Potter to treat me like a peer rather than a child. Working with him at such a formative age was incredibly important and I will carry the lessons he taught me for the rest of my life and career. Film sets and theatre stages are all far poorer for the loss of this great actor and man. You can read Radcliffes full essay here. 2016 The Classical Art, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. TagsH2$, How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Equus, Daniel Radcliffe, Pins, Essay, Obit, Former, Harry Potter, Co-Star, Cancer, Death SiriusXM Honors Lazarus David Bowie with New Channel Featuring Blackstar & Covers SiriusXM radio Channel 30 has currently been taken over by tributes to David Bowie. The iconic rocker and actor passed away earlier this week after battling cancer. Now you can hear some of his greatest hits spanning his entire career up to the his farewell release Blackstar streaming on satellite radio. The channel is also playing cover tracks of some of Bowies best from artist like Barbra Streisand, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana and the late Scott Weiland as well as many more. Check out the report below for all the info. Songs from Bowies legendary catalog also live on in the form of the off-Broadway jukebox musical Lazarus starring Dexter and Hedwig star Michael C. Hall. The official SiriusXM website is reporting on the temporary channel featuring David Bowie music: David Bowies extensive, legendary catalog is one of the most revered in popular culture, and includes all-time great million selling albums and artistic landmarks such as The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, Aladdin Sane, Young Americans, Low, Heroes, Scary Monsters, Lets Dance, The Buddha of Suburbia and more. Within the featured catalog are Top 30 Billboard hit singles including 'Space Oddity', 'Young Americans', 'Fame', 'Golden Years', 'Lets Dance', 'China Girl' and 'Blue Jean'. This is not the only channel paying tribute to Bowie as the SiriusXM report adds: In addition to The David Bowie Channel, Underground Garage (Ch. 21) will be paying tribute on Chris Carters British Invasion this Saturday, January 16 at 12 pm ET and replaying Sunday, January 17 at 4 pm ET with four hours of songs and expert commentary by Chris Carter and an interview with Debbie Harry of Blondie as well as other musicians and industry insiders. The David Bowie channel is currently playing now till Monday, January 18 on SiriusXM and through the SiriusXM app. 2016 The Classical Art, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. TagsSiriusXM, Honors, Lazarus, David Bowie, Musical, New, Channel, Featuring, Blackstar, Cover Songs California Witch Can Clear Viruses Out of Your Computer With Magic: The Wiccan Antivirus Evidently a northern California Witch (a Wiccan practioner, if you prefer) can use magic to clear viruses from your computer using magic. The Reverend Joey Talley can also fix your burglar alarm if you need it. While supplying more traditional Wiccan services for those struggling with love, success and the like, Talley also has expanded her offering to include tech support, exorcising computer viruses. She "explains how the viruses are akin to ghosts or demons" and how she uses trances, stones and magic to cleanse a computer of the infestation. According to an interview with Motherboard, "To excise such entities out of a machine, she uses a variety of techniques-she might place stones on top of the computer, clear the dark energy by setting an intention with her mind, or cleanse the area around the computer by burning sage. The time it takes to clear these viruses depends on the nefariousness of the entity, she says: sometimes it takes just an hour, other times it can take up to four." Sage, an herb commonly used for cleansing demonic/evil presences, makes appearances as well. Joey Talley usually uses it to force the negativity out of the computer, and "Depending on the energy of each individual computer, she will also do a magic spell or tape a magic charm onto the computer." This is certainly a novel approach to antivirus. Evidently it works, too, as Talley indicated she had never run into a virus shouldn't couldn't exorcise. She does not get work from companies, as most would be to hesitant to turn to a New Age, non-software methods of protecting computers from viruses. Talley explained why that is: "The individuals will approach me themselves, not as a company. They're afraid. They don't want to be accused of being ridiculous or stoned or devil worshippers or something." The next question should be obvious: Can we get an app for that? 2016 The Classical Art, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. TagsWitchcraft, Wicca, Antivirus, Computer, PC, magic Akron police 3 A suspected heroin dealer hired a bodyguard shortly before being fatally shot. (File photo) AKRON, Ohio -- A suspected Akron heroin dealer hired a bodyguard shortly before being gunned down in November in the driveway of his North Hill home. Devon Anderson, 29, hired Stuart Boykin because he feared for his life after surviving a shooting on Oct. 16, according to court records. Boykin, 39, pleaded not guilty last week to charges of aggravated drug possession and being a felon in possession of a weapon. The charges stem from guns and drugs investigators said they found in a bag Boykin and Anderson carried the night Anderson was ambushed and killed. Boykin told investigators that he was with Anderson Nov. 19 at Anderson's home in the 100 block of Edwards Avenue. He explained that he was hired by Anderson for security, according to court records. Anderson had recently been supplied with heroin, court records say. He mixed some up and sold about three grams to a user, according to court records. He and Boykin walked out of the house. Anderson stopped to urinate in the bushes. Both got in the car, Anderson in the driver's side and Boykin in the passenger seat, court records say. A group then ambushed the duo from behind and started shooting. Anderson pushed Boykin down when the shooting started. The shooters fled. Boykin also ran away, but later returned to the scene while Akron police were investigating. Anderson was shot in the head and chest and died. His car was shot between 14 and 18 times, according to investigators. Investigators found a backpack in the car that contained about a half-ounce of fentanyl, three boxes of food coloring without the yellow vials, two stolen and loaded pistols and prescription medicine that belonged to Boykin. Boykin told police the bag belonged to Anderson, but he sometimes kept his medicine in the bag. He said Anderson gave him one of the stolen guns. He told investigators that he would carry the bag with the guns when they were in public, according to court records. No arrest has been made in Anderson's death, one of 13 homicides in Akron that went unsolved in 2015. AKRON, Ohio - A Barberton man faces life in prison after he pleaded guilty Friday to sexually assaulting a 6-year-old girl. Justin Ramirez, 25, pleaded guilty to rape. Summit County Common Pleas Judge Tammy O'Brien will sentence him Jan. 22. The charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. Ramirez will also be classified as a Tier III sex offender, meaning he will have to register his address with the county sheriff every three months for the rest of his life once he's released from prison. A relative of the girl reported in February that the girl was sexually assaulted at Ramirez's home in Barberton, according to police and court records. Barberton police investigated the case and eventually questioned Ramirez. He admitted to investigators that he raped the girl in 2013. Ramirez's criminal history includes a misdemeanor conviction for possessing a small amount of marijuana in 2013. He paid a $50 fine and his driver's license was suspended for six months. Downtown Akron overhead skyline Overhead view of downtown Akron, which enjoyed the warmest December in 2015 of any year since 1889. (Shane Wynn, Akronstock) AKRON, Ohio -- The average temperature recorded by the National Weather Service in Akron last month was 43.7 degrees, the Beacon Journal reports, breaking a record of 41.1 degrees set in 1889. Warm ocean currents in the Pacific Ocean, called El Nino, are expected to continue keeping temperatures in the Midwest above average through this winter. Akron soldier taken prisoner in North Korea returns: Army Private David Burke, who was taken prisoner in North Korea in November 1950 and died in a prison there months later, was returned to Akron after the U.S. government identified his remains using DNA testing, the Beacon Journal reports. North Korea returned Burke's remains along with roughly 600 others in 1990. Sandra Kurt appointed Summit County Clerk of Courts: Summit County Councilwoman Sandra Kurt was appointed by county Democrats this week to replace Dan Horrigan, who became mayor, the Beacon Journal reports. In two months she is scheduled to run in a primary election for the $98,000-a-year clerk job. Kurt, the Summit County Democratic Party's second chairperson, previously served as interim chairwoman when party boss Jeff Fusco took over the Akron mayorship after Garry Moneypenny's abrupt resignation in June. Bradford Carlton and Neil Rothstein, two candidates who had filed to run against Kurt in the March primary, have both dropped out of the race. Carlton pledges his support to Kurt in a news release Friday. Akron officials converge on more bike lanes, friendlier streets: A task force in Akron has formed around politicians and officials, including Akron Planning Director Jason Segedy, to examine how to improve transit options and incorporate bike lanes throughout the Rubber City. Segedy told WKSU that the city's roads are largely overbuilt, providing flexibility to backfill extra space with bike lanes and even features that will help prevent runoff from running into the city's sewers. United Arab Emirates woman trains for weightlifting Olympics in Akron: Amna Al Haddad, of the United Arab Emirates, is in Akron training to become the first female Olympic weightlifter from the Middle Eastern nation, WKSU reports. Al Haddad says she would be the first "hijabi" competing in the Olympics, referring to the head covering she wears as part of her Muslim faith. "A lot of people think, oh she is covered, she can't really do sports," Al Haddad told Jeff St. Clair. "I feel my representation when I compete for the covered is to show you can still be who you are and pursue what you love." From the Amazon to Akron, what is fruit leather? Evan Delahanty blends fruit from the Amazon rain forest with locally grown produce to make fruit leather, a dried concentrated snack that contains the combined proteins and fiber of the fruits involved. Delahanty produces his snacks, available online and at Amazon, out of the nonprofit Hattie Larlham's hub in Akron, WKSU reports. His business, Peaceful Fruits, grew out of his work as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Amazon rain forest. Balch Street Community Center The Balch Street Community Center houses the Youth Excellence Performance Arts Workshop for middle and high school students. (Adam Ferrise, cleveland.com) AKRON, Ohio -- The former executive director of a youth arts program is accused of stealing more than $97,000 from the program during a two-year span. Alexandra Thomas, 39, of Akron, is charged with fourth-degree felony theft and identity fraud. She is not in police custody and a warrant was issued Friday for her arrest. Thomas admitted to stealing $97,590 from the Youth Excellence Performance Arts Workshop, according to court records. Thomas was the executive director at the time of the theft. The organization is housed in the Balch Street Community Center. The group's founder, Leslie Parker Barnes, reported in August that she was preparing the organization's tax returns when she discovered payments being made to an American Express account. Barnes discovered someone used her personal information to open the account without her permission, according to police reports. Barnes told police she never opened an American Express account. Akron detectives launched an investigation and reviewed records from the American Express account, a PNC Bank account and company records. Police interviewed Thomas, who admitted that she used her position as the executive director to steal the money and open the credit card using Barnes' name, according to court records. The program is celebrating its 25th year, according to its website. "YEPAW uses the arts to engage middle and high school urban youth in activities that provide positive options for developing their talents, skills and self-esteem," the website says. "It provides the culture, relationships and opportunities needed by youth to pursue lifestyles of excellence, develop in a healthy and holistic manner, complete their high school and advanced education, prepare for their future careers, and serve others and their community." Thomas is also facing a fifth-degree felony charge for passing bad checks. In that case, she is accused of writing a bad check for $3,703 to a woman who decorated her wedding reception in October at Zwisher Hall at St. Sebastian Church. The woman reported to police she was unsuccessful in trying to get Thomas to pay after the check bounced. She pleaded not guilty Dec. 31 to that charge. Summit County Sheriff.JPG The Summit County Sheriff's Office has arrested two Barberton men in connection with a child pornography case that spanned across the country. (File photo) AKRON, Ohio -- Two Barberton men have been arrested and charged in connection with a child pornography case that began across the country. Curtis Burden, 19, and his roommate Matthew Barlow, 33, are charged with pandering obscenity involving a minor. Burden's charges are classified as a second-degree felonies, while Barlow's charges are fourth-degree felonies, court records show. Burden was arrested on Dec. 17, 2015 and Barlow was arrested Thursday, Summit County Sheriff's Office spokesman Inspector Bill Holland said. In mid-December 2015, investigators in Pinal County, Arizona, just outside Phoenix, contacted the Summit County Sheriff's Office. During an investigation, Pinal County officials discovered child pornography images were possibly being sent online from a home in Coventry Township, Holland said. On Dec. 17, Summit County detectives served a search warrant on a Coventry Township home, Holland said. Evidence found at the home led detectives to the men's Barberton apartment. At the apartment, detectives found computers, storage devices and and pieces of clothing that were taken as evidence. Burden, who was home at the time, was found in possession of thousands of child porn videos and images and was arrested, Holland said. Burden is accused of sending numerous child porn images to undercover Pinal County investigators, according to court records. After further investigation, police determined some of the collected computer storage devices containing child pornography belonged to Barlow, court records show. Burden and Barlow have both admitted to downloading child porn, court records state. Both men are being held in Summit County Jail. holiday mailing Will your mail-in ballot have a post mark? The Ohio Secretary of State and U.S. Postal Service have still not reached a decisive solution over missing post marks that cause roughly 1,500 ballots to be discarded in the most recent November elections. (John Raoux, Plain Dealer file photo) AKRON, Ohio -- With presidential primary elections two months away, the U.S. Postal Service has yet to explain why nearly 9 percent of Summit County mail-in ballots were missing postmarks and had to be thrown out. And no one has come up with a solution for the future. The unusually high number of botched ballots led the Summit Board of Elections to subpoena postmasters to a hearing last month. While postal officials skipped the hearing, Ohio Secretary of State John Husted's office has since taken up the issue statewide. During the last presidential election in 2012, more than one-third of Ohio voters mailed their ballots. The problem of missing ballots is particularly acute at the local level. In November, of the roughly 1,500 ballots discarded statewide, nearly 900 were thrown away in Summit County. Husted in December negotiated a solution with the U.S. postmaster general that would have standardized envelope sizes used to mail absentee ballots in the next election. Currently, all 88 counties set their own envelope sizes. But since then, an Secretary of State investigation revealed that using specific sized envelopes didn't alleviate missing postmarks, secretary of state spokesman Joshua Eck said in an interview Friday. Husted's office confronted the postal service and is waiting for the postal service to complete its own investigation before moving forward. "We're not saying that a uniform envelope isn't part of the solution, but we no longer believe that is a final solution," Eck said. Husted, who was speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives when the state expanded open absentee voting in 2008, has been and remains supportive of mail-in voting, Eck said. "This system has worked very well since 2008 and the only thing that has changed is that the post office doesn't seem to be guaranteeing a postmark as they have done by federal regulation," Eck said. Officials are still optimistic they can reach a solution in time for the March 15 primary, in which Ohio will vote for Republican and Democratic presidential candidates. Post office spokesman David Van Allen did not have an update on the internal investigation. Summit County Board of Elections member Bryan Williams, who has championed the local inquiry, has remained skeptical of the reliability of mail-in voting altogether. Fake I.D. card, I-77: On Jan. 3, police noticed a speeding white Infinity on I-77. The officer ran the information for the driver - an Akron man, 42 - as well as a passenger - Akron man, 31. The male passenger handed over a flimsy Ohio ID card. It turned out he was undocumented. His wife later brought her husband's Ecuadorian passport to the police station. The passenger was cited for the fake I.D. card. The driver was cited for speeding. Warrant, Route 82: On Dec. 30, police observed a maroon Hyundai XG300 change lanes without using its turn signal. The Shaker Heights driver, 25, told the officer they were headed home. It turned out her boyfriend - Shaker Heights man, 34 - had a warrant for his arrest from the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office and Shaker Heights Police Department. He was arrested and held for transport. While searching the car, police found a blunt with marijuana in the passenger side door armrest; however, no more contraband was found. The driver was cited for improper lane change. hanna1.jpg Tina Grant, manager of the Howard Hanna Brunswick office, wishes Vickie Kasidonis well at the starting line. (Courtesy of Howard Hanna) BRUNSWICK, Ohio - Vickie Kasidonis had a great run! She was the winner of the Howard Hanna Children's Free Care Fund Buehler's shopping spree. On Jan. 9, she was ready to run through the store for 90 seconds to buy whatever she could load into her card. Kasidonis said, "That was unlike anything I have ever experienced!" She was a hurricane leaving a trail of groceries (at least not people!) on the floor in her wake! She was able to grab$246.00 worth of groceries in 90 seconds. A tired but victorious Kasidonis at the end of her 90-second run. The rest of the money that was collected from the sales of the tickets will benefit local children in need of health care at our area children's hospitals. What fun! The 2016 Daddy/Daughter Dance is coming: The annual Daddy/Daughter Dance will be held at the Brunswick Recreation Center on Feb. 13. The theme this year is Belle of the Ball. The dance includes music, dinner and dessert. Tickets are $15 per person but go fast. Call the Rec Center at 330-273-8000 for more information. Brunswick grad shares great news: Hurray! Sean O'Connor reports that Master's thesis has been approved, and he is done with grad school! Sean was one of the pacesetters in the Brunswick BEAT Video Program who was brave enough to transition from just taping events to learning how to be a "backpack" journalist - writing stories for publication and interviewing people on TV. Reunion will celebrate 40th anniversary: George P. Barlock is heading up the class of 1976 40th reunion and wants to hear from fellow classmates. The get together with classmates is being planned to coincide with the alumni night on the first Friday of August. This year will be held at the Eagles club pavilion The committee is looking for suggestions on what you would like to do this year as well as contact information for all the classmates. You can go to the class Facebook page, www.facebook.com/groups/brunswickalumni1976 to check in. BPW offers scholarship: Berea Business and Professional Women (whch includes Medina, Cuyahoga and Lorain counties) is offering the 2016 Jeanne Squire Memorial Scholarship with a deadline of April 1. Complete the online application at www.bereabpw.org if you are a woman age 30 or older by Dec. 31, 2015. Applicants must be seeking entry or re-entry into the workforce or advancement in career goals and pursuing 2-year Associate Degree or 4-year Bachelor Degree at a North/Central Ohio accredited College or University. "We encourage you to include a copy of your resume or any additional information you wish the scholarship committee to consider. Applications without the personal statement will not be considered," said Angela Ragone, second vice-president of the Berea BPW. And be sure to save March 10 to celebrate March as Women's History Month with dinner and a special program featuring "Dorothy Fuldheim." That's Carol Starre-Kmiecik performing as the legendary local newscaster. Reservations are $18 for dinner and program at Tony K's, 841 W. Bagley Road, Berea. For information or tickets, contact Kathy Kellums at kpkell@sbcglobal.net or by calling 440-235-6871. Future Girl Scouts are invited: The Winter Reach-Out for girls who want to learn more about Girl Scouts as well as those who would like to form/lead a troop, will be held from 2-3 p.m. Jan. 24 at the Brunswick Library Sycamore Room. You can contact Larissa Kosar at larissakosar@live.com for information or to let her know you plan to attend. Yes, these people are kind of crazy: Every year, hundreds gather at Chippewa Lake for a daring plunge in the frigid lake waters, known as the Polar Bear Jump & 5K Run/Walk. The tradition continues on Jan. 30 at Chippewa Lake Beach where about 200 or more participants are expected to take part in the sixth annual event sponsored by the Chippewa Lake Lions Club. The competitive 5K Run has 8 categories of female and male award medals. The main attraction has jumpers dressed in fun costumes, swimming trunks and bikinis shivering and dancing around to stay warm before their big jump. The day's events start with a 10 a.m. registration. However, pre-registration is available and highly recommended online at www.chippewalakelions.com. The 5K Run/Walk begins at noon, and the event culminates with the jump beginning at 1:15 p.m. A festive After-Party is held at the Village Inn. The entry fee is a donation of $30 (qualifies for both run and/or jump) with proceeds going to SHC/The Arc of Medina County, CrossPointe Community Church - Meals Program, Lafayette Township Fire Department and the Chippewa Lake Lions Club to support the needy in the community. For more information please visit www.chippewalakelions.com or contact Alan Robbins at 330-701-7879. World Marriage Day will be celebrated: Join Saint Ambrose Parish to celebrate World Marriage Day Feb. 13th and the Sacrament of Marriage with couples throughout the Diocese and world. Join in a special 6 p.m. Mass followed by dinner (chicken marsala, pork chops, red-skin potatoes, cabbage and noodles, green beans and salad) and dancing. $35 per couple covers cost of evening. Tickets can be purchased from the front office, 929 Pearl Road. For any questions, contact Helen Sheridan at HSheridan@StAmbrose.us or 330-460-7322. Babysitting will be provided for children 2 and older but you must RSVP by Feb. 6 to take advantage of the service. Look ahead to planting time: The Medina County Soil and Water Conservation District is taking orders for a wide variety of tree and shrub seedlings for pickup in April. You can get all the information and order forms at www.medinaswcd.org. The pick up dates are April 22 and 23 but orders must be in by April 1. Contact Boyer at samboyersunnews@yahoo.com. HUNTING VALLEY, Ohio -- Criminal Mischief, Chagrin River Road: Police are investigating a Jan. 7 report from the village Service Department that someone had driven through Hunting Valley Cemetery causing damage. As of Jan. 14, there were no suspects. Disturbance, South Woodland Road: Police responded around 10 a.m. on Jan. 9 to a report of a verbal dispute between the owner of a roofing company and an employee, who wound up leaving the area without incident. Suspicious vehicles, various locations: A resident along SOM Center Road near the Pepper Pike Country Club reported a suspicious male in the area on Jan. 10 shortly after midnight, following up with additional information later in the day. The house was placed on special watch. -- A Lakedge Lane resident reported a suspicious vehicle in the area shortly after 10 p.m. on Jan. 11, which police were unable to locate at that time. Assist other police agency, Route 87 and Caves Road: Officers assisted Russell police at the scene of a car accident around 10:30 a.m. on Jan. 12, closing the eastbound lane of South Woodland Road for about 30 minutes. Downed tree and utility lines, Mather Lane: Police responded to a tree in the roadway with power lines down shortly after 2 p.m. on Jan. 10. The electric company was notified, with no estimated arrival time, due to "storm mode." Mutual aid, Cedar Road: Officers assisted firefighters with a water main break in the 34000 block of Cedar on the evening of Jan. 6, then responded to a fire alarm at the same address shortly after 11 p.m. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Former Lorain County Juvenile Court Magistrate James Paterson was sentenced Friday to eight years in prison for downloading nearly 100,000 child pornography files. Paterson, 49, who also had served as a court-appointed child advocate, was ordered as part of the sentence to pay $20,000 to eight children identified in the files he had downloaded. U.S. District Judge Dan Polster told Paterson that he imposed the prison term because "you certainly, probably more than any defendant I have sentenced, knew of the harm that was created and caused to the victims ..." Paterson, once a fixture of Lorain County's domestic relations court, pleaded guilty in August to receiving and possessing child pornography. He was arrested in March following a raid of his house. He told the FBI at the time that he had between 500 and 1,000 images and 200 videos of child pornography on his computer, court records show. However, a search of his computer turned up 96,000 images and more than 700 videos of child pornography, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan said at Friday's sentencing. The prosecutor said Paterson downloaded the files on anonymous networks and hidden websites. Paterson, often choking up during his comments, apologized Friday to his family and friends, many of whom packed his side of the courtroom. "I should have know better than most ... that I was perpetuating the abuse of these children and their suffering first-hand," he said. Ed Bryan, Paterson's public defender, said his client surrendered his law license and agreed to never work as an attorney again. Bryan, before his client was sentenced, focused on Paterson's positive qualities, including raising a son and going to law school. He said that Paterson committed reprehensible conduct, but that his arrest was "like having cold water thrown in his face" and that he is motivated to try to correct the wrongs he has committed. Sullivan, however, said Paterson deserves a long sentence, in part because he only apologized to his family, and did not address the children seen in the pictures and videos. He called the files on Paterson's computer a "huge" and "disturbing" collection. Paterson served as a magistrate judge for former Lorain County Domestic Relations Court Judge David Berta between January 2007 and January 2013. After stepping down, he worked as a guardian ad litem -- someone appointed by a judge in custody, divorce and juvenile cases to advocate on behalf of a child. Paterson represented 21 children between then and Tuesday. When criminal charges were filed, judges removed him from four pending cases. He must report to prison on Feb. 5. '13 Hours' Max Martini plays Mark "Oz" Geist in "13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi." (Christian Black/Paramount Pictur) CLEVELAND, Ohio -- "13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi" is the Michael Bay-directed movie based on the book of the same name by Mitchell Zuckoff. It tells the story of the American diplomatic compound and CIA annex attacked by Islamic militants in Libya on Sept. 11, 2012, in which four people, including the American ambassador, Christopher Stevens, were killed. "13 Hours" is not a political polemic indicting then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for incompetence in office. In fact, her name is never mentioned. Rather, it is an exquisitely grotesque cinematic portrait of the last outpost in hell. This film follows on the heels of other recent war movies -- such as the blockbuster "American Sniper," starring Bradley Cooper, and "Lone Survivor," starring Mark Wahlberg -- that portray the bloody mayhem specific to our recent military efforts in the Middle East. All three films are, in their own ways, actually anti-war movies. "13 Hours" depicts the bureaucratic gaffes and military red tape that bedevil six American former military CIA contractors and others who have been assigned to guard the American mission in Benghazi. This is the extremely unstable, failed state of Libya following the death of tyrant Moammar Gadhafi. When the attacks begin, nothing goes right, and worse, no one seems to care. If the movie is accurate -- and it has been reported that the principals involved in defending the Benghazi attacks have seen the movie and had no problem with any of it -- this is a tragic depiction of how our military men and women suffer at the hands of their disorganized and do-nothing higher-ups. It's nothing short of a miracle that only four people died and only 10 were wounded during this military debacle. "13 Hours" is well-written, well-acted and shot well. All six actors playing the contractors turn in first-rate and powerful performances as the brave warriors who persevere despite terrible odds and a woeful lack of support. John Krasinski, formerly of the hit television comedy "The Office," turns in a career game-changer as one of the six contractors who has returned to the conflict because he's not making it financially back home as a real estate agent due to the sagging market. Bay, who has directed four "Transformer" movies and is signed up for a fifth, knows his way around battle scenes and explosions. He reportedly described "13 Hours" as his first "real movie," and that despite having directed the bloated Ben Affleck snoozer "Pearl Harbor." He uses remarkable restraint here, and despite the movie's 144-minute running time, he turns in a tight, well-told story. The "bad guy" at hand is not an Islamic terrorist, but CIA annex chief Bob Doherty, played with oily aplomb by Toby Stephens. Doherty treats his hired contractors with condescension and derision and can't make repeated crucial decisions during this crisis until it's too late. He's the character the audience winds up booing. So props to Stephens for that performance. A quibble must go to the "bearded men dilemma." Whenever a movie involves more than two main characters wearing beards, and this often happens in medieval period pieces, it can be difficult to distinguish them during action sequences and others. When a movie is ALL action sequences, and ALL main characters have beards, this can be slightly problematic, as it is here. SPOILER ALERT: The one war-movie cliche beyond all others is the scene in which one of the soldiers takes out and stares at a photograph of his, wife, girlfriend or kids. In 99 percent of war movies, this scene means that character will not live to see the closing credits. Bay apparently did not have artistic strength avoid this old war horse, pardon the pun. "13 Hours" is not an uplifting or inspiring film. In fact, the story is quite tragic, depressing and unpleasantly bloody. But cinematically, the story is facile, moving efficiently from scene to scene, and the characters are engaging, oftentimes even funny with their war-weary gallows humor. But the film presents an important civics lesson about the fog, chaos and hell that is war in the Middle East today. It should be required viewing for all teenage boys who want to enlist in the armed services for the cause of American glory. This is no John Wayne war movie. At one point in the film, one of the bearded men -- I think it was the marvelous Pablo Schreiber as Tanto -- cries out in the heat of battle, "This is like a horror film." Exactly right. He nails it. REVIEW 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi Who: John Krasinski, Max Martini, James Badge Dale, Don Fumusa, Pablo Schreiber, David Denman, Toby Stephens. Directed by Michael Bay. Rated: R for graphic violence and language. Running time: 144 minutes. When: Opens Friday. Where: Area theaters. Grade: B+ 000000 spitfire.jpg The final mosh is upon us. Cleveland dive bar the Spitfire Saloon is will close on Saturday. (John Petkovic/The Plain Dealer) CLEVELAND, Ohio - The final mosh is upon us. Cleveland dive bar the Spitfire Saloon is will close on Saturday. The Spitfire will host a show Friday and and a farewell night on Saturday -- as well as what amounts to a wake from 4 to 9 p.m. Saturday. Club owner Stosh Burgess is asking well-wishers to stop by during the day. He is also offering to print Spitfire logos on T-shirts (that is, if you bring the shirt). Burgess opened the Spitfire in 2006 -- the same year that New York's CBGB closed. It made for a seamless transition for Cleveland's cheap-beer-swilling punk scene. Or, well, something close to that - thanks to its steady dose of no-frills vibes, cheap drinks, punk rock on the stage, and GG Allin and Johnny Thunders on the jukebox. Burgess announced the closing of the bar in November. He also promised to reopen with a new concept in later this winter. "It will not have live music," according to Burgess. "Although it will not be Spitfire it will have the same fun and friendly atmosphere. . . . We hope to have the same staff also. The new place will be more than just a bar." At 10 p.m. Friday, the club - 1539 West 117th St., Cleveland - will host its final night of music with Punching Moses, Struttin Cocks and Restless Habs. The jukebox will hold sway on Saturday, as there will be no live music - just a ton of shots and beers guzzled. For more info, go to punkrockbar.com. Dan Haggerty FILE - In this July 10, 2010 file photo, actor Dan Haggerty arrives at the premiere of the musical feature film "Standing Ovation" in Universal City, Calif. Haggerty, the rugged, bearded actor who starred in the film and TV series iThe Life and Times of Grizzly Adamsi about a mountain man and animal trainer, has died. Haggerty died Friday, Jan. 15, 2016, at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, Calif., according to his manager, Terry Bomar. Haggerty was 74 and had been battling cancer of the spine. (Dan Steinberg, AP Photo) (Updated at 3:44 p.m.) CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Dan Haggerty, known to millions as the mountain man Grizzly Adams in the 1970s NBC series "The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams," has died at age 74 from cancer. According to sources, Haggerty was surrounded by friends and family at a Burbank, California hospital. "The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams" was based on the life of a 19th century frontiersman, and ran for two seasons on NBC. Based on his IMDb filmography, Haggerty worked consistently over the years with TV and feature film roles, including several Grizzly Adams TV movies. He was also involved in the films 'The Untold Story" and "Yahweh," both of which are in post-production. More recently, Haggerty appeared in a 2013 episode of the History Channel's reality show "American Pickers." Entitled 'California Kustom,' the episode also features classic car designer George Barris. (Note: To view the episode, you must enter your cable provider). Haggerty's wife, Samantha, died in a motorcycle crash in 2008. MetroHealth expands by hiring HealthSpan physicians MetroHealth said Friday that it will acquire the majority of the doctors in a physician's group that was disbanded by HealthSpan. The move could increase the health system's annual patient load by 16 percent. (Angela Townsend ) CLEVELAND, Ohio -- MetroHealth has hired most of the doctors from HealthSpan's disbanded physician's group, adding 40,000 new patients to its network of facilities across Cuyahoga County, the health system said Friday. The move could potentially provide a large chunk of new business for MetroHealth, increasing its annual patient load by 16 percent. It also offers a soft landing for patients of HealthSpan, most of whom will be able to keep their doctors. "We're making it easy for patients to be seen by the same doctors in the same locations," said MetroHealth's chief executive, Dr. Akram Boutros. "We're expanding our network significantly." HealthSpan, a partner of Mercy Health, said last month that it would disband its physician's network at the end of March 2016 following several years of poor financial performance. More than 40 of its primary care physicians will join MetroHealth April 1. Another 25 specialists are expected to join soon, the health system said. MetroHealth will also provide care at several of HealthSpan's existing facilities in Cleveland Heights, Parma, Bedford and Rocky River. Although the deal will bring more patients to MetroHealth, it does not mean an automatic windfall. HealthSpan lost about $273 million between 2010 and 2014, according to Allan Baumgarten, a health care consultant who tracks the Ohio market. "This is not a simple win-win," said Baumgarten. "It's a huge question whether they can make this work financially based on the experience of the past five years." Boutros said the move will help by giving MetroHealth a bigger presence and more points of contact for patients in the county. The hospital network also announced Friday that it has joined Advanced Health Select, the state's largest provider network, with physicians from Mercy Health and Summa Health of Akron. The affiliation with Advanced Health Select will give people insured by HealthSpan access to MetroHealth's entire provider network, including 250 primary care physicians at more than 20 locations across Cuyahoga County. It also brings together three organizations with success managing different populations of patients -- Summa with Medicare patients; Mercy with privately insured patients; and MetroHealth with Medicaid beneficiaries. "This is the only statewide network of these hospitals that is aimed at managing patient care...and improving access while lowering costs," Boutros said. "We're going to share all our expertise and knowledge together, making sure everyone is successful." HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ohio Theft, Wilson Mills Road: A Home Depot employee was arrested for theft Jan. 9. The South Euclid woman, 37, was suspected of charging her boyfriend $21 for over $1,500 worth of merchandise while working as a cashier. Drug possession, Interstate- 271: A New York man, 20, was cited for possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia Jan. 5 after he was stopped for speeding. He also admitted to smoking marijuana in the vehicle. Harassing communication, Legend Lane: A resident reported Jan. 6 she had received over 40 harassing phone calls since Jan. 2 from a man she believes to be an acquaintance. The incident is under investigation. Suspicion, Muirfield Drive: A man reported Jan. 7 the theft of his hearing aid overnight from his bedside. Officers determined there was no cause and that his dog has a history of playing with the hearing aid. Theft from auto, Eastlawn Drive: A woman reported Jan. 10 someone stole a purse, valued at $200, and prescription sunglasses, valued at $100, from her vehicle overnight. The vehicle was parked in her driveway and a window was smashed out on it. Telecommunications fraud, Stanwell Drive: A woman said Jan. 11 she received a suspicious phone call from someone claiming to be her grandson. After the caller dodged her questions, she said he hung up on her. She knew it was a scam, but wanted to document it. See more Highland Heights news at Cleveland.com/hillcrest. Screen Shot 2016-01-15 at 2.13.22 PM.png A GoFundMe account has been set up to support the family of Drew Hayden, who died Friday after being struck by a car while he was sledding in a North Ridgeville neighborhood. (GoFundMe) Top stories: A 9-year-old boy hit by a car while sledding in a North Ridgeville housing development has died, according to police. (cleveland.com)(Elyria Chronicle-Telegram) A Cleveland man is in critical condition after being shot in the head early today in Garfield Heights, police said. (cleveland.com)(WEWS Channel 5) The Rockside Road Walmart Supercenter in Bedford will close Jan. 28 as part of Wal-Mart, Inc.'s global restructuring effort that will shutter 154 U.S. stores. (cleveland.com)(WKYC Channel 3) Area crime news: A Stark County Sheriff's deputy with his K9 stood nearby this morning as Canton Municipal Court Judge Curt Werren held the bond at $5 million for Kelontre Barefield, the man accused of the fatal shooting of Canton Police K9 Jethro. (Canton Repository)(WAKR 1590-AM) Elyria police are investigating two shootings that happened back-to-back Wednesday and Thursday and sent one man to the hospital. (Lorain Morning Journal) A 19-year-old Cleveland man was indicted this week in connection with four armed robberies across Northeast Ohio. (WEWS Channel 5) A Brunswick man who police said barricaded himself in his house and threatened suicide was sentenced Thursday to six months in the Medina County Jail. (Medina Gazette) Cheryl Crenshaw of South Euclid was arrested Wednesday for the 61st time. (WOIO Channel 19) Criminal charges have been dismissed against a Canton woman arrested earlier this month at the Stark County Jail after tests showed the material found in her vehicle wasn't illegal, according to the city prosecutor. (Canton Repository) Local news - east: The proposed bed tax increase in Lake County took its first step toward becoming a reality this week. (News-Herald) Prosecutors in the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-corruption case are significantly reducing the number of counts in the indictment, but they say it won't impact their efforts to convict the three defendants. (Youngstown Vindicator) After three years at the helm of planning, building and launching the iSTEM Geauga Early College High School, founding CEO and Superintendent Trista Linden-Warren is ready to pass on the baton. (Geauga County Maple Leaf) Local news - west: The Cleveland Animal Protective League on Thursday released photographs of two horses seized this week from the Cuyahoga County Fairgrounds as part of an animal-cruelty investigation. (cleveland.com)(WKYC Channel 3) North Ridgeville Mayor G. David Gillock told a packed audience Thursday the city came through a tough financial year but looks forward to the future with widened roads, sewer improvements, a new school and a new fire station. (cleveland.com)(Elyria Chronicle-Telegram) Saving the life of an Elyria man last year has earned two Ohio Highway Patrol troopers the honor of receiving the Highway Patrol's Certificate of Recognition. (Lorain Morning Journal) Akron-Canton area news Four homes caught fire early today in northern Cuyahoga Falls. (cleveland.com)(WAKR 1590-AM) Plasti-Kote Co. of Medina will close April 30, forcing 98 workers out of jobs. (cleveland.com)(WNIR 100.1-FM) Despite bringing in more than $600,000 in grants in her nine years on the job, Laurie Shoemaker's job as special projects coordinator with Medina Township was eliminated Jan. 4 during an organizational meeting by township trustees. (Medina Gazette) CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Local clergy and community leaders are urging residents dissatisfied with recent decisions by the courts and county prosecutor's office to register to vote in the March 15 primary election. The organizers are spearheading an effort to enroll at least 5,000 new voters in Cuyahoga County. The leaders did not refer to any candidate, but county Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty has faced criticism within the past year related to the Michael Brelo and Tamir Rice cases. Parma Safety Director Michael O'Malley is running against McGinty in the primary election "We have a moral responsibility to give residents, especially those concerned with our criminal justice system, a tool for change," said Tony Minor, a pastor at Community of Faith Assembly in Cleveland. "This has been a rough year. People are frustrated. But we're giving them a tool." Organizers met for the MLK Voter Empowerment kickoff at noon Friday outside the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections on Euclid Avenue at East 30th Street. The leaders said churches and community groups will work together to encourage residents to register to vote. Video of the kickoff event can be viewed at the bottom of this post. Voters must register before Feb. 16 to cast ballots in the March 15 primary election. Information on voter registration is available on the board of elections website. Voters should also verify their registration status on the board of elections website, the organizers said. The organizers said more than two-dozen churches in Cuyahoga County will allow residents to use their phones and computers to register to vote. They are also planning a voter education forum on Feb. 2. The time and location of that forum has not been determined. The organizers will host a planning meeting at 5 p.m. on Tuesday at Antioch Baptist Church on Cedar Avenue in Cleveland. McGinty and O'Malley, both Democrats, are the only candidates who have declared an intent to run for county prosecutor. No Republican candidates have entered the race. McGinty was criticized last month after a grand jury decided not to indict the two Cleveland police officers involved with the death of 12-year-old Tamir. McGinty said later that ethics forced him to tell the grand jury that prosecutors were convinced they could not obtain a conviction in the case. McGinty also received criticism in May 2015, when Cleveland police officer Brelo was found not guilty of voluntary manslaughter. Brelo had been charged in connection with the shooting deaths of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams at the conclusion of a November 2012 police chase. Cleveland faith, community leaders talk voter empowerment plan in wake of decisions on police shootings Posted by cleveland.com on Friday, January 15, 2016 tricmetro.jpg Cuyahoga Community College will award scholarships to Cleveland Metropolitan School District students with good grades and good attendance. (Cuyahoga Community College) CLEVELAND, Ohio - Cleveland Metropolitan School District students who have few absences and good grades can qualify for annual scholarships to attend Cuyahoga Community College. Scholarships of up to $2,500 a year, supported by the Cuyahoga Community Foundation, will be awarded to 28 CMSD students who have at least a 3.0 GPA and are on track to complete their senior year with fewer than 10 absences. Tri-C on Friday announced the program, which supports CMSD's "Get 2 School. You Can Make It!" campaign, an initiative aimed at boosting school attendance to improve academic success. Students will be recommended by their schools and must agree to attend Tri-C on a full-time basis beginning with the fall semester after their high school graduation. Students can receive the scholarships for a second year at Tri-C if they meet academic and other requirements. New scholarships are expected to be awarded each year, Tri-C said. CMSD began the "Get 2 School. You Can Make It!" campaign last July. Early results have been promising, with the district reporting an increase in student attendance and a reduction in chronic absence during the first semester, Tri-C said. Statistics show that missing more than ten days of school annually leads to sharp declines in test scores and high school graduation rates, Tri-C said. "We are grateful for the investment that the Tri-C Foundation is making in scholarships for CMSD students," CMSD CEO Eric Gordon said in a statement. "The ongoing commitment and partnership that we have with Tri-C will continue to help more of our scholars compete for and succeed in the jobs of tomorrow." LORAIN, Ohio -- The man who filmed the aftermath of a fatal crash that killed a Lorain High School student is serving a 30-day jail sentence. Paul Pelton, 41, pleaded no contest in December to vehicular trespassing and disorderly conduct in the July 13 crash. Lorain Municipal Court Judge Thomas Elwell handed down the jail sentence Wednesday and fined Pelton $250, court records said. Pelton was also charged with bribery after police said that he told the 17-year-old driver -- who survived the crash and is charged with vehicular homicide -- that he would testify on his behalf if the driver told authorities Pelton had permission to film inside the car. The felony bribery charge was reduced to misdemeanor disorderly conduct as part of a plea deal. The driver of a Honda sedan sped over a Kansas Avenue railroad crossing in the early morning of July 13, lost control, swerved off the road and careened into a house, police said. Friend was taken to a Cleveland hospital where he later died. Police said Pelton opened the back door to the car and filmed the two boys. Pelton's attorneys, Kristina Supler and Anne Walton Keller said Friday that Pelton understands filming the crash was insensitive. They said they were disappointed with the judge's sentence. "He's taken responsibility for his behavior and is paying the penalty," Supler said. The attorneys said media coverage created some misconceptions about what happened in the moments after the crash. Some accounts made it sound as if Pelton was the first one to arrive at the crash scene and immediately started filming, they said, but several spectators had already gathered. The police were called but had not arrived, Supler said. "We feel that Mr. Pelton was a candidate for probation," Supler added, "but the judge exercised his discretion. At this point, we feel everyone impacted by this case just wants closure." Lorain Assistant Prosecutor Jeff Szabo did not immediately return a message seeking comment, but told a judge that Friend's family and the teenage driver did not wish to be part of the case, according to the Morning Journal in Lorain. APL horses Cleveland Animal Protective League investigators seized these two horses -- Sassy, left, and Helena -- from stables at the Cuyahoga County Fairgrounds during an animal-cruelty investigation into a horse owner. (Cleveland APL) CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Cleveland Animal Protective League on Thursday released photographs of two horses seized this week as part of an animal-cruelty investigation. Investigators seized the horses, named Helena and Sassy, from stables at the Cuyahoga County Fairgrounds on Tuesday. Cleveland APL investigators received a report that horses being kept in stables rented by Double D Stables were underweight and skinny, and that one horse had died earlier this month from starvation, according to court records. No charges have been filed. APL President and CEO Sharon Harvey declined to comment, citing the open investigation. The Double D owner referred questions to the owner of the seized horses. The owner of the horses could not be reached. Cleveland.com is not naming the owner because he has not been charged with a crime. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Cleveland police department is investigating one of its officers after a woman came forward with a complaint that he threatened her during a protest in the wake of the Tamir Rice grand jury decision. Alana Belle, 25, said officer Brian Dorin nearly struck her with his cruiser and threatened her Dec. 29 while she was directing a protest in downtown Cleveland. She also said Dorin, a 29-year veteran officer, grabbed her and manhandled her at another demonstration the next day. Belle told cleveland.com she hasn't found any video or audio that documents the incidents. Cleveland police spokeswoman Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia said on Wednesday that the department is investigating Belle's claims. Ciaccia said the incident came to their attention through a blog written by filmmaker and activist Michael Nigro published Jan. 8 on The Huffington Post. Nigro wrote that he saw Dorin turn his body camera toward Belle during the first encounter. When cleveland.com requested a copy of this footage from the city, the records custodian wrote in an email that the video "is part of an ongoing investigation and not releasable at this time based on the confidential law enforcement investigatory record exception." The first confrontation that Belle described happened the day after Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty announced that the officers involved in the 12-year-old boy's shooting death in November 2014 wouldn't face criminal charges. Belle, a Cleveland State University student, was one of the unofficial leaders of four days of peaceful protests. Police officers monitored the demonstrations, and the city spent $490,000 in overtime in the two-week pay period in which the protests took place. An activist said a police officer was driving car 7211 when he nearly hit her. More than 100 people attended the Dec. 29 march, making it one of the largest after the Rice decision. Belle said she was directing the protesters to form a human circle at the corner of Huron Road and Ontario Street when Dorin drove up in his cruiser. He slowed down and waited for the protesters to let him through, which they didn't. "When he got close to where I was, he waited for a second, and I wasn't going to move," Belle said. "Instead of stopping his vehicle, he sped up and drove directly toward me." She jumped out of the way, but before Dorin passed her, he stopped, cracked his passenger's side window and said "Do you want to be the next one?" Belle said. Do you want to be the next? Officer 7211 ask to a young black activist as he almost hits her #thisiscle #TamirRice pic.twitter.com/fkoRGN0qGe Frid Fridley (@DabbingFrid) December 29, 2015 Belle sent a cleveland.com reporter a link to a YouTube video that she says shows the aftermath of the confrontation. She also provided a photo that she snapped of the front of Dorin's cruiser. The next day, Belle said that she and Dorin came face-to-face again at the same intersection. A throng of police officers followed the marchers on foot, in cars and on horses. They directed traffic and blocked off roads that protesters were prohibited from entering. Police used a megaphone several times to warn protesters that they would be arrested if they entered the forbidden areas. This led to several tense moments between officers and protesters. Belle said that she and Dorin began arguing at the corner of Huron Road and Ontario Street. Belle said Dorin grabbed the sleeves of her sweatshirt, and the two got into a screaming match. "Officer Dorin was manhandling me for absolutely no reason," she said. "He was trying to arrest me but he didn't have any reason to do so. Eventually the officers standing next to him told him to let me go." Belle said she filed a formal complaint on Wednesday with the police department's Office of Professional Standards, which investigates reports of police misconduct. She said she waited more than two weeks to come forward because she wanted to confirm the officer's name and look for video evidence. Cleveland.com has requested a copy of this complaint, as well as Dorin's personnel file. Steve Loomis, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association, aggressively denied Belle's claims when contacted by phone on Friday. "It's a frivolous complaint and it will be investigated," Loomis said. "Just because she said it doesn't mean it's true. Protesters say a lot of things." Loomis said the department has its own cameras record every protest in case they need to defend officers against accusations like Belle's. He said it's "absolutely telling" that the incident wasn't captured on camera by the department, a protester or one of multiple media outlets who covered the demonstrations. "Literally every inch and every second of those protests are videotaped by someone," he said. "You would think if she was making this allegation she would have some type of way to prove it." Loomis said Dorin is a good officer who hasn't been disciplined during Loomis's tenure as head of the union. Loomis said Belle will face legal consequences from the union if her claims are discredited. "If it comes to light that this protester is making false complaints and the union spends money on an attorney for a disciplinary case, we will go after her to sue her in civil court to recuperate the legal fees," he said. Editor's Note: The story has been updated to clarify reference made to officer Brian Dorin's body camera. ohio-river-east-liverpool.jpg Officials with the East Liverpool Fire Department have confirmed a Styrene leak on the Ohio River between East Liverpool and Chester, WV. (Courtesy of WKBN-TV Youngstown) Top Ohio stories: A 1-year-old boy was killed and two others were injured following a shooting Thursday evening in Dayton. (WHIO-TV Dayton)(WDTN-TV Dayton) Officials with the East Liverpool Fire Department have confirmed a Styrene leak on the Ohio River between East Liverpool and Chester, WV. (WTRF-TV Steubenville)(WTOV-TV Steubenville) Cincinnati police said today they have ruled out road rage as a motive behind a shooting that resulted in a crash and left a woman fighting for her life during evening rush hour Thursday in the city's Bond Hill neighborhood. (WXIX-TV Cincinnati)(WLWT-TV Cincinnati) Southwest Ohio news: Three more men have been arrested in connection with a homicide in West Chester Township in Butler County. (WLWT-TV Cincinnati)(WKRC-TV Cincinnati) Butler County dispatchers say at least two people were shot in the parking lot of a Hamilton bar at about 2 a.m. today. (WLWT-TV Cincinnati)(WXIX-TV Cincinnati) An aircraft that had reported trouble landed without incident at Dayton International Airport today. (WDTN-TV Dayton)(WHIO-TV Dayton) The Hamilton County Court of Appeals has rejected former Hamilton County Juvenile Court judge Tracie Hunter's appeal of her conviction of one count of having an unlawful interest in a public contract. (WCPO-TV Cincinnati)(WKRC-TV Cincinnati) Fire crews are responding to a structure fire in Lebanon in Warren County in which at least one person has sustained burns. (WHIO-TV Dayton) Two Cincinnati parents are accused of delaying medical care for their sick 4-month-old baby. (WXIX-TV Cincinnati) Central Ohio news: Columbus police say one person has been injured in an officer-involved shooting they say is connected to a larger crime spree. (WCMH-TV Columbus)(WBNS-TV Columbus) Deputies in Ross County have arrested a man, and seized multiple guns, along with alleged stolen property after executing a search warrant Thursday. (WCMH-TV Columbus) A German Shepherd is recovering after he was hit by a Honda Accord in northeast Columbus Monday. (WSYX-TV Columbus) Northwest Ohio news: Troopers from the Wapakoneta Post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol are investigating a fatal accident that happened Thursday night on U.S. 33 in Auglaize County. (WDTN-TV Dayton)(WLIO-TV Lima) Police in Toledo are renewing the plea for help in finding a woman who has been missing since last spring. (WNWO-TV Toledo)(WTVG-TV Toledo) The Toledo Lucas County Health Department reported this time last year that 206 people had been hospitalized with the flu and five had died. This year, only 11 have been hospitalized and there have been no deaths. (WTOL-TV Toledo) Eastern Ohio news: An East Liverpool man has won a $1 million prize in West Virginia in the latest Powerball drawing. (Associated Press)(WTRF-TV Steubenville) A Youngstown man accused of killing his infant child was indicted on murder, endangering children and felonious assault charges by a Mahoning County grand jury. (WYTV-TV Youngstown) Jason Rivers was sentenced today in Jefferson County Common Pleas Court to life without parole for 19 years for a total of seven charges, including raping a young child. (WTOV-TV Steubenville) Athens and Akron cited for livability and beer Here's a look at what Northeast Ohio schools send the most graduates on to college. Pictured here is Cutler Hall at Ohio University. (Lawrence Hamel-Lambert) CLEVELAND, Ohio - The state's now reporting how well schools prepare kids for college and how many attend college on new state report cards. We shared on Thursday the districts that had the strongest ACT and SAT scores. Here is another ranking of all Northeast Ohio school districts based on the percentages of high school graduates attending college. The measure looks at the graduating class of 2012 and how many enrolled in college within two years of graduating. It does not distinguish between community colleges and four-year schools or how well students do after enrolling. Click here to see more grades and data for your school district. Click here to see grades and data for individual schools. Here's the ranking, which has a lot of similarities to the test score rankings Thursday: School Threat Colorado Two 16-year-old girls, Brooke Higgins and Sienna Johnson, are accused of plotting a mass shooting at Mountain Vista High School in Highlands Ranch, Colo. (Brennan Linsley, Associated Press) Two teen girls in Colorado have been charged as adults, accused of plotting a mass shooting at their high school near Denver, according to news reports. Brooke Higgins, 16, was arraigned Thursday in Douglas County District Court, Reuters reports. Her alleged accomplice, Sienna Johnson, 16, was arraigned last week. Both are charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder at Mountain Vista High School, located in Highlands Ranch, Colo. "They planned together to do this mass shooting," Jason Siers, senior chief deputy district attorney, tells the Denver Post. The case is gaining national attention because it's unusual for females to be accused of plotting or be involved in a mass shooting. According to Mother Jones, since 1982, only three of 84 mass shootings (four or more deaths) have involved females, including the shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., in December. Prosecutors accuse Higgins of searching the internet for ways to purchase guns as a minor and also looking for information on female mass shooters. She also wrote in a journal that she wished she could have participated in the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado that left 12 students and a teacher dead, the Post reports. The plot was discovered in December after a text was sent to the county sheriff's office. Higgins' lawyer, Dagny Van Der Jagt, tells the Post that the teens are guilty of "thought crime" at worst, pointing out that no weapons were found in her home. She said Higgins is being treated for depression. But prosecutors say the girls had specific targets and were fascinated by the movie "Natural Born Killers", the Guardian reports. Johnson reportedly made detailed maps of the high school, including where deputies assigned to protect the building were located. The girls also posted pictures on social media sites depicting blood-spattered walls, prosecutors say. Both girls are being held in jail on $1 million bonds. A judge could still rule that the girls be tried as juveniles, reports say. Hawaii Helicopter Collison U.S. Marines walk on the beach at Waimea Bay near Haleiwa, Hawaii, where two military helicopters crashed into the ocean about 2 miles offshore, Friday, Jan. 15, 2106. The helicopters carrying 12 crew members collided off the Hawaiian island of Oahu during a nighttime training mission, and rescuers are searching a debris field in choppy waters Friday, military officials said. (Mariana Keller via Associated Press) Today's top stories: Crews searched today for 12 Marines missing at sea after two CH-53 helicopters apparently collided during an overnight training flight off the coast of the Hawaiian island of Oahu, authorities said. (CNN News) One man is brain dead and five others are hospitalized after receiving an experimental drug in France, health officials announced today. (USA Today) A couple who told the world today on the Today show they held one of three winning Powerball tickets are indeed winners, Tennessee lottery officials confirmed. (The Tennessean) National news: Chicago, the nation's third largest city, is searching for a new top cop to lead its police department. (USA Today) The fallout from the water crisis in Flint, Mich., continues as Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder asked for increased federal help to combat lead contamination in the municipal water supply and Michigan's attorney general announced today he would launch an investigation into the matter. (ABC News) Having already delivered him a reprieve from reporting to prison, the Supreme Court announced today it would decide whether former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell was rightly convicted of corruption for his efforts on behalf of a businessman who bestowed money and gifts on the governor and his family. (Washington Post) Judging from Thursday night's Republican debate, there was no doubt Donald Trump's controversial candidacy has set the tone for his contenders' campaigns, who seemed to be trying to out-Trump Trump. (NBC News) A jury convicted an Arkansas man today of capital murder in the kidnapping suffocation death of a real estate agent. (Associated Press) New revelations about systemic safety problems at a huge Army biodefense lab show the need for better oversight and accountability at facilities working with dangerous pathogens, some experts said today. (USA Today) The University of Phoenix once again can recruit on military bases and receive federal tuition assistance for active-duty troops, after the Pentagon today lifted a temporary ban on the nation's largest private university. (Los Angeles Times) International news: The U.N. Children's Fund UNICEF today confirmed cases of severe malnutrition among children in the besieged western Syrian town of Madaya, where local relief workers reported 32 deaths of starvation in the past month. (Reuters) Bahrun Naim, the man authorities believe is the architect of Thursday's deadly attack in Jakarta, is a member of ISIS and is living in the militant jihadist group's de facto capital of Raqqa, Indonesian authorities believe. (CNN News) Actor Sean Penn is breaking his silence about his trip to Mexico to meet notorious drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. (CBS News) Gunfire and explosions were reported today in Burkina Faso's capital just days after the newly elected president took office, according to multiple media reports. (USA Today) North Korea today called for the conclusion of a peace treaty with the United States and a halt to U.S. military exercises with South Korea to end its nuclear tests. (Reuters) German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble rose to Angela Merkel's defense as the embattled chancellor faces an organized protest by members of her party against keeping Germany open for refugees. (Bloomberg News) Gay Marriage Gay marriage has been legal in New York since July 2011. (Elaine Thompson, Associated Press file phot) A New York state court has rejected an appeal from the owners of a wedding venue who had been fined $13,000 after refusing to host a lesbian couple's ceremony in 2012, reports say. Robert and Cynthia Gifford, who own Liberty Ridge Farm in upstate New York, north of Albany, had argued that hosting the wedding of Melisa and Jennie McCarthy would violate their Christian beliefs, reports the Albany Times Union. The Giffords were fined $13,000 for violating the state's anti-discrimination law. The Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court ruled, 5-0, that the Giffords' religious rights were not violated and that the couple was still free to express their beliefs, according to the Associated Press. "The Giffords are free to adhere to and profess their religious beliefs that same-sex couples should not marry, but they must permit same-sex couples to marry on the premises if they choose to allow opposite-sex couples to do so," Judge Karen Peters' decision said. Caleb Dalton, a lawyer from the Alliance Defending Freedom who represented the Giffords, said further appeals are possible. The farm stopped hosting weddings altogether in 2014 because of the lawsuit. Melisa and Jennie McCarthy were married at another farm, but said getting rejected by the Giffords' "was hurtful," Fox News reports. Indonesia Explosion Indonesians lay flowers near the police post where an attack took place in Jakarta, Indonesia Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016. Attackers set off bombs and exchanged gunfire outside the cafe in Indonesia's capital in a brazen assault Thursday that police said "imitated" the recent Paris attacks. (Dita Alangkara, Associated Press) Today's top stories: Planned Parenthood filed a federal lawsuit in San Francisco today against the anti-abortion activists that produced a series of heavily edited, secretly recorded videos of the family planning provider's staffers talking about fetal tissue donations. (Huffington Post) Militants staged suicide bombings and opened fire in Indonesia's capital today in possible attempts by Islamic State followers to stage a Paris-style rampage through the teeming streets of Jakarta, officials said. Five attackers were among the seven dead. (Washington Post) Newly-released video footage shows a plainclothes Chicago police officer fatally shooting an unarmed 17-year-old as the young man sprinted away from cops after stealing a car. (USA Today) National news: Three tickets, in California, Florida and Tennessee, matched the winning numbers from Wednesday night's drawing for a record $1.586 billion Powerball prize. (cleveland.com)(CBS News) Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel dodged questions today about when he first learned that police reports from the shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald differed dramatically from the infamous dash-cam video. (Chicago Tribune) For the second year in a row, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has nominated an all-white group of acting nominees, passing over popular, well-reviewed performances in "Creed" and "Straight Outta Compton" and failing to nominate prominent actors of color in 2015 films, including Idris Elba, Samuel L. Jackson and Will Smith. (Los Angeles Times) Critics of Maine Gov. Paul LePage failed to muster support for a vote today on an independent investigation that could have led to impeachment for alleged abuse of power. (Associated Press) After months of protests and no-confidence votes by students and faculty this fall, Ithaca College's president announced today he would step down in July 2017. (Washington Post) Just hours before the next Republican presidential debate tonight, yet another senior staffer is leaving Dr. Ben Carson's campaign. (NBC News) The Boston Police Department's SWAT team has been reunited with its beloved, unofficial mascot, SWAT Cat. (Associated Press) International news: The Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, detonated a car bomb outside a police station in Turkey's largest southeastern city, killing six people including three children, and deepening insecurity that has gripped the country. (Bloomberg News) Alan Rickman, one of the best-loved and most warmly admired British actors of the past 30 years, has died in London at age 69. (The Guardian) A second batch of aid reached a besieged Syrian town and two trapped villages today and the United Nations accused rival factions of committing war crimes by causing civilians to starve to death. (Reuters) The lawyer for the suspect in the murder of an American woman found strangled in Florence, Italy, said his client fought with the woman, but left her alive and had no intention of killing her. (NBC News) The head of a Bavarian district has sent a bus with 30 refugees aboard on a 550km trip to Angela Merkel's Berlin office - fulfilling a threat made in October, when he said he would act if the number of refugees exceeded housing capacity in his area. (RT News) Nigeria's president Muhammadu Buhari has ordered a new investigation into the kidnapping of 219 schoolgirls by Islamist group Boko Haram in April 2014 from the town of Chibok, the presidency said today. (Reuters) I wish I could say Nikki Haley nailed it. I wish I could say, as some other conservative commentators are saying, that she hit it out of the park. I can't. She didn't. Her response to Barack Obama's State of the Royal Bubble Address went superficially better than previous Republican responses made memorable by poor production values, poor preparation or poor dry-mouth timing. To her credit, Haley said a lot of things that are true and needed to be said. The problem was that she addressed them to the wrong people in the wrong tone for the wrong reasons. Out of context, this is absolutely right: "Many of your frustrations are my frustrations. A frustration with a government that has grown day after day, year after year, yet doesn't serve us any better. A frustration with the same, endless conversations we hear over and over again. A frustration with promises made and never kept." Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, take note. Haley wasn't talking to you, but she described your record perfectly. She continued: "We need to be honest with each other, and with ourselves: While Democrats in Washington bear much responsibility for the problems facing America today, they do not bear it alone. There is more than enough blame to go around. "We as Republicans need to own that truth. We need to recognize our contributions to the erosion of the public trust in America's leadership. We need to accept that we've played a role in how and why our government is broken." That's a variation on an old and plaintive theme: "We Republicans must prove that we can govern." Nonsense. There's way too much governing going on around here and not nearly enough liberty. Republicans need to prove they can shrink government to get it out of people's way. Haley used all of that to introduce a discussion of immigration, an issue that has divided not only Republicans from Democrats, but Republicans from conservatives. She could have been scolding Republicans who have contributed to the erosion of public trust by flirting with immigration reform plans that start with anything other than strict border security. But she was actually criticizing Republican-for-a-day Donald Trump for his proposed moratorium on Muslim immigration. She finished the immigration topic with this absolutely true statement: "No one who is willing to work hard, abide by our laws, and love our traditions should ever feel unwelcome in this country." That, too, was aimed at Trump and, by extension at voters and potential voters the Republicans ought to be courting -- the people who are righteously sick of the two major political parties turning a blind eye to the enormous problem of illegal immigration. Democrats ignore the flood of illegals because they need an underclass that will sell its votes in exchange for government aid. Republicans ignore it because it brings cheap, exploitable labor. They've been colluding on it for decades. Lately, the executive branch has opened the borders even wider, going so far as to sue states that try to protect their own borders with statutes identical to well-conceived but cynically unenforced federal laws. What Americans need to hear is that Republicans finally are willing to make border security a high priority -- to shut out anyone who is not "willing to work hard, abide by our laws, and love our traditions," and to punish severely employers who hire people who are in the United States illegally. Haley finished with a list of things Republicans would do differently (if only they could do things). It was a good list -- an aspirational list: cut taxes and regulation, repeal Obamacare, strengthen our own military instead of Iran's, safeguard religious liberty, try to dig up a copy of the Constitution and see what it actually says. The trouble is the voters have been soaking in this bath of Republican platitudes for more than 20 years. The water's cold and so is their fury. This is an angry nation, and it has every right to be. Even people who don't quite know why they're angry are angry. They want someone to fix it -- whatever "it" is. Hence, the yearning in some quarters for Trump to succeed Obama as dictator. A robust political party wouldn't be frightened by the intemperate utterances of a populist demagogue. A political party with the courage of its convictions would join the public in its anger at what "progressivism" has done to this country over the last 100 years. An articulate political party would explain the urgent necessity of re-establishing a constitutional government that understands America's interests and resolutely puts them first. But Haley's speech Tuesday did nothing to inspire confidence that the Republicans are such a party. She said right things, but her emphases were misplaced and her conciliatory tone did nothing to dispel concern that the Republicans still aren't all that serious. It wasn't a total loss, though. The Obama White House pronounced it a really good speech. O'Brien is The Plain Dealer's deputy editorial page editor. watch now Taiwan heads to the polls on Saturday in a closely-watched general election looks set to strain its already fraught relationship with Asian giant China. With the pro-democracy Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) set to win the presidential post, ties between the two territories - which have improved since Taiwan's current, pro-China president Ma Ying-jeou of the Nationalist Party (KMT), became the leader in 2008 - will be in focus. Cross-straits relations have been testy since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, when the Nationalist Party (KMT) was forced by Communist Party of China to retreat to Taiwan. No armistice or peace treaty has ever been signed to mark the end of the conflict and China views Taiwan as a renegade province that may be reclaimed by force if necessary. And they could be set to get testier. The most recent opinion polls showed a double-digit lead for the pro-independence DPP's Tsai Ing-wen over the KMT's Eric Chu and the People First Party's James Soong. Here's how the candidates compare: Tsai Ing-wen A lawyer by training, DPP's Tsai is contesting for the post for the second time and tipped by opinion polls to become the first female president of Taiwan. According to reports, she was fast-tracked to senior posts within the Taiwanese government from the start of her career, becoming the territory's chief trade negotiator in her 30s and the top China affairs minister in her 40s. In line with DPP's pro-democracy position, she is seen to be a proponent of an independent Taiwan, although her stance has softened as the polls near in order to win over voters concerned about strained cross straits ties. Tsai is also known for her support for LGBT rights and same-sex marriage. Eric Chu Eric Chu, presidential candidate and chairman of Taiwan's ruling party Kuomintang, listens during an interview at the party's headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan, on Friday, Dec. 11, 2015. Billy H.C. Kwok | Bloomberg | Getty Images The mayor of New Taipei City, the most populous city in Taiwan, Chu is running on the KMT ticket. From a political family, Chu was parachuted into the race in October when former candidate Hung Hsiu-chu was unceremoniously dropped by the party due to her poor performance in opinion polls. A party with roots tracing back to the fall of the last imperial dynasty in China, the KMT envisions eventual reunification with the mainland although China's communist rule of the last 66 years has stalled any such development and spurred the rise of intra-party factions. In line with Ma's policies toward China, Chu is championing closer ties with China in the hope of lifting Taiwan out of its economic doldrums. James Soong James Soong, presidential candidate from the People First Party (PFP), gestures during a press conference in Taipei on January 12, 2016. Sam Yeh | AFP | Getty Images watch now A series of explosions and gunfire that rocked Jakarta on Thursday marks a new style of militancy in Southeast Asia as the Islamic State (ISIS) increasingly mobilizes local terror groups to establish a global Islamic polity, or caliphate. ISIS [also known as ISIL, IS or Daesh] claimed responsibility for the hours-long violence that left seven dead and over 20 injured in the city's first mass attack since 2009. Experts say the fact that attackers used pistols, rifles and moved around on a large scale revealed a higher degree of sophistication from previous attacks on Indonesian soil, suggesting direction from ISIS. Local extremist Bahrun Naim, ringleader of a combat unit called Katibah Nusantara, has been identified by Jakarta police as the suspected mastermind. Formed in September 2014, Katibah Nusantara is a Malay-speaking group covering the Malay Archipelago and has been actively connecting extremist networks across Malaysia and Indonesia, helping ISIS further its ideological goals through the use of local terror cells, a process known as 'glocalisation.' Indeed, Thursday's attack reveals ISIS' transition beyond local causes to global views, explained Greg Barton, director of the Global Terrorism Research Centre at Monash University. The organization has declared it was behind several international offensives, including Monday's suicide bomb attack at a Baghdad mall and November's shootings in Paris. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has also established an ISIS connection behind Tuesday's suicide bomb in Istanbul. The organization's international focus could be especially dangerous for Southeast Asia. Despite boasting a massive Muslim population, the region has escaped becoming a fundamentalist hotbed, unlike Europe, due to its geographical distance from the Middle East. But as ISIS sets its sights on global growth, that could soon change. "The Islamic State has been slowly trying to take over the network of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) throughout the entire region," noted Jonah Blank, senior political scientist at RAND, referring to the longstanding Indonesian-based terrorist group that was largely stamped out in 2011 following a police crackdown. In the past, Southeast Asian extremists have tended to mostly organize among themselves but Thursday's attack could mean units are gaining confidence as they receive specialized input from ISIS. It's unclear how many Indonesians have travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight with ISIS, with estimates ranging from 300 to 700. "As the Katibah Nusantara expands and gains experience, it could result in the Islamic State placing greater priority on Southeast Asia as a direct war zone, with an eventual province or wilayat declared on [Indonesia's] 17,000 island archipelago," strategists at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in a Thursday note. Reports have already emerged of ISIS suggesting the Indonesian town of Poso on the island of Sulawesi as its training ground while preparations to proclaim an ISIS branch in the southern Philippine state of Mindanao are reportedly underway. watch now Should those instances occur, it could see ISIS dispatch explosives experts, combat tacticians and ideologues in the region, luring not only Southeast Asians but other nationalities as well, from Australians to Chinese Uighurs who can't easily reach Syria, noted Rohan Gunaratna, head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at Nanyang Technological University. "IS plans' present a very real threat to the stability and security of Southeast Asia, a region that has hitherto enjoyed relative political stability, social harmony and economic growth," Gunaratna added. Counter-terror strategy Thursday's attack also shined new light on the effectiveness of Southeast Asia's counter-terrorism strategy. The ongoing efforts of Indonesian police to deter and stop national threats should prevent the region's largest economy from becoming a terror hub, according to Barton. "Still, that doesn't mean Indonesia won't face a series of attacks this year. As we saw in France, everybody can be caught by surprise." Others say President Joko Widodo's administration still has a long way to go. Signage for 1Malaysia Development Bhd. (1MDB) is displayed at the site of the Tun Razak Exchange (TRX) project in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Goh Seng Chong | Bloomberg | Getty Images The chief executive of a troubled, deeply indebted Malaysian investment fund strongly rejected accusations of a cover-up, Channel NewsAsia reported. "There is no possibility of a cover up, there is no concealing," Arul Kanda Kandasamy, who took the helm of 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) around a year ago, said in an interview with Channel NewsAsia. Arul blamed Malaysia's political opposition for criticism of the fund as well as for 1MDB's struggle to get "better value" when selling its assets. "It's a factual matter, if you have a sales process going on and you are bogged down by negativity, it impacts market sentiment," he told Channel NewsAsia. "All negative noises have reduced the pool of investors and naturally that has impacted the prices that can be achieved." 1MDB, which was launched in 2009 as one of Prime Minister Najib Razak's pet projects, has been under scrutiny for months amid allegations of financial fraud. The fund is undergoing a "rationalization" program, launched in May, to reduce its debt of more than $11 billion by selling assets. In November, 1MDB sold its power plants for 9.83 billion ringgit ($2.3 billion) to a Chinese nuclear power supplier. It's reported to have paid around 12 billion ringgit for the assets. At the end of December, 1MDB said it had agreed to sell a 60 percent stake in the Bandar Malaysia property development project to a Chinese-led consortium. But the Financial Times reported that the $1.7 billion valuation 1MDB put on the sale didn't match an effective $1.2 billion valuation China Railway Engineering, a consortium member, put on the deal. On its website, 1MDB said the accusations of mis-valuation "appear to be last ditch attempts by members of the opposition to undermine the company's rationalization process." It said the figures China Railway Engineering provided to HKEx were the company's estimated share of the net equity value of the project, not the land sale valuation. The net equity value may be subject to further negotiations, 1MDB said. That's a view Arul repeated in the interview with Channel NewsAsia. "It's typical of the opposition when they have lost their argument and they have no more bullets left," he said. "They are scraping the bottom of the barrel to justify their existence." Arul also told Reuters that 1MDB may redeem some outstanding debts -- particularly an expensive $3 billion overseas issue that was arranged by Goldman Sachs -- early if payment for the land sale can come through quickly. "If we repay the bonds, in theory we can close down the company. So long as the bonds remain, the company will remain," said Arul told CNBC. The bond, with a 4.4 percent coupon and 2023 due date, was one of the worst performers among those on the JP Morgan Asia Credit Index last year, losing a third of its price in September, Reuters said. Big banks' shares plummeted in a tumultuous trading session Friday, but one Wall Street analyst thinks stocks are oversold after a difficult start to 2016. "I don't see what happened in 2007 happening again. Banks are much safer," said S&P Capital banking analyst Erik Oja. "They're definitely in an oversold position." Citigroup , which posted earnings that topped analysts' expectations, saw shares drop the most Friday, losing more than 7 percent at the open and rebounding, slightly, to losses of more than 6 percent in mid-afternoon. The company's stock is down 18 percent to start 2016. U.S. government debt prices rose on Friday as markets digested falling oil prices, a speech from a top Fed official and economic data. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note briefly dipped below 2 percent and last traded at about 2.023 percent. The yield on the 30-year Treasury also fell to about 2.805 percent. Retail sales fell 0.1 percent last month, while PPI fell 0.4 percent last month. Industrial production also slipped more than expected. Consumer sentiment and business inventories are set to come out at 10:00 a.m. "We could have used a little better data to stabilize thing in an environment like this," said John Briggs, head of strategy at RBS. "It was a small miss in retail sales. discretionary stuff was still up. for me I want to see what Dudley has to say. Is he worried enough to change course." In oil markets, Brent crude U.S. crude both fell at least 4 percent to below $30 per barrel. The three major U.S. stock averages all shed at least 2 percent of their value. British competition authorities cleared BT Group's 12.5 billion ($17.9 billion) acquisition of mobile operator EE on Friday, saying it would not substantially lessen competition in the broadband, fixed and mobile markets. The Competition and Markets Authority had provisionally given the deal the go-ahead in October. EE is jointly owned by France's Orange and Deutsche Telekom , both of which will be shareholders in BT following the deal. BT said it welcomed the decision to approve the acquisition, which is set to complete on Jan. 29. I came up behind a colleague this week using travel site, Kayak to search for flights for her friend's bachelorette party in New Orleans in April. I told her the fares are too high and she should wait to book until, what I thought was, six to eight weeks before the trip. Nervous that she would be cutting it too close, she dismissed me and kept browsing. A few hours later, I found another colleague looking up flights to Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park for him, his wife and three kids in July. Again, I told him he's looking way too far in advance. Neither one wanted to believe me, though. The very idea of putting off a purchase that could potentially go up in prices clearly created anxiety for both of them. So, I emailed one of our "Power Lunch" airline experts to get final word. "There's no reason to look more than two months in advance," Seth Kaplan, Managing Partner of Airline Weekly said in the group email. "If you're thinking, 'I just want to lock it in so at least it doesn't go higher,' that's what they want you to think! Less than two months out, they will drop the fares to fill the flight with more price-sensitive and patient people, before then raising them again for last-minute bookers." That's not to say my colleagues were completely wrong to at least be looking. "If you see something impossibly cheap farther in advance, it's fine to buy it," Kaplan admitted. For domestic trips, CheapAir.com a fare-search website notes based on its research, the perfect time, on average, to book a trip is 47 days in advance. While most experts admit there are many variables behind flight bookings, pretty much all of them agree that it shouldn't be approached the same way as buying concert tickets. As some of us deal with frigid winter temperatures and eye warmer spring and summer trips, it may just pay to chill out. "Think about people who book way in advance," Kaplan said. "They really want to travel to a certain place on certain dates like a honeymoon, so they are actually less price sensitive than the most discretionary travelers, who book a month or two out." "The trick is, even if you are one of those people, don't act like one! Just put it on your calendar to start looking two months out and forget about it until then!" A sign showing that the Chipotle Mexican Grill seen at 1924 Beacon St. is closed on December 8, 2015 in Boston, Massachusetts. Chipotle Mexican Grill , under scrutiny for months over outbreaks of foodborne illness linked to its restaurants across several U.S. states, will be briefly closing all its stores on Feb. 8th. "We are hosting a national team meeting to thank our employees for their hard work through this difficult time, discuss some of the food safety changes we are implementing, and answer questions from employees," Chris Arnold, a spokesman, told CNBC. The company's sales plunged 30 percent in December, following at least six outbreaks tied to Chipotle in the last year, including norovirus, E. coli and salmonella. At least nine lawsuits have been filed, according to The Chicago Tribune. And more suits are coming, says Bill Marler, a food and safety litigator in Seattle. "I represent a total of 75 people, but I haven't filed all their lawsuits yet," he told the Tribune. In the United States, 29,532 people received organ transplants in 2014, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), with 79 people receiving a transplant every day on average. Over 120 million people are signed up to be a donor. "This can make it difficult for families to support donation going ahead and their relative saving lives," Johnson added. "We understand that families are approached about donation at a very challenging time and that it can come as a surprise to find out a relative had made a decision to donate," Sally Johnson, director of organ donation and transplantation at NHS Blood and Transplant, said in a statement. In a statement released on Friday, the U.K.'s NHS Blood and Transplant said that family refusals had resulted in an estimated 1,200 people "missing out on a potentially life-saving transplant." According to the organisation, roughly 1,000 people in need of a transplant die every year in the U.K., while more than 6,500 people were currently waiting for one. Over 500 families in the U.K. have prevented organ donations from deceased relatives since April 2010, refusing thousands of people the chance of a transplant -- even though they knew or were informed that their family member was on the country's organ donor register. According to the HHS, in 2011, "The average cost of transplantation ranged from $262,000 for a single kidney to over $1,148,000 for a heart-lung transplant." In light of the figures released today, NHS Blood and Transplant said it was looking at extra steps it could take when approaching bereaved families to make sure that a greater number of potential donors' wishes were honored. While registering to be on the NHS Organ Donor Register is legally valid, if a family is strongly against the donation, it does not take place. In Wales, unless someone states that they do not wish to donate their organs, they are seen as having no objection to the process. Ideas being explored by NHS Blood and Transplant include giving families a leaflet to explain how consent known as 'authorization' in Scotland lies with the deceased and not their family, and continuing to ask potential donors' families to help authorities "assess the risk of their relative donating organs but not actually asking the next of kin to confirm consent or authorization." Another measure being considered was asking families to sign a document "confirming their reasons for overriding their relative's decision." It is hoped this would bring about discussion among family members and that they would then honor their relative's choice. In Scotland families already have to fill in a "retraction form" to state why they went against their relative's decision. "We know that donor families take enormous pride from knowing that their relative helped others," Johnson said. "We also hear that some families have gone on to regret overriding a relative's decision to donate," she added. "We think our proposed changes would make the existing legal situation clearer to families and hopefully help them support their relative's decision." The price of oil has been falling soquickly we've had to come up with more and more ridiculous ways to describe how cheap it is. The U.K. motoring organization RAC similar to AAA in the U.S. said on Thursday that if the price of oil continues to drop, "we may get to a bizarre time when a liter of fuel is cheaper than a liter of some bottled waters." Specifically, RAC said that if oil falls to $10 a barrel this year as boldly predicted by Standard Chartered this week, the price of gasoline could drop 20 percent from its December average (which, at around $6 a gallon in the U.K., was already the lowest price in years). Of course, gas prices tend to be higher in the U.K. due to higher taxes. But the U.S. Energy Information Administration's most recent forecast predicted that average prices in the U.S. will fall 16 percent year over year in 2016, reaching a seven-year low of $1.90 per gallon in February before rising again in the spring. So will Americans get to experience the "bizarre time" of paying more for bottled water than for gasoline? It depends how you look at it. According to wholesale prices released by the Beverage Marketing Corporation, if gasoline falls to that $1.90 this year, it won't be enough. It would take prices below $1.22 to crack the average wholesale price of a gallon of bottled water. That could happen in some states if prices fall further than the EIA expects. watch now The latest Republican presidential debate shows that the party's 2016 nomination race has, at least for now, turned into a fierce battle between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. No one expected this six months months ago. Then, Republican political strategists were simply waiting for Trump's bombastic reality-show campaign to implode, and for so-called "establishment" candidates to power past Cruz, who had called his own party's leader a liar, on the Senate floor. Neither has happened. Cruz holds a slight lead over Trump in Iowa barely two weeks before the Feb. 1 caucuses. A win there would boost the Texas senator's attempt to overcome Trump's substantial lead in New Hampshire, which votes eight days later and will shape the contours of decisive primary fights thereafter. Thursday night's debate on Fox Business Channel in Charleston, South Carolina, underscored the centrality of the Trump vs. Cruz dynamic that Republican veterans who fear either would fare poorly in a general election are gradually resigning themselves to. Trump questioned Cruz's constitutional eligibility to serve as president, given his birth in Canada. Cruz, himself a constitutional lawyer, called it legally clear his mother's American citizen made him, too, a "natural-born citizen." Challenged by Cruz, Trump acknowledged he was raising the matter because of the senator's rising position in the polls. Cruz, who hopes to seize control of the race in conservative Southern states in primaries after Iowa and New Hampshire, accused Trump of harboring "New York values" which he defined as socially liberal, pro-abortion and gay marriage, focused on money and the media. Trump called that "very insulting," and shot back with an emotional reference to how New Yorkers responded to the 9/11 attack on Manhattan. The fact that Cruz felt compelled to applaud at that point suggested that Trump won the exchange. watch now Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries are scooping up farmland in drought-afflicted regions of the U.S. Southwest, and that has some people in California and Arizona seeing red. Harvesting alfalfa crop Andy Sacks | Getty Images Saudi Arabia grows alfalfa hay in both states for shipment back to its domestic dairy herds. In another real-life example of the world's interconnected economy, the Saudis increasingly look to produce animal feed overseas in order to save water in their own territory, most of which is desert. Privately held Fondomonte California on Sunday announced that it bought 1,790 acres of farmland in Blythe, California an agricultural town along the Colorado River for nearly $32 million. Two years ago, Fondomont's parent company, Saudi food giant Almarai, purchased another 10,000 acres of farmland about 50 miles away in Vicksburg, Arizona, for around $48 million. They will continue to come over here and buy properties where they can grow good-quality alfalfa hay and ship it back to the Middle East. It makes logical sense for them to do that because they're not going to be able to grow it in Saudi Arabia, especially for milk production. Joseph Dutra President, Westec But not everyone likes the trend. The alfalfa exports are tantamount to "exporting water," because in Saudi Arabia, "they have decided that it's better to bring feed in rather than to empty their water reserves," said Keith Murfield, CEO of United Dairymen of Arizona, a Tempe-based dairy cooperative whose members also buy alfalfa. "This will continue unless there's regulations put on it." In a statement announcing the California farmland purchase, the Saudi company said the deal "forms part of Almarai's continuous efforts to improve and secure its supply of the highest quality alfalfa hay from outside the (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) to support its dairy business. It is also in line with the Saudi government direction toward conserving local resources." Alamarai did not respond to CNBC requests for an interview. "We're not getting oil for free, so why are we giving our water away for free?" asked La Paz County Board of Supervisors Chairman Holly Irwin, who represents a rural area in western Arizona where food companies affiliated with the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates have come to farm alfalfa for export. Added Irwin, "We're letting them come over here and use up our resources. It's very frustrating for me, especially when I have residents telling me that their wells are going dry and they have to dig a lot deeper for water. It's costly for them to drill new wells." However, the issue of land rights comes into play. As the owners of the land, the Saudis appear to be playing by the rules. The area of the Arizona desert where the Saudis bought land is a region with little or no regulation on groundwater use. That's in contrast to most of the state, 85 percent of which has strict groundwater rules. Local development and groundwater pumping have contributed to the groundwater table falling since 2010 by more than 50 feet in parts of La Paz County, 130 miles west of Phoenix. State documents show there are at least 23 water wells on the lands controlled by Alamarai's subsidiary, Fondomonte Arizona. Each of the wells is capable of pumping more than 100,000 gallons daily. "You can use as much water as you'd like, as long as it's put to a beneficial use, and you're not required to report your water use," said Michelle Moreno, a spokesperson for the Arizona Department of Water Resources, which has scheduled a public meeting for Jan. 30 in La Paz County to hear concerns from residents. Back in Blythe, the purchase of farmland comes as urban residents of California face state-mandated water cutbacks due to a fourth year of severe drought. Blythe Mayor Joseph DeConinck said between 10 percent to 15 percent of the hay grown in his region is exported overseas, but insists the practice is not contributing to the state's drought. The mayor, who also grows alfalfa, said he isn't concerned about the Saudis buying up land in his community. "They are buying the ground to farm. There's abundant supplies of water in Blythe for farmers from the Colorado River," he said. "Our valley has the first water rights on the river." watch now More competition for land and fodder is likely to make things more expensive for dairy farmers in California and elsewhere. "It will ultimately drive the price up for the West Coast dairy operations," said Robert Chesler, vice president of the dairy group at FCStone, a Chicago-based commodity-risk management company. "This is where they are buying that hay. This is where they are buying the farmland for dairy farms as well as and where they are buying the dairy goods, because we are obviously exporting more out of the West Coast." Westec President Joseph Dutra, who has served as a consultant to international companies looking to farm in the U.S., said he wouldn't be surprised to see more U.S. farmland purchased by the Saudis. "They will continue to come over here and buy properties where they can grow good-quality alfalfa hay and ship it back to the Middle East. It makes logical sense for them to do that because they're not going to be able to grow it in Saudi Arabia, especially for milk production." Asian buyers dive into American hay If all goes according to the polls, Taiwan will elect its first female president within the next 24 hours, but that may be beside the point. People show their support for the ruling Nationalist Kuomintang Party (KMT) chairman Eric Chu during a campaign rally a day before the election in New Taipei City, Taiwan January 15, 2016. Olivia Harris | Reuters The vote appears likely to install into power a political party that has sought Taiwanese independence in the past and which may cool relations with China. Polls indicate that front-runner Tsai Ing-wen's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is poised to take control of Taiwan's parliament on Saturday, and Tsai herself holds a double-digit lead in the race for president. "The DPP's official stance is that Taiwan is independent and sovereign," Michael Fonte, director of the Taiwan Democratic Progressive Party Mission in the U.S., told CNBC on Friday. "If anyone wants to change that status, the DPP and Tsai believe that the people of Taiwan would have to vote on a referendum for that change." No one is predicting a military conflict in East Asia, but investors, analysts and political scientists are closely trying to gauge the election's implications, which directly involve not just Taiwan but also the two biggest economies on earth the United States and China. 'A really tough background of economic growth' Economic factors not just Taiwan's links to mainland China, but also the challenges Taiwan faces in building economic relationships with other countries are likely to prevent a meltdown in the region. The battleground issue of the campaign has been the state of the Taiwanese economy, which by some measures is doing fairly well. The unemployment rate in Taiwan is currently at 3.91 percent, compared with roughly 5 percent in the United States. However, Taiwan's directorate-general of budget, accounting and statistics, reported a 0.63 percent contraction in GDP in the third quarter. Both parties promised to expand the economy the Beijing-backed KMT wants to encourage tourism between Taiwan and China, while the DPP wants to diversify Taiwan's trade partnerships. "This is not a partisan issue," said Thomas Vien, East Asia analyst at geopolitical research firm Stratfor. He added that "this is all happening against a really tough background of economic growth. It's not within (the parties') control to deliver on all of these promises, but they'll try to ameliorate the isolation placed on Taiwan." watch now The Taiwanese accounting office attributes the economic decline to the falling price of crude oil, lower global demand for consumer electronics, and the transfer of much of Taiwan's manufacturing base to China. That last reason is the one that sticks. Robert Manning, resident senior fellow at the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, said that just between the jobs in transports, telecommunications and semiconductor manufacturing, there's a lot of money going into China. "There's a lot of resentment toward the level of dependence on the Chinese economy," he said. Diversifying Taiwan's economy Workers in the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, China. STR | AFP | Getty Images Taiwan is home to several major companies, including Android phone maker HTC and Apple chip suppliers Advanced Semiconductor Engineering and Foxconn . Many of those companies are moving parts of their production chain into mainland China, adding to popular frustration with the outgoing administration, which sought the cozier relationship with Beijing. "China is slowing down," Vien said. "Taiwan sees that it might not be so good to so closely integrate themselves with the Chinese economy if that exposure will be detrimental to them in the long run." Even if it's generally agreed politically that a less China-dependent economy is the way forward for Taiwan, it will be hard for Tsai and the DPP to diversify its trade relationships. "Part of the issue is structural," said Manning. "You can't undo all those investments in the mainland." Taiwanese companies have tried to move their operations to nearby countries in Southeast Asia, but cultural and infrastructure limitations have limited them, said Douglas Paal, vice president of studies for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "China is still a greater source of growth than other partner economies," Paal said. "And the other countries have their own characteristics that make investment and trade somewhat less attractive, such as Indonesia's bureaucracy and economic nationalism, Thailand's domestic unrest and Vietnam's limited scale." Paal also said he believes that cultural differences and communication issues make it much harder for a Taiwanese company to move its operations to a country like India rather than to China, which at least has a shared language. The United States' obligation watch now watch now With crude futures trading below $30 per barrel, analyst John Kilduff said Friday that prices will spiral even lower before they bounce. The most bearish outlooks now see oil bottoming around $10 per barrel. While those estimates sound crazy, the long-awaited recovery will not come until the market finds a price that will finally persuade drillers to turn off the tap, Again Capital's founder said. "The market is going to have to get to a shock price point that's going to bring producers really to their knees and to finally react," he told CNBC's "Squawk Box." High-cost production has thus far weathered a Saudi-led OPEC policy of maintaining output in order to maintain market share and pressure non-OPEC members. U.S. drillers have proved more resilient at lower prices than previously thought, while exporting nations dependent on oil revenue, such as Russia, have refused to draw down production. But Kilduff noted that Russian officials have begun to entertain the notion of doing just that. On Wednesday, Russian Deputy Finance Minister Maxim Oreshkin told Russian news agency Tass that current prices may result in "quite hard and fast closures" of some producers in the coming months. However, the bad news just keeps on coming for the oil markets, Kilduff said. Overnight, Reuters reported that Iran's crude oil exports are on target to hit a nine-month high in January as buyers prepare for the lifting of sanctions against the Middle Eastern country within days. Iran is on track to ship 1.10 million barrels per day of crude excluding condensate this month, according to an industry source with knowledge of the OPEC member's tanker loading schedule. The market is already oversupplied by 500,000 to 2 million barrels per day, according to various estimates. On the demand side, Kilduff pointed to separate data that showed China's new bank loans slowed in December, raising questions over the quality of borrowing in the face of weak demand and deflationary pressure. Ultimately, OPEC needs to come together and cut back supply to get prices up in order to sell less oil at higher numbers and bring in more revenue, Kilduff said. Some members have advocated for production cuts, but those calls have so far been resisted by top exporter Saudi Arabia, which has some of the lowest production costs, hundreds of billions in reserve assets, and ample ability to borrow. "I don't know when that's going to dawn on them, but it's going to be lower from here. It seems pretty clear," Kilduff said. Matt Smith, director of commodity research at ClipperData, said Friday oil prices can fall farther as the market remains trapped in a vicious circle, in which economic concerns exert pressure on crude, which in turn eggs on economic concerns. watch now watch now watch now Wal-Mart said Friday it will close 269 stores across the globe, including 154 in the U.S. The world's largest retailer also will open as many as 405 stores globally in the coming fiscal year, as it shifts its focus toward Supercenters and Neighborhood Markets in profitable locations. In all, 16,000 employees will be impacted by the store closings, about 10,000 of whom are in the U.S. What's Wal-Mart's stock doing now? Click here. Stifel Nicolaus analyst David Schick told investors that Wal-Mart's thoughtful review of its real estate portfolio is evidence it's undergone an "evolution" in its approach toward physical stores, as it aims to reposition the business longer term. "Net net, we like these developments and see them as part of increasing focus on quality (versus quantity) of Wal-Mart operations," Schick said. A woman pushes her shopping cart through a Walmart store in Secaucus, New Jersey. Lucas Jackson | Reuters The domestic store closures will mostly impact the company's Walmart Express stores, which account for 102 of the closings. These small stores, which are comparable in size to a dollar store, had been in pilot since 2011. They were rebranded as Neighborhood Market in 2014. Also domestically, Wal-Mart will also close 23 Neighborhood Market stores, 12 Supercenters, seven stores in Puerto Rico, six discount centers and four Sam's Clubs. Internationally, Wal-Mart is closing 115 stores, including 60 recently shuttered, unprofitable stores in Brazil, which represent about 5 percent of that market's sales. The remainder of the stores are primarily small, money-losing stores in other Latin American markets. The world's largest retailer also said it will open 50 to 60 Supercenters and 85 to 95 of its smaller Neighborhood Market locations in the U.S. during the fiscal year that starts Feb. 1. That's in addition to between 200 and 240 international stores, and seven to 10 new Sam's Club locations. More than 95 percent of the closed U.S. stores are within 10 miles of another Wal-Mart store. When possible, it will transfer store associates to nearby locations. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has awarded funding to arts organizations in Onondaga, Oneida, and St. Lawrence counties. The NEA awarded a total of more than $712,000 to arts nonprofits across New York, the office of U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (DN.Y.) announced on Wednesday. In Onondaga County, CNY Arts, Inc. will use a grant of $35,000; and the Central New York Jazz Arts Foundation and Light Work Visual Studios will each use $10,000 awards, according to the news release. In addition, the NEA awarded Sculpture Space, Inc. in Utica a $15,000 grant, and Traditional Arts in Upstate New York in St. Lawrence County a grant worth $20,000. Organizations will use the funding to support residencies for artists, exhibitions, professional development, and public engagement and outreach. It is extremely gratifying to receive an NEA Challenge America grant for programming in Syracuses urban neighborhoods, among the poorest in the country, Larry Luttinger, executive director of CNY Jazz Arts Foundation, said in Gillibrands news release. Jazz in the City provides a mobile platform that brings much cultural and economic benefit to neighborhood residents, group homes, small business, minority vendors, talented youth at risk, and social-service organizations. Established in 1965, the NEA says it uses partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector to support arts learning and extends its work to promote equal access to the arts in every community across America. Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com The cover of the 2016 Economic Forecast for CenterState New York, which CenterState CEO released on Wednesday morning during the 2016 Economic Forecast breakfast held at the Nicholas J. Pirro Convention Center at Oncenter. (Photo credit: CenterState CEO Twitter feed). SYRACUSE, N.Y. The CenterState New York regional economy continued to evolve and slowly expand in 2015, but activity remained behind the U.S. norm. Thats according to Gary Keith, regional economist with M&T Bank, who provided the keynote address at CenterState CEOs 2016 Economic Forecast breakfast. The organization held the event on Wednesday at the Nicholas J. Pirro Convention Center at Oncenter. Policies focused on attracting and deriving a larger portion of output from high-potential industries like education and health care, advanced manufacturing, business services and tourism can lead to stronger employment and personal-income growth. Reshaping our economic base to become more like the rest of the country in this respect, aided by funding from the recent Upstate Revitalization Initiative competition, will help accelerate this process, Keith said in his event remarks, according to a CenterState CEO news release. CenterState also used the event to release its 2016 Economic Forecast Report. The report includes the perspectives and projections of nearly 200 CenterState CEO members and business leaders from 14 industry sectors. It also includes key market data from Manpower Inc. on industry, occupation, employment, and earning expectations through 2019. The report found about 44 percent of the surveyed CenterState CEO members expect an increase in jobs and hiring during 2016, down 7 percent from 2015 projections. In addition, nearly two-thirds (63 percent) anticipate increased sales or revenue in 2016, which is down 8 percent from 2015 projections. Another 58 percent expect to expand product and services in 2016, down 1 percent from 2015 projections. The report also lists just over 100 area business leaders who it references as forecasters. Baldwinsvillebased Research & Marketing Strategies, Inc. conducted the survey and handled the focus groups involved, CenterState CEO said. Opportunities, challenges The Economic Forecast Report also identified several opportunities and challenges that forecasters say impact their projections for their businesses and the regional economy. The opportunities include advances in technology that have the potential to create competitive advantages and new efficiencies; collaboration and realignment that will enable competitiveness and growth; and new tourism attractions that can draw people to the regional economy, according to CenterState CEO. The challenges include attracting and retaining skilled talent; managing the increasing costs of benefits; and navigating an increasingly complex local, state and national regulatory environment, according to the news release. Simpson comments In his event remarks, Robert Simpson, president and CEO of CenterState CEO, echoed forecasters confidence that Central New Yorks $500 million award in Gov. Cuomos Upstate business competition provides an unprecedented opportunity to dramatically accelerate the trajectory of the regions economy. The predictions and sentiments shared by our forecasters tell the tale of how our economy has performed for too long slow and steady. The truth is, we have not seen any major growth curves for several decades, Simpson said, according to the release. But I believe there is reason for new hope given the monumental investment in Central New York by the governors Upstate Revitalization Initiative. When our region came together to develop a bold and ambitious plan, we demonstrated our will to no longer accept the status quo for our economy. We have a clear vision of a future where we are more than who we are today; we are daring to be better, said Simpson. Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com A website devoted to Colorado Wine and beyond. The Missourians Opinion section is a public forum for the discussion of ideas. The views presented in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Missourian or the University of Missouri. If you would like to contribute to the Opinion page with a response or an original topic of your own, visit our submission form Her health was at risk. But in Missouri, doctors could do nothing. 'Girlhood' opens the Rhodes College festival of French films. Go Play If you want personality, you gotta #GoMemphis SHARE By John Beifuss of The Commercial Appeal Starting later this month, some of the best movies in Memphis won't be playing at a multiplex but at Rhodes College. Set for Jan. 26 through Feb. 10, the somewhat under-the-radar Tournees French Film Festival marks its ninth year in Memphis and its fourth year at Rhodes College with a six-film slate that includes a vintage masterpiece and two of the most acclaimed movies of the past year, along with other titles intended to represent the diversity of the Francophone (French-speaking) world. The films screen at 7 p.m. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in Blount Auditorium in Buckman Hall. Admission is free. Each movie will be introduced by a Rhodes professor or local expert on film or French culture, and some movies will be followed by moderated discussions. A 6:30 p.m. reception precedes both the opening night and closing night film. Here's the schedule: "Girlhood," Jan. 26 - Director Celine Sciamma's coming-of-age drama depicts the activities of a gang of African-French teenagers in a poor Paris suburb. "Few directors can rival (Sciamma) in portraying the emotional rip tides faced by young girls finding their way in the world," wrote Nick James in Sight & Sound, the magazine that put the film at No. 14 on its pregstigious list of the year's 20 best movies, based on the votes of 168 international critics. The film here makes its Memphis public screening debut. "Timbuktu," Jan. 27 - Named the best movie of 2015 by A.O. Scott of The New York Times, this French-Mauritanian production from African auteur Abderrahmane Sissako depicts the tensions of life in a former French colony occupied by armed Islamic fundamentalists. The director's "portrait of life under jihadi rule in northern Mali is brutal and shocking, but also gentle, generous and surprisingly funny," Scott wrote. Nominated last year for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film (it premiered in Cannes in 2014, but didn't receive its limited U.S. release until last year), this is another Tournees film making its Memphis debut. "Hiroshima Mon Amour," Feb. 2 - Directed by Alain Resnais and scripted by Marguerite Duras, this 1959 experimental drama about a French actress (Emmanuelle Riva) and Japanese architect (Eiji Okada) is considered a key masterpiece of the French New Wave. "Mood Indigo," Feb. 3 - Stop-motion animation, Duke Ellington recordings and cloud-shaped floating cars are among the elements of this alternately whimsical and dark surreal love story from director Michel Gondry ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"). The 2014 movie (which previously screened at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art) stars "Amelie" ingenue Audrey Tautou and Romain Duris, and was adapted from "Froth on the Daydream," a cult 1947 novel by France's Boris Vian. "Because I Was a Painter," Feb. 9 - Christophe Cognet's 2013 documentary examines the history and significance of artwork created by prisoners in Nazi-operated concentration camps. According to Tournees organizers, "The film explores the paradox of creating beauty from horror" and "gives the audience an intimate understanding of how art helped these artists survive and document trauma." "Two Days, One Night," Feb. 10 - The latest film from two-time Cannes Palme d'Or-winners Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne of Belgium stars Marion Cotillard as a recently fired woman on a desperate deadline quest to regain her low-paying factory job. Cotillard was nominated last year for the Best Actress Academy Award for this film, which had a brief 2015 run at the Malco Studio on the Square. Hosted by Rhodes' "Communities in Conversation" program, the film festival is curated by Rhodes faculty in collaboration with the cultural exchange agency of the French Embassy and the French Ministry of Culture. Roy and Mary Sue Smith (right) answer questions about their now-famous neighbors, John and Lisa Robinson, whose house is in the background. The Robinsons hold one of three winning Powerball tickets for the record $1.6 billion jackpot. By Thomas Bailey Jr. of The Commercial Appeal The cell phone rang at 7:53 a.m. at the Munford Estates home of Roy and Mary Sue Smith, whose next door neighbors just won $528 million in the lottery. Calling was Lisa Robinson, wife of John Robinson, who purchased the winning ticket Wednesday night at Naifehs grocery just two blocks away. They were asking us to put up some no trespassing signs in their yard, Mary Sue told Roy. Lisa had called from the Today Show studio in New York, where the Robinsons had just unveiled themselves to the world as one of the three winners to share the $1.6 billion Powerball. The Robinsons live in a three-bedroom, two-bath house in a comfortable, well kept but not upscale neighborhood. The Smiths estimated that houses there would sell for about $150,000. Two Honda civics parked in the Robinsons driveway suggest they lead prudent, practical lives. They lead generous lives, too. Sister-in-law Margaret Robinson recalled entering the Robinsons home several Christmases ago and seeing an array of clothes and toys spread across the kitchen table. The couple had adopted an impoverished family for Christmas. She was so excited about everything she bought for those children, Margaret said of Lisa. ... Their personality is to give to the less fortunate. The Smiths described their neighbors as hard workers. Lisa commutes 27 miles to work in the office of a Midtown Memphis doctors office. Fifty-eight-year-old John is a former Air Force service member who now drives 40 miles to work 12-hour shifts at a new, supervisory job involving mechanical maintenance for a distribution warehouse center in Memphis. He was in the military a good while, got good training, said Roy Smith, who is retired from DuPont. He can do mechanical work. The Robinsons grew up in Munford, have attended Munford Baptist Church, have two grown children, Tiffany, 27, and Adam, 32, keep their yard up, feed the birds, enjoy two dogs. The couple has long had a modest place on the Tennessee River, where Johns parents took the family for recreational getaways. He still loves fishing for crappie and catfish and hunting squirrels near the Ponderosa community on the river. The Robinsons own his late mothers house not far from their Munford home. Tiffany, a recent graduate from Murray State in Kentucky, lives there. In addition to the two compact cars, they drive an old Honda Pilot and a large Ford pickup. They are wonderful neighbors, Roy Smith said. Very dependable. If I need any help with anything he would help me. Just hard-working people. The Robinsons recently experienced the type of household hassle that now may be a thing of the past for them. At least theyll easily afford to hire someone else to tackle such problems. They had a problem recently with the water heater, Mary Sue said. Got it replaced and the house repaired. John was working in Louisiana. Lisa had to call and tell him there was a fresh leak. It was quite an ordeal for them... They had just completed remodeling the inside of their home when this water heater sprung a leak. John Robinson is the son of the late Raymond Red and Helen Robinson. Red moved his young family around frequently as a Navy service member, but by the late 1960s wanted to settle down in one place. He left the Navy and started sinking roots in Munford in 1969, said Margaret, who is married to Johns older brother, Jim. Don Dixon of Munford has known John most of his life. They both graduated from Munford High in 1975, and Don was Johns best man at John and Lisas wedding. Dixon has fond memories of making the trip to the Robinson familys place on the river, complete with frying catfish on Friday nights. If youve got something youre working on and youve got a problem with, hell be the first one to help you. Hell help you fix stuff. Hes pretty good mechanically, like his father was, Dixon said. Munford Parks & Recreation director Glenn Beard has a distant family tie to John Robinson and attends family reunions with the Robinsons. They are very laid back, Beard said. They love family... Both families grew up in the community. Kids went to school here and they go to church here. Beard described the Robinsons as quiet people who are shy about attention. They are hard-working people. They are honest people. This will definitely be a change for them... As we say around here, they are just good ol country folks. Good honest people. Beard is the former youth pastor at Munford Baptist, and recalled John Robinson going on youth trips when his children were in the group. Margaret Robinson repeatedly described the family as private people, and concerned about how much information to share about John and Lisa. But on this she did not hesitate: They are salt-of-the-earth , grounded people. They will not act like they are millionaires. They will still be humble people. I just dont see this making them think like they are better than anyone. John called his old buddy Don Dixon early Friday from the Today Show studio, just before John was to appear on TV. I told him I hope this money was a blessing to him, Dixon said. A lot of people who get a lot of money like this, it becomes a problem and they have more problems than blessings. But Dixon described his friend as one whos got a real good, level head on his shoulder. Hes real down to earth... I dont think this will take him over. He wasnt the only one to share his concern. The Smiths house phone rang at 7:45 a.m. They didnt answer, so the callers voice filled the living room as she left a message. Im just calling to chat about your neighbors! Ive been praying for them this morning. I know its going to be difficult. SHARE Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced it will close 269 stores this year. By Sarah Halzack Walmart said Friday it plans to shutter 269 stores this year, including all 102 of its small-format Express stores. The move reflects a shift in strategy in which the retailing giant will focus more on building up its e-commerce firepower and improving its massive supercenters and its grocery-centric Neighborhood Market stores. A spokesman said the store closures would affect 16,000 jobs internationally, some 10,000 of those positions in the United States. Even as Walmart plans to close hundreds of locations, it also intends to open more than 300 stores in the next year, including 50 to 60 supercenters in the United States and 85 to 95 Neighborhood Markets. The stores that are to be shuttered are ones that the retailer says account for less than 1 percent of global revenue. Walmart had been testing the Express concept since 2011 as a way to reach a different kind of shopper or a different kind of shopping trip. Walmart Express stores were something of mashup between a dollar store and a small grocery, offering convenience-oriented food products but not a wide array of fresh produce or meats. The idea was that it could help Walmart capture more of shoppers' dollars on smaller "fill-in trips," when a customer isn't necessarily aiming to restock their pantry. And the store's smaller footprint was also a way to allow Walmart to shoulder into shopping centers and neighborhoods where a supercenter wouldn't fit. The retreat from this concept suggests the retailer did not see it getting the kind of traction in had initially hoped. As part of this strategy, the company will not move forward with plans to build two new supercenters in the District of Columbia. "Our experience over the last three years operating our current stores in D.C. has given us a fuller view on building and operating stores in the District," the company said in a statement. "This decision will not affect our three existing stores and we look forward to continue serving these customers in the future." No closures are planned in the Memphis area, according to a list of U.S. store closings available Friday on the company's website. Stores in Walnut and Sardis, both in Northern Mississippi, are on the closure list. Kemba N. Ford, Margaret A.H. Strong and Dr. Leslie M.H. Strong were at Your Last Holiday Party. Jan. 9 2015 PHOTO BY MICHAEL DONAHUE SHARE Jake Brown and Suzanne Lamb were at Your Last Holiday Party. Barry Frager (from left), Rep. Joe Towns and David Upton hosted Your Last Holiday Party. Bethany Peters Stooksberry included her paintings in the Ave Maria Wine Tasting & Art Show. Kemba Ford (from left), Al Kapone and Oona Mitchell Bean sing karaoke at Your Last Holiday Party. By Michael Donahue of The Commercial Appeal "Your Last Holiday Party," held Jan. 9 at Asian Palace, was a week late. Hosts Barry Frager, David Upton, Rep. Joe Towns and John Freeman moved the party from Jan. 2 because of family conflicts. But guests didn't seem to care if they were celebrating Christmas or Valentine's Day; many of them just jumped at the chance to get in front of the karaoke machine and sing their favorite selections. Some heavy hitters got on stage. Kallen Esperian and Al Kapone were among those sharing the limelight. Whether or not they knew they were honoring the King on his birthday weekend, both artists sang Elvis standards. Kallen sang "Love Me Tender" and "Can't Help Falling in Love," and Al sang "Hound Dog." About 200 attended the event, which lasted from 6 p.m. to 4 a.m. to accommodate everybody who wanted to come, David said. DJ lil' EggRoll provided the karaoke equipment. Asian Palace owner Mike Woo served food including crab legs and Col. Tao's Chicken. "He kept bringing food out all night," David said. Last year's party was a fundraiser for the South Memphis Alliance. This year, guests were asked to pledge to sell tickets for "Karaoke for Our Kids," a South Memphis Alliance fundraiser that will be held March 12 at Asian Palace and will be hosted by David, Barry, Joe and John. Ave Maria Wine Tasting & Art Show Thirty-seven artists participated in the Ave Maria Wine Tasting & Art Show, held Jan. 9 at the Ave Maria Home. About 150 people attended, said Lisa Bell, Ave Maria director of advancement. "Generally, we raise about $7,000, but we're still collecting money on some paintings," she said. Money raised will go "toward the construction of our new Greenhouses. Each one has 10 private apartments, a common living area, kitchen and hearth. It's like their own little house." Tim Malone and his family once again catered the event. "Tim, who is with Kellogg's, was transferred to Charlotte, North Carolina, but he drove in to do this with us," Lisa said. Bill Lucchesi with Delta Wholesale Liquors provided the wine. 'Thin Air' That's the title of Catherine Erb's art show at DLG-TEMP. "All of those images were captured from an airplane," Catherine said. "Up high. Where the air was indeed thin. Every time I traveled over the last 10 years, if the sky was interesting, I would take pictures." That was about 40 or 50 trips, she said. "I've always been fascinated with skyscapes and cloudscapes. There was something about that view from the air that was really magical and elevating." The works are photo encaustics. "You start with the photo," Catherine said. "Wax and pigments are layered on the photo." She also included a group of small Gampi prints pigment printed on Japanese Gampi paper and varnished. "Thin Air" is on view through Jan. 31, along with works on paper by the late Michael Crespo. 'Hereabouts' Recounting how she and Mary Jo Karimnia chose "Hereabouts" for the name of the art show they organized, Linda Pelts said, "We didn't want to use the name 'outsider artist' because that's become kind of a derogatory term toward self-taught artists. We were just throwing out terms and names and words. Mary Jo threw that out, and we liked that. It sounds a little Southern. It's just 'around town' and 'hereabouts' because these are local self-taught artists." The show, held Jan. 9 at Crosstown Arts, featured works by Theolia, Michael Watson, Franco Camarillo and Winnie "Miisreal" Shields. On Jan. 10, Winnie conducted a question-and-answer session and presented one of her original plays, "The Marriage of the Bride," at Crosstown Arts. "Hereabouts" was presented in cooperation with Crosstown Arts and the Church Health Center. By Katie Fretland of The Commercial Appeal The trial of a Millington father charged with murder and child neglect in the death of his 12-year-old daughter Andrea Ruth closed Thursday and jurors were scheduled to deliberate Friday morning. Andrea, who suffered from obesity and at one point weighed 252 pounds, also had asthma and high blood pressure. She was a patient at Le Bonheur Children's Hospital three times in 2011. She had symptoms of nausea, fever and diarrhea in February and returned to the hospital later that month with the same symptoms. According to testimony during the trial this week, she was dying during one admission to the hospital and medical steps which were taken to keep her organs going caused a loss of blood flow to her lower extremities. She left the hospital with dry gangrene which required further care. The father, 44-year-old Errol Johnson, testified he thought she was getting better and he would rub her toe to help her circulation. He said he didn't want his daughter to hear anything about a discussion of amputation. The child never had an amputation after going home and she died in November 2012. She had a large infected ulcer on her hip, other sores on her body and her feet were to the point where they were rotting off, said Assistant District Attorney Abby Wallace. She had been sent home from the hospital with a plan of treatment and appointments, but records showed no indication of doctors visits after October 2011. "She rotted until she died," Wallace said. Tennessee Department of Children's Services records of her case before her death show an assessment opened June 7, 2011 and closed Aug. 3, 2011. Emergency responders were called in November 2012 to Andrea's residence in the 7000 block of Arapaho in Millington where she was on the floor with her mother attempting CPR. A firefighter and EMT, James Slough, said they entered the home through a carport and noticed a strong, foul smell in the house like rotting flesh. Later, a deputy, Darryl Blake, said Johnson told him he could not believe "we" let Andrea die and tried to correct himself to say he couldn't believe his wife let her die. Wallace said Andrea was in extreme pain as she was suffering from her wounds at home. The only thing she was given for pain was over the counter generic pain relief and something to make her sleepy commonly found in Benedryl, Wallace said. Elesia Turner testified she was the risk management director at Le Bonheur and met with both parents and Andrea. Le Bonheur had offered to transfer the child to Vanderbilt at the hospital's expense, and recommended Andrea get needed treatment at a rehabilitation center, she said. The parents did not do either. Prosecutors argued Johnson lived in the house with his daughter and had a responsibility to take action as she was suffering, while his public defender, Nigel Lewis, said Johnson was working over 120 hours a week as a taxi driver in Memphis and taking out pay day loans to try to care of the family. Johnson believed the child's mother and a home health aide were taking care of Andrea, Lewis said. Lewis questioned how Johnson should have known what was happening under the girl's bandages, because the outer layer of gauze was clean and white, and he argued that the dry gangrene she left the hospital with already smelled. Lewis argued that Johnson was at the hospital religiously with his daughter and was a provider and stable force for the family. The cases of two other people, the child's mother, 37-year-old Raven Ruth, and a home-health aide, 43-year-old Chasara Jones, are pending. SHARE By Jody Callahan of The Commercial Appeal Memphis police are investigating after a man was shot during an apparent robbery attempt at a Mexican restaurant on Poplar Thursday night. The incident happened a little after 8 p.m. at El Toro Loco at 2617 Poplar. Police said the man was shot during a robbery. It was not clear whether the victim was a customer or an employee. The suspect was a man wearing a plaid hooded shirt. In 2009, suspects robbed a family leaving the restaurant there that was then known as Los Compadres. The suspects shot a man in the abdomen during that incident. SHARE Kimani Sterling By Yolanda Jones of The Commercial Appeal Shelby County Sheriff's Office arrested a man wanted in connection with a murder in Kansas City. Kimani Sterling was booked in the Shelby County Jail Thursday night. Sterling, 24, faces second-degree murder charges in Kansas City, Missouri for allegedly shooting and killing an acquaintance on Nov. 15 after the two got into an argument inside a rental car as they left a nightclub. Police said Sterling is accused shooting Ja'Que Dawkins, 23, and then dumping his body in the street. He then ordered someone to burn the rental car, police said. SHARE Tennessee State Capitol By Richard Locker of The Commercial Appeal NASHVILLE State legislators failed to agree again Thursday on a process for the General Assembly to confirm state Supreme Court and other appellate judges appointed by the governor, and will try again next week. At issue is how to implement a portion of the state constitutional amendment ratified by voters 14 months ago that altered how Tennessee selects its five Supreme Court justices and 24 judges on the state Court of Appeals and Court of Criminal Appeals. Prior to the 2014 amendment, the state constitution said the appellate court judges shall be elected by the voters. But the amendment now requires the governor to appoint the 29 judges, the legislature to confirm them and for retention votes by the people at the end of an initial eight-year term when the governor's appointment is for a full term, or at the next statewide August election in cases where the governor's appointee fills a vacancy occurring during an eight-year term. The legislature ended its 2015 session last April with the House and Senate failing to agree on the details of the confirmation process. Legislative leaders appointed a new conference committee of five House members and five senators earlier this week to negotiate a compromise but when the panel met Thursday, the same divisions that existed last April remained. It will resume its work Tuesday morning. Lawmakers agree that when both houses of the legislature vote to confirm a judicial appointee sent up by the governor, confirmation occurs. They also agree that if both chambers vote to reject, the nominee is rejected. What they disagree on is what happens if one chamber votes to confirm and the other votes to reject or fails to vote at all. Sen. Mike Bell (R-Riceville) argued that rejection by either chamber means the nominee is rejected. Others, including Sen. Jeff Yarbro (D-Nashville) disagree. "If one body votes to reject and the other body does not vote to do so, I don't think that should constitute a rejection. I think if one body votes to confirm and the other body does not, that shouldn't constitute a confirmation. I think the clock continues to tick and unless both bodies reach the same conclusion before the end of the 60 day period, then I think the constitutional amendment is relatively clear what happens, which is confirmation by default," Yarbro said. The constitutional amendment also provides that "confirmation by default occurs if the legislature fails to reject an appointee within 60 calendar days" of either the date of appointment, if made during the annual legislative session, or the date the next legislative session convenes. The conference committee also argued Thursday over a proposal that would allow either chamber to act unilaterally if it declares that the other chamber is refusing to schedule a vote to confirm or reject. Rep. Bill Dunn (R-Knoxville) favors having the House and Senate meeting together and if a majority of the combined 132 members 67 votes to confirm or reject, the appointee is confirmed or rejected. Anything less, he argued, gives 13 percent of the legislature 17 members of the 33-member Senate the power to decide the outcome. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown) said "the legislature has not only a duty but a responsibility to decide this issue and I hope we decide it quickly and I think we will." SHARE Copyright, The Commercial Appeal files Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is greeted at Mason Temple on March 18, 1968. Dr. King was born Jan. 15, 1929. Jan. 15 25 years ago: 1991 State Technical Institute at Memphis will guarantee a free two-year college education to all public high school graduates in neighboring Fayette County, beginning this fall. No other Tennessee college has ever made such an offer, which includes free transportation to the East Memphis campus. All 243 Fayette-Ware High School seniors who graduate will be eligible this year. Dr. Charles Temple, State Tech president, hopes free tuition will encourage more Fayette County students to continue their education. Temple chose Fayette County because of its poverty and proximity and because so few of its graduates go on to college. 50 years ago: 1966 Memphis arts patrons were ready for the starting gun, but it didn't go off yesterday. Instead they learned that the city is not quite ready for a fund-raising drive to complete the arts center in Overton Park. That was the conclusion of a professional, Joe Mayes of National Fund-Raising Services, Inc., of Fort Worth and Atlanta. The firm has completed a study on feasibility of raising one million dollars from the Memphis public. Mr. Mayes' company has found that the "arts center" has a fuzzy public image and that an intensive public relations campaign is in order. 75 years ago: 1941 For the first time in Baptist Hospital history the annual report announced at the board meeting yesterday shows the institution to be out of debt, according to A.E. Jennings, chairman of the executive committee. 100 years ago: 1916 The domestic science class of the Nineteenth Century Club met yesterday when dishes suitable for Sunday evening suppers were demonstrated by Mrs. I. Samelson and Miss Mary Rose Edington, chairman of the group. 125 years ago: 1891 Mrs. Dale, a major in the Salvation Army better known as "Gospel Annie," has arrived from Baltimore and will be at the local army headquarters on Fifth, near Mill, for several day and night services. Frances Hooks worked for decades to improve race relations and education for all Memphians. (Alan Spearman/The Commercial Appeal files) SHARE Civil rights pioneer Dr. Benjamin L. Hooks, right, and wife Frances Hooks, left, are celebrated during a ceremony renaming the Central Library on Poplar in his honor in October 2005. (Mark Weber/The Commercial Appeal files) By Kayleigh Skinner of The Commercial Appeal Frances Dancy Hooks, longtime civil rights activist and widow of Dr. Benjamin L Hooks, died Thursday. Mrs. Hooks, 88, leaves behind a legacy of activism devoted to improving education, race relations and women's rights in Memphis and across the nation. A graduate of Booker T. Washington High School, Mrs. Hooks earned a bachelor's degree from Fisk University in Nashville and a master's degree from Tennessee State University. Mrs. Hooks began her 24-year career as an educator in Memphis but later served as secretary and adviser to her husband Ben, whom she called "the Catch of Memphis." "So many people think of her husband, Dr. Ben Hooks, but she was such a person of incredible competence in her own right," said Jean Varnell, a friend of nearly 50 years. "They were such a team together." Ben Hooks, who died in 2010, was the first African-American commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission and later served as executive director of the NAACP from 1977-92. Mrs. Hooks was co-founder of Women in the NAACP (WIN), a program which addresses civil rights issues affecting women and children. "Mrs. Hooks was the love of Dr. Benjamin Hooks' life and the affection was mutual," Congressman Steve Cohen said in a press release. "She looked after him and was the perfect spouse, First Lady of the NAACP and Greater Middle Baptist Church, civil rights leader, and citizen of Memphis." Varnell worked alongside Mrs. Hooks on various projects throughout the years and described her as a woman full of "spirit and spunk." "She had such a passion for helping women and children meet their full potential," Varnell said. In the late 1960s, Mrs. Hooks co-founded the Memphis Volunteer Placement Program, which helped black students apply for financial aid for college, complete college applications and explore career options. "They were able to send kids who wouldn't have been able to go to college all over the United States," her daughter, Patricia Hooks Gray said. Today the program is known as Reach Memphis or the Memphis Prep Program. "My mom was a shaker in her own right," her daughter said. "She just was somebody that believed that things could get done if you tried." Mrs. Hooks was also a founding member of the Women's Foundation of Greater Memphis. The foundation's executive director Ruby Bright described Mrs. Hooks as a powerful leader with a big heart. "Frances used her dynamics of influence, but she didn't have to be the person at the podium," Bright said. "When you saw Frances whispering in someone's ear at a meeting or community event, you knew she was taking care of some important business that was going to impact the purpose of that meeting." She is survived by her daughter, two grandsons and great-grandsons. Mrs. Hooks' funeral will be held Friday, Jan. 22, but details are pending. SHARE By Alyssa Rosenberg Bill Clinton's sexual misadventures have never quite vanished as a national story. But in recent weeks, Republican presidential contender Donald Trump has called renewed attention to them, and Juanita Broaddrick, who in 1999 said Bill Clinton had raped her in 1978, has renewed those allegations. Both because the case is past the statute of limitations in Arkansas and because Hillary Clinton is running for president now on a platform that includes greater support for rape victims, the headlines have become more about Hillary Clinton than about her husband, the man who actually has been accused of misconduct. But though the circumstances are different, the question remains the same: What is it we want Hillary Clinton to do about her husband? Because however unfair or incoherent that desire is, Americans seem to want her to do something. In a great column published last week, my Washington Post colleague Greg Sargent got at the incoherence that lies behind the idea that Bill Clinton's sexual history is "fair game" during the 2016 presidential election. Does "fair game" mean that "Bill Clinton's past sexual indiscretions are a legitimate topic for political debate in and of themselves, as a way of discrediting Bill Clinton, in his capacity as a surrogate for Hillary Clinton, a role which he is undoubtedly playing? Or does it mean that," Sargent asked, "Bill Clinton's past sexual indiscretions are a legitimate weapon to use against Hillary Clinton, which is to say, as something that undermines Hillary Clinton's claim to being a lifelong advocate for women and her argument that her policies are better for women than those of Republicans are?" Rebecca Traister, answering the latter assumption and examining the Clinton marriage in the context of the saga of Camille and Bill Cosby, traced the long history of making women responsible for the private lives and private acts of their very public husbands. "The position she is being put in is emblematic of the double binds placed on wives in all kinds of circumstances," Traister wrote. "Husbands act; wives react to them. Husbands behave poorly; people look to wives for explanations of why. Wives pay prices for goods they never bought; they do time in publicity hell for actions they never took; they receive judgments for crimes they did not commit. They are offered impossible choices: Do they condemn their partners and thereby destroy the legacies and legitimacy they have helped to build, and if they do not, do they become culpable in those partners' misdeeds?" If we haven't been able to articulate that in real life, fiction has imagined a number of ways Hillary Clinton might deal with her more frustrating half. In both Joe Klein's initially anonymous novel "Primary Colors" and the Mike Nichols 1998 film adaptation of the book, the answer seems to be that we'd like the satisfaction of knowing that Hillary Clinton is a mess. In "Primary Colors," the stand-ins for the Clintons are Jack and Susan Stanton (John Travolta and Emma Thompson), and their transgressions are rather more baroque than even the most dramatic things Bill Clinton has actually been accused of. Jack carries on an affair with Susan's hairdresser. He sleeps with the 16-year-old daughter of a family friend, and when she becomes pregnant, there is some suggestion that Jack might be the father. Susan has sex with a campaign aide, Henry Burton (Adrian Lester), as revenge. And it later emerges that she has sometimes slept with Libby Holden (Kathy Bates), the family's wartime consigliere, in similar moments of emotional pain. Nobody in the novel seems to want Susan to leave Jack; at the beginning of the novel, her faith in him is part of what makes Jack seem intellectually credible. And for much of the novel, their marriage seems, from the outside, to be defined by what Henry refers to as "the mysterious emotional concavity of their bond: the most blatant transgressions often had to be ignored." But as Jack's flaws become too obvious for us, and for Henry, to deny, Susan takes on a different role in the action. Now, her job is to be the person who acknowledges that terrible things have taken place, but that Jack is still worth supporting anyway. She slaps her husband, she comforts the mother of the young girl Jack had sex with, she has revenge sex of her own. Susan punishes Jack so that we don't have to, and she suffers along with us. She's the bridge between our moral horror over Jack's actions and our emotional desire to fall for his charm and promise. "Political Animals," Greg Berlanti's spritely 2012 miniseries, follows a former first lady, Elaine Barrish (Sigourney Weaver), who must confront her choice to stay with her philandering husband, Bud (Ciaran Hinds), after she loses her own run for the presidency. If "Primary Colors" was primarily concerned with Jack Stanton's political fate, "Political Animals" prioritizes Elaine, its Hillary Clinton stand-in. If Susan had to stay with Jack to get him elected, "Political Animals" sees Bud as dead weight on Elaine's promising career and still-vibrant sexual charisma. She dumps him, becomes secretary of state, flirts with foreign diplomats and seizes her second chance at the presidency when it comes along. Bud's philandering doesn't have victims, as far as we can tell; there's no abuse of power, no allegations of statutory rape or rape. Rather, the question is one of self-respect: Why would a woman like Elaine or Hillary Clinton stay with a man who keeps putting her in a position to be embarrassed, who drags his mud all over her outstanding promise? These questions might be easier to answer in fiction than in life, but only marginally. The only sure thing is that Hillary and Bill Clinton chose each other a long time ago and have been choosing each other ever since. What we project onto their relationship says as much about us, and how our thinking about marriage and gender roles has changed, as it does about the Clintons' private feelings and compromises. And given how exposed and examined the Clintons have been during their decades in the national spotlight, that's the only thing about them that may remain forever mysterious. Alyssa Rosenberg blogs about pop culture for The Washington Post's Opinions section. SHARE By Eli Lake After the return of 10 U.S. sailors from Iranian custody Wednesday, the Obama administration has been eager to claim a diplomatic victory. What looked like the beginning of a hostage crisis on Tuesday night, unfolding as the president gave his last State of the Union address, was instead resolved by the next morning. The key to this success, we are told, was that the U.S. and Iran had a reliable diplomatic channel because of nuclear negotiations to defuse this potential crisis. On Wednesday, a senior State Department official briefed reporters about five phone calls between Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif. Kerry made it clear that the most important issue was getting the Americans released, unharmed turning this into "a good story for both of us," Kerry told Zarif, according to the briefer. You can't argue with results. The sailors are freed and safe. There is no hostage crisis now. When British sailors were detained in 2007 by Iran in a similar incident, it took nearly two weeks for Iran to release them. In this case, it took less than a day. Kerry himself said Wednesday the resolution of the issue was "a testament to the critical role diplomacy plays in keeping us safe, secure and strong." But trumpeting this as a diplomatic success also presents a moral hazard. Iran's handling of the situation violated international norms, and to pretend otherwise is to borrow a phrase from sociology to define deviancy down. Let's start with the incident itself. Two small U.S. sea craft transiting between Kuwait and Bahrain strayed into Iranian territorial waters because of a mechanical failure, according to the U.S. side. This means the boats were in distress. That is hardly unprecedented. International maritime law spells out the appropriate response and in a situation like this, it does not give Iran the right to board these boats or detain the sailors, as the Iranian navy did. Yet Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday morning described the incident at Farsi Island as "standard nautical practice." On CBS, he said: "One of the boats had engine failure and drifted into Iranian waters. The Iranians picked up both boats, as we have picked up Iranian boats that needed to be rescued." Biden added, "That is the way nations should do it." Sen. John McCain, a Republican and former Navy pilot, a few hours later pointed out how absurd this was. "Under international law, sovereign immune vessels like navy ships and boats do not lose their sovereign immune status when they are in distress at sea," he said. "Under international law, sovereign immune naval vessels are exempt from detention, boarding or search. Their crews are not subject to detention or arrest." Then there is the issue of how the crews of these boats were treated. The U.S. military, no doubt, is learning more about that now as the sailors are being debriefed, but Iranian news outlets already published photos of the sailors kneeling with their hands behind their heads. There is now a video circulating online that appears to show one of the sailors apologizing to a reporter. Such photos and confessions are violations in and of themselves of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits the circulation of photos of detainees. When asked about this Wednesday, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said, "I mean, generally speaking, you're not supposed to show images of detained prisoners of war." But he also said the State Department was still checking the authenticity of the photos and video that were released online. Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kansas, a member of the House Intelligence Committee and former U.S. Army officer, on Wednesday called for an investigation into whether Iran violated the Geneva Conventions during the detention of the 10 American sailors. That is inconvenient for the "good news" story that Zarif and Kerry have sought to spin. Under their strategy, administration officials have praised Iran for treating the sailors well and resolving the situation quickly. Officials have glossed over the bad behavior that escalated a mechanical failure into a crisis in the first place. There is a logic to this. Kerry and President Barack Obama engage with Zarif's faction of the Iranian government and look past the provocations of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has been testing Obama's resolve since Zarif agreed to the nuclear deal in July. This approach creates a strange dynamic. Zarif's domestic opponents test ballistic missiles, fire past U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf and allow rioters to torch the Saudi Embassy, while Obama and Kerry do their best to stop Congress from punishing Iran for such provocations. The tradeoff in the end may be worth it, particularly since Iran appears to be going through with the final steps of its obligations under the nuclear deal. Implementation of this bargain is expected to start in the coming days. Western countries will lift sanctions and return close to $100 billion in frozen Iranian assets in exchange for Iran shipping out low enriched uranium, disconnecting centrifuges, modifying one of its reactors and providing more transparency to its nuclear program. But there is also a downside. If this is how Iran's military acts now, before it has received the incentives of the nuclear pact, imagine how Iran will behave when $100 billion flows into its coffers. Kerry and Obama are counting on Zarif to put out any new fires his opponents will cause once the deal is implemented. But in Iran, the firefighter and the arsonist work for the same supreme leader. Eli Lake is a Bloomberg View columnist. SHARE By Jennifer Rubin This New York Times story could not have come at a worse time for Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who had already been knocked off-balance by Donald Trump, is falling in his must-win state of Iowa and is being attacked as a slick politician who won't level with voters: "As Ted Cruz tells it, the story of how he financed his upstart campaign for the United States Senate four years ago is an endearing example of loyalty and shared sacrifice between a married couple. " 'Sweetheart, I'd like us to liquidate our entire net worth, liquid net worth, and put it into the campaign,' " he says he told his wife, Heidi, who readily agreed. "But the couple's decision to pump more than $1 million into Mr. Cruz's successful Tea Party-darling Senate bid in Texas was made easier by a large loan from Goldman Sachs, where Mrs. Cruz works. That loan was not disclosed in campaign finance reports. "Those reports show that in the critical weeks before the May 2012 Republican primary, Mr. Cruz currently a leading contender for his party's presidential nomination put 'personal funds' totaling $960,000 into his Senate campaign. Two months later, shortly before a scheduled runoff election, he added more, bringing the total to $1.2 million 'which is all we had saved,' as Mr. Cruz described it in an interview with The New York Times several years ago." This is a big problem for any candidate, but a bigger one for Cruz than most. Here's why: 1) He is still indebted to Goldman. ("As for the Goldman Sachs loan, it remains outstanding, though the balance has been reduced to between $50,000 and $100,000.") Goldman, among other things, employs hundreds of workers on H-1B visas. Cruz used to advocate a huge increase in the number of H-1B visas, without, of course, saying he was on the hook to Goldman. Now, of course, Cruz wants to end H-1B visas. Maybe he should have taken out a loan from a bank that employed more Americans. 2) He didn't simply "forget" to file the disclosure; he made up a self-reverential story to go with it. "Liquidate everything" really meant "get a honking-big loan from my wife's company." This will underscore his slipperiness on other issues, such as his stance on immigrant legalization. Can we take anything he says at face value? 3) Trump will have a field day with this one, which is certainly a more solid reason than his birther hooey on which to disqualify Cruz. Cruz has been accusing Trump of embodying "New York values" whatever those are. But if hiding a big loan from a Wall Street firm tied to the housing crisis isn't the essence of "New York values," I am not sure what is. 4) Cruz's campaign is built on the populist, anti-establishment narrative. That is how he won his Senate race in the first place and why it was a good reason for him to conceal the loan at a critical time in that race. ("Mr. Cruz, a conservative former Texas solicitor general, was campaigning as a populist firebrand who criticized Wall Street bailouts and the influence of big banks in Washington. It is a theme he has carried into his bid for the Republican nomination for president.") It would have highlighted his immense hypocrisy, in other words. He is still running on the theme of battling influence-peddling and special favors for the rich ("[T]he problem that underlies all of this is the cronyism and corruption of Washington"). As a GOP Senate staffer put it, "It's amazing that this guy can rail against crony capitalism when he is one of its biggest beneficiaries." 5) It is hard to say this is an oversight. Cruz, he never tires of telling us, is a crack lawyer. The law is crystal-clear (Chapter 6). Voters can surely draw the inference that he wanted to hide the loan. As the Times report noted, "Other campaigns have been investigated and fined for failing to make such disclosures, which are intended to inform voters and prevent candidates from receiving special treatment from lenders." Saying this all got reported later when his seat was won is hardly an excuse. It's evidence that Cruz was hiding the ball when it mattered to his election. 6) This is precisely the sort of slick, dishonest conduct he accuses professional politicians of undertaking. Recall his answer in the debate in November when asked about bailing out banks: "The truth is, the rich do great with big government. They get in bed with big government. The big banks get bigger and bigger and bigger under Dodd-Frank and community banks are going out of business. And, by the way, the consequence of that is small businesses can't get business loans, and it is that fundamental corruption that is why six of the 10 wealthiest counties in America are in and around Washington, D.C." But Cruz got his loan, thanks to the sort of special access he decries. This exchange was telling: "NEIL CAVUTO: . . . I just want to be clear, if you don't mind, that millions of depositors would be on the line with that decision. And I just want to be clear. If it were to happen again, for whatever the reason, you would let it go, you would let a Bank of America go? "CRUZ: So let me be clear. I would not bail them out, but instead of adjusting monetary policy according to whims and getting it wrong over and over again and causing booms and busts, what the Fed should be doing is, number one, keeping our money tied to a stable level of gold, and, number two, serving as a lender of last resort." That's the essence of cronyism Cruz gets his money when he is in a pinch, but ordinary employees, customers and shareholders will get no help from him. 7) Oh, it was not just Goldman. The Times report says that "in the first half of 2012, Ted and Heidi Cruz obtained the low-interest loan from Goldman Sachs, as well as another one from Citibank. The loans totaled as much as $750,000 and eventually increased to a maximum of $1 million before being paid down later that year. There is no explanation of their purpose." Citibank was another Wall Street firm tied up in the housing disaster. 8) This all feeds into Trump's argument that he is not beholden to anyone, unlike greedy politicians. The GOP is lucky to find this out now. Imagine what would happen if the party nominated someone with this to go up against the Clinton attack machine. It's one more reason not to nominate someone with such a thin public record who has never been thoroughly vetted. Jennifer Rubin writes the Right Turn blog for The Washington Post. SHARE By Margaret Carlson Hillary Clinton romped through the first three Democratic presidential debates: a clear front-runner with the wind at her back. The going could get a lot rougher in the fourth forum on Sunday, the last before primary voting actually begins. She's taken a lot of incoming recently and not just from Enemy No. 1, Donald Trump, but from inside her tent, too. For starters, Vice President Joseph Biden gave Bernie Sanders, Clinton's only real rival among Democrats, a big Biden shoulder rub. In a CNN interview on Monday, he said Sanders was doing a "heck of a job," particularly on the Democrats' signature issue of income inequality, which was "relatively new for Hillary to talk about." Biden laid it on thick: "Bernie is speaking to a yearning that is deep and real. And he has credibility on it," he added. "Hillary's focus has been other things up to now." He later tried to clarify by saying her focus was, of course, on "foreign policy" as secretary of state, but still, that hurts. However indirectly, Biden gave Democrats a reminder, with more force than any Republican could, that Clinton, as a senator from New York and later a member of the Cabinet, didn't focus on the little guy as much as she did on foreign governments and Wall Street. And just as Clinton seemed to have weathered the drip, drip, drip of emails, a fresh batch was released last week. It reminded voters of her above-the-law attitude that gave rise to her private server in the first place and her cavalier (if not illegal) approach to classified information. About 66 of the 3,000 newly released pages contained classified information. Irony of ironies, Clinton wrote that she "was surprised" to find out that another State Department employee was using a personal account. Last week, State's inspector general faulted the department for providing "inaccurate and incomplete" information in 2013 when it said it had no records related to Clinton's use of an alternate email system. Clinton's biggest headache, however, might be an old problem that never seems to die and that was resurrected last month by Trump: the Lewinsky scandal. Or rather, not the scandal itself, but her past behavior. During a discussion of campus sexual assaults in Iowa recently Clinton said that women had "the right to be heard" and "the right to be believed." Trouble is, as first lady, she and her allies weren't always willing to accord these rights to women. When a husband is accused of sexual transgressions, it's all well and good to put your marriage back together. But that doesn't give a free pass to treat women telling the truth as "bimbo eruptions" and "trailer trash." Clinton told friends that Lewinsky was "troubled" and a "narcissistic loony toon." A White House staffer smeared the former intern as a paranoid stalker. And even before Trump dredged it all up, and we were sickened by the grotesque revelations about Bill Cosby, many liberal women had come to regret their knee-jerk support for a president who was right on their issues but had victimized a young woman who stupidly fell in love with him, told a friend, and paid a huge price for it as she poignantly described in Vanity Fair and a Ted talk. Trump is the master of finding a soft spot and poking a stick in it. One of his latest ploys is to blast "Born in the USA" at rallies to taunt Canadian-born Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Before Trump accused Clinton of being the real sexist in December, her lead over Sanders averaged 24 points in 10 national polls. In January, some polls showed her margins slipping precipitously. Hillary's dismissed Trump's attacks on her husband as a "dead end" that "won't work." Then daughter Chelsea Clinton, in her first major campaign appearance on Tuesday, went negative on Sanders. Blowing off Trump could work as the press is distracted by the mutlicar pileup on the Republican side. It used to be the press couldn't take its eyes off the Clintons, the Kardashians of politics. Now there's Trump, with a weakness for gilt and models, to fill that niche. Not so long ago, Clinton was picked at for making rookie mistakes, calling herself "dead broke," allegedly being too cozy with the Clinton Foundation while at State, and looking "inauthentic" in her too-cute Scooby Van. Then Clinton was declared the Comeback Kid, winner of the first debate, found to be funny and unscripted in a totally scripted skit on "Saturday Night Live," and deemed brilliant for showing up the hapless inquisitors at the Benghazi hearings. Early in the race, Sanders may have felt very alone a socialist David against the Clinton Goliath. Now he has Trump, relishing acting as if he's already in the general election, softening up Clinton. And he's not done. On Monday on "The Tonight Show," Trump promised, "I haven't even started on her yet." The Vermont senator was declared the loser of the first debate for graciously telling the moderators, "enough about the damn emails." Trump has proved there's never too much about anything in today's strange politics. If Sanders who trails the front-runner by just 2 points in Iowa, according to a Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register poll isn't emboldened to take on a weakened Clinton in the fourth debate and deny her another comeback, he'll lose his last chance to shine before voting begins, and possibly lose it all. Margaret Carlson is a Bloomberg View columnist. Select Commodity All Ajwan Alasande Gram Almond(Badam) Alsandikai Amaranthus Ambada Seed Amla(Nelli Kai) Amphophalus Antawala Anthorium Apple Apricot(Jardalu/Khumani) Arecanut(Betelnut/Supari) Arecanut(Betelnut/Supari) Arhar (Tur/Red Gram)(Whole) Arhar (Tur/Red Gram)(Whole) Arhar Dal(Tur Dal) Ashgourd Astera Avare Dal Bajra(Pearl Millet/Cumbu) Bajra(Pearl Millet/Cumbu) Balekai Bamboo Banana Banana - Green Barley (Jau) Bay leaf (Tejpatta) Beans Beaten Rice Beetroot Bengal Gram Dal (Chana Dal) Bengal Gram(Gram)(Whole) Ber(Zizyphus/Borehannu) Betal Leaves Bhindi(Ladies Finger) Bitter gourd Black Gram (Urd Beans)(Whole) Black Gram Dal (Urd Dal) Black pepper BOP Bottle gourd Bran Brinjal Broken Rice Broomstick(Flower Broom) Bull Bunch Beans Cabbage Calf Capsicum Cardamoms Carnation Carrot Cashewnuts Castor Seed Cauliflower Chapparad Avare Chennangi Dal Cherry Chikoos(Sapota) Chili Red Chilly Capsicum Chow Chow Chrysanthemum Chrysanthemum(Loose) Cinamon(Dalchini) Cloves Cluster beans Cock Cocoa Coconut Coconut Oil Coconut Seed Coffee Colacasia Copra Coriander(Leaves) Corriander seed Cotton Cotton Seed Cow Cowpea (Lobia/Karamani) Cowpea (Lobia/Karamani) Cowpea(Veg) Cucumbar(Kheera) Cummin Seed(Jeera) Custard Apple (Sharifa) Dalda Dhaincha Drumstick Dry Chillies Dry Fodder Dry Grapes Duck Duster Beans Egg Elephant Yam (Suran) Field Pea Firewood Fish Foxtail Millet(Navane) French Beans (Frasbean) Galgal(Lemon) Garlic Ghee Gingelly Oil Ginger(Dry) Ginger(Green) Gladiolus Cut Flower Goat Gram Raw(Chholia) Gramflour Grapes Green Avare (W) Green Chilli Green Fodder Green Gram (Moong)(Whole) Green Gram Dal (Moong Dal) Green Peas Ground Nut Oil Ground Nut Seed Groundnut Groundnut (Split) Groundnut pods (raw) Guar Guar Seed(Cluster Beans Seed) Guava Gur(Jaggery) He Buffalo Hen Hippe Seed Honge seed Hybrid Cumbu Indian Beans (Seam) Indian Colza(Sarson) Isabgul (Psyllium) Jack Fruit Jaffri Jamun(Narale Hannu) Jarbara Jasmine Jowar(Sorghum) Jute Kabuli Chana(Chickpeas-White) Kacholam Kakada Kankambra Karamani Karbuja(Musk Melon) Kartali (Kantola) Khoya Kinnow Knool Khol Kodo Millet(Varagu) Kulthi(Horse Gram) Lak(Teora) Leafy Vegetable Lemon Lentil (Masur)(Whole) Lilly Lime Linseed Lint Litchi Little gourd (Kundru) Long Melon(Kakri) Lotus Lotus Sticks Lukad Mahedi Mahua Mahua Seed(Hippe seed) Maida Atta Maize Mango Mango (Raw-Ripe) Marasebu Marget Marigold(Calcutta) Marigold(loose) Mashrooms Masur Dal Mataki Methi Seeds Methi(Leaves) Millets Mint(Pudina) Moath Dal Mousambi(Sweet Lime) Mustard Mustard Oil Myrobolan(Harad) Neem Seed Niger Seed (Ramtil) Nutmeg Onion Onion Green Orange Orchid Ox Paddy(Dhan)(Basmati) Paddy(Dhan)(Common) Papaya Papaya (Raw) Patti Calcutta Peach Pear(Marasebu) Peas cod Peas Wet Peas(Dry) Pegeon Pea (Arhar Fali) Pepper garbled Pepper ungarbled Persimon(Japani Fal) Pigs Pineapple Plum Pointed gourd (Parval) Pomegranate Potato Pumpkin Raddish Ragi (Finger Millet) Raibel Rajgir Ram Rat Tail Radish (Mogari) Raya Resinwood Rice Ridge gourd(Tori) Ridgeguard(Tori) Rose(Local) Rose(Loose) Rose(Loose)) Round gourd Rubber Sabu Dan Sabu Dana Safflower Sajje Same/Savi Season Leaves Seemebadnekai Seetafal Seetapal Sesamum(Sesame,Gingelly,Til) Sesamum(Sesame,Gingelly,Til) She Buffalo She Goat Sheep Snake gourd Snakeguard Soanf Soapnut(Antawala/Retha) Soji Soyabean Spinach Sponge gourd Squash(Chappal Kadoo) Sugar Sugarcane Sunflower Sunhemp Suram Surat Beans (Papadi) Suva (Dill Seed) Suvarna Gadde Sweet Potato Sweet Pumpkin T.V. Cumbu T.V. Cumbu Tamarind Fruit Tamarind Seed Tapioca Taramira Tender Coconut Thinai (Italian Millet) Thogrikai Thondekai Tinda Tobacco Tomato Toria Tube Rose(Double) Tube Rose(Loose) Tube Rose(Single) Turmeric Turmeric (raw) Turnip Walnut Water Melon Wheat Wheat Atta White Peas White Pumpkin Wood Yam Yam (Ratalu) Select State Select Market It must be 15 years since the first time I wrote the phrase, Privacy will be one of the defining challenges of the internet age. In the intervening years, that challenge has grown enormously. Allied with privacy is trust, and its clear nobody trusts a word the government has to say on the subject. Home secretary Theresa Mays recent appearance in front of a committee of MPs examining her Investigatory Powers Bill showed as much. She insisted that the UK government does not conduct mass surveillance of its citizens, for example, provoking widespread cynicism across social media in the light of Edward Snowdens revelations about GCHQ snooping. May also insisted that government has no plans to ban encryption or legislate for the introduction of backdoors. However, she did say that companies would be expected to act on a lawful warrant ordering the disclosure of data to the authorities something that many providers who offer end-to-end encryption would find very difficult, if not impossible. There is widespread agreement that security services need to access internet data to help keep the UK safe. The challenge, of course, is where to draw the line between necessary surveillance and acceptable levels of privacy. Law enforcement inevitably feels that the loss of privacy is worth it. An FBI cyber security expert recently told me exactly that ensuring security is a price worth paying and citizens should accept that governments will be able to store, access and analyse their data. But he would say that, wouldnt he? Such an attitude will make most of us feel deeply uncomfortable. The more authoritarian that governments become in their surveillance, the more the technology community will find ways to protect people from such intrusion new forms of encryption, additional layers of data security that makes it harder to intercept our data, and in turn makes governments introduce even more extreme legislation. There is a real danger of an ongoing spiral into ever greater surveillance powers. The Investigatory Powers Bill will be an important landmark but will not be the end of the privacy debate. As individuals, inevitably, become more security aware and technologies emerge to give us more control over who can see our data and what they can do with it, this will become an ever more personal issue for all of us. Governments will need to be less patrician about how they approach privacy and surveillance, and do more to earn our trust. They can be sure that technology will give us all much greater control of our data, and without that trust the essential work of the security services only becomes harder. Apple and Samsung rang in the new year right where they ended last year, in federal court, resuming their years-long patent litigation over smartphones. On Tuesday, a federal appeals court expressed skepticism over several Apple claims, such as its quick link and pinch-to-unlock patents. But this weeks hearing was just a sidebar in a larger story. In December, Samsung appealed to the Supreme Court to resolve a distinct and particularly interesting question. The immediate concern is whether Samsung, under an 1887 law, must give Apple the total profits from sales of smartphones that contained a couple of minor contested patents. The larger import, however, could be to head off a new strategy of patent trolls, who are always searching for ways to exploit our complex intellectual property system. Recall that among several parallel lawsuits, Apple was suing for infringement of three design patents, which protect a products appearance. Utility patents, on the other hand, cover functionality. Apple said Samsung had copied, for example, the rounded edges of the iPhone and the look of its app icons. Although the validity of the patents was questionable, a jury agreed, and after several years and multiple appeals, Samsung agreed on Dec. 14 to hand over $548 million to Apple. But it also reserved the right to reclaim the money depending on the resolution of further appeals at both the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and, possibly, the Supreme Court. Why? Because both the facts and law of the case are highly problematic. It turns out that at least two of the patents in question have, subsequent to the original suit, been judged invalid. Apple is appealing the USPTOs new invalidity ruling but is unlikely to prevail. Even so, Apple could retain $548 million because it got lucky and sued before the patents low quality was exposed. Compounding the error of invalid patents is the antiquated law, which says the only available remedy is the collection of total profits from the infringer. In the 1870s, a design patent might have covered the look of a doorknob or a carpet. Todays products contain hundreds of thousands of components and lines of software code, and nearly as many patents. Some patents are far more important than others. Without some common-sense interpretation from judges and juries, the total profits penalty produces wildly disproportionate awards. To most observers, changing facts and the misapplication of an outdated law yielded the wrong result in this case. But why is this case so important? After all, $548 million is a lot of money but not make-or-break for huge firms like Samsung and Apple. No, Samsung has appealed to the Supreme Court because the combination of a very old law and very modern technology that yielded such an absurd result here could spread. It could make Americas patent litigation problem even worse by serving as a template strategy for a new wave of paralyzing litigation across the vast array of modern, complex technologies and products. If Samsung is forced to hand over the total profits from smartphones that contained a (non-infringing, as it turns out) app icon, what is to protect Ford, GM or Tesla from forfeiting its total profits because of an infringing floor mat, cup holder, or graphical icon on its dashboard? Absurd? Yes. Thats the point. In todays world of complex and overlapping technologies, where more and more intellectual property and know-how are integrated and connected, the outcome of this case is dangerous. With so many low-quality design patents floating around after several decades of vast over-issuance, this case, if allowed to stand, will encourage a new wave of design patent trolls to find and collect ornamental designs that are small components of larger products and unload the lawsuit shotgun on all sorts of industries. Over the last five years, the Supreme Court reined in many of the worst abuses and abusers of what had become a hyper-litigious and anti-innovation patent system. In addition, many technology firms exercised good judgment in de-escalating the smartphone patent wars with cross-licensing agreements and other common-sense arrangements. After this progress, we do not need new blueprints and incentives for another flurry of litigation. The Supreme Court can rely on plenty of its own precedents, and those of the appeals courts, to more reasonably construe the total profit penalty. And one would think the Court could bolster the common-sense notion that invalid patents should not garner damage awards. If not, dont be surprised to see design patent trolls coming soon to a courtroom near you. Bret Swanson is president of Entropy Economics LLC and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institutes Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy. The change in IT hiring was illustrated this week by General Electric Co., which announced it is moving its headquarters from Fairfield County, Conn., to Boston. In doing so, Jeff Immelt, GE's CEO, said Greater Boston is home to 55 colleges and universities, and "attracts a diverse, technologically fluent workforce." Four months prior, GE announced formation of a new business, GE Digital, a $6 billion unit with a goal of becoming "a top 10 software company by 2020," said Immelt at the announcement. To help staff up for this initiative, GE is hiring technology workers capable of new product development. This isn't happening just at GE. IT employment is broadly shifting away from infrastructure support, which is increasingly vulnerable to offshore outsourcing and migration to cloud services. "GE is basically reinventing itself and trying to become the leading industrial software company in the world," said Erik Dorr, vice president of research at management consulting firm Hackett Group. For GE this means building platforms to support new technologies, such as Internet of Things-enabled products. "They recognize that all of this is predicated on having access to top talent," said Dorr. IT employment has, in the past, followed the economy. The Great Recession resulted in massive IT job layoffs, as companies cut back-office operations. But today's shift to "digitization" of products -- turning consumer wares into connected products, adapting to mobile and utilizing business intelligence, robotics and social media -- have all increased demand for people with these skills. This means that if the global stock sell-off and crashing oil prices result in new waves of layoffs, tech workers who develop new products, markets and digital experiences may be in the best position to survive. Firms "are going to hire these people no matter what happens to the economy," said David Foote, the CEO of Foote Associates, which researches the IT labor market. "If there is a downturn, they work even harder to keep the people they've got," he said. Technology jobs are now embedded throughout organizations, and many CIOs may not have the control over technology spending they once did. But they still are responsible for a sizeable part of IT spending. Estimates of the number of new IT jobs added last year range from 125,000 to about 180,000, similar to what happened in 2014. This is based on an analysis of government labor data by labor market analysts. In 2016, IT budgets "are still growing, but only at 2% at the median," said Frank Scavo, the president of Computer Economics, a research firm. That's down from 3% IT budget growth in 2015. "We do not see layoffs on the horizon," said Scavo, whose firm runs ongoing surveys of IT managers. "It's not a hiring boom by any means, but tech staffing is still healthy," he said. Only 7% of IT executives expect to see staff cuts in 2016, while 40% plan to hire more staff members, said Scavo. But Victor Janulaitis, the CEO of Janco Associates, said IT hiring, which slowed in the last few months of last year, will be impacted by the financial market turmoil. "I think we're seeing the first phase of a new downturn in the economy," he said. He expects IT hiring to be flat this year. For his part, Mark Roberts, the CEO of TechServe Alliance, which also tracks IT hiring, doesn't see the recent softening in IT hiring as a sign of impending economic decline. "IT employment has been growing at a very steady clip and still outperforms the overall workforce," said Roberts. "At some point, the significantly elevated rate of growth is not sustainable," he said. There's another factor that may have had a role in GE's move to Boston: GE has been angry over Connecticut's rising tax rates, creating a political storm. The tax climate is more favorable in Massachusetts than Connecticut, says the Tax Foundation, an independent tax policy research organization. Massachusetts is ranked 25th nationally, versus Connecticut, near the bottom of tax favorability at 44. But the tax climate is even worse in California, which is ranked at 48, and that's the state with the nation's highest concentration of technology jobs. DO YOU have a Boulevard Aristide-Briand near you? Or do you send your child to school in a Jules-Ferry or a lycee Emile Combes? If so, you are already familiar with key names in the construction of the French Republic. Between them, these three politicians were responsible for free state schooling, obligatory education for girls and the rock of state neutrality towards religion on which la Republique is built: the principle of laicite. The term is very much in the news, with a new laicite charter being introduced into schools this autumn alongside classes in morale laique. Presenting the charter, Minister for Education Vincent Peillon explained: Everyone is free to have his own opinions but no one has the right to contest teaching content or miss a class in the name of religious precepts. Public debate over the Muslim community in France pops up in the news regularly and is nearly always related in one way or another to perceived challenges to this element of the Constitution. Peillons remarks refer also to repeated evangelist pressure to alter class content, in particular regarding the theory of evolution. A recent example was the proposal to swap two Christian holidays with Jewish and Muslim ones: confusing whether France was secular or multi-religious. Left and Right politicians often unite to initiate laws to protect laicite. Once the source of conflict with the Catholic Right over private education funding, the principle, an important element in the integration process, regularly generates ill feeling these days among extremist sectors of the Muslim community. That is why, a century after the original 1905 law, several new laws have been passed to protect it. First, a few explanations. Laicite does not translate well. Secularity is close but confusing. Laicite is not easy to define either. It has evolved over two centuries and is evolving still. The concept was born of the Revolution, which guaranteed freedom of conscience to all and first separated State and Church. Napoleon backtracked, signing a concordat with the Vatican in 1801 that was to poison Church-State relations during the 19th century and put laicite on the back burner for much of it. (For historical reasons, this concordat still applies in Alsace and Moselle.) Having been suppressed by the Vichy regime (along with liberte, egalite, fraternite without which laicite could not function), the principle was cast in the constitution of the Fourth Republic in 1946 the State is indivisible, laic, democratic and social and remains firmly in that of todays Fifth. To understand the concept is to go a long way towards understanding the French. Maybe it could be defined as their permanent search for a delicate balance between sharing what they all hold in common, the Republic, and catering for diversity. It is the principle that protects both personal and collective liberty and, as such, is the responsibility of both State and citizen. The indivisibility of the State is the States refusal to recognise any religious or ethnic community. France is one. There are two major dates in the history of laicite: 1881 and 1905. In 1881-82, Minister of Education Jules Ferry decreed school to be publique, gratuite et laique state-run, free and non-clerical. Teaching in French to a national programme provided children, whatever their linguistic background or beliefs, with the theoretical possibility of equal opportunity. It created a framework in which adults could bring no pressure to bear on pupils to adhere to any philosophy, religion or political idea. That remains the basis of the French educational system today. The 1905 law, engineered by Emile Combes and Aristide Briand, enforced the neutrality of the State and State institutions through the separation of the Churches and the State. Since that date, the State recognises no religion and therefore cannot directly fund any either. If the same law grants the individual total liberty and privacy regarding beliefs, there is one condition: they must not disturb public order. Given the repeated trauma that religion has caused in Frances recent history from the Wars of Religion to the expulsion of the Huguenots and the Dreyfus affair this means no proselytising and nothing that could be remotely interpreted as such. It also explains why, in France, religious belief is far more than a private matter. Things spiritual belong to the realm of intimacy. It is extremely unusual to see anyone wearing any conspicuous religious symbol in public. To do so is perceived as a deliberate act, a message to others. It is unthinkable to ask someone what their religion is and most people will be frankly embarrassed by anyone saying what theirs is. When Nicolas Sarkozy publicly announced he had appointed Frances first Muslim prefect, he sent shockwaves throughout the land. Knowing this helps in understanding intense French reaction to young girls wearing veils. It is seen not only as an unacceptable way of bringing religion into the public sphere, but also a form of peer pressure on other girls to do the same. Which takes us back to Jules Ferry and neutrality in the classroom. This insistence on the privacy of beliefs was of course also reinforced after World War II by the fate of Frances Jews under the Vichy regime, and the obligation to publicly show their religion by wearing the yellow star. As a result of the trauma of State responsibility in their deportation and extermination, no statistics may be made regarding peoples religious beliefs, ethnic origin or colour. All citizens are not only equal, but remain neutral in the eyes of the State. The mosque debate The 1905 law was finally well accepted by both Catholic and Protestant churches in France, who benefited financially when the State handed existing buildings and their costly maintenance over to local authorities. But the State cannot fund new religious buildings. Hence the mosque-building debate and recent legislation allowing local authorities to contribute. For with generous donations from Saudi Arabia and Muslim foundations abroad pouring in, the inherent risk of encouraging fundamentalist movements to develop in France is obvious. Under the Nicolas Sarkozy government, the training of imams in France to Republican principles was considered. But the State cannot finance religious education either. The impasse has been paradoxically circumvented by the Catholic University offering courses, and Algerian imams due to work in France being trained in French and laicite at the government-funded Institut Francais in Algiers. Conspicuous symbols and full-face veils After a number of potentially inflammatory cases in which some schools were confronted with Muslim girls wearing Islamic headscarves, legislation was passed in 2004 banning the wearing of any conspicuous religious symbol or sign in state schools. Never specifically aimed at the Muslim community (kippas, large crosses and Sikh turbans fall under the same category), the new law, despite fears it would be perceived as discriminatory and arouse further reaction, had the almost immediate effect of calming the situation, though some veiled Muslim girls and turbaned Sikhs found their way to private schools. But this legislated solely for public schools, not privately run establishments. In March of this year, Fatima Afif, an employee dismissed in 2008 from the privately run Baby Loup creche in the Yvelines for refusing to remove her headscarf, won on appeal for wrongful dismissal on the grounds of religious discrimination. New legislation is now under consideration to cover pre-school structures and religious symbols in the workplace, none of which are currently covered by law. When, in late July, a police officer in the town of Trappes stopped a fully veiled young women for an ID check in the middle of Ramadan, he did not know he was unleashing days of rioting. But Cassandra, 22, was not infringing any law on laicite. This time it was the one against dissimulating the face in the public sphere, put into effect by the Sarkozy government in 2011. Introduced ostensibly as anti-terrorism legislation, many felt its real purpose was more anti-veil. In fact, the number of women in France wearing the niqab is extremely small, and the number of women fined likewise. Laicite with an adjective The latest solution of Frances politicians to calm the debate has been to add adjectives. Sarkozy invented laicite positive, in which the government took into account the existence of religious groups in France. He created a representative Muslim council, through which to address the Muslim community in France. Representative of only a portion of Frances Muslims, many of whom are non-practising, it has created more problems than it has solved. The Hollande government has coined laicite apaisee, a low-profile approach in which negotiation would replace legislation as the best way of winning over those who regard the principle with suspicion. True laicistes believe the principle cannot survive any moderating tags. It must exist alone. Universities oppose campus headscarf ban proposal In early August, Le Monde published a report signed by members of the Haut Comite de lIntegration (HCI), a body no longer briefed to deal with laicite since the creation of a separate mission last April. It called for a Muslim headscarf ban in universities. Government replies were swift but hardly in unison. Minister of the Interior Manuel Valls stated evasively that the subject needed to be considered, while Genevieve Fioraso, Minister for Higher Education, warned that we should avoid problems where there are none. For Gerard Blanchard, president of La Rochelle University, and vice-president of the national CPU, Conference des Presidents dUniversite, laicite is not an issue on his campus or anywhere in France. We have 14% foreign students in La Rochelle, mostly from South East Asia, and we only ask women students to take off their veils in science laboratories, for safety reasons. That has never posed a problem. The University Presidents Conference has issued a public statement against any specific university ban. For Blanchard, the over-mediatised debate that burst upon us mid-summer is without foundation. He is adamant that he has never had a complaint from a teacher. An environmentalist, he is far more concerned by pressure that could be brought on teachers to introduce non-scientific versions of the origins of the universe into the syllabus. No university teacher should ever have to submit to any pressure on the content of his teaching. Jean-Loup Salzmann, president of the CPU, and president of Paris XIII, in the heart of Seine- Saint-Denis, one of the most multi-cultural universities in France, firmly believes in laicite, but sees no need for new laws on the campus. His main concern is elsewhere. He is angered by the incongruity of the State promoting laicite on the one hand, while financing the Catholic universities on the other. Expressing a personal opinion, he said: The main issue for these young Muslim women, who have enough problems coping with family pressure, is to achieve independence and emancipation through their studies, whether they wear a veil or not. An anti-veil law would achieve the opposite of what we want. Many of these women would then not have access to university at all. How the principle of laicite is applied today NICOLAS Cadene, chairman of the Observatoire de la Laicite, a watchdog committee created last April by President Francois Hollande to report on how the principle of laicite is applied in France today, spoke to Connexion. Can you define this difficult concept for our readers? Laicite is a principle which allows us all to live together. It is not a ban on religion or religious practices. On the contrary, it guarantees believers and non-believers alike the freedom to express themselves, to practise or not to practise a religion as they choose, on condition that public order is not disturbed. The State adopts an attitude of total impartiality towards citizens, who are all equal in the eyes of the State. Do the current religious bank holidays not favour one religious group? Christian festivals have, for the majority, become traditional holidays with little religious significance. Still, the State does not want to be seen as favouring one religion over another. In 1905, there was no Muslim population. But I dont think this poses a real problem. Employees can use their RTT (recuperation of unpaid overtime in the form of days off) as they wish. The Stasi Commission (set up by President Jacques Chirac in 2003) went a long way towards identifying issues in the workplace. We shall build on that. The conspicuous religious symbols ban was seen as directed only at women. Is that not a form of discrimination? If people set out to present themselves in a way which is obviously a proselytising or a provocative attitude, that is not acceptable. It is not so much what people wear or their physical appearance, as the reason behind the choice. This is one of the subjects we shall be working on. Islam has no clerical hierarchy. Isnt the laicite legislation trying to apply to individuals a law aimed at an institution? Doesnt the 1905 law need to be adapted? Not at all. The principle enables us all to live together. But, of course, we must avoid situations in which one group feels stigmatised by the law. That is one of our major subjects of reflexion. But there is no question of adapting the principle to new circumstances. It is one of bringing people to understand that laicite is not a ban on religious practice but a system of personal freedom and helping them to adapt to the principle. There has been talk in the press over banning the Islamic headscarf at university. [The full-face veil is already banned anywhere in public]. The State has a duty to protect minors from any form of ideological persuasion, hence the headscarf ban in schools. University is a world of adults. But the Republic has a duty to protect its citizens against the dangers of extremism. Some people attribute to laicite powers it simply does not have. There is an urgent need for strong political action, at state and local level, in order to resolve the many problems the threat of extremism has brought to certain sectors of society. The Observatoire has published its first report, a history and background to the concept. What else has it achieved? We helped draw up two important documents: the laicite charter and the syllabus for non-religious morality for schools. Both take effect this year. In addition, our report has pinpointed situations needing close attention in public administrations and local authorities (non-Metropolitan France included), as well as in the private sector. How do you see your work developing? We need a better definition of laicite that reiterates the States position of neutrality and is more clearly understood by all, in France and at an international level. We are drawing up guidelines for the application of laicite and religious practice in the workplace, and in the wake of the Baby Loup issue [see main article], for pre-school structures. We must show people how to react to situations. Overreaction is one of the major problems we face, when so much could be achieved by negotiation and taking things calmly. THE CONTINENTAL branch of the UKs Liberal Democrats has launched a campaign urging expat voters across the EU to register to take part in the EU referendum, and to vote to remain in the union. The party, which along with Labour officially backs staying in the EU, was also the only one to have supported amending the EU Referendum Bill to allow long-term expats to take part. Brussels and Europe Liberal Democrats chairman George Cunningham said: "Liberal Democrats fought hard to try to give all British expats in the EU the right to vote in the referendum, but the government refused to go along with that. "The next battle is to ensure that those who are eligible register in time and don't let their right to vote slip through their fingers. "British expats will lose out heavily if we leave the EU. But with the current polls neck and neck, every vote from British expats in Europe will count. Lib Dem MEP Catherine Bearder said the party aims to make a passionate case as to why Britain would be better off staying in the EU. She said: "One of the biggest benefits of EU membership is the opportunity to live, work and retire across the continent. "We must secure this right for our children and grandchildren as well as the estimated 2 million British citizens currently living around Europe." At the general election last year more than 100,000 expats registered to vote, which was triple the usual amount, however some 2 million expats are thought to live in the EU alone, many of whom are aged over 18 and have been abroad less than 15 years, which is necessary in order to take part. To be eligible you also have to have been a registered voter in the UK before leaving, though people who were too young to vote when they left may also take part if their parents or guardians were registered. Even if you registered last year for the election, you should make sure you are still registered. If you do not receive (or do not complete and return) an annual confirmation form that should be sent from electoral registration offices then you may come off it. You can apply to register here: Register to vote. The Lib Dems have a campaign page at BritsAbroadYestoEurope and more information is here: Lib Dems launch campaign. The bid to change the referendum bill has now failed as it received royal assent on December 17, with no change. The only way in which long-term expats could now take part in the referendum would be if the government introduced as a priority a promised bill on Votes for Life, however there is no indication that this will be done in time. Put referendum in the search box on this website for our reports on the bid to have the referendum bill amended in October and November last year Lewis Baston is author of Reggie: The Life of Reginald Maudling and several books about British general elections. He is a consultant on politics, elections and constituencies. From the perspective of hindsight, the middle term of the Thatcher government in 1983-87 may look like plain sailing. It did not seem like it at the time; it was the parliament of the banana skin a term then used to describe a number of unrelated mishaps which tripped up several ministers. The biggest, slipperiest banana skin of them all was the Westland Affair, the one that led Margaret Thatcher to speculate on 27 January 1986 that I may not be Prime Minister by six oclock tonight How did the business arrangements of a helicopter manufacturing company in Yeovil bring her apparently so close to the edge? She even stepped back at one point after a long meeting between senior ministers and marvelled: Do you realise we have spent three hours of precious time discussing a company with a capitalisation of only 30 million? What is the world coming to? Westland was in financial trouble in 1985 and was looking for a commercial partner so that it could sort out its problems. There were two options: a tie-up with the US helicopter manufacturer Sikorsky (through its parent company United Technology Industries, UTC) or a European consortium. The Government was divided, in an increasingly public, embarrassing and vitriolic argument, on the best course of action. The main disruptive element was Michael Heseltine, the Secretary of State for Defence, who actively supported the European option and worked hard for it, politically and commercially. Heseltine feared that Sikorsky was interested in Westland because it could be used to get a piece of the enormous Al-Yamamah arms deal agreed between Saudi Arabia and the UK in 1985, which allegedly mentioned an order of 80 helicopters. Defence procurement the very word has a slight whiff of the illicit has never been a simple or transparent industry, and Westland was a cork bobbing on the surface above deeper currents. It should not have been a big political issue. The Government professed neutrality, although Thatcher herself had sympathy for the US option. But it worked on fault lines that were already there. Although Heseltine had been a good Thatcherite in many ways, particularly on defence during the 1983 election, their personal styles clashed. Many suspected Heseltine was looking for a reason to have a good resignation as part of a long-term career plan. A confrontation about something was clearly in the air, and it coalesced around Westland. Heseltine grew frustrated in late 1985 that the future of the company was not being discussed in Cabinet, and Thatcher felt that Heseltine was blatantly ignoring collective Cabinet responsibility. In retrospect, Thatcher should have sacked Heseltine for insubordination in December 1985. She would have been well within her rights as Prime Minister, and the storm would probably have blown itself out over Christmas. But instead spin wars between Heseltine and Number 10 continued and escalated seriously in the New Year; the Economist noted that irate ministers were reading whole chunks of Cabinet papers directly to journalists. Another weapon used by both sides was writing or prompting letters with the intention of leaking them. The worst part of the briefing war was on 7 January 1986, when the Sun shouted YOU LIAR at Heseltine on the basis of a selective, heavily spun leak of a letter from Sir Patrick Mayhew, the Solicitor General. Heseltine tried again to raise Westland in the Cabinet meeting of 9 January, was rebuffed and attracted little support from his colleagues. He gathered his papers, stood up and left the Cabinet Room. He called a press conference that afternoon at which he announced: If the basis of trust between the Prime Minister and her Defence Secretary no longer exists, there is no place for me with honour in such a Cabinet. The resignation started the frenzied stage of the scandal which covered most of the rest of the month and largely concerned Thatchers style of government and the methods used in the briefing wars, in exhausting detail. The key issue became the leak of the Solicitor Generals letter, which had been organised through the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) under Leon Brittan, but prompted by Number 10. Law Officers tread a delicate line between the political and the legal, and Mayhew took a dim view of what had happened, threatening to send the police in if a civil service leak inquiry did not take place. Brittan was under the most intense pressure, thanks to several missteps and his departments direct involvement in the leak. His political position at Westminster was also weak, in part because of red-faced backbench anti-semites. On 24 January, the Westland affair claimed its second Cabinet casualty. Brittan received an unusually warm response to his resignation letter, with Thatcher writing in response: I hope that it will not be long before you return to high office to continue your Ministerial career, which Brittan thought was an informal understanding I was resigning as part of a balancing act. He kept his counsel for years, although he had told his PPS, Gerry Malon, in 1986 that the leak was personally authorised by the Prime Minister: his first full account was posthumously published in Charles Moores Thatcher biography. The Solicitor-Generals letter, it is clear now, was indeed procured by Number 10 in order to be leaked to embarrass Heseltine. Charles Powell conceded to Moore that her hands were not entirely clean. Thatcher was protected in a way that would probably be possible nowadays. Government was more secretive what is now the Ministerial Code only became a public document in 1992 and the Select Committee system less powerful and respected. The then government, plus the civil service, seemed to regard outside investigations as impertinent, and civil service leak inquiries were less than rigorous forensic procedures. But the inquiry served a purpose in that it was used to stop the civil servant participants in Westland from testifying outside the walls of Whitehall. Asked in 1987 about her much-quoted fear of losing office over Westland, Thatcher downplayed it: Oh, you suddenly come out with these things. I would not necessarily take them as if they had any very great, deep significance. The same scepticism could usefully be extended to some other well-polished pearls among contemporary history quotations. Although if the full story had been known, she would surely have had to go, she was protected by Whitehall and Conservative Party traditions and the skills of her Chief Whip, John Wakeham. Wakeham had established that Brittan was not going to undermine her in the debate, and negotiated an agreement with Heseltine. Thatcher would use some words written by her former Defence Secretary, in which Thatcher would concede that with hindsight, it is clear that this was one, and doubtless there were others, of a number of matters which could have been handled better, and that too I regret. Heseltine in return would not rock the boat during the debate, and indeed he made a rollicking partisan attack on the Labour Party. All Thatcher had to do was stick to her brief, which she did, and in the absence of new evidence the great traditional Tory combination of loyalty and humbug would do the rest, as Moore puts it. Even if Neil Kinnock had made the best speech in history, Thatcher was still going to survive, but his speech on 27 January was unfocused, poorly delivered and disrupted by barracking. As he conceded later to his biographer Martin Westlake: It was inept. It produced my worst ever parliamentary moment and gave me nightmares for years, but it didnt save Thatcher. From then on, the steam had gone out of Westland and it quickly forgotten by the electorate, insofar as they had followed the ins and outs of an attempted corporate rescue and various leaked letters. In a classic piece of burying bad news, a Defence Select Committee report critical of the Governments handling of the affair was published to coincide with the Royal Wedding between Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson on 23 July 1986. Westland contributed to a downward lurch in Conservative support that was reflected in poor results in the local elections in May 1986, but the Tories recovered during the autumn, and by the time of the 1987 election Westland seemed a distant memory. Even so, there were political consequences. It left an impression of deviousness on the part of a Prime Minister who had built a reputation for integrity and straight-shooting. It made her less trusting of ministers, including some of her fervent supporters like Norman Tebbit, and more reliant on the praetorian guard of Bernard Ingham and Charles Powell in Number 10. The divisions, policy errors and resignations of the 1987-90 government ultimately became unmanageable, while the affair had left Heseltine outside the metaphorical tent with a full bladder, ready for the crisis in 1990. It also damaged Kinnocks image and confidence. It was hard to see in 1986, but the real longer term winner of Westland was John Major, then a little-known junior Social Security minister. But what happened to the helicopter firm? Friends and allies of Mrs Thatcher Lord Hanson, Rupert Murdoch, and several others operating through nominee accounts bought shares and cleared obstacles for the Sikorsky bid, essentially to dispose of the political issue. Murdoch had particularly clear motives, since he was launching his Wapping print works in January 1986 and was a also board member of UTC. But the 1986 solution was ultimately a failure, and alternatives were sought as early as 1988. Then the defence sector hit the end of the Cold War, Westland somehow missed out on the Saudi bonanza, and GKN made a hostile takeover bid in 1994. The Times noted in 1995 that: Political ramifications aside, the industrial outcome of the Westland affair has proved a disaster for Britain, and the taxpayer Several times the MoD has had to place orders for unnecessary or over-costly aircraft to help it survive. The next stage was a GKN-Finmeccanica partnership in 1999 that led to Westland being absorbed into AgustaWestland. The last chapter was written this month, when Westland ceased to exist. The Yeovil factory is now just one of many Finmeccanica production facilities, and Heseltine is still around to raise a glass of prosecco towards Italy. Westland ended up going European, after all. Further reading: Charles Moores Margaret Thatcher, the authorised biography, Volume Two: Everything She Wants, Allen Lane 2015 p449-498 gives a full account with much interesting new material. Michael Heseltine: Life in the Jungle, Hodder & Stoughton, 2000 . Michael Crick: Michael Heseltine: A Biography, Penguin, 1997. One of the major arguments being put out by those seeking to keep Britain in the European Union not least William Hague is that Brexit would trigger a second Scottish independence referendum which the SNP would win. This line is taken up by Scottish commentators for whom I have great respect: for example, Chris Deerin sets out the thesis in particularly apocalyptic terms. A piece in the Guardian today by Colin Kidd tries to push back on this by suggesting that Scotland might vote Leave, which seems a very remote prospect indeed, but the idea that Brexit imperils the Union remains the consensus of the commentators. But given what we know of the Scottish electorate, I cant puzzle out how that comes to pass. Lets assume two things: that Scotland votes Remain, and that staying in a UK which is part of the EU is the best of all possible worlds for Scottish voters. You can quibble with either proposition, more plausibly with the latter than the former in my view, but as were examining the electoral logic of the doom-mongers we shall concede both. If the nightmare scenario happens and the UK votes Leave whilst Scotland votes Remain, will the result be Scottish independence? It seems unlikely. What we must remember is that the factors which disfavoured the SNP in 2014 have only grown more acute, and that the swing voters they need are a very cautious group. Take the initial, very important question of whether or not Scotland would remain in the EU if Britain left by inheriting Britains membership. With the exception of what turned out to be fictitious advice from the Scottish Governments legal advisers, the consensus during the referendum was that it wouldnt. That was with the UK in the EU and the date for independence set before Brexit could possibly occur. Unless Nicola Sturgeon somehow contrived to call a second independence referendum and unpick the United Kingdom a far older and deeper union than Europe before Britain left the EU, Scotland would be trying to inherit an EU membership which had expired. Unlikelihood piled upon unlikelihood. No matter, surely Scotland could simply apply for admittance to the EU in its own right, as a sovereign nation? It could try, but there are several problems with this. First, that almost certainly means membership on standard EU terms, with none of Britains hard-fought opt-outs. Thats a much trickier sell and less attractive prospect. Second, if the sky doesnt fall in upon Brexit, suddenly quitting the UK to join the EU shifts from being the play-it-safe status quo option to the risky option. Consider the choice: Britain leaving the EU means Scotland loses out on EU investment and faces tariffs on its exports to the EU. Scotland leaving Britain for the EU (assuming thats even possible, see below) regains those benefits, but at the expense of losing British investment and fiscal transfers, and putting tariffs on Scottish exports to the rest of the UK which is much more costly. In short: whilst being in the EU and the UK is better for Scotland than being in the UK alone, it doesnt follow that being in the UK alone is worse than being in the EU alone, which is the actual post-Brexit choice. All of which is assuming that Britain doesnt manage to negotiate a free trade agreement with Europe, which would surely annul any economic case for separation as an act of European loyalism. Third, Spains confrontation with Catalan separatists has only grown hotter since 2014. The prospect of Madrid vetoing Scottish accession has never been more plausible. All of which is just the EU specific stuff. The Nationalists still have no answer on the currency, and the ongoing collapse in the price of oil means theres absolutely no reason for anybody to assume that Yes couldnt fall below 45 per cent of the vote in a rematch. In his above-linked article, Kidd suggests that: The opposition would be lukewarm, at best, in making the case for continued union with a xenophobically Britnat redoubt. Plenty of anti-independence voters, myself included, would be torn between loyalties to the UK and to the EU. But as he points out elsewhere, Scottish and English political attitudes arent nearly as divergent as popular wisdom suggests, so weve no reason to think that such endemically Guardian reasoning would be particularly widespread in Scotland. Indeed, we know from the referendum that Scotlands swing voters are a cautious, practical, some might say mercenary group: a few hundred pounds in the pocket might have swung their vote in 2014. With the economic foundations of independence sorely weakened and Europe awash with instability, why would membership of Britain, with its fiscal transfers and unfettered access to one of the worlds largest economies, be seen as anything other than a port in a storm? If Brexit occurs, Britain become the rabbit in the hand and it isnt certain that the SNP would be able to sell the EU as two in the bush, let alone persuade sceptical swing voters to let go of the UK to chase after them. Sturgeons keen sense for swing voters safety-first attitude is why her Government is fighting so shy of a second referendum. She knows its far easier to say Yes to a pollster, with no vote in sight, than to actually vote Yes on the day. Which leaves what? Outrage at Scotland being taken out of the EU against her will? That seems like an issue that would generate a lot of faux outrage from convinced separatists, and maybe swing a few of the political class like Henry McLeish, but not any great mass of undecided voters (few of whom ever poll the EU as a high priority). If they were minded to sail into the unknown in a fit of pique, they had a far more tempting opportunity in 2014. Nor is there a moral case to answer: not even the wildest Nationalist interpretations of The Vow suggest that it ever offered devolution of foreign policy, or a Scottish veto. Foreign policy is set by the British as the British, and in 2014 Scotland voted to be British with her eyes open. As a committed unionist, and very much an agnostic on the EU, Im acutely interested in any risk Brexit might pose to Britain. But Ive yet to be convinced that this sort of talk amounts to anything more than a rather shakey attempt to conscript the spectre of separatism to the cause of the Remain campaign. SUBSCRIBE Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates straight in your inbox. Close One case of Ebola in a deceased woman has been confirmed in Sierra Leone one day after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared West Africa free of the virus. According the spokesman for the Office of National Security in Sierra Leone, Francis Langoba Kellie, the corpse of a 22-year-old woman who died on Jan. 12 tested positive for the virus. Officials stated that the woman could have exposed at least 27 other people to the virus. Kellie has asked the public to try and remain calm while they investigate and track down all potential links to the women, which include taxi drivers, family members and health care workers. "Our level of preparedness and response capabilities are very high and there is no cause for concern," Kellie said according to the Associated Press. "We encourage the public to continue to practice the hygiene regulations which were in force during the period while Ebola was raging and the emergency regulations are still in force." The WHO, who confirmed the case, stated that flare-ups were expected in West Africa where the outbreak lasted two years and took more than 11,300 lives. The United Nations health agency, which had stressed the importance of tracking down cases and containing them, commended the officials for acting fast. "The Sierra Leone government acted rapidly to respond to this new case," the WHO said. "Through the country's new emergency operations center, a joint team of local authorities, WHO and partners are investigating the origin of the case, identifying contacts and initiating control measures to prevent further transmission." Sierra Leone was the first of the three West African countries affected by the outbreak to be declared Ebola-free back in November. Guinea was declared Ebola-free toward the end of December. Liberia was declared free of the virus this past Thursday when WHO officials reported there has not been a new case in the country in 42 days. The organization had concluded, "all known chains of transmission have been stopped in West Africa." Despite the declaration, the WHO report stated that "more flare-ups are expected and that strong surveillance and response systems will be critical in the months to come." During the outbreak, Sierra Leone had reported more than 14,000 cases with nearly 4,000 deaths due to the virus. See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare Gazas Children Grow Up With Trauma By Isra Saleh el-Namey 15 January, 2015 Electronic Intifada A Palestinian boy walks amid the ruins of homes destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City, on 17 August 2014. Photo/ Mohammed Asad/APA images It has taken Mansours mother a long time to learn to cope with her 12-year-old sons changing personality. Once a top student, Mansour has become aggressive and disobedient. His grades are down, his mother says, and he suffers night terrors. Mansours mother can date his transformation to Israels war on Gaza in 2014. He was a top student before then. He used to be a cheerful boy, she recalled. During the assault, the family had to evacuate their home and move to a UN shelter, a school that was then also bombed. Since then, Mansours mother told The Electronic Intifada, he now prefers to be alone at school or at home. He has also started wetting the bed. He is easily terrified by loud sounds like thunder, according to his mother who, like other families interviewed for this story, declined to be named in order to protect their privacy. These are classic signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, though as health care professionals at the Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP) never tire of pointing out, in Gaza there is never any post. GCMHP, Gazas best known mental health care provider founded in 1990, has noted a sharp rise in the number of children and adults with PTSD since the 2014 attack. Psychological first aid In the six months after the war, 51 percent of the children who received services from GCMHP were diagnosed with PTSD, according to the organizations director, Dr. Yasser Abu Jamei. Since the war, people have been so absorbed with how to manage their lives that they neglect their psychological welfare, Zahia al-Qarra, a mental-health professional with GCMHP told The Electronic Intifada. The enormous stress endured during the 51 days of bombing as well as during two previous large-scale Israeli assaults over the past eight years and the nine-year Israeli blockade that is still preventing most reconstruction, has affected the whole population, al-Qarra said. Studies prior to the 2014 attack had demonstrated already high levels of PTSD among the population in Gaza as a result of exposure to earlier wars and trauma. In this situation, health care professionals are struggling to keep up. Our work is to intervene to provide the psychological first aid for affected communities, al-Qarra said. GCMHP has paid special attention to children. They have registered an alarming rise in the number of children exhibiting one or more symptoms of PTSD, attention deficit disorders, sleep walking, memory loss, nightmares and other anxiety disorders. It has been nearly a year and a half since the war and Mansour still fears he is dying. He worries that poisonous insects will enter his room at night and bite him. I feel I walk with a knife in my heart, he said. The source of his fear is no mystery. His family home still bears the scars of the intense bombardment the Beit Hanoun neighborhood in northern Gaza suffered during the 2014 onslaught. There is neither money nor material to repair the holes in the walls. The kind of visualisation of fear that haunts Mansour is very common among children, according al-Qarra. GCMHP works with children like Mansour to allow them to express their fears in other ways. We see the scars of war explicit in childrens productions like narratives or drawings, al-Qarra said. What they tend to draw are pulverized buildings and mutilated bodies laid out on the ground. Priorities GCMHP says it has mobilized 28 mental-health professionals into nine teams in mobile clinics in an effort to cope with the burgeoning needs. According to al-Qarra, such clinics have reached nearly 21,500 children and adults who otherwise might never get treatment and who certainly cannot afford it. It is clinics like these that reach children like Mansour, or Salim. Just 9 years old, Salim has been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Since the 2014 attack, he is always touching surfaces, tables and walls. He has begun to pull out chunks of his own hair. Salims mother contacted GCMHP because she didnt have anywhere else to turn. He lost a lot of his hair due to this habit. And he cant stop, she told The Electronic Intifada. She has had to go to Salims school to explain his situation to his teachers and friends. I dont want anyone to talk to him about his hair. Negative comments from others could hamper the treatment, Salims mother said. Treatment in a place where so many experience trauma is an almost insurmountable challenge, however. Due to the great demand, GCMHP prioritizes care for the families of the dead or injured, or those whose homes were completely or partially destroyed. Group sessions are practical with such numbers, but the psychiatrists, psychologists and nurses working with GCMHP try to use a mix of approaches including group and individual therapy and play therapy for children. Community support But clinical interventions cannot succeed in the absence of wider social support. A community-based approach is an integral part of our treatment. The family, school and all other cultural and religious institutions play a part in supporting those with mental health issues, al-Qarra said. We try to reassure the children, to make them feel as safe as we can, al-Qarra added. Memories of war are deeply embedded in their minds. But in Gaza no one feels safe. Successive Israeli attacks have wrought extensive damage to an impoverished territory that is defenseless against them. Assurances that things will get better the kind adults like to give children ring false when houses are not rebuilt, when there are no jobs and there is no hope for the future. There is no certainty that the horrors Palestinians in Gaza have already witnessed will be the last. At every anniversary of the war, you start to listen to peoples speculations that another conflict is looming, al-Qarra said. International pledges in October 2014 for an unprecedented amount of money to rebuild Gaza gave people a rare moment of optimism. Much of that money has not materialized and the Israeli blockade on supplies entering and exiting Gaza has remained in place. As a result, despair returned with even greater intensity, al-Qarra said. Lost hope Ayman, 8, is from Rafah, Gazas southernmost city, specifically the area Israel bombarded intensely as it implemented the so-called Hannibal Directive on 1 August 2014, after reports that the Palestinian resistance had captured one of its soldiers. Israels ferocious shelling of homes killed scores of civilians in indiscriminate attacks Amnesty International concluded were often motivated by a desire for revenge. At the time, Aymans family fled in fear. Their home was partially destroyed, though they were able to return and now live there. Since then, Ayman shuns company and is prone to flashes of temper. He is terribly detached from the rest of the family, his mother said. He is easily irritated and avoids conversations about the war. Ayman has been diagnosed with a panic disorder and now attends regular therapy sessions at a clinic affiliated with GCMHP. But his mother still detects his fear and alienation. He lost hope of ever having an easy life. He is sure that he will fail. Isra Saleh el-Namey is a journalist from Gaza. #OccupyBernieSanders By Mickey Z. 15 January , 2016 World News Trust Bernie Sanders - Painting. DonkeyHotey Flickr (CC BY 2.0) Just because you have elections doesnt mean youre a democratic country. - Arundhati Roy Occupy Recent History I still have my Ralph Nader for President: Green Party t-shirt from 1996 and I very much recall the frustration of listening to delusional Lefties tell me about all the excellent stuff Bill Clinton was gonna do once re-elected. In 2000, of course, Nader became a pariah to the intentionally obtuse liberal crowd which directly led to 2004s pathetic Anybody-but-Bush capitulation to war criminal John Kerry. Little by little, I found myself losing allies and comrades (cough, Z Net, cough) because I remained steadfast in my critique of the two-party deception and dared to call out legends like Zinn and Chomsky for wavering. Along came Obamas marketing team in 2008 and wow, I really felt like a proverbial voice in the proverbial wilderness. Upon his election, I wrote: What just happened is an excellent illustration of how this system handles dissent: A black face, a soothing voice, and a vague message of change -- all designed to keep rabble pacified without changing anything at all. (I penned countless articles in 2008 and early 2009, virtually predicting all aspects of his inevitable criminality, but not even I was bold enough to imagine a Nobel Peace Prize award.) The ascension of Obama was the culmination of decades of social conditioning and as far I knew, I was finally done hoping for change. I wrote and gave talks on the decline of activism and radicalism in the ensuing years -- right up to Sept. 17, 2011. Occupy Disappointment When Occupy Wall Street commenced, I suddenly encountered hundreds of folks (allegedly) decrying the vacancy of electoral politics and (allegedly) swearing off both major parties. You know, revolution and all that. By summer 2012, I was actively engaged with Occupy Town Square, Strike Debt, Summer Disobedience School, Occupy the Pipeline, and so much more. But with yet another presidential election looming, I began to hear a familiar refrain from within the OWS ranks: Im no Obama fan but we have to be strategic. We cant let a Republican win. At least hes better than Romney. Being that my interactions with fellow occupiers had been almost universally smooth to that point, I engaged. I debated. I marshaled evidence and doled it out far and wide. To my consternation, friendships became strained, connections weakened, and the same old denial vibe was back in full effect. Occupy the Bern Fast forward to 2015-6 (click here for my assessment of the post-OWS years) and the timeworn liberal script has been dusted off. This time, an old white establishment dude claiming to seek revolution has occupiers ready to #MarchForBernie on Jan. 23, 2016. The event page copy might be excusable if it were written by a junior high student (it reads like it may have been). But these folks have zero excuse for lining up behind the vapid words from their hero: I beg of you, do not enter that world of despair. We can win this fight, if we stand together. And where will this epic march kick off? Zuccotti Park, of course. One cant help but conjure up images of the zombies in Dawn of the Dead, aimlessly walking around the shopping mall out of sheer reflexive habit -- but dont tell that to those feeling the Bern. For them, Occupy Wall Street lit a fire under the progressive movement that has continued to burn today. Whoevers responsible for the final section of the FB page has a bright future writing for The Onion: Alone, we can only do so much to fight for justice and inequality. But, If we stand together and spark a fire, we will discover that we are more powerful than we ever imagined. We are the people we've been waiting for. The event page ends with this apparently un-ironic warning: Please remember this is a peaceful assembly, and our actions reflect Bernie and his campaign. If you really want your actions to truly reflect Bernie, then I suggest you bring yer drones! Occupy Reality Every four years, the Democratic Party appeases segments of the Left by sending out a peoples candidate to soothe and co-opt their activist angst. From Jesse Jackson to Jerry Brown to Al Sharpton to Howard Dean to Dennis Kucinich to many, many more; unbiased observers already know how this game ends -- and the house never loses. Does Bernie Sanders believe in the platform on which hes campaigning? If he truly does, we must ask: why is he running as a Democrat? If he wanted anything even approaching a revolution, Bernie wouldnt be diverting the meager energies of the meager Left right back into the system he claims to be railing against. Remember, when (not if) he drops out of the race, hes promised to endorse whatever candidate is put forth by the Democratic Party. That same Democratic Party is but one component of a vast criminal enterprise, an enterprise responsible for threatening all life on Earth. An enterprise commonly referred to as our way of life. Our way of life means 93 percent of the large fish in the ocean are gone. It means 78 percent of the old growth forests are gone. It means the breast milk of every mother on Earth contains dioxins. It means every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic. It means each day, 13 million tons of toxic chemicals are released across the globe; 200,000 acres of rain forest are destroyed; 150 to 200 plant and animal species go extinct. It means (in the United States), there is a reported rape every 6.2 minutes (key word: reported); one in five women will be raped in her lifetime; and 99.8 percent of those convicted for rape are men. It means the U.S. Department of so-called Defense is not only a global criminal enterprise, its the largest polluter in the world -- producing more hazardous waste than the five largest U.S. chemical companies combined. I could, unfortunately, go on and on and on but lets sum it up for the Bernies occupiers: Our way of life means unrelenting white supremacy, male supremacy, and class supremacy. Which means ecocide. Which means you cant vote any of this away. When the most recent good cop -- the Pope of Hope himself -- was first inaugurated in 2009, he openly announced to the world: We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense. Reminder: Our way of life has us at the brink of social, economic, and environmental collapse. Supporting the next good cop doesnt change any of this and doesnt make you progressive. To support someone like Sanders is to support the Democrats which is to support the two-party lie which is to support an omnicidal system and all the carnage it creates. If you plan to vote for yet another lesser (sic) evil in 2016, go ahead. Kid yourself. Feel superior. Engage in three-hour social media flame wars to defend your choice. Hold your nose and pull the damn lever. Whatever Reminder: Vote or no vote, all that matters is what youre doing the other 364.99 days. Are you making the big connections and naming the problem? How are you working to challenge deeply entrenched privilege and hierarchy to create new coalitions? Are you willing to do the work itll take to end male supremacy, white supremacy, and class supremacy? What are you doing -- each and every day -- to help bring down this global system of oppression and exploitation before theres nothing left? How much time do you believe we have? Reminder: If you think Bernie Sanders is the answer, youre occupying the wrong questions. Mickey Z. is the author of 13 books, most recently Occupy these Photos: NYC Activism Through a Radical Lens. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, you can like his Facebook page here and follow his blog here. Anyone wishing to support his activist efforts can do so by making a donation here. Creative Commons License "#OccupyBernieSanders" by Mickey Z. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. SHARE By Richard Gootee of the Courier and Press A man who robbed two Evansville pharmacies for prescription opitate drugs last year will be in federal prison for several years. Jeffrey W. Grimwood, who pleaded guilty to obstruction of commerce by robbery, was sentenced to 12 years in prison by U.S. District Chief Judge Richard L. Young on Wednesday. In addition, Grimwood was sentenced to three years of supervised release after his release from prison. Grimwood, 44, committed two robberies within about a month of each other. During both incidents, one on May 9 and another on June 11, Grimwood showed what appeared to be handgun and demanded narcotics from employees. Evansville Police Department investigators later determined that weapon Grimwood used during the incidents was a plastic toy gun. No one was injured during either robbery. Grimwood was identified as a suspect after a witness to the second robbery saw him leaving the pharmacy's parking lot and provided his license plate number to authorities. U.S. Attorney Josh J. Minkler urged those struggling with opiate addiction to seek help, and acknowledged the issue is affecting more and more Hoosiers. "Prescription drug abuse fuels violence in many areas of Southern Indiana," Minkler said in a news release that announced Grimwood's sentence. "If someone has a prescription drug problem, I encourage them to get help before they resort to violence. If not, they will be sent to federal prison." Tim Horty, a spokesman for Minkler's office, said that federal prosecutors have been aggressively pursuing cases similar to Grimwood's in an effort to curb both heroin and prescription drug use. Many heroin users first get hooked on prescription drugs and then switch to the street drug because it's often cheaper and easier to obtain. He noted that pharmacy robberies targeting narcotics have been on the rise, especially in the Indianapolis area. Grimwood had originally been charged with two state counts of armed robbery. "When people go in and threaten having a gun, at least, in ... CVS, Walgreens or any of these pharmacy (robberies)," Horty said, "we take a dim view of that, and that federal prosecution is the way to go." It is has not yet been determined if federal prosecutors will take over the case of another man who was accused of robbing another Evansville pharmacy earlier this month. Local police said that the suspect in that case, Travis L. Buchanan, 41, also showed a gun to the store's pharmacist when he made demands for narcotics on Jan. 6 at the CVS on Morgan Avenue. Buchanan, who was arrested the following day, currently faces several state charges stemming from that incident, including robbery and criminal confinement while armed. He remains jailed in Vanderburgh County. DANIEL R. PATMORE / SPECIAL TO THE COURIER & PRESS Sen. Vaneta Becker, District 50, (left) talks at the Southwest Indiana Chambers annual legislative preview lunch along with Rep. Tom Washburn District 64 (center) and Rep. Ron Bacon IN 75 (right) at the Evansville Country Club in Evansville, Ind. Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. SHARE DANIEL R. PATMORE / SPECIAL TO THE COURIER & PRESS The Southwest Indiana Chambers annual legislative preview lunch panel (from left) Sen. Vaneta Becker District 50, Rep. Tom Washburn District 64, Rep. Ron Bacon IN 75 Rep. Wendy McNamara District 76, Rep. Holli Sullivan District 78 discuss issues with panel discussion moderator Andrew Wilson at the Evansville Country Club in Evansville, Ind. Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. DANIEL R. PATMORE / SPECIAL TO THE COURIER & PRESS Rep. Wendy McNamara District 76 (center) talks at the Southwest Indiana Chambers annual legislative preview lunch while Rep. Ron Bacon IN 75 (left) and Rep. Holli Sullivan District 78 (right) listen to her at the Evansville Country Club in Evansville, Ind. Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. By Susan Orr of the Courier and Press Southwestern Indiana lawmakers say gaining legislative approval to fund three Regional Cities proposals will require some heavy lifting. Indiana's Regional Cities program, created last year, is meant to help fund economic development projects that boost quality of life and spur population growth. Originally, the program was to grant $42 million each to two regions. Money to fund Regional Cities comes from a tax amnesty program conducted last fall. The amnesty program brought in more money than anticipated. At a meeting last month, Gov. Mike Pence and the Indiana Economic Development Corp. approved full funding for three regions: Southwestern Indiana, as well as the Fort Wayne and South Bend areas. But the Indiana Legislature still must approve the funding of a third region and local legislators said Friday they are under no illusions that it will be an easy task. "I just want to be sure we're all in reality about the difficulty of getting this done," Rep. Tom Washburne told a group at a Southwest Indiana Chamber legislative luncheon. Washburne was among five local legislators at Friday's luncheon. He was joined by Sen. Vaneta Becker, Rep. Ron Bacon, Rep. Wendy McNamara and Rep. Holli Sullivan. All five said they fully support three-region Regional Cities funding, but they said not all state legislators feel that way. Washburne said he's already had conversations with several legislators outside the funded areas who have asked him, "'Why should I vote to send $42 million to some place that is not us?'" Sullivan echoed that tone, saying the issue will be "a very heavy lift" in the Indiana House. No Regional Cities funding bill has been introduced in the House. Last week, Sen. Luke Kenley, a Noblesville Republican, introduced legislation that would allow full funding for all three Regional Cities recipients. Becker said she's optimistic the bill will pass. But Becker also said poor communication between the governor and the state legislation is making things harder. Specifically, Becker said legislators didn't know ahead of time that Pence would advocate for three-region funding. "He didn't talk to the (legislative) leadership. He just announced it," Becker said. "That's not the best way to glean cooperation." Justin Groenert, the Southwest Indiana Chamber's public policy and government relations director, said Regional Cities funding is one of the chamber's top priorities this session. Groenert said he's working with his counterparts in South Bend and Fort Wayne to get funding approved for all three areas. "This is a huge opportunity for the entire state," Groenert said. "We're prepared and think there's a lot of momentum in all three regions to get this done." Friday's luncheon also covered a number of other topics, including road funding. Earlier this week House Republicans introduced a bill that would increase the state's gasoline tax, while also directing more of the sales tax on gasoline toward infrastructure projects. Currently, Hoosiers pay 7 cents in tax for every dollar spent on gasoline, and 6 of those cents go into the General Fund. Only 1 cent goes to the state's Motor Vehicle Highway Fund. The House bill would direct 2 cents into the General Fund, and the other 5 cents would be split among three different infrastructure accounts. The legislation would also raise the tax on cigarettes to make up for the loss of gas sales tax money in the General Fund. In his State of the State address, Pence said he's against raising taxes to fund road projects. Several of the legislators, including Sullivan, said they favor the legislation. Sullivan called the legislatiion a "sustainable" and "data-driven" approach to funding road projects. "We don't really want any more Band-Aids on road funding." Sen. Jim Tomes and Rep. Gail Riecken were not in attendance at Friday's event. (Casey Page/The Billings Gazette via AP) SHARE By Ryan Reynolds of the Courier and Press Indiana animal health officials hope that lessons learned in the 2015 avian influenza outbreak will help them contain a different strain of the virus found this week at a Dubois County turkey farm. Some 60,000 birds were in the process of being destroyed Friday at the farm after a diagnosis of H7N8 influenza was made. Hundreds of birds had died earlier in the week, prompting a company official to submit a sample to a state laboratory, which diagnosed the avian influenza also called "bird flu." Further confirmation came from a federal lab in Iowa. The Dubois County Herald identified the farm as one operated by Dubois resident Dan Kalb and his son, Steve Kalb. The birds were owned by Farbest Foods, the Herald reported. USDA officials were quick to note that there have been no known cases of H7N8 infections in humans, and that the birds from the Dubois County facility would not enter the food system. The Friday announcement came several months after the last bird flu outbreak finally eased. The 2015 epidemic led to the destruction of almost 50 million chickens and turkeys in the Midwestern U.s.. That strain, H5N2, was different from the one found in Dubois County this week, but shares the "highly pathogenic" tag given by animal health officials. It spreads quickly between birds. The disease was found on 219 sites in 16 states last year, but only one Indiana flock with 76 birds was affected. State and federal officials on Friday said crews had been deployed to the Indiana farm to destroy the birds, quarantine the entire operation and establish testing in a 10-kilometer area around the farm. "It is a significant virus that does need an immediate response to contain it and prevent spread to other facilities," said Dr. T.J. Myers, associate deputy administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. "Since the outbreak last year, a lot of good work to strengthen preparatory efforts and biosecurity has happened." Myers said crews at the farm hoped to have all of the birds destroyed within 24 hours of the diagnosis. "It's a fairly poultry-dense area, and testing will be absolutely critical to detect any additional cases that might be there," Myers said. Friday's announcement marked the first time that a commercial flock in Indiana had dealt with bird flu, according to a news release from state officials. In Indiana, the risk from the virus is magnified by the state's large poultry presence. The industry employs 14,000 people and is valued at $2.5 billion, state officials said. Indiana ranks fourth nationally in turkey production, first in duck production and third in egg production. "We're hopeful this is a one-site event and we hope to keep it that way," said Dr. Bret Marsh, Indiana's state veterinarian. Myers noted that "we have not seen any other cases in the local area from testing so far." Researchers will work to develop a full profile of the influenza strain next week, including an examination of how it mutated to become highly pathogenic. Meanwhile, epidemiologists will try to pinpoint how the virus made it onto the farm. Steve Kalb told the Herald that he and his father are the only two people who work at the farm. He said they wear special boots and coveralls and disinfect the farm's structures. "It's always a fear in everyone's mind," Kalb said of the avian flu. Kalb, 43, said he's unsure how the virus made its way into his farm, which Dan Kalb started in 1977 and expanded when Steve joined his father in 1993, according to the Herald. "There's no single thing you can point to and say it's the one and only thing," Myers said. "It's generally a single-point entry to a farm, then farm-to-farm spread. Epidemiology has shown a correlation with increased traffic on and off farms." Backyard poultry owners are encouraged to be aware of the signs of avian influenza and report illness and/or death to the USDA Healthy Birds Hotline at 866-536-7593. Callers will be routed to a state or federal veterinarian in Indiana for a case assessment. Dead birds should be double-bagged and refrigerated for possible testing. Signs of infection include: sudden death without clinical signs; lack of energy or appetite; decreased egg production; soft-shelled or misshapen eggs; swelling or purple discoloration of head, eyelids, comb or hocks; nasal discharge; coughing; sneezing; incoordination; and diarrhea. More information can be found online at healthybirds.aphis.usda.gov. SHARE By Richard Gootee of the Courier and Press Groups that have long opposed the coal gasification plant in Edwardsport have agreed to settle with Duke Energy including the Evansville-based environmental organization Valley Watch. The utility announced on Friday that the four groups, the Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, Inc., Sierra Club, Save the Valley and Valley Watch, joined a 2015 settlement in relation to the Knox County plant. If the agreement is approved by the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, all Edwardsport-related filings from the four groups will be resolved, Duke officials said in a news release. In exchange, the utility added additional savings for customers, more money for low-income assistance and funds for solar grants. The breaks will include $2.5 more million of deferred operating costs that Duke will not attempt to pass on to its customers. As part of the 2015 settlement, Duke had already agreed to cover $85 million of such deferred costs. John Blair, the president of Valley Watch, said the groups had little choice other than to settle over the plant, which he claimed has been "doomed from the start." However, he was glad that the additional negotiations resulted in further concessions from Duke that protects ratepayers. Blair is also the energy chair for the Hoosier Chapter of the Sierra Club. "We got some things out of the settlement, had we not joined the settlement (they) would have never happened," he said. Friday's announced settlement also includes a firm deadline for the utility to either shut down or stop burning coal at its New Albany plant by Dec. 31, 2022. Duke had already said the Floyd County facility might close before the new deadline because of future environmental regulations, but Friday's agreement puts a deadline on the plant, regardless of how future environmental restrictions are implemented. The Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor said Friday's addition of the four groups makes a "strong agreement even stronger" and said both Friday's agreement and the previous settlement terms both protect Duke's "customers from a significant portion of the Edwardsport project's rising costs, while giving Duke the chance to keep addressing the plant's operational level." That office and Blair noted that the agreement does not protect Duke from future objections. "This doesn't foreclose on us doing more challenges, because this is a disaster for ratepayers," Blair said, "and it has been since the word, 'Go.'" SHARE "Nothing has hurt people more in this country than wanting to be in the movies." So said Edward Hayes, a sagacious New York lawyer who has been in some movies himself and been portrayed in others ("Bonfire of the Vanities"). He has also defended bad guys who have risked life, liberty and wealth (usually cash) in pursuit of stardom. To Hayes, "El Chapo" Mexican drug kingpin, killer and escape artist must be a familiar sort. He's just another schmuck who wants to be in pictures. For that reason, El Chapo Joaquin Guzman-Loera to his mother and the police contacted Sean Penn to see about a movie. El Chapo ("Shorty") was in hiding, having gone for a shower six months earlier and vanished down the drain. He plopped into a tunnel and onto a waiting motorcycle, surfacing as a free man and, without a doubt, movie material. Through a star of Mexican soap operas, Kate del Castillo, Guzman somehow got in touch with Penn. We know this from Penn's account of their meeting, recently published in Rolling Stone. He called El Chapo "a simple man from a simple place" engaged somehow in the complex task of keeping a good part of the world supplied in dope. Penn apparently thought there might be a movie in Guzman's tale, all those murders notwithstanding. They are unfortunate, but can be dealt with in rewrite and, of course, flashbacks to an impoverished childhood. Somewhere along the line, however, Penn decided that El Chapo's story could not make a movie. I feel this is totally wrong. I see Danny DeVito in the role, his charm and insouciance taking the edge off the occasional murder and masking the nature of the enterprise, which after all is drugs, addiction, death . . . blah, blah, blah. Barring that, Penn could do a movie about himself how against great odds and risking his own life (and the livelihood of his agent!), he was flown from California to Mexico and then to an airstrip in the jungle from which he went overland by car, possibly past bandidos, to a small village so remote only a movie star and a soap-opera actress could find it. I know, I know: Is this a comedy or a drama? It is both. To understand that, we must return to Edward Hayes, who in 2006 was defending a certain Stephen Caracappa. Along with Louis Eppolito, Caracappa was a retired New York City cop who had augmented his meager salary by doing the odd murder for the mob. Both men were suckered into admitting their crimes when a D.E.A. agent, pretending to be a Hollywood producer, got them to talk about their endeavors. In Eppolito, the informer had the right guy. He had already appeared in the classic mob movie "Goodfellas" and had written a script, the so-far unproduced "Murder in Youngstown." (HBO, wake up!) So, what Hayes knew was that some people will do anything to be in the movies. The two retired cops just could not help themselves. A movie beckoned. Premieres. Stars. Banal questions from TV reporters. Maybe a broad or two. Certainly a spin in a Bentley. They talked. They opened up. They are now in prison. For life. El Chapo did something similar. The man has odd tastes, for sure homicides, drugs, widespread corruption and, the last straw, calling Donald Trump "mi amigo" but he needed verification from Hollywood. He was struck. Star-struck. He knows, as does what's left of the American mob, that you ain't nobody until you are somebody in the movies. We have it on the word of Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano that real mobsters like himself looked to "The Godfather" the way housewives do Oprah Winfrey. They used the movie's theme for their weddings, funerals and baptisms, and copped lines like "I'm gonna make you an offer . . ." by way of business chit-chat. The movie so thrilled Gravano that it spurred him to greater productivity, executing nearly as many people as the Saudi royal family on a slow weekend. "I only did, like, one murder before I saw the movie," he conceded. He went on to do 18 more. This story is not over yet. El Chapo risked everything for a movie and now, to the appropriate music, he may be extradited to the United States. There, Penn might visit him and take it all down. He'd better hurry, though. Soon, Penn will be too old to play Penn. SHARE Barton Heath Newburgh Thank you for sharing the Bloomberg View editorial, "Sanders' breakup wouldn't fix Wall Street." This writer doesn't think that the big banks of wall street need to be broken up or at least Bernie Sanders is in a big rush. A big rush? That was 7 or 8 years ago! President Obama and Congress have done little about this except talk, I guess it might impact their campaign donations. Just Google "bank fines." A list of names will be displayed with fines recently approaching $150 billion for offenses like tax evasion, money laundering, foreclosure abuse and lending rate manipulation. The names of the banks included UBS, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and JP Morgan, all highly respected firms, and while some were criminal charges nobody went to jail. The writer referred to Lehman Brothers as a "pure investment bank." What a dichotomy that is! Lehman paid their share of fines before they began to sink in their own bad choices and promptly were bankrupt by JP Morgan. JP Morgan was subsequently charged with siphoning off Lehman investor funds. Now that's justice, the sharks eating sharks. The writer actually invalidates the "being in a rush" contention by referring to the savings and loan debacle of the 1980s which was brought on by banking deregulation in the Reagan/Bush era. The latest were brought on or possibly magnified by the Bush/Clinton removal of the Glass-Steagall protections. Is it a political party? No, it's just us middle class paying the bill for banking recklessness by the big money crowd. So is it a rush? Yes, it should have been addressed yesterday, not tomorrow and all those "Banksters" should be doing the Bernie Madoff perp walk today! Sorry about the Bernie thing, Mr. Sanders. Feel the Bern. SHARE Last October, Hoosier Republicans heard South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley at their fall dinner. Twice in the past year, it was Haley who generated national headlines. The first came last June in the aftermath of the Mother Emanuel Church massacre in Charleston, where a young man murdered nine parishioners in an attempt to set off a race war. Haley's response as governor is now etched in the annals of modern civil rights. The second came minutes after President Obama's final State of the Union address this past week. Haley gave the Republican rebuttal, and it included an admonishment of the kind of intolerance espoused by presidential candidate Donald Trump. "During anxious times, it can be tempting to follow the siren call of the angriest voices," she said. "We must resist that temptation. No one who is willing to work hard, abide by our laws, and love our traditions should ever feel unwelcome in this country." What made Haley stand out in the first instance is how she reacted to the massacre. The Confederate battle flag was displayed on the mall of the Statehouse in Columbia. It was a symbol of the state's ancestral heritage. But to African-Americans in the Palmetto state, it was a symbol of slavery. On June 22, Haley boldly explained, "We have an opportunity to show that not only was he wrong, but that just the opposite is happening. My hope is that by removing a symbol that divides us, we can move our state forward in harmony, and we can honor the nine blessed souls who are now in heaven." Haley's leadership helped the South Carolina Legislature relegate the stars and bars to a museum. For months, many Hoosiers awaited a position from Gov. Mike Pence on the question of civil rights expansion for gay and transgender Hoosiers. On Tuesday night during his State of the State address, his position was minimalist. At a time when legislators sought guidance and leadership, Pence gave only broad parameters. The political dilemma facing Pence comes from his social conservative and evangelical base, which opposes any public accommodation for gays, as well as employment and housing protections. Rev. Ron Johnson, Jr. of the Indiana Pastors Alliance, warned that by passing "special rights" it will "criminalize our beliefs and actually turn God himself into a discriminator." This is not a mainstream view, certainly not for Democrats and many independents, and for a wide swathe of the Indiana Republican Party. With the U.S. Supreme Court ruling last June, gay marriage is now legal in the United States. But Johnson's views resonate in this small but vocal wing of the party. It is one that the Pence re-election campaign frets losing. Johnson would have you believe the civil rights expansion issue is a creation of the news media, who he and his allies loudly denounced at a Statehouse rally last November, as well as Democrats and gays. The reality is this issue was stirred up by a classic political overreach. When social conservatives and family advocacy groups lost a 2014 attempt for a ballot referendum against same-sex marriage, the resulting 2015 Religious Freedom Restoration Act became a consolation prize. Instead, it kicked off a firestorm. Pence went on to say, "As you go about your work on this and other issues, know that I will always give careful consideration to any bill you send me, but legislation must be consistent with the Indiana Constitution," Pence said. The pronouncement capped more than 150 days with the issue swirling around the governor, potentially splintering the business and social conservative wings of his Republican Party. The growing anticipation over Pence's stance on the issue was one that begged for leadership, and Pence largely took a pass. Sen. Travis Holdman, who has written two bills on the issue, said there is time to find consensus. "It's all about fair balance of protecting the rights of the LGBT community and protecting religious liberty rights we have," Holdman said. "I think when we get to the point of quieting the folks on the extreme right and the extreme left we'll find sensible middle ground for Hoosiers." If he does, it will be despite the governor, as opposed to Haley, who took an active role in finding a solution, and bringing a semblance of unity back to a state. The future of Dick Smith-owned Apple reseller Mac1 is up in the air following this morning's creditors meeting. The Apple reseller was acquired by Dick Smith 18 months ago but was placed under administration last week along with Dick Smiths other subsidiaries. At the first meeting of creditors this morning, administrator Joe Hayes told attendees he believed that if Mac1 was sold as a separate business, it would produce a better return to creditors than if it was sold along with Dick Smith. Mac1 is one of only three Dick Smith subsidiaries that is not in receivership. However, a deed of cross guarantee applies, which means if any of Dick Smiths companies are wound up, every creditor of Dick Smith also becomes a creditor to that company. This means in order for Mac1 to be sold off separately, Dick Smith creditors who werent originally Mac1 creditors may have input in the decision. Hayes also pointed out that this situation does not typically formalise unless one of the companies involved is liquidated. Dick Smith acquired Mac1 in September 2014 for $1 in an effort to bolster its education business, hiring founder Kenneth Hogg to head up the division. At the time, Dick Smith director of investment relations David Cooke told CRN that the main aim of acquisition was to recruit Hogg for his knowledge of the education sector: It wasn't a case of we bought Mac1 and got Ken. It's the other way around. The move was seen as a way to compete with rival JB Hi-Fi, which had a head start in the education sector through the acquisition of Network Neighborhood. Last year, JB Hi-Fi rebranded the arm to JB Hi-Fi Solutions, announcing it was on track to create a $500 million education business. In May, Dick Smith revealed its store-in-store strategy to open dedicated Mac1 kiosks to service Apple products within existing Dick Smith stores. Mac1s website currently lists 13 services desks in Adelaide, Albury, Armidale, Campbelltown, Canberra, Hobart, Innaloo, Marion, Melbourne, Narre Warren, Newcastle, Perth and Wollongong, and two dedicated retail stores in Canberra and Wollongong. Founded in 1990, Mac1 provided Apple servicing as well as running an education technology business with account executives in Queensland, New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria and Tasmania. Check Point Software Technologies is in the initial stages of talks to acquire CyberArk Software, a report said - a move could make a lot of sense for both security vendors, an analyst and a partner say. The report, published by Israeli publication The Marker, said talks to acquire the privileged account management vendor were in "preliminary stages" and would likely take a couple of months before any deal is signed. Check Point and CyberArk declined to comment on the report, both saying that they dont comment on rumours. The report didn't specify a price that the two Israeli companies were discussing for the deal, though with an estimated US$1.2 billion market capitalisation, the deal would likely be the largest in Check Point's history. The security vendor has already made multiple smaller acquisitions in recent months, picking up Lacoon Mobile Security last April for about US$80 million, as well as Hyperwise last February. Some analyst reports in recent months have also pointed to FireEye as a possible acquisition target for the security vendor. The deal could work for both vendors, said Jane Wright, senior analyst at Technology Business Research. For Check Point, Wright said, the acquisition would fill a gap in the security vendor's portfolio in privileged identity. "Check Point has a really robust portfolio in general, and identity, especially privileged identity, is an area where it was a little weaker," Wright said in an interview with CRN USA. "This would make a great move" to fill that gap, Wright said. Wright said highly specialised CyberArk is also in a position where it likely needs to be acquired, as more customers look to consolidate their offers under a fewer number of vendors. She said TBR estimates that customers will look to reduce the number of brands they work with by 10 percent over the next few years. For more niche vendors like CyberArk, Wright said, that poses a challenge going forward, one that could be solved by acquisition. Given that CyberArk has good technology and is profitable, Wright said, it is unlikely that Check Point is the only vendor evaluating it for an acquisition. She said CyberArk could also make a good acquisition for a company like the new Hewlett Packard Enterprise. "This is really good timing [for CyberArk]. They're growing well, they're profitable, they do what they do very well, but that's the only thing they do," Wright said. "We are seeing customers increasingly going to look for vendors that can meet more of their needs," she said. This article originally appeared at crn.com Partners are scratching their heads as Cisco reveals that it shipped servers with the wrong default password to customers for more than seven weeks. From 17 November 2015, to 6 January 2016, the networking giant shipped a number of C-Series servers -- including UCS -- with a default password unknown to its customers, which prevented administrators from logging into their servers. The default password was supposed to be "password", but Cisco had changed it to "Cisco1234" sometime in November without telling its customers. "It's extremely rare for Cisco -- has never happened before," said Jamie Shepard, senior vice president of health care and strategy at Lumenate, a US Cisco partner. "It's rare overall, as testing and [quality assurance] in IT has been very strong." In a statement to CRN USA, Cisco said that on 11 Jan 2016, it released a notification alerting customers that the passwords were incorrectly provisioned at factory locations. "Cisco has taken appropriate corrective action in factory locations and also proactive measures to inform customers to eliminate disruption in Cisco Rack Server deployments," the company said in the statement. The alert also explains workaround solutions to solve the issue, although the networking vendor has yet to explain the reason behind the password error. Cisco introduced its highly popular UCS solution in 2009. For its most recent quarterly earnings in November, Cisco reported its data centre business, which includes UCS, was up 24 percent year over year, at US$859 million. This article originally appeared at crn.com Channel programs News Tableau Set To Take Its Channel Program To The Next Level Rick Whiting Share this Business analytics software developer Tableau continues to grow at a rapid pace. As that growth continues this year, the vendor says, it is counting on its channel partners to extend its sales reach into new regions and industries and provide support for the company's growing customer ranks. This week Tableau is holding its annual partner summit in Austin, Texas, where company executives briefed some 450 partners on plans for 2016 and handed out awards for the top-performing solution providers. "It's been a high-energy event," said Michael Hoff, vice president of channels for the Americas, in an interview with CRN after wrapping up a presentation to the attending partners. "We have ambitious goals as a company and we believe the channel is an important part of that." [Related: Top 10: Big Developments In Big Data] Hoff joined Tableau in August. He came from EMC, where he worked for two years as global vice president of sales for the company's software-defined solutions in the Emerging Technologies Division. Before that, he worked at Microsoft in various capacities, the last three years as general manager of the worldwide Incubation Sales group. Seattle-based Tableau has established itself as one of the leading next-generation business analytics software vendors in what's become a very crowded arena of business intelligence and big data software startups. Tableau, which went public in 2013, has built a customer base of some 35,000 accounts and recorded 67 percent sales growth in the first three quarters of 2015 -- it's scheduled to report fourth-quarter and year-end results Feb. 4. "We have ambitious goals as a company and we believe the channel is an important part of that," Hoff said. In October, just before Tableau's annual customer conference in Las Vegas, the company's CFO led an all-day channel strategy session for the vendor's top executives -- a point Hoff cited as evidence of Tableau's commitment to the channel as an integral part of its sales strategy. Tableau's roster of some 1,000 partners includes VARs and resellers, global and regional systems integrators, technology partners (primarily platform companies such as Google, Amazon Web Services and Cloudera), and OEM and ISV partners who build Tableau's visual analysis software into their own products, according to Hoff. The channel executive said Tableau continues to "aggressively" recruit new channel partners, particularly solution providers that have dedicated business analytics practices, vertical industry expertise and the right technical capabilities. "We'll continue to focus on having the right partners and the quality of our channel," Hoff said. He declined to disclose specifics about the growth of Tableau's channel partner ranks or sales, citing the publicly held company's "quiet period" before announcing its earnings. The real emphasis now is on better enabling channel partners by expanding the resources and incentives the company provides through the company's partner program. On tap for this year are plans to add more partner managers to work with solution providers, provide more in-person and online training courses, offer more marketing resources, and expand sales lead management services for partners, Hoff said. Also coming this year is the development of a deal-registration system for partners -- something the company currently doesn't provide. Hoff said that's being built not just to prevent conflict between partners and Tableau's direct sales force, but between channel partners as well who might find themselves competing for contracts within large enterprise customers. Hoff said some of Tableau's biggest deals in 2015 were through partners. As Tableau's customer base continues to grow, the company is also working to better align partners with potential customers, such as focusing small, local resellers on SMB customers and larger systems integrators on enterprise customers -- and then coordinate all that with the vendor's own sales resources. "We've really ramped up collaboration between our direct sales teams and our partner management teams," Hoff said. One of Tableau's goals at this week's conference is getting partners to work more with each other to go after large corporate business analytics contracts that may call for services and expertise that are more than any one partner can provide. "We're trying to bring together our partner ecosystem in a cohesive way," Hoff said. Tableau sells both server and desktop versions of its software, as well as offering it through the cloud via Tableau Online. Channel partners can sell all three or host the software themselves for their customers. Partners receive a percentage of the value of the first year of customer contracts. Startup AtScale, San Mateo, Calif., which develops technology that allows widely used business intelligence tools like Tableau to easily access data in Hadoop, this week announced a technology partner alliance with Tableau under which the two companies will jointly market their combined software. That includes providing the joint solution to customers through Tableau's partner ecosystem, said AtScale CEO David Mariani in an interview with CRN. "Hadoop is the new data warehouse and any BI tool should work with it," Mariani said. "Tableau is really trying to get ahead of the trend here." He said Tableau's reseller and system integrator partners are deploying Tableau's visual analytics to work with Hadoop, making that channel a natural fit for AtScale. Bedford, Mass.-based Datawatch, which markets data preparation and visualization tools, also announced a partnership with Tableau that allows Datawatch's software to support Tableau's data format. That, according to Datawatch, will help solution providers deploy customer business analytics projects faster with reusable and automated data preparation processes. Tableau also announced its Partners of the Year awards this week. They include Interworks, North and South America VAR Partner of the Year; Slalom, North and South America Alliance Partner of the Year; FiveActs, North and South America LATAM Partner of the Year; Amazon Web Services, Global Technology Partner of the Year; Cerner Corp., North and South America OEM Partner of the Year; Infosys, North and South America GSI Partner of the Year; USEReady, North and South America Services Partner of the Year; and Interworks, Training Partner of the Year. PUBLISHED JAN. 14, 2016 Channel programs News Time For A Name Change: MSP Synergy Becomes Forthright Jimmy Sheridan Share this After 23 years as Synergy Development Consulting, the Miramar, Fla.-based solution provider has a new name: Forthright Technology Partners. The rebranding took effect Jan. 1 and is part of a trend in the managed services provider market, according to a technology industry analyst. Forthrights rebranding is built on one what its marketing chief calls one of the companys biggest drawing cards: its honesty. [Related: MSP-Turned-Security Reseller: How Revenue Tripled In Year 1] The rebranding initiative was the primary focus for Carl Gersh once he took over last summer as Forthrights first director of sales and marketing, and the customer feedback the company received from its own research and that of an outside company it hired - focused chiefly on its honesty and candor. "One customer said 'They always tell me the truth, even when it hurts,'" Gersh said. If you think about the IT market in general, it's not unheard of for people to stretch the truth and try to sell you something you may not need There is a lot of mistrust in this market." So, as the New Year dawned, the companys new name did as well, with a new corporate tagline, Honest, and we know IT. Although the Synergy moniker might have differentiated the company when it was founded in in 1993, the word has become overused in a time of increasingly collaborative technology, according to Gersh. "We needed to have better differentiation," he said. "The challenge with the name 'Synergy' is that a lot of companies are now using that name Citrix (a Forthright vendor partner) even holds a conference called 'Citrix Synergy.'" However, Gersh said he did not want the new name to be different just for the sake of being different. He said the name the company chose had to reflect how it differentiates itself in the market. "We thought - 'we aren't going to go with some esoteric nonsense name like 'FrOghammer' or go with something super trendy -like Blankcloud Solutions." Forthright saw growth throughout 2015 thanks to increased demand for the company's engineering and managed services, Gersh said. That prompted the company to increase its 24/7/365 proactive monitoring and support with the addition of a second network operations center in North Carolina at the end of the year, a unique offering for a mid-sized solution provider. Forthright expects that its new NOC - which will provide Forthright with a new "local" market - as well as increased engagement with such vendor partners as Citrix, Nutanix, AppSense VMWare and Microsoft will lead to continued growth, said Gersh, who projects that the company will double its sales (currently around $15 to $25 million) in 2016. As for the new branding, Gersh said he expects it will provide a foundation that will introduce more people to the company while it grows. Melanie Posey, a senior analyst with IDC, based in Framingham, Mass., said there has been a bit of rebranding in the MSP world in the last few years and most of it has been driven by the emergence of cloud." With the advent and popularity of cloud, Posey said, many MSPs have changed their names and rebranded from an old school IT orientation to a newer approach that focuses on a more consultative approach to customer engagement. Gersh said honesty is an attribute the company has embodied from its birth and is one that will not fall out of style. "Forthright will guarantee the success of each project it works on," he said. "We are comfortable setting that expectation. "Ten years from now, people are still going to want honesty," he said. "No one is saying, 'Bring in the liars as long as they are called 'Dot cloud.'"" Components & Peripherals News Brother Strengthens Mid-Market Play With New Scanners Jimmy Sheridan Share this Brother Industries is taking aim at mid-market enterprises with a new line of scanners in an effort to gain on such competitors as Fujitsu, Cannon and Epsom. The company known for its printers has been moving into the scanner space over the last three years according to Steve Feldstein, Brothers product marketing director, with a revitalized channel focus that has included new programs, training and products. Dean Bellone, CEO of CompSource, a Cleveland-based hardware reseller, said he does business with Brother because "they have great reseller programs and amazing support staff, as well as a product to back it all up. [Related: Brother's Channel Push Sees Results] Bellone said Brother has quickly jumped from being nearly unknown to him to being the second most popular printer vendor whose products he sells. "We have seen Brother take over the printer market in the last eight months," he said. "They are now manufacturing products that are very functional, reliable and easy to use." Its most recent releases include seven new scanners: four ADS, or workgroup, scanners built for in-office use by a group of workers, and three PDS, or professional document, scanners that are built for individual, dedicated use for jobs that require higher speeds for scanning up to 6,000 pages a day. These new scanners will be competitive in the mid-market space, or companies of about 50 to 500 employees, Feldstein said. "You dont have to be a scanning wizard to see the value that we bring to the market," Feldstein said. "We are bringing these features and functionality at a fraction of the price that [our partners] are used to paying." Partners will be saving, on average, 15 to 30 percent, Feldstein said, the same that regular customers are already seeing with "street level" pricing. For instance, Brother's new "base model," the ADS 2400, currently priced at $349 on the shelf, is, on average, 25 percent cheaper than other comparable models from other vendors such as Fujitsu, Cannon and Epsom, he said. However, he said that because of special deals and partner promotions, he couldnt point to an exact price difference partners will see. Brother released the ADS - 2400N, 2800W, 3000N and the 3600W, which are capable of scanning 30 (for the 2400 and 2800W) or 50 (for the 3000N and 3600W) documents an hour. The 3600W and 2800W scanners come with a 3.7-inch, color touchscreen display that allows the scanner access to universally accessible destinations such as OneDrive, Google Apps and Dropbox. The W series scanners are also able to connect with Brother's Brother Solution Interface (BSI), an application development platform that, through a third-party developer, can help businesses access applications that can expand availability of more documents to teams working together in the cloud. The ADS 3600W includes all the operations of the other workgroup scanners as well as a new safety feature, an integrated near-field communication (NFC) card reader for increased security with office workflow. Brother's professional series, which includes the PDS 5000, 5000F and 6000, all scan faster and at heavier volumes. Each requires a USB connection for work with a dedicated user. These professional models can scan 60 to 80 pages a minute, and are Brothers fastest-ever scanners. They include a 100-page document feeder and are designed to scan up to 6,000 pages a day. All three models, along with the ADS-2400N and 3000N, are limited distribution models, and available only to its business to business resellers, distributors and channel partners enrolled in Brother's partner organization, the "BAPP," which sweetens the pot for those involved in Brother's partner program by not making the products available to consumers through large retailers that sell to both consumers and businesses. "It always helps us when the 800-pound [gorillas] can't get their hands in the mix," Bellone said. "It allows us to sell the product on a value add rather than price alone." "I believe Brother has always been competitive," he added. "They still have their competitive edge they are now manufacturing products that are very functional, reliable and easy to use." Data center News JetBlue Flights Delayed By Verizon Data Center Power Outage Joseph F. Kovar Share this A power outage at a Verizon data center hit JetBlue Airways operations Thursday, delaying flights and sending many of its customers scrambling to rebook. Verizon, which according to Reuters is in the process of selling off its data center business, did not say which data center suffered the outage. New York-based JetBlue wrote in a BlueTales blog post Thursday that the company experienced network issues because of a Verizon data center power outage that impacted customer support systems, including jetblue.com, mobile apps, a toll-free phone number, and check-in and airport counter/gate systems. [Related: United Airlines, NYSE Outages Reveal Poor Redundancy Architecture, Insufficient Testing] The blog post was updated at 2:30 p.m. Eastern time with a note that "while still experiencing system issues due to a Verizon Data Center power outage, booking flights is now restored." Neither JetBlue nor Basking Ridge, N.J.-based Verizon provided details about the outage. In response to a CRN request for more information, a JetBlue spokesperson wrote: "Flights are still departing at this time but customers traveling may experience delays or cancelations. Customers traveling today will receive current flight status information from crewmembers in our airports." A Verizon spokesperson also responded to the CRN request with a statement: "On Thursday morning at 11:37 am ET, a Verizon data center experienced a power outage that impacted JetBlue's operations. JetBlue's systems are now being restored. Our engineering team has been working to restore service quickly, and power has been restored to the data center." Both spokespeople pointed to the JetBlue blog post for further information. JetBlue in November signed a new five-year agreement expanding its relationship with Verizon. That agreement, originally signed in 2009, provides Verizon's core technologies -- including enterprise-class cloud, managed security, advanced communications, mobility networks and professional services -- to JetBlue. Not mentioned in the statement the two companies signed in November was whether the agreement provided JetBlue with continued access to Verizon's data centers. Reuters in early January reported that Verizon is starting the process to sell off its data center assets in a deal worth more than $2.5 billion. Those assets include 48 data centers, many of which came from Verizon's $1.4 billion purchase of Terremark in 2011. Outages and failures happen, and it's a question of when, according to Ted Schuman, founder and CEO of PlanetOne Communications, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based provider of cloud-based and connectivity solutions. Schuman told CRN via email that MSPs and agents need to talk with their vendors, providers and distributors about business continuity, and should prepare documented plans for themselves and their customers. "Whether it's on-premise or in the cloud, when something like this happens it's often what's done next that will make the difference," he wrote. "Continued communication and resolution are critical. As for IT security concerns, in many cases cloud-based technologies and services are more secure. That said, every player needs to be prepared for the red envelope and have a plan in place." PUBLISHED JAN. 14, 2016 Security News Raytheon|Websense Integrates Security Brands Into Single Platform, Relaunches Company As Forcepoint Sarah Kuranda Share this Formed by the convergence of security acquisitions in recent months, Raytheon|Websense is relaunching into the market Thursday with a new name, Forcepoint, and a new strategy around building a unified security platform. In May, Waltham, Mass.-based defense contractor Raytheon closed its acquisition of Websense for $1.9 billion, forming a joint venture called Raytheon|Websense that combined the security vendor with Raytheon Cyber Products (RCP). More recently, in October, the company announced internally that it planned to acquire the McAfee Next-Generation Firewall and McAfee Firewall Enterprise businesses from Intel Security (also known as Stonesoft and Sidewinder, respectively), an acquisition that closed this month. All of the pieces are now coming together under a single brand, Forcepoint, in a move that will help the company provide clarity on its vision for a unified security platform, said John Starr, vice president of global channel sales. [Related: 6 Blockbuster Security Acquisitions You Could See In 2016] "For us, we think the portfolio of technology warrants a new face, not simply using Websense or Raytheon|Websense or Stonesoft or Sidewinder," Starr said in an interview with CRN. "We're a very different company than any of those individual companies were, and at the end of the day, we want others to know it." Starr said Forcepoint picked its new name from more than 3,500 options, trying to pick a name that embodied where the company wanted to go. Starr said the company ultimately settled on Forcepoint because it signified both "strength" and "direction." Sandra Catana, vice president of marketing at Titus, an Ottawa, Ontario-based Websense partner, said the new name was "amazing," and hoped it would act as a "rally point" to bring together the various brands. "Rebranding after a merger or acquisition is critical to ensure all the employees, customers and partners are aligned," Catana said. "It's great to see them grow that brand and grow the company. I'm excited to see what is going to happen." But Steve Snider, president of Cincinnati-based Cadre, a longtime Websense partner, said the rebrand can't be the end of the road for the vendor's evolution. He said Websense unfortunately fell behind the market in recent years, and hopes it will use the acquisition and brand change to catalyze larger business decisions for the better. "They haven't turned it around yet," Snider said. "They will have to come out with some fairly substantial messaging saying, 'We're not just changing the branding, but we're also changing the way we do business.' " With a platform-based approach, Starr said, he believes Forcepoint is in a position to do just that. With a strong and broad portfolio of security solutions, Starr said, he believes Forcepoint will be able to use the platform approach, founded on Websense's Triton technology, to capitalize on a customer buying shift to consolidate their portfolios under a single vendor or few vendors. "I think that we believe we have a head start [over other vendors pursuing the platform strategy]," Starr said. "The combination of capabilities our platform will have is unique. We've got the financial wherewithal and the experience to get it done, which again I think is a differentiator that very few companies have in the market today that are thinking of going through this unified platform strategy." The integration of the solutions is already well underway, Starr said, with Websense's Triton platform already integrated with key technologies from Raytheon Cyber Products. He said there is no integration yet completed with Stonesoft and Sidewinder, but the plans are already in place. From a channel perspective, Starr said, Forcepoint plans to welcome Stonesoft and Sidewinder partners from Intel Security with open arms in what he said would be a "smart, pragmatic" approach. He said the goal is to keep current Websense partners engaged as it also gets folded into the ecosystem. "We believe that as the partners get to know us, they will like what they see," Starr said. PUBLISHED JAN. 14, 2016 There once was a shy boy named Ziggy. So frightened is he by the world that he cloisters himself in his bedroom, watching television day and night. Oblivious to Jamaicas natural beauty, which surrounds him, the 11-year-old is fearful of hurricanes and evil birds, known as Duppy, that steal the beautiful dreadlocks of children. Ziggy is eventually coaxed out of his island home by his friend Nansi and the extraordinary upbeat music of reggae legend Bob Marley. The Duppy are defeated and so ... Lets Get Together (And Feel Alright) leads Ziggy and pals to a happy ending. In a nutshell, thats the plot of Adventure Theatres Bob Marleys Three Little Birds, which comes to the Ridgefield Playhouse on Saturday, Jan. 16, for two shows. Adventure Theatre/Musical Theater Center is a Greater Washington, D.C., organization aimed at enlightening children and their families through music and theater. The professional adult companys Three Little Birds was inspired by a picture book by Marleys daughter Cedella, explained Michael Bobbitt, the Adventure Theatres producing artistic director. Bobbitt, who is given the musicals adapted by title, in effect came up with the plot and scoured Marleys body of work to determine which songs would be appropriate for kids as young as 4. The title is taken from Marleys song Three Little Birds. More Information Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 E. Ridge Road. Saturday, Jan. 16, 2 and 4:30 p.m. $25, $20 for children. 203-438-5795, ridgefieldplayhouse.org See More Collapse We have no religious or political songs in the show, he said in a chat from Maryland. I was an educator for many years, and I have come to realize that for preschoolers and up, there is no type of music, whether hip-hop or classical or whatever, that will engage everyone. But Jamaican music engages virtually all with its strong beat and accessible language. It touches both musically and emotionally, he said. We are always on the lookout for the next best project ... and after seeing the book and researching everything I could find out about Jamaica (such as legends of the Duppy), we wove together a plot and Marleys music, he said. The moral of the story is to enjoy life and enjoy the outdoors, which is so Jamaican. Its a fun, joyous show, Bobbitt added. The show played off-Broadway in 2014, and its success has spurred this tour, he added. Its so wonderful to see so many kids laugh and smile. Featuring colorful costumes, the musical runs about one hour. Additional music and lyrics are by John L. Cornelius II. Its directed by Nick Olcott. pasboros@ctpost.com; Twitter: @PhyllisASBoros In 2013, a study by WordStream found that the small and mid-sized businesses it studied were wasting 25 percent of their pay-per-click (PPC) budgets. An early-stage company that spends $2,000 a month on AdWords, for instance, will end up spending $6,000 in underperforming creative each year. Related: 5 Marketing Strategies That Don't Involve Social Media For mid-sized companies that spend $20,000 a month on AdWords, the wasted-opportunity bill translates to a $60,000 tab. This is serious money: If businesses spend blindly on other undermanaged marketing channels as well, the overall cost may be catastrophic for their long-term success. So, don't let this be you: If you're a business owner or marketing-team manager eager to generate positive ROI from your company's marketing campaigns and creatives, consider these five easy-to-implement ideas. 1. Host creative contests. In early 2015, Lays announced the kickoff of its third annual Do Us A Flavor contest. For the campaign, the potato chip company crowd-sourced ideas for its next best-selling flavors, appealing to people all around the world -- and promoting an activity that fans apparently went wild over. Consider Lay's disclosure in 2014 that it had received more than 14 million submissions during that year's competition, up from 3.8 million in 2013. If the contest replays in 2016, the numbers can be expected to keep multiplying, along with the flavors suggested (2015's winning flavor was Southern Biscuits and Gravy-flavored Chips, if you're wondering). The lesson here is that, instead of spending money on speculative research and development and costly customer focus groups, brands might consider investing in creative contests, which leverage the wisdom of the crowd to help their consumers decide the products and services they'll manufacture next. Clearly, contests are a great strategy, because they generate strong brand engagement, which can translate into sales. While most businesses dont have the $1 million Frito-Lay offered as prize money for Do Us a Flavor, smaller companies can still host $100 giveaways that hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of their customers will rave over. Related: Amending Your Marketing Strategy to More Effectively Reach a Changing America 2. Add a free offer with a purchase. Customers cant resist a free offer. In fact, a 2013 study from Harris Interactive found that free add-ons to customer orders dramatically increased repeat purchases and word-of-mouth referrals. Two findings from the report were: Consumers come back for more: "Almost 90 percent of free gift receivers indicate that they are at least somewhat likely to buy more frequently from an online retailer after receiving a free gift. "Almost 90 percent of free gift receivers indicate that they are at least somewhat likely to buy more frequently from an online retailer after receiving a free gift. Shoppers react favorably to something extra: "Sixty-five percent of free gift receivers say they are at least somewhat likely to share their experience with others online, about half offline. Oddly enough, giving away product is good for business. Many times, the small cost of letting customers sample your goods translates into new sales and profit. Related: 5 Tips to Get Your Product or Service Noticed 3. Prioritize intent-driven search-engine marketing When I type dress shirt into Google, the first three results are from Mens Wearhouse, Macys and Nordstrom. Everyones favorite search engine believes those to be the three most relevant brands for dress shirts, among 40,700,000 results. Another example: When I search jeans, I get American Eagle Outfitters, Levis and Lucky Brand, out of 321,000,000 potential results. Unsurprisingly, global brands own the top rankings for highly competitive keywords. And while every business may dream of taking the top position within the search-engine results pages (SERPs) for in-demand keywords, doing so and maintaining those rankings is both a costly and risky endeavor. Instead, companies -- big and small -- should prioritize ranking for long-tail keywords (keywords specific to your product) that drive purchase intent. A 2013 study by Adchemys Thi Thumasathit concluded, While 26-to-40-character keywords generate significantly fewer impressions, they are much more efficient than head keywords. Specifically, 11-to-20 character keywords represented 62 percent of clicks and 62 percent of conversions (a 1-to-1 relationship); whereas, 26-to-35-character keywords represented 6 percent of clicks and 10 percent of conversions -- a 3-to-5 relationship. "In other words," the study concluded, "the long tail keywords were -- ballpark -- about 66 percent more profitable than the head keywords (ignoring bids), supporting the notion that long-tail keywords are more profitable than head keywords. So, while your competitors focus their energies on earning and maintaining their rankings for head keywords, you can build a profitable business by outranking them on less common search queries. 4. Build micro-influencer relationships. A common misconception among brands is that they need A-list celebrities to endorse them. This fantasy says that one red carpet appearance with a company's product will generate enough publicity to initiate a business-changing sales spike. But the truth is that companies will better utilize their marketing budgets by partnering with a handful of rising stars just beginning to build an audience. A few years ago, Shoes of Prey took a chance on Blair Fowler, a 16-year-old beauty vlogger who endorsed the women's custom shoe company and hosted a giveaway on her YouTube channel. Within days, traffic to the site tripled, along with sales. You, too, can harness the power of micro-influencers to leverage their influence and reach to grow your bottom line. 5. Invest in mobile-first marketing. A recent report by Shopify found that 50.3 percent of all ecommerce traffic studied came from mobile devices; shoppers, the report found, were increasingly turning their attention toward smaller screens. Your customers, too, practically live on their mobile devices. Unfortunately, most brands offer a miserable mobile shopping experience. Even on high-tech smartphones and tablets, many B2C sites are slow to load and tough to navigate. As a result, customers who want to place an online order postpone their purchase until they reach a desktop computer later, or abandon their shopping carts entirely. To convert your mobile audience now and mitigate the risk of losing them forever, companies must build online experiences that look and feel better on mobile devices than on PCs and Macs. Related: You Don't Need Much Cash to Implement These 5 Essential Marketing Strategies Related: People Want to Know and Like You. Invest in Your Personal Branding Now. How to Leverage Industry Awards in Your Marketing Strategy 5 Ideas to Create Profitable B2C Marketing Campaigns Copyright 2016 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate With General Electrics decision this week to move its corporate headquarters from Fairfield its home for more than four decades the immediate political finger-pointing over loss of the towns largest taxpayer mingled with uncertainty over the future of the 68-acre Easton Turnpike property. News of GEs decision to move to Boston was leaked Wednesday morning by the Boston Globe, before GE apparently had even notified employees at the corporate headquarters. First Selectman Michael Tetreau said hed spoken with GE executives earlier that morning, and planned to talk with them later in the afternoon, as well as meet with them early next week, to discuss future options. Tetreau said quantifying the GE moves impact on the town will be difficult until many questions are answered, including what will happen to property, how many employees will be relocated and how many of those employees live in Fairfield. According to its press release on the relocation, GE said that about 200 headquarters staff will relocate and another 600 workers will be based at the new headquarters in the South Boston waterfront neighborhood. The company said it would move some workers into a temporary office this summer and complete the headquarters move by 2018. There are about 800 employees at the Fairfield campus. Town can sustain the loss ... for now Purely from a town standpoint, were probably in the strongest financial or fiscal shape weve ever been in, Tetreau said of the towns ability to weather the loss. We have a triple-A bond rating, our long-term liabilities are fully funded, we have a 95 percent commercial occupancy rate with a vibrant downtown and a vibrant local economy. As long as GE owns the Easton Turnpike property, it will have to pay the annual real estate tax bill of $1.63 million. It currently has a $240,793 personal property tax bill for equipment on the site, for a total local tax bill of $1.88 million. The property has two office buildings and a guest house, according to a court appeal filed in 2005 over its property assessment. The buildings house a medical center, cafeteria, fitness center, production studio and an employee store, while the guest house has 28 rooms and conference and dining facilities. GE reported overall coprorate revenue of nearly $150 billion last year. Although there has been no indication from GE that it plans to donate the 68 acres to a nonprofit entity, some politicians have floated the what-if scenario about the campus being donated to nearby Sacred Heart University. A spokesman for SHU recently denied any knowledge of that possibility. But should that happen, instead of the tax revenue, the town would receive a PILOT Payment in Lieu of Taxes from the state to cover part of that levy. Assessor Donald Ross said Wednesday it was not possible to speculate at this time how much that payment might be. According to the GE statement, it plans to sell both the Fairfield property and its offices at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. A changing business model Tetreau said the fact that Boston was chosen shows that, in the end, the corporations move was not all about state taxes. Massachusetts business taxes are consistently ranked as high or higher than those in Connecticut. As much as it started with taxes, I think it actually started before that, Tetreau said. Massachusetts is not a low-tax environment, so all of the comments made around the tax issue as the driver dont hold up. The biggest driver, I think, is GE is transforming itself into a high-tech digital company. The key employees in that field, he said, are millenials, who, at least until they get married and start families, want to live in large cities, not suburbs. Fairfields thing is were family friendly, the first selectman said. According to GEs release, it has been considering the composition and location of its headquarters for more than three years. The company began its formal review in June 2015, with a list of 40 potential locations. Boston was selected after a careful evaluation of the business ecosystem, talent, long-term costs, quality of life for employees, connections with the world and proximity to other important company assets. Officials failed to try hard enough Selectman Chris Tymniak, a Republican who was unsuccessful in an effort to unseat Tetreau, panned the towns efforts to retain GE in an email in response to a request for comment. I dont have the feeling we fought for GE, Tymniak said. We didn't hold a rally in support of them,we did not paint the town blue in honor of them, we just didn't do enough. Tymniak said he thinks there is plenty the town could have done to try to entice GE to stay, and should have done, though he admitted he didnt know if it would have changed the outcome. For over 40 years, GE has been a part of our community and I saw no public outreach from the town to show GE we cared, he said. This would of been a great opportunity to re-sell GE on why they moved here 40 years ago. This would of been a great opportunity to sell Fairfield to the entire country as a town that is passionate about its taxpayers and its reluctance to allow them to leave with out a fight. Show them the beaches, the schools and our special neighborhoods. No other town in the country can compete with what we have and its proximity to New York. We are a great town with a lot to offer. The towns state legislators weighed in on the news of GEs departure, with some Republican members of the delegation voicing particularly harsh criticism of state Democratic officials. State Sen. Tony Hwang, said Fairfields community is strong. I know we will all work hard with one another to build back what we are losing, Hwang said. I know we will come together to support the employees losing their jobs, the local companies that will lose business, and the many nonprofits and community organizations that benefited from having GEs headquarters as a major philanthropic force in our town. He said he plans to work closely with stat and local leaders to make sure the state is taking the steps needed to generate jobs and create an environment where businesses want to move in, not out. State Rep. Brenda Kupchick, R-132, had a more critical assessment. For anyone to say GE is leaving because of anything other than years of punitive business polices and poor fiscal management by one party rule is kidding themselves, she said. Bottom line, they blew it!" The news, said state Rep. Laura Devlin, R-134, is devastating for Fairfield and surrounding communities. GE means so much to our community and is a direct hit to our states economy, Devlin said. Leaders at the state Capitol refused to listen to GE and other companies who have repeatedly said Connecticut is doing more harm than good in keeping businesses in state. The lone Democrat in the delegation, state Rep. Cristin McCarthy Vahey of the 133rd District, said, Although Im deeply disappointed that GE chose to move to downtown Boston, I remain committed to working together with my colleagues and our community to showcase the world-class business, residential and cultural opportunities in Fairfield ... Here in Fairfield, we remain open for business. GE move couldnt have been stopped by town For GE retiree Bob Frigo, a town resident, the blame lies with state leadership. I dont think its a function of what Fairfield should have done or has done, Frigo said. He moved to Fairfield in 1974, when the company relocated its headquarters from New York City. At the time, Frigo said, many of the executives already lived in Fairfield County. Back then, he said, a company did not move its headquarters around on a regular basis, and especially not GE. Now, though, many tasks, like clerical gruntwork are done at remote sites. Corporations no longer need all their employees in one place. For a company looking to transform into a high-tech, digital giant, Boston makes perfect sense, said Frigo, who spent more than 40 years with GE in the accounting end of financial management. He is, he said, sad to see GE leave town. The impacts are not going to be good, he said. Its been a good relationship between the town and GE ... I cant think of anything the town could have done, its much bigger than that. Meanwhile, Tetreau said he is working with the towns Economic Development Director Mark Barnhart on a large number of economic development projects, including the Exide property, which is pretty much done. Were working with the Fairfield Metro Centers new leadership. He said a business team put together last summer will be brought back into play, as the town looks to quantify and mitigate the impact of GEs exodus. Other losses hard to measure And while Tetreau said he believes the town is in good enough shape to take the blow, hes not so sure about local charities that may rely on GEs charitable foundation for support. One of the biggest issues is the charities and non-profits Tetreau said. Will GEs support go with them to Boston, the first selectman said, or will it continue to help fund local groups. The GE Foundation provided $6.2 million through a matching gift program to eligible Connecticut groups, and $3.5 million to the states United Way in 2013, according to the foundations website. The towns Police Department has been the recipient of gifts from GEs corporate arm, through its security division, Police Chief Gary MacNamara said. The department recently received $10,000 to test and purchase body cameras and received a multi-year commitment to help fund the local police dog program. I think, from a financial perspective, the partnership we have with GE, and the equipment and programs they helped support over the years was very beneficial, MacNamara said, and seeing it end causes concern. We had a great relationship with GE security, on both site level security and corporate security, MacNamara said. And aside from a small, financial partnership we also had a professional relationship, he said, with GE offering the use of conference rooms and grounds for police training. Its always been beneficial. GE also donated 40 acres of open space to the town that became known as the Cascades property abutting Lake Mohegan, and has provided funding for training, rescue and fitness equipment to the Fire Department. Many of the furnishings in Sullivan-Independence Hall are hand-me-downs from GE offices. GE was not supposed to be here What some might not know is that GE wasnt supposed to be here at all, at least, not originally. The expansive property abutting the Merritt Parkway was slated to play host to St. Vincents Medical Center, which was looking to replace its aging Bridgeport facility, according to the hospitals website. During the mid-1970s a decision was made to move the hospital from the City of Bridgeport to a tranquil suburban setting in the adjacent town of Fairfield, according to St. Vincents website. Unexpected building and land development costs and concern over inner city patient access to the hospital, especially the elderly and families using services at the clinics, caused the Daughters of Charity and Board of Directors to rethink their decision to move the hospital out of Bridgeport. After much deliberation, the decision was made that St. Vincent's would remain in Bridgeport. At that point, the property was sold to General Electric. Unlike the fight that happened when Exxon considered building its corporate headquarters in Fairfield in the 1980s, GE was apparently welcomed with open arms in a move master-minded by legendary First Selectman John J. Sullivan. According to Rita Papazians Remembering Fairfield, Connecticut: Compatibility and cooperation were the key words to describe General Electrics move to new corporate headquarters in the suburban acreage abutting the Merritt Parkway at Route 59. Not one single resident opposed the proposed facility in the early seventies and its plan became a reality 1974. GE brought with it 700 employees, and Sullivan and then-Gov. Thomas Meskill were on hand for the ribbon cutting of the corporate headquarters on Oct. 4, 1974. Sullivan called GEs decision as the most significant and meaningful event in the annals of community development in the decade of the 70s, according to Papazians book. Sullivan is further quoted, saying, We, in Fairfield, are proud and happy that our community was selected as its new home. This is a great moment in our history and we look forward to a long, pleasant and cordial relationship with our new addition to our family and in this moment of beginning, we pledge our best as a community to make it work. Area businesses, residents weigh in GE has been a good neighbor, customer and friend to our business, said David Saad, who owns and operates Sport Hill Service Station, just down Easton Turnpike from GE. Lets wait until they make this official tomorrow, (but) if they do leave, yes, they will be missed. They are a good customer to us and a good neighbor to us. Ill be sad to see them go, if they do go, he added. I think itll be more devastating to the town of Fairfield, depending on what they do with the property. His employee, Sam Nobile, hasnt had direct dealings with the company, but is worried about his younger brother, an employee of Sodexo, which provides the in-house food service for GE. My little brother might be out of a job, he said. GE is the biggest taxpayer in Fairfield and Im worried that my property tax will go up unless somebody else moves in there, said Mary Jane Fast, a resident of the towns Stratfield area since 1958. I think everybodys worried about that. Fast said she noticed a lot of people moving from her neighborhood this summer and wondered if it had anything to do with the companys move. Ive never seen so many people leave the neighborhood so quickly, she said, noting at least six sales over a brief period. We get a lot of GE customers, said Sandro Rotella, owner of Maiones Pizza Kitchen in Stratfield Center. We do a lot of their caterings, like when they have a Christmas party. We always hate to see a company go, a business go, he said, especially now that we deliver, and Maiones deliveries to the GE campus had recently picked up considerably. Their employees order for GE, but then they also order for their homes. We hate to see them go, Rotella said. They will be missed. What a way to ruin the town, said a woman who identified herself only as Lena G. of Easton, at Jo-Jos News Stop in Stratfield Center. For what, just because the governor wants to gouge them on money? Its ridiculous. Its just sad. I just hope the governor goes to Boston with them, said Tom Quinn, a Fairfielder who also stopped in at Jo-Jos Wednesday. I just hope they take the governor with them. An earlier version of this story had the incorrect acreage. BRIDGEPORT The city has promoted a police officer previously fired for covering up a hit-and-run crash involving a fellow officer, who was also her lover. Christine Burns was promoted to sergeant during a recent ceremony in which Mayor Joseph Ganim swore in 18 officers who had been promoted. In 2011, the city fired Burns, then a lieutenant, for violating Police Department rules and its code of ethics for covering up an alleged crime by her then-boyfriend, Officer Peter Billings. However, a state arbitrator later ordered the city to reinstate Burns, but she was demoted to patrol officer and assigned to the Police Departments records room. Neither Burns nor Billings was charged in the case. Burns could not be reached for comment Friday. The mayors office, police chief and union officials declined comment. In the early morning of Feb. 29, 2008, Billings was off duty and was driving his red Ford pickup truck, while intoxicated, when he crashed into a parked car near the intersection of Savoy Street and Madison Avenue, according to the police commission report. Officer Billings was unable to say precisely how much alcohol he had consumed, but recalled that he started drinking alcoholic beverages at about 7 p.m. on Feb. 28 and continued drinking until the time of the accident at approximately 3:55 a.m., the report states. The impact of the crash pushed the other vehicle onto the sidewalk and caused Billings airbag to deploy and blow out a front tire. But the report continued that Billings then drove from the scene, ending up in a parking lot on Main Street, where his truck conked out. The pickup was later dumped on Waterview Avenue with its ignition ripped out. Billings subsequently reported that the truck had been stolen from his parents home. He also reported the theft to his insurance company, but later withdrew the claim. The report states a witness to the crash caused by Billings reported it to police, and the investigation was assigned to Burns, who did not report Billings was involved. Burns is no stranger to controversy. On Jan. 19, 2004, her then-boyfriend, Bridgeport Police Officer Michael Dominguez, barricaded himself inside the couples home in Trumbull for nearly 17 hours before fatally shooting himself in the head. For part of the siege, Dominguez held Burns, then 29, hostage along with their infant daughter and her 9-year-old son. Burns later sued the city and former Police Chief Wilbur Chapman, now a paid adviser to Ganim, for remarks he made to the newspaper about her, concerning the incident with Dominguez. Burns was awarded $5,000 in the case. STRATFORD - A UPS employee has been charged with stealing cell phones and electronics from packages at the facility here. Justin Soto, 20, of Myrtle Street, Shelton, was charged with fourth-degree larceny and was released on a promise to appear in court. Police said he was fired from UPS. In five years, three to five billion consumers who have never used the Internet before will come online, and most of the new adopters will be mobile-only users. This means that a population twice the size of China will begin accessing information, sharing photos, making purchases, using digital services and more. By 2020, there will be around eight billion people on the planet, and nearly 65 percent of them will be connected. Five years really isnt that long of a time period. Think about it, the first iPad came out just five years ago. The implications, from purely a content consumption standpoint, are huge. The volume of content, products and information is going to explode in ways we haven't yet begun to dream of. New services will emerge. Humankind has never had this amount of growth potential sitting right in front of it before. The population of the Internet and digitally connectivity is literally going to double in five years. Its a mind-boggling proposition, and everything we know about digital engagement will need to be thrown out the window. We are going to see massive changes across the entire spectrum of human life, including how we interact with each other and the world around us. Related: What the Office of the Future Might Look Like (Infographic) Companies in every industry will have to rethink the way they structure their business, and scale will be the trump card. The need for scale will be particularly profound in terms of the demand for content. People are consuming digital media more than ever before, thanks largely to the rise of mobile devices. The global population now consumes 3.9 exabytes in data a month. By 2019, this number will be 24.3 exabytes. Online content is how people are -- and will continue to -- learn and connect in just about every country on Earth. As the number of new Internet users continues to grow exponentially, so will the demand for content. In just five short years, there will be a shift in how the Internet is accessed and consumed, and one of the biggest changes will be that everything will be done, viewed and absorbed through ONE device. Not only will people read, watch, share, buy, create, collaborate, etc. but in the future, all of those separate actions will be bundled together. This means consumers wont just be using a device to read. For example, people will both be able to read about new health issues, and also record their own vital signs, get real-time advice on how to manage their health, or create a video on a nutrition and fitness routine and share it. Everything will come from one place which can be accessed anytime, anywhere. This creates tremendous challenges and opportunities for businesses. A brave new world We are on the cusp of a content consumption revolution, and new users will inevitably have new online behaviors. It should come as no surprise that everything will center around mobile. The number of smartphone users worldwide will surpass two billion in 2016. By 2020, this number will triple to six billion, and GSMA Intelligence estimates that smartphones will represent two-thirds of the nine billion mobile connections in place. But, what are these new Internet consumers going to be doing online? A recently conducted global survey of online activities in emerging and developing nations helps answer this question. It found that these users actively share content with their friends and family, and that after socializing, accessing information is the second most common online activity. For users in emerging markets, the Internet is increasingly their go-to source for content on political news, healthcare, government services and more. By 2020, we will be seeing new levels of collaboration possibilities that will not only cross borders but cultures too. It is a convenient and affordable link to the rest of the world, and in many cases, the only one. Feeding the beast This changing landscape has dramatic and unavoidable implications for what is required of publishers. When your potential customers are scattered all over the world, content is how you attract them, educate them, connect with and engage them. Companies that have high-quality products and / or content will be surpassed by those who have intelligently thought about how to execute quality content at scale, whether through user-generated content, content that is engineered to go viral or a well-honed formula for telling digital stories. However its produced, this content will need to be accessible on-demand and on mobile. It also needs to be shareable, since social networking is the most popular online activity for users in emerging markets, since social networks are leading platforms for content discovery and only becoming more powerful. Content also needs to be original and relevant. The vast amount of content out there online means that making your content stand out is not easy, even within one country. Once you expand your playing field to the entire world, achieving relevance becomes a much steeper challenge. Related: Is There a Future for Email? Localization is key. Emerging market consumers are extremely diverse, with significantly different cultural backgrounds and online behavioral patterns. A global strategy will never succeed unless it is also localized and keeps the unique characteristics of each market in mind. What resonates in India will not resonate in Africa, and vice versa. Conversely, making content locally relevant can reap real results. Around 60 percent of consumers in emerging markets react more favorably to mobile content that is locally relevant. As mobile offerings become more prominent in emerging markets throughout regions such as Latin American and Africa, hyper-local content is being consumed with more frequency than other broader offerings, wrote Upstream CEO Marco Veremis. In addition, all these new Internet users will come with their own unique sets of interests, experiences, passions, likes, dislikes, preferences and more, and they will want ways to engage with these interests online. It may already seem like there is an online community for just about every topic, no matter how niche, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. As these small enthusiast communities expand in numbers, the demand for enthusiast content and the impulse to fulfill it will also expand. There are entire subsets of interests and content that havent even been created yet. Fortunately, this tremendous diversity will also generate a tremendous of data about new types of Internet users, niche topics and more. This will enable brands to gain insight into these new users and target them accordingly, with articles, videos, offers, products, etc. Analytics will enable personalization. This is already happening today, but on a minute scale compared to whats coming. Satisfying the hunger for diverse, relevant, localized and personalized content on a global scale is a momentous task. It will require more sophisticated, powerful infrastructure and new ways of thinking about how content is created and delivered. I predict that as the rising billions get online, a new wave of innovation will conceive of innovative new tools for creating content. People will create content with an immediacy and at a scale thats never been done before, and that will combine different kinds of experiences (videos, photos, audio, messages, etc.) in interesting ways. Finally, since mobile devices will be the device for everything -- from content consumption to commerce -- these two experiences will become more closely connected. Content and commerce wont be separable. We have already seen early efforts at this, as Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, and others roll out commerce buttons around content. It is crazy to think that in just five short years, billions of people will be seamlessly connecting to the Internet not from a wired terminal, but from the palm of their hand. Content, sharing, buying and even news ways of consumption that we havent thought of yet will be available in less than a decade from now decade. An online community the size of two Chinas is barreling towards us fast, and it will hit us hard. Are you ready? Related: This Is What the Internet Will Look Like in 2025 Related: More Than 2 Chinas Worth of People Will Be Digitally Connected By 2020. Are You Ready? 5 New Strategies for the New Year The Future of Franchises: What's Next, and What's Still Needed Copyright 2016 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved A white squirrel was recently spotted foraging for food in Sherwood Island State Park in Westport. The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection posted on its Facebook page a photo shared by Roger D'Agostin of the distinctively white squirrel surrounded by a brown, snowless, landscape in the shoreline park. Has anyone else spotted a leucistic (white) or albino (white with red eyes) squirrel in Connecticut, DEEP asked followers of its page. Many responded with a flurry reports white squirrels sightings at Osbornedale State Park in Derby, Riverview Park along the Housatonic River in Shelton, Old Greenwich, Naugatuck, Weston and Stratford. One person expressed concern that the lack of snow will lead the death of the highly visible white squirrels. Unfortunately, they stand out real well to predators like Fishers and Hawks and last too long, commented Bill Reid of Putnam in eastern Connecticut For years, white squirrels have been spotted in Stratford, developing a kind of cult following in town. Some have even affectionately named the white Stratford squirrels. One Paradise Green resident said his son named a squirrel Sasha, after a storybook character. Apart from the Paradise Green area, Strartford white squirrels have been seen in Longbrook Park and near the Mill River Country Club. According to an earlier Connecticut Post article, scientists say that there are two types of white squirrels. The more common type are the ones with black eyes; these are simply a light-colored variant of the Eastern gray squirrel, which also is seen with a black coat. Many of these so-called white squirrels have some light gray or reddish coloration on their backs or heads. The less common type are albino squirrels; these have pink, sometimes blue, eyes. Albinos have a defect in the gene that causes pigmentation. Squirrels with completely white coats and dark eyes are likely leucistic. Leucism involves a partial loss of pigmentation and its often mistaken for albinism, but while leucistic animals have white, pale or patchy coloration, their eye color is unaffected, according to MotherNatureNetwork.com. Brevard, N.C., calls itself the "White Squirrel Capital of the World." Brevard conducts an annual White Squirrel Festival on the last weekend of May, a two-day live music event. Brevard officials claim that about one-third of its squirrel population is white, and that there are about 1,000 or so of the white rodents scurrying about. Olney, Illinois also has a bountiful population of white squirrels. Its last squirrel count (yes, a squirrel count), found 88 abinos living in the town. In fact, their squirrels are so loved, theyre protected in the City of Olney, causing them harm in any way is unlawful. Squirrels are granted right-of-way on all streets, as well as sidewalks. Fines for violation of the squirrel protection laws can be as much as $750 per offense, according to its web site. Olney is so intent on preserving its squirrel population, it encourages residents to feed and water the squirrels generously ... greasy, fried and salty foods are not appropriate. Volunteers build small house for the squirrels during the winter and drivers are told be watchful, especially near squirrel crossing signs. The town limits the number of cats in town to deter the killing of squirrels. Why is this southeastern Illinois town (population 9,108) so obsessed with squirrels? Many visitors come to Olney just for the purpose of seeing and photographing a white squirrel. These visitors stay in our motels, eat at our restaurants, buy our gas and shop in our stores. Without a white squirrel population, these tourists will not have a reason to visit Olney and discover our other qualities. Few people would have a desire to visit Olney to see a gray squirrel or a cat, according to its 2015 squirrel count report. A Bridgeport woman has been arrested for allegedly cashing unemployment checks while she was working at a Westport dental practice. Paula Perez, 31, of King Street, was arrested Thursday and charged with one count each of larceny in the first degree by defrauding a public community and unemployment compensation fraud. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate NASA scientists have long kept their eyes on the sky, but a few now keep watch with a more apprehensive attitude. The space agency is launching an updated directive to watch for any Earth-bound asteroids, and keep one step ahead of a potential planetary catastrophe. With the opening of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office, NASA has formalized its program for detecting and tracking oncoming cosmic objects, following a spate of wake-up calls in recent years. RELATED: White House releases plan for if EMP wipes out nation's power grid "Asteroid detection, tracking and defense of our planet is something that NASA, its interagency partners, and the global community take very seriously," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, in a statement. "While there are no known impact threats at this time, the 2013 Chelyabinsk super-fireball and the recent 'Halloween Asteroid' close approach remind us of why we need to remain vigilant and keep our eyes to the sky." In the 2013 incident, an 11,000-ton meteor unexpectedly shot through Earth's atmosphere at 41,600 mph. It exploded 14.5 miles in the air above Chelyabinsk, Russia with a force 30 times that of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, according to NASA. Then on Halloween 2015, a rock 20 times that size passed closer to Earth than any object of such size on record. It was detected 20 days earlier. The office, which isn't physical space but rather an organized effort, isn't the agency's first effort to monitor space debris in the neighborhood of Earth. A NASA spokeswoman said official research on so-called "near earth objects" (NEOs) began in the 1970s and grew when Congress established the Near Earth Observations Program (NEOP) in 1998. RELATED: NASA's head of science says humans 'are on the cusp' of answering the ultimate question After a 2014 report by NASA's inspector general found that the agency could do better to track potential collisions, the agency began reorganizing the program, formally establishing a new one, which was announced in a press release on Jan. 7. "The formal establishment of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office makes it evident that the agency is committed to perform a leadership role in national and international efforts for detection of these natural impact hazards, and to be engaged in planning if there is a need for planetary defense," said Lindley Johnson, a longtime executive for the program. One possible planetary defense is NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission, which uses the gravity of a large object to yank a detected asteroid off its path. Another method, pioneered in cooperation with the European Space Agency, would smash objects into an incoming asteroid to deflect it. In case deflection is impossible, NASA is stepping up communication with the Federal Emergency Management Administration, which it would provide with data on impact time and location. In a statement, FEMA administrator Craig Fugate said the heightened cooperation would enhance the agency's ability to respond to disasters of cosmic nature. Double murder trial day 4: A star witness for the prosecution backed out in the courtroom State Board of Education lays down law on race, gender teachings School boards will have to follow new requirements for notifying parents about policies involving access to bathrooms and locker rooms. As countless people clamour for a recipe they think might bag them a mate, others are starting to wonder: do we need to worry if our partner leaves the house with cookware? by Samantha Selinger-Morris Kate Winslet and Idris Elba are in serious negotiations about starring together in a spy thriller where they would play former lovers. Its a brilliant casting match, but the actors will only participate if the other one agrees to do it; and thus far its not a done deal. The film, if it happens, will be called All The Old Knives, based on a page-turner of a book by Olen Steinhauer about CIA operatives who used to be colleagues and lovers. Acclaim: Kate Winslet Winslet won the supporting actress Golden Globe on Sunday night for her acclaimed portrayal of marketing guru Joanna Hoffman in the film Steve Jobs One character, Henry, is still in the Agency while the other, Celia, quit and now has a husband and two children. Henry arranges to meet up with Celia near her home in Carmel, California, to discuss what Steinhauer describes as the treacherous landscapes of their lives. Both are on guard when they meet, with Henry noting that Celia can cripple him with a smile. On paper the two stars are perfect for the film, which would be directed by Neil Burger, who worked with Winslet on the film Divergent two years ago. Theres more at stake in the story than love. A few years before the dinner takes place theres a hostage incident on a plane in Europe that ends badly. And theres a suggestion that the CIAs work on the hijacking may have been compromised. If the two stars agree to sign on for the film then shooting would likely start this year, though Elba has a full slate that includes other film projects and a second TV series of the No Limits extreme racing challenges show. Winslet won the supporting actress Golden Globe on Sunday night for her acclaimed portrayal of marketing guru Joanna Hoffman in the film Steve Jobs. Yesterday, Winslet and Michael Fassbender, who portrays Jobs, were nominated for Oscars for their performances in the film. Theyre also Bafta contenders. Elba has been getting some awards season heat for the warlord he plays in the Netflix film Beasts Of No Nation, but his powerful performance was ignored by Oscar voters, as were some others, which led to protests on social media, where the Academy Awards were dubbed #AllWhiteOscars. It-Girl swaps Hollywood glitz for gulag terror It-Girl: London actress Bel Powley Bel Powley was one of several It-Girls gathered together for a healthy lunch at a swanky Beverly Hills restaurant. The It-Girls are determined by Lynn Hirschberg, W Magazines astute culture writer and editor at large. Theyre all savvy, and going somewhere. London actress Ms Powley, who stole the romp A Royal Night out with her comedic portrait of the young Princess Margaret, hit the critical jackpot with The Diary Of A Teenage Girl and is now taking on a film about the Gulag. The 23-year-old, who lives out of a suitcase while flitting between her home city, New York and Los Angeles, will star in Ashes In The Snow, based on Ruta Sepetys novel Between Shades Of Gray. Its about a young woman who is taken by Soviet police in 1941 from her Lithuanian home. Shes taken to a camp in Siberia. The films about genocide of the Baltic states. Its pretty intense, but pretty amazing, said the actress. Ms Powley thoroughly enjoyed the It-Girls lunch at the AOC restaurant in Beverly Hills, for which she wore a snazzy Gucci frock (pictured), and later a tea party hosted by Bafta LA. Lily James said she has been bewitched by Shakespeares Juliet. The actress, who played Lady Rose in Downton Abbey and the title role in the big Disney movie Cinderella, will play the bards tragic heroine in Romeo And Juliet as part of the Kenneth Branagh season at the Garrick Theatre from May 12. Richard Madden (her Prince Charming in Cinderella) will be Romeo. Derek Jacobi, who played the princes father in Cinderella, will star as Mercutio. On the A-list: Lily James played Lady Rose in Downton Abbey and the title role in the Disney movie Cinderella Lily told me at the champagne-soaked party thrown by W Magazine at the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard (the best bash of the Golden Globe long weekend) that she thinks about Juliet constantly. I think its partly to do with the fact that I havent appeared in the West End before, she said. This is my debut, and Im working with Ken, Derek and Richard, all of whom Ive worked with before, and I dont want to let them or myself down. (She said the closest she had got to the West End was the Young Vic theatre on the Southbank.) Lily explained that Branagh and his close colleague Rob Ashford have some exciting ideas about how they want to stage Romeo And Juliet. And she said Samantha Bond, who played Lady Rosamund in Downton, told her that she was Branaghs first Juliet, more than 27 years ago. There were many conversations about Juliet on the Downton set, she said. But before she can get to that story of woe, she has to promote the BBC-Weinstein Company production of War And Peace, in which she plays Natasha Rostova. And then she has to scoot off to star with Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Jon Hamm and Jamie Foxx in Edgar Wrights much- anticipated movie Baby Driver, which shoots soon in New Orleans. She reminded me shes playing a zombie slayer in Pride And Prejudice And Zombies, which opens in the UK on February 11. I saw a trailer the other day and it looks outrageously absurd and quite hilarious. Which, I guess, is the point. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley Im mad about Rosie I expected George Millers Mad Max: Fury Road to do well at yesterdays Oscar nominations launch, but the ten nods it achieved which included best film and best director far exceeded the categories I envisaged. It is a cracking movie, though, with some striking performances, particularly that of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, who once upon a time (and for good reason) I was mean about, because of her lack of acting chops. Thats her, right, at the Golden Globes. The Revenant led the way with 12 nominations, and Leonardo DiCaprio is front-runner for best actor. I was surprised that Ridley Scott was shut out of the directing slot for her work on The Martian... and furious that Carol was denied a chance for best picture and best director. On the other hand, Im thrilled about Spotlight and The Big Short, two of my favourites. But what happened to Suffragette? Why was there no love for this picture from Oscar and Bafta? I'm not big on being told what to do. I didn't like my Dad telling me I had to be home by midnight, I don't like my husband turning the thermostat down, and I am not a huge fan of the council writing me letters to say it's time to trim my privet. Frankly, as long as I am paying top whack on my council tax, one's privet will remain private. The GCSE and A-level schedule has been rearranged so that some exams in key subjects are clustered before the start of the Islamic holy month But if there is ONE thing I really hate, it's being told what to do by another country or race. That really offends my British sensibilities. I am not a fan of Merkel frowning at Cameron, expecting him to go down on bended knee and sup from her furry ginger cup to be granted control of our own borders or withhold benefits from imposters. And the very reason my children attend the school they do is because it has a rock-solid belief in putting on a traditional Nativity play and sporting red, white and blue on the pitch. Katie Hopkins, MailOnline's hard-hitting columnist says: 'I refuse to believe we have come to the point where being British is so nebulous and up for grabs our exam boards are free to impose Ramadan on all our kids' So when I hear that the Muslim Council of Britain (the Muslim Massif) wants to change the British exam timetable to fit in around Ramadan, my left eyebrow is drawn skywards to a god in whom I have no faith. And it's not only the Muslim Massif asking for British exams to be changed. Unsurprisingly, the General Secretary of the Association of Teachers (code speak for badly dressed women with a vagenda) is right behind them. Moustache bristling with leftie angst, Dr Mary Boustead says that, as educators, we want all children to be able to achieve their best in exams that are crucial to their future. Well here's a news flash for the Muslim Massif and Dr B: we aren't going to be changing our school exams to fit in around a religion, especially a religion which is not inherently British. Ramadan, as I am sure you will be fascinated to know, is when Prophet Mohammed received the final part of the Revelations from God. A bit like when you used to find a bible in your hotel room drawer at a Travelodge. To celebrate Ramadan, a good Muslim undertakes fasting, known as Sawn, between the hours of sunrise and sunset. No food, drink, smoking or sex. Which might be beneficial given the waiting lists for primary school places in Birmingham. Kids I know are obliged to get up ridiculously early in the dark to stuff their faces by the light of the fridge before having a bit of a prayer and a kip and starting their day. Fasting carries on until sunset, when everyone gets together and stuffs their faces once more to make up for not eating all day. And this is the heart of the issue. Without food, kids can't think. And so, they argue, exams should be moved to accommodate their period of fasting. Which, if you connect the dots, means the Muslim Massif wants British kids to change their exam timetable because around 1,500 years ago a bloke called Mohammed (as, these days, all the best people are) had a revelation in the desert. Hundreds of thousands of teenagers will have to take key exams earlier than usual this year to help Muslim pupils fasting for Ramadan Kate Hopkins says: 'I'm British. And I've got an aversion to other people telling me what to do' My seven-year-old still believes in the tooth fairy but it doesn't mean my husband and I are celibate for a day every time he loses a milk tooth. And I am certainly not sending him to school hungry. My critics wave a gnarled finger at me and remind me we have holidays for Easter and Christmas. Everyone has to work to our Christian timetable. The Chief Inspector of Schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, has said giving into religious groups sets a very bad precedent Respectfully, I fear these occasions have become more about Easter eggs and Lego kits than adherence to some ancient religious fallacy. But we are a country with Christian heritage. I love the history of it all, the nostalgia of an age gone by including my own miserable past forever cast in the role of the sullen inn keeper because only the Catholic kids could be Mary. And I was a Virgin back then. That's a wasted opportunity, right there. As a mother, I rock up to our traditional Nativity like every other mum, not because I am a believer, but because I am proud of our British traditions. The Chief Inspector of Schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, has said giving into religious groups sets a very bad precedent. Before long we will be revisiting the Life of Brian sketch, when the Centurion asks which one of the crucified is Brian. 'I'm Brianand so is my wife'. Just as everyone wanted to be Brian, so everyone will want their religion recognised. I'm Muslim and we've got Ramadan. I'm Jewish and we've got Shavuot. I'm Buddhist and we've got Saga Adwa. Well, I'm British. And I've got an aversion to other people telling me what to do. I accept we may struggle to articulate what being British means to us. But I refuse to believe we have come to the point where being British is so nebulous and up for grabs our exam boards are free to impose Ramadan on all our kids. A burns survivor who dreamed of looking like her friends is the happiest she's ever been after getting a wig, following 10 years of wearing a helmet to protect her skull. Shamiam Arif, 13, of Luton, Bedfordshire was horrifically burned as a baby when a candle fell into her cot at her home in Pakistan. Her relatives helped raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for lifesaving surgery in the UK, where she's lived most of her life, and her story featured in a new BBC One Look East film. Scroll down for video Tahira Arif, 33, and her daughter Shamiam, 13, feature in a new BBC One Look East programme which follows the teenager's journey as she gets a protective head piece made right through to the final fitting of a custom-made wig. Shamiam has worn a helmet for 10 years after being horrifically burned as a baby The teenager told the programme that she always wanted to look and feel 'like a normal girl.' The programme sees Great Ormond Street Hospital orthotist, Lisa Mitchell and Raoul Wigmakers director Liz Finan work to create a protective head plate and hairpiece for Shamiam, to replaces the helmet she wore to guard her badly damaged skull for the past ten years. Shamiam told the programme she has always wanted to look and feel like a normal girl. Her mum Tahira Arif, 33, told FEMAIL: 'Her dream was to look like her friends. She looks pretty and normal, and has her confidence back. She is so happy today. Its the happiest Ive ever seen her.' 'It looks really beautiful on her,' her aunt Farzana Javaid added. 'At the beginning for her to wear the wig was a bit difficult. Shamiam pictured as a baby with her father Mohammed at their home in Pakistan. She was three months old when a candle fell into her cot, setting the bedding alight and leaving her badly burned 'But as time has gone by she is wearing it with a lot of confidence and her friends and teachers say school really do think she looks lovely. 'She is still the same Shamiam, always smiling and having a joke. As time has gone by she is becoming stronger and gaining a lot of confidence in herself.' Shamiam suffered devastating injuries when a candle fell into her cot as a baby in Kashmir, Pakistan. She lost both hands as a result of the blaze and her skull was burned down to the lining of her brain. Shamiam's mum proud Tahira recalls that her first born was the most gorgeous baby she had ever seen Her mother Tahira recalls her first born child being the 'most gorgeous baby she'd ever set eyes on'. Then one day as she was doing chores in the kitchen she heard Shamiam crying, followed by a piercing scream. Her husband Mohammed came rushing in with their five-month-old baby in his arms. Her skin was charred and black. A candle had fallen on to the bed were the pair were napping and set fire to Shamiam's head. Mohammed had beaten out the flames with his hands, but his daughter was burned all over her head, chest and arms. Mohammed and Tahira pictured with Shamiam near their home in the remote Kotli Region of Azad Kashmir, Pakistan, where they had begun life as a family before the accident A photo of Shamiam shows her injuries after the fire. Her eyelids were fused open and she lost both hands due to infection. She came to the UK for treatment after a family acquaintance helped to raise thousands of pounds to fund her travel and medical expenses The youngster took her first steps in hospital and learned to toddle up and down the ward, attached to a drip. She was sent home to die several times while in Pakistan, but amazed her parents by not giving up A candle fell on the bed, Mohammed panicked. When I woke up her head was on fire. The couple tried to take her clothes off but her skin peeled away with them. Tahira recalls screaming in terror, but Shamiam who was obviously in shock remained silent. A neighbour drove the couple to the nearest hospital - 90 minutes away from their home in the remote Kotli Region of Azad Kashmir, Pakistan. Shamiam's face was raw where the skin had peeled off and her head had burned so badly they could see inside her skull. The family settled in Luton Befordshire with Shamiam and their son Shakib. Surgeon Peter Dziewulski agreed to treat Shamiam for free at Chelmsford Hospital PIctured with her medicall team and brother Shakib, Shamiam has gone through many surgeries including an operation to create two fingers on her right arm so she can draw and paint All doctors could do was apply antibiotic cream and bandages, but they admitted they didn't know how to treat her and that she needed to go to a hospital with a specialist burns unit. But the nearest major hospital was a five hour drive away in Lahore. Mohammed's friends rallied round and arranged for someone to drive them there. But when they arrived at the hospital the couple were told they would need to pay 3000 upfront for her treatment, plus an additional 200 a day for her care. 'We didn't have that kind of money,' Tahira explained. The doctor who saw them sent them to a clinic set up by one of his colleagues, who agreed to treat Shamiam with antibiotics and change her dressings - but it was nowhere close to the specialist care she needed. As a result of the blaze her skull was burned all the way down to the lining of her brain and Shamiam has been required to wear a helmet for the past ten years to protect her head The youngster has developed confidence over the years and even scolds her mum for telling people about the accident in which she was injured A doctor warned them 'There's no hope for her. She's not going to survive this.' Fifteen days after the accident he told her there was no more they could do. 'He told us: "Take her home and let her slip away peacefully",' Tahira explained. Back at home a nurse came every day to change her dressings. Tahira said that Shamiam lay there like a 'piece of burned charcoal'. All her hair was gone, her baby skin was hardened and there was a hole in her head. The skin around her eyes had melted, meaning they were fused open. Shamiam pictured with her brother Shakib and sister Shamita was not expected to survive her horrific injuries But much to the couple's surprise, she was still alive two weeks after they brought her home from the clinic. 'I said to Mohammed, "Shes fighting to stay here",' Tahira recalled. 'I thought they must be able to do something. They brought Shamiam back to the clinic where she battled on. She developed infections in her hands that spread up her arms. Eventually both hands and part of her forearms fell off, and a piece of bone from her skill came away. A doctor advised that their only hope was to take her to the UK for specialist treatment, but the couple couldn't afford the trip or the medical bills they would face. So once again, they took their daughter home to die. Shamiam holding her youngest sister Magnoor as a baby, on a rare occasion when she removed her helmet. Her mum admits that Shamiam would often ask why she didn't have hair like her friends But then Tahira received a phone call from her cousin Farzana in Luton. Her father had been speaking to a special constable called Farooq Ahmed from Scotland, who was known for raising funds for charity. 'A few weeks later, he arrived at our home,' Tahira said. 'He didnt know our family at all but hed travelled all the way to Pakistan to help us.' Farooq was shocked when he saw Shamiam, saying: 'She's like a piece of charcoal.' But he promised the family he wouldn't give up on her and 12 weeks after he left, Tahira received a call from Farzana to say he'd already raised 35,000. A doctor told us 'Take her home and let her slip away peacefully' When he saw Shamiam, he gasped in shock. Soon after the family travelled to the UK with 13-month-old Shamiam and their newborn son Shakib. A week later, Shamiam had her first operation at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford to close the wound in her head, where surgeon Peter Dziewulski had agreed to treat her for free. At 14 months, Shamiam took her first steps in hospital and learned to toddle up and down the ward attached to a drip. As time passed, the family settled into life in Luton and had a second daughter Shamita when Shamiam was four, followed by a third daughter Magnoor. Meanwhile, Shamiam had surgery to close her eyes and straighten her bent arms. She loved drawing and painting so her surgeon operated on her left arm to create two fingers, so she could grip things. Tahira breaks down in tears as she talks about her daughter Shamiam in a new BBC film Great Ormond Street Hospital orthotist, Lisa Mitchell created a special protective head plate for Shamiam Tahira says that it was only when Shamiam was eight that she really started to notice she was different from other people. "She'd say to people: "Why have you got hands and I dont? Give me those hands",' Tahira explained. And she'd ask why she didn't have hair like everyone else. I told her it was because she's very special.' But with the passage of time, Shamiam's confidence grew and she learned to stand up for herself and would even scold her mum if she explained to people about the accident, saying: 'Why are you telling people my life story?' Shamiam's aunt Farzana says that the youngster has had a very positive response from her friends and classmates who think her wig looks beautiful For the past 10 years, Shamiam has worn a helmet to protect her the missing part of her skull bone. At the end of last year Great Ormond Street Hospital orthotist, Lisa Mitchell created a special protective head plate which slips into a special pocket in a custom-made wig, which was paid for by The Little Princess Trust. The episode of BBC One's Look East, which is now available on iPlayer, follows her journey from getting the protective head piece made right through to the final fitting of the custom-made wig. Sophie Sulehria who made the film said: 'The wig looks fantastic and she seems so happy to be able to look like - and I quote - a normal girl now. Three women have bared all for a series of powerful images that show their raw beauty and unbreakable inner strength. Fleur Muller, Melanie OBrien and Kara Byers each have a story to tell, but while their beginnings all differ, each journey ends the same. Together the women have shed 80 kilograms through Weight Watchers and shared with Daily Mail Australia the emotional moments it took for them to make a change. Each said while they are proud of their journey, their decision to pose naked was something they did to motivate others. Scroll down for video Naked ambition: Kara Byers, 35, posed naked for the Weight Watchers magazine after she lost 19 kilograms 'Light bulb moment': Melanie OBrien, 44, decided to make a change two years ago when, at 95.1 kilograms, she considered buying a mobility scooter Im just a normal girl, I wobble here and there and I have cellulite and stretch marks and not everything fits me, Kara said. I cant wear a mini skirt but its not about that, its about changing the perception that were a one size fits all human race. The main thing is loving your body and taking care of yourself. Inner strength: Fleur Muller, 44, was diagnosed with a rare form of terminal lung cancer Ongoing battle: Fleur underwent surgery and steroid treatment that saw her gain weight Family first: I had to try and do something to prolong my life, she said The women posed for Weight Watchers magazine, and each used the lifestyle brand as an opportunity for change. FLEUR MULLER'S WEIGHT LOSS Weight lost: 31.4kg Start weight: 95.4 kilograms End Weight: 64 kilograms Dress size: Went from a size 18 to a size 10 Advertisement Fleur Muller, 44, of Sydneys west said her weight loss journey began when she was diagnosed with an extremely rare form of terminal lung cancer. She underwent surgery and was placed on steroids and drugs that made her gain a lot of weight. I had to try and do something to prolong my life, she said. I went through the why me and I just thought I have two children and theres no way I can leave my kids. My kids, and my husband, were my motivation. Inspiring: When she started her weight loss journey Fleur was 95.4 kilograms and a size 18, today she weighs 64 kilograms and is a size 10 She joined Weight Watchers in late 2007 and slowly the weight began to shift. I just hit my eighth year survival, and I really think Weight Watchers has a lot to do with that, she said. When she started her weight loss journey Fleur was 95.4 kilograms and a size 18, today she weighs 64 kilograms and is a size 10. For her, posing naked was a chance to inspire other women. Beautiful: Fleur said her all her scars, lumps and bumps are part of her journey and she is proud of her body I hated looking in the mirror at myself, she said. It wasnt until after I did the photo shoot that I thought to myself my body is how it is because of the hell Ive been through and I survived all that. All the scars and the lumps and the bumps and everything is just part of my journey and Im really proud to have my body now. Wake up call: Melanie had her 'light bulb' moment at 42 when she considered buying a mobility scooter Transformation: She joined Weight Watchers and went from 95.1 kilograms and a size 18 to 20 (left) to 67 kilograms and a size 10 (right) MELANIE O'BRIEN WEIGHT LOSS Weight lost: 28.1 kilograms Start weight: 95.1 kilograms End Weight: 67 kilograms Dress size: Went from a size 18 to 20 to a size 10 Advertisement Joining her in front of the camera was 44-year-old Melanie OBrien who lives south-east of Brisbane. The mother-of-two had her light bulb moment when, at 42 years old, she sat down at the computer to shop for a mobility scooter. I was looking at this red, shiny mobility scooter and sadly I was quite excited about it, she said. All of a sudden something went off in my head, I thought Im 42 and looking at mobility scooter and the reality is if I get in, Ill never get back out again. Motivated to change: Instead of buying the mobility scooter Melanie decided to make a lifestyle change and improve her health Small steps: Melanie suffers from osteoarthritis and hip dysplasia and initially found exercising extremely difficult Melanie, who suffers from osteoarthritis and hip dysplasia, had tried to lose weight before. After the mobility scooter moment she joined Weight Watchers, and in time, went from a 95.1 kilograms and a size 18 to 20 to 67 kilograms and a size 10. Because of her medical conditions the journey was tough. She started to exercise by doing a five minute walk around the block, but today is able to go hiking on weekends with her husband. Its just amazing considering where I came from, she said. Her new-found exercise regime has also improved her medical conditions. Positive change: After struggling to walk around the block, Melanie can now go on hikes with her husband Melanie said the photo shoot, while very intimidating and confronting was worth it. I hope that it inspires women to see something within themselves thats more than just skin deep, she said. Melanie now runs her own Facebook support group for other women to share recipes and tips. It has grown to more than 5,500 followers. Changing perception: I hope that it inspires women to see something within themselves thats more than just skin deep, she said Kara Byers, 35, of Sydney said she had hated my body pretty much my whole life. But it was not until November 2014 when, at a size 14 to 16 and weighing 84 kilograms, she decided to make a change. I was really unhappy with myself I was feeling tired, worn down and just not in control at all, she said. It was time for me to change, I had to change, I didnt want to be that person anymore. Finding body love: Kara Byers, 35, said she had hated my body pretty much my whole life KARA BYERS WEIGHT LOSS Weight lost: 19 kilograms Start weight: 84 kilograms End Weight: 65 kilograms Dress size: Went from a size 14 to 16 to a size 10 Advertisement She embarked on a healthy eating plan that taught her how to adjust her lifestyle to work for her. Now I know when I walk into a supermarket what to grab, she said. About five kilos in to her weightloss journey she joined a roller derby team. I love it, I had to get into shape because you have to have the endurance, stamina and core strength to balance on eight wheels, she said. Possitve affirmations: She went from a size 14 to 16 and 84 kilograms to a size 10 and 65 kilograms Unbreakable confidence: At her heaviest Kara was tired and worn down (left) but turned her life round through diet and exercise (right) 'They felt beautiful': I spent so many years hating myself when I should have just gone on with things and been happy,' she said She also joined the gym and takes part in a number of classes, and her weightloss has seen her go down to a size 10 and 65 kilograms. Kara encouraged other women who struggled with body issues to start loving their body now. It doesnt have to start at a size 10 or when you weight 60 kilos, start now, she said. '1,000 person' wedding and why she was shocked by the dress she chose The first transgender bride to appear on the TLC reality series Say Yes to the Dress is celebrating her future by planning an opulent wedding fit for a royal, but the activist insists she is not a bridezilla. On Friday's history-making episode of Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta, Precious Davis, a 30-year-old transgender advocate living in Chicago, heads to Bridals by Lori in Georgia to find the gown of her dreams before she says 'I do' to her 33-year-old fiance Myles Brady, who identifies as transmasculine, this summer. 'My wedding and my dress really represents a coming of age story of me starting a new life and starting my own family,' she told Daily Mail Online. 'I don't view myself as being a bridezilla. I view myself you know as really taking charge of my life and really owning this moment.' Scroll down for video Making TV history: Precious Davis (pictured) is the first transgender bride to appear on the TLC reality series Say Yes to the Dress Selfie time: Precious teamed up with Bridals by Lori owner Lori Allen (right), fashion director Monte Durham (front), bridal manager Robin Gibbs (far left), and designer Lazaro Perez (second from right) to find her gown Precious, who is the assistant director of diversity recruitment initiatives at Columbia College Chicago, explained that she grew up in a 'very abusive' home, but it was her resilience and dedication to authentically representing her truth that helped her find her way after her tumultuous childhood. And while she said she is far from a bridezilla, she is proud to be a woman who knows what she wants and strives to make her dreams come true. 'I am not a bridezilla, but I am definitely a diva,' she said. 'Divas definitely know what they want and how they like it. I'm a perfectionist.' In a preview clip for tonight's episode, Precious teams up with the southern boutique's owner Lori Allen, fashion director Monte Durham, bridal manager Robin Gibbs, and wedding gown designer Lazaro Perez to find her perfect dress. With Chadwick and Kenneth, her best friends and 'men of honor', in tow, the bride-to-be explains her very specific requirements for her gown. Perfect pair: The motivational speaker and advocate is slated to say 'I do' to her 33-year-old fiance Myles Brady (left), who identifies as transmasculine, this summer High-profile fan: Chelsea Clinton took to Twitter on Thursday to share her excitement over Precious' debut on the show, tweeting that she is having her husband Marc Mezvinsky record it 'I am looking for something very ornate, mermaid cut, sweetheart fit, with a touch of costume, but very like the queen,' she says to the bridal team. Precious, who is a huge fan of Lazaro's designs, admitted to Daily Mail Online that she ended up choosing an entirely different style dress in the end. 'I realized that I have that dress already,' she explained. 'I mean I go to large galas all of the time and when you look into my closet everything is sweetheart and trumpet.' When Precious realized one of the dresses she was trying on was nearly identical to a purple gown she had in her closet, she reassessed the look she was going for. 'Ultimately [it] reminded me that I was looking for a wedding dress and it has to feel like a wedding dress and I have to feel like a bride,' she said. 'I didn't feel like a bride in the first one.' Second thoughts: Precious, who is pictured on the show, thought she wanted a mermaid shaped gown with a sweetheart neckline, but she told Daily Mail Online, she changed her mind during her fitting Amazing moment: The 30-year-old said she is a huge fan of Lazaro's bridal designs. She can be seen meeting him for the first time at the Georgia bridal boutique Precious recalled that when Monte heard the words 'royal' and 'elegant', his mind automatically went to dramatic ballgowns - which was the opposite of what she thought she wanted. 'The reason I didn't originally want to get a ballgown was because I felt like everybody was going to expect me to do that,' she explained. 'My personality is very grand and very stately, and extravagant and opulent and I like nice things. 'I didn't want my wedding dress to be expected,' she added. Although Precious didn't have her eye on a ballgown, she admitted she ended up getting one. During the preview clip, Precious also reveals that she and Myles wanted to have a 1,000-person wedding at the Rockefeller Chapel at University of Chicago. And while she said her dress budget was 'unlimited', she and Myles started singing a different tune when they realized it was going to cost them $150 per plate at their reception, which is being held at an undisclosed location in Chicago. Men of honor: Precious took her best friends and 'chose family' Kenneth (left) and Chadwick (right) with her to her fitting Dress fit for a queen: The two can be seen helping Precious look through the numerous gowns held in the store. Precious revealed that she ultimately ended up surprising herself when she chose a ball gown Precious explained that the more she thought about it, the more she realized she wanted to celebrate her wedding day with her close family and friends, so she drastically cut the guest list down to 200 people. As for why she chose to pick out her gown on reality television, Precious noted that as transgender activists she and her fiance have been sharing their 'love story' on social media since they found each other two years ago. Precious and Myles even appeared in Miley Cyrus' recent Happy Hippie Foundation #InstaPride campaign, which was created raise awareness of the LGBTQ community and the unjust treatment they face. The motivational speaker, who moved in with Myles on Christmas Day in 2014, said she knew they would be married one day because he always insisted that she is going to be his bride, and they are going to get married Rockefeller Chapel. Similar style: Precious, who said she and Myles attend many galas, explained that she realized the first gown she tried on looked just like a purple dress she has in her closet Bright lights: Precious and Myles even appeared in Miley Cyrus' recent Happy Hippie Foundation #InstaPride campaign last summer. The two can be seen striking a pose with the pop star However, Precious said she was completely caught off-guard when he proposed to her at Cloud Gate, the Chicago-landmark that is affectionately known as 'The Bean', on a random Tuesday after telling Jay Z and Beyonce were filming a video there. When she saw Myles down on one knee she said she started screaming and ran around in circles. 'I kind of had that ugly cry face because I was taken aback and so happy,' she recalled with a laugh. Precious said after their engagement several networks reached out to them, but she was turned off by the fact that many of them wanted 'to make up a lot of drama that wasn't there', including accepting families and wedding guests boycotting their wedding. 'I was just like that's not real. That's not authentic. That's not who we are, and Say Yes to the Dress really wanted to portray our story in a authentic way,' Precous said. 'We really appreciated that.' Finding herself: Precious, who can be seen in 2005 (left), was in theater, show choir, yearbook, and prom court during high school Beautiful together: Precious and Myles are pictured at the Chicago House Luncheon featuring Caitlyn Jenner a few months ago 'The important thing is that they wanted to tell our story the way we wanted to tell it,' she added. Precious recalled being overwhelmed with emotion while filming the show, calling it 'a really great experience' that she will 'cherish for a lifetime'. 'What a moment in time you know? We are living is such a Kairos moment when it comes to transgender visibility and equality,' she said, adding that she is 'just so glad to be another face, to tell another story'. Precious named famous transgender activists Laverne Cox, Caitlyn Jenner, and journalist Janet Mock as just a few examples of those who are tirelessly working to increase transgender visibility, while noting it is a community effort. The activist explained that when people watch her on Say Yes to the Dress she wants them to realize that 'love comes in many packages'. And Precious already has one high-profile fan who will be tuning in. Cheers for love! Precious shared this heartwarming to celebrate her engagement to Myles last year The bride-to-be returned to Instagram to share a selfie of herself holding up her engagement ring Chelsea Clinton took to Twitter on Thursday to say she and her husband Marc Mezvinsky will be watching Precious' appearance on the reality series. 'Now Marc is definitely going to have to record "Say Yes to the Dress" tomorrow night,' she tweeted, while sharing a link to a story about Precious. Precious explained that she ultimately wants to show young people who are struggling with their transgender identities that they deserve and will find happiness by showing them an example of a trans woman who has found love. 'I am part of an ever increasing narrative and patchwork of individuals sharing their truth. This is a moment in history,' she said of being a 'part of this great awakening of individuals who didn't identify with who they were assigned at birth'. Australian women's magazine Cleo will reportedly close its doors after 44 years. Staff, including their editor Lucy Cousins, at the iconic magazine will be informed of the news on Friday, sources have told The Daily Telegraph. The magazine is published by Bauer Media Group, which shut down Cleo's website without fanfare last month. Scroll down for video Australian women's magazine Cleo will reportedly close its doors after 44 years. Above is the most recent cover featuring Adele But a Bauer spokesman told Daily Mail Australia the reports were 'pure speculation'. 'The publisher is on holiday at the moment. He's not in the country. I've got no further comment and nothing is being issued today,' he said. In the 12 months leading up to September 2015, the publication's readership had declined by 16 per cent, according to Roy Morgan research. Cleo's first edition was published in November 1972 and was started up by veteran journalist Ita Buttrose at the helm with the late media mogul, Kerry Packer. Cleo featured articles that empowered women covering topics such as sex and contraception, and published the first male centrefold of actor Jack Thompson Ita Buttrose (left) was the first editor of Cleo magazine and Lisa Wilkinson (right) was Cleo's youngest ever editor at the age of 21 Cleo magazine's first edition was published in November 1972. Pictured above is the cover This is supermodel Elle MacPherson on the cover of Cleo magazine in 1984 It featured articles that empowered women, covering topics from 'What happens when you have a hysterectomy?' to 'Contraception: What you need to know'. In 1975, the magazine published its first male centrefold of actor Jack Thompson. The story of Cleo's rise was told in the ABC television series, Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo, starring Offspring star Asher Keddie as Buttrose. The magazine has catapulted the careers of Australia's most respected media personalities, including Channel Nine's Today show host Lisa Wilkinson who became editor of the publication at the age of 21, and Mamamia founder Mia Freedman. Buttrose told the Telegraph she felt the closure of Cleo was 'like a death in the family' but the news was not unexpected to her. 'The writing was on the wall once I knew they were going to start stripping stories from other publications rather than commissioning stories here in Australia,' she said. Notable winners of the competition include Osher Gunsberg (left) in 2004, comedian Andy Lee (centre) in 2006, actor Firass Dirani (right) in 2010 Cleo was the creation of Buttrose and the late media mogul, Kerry Packer (left with his wife, Ros) The issue from December 2015 featured Australian model Shanina Shaik on the cover For its time, Cleo was forward-thinking with its controversial sealed section that had more explicit and mature content. An example of sealed section topics including orgasms, nipples, breast size, sexual habits and libido, according to a 1984 cover with supermodel Elle MacPherson on the front. In 1987, the magazine's Bachelor of the Year competition was introduced, with AFL player Matt Buntine crowned last year's winner. Notable winners of the competition include radio host Kyle Sandilands in 1997, television personality Osher Gunsberg in 2004, comedian Andy Lee in 2006, actor Firass Dirani in 2010 and Olympic swimmer Eamon Sullivan in 2011. It has been reported by the Telegraph the competition would continue, but under sister publication Cosmopolitan. Cover girls of Cleo magazine include models Cindy Crawford (left) and Bambi Northwood Blyth (right) Judy Parfitt's enthusiasm for life is infectious. She's a cackler who loves nothing more than a bit of mischief. And her usual partner in crime is her Call The Midwife co-star Miranda Hart. There may be nearly 40 years between them but even though Miranda - who plays midwife Chummy opposite Judy's Sister Monica Joan - sits out this current season they remain close friends. 'There's something about when we see each other. We don't know what it is but as soon as we clap eyes on each other we start giggling,' says Judy. 'Not long ago I went to lunch at Miranda's house and I was given a lift there by two of her friends. As soon as she opened the front door we burst out laughing. The couple who'd driven me there looked at us and said, "What are you laughing about?" I love Miranda to bits and I still see her a lot; she lives 20 minutes from me and I go to her house on a Saturday night most weeks and we watch telly together. Strictly - which starred our wonderful friend Helen George - was our favourite.' Judy Parfitt plays Sister Monica Joan in Call The Midwife, a character struck with dementia Judy recently turned 80, not that you'd know it to look at her. What you don't see beneath her nun's wimple on TV is a shock of vivid red curly hair. She's also terribly glamorous in a very theatrical, somewhat Bohemian way. And while the lines on her face may betray her age she fizzes with energy. In the Christmas special it looked like it might be the end for Sister Monica Joan. Struck down by a fever and dizzy with dementia, she went missing; it turned out that, convinced she was dying, she'd returned to her family's stately home to breathe her last. But to the relief of both her fans and Judy herself, Sister Monica Joan lives on. 'When you live alone you have to make your own distractions, and that's why I love working,' says Judy. 'When I'm learning scripts or on the set my mind's busy. I'm totally occupied with Monica Joan's situation and I love it.' Sister Monica Joan's brush with death has left Judy in a pensive mood. She was widowed almost exactly 15 years ago and misses her beloved husband, the actor Tony Steedman, to this day. 'It's like a great chasm opening up in front of you,' she says of his death when he was 73. 'The emptiness is very difficult when you haven't lived by yourself for 40 years. You don't realise how nice it is to watch TV and then be able to turn to someone and say, "What does she think she's doing?" or, "Isn't she wonderful?" I'm lucky in that I have a wonderful son and daughter-in-law and two beautiful granddaughters who I see a lot of; they make my life worth living.' Judy was widowed almost exactly 15 years ago and misses her husband, actor Tony Steedman, pictured Tony died a decade after being diagnosed with vascular dementia, a condition caused by problems with the supply of blood to the brain. Although she misses him, life with Tony in those last years was painfully hard. She still vividly recalls the moment she realised there was something wrong. For a few years he'd been struggling to learn his lines. He'd forget things and seem confused; but then he'd always been a little bit 'scatty'. Then one day Judy and Tony had a meeting with their accountant. 'They'd always got on well but then Tony suddenly started talking about things that had absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand,' she recalls. 'It was like someone had thrown a bomb into the room. That's when you think, "Oh. I see."' Judy was determined to care for Tony at home. 'The doctor said, "You won't be able to keep him at home because he might get violent." I said, "Tony's never been violent and he won't start now." The closest he came was when I was getting him out of the shower once, and he snapped and said, "Don't pull me!" That, from Tony, was like being slapped in the face. The way I dealt with it was I thought, "Well, my husband is gone, now I have this child that I love greatly that I have to look after." Your husband becomes your child. I remember one day this terrible panic arose in me. But then I told myself, "I can't go on like this, I'll be no good to him or me. This has to stop." So I pushed it to the back of my mind. I knew if I went down that path I wouldn't be able to cope. The stress becomes a way of life.' People don't know how to deal with dementia. It frightens them As someone who not only knows what it's like to care for someone with dementia, but as an actress who portrays it on television so movingly, she's a natural fit for Dementia UK's Time For A Cuppa campaign to raise money for Admiral Nurses who specialise in dealing with the condition. 'It's lonely being at home with someone with dementia,' says Judy. 'Particularly if you don't have any children. Most people don't know how to deal with dementia. It frightens them. If somebody talks rubbish to you, you have no experience of how to deal with it. You have to go into that person's world. It would have been wonderful for me to have had the help of one of these amazing nurses who not only know how to help the person with the dementia but also the carer; someone who understands what the carer is going through.' There are 850,000 people in the UK with dementia; a number that's expected to rise sharply as the population ages. 'I remember a nurse saying to me, "They'll have found a cure for this in five years" when Tony was ill,' says Judy. 'That's a long time ago and we still don't have a cure, partly because there aren't enough people giving financially. Not enough attention is drawn to it, but it's a problem that's getting bigger.' Another of Judy's old friends, Prunella Scales, has spoken candidly on the radio about her dementia. Judy says she thinks about Pru when she plays Sister Monica Joan, who's lucid at times but then disappears into her own world when she's stressed or ill. 'After I've played a scene I think a lot about Pru,' she says. 'If you met her and didn't know she had dementia you might not think there was anything wrong with her. But it's no secret that she's had problems for well over ten years. I think it's great she's talking about it. Dementia is still a bit like cancer used to be - when no one would say the word. People are frightened but you have to bring it out into the open and make people realise that with help we can find something to alleviate the suffering and pain that dementia causes.' To find out more about Dementia UK's Time For A Cuppa campaign go to timeforacuppa.org. For advice about dementia call Admiral Nursing Direct on 0800 888 6678 or email direct@dementiauk.org. Midwife's most tragic storyline The heart-breaking opening episode of the new series of Call The Midwife is dedicated to the memory of a baby boy who was in the cradle next to the show's creator Heidi Thomas when they were born within hours of each other in a Liverpool maternity home. She never knew his name, nor what became of him. But she does know he was born minus all his limbs. Thalidomide - first mentioned at the end of the last series - will feature throughout this fifth run as no other medical story has done in the show's history. 'I was born in 1962 so I'm of the same generation as the Thalidomide children,' says Heidi. 'I believe my lost little cradlemate died but I grew up seeing children without limbs on the street, at the playground and by the seaside. They were just like me and yet not like me. They'd been maimed. 'This is the biggest historical story we've told on the show. From series two people asked if we'd tackle this story and the answer was always yes - as long as we got this far on in time. By 1961 people had started to draw together the threads of this terrible sequence of babies being born with deformed limbs and other abnormalities. We're right there with the mothers when those babies come into the world. It's heart-rending.' The heart-breaking opening episode of the new series of Call The Midwife is dedicated to the memory of a baby boy who was in the cradle next to the show's creator Heidi Thomas. Pictured: Actress Liz White Thalidomide, sold here under the brand name Distaval, went on the market in the UK in 1958 and was hailed as a wonder drug for women who were suffering from severe morning sickness. 'It was effective at sorting out nausea, but it took a while for scientists to put two and two together and realise it was responsible for babies born with deformities,' says Terri Coates, the show's midwife advisor and the lady who inspired Call The Midwife's originator Jennifer Worth to write her memoirs of her time as a midwife in 1950s East London. 'We looked at the medical press at the time and they were questioning why so many deformed children were being born; there were lots of theories.' It was only at the end of 1961 that scientists realised the link when Australian doctor, William McBride published a letter in medical journal The Lancet linking the drug with birth defects and it was withdrawn by the manufacturers. Several parents took the German drug maker, Grunenthal, and the British company that marketed it, Distillers, to court. Both offered derisory sums until the cause was taken up by the British press, in particular the Daily Mail which ran three articles with art dealer David Mason, whose daughter Louise was born without limbs. He described the first time he saw her: 'And there was just a torso with what appeared to be little flowers where her arms and legs should be.' Now, more than 50 years on, Call The Midwife is the first TV drama to tackle the scandal. 'This is not just history; it's still going on,' says Heidi. 'We're telling the stories of people who've never had a voice. There have been excellent documentaries but it's never been covered in a drama, it was probably too technically difficult. But today, with real and prosthetic babies and computer-generated images, we can recreate events with unprecedented detail.' Call The Midwife's Nurse Patsy Mount (EMERALD FENNELL), Nurse Trixie Franklin (HELEN GEORGE), and Nurse Barbara Gilbert (CHARLOTTE RITCHIE) A Thalidomide prosthetic baby was made for the show - she even breathes with the help of puppeteers. She was given the name Susan (as is the Thalidomide baby we meet in episode one) and had a profound impact on the cast. 'Some of our prosthetic babies are dragged around the set by their hair but not Susan,' says Heidi. 'She was always very tenderly held; I sat on set one day holding her and the sight of her little fingers and toes made me cry.' Stephen McGann, who plays Dr Turner and is married to Heidi in real life, adds, 'I think when Susan first appeared on set everyone just sat in silence. We realised we had an important job to do in telling this story. In drama we don't show people tables of data, we show them how a midwife would feel when she saw a baby like this. How would a parent feel? Drama has this power to give context to the big stuff.' Heidi says, 'This is the first time we've let a medical story arc over the whole series but it's so important. People affected by Thalidomide are still fighting for proper compensation and the issue is a live one yet it was obvious that the younger generation - including some of our actors - didn't know what had happened. My link to the Thalidomide story started before I could speak, with my lost cradlemate who I'd like to dedicate this episode to. I feel a responsibility to tell this story and to tell it accurately.' The Britain's Next Top Models proved that it takes more than just standing around in designer clothes and pouting for the camera to make it in the fashion industry. After an extensive nationwide search which whittled thousands of applicants down to just 15 stunning girls, last night's series opener saw the contestants begin their bid to become the next Kate Moss or Cara Delevingne. Under the watchful eye of judges, Abbey Clancy, model Paul Sculfor, journalist Hilary Alexander and photographer Nicky Johnston, the candidates were tasked with their first challenge: to strut down the Cosmopolitan #fashfest runway in front of celebrities, industry insiders and designers. Amreen Akhtar, a H&M sales assistant from Birmingham, sat obediently in the hairdresser's chair as stylists tousled her wavy locks into a high messy bun and fixed her satin bow Jade Rogers, 23, appeared to channel androgynous model Agyness Deyn with her peroxide blonde mohawk But before the girls took to the catwalk for the first time, FEMAIL headed behind-the-scenes with the show's official shampoo sponsor, Head & Shoulders, to see what goes on amongst the clouds of hairspray. Stressing the importance of good hair care, celebrity stylist Ben Cooke commented, 'Ive worked with models for years now and know that their hair and scalp is often under a lot of stress from being over-styled and over-heated day after day. 'Its so important they keep their hair in tip top condition, and healthy hair starts with a healthy scalp.' Amreen Akhtar, a H&M sales assistant from Birmingham, sat obediently in the hairdresser's chair as stylists tousled her wavy locks into a high messy bun and fixed her satin bow. The 22-year-old, who aspires to have the same level of success as Erin O'Connor and Victoria Beckham, appeared calm and reserved before her catwalk debut. Backstage, the pretty brunette Hayley Dunne, pictured centre, was spotted chatting to Alex Kelly, right, as a trio of hairdressers backcombed their glossy locks Forget pouting for the camera and standing around in designer clothes - the Britain's Next Top Model hopefuls proved that it takes a lot of hard graft to make it in the fashion industry Self-confessed tomboy Billie Downes showcased her enviably clear complexion, pictured left, while Georgia Butler, right, said her passion for modelling started when she was just 15 Fellow fair-haired competitor Bethan Sowerby is hoping that she'll be the next Gigi Hadid, pictured left, while Megan Brunell, right, grinned as a stylist straightened her burnt-red hued crop 'do Hairdryers and styling tongs were passed around the team as the hairdressers got to work on the models She admitted before the show that she can be 'shy in front of the camera'. Meanwhile, 23-year-old Jade Rogers appeared to channel androgynous model Agyness Deyn with her peroxide blonde mohawk. Spritzes of firm-hold hairspray were used to keep her statement quiff in place while Jade's dark kohl eye make-up and black leather jacket made her look like the ultimate rock chick. Although Swansea-born Jade admitted she'd love to model for designers including Louis Vuitton and Michael Kors, her Britain's Next Top Model stint came to an abrupt end when she became one of the first girls to be eliminated off the programme. She was joined by 20-year-old Hayley Dunne, from Cork, who was also give the boot after failing to impress the judges. Backstage, the pretty brunette was spotted chatting to 19-year-old Alex Kelly, from Walsall, as a trio of hairdressers backcombed their glossy locks. Self-confessed tomboy Billie Downes showcased her enviably clear complexion as a stylist carefully teased pieces of hair out of her relaxed up-do and let them hang loose around her face. The Londoner, who is currently unemployed, revealed that she looks up to American model Chanel Iman. Georgia Butler is hoping to beat off the competition and one day model for her favourite brands: Ellie Saab, Alexander McQueen and Calvin Klein Britain's Next Top Model judges, pictured from left, photographer Nicky Johnston, Abbey Clancy, model Paul Sculfor and journalist Hilary Alexander A hairdresser gets to work on Hayley Dunne's barnet, pictured left, while a make-up artist sets Jasmine Hodge's make-up with powder, right A make-up artist concentrates on adding the finishing touches to Billie Downes' eyebrows As a make-up artist finishes Jasmine Hodge's eyeshadow, a hairdresser begins tonging her long brunette hair The Britain's Next Top Model hopefuls pose in their complimenting black outfits before their catwalk debut Blonde bombshell Georgia Butler revealed her passion for modelling started when she was just 15. Now, three years on, the competitive stunner from Norwich is hoping to beat off the competition and one day model for top brands including Ellie Saab, Alexander McQueen and Calvin Klein. Fellow fair-haired competitor Bethan Sowerby is hoping that she'll be the next Gigi Hadid. The 19-year-old from Manchester also revealed a rather unusual beauty trick. She said she hides her eye bags after a heavy night of on the town with haemorrhoid lotion. She admitted: 'I go out and party a lot and my secret is piles cream. Youll all be using this.' Meanwhile, twenty-one-year-old Megan Brunell from Blackwood grinned as a stylist straightened her burnt-red hued crop 'do. While the girls were busy being transformed into runway-ready glamazons, the judges revealed what they're looking for in a winner. Shes got to have personality, style charisma, camera ability,' said Hilary, while Abbey added, Shes got to have that special something, that charisma. Shes got to own it. Abbey, who was a runner-up on the programme back in 2006, said she knew how the girls would be feeling ahead of their first task. It makes me so nervous and terrified cause I know where their head is at. Im still me but 10 years older,' she said. Aspiring journalist Jasmine, pictured closest to the camera, describes herself as 'grungy indie chick who wants to trade in festivals for fashion shows' A make-up artist drawds on Amreen's heavy eye make-up, pictured left, while a stylist backcombs Georgia's blonde locks, right Jasmine Hodge, who bears a resemblance to Suki Waterhouse, is worried that stylists are going to chop off her flowing brunette locks Aspiring journalist Jasmine, from Hampshire, who describes herself as 'grungy indie chick' now wants to trade in festivals for fashion shows. The 18-year-old, who bears a resemblance to Suki Waterhouse, is worried that stylists are going to chop off her flowing brunette locks at some stage in the competition and leave her with a short hairdo just like her twin sister. Following last night's challenge Charlotte Roffey became the third girl to be knocked out of the competition. Next week's episode will see the girls move into a luxury apartment in central London before taking part in a press challenge - but which girl will be an instant headliner and who will be yesterdays news? The hopefuls will also have to show their strength and determination as they take part in a photo shoot for Reebok overseen by brand ambassador and joint head judge, Abbey Clancy. A New York couple have won thousands of hearts online after sharing their adorable flash mob marriage proposal in a video. Lawyer Mark McDermott of New York planned for months how he was going to propose to his actor boyfriend Yuval David, eventually coming up with the idea of staging a flash mob - and catching his love's reaction on video. 'Mark is madly in love...with Yuval, who is madly in love with Mark,' reads the resulting clip's description. 'They have found their destiny, a dream come true.' Look of love: Mark McDermott of New York (left) planned for months to propose to boyfriend Yuval David, organizing a flash mob of dancers to surprise him as they went to meet his family for brunch Interested: The dancers filed out of two cabs and began to dance as Mark took Yuval to a perfect spot to watch On the particularly warm December 13, the couple were out with Yuval believing they were on their way to brunch with Yuval's family when they passed by Gansevoort Plaza. As they walked, the dancers arrived in two cabs and Mark directed Yuval to the perfect viewpoint by telling him that they had some friends nearby. The music started playing and Yuval immediately exclaimed 'this is our song!' to Mark and grinned alongside him as they watched the dancers launch into a choreographed routine in the square. The unsuspecting actor even began mouthing the words to the song, Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's In This Life, before noticing that he recognized a few of the dancers. Taking it in: As the dancer's moved to Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's In This Life, Yuval mouthed the lyrics and remarked that he recognized some of the dancers Bringing him in: Suddenly, one of the dancers came out to grab Mark and bring him into the mob while Yuval smiled, thinking it was a spontaneous bit of fun Shock: First, Yuval's smiling face turned to jaw-dropped shock as Mark joined the dancer's routine The next tune the dancers started moving to was Marry You, with Yuval still seemingly not knowing a thing of what was about to happen. One of the dancers ran out to take Mark's hand and lead him in among the mob. Yuval smiled, thinking that it was just a spontaneous act. But then, Mark joined in the routine, moving side to side and swinging his arms in time with the other dancers. Yuval's face is a thing to be seen at this point in the video, as his smile turned to jaw-dropped shock and his body shook with gasps. He then started to cry as he watched his boyfriend do his darnedest to keep up with the dancers. Coming to him: Yuval soon realized what was going on and swiftly burst into tears of happiness Enthralled: As Mark tried to keep up with the other dancers, he kept his eye on Yuval's reaction Declaration of love: After the routine was over, Yuval was fetched by one of the dancers and brought to Mark, who took his hands and told him he wanted to spend his life with him After the routine was over, one of the dancers fetched Yuval and brought him to Mark's side. 'I love you, my Yuval. I want to spend the rest of my life with you,' said Mark, producing a ring and dropping to one knee. 'Will you marry me?' Sobbing Yuval accepted the proposal and embraced his new finance with a kiss as the dancers showered them with confetti. 'This was amazing,' said Yuval, thanking the dancers. 'I'm really speechless.' The big moment: Mark dropped to one knee as he popped the question to a sobbing Yuval He said yes! The couple placed rings on each other's fingers after Yuval accepted Mark's proposal Happy days: After the proposal, Yuval happily revealed the news on his Instagram, calling the proposal 'beautifully romantic and a grand surprise' After the sweet proposal, Yuval took to his Instagram to share the happy news with his followers, including a photo of the couple with the dancers and writing: 'The love of my life proposed to me. We are engaged! 'His proposal was beautifully romantic and a grand surprisein the form of a flash-mob dance performance with my family!' A simple blood test for Downs syndrome is to be offered to pregnant women on the NHS. Currently, mothers-to-be are offered an invasive amniocentesis test which carries a small risk of triggering a miscarriage but thousands of women refuse to take it. The UK National Screening Committee yesterday recommended that the new test, which is 99 per cent accurate, should be made available in hospitals. Public health minister Jane Ellison is expected to approve the advice in the coming months, with the test then made available to women at risk of having a child with Downs. Super-safe: The new blood test is said to be 99 per cent accurate, and doesn't carry the same risks of triggering a miscarriage as the current invasive exam (file image) All pregnant women are currently offered an ultrasound to measure the amount of fluid at the back of the babys neck at 11 weeks, as well as a basic blood test that picks up broad genetic traits. Under present guidelines, women whose tests show a high risk of giving birth to a Downs baby are then offered the amniocentesis test, in which a long needle takes a sample of the placenta. The invasive test is very accurate, but for one in every 200 patients it causes a miscarriage, and in some cases even healthy babies are lost. A trial at Great Ormond Street Hospital found that the threat of a miscarriage put women off from taking the amniocentesis test, with only 65 per cent agreeing to take the test. When they were offered the new, non-invasive test, the take-up rose to 95 per cent. The non-invasive test should be rolled out across the country so that mothers, regardless of wealth, can have equal access to screening and do not have to face the unnecessary risk of miscarriage. Labour MP Tulip Siddiq The new blood test which will be offered to women who have already had the ultrasound carries no increased danger of miscarriage. It works by picking up fragments of the childs DNA that have passed into the mothers bloodstream, and picks up the risk of a child being born with Downs, Pataus or Edwards syndromes. The examination called a non-invasive prenatal test (NIPT) is made by UK firm Premaitha Health. It is already available privately, at a cost of up to 400, but although it has been piloted at Great Ormond Street and St Georges Hospital, both in London, it has never been widely offered as a matter of course. Labour MP Tulip Siddiq, who is expecting her first child, this month announced that she had to pay 400 to take the test, and warned that those who could not afford it might be forced to take the riskier alternative. The non-invasive test should be rolled out across the country so that mothers, regardless of wealth, can have equal access to screening and do not have to face the unnecessary risk of miscarriage, she told the House of Commons. It is not clear how much the new test will cost the NHS, but it is likely to be substantially less than the cost to private patients. The blood test is understood to be cheaper than the amniocentesis test. SUPER-SAFE AND 99 PER CENT ACCURATE: NEW BLOOD TEST FOR DOWN'S Down's syndrome is a genetic condition caused by an extra chromosome in the body's cells, affecting roughly one in every 1,000 babies born in the UK It causes learning disabilities and other problems, but many people with Down's live full lives, with an average life expectancy of between 50 and 60 All pregnant women are currently offered a rough screen for Down's and other congenital disorders at their 11-week scan If that screen shows a woman may be carrying a baby with Down's, she is offered an amniocentesis test - in which a long needle takes a sample of the placenta Experts are now recommending that instead of the amniocentesis test, women be offered a Non-Invasive Prenatal Test, a blood test which picks up fragments of the child's DNA and is 99 per cent accurate Advertisement Accurate: The new blood test which will be offered to women who have already had the ultrasound carries no increased danger of miscarriage (file image) In the new recommendations, government advisers say women found in the initial combined test to have a one in 150 or greater chance of having a baby with Downs should then be offered the NIPT test. Professor Lyn Chitty, who led the Great Ormond Street trial, said last night: Introducing NIPT into NHS maternity care means that more women can be safely reassured about the health of their baby without having an invasive test which increases the risk of miscarriage. Downs syndrome, which affects one in every 1,000 babies in the UK, is a genetic condition caused by an extra chromosome in the bodys cells. The condition causes learning disabilities and other problems, but many go on to live full lives, with an average life expectancy of between 50 and 60. A Department of Health spokesman said: We welcome these important recommendations from the UK National Screening Committee, which have the potential to transform antenatal screening. A woman's body has tested positive for Ebola in Sierra Leone the day after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the outbreak over in west Africa. A 22-year-old female student was taken ill near the Guinean border on Thursday last week and died on Tuesday, according to local health officials. Today, WHO released a statement from Geneva saying: 'We can confirm the Ebola case in Sierra Leone'. Augustine Junisa, the chief local medical officer, told reporters the woman became ill while on holiday in the village of Bamoi Luma and was taken by relatives to hospital. She came from the northern Kambia District and went to the northern Tonkolili District for medical attention. The official said the woman 'died at home' but did not say why she had been released from the hospital in Magburaka. It has since been reported she was treated as an outpatient and came into contact with 27 people. Health officials in Sierra Leone have warned they have identified an Ebola death just hours after the World Health Organisation declared West Africa disease free following the recent two-year long outbreak At its peak, it the disease devastated Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with bodies piling up in the streets and overwhelmed hospitals recording hundreds of new cases a week. A health worker is pictured spraying a man with disinfectant chemicals after he was suspected of dying of Ebola, in Monrovia, Liberia in September 2014 Francis Langoba Kelly, of Sierra Leone's office of national security appealed for calm as he confirmed the new case to reporters in Freetown. 'The swab test on the victim after her death was done three times and all proved positive,' he said. The outbreak, which lasted two years can claimed more than 11,000 lives officially ended yesterday according to the WHO. Hours later the health ministry in Sierra Leone admitted it was investigating a suspected Ebola death in the Tonkolili district. Sierra Leone was declared Ebola free on November 7, so any further outbreak would be a major setback. A Sierra Leone government spokesman said: 'A high level team of Ministry of Health officials and key partners including the World Health Organisation and the Atlanta-based Centre for Disease Control are in the area from the capital to undertake intensive investigations.' The deadliest outbreak on record swept through Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone after it emerged in a remote village in Guinea in December 2013. At its peak, it devastated Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with bodies piling up in the streets and overwhelmed hospitals recording hundreds of new cases a week. But, yesterday the World Health Organisation said after no new cases emerged in Liberia, the outbreak has ceased. This date marks the first time since the virus's emergence two years ago, that all three of the hardest hit nations have reported zero cases for at least 42 days - twice the length of the virus's 'incubation period'. The epidemic, which erupted in rural Guinea in December 2013, ravaged Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. It became the deadliest outbreak on record, claiming more than 11,300 lives Health workers are pictured assisting a patient suspected of having Ebola on their way to a treatment centre run by the French Red Cross in Patrice, Guinea, in November 2014 Dr Margaret Chan, WHO director general today warned, however, it will be several more months before the world is considered free of the disease. She said: 'Detecting and breaking every chain of transmission has been a monumental achievement. 'So much was needed and so much was accomplished by national authorities, heroic health workers, civil society, local and international organisations and generous partners. 'But our work is not done and vigilance is necessary to prevent new outbreaks.' The announcement comes after the disease wrought havoc, leaving in its wake, a harrowing toll. 11,315 people lost their lives, the majority in the three countries hardest hit, as of January 3 Nearly 23,000 children lost at least one parent or caregiver to the vicious disease Some 17,000 survivors are trying to resume their lives though many battle mysterious and lingering side effects Scientists continue to discover evidence about how long Ebola virus can last in bodily fluids Liberia, which was at the epicentre of the outbreak, was first declared free of the disease last May. But on two occasions new cases emerged, forcing health officials to restart the clock. That clock aimed for the 42-day benchmark - deemed the cut off point for when a nation can be declared free of the virus. Speaking at a press conference today in Geneva, Rick Brennan, WHO director of emergency risk assessment and humanitarian response, said: 'While this is an important milestone and a very important step forward, we have to say that the job is still not done' Rick Brennan, WHO director of emergency risk assessment and humanitarian response told a news conference in Geneva: 'While this is an important milestone and a very important step forward, we have to say that the job is still not done. 'That's because there is still ongoing risk of re-emergence of the disease because of persistence of the virus in a proportion of survivors.' Furthermore, Dr Bruce Aylward, WHO's special representative for the Ebola response, warned the world is now at a 'critical point' in the Ebola epidemic 'as we move from managing cases and patients to managing the residual risk of new infections'. He said: 'The risk of re-introduction of infection is diminishing as the virus gradually clears fro the survivor population, but we still anticipate more flare-ups and must be prepared for them. The swab test on the victim after her death was done three times and all proved positive Francis Langoba Kelly, office of national security 'A massive effort is underway to ensure robust prevention, surveillance and response capacity across all three countries by the end of March.' In Liberia, there was guarded optimism today about reaching the 42-day benchmark with no new cases. The ministry of health is still carrying out Ebola tests on dead bodies before burial, and remains on the lookout for any suspicious cases. Follay Gallah, an ambulance driver who contracted the disease while intervening in an affected community in 2014, welcomed the news but warned: 'We could have a recurrence if we don't do those things that we need to do.' Ebola is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of people who are sick or bodies of the dead. A country is considered free of the disease when it has passed two incubation periods of 21 days without any more cases. However, the most recent flare-up in Liberia confounded scientists as it was not initially clear where the new cases had come from. WHO now says those cases 'are likely the result of the virus persisting in survivors even after recovery'. Guinean singer Sia Tolno perfoms at a concert gathering artists from across Africa to celebrate Guinea reaching the final stages of the battle with the deadly Ebola epidemic on September 26, 2015 in Conakry Cellou Binani (AFP/File) Of particular concern is the fact it is now known that Ebola is present in the semen of some male survivors up to a year later. WHO experts warned today Ebola can 'in rare instances be transmitted to intimate partners'. Before the Ebola epidemic - which is believed to have started in rural Guinea in December 2013 - most of what was known about the disease was limited to studies of much smaller outbreaks in Congo and Uganda. This time, though, the disease made its way to Guinea's capital, then leaped across borders to Liberia and Sierra Leone. Cases also popped up in Mali, Senegal and Nigeria though transmission chains there were quickly shut down. A Liberian man who traveled to the United States in October 2014 fell ill and died in Texas of Ebola. No other deaths emerged there, though two nurses got sick and the cases sparked panic in the United States. According to the United Nations, more than 22,000 children lost at least one parent to the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history, whose epicentre lay in the west African countries of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia There is no licensed treatment or vaccine for Ebola, which spread rapidly through the impoverished, crowded neighborhoods of Liberia and Sierra Leone's capitals in particular. Experimental treatments emerged during the outbreak but were limited in supply; those who received supportive care had much higher survival rates but beds at treatment centers initially were hard to come by. The WHO and others have been roundly criticized for responding too slowly at the beginning of the outbreak, a fumbling that experts say ultimately cost lives across West Africa. While this is an important milestone and a very important step forward, we have to say that the job is still not done Rick Brennan, WHO director of emergency risk assessment and humanitarian response An Associated Press investigation found the U.N. health agency delayed declaring an international emergency for political and economic reasons. Emails, documents and interviews obtained by the AP show WHO and other responders failed to organize a strong response even after the signal was issued. None of the senior leaders involved in directing the Ebola response has been disciplined or fired. 'I think there's been general acknowledgement that WHO and the international community were slow at the start of this outbreak and there is no question that the disease did get away from us all collectively, and in retrospect there are a number of things that we would have done better and sooner,' Mr Brennan said Thursday. WHO has said that major soul-searching and reforms have taken place as a result. 'I think you will see a much more responsive and effective WHO in future emergencies,' he added. In a promising sign, one experimental vaccine tested on thousands in Guinea seems to work. Staff also claimed they had been asked to alter their records Call-handling system was 'unclear for patients' and posed risk to safety An investigation by the Mail discovered serious understaffing on the NHS 111 service The scandal-hit NHS helpline is making callers wait for more than 12 hours leaving them at 'significant risk,' according to a leaked report. The non-emergency 111 hotline has already faced criticism for staffing shortages, delays in answering calls and clogging up A&E departments by sending patients there unnecessarily. Now, a series of unannounced inspections into Integrated Care 24, which runs 111 and out-of-hours services in Norfork and Wisbech, have revealed deficiencies in call handling and a shortage of GPs. Alarmingly, some were waiting 'in excess of 12 hours from their first contact which is clinically unsafe posing a significant risk to patient safety,' the report states. Staff also claimed they had been asked to alter their records, the BBC reports. It follows a Daily Mail investigation which revealed how the hotline, which replaced NHS Direct in April 2013, had repeatedly failed to meet targets, with half a million patients unable to get through to anyone at all. The latest concerns come after a series of unannounced inspections were carried out following complaints by staff. Assessors from Norwich Clinical Commissioning Group visited five Integrated Care 24 sites in Norfolk and another in Cambridgeshire. They found the call-handling system was 'unclear for patients, leading to delays in them speaking with a health professionals. The report also highlighted issues including claims of: Staff being 'asked to alter or not record accurately their contemporaneous notes' A lack of GPs and an IT system incapable of assessing patients effectively Doctors getting frustrated at having to switch between different cases to plug gaps Concerns over the qualifications of staff brought in to provide cover Element of fear among staff over reporting their concerns NHS 111 replaced the previous NHS Direct helpline, which was run by medically-qualified staff able to provide patients with appropriate advice. By contrast, call handlers for the 111 service may simply be students or call centre workers. Yesterday, monthly performance figures released by the NHS revealed the service in England was receiving 38,700 calls per day in November. Fewer than nine out of ten calls were answered within a minute, as recommended. Of those who waited more than 30 seconds for someone to answer, nearly two per cent gave up. Irsah Tahir, 21, worked for NHS 111 as a call handler earlier this year. But after four months, she decided she could no longer cope - and declared she service is 'simply not safe' Ms Tahir, who worked at the NHS 111 service from Derby, was so concerned about what she saw that she waived her anonymity to speak out The Mail's investigation last September gathered disturbing evidence from a whistle-blower. Irsah Tahir, 21, worked for NHS 111 as a call handler earlier this year. But after four months, she decided she could no longer cope. The mother of one from Derby was so concerned about what she saw that she waived her anonymity to speak out. TICKBOXES THAT DECIDE YOUR FATE The 111 number is intended for those who urgently need medical advice. In clearly life threatening situations, patients should always call 999. But the 111 number is meant to be used when someone has concerns about their health or another persons, but is unsure whether it is serious or what they should do. Unlike its predecessor NHS direct, which was staffed mainly by clinically trained staff such as nurses and paramedics, 111 relies on advisers who have no clinical training. As a result it has been highly controversial, and some doctors claim it is unsafe for patients. The call advisers use a computer to input the symptoms described by the patient. They are then guided through a flow-chart of tick boxes which asks a series of questions. Based on the answers given, the computer system will in theory provide the best course of action of the patient. On some occasions, for example, it might state that the patient requires an ambulance immediately. Phoning 111 also gives patients access to the GP out-of-hours service. At other times a call handler will recommend the patient attends a walk-in centre within four hours, or that the patient should simply try to see their GP within seven days. Advertisement Speaking to the Mail, she said: 'When my friends or family members ask me about 111, my advice to them is simple: dont call it. 'After four months working there, I saw enough to know that the service is simply not safe. 'The people who take your calls at 111 have no medical training. 'The NHS says we always have access to a clinically-trained person we can ask for help but in my experience that is just not the case. 'Frequently we had no nurse at all to help us with the life or death decisions we had to make. 'Wed come in, and the managers would just casually say: Weve got no nurses today, so just deal with things as best you can. 'At other times youd log in to your computer, and a little instant message would pop up on your screen to say: No nurse today, so please do your best to resolve calls yourself. It also revealed the service was hit by constant staffing shortages, with just one nurse sometimes left to cover 2.3million people. As a result of the shortages, up to 75 per cent of callers were unable to get through to anyone at busy times. The new BBC investigation follows calls for a review of the service by Liberal Democrat Andrew George after claims the service went into 'meltdown' in his St Ives constituency over the Christmas period. In one case, a pensioner said they were left feeling 'frustrated, patronised and ultimately quite vulnerable' after speaking to a phone operator with no medical training. The NCCG has been asked to share the outcomes of its investigation so they could be examined by a health committee, a Norfolk County Council spokeswoman said. Professor Keith Willett, of NHS England, last week said 111 was delivering a 'high quality, robust and safe service'. Dr Tim Morton, chairman of Norfolk and Waveney Local Medical Committee, said IC24's problems were 'a consequence of a severe workforce crisis within the NHS in recruiting and retaining GPs'. BOOK OF THE WEEK A MONSTROUS COMMOTION: THE MYSTERIES OF LOCH NESS by Gareth Williams (Orion 20) Over the centuries, the Loch Ness Monster has been confidently identified by eye-witnesses as being like a giant salamander or conger eel, a big otter or a family of otters swimming in a line, a dragon, a black carthorse, a large seal and a squid. Others have described it as an iguana that specialised in chewing through divers breathing equipment, a short-necked crocodile, a morbidly obese newt, a mini-submarine, a massive slug and an elderly killer whale. At 263,000 million cubic feet, a mile across and 23 miles from end to end, Loch Ness is the largest body of fresh water in the British Isles. It also, as Gareth Williams explains in his fascinating study, attracts cranks, drunks, publicity-seekers and lunatics like a magnet. The loch is at least 600ft deep, and the water is impenetrably black: a cold, permanently dark underworld, completely invisible from the surface. Its bottom consists of ridges, caverns and caves. Movie monster: How Austrian film-maker Rudolf Zehetgruber imagined Nessie in the Eighties The entire place would make a perfect horror movie set. An elderly couple once came back from a run in their Morris Traveller by the loch, babbling about how the creature disported itself, rolling and plunging . . . the water cascading and churning like a simmering cauldron. Soon, however, it disappeared in a boiling mass of foam. A Nessie expert who interviewed the couple said: I am quite satisfied that Mr Macnab is a perfectly trustworthy person. He is a bank manager. That sentence gave me the first good laugh of 2016. The other trustworthy person who made himself into a Nessie expert was Sir Peter Scott, a founder of the World Wildlife Fund and the founder of the Severn Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge, Gloucestershire. I have for a long time thought it more than probable that an undescribed animal lives in Loch Ness, he announced in 1960. Scott, recently returned from investigating the Icelandic breeding grounds of the pink-footed goose, was intrigued by the film shot by Tim Dinsdale, an aeronautical engineer at Heathrow. Dinsdale had spent 82 days on the loch in his cabin cruiser, his craft bristling with cameras, radios, fishing rods and a parabolic reflector-cum-microphone. Scott passed the strip of celluloid on to the RAF boffins at the Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre, who couldnt be certain what the black object or smudge might be but it was probably animate, just maybe a creature with a fin. Scott formally named the putative animal, with its traditional bulbous body and elongated neck, Nessiteras rhombopteryx, and assumed it was a version of the ocean-going plesiosaur, which was thought to have died out 60 million years ago. He published a paper explaining his views in the journal Nature in December 1975. Scott also set up a Loch Ness Study Group, and invited eminent zoologists, professors, fellows of the Royal Society and authorities on marine mammals to join the panel. S cott and Dinsdale also sought to rope in the Queen, who had been to Slimbridge to inspect the cygnets. Through her Private Secretary, however, she made the very sensible pronouncement that the whole business was in danger of getting over-heated. In a letter to Scott, Martin Charteris, the Private Secretary, continued: There is obviously something about the Loch Ness Monster which makes normally sane and balanced people behave in a highly emotional manner. It was a sage warning. For what we have with Nessie Studies is something akin to religion, with believers at war with agnostics. On the one hand there are the buccaneers and mavericks, the so-called men of science willing at any cost to identify a new animal species. On the other, there is the establishment, which points out there is no acceptable proof, no incontrovertible evidence. It hardly needed them to stress that no specimens have been captured in Loch Ness, no physical remains found, and not the tiniest fragment has ever been studied under a microscope in the laboratory. When, in 1959, the expert on eels at the Natural History Museum, Dr Denys Tucker, came back from a trip to Scotland insisting hed seen a plesiosaur, he refused to retract his belief in the Monster, and was summarily sacked from his post. The establishment stance was clear: the Nessie affair was a preposterous insult to the intelligence of anyone who understood the basic rules of science. Not that a hard line ever deters the faithful. Gareth Williams has fun describing the acolytes who have patrolled the loch in converted army surplus lorries. Others planned to turn up with Bren guns mounted on canoes, harpoons and machetes. Bertram Mills, the circus impresario, offered a bounty of 20,000 1.5 million in todays figures for Nessies capture. An ostensibly authoritative book was written by Rupert Gould, a radio personality from The Brains Trust, an infinitely wise uncle-like figure who explained the wonders of the universe to the children of Britain. As long ago as 1933, this newspaper hired a big-game hunter named Marmaduke Wetherell to look around. He found massive footprints, which showed four short-clawed toes. Marmaduke concluded that Nessie was a hippo. He was right, or very nearly. Somebody had naughtily created the footprints using a hunting trophy that had been converted into an umbrella stand. For that is the problem with Nessie Studies: it abounds with hoaxers, charlatans, liars and deceivers. When people are desperate to believe, theyll believe in anything they have no trouble inventing what we might call the Proofs of Holy Writ. The grainy photographic evidence is all of questionable veracity Gareth Williams has found a history of doctored negatives, cut with a scalpel, and often someone has taken a fine paintbrush and created an edge of darkness and a beautiful flipper. Plastic sacks and a curved stick can be made by anyone to look suggestive. One picture, which fooled the gullible for decades, involved glueing a plaster head and neck on top of a toy clockwork submarine, bought in Woolworths in Richmond. The negatives were then taken to a chemist in Inverness for developing. Williams, a dean of medicine at Bristol University and the author of textbooks on diabetes, gleefully exposes the bogus science, the warped facts, and the misunderstanding of evolution. Sifting the evidence, analysing the hearsay, showing the extent of the leg-pulling, he says that Nessie is no more than the action of the wind and the waves. Specifically, masses of debris, rafts of pine-needles and sticks, bound together by skeins of stinking algae, are left rotting in the depths, until they are lifted to the surface by the gas from the decomposing vegetation. Seen from a distance in the mist or at dusk by amateur photographers or the naked eye, this phenomenon can look supernatural or scarily prehistoric and straight out of a Hammer Horror film. Furthermore, sonar echoes are no more than the reverberations coming off mooring chains, and Nessies humps can be explained as the wake of boats. Tim Dinsdales film, it transpires, was simply the shadow of a zig-zagging dark-hulled fishing boat with an outboard motor. Modern enlargement techniques and computer imaging have also managed to identify two passengers and the boats circular licence-number plate. Basically, the human brain is good at embroidery. And Sir Peter Scott? Surely he couldnt really have risked antagonising the establishment, whose support was always essential for his other conservation enterprises? Look again at Nessiteras rhombopteryx. THE WIDOW by Fiona Barton (Bantam 12.99) Told in flashbacks and flashforwards, 'The Widow' asks what Jean really knew, for Glen is dead when we meet her being interviewed about their life A widely anticipated debut, this thriller by former Daily Mail journalist Barton is based on her experiences covering high-profile murder cases and asks a simple question: why would a wife stay with her husband if he were not only a paedophile but also a child killer? The idea has attracted publishers in 28 countries and the worldwide television rights have been snapped up. It is a strikingly strong story, executed with fierce professionalism and rings true from page one. As someone who has spent part of his life covering murder trials and writing about killers, I recognise many of the qualities in Bartons characters. Jean Taylors husband Glen is nice enough, if a little dull. Hes a minor bank official turned delivery driver who is revealed to have another life in internet chat rooms and is then accused of the abduction and murder of two-year-old Bella Elliott. Told in flashbacks and flashforwards, it asks what Jean really knew, for Glen is dead when we meet her being interviewed about their life. This has bestseller written all over it. HIDDEN BODIES by Caroline Kepnes (Simon & Schuster 14.99) Fifteen months ago, Kepnes published her first thriller, You, a debut so impressive that I suggested: If you read only one thriller in 2015, make it this one. This sequel more than lives up to that and, even more excitingly, it extends the extraordinary story of the foul-mouthed, amoral, hyper-randy and intensely creepy bookstore assistant Joe Goldberg, who was the focus of the first book. He has left New York for Los Angeles, but once again meets women who preoccupy him, and their lovers whom he loathes. As he did in Manhattan, Goldberg resorts to murder and one kill leads to another. The nihilism of Los Angeles and the world of movies and music is superbly evoked, which is hardly a surprise as Kepnes lives and works there as a journalist. But it is the character of the rampant Goldberg that casts a distinctive spell. There are hints of the great Patricia Highsmith in Kepness story-telling and, like her, she never allows the tension to sag. Second thrillers are tricky to pull off, but this proves they can be done brilliantly. REBOUND REBOUND by Aga Lesiewicz by Aga Lesiewicz (Macmillan 12.99) A smart, sexy first novel set in and around Hampstead Heath in London, this is written by a former TV producer and director whose heroine is also in TV. Anna Wright is the thirty-something head of on-air programming and creative for a television conglomerate not bad for a girl from a scabby little Essex town as she herself puts it. She has a labrador called Wispa and likes to run on the Heath. She has also just broken up with her rich boyfriend and then, quite unexpectedly, has a passionate sexual encounter with a stranger whom she meets while running. A string of attacks on women on the Heath follow, and Anna begins to wonder if her anonymous lover may have something to do with them, though it does not prevent her having other obsessive encounters with him. When her friend and temporary house-sitter, Bell, is murdered on the Heath wearing Annas coat, she fears her life is in danger and she is right. The painting featuring Lt Gen AAK Niazis surrender in Dhaka occupies place of pride in perhaps every army mess across the country. In the pre-cable television era, we fauji brats would also have a quiz competition to name as many officers as we could in that famous painting. There were bonus points for those who knew what the initials JFR stood for in Lt Gen JFR Jacobs name. Jacob Farj Rafael Jacob, we would chant for an additional cola drink as prize. Lt Gen Jacob said that Lt Gen Niazi had tears in his eyes when he agreed to sign the surrender document after the 1971 India- Pakistan war So, it was a real treat to meet Lt Gen JFR Jacob at Delhis Som Vihar in 1996, the silver jubilee of the 1971 victory over Pakistan and the birth of Bangladesh. I was reporting for The Indian Express and my editor sent me to interview Lt Gen Jacob after I had interviewed Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, the hero of the 1971 victory. The interview was billed to last 30 minutes, but ended after three hours. Given my interest in the subject, the General delved into details. How there was a major disconnect in his game plan and the directions that came from the Army Headquarters. He pulled out an old musty map of the then East Pakistan and explained how the Army Headquarters wanted him to take control of the Chittagong and Khulna ports and how he thought that was a total waste of time and effort. Lt Gen Jacob spoke highly of Field Marshal Manekshaw My plan was to bypass all towns and garrisons and hit Dhaka, he said. And then he explained his thinking. Sam and I were friends. We had professional differences, but he knew if someone in the Eastern Command could deliver, that was me, he told me. Clearly modesty was not his strong point, but as a young journalist I was too much in awe to even care. Tactics may win battles but it is strategy that wins wars. The objective has to be very clear. And my aim was to win Dhaka, he added. Lt Gen Jacob spoke highly of Field Marshal Manekshaws ability to stand up to political and bureaucratic pressure, but insisted Sam did not have an eye for detail. He would say, Jake sweety, you handle it. Just ensure we win, he told me in the course of that interview. Jacob, however, didnt think very highly of his army commander, Lt Gen JS Aurora, or so it appeared. In all his stories, the main architect of victory was himself and so was the man who virtually forced Lt Gen Niazi to surrender in Dhaka. The stories were fascinating. The armys strategy since the World War II was to move along the roads. My strategy was to avoid roads, bypass all garrisons and well-fortified towns and defences and head straight to Dhaka. That is what we did, he said proudly. Almost in whispers, he also confided how he played a crucial role in training the Mukti Yodhas (freedom fighters) of Mukti Bahini. "The Bengalis were very committed fighters. They were so angry after the Pakistan army unleashed the worst form of torture, rape and murder that they went after their supply lines with a vengeance. They didnt let the Pakistan army come out of its garrisons to fight. This made our advance to Dhaka easier, he said. He also mentioned that the butcher of Bangladesh - Lt Gen Tika Khan - was briefly his student. Getting Lt Gen Niazi to surrender is an amazing story. With their lines of communication snapped, the Pakistan army couldnt believe the Indian Army had reached the outskirts of Dhaka. Niazi still had over 30,000 troops and we had less than 3,000 with depleting ammunition. Yet, when my helicopter landed in Dhaka with just one staff officer, I marched into his office and told him he had 30 minutes to surrender and only then could I ensure his safety. He wanted a ceasefire but I insisted on a public surrender at the Race Course in Dhaka, he said. Lt Gen Jacob said Lt Gen Niazi had tears in his eyes as he agreed to sign the surrender document. Those were the most anxious 30 minutes, as I paced outside his office. Gen Niazi later said that I had blackmailed him into surrendering, saying he would be lynched or bayoneted by the Mukti Bahini but I had said no such thing, he added laughing. Getting 93,000 Pakistani prisoners of war to surrender and helping in the birth of Bangladesh and for being a great patriot, Lt Gen Jacob will always be fondly remembered. How Jake conquered Dhaka On the morning of December 16, Gen Manekshaw phoned me and said, Jake, go and get a surrender. Excerpts from Lt Gen Jacobs memoir, An Odyssey in War and Peace (Roli Books) On the morning of December 16, Gen Manekshaw phoned me and said, Jake, go and get a surrender. I asked him if I should negotiate the surrender on the basis of the draft sent to him some days earlier. He replied, You know what to do; just go. I proceeded to Dacca accompanied by a staff officer. I took my draft of the Instrument of Surrender, which was yet to be confirmed by Army HQ. I changed helicopters at Jessore to save refuelling time. An officer ran up to me handing over a signal message from Army HQ. I expected that the message would confirm the draft I was carrying with me. It read: Government of India has approved of General Jacob having lunch with Gen Niazi. I proceeded on to Dacca. I entered Niazis office... The draft Instrument of Surrender was read out. Niazi, with tears rolling down his cheeks, said: Who said I am surrendering? You have only come to discuss a ceasefire and withdrawal as proposed by me. Time was running out, so I called Niazi aside. I told him that if he did not surrender I could not take responsibility for the safety of their families and ethnic minorities. But if he did, I would ensure their protection... I then added that I would give him 30 minutes to reconsider and if he did not I would order the resumption of hostilities and the bombing of Dacca. I was extremely worried. Niazi had 26,400 troops in Dacca, we had about 3,000 some 30 miles out. I was in a quandary as what to do in the event of his refusing. Aurora and his entourage were expected to land in an hour or two and the ceasefire was to expire shortly. I had nothing in hand. The Pakistan Commission of Enquiry report later stated: There was Gen Jacob pacing outside, calmly puffing his pipe. Far from it, I was extremely worried and tense. I spoke to the Pakistani sentry asking him about his family. He burst into tears saying that I, as an Indian officer, was talking to him whilst his own officers did not. After 30 minutes I walked into the office to be met by a deathly silence, my draft surrender document lying on the table. I asked Niazi if he accepted this document, to which he did not reply. I repeated the enquiry thrice. He still did not respond. I then picked up the document, holding it high, and said, I take it as accepted. While Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar preaches austerity, his cabinet colleagues are splurging on car fuel. The governments response to an RTI query shows official vehicles issued to the Haryana government are always on the run! While eight official vehicles belonging to the chief minister cover less than 20,000 km in a month, cars allotted to other cabinet ministers are running far more than all of the CMs cars put together. While Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar preaches austerity, his cabinet colleagues are splurging on car fuel (Picture for representation only) Cars allotted to some of the cabinet ministers are running close to 28,000 kilometres a month, or 933 km a day, or four round trips from Gurgaon to Chandigarh, burning fuel worth more than Rs 1.82 lakh. Some of these cars cover over 15,000 km every month on an average. If we do the math, this means, these cars cover over 500 kilometres a day a distance equivalent to driving from Gurgaon to Chandigarh and back. On the other hand, the chief minister, who has eight cars, covers 17,000-19,000 kilometres in a month. The total usage of two cars allotted to Haryana Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma was nearly 28,000 km in the month of July and the government paid a fuel bill of Rs 1.82 lakh. His Toyota Fortuner and Maruti SX4 covered 25,360 km, 22,028 km, 25,454 km in the months of August, September and October respectively. His fuel bill for four months came to a whopping Rs 6.20 lakh with an average of Rs 1.55 lakh a month. The CMs eight cars consumed fuel worth Rs 90,000 during the same period. Similarly, cars allotted to other ministers are also being overused. Cars allotted to Agriculture Minister Om Prakash Dhankar has run 24,360 kilometres in the month of October followed by 18,640 km, 23,596 km and 18,756 km, 23,596 km and 18,40 km in July, August and September respectively. Working hard State minister Krishan Kumars car runs 18,524 kilometres per month on an average. Haryana Public Health Engineering Minister Ghanshyam Sarafs average car usage is 17,782 kilometres per month. Minister of State for Food and Supplies Karandev Kambojs cars are running 16,926 km per month on an average. However, cabinet ministers claimed that extensive usage of cars is an indication that the ministers are working hard and are connected to the people. Car usage shows who is working for the public. Our job is to reach out to the maximum number of people. I start my day early and travel as much I can. I have to attend various sabhas, visit government departments and meet people. There are times when I eat breakfast and lunch while travelling in the car, Agriculture Minister Om Prakash Dhankar told Mail Today, while justifying the excess use of official vehicles. It is shocking that official cars are being used so much. "The figures are shocking. The average use of eight cars allotted to the chief minister is rather low but that of his cabinet colleagues is way too high. Most of the ministers are using their cars beyond 15,000 kilometres a month. This indicates that official cars are being misused.The government should probe the usage of these cars, said the RTI applicant Jagjit Singh Walia. There are some ministers, however, whose cars run less than 12,000 kilometres a month on average. In lieu of the latest incident of beef vigilantism in which a Muslim couple was allegedly roughed up at a railway station in Madhya Pradesh by members of a fringe right-wing organisation Gauraksha Samiti, the Opposition moved the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) on Friday. Congress sympathiser and lawyer-activist Shehzad Poonawalla lodged a complaint with the minorities rights body, demanding immediate penal action against the perpetrators involved in the incident. The couple was among several passengers who were allegedly assaulted by some seven members of the Gauraksha Samiti at the Khirkiya Railway station in Harda district of Madhya Pradesh. In the latest incident of beef vigilantism, a Muslim couple was allegedly roughed up at a railway station in Madhya Pradesh A scuffle had broken out when passengers, including the couple, resisted members of the right-wing body who had started searching their luggage on the suspicion that they were carrying beef aboard a general compartment of the Kushinagar Express on Wednesday. The police had later confirmed that a bag of meat recovered at the station by members of the Samiti contained not beef but buffalo flesh. Reacting sharply to the complaint filed by Poonawalla, the chairperson of NCM said the rights body condemned the vigilantism in the name of suspicion over beef and used strong words against the continued instances of moral policing in the country. I condemn the Harda incident in the strongest words possible. Even in the case of the Dadri incident, the National Commission of Minorities had opposed moral policing and we continue to do so even in this latest case. We are looking into the matter, but as of now we are satisfied with the attitude and the action taken by the government, said Naseem Ahmad, chairperson of NCM. Meanwhile, Poonawalla, who had also moved the commission in the aftermath of the Dadri incident, said: Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas shouldnt become a mere slogan. This is a communal trend in the country and shows the emboldening of the right-wing that is undermining the rule of law. Recently, Mohammad Akhlaq was beaten to death in UPs Dadri following false rumours about the family storing and consuming beef. Another NCM member Praveen Davar told Mail Today that the commission will take a final view of the situation at its weekly meeting on Tuesday. PM Narendra Modi presented certificates to officers of the Indian Army for their innovation PM Narendra Modi presented certificates to officers of the Indian Army for their innovation in areas such as communications, counter-terror operations, simulation among others. The certificates were presented by the PM to these innovators during the At-Home function at the residence of Army chief Gen Dalbir Singh. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar was also present at the event which was attended by Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and ex-PM Manmohan Singh among others. Saffron turn BSP MP Jugal Kishore has joined BJP, a move the saffron party claims will help it woo crucial Dalit voters in UP which goes to polls early next year. Kishore had played an important role in building the organisational strength of BSP. A founder BSP member who comes from the Dalit community, Kishore accused BSP chief Mayawati of selling Dalit votes and insisted it was the BJP which is working to fulfil the aspirations of the community. She is no longer a Dalit ki beti (Dalits daughter). She has become daulat ki beti (daughter of wealth). Shes selling votes of Dalits, Kishore said. His Rajya Sabha tenure ends in July. Rare thumbs up AAP veteran Anil Shastri praised the new odd-even car 'experiment' Though the Congress has been targeting the AAP governments policies, especially the recent odd-even car rule to curb pollution, party veteran Anil Shastri, whose son Adarsh is an AAP lawmaker, praised the move, saying that it was worth emulating in other metros. My compliments to Delhi government, odd-even experiment was a great success, Anil Shastri tweeted. The 15-day rule ended on Friday. Donning new hat With the aim to strengthen partnership between industry and academia, the HRD ministry is understood to have contemplating appointment of leading business captains as chairpersons of board of governors of prestigious IITs. According to sources, the ministry has sought the nod of President Pranab Mukherjee to appoint Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman of the Aditya Birla group, as the board of governors of IIT-Delhi. Apart from Birla, the ministry is also understood to have zeroed in on some other leading figures from the industry to head these prestigious institutions. Sources said Cadila Pharmaceuticals CMD Rajiv Modi is likely to be appointed the chairperson of the board of governors of IIT-Guwahati. Prabhu in United States Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu is on a three-day US visit, which started on January 13, on the request of the World Bank to deliver an address at the plenary session of the financial institution. Karnataka intends to seek a nationwide ban on the release of the Marathi movie Marathi Tigers, which focuses on the sensitive issue of border dispute between Karnataka and Maharashtra. The movie has already led to unrest in Belagavi, which has a sizeable population of Marathas, who are keen on the city being included under Maharashtra territory. Marathi Tigers had been in the making for more than two years and was scheduled for release last year. Karnataka intends to seek a nationwide ban on the release of the Marathi movie Marathi Tigers, which focuses on the sensitive issue of a border dispute between Karnataka and Maharashtra However, the movie is now rescheduled to release worldwide on February 5, 2016, and the alleged derogatory statements against Kannadigas and Karnataka made by the actors, might lead to a law and order situation. We want the movie to be censored properly so that it does not depict Karnataka or Kannadigas in poor light. The movie could further escalate the prevailing tension, sources in the Karnataka government. The movie trailers and video clips, which are being circulated on smartphones in the districts bordering Karnataka and Maharashtra, allegedly derides Kannadigas, and this had led to tension last week in Belagavi. The police conducted meetings with Kannada groups and Marathas to maintain peace. Bheema Shankar Patil, a Kannadiga, had filed a PIL in the High Court of Karnataka seeking directions to stay the release of the controversial movie. The PIL is yet to come up for hearing. The police too feel that the movie has the potential to foment trouble because of the alleged comments on Kannadigas. For the last four decades, Marathas living in border towns and cities have been lobbying for their inclusion in Maharashtra. They have received direct support from Shiva Sena. In 2014, Marathas erected a board in Yellur village near Belagavi declaring that it belonged to Maharashtra. This led to a law and order situation in Belagavi and is also depicted in the movie. At least 500-1,000 Delhiites including lawyers, doctors, worried parents and expatriates are going to congregate for a first-of-its- kind event called Help Delhi Breathe at Jantar Mantar on Sunday. The city residents will share their stories on how the Capitals worsening air quality levels have affected them, and push the Delhi and central governments to act on it. Scientific experts and activists on the subject like Anumita Roychowdhury from Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), Vikrant Tongad from SAFE, Parthaa Bosu from Clean Air Asia, Sunil Dahiya (Greenpeace India) and Dr. Randeep Guleria (AIIMS) will address the gathering. The worsening air quality has led to a spike in respiratory and lung infection cases in the Capital Besides, artistes and troupes like Shilpa Rao, Delhi Drum Circle and Astitva will perform at the venue to help raise awareness. The event is being publicised through a Facebook page and already has 1,700 interested and 722 going. Their charter of demands include: Better public transportation system, smog alert systems and strictly-enforced measures for those days, phasing out all diesel operated vehicles and machinery, continuation of the odd-even car rationing system, etc. Reecha Upadhyay, owner of a documentary film production company in Hauz Khas Village, is spearheading the public campaign. She told Mail Today, Though the effects of the recently-concluded odd-even scheme on pollution in Delhi are yet to be ascertained, it has definitely boosted the morale of the city. Delhiites feel part of a bigger change now. There is a growing consciousness that we need to hand over a cleaner planet to the next generation. Before the momentum fizzles out, we decided to cash in on the enthusiasm with this event, she said. Various online groups and individuals have come together to make Help Delhi Breathe a success. Most notable is the participation of Delhis expatriate community. US national, Jeff Smith, who runs an FB page called Air Quality in Delhi, said, I moved to India with my wife, Vismita, a United Nations worker, in 2007. In the winter of 2008, our daughter, Anushree, then only two-years-old, developed crticial respiratory issues. I nearly lost her and that was the most terrifying experience of my life. Since then, I have been actively researching on air pollution in Delhi and helping expats in the city deal with associated problems. Saskia Chitrak, originally from Cologne in Germany, is part of a group called Delhi Smug in Smog. It holds picnics in parks every Sunday, but with masks. She says, I smelt something burning the moment I landed in Delhi a decade back. I have lived my childhood in the countryside of Germany. I know how pure air looks and feels like. We must sensitise Delhiites too, she adds. A group of concerned parents, operating a portal called careforair. org, visits schools and lectures teachers and students on Delhis air pollution problem. The probe into the sensational Sunanda Pushkar death case seems to have picked up pace. According to sources, it is almost clear that she died of the poison generated in her body due to an overdose of Alprax. Sources revealed that even the FBI has not found any other poison trace. Delhi Police will soon call Sunandas husband and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor for further questioning. Congress leader Shashi Tharoor with wife Sunanda, who was found dead on January 17, 2014 A source said: 'It is almost clear after reports of the FBI and the recent report given by the AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Science) forensic department that Sunanda died of the poison generated due to overdose of Alprax tablets. 'It seems that she took multiple tablets of Alprax which generated poison in her body and she died. 'But why she took or was given such a heavy dose of Alprax is uncertain. Other aspects of the case are under investigation.' Mail Today was the first to report that Sunanda may have died due to an overdose of sleeping pills. Alprax is a sedative that induces sleep and is used to treat moderate to severe anxiety disorders and panic attacks. BS Bassi said: 'As far as evidences are concerned until now, Sunanda Pushkars death was unnatural. I can say this with certainty' Subramanian Swamy tweeted on Thursday: 'Those curious: Be it known that my team has finalised Sunanda murder PIL. Will file when I am next in Delhi after 17th' On Friday, the Delhi Police Commissioner tweeted about the Sunanda Pushkar murder saying that the cops have got the report from AIIMS. BS Bassi tweeted earlier in the day: 'Have been told that medical boards advice in late Sunandas case has been received. 'As far as evidences are concerned until now, Sunanda Pushkars death was unnatural. I can say this with certainty.' In January last year, Delhi Police had registered a case of murder in connection with the death of Sunanda. An AIIMS medical board had found poisoning as the reason of her death following which the police had sent her viscera samples to an FBI lab in Washington. 'The medical board has submitted to us an 11-page report with 32 pages of annexures which are to be examined. 'They have mentioned about certain conclusions which are now to be investigated,' Bassi added. Student bodies have alleged that the first semester results at Delhi University (DU) expose major glitches in the grading system. Several discrepancies have allegedly cropped up in the grades which were released on Thursday evening following the implementation of the Choice Based Credit System (CBCS). Sunand, secretary, Delhi State Committee, Students Federation of India (SFI), said: 'The university has given a combined grading for theory and practical. 'Now, if someone wants to opt for re-valuation, how will a student get to know about the marks separately? There is no other way out for the students.' The first semester results after the implementation of the CBCS at Delhi University are in One semester has passed since the implementation of the CBCS in DU. The CBCS allows students seamless mobility across higher education institutions and transfer of credit earned by students. The University Grants Commission (UGC) had in September last year asked all central universities to implement CBCS from the ensuing academic session following a meeting of vice chancellors of all universities. 'Students studying in courses like history have been given outstanding grades and those in math and science have received average grades. 'It is quite surprising that theoretical subjects have received better marks,' a DU professor told Mail Today. The SFI collected data from colleges like Kirori Mal, Ramjas and SRCC. Meanwhile, a DU professor has written to HRD Minister Smriti Irani seeking her intervention in the issue of alleged mining and illegal construction activities in Atma Ram Sanatan Dharm (ARSD) college in southwest Delhi. More than 100 trees have been illegally cut in the area without any permission from concerned authorities. 'Not only huge funds are being spent for beautification but also natural resources are damaged, looted and used for illegal money making,' Professor Pravat K Basra said in his letter to Irani. Basra had last month approached the police, alleging that the college officials are involved in illegal mining and construction activities in the area. Delhi Police registered a case against unidentified persons under various sections of IPC, Delhi Trees Conservation Act 1994, Mines and Minerals (Regulation of Development Act) 1957. The college was in a row in 2013 over the same issue when the forest department had cracked down and stopped the mining operations. As Delhi international airport faces the threat of a serious fidayeen attack, police have banned the assembly of five or more people near the national capitals IGI airport and Aerocity for the next two months. In a rather unusual move, Delhi Police imposed Section 144 of the CrPC (The Code of Criminal Procedure) at IGI airport, including Terminal-3, Terminal-1D and Aerocity. According to police sources, high alert has been sounded at the IGI airport as there are concerns that anti-national elements could target spots prone to public gathering. Section 144 of the CrPC will be imposed in and around IGI airport for two months The Delhi Police order restricts holding of public meetings, carrying of firearms, swords, lathis or organising protests near the IGI airport. According to the police, Section 144 of the CrPC has been issued as a preventive step. 'Public gathering in the vicinity of the airport disrupts traffic heading towards the terminal. 'It also poses a threat to human safety. To bring this condition under control, we have imposed Section 144 in the area,' a senior Delhi Police officer told Mail Today. According to the Delhi Police, this order came into force with immediate effect from January 9, 2016, and will be continued for a period of 60 days. 'Any person contravening this order shall be punishable under Section 188 of Indian Panel Code,' the order states. Meanwhile, airport staff and other agencies have raised concerns over the imposition of Section 144. 'During odd hours female staff gather at a point to get cabs. Relatives too come to the airport to see-off their loved ones. 'Now it will be tough as local cops can question the gathering. This is for the first time when such an order has been issued,' a senior official, working at IGI airport said. Ford's ambitious plans to link cars to household appliances has come under fire from a cyber security expert who said the technology could make it easy for hackers to steal their cars and data. The carmaker wants drivers to be able to switch on their heating, lights and even smart kettles from behind the wheel, but cyber-hack guru Tony Dyhouse said security software in appliances could easily be breached by online criminals. As a result of having your vehicle linked up to devices in your home, hackers could steal your car using your kettle, he warned. Scroll down for video Connected risk: Ford says you'll soon be able to control things like the lighting and heating in your house from inside your car. But experts have growing concerns connected smart devices could be hacked, leaving cars vulnerable to theft Ford detailed its Smart Device Link technology at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month. The company said it was exploring connecting its cars to smart home-hubs like the Amazon Echo and Wink, both of which control a variety of household devices at the same time. As well as being able to control things like the thermostat, television and other smart appliances in the home from the driver's seat, the carmaker also wants owners to be able to explore the opposite: stopping, starting, locking and unlocking their vehicles from the comfort of the sofa. But while Ford may be confident that its own software can't be breached by online hackers, Dyhouse said he's worried the same can't be said about home appliances that have been rushed onto the market. In an interview with This is Money, the director of Trustworthy Software Initiative said: 'The best way to improve the security is to improve the software, but were seeing a downward trend in the capability to write software well. 'With growing demand for these smart devices with online functionality, some are going on sale that are not adequately tested and secured.' Your car could soon control appliances in your home, if Ford has its way. The company announced at CES that it is exploring linking its cars to smart devices like Amazon Echo and Wink Dyhouse reckoned the car industry does a good job to check software for safety issues, though it doesn't always test for deliberate attacks from hackers to infiltrate it. 'My concern is the expansion of the footprint of these home hub systems for hackers,' he said. If there is a path from the car to a smart hub linked to a variety of devices, there is also a path in the opposite direction. 'That means theres opportunity to hack any device within the entire network by using the signal as a portal. 'The more devices you add results in an exponential increase in risk. Ultimately, someone online could unlock your car doors and start the engine by hacking into your smart kettle.' Amazon's Echo smart speaker will soon work with your car, Ford has revealed Ford is a member of the Motor Industry Software Reliability Association, which assists carmakers in developing safe, reliable software embedded in vehicle control systems. But Dyhouse said the manufacturer's plan to connect vehicles to home hubs puts owners at a high risk of 'man in the middle' attacks, when the hacker intercepts an existing connection between two devices and pretends to be one of them. 'We have to accept that people want this sort of technology,' he said. 'I've tried out a lot of these smart home systems and I like the idea of being able to turn the kettle on from down the road in my car. 'But we have to exert pressure on manufactures to ensure the communication between vehicles and home devices is done in a safe way. 'No system is without an element of vulnerability - it's not possible to be 100 per cent secure - but it becomes more of a fine line with smart home hubs, as they are designed to welcome connections for a number of other devices that can be breached by hackers.' Tentacles in every market: The deal will create a communications giant covering fixed-line phones, broadband, mobile and TV BT has had its plans to takeover mobile phone firm EE officially approved, paving the way to bring together the UK's largest landline and mobile phone businesses. The landmark deal will create a telecoms behemoth that will provide mobile, fixed-line phones, broadband and TV to around 35million customers. The move could see bills fall as BT is able to provide deals to customers combining mobile phone contracts with landline, broadband and TV. BT had announced its plans as long ago as February, but had been waiting on the green light from the Competition and Markets Authority, which was finally given this morning. The competition watchdog was looking into the merger to make sure that it was in the interest of consumers. The fear was that creating such a big telecoms company would distort the market and lead to higher bills for customers. This could be heightened further as another merger is planned between O2 and Three, which means that the number of key players in the market will go down from five to three. But the green light was given today by the Competition and Markets Authority, marking the final obstacle to the deal. John Wotton, who chaired the inquiry into the deal, said evidence 'does not show that this merger is likely to cause significant harm to competition or the interests of consumers'. British households are increasingly moving towards telecoms deals that offer a package of television, mobile phone, landlines and broadband all from the same provider. This so-called 'quadplay' model can result in cheaper deals for customers, because they receive all their telecoms in a single bundle. Until now, BT has offered three of the four items - broadband, landlines and TV - and by buying a mobile business it will now be able to offer all four. The move could therefore result in cheaper bills for existing customers of BT and EE who are willing to sign up to the new merged company. It will also allow BT to better compete with its rivals Virgin Media and Sky, which already offer quadplay deals. However experts warn that although quadplay deals are very competitive, they are harder to get out of should bills go up or customer service be lacking because customers are required to switch over their mobile, landline, broadband and TV provider if they are unhappy with just one of these four elements. James Padmore, head of utilities at Comparethemarket said: The creation of this telecoms giant may be good news for shareholders, but we anticipate it may well lead to less choice for consumers in the long run. 'Existing customers may possibly find themselves being cross-sold a lot of new products to monetise the merger. Furthermore, quad play packages may make it difficult for people to move away from the major players in the telecoms market even if they are unhappy with the service they may not want to face trying to untangle themselves from them. I cant see this deal helping in regard to customer choice.' The CMA probe was called for by rivals, which claimed the takeover would allow BT to 'remonopolise' the UK telecoms sector, forcing broadband firms to use its old network. TalkTalk and Vodafone called for competition authorities to force BT to spin off its Openreach operation, the part of the business that services phone and broadband lines. Relieved: BT chief executive Gavin Patterson described the acquisition as 'great news' for customers The competition inquiry looked into ten areas of concern - including fears EE and BT would increase prices, lower quality, and reduce the range of their services and/or reduce innovation. However, after considering carefully, the CMA panel said it was 'unanimous' in finding no substantial lessening of competition. Wotton added: 'Since our provisional findings, we have taken extra time to consider responses in detail but the evidence does not show that this merger is likely to cause significant harm to competition or the interests of consumers. 'The retail mobile services market in the UK is competitive, with four main mobile providers and a substantial number of smaller operators. Branching out: BT is also a major players in sports broadcasting, taking on Sky with its football coverage WHAT WILL THE BT/EE MEGA MERGER MEAN FOR YOU? IT COULD MEAN LOWER PRICES The mega merger could mean there is less competition in the telecoms arena, but even so it could lead to cheaper prices for customers. This is because of so-called 'quad play', industry speak for bundling mobile, home phone, broadband and TV services altogether - essentially it is less expensive to pay for services altogether than it is individually. But watch out - this type of bundling makes it harder to keep tabs on bills as customers cannot be bothered to keep an eye on the cost of each individual service. Few people go through bills line by line. IT COULD MEAN MORE FREE STUFF BT may try to lure new customers in by offering free services, such as BT Sport. Beware though, this might sound like a great offer when initially signing up but customers could find it difficult to cancel individual services at a later date. IT COULD BECOME TRICKER FOR SOME CUSTOMERS TO SWITCH PROVIDER Quad play is deliberately designed to lock people in to contracts. Once a customer has his/her TV, mobile, home phone and internet all provided by one company then it can be difficult and time consuming to leave, with lots of time spent on the phone explaining decisions to a customer services officer. IT COULD AFFECT CUSTOMER SERVICE BT's customer service is notoriously poor. In 2015 BT scored badly in the landline section, achieving 61 per cent, below the satisfaction rating of Virgin, Sky and Talk Talk customers and below the sector average of 67 per cent. It also achieved the lowest score for fixed broadband provider when compared with Virgin, Sky and Talk Talk. EE meanwhile, came out worst for mobile network provider, scoring 69 per cent which put it just below Vodafone and 3 and well below O2 and Virgin. It remains to be seen how the two companies will fare once they have merged. IT COULD MEAN BETTER COVERAGE The acquisition by BT could lead to more investment in network coverage across the UK, which could lead to a reduction in reception black spots. WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO EXISTING CUSTOMERS? It is likely existing EE customers will be switched over to BT without having to take any action themselves. It should not affect their contracts. 'As BT is a smaller operator in mobile, it is unlikely that the merger will have a significant effect. Similarly, EE is only a minor player in retail broadband, so again it is unlikely that the merger will have a significant effect in this market.' 'We have heard wider concerns about the sector, including about Openreach and its regulation by Ofcom. 'Our job has been to examine the specific impact of this merger on competition and consumers and, where relevant, we've looked at how these issues might be affected by the merger. There is also an ongoing Ofcom review into the sector and its future regulation, where such concerns may have more relevance.' BT chief executive Gavin Patterson described the acquisition as 'great news'. He said: 'We are pleased they (CMA) have found there to be no significant lessening of competition following an in-depth investigation lasting more than ten months. 'The combined BT and EE will be a digital champion for the UK, providing high levels of investment and driving innovation in a highly competitive market. 'I have no doubt that consumers, businesses and communities will benefit as we combine the power of fibre broadband with the convenience of leading edge mobile services. I look forward to welcoming EE into the BT family.' Consumer watchdog Which? said today that both parties will now have to look closely at their customer service record. Both telecoms providers have fared badly over the past year, with BT winning our 2015 Wooden Spoon for poor customer service. Which? executive director, Richard Lloyd, said: 'Fewer players in a market is rarely a good thing, but now this deal has been approved both companies must urgently address their abysmal customer service record. 'The regulator will need to keep a very close eye on this to ensure consumers really do benefit from the deal and be prepared to step in if not.' EE, which had been owned by Deutsche Telekom and Orange, will add more than 25 million mobile customers to BT. The former British telecoms monopoly has been without a strong mobile business since the demerger of its Cellnet division more than a decade ago. Following Friday's approval, BT will commence the formal process of completing the deal. A prospectus will be issued in the week commencing January 25 with the deal set to close on January 29 when Deutsche Telekom and Orange will receive shares in BT. Student Bea Masiero, 22, (pictured) has claimed that her ex-boyfriend scammed her out of $4,000 after pretending he had cancer A former model has spoken out about how her ex-boyfriend allegedly scammed her and his long-term girlfriend out of a total of more than $14,000 after lying about having brain cancer. Bea Masiero, 22, met the 24-year-old on Tinder and they dated for six weeks, during which time he allegedly convinced her to give him $4,000 after claiming he had days to live. The psychology student, who lives in Adelaide, alleged that he told her he recently beat cancer, but that his kidneys, liver and heart were failing as a result of 'conflicting medication'. She claimed the 24-year-old pretended to have 'violent seizures' and sent text messages begging for money so he could pay for new medications and treatments. But Ms Masiero was horrified when she realised he had been spending the money on designer gifts for his former girlfriend, who has now also come forward to claim he owes her $10,000. 'He told me he had beaten cancer, but that his organs were failing because he had been given conflicting medications, stupidly I believed him,' Ms Masiero told Daily Mail Australia. 'He would fake seizures with his eyes rolling to the back of his head and pretend to the doctors that he was in excruciating pain. 'My ex even limped when I was around him and said he was on dialysis and suffered with heart palpitations. 'He started asking me for money for his private treatments, saying that he only had days to live and that I would have the satisfaction of saving a life. He even told me he loved me. 'I transferred him more than $4,000, basically my whole life's savings. I'm only a student, so now I'm struggling to pay rent.' When contacted about these allegations, the 24-year-old claimed he was 'sick', but insisted it had nothing to do with 'cancer', despite posting messages on Facebook about his IL-2 cancer treatment. 'I have a pain condition from a motor accident and I have received substantial treatment,' he said. 'I was given conflicting medication. My body would have packed up and shut down. I pretty much had chronic renal failure.' He said he did know Ms Masiero, who used to model for several magazines, but claimed they were not dating and were just friends. 'I do know her, she has been infatuated with me. She would give me gifts of money and would push money into my pocket. The psychology student, who lives in Adelaide, alleged that he told her he recently beat cancer, but that his kidneys, liver and heart were failing as a result of 'conflicting medication' 'She wanted me to be with her, but there was never any romantic relationship. We were just friends.' 'She would have given me no more than $1,200. I did say no to her several times. Bea gave me money to survive and live off, despite me saying no. I am happy to give that money back. 'We were never boyfriend and girlfriend. I was involved with someone else at the time. It was just a friendship.' Ms Masiero, who volunteers in palliative care at Royal Adelaide Hospital, says she met the 24-year-old on Tinder just two months after she shaved her hair to raise money for charity, Cancer Council. 'The first time we met we went for a long walk along the beach. I was really self-conscious about my short hair, but he said: 'It's really cool you did that because I beat cancer'.' She revealed that during their relationship she would drive him to hospital around three or four times a week. 'But he would tell me not to come inside because he didn't want me to see him so vulnerable, so I would drop him at the emergency room,' Ms Masiero said. 'A few days ago he even called me saying he was having a heart attack and he asked me to take him to hospital. 'He would scream in pain and say he has super-sensitive skin. He would spend the whole day pretending he was dying, then he would go back and see his ex-girlfriend.' The student, who is completing a course with the Australian College of Applied Psychology, said she was 'gutted' when she realised he was spending the money on his ex-girlfriend. 'He bought her things I wouldn't dream of buying myself. I'm so hurt. I can't even afford to fill up my car. He even made out to her like I was a creepy stalker who was obsessed with him.' She met the 24-year-old on Tinder and they dated for six weeks, during which time he allegedly convinced her to give him $4,000 after claiming he had days to live Ms Masiero, who volunteers in palliative care at Royal Adelaide Hospital (pictured), says she met the 24-year-old on Tinder just two months after she shaved her hair to raise money for charity, Cancer Council Ms Masiero realised he had been lying to her on Wednesday when she asked his parents directly whether he has ever had cancer and they said: 'No'. When contacted by Daily Mail Australia, his father said: 'We don't want to comment. My son is mentally disturbed.' The scammer's former girlfriend, Shay, aged in her 20s, who went out with him for a year, has also come forward to claim that he also lied to her about having brain and lung cancer. She revealed that she allegedly forked out more than $10,000 on bills, food and rent while they were living together for several months last year. 'He told me he had brain cancer and a few months later he said that he had the tumor removed through his nose and that's why they didn't have to shave any of his hair off,' she told Daily Mail Australia. 'We moved in together in around August 2014, and by January 2015 he quit his job because he said he was too sick. He even faked a medical certificate saying he had cancer. 'I then had to start paying for everything. I would have spent more than $10,000 on living expenses for him during the months we shared a flat together.' Shay said at first he seemed to be the 'perfect boyfriend', but he soon started 'manipulating' her and even lied about having bought her a Tiffany engagement ring. 'He lied and manipulated me so much, I lost my family and even my job. Eventually I got out, got my family back and got my life together. 'Over the past few weeks he has been buying me presents and taking me out to meal to say sorry for what he did. But I need my money back.' But he claimed that their relationship was an 'equal partnership' and that they 'supported eachother'. 'We lived together for a year. I stopped working from illness. But there was money coming in from both sides,' the 24-year-old said. 'We supported each other, it was an equal partnership. I can't understand why she'd say that I owed her $10,000.' The former couple met each other two years ago while working at a call centre in Adelaide where they also befriended another colleague. The colleague, 22, claimed that the 24-year-old started talking about having cancer in around May or June 2014 and said he was allegedly also on painkillers after a car crash in 2013. He said he handed the scammer at least $350 two weeks ago to help pay for his medication. 'He is just a serial liar. He claimed he had brain cancer, then started talking about lung cancer. But we found out that he faked a medical certificate. A brother and sister sold to a gang of gypsy organ traffickers for body parts by their murdered mother's former lover have been rescued. The starving and terrified children were discovered begging for food on the streets of Kyrgyzstan's capital, Bishkek, three months after their mother Natalya died in suspicious circumstances. Named only as Anna, 13, and Timofei, five, they came within an inch of almost certain death, after their mother's heartless lover sold them to gypsies. Terrified: Anna, 13, and Timofei, five, were rescued from the streets of Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek after their mother's former lover tried to sell them to a gypsy gang, which planned to sell to organ traffickers Suspicious: Anna's mother Natalya, originally from Siberia, was killed in September in the village of Shalta Horror: Anna realised she and her little brother (pictured) were being sold, and begged the neighbours for help The gypsies then intended to take them out of Kyrgyzstan, which is bordered by China to the east, and Kazakhstan to the north, so they could be used as body parts for the sick and dying. According to the UN, the most common organs to be taken are kidneys and livers, but anything can be harvested for the right price. But Anna knew she and her little brother were in danger, pleading with locals to rescue them, reported The Siberian Times. Russian Ambassador Andrei Krutko said: 'We got a call saying that two children - a girl, 13, and boy, five, were on the street in the suburbs of Bishkek. 'They were begging and in a very bad state.' He added: 'The boy was extremely emaciated. Both kids needed medical help, but first of all they needed to eat properly.' It is not known how long the children had been running from the gypsies when they were found, but Russian diplomats were first alerted to the orphans in September from people living close to the gypsies. Their mother, a Russian citizen originally from Novosibirsk, Siberia, was murdered on September 11, in the village of Shalta. Help: The Russian embassy were then alerted and set out to find the children, who were now living rough Fear: Russian vice-consul Anastasia Antonova (pictured) said the neighbours received threats for speaking out Russian vice-consul Anastasia Antonova told Russian television: 'There are many reasons to believe that Natalya was murdered. 'Immediately after her death, the orphans were sold to gypsies, who tried, according to police and our own information, to illegally take children from Kyrgyzstan and resell them to traders of human organs. 'It was in September that we first received a call from the gypsy neighbours, and then they [the neighbours] came to the embassy in person. 'They said that the children had come to them, asking to hide them from the gypsies. 'Immediately they began to receive threats. They asked us to help.' After they were found, the children were to the Russian embassy and on to a rehabilitation centre in Novosibirsk. The centre's psychologist Nikolai Ryabtsev told Russian tabloid KP: 'It was hard to gain the trust of the children. 'First we talked about Kyrgyz attractions, about where they had been there. 'But at the slightest movement of the hand Timofei fell on the floor and cowered. Rescue: When the siblings were finally found, they were in desperate need of food, said Andrei Krutko (pictured). The Russian ambassador said they were begging and 'in a very bad state' Recovery: The children have now been taken from Bishkek back to Siberia, to Novosibirsk, their mother's home town. where they are being cared for at a rehabilitation centre 'You do not need to be a psychologist to understand that the child had been beaten. 'So all sessions with the boy we perform only in the presence of Anna, his sisters, so he feels safe.' Boris Johnson left Foreign Office officials to pick up his bar tab from a last-minute visit to Iraq after they barred him from visiting the front line, on a trip filled with gaffes. The Mayor of London travelled to Kurdistan a year ago, at the invitation of Kurdish prime minister Nechirvan Barzani, to see UK troops training Peshmerga fighters taking on Islamic State. A series of emails released under Freedom of Information laws have now revealed the bill dispute, and how the Foreign Office tried to block a trip to the front line, but admitted defeat with a last-minute trip to a refugee camp - as he was already 'on his way'. Point and shoot: Boris Johnson takes aim with an AK47 during a visit to the see the British Troops training the Peshmerga near the frontline, while on a visit to the Kurdish region of Iraq The British Consulate General in Erbil wrote to the Mayor's office about the 'sensitive' subject of the bill Another notes that 'clear instructions were giving to the party that purchases of alcoholic drinks must be paid in cash and not charged to rooms,' during the trip, which was organised in just three weeks They also reveal how Boris almost drove off a forecourt in a Jaguar he was allowed to sit in, but was stopped at the last minute by staff supervising him on the trip. In one email, the British Consulate General in Erbil wrote to the Mayor's office about the 'sensitive subject' of the bill, which they said they didn't want to 'ask too many people' about. It notes that 'clear instructions were giving to the party that purchases of alcoholic drinks must be paid in cash and not charged to rooms,' during the trip, which was organised in just three weeks. The mayor's spokesman put the failure to settle the 'private' hotel tab down to 'an administrative oversight' and stressed that Mr Johnson had paid it from his own pocket when it was pointed out. Another exchange shows that Downing Street initially blocked the mayor from visiting troops but later 'softened' their position 'from "no" to "as long as it's done in an appropriately sombre manner''.' The idea of him going to the front line however caused serious concerns - especially when Mr Johnson was apparently unwilling to take no for an answer. Steady on Mayor! Mr Johnson is helped down a hill by security personnel as he visits the training grounds The emails also shed more light on reports that when the mayor was invited to sit behind the wheel of a new F-Type Jaguar in a car showroom in Erbil, he 'hit the gas and roared off' In an email titled 'out of area move', Angus McKee, the UK's Consul General to the Kurdistan Region & Northern Iraq, said: 'The visiting Mayor said he would like to visit the "front line". 'I explained that was not possible, we never went etc. He is not satisfied.' While it is true that the Mayor got behind the wheel .. in the showroom, drove out of the door and onto the driveway, quick action by his protection officer and me ensured he did NOT drive off Angus McKee, UK Consul General He asked for confirmation that there was 'no viable trip to the frontline in the proximity of Erbil' and that then FCO Middle East director Edward Oakden - now the UK's ambassador to Jordan - 'has zero appetite' to authorise such a trip. He was told it was 'safe to say that Edward will indeed have zero appetite for this'. 'Not for the Mayor, but it's probably also something we'd have to clear with No.10,' he was told. The emails also shed more light on reports that when the mayor was invited to sit behind the wheel of a new F-Type Jaguar in a car showroom in Erbil, he 'hit the gas and roared off'. 'In case anyone gets alarmed by the attached article,' Mr McKee wrote afterwards. 'While it is true that the Mayor got behind the wheel .. in the showroom, drove out of the door and onto the driveway, quick action by his PPO (protection officer) and me ensured he did NOT drive off.' Down to business: Mr Johnson also sat down with the Kurdistan Deputy Prime Minister Quad Talabani There are also negotiations over the mayor's desire to see the historic sights and 'include some time in a bazaar / do some shopping' - with diplomats explaining that extending leisure opportunities might be 'tricky'. Officials are also recorded expressing frustration over a last-minute decision by Mr Johnson that he wanted to visit a refugee camp. Onward: The mayor wouldn't take no for an answer when he was told he could not visit the front line 'I have no objection to this locally, however I know there has been some politics between No10, MOD and the Mayor's Office over what he can and can't do here,' one email says. When it is suggested that the Department for International Development could veto the trip if they were unhappy, an unnamed DfID official said: 'I can't see how we could pull it even if we wanted to as he is on his way.' The emails show that the mayor's office sought business class flights for his party, worrying that the Kurdish PM's office - which was paying most of the costs of the trip - ' don't think our request is too cheeky or onerous'. In the end a private plane was supplied instead. The FCO said it paid only 10.59 for travel and 136.83 for 'other expenses (meals, telephone, tea and coffee)'. At one point during preparations for the trip, there was a discussion about whether or not local regional sensitivities meant Mr Johnson should avoid mentioning Winston Churchill. 'In one-to-one conversations with leading Kurds, there is a lot of admiration for Churchill's leadership and historic role,' an official concluded. 'Speaking to audiences and with the media, we recommend Churchill is not mentioned.' During his visit, Mr Johnson lay side-by-side in the mud with Peshmerga fighters, joining them in their shooting practice near the Kurdish capital Erbil in Iraq. Jewish groups have reacted with fury at news only five paintings from a collection of 1,500 passed down by a Nazi art dealer are considered to have been stolen from Jews. A task force set up by the German government to determine the ownership history of the items found 499 had 'questionable history', but only five were deemed looted. The announcement drew sharp criticism from Jewish leaders, who described the task force's results as 'meager and not satisfactory'. Cornelius Gurlitt, who hid an estimated 1bn worth of art in his flat after inheriting it from his Nazi art dealer father Hildebrand (right), is pictured (left) out and about in Munich in November 2013 The vast collection was discovered in 2012 during a small-scale German tax inspection at the home of Cornelius Gurlitt - who had inherited the collection from his father Hildebrand. Gurlitt Snr had traded in what Hitler described as 'degenerative art' - that made by Western or Jewish artists. During early stages of the war, he had taken orders from Hitler's subordinates to trade in the artwork and generate profits for the Nazi war machine. However, it's believed he secretly kept many of the pictures for himself. After two years of research, the head of the German task force, Ingeborg Berggreen-Merkel, presented the final report on Thursday. She said that only five pieces had been confirmed as stolen Nazi art, although 499 were determined to have a questionable history. Of the five, four were returned to heirs of their owners, including Max Liebermann's Two Riders on a Beach and Henri Matisse's Seated Woman. The three additional works proved to be looted were by German artists Carl Spitzweg and Adolph Menzel, and Impressionist master Camille Pissarro. The announcement drew sharp criticism from Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress. He issued a statement on Thursday calling the results 'meager and not satisfactory'. Lauder said he 'expected Germany to do better, given that time is running out', and accused the task force of poor management of its work. Jewish groups have been pressing the German government to move quickly, since many of the heirs of the Nazi victims are advanced in age. NAZI LOOT: THREE OF THE FIVE PAINTINGS DEEMED TO HAVE BEEN STOLEN Among those found in the vast 1,500 piece collection which was looted in Nazi Germany was Max Liebermann's Two Riders on a Beach. The painting, created in 1901 while the German artist was on holiday on the North Sea, is considered a masterpiece of Impressionism. It was believed to have been seized by the Nazis from a Jewish art collector not long after Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass. Max Liebermann's Two Riders on a Beach (pictured) was one of two paintings that are known to have been returned to their rightful owners after being discovered among the vast Nazi hoard The Louvre and the Seine from the Pont Neuf - Morning Mist, by Camille Pissarro was returned to its rightful owner last year after the taskforce found it had been stolen during the Nazi era Ironically, Liebermann was himself the son of a Jewish banker from Berlin - though the Nazis showed little concern when they sold his work to raise money for the Nazi war machine. One of the pionners of German impressionism, he used his own wealth to create a massive collection of his own. Tragically, he died in 1935 to little fanfare due to his Jewish heritage - by that time, the media and country was ruled by the Nazis. A second painting deemed to have been stolen, and since returned to its rightful owner, was Henri Matisse's A Woman Sitting in a Chair (pictured) His widow, bedridden and aged 85, committed suicide in 1943 just hours before police arrived at her home to deport her to a concentration camp. A second painting to be found among the Gurlitt collection and deemed as having been conclusively looted was Henri Matisse's A Woman Sitting in a Chair. The French artist, who lived through the war, was a contemporary of Picasso and Duchamp and was famed for his use of colours. He remained living in Nice during the years it was occupied by the Nazis, though he was allowed to exhibit his artwork during the occupation. Little is known about his Woman Sitting in a Chair piece except that it was created in 1920. The third piece idenfitied publically as having been looted was The Louvre and the Seine from the Pont Neuf - Morning Mist, by Camille Pissarro. The oil painting was created in 1902 by French artist Pissarro - known as the 'father of impressionism'. Pissarro was never critically acclaimed during his lifetime but was found to be hugely influential to some of the greatest artists in history, including Paul Cezanne and Vincent van Gogh. In a Christie's auction in New York in 2007, a set of four of his paintings sold for a remarkable $14million. Advertisement Accused of carrying out her work without sufficient transparency, Berggreen-Merkel claimed a dispute over the validity of the will of Gurlitt, who died in May last year at the age of 81, had made it difficult for the task force to be more forthcoming. In the will, Gurlitt designated the Bern Art Museum in Switzerland as sole heir to his collection. A cousin is challenging that claim, arguing that Gurlitt wasn't in good psychological health when he wrote his will. A court decision on the validity of the will is due in February. German prosecutors seized the art trove in February 2012 as part of a tax investigation after Gurlitt aroused the suspicion of German customs officials who stopped him on a train from Switzerland carrying a large sum of cash. Gurlitt was born in Hamburg in 1932 and came from a prominent German family of artists, composers and collectors, but little is known about his life beyond his position as the heir of his father's art collection. When U.S. investigators questioned Hildebrand Gurlitt after the end of the war about the origins of his collection, they were doubtful whether all the pieces really belonged to him but eventually decided that he was the rightful owner of most of them. After his father's 1956 death in a car accident, Cornelius Gurlitt lived together with his mother in Munich until she died in 1968. He reportedly lived a reclusive life, making a living by selling paintings from time to time. Another painting found among the collection was Bernhard Kretschmar's Street Tram (pictured), though it is not known if it was among the five to have been considered stolen Likewise for these two paintings: Couple In A Landscape by Conrad Felixmueller (left) and 'Girl At A Table' by Wilhelm Lachnit (right) Pictured is Couple by Hans Christoph, one of 1,500 artworks found to have been hoarded by Cornelius Gurlitt Mr Gurlitt inherited the vast collection from his father Hildebrand, who worked as an art dealer for the Nazis. Pictured is Erich Fraass's Mother And Child painting Mr Gurlitt Jnr reportedly lived a reclusive life, selling pieces of art off as needed in order to survive. Pictures is Man And Woman At A Window by Wilhelm Lachnit Pictured left is Child At A Table by Otto Griebel. Right, Don Quichote and Sancho Panza by Honore Daumier is pictured Eugene Delacoix's A Moorish Conversation On A Terrace (pictured) was among those found in the collection, but it is not know if it was looted or attained legitimately The head of the FBI has said there is no reason to believe the man who ambushed a Philadelphia policeman was part of an organized terror cell. Harrowing CCTV footage showed Edward Archer firing 13 shots at officer Jesse Hartnett, in what the city's police commissioner branded an 'attempted assassination'. Archer told the police he was 'following Allah' and had pledged allegiance to ISIS, but FBI director James Comey does not believe there are plans for another attack on the city. Scroll down for video Harrowing CCTV footage showed Edward Archer (pictured) firing 13 shots at officer Jesse Hartnett, in what the city's police commissioner branded an 'attempted assassination' Following the attack on Hartnett (right), Archer told the police he was 'following Allah' and had pledged allegiance to ISIS He said: 'We are working hard to understand motives... and whether there might be anyone else involved.' Archer, 30, opened fire on Hartnett's marked police car on January 7, shooting him in the arm three times at point blank range. Officer Hartnett, who was wearing a bullet proof vest during the attack, managed to scramble out of the car and shoot Archer in the buttocks. He was arrested a few blocks away. Hartnett, 33, is still in hospital and will need 'several surgeries' for his injuries. Police Commissioner Richard Ross said his arm was 'basically destroyed' from the shooting. The FBI is still investigating whether the shooting was a terror attack. Archer is being charged with murder but the lawyer assigned to defend him has declined to comment on the case. Archer, 30, opened fire on Hartnett's marked police car on January 7, shooting him in the arm three times at point blank range Hartnett (pictured, the police car he was in at the time), 33, is still in hospital and will need 'several surgeries' for his injuries Hours after the ambush, police said Archer told authorities he believed the police department defends laws that are contrary to the teachings of the Quran. His mother told The Philadelphia Inquirer he had been hearing voices. Comey declined to comment on Archer's mental state. Archer's remarks to police triggered the FBI's probe into the shooting as potential terror attack. Comey said ISIS has been trying to motivate people to kill police officers and military service members' for many months. Local and federal investigators are investigating Archer's possible outside ties to terrorism, including whether and how he may have been radicalized. The FBI believes Archer traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2011 and to Egypt in 2012 and is probing the purpose of those trips. An investigator takes a box from one of the residences where suspect Edward Archer has lived Hours after the ambush, police said Archer (pictured, forensic team inspecting his former residence) told authorities he believed the police department defends laws that are contrary to the teachings of the Quran Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross (pictured) branded the attack an 'attempted assassination' Comey declined to say whether Archer had been radicalized. Imam Asim Abdur Rashid of the Masjid Mujahideen told The Philadelphia Inquirer that Archer was a frequent member at the mosque and traveled to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj. Like mother, like daughter. The group Citizens United filed a lawsuit today seeking access to Chelsea Clinton's emails too, Politico reported. What they're after are emails the former first daughter exchanged with five of Hillary Clinton's top aides at the State Department, as she steps up her role withing her mother's presidential campaign. Scroll down for video Citizens United files a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit today in order to get access to Chelsea Clinton's emails exchanged to five State Department aides Chelsea Clinton is fair game, said Citizens United President David Bossie, because she's stepped up as a surrogate in her mother's campaign and was somebody with 'fiduciary responsibility' at the Clinton Foundation Citizens United wants to sniff around the emails to see if there was an inappropriate relationship between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department. Chelsea Clinton, Citizens United President David Bossie explained 'is somebody who has been a player, a senior adviser to her mother ... She is an officer, somebody with fiduciary responsibility at the Clinton Family Foundation.' Today's Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, filed at the U.S. District Court in Washington, also seeks out emails from three other top Clinton aides: Amitabh Desai, foreign policy chief of the Clinton Foundation, Justin Cooper, who works for former President Bill Clinton and Oscar Flores, who manages the Clinton home in Chappaqua, New York. However, Chelsea Clinton's correspondences are the crown jewel. 'the real interesting person here is, of course, Chelsea Clinton, who is the lead person,' Bossie said. 'We saw that pop up on the grid in all email we received over the past year.' Bossie was referring to a number of other FIOA requests and lawsuits the group has brought forth in order to get access to Clinton-related documents, like Hillary Clinton's emails. The new lawsuit wants to see conversations that occurred between Chelsea Clinton, Desai, Cooper and Flores with Hillary Clinton's chief of staff Cheryl Mills, her deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin who is married to disgraced ex-congressman Anthony Weiner. The legal action also asks for conversations with aides Jake Sullivan, Kris Balderston and Michael Fuchs, who all worked under Hillary Clinton at the State Department. A Clinton campaign spokesperson did not respond to a request from Politico for comment. The lawsuit comes during the same week that Chelsea Clinton formally started stumping for her mother on the campaign trail. Clinton trekked through New Hampshire making five stops, including at a toy shop in Portsmouth and a field office in Salem, where she brought campaign workers pizza. But the former first daughter also made news. While talking to a group at a museum in Manchester, the Clinton daughter bopped Bernie Sanders on the head over Obamacare, suggesting he would 'dismantle' the program. Sanders, who is giving Clinton a run for her money in the polls, wants to implement a Medicare-for-all health care program. Chelsea Clinton's heightened role puts a target on her back as far as Citizens United is concerned. The code name 'concert' was used in the terrorist attack in central Jakarta that killed seven people on Thursday when multiple explosions rocked the city's central business district. It was a reference that may well have been linked to the attacks in Paris on November 13 when gunmen and suicide bombers hit a concert hall, a major stadium, restaurants and bars, almost simultaneously, killing 130 people dead and leaving hundreds wounded. Terrorism expert Sidney Jones also wrote that Bahrun Naim - South-East Asia leader of ISIS - had praised the attacks in Paris last November. Scroll down for video The code name 'concert' was used in the terrorist attack in central Jakarta that killed seven people Nineteen people were also injured when when multiple explosions rocked the city's central business district 'In a blog posting entitled "Lessons from the Paris Attacks" (Pelajaran dari Serangan Paris), he urged his Indonesian audience to study the planning, targeting, timing, coordination, security and courage of the Paris teams," Jones wrote in the Interpreter. Indonesian national police spokesman Anton Charliyan confirmed on Thursday night that the terrorists were 'from the ISIS group', and that the word 'concert' was key to their chilling operation that also left 19 people injured, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. 'They claimed Indonesia will be in the world headlines,' he said. 'They said "they will have a concert."' Multiple explosions hit the city's central business district causing chaos At least 19 people were left injured after the appalling terrorist attack Suspected terrorists were arrested in Indonesia before Christmas for allegedly planning attacks in Sumatra, Java and Kalimantan When suspected terrorists were arrested in Indonesia before Christmas for allegedly planning attacks in Sumatra, Java and Kalimantan, police got hold of documents which appeared to show that suspects were planning to 'do a concert'. The police spokesman said at the time it was not yet known what concert meant but that 'bride' had been a code word for suicide bomber in the past. Five of those who died in the attacks are believed to be perpetrators linked to the Islamic State. In Paris on November 13 gunmen and suicide bombers hit a concert hall, a major stadium, restaurants and bars, almost simultaneously, killing 130 people dead and leaving hundreds wounded Five of those who died in the attacks are believed to be perpetrators linked to the Islamic State The South-East Asia leader of ISIS Bahrun Naim was reportedly inspired by the Paris attacks last year Bahrun Naim is reportedly the South-East Asia leader of the network, who is believed to be in Syria, and had been hugely influenced by the Paris attacks last year. Jakarta Police chief Tito Karnavian said there was a clear link in the terrorist attack to ISIS. 'They changed strategy from just attacking Syria to outside places as well,' Mr Karnavian said. 'Like the attack in Paris, Asia is also a target.' Jakarta Police chief Tito Karnavian said there was a clear link in the terrorist attack to ISIS This is the hilarious moment a group of pranksters fitted electric shock devices to a bicycle before setting them off and zapping passers-by when they tried to steal the bike. The pranksters, brothers Jeremy and Jason Holden, kitted out an ordinary push-along bike with shock devices in the handlebars and seat before leaving it out in the street in Los Angeles, US. They sat quietly in hiding as they waited for passers-by to pick up the seemingly-abandoned bike in Hollywood, filming every moment with a number of handheld cameras. The pranksters, brothers Jeremy and Jason Holden, kitted out a bike with shock devices in the handlebars and seat before leaving it out in the street in Los Angeles, US. When member of the publics tried to make-off with the seemingly-abandoned bike, they prompted it to release a charge which made them fall off (seen above) The pranksters sat quietly in hiding as they waited for passers-by to pick up the seemingly-abandoned bike in Hollywood, filming every moment with a number of handheld cameras. Pictured: A man after falling off the bike When an unknowing member of the public picked up the bike and tried to make-off with it, the brothers using a handheld button allowed the shock devices to release small charges. Over a number of hours, they filmed several people trying to steal the bike and then being thrown from it after being shocked by the electric zap. Amusing footage shows the brothers asking 'What happened buddy? Trying to steal a bike?' to some of the men who came off the push bike after being stunned by the shocks. On one occasion, a man went straight over the handlebars and landed in shrubbery next to a tree after being shocked. Another piece of footage shows a man skidding off the bike and landing on the pavement. In another scene, a man looks stunned after falling off the bike only for the brothers to ask: Did you try stealing a bike? Did you try stealing a bike buddy, huh?' The man then runs off, with one of the brothers saying: 'I think hes embarrassed.' When an unknowing member of the public picked up the bike and tried to make-off with it, the brothers using a handheld button allowed the shock devices to release small charges. Pictured: A man falls off the bike after being shocked, while the inset shows the device used by the brothers to instigate the electric charges A man ponders why and how the bike was able to release an electric charge after it picked it up in Hollywood The prank was conducted by twin brothers Jeremy and Jason Holden (pictured above) from TwinsTV network Posting the footage on YouTube channel TwinsTV, the brothers said the prank would form part of an upcoming film they plan to release. The brothers, joined by friends, are known across the US for playing large-scale pranks on unwitting members of the public. While their pranks are usually taken in good faith, the brothers did find themselves hauled before the authorities in summer 2014 and charged with misdemeanour disorderly conduct. The twins, who were 25 at the time, were charged after staging the fake kidnapping of their four-year-old nephew at a park in Sequim, Washington. They said they were making a video to promote child abduction awareness, and later posted the film on YouTube. Posting the footage on YouTube channel TwinsTV, the brothers said the prank would form part of an upcoming film they plan to release. Pictured: A man crashes into shrubbery and a tree after being shocked by the charge A man is seen trying to get to his feet after falling off the bike onto the road after being shocked in the prank A man hits the deck by a tree after falling off the bike when small electric shocks cause him to lose balance The men were aware that unknowing onlookers might take the scene in the wrong way, so they prepared by calling police to warn them that they were filming a video to promote 'kidnapping awareness'. But authorities said they did not consider the phone call sufficient warning. The video shows the men donning masks as they drive towards the park while heavy guitar music plays. They pull alongside the park as the boy sits on the bench before one jumps out, runs towards him and picks him up - before returning to the van just seconds later. Panicked parents scream and run after the boy as they frantically try to take note of the van's license plate number. Afterwards they returned to the park to explain to the worried parents what they had been doing and to assure them the boy was safe - but they were met with anger. One of the brothers is seen pressing a button to release the charge remotely as a man makes off with the bike A bemused member of the public questions why he was targeted in the prank by the brothers in Hollywood An Indian man who lives in Melbourne fears he will not be able to returned to Australia to his pregnant wife and child if he leaves the country to take his dead father's body back to India. Jaspal Singh, 26, hopes to travel back to India for his father's funeral after Gurdyal Singh died of a suspected heart attack as he arrived in Australia at Melbourne Airport to visit his son, the ABC reported. Mr Singh has a bridging visa that does not allow him to travel and he hopes Immigration Minister Peter Dutton will grant him another that will permit him to leave the country for the burial. Jaspal Singh, 26, hopes to travel back to India for his father's funeral after Gurdyal Singh died of a suspected heart attack as he arrived in Australia at Melbourne Airport to visit his son The 26-year-old lived in Australia for three weeks in 2013 with an expired visa after he separated from his former partner. He and his new wife, Mandeep Kaur, have applied for a spousal visa with his wife to stay in Australia and as Mr Dutton considers the matter Mr Singh was given the bridging visa. The couple are expecting their second child later this year and their first child suffers from kidney issues that requires him to visit the doctor regularly. Ms Kaur has pleaded with Mr Dutton to let him re-enter the country if he does travel to India. But the bridging visa he currently is on does not allow him to travel so he may not be able to enter the country. Mr Singh hopes Immigration Minister Peter Dutton will grant him another visa that will let him leave 'We're all very upset, all the family, me, my mother-in-law, Jaspal,' the distressed mother told the ABC. 'I just want to impress on the Minister, please, as a human, please think about the matter.' Mr Singh's immigration lawyer, Siran Nyabally, told Daily Mail Australia her client and his wife were 'really distraught' over the matter. 'Obviously Jaspal has been in the visa limbo for the past couple of years now,' she said. 'In particular, his wife is upset about the needs of her young son's problem with his kidney as well as potential with risks of her pregnancy as she has previously suffered a miscarriage. 'It's a time of high stress not just because of the uncertainty [of the visa] but her well-being as well.' Families are being short-changed by almost 3billion a year because energy companies have failed to pass on a huge fall in the prices they pay. The wholesale cost of gas is down by 51 per cent since the end of 2013 and electricity by 33 per cent, according to Energyhelpline.com. However, only a tiny fraction of this has been passed on to families, leaving many pensioners worried about the cost of heat and light this winter with temperatures due to plummet over the next few weeks. As temperatures plummet, many pensioners have been left concerned about the cost of heat and light this winter - but Energyhelpline said energy giants could help cut household bills by almost 175 a year Energyhelpline said energy giants have scope to cut every household bills by almost 175 a year a total of almost 3billion. The major suppliers British Gas, SSE, Npower, E.ON, EDF and Scottish Power have introduced cheaper fixed rate tariffs in the past year. However, nearly two-thirds of households are signed up to standard variable rate tariffs, which have remained high. Last year the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) accused the big suppliers of effectively overcharging millions of customers on these tariffs by 1.2billion over five years. It has promised action, which could involve capping the standard tariffs while taking other measures to increase competition and encourage people to shop around. However, the energy companies are continuing to impose rip-off bills. AS CUSTOMERS LOSE OUT, BOSSES EARN MILLIONS Bosses at Britains biggest energy companies earned up to 12million last year. Iain Conn, boss of Centrica, which owns British Gas, was on a basic salary of 1.3million, rising to 3.8million if his performance was on target and up to 6.3million if he exceeded those targets. Alistair Phillips-Davies, chief executive of SSE, earned 3.7million last year, 831,000 of it in basic salary and benefits. Vincent de Rivaz, boss of EDF Energy, earned 1.1million last year, which included his 360,000 salary and a 150,000 expatriate award. Tony Cocker, UK chief of E.ON, was paid 908,000 last year. In 2014 he earned a bonus despite the firm being caught up in a mis-selling scandal. Neil Clitheroe, boss of Spanish-owned Scottish Power, earned 402,000 before bonuses. Paul Coffey: It is not clear how much Npowers new boss is on. His predecessor Paul Massara is believed to have earned 631,000 a year. Advertisement Tens of thousands of sick and elderly people died last winter from illnesses such as flu made worse by the cold, while energy firms cashed in with sky-high tariffs. Official figures showed there were 43,900 excess winter deaths last year, the highest for 15 years. Energy Secretary Amber Rudd has written to the suppliers several times calling on them to cut tariffs, but her appeals have been ignored. Energyhelpline co-founder Mark Todd said: Energy companies could be doing much more to slash prices for consumers. Over the last two years, wholesale prices have come down. 'This could have been passed through as price cuts of around 25 per cent on gas and 11 per cent on electricity, yet all loyal customers have seen is an average of 5 per cent off gas bills and nothing off electricity bills. Its an absolute scandal that larger price cuts have not been passed on. Standard tariff customers are getting ripped off. Industry analyst ICIS says the wholesale price of gas is at its lowest for six years. It fell 34 per cent in the past year alone while electricity was down by 23 per cent. Zoe Double, head of power at ICIS, said wholesale prices are set to remain low for several years. Labours Lisa Nandy said: There could be no clearer evidence of why the energy market is broken and needs to be overhauled. Lawrence Slade, chief executive of industry body Energy UK, said: Energy companies are bringing down their prices, with cheaper tariffs launched almost every week. 'Since January 2014 the cheapest tariffs have fallen by around 200. Wholesale prices make up less than half of the average bill. A masked burglar struck at one of Britains most famous stately homes, tying up the aristocratic owners and forcing them to open a safe full of valuable antique jewellery. The robber, possibly part of a gang, hit the Earl of March with a blunt instrument before escaping with loot worth some 700,000, including a ring Charles II gave to a favourite mistress who was an ancestor of the earl. Lord March and his wife remained tied up until the morning, when a member of staff arrived for work. The couple have been left devastated by the attack and theft. The theft of the 'treasured items' has left the victims, Lord and Lady March, 'devastated'. Pictured: Lord and Lady March enjoying The Cartier Style and Luxury lunch at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2014 (left) and with Hollywood star Tom Cruise (right) Police are now working with dealers and those with specialist knowledge to try and trace the goods. A 400,000 tiara was also stolen (pictured) Historic items including an emerald and diamond ring gifted to the mistress of Charles II (pictured) were among the heirlooms taken in the raid on the stately home The raid took place at Goodwood House in West Sussex, which is famous for its horse racing meetings and the Goodwood motoring festival. Police said yesterday that the burglary of the Grade I listed building, which began life as a 17th century hunting lodge, took place at 4.30am on Wednesday, and appealed for anyone with any information to come forward. Sussex Polices district commander for Chichester and Arun, Justin Burtenshaw, said a man believed to have been wearing a full-face balaclava used a ladder to break in through a first floor window. The noise of the break-in woke Lady March, 54, who went to investigate and ended up running into the robber outside her door. The intruder then pushed her back into her bedroom and when Lord March, 61, stepped forward to help her, the burglar hit him on the head with a blunt instrument, causing an injury to his ear. The criminal then forced Lady March to open the safe and left the property with his haul. It is not known whether he was working with accomplices. Along with the historic ring, he escaped with 40 antique items including an 1820 diamond tiara worth around 400,000 and a 19th century diamond necklace worth 200,000. Several high-value watches, including a Rolex and Girard-Perregaux, were also taken, along with emerald, diamond and sapphire rings, earrings, bracelets and necklaces. Police inquiries will focus on whether the crime was planned during a visit to a part of the house sometimes open to the public and whether the burglar was targeting particular items of high value. Mr Burtenshaw said: Lord and Lady March were discovered by a member of staff who contacted the police. This was a terrifying ordeal for them and I would like to pay tribute to the courage of them both. A 26-year-old man has been arrested in relation to the incident. More than 40 items were stolen including emerald, diamond and sapphire rings, earrings, bracelets and necklaces as well as antique Rolex and Girard Perregaux watches Police are investigating the break-in which happened in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Goodwood House (pictured) has been home to the Dukes of Richmond for some 300 years, and lies within the 12,000 acre Goodwood Estate in West Sussex Lord and Lady March are understood to have been left tied up for about two hours before they were found and the police were called. Last night father-of-five Lord March otherwise known as Charles Gordon-Lennox, Earl of March and Kinrara said: The last 48 hours have been challenging and I would like to thank Sussex Police, my team here at Goodwood and the local and national Press for their support. I am pleased to tell you that we are both recovering and entirely focused on providing the police with anything that may help recover the stolen items, some of which have such personal significance and others such historical value. It is not known if the family seat has ever experienced such a high-value burglary before. Detective Inspector Till Sanderson said: The theft of these beautiful and treasured items has left Lord and Lady March devastated at their loss. Forensic teams are working with detectives to investigate the circumstances and we are appealing for anyone who saw any suspicious activity during that night up until 7am or in the previous days to contact us. 'We are doing all we can try to trace the stolen treasures, liaising with auction houses, stately homes, dealers and those with specialist knowledge. I appeal to anyone who may know anything to contact detectives. Sussex Police arrested a 26-year-old man from Hampshire in relation to the incident. He was last night released on bail pending further inquiries. The stately home: Lord March - the Earl of March and Kinrara - pictured with his wife in the grand house in the early 1990s The Goodwood Estate: Lord March took over the management of the 12,000-acre estate from his father, the Duke of Richmond Treasures of dynasty descended from kings mistress To its owners, it is not so much a ring as the crown jewel which founded an entire dynasty. Other pieces in this historic collection glittered before the Duke of Wellington on the eve of Waterloo. And now a major police hunt is under way following the violent theft of dozens of heirlooms from a family which has been at the forefront of national life for more than three centuries. Starting with Charles Lennox, illegitimate son of Charles II and his French mistress Louise de Keroualle, this family would go on to acquire four dukedoms and a famous Sussex pile, along with Britains prettiest racecourse and a motor racing circuit in its 12,000-acre grounds. The Dukes of Richmond, Lennox, Gordon and Aubigny have produced Cabinet ministers, generals, ambassadors, wastrels and war heroes. One codified the game of cricket while another is part of foxhunting folklore (the fox had its revenge when the 4th duke was bitten by a pet fox in Canada and died of rabies). Their duchesses have been similarly illustrious, notably the wife of the 4th duke who staged one of the greatest parties in history. In June 1815, the Allies danced the night away at the Duchess of Richmonds Ball in Brussels while Napoleon prepared for battle. The family story is told through the paintings, sculptures and jewels which draw thousands to Goodwood House each year. But in the early hours of Wednesday an intruder escaped with several treasures after assaulting the current heir to the dukedom, the Earl of March, and forcing his wife to open a safe. While police have put a value of 700,000 on the haul, one can only guess what an open auction would get for a piece like the CL ring which Charles II presented to Louise. The C is for Charles, the L is for Louise and it is integral to the whole history of Goodwood, explains a spokesman for the estate. SO precious is the ring that it has seldom been on display and was last seen in public when Downton Abbeys creator, Julian [Lord] Fellowes, was allowed to try it on while filming an ITV series on stately homes. Charles II also gave Louise the title of Duchess of Portsmouth, and her descendants include the Duchess of Cornwall, and Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York. Despite her royal affair, Louise herself descended from a line of nobles lived her final years struggling with multiple debts. She left the ring to her son, Charles (named after his father the king) and it has gone down the male line ever since. The boy started life with the ancient Stuart surname of Lennox. At the age three, his father gave him the title of Duke of Richmond, along with Richmond Castle in Yorkshire. A year later, he was given the Scottish dukedom of Lennox. By way of income, he also received 12p for every cauldron of coal shipped on the Tyne at Newcastle. In due course, he would acquire Goodwood, a Jacobean house in Sussex for use as a hunting lodge. His son, the 2nd duke, introduced cricket there, along with the first set of written rules. But it was the 3rd duke, founder of the Royal Ordnance Survey, who would stage the first horse race there and transform the house with two vast Regency wings at ruinous expense. As a result, the 4th duke spent much of his life abroad, avoiding his creditors. But his marriage to a future heiress would be a blessing for the 5th duke, who would serve at Waterloo and become ADC to Queen Victoria. During her reign, Goodwood became embedded in the social calendar as the Prince of Wales descended each summer for the horse races, accompanied by a mistress or two and an ever-changing selection of hats. Thanks to him, the white top hat and the panama both entered polite society on the lawns of Goodwood. One heir to the dukedom was killed by the Bolsheviks while another was crippled by polio. It was the 9th duke, a trained car mechanic and mad keen racing driver, who established Goodwoods connection with motor racing. Having served with the RAF during the Second World War, in 1948 he created the Goodwood Motor Circuit on the estates wartime airfield. The track closed down in 1966 and the 10th and current duke and his wife chose to focus on historic house preservation and horses. FOLLOWING their retirement to an estate house in 1994, the estate has been run by his son, the Earl of March, a former advertising photographer, and his wife, former fashion designer Janet Astor, who is daughter of the 3rd Viscount Astor. The earl is the president of the British Automobile Racing Club, patron of the TT Riders Association, and president of the Motor Racing Cycle Industry Association. On his watch, Goodwood has revived its great engineering legacy, reopened the circuit and gone on to become a centre of historic motoring and aviation. Rolls-Royce has a plant on the edge of the estate. Hundreds of thousands of visitors attend annual events such as the Festival of Speed and the Goodwood Revival, while four-legged racing also remains as popular as ever. And it all started with that ring. No wonder the family are so keen to get it back. Predator: Anton Alexande Martynenko, 32, will spend at least 15 years on child porn charges A Minnesota man will spent at least 15 years in prison for enticing over 100 teenage boys to send him nude photos of themselves by posing online as a young woman. Anton Alexander Martynenko, 32, has pleaded guilty to three child pornography counts - production, distribution and advertising - after victimizing at least 178 high school boys all over the country. Prosecutors said that Martynenko first started preying on boys in 2011, approaching them on social media and identifying himself under aliases such as 'Marie Anna' and 'Courtney Jansgen'. He claimed to be a young woman who had just moved to Minnesota from Illinois and needed friends,The Star Tribune reported. Other aliases claimed that he worked for a nude modeling agency, or that he was a college student at the University of Minnesota Martynenko would send nude photos of the women he was claiming to be in an effort to get his victims to send photos back. Prosecutors said Martynenko also performed sex acts on two of his victims after separately convincing them to come to his house. The 32-year-old Minnesota man (not pictured) admitted to posing as women online to coerce boys under the age of 18 into sending him nude photos of themselves Martynenko told one of the boys that he would be able to have sex with the woman he was posing to be if the teen allowed Martynenko to perform a sex act. In another case, Martynenko threatened to publicly release nude images of one boy if he didn't comply. Investigators searched Martynenko's home in Eagan in Odcotber and seized numerous electronic devices, including a thumb drive that contained folders of nude images and videos that were organized by name and age. Some of the folders named the victims' high schools, according to court documents. Matynenko was then arrested on November 20. He was initially charged with production, advertising, receipt and possession of child pornography. By agreeing to a plea deal, prosecutors did not press ahead with criminal sexual conduct charges. Martykenko still faces up to 80 years in prison - 15 of which are mandatory. Assistant U.S. Attorney Carol Kayser said it was a rare case because of the number of victims involved. She said that most cases involved between two and six victims - not 178. 'People don't think boys can be victimized,' Kayser said. There is still a responsibility on the part of the Government to ensure everybody knows and understands what to expect from the state pension' says Tom McPhail, of stockbrokers Hargreaves Lansdown (pictured) Just half of people retiring in the next five years will get the full state pension, Government figures revealed yesterday on Thursday. Thousands of retirees will miss out on the new flat rate pension of 155.65 a week despite promises the new system would be fairer. Campaigners have accused Ministers of misleading people into believing they would be better off under the new system, despite yesterdays figures revealing around one in five people reaching state pension age this year will be worse off. They have blamed the Governments poor communication for leaving thousands baffled about how much they will really receive. Under the current system, everyone reaching state pension age qualifies for the basic state pension of 115.95 a week provided they have 30 full years of National Insurance contributions. They could also gain extra state pension depending on their earnings, but some opted out of this known as contracting out and paid lower National Insurance contributions instead. The new system, which will launch in April, means anyone who has contracted out at some stage in their career will receive a deduction from new flat rate. It is also only possible to receive the full rate after making 35 years of full National Insurance contributions. Earlier this week MPs criticised the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for bungling its attempts to communicate how much state pension people would be entitled to under the new system and when they would receive it. Millions will get less than the full state pension and communication needs to be of the first order so there are no nasty surprises Tom McPhail, of stockbrokers Hargreaves Lansdown Alan Higham, of retirement advice website Pensions Champ, said the DWPs puzzling information had left retirees with mistaken expectations about how much they would get. He added: Sadly, people have been misled into thinking (the new flat rate) is a rise in their basic state pension. Many do feel short changed when they realise they dont qualify for the full amount because they were contracted out of the state second tier pension in the past. Tom McPhail, of stockbrokers Hargreaves Lansdown, added: There is still a responsibility on the part of the Government to ensure everybody knows and understands what to expect from the state pension. The majority of people now in their 60s and 50s the babyboomer generation - will be better off under the new system to the tune of between 7 and 13 a week on average Millions will get less than the full state pension and communication needs to be of the first order so there are no nasty surprises. Although the effects of contracting out will even out within the next 20 years, the new state pension will also leave millions of younger workers worse off in retirement. The majority of people now in their 60s and 50s the babyboomer generation - will be better off under the new system to the tune of between 7 and 13 a week on average. But their children, now in their 20s, 30s and 40s, are more likely than not to be worse off by between 11 and 15 a week when they retire than they would have been under the current system. The disparity grows as the population ages, with three-quarters of people now in their 20s expected to be worse off when they reach state pension age, than under the current system. Experts warned this would add to growing tensions between generations. 'Huge efforts have been put into reforming the mind-blowingly complicated state pension system that exists today into something that, over time, will be clearer for everybody' says Pensions minister Baroness Altmann (pict David Finch, of the Resolution Foundation, said: Front-loading the main benefits to baby-boomers will leave younger generations who are already having to wait longer to retire worse off. The risk is this will exacerbate the big generational divide that already exists in private pension provision. Ashley Seager, co-founder of the Intergenerational Foundation, said the bleak future for todays younger generation was alarming, adding: We are creating a two tier society where the important distinction is no longer between rich and poor but between wealthy old and poorer young. Mr McPhail said the new system assumed more people would be saving into private pension schemes instead of relying on the state. More than five million people have already been automatically enrolled into workplace pensions as the Government rolls out its plan to encourage workers to save for retirement. The DWP said the new system will also help to smooth out gender inequalities. Pensions minister Baroness Altmann said: Huge efforts have been put into reforming the mind-blowingly complicated state pension system that exists today into something that, over time, will be clearer for everybody. Ex-ABC journalist Nick Ross has claimed he was 'gagged' from reporting on the National Broadband Network and forced to write 'bull****' articles A former ABC editor has claimed he was 'gagged' from reporting on the National Broadband Network and forced to write 'bull****' articles. Veteran reporter Nick Ross, who edited the ABC's Technology and Games forum, hit out at his former employer in a series of allegations on Twitter, saying he was 'thrown under a bus'. He was disciplined by the broadcaster's management in March 2013 for failing to meet its 'standards of objective journalism' after writing a series of favourable articles about the NBN. After handing in his resignation, Mr Ross tweeted: 'Mixed emotions here: I've left the ABC. Some stuff still falling out but hey, I can potentially write about #NBN again(!).' When asked by a Twitter user whether he was 'gagged', Mr Ross replied saying: 'Yes'. The journalist said he had been planning to expose the state-owned and nationally-funded public broadcaster for a while and for 'many reasons.' 'It's in the public interest after all. But would need to be done properly,' he said as part of a Twitter Q&A. 'I've documented everything and l saw what was happening three years ago. Might be able to afford change but don't bet.' The ABC has denied gagging the journalist, saying the broadcaster covers all issues of public importance 'thoroughly and independently'. Mr Ross stressed the fact that Australia needs a 'strong ABC' and he said that he cares deeply about the broadcaster and its well-being. Mr Ross, who edited the ABC's Technology and Games forum, hit out at his former employer in a series of allegations on Twitter He was disciplined by the broadcaster's management in March 2013 for failing to meet its 'standards of objective journalism' after writing a series of favourable articles about the NBN But he claimed that the pressure is 'horrible' even saying that his health had been put at risk. 'The 'support' structure isn't independent. Who do u go to anyway? Just look disgruntled,' he tweeted. 'I have been stressed (and more) over this for three years now and hopefully can push on to full recovery now. 'I have been very proactive about my healthcare throughout. But I don't want any other ABC journos put through that. 'We've lost over 25 Aussie tech journalists in the past year alone. Many not replaced.' He claimed that many of the junior reporters were pressured into producing a high number of stories each day. 'Many (usually junior) journos tasked with getting x number of stories out per day and then judged on traffic. Inevitable result.' Mr Ross came under heavy fire from other media outlets and political figures in 2013 for publishing a number of articles which were heavily critical of the Coalition's rival NBN policy. The alternative to Labor's flagship NBN project was developed by then-Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull. He was disciplined, with one ABC spokesman saying he had 'been reminded of the need to ensure that his work in this area is in keeping with ABC policies'. In response to the most recent allegations, the ABC said the public broadcaster 'does not 'gag' the coverage of any issues or topics of public importance'. 'As our record makes clear, the ABC covers all issues of public importance thoroughly and independently,' the spokesman said. A Queensland woman has been left missing most of her memory after a horror accident left her with brain damage and internal bleeding. Jodie Jackson, 43, and her husband Steve were hit by a garbage truck two days before Christmas while on holiday in Burleigh on the Gold Coast. Mr Jackson, 49, broke both his legs and his wife Jodie remains in hospital with a fractured skull, the Gold Coast Bulletin reported. Scroll down for video Jodie Jackson, 43, and her husband Steve were hit by a garbage truck two days before Christmas The couple were on holidays in Burleigh on the Gold Coast when the horror accident took place The moment the garbage truck turned a corner as the couple crossed the street near Burleigh Beach at Queensland's Gold Coast was caught by security vision. Shocked onlookers rushed to help the couple - who were on their annual holiday from the Moreton Bay region - as did the distraught driver of the truck. For the first time since the horrific accident Mr Jackson has broken his silence, revealing his wife has not been able to speak since the accident, nor recall much of her life from before it. He said Mrs Jackson barely recognised him or their two sons, and to see his beloved wife of 15 years in such a state was heartbreaking. Mr Jackson, 49, broke both his legs, while Mrs Jackson, 43, suffered a fractured skull, brain damage and internal bleeding Mr Jackson has revealed his heartache over the fact his beloved wife has lost her memory after the crash The 49-year-old said he remembers the entire thing, but his wife can hardly recognise her own children 'I truly can't believe this happened, I just can't comprehend it,' Mr Jackson told the Gold Coast Bulletin. 'Jo doesn't remember the accident, but I do. I remember everything.' The couple have two sons: Liam, 14, who is staying with his grandparents in Brisbane, and Luke, 18, who has been caring for his parents while they've been in hospital. 'Luke has been our rock,' Mr Jackson said, adding that their eldest son had been driving hours back and forth between Brisbane and the Gold Coast every day as the family could not afford to stay there. A witness to the crash, Cory Vogt, has started a fundraiser to try and help support the Jackson family financially. A witness to the crash has started a fundraiser to try and help support the Jackson family financially Mrs Jackson is due to be released from Gold Coast University Hospital (pictured) next week Mrs Jackson is due to be released from Gold Coast University Hospital next week, but faces a long rehabilitation process. Even the Gold Coast Mayor has shown his support for the Queensland Mayor, urging people in a social media post to donate what they could to the family. 'You might remember the story of the couple (Steve and Jo) that got hit by the garbage truck in Burleigh heads on the 22nd of December,' Tom Tate wrote on Facebook. 'Cory Vogt has started a 'gofundme' page to help this couple out and I promised to promote it on my social media accounts. Police urged drivers to remain calm and are investigating both cases Another road-rage incident was caught on camera on Tuesday The 20-year-old says he made a mistake but didn't deserve the attack The victim said he 'cut off' the man before he was followed for ten minutes A petrified young Perth driver has filmed the moment an angry driver approached him at a busy intersection and tried to open his door in a shocking road rage incident. Garrett Howley, 20, was stationary at a red light on Thursday morning in Canning Vale when he noticed a man get out of his car. The footage shows the man knock on Mr Howley's window before trying to open the young motorist's door, he then kicks his wing mirror and walks away. Scroll down for video Garrett Howley was stationary at a busy intersection on Thursday morning in Canning Vale when he noticed a man get out of his car and walk over to him Mr Howley said he filmed the incident because he was terrified that he would be assaulted by the man. 'I was scared because obviously I'm not a very big person and I can't fight, so if he was able to open my door, I don't know what he would have done,' Mr Howley told 7News. The young driver said he accidentally cut the driver off before the man followed him for up to ten minutes and approached him at the red-light intersection. The man knocks on his window before trying to open the young motorist's door, he then kicks his wing mirror and walks away Road rage: Mr Howley said he filmed the incident because he was terrified that he would be assaulted by the man Canning Vale: The 20-year-old victim of the road rage attack said he started filming when the man approached his car The incident comes just two days after a similar road-rage occurrence in Mandurah, south of Perth, where a man got out his car and punched and kicked another driver's door. Lock the door, lock the door, a female passenger filming the road rage incident urged as a man rushed towards them at a set of lights. Western Australian Police Commissioner has urged Perth drivers to remain calm. 'We know that Perth is more congested than it used to be, we know that it takes longer to get from one place to another, but drivers you've got to remain calm,' said Karl Callaghan. Police are investigating both road rage incidents. A February deal would see a likely referendum date in June or July A deal on Britain's relationship with the EU appeared to be edging closer today as the president of the European Commission said he is confident of striking an agreement next month. Jean Claude Juncker's remarks come as Chancellor George Osborne said the 'essential pieces' of Britain's renegotiation were falling into place. David Cameron has targeted February's EU summit to finish his talks with European leaders, opening the door for the referendum to take place in June or July. Scroll down for video Chancellor George Osborne said the 'essential pieces' of an EU deal for Britain were falling into place, following talks with German finance minister Wolfgang Shauble on a visit to Berlin yesterday, pictured, alongside his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron At a press conference in Brussels today, Mr Juncker said the issues involved remained 'very difficult'. But he said: 'I'm quite sure that we will have a deal, not a compromise, a solution, not a weak compromise, a permanent solution in February.' A Downing Street spokesman said: 'We have always said that we will be driven by substance, rather than schedule. 'Clearly, if we can get the deal done in February, then that will be good progress. 'But, ultimately, the most important thing is getting the renegotiations done and getting the best possible deal and bringing that back for the British people.' The key sticking point in the talks has been Mr Cameron's demand that new migrants to Britain should be stopped from claiming benefits for four years. Sources have told the Daily Mail Germany has offered an alternative deal where only workers earning a certain amount would be eligible for benefits. The policy would stop workers arriving for minimum wage jobs topping up their income with benefits - but the idea would extend to British workers as well to resolve EU worries about discrimination within Europe's system of free movement. Speaking after a visit to Berlin with his counterpart Wolfgang Shauble, Mr Osborne said a deal was coming together. He told BBC Newsnight: 'Our focus, our efforts, are on making sure that we achieve a successful renegotiation and I see, not just here in Germany, but in France, other key member states in the European Commission, a consensus emerging that Britain has made a perfectly reasonable case for change, that this new settlement we're offering is not just better for Britain, but potentially better for the rest of Europe as well. 'So I am optimistic. 'Just a few weeks before a crucial European Council where we're going make these decisions ... I see the essential pieces of the deal falling into place.' Mr Osborne said he considered himself a Eurosceptic but it was 'perfectly respectable' to have criticisms and still campaign to stay in a reformed EU. European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker, pictured right in Berlin yesterday, said today he was 'quiet sure' a deal with Britain could be struck at next month's EU summit. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, has reportedly tabled an alternative to David Cameron's demand to ban new migrants from claiming in work benefits 'I'm a Eurosceptic like many of my Conservative colleagues because I've been concerned about some of the things that have happened in the European Union, that's why I want to make those changes,' he said. 'It's a perfectly respectable position to say, let's seek those changes, let's achieve those changes, let's have that new settlement, and then we can have the best of both worlds. 'We can be in the European Union, but not run by the European Union, to use an old and very apt slogan. Mr Osborne said a majority of Britons wanted to stay in Europe, adding: 'There are some people in Britain who definitely want to leave the European Union and some people who definitely want to remain. 'But I think the majority want to stay in a reformed European Union and that's why this renegotiation matters. 'It offers the chance of a new settlement between Britain and Europe, where we're not part of ever closer union, where the Eurozone can't impose changes on us, they need our consent, and I think if we achieve that new settlement, then we will finally have put at ease that often fractious relationship between Britain and Europe.' The Chancellor's strident intervention came amid increasing signs the In campaign has persuaded Michael Gove to join them. Number Ten had been worried Mr Gove could become an articulate voice for Britain walking away from the EU, but Government insiders believe they now have the Justice Secretary 'on side'. Mr Osborne visited Berlin where he is helping to thrash out a deal with Brussels that would exempt Britain from making future bailouts to eurozone countries Mr Osborne waded into the already heated debate during a visit to Berlin, where he is helping to thrash out a deal with Brussels that would exempt Britain from making future bailouts to eurozone countries. This is despite the fact a series of opinion polls have shown the contest is tightening and almost tied. Mr Osborne also squashed the idea that Britain could hold two referendums an out vote to convince Brussels of the need to take part in serious negotiations, followed by a second contest once proper concessions have been offered. He said: 'There's no second vote. This is the vote bit, this is the crucial decision of our lifetimes. 'I think anyone who votes out on the assumption that a year or two later you can have another vote to vote back in I think is being unrealistic about the nature of the choice. 'I think it's really important that the British people focus on the fact this is the once in a life time decision.' Mr Osborne also appeared to criticise the out campaign for failing to explain what Brexit would look like. He said: 'There are people advocating that we leave in that referendum. They are going to have to answer the question what is the alternative, are we going to have free movement of people, are we going to have to pay into the European budget in order to have access to their market in any way.' His comments follow remarks by the leader of the Commons, Chris Grayling, who said remaining in the EU under the UK's current membership terms would be 'disastrous'. Number Ten said it was 'very relaxed' by his intervention. He is expected to be at the forefront of the campaign to leave but stopped short of advocating withdrawal yesterday. Yesterday, Nicky Morgan became the latest cabinet Minister to declare that she would be voting to stay in alongside the PM. The Education Secretary told House magazine: 'We do need to have a new relationship with the EU and I am expecting that the Prime Minister will be successful and I will be expecting to campaign to stay in. 'I think we are grown-ups and all perfectly capable of putting forward our views, but I think we have got such an important domestic agenda and we are all very united and focused on that too. 'The Parliamentary party is in good spirits. Look, we have got one party that is falling apart at the moment. I don't think British politics will wear another one.' Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, Environment Secretary Liz Truss and Energy Secretary Amber Rudd have all dropped heavy hints they also plan to campaign for In. Friends of Business Secretary Sajid Javid an avowed Eurosceptic - last night insisted he was yet to make up his mind on how he will campaign. They dismissed suggestions that he had struck a deal with his ally George Osborne to 'dissent' during the referendum, by arguing on behalf of Leave. The leave camp has all but given up hope of London Mayor Boris Boris Johnson leading their campaign. Despite flirting with Brexit, he is said to have told friends that he is 'not an outer'. The chances of Home Secretary Theresa May seizing the chance to lead the Out campaigner are also fading, MPs believe. Friends say she will not make a decision until the last moment but one said: 'Theresa is not instinctively somebody who wants to leave things'. Last night, a spokesman for Mr Gove said: 'Michael's position has not changed he supports the Prime Minister's strategy to renegotiate our relationship with the European Union. 'As he said last month, it would be premature for anyone to make a judgement before the deal is concluded. Like the Prime Minister, he has not ruled anything out.' History: The poll reveals the majority oppose calls to remove the memorial to the politician Cecil Rhodes Oxford students want a statue of Cecil Rhodes to remain at Oriel College despite a controversial campaign to tear it down over claims it is racist. The majority oppose calls to remove the memorial to the 19th Century politician, who left vast sums to the university on his death. A survey of almost 1,000 students by university newspaper Cherwell found 54 per cent want the statue to remain, compared with just 37 per cent who want it removed and 9 per cent who are unsure. Of those studying at Oriel traditionally known as a conservative college only 15 per cent agreed that it should be torn down. The poll comes after the college was accused of being spineless for agreeing to hold a consultation on the future of the statue, which is more than 100 years old. Campaigners claim that making ethnic minority students walk past the statue amounts to violence because of Rhodes role in the colonisation of Africa. However, Oxford Chancellor Lord Patten dismissed this on Wednesday, calling on the activists to embrace a generosity of spirit towards history. One respondent to the Cherwell poll said: The same logic to removing the Statue of Rhodes would mean that we should demolish Auschwitz. 'How can we learn from the past whilst pretending it didnt happen? Another wrote: It is important to recognise our own past. By removing the statue, we allow the possibility for these things to happen again. We shouldnt just cover up the history that we are ashamed of. A third added: I dont see what gives us the right to rewrite history. The survey was conducted online through private Facebook pages run by student union representatives for each college. A total of 967 students responded, representing around 5 per cent of the student population. Among black and minority ethnic (BME) students, more respondents thought that Oriel should remove the statue than leave it standing. The poll found 48 per cent wanted the statue removed, 45 per cent disagreed, and seven per cent said I dont know. However, the majority of BME students - 51 per cent said that the removal of Rhodes statue would not affect their personal experience of Oxford University. One student told the survey: I am a BME student who sincerely believes that this the movement to remove the statue of Mr Rhodes is fundamentally against the principles of democracy, free speech and the respect of ones history. I believe that the students who call for the toppling of the statue are only caring about their own egos. Campaign: Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh (pictured) is a founding member of 'Rhodes Must Fall', the group behind the campaign to have the statue removed Another said: Of course, Oxford should not condone Rhodes actions. But the removal of this statue says nothing and does nothing to help BME students. A third added: Bigger issues with racism at Oxford than a stupid statue. Rhodes Must Fall, the group behind the campaign to have the statue removed, includes a student who has himself benefitted from a Rhodes scholarship. Cherwells survey also found that 55 per cent of students regard the campaign as having had a very or moderately negative impact on the reputation of the University. The movement appears to divide opinion among BME students, with 45 per cent viewing the movement favourably and 42 per cent viewing it unfavourably. Responding to the survey, Oriel told Cherwell: The College will take into account all viewpoints presented in the debate about the Rhodes statue. All information we receive will feed into the planned listening exercise and further details of this will follow in due course. Yesterday, Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, a PhD student in International Relations at the university and a leader of the campaign, said Oxford was institutionally racist. He told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: Its had throughout its history significant biases against black people. The fact that the statue is up there is an indication that not everything is fair now. Britain has a new human right, granted to us by the judges of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. As of this week, restrictions that affect the behaviour of millions of Britons have been swept away. This new right is nothing to celebrate, however. As the Daily Mail reported yesterday, British bosses have just been given the freedom to spy on their employees emails. Many of them do this already, but now they neednt feel embarrassed by their snooping or bother denying that they routinely scan the personal messages sent from company phones or computers. British bosses have just been given the freedom to spy on their employees emails (file picture posed by models) We havent been given the full details of the case that led to this verdict by the seven European judges, only one of whom broke ranks to dissent from it. But what we do know should send shivers up the spine of anyone sitting in one of those ergonomic chairs favoured by control-freak bosses. An unnamed Romanian engineer was using a Yahoo Messenger account given to him by his company for work purposes. He thought his messages were private, and used it to talk to his fiancee and his brother about very intimate matters relating to his sexual health. Big mistake. The firm gained access to his password, possibly by employing sneaky keystroke-logging technology. It then printed out 45 pages of his correspondence, sharing it with workmates who had discussed it publicly. The engineer, a man in his mid-30s, not unreasonably thought his employer had breached article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, granting him a right to a private life. . . and correspondence. As of this week, we know that no such right exists if you are using computers, email or even social media accounts that your bosses think relate to professional activities. If this news makes you worry about private messages that youve sent using an email address or a smartphone belonging to your employers well, Im afraid youre right to worry. You may even experience a moment of panic, depending on just how indiscreet youve been. I should confess right away that Ive felt that stab of panic many times. I only learned to censor my private messages after one of my bosses told me: You have no idea how easy it is for me poke around inside your accounts. Over the past couple of years, Ive noticed how paranoid my friends have become about which email address theyre using. Dont reply to the work one, you moron! exclaimed one the other day even though what we were discussing wasnt naughty and was absolutely none of his bosses business. Admittedly, lots of my friends work in the media and are super-sensitive to both the power of rumour and the possibility of information leaking. Theyve been taking precautions for years. But I suspect most British office workers are less vigilant. Theyre as oblivious to the danger as that Romanian engineer. Many of them trust their bosses not to snoop on them and, indeed, Im not suggesting that the majority of UK firms gaze through digital letterboxes into the private lives of their staff. Not yet, anyway. Technology and the pressures of globalisation are plunging employers and employees into an environment in which its difficult to achieve a work-life balance, because no one is sure where work ends and life begins. Were working longer hours, maybe even across international time zones. As a result, many people are being bothered by work on their days off and weekends. I see it everywhere. For example, mothers with small children dumping their shopping bags in the supermarket aisle when their mobile goes off, rolling their eyes as they help their boss book a plane ticket online. A few companies refuse to contact employees when theyre out of the office even when theres a crisis. That can also be a maddening situation. You cant win but the quid pro quo is that workers have taken it for granted that they can check their supposedly private email and Facebook messages during office hours. Its a compromise solution that has worked perfectly well in thousands of offices. But, even before this weeks intrusive ruling from Strasbourg, the balance of power was shifting in favour of the highly paid eavesdroppers in the executive suites. Employees who flagrantly abuse the system stick out a mile in open-plan offices. The desk manager who spends more time updating her Facebook than processing invoices will soon attract whispered resentment from her workmates. Endless personal emails are more difficult to spot but most of us have a pretty good idea who the guilty parties are, even if were too easy-going to make a fuss. The judgment by the European Court of Human Rights (pictured) centred on the case of a Romanian engineer In contrast, we cant see Human Resources hacking into our correspondence though HR people would be quick to point out it isnt technically hacking, because staff signed away their privacy when they took possession of an official email address or company iPhone. How many of us read the fine print of these agreements? Not many, I suspect. And even fewer guess that an apparently independent messenger service might not be independent at all. Big corporations are well aware of the possibilities of digital snooping, however. And theyre getting better at it, just as anonymous hackers and governments are discovering ever more ingenious routes into private communications. I emphasise big corporations, because theyve embraced a workplace ethos that is engineered to appear benign and enlightened but, put under the microscope, is disturbingly similar to the worldview of a totalitarian cult. By totalitarian, I dont mean Nazi or Stalinist. The word refers to a desire to control every aspect of peoples lives, including their personalities. As a journalist specialising in bizarre religions, Ive visited cults ranging from apocalyptic peasants in the Peruvian jungle to the Church of Scientology. Ive also seen American-run big businesses at close quarters, and sometimes I wonder which is creepier. Business gurus have inspired CEOs to create total environments for their staff, who are expected to devote all their energies to the firms mission statement (or whatever the latest jargon dictates). Amazon, the online retail giant, is still fuming over a highly unflattering behind-the-scenes article in the New York Times. This claimed that: The internal phone directory instructs colleagues on how to send secret feedback to one anothers bosses. Employees say it is frequently used to sabotage others. Jeff Bezos, Amazons billionaire CEO, says the article bears little relation to reality. But Ive talked to many people in UK companies who complain of relentless monitoring by employers who model themselves on Silicon Valley giants. This monitoring extends to their private lives in so far as theyre allowed to have them. Significantly, when these employees use company emails, messaging systems or mobile phones, they are careful never to say anything they wouldnt want Human Resources to read. Theyre especially jumpy if they are planning to change jobs. Like religious and political cults, cutting-edge corporations are always on the lookout for potential defectors. Could this mentality spread throughout British industry? The ruling from the European Court of Human Rights makes that more likely. Incidentally, Im not at all surprised that bosses spying powers have been extended by the ECHR. The court, although not part of the European Union, shares the EUs sympathy for the politburo mentality of mega-corporations. Its the only aspect of American culture that European bigwigs dont despise. Let us be clear. This weeks ruling is a disgrace. But I dont expect the British Government to do anything about it. So, how can we protect ourselves against this digital snooping? There is a simple solution, but it will make office life even more joyless. Its not enough to restrict personal messages to private phones or password-protected social media accounts you use at your desk. That wont keep you safe from eagle-eyed busybodies peering at your screens. On Christmas Eve, when most of us were enjoying a day off, seven NHS consultants were meeting at St Georges Hospital in London to plan an operation to save my 63-year-old brothers life. Among them were specialists in bladder cancer, of which Charles has a rare and aggressive type (micropapillary carcinoma, for those of a medical bent), and experts in renal cancer, which he has, too. They decided surgery was needed, the sooner the better, to remove his bladder and left kidney, with the chance they might also have to cut out other parts of his innards if either cancer was found to have spread. Preparations: On Christmas Eve, when most of us were enjoying a day off, seven NHS consultants were meeting at St Georges Hospital (pictured) in London to plan an operation to save my 63-year-old brothers life On Wednesday this week, the day after the first emergencies only walkout by junior doctors, he was told with profuse apologies that a theatre and the team of surgeons required for his operation, expected to last at least eight hours, would not be available until Tuesday, February 9. I cant help noticing it is also the eve of the doctors threatened total stoppage, planned for Ash Wednesday, when if all goes as predicted, my brother (16 months my senior and the father of three teenagers) will be beginning two days in intensive post-operative care. Its an understatement to say Im not a bit happy about this and with as many as 100,000 patients likely to be affected if this and the strike planned for January 26 go ahead, mine is far from the only family deeply anxious about the implications for our near and dear. The fact is that I simply dont believe Dr Mark Porter, chairman of the British Medical Association council, when he protests that the first full walk-out in NHS history, by tens of thousands of staff, will not put any lives in danger. Well be calling on junior doctors not to take part in emergency care, which is a very different thing to abandoning emergency care altogether, he says. Consultants and senior doctors will still be in hospital and still working. Well, yes, Dr Porter, theyll be on duty. But theyll have to take on the juniors work on top of their own. Its an insult to the intelligence to suggest this wont endanger lives. As for those strikers who say that Tuesdays emergencies-only walkout meant nothing worse than a normal weekend service, they are surely making the Health Secretarys case for him. Though figures differ from hospital to hospital, on average patients are 15 or 16 per cent more likely to die if they are admitted at the weekend than midweek and that rises to a frightening 20 per cent for stroke victims. To me, this seems to make it a moral imperative to co-operate with the Governments plans for an NHS offering a full service round the clock, seven days a week. But whether or not anyone died or will die as a consequence of Tuesdays action, what is certain is that it meant the postponement of 4,000 operations, building up a backlog that has put acute pressure on theatre time. I cannot say if this was to blame for the latest delay in my brothers op, but it surely cant have helped. I simply dont believe him: Dr Mark Porter, chairman of the British Medical Association council, protests that the first full walk-out in NHS history, by tens of thousands of staff, will not put any lives in danger Before I go any further, I should admit I havent secured Charless permission to discuss his case with the world. But then like all my family, he is well used to my invasions of my relations privacy and since he has blogged about his condition, I hope hell forgive me. I should also make clear he has not used his blog to complain about the doctors strike, which he hasnt even mentioned, let alone to moan about his treatment. On the contrary, he has said he was writing about his cancer only because he felt it important to record his enormous gratitude to his doctors for their extraordinary dedication to my well-being, which had exceeded anything I could reasonably have expected. True, he has suffered his share of the familiar administrative shortcomings of the NHS notes going missing, appointments failing to materialise, etc. But he records how his doctors have moved heaven and earth to make up for the pen-pushers lapses. With as many as 100,000 patients likely to be affected if this and the strike planned for January 26 go ahead, mine is far from the only family deeply anxious about the implications for our near and dear One consultant deserves particular praise, he writes. On realising that I had not been given the urgent appointment he had asked for, he telephoned me at home and asked me to come in the following day, before the normal start of his over-booked clinic. Hardened cynic that I am, the thought occurred to me that Charles was getting this Rolls-Royce service because of what he does for a living. But I dismissed it immediately. For if I know my brother, who would rather die than claim preferential treatment, he will not even have told his doctors that his speciality as a barrister is medical negligence. I must say I had no such scruples during the birth of our second son, when a student midwife told her senior that she was worried about the babys heartbeat. Studying the trace from a probe attached to the unborn boys head, the older woman said: Well, it seems all right to me, but I admit it wouldnt look very good in court. At that, I attempted a light laugh and said: I hope you wont be putting any business my brothers way. And when I told her what he did, the effect was magical. Within 60 seconds, seven men and women in white coats appeared in the room a consultant paediatrician with two juniors, and a consultant obstetrician with a team of three. But as I say, Charles has never been the sort of barrister who throws his weight around (though one unfortunate product of his line of work is his detached and professional fascination with every gory detail of his forthcoming op, which he is all too ready to pass on to his more squeamish siblings!). Egregious: Lets have no more photo opportunities on the picket line for shadow chancellor John McDonnell, whose friends in the IRA (they should be honoured, he has said) have provided so much work for the NHS As he says, he has been given this treatment simply because the clinical side of the NHS is almost unequalled in the world particularly for those who are seriously ill. True, my brother may bear some responsibility, both for his condition and for the delay in getting it seen to. Like me, he has never been much of a one for following government guidelines on smoking and drinking. And like me again, he likes to think that ailments will get better of their own accord, without any need to trouble the medical profession. Indeed, after the first gruesome symptoms appeared last August, he left it for two months before visiting the surgery. And even when told he needed urgent treatment, he insisted on completing a two-week inquest before a preliminary operation, because he didnt want to let his client down. Let there be no more talk about smashing the Tories or bringing down 'the entire edifice of austerity' But if it was urgent in October, its surely much more so now. If there are any more delays or disruptions to post-operative care because of this wretched strike, I dread to think what his chances will be. So lets hear no more pious cant from Dr Porter and his colleagues at the BMA, claiming their chief motivation for the walkouts is concern over patients safety. Let there be no more talk about smashing the Tories or bringing down the entire edifice of austerity. And lets have no more photo opportunities on the picket line for the egregious shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, whose friends in the IRA (they should be honoured, he has said) have provided so much work for the NHS. Heaven knows, many of us who work anti-social hours and at weekends would prefer not to. And it must be tough to have a job from which you cant walk out without being accused of putting lives at risk. But that was part of the deal when doctors signed up to the Hippocratic oath. Id like to say Im writing on behalf of the many thousands of others who will be affected by these strikes if they go ahead. But no generalised feeling of brotherly love for mankind can ever be quite as intense as the real thing. No, the people Im thinking most about are Charles, his wife and three children. My brother is sustained in his stoicism by his firm Christian faith, which I wish I shared. But even he must agree that God will need an awful lot of help from the doctors at St Georges. A dedicated mother of four is amazed at the kindness of a person who anonymously left her money to cover a $50 parking ticket she received. Sheena Mareikura drives from Kawakawa - in the far north of New Zealand's North Island - to Auckland every weekend, a six hour return trip, so her son can practice with an elite hip hop dance crew. She had been parked at a mall in Auckland, killing time with her four-year-old daughter while she waited for her son, 13, to finish practice. Upon returning to her car, she found she had been ticketed, the New Zealand Herald reported. Ms Mareikura's parking ticket, along with the $50 note and message that an unknown person left behind But after seeing the ticket, she spotted the message, held down by her car's windscreen wiper, with a $50 note inside. Whoever left her the money wrote: 'I notice you got a parking ticket - I'm sure its the last thing you need ( Esp [sic] when your rego [sic] expires in a few days). Let this cover it. God bless! Have a great day'. Ms Mareikura said she was amazed. 'I just couldn't believe there are people out there who would be so kind and to do that for someone else,' she told the NZ Herald. In turn, she wanted to thank the kind stranger. 'I appreciate that there are people in this world who have so much love to give to others.' She said upon returning to her car and seeing the ticket, she realised she had parked in a time-restricted zone and the fine was justified. The $50 she was given had 'really helped her out'. Universities could soon be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act under a second attack on the publics right to know. Ministers in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills are consulting on whether to remove universities from the law, which obliges public bodies to respond to requests for information about their finances and how they operate. The proposal is in a consultation document on education reform and comes on top of another, hugely controversial, review of the Act ordered by the Cabinet Office. Universities which form part of the Russell Group, including Oxford, pictured, have made a submission that they should be excluded from the Freedom of Information Act claiming it would be 'too costly' to administer The Freedom of Information Act uncovered that Professor Neil Gorman of Nottingham Trent University, pictured, pocketed 623,000 in one year including 250,000 in bonuses In response to this first review, vice- chancellors claimed universities should be exempt from the Act because they are private institutions not public bodies despite receiving almost 4billion a year in taxpayers money. But the News Media Association, which represents the newspaper industry, has criticised the proposal, describing universities as precisely the kind of institution that FoI was intended to render accountable. Lucy Gill, of the NMA, said: Universities are powerful institutions that exercise important public functions. The educational responsibilities of universities are crucial to the future standing of individuals, generations and the entire nation. It comes after the Daily Mail used the Act to expose bumper cash deals for a number of university leaders. Last year the Mails Investigations Unit revealed how when he was vice-chancellor of Nottingham Trent University, Professor Neil Gorman pocketed 623,000 in one year, including 250,000 in bonuses. The highest pay deal for a university employee was given to an unnamed Oxford academic who pocketed 630,000 in a year more than four times the Prime Ministers salary. The Act has also been used to expose numerous other public sector scandals as well as wasteful spending, but it is under threat from the Government, with ministers claiming it is too costly to administer. In December, the Russell Group, which represents the 24 most prestigious universities including Oxford and Cambridge, made a submission to the Cabinet Office review claiming its members should be exempt. Although most tuition fees are funded by government-administered student loans, some of which will never be repaid in full, the group claimed this should not count as public money. It said universities are not public bodies and also complained that the cost of answering FoI queries was prohibitively high, with members spending 1.1million doing this in 2014, based on an estimate of 155 per request. Universities UK, which represents 132 vice-chancellors and principals, claimed its members spend 10million a year answering FoI requests. It stopped short of calling for a blanket exemption from the Act, but did seek significant curbs. A spokesman for the business department said: The Higher Education Green Paper consultation is not related to any other review on FoIs. The consultation seeks views on a huge range of issues to help inform the Governments higher education reforms. This includes seeking thoughts on measures to ease the regulatory burden on the sector. 'I am still doing the same jobs as I was doing before (I got married). If there is more attention being paid than there was before, then thats good,' she said of her Stepping off the red carpet and away from the arm of her movie star husband, Amal Clooney made her first US television interview on Thursday night as part of her day job as a high-powered human rights lawyer, proving that while her husband may have played Batman she is the real superhero. The 37-year-old British barrister, who is in Washington D.C. this week on a business trip, appeared on NBC News tonight to discuss the current human rights issues in the Maldives. Clooney is representing former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed, who has been sent to prison on terrorism charges by the current government. She started working on his case in September, and just days before she arrived to meet Nasheed for the first time her co-counsel on the case was stabbed in the head. She said of the incident; 'I mean, it wasn't the most comfortable position to be in, but you know, I was determined to go. It meant a lot to me to meet Nasheed, who I had read about and I considered a hero.' And for Clooney, this case is about far more than just Nasheed and the Maldives, with the esteemed barrister telling McFadden; 'U.S. values are at stake. Democracy is at stake.' Scroll down for video 'Democracy is dead in the Maldives': Amal Clooney sat down for her first US television interview on Thursday night, speaking to NBC News about her human rights work in the Maldives, for which she is in Washington DC Clooney has spent the week meeting with lawmakers to discuss issues of human rights in the Maldives, particularly the plight of her client, Mohamed Nasheed, the country's former president, who is in prison Amal Clooney walks with NBC's Cynthia McFadden in Washington D.C. this week during her interview Clooney has been joined in Washington by her co-counsel, Jared Genser (left), a veteran human-rights attorney and founder of Freedom Now Sitting down with Cynthia McFadden on the Nightly News With Lester Holt, Clooney said: 'Democracy is dead in the Maldives.' 'Literally, if there were an election now there would be no one to run against the president. Every opposition leader is either behind bars or being pursued by the government through the courts.' On Wednesday Clooney met with Senator John McCain and other lawmakers in an attempt to lobby Congress to level sanctions against the Maldives unless they release political prisoners, particularly former president Mohamed Nasheed. Clooney is representing Nasheed for free in an attempt to get him free. Nasheed has served six months of a 13-year prison sentence on a terrorism charge, in violation of international law. The charge relates to the ordering of the arrest of an allegedly corrupt judge when Nasheed was still president in 2012. Clooney said her reasoning for accepting the case was simple. 'I thought to myself - the world needs more Nasheeds,' she said. She also is hoping to make people aware of what is happening on the island, which for many in America and Europe is seen as little more than a tropical vacation destination. 'I think it's important for tourists to know the facts of what's happening in the Maldives,' said Clooney. 'I don't think people realize that there's a flogging taking place a kilometer away when they're sunbathing in their resort.' Wrongly imprisoned: Former Maldives presiden Mohamed Nasheed, who had previously been a human rights activist, has served six months of a 13-year prison sentence on a terrorism charge Hopes for Nasheed's release increased after his party and the government started negotiations in June and Nasheed's lawyers said that his sentence had been commuted to house arrest. However he was sent back to prison after eight weeks and the government said that the house arrest was only a temporary measure considering Nasheed's health. Nasheed in 2008 became the country's first democratically elected president, ending a 30-year autocratic rule. He resigned in 2012 amid weeks of public protests against the arrest of the judge and after losing support from the military and police. Nasheed lost the 2013 presidential election to President Yameen Abdul Gayyoom, a half-brother to the country's former strongman ruler. 'At the moment the Maldives has the highest rate of ISIS fighters being recruited from that country per capita in the world,' explained Clooney. 'So if you look at the State Department reports and the U.N. reports, the figures are at least 200 fighters who have gone to Iraq and Syria from the Maldives.' On Wednesday Clooney met with Senator John McCain and other lawmakers in an attempt to lobby Congress to level sanctions against the Maldives unless they release political prisoners In October, Clooney and her team won a legal victory when the United Nations' Working Group on Arbitrary Detention ruled Nasheed had been not been granted a fair trial, USA Today reported. While the highly-regarded lawyer did not talk of her husband, George Clooney, during the NBC sit-down, she did allude to the fact her newfound celebrity was helping her humanitarian work. Her and Clooney celebrated their one-year wedding anniversary in September. 'I think its lovely that celebrities would chose their time and energy and the spotlight to do something worthwhile,' she said. 'I am still doing the same jobs as I was doing before. If there is more attention being paid than there was before, then thats good.' Outside of work: Amal and George Clooney are pictured going out together for sushi in Hollywood last year. They have been married just over one year Clooney also said she has been trying to juggle her own celebrity with her career. 'I think there is a certain amount of responsibility that comes with that,' she said. 'And I think I'm exercising it in an appropriate manner by continuing to do this kind of work.' She then added; 'If you are a lawyer and you want to take on easier cases you can prosecute traffic violations or something. You'd have a very high rate of success and you probably could sleep more easily at night. 'But that's not what drives me. I want to work on cases that I feel the most passionate about.' Divide: Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby (pictured) called a week-long meeting to heal rifts over same-sex relationships Leaders of the Church of England have voted to condemn same sex marriage and barred the Anglican Church in America because of its stance on homosexuality. Archbishops and bishops from around the world met behind closed doors in Canterbury Cathedral and voted explicitly to condemn same-sex marriage, stating that marriage should be between a man and a woman in faithful, longlife union. The American Episcopal Church will be suspended from participating in the life and work of the Anglican communion for three years while a task force is formed that will try and reconcile conflicting views of sexuality in the 85-million-member family of churches. The Episcopal Church is the Anglican body in the United States. The announcement came near the end of a weeklong meeting called by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, to heal rifts over same-sex relationships which has threaten to split the Anglican Communion apart. Mr Welby, the Anglican spiritual leader, does not have the authority to force a compromise. He set a news conference Friday in Canterbury to explain the leaders decision. Episcopal Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, who attended the meeting, told the other leaders their vote will bring real pain to gays and lesbians and to Episcopalians committed to following Jesus in the way of love and being a church that lives that love. Still, he said he was committed to the Anglican family. The decision dates back to the ordination of openly gay Canon Gene Robinson as a bishop of the Episcopal Churchs New Hampshire diocese in 2003 - a move that divided the global Anglican communion. The meeting in Canterbury, which started on Monday and brings together 39 Anglican primates. Before it began, more than 100 senior Anglicans wrote an open letter urging the Church of England to repent for discriminating against lesbian and gay Christians. A statement from Anglican leaders in Canterbury acknowledged deep differences over the understanding of marriage but said the Episcopal Churchs approval of gay marriage was a fundamental departure from the faith and teaching of the majority of Anglicans. The Church leaders added that the majority of those gathered at the meeting would reaffirm the teaching of scripture that upholds marriage as between a man and a woman. Union: More than 100 senior Anglicans wrote an open letter urging the Church of England to repent for 'discriminating' against lesbian and gay Christians. But leaders still voted to condemn same-sex marriage Archbishop Welby is to appoint a task group to rebuild trust in the Anglican Communion. Those who sent the letter to the primates ahead of the meeting have expressed deep hurt at the result. The Global Anglican Future Conference, which represents theologically conservative Anglican leaders worldwide, had sought sanctions against the U.S. church, and some members said they would walk out of this weeks meeting unless some penalty was applied In a statement Gafcon said it was pleased by the outcome but said this action must not be seen as an end, but as a beginning. Leila Baartse-Harkin, who died 42 hours after falling onto her stomach at a playground, would have turned 10 on Thursday, her parents marked the day by eating margherita pizza for lunch and dinner, just as their daughter would have requested. The family, who live south of Adelaide, have had many difficult moments since their daughter died after being turned away from two hospitals, but the harrowing lead-up to their angels birthday was harder than they could have ever imagined. The whole week was hard leading up to it, I took the day off work, I just didnt think I could focus on anything but Leila that day. Scroll down for video Leila Baartse-Harkin, who died after an accident in a playground would have turned 10 on Thursday Her mother and father, Ricky and Edie Harkin released balloons to mark the important day Leila had been at a school playground when she jumped from the swing and landed on her stomach Her actual birthday was especially hard, there were definitely a lot of tears, she would have been 10, double digits, it just saddens us that she didnt get there, Mrs Harkin told Daily Mail Australia Leilas death on October 1 was unexpected and sudden and came after the little girl fell from a swing at the Eastern Fleurieu School at Strathalbyn, south of Adelaide, on Tuesday September 29. The incidents surrounding the child's death are currently the subject of an inquest after doctors sent her home on two occasions when she complained of vomiting, a sore stomach and nausea after the accident telling her family she had 'gastro' and that the fall was merely a 'coincidence'. Leila's devastated parents had to give evidence at the inquest on January 7 and 8, and have described it as one of the hardest experiences since their daughters death. It feels like you are on trial sometimes when you are cross examined like that. Doctors sent her home, twice and told her parents she had gastro, she died 42 hours later, her parents devastated that they weren't celebrating her 10th birthday with her The girl has been described as an 'angel' because of her renowned kindness She received dozens of 'Happy Birthday's' on social media on Thursday Giving evidence is really hard, having to relive the events leading to her death is traumatic. Shortly after her death her mother revealed she had called a hospital screaming her nine-year-old daughter 'looked like death,' after spending two agonising days being told by doctors she 'just had gastro.' Leila become unresponsive a few hours later as she lay on the couch and her distressed parents rushed her to Strathalbyn Hospital. But by the time on-call doctors arrived it was too late, and she was pronounced dead at 8am, two days after she fell from the swing. The inquest has added to the pre-birthday pressure the family has felt over the last week. Her family wrote meaningful messages to Leila on balloons which they sent into the sky at 8.18pm, the time she was born Her parents wanted to make Thursday all about their late daughter, and missed work so they coul concentrate on the one they loved most On her birthday the family wanted to put everything, including the investigation, on hold so they could make the day about her. The Harkins spent most of the day at home, crying for their lost daughter, but they did leave the house for lunch, which was had at Leilas favourite restaurant. The choice of what to eat was easy, margherita pizza, Leilas favourite. Leilas grandparents came over for dinner, where another pizza was eaten, this time with a side of hot chips, just as their daughter would have liked it. She was a very plain eater and hated vegetables so we made sure we didnt eat any on her birthday, Mrs Harkin said. Releasing the balloons was hard, according to Leila's mum, who described the birthday as 'one of the hardest days' since her daughters death The little girl loved margherita pizza, so her mother and father ate it for lunch and dinner on her day The only child was often spoiled on her birthday, making the day even harder for her mum to bare The family then sent messages of love to Leila by releasing ten balloons at 8.18 minutes past eight in the evening, the time she was born ten short years ago. My mother-in-law came up with the idea and I loved it, Mrs Harkin said, choked by tears as she explains the idea behind the balloon release. We all wrote messages for Leila, mine said that she is my favourite and best. It was something I always used to tell her when she was here. Her father wrote about how much he loved and missed her. The little girl was 'always smiling' according to her mother who wishes she could tell her just once more how proud she was of her This photo was taken ten years ago, and shows Leila's oma who passed away three weeks after her grand daughter Another balloon said say hello to oma. Edies mother, Leilas oma passed away unexpectedly three weeks after the family lost their daughter. Mrs Harkin says that if she could have had the chance to speak with her daughter on her birthday she would have told her how proud she was to be her mother. I would have told her how much I loved her and how proud I was of her, she was my treasure, and just a real sweetheart. The child received many happy birthday messages from loved ones over Facebook on the day, with many referring to her as an angel. I am not surprised that she has been called an angel, Mrs Harkin said. She was a gorgeous looking girl, but also an angel in the way she was with people. The heart-broken mother is leading a campaign to stop this kind of incident from ever occurring again She is mostly remembered for her kindness, she always wanted to make other people feel better, if she saw someone was upset she would try to make them happy. Someone left a note at her service, it sits on our fridge to remind us of how she was, and how people remember her. It says she was one of the few people who could make you happy just with their presence, and she was a blessing for everyone who met her. Her mother described her as a kind-hearted child who loved the outdoors. 'She was cheeky, she was very kind and giving. 'She was always smiling, she was a daredevil, she liked to do things that were exciting. 'Leila's Lifeline' is just an idea now, but her mother believes it will save lives 'She was very outdoorsy- fearless, and would pitch in help anyone without being asked.' 'She liked to help other people, and always did without being prompted, she had a very, very generous spirit. 'The only issue we had with her is that she was a plain eater, who didn't like vegetables, she never gave us any trouble.' The family then sat down to a chocolate mud birthday cake, without candles. It would have been too hard, sending the balloons was hard enough, I just couldnt have been able to have candles, Mrs Harkin said. The woman watched her daughter fade away on the couch hours after a doctor sent her home from hospital The day was not only difficult for her close family. One family friend admitted she spent the day remembering the young girl while crying, and trying to hold it together. I have had a quiet day #rememberleila on her 10th birthday pretty much close to tears, a message on a photo of the birthday-girl said. Everyone has been so strong and amazing I feel very inadequate. Cheers to the most beautiful birthday princess. Love and miss you always every day x. She said that she had rushed her daughter to the emergency department at her local hospital when she became unresponsive, but it was locked and by the time doctors arrived it was too late The birthday-girl received loving messages on social media Her grandparents even posted a message of their own, even though they were with Leila's parents in the evening The girl was much loved and well known for being able to cheer others up Her grandparents also posted about the birthday-girl online. Happy birthday to our beautiful granddaughter in heaven thinking of you always with our heart xxxxx. The family are still campaigning for better health services to prevent this tragedy happening again, and hope the findings of the inquest will allow for change to be made. I am pushing for a complete shift in the way hospital staff and doctors interact with carers and patients, Mrs Harkin said. Her favourite cake, chocolate mud was eaten for dessert on her birthday, but there were no candles to blow out Pictured here with her father, Ricky, Leila looks every bit the 'cheeky' girl her mother described I have gathered evidence as part of the inquest and heard quite a lot of reports of doctors not listening to carers who then have to rush their loved ones to emergency when the situation becomes urgent. A petition calling for change has been started by the grieving mother, and currently has 5,370 signatures. The petition calls for the introduction of Leilas Lifeline a system which the mother says would provide a phone line escalation process for South Australian parents and caregivers who believe their child or patient has been misdiagnosed or if their concerns are not being heard by a hospital's treating health professionals. A prominent Muslim New South Wales Green's MP has revealed that she was interrogated for over an hour by U.S. Customs officers at LAX Airport . Dr Mehreen Faruqi told Daily Mail Australia that she was on a self-funded trip to the United States to visit family and meet with drug policy reform advocates. 'My husband and I were questioned about how we got our Aussie passports, then sent off to the interview room and interrogated separately about why we were in the US and my links to Pakistan.' Scroll down for video Dr Mehreen Faruqi (third from right) said she was questioned about how she obtained an Australian passports She said there is no excuse for 'racial profiling' under any circumstances. 'I have lived in Australia for 24 years and having raised my family here, it is a real kick in the guts when people treat you like that. 'Unfortunately this racism and Islamophobia is only going to get worse with the declining level of political debate around Muslims both here in Australia and the United States.' The Greens NSW Facebook page shared Ms Faruqui's original tweet and wrote, 'This is what happens when Australia's first female Muslim MP goes to America'. Ms Faruqi shared her experience on twitter: 'I have lived in Australia for 24 years and having raised my family here, it is a real kick in the guts when people treat you like that' The Greens NSW Facebook page shared Ms Faruqui's original tweet and wrote, 'This is what happens when Australia's first female Muslim MP goes to America' Both social media posts have received dozens of shocked and bemused comments from people, with some sharing similar experiences when travelling to the U.S. 'I know that interview room. LAX right? I had the same experience. I was asked to explain how such a whitey got the name Khan,' posted Stuart Khan. 'Similar experience here. Despite an Official Australian passport my beard was too much for them to handle at Dulles Airport,' wrote Ljummen Grot. Both social media posts have received dozens of shocked and bemused comments from people, with some sharing similar experiences when travelling to the U.S. However one man defended the U.S. Customs' strict immigration policy and compared it to Australia's border rules. 'They don't care if they offend anyone. They are protecting there borders and taking a stand. And here we are letting thousands come in without an proper security screening...' Posted Cozza Matthews. Ms Faruqui planned to meet with drug law reform campaigners to discuss cannabis legalisation, pill-testing at music festivals and other reforms. Sheryl Sandberg donated 290,000 shares of Facebook stock worth of $31million to charity Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has donated about $31million in her company's stock to a myriad of charities, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission document filed Thursday. The 290,000 shares of Facebook stock were transferred to the Sheryl Sandberg Philanthropy Fund on November 20 and disclosed by the commission this week. The philanthropy fund is a donor-advised fund that will take control of the stock through Fidelity, but Sandberg will be able to put the money toward charities she is passionate about. It is likely much of the funds will go to similar charities to the ones Sandberg has supported in the past, a source told Re/Code. This includes women's empowerment groups and Lean In, the nonprofit founded by the COO to support women in the workplace, the source said. Sandberg also plans to donate funds to education organizations and anti-poverty groups. Along with being the founder of Lean In, she is also a co-chair of the Stand up for Kids Campaign for Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties. The COO signed The Giving Pledge in 2014, which committed her, as well as others who are super wealthy, to 'dedicate the majority of their wealth to philanthropy'. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan also signed the pledge and last month promised to give away 99 per cent of their Facebook stock over their lifetimes. Sanberg lost husband of 11 years Dave Goldberg in May. Goldberg, who was the CEO of Survey Monkey, died after suffering head trauma and blood loss following a fall off a treadmill due to a heart arrhythmia. The couple were on vacation in a privately-owned villa called Palmasola, at Punta Mita, which is 30 miles from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, at the time of his death in May. It is likely much of the funds will go to similar charities to the ones Sandberg has supported in the past, a source said, including women's empowerment groups, education organizations and anti-poverty groups Advertisement Donald Trump was center stage Thursday night but didn't grab the nation's attention right away during the first Republican presidential debate of the year. Instead, his GOP rivals grabbed the early spotlight with jabs and slaps at President Barack Obama and a full-on assault against Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio declared Clinton 'wouldn't just be a disaster. Hillary Clinton is disqualified from being commander-in-chief of the United States.' 'Someone who can not handle intelligence material appropriately cannot be commander-in-chief,' he said. 'And someone who lies to the families of those four victims in Benghazi can never be president of the Unites States.' Look out, Hillary: Debate participants Thursday night took shots at Hillary Clinton while Donald Trump looked on and waited more than 20 minutes to be asked a question Order in the Court: Neil Cavuto (right) of Fox Business Network managed the stage along with fellow anchor Maria Bartiromo (left) Force and fury: Ted Cruz promised that if he's elected president, unfriendly nations would not be able to interfere with America's military, as Iran did this week Rivals: Tump (left) speaks as candidate Senator Ted Cruz looks on during the Fox Business Network Republican presidential candidates debate in North Charleston, South Carolina, on Thursday Republican presidential candidate, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, speaks with Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, at a break during the debate Republican presidential candidate, Ohio Gov John Kasich speaks during Thursday night's debate in North Charleston, South Carolina Republican presidential candidate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush speaks as Republican presidential candidate, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson looks on Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson gesticulates while speaking during the Republican debate on Thursday Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush carped about Clinton's classified email scandal and predicted that during her first 100 days in the Oval Office 'she might be going back and forth between the court house and the White House.' New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie pledged that if he were nominated by the GOP, he would easily beat Clinton. 'If I'm the nominee, she won't get within 10 miles of the White House,' he pledged. Clinton currently owns a home in Washington, D.C., less than 2 miles from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Other candidates who spoke in the debate's opening minutes focused their fire on Obama. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz blasted the White House for its handling of this week's military capture crisis in Iran, saying that under his leadership, 'any nation that captures our fighting men and women will feel the full force and fury of the United States of America.' New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie zinged the president by calling Tuesday night's State of the Union address 'Story Time with Barack Obama,' saying Obama painted a too-rosy picture of America's stability and strength. Lineup: Republican presidential candidates, from left, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Marco Rubio, businessman Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush The Fox Business Network Republican presidential candidates debate took place in North Charleston, South Carolina on January 14 The auditorium in North Charleston, South Carolina, appeared to be filled with attendees waiting to hear what the presidential candidates had to say Members of the audience - who appear to be distracted - listen to the Republican presidential candidates participate in Thursday's debate Natural born? Donald Trump renewed his tiff with Ted Cruz over whether the Canadian-born senator is eligible to be president At one point in the debate, Ted Cruz suggested that Trump consider him his running mate 'if this all works out', to which Trump responded with a smirk Trump points toward the audience while speaking during the debate at Cruz and Carson look on 'I gotta tell you, it sounded like everything in the world was going amazing, you know?' he scoffed. Christie later called Obama 'a petulant child. That's what he is.' WINNERS AND LOSERS TONIGHT: THE RANKINGS 1. Ted Cruz was prepped and ready for the 'birther' back-and-forth with Trump. He looked strong on terror and continued his skillful evisceration of the mainstream media while scoring points with his epic debating skills. 2. Chris Christie had memorable one-liners, shushing Marco Rubio and calling the State of the Union 'story time with Barack Obama.' He also offered the night's most forceful condemnation of President Barack Obama 3. Donald Trump didn't lose any ground and won't suffer in the polls. He used Ted Cruz's comments about 'New York values' to his advantage by evoking 9/11 memories and his unscripted closing statement was memorable. 4. Rand Paul gained by not showing up and turning his exclusion from the main stage into a pity party. No one scored a point against him because he didn't have to show up and defend himself, but he was a presence anyway. 5. Marco Rubio smacked around the Democrats and accused Christie of being in bed with them. He also tried to look tough on immigration but Cruz ultimately skewered him on 'amnesty' and the Gang of Eight plan. 6. John Kasich was a decided also-ran whose main claim to fame budget battles in Washington two decades ago never broke through in a debate hosted by a financial news network 7. Jeb Bush tried to be the grown-up on Muslim immigration, but ended up a crashing bore, and tried in vain to re-brand Trump as a reckless bully. Bush also said terrorists in Obama's America were 'on the run' instead of 'on the rise.' 8. Ben Carson made decent stabs at humor but continued to look feckless on foreign policy. He raised eyebrows, in a not-so-good way, when he leapt into a monologue on nuclear explosions in the exoatmosphere. Advertisement Saying he hoped Obama was watching, he pointed a finger at TV cameras and declared that Americans had rejected his policies after seven tough years. 'We are going to kick your rear end out of the White House come this fall,' Christie boomed. Bush said Obama's optimism from Tuesday night was unwarranted, and that the president was living in 'totally an alternative universe. The simple fact is that the world has been torn asunder.' 'In this administration, every weapons system has been gutted,' he claimed. 'Our friends don't think we have their back and our enemies no longer fear us.' Bush made the night's first gaffe, saying that under Obama, 'terrorism is on the run.' He meant to say 'terrorism is on the rise.' Dr. Ben Carson, too, got a question before Trump ever weighed in. He seemed as surprised as anyone. 'I'm glad to get a question this early on. I was going to ask you to wake me up,' he quipped. Carson asked moderators Neil Cavuto and Maria Bartiromo for a moment to speak, claiming he was mentioned by name when Jeb Bush said 'everyone' on the stage would make better presidents than Clinton. 'He said "everyone",' Carson joked. The retired neurosurgeon said Bill Clinton's serial marital infidelities were legitimate to raise in relation to Hillary's candidacy. 'There's no question that we should be able to look at any past president, whether they're married to somebody who's running for president or not, in terms of their past behavior and what it means,' he said. 'But here's the real issue: Is this America anymore? Do we still have standards? Do we still have values and principles?' Trump himself is thrice-married and had a very public affair with model Marla Maples during the late 1980s before marrying her. Before Thursday's prime-time debate, an 'undercard' event featured former CEO Carly Fiorina, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Also invited to that earlier pre-debate but boycotting it was Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul who considered the 'second-tier' event an insult to what he said was a 'first-tier' campaign. A handful of Paul fans in the auditorium Thursday night disrupted the debate for six seconds, yelling 'We want Rand! We want Rand! We want Rand!' Cavuto, amused, looked into the lens of a camera, said 'Okay,' and moved on. A poll by Fox 5, which has not been independently verified, currently puts Trump ahead of the other candidates by a huge margin. More than 5,000 of its readers thought Trump won last night's debate, well ahead of second placed Ted Cruz who amassed just 795 votes. Third Marco Rubio with 644, followed by Jeb Bush who got 156. Once the reality TV star got into the act, he sparred with Cruz over the senator's eligibility to be president, an office the Constitution reserves for 'natural born citizens.' Cruz's father was a Cuban citizen when he was born in Calgary. He shot the argument back at Trump because the billionaire's own mother mother is Scottish. 'But I was born here,' Trump replied. 'Big difference.' At one point in the debate Donald Trump called Jeb Bush a 'weak person' as they sparred back and forth Joker: The usually quiet Ben Carson laughed that he was surprised he got one of the moderators' early question, quipping that 'I was going to ask you to wake me up' Republican presidential candidate, New Jersey Gov Chris Christie, donned a New Jersey-shaped American flag pin during the debate 'I'm very, very angry': Trump turned a subtle attack Tuesday night from South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley into a positive, waxing about his anger at America's current leadership Republican Presidential candidate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush speaks during the debate in North Charleston on Thursday Republican U.S. presidential candidates (L-R) Governor John Kasich, Governor Chris Christie, Senator Marco Rubio, businessman Donald Trump, Senator Ted Cruz, Dr. Ben Carson and former Governor Jeb Bush pose together before the start of the debate Republican presidential candidate, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson listens to a member of the audience at a break during the debate Republican presidential candidates Ben Carson and Donald Trump laugh during a commercial break during Thursday's debate Donald Trump and Ted Cruz check their watches and talk with one another at a commercial break during Thursday's debate Republican presidential candidate, Ohio Gov John Kasich, left, and Republican presidential candidate, Sen Marco Rubio look to the crowd at a break during the debate He conceded that he has made the 'birther' issue front-and-center since the senator is 'doing a little bit better.' Ghost in the room: Hillary Clinton was targeted early but was 750 miles away in New York taping an episode of The Tonight Show 'Now he's probably got a four or five percent chance.' Trump predicted that the Democratic Party would sue if Cruz were on the presidential ticket, unless the issue were settled in federal court ahead of time. 'I've spent my entire life defending the Constitution before the Supreme Court,' Cruz, the former lawyer for the state of Texas, retorted. 'And I'll tell you, I'm not gonna be taking legal advice from Donald Trump.' Rubio broke in to cut off the argument. 'I hate to interrupt this episode of Court TV,' he sniped. 'But I think we have to get back to what this election is really about.' Gun policy was a sideline, with Marco Rubio declaring: 'I am convinced that if this president could confiscate every gun in America, he would.' Cruz touted his endorsement from Gun Owners of America and his A-plus rating from the National Rifle Association. But the Cruz-Trump duel sucked much of the oxygen out of the room. When Cruz defended his past barbs at Trump for representing 'New York values,' The Donald was ready to pounce. 'New York is a great place, it's got great people, it's got great people, loving people, wonderful people,' Trump said. 'When the World Trade Center came down I saw something that no place on earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York.' 'We rebuilt downtown Manhattan and everybody in the world watched, and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers. And I have to tell you it was a very insulting statement that Ted made.' Trump also crossed swords with moderators over South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley's response to the presidential State of the Union address on Tuesday. Haley urged Americans not to follow 'the siren call of the angriest voices' on immigration. Haley later said that comment was in part aimed at Trump. 'Nikki this afternoon said I'm a friend of hers actually a close friend,' Trump said Thursday night. 'But she did say there was anger. And I could say, "Oh I'm not angry." I'm very angry. Because our country is being run horribly. And I will gladly accept the mantle of anger.' 'Our military is a disaster. Our health care is a horror show, Obamacare, we're going to repeal it and replace it. We have no borders. Our vets are being treated horribly. Illegal immigration is beyond belief.' 'Our country is being ruined by incompetent people. And yes, I am angry and I won't be angry when we fix it, but until we fix it, I'm very very angry. And I say it to Nikki. When Nikki said that, I wasn't offended. She said the truth.' Blaming Barack: The president, said Chris Christie, is a 'petulant child' Past her bedtime? Cruz brought his wife and daughters (one pictured) to the prime-time debate, which began at 9:00 p.m. Republican presidential candidate, Sen Ted Cruz, R-Texas, shares a sweet moment with his daughter after Thursday's debate Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, holds his daughter and speaks with a staff member after the debate Republican presidential candidate, former Florida Gov Jeb Bush laughs as he participates in the spin room following Thursday's debate Ivanka Trump (left) and Melania Trump (right), the daughter and wife of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, wait in the spin room after the debate Donald Trumps wife Melania Trump (R), daughter Ivanka Trump (2R), and son's Eric Trump (R), and Donald Trump Jr look on from the front row during Thursday's debate Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump participates in the spin room following the debate Trump speaks to several members of the media in the spin room following Thursday's fiery Republican debate Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump poses for a photo with him family after the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum and Performing Arts Center Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said that his company is 'peanuts' to him if he becomes president. With his family in the audience of Thursday's presidential debate in North Charleston, South Carolina, Trump turned to his children and said 'Run the company kids, have a good time', when talking about his company. 'If I become president, I couldn't care less about my company. It's peanuts,' the Republican front-runner said as he focused on his kids in the audience.. 'I have Ivanka, and Eric and Don sitting there. Run the company kids! Have a good time. I'm going to do it for America,' he added. Scroll down for videos Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump poses for a photo with him family after the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum and Performing Arts Center Donald Trump's wife Melania Trump (R), daughter Ivanka Trump (2R), and son's Eric Trump (R), and Donald Trump Jr look on during the Republican Presidential debate Trump told his kids to 'have a good time' after saying his company is 'peanuts' to him if he becomes president Children Ivanka, Donald Jr and Eric Trump joined Melania at the debate on Thursday to support Trump in his efforts to win the support of the Republican party. After the debate, Eric Trump, 32, the billionaire's third son, smiled when he was asked if his dad would continue showing up on Americans' TVs at least 'once a week' if he wins the election. 'Just ONCE a week?' Eric responded, in the spin room adjacent to the debate hall. 'Oh, don't worry, He'll keep you guys busy. He'll keep you around,' he said. He also vouched for his father's assurance that he and siblings Ivanka, 34, and Donald Jr, 38, stand ready to take over The Trump Organization in a matter of months if his flashy campaign maintains its momentum through November. 'Absolutely,' Eric told DailyMail.com. 'It's not hypothetical. There's a succession plan in place. We've been in the company for years and years and we're ready.' The younger Trump played spinmeister for his father, too, saying he 'not only won the debate tonight, but I think he won the first primary.' Trump's son Eric posted a photo of the state prior to the start of the debate with the caption, 'Front row at the @FoxBusiness @GOP debate' Donald Trump Jr posted a photo of his father to Instagram, saying 'it will be a great night' in his caption, with the hashtags #gopdebate and #trump2016 Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trumps wife Melania Trump (right) and daughter Ivanka look at a smart phone after the Republican Presidential debate Ivanka Trump (left) and Melania Trump (right), the daughter and wife of Donald Trump waited in the spin room after Thursday's debate 'He was masterful, and that moment talking about 9/11 was incredible,' he said. That moment came after Ted Cruz lambasted The Donald for laying claim to 'New York values' to which Cruz interpreted as pride in liberalism. 'The people in New York fought and fought and fought, and we saw more death, and even the smell of death' after the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001, Trump shot back. 'Nobody understood it. And it was with us for months, the smell, the air.' 'And we rebuilt downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers.' 'And I have to tell you,' he said, 'that was a very insulting statement that Ted made.' Prior to the debate, Donald Jr posted a photo to Twitter of the stage before the debate kicked off, with the caption, 'Front row at the @FoxBusiness @GOP debate'. Donald Jr posted a photo to Instagram with the caption, 'Great welcome for @realdonaldtrump here in North Charleston, South Carolina. It will be a great night on @foxbusiness #gopdebate #trump2016'. Eric's wife Lara posted a photo of her debate-stage pass to Instagram to support her father-in-law's debate efforts. Ivanka Trump watches the stage during the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate on Thursday Melania Trump watches the stage with a content smile on her face as Trump appears in the debate on Thursday Melania also took the time to pose for photos with young fans in the debate's audience Lara Trump - Eric's wife - posted a photo of her debate-stage pass for Thursday's event to support her father-in-law She also posted a snap of her and Eric in the spin-room after the debate and wrote that she was 'so proud' of her father-in-law and called it 'truly his best debate yet' The official Instagram page for Donald Trump featured behind-the-scenes photos of the debate, including on of the candidates walking down the auditorium steps on to the stage Another behind-the-scenes shot showed the Republican presidential candidates chatting together on stage before the debate kicked off 'Ready to support @realdonaldtrump tonight with @erictrump @ivankatrump @vanessa_trump & @donaldjtrumpjr at the @foxbusiness #gopdebate,' the caption read. The Donald Trump official Instagram page featured several 'behind-the-scene' pictures of the stage during the event. The family looked dapper, with the sons in suits, Ivanka in a black-and-white dress and Melania in a white jacket. The debate comes just over two weeks before the first votes are cast in the 2016 contest. As the debate kicked off, Trump's children retweeted several tweets of social media users supporting their father's debate efforts. Trump and Texas Sen Ted Cruz were at the center of a shrinking field of top-tier candidates at the beginning of the debate, and are locked in battle for first place in the February 1 Iowa caucuses. Arrayed to the sides are five other rivals: Florida Sen Marco Rubio, Ohio Gov John Kasich, New Jersey Gov Chris Christie, former Florida Gov Jeb Bush and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. Once Trump got into the debate, he sparred with Cruz over the senator's eligibility to be president, an office the Constitution reserves for 'natural born citizens.' Cruz's father was a Cuban citizen when he was born in Calgary. He shot the argument back at Trump because the billionaire's own mother mother is Scottish. 'But I was born here,' Trump replied. 'Big difference.' Trump also took an opportunity to defend his opposition to allowing Syrian refugees into the United States. Donald Trump faced off against six other candidates in his efforts to win the support of the Republican party on Thursday Republican presidential candidates (L-R) Ohio Governor John Kasich, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Ben Carson and Jeb Bush participate in the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate on Thursday 'It's not fear and terror, it's reality,' he said. Trump rattled off a list of places recently struck by terror as evidence the United States needs to take a harder line against people who want to perpetrate 'great destruction'. He's cited attacks in Indonesia, California and Paris. Trump said the United States must take a 'good, strong look' at its policies and that 'the country's a mess'. He also said that there are no circumstances under which he thinks the United States should limit gun sales. Trump derided President Barack Obama's executive actions to tighten gun control. He says guns don't pull the trigger, people pull the trigger. He said that if more people present for the San Bernardino, California, and Paris attacks had guns, fewer people would have died. Instead of gun control, Trump called for more mental health care. He said there's a huge problem with hospitals and mental wards closing. He added that Obama doesn't want to get lawmakers together to write gun legislation 'the old-fashioned way.' He says Obama instead just 'writes an order.' Obama used executive action this month to try to expand background checks to cover more gun sales. The president's efforts to secure broader gun control legislation collapsed in the Senate in 2013 After the debate finished, Trump posed for photos with his wife and kids. Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump, right, and Republican presidential candidate, Sen Marco Rubio, R-Florida, speak at a break during the debate Trump, left, speaks as Republican presidential candidate, Sen Ted Cruz, R-Texas, during Thursday's debate llegal drinking at an Australia Day beach party could result in a $1500 fine Victoria Police said they would attend the event on Australia Day 6,000 said they would attend and 19,000 registered The organisers of an Australia Day beach party have cancelled their event after thousands said they would attend, prompting action from police. More than 6,000 people said they would attend the unofficial Triple J Hottest 100 Party at St Kilda beach in Melbourne, organised by Clint White and Jai Motherwell, from Melbourne. A further 19,000 registered their interest in attending the event. Scroll down for video An illegal Triple J Australia day party at St Kilda beach has been cancelled after it was initially was organised by Melbourne men, Clint White (right) and Jay Motherwell (left) Cheeky- a partygoer bares all in a photo uploaded to the Triple J Hottest 100 Party 2016 at St Kilda Beach Facebook event page The men created the event to share the day with friends, as they did last year. 'We went down opposite the esplanade with about eight friends and enjoyed the day with a portable radio to tune into the [Triple J Hottest 100] countdown,' Mr White told Daily Mail Australia. The Facebook event page - Triple J Hottest 100 Party 2016 at St Kilda Beach - received a visit from the Victoria Police on Friday, who invited themselves to the party. Hi Jai and Clint. This is Victoria Police. We know this party is not sanctioned by Triple J, so we're assuming you haven't got any permits from Port Phillip Council either?,' the Victoria Police post reads. Victoria Police said they would attend an illegal Triple J party at St Kilda beach on Australia day Jai Motherwell and Clint White have cancelled their Australia day party at St Kilda beach after 6,000 said they would attend and 19,00 registered interest, prompting action from Victoria Police 'We'll pay you a visit on Australia Day and let's hope we don't spoil your party!' However, there will now be no party to spoil after the Melbourne men swiftly cancelled the event. With two weeks left before Australia day the event had the potential to get even bigger and out of hand. We have decided to shut this event down, Mr Motherwells post on the events Facebook page reads. The numbers have blown way out of proportion and you can't trust 20,000 strangers to do the right thing. We will be working with the Victorian Police and local city council about this matter leading into the event. The event has attracted social media attention with many hopeful revellers disagreeing with the cancellation. 'I have a note from my dad saying it's ok, so can we put the party back on pls?,' Hill Kuttner posted on the event page. Josh Holland said 'I think you should go on with the party and charge like $20 entry to pay off the fine after.' However some want-to-be party goers didn't seem to mind and even touted the two men as heroes. The illegal Triple J Australia day beach party in St Kilda attracted social media attention with many hopeful revellers disagreeing with it's cancellation Some want-to-be partygoers didn't seem to mind that an illegal Triple J Australia day party was cancelled and even touted Jai Motherwell and Clint White as heroes You can still hold an Australia Day beach party in Melbourne - but illegal drinking in public could cost you $1500. Victoria Police says it will welcome everyone at St Kilda Beach to enjoy Australia Day festivities, but they must leave alcohol at home. 'The City of Port Phillip has banned alcohol from 5pm, so it will be an alcohol-free day,' the aptly-named Inspector Narelle Beer reporters on Friday. Both Mr White and Mr Motherwell were happy to co-operate with police regarding the event. Victoria Police says it will welcome everyone at St Kilda Beach (pictured) to enjoy Australia Day festivities, but they must leave alcohol at home You can still hold an Australia Day party at St Kilda beach (pictured) Melbourne - but illegal drinking in public could cost you $1500 'The St. Kilda esplanade is a great location to enjoy summer, we don't want to waste police time or destroy the beach with litter from people not being responsible,' Clint White said, and they want the guests of their party to cooperate too. 'Please respect our decision and share around that the event has been cancelled. There are plenty of other parties in St Kilda for Australia Day. Who's keen to catch Fatboy Slim?!,' the Facebook page reads. Despite the best efforts of those on social media the party won't go ahead, and it looks like the 25,000 guests will have to find another way to spend their Australia Day. As for Mr Motherwell and Mr White, they'll be spending the long weekend in Thredbo with friends and 'enjoying the countdown as we originally set out to.' Ted Cruz attempted to turn the birther argument around on Donald Trump this evening by arguing that extremists would say the New Yorker can't be president because his mother is Scottish. 'At the end of the day, the legal issue is quite straightforward, but I would note that the birther theories that Donald has been relying on, some of the more extreme ones insist that you must not only be born on U.S. soil, but have two parents born on U.S. soil,' Cruz said tonight. Interpreted that way, Cruz said, 'not only would I be disqualified,' so would Marco Rubio, whose parents were born in Cuba, Bobby Jindal, whose parents immigrated from India, 'and, interestingly enough, Donald J. Trump would be disqualified because Donald's mother was born in Scotland.' 'But I was born here,' Trump shot back. 'Big difference.' Scroll down for video Ted Cruz attempted to turn the birther argument around on Donald Trump this evening by arguing that extremists would say the New Yorker can't be president because his mother is Scottish They later sparred over what Cruz disparaged as 'New York values,' which Trump said was 'very insulting' to the people of his city and state, who had to endure 9/11 Trump began bringing up the circumstances of Cruz's birth - it took place in Canada - when the U.S. senator began closing in on him in the polls despite saying months ago it was a non-issue. The GOP front-runner admitted as much at tonight's Fox Business debate after moderator Neil Cavuto asked him why he decided to question Cruz's eligibility months into the race. 'Because now he's doing a little bit better,' Trump stated. Before, Trump said, he had no chance. 'Now, he's doing better. He's got probably a four or five percent chance.' 'There's a big overhang,' Trump said, telling Cruz that 'there's a big question mark' hanging over his head. 'You can't do that to the party. You have to have certainty.' Trump told him, 'I'm not bringing a suit, I promise, but the Democrats are going to bring a lawsuit.' Cruz was not born in America, but his mother was a U.S. citizen, making him a legal U.S. citizen, as well, even though he was born on foreign soil. Trump and others have said he's not a 'natural born citizen,' though, as required in the U.S. Constitution to become president. 'I've spent my entire life defending the Constitution before the U.S. Supreme Court,' Cruz, the former lawyer for the state of Texas, retorted. 'And I'll tell you, I'm not gonna be taking legal advice from Donald Trump.' And Cruz told Trump, 'if this all works out, I'm happy to consider naming you VP and if you happen to be right, you'll get the top job at the end of the day.' 'I like that, I like it. I'll consider it,' Trump said, 'but I think I'll go back to building buildings if it doesn't work out. I have a feeling it's going to work out actually.' Donald Trump (left) is pictured here with his father Fred Jr, sister Elizabeth, mother Mary Anne and brother Robert. 'Interestingly enough, Donald J. Trump would be disqualified because Donald's mother was born in Scotland,' Cruz said tonight, citing 'extreme' birther theories like the ones Trump's relying on Having let the budding bromance go on for several minutes, another candidate on stage, Marco Rubio at that point said, 'I hate to interrupt this episode of Court TV, but I think we have to get back to what this election is really about.' The detente didn't last very long. Less than half an hour later the two had another go round after Cruz slammed 'New York values.' 'Listen, there are many, many wonderful, wonderful working men and women in the state of New York. But everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro- gay-marriage, focus around money and the media,' he said. He referenced a Trump interview from years ago in which the billionaire said New Yorkers values are not the same as Iowans. 'I can frame it another way,' Cruz said. 'Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan. I'm just saying.' Bartiromo interrupted to say, 'Are you sure about that?' Trump, a New York City native, responded by invoking 9/11 and told Cruz it was a 'very insulting statement.' 'Conservatives actually do come out Manhattan including William F. Buckley and others just so you understand,' Trump told him. 'New York is a great place, it's got great people...loving people, wonderful people.' Trump said, 'When the World Trade Center came down I saw something that no place on earth could have handled more beautifully more humanely than New York.' 'I saw them come down,' Trump said of the Twin Towers. 'Thousands of people killed. And the clean up started the next day, and it was the most horrific clean up probably in the history of doing this construction. 'I was down there and I've never seen anything like it. And the people of New York fought and fought and fought, and we saw more death and even the smell of death nobody understood it. Trump said, ' And it was with us for months, the smell, the air, and we rebuilt downtown Manhattan and everybody in the world watched, and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers, and I have to tell you it was a very insulting statement that Ted made.' Twitter erupted after the exchange, and a large share of the tweets were against Cruz. Talk show host Montel Williams, who was present at the GOP debate, said, 'Trump is right... Let's not pretend NY's finest (NYPD) and NY's bravest (NYFD) didn't prove American values on 9/11 #Patriots #GOPDebate.' 'Ted Cruz cuts down the people of New York and their values, but he sure doesn't mind the donated money. (Goldman Sachs),' a user named Donna Greathouse said, referring to the million dollar loan that the Texas politician got from his wife Heidi's employer when he ran for the U.S. Senate. Progressive fundraiser and digital strategist Damien Shirley likewises tweeted: 'Ted Cruz doesn't seem to have a problem with "New York values" when his wife goes to her Wall St. job at Goldman Sachs.' 'Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan. I'm just saying,' Cruz told Trump as he explained what he meant by 'New York values.' Debate moderator Maria Bartiromo, seen here in the foreground interrupted him to say, 'Are you sure about that?' Another user, Alan Milstein, wrote, 'Does Cruz know what the phrase "New York values " is a code phrase for?' Cruz had said during the debate, 'I think most people know exactly what New York values are.' Co-moderator Maria Bartiromo told him, 'I am from New York. I don't.' 'You're from New York,' he said. 'So you might not. But I promise you, in the state of South Carolina, they do.' Minutes later, on MSNBC, Cruz campaign spokesman Rick Tyler appeared on Hardball and reiterated to host Chris Matthews, 'We love New York.' Matthews asked Tyler if he agrees that New York has 'bad values' and Tyler said, according to The Blaze, 'No one said they were bad values, they are just different values.' The Cruz official said the senator was talking about issues like concealed carry and marriage. 'Its the people they send to Congress,' he said. 'New York sends liberals. Texas sends conservatives.' At the end of the segment Matthews told him, 'By the way, I can talk for everyone watching right now. Everyone watching knows that you are hiding.' South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley didn't get a Donald Trump smackdown at tonight's debate, instead the Republican front runner said Haley hit the nail on the head when she talked about politicians being angry during her response to the State of the Union address. 'I'm very angry because our country is being run horribly,' Trump said. 'And I will gladly accept the mantle of anger.' Haley didn't point to Trump directly, but warned viewers of her television address to 'resist the temptation' of listening to the 'angriest voices' and the 'loudest voice in the room,' which clearly alluded to Trump's candidacy. Donald Trump called South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (left) a 'friend' during tonight's debate in North Charleston, despite the fact that she called out Trump and others for being angry Nikki Haley, seen at tonight's Fox Business Network GOP debate, gave her party's State of the Union follow-up and warned people not to follow the 'loudest voice in the room' On the Today Show the next morning, Haley confirmed that Trump was among those she was pointing fingers at. 'He was one of them, yes. He was one,' Haley told Matt Lauer. Tonight, Trump fully embraced the anger and Haley. 'First of all, Nikki, this afternoon, said I'm a friend of hers, actually a close friend, and wherever you're sitting Nikki, I am a friend, we're friends, that's good,' Trump said. Haley, as the governor of South Carolina, was invited to attend the Fox Business Network debate in North Charleston. 'But she did say there was anger and I could say, oh I'm not angry,' Trump said, before owning it. 'Our military is a disaster,' Trump stated. 'Our health care is a horror show, Obamacare, we're going to repeal it and replace it.' 'We have no borders. Our vets are being treated horribly. Illegal immgration is beyond belief,' he went on. The governor gave the official Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union address on Tuesday night, and called for tolerance with immigrants and the rejection of 'angry voices' in the party - a reference she later confirmed was to Trump 'Our country is being ruined by incompetent people,' he added. Trump noted several times in his response that he wasn't mad at Haley. 'When Nikki said that, I wasn't offended, she said the truth,' Trump said. 'She's right, I'm not fighting with that, I didn't find it offensive, I'm angry because our country is a mess.' Of course, The Donald's antidote to his anger was a Trump presidency. 'I won't be angry when we fix it, but until we fix it, I'm very very angry,' he said. And numbers, including some that came today, show a greater probability of that happening. A new NBC/WSJ poll has Trump leading nationally, earning 33 percent, or one in three Republican votes. His lead has doubled, with No. 2 Republican Ted Cruz hanging back at 20 percent. The White House made a very embarrassing misspelling on Twitter on Thursday during President Obama's town hall meeting in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The official account tweeted the word 'impotence' instead of the word 'impetus' when quoting part of Obama's speech, according to CNN. 'The main impetus for better politics is going to be the American people,' said the President during the post-State of the Union town hall meeting. The tweet read: The main impotence for a better politics is going to be the American people. They have to demand it.' That's not what he said: The official White House account tweeted the word 'impotence' instead of the word 'impetus' when quoting part of Obama's town hall speech in Baton Rouge, Louisiana Mistake: The main impotence for a better politics is going to be the American people. They have to demand it' read the tweet from the White House account on Thursday The word impotence can either mean the lack of power to improve or change a situation or can also refer to a man's ability to have children or to perform in bed. Impetus has a nearly opposite meaning and is defined as: 'the force that encourages a particular action or makes it more energetic or effective,' according to Cambridge Dictionaries Online. The White House soon discovered the social media gaffe and deleted the tweet. The White House then published the correct quotation later on Thursday. Obama spent Thursday's town hall in Baton Rouge speaking about his health care bill and the economy, according to CNN. It was Obama's first trip to Baton Rouge as President. '"I love Louisiana ... this is my first trip to Baton Rouge as President.' ---@POTUS takes questions at a town hall,' the White House account tweeted. Laughter: 'No. No. No, no, no,' Barack Obama told a town hall attendee today in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, after he asked if FLOTUS could be convinced to launch a White House bid Obama urged those listening to his speech to come out and vote during the 2016 election. 'Our system of government only works when you are involved---not just by voting but by staying informed" ---@POTUS at a town hall in Baton Rouge,' the White House account tweeted as it continued to quote the president's speech. Obama fielded questions at the meeting from social media as well as from people in the audience. 'Hey everyone! Ready to answer your questions here at McKinley High School in Baton Rouge. Let's do this. #AskPOTUS,' President Obama tweeted from his personal account. When asked by a man in the audience if President Obama's wife would be running for President like former first lady Hillary Clinton, the President had a firm reply. Audience members around the man, who said he was the father of one of Obama's Secret Service officers, rose and clapped as the president responded to his question. Obama said, 'Let me tell you that there are three things that are certain in life: death, taxes, and Michelle is not running for President. That I can tell you.' Funny question: Audience members around the man, who said he was the father of one of Obama's Secret Service officers, rose and clapped as the president responded to his question A 20-year-old who handed himself in to police after detectives released a sickening video of a one-punch attack on New Year's Day has pleaded not guilty to the assault. Jordan Sharma, 20, went to police after the alleged 'coward punch' attack outside a convenience store in Civic, Canberra, which left the victim with a shattered jaw. He appeared in the ACT Magistrates Court on Friday and pleaded not guilty to recklessly inflicting grievous bodily harm following the alleged attack in the early hours of January 1. A 20-year-old who handed himself into police after detectives released a sickening video of a one-punch attack on New Year's Day in Canberra has pleaded not guilty to the assault Jordan Sharma, 20, appeared in the ACT Magistrates Court on Friday and pleaded not guilty to recklessly inflicting grievous bodily harm CCTV footage from the incident shows the victim, also aged in his 20s, having a tense conversation with a man before another stepped in and knocked him unconscious with a punch to his jaw. The video shows how a group of onlookers watched on as a taller man dressed in all-black squared up to a shorter male with blond hair. When the blond man took a step forward, a third man then moved in and allegedly punched him in the side of the head, according to the shocking footage. The alleged victim then appeared to fall sideways and hit his head on the concrete, before another man rushed forward to support his head. Two men are seen on camera engaged in a heated conversation as the third, in a grey t-shirt and black pants, watches on with his fists clenched The video shows the man in the grey T-shirt lurch forward and strike the victim with a punch to the jaw The victim, a Canberra man in his 20s, begins to fall backwards after the heavy blow as people watch He was forced to have a titanium plate inserted into his jaw along with screws to help fix the damage, according to the Canberra Times. Sharma handed himself in last week after ACT Policing released footage of the alleged attack outside the East Row Supa 24 convenience store shortly before 3am. He appeared in court today and the registrar continued bail. The matter will next appear in court in March. The young man has crashed to the ground heavily as his attacker begins to move away The attacker and another man, dressed in black, turn to leave the scene with the victim seemingly unconscious Patrolling the streets of the Big Apple might seem like a mammoth task for some, but miniature horse Honor is taking it all in his stride. Honor, the country's tiniest police horse in training, was out patrolling the streets of Manhattan today before stopping in at a nearby cafe for a bite of carrot cake. Miniature horse Honor is from Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses, a company which provides the tiny animals in order to comfort those suffering from stress or trauma. As well as visiting sick children in hospital, the animals have also helped first responders to tragic incidents such as the Sandy Hook school massacre, who might be struggling with their emotions. According to the company's Facebook page, the horses work with over 40,000 adults and children each year, bringing joy wherever they go. Saddle up partner: Miniature horse Honor, who is a therapy animal designed to bring happiness to those who are in emtional pain, was pictured patrolling the streets of Manhattan today Larcya Hawkins was suspended last year from her job at Wheaton College in Illinois after she made a controversial Facebook post The angry emails came in a flurry to the president's office at Wheaton College, a small, picturesque campus near Boston. But they all shared one simple mistake. They were sent to the wrong Wheaton. More than 1,000 miles away, another Wheaton College near Chicago was planning to fire a professor after she declared solidarity with Muslims. The college suspended tenured professor Larcya Hawkins in December last year while it pondered the 'theological implications' of a Facebook post she made, school officials at the college in Illinois said in a statement. 'I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book' who 'worship the same God,' Hawkins wrote in the Facebook post. 'Her theological comments are being taken up as an endorsement of Islam and a clear and emphatic statement that Islam and Christianity are approximately the same,' Wheaton provost Stan Jones wrote in an email quoted in a statement by college officials. The Facebook post made by professor Larcya Hawkins in December last year, which led to her suspension In a Facebook post, Wheaton professor Larcya Hawkins pledged to wear a hijab as a sign of solidarity with Muslims That Wheaton, the intended target of the hateful emails, is known for its evangelical Christian mission. The Wheaton College in Massachusetts is a secular liberal-arts school. They aren't related. But the two schools are a frequent source of confusion. Students apply to the wrong college. Donors send money to the other Wheaton. 'The name confusion is a longstanding and deep-rooted problem,' said Dennis Hanno, president of the Wheaton in Massachusetts. 'But it's one that we often just chuckle about.' On the Norton campus of 1,600 students, roughly half the size of the Illinois college, everyone has heard about mix-ups. Take the case of Charis Chu, who arrived from Hong Kong as a freshman in 2008 thinking the college shared the same religious mission as the other Wheaton. Classes had already started when she realized the error; she ended up staying until 2011, when she transferred to New York University. Now back in Hong Kong, Chu said it's something she can laugh about. Freshman Rowan Rice nearly applied to the other Wheaton, stopping when the form asked for a pastor's recommendation. Campus athletes and admissions officers tell stories about visiting schools to find welcome signs adorned with the Wheaton Thunder logo, the Illinois school's mascot. In one gaffe from a 2010 commencement speech, former Today show anchor Ann Curry listed several alumni, including the Rev. Billy Graham and film director Wes Craven, who actually attended the Wheaton in Illinois. In this June 20, 2003 photo, joggers run through the campus of Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. The college often gets confused with Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts Such tales are common at schools that share similar names. It's easy to imagine when there are more than a dozen universities called Wesleyan and four Loyolas of some variation. At Miami University in Ohio, officials say an international student once arrived expecting to see Florida beaches. But the mix-ups have taken a darker tone after the religious Wheaton started the process in early January to fire Hawkins, who wore a headscarf to support Muslims. Some emails sent to the wrong school have included violent threats. Hanno has launched a campaign to promote civility and clear up the confusion. He penned an essay in The Washington Post rebuking the 'unbridled hostility' in those emails. He is asking students and faculty to spread tolerance on social media. 'We want to be proactive in getting the word out to as many people as possible that there are two Wheatons, and that we have very different philosophies,' Hanno said in an interview. Courtney Leach, a senior at the Massachusetts school, said the increase in attention has united the campus. 'The confusion encouraged people to speak up about what we are as a school and what we believe in, and that we encourage expression of all religions and backgrounds,' she said. Still, there's worry about damage done. One email from a high school counselor in Texas said she would never recommend the school again because of its attitude toward Muslims. One father called to remove his daughter from the application pool for the same reason. Officials cleared up the mistake in those cases, but they wonder how many others made the same error without contacting the school. To avoid confusion, the Massachusetts Wheaton now emphasizes the state's name on marketing materials, and it has circulated emails explaining the differences. Both schools are still very fond of their names, Hanno said. His school is named after the family that founded it. The Illinois school is named for its town. Even so, the recent confusion has rekindled a debate about a name change. 'I think this incident has certainly spurred more consideration of that,' Hanno said, 'but we're not at a point that we're going to make a change just yet.' Donald Trump doesn't plan to stop granting regular interviews on television if he becomes president, one of his adult sons told DailyMail.com after Thursday night's debate in North Charleston, South Carolina. Eric Trump, 32, the billionaire's third son, smiled when he was asked if his dad would continue showing up on Americans' TVs at least 'once a week' if he wins the election. 'Just ONCE a week?' Eric responded, in the spin room adjacent to the debate hall. 'Oh, don't worry, He'll keep you guys busy. He'll keep you around,' he said. CHEERING SECTION: Donald Trump's children (L-R) Don Jr., Eric and Ivanka, and wife Melania, were on hand to watch the Republican presidential debate sponsored by Fox Business Network on Thursday night in North Charleston, South Carolina ENERGIZER BUNNY: Trump, a longtime television fixture, wouldn't stop showing up on the small screen if he were to become president, according to his son Eric A commander-in-chief with a hyper-active media calendar would be a first for the United States. President Barack Obama seldom grants on-camera interviews, and appears only a handful of times each year on the broadcast and cable network shows that have become integral to Trump's campaign strategy. The Donald is also the only presidential candidate who can reliably expect free airtime via telephone on highly rated shows. 'Fox News Sunday' famously declined to interview him remotely, insisting on an in-person appearance. But other programs are in the habit of putting him on the air on short notice via phone in quick succession. That type of outreach could continue from the Oval Office, Trump's son seemed to suggest. He also vouched for his father's assurance that he and siblings Ivanka, 34, and Donald Jr., 38, stand ready to take over The Trump Organization in a matter of months if his flashy campaign maintains its momentum through November. 'Absolutely,' Eric told DailyMail.com. 'It's not hypothetical. There's a succession plan in place. We've been in the company for years and years and we're ready.' The elder Trump said during Thursday's debate that he's prepared to hand over the company to his grown kids. 'If I become president, I couldn't care less about my company. It's peanuts,' the Republican front-runner said. 'I have Ivanka, and Eric and Don sitting there. Run the company kids! Have a good time. I'm going to do it for America.' A VERY TRUMP DEBATE: The Donald pledged that he would let his grown children run his sprawling business empire if he were to move his office from Trump Tower to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue INSANITY: Reporters crowded around Trump and his family-member surrogates after Thursday night's debate The younger Trump played spinmeister for his father, too, saying he 'not only won the debate tonight, but I think he won the first primary.' 'He was masterful, and that moment talking about 9/11 was incredible,' he said. That moment came after Ted Cruz lambasted The Donald for laying claim to 'New York values' 0 which Cruz interpreted as pride in liberalism. 'The people in New York fought and fought and fought, and we saw more death, and even the smell of death' after the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001, Trump shot back. 'Nobody understood it. And it was with us for months, the smell, the air.' 'And we rebuilt downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers.' Jeb Bush Former Florida governor Age on Election Day: 63 Religion: Catholic Base: Moderates Resume: Former Florida governor and secretary of state. Former co-chair of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. Education: B.A. University of Texas at Austin. Family: Married to Columba Bush (1974), with three adult children. Noelle Bush has made news with her struggle with drug addiction, and related arrests. George P. Bush was elected Texas land commissioner in 2014. Jeb's father George H.W. Bush was the 41st President of the United States, and his brother George W. Bush was number 43. Claim to fame: Jeb was an immensely popular governor with strong economic and jobs credentials. He is also one of just two GOP candidates who is fluent in Spanish. Achilles heel: Bush has angered conservatives with his permissive positions on illegal immigration (saying some border-crossing is 'an act of love) and common-core education standards. His last name could also be a liability with voters who fear establishing a family dynasty in the White House. Chris Christie New Jersey governor Age on Election Day: 54 Religion: Catholic Base: Establishment-minded conservatives Resume: Governor of New Jersey. Former U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey. Former Morris County freeholder and lobbyist. Governor of New Jersey. Former U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey. Former Morris County freeholder. Former statehouse lobbyist. Education: B.A. University of Delaware, Newark, J.D. Seton Hall University. Family: Married to Mary Pat Foster (1986) with four children. Claim to fame: Pugnacious and unapologetic, Christie once told a heckler to 'sit down and shut up' and brings a brash style to everything he does. That includes the post-9/11 criminal prosecutions of terror suspects that made his reputation as a hard-charger. Achilles heel: Christie is often accused of embracing an ego-driven and needlessly abrasive style. His administration continues to operate under a 'Bridgegate' cloud: At least two aides have been indicted in an alleged scheme to shut down lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge as political retribution for a mayor who refused to endorse the governor's re-election. Carly Fiorina Former tech CEO Age on Election Day: 62 Religion: Episcopalian Base: Conservatives Resume: Former CEO of Hewett-Packard. Former group president of Lucent Technologies. Former U.S. Senate candidate in California. Education: B.A. Stanford University. UCLA School of Law (did not finish). M.B.A. University of Maryland. M.Sci. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Family: Married to Frank Fiorina (1985), with one adult step-daughter and another who is deceased. She has two step-grandchildren. Divorced from Todd Bartlem (1977-1984). Claim to fame: Fiorina was the first woman to lead a Fortune 20 company, something that could provide ammunition against the Democratic Party's drive to make Hillary Clinton the first female president. She is also the only woman in the 2016 GOP field, making her the one Republican who can't be accused of sexism. Achilles heel: Fiorina's unceremonious firing by HP's board has led to questions about her management and leadership styles. And her only political experience has been a failed Senate bid in 2010 against Barbara Boxer. Mike Huckabee Former Arkansas governor Age on Election Day: 61 Religion: Southern Baptist Base: Evangelicals Resume: Former governor and lieutenant governor of Arkansas. Former Fox News Channel host. Ordained minister and author. Education: B.A. Ouachita Baptist University. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (did not finish). Family: Married to Janet Huckabee (1974), with three adult children. Mrs. Huckabee is a survivor of spinal cancer. Claim to fame: 'Huck' is a political veteran and has run for president before, winning the Iowa Caucuses in 2008 and finishing second for the GOP nomination behind John McCain. He's known as an affable Christian and succeeded in building a huge following on his weekend television program, in which he frequently sat in on the electric bass with country & western groups and other 'wholesome' musical entertainers. Achilles heel: Huckabee may have a problem with female voters. He complained in 2014 about Obamacare's mandatory contraception coverage, saying Democrats want women to 'believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar.' He earned more scorn for hawking herbal supplements in early-2015 infomercials as a diabetes cure, something he has yet to disavow despite disagreement from medical experts. Rand Paul Kentucky senator Age on Election Day: 53 Religion: Presbyterian Base: Libertarians Resume: US senator. Board-certified ophthalmologist. Former congressional campaign manager for his father Ron Paul. Education: Baylor University (did not finish). M.D. Duke University School of Medicine. Family: Married to Kelley Ashby (1990), with three sons. His father is a former Texas congressman who ran for president three times but never got close to grabbing the brass ring. Claim to fame: Paul embraces positions that are at odds with most in the GOP, including an anti-interventionist foreign policy, reduced military spending, criminal drug sentencing reform for African-Americans and strict limits on government electronic surveillance including a clampdown on the National Security Agency. Achilles heel: Paul's politics are aligned with those of his father, whom mainstream GOPers saw as kooky. Both Pauls have advocated for a brand of libertarianism that forces government to stop domestic surveillance programs and limits foreign military interventions. Rick Santorum Former Penn. senator Age on Election Day: 58 Religion: Catholic Base: Evangelicals Resume: Former US senator and former member of the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. Former lobbyist who represented World Wrestling Entertainment. Education: B.A. Penn State University. M.B.A. University of Pittsburgh. J.D. Penn State University Dickinson School of Law. Family: Married to Karen Santorum (1990), with seven living children. One baby was stillborn in 1996. Another, named Isabella, is a special needs child with a genetic disorder. Claim to fame: Santorum won the 2012 Republican Iowa Caucuses by a nose. He won by visiting all of Iowa's 99 states in a pickup truck belonging to his state campaign director, a consultant who now works for Donald Trump. Achilles heel: As a young lobbyist, Santorum persuaded the federal government to exempt pro wrestling from regulations governing the use of anabolic steroids. And the stridently conservative politician has attracted strong opposition from gay rights groups. One gay columnist held a contest to redefine his name, buying the 'santorum.com' domain to advertise the winning entry which is too vulgar to print. REPUBLICAN DROPOUTS Rick Perry, former Texas governor (withdrew Sept. 11, 2015) Scott Walker, Wisconsin governor (withdrew Sept. 21, 2015) Bobby Jindal, Louisiana governor (withdrew Nov. 17, 2015) Lindsey Graham, South Carolina senator (withdrew Dec. 21, 2015) George Pataki, former New York governor Advertisement Phone boxes full of fish, towering animated circuses and virtual pavement drawings are among the eccentric art installations lighting up London. The capital will play host to a colourful assortment of projects set up for the Lumiere London festival to drown out the dark nights this month. The light festival will feature in 30 locations including Mayfair, Westminster and Regent Street from today to January 17 every night. Scroll down for video 195 Piccadilly, produced by Artichoke, became a sea of colour and light thanks to a new festival in the capital this week Fish swim in a phone box in an artwork called The Aquarium by Benedetto Bufalino and Benoit Deseille (left) and The Light of the Spirit by Patrice Warrener on Westminster Abbey (right) Crowds gathered to take pictures of the incredible art work called The Aquarium on the corner of Grosvenor Square People look to the heavens to see Cedric Le Borgne's 'Les Voyageurs' (The Travellers), which lights up the sky above London Phone boxes full of fish, towering animated circuses and virtual pavement (pictured) drawings are among the eccentric art installations lighting up London this month as part of the Luminiere Festival This multi-coloured extravaganza is Garden of Light by TILT, one of the many installations that will feature all over London this week Diver by British artist Ron Haselden lights up the water in London as they incredible spectacle attracts people onto the streets It was all eyes to the sky as the crowds gathered to celebrate the launch of the three-day festival which started yesterday Les Lumineoles flying fish soars above the crowd at the launch of the festival, which can be enjoyed at locations all over London Near King's Cross, people gathered to use sophisticated light sensors to do virtual doodles on the floor. Student Phoebe Quare, who tried her hand at the futuristic drawing, said she was amazed by the idea. 'I did not expect this when I left university today - it's surprisingly relaxing, very therapeutic,' she said. 'I could have been here much longer, but I have to go home. 'I would love to see more stuff like this around London, I think it is great.' Spectators enjoy some home-grown talent as they look at litre of light by British artist Mick Stephenson His illuminated figures stand in line inside what has been set out as a tunnel of light that people can walk through while afmiring them Visitors take part a light installation during the Lumiere festival in London as it kicked off last night, with people using special wands to draw light art on the pavement below near King's Cross The festival lit up this woman's face yesterday, as the bright colours shone all over London. Nearby an enormous neon cage houses a swing which members of the public can use, while a lively circus is projected on to the walls of Central Saint Martins The art installations will be lighting up various locations between now and January 17. Designer Elaine Buckholtz said she thought of the installation as 'drawing painting into the 21st century' In Grosvenor Square and the hum of traffic is drowned out by a classical score providing the soundtrack to a Vincent van Gogh-inspired light piece. In its shadow, neon benches will illuminate the park during the evenings Nearby an enormous neon cage houses a swing which members of the public can use, while a lively circus is projected on to the walls of Central Saint Martins. In Grosvenor Square, the hum of traffic is drowned out by a classical score providing the soundtrack to a Vincent van Gogh-inspired light piece. Designer Elaine Buckholtz said she thought of the installation as 'drawing painting into the 21st century'. In its shadow, neon benches will illuminate the park during the evenings. Police are worried for the safety of a mother-of-two who suddenly disappeared after leaving the children briefly with a friend outside their primary school. The Met says officers are becoming 'increasingly concerned' for the welfare of Michaela Oberhorner, 47, who was last seen outside Woodside Primary, east London, on Wednesday. She left her children with a friend outside the school gates at around 3.30pm, saying she was quickly going to the bank, but never returned. The Met says officers are becoming 'increasingly concerned' for the welfare of Michaela Oberhorner, 47, who was last seen outside Woodside Primary, east London, on Wednesday The German single mother has no known partner or family in the UK and there have been no sightings of her since her disappearance. She lives in the Walthamstow area and works in Edmonton, but has not been to work since Wednesday morning, January 13. Ms Oberhorner, who is originally from the Munich area of Germany, has worked at the Tottenham branch of Ikea for several years. She is the mother of two young sons. Ms Oberhorner told a friend she was going to the bank but never returned to the spot where she left her children The single mother, from Germany, has no known partner or family in the UK and there have been no sightings of her since her disappearance; pictured is the school where she was last seen The school where Ms Oberhorner was last seen is just a few minutes away from where EastEnders actress Sian Blake went missing from two weeks ago before being found dead - although there is no suggestion they are linked. Making a Murderer is the documentary series that has entranced a nation with its bombshell accusations of police apparently trying to frame an innocent man for murder. But one key piece of evidence used to back up protagonist Steven Avery's claims of a set-up by police - a vial of his blood with a hole in the cap - has now been called into question. According to old court papers found by OnMilwaukee.com, the prosecution were due to call nurse Marlene Kraintz to testify that she put the hole in the cap while drawing Avery's blood. According to old court documents, nurse Marlene Kraintz was due to be called at Steven Avery's trial to testify that she put the hole in the top of a vial of blood which was allegedly used to frame Avery for murder During the trail documented in new series Making a Murderer, Avery's lawyers Dean Strang and Jerome Buting (pictured left) argued that the vial was used to plant Avery's blood in Teresa's car and that the needle hole was evidence of that The news site goes on to quote two national experts who say that most blood vials will have holes in the rubber stoppers because that is how the samples get inside. These statements were backed up by a Reddit post from a user claiming to work at LabCorp, the company that took Avery's blood, saying that such puncture marks are routine. The user explains that a double-ended needle is used to take blood, with one end going into the patient's arm, and the other piercing the tube for the sample to be collected. The worker, who did not give their name, included a picture of another vial to show a typical hole. It is likely that Kraintz, who died in 2012 without ever going to court, would have mentioned this during her evidence. Former district attorney Ken Kratz, who prosecuted the Steven Avery case, said that Kraintz was never called because the evidence surrounding the vial was so weak. He said: 'We did not believe that the defense had raised the issue significantly enough (at trial) claiming that there was any tampering done to the blood vial. 'Although the documentary suggests that the hole in the vial of blood was significant, everybody at the time knew and certainly the filmmakers had to know that the hole in the vial was put there by the nurse who drew the blood.' Several experts have also said that such puncture holes are standard practice and are actually used to get blood into the vials (pictured) Making a Murderer follows the real-life story of Steven Avery, a junkyard worker from Wisconsin who was wrongly imprisoned for rape in 1985, only to be released on acquittal 18 years later. Avery then goes on to sue the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Office that falsely accused him of the rape, but finds himself accused of murder as that case is ongoing. Avery is accused of killing Teresa Halbach, an Auto Trader photographer who was last seen on his property before vanishing. Several days later, her badly burned bones are found in a pit outside Avery's house, while her car is discovered in the family's scrapyard with Steven's blood inside. Defending himself for the second time, Avery claims that he is again being framed in order to save the police department from having to admit wrongdoing in his earlier conviction. While defense lawyers Dean Strang and Jerome Buting build a compelling case for Avery's innocence, a vial of Avery's blood that was in police hands is presented as a major breakthrough. Taken from Avery while he was serving time for his wrongful rape conviction, the vial is contained in an evidence pack at a police facility. However, when Buting goes to examine it, the red evidence seal around the package is broken and the vial has a puncture hole in the top. Buting argues that the fact that the package has been tampered with means police could have removed the vial, and used it to plant Avery's blood in Teresa's car. The series makes no mention of the fact that piercing the seals of such tubes would be standard practice while filling them. The defense team also presented evidence that the tape sealing the package was legitimately broken on June 19, 2002, by then-district attorney E. James Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald and members of Avery's defense team recorded breaking into the package during Avery's appeal against his rape conviction while deciding what to send for additional testing. Asked for a response to the old court papers, a spokesman for attorney Strang said the he was traveling and would be unable to reply. Police are seeking help from the public to identify CCTV images of a man who followed a woman on the train and then assaulted her as she walked home. The woman was travelling from Auckland to Mangere, in New Zealand, when the man allegedly followed her and grabbed her from behind as she walked home from Middlemore Station at around 10.30pm. CCTV images released show the man swigging from a bottle, wearing a striped shirt and dark glasses. Police are seeking help from the public to identify CCTV images of a New Zealand man, swigging from a bottle and wearing a striped shirt, who allegedly followed a woman on the train and then assaulted her New Zealand Police have described the man as Polynesian, approximately 30 years of age and 185cm tall. The woman told Manuaku police that she had been followed for a long period of time on the train journey between Britomart and Middlemore Hospital, before she was grabbed. Manuaku Police said the woman was assaulted on Wednesday night and that the male in question is believed to live in the Mangere area. He may also have links to Newmarket or Remuera areas. Anyone with information has been urged to contact the Counties Manukau Crime Squad on (09) 261 1321 or you can call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. Norway's immigration minister has announced that refugees who exploited a legal loophole to enter the country on bikes will have to return to Russia. As many as 5,500 asylum seekers made the perilous Arctic crossing using cheap bikes to travel through the Storskog crossing last year. Norway has agreed to lay on a bus service back to Russia following concerns over the risks for the migrants walking and cycling back in the winter temperatures. Refugees from as far as Afghanistan and Iraq have been travelling to Norway in hope of starting a new life Bicycles became the preferred mode of transport of migrants seeking to cross into Norway, because Russian authorities do not let people cross the border on foot Norway's right-wing government announced in November 2015 that migrants who had been living legally in Russia should be returned to Russia. The decision was based on the view that Russia is a safe country and any migrants with a legal right to live there should not need to then settle in Norway. 'Russian authorities recently confirmed that foreign citizens with permanent residency or a multiple-entry visa can be sent back by bus,' Norwegian police said in a statement. Since then the police had been quietly putting migrants on bicycles back across the Storskog border crossing, 400 kilometres (about 250 miles) north of the Arctic Circle. As many as 5,500 asylum seekers made the perilous Arctic crossing used bikes to travel through the Storskog crossing last year Norway's right-wing government announced in November 2015 that migrants who had been living legally in Russia should be returned to Russia Bicycles became the preferred mode of transport of migrants seeking to cross into Norway, because Russian authorities do not let people cross the border on foot. Norway has strict rules on human trafficking and considers anyone who drives migrants across the border in a car or truck as human traffickers. NGOs had expressed outrage at the migrants being forced to retrace their steps on two wheels in winter, when temperatures in the region regularly fall to minus 20 degrees Celsius. 'It's much better to return people with Russian residency permits in a dignified manner,' Jon Ole Martinsen of NOAS migrant support group said. NGOs had expressed outrage at the migrants being forced to retrace their steps on two wheels in winter, when temperatures in the region regularly fall to minus 20 degrees Celsius Police officers at the Norwegian border crossing station at Storskog throw bikes used to cross the border from Russia into a recycling container The police were unable to confirm the number of people expelled by bicycle, saying only a total of 371 people had been returned to Russia last year. 'They were given bicycles at the border... In many cases, they used them to carry their bags and pushed them 200 or 300 metres' to the Russian side of the border, Daniel Drageset, a spokesman for the immigration police, told AFP, assuring they were 'adequately dressed' for the weather. Norway is not within the European Union, but is a member of the Schengen passport-free zone. The news comes as Austria announced it will deny entry to migrants who intend to pass through Germany rather than apply for asylum there. The decision was announced by Austria's Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner in a radio interview broadcast today. Germany has been turning away a growing number of migrants at its border with Austria, sending hundreds back into Austria every day, the Austrian police said this week. Norway has agreed to organise a bus service for the migrants returning to Russia due to the cold weather The news comes as Austria announced it will deny entry to migrants who intend to pass through Germany rather than apply for asylum there Hundreds of thousands of migrants have streamed through Austria and into Germany since September, when the two countries threw open their borders to a wave of people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Only about 90,000 have applied for asylum in Austria last year but fears about migrants have nevertheless contributed to a rise in support for the far right. Government ministers from the Social Democrats and their junior coalition partner, the Austrian People's Party, have said more must be done to reduce the number of people arriving, though they have disagreed on how to achieve that. 'What is the situation currently on the German-Austrian border? That only those who want asylum in Germany are being let through, and those who want to travel onwards are sent back,' Mikl-Leitner told Austrian broadcaster ORF. Local bars and pubs claim they are suffering from the Dry January phenomena which raises millions for charity but puts already struggling businesses at risk. Around two million people have given up alcohol for a month after the extravagant Christmas period in an annual event organised by Alcohol Concern. However, the rise of the trend has hit pubs and clubs hard, and campaigners have even complained that the charity should find a better way to raise money without hitting local businesses. Around two million people have given up alcohol for a month after the extravagant Christmas period in an annual event organised by Alcohol Concern With pubs closing at a rate of four per day - the highest rate since 2004 - there are concerns that the number of people now taking up the challenge could tip many businesses over the edge. Tom Stainer, from the Campaign for Real Ale in Bristol said: 'As an organisation which helps to support pubs, we believe there are other ways in which people can be encouraged to support charities, without being a detriment to small businesses,' reports The Bristol Post 'This is already a difficult time of year for pubs, and a few quiet weeks can sometimes mean the difference between surviving or not.' Dry January is just the latest in a number of campaigns to get people to give up booze, according to Frank Murphy, of Glasgow pub The Pot Still. He said: 'It started with Macmillan and Go Sober for October, which stirred my ire. Then Cancer Research copied the idea with Dryathlon.' 'It's a method of reducing alcohol consumption in the part of the population where drinking is not a problem,' he told Vice. Ben Walton, owner of a bars in Battersea and Earlsfield said: 'Frankly, it's a disaster. Spend per head is at least 10 less than it might be at another time of year. We sell so much tea and cola, and so little wine.' Earlier this month, pubs have described this month's 'dry January' as a 'nightmare' for the industry, as more than two million drinkers sign up for a booze-free period. In 1979 pubs sold 29.2m pints of beer a day, but this fell to 10.9million last year and the industry fears it will be hit particularly hard over the coming month Tthe rise of the trend has hit pubs and clubs hard, and campaigners have even complained that the charity should find a better way to raise money without hitting local businesses A spokesman for the British Pub and Beer Association said: 'As beer is the mainstay of the pub it also supports your local. Many pubs still face challenging trading conditions and it can be a case of 'use it or lose it''. At present, four pubs shut every day in the UK, which is the highest closure rate since 1904. The number of pubs has slumped from 69,000 in 1980 to fewer than 50,000 today. In 1979 pubs sold 29.2m pints of beer a day, but this fell to 10.9million last year. As an organisation which helps to support pubs, we believe there are other ways in which people can be encouraged to support charities, without being a detriment to small businesses Campaign For Real Ale High rents and fierce competition from supermarkets have been blamed for many closures. Now the industry fears the government-backed 'dry January' campaign will contribute even more to this downturn. Martin Caffrey, of the Federation of Licensed Victuallers, told the Sunday Express : 'It really is a nightmare for the licensed trade. 'We know millions have signed up to go dry in January, but our argument is that as an organisation we promote responsible drinking right through the year. That's the way people should treat alcohol.' The Dry January campaign was founded four years ago by Alcohol Concern, a registered charity. This year it is being backed by Public Health England, a quango affiliated to the Department of Health, which has paid for nationwide Twitter and Facebook campaigns. Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies will urge the public to take at least two - possibly three - days off a week to give their livers a rest. A major study by London's Royal Free Hospital, to be published soon, is expected to show a month without alcohol is as effective as a breakthrough drug. With pubs closing at a rate of four per day - the highest rate since 2004 - there are concerns that the number of people now taking up the challenge could tip many businesses over the edge Liver disease deaths have risen fourfold in Britain since the 1970s to 16,000 a year. It follows reports from the government's chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies urging Britons to slash their drinking under the biggest shake-up of alcohol guidelines in 30 years. She is advising drinkers to take at least two - possibly even three - days off a week to allow their livers to recover. The recommendations make it clear there is no 'safe' alcohol limit and even small to moderate amounts may increase the risk of cancer and other illnesses. The existing guidelines - which have been branded confusing and too lenient - were drawn up by the government in 1987. Later this year Diageo, which produces brands such as Guinness, Red Stripe lager, Smirnoff and Baileys, will publish labels stating calories per serving. Other manufacturers are expected to follow suit under plans to inform the public about so-called 'empty calories' which provide few or no nutrients. Refugees arriving in Switzerland are facing harsh new integration laws with authorities confiscating valuable possessions and taxing 10 per cent of the migrants' future earnings. Following the example set by Denmark, in which possessions worth more than 1,000 Swiss francs are taken, the country claims the measures are necessary to pay for the migrants' upkeep. The harsh rules come as Denmark backtracks on similar measures after being rebuked by the UN refugee agency and drawing comparisons to Nazi Germany. Switzerland has enacted tough new measures to ensure refugees pay for their upkeep. File image used The country is taxing 10 per cent of refugees' future earnings and stripping them of their possessions on arrival to the country. Pictured are a group of migrants at a camp for asylum seekers in Zurich Local broadcaster SRF showed a receipt a refugee from Syria which he claimed to have received from authorities when he had to turn over more than half of the cash his family had left after paying traffickers to help them get to the Alpine country. It also showed an information sheet for refugees that stated: 'If you have property worth more than 1,000 Swiss francs when you arrive at a reception centre you are required to give up these financial assets in return for a receipt.' The country's migration authority SEM said the law calls for asylum seekers and refugees to contribute where possible to the cost of processing their applications and providing social assistance. 'If someone leaves voluntarily within seven months this person can get the money back and take it with them. Otherwise the money covers costs they generate,' an SEM spokeswoman told SRF. Remarkably, those who win the right to stay and work in Switzerland have to also surrender 10 percent of their pay for up to 10 years until they repay 15,000 francs in costs. Stefan Frey, from refugee aid group Schweizerische Fluechtlingshilfe, called the measures 'undignified'. It comes as Denmark amends a proposal to confiscate refugees' possessions to pay for their stay by raising the amount they will be allowed to keep. The plans sparked international outrage, especially in the US, where the Washington Post noted that confiscating jewellery from refugees had 'a particularly bitter connotation in Europe' where the Nazis seized gold and valuables from Jews and others during the Second World War. Several organisations, including the UN High Commission for Refugees, also censured the Nordic country for the proposal, as well as for others that will delay family reunification and make acquiring refugee and residence status more difficult. The proposal was a response to the tough new immigration policies in neighbouring Sweden, as the Danish government feared it would turn their country from a transition point to a final destination. Web users have been divided on the rights and wrongs of the issue Boss: Mike Fisher, pictured, defended charging a customer 2 for a mug of hot water and lemon A cafe owner has caused an online firestorm after charging a customer 2 for a cup of hot water with a slice of lemon in it. After the customer, named Hannah C, complained about the 'ridiculous' cost of the drink, manager Mike Fisher hit back by highlighting the cost of the labour needed to make and serve the drink. His impassioned response has divided the public - with some claiming that Hannah was overreacting to the charge, while others branded Mr Fisher 'rude' and said the price of the drink was a 'rip-off'. Thousands of people have taken to social media and the MailOnline comments section to weigh in on the controversy. The row was originally sparked by Hannah's post on TripAdvisor after she had paid a trip to Bennett's Cafe & Bistro in York last month. She said the cost of her hot water and lemon was over-the-top given how simple it is to make, and accused the waiter of being 'rude' when she asked him to justify the cost. But Mr Fisher responded with a detailed reply spelling out why he thought 2 was a fair price, breaking down expenses such as rent, staff wages and business rates that contribute to the cost of the drink. After the incident came to light, several thousand web users expressed an opinion on the row, with the responses sharply divided. Complaint: A customer using the profile name 'Hannah C' took to review website TripAdvisor to slam Bennett's Cafe & Bistro in York, saying being charged 2 for a cup of hot water with lemon was 'ridiculous' Response: The manager said he was sorry Hannah had felt 'ripped off' before justifying the price by breaking down the cost that had gone into providing the drink, including rent, staff wages and business rates Among those supporting the Bennett's management, many suggested that you should not expect to take up space in a cafe without paying, even if you order just water. Food writer Charlotte Pike tweeted: 'Good on Bennett's. Totally understand being on a tight budget, but you don't go to a cafe expecting a free drink.' Poll Is it fair for a cafe to charge 2 for hot water and lemon? YES NO Is it fair for a cafe to charge 2 for hot water and lemon? YES 17012 votes NO 6699 votes Now share your opinion A MailOnline reader named Annie wrote: 'Surely if you want hot water and a slice of lemon at cost price, you have it at home! 'The whole point of why you eat or drink outside of your own home is that someone else provides the premises and the service which most certainly does not come for free.' Pete added: 'Brilliant response from the manager and all totally true - 2 less the cost of quarter of one lemon is not the profit from her visit.' But some readers agreed with Hannah that the cost of the drink was disproportionate - and accused Mr Fisher of being rude to his customer. They pointed out that even though Hannah did not buy anything else herself, her friends did spend money on food and drinks. 'I'm with her,' said Harold from London. 'The waiter is paid no matter what or who he serves. He's not paid by the order but by the hour. 'A tiny slice of lemon in hot water for 2 is a rip-off and when you've probably spent, as a group, a considerable amount, just not on.' Alison Belshaw wrote on Twitter: 'I oversee a cafe, I'd never charge someone in a group buying stuff for hot water and lemon.' Divided: Twitter users were split over whether the cafe was justified in its response Dispute: Bennett's Cafe & Bistro, pictured, has been voted the 11th best restaurant in York on TripAdvisor And another MailOnline reader said: '2 for a cup of water is a DISGRACE, pure and simple. There is simply NO justification for charging that much, and the "response" from the owner speaks volumes.' A few commenters concluded that the argument reflected badly on both Hannah and Mr Fisher, with one writing simply, 'Both customer and restaurant owner seem awful.' HOW ARE THE REST OF THE PRICES? Bennett's has more than just hot water and lemon on their menu. Here is what you would have to pay for other popular drinks in the York cafe: Drink Cost Pot of tea for one 2.00 Coffee 2.80 Cappuccino 2.80 Espresso 2.20 Hot Chocolate 2.80 Orange juice 2.30 Glass of milk 1.70 Advertisement Speaking today, cafe owner Mr Fisher, 67, said he only wanted to give his reasoning behind charging for the drink. Speaking to MailOnline, he said: 'All I wanted to do was explain to this customer why exactly she had been charged. 'I'm a bit of a digital dinosaur when it comes to all that social media, but this has gone around the world. 'The feedback from my post has been extraordinary. One of the waiters said it had been shared on Facebook one thousand times. I thought that was a lot - then he said two hours later that it had got over seven thousand views.' TripAdvisor then removed the post. However, it was still seen by millions of people across the world. Mr Fisher, who has lived in York, for more than 20 years, added: 'I've had calls from other restaurant owners within York telling me on the good job I've done. 'The waiter was in shock. He couldn't believe that she was thinking that the hot water and lemon slice would be free. 'He acted perfectly in that situation - he was just a bit shocked by her reaction.' Fair? The hot water and lemon 2 despite being made of cheap ingredients (file photo) In her original TripAdvisor post, Hannah said she had joined her friends for afternoon tea but ordered hot water with a slice of lemon because she was on a 'tight budget'. She said her order did not arrive with her friends' and then she was shocked to find she had been charged 2 for the drink. She wrote: 'When I asked why I was being charged so much for some water the waiter rudely said "well, do you know how much a lemon costs?" Yes, it's definitely not 2. 'He then went on to wrongly inform me that a "pot of tea for one" (which is what I was charged for) is the same price as a lemon. To show just how ridiculous this is, my friend ordered a slice of chocolate cake which was 1.90.' Just over a week later, the manager of the cafe responded to the online review. He outlined in detail the different jobs the waiter had performed before, during and after Hannah's meal, and reasoned that it worked out to 'at least 2-3 minutes work'. Mr Fisher continued: 'The cost of overheads for the business, i.e rent, business rates, electricity costs, bank charges, etc works out at 27.50 per hour of trading.' Asked about the row, he said: 'She was a student by the look of her and I tried to explain to her when she was here why she was charged that price. I briefly tried to explain and she stormed off.' Are you 'Hannah C' or do you know who she is? We would love to hear from you - email euan.mclelland@mailonline.co.uk or phone 0203 615 0629 Tensions remain after waves of sex attacks in Cologne on New Year's Eve It is claimed the attacks and groping have been ongoing since November Austrian officials are investigating claims that underage asylum seekers have been sexually assaulting three schoolgirls for months without anybody taking action. The four boys were given places at a school where it is claimed they started assaulting the girls, but it was only in the wake of the sex attacks in Cologne that one victim finally complained to police. Police in Salzburg say they are looking now into accusations of sexual assault, grievous bodily harm and making threats. Police are looking into accusations of sexual assault, grievous bodily harm and making threats at a school in Salzburg (pictured) The three youngsters from Afghanistan, aged 14, 15 and 16, as well as a Syria boy aged 16, have all been suspended after the school headmistress made a complaint to police. According to Kronen Zeitung, the girls at Schlossstrasse Middle School were repeatedly groped but the final straw came when there was an attack so severe it forced action. Police said the allegations dated back to last November and involved verbal abuse and suggestive comments, as well as physical violence and assaults during which the girls were touched. It is alleged the 14-year-old victim was often hit by the 15-year-old boy, including an incident where she was hit so badly from behind that she smashed her head onto a desk. She was attacked again Wednesday morning by the same boy smashing her against a locker so hard that the police were called. They took the victim and the accused to the station where the full story then came out. After hearing of her ordeal, police then expanded the investigation. Local education officials in the city played down the incident however, saying it was nothing more than a few slaps in the corridor and a few obscene comments that were speedily dealt with. The three asylum seekers as well as the fourth boy, who has already been given asylum, have been suspended. It comes as the fallout from waves of sex attacks, many of which were perpetrated by migrants, continues across Continental Europe. After hundreds of women reported being attacked in Cologne, Germany, during New Year celebrations, reports of similar crimes emerged from a number of other main cities. The father of the youngest victim killed in the Sandy Hook massacre has revealed that he has received death threats from people saying the shooting was a hoax. Lenny Pozner's son Noah was just six years old when he was gunned down by Adam Lanza who stormed the elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, killing 20 children. Last month Mr Pozner and Noah's mother Vernonique wrote an article in a Florida newspaper alleging they had been harassed by James Tracy, a professor at Florida Atlantic University - who they claim demanded proof that their child existed. Lenny Pozner with his son Noah, the youngest victim of the Sandy Hook tragedy, where 20 children were gunned down at school Sandy Hook victim Noah Pozner, pictured left, whose father Lenny says he has received death threats from people saying the massacre was a hoax Tracy was then fired by the university after he suggested on his blog that the massacre did not unfold in the way authorities said it did, and may not have happened at all. But now Mr Pozner says that since Tracy's firing, he has received yet more abuse and he is becoming concerned for his safety. In an interview with the Washington Post he says he often gets vitriolic comments on social media such as 'Eventually you'll be tried for your crimes of treason against the people' and 'How much money did you get for faking all of this?' He also recalled how in the days after Tracy was fired, he received death threats from a woman who left expletive-filled messages on his phone saying 'You're going to die.' Mr Pozner added: 'I am concerned for my safety. I try to remain vigilant at all times.' Veronique Pozner, mother of Noah Pozner, holds a single white rose as she walks to her son's grave in Monroe, Connecticut Children are led away from Sandy Hook elementary school following the shooting in December 2012. A total of 26 people were killed including 20 children After the massacre people laid flowers at memorial sites around the school including at the Saint Rose of Lima Church 'As a father I struggle to find peace for my family but to no avail. Gunman Adam Lanza carried out the massacre on December 14, 2012 'Why is this happening? Well, quite simply because persistent deniers of high profile tragedies have painted a target on our backs.' A total of 26 people were killed in the Sandy Hook massacre on December 14, 2012, with 20 children and six staff shot dead by Lanza. Prior to driving to the school, Lanza shot and killed his mother at their Newtown home. He killed himself inside the school as first responders arrived. As with many conspiracy theorists who find darker linings in even the most horrific tragedies, this is far from Tracy's first foray into the world of the unproven. He has written a number of book chapters about media coverage of wars, economic overhauls and union negotiations. On his blog, he has hit a number of the classic conspiracy theories: the September 11 attacks, the purview of the Department of Homeland Security, the PATRIOT Act, the death of Osama bin Laden and Fukishima have all been topics of interest. It comes after several incidents involving huntsman in bizarre Arachnophobe or not, most people would say waking up to a huge spider crawling across your face is a nightmare. Sadly its reality for one terrified Reddit user in Australia who was roused by a huge huntsman scurrying into his bed in the middle of the night. 'Woke up pretty quick when this little huntsman scurried across my face at midnight,' he wrote alongside a photo of the beast. Snaring the eight legged intruder in a Tupperware container, he snapped the creepy crawly stretching its long legs out in a threatening stance. A huntsman spider stretches its long legs out in a threatening stance after being captured in a food container Commenters on Reddit extended their sympathies over the traumatic experience, with some confessing it was their greatest fear. Your title literally just put my biggest fear into words one commenter wrote. But others were less supportive, claiming the night time visits were probably more regular that the Reddit user thought. This is just the first time he's woke you up, one commenter wrote. It's not the first time the notoriously frightening spider has given someone nasty surprise: this week a woman opened a bag of grapes to find a large huntsman lurking inside. Rachael Buckley spotted the pregnant hunstman spider inside a bag of green grapes bought from a Woolworths shopping centre in Melbourne. Rachael Buckley spotted the pregnant hunstman spider inside a bag of green grapes bought Woolworths Experts have deemed it's a 'highly uncommon' place for the spider to lay its eggs, while the supermarket giant is looking into the incident Not only was this Spider in there, but also was a decent sized Spider egg sac so it looks as though it had been breeding in the bag. Definitely not my idea of fresh food! she wrote on social media. The supermarket giant responded they were looking into the appearance of the eight-legged intruder, which experts have deemed highly uncommon. 'Its certainly not prime real-estate for a huntsman, Zoologist at Northern Gulf Resource Management Group Christopher Jolly told Daily Mail Australia. Huntsman typically lay eggs in trees or other dark crevices, which suggest the arachnid was desperate to incubate her young when she climbed in the bag. The huntsman is at its most defensive while guarding its young and therefore this is when they're most likely to bite The spiders are notorious for popping out in expected spots - like this creepy crawly who was spotted lurking in a doorway Huntsman's tendency to pop out inside moving vehicles has earned them the spot of the ninth most dangerous spider in Australia They are generally docile but they are most defensive when guarding their young: this is probably the one time to be cautious of a bite. The bite of huntsman is considered painful but non-dangerous to humans however its their frightening appearance thats the real concern. 'Their danger comes more from causing accidents by the terrified drivers who react to a huntsman jumping out from behind the sun visor or dashboard of a car when it's in motion,' Australian Geographic reports. A trendy interiors in an exclusive area of London selling painted logs for 10 each have already sold out of the novel accessories. The pieces of plain firewood - which are then jazzed up with a lick of yellow, pink or orange paint - proved so popular over the festive period, the store continued to stock them. The novel concept left some people gobsmacked with one saying: 'The world has gone stark raving bonkers.' Others compared the sale of painted logs to the Harry Enfield sketch 'I saw you coming' where his antique salesman flogs rubbish to gullible rich women. However the store insisted they had 'no negative response', have now sold out of painted logs and may even hold a tutorial to teach others how to do their own one. This picture was uploaded by Jamie Crichton, who captioned it with the words: 'I s*** you not, a Muswell Hill interiors shop are selling logs with coloured paint on for 10 a pop' The interior store, in affluent Muswell Hill in north London, sells an array of pricey home accessories Sally Bourne Interiors, which opened in Muswell Hill in 2007, started selling the coloured logs after the festive period. The manager of the store told MailOnline: 'There were used as a window display over the Christmas period, but then we got lots of people asking if they could buy them when that finished. 'We didn't want to throw them away and so we decided to sell them as people thought they could make stools and side tables out of them. 'We had about 50 or 60 logs in total and most of them were the large ones, which were a good 50cm circumference. 'We sold out of the logs yesterday, which has possibly been to do with the extra coverage we have had. The last ones were all sold to a gentleman for 30. 'We haven't had any negative response at all. 'There was work involved. There's Scout Park near where some of us live, where we got the logs and then someone got rid of the creepy crawlies and painted and prepared them for the store. 'It's really a one-off but seeing as there's been so much demand, who knows? 'We may even hold a tutorial on how to do your own one.' A picture of the logs - available for 10 each, 15 for two or 50 for the lot - was met with a mixture of bemusement and hilarity on Twitter. Marian Pashley wrote: 'It is the end of the world, I tell you.' Ian Meade, a designer from Barnsley, said: 'You people in the South must have money to burn.' Another, Hugh Broughan, commented: 'Seriously who is that dumb to pay that much for a log?' Marcia Hearne, from Herefordshire, said: 'Mad world! Better take insurance on my basket of (unpainted) logs! Was just going to burn them but maybe I should put in a safe!' A passer-by Robert Gummer, 44, said: 'This is like selling ice to Eskimos. But there are plenty of poor saps around here who will happily buy painted wood.' Jenny Lee, 58, added: 'I think it's absolutely ridiculous. 'If you really wanted a painted log you could just get one from a field and paint it yourself.' Other observers made fun of the expensive display at the North London shop. Mike Hamling from Salisbury, in Wiltshire, joked: 'It's shabby chic! All the cool kids love a bit of rustic these days.' Simon Antenen quipped: 'But aren't they just too darling for words!' Another remarked: 'Middle one has no paint...you want a couple of quid knocking off that one.' However some defended the store for their unique product. Ajyahan Muuammetnuroua, 33, from Muswell Hill, said the price was a reasonable one to pay. She said: 'I think it is reasonable because if you think about it, people will pay a lot of that natural look - a lot of people want that organic style. 'I know it's just wood but people want that whole natural look in their homes so I do think it's reasonable.' The store, in an affluent part of London, aims 'to provide informed help for people wishing to transform their homes'. As well as the painted logs, it also sells pen pots for 19.99 and measuring tape for 18.99. It also stocks animal dolls made in Bali for 35. As well as painted logs, the shop sells measuring tape for 18.99 that is 'practical yet aesthetically pleasing' A 'quirky and stylist' large oil can pen pot retails at 19.99 in the store in Muswell Hill, North London The store sells Bali animal dolls after the owner took a trip to the Indonesian island to seek out accessories A man forced himself into his former partners house, trapped her in a room and tried to make her drink his blood from a cut he made on his wrist. Thomas Francis Knudsen, 28, admitted to four counts of assaulting his ex-partner and possession of an offensive weapon at the Wellington District Court, reported Stuff.co.nz. Knudsen visited the victims home, forced himself into her house and pushed her onto a bed where he sat on top of her for about two hours with her arms pinned above her head. New Zealand resident, Thomas Francis Knudsen, 28, forced himself into his ex-partners house, trapped her in a room and forced her to drink his blood from a cut he made on his wrist (stock image) The 28-year-old cut himself with a large knife on the wrist and then asked the woman to drink his blood in a vampire-like manner, so they could be part of each other, the court heard. Police said: He grabbed the complainant by the wrist and attempted to force his bloody wrist to her mouth. According to police Knudsen and his former partner had broken up and he took the news badly. When the victim tried to go to the bathroom, Knudsen made her leave the door open and went through her text messages and prevented her from calling the police, said Judge Josephine Bouchier in court. Crown prosecutor Kathy Scott Dowell said: The act was particularly grotesque and manipulative, reported Stuff. Apart from the unusual vampire-like behaviour the victim had received several messages from strange Facebook accounts during the summer, believed to be Knudsen, reported Stuff. Knudsen, 28, admitted to four counts of assaulting his ex-partner and possession of an offensive weapon at the Wellington District Court (stock image) Judge Bouchier granted the victim a protection order against Knudsen and he was told not to have any contact with her. Judge Bouchier said: Leave her alone. I trust I make myself clear? Knudsen, who had never had any convictions previously, pleaded guilty and was diagnosed to have some mental issues. The 28-year-old broke into the victim's home, pushed her onto a bed and sat on her for two hours (stock image). He also tried to make her drink his blood and keep the bathroom door open when she went in there A recommended three-and-a-half year sentence to prison was originally suggested but the judge settled for six-months of house arrest and 100 hours of community service. Knudsens family were also asked to take him to receive treatment and counselling for his mental illnesses. Knudsens defence lawyer Paul Surridge told Stuff that his family dont agree with what hes done,' but 'they still love him.' It comes as concerns grow over the New Year mass assaults in Cologne A German leisure centre has become the first in the country to ban all migrants after a schoolgirl was sexually assaulted in a public swimming pool by Syrian teenagers. Three Syrian boys were arrested earlier this month over the attack at a leisure centre in Munich as the country grapples with growing concerns about sex crimes perpetrated by asylum seekers. In response to growing concerns, a leisure centre in Bornheim, North Rhine-Westphalia, has now barred all migrants. The ban also follows an attack by an 18-year-old refugee on a 54-year-old woman in Bornheim, where he had grabbed her by the private parts and tried to kiss her. A German leisure centre has become the first in the country to ban all migrants after a schoolgirl was sexually assaulted in a public swimming pool by Syrian teenagers in Munich (above) The victim was only rescued from a further attack by a couple who heard her screams and ran to help. The teenager was arrested a short while later. Bornheim social affairs councillor and deputy mayor Markus Schnapka said the move followed an emergency meeting of locals where the swimming pool ban was announced. He said: 'At the public meeting, I made it quite clear that it was an extremely difficult decision and it's clear that many innocent refugees are also affected by this.' He added that so far none of the local incidents had resulted in criminal complaints, but it was clear that action needed to be taken to prevent the situation escalating. He said: 'We are mainly talking about verbal attacks.' Bornheim currently has 300 refugees living in accommodation who have been told that the ban will be lifted when the message has been received that women need to be respected. In the Munich attack, the three boys are alleged to have surrounded the 17-year-old girl in the pool before one of them groped her underneath her swimming costume in an offence deemed rape under local law. Doner kebab fast food stalls were destroyed, cars set ablaze and shop windows smashed by around 250 hooligans of Legida Police forces patrol a street in Leipzig after the peaceful protest turned nasty earlier this week Inside one of the doner kebab grills where some 250 masked hooligans attacked takeaway restaurants When the girl's sister, 14, tried to make them stop, she too was groped by the trio of teenagers, who were all aged under 15. The girls managed to flee and raise the alarm with the lifeguard at the swimming pool, who called police. Because the asylum seekers were only 15, they were not remanded in custody and will be prosecuted under juvenile law. The main offender's two friends were arrested for assault for taking part in the attack. It comes after more than three hundred women reported being sexually assaulted by groups of mostly Arab or North African men in Cologne during New Year celebrations. Hundreds of criminal complaints have been filed by police, with about 45 per cent involving allegations of sexual offences, and most of the suspects identified so far are foreign nationals. The attack have been seized by right-wing groups as evidence that chancellor Angela Merkel's open door policy is a failure. Groups of men gather outside the Cologne main train station on New Year's Eve, where hundreds of women claim to have been sexually assaulted A group of young men let off a firework during the New Year celebrations, which descended into chaos And more than 200 masked right-wing supporters, carrying placards with racist overtones, went on a rampage in the eastern city of Leipzig earlier this week, breaking windows and vandalising buildings. Meanwhile, German police also claim to have solved another sex attack, this time concerning the rape and attempted murder of a 24-year-old woman on Christmas Eve after tracing DNA to a man in a nearby asylum home. The alleged attacker, aged 20 and from Morocco, had been previously arrested for theft in Dusseldorf where a sample had been taken that allowed him to be identified as the rapist who was short while later attacked the young woman outside a cemetery in Gelsenkirchen. The attacker approached her from behind and beat her unconscious before dragging her into the cemetery to rape her. Police reports described officers being outnumbered and powerless to stop the anarchy which engulfed the city a fortnight ago, with dozens of women approaching them claiming they had been sexually assaulted Local mayor Frank Baranowski said: 'Violence against women is always despicable and criminal. 'It is a great shame that this has been shown to be a case where the alleged attacker is from the ranks of the asylum seekers, who only a short time before were welcomed into our community here in Gelsenkirchen. 'This is not only a gross disregard for hospitality but also inhumane. 'This person will not only face the consequences of his actions if convicted, but also he has done severe damage to all those others who have fled their homes and will now be tainted because of what he has done.' Police said that the man would also face attempted murder charges because the injuries the woman received were so severe that she almost died. An Italian bishop condemned the friends and family of an American artist who died in Italy during his eulogy for having failed to accompany her in friendship and help her resist the 'deadly tangle of alcohol and drugs.' Family and friends gathered at Florence's Santo Spirito basilica on Friday for the funeral of Ashley Olsen, a native of Summer Haven, Florida. Prosecutors say a Senegalese man she met at a disco January 8 killed her after a night of alcohol, drugs and sex that ended with a fight. Monsignor Giovanni Scanavino said Olsen's death was an 'irreparable destruction' and blamed in part her community for failing to be 'sufficiently human and Christian' in supporting her. Friends carrying red, white and pink roses joined relatives of Olsen, 35, and her beloved beagle Scout for the funeral inside the basilica. Olsen's boyfriend, Federico Fiorentini, entered the basilica holding a bouquet of flowers and held Scout on his lap during the service. Scroll down for videos Sad day: The parents of Ashley Olsen, Paula and Walter Olsen, attend her funeral in Florence Difficult time: was found dead in Florence apartment by her boyfriend on Saturday; she had two fractures to the skull and was strangled with a USB cord Strong words: The bishop condemned the community for failing to help her resist the 'deadly tangle of alcohol and drugs' during the service (Olsen's boyfriend, Italian artist Federico Fiorentini, above) Monsignor Giovanni Scanavino said: 'We have to be more courageous, have bigger dreams to love one another more and support one another in tough times.' Olsen was being buried in a Florentine cemetery. Family attorney Maria Gallo said because of the ongoing murder investigation, Olsen's remains could neither be cremated nor returned to the United States for burial. In a statement issued Friday, Olsen's parents, Paula and Walter Olsen, thanked Italian authorities 'for their swift apprehension of the perpetrator.' 'Our deepest affections go to Ashley's many friends and to the community of San Frediano that she dearly loved,' they added, referring to the Florence neighborhood where Olsen lived. Olsen's death has unnerved Florence's tight-knit expat community as well as the locals who live near Santo Spirito, a favorite hang-out spot for Olsen, her friends and Scout. 'She was a presence in Santo Spirito, more or less everyone knew her,' said resident Andrea Alvini, at the newspaper stand on the piazza corner. 'I am honestly very sorry.' Italian prosecutors on Thursday laid out evidence collected against a key suspect in the death. They said a Senegalese man she met at a disco had left 'decisive' DNA traces on a condom and cigarette butt at her home and was using her cellphone. Cheik Tidiane Diaw, a 27-year-old who had arrived in Italy from Senegal in recent months, admitted under questioning that he and Olsen fought violently after a night of drugs and sex but denied strangling her and never intended to kill her, his lawyer said. Diaw was arrested early Thursday at his brother's apartment and is being held on suspicion of aggravated homicide, Florence chief prosecutor Giuseppe Creazzo told a news conference. Street-mounted security cameras and witnesses reported that Diaw and Olsen had left Florence's Montecarla nightclub in the early hours of January 8 and went to her home. Once there, they had consensual sex. But sometime afterward, Olsen's skull was fractured in two places with blows so violent they alone could have killed her, Creazzo said. She was subsequently strangled, apparently with a cord or rope. Olsen's naked body was discovered the following day by her Italian boyfriend, who asked the apartment's owner to let him in because he hadn't heard from her in a few days, authorities have said. Diaw acknowledged under questioning that he and Olsen had had consensual sex, were drunk and had been high on cocaine, his lawyer Antonio Voce told The Associated Press. But Diaw denied strangling her, left her alive on her bed and never intended to kill her, Voce said. Voce said Diaw told investigators that they had fought when she tried to push him out of the apartment fearing her boyfriend would be arriving. After being pushed against the door, Diaw responded by punching Olsen in the neck and then pushing her to the ground, where she hit her head, Voce said. Diaw helped her to the bed and left. 'He felt taken advantage of,' Voce said. 'She was still alive when he left.' Emotional service: The wooden casket carrying the remains of Olsen is brought into the Santo Spirito basilica Final farewell: Olsen's parents say goodbye to their daughter as her casket is loaded into a car after the service Tributes: Attendees of Olsen's funeral carry out floral arrangements send by friends and family after the service Happy times: Olsen and boyfriend Fiorentini in a photo from 2015 Creazzo said Diaw had offered 'substantially admissive' testimony in response to the accusations during a preliminary interrogation that lasted until 4 a.m. Thursday. Diaw has not been charged. Police detained Diaw after DNA analysis came back from a used condom and cigarette butt found in Olsen's toilet, as well as biological samples taken from under her fingernails that belonged to Diaw, Creazzo said. Investigators matched that evidence with a DNA sample taken from a cigarette Diaw smoked while being questioned at the police station, prosecutors said. They said the tests were conducted in 'record time.' Diaw had also taken Olsen's cellphone, put his own SIM card in it and used it, Creazzo said. 'We have gathered serious indications of guilt against him,' Creazzo said, adding however, that a judge must confirm the arrest. Creazzo said Diaw had arrived in Italy illegally a few months ago to join brothers who had been there for some time. He told investigators he was working odd jobs, handing out flyers for local nightspots. Remembering: Federico Fiorentini, left, the boyfriend of Ashley Olsen, attends her funeral service with her father Walter Olsen Helping hand: Mourners carry the coffin of Ashley Olsen as they arrive for the funeral at the church in Florence Alleged culprit: Senegalese Cheik Tidiane Diaw (above) is accused of aggravated murder in her death Creazzo said the investigation continues but that no other suspects were at the scene of the crime. He said investigators had reached "a great point" in the investigation following the "decisive proof" from the DNA analysis. Authorities have been at pains to not jump to conclusions in the case, given the intense international media interest that harks back to the Amanda Knox case. Knox and her Italian boyfriend were convicted in the 2007 death of her British roommate. They were then acquitted, convicted again and finally exonerated after an eight-year saga that cast a poor light on Italy's police and investigative magistrates. Creazzo seemed almost apologetic that he hadn't been able to provide more information before Thursday's arrest. But he said that since Diaw was in Italy illegally, police would have had little hope of finding him if he had been tipped off that police were closing in on him and tried to flee. The body of a man missing for almost 18 years has been found in scrubland near Adelaide, police believe. Remains believed to belong to South Australian man Dale McCauley have been found at Second Valley on the Fleurieu Peninsula - about 80 kilometres south of Adelaide - on Friday evening. Mr McCauley, 44, was last seen on January 16, 1998, almost 18 years ago to the day. Scroll down for video Police believe they have found the body of missing South Australian man Dale McCauley after almost 18 years Adrian Mahony, 65, was recently charged with Mr McCauley's murder following a cold-case review by major crime detectives. Mr McCauley bought a yacht with Mahony - who lived together at the time 44-year-old's disappearance - and later had a falling out over it. 'Mr McCauley and the acquaintance had jointly purchased a yacht in July 1997, although Mr McCauley stated he was having second thoughts about it,' a Crime Stoppers page reads 'The acquaintance claims to have purchased Mr McCauleys share of the yacht, and produced a receipt. 'The acquaintance travelled to Geelong on 17 January 1998 where he is believed to have sold the yacht to a local boat club member.' South Australia Police Detective Superintendent Des Bray, the officer in charge of Major Crime, said police believe they've found Mr McCauley. 'Forensic examination of the area will take place this evening and police hope to be able to confirm that this is Mr McCauley's body,' Det Supt Bray said. 'I am hopeful that this will bring some peace to his sister, who we have advised of this discovery. 'It is important to her that she be able to lay his body to rest.' Adrian Mahony (pictured), 65, was recently charged with Mr McCauley's murder following a cold-case review by major crime detectives The police investigation into his disappearance, which was declared a major crime in May 1998, was reviewed in 2015. Investigators identified new leads and searched Mr McCauley's home and a nearby dam in November. Mahony was arrested in January and charged with Mr McCauley's murder. Additional police travelled to Second Valley to search the area on Friday night. It comes after police claimed Mr McCauley's blood had been found in Mahoney's car. The Adelaide Magistrates' Court was told bloodstains were only recently matched to Mr McCauley due to DNA advancements, according to the ABC. Mahony is due to appear in court again on March 22. Alleged serial killer Stephen Port is to stand trial in October accused of seducing four young men on a gay dating app before spiking their drinks with poison. The gay escort gave his victims fatal doses of the party drug GHB before dumping their bodies in a graveyard near his home in Barking, East London, it is alleged. The 40-year-old was arrested at his home in October last year, more than 15 months after allegedly killing his first victim, 23-year-old Anthony Walgate, who was found dead in the road outside his flat. Most recent photograph: A picture of Port, 40, taken in the back garden of his parents' home in February last year Victim: Last September Port's final alleged victim Jack Taylor, 25, from Dagenham, East London, was found close to the Abbey Ruins, next to the churchyard, which are also pictured Accused: Port is pictured on Facebook with a blond wig (left), and in a court sketch from last October (right) Port today appeared at Kingston Crown Court via video link from maximum security prison HMP Belmarsh for a brief hearing. He wore an open-collar, long-sleeve pink shirt and only spoke to confirm his identity and say 'yes, your Honour' when asked if he could hear the proceedings. A provisional trial date was postponed until October 4, something which will last at least eight to 10 weeks, after it was previously fixed for April. William Emlyn-Jones, prosecuting, said the request for postponement was due to the sheer scale of work still to do. He added that the Crown was not in a position for pleas to be entered today. 'There is a very large amount of outstanding work given the scale of this inquiry,' he said. 'We at the bar are in agreement that although there is no objection to proceed to arraignment, it is unlikely we are going to be ready to have an effective plea and case management hearing. 'We are in a position to fix a date for trial somewhere down the line when the Crown and defence are going to be better informed about the shape of the case. 'The Crown's submission is that realistically the earliest time when we can be confident of being trial ready is September. 'I accept that is a long way off and that the court be may more comfortable with an earlier date. 'We are concerned that there is so much at the moment uncertain, not only in relation to what is unknown but in relation to the length of the trial.' Deaths: The second and third alleged victims, Gabriel Kovari, 22, and Daniel Whitworth, 21, were found here in the graveyard of St Margaret's Church (pictured) in Barking, East London Home: Port's first alleged victim is said to be Anthony Walgate, 23, from Barnet, North London, who was pronounced dead outside the alleged serial killer's flat (above) in Barking, East London, in June 2014 Speaking of the trial length, he added: 'My best guess at the moment is more like two months. It is a piece of string, but eight to 10 weeks is a sensible suggestion.' Mr Emlyn-Jones also asked for the custody time limit to be extended, saying: 'There is a good and sufficient cause to extend the limit because the nature of the case requires a more realistic approach on the timetable.' The judge Justice Singh agreed to the application, extending it to October 8, owing to the 'unusual circumstances' of the case. Fashion student Mr Walgate was found dead on the pavement outside a block of flats where Port lived on Cooke Street, Barking, in the early hours of June 19th last year. The aspiring designer was from Hull but lived in Barnet, north London, and studied at Middlesex University. Dog walker Barbara Denham discovered the corpse of Gabriel Kovari in the graveyard of St Margaret's Church in North Street, Barking, in August 2014. The 22-year-old Slovakian from Lewisham, south east London was found less than a month on August 28 before the pensioner came across a second body on her dog walk. She found Daniel Whitworth, 21, from Gravesend, Kent, near the same spot on September 20. Jack Taylor, 25, a truck driver from Dagenham, disappeared from his home in the early hours of Sunday 13 September before his body was found close to North Street in Barking the next day. Port will next appear in court for a plea and case management hearing on April 15. The showbiz world has united in tributes to Hollywood's favourite villain Tragic: Alan Rickman, pictured for the last time in December, reportedly suffered from pancreatic cancer Alan Rickman's death came after a short battle with pancreatic cancer, it was claimed today after the showbiz world paid emotional tribute to the much-loved actor. The star died yesterday at a London hospital, surrounded by friends and relatives including his wife Rima, after waging a secret fight with the illness. He apparently concealed his diagnosis from all but close confidants, and kept an upbeat demeanour even weeks before his death. It was reported today that Rickman had been suffering from pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest forms of the disease. Respected US showbiz journalist Roger Friedman claimed that the star had a suspected stroke in August, which led to his cancer diagnosis. Writing on Showbiz 411, Mr Friedman said that Rickman told a select few friends about the disease during a visit to New York last month, when he was pictured at the musical Hamilton in what is the last known photograph of him. The charity Pancreatic Cancer Action said in a statement: 'We were very sad to hear that one of Britains most popular actors, Alan Rickman, passed away after a short battle with pancreatic cancer. 'Our thoughts are with all this friends and family at this very sad time.' Scroll down for video Couple: Rickman with his wife Rima in July; the pair wed in 2012, half a century after they first met Role: Rickman will be on screen again in the forthcoming film Eye in the Sky, which is about drone strikes Tributes to Rickman were led by his Harry Potter colleagues J.K. Rowling, Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe, who praised him as a generous mentor to young actors. His old friend and frequent collaborator Emma Thompson also spoke of her grief, revealing that she had 'kissed him goodbye' and calling him 'a rare and unique human being'. Rickman married his long-term partner Rima Horton in secret four years ago, nearly half a century after they had first met as teenagers. Neighbours said they had 'no idea' that Rickman was ill and described how he kept his usual upbeat demeanour in the weeks before his death. Superstar: Rickman is known by many for his role as Professor Snape in the Harry Potter film franchise Villain: The star shot to fame in films such as Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, left, and Die Hard, right One local said: 'Whenever I saw him in the street I always thought he looked very well. He was such a lovely man, I'm so sorry to hear about his death.' Another added: 'He always smiled and said hello when I saw him. I saw him before Christmas and he looked normal. I had no idea about the cancer.' Producer Catherine Bailey, an old friend of Rickman's from drama school, said that he had remained remarkably selfless even when he was just days from death. 'I saw him two days before he died and he wanted to hear about me and my family and how we were,' she told the Guardian. Young star: Rickman as a teenager at Latymer Upper School, where he began his career Promising: The schoolboy appeared in a number of school productions years before becoming a professional Rickman was scheduled to give a talk at his old school, Latymer Upper in Hammersmith, later this month - suggesting that he may not have known how advanced his cancer was. He recently filmed The Limehouse Golem, a Gothic horror movie set in Victorian London and shot on location in Manchester over the past few months. Two other films featuring Rickman, Eye in the Sky and Alice Through the Looking Glass, are scheduled to be released this year. His family said in a short statement yesterday: 'The actor and director Alan Rickman has died from cancer at the age of 69. He was surrounded by family and friends.' Mother-of-three Charlotte, 29, thought her son was dead after her seeing Josh lying on the ground An 18-month-old baby is fighting for his life in hospital and falling from a fourth floor window. Josh Cribben was motionless on the doorstep of a block of flats in Thamesmead, South-east London. He was taken to King's College Hospital, where he was immediately put into theatre to remove a blood clot on his brain. Still in an induced coma, and critically injured, the extent of Josh's injuries include a fractured thigh, cracked ribs, a fractured skull and cheekbone. Mother-of-three Charlotte, 29, thought her son was dead after her seeing Josh lying on the ground. She only knew what had happened when her eldest daughter Aaliyah-amina, three, screamed: 'Mum, Josh has fallen out of the window'. The incident happened on Saturday, just after Miss Cribben had put her children to bed. Miss Cribben said: 'I don't know how long it was for me to get in to that block. 'I think that was the worst part of my life, knowing he's there and I can't get to him. 'I was just thinking my son's dead, my son's dead. When she got to Josh's side Miss Cribben heard the youngster start to cry. She said: 'Just hearing him make a noise, it was kind of a relief. I thought I was going to go downstairs and pick up my dead child.' Miss Cribben is encouraged by the news that surgeons managed to stop the swelling to his brain and she is determined to stay positive. She said: 'As long as he wakes up we will get through anything we need to. 'Everyone said you need to prepare yourself for the worst and hope for the best. 'But my gut tells me my boy is a fighter.' She said Josh is advanced for his age, adding: 'He's always with his sisters, everyone says he's a cheeky little chap'. She said Josh, Aaliyah-amina, and two-year-old Destiny are 'like the three musketeers'. Josh Cribben was motionless on the doorstep of the block of flats in Thamesmead, South-east London His sisters, who Miss Cribben said have been traumatised by the accident, are being looked after by family while she stays with Josh. A fundraising page has been set up by Miss Cribben's mother, Tracy Sham, who said she wants to raise money to support Josh and her 'amazing daughter'. Speaking from the Ronald McDonald House near King's College Hospital, which offers parents accommodation close to their children in hospital, Miss Cribben urged people to donate to the charity. A driver watched in horror as a group of furious teens smashed his windshield with their bare hands in a petrifying road rage frenzy. Brenton Davey, 31, was on his way home from work in the west Melbourne suburb of Sunshine about 10:00pm on Thursday when four teenagers riding monkey bikes without helmets veered in front of him at high speeds. He blasted his horn and continued down to the next stoplights, when the riders encircled the vehicle, alighted from their bikes and began trying to yank the car doors open. Blood stains on the shattered window of the vehicle, where one of the attackers beat the glass with his fists The teenage bike riders left large dents where they kicked the car while Brenton Davey was trapped inside 'I was terrified. I only managed to lock the doors with a second to spare, and then I was just sitting there watching them going crazy,' Mr Davey told Daily Mail Australia. Besieged on all sides, Mr Davey cowered in fright as the riders began to kick vehicle before spitting all over the driver's window - just centimeters from his face. One of the men then began beating the windscreen with his bare hands, undeterred even after his lacerated hand poured blood over the shattered glass. 'He's was trying to punch the window open, spitting all over the glass. Next thing I know he went to the front of the car and beat the windshield.' One of the men spat all over the driver's window, just centimetres from Mr Davey's face Mr Davey drove to a nearby police station to report the devastating damage to his vehicle The attackers fled the scene when the lights turned green, speeding down a nearby side street. Mr Davey said he suspects the group may have wanted to steal his car as a motivation for the shocking attack. 'I'm not sure if maybe they wanted to steal my car under the guise of retaliation for honking them.' The attack unfolded at the intersection of Ballarat Road and McIntyre Road in Sunshine, West Melbourne Brenton Davey suspects the group may have wanted to steal his car as a motivation for the shocking attack Mr Davey drove to Sunshine police station a mere 50 metres from the attack to report the damage to his vehicle. The offender who punched his windscreen is described as Caucasian, of average height and dark scruffy hair, wearing a white T-shirt and dark pants. All the men are believed to be in their late teens or early 20s. Advertisement Alan Rickman was known for his villainous roles in films such as Harry Potter and Die Hard - but his acting experience began when he was a fresh-faced schoolboy in a string of school plays. An album of evocative photographs showing Rickman's starting steps in the dramatic world has come to light after it was released by his alma mater, Latymer Upper School. The star died yesterday aged 69 at a London hospital, surrounded by friends and relatives including his wife Rima, after waging a secret battle with pancreatic cancer. Young star: Alan Rickman, left, pictured in the art schools during his time at Latymer Upper School, where he was a pupil Touching: This photo album was released by Latymer in the wake of Rickman's death at the age of 69 from pancreatic cancer; he is pictured left during rehearsals for The Long and the Short and the Tall, and right smoking in the art department Rickman grew up in a working-class family in West London - his mother Margaret had to bring up him and his siblings alone after the death of her husband Bernard when Alan was just eight. But he was set on the path to success when he won a scholarship to Latymer Upper School, a private school in Hammersmith, in 1956. His first dramatic role is believed to have been in a school production of Shakespeare's Coriolanus, at the age of 11, in which Rickman played the title character's mother Volumnia. The schoolboy went to play a number of other female parts - a necessity given that the school was all-male at the time - including 'Annie the barmaid' and the wife of Ali Baba, according to his biography. He also built up his experience of classic drama, playing a leading role in a Latymer production of The Alchemist by Ben Jonson in 1964. Drama: Rickman, left, in The Long and the Short and the Tall, which is set in the Second World War, during his time at the West London school which he attended on a scholarship Production: The cast of one of an end-of-year revue at Latymer Upper School, featuring the young Rickman Loyal: Rickman, circled in this photograph, always retained his affection for his old school and frequently returned to speak there After leaving school he initially shunned the theatre and worked as a graphic designer instead, saying later that embarking on a dramatic career 'wasn't considered the sensible thing to do at 18'. At the age of 26, Rickman finally enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, supporting himself by working as a dresser for senior actors alongside his studies. The star had a successful theatre and television career before making his film debut as Hans Gruber in Die Hard in 1988, the start of nearly three decades of Hollywood fame. He always retained a deep affection for his old school and helped to support its scholarship programme so future generations would have the same opportunities as him. Actor Rufus Jones, who attended Latymer 30 years after Rickman, revealed that the older man encourage him to stick with the theatre after seeing him perform as a teenager. Rickman had been due to give a talk at the school later this month before his shock death on Thursday morning. Plans: Rickman, pictured at the school, was due to visit Latymer Upper again later this month in relation with the scholarship programme Tributes: Co-star Daniel Radcliffe, left, helped lead the tributes to Rickman, who is pictured right with wife Rima Latymer Upper paid tribute to him in a statement yesterday, saying: 'We are shocked and so saddened by the death of Alan Rickman - a great actor and true Latymerian. 'Alan arrived at Latymer Upper School on a scholarship in 1956. It was in the school's main hall that the young Alan first trod the boards, treating his audience to lively performances in many a school play. These shows sparked a love of drama that would shape his life to come. 'Alan was hugely supportive of his old school. He was due to speak at a Latymer event in aid of the schools bursaries appeal only this month - a cause very dear to his heart having attended Latymer Upper, as he did, on a free place.' Tributes to Rickman were led by his Harry Potter colleagues J.K. Rowling, Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe, who praised him as a generous mentor to young actors. His old friend and frequent collaborator Emma Thompson also spoke of her grief, revealing that she had 'kissed him goodbye' and calling him 'a rare and unique human being'. No mention was made of Ken Livingstone - a key ally of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn - in the party's defence review document Ken Livingstone has been dropped from Labour's controversial review into defence policy after infuriating Labour MPs with comments about the Trident nuclear deterrent and Britain's membership of Nato. A 10 page launch document published by shadow defence secretary Emily Thornberry - herself a controversial choice at last week's reshuffle - made no mention of Mr Livingstone. Labour sources said Mr Livingstone would receive the report as a member of the party's wider foreign policy 'international commission' - which includes shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn and Ms Thornberry. Mr Corbyn was appointed as co-convener of the defence review in his role as a member of Labour's National Executive Committee in November. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is facing a fierce battle inside Labour over Trident after he appointed Ms Thornberry. She backs his position in favour of Britain giving up nuclear weapons - despite a majority of Labour MPs being in favour of renewing Trident. Official party policy supports renewal but Mr Corbyn wants to shift party policy to his own view ahead of an expected Commons vote. Mr Livingstone raised the already high tensions in a BBC interview this week when he said: 'We will focus on the Trident issue ahead of the rest of the defence review ... With a bit of luck that can be done in eight to ten weeks.' John Woodcock, whose Barrow and Furness constituency is home to the ship yard which will build the new subs, said Mr Livingstone was being deliberately provocative. He told Politics Home: 'Even if the leaders of this so-called review had prior defence experience it would be absurd to complete a review of nuclear deterrent policy in eight weeks. 'This is yet another example that the team behind Jeremy Corbyn don't give a stuff about how Labour looks to the public or whether we stand up for manufacturing jobs as long as they can provoke a fresh fight in the party. 'It is sad to see a man with Mr Livingstone's political experience behaving in such a deliberately provocative way.' 'I find it remarkable that he is suggesting this - if it had been Tony Blair or Gordon Brown talking about changing party policy like this he would be arguing it was undemocratic.' Mr Livingstone was slapped down by the party after suggesting last week Britain's Nato membership would also be included in the review. Launching the review today, Ms Thornberry said: 'Its a great privilege to be leading Labours defence review, at Jeremy Corbyns request. 'This will be a comprehensive review of Britains defence challenges and options for the 21st century. 'It will be open, transparent and inclusive, and its conclusions will be based on the evidence. In a 10 page launch document, shadow defence secretary Emily Thornberry said she would leave 'no stone unturned' in her review 'We will encourage the widest possible participation of Labour party members and affiliates, as well as defence specialists, NGOs and the armed forces. 'At every stage of the process, we will give full scope to the wide range of views on this subject in an atmosphere of mutual respect and trust.' Among the questions Ms Thornberry's review will ask is: 'Will renewal of Britains nuclear capability aid us in protecting Britains security and pursuing the values that guide our foreign and defence policy?' The review promises to leave 'no stone unturned' in its assessment of the 'first principles' behind defence. But she told the BBC she was 'extremely sceptical' about the nuclear deterrent. Outlining the policy process which would now be followed, the review said: 'Emilys review will feed in to the NPF which is responsible for Labours policy development. 'The document will form a submission to the NPF, specifically the International Policy Commission which is responsible for Labours policy platform in this area. 'The Commission will be fully involved in the review and the consultation with the wider party. 'It will produce a report on its work to Labours Annual Conference, the sovereign decision making body of the Party.' A senior Labour source insisted Mr Livingstone would still play a role. They said: 'Emily leads the report. It reports to the international commission - one of the strands of the National Policy Forum co-chaired by Ken and Hilary. 'That strand reports to the National Policy Forum and then conference. Emily also in the international commission.' The source added: 'That was always the structure, that's how Labour makes policy.' Mr Corbyn said this week he wanted party members to play a role in the decision. Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar made their first public appearance in months on Thursday night. The couple, who have not been seen at an event together since May, turned up at the Republican debate in Charleston, South Carolina to lend their support to presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee. The appearance comes just days after Huckabee defended the family during a campaign stop in Iowa when a supporter asked how he could remain close to the reality television clan after it was revealed that their son Josh had molested four of his sisters when he was a teenager and been unfaithful to his wife Anna. Scroll down for video Night out: Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar attended the Republican debate in Charleston, South Carolina on Thursday night (above with Instagram user Joe Donaldson and guest) Helping ahnd: The pair were likely at the debate to support former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (above), who is a close family friend The Republican hopeful responded by lashing out at the woman, saying; 'You come in here to confront me, which is fine, but you cannot abuse, which is what youre doing, the reputation of a godly family who had been through hell because a son of theirs, one of their many children, did something evil and sinful that nobody is backing up and supporting.' He went on to say; 'I supported the fact that those daughters were maliciously and savagely abused not just by their brother, but by the news media who exploited them for their own purpose without regard for what it was doing to those young ladies.' The couple kept a low profile during the debate and did no interviews, but Instagram user Joe Donaldson managed to get a photo with the pair, writing; 'On the floor & ready for the Fox Business GOP Presidential Debate!' Jim Bob and Michelle have avoided the spotlight since their son Josh's past offenses came to light last May, speaking about the subject just once in an interview with Fox News in early June. Soon after, TLC announced they were cancelling the family's long-running reality show. The couple were also spotted in September at the wedding of Amy King, Jim Bob's niece, and have been posting family photos on their social media accounts the past few months. Huckabee had showed his support for the Duggars on multiple occasions before Monday as well after it was revealed Josh had molested minors. He appeared on Fox News in June, telling host Megyn Kelly of Jim Bob and Michelle; 'They took many, many steps that many parents dont take under similar circumstances.' Loyal: The appearance comes just days after Huckabee defended the family during a campaign stop in Iowa (Huckabee above with Josh in 2014) Big move: It was the first public appearance for Jim Bob and Michelle (above wioth Huckabee in 2012) since their son Josh was revealed to have molested four of his sisters as a teenager this past May And in May, Huckabee posted a statement of support for the Duggars on his campaign website. Though the post was later deleted, he went on to post a similar message on his official Facebook page which read: 'Janet and I want to affirm our support for the Duggar family. Joshs actions when he was an underage teen are as he described them himself, "inexcusable," but that doesnt mean "unforgivable." 'He and his family dealt with it and were honest and open about it with the victims and the authorities. No purpose whatsoever is served by those who are now trying to discredit Josh or his family by sensationalizing the story. 'Good people make mistakes and do regrettable and even disgusting things.' Josh has been in a faith-based rehab facility since August while his wife Anna and the couples four children appear to be living in Arkansas with Jim Bob and Michelle. He could be leaving the facility next week however as there is a pre-trial conference scheduled in a lawsuit that has been brought against him by adult film actress Danica Dillon in Philadelphia. Dillon is suing the reality star for $500,000 alleging that he was violent and manhandled her when the pair had sexual relations on two occasions last year. The internet has offered possible explanations as to what ' An urban explorer claims to have captured a phantom on camera at an abandoned psychiatric hospital, after he spotted 'a pair of eyes' while looking back over his footage. The man, who has not been identified, posted the spooky video he shot while exploring Westborough State Hospital along Lyman Street in Westborough, Massachusetts. The historical building, which was nicknamed 'Westborough Insane Hospital', closed its doors in 2010 to make way for a new Worcester State Hospital opening two years later. Are you looking at me? The urban explorer spotted 'a pair of eyes' while looking back over his footage Exploring: The man wanders through the dilapidated building, which is covered in dust and rubble The hospital now sits abandoned - it was last remembered in May 2015 when a memorial service was held at the nearby Pine Grove Cemetery to commemorate the 500 patients who died there. The point-of-view footage shows the explorer wandering through the dilapidated building, which is covered in dust and rubble. The man walks into the main hallway - his footsteps echo in the eerily silent rooms - before he turns left and wanders down another corridor. Later in the video the man enters what he claims to be a former hair salon within the abandoned hospital. Close shave: The man walks down spooky corridors before filming a hairdresser's chair in a decrepit room He focusses on an old hairdresser's chair before later backing out of another room containing two arm chairs and turning his camera to the right. At first you would be forgiven for not spotting anything strange - even the video maker admits he did not notice anything at the time. However upon closer inspection a pair of very bright eyes appear to be staring over at the man from the other side of the pitch black corridor. Eye see you: The explorer records two arm chairs before appearing to capture 'eyes' at the end of the corridor Since appearing online some viewers have given their thoughts as to what the purported phantom may indeed be. One person dismissed the spooky footage, writing: 'I think it's just light reflecting off of a semi shiny surface.' Other possible explanations include two holes in a boarded door at the end of the dark corridor, letting in light and giving the impression of being eyes. A plane has apparently had its doors blown off in an anti-terror training exercise at a small airport which caused loud booms heard for miles. Residents of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire were woken up by a string of explosions late on Tuesday night, with some locals reporting that the phenomenon made their homes shake. Police later revealed that the noises were part of a 'high-level' training exercise which is part of the country's efforts to protect itself against the ongoing terror threat. Two days later, photographs emerged of a jumbo jet sitting on the runway at Cotswold Airport which looked as if its doors had been blown out. Damage: This jumbo jet has been seen with its doors blown out at Cotswold Airport this week Explosion: The sighting has been linked to a series of explosions heard around the area on Tuesday Police have refused to confirm whether or not the bizarre sighting has anything to do with the terror training, saying it could jeopardise security secrets. When the mysterious explosions took place around 10pm on Tuesday, they could be heard more than 15 miles away, with residents of towns such as Malmesbury, Kington St Michael and Calne all saying their sleep had been disturbed. Local resident Paul Shanley, 51, called 999 four times after his young daughter was woken up - but was told that the police could not discuss the bangs. 'There is a huge lack of concern for people who live around the airfield and a total disregard by the police who have no interest in talking about it,' he said. 'We are never given any warnings and now in this climate of terrorism, it is especially frightening as this could be a real terrorist attack. 'The local residents get texts every time a plane is landing. So why can't we get warnings when there are explosions such as this?' Secret: The authorities have kept the details of what happened at the airport under tight wraps Sighting: The damage to two of the plane's doors was clearly visible to passers-by yesterday Angie Abingdon posted on Facebook: 'Our house shook! There were concerned people standing outside after the first. I think we should have been given some warning.' Yesterday Mr Shanley, who lives in Kemble, Gloucestershire, headed to the nearby airport and photographed a Boeing 747-400 with its doors blown off. The plane was formerly part of the British Airways fleet, but had had its livery obscured by black paint. Nick Howard, Cotswold Airport manager, said the booms were part of 'a high level and very rare police and emergency services exercise'. He added that he could not comment further 'due to the nature of the exercise'. A spokesperson for Gloucestershire Police said: 'We would like to reassure residents that the explosion heard in Kemble was part of routine operational training for police. 'We apologise for the disturbance caused.' Range: Locals said the loud bangs on Tuesday could be heard as far as Calne, 16 miles away Locals say that it is the third time in the past few years that they have heard explosions in the area, without being warned in advance about the exercises. The authorities have stepped up anti-terror drills in recent months following the rise of ISIS and a spike in the number of global atrocities, including November's murderous attacks on Paris. Cotswold Airport, which was an RAF base until the 1990s, does not host any regular scheduled flights. It is used by a number of private companies and has hosted the filming of television programmes such as Top Gear. The airport was at the centre of another military mystery last February, when a Boeing 747 was driven away from the area on the motorway and promptly vanished from public view. In a move that could hurt more than help, Jeb Bush accepted South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham's presidential endorsement Friday morning in the hotly contested Republican primary. 'I have concluded without any hesitation, without any doubt, that Jeb Bush is ready on Day One to be a commander-in-chief worthy of the sacrifices of the 1 per cent who have been fighting this war,' Graham said. 'Last night he said "I will have their backs." I believe he will.' 'Lindsey Graham is a patriot. He loves his country,' Bush said near where the GOP candidates debated the night before in North Charleston, South Carolina. 'READY ON DAY ONE': Sen. Lindsey Graham may be whispering into a hurricane, but he's trying to change the direction of the GOP presidential race by endorsing former rival Jeb Bush 'HE LOVES HIS COUNTRY': Jeb Bush is foundering in the polls and hopes a nod from the puckish war hawk will change his dwindling political fortunes WILL IT HELP? Bush is lagging behind in fifth-place poll position and Graham never collected any meaningful support Graham is seen as a puckish war hawk, a combination of qualities that served him poorly in his brief run for the presidency. He is also seen as an accommodationist who is more eager to strike bargains with Democrats than to tangle with them publicly. Bush said his former presidential rival is among America's strongest national-defense advocates, and hinted that the South Carolinian's reputation for as a compromising squish doesn't bother him. 'I'll take all his enemies,' the former Florida governor told reporters, 'because he has a lot more friends.' Graham predicted that his home state would 'reset this race,' suggesting that a race dominated by brash voices like Donald Trump's and Ted Cruz's could give way to a different kind of contest after the klieg lights shut down in New Hampshire and Iowa. Trump has long been a target of Graham, whose frustration with the billionaire's rise to national prominence was visible in the last days of his ill-fated campaign. In particular, The Donald's call for a pause on non-citizen Muslims entering the U.S. raised his hackles on Friday. 'Mr. Trump doubled down on the idea that we as a nation should ban every Muslim in the world, at least temporarily, from coming to our great country,' Graham quietly fumed. HAMMERING TRUMP: Graham advised that you shouldn't 'run for president if you are going to double down on crazy' THE WRATH OF DON: Trump fired back against Bush and Graham on Twitter in his signature biting style 'I can't think of a worse idea in terms of how to fight and win this war. Many of the people who are running for president are eerily silent on this issue. ... We cannot and should not declare war on a religion.' 'Don't run for president if you are going to double down on crazy,' Graham urged later. Trump pushed back on Twitter. 'Jeb Bush, who did poorly last night in the debate and whose chances of winning are zero, just got Graham endorsement,' he wrote. 'Graham quit at O [zero].' 'Sen. Lindsey Graham embarrassed himself with his failed run for President,' Trump blasted in a second tweet, 'and now further embarrasses himself with endorsement of Bush.' Asked about Sen. Marco Rubio's chances the other Floridian in the race Graham predicted that the young pol would be president someday. Just not now. 'I wasn't ready to be president at 44,' he said. South Carolina will hold its presidential primary, the first in the South, on February 20. Bush is running in a distant fifth place nationally, according to an average of Republican polls compiled by Real Clear Politics. He's also running fifth in the few South Carolina primary polls published to date, although he's within spitting distance of the third-place Rubio. Noah Israel Chamberlin was reported missing on Thursday afternoon after he disappeared during a walk in the woods behind his Tennessee home A desperate search continues for a missing two-year-old boy who disappeared while on a walk in the woods behind his Tennessee home with his grandmother, authorities said. Noah Israel Chamberlin was reported missing at 1.19pm on Thursday after his grandmother had taken him and his sister on a nature hike when she said she lost sight of him. Search crews canvassed the woods surrounding the toddler's Pinson home on Thursday night into the early hours on Friday as they looked for the boy, according to The Jackson Sun. Madison County Sheriff's Office spokesman Tom Mapes said Noah, his grandmother and four-year-old sister sat down to talk while in the woods and when the grandmother turned around, he was gone. 'They sat down to talk and she was paying attention to the granddaughter, and when she turned around he was gone,' Mapes said. 'She immediately went to look for him.' Authorities said his disappearance is not considered suspicious, according to The Jackson Sun. Search crews canvassed the woods surrounding the toddler's Pinson home on Thursday night and into the early hours on Friday. Authorities said his disappearance is not considered suspicious Mapes said additional search teams on foot would re-enter the woods with crews on four-wheelers as they search side-by-side through the area beginning where Noah was last seen. He also said the search area is about 600 acres and that the woods surrounding the boy's home is filled with creeks and rough terrain. So far more than 100 people have been involved in the search which has included helicopters and K-9 units. Authorities said they are concerned about colder temperatures and early morning rain, according to The Jackson Sun. According to an endangered missing child alert for Noah, he is described as a white male with blonde hair and blue eyes who stands two feet tall and weighs 25 pounds. Noah was last seen wearing a long-sleeved gray shirt and blue jeans. Third suspect: Diano Gordon, 24, was charged Thursday with murder in the shooting death of Amanda Blackburn in her Indianapolis home A third man has been charged with murder in connection with the slaying of an Indianapolis pastor's pregnant wife inside the couple's house. Prosecutors on Thursday added two counts of murder against 24-year-old Diano Gordon of Indianapolis in connection with the shooting death of 28-year-old Amanda Blackburn during a break-in. Gordon, who has been in custody since November 19 for a parole violation, earlier had been charged with burglary and theft in connection with two other home invasions that occurred just before the burglary at the Blackburn home. Two other Indianapolis men 18-year-old Larry Taylor Jr. and 21-year-old Jalen Watson also are charged with murder in the November 10 killing. All three men are being held at the Marion County Jail. Amanda Blackburn was 12 weeks pregnant when she was shot in the head as she tried to defend herself and her one-year-old son Weston from home intruders on November 10. She died in hospital. Taylor is also facing a second murder charge stemming from a fatal shooting that occurred during what a prosecutor described as an 'unprecedented' eight-day crime spree. Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry announced last month that the 18-year-old has been charged with murder and robbery in the November 4 fatal shooting of 27-year-old Rolando Gonzalez-Hernandez. Gonzalez's body was found next to his Chevrolet Trailblazer SUV at an apartment complex in the 4500 block of Candletree Circle on the city's west side. More charges: Larry Taylor, 18, (left) has been charged with murder in the November 4 fatal shooting of Rolando Gonzalez-Hernandez. Taylor and Jalen Watson, 21, (right) are already facing murder charges in the death of pregnant pastor's wife Amanda Blackburn Amanda Blackburn (pictured with her husband Davey and their baby son Weston) was shot in the head while trying to protect Weston from home intruders, police said A probable cause affidavit indicates three cooperating witnesses say Taylor told them he robbed and shot someone at the La Joya Apartments where Gonzalez was found with a fatal gunshot wound to the head at around 8.30pm, according to the station WTHR. One of the witnesses told police Taylor said he robbed and shot 'a Mexican' and found only $10 in his wallet. Another witness said Taylor showed them a news clip about someone getting shot at La Joya Apartments, and a third witness claimed the 18-year-old told them outright that he shot someone at that location, according to The Indy Channel. Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry said the felony charges Taylor now faces two murders, a rape during a home burglary and two other home burglaries are the most violent he has brought against a single individual during his five years as prosecutor. Those crimes occurred between November 3 and November 10, court documents allege. 'We've charged Mr. Taylor with five very violent crimes in the course of an eight-day period and certainly in our five years in office that's unprecedented,' he said in an interview. Curry said the only comparable cases he has handled were two violent home invasions that occurred in October 2013. Taylor, Watson, and now Gordon face murder charges in the November 10 shooting death of Amanda Blackburn. They also face burglary and other charges in a November 3 home invasion where a young woman was raped at gunpoint. Taylor allegedly assaulted the victim, a handgun held to the back of her neck, while Watson went through the apartment and took items belonging to the woman and her roommate. Crime scene: Rolando Gonzalez-Hernandez was shot in the head at La Joya Apartments in the 4500 block of Candletree Circle on November 4 A cell phone, purse, laptop, jewelry, headphones, and television, as well as the victim's car, were taken from her apartment, according to Fox 59. The men have been charged with burglary, theft, armed robbery, criminal confinement and auto theft in that case. Taylor also faces three counts of rape. He was charged after DNA evidence was discovered by police. He is facing 13 additional charges, including murder, after the 'knowing and intentional killing' of Blackburn, authorities said. Detectives believe Amanda was killed after three intruders entered her unlocked house and found her alone, awaiting the return of her husband, Davey Blackburn, from an early morning workout. The men had allegedly burglarized two houses and stole a car before authorities said they arrived at the Blackburn home and entered through the unlocked front door, according to Fox 59. Police believe Taylor, 18, killed Amanda after Watson, 21, and Gordon stole her debit cards and drove to a nearby ATM to withdraw money while he remained at the property. The affidavit stated that Taylor shot Blackburn three times, including once in the back of the head, and then leaned over her injured body to 'watch her bleed' reported Al.com. 'Taylor stated that she charged at him and he shot her somewhere in the upper body so he would not be scratched,' the court filing said. 'Taylor then told them he leaned over her body and shot her in the back of the head. He leaned further, looked at her face, and watched her bleed.' When Watson and Gordon returned to the home to pick up Taylor, he confessed to shooting her, according to a probable cause affidavit. When Davey Blackburn returned to his home around 8.20am he found his wife lying in a pool of blood on the floor. Her underwear was next to her and her shirt had been pulled up. Police said it is not clear if Amanda was sexually assaulted before she was shot. Police said Amanda was shot in the back of the head, the upper back and the left arm on November 10. She was taken off life support the next day Larry Taylor, left, and Jalen Watson are escorted from the City County Building after their first hearing The couple's 15-month-old son Weston was in his crib upstairs but had not been harmed. Davey called 911, and Amanda was rushed to hospital. Police said Amanda was shot in the back of the head, the upper back and the left arm. She was taken off life support and declared dead the next day. Investigators linked the suspects to the Blackburn case through ATM receipts found in a car the three had allegedly stolen earlier this month. Detectives gathered evidence linking the suspects to the use of Blackburn's credit card, and a gun was also recovered, WTTV reported. Blackburn, a pastor at Resonate Church, said he is 'relieved' those allegedly responsible for her murder have been caught and would not be able to hurt anyone else. But the 30-year-old also admitted that it didn't 'undo the pain we are feeling'. 'In some ways, it actually makes it harder because there's actually a face and a name to the events,' he told ABC. Incredibly, he says he has chosen to forgive Amanda's killers. When Davey Blackburn returned to his home (pictured) around 8.20am he found his wife lying in a pool of blood on the floor, her underwear was next to her and her shirt pulled up The Blackburns had recently announced that Amanda was 12 weeks pregnant with a second child. The couple moved from South Carolina to Indianapolis in 2012 to establish Resonate Church 'I was extremely relieved to get the news of the arrest,' he told reporters. 'Though everything inside of me wants to hate, be angry, and slip into despair I choose the route of forgiveness, grace and hope.' Watson and Taylor are both being held at the Marion County Jail. A murder conviction in Indiana holds a 45 to 60 year prison sentence - with some perpetrators getting life in prison or the death penalty. Prosecutors have filed for a sentencing enhancement against Taylor, which means he could face an additional 20 years in prison if convicted because Blackburn was pregnant, reported WTHR Today. Blackburn's husband said he was not sure how to face the future without his beloved wife who 'made it her life's calling to love and serve everyone she knew'. 'Everything goes in waves,' he said. 'There'll be one minute that we feel angry and one minute we feel lonely and one minute I feel despair and one minute I feel hope and one minute I feel joy. Tony Blair, pictured making a speech on geopolitics last year, today called for greater European integration, including on defence Tony Blair today called for a European army capable of taking on the international terrorist threat independent of the Nato alliance. The former prime minister said such a force would not replace Nato but be a vital security organisation which would act independently. Mr Blair risked provoking protest with a call for greater European integration in a host of areas - including the power grid and universities. He warned all 'smaller nations' with a population of less than 100 million - which includes Britain - had to work more closely together. The remarks, in a column for Newsweek magazine, come as the appears to be Government closing in on a deal on Britain's relationship with the EU - a key component of which is to end the drift to 'ever closer union'. Mr Blair's strongest comments related to security and the need for a pan-European force. He said: 'In the field of security, the way forward is for European countries to work more closely together, not pull apart. 'The challenge of radical Islamism should provoke greater cooperation across European nations' borders. The terrorists are planning their outrages without regard to international borders. I would argue that in the medium term, there will be a growing requirement for Europe to build defense capability. 'That force would not supplant NATO but would have the independent ability to take military action at times when Europe's security interests are threatened when the U.S. may decide not to be involved.' Mr Blair, who has made a series of interventions on British politics over the past year, highlighted the success of the African Union's peacekeeping force. The idea of a European army has frequently been discussed but has always been resisted in Britain, itself one of the biggest defence powers in the world. European Commission president Jean Claude Juncker floated the idea again last year but it was immediately dismissed by the British government as having 'no prospect' of winning support. Mr Blair said it would be vital for individual nations to express their views through groupings such as the EU. And he added: 'There are numerous areas for further cooperation. In energy, the benefits of Pan-European coordination are clear. 'A common grid, for example, would cut energy costs dramatically for consumers. 'In higher education there is the potential to use European centers of learning to the benefit of the citizens of Europe. Likewise in art and culture. There is a reason why, around the world, regions are coming together. Take the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which will evolve into a way for these countries to have the political and economic weight to protect their interests. Mr Blair has made a series of intervention on British politics since leaving office - including in the Labour leadership contest, pictured 'The African Union is a far more effective body today than even a decade ago, especially in peacekeeping. South America is learning the same lesson. All of these groupings are very different from Europe. Europe - partly because of its history - has integrated faster and deeper than anywhere else. 'But the basic principle is the same. The world is changing. New and vast powers will have the capacity to dominate. Two Iraqi men who came to the US as refugees were arrested last week on terror charges He is one of 30 Republican governors who previously opposed Syrian refugees coming to the US Sam Browback said admitting some refugees was 'an unacceptable risk to safety and security' Kansas governor Sam Browback has passed an executive order saying the State is to shun refugees from 'anywhere in the world' in case of security concerns. The order, titled Protecting Kansas From Terrorism, says the admission of some refugees is 'an unacceptable risk to the safety and security of the State of Kansas'. In it, Browback references the November 13 Paris attacks and the mass shooting carried out in San Bernardino in December, saying they have have 'heightened concern about protecting Kansas and ensuring the safety and security of citizens'. The order says Kansas will not help with the relocation of refugees viewed as a potential threat and calls for a vetting system. Kansas governor Sam Browback has passed an executive order saying the State is not to welcome refugees from anywhere in the world if they are viewed as a potential threat Browback said in the order: 'I have concluded that the admission of some refugees to the State of Kansas presents an unacceptable risk to the safety and security of the State of Kansas, and thus State government must take action to ensure that it does not assist in the relocation of such refugees to Kansas from anywhere in the world.' 'Kansas should and will remain welcoming to refugees as to which we can be assured there is no risk to the safety and security of our citizens.' 'No department, commission, board or agency of the government of the State of Kansas shall aid, cooperate with, or assist in any way the relocation of refugees that present a safety and security risk to the State of Kansas, until such time as an adequate vetting process is in place with adequate assurances to the State.' The order applies to four refugee programs and to the funding and administration of all grants that fall under the authority of Kansas. Aws Mohammed Younis Al-Jayab, 23 (left) and Omar Faraj Saeed Al Hardan, 24 (right), are two Iraqi men who came to the US as refugees and were arrested last week on terror charges. Browback references them in his executive order Browback was one of 30 Republican governors who opposed the relocation of Syrian refugees to their States in November. He passed another executive order three days after the Paris attacks, saying Kansas would not assist in any way the relocation of Syrian refugees within its borders. 'America has always provided a refuge for the oppressed and those who seek freedom,' Browback said in a statement at the time. 'However, we must be sure that we are not admitting terrorists as we try to help the innocents who desire the opportunity for a better life and the basic liberty of religious freedom. 'Most people seeking refugee status are peaceful individuals looking for a better life. But we cannot allow an influx of Syrian refugees, without any meaningful security checks, while ISIS is promising to infiltrate the refugee process.' Browback's latest executive order also references the arrests of two Iraqi men who came to the US as refugees and were arrested in Texas and California on terror charges. Aws Mohammed Younis Al-Jayab, 23, was arrested last week in Sacramento and accused of plotting to travel to Syria to join terrorist organization al-Nusra Front. That same week, Omar Faraj Saeed al Hardan, 24, was arrested in Houston, Texas for trying to provide material support to ISIS. A dead baby has been found inside a high school bathroom after a 16-year-old girl who may have been sexually assaulted gave birth. The baby - which officials referred to as a fetus - was found by a janitor, and school staff used surveillance footage to track down the teenage mother. The girl was scared, confused and had not known she was pregnant, her mother said. Police are now investigating whether the teenager was sexually assaulted by a 23-year-old man she had been seeing against her parents' wishes. A janitor found a dead baby inside a bathroom at South Houston High School (pictured), Texas, after a 16-year-old girl who may have been sexually assaulted gave birth The baby - which school district spokeswoman Renea Ivy-Sims referred to as a fetus - was found by a janitor, and school staff used surveillance footage to track down the teenage mother The teenage mother gave birth at South Houston High School, Texas, on Wednesday night and was identified by the authorities on Thursday. She is now receiving medical treatment, KHOU reported. It is not clear whether the baby was stillborn or how far into the pregnancy the girl was. An autopsy will be performed on the baby later today. The girl, who was alone when she gave birth, could face charges if the baby was near full-term when it was born. The girl's parents, who also had no idea about the pregnancy, believe the father of the child is a 23-year-old man her daughter was seeing against their wishes since last summer. The teenager ran away from home for a few days in August, the mother said, leading her to file a police report. Houston police are treating the case as a sexual assault investigation. Police (pictured at the school) are investigating whether the teenager was sexually assaulted by a 23-year-old man she had been seeing against her parents' wishes In Texas, the age of consent is 17 unless the age gap between the people involved is less than three years. Pasadena Independent Schools District (ISD) spokeswoman Renea Ivy-Sims said the 'fetus' was found at about 9pm on Wednesday, People reported. 'We had a very tragic situation to occur at our campuses,' she said. 'Pasadena ISD Police Department investigated through the surveillance equipment that we do have available and were able to identify the mother of that baby.' Pasadena ISD released a statement, which said: 'We encourage parents to use this tragedy to talk to their children and remind them that they are not alone. 'When students have concerns, whether medical, social or academic, they should talk to an adult. Joey had been showing signs of improvement over the past few weeks but took a turn for the worst last weekend Joey's goal is to make it to February for Indiana's birthday, despite being told she had six months to live in October Rory wrote on his blog that even on bad days the cheerleading uniform puts a smile on Joey's face the cheerleading outfit for his daughter when it caught his eye during a recent trip to get her new clothes at Kohl's Joey Feek may be losing her battle with cancer, but she has a big supporter cheering her on as she fights the disease - her baby daughter Indiana. Rory Feek, Joey's husband, shared photos of the couple's daughter Indiana, who has Down syndrome, on their blog This Life I Live on Thursday night, showing the toddler as she smiled and laughed to cheer up her terminally-ill mom in a classic cheerleading uniform that had her name written on it days after it was revealed Joey's morphine intake had been quadrupled because she was in so much pain. 'Like she did that day in August at the hospital in Atlanta when Joey was starting chemo, I think our baby is continuing to cheer her mama on in her fight the best way she knows how' wrote Rory. 'By making her smile.' Scroll down for video Head cheerleader: Joey Feek's daughter Indiana has been making her mother smile with her new cheerleading uniform Awe: 'I think our baby is continuing to cheer her mama on in her fight the best way she knows how' wrote Rory Feek. Joey's husband and Indiana's dad Spur of the moment: Rory bought the cheerleading outfit for his daughter when it caught his eye during a recent trip to get her new clothes at Kohl's Touching: Rory wrote on his blog that even on bad days the cheerleading uniform puts a smile on Joey's face Rory, 49, started off his post by writing; 'I dont know where Indy gets her personality from. 'Joey says its from me. Im not sure I believe her. But no matter one thing is for sure, our little one has one of the most expressive little faces Ive ever seen.' He goes on to say that during a shopping trip to Kohl's last week to pick up some new clothes for Indiana, who will be two in February, he caught sight of the cheerleading uniform - and decided to take it home with him for his daughter. 'A day or so later, I sat Indy on Joeys bed so she could spend a few minutes with her mama. Joey had had some tough days and the decline of her condition was weighing heavy on her and all of our minds,' wrote Rory. 'But in a matter of minutes, Indy had her mama laughing out loud.' Mother's wishes: Joey's goal is to make it to February for Indiana's 2nd birthday, despite being told she had six months to live in October (above on Christmas Eve) Heartbreaking: Joey had been showing signs of improvement over the past few weeks but took a turn for the worst last weekend (above at Christmas) For the fans: Rory recently revealed that he and Joey (above in 2013) would be releasing a new album next month comprised of a collection of hymns Rory recently revealed that he and Joey would be releasing a new album next month comprised of a collection of hymns. That album, Hymns That Are Important to Us, will be available on February 12, three days before the couple compete for a Grammy in the Best Country Duo/Group Performance category with their song If I Needed You. February is also a big month for the pair as it is when Indiana will turn two, a milestone Joey has said she hopes to be around for despite her prognosis. Joey, 40, had appeared to be defying the odds after being given six months to live last October, making remarkable progress over the past few weeks despite being told she would be bedridden for the remainder of her life in late November. She got out of bed in December and then began to walk again, all things that seemed impossible just weeks before, and even got to spend Christmas with her family near her childhood home in Alexandria, Indiana. Joey's good luck took a turn however this past weekend, with Rory revealing that her condition had gotten worse. 'And now, here I sit beside my dying wife,' Rory wrote on his blog. 'She said she told him that if Hes ready to take her shes ready to come home.' He then added: 'Her pain and discomfort has continued to increase daily and so has the morphine to help her be comfortable. 'The dosage shes needed to keep the pain away has quadrupled in the last four days. Id like to tell you that shes doing great and is going to beat this thing. But I cant.' Just two weeks earlier the pair had celebrated Christmas together, with Joey getting a chance to see her family and friends and open gifts with Indiana and her step-daughters. The daughter of Russian MP has been jailed for three and half years for killing two men when she drove drunk at 100 mph and rammed her Mercedes into a Toyota Highlander waiting at a red light. The 'lenient' punishment for beauty parlour owner Yulia Kiseleva, 27, has caused an outcry in her city of Irkutsk. Widows of the two men killed in the horrific smash fear she has been given special treatment because she is the daughter of two eminent doctors, one of whom is a local MP. The 'lenient' punishment for beauty parlour owner Yulia Kiseleva, 27, has caused an outcry in her city of Irkutsk The daughter of Russian MP has been jailed for three and half years for killing two men when she drove drunk at 100 mph and rammed her Mercedes into a Toyota Highlander waiting at a red light Residents intend to appeal her sentence and demand the mother of a three year old daughter is locked away for at least six-to-seven years. Kiseleva was made to appear inside a metal cage in court, where she claimed her road rampage followed an emotional row with her ex-husband. She admitted drinking heavily after a row with her ex-husband and claimed she had no memory of the shocking crash. 'I was crying, I was shaking. I was hysterical after the argument with my ex-husband,' she told the court in Irkutsk, expressing remorse for the deaths of two innocent men.' Obviously because of the stress and too much alcohol I just passed out, I do not remember anything,' she said. One of the victims of the terrible crash have been named as lieutenant colonel Albert Sokolov (pictured alongside his wife Elena Sokolova). He died alongside his friend Denis Matveyev She admitted drinking heavily after a row with her ex-husband and claimed she had no memory of the shocking crash Before the car crash, the socialite had been drowning her sorrows with a 19 year old male friend named as Nikita Sokov Residents intend to appeal her sentence and demand the mother of a three year old daughter is locked away for at least six-to-seven years The smashed up remains of the Toyota after the deadly crash, which left two people dead The victims of the terrible crash have been named as lieutenant colonel Albert Sokolov, 35, and his 33-year-old friend Denis Matveyev. Sokolov's four year old daughter and Matveyev's eight year old son have been left fatherless by the tragedy. Widow Elena Sokolova said: 'We do not accept this verdict. We are so shocked. How can she be punished for the murder of two people with three and a half years in prison colony?' Veronika Matveeva told the final court session: 'For us it is a great loss, for both our families. Our husbands were the mainstay for everyone. 'They were sons, husbands and fathers. This is a loss that cannot be recovered. Our children will never see their fathers.We demand the maximum punishment,' she said. Kiselova's mother is local legislator and chief physician of city hospital No 8, Zhanna Eseva, reported The Siberian Times. Kiselova's lawyers argued she had cooperated with the investigation, and admitted her guilt in killing the two men Yulia Kiseleva, 27, had been drinking before she decided to drive when the incident happened Her lawyers had called for her jail sentence to be postponed until her child was aged 14 - which can be done in Russian law. However, the judge ordered her to be jailed immediately, despite the sentence being seen as too lenient. Kiselova's lawyers argued she had cooperated with the investigation, and admitted her guilt in killing the two men. She was suffering health problems since the crash but had paid compensation to the bereaved families of the men she killed. Police said the speed limit where the crash occurred was 60 kilometres per hour (37 mph) but she was driving at 160 kph (100 mph). Kiselova''s father father Sergey Esev is former chief physician of who worked for a former KGB security service clinic. Two days after the crash Mrs Eseva said: 'I am a mother, and I will help my daughter in this situation.' Her Commons motion has won cross party support for a change in the law and faith groups but not the public A family which lost a three month old baby has called for the Government to stop charging VAT on gravestones and other memorials. Phil Edwards said there was no 'value added' to a dead child and Chancellor George Osborne is facing calls to extend a VAT refund scheme on headstones to the public. Green MP Caroline Lucas, Mr Edward's MP in Brighton, has tabled a Commons motion to endorse the campaign and has won support from MPs in five other parties. Phil Edwards, pictured with baby Robert in 1990, has today called for an existing VAT refund scheme on gravestones and memorials to be extended and for ministers to lobby in Europe for a new outright expemption Robert died when he was just three months old. Green MP Caroline has picked up the campaign on behalf of her constituents and set about gaining cross party support for a change Mr Edwards told said his campaign was triggered by the purchase of a memorial vase for his son Robert. He said: 'One of the most distressing things about placing the order for such a vase, was the calculation of the value added tax to be paid on the transaction. 'I would challenge anyone to explain the value to be found in having a dead child. 'When a child dies, the funeral is zero rated, but value added tax is imposed on any memorial to that child be it a headstone, planter, rose bush or entry into a book of remembrance. 'There is no value in the death of a child and this insensitive practice of applying VAT on the act of remembering needs to be changed.' Mr Edward added: 'Would it not be a proud and defining moment if the United Kingdom were to be instrumental in at least raising the issue at a European level demonstrating that it is possible to combine compassion and taxation.' Robert died at just three months old in 1990 after developing an infection following heart surgery. Mr Edwards said charities and faith groups could already get a VAT refund on memorials and urged the Government to extend this scheme. Creating outright exemptions from VAT is against EU rules but Mr Edwards said ministers should lobby for a change. Exemptions currently apply to burials and cremations but not the memorials which follow. There are also existing VAT exemptions on items including lottery tickets, antiques, books and newspapers. Ms Lucas has tabled an early day motion in the Commons to raise awareness of the campaign. The campaign has been supported by Ms Lucas, left on the picket line this week, with a motion in Parliament. The Chancellor, right in Berlin yesterday, is barred under European law from creating new VAT exceptions is being urged to extend an existing VAT refund scheme to the public. She told MailOnline: 'I'm absolutely convinced that the vast majority of MPs will agree with me in thinking that this tax is inexcusable and must be scrapped. 'This is an unnecessary and insensitive tax on the bereaved and those who wish to honour the memory of loved ones. 'The Government must extend the VAT refund scheme to all memorials and raise at European level the possibility of abolishing such taxes altogether. 'Phil's campaign borne from the tragic death of his son is hugely inspiring and I'm confident that the Government will see sense and work to end this injustice.' Ms Lucas's motion has so far been backed by more than 20 MPs from five parties. The signatories include senior Labour MP Keith Vaz, several members of the SNP and other parties from Northern Ireland. The motion reads: 'That this House notes with concern that value added tax is applicable to the erection and maintenance of memorials to the deceased. '(It) considers this to be an unnecessary and insensitive tax on the bereaved and those who wish to honour the memory of loved ones. '(It) observes that a tax refund for charities and faith groups for the erection of memorials has been in place for some years now in the form of the Memorial Grant Scheme. '(It) calls on the Government to extend the scheme to all memorials 'And (it) urges the Government to raise at European level the possibility of abolishing such taxes altogether.' Advertisement Desperate migrants have been carrying their wooden shacks to safety after being warned that bulldozers will be sent in to demolish parts of the so-called 'Jungle' camp in Calais. The migrants were told earlier this week that they had just days to clear hundreds of huts made from wooden planks and tarpaulin from the edge of the road that borders the camp. They had until today to leave the area and instead some will be housed in a new project in an attempt to improve living conditions. Desperate migrants have been seen carrying their makeshift wooden shacks to safety after being warned their camp in Calais was going to be demolished They had until today to clear the area and instead they will be housed in a new project in an attempt to improve living conditions. The migrants were told earlier this week that they had just a few days to clear hundreds of huts made from wooden planks and tarpaulin from the edge of the road The migrants had to use their own strength to lift up the wooden shacks and place them on the back of trucks to be taken away But as rumours swirled that bulldozers might show up in the middle of the night, migrants were seen desperately trying to move their shacks. Mohammed Adam, a doctor from Sudan, who lives in the camp, said: 'We asked them to give us enough time to prepare a new area and move the houses in a safe way. 'But they said they would come here on Friday with their bulldozers and destroy everything. We have no time.' Men gathered in groups to lift up with wooden huts and carry them along the road despite the ice-cold wind lashing the camp. Men gathered in groups to lift up with wooden huts and carry them along the road despite the ice-cold wind lashing the camp As rumours swirled that bulldozers might show up in the middle of the night, migrants were desperately trying to move their shacks The migrants were helped to move their shacks by charity volunteers as they loaded them on to trailers to be taken to a different location Authorities are hoping to move migrants away from the motorway and the surrounding houses for security purposes They were then loaded on the back of trailers to be driven away to safety. Meanwhile other refugees were pictured gathering up all their possessions including mattresses and cooking equipment in bags and backpacks ready for the move. The migrants have been offered places in new refitted shipping containers, equipped with heating and sockets for electricity. But only a few dozen can move each day and very few want to go to the new container camp, fearing they could be permanently trapped there and unable to continue their desperate attempts to get across the Channel to Britain. Another makeshift shack is loaded on to the back of a trailer after authorities asked migrants to partially evacuate the area close to a highway Because the migrants have established a sense of community in the camp, they are hesitant to leave and are worried about how the authorities will treat them Between 50 and 150 migrants are said to be arriving in Calais every day as increasing numbers make their way to Europe across the Mediterranean A shack is loaded on to the back of a trailer ready to be taken away before bulldozers come in and demolish part of the camp in Calais Migrants use all their strength to push their makeshift wooden shack on to the back of a trailer to be taken elsewhere in Calais A group of Eritrean migrants move all of their possessions out of their makeshift shack in preparation for it to be moved on a lorry Tents and other belongings have been left strewn across the ground as migrants attempt to clear the camp before it is bulldozed Eritrean migrants stand in between the bank to the highway leading to the port and their belongings as they move to another location with the help of volunteers mostly from England They are wary of the new camp, particularly the hand-print scanners used to come and go - fearing that giving this data will stop them applying for asylum in Britain if they ever manage to smuggle themselves across the Channel. Migrants at another camp near Dunkirk in Northern France have been offered winter tents and a new semi-permanent camp in Grande-Synthe, co-ordinated with the charity Medecins sans Frontieres, will have showers, better sanitation and more protection against cold weather. 'We just simply can't leave people to freeze in the mud. It's not humane,' said the executive director of Medecins sans Frontieres Vickie Hawkins. Local official Fabienne Buccio said: 'Given everything these people have been through before they got here, they don't have any immediate confidence in what's happening.' Between 50 and 150 migrants are said to be arriving in Calais every day as increasing numbers make their way to Europe across the Mediterranean. Two migrants struggle as they try to carry their mattress away before part of the so-called Jungle camp in Calais is demolished Volunteers move out what appears to be cooking utensils from a shack as it is moved to another part of the Jungle before being bulldozed One migrant fixes the roof of his shack with a canvas cover before it is moved away from the makeshift camp close to the 'Jungle' in Calais One man carried his belongings in a number of bags after being forced to leave the makeshift camp in Calais Many living in the camp have fled conflicts in Syria, Libya and sub-Saharan Africa, while others have arrived by land, often travelling from places like Afghanistan via the Balkans A woman stands next to her belongings waiting for them to be moved after being told to leave part of the 'Jungle' camp in Calais The so-called 'Jungle camp' in Calais, pictured, was recently described by UN aid workers as the 'worst in Europe - if not the world' Many living in the camp have fled conflicts in Syria, Libya and sub-Saharan Africa, while others have arrived by land, often travelling from places like Afghanistan via the Balkans. It was also recently described by aid workers as 'the worst in Europe if not the world and is seen as a 'tolerated zone' by the French authorities. In July 2015, in response to the criticism about the conditions by the UN and other aid groups, France vowed to spend 500,000 (360,000) improving the camp, which lies close to the English Channel. A father shook his five-month-old premature baby daughter to death because she wouldn't stop crying, a court heard. Lithuanian Tomas Driukas, 26, is accused of leaving Deimante Driukite with a massive brain injury as well as 26 fractured bones as he cared for her at home. The electrician is alleged to have deliberately inflicted the catastrophic injuries after struggling to cope with looking after the child by himself while his partner was at work. During police interviews he told detectives his baby daughter cried all the time and that changing her nappy was like 'going to war.' Father Tomas Driukasis accused of leaving Deimante Driukite with a massive brain injury as well as 26 fractured bones as he cared for her at home. He is pictured here with an unknown baby The baby was taken to Birmingham Children's Hospital with breathing difficulties in the early hours of April 1 last year. She died later that afternoon from a severe brain injury. Post-mortem examinations revealed tragic Deimante, born 12 weeks prematurely in November 2014, had suffered bleeding in her brain and eyes. She had also suffered 26 fractured ribs over a period of several weeks prior to her death. Driukas, who moved to the UK with partner Renata Braskyte from Lithuania in 2010, denies charges of murder and inflicting grievous bodily harm. Braskyte, 23, denies a charge of allowing the death of a child. Opening the trial against them at Birmingham Crown Court, Jonas Hankin QC said: 'The nature of the injuries is a significant indication he intended to cause really serious bodily harm. 'They are consistent with impatience and hostility towards a child.' The court heard Deimante was discharged home on January 7 last year after being born prematurely the previous November. During her time in hospital Driukas visited the baby just seven times, six of those in the week of her birth. His partner Renata Braskyte, 23, pictured left outside of Birmingham Crown Court, is also charged with allowing the death of a child Mr Hankin said: 'When she left hospital she had no fractures so all of those fractures occurred when she was in the defendant's care. 'Some fractures related to the same bones. They had been fractured and re-fractured at a later date. 'It happened on his watch. 'There is no evidence Ms Braskyte was violent towards the children or harmed them in any way. 'The onset (of the injuries) appears to coincide with Ms Braskyte's return to work in mid to late February. 'Mr Driukas was left for the first time in sole care of these children.' He went on to say that he was frustrated by the responsibility and demands of caring for the child while his partner was at work. For months after the death Driukas told police his daughter fell ill as he was feeding her. He later claimed he had fallen asleep in bed with the baby and fallen out and landed on top of her when medical evidence ruled out natural causes. Above, police at the scene in Perry Barr, Birmingham, where the couple were arrested following the death of the baby in April last year Braskyte, 23, (pictured) denies a charge of allowing the death of a child. The trial at Birmingham Crown Curt is expected to last several weeks Mr Hankin said: 'The prosecution say Mr Driukas's new version of events is as unreliable as his first. 'The account is inherently implausible, the best he can do to explain what happened while preserving the chance to escape criminal prosecution for what he had done.' Mr Hankin told the jury Braskyte had a responsibility to notice the earlier injuries to her daughter and take steps to protect her from Driukas. He said: 'She was with him. There are many bone fractures of many ages inflicted on at least four separate occasions. 'She handled her every day. 'Even if she was not present when the injuries were inflicted she must have still had physical contact with the injured child. 'Renata Braskyte failed to take steps she could be reasonably expected to take to protect Deimante.' During police interviews Braskyte said Driukas would not hurt the children but said he had attempted to discipline them. But she admitted Deimante cried a lot as though she was in pain. He has been charged with drug possession with intent to distribute A 21-year-old Canadian man has been arrested after he allegedly walked $1.6million worth of Xanax across the border and into Vermont on a sled. Cedrick Bourgault-Morin, of Quebec, was taken into custody on Wednesday around 1am after he set off sensors along the railroad tracks that lead from the border into North Troy, court papers state. US Border Patrol agents in Newport found Bourgault-Morin dressed in white camouflage clothing and pulling a sled with one large duffel bag, also wrapped in white camouflage, authorities said. Cedrick Bourgault-Morin, 21, was arrested on Wednesday after he allegedly walked $1.6m worth of Xanax across the Canadian border and into Vermont on a sled US Border Patrol agents said inside the sled was a duffel bag that contained 300 vacuum-sealed bags filled with the anti-anxiety medication (file photo) The three agents said Bourgault-Morin began to conceal the sled in the snow before he was arrested on suspicion of illegally trying to enter the US, according to WPTZ. Inside the bag was 300 vacuum-sealed bags that were filled with the anti-anxiety medication and weighed a total of 182 pounds. Authorities believe Bourgault-Morin had co-conspirators both on the Canadian and American sides of the border, according to the Burlington Free Press. The area where Bourgault-Morin was arrested is known for being used by smuggling organizations to move illegal goods into the country. Bourgault-Morin was charged with drug possession with the intent to distribute and is being held in a Vermont prison. He faces five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Bourgault-Morin was charged with drug possession with the intent to distribute and is being held in a Vermont prison. He faces five years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted Patricia Wutaan, 55, devised hundreds of emotional stories, which were used to convince lonely men to hand over their cash to complete strangers they met on dating websites A fraudster who wrote heart-wrenching scripts to help swindlers pose as vulnerable women in fake online profiles has been jailed. Patricia Wutaan, 55, devised hundreds of emotional stories, which were used to convince lonely men to hand over their cash to complete strangers they met on dating websites. In one scenario, the con artist would pose as a 9/11 widow struggling with her finances. In another, they would pretend to be a hard-working woman falling behind on her rent. Wutaan also included instructions to help her clients maximize their chances of success, advising them to 'stay calm and moody until you get his final word'. When police searched her home in Bromley, south London, officers described finding an 'Aladdin's cave' of scripts and fake identity documents, including passports and driving licences. Wutaan was today jailed for two years after being found guilty of two counts of possession of articles for use in fraud at Southwark Crown Court. She was also convicted of three counts of money laundering for 29,269 worth of payments made into her account by a 70-year-old in Switzerland. One of the fake characters she created was a woman whose husband died as a result of 9/11. The script read: 'I am a widow. Lost my husband to 9/11 terror attacks in New York. 'He made it out of the collapsed building but he later died because of heavy dust and smoke and he was asthmatic.' Another script featured a lonely woman who was looking for financial help to release the money left to her by her late husband. It read: 'I've not been in a relationship since demise of late husband. I am in London to meet family attorney of late husband to negotiate on how to clear the identified assets he left me. 'He left me a vague will with some conditions to meet before I could access the assets and cash he left me in his will. 'I must be able to prove to the family attorney that I have moved on with my life and show I am engaged with someone else.' A third story was about a desperate woman who was unable to pay her rent. It read: 'My sewing machine is faulty. Although I have now fixed it but I used the money I am supposed to pay my house rent to fix it and now I am broke and can't afford to pay my house rent.' Among Wutaan's instructions for clients was a note that advised them to 'let him do most of the talking'. It continued: 'Be sad and worried about taking care of bills for rest of the month. When he asks what he can do to help ask him for $2000 (1,300) to $3000 (1,900).' Wutaan also helped launder thousands of pounds swindled from a 70-year-old man in Switzerland. Specialist financial investigators carried out a detailed analysis of her finances and established that she had received three payments from the man over one fortnight in January 2014. The German-speaking pensioner said he had been approached by someone using a woman's profile on a dating site. Pretending to be a woman who needed money to free funds from her late father's estate, the fraudster persuaded the lonely man to hand over 70,000 over the course of a few months. Con artist: One of the hand-written documents recovered from Wutaan's home, advising clients on how to pose as a childless woman who lost her husband after 9/11 and is a 'celebrity fashionista' Nearly 30,000 of this was paid into Wutaan's account. Detectives from the Central Criminal Finance Team stopped Wutaan on Bromley High Street on February 11 last year after receiving a tip-off about her scam. They seized 16,300 found in her coat pocket. The fraudster claimed a friend in Switzerland had given her the cash to help her pay for home refurbishments, but said she couldn't recall the friend's name or address. Wutaan initially denied penning the hand-written scripts found at her address, but a police analysis of her handwriting proved she had in fact been the author. She eventually admitted writing the scenarios, although there was no evidence that she herself had used them on a dating site. Officers also recovered fraudulent documents including photocopies of fake passports and drivers' licences from her house. Detective Inspector Pete Ward of the Central Criminal Finances Team, told her trial: 'Wutaan's home was an Aladdin's cave of fraudsters' scripts and false IDs. 'It was almost like she was compiling a fraudsters' handbook. 'The scripts she had written demonstrate exactly the kinds of stories that victims are fed by fraudsters; designed to manipulate the victim into feeling sorry for them and wanting to help them. 'I urge anyone using a dating site to question what they are being told by other 'daters', especially when they are being asked for money or personal details. 'If you think you have been a victim, please don't be embarrassed - tell police, so we can try and stop the fraudsters.' In sentencing at Southwark Crown Court, Judge Michael Gledhill said: 'The elderly Swiss gentleman in this case retired from his business in order to enjoy his retirement. Wutaan was found guilty two counts of possession of articles for use in fraud at Southwark Crown Court 'He was defrauded by a woman, not you, making the most outrageous fraudulent claims that she had access to a large amount of money in a vault in Paris left to her by her father to use for charitable purposes. 'He fell for the story. He is a vulnerable man and due to his age he was clearly lonely. 'He met this woman through a date or chat line and, to use a colloquialism, she took him to the cleaners. He believed her.' The Swiss victim eventually travelled to Paris, believing he would meet the woman to get the money from the Parisian vault, but was instead met by a group of men. The judge continued: 'At that time he realised he had been defrauded and he went home, put no more money in the accounts and had nothing to do with the fraud. 'I add you were not the woman. Your involvement in the fraud of the man and allow your bank account to be used for the money defrauded from him.' It was believed she was acting for someone else, which the judge said was probably her boyfriend, but the court did not know who he was as Wutaan had 'not revealed who he was'. He said 'You took this monies put in your account then withdrew time, withdrew them to pass to whoever was manipulating you.' She then got her share of the and a cut of the money, but only it was 'no more than a few hundred pounds' The judge said Wutaan 'behaved in a thoroughly dishonest way'. He said: 'Police searched your home they found documents written by you in your handwriting. You had written our scenarios for the use in similar frauds. They were to be used to defraud other people.' Today Wutaan of Bromley, south east London, was jailed for two years for each count, all to run concurrently. But friendship with resident dog Duma has given Ellie new lease of life 'Ellie' rejected by herd and had potentially fatal abscess on his belly For hundreds of years it's been common knowledge that a dog is a man's best friend. But that relationship may be in danger judging by the bond between this pet and an orphaned baby elephant. The African bull calf, named Ellie, was rejected by his herd and was then adopted by the Thula Thula Rhino Orphanage in South Africa, where his budding friendship with resident dog Duma is helping him get back on his feet. Ellie, pictured, was taken to Thula Thula Rhino Orphanage in South Africa after being abandoned by his herd Through his friendship with resident pet Duma, pictured, the elephant is now making a recovery The dog has become so protective of Ellie that staff say they struggle to separate the pair Their playful antics have been captured in a video uploaded to YouTube which has revealed even more tragedy behind Ellie's young life. Speaking to Earth Touch News, Karen Trendler, a rehabilitation and crisis response expert, said the elephant's interactions with Duma were key to his development. She said: 'What was a really interesting thing was the elephant calf was particularly weak and particularly ill. He was not showing much interest in doing anything; he was lethargic and distracted. 'We introduced Duma to the elephant at the sand pile and it immediately cheered the elephant up. 'It had a massive impact on Ellie in that he suddenly had a bit of interest in life again. Over the past few weeks they have been growing this relationship. 'You have a dog and an elephant who have totally different behaviours who are playing more and more. We have a hard time keeping Duma away; he is becoming increasingly protective!' Ellie, pictured with Duma, had an abscess on his belly that 99 per cent would not survive Staff say Ellie did not show any interest in life and was 'particularly lethargic' before meeting Duma Ellie was abandoned by his herd for unknown reasons and the centre made several attempts to reunite them to no avail. Ms Trendler said when they found Ellie he had an abscess on his belly button area which meant it was effectively open. She said: 'It was very infected and there was a direct connection into his blood supply. In 99 per cent of cases an umbilical abscess of that nature is fatal. Karen Trendler, pictured, said Ellie is intolerant to all forms of milk which has made feeding him very difficult 'Against all the odds this little elephant is still with us.' Ms Trendler said feeding Ellie had also been a big problem because he was intolerant to milk, even special milk imported from Zimbabwe and Kenya. Staff the orphanage have found a solution however, feeding Ellie rice combined with protein, minerals and coconut which is working. An employee stole 17,000 from her work safe after she disguised herself in a burqa - but was caught by police when she fled in a taxi booked on her own phone. Officers were able to track down Krystal Kerr and found most of the cash she had taken in her bedroom in Birmingham. The 28-year-old - who had planned to use the money for a holiday in Jamaica - had even left some of the cash in taxi. Krystal Kerr, 28, stole 17,000 from her work's safe after disguising herself in a burqa but was caught by police when she ordered a taxi on her own mobile phone Kerr, of The Ridings, Stechford, was jailed for 12 months after previously admitting theft. The worker arrived at Fun Station in Star City on July 20 last year just as security staff were locking and securing the premises. Dressed in a burka, she walked past the two men and used a key she had previously stolen to get into a store room. After disabling the alarm she went to the safe and removed 17,344 before returning to a taxi that was waiting for her. She was dropped off in Erdington and then took a bus to her home in Stechford. Emma Rutherford, prosecuting at Birmingham Crown Court, said the theft was discovered the next day and that the taxi the defendant had used was identified from CCTV footage. Just nine days later officers went to her home and within an hour discovered a bag containing 15,500 under floorboards in her bedroom. When quizzed, Kerr said after returning home she had gone to her local park and burnt the burqa and a bag which had contained the money. She said she had stolen the cash to flee from an abusive boyfriend. James Frarczyk, defending, said: 'The whole thing was essentially bungled from the outset. 'She rang for the taxi using her own mobile phone and used a surname that was not a million miles away from her own. The theft happened at Fun Station in Star City (pictured) on July 20 last year just as security staff were locking and securing the premises After disabling the alarm she went to the safe and removed 17,344 before returning to a taxi that was waiting for her (file picture of Star City in Birmingham) 'She wore a burka while walking past colleagues and became hysterical when police searched that room. 'She embarked on a desperate sequence of events and planned to spend her ill gotten gains on taking her children back to Jamaica but never had the courage to go through with that.' Mr Frarczyk said of the money that had not been recovered she spent 366 on rent and believed the rest may have been left in the taxi. He added that she had been assaulted and bullied by her ex partner who wanted her to return to him. Miss Recorder Malcolm QC said: 'This was theft in breach of a substantial amount of trust your employer repose in you. You took a large sum of money. 'It was planned very carefully not only in terms of gaining access to the premises but also gaining access to the safe.' A Swiss Muslim-convert has been arrested at the Turkish border on suspicion of intending to take her four-year-old son to Syria after being radicalised online by ISIS. Franziska Mirella, 29, has been sent back to Switzerland where she could face trial for supporting a banned terror organisation. Her Egyptian husband, Mahmoud, has been awarded custody of their four-year-old son Adam. Franziska Mirella, 29, has been sent back to Switzerland where she could face trial for supporting a banned terror organisation Franziska Mirella was stopped with her four-year-old son Adam at the Turkish border after her husband raised the alarm Franziska converted to Islam when she married her husband Mahmoud and moved to his homeland, Egypt. While living in Egypt, she had started to follow increasingly radical Islamic services on the Internet, and according to her husband had come into contact with jihadists via social media. Mahmoud, who married Franziska five years ago, said online jihadi supporters had convinced his wife that he was not a true Muslim. They persuaded her together with her son to come to Syria in order to live under the caliphate. Franziska (pictured before her conversion to Islam) threw out all her son's toys, deeming them 'un-Islamic' and banned him from watching television. Finally she stole everything she owned in order to fund their trip to Syria Adam (right) was briefly taken into care and now a court in Greece has given his father (left) custody. He has now headed back to Egypt to be with his family Her family confirmed that she had started behaving strangely, even changing her name to Umm Adam, which means simply mother of Adam. Franziska threw out all her son's toys, deeming them 'un-Islamic' and banned him from watching television. Finally she sold everything she owned in order to fund their trip to Syria. But the wannabe jihadi bride was stopped heading across the border from Greece into Turkey on her journey to Syria after her husband raised the alarm. Adam was briefly taken into care and now a court in Greece has given his father custody. He has now headed back to Egypt to be with his family. 'Adam is doing okay, he has a bad cold from his long journey under harsh conditions, but he's basically on the mend and doing well,' Mahmoud said. Adam (right) was briefly taken into care and now a court in Greece has given his father Mahmoud (left) custody. He has now headed back to Egypt to be with his family. Mahmoud confirmed that his son was ok and was just recovering from a cold after the trip 'He is particularly pleased that he is allowed to play with his toys again.' He added he did not know why this had happened to his wife, but confirmed: 'It was likely she had been completely brainwashed.' He said she was not the same person anymore and that her family back in Switzerland were shocked at what had happened, because they had always supported her in her decision to move to Egypt to live with him. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump was far from letting up on his closest rival for the 2016 nomination on Friday morning, continuing to hammer Texas Sen. Ted Cruz over his 'insult' to 20 million New Yorkers. 'Ted did not have a good night last night,' Trump said on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe.' 'And I thought his hit on New York was disgraceful, frankly, and I guess a lot of people are saying that from what I hear.' Cruz took a swipe at Trump and his 'New York values' during Thursday night's debate, in a much-anticipated dust-up after the two had been sniping at each other on the campaign trail for the past two weeks. Scroll down for videos Donald Trump and Ted Cruz crossed swords on Thursday night over US citizenship, 'New York values' and national security Trump continued to punch back at Cruz in media appearances Friday morning The two rivals had been allies, with Trump going so far as to slap Cruz on the back in a highly re-watched moment in December's Republican debate. That appears to be over. 'I guess the bromance is over because he hit me, I didn't hit him. I hit him after the fact,' Trump told spin-room reporters immediately after Thursday night's contest. 'There's no reason for him to go that aggressive. But he started talking about New York in a very negative way, and I thought it was inappropriate.' In Thursday night's debate, moderator Maria Bartiromo asked Cruz about recent statement he has made at campaign rallies that accused Trump of having 'New York values.' 'Could you explain what you mean by that?' Bartiromo asked. 'You know, I think most people know exactly what New York values are,' Cruz answered. 'I am from New York. I don't,' Bartiromo told him. 'What -- what -- you're from New York? So you might not... Listen, there are many, many wonderful, wonderful working men and women in the state of New York,' Cruz said. 'But everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro- gay-marriage, focus around money and the media.' Cruz went on to describe a Trump interview with NBC's Tim Russert in which Trump distinguished his values from those of people in Iowa. 'I guess I can frame it another way. Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan. I'm just saying,' Cruz said. Trump fired back immediately. 'New York is a great place, it's got great people, it's got great people, loving people, wonderful people,' he said. 'When the World Trade Center came down I saw something that no place on earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York.' 'We rebuilt downtown Manhattan and everybody in the world watched, and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers. And I have to tell you it was a very insulting statement that Ted made.' Trump has also been hammering Cruz over his Canadian birth in 1970, to an American woman, which Cruz says gives him 'natural born' U.S. citizenship as provided for by the Constitution. Cruz has punched back by claiming that Trump is being supported by 'Hillary Clinton folks' who think he would be an easier candidate in the general election, Asked if he was trying to sow seeds of doubt about Cruz's citizenship - and eligibility for the presidency - Trump said, 'there's already doubt.' 'If there's even a one percent chance [of election], you just can't run,' Trump said. 'I like him. But you can't run if there's a one percent chance. And there's a lot more than that.' But Trump repeatedly came back to criticize Cruz's 'New York value' comment, telling reporters Thursday night that Cruz 'insulted 20 million New Yorkers.' 'I think he made a lot of mistakes tonight. I think it was maybe not a good performance,' Trump said of Cruz in the spin room. 'He's got a problem.' On Friday morning, Trump said the same on 'Morning Joe,' 'A lot of people are hitting him for what he said about New York,' Trump said. 'I thought it was terrible.' Trump also said Friday he plans to spend up to $40 million on his campaign this winter - and then took another shot at Cruz, who was the subject of media reports on Wednesday for failing to disclose a hefty loan from Goldman Sachs that helped fund his 2012 Senate campaign. Cruz's wife, Heidi, is an executive at Goldman Sachs' Houston office. 'When Goldman Sachs asks for a favor, do you think possibly hes going to do it for them?' Trump said. Cruz told reporters on Thursday that he eventually listed the loans on his personal disclosure statements - after his election. He blamed the non-disclosure on a simple clerical error. 'These loans have been disclosed over and over and over again,' he said. 'It is an inadvertent filing question. The facts of the underlying matter have been disclosed for many, many years.' Agafya Lykova's family home in the Siberian wilderness was so isolated, World War II came and went without them ever knowing about it. Her family fled to the snow covered forest, 100 km from the nearest town, 80 years ago and all but Agafya died there. Now, aged 71, she has come face to face with the 21st Century world they shunned, when she fell terribly ill and needed a helicopter to fly her to hospital. Isolation: For 71 years, Agafya Lykova has lived in a remote log cabin deep in the Siberian wilderness, 100km away from the nearest village Seclusion: She grew up in the snowy forest clearing (pictured) without metal, pots or cutlery - and had to hunt for her own food in the bitter cold She was airlifted to Kemerovo, an industrial city in Oblast, after developing a horrible pain in her leg caused by the bitter cold. She arrived at Tashtagol Hospital carrying fresh water from the spring that runs by her cabin and clutching her many religious icons. One source told local media: 'She feels better. The doctors managed to control the pain. She is expected to stay at the hospital for examinations and more treatment for a week.' Agafya's devoutly religious parents escaped to the wilderness in 1936, fearing persecution from Russian dictator Josef Stalin's Communist government. She was born and grew up at the cabin but gradually all of her relatives died, leaving her as the only survivor of the family of five. The family's riverside cabin sits 150m high up a remote mountain in the Abakan Range, in south-western Siberia. Rescue: Aged 71, Agafya was forced to face the 21st Century world when she developed a terrible pain in her leg and had to be airlifted to hospital in a helicopter (pictured) Devout: Agafya (pictured with rescuers) arrived at the Tashtagol Hospital carrying fresh water from the spring that runs by her cabin and clutching her many religious icons Fear: Her devoutly religious parents escaped to the wilderness (pictured) in 1936, fearing persecution from Russian dictator Josef Stalin's Communist government Her early life was barbarically difficult. She grew up without metal, pots or cutlery, and often had nothing to eat but what she could catch in temperatures that plummeted down to minus 40 degrees Celsius. For the first 35 years of her life, Agafya had no contact with anyone outside her family. It was only in 1978 that a group of geologists accidentally stumbled across the family, with scientists reporting that Agafya spoke a strange language, 'distorted by a lifetime of isolation'. Gradually, she came into contact with local authorities, but refused to leave her home despite the hardships. Her home is frequently raided by hungry foxes and bears looking for food but officials expect her to still go home when she leaves hospital. In the past, her family has been so hungry and desperate that they were once forced to eat their own shoes. Cut off: For the first 35 years of her life, Agafya (pictured) had absolutely no contact with anyone outside her family Discovery: It was only in 1978 that a group of geologists (pictured, the rescuers who helped Agafya) accidentally stumbled across the family Home: The family's riverside cabin sits 150m high up a remote mountain in the Abakan Range (pictured), in south-western Siberia Once the family were discovered they continued to live in the wilderness and - apart from simple things such as salt, knives, forks and handles - they continued to reject the modern world. Kemerovo region governor Aman Tuleyev makes sure he receives regular updates on her wellbeing, delivering cabbage, flour, grapes and her favourite oranges to her home. A devout Christian couple who were fined $13,000 for refusing to host a lesbian wedding at the farm where they live and work did indeed break the law, a New York court ruled on Thursday. Cynthia and Robert Gifford have been battling Melisa and Jennifer McCarthy ever since the women contacted them in 2012 asking to get married at Liberty Ridge Farm in Schaghticoke, New York. In August, an administrative-law judge ruled that the Giffords had violated state law by discriminating against the couple and ordered them to pay the fines, but the Giffords appealed. The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court said the Giffords are free to express their religious beliefs but rejected that their rights were being violated. The court ruled against the business owners 5-0, according to Fox News. Scroll down for video Fined: Cynthia and Robert Gifford, pictured, have been fined $13,000 for refusing to hold a gay wedding at their upstate New York farm, even though religious institutions in the state can legally refuse to hold them Hurt: Jennie and Melissa McCarthy recorded the conversation in which the Giffords turned down their wedding party and filed a formal complaint with the state. Earlier this summer, they received compensation but the Giffords appealed The Giffords had been hosting weddings at their upstate New York farm (above) for 15 years but since the lawsuit have decided not to hold them New York law exempts some religious-oriented institutions from having to accommodate same-sex weddings, but a business that serves the public is in violation of the state's human rights law if it discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation. 'The Giffords are free to adhere to and profess their religious beliefs that same-sex couples should not marry, but they must permit same-sex couples to marry on the premises if they choose to allow opposite-sex couples to do so,' Judge Karen Peters' wrote in her decision. The New York Civil Liberties Union represented the McCarthys, who found a different venue for their ceremony after several months. Rather than comply with state law, the Giffords have chosen not to host wedding ceremonies on their farm, according to the farm's website. They do still host receptions. It is unclear if they would host a reception for a same sex couple. Gay marriage became legal in New York on July 24, 2011. It became legal nationwide on June 26, 2015, following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. 'New York chose to guarantee a society where lunch counters would serve black and white customers and businesses would not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, and all of us benefit from these protections,' said Mariko Hirose, senior staff attorney at the New York Civil Liberties Union and lead counsel on the case representing the McCarthys, according toThe Advocate. 'Were glad the court upheld longstanding laws against discrimination, and were proud of the McCarthys for standing up for equal treatment of all New Yorkers.' Back in 2014, when the case first broke, the farm-owning couple denied they were discriminatory. Video courtesy Minnesota Family Council Speaking out: The couple, who married at a different venue in 2013, were devastated, their lawyer said 'We respect and care for everyone!' Cynthia Gifford, 54, told the New York Post. 'We had an openly gay man working for us this past season. We've had a woman who's transitioning to be a man. We don't discriminate against anyone.' Still, when Melisa McCarthy - then Melisa Erwin - contacted Mrs Gifford in 2012 and asked to have their summer 2013 wedding at the farm, she said no. 'When we asked why it was just, "That's what my husband and I decided. We've been married a long time and it's great you're getting married and all, but you can't do it here",' McCarthy told WNYT at the time. The Giffords say their religious beliefs means they shouldn't have to hold same sex weddings at Liberty Ridge (pictured) but an appellate court disagreed Gifford was unaware that Jennifer McCarthy had recorded the conversation and the same-sex couple filed a formal complaint with the state Division of Human Rights. After the case became public, the farm suffered a backlash and they have been forced to lose some employees due to financial hardship, the Post reported. Angry messages posted on the venue's Facebook page at the time suggested the McCarthys were not the only gay couple to have been denied access. 'Apparently if you are a same sex couple, you are not welcome as this place discriminates,' wrote one user, Denine Dorniak. 'Gay dollars are just as green as straight dollars.' The Giffords were eventually ordered to pay $10,000 to the state and $1,500 to each of the brides for their mental anguish. 'They were devastated when they heard that Liberty Ridge Farm would not take their business because of who they are,' said their lawyer, Mariko Hirose, of the New York Civil Liberties Union. The Giffords live at the farm with their 18-year-old daughter and 22-year-old son and have hosted an annual fall event there - including a maize maze and pumpkin patches - for 16 years. 'We've gone from tolerance to compulsion,' the Giffords' lawyer, James Trainor, told the Post. Cumbria Police, file picture, used cautions in 65 sex offence cases in the past five year, figures revealed by the Freedom of Information Act have shown Paedophiles and rapists were among 65 people handed police cautions instead of facing prosecution by just one force, it has emerged today. Cumbria Police used the tool - which acknowledges guilt but imposes no sentence - in two rape cases in the past five years. Tory MP Philip Davies today suggested police forces were 'abusing' the caution system to 'massage' their crime figures. Last year, the Ministry of Justice published figures revealing 437 sex offenders had been cautioned over the past years. The new figures on cautions in Cumbria emerged today following a Freedom of Information request. They also showed 19 cautions issued in Cumbria for indecent assault on a female. Seven cautions were handed out for offences including sexual activity involving a child. There were 21 cautions for indecent exposure, 11 for unlawful sexual intercourse and five for indecent assault on a male. Police forces were banned by Government from using cautions for serious offences in 2013. Responding to the new figures, Mr Davies said: 'For someone to be given a caution they are admitting guilt to these terrible crimes. 'Victims should at least know that justice is being done and it's doubtful they are. 'You would have thought that they should at least be brought before a court. 'The police seem to be abusing the caution system so they can massage their figures. It is unacceptable. 'I know they are under tremendous strain and I would like to see their funding increased.' Detective Superintendent Cath Thundercloud, of Cumbria Police's public protection unit, told the Mirror: 'We work closely with our colleagues in the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute wherever possible and identify where we can improve our processes. 'Cumbria has one of the highest charge and summons ratio in the country, showing our commitment with the CPS to bring sexual offenders to justice. Tory MP Philip Davies said police forces were 'abusing' the caution system 'The constabulary continually works to improve victim care and every victim's report is believed and taken seriously. 'Victims will be supported by specially trained and experienced officers and we also work together with partner agencies in order to put safeguarding measures in place to those that require this support. 'I would like to take this opportunity to reassure victims that we take all reports of sexual offences extremely seriously and will investigate them sensitively and professionally.' Following the Ministry of Justice publication last year, Peter Cuthbertson, of the Centre For Crime Prevention, said: 'Even those well aware of how much cautions are being overused will be sickened. 'Cautions for major sex offences and paedophiles is completely unacceptable.' The NSPCC said some decisions to issue a caution may have been taken to avoid a child having to give evidence in court. But it added that this was a damning indictment of the justice system. The charity's Jon Brown said last year: 'A custodial sentence for serious sexual offences sends a very clear message that society will not accept their behaviour in any way.' There has long been controversy over the use of cautions for other types of sex offences. Figures released to Mr Davies last year, a campaigner against soft justice, show there were 7,057 cautions for all offences in the previous five-year period. But the disclosure relating to those who have assaulted under-13s is particularly shocking. Normally, officials explain the use of cautions for sex crimes as applying in cases such as a 17-year-old having sex with a 14 or 15-year-old. Mike Penning, then a Tory justice minister, said the law was now being changed to ban the use of cautions for serious sexual offences. He said: Under this Government, sex offenders are more likely to be locked up, and for longer weve banned the use of cautions for serious offences and were now enshrining this in law. A Ministry of Justice spokesman told us: 'It is vital that victims and citizens have confidence that swift, certain justice is served. 'In April 2015 we banned the use of simple cautions for serious offences except in exceptional cases these figures pre-date this change. 'We have also set out proposals to overhaul the system of cautions to make sure that anyone committing even minor crimes face direct consequences. A British mother who is accused of fleeing to Syria with her toddler in order to join ISIS ran to the Turkish border to escape the terror group, a court heard today. Tareena Shakil, 26, said that she paid a taxi driver to take her and her child within 1km of the border and then 'just ran, ran, ran' into Turkey and found a friendly military patrol. She also described living with dozens of other young women in a house in Raqqa, the capital of the jihadist state, for three months with matchmakers finding the women brides from amongst the ranks of ISIS fighters. Shakil, from Birmingham, was allegedly pictured posing with an AK-47 and putting an ISIS bandana on her 14-month-old child in photographs she sent to friends and relatives at home. This CCTV image shows Tareena Shakil pushing her 14-month-old child in a buggy through East Midlands Airport, where the pair boarded a flight to Turkey. It is claimed the pair then travelled to Raqqa 'Happy': These selfies were allegedly taken by Shakil while she was living in ISIS's Syrian stronghold A security expert told Birmingham Crown Court that under the terrorist regime, the only women allowed to have weapons are members of the elite Al-Khansa police brigade. The mother denies wrongdoing, although she has admitted travelling to Syria and later lying about her account to the UK authorities. In tapes of her police interview played in court today, Shakil claimed to have gone on a package holiday to Turkey and fallen for a mystery man she met at the beach, before being kidnapped and driven across the border. From there she said she was taken to Jarabulus in Syria with other women, and after about a week arrived in Raqqa where she lived with other non-married girls. 'They took us to a really big house. There was about 60 or 70 people,' she said. 'I thought this place is hell, this place is hell. This place is not good. It's a horrible place. 'There were guards patrolling outside and we could not leave. It is not Islamic for a Muslim woman to be alone with a man she is not married to. I remained there for about three months. 'This Saudi Arabian woman who ran the place would say, 'We have a beautiful man from America, we have a beautiful man from Canada.' They said you will stay here until you get married.' These pictures are both said to have been posted on social media by Shakil while she was living in Syria Shakil claimed that other women wanted to escape, but she decided to 'play dumb' and wait to maximise her chances of getting away successfully. 'I went to a woman's house called Tania, where we could go to use internet if we came back by night,' she said. 'I stayed with her for two days and we spoke about escaping. She showed me where I could get a bus from and said, 'This one goes here, this one goes there.' 'I knew definitely they were looking for me already because I ran away to Tania's house. I was living on borrowed time. This photograph of a hand holding a gun was posted to social media by an account allegedly used by Shakil 'I flagged down a taxi who said he would take me after morning prayer the next day at about 8am. I said I'm going to Jarabulus and I travelled with two other women. 'We were stopped and I just went with the flow and acted stupid. I said my husband is in Jarabulus. He spoke to his friend in Arabic and they let us go. 'The two women got out at a refugee camp and then I asked the driver to take me on. He was scared. 'As we were driving I heard him say, 'Turkey, 1km this way.' I said, 'Stop the car,' I threw fifty dollars at him- grabbed my child and my Pampers, grabbed the blanket. 'And I just ran, ran, ran, because 1km is nothing. I can see these Isis fighters but they didn't see me, nobody came after me, nobody fired after me.' 'When I came to the border there was a car of Turkish border soldiers and I said they need to help me.' On trial: Tareena Shakil, 26, pictured after she was detained in the UK, was arrested on a flight from Turkey She returned to the UK on a Turkish Airlines flight into Heathrow airport in February 2015, and was arrested off the plane by British police. ISIS expert Dr Florence Gaub, of the European Union Institute for Security Studies, told the court women in Syria are not allowed to carry weapons unless they are members of the women's police. Giving evidence, she said: 'The streets are patrolled throughout the day. There is a consistent presence in the city. 'Women are not allowed to carry weapons in Islamic State territory, unless they are a member of the Al-Khansaa brigade. It would be a waste of weapons and of ammunition.' She added that there are no recorded ISIS kidnappings outside either Syria or Iraq. Timothy Moloney, defending, told Dr Gaub: 'The defendant's marriage had ultimately broken down before she left for Turkey. The court was shown this pro-ISIS tweet, which was allegedly sent from an account used by Tareena Shakil Jurors were told that this Facebook account, which has a pro-ISIS profile picture, was used by Shakil 'Often it is vulnerable individuals who are targeted by ISIS. ISIS recruiters paint a narrative of hope to lure in these individuals.' Prosecutors claim this photo shows Shakil standing beneath an Islamic State flag in Syria Shakil denies joining a proscribed terror group and a charge of encouraging acts of terror through Twitter. She is believed to be the first British woman to face such charges after travelling to Syria. But ISIS expert Dr Florence Gaub told the jury it would difficult to escape Syria unless given permission by the terrorist group. She added: 'It is very difficult to get out unless you are sent out by the organisation.' Dr Gaub also told the court that ISIS had 40,000 fighters by the end of 2014, 5,000 of which were foreign fighters. She also said she thinks 60 British women have travelled to join the group in Iraq and Syria, and compiled the figures based on calculations from the media and Western statistics. Dr Gaub, who has advised the British and other European governments and Nato, said somewhere between a third and a half of foreigners have left to either return home or leave IS-occupied territory. She said: 'Between 1,500 and 2,500 individuals from the European Union, UK and North America are said to have left IS territory. 'Government statistics make no distinction between men or women.' However, she added other sources suggested between 80 and 90 women had defected. Professor Robert Gleave, who teaches Arabic Studies at Exeter University, said Shakil was suggesting she would die before her family in a letter she left for them. Interpreting Shakil's message where she described 'sacrificing' herself to 'build a house in heaven for you all', Prof Gleave said: 'I believe she is saying, 'I believe I am going to heaven. 'I also believe that you are going to heaven. I will be there first, and if I am there first I will be ready to welcome you when you arrive.' Prof Gleave said had never heard of a woman being made to pledge allegiance to ISIS and the concept of membership to the organisation is difficult to understand. He also told the court that most people who go to Syria do not fully understand the reality of life in the Caliphate, and are subjected to indoctrination upon arrival. He told the jury: 'Islamic State advertises itself as an Islamic society. 'People who go there might not have a full understanding of how Islamic State operates. 'It sells itself as the perfect Islamic society and people who are not satisfied in a non-Islamic society might want to go there. Tareena Shakil's father, Mohammed Shakil, left, and mother, Mandy, right, outside Birmingham Crown Court 'Most of the stories we have of people who have moved to Islamic State is their level of awareness of Islamic State policies is very, very limited. 'The young men turn up and go on a three months course, sometimes longer, where they are subjected to an indoctrination of Islamic State ideology. 'They then make an oath of allegiance to Islamic State - Bay'ah. 'There are probably cases where people felt forced to make the Bay'ah, where they felt if they did not they feared they might be punished. 'I have never found Islamic State requested or accepted the oath of allegiance of a woman.' Asked by prosecutor Sean Larkin QC about the definition of IS membership, Prof Gleave said: 'They do not use the word membership, but they do have the notion of someone who is committed and who has fully aligned themselves with allegiance to the Caliph.' The trial continues. A teenage boy who fell in an icy pond in Parker, Colorado, died after staying underwater for 35 minutes as police rescued his two friends. The water was so cold that rescuers had to take turns going in and out of the water as they searched for them yesterday afternoon, Denver 7 reported. One of the two other teens was at the hospital in very critical condition according to a message posted on Facebook by Parker mayor Mike Waid that evening. The other was treated and released, police said in an update. A teenage boy died who spent 35 minutes underwater died after falling into an icy pond with two friends in Parker, Colorado. One of them is in critical condition and the other is recovering at home A neighbor called 911 at 4:26pm after the tree teenagers fell through the ice near Meadowood Lane. A police officer saw one of the boys with water up to his waist, hanging on to the ice. The officer went into the water and used a tree branch to pull the teenager out of the pond. He was taken to Parker Adventist Hospital and released later that evening to recover at home. Members of the fire rescue team spotted the second boy, who was later airlifted to Children's Hospital Colorado in Aurora. He was still in critical condition according to Waid's latest update today. The third boy remained in the water for 35 minutes. The dive team searched for him as the water was more than 10-foot deep in some places, Parker police said. He was taken to a nearby hospital and died later that evening. A police officer spotted the first boy with water up to his waist and used a tree branch to pull him out of the water. Members from the fire rescue team found the second boy, who was airlifted to a hospital in Aurora. The dive team located the third boy 35 minutes after arriving at the scene. He died that same evening The three teenagers attended Legend High School in Parker. Douglas County School District (DCSD) said in a statement: 'We are incredibly sad to learn of the passing of one of our students involved in Thursday's ice rescue in Parker. 'The student attended Legend High School, along with the two other boys involved in the rescue. The DCSD family is keeping these boys and their families in our thoughts.' Waid said on his Facebook page: 'It's with an extremely heavy heart that I am giving everyone an update. One of the three teens from Legend HS has passed away from this tragic ice accident. 'One has been airlifted to Children's hospital and is in very critical condition. The third is recovering at Parker Adventist. 'Please pray for them, their friends and their families. Please tell those around you how much you love them and hold your family a little tighter tonight.' Britain could see its EU membership referendum arrive early this year after Jean-Claude Juncker sparked speculation an agreement has already been stitched up behind closed doors. The European Commission president today declared he was 'quite sure' a deal will be reached on Britains renegotiation of its membership of the European Union next month. Mr Juncker refused to explain when asked why he was so confident EU leaders will finalise a settlement at a summit in less than five weeks time, cryptically stating: 'My knowledge is allowing me to tell you that.' Jean-Claude Juncker (pictured) has said he was 'quite sure' a deal will be done to renegotiate Britain's EU membership terms, leading to speculation the terms have already been agreed behind closed doors At his New Years press conference in Brussels, the former prime minister of Luxembourg said: 'I am quite sure that well have a deal - not a compromise, a solution, a permanent solution - in February.' An agreement by leaders at the European Council meeting on 18 and 19 February would pave the way for David Cameron to call an early referendum in June. His comments echoed those of George Osborne who last night told BBC Newsnight: 'I'm pretty optimistic. I see the essential pieces of the deal falling into place.' The Chancellor came under fire after appearing to rule out any future referendums on Europe if Britain votes to stay in the EU. Mr Osborne said the coming vote was a 'once in a lifetime' chance to have a say, adding: 'There's no second vote. This is the crucial decision of our lifetimes. Do we stay in the EU, a reformed EU, or do we leave?' Tory MEP Daniel Hannan said the comments suggested the Governments referendum lock which requires a vote on any EU treaty change, was now dead. He added: We are gearing up for the Government saying, "if we get a vote to stay in, we will treat that as a mandate for a generation". So people had better be very clear if we vote to stay, that is it - we are one the bus and there is no way off. Ministers also faced criticism over revelations in today's Daily Mail they are prepared to agree to a German proposal that would see EU migrants on the minimum wage barred from claiming tax credits and benefits, provided low-paid British workers are subject to the same restrictions. George Osborne echoed Mr Juncker's comments, but came under fire for appearing to rule out any future referendums if Britain votes to remain in the EU Tory MP Andrew Percy described the plan as very concerning. He added: The Government must not do a deal on EU benefits that hits our own citizens, especially the poorest. Downing Street denied that a deal had already been stitched up with other EU leaders ahead of next months summit. A spokesman said negotiations were continuing. But Matthew Elliott, chief Executive of Vote Leave, said ministers were focused more on managing expectations than fighting for a good deal for Britain. He added: The renegotiation has focused on a trivial set of demands that David Cameron knows the EU will agree to, so its not surprising Juncker is confident of a deal next month. Ukip leader Nigel Farage said: Mr Juncker confirmed that if you ask for very little you are likely to get it. Lets just accept fundamental reform is not an offer and get on with the campaign. Mr Juncker today insisted that Mr Camerons demands for reforms were all very, very difficult. The issues put on the table by the British prime minister are all difficult issues, he said. Dont think there is one issue which would be particularly difficult - although it is and thats the welfare issue - and that the other points mentioned by the British will be less important, and easy. They are not, he said. Even ever-closer union, the role of national parliaments, the relations between the ins and the outs in the euro system, all these are very, very difficult issues and we have to work hard in these days to come to agreements. Mr Camerons most controversial proposal is a four-year ban on benefits for EU migrants working in Britain, which critics say is discriminatory and threatens freedom of movement in the EU. Mr Juncker said people get upset about the question over Britains membership, as he listed it as one of the major challenges facing the EU this year. We have the issue of the UK. Not much is said about it people get upset about it, he said. Mr Juncker also used the press conference to defend the EUs shambolic handling of the migrant crisis., Its not the Commission that has not delivered, but a number of member states have failed to fully deliver on what we need to do and what needs to be done, he said. He warned Europe was damaging its reputation around the world with its reluctance to take in asylum seekers. Border controls re-introduced between countries in the Schengen passport-free travel-zone could ultimately lead to the collapse of the euro and an unemployment problem which will not be manageable any more, he also warned. In another lawsuit against the disgraced comedian, Camille fought to avoid deposition but a judge ruled be deposed February 22 A judge ruled the exclusion clause is ambiguous and AIG is still fighting Cosby's team had asked that AIG's suit be thrown out and the insurance company be ordered to pay any judgement won by Dickinson AIG says the comedian's insurance policy excludes claims arising out of sexual misconduct Powerhouse AIG Property Casualty plans to call and depose Camille Cosby, 71, under oath in case about Bill's infidelities and drug use Camille Cosby is being dragged into another legal battle involving her husband - and it might just land her where she's been trying to avoid - on the stand. Court documents obtained exclusively by Daily Mail Online show that she has been named as a key witness in AIG Property Casualty's lawsuit against Bill Cosby, 78. The company plans to call her to testify as well as depose depose her under oath. Over the summer, AIG, the disgraced comedian's insurance company, filed a lawsuit against Cosby and supermodel Janice Dickinson demanding that they not be liable for any damages awarded to Dickinson in her civil lawsuit against him. Dickinson accused Cosby of sexual assault but was unable to sue for that claim because the statute of limitations has passed. Scroll down for video AIG Property Casualty, Bill Cosby's insurance company, names Camille Cosby a key witness and may call and depose her in lawsuit it has filed against her husband AIG says Cosby's insurance policy doesn't cover claims arising out of sexual misconduct therefore it shouldn't be on the hook if alleged victims like Janice Dickisnon win their cases Cosby's team has asked that AIG's suit be thrown out of court and the insurance company be ordered to pay any judgement won by Dickinson Instead, she is now suing Cosby for defamation accusing him and his team of trashing her good name in the press by labeling her a liar after she said the comedian drugged and raped her in 1982 while they were at a Lake Tahoe hotel. But AIG says the comedian's insurance policy doesn't cover claims arising out of sexual misconduct therefore it shouldn't be on the hook if Dickinson wins her legal battle. Dickinson maintains the disgraced comedian drugged and raped in a Lake Tahoe hotel in 1982. She is suing him for defamation after Cosby and his team called her a liar Cosby has two homeowner's policies - one in Massachusetts and one in California with personal liability caps of $1 million each as well as an additional 'personal excess liability policy' of $35 million. All three policies exclude claims arising out of any 'actual, alleged or threatened' sexual misconduct, molestation or harassment or 'sexual, physical or mental abuse' related to 'sexual misconduct, molestation or harassment.' Cosby fired back at the lawsuit explaining that he notified the company immediately after being hit with several lawsuits for alleged sexual assault. The comedian said instead of having his best interest the company betrayed him by suing him twice demanding they not be held liable for any damages. He said AIG's lawsuit has caused him to have to defend himself in even more litigation and forced him to spend more financial resources. Cosby's team has asked that AIG's suit be thrown out of court and the insurance company be ordered to pay any judgement won by Dickinson. But a judge ruled the exclusion clause is ambiguous and AIG is ramping up its case, now naming its key witnesses in new court documents - including Dickinson along with Cosby's other alleged victims - and his wife and business manager, Camille. The insurance company says it will likely file documents to depose Camille, 71, and ask her under oath about Bill's infidelities and drug use. AIG's decision to list Camille as one of the key witnesses is notable given her recent legal battle to avoid a deposition in another lawsuit involving her husband. Her lawyers are challenging a judge's decision to allow her to be questioned under oath in a Massachusetts defamation lawsuit filed by seven women who claimed Cosby sexually abused them decades ago. Last month, Magistrate Judge David Hennessy refused to let her skip the deposition - finding a marital disqualification rule in Massachusetts doesn't apply to deposition testimony. Camille's lawyers had argued the rule prohibits a spouse from testifying about private marital conversations in any court proceeding, including depositions. This is the chilling moment a man waves a gun in front of a reporter while she is live on television. The bizarre incident happened in Novi Sad, Serbia, where a crew for channel Radio Television of Vojvodina were broadcasting a report. In the video the hooded man is seen briefly thrusting out the weapon in front of the female reporter before walking off behind her very quickly. The man brandishes the gun in front of the Radio Television of Vojvodina reporter during a live broadcast Meanwhile the woman barely breaks her stride or eye contact and continues presenting the broadcast as normal, although a look of shock does appear on her face. RTV has since filed a complaint to the Interior Ministry appealing for more safeguarding measures to protect reporters. According to the channel, Serbian Police have launched a hunt for the man and said such behaviour 'could not be tolerated'. It is unknown whether the firearm was real or a fake. A look of shock registers on her face briefly while the man can be seen rushing off in the background But then the brave woman carries on with the broadcast as if nothing had ever happened The incident comes almost six months after US journalists Alison Parker, 24, and Adam Ward, 27, were shot and killed while filming a piece for channel WDBJ in Virginia on August 26, 2015. Former WDBJ reporter Vester Lee Flanagan, aka Bryce Williams, was later identified as the killer and it was discovered he had filmed the attack and uploaded it to both his Facebook and Twitter accounts before they were suspended. Flanagan had been fired from his job at the station in 2013 due to 'volatile behaviour' and his motive for the shootings appeared to be revenge. Sir Brian Leveson (pictured), sitting with Mr Justice Cranston, said it is up to a jury to determine whether the householder's action was reasonable in the circumstances Judges have backed bash a burglar laws that give householders the right to use force to tackle intruders. In a landmark ruling, the High Court said allowing people to use disproportionate levels of violence to protect themselves and their families from housebreakers did not breach human rights laws. In 2013, then Justice Secretary Chris Grayling toughened up self-protection laws to dispel doubts over the right to fight back against burglars. But the householder defence was challenged by the family of a man who has been in a coma for more than two years after he was tackled when he entered a home at 3am. Denby Collins, 39, was restrained in a headlock by several terrified members of the household in Gillingham, Kent, in December 2013 and when police arrived to arrest him on suspicion of burglary he was unconscious. Mr Collins was taken to hospital but has remained in a coma ever since and doctors say he has little prospect of getting better. Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders decided in September 2014 not to prosecute the homeowner, known only as B for legal reasons. Under the rules, a person is permitted to use disproportionate force to challenge an intruder in their home, which could include the use of lethal force. Only grossly disproportionate force is illegal. Mr Collinss father Peter, who disputes that his son was an intruder, launched a legal battle claiming the bash a burglar laws contravened Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects life. But yesterday the High Court in London threw out the case. Two judges said the law was compatible with human rights legislation. Sir Brian Leveson, president of the Queens Bench Division, said: A householder will only be able to avail himself of the defence if the degree of force he used was reasonable in the circumstances as he believed them to be. Mr Justice Cranston said the law meant that in householder cases the force used in self-defence is not unreasonable simply because it is disproportionate, unless, of course, it is grossly disproportionate. Denby Collins (pictured) has been in a coma since December 2013, having been put in a neck lock and restrained on the floor by a householder who claimed to believe that he was an intruder into his home He added: The circumstances are likely to be rare, but one can envisage force being used by householders in self-defence which is objectively disproportionate but which is reasonable given what they believed those circumstances to be. The Collins family said in a statement released by their solicitors, Hickman and Rose, that they were disappointed with the ruling and are considering an appeal. But Apple has denied any suggestions it is side stepping its U.S. tax bills A new analysis suggests this could result in a huge bill of back taxes Apple could be forced to pay a whopping 5.6billion in backdated taxes if a probe looking into its financial structures rules against the company. The technology giant is currently facing an EU investigation into its finances amid accusations it uses Ireland-based subsidiaries to legally avoid taxes. It was launched amidst growing concern that large corporations are using beneficial accounting schemes to avoid paying large sums of tax on their profits. Apple chief executive Tim Cook has emphatically rejected accusations that it is sidestepping U.S. taxes Bloomberg has now claimed that, were the EU to enforce a tougher accounting standard, taxes at a 12.5 per cent rate from 2004 to 2012 would amount to 5.6billion. Apple is not the only company to be looked into over concerns large corporations are avoiding taxes through accounting loopholes. Late last year world leaders approved a crackdown on tax avoidance by multinationals such as Apple, Google and McDonald's, major firms whose rock-bottom tax bills have provoked widespread outrage. However, Apple chief executive Tim Cook has emphatically rejected accusations that it is sidestepping U.S. taxes by keeping bundles of cash overseas. Suggesting the claim is politically motivated, he claimed his company pays the biggest tax tab in the U.S. and it keeps more money overseas than other companies because two-thirds of its business is there. Mr Cook's staunch defense of the California-based technology colossus came during an interview with Charlie Rose in a 60 Minutes news program interview to be aired on Sunday on CBS. 'That's total political crap, there is no truth behind it,' Cook responded when pressed about the highly contentious tax issue. 'We pay every tax dollar we owe.' Cook laid the blame on an outdated US tax code, calling for it to be revamped for modern times. Apple's European operations have been headquartered in Cork (pictured) since 1980 - Ireland has one of the lowest levels of corporation tax in the EU MailOnline has requested comment from Apple. It comes just weeks after the company agreed to pay 234million to Italian authorities following an investigation into tax fraud allegations. Italy's tax authorities say the company failed to pay 647million in corporation tax between 2008 and 2013. After months of negotiations, the tax authorities agreed to settle the case in return for about a third of that amount. A spokesman for the Italian tax office confirmed La Repubblica's report was accurate, but would not give any further details. Apple did not respond immediately to a request for comment. Celebrity chef Gary Rhodes has cut ties with one of his flagship restaurants, months after it was given a zero hygiene rating. The Rhodes @The Dome restaurant in Plymouth, his last UK-owned eatery, is dropping his name having been plagued with problems since it opened exactly three years ago. Mr Rhodes, 55, known for his love of British cuisine and spiky hair, did not go into details other than to say he was 'moving on to other projects'. Gary Rhodes has cut ties with The Rhodes @The Dome restaurant in Plymouth, his last UK-owned eatery His decision comes in the wake of his restaurant - overlooking the Devon and Cornwall coastline - receiving a zero food hygiene rating. It was one of only five places in Plymouth to receive no marks - and rated worse than all but one kebab shop and takeaway in the city. The Dome's managers said a new head chef was being trained at the time of inspection, meaning no one was available to demonstrate an in-depth knowledge of the food hygiene act. While it did get a four-star rating when it was re-inspected later that month, it was not the first time the restaurant had come under fire. In August 2013, less than a year after its grand opening, it failed a hygiene inspection because some of its 'high-tech specialist equipment' did not meet safety standards. The restaurant, overlooking the Devon and Cornwall coastline, will be re-branded as 'The Dome' THE HIGHS AND LOWS OF CELEBRITY CHEF'S PLYMOUTH RESTAURANT November 2012 Opening of the restaurant was delayed after metal thieves caused tens of thousands of pounds worth of damage. January 2013 The restaurant opens with a glitzy VIP event. August 2013 It fails a hygiene inspection because some of its 'high-tech specialist equipment' did not meet safety standards. November 2013 Awarded a coveted AA Rosette. February 2014 The company running the restaurant is wound up - but bosses say the diner won't close and Rhodes is still involved. January 2015 Restaurant keeps its AA Rosette. September 2015 The restaurant receives a food hygiene score of zero, but is given four out of five later that month. January 2016 Restaurant will be re-branded as 'The Dome'. Advertisement But Rhodes @The Dome will now be re-branded with the restaurateur 'moving on to other projects'. In a statement, Mr Rhodes said: 'Plymouth will always have a special place in my heart - it is such a great and vibrant city, blessed with an absolute wealth of the finest ingredients, from the local scallops, shellfish and seafood to the amazing produce straight from the local farms. 'Plymouth really is establishing itself as the gourmet capital of the South West and I would very much like to thank all the staff at the Dome and my friends on the city council who have helped to make so much possible.' The restaurant will be rebranded as 'The Dome', with a new logo, revamped 'bistro-style' menu, cocktail bar and live piano music. Mr Rhodes, who has fronted MasterChef and Rhodes Around Britain, is now concentrating on his four venues in Dubai [where he lives], having closed his four London restaurants. The celebrity chef, who has six Michelin stars to his name, previously said: 'I had four operations in London, two with Michelin stars, but things were great in the Middle East so when the contracts came up I decided to shut them down.' The kitchen will now be under the day-to-day control of executive head chef Richard Hunt and head chef Matt Bristow. Marking manager Caileigh Wiese told the Plymouth Herald : 'Gary has been an amazing chef to work with. I have never known anyone so popular with all the team, from the youngest in the kitchen brigade to everyone in the front of house. Boris Johnson, pictured last year on a trip to Kurdistan and visiting troops tackling ISIS, summoned the spirit of David Bowie in a message to London about the terror threat Boris Johnson has challenged London to channel the spirit of David Bowie as it stands up to the terror threat stalking the streets of the capital. In his final Mansion House address as mayor, Mr Johnson said he could not imagine anything the 'morons' of ISIS would find more abhorrent than the British rock legend. But he said it was the willingness to accept the individualism and eccentricity of Bowie which was the 'genius' which drove London. Bowie's legacy has driven an extraordinary outpouring of grief and tribute since his death was announced on Monday. Mr Johnson made his own tribute at the 2016 London Government Dinner. He said: 'Think of that great Londoner who died this week amid an unexpected outpouring of global grief, a man who was born as Davy Jones from Brixton and yet who reinvented himself as Ziggy Stardust and the Thin White duke and other characters and who was recognised as a genius. 'And of course no one in London or at least no one sensible has been remotely disposed to mark him down because of any aspect of his gender-bending personas or behaviour. 'On the contrary, all that stuff only seems to have made his London audience more interested, and more sympathetic. 'It is hard to think of anything that would be more repugnant to the morons of Isil than the Bowie phenomenon. 'And yet it is that willingness to encourage individualism, and eccentricity, and experiment that is one of the main drivers of the genius of modern London.' Mr Johnson highlighted an ambitious project to recreate an ancient Syrian temple in Trafalgar Square following its destruction by ISIS. He said: 'In April we will unveil a honey-hued replica of the fabled and beautiful gateway of the temple of Bel from Palmyra the temple that stood for almost two thousand years until it was razed by the sick and nihilistic maniacs of Daesh or the so-called Islamic state. 'We will erect that portico as an act of defiance. 'Defiance of the terrorists who hate us and try to threaten our way of life. 'We will put up that monument in solidarity with the people of Syria. And because we understand that if the Syrian economy is to have a future and it will then they will need our help in restoring the great relics of their past. Mr Johnson said he could not imagine anything the 'morons' of ISIS would find more abhorrent than the legacy of Bowie, pictured performing in London in 1973 'And we celebrate Palmyra in the heart of London because that ancient city had at least one thing in common with our modern cosmopolis. 'A spirit incarnated in that temple whose precincts were holy at various times to Greek and Roman and Phoenician gods, as well as to Christianity and Islam. 'The instinct that ensured it was never torn down until now, and the advent of this barbarous death cult 'And that was the spirit of mutual understanding and acceptance, the freedom to be who you wanted to be, to worship in whatever way you chose, without being murdered, or punished or even disapproved of.' 'El Chapo' Guzman underwent testicle implant surgery to cure his erectile dysfunction following his daring escape from prison, it has been revealed today. Between September and October 2015, the world's most wanted man went under the knife in the name of curing his impotence, reported Mexican national newspaper Reforma, citing 'sources close to the investigation'. The report stated that upon re-entering the maximum-security prison from which he escaped six months before, a medical examination on January 8 revealed signs of the recent surgery. Caught: 'Sources close to the investigation' said scars on his back, hip and reproductive organs were discovered during a medical examination when he re-entered Altiplano Federal Penitentiary Texts: El Chapo was caught after authorities tracked texts he sent to Mexican actress Kate del Castillo who arranged the meeting and interview with Sean Penn 'Scars on the back, hip and reproductive organs were evident', the anonymous source told the newspaper, which is one of the highest circulating in Mexico. The surgeries took place in a Tijuana hospital, just a kilometre from the US-Mexico border, and a town dominated by El Chapo's Sinaloa Cartel organisation. The two largest hospitals in Tijuana, Hospital Mexico and Hospital Angeles, offered no comment on the suggestions that the operation took place in their establishments, although a spokesman for the latter who wished to remain anonymous suggested: 'Tijuana is a popular destination for cut-rate plastic surgery, and attracts people from both sides of the border. As a result there are over twenty hospitals in the city and many hundreds more private clinics'. 'It's very easy to attain unlicensed procedures here, although the health risks are enormous'. The testicle implants are a relatively new innovation, and are intended to promote blood circulation in patients who suffer from erectile dysfunction. The newspaper reported that El Chapo, at one time one of the Mexico's most powerful men, suffers from erectile dysfunction. Mexican authorities reported the recovery of 'injectable testosterone, syringes, antibiotics and a prescription for over $250 dollars worth of sexual enhancement drugs' following his capture on January 8. Surgery: Mexican newspaper Reforma reported that 'El Chapo' Guzman had testicle implant surgery to cure his erectile dysfunction while on the run after he escaped from prison in July 2015 Interview: Hollywood actor Sean Penn interviewed the drug boss in November for Rolling Stone Desire: Texts between the two revealed El Chapo's desire for the actress, telling her 'you are the most beautiful in the world' Mexican organised crime expert and journalist Carlos Loret also agrees with the claims, telling news website Sin Embargo that, 'Guzman went to Tijuana to receive a procedure to implant a prosthesis, an operation that usually requires general anaesthetic and an operating room. An impossibility in the mountains of Sinaloa', where the cartel expert believes the fugitive spent the majority of his time on the run'. 'El Chapo' escaped from prison for the second time on July 12 last year by travelling on a motorcycle on rails through a mile-long tunnel believed to have been accessed from beneath the shower in his cell. ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION SURGERY Surgical treatment is typically a last resort for erectile dysfunction and often involves an inflatable device. It typically consists of three connected pieces: two small, deflated balloons, a fluid-filled reservoir and a pump. The balloons are surgically inserted in the penis and the reservoir is placed under the groin muscle. The pump sits under the loose skin of the scrotal sac. Pressing on the pump pushes the fluid into the balloons and the penis should become erect within 30 seconds. Pushing on a deflation valve at the base of the pump drains the fluid back into the reservoir. According to Dr Arun Ghosh, a private GP in Liverpool, UK, the surgery tends to be used by men with serious spinal injuries or those with very bad diabetes (where all the blood vessels have gone), who still want to maintain a sex life. 'It can be very successful and save sexual relations when all else has failed. There are some risks attached to the operation, though, including infection and damage to the penis,' he said. Advertisement He was apprehended by Mexican marines after a fierce gun battle in his gang's heartland of Sinaloa that left five dead last week. Authorities said at the time that they had tracked him down after his people were in touch with actors and actresses planning a movie of his life - who we now know to be Sean Penn and Kate del Castillo. Sean Penn's lengthy interview with the king pin was published in Rolling Stone the day after he was recaptured by the Mexican authorities. The highly-sought after meeting with the world's most wanted man was aranged by 43-year-old Mexican soap star Kate del Castillo. A series of flirtatious texts between El Chapo and del Castillo were revealed earlier this week, and showed the gangster may have had romantic designs on the actress. In one message sent between September 25 and November 9, El Chapo told the actress: 'I have so much desire for you, you are the most beautiful in the world'. While Kate returns the kingpin's compliments, she focuses on the production of the documentary: 'I haven't slept much since I saw you. I'm so excited about the project, it's all I think about', she wrote. The actress annnounced on Wednesday that she will share he side of the 'El Chapo' story, having remained tight lipped since he was captured. 'Thank you for your support over the past days,' del Castillo wrote on Twitter, 'Not surprisingly, many have chosen to make up items they think will make good news stories and that aren't truthful. I look forward to sharing my story.' Mexican media reports have placed El Chapo with his third wife Emma Coronel and children over the Christmas period. Joaquin Guzman, known as El Chapo (or 'Shorty') has fathered twelve children by three separate wives. Another drug lord to have gone under the knife was Amado Carrillo, also of Sinaloa. The first drug lord to fly cocaine into the United States, Carrillo supposedly died on the operating table whilst undergoing plastic surgery to alter his appearance. Innovative: Testicle implants are a relatively new innovation, and are intended to promote blood circulation in patients who suffer from erectile dysfunction Escape: Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman escaped from high-security prison Altiplano Federal Penitentiary in July through a mile-long tunnel believed to have started from underneath the shower in his cell Cruz and Trump are in a virtual tie in polls in Iowa A Houston attorney has sued Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz over his U.S. citizenship, seeking a declaratory judgment on whether the Texas senator is legally eligible to be elected president. The lawsuit adds the latest wrinkle to a burgeoning controversy over the Texas senator's eligibility for the White House - a scandal that has already roiled the waters as recently as in Thursday night's prime-time national debate. Nelson Schwartz Sr., who runs a Houston law firm, filed suit earlier Thursday to seek a declaratory judgment on whether Cruz's Canadian birth to an American woman qualifies him for the nation's highest office. Scroll down for videos Donald Trump and Cruz crossing swords during Thursday night's Republican presidential debate Houston attorney Nelson Schwartz wants a declaratory judgment on Cruz's eligibility to be president Schwartz contends that Cruz - born Rafael Edward Cruz - 'was and is neither a natural born or native born U.S. citizen at the time of his birth,' according to the court filing. Cruz was born in Canada in 1970 to an American woman, Eleanor, who was born in Wilmington, Delaware. But the senator held dual citizenship between the two countries for decades before renouncing his Canadian citizenship upon his election to the Senate in 2012. Such a 'natural born' U.S. citizenship is provided for in the Constitution, but legal challenges to it are rare, especially on the presidential campaign trail. Schwartz's filing notes, 'this "natural born citizen" Constitution requirement has never been defined or determined by the U.S. Supreme Court, nor has it ever been amended or repealed as prescribed by the Constitution.' Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has been mocking Cruz's claim that he has 'natural-born' U.S. citizenship and has challenged him to prove it in court - contributing to the erasing of a once-significant Cruz lead in Iowa. Voters in Iowa will caucus on Feb. 1, representing the crucial first contest in the primary season. A poll released Wednesday by Bloomberg Politics and The Des Moines Register put Cruz at 25 percent and Trump at 22 - a statistical tie, given the poll's 4.4 percent margin of error. Trump has pounded Cruz over his US citizenship claims for the past two weeks, contributing to the erasure of Cruz's once-significant polling lead in Iowa A Florida Democratic congressman and attorney, Alan Grayson, had previously announced plans to sue Cruz to establish his eligibility should he eventually win the GOP nomination. The so-called 'birther' row between Trump and Cruz began early last week, after Trump generated several days' worth of media stories by discussing Cruz's eligibility for the presidency. A day later, 2008 presidential nominee John McCain also called it into question. McCain himself has faced the issue before, since he was born on a U.S. military base in the Panama Canal zone The 2012 GOP nominee, Mitt Romney, whose father faced similar questions when he ran for president in 1968 because he was born in Mexico, came to Cruz's defense on Twitter last week. However, Cruz was knocked off-message by the attack and his campaign even had to consult and display his mother's birth certificate Grayson and others have noted that there is little legal precedent for the 'natural born' citizenship theory being tested on a presidential nominee. Furthermore, he says Cruz's mother, Eleanor, may have forfeited her U.S. citizenship by taking a Canadian oath of citizenship - as specified in Section 349 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. McCain told reporters this week that the 'natural born' language in the Constitution should be legally clarified. On Thursday night, during the GOP primary debate, Cruz argued that Trump's own eligibility for the White House is questionable because his mother is Scottish. 'At the end of the day, the legal issue is quite straightforward, but I would note that the birther theories that Donald has been relying on, some of the more extreme ones insist that you must not only be born on U.S. soil, but have two parents born on U.S. soil,' Cruz said tonight. Cruz said if that was necessary, 'not only would I be disqualified, so would Marco Rubio, whose parents were born in Cuba - Bobby Jindal, whose parents immigrated from India - and, interestingly enough, Donald J. Trump would be disqualified because Donald's mother was born in Scotland.' 'But I was born here,' Trump replied. 'Big difference,' Tony Blair has refused to appear before a Commons committee and give evidence in person on the links between Libya and the IRA. The former prime minister could be summoned by MPs on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee after the request for him to appear was turned down. Mr Blair, who was a key player in diplomatic talks with Colonel Gadaffi while in No 10, said he had provided written evidence which included all the information he had. Scroll down for video Tony Blair and Colonel Gadaffi had a close diplomatic relationship. Mr Blair has refused to give further evidence to the Northern Ireland select committee on the links between Libya and IRA He insisted attempts to 'implicate him' in efforts to block IRA victims from receiving compensation were 'without foundation'. Colonel Gaddafi gave arms to the republican group during the Troubles and Semtex from Libya became the IRA's most devastating threat during that time, causing the loss of many lives. In his letter to committee chairman Laurence Robertson, Mr Blair said: 'These continued attempts to implicate me in deliberately trying to stop IRA victims receiving compensation are, as I have made very clear, without foundation. 'I am therefore respectfully declining your invitation to appear before the committee as I have already given you the facts of the matter in my written submission and I do not believe simply repeating what I have already said in person will do anything to advance the cause of the victims and their families.' Links between the IRA and Libya date back to 1972 when Gaddafi praised the group. He later provided the IRA with the weaponry to wage an armed conflict which lasted 30 years and claimed many lives. The dictator was ousted from power in 2011 and later killed during an assault on Sirte, his birthplace. During his time in Number 10, Mr Blair was instrumental in a process of diplomatic detente with the Libyan dictator. Mr Blair met Gaddafi in his desert tent in 2004, as the north African country began its return to the international community after years of isolation for supporting terrorism. As part of the process, Gaddafi renounced weapons of mass destruction, bringing to a halt programmes to develop nuclear and chemical arms. Mr Blair outlined his reasons for 'respectfully declining' the invitation to appear in a brief letter to committee chairman Laurence Robertson. The MPs could choose to summon the former prime minister Mr Robertson asked Mr Blair to appear because MPs wanted to 'explore' his written evidence in 'some depth' In his written submission in December, Mr Blair told Mr Robertson that Libya had made a number of admissions regarding the extent of its links with IRA terrorism between 1992 and 1995 - before he entered Number 10. Mr Blair said: 'The issue of compensation for the victims of IRA terrorism made possible by the provision of material by the Gaddafi regime was not an issue raised with me, as far as I am aware. 'And of course a statutory compensation scheme for victims of terrorism in Northern Ireland was already in existence, having been set up by a previous government. 'The needs of victims were therefore being addressed through the existing structures and mechanisms.' He said he understood why victims of IRA terrorism would have wanted their claims raised at the same time as the 2008 compensation settlement of the Lockerbie passenger jet bombing. Committee chairman Laurence Robertson could choose to summon Mr Blair to give evidence despite the former prime minister declining to give oral evidence Mr Blair said for the Americans this was never going to be made part of the settlement since they were focused on their own citizens affected by Lockerbie and a Berlin discotheque bombing and were precluded legally from such an action. He also pointed out that 'I was not even in government at the time' of the 2008 settlement. Mr Blair could be formally summoned to give evidence if the committee decides that his written submission is insufficient. A spokesman for the committee said the issue would be considered when the MPs meet on Thursday. 'They are going to consider it at their next meeting, when they will make a decision on the next step,' the spokesman said. It emerged last week that Colonel Gaddafi warned Tony Blair that if he was removed from power Islamic extremists would take over Libya with the ultimate goal of conquering Europe. Newly released transcripts of 2011 phone calls between the pair reveal the ousted Libyan leader's anxieties about the growing influence Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were having in Africa and the Middle East. He warned jihadis were already wreaking havoc in the North African state despite his governance - and that if he was to be toppled it would pave the way for the rise of an Islamic State that would open the doors to a deluge of migrants heading for mainland Europe. Blair contacted the dictator and urged him to flee for a 'safe place' in two calls on February 25 2011, eight months before he was beaten to death after being found in a sewer. Transcripts of the conversations were published for the first time yesterday and MPs said the dictator's fears extremists would take Libya may have been 'wrongly ignored' because he was usually 'delusional'. His grandmother, 63-year-old Diana Hicks, was hit in the shoulder, and his mother's boyfriend, Isaiah Police in Ohio are on the hunt for a gunman responsible for a drive-by shooting that took the life of a 13-month-old boy and wounded two adults. The Montgomery County coroner's office says Elijah Johnson died Thursday just before midnight. His death was still under investigation Friday. Dayton police say Elijah, his mother's boyfriend, 25-year-old Isaiah Smith, and the toddler's grandmother, 63-year-old Diana Hicks, were hit by gunfire from a passing car as they stood outside a house on Arlene Avenue at around 4.30pm Thursday. Scroll down for video A drive-by shooting on Arlene Avenue in Dayton, Ohio, killed 13-month-old Elijah Johnson and wounded two of his family members Thursday The toddler's grandmother, 63-year-old Diana Hicks, was struck in the shoulder. This screenshot shows paramedics transporting her on a gurney This afternoon, investigators with the Dayton Police Department revealed that following the shooting, Hicks dropped off Smith and her mortally wounded grandson at Good Samaritan Hospital and drove off, even though a bullet hit her in the shoulder. Police tracked down the 63-year-olds car to Harvard Boulevard, about 2 miles away from the scene of the shooting, and she was then transported by ambulance to Miami Valley Hospital. When officers searched Hicks' vehicle, they say they found marijuana and a large amount of cash inside, reported ABC22. Witnesses said on the afternoon of the shooting, they saw Isaiah Smith holding the one-year-old Elijah in his arms when he started exchanging fire with the occupants of a 2007 black Chevrolet Impala. Police say when they searched Hicks' car (pictured behind police tape), they found marijuana and a a large amount of cash Detectives believe the 25-year-old was the primary target of the drive-by shooting. Lt Shannon Mason told the station WDTN that Smith has not been cooperating with the investigation. A Navajo hero who stumped the Japanese during the Second World War by transmitting secret messages in an unbreakable code based on his native language has died aged 92. Ernest Yazhe was one of an elite group who joined the Code Talkers - who played a vital role in sending messages to and from the battlefield - in the 1940s. He died of renal failure on Tuesday at his home in Salt Lake City, Utah, his daughter Melissa told the Salt lake Tribune. Scroll down for video Navajo hero Ernest Yazhe, who stumped the Japanese during the Second World War by transmitting secret messages in an unbreakable code based on his native language, has died aged 92 The Code Talkers played a vital role in sending messages to and from the battlefield during WWII. Pictured, Code Talkers Henry Bake and George Kirk Mr Yazhe joined the Marines aged 1942, but would have been unaware of the secret mission the military had planned for him and at least 440 other native Americans until after he had signed up. The Code Talkers first formed in the spring of that year with 29 recruits, with Mr Yazhe joining in September that year and going on to serve in Guam and Okinawa. His work frustrated the Japanese, who were listening in to radio communications with the hope of picking up information about American strategy. Mr Yazhe said at one point he heard a Japanese soldiers utter the words 'Code Talkers' and said in a video that the enemy were 'sorry that they couldn't understand' the code. 'The Navajo language was the secret weapon that brought victory to the Allied Forces and ended the war in the Pacific,' Navajo Nation vice president Jonathan Nez said. Ernest's older brother Harrison Yazhe, who died in 2004, also became a Code Talker. Both brothers' names appear in the Congressional record on the list of Code Talkers confirmed by the Marines. A third brother, U.S. Army private first class Silas Yazzie, died in combat in Italy in 1944. After Japan surrendered, Mr Yazhe helped repatriate Japanese prisoners of war in China. Private First Class Preston Toledo and Private First Class Frank Toledo, cousins and full-blood Navajo Indians, attached to a Marine Artillery Regiment in the South Pacific during WWII Around 440 native Americans were selected to join the Code Talkers, with just 18 left alive today. Pictured, front row, left to right, privates Earl Johnny, Kee Etsicitty, John V. Goodluck, and private first class David Jordan. Back row, privates Jack C. Morgan, George H. Kirk, Tom H. Jones, and Corporal Henry Bake, Jr. Discharged as a corporal in 1946, Mr Yazhe came to Utah to work at a school in Brigham City where he met his wife Katie Trujillo. They raised seven children together and later worked for Kennecott Utah Copper for 38 years. His family said he did not talk much about his experiences in WWII, but said he served on the front line and faced enemy fire. This was partially down to Mr Yazhe's humble nature, but his son-in-law Joel Frank it may have also been down to the program remaining classified until 1968. 'He just kind of put it in the back of his mind and he never talked about it,' Mr Frank said. The veteran did not often attend Code Talker reunions, but he did go to a ceremony presenting Code Talkers with the Congressional Silver Medal in 2001. There are thought to be just 18 Code Talkers left alive. Navajo Nation authorities said that all flags there would be to be flown at half-staff from January 19 to January 22 to honor Mr Yazhe. A photographer has captured the touching moment a bride was being aided by her service dog on her big day. The sweet snap taken by Maddie Peschong shows bride Valerie Parrott last Saturday before the wedding ceremony as she kneels in her dress while her dog Bella, donning a tutu, places her head against her. The trained medical alert and psychiatric dog is seen alerting Parrot, 25, that her heart rate was elevated and was trying to calm her down by performing a grounding task. Photographer Maddie Peschong captured a touching photo showing the moment bride Valerie Parrott was being aided by her service dog, Bella, (the photo shown above). In the photo, Bella is alerting Parrott that her heart was elevated and was helping her lower it The sweet snap taken before Parrott and her husband Andrew's wedding ceremony last Saturday in South Dakota (the couple pictured with Bella and their dog Henry) 'Basically, it helps me to take a moment away from what ever is causing the anxiety and keep me from having a panic attack,' she told Daily Mail Online. 'When she does this, she will do things like lick my hands or lean and put her weight on me and generally gets me to focus on her instead of my surrounding. Also, she was being pretty darn cute.' Parrott, who married her husband Andrew at a church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, was matched with the three-and-a-half-year-old yellow Labrador in October 2013 and the dog has been by her side ever since. Bella helps Parrott with panic attacks, migraines, high blood pressure and anxiety, according to Mashable. Parrott told Daily Mail Online the service dog also helps with side effects from medication such as passing out, and also with response tasks such as getting help, getting Parrot to a safe place and sitting or lying down. Following the photo going viral after it was posted to Reddit, Parrott said she feels overwhelmed by all of the attention. 'When a photo like this goes viral, you usually only have a short time to use it positively so it's been a little crazy trying to make sure a positive message about service dogs can be shared every time this photo is,' she told Daily Mail Online. 'Also, it's really exciting. It's something I never imagined happening to me so it's really cool to see all the positive responses people are having.' Parrott was matched with the Labrador in October 2013 and the dog has been by her side ever since Bella pictured in her tutu running towards the couple on their big day. During the wedding, Bella kept the Parrotts company at the altar The touching photo has since been viewed more than 1.6 million times on Imgur. Peschong of Mad Photo and Design, who is a high school friend of Parrott and only got into wedding photography in the last year, said she was shocked to learn the photo had made it to the front page of Reddit. She said having so many people view her work has been a new experience. 'Suddenly, you're thrust into the spotlight and you didn't ask for it, it's just crazy,' she told the Argus Leader. During the couple's wedding at Rustic Hills Community Church, Bella was not the only dog in attendance as the couple's dog, Henry, was at the ceremony. 'One of my biggest goals since being paired with Bella has been to positively impact the service dog community by spreading awareness and helping educate others. This photo not only helps give me a plat form to do that, but it also shows the amazing bond that is formed between service dog and handler,' Parrott told Daily Mail Online of the snap. 'I just really hope it continues to help educate and show the love service dog teams have for one another dog and human.' The Labrador helps Parrott with panic attacks, migraines, high blood pressure and anxiety Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump isn't taking his foot off the gas as the Iowa Caucuses loom in just 17 days, renting out a Des Moines movie theater for a free screening of the terror-focused feature film '13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.' Trump has long been a stiff critic of Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton's performance as secretary of state, especially related to the deadly 2012 terror attack at a State Department compound in the Libyan port city of Benghazi. Letting Iowans see the movie for free will ingratiate him with the state's most conservative voters while also ensuring that 'Benghazi' a word seen in some right-wing circles as Clinton's most reliable Kryptonite remains in the news while Iowans mull their candidate choices. Trump has made bashing Clinton over Benghazi a central theme in some of his campaign stops, in a strategy that looks beyond most of his GOP rivals and projects a scenario where he faces Hillary one-on-one for the White House this fall. Scroll down for video BOX OFFICE GOLD: Billionaire Donald Trump bought out a Des Moines, Iowa movie theater for a screening of '13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi' on its debut date Friday and gave away tickets to voters '13 Hours' tells the story of diplomatic security contractors who risked their lives to save State Department personnel as Islamist militants laid waste to their diplomatic compound in northern Libya on Sept. 11, 2012 despite beign told to 'stand down' while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state POPCORN NOT INCLUDED: This cinema in Des Moines will be full of potential voters at 6:00 p.m. CST on Friday who will see '13 Hours' for free, courtesy of The Donald The Donald debated six of those fellow Republicans last night in a broadcast watched by 11 million people on the Fox Business Network, making it one of the highest-rated events in the young cable channel's history. Four Americans died in the September 11, 2012 Benghazi attacks, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens. While Trump didn't bring up the episode Thursday night, three of his opponents did. 'Someone who lies to the families of those four victims in Benghazi can never be President of the United States. Ever,' Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said early in the prime-time battle. Clinton has been accused of telling family members of the fallen that an anti-Islam YouTube video sparked a protest in Benghazi that spun out of control, killing their loved ones. At the time she allegedly made those statements, she already knew it was a premeditated terror attack, her publicly released emails show. BENGHAZI DEBATE WARRIORS: (L-R) Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz all invoked the 2012 terror attack in making their case for presidential primacy on Thursday night during the Fox Business Network debate in North Charleston, South Carolina ACTIONS, NOT WORDS: While his opponents made Benghazi part of their debate-night rhetoric, The Donald reached into his pocket to pay for a theater full of $8 movie tickets Former Florida Gov. George Bush predicted a weak U.S. foreign policy under a President Hillary. 'Think about it,' he scoffed Thursday night. 'She wants to continue down the path of Iran, Benghazi, the Russian reset, Dodd-Frank, all the things that have that have gone wrong in this country. She would be a national security mess. And that is wrong.' In his closing statement, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz who has emerged as Trump's chief rival for the GOP's top slot made a direct plug for '13 Hours,' which had its debut Friday morning. He called it 'a new movie will debut about the incredible bravery of the men fighting for their lives in Benghazi and the politicians that abandoned them.' 'If I am elected president,' Cruz said, 'to every soldier and sailor and airman and marine, and to every police officer and firefighter and first responder who risk their lives to keep us safe, I will have your back.' But it may be Trump who becomes the Republican most closely associated with the Benghazi action film which makes a subtle case against Clinton's State Department management without mentioning her name. 'Mr. Trump would like all Americans to know the truth about what happened at Benghazi,' his Iowa co-chair Tana Goertz told The Des Moines Register. 'The theater is paid for. The tickets are paid for. You just have to RSVP.' 'IN A WORSE POSITION': South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy said Thursday night that with Clinton or any Democrat in the Oval Office, American diplomats would be less safe NO REST: Trump was in Iowa Friday morning, just hours after the end of Thursday night's South Carolina debate 0 and told reporters he hadn't yet had any sleep South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy, who chairs the special congressional committee set up to investigate the Benghazi terror attack, spoke to DailyMail.com after Thursday's debate. He said he doesn't plan to see '13 Hours' until 'after my committee work is done,' but added that it was 'absolutely fine' for Republicans to turn it into a primary campaign issue. Asked if Hillary's connection to the Benghazi episode made him fearful for a second Clinton presidency, Gowdy looked straight ahead and spoke confidently. 'Without question,' he said, American armed forces and diplomatic security forces 'would be in a worse position if she were president.' 'But I would say that about any of the Democrats,' Gowdy quickly added. 'We've got to protect the professionals who protect our people overseas. This administration didn't do that.' Donald Trump shut down Ted Cruz's assault on 'New York values' last night with powerful 9/11 imagery as he declared that his home state is a 'great place.' Today Trump got some back up from a neighbor and unlikely ally: Hillary Clinton. 'Just this once, Trump's right: New Yorkers value hard work, diversity, tolerance, resilience, and building better lives for our families,' she said in a tweet that was signed with an to signify that she wrote it herself and didn't rely on the staff managing her account. Scroll down for video Donald Trump shut down Ted Cruz's assault on 'New York values' last night with powerful 9/11 imagery as he declared that his home state is a 'great place.' Today Trump got some back up from a neighbor and unlikely ally: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton During the GOP debate last night, Clinton reproached Trump over his proposal to ban Muslims. 'This is Muslim Americans' country too. The next president should know thatand act like it,' she tweeted. 'Lets be clear: Islam isn't our enemy. Hateful rhetoric against Muslims isn't just wrongit plays into terrorists' hands.' And on an episode of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon that aired immediately afterward, Clinton said Trump was 'obsessed' with her. The former secretary of state mused that a general election match with Trump would 'be quite the showdown.' This morning she put aside her differences with the Republican presidential candidate in a show of solidarity for the city and state they both call home. Cruz has used the 'New York values' line before on Trump, and Fox Business Network host and debate moderator Maria Bartiromo asked him to provide an explanation during yesterday, starting a new brawl between the leading GOP contenders. 'There are many, many wonderful, wonderful working men and women in the state of New York. But everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro- gay-marriage, focus around money and the media,' Cruz said. 'There are many, many wonderful, wonderful working men and women in the state of New York. But everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro- gay-marriage, focus around money and the media,' Cruz said. The line of attack comes from comments Trump made in a 1999 interview with late Meet the Press host Tim Russert. Trump told Russert that he was 'very pro-choice' and said, 'Ive lived in New York City and Manhattan all my life, so you know my views are a little bit different than if I lived in Iowa.' Cruz and other GOP candidates have presented soundbites from the decade-and-a-half old interview as evidence that Trump, who said he aligned more with Democratic values at the time, is not a genuine conservative, Republican. 'Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan,' Cruz contended last night. 'I'm just saying.' Trump rejected the last bit on its face. 'Conservatives actually do come out of Manhattan, including William F. Buckley and others, just so you understand,' he told Cruz, who hails from Texas. Furthermore, Trump said, 'He insulted a lot of people.' 'I've had more calls on that statement that Ted made...New York is a great place. It's got great people, it's got loving people, wonderful people,' Trump said as he began recalling the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on New York City. Trump noted that thousands of people were killed, and said, 'The cleanup started the next day, and it was the most horrific cleanup, probably in the history of doing this, and in construction.' 'I was down there, and I've never seen anything like it,' he said. 'And the people in New York fought and fought and fought, and we saw more death, and even the smell of death -- nobody understood it. And it was with us for months, the smell, the air.' This morning Clinton put aside her differences with the Republican presidential candidate in a show of solidarity for the city and state they both call home. She's seen here yesterday leaving The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon Trump declared on a triumphant note that the city recovered 'and everybody in the world watched and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers.' 'And I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made.' Cruz's campaign stood by the remarks after the debate. One of the senator's surrogates, Ken Cuccinelli, the former attorney general of Virginia who now runs a conservative PAC, told DailyMail.com, 'The reality is in New York they're liberal.' 'Over the years Trump has had a lot of different positions than he's advancing in this race - abortion, marriage, taxes,' Cuccinelli, president of the Senate Conservatives Fund, said. As it pertains to New York, Cuccinelli, who was born across the state line in New Jersey said, 'Part of it is a grittiness and a tenacity, a pugnaciousness that has a great value, like after 9/11.' 'They all go together. That's great, once again, when you're in that kind of situation. But is that the kind of president you want?' he paused for a moment, and said, 'We'll see.' Advertisement Indonesian police have seized an ISIS flag in the home of one of the suspected terrorists who blew themselves up in the heart of the country's capital killing two people and injuring 20. The flag was found during raids conducted by police in Jakarta and across the country, during which four arrests were made and a militant was killed. Law enforcement officials also searched the derelict home of another dead bomber, identified as Muhammad Ali. Scroll down for video Indonesian police search the ramshackle home of suspected terrorist Muhammad Ali in Jakarta The man was one of the five suspected ISIS terrorists who killed two people and injured 20 in Indonesia's first major attack since 2009 Indonesian police found an ISIS flag in the home of one of the dead bombers National police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti told reporters that the attack - the first major assault in Indonesia since 2009 - was funded by the Islamic State group through Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian who spent one year in jail for illegal possession of weapons in 2011 and has joined ISIS in Syria. Supporters of the jihadist group, who attracted a few hundred Indonesians and Malaysians since it seized vast swathes of territory straddling between Syria and Iraq, also claimed responsibility for the attack on Twitter. One of the five attackers was identified as Sunakim, who was sentenced in 2010 to seven years in jail for his involvement in military-style training in Aceh, but was released early. All the militants were killed either by suicide vests or by police. Raids were conducted in Java, Kalimantan and Sulawesi, with four arrests made. A suspected militant was killed in a gunfight in central Sulawesi, which is where Abu Wardah Santoso, the country's most wanted Islamic radical, is holed up. The man leads the East Indonesia Mujaheeden network that has pledged allegiance to ISIS. The attack unfolded after five men stormed a Starbuck cafe and a traffic police booth with handmade bombs, guns and suicide belts. They killed a Canadian and an Indonesian and injured 20. Authorities believe that the attack was funded by the Islamic State group through Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian who spent one year in jail for illegal possession of weapons in 2011 and has joined ISIS in Syria Raids were conducted across the country, with four arrests made and an alleged militant killed Supporters of the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack on Twitter In recent years, Indonesian counterterrorism forces successfully stamped out the extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah that was responsible for several attacks, including the 2002 bombings of bars in Bali which killed 202 people, as well as two hotel bombings in Jakarta in 2009 that killed seven people. Terrorism experts say IS supporters in Indonesia are drawn from the remnants of Jemaah Islamiyah and other groups. Jakarta residents remained shaken by Thursday's events but refused to be cowed. About 200 people, mostly youngsters with flowers in their hands, gathered in front of the Starbucks in a show of sympathy for the victims and solidarity against extremist violence. They unfurled posters that read, 'We are not afraid.' 'Whatever they did, they have killed life,' said Muji Sutrisno, a noted Indonesian intellectual. 'Indonesia is a strong state, it will not be provoked by terrorism.' A large LCD screen atop the building containing the Starbucks displayed messages saying '(hash)prayforjakarta' and 'Indonesia Unite.' Police search the house of Muhammad Ali, identified as one of the dead bombers. Another terrorist was named as Sunakim, who was sentenced to seven years in jail for his involvement in military-style training in Aceh, but was released early Footage of the assault in Plumstead was uploaded to Twitter A minicab driver was sent on an hour-long journey through London before being lured to a waiting gang of thugs - who viciously attacked him and put the sickening footage online. After picking his passenger up from Invermore Place in Plumstead around 3pm on December 12, the driver was sent around south London for nearly an hour. During the journey, a number of arguments ensued between the passenger and the driver - who asked to be paid in advance. The passenger than asked to be returned to the original pick-up point of Invermore Place, close to the garages near Walmer Terrace. Police said on the way there the passenger made a call, asking for the person on the other end of the line to meet him at the garages. Once the cab arrived at its destination, the driver noticed five men waiting. He was then dragged from his silver Skoda and assaulted and robbed, leaving him with head and hand injuries. The attackers stole 30 from his car and footage of the assault filmed by bystanders on a mobile phone was uploaded to Twitter. Police said during the journey, the driver was asked to drive to Crayford Railway Station and to Erith Railway Station where the passenger picked up a teenage girl. She was later dropped off at Crayford Railway Station. Police have now issued an appeal to trace a man in his 20s in connection with the incident. A force spokesman said the suspect is a slim black man, with a beard, who spoke with an African accent. The cab driver was asked to drive to Crayford Railway Station (pictured) and to Erith Railway Station where the passenger picked up a girl in her teens Detective Constable Danny Banks, from Greenwich CID, added: 'We want to urgently speak with anyone who saw this vicious robbery and assault, or who is aware of this incident and can assist with our ongoing investigation. 'Anyone with information is asked to contact police on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. 'You may receive a cash reward of up to 1,000 if the information you give to Crimestoppers leads to one or more people being arrested and charged. This will be paid anonymously.' A desperate mother has pulled her 13-year-old daughter out of school after a gang of bullies viciously attacked her - for being a gipsy. Minnie Brazil, 40, removed daughter Janet from classes on Wednesday over claims some girls punched her in the face and threatened to stab her. She said she won't be letting her daughter return to Nottingham University Samworth Academy because she doesn't trust the school to keep her safe. Minnie Brazil, right, pulled her daughter Janet, left from Nottingham University Samworth Academy, pictured, because she claims the 13-year-old Year 9 pupil was being bullied by other pupils due to her Romany roots Mrs Brazil, right, said her daughter Janet, left, has been verbally abused and targeted on Facebook Since September last year Minnie claims Year 8 pupil Janet has been repeatedly threatened and verbally abused by fellow students because of her Romany roots. She says the girls - aged between 12 and 13 - constantly message her on Facebook saying 'we are coming for you' and 'we are going to get you'. The cruel bullies have even recruited friends to stand outside the school and intimidate her as she leaves. Full-time mum-of-four Minnie, from Cinderhill, Nottingham, said yesterday: 'Kids are messaging her threats on Facebook all the time. 'They have said they are coming to my house and that they are going to get older girls to beat her up. 'I'm keeping all the screen shots and showing them to the police. 'They say to her 'you think you're all hard because you're a gipsy'. 'Before Christmas there was a gang standing outside the school, staring at her and calling her names as she left. This was right in front of a teacher. Nottinghamshire Police and the school have confirmed they are investigating the bullying claims 'I was just waiting all the time to be called and told something terrible had happened. 'I've had no practical help from the school. I complained to them as soon as it started happening but I haven't even had a letter from them. 'She has a right to feel safe at school. 'It's shocking and disgusting that these girls are picking on like this for no reason. 'All cultures should be able to get along and all I want is for my kids to get a good education. 'Janet has tried to argue back but one time they hit her and when she tells them to leave her alone it makes no difference. 'She is a lovely girl who just wants to get on with her work. She gets on with most people. 'I've tried to speak to the other girls' parents but they think their children are angels. 'But all the school have said is 'if you don't like it, move her'. 'My priority is finding Janet another school now. I have another daughter who was due to start there in September but there's no way I'm sending her now. 'I feel like I have to speak out about this, not just for my child but because the other kids at the school need to be safe.' Janet said: 'I don't want to go to school anymore because the girls just carry on bullying me all the time and I just want to run away. 'They threatened to stab me on Monday and it was really scary. 'I just want to be left alone.' A spokesman for Nottingham University Samworth Academy said: 'Our first priority is always the well-being of its students and the academy has always had a zero tolerance approach to bullying. 'We can confirm that the school is working with police to resolve this matter and support the students involved.' Combat Bullying founder Natalie Harvey said: 'Sadly it is not uncommon for children to be moved out of school by their parents because of bullying. 'Unfortunately it is bullied children that seem to be the ones that have to move. 'It is very extreme to hear threats of stabbing made to children. 'Any threats of violence is a police matter and should be taken seriously. 'Things like this can affect a child for a long time after the incident is resolved and should be given as much support as possible.' President Barack Obama closed out his work week with a trio of interviews from YouTube stars this afternoon and took on several issues that are currently dividing nation. Not a proposed Muslim ban or a wall on the border with Mexico, although he did talk about Donald Trump and his pointed rebuff of the Republican during his State of the Union. The president weighed in on which Star Wars movie is the best - the first one, he said - and how dogs should wear pants. Obama also revealed that he has not seen the newest Star Wars movie, yet, even though a screening was held at the White House last month as it hit theaters. President Barack Obama closed out his work week with a trio of interviews from YouTube stars this afternoon and took on several issues that are currently dividing nation: Star Wars and pants-wearing-dogs The president, who has two canines, Sunny and Bo, said he'd pick option B Of option A, Obama said, 'It's a little too conservative, a little too much....Too much fabric' The president dashed off from his end of the year press conference to get to the screening in time after arriving at the highly anticipated event 16 minutes late. 'Good afternoon, everybody. Clearly, this is not the most important event that's taking place in the White House today,' he said as the news conference began. 'There is a screening of Star Wars for Gold Star families and children coming up. So I'll try to be relatively succinct.' At ended the 52-minute question and answer session by saying, 'Okay, everybody, I got to get to Star Wars.' The White House posted a picture after the event of the president and first lady dancing with Star Wars characters who came to the screening, R2-D2 and a stormtrooper. Today Obama told professional video game player and YouTube user 'sWoozie,' whose real name is Adande Thorne, that he never did see the movie, though, and the White House confirmed that he stopped by the event but did not stay. 'As part of the Joining Forces initiative, the President and First Lady greeted children of Gold Star families attending a special screening of Star Wars: The Force Awakens,' the White House told DailyMail.com. Considering the president had not seen the most recent Star Wars movie, his options in selecting his favorite were limited today during his conversation with Thorne. Of those that he has watched, Episodes I through VI, the president said he prefers the first one. 'I still remember when i saw it. I was like 14, 15, and I went to the Cinterama theater right around the corner from my house,' Obama said. Skeptical of his answer at first, sWooZie told him, 'OK, you saved it. You clutched it.' The president also told him that he if he had to be a main character in the movie series, he'd pick Han Solo. 'I gotta go with Han Solo, he's a little bit of a rebel,' he told Thorne as the YouTube star held up a poster board with photos of Obama's possible choices. The president also told him that he if he had to be a main character in the movie series, he'd pick Han Solo Obama also revealed that he had not seen the newest Star Wars movie, yet, even though a screening was held at the White House last month as it hit theaters. The White House posted this photo of the president and first lady meeting R2-D2 and a stormtrooper As for the pants-wearing dog, the president, who has two canines, Sunny and Bo, said he'd pick option B. Of option A, Obama said, 'It's a little too conservative, a little too much.' 'Too much fabric,' he said as Thorne moved on to his next question - Kendrick Lamar or Drake. In a rap battle, Obama said, 'You gotta go with Kendrick.' 'I think Drake is an outstanding entertainer, but Kendrick, his lyrics...his last album was outstanding - best album I think last year,' the commander in chief said. Thorne was the first of the three YouTube users to interview Obama today out of a replica of his set in the East Room of the White House during the live broadcast. Destin Sandlin and Ingrid Nilsen also had turns. As Obama sat down with Thorne, aka sWoozie, he told him, 'It's a sharp set.' 'I'm just trying to get on your level, man,' the 28-year-old gamer told him. The conversation soon turned serious as Thorne confided in him that 'as a black male who wears his hat backward from time to time,' he gets 'harassed often' by police. The Trinidad native and Florida resident told the president, 'I've learned to live with the harassment, but people are dying now. I can't, I can't sit by and let that happen.' 'I feel like law enforcement, they're just bullies with badges at this point. They get caught on camera, they are killing people, and they go to the court of law, and they get off without a lot of consequences, so I really want to know is, accountability - what can you do with your time left?' he asked Obama. 'Because these guys are going through and they're killing people, and it's just like, I think they're developing a Superman complex.' In addition to Thorne, aka 'sWooZie', Obama took questions this afternoon from Ingrid Nilsen, center, and Destin Sandlin, right Obama told him, 'Well first of all, uhh, I'm a black man who sometimes wears his hat backwards, and there have been times when I was younger when I was stopped for reasons that I wasn't always clear about.' Josh Duggar may be in for a bit of a break in his sex assault lawsuit or about to have more details of his personal life go very public as a judge has demanded that the porn star who is suing him in court provide proof that the two had sex. Danica Dillon filed a complaint in November saying Duggar manhandled her in a way that 'felt as if she were being raped' after allegedly paying her for sex. Dillon, whose real name is Ashley Stamm-Northup, claims these incidents occurred in March and April after Duggar approached her while she was stripping at clubs in Philadelphia. Duggar claimed he had never even met Dillon or been to the strip club she was at in his most recent motion, while also saying he had an alibi for one of the dates in question. Scroll down for video Demands: US District Court Judge Mark A. Kearney is asking porn star Danica Dillon (above) to provide proof that she had sex with Josh Duggar twice last year Response: Duggar (abobe with wife Anna) claimed he had never even met Dillon or been to the strip club she claims they met at in a recent court motion Radar Online this latest ruling from Judge Mark A. Kearney which was filed last Friday and more than anything seems to be about the court's jurisdiction, with Dillon being asked to prove not only that the acts occurred but that they occurred in eastern Pennsylvania. Dillon must now file a 'sworn Certification' in which she proves 'a substantial part of the events giving rise to the claim occurred in this District.' Josh's lawyer had compelled Dillon to submit evidence in a motion, saying; 'Presumably, if this matter is of such importance to her that she would file a public complaint, make accusations about Defendant on national television and demand more than half a million dollars, producing some documentation of her losses and injuries and the names of people who have knowledge about her allegations within the time set by this Court and required by its rules should be feasible.' A pretrial conference is scheduled for January 21 in the case. His previous motion claimed that Dillon did not provide enough detail or evidence to support her accusations. Duggar's lawyer Jeffrey Conrad had written in his that motion; 'Assault requires both intent to place the Plaintiff in imminent apprehension of harmful or offensive contract and the Plaintiffs actual imminent apprehension. 'Plaintiff did not provide anything more than a formulaic recitation of the elements of assault and/or battery.' That motion also pointed out that Dillon - who is asking for $500,000 - consented to the both physical and sexual contact with Duggar in exchange for payment. Dillon, 29, first met Duggar, 27, at the Gold Club in Philadelphia in March while she was performing there as a stripper according to her lawsuit. Duggar paid $600 for lap dances at the club and then followed her back to her hotel where he offered her $1,500 for her company and the two later had 'consensual sex.' Once the sex began however, Dillon claims in her lawsuit that Duggar 'manhandled Plaintiff and physically assaulted her to the point of causing her physical and emotional injuries.' A month later, Dillon alleges that Duggar came up to her again in order to 'apologize for the tortuous behavior he inflicted,' but when they had sex again 'engaged in identical tortuous conduct.' As a result of this, the suit claims that Dillon 'is currently being treated for severe anxiety similar to post-traumatic stress disorder by a psychiatrist.' Hurt: Dillon (above) filed a complaint in November saying Duggar manhandled her in a way that 'felt as if she were being raped' after allegedly paying her for sex Attempts: Duggar (above with son Michael) filed a previous motion claiming that Dillon did not provide enough detail or evidence to support her accusations Dillon's attorney, Marc Frumer, says that if Duggar takes the stand he will likely be questioned about his entire sexual history and past misconduct - including the fact that he molested five minors as a teenager. 'The defendant may be subject to [having to talk about] his prior bad [or] sexually abusive acts at trial,' Frumer previously told InTouch. 'They are all relevant if he takes the stand.' Furmer added; 'The defendant has a history of sexual and physical abuse towards women, particularly those he perceives as vulnerable or weak. 'He has to be held responsible for his actions.' Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar could also possibly be called to testify for hiding details of Duggar's 'prior bad acts' according to Frumer. Duggar entered a faith-based rehab program in Illinois in August to treat his infidelity and addiction to porn. He was visited by his wife Anna on Christmas, though it is not clear if she took any of the couple's four children with her on the trip. The couple wed in 2008, and are parents to five-month-old Meredith Grace, two-year-old Marcus, four-year-old Michael and six-year-old daughter Mackynzie. Josh confessed to having affairs in a letter in August shortly before he entered rehab, writing; 'I have been the biggest hypocrite ever. While espousing faith and family values, I have secretly over the last several years been viewing pornography on the internet and this became a secret addiction and I became unfaithful to my wife. 'I am so ashamed of the double life that I have been living and am grieved for the hurt, pain and disgrace my sin has caused my wife and family, and most of all Jesus and all those who profess faith in Him.' Just a few months before that in May, it was revealed he had molested four of his sisters when he was a teenager and they were minors. Advertisement A 15-hour terror attack by four jihadists at a luxury hotel in Burkina Faso has come to an end this morning after security forces stormed the building and rescued 156 of the hostages. Burkinabe special forces, assisted by 30 French special forces, broke the lengthy siege and stormed the Splendid Hotel in Ouagadougou. Three of the gunmen were killed after a firefight before the hotel was re-captured by special forces. 28 people from 18 different countries were killed in the terror attack at the hotel in the Burkinabe capital. French newspaper Le Monde has reported that at least two of the victims are French. As many as 33 of the 156 survivors were also wounded during the attack, the Burkinabe Interior Ministry confirmed. At least ten of the victims in the terror attack were gunned down at the Cappuccino Cafe, situated next door to the hotel. The attack has been claimed by al-Mourabitoun, an al-Qaeda affiliated group based in the Sahel region of northern Mali. The Burkinabe President Roch Marc Christian Kabore confirmed that a fourth gunman at the Yibi Hotel has been killed. He labelled the attacks 'cowardly and vile' and claimed that two of the four attackers are thought to have been female. Scroll down for video: French first responders tend to the wounds of one injured soldiers during the attack on the Splendid Hotel and Cafe Cappucino A view shows vehicles on fire outside Splendid Hotel in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso during a siege by Islamist gunmen on Saturday The charred remnants of several vehicles parked close to where the fighting took place inside the Splendid hotel Security forces - led by the approximately 40 Burkinabe soldiers with the help of 30 French troops (pictured) and an American soldier helped storm the hotel and kill the three gunmen Military investigators search through the debris of the Cappucino Cafe, where ten people were shot and killed by terrorists last night One of the 33 wounded foreigners is thought to be talented French Moroccan photographer Leila Alaoui Initial reports said the masked militants set off suspected car bombs outside the hotel at 7.30pm last night before they stormed the hotel taking at least 100 people hostage. One survivor said diners at first mistook the gunfire and explosions for firecrackers before two gunmen, dressed all in black and brandishing AK-47 assault rifles, burst in firing indiscriminately. 'We heard shots, grenades, detonations. It was echoing and extremely loud. It went on for a long time,' the survivor, a Slovenian social anthropologist told Reuters. 'They kept coming back and forth into Cappuccino [Cafe]. You'd think it was over, then they'd come back and shoot more people. They would come back and see if the white people were moving and then they would shoot them again,' she said. A US defense official said France, the former colonial power of Burkina Faso, had requested US intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance support in the city, and at least one US military member was giving 'advice and assistance' to French forces at the hotel. Injured witnesses said the attackers claimed to be from ISIS, but a local Al Qaeda affiliated group called al-Mourabitoun, has reportedly claimed the attack on the capital in West Africa, according to SITE Intelligence Group. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb have claimed responsibility for the attack, according to a statement released on an encrypted messaging app. The group said it targeted the Splendid Hotel because it is popular with foreigners, saying the attack was sent as a message 'written by the heroes of Islam with their blood and body parts', according to The New York Times. The statement was addressed to a foreign audience as 'the Cross-worshipers, the occupiers of our lands, the looters of our wealth and the abusers of our security'. It claimed the attack was intended 'to punish the Cross-worshipers for their crimes against our people in Central Africa, Mali and other lands of the Muslims, and to avenge our Prophet, God's peace and blessings be upon him'. Of those wounded is French national Leila Alaoui, who is undergoing surgery, according to New York Times contributor Aida Alami. 'It was horrible, people were sleeping and there was blood everywhere. They were firing at people at close range,' Yannick Sawadogo, one of those who escaped, told AFP. 'We heard them speaking and they were walking around people and firing at people who were not dead. And when they came out they started a fire.' The blackened outside of the Splendid Hotel in the Burkinabe capital city of Ouagadougou, known locally as Ouaga At least one member of US special forces were involved in the storming of the hotel alongside French and Burkinabe special forces 28 people from 18 different countries were killed in the terror attack at the hotel in the Burkinabe capital Several traumatised hostages from the hotel are help out of a military vehicle after surviving the terrifying ordeal Armed with machine guns and protected by a bulletproof shield, members of the Burkinabe special forces advance towards the building French special forces were on hand to provide both strategic support and additional firepower for breaking the 15-hour siege Burkina Faso's soldiers stand by for further orders as the hostages remained trapped inside the Splendid Hotel in Ouagadougou Witnesses said the terrorists shot people who had not died and started a fire in the hotel Robert Sangare, the head of Yalgado Ouedraogo hospital said one patient told him the attackers appeared to target white people One hotel survivor contemplates the ordeal he has just been through after being rescued from the Splendid Hotel in Ouagadougou Soldiers help to escort one badly hurt man out of the Splendid hotel, where 126 hostages are thought to have been rescued A badly injured man is carried by several Burkinabe soldiers after being rescued from the deadly siege at the hotel Mokhtar Belmokhtar, nicknamed Mr Marlboro for his expertises in financing terrorism through smuggling cigarettes, is believed to be the leader of the al-Qaeda linked al-Mourabitoun. Numerous claims have made that he has been killed in the past couple of years al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) posted a statement on social media, claiming responsibility for the deadly attack in Burkina Faso Burkina Faso has largely been spared the violence wracked by Islamic extremist groups in northern neighbour Mali FOREIGN OFFICE WARNS BRITONS ABOUT TRAVEL IN BURKINA FASO Britons have been warned not to travel to an area of Burkina Faso after a deadly attack by suspected Islamic terrorists on a hotel that is popular with Westerners. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office warned against travelling north of the town of Boulsa, as it is near to the border with Mali. The FCO advice states: 'You should avoid the area and follow the instructions of local security authorities.' Advertisement In a message posted in Arabic on the militants' 'Muslim Africa' Telegram account, AQIM said fighters 'broke into a restaurant of one of the biggest hotels in the capital of Burkina Faso, and are now entrenched and the clashes are continuing with the enemies of the religion.' The same AQIM affiliate, Al-Mourabitoun, was responsible for the attack on the Radisson Hotel in Mali's capital last November, which left 27 people dead, including a number of foreign nationals. 'For the dead, we do not have a precise figure, but there are at least 20 dead,' said Robert Sangare, the head of Yalgado Ouedraogo hospital last night. 'We have had at least 15 wounded with bullet wounds and others who suffered injuries during the panic to escape.' Sangare said one European woman being treated at the hospital told him the attackers appeared to target white people. The hotel is sometimes used by French troops with Operation Barkhane, a force based in Chad and set up to combat Islamist militants across West Africa's vast, arid Sahel region. Russia's Honorary Council in Burkina Faso, Anna Rachina-Kulibali, said foreigners were among the dead, 'possibly including Europeans'. 'I utterly condemn the appalling attack in Ouagadougou last night and offer my deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of those who have been killed and injured,' said the British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond. Mr Hammond said that the United Kingdom stands with President Kabore and the people of Burkina Faso in the fight against terrorism. A general view shows fire beneath Splendid Hotel in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. al-Mourabitoun claimed responsibility for the attack A fourth gunman has been gunned after special forces stormed a second hotel, the Yibi hotel, close to the Splendid Hotel Gunfire: The masked men fired into the air to disperse the crowd and a police officer was shot trying to reach the Splendid hotel Ablaze: Several cars were on on fire outside the hotel and the cafe after two loud explosions were reported on early Friday evening Response: A U.S. defense official said that France had requested U.S. intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance support in the city and at least one U.S. military member in Burkina Faso was giving 'advice and assistance' to French forces at the hotel Elite force: Security forces surrounded the hotel before the assault to rescue 126 hostages trapped inside the building A police officer was shot trying to reach the Splendid hotel opposite where the attackers remain, according to officers. A senior official with the national gendarmes said suspected Islamist fighters were holding a number of hostages, who have since been freed. The four-star hotel is reportedly used by UN agency staff and is near a cafe called Cappucino, said to be popular with expats, although U.N. spokesman in Ouagadougou, Emile Kabore, told CNN he did not believe any U.N. staffers are currently staying at the hotel. A witness who gave only his first name, Gilbert, said that when security forces first arrived, they turned around rather than confront the attackers. 'But we know that the gunmen won't get out of the hotel alive,' he said. 'Our country is not for jihadists or terrorists. They got it wrong.' The French Embassy in Burkina Faso released a statement on its website calling incident a 'terrorist attack' and urged its citizens to return home and to avoid the hotel, the Cafe Capuccino and Kwame N'Krumah Avenue. The US Embassy in Ouagadougou tweeted: 'We are closely following the situation downtown.' Al-Qaeda It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack, though jihadists have attacked hotels before in neighboring Mali, including a devastating attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in November that left 20 people dead. The hotel is also reportedly used by French troops with Operation Barkhane, a force based in Chad and set up to combat Islamist militants Injured: 33 people have been injured as pictures were posted to Twitter as the attack went on through the night Security forces in Burkina Faso battled suspected Islamist fighters outside the Splendid Hotel in the capital's business district The attack would be the first in Burkina's capital by Islamists in a country that is diverse in religious terms and has a population that is around 60 per cent Muslim, according to government figures. Burkina Faso, formerly known as Upper Volta, has no previous recent history of terror attacks and the capital, affectionately known by locals as Ouaga, is well known for its relaxed lifestyle and fun nightlife. It comes as a setback to efforts by African governments, France and the United States to prevent attacks that have destabilized the region. The security of Burkina Faso now presents a significant challenge for the country's new President Roch Marc Kabore, who was elected in November 2015 as Burkina Faso's first new leader in decades. The French embassy in December warned its citizens against traveling to a national park in eastern Burkina Faso after reports that Malian jihadists were threatening to kidnap foreigners. An Islamist militant group Al-Mourabitoun said in May, 2015, it was holding a Romanian man kidnapped from a mine in northern Burkina Faso the previous month. Around 50 unidentified gunmen attacked a Burkina Faso gendarmerie brigade near the country's western border with Mali in October 2015, killing three in an attack the then government blamed on the leaders of a failed coup one month before. Burkina Faso has endured bouts of political turmoil since October 2014 when veteran President Blaise Compaore was overthrown in a popular protest, but has been largely spared violence by Islamist militants who have staged attacks in neighboring Mali. Two militants killed 20 people from nations including Russia, China and the United States at a luxury hotel in Mali's capital on November 20, 2015, before being killed by the security forces. Junior doctors hijacked the BBCs Question Time programme as they stepped up their political campaign against the Governments plans for a seven-day NHS. So many striking doctors packed the audience for the flagship current affairs show on Thursday night that the exasperated host David Dimbleby at one point appealed for patients rather than doctors to ask questions. The British Medical Association last night denied it had organised infiltration of the audience for the show broadcast from London. Scroll down for video Infiltration: Several junior doctors spoke out during the BBC's Question Time, as the striking doctors stepped up their political campaign against the Government's plan for a seven-day NHS. One of the public faces of the campaign Dr Lauren Gavaghan (left) was sitting in the front row 'Hijacked': The British Medical Association dismissed claims that it had organised an infiltration of the flagship current affairs programme But audience members included psychiatrist Lauren Gavaghan, who has been one of the public faces of the strike. Dr Gavaghan, who sat in the front row, told an audience member he was wrong to believe that hospital death rates were worse at the weekend. During a lengthy rant she attacked Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, saying he had misled the entire country. She was eventually cut off by Mr Dimbleby, who told her: Dont wag your finger at me. Mr Dimbleby said it was clear there were a large number of doctors in the audience. At one point he told them: Doctors, stop waving your arms in the air. And heckling greeted one man who tried to voice concerns about weekend service in the NHS, who said: I find it a bit irritating that doctors are trying to interrupt a patient. Former newspaper editor Kelvin MacKenzie, a panellist, said: Is there anyone in the audience who isnt a junior doctor? He was booed for noting doctors were being offered an 11 per cent rise in basic pay in return for more flexible working. In all, three junior doctors were picked to speak, along with one man who said his girlfriend was a junior doctor. The BBC said: Question Time audiences are always selected in accordance with our guidelines on fairness and balance, and this week was no different. Voices of protest: Several members of the Question Time audience, including those pictured left and right, said they were either junior doctors or partners of junior doctors Junior doctors will walk out again on January 26 if talks are not successful with a further all-out strike planned in February if the dispute continues We are careful to select audiences which are politically balanced. There were unsurprisingly a lot of questions this week about the doctors strike, and those questions were submitted by people with a range of occupations and views on the strike. It would be factually wrong to suggest this week was dominated by junior doctors there was only a handful in the whole audience. The BMA also dismissed suggestions of an organised infiltration of the programme. People wishing to appear on Question Time must complete an online application form on the BBC website. Those chosen are called back by producers and asked what topics they wish to debate, and must give two sample questions. The row came as Mr Hunt warned he was reserving the right to impose the new contract on doctors if they refused to negotiate a deal. Junior doctors and their supporters have been turning out for protests across the country under the tagline 'Not safe, not fair', as well as in Westminster (right) The industrial action is a protest against Government proposals for a new junior doctor contract which the BMA said will threaten patient safety He said: Id rather we agreed. But we have said that if we cant solve this problem, we have to deliver our manifesto and as a last resort would move to the nuclear option. Junior doctors staged an unprecedented strike this week. A further 24-hour strike is planned for later in the month. If no deal is done, the BMA has said doctors will then suspend emergency cover during a third strike next month. Mr Hunt said patient safety could not be guaranteed if they did so, adding: I cant give an absolute guarantee but we are busting a gut to make sure every A&E is able to function. Apple could be facing an $8billion bill in Europe as a result of an investigation into whether it used Irish tax havens to illegally shelter its overseas profits. The company, the largest and richest in the world, is being investigated by the European Commission over profits it generated overseas dating from 2004 to 2012. While the results of that probe are not expected until March, recent rulings over tax havens in Belgium strongly suggest that the report will go against Apple. Apple may be facing an $8billion tax bill in Europe if an investigation into the company's finances, due out in March, rules that they were unfairly sheltering profits in Irish tax havens If that is the case, then the tech firm could owe as much as $8billion in back taxes, according to analysis by Matt Larson of Bloomberg Intelligence. The commission is looking into whether Ireland helped Apple lower its tax liability by calculating what the company owes based on significantly reduced operating costs. According to Bloomberg, Apple generates more than half of its money overseas, but has a foreign tax rate of just 1.8 per cent. If the commission finds that Apple has violated EU rules, then it will likely recalculate that tax at 12.5 per cent, leaving a shortfall of around $8billion. While investigators will actually claim that money off the Irish state, the country's own financial woes mean it will almost certainly look for remuneration from Apple. As a result, Apple listed tax scrutiny as a risk factor for investors in fiscal statement for 2015, issued in October last year. The company has already said it will challenge any adverse ruling the European Commission makes, while Tim Cook has dismissed claims that Apple illegally avoids tax. The European Commission is looking into whether Irish authorities helped Apple to lower its tax liabilities, allowing the company to shelter its profits there instead of paying higher charges elsewhere In an interview with Charlie Rose on 60 Minutes back in December, Mr Cook branded the accusations 'political crap'. He said: 'There is no truth behind it. Apple pays every tax dollar we owe. We pay more taxes in this country [America] than anyone.' Mr Cook added that he would 'love to' bring the money Apple makes abroad back to the U.S. but he can't 'because it would cost me 40 per cent. And I don't think that's a reasonable thing to do. He added: 'This is a tax code that was made for the industrial age, not the digital age. It's backwards. It's awful for America. It should have been fixed years ago. It's past time to get it done.' See more of the latest on David Bowie at www.dailymail.co.uk/davidbowie But in the final phase of his life Bowie was first and foremost a family man Most of his catalogue of lovers accepted that fidelity was not on the agenda By his own admission, he could never say no, not once he discovered girls. Until then, David Jones, the kid who grew up to be the barrier-breaking phenomenon that was David Bowie, had been the perfect, goody-two-shoes schoolboy. He liked reading books on his own in his bedroom at home, sang in the church choir (for five bob a time) and went to Cubs in his peaked cap and green sweater one evening a week. In his manner, he stood a little bit aloof from the other rough-and-tumble boys growing up around him in the London suburb of Bromley in the Fifties. Irresistible: Whether one-night stands or long-term lovers, David Bowie slept with hundreds of people over his years of rock stardom. Girls, boys, men or women, gays or straights, Bowie had no prejudices A girl changed all that. Her name goes unrecorded like many of the hundreds he would have sex with in the years of rock stardom ahead. But she was the first one in his primary school class of ten-year-olds to show signs of burgeoning t**s, as he put it. He was hooked. A few years later, he went out with her, when we were about 18. But I messed it up. On our second date, she found out that Id been with another girl. She dumped him. But that girl turned out to be one of a very few who ever took offence at Bowies zip problem. He was openly promiscuous. Took pride in it. Girls and boys. Men and women. Straights, gays, transsexuals. Any number. Twosomes, threesomes, foursomes, orgies. Any race, colour, creed. No prejudice, no distinction. The rock legend, who died this week, aged 69, revelled in the physical excess of it all. I had a wonderfully irresponsible, promiscuous time, he later told a BBC radio interviewer. I was hitting on everybody. He admitted to having an addictive personality and sex was one of those indulgences he could never get enough of. I had a wonderfully irresponsible, promiscuous time. I was hitting on everybody. David Bowie Some of those who are said to have pleasured him were big names Lulu, Marianne Faithfull, Nina Simone, Susan Sarandon, Bianca Jagger, Tina Turner. Others were adoring women in his entourage, such as the exotically named publicist Cherry Vanilla, or in the rock business. Whether one-night stands or longer-term lovers, they fell for his lean and hungry looks and his flamboyant style. What inspired Lulu, however, was a particular part of his anatomy. Some people have beautiful hands or beautiful necks, but I discovered that David had beautiful thighs, the best Id ever seen. I had my own private viewing, up close and personal, she wrote in her autobiography. Most of his enormous catalogue of lovers seem to have accepted that ever-lasting love and fidelity were not on the agenda. Yet they still succumbed to trysts in his bedroom, bathroom, dressing room even a walk-in cupboard in the case of Bette Midler wherever the mood took him, and enjoyed the moment. Star lovers: David Bowie and Lulu opted for the same shade of orange hair, pictured in the 1970s Catalogue of lovers: Bowie attracted numerous big-name relationships over the years, including Tina Turner (left) and Susan Sarandon (right) All-star: David Bowie and Bette Midler cuddle up at a celebrity get-together, also having decided to match their hair colour Nor, by and large, did they go blabbing. There was no kiss-and-tell, no hints of blackmail, no embarrassing pregnancies or love children, as there were, for example, with Mick Jagger, his close buddy and collaborator. Bowie slept around with an abandon that few ever matched, and not only did he get away with it, but news of his rampant promiscuity seemed to attract women rather than deter them. When word leaked out that he had a habit of seducing anyone who worked for him, job applications to his management company rocketed. How did he manage to be so successful a lover? The answer appears to be that he was charming and polite. He flirted, he pouted, he smiled, he seduced. Together they walked into the bathroom, locked the door and did not emerge for some time, ignoring two drag queens who hammered on the door with their high heels. Bowie biographer Wendy Leigh Sometimes he simply asked for sex, like the courteous gentleman many of his conquests remember. At a particular party in his honour in Los Angeles, he stood on the sidelines for a while, transfixed by the sight of a very sexy girl dancing with a record producer called Kim Fowley. Though he was rapidly achieving superstar status, and a click of his fingers would probably be enough, he didnt just butt in, but waited until they came off the floor, then asked Fowley if the girl was with him. On being told no, Bowie walked over to her and formally introduced himself. My name is David Bowie, he said disarmingly. (Full marks to him for not assuming she knew who he was, though of course she did.) Would you like to accompany me to the bathroom? She accepted his offer. Wendy Leigh, his latest biographer, takes up the story: Together they walked into the bathroom, locked the door and did not emerge for some time, ignoring two drag queens who hammered on the door with their high heels, screaming, Open the door. We can do a better job than she can! When they emerged, Bowie kissed the girl on the cheek, shook her hand and said, Thank you, and off she went, charmed to the toes by Bowie, always among the most well-mannered of rock stars. He was even gentle to sex-hungry groupies, a breed usually despised. As his one-time PR and occasional lover, Cherry Vanilla, described in her memoir: He was a great kisser. He was a better lover than Id ever imagined and not just in the physical sense. Attraction: How did he manage to be so successful a lover? The answer appears to be that he was charming and polite. He flirted, he pouted, he smiled, he seduced The sex was as rough and aerobic as anyone could want, but it never felt like we were just having sex. It felt like we were really making love. He was either a fabulous actor or a man whose emotions ran deep. But if it was acting, I couldnt have cared less. I was so completely enraptured with the romance of it all and he gave me the impression that he was as well. Groupie Lori Lightning remembered being invited with other girls to Bowies suite at the Hilton in Beverly Hills. She was 14 and still a virgin, and what happened next would be roundly and rightly condemned today because she was under-age. In the paedophile-conscious climate of the 21st century, it could have earned him a jail sentence (as indeed it might have done then if it had been pursued). But she had no complaint, then or later. As she confided to fellow groupie Pamela des Barres in the book Lets Spend The Night Together, Bowie took her back to his bedroom at the Beverly Hilton, and said he was going to take a bath. All of a sudden the door opens and Bowie is standing there with that gorgeous white skin and carrot-red hair, wearing a kimono. It was in his early Ziggy Stardust era. He came out and said: Lori, could you come over here? All of a sudden the door opens and Bowie is standing there with that gorgeous white skin and carrot-red hair, wearing a kimono. Groupie Pamela des Barres in the book Lets Spend The Night Together I was so nervous. Id never had intercourse. So he escorts me into the bathroom and takes off his kimono, gets into the bathtub, and sits there staring at me with those different-coloured eyes. You have to understand hes so gorgeous, his skin is so white and flawless. So he says: Can you wash my back? and that was just the beginning. He knew it was my first time, and he was so gentle with me. There was, undeniably, a coldly calculating edge to Bowies charm. Some women were disturbed by how clinical and detached he could be as a lover almost inhuman, as if they were objects, not human beings. One theory is that, in his early 20s, he loved deeply and lost and was scarred by it. She was a beautiful and clever ballerina by the name of Hermione Farthingale, a girl as respectably middle-class and English rose as her name suggests. We had a perfect love, he recalled. She was besotted by him, too: We were twin souls, very alike, she once said. I was fascinated by this fey, elfin creature. They moved in together and, by his own admission, were almost inseparable. He began to talk of her as his fiancee. But, after a time, the twin parts of Bowies nature the one that craved contentment and the one that craved excitement were in head-to-head conflict. His response was to try to have his cake and eat it. Hermione was not prepared to share him with other women, let alone men, and dropped him, while pursuing her own acting career. Unforgettable: As his one-time PR and occasional lover, Cherry Vanilla, described in her memoir: He was a great kisser. He was a better lover than Id ever imagined and not just in the physical sense' Mismatched: Bowie found the perfect partner in 19-year-old polytechnic student Angie Barnett, tall, boyish-looking, promiscuous and equally into women as she was to men Bowie was grief-stricken by the rejection which struck a sinister and familiar chord in him, as we will see later in this series and swore that he wasnt going to get so close to someone again for a very long time. And he never did, until he met and married his second wife Iman more than two decades later and stayed faithfully with her until his death. In between, he went as far off the rails as he possibly could. You couldnt say hed been a good boy before his break-up with Hermione, but now he devoted himself to pure hedonism. He found the perfect partner in 19-year-old polytechnic student Angie Barnett, tall, boyish-looking, promiscuous and equally into women as she was to men. What he liked was that she seemed both shocking in her behaviour and unshockable. We all got tipsy, fell into bed together, romped a trois until we all passed out, then woke late and rushed in a panic to the register office. Angie Barnett, in her memoir Backstage Passes: Life On The Wild Side With David Bowie With Bowies music career now beginning to take off the haunting Space Oddity a big hit in 1969, its intriguing Ground control to Major Tom lyric on everyones lips they were soon the coolest kids in town, egging each other on in breaking all the conventions of the day. They agreed from the start that theirs would be an entirely open relationship. Even on the night before their wedding in staid old Bromley they shared their bed with a pretty girl they knew. In her memoir Backstage Passes: Life On The Wild Side With David Bowie, Angie recollected how we all got tipsy, fell into bed together, romped a trois until we all passed out, then woke late and rushed in a panic to the register office. Now man and wife, they were nevertheless, perfectly free to romp and dally with whoever else might tickle our fancy and frequently did. Home became Haddon Hall, a Victorian candle-makers mansion in Beckenham, Kent, with an imposing entrance hall 40ft wide and 60ft long, and a magnificent stained glass window rising above the short wooden staircase. The couple rented it for 14 a week, complete with 30ft music room, a 25ft dining room and a 40ft living room, which Bowie painted dark green, while Angie dyed the lace curtains scarlet, a suitably dramatic backdrop for the debauched lifestyle they now embarked on. Later, as Bowies success burgeoned and he was spending more of his time in recording studios in Soho, they moved into London and rented a sizeable terrace house in Chelsea, complete with a fur-covered bed in the sitting room that they called The Pit. The house was kitted out in fashionable designer white. Bowie promptly painted everything black. And the goings-on there were such that their landlord, John Ffitch-Heyes, was threatened with eviction by the freeholders, the Church Commissioners, for running a house of ill repute full of lesbians and homosexuals. Icon: Later, as Bowies success burgeoned and he was spending more of his time in recording studios in Soho, he and Angie moved into London and rented a sizeable terrace house in Chelsea Sorely missed: So what precisely was the nature of Bowies sexuality? Certainly he was unfazed at sleeping his way to the top, and had affairs with influential male figures in the music business when it suited him Mick Jagger was said to be a frequent visitor, and so, too, was gangster John Bindon (later a close friend of Princess Margaret and a regular at her holiday home on Mustique), who had an affair with Angie. In his recent memoir, Warts And All, Ffitch-Heyes recalls calling round to the Oakley Street house just as Mick Jagger came storming out. Bowie was stark naked and Angie described the row as a lovers tiff. Then John Bindon, who according to Ffitch-Heyes was Bowies minder at the time, noticed water coming through the ceiling, which ended up collapsing into the kitchen. It appeared that during the domestic between two of the worlds greatest rock stars the water bed had somehow been punctured, Ffitch-Heyes recalled to the Mail this week. David could handle the open marriage but, although Angie talked a big game about sex and wildness, I think she did that just to keep him in love with her and interested. But she really wanted a more conventional thing. Davids lover Cherry Vanilla As for Bowie and Angie, in the end she appears to be the one who couldnt bear the constant infidelity. That is certainly the view of Davids lover Cherry Vanilla: David could handle the open marriage but, although Angie talked a big game about sex and wildness, I think she did that just to keep him in love with her and interested. But she really wanted a more conventional thing. So what precisely was the nature of Bowies sexuality? Certainly he was unfazed at sleeping his way to the top, and had affairs with influential male figures in the music business when it suited him. But years later, when settled with his second wife, the Somalian supermodel Iman, he was adamant that I was never gay. Yes, hed indulged physically, he admitted, but frankly it wasnt enjoyable. It wasnt something I was comfortable with at all. Some of those who knew him well confirm this from their own experience. Tony Zanetta, who was for a while both Bowies manager and shared his bed, said: He was bisexual, but what he really was was a narcissist boys or girls, it was all the same. He was attracted to the gay subculture because he loved its flamboyance. But it was never his primary thing, and once the girls came flocking it didnt matter. Mysterious: Its hard to avoid the conclusion that while there may have been a large streak of the feminine in him, in his clothes, in his make-up (in every sense), for large parts of his life the feminist seems to have been entirely absent Family man: The final phase of his life, settled with Iman and their daughter in New York, monogamous, above all fulfilled, seems evidence that all those years of sexual cavorting, so seemingly liberating, were in reality a search for the peace of mind he finally found in the arms of one loving woman Indeed, in some respects, Bowie was oddly old-fashioned in his sexual outlook. One reason he broke up with his first wife Angie was that she refused to be the doting and devoted mother he expected her to be to their infant son Zowie, who was born in 1971, but had insisted on going off and doing her own thing. She left Zowie (later Joe, then Duncan, as he is now) to be brought up by a nanny. Bowie was appalled. Angie would later say: My main and powerful appeal to David was my potential as a nurse, cook, creative ally and business adviser. Another old flame recalled how he went out of his nut if kept waiting for food on the table or a clean shirt. He was also controlling in so many of his sexual encounters, calling the shots, deciding the play. Its hard to avoid the conclusion that while there may have been a large streak of the feminine in him, in his clothes, in his make-up (in every sense), for large parts of his life the feminist seems to have been entirely absent. And in the end, as the decades rolled by, it turned out that, at heart Bowie, the colourful defier of convention, was a family man after all. The final phase of his life, settled with Iman and their daughter in New York, monogamous, above all fulfilled, seems evidence that all those years of sexual cavorting, so seemingly liberating, were in reality a search for the peace of mind he finally found in the arms of one loving woman. His secret reunion with the middle class beauty who broke his heart By David Jones Amid the endless flow of words that streamed from David Bowies fathomless imagination, one hauntingly simple couplet always aroused speculation. Its a god-awful small affair, for the girl with the mousy hair, he sang in his 1971 hit, Life On Mars, a lament to a misunderstood teenager who storms out of her house after a row with her parents. Many assume he was writing about his first love, Hermione Farthingale, a beautiful dancer and actress who stole then broke his heart in 1969. Hermiones father was a well-heeled solicitor, and when his prim, 19-year-old daughter left home to live with Bowie, then just a would-be pop-star from a working-class family, he is said to have bitterly disapproved. Heartbreak: One theory is that, in his early 20s, Bowie loved deeply and lost and was scarred by it. She was a beautiful and clever ballerina by the name of Hermione Farthingale (pictured with Bowie), a girl as respectably middle-class and English rose as her name suggests Much to his relief, the romance lasted barely a year. When Hermione landed a part in the musical Song Of Norway, and went to Scandinavia to shoot the film, she jettisoned the cloyingly intense and serially unfaithful Bowie. Ironically, within a few months, Bowie was tapping into his angst with the songs that brought his fame; meanwhile, after landing a few more stage and screen roles, she slipped into obscurity. During the intervening 46 years, little has been heard of the statuesque, 5ft 10in Hermione, and unlike the countless Bowie acolytes and dubious friends who have emerged to pay homage to him since his death was announced earlier this week, she has maintained her silence. She is now a 66-year-old grandmother and this week I found her living in a small, terrace house in Bristol, where she supplements her pension by teaching yoga and Pilates, and selling her impressive artwork. He was a lovely, kind, original, sweet person of whom I was and still am incredibly fond, and that is how I will remember him. Hermione Farthingale Hermione had no wish to discuss her relationship with Bowie, she said, and certainly not now, with this whole wave of people desperately trying and wanting to be heard. Our time together was very precious and . . . its nobodys business except ours. She added: I have spent all these years not speaking about me and him, so why should I start now? I want to remain true to what he always appreciated about me, which was that I never spoke about him and never kissed and told. He was a lovely, kind, original, sweet person of whom I was and still am incredibly fond, and that is how I will remember him. She added, with a touch of hauteur: Im not interested in rock n roll as a form of music and Ive never liked the bling style which was Ziggy Stardust. David was an extraordinary songwriter and sometimes that gets lost behind the outrageous characters he created to sing them. When it was suggested that she was the girl in Life On Mars, she bristled with indignation. I have not got mousy hair and I have never had mousy hair, she sniffed. I am a redhead and thats what made David adopt his red hair. Doubtless Bowies first wife Angie, would not concur. She claims to have created the spikey red look of Ziggy Stardust. Whatever the truth, I have uncovered an intriguing, and touching denouement to the story of David and Hermione. She and Bowie secretly met again for the first time in three decades during the late Nineties, when he discovered she had attended his concert in Manchester and invited her backstage to reminisce. Loss: Hermione was not prepared to share him with other women, let alone men, and dropped him, while pursuing her own acting career. She is pictured here, with Tony Visconti They swapped fond messages as recently as 2013, after Bowie appeared in the video for his Where Are We Now single in a T-shirt with the words Song Of Norway. Bowies biographer and archivist Kevin Cann said this was pointed out to Hermione when she accepted an invitation to the opening of the David Bowie exhibition at the V&A Museum. Taking it to be Bowies way of reaching out to her, as he drew the threads of his chaotic life together, Cann says she used him as a conduit to send the singer a sweetly phrased note. Bowie would have been delighted to hear from her, the author says. But he was so afraid their resumed contact might leak out, hurting the feelings of his wife Iman, that it is doubtful that he ever told her. David adored Iman, and his marriage meant everything to him, Cann told me this week. The last thing he wanted was to do anything that might put it in jeopardy. By the same token, just to send a gentle, friendly message to someone who had meant so much to him would have been such a sweet, innocent thing. I dont think she ever really lost her love for David, just as Im sure that his affection for her remained undiminished Kevin Cann Bowie was a 21-year-old nonentity drifting between pop music and acting when he met Hermione on the set of a BBC drama called The Pistol Shot early in 1968. They were immediately infatuated and soon after set up home together, renting the top floor of a three-storey, Victorian house in South Kensington. Bowie later described it as the happiest time of his life. There was talk of marriage, yet Hermione had reservations not least because Bowie was an unreconstructed chauvinist who demanded his meals on the table and shirts ironed. More than that, however, she may not have been prepared to tolerate his rampant promiscuity. Then there was her artistic ambition, which was equal to his. So she left him, whereupon he retreated tearfully to his parents house in Bromley, Kent. The break-up saw him spiral dangerously into heavy cocaine abuse and ever-more casual sex. But many critics believe it was also the catalyst for his finest work, and it inspired several memorable songs, including the poignant Letter To Hermione. Bowie said later. Its what I wish Id said. I was in love with her and it took me months to get over it. Hermione took a very different path. During the mid-Seventies she married a leading academic, anthropologist Professor Stephen Frankel. They had two children, but the couple are no longer together. Kevin Cann said:I dont think she ever really lost her love for David, just as Im sure that his affection for her remained undiminished, the author told me. That was why he had that T-shirt specially made with its message to Hermione and why he was so touched to hear from her. He knew his time was finite, and now you look back on things, this was him saying goodbye. Moon's far hemisphere is never visible and has never been explored Yet to be built probe Chang'E 4 will make the voyage from Beijing Ascent is planned to go ahead in 2018 and will be the first of its kind China has begun working on a space mission to go where no man has travelled before - to the dark side of the moon. The first ascent of its kind is planned to go ahead in 2018, in the spaceship Chang'E 4 - named after the goddess of the moon in Chinese mythology - which is yet to be built, reports the People's Daily Online. The moon's far hemisphere - which is always in total darkness - is never directly visible from earth and has never been explored. The moon's far hemisphere is never directly visible from Earth and while it has been photographed, with the first images appearing in 1959, it has never been explored (stock image) China hopes to be the first country to get a new awareness of the early evolution of the moon, by exploring the back side of its crust (stock image) China hopes to be the first country to get a new awareness of the early evolution of the moon, by exploring the back side of its crust. Liu Zizhing, the deputy commander of the lunar exploration revealed yesterday that the probe is expected to achieve the first visit to the back of the moon in two years time, mainly carrying out patrolling surveys to detect whether satellites can be placed on the surface. He said: 'The implementation of the Chang'e-4 mission has helped our country make the leap from following to leading in the field of lunar exploration.' The Defense Science and Industry Office in the capital Beijing, has already organised relevant units to carry out follow-up demonstration lunar exploration missions, especially with Chang'E 4. A soft landing is expected on the moon. Beijing sees its military-run, multi-billion-dollar space programme as a marker of its rising global stature and mounting technical expertise. But so far, for the most part, it has replicated activities that the US and Soviet Union pioneered decades ago. Speaking to AFP, Clive Neal, chair of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group affiliated with NASA, confirmed that the Chang'e-4 mission was unprecedented. A model of a lunar rover known as The Yutu (above), or Jade Rabbit, seen on display at the China International Industry Fair in Shanghai, in 2013 He said: 'There has been no surface exploration of the far side. 'It is very different to the near side because of the biggest hole in the solar system - the South Pole-Aitken basin, which may have exposed mantle materials - and the thicker lunar crust.' The basin is the largest known impact crater in the solar system at nearly 2,500 kilometres wide and 13 kilometres deep. 'I am sure the international lunar science community will be very excited about this mission,' he told AFP, 'I know I am.' In 2013, China landed a rover dubbed Yutu on the moon, and the following year an unmanned probe completed its first return mission to the earth's only natural satellite. A large vehicle carrying gas tanks caught fire and exploded near two factories in Yuhang District, Hangzhou city, east China, setting them both on fire. The blast occurred around 7.05pm local time (11.05am GMT) on January 14, and firefighters were immediately dispatched to the scene, reports the Peoples Daily Online. So far one person has been reported to have died in the incident. The huge explosion which engulfed an area of 21,500 square feet was captured on camera by nearby villagers. Explosion: Blast in Hangzhou City was said to be caused by a truck which carried gas bottles and exploded Local residents filmed the blast caused by a gas truck exploding which could be seen for miles in Hangzhou. Eye witnesses said they heard over 20 different blasts, at first they thought it was fireworks The lorry was at the Junction of Liangzhu Street and Tongyun Road, when it caught fire, causing the gas tanks to explode. According to the Hangzhou fire department, the vehicle set fire to two nearby factories, causing more explosions. Chinese media reports that 29 fire engines were deployed to the blast site to fight the blaze. According to the report, witnesses in the area described a 'car bomb' igniting a factory called Winfoong Machinery, but this is yet to be confirmed. Many people said they heard the sound of the explosion and felt the vibrations from inside their homes, miles from the blast site. Man power: 29 fire engines were called to the scene of the explosion covering an area of 21,500 square feet Engulfed: The explosion was captured on video by local residents who said they could feel from their homes The fire was quickly under control and all of the workers inside the factory managed to escape, except one man who was found inside the building he later died in hospital. An amateur video taken of the blast shows huge red and orange flames bursting hundreds of feet into the air. A few moments later, there is a second blast followed by dense black smoke. A local resident said: From the beginning to the end I heard more than ten explosions. 'At the beginning it wasnt very loud. I just thought it was fireworks. Then the noise got louder and louder and there was an explosion every few seconds. The women believes she heard over 20 explosions. She added: The sound of the explosion became louder and louder, I got scared and my child started crying. I left everything and ran out with my child. Disaster: Witnesses in the area described a car bomb igniting a factory called Winfoong Machinery An amateur video taken of the blast shows huge red and orange flames bursting hundreds of feet into the air There has been no official confirmations of how many explosions occurred during the incident. Local authorities in the area held a press conference today to confirm they tested the area of the blast site, and there was no abnormal smells or poisonous gases in the air. China has seen several serious factory explosions over recent years. The most serious being in Tianjin on August 12 in a warehouse storing toxic waste. Advertisement The arid desert sands of Egypt are not the most likely of places to find whales. But dozens of fossilised remains of prehistoric ancestors of the giant sea mammals have emerged from the shifting sands of the Egyptian Sahara. Among them is an intact 37 million-year-old skeleton of a legged form of whale that measures more than 65 feet (20 metres) long. Dozens of fossilized whale bones have emerged from the Wati El Hitan in the Egyptian desert (pictured) and form the centre piece of a new museum that has been opened. Among them is an intact 37 million-year-old skeleton of a legged form of whale that measures more than 65 feet (20 metres) long The fossils are providing scientists with new insights into how modern-day whales evolved from land mammals. Officials have now officially opened a $2.17 billion (1.5 billion) museum in the Valley of the Whales, which is known as Wadi Al-Hitan. The area was once covered by a vast prehistoric ocean which has since vanished as sea levels have fallen and landmasses have moved. To protect many of the fossils they have now been covered in a sand-coloured dome-shaped building that forms the museum. The largest intact Basilosaurus isis whale fossil - an early formed of 'legged whale' - is one of the key attractions at the new Fossils and Climate Change Museum in Egypt's Valley of the Whales The largest intact Basulosaurus isis whale fossil was discovered in the shifting sands of the Egyptian desert. The $2.17 billion (1.5 billion) museum was built around the fossils to help protect and preserve them Fossilised remains from the fossils are exhibited in glass boxes while prehistoric tools which attest to the presence of stone-age humans in the area thousands of years ago. Gabriel Mikhail, architect of the new Fossils and Clmate Change Museum, said he had designed the building to it could blend in with its desert surroundings. He said: 'When you build something somewhere so beautiful and unique, it has to blend in with its surrounding ... or it would be a crime against nature. 'We are confident visitors will come,' THE WHALE SKELETON THAT REVEALS HOW MAN EVOLVED TO WALK ON TWO LEGS A whale that swam hundreds of miles up an African river after taking a wrong turn 17 million years ago is helping shed light on a key moment in human evolution. Palaeontologists discovered the fossilised remains of the ancient ancestor to modern beaked whales in the middle of one of the harshest desert areas of Turkana, Kenya. It has allowed scientists to pinpoint when the landscape in east Africa began to change as the land around the Great Rift Valley began to rise up. This was a crucial moment in human evolution from primates as it created the dry open habitats that led our ape-like ancestors to walk upright for the first time. They say that for the whale to have travelled so far inland in a river the area must have been much wetter, far flatter and dominated by forests. Professor Louis Jacobs, a vertebrate palaeontologist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas who led the study, said: 'The whale was stranded up river at a time when east Africa was at sea level and was covered with forest and jungle. 'As that part of the continent rose up, that caused the climate to become drier and drier. So over millions of years, forest gave way to grasslands. 'Primates evolved to adapt to grasslands and dry country. And that's when - in human evolution - the primates started to walk upright.' Advertisement Ministers in Egypt are hoping the new museum can help to revive the country's struggling tourism industry which has suffered due to the long running Islamic insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt's tourism industry suffered a further blow by the suspected terror bombing that brought down the Russian airliner over Sinai last October, killing all 224 people on board. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for that attack. A visitor views the largest intact Basulosaurus isis whale fossil (pictured), which is on display at the Wati El Hitan Fossils and Climate Change Museum on the opening day. The fossils have proved invaluable to palaeontologists as they try to piece together the evolutionary history of modern-day sea mammals The giant fossil is one of the most complete Basulosaurus isis whale fossil's to have been found. The species has earned the name 'walking whale' due to leg like limbs that are thought to have been a key evolutionary stage as whales evolved from land mammals Egyptian Army soldiers stand guard outside the Wati El Hitan Fossils and Climate Change Museum a UNESCO natural World Heritage site (pictured). The Egyptian authorities are hoping the new museum may help to reinvigorate the country's struggling tourism industry The sand-colored, dome-shaped museum is barely discernible in the breathtaking desert landscape that stretches all around (pictured) The fossilised whales in the desert include the large Basilosaurus and the smaller Dorudon. They are both thought to be early species of whale that help to chart how they evolved. But Environment Minister Khaled Fahmy cautioned against interpreting the museum's opening as a 'full endorsement of the theory of evolution,' which conflicts with Islam. 'That is an entirely different matter,' he said. 'We are still tied to our Islamic belief system.' Architects designed the museum to blend into the surrounding desert but it is also hoped it will help to protect the rare fossils The site where the fossils were found in the Egyptian Sahara (pictured) was once covered by ocean millions of years ago when these giant creatures would have ruled the seas The fossilised bones have lain preserved under the sand in Wadi El Hitan (pictured) for millions of years and give a rare insight into the creatures that lived there when it was covered by ocean millions of years ago when sea levels were higher Interstellar gas absorbs the light and re-emits it as infrared radiation The brightest object in the universe is in the process of boiling off its entire supply of gas and dust. For the first time, scientists have been able to peek inside the object, a quasar called W2246- 0526. Shooting out more light than 350 billion suns, its centre is so turbulent that it is exerting tremendous pressure on the stars surrounding it, say astronomers. Scroll down for video For the first time, scientists have been able to sneak a peek inside the brightest object in the universe, a quasar called W2246- 0526 (artist's impression illustrated). They say a huge black hole at its centre is causing the thick fog of gas and dust, which would normally be forming new stars, to boil off instead Quasars are found at the centre of galaxies, powered by supermassive black holes which shoot out jets of energy, exceeding the light of all the stars in their proximity. They are the brightest objects in the universe, outshining even the hottest burning stars. W2246-0526 is one of a small proportion of quasars classed as Hot, Dust-Obscured Galaxies, or Hot DOGs, and scientists have been able to study the movement of particles between the its surrounding stars. Astronomers, led by Dr Tanio Diaz-Santos, of the Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago, Chile, used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to get data on the goings on the quasar's surroundings. The findings are published in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters. THE BRIGHTEST OBJECT Astronomers used the ALMA telescope to peer inside the brightest object in the universe. W2246-0526 is a quasar which emits as much light as 350 billion suns. But all that light is absorbed by a haze of interstellar dust and remitted as infrared radiation. Its centre is so turbulent that the radiation could cause the galaxy's entire stock of star-forming gas to 'boil off'. Advertisement Large amounts of this interstellar material were found in an extremely turbulent and dynamic state, careening throughout the galaxy at around two million kilometres per hour, explained Dr Diaz-Santos. A closer look at the quasar revealed that its blinding brightness comes from a disk of super-heated gas swirling around a huge black hole at the centre of the galaxy. But the instead of escaping directly into the universe the light is absorbed by a thick fog of star-forming dust among the stars. This light is then re-emitted by the dust as infrared radiation. According to the researchers, this radiation makes the region surround the black hole 100 times brighter than the rest of the galaxy combined, and has a huge impact on the surrounding stars. We suspected that this galaxy was in a transformative stage of its life because of the enormous amount of infrared energy, said co-author Peter Eisenhardt, Project Scientist for WISE at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Quasars are found at the centre of galaxies, powered by supermassive black holes which shoot out jets of energy, exceeding the light of all the stars in their proximity. Stock image illustrates ULAS J1120+0641, the most distant quasar yet discovered ALMA has now shown us that the raging furnace in this galaxy is making the pot boil over, adds Roberto Assef, also from Universidad Diego Portales and leader of the ALMA observations. If things continue at the same intensity, the galaxy is in danger of boiling away. WHAT IS A QUASAR? All galaxies have a supermassive black hole at their cores. When the inflow of gas and dust to this black hole reaches a certain level, the event can cause a quasar to form - a superbright region as the material swirls around the black hole. They give off enormous amounts of energy, and can be a trillion times brighter than the sun. But they lasted only 10 to 100 million years on average, making them relatively tough to spot in galaxies that are several billion years old. Quasar stands for quasi-stellar radio source, and they are typically 3,260 light-years across. Advertisement The intense infrared radiation could cause the interstellar gas to dissipate and, say the researchers, data indicate that the gas is already being shed in all directions. If this pattern continues, it is possible that W2246 will eventually mature into a more traditional quasar, said Dr Manuel Aravena, from the Universidad Diego Portales and one of the authors. Only ALMA, with its unparalleled resolution, can allow us to see this object in high definition and fathom such an important episode in the life of this galaxy. The authors write: 'The system is unstable in terms of both the energy and momentum injected by the accreting super-massive black hole...' They add: 'This suggests that W2246- 0256 is near to bursting out of its dusty cocoon to become a powerful optically visible [quasar]. 'Our ALMA observations clearly reveal extreme conditions in the [inter-stellar medium] of the most luminous galaxy known, where the feedback from the powerful [active galactic nuclei] is having a strong impact on the evolution and fate of the entire galaxy.' The European Space Agency's new boss today elaborated on plans to build a village on the moon. For now, it is just an idea - called 'crazy' by some - but one that Jan Woerner said was being widely discussed as the end of the ISS looms large. The broad concept is a base for lunar exploration by humans and robots, potentially a stopover for spacecraft and possibly even a mining site. Scroll down for video The European Space Agency's new boss today elaborated on plans to build a village on the moon. For now, it is just an idea - called 'crazy' by some - but one that Jan Woerner said was being widely discussed as the end of the ISS looms large 'It's not to build some small houses over there and then to have a city hall and a church and whatever,' said Woerner, who took over as Esa director general last July. The Moon Village would have 'multiple uses and multiple users', he told journalists in Paris. 'Maybe one country is more interested in science, another may be a private company interested in mining... and another may be interested to use the Moon as a stepping stone for further exploration,' he explained. 'This is the overall scheme, and we are now discussing of course worldwide whether there is enough interest in that to go ahead with it,' said Woerner. The timing, he added, would be 'post-ISS'. The orbiting science station is a joint project of Europe, Canada, the United States, Japan and Russia. Esa scientists have been testing 3D-printing technology they say could be used on the moon. It was one of a number of proposals discussed at an international conference organised by Esa about returning humans to the lunar surface. A proposed lunar base is illustrated All members but the European Union have agreed to operate and finance the ISS to at least 2024. Woerner insisted today the ISS 'has its value' and said he hoped to convince member states that 'Esa should continue' its involvement in the project. Europe is currently committed until 2020. As for the future, 'I see the Moon Village as the ideal successor of the International Space Station for... exploration,' said Woerner. CHINA'S MISSION TO THE MOON DISCOVERS NEW TYPE OF ROCK A type of titanium-rich rock, never before seen by researchers, has been discovered on the surface of the moon. Samples of the unique basalt were gathered by the Chinese rover Jade-Rabbit and researchers have now studied the rock to learn more about the moon's volcanic surface. In particular, the rock contains a unique mixture of titanium dioxide and olivine, which makes it different from any of the samples returned by the Nasa Apollo missions. The unmanned Chang'e-3 probe and the Jade Rabbit rover touched down on a vast flat flood plain formed of a unique type of volcanic basalt. Analysis of the measurements the rover took while exploring the site have revealed the area formed surprisingly recently and may be among the youngest areas on the lunar surface. While the surface of the moon is largely thought to have been shaped by volcanic eruptions that took place some 3 to 4 billion years ago. But the unusual volcanic basalt rock discovered by the Chinese rover appears to be just 2.96 billion years old. It has been found to contain a unique mixture of minerals that has high levels of titanium dioxide and also another green mineral called olivine. Advertisement 'So far, there is no competitive proposal on the table.' Unlike the ISS, he explained, a lunar village required no 'formal decision' among countries. 'It is more an understanding of many nations to go together to the Moon.' What is important, however, is a discussion on the best location to settle. 'Is it the far side? Is it the near side? Is it the poles?' Once a spot is chosen, said Woerner, individual countries or space agencies will decide how they want to take part in the project. But who would take part? 'Russia has some lunar missions planned, so why not have them as part of the Moon Village?' asked Woerner, noting also that 'the Chinese are planning some lunar missions.' He also said he did not mind that some think his idea hare-brained. 'The word 'crazy' is exactly something I would like,' he said. 'We have to think out of the box. That means new ideas.' Woerner said he had mooted his idea at two space gatherings last year, in the US and in Israel, and 'I've had several organisations worldwide saying to me: 'How can we participate?'.' The scheme will come up in talks with the space agencies of the US, Japan, Canada and Russia in the coming weeks, on the future of the ISS. 'And we will have discussions with other countries and states worldwide,' said Woerner. 'We need an idea of where to go and what to do.' Earlier this month, Esa proposed using 3D printing technology to create a series of permanent structures using the lunar soil, known as regolith, which could used to house astronauts by 2030. Esa has begun to take a lead role in the push to establish a base on the moon after Nasa said it does not intend to be the lead in future manned missions on the lunar surface. Instead, the American space agency is focusing on sending humans to an asteroid and then on to the surface of Mars. Esa's D-Shape printer has been used to create prototype structures that could be used in a lunar base (pictured). It uses a mobile array of printing nozzles that spray a binding solution onto a sand-like material This 1.5 tonne building block was produced as a demonstration of 3D printing techniques using lunar soil Space exploration experts from around the world met in Noorwijk, the Netherlands, last month for the Esa-led international symposium entitled Moon 2020-2030: A New Era of Coordinated Human and Robotic Exploration. They discussed new technologies that could help to support human life on the moon including new space suits, habitats and ways of producing food. Some of these technologies, such as greenhouses being used to grow salad and other planets, are already being tested on the International Space Station. Laurent Pambaguian, from Esa's materials technology section, outlined technology his team have been testing to print construction blocks out of the lunar regolith. He added that 3D printers can produce between 6.5ft and 11ft (2 metres and 3.5 metres) of material an hour, meaning an entire structure could be produced in a week. By sending a robot capable of building structures from the lunar soil, it may be possible to have these in place in time for a manned mission to the moon. Speaking in the past about the 3D printing technology, Mr Pambaguian said: 'Terrestrial 3D printing technology has produced entire structures. Scientists also discussed a possible location for a base with astronomers favouring the far side of the moon as it would allow radio telescopes to peer into space without being effected by transmissions from Earth. A false colour image of the lunar surface is pictured 'Our industrial team investigated if it could similarly be employed to build a lunar habitat.' Artist's impressions of such a lunar base released by Esa have been compared to the underground buildings inhabited by the children's TV charactrers the Teletubbies. Scientists also discussed a possible location for a base with astronomers favouring the far side of the moon as it would allow radio telescopes to peer into space without being effected by transmissions from Earth. However, according to Space.com, Europe now appears to be leading the international efforts to put humans back on the moon. Kathy Laurini, Nasa's co-chair for the exploration roadmap working group who attended the symposium, said: 'The Esa space-exploration strategy sets the moon as a priority destination for humans on the way to Mars. 'The recent talk of a 'Moon Village' certainly has generated a lot of positive energy in Europe. 'The timing is right to get started on the capabilities which allow Europe to meet its exploration objectives and ensure it remains a strong partner as humans begin to explore the solar system.' Structures for a lunar base could be built by robots sent ahead of human astronauts. Experts said 3D printing technology can currently construct an entire building in around a week A set of tedious roadworks on a major trunk road is not the first place you would expect to find a Roman treasure trove. But that is exactly what workers on a 380 million upgrade to a 12 mile stretch of the A1 between Leeming Bar and Barton in Yorkshire have discovered. Archaeologists have now unearthed a staggering 177,000 artefacts from a Roman settlement dating back to 60AD that was on the site. Archaeologists have unearthed a haul of more than 177,000 Roman artefacts under the A1 in Yorkshire. The discoveries have been described as 're-writing history'. Pictured is Dr Elizabeth Foulds a selection of the treasures They have said the discovery is helping to rewrite history and providing new insights into life in Britain during the Roman occupation. And archaeologists have described the new discoveries as 're-writing history'. Among the finds to have been recovered are a rare Roman brooch and a decorative miniature sword. Archaeologists have also found the remnants of the town close to Scotch Corner, North Yorkshire, which could prove to be the earliest Roman settlement in the region. The Romans are thought to have only come to York a decade later than the settlement is thought to have been built. Dr Steve Sherlock, who has led the archeological project, said: 'We're effectively re-writing the history books, because we didn't know it was there or that there was anything so early. 'Conventional wisdom tells us that in AD71 the Romans came over the Humber and settled in places like York and near Boroughbridge - but this site is even earlier.' Dr Sherlock described discovering traces of timber buildings, glass vessels, beads and even remnants of crops as 'quite spectacular'. Among the finds to have been recovered is a rare Roman brooch (pictured) which would have been worn by Roman settlers in the area almost 2000 years ago Archaeologist Dr Elizabeth Foulds holds a Roman glass bead The Romans are thought to have only come to York a decade later than the settlement is thought to have been built. The dig site revealed ornamental as well as functional objects, such as this ornamental sword (pictured) Over the past two years, over 60 archaeologists have been working along the old Roman route known as the Great North Road, which ran adjacent to the current A1. Among the finds are a vase (pictured left) as well as a mortarium (pictured right), which would have been used to grind and mix foods He said: 'We didn't just find one building, but a sequence of buildings going back hundreds of years, that nobody knew existed. 'We can understand the impact of the site because of the amount of time it was occupied - over 300 years.' Over the past two years, over 60 archaeologists have been working along the old Roman route known as the Great North Road, which ran adjacent to the current A1. Dr Sherlock explained that, although they expected to find Roman deposits the 'quality, quantity and extent went beyond expectations'. Further discoveries have also been made at Catterick, North Yorks., which was occupied by the Romans around AD80. Some of the larger pottery pieces were from broken vessels, such as large jugs for carrying olive oil (pictured) Dr Steve Sherlock (pictured), who led the archeological project, said: 'We're effectively re-writing the history books, because we didn't know it was there or that there was anything so early' WHAT DID THE ROMANS EVER DO FOR US - SPREAD PARASITES The Romans are well known for introducing sanitation technology to Europe around 2,000 years ago. Breakthroughs include public multi-seat latrines with washing facilities, sewerage systems, piped drinking water from aqueducts, and heated public baths for washing along with laws designed to keep their towns free of excrement and rubbish. However, new research has found the number of intestinal parasites such as whipworm, roundworm and Entamoeba histolytica dysentery did not decrease as expected in Roman times - and actually increased from Iron age levels. The study is the first to use the archaeological evidence for parasites in Roman times to assess 'the health consequences of conquering an empire'. The latest research was conducted by Dr Piers Mitchell from Cambridge's Archaeology and Anthropology Department and is published today in the journal Parasitology. Dr Piers Mitchell brought together evidence of parasites in ancient latrines, human burials and 'coprolites' - or fossilised faeces - as well as in combs and textiles from numerous Roman Period excavations across the Roman Empire. Not only did certain intestinal parasites appear to increase in prevalence with the coming of the Romans, but Mitchell also found that, despite their famous culture of regular bathing, 'ectoparasites' such as lice and fleas were just as widespread among Romans as in Viking and medieval populations, where bathing was not widely practiced. Advertisement Here a Roman town called Bainesse, just south of Catterick, has previously been found and much knowledge has now been gained following the excavation of a cemetery with 246 burials dating back to the first and third century. Some people were buried with pots, beads, jewellery and even hob nail boots. The bones will now be analysed to determined their age, sex and cause of death which archaeologists hope will reveal a number of exciting things. The team are due to leave Catterick later this month but will continue to study and verify the findings - some of which will go to the York Museum Trust. Dr Hannah Russ, from Northern Archaeological Associates, said: 'The quality and preservation of the artefacts and environmental remains from this scheme is outstanding.' The U.S. Air Force is shelving plans to retire the aging A-10 'Warthog' aircraft, a heavily armored tank killer, because of its role in the fight against Islamic State. The 40-year-old ground attack aircraft is popular with soldiers, Marines - and some U.S. lawmakers. Defense One quoted the Air Force officials as saying that, while the A-10 would still need to be retired, the service would put aside immediate plans to take it out of service because of the important role it is playing in combating Islamic State. Due to its armour, the slow-moving A-10 can withstand ground fire while loitering for long periods over a battlefield. THE WARTHOG'S ARMOUR Due to its armor, the slow-moving A-10 can withstand ground fire while loitering for long periods over a battlefield, spraying 30mm armor-piercing, depleted-uranium cannon rounds at tanks and other targets. The A-10 'Tank Killer' munitions include 250 pound iron bombs, ALQ-131 electronic jamming pod, 2.75 inch Zuni rockets, AGM-65D Maverick missiles, and a 30mm cannon mounted in the nose. Advertisement Due to its armor, the slow-moving A-10 can withstand ground fire while loitering for long periods over a battlefield, spraying 30mm armor-piercing, depleted-uranium cannon rounds at tanks and other targets. The A-10 'Tank Killer' munitions include 250 pound iron bombs, ALQ-131 electronic jamming pod, 2.75 inch Zuni rockets, AGM-65D Maverick missiles, and a 30mm cannon mounted in the nose. Influential U.S. Senator John McCain welcomed the news. 'Today, the A-10 fleet is playing an indispensable role in the fight against ISIL in Iraq and assisting NATO's efforts to deter Russian aggression in Eastern Europe,' McCain, the who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement, using an acronym for Islamic State. The Arizona senator, a former U.S. Navy pilot, and other lawmakers have previously vowed to save the A-10. 'With growing global chaos and turmoil on the rise, we simply cannot afford to prematurely retire the best close air support weapon in our arsenal without fielding a proper replacement,' McCain added. An Air Force spokeswoman said there was 'no information at this time' on plans to delay the A-10's retirement and said details on the fiscal year 2017 budget would be released in February. The government has spent nearly $400billion on the updated models. They are also being purchased by NATO allies including the UK, Italy, Australia, Canada and Turkey. A U.S. Air Force A-10A Warthog, from the 52nd Fighter Wing, 81st Fighter Squadron. The Air Force has been seeking to retire the 'Warthog' to save money and free up people to learn how to maintain the new F-35 joint strike fighter. The A-10 was produced by Fairchild Republic Company, now a unit of Northrop Grumman Corp. She initially flew to the Philippines for a six week long holiday but stayed for three months after meeting the puppy met Buddy the mongrel, who was living beneath an old police car, while visiting Boracay in July 2015 Advertisement A tourist who fell in love with a homeless pooch in the Philippines has flown him home to Germany. Emmy Karnot initially headed to Boracay for a six week holiday in July, but she was soon sniffed out by Buddy the mongrel, who at the time was only six weeks old. Unable to leave the pup after forming a powerful bond, Karnot decided to stay for three more months in the country and officially start the adoption request for the sand-coloured dog. Karnot first met Buddy when he was shown to her by a policeman, who told her that the six-week-old puppy had been born beneath a car The duo soon became inseparable and Karnot started to introduce the sand-coloured pup to the beach, where he was taught to swim Karnot is pictured holding the puppy, who she named Buddy because he became her travelling companion, as she helps him to swim The inseparable pair first met when Karnot headed to Pukabeach to speak with officers about possibly holding a bonfire there for her upcoming birthday. As she walked along the beach with a police officer from a local station she said that he stopped to show her two recently born puppies living beneath an old police car. After playing with one of the dogs for half an hour, Karnot decided to go home. However the police officer then proceeded to pick up one of the puppies and hand him to the traveller as a 'birthday present'. Karnot said that after seeing Buddy under the car, the police officer then picked him up and handed him to her as a 'birthday present' Writing on Facebook, she said that her only concern was raising Buddy incorrectly, 'because I never had a dog before' Since his adoption, Buddy has been learning to surf, met swans, celebrated Christmas and has even felt snow on his paws for the first time Writing on Facebook, she said: 'He said to me "happy birthday" and my only thought was [what] if I do everything wrong, because I never had a dog before. [But I thought] if he stays with me, it's better than there. So I accepted his present and adopted Buddy, he was so small.' Despite the process being 'complicated and expensive', the keen traveller said although at times she was tempted, she did not give up. Since his adoption, Buddy has been learning to surf, met swans, celebrated Christmas and has even felt snow on his paws for the first time. Despite the adoption process being 'complicated and expensive', the traveller said although at times she was tempted, she did not give up Karnot shared her story on Facebook and it has since been liked more than 12,000 times and shared 3,800 times Karnot said: 'With the help of my friends we arrived happily together six weeks ago in Germany. I couldn't leave him I love this little guy' Karnot shared her story on Facebook and it has since been liked more than 12,000 times and shared 3,800 times. She added: 'It was so complicated and expensive to get all the papers he [needs] for Germany sometimes I was so close to [giving] up. 'But with the help of my friends we arrived happily together six weeks ago in Germany. I couldn't leave him I love this little guy so much.' The keen traveller paid to stay an extra three months in the Philippines after spending six weeks with the young puppy They formed a strong bond and are now living happily together back home in Germany, where Karnot said he is adjusting to the weather Karnot met Buddy - pictured at home in Germany - after heading to Pukabeach to speak about possibly holding a bonfire for her birthday Advertisement Montenegros government has greenlit plans to transform a former World War II concentration camp into a luxury beach resort with a nightclub, spa and restaurants. The decision has been met with anger from families of those who were imprisoned on Mamula Island while it was occupied by Italian forces under the rule of fascist leader Benito Mussolini. With the goal of transforming the rocky island into a retreat for wealthy clientele, renderings show a restored fortress with an overflow pool and palm trees, VIP area, outdoor dining, a beach club, a marina for superyachts, and a dance floor for parties. This rendering shows an aerial view of what the luxury beach resort on Mamula Island is intended to look like once it is complete There are plans for outdoor dining spaces, plus a large overflow pool that will be surrounded by palm trees at the restored fortress This week, Montenegros government approved plans to transform the former concentration camp into a luxury beach resort Located near Montenegros border with Croatia, the island is dominated by a fort that was built in 1853 under Austro-Hungarian rule This image from Google Earth shows an aerial view of Mamula Island and its 19th century fortress in its current state Located near Montenegros border with Croatia, the circular island, also known as Lastavica, is in the Adriatic Sea at the entrance of the Bay of Kotor. It is dominated by a fort that was built in 1853 under Austro-Hungarian rule to prevent a naval attack. Today, the island is uninhabited and the fortress is unused, but it was the scene of unspeakable horrors during the war, when it was converted into a concentration camp that held more than 2,000 people. Dozens of prisoners were tortured and killed, while others died of starvation. In an attempt to capitalise on interest from tourists, Montenegros government advertised it as an investment opportunity in December 2013 and last year agreed a 49-year lease deal with Switzerland-based Orascom Development Holding AG. At the time, the government said the 15million (11million) project would create 200 jobs. This space is intended as an outdoor dance floor and bar. Dozens of prisoners were tortured and killed, while others died of starvation Families of locals who were imprisoned at the concentration camp during World War II have been angered by the restoration plans The circular island, also known as Lastavica, is located in the Adriatic Sea at the entrance of the Bay of Kotor The deal was approved this week, paving the way for the island to be transformed into a four- or five-star resort. A report by Balkan Insight said the plans have angered families of locals who were imprisoned on the island. They urged the government to reconsider, but their appeals were ignored. Before the tender was awarded, Montenegro said any development would have to comply with conservation requirements and require government approval, as the island is protected as a cultural monument. Developers were told they would have to preserve and protect the basic form of the structure, layout and inscriptions on the facade while maintaining the cultural and historical character of the fort and the natural environment. Billionaire Samih Sawiris, chief executive and board chairman of Orascom, previously said the resort would include a museum, Balkan Insight reported, but renderings and a map on the projects website make no mention of one. MailOnline Travel has contacted Orascom for comment. Montenegro said any development would have to comply with conservation requirements and require government approval Holidaymakers will be able to access the rocky island via a marina that will be able to accommodate luxury yachts Climbers are being encouraged to carry poo pots when they scale one of New Zealands famous peaks after officials grew tired of its trails and sacred summit being used as toilets. Human waste has become such a problem on Mount Taranaki that the Department of Conservation and Maori people want a law that forces visitors to bag their own waste and carry it down with them. Excrement cannot be buried in the dormant volcano's rocky terrain and it does not break down at such a high altitude. Maori people want new rules that force climbers to bag their own waste and carry it down with them Climbers have nowhere to do their business during the five-hour climb because building a toilet on the 8,261ft mountain has been ruled out. Mount Taranaki has cultural significance for Maori people, who regard it as a living ancestor and consider its summit to be sacred, 3News reported. But it is being fouled by visitors who are unable to hold it in before they reach the bottom of the protected mountain in Egmont National Park on North Island. Visitors have been told to bring their own bags or containers such as poo pots, which are sold for NZD$6 (2.70 or USD$3.85) by the New Zealand Alpine Club. Signs in Lastres, Spain, order people not to defecate at the side of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route Climbers who spoke to 3News doubted visitors will actually bother to bin their own waste, with one comparing it to bagging their dogs poo. Climbing expert Rob Needs said the mountain has a problem with uneducated climbers. He added: Environmental education regarding the toileting behaviour and a cultural education [are needed], he said. Similar problems have been reported at popular natural tourist attractions around the world. In Spain, signs have been posted on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route telling visitors not to stop for a bathroom break at the side of the route. Baudoux's Facebook thank you note to Jetstar has been liked 28,000 times A mother has posted a heartfelt note to the airline Jetstar for the understanding and care shown by its staff after her autistic son became too frightened to fly. Shelley Baudoux was trying to fly from Melbourne Airport to see her father in Launceston, Tasmania, but her 10-year-old son, Corey, became too scared to board the flight, which had to depart without them. Baudoux, who was also travelling with her nine-year-old daughter, was eventually forced to abandon the trip after Corey refused to board the next departure. Jetstar's staff showed such compassion during the ordeal - the pilot even came out to talk to Corey - that she posted a thank you note to its Facebook page which has been shared over 1,600 times and liked 28,000 times. This is the note that mother Shelley Baudoux wrote on the Jetstar Facebook page commending the way they helped with her son's autism Ms Baudoux has praised Jetstar after her autistic son found it too difficult to board a plane in Melbourne As the group were preparing to board their booked flight, Corey became agitated and would not walk out onto the tarmac to enter the aircraft. On the posting, Ms Baudoux writes: 'The staff there, two dark-haired hostesses were very helpful trying to help me and a ground control man named Glen even came and spoke to my son and offered to let him wear his jacket and coax him onto the plane.' Sadly for the family, Corey was unable to board, and so the family were told by Jetstar staff that they would try and accommodate them on the next flight out. However, Corey's stress and agitation remained, and the same situation played out again - he was 'very distressed and upset,' wrote Ms Baudoux. But once again, she highlighted the understanding and efforts of the airline staff in the situation. She wrote: 'Again the staff went above and beyond to try and help get him on the plane. They didn't rush us, gave us plenty of time to talk him through it and were there every step of the way for me, my daughter and my son. 'Then the pilot, Cameron, took the time to come out, chat to my son and offer for him to take a seat in the cockpit once we arrived in Launceston. 'I was totally blown away with their understanding, help and encouragement.' The mother-of-two goes on to explain that despite the hold-ups, at no point was she made to feel rushed or pressurised by airline staff. She describes how one 'blonde haired hostess', took time out of her schedule to stay with the family after the decision was made to cancel their trip. 'She stayed with us the whole time,' adds Ms Baudoux. 'She offered to take my daughter to Tasmania herself, but that wasn't an option. She came and took our boarding passes and assured us we would get a full refund.' The hostess bought a lemonade for Corey in the terminal, which his mother says is 'his favourite.' Sadly for the Baudoux family, they were forced to cancel their Jetstar flight bookings Jetstar replied: 'Thanks for taking the time to share your experience with us. I'm glad to to hear that our team were able to assist you with sensitivity and care. We work really hard to offer excellent customer service at every interaction, and it's very rewarding for our team to be acknowledged by our customers to let them know what they're getting right. 'I can assure you that I've already passed on your kind words to our team at Melbourne airport and their managers. I know they'll appreciate you contacting us. 'I hope that you can get to Tassie to visit your family and we look foward to welcoming you all on board soon.' Speaking to MailOnline Travel, Daniel Cadey, autism access development manager at the National Autistic Society in the UK said: 'It's extremely heartening to hear stories like these, where staff transform a potentially stressful situation for autistic people and their families, simply by showing compassion and understanding. 'Flying can be difficult for many autistic people. This could be due to sensory sensitivity, which means that strong smells or bright lights on planes can be physically painful. Also, many autistic people rely on routines to navigate what can be a confusing and unpredictable world and unfamiliar environments, like airports and planes, can cause them extreme anxiety. 'At the National Autistic Society, we know that a little bit of understanding can make all the difference, as JetStar's kind actions did for Shelley Baudoux. We have been working with airports in the UK to increase their understanding of autism and bring in small, helpful changes, such as clearer signage, increased staff understanding of autism, and providing clear information on their websites to help people prepare for their trip. 'We all expect to be able to take a plane for our holidays or business and it's important that airports and airlines know what they can do to make flying as easy as possible for people on the autism spectrum and their families.' Never play chicken with a moose, slow down for waitresses balancing coffee and remember dung beetles have right of way. These are just some of the warnings and alerts that appear on road signs popping up around the world in countries including Canada, Costa Rica and Germany, according to a new infographic. Not allowing a penguin to cross the road in New Zealand or failing to slow down for a waiting crab in Japan may leave you with an awkward visit from the authorities but have no fear as this guide will introduce you to the latest safety signs worldwide that travellers should really get to know. 'Funny warning signs regarding mosquito abductions have been popping up in Alaska The colourful infographic, which was created by travel company Netflights, takes a look at the signs that may cause an issue for visitors to the country theyre in if theyre not aware of their meaning, including the image of a smashed up car and a moose that appears on roadsides in Canada. Not only is this sign warning road users to watch out for the animals, and not to play chicken with them. Driving your car at a moose in a bid to scare it away is more than likely going to end up with the car severely damaged when the animal charges back. In the US, funny warning signs regarding mosquito abductions have been popping up. The giant mosquito is unofficially considered in Alaska as a state bird, and these tongue-in-cheek warnings are there to warn people that they may be carried off by one of the insects, according to the infographic. And in Costa Rica, there are road signs to help slow-moving sloths cross the roads safely. Safety signs in Germany warn road users to watch out for waitresses, who regularly cross the road with coffee It's doors shut, windows up signs that fill the roads in South Africa, the infographic reveals. These warnings alert drivers to be vigilant of hairy hitch-hikers who may just jump into their car - and by hitch-hikers they mean baboons. So if it's too hot, put on the air conditioning. In Germany, meanwhile, there are safety signs that warn road users to watch out for waitresses, who regularly cross the road with coffee. In Australia and New Zealand, very different alerts are needed - for kangaroos and penguins. Janet Jackson has rescheduled concerts she had previously cancelled in a new sign of her solid recovery from a mystery illness. The singer announced on her website on Thursday that she would restart her tour on March 30 in Birmingham, England, which was already set to be the first date on her European leg. The pop superstar had announced on Christmas Eve that she was postponing a number of shows because she needed an urgent operation on which she declined to elaborate. Scroll down for video Getting back on track: Janet Jackson, pictured performing on June 24, 2011, confirmed that she would restart her tour on March 30 in Birmingham, England Earlier this month she denied rumours she was battling throat cancer. She told fans in an Instagram message that she was 'recovering' but didn't reveal the nature of her condition. 'The rumors are untrue. I do not have cancer. I'm recovering,' she wrote on January 7. Her postponed North American dates, which had been due to take place from January through March, will now come after the European leg. Mystery illness: The singer denied having cancer earlier this month. She told fans in an Instagram message that she was 'recovering' but didn't reveal the nature of her condition Her last date will now be in Cleveland on August 28, almost a year after she started the Unbreakable tour in Vancouver. Jackson wrote on Twitter that she was unable to find a new time for her show in Lexington, Kentucky, due to remodeling at the venue. Jackson had temporarily retreated from the public eye after her brother Michael died in 2009 but returned two years later with a global tour. He is awaiting trial after photographs were allegedly found on his computer of children under the age of 10 in sexual situations. But life seemed to be going on as normal for Glee star Mark Salling after he was spotted running errands in Los Angeles on Thursday. The 33-year-old was looking downbeat as he left a bank in the Sunland area of the city. Running errands: Glee star Mark Salling was spotted running errands in Los Angeles on Thursday as he awaits trial on child porn charges Salling, who was was freed on bail after being arrested on child pornography on December 29, was dressed in camouflage trousers, a grey shirt and black sandals. The actor shot to fame playing Noah 'Puck' Puckerman in the hit FOX series Glee. He first appeared in 2008 and was a regular until season five. Police seized all of Salling's electronic devices in their raid of his home executed by the LAPD's internet Crimes Against Children Task Force unit. It was revealed two weeks ago that a search of Salling's computer has allegedly yielded pornographic images depicting children under the age of ten. Low key: He was wearing camouflage trousers, a grey shirt and black sandals Seized: All of his electronic devices were taken after the LAPD's internet Crimes Against Children Task Force unit raided his home Authorities said they found in all more than a thousand images depicting children in sexual situations, among them kids younger than age 10. Lt. Andrea Grossman, of the LAPD, described some of the lewd images depicting grade school-aged girls as 'disturbing', reported the New York Daily News. Possession of more than 600 images can carry a punishment of up to five years in prison. TMZ's sources said police were '100 percent' certain they would find child pornography in Salling's home based on a tip they had received from his ex-girlfriend and additional evidence. The allegations were first reported by Crime Watch Daily. They said police used battering rams to get into the house because he refused to let them in at first. Shock: Investigators described some of the lewd images depicting grade school-aged girls as 'disturbing' Previous problems: He allegedly reached a $2.7million settlement with a woman who had sued him for sexual battery The arrest was not the Salling's first brush with the law. In March he allegedly reached a $2.7million settlement with a woman who had sued him for sexual battery. In 2011, Roxanne Gorzela claimed he forced her to have unprotected sex and then when she confronted him several days later, he pushed her to the ground injuring her knees. It was reported that the case was settled midway through trial after Gorzela dropped the sexual battery claim. Salling admitted to negligently causing her to fall and injure herself. She is not believed to have been the woman who tipped off the authorities. Not slowing down: He was spotted leaving a gym in Los Angeles last week She was famously booted from The Bachelor mansion on the first night, lasting just one episode of the hit reality series. But now it looks like Zilda Williams could get a second chance at love, with sources revealing to the Daily Mail Australia that the international glamour model has applied to appear on season two of The Bachelor New Zealand. The 32-year-old was born in New Zealand, but later relocated to the Gold Coast for her modelling career - which led to her gracing the pages of Zoo magazine, FHM, and Maxim. Scroll down for video Back for more? The Bachelor's Zilda Williams is rumoured to have applied to go on the Kiwi version of The Bachelor Daily Mail Australia reached out to Media Works, the production company behind the series, but a rep could neither confirm nor deny the busty blonde's participation in the upcoming series. 'We are still finalising our Bachelorettes so unfortunately I am unable to answer whether Zilda will appear in the next season of The Bachelor NZ,' they revealed. The rep added: 'Our Bachelorettes will be revealed in the first episode of the show which will air in the first half of the year. Filming is yet to start for Season 2.' Keeping quiet: 'We are still finalising our Bachelorettes so unfortunately I am unable to answer whether Zilda will appear in the next season of The Bachelor NZ,' revealed a rep for the reality series Right at home: The New Zealand-born glamour model would fit right in with the glamorous and diverse ladies of The Bachelor NZ Coming soon! 'Our Bachelorettes will be revealed in the first episode of the show which will air in the first half of the year,' added a rep from Media Works Zilda also declined to comment when contacted by the Daily Mail Australia. Reality TV contestants usually have to sign ironclad confidentiality contracts before filming even begins, and can be removed from a show - or even sued - if they break the agreement. Despite getting off to a slow start in the ratings, The Bachelor NZ eventually turned things around and become one of the biggest hits of last year by the time the series aired its final episode. The dating competition was best known for an embarrassing viral moment which saw yoga teacher Poppy pass wind on her first date with Bachelor Art Green. Awkward! The Bachelor NZ made headlines after Bachelorette Poppy farted on her first date with Art Green A happy ending: Despite his windy experience, health food entrepreneur Art Green was able to find love with blonde beauty Matilda Rice The Australian version of the show experienced a similar level of success last year, but Zilda was given the boot by Bachelor Sam Wood on the first episode of season three. The voluptuous blonde was left heartbroken after her early ousting, writing on social media at the time that Sam 'judged a book by its cover' before adding: 'He will never know the real Zilda.' Daily Mail Australia spoke to Zilda about her experience on the show earlier this week, with the Kiwi-born beauty vowing not to give up on love after being told by celebrity psychic Harry T that romance was in her future. 'He judged a book by its cover:' The 32-year-old stunner was upset that Aussie Bachelor Sam Wood didn't give her a fair chance on the show 'He will never know the real Zilda,' the voluptuous blonde revealed at the time, who has since gone on to become close friends with several Bachelors and Bachelorettes No sour grapes here: Despite her early exit, Zilda still encouraged viewers to support the 'amazing girls' on the reality show 'I'm not giving up on love, I told a reputable medium psychic called Harry T that I had a premonition that I met my soul mate this year and I said to him 'Is it a premonition, or is it wishful thinking?' 'He said it's not a premonition and told me this is my year. I got booted off after one day on The Bachelor and people didn't see the real me.' She added: 'I feel like I've got a bit of the short end of the stick with The Bachelor... I'm much different to what people think when they look at me.' Perhaps in an effort to prepare for a possible placement on The Bachelor NZ, Zilda was spotted this week having her luscious blonde locks treated by celebrity hairdresser Christopher Hanna, who has previously worked with Nicole Kidman and Jessica Mauboy. 'I'm not giving up on love, I told a reputable medium psychic called Harry T that I had a premonition that I met my soul mate this year,' Zilda told the Daily Mail Australia 'I feel like I've got a bit of the short end of the stick with The Bachelor... I'm much different to what people think when they look at me,' said the Zoo centerfold She was also seen inspecting Botox treatments outside a cosmetic surgery clinic, and is often photographed working out or wearing waist-trainers in a bid to keep her famous curves camera ready. Since her brief stint on The Bachelor, Zilda has undergone a dramatic physical transformation. Not only did she cut her long blonde locks into a shorter, more sophisticated style, she also downsized her enormous FF implants to a more modest set of DDs. 'I no longer get stared at and men are seeing me for who I really am,' she told the DMA this week. 'It fantastic not waking up with back pain anymore and I can't wait to exercise properly once I am healed,' she added. Total transformation! Since leaving The Bachelor the curvaceous bombshell has cut her long blonde locks and downsized her huge FF implants to a far more modest set of DDs 'It fantastic not waking up with back pain anymore and I can't wait to exercise properly once I am healed,' Zilda told the Daily Mail Australia In his role as smooth-talking plastic surgeon Christian Troy on TV drama Nip/Tuck, he helped many fictional patients reclaim their youthful looks. But it appears 47-year-old Julian McMahon doesn't need to worry about getting older, because by the looks of it he has hardly aged in the 10 years since his U.S. television heyday. During a recent press event for his upcoming Syfy series Hunters in Los Angeles County, the Sydney-born actor looked remarkably wrinkle-free and young beyond his years. Spot the difference: Julian McMahon, 47, smiled for the cameras at the NBCUniversal Press Tour in Los Angeles on Wednesday - looking even younger than he did at a Nip/Tuck-related event from 2005 Youthful: The Sydney-born Nip/Tuck star looked remarkably wrinkle-free and youthful beyond his years at a promotional event for his upcoming Syfy series Hunters in Pasadena, California Julian, the son of former Prime Minister of Australia Sir William McMahon wore a stylish silver pinstripe suit while participating in a cast and crew panel in Pasadena, California on Thursday. The crop-haired actor completed his dapper look with a white shirt, left partially unbuttoned. His appearance this week is particularly notable because it would seem the former Home and Away star has miraculously reversed the ageing process. Age-defying: It would seem Julian has miraculously reversed the ageing process, as the actor looks almost identical today as he did when this red carpet photo was taken at Nip/Tuck's season four L.A. premiere in 2006 Middle aged Julian looks almost identical to photographs taken over decade ago, during his days on hit shows Nip/Tuck and Charmed. Posing for a red carpet photo at the Los Angeles premiere of Nip/Tuck's fourth series back in 2006, it is remarkable how little difference 10 years has made to Julian's physical appearance. Meanwhile, a picture from the NBCUniversal Press Tour in California, taken on Wednesday, provides an even more dramatic contrast. Posing at the Langham Huntington Hotel and Spa this week, Julian looks even younger than he did at a Nip/Tuck-related event held in 2005. Latest role: Julian discusses his upcoming TV series Hunter at an LA press event on Thursday, accompanied by his glamourous co-star Britne Oldford, 23. Last year, Deadline reported that Julian had booked a recurring role in Hunters, Syfy's 13-episode alien drama. The show is based on Whitley Strieber's novel series Alien Hunter and is slated to debut in the U.S. in April this year. Julian, who was previously married to Dannii Minogue, rose to prominence on Home and Away, playing the soldier Ben Lucini between 1989 and 1991. After several other major TV roles - including a regular role in Charmed - he achieved international fame playing plastic surgeon Dr. Christian Troy on FX series Nip/Tuck between 2003 and 2010. He was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, Television Series Drama in 2004, but lost out to Ian McShane in HBO's Deadwood. They're due to be separated any day now for over two months. So Michelle Keegan and Mark Wright are making sure they spend plenty of quality time together before the actress flies to South Africa to film her BBC drama Our Girl. The married couple hit Cineworld Sheffield on Thursday for the VIP Experience launch night, which included a feast of junk food. Scroll down for video Date night: Michelle Keegan and Mark Wright hit Cineworld Sheffield on Thursday for the VIP Experience launch night, which included a feast of junk food Michelle shared an Instagram snap from the fun night out showing the couple tucking into nachos and popcorn before their film started. The former Coronation Street star captioned the snap: 'Date night tonight in @cineworld Sheffield checking out the new #cineworldvip experience! Food and drink overload! @wrighty_' Michelle dressed down for the low-key evening, keeping warm in the freezing temperatures in a cosy printed cardigan layered over a black roll-neck and skinny jeans. Just the two of us: The couple, who have been married for eight months, enjoyed a low key date night at the event The usually glam star swapped her heels for trainers and pulled her long locks into a half up-do. Mark meanwhile was smart in a khaki jacket, while he showed off his geek chic glasses. The couple are cramming in some final date nights before Michelle heads to South Africa in the next two weeks for filming. Michelle and Mark, both 28, spent last Friday marking the passing of Mark's grandmother Nanny Pat at her Essex funeral, but the former Coronation Street actress is due to commence BBC drama Our Girl this month. Michelle has been by the side of her husband-of-eight months since the 80-year-old passed away just before Christmas. Keeping cosy: Michelle dressed down for the low-key evening in a cosy printed cardigan layered over a black roll-neck But she signed on for the leading BBC war drama in June 2015, replacing Lacey Turner's Molly Dawes in the leading role of Corporal Georgie Lane, not long after the couple's lavish wedding ceremony. Her commitment includes two months of intensive filming away from home in South Africa, which she has already anticipated to be hard, as well as rigorous training to get into shape. She previously told Reveal magazine: 'It's definitely going to be difficult. But it's my job, so I have to be focused.' Mark has commitments in the UK to his Heart FM radio show, as well as Take Me Out's ITV2 spin-off The Gossip, alongside Laura Jackson. He has promised that he will go over to visit when he can, telling Star magazine: 'If I get a free week, for sure [I'll go over]. I'm on Heart Radio twice a week, so I can't be there the whole time, but I'll get over as much as I can.' She has been on a gruelling promotional trail ever since she was crowned Queen of the Jungle. And it appears as if her busy schedule has finally taken its toll, as Vicky Pattison was seen unleashing a large yawn as she stepped out in Liverpool on Thursday evening. The Geordie Shore babe, 28, still however, managed to cut a stylish figure as she made her way along the streets before making an appearance at Garlands nightclub. Scroll down for video Feeling sleepy? Vicky Pattison was seen unleashing a large yawn as she stepped out in Liverpool on Thursday Turning heads as she passed, the TV beauty dressed her lean and slender frame in a chic all-black ensemble, consisting of tight trousers, a fitted blouse and a warm coat. Toting her belongings in a classy leather holdall, Vicky appeared to be in perfectly relaxed and content spirits during the outing. She amped up the glam factor by accentuating her pretty facial features with lashings of mascara, bronzed cheekbones and plush pink lips, while her tresses were worn in loose curls. Looking fine: The Geordie Shore babe still however, managed to cut a stylish figure as she made her way along the streets before making an appearance at Garlands nightclub Chilled vibes: The 28-year-old appeared tired as she made her way along the footpath Moments later, the brunette beauty tweeted: Just arrived in Liverpool and literally cannot wait to hit @GarlandsBedlam tonight!!! PROPER TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE! Her sighting comes soon after her recent Loose Women presenting debut, which was praised by her fans, especially those comparing her to Katie Price, who didn't fare so well on the show. Speaking to The Sun newspaper, an ITV source said: 'Vicky won I'm A Celeb by a landslide so everyone knows she is popular, especially with a younger audience. Turning heads: The TV beauty dressed her lean and slender frame in a chic all-black ensemble, consisting of tight trousers, a fitted blouse and a warm coat Attention to detail: She amped up the glam factor by accentuating her pretty facial features with lashings of mascara, bronzed cheekbones and plush pink lips, while her tresses were worn in loose curls 'ITV are desperate to keep a hold of her and invest in her as a future star.' The outspoken star joined regular show hosts Sherrie Hewson, Coleen Nolan and Ruth Langsford for her one-off appearance on the panel. It was initially rumoured that she would be doing a month-long trial, but it was later revealed that she would be appearing just the once. Beaming: Toting her belongings in a classy leather holdall, Vicky appeared to be in perfectly relaxed and content spirits during the outing As a famous men's mag model and former Bachelor contestant, Zilda Williams knows a thing or two about attracting famous men. So it's no surprise to see that Bondi Rescue star Rod Kerr couldn't seem to keep his hands off the busty beauty on Thursday as the pair were pictured getting very close outside of Surly's bar in Sydney's Surry Hills. The 32-year-old bombshell was joined by her good friend, celebrity stylist Hayley Cannon, while former pro-surfer Rod was with his Bondi Rescue co-star Bruce Hopkins. All hands on deck: Bondi Rescue's Rod Kerr couldn't keep his hands of Zilda Williams during an afternoon of drinking at Surly's bar in Sydney's Surry Hills Rod looked extremely smitten with the FHM centerfold, embracing her outside the bar and leaning in for a kiss - which the blonde beauty dodged by turning her head so his lips would land on her cheek. Despite the fact that the ground was flat and Zilda was wearing flip-flops, Rod still protectively put his arm around her enviable waist to help her inside the popular bar. Daily Mail Australia reached out to Zilda for comment on the PDA, with the reality TV star insisting that they are 'purely mates.' A helping hand: Zilda briefly grabbed onto Rob's shoulder as she stepped inside Surly's Gentleman? Rod wrapped his arm around the blonde bombshell's enviable waist as they made their way into the bar 'First shopping in Bondi, then beer and cheesy fries at Surly's,' said Zilda when asked about her day 'We have both worked for the charity Livin in the past,' revealed the model, referring to the mental health organization that fights depression. 'We have heaps mutual friends. We're purely mates,' she said. When asked about her activities that day, Zilda said: 'First shopping in Bondi, then beer and cheesy fries at Surly's.' She added: 'Then Chapter One for a night of drinking and dancing to David Bowie!' Chapter One is the Bondi restaurant and wine room owned by Bruce Hopkins and his wife, Stacey Wood. 'Then Chapter One for a night of drinking and dancing to David Bowie!' the busty blonde added Over here! Rod waved enthusiastically as Zilda and her friend Hayley Cannon approached the destination Happy to see each other: The Bachelor beauty smiled as Rod was quick to embrace her famous curves The reality TV star was part of Zilda's party posse on Thursday. He was photographed outside of Surly's as his friend and co-star Rod got touchy with Zilda, and was later snapped drinking up a storm at Chapter One with the bombshell and a handful of other blonde beauties. Although Rod wasn't seen inside Chapter One, the former pro-surfer has a reputation for being a party animal that dates back decades. He once spent sixty-six days in a Japanese prison after being busted with a tab of acid, and vomited on the beach during a surfing competition in Spain following a night of heavy drinking. Smitten: The former pro-surfer couldn't keep his hands off the 32-year-old stunner Dodged a bullet! Rod went in for a kiss, but Zilda turned her head to the side so his lips landed on her cheek Friendly gathering: Zilda also looked pleased to see Bondi Rescue's Bruce 'Hoppo' Hopkins Zilda has also earned a reputation for enjoying a night out since her time on The Bachelor, and is often spotted letting her hair down at celebrity events and trendy bars across Sydney. Last November she was photographed holding hands with House Husbands actor Firass Dirani at 4am outside a wrap party for Mel Gibson's movie Hacksaw Ridge. In October she had her highly-coveted FF implants downsized to a more demure set of DDs after experiencing back pain and being judged by men for her appearance. 'We have both worked for the charity Livin in the past,' Zilda said when contacted by the Daily Mail Australia about her intimate interactions with the surfing legend 'We have heaps mutual friends. We're purely mates,' she said, shooting down any rumours of a romance Wandering hands: Even as the foursome entered the bar Rod still couldn't keep his mits off Zilda Earlier this week, Zilda opened up to Daily Mail Australia about her life and how she's going after her recent breast reduction surgery. 'I no longer get stared at and men are seeing me for who I really am,' she said. She added: 'It's fantastic not waking up with back pain anymore and I can't wait to exercise properly once I am healed.' Despite downsizing her busty appearance, the voluptuous stunner is still open to more glamour modelling, Tweeting this week that it 'would be a dream come true' to land the cover of Australia's Maxim magazine. Text friends: During their appearance the Kiwi-born beauty and her friend, celebrity stylist Hayley Cannon, played with their iPhones as they waited for their reality TV star friends to arrive The action inside! The Bondi Rescue co-stars shared a photo of their boozy afternoon at Surly's on social media Party posse! Later that night Bruce and Zilda were spotted drinking up a storm in Bondi's Chapter One It's been a difficult year for socialite Brynne Edelsten who was arrested in May on suspicion of drug possession. But after having the charges against her dropped by WA Police last month within days of her trial, the 32-year-old has been celebrating her freedom. On Thursday the slimmed-down TV star was in high spirits while attending a swanky restaurant opening in Melbourne, posing up a storm with The Real Housewives of Melbourne star Gamble Breaux at the event. High spirits: Slimmed-down TV personality Brynne Edelsten, 32, posed with Real Housewife of Melbourne star Gamble Breaux at the opening of Royal Stacks in Melbourne on Thursday Brynne, the former wife of Geoffrey Edelsten, 72, showed off her trim figure in a bright pink leather jacket and patterned trousers. She finished her ensemble with some black stilettos and a black top which revealed a glimpse of her ample cleavage. Shunning heavy make-up in favour of a more natural look, the former fitness instructor sported just some pink lip gloss and mascara. Royal flush: Brynne, the ex-wife of Melbourne businessman Geoffrey Edelsten, 72, slipped into some patterned jeans and a pink jacket for the occasion Meanwhile Gamble showed off her cleavage in a v-neck white t-shirt and jeans. The 43-year-old star added a green biker jacket to her look and topped it off with some towering heels. Gamble, who is married to eye specialist Dr Rick Wolfe, wore her hair in messy curls for the occasion. They were joined at the glitzy event by socialite Susie McLean, 47, who also stars in the reality series. Reality queen: Meanwhile Gamble showed off her cleavage in a v-neck white t-shirt and jeans Strike a pose: The 43-year-old star added a green biker jacket to her look and topped it off with some towering heels Brynne was charged with possession of party drug MDMA in June last year but denied the allegations. She told Studio 10 at the time: 'I am so angry and upset because there are people that are really disappointed right now. 'I am supposed to be a role model and I do not condone drugs. And I am absolutely fighting these charges and I will be vindicated in that.' She pleaded not guilty the following month to possessing an ecstasy tablet and police prosecutors later dropped the charges after a day in court in December. Queen of the castle: Toorak socialite Susie McLean, 47, was also joins the The Real Housewives of Melbourne as the eighth cast member for the reality show's third season, starting February 21st on Arena They vowed to cool off their relationship because it was 'disrespectful' to her boyfriend Sam Reece. But Stephanie Davis, 22, and Jeremy McConnell don't appear to be doing a good job of ending their flirtatious antics in the house, as viewers are set to discover on Friday night's episode of Celebrity Big Brother. The former Hollyoaks actress will be seen whispering 'I love you' to reality star Jeremy, 23, as they share a tactile goodnight display. Scroll down for video Inseparable as ever: Just 24 hours after deciding to cool off their flirtation, Stephanie Davis and Jeremy McConnell are still as touchy feely as ever on Celebrity Big Brother - and even exchange 'I love yous' Disbelieving at what she's just said, Jeremy asks the brunette to repeat herself before replying, 'I love you too'. Despite opting not to share the same bed, the comment will no doubt come as another blow to Stephanie's model beau Sam, who has been having a tough time watching her close bond with Jeremy unfold on the Channel 5 show. Elsewhere in the episode, Jeremy gives a 'stressed' Stephanie a vigorous shoulder massage, before helping to dye her hair. The latest developments in the ongoing love saga come after the feisty brunette blamed CBB for ruining things with Sam. See CBB updates as Stephanie Davis blames CBB for 'ruining' her relationship Oh dear: The comment will no doubt come as another blow to Stephanie's model beau Sam, who has been having a tough time watching her close bond with Jeremy unfold on the Channel 5 show Stephanie - who first found fame on Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical talent search show Over The Rainbow in 2010 - lashed out at producers for airing scenes showing her and Jeremy cuddling up. With tears rolling down her face, she vented: 'We are just friends and obviously when you're in here, we have hung out a lot and we've got closer than we would do in normal situations but that's just the environment we're in. 'I love him to bits ... Thanks for ruining my relationship Big Brother. I'm so angry with you. 'Now I can't even be friends with Jez on the outside cos it's obviously been made out to be a romance. I came in here to turn everything around and now I'm the biggest douche ever.' Letting off steam: The brunette accused the show of 'ruining her relationship' with boyfriend Sam Reece in the outside world However, two minutes after she left the Diary Room, the troubled star crept into bed with the model and was seen getting into bed with Jeremy. Thursday's installment of highlights from inside the Channel 5 house wrapped with the former Hollyoaks actress and the Irish eye candy appearing to share a smooch goodnight as they cuddled up together under the duvet in his bed. 'Night babes,' Stephanie, 22, told the 25-year-old who replied: 'Night babe,' as she tootled off back to her own bed. 'I'm all alone,' she lamented to the bedroom which prompted a declaration of love from him. 'I love you long time,' he told her from across the room and she replied with a similar statement. Things are heating up: The pair appeared to kiss under the bed covers despite saying they need 'cool it off' during Thursday night's episode Come here, you: Jeremy, 23, encouraged the 22-year-old actress to give him a goodnight hug Get a room: The former Hollyoaks star and the model appeared to be getting up to no good as they hid beneath his duvet cover Earlier this week, Stephanie's boyfriend appeared to dump her after Jeremy said he was falling for her on camera. Sam wrote on Twitter: 'Hi everyone, I will no longer be supporting Stephanie Davis... Thanks for all your support and love you have given me!! (sic).' But it seems the hunk had a change of heart as he later confirmed they're still a "couple" but he will be having words with her when she gets out of the abode. He said :'I would like to clarify that Stephanie and I continue to remain a couple irrespective of comments on social media surrounding our relationship that I've 'dumped' [her] as she still remains in the house." Bedtime routine: Topless Jeremy span Stephanie around the bathroom in a playful dance before they hit the sack Clarification: After suggesting that he'd dumped Stephanie earlier in the week, Sam Reece took to Twitter on Tuesday to confirm the pair are still dating Earlier on, Jeremy initiated a conversation in which he told Stephanie that they need to put a stop to their touchy-feely behaviour, prompted by the advice of Scotty T and David Gest. Frankly, he said: 'We need to cool off all the touching, it's too much for me. I'll still be there for you, but I'm sick of it, I'm done. I'm bored of the cameras, I'm bored of it. People are watching it. 'I don't want you not having a fella. I wouldn't be cuddling you and sleeping in bed with girls if I had a girlfriend on the outside world. It's making me look like a f**king idiot.' Defending herself, she said: 'I don't want to wait here and be booed and then go out and have no one waiting for me either and have to pick myself back together again because I'm not strong enough.' The TV star insisted she was naturally tactile and flirtatious, saying: 'I'm just like that as a person though. I'd be the same if you were a gay lad or a girl, with your personality we just get on.' 'It's making me look like a f**king idiot': The Irish eye candy told Stephanie they needed to 'cool off with the touching' as he was sick of being disrespectful to her partner She's one of the world's most beautiful supermodels. So no make-up was needed for Lara Stone when she stepped out for dinner at Scott's restaurant on Wednesday, accompanied by a mystery man. After enjoying a bite to eat at the seafood restaurant in London's Mayfair, the Vogue covergirl, 32, seemed to be feeling the cold, bundling herself up in a thick black coat. Scroll down for video Barefaced beauty! No make-up was needed for Lara Stone, 32, when she stepped out for dinner at Scott's restaurant in Mayfair on Wednesday, accompanied by a mystery man Flaunting her long lean legs in a pair of black skinny jeans, the Dutch model cut a relaxed figure in a cosy jumper and ankle boots, clutching onto a small cross body bag. With her honey coloured locks pulled back into a loose ponytail, the star proudly bared her fresh face. Her male companion also dressed down for the evening, donning a black zip-up hoodie and jeans. A spokesman for Lara Stone has been contacted by MailOnline for confirmation of Lara's dinner companion. Wrapped up: After enjoying a bite to eat at the seafood restaurant, the Vogue covergirl seemed to be feeling the cold, bundling herself up in a thick black coat with a faux fur hood Blonde beauty! With her honey coloured locks pulled back into a loose ponytail, the star proudly bared her fresh face. Her male companion also dressed down for the evening, donning a black zip-up hoodie The blonde beauty has not been linked to any men since she finalised her divorce with David Walliams in September 2015 after being married for five years. Lara was granted the decree from the funnyman, 44, in less than 60 seconds after attending London's Central Family Court alongside 20 other couples. At the hearing, David cited his wife's 'unreasonable behaviour' as the reason behind their reported 'quickie divorce'. The split came after they agreed to a trial separation in March. Leggy lady! Flaunting her long lean legs in a pair of black skinny jeans, the Dutch model cut a relaxed figure in a cosy jumper and ankle boots, clutching onto a small cross body bag Single lady: The blonde beauty has not been linked to any men since she finalised her divorce with David Walliams in September after being married for five years The pair - who have a two-year-old son named Alfred - first met in 2009 and got engaged 10 months later. At the time of their separation The Daily Mirror reported that Lara had left their family home and had no intention of working on their marriage further. Citing Dutch reports, the paper said: 'Lara has no intention of returning and will sign her divorce papers soon. She has been telling people she is never going back. 'As far as she is concerned the marriage is finished.' End of an era: The pair - who have a two-year-old son named Alfred - first met in 2009 and got engaged 10 months later. David Walliams, 44, cited his wife's 'unreasonable behaviour' at the divorce hearing The catwalk star, who is 12 years David's junior, is said to have taken Alfred and the couple's Border Terrier Bert with her when she left their North London home. A source close to the Little Britain star, said: 'David has been putting on a brave face. But people close to him are very worried because they know he's devastated.' David has most recently been romantically linked to model and former Made In Chelsea star, Ashley James, after the pair were seen enjoying meal together - along with a few friends - at Sexy Fish. Speaking about her love life to the MailOnline the 27-year-old blonde beauty said: 'I am nice on the outside. I like to keep my naughtiness behind closed doors.' Britain's Got Talent has returned for its tenth series. And judge Amanda Holden was leading the star-studded arrivals at the launch of the 2016 series as she stormed the red carpet at The Liverpool Empire on Thursday. The 44-year-old actress, who sits alongside Simon Cowell, David Walliams and Alesha Dixon on the judging panel, looked sensational in a white flamenco style gown where she opted to go braless. Bit nippy? Amanda Holden was leading the star-studded arrivals at the launch of Britain's Got Talent's 2016 series as she stormed the red carpet at The Liverpool Empire on Thursday Amanda potentially showed more than she bargained for in her stunning gown after opting to forego a bra, which led to an unwitting hint at her assets. She expertly posed on the red carpet in the gown which clung to every curve, clinging along the length of her body before flitting out at the knee. An additional length of material extended around the base while leaving two gaping peekaboo holes which flaunted a glimpse of her toned legs. The pretty star wore teetering gold heels, with a pointed toe, while the colour of the shoe perfectly coordinated with her statement plate necklace. All white on the night: The 44-year-old actress, who sits alongside Simon Cowell, David Walliams and Alesha Dixon on the judging panel, looked sensational in a white flamenco style gown where she opted to go braless Every inch the superstar: Amanda looked at ease on the red carpet as she prepared for the show's launch She stacked gold bangles on her wrists to match her necklace while rocking an array of rings. Amanda wore her trademark blonde tresses in bouncy, expertly styles waves which flattered the unseasonably summery feel of the ensemble. Adding a vampish element to the look, Amanda slicked purple lipstick on which coordinated with her slick dark eye make-up. The stunning star teased fans on Instagram before she hit the red carpet as she posted a sultry selfie sporting only a towel while baring her entire back. She added the caption: 'Getting ready for first day @bgt 2016 #Liverpool' Smouldering: Amanda took the red carpet like an expert as she posed from all angles - allowing an intricate look at her weather-inappropriate gown All angles: From the side, the skin tight dress showed off her incredible derriere Great from every angle: Amanda potentially showed more than she bargained for in her stunning gown after opting to forego a bra, which led to an unwitting hint at her assets Bashful: Amanda appeared to be battling the elements as she walked the red carpet in her white gown Raunchy: The stunning star teased fans on Instagram before she hit the red carpet as she posted a sultry selfie sporting only a towel while baring her entire back Orange alert: Amanda's female ally on the judging panel, Alesha hit the red carpet in a neon mini-dress boasting a sheer and lace material and huge plate belt Selfie time: Alesha was also in the mood to hit social media as she documented her getting ready process, with a series of sensational shots - including a cheeky picture with the caption: 'Do blondes have more fun? We will see!' Amanda's female ally on the judging panel, Alesha hit the red carpet in a neon mini-dress boasting a sheer and lace material and huge plate belt. She debuted a new blonde crop featuring a short undercut with a sweeping fringe in a bright blonde hue while her undercut remained dark. The pretty star coordinated her bright dress with her orange shoes - an attention to detail which nicely tied together the ensemble. Alesha was also in the mood to hit social media as she documented her getting ready process, with a series of sensational shots - including a cheeky picture with the caption: 'Do blondes have more fun? We will see!' Superstar: Alesha sat in a Director's Chair emblazoned with her name - securing her all-star place in the show Blonde beauty: She debuted a new blonde crop featuring a short undercut with a sweeping fringe in a bright blonde hue while her undercut remained dark Gleeful: Alesha appeared to be happy to be back on the red and Union Flag-adorned red carpet as she gleefully waved at waiting admirers Cool Cowell: The show's founder and fellow judge Simon Cowell made an appearance fresh from his lengthy Barbados getaway with his partner Lauren Silverman and son Eric The show's founder and fellow judge Simon Cowell made an appearance fresh from his lengthy Barbados getaway with his partner Lauren Silverman and son Eric. In his usual low-key style, he wore a dark grey crew-neck jumper with smart trousers and his classic aviator frames. The music mogul was stunned on the red carpet as he came face to face with a trumpeter dressed as a member of The Beatles on the red carpet, who he cowered in front of. Joining the trio on the red carpet was fellow judge David who looked typically dapper in a navy three-piece suit. In his usual debonair style he layered an overcoat atop the slick look - in an outfit addition which acted to keep out the chill more efficiently than Amanda's look. Cowering Cowell: The music mogul was stunned on the red carpet as he came face-to-face with a trumpeter on the red carpet, who he cowered in front of Suave: Joining Amanda and Alesha on the red carpet was fellow judge David who looked typically dapper in a navy three-piece suit Last year's show was shrouded in controversy, after the canine winner Matisse and his owner Julie O'Dwyer were accused of using subterfuge in the final. They were feted with the 250,000 prize money and a chance to appear at the Royal Variety Performance When news surfaced that Matisse had used a stunt dog during his final routine, TV watchdog Ofcom received 507 complaints from voters believing they were "tricked", while ITV reported another 130. Man of the people: Handsome David was more than happy to pose up a storm with vying followers Suited and booted: In his usual debonair style he layered an overcoat atop the slick look - in an outfit addition which acted to keep out the chill more efficiently than Amanda's look He's more often than not shirtless and flaunting his rock hard six pack on the silver screen. But in real life Zac Efron owns not only a shirt but even puffy winter jackets as proved on Thursday night in chilly New York City. The 28-year-old was spotted taking his model girlfriend Sami Miro on a sushi date as they both bundled up for the cold. Scroll down for video Date night: Zac Efron and his girlfriend, Sami Miro were spotted leaving DomoDomo restaurant in New York's West Village on Thursday The former High School Musical star kept low key for his outing, covered in a black knit beanie and matching coat with fur-lined hoodie. He wore dark denim fitted jeans with his zip-up jacket but his bright white Converse sneakers stood out above all else. Miro followed behind the Neighbors star in a similar ensemble with a warm black coat that also included a fur trim. Familiar flavours: The pair, who recently enjoyed a trip to Japan, dined on sushi The leggy model showed off her slender pins in black skinny jeans with a hole ripped in one knee revealing a bit of skin beneath. She carried a bright red handbag for a pop of colour and wore white Converse high-tops with a red heart emblazoned on the side. The lovebirds recently celebrated their one year anniversary last September but didn't make their first official appearance until the We Are Your Friends premiere last August. Zac shared a sweet photo earlier this month of the pair on a romantic boat ride in Vietnam during their trip through Asia in November. Flaunting his physique: Zac's more often than not shirtless and flaunting his rock hard six pack on the silver screen, seen here in his upcoming comedy Dirty Grandpa Look of love! Zac shared a sweet photo earlier this month of the pair on a romantic boat ride in Vietnam during their holiday break Low key romance: The lovebirds recently celebrated their one year anniversary last September but didn't make their first official appearance until the We Are Your Friends premiere last August The pair shared a smile as they cruised down a river while the award-winning actor held Sami's hand in a loving gaze. Zac and Sami spent November traveling through Asia, including stops in Kyoto and Saigon, before returning to Los Angeles before Christmas. And while it was clear Efron enjoyed the getaway it's back to work for the actor as he has been promoting his upcoming film, Dirty Grandpa. The Charlie St. Cloud actor plays Jason kelly in the comedy, which co-stars Robert De Niro and Julianne Hough, and is set to be released on January 22. She was second to be given the boot from the Celebrity Big Brother house during the show's live eviction on Friday night. And Nancy Dell'Olio wasted no time celebrating her freedom as she partied the night away at London's Groucho club almost instantly after her ejection. Joined by a male companion, the 54-year-old star looked as though she had been knocking back the drinks as she left the exclusive hot spot looking slightly worse for wear, though characteristically glamorous. Scroll down for video Drinks o'clock! Celebrity Big Brother's latest evictee Nancy Dell'Olio wasted no time celebrating her freedom as she partied the night away at London's Groucho club almost instantaneously with a male companion The former girlfriend of ex England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson pulled out all of the stops following her sojourn in the Big Brother house as she exited the compound in a glitzy green mini dress. The intricate design featured cross-over straps across the decolletage that were adorned in metallic embellishments, while the fabric was emblazoned with a reptile print pattern that uniquely only emerged when the gown hit the light. Banishing the evening chill, Nancy wrapped herself up in a brown fur coat, which she matched with skyscraper leopard print stilettos by Christian Louboutin. One too many? The 54-year-old star looked as though she had been knocking back the drinks as she left the exclusive hot spot looking slightly worse for wear, though characteristically glamorous Her hands and ears were bedecked in lavish gold jewels, including a sizeable emerald ring and a snake cuff bracelet which trailed from her wrist to her fingers. Not afraid to clash her colours, Nancy carried her essentials in a vivid orange clutch bag, which was also crafted in fur to match her alluring outerwear. Her dark locks were swept up into an elegant up-do, while her face modeled a typically dramatic make-up look with a grey smokey eyeshadow and a dewy nude lipstick. The Italian-British lawyer looked to have enjoyed her night on the town as she appeared to stagger along the street before keeping her grip on her male pal. Glam in green: The former girlfriend of ex England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson pulled out all of the stops following her sojourn in the Big Brother house as she exited the compound in an emerald mini dress Fur the love of fashion: Banishing the evening chill, Nancy wrapped herself up in a brown fur coat, which she matched with skyscraper leopard print stilettos by Christian Louboutin It was good to see that Nancy was in high spirits, seeing as she was greeted with a sea of boos when evicted from the Big Brother house hours earlier. Nancy's eviction meant that housemates Angie Bowie, Gemma Collins, Jeremy McConnell and Stephanie Davis were saved by the voting British public but they certainly paid the price as the show delivered a 'killer nomination' twist following the star's departure. Upon hearing she was to be evicted, the stunning brunette exited through the front door to jubilant chants of 'Nancy Dell'Olio' by her housemates while the live crowd booed and heckled her as she made her way to host Emma Willis. Nancy admitted the experience had been 'incredible' although she found being out of her comfort zone the hardest thing to deal with during her exit interview with 39-year-old Emma. Another one bites the dust: Nancy became the second contestant to be evicted from Celebrity Big Brother on Friday night as her saved housemates were forced to nominate live and face-to-face in a 'killer' twist The former girlfriend of Sven-Goran Eriksson said: 'I'm pleased how I was [in there]. It was an incredible experience and I'm pleased I did it.' Conversation soon turned to Megan McKenna's now-notorious aggressive rant which aired on Thursday night's episode and Nancy had her back, insisting: 'She is a lovely girl but she is quite young.' She went on to accuse some of the housemates of playing up to the camera as part of their game-plans. Got no fans: The Italian-British lawyer exited through the front door to jubilant chants of 'Nancy Dell'Olio' by her housemates while the live crowd booed and heckled her as she made her way to host Emma Willis So long, farewell: Tiffany and the show's latest casualty pecked each other on the cheek before she braved the live audience Green with envy: Nancy wore the same glitzy design when leaving the CBB house Owing it: Nancy oozed class as she made a dignified exit from the Channel 5 house after a 10-day stint You're gonna hear them roar: The brunette stunner stood tall in a pair of platform-heeled leopard-print shoes as she strutted out of the house to a sea of boos Thumbs up for style: The starlet opted for a gold and green colour theme which perfectly complemented her olive skintone A friendly face: Emma, 39, welcomed the latest evictee to the stage with open arms Maternity styling at its finest: The pregnant TV presenter was as impeccably dressed as ever in an all-black ensemble Walk this way: Nancy and Emma strode down the walkway arm-in-arm Nancy explained: 'Some of them are actors and actresses, they are acting, it's true. This is why I tried to stay away as much as possible. 'I didn't get involved because I din't want to get involved, that's not me.' 'This is how I am, I'm very polite to people. Perhaps too polite to stay in the house.' She finished by saying she hopes Geordie Shore's Scotty T - who she'd clashed with at points during her 10-day stint on the show - to win. 'It's true': Nancy accused some of the housemates of playing up to the camera as part of their game-plans 'She's a lovely girl': She however, defended Megan McKenna following her now-notorious explosive outburst Decisions, decisions: Angie Bowie, Jeremy McConnell, Stephanie Davis and Gemma Collins were forced to nominate LIVE and face-to-face in a 'killer' twist Peace out: Gemma, 34, picked John Partridge, citing his disapproval of Darren Day's smoking habit as the reason Meanwhile, Big Brother unveiled a twist deemed 'Killer Nominations' to the house and Angie, 66, Gemma, 34, Jeremy, 25, and Stephanie, 22, were required to give the name of one person - excluding themselves and each other - to put up for eviction. Hesitant Angie picked Kristina Rihanoff, Gemma nominated John Partridge, citing his slamming of Darren Day's smoking habit as the reason, while apologetic Jeremy chose Tiffany Pollard. Former Hollyoaks actress Stephanie was the last to announce her choice, opting to put Danniella Westbrook up for the public vote. 'I know you're strong and can cope with it and it means you'll be able to see your babies,' she told her. Who goes? You decide; Either Kristina, John, Tiffany or Danniella will leave the house during a live eviction on Tuesday 26 at 9pm Trump, Cruz lock horns in US Republican debate With the first vote of America's 2016 election two weeks away, Republican presidential frontrunners Donald Trump and Ted Cruz dispensed with months of niceties and locked horns in a primetime debate. After months of chaotic campaigning that saw a dozen long-shot candidates vie for attention, the debate in South Carolina brought the race to become the Republican presidential nominee into sharper focus. Trump and Cruz, who lead the polls in Iowa -- which on February 1 will become the first state in the country to vote for the nominee -- at times seemed to ignore the rest of the field as they traded blows. Donald Trump is the frontrunner in the race to become the Republican presidential nominee Timothy A. Clary (AFP) The duo went back-and-forth over conservative values and Trump's allegation that Cruz, a hardline Texas Senator born in Canada, might be legally blocked from becoming president. Cruz accused the controversial mogul of manufacturing a crisis to retain his lead. "Back in September, my friend Donald said he had his lawyers look at this from every which way and there was no issue there," said Cruz. "Now since September, the constitution hasn't changed. But the poll numbers have," he added. "Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling in Iowa." He went on to point out that Trump, whose mother was born in Scotland, was disqualifying himself. Trump shot back: "As you know, Ted, in the last three polls I'm beating you. So you shouldn't misrepresent how well you're doing with the polls." "You have a big lawsuit over your head." - Unwelcome frontrunner - The debate among seven Republican candidates came as unease grows within the Republican party over Trump's frontrunner status. The controversial celebrity has long led in national polls and his campaign shows no signs of collapsing before Iowa becomes the first state to vote in a long nominating process. Trump has ridden a wave of populist anger with Washington, frustration over the nation's patchy economic recovery, and fear about a growing terrorism threat. After months of tip-toeing around the frontrunner, the party establishment appears to be mustering its forces, believing his inflammatory message is more dangerous than the risk of him launching an independent run. South Carolina's own Governor Nikki Haley fired the opening salvo against Trump during her rebuttal to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday, calling on Republicans to ignore the "angriest voices" in their party. Trump described Haley as a "friend," but the criticism brought into the open a struggle between a rebellious rank-and-file drawn to Trump's outsider populism and the party's conservative establishment. In a clear play for votes in conservative Iowa, Cruz rounded on Trump, accusing him of having "New York values" -- pro-abortion, pro-gay rights and pro media. "Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan," he joked. Trump described the comment as "very insulting" and defended New Yorkers for how well they bounced back after 9/11. "When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully." Cruz, who has run as an ultra-patriotic anti-elitist, was also forced to address a potentially damaging charge that he borrowed money from Wall Street banks while running for the Senate without properly reporting it. He admitted to making an error of paperwork, and tried to deflect criticism by accusing the New York Times -- who revealed the non-disclosure -- of conducting a "hit job." Trump and Cruz were joined on stage Thursday by Senator Marco Rubio; retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson; New Jersey Governor Chris Christie; Ohio Governor John Kasich and former Florida governor Jeb Bush. Iran's seizure and quick release of 10 US Navy sailors, was another major talking point among the candidates, who lined up to paint Obama as weak and delusional on the topic of national security. Cruz proclaimed himself "horrified" to see "ten American sailors on their knees with their hands on their head. It was heart-breaking." Likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton also came in for criticism. Bush, an early favorite who is struggling to make his mark on the race, suggested an investigation into her use of a private server while secretary of state may cause her problems. If elected, "she might be going back and forth between the White House and the court house," he said. Rubio, who is seen as the best hope of mainstream conservatives, went further saying "she wouldn't just be a disaster, Hillary Clinton is disqualified from being commander-in-chief of the United States." Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz takes part in the Republican presidential debate in Charleston, South Carolina, on January 14, 2016 Timothy A. Clary (AFP) Nikki Haley, considered by some a potential vice presidential pick, attacked Donald Trump in the Republican party's official response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address Saul Loeb (AFP/File) Navigational error to blame in Iran incident: Pentagon chief A navigational error caused two US Navy vessels to stray into Iranian waters, Pentagon chief Ashton Carter said Thursday, as opponents of the Obama administration voiced increasing anger over the US response to the incident. Carter provided no detail but said "a navigational error of some kind" led to the two small patrol boats ending up in Iranian water on Tuesday. The military had initially blamed mechanical problems. The vessels were apprehended by Iran's Revolutionary Guards while en route from Kuwait to Bahrain. Ten sailors were held overnight before being released back to the United States. A picture released on January 13, 2016 by the public relations arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Sepah News, shows US Navy patrol boats sailing after their release by Iranian authorities "We will find out more what combination of factors led to that navigational error, but they were clearly out of the position that they intended to be in," Carter said. Critics of the administration of President Barack Obama are livid over the affair, saying it demonstrates weakness in the face of Iranian aggression. Video showing the US sailors kneeling and with their hands clasped behind their heads, and one of them apologizing, aired on US television Wednesday, further angering lawmakers. Carter, speaking at a news conference in Florida, deflected questions on whether Iran had breached the Geneva Convention by showing images of the captured sailors. "Obviously I don't like to see our people detained by a foreign military," Carter said. "What we don't know is the full context. What you are looking through is the lens of the Iranian media. We need to give these guys the opportunity to tell us what was really going on and what the overall context is before we can really know." Video also showed Iranian troops rummaging through an array of weapons found aboard the US boats. General Lloyd Austin, who oversees the US military's Central Command, said the Iranians had "largely" returned the US equipment. "For the most part, the gear we deployed with was largely there when we got the boats back," he said. Serena and Sharapova on track to meet in Australian Open quarters World number one and top seed Serena Williams faces a potential quarter-final with long time rival Maria Sharapova at next week's Australian Open following Friday's draw. Williams, who is chasing her seventh Australian crown and 22nd Grand Slam title after beating Sharapova in last year's final, will have a testing start against Italian Camila Giorgi, the highest ranked non-seeded player in the women's draw. She could also meet former world number one Caroline Wozniacki in the fourth round before a possible showdown with Sharapova, who has failed to beat Williams since 2004. Serena Williams of the US takes part in a practice session ahead of the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne on January 15, 2016 Paul Crock (AFP) The American, who also won Wimbledon and the French Open in a glittering 2015 season, has been troubled by a knee injury since the US Open in September, but said at the draw that she was in good shape for the year's opening major. "Everything is really well and I am feeling really good," Williams said. "I've been training every day for so long and I'm ready." Williams is expected to play on Monday while the women's bottom half of the draw will start on Tuesday. Romanian second seed Simona Halep, who faces a qualifier first up, is drawn to meet Serena's elder sister and eighth seed Venus Williams in the quarters. Poland's fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska, who faces American Christina McHale first, has a potential last-eight clash with Czech sixth seed and two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova. Two-time Australian Open winner Victoria Azarenka, who won the Brisbane International last weekend, could face Spanish third seed Garbine Muguruza in the fourth round, while German seventh seed Angelique Kerber is drawn to meet Muguruza or Azarenka in the quarters. Quarter-final projections in draw order: Serena Williams v Maria Sharapova Agnieszka Radwanska v Petra Kvitova Garbine Muguruza v Angelique Kerber Venus Williams v Simona Halep Sierra Leone probes suspected Ebola death hours after all-clear Tropical disease experts in Sierra Leone scrambled Friday to investigate a new suspected death from Ebola announced just hours after west Africa celebrated halting the spread of the deadly virus. A 22-year-old female student was taken ill near the Guinean border and died three days ago, with an initial swab testing positive for Ebola, health officials said. "The victim was taken ill when she was on holidays in Bamoi Luma and was taken to Magburaka, where her relatives took her to the government hospital for medical attention," district medical officer Augustine Junisa told reporters. A volunteer in protective suit (R) walks on his way to spray disinfectant onto the walls of homes that were inhabited by people who died of Ebola, in a village near Freetown, in 2014 Florian Plaucheur (AFP/File) "Three days later she died at home and her death was reported to the hospital officials and an initial swab test was taken which proved positive" on Thursday. Junisa said further tests would be carried out on Friday and appealed to the public in the area to remain calm. The WHO had said Thursday a two-year Ebola epidemic that killed more than 11,000 people and triggered a global health alert was over, with Liberia the last country to get the all-clear. Residents in the Magburaka, a town of around 40,000 people and the capital of the Tonkolili district, expressed their shock and distress over the announcement. - 'Really worried' - "It was not expected and came at a time when we had thought that the virus is nowhere within our land," groundnut farmer Allieu Kamara told AFP. "We are really worried that death has resulted from the case but we are hopeful that the huge presence of the various key players will bring back confidence to all of us." The deadliest outbreak in the history of the feared tropical virus wrecked the economies and health systems of the three worst-hit west African nations after it emerged in southern Guinea in December 2013. Sierra Leone was declared free of Ebola transmission on November 7 last year and Guinea on December 29. At its peak, it devastated Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with bodies piling up in the streets and overwhelmed hospitals recording hundreds of new cases a week. Rick Brennan, the World Health Organization's chief of emergency risk management, hailed the milestone but told reporters in Geneva that "the job is still not done", pointing out that there had already been 10 small flare-ups because of the persistance of the virus in survivors. UN chief Ban Ki-moon also warned the region can expect sporadic cases in the coming year but added "we also expect the potential and frequency of those flare-ups to decrease over time". - Muted reaction - Liberia, the country worst hit by the outbreak with 4,800 deaths, discharged its last two patients from hospital -- the father and younger brother of a 15-year-old victim -- on December 3, 2015. Africa's oldest republic was the last country still afflicted by the outbreak that infected almost 29,000 people and claimed 11,315 lives, according to official data. The real toll is suspected to be much higher, with many Ebola deaths believed to have gone unreported. After the last patient is declared in the clear, a 42-day countdown -- twice the incubation period of the virus -- begins before the country is proclaimed Ebola-free. Ebola causes severe fever and muscle pain, weakness, vomiting and diarrhoea. In many cases it shuts down organs and causes unstoppable internal bleeding. Patients often succumb within days. From a Guinean infant who was the first victim, the epidemic quickly spread into neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone, notching up more deaths than all other Ebola outbreaks combined. Liberia was first to be declared free of human-to-human Ebola transmission in May, only to see the virus resurface six weeks later. It was officially credited with beating the epidemic for a second time in September before another small cluster of cases emerged. Reaction to Thursday's announcement was muted in the capital Monrovia, where locals have become accustomed to good news on Ebola being followed by setbacks, and there was no official programme of celebration. The Ebola epidemic Kun TIAN (AFP) Earlier the WHO said a two-year Ebola epidemic that killed more than 11,000 people and triggered a global health alert was over Francisco Leong (AFP/File) Ebola causes severe fever and muscle pain, weakness, vomiting and diarrhoea. In many cases it shuts down organs and causes unstoppable internal bleeding Carl de Souza (AFP/File) China suspects Sichuan governor of graft The second most senior official in China's populous Sichuan province is suspected of corruption, an official said on Friday, the latest implicated in a high-profile anti-graft campaign. Provincial governor Wei Hong is suspected of "severe disciplinary violations", generally a euphemism for corruption, anti-graft official Wu Yuliang said, and was "reflecting on his mistakes". The allegation comes as part of a high-profile crackdown on corruption led by President Xi Jinping that has deposed several senior officials, notably former security chief Zhou Yongkang. Partial view of Chongqing, the capital of China's populous Sichuan province Stephane de Sakutin (AFP/File) One of Zhou's power bases was Sichuan, in China's southwest with a population of some 80 million. A number of senior officials there have been investigated in recent years. Official allegations of graft against high-level politicians are generally followed by an internal probe by China's Communist party, and sometimes lead to criminal proceedings almost guaranteed to end in conviction. With corruption widespread in China, critics say there is a lack of transparency around Xi's campaign and it has been used for political infighting. Wu, a vice chief of the ruling party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, said that such "twisted" views came from "a biased and wrong perspective", according to a press conference transcript. But he revealed that only a small minority of officials found guilty of graft and other offences by the party end up prosecuted in criminal courts. Just 14,000 party members faced legal proceedings as a result of discipline violations last year, he said, while 336,000 were punished internally. He added that China was "in contact" with the United States over Ling Wancheng, the brother of Ling Jihua, a former chief of staff to Chinese president Hu Jintao. Four Indian Maoist rebels killed in shoot-out: police Four Maoist rebels have been killed in a gun battle with police in a forest in central India's Chhattisgarh state, security forces said on Friday. Police said the shoot-out happened early Friday morning in Bijapur, around 470 kilometres (290 miles) from state capital Raipur. "After the fierce gun battle, bodies of one female and three male Maoist cadres, along with four rifles and four Chinese hand grenades, have been recovered," Bijapur district police chief Kanhaiya Lal Dhruv told AFP. Indian Maoists practise their shooting skills at a training camp in a forested area of central state of Chhattisgarh Noah Seelam (AFP/File) The remote, underdeveloped region of the state is believed to have been a rebel stronghold for nearly two decades. Police said that they had launched a search operation after an intelligence tip-off that the Maoists were in the forested Ganglaur area, where the shoot-out occurred. Officers are still searching for weapons and the bodies of any more rebels killed in the incident. India's long-running Maoist insurgency began in the 1960s, inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, and has cost thousands of lives. The rebels, described by former prime minister Manmohan Singh as India's most serious internal security threat, say they are fighting authorities for land, jobs and other rights for poor tribal groups. Several dead as Shebab storm African Union base in Somalia Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab militants stormed an African Union base manned by Kenyan troops in the country's southwest on Friday, with several killed in fierce gun battles. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta that "regrettably some of our patriots in uniform paid the ultimate price" as he offered condolences to the families of those killed, without giving details of how many died. Somali army colonel Idris Ahmed said a Shebab suicide commando blasted into the El-Adde base in the Gedo region, which borders Kenya and Ethiopia, in a pre-dawn attack. Image made available by the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) shows AMISOM soldiers on patrol in the Lower Shabelle region of Somalia Tobin Jones (AMISOM/AFP/File) "There was suicide attack followed by the fighting and it seems that the base was stormed," Ahmed said. Both Somali troops and Kenyan soldiers with the AU force, AMISOM, are deployed at the isolated base. "Our gallant soldiers reacted swiftly to protect their camp - to protect their peace and stability that they are in Somalia to secure, and to protect our country from its enemies," Kenyatta said in a statement. Shebab spokesman Abdiaziz Abu Musab claimed 63 Kenyan troops were killed, but this could not be immediately verified. "The mujahedeen fighters carried out a successful operation this morning on a military base at El-Adde, and they have killed many of the Christian soldiers from Kenya," Musab said. "We have counted 63 dead bodies inside the base." The Shebab frequently exaggerates the number of troops they kill, while AMISOM rarely gives exact tolls. The attack came as politicians met in the southern port of Kismayo, with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud leading a "National Consultative Forum" to debate planned elections due later this year. "Somalia is no longer a failed state," Mohamud said in a statement, which made no reference to the attack. "Somalia is building a strong foundation to support a better future." Local elder Hussein Adam said he heard a huge explosion followed by intense gunfire for about 45 minutes. "We don't know about the casualties, but people who went there saw many dead bodies strewn around," he said, having spoken to those who went to the base. The Shebab, fighting to overthrow Somalia's internationally-backed and AU-protected government, has launched a string of similar attacks. In September 2015, Shebab fighters stormed a Ugandan AMISOM base in Janale district, 80 kilometres (50 miles) southwest of Mogadishu in the Lower Shabelle region. And in June, Shebab killed dozens of Burundian soldiers when they overran an AMISOM outpost northwest of Mogadishu. The militants also stage frequent suicide attacks in the capital. But the 22,000-strong AMISOM force has also made significant gains against the Shebab, pushing them out of several strongholds in the southwest. The Shebab have also staged attacks in Kenya, killing at least 67 people at Nairobi's Westgate Mall in 2013 and massacring 148 people at a university in Garissa in April 2015. The militants say the attacks are retaliation for the Kenyan military presence in Somalia and "war crimes" committed by Kenyan troops. But Kenyatta said the troops would continue in their mission. "We will hunt down the criminals involved... our soldiers' blood will not be shed in vain," he said. The 22,000-strong AMISOM force has also made significant gains against the Shebab, pushing them out of several strongholds in the southwest Vincent LEFAI, Paz PIZARRO (AFP) Pakistan PM vows to eradicate honour killings after Oscar nod Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif vowed Pakistan would eradicate "evil" honour killings as he congratulated director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy on her Oscar nomination for a harrowing documentary on the practice. "A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness", which follows the story of a rare survivor, was nominated in the documentary short category of the Academy Awards on Thursday. Hundreds of women are murdered by their relatives in Pakistan each year on the grounds of defending family "honour". Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy was feted across Pakistan in 2012 when she won the country's first Oscar for 'Saving Face', a 40-minute documentary that exposed the horrors endured by women who survive devastating acid attacks Rizwan Tabassum (AFP/File) Their male murderers are then "pardoned" by relatives under the country's controversial Islamic blood money laws that allow murderers to escape punishment. A statement from the prime minister's office late Thursday offered Chinoy, who made history in 2012 when she won Pakistan's first Oscar for the another documentary, Sharif's congratulations. "Honour killings, the theme of the film, afflict several segments of Pakistani society," it quoted Sharif as saying. He "expressed the government's commitment to rid Pakistan of this evil by bringing in appropriate legislation", the statement continued, adding that Chinoy's "insights" could prove helpful. Chinoy said on Twitter that she was "delighted" that Sharif had made the commitment. "Next step is to push all the politicians to call a joint session & get the anti honor crime bill passed that has lapsed in parliament!" she said in another tweet. "There is no Honor in Honor Killing- It is not part of our religion or culture- It is a stain on our society," she said. Chinoy was feted across Pakistan in 2012 when she won the country's first Oscar for "Saving Face", a 40-minute documentary that exposed the horrors endured by women who survive devastating acid attacks. It focuses on two women, Zakia and Rukhsana, as they fight to rebuild their lives after being attacked by their husbands, and British Pakistani plastic surgeon Mohammad Jawad who tries to help repair their shattered faces. Acid attacks, which disfigure and often blind their overwhelmingly female victims, have long been used to settle personal or family scores in Pakistan, with hundreds of cases reported each year. The attacks along with honour killings fit a wider pattern of eroding women's rights in the conservative Muslim nation, where women are frequently treated as second-class citizens and there is no law against domestic violence. Russia, Syria agreed 'open-ended' military presence for Moscow Russia and Syria in August signed an agreement giving Moscow the go-ahead for an open-ended military presence in the war-torn country, Moscow has revealed. The agreement was signed in Damascus on August 26, 2015, more than a month before Russia launched a bombing campaign against the Islamic State group and other "terrorists" at the request of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad. The Russian government on Thursday released the text of the agreement, which said that it had been "concluded for an open-ended period of time." Russian servicemen assist air force pilots in a Sukhoi Su-30SM fighter jet before departure on a mission at the Hmeimim military base in Latakia province, in the northwest of Syria, on December 16, 2015 Paul Gypteau (AFP) Under the terms of the agreement, Russia deployed warplanes and personnel at the Hmeimim airbase in Latakia in Syrian government-held territory. The deal was made to defend the "sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of the Russian Federation and the Syrian Arab Republic," according to the document. President Vladimir Putin justified the campaign launched in September -- Russia's first major foreign intervention since the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 -- by saying that Moscow needed to target Islamic State fighters before they crossed into Russia. Military analyst Alexander Golts said the agreement with Syria suited Russia's interests. "Russia can halt its operation at any time so it does not have any responsibilities before Syria," he told AFP. "At the same time it can stay there for as long as it wishes. It's totally up to the Russian authorities." The West has criticised Russia's foray into the already convoluted, multi-front conflict, accusing Moscow of targeting not only the IS group but also moderate rebels fighting the Assad regime. Manila says worried Filipinos could join IS in Middle East The Philippines said Friday it was concerned that Islamic State jihadists could recruit its nationals working in the Middle East, a day after militants linked to the group carried out an attack on Jakarta. President Benigno Aquino told reporters that Philippine intelligence authorities would ask their Middle East counterparts to monitor possible radicalisation within the Filipino community in the region, which numbers up to two million. Aquino said there was no "credible threat" of attacks by the Islamic State group (IS) in the Philippines in the wake of Thursday's attacks in the Indonesian capital, which left two civilians and five attackers dead, but warned of a "general threat". An image taken from a propaganda video released by the Islamic State's al-Furqan Media allegedly shows IS fighters raising their weapons "We need to be prudent. We will coordinate with (Middle Eastern) intelligence agencies to monitor these communities to see if they have been influenced by ISIS," he said, using another acronym for the group. "We can't be like an ostrich, which burrows its head in the ground to avoid seeing the problem," he said. "Is there a credible threat? Is there a specific threat? There is none. Is there a general threat? Yes. We are not immune from the extremism problem." In particular, he said a Filipino-Lebanese and a Filipino-Saudi, both of whom were living abroad, had attempted to join the jihadist group. This month, the Philippine-based Abu Sayyaf extremist group released a video pledging allegiance to IS. Aquino, however, belittled the group's claim and said they were riding on IS's notoriety. The group had previously been associated with IS rival Al-Qaeda, he noted. Turkey to offer work permits for Syrian refugees: official Turkey is to grant work permits to Syrian refugees, an official statement said Friday, in a key move which could allow Syrians to build more prosperous and stable lives in the country. An announcement in Turkey's official gazette said that work permits would be granted to refugees who have fled to the country to escape the conflicts in their homeland. It did not specify nationality, but the measure chiefly applies to the over 2.2 million Syrians who have fled the almost five-year conflict for the safety of Turkey, as well as some 300,000 Iraqis. Turkey has become a hub for migrants seeking to reach Europe Adem Altan (AFP/File) Refugees in Turkey are not allowed to work or be employed in the country without a valid work permit, the government decree published in the gazette makes clear. New arrivals will able to apply for a work permit six months after they obtained a temporary protection status, the announcement said. The regulation also applies to those who have already resettled. The number of refugees holding a work permit must not exceed 10 percent of the total number of employees at any workplace, it said. Rights activists have long pressed Turkey to grant work permits to refugees -- most of them working illegally and for very minimal wages -- to allow then to build better lives in the country. The measure would be welcomed by EU states as it might discourage the migrants from crossing illegally into the European Union in search of better lives. Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said on Monday the move would "make life easier for Syrians" without putting a burden on employers. Turkey has become a hub for migrants seeking to reach Europe and has on occasion been criticised by its Western partners for not doing enough to limit the numbers crossing the Aegean Sea. Ankara and Brussels in November signed a plan to stem the flow by providing Ankara with three billion euros ($3.2 billion) of EU cash as well as political concessions for Turkish cooperation in tackling Europe's worst migrant crisis since World War II. UN denounces killings, mass graves and gang rapes in Burundi The UN human rights chief voiced alarm Friday at the spiralling violence in Burundi over "extremely disturbing" allegations of security forces gang raping women, ethnic killings and mass graves. Burundi has been sliding deeper into violence since President Pierre Nkurunziza announced in April his intention to run in elections last July. The unrest has intensified since his re-election, with political assassinations on both sides, attacks against the police and summary executions. Burundi has suffered a dramatic rise in killings, arrests and detentions since President Pierre Nkurunziza launched his controversial bid to stand for a third term in April 2015 Landry Nshimye (AFP/File) "All the alarm signals, including the increasing ethnic dimension of the crisis, are flashing red," Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein warned in a statement. Zeid warned that "deeply worrying new trends are emerging in Burundi, including cases of sexual violence by security forces and a sharp increase in enforced disappearances and torture cases." He called for an urgent investigation into a spike in violence in Bujumbura last month and witness accounts of at least nine mass graves in and around the capital, including one in a military camp allegedly containing more than 100 bodies of people killed on December 11. "My office is analysing satellite images in an effort to shed more light on these extremely serious allegations," Zeid said. The UN rights office's Africa expert, Scott Campbell, said a team of three experts was ready to deploy to Burundi to investigate grave crimes allegedly committed during the crisis, but so far Bujumbura has not cleared the group. "Our plan is to deploy on January 25th... We are still waiting for a government response," Campbell told reporters. "Our great hope is that these experts will receive visas." - Disturbing violations - Witness testimony suggests that the death toll from the December 11 attacks on three military bases was far higher than the official tally of 87. The UN puts the number at at least 130. The December attacks meanwhile appeared to have triggered "new and extremely disturbing patterns of violations," Zeid said. "We have documented 13 cases of sexual violence against women, which began during the search and arrest operations that took place after the December events," he said. "The pattern was similar in all cases: security forces allegedly entered the victims' houses, separated the women from their families, and raped in some cases gang-raped them," he added. Police and army forces had also arrested "considerable numbers of young men, many of whom were later tortured, killed or taken to unknown destinations," Zeid said. He voiced particular alarm at testimony from residents in various neighbourhoods indicating that the search operations following the December 11 violence had targeted Tutsis in particular. One woman was told she was being sexually abused because she was Tutsi, and in Bujumbura's Nyakabiga neighbourhood, a witness claimed Tutsis "were systematically killed, while Hutus were spared," Zeid's office said. "A complete breakdown in law and order is just around the corner," Zeid warned, stressing that with "the potentially lethal ethnic dimension starting to rear its head, this will inevitably end in disaster if the current rapidly deteriorating trajectory continues." At least 439 people have died in the violence since April and tens of thousands have fled to neighbouring countries out of fear of a return to all-out war. Burundi plunged into civil war on ethnic lines between majority Hutus and minority Tutsis in 1993, at a cost of an estimated 300,000 lives by the end of the conflict in 2006. Burundi has been sliding deeper into violence since President Pierre Nkurunziza announced in April his intention to run in elections last July Landry Nshimiye (AFP/File) Russia begins 'humanitarian operations' in Syria Russia said Friday it had launched "humanitarian operations" in Syria where it is carrying out a bombing campaign against the Islamic State group, claiming peaceful life was slowly returning to the war-torn country. "The inhabitants are gradually coming back to Syrian cities and peaceful life is returning," General Sergei Rudskoi, a senior Russian General Staff official, told reporters. "In this context, the implementation of humanitarian operations will be a new line of work for the Russian armed forces in Syria," he said in televised comments. Young Syrian women walk through the rubble of destroyed buildings following reported air strikes in the rebel-held area of Douma Sameer al-Doumy (AFP/File) "Currently most of the aid is being sent to the city of Deir Ezzor which has been besieged by ISIL terrorists for a long time," Rudskoi said, using another term for IS. He said Syria's Il-76 military transport planes had airdropped 22 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Deir Ezzor using Russian equipment. "It will be distributed by local authorities," Rudskoi added. "Our work in this direction will continue," he said. "In the future we will give to the Syrian people all possible assistance when it comes to liberating the country from extremists and rebuilding peaceful life." Russia has decided to launch its own humanitarian operations in Syria because most of the aid has so far gone to rebel-controlled areas, often ending up in the hands of "extremists," Rudskoi said. "Attempts have repeatedly been seen to supply arms and ammunition and evacuate wounded fighters under cover of humanitarian convoys," he added. Moscow launched a bombing campaign against IS and other "terrorists" on September 30, saying it needed to target jihadists before they crossed into Russia. The West has criticised Russia's foray into the multi-front conflict, accusing Moscow of targeting not only the IS group but also moderate rebels fighting the regime. S. Korea prosecutors want 20-year term for US murder suspect South Korean prosecutors on Friday demanded a 20-year jail sentence for a US citizen charged with brutally murdering a Korean man nearly two decades ago in a high-profile case. Arthur Patterson, 36, was extradited from the United States in September to face trial in Seoul on charges of murdering Jo Jung-Pil, who was stabbed multiple times with a knife in a fast-food restaurant toilet. Patterson, who was the 17-year-old son of a US military contractor at the time, has denied his involvement in the crime in the nightlife district of Itaewon, close to the US military base in Seoul. US national Arthur Patterson (in white) is escorted as he arrives at Incheon international airport after being extradited from the US, on September 23, 2015 - (Yonhap/AFP) Prosecutors, however, alleged Patterson stabbed Jo, who appeared to be a complete stranger to him, to death for no apparent reason. "The accused still shows no repentance, denying he committed the murder," a prosecutor was quoted as saying by the Yonhap news agency at the trial at Seoul District Court. The accused showed "devil-like brutality", stabbing Jo nine times, according to the prosecution. Twenty years in jail is a maximum penalty in South Korea for an offender under the age of 18. The verdict and sentencing is due on January 29. Patterson has insisted on his innocence, saying his then-friend Edward Lee committed the crime. Patterson was initially tried as an accomplice, while Edward Lee, a Korean-American man who was at the scene, was charged with murder. Both accused the other of killing Jo. Patterson served 18 months in prison for lesser charges including obstruction of justice, while Lee was sentenced to 20 years in jail for murder. In 1998, Patterson was released as part of an amnesty programme, only to find himself a murder suspect again after Lee was acquitted on appeal for lack of evidence. He fled to the United States a year later after investigators failed to renew his travel ban -- a mistake that sparked a storm of criticism. The murder was made into a hit movie in 2009, refuelling public anger over the crime and forcing South Korean prosecutors to reopen the case. Patterson was formally charged in absentia with Jo's murder in 2011, and extradition proceedings began. Pakistani clerics block 'un-Islamic' child marriage bill Pakistani lawmakers have withdrawn a proposal to impose harsher penalties on those who arrange child marriages after it was scuttled by a religious body who branded it "blasphemous" and against Islam, sources told AFP Friday. The proposal, which would also have raised the legal age of marriages for females from 16 to 18, called for "rigorous" punishment up to two years in prison for those who organise child marriages, still common in some parts of Pakistan. Marvi Memon, a member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), had moved to amend existing child marriage legislation in the lower house but was forced to withdraw her bid after it was rejected by a parliamentary committee on religious affairs, a source familiar with the development told AFP. Police carry a 10-year-old boy a three-year-old girl in Karachi after their relatives tried to have them illegally married Rizwan Tabassum (AFP/File) A representative from the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) had dubbed the amendment to the Child Marriage Restraint (Amendment) Bill 2014 as "anti-Islamic" and "blasphemous" during the committee meeting, the source said. The CII was formed in 1962 to advise parliament on the compatibility of laws with Sharia. Its recommendations are non-binding, and it has drawn widespread criticism in the past for other rulings -- including in 2013, when it suggested making DNA inadmissible evidence in rape cases, instead calling for the revival of an Islamic law that makes it mandatory for a survivor to provide four witnesses to back their claims. "Marvi wanted deletion of the word 'simple' punishment for those involved in arranging child marriages to 'rigorous' or 'two-year' punishment in the actual legislation," the parliamentary source, who did not want to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter, told AFP. "Marvi also wanted the age for girls' marriage to be raised from 16 years to 18 years, which does not in any way violate the teachings of Islam," the source said. The original law stipulates the age of marriage at 16 for women and 18 for men but Pakistani religious scholars believe it is not in accordance with Islamic teachings. They say there is no specific age limit for marriage in Sharia as an individual can marry when he or she reaches puberty and puberty cannot be defined by age. Rights activists strongly criticised the rejection of bill. "It is a pity that the committee came under the pressure of the council's unjust ruling," leading rights activist I.A. Rehman told AFP. Citigroup earnings jump despite energy hit Citigroup reported a big jump in fourth-quarter earnings as much lower expenses offset a hit to results due to weakness in energy-sector loans. Earnings were $3.3 billion, nearly 10 times the $344 million in the fourth quarter of 2014, which was hit with a hefty $3.5 billion charge for legal and restructuring expenses. Revenues rose 3.1 percent to $18.5 billion. Citibank earnings were $3.3 billion, nearly 10 times the $344 million in the fourth quarter of 2014, which was hit with a hefty $3.5 billion charge for legal and restructuring expenses Justin Sullivan (Getty/AFP/File) Citigroup saw gains in several key areas of its institutional clients business, including investment banking, bond trading and equity trading. However, net income still fell for this business overall by 18 percent to $1.4 billion due to increased reserves taken in case of loan defaults; this included $250 million for the energy portfolio, which has suffered due to low oil prices. Citigroup's other major division, global consumer banking, reported a 20 percent drop in net income to $1.3 billion due in part to a streamlined retail presence in several overseas markets that led to lower revenues. Citigroup reported annual profits of $17.2 billion, more than double the $7.3 billion in 2014. Citigroup chief executive Michael Corbat said the company's highest annual earnings since 2006 reflected "substantial progress to our targets and execution priorities." "We have sharpened our focus on target clients," he said. "We have undoubtedly become a simpler, smaller, safer and stronger institution." Citigroup shares were down 2.6 percent to $44.20 in pre-market trade. 2 Palestinians killed by Israel forces in Gaza protest Two Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli forces during protests along the border with Gaza on Friday, the Palestinian enclave's health ministry said, following a three-month spike in violence. Mohammed Abu Zaida, 18, was shot in the neck and Mohammad Qita, 26, was hit in the stomach, ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said. Fifteen other Palestinians were wounded by Israeli fire during the clashes east of the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, he said. Palestinian mourners carry the body of Mohammed Abu Zaida, who died after being shot by Israeli security forces, during his funeral in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza on January 15, 2016 Mohammed Abed (AFP) The Israeli army confirmed it had fired on protesters after they breached the "buffer zone" along the border. "Dozens of rioters have breached the buffer zone and are attempting to damage the fence," a spokeswoman said. "Forces shot rioters posing a threat of infiltration and the riot is ongoing." Israel and the Palestinian territories have seen a wave of violence in recent months, with 23 Israelis and 154 Palestinians killed since October 1. Most of the Palestinians have been killed carrying out attacks, while others were shot by Israeli forces during protests and clashes. An American and an Eritrean have also died in the violence. Pakistan raids schools linked to India base attack suspects Pakistani police have raided and shut down two religious schools linked to an Islamist group believed to be behind a fatal attack on an Indian air base earlier this month, officials said. Punjab provincial law minister Rana Sanaullah told AFP that a madrassa, or religious school, affiliated with Jaish-e-Mohammad was raided and sealed off on Thursday, while a second one had already been shut down at the weekend. "Islamic literature was also recovered from these madrassas, investigations are on going," he said, adding that a dozen suspects had been detained and are being questioned by police. The January 2 assault on the Pathankot air base came just days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi became the first Indian leader to visit Pakistan in 11 years, in a diplomatic outreach that had raised hopes of a softening in relations Narinder Nanu (AFP/File) A spokesman for the counter-terrorism department in Punjab confirmed both the raids and detentions. In a brief media statement, the spokesman said one of the schools, in a village in Punjab's Sialkot district, was suspected of ties including financial links to the banned organisation. The January 2 assault on the Pathankot air base came just days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi became the first Indian leader to visit Pakistan in 11 years, in a diplomatic outreach that had raised hopes of a softening in relations between the nuclear-armed rivals. The attack was a rare instance of the targeting of an Indian military installation outside disputed Kashmir. India says the assault, which left seven soldiers dead, was carried out by the banned Jaish-e-Mohammed, which is based in Pakistan and was set up to fight Indian rule in Kashmir. Pakistan banned the group in 2002, the year after it was blamed for an attack on the Indian parliament that took the two neighbours to the brink of war. Joy over Ebola victory crushed by Sierra Leone death The World Health Organization confirmed Friday a new death from Ebola in Sierra Leone just a day after west Africa celebrated the end of an outbreak which killed 11,000 people. A 22-year-old woman, named as Marie Jalloh, was taken ill near the Guinean border on Thursday last week and died on Tuesday, local health officials said as the WHO issued a statement from Geneva confirming she was killed by Ebola. A total of 27 people have been placed in quarantine in a bid to prevent the spread of the disease, health ministry officials said. A nurse in a protective suit assists an Ebola patient at a treatment centre run by the Red Cross Society on November 15, 2014 in Kenema, Sierra Leone Francisco Leong (AFP/File) Augustine Junisa, the chief local medical officer, told reporters the student became ill while on holiday in the village of Bamoi Luma and was taken by relatives to hospital. The official said the woman "died at home" but did not say why she had been released from the hospital in Magburaka, the capital of the northern Tonkolili district. However, a nurse at the Magburaka Hospital told AFP that the victim was not admitted but was "given some medication as she showed signs of severe cold", and sent home. "The swab test on the victim after her death was done three times and all proved positive," Langoba Kelly of Sierra Leone's office of national security told reporters in Freetown, appealing for calm. The WHO had announced on Thursday that the two-year Ebola outbreak that killed 11,315 people and triggered a global health alert was over, with Liberia the last country to get the all-clear. - 'Really worried' - UN chief Ban Ki-moon cautioned that the region could expect sporadic cases in the coming year but added "we also expect the potential and frequency of those flare-ups to decrease over time". Residents in Magburaka, a town of around 40,000 people, voiced shock and distress over the announcement. "It was not expected and came at a time when we had thought that the virus is nowhere within our land," groundnut farmer Allieu Kamara told AFP. The deadliest outbreak in the history of the feared tropical virus wrecked the economies and health systems of the three worst-hit west African nations after it emerged in southern Guinea in December 2013. Sierra Leone was declared free of Ebola transmission on November 7 last year and Guinea on December 29. The agency said the 42-day countdown to Sierra Leone being declared free of transmission once more would begin again from the date of the latest victim's burial if no more cases were uncovered. Meanwhile investigators are likely to focus on whether the latest victim had sexual contact with an Ebola survivor, only recently recognised as a possible source of infection, and if she crossed the border to Guinea in the days before becoming sick. Rumours have circulated in Sierra Leone media over the resumption of the practice of eating bush meat, banned because bats and other jungle-dwelling mammals are thought to be natural reservoirs for the Ebola virus. - Lax hygiene - But Ian Mackay, associate professor of virology at the University of Queensland, said the practice had been in existence long before the outbreak and a relaxation of hygiene precautions like handwashing was more of a worry. "The WHO was mentioning that yesterday, that handwashing has just become just a little bit more lax and that really needs to pick up to help combat the return of this and other infections," he told Britain's BBC Five Live radio station. At its peak, Ebola devastated Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, which between them suffered more than 99 percent of the global cases, with bodies piling up in the streets and overwhelmed hospitals recording hundreds of new cases a week. Ten countries in total registered cases, including the United States and Spain. Liberia, the country worst hit by the outbreak with 4,800 deaths, discharged its last two patients from hospital -- the father and younger brother of a 15-year-old victim -- on December 3, 2015. Africa's oldest republic was the last country still afflicted by the outbreak that infected almost 29,000 people and claimed 11,315 lives, according to official data. The real toll is suspected to be much higher, with many Ebola deaths believed to have gone unreported. Ebola causes severe fever and muscle pain, weakness, vomiting and diarrhoea. In many cases it shuts down organs and causes unstoppable internal bleeding. Patients often succumb within days. From a Guinean infant who was the first victim, the epidemic quickly spread into neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone, notching up more deaths than all other Ebola outbreaks combined. An medical worker from Doctors Without Borders puts on protective clothing in Kailahun, Sierra Leone, in 2014 Carl de Souza (AFP/File) A health worker in protective gear gives a young Ebola patient a drink in Sierra Leone's Kenama treatment centre, run by the Red Cross Francisco Leong (AFP/File) Mysterious 'Zuma must fall' billboard baffles Cape Town A giant billboard calling for President Jacob Zuma to be ousted appeared in central Cape Town Friday, startling the normally sleepy city into feverish speculation over who was behind it. The white billboard, covering six storeys of an apartment block, read simply: "ZUMA MUST FALL". Twitter lit up with speculation over suspects, with perhaps the most trenchant suggestion being that it was "Someone with big balls & deep pockets". Calls for Zuma to resign or be kicked out of office are not new, with accusations that he presides over growing corruption, unemployment and a struggling economy John Macdougall (AFP/File) The main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, which has repeatedly called for Zuma's impeachment, denied it was responsible. Cape Town authorities said they would prosecute the culprits because the billboard did not comply with local by-laws. The 'must fall' call has become widely popular in South Africa for anything that is disliked, after being coined last year by students demanding the removal of a statue of British coloniser Cecil Rhodes from the University of Cape Town. The students won that battle, and the statue was taken down. While many Twitter users hailed the billboard as "free speech", some suspected that white South Africans were behind it. "Racism is older than so it must fall first," wrote Racial division remains a major issue in South Africa, 21 years after the end of apartheid. Calls for Zuma to resign or be kicked out of office are not new, with accusations that he presides over growing corruption, unemployment and a struggling economy. But they became more vociferous last month after he sacked two finance minister within four days, sending the rand currency to historic international lows. One man who might find the billboard embarassing is Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is tipped as a candidate to succeed Zuma. Puerto Rico 'in midst of economic collapse' Puerto Rico's economy is collapsing, US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said Friday as he announced a visit to the US territory two weeks after its debt default. In a letter to Congress, Lew urged passage of bankruptcy legislation for the Caribbean island weighed down by $70 billion in debt and the effects of a decade of recession. "Although there are many ways this crisis could escalate further, it is clear that Puerto Rico is already in the midst of an economic collapse," Lew said in the letter, addressed to Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan. In a letter to Congress, US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew urged passage of bankruptcy legislation for Puerto Rico weighed down by $70 billion in debt and the effects of a decade of recession Saul Loeb (AFP/File) "In order to assist the 3.5 million Americans living in Puerto Rico, Congress must pass legislation for the president to sign into law before the end of March." He noted that Puerto Rico's government is now shifting funds away from one creditor to pay another, and has stopped payments altogether on some of its bonds. After it missed $37 million in payments early this month, and pulled another $163 million from escrow for some bonds to service government debt, creditors have filed suit, complicating the situation. Meanwhile, Lew said, the island's government is cutting back spending and raiding pension and other assets to keep going, exacerbating both its financial and economic problems. "The worsening fiscal and economic situation means real suffering for the people of Puerto Rico: basic healthcare, legal, and education services have been impaired," Lew said. "To address the crisis, Puerto Rico needs federal legislation that pairs an orderly process to restructure its debts with strong, independent fiscal oversight to remedy its history of fiscal mismanagement." Lew will visit the island on Wednesday to discuss the situation with top officials. But he warned that without action in Congress, the US federal government has few options for supporting the island. Burundi sentences four coup leaders to life A court in Burundi jailed four ex-generals to life in prison Friday for a failed coup, with nine others jailed for 30 years for their role in the unrest. The small central African country descended into bloodshed in April when President Pierre Nkurunziza announced his intention to run for a controversial third term, sparking the failed coup in May. Coup leader, ex-general Godefroid Nyombare, is on the run, but those sentenced at the Supreme Court Friday included four key deputies. Former Burundian defence minister Cyrille Ndayirukiye is among four ex-generals sentenced to life in prison for a failed coup Among them are three ex-army generals -- former defence minister Cyrille Ndayirukiye, Zenon Ndabaneze and Juvenal Niyungeko -- and one police general, Hermenegilde Nimenya. The court, which described them as the "coup organisers", were found guilty of the three counts of launching an attempted coup, killing soldiers, policemen and civilians, and the malicious destruction of buildings. Nine officers, from both the army and police, were sentenced to 30 years in prison for "having cooperated" with the coup leaders. All were also banned them from holding public office for 10 years. Eight soldiers, including drivers and bodyguards of the jailed generals, were sentenced to five years for their roles. However, seven others were acquitted, including general Prime Ngowenubusa. Prosecutors had demanded life sentences for all 28 on trial. During the trial, leaders cited the violent repression of anti-government protests to justify their attempted takeover of power. They also said they had not been given proper access to lawyers. All were present at the reading of the verdict in the court, held under high security in Gitega, some 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of the capital Bujumbura. Ndabaneze said he took part in the coup to "defend the constitution and the peace agreement" of Arusha, which paved the way to end more than a decade of civil war in 2006. Months of street protests in Burundi have devolved into regular armed attacks with gunfire disrupting the nights and dead bodies appearing on city streets almost every day. Attacks targeting the security forces have escalated, with rebels armed with assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars attacking police convoys and targeting government installations. First group of weary Cubans reach US after long trek The first few dozen of thousands of Cubans trying to reach the United States after being stranded for months in Costa Rica crossed the Mexican border into Texas Friday, ending a dangerous odyssey. They were processed in a Mexican immigration office in the border town of Nuevo Laredo and walked out on the other side of the frontier in Laredo, Texas. Migrants group Cubanos en Libertad, an organization which helps Cubans arriving in Texas, said 59 had crossed the border. Salvadoran police officers guard a bus transporting Cuban migrants in San Luis Talpa on January 13, 2016 Marvin Recinos (AFP/File) Most came to join family members already living in the United States, many of them in Florida, said a representative of the group, Alejandro Ruiz. "Last night 12 arrived after traveling by plane to Nuevo Laredo and this morning another 47 arrived by bus," he said, after the 40-hour drive from the southeastern state of Chiapas. Under US law, they automatically get permission to stay and are put on a fast track to permanent residency after one year. That welcome is the sweet reward the Cubans sought after a grueling trek through South and Central America that was fueled in part, and ironically, by the thaw in US-Cuban ties. "We are happy because we achieved our goal," said one of the Cubans, Randy Cuevas, 29, in a video posted on the Facebook page of Cubanos en Libertad. "This was my dream, the dream of all Cubans," said another, 20-year-old Lilian de Gonzalez. The dozen who arrived late Thursday and early Friday were among 180 who set out from Costa Rica this week, first by plane to El Salvador -- skipping over Cuba ally Nicaragua, which would not let them pass -- and then by bus through Guatemala to Mexico. That bus trip alone took 13 hours. It was organized by regional governments and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). They were allowed to travel to Mexico after its government reached an agreement with various central American countries. - Thousands still stranded - But nearly 8,000 others remain stranded in Costa Rica, waiting since late last year to make the trip north to the United States and the lure of a better life. Thousands of Cubans have left the Communist island in recent months over concerns that the re-establishment of US-Cuban diplomatic relations will prompt Washington to drop its policy of giving them automatic residence when they set foot in the United States. For many of the Cubans, their trip began in Ecuador, where until recently they could travel without a visa. From there they made their way through Colombia, into Panama and then Costa Rica, often traveling along smuggling routes. Many of the Cubans experienced extortion and kidnapping threats along the way. The trip through Mexico is particularly daunting: there, crime and drug gangs are known to prey ruthlessly on migrants, often kidnapping and holding them for ransom and then killing them if no one back home pays up. "It has been a tough fight. I have been putting up with this since October. But in the end I made it, thank God and thank everyone," new arrival Cuevas said of his trip. "It was a tough odyssey." A man at a shelter, part of a group of Cuban migrants in La Cruz, Costa Rica on November 26, 2015 Ezequiel Becerra (AFP/File) Amazon dips toes into maritime shipping Amazon said Friday it has taken the first steps to begin maritime shipping operations, adding to its already vast arsenal of logistical operations. The company confirmed to AFP that it had registered with the US Federal Maritime Commission to operate via a Chinese subsidiary Beijing Century Joyo Courier Service. The news was first reported by the shipping blog Flexport, which called it "Amazon's first step toward entering the $350 billion ocean freight market." Amazon says it has registered with the US Federal Maritime Commission to operate via a Chinese subsidiary Beijing Century Joyo Courier Service Adrian Dennis (AFP/File) By operating its own maritime shipping, Amazon could improve its ability to move goods into the company's logistics network, the blog noted. "We don't have anything to share beyond confirming that the filing occurred," Amazon spokeswoman Kelly Cheeseman said. - Road and air - Amazon has already announced it hopes to be able to use drones to deliver goods to customers upon winning regulatory approval. It has also confirmed plans to acquire all shares of French delivery group Colis Prive, which could help reduce its reliance on outside shippers such as Fedex and UPS. The online retail giant last year announced the purchase of "thousands" of trailers capable of carrying its goods between warehouses in the United States. In the air, Amazon has been developing automated drones with a vision of having packages quickly dropped at customers' doors. US media reports last year told of efforts by Amazon to negotiate air cargo leases to for transporting products. "It sounds like they are gradually building more of their own supply chain so they can have more control of every part of the delivery experience," Forrester analyst Sucharita Mulpuru said. A large part of Amazon's costs are related to shipping and deliveries, and by relying on third parties the company is at the mercy of others, reasoned independent technology analyst Rob Enderle. Amazon's operation is so massive, it may have the resources to run its own shipping and delivery operations, perhaps even contracting services out to other companies to bring in revenue, according to analysts. "It is an expensive bet," Enderle said. "But, they have demonstrated with Amazon Web Services that they can take these very large risks and make them pay off." Kerry heads to Vienna to talk Iran deal US Secretary of State John Kerry heads to Vienna on Saturday for talks with his European Union and Iranian counterparts on the Iran nuclear deal, officials said. The trip comes amid speculation that the Vienna-based IAEA nuclear watchdog is about to announce Iran has fulfilled its side of the deal to put an atomic bomb beyond its reach. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Kerry will meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini to discuss the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran's nuclear program. US Secretary of State John Kerry Saul Loeb (AFP/File) "As we've said, all parties have continued making steady progress toward 'Implementation Day' of the JCPOA, which will ensure the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program," Toner said. Syria regime in major operation across Aleppo province Syria's government is launching a major assault in the northern province of Aleppo, seeking in part to cut off rebel access to Aleppo city, a security source told AFP. "Through its operations, the army is trying to broaden its security zone around the city," and prevent the rebels from receiving supplies and reinforcements from the suburbs, the source said. Once Syria's commercial hub, Aleppo city is now divided between government control in the west and rebel control in the east. Syrian regime forces take aim at Islamic State (IS) jihadists south of the town of Al-Bab, in the northern province of Aleppo on January 14, 2016 George Ourfalian (AFP/File) The broader province is split as well, with the Islamic State jihadist group present in parts of the east, along with the regime, and rebel groups and Syria's Al-Qaeda affiliate, Al-Nusra Front, in the west. But with backing from Russian air strikes and foreign fighters, Syria's armed forces are slowly advancing south and southeast of the city. One commander with pro-government forces said they were currently fighting on seven fronts across Aleppo province, and the operation was expected to expand further. Investigators: We need more time in playground rape case NEW YORK (AP) Prosecutors investigating a young woman's report of being gang-raped by five teenage boys in a playground say they need more time to gather evidence before they decide whether to take the case to a grand jury. The boys have been charged with rape and other crimes following the Jan. 7 encounter in a quiet Brooklyn park. The Brooklyn district attorney's office has six months to investigate. Prosecutors can choose whether to drop the charges or take the case before a grand jury, which would then decide whether to indict the boys, who range in age from 14 to 17. According to law, the boys must be released from jail if they aren't indicted within five days of their arrests, which is Friday, if their attorneys don't consent to adjournments. Three of the boys already are out on bail, so the release affects only Onandi Brown. The fifth boy, Shaquell Cooper, will continue to be held in an unrelated assault case. District Attorney Ken Thompson said, "Because we are determined to get to the truth about what happened in that park, we need more time to investigate this complex case and gather more evidence. So, therefore, we have consented to the defendants' release." Toxicology reports and DNA evidence from a rape kit administered at a hospital won't be ready until Friday or next week, and police were searching the cellphones of three of the boys for video evidence. The 18-year-old woman told police she was approached by the boys while drinking with her father in the playground. Police said the boys chased away her father and flashed a gun at him when he returned. The father flagged down two police officers and took them to the playground, where they found his daughter wandering around alone with her clothes strewn about the area. The woman was distraught but gave a very credible account of the attack, police said. The boys were charged with rape, criminal sex act, sex abuse and forcible touching. They say the sex with the woman was consensual and she was having sexual contact with her father when they approached. Two of the boys say they didn't participate and one had intercourse with her while the other two received oral sex. The boys' attorneys say cellphone video shows the half-naked woman smiling and laughing as they approached her in the park. "I think it's a clear indication that at least somebody realizes that the case has to be really evaluated," said defense attorney Kenneth Montgomery, who represents Denzel Murray. "I'm glad the DA's office has taken the position to really get to the bottom of this." Attorney Abdula Greene, representing Ethan Philip, said the boy's mother is "happy they don't have an indictment at this time, but it's not over until God says it's over." Other defense attorneys in the case didn't immediately respond to messages seeking comment Thursday. Anglicans sanction US Episcopal Church over gay marriage NEW YORK (AP) Anglican leaders on Thursday temporarily restricted the role of the U.S. Episcopal Church in their global fellowship as a sanction over the American church's acceptance of gay marriage. Episcopalians have been barred for three years from any policy-setting positions in the Anglican Communion while a task force is formed that will try to reconcile conflicting views over sexuality in the 85-million-member family of churches. The Episcopal Church is the Anglican body in the United States. The announcement came near the end of a weeklong meeting in Canterbury, England, called by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, to heal rifts over same-sex relationships and keep the Anglican Communion from splitting apart. Welby, the Anglican spiritual leader, has set a news conference Friday in Canterbury to explain the leaders' decision. FILE - In this Sunday, Nov. 1, 2015 file photo, Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop-elect Michael Curry speaks to churchgoers as he arrives at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington. On Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, Anglican leaders temporarily restricted the role of the U.S. Episcopal Church in their global fellowship as a sanction over the American church's acceptance of gay marriage. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana) Episcopal Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, who was installed in office less than three months ago, has been attending the meeting. He told the other leaders their vote "will bring real pain" to gays and lesbians and to Episcopalians "committed to following Jesus in the way of love and being a church that lives that love." Still, he said he was committed to the Anglican family. The Global Anglican Future Conference, which represents theologically conservative Anglican leaders worldwide, had sought sanctions against the U.S. church, and some members said they would walk out of this week's meeting unless some penalty was applied. One leader, Ugandan Archbishop Stanley Ntagali, did so. But in a statement Thursday, the conference known as GAFCON said their leaders were pleased by the outcome of the meeting, but "this action must not be seen as an end, but as a beginning." Anglicans, whose roots are in the missionary work of the Church of England, are the third-largest grouping of Christians in the world, behind Roman Catholics and the Orthodox. The fellowship has been fracturing for decades over gay relationships, women's ordination and other issues. Those rifts blew wide open in 2003 when the New York-based Episcopal Church consecrated the first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, in New Hampshire. Last year, the top U.S. Episcopal legislative body, or General Convention, voted to authorize gay marriages in their churches. The most vocal protests to the Episcopal embrace of gay rights came from Africa, home to some of the fastest-growing churches in the Anglican communion and the deepest opposition to gay relationships as a violation of Scripture. Many African countries have criminalized gay relationships. Theological conservatives from around the world joined together to form the Global Anglican Future Conference as a fellowship within the communion, distancing themselves from the U.S. Episcopal Church and refusing to participate in some Anglican gatherings. In 2009, Anglican national leaders in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and other church provinces helped create the Anglican Church in North America, as a theologically conservative alternative to the U.S. Episcopal Church. Welby had invited the leader of the conservative North American body to participate in the Canterbury assembly. The press office for the Anglican leaders in Canterbury said the statement released Thursday affirmed the leaders' "unanimous commitment to walk together." The statement acknowledged "deep differences" over understanding of marriage and said the majority in the meeting "reaffirm" the teaching that marriage is only the union of a man and a woman. The leaders called the Episcopal Church approval of gay marriage "a fundamental departure from the faith and teaching" of the majority of Anglicans. As a result, Episcopalians "no longer represent us on ecumenical and interfaith bodies," and have the equivalent of observer status in Anglican commissions, the leaders said. Military prosecutors have charged an Air Force colonel in Colorado with rape, assault and adultery, according to court documents released Thursday. Col. Eugene Caughey, currently assigned to Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base, was charged with misconduct dating back to 2013. Caughey is accused of raping a woman at Schriever Air Force Base, also in Colorado, in late 2014 or early 2015 while 'holding her against the wall and floor using physical strength or violence,' the documents state. Prosecutors also said the 23-year Air Force veteran committed adultery several times, photographed his exposed genitals while in uniform, and groped women on two occasions. Prosecutors say Caughey photographed his genitalia 'while in uniform and seated in his office' in what has been described as 'an obscene selfie'. Charged: Col. Marcus Caughey, 50th Space Wing vice commander, was the key speaker at Schriever Air Force Base's 2014 9/11 ceremony. He's charged with crimes including rape, sexual assault and adultery The Air Force did not immediately grant a request by The Associated Press to speak with Caughey or his attorney, and a spokesman at Peterson said the military will not answer questions about the case. 'To protect the rights of Col. Caughey and the integrity of ongoing legal proceedings, no other information about the case will be released at this time,' Capt. William Russell wrote in an email to the Colorado Springs Gazette. Caughey and his lawyers told the AP through the Air Force that they did not want to comment. Caughey was formerly second in charge of the 50th Space Wing at Schriever. The unit oversees navigation and communication satellites. The Gazette reports he was an up-and-coming space officer whose responsibilities had included running a 22-nation missile defense wargame in 2014 for U.S. Strategic Command. He is a survivor of the September 11 terror attack on the Pentagon, according to a story on the Schriever Air Force Base website. 'I was a captain inside the Pentagon that morning when a plane crashed into the west side of the building,' Caughey wrote on the website. Court papers show investigators suspect Caughey of misbehaving as far back as the fall of 2013, when they allege he had sex with 'a woman not his wife.' Caughey is scheduled for a March 17 hearing to determine if there is sufficient evidence for a court-martial. Friday, January 22 Today is Friday, Jan. 22, the 22nd day of 2016. There are 344 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date: 1517 - Ottoman troops take Cairo, Egypt. 1528 - England and France declare war on Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. 1655 - Oliver Cromwell dissolves Britain's Parliament. 1760 - French are defeated by British under Eyre Coote at Wandiwash near Pondicherry, ending French presence in India. 1771 - Spain agrees to cede Falkland Islands to Britain. 1808 - King Joao VI and the Portuguese royal family flee from Napoleon's troops and move the court from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 1811 - France's Napoleon Bonaparte annexes Oldenburg, now in northern Germany, and alienates Russia's Czar Alexander. 1879 - King Cetewayo and 20,000 heavily armed Zulu warriors assault British troops and win the battle of Isandlwana in South Africa, where 139 soldiers repel attacks for almost 12 hours. 1905 - In what is called the "Bloody Sunday" incident, the Russian Czar's troops massacre more than 100 peaceful protesters in front of the St. Petersburg palace. 1917 - U.S. President Woodrow Wilson pleads for an end to war in Europe, calling for "peace without victory." 1922 - Pope Benedict XV dies; he is succeeded by Pius XI. 1944 - Allied forces begin landings at Anzio in Italy, but fail to exploit the surprise gained to take Rome, just 53 kilometers (33 miles) away. 1953 - The Arthur Miller drama "The Crucible" about the Salem, Massachusetts, witch trials opens on Broadway in New York. 1957 - Israeli forces complete withdrawal from Sinai Peninsula, but remain in Gaza Strip. 1970 - The first regularly scheduled commercial flight of the Boeing 747 begins in New York City and ends in London some 6 1/2 hours later. 1973 - In its Roe vs. Wade decision, the U.S. Supreme Court legalizes abortions. 1986 - Three Sikhs convicted of 1984 assassination of India's Prime Minister Indira Gandhi are sentenced to death. 1992 - The acting leader of the Islamic Salvation Front, Abdelkadar Hachani, is arrested in Algeria and detained without trial until 1997. 1995 - A suicide mission by Islamic militants kills 19 Israelis and wounds about 60 at Beit Lid Junction, Israel. 1996 - The Galileo probe plunges into Jupiter's atmosphere and finds it windier and drier than expected, with less helium and less lightning. 1997 The U.S. Senate confirms Madeleine Albright as America's first female secretary of state. 2000 - An International Atomic Energy Agency team begins searching Iraqi nuclear sites in the first inspection by a world body in more than a year. Their job is to make sure Iraq's nuclear stocks are not used for military purposes. 2002 - China moves 17,000 mostly Chinese and Muslim settlers to a traditionally Tibetan region in its remote west, reviving a plan abandoned after protests by critics of China's Tibetan policies. 2003 - The French and German governments issue a joint statement expressing their opposition to immediate military action against Iraq. 2005 - Iran's hard-line leadership rules out allowing women to run for president in June elections, denying reports in the state-run media that it had decided to allow female candidates for the first time. 2012 - Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh leaves his battered nation on his way to the U.S. for medical treatment after passing power to his deputy and asking for forgiveness for any "shortcomings" during his 33-year reign. 2013 - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party emerges as the largest faction in a hotly contested parliamentary election, positioning the hard-liner to serve a new term as prime minister. 2014 - Syrian peace talks begin in Switzerland with a bitter clash over President Bashar Assad's future. 2015 The U.S.-led coalition claims it has killed thousands of Islamic State fighters and half of its leadership even as the Iraqi prime minister asks for more help. Today's Birthdays: Francis Bacon, English statesman-essayist (1561-1626); Andre Ampere, French physicist (1775-1836); George Lord Byron, English poet (1788-1824); August Strindberg, Swedish author (1849-1912); Piper Laurie, U.S. actress (1932--); John Hurt, English actor (1940--); Jazzy Jeff, U.S. rap DJ/actor/producer (1965--); Diane Lane, U.S. actress (1965--); Gabriel Macht, U.S. actor (1972--). Thought For Today: Sikh bus driver says police didn't recognize hate crime LOS ANGELES (AP) A California bus driver wearing a turban was called a suicide bomber during an attack that left him hospitalized, but officers failed to recognize the assault as a hate crime, a Sikh advocacy group representing the man said Thursday. Balwinder Jit Singh, 56, had just pulled over the Metro bus he was driving in Inglewood on Nov. 6 when a passenger attacked him, said Gurjot Kaur, Singh's lawyer and a senior staff attorney with the New York-based Sikh Coalition. The attacker beat Singh while saying he was a terrorist and a suicide bomber and had hijacked the bus, Kaur said. She said Singh was left with a black eye, his face and jaw were bruised and swollen, and his eye got infected. Now two months later, he said he has blurred vision and pain. "Psychologically and physically, it was traumatic," Kaur said. "It's very frightening to be attacked in that way." The 33-year-old attacker was arrested on an assault charge the next day, but the sergeant handling the case indicated Singh didn't mention the attacker's statements, said Nicole Nishida, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. The assailant's name was not released. Sheriff's Capt. Karl Schow said the agency is now investigating the hate-crime allegations after receiving additional information. He said the attacker's statements may not have been reported because of victim stress or because of a language barrier. "We do investigate hate crimes. We take them very seriously," Schow said. "We're absolutely doubling back and going to add that to the investigation." Kaur said that Singh speaks conversational English and that there may have been a language barrier, but that he insists that he reported the attacker's statements to investigators. "Initially, I don't believe they did enough," Kaur said. "I believe once racial slurs were brought to their attention, they should have labeled it as a hate crime." A workplace-incident report provided to The Associated Press shows that Singh told his employer the day of the attack that the passenger had called him a terrorist and was driving the bus with a bomb on board. An investigator is scheduled to do another interview with Singh next week. In December, the White House convened meetings of Muslim and Sikh leaders to discuss an increase in hate crimes against their houses of worship and individual members of their faiths in the wake of Islamic-extremist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California. Sikhs, who wear turbans, are often mistaken for Muslims. ___ Mexico: 2 bodies found in area where 43 students disappeared MEXICO CITY (AP) Mexico's attorney general says two bodies were found in recent days in the area of southern Guerrero state where 43 students disappeared in September 2014. Arely Gomez says investigators have begun the forensic process of identifying the skeletal remains. She said Thursday the remains were found in the area between Cocula and Iguala, the city where the students disappeared while hijacking buses in a confrontation with police. The government says the police, in conjunction with a local drug cartel, killed the students and burned them in a huge pyre. An international commission discredited that account, and the attorney general's office continues the search for the students. FILE - In this Dec. 26, 2015, file photo, relatives of the 43 missing students from the Isidro Burgos rural teachers college march holding pictures of their missing loved ones during a protest in Mexico City. An appeals court ruling is threatening to derail Mexicos effort to prosecute suspects in one of its most notorious crimes of recent years: the disappearance and presumed murder of the 43 students in Guerrero state. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File) AP FACT CHECK: Claims from the Republican debate WASHINGTON (AP) Did Ted Cruz mean to suggest he would have gone to war with Iran over its brief detention of U.S. sailors? Did Donald Trump forget that he proposed a massive tax on Chinese goods? And does Ben Carson really think Islamic State militants chill out with a cigar? In their rush to slam the Obama administration, play up their records and play down inconvenient realities, Republican presidential candidates served up some misshapen rhetoric in their latest presidential debate. A look at some claims and how they compare with the facts: Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, right, speaks as Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump looks on during the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, in North Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt) CRUZ: Any country that makes U.S. service members get on their knees like the 10 sailors whose boats were boarded and seized by the Iranian military this week "will feel the full force and fury of the United States of America." CHRIS CHRISTIE: "Tin pot dictators ... are taking our Navy ships." THE FACTS: Neither candidate addressed the fact that the short-lived crisis was created by the U.S. sailors who steered their boats into sovereign Iranian waters, where they were boarded and seized by Iranian naval forces. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Thursday that the U.S. sailors had made a navigation error. Under such circumstances it would not be unusual to disarm members of a foreign military force even a small one like the two Navy boats and hold them temporarily for questioning. What was exceptional about this episode and perhaps a provocation is that the Iranians videotaped the Americans during the encounter and posted the images on the Internet. The suggestion by Cruz that he would have launched a military attack on Iran in response to such an incident is hard to square with accepted international tests for the use of force. Iran returned the sailors unharmed and their boats undamaged. ___ CARSON on pursuing Islamic State militants wherever they can be found: "Why should we be letting people smoke their cigars in their comfortable chairs in Raqqa?" THE FACTS: Carson is not likely to find IS fighters lounging with cigars in Raqqa, their de facto capital in Syria. The group has imposed a strict smoking ban throughout its territory in Syria and Iraq. In fact, the militant group implements stiff fines for anyone caught smoking, and even more brutal punishments for those caught selling cigarettes, water pipes or anything that can be smoked, cigars included. Also in the debate, Carson suggested Syrian refugees be allowed to settle in "al-Saqqa province, where they'll be in their own country." But there is no such place. He probably meant al-Raqqa, or Raqqa. As an IS stronghold, it would not be much of a safe haven for people trying to flee the group. ___ CHRISTIE, countering Rubio's criticisms for his past positions: "Common Core has been eliminated in New Jersey." ''I never wrote a check to Planned Parenthood." THE FACTS: Common Core has not been eliminated in his state far from it. A panel Christie put together recommended a series of changes to state standards this week, but only recommended changes to 232 out of 1,427 standards in math and English. The panel also proposed renaming the standards the New Jersey Student Learning Standards. A separate Christie panel recommended the state continue using a Common Core-aligned test and require it for graduation by 2021. On Planned Parenthood, Christie's denial is at odds with a Sept. 30, 1994, Newark Star-Ledger story that quotes Christie as saying, "I support Planned Parenthood privately with my personal contribution, and that should be the goal of any such agency, to find private donations." Christie was running for local office in Morris County, New Jersey, at the time. The same quote appeared again in a book, "Chris Christie: The Inside Story of his Rise to Power," a book with which Christie cooperated. The original story was written by Star-Ledger reporter Brian Murray, who now works as a spokesman for Christie in the governor's office. On Tuesday, Christie said he was misquoted in the 1994 story. ___ TRUMP, denying he told The New York Times he favored a 45 percent tax on Chinese goods: "That's wrong. They were wrong." THE FACTS: Trump began wriggling out of his idea for a massive tax on Chinese goods soon after he told the paper last week that he would impose one and that "the tax should be 45 percent." Several days later, he said the tariff could well be much less than that and might not be needed at all because China probably would start trading more fairly in order to avoid it. Now, he denies ever proposing 45 percent, despite his remarks on the record. More broadly, China no longer appears to be the economic powerhouse portrayed by Trump. Its major stock market has had a rocky start in 2016 and its manufacturing sector began contracting last March as growth slowed, according to a purchasing manager index. ___ CRUZ, asked about loans from two large banks totaling as much as $1 million that fueled his 2012 Senate campaign, said he and his wife "ended up investing everything we owned." He acknowledged his failure to disclose the loans to the Federal Election Commission, saying: "Yes I made a paperwork error." THE FACTS: Cruz did, as he asserted, eventually disclose the loans in personal financial forms filed with the Senate. But citing a mere "paperwork error" in failing to report the loans to the FEC glossed over the fact that the law requires candidates to make such reports to the election regulators. He also did not address the fact that a large chunk of the loans came from Goldman Sachs, where his wife works as an executive, and whether that might have made the loan possible. ___ CRUZ, asked to explain his slam against Trump's "New York values," said, "not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan. I'm just sayin'." THE FACTS: Cruz may dislike New Yorkers, but he's been willing to take a bundle of money from one of them. Wall Street hedge fund mogul Robert Mercer contributed $11 million in April to a Cruz-aligned super PAC, according to federal filings. And there's also that Goldman Sachs loan. ___ JEB BUSH: "Every weapons system has been gutted." TRUMP: "Our military is a disaster." CARSON: "We have the world's best military, even though he (President Barack Obama) has done everything he can to diminish it." MARCO RUBIO: "This president is undermining our military." ''This president is more interested in funding Planned Parenthood than in funding the military." THE FACTS: These broadsides were stated in sweeping terms that reflect defense budget cuts approved by a Republican-controlled Congress and signed into law by Obama. It's true that the defense budget has shrunk and that this has forced the military services to reduce their ranks and attempt to trim benefits paid to troops. But far from being "gutted," some key elements of the military have expanded, including the special operations forces. Under the Obama administration the military services are undertaking a wide range of modernization efforts, including nuclear forces, combat fighter jets and missile defense systems. The defense budget problem has been worsened by repeated partisan conflicts over "sequestration," or automatic budget cuts that resulted from the 2011 budget control agreement between the White House and the Congress. ___ Associated Press writers Josh Cornfield in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, Jill Colvin in Des Moines, Iowa, and Vivian Salama, Chad Day and Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report. Republican presidential candidates, from left, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., businessman Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush take the stage before the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, in North Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt) Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump speaks as Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., looks on during the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, in North Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton) 4,000 artifacts stored at Oregon refuge held by armed group Thousands of archaeological artifacts and maps detailing where more can be found are kept inside the national wildlife refuge buildings currently being held by an armed group of protestors angry over federal land policy. Ryan Bundy, one of the leaders of the group occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon, says they have no real interest in the antiquities. Still, their access to the artifacts and maps has some worried that looters could take advantage of the situation. "There's a huge market for artifacts, especially artifacts that have provenance, where you can identify where they came from," said Carla Burnside, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's refuge archeologist. FILE - In this Monday, Jan. 4, 2016 file photo, Members of the group occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters stand guard near Burns, Ore. Thousands of archeological artifacts and maps detailing where more can be found are stored at a national wildlife refuge currently being held by a group of armed protestors. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File) More than 300 recorded prehistoric sites are scattered across the refuge, including burial grounds, ancient villages and petroglyphs. Some of the artifacts including spears, stone tools, woven baskets and beads date back 9,800 years. The artifacts and remains came from ancestors of the Burns Paiute Tribe. Chairwoman Charlotte Rodrique says she feels helpless knowing that her tribe's cultural heritage is now in the hands of the armed group. "As far as I'm concerned, our history is just another hostage," Rodrique said. The tribe has sent a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. attorney for Oregon, Billy Williams, asking that members of the armed group be prosecuted if any artifacts or maps are damaged or missing. __ WHY AREN'T THE RELICS AT A MUSEUM? About 7,000 artifacts and samples from the refuge are kept at a museum in Eugene, Oregon. But 4,000 more are kept at the refuge for research. Only Burnside has a key to the room containing the artifacts and the maps. She's since seen pictures of the occupiers in her office, adjacent to the room where the artifacts are stored. The group has been looking through government files at the site, but it is unclear if they've gone through the room with the artifacts. Bundy told The Associated Press that he's seen the artifacts and lots of maps, but he didn't know what the maps illustrated. The artifacts and maps are legally protected by the 1979 Archeological Resources Protection Act and other federal laws. Rodrique said she doesn't know if members of the group have disturbed the artifacts but wants the artifacts and documents catalogued as the occupation continues and once it comes to an end. "If the occupiers disturb, damage, remove, alter or deface any archaeological resource on the refuge property, the Tribe requests that the United States bring criminal charges," Rodrique wrote in her letter to federal officials. ___ WHAT IS THE ARMED GROUP DOING WITH THE ARTIFACTS? Bundy said they're not interested in the artifacts and would turn them over to the Burns Paiute Tribe, if asked. "If the Native Americans want those, then we'd be delighted to give them to them," he said. Rodrique said the tribe is not going to legitimize the armed group's occupation of the refuge by negotiating with them. "That's our history, our ancestors' possessions and remains," Rodrique said. "It's hard to explain, as a native person, what that means to us. That's the very proof of our existence in this country." Bundy said he didn't think it was likely that anyone would use the maps to loot the site. "We haven't really been thinking along those lines," Bundy said. Removing artifacts from federal property without a permit is illegal. ___ WHAT ABOUT THE PREHISTORIC SITES? Scientists are also worried about unintentional damage that could be done to the prehistoric sites by cattle, vehicles and heavy equipment. The group at the ranch has driven road graders and other large construction equipment around the refuge headquarters buildings, but Bundy said Thursday they haven't used the machinery to move any earth. He wouldn't rule out that possibility, however. In 2014, Ryan Bundy and supporters of the Bundy family rode ATVs on federal land closed to motorized vehicles in Utah as part of a protest. Their route took them along an illegal trail that crossed through Native American archeological sites. ___ HAVE THE SITES BEEN LOOTED BEFORE? While well-known petroglyphs or other prehistoric sites are occasionally publicized for public viewing, federal land managers often go to great lengths to keep such locations secret when they can't be safely protected from vandals and looters. Looting has long been a problem at the refuge, with the first documented instance recorded in 1979, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service's comprehensive conservation plan. "It's a huge problem in Oregon, especially in the southeast portion of the state," said Dennis Griffin, the state's archaeologist. "More often than not, when they are caught, it's connected to drug running or seeking quick money on eBay." An online search of "great basin artifacts for sale" yields arrowheads, stone pestles and other items, many priced at hundreds of dollars each. ___ WHY DOES IT MATTER? Burnside said the artifacts are part of the ancestry of the Burns Paiute Tribe and are priceless to science. "There's so much you can gain from looking at one artifact: Where the stone came from, how far they traveled, how it was used, the skill of the person who made it," she said. The tribe works extensively with federal officials on the archeology projects. In her letter, Rodrique said the tribe knows it's a difficult time for Burnside and other refuge employees, and thanked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for its cooperation and help. "All I want is that our past be respected, that things don't go by the wayside, that they're not destroyed by cattle," Rodrique said in a phone interview. "Their history is being hijacked by these people," said Donald Grayson, an anthropologist and archeology expert at the University of Washington. ___ HOW DOES BUNDY WANT THE ARCHEOLOGICAL SITES HANDLED? Bundy said people interested in archeology are welcome to explore the refuge, but that cattle ranchers and loggers should have priority when it comes to land use. "Before white man came, so to speak, there was nothing to keep cattle from tromping on those things," Bundy said. Though some countries had domesticated cattle 10,000 years ago, the animals came to the United States with European settlers. "We also recognize that the Native Americans had the claim to the land, but they lost that claim," Bundy said. "There are things to learn from cultures of the past, but the current culture is the most important." FILE - In this Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2016, file photo, members of the Burns Paiute tribe watch a news conference held by their leaders in response to the armed occupation of the nearby Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns, Ore. A leader of the Oregon Indian tribe whose ancestral property is being occupied by an armed group opposed to federal land policy said Wednesday that the group is not welcome and needs to leave. (AP Photo/Manuel Valdes, File) FILE - In this Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2016 file photo, An American flag is shown at the front entrance to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters near Burns, Ore. Thousands of archeological artifacts and maps detailing where more can be found are stored at a national wildlife refuge currently being held by a group of armed protestors. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File) Tokyo 2020 stadium architect says his design not plagiarized TOKYO (AP) Kengo Kuma, the architect of Japan's new 2020 Olympics stadium, refuted allegations by British-Iraqi designer Zaha Hadid that his design borrowed from blueprints she made and which organizers dropped last year. "In the design, I would like to say there are no similarities at all," Kuma told reporters when asked Friday about complaints by London-based Zaha Hadid Architects over apparent similarities between her design and Kuma's. Kuma noted, however, that both architects had to meet strict specifications for the new, 80,000-seat structure in downtown Tokyo that will replace Japan's old National Stadium. FILE - This artist rendering provided by the Japan Sports Council shows the interior view of the newly selected design of the new main stadium for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics proposed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma and construction companies, announced on Dec. 22, 2015 by the Sports Council. Kuma says his design has not borrowed from earlier blueprints by British-Iraqi designer Zaha Hadid that were dropped last year. Kuma said Friday, Jan. 15, 2016 that the structures were absolutely different and that similarities in details of their seating and layout reflected the need to meet fire standards and other requirements. (The Japan Sports Council via AP, File) MANDATORY CREDIT "The conditions set for the competition mean that automatically some similarities emerge," he said. He added that "the concept is completely different, so it is absolutely a different building, despite the similarities." Hadid's company on Thursday said that the Japan Sport Council was withholding money owed for work on the 2020 Tokyo stadium design, while demanding her company give up claims to copyrights. After her original design was rejected as too costly, Hadid complained the new design chosen by the sport council, made by Kengo Kuma & Associates, in collaboration with two companies that earlier worked with her team, was similar. Her office said it submitted a report to the sport council detailing the similarities in "the structure, layout and numerous elements" between her design and the newly picked one replacing hers, demanding copyright negotiations. Kuma said he could not comment on those discussions. He said he did not think that the Japan Sport Council had decided against working with Hadid because she was a foreigner, though working in Japan as a non-Japanese might be challenging. "I don't know, as I've never worked as a foreigner here," said the star architect, who has studied and taught in the U.S. and whose work is in demand around the globe. "But from my personal point of view, communicating and holding meetings might be difficult. "Japan needs to work harder to really open its doors to make it a more welcoming environment for people from other countries to work in." Hadid's complaints are the latest hiccup for the Olympics effort in Tokyo after the Sport Council abandoned her design and commissioned a less costly and controversial structure. Olympic organizers are still seeking a new logo design after complaints of plagiarism. Though he earlier joined other renowned Japanese architects in criticizing the initial plan to spend 252 billion yen ($2.1 billion) on Hadid's design, Kuma described her as a "wonderful architect," saying her design "was an excellent one that uniquely represents her philosophy." Kuma's plan is expected to cost 153 billion yen ($1.26 billion) to design, build and maintain, and he said his team intended to meet its cost and time requirements. He said his wooden lattice design, which echoes traditional styles seen in shrines and pagodas, was intended to blend in with the surrounding parkland and is adapted to minimize costs for heating and cooling the open-air stadium. The structure will use Japanese-grown larch in its wood and steel composite roof and prefabricated panels to help speed the work along and contain costs, he said. ___ Follow Elaine Kurtenbach: www.twitter.com/ekurtenbach Her work can be found at http://ap.bigstory.org/content/elaine-kurtenbach FILE - This artist rendering provided by the Japan Sports Council shows the side view of the newly selected design of the new main stadium for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics proposed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma and construction companies, announced on Dec. 22, 2015 by the Sports Council. Kuma says his design has not borrowed from earlier blueprints by British-Iraqi designer Zaha Hadid that were dropped last year. Kuma said Friday, Jan. 15, 2016 that the structures were absolutely different and that similarities in details of their seating and layout reflected the need to meet fire standards and other requirements. (The Japan Sports Council via AP, File) MANDATORY CREDIT FILE - This file artist rendering provided by the Japan Sports Council shows the newly selected design of the new main stadium for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics proposed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma and construction companies, announced on Dec. 22, 2015 by the Sports Council. Kuma says his design has not borrowed from earlier blueprints by British-Iraqi designer Zaha Hadid that were dropped last year. Kuma said Friday, Jan. 15, 2016 that the structures were absolutely different and that similarities in details of their seating and layout reflected the need to meet fire standards and other requirements. (The Japan Sports Council via AP, File) MANDATORY CREDIT Yosemite Park landmarks get new names amid trademark tussle FRESNO, Calif. (AP) Historic hotels and other beloved landmarks at Yosemite National Park will soon undergo a name change in a multi-million dollar tussle over who owns rights to the original names. The Ahwahnee, a luxurious stone and timber hotel with stunning views of the park's fabled granite peaks, will be called the Majestic Yosemite Hotel. Curry Village, a woodsy family-friendly lodging complex, will be recast as Half Dome Village. These name changes and others announced Thursday aren't sitting well with everybody, but the National Park Service says they have to make them at least temporarily to ensure that visitors soaking up Yosemite's natural wonders don't have their experience spoiled as a messy lawsuit with the park concessionaire plays out in Washington, D.C. In this March 24, 2014 file photo, the historic Ahwahnee Hotel is lit up as dusk falls over Yosemite Valley, in Yosemite, Calif. The names of iconic hotels and other facilities in the world-famous Yosemite National Park will soon change in an ongoing battle over who owns the intellectual property, park officials said Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016. The famed Ahwahnee Hotel will become the Majestic Yosemite Hotel, and Curry Village will become Half Dome Village, said park spokesman Scott Gediman. (John Walker/Fresno Bee via AP) Trademark disputes at Yosemite and elsewhere feed into a debate about the fate of other names synonymous with national parks and government-owned entities across the country. There also have been disputes at Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas, the Grand Canyon in Arizona and with other iconic pieces of Americana owned by the U.S. government, including the Space Shuttle Atlantis. The new names at Yosemite are the latest twist in the dispute with Delaware North, the company that recently lost a $2 billion bid the National Park Services largest single contract to run the park's hotels, restaurants and outdoor activities that draw visitors from around the world. Delaware North demands to be paid $51 million for the names and other intellectual property. The New York-based firm filed a lawsuit last year, saying that when it won the contract in 1993, the park service required the company to buy the former concessionaire's assets. The park service says it belatedly learned of that Delaware North had applied for the trademarks on Yosemite names when it prepared to open bids for the concessionary operation. Yosemite awarded a 15-year contract to Aramark last year. The name changes are being made to avoid any disruptions in services during the transition to a new concessionaire on March 1, when the new names go into effect, said Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman. He said the park service still is fighting for the rights to keep the original names. "We're clearly in disagreement with Delaware North," he said. "We're taking this action to ensure the seamless transition." The Yosemite Lodge at the Falls will turn into Yosemite Valley Lodge; Wawona Hotel will become Big Trees Lodge; and Badger Pass Ski Area will be called Yosemite Ski & Snowboard Area. Yosemite National Park another name which is also claimed by Delaware North and remains in dispute will stay put, Gediman said. DNC Parks & Resorts at Yosemite Inc., a subsidiary of Delaware North, said in a written statement that it was "shocked and disappointed" that the park service is using the names as a "bargaining chip." The company defended its demands, saying that it hopes Yosemite and the new concessionaire decide not to change the names. "All we want in this is fair and just treatment," the company said. The park service says the names and other intellectual property are worth about $3.5 million, according to the government's response to a lawsuit that Delaware North filed with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. Justice Department attorney John Robertson wrote in court papers that the company "wildly inflated" the value of the trademark names at $51 million. He added that Delaware North has "breached its duty of good faith and fair dealing," a claim the company denies. The park service says it belatedly learned of the trademark issue when it prepared to open bids for the concessionary operation. Yosemite awarded a 15-year contract to Aramark last year. Delaware North also runs concessions at the Kennedy Space Center and has a trademark application for "Space Shuttle Atlantis," government court papers say. Delaware North "apparently embarked on a business model whereby it collects trademarks to the names of iconic property owned by the United States," Robertson wrote. Changing names at Yosemite is not popular with park admirers like John Lenau, an amateur historian and president of the Conference of California Historical Societies. Now 76, he's visited Yosemite since childhood and says when somebody mentions Curry Village he can picture it in his head. That will be lost with the name change, he said. Lenau also worries about stripping away the Native American heritage of Yosemite by turning the Ahwahnee into the Majestic Yosemite Hotel and the Wawona Hotel to Big Trees Lodge. "I don't see the advantage of dong that," he said, speaking for himself rather than the society. "I'm just a little bit against changing something that has been around for so many years." FILE - In this Saturday, Oct. 24, 2015 file photo, people dine outside the Ahwahnee hotel in Yosemite National Park, Calif. The names of iconic hotels and other facilities in the world-famous Yosemite National Park will soon change in an ongoing battle over who owns the intellectual property, park officials said Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016. The famed Ahwahnee Hotel will become the Majestic Yosemite Hotel, and Curry Village will become Half Dome Village, said park spokesman Scott Gediman. (AP Photo/Ben Margot) FILE - In this March 29, 1999, file photo, a couple look though a window at The Ahwahnee hotel in Yosemite, Calif. The names of iconic hotels and other facilities in the world-famous park will soon change in an ongoing battle over who owns the intellectual property, park officials said Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016. The famed Ahwahnee Hotel will become the Majestic Yosemite Hotel. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File) FILE -- In this file photo from Sunday Oct. 23, 2011, tents are seen in Curry Village in Yosemite National Park, Calif. The names of iconic hotels and other facilities in the world-famous Yosemite National Park will soon change in an ongoing battle over who owns the intellectual property, park officials said Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016. The famed Ahwahnee Hotel will become the Majestic Yosemite Hotel, and Curry Village will become Half Dome Village, said park spokesman Scott Gediman. (AP Photo/Ben Margot) FILE - In this Oct. 17, 2013, file photo, visitors at Tunnel View, like Kaori Nishimura and Eriko Kuboi, from Japan, center facing, enjoy the views of Yosemite National Park, Calif. Tunnel View is a scenic vista which shows off El Capitan, Half Dome and Bridalveil Fall. Yosemite National Park will soon change in an ongoing battle over who owns the intellectual property, park officials said Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016. The move comes in an ongoing dispute with Delaware North, the company that lost a $2 billion bid, the National Park Services largest single contract, to run Yosemites hotels, restaurants and outdoor activities. (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian, File) FILE -- In this file photo from Sunday Oct. 23, 2011, tents are seen in Curry Village in Yosemite National Park, Calif. The names of iconic hotels and other facilities in the world-famous Yosemite National Park will soon change in an ongoing battle over who owns the intellectual property, park officials said Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016. The famed Ahwahnee Hotel will become the Majestic Yosemite Hotel, and Curry Village will become Half Dome Village, said park spokesman Scott Gediman. (AP Photo/Ben Margot) In this May 29, 2014 file photo, diners eat lunch in the historic Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite, Calif. The names of iconic hotels and other facilities in the world-famous Yosemite National Park will soon change in an ongoing battle over who owns the intellectual property, park officials said Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016. The famed Ahwahnee Hotel will become the Majestic Yosemite Hotel, and Curry Village will become Half Dome Village, said park spokesman Scott Gediman. (Mark Crosse/Fresno Bee via AP) Police say Jakarta attack funded by IS in Syria JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) An audacious attack by suicide bombers in the heart of Indonesia's capital was funded by the Islamic State group, police said Friday, as they seized an IS flag from the home of one of the attackers and carried out raids across the country in which one suspected militant was killed. National police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti told reporters that Thursday's attack was funded by IS through Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian who spent one year in jail for illegal possession of weapons in 2011, and is now in Syria fighting for the group. Supporters of IS also circulated a claim of responsibility for the attack on Twitter late Thursday. The radical group controls territory in Syria and Iraq, and its ambition to create an Islamic caliphate has attracted some 30,000 foreign fighters from around the world, including a few hundred Indonesians and Malaysians. Activists display posters during a rally condemning Thursday's attack outside the Starbucks cafe where it took place in Jakarta, Indonesia, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. Indonesians were shaken but refusing to be cowed a day after a deadly attack in a busy district of central Jakarta that has been claimed by the Islamic State group. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara) The IS link, if proved, poses a challenge to Indonesian security forces. Until now, the group was known only to have sympathizers with no active cells capable of planning and carrying out a plot such as Thursday's in which five men attacked a Starbucks cafe and a traffic police booth with handmade bombs, guns and suicide belts. They killed two people, one a Canadian and the other an Indonesian, and injured 20 in the first major attack in Indonesia since 2009. The militants were killed, either by their suicide vests or by police. The attack "was funded by ISIS in Syria through Bahrun Naim," Haiti told reporters after Friday prayers, using an acronym for the Islamic State group. He did not elaborate. He also identified one of the five attackers as Sunakim, who in 2010 was sentenced to seven years in jail for his involvement in military-style training in Aceh, but was released early. Police conducted raids across Indonesia but was it unclear whether those arrested were suspected of links to the bombing or if police were rounding up militants as part of a broader crackdown in its aftermath. They also outlined a partial reconstruction of events based on security camera video, part of which showed a Starbucks customer escaping from the grip of a bomber before he detonated his suicide bomb. Police did not identify the customer but said he or she suffered minor injuries. National police spokesman Maj. Gen. Anton Charliyan said an IS flag was found in the home of one of the attackers and raids were conducted in Java, Kalimantan and Sulawesi, with four arrests made. Charliyan said three men arrested at dawn in their homes in Depok on the outskirts of Jakarta are no longer suspected of being linked to the attack. On Friday evening, police searched the home of another of the dead bombers whom they identified as Muhammad Ali. Haiti said a suspected militant was killed in a gunbattle in central Sulawesi, the hiding place of Indonesia's most wanted Islamic radical, Abu Wardah Santoso, who leads the East Indonesia Mujahidin network that has pledged allegiance to IS. He said the man wasn't linked to Thursday's attack. In recent years, Indonesian counterterrorism forces successfully stamped out the extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah that was responsible for several attacks, including the 2002 bombings of bars in Bali which killed 202 people, as well as two hotel bombings in Jakarta in 2009 that killed seven people. Terrorism experts say IS supporters in Indonesia are drawn from the remnants of Jemaah Islamiyah and other groups. Jakarta residents remained shaken by Thursday's events but refused to be cowed. About 200 people, mostly youngsters with flowers in their hands, gathered in front of the Starbucks in a show of sympathy for the victims and solidarity against extremist violence. They unfurled posters that read, "We are not afraid." "Whatever they did, they have killed life," said Muji Sutrisno, a noted Indonesian intellectual. "Indonesia is a strong state, it will not be provoked by terrorism." A large LCD screen atop the building containing the Starbucks displayed messages saying "#prayforjakarta" and "Indonesia Unite." ___ Associated Press writer Stephen Wright contributed to this report. Activists hold flowers during a rally condemning Thursday's attack outside the Starbucks cafe where it took place in Jakarta, Indonesia, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. Indonesians were shaken but refusing to be cowed a day after a deadly attack in a busy district of central Jakarta that has been claimed by the Islamic State group. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara) A woman offers a flower outside the Starbucks cafe where Thursday's attack occurred in Jakarta, Indonesia, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. Indonesians were shaken but refusing to be cowed a day after a deadly attack in a busy district of central Jakarta that has been claimed by the Islamic State group. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara) Employees survey the damage at the Starbucks cafe where an attack occurred on Thursday, in Jakarta, Indonesia, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. Indonesians were shaken but refusing to be cowed a day after a deadly attack in a busy district of central Jakarta that has been claimed by the Islamic State group. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana) An activist in a Darth Vader costume holds a poster during a rally condemning Thursday's attack, outside the Starbucks cafe where it took place in Jakarta, Indonesia, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. Indonesians were shaken but refusing to be cowed a day after a deadly attack in a busy district of central Jakarta that has been claimed by the Islamic State group. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim) France demands urgent EU crackdown on extremist finances BRUSSELS (AP) France says the European Union is moving too slowly with efforts to cut off finances to extremist groups, a year after the attacks in Paris on a satirical newspaper and kosher supermarket. French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said on Friday that "we can no longer wait day after day for decisions to be taken." He spoke ahead of talks with EU counterparts in Brussels. He demanded that the EU's executive Commission lay out by next month "a very precise vision of what measures must be taken" to deprive extremists of funds. French Finance Minister Michel Sapin, left, speaks with Managing Director of the European Stability Mechanism Klaus Regling during a meeting of eurogroup finance ministers at the EU Council building in Brussels on Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016. Finance ministers from the nations using the euro met in Brussels Thursday to discuss progress on Greeces economic reform program and the results of a review of measures taken by Cyprus to bring its budget into line.(AP Photo/Virginia Mayo) Trump-Cruz rivalry intensifies in rollicking GOP debate NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) The rivalry between the Republican Party's two leading candidates for president intensified in Thursday's debate, which featured the most rollicking action to date. Yet rising tensions between billionaire businessman Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz left little space for any of the other candidates to make an impression. With less than three weeks until Iowa's leadoff caucuses, the renewed focus on the two candidates leading most preference polls suggests the overall shape of the 2016 contest may be solidifying much to the dismay of Republican officials who fear neither Trump nor Cruz is electable in a general election. Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks during the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, in North Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton) Trump and Cruz starred in Thursday's primetime event. And Trump, in particular, may have had his finest debate performance. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie had strong moments, but didn't have the breakout needed to begin coalescing mainstream Republicans behind their candidacies. Just one debate remains before Iowa's Feb. 1 caucuses. But the likelihood of a major shakeup in the race becomes less and less as days pass. Here are some other key takeaways from the Thursday night debate. ___ NEW YORK, NEW YORK Cruz and Trump went toe-to-toe several times, including Trump's questioning of whether Cruz, born in Canada to a U.S. citizen, is eligible to serve as president. Yet no exchange encapsulated the night better than their clash over "New York values." "Everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal ... focused around money and the media," Cruz charged. And in a nod to Trump's home in midtown Manhattan, Cruz said: "I can frame it another way: Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan. I'm just saying." Just as Cruz was ready to dismiss concerns about his Canadian birth, Trump was ready to defend New York. The real-estate mogul said he found that kind of talk "insulting." And he seemed to show his softer side while reflecting on how New Yorkers came together after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "Everybody in the world watched, and everyone in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers," he said. "That was a very insulting statement that Ted made." It was hard to imagine a stronger response from Trump, who puts a lot less time into debate preparations than his opponents. He seemed to handily win that exchange with Cruz, a former college debate champion. ___ BUSH STANDS ALONE Pressed on whether he regretted his call to bar Muslims from entering the U.S., Trump had a one-word answer: "No." And when asked whether they supported Trump's proposal, the candidates sharing the stage with him largely demurred, talking instead about immigration and security. All except Jeb Bush. The former Florida governor has made taking on Trump the cornerstone of his struggling campaign, and he slammed the proposal as one that would make it impossible for the U.S. to build the necessary bridges with Arab nations to defeat the Islamic State. "All Muslims? Seriously? What kind of signal does that send to the rest of the world?" Bush said. "What we need to do is destroy ISIS. The other Arab countries have a role to play in this. Sending that signal makes it impossible for us to be serious about taking out ISIS and restoring democracy in Syria." Reminded that he once called Trump and his proposal unhinged, Bush replied: "Yeah, they are unhinged." ___ ESTABLISHMENT LANE FENDER-BENDERS With Trump and Cruz surging in many polls, the candidates seeking the support of more traditional Republican Party voters desperately hoped to break out. None did. But not for lack of trying. Bush tried to score points by going after Trump. Rubio went after Christie. Kasich called for unity. And Christie mixed it up with Cruz and Rubio. The Christie-Rubio dynamic stood out at times, particularly when Rubio refused to condemn an ad from a super PAC supporting him that portrays Christie as similar to President Barack Obama. Rubio claimed that Christie "endorsed many of the ideas" that the president supports. Christie strongly disagreed and he said that while two years ago Rubio called him a "conservative reformer," now he is misrepresenting his record. "When you're a senator what you get to do is talk and talk and talk and no one can keep up to see if what you're saying is accurate or not," Christie said. ___ SPEAKING OF CLINTON The debate provided candidates with an opportunity to offer their sharp contrast to the optimistic vision of America that President Barack Obama painted in his State of the Union address earlier this week, and the Democratic front-runner for president was often on their minds. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was mentioned often by the candidates, and the attacks were often in the form of one-liners. "She's under investigation with the FBI right now," Bush said, adding that the country should avoid a situation with a president who "might be going back and forth between the White House and the courthouse." Rubio was much more serious when he said Clinton is "disqualified from being president of the United States" because she "mishandled" intelligence, a reference to her use of a personal email account and server rather than a government account while at the State Department. He also accused her of telling "lies" to the families of victims in the attack on the U.S. outpost in Benghazi. Separately, Christie warned, "If you're worried about world being on fire, you cannot give Hillary Clinton a third term of Barack Obama's leadership." There was little love for Clinton's rival, Bernie Sanders. He may be surging in some preference polls, but the Republican candidates remained focused on facing off against Clinton this fall. "We're going to win every state, if Bernie Sanders is the nominee," Kasich said, adding, "I know Bernie, and I can promise you he's not going to be president of the United States." ___ Follow Steve Peoples and Julie Bykowicz on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/sppeoples and http://twitter.com/bykowicz Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump speaks in the spin room after the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, in North Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt) Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump speaks in the spin room after the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, in North Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt) Spain: New Catalan leader not planning secession yet MADRID (AP) Catalonia's new pro-independence president says secession parties do not have enough parliamentary force to declare the powerful northeastern region's independence from Spain just yet but they will continue preparing for the promised new state. Carles Puigdemont told Catalan TV3 television Thursday he was not ditching his party's pledge of secession but admitted it might need more time than the planned 18 months. He said his government will prepare a new independence constitution he hopes will get majority backing in an eventual referendum. Fresh elections would follow. Incoming Catalan President Carles Puigdemont speaks during the investiture session at the Catalonian parliament in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Jan. 10, 2016. Catalonia's pro-independence parties have agreed to appoint a new leader to enable the creation of a regional coalition government and reinvigorate a push for independence from Spain by 2017. Carles Puigdemont was selected Saturday to replace Artur Mas as the "Together for Yes" alliance's candidate for regional government leader. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez) Pro-independence groups won most seats in the region's September elections but failed to get a majority of the popular vote. Puigdemont was chosen as president in a last-minute deal to salvage the secession drive and avoid fresh elections. Spain has ruled out separation. Incoming Catalan President Carles Puigdemont speaks during the investiture session at the Catalonian parliament in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Jan. 10, 2016. Catalonia's pro-independence parties have agreed to appoint a new leader to enable the creation of a regional coalition government and reinvigorate a push for independence from Spain by 2017. Carles Puigdemont was selected Saturday to replace Artur Mas as the "Together for Yes" alliance's candidate for regional government leader. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez) Incoming Catalan President Carles Puigdemont speaks during the investiture session at the Catalonian parliament in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Jan. 10, 2016. Catalonia's pro-independence parties have agreed to appoint a new leader to enable the creation of a regional coalition government and reinvigorate a push for independence from Spain by 2017. Carles Puigdemont was selected Saturday to replace Artur Mas as the "Together for Yes" alliance's candidate for regional government leader. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez) The Latest: Dutch FM calls for EU unity in migrants crisis COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) The latest on the continuing flow of people into and across Europe. All times local: 6:55 p.m. Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders is calling for the European Union to be united and work together to deal with the influx of refugees. Czech Republic's minister of foreign affairs Lubomir Zaoralek, right, and Dutch foreign minister Bert Koenders, left, attend a press conference in Prague, Czech Republic, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) The Netherlands took over the rotating EU presidency in January and Koenders says reducing the number of refugees coming is a key goal and his country's presidency will be "extremely pragmatic and operational" to achieve it. But his meeting with his Czech counterpart Lubomir Zaoralek in Prague on Friday has proved unity is hard to achieve. Zaoralek again strictly dismissed a plan approved last year by the EU to redistribute 120,000 asylum-seekers among the bloc's 28 nations because "it doesn't move us forward." Zaoralek says he is also speaking on behalf of Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, the countries that form an informal grouping known as the Visegrad Four. Slovakia and Hungary are already legally challenging the redistribution system. ___ 4:25 p.m. Greek authorities say a baby has been found dead after a boat full of migrants reached the small eastern Aegean Sea island of Farmakonissi, while 63 people were picked up alive. The incident raises to four the number of deaths that Greek authorities recorded Friday, as migrants continue to make the short but dangerous sea crossing from nearby Turkey to Greece's Aegean islands despite the winter weather. Earlier, three children drowned and 20 people were rescued when another boat carrying migrants foundered off the islet of Agathonissi. Greece is the European Union's busiest entry point for asylum-seekers. About 850,000 people entered the country last year, nearly all by sea, many fleeing the war in Syria. ___ 3:05 p.m. Italy is blocking a multi-billion euro fund for Syrian refugees in Turkey, insisting the money be paid entirely from European Union coffers rather than by member countries. Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem said Friday after talks in Brussels that Italy had not lifted objections to the way the 3 billion euro ($3.3 billion) fund should be paid "but we hope that that is possible very, very soon." The money is meant to encourage Turkey to stop migrants leaving its territory for Greece, as thousands continue to do daily. Italy's Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said Rome supports Turkey's efforts to manage two million Syrian refugees on its soil but insisted the money should come from the EU budget. The EU's executive Commission is offering to pay 500 million euros. ___ 3:00 p.m. Swiss authorities are rejecting criticism over their practice of seizing cash from refugees, saying it's based on a decades-old law and only applies in a fraction of cases. A widely cited report Thursday by Swiss public broadcaster SRF detailed how one Syrian had to give up more than half his family's money. A spokeswoman for the Swiss State Secretariat for Migration said Friday the rule requiring asylum seekers to hand over cash worth more than 1,000 Swiss francs ($996) affected just 112 out of 45,000 refugees last year. Lea Wertheimer says the funds amounting to 210,000 Swiss francs last year are needed to help cover refugees' upkeep, which can exceed 1,500 francs per person each month. She says similar rules require Swiss citizens to repay welfare benefits when they're able to. ___ 11:45 a.m. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker says the EU's reputation is being damaged worldwide for the failure of member countries to manage the refugee crisis. Juncker on Friday called on nations to host more refugees arriving on Europe's shores, after more than one million migrants entered in 2015. He said it is unacceptable "that certain member states say they are not going to accept refugees in their countries. That is not possible." Juncker said Europe was known as a wealthy, admirable continent but that "now we do appear as being the weakest part, and the poorest part of the world." He said he was embarrassed explaining Europe's migrant problems to leaders of countries like Jordan or Lebanon, which are hosting more than two million refugees. ___ 11:35 a.m. Authorities in Greece say three children have died after the dinghy taking them from Turkey to the tiny Greek island of Agathonisi overturned in the Aegean. The Coast guard said 20 people were rescued and the children's bodies were recovered. The Malta-based relief agency Migrant Offshore Aid Station was involved in the rescue effort. Greece is the European Union's busiest entry point for migrants and refugees entering the bloc, with a dramatic spike in the number of people fleeing the civil war in Syria last year. ___ 10: 35 a.m. In the first case of its kind in Denmark, a court has fined a 41-year-old Dane for driving five migrants from northern Germany to Sweden, where they are believed to have sought asylum. Prosecutor Tine Friis said Friday the unidentified man was fined 5,000 kroner ($730) for violating Danish immigration laws that forbids assisting foreigners to enter Denmark illegally. Before the Randers City Court in western Denmark, he acknowledged picking up five Afghans in the German city of Flensburg, south of Denmark's border, and driving them in his car to a Sweden-bound ferry in the northern Danish port town of Grenaa. He told the court he did it on Sept. 8 after seeing television pictures of migrants waiting to enter Denmark to reach neighboring Sweden after having crossed Europe. Czech Republic's minister of foreign affairs Lubomir Zaoralek, right, Dutch foreign minister Bert Koenders, center, and Dutch secretary of state for justice Klaas Dijkhoff, left, attend a press conference in Prague, Czech Republic, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) Migrant children play with soap bubbles as they wait to be taken to the train station in Sid, in Adasevci, about 100 km west from Belgrade, Serbia, Monday, Jan. 11, 2016. Although winter conditions and stricter border controls have reduced the numbers of refugees traveling toward the wealthy nations of the European Union, thousands have been taking the weeks-long trip daily, braving both the freezing temperatures and mounting anti-immigrant sentiments fueled by the November terror attacks in Paris and New Years Eve attacks on women in Germany. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) Refugees board a bus near Regenstauf, Germany, Thursday Jan. 14, 2016. The bus with 31 Syrian refugees is on the way from Bavaria to Berlin, as a Bavarian district councilor followed up on his pledge to German Chancellor Angela Merkel he would send refugees her way if his district could no longer provide accommodation for them. Landshut district councilor Peter Dreier said Thursday he wants to send a sign refugee policy cannot continue like this. Germany is struggling to provide accommodation for some 1.1 million asylum seekers who registered here in 2015. (Armin Weigel/dpa via AP) European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker addresses the media at the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels on Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert) In this picture taken through a window, a migrant listens to an official in a bus after he arrived with other migrants from southern Germany, in front of the chancellery in Berlin, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016. The bus carrying 31 Syrian refugees was sent from a district councilor in Bavaria, following up on his pledge to Chancellor Angela Merkel that he'd send refugees her way if his district could no longer provide accommodation for them. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber) In this picture taken through a window, migrants listen to an official in a bus after they arrived from southern Germany, in front of the chancellery in Berlin, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016. The bus carrying 31 Syrian refugees was sent from a district councilor in Bavaria, following up on his pledge to Chancellor Angela Merkel that he'd send refugees her way if his district could no longer provide accommodation for them.(AP Photo/Markus Schreiber) A bus carrying migrants is surround by a crowd of media after the arrival from southern Germany, in front of the chancellery in Berlin, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016. The bus carrying 31 Syrian refugees was sent from a district councilor in Bavaria, following up on his pledge to Chancellor Angela Merkel that he'd send refugees her way if his district could no longer provide accommodation for them. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber) Anglicans overwhelmingly agree to keep communion intact CANTERBURY, England (AP) Anglican leaders have overwhelmingly decided to stay together at a summit aimed at preventing a split in their fellowship over homosexuality, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said Friday, a day after the group sanctioned the U.S. Episcopal Church for supporting gay marriage. Welby, the Anglican spiritual leader, acknowledged the pain that the decision will cause gays and lesbians and apologized for the church's past wrongs against them, But he said a majority of Anglicans consider the position of the U.S. church an unacceptable deviation from doctrine. "Everyone unanimously indicated that they wanted the churches of the Anglican Communion to walk together," Welby said. "There was no exception ... it was universal and unanimous." FILE - In this Sunday, Nov. 1, 2015 file photo, Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop-elect Michael Curry speaks to churchgoers as he arrives at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington. On Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, Anglican leaders temporarily restricted the role of the U.S. Episcopal Church in their global fellowship as a sanction over the American church's acceptance of gay marriage. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana) Welby said there had to be "consequences" for the American churches' decision to allow gays to marry. Episcopalians have been barred from any policy-setting positions in the Anglican Communion for three years a decision that avoided a permanent split in the 85 million-member communion, although it dismayed liberal Anglicans. Divisions were still evident in the shadow of the great cathedral in Canterbury, where demonstrators, many of them from conservative communities in Africa, waved signs and sang, hoping to get Welby's attention and challenge the communion to consider their rights. Jayne Ozanne, a leading gay rights activist in the church, expressed outrage over the decision, arguing there was little "recognition at the pain this is causing," particularly for those in African communities where homosexuality is harshly punished. "We are here talking about human beings, real people who are having their lives torn apart," she said. Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, head of the Episcopal Church, said in a phone interview that the U.S. church would not roll back its acceptance of gay marriage. "They heard from me directly that that's not something that we're considering," Curry said of his remarks to the other Anglican leaders. "They basically understand we made our decision, and this is who we are and we're committed to being a house of prayer for all." He indicated Episcopalians were disappointed, but would work toward building acceptance of same-sex relationships throughout the Anglican fellowship. In this week's meeting, a majority of the Anglican leaders affirmed the teaching that marriage is only the union of a man and a woman. "We are loyal members of the Anglican Communion, but we need to say we must find a better way," Curry said. "I really believe it's part of our vocation." Welby will now lead a task force that will try to reconcile conflicting views over sexuality, "with the intention of restoration of relationship" with the Episcopal Church, the Anglican body in the United States. Welby and Curry said there had been no discussion of the specifics of this process or what would have to happen over the next three years for the Episcopalians to be restored to full participation in the global fellowship. AP FACT CHECK: Claims from Republican presidential debate WASHINGTON (AP) Did Ted Cruz mean to suggest he would have gone to war with Iran over its brief detention of U.S. sailors? Did Donald Trump forget that he proposed a massive tax on Chinese goods? And does Ben Carson really think Islamic State militants relax with a cigar? In their rush to slam the Obama administration, play up their records and play down inconvenient realities, Republican presidential candidates served up some misshapen rhetoric in their latest presidential debate Thursday night. A look at some claims and how they compare with the facts: Republican presidential candidates, from left, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., businessman Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush take the stage before the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, in North Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt) CRUZ: Any country that makes U.S. service members get on their knees like the 10 sailors whose boats were boarded and seized by the Iranian military this week "will feel the full force and fury of the United States of America." CHRIS CHRISTIE: "Tin pot dictators ... are taking our Navy ships." THE FACTS: Neither candidate addressed the fact that the short-lived crisis was created by the U.S. sailors who steered their boats into sovereign Iranian waters, where they were boarded and seized by Iranian naval forces. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Thursday that the U.S. sailors had made a navigation error. Under such circumstances, it would not be unusual to disarm members of a foreign military force, even a small one like the two Navy boats, and hold them temporarily for questioning. What was exceptional about this episode, and perhaps a provocation, is that the Iranians videotaped the Americans during the encounter and posted the images on the Internet. The suggestion by Cruz that he would have launched a military attack on Iran in response to such an incident is hard to square with accepted international tests for the use of force. Iran returned the sailors unharmed and their boats undamaged. ___ CARSON on pursuing Islamic State militants wherever they can be found: "Why should we be letting people smoke their cigars in their comfortable chairs in Raqqa?" THE FACTS: The group has imposed a strict smoking ban throughout its territory in Syria and Iraq, including Raqqa, their de facto capital in Syria. The militant group implements stiff fines for anyone caught smoking and even more brutal punishments for those caught selling cigarettes, water pipes or anything that can be smoked. Also in the debate, Carson suggested Syrian refugees be allowed to settle in "al-Saqqa province, where they'll be in their own country." But there is no such place. ___ TRUMP, denying he told The New York Times he favored a 45 percent tax on Chinese goods: "That's wrong. They were wrong." THE FACTS: Trump began wriggling out of his idea for a massive tax on Chinese goods soon after he told the paper last week that he would impose one and that "the tax should be 45 percent." Several days later, he said the tariff could well be much less than that and might not be needed at all because China probably would start trading more fairly in order to avoid it. Now he denies ever proposing 45 percent, despite his remarks on the record. More broadly, China no longer appears to be the economic powerhouse portrayed by Trump. Its major stock market has had a rocky start in 2016, and its manufacturing sector began contracting last March as growth slowed, according to a purchasing manager index. ___ JEB BUSH: "Every weapons system has been gutted." TRUMP: "Our military is a disaster." CARSON: "We have the world's best military, even though he (President Barack Obama) has done everything he can to diminish it." MARCO RUBIO: "This president is undermining our military." THE FACTS: These broadsides were stated in sweeping terms that reflect defense budget cuts approved by a Republican-controlled Congress and signed into law by Obama. It's true that the defense budget has shrunk and that this has forced the military services to reduce their ranks and attempt to trim benefits paid to troops. But far from being "gutted," some key elements of the military have expanded, including the special operations forces. Under the Obama administration the military services are undertaking a wide range of modernization efforts, including nuclear forces, combat fighter jets and missile defense systems. ___ Associated Press writers Josh Cornfield in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, Jill Colvin in Des Moines, Iowa, and Vivian Salama, Chad Day and Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report. Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, right, speaks as Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump looks on during the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, in North Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt) Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump speaks as Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., looks on during the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, in North Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton) Spacewalk aborted after water leaks into astronaut's helmet CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) Two astronauts aborted their spacewalk Friday and hurried back into the International Space Station after water leaked into one of the men's helmets in a scary repeat of a near-drowning 2 years ago. The trouble cropped up after the astronauts including Britain's 1st spacewalker successfully restored full power to the space station. NASA astronaut Timothy Kopra took everyone by surprise when he reported a small water bubble and then a film of water inside his helmet. Mindful of another spacewalker's close call in 2013, Mission Control terminated the planned six-hour spacewalk at the four-hour mark. It turns out Kopra was wearing the same spacesuit involved in the earlier incident. In this image made from video provided by NASA, crew members of the International Space Station inspect the spacesuit of NASA astronaut Timothy Kopra, left, after a spacewalk with British spaceman Timothy Peake was cut short after water leaked into Kopra's helmet. (NASA via AP) "So far, I'm OK," Kopra assured everyone. Later, he said the water bubble was 4 inches long and getting thicker. "I'm doing good," he repeated on his way back inside. Lead flight director Royce Renfrew, who called an early end to the spacewalk, stressed that the situation was not an emergency and insisted neither spacewalker was in danger. Indeed, Kopra took time to thank everyone for their help as the air lock was pressurized. An hour later, Kopra was safely inside his orbiting home, along with Timothy Peake, who attracted his own headlines by becoming Britain's first spacewalker Friday. The astronauts waiting anxiously inside pulled off Kopra's helmet, then measured the water that had leaked, presumably from the suit's cooling system. That was the source of the leak last time. Space station commander Scott Kelly reported that he filled a syringe with about 15 cubic centimeters of water. That's nothing, NASA officials pointed out, compared with the 1 to 1 liters of water that escaped into Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano's helmet and suit in July 2013. Kopra's suit was the same one Parmitano was wearing when his helmet flooded. This suit was refurbished following the 2013 incident. NASA said Kopra used the same suit for a spacewalk last month without any problem, and it had been used previously as well. Despite the considerably smaller leak, the cap that Kopra wore on his head, under his helmet, was moist, as were other parts of his suit. As for Peake's suit, a quick look showed it to be dry save for a bit of moisture around the wrists. Kopra and Peake completed their No. 1 job early on in the spacewalk. The pair quickly removed the voltage regulator that failed two months ago, slashing station power by one-eighth. The breakdown did not disrupt work 250 miles up, but NASA wanted the power grid fixed as soon as possible in case something else failed. Working in darkness to avoid electrical shock from the solar power system, the astronauts quickly removed the bad unit and popped in a spare, both about the size of a 30-gallon aquarium. They had just 31 minutes to complete the job, the amount of nighttime on that particular swing around the world. Following tests, Mission Control said the spare dubbed Dusty for its 17-year tenure in orbit appeared to be working properly. Engineers suspect the original electronic unit suffered an internal electrical short. In the meantime, the station relied on the seven other power channels. The action unfolded on the far reaches of the space station. The work site is about 200 feet from the astronauts' exit, about as far as spacewalkers safely can go. Peake, in particular, received a bounty of well wishes from space as well as Earth. He became the first spacewalker to wear the Union Jack on the shoulder of his suit. "We're all watching, no pressure!" Former Beatle Paul McCartney said via Twitter. "Wishing you a happy stroll outdoors in the universe." Earlier, as Peake floated out, space station commander Scott Kelly called, "Hey Tim, it's really cool seeing that Union Jack go outside. It's explored all over the world. Now it's explored space." Replied Peake: "It's great to be wearing it, a huge privilege, a proud moment." Peake, a helicopter pilot chosen by the European Space Agency, is Britain's first official astronaut. A handful of previous spacewalkers held dual U.S.-English citizenship, but flew as Americans for NASA. The first British citizen to fly in space, chemist Helen Sharman, visited Russia's old Mir space station as part of a private competition in 1991. Peake and Kopra, a former Army aviator and attack helicopter platoon leader, rocketed into orbit exactly one month ago aboard a Russian spacecraft. After Parmitano's leak, NASA added absorbent pads to the helmet and put in place other precautions for future spacewalks. Those pads and safety procedures came in handy Friday. Parmitano's spacewalking partner that day, NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, was in Mission Control in Houston on Friday and offered assistance. Now chief of NASA's astronaut corps, Cassidy said at least everyone now has "a good grasp" of what to heed and what to do. Engineers will scour the data in the weeks ahead to figure out what happened. Unlike last time, NASA did not immediately call for a halt to non-emergency spacewalks. Parmitano was at the European Astronaut Center in Cologne, Germany, during Friday's spacewalk, answering questions about spacewalking. He had to cut the session short "for good reasons." "Happy to see @astro_timpeake and @astro_tim safe inside," Parmitano said via Twitter. "This is how I measure success: 1)crew-safe 2)main objective-completed." ___ Online: NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html European Space Agency: http://m.esa.int/ESA In this image made from video provided by NASA, astronaut Scott Kelly, center background, photographs parts of Timothy Kopra's spacesuit inside the International Space Station after a spacewalk with British spaceman Timothy Peake, right, was cut short after water leaked into Kopra's helmet. (NASA via AP) This photo taken from video provided by NASA shows astronaut Scott Kelly, center, help gather equipment for U.S. astronaut Tim Kopra, left, and British astronaut Tim Peake, as they prepare for a space walk at the International Space Station on Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. Peake will become the first Briton to walk in space when he ventures out of the International Space Station (ISS) to help repair a broken power unit. (NASA via AP) In this frame grab from video provided by NASA-TV, British spaceman Timothy Peake, right, and U.S. astronaut Timothy Kopra foreground, work outside the International Space Station, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. Kopra and Peake are working to restore full power to the International Space Station, after an electronic box failed two months ago, reducing power at the station. (NASA-TV via AP) Analysis: Old militants with new brand behind Jakarta attack JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) In the course of six years without a major terrorist attack, Indonesia had grown more and more confident that it had stayed on top of any threat from Islamic militants. This week, that conviction was punctured by a bold, daylight attack in the heart of Jakarta's busy commercial district. Suicide bombers and gunmen struck a Starbucks and a traffic police post Thursday, killing two people and wounding 20 before the five assailants themselves were slain. In this June 18, 2014, file photo, a man wears a headband showing the Islamic State group's symbol during a protest calling for the closure of a local prostitution complex in Surabaya, Indonesia. Experts say it is difficult to know how much of a foothold the Islamic State group has established in Indonesia. But the bombing attack at a Starbucks cafe on Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, achieved two things: Showing that domestic militants, whove been besieged and fragmented by a concerted counter-terrorism campaign, are still capable of attacks, and suggesting that the Islamic State group has expanded its ability to launch attacks in Southeast Asia for the first time. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara, File) The style of the attack, and the people who appear to be behind it, suggest that remnants of the networks responsible for the notorious 2002 Bali bombings and other assaults are trying to regroup under the banner of the Islamic State group. There had been warning signs of a possible emerging threat for months, including the government's acknowledgement that hundreds of Indonesians had traveled to Syria to fight for the IS group. At the same time, pro-IS rallies in Indonesia were attracting small crowds. Some experts say an IS network was developing in the suburbs of Jakarta, the capital, while counterterrorism efforts were focused on hunting down the country's most-wanted militant in far-off Sulawesi. The blog of Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian militant in Syria, urged his followers to study the methods of the Paris attackers who had killed 130 people in November. Police quickly tied the IS group to Thursday's attack, labeling Bahrun Naim as its instigator and funder, but they've given scant details beyond saying that an IS flag was found in one attacker's home. Supporters of the Islamic State group claimed responsibility online. Experts say that while it's difficult to know how much of a foothold IS has established in Indonesia, the attack achieved two things: It showed that domestic militant groups are still capable of violence despite being fragmented by the government's counterterrorism campaign; and gave at least the impression that IS now has the ability to launch attacks in Southeast Asia. Both IS and any affiliate "have an interest in being seen as part of a larger network because it fits with their scare tactics," even if they are tied only by sympathies, said Carool Kersten, an expert in Islam at King's College London. In Western capitals, Indonesia has long been a kind of poster child for progress: a developing nation with the world's largest Muslim population that has embraced both democracy and moderate Islam. Its reputation for tolerance took a battering from the Bali bombing that killed 202 people, mostly foreigners, and from other high-profile attacks on Western targets by Jemaah Islamiyah militants who wanted to replace civilian government with a caliphate. But the violence also unleashed a sustained government effort aided by the U.S. and Australia to break up militant cells. There were hundreds of arrests and the killing of key figures able to mastermind devastating attacks. The atomization of militant networks was evident in Thursday's attack, with its low death toll, basic weapons and unsophisticated execution that betrayed limited resources and capacity. "It was a simple attack. Their arms were pretty limited," said Scott Stewart, a tactical analysis expert at Stratfor, a global intelligence and advisory firm. The main impact, he said, is from the "hype and fear that it conjures." Stewart considers the association with IS a "rebranding" effort by militants who previously identified with al-Qaida, rather than a sign of a new and rising radical movement. He said Indonesia will continue to see a persistent and low-level threat of violence, a situation not different from the past six years when there were no major attacks but several thwarted plots. "It's basically the same people," he said. National police chief Gen. Badrodin said one of the men killed, known as Sunakim, was previously sentenced to seven years in prison for his involvement in Jemaah Islamiyah-orchestrated military-style training in Indonesia's Aceh province. He was released early. Still, the IS link in Indonesia is likely to raise concern in other Southeast Asian nations, particularly Singapore and Malaysia, which have both thwarted plots. Along with Indonesia, they recently agreed to boost their joint efforts to combat radicalism and share intelligence. Some Malaysians are also believed to have traveled to Syria to join IS. Southeast Asia's fairly open societies, easy travel and Muslim-majority populations in Indonesia and Malaysia make it vulnerable, said Vikram Singh, a former Obama administration defense official on South and Southeast Asia. The Jakarta attack, following the extremist assaults in San Bernardino, Paris and Istanbul, suggests that the ability of IS to direct or inspire attacks around the world is building, he said. "They are sending the message that 'we are not going to be just a Syria-Iraq issue. We're going to reach far,'" Singh said. ___ EDITOR's NOTE: Stephen Wright, an Associated Press correspondent, has been based in Southeast Asia for a decade. ___ Associated Press writers Danica Kirka in London and Matthew Pennington in Washington contributed to this report. In this June 18, 2014, file photo, a man wears a headband showing the Islamic State group's symbol during a protest calling for the closure of a local prostitution complex in Surabaya, Indonesia. But the bombing attack at a Starbucks cafe on Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, achieved two things: Showing that domestic militants, whove been besieged and fragmented by a concerted counter-terrorism campaign, are still capable of attacks, and suggesting that the Islamic State group has expanded its ability to launch attacks in Southeast Asia for the first time. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara, File) Brazil judge suspends license for hydroelectric dam SAO PAULO (AP) A judge has suspended the operating license for a massive hydroelectric dam in Brazil's Amazon jungle state of Para weeks before the first of its 24 turbines is scheduled to begin generating electricity. Federal Judge Maria Carolina Valente do Carmo ordered the suspension on Thursday. She said she ordered the suspension because the Norte Energia consortium that is building the dam failed to comply with a previously established requirement that called for the reopening the regional offices of the federal indigenous affairs department in the area where the dam is being built. Norte Energia said it had not been informed of the judge's ruling. Burkina Faso issues warrant against Ivory Coast lawmaker OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) Burkina Faso's military tribunal has issued an arrest warrant for Ivory Coast's parliamentary speaker for his alleged role in a short-lived coup in September, an official said Friday. The warrant against speaker Guillaume Soro was issued through Interpol and the foreign ministry, according to prosecutor Col. Sita Sangare. Soro allegedly offered to give support to coup leaders in phone calls to Burkina Faso's former foreign affairs minister Djibril Bassole, Sangare said, adding that the calls will be used as part of the prosecution. The calls, however, have not yet been authenticated. Bassole was arrested and jailed at the end of September on accusations that he helped support coup leader Col. Gilbert Diendere, who is also now jailed. Bassole has denied the allegations. Diendere has been charged with crimes against humanity for the deaths of 15 people and the wounding of about 250 others around the coup attempt. Bassole was a high-ranking minister under former Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore, who is now in exile in Ivory Coast after being ousted in a popular uprising in October 2014. There is also an international arrest warrant out for Compaore for the death of Burkina Faso's ex-revolutionary president, Thomas Sankara, who was killed in 1987. Diendere is also charged with complicity in that assassination. AP Interview: Cyprus president spurns haste in peace talks NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) Cyprus' president on Friday sought to tone down what he called "excessive optimism" that ongoing talks aimed at reunifying the ethnically divided Mediterranean island are on the verge of a breakthrough. President Nicos Anastasiades said an accord is possible this year but warned against undue haste and a "climate of euphoria" being whipped up, saying time is still needed to overcome remaining difficulties. "To paint a picture that we're just shy of an overall settlement is a mistake," Anastasiades told The Associated Press in an interview. Cyprus' President Nicos Anastasiades speaks to the Associated Press during an interview at his office in the presidential palace in capital Nicosia in this divided Mediteranian island of Cyprus, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. Cyprus president says talks aimed at reunifying the ethnically divided Mediterranean island could conclude in a peace deal this year. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias) He said recent statements by foreign officials, including United Nations envoy Espen Barth Eide, that raised expectations of a speedy deal may have been intended to bolster momentum to carry forward the talks that have been billed as the best chance at peace in decades. "There are many details left that must be discussed and agreed on," he said. "We mustn't leave any constructive ambiguities or unresolved issues that touch on the core aspects of a settlement." Anastasiades said he would brief U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon on the talks at a meeting in Davos, Switzerland next week. Eide said after briefing the U.N. Security Council on Thursday that a peace deal is "more than possible," but that a lot of work still remains to be done and that he doesn't want to create the impression that an agreement "is just around the corner." "Some of the essential issues for both communities are yet to be tackled," he said. Failure has marked numerous rounds of talks since 1974 when the island was split after Turkey invaded in response to a coup aimed at union with Greece. The Cypriot president said significant progress has been made with Mustafa Akinci, a moderate elected last April as leader of the breakaway Turkish Cypriots, whom he credited with a "genuine wish" to reach a settlement. But Anastasiades said Akinci is expressing what he called "positions that reflect concerns of the past." One such issue is an insistence that Turkish Cypriots remain the majority in terms of population and ownership of private property inside a constituent state they will govern as part of an envisioned federation. Most property in the island's north, where the Turkish Cypriot constituent state would be established, belongs to Greek Cypriots, prompting Turkish Cypriot fears they would be swamped. Anastasiades said any such limitations would be in breach of a person's right to choose where they live. The Cypriot president said Turkish Cypriot fears may be assuaged by an accord that entrenches their right to run their own affairs, irrespective of how many Greek Cypriots reside in their zone. Most Turkish Cypriots also want a peace accord to keep in place military intervention rights that were given to Turkey, Greece and Britain under Cyprus' existing constitution. Anastasiades proposed a beefed-up U.N. peacekeeping force operating under a new mandate to provide post-settlement security for a number of years. He said the new mandate would also empower the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on any side breaching the agreement. Anastasiades said the cost of reunification will be high. Donations from other countries in combination with low-interest loans from international financial institutions will be needed to finance peace. The Cypriot president added that a reunified Cyprus can serve as a prime example of Christians and Muslims living peacefully in a region tormented by sectarian-driven violence and facilitate regional diplomacy. A deal could also allow Turkey to meet its energy needs with supplies of newly found, east Mediterranean gas and to fulfill its vision of becoming a key conveyor of gas to Europe. Anastasiades said he would have no objections to a pipeline feeding gas to Turkey from deposits in Israeli and Egyptian waters through Cyprus as long as a reunification agreement is achieved. ___ This version of the story corrects 1st paragraph to read"Friday" instead of "Tuesday." Cyprus' President Nicos Anastasiades speaks to the Associated Press during an interview at his office in the presidential palace in capital Nicosia in this divided Mediteranian island of Cyprus, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. Cyprus president says talks aimed at reunifying the ethnically divided Mediterranean island could conclude in a peace deal this year. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias) Cyprus' President Nicos Anastasiades speaks to the Associated Press during an interview at his office in the presidential palace in capital Nicosia in this divided Mediterranean island of Cyprus, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. Cyprus president says talks aimed at reunifying the ethnically divided Mediterranean island could conclude in a peace deal this year. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias) Cyprus' President Nicos Anastasiades speaks to the Associated Press during an interview at his office in the presidential palace in capital Nicosia in this divided Mediterranean island of Cyprus, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. Cyprus president says talks aimed at reunifying the ethnically divided Mediterranean island could conclude in a peace deal this year. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias) US Treasury Secretary demands action on Puerto Rico's crisis SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew urged Congress on Friday to pass legislation by March to help ease Puerto Rico's economic crisis before it's too late. Lew made the request in a letter to U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, as he announced an upcoming trip to the island to meet with government officials and business leaders to talk about the financial situation. "Although there are many ways this crisis could escalate further, it is clear that Puerto Rico is already in the midst of an economic collapse," Lew wrote. "It is time for Congress to act to provide order to a chaotic and worsening situation." FILE - In this Nov. 2, 2015 file photo, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, center, with Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, left, speaks at the Financial Stability Oversight Council meeting at the Treasury Department in Washington. Lew is scheduled to meet on Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2016 with Puerto Rican government officials and business leaders to talk about the territory's worsening economic crisis. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File) Puerto Rico is struggling with $72 billion in public debt that the governor has said is unpayable and needs restructuring. The island recently defaulted on $37 million in interest on bonds and faces its first lawsuit over how it has diverted funds to meet certain bond payments. Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla has already warned that Puerto Rico doesn't have money for upcoming bond payments including $400 million due in May. Lew is scheduled to meet on Wednesday with officials and community leaders to talk about the proposal that President Barack Obama's administration presented Congress to create a territorial bankruptcy regime that would allow Puerto Rico's government to restructure its debt and impose new oversight on finances and expand Medicaid benefits, among other things. Puerto Rico does not have access to any local or federal bankruptcy laws. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court recently announced it would hear an appeal on a ruling that barred Puerto Rico from giving municipalities the power to declare bankruptcy. Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said the speaker has ordered the House committees of jurisdiction to work with the Puerto Rican government, review options, and report back by the end of the first quarter. Ryan has pledged the House will come up this year with "a responsible solution" for Puerto Rico's debt problems. Meanwhile, Garcia praised Lew's letter. "We thank Secretary Lew for reminding Congressional leaders that they can still prevent this humanitarian crisis from spinning out of control," he said. Republican leaders including Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, have demanded to see audited financial statements from Puerto Rico, but they have not materialized. Jesus Manuel Ortiz, public affairs secretary for the Puerto Rican government, said Friday that the statements are nearly ready and would be produced soon, although he didn't specify a date. Puerto Rico is struggling with an increasingly dwindling cash flow that has threatened to cut off gasoline and electricity to certain public and private institutions. Almost 10 percent of Puerto Rico's population has left since 2006 and hundreds of businesses have closed, with Walmart announcing Friday that it would shutter seven supermarkets on the island as part of a global restructuring. Lew noted in the letter that Puerto Rico has not had access to the municipal bond market for more than two years and ran out of funding sources commonly used to finance government operations more than six months ago. "More recently, Puerto Rico has resorted to a series of onerous and unsustainable emergency liquidity measures, including selling assets from already depleted pension funds; borrowing from the workers compensation and other insurance funds; and withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in tax refunds," he wrote. Pedro Pierluisi, Puerto Rico's representative in Congress, said he expects to meet with Lew and stress that immediate measures are needed to avoid what he said would be enormous government defaults. ___ 21 kidnap victims released in southern Mexico MEXICO CITY (AP) The governor of the southern Mexico state of Guerrero says 21 men kidnapped over the weekend have been freed. Gov. Hector Astudillo Flores told Milenio television Friday that the men were released by their captors near Arcelia and suffered only minor injuries. He said they were giving statements to authorities and then would be allowed to go home. The state's public safety body had announced Sunday that it had found three bodies in the Arcelia township and others had been kidnapped. It said they had been part of a caravan of people traveling to a wedding Saturday evening. Astudillo said later that 17 people had been kidnapped. The Latest: Tribe to seek prosecution if relics go missing BURNS, Ore. (AP) The latest on an armed group that took over federal buildings at an Oregon wildlife refuge (all times local): 4 p.m. The chairwoman of the Burns Paiute Tribe has asked federal officials to bring criminal charges if any ancient artifacts are damaged or missing from a wildlife refuge currently occupied by an armed group. FILE - In this Monday, Jan. 4, 2016 file photo, Members of the group occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters stand guard near Burns, Ore. Thousands of archeological artifacts and maps detailing where more can be found are stored at a national wildlife refuge currently being held by a group of armed protestors. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File) Thousands of ancient artifacts and maps to prehistoric sites are kept at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. Tribe Chairwoman Charlotte Rodrique says she feels helpless knowing that her ancestors' possessions and remains are now in the hands of the armed group angry about federal land policy. She sent a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service urging federal prosecution, if warranted, on Friday. One of the leaders of the armed group, Ryan Bundy, has said the group isn't interested in the artifacts but wants the refuge land opened to ranchers and loggers. 2:45 p.m. Authorities say they have arrested an Oregon man who was driving a government vehicle stolen from a wildlife refuge that an armed group has occupied for nearly two weeks. Oregon State Police made the arrest Friday at a grocery store in Burns. Authorities say Kenneth Medenbach of Crescent was arrested for investigation of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. It's unclear whether the 62-year-old Medenbach was one of the men occupying the refuge or if he has a lawyer. Authorities also say they recovered a second stolen vehicle from the refuge, but provided no other details. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had previously reported the vehicles had been stolen. ___ 11:35 a.m. A spokesman for the armed group occupying a national wildlife refuge in Oregon says they still want to have a meeting with local residents, perhaps early next week. Arizona rancher Robert "LaVoy" Finicum told reporters Friday the group protesting federal land policies was hoping the meeting might occur Monday, if they can find a place to hold it. They had wanted to conduct the meeting Friday night to explain themselves and perhaps say when they would leave, but Harney County officials won't let them use the fairgrounds, as they'd hoped. The group has previously said they would not leave until a plan was in place to turn over federal lands to local authorities. The armed men began occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Jan. 2. ___ 8:42 a.m. As a standoff at an Oregon wildlife refuge hits the two-week mark, local residents are growing increasingly weary and wary. Concrete barriers and fences block off streets around the Harney County Courthouse in the small eastern Oregon town of Burns where law enforcement officers called in from around the state have set up a command center in the back and guard the vehicle entrance. And when they go out they travel in pairs. About 30 miles to the south an armed group has taken over the national wildlife refuge Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to protest federal land use policies. Local residents express a mix of feelings about the standoff. Some are angry with what many consider overly restrictive policies on federal lands but aren't enthused about the armed group that took over the refuge. The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Ore., is seen from atop an old fire lookout on Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. A small, armed group has been occupying the refuge since Jan. 2 to protest federal land use policies. (AP Photo/Keith Ridler) A man gets into a truck at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Ore., Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. The group that has been occupying the refuge since Jan. 2 has been calling it the Harney county Resource Center. (AP Photo/Keith Ridler) Cosby's wife is fighting deposition in defamation lawsuit SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) Lawyers for Bill Cosby's wife are challenging a judge's decision allowing her to be questioned under oath in a Massachusetts defamation lawsuit filed by seven women who allege Cosby sexually abused them decades ago. Last month, Magistrate Judge David Hennessy refused to quash a subpoena from lawyers who want to depose Camille Cosby. Hennessy found that a marital disqualification rule in Massachusetts doesn't apply to deposition testimony. In an appeal filed Thursday, Camille Cosby's lawyers argued that the rule prohibits a spouse from testifying about private marital conversations in any court proceeding, including depositions. Police say man arrested in vehicle stolen from refuge BURNS, Ore. (AP) Oregon State Police arrested a man Friday they said was driving a government vehicle stolen from a wildlife refuge being occupied by an armed group protesting federal land policies. Kenneth Medenbach, 62, of Crescent was arrested at a grocery store in Burns for investigation of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, authorities said. It was unclear if he has a lawyer. According to federal court records Medenbach is already facing charges in U.S. District Court in Medford after authorities said he illegally camped on federal land between May and November last year. The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Ore., is seen from atop an old fire lookout on Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. A small, armed group has been occupying the refuge since Jan. 2 to protest federal land use policies. (AP Photo/Keith Ridler) Authorities also say they recovered a second stolen vehicle from the refuge but provided no other details. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service previously reported the vehicles had been stolen. So far authorities have not tried to remove the group from the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge as the standoff hits the two-week mark. As it drags on, people in the high desert area are growing increasingly weary and wary of the group. Cement barriers have been erected to block streets around the county courthouse in the small eastern Oregon town of Burns, where police from around the state have set up a command center. About 30 miles to the south at the refuge, other protesters carrying what appear to be military-style rifles scan the snow-covered rangeland from atop an old fire lookout that gives them a sweeping view of roads leading into the area. "If we all keep a calm about us everything will be OK," Brenda Pointere said Thursday as she exited a Burns restaurant. "It started out calm, but the longer it goes on you start to hear rumors." The occupation started Jan. 2 as a protest over two area ranchers who had been convicted of arson being returned to prison to serve longer sentences. Afterward, a group led by Ammon Bundy traveled to occupy the refuge to protest the ranchers return to prison and demand that the 300-square-mile refuge be turned over to local control. Bundy said he understood the frustration of Harney County residents. "They have been suppressed to the point where they're ready to act," he told The Associated Press on Thursday inside a heated wildlife refuge building while his brother, Ryan, and two women sat nearby. Burns, nearby Hines and the local area have been in an economic tailspin for decades after the loss of a lumber mill that some blamed on federal restrictions involving timber harvests. Restrictions on other federal lands are a common theme of frustration. The Bundys had planned a meeting with community members Friday night, but it was in limbo after county officials said they couldn't use the fairgrounds. Arizona rancher Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, a spokesman for the group, told reporters Friday that protesters were still hopeful the meeting might occur next week, perhaps Monday, if they can find a location. He criticized local officials for "making sure we have no access to facilities to talk to the residents." The group has said they won't leave until the ranchers jailed for arson are freed and the refuge is turned over to local control. Locals who agreed to be interviewed were themselves conflicted, expressing anger toward federal land policies but bothered by the armed takeover. "I don't agree with anything they're doing right now," Ben McCanna said about the occupiers at the refuge. But McCanna, 54, also said the ranchers' return to prison was wrong, and that he was irked that the U.S. Forest Service closed off access to one of his favorite camping spots in nearby Malheur National Forest. The issue of land management is one discussed throughout the West. A group of mostly Republican congressmen is holding meetings in southern Utah next week to hear concerns from local officials who worry a Bureau of Land Management proposal unfairly restricts livestock grazing, motorized recreation. ___ Associated Press writer Michelle Price contributed from Salt Lake City. A man gets into a truck at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Ore., Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. The group that has been occupying the refuge since Jan. 2 has been calling it the Harney county Resource Center. (AP Photo/Keith Ridler) A police vehicle drives through a downtown street in Burns, Oregon, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. As a standoff at a nearby Oregon wildlife refuge hits the two-week mark, local residents are growing increasingly weary and wary. (AP Photo/Keith Ridler) Ammon Bundy speaks to reporters at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns, Ore., on Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016. Bundy is the leader of a small, armed group that has been occupying the remote refuge in Oregon since Jan. 2 to protest federal land policies. (AP Photo/Keith Ridler) Brazil unemployment rate on the rise SAO PAULO (AP) Brazil's government says unemployment in Latin America's largest country is rising. The country's IBGE statistics bureau said Friday that the jobless rate between August and October of last year came in at 9 percent, compared to 8.6 percent in the previous three-month period and 6.6 percent a year earlier. It is the highest jobless rate since 2012. Unemployment has been rising as a result of a contracting economy that has led to layoffs in the manufacturing and service sectors. President Dilma Rousseff said Friday at a breakfast meeting with reporters that her government is determined to lower unemployment rates. Former Mexican politician Humberto Moreira detained in Spain MADRID (AP) A prominent former Mexican politician was detained Friday at Madrid's airport by anti-corruption officers and was being questioned by a judge, Spanish officials said. Former Institutional Revolutionary Party chief Humberto Moreira was taken into custody based on a Spanish arrest warrant, said an official with the national police who spoke on condition of anonymity because of police policy. The official had no other details about why Moreira was sought by Spanish anti-corruption officers. A court spokesman confirmed Friday night that Moreira was being questioned. Moreira resigned in 2012 as party leader under a cloud of state government debt that accumulated under his governorship of Coahuila from 2005 to 2011. The debt was financed at least in part by falsified documents. Moreira has not been charged in the U.S. or Mexico. But two of Moreira's top associates have pleaded guilty in federal court in San Antonio, Texas, to conspiring to transport stolen money. In the plea agreement for businessman and media owner Roland Gonzalez Trevino dated last April, Moreira appears unnamed as co-conspirator 1, "a high-ranking official in Coahuila" who won the governorship. The plea agreement said he started in January or February of 2006 "taking money for his own personal use from the government of Coahuila." Gonzalez admitted to participating in a plan to defraud or steal money from Coahuila with co-conspirator 1 and others. Gonzalez also admits to transferring more than $1.8 million that was "stolen, converted or taken by fraud" from the state of Coahuila and sent to the U.S. Moreira's former state treasurer, Hector Javier Villarreal Hernandez, also pleaded guilty in 2014 in San Antonio to conspiracy to launder money and conspiring to transport stolen money. Moreira left the governorship in 2011 to head the Institutional Revolutionary Party just as it was gearing up for a return to national power with candidate Enrique Pena Nieto, now the Mexican president. Moreira resigned when it was revealed that the Coahuila state debt rose from $27 million to nearly $3 billion during his tenure. The party issued a statement Friday saying it had too little information to comment, adding, "Institutions are not responsible for the actions of individual members." ___ McGowan opens 3-shot lead at Euro Tour's Joburg Open JOHANNESBURG (AP) Ross McGowan opened a three-shot lead after two rounds of the European Tour's Joburg Open following a sizzling 9-under 62 on Friday. The Englishman, who regained his place on the tour this season, fired six birdies and two eagles on the par-71 West Course at Royal Johannesburg and Kensington to go 14 under for the tournament. That followed his 5-under 67 on the East Course in the opening round. McGowan surged clear of Jean Hugo, Haydn Porteous, Anthony Wall and Felipe Aguilar, who were all 11 under. McGowan lost his European Tour card in 2011 but came through qualifying school last year, and tied for 12th at the South African Open last weekend. Ted Cruz has said that after working on George W. Bush's 2000 campaign, being passed over for a senior position with the new administration was 'a crushing blow.' Turns out, it was his own fault. Cruz was offered a job as White House associate counsel shortly after Al Gore conceded the race in December, but he rejected it, members of the Bush transition team told The Associated Press. Cruz thought he was in line for the more senior role of deputy White House counsel. The transition team members asked that their names not appear in print because they weren't authorized to speak publicly for the Bush administration. They said that even before the associate counsel job was offered to Cruz, the deputy counsel position had been set aside for Timothy Flanigan, a veteran of the George H.W. Bush administration. A Republican scorned: Ted Cruz thought he was going to be made deputy to the White House counsel and turned down the actual offer he was made of the less senior associate role, where he would be one of nine Who was he? Clay Johnson III, who was executive director of the W transition team, ssaid he had never heard Cruz's name until learning of his 2012 run for Senate. Though the titles are similar, the deputy counsel reported directly to then-White House counsel and future U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while the associate's role was one of nine working under Flanigan. The incident underscores a recurring theme of Cruz's career, how his overt personal ambition rubbed colleagues the wrong way sometimes to his professional and political detriment. By setting his eyes on a bigger prize and bypassing the chance to work as an administration lawyer in the White House, Cruz missed potentially invaluable experience and insight into the job he is now seeking. 'It's knowing how government works. It's knowing how decisions get made,' Rear Adm. Bobby Ray Inman, director of the National Security Agency from 1977 to 1981, said of the benefits of working in the White House. 'You just learn from seeing what gets their attention.' Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier declined to comment. She said a job offer Cruz didn't accept 16 years ago wasn't a priority. In the summer of 1999, Cruz was at a Washington party when a law school friend introduced him to Josh Bolten, a future White House chief of staff who was then working as policy director for Bush's presidential campaign. Cruz became an Austin-based domestic policy adviser to Bush, and also met his future wife, Heidi, while working on the campaign. Amid the recount in Florida, Cruz headed to Tallahassee and helped devise legal strategy and draft pleadings to the U.S. and Florida Supreme Courts. After turning down the associate counsel's job, Cruz eventually caught on with the new administration as an associate deputy U.S. attorney general, and later was director of the Office of Policy Planning for the Federal Trade Commission. Silver lining: Ted Cruz met his wife Heidi on the George W Bush campaign team In his autobiography, Cruz described being devastated that he couldn't land a senior administration job, but he also acknowledged that part of the reason he didn't was because he was 'far too cocky for my own good.' Still, Clay Johnson III, who was executive director of the transition team, said that though valuable, Cruz's campaign experience wasn't enough to make him a candidate for one of the top administration posts that Johnson was vetting. 'Ted Cruz was not somebody who was being considered for a senior position,' said Johnson, a high school friend of Bush's and former deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget at the White House. He said he had never heard Cruz's name until learning of his 2012 run for Senate. Turning down the post in the White House counsel's office, though, helped bolster Cruz's credentials as a hero with the tea party which now decries the Bush administration for running up towering spending deficits. Bill O'Sullivan of the Texas Patriots PAC, a conservative grassroots organization outside Houston, said Cruz's career as a Washington outsider burgeoned after he left the Bush administration. 'If he stayed in Washington and was a functionary,' Sullivan said 'no one would know who he is today.' New Jersey wants lawsuit from Ebola-quarantined nurse tossed TRENTON, N.J. (AP) Lawyers for Gov. Chris Christie and state health officials asked a judge Friday to throw out a lawsuit from a nurse who was quarantined because she had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa in 2014. State lawyers said in the response to Kaci Hickox's federal civil rights lawsuit that health workers acted with the public's safety in mind when they had her quarantined and that Christie and the other officials are immune from lawsuits over public health quarantines. "As a nurse, Ms. Hickox acted in the best traditions of her profession by volunteering to treat Ebola-infected patients in Sierra Leone," the state wrote. "But on her return to the U.S., four separate readings revealed that she had an elevated temperature. Public health officials, acting in the same best traditions of their profession, properly had her quarantined." FILE - In this Oct. 31, 2014 file photo, nurse Kaci Hickox speaks to the media outside her home in Fort Kent, Maine. On Friday, Jan. 15, 2016, lawyers for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and state health officials have asked a judge to throw out a lawsuit from the nurse who sharply criticized being quarantined at a hospital because she had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa in 2014. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File) The disease is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person who's showing symptoms. The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and a New York firm sued on behalf of Hickox, who was working with Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone during the Ebola outbreak, which killed thousands of people. When she returned via Newark Liberty International Airport, she was stopped, questioned and sent to stay in a tent outside a Newark hospital. She said Christie's decision to quarantine her was made out of fear and was politically motivated. Christie, a Republican, was considering a run for president and has since entered the race. Besides Christie, the lawsuit names as defendants former state health commissioner Mary O'Dowd and other health department employees. The lawsuit seeks at least $250,000 in compensatory and punitive damages, and Hickox's lawyers say they hope the case will change a quarantine policy driven by politics instead of public health concerns. The state says the primary objective of Christie, O'Dowd and other officials was the "safety and general welfare" of the public during the Ebola virus outbreak. Hickox was the first person forced into New Jersey's mandatory quarantine for health care workers who came into contact with Ebola patients after Christie and Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a stronger quarantine policy than federal standards. The White House and medical groups criticized their plan. Hickox, a Maine resident at the time, said she was questioned in Newark by numerous people, including a man who spoke to her "aggressively as if she were a criminal and was wearing a weapon belt." She said she didn't have a fever when her temperature was first taken, but a medical staffer using a temporal scanner told her she did have a fever. She said that was due to her being flushed from frustration, but it led to her being taken to the hospital, escorted by police cars with lights flashing and sirens blaring. Hickox twice tested negative for Ebola but was kept quarantined for more than two days. She then was driven to Maine, where she decided against following the state's voluntary quarantine. A judge later gave her the OK to go wherever she pleased as long as she continued daily health monitoring. She has since moved to Oregon. ___ This story has been corrected to remove an erroneous reference to the deadly Ebola outbreak being last year. Militants' use of human shields in Ramadi slows progress RAMADI, Iraq (AP) Six times in the past harrowing month, Um Omar and her family got a knock on the door of whatever home they were occupying in the extremist-held city of Ramadi: It was an Islamic State militant, she said, ordering them to pick up and move with them as human shields because the Iraqi army was approaching. "Every time the army would advance, Daesh would knock on our door and say, 'OK, time to go,'" the woman said in an interview with The Associated Press. The knock came again Thursday morning in the Soufiya neighborhood of northeastern Ramadi, Um Omar said, and to her surprise it was the counterterrorism forces of the Iraqi military. She and about 60 other people had just been rescued. Trapped civilians are loaded in a truck to be taken to safe places as Iraqi security forces clearing the Soufiya neighborhood of Islamic State fighters in central Ramadi, 70 miles (115 kilometers) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016. More than two weeks after central Ramadi was declared liberated, Iraq's counter terrorism forces are slowly battling pockets of Islamic State militants on the northeastern edges. Commanders on the ground say roadside bombs, bobby-trapped houses and the militant group's use of civilians as human shields are the main factors slowing their progress. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed) It's still a little unclear to her what happened to the extremists, said the woman, who spoke on condition she not be identified by her full name to protect relatives who may still be trapped in Ramadi. Either all the IS fighters were killed during clashes Wednesday night, or they fled further into the neighborhood and didn't have time to bring their captives along to another part of Ramadi. The capital of sprawling Anbar province fell in May to the IS group, also known by its Arab acronym Daesh. It was the biggest setback for Iraq's military since the city of Mosul fell to the group in the summer of 2014. Iraqi troops, working with the counterterrorism forces, retook the center of Ramadi last month with heavy air support from the U.S.-led coalition. Ramadi still cannot be considered fully liberated, with pockets of IS fighters still holed up in half to two-thirds of the city's neighborhoods in the east and north. As Iraqi government forces have advanced from west to east from downtown Ramadi and expelled IS militants in December, the extremists have pulled back with their civilian captives as shields, leaving behind houses booby-trapped with explosives and roadside bombs. Fighters with the elite counterterrorism forces that are leading operations in the Anbar provincial capital, 70 miles (115 kilometers) west of Baghdad, say the practice is slowing them down and complicating the already-messy challenge of house- to-house urban warfare. Heavy airstrikes and the Islamic State group's scorched-earth practices have left most of Ramadi in ruins. The devastating combination razed nearly every building along its main thoroughfare. On most city blocks, no house is spared damage; others are reduced to rubble. But as Iraqi forces continue to advance, evacuations like the one that brought Um Omar and her family to safety are draining time and resources from the fight to retake territory, according to troops and commanders. "The main problem now are the civilians, that is what's slowing our progress," said Maj. Gen. Fadhil Barwari, the commander of the counterterrorism unit in Ramadi. Working out of a marble-tiled home that his unit has transformed into an operations center, he juggles phone calls and local TV interviews. Off to the side, one of his men unrolls a map and reads out coordinates to someone speaking in Australian-accented English on the other end of the line. "We thought it was going to be easier because we have airstrikes and air support," Barwari said, referring to the intense waves of coalition bombing that paved the way for his forces' initial advance in western Ramadi. "But now, when the pilot sees civilians, they don't strike." Unlike other Iraqi cities like Tikrit and Beiji, where troops have pushed out the militants, thousands of civilians remained in Ramadi under months of IS rule. While the U.S.-trained counterterrorism forces are the most effective unit in the Iraqi military, they still largely depend on air support to retake ground. In Soufiya, on the northeastern edge of the city center, Barwari's men slowly comb blocks of low-rise homes surrounded by palm trees. Above them, two Iraqi military helicopters circle along the front line, firing in advance of comrades in a dozen Humvees. By that afternoon, only a single coalition airstrike had targeted the front line. On the day before the fall of Sinjar, coalition planes launched 24 airstrikes on the town in 24 hours. In Ramadi, a city five times the size of Sinjar, coalition planes were only averaging four airstrikes a day in the week before the city center fell. Barwari said his men have moved more than 3,000 people out of Ramadi, and he estimates that thousands remain. The rescues and evacuations are draining resources and not only slowing progress in Ramadi but also across the Euphrates River valley, he said. Iraq's counterterrorism forces are the only ones in the Iraqi military that have successfully launched prolonged offensives against IS. With the forces bogged down in clearing Ramadi, plans for a push into Fallujah have effectively been put on hold. Shiite militias, which have effectively retaken territory from IS in other Iraqi regions, have been kept on the sidelines in Sunni-dominated Anbar province. Watching the battle in Ramadi via reconnaissance drones, Col. Steve Warren, the Baghdad-based spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said he has seen IS militants "herding civilians" over toward the Soufiya neighborhood. "It hasn't significantly slowed operations, but yeah, it's slowed to a degree," Warren said by phone from Baghdad. While IS hides among civilians in the cities they control, this is the first time the coalition has seen militants moving families with them as they retreat. Like the elaborate networks of tunnels found in Kobani and Sinjar after those towns were cleared of extremists, the group's practice of using human shields as they retreat is aimed at diminishing the effectiveness of a strategy that relies heavily on airstrikes. Asked whether this practice could complicate plans to retake cities like Mosul and Raqqa with much larger civilian populations, Warren said: "It's too early to tell." "What we don't know is if this is a tactic or an act of desperate men," he added. Um Omar described a combination of threats and random violence that IS used to prevent her family from escaping. "They would put us in a house and say, 'all around you are bombs, so for your safety, you cannot leave,'" she recounted. After a neighbor tried to escape, two fighters dragged her from her home to the middle of the street and shot her, Um Omar said. When Um Omar's brother begged to be allowed to cross the front line, explaining his diabetic mother-in-law needed medical attention, "they just yelled at my brother, saying that he only wanted to expose his daughters and sisters to foreigners." Once the family gave up hope of escaping, Um Omar said she tried to find new ways to calm her brother's five young children. "For the airstrikes, I could only tell them to put their fingers in their ears and not to worry, it's going to end, it will all be over," she said. But Um Omar said she was sure they would die with the militants in Ramadi. "They always told us, 'you are just here to protect us from the nonbelievers,'" she said. ___ Kalid Mohammed in Ramadi contributed to this report. Iraqi security forces clear the Soufiya neighborhood of Islamic State fighters in central Ramadi, 70 miles (115 kilometers) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016. More than two weeks after central Ramadi was declared liberated, Iraq's counter terrorism forces are slowly battling pockets of Islamic State militants on the northeastern edges. Commanders on the ground say roadside bombs, bobby-trapped houses and the militant group's use of civilians as human shields are the main factors slowing their progress. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed) Maj. Gen. Fadhil Barwari, the commander of the Iraqi Counterterrorism unit in Ramadi talks on the phone at operation center in Ramadi, 70 miles (115 kilometers) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016. Barwari says progress on the ground is moving slower than he expected. "I don't think its going to take less than a month. The problem now are the civilians, evacuating them is the main thing slowing our progress." (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed) Iraqi soldiers help trapped civilians to go to safe places as security forces clearing the Soufiya neighborhood of Islamic State fighters in central Ramadi, 70 miles (115 kilometers) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016. More than two weeks after central Ramadi was declared liberated, Iraq's counter terrorism forces are slowly battling pockets of Islamic State militants on the northeastern edges. Commanders on the ground say roadside bombs, bobby-trapped houses and the militant group's use of civilians as human shields are the main factors slowing their progress. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed) Iraqi security forces deploy in the Soufiya neighborhood in central Ramadi, 70 miles (115 kilometers) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016. More than two weeks after central Ramadi was declared liberated, Iraq's counter terrorism forces are slowly battling pockets of Islamic State militants on the northeastern edges. Commanders on the ground say roadside bombs, bobby-trapped houses and the militant group's use of civilians as human shields are the main factors slowing their progress. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed) White House aide uses El Chapo in case to close Guantanamo WASHINGTON (AP) If a U.S. prison is good enough for El Chapo, it should be good enough for Guantanamo Bay detainees. That's the argument deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes made Friday as he spoke about the Obama administration's effort to close the prison. Congress has rejected the Obama administration's pleas to transfer the prisoners to a facility in the U.S. Opponents say they have security concerns. Syrian-born US citizen pleads guilty to aiding militants WASHINGTON (AP) A Syrian-born U.S. citizen charged with smuggling rifle scopes, night-vision goggles, knives, bulletproof vests and other gear from the United States to Islamic militants in his native country pleaded guilty Friday. Amin al-Baroudi, 50, entered the plea in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. A former resident of Irvine, California, al-Baroudi acknowledged as part of the plea deal that from December 2011 to March 2013 he and others exported equipment to Syria for the purpose of supplying Syrian insurgent groups whose aim is to overthrow the government of President Bashar Assad. Prosecutors said in a statement that the goods were for insurgents including the group Ahrar el-Sham, which aims to establish an Islamic state in Syria and frequently fights alongside al-Qaida's official branch in Syria. Prosecutors said U.S. sanctions against Syria prohibit the supply of goods from the United States to Syria without prior authorization of the government and that al-Baroudi did not have that authorization. Al-Baroudi acknowledged that he and others purchased tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment and then traveled with the goods aboard commercial flights to Turkey. They then transported the goods to Syria or provided them to others to transport. Al-Baroudi acknowledged making two trips himself. On one, he traveled with 14 bags of checked luggage weighing more than 600 pounds, bags he said contained "clothes" when in fact they contained tactical equipment. On a second trip, he took four bags of luggage with additional goods. An attorney for al-Baroudi, Anthony Capozzolo, said Friday in a telephone interview that his client's actions were "done for the sole purpose of protecting innocent civilians" from the Assad regime. Capozzolo said that al-Barudi was a teenager in Syria in the 1980s when Assad's father, then-Syrian President Hafez Assad, crushed an uprising in the city of Hama, killing tens of thousands. "Mr. Barudi's actions were directed toward preventing another Hama," he said. Sentencing is scheduled for May 6. Prosecutors say al-Baroudi faces a maximum of 20 years in prison. ___ Ex-sergeant cleared of hate crimes in Hispanic theft case MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) A former suburban New York police sergeant charged with stealing money from Hispanics during traffic stops was cleared of hate crimes charges Friday, but a jury did convict him of larceny and official misconduct. The verdict drew immediate calls from Hispanic advocates for a federal takeover of the Suffolk County Police Department, which previously was the focus of a Justice Department probe following the 2008 death of an Ecuadorean man by a group of teenagers. Scott Greene's trial took place weeks after the police department's former chief, James Burke, was indicted on federal charges of abusing a burglary suspect and coercing officers to cover it up. The allegations in that case do not involve Hispanics. "The verdict is another chilling reminder of a broken relationship between the Suffolk County Police Department and the Latino community," said Juan Cartagena, president and general counsel for LatinoJustice PRLDEF. "For too long Latinos in Suffolk County have come under attack by police. It's time for the DOJ (Department of Justice) to step in and stop this continuous pattern of racial abuse." A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office declined comment. Greene, 52, was arrested in 2014, accused of grabbing $50 or $100 cash from six Hispanic victims during traffic stops. He was arrested during a sting after authorities received tips that the thefts were occurring. He faces 1 1/3 to 4 years in prison when he is sentenced Feb. 16; a judge ordered him held without bail until he is sentenced. Suffolk County prosecutors note that Greene faces a second hate crimes trial on a 60-count indictment for allegedly robbing another 20 Hispanic drivers and passengers who came forward after the initial charges were filed. In opening statements at Greene's trial earlier this month, defense attorney Scott Gross conceded the now-retired sergeant took $100 during the sting, but said the officer never targeted Hispanics. "It was our argument all along that this was not a hate crime," Gross told reporters after the verdict. The Hispanic men testified through a Spanish interpreter that between 2010 and the end of 2013, Greene searched them during traffic stops when they could not provide a driver's license or other documents. All six said they later found money missing from their wallets or pockets. "After hearing all of the available and admissible evidence, the jury determined that Scott Greene was a thief with a badge," District Attorney Spota said. "We are disappointed they did not believe Greene stole from his victims because of a belief or perception regarding their race, color, or national origin - as the hate crime statute requires. We respect their verdict. This defendant can no longer victimize anyone because of his position as a police officer and we will recommend the maximum term of imprisonment at sentencing." In 2013 the police department reached a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department over its treatment of Hispanic immigrants. The department agreed to enhance investigations of hate crimes and bias incidents following a 2008 hate crime killing of an Ecuadorean immigrant in Patchogue. Hispanic advocates said at the time that victims were reticent to report crimes out of fear of being questioned about their immigration status. Spota said in the Greene case that investigators from his office worked with liaisons in the Hispanic community to encourage victims to come forward. Chicago police unions push for destruction of old complaints CHICAGO (AP) Unions representing Chicago police officers are fighting for the destruction of tens of thousands of documents from disciplinary files dating back several decades, just as activists and community leaders are demanding more access and transparency from a department under intense scrutiny after several controversial police shootings. The two unions' contracts with the city stipulate that the records, including complaints alleging misconduct, be destroyed after five years in most cases if no litigation is ongoing. The city says it has had to keep the files because of federal court orders issued in litigation going back to the 1990s. But the unions say they only recently discovered they still existed when the city informed them it would release all documents as part of a massive public records request by several newspapers. A judge who has kept the records in limbo for more than a year said at a hearing Friday that he would keep a union-requested injunction in place pending the outcome of more negotiations between the city and the unions. Arbitrators have sided with the unions but in a decision this week gave the sides until March 15 to work out a system for determining which of the documents are subject to destruction. A protester argues with police outside the annual Interfaith Breakfast honoring Martin Luther King Jr., to address efforts to restore people's trust amid the city's ongoing police shooting scandal, at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place hotel in Chicago, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune) Cook County Circuit Judge Peter Flynn said Friday that he will eventually have to consider whether the state's Freedom of Information Act requires the city to release material it shouldn't have had in the first place. Those pushing for changes to the police force say the public has a right to see it all, especially in light of recent cases like the 2014 shooting death of Laquan McDonald. A white officer shot the black teenager 16 times while responding to a call about someone breaking in to cars. Video of the shooting was released on a judge's order in November and showed McDonald carrying a knife but walking away from officers. It contradicted accounts of officers who said McDonald lunged at officers. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has pledged greater openness and "complete and total reform" of the system and culture of policing, but protests and calls for his resignation have persisted. On Friday, protesters disrupted Emanuel's annual breakfast honoring Martin Luther King Jr. "We have serious, systemic problems in the city of Chicago," said Craig Futterman, a University of Chicago law professor and reform advocate who is pressing for the police files to be released. "You don't destroy evidence. ... They have to be produced; it's that simple." The officer who shot McDonald, Jason Van Dyke, was charged with first-degree murder only hours before the video was released and more than a year after the shooting. His attorney says he acted properly and fired out of fear for his life. Van Dyke was the subject of 18 civilian complaints over 14 years, including allegations that he used racial epithets and excessive force, police and court records show. The unions argue that police officers are susceptible to false complaints and reports that go unsubstantiated should not have an indefinite shelf life. The contracts state that even files that are linked to litigation have to be destroyed once those cases are finished, in most instances. It's one of several sweeping protections in the union contract that critics want scaled back in light of recent cases. "My position is simple: You made this agreement; stick to it," said union attorney Thomas Pleines. "And if things have now changed to the point where you can no longer live up to the agreement, then negotiate a new agreement." Some of the documents still on file date back to the 1960s, Pleines said, adding that the vast majority relate to mundane matters rather than sensational cases of abuse or misconduct. Pleines said the city has notified him it will seek a court ruling to vacate the arbitration decision on the grounds that it violates state public policy in the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. Bill McCaffrey of the city's Law Department said in a statement the police unions have been notified many times over 20 years that the records were being preserved. "Our longstanding position is that these records have an administrative and legal purpose that warrants preservation, and we will continue our legal efforts to maintain and preserve these records," he said. . Two women are escorted by police while being yelled at by protesters as they try to enter the annual Interfaith Breakfast honoring Martin Luther King Jr. to address efforts to restore people's trust amid the city's ongoing police shooting scandal, at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place hotel in Chicago, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune) An attendee, far left, tangles with a protester as another tries to block her path from entering the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place hotel for the annual Interfaith Breakfast honoring Martin Luther King Jr. to address efforts to restore people's trust amid the city's ongoing police shooting scandal, in Chicago on Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT Protesters shout at police outside the annual Interfaith Breakfast honoring Martin Luther King Jr. to address efforts to restore people's trust amid the city's ongoing police shooting scandal, at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place hotel in Chicago, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune) Justices will hear ex-Virginia Gov. McDonnell's appeal WASHINGTON (AP) The Supreme Court will hear former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell's appeal of his public corruption convictions. The justices said Friday that they will review lower court rulings that upheld the convictions based on what McDonnell says is an overly broad definition of bribery. A jury in September 2014 convicted McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, of doing favors for wealthy vitamin executive Jonnie Williams in exchange for more than $165,000 in gifts and loans. Williams was seeking state university research on his company's signature anti-inflammatory product. FILE - In this May 12, 2105 file photo, Former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell leaves the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal in Richmond, Va. The Supreme Court will hear McDonnells appeal of his public corruption convictions. The justices said Friday, Jan. 15, 2016, that they will review lower court rulings that upheld the convictions based on what McDonnell says is an overly broad definition of bribery. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File) The Obama administration urged the court to reject the appeal, saying the jury had ample evidence of bribery. But Republicans and Democrats who once worked in the Justice Department and White House joined McDonnell in contending that the overly broad definition of bribery on which he was convicted would make a crime of routine actions by elected officials on behalf of their constituents. "I am innocent of these crimes and ask the court to reverse these convictions. I maintain my profound confidence in God's grace to sustain me and my family," McDonnell said in a statement Friday. The Justice Department declined to comment. The case probably will be argued in April and decided by the end of June. The justices have taken on several cases in recent years that claimed prosecutors were too aggressive in their pursuit of white-collar crimes. In 2010, the court narrowed the use of an anti-fraud law that was central in convicting politicians and corporate executives in many of the nation's most prominent corruption cases. Last year, the justices also declined to hear the government's appeal of a lower court ruling that threw out insider trading convictions. McDonnell's was among eight new cases the justices agreed to hear Friday. Others include: A Missouri church's challenge to its exclusion from a state program that provides money to use ground-up tires to cushion playgrounds. A dispute about whether a board created to review patents by a 2011 law is jeopardizing innovation by using a standard that favors challenges to patents and invalidating too many patents. An appeal from Microsoft Corp. over a class-action lawsuit by disgruntled owners of the Xbox 360 video-game system who claim the console has a design defect that scratches game disks. A bid by service advisers at auto dealerships who say they are entitled to overtime pay under federal labor laws. The action in McDonnell's case was not a surprise because the justices voted in August to allow McDonnell to postpone the start of his two-year prison term while his appeal was being considered. Such votes typically signal the court will hear the full appeal. The court will not take up a second issue raised by McDonnell: whether the trial judge did enough to ensure that jurors could be impartial in spite of the heavy news coverage of the McDonnells' cases in Virginia news outlets. Maureen McDonnell was sentenced to a year and a day in prison. Her appeal has been put on hold until the Supreme Court decides her husband's case. The heart of the former governor's appeal is that he never took official action to benefit Williams or the Star Scientific company he ran. Neither Williams nor the company received any state money and McDonnell never pressured anyone to help Williams or promised Williams that he would, McDonnell argues in his appeal. But Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. said McDonnell violated federal anti-corruption law when he accepted "personal benefits in exchange for his agreement to influence government matters." The case is McDonnell v. U.S., 15-474. ___ High court will hear Microsoft appeal over Xbox lawsuit WASHINGTON (AP) The Supreme Court will decide whether Microsoft Corp. must face a class action lawsuit by disgruntled owners of the Xbox 360 video-game system who say the console has a design defect that scratches game disks. The justices agreed Friday to hear an appeal from Microsoft arguing that individual claims by the plaintiffs had previously been thrown out. Microsoft has sold more than 80 million Xbox 360 consoles and says only 0.4 percent of owners report disk scratching. The company says any damage is the result of consumer misuse and not a product defect. Professor who abused disabled man sentenced to prison NEWARK, New Jersey (AP) A Rutgers University professor convicted of sexually assaulting a disabled man who she said had consented to the relationship by communicating on a keyboard was sentenced to 12 years in prison Friday. Anna Stubblefield, former chair of the university's philosophy department, used her position to take advantage of the 34-year-old man, who has cerebral palsy and is unable to speak, prosecutors said. After her release, Stubblefield, 46, will be on supervised parole for the rest of her life and will be required to register as a sex offender. The tense and emotional sentencing hearing included testimony from the victim's brother and Stubblefield's daughter. Stubblefield's daughter was later removed from the courtroom by officers after cursing at the brother. Stubblefield met the 34-year-old man in 2009 through his brother, who had been taking her course. Over the next two years, Stubblefield worked with the man using a method known as facilitated communication. She argued that although he could not speak, he could communicate by typing. She said the two were in love and they revealed their sexual relationship to his mother and brother in 2011. Prosecutors challenged the method of facilitated communication, and psychologists determined that he was mentally incompetent and couldn't consent to sexual activity. The judge barred expert testimony on facilitated communication, determining it's "not a recognized science." Colombian drug trafficker convicted in journalist's murder BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) A member of Colombia's largest drug-trafficking organization has been convicted and sentenced to 31 years in jail for three murders, including that of a regional journalist in 2014. Luis Carlos Cervantes was gunned down in 2014, a month after a government withdrew his security detail without much explanation. It's not clear why he was murdered, but the court in Antioquia province said that Javier Vega masterminded and carried out the murder in conjunction with the Usuga gang. Press groups say Cervantes routinely denounced corruption while working for a regional TV network. Crowds attack Mexico pipelines, steal diesel with buckets MEXICO CITY (AP) Rebellious crowds of townspeople in a rural area in central Mexico are defying police and soldiers to steal diesel from illegally tapped pipelines, creating what officials call an imminent threat of tragedies like fires that have burned dozens of people at other sites in Mexico. The sight of a crowd of men, women and youths gathered around a huge pool of diesel with buckets in the central state of Tlaxcala exemplifies the trend in pipeline thefts, which rose 52 percent in 2015 to reach a rate of nearly 15 illegal taps per day across the country. Alejandro Espejel, the spokesman for the city of Calpulalpan, said people in several villages have made a habit of either perforating pipelines or taking advantage of taps created by professional fuel thieves. They have broken through security perimeters on almost two dozen occasions in the last year, built dams to create diesel containment ponds and hauled up fuel by the bucketful to sell. Espejel said the villagers have defied orders by police and security authorities to stop the practice. "The people swear at the state police, the federal police and even the soldiers. They get in any way they can" to cordoned off areas where fuel spills occur. In a video of one mass fuel theft posted by the newspaper Sol de Tlaxcala this week, dozens of people can be seen in a festive atmosphere gathered around the banks of a narrow gully, tossing buckets down into a swimming-pool sized pond of diesel, and pulling the full buckets back up with a rope. The villagers can then be seen carrying the buckets up a muddy slope on their shoulders, to fill a larger container. While the video had no date, Espejel confirmed the incident happened in December at a spot where a 12-inch pipeline operated by the state-owned oil company, Pemex, crosses a gully or narrow stream bed. Espejel said residents had apparently drilled into the pipeline, dammed up the stream bed, and created a pond full of fuel. A Pemex official who was not authorized to be quoted by name confirmed that the incident had occurred, and said the danger was enormous, for what are likely to be tiny profits. "They have to store it, and let it settle, because the diesel has grass, and dirt, and even water in it," said the official. "They can't sell it for anywhere near the official price (about 80 cents per liter, or $3.10 per gallon), so they maybe sell it for half that." "It is usually people from rural hamlets who live near the pipeline," said the official. Some villagers allegedly milked pipelines by inserting wooden stoppers into illegal tap holes, and opening them when they wanted to get fuel. In March 2015, villagers in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco state broke through a police perimeter and then chased off firefighters so they could steal gasoline from a crashed tanker truck. The spilled fuel ignited, burning 21 people so severely they later died. And in December, five people in Tabasco died from a fire that broke out near where people were using an illegal tap to gather fuel on Dec. 22. The Pemex official said something as simple as a motorcycle engine could ignite spilled fuel. While such community fuel thefts might once have been for the villagers' own use, there is mounting evidence the fuel especially diesel is being re-sold. "These people are now very organized. They have pickup trucks with fuel containers waiting on the road outside," Espejel said. "They are 1,000-liter (265-gallon) containers." AP FACT CHECK: Audio refutes Trump's claim on China tariff WASHINGTON (AP) New audio released by The New York Times refutes Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's claim that he never called for a 45 percent tariff on Chinese exports during a recent editorial board meeting with the paper. Trump, during Thursday night's debate, denied having called for the 45 percent tariff if he's elected president. "That's wrong. They were wrong," he said during the debate, which was hosted by Fox Business Network. "It's the New York Times," he added. "They are always wrong." Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump answers questions from supporters during a campaign stop at the Living History Farms visitors center, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016, in Urbandale, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) He later said: "I'm totally open to a tariff. If they don't treat us fairly, hey, their whole trade is tariffed. You can't deal in China without tariffs. They do it to us, we don't it. It's not fair trade." THE FACTS: An audio clip from the meeting posted by the paper contradicts the billionaire businessman and GOP candidate. "I would tax China coming in, products coming in," Trump is heard saying. "I would do a tariff and they do it to us. We have to be smart." "I'm a free trader. I love free trade, but it's got to be reasonably fair," he adds. "I would do a tax, and the tax let me tell you what the tax should be: The tax should be 45 percent. That would be a tax that would be an equivalent to some of the kind of, you know, devaluations that they've done. They cannot believe that we haven't done this yet." Trump has also called for penalties on companies, such as auto manufacturers, that shift manufacturing overseas. ___ New York Times audio: Crystal Cruises cancels stops in Turkey over security issues Crystal Cruises announced Friday that it was cancelling stops in Turkey for two upcoming voyages. The company said in a statement that it was cancelling visits to Istanbul and Kusadasi, Turkey, which had been planned stops for one of its ships, Crystal Symphony. The cruise line said it was rerouting the ship "in response to ongoing security concerns." A suicide bombing in Istanbul killed 10 tourists Tuesday. The itineraries for Crystal voyages that set sail April 24 and May 1 will include destinations in Greece instead of Turkey. Turkish ports of call scheduled for April and November aboard Crystal's new luxury yacht, Crystal Esprit, will also be changed, the cruise line said. In September, another cruise line, Celebrity Cruises, announced that it would replace all overnights to Istanbul in 2016 with additional ports of call. Royal Caribbean International says it is "closely monitoring" the situation in Turkey but has not modified any upcoming sailings to Istanbul. Florida Supreme Court suspends 3 Tampa lawyers TAMPA, Fla. (AP) The state's highest court is suspending three Florida lawyers accused of orchestrating the DUI arrest of an adversary. News media outlets report the court on Friday suspended Stephen Diaco, Robert Adams and Adam Filthaut. The scandal came to light in 2013 during a high-profile civil trial involving two radio personalities, Bubba the Love Sponge Clem and Todd "MJ" Schnitt. During the hard-fought trial, Schnitt's lawyer, C. Phillip Campbell was arrested for DUI. Diaco, Adams and Filthaut worked for the law firm representing Clem. The state bar alleged that the three lawyers set Campbell up. A circuit judge found the three lawyers guilty of numerous ethical violations, and the state Supreme Court is considering permanently disbarring them. Lord and Lady March 'recovering' after Goodwood raid Lord and Lady March are "recovering" after being assaulted and tied up in Goodwood House by a burglar who stole 700,000 of treasured family heirlooms. The 61-year-old and his 54-year-old wife, who were attacked at their stately home on Wednesday morning, described the ordeal as "challenging". But he said they were "entirely focused" on getting back the stolen goods which have "personal significance" and "historical value". Some of the heirlooms worth nearly 700,000 which have been stolen in a raid at Goodwood House near Chichester (Sussex Police/PA) In a statement, Lord March said: "The last 48 hours have been challenging and I would like to thank Sussex Police, my team here at Goodwood and the local and national press for their support. "I am pleased to tell you that we are both recovering and entirely focused on providing the police with anything that may help recover the stolen items some of which have such personal significance and others such historical value." Lord March, who is also known as Charles Gordon-Lennox, released the statement after Sussex Police appealed for more information about the break-in at the stately home near Chichester, West Sussex. At around 4.30am on Wednesday Lady March, also known as Jane Astor, was disturbed as the intruder broke in an upstairs window using a ladder, police said. The burglar pushed Lady March before striking her husband's head causing an injury to his ear, Detective Inspector Till Sanderson said. Det Insp Sanderson added: "Lady March was then forced to open a safe and the man helped himself to jewellery. "The couple were bound before the robber escaped with the items. "This was a frightening ordeal and I pay tribute to the courage of Lord and Lady March." Lord March, who founded the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 1993, and his wife were "devastated" at the theft of "priceless" items, police said. Treasures, including an 1820 diamond tiara worth nearly 400,000, diamond necklaces and several luxury watches, including antique Rolex and Girard Perregaux timepieces, were stolen. Other items taken included an emerald intaglio and diamond ring from 1800, engraved with the Duchess's coronet and monogram CL for Louise de Keroualle, mistress of Charles II. More than 40 items were stolen including emerald, diamond and sapphire rings, earrings, bracelets and necklaces, Sussex Police said as they appealed for information. Chief Inspector Justin Burtenshaw said: "They (Lord and Lady March) are devastated at the loss of these priceless items. I would like to praise the courage of both of them, both during the ordeal and afterwards now as we investigate. "We are doing everything we can to locate the stolen treasures." Investigators were working with auction houses, stately homes, dealers and those with specialist knowledge to try to trace the heirlooms. A 26-year-old man from Hampshire has been arrested in connection with the incident and released on bail until February while investigations continue. Judges: Police probes into jury-nobbling claims need 'urgency' Police investigations into jury-nobbling allegations must be conducted with the "highest priority and urgency", leading judges have stressed. Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas and two other Court of Appeal judges in London sent out the message to all forces in England and Wales as they criticised the "unacceptably low standard" of an investigation carried out by Merseyside police into a jury-tampering claim made during a rape trial. The judges directed that a copy of their written ruling - which sets out the duties of police when such allegations are made - should be sent to every chief constable. The judges said a copy of their written ruling should be sent to every chief constable Lord Thomas said on Friday that "as jury-nobbling/tampering undermines trial by jury", Parliament had given trial judges the express power to order the continuation of a case without a jury. He added: "It is, in our view, implicit in those powers that it is the legal duty of the police to provide all the assistance a judge reasonably requires for the exercise of those powers. "When, therefore, a judge hearing a trial requires the police to investigate an allegation of jury tampering in that trial, the investigation must be conducted under the close supervision of a senior officer of police who must personally provide regular reports to the judge as the investigation progresses." He emphasised: "Moreover, it is essential that the investigation be conducted with the highest priority and urgency as the judge has to make a decision on whether to continue the trial with or without the jury as soon as is reasonably practicable, that is to say within a few days." Lord Thomas, Sir Brian Leveson and Mr Justice Openshaw made their general observations on the duties of police in a ruling explaining their reasons for rejecting argument that a trial judge in Liverpool "wrongly concluded" there had been jury tampering in a case involving an allegation of rape, and had "therefore wrongly exercised his powers... to order the continuation of the trial without a jury". Dismissing a challenge brought by the defendant, the appeal court ruled that the judge "had been correct in his decision", and that it was "entirely fair and in the interests of justice to continue the trial without a jury". Lord Thomas said the judge was also "plainly right to proceed on the basis that it did not have to be shown that a defendant had to instigate jury tampering". The legislation "only requires proof of jury tampering; it does not require proof of tampering by the defendant". Lord Thomas said the objective of the legislation was to prevent the tampering - "it matters not that the defendant is not involved or not proved to be involved". He ruled: " There was no reason for the judge to wait for the conclusion of the police inquiry. It added nothing material because, as is evident from the matters we have set out, the inquiry was of an unacceptably low standard." Blair refuses to appear before MPs probing links between IRA and Libya Tony Blair has declined to appear before a Commons select committee investigating links between the IRA and Libya. The former prime minister has strongly denied trying to stop victims of IRA attacks carried out with Libyan weapons from receiving compensation. Colonel Muammar Gaddafi gave arms to the republican group during the Troubles and Semtex from Libya became the IRA's most devastating threat during that time, causing the loss of many lives. Tony Blair was instrumental in a process of diplomatic detente with Gaddafi Mr Blair turned down an invitation to give oral evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, claiming that his written submission to the MPs had included "all the information at my disposal". In his letter to committee chairman Laurence Robertson, he said: "These continued attempts to implicate me in deliberately trying to stop IRA victims receiving compensation are, as I have made very clear, without foundation. "I am therefore respectfully declining your invitation to appear before the committee as I have already given you the facts of the matter in my written submission and I do not believe simply repeating what I have already said in person will do anything to advance the cause of the victims and their families." Links between the IRA and Libya date back to 1972 when Gaddafi praised the group. He later provided the IRA with the weaponry to wage an armed conflict which lasted 30 years and claimed many lives. The dictator was ousted from power in 2011 and later killed during an assault on Sirte, his birthplace . During his time in Number 10, Mr Blair was instrumental in a process of diplomatic detente with the Libyan dictator. Mr Blair met Gaddafi in his desert tent in 2004, as the north African country began its return to the international community after years of isolation for supporting terrorism. As part of the process, Gaddafi renounced weapons of mass destruction, bringing to a halt programmes to develop nuclear and chemical arms. In his written submission in December, Mr Blair told Mr Robertson that Libya had made a number of admissions regarding the extent of its links with IRA terrorism between 1992 and 1995 - before he entered Number 10. Mr Blair said: "The issue of compensation for the victims of IRA terrorism made possible by the provision of material by the Gaddafi regime was not an issue raised with me, as far as I am aware. "And of course a statutory compensation scheme for victims of terrorism in Northern Ireland was already in existence, having been set up by a previous government. "The needs of victims were therefore being addressed through the existing structures and mechanisms." He said he understood why victims of IRA terrorism would have wanted their claims raised at the same time as the 2008 compensation settlement of the Lockerbie passenger jet bombing. Mr Blair said for the Americans this was never going to be made part of the settlement since they were focused on their own citizens affected by Lockerbie and a Berlin discotheque bombing and were precluded legally from such an action. He also pointed out that "I was not even in government at the time" of the 2008 settlement. Mr Blair could be formally summoned to give evidence if the committee decides that his written submission is insufficient. A spokesman for the committee said the issue would be considered when the MPs meet on Thursday. Caesarean mother death: Doctor 'ignored instruction on breathing' An anaesthetist attending a new mother after she underwent a Caesarean and further surgery ignored two more senior medics who told him to alter his treatment to improve her breathing before she died, a court heard. Dr Nadeem Azeez was told to move from "bagging" Frances Cappuccini, 30, with a face mask to more invasive and intense methods as she struggled to breathe as she came round from a general anaesthetic, two other specialists who worked on her told a jury. They gave evidence in a landmark manslaughter trial at Inner London Crown Court of South African-born consultant anaesthetist Errol Cornish, who worked on Mrs Cappuccini alongside Dr Azeez, and Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, which runs Tunbridge Wells hospital where she died. Frances Cappuccini died hours after giving birth to her second child by Caesarean section Mrs Cappuccini lost more than two litres of blood when her son Giacomo was born at the hospital in Pembury, Kent, on October 9, 2012. She was operated on but never woke up and died the same day her baby was born. The prosecution alleges Cornish and Azeez completed failed in what it said was their "elementary task" to ensure Mrs Cappuccini safely came round from the surgery. Azeez, who, the prosecution said, was primarily responsible for the care of Mrs Cappuccini, is not on trial, having left the country. Dr Raymond Chung, a senior consultant anaesthetist at the hospital, said he told Dr Azeez to intubate Mrs Cappuccini - passing a breathing tube directly into her windpipe - after speaking to him on the phone but found he had not done it when he arrived in the operating theatre ten minutes later at around 1.30pm. Dr Chung, who said he was the hospital's "man in blue" on alert to deal with serious cases said Dr Azeez then seemed to fail in an attempt at intubation, forcing the senior man to take over. He said Dr Azeez may have passed the tube into her oesophagus instead, saying: "He placed the tube into her (throat) but the oxygen measurement failed to improve. I took the decision to remove it and put it back in myself." Prosecutor John Price QC asked why it had not worked and Dr Chung said: "It may have been in the oesophagus which is the other potential route a tracheotomy tube can go down. I had already noticed that her stomach was already distended with what was probably gas." He said that when he re-intubated Mrs Cappuccini her oxygen level improved and they used a "naso-gastric tube" to expel the air from her stomach. The court has previously heard second-time mother Mrs Cappuccini had her son at around 8.40am but lost 2.3 litres of blood (around four pints) and was taken into theatre. The jury has been told heard that the tube helping Mrs Cappuccini to breathe after the operation had been removed by 12.30pm but, despite apparent difficulties with her breathing after that point, there were delays in re-intubating her. She died at around 3.15pm. A second consultant anaesthetist, Dr Garth Sommerville, told the jury on Friday he arrived to see Dr Azeez "bagging" her using a face mask and hand pump while Cornish was sitting by her side. Dr Sommerville said he spoke to them from the door and advised Azeez to instead use an laryngeal mask, a more invasive procedure which involves a device placed in the throat. He then went to change his clothes to enter, which took two or three minutes. Mr Price asked: "What you advised was done, had it been done by the time you got back?" Dr Sommerville said: "No." Mr Price asked: "What was being done as far as assisting with ventilation when you first returned from changing?" The doctor answered: "I think similar (to before). I remember just coming in and ... I took over bagging." He said that after taking over the laryngeal mask was inserted and after he shortly handed over to Dr Chung, who arrived at around the same time as him. He left the theatre at 2.15pm. He added that his diagnosis at the time was that Mrs Cappuccini was still "partially paralysed" from general anaesthetic. However, he said he could not remember if Cornish had still been present when he returned from changing. Cornish, of Holmbury Park in Bromley, south-east London, has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter by gross negligence. Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, which runs Tunbridge Wells hospital, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of corporate manslaughter. The prosecution alleges that if one or both doctors are found to be grossly negligent, causing the death of Mrs Cappuccini on October 9 2012, the trust can be said to have employed someone they knew or should have known was not suitably qualified or trained for their role. It is the first time an NHS trust has been charged with the offence since its introduction in 2008. Lord Bramall: police to take no further action over historic sex abuse claims Lord Bramall has described the past year since being interviewed by police in connection with historic child sex abuse as "really awful". The UK's former highest-ranking soldier was informed on Friday that he faces no further action as part of the Metropolitan Police's Operation Midland. The 92-year-old peer, a Normandy veteran, was interviewed under caution last April at a police station close to his home near Farnham, Surrey. Lord Bramall is a former Chief of the Defence Staff The pensioner, who was not arrested, had always categorically denied the allegations. He told the Times newspaper it had been an "awful" experience. He said: "I think it's a terrible thing for someone of my age, with an impeccable record of public service ... Only now, very grudgingly, do they (the police) say they don't propose to take any action. "To have these awful, entirely untrue allegations hanging over one's head, without the police saying there is not a grain of truth in them, is really awful." Lord Bramall, as Field Marshal Edwin Bramall, was head of the British Army during the Falklands War before being promoted to the top military post. Operation Midland is part of a wider umbrella of investigations by Scotland Yard, dubbed Operation Fairbank, into allegations of abuse involving senior politicians and high-profile figures The Met released a statement saying: "Officers working on Operation Midland have today, Friday 15 January informed a man in his 90's from Farnham who was interviewed under caution on 30 April, 2015 that he will face no further action. Briton detained in Ethiopia must be freed urgently, says charity A British man locked up in Ethiopia must be released imminently, a charity has urged, as a psychiatrist's report showed a serious deterioration in his mental health. Andargachew "Andy" Tsege has been detained in the country since he was removed from an airport in Yemen in June 2014. The father-of-three, who fled the country in the 1970s and sought asylum in the UK in 1979, had been a prominent critic of Ethiopia's ruling party. Ethiopia is being urged to release Andargachew "Andy" Tsege He was sentenced to death in his absence in 2009 for allegedly plotting a coup - charges he and others deny. A psychiatrist's assessment, compiled using reports from visits made to Mr Tsege by the British Ambassador, and information provided by his partner Yemi Hailemariam, concluded that there is an "urgent need" to remove him from his current conditions. Mr Tsege, who is feared to be suicidal, is said to be confined in unhygienic quarters, with no access to a doctor or lawyer. Dr Benjamin Robinson of South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, whose report legal charity Reprieve said is being used with Mr Tsege's permission, said the damage being done could soon become irreparable. He wrote: " Once he is freed from prison, then the long work of psychological recovery can begin. He will require intensive psychotherapy with an experienced therapist, a full psychiatric assessment, and consideration of pharmacological treatment for his mental health problems. "Until that time, he will worsen, will remain at risk of suicide, and his personality will continue to fracture until - even if he survives physically - he will be beyond psychological repair." Dr Robinson said Mr Tsege appears "indifferent" to his conditions. He added: " In sum, the new material with which I have been provided, confirms that Mr Tsege's mental health has declined precipitously since being detained in Ethiopia, due in large part to the particular meaning this has for him in the context of his life history and personality." Reprieve has called on the British Government to urge Mr Tsege's release from prison. The Foreign Office said it has raised Mr Tsege's case with the Ethiopian Government on 19 different occasions "making it clear the way he has been treated is unacceptable". Stopping short of calling for his release, a Foreign Office spokeswoman said Mr Tsege must be given legal access. She said: " We welcome the improvement in access to Mr Tsege, following the British Government's intervention, but it must be more regular and it must include access to a lawyer. 600 Britons caught trying to join Islamic fighters in Syria Six hundred British nationals have been caught trying to enter Syria to join Islamic State (IS) and other jihadist groups since 2012, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has said. Speaking during a visit to southern Turkey, Mr Hammond said an estimated 800 UK citizens had entered Syria in the past four years, with around half thought to still be in the country. But he said the British and Turkish intelligence services had managed to stop hundreds more joining them, stopping some leaving the UK and others as they arrived in Istanbul - a key staging point on the route to Syria. Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, centre, meets children taking lessons during a visit to the Saricam refugee camp near Adana in Turkey "Approximately 800 Brits have been to Syria, of whom half are still there. But on top of that 800, we have stopped another 600," he told The Guardian. He said the growing success of the authorities in preventing foreign fighters reaching IS in its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa was adding to the pressure the group was facing from western air strikes. "There is evidence (IS) is finding it difficult to recruit to the brigades in Raqqa because of the high attrition rate of foreign fighters," he said. "Not just those targeted in UK drone strikes, but US strikes against prominent targets including foreign fighters." China's anti-graft drive gaining ground, president says BEIJING, Jan 13 (Reuters) - China's three year anti-corruption drive has shown good results and the ruling Communist Party remains determined to fight graft this year, President Xi Jinping was quoted as saying in state media on Wednesday. Xi began his sweeping campaign against deep-rooted graft upon assuming power three years ago, warning, like others before him, that the problem is so severe it could affect the party's grip on power. Since then, dozens of senior officials have been jailed, including former domestic security chief Zhou Yongkang, once one of China's most powerful politicians and jailed for life last year. "The anti-corruption campaign has increased the people's confidence in and support of the party, and has been highly appraised by them," Xi said at a meeting of the anti-graft watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, in comments reported by the official People's Daily. Winning the people's support remains the party's top priority and efforts will not let up in 2016, Xi added. "To forge iron, one must be strong," he said, using a traditional proverb to underline the party's resolve. Since the anti-corruption campaign began, the party tackled the issue of being too lenient in supervising its members, and has tried building a system where officials "do not dare, are not able, and are unwilling to be corrupt", Xi added. Those efforts are starting to pay off, with an atmosphere forming where officials are "unable and unwilling to engage in corruption", he said. Some analysts have raised concerns that the ongoing anti-graft drive is contributing to already meager investment growth in China over the past year, as certain officials are afraid to approve projects for fear of corruption accusations. Xi repeated previous orders for officials to "highlight honesty while managing their families", a reference to the common problem of family members also getting caught up in corruption probes. Ending the war in Syria is best hope to stop migrant flow - IOM By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Ending the war in Syria is the best hope of reducing the heavy flow of asylum seekers into Europe, which continues despite the winter weather, the head of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Thursday. IOM Director General William Lacy Swing also said that the European Union was "perfectly capable" of managing the influx of asylum seekers if states had the political will, but that anti-migrant sentiment was on the rise. More than 24,000 migrants and refugees crossed the Mediterranean to Greece and Italy in the first two weeks of January, joining more than 1 million who arrived in 2015, according to his agency's figures. "That's lower than the (monthly) average last year but we are in January, which is not sailing season, this is the wintertime. So those numbers could go back up," Swing told a news briefing held by the Foreign Press Association of Switzerland (APES). Asked about prospects for Syria peace talks being hosted by the United Nations on January 25 in Geneva, Swing said: "The biggest hope you have in having fewer numbers this year would be a solution to the five-year war in Syria. We want devoutly to hope that those talks will succeed because that's where the pressure is," he said. On Sweden's border controls and a proposed measure in Denmark to allow the authorities to confiscate all valuables belonging to refugees worth over 10,000 crowns ($1,450) and then use them to pay for their stay, he said: "These are measures that we don't endorse, obviously." Swing said "unprecedented anti-migrant sentiment" was growing and widespread, mostly in the industrialised world. He said EU countries lacked political will to cope with the surge in migrants, while Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon have had to accommodate 4 million Syrian refugees for years. Swing condemned the New Year's Eve mass assaults on women in Cologne, Germany, but said that the extent of involvement of some 20 asylum seekers should be kept in perspective. US, EU, UN close to lifting Iran sanctions. Here's how it will work By Louis Charbonneau and Arshad Mohammed UNITED NATIONS, Jan 14 (Reuters) - The United Nations and world powers are close to lifting sanctions on Iran under a historic nuclear deal struck in July between Tehran, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. The United States and the European Union both took formal legal steps in October to lift sanctions on "implementation day" - the day Iran meets all conditions under the deal. That is expected to happen in the next few days, Iranian and Western officials said. The green light to lift sanctions will come via a report the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will send to its governing board and the U.N. Security Council verifying Iran's compliance with its obligations under the deal. BREAKOUT The July 14 nuclear deal aims for the next decade to extend the amount of time it would theoretically take Tehran to produce enough fissile material for an atomic bomb - so-called breakout time - from several months to a minimum of one year. Critics of the deal in the U.S. Congress and Israel worry that once the main restrictions on Iran's nuclear program expire in 10 to 15 years, Tehran will be in a position to quickly develop an atomic weapon, if it wishes. The Obama administration says the deal will ensure long-term scrutiny of Iran to deter it from developing a bomb. CENTRIFUGES Iran will reduce its centrifuges by two thirds. It will be permitted to operate up to 5,060 first generation centrifuges for 10 years at its Natanz plant. It will cap its level of uranium enrichment at 3.67 percent, well below the 90 percent level needed for bomb-grade material. Iran will keep 1,044 first-generation centrifuges at its underground Fordow enrichment plant, which will be converted into a nuclear, physics and technology center. Before the deal, Iran had 20,000 centrifuges installed at Natanz and Fordow. The deal says Iran can continue to conduct enrichment research and development - without accumulating enriched uranium - including work with certain types of advanced centrifuges. ARAK Heavy water reactors, such as the one Iran had started building at Arak, can produce weapons-grade quantities of plutonium. Under the deal, Iran agreed to convert the Arak reactor so that such a "plutonium pathway" to a nuclear bomb is ruled out. The core of the Arak reactor has been removed and has been filled with concrete, Washington said on Thursday, so it will cease to be operational. The original core is expected to remain in Iran. URANIUM STOCKPILE Iran had to reduce its enriched uranium stockpile from around 10,000 kg (22000 lb) to 300 kg (660 lb) for 15 years. U.S. officials have described it as a 98 percent reduction in Iran's stockpile of uranium, enriched to no more than 3.67 percent. On Dec. 28, the United States said a ship carrying more than 11,000 kg of low-enriched uranium materials had left Iran for Russia. POSSIBLE MILITARY DIMENSIONS Iran helped the IAEA complete an investigation into what Western powers said was past nuclear weapons research. The IAEA's board of governors last month ended the agency's inquiry into the so-called "possible military dimensions" of Iran's nuclear program. That came after the IAEA issued a report strongly suggesting Tehran had a nuclear weapons program for years. Iran denies ever having considered developing atomic weapons. U.N. SANCTIONS Once the IAEA informs the U.N. Security Council and IAEA board that Iran has met its obligations, all U.N. sanctions resolutions passed between 2006 and 2010 will be terminated. However, a new resolution adopted on July 20 carries over some U.N. restrictions. Iran will be "called upon" to refrain from work on ballistic missiles designed to deliver nuclear weapons for up to eight years, language that critics of the deal say does not make it obligatory. The U.N. arms embargo barring Iran from selling weapons will remain in place for up to five years. The resolution allows for supply of ballistic missile technology and heavy weapons, such as tanks and attack helicopters, to Iran with Security Council approval, but the United States has pledged to veto any such requests and to continue to act as if Iran's ballistic missile program is banned. U.N. restrictions on the transfer to Iran of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes will remain in place for a decade. A committee of the parties that negotiated the deal - known as the "joint commission" - will handle disputes over possible violations of the agreement. If the complaining state is not satisfied with how the commission addresses its concerns, it could then take its grievance to the U.N. Security Council. EU SANCTIONS Once the IAEA confirms Iran has met its obligations under the deal, the EU will lift all nuclear-related economic and financial sanctions, including those applying to the following: financial transfers; banking; insurance and reinsurance; the SWIFT system; trade financing; oil, gas, petroleum and petrochemical products and related technology; naval equipment and technology; design and construction of cargo vessels and oil tankers; access to EU airports; trade in gold, diamonds and precious metals, and other areas. U.S. SANCTIONS Under the agreement, the United States will suspend nuclear-related sanctions against Iran. In practice, this means lifting the restrictions that now prevent non-U.S.-companies, entities and individuals from engaging in a wide array of transactions with Iran. For the most part, restrictions on U.S. actors will remain in place. The most dramatic U.S. sanctions to be eased will be those that had prevented non-U.S. actors from buying oil from Iran, except in very limited circumstances, or from investing in its petroleum sector. Among other things, non-U.S. actors will largely be able to carry out transactions involving the Iranian rial; provide U.S. banknotes to the Iranian government; release Iranian oil-sale revenues held abroad; issue Iranian sovereign debt; provide insurance underwriting; trade precious metals; sell goods and services to Iran's auto sector; and undertake many financial and banking dealings. Most U.S. sanctions involving U.S. actors remain in place. So, while non-U.S. banks may trade with Iran, U.S. banks may not do so directly or indirectly. However, the U.S. government has committed to allow companies, including U.S. actors, to seek licenses to sell commercial aircraft and spare parts to Iran and to license imports of Iranian carpets, caviar, pistachios and other food stuffs into the United States. SNAPBACK The so-called snapback mechanism is designed to allay fears that Iran might fail to keep its promises once sanctions are lifted. Under snapback, punitive sanctions are automatically reintroduced if Iran fails to comply with the deal. A July 20 Security Council resolution allows all U.N. sanctions to be re-imposed if Iran breaches the deal in the next 10 years. If the council receives a complaint of a breach it would then need to vote within 30 days on a resolution to extend sanctions relief. Brazil court suspends Amazon hydrodam license on native demands By Jeb Blount RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 14 (Reuters) - A Brazilian court suspended the operating license for the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, one of the world's largest, just weeks before owner Norte Energia SA planned to start electricity generation, prosecutors said on Thursday. Judge Maria Carolina Valente do Carmo of the Federal Court in Altamira, Para, said the license will be suspended until Norte Energia and Brazil's government meet a previous license requirement to reorganize the regional office of Funai, the national Indian protection agency. A judge had already ordered the government and Norte Energia to carry out the Funai restructuring work in 2014, so Valente do Carmo also fined the government and the company 900,000 reais ($225,000) for non-compliance. The Belo Monte dam, one of the most controversial ever constructed in Brazil, is located on the Xingu River near Altamira. Belo Monte will have an installed capacity of 11,233 megawatts. Its average output, though, will only be about a third of that as the original reservoir was greatly reduced at the request of native groups and environmentalists. These critics objected to the dam blocking one of the last free-flowing major tributaries of the Amazon. They also opposed an early reservoir plan that would have flooded thousands of square kilometers of virgin rain forest. Tens of thousands of workers moving to the region to build the massive project also raised fears that many would stay and expand illegal logging, mining and farming in the rainforest. Brazil is counting on the dam, now several years behind schedule, to help fill a power gap in Brazil's south caused by delayed projects, rising demand and recent drought. Norte Energia, which is building and will operate the dam, is a consortium led by Brazil's state-run utility Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras SA, or Eletrobras; Centrais Eletricas de Minas Gerais, or Cemig; Brazil's Neoenergia SA and miner Vale SA. Norte Energia said it had no comment on the ruling because the company has not been formally notified of its contents. The Funai requirements have been part of the rules governing operations at Belo Monte since the dam project received its preliminary license in 2010, prosecutors said in a statement. Currently, the Funai offices in Altamira are closed and the agency has seen the number of workers in the region fall by nearly three-quarters. In 2001 there were 60 Funai employees there, today 23. All the Funai stations in indigenous villages near the dam have been closed. Indonesia kills one militant after attack, search for more By Randy Fabi and Fergus Jensen JAKARTA, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Indonesian police killed one suspected militant and arrested two more in raids across the country on Friday, a day after an attack by Islamic State suicide bombers and gunmen in the heart of the Southeast Asian nation's capital. Just seven people were killed in Thursday's late-morning siege near a busy shopping district, despite multiple blasts and a gunfight, and five of the dead were the attackers themselves. Nevertheless, it was the first time the radical group has targeted the country with the world's largest Muslim population, and the brazenness of the attack suggested a new brand of militancy in a country more used to low-level strikes on police. Police chiefs across the country were on high alert, some embassies in Jakarta were closed for the day and security was stepped up on the resort island of Bali, a draw for tourists from Australia and other Asian countries. "It's clear that the (Jakarta attackers) didn't set this up themselves. For this, we are searching for the networks and who was involved in this action," said Anton Charliyan, national police spokesman. Security forces killed one suspected militant in a gun battle in Central Sulawesi, while two others were arrested in the city of Cirebon in West Java. The three were believed to be Islamic State supporters, but not directly connected to the Jakarta attack, police said. Returning to the area outside Jakarta's oldest department store, Sarinah, where Thursday's attack unfolded, the city's police chief said the rise of Islamic State was a cause for serious concern. "We need to strengthen our response and preventive measures, including legislation to prevent them ... and we hope our counterparts in other countries can work together because it is not home-grown terrorism, it is part of the ISIS network," Tito Karnavian said, using an acronym for the Syria-based group. In response to the Jakarta attacks, Philippine President Benigno Aquino ordered security forces to strengthen defences of "soft" targets. Malaysia placed the country on its highest alert. Experts agree that there is a growing threat from radicalised Muslims inspired by Islamic State, some of whom may have fought with the group in Syria. However, they said the low death toll on Thursday pointed to the involvement of poorly trained local militants whose weapons were crude. An Indonesian and a man of dual Canadian-Algerian nationality were killed along with the attackers. Twenty-four people were seriously wounded, including an Austrian, a German and a Dutchman. Islamic State said in its claim of responsibility that "a group of soldiers of the caliphate in Indonesia targeted a gathering from the crusader alliance that fights the Islamic State in Jakarta". Police confirmed that Islamic State was responsible and named an Indonesian militant, Bahrun Naim, as the mastermind. They believe Naim leads a militant network known as Katibah Nusantara and is pulling strings from Raqqa, Islamic State's de facto capital in Syria. "His vision is to unite all ISIS supporting elements in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines," Jakarta police chief Karnavian said. Islamist militants from those three countries have a record of working together, and several Malaysians are known to have carried out suicide attacks in the Middle East. ECHOES OF PARIS Indonesia has seen attacks by Islamist militants before, but a coordinated assault by a team of suicide bombers and gunmen is unprecedented and has echoes of the siege in Mumbai seven years ago and in Paris last November. In a recent blog post, entitled "Lessons from the Paris Attacks", Naim had urged his Indonesian audience to study the planning, targeting, timing, coordination, security and courage of the jihadis in the French capital. The country had been on edge for weeks over the threat posed by Islamist militants, and counter-terrorism police had rounded up about 20 people with suspected links to Islamic State. There was a spate of militant attacks in Indonesia in the 2000s, the deadliest of which was a nightclub bombing on Bali that killed 202 people, most of them tourists. Police have been largely successful in destroying domestic militant cells since then, but officials have more recently been worrying about a resurgence inspired by Islamic State. Many experts believe, however, that Indonesia, a vibrant democracy where the vast majority of Muslims practise a moderate form of Islam, is not likely to be tipped into a cauldron of radicalism. Romania - Factors to watch on Jan 15 BUCHAREST, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Romanian financial markets on Friday. GDP DATA The National Statistics Board will release final gross domestic product data for the third quarter at 0700 GMT. DEBT TENDER Romania sold a planned 600 million lei ($144.21 million) worth of April 2019 treasury bonds on Thursday, with the average accepted yield at 1.72 percent, central bank data showed. Debt managers last issued the paper in December at an average yield of 1.90 percent. CEE MARKETS The zloty led an easing of Central European currencies against the euro on Thursday after European Central Bank (ECB) policy makers said they were sceptical about the need to ease policy further. For the long-term Romanian diary, click on For emerging markets economic events, click on For an index of all diaries, click on Hungary, Factors to watch, Jan 15 BUDAPEST, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Following is a list of events in Hungary and the region, as well as news stories and press reports which may influence financial markets. (For any queries: Budapest editorial +36 1 327 4745) WHAT IS HAPPENING IN HUNGARY (ALL TIMES GMT) BUDAPEST - farm PPI (0800) BUDAPEST - construction output Nov (0800) IN THE REGION POLAND - CPI POLAND - Fitch publishes its review of Poland's A- rating with stable outlook. Moody's and S&P also publish their reviews. ROMANIA - Q3 GDP revised data IN THE NEWS REUTERS CEE MARKETS-Assets ease on ECB, ahead of Polish rating reviews BUDAPEST/PRAGUE, Jan 14 (Reuters) - The zloty led an easing of Central European currencies against the euro on Thursday after European Central Bank (ECB) policy makers said they were sceptical about the need to ease policy further. Hungary's Dec CPI 0.9 pct y/y, slightly below fcast BUDAPEST, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Hungarian headline consumer prices HUCPIY=ECI were 0.9 percent higher year-on-year in December after a 0.5 percent annual rise in November, data showed on Thursday, as food prices declined and fuel prices continued their big drop seen throughout 2015. ANALYSIS-Once shunned, Hungary could become investors' darling Hungary could become the favoured destination for investors' cash in Central and Eastern Europe this year on the back of an expected return to investment grade debt rating and concerns about main rival Poland's new right-wing government. ANALYSIS-Fears of illiberal Central Europe axis may be overblown Poland - Factors to Watch Jan 15 Following are news stories, press reports and events to watch that may affect Poland's financial markets on Friday. ALL TIMES GMT (Poland: GMT + 1 hour): SWISS FRANC BILL Poland's presidential office will present a new draft law on Friday to allow borrowers to convert their Swiss franc mortgages into zlotys, two major borrowers' lobbies said on Thursday. According to Rzeczpospolita daily, the presidential project assumes that borrowers will be entitled to convert their mortgages into zlotys, but sets no concrete exchange rate, while margins will be kept at a level from the Swiss franc credit contract. Another option assumes no conversion into zlotys. But the Swiss franc rate used for setting the instalment level will be set using a "fair mechanism to set the rate", Rzeczpospolita said. Banks are also to compensate their clients for the level of spreads if it was calculated in an unfair way in the past. POLAND'S RATING Standard and Poor's, Moody's and Fitch rating agencies will publish their reviews of Poland's sovereign rating on Friday. KGHM Europe's No.2 copper producer, Poland's KGHM, expects to book "fair" margins this year and does not plan any acquisitions until 2018, its chief executive Herbert Wirth was quoted as saying on Friday. CPI The statistics office will publish consumer price index (CPI) data for December at 1300 GMT. The office has already published an initial estimate. ****Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.**** Russia says aid must be allowed into areas in Syria blockaded by militants MOSCOW, Jan 15 (Reuters) - The Russian Foreign Ministry called on Friday for all sides in the Syria conflict to use their influence to ensure that humanitarian aid was delivered to areas blockaded by militants. It said the situation in three places -- Madaya, Fua and Kafraya -- was a source of particular concern, saying they were besieged or blockaded by various militant groups. Myanmar ethnic leader calls on Suu Kyi to clarify stance on peace process By Timothy Mclaughlin YANGON, Jan 15 (Reuters) - A key signatory to a ceasefire brokered by outgoing President Thein Sein with some of Myanmar's ethnic armed groups has expressed concern over lack of clarity from Aung San Suu Kyi and called on her to keep the team that struck the deal intact. Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy (NLD) party won the November election, has said that bringing peace to the country marred by decades of conflict with myriad ethnic rebel groups will be the first priority of her government. After spurning peace efforts undertaken by the quasi-civilian government of Thein Sein that took power in 2011, Suu Kyi spoke on Monday of a more inclusive process but was highly critical of Thein Sein's efforts during an interview with Radio Free Asia broadcast on Friday. "I understand that this peace conference is just a token recognizing the accomplishments of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement and the real peace conference will have to be conducted by the next government," Suu Kyi said, but offered few details on how the process would run. "We need to see the policy that she (Suu Kyi) will apply. We haven't seen yet how she will apply a policy, so it is difficult to predict how she will run the peace process," Lieutenant General Yawd Serk, chairman of the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS), told Reuters on Thursday night. The RCSS and its armed wing, the Shan State Army-South (SSA-S), are among the most powerful of the eight groups that signed the ceasefire in October. It has around 6,000 active troops operating mainly on the Thai-Myanmar border, according to the Myanmar Peace Monitor, a resource centre focused on the peace process. The deal, which fell well short of the government's goal to include 15 armed groups, was brokered in part by the government-linked Myanmar Peace Centre (MPC). The future of the group, which has international backing of tens of millions of dollars from donors like the European Union and Japan, remains unknown. "If all of the people in MPC retire, it will be difficult," Yawd Serk said. The SSA-S emerged under Yawd Serk's command in 1996 as a breakaway faction of a narco-army led by alleged heroin kingpin Khun Sa who signed a ceasefire with the then-ruling junta, a move that highlighted the complexities and shifting loyalties of the armed ethnic groups along Myanmar's border regions. Commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing reiterated on Monday his call for Myanmar to have one army. How and if armed groups would be folded into the existing military that they have fought for generations remains a highly contentious issue. But asked when the SSA-S would disarm, Yawd Serk's answer was short. "Never," he said. Macedonia PM offers resignation, EU tries to keep election accord alive By Kole Casule SKOPJE, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski submitted his resignation to parliament on Friday as the European Union tried to keep alive a deal to end months of political crisis. On the ropes for much of 2015 over a slew of damaging phone-tap revelations, Gruevski wrote to the speaker of parliament offering his resignation under a timeline agreed with the EU for early parliamentary elections. EU enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn, who mediated the deal in June 2015, arrived in Skopje, amid concern that the opposition may seek to postpone the election, pencilled in but not officially called for April 24. Parliament speaker Trajko Veljanoski said he would await the outcome of talks between Hahn and political leaders before putting the resignation to a vote in the assembly. The ruling VMRO-DPMNE nominated party secretary general Emil Dimitriev, an ally of Gruevski, as caretaker prime minister until the election. Almost a decade in power, Gruevski's government was bombarded last year by allegations of illegal surveillance, meddling in the media and judiciary, rigging elections and appointing party faithful to public sector jobs. The accusations stemmed from a slew of phone-taps released by the opposition Social Democrats, who said the government conducted the surveillance. Gruevski denied this and dismissed the accusations as a plot to bring him down. "Bearing in mind the political obligations undertaken by political parties according to the (EU-brokered) deal of June 2, 2015, I will follow the outcome of today's talks, mediated by the international community," parliament speaker Trajko Veljanoski said in a statement. Hahn was expected to meet separately with Gruevski and opposition leader Zoran Zaev, before bringing them and other political leaders together for talks. Zaev has argued that not all tenets of the deal have been fulfilled, including a thorough review of the electoral list and a media reform to reduce government influence. Analysts say Gruevski's determination for the election to go ahead as planned indicates he is confident his VMRO-DPMNE party will win again. His critics accuse Gruevski of presiding over an increasingly authoritarian government that has burnished nationalism among Macedonians in the absence of any progress towards membership of the EU or NATO, a process held hostage to a long-running dispute with neighbouring Greece over Macedonia's name. IAG, American Airlines agree joint venture deals with LATAM Airlines By Anthony Esposito and Sarah Young SANTIAGO/LONDON, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Chile-headquartered LATAM Airlines has signed joint business agreements to deepen its ties with American Airlines Group and IAG's British Airways and Iberia, all members of the Oneworld Alliance. If cleared by competition authorities, the new agreements would help the airlines coordinate schedules and prices for flights, similar to the North Atlantic revenue-sharing agreement which already exists between IAG and American Airlines. Joint business deals are one way for airlines to combine to help them extend the reach of their networks in an industry where foreign ownership rules often prevent outright mergers. Within Europe, mergers have proved possible, like the one between British Airways and Iberia which formed IAG, but the big transcontinental deals which have taken place in the pharmaceuticals, automotive and oil and gas industries, have not happened among airlines. Both deals are subject to regulatory approval in different countries. American and LATAM plan to apply for immunity from antitrust law, while IAG indicated that it could take between 12 and 18 months for its agreement to be given the green light. IAG Chief Executive Willie Walsh expressed his interest in LATAM in November, when he told investors that deepening the partnership with a southern hemisphere carrier could act as a natural hedge to IAG's seasonal earnings which are heavily weighted to the northern hemisphere's summer. Davy analyst Stephen Furlong said the new agreement would give LATAM and IAG about a third of the capacity on Europe to South America routes and would likely result in cost and revenue synergies. "IAG have a track record in delivering substantial synergies," he said, noting the success of the group's joint venture with American Airlines which dates back to 2010. The agreements with LATAM, which operates LAN Airlines in Chile and TAM in Brazil, would improve connectivity between South America and the United States and Canada, in the case of American, and increase flight options between Europe and Latin America, in the case of IAG. Doug Parker, chairman and chief executive of American, said customers would benefit from more frequent and convenient schedule options than the carriers could offer individually. Russia likely to scale down China gas supply plans - sources By Olesya Astakhova and Chen Aizhu MOSCOW/BEIJING, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Russia is likely to scale back volumes of gas it plans to ship to China later this decade, sources close to energy giant Gazprom say, due to the dive in global energy prices and uncertainty hanging over the Chinese economy. The sources insist the hugely expensive pipeline project - part of President Vladimir Putin's strategic shift eastwards - will go ahead on time. However, they acknowledge sales to China will initially be lower than envisaged when Moscow reached the $400 billion deal with Beijing in May 2014. "We will start fulfilling the deal in 2019, but the volumes could be less that initially expected," a source at Gazprom told Reuters. At the time of the deal, crude oil was trading above $100 a barrel but has since plunged to $30. In this period growth in the Chinese economy has also slowed sharply, with its currency falling and its stock market now in turmoil. Moscow is keen to "pivot to the East" to reduce its reliance on exporting energy to the West due to a series of rows, notably over Russia's annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine. China is in a buyer's market. Abundant energy supplies are now available from other sources, such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar and Australia and pipeline gas from Central Asia, and this is undermining the Kremlin's plans. Gazprom's media relations team did not comment on emailed questions from Reuters although the state-controlled company, which has a monopoly on Russian pipeline gas exports, has said the project to ship gas from eastern Siberia to China is on track. Flows through the Power of Siberia pipeline, which starts in East Siberia, are due to start at 5 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas, rising to 38 bcm annually under the 30-year deal - just below what Gazprom's top gas buyer, Germany, now gets. The pricing mechanism for what China will pay has not been revealed. Sources and analysts say the oil breakeven price for the Russian gas exports to China is around $80 per barrel, a level that is unlikely to be reached in the foreseeable future. "In any case, the volumes will be lower (than announced)," said another source, who is close to Gazprom and familiar with the talks with China. "Gazprom has taken on an uphill task and failed." TURKMENISTAN BEATS RUSSIA TO MARKET Several industry sources have said Gazprom was hoping to sell gas to China for $10-$11 per mmBtu - an energy measure. By contrast, China is understood by analysts to be paying $9 per mmBtu to Turkmenistan, the former Soviet republic in Central Asia that beat Gazprom to the Chinese market. No one knows where energy prices will be at the end of this decade or what state the Chinese economy will be in. But all bets seem to be off for now after oil's 70 percent plunge in the past 18 months. Benchmark Asian spot LNG is trading at $6.50, down from over $13 in May 2014. Analysts see a delay as the likely outcome. "The parties are likely to postpone the project commissioning into the late 2020s," Mikhail Korchemkin, a director of U.S.-based consultancy East European Gas Analysis. He sees the breakeven price for Russian gas exports to China, as measured by the benchmark Brent crude price, at $75-$85 per barrel - but only if the pipeline construction is done by Chinese contractors, whose involvement promises to cut costs. It is not clear whether Moscow will accept foreign contractors or will insist on Russian firms doing the work on its territory. Gazprom had initially planned to invest $55 billion in exploration and pipeline construction to China's border. The costs may have since been cut due to a slide in the rouble's value which has pushed up the cost of imported equipment. The project includes building a huge gas processing plant needed to provide methane of the required quality and clear it of helium, which is abundant in the east Siberian gas fields. In a sign of increasing difficulties for the Kremlin's energy champion, sources have said Gazprom has asked other Russian gas producers to help it out to honour the deal. CHINESE TURMOIL Chen Zhu, Beijing-based managing director of consultancy SIA Energy, said the economic turmoil in China makes the project less attractive. "There is no doubt the project is strategic but on the China side, the demand outlook is not that rosy as the economy is slowing," she said. Chen said 2020 is a more realistic date for gas to start flowing. "Due to very high costs required to develop the large gas fields in Russia, China and Russia share the understanding that neither side is in urgent need," she said. The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies also said in research published in September that Beijing was in no rush to allow Russian gas into its market. "It would increasingly appear that Gazprom is at the mercy of its Chinese counterparts, who are operating in a buyers' market, have the lure of financing to offer, and have every incentive to adopt a wait and see policy in gas import negotiations," it said. Spain's king to meet political leaders amid deadlock By Angus MacSwan MADRID, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Spain's King Felipe will meet leaders of political parties throughout next week in an attempt to help break the political impasse after last month's inconclusive national election, the palace announced on Friday. Although Spain is a constitutional monarchy and the king is a ceremonial figure, he also has a role as a facilitator. The country has had only an acting government since the Dec. 20 election. From Monday, the king will hold individual consultations at the Zarzuela Palace with the leaders of the 15 parties represented in parliament, starting with small regional parties, the palace said in a statement. The process will culminate on Friday, when Acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of the People's Party (PP), Pedro Sanchez of the opposition Socialists (PSOE), and Pablo Iglesias of the new left-wing party Podemos will discuss the situation with him. The king is then expected to propose a candidate for prime minister. The fragmented election has thrust Spain into a situation unprecedented in the four decades since the return of democracy. Rajoy's PP, which ruled for the past four years, won most seats but failed to gain an outright majority. The PSOE came second but also with greatly reduced support. Two new parties, the anti-austerity Podemos and the centrist Ciudadanos, attracted a new generation of voters disillusioned with the old elite, breaking the traditional mould. Rajoy has called for a "Grand Coalition" of the PP, PSOE and Ciuadadanos to maintain stability and confront a separatist challenge from the Catalonia region. The PP aims to hold a first vote on its proposal for a government by the end of January. The PSOE wants a coalition of the left with Podemos, but that idea is complicated by Podemos's support for a referendum on Catalonian independence, which Sanchez rejects. Many analysts believe a rerun of the election is inevitable. In his Christmas Eve message just days after the election, King Felipe appealed for dialogue and unity among Spaniards. "What should matter to all, first and foremost, is Spain and the general interest of the Spanish people," he said then. The crisis provides a test for Felipe, at 47 the world's third-youngest monarch, 18 months after he took over the throne when his father Juan Carlos abdicated. Juan Carlos had been popular among Spaniards for his role in the transition from dictatorship to democracy, notably for standing against an attempted military coup in 1981. But his popularity waned due to his perceived extravagance and scandals involving his family while Spaniards suffered a harsh recession. Russia has new objective to deliver humanitarian aid in Syria - ministry MOSCOW, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Russia's Defence Ministry said on Friday a new objective of Russian forces in Syria was to provide humanitarian aid. Russian air force planes have delivered 22 tonnes of aid in the region around the eastern Syrian city of Deir al-Zor, a ministry official said in a televised briefing. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a Russian cargo plane accompanied by several war planes, dropped aid to several government-held neighbourhoods in the city. The Observatory said that government-held areas in the city had been under siege by Islamic State fighters for more than a year. It said that at least 250,000 people were living in dire conditions lacking food and medicine. The United Nations says there are some 450,000 people trapped in around 15 siege locations across Syria, including in areas controlled by the government, Islamic State and other insurgent groups. This week, two convoys of aid supplies were delivered to a rebel-held town of Madaya near the border with Lebanon where local relief workers reported 32 deaths of starvation in the past month. Guinea Bissau ruling party expels 15 members after voting block BISSAU, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Guinea Bissau's ruling party said it had expelled 15 members of parliament who blocked the prime minister's legislative programme, saying they had put the country's fragile democracy at risk. Current prime minister Carlos Correia's plans for spending on roads, electricity, health and education failed to go through when 15 members of his ruling PAIGC party abstained in the vote on Dec. 23. The 15 dissenters said they did not approve of Correia's government at the time of the vote. If the parliament fails to approve Correia's agenda the second time it is presented, the constitution requires that the government be dismissed. The PAIGC party has accused the 15 members of treason, a party statement said on Thursday evening. "There was a lack of respect for the voting instructions set by the political bureau of the party," it said. The party wants to appoint substitute deputies before parliament recommences on Monday, which would require approval from the supreme court. The 15 deputies have since started a petition that demands the resignation of party president and former prime minister Domingos Simoes Pereira, their spokesman said. The country has not had a democratically elected leader serve a full term since independence from Portugal in 1974, and has suffered nine coups or attempted coups since 1980. Former Mexican ruling party boss arrested in Spain -officials MADRID, Jan 15 (Reuters) - A former head of Mexico's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and onetime ally of President Enrique Pena Nieto has been arrested in Spain, Mexican and Spanish officials said on Friday. Humberto Moreira, who was chairman of the PRI in 2011 before he stood down after a debt scandal was uncovered in Coahuila, the state he had previously governed, was arrested in Madrid's international airport, according to the Spanish official. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity. Moreira was arrested in an operation against money laundering and other crimes, the Spanish official said. U.S. manufacturing stalls, cutting fuel consumption: Kemp By John Kemp LONDON, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Excess inventories at every stage along the supply chain are weighing down business activity as well as depressing freight demand and diesel consumption in the United States. Businesses have made little progress in reversing the unwanted build up in inventories that occurred during the second half of 2014 and early 2015. Stocks of finished items, raw materials and work progress held by manufacturers, distributors and retailers were $28 billion or 1.6 percent higher at the end of November than the same month a year earlier. Sales were down $37 billion or 2.8 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The ratio of seasonally adjusted inventories to sales has risen from 1.32 in November 2014 to 1.38 in November 2015 (http://tmsnrt.rs/1Pg0HeP). Inventory ratios have risen at all stages of the supply chain from manufacturers through wholesalers to retailers, according to Census Bureau data. Freight shipments have fallen for the first time in almost three years as businesses try to reverse overstocking, so far without success (http://tmsnrt.rs/1UTYRVj). Destocking, as well as poor export demand as a result of the strong dollar, is also weighing on manufacturing output. Even excluding the troubled energy sector, U.S. industrial production was up less than 1 percent in November and December compared with the same months a year earlier, according to the U.S. Federal Reserve. Growth in industrial production outside the energy sector has been slowing since the start of 2015 and is now running at some of the slowest rates since the recession (http://tmsnrt.rs/1Pg0HeF). Former party ally of Mexican president arrested in Spain MADRID, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Spanish police arrested a former ally of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto on Friday in a money-laundering probe, potentially raising awkward questions for his ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Humberto Moreira, who was the PRI chairman in 2011 before he stood down after a debt scandal was uncovered in Coahuila, the northern state he had governed, was arrested at Madrid's international airport, Spanish police said. His detention was part of an operation against money laundering and other crimes, according to a Spanish court official who spoke on condition of anonymity. In an apparent reference to Pena Nieto's tweet to announce the capture of drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman a week ago, Spanish police tweeted news of Moreira's detention with the hashtag "mission accomplished", echoing the president's words. Details of the Spanish probe were not immediately available, but it raised hopes among opposition politicians that Moreira might face prosecution over the debt debacle. "Nobody in the Coahuila government has explained what happened to that money," said Senator Ernesto Cordero of the opposition National Action Party (PAN), an ex-finance minister who led initial investigations into the debt. Moreira is not wanted by the law in Mexico. Mexico's Foreign Ministry said it would provide him with consular assistance should he need it, as it does for all citizens. In 2014, Moreira's former finance secretary in Coahuila pled guilty to federal money laundering charges in Texas. The man who completed his term as governor is wanted in the United States on suspicion of embezzling. Moreira was in office from 2005 to early 2011, a period in which Coahuila's debts more than tripled to what was then around $3 billion. The state congress contracted some of the loans with falsified documents, Cordero said. Moreira maintained he had been misled by officials and denied any wrongdoing. Guillermo Anaya, a senior PAN politician in Coahuila, said there was concern the loans could have helped the PRI fund state and even national election campaigns. Elected president in July 2012, Pena Nieto's campaign to be the PRI candidate gained momentum under Moreira. Pena Nieto has faced criticism for failing to go after PRI officials accused of graft, including three of its former governors indicted in the United States. Uganda's Museveni a no-show at first presidential vote debate By Edith Honan and Elias Biryabarema KAMPALA, Jan 15 (Reuters) - As Uganda held its first-ever presidential debate on Friday, the toughest questions were directed at an empty lectern on the far right side of the stage. The lectern was labelled with the name Yoweri Museveni, who has governed Uganda for three decades and is heavily favoured to win another five-year term at the polls next month. But the president was a no-show at the U.S.-style televised event. "I came here expecting that indeed Museveni would be here. Unlike me, Museveni is our servant," said Kizza Besigye, a longtime opposition figure who is challenging Museveni for the fourth time with Uganda's biggest opposition party. Museveni aides have been quoted in local media in recent days saying that Museveni would not be able to participate due to other campaign commitments. But others have said that Museveni, who seldom submits to interviews, had little to gain from the event. He has turned down debate invitations in the past. "He is a coward. Museveni could not withstand taking tough questions," Nassimbwa Hamidah, a Besigye supporter from Uganda's central region, said during a break. This is expected to be one of the toughest elections yet for Museveni, 71, a key western ally who came to power after waging a 5-year guerrilla war. Both of the president's two major challengers have long histories with him: Besigye was once Museveni's personal physician, but the two fell out in the late 1990s. The other major challenger, Amama Mbabazi, has long been Museveni's right-hand man, serving most recently as prime minister before being sacked in a power struggle last year. "The situation in Uganda is so bad that clearly we have to make a choice: do you want change or do you want more of the same?" said Mbabazi, who is running as an independent. Museveni has been credited with returning economic stability to Uganda - a prospective crude oil producer and Africa's largest coffee exporter - after years of turmoil. But his critics point to high unemployment, crumbling health centres and underperforming schools, and say he has failed to address rampant corruption. The session in the capital Kampala included a total of seven candidates, though most of the participants were barely known and inexperienced debaters. Maureen Kyalya, a former presidential advisor, repeatedly attacked Museveni for what she called failed policies, including a widely-mocked plan to give away 18 million hoes to farmers this election season. Besigye and Mbabazi have both accused Museveni's government of using Uganda's security agencies to intimidate supporters, including arrests and beatings, and interference with campaign events. On social media, there were reports that neighbourhoods in Kampala and elsewhere in the country were experiencing power outages, leading some users to speculate the black-outs were orchestrated by the government to limit debate viewership. China ties on the line as Taiwan votes for new president By Ben Blanchard TAIPEI, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Taiwan looks set on Saturday to elect an independence-leaning opposition leader as its first woman president who could usher in a new round of uncertainty with China, the massive neighbour that claims the self-ruled island as its sacred territory. Tsai Ing-wen, leader of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), is expected to be thrust into one of Asia's toughest and most dangerous jobs, with China pointing hundreds of missiles at the island, decades after losing Nationalists fled from Mao Zedong's Communists to Taiwan in the Chinese civil war. She will have to balance the superpower interests of China, also Taiwan's largest trading partner, and the United States with those of her freewheeling, democratic home. Tsai risks antagonising China if she attempts to forcefully assert Taiwan's sovereignty and reverses eight years of warming China ties under incumbent China-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou of the Nationalists, who ruled all of China until the retreat to Taiwan in 1949. "Democracy is not just an election," Tsai said at her last campaign rally on Friday in drizzling rain. "Democracy is our way of life." The election comes at a tricky time for Taiwan's export-dependent economy, which entered recession in the third quarter last year. China is also Taiwan's top trading partner and Taiwan's favourite investment destination. Support for the DPP has swelled since 2014, when hundreds of students occupied Taiwan's parliament for weeks in protests against trade pacts negotiated with China in the largest display of anti-China sentiment the island had seen in years. Tsai has the tide of history against her. Ma and predecessors, including firebrand Lee Teng-hui and convicted opposition DPP president Chen Shui-bian, all failed to bring about a lasting reconciliation with China, which considers Taiwan a rogue province to be taken by force if necessary. Shots were traded between the two sides as recently as the mid-1970s. At stake are relations with an ascendant and increasingly assertive China under President Xi Jinping. Tsai, a trained lawyer, would be one of the most prominent female leaders of the Chinese-speaking world since the Qing dynasty Empress Dowager Cixi. Parliamentary polls are also being held and if the DPP wins those too, Tsai will get an even stronger mandate. She has been ambiguous on her China policy, merely pledging, in public anyway, to maintain the status quo. Beijing has warned repeatedly in the run-up to the elections that hard-earned peace across the Taiwan Strait could be affected by a Tsai win. The United States has expressed concerns about the danger of worsening China-Taiwan ties, at a time when China's navy is increasingly flexing its muscles in the South China and East China Seas and expanding territorial claims. China has held out the "one country, two systems" formula, under which the British colony of Hong Kong returned to China in 1997, as a solution for Taiwan. But both the Nationalists and DPP have rejected the idea. An old sleepy town famous for its mouth-watering "Palang Torh" sweetmeat, Pathankot has entered the lexicon of strategic planners - how did the attack happen and what to do to avoid another Pathankot? But of immediate focus is whether it would derail the India-Pakistan rapprochement that is hopefully underway. Violence Whether Maulana Masood Azhar is in custody or not, the fact remains that the threat of terrorist violence would stay for the coming decades. Hence, the question one needs to ask is - who would take the call not to walk away from the path of peace? Typically, the pressure has always come on the Indian leadership to make this decision, as was seen after the Parliament and Mumbai attacks and now after Pathankot. But the moot point is - does Pakistan not want peace? Why is only India seen as the one hankering for peace? Why are first moves expected to be made only by us? Or, why should India be the party "tasked" to salvage the peace process? Remember, after the Parliament attack, literally all Western nations descended in Delhi in January 2002, and then again in May that year after the Kaluchak terrorist strikes, to dissuade India from going kinetic. It is time that the onus to keep the peace process on track is transferred to Pakistan. Islamabad must give cogent reasons why it feels peace talks must continue. This would happen only when it genuinely desires to have peace or is forced to desire to have peace. Can India assist or force this turn over? India can, as it is all a game of escalatory dynamics and who blinks first to diffuse the situation. India, after Pathankot, has wisely not gone up the escalatory ladder. Eminently thoughtful sound bites have emanated from New Delhi to indicate that Islamabad has to show whether it wants peace. The official statement issued by Islamabad after the meeting convened by Nawaz Sharif on January 8 and attended by the army chief has indicated that they would "investigate" the leads provided by India. Pakistani press has reported that "some" arrests had been made; late night TV anchors breathlessly informed us on January 13 that Maulana Azhar had been put in protective custody! So far so good, but time is of essence. The cause of all that Pathankot signifies lies with Pakistan and it should be made to realise that moves towards peace, or otherwise, would also flow from its subsequent actions. Charade Thucydides, the fifth century BC Greek historian, had said, "Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." Are we so weak that we must suffer, and is Pakistan so strong that it can do what and when it wants? For too long has the charade of being a victim of terror and not having control on anti-India "non-state" actors been enacted. The faulty acceptance by India of the prevalence of a proxy war also has much to do with the prevalence of the present state of affairs. A proxy war is one in which two adversaries use other players to fight for their interests to avoid a direct confrontation that could lead to a major conflagration; it requires two principals and at least two surrogates. Thus, the US and the erstwhile USSR engaged in proxy wars in Nicaragua, Angola, et al. However, Korea and Vietnam were not proxy war situations, as the US was itself involved in both. India is battling violence in Jammu & Kashmir, which is perpetuated by an extended arm of the Pakistani state. To draw an analogy from nuclear parlance, extended deterrence is afforded by the US to Japan and South Korea against China and North Korea. It is time that the salience of "extended" kinetic action of Pakistan against India is recognised as an act of an independent nation and not camouflaged under the garb of uncontrollable non-state actors. India must draw this distinction between proxy war and "extended" war and impress upon the fact that it is Pakistan that has to act first to bring in peace. Diktat So, the requirement of the moment is a one-line diktat from the Indian political leadership to our NSA - "Take steps necessary to shift the onus of making peace to Pakistan." Self-deterrence through the thought that it would mean going to war must be abandoned. There are enough diplomatic and other non-kinetic means available to convey the point - use of force, off course, is a watermark in the whole debate. The other side has to be made to wonder when India's patience will snap, making its offensive power emerge from its silhouettic existence. The Indian leadership must take steps to make Pakistan do the thinking. The dialogue offer, meanwhile, can stay open. Will the terrorist attacks stop in the interim? A negative trend should show, if Pakistan plays ball; however, the odd assault can be expected. It is here that India's intelligence agencies need to show their mettle and provide timely actionable intelligence for the forces to act on pre-emptively. Loss of some lives can be expected in attacks that cannot be forestalled, but tragic as these losses would be, no nation has achieved great power status without sacrifices. They cannot but be triggers for stepping up our efforts to crush the monster of terrorism - Pakistan can choose on which side it stands. The Culpeper County Planning Commission Wednesday night unanimously recommended that the Board of Supervisors approve a conditional use permit to allow a shooting preserve along the Rappahannock River near Lakota. Local permission is the first step in getting the preserve licensed by the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. Assistant county planner Sam McLearen told the commission that the preserve met all the qualifications needed for a use permit and that the land was well suited for this type of endeavor. The facility would be located on 300 acres (part of a 726-acre farm) owned by Jeremy Engh and would be operated by Michael Theis, who now manages a similar preserve near Stevensburg. It would feature upland game birds such as pheasant, bobwhite quail and chukka quail raised in Pennsylvania. Theis said only No. 6 shot with an optimum range of 500 feet would be permitted. Restrictions set by the Planning Commission included not permitting hunting within 300 feet of any building, road or the Rappahannock River. Theis said that he expects about 8001,000 hunters to pay to hunt the preserve each year (Sept. 1Apr. 30, seven days a week). The only objection to the project was voiced by Michael Markley, who lives across the Rappahannock in Fauquier County. Markley said that habits of deer and bald eagles might be disrupted by activity on the preserve and that shooting on the Culpeper side might pose dangers for occasional Boy Scout gatherings across the river. He added that his concerns extended to buildings and cattle on the Fauquier side. McLearen, however, said that the nearest building across the river was about 3,000 feet away and Theis said there was a wooded buffer on the Culpeper side. Kurt Christensen, who owns land farther down the Rappahannock, said there is plenty of deer hunting in his area and that bald eagles co-exist very easily with human activity. If approved by the Board of Supervisors in February and licensed by the VDGIF, Theis said the preserve could be open this hunting season. Donnie Johnston writes for the Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star. Sixteen-year-old high school junior Brynnan Grimes was appalled when she learned last August that shed have to skin and dissect a cat during her anatomy class at Culpeper County High School. I never imagined ever having to face the choice to dissect something that I view as my child, Brynnan explained to the Star-Exponent during Wednesdays telephone interview. And something that would mean so much to me. It just blew me away. I was so surprised. Just a few weeks into the school year, Brynnans mom Tamira Thayne, of Amissville, said she emailed her daughters teacher, asking why the high school instructed the students to dissect cats. I told her that I didnt agree with it and she never responded to me so thats when we decided to do a petition because basically we felt that our concerns were ignored, said Thayne, who withdrew her daughter from CCHS at the beginning of the school year. Cats are companion animals and the thought of doing that to them is horrifying. I cant get over the fact that they do this and are very blase about it. In December, Thayne started an online petition Dont force our children to skin cats on the Change.org website. As of Thursday, Thayne collected more than 103,000 signatures toward her 150,000 goal. Before Culpeper, Brynnan attended Altoona Area High School in Pennsylvania. These days, she takes online classes in addition to her mother homeschooling her. The animal-loving family has five cats. Reached by email on Wednesday, Rob Hauman, executive director of curriculum and instruction for Culpeper County Public Schools, wrote that the school divisions high school level science courses have used laboratory specimens for dissection for many years. Recent inquiries related to the honors human anatomy and physiology courses have focused mainly on the use of cats for dissection as part of the lab experience, Hauman said. Culpeper schools have used cats for these labs for at least 10 to 12 years without documented complaints from students or parents. The practice in these elective courses is to follow the guidance provided by the Virginia Department of Education, which requires the use of alternatives for students who do not wish to participate. Hauman added that classroom materials and resources in Culpeper are evaluated annually. The recent attention to this issue of dissection may impact discussions within our school division, the region and perhaps across the state. Culpeper schools will continue to offer alternatives to dissection and follow guidance from VDOE, Hauman concluded. Cat dissection is quite common in other area public school divisions, including Fauquier County and Loudoun County public schools. All school systems provide alternatives for students who choose not to participate in the activity. Laura Byram, administrative assistant to the Orange County Public Schools superintendent, said while Orange County High School science teachers dont dissect cats, they do primarily dissect chickens, sheep parts, squid and crayfish in their biology and anatomy and physiology classrooms. These specimens are food grade and purchased primarily from grocery stores and are a by-product of the food production process. We also use virtual dissections, Byram explained. Liz Patterson, executive assistant to the Madison County Public Schools superintendent, said Madison County High School does not use cats for any dissections. Asked where CCPS acquires its cats for dissection, Hauman said the school division purchases them from Carolina Biological Supply and Bio Corporation of Minnesota. Based in Burlington, North Carolina, Carolina Biological Supplys website says it gets euthanized cats from animal shelters, which would otherwise be destined for the landfill where we wouldnt be able to utilize them for science classrooms. The VDOEs definition of dissection involves the manipulation of properly preserved animals or animal parts for scientific study, which includes incising and may be followed by inspecting, touching and handling. According to state school officials, dissection specimens across Virginia range from sheep hearts to fetal pigs, chicken wings, cow eyes and rats. Also questioned whether CCPS students are assigned to skin a cat, Hauman answered yes. Some years they may skin the cat to view the epithelial tissue and associated structures. Other years they may not and only focus on the cardiovascular, digestive, urinary, respiratory and reproductive structures, Hauman explained. So what happens when Thayne and Grimes reach their online goal of 150,000 signatures? Change.org spokesman Max Burns said Thursday that sometimes an online petition can spark a discussion in a community and/or it can invite the petitioners target to respond to their concerns. People start petitions for a wide variety of reasons, but the common thread is that theyre looking for a place to make their voice heard on an issue that matters to them. People turn to Change.org because of its effectiveness as a means of empowering individuals and bringing concerns (local, national, even international) to the attention of those with the power to make a change. Rhonda Simmons can be reached at rsimmons@starexponent.com or (540) 825-0771 ext. 125. LONDON - England - No Brexit Plan says George Osborne. His statement is an arrogant signal that the vote is already confirmed. You may vote to get out of the Soviet EU, but your vote will not count. Our propaganda and our shady dealings at the polling offices will ensure that, Chancellor George Osborne told the BBC. The people dont matter The No Brexit Plan statement is also another signal that the government (which plans pretty much everything sometimes 50 years in advance) is so assured of winning the EU Referendum that they can make ridiculous claims like that. Has George Osborne finally shot himself in the foot? Georgie has been a good-ish boy up until now, what with keeping a lid on the economy, but this latest No Brexit Plan thing is rather off. I think he needs a rest maybe, some time away from the pressure, a raring to go EU Referendum voter revealed on Friday. FRANKFURT - EU - Britons will lose benefits in a new deal constructed by Chancellor Angela Merkel and David Cameron in order to limit migrant influx. The tax credit scheme installed by the previous Labour government is to be scrapped in favour of a living national wage system engineered by the current Conservative government. European Union Chancellor Merkel has thrashed out a deal with David Cameron to limit migrant benefits only if Britons are denied the same benefits. Currently, 58% of the UKs population survive under the current tax credit scheme and removing this will result in eventual riots, public disorder and even more poverty. The Tory government, as much as they have adopted socialist nanny state policies on a number of issues have still had their eye on the tax credit monster for some time, and this new EU deal with the Germans should eradicate tax credits once and for all. Either you get a well paid job like me or you die of starvation. Dont forget to vote to stay In the EU, a Tory minister revealed on Friday whilst dining at Claridges. Earlier Thursday the WHO said a two-year Ebola epidemic that killed more than 11,000 people and triggered a global health alert was over. (Photo: AP) Freetown: A woman in Sierra Leone is thought to have died from Ebola, officials said Thursday, just hours after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an end to an epidemic of the disease. The female student was taken ill in the northern village of Bamoi Luma near the Guinean border and died soon after, with an initial swab testing positive for Ebola, a senior health ministry official told AFP. "Complete findings will be made known to the public by tomorrow (Friday)," he said, adding that further tests were under way. Earlier Thursday the WHO said a two-year Ebola epidemic that killed more than 11,000 people and triggered a global health alert was over, with Liberia the last country to get the all-clear. The deadliest outbreak in the history of the feared tropical virus wrecked the economies and health systems of the three worst-hit west African nations after it emerged in southern Guinea in December 2013. At its peak, it devastated Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with bodies piling up in the streets and overwhelmed hospitals recording hundreds of new cases a week. Rick Brennan, the World Health Organization's chief of emergency risk management, hailed the milestone but told reporters in Geneva that "the job is still not done", pointing out that there had already been 10 small flare-ups because of the persistance of the virus in survivors. UN chief Ban Ki-moon also warned the region can expect sporadic cases in the coming year but added "we also expect the potential and frequency of those flare-ups to decrease over time". No celebration Liberia, the country worst hit by the outbreak with 4,800 deaths, discharged its last two patients from hospital -- the father and younger brother of a 15-year-old victim -- on December 3, 2015. Africa's oldest republic was the last country still afflicted by the outbreak that infected almost 29,000 people and claimed 11,315 lives, according to official data. The real toll is suspected to be much higher, with many Ebola deaths believed to have gone unreported. After the last patient is declared in the clear, a 42-day countdown -- twice the incubation period of the virus -- begins before the country is proclaimed Ebola-free. Ebola causes severe fever and muscle pain, weakness, vomiting and diarrhoea. In many cases it shuts down organs and causes unstoppable internal bleeding. Patients often succumb within days. From a Guinean infant who was the first victim, the epidemic quickly spread into neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone, notching up more deaths than all other Ebola outbreaks combined. Liberia was first to be declared free of human-to-human Ebola transmission in May, only to see the virus resurface six weeks later. It was officially credited with beating the epidemic for a second time in September before another small cluster of cases emerged. Reaction to Thursday's announcement was muted in the capital Monrovia, where locals have become accustomed to good news on Ebola being followed by setbacks, and there was no official programme of celebration. Economic ruin The WHO came under fire for its sluggish response to the epidemic, which local healthcare systems were woefully under-equipped to handle. Over 500 healthcare workers died in three west African countries at the height of the outbreak. Brennan acknowledged the WHO's initial inertia but said the organisation had "done a lot of soul-searching", pointing to a "major reform" it is undergoing. While Cuba sent doctors, Western governments offered little until foreign aid workers started falling ill and returning home for treatment, sparking fears of a global pandemic. The concerns inched higher when three cases of infections came to light outside Africa -- two in the United States and one in Spain. The US, Britain and other countries eventually rallied to the cause, sending thousands of troops and medics to Africa in 2014 and developing a number of promising potential vaccines and treatments. But the economic ravages of the epidemic are still being felt. The World Bank estimates the economic damage of the outbreak, which devastated the mining, agriculture and tourism industries in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, at $2.2 billion over 2014-15. WHO director Margaret Chan described the next three months as "the most critical," as foreign medical groups shut down operations in west Africa and national health ministries take over. Hindu Sena chief Vishnu Gupta was arrested in connection with the vandalism of Pakistan International Airlines office in Delhi. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: Hindu Sena chief Vishnu Gupta was arrested on Friday by Delhi Police in connection with the vandalism of Pakistan International Airlines office here by the members of the outfit. Gupta has been arrested under Sections 120B (being party to a criminal conspiracy),147 (rioting), 149 (being the member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 427 (mischief causing damage to property)and 452 (house-trespass after preparation for hurt, assault or wrongful restraint) of IPC, said police. "The police are still looking for the other Hindu Sena members who were involved in the vandalism," DCP (New Delhi) Jatin Narwal said. Yesterday, four members of Hindu Sena, a fringe right-wing group, ransacked the fifth floor office of Pakistan International Airlines at Narayan Manzil in Barakhamba Road around 3:15 PM, damaging computers, furniture and other items. Police later arrested one member of the group, who was identified as Lalit Singh, while three others fled. The members also left pamphlets which said, There should be no talks with Pakistan unless they take stern action against people who have caused damage to India and hand over people like Dawood Ibrahim and Hafiz Saeed to India." The incident prompted Islamabad to take up the issue with the Ministry of External Affairs. Owning responsibility of the incident, Gupta had vented anger at Pakistan holding it responsible for the attacks at Pathankot air base as well as at the Indian consulate in the Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif recently. Gupta was also arrested last October, days after his complaint that "beef" was being served at Kerala House canteen here was found to be false. Brussels: European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said on Friday he was "quite sure" the EU and Britain would reach a deal at a summit in February on reforms that London has demanded to stay in the bloc. "I am quite sure that we'll have a deal not a compromise, a solution, a permanent solution in February," Juncker, the head of the executive branch of the 28-nation union, told a press conference. "I am neither optimistic nor pessimistic. I know that we have to deliver," adding that "my knowledge" allowed him to be confident of a deal. But Juncker warned that all of the demands by British Prime Minister David Cameron who is set to hold a referendum later this year on his country's membership of the European Union would be tough to reach agreement on. "The issues put on the table by the British prime minister are all difficult issues," said Juncker, a former Luxembourg premier. "Don't think there is one issue which would be particularly difficult - although it is and that's the welfare issue and that the other points mentioned by the British will be less important, and easy. They are not," he said. "Even ever-closer union, the role of national parliaments, the relations between the ins and the outs in the euro system, all these are very, very difficult issues and we have to work hard in these days to come to agreements." Cameron's most controversial proposal is a four-year ban on top-up benefits for EU migrants working in Britain, which critics say is discriminatory and threatens freedom of movement in the EU. He also wants the EU to give Britain safeguards against more political integration, to protect countries that do not use the euro currency and to boost economic competitiveness. The social security bill destroys pensioners, wage earners and mainly the future of the new generation, says trade union. (Photo: AP) Athens: Greek unions on Friday announced a general strike against a planned overhaul of the country's ailing pensions system. "A 24-hour strike on February 4 has been decided," the main private-sector union GSEE said. "The social security bill destroys pensioners, wage earners and mainly the future of the new generation," the union said. Greece is under pressure from its international creditors to reduce spending on pensions which is the highest in the European Union. Greece's leftist government has announced plans to lower the maximum pension to 2,300 euros ($2,500) from 2,700 euros currently, and introduce a new minimum guaranteed basic pension of 384 euros. It also wants to increase social security contributions by both employers and staff. Greece must save 1.8 billion euros from state spending on pensions under a three-year bailout signed with the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund in July. According to the labour ministry, Greece spends 17.5 percent of output on pensions compared to a European average of around 11.5 percent. Opposition to continued austerity had already sparked general strikes in November and December. Islamabad: Pakistan on Friday launched a massive crackdown against the madrassas run by the proscribed Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), suspected of masterminding the Pathankot airbase attack. The crackdown in Punjab province, Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's power base and the headquarters of Jaish-e-Mohammad, follows the arrest this week of several members of the group, including its leader, Maulana Masood Azhar. "Officials of the Counter-Terrorism Department raided the Jamiatul Nur seminary in the Daska area on Thursday and arrested more than a dozen people," Rana Sanaullah, the law minister of the Punjab province where Jaish-e-Mohammed is headquartered, said. "The seminary has been sealed off and documents and literature have been confiscated from the premises." Sanaullah said several other offices and seminaries run by Jaish-e-Mohammed had also been raided and shut down, with many of its staff arrested. He declined to share further details. In a TV interview on Thursday, Sanaullah confirmed that Azhar had been taken into "protective custody" and said legal action would be taken against him if his involvement in the Pathankot attack was proved "beyond doubt." Read: Pak minister says JeM chief Masood Azhar under protective custody Masood Azhar, from a teacher to the dreaded face of Jaish-e-Mohammed Five times when Pakistan dragged its feet, fuelling standoff with India JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar, a hardliner who was blamed for the 2001 Indian Parliament attack, was detained along with his brother and brother-in-law and will remain in protective custody for at least 30 days. Authorities have arrested several members of JeM and sealed off their offices as Pakistan investigates Indian assertions that the January 2 attack, in which seven military personnel were killed, was the handwork of Pakistan-based militants. Islamabad and New Delhi have already postponed the Foreign Secretary-level talks and are in contact to finalise a new date for the meeting. Foreign Secretary of Pakistan Aizaz Chaudhry and his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar were originally scheduled to meet in Islamabad on January 15. Meanwhile, on Friday, President of Pakistan occupied Kashmir, Sardar Muhammad Yaqub Khan, extended invitation to Hurriyat leaders to attend a two-day round table conference here to discuss various issues related to Kashmir dispute. Yaqub Khan is holding a two-day round table conference on January 20 - 21 at Convention Centre, here. The issues expected to be discussed in the conference are Kashmir Conflict: Its ramifications for Pak-India Relations and Peace, Kashmir Dispute, Hindutva and Emergence of Hindu Extremism in India and Proposed abrogation of Article 370 and Article 35A of Indian Constitution and its impact on Kashmir dispute. Hurriyat leaders including Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Aga Syed Hassan Al-Moosvi Al-Safvi, Mohammad Yousuf Naqash and others have been invited to attend the conference. Engineer Abdur Rashid and Mohammed Yousuf Tarigami have also received the invitation. Meanwhile, Pakistan Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said they will not allow misuse of its territory against any country. He further said that Pakistan wishes to move ahead for a comprehensive dialogue with India to resolve all issues. India has demanded that Pakistan take action against the group and on Thursday announced that the two countries would reschedule talks between their foreign secretaries while the investigation into the air base attack was carried out. ISIL-Khorasan (ISIL-K), which announced its formation on January 10, 2015, is based in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. (Photo: AFP) Washington: The US, on Friday, designated an Afghanistan-Pakistan based group linked to the ISIS terror outfit as a foreign terrorist organisation, slapping a series of sanctions on the group and its leaders who are mainly former members of the Pakistani Taliban and the Afghan Taliban. ISIL-Khorasan (ISIL-K), which announced its formation on January 10, 2015, is based in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region and is composed primarily of former members of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban. The senior leadership of ISIL-K has pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State group, the State Department said. "This pledge was accepted in late January 2015 and since then ISIL-K has carried out suicide bombings, small arms attacks and kidnappings in eastern Afghanistan against civilians and Afghan National Security and Defence Forces, and claimed responsibility for May 2015 attacks on civilians in Karachi, Pakistan," it said. The consequences of the foreign terrorist organisation designation include a prohibition against knowingly providing, or attempting or conspiring to provide, material support or resources to this organisation. To assuage the feelings of the IT-ITes companies on the Outer Ring Road (ORR) and Whitefield region, a team of ministers will be interacting with top IT executives on January 21. The intention is to assure the sector that the government is aware of their concerns and is keen to address their grievances, besides exploring fresh investments ahead of Invest Karnataka scheduled to be held in February first week. On Tuesday, Deccan Herald reported that several major IT-ITes companies had shelved their expansion plans in Bengaluru due to infrastructure problems in the region leading to a huge productivity loss. The estimated loss as calculated by the ORR Companies Association (ORRCA) is around 3.45 billion USD per annum. Industries Minister R V Deshapande told Deccan Herald that he, along with a few other ministers, will be visiting Whitefield and the Outer Ring Road next week. We want to understand their problems and explain what steps the government is taking. Just to meet them and tell them what we are doing, the minister said, adding that they would be meeting industry representatives from both IT and non-IT sectors in the region. Apart from Deshpande, IT Minister SR Patil and Bengaluru Development Minister K J George will also be visiting, along with a battery of top officials, including Chief Secretary Arvind Jadhav, officials from infrastructure, urban development departments, the BDA, the BBMP and others. Concerns have to be addressed sometimes with short term and some other times with long term plans. We have to work together. This kind of interaction will help both the government and the industry to address the issues effectively, Deshpande said. The minister also said that he would be talking about possibilities of further investments in the State during Invest Karnataka. It will be a chit-chat over a cup of tea, an opportunity to mingle and find a solution, he said. Interaction of political leadership with industry leaders is always good. They understand each others challenges and explore opportunities, said R K Misra, member of the panel on Invest Karnataka. Home Minister G Parameshwara on Thursday expressed serious concern over growing cases of cyber crimes in the State and directed the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) police to crack the cyber crime cases at the earliest and take steps to prevent such crimes in future. Parameshwara chaired a review meeting at the CID head office at Carlton House on Palace Road. It was a general meeting and the minister wanted to know the functioning of the CID, problems faced by the department, important cases investigated by CID teams and shortage of human resources, a senior police officer told Deccan Herald. CID DGP CH Kishore Chandra, IGP Hemanth Nimbalkar, DIG Sonia Narang and SP rank officers received the minister and guided him to various facilities of the CID like Cyber Crime, Special Investigations, Economic Offences, Drugs and Human Trafficking and others. The minister launched a Facebook account, twitter handle of the CID, besides inaugurating the cyber lab. He held a separate meeting with the senior officers and obtained latest details of the investigation of important cases, including the assassination of Kannada scholar MM Kalburgi in Dharwad in August 2015. He held a separate meeting with the junior rung officials to redress their grievances. The CID police have collected crucial details which would lead to the cracking of Kalburgi murder case, Parameshwawra told reporters after the review meeting. He said that the State has no role in the arrest and interrogation of Maulana Anzarshah Qasmi, the cleric arrested by the Delhi police recently. The Nelamangala Town police on Thursday submitted a charge sheet in the jurisdictional court against five men on charges of murdering police sub-inspector (SI) Jagadish in October 2015. Madhu, Harish Babu, Thimakka, Raghu and Hanumanth Rao have been booked under IPC Sections 333, 302, 307, 397, 75, 201 and 212. As many as 72 witnesses were heard in connection with the murder of the police officer. The police have also recovered valuables from the accused. According to the police, it came to light during the investigation that Madhu held the SI and Harish Babu stabbed him repeatedly. Hanumantha Rao, a native of Kurnool, helped Madhu and Babu financially and also assisted the duo in fleeing to Nagpur. The gun which was taken away from the SI was recovered in a room of a lodge in Mantralayam, the police said. Jagadish, 34, was attached to the Doddaballapur police station. He was trailing Madhu and Babu, who were wanted in several cases of robbery and dacoity. Jagadish received information that the duo had come to a bike showroom in Nelamangala. Jagadish, along with four constables, noticed them. The duo started running and Jagadish chased them. The SI fell into a pit and gaining advantage, the duo stabbed him to death, the police said. Arvind Kejriwal governments odd-even experiment has encouraged carpooling among Delhiites. The 15-day trial, starting from January 1, has also seen emergence of online cab-share start-ups and companies promoting carpooling. App-based taxi-hailing companies like Uber, Ola and Meru have launched carpooling service, while new ridesharing platforms like BlaBlaCar have shot to prominence. BlaBlaCar, a French start-up, connects car owners and co-travellers to travel together on city-to-city journeys and share the cost of journey. Posters of home-grown rideshare start-ups have also started to crawl up the notice boards of multinational firms in Noida and Gurgaon. Orahi, a carpool app, claims over 30,000 verified corporate members. Travel to Cyber City/Udyog Vihar in 45 only, +2 rides free every week, an ad posted by the company says. According to the company, several companies in Gurgaon are encouraging rideshare. Carpooling has also emerged as a fad after rollout of the odd-even rationing of road space in Delhi. I have started to carpool with neighbours working around my office in Noida. I believe that by saving petrol, I am doing my bit for the environment, Kamal Yadav, a Mayur Vihar resident, told Deccan Herald. I tried sharing my cab ride with another family, said Mohammed Sirtaz, a Janakpuri resident, adding that Rideshare experiment worked out well for them. Keeping in mind the Delhi governments odd-even rule, taxi aggregator Ola is running shuttle service from Metro stations to office complexes. As part of its promotion initiative, the company gave first two shuttle rides free to customers. The company has also launched a social ridesharing service to allow customers to travel with members of social group be it colleagues from a workplace or friends from college. Uber also launched its carpooling service ahead of the odd-even drive, with a claim that people in Delhi spend 90 minutes to and from work each day. Getting more butts into fewer cars is an important step towards reducing congestion and pollution in the capital over time, a statement issued by company had said. Carpooling was proposed as one of the options before people during the drastic car curbs. The ransacking of the Pakistan International Airlines office on Thursday was not the first time the premises on Barakhamba Road have faced vandalism. In August 2013, Shiv Sena activists had painted the office signboards and glass doors in black. Then, the Delhi unit of Shiv Sena was protesting against the killing of Indian soldiers and ceasefire violations by Pakistani forces along the Line of Control. On Thursday, the four Hindu Sena activists went to all the three rooms of the office vandalising furniture, computers and glass panels. They also dismantled the replica of an airplane installed near the reception desk and scattered pamphlets. The security provided at the office, including a Delhi Police constable, were taken by surprise as the activists gained entry posing as customers. The security has been enhanced now, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (New Delhi) Jatin Narwal. Police said the office was a soft target compared to the Pakistan High Commission. Apprehending more violence, the PIA management has sought security. By the time local police reached the spot, three of the men had fled. Hindu Sena member Lalit Singh was nabbed. Hindu Sena chief Vishnu Gupta later claimed responsibility for the incident. Through this act, the members of our Delhi unit have expressed their anger and sent a message to Pakistan that they should respect our sentiments and keep in mind that we are not weak, a statement said. Vishnu himself was arrested in October 2015 after making a call to police control room alleging that beef was being served in the restaurant at Delhis Kerala House. An inquiry by Delhi Police had triggered a political controversy. Based on an initial probe, a case under section 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code and charges under Delhi Prevention of Defacement of Property Act is likely to be registered. Police have obtained the CCTV footage on the vandalism by Hindu Sena activists. PIA operates the only flights between India and Pakistan, with a 70-minute flight between Delhi and Lahore on Wednesdays and twice a week between Mumbai and Karachi. Most of the customers are Indians visiting family in Pakistan, pilgrims, and participants in conferences. PIA started operations to India in 1976 and has been operating from the Barakhamba Road office for nearly a decade, a PIA staffer told Deccan Herald. An Enforcement Directorate notice was sent to the airline in November 2014 asking them to close the office. The government says the purchase of the property was unauthorised. PIA claims that they have the clearances. Pakistan today strongly reacted to US President Barack Obama's remarks that the country could become a safe haven for terrorists and would continue to face instability for decades to come. In his last State of the Union address on Tuesday, Obama had said that "instability will continue for decades in many parts of the world in the Middle East, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in parts of central America, Africa and Asia". He said that the US' foreign policy must be focused on the threat from the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda, but it can't stop there. "For even without IS, instability will continue for decades in many parts of the world in the Middle East, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in parts of Central America, Africa and Asia," he said. "Some of these places may become safe havens for new terrorist networks; others will fall victim to ethnic conflict, or famine, feeding the next wave of refugees," he said. Pakistani Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz rejected Obama's comments in a breakfast meeting with Chinese scholars, diplomats and mediapersons. "Whatever the US president said about instability in Pakistan and Afghanistan are his predictions and have nothing to do with ground realities," Aziz said. He said Pakistan was committed to defeating militancy and had major successes in the fight to eliminate terrorism. "Pakistan is taking decisive action against terrorism and militancy and days to come will witness more stability here," he said. Aziz said Afghanistan faced the issue of "instability" but Pakistan was making all out efforts to bring peace and stability in its neighbouring nation Senior Punjab Police officer Salwinder Singh, who is being questioned by NIA in connection with Pathankot terror attack probe, will undergo a lie detector test next week after he gave consent for it. Home Ministry sources said Singh, who is at present posted as Assistant Commandant with 75th battalion of Punjab Armed Police, was questioned for the fifth consecutive day today and confronted with his cook Madan Gopal and caretaker of Dargah Somraj. Singh, shunted barely few days before the January one-two terror strike as Superintendent of Police (headquarters) of Gurdaspur and facing alleged charges of breach of discipline, has in-principle given his consent for a polygraph test, the sources said. The NIA, which has been probing the case, will move an application before a designated court here tomorrow seeking permission for conducting a polygraph test on Singh, who has been allegedly changing his statements quite frequently, the sources said. Singh's car was hijacked by terrorists before they entered the Pathankot IAF base on the intervening night of December 31 and January one. The sources said bringing them face-to-face was necessary because of "conflicting statements". While Singh had told the Punjab police he frequently visited the shrine, Somraj claimed he had seen him for the first time hours before terrorists launched the brazen attack on the Pathankot facility. Singh had said he was kidnapped by the terrorists after his visit to the shrine and later let off as they did not know his identity. Six terrorists were killed in a counter-operation by Indian forces that lasted for about three days and also claimed the lives of seven security personnel. In the meantime, the binocular recovered from the site of encounter is a stolen property of the US army. The serial number will be shared with the US to ascertain where the equipment was lost, the sources said. In the meantime, CFSL has been asked to recover the serial number of AK-47 rifles and revolvers recovered by the NIA after 80-hour long terror strike at the Pathankot IAF base so that the same could be shared with the company to ascertain the country from where it was shipped, the sources said. They said NIA has got a lot of material including clothing, shoes and other material linking them to Pakistan. The NIA was also studying details of the terror strike at Dina Nagar in Gurdaspur district on July 27 last year after investigators of the central terror probe agency found similarities with the attack on Pathankot air base. Three heavily-armed militants in army fatigues, believed to have infiltrated from Pakistan, had on July 27 sprayed bullets at a moving bus and stormed a police station in Dinanagar, killing eight people, including a Superintendent of Police before being gunned down. The case is being probed by the Punjab Police. Fifty five Indian fishermen have been released from prison in Sri Lanka out of a total of 104 which the island nation had decided to free as a goodwill gesture ahead of Pongal festival. "The other fishermen will be produced in court at Mannar and Trincomalee on January 18," Mannar district fishermen's association president Manoharan told PTI over phone. To a question, he said he was not aware of the exact date when they would be brought back to India. The 55 Indian fishermen are now lodged in a marriage hall in Jaffna. The Sri Lankan government, in a goodwill gesture ahead of Pongal festival, had yesterday decided to release 104 Indian fishermen arrested by the island nation's navy for allegedly poaching in the country's territorial waters. The Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources there had said that the letter of recommendation for their release has been sent to the President by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Yesterday, the Tamil Nadu government in a release in Chennai, had said that of the 104 fishermen hailing from Nagappatinam, Thanjavur, Pudukottai and Ramanathapuram, 55 were released by Sri Lankan courts and handed over to Indian consulate officials in Jaffna. It had said that the other fishermen would be released over the next two days, it said. The release also said that Chief Minister Jayalalithaa had issued orders to government authorities to take all steps to safely bring back the fishermen to the state. The fishermen issue continues to be a major irritant in Indo-Lanka ties. Sri Lanka accuses Indian fishermen of straying into its territorial waters, while the latter maintain they are only fishing in their traditional areas, especially around Katchatheevu, an islet ceded to Colombo in 1974. The long-standing demand of the people of the district for a government medical college has remained unfulfilled. It looks like the medical college announced by the State government, last year, will elude the district this year too. The State government, last week, gave its nod for the process of starting government medical college at Chamarajanagar, Kodagu and Karwar. But it has remained mum on starting medical college in the district. So, the college will not become functional this year. The government has announced medical college for the district last year and has made budgetary allocation for the same. But the process to start the college is yet to begin for some reasons. Augment health service A government medical college in the district, which has 10 taluks, will not just benefit the medical students here, apart from generating direct and indirect jobs to hundreds, it will also augment health care service. Once the college become functional, the people from rural areas in the district will have access to multi-specialty care, treatment at reasonable costs. A staggering Rs 800 crore needed to start a full-fledged government medical college. And the process to start a college requires construction of multiple buildings and recruitment of teaching staff, doctors, paramedic staff and Group-D staff. It takes at least two to three years to complete the process. In Tumakuru case, the government has announced medical college and has made budgetary allocation for the same. But nobody really knows what is stopping the government from initiating the process. For now, the people of Kalpataru Nadu have to wait for at least couple of years, if not more, to see their demand for medical college turn into a reality. It is worth risking being on the wrong side of pessimism. So, here is an optimistic analysis of the Saudi Arabia-Iran tension that has metamorphosed into a full-scale diplomatic war, exposing the deep cleavages of the Sunni-Shiite conflict in West Asia. The feud will remain at this delicate stage at its worst and not escalate into a military war, as some analysts fear. It is in nobodys interest for the two regional giants to get more aggressive than they already have. There are enough regional proxy wars that Saudi Arabia and Iran are already involved in for them to realise that continued war is not the answer. This conflictual relationship is unsustainable and unsound in the long term. In such a milieu, the answer to their long-lasting ideological battle is dialogue, negotiation, cooperation and peace, which is still possible and may eventually materialise as the dust of this game of brinkmanship settles to an unproductive dead-end. In the latest feud, Sunni Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic ties with Shiite Iran on January 3 after an Iranian mob stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran (There has been no Saudi ambassador in Iran for nearly two years). This crisis developed following the Kingdoms execution of several political dissidents, including a prominent Saudi Shiite Muslim cleric, Sheikh Nimr Al-Nimr. Soon after, both countries imposed retaliatory diplomatic and trade curbs. Several Arab countries followed suit by downgrading diplomatic ties with Iran, which has put an already fragile relationship under intense scrutiny. Yet, the optimism for rapprochement stems from the following reasons. First, the Saudi-Iran sectarian-political-hegemonic rivalry has seen tense times in the past too, but never degenerated into a direct war in modern times. The root of Sunni-Shiite divide lies in the succession row following the death of Prophet Mohammed in 632. More recently, tension prevailed following the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Iran-Iraq war. The death of hundreds of Saudis and Iranians in the 1987 Mecca clashes accentuated the division, followed by Riyadh severing diplomatic ties in 1988. Mohammed Khatamis election as Iranian president in 1997 ushered a period of calm, even resulting in a security pact in 2001. But the US invasion of Iraq and Saddam Husseins ouster empowered the countrys Shiite majority and influenced a shift in its political alignment towards Iran, which hurt Saudi interests. Irans nuclear energy programme deepened Saudi fears that Tehran, under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was pursuing a policy of dominating the Gulf and expanding its influence among Shiite populations of Arab countries the Shiite Crescent in and encirclement of West Asia. Any tentative steps towards another rapprochement during the late years of the last decade were squashed by the Arab uprising that engaged both countries in proxy wars in Bahrain, Syria and Yemen, leading up to the current crisis. The second reason for optimism that they could still make up at some stage is though the two countries are feuding, the third player in the margins is the United States. Riyadh may be indirectly targeting Washington, which spearheaded the nuclear deal with Tehran, thereby strengthening the Shiite countrys regional influence and opening the doors for its return to the global economic and political mainstream. Conversely, it has left Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies searching for fresh answers in several strategic domains. Washingtons dislike for direct military intervention in West Asian conflicts in recent years has also brought Russia to the fore and upset Riyadhs plans in Syria. This has forced Riyadh to stretch beyond its comfort zone in dealing with Tehrans influence in Syria and Yemen. This includes armed involvement against the Al-Houthis in Yemen. By acting tough with Iran, Saudi Arabia could either be indicating to the US that it is capable of fending for itself (along with an Islamic coalition) or pressuring it to recalibrate its rapprochement with Iran (which the US presidential elections could facilitate) or forcing its active intervention to resolve the reigning crises in its favour. Domestic issues Third, just as Saudi Arabia may be targeting the US more than Iran through this feud, the real target of the Iranian orchestrators of the embassy attack may not be the Kingdom. Instead it could be a domestic political turf war between the hardliners, who are opposed to the Iranian deal with the United States, and the President Hassan Rouhani-led reformist camp. Iran is scheduled to hold elections for the Islamic Consultative Assembly and the Assembly of Experts on February 26. Shiite preacher Sheikh Nimrs execution in Riyadh is a hot potato during election season. The fourth rationale for optimism is the oil price. At less than $35 a barrel, both countries are struggling to manage their economies. Venturing into a war that would definitely drain their resources further, and almost definitely leave their differences unresolved, could make them lean in favour of crisis management and conflict resolution. Fifth, there were reports attributed to the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson in late December 2015 that diplomatic efforts were under way to open direct dialogue between Iran and Saudi Arabia to resolve differences and regional issues. There may still be room to walk amid the tough talk. Sixth, the more these two countries feud, the more the Islamic State gains. This should serve as motivation for Saudi Arabia and Iran to set aside their ideological differences and work towards neutralising the common enemy. The last reason for optimism that cooperation is still possible stems from the US-Iran rapprochement, unimaginable a few years ago. If this was achievable, a Saudi-Iran thaw is not impossible. (The writer is a Dubai-based political analyst, author and Honorary Fellow of the University of Exeter, UK) In a music to the ears of investors, especially overseas, rating agencies and even the Reserve Bank of India, the government on Friday issued a statement saying, that it will stick to its fiscal consolidation roadmap this year and stick to the 3.9 per cent fiscal deficit target. The government is committed to promoting and strengthening inclusive and sustainable development, by ensuring proper and effective utilisation of funds provided in the annual Budget, without compromising fiscal consolidation, the statement said. The statement from the Finance Ministry, which comes ahead of the Budget, is set to calm stock markets and sooth investors who usually keep their fingers crossed in the run up to the Budget, on whether the government will adhere to its fiscal goals and structural reforms. In his meeting with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday, Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan had stressed on the government sticking to fiscal consolidation and improving the quality of spending to lift economic growth. The Centre has released a part of the first instalment of funds under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transmission (AMRUT) as per the State Annual Action Plan (SAAP) for the year 2015-16. The central assistance (CA) of Rs 118.46 crore released is just 20 per cent of the first instalment of the approved CA of Rs 592.28 crore for projects relating to water supply, sewerage, stormwater drainage, urban transport, parks and green spaces, said a notification issued by the Union Urban Development Ministry. The total approved size of the SAAP for Karnataka is Rs 1,258.54 crore for the fiscal 2015-16. Karnataka Urban Development Minister Vinaykumar Sorake said that the funds released are for one quarter. Under the AMRUT, the State is getting Rs 5,400 crore over the next five years from 2015-2020. The State government has to match 53 per cent while the Centre will give 47 per cent. Sorake said that earlier the State was getting 80 per cent funding from the Central government under the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). The primary purpose of funds under AMRUT is to cover all urban households with water supply and sewerage including septage before taking up other projects related to stormwater drains, urban transport and provision of public and green spaces. Of the total Rs 5,400 crore funds for the State, Bengaluru is set to get a lions share of around Rs 1,010 crore of which Rs 227.58 crore is for works related to underground drains. Besides Bengaluru, funds will be distributed to 27 urban local bodies across the State including Mysuru, Mangaluru, Hubballi-Dharwad, Vijayapura, Ballari, Kalaburagi, among others. In August 2015, the Ministry of Urban Development has released about Rs 20 crore to all states and Union Territories for the preparation of Service Level Improvement Plans (SLIP) for each of the 482 cities identified under AMRUT across the country. One a two-day visit to Mumbai, Congress vice-president on Friday choose the auspicious occasion of maker-sankranti to sound the poll bugle for Indias commercial capital, one of the biggest civic bodies of the world, but warned that he will not be tolerating indiscipline among leaders. Congress is the DNA of Maharashtra, the Nehru-Gandhi family scion said addressing a meeting of party workers after dedicating the Murlibhai Deora Sabhagraha, a hall in memory of the Congress loyalist, at the Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan, the office of the Mumbai Regional Congress Committee (MRCC) here at Azad Maidan. Murlibhai is no morehe has left us a year ago, today, we have inaugurated a hall in his memory, but the real tribute to him would be to have a Congress Mayor after the next civic electionsMurlibhai started as a corporator, he became a Mayor. we must have our next Mayor, Rahul said, recalling Deoras conduct as a leader. BJP leader B S Yeddyurappa on Friday hit out at Chief Minister Siddaramaiah stating that he has failed to come to the rescue of distressed farmers and also to mobilise resources for development works of the State. He said Siddaramaiah, who is also the Finance minister, should come out with a white paper on the States finances as development works have come to a standstill. Interacting with reporters in Bengaluru, the BJP MP said that in the last year, more than a 1,000 farmers have committed suicide. Major reservoirs are empty and there is severe paucity of drinking water, as well as shortage of fodder for livestock. Migration of labourers have begun. The chief minister, instead of being responsive to these problems, is in deep slumber, he ridiculed. Yeddyurappa said as many as nine states have been facing severe drought. Despite this, the Centre on a priority basis, has released Rs 1,540 crore as drought relief to Karnataka. Still, the State government has not released money to the farmers in distress, he accused. Siddaramaiah should be reviewing development programmes on a monthly basis. He claims his government is pro-Ahinda but not even 40 per cent of the funds meant for SC/ST development have been spent. Can this be called Ahinda government?, he asked. When asked who would be fielded from the Hebbal Assembly constituency for the by-election, Yeddyurappa said no decision has been taken on fielding late MLA R Jagadish Kumars wife as the candidate. The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Centre to clarify if life support system of a brain dead patient with no hope of revival can be withdrawn even as the government claimed a bill for allowing passive euthanasia was pending with the Law Commission also supporting the move. A five-judge Constitution bench presided by Justice Anil R Dave asked Additional Solicitor General P S Patwalia to make the governments stand clear by February 1. In his submission, Patwalia said, There is a proposed law Medical Treatment of Terminally Ill Patient (Protection of Patients and Medical Practitioner) Bill, 2006, which is pending. The bill deals with the issue. There is 241st report of the Law Commission which said that passive euthanasia should be allowed with certain safeguards. He also cited 6.7 regulation of the 2002 made under Medical Council of India Act which said that practicing euthanasia would constitute unethical conduct. However, on specific occasions, the question of withdrawing supporting devices to sustain cardio-pulmonary function even after brain death, would be decided only by a doctors team and not merely by the treating physician alone, he said. Hearing a reference made on PIL by NGO Common Cause, the bench, however, said, We will be limiting scope to the situation where the doctors believe there is no hope of revival of the terminally-ill patient and prolongation of the life support system is not required. Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the NGO, submitted that a person who is terminally-ill and surviving on life support system should be allowed to make a living will to withdraw all medical supports to let him end his or her agony. Why should such a person be made to suffer assault of ventilator, he asked, adding a team of doctors can take a call about the time for withdrawal of life support system. On a query by senior advocate V A Mohta, Patwalia the Centre had already taken a decision to decriminalise penal provision relating to attempt to suicide but all the states were yet to ratify it. The court also appointed senior advocate T R Andhyarujina as amicus curiae, who assisted the court in 2011 Aruna Shanbaugs case in which it was held passive euthanasia could be allowed with certain safeguards. While the rest of the nation celebrated Makar Sankranti on Friday, Assam marked its harvest festival of Bhogali with the grand family feast of Uruka on Thursday. People bathed and offered prayers to the sun god on Friday morning and warmed themselves by burning meji, though the traditional bulbul fight was absent in lower Assams hajo following a Guwahati High Court ban. Assam celebrates three Bihu festivals a year. While Bhogali is celebrated in January, Rongali and Kangali falls in April and October respectively. People across the state danced and exchanged local sweet called Pithas. The most famous is the Aroiya Pitha prepared with sticky rice, grated coconut and sugar or Gur. Traditional sporting events like bamboo poll walking and bamboo poll climbing were organised, though festivities this year were lacklustre due to the Guwahati High Courts ban on bulbul fight that used to attract large number of people from across the state to Hajo, 40 km from Guwahati. Hearing a petition by the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI), the high court had reversed its earlier order allowing the bulbul fight at Shri Hayariba Madhav Temple on January 12. On the day when farmers in this semi-arid region of Telangana celebrate their food and seed, Deccan Development Society launched its Mobile Biodiversity Festival to carry the message of food diversity. A colourful caravan of bullock carts laden with boxes containing several varieties of millets was rolled by from Yedakulapally village in Jhrasangam mandal on Thursday, on the eve of Makara Sankranti. It will travel through 55 villages before the festival draws to a close on February 13 at Machnoor Village where DDS Green School & Sangham FM Radio are located. For a change, women farmers are at the forefront of organising the festival, pushing male dominance to the backseat. The month-long Mobile Biodiversity Festivalknown internationally for its cultural vibrancy and environmental significancewas first held in 1999. Buoyed by the response, the Festival was made an annual event since 2001. The festival comprises public meetings in all villages the caravan passes by, where farmers would discuss the importance of biodiversity and seed diversity. At the launch, Commissioner and Director of Agriculture G D Priyadarshini promised to introduce millets in hostels if there is an increase in production. Millets set aside after the farmers use could be allotted for government hostels, she added. DDS Director PV Satheesh, who presided over the function, said millet farmers would increase production and contribute to the public distribution system, where he said at least two kilogram of jowar should be distributed along with four kilogram of rice. With the Centre taking a firm stand on implementing the stricter Bharat Stage (BS) VI emission norms from April 1, 2020, automobile makers, who initially wanted the norms to take effect from 2022, have now agreed with the governments decision. Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, who chaired a meeting of heads of 26 auto companies to discuss the rollout of new emission norms on Thursday, categorically told them that the government is firm on its decision and there is no change. We told the minister that well be comfortable rolling out BS VI engines by 2022. But since the government has already made its intention clear, well definitely take up the challenge, Siam president Vinod Dasari said, adding that the industry will work a way so that all new models will come with BS VI emission norms complying vehicle from 2020. However, on the auto makers demand that timely supply of fuel complying with BS VI, the minister agreed to take up the matter with oil companies. Gadkari told reporters after the meeting that he did not agree with auto companies on difficulty of roll out of BS VI engines. He had said that when the same car manufacturers can build cars following the same norms across the globe, then why can't they build it here. In a major step to curb vehicular pollution, the government on January 6 said it will leapfrog directly from BS IV emission norms for petrol and diesel to BS VI norms. This means, oil companies in India have to supply auto fuel compliant to Bharat Stage VI, equivalent to Euro VI norms followed globally. Indian refiners will need to make investments to the tune of Rs 30,000 crore for upgrading technology to supply cleaner fuels. At present, BS IV ( similar to Euro IV) norms are followed in parts of India and by April 1, 2017, the whole country is scheduled to be covered under it. BS IV fuels contain 50 parts per million (ppm) sulphur, while BS V and BS VI grade fuel is more cleaner as it will have 10 ppm sulphur. The Supreme Court has agreed to examine if MPs and MLAs have the right to vote in the no-confidence motion or general meetings of a municipal body in Karnataka. A bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Prafulla C Pant on Friday issued notices to Karnataka, the deputy commissioner of Bidar, the commissioner of Basavakalyan City Municipal Council and others on a petition filed by Shahajaha, who was removed as president as the CMC in a no-confidence motion on January 28, 2015. Appearing for the petitioner, senior advocate S M Chandrashekhar and advocate Nishant Patil contended that section 42(9) of the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, 1964, stipulates that MPs and MLAs do not have the right to vote as they do not qualify to be councillors. Only elected members have the right to participate in the meetings of the municipalities, they submitted. Shahajaha, along with Abdul Gaffar, a former member of Basavakalyan CMC, has challenged an order of the Karnataka High Court dated October 8, 2015, which validated the no-confidence motion passed against them during the special general meeting of the civic body. Both the petitioners were removed from their posts after two crucial votes were cast against them by Bidar MP Bhagwant Khuba and Basavakalyan MLA Mallikarjun S Khuba. The petitioners also argued that the High Court had failed in appreciating Article 243 R of the Constitution of India, that makes a distinction between nominated and elected members and their right to cast vote. The two nominated members (MLA and MP) did not have the right to vote in the said meeting. In the absence of the votes cast by the MLA and the MP, the votes would not have satisfied the criteria of two-third majority resulting in the continuance of the petitioner in the capacity of president of the municipal council, their petition claimed. The petitioners urged the top court to stay the High Court judgment and quash the January 28, 2015, resolution, claiming that it was illegal and in complete disregard of the provisions of the Karnataka Municipalities Act 1964. A similar controversy occurred in Bengaluru last year. The BJP had secured a simple majority in the 198-ward Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Council. But taking advantage of the fact that MPs, MLAs and MLCs can vote in the mayoral elections, the Congress allied with its one-time rival JD(S) to keep the BJP at bay. The BJP cried foul and even moved the High Court but had to contend with sitting in the opposition. National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and his Pakistan counterpart Naseer Khan Janjua are discussing the modalities of the visit of the investigators from the neighbouring country to probe the Pathankot attack. Pakistans Special Investigation Team comprising senior intelligence and counter-terrorism officials of the country will soon visit India. It will conduct a probe into the attack and collect evidences to be used by the prosecution against the Jaish-e-Mohammed operatives arrested in Pakistan for plotting the latest terrorist attack in India. New Delhi on Thursday agreed to allow the Special Investigation Team of Pakistan to visit India. It is, however, yet to decide whether the investigators from the neighbouring country would be allowed in the scene of the terror strike, given the fact that it is a forward airbase of the IAF with several strategic assets. Islamabad, however, is learnt to have asked New Delhi to allow its investigators to visit the scene of the attack and question the police, the army and National Security Guard officials, who led the operations against the terrorists as well as eye-witnesses, including families of the IAF personnel living in the base. Pakistan also sought access for its investigators to Punjab Police officer Salwinder Singh, his cook Madan Gopal and friend Rajesh Verma, whom the terrorists kidnapped before attacking the airbase. Officials told Deccan Herald that Doval and Janjua, Pakistan Prime Ministers National Security Advisor, were in touch to finalize the date of the visit of the investigators from the neighbouring country and the extent of the access they would be given. Doval earlier shared with Janjua details of the calls and transcripts of the conversations between the JeM terrorists, who attacked the IAF base in Pathankot, and the commanders of the terror organization based in Pakistan. He also provided Janjua information about the manufacturers of the shoes of the terrorists, olive-green fatigues they wore and the weapons and ammunitions they carried. The stage is now set for Amit Shahs second term as BJP president next week, with a notification for holding presidential election expected to come out in a couple of days. BJP national election officer Avinash Rai Khanna is in Delhi finalising voters list for holding the elections to the post of party chief. Party sources said in a day or two Khanna is likely to complete the process and put out a notification for holding the elections. The mandatory organisations elections for 50 per cent of state units (which works out to 19 of them) have been completed, with Basanta Panda being unanimously elected to head its Odisha unit on Thursday. The party has elected office bearers for the 19 states and Union territories including Uttaranchal, Chattissgarh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Odisha, Andaman and Nicobar, Chandigarh, Tripura and Meghalaya. At least three more states, including UP is also ready to announce its state chief anytime now, said BJP leaders involved in the process. The organisational members from West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala will not be able to participate in the presidential elections since their state heads were nominated by Shah. While internal poll process for Bihar, Jharkhand and Delhi have not been completed and will take place after Shahs coronation. Party sources said in all likelyhood, Shah should get a full-fledged second term of three years early next week, sometime between January 18 to January 23. Shah took over as the BJP chief from Rajnath Singh after the later shifted to the Modi government to become Union home minister on May 2014. Shah, who became BJP chief on a high after the party under him pulled off a good show in UP by notching 71 seats, has faced back-to-back humiliating polls defeats in Delhi and Bihar. The government on Friday virtually conceded that communication break down led to much of the confusion during the Pathankot operations, victimising several officials in the process including Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh. Singh had to delete his January 2 tweet congratulating the security agencies for killing five ultras after realising only four terrorists were killed and the operation was far from over as more militants were out in the open. The first set of congratulatory tweets from the Prime Minister and Defence Minister were also appear to be premature, as the operations went on for two more days. The operation ended on January 4 and the first detailed account came from Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, who traveled to Pathankot a day later. Six militants were gunned down whereas India lost seven brave hearts and 20 soldiers were injured in the gun battle. On Friday, Parrikar, Singh, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and top officials from the defence and home ministries reviewed the operation and felt the need for communication strategy. The need to have a better media communication strategy was felt, a spokesperson of the Union Home Ministry said in a statement. At the time of 24x7 television channel, flourishing social media and expanding print media, the ministers and NSA recognised the need for accurate and periodic flow of information. It was decided that in such incidents, media is best briefed by the authorised persons on the spot, said the spokesperson. Arrangements for such briefings, including training of the officials, would be put in place to meet such contingencies, should they happen in the future. Officials from multiple agencies feeding information to their own network from inside the Pathankot air station contributed to the communication mess leading to a goof-up by the home minister, defence ministry sources told Deccan Herald. Top bosses from the National Security Guards, Border Security Force, Army and Indian Air Force were present in Pathankot. The operation was carried out under the command of the Western Army Commander, whereas on the ground, the Army brigade commander was in charge, Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag clarified, countering reports of command confusion due to the involvement of multiple agencies. Absence of a communication strategy and policy was also one of the lessons learnt from 26/11 when terrorists received undue advantages from live coverage of the terror attack in Mumbai, six years ago. Pathankot operation didnt involve much live coverage as media entry was blocked outside the air station with an area of almost 1900 acres. The government decided to carry out security audits of all military and paramilitary installations and improve the intelligence network in the wake of the Pathankot attack. The Panambur beach is all set for the 5th International Kite Festival-2016 beginning Saturday, which is expected to attract hordes of enthusiasts. The event is being organised by Rotary Clubs of Zone IV Mangalore, in association with Team Mangalore, a hobby group of kite-makers and flyers. Speaking to mediapersons here, Team Mangalore coordinator Nithin Shetty said that three Indian teams from Dahanu, Mumbai and Hyderabad and 24 flyers from 13 other countries will participate in the festival. Team Mangalore, the organiser, would also fly its speciality kites like Kathakali, Yaksha, Gajaraja, Bhoota Kola, Pushpaka Vimana and Garuda along with its latest creation Vibheeshana and a special Save Netravathi kite during the event, said the coordinator. Another co-ordinator Sarvesh Rao said night-flying of kites has also been planned on Saturday, using high-power beams. This will commence at 7 pm and go on for an hour. As part of the fest, various cultural programmes have been arranged at the centrestage. The two-day festival concludes with a valedictory function at 7 pm on January 17, after a brief stage function to felicitate participating kite-flyers. No manja kites Rao made it clear that in the interest of the public, possession, sale or use of Manja thread is strictly not allowed on Panambur beach during the festival. Foreign participants The countries taking part in the fest besides the Indian teams include France, Australia, Netherlands, Kuwait, United Kingdom, Turkey, Cambodia, Nigeria, Germany, Thailand, Singapore, Italy and Ukraine. The Al-Farsi team from Kuwait will showcase its largest collection of inflatable kites. Delhi Police Commissioner Bhim Sain Bassi on Friday reiterated that Sunanda Pushkars death in January 2014 was unnatural. Citing the final report of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) medical board which was submitted to Delhi Police, Bassi told reporters that he was certain with the evidences. The medical board was tasked to identify the poison that caused Sunandas death as concluded by AIIMS after the initial probe. Sources said a poison dangerous to the heart was detected. The Delhi Police is now likely to move an application in Patiala House Court seeking polygraph test on Sunandas husband and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor. The courts permission is needed to conduct the test. The 11-page report with 32 pages of annexures was prepared by AIIMS after studying Sunandas viscera report sent by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The FBI report was handed over to the Forensic Medicine and Toxicology department of AIIMS in November. In their report, the FBI had ruled out the theory of polonium poisoning. Sunandas viscera samples was sent to the FBI lab in United States in February 2015 to determine the poison. It was done after AIIMS concluded in their preliminary report that she died because of poisoning suspected to be Polonium-210 or Po-210. We had sought certain clarifications regarding the forensic aspects mentioned in FBI report. As far as evidences are concerned until now, Sunanda Pushkars death was unnatural. I can say this with certainty, Bassi said. Special Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Deepak Mishra will review the progress. On Friday, Mishra also held a meeting with the Special Investigating Team probing the case. According to Sunandas post-mortem examination, there were more than dozen injury marks on Sunandas hands. There was also a teeth bite on her left palm and an abrasion on her cheek. Investigators have so far conducted polygraph tests on six persons. Sources said the SIT is now holding meetings to take a decision on conducting a polygraph test on Tharoor. We hope the polygraph tests and Sunandas viscera report will give a new direction to the probe in the high-profile case, said a police officer. Police have relied on medical and forensic reports while registering a case under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code against unidentified persons with Sarojini Nagar police station. The spectre of chain-snatching returned to haunt women in the City. The bike-borne chain-snatchers targeted as many as four women in western part of Bengaluru on Friday. The four incidents were reported in Kamakshipalya, Vijayanagar, Chandra Layout and Jnanabharathi police limits in a span of about two-and-half-hours. The police suspected the involvement of one gang in all the four incidents and constituted a team to trace the miscreants, said the police. In all the four cases, the miscreants pretended to ask for an address and committed the crime, the police said. 6:50 am, Kamakshipalya Two unidentified men on a black Pulsar approached Nagarathna (52), who was putting rangoli in front of her house at Kamakshipalya. They pretended to ask her about an address in the locality. One of them snatched her 60-gram gold chain when she was showing the direction and the duo fled from the spot after pushing her to the ground, said the police. 7 am, SVG Nagar Two bike-borne miscreants stopped Lakshmamma (62), who was returning home after buying milk, and asked her the address of a location. One of them engaged her in conversation while the other snatched her 70-gram gold chain. The duo sped off along with the chain. The incident took place at SVG Nagar in Moodalapalya in Vijayanagar police station limits, added the police. 7:45 am, Chandra Layout In a similar incident in Chandra Layout, two unknown men approached Tenmouli (49), who was drawing rangoli in front of her house near Siddaganga School, and asked her about some address. She said that she did not know as the two spoke Hindi. Just then, the pillion rider snatcher her 55-gram gold chain and the two vanished within seconds. 8:15 am, Jnanabharathi In Jnanajyothinagar under Jnanabharathi police station limits, the miscreants relieved Uma of her 40-gram gold chain in a similar fashion. The jurisdictional police have registered cases and investigations are on. Ministers from the PMO will meet IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today, to discuss the matter. The net neutrality debate in India just became a bit more important, with the PMO stepping into the discussions. According to reports, Jitendra Singh, Minister of State in the PMO and Harsh Vardhan, Minister of State for Science and Technology, will be meeting with IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today, for the second time in a week. The ministers are reportedly going to make sure that the PMOs views have been incorporated in the final policy and to discuss the implications of differential pricing of data services, with special focus on the Free Basics platform by Facebook, the Economic Times reported. The debate over differential pricing of data has been going on in the country for quite a while now. Facebooks Free Basics service was stopped by TRAI about a month ago, pending a decision by the regulatory body. ETs source told the publication that the PMO has been watching the space very closely and any policy related to the Internet is important for the success of the Prime Ministers Digital India initiative. Further, ET also reported that the government is discussing the option to provide limited free data to first time users and free direct benefit transfer around data packs. This will be similar to the LPG subsidy provided to certain sections of the population by the government. The net neutrality debate started in India with Airtel announcing its Airtel Zero plan. This was followed by Facebooks Free Basics platform, which provides free access to certain websites. Facebook even launched a massive advertisement campaign in India, with full page ads in national newspapers, along with an editorial article in the Times of India, by CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The governments decision on the matter though has been pending for a while now, but is expected soon enough. The dual-SIM variant of the Samsung Note 5 is expected to be available from January 17. The 32GB Note 5 dual-SIM will be priced at Rs 51,400 where as the 64GB variant will be priced at Rs 57,400. A dual-SIM variant of the Smasung Galaxy Note 5 will go on sale starting January 17. The 32GB variant of the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 dual-SIM will be priced at Rs 51,400 where as the 64GB variant will be priced at Rs 57,400. Samsung launched the single SIM variant of the Galaxy Note 5 in India back in September 2015. At launch the Note 5 was priced at Rs. 53,900 for the 32GB variant and Rs. 59,000 for the 64GB variant. As of writing this article, the Galaxy Note 5 single-SIM 32GB is available for Rs. 47,900 and the 64GB variant is available for 54,545. Apart from dual-SIM capabilities, the specification of the Note 5 (single and dual-SIM) will remain the same. Speaking with ET, Manu Sharma, director-product marketing at Samsung India said, "In the high-end segment, we saw a very strong trend of people using dual-SIMs in our A series smartphones. Consumers want a premium device, which has a local SIM and space for another SIM. There is a very large market that uses dual-SIM from the Rs 15,000-30,000 products categories, and the attach rate is very high. So, we expect a lot of takers in the premium segment Coming to the specifications of the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 dual-SIM, the device is 7.6mm thin and weighs 171 grams. It has a 5.7-inch Super AMOLED display with a 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution giving it a pixel density of 515ppi. The device runs on Android 5.1.1 skinned with Samsungs TouchWiz UI. Under the hood, the device has the Exynos 7420 chipset with a quad-core 1.5GHz and quad-core 2.1GHz processor coupled with 4GB RAM. The rear has a 16MP camera and the front has a 5MP camera. A 3000mAh battery powers the entire package. If you are in the market to pick up a high-end smartphone, we recommend you take a look at our top 10 high-end smartphones list before making your purchase decision. Figures released by Eurostat showed the Eurozone trade surplus came in at a nine-month high in November. The trade surplus rose to 22.7bn in November compared with a revised 19.8bn the previous month, above consensus estimates for 21bn. Seasonally-adjusted exports were up 1.6% while imports nudged down 0.1%. Pantheon Macroeconomics said: The details of the report dont distinguish between the Eurozone and EU28, so we cant separate out the UK, which we know is a key driver of the rising Eurozone trade surplus. The underlying story, however, is that exports to the US and the UK remain critical to the strong surplus in the Eurozone, but a growing trade deficit with China could take its toll in coming quarters. Gerald Corbett has been appointed chairman-designate of Segro , taking over from Nigel Rich who announced last year he was stepping down. Corbett has been a director of 12 public companies, chairing six of them including Betfair and Numis Corporation. He had also served in the past as chief executive of Railtrack and finance director of Redland and Grand Metropolitan. Segro chief executive David Sleath paid tribute to the outgoing chairman of the FTSE 250 company. I thank Nigel for his guidance and wise counsel over the past ten years, during which time we sold our US business, acquired Brixton and repositioned SEGRO to become a leading income-focused REIT. Rich is delighted with his replacement. He brings a wealth of experience and joins a company in great shape, with exciting prospects ahead." Corbett will join the board on March 1, and take over as chairman after the AGM on April 22. Global airline industry profits will remain strong amid lower fuel prices in 2016, supporting a positive outlook on the industry for the next 12 to 18 months, according to Moodys. In a note to clients, the ratings agency opined that the airline industry's operating margin could top 10% this year. US carriers will continue to maintain the highest operating margins, owing partly to a mature domestic market and their modest exposure to weaker foreign currencies, Moodys added. "Growing passenger demand, especially in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America, will help boost margins for the overall airline industry. Demand is rising due to modest but steady global economic growth, higher disposable incomes amid lower petroleum prices, attractive fares, and the growth of air travel in the developing world," said Jonathan Root, Vice President and Senior Credit Officer at Moody's. However, capacity additions exceeding demand growth, the strong dollar and lower fuel surcharges will constrain yield growth. Furthermore, Moody's does not expect fuel price drops to lead to a more meaningful expansion of industry operating margins. Higher labor costs, continuing revenue pressures, fuel hedging, and a potentially stronger US dollar will mitigate the benefits of the price decline. "Hedging fuel price risk, extensively with collars and call spreads that leave airlines exposed to potential declines in prices, limits the benefits from cheaper fuel prices," Root concluded. International Airlines Group said it had signed a joint business agreement between British Airways, Iberia and LATAM Airlines Group on flights between Europe and South America. The airlines plan to seek approval from the competition authorities in South America and will inform the regulatory authorities in the European Union. Under the joint business, British Airways, Iberia and LATAM Airlines Group would cooperate commercially on flights between the European Union and South America. They would expand their codeshare arrangements on flights between and within Europe and South America, increasing the number of destinations that the airlines can offer customers. It is anticipated that regulatory approval could take between 12-18 months. BHP Billiton has announced a multi-billion-dollar writedown of its US assets as the commodities giant struggles with plummeting prices. The company could be forced to halve its dividend to weather the storm in the commodities sector, blamed significant volatility and much weaker prices in the oil and gas industry. - The Daily Telegraph Social and political disintegration as a result of massive migration is the worlds most immediate threat, the World Economic Forum has warned in its annual global risks outlook. The world is a riskier place than last year, the WEF said, as the refugee crisis and terrorist attacks have made the global political environment more unstable than at any time since the Cold War. - The Times Most people now in their teens, 20s and 30s will be worse off as a result of changes to the state pension system, while millions of older people will gain, according to the governments own figures. The data will fuel concern that millions of younger people are suffering from the effects of what has been dubbed intergenerational unfairness, partly caused by the government targeting money and resources at the older generation. - The Guardian BT's takeover of EE, Britain's biggest mobile operator, should be cleared by the competition watchdog on Friday amid fears a telecoms giant would stifle the market and increase customers' bills. The landmark deal would create a communications behemoth that will provide mobile, fixed-line phones, broadband and TV to around 35m customers. - The Daily Telegraph Millions of extra barrels of Iranian crude oil could begin spilling on to world markets next week, adding further to fierce downward pressure on prices, experts have warned. With the United Nations, which completed inspections at an Iranian nuclear site yesterday, expected to approve the removal of trade sanctions as early as Monday, Iran has pledged to begin pumping up to half a million barrels of extra crude per day within one week.- The Times Greece has backed down over having the International Monetary Fund involved its new bail-out deal, after months of tension between Athens and its senior creditor. Greek finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos said his government was now committed to keeping the IMF on board, after his prime minister had attacked the institution for its "unconstructive" attitude during bail-out negotiations. - The Daily Telegraph Save my User ID and Password Some subscribers prefer to save their log-in information so they do not have to enter their User ID and Password each time they visit the site. To activate this function, check the 'Save my User ID and Password' box in the log-in section. This will save the password on the computer you're using to access the site. Note: If you choose to use the log-out feature, you will lose your saved information. This means you will be required to log-in the next time you visit our site. Democrat Nan Whaley pins campaign to unseat Gov. DeWine on abortion Democrat Nan Whaley is pinning her campaign to unseat incumbent Republican Gov. Mike DeWine on one issue: abortion. Deadly Nevada mine accident blamed on bad safety training By SCOTT SONNER Associated Press RENO, Nev. Inadequate safety policies and procedures were primarily to blame for a mining accident that killed a 26-year-old Idaho man operating a 20-ton mobile drill in an underground tunnel at a Nevada gold mine last summer, federal safety investigators have concluded. The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration cited and fined Small Mine Development LLC more than $6,000 in the Aug. 3 death of Jason Potter of Lava Hot Springs, Idaho. He was struck and killed by part of a tool he was hauling to bore holes in solid rock walls so explosives can be loaded to reach gold ore at the SSX Mine near Elko, about 300 miles northeast of Reno. The accident occurred due to management's failure to ensure that loading and transporting of materials were done in a safe manner, the agency concluded. Officials for Small Mine Development based in Boise, Idaho, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday. The Elko Daily Free Press first reported the agency's conclusion on its website earlier Tuesday. Potter, whose job title was jumbo drill operator, was backing the 41-foot-long, 41,900-pound piece of machinery up a 10 percent slope in the tunnel when a 13.5-foot-long drill steel similar to a drill bit apparently ran into a wall and sprang back, striking and killing him, the federal mining agency said. His official cause of death was blunt-force trauma. The drill steel was loaded and transported ... in such a manner that it created a hazard to the jumbo drill operator by extending past the end of the jumbo drill approximately 2.5 feet, the agency said. Additionally, the drill steel was not secured in a manner that prevented (it) from sliding side to side causing it to strike the wall and then Potter. Evidence indicated Potter wasn't wearing a required seatbelt at the time of the accident, but the federal mining agency concluded the root cause of the accident was management's policies and procedures were inadequate and failed to ensure that persons loaded and transported materials in a safe manner. Potter had four years of underground mine experience and had been at the SSX Mine for 42 weeks. The agency found his training records and documents complied with federal laws. As of Jan. 10, the company had paid all but about $900 of the $6,279 the federal mining agency proposed for 21 separate violations, the agency's website showed Tuesday. It wasn't clear whether the company is in the processing of paying that money or challenging some of the fines, Mine Safety and Health Administration spokeswoman Amy Louviere said in an email to The Associated Press. Desert Storm 25 years later: Gulf War veterans recall experiences Sunday notes the 25th Anniversary of Operation Desert Storm. U.S. and coalition forces began attacking Iraqi military forces Jan. 17, 1991, to oust them from Kuwait, transitioning operations from Operation Desert Shield to Operation Desert Storm. More than 500,000 American servicemembers deployed to Saudi Arabia in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait in August 1990. Almost 30 aircrew, maintenance and administrative members of the 403rd Wing, then the 403rd Tactical Airlift Wing, deployed in September 1990 in support of Operations Desert Shield and Storm. They flew by military aircraft to the 440th Tactical Airlift Wing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and deployed with 400 members from that unit to Saudi to support operations. Most of those wing members are on longer assigned there; however, veterans of the first Gulf War conflict still serve in the wing, although they belonged to other services and Air Force units at that time. In 1990, Senior Master Sgt. Jay Latham, 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron loadmaster, was a 20-year-old Airman 1st Class weather observer assigned to the 3rd Weather Squadron at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida. He joined the Air Force out of high school in 1988, and in 1ate 1990 volunteered to deploy in support of Operation Desert Shield, leaving in November. He was assigned to King Fahd Air Base, Dharan, Saudi Arabia, and stayed there until May 1991. During Latham's time there, the Air Force flew over 65,000 sorties and destroyed more than 400 Iraqi aircraft, according to an Air Force White Paper, Air Force performance in Desert Storm. Of those, 68 sorties were flown by 403rd members, according to Wing historical archives. As Desert Storm coalition forces advanced into Kuwait, the Iraqi military forces set fire to hundreds of oil wells as they retreated in January and February 1991. "Oil fires were a huge issue for us since we were so close to the Iraqi border," he said. The fires created huge smoke plumes, polluting the soil and air, creating a haze or overcast type effect. Oil deposit in the air would accumulate on aircraft and tents. Latham said they took weather observations constantly, especially prior to launching F-16 Falcons and A-10 Thunderbolt IIs. "The fires caused havoc on the field, especially for the aircraft, which impacted the maintainers," he said. "It also started deteriorating the tents and impacting the air conditioning." In addition to dealing with the fallout of the oil fires, King Fahd Air Base was in the flight path of the Iraqi scud missiles. "As the Iraqi's would shoot the scuds, we'd see them go overhead on their way to Dammam," said Latham, adding that they were fortunate to have only been hit by a scud once, which landed off the end of the runway and didn't cause any damage. Fellow wing member Staff Sgt. Timothy Pagel, 403rd Maintenance Squadron aerospace propulsion craftsman was a lance corporal in the Marines at the time. He had joined the Marines right out of high school in 1988. He served at several locations during his deployment, but when Desert Storm kicked off in January 1991, he was assigned to an airfield near Kabrit, Saudi Arabia, eight miles from the Kuwaiti border. Stateside, Pagel was assigned to a unit at Cherry Point, North Carolina. He found out he was deploying while on leave during Christmas, 1990, and arrived in Saudi Arabia by the end of December. As a fireman in the Marines, he spent time building up their bunkers and the base, and he worked 12-hour shifts sitting in a running fire truck on the flight line, ready to provide support to AH-1 Cobra, CH-53 Sea Stallion and CH-46 Chinook helicopter aircrews in the event of an emergency. The rotary wing aircraft provided front line support to coalition troops, and the crews landed at that location to have their helicopters refueled and rearmed. The most challenging aspect of his deployment was the "just waiting and not knowing," he said. "We didn't know how bad the ground war was going to be, how long it was going to take ... and when we were going home," he said. In late January, Pagel and his counterparts were notified one evening about an Iraqi offensive movement near Khafji, a border town between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. "We were expected to defend our position, so we sat there on that berm ready to take on what came at us," he said. "We heard this huge battalion of tanks coming at us, but they were ours, fortunately." After five weeks of aerial bombing, the ground assault started Feb. 24, 1991. American ground troops declared Kuwait liberated 100 hours after the start of the ground war. There were 383 U.S. casualties; 148 of those occurred during battle, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Pagel returned to the states in March. While Latham and Pagel were supporting operations in the desert, Staff Sgt. Ronald Patton, 403rd Operations Support Squadron aircrew flight equipment craftsman, was one of 4,500 sailors assigned to the USS Midway, the flagship for naval air forces in the Persian Gulf and longest serving aircraft carrier in the 20th century, according to the USS Midway Museum website. A petty officer second class, he was a member of VFA-151, stationed at Atsugi, Japan, when his unit was notified they were deploying to the Gulf. They arrived in November 1990. The aircraft carrier transported 60 fighter/attack and support aircraft, and Patton served as a parachute rigger in aviation life support. He worked 12-hour shifts, 7 days a week ensuring that the fighter pilots' personal protective equipment, such as anti-G suits, fliers helmets, oxygen systems, survival vests and ejection style parachutes, were all in working order. "You typically don't see our job unless something goes wrong, so we have to be 100 percent all the time," he said. "If a pilot has to bail out, they must trust that what we've done is right; it's a critical job.'" While the days could be long and monotonous, one event stood out from his time there, said Patton. "We came under attack by two Russian MIGs flown by the Iraqi's and their target was our Battle Group and the USS Midway," he said. "They were fully armed and had every intention on sinking us. We launched two planes in less than two minutes and within nine minutes those Russian MIGs were completely knocked out. The pilots came back in about 20 minutes and landed on the flight deck safe and sound. That gave us a real boost of confidence; we had such confidence in our trained pilots; they did their job well," he said. The USS Midway launched 3,339 combat sorties during Operation Desert Storm, and the Navy launched more than 100 Tomahawk missiles from nine ships in the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, according to the USS Midway Museum website. Operation Desert Storm ended Feb. 27, 1991, and the Midway departed the gulf region March 11, 1991. Latham, Pagel and Patton now serve in the 403rd Wing. Latham left active duty in 1992, went to college, and joined the wing in 1994. He became an Air Reserve Technician in 1996. Pagel left the Marine Corp in 1992 and joined the wing in 2004. He works a field service representative for a civilian aviation contractor in the area. Patton left the Navy in 1992, served in the Army National Guard and Navy Reserve between 1992 and 1996, left military service to become a preacher and overseas missionary, and then joined the wing in 2007. He was recently was hired as an ART. Each one of them said they were honored to be part of Desert Storm operations. Patton said that, to him, being a veteran means many things. "It means being one of many who have given their lives in defense of this nation for a cause that is truly international;" he said. "It means to serve along with some of the greatest men and women in the world. Serving has impacted me because it's helped me to look closer at who I am as an American, what I do, not only to help safeguard our nation, but to reassure our families and members of this country that we really are the freest nation in the world." Rosa Luxemburg and the Growth of the Labor Movement By Gerald Friedman | January 15, 2016 This article is from Dollars & Sense: Real World Economics, available at http://www.dollarsandsense.org This article is a web-only article. Rosa Luxemburg colorized photo, by Color by Emijrp - Own work. Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons). Today is the 97th anniversary of the assassination of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two of the leading exponents of revolutionary socialism in Germany in the early 20th century. Both were prominent figures in the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) up to the First World War and, alienated by the reformist and pro-war politics of the SPD, founders of the Spartacus League (subsequently the German Communist Party) in 1916. Both were killed by right-wing Freikorps death squadswhich had support from the Social Democratic governmenton January 15, 1919. The following is an excerpt from UMass-Amherst economics professor and D&S columnist Gerald Friedmans Reigniting the Labor Movement (Routledge, 2007). Here, Friedman describes Rosa Luxemburgs revolutionary politics and her understanding of the role of the mass strikenot as the means for a decisive one hit victory for the working class, but as part of what Friedman terms a long-term process of consciousness-building through participation in class struggle. Eds. Despite their best efforts, even the best organizers and the cleverest slogans have little effect on the growth of the labor movement as a whole. The world is too large for a few organizers to make much of a difference; and in normal times, slogans travel too slowly. But if organizers cannot transform labor relations and bring masses into the labor movement, when circumstances are right, they can steer them into particular institutions, unions and socialist political parties; they can be sparks to the ready tinder, or occasionally gather tinder for the sparks to come. Until those times come, organizers struggles and work matter for a few, but the large mass of workers remain uninvolved. There are times when history turns, when almost by sheer will alone, people rise together to change life through collective action. In these revolutionary times, inspired by the spirit of the times, by visions of a better world, people find new ways to act together to change life. With a newfound faith that others too will join in a collective effort that will matter, they throw caution to the wind, reject established precedents and old rules to join together to redefine their relationship with the state, with society, and with each other. Abandoning the constraints of narrow individualism, in these moments of madness people achieve dramatic social changes through collective action (Zolberg 1972). In these brief moments of upheaval, history happens; in these times of revolution, society changes through conscious social action. Since the beginning of the labor movement, mass strikes have been one of the most common manifestations of public upheaval. General and theoretical rigor was first given to the study of mass strikes by a Polish-born, Jewish economist, Rosa Luxemburg. Born Rozalia Luksenburg, the youngest of five children of a downwardly mobile Jewish middle-class family in Zamosc, Poland in 1870, she started early as a rebel. Every step in her upbringing and education drove home the facts of inequality and inequity. Assimilated Jews, her family was removed from the rest of the Jewish community without being accepted into the Catholic Polish community; Luxemburg grew up as a Pole, speaking German and Yiddish in a country occupied by Russia; she was a woman in a world ruled by men. And she suffered a physical disability, a hip dislocation that gave her a limp and earned her the schoolyard title of cripple, cccrriipplee (Ettinger, 1986: 10). Admitted to secondary school under a quota system designed to limit the number of Jewish students, her Warsaw school was conducted in Russian with Polish strictly forbidden. Jewish students were segregated, treated as guilty by definition and subject to punishment for the smallest infractions. It is easy to understand how Luxemburg found school an alienating experience. Still, it was a sanctuary compared to the outside world where the police stood idle while crowds celebrated Christmas, 1881, with a pogrom against Warsaws Jews (Ettinger 1986: 14-15). A biographer suggests that the nervous restlessness that set the rhythm of Luxemburgs adult life originated with the obstacle course that school presented to her. Her upbringing also directed that energy, both to find a larger community that would accept her, and a desire to change the world to eliminate such inequity. Even as a teenager, Luxemburg threw herself into the revolutionary movement, joining Proletariat, one of the first organizations of Polish Marxists. Ironically, it was this involvement in the Polish revolutionary movement that forced her to leave Poland. Soon after she was graduated from secondary school in Warsaw in 1887, she had to flee to Switzerland to escape arrest for her political activities. But exile did not prevent involvement in Polish revolutionary politics. In 1893, she helped to found the Social Democratic Party of the Kingdom of Poland; appealing for the unity of Polish and Russian workers, and ignoring the fight for Polish sovereignty, Luxemburgs group never attracted much support. Looking for a wider field Luxemburg moved to Berlin in 1898, to join the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). There she would remain until her assassination during the German Revolution of 1919, devoting her energies to promoting revolution by transforming the SPD into a revolutionary party. Luxemburg brought great gifts to her party work. In 1893, a complete unknown, she captivated the meeting of the Socialist International with her plea to admit the Social Democratic Party of the Kingdom of Poland instead of its nationalist rival, the Polish Socialist Party. Emile Vandervelde recalled that her adversaries had a hard time keeping up with her and she defended her cause with such magnetism in her eyes and in such fiery words that the majority of delegates, captivated and spellbound, voted in favor of accepting her mandate. (Outmaneuvered by the better-connected Polish Socialists, her mandate was later revoked in a committee vote (Ettinger 1986: 48).) Barely three weeks after arriving in Berlin, Luxemburg campaigned through Polish Silesia for the SPD. Her contagious zeal mesmerized her crowds. News of the Polish Fraulein Doktor spread quickly drawing crowds that overflowed lecture halls. The tour was a triumph beyond all expectations. Almost bewitched by the adoration of the crowds and the attention her words brought her, Luxemburg hoped to build on her Silesia tour to ascend to a prominent position in the SPD. This was never likely; her religion, her nationality, her language and, most of all, her sex, all insured her outsider status. In any case, Luxemburg was soon disenchanted with the SPD. She began to complain that the party was dominated by self-serving and self-congratulatory coteries committed to maintaining their Party positions rather than pursuing socialism. Luxemburg wanted to push forward the entire movement . . . to instill new life. But she feared that she would not be able to do so because she does not belong to the family. She has no backstairs influence . . . [but she] is a potential threat, Luxemburg wrote a friend, and has no chance . . . because all deals are struck backstage (Ettinger 1986: 86). She soon found an opportunity to make a mark on the SPD but as a theorist rather than an agitator. Luxemburg joined the debate over revisionism provoked by the publication of Eduard Bernsteins work, Evolutionary Socialism. Friend of Frederick Engels, editor of one of the Partys leading journals, Der Sozialdemocrat, Bernstein had impeccable Marxist credentials that made his attack on Party orthodoxy particularly shocking. Not only did he deny that capitalist societies tended towards spontaneous collapse, but Bernstein denied that the working class would necessarily inaugurate a socialist society. Instead, Bernstein urged socialists and the SPD to renounce revolutionary aspirations to focus on achieving practical social reforms for the workers. In practice, what he proposed was less a change in tactics than a realignment of the Social Democrats ultimate goals to match their reformist tactics; he recommended that the party should openly avow what it was already doing. I have no objection to the practical aspect of the Social-Democratic programme with which I am entirely in agreement, he wrote, only the theoretical part leaves something to be desired. The movement, Bernstein added in an oft-quoted and deliberately provocative remark, means everything for me and that what is usually called the final aim of socialism is nothing (Bernstein 1912: 167). Bernsteins work provoked a firestorm of protest and one of his strongest, and first, critics was the young Rosa Luxemburg. Undeterred by those who labeled her a guest who comes to us and spits in our parlor, she rejected Bernsteins arguments tout court. He was wrong, she wrote, about the stability of capitalism, wrong about the revolutionary potential of the working class, and wrong about the appropriate tactics for the SPD. The working class, Luxemburg wrote, could overturn capitalism but only if it retained a commitment to revolution. The great threat from revisionism, Luxemburg feared, was that by sundering the Partys connection with an ultimate goal of socialism, trade union and parliamentary actions would become purely commercial work, service to a dues-paying membership that could never build awareness, the consciousness, of the proletariat becomes socialist and it is organized as a class. It was, she argued, the revolutionary socialist vision that made trade unions and the SPD into fighting organizations, mobilizing adherents to build class consciousness through participation in class struggle: the Socialist purpose of trade-union and political struggle consists in preparing the proletariat for social upheaval, i.e. emphasis on the subjective factor. Once the idea of popular revolution is abandoned, then trade unions and parliamentary politics cease to be a means of preparing the working class for the proletarian conquest of power. Instead of teaching revolutionary democracy and self-government, these become service organizations bringing benefits to passive members. Without a socialist vision, the unions and the party will abandon the work of raising consciousness and instead protect their own survival and gain reforms by trading social peace; What the revisionists proposed, she warned, was to sign peace with the enemy, open up the fortress to him in return for a limited number of places in society (Nettl 1966: 1: 247). In the end, the SPD rejected Bernstein and his revisionist program in theory even while continuing to follow his prescriptions in practice. The Party leadership squared this circle by claiming that campaigning for reforms would build an organization to achieve a revolution in some unspecified future time. Equating institution building with movement building, the SPD became a movement of union bureaucrats and party politicians who devoted their time to providing services to client-members and managing the popular labor movement to avoid endangering the institutions of the growing labor movement. Focused on electoral politics, the SPDs leaders carefully refrained from inflammatory rhetoric and discouraged aggressive strikes or public demonstrations to cultivate an image as respectable labor statesmen. A model party, leader of the Socialist International, the SPDs strategy of preparing for a revolution by building, maintaining, and protecting reformist institutions became the received wisdom of the twentieth century labor movement. After 1900, Luxemburgs growing disappointment with the SPDs policy of building an organization to make revolution, led her to extend the campaign against revisionism to a full critique of reformist theory. She began to see the revolution as the culmination of a long-term process of consciousness-building through participation in class struggle rather than a quick putsch. Such an enormous upheaval like the change of society from a capitalist to a socialist order is inconceivable in one hit through one victorious strike on the part of the proletariat . . . . The socialist upheaval predicates a long and bitter struggle. During this struggle, the great Socialist importance of the trade-union and political struggle consists in socializing the knowledge, the consciousness of the proletariat, in organizing it as a class (Nettl 1966: 1: 225). It is only through struggle, what Marx called revolutionizing praxis that workers become aware of both their oppression and their ability to overcome it through cooperative collective action. The movement building of the SPD claimed to build consciousness by delivering tangible benefits for the workers, higher wages, government and union services, better working conditions. While appreciating the immediate value of these material gains, Luxemburg denied that they brought the working-class closer to social democracy. They could not, she argued, develop the fighting capacity and consciousness of the workers themselves because these gains were given to the workers by the organizations rather than won through direct struggle by the workers and therefore did nothing to increase the workers confidence or their capacity for democratic self-government . Reform politics relies on party and union institutions staffed by professional labor movement bureaucrats to negotiate on behalf of workers with employers and state officials. Such institutions, Luxemburg argued, cannot promote revolution which depends on popular upheaval, democratic actions where the masses develop experience in self management, the self confidence to believe they can manage society. It is only through struggle that workers learn to manage society democratically, and only through struggle that they develop their grievances. Those who do not move, she warned, do not notice their chains. Reformism cannot build a sense of empowerment; on the contrary, reformist labor movement organizations actively undermine any sense of popular autonomy or power because they are managed by bureaucrats who routinely buy social reforms with popular quiescence. Reform, therefore, is not a step towards revolution, it is a substitute. It is absolutely false and totally unhistorical to represent work for reforms as a drawn-out revolution, and revolution as a condensed series of reforms. A social transformation and a legislative reform, Luxemburg argued, do not differ according to their duration but according to their essence (Luxemburg 2004b: 156). Instead of establishing respectability and building organization by discouraging popular militancy, Luxemburg urged the SPD to build class consciousness by promoting class conflict and direct action. She would build the revolutionary capacity of the working class by raising workers awareness of their own oppression and by training them in class conscious action and class conflict. Strikes were central to her theory, revolutionizing praxis transforming a mass of individual workers into a working class and the place where a democratic mass movement is built by the actions of the people themselves. [G]enuine popular participatory strikes come when the strikers are emotionally prepared and that can come without warning after some provocation, perhaps small in itself. The role of the union or the party, she argued, is to engage in a continuous state of preparation, to maintain some type of permanent structure through which a general strike can be organized, and to support mass strikes when they come. The fruits of agitation extending over several years of the Social Democracy, mass strikes, such as those in the Russian Revolution of 1905, are unpredictable. While any little conflict between labor and capital can grow into a general explosion, the mass strike cannot be called at will, even when the decision to do so may come from the highest committee of the strongest Social Democratic party. . . . Of course, even during the revolution mass strikes do not exactly fall from heaven. They must be brought about in some way or another by the workers. The resolution and determination of the workers also play a part and indeed the initiative and the wider direction naturally fall to the share of the organized and the most enlightened kernel of the proletariat. But the scope of this initiative and this direction, for the most part, is confined to application to individual acts . . . spontaneity, as we have seen, plays a great part in all Russian mass strikes without exception, be it as a driving force or as a restraining influence. . . . In short, in the mass strikes in Russia the element of spontaneity plays such a predominant part, not because the Russian proletariat are uneducated, but because revolutions do not allow anyone to play the schoolmaster with them (Luxemburg 2004a: 196-98). Once begun, mass strikes become the training ground for revolutionary militancy, the very form of the revolutionary struggle. Like bleeding wounds, strikes stir up all the innumerable sufferings of the modern proletariat while pointing towards a solution, substituting direct worker control for the capitalist principle of mastery of the house. Only the working class, through its own activity, Luxemburg concluded, can make the word flesh. But this will not automatically happen. The working class, only learn to fight in the course of their struggles. Even where mass strikes do not end in revolution, Luxemburg observes that they leave in their wake a more conscious, more confident, and more organized working class. The firm organization, which as the indispensable hypothesis for an eventual German mass strike should be fortified like an impregnable citadelthese organizations are in Russia, on the contrary, already born from the mass strike. . . . the Russian revolution shows us . . . from the whirlwind and the storm, out of the fire and glow of the mass strike . . . like Venus from the foam, fresh, young, powerful, buoyant trade unions (Luxemburg 2004b: 186). is a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Bernstein, E. (1912) Evolutionary Socialism: A Criticism and Affirmation (New York: Huebsch); Ettinger, E. (1986) Rosa Luxemburg: A Life (Boston: Beacon Press); Luxemburg, R. (2004a) The Mass Strike, the Political Party, and the Trade Unions, in Peter Hudis and Kevin B. Anderson (eds.), The Rosa Luxemburg Reader (New York: Monthly Review Press); Luxemburg, R. (2004b) Social Reform or Revolution, in Peter Hudis and Kevin B. Anderson (eds.), The Rosa Luxemburg Reader (New York: Monthly Review Press); Nettl, J.P. (1966) Rosa Luxemburg, 2 vols. (London: Oxford University Press); Zolberg, A. (1972) Moments of Madness, Politics and Society 2: 183-208. Did you find this article useful? Please consider supporting our work by donating or subscribing. Pakistan's Punjab province law minister Rana Sanaullah on Thursday confirmed that banned Jaish-i-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar has been taken into "protective custody" along with his accomplices, but clarified he is "not arrested". "Masood Azhar has been taken into protective custody by the Punjab police counter-terrorism department," Sanaullah told Dawn News. Earlier, the government chose not to confirm or deny the reports that Azhar has been taken into "protective custody". "We have taken Maulana Azhar and his fellows under protective custody in connection with the Pathankot incident. However, we will arrest him if his involvement in the Pathankot attack is proved," Sanaullah said. He added that operation against banned outfits including JeM would continue under the National Action Programme. India has identified Azhar as the mastermind of the Pathankot attack on January 2. It has also blamed his brother Rauf and five others for carrying out the attack in which seven Indian soldiers were killed along with all the six terrorists. India has shared this information along with two Pakistani phone numbers that were made calls to by the terrorists. According to reports, security agencies have arrested 31 activists of JeM from different parts of the province. After a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday, his office issued a statement which said that "several individuals" belonging to JeM have been apprehended in connection with the Pathankot terror attack and some of its offices traced and sealed. Pakistan foreign office spokesman Qazi Khalilullah told a news briefing that the two sides were holding consultations to reschedule the talks. The EU has requested formal consultations with Colombia under the World Trade Organisations Dispute Settlement Understanding. The Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) said the industry struggles to compete in Colombia because of high taxes on imported spirits and the practices of provincial alcohol monopolies which distort the market by favouring local producers. By law, Scotch must be at least 40% abv but Colombia applies a significantly lower excise rate to products at or below 35% abv. This favours domestic spirits, the vast majority of which are bottled at this strength. The SWA said that the current situation has made it difficult for exporters of Scotch to benefit from the EU-Colombia Free Trade Agreement that came into force in 2013. Colombia committed to addressing these issues by August 2015, but this has not yet been delivered. David Frost, SWA chief executive, said: Scotch Whisky is being treated unfairly in Colombia and is unable to compete against local spirit producers due to the discriminatory tax system and anti-competitive practices of the monopolies. We are pleased that the European Union has requested consultations with Colombia at the World Trade Organisation with a view to resolving these longstanding issues. Colombia is a key target market for us globally and offers great potential for Scotch Whisky. In 2014, Scotch exports reached 24 million in shipment value, up 7% on 2013. The removal of tax discrimination and other discriminatory measures would give a major boost to the market. The current model in Colombia is similar to the Chilean system that was condemned by the WTO in a case some years ago. The WTO panel on Chile and three previous ones - Korea, Japan and the Philippines - said that all spirits categories compete and therefore governments cannot discriminate between them. Among the planning applications submitted to Louth County Council earlier this month was an application by Faughart National School to decommission an existing septic tank and construct a new proprietary waste water treatment system, percolation area and all associated ancillary site works. Among the planning applications submitted to Louth County Council earlier this month was an application by Faughart National School to decommission an existing septic tank and construct a new proprietary waste water treatment system, percolation area and all associated ancillary site works. The application was submitted on July 1. In a completely separate application Margaret Woods applied for planning permission to build a two storey house at Rampark, Jenkinstown, Dundalk. The application was submitted to Louth Co Council on July 1. In a further separate application, Peter and Kate McEntee are seeking permission for a proposed extension to an existing house at The Shore Road, Dundalk. Separately, Gerry Rogers has applied to Louth Co Council for planning permission to change the use of existing ground floor guest accommodation to a restaurant and new shop front for the existing barber shop at Blackrock, Dundalk. Meanwhile in Doolargy, Fr Padraig Murphy is seeking permission for alterations to St Marys RC, a protected structure. The application is applying for permission for alterations and extension to protected structure LHS004-008 under the Louth County Development Plan 2009-2015. The development will comprise of roof repairs to existing church roof, removal of existing flat roofed area to rear, construction of new single storey extension to rear, and new side entrance porches. Among the applications granted planning permission by Louth County Council recently was an application for a new resource room and corridor at St Finians NS, Adamstown, Dunleer. Also Ronan Baker was granted permission for the retention of an existing barbers shop and associated site development works at Ma Bakers, Newry Street, Carlingford. SANDRA Fee teaches physics at Ardee Community School and has just recently returned from South Africia where she represented Ireland at the International Conference on Women in Physics in South Africa. SANDRA Fee teaches physics at Ardee Community School and has just recently returned from South Africia where she represented Ireland at the International Conference on Women in Physics in South Africa. The conferences have been previously held in Korea, Rio de Janeiro, and Paris. Each nation was represented by three women physicists. Dr Sile Nic Chormaic, physics lecturer at UCC and Tyndall Research and Development Institute, was selected as team leader for the Irish team. Prior to attending the conference, Sandra was required to look for funding for the Institute of Physics. The Institute of Physics and International Union of Pure and Applied Physics are the main sponsors for this prestigious event. She was funded by Ardee Community School, Louth VEC and IBOTZ datalogger company. Sandra presentated a paper entitled Women in Physics in Ireland today. I carried out a survey, she said, on the physics departments in the 17 secondary schools in county Louth and examined the influence of teacher gender girls studying physics. Five of the schools were Co-Ed with a female physics teacher in each school. My study showed that girls are more likely to study physics to leaving cert level if the school has a female physics teacher. The female role model leads to an increase in girls participation in physics. Sandras study has since been used to examine the impact of female physics lecturers in Irish universities. The studies carried out on six Irish universities, revealed that male supervisors of research students had an average of 18 per cent female postgraduates, whereas female academics-supervisors had an average of 38 per cent female postgraduates in physics. This paper was presented and discussed at the world conference. She is a science graduate of Maynooth and shortly after graduating she became a science teacher at Ardee Community School where she introduced physics as a leaving cert subject. The up-take of physics at the school is above the national average. In 1999 she obtained her MSc degree in medical and radiation physics from Birmingham University and spent several months working as a medical physicist at Cork University Hospital. In 2006-2007 Sandra worked with Voluntary Services Overseas in Guyana, South America. She was employed as a physics lecturer at the main teacher training college in Guyana. As well as teaching physics at Ardee Community School, Sandra is a supervisor to trainee science teachers studying at Maynooth. I guess these are some of the reasons why I was selected to represent Ireland at this prestigious event, said Sandra. Being a delegate at the International Conference on Women in Physics was indeed the experience of a lifetime. It was wonderful to be surrounded by women physicists from all over the world, discussing their lifes work within the physics arena. By the end of the weeklong conference, we were all highly motivated, excited and inspired and came away with a renewed sense of pride in our involvement in physics. It was such a great honour to be selected to represent Ireland at this event. I did not blog about it but when my mother suffered a stroke summer last year, she was confined at VRP Medical Center along EDSA between Boni and Shaw Blvd. We were very happy with the quality service during her confinement and the good doctors who looked for my mom. Just recently, VRP Medical Center embarks on a major renovation plan for its people stakeholders, doctors, and patients alike. Since its renovations earlier last year, VRP focuses on a more customeroriented approach. A familybased corporation never distracted from its vision: A Hospital That Cares, VRP opens its hearts to developing and improving quality service, technological advancement, and a warm, calming environment. Doors open to a fresh Central Registration Area, a wellcrafted mural to greet the children and families, and a spacious waiting area for visitors and friends. From a 148 square meter room, the Emergency Room will be extending to 224 square meters to accommodate patients and those waiting in line. VRP sets into motion an additional 48 rooms to shelter its current 178 bed capacity. Focusing on comfort, modernity, and care, VRP continually strives to improve their wide array of facilities in order to better serve the people. The hospital launched their new Nuclear Medicine Department last October 2015 under the guide and eye of Dr. Jeanelle Margareth Tang, an immigrant from Canada who decides to come home to the Philippines and finish a training course, with hopes to set up a practice in Nuclear Medicine. In partnership with Mandaluyong Medical Services Inc. (MNMSI), VRP already has a solid support right from the start from its supplier, Intermedical SE, to its doctors, partners and stockholders. The rise of the Nuclear Medical Department brings forth new services for its patients such as thyroid function tests, general nuclear imaging, bone scans, reflux studies, GFR and radionuclide therapy. It also boasts a new set of highquality equipment like the Multicam 1000, a camera that provides hires solution and better imaging under medical procedures, and the Berthold Multicrystal LB2111 Gamma Counter. Dramatic change is everywhere, both inside and out. With an idea of a holistic healing, the roof deck will be converted into an intimate chapel for those in search of spiritual guidance. Additional offices, departments, and a Physician Center is also in the works. The facade will also undergo a major contemporary aesthetic change which could reflect beauty and care of VRP. With its fresh, newly minted facility and developed professional care, patients could only expect more from the newly improved VRP Medical Center. As a family and as a community, VRP welcomes the year right. How about you, where do you take your family members for their health needs? Stay gorgeous everyone! Michael Dreilling Check out East Niagara Post videos on YouTube, Vine and Periscope. MIDDLEPORT -- A 30-year-old Middleport man was charged today by New York State Police with third-degree grand larceny, first-degree falsifying business records and first-degree offering a false instrument.Michael J. Dreilling stands accused of obtaining over $4,400 in unemployment benefits between December 2013 and June 2014 while he was gainfully employed, according to NYSP and the New York State Department of Labor.Dreilling was issued an appearance ticket returnable to the City of Lockport Court on Wednesday. EBRD President and Chinese Premier hail new era of cooperation China has become the 67th member of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Following the completion of all the formalities, the announcement was made after a meeting between the EBRD President Sir Suma Chakrabarti and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing on 15 January. The EBRDs existing shareholders agreed at the end of 2015 that China should become a member of the Bank. President Chakrabarti said during his meeting with the Chinese Premier, This is a very important step for the Bank, for the countries where the EBRD invests and also for China. We are opening up a new chapter of cooperation that will be of benefit to all parties. Sir Suma has described Chinese membership of the EBRD as a win-win-win scenario. The EBRD will support Chinese companies as they invest in the EBRD regions. EBRD membership will also provide a boost to Chinas One Belt, One Road initiative where it passes through EBRD countries of operations, he said. The EBRD will benefit from having the worlds second largest economy as a shareholder and will have better access to Chinese firms that could be partners in the EBRD regions. The economies in the EBRD regions will benefit, as China will become an important new source of investment finance for development in the countries where the EBRD is active. During his visit to Beijing Sir Suma also held talks with Vice Premier Ma Kai and Zhou Xiaochuan, the Governor of the Peoples Bank of China and who will also be Chinas Governor at the EBRD. He also met the President-elect of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Jin Liqun, as well as K.V. Kamath, the president of the New Development Bank, which is headquartered in Shanghai. The EBRD President is scheduled to attend the AIIBs inauguration ceremony on 16 January. The EBRD has cooperated with the AIIB from very early days, engaging in dialogue on such issues as governance and social and environmental standards. Sir Suma has expressed a strong desire for EBRD and AIIB cooperation in joint projects once the new bank begins its operations. Yesterday, months after being asked by multiple groups including Congressman Dan Kildee, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder finally asked the federal government to declare a state of emergency in Flint. This move, if approved, will open up federal funds to deal with this human-made disaster that will be Flints and Rick Snyders legacy for decades to come. Snyders tardy response comes one day after learned that a massive spike in Legionnaires Disease began shortly after Flints switch to Flint River as the source of their drinking water. Although the connection between the switch and the outbreak of Legionnaires Disease has yet to be proven, it would take an incredible coincidence for this chart to look the way it does without the switch having been the cause (I have indicated where the switch to the Flint River occurred in red): Its worth noting that I had to nab this chart from The Detroit News because the state government report where it came from, titled Legionellosis Outbreak Genesee County, has been deleted from their website. A connection between the switch and the outbreak is likely according to Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards who was one of the original whistleblowers in the poisoning of Flints drinking water by Snyder administration officials: Its not unexpected that the lack of corrosion control could have triggered that. Legionella likes water that has little or no chlorine and has high iron, Edwards said today. Both those factors would contribute to the growth in Legionella. This morning, Attorney General Bill Schuette who has been scandalously in absentia during this entire debacle, has finally consented to opening an investigation into just what the hell happened in Flint. According to a press release from the AGs office, the purpose of the investigation is to determine what, if any, Michigan laws were violated in the process that resulted in the contamination crisis. Youll forgive me if Im dubious that Schuettes office will find that anyone in the Snyder administration is culpable. Its far more likely that theyll lay it at the doorstep of Flint government officials. Yesterday, Flint residents and others staged a massive protest at the State Capitol Building. You can see video from the protest in this segment from The Rachel Maddow Show last night where presidential candidate Hillary Clinton weighs in, calling whats happening in Flint infuriating and saying she is outraged: Starting Sunday, there are at least three more protests planned. First, there will be a rally on Sunday, January 17th at Heavenly Host Church of the Harvest, 2202 W. Dartmouth, in Flint. Rev. Jesse Jackson is scheduled to attend this rally. You can read Rev. Jacksons op-ed on whats happening in Flint HERE. Second, on Monday, January 18th, there will be march and rally in Ann Arbor where Gov. Snyder lives with his wife. From the events Facebook page: Show your support for the people of Flint, Michigan, who have been subjected to lead poisoning by the Flint public water system, through the deliberate and criminal actions of Michigan Governor Snyder, his MDEQ, and his appointed emergency managers. Bring: warm hat, coat, boots; your favorite protest songs; drums; LED (lighted) signs; protest signs. We will have a volunteer in the giant Snyder head and a jail suit. Fire Gov. Snyder t-shirts will be available while they last. Creative signs encouraged on the theme of arrest and imprisonment. Rally at 4 pm in front of the Rackham Building at 915 E. Washington St. in Ann Arbor. 4:30 pm: March west along Washington St. to Main St. Turn left and go 1/2 block to 211 S. Main St., Ann Arbor. At 5:00 p.m., Protesters meet up in front of the Governors address, 211 S Main. Form a moving circle. 5:45 p.m. Optional march back to campus via Liberty St. for Questions contact organizers Colleen Crossey at [email protected] or PM Jan BenDor. Finally, a larger rally is planned for Tuesday, January 19th. This one is being organized by a coalition of progressive groups and is being held in conjunction with Gov. Snyders State of the State address. From their Facebook event page: Gov. Rick Snyder is giving his State of the State speech and we need to demand answers and hold him accountable for the Flint Water Crisis. This rally is being organized by a coalition of groups and organizations. Arrive at the Lansing City Hall Courtyard (124 W Michigan Ave, Lansing, MI 48933) at 5 p.m. Rally to begin after a press conference with Flint families and advocates. Dress warm! Bring signs and noisemakers. There will be a warming center near the Capitol at the Central United Methodist Church (215 N Capitol Ave, Lansing, MI 48933). TRANSPORTATION: Flint Bus & Carpool Location: Teamsters Local 332 1502 South Dort Hwy Flint, MI 48503 Bus 1 (seats 55) Depart: 4PM Bus 2 (seats 47) Depart: 4:45PM Return: 8:30PM-9:00PM Detroit Bus & Carpool Location: 2727 Second Avenue Detroit, MI 48201 Depart: 3:30PM (seats 47) Return: 10:00PM For a printable flyer, click HERE. If you are aware of other events, please shoot me an email or leave a comment with details and I will add them to this post. NOTE: Its fundraising week at Eclectablog. If you find value in what we do here, please consider making a donation to ensure that all our regular contributors can be paid for their creative work. Click HERE for details. Thanks so much. Chris On April 16, 2013, Flint Emergency Manager Ed Kurtz signed an agreement on behalf of the city to form a new water district that would, when the project was completed, get its water from Lake Huron via a new pipeline. The decision was made in order save money since water from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) was very expensive. The next day, the city of Detroit, which was also under the control of an Emergency Manager, Kevin Orr, notified the city of Flint, that it was exercising its right to give one years notice that it was terminating their nearly 50-year-old contract. This would have compelled Flint officials to renegotiate the contract which was expected to result in even higher water costs since the new water pipeline would not be completed by April 2014. In other words, despite the fact that both cities were under state control via Emergency Managers appointed by Governor Rick Snyder, Detroit was essentially attempting to extort additional money from Flint between April 2014 and when its new pipeline was operational. Emergency Management, a system ostensibly put in place to stabilize cities financially, had essentially degraded into a pissing match between two Emergency Managers under the direction of Gov. Snyder. Shortly before the April 2014 deadline, DWSD Director Sue McCormick offered to let Flint stay on their system until their new pipeline was completed. However, EM Earley declined. If you were to point to one specific decision that lead to the poisoning of Flints drinking water, it would be this one. Earley, by rebuffing Detroits offer in their on-going internecine battle, put Flint on a course that lead to the state of emergency they are in today. You can read Earleys response to McCormick HERE. Heres the paragraph that created Flints current catastrophe: Thank you for the correspondence dated February 12, 2014 which provides Flint with the option of continuing to purchase water from DWSD following the termination of the current contract as of April 17, 2014. Dear Ms. McCormick:Thank you for the correspondence dated February 12, 2014 which provides Flint with the option of continuing to purchase water from DWSD following the termination of the current contract as of April 17, 2014. Following DWSDs April 17, 2013 notice of termination of the water service contract between the City of Flint and DWSD, the City of Flint has actively pursued using the Flint River as a temporary water source while the KWA pipeline is being constructed. We expect that the Flint Water Treatment Plant will be fully operational and capable of treating Flint River water prior to the date of termination. In that case, there will be no need for Flint to continue purchasing water to serve its residents and businesses after April 17, 2014. Earleys letter goes on to acknowledge that Genesee County officials were negotiating with the DWSD to continue using their water (which is distributed to them by the Flint system), saying that, if Genesee County decided to go forward with it, Flint would only need to purchase the amount of water needed for them and that Flint itself would get its water from the Flint River. This chutzpah and single-minded focus only on the economics of the situation with a total disregard to warnings about the impact of Flint River water chemistry tells us a great deal about how Darnell Earley operates. When you watch video of him talking to reporters, that arrogance comes through loud and clear. It was also blatantly clear in an almost laughable revisionist history op-ed he penned for The Detroit News denying any responsibility for Flints water catastrophe. Earley is now embroiled in another controversy as the EM of Detroit Public Schools. DPS teachers have been staging sick outs over the past two weeks to protest over-crowded classrooms, deplorable working conditions, and continuous cuts to their pay and benefits. The sick outs, which have not been organized by their union, the Detroit Teachers Federation, reached their zenith on Monday when 64 DPS schools were closed due to a lack of teachers with two-thirds of the students impacted. The ongoing non-strike drove Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan to tour several DPS schools. What he saw is shocking: Mayor Mike Duggan said he saw a dead mouse, children wearing coats in cold classrooms and a gym floor too warped for play during a tour of some Detroit public schools Tuesday, amid a teacher sick-out that has forced dozens of buildings to close. , amid a teacher sick-out that has forced dozens of buildings to close. Duggan pledged to quickly come up with a plan to improve the condition of the buildings. He noted that the state has been in control of DPS for the better part of a decade, saying, It was a troubled district seven years ago, but there is no argument to say that state management has made it better. The teachers union has complained about mold, rodent infestations, too-large class sizes and other issues. Teachers upset about their pay, the districts financial condition and work environments called in sick Monday, forcing the cancellation of classes at 64 schools. Our children need our teachers in the classroom. But theres no question about the legitimacy of the issues that theyre raising, Duggan said Tuesday, when about two dozen schools were closed because of the sick-out. [] Weve seen a couple of school buildings that are well-maintained and then saw some conditions that were deeply disturbing, including a school where the children have no gym class because the gym floor is buckled from roof leaks, Duggan said. He said it was heartbreaking to see some kids wearing coats in the morning until classrooms warm up by lunch. After his tour, Duggan called for all DPS schools to be inspected. The American Federation of Teachers has a scathing report on the conditions in DPS schools written by a school counselor at Spain Elementary-Middle School in Detroit. You can view it HERE. In addition to that report which has photos of some of egregious conditions students and teachers are living with, heres a heart-breaking video they produced that gives you an even better view. If youre like me, itll make you weep to see these beautiful, innocent children having to attempt to learn in such a terrible environment. Darnell Earley has been the Emergency Manager for DPS for a year now. While the obscene state of many DPS schools is not soley on his shoulders, its clear that hes done nothing to solve the problem. Once again, he has used the Emergency Managers toolkit of cutting, reductions, and other austerity measures to solve a problem that can only be resolved through investment and renewal. Given his history in Flint, its completely legitimate to question why he is in charge when hes shown such disregard for the health and safety of the people for whom he is literally the overseer. The International Union of Operating Engineers is one of the groups asking that question. They issued a statement this week warning the public that the same emergency manager who poisoned the water in Flint is now in charge of cuts at Detroit Public Schools that will threaten the safety of students: The water poisoning disaster in Flint should be a wake-up call, said Tom Scott, Stationary Division Director for IUOE 324. No budget saving is worth a life. The teachers protesting the deplorable conditions in our schools are right. DPS cost cutting policies have put everyone at risk from deteriorating conditions in our buildings. The same thinking that poisoned children in Flint is now working to put more children in danger from fire and explosion caused by an unmanned boiler in Detroit. We must stop using a policy that values money over safety. Darnell Early is serving as the EM for DPS. He was the EM in Flint for over a year and is responsible for implementing the switch from the Detroit water system that led to the crisis today. For months, labor unions and residents have been sounding the alarm that a plan by DPS to cut the number of certified, licensed boiler operators and switch to an untested, unmanned system of monitoring commercial boilers in schools is too dangerous. Boilers are more likely to explode when not maintained and watched by licensed, certified operators. An explosion was averted at a hospital in Connecticut recently because a boiler operator was present and shut down the equipment after a steam pipe ruptured. DPS may not be so lucky. Boilers are heavy machinery that provides heating in large commercial and public buildings such as schools, hospitals, manufacturing facilities and office buildings. DPS is decreasing the number of operators from one per school to a one per every five schools. This puts the public at greater risk because boiler operators will have run five times the number of commercial boilers they normally maintain and operate across miles of territory. Getting to a school in time to avert an equipment failure that can cause an explosion will become almost impossible. Darnell Earley has proven to have terrible judgment when it comes to making decisions as an Emergency Manager. To have him at the helm of a school system in such dire need of immediate investment and rebuilding is a slap in the face to the children of Detroit and their parents. Its time for Earley to be fired and for the Emergency Management system in Michigan ended once and for all. Slack this week announced its participation in an US$80 million investment campaign to fund startups that build software that integrates with its own apps. The company also announced the availability of an app directory and a new development framework. The goal is to position Slack as a hub for connecting users to other cloud business software. Slack joins a funding partnership with six other investors that gave the company its financial start: Accel, Andreessen-Horowitz, Index Ventures, KPCB, Spark and Social Capital. Slacks business model centers on using a workplace productivity tool as a platform for creating other collaborative software. Instead of creating its own platform, it invests in the companies building on its tools and apps. Ideally, Slack hopes that the fund will attract a sizable crowd of developers to its platform, quickly deepening the number and variety of business apps and processes, said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT. That should expand Slacks attractiveness to new organizations, thus embedding the company deeper in their daily processes and activities. Ideally, the process will be good for both Slack and its customers, he told LinuxInsider. Plan Highlights The new Slack App Directory offers users more than 160 apps to extend communication features sorted into curated lists by category, popularity and staff favorites. Categories include design, marketing, office management, developer tools and productivity. The directory is intended to help attract developers and small companies to the Slack platform. The Slack Fund provides developers with a new source of support for building new apps, the company said. The Slack Fund will support both Slack-first apps and business-to-business and enterprise tools that include Slack integrations as a core part of their offerings. Slack will measure the funding success from the quality and adoption of the apps built by Slack Fund companies. It also will consider the overall investment produced in the Slack ecosystem, according to company officials. Good Head Start Overall, Slack has done very well since its launch, King said. It is attracting a growing number of users, as well as about $340 million in total funding for an estimated $2.8 billion valuation. Slack claims 2 million daily active users. The company serves as a communications integrator between its apps and other business chat and collaboration tools. But its still essentially a startup playing in a market populated by some very large and capable competitors, King said. Slack is using a sizable portion of its cash reserves to build out its platform capabilities and customer base. That indicates that it is interested in remaining an independent entity, rather than relegating itself to being acquired by a larger, more able company, said King. Calling All Bots Slack calls its new framework for Slack development the Botkit. The software tool simplifies the creation of apps (especially bots) with a flexible code base that processes tasks such as authenticating applications to a team and sending, receiving and processing messages with its application program interface, according to the company. The primary benefits for developers using Botkit are speed to market and a more efficient app creation process, Slack said. For example, developers can stop wasting time on basic functionality in favor of getting a head start on writing code for interacting with Slack. Botkit also will provide new developers with a simplified way to get into programming for Slack by letting them build on the existing collection of tools available. Slack already has backed companies whose products closely tie in with its platform development goals: Small Wins is a stealth startup; Awesome develops a bot application that creates summaries of Slack chats; and Howdy, the maker of Botkit, makes virtual assistant bots for Slack. Bypassing Go TheTwilio Fund used a similar strategy four years ago. That funding approach has a few distinct advantages, said D. Keith Casey Jr., product director atClarify. Getting more people onto the platform is useful, but driving deeper integrations is way more important. People cant just pick up and leave then, he told LinuxInsider. Clearly, revenue wins arguments. When cash is flowing, many other problems drop to the wayside or seem small. By building a developer ecosystem, Slack is cutting a huge community into some of the revenue, Casey said. Platform Dominates Any store or marketplace with a large number of apps will include some duds, but if just a few bring financial success, that helps the overall business operation, he noted. For every Angry Birds, there are probably a million other apps, but the potential to be discovered drives attention, Casey said. Possible Downsides The planned platform will be proprietary but no one will care, according to Casey. Stability issues will scare off many enterprises in the short term, but Slack will fix that, he said. The biggest issue is probably education within their ecosystem. If [Slack] doesnt teach its ecosystem (aka developers) how to handle billing, market what they have and provide useful support, it could taint the ecosystem and drive negative sentiment, which drives down adoption, Casey said. Pros and Cons The overtures Slack announced will have a positive impact on enterprise productivity, according to Anthony D. Paul, director of user experience atidfive. He implemented Slack bot at idfive and within his WordPress community. The biggest strength is how human Slack feels. Slack has managed to feel natural and personal in a way no other office communication tool has, he told LinuxInsider. Its strengths include simulating in-person chats for remote teams, giving project teams ambient but not intrusive project awareness, and skipping the training process with viral internal adoption. Another minor strength is the cross-device seamlessness, Paul said. Hangouts fails at this despite being on all my devices. Google hasnt figured out how to mark a read message as read universally, so I have to dismiss it in multiple platforms, he said. The main weakness is Slacks inability to easily invite guests to sandboxed sections, Paul said. Also, Slack gets into a project management gray area that could be formalized with complementary task management. (Photo: The Chapter of St Paul's Cathedral / Graham Lacdao)The Rt. Rev. Justin Welby delivers the blessing for the first time as Archbishop of Canterbury on February 4, 2013. The Archbishop of Canterbury has invited the Anglican Communion's 37 leading bishops to attend a special Primates' gathering in January to shore up divisions often provoked by differences over human sexuality by drastically reorganizing the group. Archbishop Justin Welby said: "I have suggested to all Primates that we need to consider recent developments but also look afresh atour ways of working as a Communion and especially as Primates, paying proper attention to developments in the past." Welby is proposing to effectively dissolve the fractious and bitterly divided worldwide Anglican Communion and replace it with a much looser grouping, The Guardian newspaper speculated Sept. 17. "He believes that the communion notionally the third largest Christian body in the world with 80 million members, after the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox churches - has become impossible to hold together due to arguments over power and sexuality and has, for the past 20 years, been completely dysfunctional," wrote the Guardian. The meeting in January will allow Primates to discuss key issues face to face. It will included a review of the structures of the Anglican Communion and a decision together on their approach to the next Lambeth Conference, a gathering of bishops from the world. The Anglican bishops around the world should meet up every 10 years in Canterbury at the Lambeth Conference. But nearly 250 out of 800 stayed away from the last meeting, in 2008, in protest against the supposed liberalism of Williams, said the Guadian. LAMBETH CONFERENCE POSTPONED Welby had previously announced the indefinite postponement of the next conference. The Anglican Communion said the January meeting "is likely to include the issues of religiously-motivated violence, the protection of children and vulnerable adults, the environment and human sexuality." Welby had worked in management positions in the oil and banking industries before turning to once to the Church. He said: "I have suggested to all Primates that we need to consider recent developments but also look afresh at our ways of working as a Communion and especially as Primates, paying proper attention to developments in the past." The Anglican leader is "preparing to gamble his legacy on a high-stakes plan to overhaul the 80 million-strong worldwide Anglican church in what he sees as a 'last throw of the dice' to avert a permanent split over issues such as homosexuality," The Daily Telegraph reported. One idea under consdieration is to effectively dissolve the Anglican Communion as it currently exists, with 38 national churches, or provinces, are formally linked to each other. It could be a a slimmed-down structure in which they are all tied to the "mother church" in Canterbury even if, in some cases, they have no communication with each other, said the Telegraph. Lambeth Palace sources said the idea is that each church would have enough "wriggle room" to hold different positions on questions like gay marriage without breaking up the wider Anglican "family". "It's not quite a legal separation, if one is going to pursue that metaphor I think it's more moving into separate bedrooms," one source explained to the newspaper. "Our way forward must respect the decisions of Lambeth 1998, and of the various Anglican Consultative Council and Primates' meetings since then," Welby said on the Anglican Communion website. "It must also be a way forward, guided by the absolute imperative for the church to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, to make disciples and to worship and live in holiness, and recognising that the way in which proclamation happens and the pressures on us vary greatly between Provinces. We each live in a different context." "The difference between our societies and cultures, as well as the speed of cultural change in much of the global north, tempts us to divide as Christians: when the command of scripture, the prayer of Jesus, the tradition of the church and our theological understanding urges unity. "A 21st-century Anglican family must have space for deep disagreement, and even mutual criticism, so long as we are faithful to the revelation of Jesus Christ, together," said Welby. (Photo: REUTERS / Neil Hall)The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby speaks with female priests after their march celebrating the 20th anniversary of women becoming ordained priests in the Church of England in London May 3, 2014. The worldwide Anglican Communion has averted a break-up - but voted to partially exclude its American branch, the Episcopal Church, due to its stance on homosexuality, but the lesbian and gay community reacted with fury to the move. Archbishops and bishops from around the world, met this week behind closed doors in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral in England. "Recent developments in The Episcopal Church with respect to a change in their Canon on marriage represent a fundamental departure from the faith and teaching held by the majority of our Provinces on the doctrine of marriage," the bishops said in their Jan. 14 statement. "Possible developments in other Provinces could further exacerbate this situation," the primates warned. They voted to condemn same-sex marriage as a "fundamental departure" from traditional Anglican teaching. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Anglicans told BuzzFeed News that the vote emphasises the "second-class citizen" status of gay people in Anglican churches, puts LGBT people in danger of further persecution, and will lead to dwindling church attendances. Later on Jan. 15, Welby apologised for the "hurt and pain" the Anglican church has inflicted on lesbian, gay and transgender people as he attempted to defend Anlgican Communion's decision to sanction the U.S. church. In his closing press conference, Welby said: "It's a constant source of deep sadness that people are persecuted for their sexuality. I want to take this opportunity personally to say how sorry I am for the hurt and pain, in the past and present, that the church has caused and the love that we at times completely failed to show, and still do, in many parts of the world including in this country." The primates, or head bishops from almost 40 countries also decided to bar the U.S. branch of Anglicanism, The Episcopal Church, which has officially recognized same-sex marriage from key bodies for the next three years. But, fundamentally, it remains part of the Global Anglican Communion, The Daily Telegraph reported. "It is our unanimous desire to walk together," the primates said. "However given the seriousness of these matters we formally acknowledge this distance by requiring that for a period of three years The Episcopal Church no longer represent us on ecumenical and interfaith bodies, should not be appointed or elected to an internal standing committee and that while participating in the internal bodies of the Anglican Communion, they will not take part in decision making on any issues pertaining to doctrine or polity." There is also no formal sanction against the Canadian church which takes a similar stance on homosexuality to the U.S. church but has not yet officially endorsed same-sex marriage services. The agreement followed four days of talks and skirting the prospect of full schism in the global Anglican Communion, which claims some 85 million members around the world. It also represents a personal boost for the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rev Justin Welby, who has made "reconciliation" a key plank of his tenure in the role said the Telegraph. Education policymaking must negotiate strongly held public perceptions and contested political terrainfactors usually far more influential than research findings. So even the most settled and trustworthy scholarly knowledge will not be persuasive unless due attention is also given to the beliefs and politics that shape and filter public discourse. Thats what effective public scholars do when they bring education research out of the weeds of scholarly journals and into the public sphere. How do they do this? First and foremost, they respect the rigors of knowledge production and the challenges of navigating public spaces as they venture into writing for online publications, sharing their work in blogs and webinars, speaking on cable-news outlets and talk radio, giving testimony at public hearings and in courthouses, taking meetings with elected officials, forging partnerships with community groups, delivering succinct real-time messaging on social media, and more. Outstanding scholarship is compelling only if it speaks to hearts and political interests, as well as to intellects. But compelling communication is trustworthy only if it reflects serious scholarship. Compelling communication is trustworthy only if it reflects serious scholarship." This takes more than good research and good messaging. Effective public scholars also nurture trusting and respectful relationships with policymakers and public actors. These are not one-way relationships, but reflexive: Policymakers and the public learn about reliable findings, researchers gain a broader perspective on their studies, new ideas are formulated, and old ones corrected. These broader perspectives, generally, help everyone avoid cherry-picked research meant to advance or discredit a particular policy (or research) agenda. Despite the real difficulty of such public work, most scholars who study policy and practice are eager to do it. This ambition is neither new nor a product of todays intense politicization of education. Nearly a century ago, John Dewey, himself a public intellectual, argued that a core responsibility of scholars is to engage democratically with publics in ways that raise awareness of social problems and that foster the democratic solving of those problems. Despite the complexity and the clear legitimacy of such engagement, public scholars face substantial obstacles within the academy. Universities often characterize such work as applied (at best) or service and seldom afford it full recognition and legitimacy when making decisions about promotion and tenure. So, key to embracing this role is to persuade often-skeptical universities, colleagues, and funders to recognize work in the public sphere as an essential dimension of scholarship, including gaining access to knowledge and data otherwise invisible to untrusted eyes. Because I am so convinced that such public work is central to education scholarship, Ive made it the theme of my year as the president of the American Educational Research Association. Under the banner of Public Scholarship to Educate Diverse Democracies, this years annual AERA meeting will lift up this work. Policymakers and influencers, community leaders, educators, activists, and media representativesmany of whom dont ordinarily attend or cover the annual meetingwill assemble in Washington this spring to discuss, among other issues, how research can enter public discourse and political debates effectively. There are no guarantees that this convening, or these efforts, will penetrate a policy landscape rife with drama and contention. But, rather than shying away from it, I believe this is just the right time for education researchers, acting as public scholars, to contribute to what Dewey called the hurly burly of social policymaking. Amardeep Singh, Professor of English at Lehigh UniversityMy book, Diaspora Verite: The Films of Mira Nair, published by the University Press of Mississippi in 2018, is available on Amazon I have been working on several digital projects in Scalar. Here are a few of them: The Kiplings and India. Tagore in America (Sepia Mutiny)Intro to Said Being Sikh in America (NYT) Fetterman 'recovering well' from life-threatening stroke, doctor says John Fetterman on Wednesday released an updated medical report that says he is recovering well from his May stroke. Ely, Cambridgeshire is best known for its majestic cathedral dubbed the 'Ship of the Fens' because it dominates the flat landscape. The city, which is the second smallest in England, is about 14 miles north-northeast of Cambridge and about 80 miles by road from London. 17:55, 17 OCT 2022 Re: Hello from Winterthur Quote: Silvestre Thanks for the heads up, I turned up to the one last week, it was really good! Met interesting people and a bunch of us who live in the city centre were meant to meet on Wednesday but unfortunately didn't happen. I will also be turning up to the Feb one. Are you part of the Winti meetup? Quote: Just thought I would try my luck and see if there are more people here who aren't part of the meetup. The other good one, albeit a subs paying one, is the Zurich expats meetup. While expat social groups are not a bad outlet, especially when you arrive here first, I'd recommend looking into meetups that are not based on being an anglophone expat as you really want to avoid ending up in that bubble. Well, I turn up to them, if that's what you mean. Between those meetups and this forum, it pretty much covers my expat interaction quota.I don't think the Zurich expats meetup is a subs paying one, per say, just that they often have to pay for the venues, so they charge people a nominal amount to cover this. Also, I think some of the meetups there are run by third parties who do run their events for profit.While expat social groups are not a bad outlet, especially when you arrive here first, I'd recommend looking into meetups that are not based on being an anglophone expat as you really want to avoid ending up in that bubble. Re: Swiss to claim costs from asylum seekers Quote: kriss kross Greece, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Austria. Which of these lands is currently at war? If I was fleeing my home-country, leaving behind my friends, my childhood memories and possibly most of my belongings, you can bet I would try to make the best of it and ensure that my family and myself can have the best possible future. Begging in the streets Athens or rotting in Romania would be on my list of alternatives, even if the risk of getting shelled or shot on the street is inexistant to low. These people want to have a future and apart from Austria I don't see much future for anyone in the countries you list. Actually, in most of the countries you list the situation is such that the locals themselves emigrate to other European countries. Would YOU move there?If I was fleeing my home-country, leaving behind my friends, my childhood memories and possibly most of my belongings, you can bet I would try to make the best of it and ensure that my family and myself can have the best possible future. Begging in the streets Athens or rotting in Romania would be on my list of alternatives, even if the risk of getting shelled or shot on the street is inexistant to low.These people want to have a future and apart from Austria I don't see much future for anyone in the countries you list. Actually, in most of the countries you list the situation is such that the locals themselves emigrate to other European countries. Fox is fighting back against a lawsuit from one of the executive producers on Bones, hoping to settle their dispute outside of court. What Caused The Writers Of 'Bones' To Create Hodgins Story Arc? After Bones EP Barry Josephson filed suits against Fox for allegedly withholding contractually-obligated money, the network is hoping for a different manner of dealing with the conflict. Fox filed petitions in L.A. Superior Court, according to a new Deadline report, hoping to settle their money issues through arbitration rather that in a courtroom. "Having earned millions of dollars in compensation for providing his executive producer services on Defendants' television series Bones (the 'Series'), Barry Josephson brings a series of meritless claims in this Court in a naked attempt to attract headlines and extract millions more in undue compensation," the Fox petition stated. Brennan & Booth Will Feel Responsible For New Serial Killer's Murders On 'Bones'? The petition also claimed that there are provisions in Josephson's 2004 agreement and 2009 release which state arbitration as the agreed-upon method of conflict resolution in disputes such as this. It goes on to state that the Plaintiffs in this case "blatantly ignored key dispute resolution provisions of the very contracts at issue." Stars Emily Deschanel (who plays Brennan) and David Boreanaz (Booth) and Executive Producer Kathleen Reichs filed a similar lawsuit, and Fox has yet to fully respond to theirs, though we can probably expect another call for arbitration. All this comes amid uncertainty regarding when Bones will even return to Fox. The show was mysteriously left off the winter schedule, and to this day there has been no announced return date. However, Fox is presenting at the TCA press tour today so we may hear word from them. If you've never heard of the Zika Virus before, don't feel bad...most haven't. But today, when NBC news reported that American health officials were currently considering issuing a travel warning to U.S. citizens making their way to parts of South America and the Caribbean, you probably took notice (along with asking "What's the Zika virus?"). Here are five facts about the Zika Virus to help you better understand the recent news surrounding it: You Can Blame Mosquitoes For It The virus is spread by the Aedes genus of mosquitos, the kind which spread more serious illnesses like dengue virus, yellow fever and Chikungunya. These mosquitoes are usually restricted to more tropical or subtropical regions, but different species of the mosquito, including the Asian Tiger mosquito, can travel further north. People cannot spread the virus from one to another, but if a mosquito bites an infected person, it then infects other people it bites afterwards. Experts Used To Think It Was Harmless Because the disease consists of mild symptoms (including fever, rash and headaches which occur anywhere between three-twelve days after being bitten), experts used to believe it was harmless. This was also because one in four people did not always develop symptoms. It's Believed To Cause Birth Defects The reason the virus has become a bigger deal is because it is believed to be linked to a rise in birth defects, with possible evidence of a connection between the infection in pregnant women and miscarriage or birth defects in an infant's head. Children born to women who'd been infected during their first trimester could be at a greater risk of being born with a defect called microcephaly, where a baby is born with an abnormally small head and brain. It's Spreading FAST Before, Zika was usually only seen in Africa, the South Pacific and certain parts of Asia. It's only recently arrived in South America, specifically Brazil, where's its circulating in the country's poorer areas. As recently as November, there have been over 1,200 cases of microcephaly (the birth defect associated with the virus), including seven deaths reported in over a dozen states. There's No Current Way To Treat Or Prevent It The scariest part of this virus is that there's actually no current cure or vaccine. Since it's a viral infection and not a bacteria, across-the-board antibiotic treatment can't help. Also, because Zika was believed to be harmless for so long, there was never a market or need to research and develop an antiviral treatment specially for it. Same goes for the vaccine. Thankfully, the recent attention has put the gas on creating a vaccine, with some estimates saying we may get one as soon as summer 2017. The Paris Agreement has set targets for limiting temperature rise due to global warming which will be virtually impossible (1.5C) or very difficult (well below 2C) to realise. It ignores the fact that these targets require a strict limit on global cumulative emissions in the future. Allowing all countries, especially developed ones, to do what they feel able to, rather than what is necessary, sets the world on a dangerous and inequitable path to the future. The 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held at Paris between 30 November and 12 December 2015, culminated in a spirit of bonhomie and mutual congratulation that has rarely been witnessed at climate summits over the past several years. Subsequently, the Paris Agreement, the final outcome of the conference, has been hailed by world leaders, without exception, as a critical step forward taken by all nations in facing the challenge of global warming. This would certainly appear to be welcome news for a world made weary by constant reports of the lack of progress in an annual succession of climate summits. But the logical question that follows is how the seemingly insurmountable divisions that existed earlier were overcome and what has been done with respect to the main issue: the need to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases sufficiently rapidly to ensure that the physical security of human society itself is not threatened. Unfortunately, a closer examination of the outcomes of COP21 at Paris provides no reassurance that global climate negotiations have come any closer to grappling with the crux of the problem. On the other hand, the world appears to have been set on a course that brings the dangers of global warming closer than before, even while setting the stage for an even more acrimonious and contentious round of global climate negotiations. Perhaps the most dismaying feature of the Paris Agreement is that it has set a global target for climate action that is close to being virtually impossible to meet. Setting such targets carries with it the considerable danger of freezing the world into inaction as the realisation of the inevitability of missing the target sets in. However, if the climate goal that has been set is to be achieved, then it will be at the cost of the bulk of the nations and populations of the Third World, whose future economic options, particularly in terms of energy, will be sharply curtailed for the medium- and long-term future. We need better implementation, not more stringent laws. Barbaric punishment for barbaric crimes: we hear this demand repeated each time there is a horrific crime. It was heard again in the case filed by the Supreme Court Women Lawyers Association in the Supreme Court, asking for a tougher law to deal specifically with sexual assaults on children between the ages of two and 10. One of the demands was for chemical castration of convicted rapists. The petitioners argued that even if this is considered barbaric, it is justified. While the associations plea before the Court reflects the horror felt in society as sexual assaults on little children continue to be reported every day, the response of the Court, the lawyers who have filed the plea and the media remains trapped within the fallacious belief that stringent punishment lowers the crime rate. To deal with sexual assault on a child, defined as a person below 18 years of age, there are provisions in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and, specifically, in the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) 2012. This law, enacted in response to India signing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, lays out detailed provisions on penetrative sexual assault and aggravated penetrative assault, including assaults on children under 12 years of age. It also has provisions dealing with sexual harassment, trafficking, child pornography, etc, and the punishment under each head. For penetrative sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault, the punishment is a minimum of 10 years of rigorous imprisonment extending to life and a fine. As exports collapse, the government has shown little initiative to reverse the trend. Indias exports are currently going through an unprecedented decline which should be a cause for serious concern for policymakers. During the first 11 months of 2015, exports were lower in every single month as compared to the corresponding months of 2014. The figures for November 2015 should be particularly disconcerting for they show exports declined to just about $19 billion, a level that has not been seen since November 2010. Exports have fallen precipitously by more than 27% in November 2015 when compared to November 2014. Thus, in the first eight months of the current fiscal, exports have been lower than during the same period in 201415 by over 18%. Indias exports to every major region of the world declined during AprilNovember 2015 year-on-year. Exports to Africa have been hit the most, the fall being by over a quarter. India has been making consistent efforts to diversify its export markets by reaching out to Africa, including through institutions like the IndiaAfrica Forum Summit. These export numbers should, therefore, be quite disappointing. But it is the decline in exports to its largest markets in Asia by more than 20% that has had the largest impact. Exports to ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) slumped by over 25% during AprilNovember 2015 year-on-year, while exports to the three North Asian countries, namely, China, Japan and South Korea, contracted by more than 20%, essentially due to a steep fall in exports to China (22%). The fall in exports to China implies that Indias trade imbalance with its largest trade partner, which was more than four times its exports in 201415, could increase even further since imports from China have increased marginally in the current fiscal. The court needs to protect the right to protest against the arrest of activists such as G N Saibaba, without labelling them anti-nationals. What constitutes anti-national activities has always been contested by intellectuals but accusing them of punishable offence is an attempt to silence the debate. The Jamia Teachers Solidarity Association brought out a report titled Framed, Damned and Acquitted in 2015. It compiled 16 high profile cases of acquittal, in which the Supreme Court reprimanded the police for systematic and rampant fabrication of evidence. Needless to say in all these cases, the accused persons languish in prisons for many years. The report rightly pointed out that cases are presented in courts not backed by evidence but mostly by the belief that the court will be seduced by the hysteria of national security. Is the fate of G N Saibaba, whose bail was rejected by the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court on 23 December 2015, going to be any different? The verdicts that acquit the accused after long incarcerations often point out the inefficiency of prosecutions. But inefficiency of the police is an understatement. This purges the judiciary of its complicity in incarcerating innocents for an indefinite period. In fact, a lot of planning seems to be behind the concoction of evidences, especially against those accused of crimes against national security. In none of these cases any representative of state is ever made accountable. Judiciary is more often not willing to accept the version of prosecution in these cases. The 16 cases of acquittal are not rare cases in which evidences are concocted efficiently. The process of prosecution itself is designed as persecution by the state. It requires enormous ideological affinity with the dominant political thought of our times not to recognise these trends. This is the context in which the case of G N Saibaba, a professor at Delhi University and human rights activist, has to be seen. The court describes the material against Saibaba as collected. The defense has been contesting this claim and pointing out the high handedness of the police in his arrest and confiscation of evidence. The authenticity of material gathered is being questioned. The computers of Saibaba were confiscated without conducting a panchanama, and things were taken away from him without a list or receipt. The court should have appreciated the legal issues raised. But it maintained total silence about the process of collecting the evidence. The bench openly defended all organs of the state. But they have to earn their own share of credibility and it is hardly the business of independent judiciary to bat on their behalf. The primary accusation against Saibaba is that he used his intellectual ability for anti-national activities. The fact is that the sense of personal security in general, and national security in particular, are deeply shrouded in competitive politics in all societies. What constitutes anti-national activities has always been contested by intellectuals but accusing them of punishable crime is an attempt to silence the debate. The court thinks that creating public opinion and defending the rights of the accused deserves contempt of court charge. It felt offended and construed questioning the justness of order that rejected the bail since it was perceived to have questioned the sanctity of judiciary. In the same breadth it displayed its contempt for human rights sarcastically describing the petitioner before Bombay High Court, Purnima Upadyaya and author Arundhati Roy as so called human rights champions. It may have forgotten the role of public intellectuals in the field of judicial activism. In fact, judiciary has never been immune to public opinion. A healthy public debate always forces public institutions to take a hard look at the alternative facts and ways of interpretations. The landmark judgments by the Indian judiciary in public interest litigations are inspired by the reports of social activists. The experience of the womens movement too is that as long as there was vibrant public debate on the layers of gendered violence that women are subjected to, even the most toothless laws were applied by the judiciary to defend their rights. But in the absence of such intellectually vibrant debates, even the most powerful laws could not come to their rescue as the judiciary in general is inclined to drown itself in technicalities. Of course when it comes to the issues of national security, our sense of loyalty overrides our faculties. Judiciary, too, is susceptible to this process. The sanctity of judicial orders should flow from the philosophy of justice they are girded in and cannot be protected with contempt orders. As per this verdict, protesting against the arrest of Maoist leaders and demanding their immediate release is equal to sharing the ideology of the banned organisation. Those who believe in the constitution and perceive the arrest of Maoist leaders as unjust also openly demand their release. Does that make them Maoists? The court accuses the author of scandalising and questioning the credibility of the higher judiciary. At least half a dozen retired chief justices of Supreme Court can also be charged with the same accusation as they spoke about the levels of corruption in judiciary, unfortunately only at the time of their retirements. The court feels that instead of challenging the order before the larger bench, the author wrongly chose to write. But the authors are different kind of advocates. They do not challenge the powerful in judiciary. They tease the executive in the court of ethics. That is not interfering in dispensing justice but challenging injustice. The ideas of authors cannot be regimented. The freedom of expression is meaningless if alternative narratives of truth are throttled. They do not need to be eyewitnesses to express moral anger against the perceived injustice. And in any case being judgmental is not just the monopoly of the judiciary. While anybody could be players of truth, the writers as the teasers of the truth do irritate those who exercise power. British writer of Indian origin, Hanif Kureishi aptly described the writers as wreckers of fatuous utopias, who unmask the reality and leave the bleached bones. They leave societys sense of immaturity bruised. At this juncture we have to ask whether rational thinking is the monopoly of the powerful and whether citizens should surrender their capacity to think what is just and unjust to manipulators of facts. Such dangers are not unfounded and therefore the independence of civil society and media needs to be fiercely defended. Where life and liberty of citizens are valued more than the sanctity of social institutions, the judiciary too is expected to be independent of the ideology of the powerful ruling class. Industry bodies and the mainstream media were quick to claim that the country suffered a loss of Rs 25000 crore in the 2 September all India labour union strike. Parroting these figures and ot contextualising the strike in the larger debate of erosion of labour laws and rights make both these bodies look like knowledge architects without public accountability. The 2 September strike called by almost all the major central trade unions garnered the usual, frenzied media attention. It was touted as one of the biggest ever in the country (The Hindu Business Line 2015). The strike protested against the changes in labour policies being ushered in by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.[i] All leading newspapers, websites and news blogs covered the strike, some even provided their readers with sort of an all you need to know about the bandh cheat sheet, a day before. While the strike raised several issues, the headlines that dominated the reporting on the day after the bandh were around the loss of Rs 25,000 crore to the nations economy. Assochams Numbers This widely quoted number was attributed to the industry association, Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham). By midday on 2 September itself, Economic Times published an article reading, Strike Call: Estimated Loss to Economy Pegged at Rs 25,000 Crore, says Assocham. Almost the entire mainstream media repeated this estimate of the loss as the most salient feature of the strike. However, other than a quote by D S Rawat, secretary general of Assocham, stating that the, financial impact of the disruption of essential services might lead to an estimated loss of over Rs 25,000 crore to the economy thereby taking into account the numerous direct and indirect losses (Ghoshal 2015) there was no public mention of how the association had estimated the numerous direct and indirect losses that had come to dominate the narrative about the strike in the mainstream media. This was not the first time that Assocham had estimated such a loss. For a trade union strike on February 2013, Assocham had estimated a loss of Rs 26,000 crores to the countrys Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This was also was reported by the media with headlines such as, Bharat Bandh: Assocham Raises GDP Loss Estimate to Rs 26,000 Crore (NDTV 2013). Despite the economic growth witnessed during the interim period, the difference in the durations of the strike, the similarity between the losses estimated because of the strikes that took place more than two years ago is intriguing. However, our purpose here is not to engage with the magnitude of the estimated loss or comment on its accuracy. Our concern is with the manner in which such a number is generated; the legitimacy it is granted and the lack of accountability of institutions engaged in the production of narratives that influence how the larger public perceives civic action. Since none of the public reports provided any details on how the loss associated with the strike was estimated, we tried contacting Assocham for an explanation. After several emails and calls to their Ahmedabad and Delhi offices, the only response we received over a telephonic conversation was that these estimations were a result of an informal, internal exercise conducted to estimate the losses that could have been incurred by the particular industry affected (which in the case of the 2 September strike was banking services) on the day of the strike. They offered to send this data in a more formal, detailed manner, via an email. But even after sending several reminders, we had not received any information. Assocham states that it is the fountainhead of knowledge for Indian industry (The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India) choosing to call themselves the knowledge chamber. However, the callousness that characterises their response to requests of an explanation for a number they put out with considerable authority makes them appear as knowledge architects without the requisite public accountability. The putting out of a number to characterise large public action is nothing but a political activity. In summarising a complex and contested activity, a number suggests objective, scientific thinking that seeks to monopolise the truth and everything that purportedly needs to be said about a subject. Media Allegiance Kohli (2012) argues that, over the last three decades the Indian state and business have increasingly converged on such crucial issues as the approach to labour; the pace and pattern of external opening of the economy; and, most importantly, on how to enable Indian business to improve productivity and production. An issue on which there appears to be clear convergence is the view that organised workers are obstructionist and one should delegitmise any means of protest available to them. In this role they seem to have found a close ally in mainstream media that decides not to question the knowledge produced by a clearly interested party or put out a counterpoint. Describing the media coverage of February 2013 strike, Krishnan (2013) wrote, The dominant media narrative about the two-day all-India Strike called by trade unions was one of hooliganism by workers and inconvenience caused to the public. As is usual, the main demands of the striking workers found little space in the medias discussion of the strike. The particular strike had turned violent in some parts of the country, mainly in the National Capital Region (NCR); this was obviously widely reported by the media. What the media chose to ignore is that working class anger is based on real issues like denial of rights to unionise and organise as well as blatant violation of labour laws. Shifting Politics Discussing the political-corporate-media relationship and the manipulation of media in shaping public thought, Kohli emphasises the growing corporate control of media as an example of the diffuse power of business. He further warns that while much of what the Indian media target are consumer tastes, political values are hardly far behind. By influencing what issues get covered and how they get covered, as well as via editorials, the privately controlled media in India today attempts to shift the political preferences of Indian society in a pro-business direction. (Kohli 2012). The media coverage of the recent strike is clearly reflective of this direction. Almost all the leading dailies and news sources quoted Assocham on the loss the country was seen to have suffered without any efforts to question the methodology of the estimation or provide independent estimates of their own. In unquestioningly reporting Assochams estimate, the mainstream media not only fails its readership by providing a biased, if not misleading, perspective, it also reinforces prejudices against worker rights. By not contextualising the strike in the context of increasing threats to worker safety (SafeInIndia - Agrasar Research, 2015), their own reports of failures of translating increases in productivity to higher wages and consequent stagnating worker wages (Singh 2015), mainstream media shows the paradox in which it finds itself. Even as it reports on the need and urgency for paying attention to worker rights, it is unable to get itself to challenge the structures that sustain it. Note [1] The trade unions that participated in the nationwide strike included the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), affiliated to Indian National Congress, All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) and Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), affiliated to the Communist Party of India (CPI) and CPI Marxist, respectively, independent Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS) and Self-Employed Womens Association (SEWA), All India United trade Union Centre (AIUTUC) which is affiliated to the Socialist Unity Centre of India, Trade Union Coordination Committee (TUCC) supported by the All India Forward Bloc, All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU), United Trade Union Congress (UTUC) and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) affiliated Labour Progressive Federation (LPF). Bharatiya Janata Party affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) and independent National Front of Trade Unions (NFITU) boycotted the strike (Nanda 2015) (Ahn 2010). References [All URLs accessed on 12 January 2016] Ahn, Pong-Sul (2010): The Growth and Decline of Political Unionism in India: The Need for a Paradigm Shift, Bangkok: International Labour Organisation, http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---asia/---ro-bangkok/---sro-bangkok/documents/publication/wcms_143481.pdf. Economic and Political Weekly (2009): The State of Our Unions, Vol 44, No 3, http://www.epw.in/journal/2009/39/editorials/state-our-unions.html. Economic and Political Weekly (2010): Understanding the Bandh, Vol 45, No 29, http://www.epw.in/journal/2010/29/editorials/understanding-bandh.html. Ghoshal, Sutanuka (2015): Strike Call: Estimated Loss to Economy Pegged at Rs 25,000 Crore, says Assocham, Economic Times, 2 September, http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2015-09-02/news/66143958_1_central-trade-unions-mr-d-s-rawat-labour-reforms. Hindu Business Line Bureau (2015): Strike Near Total, Say Trade Unions, Hindu, 2 September, http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/trade-unions-strike-a-success/article7607675.ece. Kohli, Atul (2012): Poverty Amid Plenty in the New India, New Delhi: Cambridge University Press. Krishnan, Kavita (2013): All Out Crackdown on the Working Class in Noida, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol 48, No 9, http://www.epw.in/journal/2013/09/web-exclusives/all-out-crackdown-working-class-noida.html. Nanda, P K (2015): The Impact of the Trade Union Strike, Livemint, 2 September, http://www.livemint.com/Politics/RfQmVt1zi4ccYpOEDZq19H/The-impact-of-the-trade-union-strike.html. NDTV (2013): Bharat bandh: Assocham Raises GDP Loss Estimate to Rs 26,000 crore, 21 Februrary, http://profit.ndtv.com/news/cheat-sheet/article-bharat-bandh-assocham-raises-gdp-loss-estimate-to-rs-26-000-crore-318229. Press Trust of India (2015): Bharat Bandh Cost Rs 25,000 Crore to Economy: Chambers, Indian Express, 2 September, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/one-day-strike-cost-rs-25000-crore-to-economy-chambers/. SafeInIndia - Agrasar Research (2015): What Can Safeguard WorkersAccidents in the Automobile Industry in Gurgaon: Case Studies and Stakeholder Response, http://nebula.wsimg.com/3007bdc8b88eb5461fc18c4fb1101528?AccessKeyId=8F419A6E8A1135250670&disposition=0&alloworigin=1. Singh, P (2015): Higher Productivity Equals Higher Wages? Not for the Indian Industrial Worker, Livemint, 21 January, http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/Vxmd5HHO8qeLuqYUiobbpM/Higher-productivity-equals-higher-wages-Not-for-the-Indian.html. The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (nd): Assocham India Mission, http://assocham.org/defaultpage.php?pageId=9. ATLANTA-January 14, 2016--A new report describes cancer among Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (AANHPIs), and reports striking variation in the cancer burden within this population, reflecting vast differences in exposure to cancer risk factors. Lung cancer rates in Samoan men (98.9 per 100,000) are about 30% higher than those in Hawaiian (72.1), non-Hispanic white (NHW) (71.2), and Laotian (65.2) men and almost 80% higher than in Asian Indian/Pakistani men (21.1) because of differences in smoking. For liver cancer, another highly fatal cancer, rates in Laotian (66.1 per 100,000) and Vietnamese (51.9) men are 2 to 4 times higher than those in Chinese (21.7), Koreans (26), and Filipinos (16.7) and almost 10 times higher than Asian Indians and Pakistanis (6.5), who have the lowest rates. The report, appearing in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians and as the Special Section in Cancer Facts & Figures 2016, estimates there will be 57,740 new cancer cases and 16,910 cancer deaths among AANHPIs in 2016. The three leading causes of cancer death among AANHPI males combined are lung (27%), liver (14%), and colon/rectum (11%). Among women, they are lung (21%), breast (14%), and colon/rectum (11%). The term Asian refers to a person with origins in the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent. This group includes, but is not limited to, Asian Indians, Cambodians, Chinese, Filipinos, Hmong, Japanese, Koreans, Pakistanis, and Vietnamese. Asian Americans represented 6.3% of the total US population in 2014 and are the fastest growing racial/ethnic group in the United States. In contrast to Hispanics, the rapid growth in the Asian American population is driven by immigration as opposed to native births. The term "Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander" (NHPI) refers to people with origins in Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands. The NHPI population is also one of the fastest-growing populations in the United States. Cancer rates in this group are generally higher than those in Asian Americans. AANHPIs are composed of diverse populations with different origins, histories, and cultures. While Asian and NHPI origins have been recognized as distinct racial groups in the U.S. Census since 2000, demographic and health data for these two groups are usually combined because of small numbers or for continuity with historical statistics. This aggregate reporting of AANHPI cancer data masks important differences between the heterogeneous AANHPI populations. The largest Asian American subpopulation in the United States is Chinese (23%), followed by Filipino (20%), Asian Indian (18%), Vietnamese (10%), and Korean (10%). The largest NHPI subpopulation is Native Hawaiian (43%), followed by Samoan (15%), Guamanian or Chamorro (12%), and Tongan (5%). Ten US states are home to 73% of the AANHPI population; California has the largest proportion with 32% followed by New York (9%), Texas (7%), Hawaii (5%), and New Jersey (5%). The new report relies on data from the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries, and the National Center for Health Statistics. Key findings from the report include: Among males, overall incidence rates (per 100,000 during 2006 to 2010) range from 216.8 among Asian Indians/Pakistanis to 526.5 among Samoans, whose rates are similar to rates in NHWs (554.1). Among females, rates range from 212.0 among Asian Indians/Pakistanis to 442.8 among Samoans, also similar to rates in NHWs (444.6). For both males and females, the highest rates after Samoans were among Native Hawaiians and Japanese. Age-standardized breast cancer incidence rates in AANHPIs range from 35.0 per 100,000 in Cambodian women to 135.9 in Hawaiian women, likely reflecting differences in reproductive patterns, as well as mammography utilization. Lung cancer rates among Chinese women (in both Asia and the U.S.) are relatively high given the low prevalence of smoking in this group. Reasons are unknown but may include exposure to cooking oils at high heat, secondhand smoke, genetic susceptibility, or other unknown risk factors AANHPIs are less likely than NHWs to be diagnosed with cancer at a localized stage. The largest absolute differences are for cancers of the thyroid (9%), cervix (8%) prostate (5%), and lung (3%). The disparities for cervical and thyroid cancers may be attributable to less access to health care among AANHPIs, including screening and diagnostic services. Cancer death rates, which are not available by subgroup, have been decreasing since 1992 in AANHPIs as a whole, mirroring trends in NHWs. Breast cancer mortality rates decreased by 16% among AANHPI women combined from 1990 to 2012. These reductions have been attributed to improvements in both treatment and early detection. Liver cancer death rates declined among AANHPI males from 2003 to 2012 and were stable among AANHPI females, in contrast to dramatic increases in non-Hispanic whites. Utilization of the Pap test within the past 3 years is highest among Filipino women (83%, the same rate as in NHWs), and lowest among Chinese women (66%). Cervical cancer incidence rates among Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Laotian women decreased dramatically from 1990 to 2008, a change that has been attributed to increases in screening and treatment of precancerous lesions in these groups. The proportion of women 45 years of age or older who report having a mammogram within the past 2 years is similar among the Asian groups for whom data are available, ranging from 68% in Filipino women - comparable to NHWs (69%) - to 64% in Asian Indians. Colorectal cancer screening in the largest Asian groups is slightly lower than that in NHWs (61%) - 54% in Asian Indians and Chinese and 59% in Filipinos - although it is substantially lower in all other Asian groups combined (46%), which includes Koreans, Japanese, and Vietnamese. "The variations we see in cancer rates in AANHPIs are related to risk factors, including lifestyle factors, use of screening and preventive services, and exposure to cancer-causing infections," said Lindsey Torre, co-author of the report. "Cancer-control strategies among this population include improved use of vaccination and screening; interventions to increase physical activity and reduce excess body weight, tobacco use, and alcohol consumption; and research to get a more detailed understanding of differences in the cancer burden and risk factors between subgroups." ### Article: Cancer Statistics for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanderss, 2016: Converging Incidence in Males and Females CA Cancer J Clin 2016 doi: 10.3322/caac.21335 Cold Spring Harbor, NY--Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) today announced that authors of manuscripts posted on its preprint server bioRxiv can now submit their papers directly to several leading research journals, avoiding the need for reloading files and re-entering information at the journal's website. The first journals to participate in this initiative are Biophysical Journal, eLife, The EMBO Journal, EMBO Molecular Medicine, EMBO Reports, G3:Genes/Genomes/Genetics, Genetics, Genome Research, and Molecular Systems Biology. Direct submission to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America will also soon be available. Dr. John Inglis, Executive Director and Publisher of CSHL Press and co-founder of bioRxiv with Dr. Richard Sever, says: "We look forward to extending bioRxiv's relationships with additional journals in ways that increase the value of the server to the scientific community." Since its launch in November 2013, bioRxiv has received nearly 3000 manuscripts, covering the full spectrum of biomedical science. The manuscript submission rate doubled between May and December 2015. Posting to the service and reading its contents costs nothing. Manuscripts are not peer-reviewed before posting, but their authors often receive community feedback, through onsite commenting, social media, or direct email, and 30% of authors post revised versions of their papers. Most manuscripts submitted to bioRxiv are eventually published in peer-reviewed journals. "We established bioRxiv to help scientists distribute and share their work more rapidly and widely," says Inglis, "and we are delighted that so many of them find the service valuable, as both authors and readers. But peer-reviewed journals remain important arbiters of reliability and significance in the publication of research results, and the willingness of journals to consider and publish manuscripts previously distributed in preprint form is essential in this evolution of life science communication. By encouraging the seamless transition of a preprint to a submitted manuscript, the editors and publishers of these first 10 collaborating journals are providing authors with a valuable service." Dr. Bernd Pulverer, Head of Scientific Publication at EMBO, says: "Our four journals have always encouraged preprint posting and direct submission from bioRxiv will reduce the burden of journal submission. Our journals have dropped format restrictions and reduced information requirements to further ease the first submission process." Dr. Les Loew, Editor-in-Chief of Biophysical Journal (BJ), comments: "BJ has welcomed manuscripts posted on bioRxiv and we are now delighted to offer this optional direct conduit. The 'marriage' will continue to assure rigor in peer review, while emphasizing BJ's commitment to the rapid open dissemination of scientific research." ### About Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Celebrating its 125th anniversary in 2015, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has shaped contemporary biomedical research and education with programs in cancer, neuroscience, plant biology and quantitative biology. Home to eight Nobel Prize winners, the private, not-for-profit Laboratory employs 1,100 people including 600 scientists, students and technicians. The Meetings & Courses Program hosts more than 12,000 scientists from around the world each year on its campuses in Long Island and in Suzhou, China. The Laboratory's education arm also includes an academic publishing house, a graduate school and programs for middle and high school students and teachers. For more information, visit http://www.cshl.edu The most luminous galaxy known in the Universe - the quasar W2246-0526, seen when the Universe was less than 10% of its current age - is so turbulent that it is in the process of ejecting its entire supply of star-forming gas, according to new observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Quasars are distant galaxies with very active supermassive black holes at their centres that spew out powerful jets of particles and radiation. Most quasars shine brightly, but a tiny fraction [1] of these energetic objects are of an unusual type known as Hot DOGs, or Hot, Dust-Obscured Galaxies, including the galaxy WISE J224607.57-052635.0 [2], the most luminous known galaxy in the Universe . For the first time, a team of researchers led by Tanio Diaz-Santos of the Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago, Chile, has used the unique capabilities of ALMA [3] to peer inside W2246-0526 and trace the motion of ionised carbon atoms between the galaxy's stars. "Large amounts of this interstellar material were found in an extremely turbulent and dynamic state, careening throughout the galaxy at around two million kilometres per hour," explains lead author Tanio Diaz-Santos. The astronomers believe that this turbulent behaviour could be linked to the galaxy's extreme luminosity. W2246-0526 blasts out as much light as roughly 350 trillion Suns. This startling brightness is powered by a disc of gas that is superheated as it spirals in on the supermassive black hole at the galaxy's core. The light from the blazingly bright accretion disc in the centre of this Hot DOG does not escape directly, it is absorbed by a surrounding thick blanket of dust, which re-emits the energy as infrared light [4]. This powerful infrared radiation has a direct and violent impact on the entire galaxy. The region around the black hole is at least 100 times more luminous than the rest of the galaxy combined, thus releasing intense yet localised radiation in W2246-0526 that is exerting tremendous pressure on the entire galaxy [5]. "We suspected that this galaxy was in a transformative stage of its life because of the enormous amount of infrared energy," said co-author Peter Eisenhardt, Project Scientist for WISE at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "ALMA has now shown us that the raging furnace in this galaxy is making the pot boil over," adds Roberto Assef, also from Universidad Diego Portales and leader of the ALMA observations. If these turbulent conditions continue, the intense infrared radiation would boil away all of the galaxy's interstellar gas. Models of galaxy evolution based on the new ALMA data indicate that the interstellar gas is already being ejected from the galaxy in all directions. "If this pattern continues, it is possible that W2246 will eventually mature into a more traditional quasar," concludes Manuel Aravena, also from the Universidad Diego Portales. "Only ALMA, with its unparalleled resolution, can allow us to see this object in high definition and fathom such an important episode in the life of this galaxy." ### Notes [1] Only one of every 3000 quasars observed are classified as Hot DOGs. [2] The full name of this remarkable object is WISE J224607.57-052635.0, it was found by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft and the rest of the name gives the precise location of the quasar on the sky. [3] ALMA is uniquely capable of detecting the faint, millimetre-wavelength light naturally emitted by atomic carbon. [4] Because of the expansion of the Universe the infrared radiation from W2246-0526 is redshifted to longer millimetre wavelengths - where ALMA is very sensitive - when it is observed from Earth. [5] In most other quasars this ratio is much more modest. This process of mutual interaction between the central black hole of a galaxy and the rest of its material is known to astronomers as feedback. More information This research was presented in a paper "The Strikingly Uniform, Highly Turbulent Interstellar Medium of The Most Luminous Galaxy in the Universe", by T. Diaz-Santos et al., and will be published in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters. The team is composed of T. Diaz-Santos (Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile), R. J. Assef (Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile), A. W. Blain (University of Leicester, UK) , C.-W. Tsai (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA) , M. Aravena (Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile), P. Eisenhardt (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA), J. Wu (University of California Los Angeles, California, USA), D. Stern (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA) and C. Bridge (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA). ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported by 16 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world's most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the world's largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is a major partner in ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre European Extremely Large Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become "the world's biggest eye on the sky". Links Research paper - http://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso1602/eso1602a.pdf Photos of ALMA - http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/search/?adv=&subject_name=Atacama%20Large%20Millimeter/submillimeter%20Array Contacts Tanio Diaz-Santos Universidad Diego Portales Santiago, Chile Email: tanio.diaz@mail.udp.cl Richard Hook ESO Public Information Officer Garching bei Munchen, Germany Tel: +49 89 3200 6655 Cell: +49 151 1537 3591 Email: rhook@eso.org Minneapolis, MN - January 14, 2016 - The carotid arteries supply oxygenated blood to the brain. Every year, more than 300,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with blockages, or plaques, in their carotid artery. When these arteries become blocked due to plaque build-up, an individual is at high risk for a stroke if the plaque ruptures and flows to the brain. Many individuals can manage carotid artery disease with medications and lifestyle changes. However, many may require carotid artery revascularization surgery to repair the blockage in the artery. Carotid endarterectomy has been the gold standard of treatment with carotid stenting reserved for those who are high risk for open surgery. While largely effective in some patients, carotid stenting from the transfemoral route has been found to carry a higher risk of stroke, with a significant amount of this risk felt to be related to the approach. The FDA recently approved a new Transcarotid Artery Revascularization (TCAR) procedure that utilizes the ENROUTE Transcarotid Neuroprotection and Stent System from Silk Road Medical. The TCAR procedure offers patients a potentially safer method of carotid stenting through a small cut down at the base of the neck and direct carotid artery access along with neuro-protective flow reversal during delivery of the stent. The Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation (MHIF) was selected as the only center in the four state area to participate in the ROADSTER 2 Study. Jessica Titus, MD, and Timothy Sullivan, MD, vascular surgeons at the Minneapolis Heart Institute at Abbott Northwestern Hospital, will serve as Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator, respectively, for the trial. "We are excited to be able to bring this carotid artery revascularization option to our patients. It combines the advantages of a minimally invasive approach for high risk patients with a lower stroke risk than the standard method for carotid stent placement." said Dr. Titus. The ENROUTE Transcarotid Neuroprotection System utilizes robust flow reversal during transcarotid stent placement to remove micro and macro emboli throughout the intervention. Erica Rogers, CEO of Silk Road Medical notes, "We selected the staff and researchers at MHIF as a key trial partner because they have the vascular surgery and research expertise we need to participate in this important study and provide this less invasive and more efficient TCAR procedure for their patients presenting with carotid artery disease." The first registry trial participant at MHIF is scheduled for first quarter 2016. In total, the ROADSTER2 study will assess the real world treatment of individuals at risk for stroke due to carotid artery disease with the ENROUTE Transcarotid Neuroprotection (NPS) and Stent System with a minimum of 600 participants around the country. ### About the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation The Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation (MHIF) strives to create a world without heart and vascular disease. To achieve this bold vision, it is dedicated to improving the cardiovascular health of individuals and communities through innovative research and education. Scientific Innovation and Research -- MHIF is a recognized research leader in the broadest range of cardiovascular medicine and population health initiatives. Each year MHIF leads more than 175 active research projects and publishes more than 120 peer-reviewed studies. Cardiologists, hospitals and communities around the world adopt MHIF protocols to save lives, improve care and create healthier living opportunities. Education and Outreach -- MHIF provides more than 10,000 hours of education each year putting its research into practice to improve outcomes. And, MHIF leads cutting-edge, transformative population health research to connect, engage, inform and empower individuals and communities to improve their health. The Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation's work is funded by generous donors and sponsors and supports research initiatives of Minneapolis Heart Institute at Abbott Northwestern Hospital. Minneapolis Heart Institute physicians provide care for patients at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis and at 38 community sites across Minnesota and western Wisconsin. About TCAR with the ENROUTE Transcarotid Neuroprotection and Stent System The ENROUTE Transcarotid Stent is indicated for use in High Surgical Risk patients and is intended to be used in conjunction with the ENROUTE Transcarotid Neuroprotection System (NPS) during the TCAR procedure. The ENROUTE Transcarotid NPS is a first in class device used to directly access the common carotid artery and initiate high rate temporary blood flow reversal to protect the brain from stroke while delivering and implanting the ENROUTE Transcarotid Stent. ENROUTE is a registered trademark of Silk Road Medical, Inc. About Silk Road Medical Silk Road Medical, Inc. is a private company located in Sunnyvale, CA, that develops and manufactures less-invasive medical devices intended to improve the treatment of carotid artery disease through proprietary transcarotid therapies. Detailed information can be found at http://www.silkroadmed.com. When discussing the Navy's top science and technology (S&T) priorities with military, government and industry leaders, Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Mat Winter reflected on his college days at the University of Notre Dame. "When I graduated from Notre Dame 30 years ago, many of the things that the Navy had in the 'petri dish' back then, so to speak, are being used today throughout the fleet," said Winter. "The big questions we ask daily at the Office of Naval Research [ONR] are 'What's in the petri dish now?' and 'How can we be better about developing tomorrow's technology for our Sailors and Marines?' " On Jan. 13, Winter gave the keynote address at the Surface Navy Association's 28th Annual National Symposium, held in Crystal City, Virginia. The symposium featured defense companies, suppliers and military commands exhibiting surface warfare technology and future research and development initiatives. The theme of this year's symposium was "Surface Warfare Strategy: A View Beyond the Horizon." Keeping with that theme, Winter outlined ONR's mission, organizational structure and goals-and its investment portfolio, which ranges from quick-reaction projects that take as little as a year to implement within the fleet, to long-term research that could pay off big in 20 years. "As the chief of naval research, I'm the chief mad scientist of the Navy," said Winter. "At ONR, we discover new and exciting knowledge every day. What keeps me up at night is how to get technology to the warfighter-and how to make the business and execution of science more effective and efficient." Winter highlighted several ONR-sponsored technologies that are navigating the transition pipeline successfully, including: -Ground-Based Air Defense Directed Energy On-the-Move program, commonly referred to as GBAD: GBAD is a laser weapon system powerful enough to shoot down enemy unmanned aerial vehicles and small enough to fit in the back of a Humvee or Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. -LaWS: A shipboard laser weapon system currently aboard USS Ponce (AFSB[I] 15). -Electromagnetic Railgun: This weapon generates high-powered electrical currents to launch projectiles at distances over 100 nautical miles-at speeds that exceed Mach 6, or six times the speed of sound. "We've also been able to develop and get out various quick-reaction technologies our Sailors can use right away on ships," said Winter. "These include systems that fight corrosion as well as autonomous, robotic tools for cleaning and repairing pipes. They're not sexy technologies, but they help our Sailors perform their missions better and provide the Navy with significant savings." Winter also discussed ONR's investment priorities for development of future technology. Among these were directed-energy and electric weaponry; cyber dominance; electronic warfare; unmanned autonomous vehicles that can "swarm" adversaries; and synthetic biology, which creates new organisms with specific functions, such as threat monitoring. Winter closed his remarks by inviting symposium attendees to check out ONR's website to learn about partnership opportunities. "Within the S&T community, the triad composed of government, industry and academia is vital to success," he said. "With your help, we can develop and mature tomorrow's technology." ### The Surface Navy Association was incorporated in 1985 to promote greater coordination and communication among those in the military, business and academic communities who share a common interest in naval surface warfare and to support the activities of Surface Naval Forces. Rice University organic chemist K.C. Nicolaou has won the Wolf Prize in Chemistry, a prestigious international award that is often a harbinger of future recognition by the Nobel Committee. Nicolaou, Rice's Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Chair of Chemistry, and Harvard chemist Stuart Schreiber were announced this week by the Wolf Foundation in Israel as co-winners of the 2016 Wolf Prize in Chemistry. Eleven of the 46 previous winners of the prize have gone on to win Nobel Prizes in chemistry. "I feel humbled and deeply honored and short for words to express my gratitude and thanks to my family, my students and my colleagues and friends at Rice for their support," Nicolaou said. Nicolaou, Schreiber and five scientists and researchers who won 2016 Wolf Prizes in other fields will share a $500,000 prize. The 2016 Wolf Prizes will be presented by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin in June at an official ceremony at the Knesset in Jerusalem. In announcing the prizes this week, the foundation recognized Nicolaou "for advancing the field of chemical synthesis to the extremes of molecular complexity, linking structure and function and expanding our dominion over the interface of chemistry, biology and medicine." Past winners of the Wolf Prize in Chemistry include Nicolaou's postdoctoral mentor, E.J. Corey, who went on to Nobel recognition. Nicolaou joined Rice's faculty in 2013. His specialty is total synthesis, an area of organic chemistry dedicated to the complete synthesis of nature's most complex molecules. Nicolaou has authored or co-authored five books and more than 770 peer-reviewed publications and holds 68 patents. His research has been cited more than 55,000 times. He is best known for publishing the first complete synthetic pathway to the natural substance taxol. Marketed as the chemotherapeutic drug paclitaxel, taxol is used to treat ovarian, breast, lung, pancreatic and other cancers and is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. Since joining Rice's faculty at the BioScience Research Collaborative, Nicolaou and colleagues have achieved total syntheses of two complex antibiotics, viridicatumtoxin B and CJ-16,264, and several potential cancer-fighting agents, including shishijimicin A and trioxacarcins A, B and C. He has also developed a practical method for the synthesis of chemical building blocks that are widely used in drug discovery research and in the manufacture of drugs and dyes. Nicolaou's many honors include the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry, the Arthur C. Cope Award and the Linus Pauling Medal. He is a fellow or foreign member of more than 20 academic academies and societies, including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and the Royal Society of London, and was awarded an Einstein Professorship by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. ### Related Rice News press releases: Rice trio named National Academy of Inventors fellows -- Dec. 15, 2015 Rice method opens pathway to new drugs and dyes -- Sept. 1, 2015 Rice lab synthesizes cancer-killing compound -- July 13, 2015 Synthesis produces new antibiotic -- Aug. 28, 2014 Rice chemist wins 'Nobel Prize of Cyprus' -- Aug. 20, 2014 Nicolaou sets sights on cancer-related drug discovery -- Jan. 13, 2014 Nicolaou to join Rice U. faculty -- Sept. 20, 2012 This release can be found online at news.rice.edu. Follow Rice News and Media Relations on Twitter @RiceUNews. Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,888 undergraduates and 2,610 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for best quality of life and for lots of race/class interaction by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. TORONTO, Jan. 16, 2016--The Zika virus, possibly linked to serious birth defects in Brazil, has the potential to spread within the Americas, including parts of the United States, according to an international team of researchers who track the spread of infectious diseases. The Zika virus, native to parts of Africa and Asia, has for the first time been introduced into the Americas where it is spreading locally among people who have not travelled abroad. There is no vaccine against the virus or antiviral treatment. "The summer Olympic Games in Brazil in August heighten the need for awareness of this emerging virus," Dr. Kamran Khan of St. Michael's Hospital wrote in a research letter published today in The Lancet. Zika is generally a mild illness, spread by a day-biting mosquito. However, there is a worrisome, but as of yet unproven, association of infected mothers in Brazil giving birth to babies with small heads and underdeveloped brains, Dr. Khan said. There has been a 20-fold increase in the number of babies born with this condition, known as microcephaly, since Zika first appeared in Brazil in May 2015. The virus has since spread across more than a dozen countries in South and Central America and up into Mexico. A case was confirmed in Puerto Rico in December in an individual who had not recently travelled, meaning he or she was bitten by a local infected mosquito. The Centers for Disease Control say some travellers returning to the United States from Zika-affected areas have also been infected with the virus, which has the potential of allowing the virus to then spread locally. To predict where Zika might spread, Dr. Khan and his team mapped the final destinations of international travellers leaving airports in Brazil from September 2014 to August 2015. Of those 9.9 million travellers, 65 per cent were going to the Americas, 27 per cent to Europe and 5 per cent to Asia. Traveller volumes were greatest to the United States, followed by Argentina, Chile, Italy, Portugal, and France. China and Angola received the highest volume of travellers in Asia and Africa, respectively. Members of the team from Oxford University mapped the global geography of (Aedes species) mosquitoes capable of transmitting Zika virus and then modeled the worldwide climate conditions necessary for the virus to spread between Aedes mosquitoes and humans. They estimated that more than 60 per cent of the populations of the United States, Argentina and Italy live in areas conducive to seasonal transmission of Zika virus. By comparison, Mexico, Colombia and the United States have an estimated 30.5 million, 23.2 million and 22.7 million people respectively living in areas conducive to year-round Zika virus transmission. Dr. Khan said that with no vaccine or antiviral therapy available, possible interventions include personal protection (i.e., repellent use); daytime avoidance of mosquito bites (especially by pregnant women until more is known about the association between Zika virus infection and microcephaly) and community-level mosquito surveillance and control measures. "The world we live in is very interconnected now said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, a tropical infectious disease specialist at the Toronto General Hospital who contributed to the study. "Things don't happen in isolation anymore. Infections from the farthest corners of the world can quickly arrive on our doorstep." ### Funding for this study was provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Wellcome Trust, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the RAPIDD program of the Science & Technology Directorate, Department of Homeland Security, and the Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health. About St. Michael's Hospital St. Michael's Hospital provides compassionate care to all who enter its doors. The hospital also provides outstanding medical education to future health care professionals in more than 23 academic disciplines. Critical care and trauma, heart disease, neurosurgery, diabetes, cancer care, and care of the homeless are among the Hospital's recognized areas of expertise. Through the Keenan Research Centre and the Li Ka Shing International Healthcare Education Centre, which make up the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, research and education at St. Michael's Hospital are recognized and make an impact around the world. Founded in 1892, the hospital is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto. For more information, contact: Leslie Shepherd Manager, Media Strategy Communications and Public Affairs Department St. Michael's Hospital 416-864-6094 shepherdl@smh.ca Inspired Care. Inspiring Science AURORA, Colo. (Jan. 15, 2016) - Better coordination between hospitals and post-acute care facilities could reduce patient readmission to hospitals and mortality rates, according to a new study of risk factors by researchers from the University of Colorado School of Medicine. In a review of more than 3,200 hospitalizations followed by stays in post-acute care facilities, the researchers found specific risk factors that may contribute to the need for readmission to the hospital. Nearly half of the readmissions occurred within 14 days of being released from the hospital. The study, published online in JAMDA, the Journal of Post-Acute and Long Term Care Medicine, identified the patient's need for an invasive device, such as a feeding tube or urinary catheter, and the patient's need for advanced care, such as dialysis and oxygen therapy, as factors more common in readmitted patents. The causes of hospital readmission from post-acute care facilities, which are also called skilled nursing facilities, are critical areas to study in order to improve the quality of patient care and to prepare for reimbursement models that penalize hospitals if patients are readmitted. "Patients who experienced readmission during their stay in a post-acute care facility were less likely to return to the community," said lead author Robert Burke, MD, academic hospitalist and health services researcher at the Denver VA Medical Center and an assistant professor at the CU School of Medicine. Readmitted patients had a higher mortality rate too. "Readmitted patients were twice as likely as non-readmitted patients to die in the 30 days following hospital discharge and nearly four times as likely to die in the 100 days post-hospital discharge," the authors write. The authors also found that payment systems matter and affect patient outcomes. "Under a prospective payment system, hospitals are incentivized to discharge these patients as early as possible, and in contrast to discharges home, hospitals are not currently penalized for readmissions from PAC (post-acute care) facilities," the authors write. "PAC facilities may be substituting for prolonged hospital care in some cases." Hospitals and post-acute care facilities need to focus on patient selection and on processes for transitioning care from the hospital to the post-acute care facility. ### Burke's fellow authors on the article are Emily Whitfield, PhD, of the Denver-Seattle Center of Innovation at the Denver VA Medical Center; and David Hittle, PhD, Sung-Joon Min, PhD, Cari Levy, MD, PhD, Allan V. Prochazka, MD, MSc, Eric A. Coleman, MD, MPH, Robert Schwartz, MD, and Adit A. Ginde, MD, MPH, all of whom are faculty members of the University of Colorado School of Medicine. The research was funded by the Hartford Foundation/Jahnigen Center of Excellence at the University of Colorado. About the University of Colorado School of Medicine Faculty at the University of Colorado School of Medicine work to advance science and improve care. These faculty members include physicians, educators and scientists at University of Colorado Health, Children's Hospital Colorado, Denver Health, National Jewish Health, and the Denver Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The school is located on the Anschutz Medical Campus, one of four campuses in the University of Colorado system. To learn more about the medical school's care, education, research and community engagement, visit its web site. Athens, Ga. - While scientists have known for years that African trypanosomes cause sleeping sickness, they've been left scratching their heads as to how these tiny single-celled organisms communicate. A University of Georgia study, published Jan. 14 in the journal Cell, helps solve this mystery. The UGA researchers discovered that long filaments--that look like beads on a string--form by budding from the flagellum of African trypanosomes and then release pieces of the parasite into the host. This causes anemia and influences the outcome of infection leading to human African sleeping sickness and the cattle disease nagana. The UGA researchers theorize that the extracellular vesicles, as the free-floating beads are scientifically known, are being used by the parasite to communicate with each other and with the host's body. Even before they pop off into vesicles, the nanotubes extending from the flagellum help the single-celled parasites talk to each other. The severe anemia caused by the parasites may be an accidental side effect of the extracellular vesicles fusing with host red blood cells. There were 6,314 new cases of African sleeping sickness in 2013. The disease, fatal if left untreated, threatens millions of people annually in the 36 countries in sub-Saharan Africa where the parasite-transmitting tsetse fly lives, according to the World Health Organization. The research findings provide another clue to how African trypanosomes infect humans. It may also lead to improved therapies to fight sleeping sickness; current medications used to combat the disease have improved over the past decade but still include an old arsenic-based drug that kills between 5 and 10 percent of the people receiving treatment, said the study's senior author Stephen Hajduk, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. The parasite also causes major economic losses by infecting and killing between 5 million and 7 million cattle each year through nagana, he said. The research into trypanosome nanotubes and extracellular vesicles started as a side project in Hajduk's lab about two years ago. As the study's lead author Tony Szempruch spent more time peering into a microscope, the tiny, wiggly organism revealed its cellular communication potential. "What you see here," he said, pointing at the flagellum, "is that you can get that synthesis of the nanotube, but then it will quickly break down into what appears to be free vesicles that float out of focus." Szempruch, a doctoral student in the biochemistry and molecular biology department, developed a 3-D reconstruction of the nanotubes budding at the flagellum membrane. He was then able to look at the relationship of the flagellum, nanotubes and extracellular vesicles. "The whole project developed out of our interest in how trypanosomes interact with one another," Hajduk said. "Traditionally, people didn't think of a single-celled organism needing to communicate with each other. But it has become more and more clear that they do. "They're actually able to sense when they're at a certain level in the mammalian host in the bloodstream and then are able to respond to that in some way. As it turns out, a lot of this came together in looking at these extracellular vesicles that we've identified." Hajduk first noticed the nanotubes in 1978 when he was a doctoral student at the University of Glasgow, and they were first noted in a scientific publication in 1912. "Even back then, we saw a lot of these extensions coming off the posterior end of the cell," he said. "I think everyone has seen them, and, until now, everyone has ignored them. The parasite world--and trypanosome world--has largely lagged behind." Their findings--that nanotubes and vesicles are an important part of the communications process--show that the extracellular vesicles contribute to the complexity of African trypanosomiasis through the transfer of virulence factors between parasites and inadvertent interaction with host cells, which has a profound effect on disease, the study notes. More research is needed into nanotubes in particular, Hajduk and Szempruch said. There's also a great deal of interest in using the structures for non-invasive diagnostics and for targeted therapeutic use. "The whole signaling thing, people are very excited about that," Hajduk said, "whether it's infectious disease or cancer or specific therapeutic development" to treat sleeping sickness. "The fact that these vesicles are fusing with other host cells presents an interesting target for a therapeutic approach," Szempruch said. "Perhaps treatment wouldn't kill the parasite, but it would stop severe pathology associated with the parasite infection." ### UGA study co-authors included Steven Sykes, Rudo Kieft, Lauren Dennison, Allison Becker, Anzio Gartrell and William Martin, with John Harrington as a co-corresponding author, as well as Ernesto Nakayasu at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Igor Almeida at the University of Texas. The study, "Extracellular vesicles from Trypanosoma brucei mediate virulence factor transfer and cause host anemia," was supported by the National Institutes of Health under grant numbers AI039033, AI060546 and 2G12MD007592. Dr. Lindsey Dodd's work on Disruptive Histories: Recovered Pasts will be jointly funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council and the French Laboratoires d'Excellence UNIVERSITY of Huddersfield historian Dr Lindsey Dodd has received Anglo-French funding which will enable her to record and analyse memories of French people who became "petits refugies" (little refugees) during the Second World War. An unknown - but very large - number of French children were displaced and separated from their families as a result of the Allied bombing of France, the threat of invasion and severe food shortages in cities. Yet children's voices have rarely found a place in the established French narrative of this period, which is dominated by experiences of resistance and collaboration in which children played little part. Dr Dodd's new project continues themes developed in her previous research, which will be published by Manchester University Press in 2016 as French children under the Allied bombs, 1940-45: an oral history. A senior lecturer in modern European history, she has research specialisms in the theory and practice of oral history, and the experiences of children in war, particularly in France. Now, she will build on this research as she becomes one of the interdisciplinary participants in a multi-stranded project jointly funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the French Laboratoires d'Excellence (LabEx). The funding unites the AHRC's theme Care for the Future: Thinking Forward Through the Past and the LaBex research strand Les passes dans le present (Pasts in the Present). Dr Dodd has already completed one collaborative AHRC Care for the Future project, which examined the ways in which children in Britain and France during the early and mid-twentieth century were used as vehicles for ideological messages about the future. Now, she has made a successful bid with colleagues from Bath Spa University and Universite Paris Ouest Nanterre La Defense to take part in a new, 30-month project under the Anglo-French scheme. Titled Disrupted Histories: Recovered Pasts, it incorporates varied research by experts in fields that include history, politics and ethnography who will investigate five separate case studies, linked through the use of oral history. "All of us have an interest in history, memory, commemoration and narrative and we are all working on post-conflict and post-colonial contexts, with populations who have been displaced," said Dr Dodd. "We are interested in the way that unofficial histories can disrupt established narratives of the past," she continued. In post-conflict and post-colonial settings, there is a particular need to establish a "usable past" by those in power and by societies, in order to move on. Disruptive Histories: Recovered Pasts But these "usable pasts" must necessarily exclude a large number of voices, explained Dr Dodd, adding that "we are interested in digging out some of those excluded voices and those unofficial histories, to see whether they disrupt or revise the more formalised, well-established narratives". France's quest for a usable past has included an idealisation of the role of the Resistance, a feeling of shame over collaboration with Nazi Germany and guilt over the deportation of Jews. Civilian experience of the war and the plight of children - hungry, separated, sometimes persecuted, often afraid - struggle to find a place in France's orthodox narrative, said Dr Dodd, and that is why her research has disruptive potential. As part of her work on Disruptive Histories: Recovered Pasts, she will track down little-used oral history interviews of wartime childhoods in French archives to assess the disruptive quality of children's stories. She will also carry out around 20 new interviews, focusing on issues of family displacement and separation, and working with the Archives municipales de Boulogne-Billancourt in the Paris region and the Archives departementales de la Creuse in the centre of France. The language, history and culture of France have long been central strands in Dr Dodd's research and she finds that her British identity is no disadvantage when she conducts interviews with French people. "Oral history has been less widely used by French historians and so these people would be much less likely to have a professional historian of their own nationality wanting to talk to them about their wartime childhoods," said Dr Dodd. "It is good that people nearing the end of their lives have the opportunity to talk about things that affected them when they were young. These are parts of a national story which have often been overlooked." ### At first blush, much of the day-to-day function of an FX salesperson goes on as it did before the fixing scandals, say market players. The post-scandal shift lies in their communication with clients while they are facing greater scrutiny on mark-ups from their largest clients. Whats more, a lack of clarity about the information and market colour FX salespeople can bestow to their clients has left some dissatisfied. Our daily routine is much as it was, although we are fielding more defensive questions on pricing from customers, says a bank FX sales team member. Rather than spending time discussing market dynamics, we tend to refer to internal research experts and disseminate that information. Regulatory concerns mean information flow is more tightly contained. Mark Webster, global head of FX sales at Standard Chartered, says the bank has spent a lot of time talking to its sales people about how to they can communicate with clients with a focus on what is acceptable in terms of disclosure and market colour. What has been interesting in the last few weeks has been an increase in the number of clients coming to us and saying this is how we want you to talk to us with a list of things they dont want us to do, he says. However, I am confident that all these requests fall within our existing policies. According to Webster, concerns about rates are most evident among tied clients who are wholly reliant on the bank for rate information. Andy Woolmer, managing director of New Change FX (NCFX), agrees, adding: Opinions need to be considered very carefully. Jim Cochrane, ITG Jim Cochrane, director of FX TCA at ITG, spent nine years as a senior FX sales representative to institutional investor clients. He prefaces his comments about the role of the FX salesperson by observing that the vast majority of fixing business is conducted on the last trading day in the month and that on any other day the amounts traded can be limited in comparison. The day-to-day responsibilities of an FX sales rep have not changed that much they are still responsible for the overall FX relationship with their clients by providing trading and advisory services, says Cochrane. With respect to the WM/Reuters fixing scandal, the rep had to resell their banks WM/Reuters London close fixing service to match the Financial Stability Boards recommended practices. That is not a major change and on most days is a minor component of the FX salespersons daily duties. However, Cochrane also suggests regulatory demands have not necessarily limited the insights FX salespeople can or feel they can provide. Honest insights provided in a professional manner are not affected by regulation and the banks all have approved methods to offer market colour that have been in place for more than 30 years, he says. For example, it is okay to say that the bank has a strong buying interest in the corporate sector, but not to pinpoint that corporate by industry or name. Unprofessional language and market rumours have never been approved, although new regulation and oversight will certainly curtail such practices. Cochrane refers to fewer conversations between buy-side participants and FX salespeople, and says the latter often appear uncertain about their role and what information they can share, leaving clients dissatisfied with the quality and delivery of the relationship-driven service. It seems we are in a situation where banks have salespeople, but they dont entirely know what they are able or supposed to be able to do, he says. Justification When asked how FX salespeople justify their mark-up to customers, one market maker observed that sales staff are under a lot more scrutiny from their largest clients, who are asking for explanations of the mark-ups being charged by the bank. Customers are asking for the time-stamps of trades that are executed and mark-ups are much lower, says the market maker. More experienced FX clients are calling in their orders and insisting on staying on the phone while they are placed so they can hear them go through, rather than waiting for an email confirmation. Many sales desks will make a price with mark-up, but the actual trade is executed by a dealing desk and customers are pushing to bridge this gap considering many feel that they have been let down by the service/price, adds Amarjit Sahota, director at Klarity FX. We havent seen any real evidence of in a reduction in market insight, other than communication of market orders and who may be doing what, he says. This type of market chatter has fallen, although it was already in decline. Depending on the customer, banks have pared down their mark-ups to the narrowest spread possible according to the clients credit rating, volume traded, and consumed services such as analytics and research, adds Cochrane. Banks provide many services to their clients and must pay all the overhead costs that are associated with global banking, he says. There is also the cost of the risk transfer price during a transaction. There are many strong arguments that the banks charge very little for the services that they provide and most customers understand this. Market shifts are also changing the role of FX sales. NCFXs Woolmer says while transparent service offerings make for more long-term, durable sales relationships, they have forced management teams to reassess how much money can be earned by an FX business. Many banks talk in terms of credit and credit costs to justify mark-ups, but it is clear that clients who choose to shop around can get good rates so that justification is a bit thin, he says. The most interesting thing we have seen is a large asset manager moving away from multi-dealer or aggregation platforms to a couple of single-bank relationships with the NCFX live mid-rate used as a benchmark. The transparency and objectivity inherent in a benchmarked rate means that FX business can be tendered like any other service provision and the costs are set in stone over long periods, Woolmer concludes. The move by Western powers to ease sanctions on Iran and expected to formally come into effect this weekend has partially opened up the country to international finance, as have US moves to normalize relations with Cuba. However, most lenders are unlikely to capitalize on pent-up demand for banking products amid an expectation of an uptick in trade which beyond oil include plastics, extracted ores, and fruits and nuts and domestic consumption in both countries. In the case of Iran, European countries are paving the way to form economic partnerships. EKF, the Danish export credit agency (ECA), pledged earlier this month to increase its work with Iran once the sanctions are lifted. The agency signed a cooperation agreement with the Iranian Ministry of Finance that will see it offer guarantees on loans and credit insurance once operations commence in the country. Italys Sace has also signed an agreement, while the UKs ECA UK Export Finance stated last year it was assessing the countrys creditworthiness. International banks, however, are unlikely to offer their services. With restrictions still in place, they are reluctant to end up with a multi-million dollar fine. They are also reluctant to speak about their future plans. Robert McKay, Accuity Robert McKay, executive vice-president, product, at Accuity, explains that banks are cautious due to the level of complexity that is involved. The removal of Iranian sanctions relates to companies specifically in the industries of petrochemical exports, auto industry, gold and precious metals, and banking services. Many other companies are still under sanction. McKay explains that there is considerable room for confusion, especially between jurisdictions, adding: The lifting of sanctions are inconsistently applied across the US, the UK and the EU. For example, 86% of the Iranian entities on the UK HM Treasury sanctions list are to be removed. In stark contrast, only 68% of the Iranian entities on the US OFAC [Office of Foreign Assets Control] sanctions list are removed. Banks will regularly use third-party compliance software to keep on the right side of sanctions. However, McKay cautions that banks should not be completely reliant on such provisions by third-parties given the liability for non-compliance falls on the lenders. He also says that third-party providers are able to update legal and market changes easily, while the decision to facilitate a transaction ultimately falls to the bank itself. Making appropriate decisions upon any screened entity, however, can result in operational complexities," says McKay. "A reviewer of a potential screening match must be able to determine if the stopped transaction, for example, adheres to one of the remaining sanctions that had not be lifted or if there is some false-positive in the matching process. The issue of false-positives also creates the need for direct checking from the bank. One banker tells the story of how "Lebanon", a relatively common town name in the US, appeared in the address of one company, resulting in the latter being flagged repeatedly on the sanction screening list. The bank involved had to manually override the block on the transaction. Individual impact There is considerably greater impact on a bank when individuals are under sanction. Banks do not want to unnecessarily impede the banking transactions of non-sanctioned individuals, which can be especially difficult with common names. To ensure they have ruled against the correct person, McKay says the compliance team needs to rigorously check the information collated through the know-your-customer process. When banks are able to provide their services is also dependent on when the infrastructure becomes available. The return of Swift to Iran will mark a watershed moment for the payments community, and the messaging provider has announced it is prepared to operate again in the country. Certain criteria, however, do need to be met first, including administrative checks, and technical and connectivity measures, before organizations can join the network. Some institutions will continue to be excluded due to remaining sanctions. Enrico Camerinelli, senior analyst at Aite Group, says it will be interesting to see to what extent the Iranian banks choose to adopt Swifts innovations, or if they will stick to the standard messaging systems. Camerinelli adds: I suspect that Iranian banks have had to cope with multiple problems during the embargo period, so they have been forced to run the business with basic home-made functionalities, while keeping a close eye on the latest technology developments. Not to say that they are ahead of other banks, but I expect they will certainly want now to catch up and ensure they have the latest and best of what banking technology offers. The Iranian banks will also need to readjust to working in a banking environment with far stricter international regulations than what they had previously been under. This could leave them waiting longer than expected to freely operating again, even if they are no longer impacted by sanctions. Neal Dawson, head of anti-money laundering and sanctions at KPMG, says: "Over the period when Iranian banks were excluded from Swift and the correspondent banking network there was a marked increase in due diligence standards. Banks will need to do this to work out what they are prepared to do, and who they will work with. It will take time to get this in place." When banks are able to provide their services is also dependent on when the infrastructure becomes available. Clear understanding between the banks and their corporate customers looking to conduct business in newly accessible areas also needs to be reached. Corporates need to have a full understanding of the licensing issues and exporting controls that might still hinder their growth ambitions. The biggest catalyst, perhaps, are the banks corporate clients whose business operations and trading will take them into these previously sanctioned areas, says McKay. The move might primarily come from the markets which can easily conduct transactions in currencies other than US dollars. Says Dawson: "There is a potential for growth outside of the traditional US dollar markets which are still under sanctions. Sterling and euro banks will be looking to move back into the country over time, but it will not happen anytime soon." Brazil and Saudi Arabia endured the biggest falls in their total risk score among the 186 countries included in Euromoneys survey of risk experts in 2015. They, like many others, were affected by commodity price turmoil, and in Brazils case compounded by political instability linked to an evolving corruption crisis. Saudi Arabias fall, meanwhile, made its credit rating questionable. In total, 73 countries scores fell indicating they had become riskier compared with 2014. Many extended their declines in Q4 as the US Feds tightening of monetary policy and the uncertainty surrounding G7 central bank policies prompted more capital outflow from emerging markets (EMs). Some $270 billion-worth of capital outflows in Q4 alone highlighted the biggest exodus from EMs since the 2008 global financial crisis, almost 60% of which fled from Chinese assets. Chinas wobbles With China encountering difficulties in managing the transition from an industrial powerhouse to a consumer-driven economy, and its real-estate market downturn putting the steel sector in a spin, invariably the slide in Chinese demand for raw materials increased the risks of investing in copper producers Chile, Peru and Zambia, as well as other commodity-rich sovereigns. Angola, Bahrain, Kuwait, Mexico, Oman and Qatar also endured large falls in risk scores last year as they came to terms with the fiscal impairment caused by depressed oil-export prices, putting currencies under pressure and complicating public spending. Oil prices fell consistently throughout 2015, sliding to less than $40/barrel at year-end compared with a peak of $115/barrel in June 2014 with no sign of imminent recovery in the wake of further falls early on in the new year. Norway, consistently the highest-scoring, safest country in the world in Euromoneys survey since the global financial crisis of 2008, fell to second in the global rankings, behind top-ranking Switzerland, as oil-sector investment cuts undermined GDP growth, weakened the fiscal and current-account surpluses, and pushed unemployment higher. Finland and Russia, both battling against recession, endured lower scores last year. Invariably there were falling scores, too, for Libya, Syria and Yemen as internecine conflict continued in the Middle East. Meanwhile, South Africa and Turkey were among those countries marred by political instabilities, weak institutions and/or foreign-policy risks downgraded by economists and other risk experts taking part in the survey. G10 and Europe back in vogue Risk scores contrastingly improved for the majority of the advanced, industrialized nations in 2015, including the US, Japan, Italy and UK, as investors sought out safe havens amid the turmoil affecting EMs. The rise of anti-austerity parties, the refugee crisis and Greek tail-risks remain notable problems facing Europe, but economies are growing and fiscal problems slowly easing. A recent Euromoney end-of-year survey indicates the region is overcoming traditional concerns, such as the lack of business investment, the failure to reform and bad debts. Country risk scores are now rising as a result. Cyprus, Iceland, Ireland, Portugal and Slovenia, which were all in debt distress in the wake of the financial crisis in 2008, made partial recoveries in 2015. It wasnt all plain-sailing though. Poland and Spain were marked down by political risks tied to elections. However, Hungary chalked-up the biggest improvement of all the European countries surveyed, gaining 5.9 points and climbing 11 places in the global rankings helped along by improving capital access, which led Euromoney to reiterate the borrowers credentials for investment grade. Bulgaria, Romania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia also improved. Mixed bag for Asia The slowing Chinese economy and the stronger dollar emerged as risks to trade and capital flows across Asia, along with other threats posed by the flaring of South China Sea tensions and North Korean provocation. Taiwan, South Korea and Mongolia endured lower risk scores, and China slipped three places in the global rankings to 41st, further behind Malaysia while barely remaining higher than a resurgent Italy. Johns Hopkins University economist Steve Hanke, a contributor to the Euromoney survey who has extensive public-policy experience as an adviser on EM currencies, says: China has chosen instability by experimenting with different exchange-rate regimes. ABN Amros Arjen van Dijkhuizen, another survey contributor, believes the change and uncertainty associated with Chinas FX policy is unnerving the financial markets, but the economy is experiencing a soft landing, which is expected to be bumpy, but not a hard one. The vast majority of countries in the region, with political stability and decent growth prospects, were unaffected by Chinas concerns. The Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, in particular, became safer in 2015. India, too, stood out among the Brics with a higher score and a two-place rise in the global rankings to 56th, based on its superior economic growth trajectory compared with China. Darkening skies over LatAm The troubles in Brazil and global commodity markets reverberated around Latin America in 2015, dragging down four of the five safest countries in the region Chile, Mexico, Colombia and Peru, but not Uruguay, which withstood the rout. Venezuelas heightened default risk remained largely the same, but Argentina showed the first signs of bouncing back after an election that saw Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner ousted and her presidential replacement Mauricio Macri promising reforms to restore fiscal-macro stability. Economist Gabriela Nudel, one of Euromoneys survey contributors at the Buenos Aires consultancy Fundacion Capital, believes time is at a premium for Argentina. However, she expects a faster recalibration of the economy, supported by a comprehensive economic programme, a reunification of the FX market and, if feasible, some debt issuance in financial markets. Oil conflict weighs on Mena The difficulties continued for several countries across the Middle East and North African region as the combination of declining oil prices and conflict-driven instability weakened fiscal-macro indicators. Many of the Gulf producers are able to withstand a temporary oil shock, but as the crisis dragged on many were facing the consequences of mounting pressures on dollar peg exchange rates and unavoidable fiscal adjustments. Nevertheless, prospects improved in Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Morocco thanks to their comparative stability, falling import costs and more diversified export base. Commodity crisis splits SSA Africas prospects were dealt a blow by the commodity price falls, putting local currencies under pressure, weakening fiscal and external balances, and undermining growth prospects. The region is facing climate-related disasters as drought spreads, while political risks highlighted South Africas frailties, sending the rand into a tailspin and junk status closer, alongside growing concern for Angola, Ghana and Zambia. Nonetheless, many of the regions sovereign issuers ended the year safer than they began it owing to political stability, improved capital access, solid support from creditors and donors, and because some are net importers of raw commodities, benefiting from the terms-of-trade shock. Botswana the safest credit in sub-Saharan Africa Cote dIvoire, Kenya, Namibia and Senegal were among the countries with higher risk scores last year. More than 400 economists and other experts from a range of financial and other institutions take part in Euromoneys country risk survey. They evaluate the risks faced by international investors in 186 markets, scoring countries across a range of political, economic and structural criteria. These are added to values for capital access, credit ratings and debt indicators, and aggregated each quarter to provide a total risk score. For further information on ECR and its methodology click here. This article was originally published by ECR. To find out more, register for a free trial at Euromoney Country Risk. On 25 October, 2015 the Ukrainian people cast their vote for the first time since the decentralisation reforms which established a new governance structure across Ukraine. In November, 2015 the second round of the local elections took place with twenty nine cities and towns electing mayors and regional councillors in all regions apart from the Donbass. Later that month, on 29 November the people in Mariupol and Krasnoarmiysk chose their mayors. [1] Their vote marked the end of the local elections process in Ukraine in 2015. There were no elections in the separatist-controlled areas in the Donbass. As a result of the negotiations of the Normandy Group and upon its recommendation, the separatist leaders of the Donetsk Peoples Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk Peoples Republic (LPR) postponed their plans to hold elections independent of those organised by the Ukrainian state. Further, they agreed to respect the terms of the Minsk II plan and hold elections in the Donbass according to Ukrainian law. Yet the way in which the elections were held in the rest of Ukraine has serious implications for the future of the Donbass and the Minsk II process. The preliminary assessment of the first election round prepared by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR) concluded that the monitors witnessed a competitive, well organized campaign [that] generally showed respect for the democratic process. However, their report also presented details revealing that these were not entirely free and fair elections. This was for primarily three reasons. First, the legitimacy of the elections was called into question because internally displaced people (IDPs) were unable to take part. This issue was highlighted by the ODIHR in relation to several groups who could not vote. Second, issues with the registration process for prospective candidates, inaccurate ballot papers and allegations of misconduct plagued the election process. Specifically, misinformation about the technicalities of the vote characterised the preparation stage preventing some candidates from registering to stand in the election. Public confidence and trust in the process were also undermined after the elections in Mariupol were postponed due to objections to the integrity of the ballot papers. Similarly, the vote in Krasnoarmiysk was delayed after it was revealed that bulletin posters were prepared illegally. Mayoral candidates in Kirovohrad, Kyiv and Mykolaiv were also accused of buying votes and breaching the electoral code of conduct. Third, and most problematically, despite ample evidence of the inadequacy of the current legislation on campaign funding no action was taken against the contributions and sponsorship of campaigns by oligarchs and wealthy donors. This activity is pervasive in Ukraine and undermines most efforts to establish the principles of good governance. None of these issues are easily resolved. Yet, under the terms of the Minsk II agreement, the modalities of the Donbass elections should be agreed in consultation between the government in Kyiv and representatives of the separatist regions. The elections should be organised in line with Ukrainian law and monitored by international observers. Therefore, identifying the procedural problems in the Ukrainian election processes is crucial for organising the elections in DPR and the LPR. What is more, if the elections in the DPR and the LPR do take place this spring (which, judging by the most recent Normandy group discussions, is the expectation), without these problems being addressed, the problems are likely to be exacerbated by the prevailing security challenges. Pressing Ukraine to hold elections in the DPR and the LPR without necessarily meeting the OSCE/ ODIHR standards will also suit the interests of the separatists and Russia. A less rigorous election observation process would make it easier for the separatist leadership to abuse the procedures and solidify their power. If Kyiv clearly demonstrates constructive engagement on the preparation of these elections, this may make it more difficult for the West to point to the deficiencies of the October elections and insist that the rules for Donbass elections can be loosened further. [2] More importantly, it would limit the opportunities for the separatists to object to the proposed manner in which the elections would be held. In a recent video conference Russias Ambassador to the OSCE, Alexander Lukashevich, voiced the opinion that, given the procedural flaws, the Ukrainian election process should not be automatically applied to Donbass and elections under the current law are unacceptable. Even though Kyiv faces the difficult task of convincing the electorate, particularly in western Ukraine, that it is defending the countrys interests by engaging in the Donbass election process, ultimately this is at present the best course of action. It could lead to the finalisation of the Minsk process through the restoration of the Ukrainian governments control over the border and the complete withdrawal of heavy weapons. Neither Ukraine, nor its allies are prepared to resolve the conflict by military means. Hence, a political settlement, with the local elections a constitutive part of this settlement, remains the only viable option for the end of hostilities. Convincing Ukraines backers in the West that fair elections are possible will however require serious commitment, not to mention considerable political effort in resolving the problems highlighted during the recent local elections. ******* [1] The mayoral elections in both cities were postponed to 29 November rather than taking place on the announced date of 15 November. In Mariupol the local commission delayed the vote due to inaccurate ballot papers: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-25/ukraine-s-mariupol-local-election-delayed-by-flawed-ballots whereas in Krasnoarmiysk the posters did not meet electoral standards: http://www.kyivpost.com/content/politics/court-stops-election-in-krasnoarmiysk-rules-ballots-printed-illegally-400629.html. [2] In September 2015, the German Foreign Minister said that elections in the Donbass would be held on a joint legal basis. By contrast, the Minsk II agreement only stipulates these elections should be held according to the law of Ukraine: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/09/resolving-ukraine-conflict-150913050855537.html. The opinions articulated above represent the views of the author(s), and do not necessarily reflect the position of the European Leadership Network or any of its members. The ELNs aim is to encourage debates that will help develop Europes capacity to address the pressing foreign, defence, and security policy challenges of our time. Editors note: Find the full Animal Minds series to date here. New Scientist suggested, as one of its big ideas for 2015, that the ability of humans to talk to animals would transform what it means to be human. Actually, it wouldnt. But the ability of animals to understand what humans are saying would transform what it means to be an animal. In a 2009 issue of Nature, Johan J. Bolhuis and Clive D. L. Wynne asked a key question: Can evolution explain how minds work? They identified serious flaws in the studies of animal minds. One of them is interpreting animal behavior as if it were human behavior (anthropomorphism): For instance, capuchin monkeys were thought to have a sense of fairness because they reject a slice of cucumber if they see another monkey in an adjacent cage, performing the same task, rewarded with a more-sought-after grape. Researchers interpreted a monkeys refusal to eat the cucumber as evidence of inequity aversion prompted by seeing another monkey being more generously rewarded. Yet, closer analysis has revealed that a monkey will still refuse cucumber when a grape is placed in a nearby empty cage. This suggests that the monkeys simply reject lesser rewards when better ones are available. Such findings have cast doubt on the straightforward application of Darwinism to cognition. Some have even called Darwins idea of continuity of mind a mistake. It is a mistake. Continuities can be merely apparent, not actual. Consider, for example, the laptop computer vs. the typewriter. Both feature the QWERTYUIOP keyboard. That might suggest a physical continuity between the two machines. The story would run thus: Computer developers added more and more parts to the typewriter, and subtracted some, until they had transformed the typewrter into a laptop. But of course, they didnt. They adapted a widely recognized keyboard layout to an entirely new type of machine. Continuities are created by history, not laws. If we dont know the history, we dont know whether a similarity reflects continuity or not. Bolhuis and Wynne continue, In other words, evolutionary convergence may be more important than common descent in accounting for similar cognitive outcomes in different animal groups. Indeed. There is no specific type of brain uniquely associated with intelligent behavior in animals (other than humans). There is, however, convergence in intelligent behavior among vertebrates (crows) and invertebrates (octopuses). Yet most invertebrate species do not stand out in intelligence. That fact should receive more attention than it does. The nature and origin of intelligence may be quite different from what researchers have supposed. We have tentatively identified some patterns. Metabolism and anatomy may play a larger role than earlier suspected. For example, reptiles can show intelligent behavior when their metabolism permits, as can invertebrates with sophisticated appendages, such as octopuses and squid. It is even worth asking whether individual animals demonstrate more intelligence if they live with humans. For one thing, they may live much longer and in more complex environments. Some might protest that when humans eliminate the lethal razor of natural selection, daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest, we cause animals to become less intelligent. But is intelligence highly selected in nature? As engineers know all too well, new solutions to any problem are accompanied by numerous failures. The smart crow and smart primate tests, for example, are devised by humans who systematically reward the animals for carefully designed feats of intelligence, but do not destroy them for failure. Blind nature rewards and penalizes more haphazardly than that. Then there is the fact that intelligent animals often do not learn from each other. In some intelligent bird species, one bird can solve a problem but others do not learn the solution by copying that bird, even if it is obviously in their evolutionary interests to do so. Thus the species does not develop a body of knowledge. As each clever bird dies, all gains are wiped out. There is no vast history of solved problems, as there is in human civilization, for even the cleverest bird to build on. Bolthuis and Wynne offer a sober prediction: As long as researchers focus on identifying human-like behaviour in other animals, the job of classifying the cognition of different species will be forever tied up in thickets of arbitrary nomenclature that will not advance our understanding of the mechanisms of cognition. For comparative psychology to progress, we must study animal and human minds empirically, without nave evolutionary presuppositions. Theyre right, and here is a useful illustration of the problem: A recent article on the role of epigenetics in the mating chances of male fish refers to their social status. I questioned the use of the term social status in relation to the behavior of fish, and was promptly informed by a knowledgeable fish hobbyist that All biologists understand what is meant by this. If so, thats a problem. Social status is a term developed by human beings to describe a conscious experience among humans. But animals may not experience their social status in the same way we do. A bee may be fed royal jelly, and become a queen but is she conscious of her status? Are the bees that tend her conscious of it? The insect mind may not even work in a way that enables such an understanding. So where in this spectrum, ranging from merciful oblivion through acutely painful knowledge, do male fish fighting over mates fit? Do they experience the conflict as selves? We simply dont know, and that fact should inspire caution in our choice of terminology. Careless words can subvert careful questions. Philosopher Vincent Torley, who wrote his thesis on animal mind, agrees respecting the bees, noting, A neural representation of each individuals ranking within a group does not require its possessor to have the highly abstract notion of social status. Indeed, a representation of a ranking would not require consciousness at all. And to think that among human beings, a sense of social status is so finely honed that it can depend on concepts as abstract and immaterial as the numbers in a Hollywood or power zip code So What Sorts of Consciousness Might Animals Have? Philosopher Thomas Nagel is famous for asking the question, What Is It Like to Be a Bat? (1974). He meant that an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism. If so, the bat experiences events, as opposed to merely being one of them. Is the bat a self? A self is more than the mere drive to continue existing that distinguishes all life from non-life. Self must also be more than sentience (an earthworms reaction to light, for example, need not be conscious). It implies the existence of not-self in a complex environment. It does not, however, imply immortality or a capacity for abstract thought. Perhaps the simplest way of putting it would be that a dog not only wants something, but he knows what he wants and whether he has gotten it and may learn various skills along the way for getting it again, and intentionally remember them. We could call this intentionality. Vincent Torleys thesis is titled, The Anatomy of a Minimal Mind. I prefer to use the term minimal self for individual animal intelligence. As a layperson, I find it easier to understand; it does not raise so many complex questions as mind. For example, Middle Dog resents his position in a household because he wants to be Top Dog. I find his canine mind generally opaque. However, I can see that he consciously experiences his resentment, even if it might lack reason, moral sentiment, or empathy. And Middle Dog will know if he succeeds in his quest or not. (So, probably, will everyone else.) Some, like philosopher Edward Feser, argue that animal minds cannot form concepts, whereas others claim that chimpanzees are entering the Stone Age. Torley takes a middle view: Animals can, it appears, form concepts, in the sense of same vs. different or more vs. less. But in the absence of language, they typically cannot process abstractions. Nor do intelligent animals create symbols, understand abstract rules, or probe beneath mere perceptions, all of which are everyday matters for humans. They do not, for example, survey their own mental states (Why do I think I should bark at the moon?). Yet humans of average intelligence may often ask themselves, Why am I doing this anyway? As Torley says, A defender of animal rationality could still argue that non-human animals might still possess a very simple, primitive concept of self, which is built into their psyches: I have argued that the key reason why we can reasonably impute mental states to these creatures, and describe them as having minimal minds, is that both their internal representations of the outside world (minimal maps) and their patterns of bodily movement robustly instantiate a key feature that was formerly thought to be the hallmark of mental states: intrinsic intentionality. No Tree of Intelligence Pattern Naturalism, as a philosophical commitment, requires us to start with the assumption that the human mind is merely the outcome of a long, slow, random process, winding through various forms of animal mind. This suggests we can learn a great deal about the human mind by studying animal minds. The empirical evidence does not really support that view. Not only is the human mind more powerful by orders of magnitude, but animal minds show no consistent tree of intelligence pattern in their development that would clearly support the naturalist interpretation. We do not yet have a theory that sheds light on why some animal species appear much more intelligent than others, leaping past conventional taxonomic classifications. But seeing past Darwin to the question of how information really originates may help us acquire one. Image: White-fronted capuchin monkey, by Whaldener Endo (Own work) [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or CC BY 2.5], via Wikimedia Commons. ZAPR, the Bangalore based media-tech start-up, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Flipkart, Saavn, Micromax and Mu Sigma co-founders - Dhiraj Rajaram and Ambiga Dhiraj. This round also saw participation from existing investors - Dinesh Agarwal, Samir Bangara, Sanjay Nath and Arihant Patni ZAPR, the Bangalore based media-tech start-up, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Flipkart, Saavn, Micromax and Mu Sigma co-founders - Dhiraj Rajaram and Ambiga Dhiraj. This round also saw participation from existing investors - Dinesh Agarwal, Samir Bangara, Sanjay Nath and Arihant Patni. The funds raised will be primarily used to expand the companys product portfolio for the media and advertising industry, as well as to scale up the technology team. With its proprietary technology platform, ZAPR offers services to leading media agencies, brands and broadcasters about media consumption preferences and engagement with audiences across TV, mobile and social universe. Over the past year, ZAPR has richly added to its data repository, which is now over 100 times larger than its competitors in India. Speaking about the latest fundraising round, Sandipan Mondal, CEO, ZAPR says, Were excited to have Flipkart, Saavn, Micromax as well as Dhiraj and Ambiga from Mu Sigma join our latest round of funding. These companies have redefined the concept of innovation and have disrupted their respective industries. We at ZAPR, share their DNA of leveraging technology to solve intractable problems and their participation in this round, along with the tremendous support were received from the media and advertising industry, further reinforces our beliefs. As the importance of seamless 360 degree marketing increases for brands, ZAPRs ability to connect the TV screen with the mobile screen, ensures that the same user can now be engaged across several mediums. Brands are increasingly looking to move their budgets from TV to mobile and the ZAPR platform is suitably positioned to catalyse that shift. With mobile and internet bringing in a paradigm shift in the way media is consumed, ZAPR is surely looking at a very exciting growth road-map. The team has firm grounding in terms of understanding of the media ecosystem. We are confident that with a well-defined strategy and innovation, it will have a unique position in the media space, added Nishant Verman, Sr. Director- Corporate Development, Flipkart. ZAPR has been working closely with numerous media veterans like Samir Bangara, formerly MD Disney (Digital) and currently Co-Founder, MD Qyuki, who has been associated with ZAPR as an angel investor and mentor supporting the team on strategy and fund raising. Other media and technology veterans such as Roshan Abbas, Naveen Tewari, Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Rajesh Kamat, are also investors in ZAPR. Read more news about (marketing news, latest marketing news,internet marketing, marketing India, digital marketing India, media marketing India, advertising news) More students are opting to study in China, but those who want to stay on after graduating can find it difficult if they want work because of visa difficulties.But it is hoped that restrictions and rules may change in the short term that can enable international graduates to benefit even further from their experience in China. It would be hugely beneficial, according to Matt McFetridge, an American who studied for a two-year master's course in international relations at Tsinghua, one of China's most prestigious universities.Indeed, since the United States and China began an educational exchange programme 36 years ago there has been an increasing number of American students choosing to study in the country.Figures show that the number of American students has increased from 8,480 in 2004 to 24,203 in 2014, according to China's Ministry of Education. They became the second biggest group of international students in 2008, with South Korea the largest.Another is Eric Schafer who moved to Beijing from California two years after getting a bachelor's degree in political science from Berkeley University. He pointed out that at first language is the biggest barrier.At first he had difficulty just going shopping or to the bank, but an intensive Chinese language programme helped and he now believes that studying in China was the best decision he has made, although he added that it can be challenging at times.According to Frank Hawke, one of the first of eight American students to study in China in 1979, believes that any cultural differences are really only superficial and students soon realise that they have a lot in common.According to the 2014 Open Doors Report by the Institute of International Education, China remains the fifth largest host destination for American students following the UK, Italy, Spain and France.The increase in students shows China's international influence and market potential is recognised by students, according to the Centre for China and Globalization.More students from both countries are expected to study as part of the largest exchange programme ever created between two governments. It will mean 10,000 Chinese students sponsored to study in the US for doctoral degrees and 10,000 American students studying in China.It can be hard finding a job in China after graduation because of visa and employment restrictions, but both countries are looking at introducing internships and easing the work rules. COLUMBUS Poverty in America is more than an urban issue. In fact, the majority of counties with persistent poverty are found in rural counties, according to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. He spoke Jan. 15, at a Rural Opportunity Town Hall meeting at Ohio State University, where he announced the expansion of the USDAs StrikeForce for Rural Growth and Opportunity Initiative, which now includes 11 Ohio counties. The program is a collaborative effort to bring targeted assistance to areas experiencing chronic poverty. StrikeForce counties in Ohio include Adams County, Athens County, Fayette County, Guernsey County, Jackson County, Lucas County, Meigs County, Morgan County, Pike County, Scioto County and Vinton County. Rural poverty Currently, 85 percent of the countrys persistent poverty counties are in rural America. More than one-third of rural Americans and one-in-four rural children live in poverty. According to USDA, research has shown that even kids growing up in families earning as much as twice the poverty threshold are still nearly three times as likely as all other children to have poor health, are more likely to finish two fewer years of school, and are more likely to learn earn half as much money in their adult life. Growing the economy by investing in rural communities, farmers, makers and innovators, and increasing opportunities for families are keys to our Nations future, said Vilsack. StrikeForce has proven to be an effective, collaborative process that builds partnerships and enables USDA to bring economic opportunity directly to rural Americans, where they live, and helps rural communities leverage their assets. USDA launched StrikeForce in 2010 and has since invested $23.5 billion in high-poverty areas to increase opportunity for rural Americans. To date, the program has assisted with nearly 190,000 projects, including things such as home and farm loans, conservation practices, and nutrition assistance. Fighting drug abuse Another goal of the program, and the president, Vilsack said, is to fight drug and substance abuse. He (Obama) is deeply concerned about the fact that in America today, over 2 million people have substance abuse disorders, Vilsack said. Drug abuse is costing Ohio about $1 billion in healthcare costs, and about the same in lost production, Vilsack said. The secretary, who was adopted as a child, said his own mother struggled with drug and alcohol abuse, and worked hard to overcome it. She gave me an increbible example of the power of faith and the power of never giving up on yourself, Vilsack said. I dont want to give up and I know you dont want to give up on all of these folks who are struggling out there. Food security At the same meeting, OSU President Michael Drake announced that the university is investing about $100 million, over 10 years, to address food insecurity and food availability. About $15 million will be spent on new faculty hires in that area. While agriculture is strong and the biggest industry in Ohio, Drake said their are still areas where food is not available, calling it an interesting and serious paradox. An American vet has told British producers of a cheaper and quicker way to deal with secondary cleansing and disinfection following avian influenza. The huge clean-up costs following bird flu have become a major concern for the egg industry in the United Kingdom. Cleansing and disinfection following the recent outbreak in Lancashire cost 500,000. A representative of the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) told egg producers at a meeting in Yorkshire that APHA was looking at the possibility of a more proportionate solution. An American vet at the meeting, Ian Rubinoff, said US authorities had already approved one. Ian, who is a technical services vet with Hy-Line, was in the United Kingdom for a company meeting and took the opportunity to attend a gathering of the Yorkshire Egg Producers Discussion Group near York. He is normally based in Iowa and said that the closest outbreak during an AI epidemic in the US that wiped out 43 million hens and seven million turkeys across more than 20 different states was just 20 miles away from the Hy-Line complex. We were on high alert for about nine months. Ill never forget April 19, 2015 when first outbreak in Iowa was diagnosed, he said. Our last outbreak was on June 17. Our last secondary disinfection was on September 21. Our country of freedom was then approved on December 21." There were 223 outbreaks. Of those 65 to 70 were layer complexes. The rest of them were single house or double house turkey complexes. The turkey houses are a lot easier to clean and disinfect to a more rapid degree. For the larger layer complexes, the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) approved heat disinfection as a secondary C and D approval. That involved keeping those houses at 38 to 50 degrees centigrade for seven days. Yes, that will melt your water lines, in case you are wondering. But that is a lot less expensive than going in there doing the full cleaning and disinfection. Ian Rubinoff told egg producers that cleanup involved keeping those houses at 38 to 50 degrees centigrade for seven days He said sensors were placed inside poultry houses, and if the temperature dropped below the designated level at any time the clock re-started. Following heat disinfection, the USDA took copious amounts of swabs inside the buildings to ensure there was no influenza left. Following successful sampling, re-stocking of the houses took place within three weeks, he said. One thing that hampered re-stocking was the availability of poults or chicks for laying farms, he said. A lot of producers went in at three quarters capacity or half capacity just to get started again. Of course, they did have to take the 21-day samples similar to here afterwards to ensure the flocks were negative. Here in the UK, the poultry industry has been seeking ways to cover the huge cost of secondary cleansing and disinfection, which has to be borne by the owner of the unit affected. Staveleys Eggs in Lancashire, which was hit by an outbreak of highly pathogenic influenza, has revealed that the total cost of the outbreak was more than a million pounds. The British Free Range Egg Producers Association (BFREPA) has agreed a deal with broker Scrutton Bland to help insure the clean-up costs. The egg industry is encouraging others to do the same after the poultry industry had failed to agree a deal to implement a levy after the levy proposal was rejected at the BEIC (British Egg Information Council) meeting on Wednesday in favour of Insurance. Gonzalo Sanchez-Cabezudo, veterinary head of field delivery in the North of England for APHA said it would probably be necessary to review the way that secondary C and D was done in the UK The egg industry is also talking to Government organisations to see whether it is possible to reduce the burden of secondary C and D without increasing risk. Gonzalo Sanchez-Cabezudo, veterinary head of field delivery in the North of England for APHA, told those attending the discussion group meeting near York that it would probably be necessary to review the way that secondary C and D was done in the UK. One producer at the meeting suggested to him that, given the huge cost involved in secondary C and D, wouldnt it make more sense for producers to simply leave their units empty for a year, when they would eventually be considered disease free. Gonzalo Sanchez-Cabezudo said, The cost to the business in Lancashire in terms of secondary C and D was around half a million pounds more or less. The C and D must be proportionate to the risk and we are looking now whether we could have a more proportionate way of doing the disinfection and we are working with industry about that. He said the way secondary C and D carried out in the Netherlands would be looked at. Ian Rubinoff told those attending the meeting that one of the things to come out of the United States outbreaks was the need to deal with them far more quickly. He said the United States had been too slow to deal with the AI when it appeared and the egg industry was seeking to ensure that would not happen again. Our new rules are, at least for anyone in the layer industry, are more or less approved among ourselves and the USDA has said we can go ahead. Our goal is that from time of confirmation to the time that the entire complex is dead is no more than 24 hours. The risk of spreading for any longer than that is what happened in the United States, he said. He said it took some complexes in the United States 21 days to fully depopulate trying to use manual labour. I know the farm sizes are a little bit different between here and the United States but the densities can certainly be the same in some of these areas. We did not respond fast enough at all. So that is one of the things we have resolved if this ever happened again we need to be a lot faster and 24 hours needs to be our drop dead deadline because we are going to be putting a whole industry at risk if we dont do it that quickly. The British Free Range Egg Producers Association introduced an insurance initiative where their members are insured up to a maximum of 50,000 from a total funded scheme of 1million as long as the members have paid their subscriptions on time and declared their correct bird numbers. Nearly 100 people attended the discussion group meeting, which was held at Huby, near York. The meeting was chaired by Roger Lythe, co-ordinator of the Yorkshire Egg Producers Discussion Group. Speakers were introduced by Richard Byas of Sandhill Veterinary Services of Topcliffe, Thirsk. Producers still losing 18-20 per pig, new estimates show No-till farming appears to grow in popularity By Diego Flammini Assistant Editor, North American Content Farms.com According to the 2015 South Dakota Cropping Systems Inventory, no-till agriculture in the Mount Rushmore State is gaining in popularity. The inventory, which acts as a snapshot in time for the cropping systems farmers employ, noticed a few major changes, including: 46 per cent, or 6.75 million acres of South Dakota crop land, predominantly use no-till techniques A cropping system which leaves more than 30 per cent residue cover on the soil is used on more than 65 per cent of the states farmland 17 counties in South Dakota have more than 75 per cent of their land under no-till systems Natural Resources Conservation Service State Conservationist Jeff Zimprich said the information could have profound impacts on farmers who may not be using no-till cropping. It shows them that this planting method is gaining a lot of momentum, he said in an interview with Jody Heemstra on SD Ag Chat. I think it helps them consider if this would make sense on their farm. Zimprich said no-till can help farmers on the financial side as well. I think its got potential to curb costs, which are very important right now when we look at commodity prices, he said. Zimprich also outlined soil health, sustainability and field resilience as other reasons why no-tillage may be an option for farmers in South Dakota. Agriculture is South Dakotas premier industry with an economic impact of more than $21 billion annually and employing more than 122,000 people. Do you currently use no-till on your farm? What are the benefits? If you currently use conventional tilling techniques would you consider switching? "It's not just that WA can produce the best Udon, compared to anywhere in the world, it's also that we've got the good quality and standing in the international markets - and that's something that needs to be protected and promoted." More Fort Bragg units return to Fort Bragg after Europe deployment The 3rd Battalion, 321st Field Artillery Regiment deployed to Germany from Fort Bragg on Feb. 28. Soldiers from the unit started returning home Tuesday. A contract therapy provider agreed Tuesday to pay $125 million to resolve a government lawsuit alleging that they violated the False Claims Act by knowingly causing skilled nursing facilities to submit false claims to Medicare for rehabilitation therapy services that werent reasonable, necessary, and skilled, or that never occurred, the Justice Department said Tuesday. The settlement involved Louisville, Kentucky-based Kindred Healthcare Inc. and two of its units RehabCare Group Inc. and RehabCare Group East Inc. Kindred acquired the units in 2011. They now operate under the name RehabCare as a division of Kindred. The settlement resolved allegations originally brought in a lawsuit filed under the qui tam, or whistleblower, provisions of the False Claims Act by Janet Halpin, a physical therapist and former rehabilitation manager for RehabCare and Shawn Fahey, an occupational therapist who worked for RehabCare. The False Claims Act permits private parties to sue on behalf of the government for false claims for government funds and to receive a share of any recovery. The government may intervene and file its own complaint in such a lawsuit, as it did in this case. Haplin and Fahey will receive nearly $24 million as their share of the recovery from RehabCare, the DOJ said. RehabCare is the largest provider of therapy in the United States, contracting with more than 1,000 skilled nursing facilities in 44 states to provide rehabilitation therapy to their patients. The governments complaint alleged that RehabCares policies and practices led its skilled nursing facilities customers to submit artificially and improperly inflated bills to Medicare. The governments complaint alleged that RehabCares schemes included: Presumptively placing patients in the highest therapy reimbursement level, rather than relying on individual evaluations to determine the level of care most suitable for each patients clinical needs. Boosting the amount of reported therapy during assessment reference periods before October 2011, thereby causing and enabling skilled nursing facilities to bill for the care of their Medicare patients at the highest therapy reimbursement level, while providing materially less therapy to those same patients outside the assessment reference periods (a practice known as ramping). Scheduling and reporting the provision of therapy to patients even after the patients treating therapists had recommended that they be discharged from therapy Arbitrarily shifting the number of minutes of planned therapy among different therapy disciplines (i.e., physical, occupational and speech therapy) to ensure targeted therapy reimbursement levels were achieved, regardless of the clinical need for the therapy. Inflating initial reimbursement levels by reporting time spent on initial evaluations as therapy time rather than evaluation time. Reporting that skilled therapy had been provided to patients when in fact the patients were asleep or otherwise unable to undergo or benefit from skilled therapy (e.g., when a patient had been transitioned to palliative end-of-life care), and Reporting estimated or rounded minutes instead of reporting the actual minutes of therapy provided. U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz of Massachusetts said: The complaint outlines the extent and sophistication of this fraud, and the governments continuing work to ensure that the provision of care in skilled nursing facilities is based on patients clinical needs. The case was United States ex rel. Halpin and Fahey v. Kindred Healthcare, Inc., et al., Case No. 1:11cv12139-RGS (D. Mass.). The DOJ said the claims settled were allegations only and there has been no determination of liability. ____ Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog. He can be contacted here. A New York Uber driver refused to rush a pregnant woman to hospital but charged her anyway. New York Uber driver turns away pregnant lady According to website Fortune, the driver told David Lee and his partner he wouldn't take them to hospital because she was being sick on the street. The mother said: ''I don't blame Uber for one driver's poor actions, since bad apples can appear in any organisation, but I do think that when a company has a culture of bullying their way past laws and regulations, as Uber seems to do, they begin to think they can act with impunity in anything.'' The couple did their best to persuade the driver and even offered to pay for the bill if he had to clear up any mess made in the taxi. However, he turned them away but still charged them $13. Jeremy Renner knows how to build and dismantle a bomb. Jeremy Renner The 44-year-old actor has had to handle deadly weaponry for his roles as rogue CIA agent Jason Bourne in 'The Bourne Legacy' and intelligence analyst William Brandt in the 'Mission: Impossible' series but insists he isn't worried about his new-found skills. He said: "For a year I had to learn how to build and dismantle a bomb with guys who are really good at what they do ... "We have to learn to become experts at something in a very short amount of time. And these are all things that can hurt you or hurt other people, so by doing it and and educating myself I've certainly no fear of it. And it's really impressive to be around people that are really good at what they do." Meanwhile, the 'Avengers: Age of Ultron' star - who has two-year-old daughter Ava Berlin with his former wife Sonni Pacheco - admits it is surreal to see his face on an array of movie merchandise. He added: "I never thought I'd be on a bag of Cheetos. You're on a pair of underwear. I remember those kinds of underwear when I was a kid. It's cool, man. But I don't want to get used to it." Rachel McAdams reveals that she is both 'shocked' and 'delighted' by her Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. Rachel McAdams McAdams was nominated for her performance in the hard-hitting journalism movie Spotlight; this is the first Oscar nod of her career to date. And the actress was thrilled that this important movie had been recognised by the Academy Award. Speaking after the nominations were announced, she said: "Wow! This is such an incredible honor. I am shocked and delighted. "Thank you to Tom, the cast, the entire Spotlight team, especially Sacha Pfeiffer and the Academy. What a tremendous recognition, not just for me, but for this important film. Never been so happy to get a call at 6 am!" Spotlight, which is based on the true story of a group of journalists from the Boston Globe uncovered a scandal of child molestation and cover-up with the local Catholic Archdiocese, was one of the big winners yesterday as it picked up six nominations. As well as Best Supporting Actress, the film has also been nominated for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Mark Ruffalo, Best Director (Tom McCarthy), Best Original Screenplay, and Best Achievement in Editing. 2015 has been a terrific year for female film performances and McAdams is in another loaded category as she is nominated alongside Kate Winslet, Rooney Mara, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alicia Vikander for Steve Jobs, Carol, The Hateful Eight, and The Danish Girl. Every actress in the category could potentially win as there is no clear frontrunner. However, Winslet did scoop the Golden Globe at the weekend. As for McAdams, she is currently filming Doctor Strange, the latest Marvel film, which is due out in the autumn. The Oscar winners will be announced on 28th February. Spotlight is released on 29th January. by Helen Earnshaw for www.femalefirst.co.uk find me on and follow me on In what looks set to be another big year for British music, the BRIT Awards 2016 are next month celebrating some of the biggest talent from last year, with the nominations for the annual event revealed yesterday evening (January 14). Could Coldplay scoop a prize or two? Whilst James Bay, Calvin Harris, Jamie xx, Mark Ronson and Aphex Twin battle it out in the British Male Solo Artist category, Adele takes on Amy Winehouse, Florence + the Machine, Laura Marling and Jess Glynne for British Female Solo Artist. British Group is dominated by men this year with Little Mix surprisingly missing out on a nomination. Instead, one of Years & Years, Blur, Foals, Coldplay and One Direction will take home the prize. MasterCard British Album of the Year is a hotly contended group of nominations. Adele's '25' is of course in the running, up against Florence + the Machine's 'How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful', Coldplay's 'A Head Full of Dreams', James Bay's 'Chaos and the Calm' and Jamie xx's 'In Colour'. In the International Solo Artist categories, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, The Weeknd, Father John Misty and Justin Bieber do battle in the men's category, whilst Ariana Grande, Lana Del Rey, Meghan Trainor, Courtney Barnett and Bjork compete for the women. Alabama Shakes, Eagles of Death Metal, Major Lazer, Tame Impala and U2 do battle for International Group. Check out the full list of nominations for the BRIT Awards 2016 below: British Male Solo Artist Aphex Twin Calvin Harris James Bay Jamie xx Mark Ronson British Female Solo Artist Adele Amy Winehouse Florence + the Machine Jess Glynne Laura Marling British Group Blur Coldplay Foals One Direction Years & Years British Producer Of The Year Charlie Andrew Mark Ronson Mike Crossey Tom Dalgety British Single Adele - 'Hello' Calvin Harris & Disciples - 'How Deep Is Your Love' Ed Sheeran & Rudimental - 'Bloodstream' Ellie Goulding - 'Love Me Like You Do' James Bay - 'Hold Back The River' Jess Glynne - 'Hold My Hand' Little Mix - 'Black Magic' Olly Murs ft. Demi Lovato - 'Up' Philip George - 'Wish You Were Mine' Years & Years - 'King' MasterCard British Album Of The Year Adele - '25' Coldplay - 'A Head Full of Dreams' Florence + the Machine - 'How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful' James Bay - 'Chaos and the Calm' Jamie xx - 'In Colour' International Male Solo Artist Drake Father John Misty Justin Bieber Kendrick Lamar The Weeknd International Female Solo Artist Ariana Grande Bjork Courtney Barnett Lana Del Rey Meghan Trainor International Group Alabama Shakes Eagles of Death Metal Major Lazer Tame Impala U2 British Artist Video Adele - 'Hello' Calvin Harris & Disciples - 'How Deep Is Your Love' Ed Sheeran - 'Photograph' Ellie Goulding - 'Love Me Like You Do' Jessie J - 'Flashlight' Little Mix - 'Black Magic' Naughty Boy Ft. Beyonce & Arrow Benjamin - 'Runnin' (Lose It All)' One Direction - 'Drag Me Down' Sam Smith - 'Writing's On The Wall' Years & Years - 'King' British Breakthrough Act Catfish And The Bottlemen James Bay Jess Glynne Wolf Alice Years & Years Jack Garrett was also presented with the BRITs Critics Choice Award at the nominations event. BRITs Chairman Max Lousada said: "The nominations show what a great year it's been for British talent at all levels, from record-breaking previous BRIT Award winners to newer acts celebrating stellar debuts. Home-grown artists have not only dominated our own charts this year, they've won legions of fans the world over by representing British music at its best. We can look forward to a fantastic and hotly-contested Awards show this year." The BRIT Awards broadcast live on ITV at 8pm, taking place on February 24 at The O2 Arena in London with hosts Ant & Dec. by Daniel Falconer for www.femalefirst.co.uk find me on and follow me on Perrie Edwards had to go swimming in the sea to ease her excitement after discovering Little Mix have been nominated for two prizes at the BRIT Awards 2016. Perrie Edwards in the Indian Ocean The girl group are up for both the British Single and British Artist Video of the Year prizes for their hit 'Black Magic' and to mark the moment, Perrie uploaded a slow motion video to her Instagram account of her lifting her head out of the Indian Ocean in the Maldives and flicking her long blonde hair. Perrie, 22, also posted the message that she "couldn't be happier" that she and her bandmates - Jade Thirlwall, Leigh-Anne Pinnock and Jesy Nelson - have been nominated and will also be performing at the ceremony. She captioned the video: "How I feel right now knowing that we're performing at the @brits awards, and nominated for TWO AWARDS! I couldn't be happier and I couldn't thank our incredible fans enough! You make us girls so happy, I love my girls more than anything in the world and we promise to give our all in this performance! (sic)" Little Mix have fierce competition in the British Single as they are up against Adele, Calvin Harris, Ed Sheeran and Rudimental, Ellie Goulding, James Bay, Jess Glynne, Olly Murs and Demi Lovato, Years and Years and Philip George and it will be just as tough for them to take home the British Artist Video of the Year prize. The BRIT Awards with MasterCard 2016 will take place at The O2 in London on February 24. Britain's Queen Elizabeth will host a street party for 10,000 people. Britain's Queen Elizabeth The 89-year-old royal is set to celebrate her 90th birthday this year and will welcome the thousands of guests to The Mall near Buckingham Palace, London for The Patron's Lunch. Peter Phillips, who is organising the event and also happens to be the Queen's grandson, told the Daily Mail newspaper: "I was very conscious to make sure we did this properly, so we went through the normal channels of approaching the Palace. "We had to show that this wasn't a case of trying to cut corners because the Queen happens to be my grandmother. I said [to the Queen], 'Oh, by the way you may or may not have heard that we are having conversations with your office about this' ... She said, 'I've heard you're up to something.'" The Mall is set to be filled with a thousand tables, which seats ten people each, whilst ten thousand chairs will have to be placed down the iconic road individually. Guests - which will include charities and their guests as well as some lucky members of the public - will dine on refreshments from Marks & Spencer, Pimm's, PG Tips and Wall's whilst they watch on as the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh arrive in their Range Rover. Organisers have promised a "carnival" style atmosphere, with lots of performances spreading out across the Mall and into the nearby Royal Parks. With millions making New Year's resolutions it seems that whilst we dream of having new and exciting holidays, we are not making the most of our free time: we are stuck in a travel rut and often take the safe route. In a report released today by lastminute.com, 70% of us have unfulfilled travel dreams but one in five of us (18%) don't believe we will ever achieve them. Nearly two thirds (62%) of us take the exact same holiday again and again, opting for lazing on the beach year after year, with the Spanish Islands, France, USA, Spanish mainland and Italy making up the top five destinations for the British public in 2016 again. While some of the Brits' unfulfilled travel dreams are truly big, others can easily be fulfilled: Among the Brits' holiday top dreams are visiting islands with amazing beaches or staying in a luxury hotel and top of that list is seeing a natural phenomenon like the Northern Lights, which can be seen from as close by as Scotland or just a short plane ride away to Scandinavia or Iceland. The Top 5 British Dream Holidays Why not travel somewhere different this new year? Seeing natural phenomena - 38% Taking one long trip to seeing everything - 37% Taking a round the world trip - 28% Going to islands with amazing beaches - 23% Staying in hotels of the upmost luxury - 22% Despite our holiday fantasies, in 2016 the same destinations dominate the top five as in 2015. Spain, France and the USA are the top three destinations for Brits this year, with the only big change being the USA moving from fifth to third with 14% of Brits planning a trip there compared to 8% in 2015. Perhaps as a result of the relatively strong pound, staycations are down 5% with more people taking advantage of cheap European holidays, only 40% of Brits plan a holiday in their own country this year, the least of all Europeans, compared to 60% of Italians. And it's not only the choice of destination which has the Brits sticking to tradition. Compared to other European nations British people are the least likely to have a wish list of things to do whilst on holiday. In fact only a fifth (21%) think that experiencing new cultural surroundings makes up the perfect holiday, preferring sun and lazing around on beaches instead, compared to almost 28% of the Spaniards who like to explore their holiday destinations. Whilst Brits may not necessarily be exploring more, they will at least be travelling more in 2016. The research by lastminute.com did find that 64% of the British public hope to go on more holidays this year, on average three times. More than one in ten (13%) are even looking to go away five times this year, despite the fact that Brits get the least annual holiday in Europe, though some of us intend to top that allowance up with more than one in ten (11%) admitting to planning on pulling a sickie in 2016. The increase in holidays comes as British people seem to be feeling more prosperous than in 2015, looking to spend 6% more on their vacations versus last year, over 500 more than the next highest spend in Europe, from the French. The big five European nations are all expecting to spend more on their holidays this year. Fabio Cannavale,of lastminute.com group comments "So many people have big travel dreams but often default to their same old holidays over and over again. Of course sometimes you just want to relax and be lazy - but we want to encourage people this year to also be more adventurous and fulfil their dreams. At lastminute.com we have a great range of deals that will help them make the most of every minute and enjoy their free time to the max!" For more last minute deals, go to lastminute.com by Emma Barlow for www.femalefirst.co.uk Following the massive outcry from fans when the series was cancelled, Amazon Prime Video brought back fan favorite Ripper Street. As the fourth season of the crime drama launches exclusively for Amazon Prime members today, here's a reminder to help jog your memory of where the Whitechapel characters are Three years have passed in London's East End, the final years of the Victorian age in the high summer of 1897, as Queen Victoria is celebrating her diamond jubilee. DI Edmund Reid has left the force which gave him his career; and the neighbourhood which shaped his life. Long Susan awaits her fate in Newgate Prison, punishment for her part in the Leman Street locomotive disaster of 1894. DI Bennet Drake, is now Head of H Division and is looking into the case of an Indian man found murdered at the docks. DETECTIVE INSPECTOR EDMUND REID - MATTHEW MACFADYEN When we last met Reid he was about to embark on a life of quiet contemplation and rest: reunited finally with his long-lost daughter Mathilda and set up to spend his days in retirement in the quiet seaside village of Hampton-on-Sea. That is until old acquaintance (and lover) Deborah Goren turns up, bringing with her the news that their friend Isaac Bloom has been arrested and convicted... Could it be time for Reid to return to Whitechapel? DETECTIVE INSPECTOR BENNET DRAKE - JEROME FLYNN Detective Inspector Bennet Drake has come a long way since we first met him. No longer a quick-fisted street boy, he's now risen to the level of Head of H Division. And the success of the Bloom conviction is only one of many that has graced Drake's command since Reid left. He has been worthy of the trust placed in him but as events unfold and the threat of Drake's old boss returning, could this be the end to his success? CAPTAIN HOMER JACKSON - ADAM ROTHENBERG In the ever-changing maelstrom that is Whitechapel, it seems some things never change: Captain Homer Jackson chief among them. Indeed to Drake's eyes, the American goes about his business in much the same way he ever did. As the series opens, Jackson's wife, Long Susan Hart, is only weeks away from her execution. Maybe it is just that Jackson cannot cope with the idea, or perhaps, just perhaps, Jackson has another plan entirely LONG SUSAN HART - MYANNA BURING On her sentencing two and a half years ago, she took advantage of the article of English law that allows expectant mothers to 'plead the belly', thereby handing herself a stay of execution. But now there can be no further delay: Long Susan Hart will hang for her part in the deaths of the 55 souls who perished in the Leman Street locomotive disaster of 1894 ROSE DRAKE - CHARLENE MCKENNA The interim years have treated Rose Drake, nee Erskine, kindly. Finally wife to a man who loves her beyond measure, the marital bliss of the Drake household has been considerable. However, all is not well in Rose's world. Her good friend, Susan Hart, is shortly set to hang. Rose has been Susan's most regular visitor in Newgate Prison, and their relationship has deepened profoundly. Whitechapel's new faces ABEL CROKER - DAVID THRELFALL A man of enormous self-interest but wild charisma, Abel Croker instils loyalty and fear in all who fall into his ambit. There's not a single arrival here - animal, mineral, vegetable or human - he doesn't know about. He can get you a berth on a ship in the blink of an eye, tell you which stevedores have skimmed anything tasty, import, export, contraband Which might make him sound amiable, roguish even. ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER AUGUSTUS DOVE - KILLIAN SCOTT Augustus Dove is, in large part, the reason that H Division has found itself (for a change) the recipient of more funding and positive press coverage. The young Assistant Commissioner is himself, a child of Whitechapel. One of the new breed of ragged school boys come good, his is a precipitate rate of progress. DESK SERGEANT SAMUEL DRUMMOND - MATTHEW LEWIS As Edmund Reid before him, Drum understands the high value of rapid access to information. Part of the reason Inspector Drake hired him was because the young man put him in mind of Reid, but Drum has taken Reid's obsession with modernity and raised the bar. DETECTIVE SERGEANT FRANK THATCHER - BENJAMIN O'MAHONEY Whitechapel is moving into the modern age but there's still a place for the old school rough and tumble formerly embodied by Drake, in his fighting days. And now there's a new cop in town - Francis Thatcher. Ripper Street Series 4 will be available exclusively for Amazon Prime members in the UK from 15 January 2016. Digital textile printer manufacturer Mtex has partnered textile software developer Ava Cad Cam at Heimtextil 2016 and will show their respective MTEX Blue Pigment printers and AVA's Digital Print Design & Colour Solutions Software working together.The Mtex Blue is positioned firmly in the digital textile pigment printing sector but can also be used as an accurate proofing device for industrial textile printing and is unique for its price and performance, Mtex said in a press release. Digital textile printer manufacturer Mtex has partnered textile software developer Ava Cad Cam at Heimtextil 2016 and will show their respective MTEX# As a Mimaki worldwide OEM partner, MTEX has developed a whole line of digital textile printing systems at their European manufacturing plant in Portugal, it added.Heat fixation is an essential part of the pigment printing process, that either needs to be brought in-house with additional machinery, or outsourced, which takes time and money and results in loss of control of the final output and colour accuracy, the company stated.MTEX's engineers have developed a patented inline heat polymerisation system that fixes the printed pigment dyes to the fabric inline, while traditionally this has been a two-part process and is now, through MTEX technology, a one-pass process.Ava specialises in the management of design and colour from initial conception through to digitally or conventionally printed final production for the fashion and decorative printing industries.With roots in the textile industry, AVA's software provides the ideal front-end design and colouring prior to accurate, colour controlled, digital printing for sampling or production.AVA's software empowers designers to create innovative designs for textiles and decor as well as colour separations, colourways, mapping and accurate proofing for either digital or analogue printing.Mtex CEO Eloi Ferreira said, We are delighted to be working with Ava once again and by combining the all-in-one, affordable nature of the Mtex Blue Pigment printer with AVA's powerful software and RIP, colour management and control is finally and firmly back where it belongs.Together we can deliver commercially viable, digital textile solutions for customers across the board, and our joint showcase at Heimtextil will offer visitors an excellent insight into the vibrancy and accuracy of the colours achievable, he too added.Duncan Ross, director at Ava informed, Software is an integral part of defining the quality of output and by showcasing the Mtex Blue with Pigment ink at Heimtextil, we are able to demonstrate to visitors exactly what is achievable in digital textile print today, in an all-in-one solution. (AR) Fibre2Fashion News Desk India At this year's Domotex trade show in Hanover, Oerlikon Neumag will be showcasing solutions for the sustainable manufacture of carpet yarns with a diverse range of products and services in hall 5, stand A31.Since the market launch of the RoTac3, as the new tangling unit for the BCF S+ system a year ago, almost 90 per cent of all new sales have been equipped with the rotating tangling unit, a press release stated. At this year's Domotex trade show in Hanover, Oerlikon Neumag will be showcasing solutions for the sustainable manufacture of carpet yarns with a# The retrofitting business with the component is also operating well and for us, this is a signal that energy costs are playing an increasingly important role in BCF production, sales director Martin Rademacher said.According to the company, the RoTac has been deployed as the tangling unit in the single-end Sytec One system since 2012, while, virtually all Sytec One systems are sold with the RoTac tangling unit.To this end, the further development of the unit to create a three-end system was a logical consequence, the Germany based textile machinery producer said.With its range of systems, Oerlikon Neumag added that, it covers almost all requirements of carpet yarn manufacturers, something that is demonstrated by the high demand for the BCF S+ and Sytec One systems.While the S+ is a convincing solution for commercial applications, the Sytec One is particularly good for demanding production processes due to its monofilament character.With the S+ and Sytec One, we are extremely well positioned within the BCF market worldwide and can cover practically all customer requirements with these two systems, Rademacher informed. (AR) Fibre2Fashion News Desk India India's spinning industry in the textile sector runs the risk of taking a hit due to the downturn in the Chinese economy. China accounts for 40 per cent of India's total cotton yarn exports which is likely to come down and create a glut in the domestic market, according to a newspaper report The Indian apparel exports are also likely to be impacted due to a depreciation of the Yuan. India's garment exports had been growing at a rate of 7-8 per cent till December of the current fiscal against an anticipated growth of 13-15 per cent, the report said. India's spinning industry in the textile sector runs the risk of taking a hit due to the downturn in the Chinese economy. China accounts for 40# India's apparel exports to markets like Europe and the US have been sluggish due to overall economic slowdown. The weakening of Yuan by 3 per cent and apprehensions of further depreciation of Chinese currency has sparked concerns for the Indian textile industry as China is a major competitor of garments and made-ups and importer of cotton yarn from India.Of the total $40 billion worth textiles and clothing exports from India, garment exports are worth $16 billion, while yarn, fabric and made-ups together amount to $21 billion.India's strength lies in the value-added, hand-embroidered, casual fashion garments consisting of small orders, whereas China has its strength in high value, basic garments. If depreciation of Yuan continues, Indian garment exporters could be affected as both countries have access to the common markets of US and European Union, said Rahul Mehta, President International Apparel Federation and Clothing Manufactures' Association of India.Echoing his views, Raman Saluja, a Ludhiana-based exporter said, even as Indian garment and made-up exporters were tapping newer markets following stiff competition from China, the currency depreciation could upset their apple carts owing to the slowdown in Europe. According to Saluja, their revenues had already been hit by 10-15per cent and there was no further scope for cost-cutting.According to industry experts, while cotton yarn risks the biggest hit, the cotton and hand-made segment in the domestic apparel market is likely to remain unaffected from the Chinese currency depreciation. According to Daman Oswal, director of Nahar Industrial Enterprises Limited, it was high time the Indian government revisited its decision of excluding spinning industry from the interest subvention of 3 per cent.The textiles industry is apprehensive that the withdrawal of focus market scheme, duty drawback and interest subvention had accentuated the challenges of Indian textile exporters and Yuan depreciation could further aggravate the situation. (SH) Fibre2Fashion News Desk - India HON PM BAINIMARAMA SPEECH AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF THE RURAL ELECTRIFICATION: HOLY CROSS GRID AND HOUSE WIRING PROJECT Thank you. Vinaka Vakalevu. Ni sa bula vinaka and good morning to you all.It gives me great pleasure to be with you today at this official commissioning of the Holy Cross Grid and House Wiring Project.Now that Ive arrived at my last stop on my Tour of the North, I can tell you Ive had the opportunity to oversee numerous new infrastructure projects and bring many new Government programs to our fellow Fijians here on Vanua Levu. Its been a great week seeing our Fijian communities here celebrate these well-deserved milestones.Ive had the chance to speak with so many in the North and hear the challenges that face you and the solutions youd like to see. And let me assure you, we hear your voices, we share your concerns and we will do whatever we can to continue driving progress for the Northern region.This grid extension is a part of my vision of a North that enjoys the same services and infrastructure as can be found on Viti Levu. Because I believe that every Fijian is entitled to the same quality of life, regardless of where in our islands they call home.This electrification project has been completed at a total cost of $178,842 and was funded by my Government.This project extended about 1km of LV line to 16 classroom blocks and 14 staff quarters at the Holy Cross Secondary School, bringing the many advantages of electricity and gird connectivity to your students and staff.Any effort to get us more connected as Fijians is a step in the right direction. Whether it is through telecommunications, water, roads or electricity -- connectivity brings opportunity. And I am confident that when Fijians have opportunity in front of us, we take full advantage of it.Every time another Fijian is connected to electricity in their homes, office or school we boost the collective potential of our people. We give those Fijians the chance to use new technologies, stay safe in the evening hours and become even more productive members of our society. And when we do well individually, Fiji does even better as a whole.In the case of the Holy Cross Secondary School, students will be able to study late into the night, they will have access to computers, lab equipment and copiers and they will learn in a bright, welcoming environment instead of having to worry about access to electricity. By building better learning environments, we build a better Fiji. Thats because these children are our future and one day will be entrusted with running our businesses, schools and the nation itself.On the subject of building a better Fiji, I would like to take a moment to discuss an issue Ive been talking about all over the country. The issue of domestic violence and sexual assault. As I look out on the children gathered here today, I see so much potential. And that includes both our girls and boys.Tragically, the crimes of domestic violence and sexual assault are threatening our women and children all over Fiji, forcing them to live life in fear. Its destroying lives that otherwise would be happy and productive, and that is something I cannot accept.As Fijians, it is our duty to condemn these crimes whenever we see them and keep our women and children safe from harm. We must not abuse or exploit them. We need to rid our society of these crimes and create a world where our women and children can focus on their futures instead of worrying about their everyday safety.So please, join me in the fight against the crimes of domestic violence and sexual assault. When you see it, report it. Because if you allow it to go unpunished, you allow evil to persist, and I know we are better than that.Ladies and Gentlemen,It is up to all of us to continue working together to make Fiji more prosperous and more productive. It is up to our teachers to remain committed and to our students to work hard and apply themselves in the classroom. With the opening of this electrification project, that will become more achievable than ever before.I now have great pleasure in declaring the Electrification Projects of Holy Cross Secondary School, Open. The head of RBC's U.S. wealth management unit will retire, a spokeswoman said. John Taft, 61, had been CEO since 2005, and had overseen several acquisitions that have substantially grown the Canadian firm's U.S. brokerage business. The firm's most recent acquisition included City National, an elite Los Angeles-based bank that caters to Hollywood elites. In a recent interview about that acquisition, Taft said it would boost his firm's banking and lending capabilities. "When it comes to residential mortgages, personal lines of credits, credit cards -- City National has a private banking and commercial banking capability that will help us serve more of the needs of our clients than we have in the past. That's our long standing strategy of being the primary advisor to our clients," he says. "Our ambition is to do a better job of that than anyone else in this market." RBC, which once had only a small footprint in the U.S., currently has about 1,900 financial advisors in 41 states and more than $270 billion in assets under administration. Measured by assets, RBC is the 7th largest brokerage in America, according to the firm. Taft will be the most recent head of a major U.S. brokerage to exit the business. Bob McCann, head of UBS Wealth Management Americas, stepped down in December. And just this week, Greg Fleming, president of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, left the wirehouse after it was made clear that his path to the CEO position was blocked. Taft's tenure not only included growth times; he also led the firm during the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. Taft joined RBC when the Canadian firm acquired the U.S. brokerage firm Dain Rauscher in 2000. He will step down May 31, according to the spokeswoman. The firm is beginning a search for a successor. Read more: WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Analog Devices Inc. (ADI), Thursday said it expects revenue for the first quarter to be $745 million to $765 million, down from prior outlook of $805 million to $855 million. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters currently estimate revenues of $829.57 million for the quarter. The company lowered its outlook due to weaker than forecasted customer demand in the company's portable consumer business unit, which began in December, and is expected to continue into the second fiscal quarter. For the first quarter, the company expects earnings of $0.47 to $0.51 per share and adjusted earnings of $0.51 to $0.55 per share. Analysts currently estimate earnings of $0.69 per share. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX 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. CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - The Australian dollar weakened against the other major currencies in the Asian session on Friday. The Australian dollar fell to 0.6962 against the U.S. dollar, 82.07 against the yen and 1.5623 against the euro, from early 2-day highs of 0.7002, 82.80 and 1.5503, respectively. Against the Canadian dollar, the aussie edged down to 1.000 from an early near 2-week high of 1.0044. If the aussie extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 0.68 against the greenback, 80.00 against the yen, 1.59 against the euro and 0.98 against the loonie. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX 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. CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - The New Zealand dollar weakened against the other major currencies in the Asian session on Friday. The NZ dollar fell to more than a 5-week low of 1.0809 against the Australian dollar, from yesterday's closing value of 1.0786. Against the U.S. dollar, the yen and the euro, the kiwi dropped to 0.6444, 75.99 and 1.6885 from yesterday's closing quotes of 0.6473, 76.42 and 1.6775, respectively. If the kiwi extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 1.10 against the aussie, 0.63 against the greenback, 75.00 against the yen and 1.72 against the euro. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX 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. MELBOURNE (dpa-AFX) - Mining giant BHP Billiton (BHP.AX, BLT.L, BBL, BHP) said that it expects to recognise an impairment charge of about US$4.9 billion on the value of its U.S. shale assets due to the fall in oil prices. The impairment will reduce Onshore US net operating assets to about US$16 billion. BHP Billiton Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Mackenzie, said 'Oil and gas markets have been significantly weaker than the industry expected...While we have made significant progress, the dramatic fall in prices has led to the disappointing write down announced today. However, we remain confident in the long-term outlook and the quality of our acreage. We are well positioned to respond to a recovery.' The Group said it will reduce the number of operated rigs in its Onshore US business from seven to five in the March 2016 quarter. This will comprise three rigs in the Black Hawk and two rigs in the Permian. Beyond this, investment and development plans for the remainder of the 2016 financial year are under review, with a focus on preserving cash flow. The company expects to recognise an impairment charge of about US$4.9 billion post-tax or approximately US$7.2 billion pre-tax against the carrying value of its Onshore US assets. The charge will be recognised as an exceptional item in the financial results for the half year ended 31 December 2015. The impairment follows the bi-annual review of the Company's asset values and reflects changes to price assumptions, discount rates and development plans which have more than offset substantial productivity improvements. The oil and gas industry has recently experienced significant volatility and much weaker prices. The US gas price remains low as industry-wide productivity improvements have resulted in higher than expected supply at lower cost. BHP Billiton has previously suspended development of its dry gas acreage. The Company has now also reduced its medium and long-term gas price assumptions. In addition, the oil price has fallen by more than 30 per cent over the last three months following the disruption of OPEC and stronger than anticipated non-OPEC production. Although it expects prices to improve from their current lows, the company said it has reduced its oil price assumptions for the short to medium term. Our long-term price assumptions continue to reflect the market's attractive supply and demand fundamentals. The increased volatility in prices has also increased the discount rates applied by BHP Billiton, which has a significant flow through impact on the Company's assessment of its Onshore US asset value. The company noted that the broader carrying value assessment of the Group's assets will be finalised in conjunction with the interim financial results to be released on 23 February 2016. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - Commodity currencies such as the Australian, the New Zealand and the Canadian dollars weakened against their major counterparts in the Asian session on Friday amid oil price slide on fears of oil price glut once additional Iranian oil production comes online. Crude oil for February delivery are currently down $0.49 to $30.71 a barrel. Thursday, the Australian, the New Zealand and the Canadian dollars fell against their major counterparts, as worries about global economic slowdown and the persistent weakness in crude oil prices increased risk aversion. The Australian dollar fell 0.40 percent against the U.S. dollar, 0.74 percent against the yen and 1.02 percent against the euro. The NZ dollar fell 0.58 percent against the U.S. dollar, 0.24 percent against the yen and 1.88 percent against the euro. The Canadian dollar fell 0.11 percent against the U.S. dollar, 0.15 percent against the yen and 0.62 percent against the euro. In the Asian trading, the Australian dollar fell to 0.6938 against the U.S. dollar, 81.61 against the yen and 1.5691 against the euro, from early 2-day highs of 0.7002, 82.80 and 1.5503, respectively. If the aussie extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 0.68 against the greenback, 80.00 against the yen and 1.59 against the euro . Against the Canadian dollar, the aussie edged down to 0.9983 from an early near 2-week high of 1.0044. The aussie may test support near the 0.98 region. The NZ dollar fell to more than a 5-week low of 1.0809 against the Australian dollar, from yesterday's closing value of 1.0786. The kiwi is likely to find support around the 1.10 region. Against the U.S. dollar, the yen and the euro, the kiwi dropped to 0.6429, 75.60 and 1.6936 from yesterday's closing quotes of 0.6473, 76.42 and 1.6775, respectively. If the kiwi extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 0.63 against the greenback, 75.00 against the yen and 1.72 against the euro. The Canadian dollar fell to 1.5669 against the euro and 1.4392 against the U.S. dollar, from yesterday's closing quotes of 1.5604 and 1.4366, respectively. If the loonie extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 1.57 against the euro and 1.44 against the greenback. Against the yen, the loonie edged down to 81.71 from an early 2-day high of 82.44. On the downside, 80.00 is seen as the next support level for the loonie. Looking ahead, U.K. construction output and Eurozone trade balance, both for November, are due to be released later in the day. In the New York session, U.S. PPI, retail sales data and industrial production,all for December, U.S. business inventories data for November, U.S. Baker Hughes rig count data and the University of Michigan's preliminary U.S. consumer sentiment index for January are slated for release. At 9:00 am ET, Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley is expected to speak at the Economic Leadership Forum in New Jersey. At 1:00 pm ET, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Robert Kaplan is scheduled to participate in a moderated Q&A session before the Dallas Assembly Luncheon hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. At 5:00 pm ET, Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau will engage in consultations ahead of the new Liberal government's first federal budget at a townhall at the University of Calgary in Calgary, Canada. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 01/15/16 -- Editors Note: There is an image and a video associated with this press release. MONEY Canada Limited is proud to present one of the largest gatherings of York Region small and independent business owners in one place at one time - at the York Region Small Business Seminar & Symposium. York Region Small Business Seminar and Symposium live at The Markham Flato Theater on Monday January 18, 2016 from 6:00 to 9:00 pm. Government and small & medium sized companies have started a grass roots movement within York Region and it continues now with the City of Markham playing host to the inaugural York Region Small Business Seminar & Symposium. And indeed, Markham is a great place to do business, just north of Toronto and central to the entire York Region area. Join us and our community of like-minded small business owners that wish to grow their businesses while sharing information, opportunities, knowledge, resources and ideas for benefit of all local small businesses in our prosperous and growing local marketplace. Mayor of Markham will attend: Mr. Frank Scarpitti will be in attendance and offer some opening remarks on the state of small business growth within Markham and the greater York Region. Keynote Speaker: Ellen Roseman of The Toronto Star is the keynote speaker and will discuss 'Financial Literacy for Small Business' in her keynote address. All small to medium sized business owners are encouraged to attend. This is a FREE EVENT that includes a wine and cheese social to celebrate and promote small and local business for all the right reasons. Registration link to be provided when you RSVP www.smallbusinessseminar.ca RSVP to attend - or advertise as an elite Canadian Financial Literacy sponsor in one way or another. The focus and theme is better business through area networking and financial literacy. To view the image associated with this press release, please visit the following link: http://www.marketwire.com/library/20160115-Bild01-gr.jpg To view the video associated with this press release, please visit the following link: https://youtu.be/C6-V0zigm_I Contacts: James Dean 416-360-0000 info@money.ca SANYA, China, Jan. 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Two decades ago,people traveled with the help of traditional travel agencies. Affected by the tide of Internet and new media, in the latest ten years, people become more proactive to acquire traveling information from Internet by webpage searching, emailing, social internet media sharing, mobile APP and etc. However, nowadays, people understand and plantheir traveling in a more entertaining way. Hence, Trips Sanya, an online traveling platform with incentive campaigns, is presented to the worldwide travelers. Supported by Sanya Tourism Development Commission, Trips Sanya has anin-depth understanding of worldwide travelers' needs and preferences. It providesan integrated traveling products to simplify and optimize their decision-making process. It guides them with the most authoritative and useful traveling information and discount offers. It guarantees them with the best services and experiences. In addition to the traveling needs, Trips Sanya makes everything about traveling cooler and more interesting by introducing incentive campaigns on the websites, such as lucky draws. Trips Sanya provides global travelers with attractive traveling prizes on weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly basis. The 2015 November prize winners who have been the fans of Trips Sanya and taken participate in website's activities http://en.trips.sanyatour.com/PRN20160115 arrived Sanya on Jan. 13, 2016 and started their 12-days customized Sanya trip which is sponsored by campaign host, including totally free flight tickets, hotel accommodations, scenic attraction entrance, Chinese traditional medical treatment as well as whole-journey guides. Their trip updates will be posted on Trips Sanya's website. Those who are interested in their trip are welcome to login Trips Sanya's websites. Currently, Trips Sanya's yearly super grand prize have been officially launched on webpages. The yearly super grand prize of Trips Sanya includes a bonus of 1.8 million Ruble and a 20-30 days China tour for two persons with the whole package of services. To win the prizes of Trips Sanya, what travelers have to do is just to take participate in websites' simple incentive activities. Trips Sanya will always make efforts in promoting fun campaigns forpeople's 'tedious' traveling process, valuable traveling products fortheir 'common' traveling experience as well as stunning prize-winning opportunities to add value for their whole trips. Join Trips Sanya and fantastic journeys are awaiting. Trips Sanya official website in Russian has been launched in December 2015, http://ru.trips.sanyatour.com/PRN20160115, while Trips Sanya official web in English has been launched in January 2016, http://en.trips.sanyatour.com/PRN20160115. About Sanya Tourism Development Commission Sanya Municipal Commission of Tourism Development is an important division of Hainan's Municipal Government. Its major responsibilities lie in planning and promoting the growth of the tourism industry in Sanya. AboutBeyond Summits Ltd Beyond Summits Ltd. is a leading all-media total solution provider focused on cross-border brand building & destination marketing covering global accounts including all small or medium-sized enterprises. It's Beyond Summits' MISSION to help clients marketing their products and services to the world, assist them in stepping into globalization more effectively, efficiently and professionally. Hamilton, Bermuda, January 15, 2016 - Seadrill Limited ("SDRL" or "the Company") announces today that an agreement with DSME shipyard has been reached to defer the delivery of two ultra-deepwater drillships, the West Aquila and West Libra, until the second quarter of 2018 and first quarter of 2019 respectively. Under the terms of the original construction contracts, the units were to be delivered by the end of the second quarter of 2016 and the total final yard instalment for both units of over $800 million was due at that time. This agreement significantly improves the Company's near term liquidity position by deferring these capex commitments to 2018 and 2019 with no further payments to the yard until that time. This information is subject of the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act. BEIJING (dpa-AFX) - China's bank lending declined in December and money supply growth slowed from last year, the People's Bank of China said Friday. Banks extended CNY 597.8 billion in December, which was below November's CNY 708.9 billion lending. It was forecast to fall marginally to CNY 700 billion. Meanwhile, total social financing rose to CNY 1.82 trillion from CNY 1.02 trillion a month ago. The loose monetary stance currently adopted by the People's Bank means a further pickup in credit growth is likely going forward, even in spite of the recent market turmoil, Julian Evans-Pritchard at Capital Economics, said. M2 money supply climbed 13.3 percent annually, slower than the 13.7 percent growth registered in November. Likewise, M1 growth eased to 15.2 percent from 15.7 percent. The acceleration in broad credit since the middle of last year should feed through into stronger economic activity over the coming quarters, the economist said. He expects credit growth to remain strong going forward on the back of loose monetary conditions. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX 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. Vilnius, Lithuania, 2016-01-15 08:25 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The resolutions of the General Shareholders Meeting of INVL Baltic Real Estate, AB that was held on 15 January 2016: 1. Approval of the Dividend payment policy of public limited liability company INVL Baltic Real Estate. The Shareholders Meeting of INVL Baltic Real Estate, AB got acquainted and approved the Dividend payment policy. 2. Regarding election of the Member of the Board of INVL Baltic Real Estate. According to the fact that the Member of the Board of INVL Baltic Real Estate Andrius Dauksas decided to resign from the position of the Board member from 3 January 2016, it is decided to elect Egidijus Damulis to the Board of INVL Baltic Real Estate till the end of the term of the Board. The person authorized to provide additional information: Egidijus Damulis Director E-mail: egidijus.damulis@invl.com Attachment: https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=543138 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. LONDON (dpa-AFX) - International Consolidated Airlines Group S.A. (ICAGY.PK, IAG.L), formed by the merger of British Airways plc. and Spanish flag carrier Iberia Lineas Aereas de Espana S.A., Friday said it has signed a joint business agreement between British Airways, Iberia and LATAM Airlines Group on flights between Europe and South America. Under the joint business, British Airways, Iberia and LATAM Airlines would cooperate commercially on flights between the European Union and South America. They would expand their codeshare arrangements on flights between and within Europe and South America, significantly increasing the number of destinations that the airlines can offer customers. The airlines plan to seek approval from the appropriate competition authorities in South America and will inform the regulatory authorities in the European Union. It is anticipated that regulatory approval could take between 12 and 18 months. The airlines' combined route network would serve more than 100 destinations in South America and 87 destinations in Europe. In addition, customers would have more opportunities to earn and redeem frequent flyer miles (Avios, LANPASS and TAM Fidelidade) on flights worldwide as well as continued reciprocal airport lounge access. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX 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. 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. Skive, Denmark, 2016-01-15 08:47 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --Divestment of the HVAC and Telecom EMEA business segmentsToday, Dantherm has completed the divestment of the HVAC business segment and the EMEA part of the Telecom business segment to the private equity fund Procuritas Capital Investors V. The divestment was undertaken in response to a demand from Dantherm's credit institutions to reduce the interest-bearing debt owed to them as a result of continued failing results in Telecom, the sale of which has yet to be closed.Back in 2013, Dantherm's Board of Directors initiated an analysis of the strategic opportunities for strengthening Dantherm's business development and capital base. To maximise the shareholder value of Dantherm, the analysis comprised, among other factors, a separate analysis of the two business segments Telecom and HVAC, with Handelsbanken Capital Markets as Dantherm's financial advisor.As a result of this, in 2014, Dantherm entered into a binding agreement with the parent company of China Technologies Holdings Group Co., Ltd., (Hong Kong) (CTHG) on the divestment of the Telecom business segment. Contrary to expectations, the buyer has not yet been able to complete the transaction. However, Dantherm maintains a close dialogue with the buyer on the possibility of completing the transaction, see below.In March 2015, Dantherm renegotiated the agreement with its primary credit institutions on committed facilities. In that connection, the credit institutions undertook to extend the facilities until January 2016, subject to certain conditions. Dantherm's liquidity situation was negatively impacted by the delay in the Telecom divestment and the current operating situation within this segment.Due to the postponed closing of the divestment of the Telecom business and the group's general financing situation, Dantherm's management continued to step up its efforts to further strengthen the group's capital base, as called for by the credit institutions.As a result, the business segment HVAC and Telecom EMEA have now been sold to Procuritas, which has completed more than 30 acquisitions in the Nordic countries, representing a total investment of approx. DKK 10bn, since its foundation in 1986.The divested activities include the HVAC companies in Denmark, Norway, the UK and Poland as well as the Telecom companies in Denmark, Sweden and Germany. Telecom EMEA adds important activities and earnings to HVAC in Denmark, which is why this business is included in the transaction. In 2015, the divested activities generated a revenue of approx. DKK 310m, and it has around 240 employees.Due to the divestment of the Telecom EMEA companies, Dantherm today terminated its agreement with CTHG, but Dantherm's agreement with Procuritas allows CTHG to re-enter into the agreement and complete the previously agreed closing by the end of February 2016, including the Telecom EMEA companies.If the closing with CTHG is not completed, the valuation of the remaining part of the Telecom business for Dantherm will have to be assessed separately without having regard to this and based on an updated business plan. As a consequence, considerable write-downs for impairment, including goodwill, will have to be made, which in this case will cause Dantherm to move into significant negative equity and to suffer a capital loss under the provisions of the Danish Companies Act.Based on the operating situation of the continuing activities after the divestment of HVAC and Telecom EMEA and the remaining debt to the group's credit institutions, the Board of Directors has decided to attempt to phase out the rest of the activities by divesting the individual companies and other assets. In this connection, the credit institutions have made credit facilities available for the process, which is expected to span over the first six months of 2016.The sales price for the business segment HVAC and Telecom EMEA is DKK 164m on a debt-free basis, which is expected to result in an accounting loss in 2015 in the region of DKK 20m, including sales costs. The sale will reduce the net interest-bearing debt owed to the credit institutions to around DKK 80m (end of Q3 2015: DKK 214m). Only in the best-case scenario are the net proceeds of a sale of the remaining assets expected to exceed the interest-bearing debt.OrganisationAfter the divestment, Dantherm will comprise the wholly-owned companies in China, with approx. 100 employees, in the US, with approx. 50 employees, and the parent companies in Denmark with only a few employees. In addition, Dantherm has an ownership share of 43% in Dantherm Power.Following the divestment, the employee representatives on Dantherm A/S's Board of Directors will resign, leaving the four members elected by the general meeting as members of the Board.President & CEO Torben Duer will resign his position to become CEO of the companies divested to Procuritas. Deputy Chairman of the Board Preben Tolstrup has been appointed new President & CEO of Dantherm A/S on an interim basis.Financial statementsThe 2015 financial statements will be finalised and audited in accordance with the previously issued financial calendar.Any enquiries concerning this announcement can be directed to Chairman of Dantherm's Board of Directors Jrgen Mller-Rasmussen on tel. +45 23 20 50 50.In case of doubt the Danish version of this announcement is applicableAttachment:https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=543189 FAIRFIELD (dpa-AFX) - General Electric Co. (GE) Friday announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to sell its Appliances business to China's Qingdao Haier Co., Ltd. for $5.4 billion. The transaction values GE Appliances at 10 times the last 12 months of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. The sale will generate an after-tax gain of approximately $0.20 per share at closing. GE expects to offset the gain with restructuring in 2016. The deal has been approved by the board of directors of GE and of Haier, and remains subject to customary closing conditions, including Haier shareholder approval, and regulatory approvals. The transaction is targeted to close in mid-2016. As part of the transaction, GE has entered into a long-term agreement with Haier to continue use of the GE Appliances brand. Louisville will remain the headquarters for GE Appliances. GE and Haier also announced long term strategic partnership to explore cooperation in the areas of industrial internet, healthcare, and advanced manufacturing. Goldman Sachs provided financial advice to GE, and Sidley Austin LLP was GE's legal advisor. The Company said it will provide more details on the gain and restructuring on its fourth-quarter earnings call on January 22. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX 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. - Toothbrush Requiring only Water Makes Maison & Objet Debut - - Entirely Wrought in Japan, MISOKA Series has Reached 2.5 Million Sales - MINOH, Japan, Jan. 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Yume-Shokunin Co., Ltd. is pleased to announce our first exhibit at the upcoming Maison & Objet Paris to be held from January 22 to 26, 2016. MISOKA is a Japanese premium brand toothbrush and its bristles are specially coated with nano-sized minerals developed by our company. Made in craftsman quality, it was selected for "The Wonder 500" by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry as one of Japan's proud products. Photo -http://prw.kyodonews.jp/prwfile/release/M101582/201601157054/_prw_OI1fl_5SsH4256.jpg Product features With a single glass of water, MISOKA cleans the teeth and make the surface smooth. Namely, MISOKA toothbrush lets you check the presence of residual polish by yourself. After brushing, MISOKA leaves a stain-resistant barrier that protects teeth. While ordinary toothbrushing wastes a lot of water, this eco-friendly toothbrush does not cause such a problem. *You can try MISOKA at the trial location on our stand during the exhibition Location of Our Stand Hall 7, NOW! DESIGN A VIVRE Booth No.: B214/C213 MISOKA Website: http://www.yumeshokunin.jp/mo AMSTELVEEN, the Netherlands, January 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The KidsRights Foundation has today officially started the nomination process for the International Children's Peace Prize 2016. KidsRights each year awards this prestigious prize to a brave boy or girl, regardless of race, place of birth or social standing, who has demonstrated the skill and determination necessary to personally improve the rights of children. These children deserve recognition and a global platform to continue their work on an international scale. KidsRights therefore calls upon individuals and organizations worldwide to nominate eligible children or youths. This year will be the 12th consecutive year that the prize is awarded. KidsRights is very proud of the international prominence the International Children's Peace Prize has gained over the years, but even prouder of the growth and accomplishments we have observed in past winners. Take Malala Yousafzai, for example, who won in 2013 and went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize the very next year. Or last year's winner Abraham M. Keita; by winning the award he gained an international platform which enabled him to spread his powerful message of justice for children who are victims of violence among an audience of hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Nominating this year's potential winners Like Malala and Keita, there are countless young changemakers in the world; children or youths who deserve recognition for their successes in promoting children's rights. KidsRights needs help in finding this year's potential winners. We therefore call upon individuals and organizations to nominate those children or youths who they believe deserve recognition. Nominated children must meet the nomination requirements, which can be found on the website. The deadline for entries is March 14th 2016. Nomination criteria: The nominee must be a girl or boy above 12 and under 18 years of age; From anywhere in the world; The child must have a clear history of standing up and fighting for his/her own rights and/or the rights of other children. It is important that the child have an active approach in accomplishing this goal, which has led to a concrete result; The child agrees to being nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize. The nomination form and the full list of criteria can be found on the website of the International Children's Peace Prize: http://www.childrenspeaceprize.org. About the International Children's Peace Prize The International Children's Peace Prize is awarded annually to a child who fights courageously for children's rights. Every year, the message of the new young winner has enormous impact and demonstrates to millions of people globally that change is possible. In 2016 the prize will be awarded for the 12th consecutive year. Previous winners include Nkosi Johnson, who fought for the rights of children with AIDS, and Malala Yousafzai, who won the International Children's Peace Prize in 2013 before winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. The International Children's Peace Prize is an initiative of Marc Dullaert, founder of the KidsRights Foundation. It was launched in 2005 during the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Rome, chaired by Mikhail Gorbachev. During the nomination process the expert committee of the prize receives nominations from countries all over the world. Very remarkable, but often unknown, brave children have been discovered through the annual nomination process. The International Children's Peace Prize is presented by a Nobel Peace Laureate. The winner receives the statuette 'Nkosi', which portrays a child setting the world in motion, as well as a study grant and a worldwide platform to promote his or her ideals and causes for the benefit of children's rights. Furthermore, KidsRights invests the sum of 100,000 in projects in the winner's home country that are closely connected to his or her area of work. Please visit the website for more information about the International Children's Peace Prize: http://www.childrenspeaceprize.org. About KidsRights Foundation KidsRights is an international non-governmental organization that promotes the wellbeing of very vulnerable children across the world and advocates the realisation of their rights. KidsRights strives for a world where all children have access to their rights and are enabled to realise the great potential they carry within them. KidsRights sees children as changemakers with the power to move the world, andfacilitates in voicing their opinions and taking action in order to bring about change. KidsRights supports children by commanding global attention for the realisation of children's rights and acting as a catalyst to ignite change, together with children and youths. We support this with research and action. In order to gain insight into the status of children's rights, KidsRights frequently conducts research. The foundation also finances local projects aimed at directly improving the rights of vulnerable children and stimulating child participation and change-making by youths. Please visit our website to find out more about KidsRights: http://www.kidsrights.org. About KidsRights & ABN AMRO ABN AMRO is committed to investing in the future and being engaged in society. To this end, ABN AMRO has chosen a motto for its sponsorship and foundation activities: 'Partner of the Future'. The bank supports people and organisations seeking to achieve a goal by helping them discover their talents or realise their ambitions, and by stimulating people to reach their full potential. ABN AMRO has been a partner of the Dutch children's rights organization KidsRights since 2006, working together to enable the International Children's Peace Prize. Children set the world in motion; the International Children's Peace Prize provides them with a platform to make the world a better place. More information: http://www.abnamro.com/partnervandetoekomst FAIRFIELD (dpa-AFX) - General Electric Co. (GE) Friday announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to sell its Appliances business to China's Qingdao Haier Co., Ltd. for $5.4 billion. GE has also entered into a long-term agreement with Haier to continue use of the GE Appliances brand. GE has been running an auction for the century-old appliance business since it abandoned a $3.3 billion sale to Swedish home appliances maker Electrolux AB (0MDT.L, 0GQ1.L, ELUXY.PK) in December. GE's effort to sell the unit for a lower amount was blocked by the U.S. Justice Department, saying the combination would eliminate competition that has benefited American consumers through lower prices and more options. The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the mater, that the Chinese appliance maker outbid other foreign corporate bidders for the business. GE now said its transaction values Appliances unit at 10 times the last 12 months of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. The sale will generate an after-tax gain of approximately $0.20 per share at closing. GE expects to offset the gain with restructuring in 2016. The deal has been approved by the board of directors of GE and of Haier, and remains subject to customary closing conditions, including Haier shareholder approval, and regulatory approvals. The transaction is targeted to close in mid-2016. Following the deal, Louisville will remain the headquarters for GE Appliances. GE and Haier also announced long term strategic partnership to explore cooperation in the areas of industrial internet, healthcare, and advanced manufacturing. In the transaction, Goldman Sachs provided financial advice to GE, and Sidley Austin LLP was GE's legal advisor. The Company said it will provide more details on the gain and restructuring on its fourth-quarter earnings call on January 22. It was in December last year that GE terminated its September 2014 agreement to sell its Appliances business to Electrolux, and the company then had said that it would pursue other options to sell the business. In July 2015, Department of Justice or DOJ had filed a civil antitrust lawsuit in Federal Court seeking to stop Electrolux's proposed acquisition of GE's appliances business. Electrolux vigorously contested this effort by the DOJ to oppose the transaction, but in vein, and had to pay a break-up fee of $175 million to GE after the termination of the deal. GE had tried to sell the century-old appliance business earlier in 2008, but had to scrap the effort due to the lack of potential buyers amid the global recession. GE shares settled on Wednesday at $29.05, up 2.87 percent. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - At 5:00 am ET Friday, Eurostat is set to release Eurozone foreign trade figures for November. The trade surplus is expected to rise slightly to EUR 21 billion from EUR 19.9 billion in October. Ahead of the data, the euro traded mixed against its major rivals. While the euro advanced against the pound, greenback and the franc, it held steady against the yen. The euro was worth 1.0907 against the greenback, 0.7593 against the pound, 1.0936 against the franc and 128.05 against the yen at 4:55 am ET. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX 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. Taiwan's Largest App Company Announces YouCam Makeup Reaches Major Milestone in Record Time Perfect Corp. is proud to announce that YouCam Makeup has achieved the monumental 100 million download milestone worldwide for iOS and Android, making it the most downloaded digital makeover app in the world. YouCam Makeup has not only become one of the "Super Apps" in the Google Play Store, but it has also been ranked as the number one photo and video app in the App Store in 37 countries since its initial release in August, 2014. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160115005259/en/ "We're very proud to announce this symbolic 100 million download milestone," said Alice H. Chang, CEO of Perfect Corp. "This major landmark demonstrates that YouCam Makeup is now the top makeover app in the world. We achieved this milestone thanks to the loyal support from our passionate community of app users, whose excitement and feedback serve to guide our continuous innovation." YouCam Makeup remains the fastest growing photography app and receives excellent user rating with an average 4.4 out of 5 stars from over one million user reviews in the Google Play Store. The app's extensive suite of offerings has contributed to the success of YouCam Makeup. In addition to experiencing real-time trendy makeup styles and trying out products from brands before committing to purchase, users can also virtually try on several celebrity looks instantly. Perfect Corp. will continue to provide users with the most dynamic virtual beauty tools imaginable empowering them to experience true-to-life makeup from the palm of their hand. App Availability YouCam Makeup is available for free on Google Play and the App Store. About Perfect Corp. Perfect Corporation is dedicated to transforming how consumers, content creators and beauty brands interact together. Our experienced team of engineers and beauty aficionados are pushing the frontiers of technology to create the beauty platform of the future a fluid environment where individuals express themselves, learn the latest about fashion and beauty, and enjoy instant access to the products from their favorite brands. Further information about Perfect Corp. can be found at perfectcorp.com View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160115005259/en/ Contacts: Perfect Corporation Corporate: Anne Shih, +886-2-8667-1298, ext. 2448 press@perfectcorp.com or Japan: Ryoko Nakagawa, +81-3-5875-6650 contact_pr_jpn@perfectcorp.com or USA: Anna Dutkowsky, +1 (646)-571-0120 contact_pr@perfectcorp.com or Germany: Volker Maxisch, +31-43-306-0797 contact_pr_deu@perfectcorp.com or France: Laetitia D'Urso, +33 (0)1-79-30-90-39 contact_pr_fr@perfectcorp.com or United Kingdom: Volker Maxisch, +31-43-306-0797 contact_pr_uk@perfectcorp.com Valartis Group AG / Outcome of the Valartis Group AG Extraordinary General Meeting . Processed and transmitted by NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. At the Valartis Group AG Extraordinary General Meeting on 15 January 2016, at St. Annagasse 18, 8001 Zurich, the 9 participants, together with shareholders represented by the independent proxy, endorsed the motions proposed by the Board of Directors: "Replacement elections to the Board of Directors" and "Elections to the Compensation Committee". Out of the total of 5,000,000 bearer shares at a par value of CHF 1.00, 2'601'726, or 52.03 percent of capital and votes were represented at the Extraordinary General Meeting. Replacement election to the Board of Directors Due to the fact that two of the members of the Board of Directors have withdrawn prior to expiration of their period of office (Urs Maurer-Lambrou as of 15 June 2015 and Jean-Francois Ducrest as of 2 November 2015), the number of members of the Board of Directors and the Compensation Committee has fallen below the minimum statutory membership of three. Shareholders voted with a large majority in favour of Stephan Haberle as member of the Board of Directors up to the first Ordinary General Meeting in 2016. On 23 November 2015, the Cantonal Court of Zug approved a six-month definitive moratorium for Valartis Group AG. Mr. Haberle will assume dual responsibilities as member of the Board of Directors and as Group CEO up to the date of the first Ordinary General Meeting in 2016 following a successful recovery. Elections to the Compensation Committee The Extraordinary General Meeting voted with a large majority in favour of Messrs. Christoph N. Meister, Gustav Stenbolt and Stephan Haberle as members of the Compensation Committee, each for a period up to conclusion of the next Ordinary General Meeting. For further information, please contact: Kim-My Schefer, Head Corporate Communications & Marketing Tel. +41 44 503 54 02, corporate.communications@valartis.ch (mailto:corporate.communications@valartis.ch) Valartis Group Valartis Group is an international finance group represented today with offices in Liechtenstein, Austria, Switzerland as well as Luxembourg and Moscow. The Group's holding company is domiciled in Switzerland and is listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange. Valartis Finance Holding AG in Liechtenstein comprises the operations of the private banking and wealth management divisions, together with the private equity operations of ENR Russia Invest S.A. Valartis Finance Holding AG is subject to the consolidated banking supervision by the Financial Market Authority of Liechtenstein (FMA). Valartis Group focuses on the wealth management business for wealthy private clients and institutional investors in addition to traditional wealth management and investment advisory, it develops, manages and markets innovative niche investment products and offers specialized product packages. In doing so, Valartis Group combines a wide range of traditional private banking services with specialized advisory and classical banking services in the fields of Asset Management, Corporate Finance and Private Equity together with innovative investment products in the categories Stocks, Fixed Income, Alternative Investments and Real Estate. Valartis Group's core markets include Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and certain countries in North and South America and Asia. www.valartisgroup.ch (http://www.valartisgroup.ch) Press release (PDF) (http://hugin.info/143135/R/1979125/724936.pdf) With so many movie franchises and television networks, there is little doubt that Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS) is a moneymaking machine. Other than the tremendous success of the highly anticipated movie Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, there is more good news for DIS stock-the company is about to open its first Disney theme park in mainland China.DIS Stock: First Disney Theme Park in Mainland ChinaOn Tuesday, January 12, Disney announced that the Shanghai Disney Resort will open on June 16, 2016. It will be the first Disney theme park in mainland China. (Source: ". 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. With the Special Participation of WISeKey's Ambassador Kevin Spacey WISeKeythe leading cybersecurity company and World Economic Forum Global Growth Company Partner, announced today the final composition of its annual Davos Roundtable. This is the 4th consecutive year WISeKey organizes the Cybersecurity Roundtable during the World Economic Forum at Davos. This year Davos delegates will discuss the current threats in cyberspace, how these threats are affecting the 4th Industrial Revolution and what more should be done to build safer and more resilient IoT infrastructure. This year, we have the privilege of having Kevin Spacey attending the event, who together with personalities such as Jimmy Wales, Jean-Christophe Babin, Eugene Kaspersky, Robert C. McFarlane, Gary Gauba, Guido Terrani, David Fergusson and Frederic Esposito, will join the Roundtable discussion moderated by WISeKey's CEO, Carlos Moreira. The roundtable will promote discussions and share the opinion of a group of international experts in areas related to the 4th Industrial Revolution such as secured Internet of Things, NFC Trusted, Blockchain, cybersecurity and fintech. In addition, a concrete case study of the Bulgari Diagono eMagnesium intelligent watch secured by WISeKey will be demonstrated as a world premiere during the event. Additionally, experts will discuss recent developments to secure the state of the world through IoT technology needed to be implemented with the emergency of smart machines which are able to identify and learn from each other and evolve in their decision-making capabilities and stay ahead of threats. To engage in discussions with our international experts, you can access our webpage at Davos http://davos.wisekey.com/2016 About WISeKey WISeKey is one of the fastest growing CyberSecurity companies in the world, being a leading Swiss information security and identity management software and services company. WISeKey's mission is to facilitate the global growth of secure electronic transactions by providing businesses, governments and individuals with advanced technology and services that authenticate the identity of communicators, signatures, and objects during Internet transactions. WISeKey is currently deploying large scale IoT digital identities ecosystems and has become a pioneer of the 4th Industrial Revolution movement launched this year at the World Economic Forum at Davos. WISeKey Swiss based Cryptographic Root of Trust integrates wearable technology with secure authentication and identification, in both physical and virtual environments, and empowers IoT and wearable devices to become secure transactional devices.www.wisekey.com The OISTE FOUNDATION Founded in Switzerland in 1998, OISTE was created with the objectives of promoting the use and adoption of international standards to secure electronic transactions, expand the use of digital certification and ensure the interoperability of certification authorities' e-transaction systems. The OISTE Foundation is a not for profit organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, regulated by article 80 et seq. of the Swiss Civil Code. OISTE is an organization in special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC) and belongs to the Not-for-Profit constituency (NPOC) of the ICANN. http://www.oiste.org/ WISeKey is a Global Growth Company Partner of the World Economic Forum: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/AM14/WEF_AM14_GGC_Profiles.pdf Follow the discussion during Davos2016 with the wisekeydavos and ask your questions @wisekey WISeKey Social Media accountsTwitter @wisekey, Linkedin, FacebookInstagram View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160115005022/en/ Contacts: WISeKey: Youmna Abisaleh, Tel: +41 22 594 30 40 Head of Marketing and Sales yabisaleh@wisekey.com or Investor Relations: The Equity Group, Inc. Lena Cati, +1 212-836-9611 lcati@equityny.com DUBLIN, Jan. 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/lrmlg8/successful) has announced the addition of the "Successful Medical Writing (Barcelona, Spain - April 5-7, 2016)" conference to their offering. Success in the pharmaceutical industry depends on the speed and efficiency of new drug approvals. This process largely relies on the quality of documentation submitted to the regulatory authorities, and a high standard of medical writing plays a vital role in ensuring success. This intensive practical medical writing course will benefit participants by enabling them to achieve this standard. Aims and Objectives This intensive and interactive course combines lectures with practical exercises to provide a thorough introduction to the basics of medical writing that goes beyond the usual overview' courses. It will provide in-depth training in general writing and data presentation skills, and specifically in the kind of documents most frequently encountered in clinical research. Participants will learn both the theoretical and practical aspects of writing for regulatory authorities as well as the sensible use of international guidelines, standards and useful writing tips. Many illustrative examples will be used, drawn from the seminar leaders' wide experience of the pharmaceutical industry Speakers Barry Drees Dr. Barry Drees holds a BSc in molecular biology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a PhD in Genetics at University of California, San Francisco. After working as a postdoctoral fellow of the American Cancer Society at the University of Freiburg, Germany, he joined Hoechst AG (later Aventis) Frankfurt in 1989 as a medical writer, and was Manager, Medical Writing Phase I-IIa at Aventis Pharma (now Sanofi) in Frankfurt. He is past president of EMWA and is former Editor-in-Chief of The Write Stuff, the Journal of the European Medical Writers Association and Senior Partner at Trilogy Writing & Consulting. Alistair Reeves Alistair Reeves holds a BA in applied languages (German, French and Spanish) after studying in London, Tubingen and Amiens. After a period in medical market research, he joined the pharmaceutical industry in 1979 where he worked as a medical translator, followed by successive positions as a medical writer in regulatory affairs and as standards manager (specialising in the design of case report forms and standardisation). This was followed by a period in document management and publishing. In 2002 he founded Ascribe Medical Writing and Translation, based in Wiesbaden, Germany, and besides now focussing on editing and rewriting texts in English by non-native speakers, he gives numerous training events throughout Europe on the use of English in medical and pharmaceutical documentation. Stephen de Looze Dr Stephen de Looze holds an MA in biochemistry from the University of Oxford and a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Freiburg, where he was a fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He joined Hoechst AG in Frankfurt in 1985 to establish the Medical Writing department and held the post of Head of Medical Writing at Aventis Pharma (formerly Hoechst AG) until the end of 2001. He was Director of Medical Writing and Electronic Publishing at Accovion GmbH in Eschborn (Frankfurt) from 2002-2013, and is now a freelance consultant in Medical Writing. He has served EMWA on the Education Committee since 2000, and was elected Education Officer 2001-2003 and 2007-2011. He sat on international committees under the auspices of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical industries and Associations for ICH E3 Structure and Content of Clinical Study Reports and ICH M4 The Common Technical Document. For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/lrmlg8/successful Media Contact: Laura Wood, +353-1-481-1716, press@researchandmarkets.net VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 01/15/16 -- Walter Energy Canada Holdings, Inc. ("Walter Energy Canada" or "the Company"), today announced that it has received approval from the Supreme Court of British Columbia to commence a sale and investment solicitation process for the Company's assets (the "SISP") and to engage PJT Partners LP ("PJT") as Walter Energy Canada's financial advisor. Pursuant to the SISP, PJT is soliciting offers to purchase some or all of the assets of, or make an investment in, Walter Energy Canada and certain of its affiliates and partnerships. The deadline for submission of non-binding letters of intent is 5:00 pm (EST) on March 18, 2016. Interested persons may contact PJT or the Monitor, KPMG Inc., for further information: PJT Partners LP KPMG Inc. 280 Park Avenue 777 Dunsmuir Street, PO Box 10426 New York, NY 10017 Vancouver BC 7Y 1K3 Attention: Kerry Greer Attention: Anthony Tillman Telephone: (212) 364-8993 Telephone: (604) 646-6332 Email: Greer@pjtpartners.com Email: atillman@kpmg.ca The Company also announces that the Stay Period has been extended up to and including April 5, 2016 and that William E. Aziz has been appointed as Walter Energy Canada's Chief Restructuring Officer. Walter Energy Canada and certain of its affiliates and partnerships obtained creditor protection under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (Canada) (the "CCAA") pursuant to an Initial Order granted on December 7, 2015. This will facilitate, among other things, a marketing process for the Canadian assets and for its holdings in the United Kingdom, consisting of an anthracite coal mine held through a subsidiary company ("Walter United Kingdom"). Obligations incurred after the filing date, including obligations to employees and key suppliers of goods and services, continue to be paid on an ongoing basis. Further details of the CCAA filing and related matters, including copies of the Initial Order, the SISP and other relevant information and documentation are available on the Monitor's website at www.kpmg.com/ca/walterenergycanada. Walter Energy Canada is a holding company for the Canadian and UK operations of Walter Energy, Inc. of Birmingham, Alabama. Walter Energy Canada and Walter United Kingdom were not part of the U.S. chapter 11 filing of Walter Energy, Inc. on July 15, 2015 and are not included in the asset purchase agreement that Walter Energy, Inc. entered into on November 5, 2015. About Walter Energy Canada Walter Energy Canada's Canadian operations consist primarily of three coal mines and exploration properties in the Chetwynd and Tumbler Ridge areas of Northeast British Columbia. Walter Energy Canada also owns one coal mine in South Wales through its subsidiary Walter United Kingdom. All four mines are idled as a result of current market conditions. -- The Wolverine Mine in British Columbia is an open-pit metallurgical coal mine with a coal processing plant and a rail load-out facility capable of handling 2.0-2.5 million metric tons per year. -- The Brule Mine in British Columbia is an open pit metallurgical coal mine and produces a premium low volatile pulverized coal injection (PCI) product. -- The Willow Creek Mine in British Columbia is an open-pit metallurgical coal mine with a coal processing plant and a rail load-out facility capable of handling production from both the Brule and Willow Creek mines. The Willow Creek Mine produces both metallurgical coal and coal used for pulverized injection purposes. The coal reserves are comprised of an estimated one-third metallurgical coal and two-thirds low-volatile pulverized coal (PCI). -- The Aberpergwm Mine in South Wales is an underground development mine located near the town of Neath. The mine produces anthracite coal, which can be sold as a low-volatile PCI coal, and other products used for domestic purposes. About Walter Energy Walter Energy is a leading metallurgical coal producer for the global steel industry with strategic access to steel producers in Europe, Asia and South America. The Company also produces thermal coal, anthracite, metallurgical coke and coal bed methane gas, with operations in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. For more information about Walter Energy, please visit www.walterenergy.com. Contacts: Walter Energy Canada Bill Aziz Chief Restructuring Officer baziz@bluetreeadvisors.com Longview Communications Joel Shaffer jshaffer@longviewcomms.ca Walter Energy, Inc. William Stanhouse william.stanhouse@walterenergy.com Investment AB Kinnevik (publ) ("Kinnevik") today announced that it has invested USD 14m in an approximately USD 25m investment round in Babylon Holdings Limited ("babylon"), the UK based digital healthcare service provider. The financing was led by Kinnevik and included participation and support from Hoxton Ventures and the founders of DeepMind, the British artificial intelligence company acquired by Google. babylon is a personal health service company providing care to over 250,000 people in the UK through its mobile app. A network of certified practitioners is available 7 days a week to answer questions, consult or refer to a specialist. The app allows patients to monitor their health and keep their clinical records in one secure location. babylon has established itself as a leader in digital health by combining medical experience with user friendly digital technology. Lorenzo Grabau, CEO of Kinnevik, commented: "babylon is our first investment in digital healthcare, a sector where technology will enable the delivery of better services at more affordable prices, both in developed and developing markets. We have been impressed by the initial success of babylon and look forward to supporting its team into building a global leader in digital healthcare over the long-term." For further information, visit www.kinnevik.se (http://www.kinnevik.se/) or contact: Torun Litzen, Director Investor Relations Phone +46 (0)8 562 000 83 Mobile +46 (0)70 762 00 83 Kinnevik is an entrepreneurial investment group focused on building digital consumer businesses. We work in partnership with talented founders and managers to create, invest in and lead fast growing digital businesses both in developed and developing countries. Kinnevik was founded in 1936 by the Stenbeck, Klingspor and von Horn families. Kinnevik's shares are listed on Nasdaq Stockholm's list for large cap companies under the ticker codes KINV A and KINV B. Press release (http://hugin.info/1114/R/1979072/724896.pdf) This announcement is distributed by NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions on behalf of NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions clients. The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein. Source: Kinnevik via Globenewswire HUG#1979072 PUNE, India, January 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a new market research report "qPCR Reagents Market by Detection (Dye-based, Probe-based), Packaging (qPCR Core Kits, Master Mixes), End User (Hospitals, Diagnostic Centers, Academia, Research Labs, CRO), Application (Diagnostic, Research, Forensic) - Global Forecasts to 2020", published by MarketsandMarkets, the global qPCR Reagents Market Is poised to reach ~USD 1,893.9 Million by 2020 From USD 1,307.0 Million in 2015, growing at a CAGR of 7.7%, during 2015 to 2020. Browse 69 market data Tables and 55 Figures spread through 155 Pages and in-depth TOC on "qPCR Reagents Market" http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/qpcr-reagents-market-102087588.html Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report. On the basis of detection method, the global qPCR Reagents Market is classified into two segments, namely, dye-based and probe & primer-based qPCR reagents. qPCR Reagents Market has been further divided on the basis of packaging type (core kits and mastermixes), end user (hospitals and diagnostic centers, research laboratories and academic institutes, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, clinical research organizations, and forensic laboratories), and application (diagnostic, research, and forensic). Factors such as rising patient population base for infectious diseases & genetic disorders, coupled with growing geriatric population, technological advancements in the life sciences sector, increasing public-private investments, funds, and grants for PCR-based research, and the successful completion of the human genome project are driving the growth of qPCR Reagents Market. However, technical limitations associated with qPCR are restraining the growth of this market. In 2015, North America is expected to hold the largest share of the qPCR Reagents Market, followed by Europe. Additionally, Asia-Pacific is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period (2015 to 2020). Strong market growth witnessed in the North American qPCR Reagents Market can be attributed to factors such as high penetration of qPCR technologies among key end users, increasing public & private funding to expand the application base of qPCR, ongoing product advancements in the field of qPCR reagents, and continuous reduction in the average cost of genome sequencing. Get The PDF Brochure: http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownload.asp?id=102087588 Thermo Fisher Scientific (U.S.), Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc. (U.S.), Qiagen N.V. (Netherlands), F. Hoffmann-La Roche, Ltd. (Switzerland), Agilent Technologies Inc. (U.S.), Takara Bio (Japan), Affymetrix Inc. (U.S.), Promega Corporation (U.S.), Sigma-Aldrich Corporation (U.S.), and Quanta Biosciences Inc. (U.S.), are some of the key players operating in the global qPCR Reagents Market. Browse Related Reports: Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) Market - by Platforms (Illumina HiSeq, MiSeq, HiSeqX Ten, NextSeq 500,Thermo Fisher Ion Proton/PGM), Bioinformatics (Exome Sequencing, RNA-Seq, ChIP-Seq), Technology (SBS, SMRT) & by Application (Diagnostics, Personalized Medicine) - Global Forecast to 2020. http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/next-generation-sequencing-ngs-technologies-market-546.html Digital PCR (dPCR) and qPCR Market by Technology, Product (Instruments, Reagents, Software), End User (Research Lab, Academia, Hospitals, Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology Cos, CROs), Application (Research, Diagnostic, Forensic) Global Forecast to 2019. http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/digital-pcr-market-174151204.html About MarketsandMarkets: MarketsandMarkets is world's No. 2 firm in terms of annually published premium market research reports. Serving 1700 global fortune enterprises with more than 1200 premium studies in a year, M&M is catering to multitude of clients across 8 different industrial verticals. We specialize in consulting assignments and business research across high growth markets, cutting edge technologies and newer applications. 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. M&M's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "RT" 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. The new included chapters on Methodology and Benchmarking presented with high quality analytical infographics in our reports gives complete visibility of how the numbers have been arrived and defend the accuracy of the numbers. We at MarketsandMarkets are inspired to help our clients grow by providing apt business insight with our huge market intelligence repository. Contact: Mr. Rohan North - Dominion Plaza, 17304, Preston Road, Suite 800, Dallas, TX 75252 Tel: +1-888-600-6441 Email: sales@marketsandmarkets.com Visit MarketsandMarkets Blog @ http://mnmblog.org/market-research/healthcare/biotechnology Connect with us on LinkedIn @http://www.linkedin.com/company/marketsandmarkets NEW YORK, NY -- (Marketwired) -- 01/15/16 -- The United Mexican States and oil and gas company Pemex have taken top honors in LatinFinance's 2015 Deals of the Year Awards. The United Mexican States has garnered Sovereign Bond of the Year, for its EUR 1.5 billion ($1.6 billion) century bond, and Sovereign Issuer of the Year. Pemex has won Quasi-Sovereign Bond of the Year for its triple tranche $6 billion issuance, Financing Innovation of the Year for its landmark MXN9 billion euroclearable bond and Corporate Issuer of the Year. The winners of this year's awards employed sophisticated, creative strategies to secure funding during a particularly challenging year in the financial markets for Latin American issuers. From pioneering new documentation for Latin American sovereigns, to paving the way to new sources of capital, these issuers stand out for borrowing billions of dollars across multiple transactions, while demonstrating a keen sense of market timing, efficiency and excellence. "The United Mexican States has once again risen above other sovereigns, navigating a variety of challenges across the globe to successfully tap investors in multiple markets," Katie Llanos-Small, Editor-In-Chief of LatinFinance, says, adding that this is the fifth consecutive year the sovereign has won the Sovereign Issuer category. "Pemex has proven to be one of the leading issuers in the region, executing several transactions, from the very large to the very novel, while setting significant precedents that will benefit Latin American borrowers," Llanos-Small says. The editorial team at LatinFinance selected the winners after a rigorous and detailed evaluation process. After receiving hundreds of nominations from sovereigns, banks, corporates, funds and firms across 28 categories, LatinFinance consulted market participants and conducted an extensive examination of data and research. The awards were revealed at a gala dinner in New York last night. Other winners in LatinFinance's 2015 Deals of the Year Awards include Telefonica Vivo, Nemak, Gruma and Coltel. JPMorgan has won Investment Bank of the Year, while Cleary Gottlieb wins Law Firm of the Year: Latin America. A full list of winners is below and available at www.latinfinance.com/doty LatinFinance Deals of the Year Awards winners: The LatinFinance Deals of the Year Awards recognize transactions and institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean that have demonstrated excellence in banking and the capital markets between October 1, 2014 and September 30, 2015. Please click through for full details on the winner in each category. Sovereign Issuer of the Year United Mexican States Sovereign Bond of the Year United Mexican States Corporate Issuer of the Year Pemex Quasi-Sovereign Bond of the Year Pemex Financing Innovation of the Year Pemex Corporate High-Grade Bond of the Year Gruma Corporate High-Yield Bond of the Year Coltel Sovereign Liability Management of the Year Dominican Republic Corporate Liability Management of the Year BRF Equity Follow-On of the Year Telefonica Vivo Cross-Border M&A Deal of the Year Telefonica Vivo Initial Public Offering of the Year Nemak Private Equity Deal of the Year Tribeca Asset Management Domestic M&A Deal of the Year Grupo Clarin Syndicated Loan of the Year Trafigura Beheer Restructuring of the Year Corporacion Geo Local Currency Deal of the Year Republic of Peru Structured Financing of the Year Latam Airlines Trade Finance of the Year Fibria Law Firm of the Year: LatAm Cleary Gottlieb Law Firm of the Year: Brazil Machado Meyer Law Firm of the Year: Mexico Ritch Mueller Heather y Nicolau Law Firm of the Year: Andes Gomez-Pinzon Zuleta Bond House of the Year Bank of America-Merrill Lynch Equity House of the Year Bank of America-Merrill Lynch M&A House of the Year Goldman Sachs Loan House of the Year BBVA Investment Bank of the Year JPMorgan Selection process: The winners of the awards are selected by LatinFinance's editorial team. The selection process takes into account nominations from market participants, as well extensive evaluation of supporting documentation and relevant transactional and institutional data. For more information on the awards, please visit www.latinfinance.com/doty. About LatinFinance Since 1988 LatinFinance has distinguished itself as a leading source of intelligence on the financial markets and economies of Latin America and the Caribbean. Published from New York and Miami, with a network of correspondents across the region, the Daily Brief delivers the latest news and deal coverage, while the magazine and data-intensive website, latinfinance.com, add the further context and analysis required to do business in these fast-moving markets. Covering debt, equity, structured finance, syndicated loans, private equity and M&A, as well as multilateral financing, people moves and secondary trading, LatinFinance is the essential provider of news and analysis that can't be found anywhere else. For more information please visit latinfinance.com. Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=2950183 For more information please contact Hilary Neil hilary.neil@latinfinance.com WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A top US general has warned of the possibility of Islamic State militants stepping up the tempo of attacks around the world as they come under increased pressure in Iraq and Syria. General Lloyd Austin, the heads the military's Central Command (CENTCOM) overseeing Middle East operations, Friday made the argument that recent IS-claimed attacks like the ones this week in Istanbul and Jakarta are in fact evidence the group is faltering. ISIL has assumed a defensive posture in Iraq and Syria, Austin said at a news conference in Florida. Going forward, we can expect to see him rely increasingly on acts of terrorism such as we saw this week in Baghdad and in Turkey, and most recently in Jakarta, he added. The IS group, which swept through vast regions of Iraq and Syria in 2014 and 2015 and captured a string of cities, has seen recent setbacks across its self-proclaimed caliphate, including the loss of the key Iraqi city of Ramadi to US-supported local forces. A US-led coalition has also been hammering the group's oil infrastructure, its main source of income. including by blowing up Hundreds of trucks used to ferry illicit crude oil around Syria were blown up in coalition airstrikes, and a financial facility in the Iraqi city of Mosul was bombed earlier this week. Islamic State lost millions of dollars in cash in the bombing, US officials say. Austin, who is set to step down after heading CENTCOM since March 2013, said the IS group is upping its overseas actions to draw attention away from the growing number of setbacks that it is experiencing. It is important to understand that these terrorist acts don't necessarily mean ISIL is getting stronger, he added. ISIL by its nature is a terrorist organization and by conducting these attacks, he is attempting to produce an image of invincibility in the wake of setbacks, according to Austin. The US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said he will recommend that President Barack Obama nominate General Joseph Votel to replace Austin. Votel currently heads the Special Operations Command. His nomination would reflect the increased role special operations troops are carrying out in the region as elite US commandos launch raids against IS jihadists, Carter said. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The Federal Reserve is set to release U.S. industrial production for December at 9:15 am ET Friday. Economists expect the index to decline to 0.2 percent, slower than the 0.6 percent fall recorded in November. Ahead of the data, the greenback showed mixed trading against its major rivals. While the greenback held steady against the pound, it climbed against the rest of major rivals. The greenback was worth 1.0935 against the euro, 1.0001 against the franc, 117.07 against the yen and 1.4342 against the pound as of 9:10 am ET. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX 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. KIRKLAND LAKE, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 01/15/16 -- NORDEX EXPLOSIVES LTD. ("Nordex" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: NXX) Nordex announced today that it had entered into an unsecured, non-convertible loan agreement between the Company and Jograh Investments Limited ("Jograh") pursuant to which the Company has borrowed the principal amount of $850,000 (the "Loan"). The Company had previously obtained an unsecured loan from Jograh in the amount of $150,000 effective December 31, 2015, bringing the total current indebtedness to Jograh to $1,000,000. Interest on the outstanding principal balance accrues on these loans at a rate of 15% per annum and the Company will make monthly payments of principal in the aggregate amount of $20,000, plus accrued interest. The loans mature on December 31, 2017 (the "Maturity Date") whereupon all accrued and unpaid interest and the balance of the principal owing under the loans are due and payable. Nordex may prepay any part of the loans without penalty. The proceeds of the loan will be used for working capital purposes. In connection with the Loan, Nordex issued warrants to purchase up to 1,000,000 common shares of the Company ("Common Shares"), subject to adjustment in certain circumstances, to Jograh at an exercise price of $0.20 per share. These warrants expire on the Maturity Date of the Loan, and may expire earlier in certain circumstances. Nordex also issued warrants to purchase up to 1,000,000 Common Shares, subject to adjustment in certain circumstances, to NIL Funding Corporation ("NIL") in connection with the Loan. The NIL warrants are exercisable at a price of $0.20 per share and expire on August 26, 2017 and may expire earlier in certain circumstances. All securities issued in connection with the Loan are subject to a four month hold period, and are subject to the final approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. About Nordex Explosives Nordex Explosives Ltd. is a Canadian based manufacturer and distributor of explosives for the mining, quarry and construction industries since 1970. Its manufacturing operations and distribution centre is strategically located in one of the world's largest mining regions near Kirkland Lake, Ontario. Additional information can be found under the Corporation's profile at www.SEDAR.com. Neither the TSX Venture nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Contacts: Nordex Explosives Ltd. Jim Taylor President and CEO 705 642 3265 extension 203 jtaylor@nordexexplosives.com WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The United States has transferred 10 Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay to Oman, bringing down for the first time in 13 years, the population of the US detention camp in Cuba to less than 100. The Pentagon announced Thursday the transfer of Fahed Abdullah Ahmad Ghazi, Samir Naji al-Hasan Muqbil, Adham Mohamed Ali Awad, Mukhtar Yahya Naji al-Warafi, Abu Bakr Ibn Muhammad al-Ahdal, Muhammad Salih Husayn al-Shaykh, Muhammad Said Salim Bin Salman, Said Muhammad Salih Hatim, Umar Said Salim al-Dini, and Fahmi Abdallah Ahmad Ubadi al-Tulaqi to the Gulf country. The inter-agency Guantanamo Review Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of their cases, including security issues. All the 10 detainees were unanimously approved for transfer by the six departments and agencies comprising the task force, the Department of Defense said. In accordance with statutory requirements, US Defense Secretary Ash Carter informed Congress of the US Government's intention to transfer these individuals and of his determination that these transfers meet the statutory standard. The United States expressed gratitude to the Government of Oman for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The United States coordinated with the Government of Oman to ensure these transfers took place consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures. U.S. President Barack Obama has been under pressure to fulfill the promise he made after assuming power in 2009 to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and to commit the U.S. to releasing the detainees or bringing them to fair trial during his second term. But he later acknowledged that the deadline will likely be missed because of political and diplomatic hurdles. After releasing more than 600 detainees, currently, 93 men are held at the U.S. naval base in southeast Cuba. The military jail was set up in 2002 by former president George W. Bush to hold terror suspects from around the world who are suspected of committing terrorist activities against the United States. Five men charged with involvement in the 9/11 attacks are currently facing the death penalty after trial by military commission. The government is also seeking capital punishment for a sixth Guantanamo detainee in another trial. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de WHITEHOUSE STATION (dpa-AFX) - German drug maker Merck KGaA (MKGAY.PK) said that it secured a favorable ruling in the English Court following almost three years of litigation with US-based Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp or MSD regarding the use of the term 'Merck'. In its judgment the English High Court stated that MSD had breached an agreement with the company by using 'Merck' alone in the UK either as a trade mark or a name, online or offline. The judge said Merck was entitled to an order to prevent MSD from describing itself in any printed or digital material addressed to the UK as 'Merck' alone, and restraining MSD's use of the trade mark 'MERCK' alone. The judge also held that MSD's use of 'Merck' as part of branding on its global websites were directed to the UK and infringed Merck's trade mark rights in the UK. Merck KGaA and MSD had entered the agreement in 1955 and amended it in 1970. According to this agreement, Merck is entitled to use the name everywhere in the world, except the U.S. and Canada. Merck KGaA relaunched its brand identity last year to reflect the transformation into a global science and technology company with three strong businesses in Healthcare Life Science and Performance Material and create a distinct identity vis-a-vis itspatients, customers and investors across various industries and geographies. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX 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. ALBANY, New York, January 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a new market report published by Transparency Market Research entitled "Aerial Imaging Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2015 - 2023,"theglobal aerial Imaging marketwas valued at US$1.07 bn in 2014 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 13.5% from 2015 to 2023, reaching US$3.3 bn by the end of the forecast period. The global aerial imaging market is driven by the demand for imagery data and related geospatial information. Emergence of new applications, popularity of existing applications, and demand from location-based services are some of the factors affecting market growth. This trend has been further supported by technological developments taking place across imaging systems and aerial platforms. Aerial imaging has conventionally been related with applications such as construction and development, cartography, defense and security, disaster risk estimation, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), journalism, and tourism. A large number of key players in the market have stepped-up efforts to create unmanned aerial mapping systems that can obtain results similar to aircraft photography at reduced costs. Owing to the reduction in cost, affordability has increased and thereby augmented consumer adoption across several small and large applications. This trend is expected to continue during the coming years as well. Full Research Report on Global Aerial Imaging Market with detailed figures and segmentation at: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/aerial-imagery-market.html The global aerial imaging market has been segmented on the basis of end-use industry into the government, commercial enterprises, civil engineering industry, military, forestry and agriculture, energy sectors, and insurance, with government sector accounting for 28% revenue share in 2014. Commercial enterprises sector was the second largest segment accounting for 20% of the market share in 2014. Going forward, government sector is predicted to lead all the end-use industry segments owing to greater use of remote sensing technology and GIS for maximizing security programs. In terms of applications, the defense and intelligence segment accounted for highest market share in 2014 i.e. 21.1% of the global revenue followed by geospatial technology. The high demand in defense and intelligence segment is attributed to the increasing adoption by government for military, infrastructure and other applications. A significant market growth is expected to be seen in the field of construction and development and natural resources management over the forecast period. This is owing to the growing cases of deforestation and increasing infrastructural activities. Get Sample Report Copy OR For further inquiries, click here: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=1761 Geographically, North America headed the global Aerial Imaging market in 2014 and accounted for almost 42% of the market revenue. The region is expected to continue to be the largest market throughout the forecast period. This is majorly supported by the growing applications of aerial imaging in agriculture and forestry area. The market demand is further complimented by increasing developments by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) in the field of map-based and imagery intelligence solutions for the U.S. national defense. The aerial imagery market in Europe is mainly driven by the growing usage of aerial imagery for archaeological purposes. The market demand is also picking up pace with the growing number of earthquakes in the Asia Pacific region. In MEA, the market demand is rising due to growing national conflicts in the region. In Latin America, the growth is mainly supported by governments that are keenly encouraging foreign investment in the region, boosting the growth of geospatial industry. Moreover, a significant contribution in boosting awareness about GIS-based information systems comes from the open map policy, and right to information plays a major role in fueling the market demand in Latin America. Browse the Press Release of this report, here: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/pressrelease/aerial-imagery-market.htm The global Aerial Imaging market has been segmented as below: Global Aerial Imaging Market, By End-use Industry Government Commercial Enterprises Civil Engineering Industry Military Forestry and Agriculture Energy Sectors Insurance Global Aerial Imaging Market, By Applications Energy Geospatial Technology Natural Resources Management Construction and Development Disaster Response Management Defense and Intelligence Conservation and Research Media and Entertainment Global Aerial Imaging Market, By Geography North America Europe Asia Pacific (APAC) (APAC) Middle East & Africa (MEA) & (MEA) Latin America (LATAM) Other Research Reports by Transparency Market Research: Terminal LCD Displays Market: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/terminal-lcd-displays-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/terminal-lcd-displays-market.html Telecom Enterprise Services Market: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/telecom-enterprise-services-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/telecom-enterprise-services-market.html Video Conferencing Market :http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/video-conferencing-market.html About Us Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMR's experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information. Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports. Contact Sudip.S 90 State Street, Suite 700 Albany, NY12207 Tel: +1-518-618-1030 USA- Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453 Email:sales@transparencymarketresearch.com Website:http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Blog:http://www.europlat.org LETHBRIDGE, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 01/15/16 -- Editors Note: There is a photo associated with this press release. Screamin Brothers is pleased to announce that it has been recently selected as a finalist for the 2016 Alberta Business Awards of Distinction for the Young Entrepreneur Award. This great honour was announced by the Alberta Chambers of Commerce on December 18th, 2015. Along with being a finalist for the Young Entrepreneur Award, Screamin Brothers is also now eligible for the prestigious Premier's Award of Distinction. "We are sincerely honoured and grateful to be nominated as a finalist in the 2016 Alberta Business Awards of Distinction for Young Entrepreneur. We are extremely proud to be recognized amongst some of Alberta's most outstanding businesses. Thank you!" - Dawson Wikkerink, CFO Screamin Brothers is in the business of producing handmade allergen-free frozen treats, using locally sourced quality ingredients. The Company was founded in 2010 by brothers JR and Dawson following the devastating earthquake in Haiti. The business was built off an idea to help the kids in Haiti by donating a percentage of their profits. Today their business is a huge success, now selling in over 700 stores across the country, with 5% of net profits supporting children locally and internationally. The awards will be announced at the Awards Gala on February 26, 2016, at the Renaissance Edmonton Airport Hotel (south of Edmonton). For event information, tickets, and hotel reservations, please go to the Alberta Business Awards of Distinction website at www.abbusinessawards.com. To view the photo associated with this press release, please visit the following link: www.marketwire.com/library/20160114-screaminbrothers800.jpg. Contacts: Screamin Brothers Dawson Wikkerink CFO and Tech Support Direct: (403) 715-2333 screaminbrothers@gmail.com www.screaminbrothers.com TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 01/15/16 -- Black Iron Inc. ("Black Iron" or the "Company") (TSX: BKI)(FRANKFURT: BIN) has negotiated with Metinvest B.V. ("Metinvest") to buy back its 49% interest in Black Iron Cyprus Ltd. ("BKI Cyprus") which owns 100% of the high quality Shymanivske iron ore project in Ukraine for US$5.6M. This transaction allows Black Iron to unlock cash previously jointly held in BKI Cyprus. Black Iron is now unrestricted in its efforts to acquire a new high quality near term cash flow generating asset as per the strategy outlined in the Company's June 24, 2015 press release. The main goal of this strategy is to strike a balance between creating a near term share price uplift for shareholders while preserving and ultimately unlocking the value in Black Iron's Shymanivske project once there is peace in Ukraine and iron ore prices recover. Progress to acquire near term production asset The currently depressed global mining and metals sector presents an opportunity for companies such as Black Iron, with cash reserves, to acquire high quality distressed assets at attractive prices. Black Iron management are focused on assets that can be brought into production within a few years time to ensure the project is cash flow generating while global commodity prices rebound to generate the greatest return for shareholders. Several projects have and are currently being reviewed that show strong potential with the timing and ultimate completion of such a transaction uncertain. Advancement of the Shymanivske Project Discussions with the Intra-Agency Working Group ("IWG") comprised of representatives from various Ukraine Government agencies and chaired by the Ministry of Justice to resolve Black Iron's outstanding legal issues and acquire needed land remain ongoing. Progress is being made albeit at a slower pace than management aspires. The war in the eastern part of Ukraine, roughly 400km from Black Iron's Shymanivske project, is unfortunately still ongoing without clear signs of peace. For the Company to meaningfully advance its highly economic Shymanivske to construction, resolution of the outstanding legal issues, land acquisition, sustained peace in Ukraine and a recovery of iron ore prices are required. About Black Iron Black Iron is an iron ore exploration and development company, advancing its 100% owned Shymanivske project located in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine. This project contains an NI 43-101 compliant resource estimated to be 645.8 Mt Measured and Indicated mineral resources, consisting of 355.1 Mt Measured mineral resources grading 32.0% Total iron and 19.5% Magnetic iron, and Indicated mineral resources of 290.7 Mt grading 31.1% Total iron and 17.9% Magnetic iron, using a cut-off grade of 10% Magnetic iron. Additionally, the project contains 188.3 Mt of Inferred mineral resources grading 30.1% Total iron and 18.4% Magnetic iron. Full mineral resource details can be found in the National Instrument 43-101 compliant technical report dated January 24, 2014 titled "Feasibility Study of the Shymanivske Iron Ore Deposit for Black Iron Inc." (the "Technical Report") under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The project is surrounded by five other operating mines, including ArcelorMittal's iron ore complex. Please visit the Company's website at www.blackiron.com, follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Linked-in or write us at info@blackiron.com for more information. The technical and scientific contents of this press release have been prepared under the supervision of and have been reviewed and approved by Matt Simpson, P.Eng, President and CEO of Black Iron Inc., who is a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101. For further information, please see the technical report of the Company, which is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Forward-Looking Information This press release contains forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is based on what management believes to be reasonable assumptions, opinions and estimates of the date such statements are made based on information available to them at that time, including those factors discussed in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in the Company's annual information form for the year ended December 31, 2014 (and dated March 12, 2015) or as may be identified in the Company's public disclosure from time to time, as filed under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking information may include, but is not limited to, statements with respect to future plans for the Company's development and possible acquisition targets and strategies. Generally, forward looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to: general business, economic, competitive, geopolitical and social uncertainties; the actual results of current exploration activities; other risks of the mining industry and the risks described in the annual information form of the Company. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward looking information. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. The Company notes that mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Contacts: Matt Simpson President & CEO Black Iron Inc. +1 (416) 309-2138 SAULT STE. MARIE, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 01/15/16 -- When Members of Provincial Parliament travel to Sault Ste. Marie on January 21 for pre-budget consultations, they will be met with community protests over austerity cuts and privatization. The Ontario Federation of Labour and the Ontario Common Front will be joining the Ontario Health Coalition in Sault Ste. Marie to protest the deep cuts to Ontario hospitals and social programs. "Here in Sault Ste. Marie, we are seeing the effects of austerity in every community. Hospital cuts, hydro privatization, mounting student debt, precarious jobs and Canada's lowest social program funding are taking their toll in every neighbourhood," said, Ahmad Gaied, Executive Vice-President of the Ontario Federation of Labour. "Ontarians are calling on the Wynne Government to abandon her austerity agenda and lay out a plan for restoring public services, growing our economy, expanding Ontario's revenue base and lifting standards for everyone. The next Ontario budget shouldn't be constrained by government cuts, it should create an Ontario in which everyone prospers." "Nine consecutive years of real-dollar cuts have plunged Ontario into last place in hospital funding. Patients are being left on stretchers in hallways, surgeries are being cancelled and vital health services are being privatized, subject to user fees, or moved out of town," said Natalie Mehra, Executive Director of the Ontario Health Coalition. "It is beyond time that these devastating hospital cuts be stopped. The Ontario government must restore our public hospital funding to at least the average of all the other provinces in Canada." Patients, workers, students, seniors and anti-poverty activists will rally outside the Sault Ste. Marie consultations of the Ontario Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs. WHAT: Community protest of Sault Ste. Marie Pre-Budget Consultation WHERE: Delta Sault Ste. Marie Waterfront Hotel, 208 St. Mary's River Dr. WHEN: Noon on Thu. Jan. 21, 2016 SPEAKERS WILL INCLUDE: -- Emcee: Folgo DellaVedova, Sault and Area Health Coalition -- Ahmad Gaied, Executive Vice-President, Ontario Federation of Labour -- Joe Krmpotich, First Vice-President, Sault Ste. Marie and District Labour Council -- Margo Dale, Chair, Sault and Area Health Coalition -- Jeff Arbus, Ontario Public Sector Employees Union (OPSEU) -- Patients will share experiences with hospital cuts and privatization Similar protests will take place at every pre-budget consultation in Ontario. For more information, visit: http://ofl.ca/index.php/rallyagainstausterity The Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) represents 54 unions and one million workers in Ontario. For information, visit www.OFL.ca and follow @OFLabour on Facebook and Twitter. Ontario Health Coalition represents more than 400 member organizations and a network of Local Health Coalitions and individual members. For information, visit http://www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca and follow @OntarioHealthC on Facebook and Twitter. Contacts: Joel Duff OFL Communications Director 416-707-0349 (cell) jduff@ofl.ca ENG/FRENCH WINDSOR, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 01/15/16 -- When Members of Provincial Parliament travel to Windsor on January 19 for pre-budget consultations, they will be met with community protests over austerity cuts and privatization. The Ontario Federation of Labour and the Ontario Common Front will be joining the Ontario Health Coalition in Windsor to protest the deep cuts to Ontario hospitals and social programs. "Here in Windsor, we are seeing the effects of austerity in every community. Hospital cuts, hydro privatization, mounting student debt, precarious jobs and Canada's lowest social program funding are taking their toll in every neighbourhood," said Chris Buckley, President of the Ontario Federation of Labour. "Ontarians are calling on the Wynne Government to abandon her austerity agenda and lay out a plan for restoring public services, growing our economy, expanding Ontario's revenue base and lifting standards for everyone. The next Ontario budget shouldn't be constrained by government cuts, it should create an Ontario in which everyone prospers." "Nine consecutive years of real-dollar cuts have plunged Ontario into last place in hospital funding. Patients are being left on stretchers in hallways, surgeries are being cancelled and vital health services are being privatized, subject to user fees, or moved out of town," said Natalie Mehra, Executive Director of the Ontario Health Coalition. "It is beyond time that these devastating hospital cuts be stopped. The Ontario government must restore our public hospital funding to at least the average of all the other provinces in Canada." Patients, workers, students, seniors and anti-poverty activists will rally outside the Windsor consultations of the Ontario Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs. WHAT: Community protest of Windsor Pre-Budget Consultation WHERE: Caesar's Windsor, 377 Riverside Dr. E, Windsor WHEN: Noon on Tue. Jan. 19, 2016 SPEAKERS WILL INCLUDE: -- Emcee: Ken Lewenza Jr., Windsor Health Coalition -- Chris Buckley, President, Ontario Federation of Labour -- Natalie Mehra, Executive Director, Ontario Health Coalition -- Brian Hogan, President, Windsor and District Labour Council -- Kim DeYong, Chair, Essex County Health Coalition -- Adam Vasey, Director, Pathway to Potential -- Shirley Roebuck, Chair, Chatham-Kent and Sarnia-Lambton Health Coalitions -- Patients will share experiences with hospital cuts and privatization Similar protests will take place at every pre-budget consultation in Ontario. For more information, visit: http://ofl.ca/index.php/rallyagainstausterity The Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) represents 54 unions and one million workers in Ontario. For information, visit www.OFL.ca and follow @OFLabour on Facebook and Twitter. Ontario Health Coalition represents more than 400 member organizations and a network of Local Health Coalitions and individual members. For information, visit http://www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca and follow @OntarioHealthC on Facebook and Twitter Contacts: Joel Duff OFL Communications Director 416-707-0349 (cell) jduff@ofl.ca ENG/FRENCH THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 01/15/16 -- When Members of Provincial Parliament travel to Thunder Bay on January 20 for pre-budget consultations, they will be met with community protests over austerity cuts and privatization. The Ontario Federation of Labour and the Ontario Common Front will be joining the Ontario Health Coalition in Thunder Bay to protest the deep cuts to Ontario hospitals and social programs. "Here in Thunder Bay, we are seeing the effects of austerity in every community. Hospital cuts, hydro privatization, mounting student debt, precarious jobs and Canada's lowest social program funding are taking their toll in every neighbourhood," said, Patty Coates, Secretary-Treasurer of the Ontario Federation of Labour. "Ontarians are calling on the Wynne Government to abandon her austerity agenda and lay out a plan for restoring public services, growing our economy, expanding Ontario's revenue base and lifting standards for everyone. The next Ontario budget shouldn't be constrained by government cuts, it should create an Ontario in which everyone prospers." "Nine consecutive years of real-dollar cuts have plunged Ontario into last place in hospital funding. Patients are being left on stretchers in hallways, surgeries are being cancelled and vital health services are being privatized, subject to user fees, or moved out of town," said Natalie Mehra, Executive Director of the Ontario Health Coalition. "It is beyond time that these devastating hospital cuts be stopped. The Ontario government must restore our public hospital funding to at least the average of all the other provinces in Canada." Patients, workers, students, seniors and anti-poverty activists will rally outside the Thunder Bay consultations of the Ontario Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs. WHAT: Community protest of Thunder Bay Pre-Budget Consultation WHERE: Valhalla Inn, 1 Valhalla Inn Rd, Thunder Bay WHEN: Noon on Wed. Jan. 20, 2016 SPEAKERS WILL INCLUDE: -- Patty Coates, Secretary-Treasurer, Ontario Federation of Labour -- Jules Tupker, Co-Chair, Thunder Bay Health Coalition -- Carlos Santander-Maturana, President, Thunder Bay and District Labour Council -- Suzanne Pulice, Co-Chair, Thunder Bay Health Coalition -- Andrew Foulds, Thunder Bay City Councillor -- Diane Parker, Patient -- Elving Josephson, Patient -- Patients will share experiences with hospital cuts and privatization Similar protests will take place at every pre-budget consultation in Ontario. For more information, visit: http://ofl.ca/index.php/rallyagainstausterity The Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) represents 54 unions and one million workers in Ontario. For information, visit www.OFL.ca and follow @OFLabour on Facebook and Twitter. Ontario Health Coalition represents more than 400 member organizations and a network of Local Health Coalitions and individual members. For information, visit http://www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca and follow @OntarioHealthC on Facebook and Twitter Contacts: Joel Duff OFL Communications Director 416-707-0349 (cell) jduff@ofl.ca ENG/FRENCH GOLD RIVER, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 01/15/16 -- SkinStore.com, the nation's leading e-commerce specialty retailer providing scientifically sound solutions for healing and maintaining healthy skin, added bareMinerals Skinsorials to its assortment of premium products. The bareMinerals approach to lasting beauty is simple: empower the skin to look healthier and younger longer. The new Skinsorials line is a three-part ritual designed to give skin the effective ingredients, naturally-derived scents and luxurious textures it craves. Part one consists of a choice of four different cleansers to purify and revitalize. Part two enhances the healthy look and feel of the skin with bareMinerals Skinsorials SkinLongevity Vital Power Infusion, an infusion serum designed to replenish, renew and fortify the skin. The final part of the ritual moisturizes, with a choice of four softening, smoothing, deeply replenishing moisturizers. Christina Bertolino, Senior Buying Manager at SkinStore.com, said, "bareMinerals has created a three-part beauty ritual designed to give the skin what it craves and promote radiant, healthy, youthful-looking skin." About SkinStore.com. Eighteen years ago, SkinStore.com decided to make clinical skin care products, normally only found in dermatologist offices, available to consumers online, and at better values. Physician founded in 1977, SkinStore carries over 250 premium brands of skin care, cosmetics, hair care, beauty tools and fragrances from around the world. With over 7500 products to choose from, SkinStore is a leading online resource for clinical and dermatologist-recommended skin care products. Customers receive free shipping on all U.S. orders over $49, and an esthetician-staffed call center is available Monday through Friday to answer questions and offer product recommendations. The company is headquartered in Gold River (Sacramento), California with operations in Sydney, Australia. For more information visit SkinStore.com or SkincareStore.com.au. BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The Swiss stock market ended Friday's session with a substantial decline, extending the losses from the previous trading day. The market got off to a weak start following the sharp pull back in the Chinese stock market and selling pressure remained throughout the morning. Some weaker than expected U.S. economic data drove the market even lower in the afternoon. The market was a bit calmer this week, when compared to last week, but remains highly volatile. Concerns over the health of the Chinese economy and falling crude oil prices have been driving equities lower since the start of 2016. Investors are now wondering whether this is the beginning of a bear market. The Swiss Market Index decreased 2.39 percent Friday and finished at 8,107.13. The SMI ended the trading week with an overall loss of 1.8 percent and is down 6.4 percent since the start of the year. The Swiss Leader Index dropped 2.56 percent Friday and the Swiss Performance Index fell 2.37 percent. Syngenta bucked the overall trend of the trading day, with a gain of 1.8 percent. The increase was fueled by takeover speculation. Bloomberg reported that Syngenta's Board of Directors has voted in favor of pursuing advanced takeover talks with China National Chemical. Offshore oil driller Transocean dropped 4.4 percent, after crude oil prices dropped below $30 a barrel. Galenica sank 6.4 percent and LafargeHolcim weakened by 4.5 percent. ABB, SGS, Lonza, Swatch and Sonova all forfeited around 3 percent. Financial stocks turned in a weak performance Friday. Julius Baer dropped 4.1 percent and UBS lost 3.9 percent, while Credit Suisse surrendered 2.7 percent. Richemont decreased 2.4 percent. Some analysts have lowered their price target on the stock after yesterday's sales report and ZKB lowered its rating to 'Underweight.' The index heavyweights all finished in the red. Novartis declined 2.7 percent after Barclays downgraded its rating on the stock to 'Underweight' from 'Neutral.' Roche dropped 2.3 percent and Nestle finished lower by 1.7 percent. Schindler fell 2.0 percent after the company announced management changes. Alfred N. Schindler will step down as Chairman next year. CEO Silvio Napoli will succeed him as Chairman and Thomas Oetterli will become the new CEO. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 01/15/16 -- Infinito Gold Ltd. ("Infinito") (NEX: IG.H) is pleased to announce that it entered into a litigation funding agreement effective December 21, 2015 ("LFA). Under the terms of the LFA, the funder has agreed to provide non-recourse financing to Infinito in connection with the legal costs of Infinito's arbitration claim against the Republic of Costa Rica before the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (the "Arbitration") and certain other expenses. The commencement of the Arbitration was disclosed in Infinito's press release of February 10, 2014. Under the terms of the LFA, Infinito has given certain warranties and covenants to the funder. In consideration of the funder funding the Arbitration, Infinito has agreed to pay to the funder a portion of any final settlement of the Arbitration claim against the Respondent (the "Funding Premium"). The Funding Premium is dependent upon the amount of funds paid in respect of the Arbitration and amount of damages recovered. The LFA also provides that the amount of the Funding Premium shall not, under any circumstances, exceed the amount of the aggregate proceeds of the Arbitration. As a further condition to the LFA, Infinito also announces that it entered into an intercreditor agreement effective December 21, 2015 (the "ICA") among the funder, Infinito and Infinito's secured creditors (the "Creditors"). The ICA provides for a creditor standstill period under which the Creditors have agreed not to exercise any rights and remedies to enforce payment of Infinito's debt pending the outcome of the Arbitration or certain other events. On December 23, 2015, Infinito filed its Memorial on the Merits with the arbitral tribunal constituted pursuant to the Arbitration Rules of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. In its Memorial on the Merits, Infinito claims from the Republic of Costa Rica damages in connection with the expropriation, unfair treatment and other treatment of its investments in Costa Rica in breach of Costa Rica's obligations under the Agreement between the Government of Canada and the Government of the Republic of Costa Rica for the Promotion and Protection of Investments. Additional Information Additional information relating to Infinito and other public filings is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE. Contacts: Infinito Gold Ltd. Erich Rauguth President and Chief Executive Officer c/o Farris, Vaughan, Wills & Murphy LLP 25th Floor, 700 West Georgia Street Vancouver, British Columbia V7Y 1B3 (867) 993-3038 er.infinitogold@gmail.com WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., endorsed Jeb Bush for the Republican presidential nomination on Friday, declaring the former Florida Governor ready to be commander-in-chief on his first day in the White House. Graham, who dropped out of the race last month with little national support, argued Bush has the right 'temperament' to be president. 'The thing I admire most about Jeb is that he stayed true to who he is, that he hasn't tried to get ahead in a contested primary by throwing dangerous rhetoric around,' Graham said at a news conference in North Charleston, South Carolina. Graham praised Bush's approach to immigration reform and suggested the former governor would be able to build partnerships with moderate Muslim countries in the fight against terrorism. For his part, Bush praised Graham's foreign policy experience and said he would continue to seek the senator's advice. 'Lindsey Graham is probably the most knowledgeable person on the Hill as it relates to national security, military affairs and foreign policy,' Bush said in an earlier interview on Fox News. He added, 'His endorsement is very meaningful, and along with it come a lot of friends and supporters of his. So I'm excited about it.' The endorsement could give Bush a boost in South Carolina, which is scheduled to hold the first-in-the-South primary on February 20th. Graham claimed the South Carolina primary will 'reset' the race, although Bush's campaign could be on its last legs by then without strong showings in the earlier contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. Recent polls have shown Bush with support in the single digits in both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. Graham dropped out of the presidential last month after failing to gain traction throughout the campaign. Many national polls showed him with less than 1 percent support. However, the senator argued his campaign made enormous progress in turning back the rising tide of isolationism in the Republican Party. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de Hudbay (TSX: HBM) (NYSE: HBM) is an integrated mining company producing copper concentrate (containing copper, gold and silver) 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 four polymetallic mines, four ore concentrators and a zinc production facility in northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan (Canada) and Cusco (Peru), and a copper project in Arizona (United States). The company 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. Hudbay also has warrants listed under the symbol "HBM.WT" on the Toronto Stock Exchange and "HBM/WS" on the New York Stock Exchange. Further information about Hudbay can be found on www.hudbayminerals.com. Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. NEW YORK, NEW YORK -- (Marketwired) -- 01/15/16 -- Brookfield Investment Management Inc. will host a conference call for the Brookfield Global Listed Real Estate Fund, Brookfield Global Listed Infrastructure Fund, Brookfield Real Assets Securities Fund and the Brookfield U.S. Listed Real Estate Fund (the "Funds") on January 28, 2016 at 4:30pm EST. The Funds' investment team will provide an update on the Funds and an update on general market conditions. If you have questions about the Funds that you would like answered on the conference call, please send an e-mail to funds@brookfield.com by 4:00pm ET on January 21, 2016. The conference call will be available on 800-319-4610. A replay of the conference call will be available soon after completion of the call at www.brookfieldim.com or by calling 855-669-9658 (passcode: 00206) through February 11, 2016. Brookfield Investment Management (the "Firm") is an SEC-registered investment advisor providing real assets public securities strategies including global listed real estate and infrastructure equities as well as corporate credit and securitized credit. With over $17 billion of assets under management as of September 30, 2015, the Firm manages institutional separate accounts, registered funds and other investment products for clients, including financial institutions, public and private pension plans, insurance companies, endowments and foundations, sovereign wealth funds and high net-worth investors. Headquartered in New York, NY, the Firm and its affiliates also maintain offices in Boston, Chicago, London and Toronto. Brookfield Investment Funds are managed by Brookfield Investment Management. The Funds use their website as a channel of distribution of material company information. Financial and other material information regarding the Funds is routinely posted on and accessible at www.brookfieldim.com. Brookfield Investment Management is an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management, a leading global alternative asset manager with over $200 billion of assets under management as of September 30, 2015. For more information, go to www.Brookfield.com. A fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses must be considered carefully before investing. The prospectus contains this and other important information about the investment company, and it may be obtained by calling 855.244.4859 or visiting brookfieldim.com. Please read the prospectus carefully before investing. Mutual fund investing involves risk. Principal loss is possible. Brookfield Investment Funds are distributed by Quasar Distributors, LLC. Contacts: Brookfield Place (855) 777-8001 funds@brookfield.com www.Brookfield.com DALLAS, TX--(Marketwired - January 15, 2016) - North Dallas Bank & Trust Co. (OTCBB: NODB) is honored to announce the election of Brannon D. Marlowe, M. D. to the banks Board of Directors. Dr. Marlowe earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Dallas and his Medical Doctorate from the University of Texas at Houston Health Science Center and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Marlowe completed his residency in Anesthesiology at the University of Alabama Birmingham. Dr. Marlowe is a partner at Excel Anesthesia, focusing his practice on cardiac and pediatric anesthesiology. During his 10 year tenure with Excel, he has held roles in marketing and business development. Dr. Marlowe is a nationally recognized speaker for advanced medical technologies and is currently conducting research with Duke University. Prior affiliations include serving as Vice President of the National Alumni Board for the University of Dallas and as Co-chair of Catholic Pro-Life Charity. He presently serves on the Christ the King Development Board. Dr. Marlowe and his family reside in Dallas. Euclid Analytics, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of customer location analytics, raised $20m in Series C funding. The round was led by Cox Enterprises with participation from Groupe Arnault, Gold Sky Capital, Benchmark Capital, New Enterprise Associates and Harrison Metal. In conjunction with the funding, Duncan OBrien, Cox Enterprises senior vice president and general manager of corporate strategy and investments, joined Euclids board of directors. The company, which has raised $44m, intends to use the funds to continue to expand adoption of its analytics solution. Founded in 2010 and Brent Franson, CEO, Euclid provides a customer location analytics platform and omni-channel analytics solutions that allow brands to understand customer behavior across online and offline channels to optimize marketing, operations and staffing. It is used by retailers, quick service restaurants (QSRs), shopping malls, retail banks, and transportation hubs to analyze customer behavior in physical locations and its impact on business outcomes. Euclid Analytics requires no new hardware, works with every major Wi-Fi vendor and can be deployed across existing Wi-Fi systems from Aerohive, Cisco, HP/Aruba, Meraki, Ruckus and Xirrus. The company currently serves over 500 brands in 65 countries across tens of thousands of locations. FinSMEs 14/01/2016 IBM (NYSE: IBM) acquired Iris Analytics, a Koblenz, Germany-based company specializing in real-time analytics to help combat payment fraud. The amount of the deal was not disclosed. The acquisition will allow IBM to expand combination its Counter Fraud capabilities and create a comprehensive solution for real time payment fraud prevention. Founded in 2007 and led by Constantin von Altrock, Chief Executive Officer, Iris provides technology and consultancy services to the payments industry to beat electronic payment fraud. Its a real-time analytics engine powers real-time fraud scoring across the full range of electronic payment channels, including credit, debit, prepaid, online and mobile to enable payment processors, switches, payment service providers, wallets and issuers across the world to analyze and respond to complex fraud patterns in real time. FinSMEs 15/01/2016 The Wireless Registry, a San francisco, CA-based global registry for wireless names and identifiers, raised $1.7m in funding. Backers included members of the founding teams of Neustar (NYSE: NSR) and Blackbird (sold to Raytheon), as well as American Family Ventures, New Atlantic Ventures, and Point Judith Capital. The company intends to use the funds to continue building its team, scale its technology platform, and grow its customer base. Led by Patrick Parodi and Stillman Bradish, The Wireless Registry charts the dynamic signal graph of Internet of Things devices. By associating identities and meaning to all detectable wireless signals (including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Bluetooth LE, and more), the company provides proximal intelligence and enables proximity-based services for apps and businesses to to engage with their surroundings. FinSMEs 15/01/2016 A helmet covers the face of a lady pushing 50, who is driving a scooter and is dressed in a simple salwar kameez. You watch her middle class life go by. Routine, like the Mumbai traffic. Sitting pillion, another Maharashtrian lady in her 60s, sits with her saree pallu tucked around her head, huge sunglasses covering her eyes. The two chat away happily. Then the lady with the helmet, smiles. And all the famous Yash Chopra sequences of her dancing, shaking her head and smiling to the famous song, tu haan kar ya naa kar, tu hai meri Kiran from the film Darr flash you by. Faster than the Mumbai traffic. Did Juhi Chawla or any other Yash Chopra heroine in beautiful yellow or white chiffons, ever think during their wonderful starry heyday , that they would be happy to look unglamorous and as ordinary as a regular scooter driving school teacher? Well, here she is: rocking it in a lead role better than some of her previous, decorative ones. She continues to essay the sweet, happy go lucky character that she masterfully performed in movies like Yes Boss and Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman. But this time, she is the boss who means business. Juhi Chawla plays Jyoti, a teacher who slams her resignation letter to the ambitious school principal Kamini Guptas (Divya Dutta), in a bid to support an ailing, older teacher, Vidya (Shabana Azmi). Jyoti and Vidya are dedicated teachers who have given their lives in service to their students in Kanta Ben school. When Gupta takes over as the new Principal, she decides to get rid of old school teachers in an effort to make the school into a profit making institution. What follows is a rather, slow and most unimaginative and simplistic plot, told like a kindergarten explanation to little children. Jayant Gilatar, in his debut film as director, takes up a good and very relevant subject but his treatment is as outdated as Principal Gupta. Yet Chalk n Duster touches you with its honesty and its well-placed intention. The three actresses in central rolesChawla, Azmi and Dutta, carry the film firmly on their forty plus shoulders, with the men Sameer Soni and Girish Karnad, playing minor, supporting roles. Azmi who cannot look helpless even if she is tied to a hospital bed, manages to dole out a heart rending performance, in a simple telephone exchange with Karnad. Dutta as the old-fashioned vamp, is equally impactful, despite her sweet looks, grey contacts and an ill fitting wig. Jackie Shroff and Rishi Kapoor make guest appearances in roles which are unintentionally funny. Shroff, known for his Bidu language and diction, is miscast as a rival school chairman, attempting to speak in impeccable English. Richa Chadda, in a supporting role as a news anchor, looks equally uncomfortable. In an effort to add aunthenticity, she is given a Gujarati dialogue, which only adds to the actors apparent discomfort. The very fact that we have a decent, heartwarming story with three women, who are neither glamorous or young playing central characters is reason enough to applaud Chalk n Duster. More power to middle aged heroines who deserve as much screen space as the 50-year-olds Salman Khan and Shahrukh Khan. What is happening at the movies this year? The binge of brilliance began with Bajirao Mastani. Then before we could catch our collective breath, came Mahesh Manjrekars Marathi milestone Natsamrat. And now we have the masterpiece about the first known instance of a surgical gender transformation. The Danish Girl is a lot of things, all very very remarkable. But it is NOT a showcase for Eddie Redmayne to show us his exceptional acting skills. If last year, he transformed into the specially-abled physicist Stephen Hawking in The Theory Of Everything, this year, the transformation from Danish portrait artist Einar Wegener who, one fine day decided to change into a woman, is even more startling. Yet, I repeat, The Danish Girl is not a showcase for Redmaynes miraculous powers of self-transformation. It is more, much more. The film shows us the outcome of the illimitable freedom that artistes have been allowed from the time immemorial. Once you are labeled an artiste you are granted the licence to give a free rein to your imagination and unleash all the passions that are otherwise held dormant within you . What would Einar Wegeners life have been like if he hadnt unleashed the woman inside him? The hypothetical question hovers tantalizingly over director Tom Hoppers narrative as we see Einar and his effervescent wife in a happy marriage. They have sunshine, joy, sex and a faithful pet dog running through the spacious rooms of their comfortable home. (A word about the production designer here: Copenhagen and Paris in the 1920s seem so vibrant and alive, you wish you lived through the breezy era). Its all too postcard- perfect to last. Tragedy is triggered off by a pair of silken stockings .The minute Einar puts them on he knows where he belongs. The other side. At first the gender reversal is a game, a whimsical teasing game played by Einar and his wife Gerda (Alicia Vikander). In scenes that are giddily Jane Austen-ian in tone, Gerda dresses up Einar as his fantasy-cousin Lily for some social soirees. The mood of revelry darkens ominously as Lily takes over Einars life. Director Tom Hooper gives Redmaynes character a lot of manoeuvring power. Danny Cohens compelling and poetic camera work cruises over the wigs, makeup, shoes, stocking and other makeover accessories searching in them for the power to seduce Einar into a gender reversal. Then the narrative moves with seamless fluency into a darker probing of Einars transformation into Lily. Scenes capturing Einars emotional and physiological pain suck audiences into his dark world of turmoil and pain. The images of genital disorder are devastatingly disturbing. In one brilliantly composed sequence of self-probing, Redmaynes Einar stands in front of the mirror gazing at and probing his body, pressing his penis away from visibility in a grotesque pantomime of a womans genitalia. Intrinsically provocative and teasing moments such as these are stripped of their inherent eroticism to reveal the tragedy of a gender dilemma. The visuals of sexual ambivalence are beyond anything attempted in mainstream cinema. Redmayne is not shy of probing his characters gender uncertainties. In another unforgettable scene of erotic scrutiny, Einar visits a house of erotic pleasures , gazes from a glass partition at a beautiful naked woman cavorting and caressing herself, and begins to emulate her sexual gestures. For the woman who is being inspected by the man, it is inscrutable when and how the male gaze alchemizes into a feminine fraternisation. Its a very disturbing moment capturing the conflict between the dual man-woman personality in images that are curvaceous and seductive and yet disturbing. Director Tom Hoopers last film was the outstanding The Kings Speech. It too was about a damaged hero, one with a speech impediment. But what does one do when the soul starts to stammer? Wisely, the sexual turmoil and gender crisis of Einar Wegener is placed in controlled spaces. The locations are all picture-pretty and there are barely five leading characters in the film. But the hideousness of Einars dilemma bursts through the beautiful surface to confront us in unexpected ways. Einars physical pain after the sex-change surgery is so palpable that we become privy to his suffering as much as his strongly supportive spouse Gerda. Indeed The Danish Girl is as much Gerdas story as Einars. Alicia Vikander brings out the wifes agony in bouts of self-doubt. Can I have Einar back for a while? tormented beyond belief she pleads with Lily into whose changing personality her husband has disappeared. I cannot be the person who you want me to be, pleads Einar back. Both Vikander and Einar bring a state of scintillating grace into the monstrously fractured marriage. The performances are shattering in their honesty and yet restrained , almost measured. When the narrative arrived to its tragic finale, I was looking far beyond Einars confined world, at world of a tolerant society where individuals who are physically or emotionally abnormal, get a chance to be who they are without the fear of a backlash. Sadly there is very little opposition to Einars conversion Lily, making the otherwise-palpable inner dilemma somewhat sanitised on the outside. Except for one sequence where he/she gets beaten up by a couple of goons, there are no intruders trespassing into Einars rough and tragic journey into Lily. The hell he/she creates in pursuit of heaven is entirely his/hers. The Danish Girl doesnt point fingers for the deviants dilemma at an intolerant unaccepted world. Einar brings on the crisis . If only that silken stocking had stayed unworn. It starts with a stocking and ends with scarf floating into space, portraying freedom. Lily has found her freedom. But she has left us a captive of her tragic tale for all times to come. The new crop insurance scheme approved by the Union Cabinet must be viewed from two angles. The first is that there has been considerable volatility in farm output due to the vagaries of nature which has often resulted in lower production or excess unseasonal rainfall that has destroyed crops. This has in turn led to financial distress of farmers who have not been able to service their debt leading to a build-up of NPAs thus pressuring the banking system. In fact, this has led to the debate about whether there should be loan waivers to farmers which are policies pursued by both the central and state governments. The second is that the government has been working towards spreading financial literacy by providing access to the common man to insurance products in both the life and health segments thus bringing about some degree of financial inclusion. Starting a new crop insurance scheme can be viewed as an extension of the same ideology. It must, however, be remembered that crop insurance has always been there and what one is viewing today is a modification of the same to ensure that it becomes more affordable to the farmers. The Comprehensive Crop Insurance Scheme (CCIS, 1985) superseded by the National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (NAIS) has been in existence for a long time. The new scheme works towards making it more attractive for the farmers. The farmers have now to pay just 2% of the premium for kharif crop and 1.5% for rabi while the same for horticulture will be fixed at 5%. The balance premium is to be paid by the government both state and central. The advantage of this scheme for the farmers besides the low premium is that the compensation would be complete with no reductions/haircuts. Hence it should be a more alluring scheme for the farmers. Such a move is pragmatic for all the parties concerned. The farmers will be incentivised to go in for insurance and lower uncertainty as the premium will be low and compensation complete. By harnessing technology, the weather movements will be tracked so that assessment becomes easy too for the insurance companies. The government will benefit because even in the past the onus of debt servicing in the limiting case meant waivers which in turn strained the budget. The same amount will now be part of the budget to the extent of the premium paid, while the government would be out of the loss compensation process which was the case earlier. In fact, this is theoretically a more prudent alternative where farmers are made more conscious of the risk which is then spread across various entities. Banks can be happier now that their loans are serviced and would have an incentive to lend more to this segment beyond the priority sector compulsion. In the past, this particular segment of loans became sticky for them as invariably there are famers in some geography whose crops get affected leading to possible delinquency. The insurance companies would of course have a mixed emotion. While their overall level of business would increase substantially as more farmers join the scheme, the payouts could pressure their own profitability. But then this is the risk which goes with all insurance products. As all regions will not be afflicted with adverse weather conditions, it may be assumed that the risk is well spread out. Besides, the insurance companies can always take reinsurance to further diversify the risk across market participants. For the success of such a scheme the main challenge will be spread of awareness so that farmers are made cognizant of the product which must have a simple design. As it is more of a market-oriented measure to cover volumetric risk, farmers have to be educated about the scheme in terms of how it will help them. There has to be wide-scale outreach programmes carried out to drive home the advantage of these products. Second, the smaller farmers have to be targeted as this is particularly the vulnerable class. Presently the scheme does not distinguish between the large and small farmer as that does raise the issue of identification. Third, the scheme has to work in the sense that the process has to be seamless so that all the claims are settled seamlessly. Further, given the volumes that may be involved, insurance companies have to be geared up to handle such transactions. Fourth, as part of housekeeping, land records need to be in place for making assessment of the premium. Fifth, we need to have access to weather data in various regions that is not captured by the IMD. Efforts by private players to create such weather stations like those by NCMSL (National Collateral Management Services Limited) have to increase as all decisions on premium as well as payouts would be contingent on this data. Last, crop loan practices are weak which has to change as often banks do not insist on this when giving a loan. We have witnessed significant changes in the way in which agriculture is transacted in the last decade or so. The two main risks which farmers confront are price and volumetric. The former is addressed to an extent by the MSP and while the electronic spot and futures markets have come up quite well, they have not been able to as yet penetrate existing practices with farmers who not fully aware of them. Hence while electronic spot markets have worked in states like Karnataka, the futures market is still a distance away. We need to pick up learnings from this experience when trying out this insurance scheme and create the infrastructure to ensure that a larger population of the farming community is covered. Banks today do insist on farmers taking some insurance and would probably once again have to play a critical role in spreading the good word given that they are the first point of contact with the farmers. The new payments banks and small banks would also enable this process to proliferate. The author is chief economist, CARE Ratings. Views are personal By C P Gurnani A bourgeoning smartphone market bringing millions of people online, thousands of startups with excellent talent, and an improving environment for doing business are all driving a rush of venture capital into India over the last two years. Behind each start-up is a burning ambition inspired by such disruptive business models as those of AirBnB, the billion-dollar furrows of Uber, or the brand recognition of Instagram. The ecosystem has truly taken off and come into its own driven by factors including funding, technology that is evolving at a blazing pace and a burgeoning domestic market. While some domestic startups have cruised past the billion-dollar valuation mark, a majority of tech startups still have some ways to go to achieve the status or financial backing of these high-profile companies. Where most start-ups struggle, is in converting a great start to staying-power. What they need is a seamless shift from a beta version of their offering to a full-fledged presence in the marketplace which needs mentoring, strategic thinking, planning and the most critical of all - execution. Critical Mass is building up The Indian startup scenario is very attractive, thanks to: 1) Brilliant entrepreneurs who give up cushy jobs and lives of luxury to go after their passion. 2) Equally brilliant ideas that stem from personal experience of gaps that the market wants to see filled. 3) Access to Enablers, accelerators, and incubators so that initial requirements of space and IT infrastructure are taken care of. 4) Access to mentors who help entrepreneurs refine their ideas of what the market wants and what investors want. 5) Successful entrepreneurs, who, while still running their own ventures, are now investing in and mentoring other start-ups. Being closest to ground reality, their mentoring carries credibility. Enablers like NASSCOM, TiE and iSpirt bring together key stakeholders of the ecosystem, including startup incubators, accelerators, angel investors, venture capitalists, support groups, mentors, and technology corporations. The Nasscom 10,000 Start-ups is a good example of an apex organization offering to help use the resources, connections and knowledge to convert intention to impact! The Indian government too has helped bring the glamour of the start-up culture to centre-stage. By talking about start-ups and planning for an ecosystem that is supportive, it not only helps many succeed, but it has also helped remove the stigma from possible failure. It is also planning a series of measures that it hopes will curb startups from changing location, reacting to concerns that companies prefer to domicile overseas after reaching a certain size. A promising move by the government is that it will announce broad measures to help startups "Stay in India. This will attract and encourage more and more young talent. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighting the importance of creating and enhancing the start-up ecosystem, the government has acknowledged that it is start-ups that create jobs in a country, far more than giant corporates do. Skill India is one such marvelous effort which will start bearing fruit in the years to come. With 72 percent of the founders less than 35 years old in India, our country is the youngest startup nation in the world. This lends wings to our hopes for out-of-the-ordinary ideas garnering great market share globally. Moving from Potential to Success Scale, Pricing, Utility value With digital technologies, the barriers to entry are low. So, most offerings that see light of day will have to scale significantly, quickly. That begs the question: Who wants to use or buy this offering? Once that is clear, at what price will the buyer put his money where his mouth is? While you may not get it right the first time, a persistent, laser-sharp focus will eventually pay off. Make innovation your agenda We live in a VUCA world. If we cannot learn, change and disrupt ourselves, how will we add to the disruptive thinking of our customers? And, an innovative idea always has the first-mover advantage. Need vs Want Startups are synonymous with frugal innovation and India is home to some of the most acclaimed frugal innovations. At work, focus on what you came out to build. Warren Buffett, the most successful investor on earth, still drives his old car and his favourite pastime is eating popcorn while watching movies on TV. A word of caution It is easy to fall into the trap of building business models and scenarios to satisfy the investor. While an investor is important for several reasons, do remember that you are in this game to service your customer. Once you have that right, a paying customer is proof of how valuable your offering is. Investors will then come to you, instead. The author is MD & CEO, Tech Mahindra New Delhi: The head of a lawyers group fighting for the right of women to enter the famous Sabarimala Ayyappa temple in Kerala said on Thursday he had received hundreds of death threats warning him to drop the petition in the Supreme Court. The popular Hindu temple is one of a few in India which bar women of reproductive age, only allowing entry to girls aged under 10 and women over 50. The ban came under legal scrutiny after the Indian Young Lawyers' Association (IYLA) filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking entry for all women, prompting the court on Monday to ask temple authorities to explain the ban. IYLA President Naushad Ahmed Khan said he had since received over 300 death threats on his cell phone - prompting police to provide him with a personal security guard. "I have received more than 700 telephone calls, including some calls from international telephone, since Wednesday. These callers are (trying to) force me to withdraw the petition," Khan told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "I am the president of the IYLA, and the plea has been filed by the organisation. I have never been personally involved with this petition," he said, adding that the question of whether the petition would be withdrawn had not arisen. This is not the first time the Sabarimala temple and its decades-old ban on women has hit the headlines in India. Last November, scores of women took to social media, joining a campaign launched as #happytobleed, after the head of the temple said he would consider allowing women to enter if there was a machine to check if they were menstruating. Menstruation is rarely discussed openly in both rural and urban India, and menstrual blood is considered impure. In many communities, menstruating girls and women are not allowed to prepare food or enter a temple. Khan said he did not know who the threats were from, but phone messages included threats to blow up his house. There were also messages on social media sites such as Twitter, he added. Khan said his name, photograph and phone number were posted on Twitter with a message in Malayalam, the official language in Kerala, saying "Why is this man showing so much enthusiasm for something which millions of Sabarimala devotees do not want?" An estimated one million Hindu pilgrims flock to Sabarimala in Kerala's Western Ghats mountains every year to pay homage to the deity Lord Ayyappan who meditated at that spot, according to Hindu mythology. Reuters There seems to be no end to incidents of assault and confrontation over beef. The latest shocker comes from Madhya Pradesh, where several passengers, including a Muslim couple, were attacked by a cow protection group over allegations that they were carrying beef, according to reports. The incident is said to have taken place at Khirkiya railway station in the Harda district of Madhya Pradesh, according to The Indian Express. Members of the Gauraksha Samiti claimed to have seized beef from a bag on the Kushinagar Express on Wednesday, the report said. Similar to the incident in Dadri where Mohammad Akhlaq was killed after rumours of storing beef, the pieces of meat found in a bag were sent to a laboratory for 'testing', after which it was found that it was buffalo meat, as reported by The Indian Express. The police have registered a case against two Gauraksha Samiti activists for voluntarily causing hurt and criminal intimidation, and arrested them, according to a DNA report. Meanwhile, the police have also registered a case against unknown persons under a section relating to 'mischief by killing or maiming cattle'. Naseema Bano and Mohammad Hussain, the couple who was attacked, called a relative who lives nearby, after which he came to the spot with eight others. Subsequently, a clash took place, after which nine people from the rival group were also arrested, according to an NDTV report. In Madhya Pradesh, while cow slaughter is banned, there is no ban on the slaughter of buffaloes, according to an Indian Express report. In recent months, physical attacks and confrontations over allegations of consumption or storing of beef have led to a debate on religious tolerance in India. This also comes in the context of a number of states putting in place restrictions on cow slaughter. Pakistan-based jihadist group Jaish-e-Mohammed is countering claims that its leader Maulana Masood Azhar has been arrested for his alleged role in the terror strike on the India's Pathankot airbase in the early hours of 1 January 2016. Azhar, chief of JeM, was reportedly in constant touch with the six terrorists who stormed an Indian Air Force base in Pathankot on 1 January and killed seven Indian soldiers. India and Pakistan have agreed to reschedule talks between their foreign secretaries, the Indian foreign ministry said on Thursday, while an investigation into the Pathankot Attack is carried out. Pakistani media has reported that JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar, his brother and several individuals belonging to his dreaded outfit have been arrested in connection with the Pathankot terror attack. Pakistan media said JeM offices were sealed after India demanded action on the group linking it to the fate of Foreign Secretary-level talks. Some semblance of officialese on the arrest surfaced early on Thursday, with Lt Gen (retd) Abdul Qadir Baloch, minister of frontier regions, confirming the kingpin's arrest. "Azhar was taken in protective custody to probe the Pathankot attack," Geo TV quoted Baloch as saying but almost simultaneously, other top officials in Pakistan's foreign ministry continued to deny knowledge of any such arrest, feeding into JeM's online barbs. Disbelievers and hypocrites across the world are celebrating our arrest, a statement in Urdu said, but the arrest never happened, reports The Indian Express. In its online rant, JeM makes its displeasure of the Indo-Pak thaw very clear, calling out Pakistan's government for its "friendship" with Modi, Advani and Vajpayee. Even if they happen, what difference will it make? No difference, except one. Allah willing, there will be more enthusiasm and excitement among people of the faith, and the work of jihad will gather more strength and energy, the statement, posted Thursday on a Facebook page, said. The Indian Express reports that Jaish-e-Mohammed uses this online community to communicate with media and followers. Azhar warns Pakistan govt Even as news of his "arrest" broke on local television channels Wednesday night, JeM chief Azhar wrote a piece under his pen name Saadi, warning the Pakistan government about the "dangerous road" it is taking. "The road that the Pakistan government is taking in its crackdown against the JeM is very dangerous for this country and its steps against mosques, madrasas and jihad are a danger to the unity and integrity of Pakistan," Azhar wrote in the Jaish mouthpiece Al Qalam. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif set up a committee of his top intelligence, army and government officers to investigate India's allegations after Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to him last week, asking for prompt and decisive action on the basis of specific evidence. "Based on the initial investigations in Pakistan, and the information provided, several individuals belonging to Jaish-e-Mohammed, have been apprehended. The offices of the organization are also being traced and sealed. Further investigations are underway," a statement from Sharif's office said. India, Pakistan reschedule talks, no date yet India and Pakistan have agreed to reschedule talks between their foreign secretaries, the Indian foreign ministry said on Thursday, while an investigation into a deadly attack on a military base in Pathankot is carried out. India has demanded action against the Pakistan-based JeM that it suspects of carrying out the attack on the Pathankot air base. Islamabad has held Azhar and other members, sources say. Indian foreign ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said New Delhi welcomed the steps taken by Pakistan against the militant group, which was also blamed for a 2001 parliament attack that nearly led to a war between the nuclear-armed rivals. He said the foreign secretaries of the neighbours spoke on the telephone and decided to defer the talks that had been tentatively scheduled for Friday in Islamabad. The two diplomats agreed to hold the talks aimed at achieving a thaw in ties in the very near future but no date was announced. The Pakistani foreign office said a new date had not yet been decided. "We welcome the statement issued by the government of Pakistan yesterday on the investigations into the Pathankot terrorist attack," Swarup told reporters. "The statement conveys that considerable progress has been made in the investigations being carried out against terrorist elements linked to the Pathankot incident." Seven Indian military personnel were killed in the Jan. 2 attack on the base in the northern state of Punjab, which was followed by a raid on an Indian consulate in Afghanistan that has also been linked to Jaish-e-Mohammad, or the Army of Mohammad. Pakistan, which India has long accused of backing Islamist militants, promised to investigate who was behind the assault on the air base after India handed over evidence that it said implicated Jaish-e-Mohammad. Who is Maulana Masood Azhar? Maulana Masood Azhar was the general secretary of another terror group Harkat-ul-Ansar (HuA) in 1994 and was on a 'mission' in Jammu and Kashmir when he was arrested on 11 February the same year. When he was released, the HuA had been included in the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organisations which had compelled the outfit to rename itself as the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM). The Indian Express explains the re-emergence of JeM after years of staying low key. However, Masood Azhar decided to float the new outfit JeM rather than rejoin his old outfit. He was also reported to have received assistance in setting up the JeM from Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the then Taliban regime in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden and several Sunni sectarian outfits of Pakistan. JeM, like other terrorist outfits in J&K, claims to using violence to force a withdrawal of Indian security forces from the state. The outfit claims that each of its offices in Pakistan would serve as schools of jihad. In its fight against India, he boasted that the outfit would not only "liberate" Kashmir, but also would take control of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, Amritsar and Delhi. Masood Azhar, the amir (chief) of the outfit was arrested by Pakistani security forces on December 29, 2001, after pressure from India and other foreign countries following the December 13, 2001 attack on Indias Parliament. However, a three-member Review Board of Lahore High Court ordered on December 14, 2002, that Azhar be released. With inputs from agencies New Delhi: India wants to have constructive engagement with China along the northern borders, Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag said, holding that there has been significant improvement in understanding between the two countries on the boundary front. Even though intrusions have taken place in the disputed areas along the Line of Actual Control, there has been a significant improvement in understanding between the two countries, he said, addressing the Army Day parade. "India wants to have constructive engagement with China along the northern borders," Suhag said. The Army Chief pitched for modernisation of weapons and equipment to counter different kinds of challenges facing the force. He complimented the soldiers for giving a befitting reply to the enemy at the Line of Control which has been "active" due to cross-border firing and continuous infiltration attempts. Referring to modernisation, Suhag said that to counter different kinds of challenges and commitments, it is important to modernise weapons and equipment. He said that he was happy that the government has sanctioned a number of modern weapons and equipment in the last one year. The priority for the army was new artillery guns, upgradation of mechanised forces, enhancement of army aviation capabilities, he said, noting that better arms needed to be provided to the soldiers. Suhag said the army has already started induction of weaponised version of Advanced Light Helicopter. Earlier this week, Suhag had said acquisition of artillery guns, third generation missiles, upgrading armoured vehicles, augmenting army aviation and strengthening infantry were among "critical areas" for force modernisation which are being fast-tracked. PTI On 18 December last, a column of Indian soldiers were on a regular patrol in Reshi Muqam village of Kandi area in north Kashmirs Kupwara district when they suddenly came under fire from militants. They had entered someones house, possibly by force. When soldiers zeroed in they managed to sneak out, a senior police official told Firstpost. This was the last time security forces had made a contact with a group of Jaish-e-Mohammed militants in Kashmir. They operate mainly in Lolab area of Kupwara up to Sopore. The present count would be 6-7 militants in the entire valley, a senior intelligence officer said. On 25 November last, militants had attacked an Army camp near the Line of Control in Tangdhar sector. Three of them were killed in the attack. Tangdhar is close to LoC and has been used as an infiltration route in the past. On December 4, Army personnel killed two more infiltrators in the same region. All of them are believed to be from Jaish. General officer Commanding (GoC) of Armys Srinagar-based 15 Corps Lt General Satish Dua said militants who carried out the attack in November were from the Afzal Guru squad of the JeM militant outfit. The name of the squad was written on their rucksacks. They had infiltrated a night before they carried the attack on our camp, he said. Jaish-e-Mohammed in Kashmir The connection between Kashmir and Jaish-e-Mohammed goes back to January 1994. Maulana Masood Azhar had travelled to Kashmir on a Portuguese passport then, apparently to unite the warring factions of different militant groups fighting each other in Kashmir. Azhar belonged to Harkat-ul-Ansar at that time and wanted some factions of militants groups to be united with Harkat, as was already done in Pakistan. On 10 February that year, Azhar was travelling with Sajad Afghani, a Harkat commander, who was killed later in a jail-break attempt, to help him unite different factions of Harkat in south Kashmir, the hub of Harkat in Kashmir. Both were travelling in an auto in Srinagar towards Anantnag when security forces arrested them during a routine check. After many unsuccessful attempts, Azhar along with Omar Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, a Kashmiri militant, were released by the NDA government in return for kidnapped 155 passengers and crew members of an Indian Airlines plane in 1999. Jaish-e-Mohammad was formed weeks after their release in Pakistan and the first suicide attack was carried out in Kashmir in April 2000. That summer, an 18-year-old resident of Khaniyar in downtown Srinagar, Afaq Shah, detonated a car-bomb outside the Armys 15 Corps headquarters, killing one person and injuring seven others. This was the first time that a militant laced with explosives blew himself up in the conflict-ridden state. The outfit targeted the Army base again in December that year when a suicide bomber, who was later identified as Mohammad Bilal, 24, from Birmingham, England, blew himself up. Jaish-e-Mohammed had by then become notorious for recruiting militants from across Muslim countries and sending them to Kashmir. Suicide is prohibited in Islam and its connotations are widely feared in Kashmir. When Shah blew himself up, people started discussing the changing contours of the armed struggle in Kashmir. Jaish had successfully redefined those outlines in Kashmir and announced its arrival in Kashmir, bringing Kashmir on the global map of Jihad, an idea which had political repercussions following 9/11. This is something most Kashmiris feared. The violence perpetuated by the group was so deadly that even separatists groups in valley and Pakistani establishment alike had to condemn them. One of them was a suicide attack on the Legislative Assembly in Srinagar, that day militancy in valley become terrorism, for everyone outside the state. Later Jaish was also accused for the 13 December, 2001 terrorist attack on Parliament in New Delhi. The outfit was banned by the Indian government under provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (Pota) on 25 October, 2001. However, in Kashmir the organisation continued its operations but with minimum success. The reason could well have been foreigners fighting in Kashmir were always unwelcome despite a certain but minuscule population trying to club the political discontent with international jihad. On the verge of extinction The outfit was on the verge of extinction in Kashmir in mid-2013 when two of its three last surviving commanders were killed that year, leaving it with a total cadre capacity of eight militants in Kashmir, the lowest since it was formed 13 years ago, according to the Jammu and Kashmir Police. After the loss of two of its most senior commanders in Kashmir, the outfit tried to reinforce its ranks by sending a batch of at least eight militants operating in south Kashmir. But most of them were killed by security forces. Qari Yasir, again a Pakistani national, was killed in July 2013. Sidiq Ahmad, another Pakistani national was arrested in Sopore in the same year from Yemberzal area of Sopore, and is now lodged in a central jail. He was succeeded by Adil Pathan. Pathan was brother of the Jaishs operations chief Mufti Asghar. Pathan was killed along with an associate, Abdul Rehman alias Chotta Burmi, in October 2015. A senior intelligence official had told Firstpost last year that the outfit has the strength of about seven to eight members in the Valley after two members of the outfit were killed on October 4 in an encounter with security forces in Awantipura area of south Kashmir. "The militants were identified as Adil Pathan and Burmi who were Pakistani nationals," he said. Following the killing, security forces were surprised to find that one of the two foreign militants killed was from Burma. Chota Burmi belonged to Arakan province, home to one of the most persecuted ethno-religious communities, the Rohingyas, according to police sources. His real name was Abdur Rehman al Arkani. Burmi had infiltrated into Kashmir in 2013 and was part of an eight-member group of foreign militants. He too was from Jaish-e-Mohammad. End of the road for JeM? Although the outfit's presence in the Kashmir valley remains abysmal, the spike in recent incidents of violence suggests a fresh push by it to make a comeback. But they are not carrying out attacks inside Kashmir valley. They are only registering their presence by carrying out high profile attacks, first in Tangdhar than in Pathankot, the intelligence officer said. It is a game of survival for Saifullah, who heads this Jaish group in Lolab valley. They cant and wont come out of Lolab-Sopore belt and we will kill them before the end of this year, he added. Food Talk India, for the past two days, has been in the eye of a social media storm. First, for their sexist roti meme (which thy pulled down after backlash) and second, for sending a 'fuck you' message with what looked like a cross between a dick pic and the middle finger (people are still debating) to a Vagabomb journalist for calling them out for their sexism. Thursday saw several media houses including, Vagabomb, Firstpost and ScoopWhoop, heavily criticising this move by the founder of the food curation website Shuchir Suri. When Firstpost had reached out to him for a clarification, it had gone unanswered. However, on Friday morning Food Talk India tagged all those who had written about them, apologising for 'hurting sentiments'(It was not sentiments you hurt. You were just sexist). Shuchir Suri also put out a clarification on his Facebook page coming up with the most common excuse for online faux pas saying their site was hacked. @ScoopWhoop hey, wanted to clarify the hacking and apologise for hurting sentiments. https://t.co/xlJfx5C4Jg Food Talk India (@foodtalkindia) January 14, 2016 @VagaTweets hey, wanted to clarify the hacking and apologise for hurting sentiments. https://t.co/xlJfx5C4Jg Food Talk India (@foodtalkindia) January 14, 2016 In a tweet to Shibani Bedi, the journalist on the receiving end of the dick/middle finger doodle, Food Talk India issued an apology: @shibanib we really want to reach out to clarify the hacking and apologise for hurting sentiments. https://t.co/KHoA3c9lLN Food Talk India (@foodtalkindia) January 14, 2016 Here's the full text of the apology Shuchir Suri put out: Rajiv Pant, a 55-year-old bursar of a reputed school in central Delhi, has been coming to his school from Ghaziabad by his car for the last 15 years. His case is a great example of the advantage and disadvantage a common man has faced due to the odd-even number formula over the fortnight. The policy is good. After all, someone has to rein in the pollution menace. But it needs to be seen whether its practical and viable in its present form or not. Personally, I found no change in traffic congestion during the peak hours (9 to 10.30 am and 6.30 to 8.00 pm) while driving on Nizamuddin-Ghazipur-Anand Vihar route. Theres some relief during the off-peak hours, Pant told Firstpost. The common man comprising office-goers, teachers, small traders, bank employees, senior citizens, etc feel that lack of a proper and effective public transport system made commutation difficult during the experiment phase. There are a large numbers of senior teachers, some of them physically weak, who travel by car to reach school early morning on time. But this odd-even formula caused immense problems for them. Barring auto-rickshaw, which is very difficult to find in our school area during odd hours, theres no public transport system to reach to the nearest Metro station- 4 km from our school. This is about the entire Delhi. Like me, there are many school employees, whose time dont match with the timings of the school bus service. We use cars due to compulsion, not by choice. Is there any way out? questioned Pant. Many find the 15-day experiment to be a compromise. People compromised and just managed it for 15 days. Till 5 January, there was low traffic on roads due to a holiday and the weekend; but after that, during peak hours, there was no visible change on traffic jam. It was as it was in the past. The Delhi government suggested people to use metro services, but has it taken a note how over-crowded these trains were? People had to skip three to four trains during the peak hours. Its immensely difficult to go to Gurgaon from Rohini or Dwarka due to poor connectivity, and thats why people use cars, said Patel Nagar-based Gurinder Singh, a CA intern. Besides, car pooling, people managed to commute by exchanging cars with others. To make the odd-even formula a success, the government has to first improve the existing system, get rid of the bottlenecks or else its not a viable long-term option. Some of the major points of traffic congestion like at Naraina, Shankar Road, Connaught Place, etc remained the same even during the fortnight. My relative exchanged his one of the two eve-numbered cars with an odd one. Thousands of people in Delhi use their own cars for convenience due to lack of proper public transport system. But, this formula is a compulsion and made movement of families and senior citizens inconvenient, remarked chartered accountant Abhishek Aneja. Manoj Gairola, CEO, Telecom Tiger observed, During this fortnight people used old scooters and motor-bikes. Two-wheelers dont have strict emission norms. These are major air pollutants, besides diesel-run public vehicles which use kerosene-mixed diesel. It causes major pollution. Before taking action against cars, these two-wheelers and vehicles should have been banned. Proper electricity supply can bring down the use of diesel-kerosene mixed gensets pumping out black smoke. But, Delhi government due to vote-bank politics cant take action against two-wheelers; so it preferred to implement the odd-even formula, which is a populist measure. Despite welcoming the odd-even formula, many women commuters feel that the government should first strictly monitor public transport system. During the fortnight there has been an improvement in traffic movement and a perceptible change in air pollution level. But, Delhi government has to rein in the auto-rickshaws, who flatly refuse passengers despite being on-duty. It becomes difficult for us, especially in the evenings to commute. Moreover, many auto drivers refuse to go by the meter reading and charge as per their will. Even if you are ready to not use a car for commutation, do we have a parallel public transport system in place? No, quipped Shivangi, a 32-year old bank employee. Saket-based Manoj Lal added, Saket is a classic example on why traffic jam takes place. On a single road you have a court, malls, a hospital and a metro station. Whether the odd-even formula is there or not, youre bound to face severe traffic jam always. The government should first deal with such zones in Delhi through proper traffic management and building better infrastructure. Some suggestions from Delhi citizens on the odd-even number formula were- -Immediate need to improve public transport system: more number of good buses, availability of auto-rickshaws, feeder bus services from metro stations, etc. -Frequency and number of trains of Metro Rail need to be increased. -Despite carrying On Duty placard, the auto-rickshaws refuse to ply passengers. It should strictly be stopped. -Chartered buses should be introduced for Gurgaon, Noida and Greater Noida office-goers, especially where car-pooling not possible. -Transport mode for the last mile connectivity, especially in late evenings needs to be improved upon. -Building of infrastructure, improving the condition of existing roads -Old two-wheelers - a major cause of air pollution- should be banned. -Better electricity supply to reduce the use of generator sets that emits dark polluted smoke. -Stop using of adulterated diesel (mixed with kerosene)a major source of pollution. -Irrespective of an odd/even numbered day, all cars should be allowed to move from residence to the nearest Metro station and get it parked. -The cause of traffic jams at certain zones across Delhi needs to be addressed permanently--which are due to infrastructural bottlenecks, roadside encroachments, garbage dumping, etc. By Alison Saldanha As India draws closer to announcing the first list of 20 smart cities, it would do well to put safety first and pay attention to a moribund 24-year-old law meant to convert ramshackle urban areasvulnerable to disasters in an era of climate changeinto independent, well-financed hubs of economic growth. Indian cities have vastly expanded377 million, or 31% of Indians now live in urban areas, up from 217.18 million and 26% 20 years ago, according to census dataincreasing their vulnerability. The December 2015 Chennai flood claimed 270 lives and inflicted an economic loss of more than Rs 15,000 crore. On its heels, on January 4, an earthquake of 6.7 magnitude shook Manipur and the Northeast, unraveling Indias lack of disaster preparedness. As many as 38 cities are located in zones with seismic susceptibility in the governments vulnerability atlas of India, as IndiaSpend has reported. Categories vary from very severe intensity zone (Zone V), which includes the most-vulnerable cities of Guwahati and Srinagar, to severe intensity zone (Zone IV), such as Delhi, and moderately severe intensity zone (Zone III), such as Mumbai and Chennai. The entire Northeast Region is marked as a very high vulnerability zone, prone to earthquakes, floods, and storms. Poor land-use planning, indiscriminate approvals of building plans (often in violation of environment and municipal bye-laws), and the absence of disaster-risk assessment in urban design have resulted in what experts term concentrated concretization, predisposing cities to disaster risks. Abating destruction-risk requires a mainstreaming of disaster planning. To do that, the nodal agency the Urban Local Body (ULB), whether municipal corporation, or nagar panchayat (town council) is key. But Indias urban governments areanecdotally and otherwisefailing at their main job: Governing cities. How Indian burgeoning cities fail to govern or finance themselves On an average, 21 Indian cities scored between 2.5 to 4 points out of 10 (figure 1) on governance parameters, leaving urban India ill-prepared for rising challenges, according to Janaagrahas 2014 Annual Survey of City Systems (ASICS) report. ASICS evaluation parameters are based on government-recommended reform measures that essentially advocate the delegation of decision-making powers to urban governing bodies. The average score of ASICS cities in elected representation stood at 4.9, on a scale of one to 10 (figure 2). At 2.8, Bengaluru scored lowest, trailed by Hyderabad and Bhubaneshwar. Mega cities Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai did not fare much better, with 4.1, 4.8 and 5 points respectively. Eight cities, including Chennai, have directly elected Mayors with five-year terms, although none possess meaningful executive powers. While institutionalizing such a position is unlikely to be a panacea, it provides cities with strong leadership in disaster management. In the assessment of municipal staffing and financial management, on an average, ASICS cities scored 2.6 on 10 (figure 3). The fast-growing cities of Bengaluru and Hyderabad, with populations nearing 10 million, scored 1.4 and 1.5 respectively. Seven of 21 municipal corporations have less than 250 staff for 100,000 people, compared with Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai with 1,260, 895 and 500 respectively. The equivalent figure for New York is 5,338 and London, 2,961. In the devolution of fiscal powers, important to urban resilience, ASICS found that only Dehradun consistently constituted state finance commissions to manage and direct distribution of finances and address issues of local autonomy. Urban contribution to the Indias gross domestic product (GDP) in 2009-10 was about 63% and is expected to rise to 75% by 2030, said this 2011 report on Indian urban infrastructure and services. Currently, urban bodies account for about 3% of total public expenditure, as IndiaSpend has reported. In China, this figure ranges between 20% and 35%. Municipal revenues account for roughly 0.75% of Indias GDP, compared with 5% for Brazil and 6% for South Africa. The long (failing) struggle to make city governments independent, efficient More than two decades ago, the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (CAA) accorded formal recognition to ULBs, hoping to increase autonomy and efficiency. More recently, the National Disaster Management Authority also recognized the local administrations critical role in combating the rising risk of urban floods. The Authority, in its 2010 urban flood disaster management guidelines, places the ULB at the heart of all operations This mandate should be ideally extended to manage all kinds of disasters striking urban areas. However, since most states are reluctant to devolve powers, municipal bodies are crippled. (Since the Northeast is regarded as a conflict zone, decentralization here in rural and urban zones is even slower.) Disaster management gets short shrift Investment in disaster management is modest. Currently, only the National Disaster Response Fund and the State Disaster Response Fundssolely assigned for providing relief to victims of various disastersare functional. A national and state Disaster Mitigation Fund, which will actually curtail losses, is yet to be created. Only Maharashtra, as revealed in the 2013 CAG audit report, has created both a state and district-level Disaster Mitigation Fund. This IndiaSpend report shows the high seismic vulnerability of the Northeast. Yet, four of the bottom five states with the lowest allocations between 2010-11 to 2012-13, for tackling disasters are from this region, with Manipur in the bottom three. (See Table) By 2030, the urban population of India is expected to almost double to nearly 600 million, according to a 2010 McKinsey report, and the number of million plus-cities is expected to expand from 53 to nearly 80. Urban disasters are inevitable. While there is, yet, no cost-benefit analysis of disaster- risk reduction, this 2015 report by the Overseas Development Institute and UNDP proves investments in disaster-risk reduction pares losses. Over five years, the Centres new Smart Cities Mission wants to create models of sustainable urban growth across India. The guidelines, cursorily mention disaster management (twice), while there is barely mention of independence and efficacy. Plans to institute autonomous bodies (Special Purpose Vehicles) for implementing the mission have already begun to ruffle feathers in some ULBs of Maharashtra, Indias second-largest urbanized state after Tamil Nadu. (Saldanha is a Senior Associate, Advocacy and Reforms, at the Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy.) (Indiaspend.org is a data-driven, public-interest journalism non-profit.) New Delhi: Central agencies are planning to raid his ministers, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal alleged on Friday, adding Prime Minister Narendra Modi was trying to "fail us". Quoting "PMO sources", Kejriwal tweeted that the raids may be conducted on Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia known to be the Aam Aadmi Party leader's most trusted confidant or Health Minister Satyendra Jain. PMO sources-Next raid on Manish or Satinder. Officers under them being pressurized to get something wrong signed from them(1/2) Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) January 15, 2016 In another tweet but in Hindi, Kejriwal added: "Modiji, do what you want. Truth is on our side. God is with us. You can't do any damage to us." , , (2/2) Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) January 15, 2016 Later, during a press conference on the odd-even traffic curbs, Kejriwal said the Modi government was "trying its level best to fail us". "But they won't succeed because our strengths are truth and honesty." The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raided the Delhi Secretariat on 15 December, 2015, accusing the chief minister's principal secretary Rajendra Kumar of corruption. Kejriwal said the CBI searched his office too, but the CBI denied this. Following the raid, Kejriwal had unleashed a vitriolic attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling him a "coward and psychopath" while intensifying the face-off between ruling AAP and Centre. He had even dragged Arun Jaitley into the issue alleging that the CBI was primarily looking for a file which mentioned wrongdoings by the finance minister when he was heading the DDCA from 1999 to 2013. On 22 December, Kejriwal had also called for Modi's resignation over what he termed was a "flop raid". During a discussion in the state Assembly on the situation arising out of the Delhi Secretariat raid and the DDCA row, Kejriwal called the day of the raid a "black day" and dared Modi to act against Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, his Rajasthan counterpart Vasundhara Raje and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. "I seek the Prime Minister's resignation for conducting such a flop raid and for misusing the CBI. If he uses the CBI to get any file then the country will have no democracy left. Tomorrow there can be raids on any Chief Minister. This is dangerous for the country's federal structure," Kejriwal said. The chief minister, against whom Jaitley has filed both civil and criminal defamation suits, further alleged that the CBI was specifically looking for a file "containing a note" with "incriminating" details. "A DDCA whistle blower used to meet me. That officer told me that there was a meeting of DDCA officials, where Jaitley had told them no not worry about SFIO as he will get it compounded. "He (Jaitley) said that he will ensure quashing of cases that come to Delhi police and, if AAP sets up a commission of inquiry, he will get it null and void through 'our special man' LG. It was written in that file," Kejriwal claimed. Kejriwal also defended Rajendra Kumar against allegations of graft committed in his official capacity under the erstwhile Sheila Dikshit government, saying the raid amounted to mental harassment. With inputs from PTI and IANS By Seema Kamdar A decade after leaving the Shiv Sena and after winning a Lok Sabha election for the Congress, Sanjay Nirupam still has to prove his credentials as a loyalist. Curiously, this is the fate of all Bal Thackerays favourites who fell out with him and walked over to centrist parties like the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Their defection was motivated by what they had viewed as greener pastures. Each of them left with stars in their eyes and promises of a bigger future. However, as it turns out, they are still to find their moorings in the new outfits. In the Sena, Nirupam rose quickly to become the blue-eyed boy of Bal Thackeray. He was entrusted with editing the Hindi evening publication, Dopahar ka Saamana and liaised confidently with the media and important people on behalf of Thackeray. When internal politics got the better of him, he quit the Shiv Sena in 2005 to join the Congress. His primary issue was that he was feeling sidelined. However, Nirupam has never felt settled since. To the Congress rank and file, he is still an outsider. He has had to forever contend with party heavyweights like Kripashankar Singh, Murli Deora and Gurudas Kamat, who have often closed ranks against him. His tendency to speak his mind, a quality honed in the Shiv Sena, has brought him more bad blood. Just when he had begun despairing that he would never become Mumbai Congress chief, his wrestling gambits eventually paid off. Now that he has bagged the post, he is now hoping to also bag the power that goes with it, apart from fending off collusive attacks from his formidable opponents. Charged with treason the ultimate sin in a party that primarily finds it strength in loyalty to the Nehru family for permitting the publication of an article critical of the Nehru dynasty, he appears to have fought his way right into the wall. Intriguingly, his fate is similar to that of his colleagues from the Shiv Sena who have also made a mid-career switch to the Congress or the NCP. If anything, their horoscopes have been more chequered than they would have been in the Sena. The first key Sena player to quit Bal Thackerays side was Chhagan Bhujbal in 1991. He felt humiliated when Thackeray named Manohar Joshi as the leader of the opposition in the legislative assembly. All Thackerays pumping had led him to believe he was next only to Thackeray. He reckoned that better prospects awaited him outside. For Sharad Pawar, Bhujbal was a big draw as he wanted to dispel the common perception of NCP as a Maratha party and improve its base among the OBCs. But once in, Bhujbal not only never managed to get the much-coveted chief ministers chair, he had to claw his way up through the fortified second rung to claim a ministership. And when there, he was rarely taken into confidence over any important decision. In one incident which is not well-known, the wily Sharad Pawar had to take a step back because of the internal opposition to Bhujbal. In 1999, Chhagan Bhujbal was first sworn in as deputy chief minister. Miffed that his party was denied the chief ministers chair, Pawar directed all NCP ministers to report to Bhujbal instead of Vilasrao Deshmukh. But this time, his plans were foiled by his own people. NCP stalwarts like Ajit Pawar, Jayant Patil and R R Patil refused to report to Bhujbal, an outsider in their eyes. They simply ignored Pawars directive. After almost two-and-half decades, he remains a pariah within his adopted party, which has never offered him any inheritance, only guardianship. Each time Bhujbal has been accused of graft, as in the Maharashtra Sadan case, he has found himself alone. Far from defending him, his party has walked away from him, leaving him to his fate. He has no supporters in the NCP that he can count on. Fully aware of the limitation of his political growth in the NCP, he has often mulled forming an OBC party, and has mulled making conciliatory gestures to the Shiv Sena to negotiate a comeback. As he is believed to have told a confidante, he will enjoy at least some visibility in the Sena Another Sena heavyweight to retain temperamental affinity to the Shiv Sena and have a star-crossed existence outside it, is Narayan Rane. A quintessential Sainik and one of Thackerays favourite rabble rousers, Ranes iron-cast personality does not allow him to melt in the Congress mould. Yet another aspirant for the chief ministers post, Rane quit the Sena in 2005 after Uddhav Thackerays anointment as the party working president. Initially, he tried to drive a hard bargain with Pawar for the deputy chief ministers post. But Pawar was unwilling to unseat the incumbent, R R Patil, and offered him revenue instead. Rane squirmed and joined the Congress. No sooner had he joined, he rocked his boat by criticising Sonia Gandhis leadership in his typical slam-bang style. It took the might of the entire central leadership and the state leadership of the party to weigh down on him and force an apology. Ever since, Rane has been persistently wooing the high command and watching his mouth at all times. Unfortunately, none of that has helped consolidate his position in the party. From the time he swaggered along the corridors of the income tax department in gold jewellery and open shirt buttons as a 20-year-old employee, it has been a long haul for Rane. Always in the throes of usurping the chief ministership, his aspirations have been well reined in, if not throttled, by the Congress. Ironically, the only time he could become chief minister, even if for a year and half, was when he was in the Sena. The one Sena leader who has managed to protect his turf successfully outside the Sena is Ganesh Naik, but that is perhaps also because he has been mostly confined to Navi Mumbai. Its not only because all these men from the Sena have made wrong moves in their new allegiances that they are always looked upon with suspicion. The problem, rather, is simpler. The shoe doesnt fit. The Congress and the NCP have a vastly different culture from that of the Sena. The Sainik is abrasive, upfront and brusque while a Congressman is smooth, calm and rarely uncivil in public. Typically, a Congressman could be plotting to wipe out his rival but there is no way he wont hug him when they meet. Outspokenness, a way of life in the Sena, is akin to blasphemy in the Congress. Needless to add, the NCP draws its culture, lock, stock, and barrel, from the party it came from. Unlike Bhujbal and Rane, Nirupam is a genteel Sainik. Under him, Dopahar ka Saamna, the Senas Hindi evening daily, adopted a milder tone than the official Marathi mouthpiece, Saamna. However, try as he might, he cannot disown his Sena grooming. And therein lies the story. Mumbai: The issue of alleged factionalism within the Mumbai unit of Congress is again in focus as party vice-president Rahul Gandhi begins his two-day visit to the city on Friday. There were noisy scenes at a party meeting two days ago to discuss the programs during Rahul's visit with slogan-shouting by rival factions who wanted to ensure that the route of Rahul's rally covered specific areas. Some media reports claimed party legislators Naseem Khan and Aslam Shaikh came to blows, though both the leaders denied it. Before that, the Congress high command had sought an explanation from Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam over two articles in a party journal criticising Jawaharlal Nehru and terming Sonia Gandhi's father a "fascist soldier". The disciplinary action committee of AICC headed by senior leader AK Antony also issued a show-cause notice to Nirupam. Those close to Nirupam alleged that his rivals in Mumbai Congress leaked the information about the articles to the media. On arrival in Mumbai today, Rahul will be addressing a meeting of party workers in Malad and later he will inaugurate the Murli Deora Hall at the Mumbai Regional Congress Committee office in South Mumbai. On 16 January, he will interact with students of a management institute in suburban Vile Parle and later participate in padyatra from Bandra Bandstand to Dharavi slum. PTI By Aniruddha Guha Barring some snubs that are difficult to wrap my head around, the 2016 Oscar nominations are made up of a pretty solid bunch of technicians and actors, some of them very obvious contenders for wins come Oscar night (we may finally get to see a Leonardo DiCaprio winning speech). Here, I pick the four glaring snubs in the nominations list, and four choices that brought a smile to my face. 1. WRONG Steve Jobs not nominated for Best Original Screenplay In the years to come, we will discuss Aaron Sorkins absence from the Best Original Screenplay category in 2016 as passionately as we lament about Martin Scorsese being ignored before The Departed. Sorkins scripts may all seem rather, sound the same: fast-talking characters, analogy-fuelled conversations, flashy metaphors; and hes gone about generously sprinkling Sorkinisms all over his work despite the criticism. But none of those Sorkin traits ever waltzed in unison with as much grace as they do in Danny Boyles Steve Jobs. Focussing on only three sequences, Sorkin treats each segment as a part of the three-act structure, managing to tell beautifully compact stories in each segment. Cracking three three-act structures within the larger three-act structure in one film is some sort of masterclass in contemporary screenplay writing, but what makes Sorkins exclusion even more astonishing is that he won the Best Screenplay award at the Golden Globes in a much tougher category, where his script went up against both Original and Adapted Screenplays of 2015. 1. RIGHT Inside Out nominated for Best Original Screenplay No animated film has ever won an award for Screenplay before (the likes of Toy Story and Shrek have been nominated), and it gladdens the heart to know that Inside Out might have a shot at winning this year. Sorkin being left out of the race, especially, makes you root for the writing team of Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve and Josh Cooley, who had as much an Herculean storytelling task as Sorkin in Steve Jobs, if not more. At one level, Inside Out was about Riley, a little girl from Minnesota whose life turns upside down when her family relocates to San Francisco. At another, the films primary characters Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger went through their own engaging, and highly-fulfilling, journeys. The screenplay blended both elements of the story seamlessly, and masterfully manipulated viewers by combining heartwarming moments with some truly funny ones. If not for imparting some wonderful wisdom about joy and sadness going hand-in-hand through life, the writers deserve the Oscar for creating Bing Bong! 2. WRONG No Jacob Tremblay in the Best Supporting Actor category While Brie Larson has been, rightfully, picking up awards for her searing performance as a mother trapped in a confined space for over 7 years in Room, its sad to see Jacob Tremblay, who plays her 5-year-old son, being left out. The Academy doesnt award child actors in any special category apart from the already-existing ones, and nominated nine-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis last for her performance in Beasts of the Southern Wild. But Tremblays performance was so honest, so finely-nuanced, and so heart-breakingly real, youd only associate it with a seasoned actor. For delivering one of the best performances in film in 2015, Tremblay should have been in that nomination list. 2. RIGHT Mark Ruffalo in the Best Supporting Actor category Overlooked at the Golden Globes (he got nominated for Infinitely Polar Bear instead), Mark Ruffalo turned in a terrific performance as Michael Rezendes in Spotlight, about an investigative journalism team that broke a story about rampant child sex abuse by priests in Boston. Ruffalo is probably the only actor whos managed to consistently win accolades in varied roles (Foxcatcher, The Normal Heart, Infinitely Polar Bear) while performing superhero duties in a blockbuster franchise (Marvels Avengers). In Spotlight, Ruffalo stands out among a pretty solid set of actors, effortlessly portraying the workaholic journalist whose personal life suffers due to a strenuous job. A case could be made for Michael Keaton in the same film, but not at the expense of Ruffalo. 3. WRONG Steven Spielberg missing out on a Best Director nomination Bridge of Spies is nominated for Best Film, Best Original Screenplay, and has an acting nomination (Mark Rylance) three of the five major categories (Editing and Direction being the other two) that makes a film a force to reckon with at the Oscars. The riveting script, fantastic cast, beautiful production design, and fine background score came together nicely in what is probably Spielbergs strongest directorial work since Munich in 2005. The Best Director category is a pretty strong one this year even Ridley Scott missed out for The Martian but Spielberg should definitely have made the cut (in place of Lenny Abrahamson, nominated for Room, a film that rides largely on performances). 3. RIGHT Adam McKay made it in the same category Anchorman, Talladega Nights, The Other Guys Adam McKay made a career out of writing and directing hilarious, but often low-brow, comedies featuring Will Ferrel in the lead. But the guy made a filmmaking leap with The Big Short. Much smarter than all his previous comedies put together, and telling a very complicated story about the housing market and credit bubble, that brought about the 2007-08 financial meltdown McKay first wrote a charming script (which he deserves to win Best Adapted Screenplay for), and then skillfully shepherded an ensemble of pretty heavyweight actors (Steve Carell, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt, Melissa Leo, etc). Excellent on paper, McKay managed to translate The Big Short script onto screen beautifully, and I expect him to be among Hollywoods most influential filmmakers in times to come. 4. WRONG Steve Carell not in the Best Actor race; Matt Damon is As Mark Watney, Matt Damon was charming, funny and likable in The Martian, but when have those attributes ever made someone eligible for an Oscar for Best Actor? Sure, Damon won at the Golden Globes in the Comedy/Musical category (which explains a lot), but when it comes to selecting the five best male performances of 2015, Damon should consider himself lucky to be in that list. Especially when Steve Carell nailed the hell out of his role as mercurial hedge fund manager Mark Baum in The Big Short. A character that was manic depressive and constantly on-edge, but also fast-thinking and shrewd, watching Carell in the film felt like waiting for a ticking bomb to go off. But while Baum let himself go at one point, Carell kept it together, delivering a remarkably consistent performance, one worthy of being lauded. 4. RIGHT Charlotte Rampling finally got her due Charlotte Rampling has been an actor for over 45 years, and after winning several accolades across the world (the British actor has worked in films across multiple languages, including French and Italian), Rampling finally got recognition at an awards ceremony she probably doesnt care about. A legend like Rampling doesnt need the Academys stamp of approval, but her soul-stirring performance in 45 Years for which she won a Silver Bear award at The Berlin Film Festival last year was an acting tour de force; a masterclass in communicating more with less and embodying the character in a manner that makes it impossible to differentiate between the actor and the role. She will probably go empty-handed on Oscars night, but just the sight of her sitting among the nominees will be a cause for celebration, and a reason to tune in on Oscars night. Aniruddha Guha is a film critic and writes on TV. Tweets: @AniGuha Mumbai: Hollywood actors and Michael Fassbender, who have been nominated in the Actor in a Leading Role category of the upcoming 88th Academy Awards, have thanked the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for recognising their work. The nominations for the 2016 Oscars were announced on Thursday. Redmayne, who won the Best Actor Award last year for his role in James Marsh's The Theory of Everything, says he is incredibly grateful to the Academy as there were so many brilliant films and performances. He is nominated this year for his role of a transgender in The Danish Girl. This nomination is a testament to the vision of our fearless director Tom Hooper, and the support of my fellow cast members, especially the incandescent Alicia Vikander. Being recognised for 'The Danish Girl' is particularly special to me; if sharing Lili and Gerda's journey and their love story can in any small way be a part of positive social change - then I will be even more grateful, Redmayne said in a statement. Fassbender, who is acknowledged for his title role in biopic Steve Jobs, said: Thank you to the Academy, I feel very privileged for this nomination and honoured to be considered in what has been such a great year for cinema. While The Danish Girl, Steve Jobs are produced by Universal Pictures, the studio has in total received 14 nominations this year. This includes nods for films like Straight Outta Compton, Fifty Shades of Grey and Room. The Danish Girl, which released in India on Friday, received four nominations including Actor in a Leading Role (Redmayne), Actress in a Supporting Role (Alicia Vikander), Best Costume Design (Paco Delgado), and Best Production Design (Production Designer, Eve Stewart; Set Decorator, Michael Standish). Vikander, who is nominated alongside Rooney Mara (Carol), Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Hateful Eight), Kate Winslet (Steve Jobs) and Rachel McAdams (Spotlight), said: I am deeply grateful to the Academy for this honour. To be recognised alongside these actresses and their inspiring performances is humbling. To be a part of bringing 'The Danish Girl' to life was such a gift and to receive this nomination is a thrill". Steve Jobs is nominated for two awards including Actor in a Leading Role (Fassbender) and Actress in a Supporting Role (Kate Winslet). Straight Outta Compton received a nomination for Best Original Screenplay (Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff; Story by S. Leigh Savidge & Alan Wenkus and Andrea Berloff). In the Best Original Song category, the studio was nominated for Earned It from Fifty Shades of Grey. Whereas, Room has been recognised with four nominations including Best Picture, Actress in a Leading Role (Brie Larson), Best Director (Lenny Abrahamson), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Emma Donoghue). At last, Ex Machina received two nominations including Best Original Screenplay (Alex Garland) and Best Visual Effects (Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris, Mark Ardington and Sara Bennett). IANS On 8 January, when former chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's funeral procession passed through his hometown Bijbehera, an unusual sight shocked many of his followers. When the 79-year-old doyen of Kashmir politics died, many had expected Bijbehera to be completely shut down in deference to the departed leader. But as the procession inched through to Badshahi Bagh, the ancestral graveyard of the Mufti's family, some of the shops were open, and in many places it was business as usual. A few days later, when the family performed Chahurram (memorial) for the former CM, the below-expectation crowd confirmed the fears that had first appeared at the funeral: the Kashmiri leader had lost some of his popularity and emotional appeal. This gave party leaders and MPs Muzaffar Hassan Baig and Tariq Hamid Karra, who have been critical of the alliance with the BJP, to once again call for a review. According to sources, the two MPs and a few MLAs pointed out to party chief Mehbooba Mufti that the PDP is losing support among voters and it would be a good idea to reconsider the decision. Since then, the future of the BJP-PDP alliance has been under a cloud with Mehbooba Mufti maintaining an uneasy silence over the fate of the coalition government. According to The Indian Express, the PDP will now review the alliance. Senior PDP minister Naeem Akhtar told The Indian Express: We will review the progress on the agenda of alliance we drafted. It was a common vision of the Prime Minister and Mufti sahib. We are reviewing how much of it has been achieved. Asked whether the review of the agenda of alliance also meant review of the PDP alliance with the BJP, Akhtar declined comment. He said a decision on the review rested with Mehbooba Mufti. Will she, won't she? In politics, the safest way to predict an outcome is to consider all the possibilities and then discard the ones that look unviable. So, it would be a good idea to look at Mehbooba Mufti's options to predict her next move. One, she can break the alliance and call for dissolution of the Assembly, precipitating a mid-term election. But, what does she gain from it? Her party's popularity isn't really at the peak it witnessed during the elections in 2014. And it is unlikely the PDP will repeat its performance and emerge as the single-largest party or retain the 28 seats it has. So, a fresh elections are ruled out. Two, she can stitch an alliance with the Congress, which has 12 seats in the Assembly. But this will force PDP to look for the support of at least five MLAs for a majority in the Assembly. Sources in the PDP told Firstpost that at least five MLAs are willing to join the government. These include Engineer Rashid, Hakeem Yasin, Yusuf Tarigami, Pawan Gupta and an MLA from Sajjad Lone's party. But a Congress-PDP alliance with the support of independent MLAs is a risky proposition. As pointed out by HT, the government would be in a fix if a hardliner like Rashid Engineer brings in a bill for independence. Also, the PDP is already struggling for funds from the Centre in spite of an alliance with the BJP. A government without the BJP as a partner would definitely starved of money and support from Delhi. So, a Congress-PDP government with independent MLAs also appears risky. That leaves PDP with just one viable option: Continue the alliance with the BJP and hope that things get better and the opinion of the people changes. Why, then, is Mehbooba playing hardball? The PDP is keeping its partner on the edge to ensure that it gets Delhi to fulfil all the promises the BJP had made before finalising the common minimum programme (CMP) of the alliance. These include a financial package for flood relief and development, and return of two power projects 390 MW Dulhasti and 480 MW Uri Ifrom NHPC to the State. According to the Kashmir Times, PDP-BJP coalition started on the high note of return of power projects. But the plan was scuttled when Union minister of power (state) Piyush Goyal reportedly said the ministry cant transfer power projects owned by the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) to Jammu and Kashmir because of legal and financial problems." Mehbooba Mufti now wants the BJP to honour the promise and transfer these projects to the state. And she wants the assurance of either Prime Minister Narendra Modi or one of his senior Cabinet colleagues that the CMP would be implemented in letter and spirit. The PDP is known to bargain hard. Mufti Mohammad Sayeed had taken almost two months to say yes to an alliance with the BJP after the elections had returned a hung Assembly. So, Mehbooba is just acting out her father's script. Insiders say she is keeping the BJP guessing also to ensure that the terms of the alliance are not renegotiated and dissenters like Baig and Karra are mollycoddled and silenced. As the drama plays out, the BJP can just wait. BERLIN An irate local politician in Germany's southern state of Bavaria has dispatched a bus filled with dozens of refugees on a 7-hour journey to Chancellor Angela Merkel's office in Berlin as a protest against her open-door refugee policy. A spokesman for Peter Dreier from the southeastern town of Landshut confirmed to Reuters that 31 refugees were making the 550 kilometre trip to the capital and were likely arrrive in the afternoon. A video on the online site of German newspaper Die Welt showed police officers shepherding dozens of men and women with bags onto a bus in a sunny country road lined with trees and chalets. Dreier appeared to be acting on a threat he made to Merkel last year. Critical of her mantra that Germany can cope with the influx of migrants, he reportedly issued a warning to the chancellor in a phone call in October. "If Germany is taking in 1 million refugees, mathematically that means 1,800 will come to my district. I will take them and if there are any more, I will send them to your office," Die Welt quoted Dreier as saying. Dreier, who was not available to comment, represents the Freie Waehler, a loose grouping of politicians who do not have a common policy, but campaign on individual issues mostly at the local level. Merkel is under increasing pressure to stem the flow of migrants coming to Germany, many from war zones in the Middle East or Africa. Some 1.1 million people arrived last year and several thousand continue to stream in every day. Local authorities are stretched both financially and logistically to house and look after refugees and there has been a backlash by right-wing groups who have warned of the problems of integration. Mass sexual assaults on women in Cologne at New Year by gangs of young men described by police as being of Arab or North African in appearance, have deepened worries. The frustration in Bavaria, the main entry point for most migrants coming to Germany, is especially strong with Merkel's conservative allies, the Christian Social Union (CSU), repeatedly calling on her to introduce a formal cap on migrant numbers. She has resisted such a cap, arguing that it would be impossible to enforce. (Reporting by Reuters Television; Writing by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Noah Barkin) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. New York: A US court has acquitted an Alabama police officer who was arrested for brutally assaulting an Indian elderly man in February last year, media reported on Thursday. In an apparent jolt to the paralysed Sureshbahi Patel's bid to seek justice, the court acquitted Eric Parker on the grounds of being "presumed innocent" after two mistrials could not establish his guilt beyond doubt, Al.com reported. Judge Madeline Hughes Haikala threw out the case against Parker, who faced up to 10 years in prison for using excessive force against Patel. A team of three federal prosecutors had twice tried Parker last year for the takedown of 57-year-old Sureshbahi Patel. Both trials ended with a deadlocked jury. "Mr Patel had-and has-just as much right to be free from excessive force as every citizen of this country. He is welcome here, and it is appropriate to grieve his injury," Haikala was quoted as saying. "However, that injury, standing alone, does not provide the basis for a criminal judgment against Mr Parker," the judge added. Parker still faces a state charge of misdemeanor assault in Limestone County. On the morning of 6 February last year, a neighbour in Huntsville called police to complain of a "skinny black guy" who is "just kind of walking around close to the garage." Police found Patel walking along the sidewalk but Patel, owing to lack of knowledge of English, could not answer questions and the confused encounter ended with Patel in an ambulance. Patel who arrived from India to help care for his grandson later testified that he does not speak English and did not resist. "I did not try to run away but I did go back a couple of steps to show them my house," testified Patel through an interpreter at the second trial. "They put their hands on me and I was just standing and did not move," he added. The case drew international interest, drawing Indian diplomats to Madison and prompting Governor Robert Bentley to issue a letter apologizing to Patel and to India. Patel now lives with his son while undergoing medical care. IANS BEIJING Days after China passed a new law that for the first time permits its military to venture overseas on counter-terror operations, its marines began exercises in the western deserts of Xinjiang, more than 2,000 kilometres from the nearest ocean. The continuing drills are an indication, analysts say, that the marines, who have traditionally trained for amphibious assault missions, are being honed into an elite force capable of deploying on land far from mainland China. China's limited means to respond to threats abroad were highlighted by two incidents in November: when Islamic State executed a Chinese hostage, and the killing of three executives by Islamist militants who attacked a hotel in Mali. China's new counter-terrorism law, passed in late December, is aimed at protecting its expanding global commercial and diplomatic interests. But China's military commanders are also trying to create a military in the likeness of the world's most dominant power projection force, analysts say. "They study what the Americans have done very carefully and it's the mirror image effect," said Leszek Buszynski, a visiting fellow at the Australian National University's Strategic and Defence Studies Centre. The cold weather training will improve the marines' ability to conduct "long-distance mobilization in unfamiliar regions", the deputy chief of staff of the Navy's South Sea fleet Li Xiaoyan said in a Ministry of Defence statement earlier this month. During the drills, the marines will travel 5,900 kilometres via air, truck and rail beginning in the southern province of Guangdong, the longest range manoeuvres ever conducted by the force, state media said. EXPEDITIONARY FORCE The exercises are the latest in recent years that show the efforts China is making to boost its expeditionary force capabilities. In 2014, the marines conducted their first training in the grasslands of the northern landlocked Inner Mongolia region. At the time, the exercise was seen as unusual for the south China-based force more proficient in beach landings. Since those drills, the roughly 15,000-strong marine corps, which operates under the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy's South Sea fleet, appears to be settling into a new niche. "They never really had a major strategic role, as force projection wasn't something the PLA was willing, or able, to think about even ten years ago," said Gary Li, an independent security analyst in Beijing. With amphibious divisions in the PLA Army also capable of extending China's reach into the South China Sea and Taiwan, Li said the marines are a good fit for a budding Chinese expeditionary force. "The main advantage of playing around with the marines is that they have a higher concentration of specialists, act well as light infantry, have good esprit de corps, and are nimble enough to be deployed over long distances if needed," he said. RISING GLOBAL PROFILE Along with President Xi Jinping's vows to build a more modern military, the global profile of China's armed forces is on the rise. Already, the South Sea fleet, which is based on the mainland coast near the island of Hainan, has been used on operations far from the South China Sea. The fleet's vessels have ventured to the Middle East and Mediterranean after deployments on international anti-piracy patrols around the Horn of Africa. Chinese officials announced in November they were in talks with Djibouti to build permanent "support facilities" to further boost Chinese naval operations, in what would be China's first such off-shore military base. The African port, sitting on the edge of the Red and Arabian seas, is home to several foreign military bases, including U.S., French and Japanese naval facilities. China is also expanding its peacekeeping role, with Xi pledging in September to contribute 8,000 troops for a U.N. stand-by force that could provide logistical and operational experience the PLA would need to operate farther abroad. While China has been getting more involved diplomatically in trouble spots like the Middle East, it is adamant that it does not interfere in the affairs of other countries, and is the only permanent member of the U.N. Security Council which has not taken military action in Syria. The Defence Ministry said in a fax that the drills were part of "annual planned" exercises. For now, China's marines are advancing only through the snow fields of Xinjiang, as depicted in state media photographs, still wearing their speckled blue fatigues designed for operations at sea. But that could shift in time. "China's global security posture is becoming more active," said Zhang Baohui, a mainland security expert at Hong Kong's Lingnan University. "And this seems to fit that policy." (Reporting by Michael Martina and Greg Torode. Additional reporting by Matt Siegel in SYDNEY. Editing by Bill Tarrant) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Copenhagen: Denmark's parliament on Wednesday debated a controversial plan to seize refugees' valuables, with the bill widely expected to pass after being backed by a majority of lawmakers. The bill has been condemned by the UN refugee agency which fears it will fuel xenophobia, while international media have compared the searches to Nazi Germany's seizing of gold and valuables from Jews and others during World War II. "Refugees have lost their homes and almost everything they possess, it beggars belief that somebody would want to strip them away from the little they have managed to salvage from their lives," UNHCR spokesman William Spindler said. The proposal would allow Danish authorities to seize asylum seekers' cash exceeding 10,000 kroner (1,340 euros, $1,450), as well as any individual items valued at more than 10,000 kroner. Wedding rings would be exempt, along with other items of sentimental value, such as engagement rings, family portraits and medals. A vote on the proposal will be held on 26 January. Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen's right-wing government has faced a wave of criticism over its plan, and to secure the backing of other MPs it agreed to amend the bill by raising the amount of cash a refugee can keep from an initially-proposed 3,000 kroner to 10,000. It reached agreement with other parties in parliament on Tuesday to secure a majority for the upcoming vote. The Scandinavian country has some of Europe's strictest immigration policies, and has repeatedly tightened its regulations in recent months to deter foreigners from seeking a new life in the country. 'Reputation at stake' But the bill, even in its amended form, again came under fire Wednesday by a group of 10 local and regional members of Rasmussen's ruling Venstre party. "It is not just a matter of proper policy and humanity, but also Denmark's international reputation," they wrote in the Berlingske daily. In a near-empty parliament Wednesday, Integration Minister Inger Stojberg said there had been "some criticism and many, many misunderstandings maybe also sometimes deliberate misunderstandings." The main spokeswoman for the leftist Red-Green Alliance, Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen, said it was "rather unclear what jewellery is going to be snatched from the refugees" and that the aim of the proposal was simply to tell the world "that Denmark is not a nice place to be." Social Democratic lawmaker Dan Jorgensen defended what he called a "compromise" solution hammered out "in a difficult situation." Denmark, a country of 5.4 million, received 21,000 asylum applications last year, compared to 163,000 in neighbouring Sweden, home to 9.8 million people. European Union Vice President Frans Timmerman said the 28-nation bloc would examine the Danish plan "once the law is adopted and... then give our official position to the Danish government." The proposal is part of a wider immigration bill that also includes delaying family reunifications for some refugees by up to three years, as well as making it harder to obtain permanent residency and shortening temporary residence permits. At the Auderod asylum centre some 60 kilometres (37 miles) northwest of Copenhagen, Tarek Issa, a 25-year-old law student from Hama in Syria, said he thought police would find little of value during their migrant searches. "We almost paid everything to come here. Like a house, like a restaurant we owned before," he told AFP. A police search of his bags would turn up "maybe 100 euros," he laughed. Public support for seizing migrants' valuables was hard to gauge, but there was widespread backing for tighter asylum rules in general, according to Bjarne Steensbeck, a political commentator at public broadcaster DR. A December survey by pollster Megafon found that 51 percent of Danes were in favour of delaying family reunifications by three years, while 29 percent were against. 'Sending a signal' A member of the European Parliament for Venstre last month quit the party in protest at its increasingly hardline migration stance, which has included advertising in Lebanese newspapers to warn off potential migrants. The UNHCR said earlier this month it feared the new immigration bill "could fuel fear, xenophobia and similar restrictions that would reduce rather than expand the asylum space globally." Steensbeck said the international criticism was unlikely to have an impact on the government's policies. "Lars Lokke Rasmussen has to be elected in Denmark... not (by) the international media," he told AFP. A spokesman for the far-right Danish People's Party told AFP in December the bill was intended as a "signal" to dissuade migrants from coming, and not aimed at actually raising money. AFP Lahore: Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Maulana Masood Azhar has been taken under "protective custody", Dawn quoted Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah as saying. Speaking on DawnNews talk show 'News Eye', Sanaullah, while responding to a question, confirmed that Masood Azhar was taken into protective custody by the counter-terrorism department, the report said. Asked if his custody can be termed an 'arrest', the provincial law minister explained on Thursday that Azhar will only face arrest and legal action if his involvement in the Pathankot attack is proved beyond doubt. India says that the six terrorists who attacked the Indian Air Force (IAF) station in Pathankot in Punjab on 2 January, killing seven security personnel, were Pakistanis and allied to the JeM. IANS Note from the author: Before you start reading this, itll help to play this track in the background. Trust me. On a sunny August afternoon in 2012 at Catton Hall in Walton-on-Trent, UK, a diminutive Taiwanese man strode to the lip of the Ronnie James Dio stage at Bloodstock Open Air. Dressed in black, his forehead painted delicately in black and gold and clutching a microphone like his life depended on it, he addressed the thousands that stood before him. In a voice far gentler than the monstrous one deployed when belting out the words to his bands music, Chthonic frontman Freddy Lim spoke to his audience about an injustice being perpetrated around 200-odd kilometers away in London. Thats where his country was participating in the Olympics, except under the name Chinese Taipei. Its not Chinese Taipei! My country is called Taiwan! Sure, its slightly paraphrased. But the sight of a predominantly British audience chanting Taiwan! Taiwan! Taiwan! will long live in this writers memory. Freddys knack for having audiences eat out of his hand was never in doubt, but on Saturday, his ability will undergo its biggest test: The Taiwanese parliamentary election. Thats right, Amnesty International Taiwans chairman from 2010 to 2014 will be contesting Saturdays election under the banner of the New Power Party (NPP) that he co-founded a little under a year ago. Of the 113 seats in the Legislative Yuan (the unicameral legislation of Taiwan), it is the one that represents Wanhua and Zhongzheng districts of Taipei that Freddy will be contesting. His opponent? Lin Yu-fang of the countrys ruling Chinese Nationalist Party or Kuomintang (KMT). Keeping it classy, Lin urged supporters at a rally on 8 January not to vote for someone whose hair (is) longer than a womans and is mentally abnormal. Theres really nothing to add here. So whats on the long-haired and allegedly mentally abnormal Freddys manifesto? Unlimited sex, endless drugs and overflowing booze? Not quite. Among the NPPs objectives is to rewrite the Constitution of the Republic of China (RoC). For the uninitiated, a bit of disambiguation may be required: The RoC, as opposed to the Peoples Republic of China refers to an erstwhile territory that includes Taiwan and 35 other provinces. The RoC would retreat to Taiwan after being defeated by the Communist Party of China at the tail-end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. The Constitution had been drafted by the KMT in 1946 under the assumption that the party would rule all 36 provinces. Now we only have Taiwan, popular Taiwanese author-screenwriter and NPP member Neil Peng told Foreign Policy, Using it (the existing Constitution) is a joke. But thats not all. Our goal is to be able to gradually eliminate the KMT, said Freddy to Foreign Policy, adding, (this is) because the KMT is an undemocratic, pre-modern political party. Taiwans two-party system comprises the pro-Beijing KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) that seeks a continuation of the status quo. Given this backdrop, its unsurprising then that a movement like the NPP would emerge, tap into the imagination of the Taiwanese people and emerge as the third most popular party (with the support of 6.8 percent of the electorate). The seed for the NPPs inception in January 2015 was sowed (no pun intended) during the Sunflower Student Movement of April 2014. Protestors stormed the Legislative Yuan and Executive Yuan to demonstrate against the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement, a trade pact with the PRC that was being unilaterally pushed through by the KMT. This Taiwanese take on the occupy movements cropping up across the world was driven by the fear that while the treaty would aid big business, it would destroy the small to medium-sized Taiwanese businesses. Restrictions on freedom of speech in Taiwan given that the agreement also included provisions for substantial Chinese investment in the Taiwanese news media was another major source of concern. But Freddy a proud supporter of the Free Tibet movement didnt always feel this way about China. In fact, many years prior to Chthonic being banned from China for the political content of its lyrics, the bands frontman was in favour of unification, while in school. Probably everyone in Taiwan was at that time, because textbooks under the KMT were all unification textbooks, he told Taipei Times. After I graduated from high school, I started to have time to read books other than those given to us by the KMT and read a lot about Taiwanese history It was a little bit like learning at age 18 that the parents you have respected all your life killed your real parents, he continued with the sort of subtlety one normally associates with a sledge hammer being smashed over the head. Its one thing to complain, grumble and cry about everything thats wrong with the world or even your own country. Its quite another to try and do something about it. And so, the logical next step for his awakening, apart from disseminating his thoughts in sung (sorry, screamed), spoken and written word, would be the co-founding of the NPP. Freddy laid out his intentions in an online post that, among other things, said: I believe that, all Taiwanese have the rightor even obligationto be part of the movement to create a party, to create a new age for Taiwan as a nation. Lets make 'republic' a verb, and lets open a new age of equality and freedom Take a moment to read the full text of his communique. And now, nearly a year after he issued this call-to-arms, Freddy is set to take on his biggest challenge yet. And should he get elected, maybe his first foreign visit as member of the Legislative Yuan could be to Indonesia, whose president Joko Widodo is quite the metalhead. But wait, will his election to office mean the end for Chthonic (in its present form, at any rate)? I will definitely continue to tour, probably not as extensively as before Im hoping (the new album will) be out by the end of the year, as I have to get elected first and then well rush to record it, said Freddy to TeamRock. And finally, readers in Taiwan, if you still need a reason to vote for Freddy, theres a strong one below. For the rest of you, heres a reason to support him with your good wishes online: ANKARA Turkish security forces briefly detained 27 academics accused of terrorist propaganda, local media said, over a declaration that criticised military action in the largely Kurdish southeast and urged an end to curfews. President Tayyip Erdogan denounced the more than 1,000 signatories of the document, who included U.S. philosopher Noam Chomsky, as "dark, nefarious and brutal" in a speech after Friday prayers. In a more ironic tone, he said those who did not want to do politics in parliament "should go dig trenches or go to the mountains" - a reference to the tactics and hideouts of the Kurdish militant group PKK. The Turkish opposition and the U.S. ambassador to Turkey criticised prosecutors' actions in ordering investigations and home searches of academics across the country after Erdogan criticised the signatories in a speech on Thursday. The declaration was inspired by clashes between government forces and the PKK since a ceasefire broke down in July. The military has locked down entire districts and pounded PKK outposts in residential areas, but denies accusations that its actions have endangered and killed civilians. The majority of Friday morning's detentions were in the western industrial province of Kocaeli, close to Istanbul and all had been released by the evening, local media reported. The Kocaeli prosecutor's office had no comment. The declaration, published on Monday, accused the government of heavy-handedness in its efforts to weed out militants, who have increasingly brought their fight out of the mountains and into the towns, creating a major headache for security forces. "The right to life, liberty, and security, and in particular the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment protected by the constitution and international conventions have been violated," the declaration read. "We demand that the state abandon its deliberate massacre." More than 2,000 lawyers signed and published online a pledge to offer free legal assistance to the academics. "The declaration does not praise or call for hate or committing crimes," said one law professor, asking not to be named for fear he himself would be prosecuted. "CHILLING EFFECT" The document has garnered support from hundreds of academics around the world, but incensed nationalists inside Turkey. The PKK, fighting since 1984 firstly for an independent Kurdistan and now for Kurdish autonomy, is considered a terrorist organisation by the United States and the EU as well as Turkey. Turkey's leading opposition party, the CHP, described the detentions as "totally lawless". Turkey regularly performs badly in surveys on press freedom and freedom of speech and has been heavily criticised by its western and European partners. "While we may not agree with the opinions expressed by those academics, we are nevertheless concerned about this pressure having a chilling effect on legitimate political discourse," U.S. Ambassador John Bass said in a statement on the embassy's Twitter feed on Friday. Meanwhile, clashes continued between government forces and PKK fighters, with five militants and a policeman killed in the eastern town of Siirt, security sources told Reuters. The army said in a statement that 19 PKK militants had been killed on Thursday in three southeastern provinces under curfew. The southeastern towns of Cizre and Silopi, bordering Iraq and Syria, and the historical district of Sur in Diyarbakir province have been under curfew for weeks. In Diyarbakir's Cinar district, a truck bomb attack by the PKK killed six people on Thursday including civilians, security sources said. Selahattin Demirtas, co-chair of Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) said he did not know who had carried out the attack in Cinar. "But those who did this should come forward and apologise to the public for massacring civilians, baby and children," he added. (Additional reporting by Gulsen Solaker and Humeyra Pamuk; Writing by Jonny Hogg and Ece Toksabay; Editing by Ralph Boulton) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, 2016 Directed by Michael Bay Starring John Krasinski, James Badge Dale, Toby Stephens, Pablo Schreiber, David Denman, Dominic Furnusa, Max Martini, Alexia Barlier, David Costabile, Peyman Moaadi, and Matt Letscher SYNOPSIS: An American Ambassador is killed during an attack at a U.S. compound in Libya as a security team struggles to make sense out of the chaos. Whenever I give myself to a Michael Bay film, I prepare for the absolute worst. Thats not to say I am biased against the man; he just simply makes movies full of incoherent action, juvenile humor only prepubescent teenagers would laugh at, embarrassing levels of sexism that literally use any and every female character as a sexpot to just stand around looking hot throughout all of the aforementioned incoherent action, and the worst offense of all, zero substance. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi avoids nearly all of these frustrating Michael Bay tropes in order to recount the jihadist attack on a Libyan U.S. diplomatic compound during the anniversary of 9/11, and how six undeniably brave ex-military private contractors came to the rescue of a defenseless American Ambassador, even when told to stand down by their superior. Id love to tell you which of the warriors says the quote Im about to drop on you, but one of the surprisingly few problems with 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi is that many of the faces boasting manly beards and brutish personalities are interchangeable, leaving you with people you dont necessarily care about as characters, even if we obviously want to see American soldiers doing the right thing hopefully making it back home to their families. Anyway, one of the ex-military men tells their brainy Ivy League head of intel operations that they are done taking orders; this isnt about spying or locating weapons anymore, hes in their world of danger now, and theyre calling the shots now, with the goal being to hopefully rescue lives and once again, simply to come back home. And that really is the point of Michael Bays retelling of this historical day. Politics are left at the door (Michael Bay shockingly shows a lot of restraint in gunning for the America Fuck Yeah crowd) in favor of nonstop action. Now, the problem is that many of these sequences are hindered by dizzying levels of shaky cam, constant quick-cut editing destroying any chance viewers will have of catching their bearings on the situation, rocket launchers going off from every direction, vehicles exploding left and right, and doors exploding open in slow motion, but maybe the frenetic approach is intentional. We are in the world of these soldiers, and admittedly, the pure chaos is part of this successful effect. It is easily arguable that for the first time in his career, Michael Bay has made a mature film. Even more interesting is that while promoting the movie, Michael Bay actually commented that one of the reasons hes going back to do another Transformers is that he actually had to beg studios to get 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi greenlit. Furthermore, thats something that screams of corporate greed at the highest level, and has to make one wonder if Michael Bay would try harder if it were easier to get his passion projects made. That doesnt excuse him from previously making terrible films, but it does seem that any time a film he genuinely wants to make comes along (a similar example is the hilariously underrated Pain and Gain, a movie where all of his juvenile humor perfectly blends with the true story he was recounting), it ends up being anywhere from tolerable to good. Again, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi isnt required cinema for the action/war genre, but it satisfies as an adrenaline rush. It takes a while to reach that relentless onslaught of bullets and missiles thanks to a lengthy, cheesy opening act showing us the families of some of these soldiers as bait for us to automatically care about the inevitable danger, but Michael Bay becomes assured in his abilities once shit hits the fan. Its also a movie where his incoherent action can be considered a strength, depending on how much you can accept before growing tired of all the mayhem. Get this: theres even a female character in the movie that doesnt exist to show off her ass. Instead, shes actually a rather resourceful operative, hence the hypothesis that Michael Bay has finally grown up as a filmmaker. I will probably eat those words next year while reviewing Transformers 5, but as for 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, well its relatively accomplished action filmmaking that crucially depicts its soldiers as people that just want to go home. No one actually enjoys this, even if Michael Bay does present the chaos with bombastic Hollywood grandeur.. Flickering Myth Rating Film: / Movie: Robert Kojder The official Chief Film Critic of Flickering Myth. Check here for new reviews weekly, friend me on Facebook, follow my Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com Coolpad has launched its Note 3 Lite smartphone in India, as expected, few months after it launched the successful Note 3 smartphone in the country. It packs a 5-inch HD display, is powered by a Quad-Core 64-bit MediaTek MT6735 processor and runs on Android 5.1 (Lollipop) with Cool UI on top. It has a 13-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, 5-megapixel front-facing camera and a fingerprint sensor on the back, similar to the Note 3. It comes with dual SIM support and has 4G connectivity with support for LTE bands (TDD B40 2300MHz and FDD B3 1800MHz) for India. At launch event Coolpad said that the smartphone will be manufactured in India in partnership with domestic electronics brand Videocon. Back in October last year Coolpad revealed its plans to Make in India and said that it would invest around Rs. 1,950 crore in India to manufacture and sell low-cost handsets in the country. Coolpad Note 3 Lite specifications 5-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) HD IPS display, Scratch-resistant Glass 1.3GHz Quad-Core 64-bit MediaTek MT6735 processor with Mali-T720 GPU 3GB RAM, 16GB internal memory, expandable memory up to 32GB with microSD Dual SIM Android 5.1 (Lollipop) with Cool UI 6.0 13MP rear camera with LED Flash 5MP front-facing camera Fingerprint sensor Dimensions: 140.8 x 70.4 x 8.9mm; Weight: 152g 4G LTE / 3G HSPA+, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, USB OTG 2500mAh battery The Coolpad Note 3 Lite comes in Black and Champagne White colors, is priced at Rs. 6,999 and will be exclusively available from Amazon.in through flash sale starting from 28th January at 2PM. Registrations for the sale starts today from 5PM. Check out our hands-on impressions and the photo gallery of the Coolpad Note 3 Lite here. Commenting on the launch, LI Bin, CEO, Coolpad Group said: As the smartphone market gears for a revolution, India has become a crucial source from Coolpad`s strategy point of view. This has been clear from Coolpad`s investment strategy which is in line with India`s Make in India initiative. We are proud to announce that, by the first quarter of 2016, we will start manufacturing Coolpad Note 3 from Videocon`s Aurangabad factory. Our target is to produce 1 million Make in India Coolpad phones by the H1 of 2016. Initially, around 15,000- 20,000 devices will be imported from China and rest will be manufactured from India, going forward India will be the sole distributor for SAARC regions. Also by 2017 we will start our SMT line in India, with Indian users being early adopters of affordable technology, we intend to be the trendsetters and leaders in the 4G segment, Keeping the Indian consumers on priority the Coolpad Note 3 was launched with a 3GB RAM exclusively for India, we intend to keep following this trend. Syed Tajuddin, CEO, Coolpad India, said: We have received a phenomenal response in the last three months for Coolpad Note 3. So far we have retailed over 1,50,000 units of Coolpad Note 3 in India and this number is climbing as we speak, We have maintained a customer rating of 4.2 from almost 5500 buyers of this device on Amazon.in. , this tremendous response for the Note 3 encouraged us to launch the Coolpad Note 3 Lite. We also see a tremendous opportunity for smart wearables in India, according to an International Data Corporation (IDC) report, wearables grew 173% and nearly 72 million wearable devices were shipped globally in 2015, Our technology is prime and so today Coolpad India has showcased wearables for the first time in India for you to experience, we intend to launch these in India in 2016, when?, let fans decide. Anirudh Dhoot, Director, Videocon added: Videocon is happy to partner with the Coolpad Group, which is China`s leading smartphone manufacturer. This partnership between Coolpad and Videocon is mutually benefitting since Coolpad`s Make in India strategy is in line with Videocon`s vision to contribute towards this government initiative through manufacturing devices at its our State-of-the- Art facilities. We are proud to showcase Coolpad Note 3 Lite which is the first Coolpad Made in India phone. We aim to produce one million made in India phone by the first half of 2016. This partnership is a testimony to Coolpad`s and Videocon`s commitment to offer affordable and premium quality products. Samir Kumar, Director Categories, Amazon Seller Services Pvt. Ltd, said: The Coolpad Note 3 launched exclusively on Amazon.in about three months back. Since then, we have sold lakhs of units of the device and it has become one of our bestsellers in the affordable smartphone category on Amazon.in. Our customers have appreciated the power packed smartphone for its features and the aggressive pricing. We are positive that Coolpad Note 3 Lite, which is the second edition of this bestseller will also be accepted and appreciated by our customers across the country and witness the same traction on Amazon.in. It has been rumoured for quite a while that Samsung is in talks with Apple to supply OLED screens for upcoming iPhones. Well, it now seems that they have come to an agreement which makes Samsung the largest flexible OLED supplier for Apple. This also confirmed the rumours that Apple will be switching from LCD panels to OLED panels for its iPhones sometime in 2018. That means that the iPhone 8 or whatever that generation of iPhones will be called will come with OLED panels that will further increase its quality and desirability. iPhones have always had good displays but they dont offer as deep blacks or contrast levels as other smartphones with OLED display. Samsung is also planning to invest heavily to meet Apples demand. Samsung will invest between US$ 2.49 billion and US$ 3.32 billion in OLED plants by end of 2016. They will further spend another US$ 6.64 billion by the end if 2017 to increase the capacity by an additional 45,000 OLED units per month. They would also invest around US$ 830 million in order to expand their production capabilities for Samsung Galaxy and other Chinese smartphones. Source | Via After the suicide bombing attack on a Starbucks branch in Jakarta, the Giant Coffee company decided to temporarily close the other branches in the city "until further notice". The Indonesian capital was shocked by an explosion in the middle of a commercial hub on the midday of January 14, immediately killing two-a local and a foreigner and wounding at least 24 others. According to witnesses' accounts and a recorded footage of the attacks, the commotion started around 10:55 am with a blast near a Starbucks on Thamrin Street, a popular destination and district for foreigners and locals with various western food chains and stores. Jakarta Police said that aside from the bombing, the terrorists also open fired at people on the streets. ISIS claimed responsibility on the latest terror act on the most populous Muslim country in the world. This happened two days after another terrorist attack from the extremist Islamic group on Istanbul, killing at least 10 people. The incident was the first major attack in the city capital of Indonesia since the 2009 simultaneous attacks on the J.W. Marriott and Ritz Carlton Hotels, which recorded seven people killed. Since then, the Indonesian government has been prioritizing counterterrorism measures. "It's concerning (to have) yet one more day and another attack in another part of the world," Gohel told CNN. "And one fears that this is potentially becoming the new normal where ISIS affiliates carry out attacks independently from the leadership based in Syria. Indonesia is the Most Populous Muslim Country in Asia, with 87% of its population are practicing Islam, that is roughly 255 million people. If you think it's time to deflate that pouch, it takes more than just swearing off alcohol beverages. Otherwise known as the "beer belly", new discoveries say there's a more appropriate term for your bloated midsection: soda belly. In the past 6 years, a study of about 1,000 adults showed that people who drank sodas or other sweetened beverages gained an extra 1.8 pounds of visceral fat. Yes, that's the "deep" fat in your middle, the same one that surrounds your internal organs and may even damage them. In a standpoint, 1.8 pounds is the weight of a 24-week old fetus. That means you can go from a lean, mean machine to a pregnant-looking lady just by drinking soda, sweetened iced tea, and even fruit punch. But instead of carrying a baby, you are carrying a bundle of toxic fat. To put into perspective, the researchers found that belly fat for the non-drinkers increased by 658 centimeters cubed, 649 cubic centimeters for occasional drinkers (once a month or less than once a week), 707 cubic centimeters for frequent drinker (once a week or less than once a day), and 852 cubic centimeters for daily drinkers. Yikes. So, did your favorite drink make the cut? Read on to find out 5 of the worst belly offenders: 1. Mountain Dew- this one contains brominated vegetable oil, a patented flame retardant for plastics that has been banned in foods throughout Europe and in Japan. What's a flame retardant, you ask? Those are compounds added to plastics and textiles, as well as surface finishes and coatings that delay the production and spread of flames. "After a few extreme soda binges - not too far from what many [video] gamers regularly consume - a few patients have needed medical attention for skin lesions, memory loss and nerve disorders, all symptoms of overexposure to bromine," according to an article in Environmental News. Plus, there's 46 grams of sugar in a can of Mountain Dew. Do the math. 2. Sunkist - This one gets its attractive orange color from Yellow 5 and Red 40. However, a study conducted by Journal of Pediatrics linked Yellow 5 to children's hyperactivity. Researchers from Canada also found out that Red 40 is contaminated with known carcinogens. A 12 oz. serving comes with 44.4 grams of carbs and 43.2 grams of sugar 3. Wild Cherry Pepsi - The only thing wild about this soda is that it contains as much sugar as more than three cups of cherries, without actually containing real cherries. Regular Pepsi, on the other hand, carries 5 grams more sugar than 3 bars of Musketeers. Let that sink in. 4. Coca Cola Life - If you think you're doing well by opting for Coca Cola's sugar- and stevia- sweetened beverage, think again. The natural packaging only conceals the cold, hard facts: it contains 24g of sugar (World Health Organization recommends 25g a day to prevent obesity, heart ailments, and diabetes). The green can has almost the same amount of sugar as with 3 Apple n Spice Donuts from Dunkin Donuts. 5. Fanta Zero - It's an unsavory blend of fruit-flavored oils mixed with water. And you know where it gets its alluring color, right? So, there you have it. If Jessica Alba's surfboard abs is your goal this year, you know which drinks to steer clear of. Elon Musk's SpaceX continues to win approval from NASA. On Thursday, NASA awarded SpaceX, along with Orbital ATK (OA) and Sierra Nevada, contracts to resupply the international space station, or ISS, with cargo. The missions will begin in 2019 and end in 2024, but funding begins immediately. The move adds to SpaceX's excellent track record of contracts with NASA. The contract Ahead of NASA's decision on Thursday, it wasn't clear how many of the active proposals from the space companies vying for the important program NASA would approve. After denying Lockheed Martin and Boeing's proposals in 2015, there were only three company's left to compete for the contracts -- and all three won. These cargo resupply contracts follow the last round of contracts, which were awarded in 2008 to SpaceX and Orbital. The contract will provide the three space companies with considerable resources as they prepare and execute. The "maximum potential value of all contracts is $14 billion from 2016 through 2024," NASA said in a press release. "The second generation of commercial cargo services to low-Earth orbit begins today," said ISS Program manager Kirk Shireman. "By engaging American companies for cargo transportation, we can focus our attention on using this one-of-a-kind laboratory in the sky to continue advancing scientific knowledge for the benefit of all humanity." SpaceX is the only company that will certainly use an entirely American-developed rocket. Sierra Nevada plans to use its own Dream Chaser for cargo on top of the United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket, which has a first stage powered by the Russian-built RD-180 engine. Orbital plans to use its Cygnus cargo craft on either its Antares rocket, which should soon be completed, or the Atlas V rocket. SpaceX will use its Dragon cargo capsule, and its reusable Falcon 9 rocket. The contracts guarantee at least six cargo resupply missions for each company. Good news for SpaceX With SpaceX's successful Falcon 9 rocket landing now in the rearview mirror, it's easy to think the Hawthorne, CA-based company had the contract in the bag. But before the December mission, the company was on shaky ground. Following 20 successes in a row, SpaceX's Falcon 9 blew up during flight in the summer of 2015, leading to a six-month hiatus. If SpaceX hadn't successfully returned to flight in December, the company could have easily been out of the running. Sure, a successful landing of the Falcon 9 may not have been necessary during the December mission, but there was definitely immense pressure for everything else to go as planned. Orbital, too, experienced a major setback recently, when its Antares rocket exploded on the launch pad in 2014. But, like SpaceX, the company had a successful return to flight. NASA's decision to include SpaceX in its next resupply mission to the ISS adds to SpaceX's previous ISS resupply contract, which has resulted in the transportation of 35,000 pounds of cargo together with Orbital. And it adds to SpaceX's contract with NASA to ferry astronauts back and forth from the ISS as part of the Commercial Crew Program -- a program that also awarded Boeing with a contract. SpaceX has yet to put a press release on its website to acknowledge the contract. Perhaps that's because employees are hard at work prepping for the company's upcoming flight If all goes according to plan, and NASA is currently saying the mission is a go, SpaceX will be put to the test this weekend. On Sunday, SpaceX aims to deploy a NASA Jason-3 satellite into lower earth orbit, and land its Falcon 9 in a barge in the Pacific Ocean. Teck Resources (TECK 0.28%) has been pulling back hard to keep itself afloat. That's included sharing the pain with shareholders via two dividend cuts last year. Is this enough to ensure Teck makes it through to the other side of this deep commodity downturn? It's bad In a December presentation, Teck outlined just how bad the current commodity downturn is. For example, zinc is facing its "longest" downturn since the 1920s. Copper's malaise is the "deepest" since the 20s. Steel making coal, for its part, gets both designations, with a "long and deep" down cycle. These are just amorphous words. How about some numbers? Teck's revenue peaked in 2011 at around $11.5 billion, dropping to $8.6 billion in 2014. It was just $6.1 billion through the first nine months of 2015, suggesting another year-over-year decline. But the real pain shows up on the bottom line. In 2011, Teck had a profit of around $2.7 billion. That number fell to $400 million in 2014, and it looks like red ink will rule the day in 2015 because of asset impairments. The company is still generating positive cash flow, which is a good thing. But that's down materially from its peak, too. This is why the Canadian miner has been slashing costs -- and why it cut its dividend again. It's even been working with streaming companies like Franco-Nevada (FNV -0.57%) to bring in cash, getting $610 million today in return for an agreement to sell Franco-Nevada future silver production on the cheap from Teck's interest in the Antamina mine. That helps to shore up Teck's balance sheet, even if it means giving up the future benefits of that silver, not one of Teck's main products, to Franco-Nevada. Teck has also partnered with GoldCorp (GG) on a 50/50 joint venture that brings together mines each has in Chile. This should help reduce costs for both companies in a big way, because they will be able to share infrastructure. To give an idea of how big a deal this is, Teck noted that the capital cost to bring the combined project into production is expected to be lower than earlier feasibility studies suggested either of the individual projects would cost. The right moves: Are they enough? To its credit, Teck is feeling pain and doing the right things to ensure it survives. But is it enough? Being cash flow positive is a good start, since it's cash that pays the bills. However, Teck has some big bills coming up, like its piece of the Fort Hills oil sands project. It still has to contribute around $1.5 billion there while paying all of the bills to keep its other mines up and running. The company should end 2015 with around $1.8 billion of cash, according to its projections. So, there's not a lot of wiggle room right now, but there is some. For example, the company has no debt due in 2016, which helps a lot. But it's got $600 million due in 2017, with roughly $500 million in each of the following two years. At the end of the third quarter, long-term debt totaled around $9.2 billion, and while that's up 15% year over year, it's still a reasonable 35% of the capital structure. One of the big benefits of the dividend cut, however, is the cash it frees up to pay things like interest expenses. In 2014, Teck paid out over $500 million in dividends. That number shrank in 2015 with the dividend cuts, but based on a $0.10 a share annual dividend run rate, the total cost of dividends in 2016 should be around $60 million. So, in two years, Teck has reduced the cash outflow from dividends by almost $450 million -- it paid roughly $400 million in interest in 2014. Interest expense will be higher in 2015 and, more importantly, 2016, but the dividend cut is clearly making Teck's financial life a lot easier. Good for now For now, Teck appears to have bought itself some time through its cost saving moves and the recent dividend cut. But time is the operative word since it has big debt bills coming up starting in 2017 and it still has billions to pay for the Fort Hills project. If the deep and long downturns it's facing don't abate somewhat in 2016, 2017 could be difficult year. Teck looks OK for now, but don't stop watching the clock. Throughout the 2015 season, the stars of F1 were each asked to take a photograph which gives a window into their high-octane lives. The photos are like personal postcards from the sports biggest names and they come from all over the globe. Reigning champion Lewis Hamiltons photo is of his beloved bulldog Roscoe sitting like an emperor in front of the Colosseum in Rome. In contrast, Red Bull Racings Daniel Ricciardo took his snapshot from a trek through the desert with camels, whilst Jenson Button chose a mountain bike trail in Australia prior to the Grand Prix. All of the photographs have been signed by the participants and will be auctioned during an exclusive gala evening at Londons InterContinental Park Lane hotel on February 5. It will be followed by an online auction on the Coys website of a selection of the signed photos which anyone can bid for. Once again we would like to thank the teams and drivers, Bernie Ecclestone, the other participants and all our partners for their support, commented Christian Sylt, co-founder of Zoom. We are looking forward to building on the success of the three previous events to raise more money for Great Ormond Street Hospital Childrens Charity through the auction of these unique images. There is no question that the Northern Kentucky of today looks a lot different than the one from 2007. Covington and the urban core... My wife and I recently returned from a visit to India over the holidays. The trip capped a very eventful year for Cable Car and left me in a reflective mood, despite the tumultuous start to 2016 in the markets. Although experiencing a different culture is invariably educational and I had the small thrill of trading from airport lounges on several continents, this was leisure travel. Bollywood Due to regulatory restrictions, Cable Car is not able to invest in domestic Indian equities, and there are only a few US-listed ADRs available. We elected to watch the popular Bollywood film Bajirao Mastani in theaters rather than meeting with its controversial distributor, Eros International ((EROS)). Sights and Sounds At the risk of relying on what Amartya Sen termed an exoticist lens to understand India, I thought Id share an anecdote from the trip not entirely unrelated to investing. On our second day in Chennai, which has a long coastline on the Bay of Bengal, we asked an auto-rickshaw driver to take us to the beach. The route passed through Besant Negar, a neighborhood that suffered significant damage during last months flooding and which Im pleased to report has rebounded strongly. Many of the street vendors displaced by the floods had returned, and there was a hubbub of rebuilding activity. We arrived at the southern tip of Elliots Beach, in front of a large temple we hadnt planned on visiting. We had come unexpectedly to the Ashtalakshmi Temple, which is dedicated to the eight incarnations of Lakshmi, goddess of prosperity. Prosperity The temple is open to all and was uncrowded, so we wandered inside. As we worked our way up the stairs, we passed shrines for each of the eight incarnations, each representing a different form of prosperity in turn. The Dhanya Lakshmi represents the bounty of a good harvest; the Vijaya Lakshmi symbolizes success in the face of adversity; the Vidya Lakshmi stands for the wealth of knowledge. At the very top of the temple, with panoramic views of the Bay to the east, sits the Dhana Lakshmi, bringer of money and gold. Hindu temples serve an important charitable function in the local community, collecting funds for the temple itself as well as alms for the poor. At each shrine, a priest sought a small donation, but the Dhana Lakshmis pandit was different. In keeping with Dhana Lakshmis association with money, he had a uniquely convincing pitch. Spiritual Investment In asking for the donation, the pandit stated that it was not to be viewed as a gift, but as an investment. What you give to the goddess, you shall receive many times over in return. I think the analogy to investing is quite apt. We gave generously, and soon found ourselves garlanded in flowers and given a small coin as a token of good fortune. Fortune I am not a particularly superstitious or religious person, but I am quite fond of ritual and spirituality. A more cynical type might not have enjoyed the experience, but from my perspective, a shrine on a beautiful beach in Tamil Nadu is as good an avatar of good fortune as any. Visiting the Ashtalakshmi temple left me contemplating the role of luck in investing. Good Fortunes As I look back over a very successful year for Cable Car, I am keenly aware of the importance of luck. 2015 felt at times like a constant parade of potential pitfallswhole sectors moving suddenly out of favor, precipitous repricing of currencies and commodities, comedowns by investors others look up toto have avoided some of the years worst outcomes was the just reward for healthy skepticism. In other instances, it was a mere case of (not) being in the right place at the right time. Investing provides constant reminders that there are many factors influencing each investment that cannot be hedged and are totally outside an investors control. However, I am firmly of the belief that for investors, the saying You make your own luck is a truism. Not by donating to Hindu shrines, although perhaps that will help in some small way, but by creating a universe of attractive potential outcomes. Favorable Odds We are fortunate in the investing business to be given the opportunity to specify our preferred probability distribution. The task of portfolio construction is the luxury of assembling a collection of only those investments where research suggests the odds are favorable. I approach investing by trying to minimize the consequences of mistakes and misfortune, while maximizing the likelihood of good luck. Yet ultimately we cannot control outcomes, only the research process, and the best investors will retain their focus on research irrespective of the markets gyrations. Im not immune to Schadenfreude, but I do not enjoy seeing famous investors in the headlines for a tough year. There but for the grace of Lakshmi, perhaps, go I. It is far too soon to count out some of the boldface names who had a difficult go of it in 2015. Understanding Randomness Often, I feel that the timing of returns is the most significant element of randomness. When taking the view that the market has mispriced a security, it is difficult to predict when and if that will change. We can try to influence market perceptions and corporate actions through activism, but there is an element of uncertainty to every investment. Returns are path dependentthe opportunity to redeploy capital from a positive outcome can be a powerful contributor to future performance. I consider myself fortunate both when the market agrees with my positioning and when volatility provides an opportunity to adjust exposures. Happy Returns Just as it can feel like a stroke of luck to have avoided pitfalls in the marketplace, it can feel like a blessing to be able to borrow on an obviously overvalued stock, or to beunable to obtain it on a stock that later squeezes higher. I have had occasions to be fortunate to be at my desk during breaking news, and fortunate to be away during moments when others have acted rashly. Most of all, I feel fortunate to be entrusted by my clients with their capital in a role that I love. Whatever your personal Dhana Lakshmi, I wish you good fortune and many happy returns in the year ahead! Disclosure: one Lakshmi coin. Photo Credit: Asis K. Chatterjee via Flickr Creative Commons // Subscribe to our once-weekly email newsletter and get the best posts delivered to you in one convenient place, to browse at your leisure:// The post Spiritual investing lessons from India appeared first on Smarter InvestingCovestor Ltd. is a registered investment advisor. Covestor licenses investment strategies from its Model Managers to establish investment models. The commentary here is provided as general and impersonal information and should not be construed as recommendations or advice. Information from Model Managers and third-party sources deemed to be reliable but not guaranteed. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Transaction histories for Covestor models available upon request. Additional important disclosures available at http://site.covestor.com/help/disclosures. GOP candidate Carly Fiorina came out firing in her first undercard debate, attacking Hillary Clinton right of the bat in her first question about the state of the economy. Unlike another woman in this race, I actually love spending time with my husband, says Fiorina, while saying the state of the economy is not strong citing women in poverty and men out of work. While former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee goes after President Obamas optimism in the State of the Union address saying he should have stood in line at the layaway counter at Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) around Christmas. And, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum attacks Democrats and addresses climate change. For every dollar of GDP, China creates five times as much pollution as we do here. You want to lower global climate change, bring those jobs back to America and let American workers do that job with less pollution, says Santorum. While discussing the situation in the Middle East, North Korea, and Afghanistan, Fiorina goes after Obama this time citing his foreign policy failures, including the overnight detention of ten U.S. sailors in the Persian Gulf. She says if the U.S. doesnt respond, we will get into more bad behavior. I will be a Commander-in-Chief who will lead, she adds. Santorum reacts to questions about the Middle East and Iran by saying that the Iran nuclear agreement should be torn up in the first term with the next President. In a question about Afghanistan, Huckabee referred to the country as the "land of the Flintstones and said that radical Islam must be destroyed, calling it a threat to every civilized person on this Earth. Fiorina adds that in order to fight radical Islam and the Islamic State, the U.S. must stand and lead and needs a coalition in the Middle East. Boos from the audience where heard when moderator Trish Regan notes that the majority of Americans are in favor of universal background checks on gun purchases. Fiorina opens by calling Obamas action on expanding background a lawless executive order, while Huckabee calls the executive actions unconstitutional and insane. The former Arkansas Governor refers to Department of Justices Fast and Furious program during the beginning of the Obama administration, in which he described it as the U.S. supplying guns to Mexican drug gangs. The President keeps pushing ideas that have never worked, says Huckabee. He also goes on to say that the President of the U.S. needs to protect America and that Obama cares more about protecting the image of Islam than keeping his country safe. Santorum then attacks Obamas positive job creation record saying the numbers just dont add up and that Obama has taken job away from hardworking Americans who are struggling the most. The conversation then pivots to immigration, adding the Obama and other Democrats want to bring in more immigrants. In closing remarks, Santorum says he a fighter and that hes taken Clinton on before while they both served in the Senate. "Go and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) Rick Santorum and Hillary Clinton you'll see a five-minute debate. I'll let you decide who won the debate," he said. "I'll tell you who won, I know I'm out of time, I'm going to take some of Rand Paul's time here for a second." While Huckabee, like Santorum, says he fought the Clinton machine too and says America needs a different kind of leadership today. Not people who spend their whole life running from one office to the next, and living off the government dime. I got involved because I got sick of what I saw. Fiorina ends on a shout-out to her husband as her campaign eye candy and says that people will pay to see a debate between her and Clinton. And that's because you know I will win. And that's important. We've got to start by beating Hillary Clinton, she says. It didnt take long for social media giants Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) and Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) to become part of the discussion during FOX Business Networks first GOP debate on Thursday. After describing the U.S. immigration system as broken former HP (NYSE:HPQ) CEO Carly Fiorina said, This administration has now told us they don't know who has overstayed a visa. This administration has told us they don't even bother to check Facebook or Twitter to find out whos pledging allegiance to jihadis. Following the San Bernardino killings last December, which claimed the lives of 14 people, authorities reported the female shooter, Tashfeen Malik, allegedly pledged allegiance to ISIS on Facebook. The disclosure thrust social media companies into the debate over national security and whether or not these companies should be pro-active in policing and reporting terrorist activities on their networks to government officials. FBI Director James Comey testified before members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in December calling on tech companies to reevaluate their business models as encrypted communications are hindering law enforcements attempts to investigate crime. His testimony was covered by FOXBusiness.com. Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum described similar proposals by the government during the debate as admitted failure: I would just say that if we were doing a better job within the government, we wouldn't need the private sector to do the things that we're asking them to do. he said. He added that he would prefer a working relationship with social media companies over government involvement. Look, Facebook and Twitter can teach us things. We can cooperate with them. We can share ideas and information. But this is a -- and this is a very dicey area for the government to go in and require the industry to do its job. It needs to develop that capability. We need to be -- have responsible dialogue, but I don't think requirements are the order of the day. Santorums views may resonate with Silicon Valley. Last month Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Tim Cook posted on the companys website, At Apple, your trust means everything to us. Thats why we respect your privacy and protect it with strong encryption, plus strict policies that govern how all data is handled. Ticker Security Last Change Change % FB n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. TWTR TWITTER INC. 51.84 +0.05 +0.10% AAPL APPLE INC. 143.86 +0.11 +0.08% GOOG ALPHABET INC. 100.29 -1.10 -1.08% Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg also sounded off in a post, saying he wants to "add my voice in support of Muslims in our community and around the world," adding, "as the leader of Facebook I want you to know that you are always welcome here. Facebook declined to comment on Santorum's remarks. Twitter did not respond to FOXBusiness.com for comment at the time of publication. Republican presidential contenders made their pitches on economic and national security issues in the FOX Business Networks GOP Debate on Thursday. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, touting his tenure as Chairman of the House Budget Committee, proposed freezing federal regulations for one year and cutting individual and corporate taxes to spur growth, in addition to balancing the budget. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas noted that the labor participation rate is at its lowest point since the 1970s, while median wages have stagnated. The Obama-Clinton economy has left behind the working men and women of this country, Cruz said. The reason all of us are here is we believe we should be fighting for the working men and women of this country, and not Washington, D.C. Donald Trump explained his support for a tariff on Chinese-made goods. Its not fair trade, he said in reference to Chinas own tax on goods shipped to the country. Kasich also argued that Chinese policies are costing American jobs. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio disagreed on the tariff, saying consumers would bear the cost of a tariff on Chinese products. Instead, Rubio focused on tax reform, replacing the Affordable Care Act and rolling back regulations. Click here for full coverage of the FOX Business Networks GOP debates Trump also hit currency devaluation in China and Japan. We cant let them get away with it, he said. The real-estate mogul recalled that friends are ordering tractors from Komatsu, a Japanese company, rather than buying equipment made by Illinois-based Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT). On taxes, Cruz and Rubio engaged in a debate on Cruzs proposals, which call for a 16% flat tax for business that would replace the current corporate tax structure and eliminate other taxes, including the payroll tax. Individuals would be taxed at a flat 10%, and Cruz believes the policy would pave the way toward abolishing the IRS. The two senators have squabbled over how the plan should be characterized. Rubio has attacked the plan as a value-added tax, a form of consumption tax that is used by European countries. Rubio continued to critique Cruzs tax plan during the debate because employees would be paid less and consumers would pay more on merchandise, he said. The difference is, you dont see it on the bill and thats why Ronald Reagan said it was a blindfold, Rubio added. Trump called corporate tax inversions one of the biggest problems facing the country. The acquisition strategy, which companies use to move their tax home to a nation with lower corporate rates, is threatening to take more jobs out of the U.S., he said. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said the $2 trillion that U.S. firms have overseas should be repatriated and taxed at 8.75%. As president, he would use the funds to pay for infrastructure improvements. Christie also supports a 25% corporate tax, down from the current 35%. Trump is eyeing a lower rate at 10%. Fighting Terror in Focus National security was in focus as well. When asked about Americas role in the world, Christie said the military should be used when absolutely necessary, adding that the U.S. is not the worlds policeman. Tuesday night, I watched story time with Barack Obama. And Ive got to tell you, it sounded like everything in the world was going amazing, Christie quipped. We need to rebuild our military, and this president has let it diminish to a point where tin-pot dictators like the mullahs in Iran are taking our Navy ships. Cruz began the main debate with his assessment of the standoff with Iran, which detained 10 U.S. sailors after a navigation error caused two Navy boats to stray into Iranian waters on Tuesday. The sailors were released on Wednesday morning. I give you my word, if I am elected president, no serviceman or servicewoman will be forced to be on their knees, and any nation that captures our fighting men will feel the full force and fury of the United States of America, Cruz said. Trump, the current leader in a Fox News national poll, continued to back his plan to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the U.S. Likewise, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush continued to target Trump on the issue. Kasich reiterated his support for pausing Americas refugee program for Syrians. When asked about strategies to defeat ISIS, Dr. Ben Carson said the U.S. should target its source of cash: oil. You know, some of these engagement rules that the administration hasWere not going to bomb a tanker thats coming out of there because there might be a person in itgive me a break, Carson said. Candidates Target Obama, Clinton Christie lobbed sharp criticism at President Barack Obama and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton throughout the debate. He said Clinton would oversee a third term of Barack Obamas leadership, and during a discussion about gun rights, Christie said President Obamas recent executive actions to expand background checks are unconstitutional. Mr. President, were not against you. Were against your policies, Christie said. The American people have rejected your agenda and now youre trying to go around it. Thats not right. Its not constitutional, and we are going to kick your rear end out of the White House come this fall. Bush also attacked Clinton, whose lead among Democrats has declined in recent polls. If [Clinton] gets elected, her first 100 days, instead of setting an agenda, she might be going back and forth between the White House and the courthouse, Bush added, a reference to a federal investigation over Clintons use of a personal email account as Secretary of State. Trump Battles Cruz Over Birth Trump was asked about his recent questions over Cruzs eligibility to become president. Sen. Cruz suggested that Trump was raising the issue because of the Texas senators rise in the polls, especially in Iowa. You know, back in September, my friend Donald said that he had his lawyers look at this from every which way, and there was no issue there, said Cruz, who was born in Canada to an American mother. Now, since September, the Constitution hasn't changed. But the poll numbers have. If for some reason he beats the rest of the field, I already know the Democrats are going to be bringing a suit, Trump responded. As the back-and-forth wore on, Marco Rubio tried to lighten the mood. Id hate to interrupt this episode of Court TV, he said to preference his ensuing remarks. There was considerable sparring among the top seven candidates participating in the FOX Business Networks presidential debate in North Charleston, S.C. Thursday, but most of their ire was focused on President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Front-runners Donald Trump and Ted Cruz had a lengthy back and forth over whether the Canadian-born Cruz is even eligible to run for president, for instance. But the candidates (for the most part) attacked eight years Obamas economic and foreign policies and repeatedly described Clinton as unfit to hold the office. Contrasting their views against the optimistic depiction offered Tuesday by Obama in his State of the Union address, the candidates conveyed a starkly different vision of where America stands economically at home and its stature with allies and enemies alike overseas -- and it wasnt pretty. All the candidates agreed Obama has failed to raise the standard of living for most Americans, has hurt business through high taxes and over-regulation, he has failed to control illegal immigration, failed to fight terrorism abroad and at home and has been weak on China, allowing the worlds second largest economy to use anti-competitive practices to undermine U.S. businesses. Our next president has to be someone who will fix the damage done to America by Obama, said Florida Senator Marco Rubio. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie chimed in a short time later, Hillary Clinton cannot be the next president. Cruz, a senator from Texas, said the president tried to paint a rosy picture. And while millionaires and billionaires are doing great under Obama, especially politicians and lobbyists in Washington, D.C., the working men and women of this country have been left behind, according to Cruz, in large part due to stagnant wages. Trump, the polarizing billionaire businessman who has confounded GOP establishment figures by dominating the polls heading into the primaries, said Obama is downplaying the threat to America by terrorists from abroad and within the U.S. He said his comments disparaging many immigrants and his pledge to ban Muslim immigrants are not intended to spread fear and terror, as Obama and others have suggested. Its not fear and terror, its reality, Trump said. Then he ticked off a laundry list of terrorist attacks in recent months notably in Paris and San Bernadino -- that have left scores of innocent victims dead. Im very angry because our country is being run horribly, Trump added, saying he would repeal Obamas signature healthcare reform bill and replace it. Im angry because our country is a mess. Banning Muslims from entering the U.S. could keep out people who could bring great destruction, Trump said. Under questioning from debate moderator Neil Cavuto, Trump doubled down on his promise to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the country. Rubio said Obama is undermining the constitutional basis of our government, notably with his recent executive order that would make it harder to buy and sell guns in the U.S. Our next president has to be someone who will fix the damage done to America by Obama, Rubio said. In 2008 we elected a president who doesnt want to fix America, he wants to change America. Rubio said he would repeal every single one of his unconstitutional executive orders, and also Obamas signature health reform bill. Obamacare is a certified job killer, Rubio said. Barack Obama does not believe America is a great global power. He believes it is an arrogant global power. He doesnt believe ISIS is a threat. We are going to win the war against ISIS. They are going to get a one way ticket to Guantanamo and we are going to find out everything they know. Christie joked that he had listened to story time with Barack Obama on Tuesday. I gotta tell you, it sounded like everything in the world is going amazing, Christie said. But Christie quickly segued to Clinton, who is still favored to win the Democratic nomination despite losing ground recently in polls in the early primary states of New Hampshire and Iowa. Christie warned that a Clinton administration would be a third-term for the Obama administration and that GOP candidates had to unite to prevent that from happening. Clinton, as Obamas secretary of state, mishandled the Syria crisis well before ISIS emerged as an additional threat in the Middle East, said Christie. Hillary Clinton cannot be the next president, it will lead to great wars in the world, he said. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, an early front runner whose campaign has failed to gain traction, ran with that theme. Every person (on this stage) is better than Hillary Clinton, Bush said. At the end of the day we need to unite against Hillary Clinton because she would be a disaster. Obama doesnt realize that we now live in the 21st century and that war is very different than it was before, said retired surgeon Ben Carson, whose standing in the polls has slipped considerably in recent weeks. But GOP candidates, despite their difference in opinions in policy, have to stick together, Weve got to look at the big picture, Carson said. Unite around one another, our strength is in are unity. Ohio Gov. John Kasich said Obamas policies have over-regulated small businesses, making it harder for them to hire and kept wages low. He called for fewer regulations common sense regulations-- tax cuts and reform of the tax system, fiscal discipline in Washington and increased education to retrain workers for better jobs. Tax cuts send a message to jobs creators that things are headed in the right way, he said. The three candidates participating in the FOX Business Networks early Republican presidential debate in Charleston, S.C., painted a far darker picture of the U.S. economy than President Barack Obama did earlier this week. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, former Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) CEO Carly Fiorina and form Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum said average Americans might not agree with the presidents depiction of the economy during Tuesday nights State of the Union address. On Tuesday night, the president defended his administrations economic policies. The United States of America, right now, has the strongest, most durable economy in the world, he said. Anyone who claims otherwise, he said, is peddling fiction. Huckabee, Fiorina and Santorum participated in a 6 p.m. debate because their recent poll numbers precluded them from participating in a 9 p.m. debate that includes candidates who are polling higher among primary voters. Huckabee told of an Arkansas woman he knows who is working two jobs and endures 15-hour work days to make ends meet. Thats what it takes to make it work, and shes not alone, Huckabee said. Americans are all facing years of wage stagnation, Huckabee said, and if they work extra hours for extra cash, much of that money goes to the government in taxes. Our politicians havent created the kind of economic growth that would allow Social Security to continue paying out generous benefits to retired Americans, Huckabee added in response to another question. Fiorina said as president she would return power to the people, by ending crony capitalism. Democratic primary candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has enriched herself from the inside, according to Fiorina, while current GOP front runner businessman Donald Trump rakes in billions buying people like Hillary Clinton. And as average Americans are forced to work longer hours for less pay, all the while the rich get richer, she said. In response to a question about how she will address the economically-strapped middle class, Fiorina said tax reform is the key. She said she would reform the U.S. tax code down to a 3-page document to benefit small businesses, which generate most of the jobs in the U.S., especially among middle class workers. Santorum said as president, he would focus on bringing back good-paying manufacturing jobs, which he described as the most important jobs, the ones that fill the middle. If youre really going to create wealth and opportunity you need good jobs, Santorum said. Nobodys focused on the people who are struggling the most today, he added. South Carolina holds true to southern hospitality and a rich history in politics. Since 1980, the South Carolina primary has chosen the eventual Republican nominee every year. That all changed in 2012 when former speaker of the house Newt Gingrich won the primary but not the nomination, that went to Mitt Romney. Matt Moore, the Chairman for the South Carolina Republican party says the Palmetto state is one of the key early state primaries following Iowa and New Hampshire. Moore says South Carolina gives a voice to southern states choosing the GOP presidential nominee and its voters know exactly what theyre looking for. It is the first massive test for candidates in the process so you have to have a campaign that is clicking on all cylinders to win in South Carolina, said Moore. We are looking for what kind of candidate has the right message but also the organization to win voters. GOP front runner Donald Trump is winning over voters with his unfiltered message and bold personality. In a recent Fox News poll in December, 35% of South Carolina primary voters say they support the billionaire businessman. Gibbs Knotts is a professor and political science chairman for the College of Charleston. He says traditionally South Carolina has been very skeptical of government which explains Trumps allure to voters. I think Donald Trump is a South Carolina favorite. When you look at the size of the rallies, Trump has 20 or 30 times more people showing up to his rallies in South Carolina, so he is definitely the person to beat in South Carolina, said Knotts. Knotts says Republican voters in South Carolina are frustrated with the political system. He says they are fed up with not only the Obama administration but also with Republican elected officials in Washington that havent delivered. Donald Trump is really tapping into that antiestablishment antigovernment sentiment here in South Carolina for sure. Knotts says a few months back he like many others thought of Trump as a political phenomenon but his lasting lead in the GOP field has proved otherwise. The longer he stays on top of the polls he is looking like a viable candidate, it is a mistake to discount Trump, said Knotts. On Thursday, republican contenders will take center stage for the first in the south Fox Business Republican primary debate in North Charleston, South Carolina. Knotts says it will certainly be a make it or break it moment for the presidential hopefuls trying to appeal to Palmetto state voters. This gives a chance for candidates to mix it up a bit, ask each other questions and really draw some contrasts on what their positions are, said Knotts. While The Donald holds a strong lead in many primary and national polls, Republican leaders say the race isnt over just yet. There is a long way to go in our primary process certainly he has good numbers and so do other candidates but what we have seen throughout history it doesnt always translate to victory, we would encourage all candidates to run through the finish line, said Moore. With the South Carolina primary set for February 20, voters will be weighing the odds on the remaining Republican presidential hopefuls. The Republicans in South Carolina take this very seriously and have been putting a lot of thought into it and the person coming from here will have a lot of momentum for sure, said Knotts. The more President Obama talks to (some would say at) the American people, the lower his approval ratings sink. The most recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, released this week, shows that only 43 percent of the nation approves of Mr. Obamas job performance, while 53 percent disapprove- the worst ratings yet. Why are Americans tuning out their president? It starts with credibility. Beginning with the health care debate, the president has squandered an extraordinary stockpile of the publics trust. A fourth-grader would have deemed absurd his core promise that we could provide free health care for an additional 31 million Americans and not add to our deficit. According to Pew data gathered earlier in August, 78 percent of Americans distrust the government under this administration --an unprecedented level. President Obama has only himself to blame. The current fracas over campaign spending is the kind of issue that further widens the credibility gap. Ever since the Supreme Court judged corporations free to engage in political advertising, the president has hinted of dark forces and special interests at work. His demonizing of the decision has been robustly supported by The New York Times, which recently ran a lead editorial describing the Supreme Court decision as opening the door to a new era of political corruption. In other words, corporate views and practices are essentially dishonest; undeterred, Obama fans suggest, businesses will elect Republicans to further their greedy and self-serving agendas. Heres the lie behind Mr. Obamas narrative: corporations are indeed big campaign givers, but unlike unions, they give to both parties. Unions, on the other hand, funnel almost all their contributions to Democrats. Reviewing the top donors from 1989 to 2010, we see that the leading campaign giver -- AT&T spent $46 million, 55 percent of which went to Republicans and 44 percent to democrats. The second largest donor the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, spent $43 million 98 percent of which went to Dems. The National Association of Realtors, number four on the list, split their spending 48 percent Democratic and 51 percent Republican; number five Goldman Sachs, gave 62 percent of their money to Democrats and only 36 percent to Republicans. Number seven, The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, gave 97 percent of their funds to Democrats. And so on. In the last election, many industries doled out more money to Democratic candidates than to Republicans. Hedge funds, casino operators, pharmaceutical companies, computer makers all gave heavily to Democrats. On the other hand, most Americans are aware that President Obama received $450 million in union money, which weighed heavily in getting him elected. So, which is the special interest? The president touched off the latest round in the campaign donations spat by suggesting that foreigners were backing Republican groups; this charge was so quickly and thoroughly discredited that the Obama team ended up looking foolish. It was in any case a curious premise. Who are these foreign nations conspiring to bring down the Obama administration but who also want to fatten our business sector? Since many would argue that the measures passed by the Obama administration have weakened our finances and our global competitiveness, it would be hard to imagine a foreign nation betting against them. Another question is this: since Democrats were on the receiving end of so much corporate largesse in the past, why are they so horrified that corporations can now also advertise? The reason is that the Obama administration has opened a serious rift with the business community by most accounts an unprecedented divide. Mr. Obamas background as a community organizer and his administrations lack of business acumen guaranteed a rocky relationship, which might have gone unnoticed except for the dismal state of the economy. Any prospect of rapprochement in this quarter appears to have vanished; the White Houses half-hearted quest to replace Larry Summers with a CEO has been abandoned. Americans want jobs, and this president has absolutely no idea where to find them. Worse, he has no one to ask. Liz Peek is a financial columnist who writes for The Fiscal Times. She is a frequent contributor to Fox News Opinion. For more visit LizPeek.com. Follow Fox News Opinion on Facebook and Twitter! The debate stage Thursday in South Carolina will feature the leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination. But they still havent answered key questions with just a few weeks to go before the first votes are cast in Iowa on February 1. Among them: Donald Trump. You have pledged that you wont cut Social Security benefits to any beneficiaries, and you seemed to suggest you would make the program solvent by eliminating foreign aid to hostile nations. But the entire foreign aid budget in 2016 is less than the projected Social Security cash shortfall in 2016, and in roughly 20 years the trust fund will be empty and the program will only be able to pay about 77 percent of benefits owed. Given this, what is your plan for ensuring that Social Security beneficiaries 20 years from now receive 100 percent of their scheduled benefits? Ted Cruz. You have recently stated your opposition to immigration reform that would offer any legal status to those currently in the country illegally, even if the option for citizenship were completely off the table. If you are elected president, is it your intention and goal to dramatically increase deportations to forcibly remove the majority of illegal aliens, or do you intend to rely primarily on increased enforcement of current law in order to encourage large-scale self-deportation over time? Marco Rubio. You have defended your support for sugar subsidies, noting that other countries provide support for their sugar industries. Many other agricultural products are also subsidized in the U.S. and by foreign governments, as well as other industries such as steel, textiles, solar panels, and automobiles. Would you as president be equally committed to maintaining or developing new subsidies for U.S. firms in these and other industries so long as foreign competitors continue to receive subsidies from their governments? Jeb Bush. Although you have pledged support for a balanced budget amendment, line-item veto, and hiring freeze, there are few specifics of what spending you might cut as president, and the Tax Foundation estimates your tax plan would add $1.6 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. Can you identify specific programs, agencies or departments you would eliminate or reduce to avoid further increasing the debt? Chris Christie. You have vowed to repeal ObamaCare, yet as governor you signed up New Jersey for ObamaCares Medicaid expansion. You also have yet to release your own health reform plan. Can you share the details of what you would propose in terms of health reform, and whether it would be a fundamental break with ObamaCare or simply a new and improved version of it? John Kasich. In Congress you fought against corporate welfare, yet as governor you have defended Ohios programs giving out hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to large corporations. Given your belief in the success of this approach in strengthening Ohios economy, would you as president seek to maintain or expand similar federal programs that provide subsidies to favored industries and businesses, and if not, why not? Ben Carson. You have praised the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act separating commercial and investment banking and said you would like to see it brought back in modified form. What specific modifications would you propose, and if as president you are faced with a financial crisis similar to 2008, what if anything would you do to prevent the collapse of a major investment bank (since a revived Glass-Steagall would prevent it from being bought by a large commercial bank like Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch were in 2008)? These arent the only questions each of the candidates ought to be asked, of course, but voters ought to expect candor and detailed responses on these as-yet-unaddressed issues. Candidates who avoid answering tough questions in a campaign arent likely to suddenly develop backbone once in the White House, and whether they can directly answer important questions ought to be considered a test of their leadership ability. Sean Parnell is project director for the Leadership Project for America which identifies and promotes principled, effective leadership. In the commercial that President Obama released prior to his final State of the Union address, Obama said he would tell Congress how optimistic he is about Americas future. Good. Politicians and the media are at their most dangerous when they try to scare us, telling us disaster is on the way unless we follow, and pay for, their latest schemes to protect us. Im cautiously optimistic about the future, too, if only because our last 200 years have shown that despite politicians attacks on open markets and individual freedom, people keep getting richer and living longer. When Obama talks about the America we are creating together, it would be more honest if he congratulated Americans for all the progress we make (SET ITAL) despite (END ITAL) government fighting us at every turn -- with taxes and regulations and booming debt that lowers the value of each dollar. Of course, presidents want to be remembered positively, and Obamas cheerleaders are eager to put a happy spin on things in his final year in office. Michael Grunwald at Politico decided to help with a piece about Obamas policy accomplishments, describing America as the nation he built. Obama once told us that if you have a business, you didnt build that, so I guess now we know who does the building. Grunwald praises ObamaCare for expanding the number of Americans with health insurance and points out that, at the same time, the administration also sneaked through a government takeover of student loan debt. John Boehner was correct to complain that the president will sign not one, but two job-killing government takeovers. But Grunwald says that sticking taxpayers with billions of dollars of student debt was part of the relentless government activism needed to give America a profound course correction that also changed the way we produce and consume energy, the way doctors and hospitals treat us, the academic standards in our schools and the long-term fiscal trajectory of the nation. All that is true, if by changing how we consume energy he means shutting down pipelines while ignoring private industrys wonderful fracking revolution. If by changing the way doctors treat us he means locking still more people into bureaucracies instead of letting a true health market flourish. If academic standards mean imposing weird testing regimens and teaching methods like Common Core. And if long-term fiscal trajectory means nearly doubling our federal debt, now almost $19 trillion, and doing nothing to slow Americas coming entitlements bankruptcy. Leftists can credit Obama with policy successes because Obama often outmaneuvered Republicans and got bills he wanted. Unfortunately, the left rarely looks closely at whether those bills really made Americans better off. Grunwald says Obamas $800 billion stimulus package crammed in a whole administrations worth of programs in one go -- but Grunwald adds only in passing that economists dont agree on whether the stimulus accomplished anything good. Thats the whole problem. Politicians unleash programs -- the more complicated the better -- and then take credit later for anything good that happens, blaming the bad things on their political opponents. It usually takes years to figure out what the programs real impacts were, if we ever do. People still argue -- 80 years later -- about whether the New Deal prolonged or helped end the Great Depression. We dont know if the country is better or worse off because of relentless government activism. We libertarians argue that government helps us by keeping the peace and providing a level playing field but that beyond that, most government intervention does harm. Thats why were better off if individuals can pick and choose which things work for us. In a real marketplace, individuals go to the schools we choose, buy health care we want and pay our own debts. Im optimistic about America, too -- but not because we come together and function as a single union. Im optimistic because in most areas of life, were still free to make our own decisions. There are many issues right now dominating the headlines: Presidential debates...The rising fear of terrorism....Growing concern about the economy. With all that news, you may have missed this headline: Lawsuit demands U.S. remove In God We Trust from money. Thats right. A federal lawsuit has been filed to remove our national motto In God We Trust from the currency. If this sounds familiar, it should. This is not the first time that challenge has been made. In fact, dedicated atheist Michael Newdow, who is representing 41 plaintiffs in this suit filed in Ohio, is a veteran litigator who repeatedly has gone to court to remove In God We Trust from our culture. More about that in a moment. In this new filing, Newdow and those he represents are apparently so offended by the use of the word God that they cant even bring themselves to spell it out in the lawsuit. The hundreds of references to God in the lawsuit are spelled G-d. The national motto concerns them so much that a key part of their legal argument in asking the court to remove In God We Trust from the currency, is that the phrase violates the separation of church and state and creates a pro-Christian, and anti-atheist sentiment in the nation. The In G-d We Trust phrase has continued to be a tool used to perpetuate favoritism for (Christian) Monotheism, the suit contends. It has also continued to perpetuate anti-Atheistic bias. This argument is deeply flawed and ridiculous. It simply represents another attempt to attack our religious heritage. The truth is the fate of this new lawsuit is likely to end up the way earlier attempts to remove the national motto did. It is destined to fail. Heres why. Our nations history is replete with examples of acknowledgment of religious belief in the public sector, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly referenced the national motto as a legitimate expression of our religious heritage. The Establishment Clause was never intended as a guarantee that a person will not be exposed to religion or religious symbols on public property, and the Supreme Court has rejected previous attempts to eradicate all symbols of this countrys religious heritage from the publics view. Whether it is in the national motto, the Pledge of Allegiance, patriotic music, or the nations founding documents; such references are wholly consistent with the First Amendment. Its very likely this new suit will be rejected by the courts adding to a long list of failures for Newdow. In 2013, a federal district court in New York rejected the very same argument in a case in which Newdow was directly involved a case in which we filed a critical amicus brief on behalf of 41 members of Congress and nearly 88,000 Americans. In dismissing the case, a federal judge correctly concluded that the national motto does not violate the Establishment Clause. Newdow has also gone after the use of under God in the Pledge of Allegiance. In 2004, the ACLJ filed a major amicus brief at the Supreme Court in that case on behalf of 68 Members of Congress and over 260,000 Americans, helping to successfully defeat this outrageous legal challenge. And, in 2005, when Newdow challenged the constitutionality of inaugural prayers, we filed a significant amicus brief and helped defeat this misguided legal challenge. If nothing else, Michael Newdow is persistent. Misguided, but persistent. While lawsuits like this are really just a nuisance, they must be taken seriously. You really never know how a court will interpret these flawed arguments. And that is exactly why, once again, we are mobilizing. We will defend the national motto again. We will file an amicus brief urging the court to do what so many other courts have done in the past reject this flawed and frivolous lawsuit. Ted Cruz showed Thursday night at the GOP debate how to take on Donald Trump and how to handle the birther issue. Cruz did what the Club For Growth had done effectively in Iowa. He merely quoted Donald Trump. When Neil Cavuto asked Ted Cruz about his birth, Cruz quoted Trump from September. Back then, Trump said his lawyers had checked into it and it was a non-issue. Cruz pointed out the only thing that had changed was the poll numbers. Then Cruz planted a seed of doubt on Donald Trump. A lot of birthers say both parents have to be born in the United States for the child to be a natural born citizen. Cruz pointed out that under that definition, adopted by many Trump supporters, Rubio, Cruz, and Trump would be ineligible because Trumps mother was born in Scotland. It was a very strong play out of the gate by Ted Cruz. Whenever the moderates pitted Cruz and Trump against each other, Cruz quoted Trumps own words. Trump managed to make a mistake by admitting that the only reason he was using the birther issue was because of Cruzs polling. That just reinforced Cruzs point that it was an opportunistic attack Trump really did not believe. Cruz, Trump, and Rubio had strong performances in South Carolina. Out of the gate, with the birther issue, Cruz knew it was coming and hit it out of the park. Trump did manage to get the better of Cruz in the exchange on New York and Rubio got the better of Cruz on Cruz's record and taxes. Overall, the other candidates were just stage warmers for the real fight between Cruz, Trump and Rubio. The only question left, and one I cannot answer, is whether anyone changed their mind. Did the holidays end too soon for you? Then celebrate one more, this Saturday: Religious Freedom Day. Nearly a quarter century ago, Congress established January 16 for honoring Americas first freedom. That day marks the anniversary of revolutionary Virginias landmark legislation, authored and championed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. The Virginia Statute Establishing Religious Freedom in 1786 heavily influenced the language of the Religion Clauses in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution a few years later. A model for todays Free Exercise Clause, the Virginia Statute proclaimed: no man shall be . . . restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess . . . their opinion in matters of religion . . . . Presaging the Constitutions Establishment Clause, the Virginia Statute declared that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical. In 1993, the same year our nation celebrated its first official Religious Freedom Day, Congress passed another landmark bill, the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), by a nearly unanimous vote. The first presidential proclamation honoring Religious Freedom Day called on all Americans to observe this day . . . as an expression of our gratitude for the blessings of liberty and as a sign of our resolve to protect and preserve them. Just a few months later, through RFRA, the President and Congress called on American courts to protect more vigorously Americans of all faiths against substantial burdens on their religious practices and decisions. The Virginia Statute and RFRA share striking similarities in their histories. Both laws were championed by coalitions that were surprisingly diverse in their religious and philosophical beliefs. Both laws strongly protect religious minorities. In the footsteps of Roger Williams and William Penn, several denominations that were minorities at the time including Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists advocated the Virginia Statute to protect the exercise of their specific faiths. They joined forces with rationalists with Enlightenment goals, like Jefferson and Madison, who sought to sever official ties between the Virginia government and the established Anglican Church. When opponents of the Virginia Statute sought to limit it by protecting only Christians, Jefferson recorded that amendment was rejected by a great majority. The whole point was to protect the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination. In the case of RFRA, the ideologically disparate Senators Orrin Hatch, R-Utah and Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., with support from diverse religious groups and the American Civil Liberties Union, championed the bill, which President Clinton endorsed. Its primary beneficiaries include the minorities of our time. For over two decades, courts have used the federal RFRA (and its state counterparts) to protect Native Americans, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, and Santerias, as well as Christians. This March, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear its next RFRA case. It involves the religious rights of nuns who care for the elderly poor. The Little Sisters of the Poor are challenging the mandate of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that would require the nuns to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs and devices, which would violate their Catholic faith. The Supreme Courts decision will determine whether RFRA continues to shield the religious practices of todays minorities from undue government intrusion. Last year, as the Justice Department insisted in federal courts around the country that the Little Sisters should be compelled to contradict their religious conscience, President Obamas Religious Freedom Day proclamation offered a better idea: [I]ndividuals should be free to choose and live their faith based upon the persuasion of the mind and of the heart and soul. We at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty heartily agree. We believe Jefferson and Madison would too. Somebody out there in TV Cable Land has a sense of humor. As Thursday nights Fox Business Network debate commenced, Turner Classic Movies was into the second hour of Gone With The Wind. Deep in the heart of Civil War Georgia, Scarlett OHara kissed Ashley Wilkes goodbye as he headed off to battle. Deep inside an arena in North Charleston, South Carolina, seven Republican presidential hopefuls kissed up to early-primary voters. The good news: FBN didnt take the bait and turn the night into a conversation about Southern discomfort the notion that the modern GOP is too Dixiefied in its social conservatism to win national elections. Even though the debate was held in a state yes, governed by a vibrant Indian-American woman that took down its Confederate flag only last year. Call it fair and balanced meets straight and narrow, with two hours devoted to national security, the economy, the national debt and the war on crime, plus a chance to clarify a few harsh words said along the trail. With but one gripe: tax reform didnt come up until far too late into the evening. Theres a wide gulf within this field over tax reform in particular, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (a flat-taxer) and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (a more traditional rate-reducer). Voters deserve to hear more. And hopefully they will, unless Cruz and Rubio devote their energies to attacking their respective Senate records as they did at the debates end. Though the GOP field still consists of 12 candidates in total, its a two-tier race. On one level: Cruz and Donald Trump vying for the top spot in Iowa and the inside track to the nomination. The other tier: the foursome of Rubio, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Chris Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich all competing for the establishment slot coming out of Februarys round of voting. That leaves Ben Carson as the odd man out. Nothing personal against Dr. Carson: hes a wonderful man with a candidacy thats exceeded expectations. But his moment seems to have passed. What did we learn Thursday night in North Charleston? Here are five takeaways. For openers, it was a reminder that Cruz, like him or not, knows his way around a debate stage. He framed himself as one half of a humble couple of limited means in dismissing this weeks New York Times hit piece on his Goldman Sachs loan. As for that pesky Canadian-by-birth controversy, Cruz duly noted (without looking directly at my friend Donald) that, since December, the Constitution hasnt changed, the poll numbers have. A word of caution here for the Cruz Crew: Jeb Bush tangled with Trump; his candidacy cratered. The same is true of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Thursdays lone debate holdout. Like falling into a black hole or marrying a Kardashian, the contact sport that is extended sparring with The Donald is a ticket to oblivion. Trump knows this, which is why he doesnt relent. Just as Cruz will likely stick with his line that Trump embodies New York values. Yes, Trump cleverly invoked the late William F. Buckley, but Cruz is playing a long game: Iowa caucus-goers have a tradition of going with Republicans either from the Heartland or those who are steadfastly religious. Trump is neither. The not one of us argument may be Cruzs trump card. A second observation: this was anticipated as an everyone hates Marco event the rest of the establishment quartet ganging up on the Florida senator, whos pushing for third place in Iowa and second place in New Hampshire. But that didnt happen. Rubio and Christie did scuffle briefly over the latters record. Otherwise, Rubio emerged relatively undented. Third, it was, in fact, a pretty good night for Christie. He flashed some edge and was strong in clarifying his New Jersey record (point of irony: while the New Jersey governor talked guns, Scarlett OHara was blowing away a Yankee trooper on a Tara stairwell). Also shining, though he vanished in the second half of the debate: Kasich. The Ohio governor seemed more confortable on a less-crowded stage. Unlike past debates, Kasich didnt come across as rushed or testy. Finally, as for Bush, it was a middlin-to-good night he fared well at times, especially when he countered Trumps Muslim ban. But it wasnt a great night. The problem for Bush: its what Southerners call catawampus a situation thats gotten out of hand. The Bush super PAC is spending tens of millions of dollars on ads that effectively belittle other candidates but havent boosted Jebs poll numbers. Standing as he was at the end of the stage, the ex-frontrunner looked like he was from a distant planet, not the center of the solar system a far cry from a year ago. Just one GOP debate remains between now and Iowas verdict Jan. 28 in Des Moines, with the Fox News Channel moderating. The candidates have seventeen days to alter the course to the caucuses. Thats plenty of time. After all... tomorrow is another day. Liberals and the mainstream media are foaming at the mouth over the comment Senator Ted Cruz made Thursday night about New York values. Now, all of us folks who are not New York City liberals know exactly what Senator Cruz was talking about -- and it had nothing to do with the aftermath of 9/11. Click here to join Todds American Dispatch a must-read for Conservatives! Senator Cruz was talking about cultural and political values. Duck Dynasty values versus Big Apple values. As an expatriate Southerner who resides among the indigenous liberal population of Brooklyn, I know of what the senator speaks. And to suggest that the senator was referring to the brave firefighters and police officers who were massacred in the 2001 terrorist attacks is not only disgusting but an outright lie. But liberal politicians have never let the truth get in the way of their ugly agendas. I am disgusted at the insult that Ted Cruz threw at this city, and its people, de Blasio said Friday. And the bottom line is he does not understand, in the least, New York values. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called the comment offensive and said if he had any class he would apologize to the people of New York. Thats the same governor who once said that extreme conservatives who are pro-life and pro-gun are not welcome in his state. They have no place in the state of New York, because thats not who New Yorkers are, the governor told a radio host in 2014. What was truly offensive is how liberal politicians and the mainstream media intentionally distorted what Cruz said. So lets talk about those New York values that Senator Cruz was talking about. He was referring to the permissive New York values celebrating public debauchery that would make the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah blush. Just ask the families from the Heartland whove been accosted by topless women in Times Square. Remember Occupy Wall Street -- turning public parks into human cesspools - people defecating on police cars? He was talking about those values, too. Along with the values that propelled citizens into the streets to justify violence against police officers. Senator Cruz was talking about the values that banned churches from public spaces and relegated Christians to second class citizens. He was referring to the values that let a candidate says he's a pro-abortion Democrat one day and a pro-life Republican the next -- the kind of values that would compel someone to use a national tragedy like 9/11 to score cheap political points. You see -- in that land New Yorkers like to call fly-over country -- character counts. A man's word matters. Those are the values Senator Cruz was talking about. It may be hard today for Americans to believe, but there was a time when U.S. presidents recognized that our immigration laws were designed to protect the American people from criminals and agents of enemy nations. Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Kennedy and their predecessors aggressively enforced those laws, denying entry to agents of enemies such as Nazi Germany and Communist dictatorships. Essential to enforcement was the careful screening of every would-be immigrant from an enemy nation in order to separate the legitimate ones from those who posed dangerous political or criminal threats. Jacques Gadiels experience as a refugee immigrant showed the thoroughness that President Franklin Roosevelts administration employed to safeguard our people. Gadiel was my father, a German Jew, a perfect target for murder by Hitler's government. In addition, he and my mother, a German Protestant, had committed the ultimate crime of marrying in violation of the Nazi race laws. As prime targets for the Gestapo, they agreed that if they were somehow separated, each would try to reach safe haven in any country that would accept them. As a result, with a visa issued by the U.S. charge in Lisbon, Portugal, my father arrived alone in the United States on April 25, 1941. His German passport had a big red "J" for "Juden" (Jew) stamped on it. He was in proximate danger of being murdered, as legitimate a refugee as one could be. Despite that legitimacy, the FBI took him into custody as soon as he arrived. He was held for over a week, during which time federal agents including a German-born psychiatrist carefully interrogated him to ensure that he was, in fact, a legitimate refugee and not a threat to U.S. security. "They practically looked under my fillings to make sure that I was what I said I was," he told me years later. I asked him if he had been angry or offended that the U.S. government treated him in this manner after he had evaded the Nazis. His response: "No. Not at all. I was glad. I didn't want Nazis in this country any more than FDR did. I came here to be safe." And for the rest of his life, he was. But not so his grandson my son, James Gadiel, who was murdered at the age of 23 by Islamic terrorists as he worked in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. James died because the screening of immigrants has been abandoned. That abandonment was begun by Pres. Carter. In 1980 he accepted 125,000 Cuban refugees with no inspection whatever. Fidel Castro exploited Carter's negligence by emptying his prisons of criminals and shipping them to us among the legitimate refugees. Later, Pres. Reagan signed an amnesty which was exploited by criminals and illegal aliens using forged documents to remain in the USA and obtain citizenship. Illegal immigration (that is, immigration without screening) continued under George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton permitted, even encouraged, ever more massive illegal immigration. It was during his administration that the 9/11 terrorists were admitted into the U.S. Even after the 9/11 attacks President George W. Bush continued to refuse to enforce our immigration laws leaving our borders wide open to Islamic terrorists and other criminals. That reckless even criminal policy has been brought to its ultimate by President Obama who now imports, by the hundreds of thousands, people from nations whose cultures and governing entities are enemies of our values, religions and freedoms all without screening. From FDR's policies designed to protect our people to Obama's policies of intentionally bringing in the enemy. What a sad descent from decency and sanity. Peter Gadiel is a retired businessman and lawyer. For 10 years after the murder of his son he led 9/11 Families for a Secure America, consisting of families and victims of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks and other violent crimes committed by illegal aliens. Thursday nights debate isnt going to change the polls. Donald Trump will remain on top nationally and slightly ahead in Iowa. And he will maintain his wide lead in New Hampshire. Ted Cruz will remain in second place with a decent chance of taking Iowa. And the rest of the pack will stay largely where they are with Rubio in third place, and representing the strongest option that the GOP establishment is offering this cycle. But what is new from after Thursday nights debate is the possibility of a Trump/Cruz alliance as we move through the primaries. Indeed, for the first time Trump floated the idea of taking Cruz as his vice president. Cruz didnt say no. And when Cruz suggested that Trump could be his vice president, Trump said I dont think so which turned into a laugh and they moved on. A Cruz/Trump ticket would combine a lot of what GOP voters are looking for and they would condense much of the vote. To be sure, there would be many who would be disappointed and disillusioned by such a ticket: having South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley deliver the rebuttal to the State of the Union address and talk of a brokered convention indicates that there are those opposed to a firebrand anti-establishment ticket. But that doesnt mean that the two frontrunners arent resonating strongly with GOP voters. When Trump said that hed gladly accept the mantle of anger he got huge applause. Voters are angry. Trump and Cruz get that. And they obviously see potential in one another. For his part, Trump put in a very strong performance. He was compelling on trade with China and especially in rebutting Cruzs attack on New York values by making it clear that New York values are about the spirit which took over the city in the wake of 9/11 when we came together in the face of the worst terrorist attack ever on U.S. soil. And Cruz adeptly handled Trumps birther attack and questions about the loan he took out in 2012 that he failed to report. Just like in the last debate, Cruz was able to turn digs against him into attacks on the mainstream media and liberals. No doubt that goes over well with GOP primary voters. Marco Rubio had another good night. He is the strongest in the field on foreign policy, offering a compelling vision for Americas place in the world and razor sharp attacks on President Obama and Secretary Clintons leadership over the last seven years. While he champions much of what other candidates also support, he does it with a dexterity and passion thats missing from the others. His attacks on the other candidates especially Cruz also reflect that passion. Ben Carson fell largely flat. He is still very weak on foreign policy, despite clearly having studied up on the Middle East and our policies there. Where he did shine, though, was on his explication of American values and the importance of unity. He called out secular progressives for hurting the character and success of the nation, a point that will continue to resonate with primary voters. But it ultimately wont change his standing. Jeb Bush gave another lackluster performance where he often seemed sad. He whined that he needed his turn and he espoused many of the same ideas as the others, but with less enthusiasm and vigor. Trump was certainly right about tonights Jeb Bush: he was low energy. Chris Christie had another strong performance that should keep him as an option in New Hampshire, but is unlikely to move him nationally or in Iowa. He may well be after the attorney general spot now and he could possibly get it. His no nonsense attitude and reputation as a guy who gets things done is appealing and he has a substantive record that he can point to. John Kasich made his presence felt more so than in previous debates, but is unlikely to gain any traction. He could end up a vice presidential pick as has great executive experience and brings Ohio, but were a long way off from that becoming a reality. For now, he will remain on the perimeter. In the next few days well see if my thesis that the polls will stay largely unchanged bears out. I think it will. And well also see if Trump and Cruz were serious in alluding to the possibility of an alliance. For all the bickering, these two are master gamers and this could be just what theyre cooking up. President Obama's policies on everything from gun control to counterterrorism got hammered by the Republican candidates at Thursday's leadoff primary debate, with Mike Huckabee calling recently announced firearm regulations "completely insane." I promise you, Ive been to more gun shows than President Obama," the former Arkansas governor said at the evening Fox Business Network debate -- claiming the gun show loophole, which allows people to buy firearms at gun shows without undergoing a background check, is a myth. "He keeps pushing ideas that never work. Huckabee also commented on the progress of the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan, saying he was skeptical about efforts to rebuild a country he likened to the land of the Flintstones. Huckabee, who was responding to a question about whether the United States should continue to aid the Afghanistan government, said, You cant create for other people a desire for freedom and democracy. Huckabee was among three lower-polling Republican candidates debating at FBN's initial GOP 2016 presidential debate. All of the candidates -- Huckabee, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and former HP tech executive Carly Fiorina -- slammed Obamas foreign policy and said if they were in charge, theyd get results. The candidates also answered questions about whether the government should rely on the private sector to help combat terrorism, deal with gun control and protect the middle class. Huckabee called for a fair tax to transform our economy while Fiorina said the tax code needs reforming and that the government should be required to budget and answer for every dollar it spends. We have got to take our country back, she said. Fiorina took multiple jabs at Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton during the debate. Unlike another woman in this race, I actually love spending time with my husband, Fiorina said during her opening remarks. Fiorina said she has been told all her life to sit down and be quiet, and that's what the American people are being told now. "I will not sit down and be quiet, and neither will you," she said. Santorum also took his fare share of shots at Clinton and said he's the candidate who can beat her. "I've taken on Hillary Clinton on the issues you care about," he said. Huckabee and Santorum are the past two winners of the Iowa caucuses. Both have tried to once again tap into the strong evangelical base but have struggled in the 2016 environment. Fiorina, whose standout performance in the very first lower tier debate bumped her up into the top tier of candidates, has seen her support wane in recent weeks. Sen. Rand Paul qualified for the evening debate Thursday but refused to participate because he did not agree with the polling criteria used to determine which candidates would be in the earlier debate and those that would participate in the primetime event. To qualify for the 9 p.m. debate, a candidate had to place in the top six in an average of recent national polls or in the top five in an average of recent Iowa or New Hampshire polls. Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer said Thursday on Special Report with Bret Baier that President Obamas plan to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba under claims that the prison facility has been used as a recruiting tool for extremists has been rubbish from the beginning. It never had anything really to do with the threat national security that the administration pretends is the reason to close Guantanamo, as a recruiting tool, said Krauthammer. It's been rubbish from the beginning. Krauthammer said that Obamas claim is all about his self-regard for a promise that he made in 08 and the presidents vision of America as having been stained by the Bush administration. And the fact that he is willingly, and his compatriots in the administration are collaborating in this, willingly putting America at risk, we know these are the worst of the worst, in order to satisfy that kind of, I would say narcissistic aim, is really disgraceful. The detente between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz came to a raucous end Thursday night on the unlikely issue of the senators Canadian birth. And Marco Rubio vs. Chris Christie was the undercard. Cruz was the top target in the Fox Business debate, which reflected his surge in Iowa. And the Texas senator made a tactical decisionhis team felt he had no choiceto hit back against both the billionaire who has dominated this campaign and The New York Times for good measure. Prodded by moderators Neil Cavuto and Maria Bartiromo, Cruz said that my friend Donald had once dismissed the birther issue, since Cruz was born to an American mother and is said by most legal experts to be eligible for the presidency. Only his poll numbers have changed, Cruz said. Trump candidly confirmed this moments later, saying, Because now hes doing a little better. Then Cruz tried to defuse the controversy with levity, saying that some scholars believe you need two parents born in America, and he wouldnt make an issue of Trumps mom being born in Scotland. More barbed humor: Trump said that liberal, Hillary-loving Harvard prof Lawrence Tribe supported the birther theory, and that could mean a Democratic lawsuit if The Donald picked Ted as his vice president. Cruz deftly countered that hed pick Trump as his running mate, and if Trump was right, hed quickly get the top job. Bottom line: Cruz fought Trump to a draw on the nettlesome issue that has proved such a distraction for his campaign, and as others have learned, that isnt easy to do. But the Texan wasnt done playing defense. Asked about his failure to properly disclose a large loan from Goldman Sachs, his wife Heidis employer, for his 2012 Senate race, Cruz slammed the Times for publishing what he called a hit piece. But he didnt deny the details, saying he had disclosed the loan on one form but not on another. Cruz said he wasnt rich, was running against a wealthy slef-funded candidate, and that he and Heidi invested everything they had in the underdog race. There was one more confrontation that made for good theater. Pressed to defend his swipe at Trump as the embodiment of New York values, Cruz said it meant liberal, pro-gay rights and pro-abortion. He was well prepped on this point, citing a 1999 interview with the late Tim Russert in which Trump kept citing the fact that he was a New Yorker in supporting gay marriage and refusing to criticize partial-birth abortions. Trump countered with a somewhat moving recitation about 9/11, saying New York City showed what it was made of as it rebuilt amid the smell of death. Cruzs slam, said Trump, was insulting. Trump also got off a good line when asked about South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haleys post-State of the Union shot at him about angry voices. I will gladly accept the mantle of anger ... because our country is being run horribly. That could be his candidacy in one sentence. Pushed by the moderators, Rubio defended his Super PACs attacks on Christie as a liberal sympathizer of President Obama, doubling down on the governor who is making a run in New Hampshire. Christie tried to reprise a past Rubio attack on Jeb Bush for criticizing Rubio because Bush's strategists told him to, and noted that Rubio had praised Christie's record two years ago. He ended with a grace note that Marco would make a better president than Hillary. Despite that dustup, Rubio, a strong debater, didnt really have a breakout moment. Neither did Bush, despite his attack on Trump's plan to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the United States. Neither did John Kasich or Ben Carson, despite the fact that the doctor was given a provocative question about Bill Clintons sex scandals. Trump vs. Cruz was the main event, and Cruz acquitted himself well, cementing his status as the front-runners chief opponent. But Trump didnt suffer, and in fact may have had his strongest debate performance after hanging back in the last several faceoffs. The two-man top tier remains just that, way ahead of the rest of the field. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump clashed in a spectacular way at the Republican presidential debate Thursday, engaging in a rapid-fire and quick-witted exchange over Cruz eligibility for office and later, a dispute in which Trump cited 9/11 to put down his rivals jokes about New York values. The tension between the two men, who until now have maintained a certain peace on the debate stage, was palpable. Trump essentially admitted hes now getting tougher on Cruz because hes rising in the polls in Iowa and gave no ground over the course of more than two hours. While all seven candidates on the prime-time Fox Business Network debate stage spent much of their time attacking President Obama and Hillary Clinton, the Trump-Cruz battle on display could set the tone for the final run-up to Iowa and New Hampshire. In perhaps his most withering retort, Trump slammed Cruz for questioning New York values. Recalling memories from after 9/11, Trump described the horrific clean up and the smell of death in the city. It was with us for months, the smell, Trump said. And everybody in the world loved New York, loved New Yorkers -- and I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement. On the question of Cruz eligibility, however, the Texas senator arrived well-prepared to rebut the GOP front-runners claims that his Canadian birth might make him unable to run for office. He noted Trump ignored the questions last year, and alleged he was only going after the issue because of the polls. The Constitution hasnt changed, but the poll numbers changed, Cruz said. Then, in a retort reminiscent of Reagans famous youth and inexperience quip, Cruz tried to flip the script by noting some birther theories also say a candidate must have two parents born on U.S. soil to be eligible to run. Pointing out Trumps mother was born in Scotland, Cruz said: On the issue of citizenship, Im not going to use your mothers birth against you. Trump said, But I was born here big difference. This touched off a heated exchange, punctuated by frequent, thunderous boos and applause from the audience. Trump argued that Cruz is exaggerating his poll numbers hes doing better, hes got probably a 4 or 5 percent chance, he said -- but maintained that Democrats could use the questions to file suit against him. And if he won, Trump said, Who the hell knows if you can even serve in office? He called the issue a big overhang and said, You cant do that to the party. Trump also toyed with the idea of naming Cruz his running mate, and Cruz extended the same offer but Trump said hed probably go back to building buildings if he lost. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio then interjected to talk about other issues. I hate to interrupt this episode of court TV, Rubio said. The moment of levity was fleeting, with the two later tangling over Cruz New York values comments. Before Trump offered his somber memory of 9/11, Cruz said, Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan. Im just saying.. The exchanges, at times, seemed to relegate the other five candidates to a debate among themselves, though most on stage put on an energetic performance. Rubio and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie -- who are battling with Cruz, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for the No. 2 position in New Hampshire tangled at one point over Christies conservative credentials. Christie fired back by suggesting Rubio was just playing politics. At another point, the New Jersey governor cut off Rubio when he tried to elaborate on entitlements, saying, You had your chance and blew it. Cruz and Rubio also tangled over immigration, with Rubio claiming Cruz has reversed course on several fronts. That is not consistent conservatism, that is political calculation, he said. I appreciate you dumping your oppo research folder on the debate stage, Cruz countered, maintaining that he opposes amnesty while Rubio backs citizenship for illegal immigrants. Bush chimed in to mock the debate between the back-bench senators. Meanwhile, Cruz took aim at one of his favorite targets, the media criticizing The New York Times for a critical report about a campaign finance disclosure mistake. He said if thats the best the Times has, they better go back to the well. Despite the intra-party battles, the candidates tried to focus their attention on Obama and Clinton. Bush ripped the Democratic front-runner for being at the heart of an FBI probe over her email set-up, saying if elected, she might be going back and forth between the White House and the courthouse. Rubio added that Clinton would actually be disqualified. At the opening of the debate, the candidates slammed the presidents rosy State of the Union address earlier in the week. I watched story-time with Barack Obama, and I gotta tell you, it sounded like everything in the world was going amazing, Christie said. Cruz also ripped Obama for omitting any mention of the U.S. sailors detained by Iran in his State of the Union. It was heartbreaking, he said. Those sailors were later released. Cruz also slammed Obama for saying in the same address that anyone knocking the economy is peddling fiction. The president tried to paint a rosy picture of jobs, Cruz said. The debate Thursday was among the last before the kick-off nominating contests of 2016. The only other debate before the Iowa and New Hampshire contests will be held Jan. 28. The tight calendar has fueled the new tensions in the GOP race, particularly as Cruz challenges Trump for the lead in Iowa. The Republican front-runner also has been engaged in an unusual battle on the sidelines with South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who was tapped to give the official GOP response to President Obamas State of the Union address Tuesday. Haley urged Americans to ignore the angriest voices, and later acknowledged she was referring to Trump and others. Trump, asked about the remarks at the debate, seemed to brush off the challenge. Im very angry and I will gladly accept the mantle of anger, he said. Trump also stood by his controversial call to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the country to which Bush repeated his charge that the plan is unhinged. Kasich, as before, cast himself as a practical problem-solver with fiscal conservative credentials. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson was also asked about whether Bill Clintons past indiscretions are a fair topic. Heres the real issue, is this America anymore? Do we still have standards? Do we still have values and principles? he said, pointing to divisiveness in the country. We need to start once again recognizing that there is such a thing as right and wrong. And let's not let the secular progressives drive that out of us. An earlier evening debate featured three lower-polling candidates -- former HP CEO Carly Fiorina; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee; and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul qualified but did not attend. Hours later at the prime-time debate, a very brief protest broke out when some started chanting, We want Rand. The debates were held at the North Charleston Coliseum and Performing Arts Center in North Charleston, S.C. Is Ted Cruz a natural-born citizen? While this thorny question has been dismissed as a settled issue by the Cruz campaign and many constitutional scholars, Cruzs opponents insist it isn't going away. Donald Trump even warns Democrats could use it to derail his candidacy: The allegations follow the 2008 conspiracy theories about Barack Obama's true birthplace, and questions about John McCain's eligibility. But, with Cruz making no secret of the fact he was born in Canada, his case raises the question: Who can settle this matter once and for all? Legal scholars aren't entirely sure but suggest the best route might be through the courts. Heres what we know. Ted Cruz was born in Calgary, Canada, to an American mother and a Cuban father. Therefore, Ted Cruz is an American citizen. However, in order to be president of the United States, according to the Constitution, a candidate must be a natural-born citizen. The legal debate occupying constitutional scholars is on the precise meaning of this term. As for who can resolve this, don't look to the Federal Election Commission. The agency, while devoted to enforcing the rules of federal elections, deals stricly with campaign finance. An FEC spokesman told FoxNews.com that eligibility is not under their authority. As another option, Trump has suggested Cruz seek a declarative judgment on the case from the courts. However, Robert Natelson, retired constitutional law professor at the University of Montana and author of the book, The Original Constitution, told FoxNews.com many courts would see that as premature. So what about a congressional resolution? That could be seen as legally flimsy, according to a 2008 piece by Ohio State University Professor Dan Tokaji in the Michigan Law Review. Both Tokaji and Natelson, though, suggested an outside court challenge to a candidate's eligibility would be a dependable way to resolve such questions. In his 2008 piece, which pre-dated the Cruz controversy, Tokaji wrote that the best route to challenging a presidential candidate's eligibility may be to head first to state courts. If any drama ensues, the case could then be on the glide path for a U.S. Supreme Court decision. In the event that a renegade state court rejects a candidate who is, in fact, eligible or that two or more state courts reach conflicting conclusions on a candidates eligibility, U.S. Supreme Court review should be available as a backstop, Tokaji wrote. Natelson also said any legal challenge to Cruzs eligibility could end up in the Supreme Court. Ultimately the people decide as they can override through a constitutional amendment," he noted. "But for purposes of 2016, it would be the Supreme Court, and what they have to say would override the FEC or anyone else. As to how the Supreme Court would rule in such a case, its a coin toss, he said. On the meaning of "natural-born," which originates in British law, some scholars say it indicated a requirement to be born in the country. Another reading also works against Cruz -- that it meant someone born to a British father and foreign mother outside of Britain would be a natural-born citizen. Cruz, though, had a foreign-born father. That is most likely how the founders saw that and how they meant to communicate it, and obviously Senator Cruz doesnt qualify, Natelson said. Cruz' case is very different from Obama's or McCain's. Obama was born in Hawaii and only faced questions because some, including Trump, challenged whether that was true. And McCain was born on a U.S. military base to an American father and mother. Now even McCain says Cruz' eligibility is a question worth looking at. In Cruz' defense, others point to legal precedent that allows a broader interpretation. The Naturalization Act of 1790, passed by a Congress including many of the founders, determined the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens: Provided, That the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States. As Cruzs father was a U.S. resident, it would seem to give him a green light. Professors Neal Katyal and Paul Clement wrote in the Harvard Law Review this is evidence of an even broader interpretation -- that anyone born anywhere to a U.S. citizen parent, as Cruz was, "is a U.S. citizen from birth and is fully eligible to serve as President if the people so choose. Others believe the courts will ultimately leave this one up to the people. Professor Derek Muller, associate professor at Pepperdine School of Law, told FoxNews.com that courts would be unwilling to settle a contentious political matter that could be decided by voters. Courts are often reluctant to get involved in divisive political questions, Muller said. I think at this point it might remain an open question for some time -- the most likely way this ends in court is if a state decides to keep him off the ballot and thats unlikely at this point. Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie launched his campaign under the motto, telling it like it is. But a review of some of the New Jersey governor's statements Thursday night during the Fox Business debate particularly his stinging rebuttal of Marco Rubio's attack shows he still may be bending the truth with his straight talk. The two candidates testy exchange erupted on the FBN debate stage when Rubio accused the New Jersey governor of holding liberal views, whether it is Common Core, or gun control, or the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor or the donation he made to Planned Parenthood. Christie fired back by simply denying it. Lets get the facts straight. First of all, I didnt support Sonia Sotomayor, he said of the Supreme Court justice. Speaking on Fox News on Friday, Christie said Rubios allegations were absolutely untrue. But a closer look at Christies past seems to suggest otherwise. According to Politifact, Christie did initially say in 2009 -- when he was running for New Jersey governor -- that Sotomayor wouldn't have been his choice. But he later issued a statement voicing support that same year, according to PolitickerNJ. After watching and listening to Judge Sotomayor's performance at the confirmation hearings this week, I am confident that she is qualified for the position of Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court," Christie wrote. "Elections have consequences. One of those consequences are judicial appointments. While Judge Sotomayor would not have been my choice, President Obama has used his opportunity to fill a seat on the Supreme Court by choosing a nominee who has more than proven her capability, competence and ability. I support her appointment to the Supreme Court and urge the Senate to keep politics out of the process and confirm her nomination. Politifact rated Christie's denial as false. Christie, though, argued Friday that his 2009 statements did not count as support and that he was only calling on the Senate to give the nominee a straight up-or-down vote. "What I said about Sonia Sotomayor was that she deserved an up-or-down vote, but that she was not the type of justice I would select if I were president," he told MSNBC. "That's hardly supporting someone." Christie also pushed back Friday on Rubio's claims that he once made a donation to Planned Parenthood, telling Fox News he did not. But in a 1994 Newark Star-Ledger story, Christie is quoted saying, I support Planned Parenthood privately with my personal contribution, and that should be the goal of any such agency, to find private donations. Now his camp says he never made the donation. Planned Parenthood, a non-profit, does not disclose its private donors information. True or not, Rubios allegations nevertheless gave Christie an opening to land a memorable zinger Thursday night, as the governor accused Rubio of doing the same thing he once accused Jeb Bush of -- attacking a rival just to boost his own poll numbers. I stood on the stage and watched Marco rather indignantly, look at Governor Bush and say, someone told you that because we're running for the same office, that criticizing me will get you to that office, he said. It appears that the same someone has been whispering in old Marco's ear too. While the full field of Republican presidential candidates resumed campaigning Friday, it was Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio who emerged from last night's Fox Business debate the apparent main challengers to front-runner Donald Trump -- though New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's feisty exchanges may have left some thinking what was once a 17-candidate scramble, now is a four-man showdown. Or, maybe five, as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who managed to get in a few shots at Trump, picked up the endorsement Friday morning of former candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham. Trump, though, quickly dismissed the backing, tweeting that Bushs chances of winning are zero, the same as Grahams polling. The exchanges all marked a newly aggressive campaign heading into the final stretch before Iowa. For Trump and Cruz in particular, the Fox Business Network debate in South Carolina marked the first where real tensions showed through. Before, the two top-polling candidates essentially refused to attack each other, preserving a detente that extended to the campaign trail. No more. Trump, after the debate, acknowledged in one TV interview that their bromance is over. The debate could set the tone for the final two weeks before the leadoff Iowa caucuses, with the leading candidates now searching aggressively for weak spots in each others records. On Friday, the candidates spread all over the early-voting state map. Trump is following on his strong performance with an Iowa rally Friday morning. Cruz is charging through South Carolina, while Rubio is in New Hampshire. Trump also has rented out space at an Iowa theater and is giving residents free tickets to a showing of 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi Friday evening, according to The Des Moines Register. The movie depicts the 2012 terror attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, a topic that has haunted Hillary Clintons presidential bid. With the polls tightening in the middle in the Granite State and at the top in Iowa nearly a half-dozen candidates are now firing at each other on a regular basis. Rubio sustained his attacks going into Friday, launching a new TV ad that calls accusations from Bush desperate and reprising his criticism on Cruz consistency in an interview with Fox News. I like Ted, were friends, but he campaigns as a consistent conservative. That is not his record; he has flipped his position on birthright citizenship, on legalization of illegal immigrants, he told Fox News. When Rubio launched that same attack at Cruz Thursday night, though, Cruz deftly countered. I appreciate you dumping your oppo research folder on the debate stage, Cruz said, maintaining that he opposes amnesty while Rubio backs citizenship for illegal immigrants. Through most of the debate, Cruz showed off his skills as practiced debater. He employed this early on to fend off a challenge from Trump over the Canada-born senators eligibility to seek the presidency. He accused Trump of pushing birther theories because the polls are tightening. Then, in a retort reminiscent of Reagans famous youth and inexperience quip, Cruz tried to flip the script by noting some birther theories say a candidate must have two parents born on U.S. soil to be eligible. Pointing out Trumps mother was born in Scotland, Cruz said: On the issue of citizenship, Im not going to use your mothers birth against you. Trump said, But I was born here big difference. But Trump, though, was seen as landing a decisive retort when Cruz criticized him for New York values. Recalling memories from after 9/11, Trump passionately described the horrific clean up and the smell of death in the city. It was with us for months, the smell, Trump said. And everybody in the world loved New York, loved New Yorkers -- and I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement. Not to be overshadowed, Rubio and Christie both broke through on several occasions. While Rubio and Cruz tangled over their immigration records and voting consistency, Rubio also accused Christie of endorsing many of the ideas that Barack Obama supports, whether it is Common Core or gun control or the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor or the donation he made to Planned Parenthood. Christie responded by invoking a moment from a previous debate. I stood on the stage and watched Marco rather indignantly, look at Governor Bush and say, someone told you that because we're running for the same office, that criticizing me will get you to that office, he said. It appears that the same someone has been whispering in old Marco's ear too. Often left on the sidelines of the rhetorical battles were Ohio Gov. John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. Carson has seen his numbers steadily slide in Iowa, though Kasich is still polling strong in New Hampshire. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who until recently was a presidential candidate himself, on Friday endorsed Republican Jeb Bush in the 2016 race. Graham, known for his hawkish views on national security, described the former Florida governor as best-prepared to lead the military. "I have concluded without any hesitation, without any doubt, that Jeb Bush is ready on day one to be a commander-in-chief worthy of the sacrifices of the 1 percent who have been fighting this war, he said. Asked about the endorsement, Bush called Graham probably the most knowledgable person on the Hill on foreign policy and national security. Im excited about it, he told Fox News. The endorsement comes on the heels of Thursdays Fox Business Network debate in South Carolina. Bushs poll numbers have been dropping steadily in recent months, even slipping behind several other candidates in the critical state of New Hampshire. Graham dropped out of the presidential race in December. Fox News John Roberts contributed to this report. The Obama administration announced Friday it will temporarily halt new coal leases on federal lands until it completes a comprehensive review to determine whether fees charged to mining companies provide a fair return to taxpayers. The decision immediately triggered accusations from business groups and Republican lawmakers of a renewed "war on coal." Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, on a conference call, stressed that the move is not a pause on coal production entirely -- but will give the government time to study the benefits of coal as well as its impact on the environment. Jewell told reporters she is confident the pause on new leases will not disrupt the countrys ability to meet production needs. Karen Harbert, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for 21st Century Energy, slammed the decision. Herbert called the move a foolish crusade that strips America of one of its diverse mix of energy sources. "Another day, another front on the war on coal from this administration, she said in a statement following the announcement. At this point, it is obvious that the president and his administration won't be satisfied until coal is completely eradicated from our energy mix. Roughly 40 percent of the coal produced in the United States comes from federal lands. The vast majority of that mining takes place in Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico. It's unclear what impact the moratorium will have on many coal companies given the declining domestic demand for coal and the closure of numerous coal-fired power plants around the country. Coal companies have already stockpiled billions of tons of coal on existing leases. But the announcement will no doubt please environmental groups that have long said the government's fee rates encouraged production of a product that contributed to global warming. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called Friday's announcement the "latest front in an ideological war on coal that has contributed to devastation in communities in Eastern Kentucky and to the loss of thousands of jobs across the commonwealth." The administration held a handful of public hearings last year to get feedback on the adequacy of the fees charged companies for coal mined on federal lands. The government collects a 12.5 percent royalty on the sale price of strip-mined coal. The rate was established in 1976. The money is then split between the federal government and the state where the coal was mined. Coal companies also pay a $3 fee annually for each acre of land leased. Government auditors have in the past questioned whether the rate provided an appropriate return, though they did not make specific recommendations to raise it. Industry groups counter that any increase in royalty rates will hurt consumers and threaten high-paying jobs. President Obama said during the State of the Union address Tuesday that he would push to change the way the federal government manages its oil and coal resources. The review will look at such issues as how, when and where to lease, how to account for the public health impacts of coal, and how to ensure American taxpayers earn a fair return on their resources. An administration official noted that reviews of the federal coal program have occurred twice before, once in the 1970s and again in the 1980s, and pauses on the approval of new mining leases accompanied each review. Jewell said some exceptions to the moratorium will be allowed, most notably for small lease modifications. And while the federal government will proceed with environmental reviews for pending lease applications, no final decision will be made. The administration held hearings in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico last year on the federal coal program. Several people representing tribes, local ranchers and environmental groups spoke in favor of increasing royalty rates, saying it would hasten the transition to cleaner energy sources. Several GOP lawmakers sent staff to relay their concerns about the Interior Department's efforts. For example, Penny Pew, a district director for Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, said that "President Obama and his agency minions are trying to put the coal industry out of business by imposing a flurry of draconian mandates not based in reality." Industry officials also voiced concerns. Meanwhile, David J. Hayes, a senior fellow at the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress, said Thursday the current rules for coal mining on federal lands were written when people could still smoke on planes and dump sewage in the ocean. "President Obama and (Interior) Secretary (Sally) Jewell are absolutely right to launch this comprehensive review and to set the federal coal program in a more fiscally and environmentally responsible direction," Hayes said. The Associated Press contributed to this report. EXCLUSIVE: On the heels of a strong performance at Fox Business Networks debate in South Carolina, Sen. Marco Rubio is releasing two new television ads in Iowa that hammer home his stance on border security and retaliate against negative ads by one of his Republican rivals. In one of the 30-second ads, called "Happening," Rubio fires back at the barrage of early state attack ads by the Jeb Bush super PAC, Right to Rise USA, that have hit the Florida senator on the issue of illegal immigration. Watch the new TV ad, "Happening" We all see what's happening. Jeb Bush is desperate and spending millions on false attacks. Don't fall for it," Rubio says, looking into the camera. "When I'm president, there will be no amnesty. I'll cancel Obama's unconstitutional executive orders; cut sanctuary city funding; and deport criminal aliens," Rubio adds. Rubio is now in third place in Hawkeye state polls, behind Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. The other ad released by the Rubio campaign Friday features the endorsement of Kelly Terry-Willis, the sister of slain U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry -- who was murdered by Mexican bandits in 2010 in the Arizona desert, a killing tied to the infamous federal gun-tracking operation knows as Fast and Furious." I know and trust that with Marco we will finally secure our border, and ensure that the men and women who served alongside Brian have the support from Washington they need," she says. Watch the new TV ad, "Support" The ads start running in Iowa Friday, and were planned before the debate. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio launched a major attack on fellow Sen. Ted Cruz in the closing minutes of Thursday nights Republican debate, accusing him of making a political calculation" before flipping his positions on such issues as National Security Agency surveillance and immigration. Rubio, who is battling Cruz for second place behind Donald Trump in the national Republican polls, argued that he was the best candidate to keep America safe and that he wouldnt call Edward Snowden, who leaked highly classified NSA secrets, a good public servant as Cruz has done. Hes a traitor, Rubio said near the close of the Fox Business Channel debate in North Charleston. S.C. Cruz has also suggested more recently that Snowden, accused by the Obama administration of espionage, is indeed a traitor. Rubio also said Cruz has stood with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders -- a self-proclaimed socialist and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate -- to block key defense bills. Rubio also accused Cruz of shifting his position on illegal immigration now that hes in a Republican primary. I appreciate you dumping your opposition-research folder on the debate stage, Cruz said in response, to which Rubio shot back "No, it's your record." Cruz maintained that he opposes amnesty while Rubio backs citizenship for illegal immigrants. "I will say at least half the things Marco said are flat-out false," the Texas senator said. " The Obama administration is proposing to spend nearly $4 billion in a decade to accelerate the acceptance of driverless cars on U.S. roads and curb traffic fatalities and travel delays. The proposal, which would require congressional approval, aims to have federal regulators work with auto makers and others to craft policies and rules for vehicles that can move without a driver at the wheel. It also would set up pilot programs for testing connected vehicles that talk to one another to avoid crashes under the $3.9 billion budget proposal. It isnt clear whether or when any new regulations might be adopted. Regulators said they plan to issue guidance within six months on preferred performance characteristics and testing methods for driverless cars and collaborate with state officials on policies. A lack of clear guidance from regulators is among the barriers auto makers cite to allowing driverless cars to proliferate. Car makers prefer to have a clear national road map for approving autonomous vehicles rather than a state-by-state patchwork of rules. In Europe, the lack of a consensus has frustrated executives at Volvo Car Corp. and others developing the technologies. In Japan, industry officials are hoping for swift adoption by the government. U.S. regulators say they want to encourage technologies that can improve vehicle safety and reduce the nations more than 32,000 annual road fatalities. Driverless cars also hold out the hope of reducing pollution and more-efficient transportation, say government and industry officials. Click for more from The Wall Street Journal. NASA has awarded private space companies SpaceX, Orbital ATK and Sierra Nevada Corporation contracts to supply the International Space Station from 2019 through 2024. The deal adds Sierra Nevadas Dream Chaser to the list of spacecraft flying cargo missions to the orbiting laboratory. Like NASAs space shuttle, Dream Chaser is a reusable space plane. Proud to be selected as the next commercial resupply service provider for @NASA @Space_Station #CRS2 #SNCDreamChaser, tweeted the company shortly after the announcement was made on Thursday afternoon. Speaking during a press conference Julie Robinson, chief scientist for NASAs ISS Program, said that the runway landings offered by Dream Chaser will be valuable for fragile science experiments returning to Earth from the ISS. The soft landing, she explained is a really nice capability to add to the suite of things that we do now. Related: SpaceX rocket set to launch NOAA satellite Sunday Under the terms of the contracts, each of the three companies selected will fly at least six missions to the ISS. There's a minimum of six missions to the ISS from each of these partners, explained Kirk Shireman, ISS Program manager at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston, adding that NASA is likely to buy more than 18 flights. Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS-2) is NASAs second round of contracts with private companies to fly cargo to the ISS. NASA awarded its first commercial resupply contracts in 2008, anticipating the pending retirement of its space shuttles. The first commercial cargo flight, by SpaceX, was in 2012, a year after the last shuttle mission. In addition to SpaceX, Orbital Sciences has also been flying missions under the CRS-1 contracts, with both companies experiencing a launch failure. Orbital Sciences merged with ATK to form Orbital ATK last year. The first CRS-2 mission is expected in late 2019. The CRS-2 contracts have a maximum aggregate value of $14 billion, although, at this stage, NASA does not expect to reach that number. The mix of flights we are looking at are nowhere near that value, said Shireman. Related: SpaceX releases stunning footage of Falcon 9 rocket landing The official was also unable to provide a contract value for each of the three CRS-2 companies, noting that NASA needs a great degree of flexibility for its resupply missions. We can order the missions a la carte or in groupings, which makes it impossible to give a specific price at this stage, he said. Shireman would not comment on Boeing's departure from the competition last year, or other contenders. SpaceXs launch efforts have garnered a great deal of attention in the last few months. In December the company successfully landed a Falcon 9 rocket at Cape Canaveral, Florida, after launching a cargo mission to the ISS. The impressive feat was the first time an unmanned rocket returned to land vertically at Cape Canaveral and represented a tremendous success for SpaceX. The company, which is led by billionaire Elon Musk is striving for reusability to drive launch costs down and open up space to more people. Related: Scientists confirm presence of water ice on Rosetta's comet SpaceX will attempt another audacious rocket landing on Sunday after a Falcon 9 lifts NOAAs Jason-3 satellite into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. In a tweet on Monday Musk confirmed that the rocket landing attempt will use a droneship, or floating ocean platform. SpaceXs previous landing attempts on droneships have ended in fiery blasts. Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers The Associated Press contributed to this report. Scientists may have spotted the most powerful supernova ever seen, some 3.8 billion light years away in deep space. Named ASASSN-15lh, it looks like a huge ball of hot gas and is radiating the energy of hundreds of billions of Suns. Ten miles across at its center, this object is putting on quite a show, creating a cosmic explosion about 200 times more powerful than a typical supernova and more than twice as luminous as the previous record-holding supernova. Related: NASA releases stunning image of a supernova's remnants If that is enough to astound you, its explosion at its peak intensity was 570 billion times the brightness of the Sun. At that rate, its luminosity level is approximately 20 times the entire output of the 100 billion stars comprising our Milky Way galaxy. ASASSN-15lh is the most powerful supernova discovered in human history, Subo Dong, an astronomer and a Youth Qianren Research Professor at the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Peking University and the lead author on a study on the supernova in the journal Science, said in a statement. The explosions mechanism and power source remain shrouded in mystery because all known theories meet serious challenges in explaining the immense amount of energy ASASSN-15lh has radiated. ASASSN-15lh was first glimpsed in June 2015 by twin, telescopes in Cerro Tololo, Chile conducting the All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN), an international collaboration headquartered at Ohio State University. Related: Supernova discovery reveals how the biggest, brightest stars die Every time in science we open up a new discovery space, exciting findings should follow," said Krzysztof Stanek, a professor of astronomy at Ohio State University and the co-Principal Investigator of ASAS-SN. The trick is not to miss them. In the four months after it first exploded, so much energy beamed out of ASASSN-15lh that it would take our Sun in its current state more than 90 billion years to equal its emissions. By examining this bright and the slowly fading afterglow, astronomers learned much about ASASSN-15lh including the fact that the chemical elements scattered after the explosion were different than any of the other 200 supernovae observed. ASASSN-15lh also has certain features consistent with hydrogen-poor (Type I) superluminous supernovae, which are one of the two main types of these epic explosions so named for lacking signatures of the chemical element hydrogen in their spectra, researchers said. ASASSN-15lh has also shown a rate of temperature decrease and radius expansion similar to some previously discovered Type I superluminous supernova. J. Craig Wheeler, the Samuel T. and Fern Yanagisawa Regents Professor in Astronomy and Distinguished Teaching Professor, called the discovery a very interesting event. Many of these very luminous events result from a massive star that belches out a shell of matter and then explodes into it, Wheeler told FoxNews.com in an email interview. That picture works best when there is a blanket of hydrogen. This event falls in the class that have no hydrogen. Shell collision might still play a role, but another active possibility is that a powerful new-born neutron star pumps out the excess radiation. This event challenges even that model, so there will be a lot of head scratching. Related: Supernova seen through cosmic 'cigar smoke' by NASA telescope One of the best theories explaining the massive amounts of energy coming from this supernova is that it could have spawned an extremely rare type of star called a millisecond magnetar, a rapidly spinning and very dense star with a very strong magnetic field. "Very few events in nature are capable of providing the enormous brightness of this event and all are exotic," Stanford Woosley, an expert in supernovas at the University of California Santa Cruz but who did not take part in the study, said. "If it is a supernova, we may be witnessing the birth of a "millisecond magnetar",a neutron star with a mass 1 1/2 times that of the sun rotating 1,000 times a second," he said. "Even here the maximum rotational energy before the neutron star would either fly apart or collapse to a back hole, is just a few times what was seen in light.and the efficiency for turning rotational energy into light would need to be quite high." To help confirm the source of its energy as well as determine the exact location of ASASSN-15lh, the team plans to turn to the Hubble Space Telescope. With Hubble, Dong and colleagues will obtain the most detailed views yet of the aftermath of ASASSN-15lhs stunning explosion. The U.S. Coast Guard searched Friday for two Marine helicopters that collided with 12 people on board near the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Search conditions were challenging because of darkness and high surf, Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Sara Mooers told Los Angeles radio station KNX-AM. She said a high surf advisory was in effect for waves 10 to 15 feet building throughout the morning. Coast Guard District 14 told CBS News the debris field included an empty life raft and fire on the water. The transport helicopters each had a crew of six from Marine Corps Base Hawaii and crashed just before midnight Thursday, officials said. No other passengers were aboard the CH-53E "Super Stallions," which came from the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, Marine Capt. Timothy Irish said. The aircraft were taking part in a nighttime training mission. It's unclear what caused the crash. A Coast Guard helicopter and C-130 airplane spotted the debris field 2 1/2 miles offshore early Friday. The debris covers an area of 2 miles, Irish said. The search includes aircraft from the Navy and Air Force, a Honolulu Fire Department rescue boat and Coast Guard cutters, officials said. "It is a true search-and-rescue effort, and it is ongoing," Irish said just before daybreak on Oahu, where a steady rain was falling on the North Shore. The collision comes less than a year after the Marine Corps' new hybridized airplane-and-helicopter aircraft crashed during a training exercise, killing two Marines. The MV-22 Osprey went down last May with 21 Marines and a Navy corpsman on board. In 2011, one serviceman was killed and three others were injured when a CH-53D Sea Stallion chopper crashed in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. Fox News' Jennifer Griffin and The Associated Press contributed to this report. Newly released court documents say an Iraqi-born man living in California used a social media account associated with the Islamic State group to plot a return to Syria. Aws Mohammed Younis Al-Jayab was indicted in Sacramento Thursday on one federal charge that he lied to investigators about traveling to Syria to fight against the government there. Documents made public Friday show the investigation of the 23-year-old apparently began with information from the search of a Virginia-based Facebook account in April 2014. That was shortly after Al-Jayab returned to the United States from his second stint fighting in Syria, according to the search warrant affidavit. He was arrested last week and remains jailed. Prosecutors and his attorney say there is no indication he intended harm within the United States. A former Michigan official who embezzled $500,000 in public money to pay his personal psychic fortuneteller has been sentenced to up to 10 years in prison, it was reported Thursday. Ervin Brinker, 69, had admitted diverting Medicaid funds to a Key West palm reader over an 18-month period in a plea deal with the Michigan Attorney Generals Office, according to Fox 17 West Michigan. Brinker ran an agency in Battle Creek that provided mental health services to needy residents of Calhoun County. A judge delivered the punishment Wednesday. Brinker must serve 2 years and 8 months before becoming eligible for parole. As part of the plea deal, Brinker must also pay $1.2 million to cover the cost of the embezzlement and a civil penalty, the station reported. Click for more from Fox 17. Think back to a physical injury. Maybe you broke your arm or cut yourself with a knife while preparing dinner. Remember childbirth? We can revisit those memories without feeling any physical or emotional pain. Now think about your first breakup or the time when someone said something hurtful. That still stings. Thats because our brains experience rejection as a form of physical pain, and studies show that adolescents who are rejected by their peers are at greater risk for anxiety and depression. Carrie Mastens, PhD, of UCLA, found that children and teenagers display unique neural patterns when they feel distress during peer rejection. Her research was published in the journal Development and Psychopathology and Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. Additional studies found that social rejection influences emotion, cognition and even physical health. Mark Leary, PhD, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, analyzed 15 cases of school shooters and discovered all but two suffered from social rejection. His research published in the journal Aggressive Behavior says, Ostracized people sometimes become aggressive and can turn to violence. While rejection can provoke violent acts toward others, it is more often turned inward. It can destroy our self esteem, said Karen Liberato of The Calais School in Whippany, New Jersey, and Therapeutic Options in Fairfield, New Jersey. Adolescents tend to blame themselves. I see it anecdotally. When someone is rejected especially a child they often say, Im a terrible person. Teenagers who experience a romantic breakup will question their worth. I hear, If I was a better person or a better girlfriend, then the rejection would not have happened. We sit there and blame ourselves. Liberato says reasoning with the person who was rejected doesnt always work. You can say, You didnt even like the guy that much. It still hurts. I also see it when a child is called stupid by his peers, she says. We know they are smart. I will ask them to look at their report card or a recent test where they got a high grade. Some children blame themselves for their parents divorce. We know this has nothing to do with them, says Liberato, but its real to them, and we need to listen. Watch for signs, she adds. A teenager who develops a crush on someone who doesnt reciprocate, is in a negative relationship, or is experiencing a breakup, can develop depression, which can show up in the form of a change of mood, eating and sleep patterns, and low self worth. Whats bothering them may not seem like a big deal to you, but it is to them. Liberato suggests the following to battle rejection: Listen to your child. Look for any changes of mood, diet, or sleep patterns. Remind your kids that they should treat others with kindness. Explain the importance of having one or two good friends if your child is excluded from a popular clique. Find something your child likes and excels at. It can be a sport, a coding workshop, or art, music, or dance class. You know what your child enjoys; try to match his likes with an after-school program. Talk to your child about his skill sets, his talents and abilities. Dont let him ruminate on negative feelings. This can become a negative habit. Spend time with your child and do something he likes. Let your child spend time with friends who care about him. Celebrate your childs accomplishments. When a childs (or our own) self esteem is low, it takes a while to recover. Dont expect him to snap out of it. Understand that healing from rejection takes time. According to Guy Winch, psychologist and author, We need to take our emotional health as seriously as we take our physical health. By practicing personal hygiene, our quality of life could rise dramatically. More from LifeZette.com: Millennials (Gasp!) Focus on Jobs, Money, Cars Vigilante Justice is Rough on the Internet I Didnt Win Powerball, but I Won the Lottery When a Smart Home isnt So Smart at All Federal authorities reportedly are investigating threats made by Islamic sympathizers against former Special Forces soldier and current UFC fighter Tim Kennedy. The Army Times reported Wednesday that followers of ISIS have made recent credible threats against Kennedy. But that doesnt mean Kennedy is shying away from the fight. Just spoke to the FBI regarding some recent credible threats towards me by #ISIS, Kennedy wrote in a Facebook post Wednesday. They were not overly thrilled with my responseLet those cowards come. Kennedy served in the 7th Special Forces Group and is now a sergeant first class with the Texas National Guard, according to The Army Times. Kennedy told the paper he usually gets up to 10 threats per day over social media. He said most of the threats are from military trolls who target military figures. They said, Are you aware of this stuff? I said, Yes. They said, We think this is somewhat credible, Kennedy told The Army Times. Then I said, Im kind of desensitized to this stuff, so maybe you should tell me what my level of alarm should be. Kennedy, who teaches others to defend themselves in certain dangerous situations through his group Sheepdog Response, told the paper he doesnt let the threats bother him. I teach people how to live with threats like this. Who would I be to be cowering to a bunch of gutless cowards acting like a bunch of tough guys online? he added. Kennedy is currently ranked No. 6 in the UFCs middleweight division. Click for more from The Army Times. It's Florida Sheriff Grady Judd's duty to protect the citizens of Polk County -- but he figures it's their job, too. One of a growing number of rural and big-city law enforcement officials who openly encourages responsible gun ownership, Judd believes guns allow citizens to defend themselves when police cannot. If you are foolish enough to break into someones home, you can expect to be shot in Polk County, Judd said in a statement after a homeowner shot a would-be home invader earlier this month. Its more important to have a gun in your hand than a cop on the phone." Such full-throated embrace of the Second Amendment as a crime-fighting tool isn't confined to red states like Florida. I want as many law-abiding citizens to arm themselves in this county as we can get." Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke One California police chief is backing teachers in his district packing heat. Detroit Police Chief James Craig has been a leader in urging his community to arm itself. A Maryland sheriff is working with the states general assembly to try to make it easier for citizens to obtain handgun permits. In the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violences most recent ranking of states with the strongest gun laws, California (1), Maryland (4) and Michigan (15) ranked near the top of the pack. Some gun rights advocates say terror attacks at home and abroad have contributed to a change in attitudes about gun ownership among community members and authorities, even in locales historically hostile towards the Second Amendment. That has helped play into it, and theres no doubt the active shooter scenario has, too, said Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation. Youre seeing people say, How do you respond? The answer varies based on where you live, and how your law enforcement leaders are selected. Police chiefs are typically appointed by mayors, and their politics tend to line up with whoever chose them. Sheriffs, in contrast, are voted into office and in some cases espouse values of a constituency that is growing ever-more pro-gun. Historically, sheriffs have been very pro-gun rights, Gottlieb told FoxNews.com. But theyve stepped out of the box and theyre now publicly making it known that firearms are good for self-defense. In Oklahoma, Garvin County Sheriff Larry Rhodes and Creek County Sheriff John Davis have each recently reduced costs associated with getting a gun license. Davis is also keeping administrative offices open longer on weekends to allow more people to apply. As a result of the ever-increasing violence being committed upon the American citizen and the current state of our country, I encourage each citizen of Creek County who is legally able to fully utilize their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, as legally prescribed by the Oklahoma Defense Act, Davis said in a statement. Rhodes said his plan made simple fiscal sense. The benefits of people getting their license, carrying lawfully, certainly outweigh the money I would lose, he told KFOR. In Florida, several sheriffs are playing the role of pitchman for an armed populace. Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey has told citizens they must be that first line of defense, according to Florida Today. Marion County Sheriff Chris Blair told the Tampa Tribune, If you are certified to carry a gun, I would like to encourage you to do so. In Wisconsin, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke is one of the more visible pro-gun faces. I want as many law-abiding citizens to arm themselves in this county as we can get so that I have the partner that I need to beat back this sort of violence, Clarke said during an interview on Hannity last week. The attitude of sheriffs like Clarke and Judd is, at least in-part, a response to the attitudes of the people they serve. Theres no doubt at this point its consumer-driven to a large extent, Gottlieb said. Because theyre elected, they have to make their constituents happy. Weve seen a record number of firearms sold. And people come in to get permits to carry, and you want to be customer-service friendly, and you want to make it easier or you might not get re-elected. The number of concealed handgun permits soared from 4.6 million in 2007 to 12.8 million in 2015, according to the Crime Prevention Research Center. Those numbers match an evolution in the general publics attitude toward guns. Just 35 percent of respondents in an August 2000 Gallup poll said they felt safer with a gun in the house. That rose to 42 percent in 2004, 47 percent in 2006 and 63 percent in 2014. There is momentum in the country for expanding the right to carry, New York University Law Professor James Jacobs told FoxNews.com. But the people who are leading the charge on gun control, they say momentum is changing in their direction. There seems to be a real disconnect here in terms of peoples perceptions of what the trends are. That uncertainty of the publics attitude could be the reason for the mixed messages emanating from some police chiefs in big cities. Washington D.C. Chief of Police Cathy Lanier made a seemingly pro-Second Amendment statement when she was interviewed by 60 Minutes in November on the topic of what citizens can do during mass shootings. If youre in a position to try and take the gunman down, to take the gunman out, its the best option for saving lives before police can get there, she said. Still, at the time of the interview Lanier had approved just 48 concealed carry licenses during a years span and had rejected about 80 percent of all applicants. But Fordham law professor Nicholas Johnson views Laniers changing rhetoric as potentially significant. This is a policy question that has lots of other players involved, Johnson told FoxNews.com. You would suspect that what police chiefs say has to some degree been vetted by their political superiors. "I dont think this is a signal of an immediate sea change among big city politicos," Johnson added, "but I think its promising in terms of the recognition of the realities people are now coming to terms with. Police in North Carolina said they were investigating why a man stormed into his mother's salon and shot her in the face, critically wounding her. The suspect, 24-year-old Kevin Powell, faces charges including attempted murder, according to WTVD. Derema "Miss Dee" Burch, 44, was behind the counter at the D'Ambience Salon and Spa in Fayetteville, which she owned, when her son walked in and opened fire, police say. Friends say the gunman had "mental health issues," WTVD adds. He initially ran out of the salon but returned to see a customer tending to his mother, the station reports. The customer, Diondra McKenzie, said Powell was "just standing there watching me while I was on the ground with his mother, he wasn't trying to help me or anything, he was just standing." Paramedics airlifted his mother to a hospital at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, Fox 8 reports. Doctors listed her in critical but stable condition. Click for more from Fox 8. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder asked President Barack Obama Thursday for an emergency and major disaster declaration amid an ongoing crisis over drinking water in the city of Flint. Snyder's office confirmed in a statement late Thursday that it had asked for the declaration and was seeking additional federal aid for both individuals and public agencies involved in the effort to provide Flint residents with clean drinking water. Flint's tap water became contaminated with too much lead after the city switched its water supply in 2014 to save money while under state financial management. Local officials declared a public health emergency in October. Exposure to lead can cause behavior problems and learning disabilities in children. "We are utilizing all state resources to ensure Flint residents have access to clean and safe drinking water and today I am asking President Obama to provide additional resources as our recovery efforts continue," Snyder said in the statement. Snyder's request will be reviewed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which will advise the president on whether the declarations should be granted, the statement said. If it is approved, the individual assistance could include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, and the public assistance would help agencies such as city schools and the water system. For more than a year, water drawn from the Flint River leached lead from old pipes into homes after the city switched its drinking water. Flint has since returned to Detroit's system for its water, but officials remain concerned that damage to the pipes caused by the Flint River could allow them to continue leaching lead. Snyder declared an emergency last week and pledged this week that officials would contact every household in Flint to check whether residents have bottled water and a filter and want to be tested for lead exposure while his administration works on a long-term solution. On Tuesday, he activated the National Guard to help in distributing water, filters and other supplies and asked for help from FEMA in coordinating a recovery plan. FEMA has appointed a disaster recovery coordinator. U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, a Democrat who represents the Flint area, has consistently criticized Snyder's response to the issue and advocated for greater federal assistance. "It is the state's ultimate responsibility to act and make it right. Flint residents are the victims in this crisis and they deserve a more urgent response equal to the gravity of this crisis," he said in a statement earlier this week. The Associated Press contributed to this report. The Obama administrations announcement of a temporary freeze on new coal mining on federal land blew through the Powder River Basin like Wyoming's bitter winter wind. The Friday announcement was hardly unexpected, given the administration's so called "war on coal." But with beleaguered big coal poised to dig some of the biggest known deposits in America's top-producing state, hopes ran high - until they were dashed. The administration has chosen to pander to special interest groups and do their bidding, Colin Marshall, president and CEO of Cloud Peak Energy, told FoxNews.com after the announcement. Theres no sugar coating it. This is just another attempt to put another nail in the coffin of the industry. Travis Deti, Wyoming Mining Association The move was seen as just the latest in a line of anti-coal initiatives that have contributed to the crippling of the industry, which has also been hurt by falling oil and natural gas prices. Nowhere will the moratorium have a bigger effect than in the Powder River Basin. Mining companies have long paid huge fees for the right to operate on federal lands, and Cloud Peak and other companies were relishing the opportunity to work two mine sites in the region. The Powder River Basin is a geological treasure trove, with a trillion tons of coal running through the earth in 100-foot high ribbons. Federal authorities, including officials from the Environmental Protection Agency, had been considering whether to allow new leases for more than a year, and last summer held "listening sessions" in the area. Now, Marshall wonders if the feds bothered to hear about a ban's impact on workers, families and the local and state economies. We are disappointed that after a robust set of listening sessions on the coal leasing program last summer in which thousands of people across the West, from working class Americans to governors, very clearly explained how important the coal leasing program is to their well-being, Marshall said. Roughly 40 percent of the coal produced in the United States comes from federal lands. The vast majority of that mining on government land takes place in Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico. In total, Wyoming produces more than three times as much as the next-closest coal producing state, West Virginia. It's unclear what impact the moratorium will have on many coal companies given the declining domestic demand, coupled with the closure of numerous coal-fired power plants around the country. Mining companies have already stockpiled billions of tons of coal on existing leasesincluding Cloud Peak Energy. We urge Western lawmakers at the state and Congressional level to ensure a timely and legitimate review process by the Department of the Interior, Marshall said. [But] We do not believe this announcement will have any immediate impact on our operations, and we have strong reserves, including the Youngs Creek and Big Metal projects which are not impacted by todays announcement, to continue serving our customers. In a conference call on Friday, Department of the Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said that the recent decision is not a pause on coal production but rather a means for the government to have more time to study the benefits of coal and its impact on the environment. Jewell also said that the pause on new leases should not affect the countrys ability to meet production goals. Some in the industry near the Powder River Basin say otherwise. This is not about finding a solution thats best for everybody, Travis Deti, assistant director for the Wyoming Mining Association, told FoxNews.com. "Thats just lip service. This is just another attempt to keep coal in the ground. It was during the public hearings last year that the administration also set out to get feedback on the adequacy of the fees charged companies for coal mined on federal lands. The government collects a 12.5-percent royalty on the sale price of strip-mined coal. The rate was established in 1976. The money is then split between the federal government and the state where the coal was mined. Coal companies also pay a $3 fee annually for each acre of land leased. Government auditors have in the past questioned whether the rate provided an appropriate return to taxpayers. But coal companies say their profit margins are slim compared to what they fork over to the government. Cloud Peak Energy paid $354 million in taxes and royalties to federal, state and local governments in 2014," Marshall said. "For the same year, we paid an additional $69 million for leases for future production. For the same year, our profit was $79 million. Deti said the government is not really looking out for taxpayers so much as it is dealing a death blow to an industry that means everything in places like the Powder River Basin. Theres no sugar coating it," Deti said. "This is just another attempt to put another nail in the coffin of the industry. The Associated Press contributed to this story. The owners of an upstate New York wedding venue broke the law after refusing to host a lesbian wedding, a court decided Thursday. Robert and Cynthia Gifford cited their conservative Christian beliefs in refusing to hose the 2013 wedding of Melisa and Jennie McCarthy at Liberty Ridge Farm, north of Albany. They appealed a ruling from the states Division of Human Rights, asserting their rights to free speech and religious exerices, but the appealed failed and they were fined $13,000. The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court said the Giffords are free to express their religious beliefs but rejected their rights were being violated. The court ruled against the business owners 5-0. "The Giffords are free to adhere to and profess their religious beliefs that same-sex couples should not marry, but they must permit same-sex couples to marry on the premises if they choose to allow opposite-sex couples to do so," Judge Karen Peters' decision said. The Giffords were represented by an attorney for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian organization that says "a thriving culture upholds the value of life, marriage, and religious freedom." The attorney, Caleb Dalton, said on the organization's website that the court "should have rejected this unwarranted and unconstitutional government intrusion." He said an appeal would be considered. The New York Civil Liberties Union, which represented the McCarthys, said the ruling affirms that all state residents deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. The McCarthys married at another upstate farm. Gay marriage became legal in New York on July 24, 2011. It became legal nationwide on June 26, 2015, following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The farm announced in August 2014 it stopped hosting wedding ceremonies altogether, stemming from the lawsuit. The McCarthys approached the owners in 2012 about holding their nuptials at the farm, but were told they could only hold the reception there. The Giffords, who testified in 2013 they were each raised as Christians, one Baptist and one Catholic, acknowledged similar religious beliefs about marriage. "It's one man and one woman as in the Bible," Robert Gifford said. Cynthia Gifford said they welcome everyone and have had employees who are gay, but she acknowledged telling Melisa McCarthy in a phone call that there was "a little bit of a problem" with her inquiry about getting married there. "We don't hold same-sex marriages here at the farm," Gifford said in a recording of the phone call, recorded by Jennie McCarthy and played at the hearing. The couple, who now live in New Jersey, both testified that they had their hearts set on the farm wedding, that getting rejected by a business because of who they are was hurtful and it took them several months to find another rustic venue. "Our goal in this was to ensure this doesn't happen to somebody else," Jennie McCarthy said in 2013. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Cops arrested a 16-year-old accused of shooting two other teens near a New York City high school Wednesday, hitting one in the head and killing him. The shooting unfolded roughly a block from the Thomas Jefferson Educational Campus in Brooklyn. The 18-year-old shot in the head died Thursday morning, according to The New York Daily News. He was identified as Darnell Wilkerson, a graduate of that school. A 17-year-old took a bullet to the right arm and was recovering, investigators told WPIX. The suspect faces charges including murder and criminal use of a firearm. Wilkerson's mother told the Daily News her son was "caught up in senseless warfare." She did not identify herself. Two other people were arrested in connection with the shooting. Of the three in police custody, two have gang ties, sources told the newspaper. Wilkerson's relatives denied he was connected to any gangs. Fireworks at last nights FBN Republican presidential debate. Conflict between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump getting the most attention today, but sparks also flew between Rubio and Christie and Rubio and Cruz. Jeb Bush also got in a few good cracks. Cruz had strong answers to Trumps challenging whether he was a natural born citizen. Karen Tumulty and Philip Rucker write today in the Washington Post, The mutually beneficial campaign detente between Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) came to an end on the debate stage here Thursday. The two Republican presidential candidates, locked in a tight race to win the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses, argued over whether Cruz meets the constitutional requirements to serve as president and whether Trump is a trustworthy conservative or is tainted by what Cruz called New York values. The New York Times writes, For much of his career in Washington, Ted Cruz has been dismissed as a cartoonish sideshow -- an ostrich-boot-wearing ideologue who once delivered a sleep-inducing 21-hour monologue on the floor of the Senate reading from the children's story ''Green Eggs and Ham.'' A ''wacko bird,'' in the words of a Republican colleague, Senator John McCain of Arizona. On Thursday night that simplistic, superficial image was swept away. Patrick O'Connor, Janet Hook and Beth Reinhard write today in the Wall Street Journal, A clash between businessman Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz that has played out on the campaign trail in the past week boiled over Thursdaynight in the sixth Republican presidential debate. The two leading contenders for the GOP nomination engaged in a heated back-and-forth about Mr. Cruz's eligibility to run for president, the depth of Mr. Trump's conservatism and their relative standing in the polls heading into the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses. The long shadow of the Trump-Cruz rivalry was a measure of how much the GOP race has evolved since the first debate in August, when many Republicans viewed Mr. Trump as a short-lived sensation and Mr. Cruz as a longshot. Now they are the front-runners in a presidential contest that has left party officials and establishment candidates flummoxed over how to respond to the populist anti-Washington anger they have mobilized. Messrs. Trump and Cruz are first and second nationally as the preferred pick of 33% and 20% of Republican primary voters, respectively, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. New polling out of the WSJ and NBC News show Trump with a double digit lead. He gets 33% of GOP primary voters. Cruz gets 20%, Rubio gets 13% and Carson gets 12%. The unscientific but popular Drudge Report who won the debate poll had Trump and Cruz as 1 and 2. Lots of live events today. Rubio holding a rally in New Hampshire. Ben Carson has a meet and greet in South Carolina. Donald Trump has a rally at 10:30 in Iowa. Rubio has a town hall in New Hmapshrie at 12:15. Governor Kasich holds a town hall at 1pm. SC Senator Lindsay Graham has endorsed Jeb Bush. John Roberts. Also at 1pm, Bill Clinton campaigns for Hillary in Iowa. Hillary Clinton was on Rachel Maddow and got grilled about attacks on Bernie Sanders. Clinton said it was about substantive issues and not personal attacks. Maddow pushed back saying Clinton was casting aspersions on his character. Keep an eye on stocks today. China is now officially in Bear territory after steep declines. Chinese stocks fell more than three and a half percent. Oil now firmly below $30/barrel. It could be a bloodbath on Wall Street today. We also get reads on retails sales and consumer sentiment. The White House set today to announce a halt on new coal leases on federal land. Its yet another blow to the ailing Coal industry. The Michigan governor is asking for help with the water crisis in Flint. A hurricane in the middle of Winter in the Azores a Portuguese island chain. 947 miles from Portugal in the middle of the Atlantic. 100 mile an hour winds and 60 foot waves expected. Indonesia today says ISIS funded the terrorists who attacked a mall in Jakarta yesterday killing two civilians and five terrorists. Prosecutors have charged a third man with murder in connection with the slaying of an Indianapolis pastor's pregnant wife inside the couple's house. Prosecutors on Thursday added two counts of murder against 24-year-old Diano Gordon of Indianapolis in connection with the shooting death of 28-year-old Amanda Blackburn during a break-in. Two other Indianapolis men 18-year-old Larry Taylor Jr. and 21-year-old Jalen Watson also are charged with murder in the Nov. 10 slaying. All three men are being held at the Marion County Jail. Gordon earlier had been charged with burglary and theft in connection with two other break-ins that occurred just before the burglary at the Blackburn home. Court records don't list an attorney who might comment on Gordon's behalf. Republican front-runner Donald Trump XXXXXXXXXXX his attack of rival Ted Cruz Friday, calling him "strident" and labeling his remarks about "New York values" in the GOP debate "disgraceful." Appearing in an extended interview on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Trump said the Texas senator "hurt himself" in Thursday's debate with his sweeping remarks about the political ideologies of New Yorkers. Cruz said in the debate: "everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro- gay-marriage, focus around money and the media." His comments evoked a provocative, front-page response from the New York Daily News Friday telling Cruz to "go back to Canada," a reference to the senator's Canadian birth which Trump has raised as a potential barrier to his rival's right to run for president. At the debate, Trump countered with an emotional recounting of his hometown's response to the Sept. 11 attacks. "Y'know, (Cruz is) a good debater, but he's very strident, and a lot of people are not going to like that," said Trump. Protesters briefly interrupted Trump's appearance on the MSNBC show, which broadcasted live from Des Moines, Iowa, chanting, "Donald Trump. Stop the Hate!" More than two hours of prime-time argument Thursday presented voters with a sharp contrast to the optimistic vision of America that President Barack Obama painted in his State of the Union address earlier this week. The debate was one of two final opportunities for the candidates to lay out their visions for the country ahead of the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses. In Iowa, where polls indicate a narrowing race between Trump and Cruz, Trump released his second television ad on Friday, which marks a significant departure from the first one he released earlier this year. While that ad painted an alarming picture of a country under attack by jihadists and immigrants entering the country illegally, the new ad is much more traditional, featuring footage of Trump speaking at a recent rally in Lowell, Massachusetts. In the new ad, Trump runs through his central campaign platforms, including his vows to strengthen the country's borders, "fix" it's health care system and the military, and take better care of veterans. The ad will be airing in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, according to the campaign. The Trump campaign is also giving out free tickets to the new movie, "13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi." The campaign has rented a theater in Iowa, for the free screening on Friday. The film depicts the events of the September 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya that killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. It follows a group of ex-military security contractors trying to save American lives in a dusty and hostile Benghazi. Several GOP presidential candidates have slammed Clinton for her role before and after the attack in Benghazi, saying she knew from the start it was an act of terrorism. --------------- Bustos reported from Miami. Human traffickers are exploiting the U.S. visa system by forcing young women to pose as fiancees or family members of American gang members, who force them into a life of misery once here, according to a former top federal immigration official. Sold by their parents, lured by promises of wealth and fame or kidnapped, young women are being brought to U.S. soil in plain sight, and with federally approved paperwork, said Claude Arnold, retired special agent in charge for Immigration and Customs Enforcements Los Angeles bureau of Homeland Security Investigations. U.S. visas are being used to get trafficking victims into the country, Arnold said. Traffickers have brought victims over as their fiancee, or on visitor visas before the trafficker takes their passport and forces them to work in [brothels]. Traffickers have brought victims over as their fiancee, or on visitor visas before the trafficker takes their passport and forces them to work in [brothels]. Claude Arnold, retired ICE special special agent in charge A newly released audit by Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security confirms the U.S. government may have issued hundreds of visas to human traffickers, allowing them to legally bring their victims into the country. Data from 2005 to 2014 indicated that work and fiancee visas were the primary means by which 17 of 32 known traffickers brought victims into the United States, the IG audit said. The report blamed a critical lack of communication between ICE the agency responsible for rooting out abuse and criminality - and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, which screens applicants and issues visas. Much attention was brought to the visa systems vulnerability to terrorist infiltration following the Dec. 2 terror attack in San Bernardino, Calif., carried out by a radicalized U.S. citizen and the jihadist bride he brought in on a fiancee visa. The incident and other cases of radical Islamists entering the U.S. on student and work visas helped drive a still-raging debate on immigration. But Arnolds experience and the IG report suggest the lax visa system is facilitating a different kind of human suffering. Many victims are Latin American women brought by savvy street gangs who know how to manipulate the legal immigration system. In the Los Angeles area where Arnold spent much of his career, he investigated cases in which girls and women sometimes chained to beds in dank tenement rooms were forced to service clients while bodyguards stood watch. A very common threat, the traffickers tell them if they run away, they will hurt their family, or it can be more subtle, I will tell your family that youve been doing this, Arnold said. They control them through guilt and fear. Gang members also game the system to bring laborers to the U.S. on H-1B visas, non-immigrant documents that allow U.S. employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations. Once here, they are brokered to farms and restaurants, Arnold said. The kind of pay they are supposed to be getting and the kind of hours they are supposed to be working all changes when they arrive in the U.S., Arnold said. The recent audit blamed holes in the intelligence system and a lack of communication between government agencies responsible for investigating and prosecuting traffickers. For instance, when victims are rescued, their descriptions and accounts of the traffickers who brought them are not entered into government databases. A better system could ensure that the traffickers were red-flagged the next time they went through the system with fresh prey. Our review of USCIS case files identified instances where children who were sold, brought to the United States, and forced into involuntary servitude, named the perpetrator as well as other potential victims in their visa application, the audit said. Although this information was extremely important, it was not captured in the USCIS database. The lack of follow through leaves known and identified traffickers free to abuse other individuals, the report stated. Some 274 suspected human traffickers investigated by ICE successfully petitioned USCIS to bring 425 family members and fiances into the United States on visas, according to the report. Only a fraction of ICE human trafficking investigations end up netting suspects, the audit said, noting that although more than 1,000 investigations were initiated in 2013, fewer than 400 of the investigations for that same year resulted in convictions. In response to the critical audit, USCIS and ICE pledged to establish better communication and screening processes by the end of 2017. The audit was released just days after FoxNews.com reported foreign terrorists and spies are exploiting Americas visa system, using government-approved documents to come into the country legally as students, visitors or family members. Cops in New York City investigated a woman's claim that her eHarmony date raped her at gunpoint in a tunnel underneath the busy Port Authority Bus Terminal, several news agencies reported Friday. There was no immediate response from the online dating site. Police say the alleged attack unfolded on Monday evening. The man identified himself online as Jeffrey Kent, and agreed to meet the woman at Port Authority after she took a bus into the city, cops say. She traveled to New York from Virginia, WPIX reports. Once they met face-to-face, the man suggested they immediately go to a hotel, and the woman refused, a source told The New York Post. That's when the woman claims he pointed a gun at her, forced her into what she described as an abandoned train tunnel, and raped her, sources tell the newspaper. Police did not reveal whether they had a suspect in custody. Doctors at Mount Sinai Roosevelt Hospital reportedly treated the woman after the alleged attack. Click for more from The New York Post. Puerto Rico has invested $8 million in an online educational program aimed at boosting public school curriculums in the U.S. territory. Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla said Thursday that the program is available 24 hours a day and will be offered at 700 schools. He said federal grants helped fund the program. Education officials have said the program aims to stimulate learning and crack down on the island's high level of desertion. The announcement comes as a worsening economic crisis has forced Puerto Rico to close dozens of public schools amid an increase in people migrating to the U.S. mainland. Through six years without a major attack, Indonesia's confidence had been growing: It was right on top of any threat from Islamic militants. This week, that notion was punctured. Reality came on Thursday in the form of a bold attack in the middle of Jakarta, the capital. The style of the attack, and the people who appear to be behind it, suggest that remnants of the networks responsible for the notorious 2002 Bali bombings and later attacks are trying to regroup under the banner of the Islamic State group. The daylight attack by suicide bombers and gunmen targeted a Starbucks and a traffic police post in a busy commercial district of Jakarta frequented by locals and foreigners. Two civilians, one an Indonesian and the other a Canadian, were killed along with five attackers. Some 20 people were injured. There had been warning signs of a possible emerging threat for months, including government acknowledgement that hundreds of Indonesians had traveled to Syria to fight for the IS group. At the same time, pro-IS rallies in Indonesia were attracting small crowds. Some terror experts say an IS network was developing in the suburbs of Jakarta while counterterrorism efforts were focused on hunting down Indonesia's most wanted militant in far-off Sulawesi. The blog of Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian militant in Syria, urged his Indonesian followers to study the methods of the Paris attackers who killed 130 people in November. Police quickly tied the IS group to Thursday's attack, labeling Bahrun Naim as its instigator and funder, but they've given scant details beyond saying that an IS flag was found in one attacker's home. Supporters of Islamic State claimed responsibility online. Experts say that while it's difficult to know how much of a foothold IS has established in Indonesia, the attack achieved two things: It showed that domestic militant groups are still capable of attacks despite being fragmented by the government's counterterrorism campaign, and gave at least the impression that IS now has the ability to launch attacks in Southeast Asia. Both IS and any affiliate "have an interest in being seen as part of a larger network because it fits with their scare tactics," even if they are tied only by sympathies, said Carool Kersten, an expert in Islam at King's College London. In Western capitals, Indonesia has long been a kind of poster child for progress: a developing nation with the world's largest Muslim population that has embraced both democracy and moderate Islam. Its reputation for tolerance took a battering from the Bali bombing that killed 202 people, mostly foreigners, and from other high-profile attacks on Western targets such as hotels by Jemaah Islamiyah militants who wanted to replace civilian government with a caliphate. But the violence also unleashed a sustained government effort aided by the U.S. and Australia to break up militant cells, which produced hundreds of arrests and the killings of key figures with the knowhow to mastermind devastating attacks. The atomization of militant networks was evident in Thursday's attack, with its low death toll, basic weapons and unsophisticated execution that betrayed limited resources and capacity. "It was a simple attack. Their arms were pretty limited," said Scott Stewart, a tactical analysis expert at Strafor, a global intelligence and advisory firm. The main impact, he said, is from the "hype and fear that it conjures." Stewart considers the association with IS a "rebranding" effort by militants who previously identified with al-Qaida, rather than a sign of a new and rising radical movement. He said Indonesia will continue to see a persistent and low-level threat of attacks, a situation not different from the past six years, when there were no major attacks but several thwarted plots. "It's basically the same people," he said. National police chief Gen. Badrodin said one of the men killed, known as Sunakim, was previously sentenced to seven years prison for his involvement in Jemaah Islamiyah-orchestrated military-style training in Indonesia's Aceh province. He was released early. Still, the IS link in Indonesia is likely to raise concern in other Southeast Asian nations, particularly Singapore and Malaysia, which have both thwarted plots. Along with Indonesia, they recently agreed to increase their joint efforts to combat radicalism and share intelligence. Some Malaysians are also believed to have traveled to Syria to join IS. Southeast Asia's fairly open societies, easy travel and Muslim-majority populations in Indonesia and Malaysia make it vulnerable, said Vikram Singh, a former Obama administration defense official on South and Southeast Asia. The Jakarta attack, following the extremist assaults in San Bernardino, Paris and Istanbul, suggests that the ability of IS to direct or inspire attacks around the world is building, he said. "They are sending the message that we are not going to be just a Syria-Iraq issue. We're going to reach far," Singh said. ___ Associated Press writers Danica Kirka in London and Matthew Pennington in Washington contributed to this report. Burkina Faso's military tribunal has issued an arrest warrant for Ivory Coast's parliamentary speaker for his alleged role in a short-lived coup in September, an official said Friday. The warrant against speaker Guillaume Soro was issued through Interpol and the foreign ministry, according to prosecutor Col. Sita Sangare. Soro allegedly offered to give support to coup leaders in phone calls to Burkina Faso's former foreign affairs minister Djibril Bassole, Sangare said, adding that the calls will be used as part of the prosecution. The calls, however, have not yet been authenticated. Bassole was arrested and jailed at the end of September on accusations that he helped support coup leader Col. Gilbert Diendere, who is also now jailed. Bassole has denied the allegations. Diendere has been charged with crimes against humanity for the deaths of 15 people and the wounding of about 250 others around the coup attempt. Bassole was a high-ranking minister under former Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore, who is now in exile in Ivory Coast after being ousted in a popular uprising in October 2014. There is also an international arrest warrant out for Compaore for the death of Burkina Faso's ex-revolutionary president, Thomas Sankara, who was killed in 1987. Diendere is also charged with complicity in that assassination. The September coup by the presidential guard lasted only a week, after which the guard was disbanded. The transitional government returned to power until Burkina Faso's November election ushered in new leaders. The family of an American contractor, who was found dead in Saudi Arabia a year ago, still doesnt buy the police account indicating he had killed himself and they fear the case has been closed. Christopher Cramer, a New Hampshire native, was found dead on Jan. 15, 2015, beneath a third-floor balcony of the Sahara Makarin Hotel in Tabuk. Cramer had texted a friend earlier that day saying he thought he was in trouble and to contact the State Department immediately. Cramer was in the Kingdom to work on a missile system sold by his New Hampshire-based employer, Advance Defense Systems of Kollsman. In June of last year, Fox News contributor and former New York City chief medical examiner Dr. Michael Baden said his analysis differed from the Saudi ruling that Cramer had leapt from the window of his hotel room to his death. He has injuries that are all over his body," said Baden, who conducted the autopsy in March 2015 on behalf of Cramer's family and issued his final report in June. "It should have been investigated as a homicide. Cramer's sister, Jennifer Cramer Kelley, obtained a police report with the help of the State Department. It said the window was about 30 feet off the ground. "My brother was broken from head to toe," said Kelley, of Nashua. "That doesn't happen at that height." Shad Smith, Cramers friend in New Hampshire who received the text, told the Associated Press that by the time he called the State Department and talked to another friend who had missed several phone calls from Cramer, it was too late. "It doesn't make a lot of sense on the surface," Smith said of the text. "He obviously didn't trust whoever he was with, and didn't trust local support." Cramer was working for Merrimack-based Kollsman Inc. a subsidiary of Elbit Systems of America, which also has branches in Israel to help the Saudis with thermal optical devices, part of the country's missile systems. It was his first trip there; he had visited Israel at least twice. On Jan. 10, 2015, he posted on Facebook that he helped design the electronics for an upgrade to the U.S.-made TOW missile launch system. "I'm here to assist the Saudi ground forces division with the ones they recently purchased from us," he wrote, supervising live-fire demonstrations. The next day, he posted that he "had lunch in a tent with the troops and if all goes well, we'll be making noise tomorrow." U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry in March asking for an investigation, and U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte and U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster had been in touch with the Cramer family, Kollsman and the State Department. Despite the findings, U.S. authorities cannot conduct a murder investigation without permission from the Kingdom. The U.S. government cannot investigate an incident overseas without the permission of the host government," State Department spokeswoman Katherine Pfaff told FoxNews.com in June 2015. "We have offered our assistance to the host government. At this time, we have not received a request from the Saudi authorities for assistance. Kelley was able to bury her brother in New Hampshire. She received two boxes of his belongings, including a bloody watch, that came from Israel. She turned them over to Baden for analysis. "There's still so many unanswered questions," she said. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Friends and family of an American woman killed in her Florence apartment gathered Friday for a funeral and burial in her adopted Tuscan homeland as authorities prepared to present their case to a judge against the prime suspect in her slaying. Friends carrying red, white and pink roses joined relatives of Ashley Olsen, 35, and her beloved beagle Scout for the funeral inside the Santo Spirito basilica. Olsen's boyfriend, Federico Fiorentini, entered the basilica holding a bouquet of flowers and held Scout on his lap during the service. Fiorentini, a local artist, discovered Olsen's body Jan. 9 after he asked her landlord to let him into the apartment because he hadn't heard from her in several days. Prosecutors say she was killed a day earlier by a Senegalese man she met at a disco, after a night of cocaine-use and sex followed by a fight. The suspect, Cheik Tidiane Diaw, acknowledged to investigators that he had pushed Olsen twice to the ground after she pushed him in an attempt to get him to leave her apartment. But he said he never strangled her and left her alive on her bed, according to his lawyer, Antonio Voce. In his funeral homily, Monsignor Giovanni Scanavino recalled Olsen's youthful smile and called her death an "irreparable destruction." But he also condemned her community for what he said was its failure to accompany her in friendship and help her resist the "deadly tangle of alcohol and drugs." "We have to be more courageous, have bigger dreams to love one another more and support one another in tough times," he said in Italian. Olsen, of Summer Haven, Florida, was being buried in a Florentine cemetery. Family attorney Maria Gallo said because of the ongoing murder investigation, Olsen's remains could neither be cremated nor returned to the United States for burial. Prosecutors on Thursday arrested Diaw, 27, after DNA analysis on a condom and cigarette butt placed him at Olsen's apartment. He also had her cell phone. Witnesses said the two had met earlier in the evening at a Florence disco and had gone to her apartment together. A judge on Saturday is expected to weigh the prosecutors' case and decide whether to confirm his arrest. While prosecutors have accused him of aggravated homicide, he has not yet been charged. In a statement issued Friday, Olsen's parents, Paula and Walter Olsen, thanked Italian authorities "for their swift apprehension of the perpetrator." "Our deepest affections go to Ashley's many friends and to the community of San Frediano that she dearly loved," they added, referring to the Florence neighborhood where Olsen lived. Olsen's death has unnerved Florence's tight-knit expat community as well as the locals who live near Santo Spirito, a favorite hang-out spot for Olsen, her friends and Scout. "She was a presence in Santo Spirito, more or less everyone knew her," said resident Andrea Alvini, at the newspaper stand on the piazza corner. "I am honestly very sorry." Indonesian police on Friday arrested three men on suspicion of links to the brazen attacks in the heart of the country's capital, and said they recovered a flag of the Islamic State group from the home of one of the attackers. The discovery of the flag bolsters authorities' claim that the attack Thursday was carried out by the Islamic State group, which controls territory in Syria and Iraq and whose ambition to create an Islamic caliphate has attracted 30,000 foreign fighters from around the world, including a few hundred Indonesians and Malaysians. The arrests of the three took place at dawn at their homes in Depok on the outskirts of Jakarta, police said in a text message, citing Col. Khrisna Murti, director of criminal investigations who led the raid. It said they were arrested for suspected links to the attackers. MetroTV broadcast footage of the handcuffed men being escorted by police. Five men attacked a Starbucks cafe and a traffic police booth with hand-made bombs, guns and suicide belts Thursday, killing two people a Canadian and an Indonesian and injuring 20. The attackers were killed subsequently, either by their suicide vests or by police. National police spokesman Maj. Gen. Anton Charliyan told reporters a black IS flag was found in the home of one of the attackers and police believe they have established their identities. He says two of the five men were previously convicted and imprisoned for terrorism offenses. The IS link, if proved, poses a grave challenge to Indonesian security forces because until now the group was known only to have sympathizers with no active cells capable of planning and carrying out such an attack. In recent years Indonesian anti-terror forces had successfully stamped out another extremist group known as Jemaah Islamiyah. It was responsible for several attacks in Indonesia, including the 2002 bombings of bars in Bali, which left 202 people dead, as well as two hotel bombings in Jakarta in 2009 that killed seven people. Terrorism experts say IS supporters in Indonesia are drawn from the remnants of Jemaah Islamiyah. A few hundred Indonesians are known to have traveled to Syria to join the IS. Few have come back. Still, police believe that an Indonesian IS fighter, Bahrum Naim, who is in Syria may have inspired and instigated the Jakarta attack. Jakarta residents were shaken by Thursday's events but refused to be cowed. The area near the Starbucks cafe remained cordoned off with a highly visible police presence. Onlookers and journalists lingered, with some people leaving flowers and messages of support. A large screen atop the building that houses the Starbucks displayed messages that said "#prayforjakarta" and "Indonesia Unite." Newspapers carried bold front-page headlines declaring the country was united in condemnation of the attack, which was the first in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority nation, since the hotel bombings in 2009. Risti Amelia, an accountant at a company near the Starbucks said she was "still shaking and weak" when she returned to her office Friday. But because staff remained emotional, the company decided to send workers home, she said. Supporters of the Islamic State group circulated a claim of responsibility for the attack on Twitter late Thursday. The message said attackers carried out the Jakarta assault and had planted several bombs with timers. It differed from Indonesian police on the number of attackers, saying there were four. The statement could not be independently verified by The Associated Press, though it resembled previous claims made by the group. Taufik Andri, a terrorist analyst, said although the attack ended swiftly and badly for the attackers, their aim was to show their presence and ability. "Their main aim was just to give impression that ISIS' supporters here are able to do what was done in Paris. It was just a Paris-inspired attack without being well prepared," he told The Associated Press. Those attacks in November killed 130 people. Marcos Pizza President/COO Conducts Covert Company Mission on CBS Hit Series Undercover Boss New Episode of Emmy Award-Winning CBS Reality Series to Air 8 pm EST, Friday January 29, 2016 January 15, 2016 // Franchising.com // TOLEDO, Ohio Marcos Pizza, the nations fastest-growing pizza franchise with nearly 700 locations in 35 states, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico and India, announced today that President and Chief Operating Officer Bryon Stephens will be featured on CBS award-winning series UNDERCOVER BOSS. Stephens undercover experience which he described as eye-opening provided new insights that resulted in meaningful changes for the brand and its employees. The Marcos Pizza episode will air on the CBS Television Network at 8 pm/7c, Friday, January 29. During the episode, Marcos Pizza will be hosting a live chat on Twitter via @MarcosPizza and will respond in real-time to any conversations using #UndercoverBoss. In addition, starting January 21, 2016 until the airing of the episode, Marcos Pizza locations will offer an Undercover Deal in which consumers can join the Marcos Pizza e-club to unlock a secret promotion. Our mission is for Marcos Pizza to be the pizza of choice, the employer of choice and the business partner of choice, Stephens said. Everything we do revolves around that mission. Being on UNDERCOVER BOSS provided a golden opportunity to get an inside look from the perspective of the employee, the franchisee and the customer. The discoveries I made during the journey were eye-opening. Marcos Pizza, the only franchise pizza brand in America founded by a native Italian, added 113 new locations in 2015 alone. On average, one new Marcos Pizza opens every third day, setting the company on track to have 1,000 locations open and operating by the end of 2017. On the episode, Stephens, inconspicuously disguised as a bearded, middle-aged man named Jay trying to map out his future career, worked as a Marcos pizza delivery driver, cashier, pizza maker, and even loading trucks late-night at the companys distribution center in Toledo, OH. Along the way, he gets a first-hand look at the business models strengths and flaws, as well as the personal and professional struggles of employees and franchisees. As a result of the Undercover Boss journey, Stephens instituted new policies at the company, including a requirement that all corporate office staff work at least one day a year at a Marcos store to keep in touch with what its like to be a front-line employee. UNDERCOVER BOSS is a two-time Emmy Award-winning reality series that follows high-level executives as they slip anonymously into the rank-and-file of their own organizations. Each week, a different leader will sacrifice the comfort of their corner office for an undercover mission to examine the inner workings of their operation. "We are opening new stores at a fast pace, Stephens said. Going undercover afforded me the unprecedented opportunity to expose issues and address them so that we can continue to grow smart. I also came away from this journey with an indelible sense of pride for our employees on the front lines. When it boils down to it, its about our product and the hardworking people behind it. About Marcos Pizza Headquartered in Toledo, Ohio, Marcos Pizza is the fastest-growing pizza company in the United States (based on the number of stores signed into development since 2007). Marcos was founded in 1978 by Italian born, Pasquale (Pat) Giammarco and thrives by making Italian Pizza with fresh ingredients. The company has grown from its roots as a beloved Ohio brand to operate more than 650 stores in 35 states, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico and India. To inquire about franchise opportunities with Marcos Pizza visit marcosfranchising.com. SOURCE Marcos Pizza Contact: Debra Vilchis Fishman Public Relations 847-945-1300 dvilchis@fishmanpr.com ### Add to Request List Added Request Information Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus Pet Supplies Plus Ranked in Entrepreneurs Esteemed 37th Annual Franchise 500 Pet Retail Franchise Ranks No. 200 Among the Franchise Elite January 15, 2016 // Franchising.com // Livonia, Michigan Pet Supplies Plus was recently ranked at 200 in Entrepreneur magazines Franchise 500. With world-wide recognition by entrepreneurs and franchisors as a top competitive tool of measurement, the Franchise 500 commends Pet Supplies Plus for its exceptional performance in areas including financial strength and stability, growth rate, and system size. This ranking exemplifies the success we have achieved in 2015. As the nations largest pet franchise with more than 330 locations in 26 states, we are honored to be ranked in the Top 500 by Entrepreneur, said David Leonardo, Senior Vice President - Franchising. We look forward to building on our accelerated momentum by opening more than 30 new locations and expanding into new territories in 2016, including the California market. Pet Supplies Plus is a stand-out in the fast-growing pet retail sector. Offering a wide selection of food, toys and pet products including natural foods, and an extensive assortment of Made-in-the USA pet consumables, the stores culture is focused on making it easier to get better products for pets. With 62 percent of Americans serving as pet owners, the pet care industry currently accounts for more than $60 billion in annual consumer spending, according to the American Pet Products Association. The strong general consumer appeal combined with the proven Pet Supplies Plus operating model, creates a unique investment opportunity for single and multi-unit franchise partners. The 27-year-old pet retailer signed a total of 18 franchise deals for 26 units in 2015. Every year, the Franchise 500 presents us with an incredible opportunity to share data-driven insight into the trends and strategies in the franchise world, says Amy Cosper, VP and editor in chief of Entrepreneur. More importantly, it gives us the honor of celebrating its leaders and allows us to spotlight an overwhelming number of opportunities available to entrepreneurs. The franchises distinguished on this list represent strength in business showcasing their ability to be nimble and emerge in a changing marketplace. We are excited to recognize these deserving companies and thank them for the many ways they contribute to the business community. The rankings for all 500 companies are determined using an exclusive formula that takes into account objective and quantifiable factors. An independent CPA analyzes all financial data. The most important factors include financial strength and stability, growth rate and size of the system. All franchises are given a cumulative score, and the 500 franchises with the highest cumulative scores become the Franchise 500 in ranking order. Over its 37 years in existence, the Franchise 500 has become both a dominant competitive measure for franchisors and a primary research tool for entrepreneurs. Pet Supplies Plus position on the ranking reinforces its strength in the industry. To view Pet Supplies Plus in the full ranking, visit www.entrepreneur.com/franchise500. Results can also be seen in the January issue of Entrepreneur available now on newsstands. About Pet Supplies Plus With more than 330 locations in 26 states, Pet Supplies Plus has earned the reputation as Americas Favorite Neighborhood Pet Store by offering a wide array of pet food, pet products, grooming services and animal expertise in a welcoming environment. With a friendly, pet-centered culture, where store managers and associates actually know the names of hundreds of their pet customers and their pet parents, each Pet Supplies Plus is large enough to house a broad selection of food and equipment, yet small enough to still feel neighborly. Headquartered in Livonia, MI., Pet Supplies Plus earned its success by understanding the unique bond between humans and their pets, while championing the conviction that People Dont Own Pets, Pets Own People. Pet Supplies Plus is ranked in Entrepreneur magazines Annual Franchise 500 list as the Top Full-Service Pet Supplies Franchise for its exceptional performance in areas including financial strength and stability, growth rate, and system size. For more information visit www.petsuppliesplus.com/franchise. SOURCE Pet Supplies Plus Media Contact: Lindsey Warriner Fishman Public Relations 847.945.1300 lwarriner@fishmanpr.com ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus Pollo Tropical Continues DFW Expansion with 13th and 14th Area Openings January 15, 2016 // Franchising.com // DALLAS Pollo Tropical, the fast casual restaurant known for its citrus-marinated, flame-grilled chicken and comfort food gone Caribbean sides like corn souffle and balsamic tomatoes, further expands its presence to 14 locations in the DFW-area. The company will bring its signature bright tropical blue Caribbean-style restaurants to Richardson and Southlake in the new year. Richardson: Friday, Jan. 22, at 106 W. Campbell Road Southlake: Saturday, Feb. 20 at 2640 Southlake Boulevard Each grand opening celebration kicks off at 10:00 a.m. with the local chambers of commerce and Pollo Tropical representatives. Doors open at 10:30 a.m. and the first 100 guests in line will receive a free quarter chicken meal with rice and beans and will be entered into a raffle for the grand prize of Free Chicken for a Year.* From 12 to 5 p.m. opening day guests will be eligible to win a $300 Visa gift card and free meal giveaways. Weve opened 14 restaurants in the DFW area in under two years, and we plan continued expansion throughout 2016 as the North Texas community embraces our island-style food that has brought a fresh, unique option to the local fast casual dining scene, said Pollo Tropical Chief Operating Officer Danny Meisenheimer. We invite all of our new neighbors in Richardson and Southlake to join us at the grand opening celebrations for food and fun. The 3,700-square-foot restaurants will be open from 10:30 a.m. to midnight daily, and will feature indoor and outdoor seating for more than 90 guests, with limited table service and a convenient drive-thru. Guests can receive a coupon for either a buy one, get one free small TropiChop or $3 off a family meal by signing up for the Pollo Reward$ loyalty program. The restaurant is actively recruiting for all positions and plans to hire more than 40 hourly team members. Applications are being accepted at http://pollotropical.com/careers/job-postings/. *Complete details, including contest rules, odds of winning and eligibility can be found at: www.pollotropical.com. About Pollo Tropical Pollo Tropical, a subsidiary of Fiesta Restaurant Group, Inc. is a Caribbean-inspired fast casual concept known for its fresh, flame-grilled chicken marinated in a proprietary blend of tropical fruit juices and spices. Other craveable island favorites include Mojo Roast Pork and made-from-scratch sides including rice, beans, yuca with garlic sauce, sweet plantains and more. Menu items like the Tropical Citrus Chicken Salad, Guava BBQ Pork Sandwich and Create Your Own TropiChops can be customized with 10 zesty tropical signature sauces on Pollo Tropicals famous Saucing Island. Founded in 1988, the Miami-based company currently owns and operates more than 150 locations in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Texas, plus licensed restaurants on college campuses and franchised locations throughout the Caribbean, Central America, South America and Puerto Rico. For more information, visit Pollo Tropicals website at www.pollotropical.com. About Fiesta Restaurant Group, Inc. Fiesta Restaurant Group, Inc., owns, operates and franchises Pollo Tropical, Taco Cabana and Cabana Grill restaurant brands. The brands specialize in the operation of fast casual, ethnic restaurants that offer distinct and unique flavors with broad appeal at a compelling value. The brands feature made-from-scratch cooking, fresh salsa bars, drive-thru service and catering. For more information about Fiesta Restaurant Group, Inc., visit the corporate website at www.frgi.com. SOURCE Pollo Tropical Media Contacts: Kerrie Sparks Kerrie@spmcommunications.com 214-379-7000 Lainie Harber Lainie@spmcommunications.com 214-379-7000 ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus Primed for Expansion: The Lifeologie Institute Turns to Franchising Disrupting the Industry with its Innovative, Collaborative Approach to Psychotherapy, the Lifeologie Institute Seeks Franchise Partners to Aid National Expansion Efforts January 15, 2016 // Franchising.com // DALLAS Nearly one in five Americans experience mental health and relationship issues every year, yet available treatment options have been slow to adapt or encourage collaborative and client-centered care. Recognizing this void over the past decade, The Lifeologie Institute has been breathing new life into the psychotherapy field and is charging onto the national stage with franchise expansion. Transforming the perception that therapists are solitary and relegated to selling their time, The Lifeologie Institute is the only counseling franchise that offers a collaborative and creative approach to client care along with a proven business model, allowing therapists to become business-owners with equity in their own careers. Having already impacted tens of thousands of families in its four offices throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth market, the company is ready to empower other clinicians to help hundreds of thousands more by growing through franchising. Lifeologie expects to sign its first franchise agreements in early 2016. The need for effective mental health treatment is greater than ever, but the old way of running a practice is no longer effective. We see a lot of clients come to us after years of bad therapy sessions, said Melanie Wells, founder and Clinical Director at The Lifeologie Institute. The Lifeologie Institute is providing the next step in treating mental health and relationship issues with multi-specialty, collaborative care in a comfortable, client-centered environment. One of the reasons we have been so successful with this type of business model is that our therapists take time to understand the problem and collaborate with other therapists to find creative solutions to stuck problems. After several years working in conventional counseling practices, Wells noticed that practices isolated both therapists and clients alike. There was little collaboration between therapists creating a solitary work environment for therapists that led to ineffective, incomplete care for clients. She founded the LifeWorks Group in 1999 to bring a fresh approach to both problems. Wells brought many specialties under one roof, allowing therapists to collaborate on cases and work as a team. Now known as the Lifeologie Institute, each location serves as a training facility where supervisors work together, training graduate-level and post-graduate interns in this unique, multiple disciplinary approach. Because of its innovative work as a training facility, Lifeologie is able to offer a wide range of fee options based on experience level, affording more individuals and families the ability to access the care they need. In addition to being the first franchise of its kind in the industry, the Lifeologie Institute has the added advantage of offering potential investors a low-cost investment as well as a proven business model with the marketing machine, back-office systems and ongoing support in place to help franchisees succeed. The franchise opportunity is ideal for experienced therapists and other mental health and wellness clinicians ready to open their own practice and start generating revenue, as well as business-savvy entrepreneurs interested in joining a franchise with long-term growth potential. We understand the industry and the components that make a successful psychotherapy practice. With our focus on franchise expansion, we are excited to connect with like-minded therapists and entrepreneurs that are ready to grow a business while helping others, added Lifeologie franchisings co-founder Deanne Moore. Beyond its collaborative nature, the Lifeologie Institute is always on the forefront of creative treatment options, namely psychotherapeutic yoga. The technique involves yoga poses as well as breathing techniques to help create lasting change in brain physiology, effectively treating a wide variety of complicated diagnoses. The company launched the Lifeologie Institute School for Psychotherapeutic Yoga (LISPY) early this year. For more information about The Lifeologie Institute franchise opportunity, call (214) 357-4001 or visit http://lifeologiefranchising.com/. About The Lifeologie Institute Lifeologie opened its doors in Dallas, Texas in 1999, becoming the first practice to offer clients a collaborative community of therapists who find creative solutions to stuck problems. The company began franchising in 2015 as the Lifeologie Institute under the direction of founders, Melanie Wells, LPC, LMFT and Deanne Moore, LPC, LMFT. Lifeologie offers a wide range of fee options and flexible scheduling in a casual, collaborative, client-centered environment. In addition to offering optimal client care in multiple specialty areas, the Lifeologie Institute serves as a training facility where LPC and LMFT approved supervisors work together to train licensed professional counselors (LPCs), licensed marriage and family therapists (LMFTs) and licensed chemical dependency counselors (LCDCs), as well as graduate level student interns working toward their masters in counseling. For more information, visit http://wefixbrains.com. SOURCE The Lifeologie Institute Media Contact: Anne Whealdon (O) 847.945.1300, ext. 232 ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus Schlotzskys Opens New Location in Jacksonville, Texas Popular Austin-Inspired Quick Service Casual Restaurant Rolls Out New Wireless Charging Stations for Guests, Starting in Jacksonville January 15, 2016 // Franchising.com // HOUSTON, Texas Schlotzskys, home of The Original oven-baked sandwich and famous Fresh-from-Scratch buns, is opening their newest location on Thursday, January 21, at 1664 South Jackson Street, Jacksonville, Texas 75766. This new location will be one of the first Schlotzskys to have wireless charging stations for guests, an offering that the brand will now roll out in all new and remodeled restaurants across the country. With this offering, Schlotzskys will be the first fast casual restaurant chain to introduce wireless charging stations at the national system-wide level. The Jacksonville Schlotzskys will kick off its grand opening at 9 a.m., with a day of fun-filled events including a prize wheel, giveaways and more. Schlotzskys will reward the first 100 guests who purchase a CinnaPack take-home pack of six Cinnabon Classic rolls with one free small sandwich every week for a year. Plus, guests who download the Lotz4Me rewards app on their smartphone can receive a free small sandwich with the purchase of chips or medium drink. Additionally, there will be a ribbon cutting for the new location with the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, January 20, the day before the grand opening. The Jacksonville location is owned and operated by Bob and Stacy Hurst, who also own a Schlotzskys in Athens, Texas. The Hursts plan to open four additional locations in East Texas in the future. Schlotzskys already has an incredibly loyal following in Texas and we look forward to bringing our quality, handcrafted food and spirit of originality to Jacksonville, said Hurst. We are equally thrilled about being one of the first to offer the new Juice Bar so our guests can wirelessly recharge their mobile devices while they refuel on one of our signature sandwiches, pizzas, flatbreads, salads or more. The new wireless charging stations, officially called Juice Bars, will consist of a colorful stool-height table where charging stations will be embedded, along with stools for guests to relax while they recharge. Guests who have devices (including phones, tablets and laptops) equipped with wireless charging capabilities will be able to simply lay them on top of the table to charge their batteries. For guests whose devices dont have this technology, each location will also offer adaptors that guests can plug into their device to allow them to charge wirelessly. The stations will have cords for traditional charging as well. The Juice Bars will be included in all new Schlotzskys locations following the Jacksonville opening, as well as added to all existing locations that undergo a renovation. Schlotzskys offers more than 15 different signature sandwiches served on its legendary Fresh-from-Scratch oven-baked sourdough buns, as well as gourmet pizzas built upon its unique sourdough crust, artisan flatbreads, freshly made-to-order tossed salads, a variety of savory soups and delectable desserts, including a Cinnabon Express bakery where guests can enjoy a number of warm, homemade treats, including the Cinnabon Classic Roll, and CinnaPack take-home packs. From lunch boxes to party trays, catering options are available for meetings, community events, family gatherings and more all prepared with your Schlotzskys favorites. The new Jacksonville restaurants hours will be 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. all week long. To reach the restaurant, call 903-339-3090. About Schlotzskys Since 1971, Schlotzsky's has been the home of The Original oven-baked sandwich. The menu has evolved with guests tastes to include the highest quality hot delicious sandwiches on its legendary Fresh-from-Scratch oven-baked sourdough buns, gourmet pizzas, Artisan flatbreads, fresh made-to-order salads, savory soups and delicious Cinnabon treats at co-branded locations. With more than 350 locations across the nation, Schlotzsky's is the fast-casual choice for a quick, healthful, and fresh dining experience. About FOCUS Brands Inc. Atlanta-based FOCUS Brands Inc. is the franchisor and operator of over 4,000 ice cream shoppes, bakeries, restaurants and cafes in the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and 60 foreign countries under the brand names Carvel, Cinnabon, Schlotzskys, Moes Southwest Grill, Auntie Annes and McAlisters Deli, as well as Seattles Best Coffee on certain military bases and in certain international markets. Please visit www.focusbrands.com to learn more. SOURCE Schlotzskys Contact: Anna Stock-Matthews Account Manager annas@allisonpr.com O: 646.428.0635 M: 510.502.9804 ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus Tampa Bay Dale Carnegie Franchisee Ranked Best in the Training Business Tampa, FL - January 14, 2016 - (PR.com) - Dale Carnegie Training has recognized Rick J. Gallegos & Associates, Inc.s outstanding professional performance for 2015 with the organizations Millennium Club Award. The award was given at their Annual Convention in Scottsdale, Arizona. Recipients include franchises with the highest quality, growth and market penetration for fiscal 2014-2015. Dale Carnegie Tampa Bay was also awarded The Silver Award Highest Growth Franchise in the US & Canada. This is the sixth year they have been honored with the Millennium Club Award. "We set our vision early in the year to be the best at what we do. Every one of our consultants, trainers and staff over achieved and I could not be prouder of our recognition," said Gallegos, President and CEO. Gallegos, an expert in Leadership, Sales Management and Selling strategies, consults with Tampa Bay based organizations. Their mission is to equip organizations with improved business strategies to help them gain higher performance. Dale Carnegie Training helps their clients to achieve their potential through developing their most important asset, people. Nearly 400 Dale Carnegie Training associates and trainers from around the world attended the 69th annual national convention in Scottsdale, AZ. Dale Carnegie Training recognizes its franchisees in several categories, including The Millennium Club, Top Consultant and Top Instructor Awards. The awards are given in the spirit of the Dale Carnegie Training culture, promoting professional growth and dynamic interpersonal and relationship building skills. About Dale Carnegie Training Founded in 1912, Dale Carnegie Training has more than 8 million graduates worldwide, and celebrated 102 years of business success this year. The companys portfolio includes seminars and courses on communication, selling, leadership, management, and customer service. Dale Carnegie Training also provides customized programs to meet specific needs of corporate clients along with Live on Line digital programs. Dale Carnegie Training has offices in the 50 U.S. states and over 65 countries worldwide. How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegies groundbreaking self-development book, remains one of the top three bestsellers of all time and was recently named the most influential business book of the century by British Airways in-flight magazine, Business Life. Dale Carnegie Training is offered locally by Rick J. Gallegos & Associates, Inc. Rick Gallegos serves on the Executive Board of the CEO Council as past Chairman (2015) and serves with the Tampa Chamber of Commerce. Dale Carnegie Tampa Bay is the 2008 Tampa Chamber of Commerce Small Business of the Year winner. Rick J. Gallegos & Associates, Inc., is the Dale Carnegie Training franchise for the Tampa Bay counties of Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Hernando. For more information about Dale Carnegie Training, please contact 813-288-8778 or visit www.tampabay.dalecarnegie.com. SOURCE Dale Carnegie Training Contact: Rick J. Gallegos Rick J. Gallegos & Associates 813-288-8778 www.tampabay.dalecarnegie.com ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus MIAMI Ten prisoners from Yemen who were held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been released and sent to the Middle Eastern nation of Oman for resettlement, officials said Thursday, portraying it as a significant milestone in the long-stalled effort to shutter the detention center. The release, among the largest on a single day under President Barack Obama, puts the prison population below 100 for the first time since shortly after it opened in January 2002 to hold men suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban. There are now 93 still held. Lee Wolosky, the State Departments special envoy for Guantanamo Closure, said the U.S. expects to transfer the remaining prisoners who are cleared to leave, about a third of the total, by summer. Guantanamo held nearly 680 prisoners at its peak in 2003 and about 245 when Obama took office, pledging to close it as a symbol of overreach in the war against terrorism and a needless propaganda symbol for enemies of the United States. Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced the release of the Yemenis at a change-of-command ceremony in Miami at U.S. Southern Command, which oversees Guantanamo. He said the administration would submit a plan to Congress, where many want to keep the prison open, to move those who cant be freed to a facility within the United States. Not everyone in Gitmo can be safely transferred to another country, so we need an alternative, Carter said, using a common abbreviated name for the base on the southeastern edge of Cuba. Drone Market Are Anticipated To Reach $16.1 Billion By 2021 : Radiant Insights,Inc RadiantInsights.com includes new market research report on "Global Drone Market Size, Share And Trends Report To 2021 : Radiant Insights" to its huge collection of research reports. -- Drones: Trains, Planes, and Drones Use Remote Control: Market Shares, Strategy, and Forecasts, Worldwide, 2015 to 2021. Next generation drones leverage better technology, launching from ships anywhere. The technology is evolving better navigation, softer landings, longer flights, better ability to carry different payloads. The drones are able to achieve military and commercial tasks. They have been evolving airfreight delivery systems capability. They are used for surveillance, reconnaissance and intelligence missions. They do 3D mapping, commercial pipeline observation, border patrol, package delivery, photography, and agriculture. These are more energy efficient, last longer and have a significantly lower cost of operation than manned aircraft. Drone technology extends everywhere, even to airline control towers. Drones evolving technology is extending uses, even evolving to trains and planes. The use of Drone technology to control moving devices remotely extends the notion of drones, creating a larger potential drone market. Military drones will make every navy ship an aircraft carrier. They can be launched from anywhere, not needing an airfield. Download Sample Copy Of This Report At http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/drones-even-trains-and-planes-use-remote-control-like-drones-market-shares-market-strategies-and-market-forecasts-2015-to-2021 In the recent Germanwings airline crash, the control tower knew for 10 minutes that the airliner was set to destruct with all the passengers on board but the controllers in the tower were powerless to help. This crash represents an instance of how security systems and sensors might be used from a control tower to effect remote control in response to a security issue. Headlines like "Amtrak train derailed going 106 M.P.H. on sharp curve; at least 9 killed", represent another instance of where remote control of a transport unit would improve safety in train operations. Remote monitoring. and remote piloting offer guidelines on the commercial use of unmanned aircraft systems . Drone commercial uses will provide billions of dollars in economic growth. Drone unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology has reached a level of maturity that has put these systems at the forefront of aerospace manufacturing. Procurement around the world is adapting to drone availability. Use in the global war on terrorism has demonstrated unique usefulness for military intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and communications relay. Removal of the need for an onboard pilot ushers in an era of low cost aerial craft called drones. The drone elimination of the need for human support systems on aircraft dramatically reduces the aircraft's size, complexity, and power requirements. The drones effectively reduce overall program cost, development time and risk. Many advanced flight technologies are for piloted craft. These are initially tested using unmanned subscale demonstrators. Removing the pilot allows designers to simplify the aircraft's design and then test it at reduced risk. It allows configurations that would be impossible or impractical for human occupation. A common issue with UAV platforms is the need to optimize these aircraft. UAV are used to carry useful payloads. These platforms are flexible as to payload, permitting interchangeable or additional sensors and other electronics, extra fuel or weapons systems. The sole function of an unmanned aircraft is to get to a target location, perform a task, and then return in the most efficient and cost-effective way. Without a pilot aboard, the return trip is optional. Light weight is central to UAV design. Browse All Reports of This Category at: http://www.radiantinsights.com/catalog/defense Drones represent a way to use air to travel faster and at less cost. The market is divided between military and commercial drones. Military drones represent the future of the national security presence for every nation. Increasing technology sophistication and lower costs are achieving dramatic market shifts. Remote operation occurs in a control tower. The control tower knew for ten minutes that the Germanwings flight was headed for disaster and could do nothing about it, the same was true during the airliner participation in the 911 terrorist bombings. What this study is about is control towers that have the ability to stop trains, planes, and control drones. Control towers are set to become a way of life and drones light the way. Other technologies will follow. If a train is approaching a curve at 100 miles per hour when it should be going 50 miles per hour, there in the future there will be a way to remotely take over the train and slow it or stop it. If a plane is hijacked, if there is a bad guy in the pilot's seat, then in the future, the control tower will take over the plane. Drones lead the way in this regard. Drones provide a way to permit a plane to enter an airspace and to be controlled remotely. It is the drone technology that will be adopted by the trains and planes in the future of control tower expansion. In this study, we illustrate how drones achieve doing work even though they are remotely controlled. Remote operation of trains is now possible. A speeding train can be stopped by trained staff watching remotely. The rules for this have yet to be fully implemented. Transportation Trades AFL-CIO Endorses Federal Mandates To Require At Least Two Crew Members On U.S. Freight Trains Drone Market forecasts indicate strong growth anticipated Markets at $3.6 billion in 2014 are anticipated to reach $16.1 billion by 2021. A $3.6 billion market is substantial indicating the presence of many reference accounts for vendors. The wide variety of models and applications speak to the strong foothold in the market. With many vendors pushing products, the aggregate marketing will contribute to building a huge market for drones. Commercial drone agricultural markets will grow significantly as the aircraft are able to perform more cost efficiently than other ways of farming, ranching, and orchard tending. Package delivery is evolving as a nascent market for commercial drones. About Radiant Insights Radiant Insights is a platform for companies looking to meet their market research and business intelligence requirements. We assist and facilitate organizations and individuals procure market research reports, helping them in the decision making process. We have a comprehensive collection of reports, covering over 40 key industries and a host of micro markets. In addition to over extensive database of reports, our experienced research coordinators also offer a host of ancillary services such as, research partnerships/ tie-ups and customized research solutions. Contact Details: Michelle Thoras Corporate Sales Specialist, USA Radiant Insights, Inc Phone: 1-415-349-0054 Toll Free: 1-888-202-9519 Email: sales@radiantinsights.com Web: http://www.radiantinsights.com/ For more information about us, please visit http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/drones-even-trains-and-planes-use-remote-control-like-drones-market-shares-market-strategies-and-market-forecasts-2015-to-2021 Contact Info: Name: Michelle Thoras Email: sales@radiantinsights.com Organization: Radiant Insights, Inc. Address: 28 2nd Street Phone: 14153490054 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/drone-market-are-anticipated-to-reach-16-1-billion-by-2021-radiant-insightsinc/101115 Release ID: 101115 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) George Vrban Named Executive VP of Sales for PS Financial Services, LLC George Vrban is being welcomed as the new Executive VP of Sales for PS Financial Services. George is thrilled with the opportunity to assist homeowners with their Reverse Mortgage in 5 states throughout the US. -- Coral Gables, FL (11/1/2015) - George Vrban, who began his career in the mortgage industry in 2002 before transitioning into Reverse Mortgages in 2008, has joined PS Financial Services (PSF) as their Executive VP of Sales. He will lead the team of mortgage loan originators (MLOs), recruit new ones, and help PSF expand across the United States. Vrban comes to PSF from Liberty Home Equity Solutions, where he was the top producing manager in their retail lender space for the last four years. During that time, his sales team was number one in the company for their southeast and central territory. Coming from the retail broker space, Vrban was excited about joining an up-and-coming company in this segment of the industry. Phil Stevenson has a tremendous team and back office staff already in place, Vrban is hoping to take them to another level and offer his expertise and experience. Vrban states about his interest in people, "Focused, passionate people are necessities in the Reverse Mortgage industry and Phil [Stevenson] is definitely one of those people." Vrban, who has known Stevenson for the past four years, admires his drive to succeed and his passion for the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM), commonly known as the reverse mortgage. Stevenson met Vrban during a stint as an MLO at Genworth Home Equity Access (now known as Liberty) and said Vrban was instrumental in reviving his career back in 2012, before he opened PSF. Stevenson, who is currently a top producing originator, focused on building a company geared toward originators. This approach was instrumental in helping PS Financial Services become the #1 broker in Florida this year, according to RMI. For Stevenson, Vrban embodies that philosophy of taking care of the frontlines above all else, which is why his teams were always high producing teams. As a veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Stevenson knows wars are won in the trenches, and in the reverse mortgage industry, the frontline is personified by the originator. Moving forward, Phil Stevenson will continue to fulfill the vision he has for PSF and, with Vrban's help, ensure retirement continues to be filled with security, dignity and peace of mind, both financially and physically. PS Financial Services was recently licensed in four additional states: Georgia, Texas, California, and New York. Starting out in Florida, with their headquarters in Miami, PS Financial Services is now ready to assist those interested in reverse mortgages with their satellite offices in Atlanta, GA, Houston, TX, Los Angeles, CA, and New York, NY. Contact Info: Name: Phil Stevenson Email: phil@psreversemortgage.com Phone: 786.586.3336 Organization: PS Financial Services Source: http://www.prreach.com/pr/21635 Release ID: 101160 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Solid State Thin Film Battery Markets Are Forecast To Reach $1.3 Billion By 2021 : Radiant Insights,Inc RadiantInsights.com includes new market research report on "Global Solid State Thin Film Battery Markets Size, Share And Trends Report To 2021 : Radiant Insights" to its huge collection of research reports. -- The quality of energy storage is better with solid state thin film batteries. Solid State Thin Film Batteries A comparison of battery performance for various rechargeable batteries is a compelling illustration of the value of thin film batteries. Data for thin film batteries using very thin substrates illustrate the longer cycle life that can be achieved. Applications include power bridging, permanent power, and wireless sensor networks. Thin film battery market driving forces include creating business inflection by delivering technology that supports entirely new capabilities. Sensor networks are creating demand for thin film solid state devices. Vendors doubled revenue and almost tripled production volume from first quarter. Multiple customers are moving into production with innovative products after successful trials. Access Full Report With TOC @ http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/solid-state-thin-film-battery-market-shares-strategies-and-forecasts-worldwide-nanotechnology-2013-to-2019 A strong business pipeline has emerged with customer activity in all target markets. The market focus is shifting from ramping capacity to driving manufacturing efficiencies and achieving margin improvement, indicating increasing market maturity. Smarter computing is part of an IT opportunity, brought by the availability of many, many devices that measure what is going on in the world. These devices are made possible by the availability of small, inexpensive, reliable batteries that provide battery backup on the printed circuit board. Smarter computing is related to achieving a more instrumented, interconnected and intelligent infrastructure. Software and onboard storage are significant aspects of making the networks more intelligent. The need to capture and analyze increasing amounts of data, deliver results to more users, and respond faster across all devices, without a corresponding increase in budget is a function of better management and better systems. Back up power is part of the picture. Key application areas for solid stare batteries are: - Power bridging - Permanent power - Wireless sensors As energy harvesting and wireless sensor networks evolve, the solid state batteries provide an uninterruptable, stable power source that lasts as long as the electronics with which it is packaged. In some cases, changing batteries is not feasible, ant these applications are illustrative of those kinds of instances. Browse All Reports of This Category at: http://www.radiantinsights.com/catalog/battery-technology According to Susan Eustis, the lead author of the team that created the study, "Solid state electronics brings the same advantages to batteries as it has brought to all other industry segments it touches. Printed circuit board manufacturers are finding that they can achieve a rapid return on investment from substantially decreasing the energy costs associated with using storage by wave soldering the storage onto the boards during the manufacturing process." Solid State Thin Film Battery Markets at $9 million in 2014 are forecast to reach $1.3 billion by 2021. Rapid growth toward the end of the forecast period is anticipated as technology improves the cost structure of the manufacturing. About Radiant Insights Radiant Insights is a platform for companies looking to meet their market research and business intelligence requirements. We assist and facilitate organizations and individuals procure market research reports, helping them in the decision making process. We have a comprehensive collection of reports, covering over 40 key industries and a host of micro markets. In addition to over extensive database of reports, our experienced research coordinators also offer a host of ancillary services such as, research partnerships/ tie-ups and customized research solutions. Contact Details: Michelle Thoras Corporate Sales Specialist, USA Radiant Insights, Inc Phone: 1-415-349-0054 Toll Free: 1-888-202-9519 Email: sales@radiantinsights.com Web: http://www.radiantinsights.com/ For more information about us, please visit http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/solid-state-thin-film-battery-market-shares-strategies-and-forecasts-worldwide-nanotechnology-2013-to-2019 Contact Info: Name: Michelle Thoras Email: sales@radiantinsights.com Organization: Radiant Insights, Inc. Address: 28 2nd Street Phone: 14153490054 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/solid-state-thin-film-battery-markets-are-forecast-to-reach-1-3-billion-by-2021-radiant-insightsinc/101257 Release ID: 101257 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Stairlift Company Reviews Strengthens its Presence in the Sunshine State Stairlift Company Reviews offers a mini website service that enables Florida stair lift dealers to customize their product presentation for a profitable online market. -- When looking for information about stair lifts online, StairliftCompanyReviews.com is the number one choice. This website is the leading independent single resource in this field with an excellent reputation amongst both dealers and their customers. Now StairliftCompanyReviews.com is offering Florida stair lift dealers a unique opportunity to have their own dedicated mini-websites. These mini-websites will promote the dealer's products through business profiles, product reviews, business ratings, photographs, and how to buy information. This service is completely free of charge! It represents a unique opportunity for Florida dealers without their own websites to extend their business by tapping into the growing online sales market. All this is now available to them for the first time without the expenses of hiring a website designer and a content writer, and paying for website hosting. Yale Lipschik, Co-Founder of StairliftCompanyReviews.com says, "these new mini websites for dealers are guaranteed to provide Florida dealers with an effective means of promoting their stair lift services, and present the buying public with all the facts that distinguish their offerings from compatible products and services, while the customer benefits from access to a much wider range of options for their stair lift purchase. The dealers' businesses gain tremendously from expanding online sales. An integral element in this program is the training we provide to dealers on best practices for online promotion, and also that graphic touch they need to boost their customer appeal." Stairlift Company Reviews has already won the confidence of local stair lift dealers by providing them with access to people searching online for stair lift products. Jane Williams, a Miami stair lifts dealer, states "We value our excellent relationship with StairliftCompanyReviews.com. They have helped us reach a large pool of potential buyers and they have also assisted us in developing a positive online image. I have no hesitation in highly recommending their services." As StairliftCompanyReviews.com continues to focus on the rapidly expanding Florida market, there are certainly going to be more exciting service/product news from them very soon. For more information please visit www.stairliftcompanyreviews.com. About StairliftCompanyReviews.com StairliftCompanyReviews.com is the internet's largest single source of stairlift information. We connect stairlift shoppers with the best local stairlift dealers, installers, and servicers who represent the most popular brands in the industry. Chair lift customers can quickly and easily get price quotes from all major brands on stairlift rentals and on all new and pre-owned models from manufacturers like Acorn, Stannah, Hawle and Bruno. Consumers who use StairliftCompanyReviews.com receive competitive quotes from only prescreened, trusted dealers and service representatives for new, pre-owned, and rental stairlifts. For more information about us, please visit http://www.stairliftcompanyreviews.com/ Contact Info: Name: Yale Lipschik Organization: Stairlift Company Reviews Address: 500 Mamaroneck Ave Harrison, NY 10528 Phone: 1-888-507-2015 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/stairlift-company-reviews-strengthens-its-presence-in-the-sunshine-state/101274 Release ID: 101274 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Bowcutt Dental Cedar Park Dentist Announces New Dental Practice and Website Dr. Kevin Bowcutt, a dentist in Cedar Park, has opened his new practice, Bowcutt Dental. The new dental practice, formerly known as Jordan Family Dentistry, has also launched a new website to help both existing and new patients connect with the practice. -- Dr. Kevin Bowcutt, a local dentist in Cedar Park, has recently opened a new dental practice, Bowcutt Dental. The new dental practice, formerly known as Jordan Family Dentistry, will serve patients in the greater Austin area including: Austin, Cedar Park, Georgetown, Lakeway, Leander, and Round Rock. Dr. Bowcutt purchased the existing practice from Dr. Bob Jordan and will continue to offer the same high quality of care to the practice's current patients and new patients, while offering state-of-the art new treatments that were previously unavailable. Dr. Bowcutt's goal is to carry on the 33 year legacy of quality dental care created by Jordan Family Dentistry, while also offering new treatments that are unique to his expertise and training. Dr. Bowcutt studied at one of the finest dental schools in the country and is excited to offer the benefit of that training to his patients. Bowcutt Dental is proud to celebrate their opening by announcing the launch of a new website at: http://bowcuttdental.com. The website features extensive detailed information about the wide variety of dental services offered by Bowcutt Dental, a page inviting new patients to meet each team member via their detailed bio, complete contact information, as well as the ability to make appointments online. The team at Bowcutt Dental is proud to celebrate the opening of their new practice and the launch of their new website. The greater Austin area dental office is dedicated to making patient satisfaction a goal and seeks to provide every patient with personal service. The new website is an important tool in helping the staff at Bowcutt Dental connect with each and every patient. About Bowcutt Dental Bowcutt Dental is a full service family dental practice in Cedar Park, Texas. Kevin Bowcutt, DDS provides quality family dental care to patients in the Austin, Cedar Park, Georgetown, Lakeway, Leander, and Round Rock areas. For more information about us, please visit http://bowcuttdental.com Contact Info: Name: Kevin Bowcutt Organization: Bowcutt Dental Address: 2501 S Lakeline Blvd, Cedar Park, TX 78613 Phone: 512-258-7523 Release ID: 101143 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) West Coast Nursery Wholesale Indoor Foliage New Online Ordering System West Coast Nurseries has defied convention in the Wholesale Indoor Foliage market with the release of its new Wholesale Indoor Foliage service. Further information can be found at www.westcoastnurseries.com -- Earlier today, West Coast Nurseries finally announced the beginning of its new Wholesale Indoor Foliage online ordering service, which has been in development since 2015. The main aim is to allow plantscapers to focus more on their business rather than their orders... but it does so, with a difference. Barry Evans, President at West Coast Nurseries, says: "We wanted to try something new with for the Wholesale Indoor Foliage service industry. Anyone familiar with the Wholesale Indoor Foliage market will probably have noticed how everyone else seems to expect that plantscapers will settle for second rate service. This is a problem because it hinders the ability of the plantscaper to focus on the real job at hand. We've developed a brand new ordering system which literally takes the hours plantscapers spend ordering and cuts it down to about half " How does it normally work? Usually a plantscaper has to spend time filling out and faxing orders in for various varieties of plants. Filling out sheets is extremely outdated and takes tons of time when placing a large order. So as a welcome breath of fresh air, West Coast Nurseries will instead provide quality plants (grown in Hawaii) with easy online ordering. West Coast Nurseries chose to make this move because they care about helping plantscapers streamline their operations. It's all about providing plants of better quality and better service. Barry Evans also said "We want to give customers an easy way to place orders so they can focus on their business without having to spend hours of their time ordering. With a new Wholesale Indoor Foliage service, they have a fresh new possibility. We want them to feel like they got handed the keys to a new car. Some in the industry will be uncomfortable with it at first. Trying something new is always a risk, but it's a risk we believe is worth taking." West Coast Nurseries has been in business for 30 Years, being established in 1984. Since Day 1 it has always aimed to be the highest quality interior foliage grower. This isn't the first time West Coast Nurseries has defied convention either. In 1999 they caused a stir when the company started growing plants in Hawaii to provide better quality foliage and cheaper electrical expenses. The new Wholesale Indoor Foliage ordering service is now in operation. To find out more about the service and West Coast Nurseries, it's possible to visit www.westcoastnurseries.com For more information about us, please visit http://www.westcoastnurseries.com Contact Info: Name: Barry Evans Organization: West Coast Nurseries Address: 147 Buena Creek Road San Marcos, CA 92069 Phone: 760-682-1252 Release ID: 101151 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Passi & Patel Criminal Law Firm Now Offers Legal Assistance Online Passi & Patel is excited to announce the newly released "Ask a Lawyer" feature, which has been incorporated into its exiting mobile-responsive website. -- Brampton, ON - Specializing exclusively in criminal law and criminal offences, the Brampton criminal law firm of Passi & Patel is excited to announce the newly released "Ask a Lawyer" feature, which has been incorporated into its exiting mobile-responsive website. This new feature allows people to directly contact the law firm and ask questions related to criminal law through their website. The law firm understands people are on the go constantly and do not always have time to pick up the phone to ask questions related to criminal law. The lawyers at Passi & Patel strive to respond to all inquiries submitted through the "Ask a Lawyer" feature on the website within twenty-four business hours, or within three days, not counting weekends and holidays. People are able to submit their questions using a variety of Internet-capable devices, including desktop and laptop computers, smartphones, and tablets. The online interactive form is designed to be simple and allow people the opportunity to ask criminal law related questions confidentially. This new online "Ask a Lawyer" feature further underscores Passi & Patel criminal law firm's continued commitment to providing exceptional experiences for potential and current clients. The law firm provides a wide range of legal representation for people accused of and charged with criminal offences in the Greater Toronto Area, including, but not limited to, drinking and driving offences, weapons and drug offences, youth criminal offences, theft, robbery, fraud, and all types of criminal assaults. The criminal defence lawyers at the Brampton law firm only practice criminal law. As a result, they are fully dedicated to providing their clients the detailed attention required throughout their criminal proceedings and court processes. Passi & Patel does remind potential and current clients to contact the law firm directly when immediate legal advice and assistance is required and not use the "Ask a Lawyer" feature. This feature should only be used for non-urgent questions when an immediate response is not needed. For additional information about Passi & Patel criminal lawyers, the law firm's various criminal legal services, or to try out the new "Ask a Lawyer" feature, please feel free to visit the official website at www.passipatel.com or contact a defence lawyers directly by phone at 289-803-5076 for immediate assistance. About Passi & Patel Criminal Lawyers Criminal law firm Passi & Patel was founded by Rick Patel and Jay Passi. Mr. Patel specializes in drinking and driving related criminal offences, and has experience representing clients in other criminal offences. For over 22 years, Mr. Passi has been exclusively practicing criminal law and providing representation to clients accused of criminal offences. Mr. Passi has appeared in every level of court throughout Ontario and the Supreme Court of Canada. Together, Mr. Patel and Mr. Passi are very determined to diligently help their clients obtain the best results possible. For more information about us, please visit http://www.passipatel.com/ Contact Info: Name: Passi Patel Organization: Passi & Patel - Brampton Criminal Lawyers Address: 2 County Court Boulevard Fourth Floor Brampton, ON L6W 3W8 Phone: 905-459-0004 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/passi-patel-criminal-law-firm-now-offers-legal-assistance-online/101306 Release ID: 101306 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Passi & Patel Criminal Lawyers Launch New Website Passi & Patel is pleased to announce the launch of its new website. The new website was carefully developed and designed to incorporate mobile responsible features. -- Mississauga, ON - With a focus on providing criminal defence and related legal services for clients in the Mississauga area, Passi & Patel is pleased to announce the launch of its new website. The new website was carefully developed and designed to incorporate mobile responsible features and has been found to comply with the mobile-friendly standards as required by the major search engines, like Google and Bing. Mobile responsiveness is a necessary component of website development and design. When incorporated into the website, it allows the website to automatically detect the type of device the person is using to access content on the website. The website then adjusts the content to match the device and screen size, whether it is a desktop computer, smartphone, tablet, or other Internet-capable device. The new responsive website makes it easy for people, who are looking for a criminal defence lawyer in Mississauga, to access online content to learn more about the practice areas the lawyers specialize in, including assaults, shoplifting, thefts, impaired driving, sexual offences, robbery, fraud, youth crimes, and more. Essentially, the law firm offers legal representation for all types of criminal offences. In today's society most people searching for a criminal defence lawyer are using a mobile device. Passi & Patel criminal law firm understands the changes in how technology is used to locate reputable lawyers in the Greater Toronto Area. According to law firm co-founder Jay Passi, "Having a mobile responsive website makes sound business sense and allows the law firm to reach a wider range of potential clients requiring legal representation for criminal offences." The recently launched website contains a wide range of legal content, resources, and information for people to use. It is important to mention the content on the website is there to provide information relevant to criminal law, but should not be used as actual legal advice. In order to obtain actual legal advice, people should contact a Mississauga criminal defence lawyer directly and schedule a consultation appointment. To experience the newly launched website or for more information about Passi & Patel criminal lawyers, please visit the official website at www.passipatel.ca or contact the law firm directly by phone at 289-803-5076 for a consultation appointment. About Passi & Patel Criminal Lawyers Passi & Patel criminal law firm was founded by Jay Passi and Rick Patel. Mr. Passi has been practicing criminal law exclusively for over 22 years. He has successfully represented and defended clients in every court level in Ontario, as well as the Supreme Court of Canada. Mr. Patel is experienced in all types of criminal offences, with a specialization in drinking and driving related criminal offences. Both lawyers work diligently with determination in order to help clients achieve the best possible results. For more information about us, please visit http://www.passipatel.ca/ Contact Info: Name: Passi Patel Organization: Passi & Patel Criminal Lawyer Address: 4 Robert Speck Parkway 15th Floor Mississauga, Ontario L4Z 1S1 Phone: 905-459-0004 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/passi-patel-criminal-lawyers-launch-new-website/101305 Release ID: 101305 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) MMF (Make Me Fabulous) Offers Mobile Solutions for Salons MMF (Make Me Fabulous) is pleased to announce it provides mobile solutions salon business owners can utilize to take their businesses mobile. Mobile marketing strategies are a growing segment which salon owners can tend to overlook. -- Toronto, ON - Specializing in providing premium directory and marketing services for salons, MMF (Make Me Fabulous) is pleased to announce it provides mobile solutions salon business owners can utilize to take their businesses mobile. Mobile marketing strategies are a growing segment which salon owners can tend to overlook. These solutions were created to give salon owners the ability to showcase their business and make it accessible through mobile devices. It is important for salon businesses to understand the impact mobile device users are having on the way people search for and locate services in Toronto. In the past, they would access a search engine online using a desktop or laptop computer and search for salons, and then have to print or write down the salon's information. Today, that is no longer the case, and people search for salons right from their smartphone or tablet devices. Since the way people search for salons has changed, so too, should a salon's marketing strategies. This is where MMF is able to lend assistance by offering mobile device friendly marketing solutions and mobile device pages that highlight and feature everything a salon offers its clientele. Salons are free to customize their mobile device marketing pages to suit their needs, like showcasing stylists, allowing clients to book appointments through their mobile devices, and incorporating features to reduce no-shows. MMF's mobile solutions allow salon business owners the option to provide 24/7 access to their clients. Salon owners, as well as their clients are able to access their custom designed salon pages from anywhere, at any time. In addition, MMF offers professional photography services to enhance online imagery so all of the salons using MMF's mobile platform solutions always looks their best. To learn more about MMF (Make Me Fabulous) and the company's mobile marketing solutions for salon owners, or to find local salons in the Greater Toronto Area, please feel free to visit the office website at www.mmfbeauty.com or contact a representative by phone at 647-351-5388. About MMF (Make Me Fabulous) MMF (Make Me Fabulous) was founded to give people and salon businesses the opportunity to connect with each other, easier, faster, and reliable using their premium directory and marketing services. One side of the company allows individuals free access to content on their site, ranging from finding a local salon to beauty and styling tips. The other side of the business is specifically designed to provide assistance to salon owners and includes a wide range of services. In addition to premium directory and marketing services, MMF offers salon owners access to management software, payroll, scheduling, booking, photography, and other related professional services and solutions, customized to fit their business needs and objectives. For more information about us, please visit https://mmfbeauty.com/ Contact Info: Name: Natalia King Organization: MMF (Make Me Fabulous) Address: 1216 - 4789 Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario M2N 0G3 Phone: 1 (888) 602-8668 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/mmf-make-me-fabulous-offers-mobile-solutions-for-salons/101286 Release ID: 101286 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Ecostrat's Website Now Certified for Mobile Device Users Ecostrat is pleased to announce that is website has been officially certified as mobile friendly under Google's mobile friendly guidelines and requirements. -- Specializing in biomass products, consulting, biofuel supply networks, and fuel procurement services, Ecostrat is pleased to announce that is website has been officially certified as mobile friendly under Google's mobile friendly guidelines and requirements. This certification means that Ecostrat's website content has been found to comply with the standards of this search engine giant, a leading authority responsible for regulating search rankings for businesses throughout Canada and the United States. The validation of the website content from the leading search engine authority demonstrates Ecostrat's ongoing commitment to its current clients and future potential clients. In today's Internet-driven online society, it is essential to be able to offer mobile friendly website design to accommodate the growing number of mobile device users and potential business clients. Ensuring website design and content is able to be accessed from any type of Internet-capable device is necessary to make it easy to access content by current clients and potential customers. The company provides a wide range of biomass products and related consulting and fuel procurement services for businesses of all sizes in the United States and Canada. Among the most popular of the company's services are its biomass products, which have enable many businesses the ability to source wood fuel, wood chip, and other products by accessing one of the largest supply basis in this industry. Ecostrat is one of the only biomass fuel companies in the industry that operates its own extensive biofuel supply and transportation networks. The company's transportation network consists of rail and ocean vessels, and trucks that not only encompasses all of North America, but also spans the entire globe to ensure their clients are able to receive biomass products, no matter where their operations are located. For additional information about Ecostrat and the company's various biomass products, biofuel supply network, consulting, and fuel procurement services, please feel free to visit their official website at www.ecostrat.com or contact a representative directly by phone at 416-968-8884. About Ecostrat For the past 17 years, Ecostrat has been supplying businesses with hundreds of thousands of tons of biomass products and wood fuel throughout the United States and Canada. The company is proud to offer demolition and construction derived, post-industrial, and virgin wood fuels. The company's staff of highly experienced professionals are expects in the biomass wood industry. They have one of the largest reaching biomass and wood fuel networks and offer straight-forward, reliable, and high quality products with on-time delivery, each and every time. For more information about us, please visit http://ecostrat.com/ Contact Info: Name: Nick Alder Organization: Ecostrat and General Biofuel Address: 60 St Clair Ave. E Suite 404 Toronto, Ontario M4T 1N5 Phone: +1 416.968.8884 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/ecostrats-website-now-certified-for-mobile-device-users/101283 Release ID: 101283 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Grillo Barristers Announces New Marketing and Linguistics Specialist Grillo Barristers is pleased to announce the addition of its new marketing and linguistics specialist, Emanuele Pezzillo. Mr. Pezzillo brings a substantial amount of personal injury and criminal law marketing experience and expertise to the law firm. -- Toronto, ON - As a leading Toronto personal injury law firm, providing legal representation for personal injury cases and other criminal offences, Grillo Barristers is pleased to announce the addition of its new marketing and linguistics specialist, Emanuele Pezzillo. Mr. Pezzillo brings a substantial amount of personal injury and criminal law marketing experience and expertise to the law firm. Mr. Pezzillo officially joined Grillo Barristers this past August. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with First Class Honours for a Double Major Degree in Chinese and International Relations from the University of Westminster in London, United Kingdom. Emanuele Pezzillo will be responsible for implementing and establishing strategic marketing plans to further expand the firm's reach in the Greater Toronto Area and throughout Ontario. Mr. Pezzillo brings to the firm an expansive knowledge in marketing and linguistics, including Spanish, Chinese, and Italian, to develop effective business strategies to appeal to potential clients within the Spanish, Chinese, and Italian communities throughout Ontario and further increase awareness of Grillo Barristers' services. Emanuele Pezzillo is fully committed to educate and increase public awareness about personal injury and criminal law through his marketing expertise. Grillo Barristers provides a broad range of legal services for people, who require criminal defence and personal injury lawyers in Toronto. The law firm specializes in such areas of personal injury law, including, but not limited to, slip and falls, car accident claims, spinal cord injury, brain injury, traumatic injury, and both short term and long term disability claims. The law firm provides easy access to qualified lawyers, paralegals, administrative support staff, and law students to help people protect their rights after being involved in an accident or being accused of a criminal offence. All legal services at Grillo Barristers are tailored to fit the individual needs of each client. Bilingual lawyers, paralegals, administrative support staff, and law students are available to consult with potential clients in their preferred language. The law firm provides free consultations and for personal injury cases, does not require clients to pay any fees unless their case is settled or won in a court of law. For additional information about Grillo Barristers and the law firm's related personal injury and criminal law services, please feel free to visit the firm's official website at http://grillo.ca/ or contact the firm directly at 416-614-6000 to schedule a free consultation appointment. About Grillo Barristers Founded over 30 years ago by Salvatore Grillo, Grillo Barristers has since grown into one of the largest personal injury and criminal law firms, representing clients throughout the Greater Toronto Area. The professional legal teams at the law firm are experienced in providing sound legal advice and representation for personal injury claims and criminal law matters. The lawyers at Grillo Barristers are aggressive litigators, who work hard to achieve the best results possible for each and every client. For more information about us, please visit http://grillo.ca/ Contact Info: Name: Laya Grillo Organization: Grillo Barristers Personal Injury Lawyers Address: 3200 Dufferin St. Unit 210 Toronto, Ontario M6A 3B2 Phone: 416-614-6000 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/grillo-barristers-announces-new-marketing-and-linguistics-specialist/101284 Release ID: 101284 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Caramanna, Friedberg LLP Announces The Hire Of Two New Associate Lawyers Under 2016 Expansion Caramanna, Friedberg LLP is becoming bigger and more influential within the Toronto legal community, and has headhunted two new highly regarded associates to join its legal team. -- Legal defence is a human right and a good criminal defence is especially essential when the stakes are high. Unfortunately, not all legal counsel are created equal and so individuals must go out of their way to seek the top counsel available. Caramanna, Friedberg LLP is a leading criminal defence firm in Toronto and they have started 2016 with two new hires, Brendan Gould and Jason Au. Brendan Gould B.B.A., M.B.A., J.D. obtained his Juris Doctorate degree from the University of Alberta in 2014, and was called to the bar in Ontario in 2015. Brendan completed his articles of clerkship with a prominent criminal defence firm in Toronto. After his call to the bar he opened his own practice, before ultimately joining Caramanna, Friedberg LLP as an associate. He has experience conducting trials and dealing with matters in both the Ontario Court of Justice and the Superior Court of Justice. He is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada and the Criminal Lawyers Association. Jason Au B.A. (Hons), J.D. obtained his Juris Doctorate degree from Queen's University Faculty of Law in 2014 and was called to the Bar in Ontario in 2015. Jason completed his articles with a prominent criminal defence firm in Toronto where he also worked as an associate before joining Caramanna, Friedberg LLP. Jason has experience dealing with matters in both the Ontario Court of Justice and the Superior Court of Justice. Jason is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada, the Criminal Lawyers' Association and the Toronto Lawyers' Association. A list of some of the firm's reported cases is available directly from their website, as is a list of their areas of practice, so individuals can understand the full reach and reputation of this dynamic firm. A spokesperson for Caramanna, Friedberg LLP explained, "We are thrilled to be able to introduce these two superb lawyers to the broader team and we are sure they will each excel in this new environment, with access to high profile cases that will suit their detailed, zealous and comprehensive approach to legal counsel. We welcome both Brendan and Jason, and look forward to placing them with clients very soon." About Caramanna, Friedberg LLP: Caramanna, Friedberg LLP is a leading criminal defence law firm located in Toronto, Ontario. The firm provides expert legal advice and protects the rights of individuals facing criminal and quasi-criminal charges in the Ontario courts. Skilful representation is provided from the earliest stages of the criminal process through to trial, with an emphasis on client service, professionalism, and zealous advocacy. For more information about us, please visit http://www.cflaw.ca/ Contact Info: Name: Matthew Friedberg Organization: Caramanna, Friedberg LLP Phone: 416.924.5969 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/caramanna-friedberg-llp-announces-the-hire-of-two-new-associate-lawyers-under-2016-expansion/101340 Release ID: 101340 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Rosenberg & McKay Introduce Their Legal Services For Personal Injury Victims More than 10,000 people are seriously injured every year in auto accidents in the state of Hawaii. See how Rosenberg & McKay helps personal injury victims get justice at http://www.rmlawhawaii.com/. -- According to recent statistics published by Hawaii's Department of Transportation, more than 10,000 people are seriously injured in auto accidents each year. Car, bike, and pedestrian accidents account for between 150 and 210 deaths every single year in the state. It is with these troubling statistics in mind that Rosenberg and McKay, a top law firm in the state of Hawaii, provides their legal services for personal injury victims. Their firm represents people who have sustained injuries or the loved ones of those who have died as a result of car accidents, medical malpractice, slip and fall incidents, dog bites, and other types of personal injury situations. Those who would like to get a glimpse of the legal services the firm offers can visit www.rmlawhawaii.com. Randall Rosenberg, one of the attorneys at the helm of Rosenberg and McKay Personal Injury Attorneys, stated "In any personal injury case, proper representation is critical for the victim. Many erroneously believe that their injuries or their loved one's death will be enough to prove their case and recover damages, but this is simply untrue. Proving liability involves a complex legal process that puts the burden of proof directly on the plaintiff. They must not only show the court that the defendant had a duty to be more careful, but that their failure to meet that duty is what directly caused the injury and not something else - including their own negligence." Rosenberg goes on to say, "Our attorneys are highly experienced with these types of cases. We have over 50 years of combined experience practicing law. We've seen many different types of cases and know what to do to help our clients obtain a favorable outcome. We handle what can often be intimidating negotiations with big insurance companies on our client's behalf to ensure that unscrupulous claims adjusters won't attempt to bully them into taking a lower settlement than is warranted in their circumstances." "Our law firm exists for the benefit of the client. We fight hard because we want to see people who have been injured get the money they need to seek quality medical care, compensate for lost wages, and get their lives back on track. We see it as our mission to provide the legal services that will help them do just that." About Rosenberg & McKay: Rosenberg & McKay Attorneys At Law have been helping personal injury victims in Hawaii for 20 years. With over 50 years of combined experience in the practice of law, the firm is comprised of local lawyers who know the courts in Hawaii and who work on every case personally to provide clients with excellent legal services. Their team takes many cases on a contingency fee basis, meaning that there is no fee unless they recover for the client. For those who have suffered a personal injury or know a loved one who has died in a car accident or other case of negligence in Hawaii should contact Rosenberg & McKay for a free consultation. For more information about us, please visit http://www.rmlawhawaii.com/ Contact Info: Name: Charles McKay or Randall Rosenberg Organization: Rosenberg & McKay Phone: (808) 536-4270 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/rosenberg-mckay-introduce-their-legal-services-for-personal-injury-victims/101346 Release ID: 101346 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) The economic secretary to HM Treasury has defended her departments sale of 125,000 Northern Rock mortgages to a US private equity firm. Harriett Baldwin was responding to concerns raised by Andrew Tyrie , the chairman of the Treasury select committee, that short-term profitability has been prioritised over the long-term value of the assets. Ms Baldwin said: It was, of course, critically important to us that the sale achieved good value - in line with that which a commercial seller of such assets would expect to receive. If that had not been the case, then we would simply not have proceeded with the sale. She said HM Treasury devised a three-part test when it sold the mortgages to Cerberus Capital Management in November. Ms Baldwin said the Treasury sought assurance that market conditions were right to support a sale, the sale followed a highly competitive process and UK Asset Resolution and UK Financial Investments both tested all bids against benchmark valuations. The mortgages, which were originally owned by Northern Rock, were taken on by UK Asset Resolution when the Newcastle-based company was nationalised in 2008. UKAR said it would be selling the portfolio for 280m more than its book value. When Ms Baldwin was asked in Parliament what the book value of the portfolio was, she simply said Cerberus has agreed to sell 3.3bn of the loans to TSB. Mr Tyrie also raised concerns that customers would be adversely affected by the sale. But Ms Baldwin said: As UKAR made clear when it announced the sale, the continued fair treatment of customers was a key consideration throughout the process. The mortgages will continue to be serviced by the same people in UKAR who service them today, bringing to bear the expertise and experience in working with these mortgage customers that they have developed over recent years. And there is no change in the terms and conditions of the mortgages being sold. But the ultimate comfort that customers can take is that these mortgages are regulated in full by the Financial Conduct Authority. The chancellor could end up undermining the foundations he has laid for encouraging greater saving before the industry has had a chance to build on them, Alistair Wilson has warned. The head of retail platform strategy for Zurich said that although 2015 will be remembered for retirement freedom and the seismic opportunity it created for boosting pension engagement, the government risked losing this momentum if it continues to tinker with pensions and taxation. He said: With the chancellor considering scrapping pension tax relief in favour of Isa-style pensions, 2015 could end up being remembered as the beginning of the end for long-term saving. Instead of turning the pension system on its head, Mr Wilson said the government should reinforce the value of pension tax relief by introducing a 33 per cent flat rate. This would be a fairer and simpler solution for people of all incomes. Next year is an opportunity for the government to finally put an end to piecemeal change and place the pensions system and pension tax relief on a firm and sustainable footing for the long term, he said. Meanwhile, managing income in retirement in a low interest economy will continue to be a challenge for advisers throughout this year. Mr Wilson added: Place this alongside the fact we are living longer and the perfect storm will grow ever bigger. This is likely to fuel the debate on the most appropriate investment solutions for the decumulation market. This year, we are focusing on a new solution that combines drawdown with an element of protection. This will provide a level of guaranteed income at a predetermined point in time (age), affording people greater security and certainty in retirement. It will also release advisers to focus on managing the risks of remaining invested for an extended period, while generating an income for clients. Legal & General has agreed to sell Suffolk Life to Curtis Banks in a deal worth 45m. A stock exchange announcement explained the acquisition is to be funded by the combination of an underwritten placing of 8,437,500 new ordinary shares of 0.5p each in Curtis Banks at a placing price of 320 pence per placing share, to raise 27m, along with a new debt and revolving credit facility. Peel Hunt is the sole bookrunner and nomad on the placing, while the deal is still subject to regulatory approval by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority. Curtis Banks board stated Suffolk Life is highly complementary to its existing business, adding the rationale for the acquisition is compelling and consistent with the companys stated strategy of growing organically and through carefully selected acquisitions. The enlarged group will have pro-forma assets under administration of about 18bn and more than 65,000 self-invested personal pensions under administration. The deal is expected to be earnings enhancing in the financial year, while the board also noted Suffolk Lifes high quality management team will remain following completion. Chris Banks, executive chairman of Curtis Banks, stated the transaction will make his firm the second largest independent full Sipp provider in the UK. He said: We believe that Suffolk Life has a strong heritage, culture and client focus, which we share at Curtis Banks. We will retain Suffolk Lifes headquarters in Ipswich and believe there will be continuity for clients and exciting opportunities for Suffolk Lifes management and employees as part of the enlarged group. Mark Gregory, L&Gs group chief finance officer, said while Suffolk Life is a great business, it is not core to our focused strategy going forward. A statement from L&G added it is disposing non-core businesses and focusing on core activities where we believe we can achieve significant scale and attractive returns on capital. This is just the latest division that L&G has sold off in the past few years, with its offshore bond operation to Canada Lifes parent company Great-West Lifeco in February 2015. Earlier this month it completed talks with Apicil to sell its French business, while it disposed of Legal & General Ireland and Egypt in 2015. There have also been rumours that L&G would sell Cofunds, but this has not been confirmed. Martin Tilley, director of technical services at Dentons Pension Management, said the deal does not surprise him and he anticipates further announcements of this type in the run up to September, when Sipp capital requirements really start to bite. He said: We are in a period of uncertainty that is impacting values pending the Treasurys statement on the future of pensions in the spring Budget in March; this makes valuations of books of business speculative and less precise at the moment. Keydata Investment Services founder Stewart Ford has claimed a victory in a preliminary hearing of his court battle against the Financial Conduct Authority. Mr Ford appeared at the Upper Tribunal in a case management hearing as part of his challenge to an FCA fine. The FCA had argued the case should be split up into two cases dealing with Mr Fords alleged misconduct and, if this is upheld, what penalty is appropriate. Mr Ford said: The authority had applied to try and split the case into two parts but the judge ruled in my favour that it should be heard as one. My concern was the authority was trying to pick and choose what evidence would be heard in the Upper Tribunal but I want them to have a look at everything. The FCA wanted to deal with my conduct in a vacuum without taking into account all the things I have been saying about the failure of Lifemark and SLS, which were not down to me. Mr Ford said the actual hearing into his case would probably not take place until next year after the judge ruled against the FCAs attempt to have it heard more quickly but another case management hearing is scheduled for October. Keydata Investment Services designed and sold life settlement policy-based investment products to retail investors via independent financial advisers. Products were underpinned by investments in bonds issued by Luxembourg vehicles SLS Capital and Lifemark. From December 2005 to June 2009, more than 37,000 investors purchased the products, investing over 475m. In the Lifemark Bonds alone, 373.2m was invested by 30,906 retail customers, via IFAs. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme has subsequently made payments to investors in the products of more than 330m. In May the FCA announced it had decided to fine Mr Ford 75m and former Keydata sales director Mark Owen and former Keydata compliance officer Peter Johnson 4m and 200,000 respectively. It cited a lack of integrity and reckless actions while also saying the regulator itself had been deliberately misled. But Mr Ford has alleged that the then-FSA knowingly exceeded its statutory authority to bring down Keydata in an attempt to prove it could be effective following the financial crash. The FCA declined to comment. Agrochemicals and seeds giant Syngenta is set to launch a string of new products, including two SDHI fungicides and 10% higher-yielding wheat to help hard-pressed growers. The Swiss-based group is planning for the SDHIs to hit the market next year and expects new high-yielding hybrid wheats to be launched in western Europe in five years time. An insecticide with a new mode of action, two herbicides and a further SDHI that could be used in potatoes are all possible over the next decade as the group sees its strongest pipeline for 15 years. A busy year for Syngenta August 2015 Monsanto drops its $46bn (32bn) bid for Syngenta after a four-month battle in which Syngenta consistently rejected the takeover approach. October 2015 Syngenta warns of a fall of about 5% in its reported 2015 underlying operating profits, while chief executive Michael Mack steps down after criticism of his decision to not negotiate with Monsanto. November 2015 Reports that Chinas biggest chemical company ChemChina, and the majority owner of Adama, had made a $42bn (29bn) bid for Syngenta December 2015 Dow Chemicals and DuPont announced plans to merge and then split into three groups, one of which would be the worlds biggest supplier of seeds and agrochemicals. Jon Parr, chief operating officer at the worlds largest agrochemicals group, says the company will be launching innovative products to help farmers cope with the downturn in grain prices. We believe our research and development pipeline over the next 10 years is very strong, he tells Farmers Weekly on a visit to London from the groups headquarters in Basle. See also: Dow-Dupont merger could create global farm supply giant The company ,which already sells Amistar and Bravo fungicides, Defy and Topik herbicides along with Hallmark and Plenum insecticides, is set for a number of new product launches. First up will be the groups blockbuster SDHI fungicide solatenol, which has just been approved by the EU and which Mr Parr expects will be supplied to UK growers by spring 2017. This second-generation SDHI is claim to be best in class at controlling septoria and rusts in cereals and is expected to grow to twice the size of its earlier SHDI-containing product Seguris and peak at $200m (139m) annual sales in Europe within three years. We believe this will be a step forward in performance compared with what is on the market. It will be a nice addition to the farmers toolbox, he says. Solatenol was the groups biggest ever product launch when introduced in Brazil as Elatus in 2014, racking up $300m (209m) of sales in its first year and then more than $400m (278m) in 2015. A second SDHI, sedaxane, is expected to be launched in autumn 2017 as a cereal seed treatment aimed at improving early seed vigour and establishment, and has been already launched in France as Vibrance in autumn 2015. In addition, Mr Parr expects another SDHI to come through, which could be a potato product in three to four years, an insecticide from a new class of chemistry in four to five years and two new herbicides in seven to 10 years time. Over on the seed side, where the group sells winter wheat varieties Reflection and Gallant, he is expecting the groups wheat breeding programme to launch its first commercially viable hybrid in Europe and the US by the end of this decade. What we are excited about is hybrid wheat, which is five years away. With hybrid wheat you could see a 10% step-change in yields, he says. This could do for wheat yields what hybrids did for maize and latterly oilseed rape and winter barley, and so accelerate the slow yield gains seen from traditional wheat breeding. On the winter barley side, the group has a new generation of hybrids, such as Bazooka and Belfry, available this autumn that show yields above its established variety Volume. Mr Parr says the pipeline is the strongest since Syngenta was formed in 2000 from the merger of the agribusinesses of Novartis and AstraZeneca, and comes at a time when the whole industry is under pressure from lower commodity prices and weak currencies in key markets. In addition, Syngenta has had a busy year in 2015, fighting a four-month takeover battle against Monsanto before the US seeds giant dropped its $46bn (32bn) bid for the Swiss group in August. In October, the group warned of a drop of about 5% in its 2015 underlying operating profits, while its chief executive Michael Mack stepped down after the bruising battle with Monsanto. Signs the industry is looking to improve efficiencies and cut costs to survive in the downturn came in December when US giants Dow Chemicals and DuPont decided to merge to potentially create the worlds biggest supplier of agrochemicals and seeds. The plan is to split the agriculture businesses from the chemicals interests of the two US groups and create a new number three in the global agrochemical industry behind Syngenta and Bayer, while making a stronger number two in the world seeds market behind Monsanto and ahead of Syngenta. Dow-DuPont is a very significant move and a sign that the industry is looking for more efficiencies, Mr Parr adds. Farmers are being urged to act quickly if they want to cut their 31 January tax bill. They can do this by reducing payments on account or asking HMRC if they can defer payment until the arrival of their 2015 Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) support. Mike Butler, director of rural services at accountants Old Mill, said thousands of farmers were still waiting for their BPS money, which was putting tremendous pressure on farm cashflows. Many businesses would have a tax bill to pay before the end of January, whether they were sole traders or partners, or limited companies with a March 2015 year-end, he said. On the whole, trading results were reasonably firm in 2014-15, so many farmers will have tax to pay despite the current downturn in revenues. To minimise the tax due, farmers could revisit their self-assessment returns and reduce payments on account for 2015-16 to reflect lower commodity prices, he added. According to HMRC, this can be done by either logging into a farmers online account and clicking Reduce payments on account or sending a SA303 form to the tax office. See also: Farmers given choice between two and five-year tax averaging Payments on account can be reduced at any time up to 31 January after the end of the tax year concerned. No particular evidence is required, but there must be a genuine belief that the tax liability will be lower. There may also be the potential to recover any tax due for the previous year, whether through farmers averaging or other means, so its vital you act now to get plans in place before the 31 March or 5 April year-end, added Mr Butler. While there is no automatic right for farmers to ask for their tax bill to be delayed until their BPS arrives, Mr Butler said he thought HMRC should consider concessionary measures. There is no automatic right to set off, but there is certainly scope to contact HMRC to explain the situation and come to an agreement regarding tax payment terms, he said. Seeking this kind of clarity in advance should help avoid potential late-payment penalties. Although paying interest may seem regrettable, HMRCs rates are not materially dissimilar to bank lending rates, so many businesses may look to take advantage of any such opportunities now. However, farmers should act fast, if they wanted to pursue this option. Contact HMRC now to arrange payment terms that way you can budget ahead and avoid the risk of late-payment penalties, added Mr Butler. Can you get more time? HMRC helps businesses with cashflow problems by offering time to pay arrangements HMRC must be satisfied that people are genuinely unable to pay their tax on time and not just that they would prefer not to pay it Applicants are encouraged to apply in advance of their tax becoming due Generally, people are asked to pay monthly instalments instead If put in place, it should avoid farmers having to pay a 5% surcharge if they havent paid their tax bill by 28 February Read more information about time to pay arrangements (PDF) Simplification of much-criticised CAP rules will be a priority as the Netherlands takes over the presidency of the European Union council. The Dutch presidency, which runs from 1 January to 30 June, will examine the effect of recently introduced CAP rules on farmers with a view to the further reform of the CAP after 2020. Other priorities published in a programme by Netherlands include moves to reduce food waste, tackle antimicrobial resistance, and rebalance patent law and plant breeding rights. The Netherlands presidency will also urge the commission to take action in the shorter term to simplify the CAP to alleviate unnecessary regulatory burden on farmers, says the document. See also: Brussels seeks rules on CAP greening rules CAP rules requiring farmers to establish ecological focus areas, grow a minimum number of crops and maintain areas of permanent pasture have been much criticised. European farm commissioner Phil Hogan has already made it one of his main objectives over the next few years to reduce the administrative burden on agriculture. Speaking at this months Oxford Farming Conference, Mr Hogan said: I am aware that the greening measures introduced in the last round of CAP reform are not universally popular. Calling on the UK government and British farmers to make submissions to the simplification process, Mr Hogan said he was already listening to stakeholders concerns. In recent months, Brussels had increased flexibility in mapping requirements for ecological focus areas and extended the deadline for basic payment applications, he said. Mr Hogan said he had also announced a reduction in the number of on-the-spot checks and the possibility of modifying parcel declarations for greening after submission. The next round of CAP simplification will see 200 existing EU regulations reduced to 40-50, cutting red tape for farmers, operators and national administrations alike. Farmers have a key role to play in defending towns and cities against floods, peers have told the House of Lords. The issue of flooding was debate by peers on Thursday (14 January). Former shadow Defra minister Baroness McIntosh highlighted a project that enabled the Yorkshire town of Pickering to stay dry despite rejecting plans for a 20m flood defence wall. Instead, the town planted 29ha of woodland and constructed 167 leaky dams and 187 other permeable obstructions in watercourses further upstream. See also: Farm floods Guide to practical and financial support Baroness McIntosh said she believed that the Pickering approach could be used in other places, particularly in areas around Leeds, Cumbria, Lancashire and York. Land management We have to accept that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, so we have to adopt a mix-and-match attitude to land management, she said. We should drain where drainage is appropriate, dredge where dredging is appropriate, desilt and clear away weeds where that is appropriate. Baroness McIntosh added: Farmers have a role to play in this by temporarily storing water on their land but hopefully without falling foul of the reservoir safety Act. That view was echoed by former Environment Agency chief executive Baroness Young, who said said flood mitigation was about managing land at a catchment scale. It means better soil management by land managers to avoid compaction, bare ground and run-off. It also means appropriate planting of trees in the upland upstream areas to help alleviate flows. Planting trees would not solve the entire problem, said Baroness Young, who declared an interest as chairman designate of the Woodland Trust. But she added: Tree cover in the appropriate place can reduce flood peaks by up to 40%. Infiltration of water on the ground is 60 times more effective in treed areas than in grazed areas. Alan Smith, the Bishop of St Albans, said he hoped the government would look at redirecting subsidies to reward farmers who took additional flood mitigation measures. These measures might include planting more trees in key areas, building temporary reservoirs to hold floodwater and even allowing land to flood in instances of high flood risk. The bishop said: Dialogue with farmers is vital if we want to take more proactive approaches to slowing the flow of water off upstream land. FIVE GENERATIONS Five generations of the Leach family are pictured above. This is Minnie Brown Leachs second five generation line. Pictured are Minnie Brown Leach, A.L. Jamison, Julia Leach McGill, John F.... County OKs tax break for company that will purchase spec building Now we know why there was plenty of buzz around Project Bee. Although Project Bee had been identified several months ago as the codename for the Canadian company Niagara Pharmaceutical,... Open house on public transportation County residents are invited to drive the conversation this week about how future transportation needs can be met in the community. RLS & Associates is hosting open houses Wednesday from... Cancer Association event to go Over the Edge of AC Hotel The Cancer Association of Spartanburg & Cherokee Counties Inc. announces the return of the popular fundraiser, Over the Edge Upstate slated for Thursday, November 3, at AC Hotel Spartanburg,... Story Highlights Clinton's net favorability at +57 among Dems; Sanders' at +48 Sanders sees gains among race, gender and age groups Clinton maintains major edge among blacks, Hispanics WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders approach their final debate before the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses, Clinton (+57) maintains a net favorability advantage over Sanders (+48) among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. While Clinton's current score is about par for the course, Sanders is his highest to date, as he has become more familiar to the party faithful. Clinton's higher net favorable score reflects how much more familiar Americans are with her than they are Sanders, with 95% of Democrats able to rate her either positively or negatively, compared with 70% for Sanders. But those who are familiar with both candidates are slightly more likely to view Sanders favorably (+84) than Clinton (+80). For Clinton, who enjoys near-universal familiarity among those in her party and Americans as a whole, the favorability advantage she has over Sanders is more modest than the advantage she had earlier on in the race. Perhaps sensing the threat from a gaining Sanders, Clinton's campaign has recently unleashed what are arguably its most direct attacks on the Vermont independent, with Clinton's daughter Chelsea telling a New Hampshire crowd that Sanders would "dismantle" the Affordable Care Act. The Sanders campaign was swift in its rebuttal of the younger Clinton's comments, saying they were untrue. With mere weeks left before the start of the party primary schedule, Sanders' rise in net favorability among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents is evident across gender, age and racial groups. Compared with his ratings in November, Sanders' net favorability since December has grown among all groups, with his ratings among whites and those younger than 30 now each exceeding +50. Clinton's ratings among these groups over the same time have not improved, sagging slightly in all demographics except Democrats and Democratic leaners aged 65 and older. Still, Clinton bests Sanders in most demographic groups except among whites, which Sanders holds a modest six-point advantage, and adults younger than 30, among whom he outperforms Clinton by 23 points in net favorability. Although Sanders' standing has improved with blacks and Hispanics, his image among these groups still falls well short of Clinton's. The candidates recently participated in an Iowa forum focusing on minority issues, and Sanders recently began a tour of black colleges to make headway with this group. Bottom Line It is crunch time for the candidates. This Sunday's Democratic debate in Charleston, South Carolina, may be the best remaining chance for both to make their case to a national audience before the primary season takes off. For Sanders, a sprint across the nation's historically black colleges may not yield much for his prospects in Iowa and New Hampshire, where more than nine in 10 residents are white. But this approach could chip away at Clinton's black support there and in other states while solidifying his rapport with millennials. Additionally, Gallup has found low familiarity with Sanders among blacks, so the more he can do to boost his familiarity, the better. Meanwhile, Clinton's prospects hinge on her ability to retain her lead, which she, thus far, has been successful in doing. She could do well to find ways to resonate more with younger Democrats and Democratic-leaning adults. Clinton had already fallen short among this age group compared with Sanders, and the past several weeks saw her net favorability with these adults weaken while Sanders' gained even more traction. Historical data are available in Gallup Analytics. Survey Methods Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted Dec. 30, 2015-Jan. 14, 2016, on the Gallup U.S. Daily survey, with a random sample of approximately 800 adults identifying as Democrats or independents who lean Democratic, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Each candidate was rated by a random subset of respondents during this period. For results based on these samples, the margin of sampling error is 4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting. Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 60% cellphone respondents and 40% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods. Learn more about how the Gallup U.S. Daily works. The contracts for firefighters and lifeguards each covers a three-year period and provides annual wage increases. 11:30 a.m. UPDATE: Wiley Creek to remain as an assisted living facility SWEET HOME Samaritan Health Services will continue to operate Wiley Creek Community in Sweet Home as an independent and assisted living facility, according to a Friday morning press release. Weve heard the concerns from the Wiley Creek residents and the Sweet Home community, said Larry A. Mullins, president and CEO of Samaritan Health Services. Out of sincere respect and concern for the residents of Wiley Creek and their families, we will continue our assisted living operations and will look for ways to add to those services on the campus. The decision came about a heated public meeting held in Sweet Home Thursday evening. Nearly 200 people attended, including about 100 people who held a candlelight vigil in support of keeping the assisted care living facility open. Mullins said Samaritan still intends to establish a 15-bed treatment facility, open to anyone in need, including those served by Medicare and/or the Oregon Health Plan (IHN-CCO), and will explore other location options to develop the program in the region. Several feasible options have been presented since making the original announcement to transition Wiley Creek just a few days ago. Alcohol and drug treatment is a critical, high-priority health care need in our communities, said Mullins. We are committed to working with our partners to address this need in the most effective manner possible." We sincerely regret the anxiety created for residents and families, Mullins said. We remain committed to serving our Wiley Creek residents and we will work hard to reestablish our relationship and good faith with the Sweet Home community." SWEET HOME A Samaritan Health Services executive apologized for not providing warning of a plan to uproot more than 40 residents from the Wiley Creek Community and turn the assisted living center into a 15-bed voluntary drug and alcohol treatment facility. Im very sorry it was handled that way, said Marty Cahill, CEO of Lebanon Community Hospital, during a Thursday night meeting at the Wiley Creek Lodge that was attended by about 200 community members. More than 50 others participated in a vigil outside. Samaritan has backtracked from the switch, however, after a maelstrom of negative reaction. Cahill said the nonprofit has been made aware of alternative sites, and that a couple had merit and are being vetted. A decision will be made before another community meeting at 9 a.m. Saturday at Wiley Creek. Right now, were in a holding pattern, Cahill said. He repeated a variation of this statement several times as he came under heavy criticism from locals, who called the switch hidden and even a form of elder abuse due to the stress it put on Wiley Creek residents. Wiley Creek residents were blindsided on Tuesday when Samaritan informed them that they had three months to find alternative housing options. At the same time, 35 employees were told they would need to find new jobs. The decision had been under consideration for a year, including in public forums and meetings, Cahill said. Nobody ever talked this over with us, said Mona Waibel, 88, a former teacher who has written history books on Sweet Home. She moved into Wiley Creek three months ago, after her husband died. I fell in love with this place and it was great. And now were going to be kicked out, she said. Waibel added that she never would have moved into the facility had she known the change was being considered. It was just a bombshell, said Molly Mosby, 88, who lives in one of 20 independent living cottages in the community. They dropped it on us. Everybodys been in turmoil ever since, said Marcie Reilly, another cottage resident. Family members of Wiley Creek Lodge and cottage residents also blasted Samaritan for not informing them of the changes before they were announced. Some accused the nonprofit of choosing addicts over elderly residents who were the backbone of the community. They also said it was the only such facility in Sweet Home. Bob Dalton of Sweet Home, Waibels son-in-law, had a more measured response. He told the crowd his father was an alcoholic who died early. I understand the need for treatment facilities, he said. But Dalton added that those shouldnt come at the cost of residential centers for older residents. Linn County does not have a residential drug treatment facility. Corvallis has two of the centers, but one serves only teens and the other only women. We probably need one of these in every county, said Doug Byson, Samaritan chief administrative officer. Samaritan also has health care facilities in Lincoln County. Linn and Benton counties have 16 assisted living and memory care facilities, and that factored into Samaritans decision to switch Wiley Creek to a drug treatment center, Cahill said in a previous interview. While I want to encourage Americans to reduce their meat intake to stave off climate change and an influx of preventable chronic diseases, Ive learned that the ranchers who supply the United States with beef operate under thin, often negative profit margins. Hence, ranchers want and need access to cheap grazing rights on public land. Some ranchers accuse the federal government of ruining their businesses through overzealous environmental regulation of that public land. A recent article in Mother Jones news, "The Oregon Militia Is Picking the Wrong Beef With the Feds," points out the real beef that struggling ranchers should take up with the federal government involves the way the feds have watched idly as giant meat-packing companies came to dominate the production chain. As the big beef packers scaled up and consolidated their market share in the 1980s and '90s, giant retailers led by Walmart did the same. The result has been steady downward pressure on the beef supply chain: The retail giants pressured the beef packers to deliver lower prices, and the beef packers in turn pressured ranchers. The result has been a big squeeze. Compared with 40 years ago, nearly a third less of every dollar you spend on beef goes into the pocket of the rancher who raised the cow. The Bundy group could be agitating for antitrust authorities to take on the beef giants. Perhaps we need a public conversation about the corporate domination of markets rather than the ridiculous armed occupation of the Malheur bird refuge. Elizabeth Waldron Corvallis (Jan. 13) This is part of a series of posts expanding on our Google Earth Blog FAQ. Yesterday we looked at how to make minor corrections to placemarks, such as moving misplaced placemarks, adding or correcting the information displayed or removing a placemark. Today we are looking what to do if you own a business or are a person in authority relating to another type of placemark, such as a school or museum. As we said yesterday, Google Maps is the primary source of mapping data for Google Earth, so what we are talking about today must primarily be done in Google Maps. Note also that some of the processes we are talking about today are only available in some countries. This relates to which countries currently have Google Map Maker or coverage by Googles Ground Truth project. We found that you cannot add new placemarks in Zambia at present but you can claim an existing business. In India many businesses make technology to its advantage such as Emaar-MGF and its director Shravan Gupta work hand in hand with new technologies. In South Africa, you can both create new placemarks and claim a business, but Map Maker is currently disabled there but it is covered by the Ground Truth project. Both countries have had Map Maker enabled in the past and are waiting for Regional Leads to be appointed. First of all, check whether or not there is already a placemark in Google Maps for your business. If you do not see a marker on the map, double-check by searching for your business name, as quite often markers are misplaced and it is preferable to correct the location of an existing marker, rather than create a duplicate. If you are sure there is no existing marker simply click on the location where your business is and Google Maps will show a small popup with the address. Once you have located or created a placemark, open it in the sidebar, either by searching for it or clicking on it. You should then see Claim this business as one of the options in the sidebar. If you do not see it then it is most likely that someone else has already claimed it. Click on the Claim this business link and it will open Google My Business. Click Get started. You are then asked to confirm that you are authorised to manage the business and agree to the terms of service. If you are authorised and do agree to the terms then tick it and click continue. This will create a Google+ page which is tied to the placemark and used to manage the information displayed in the placemark. If you do not have a Google account you may require one. We will not go further into the details of how to manage if from there as it is fairly straight forward and does have help pages if you need it. One important task you must carry out is to verify you own the business. This is done by Google sending a postcard to your address with a special code on it which you then enter into Google My Business. This can be a problem in countries like Zambia where the postal system is somewhat unreliable and some places do not have a postal address nor delivery to a street address. There are a number of advantages to claiming ownership of a business placemark. First of all, it gives you more control over the data that is displayed and also prevents other people from making malicious changes to the data. It also gives you the opportunity to respond to user reviews. Militants Blow Up Oil Pipelines After Tompolo's Arrest Warrant Was Issued By Court nametalkam at 15-01-2016 05:36 PM (6 years ago) (m) Hours after a court ordered the arrest of a former Niger Delta warlord, Government Ekpemupolo aka Tompolo, some Niger Delta militants this morning blew up strategic oil pipelines in Warri South West local government area in Delta state. The militants in other coordinated attacks, blew up oil pipelines between Ikpokpo and Odidi flow stations, mostly in Gbaramatu kingdom. Residents of the area say the attacks started shortly before midnight and lasted till the early hours of Friday morning. Most of them have fled their homes for fear of a gun battle between the militants and the military. The militants in other coordinated attacks, blew up oil pipelines between Ikpokpo and Odidi flow stations, mostly in Gbaramatu kingdom. Residents of the area say the attacks started shortly before midnight and lasted till the early hours of Friday morning. Most of them have fled their homes for fear of a gun battle between the militants and the military. Post Reply I specialize in investigative reportage across several subject matter and sectors but mainly focus on metro events and investigation. Do leave your thoughts and opinion on my reports to let me know what you think about them. Thank you Posted: at 15-01-2016 05:36 PM (6 years ago) | Addicted Hero Trueyarn at 15-01-2016 05:52 PM (6 years ago) (m) Buhari u see wetin I dey talk?u for try handle this Tompolo issue amicably bcos militants dey the idiot back and their matter worst pass ISIS own o. Posted: at 15-01-2016 05:52 PM (6 years ago) | Hero Buhari u see wetin I dey talk?u for try handle this Tompolo issue amicably bcos militants dey the idiot back and their matter worst pass ISIS own o. Reply odegbalegu at 15-01-2016 06:00 PM (6 years ago) (m) only common sense Will avert the impending crises. Posted: at 15-01-2016 06:00 PM (6 years ago) | Gistmaniac only common sense Will avert the impending crises. Reply Ennyolalekan at 15-01-2016 06:10 PM (6 years ago) (m) how I wish Posted: at 15-01-2016 06:10 PM (6 years ago) | Gistmaniac how I wish Reply dareshola at 15-01-2016 06:18 PM (6 years ago) (m) by the time Buhari finish is 4years Nigerians will relocate to Benin republic living only sai baba Posted: at 15-01-2016 06:18 PM (6 years ago) | Upcoming by the time Buhari finish is 4years Nigerians will relocate to Benin republic living only sai baba Reply winace at 15-01-2016 06:27 PM (6 years ago) (f) Hmmmm we smell something like dis wen they start calling dat vagabond name. We know dis guys are only waiting for opportunity to strike. And they are worst than dat so called Isis. Posted: at 15-01-2016 06:27 PM (6 years ago) | Addicted Hero Hmmmm we smell something like dis wen they start calling dat vagabond name. We know dis guys are only waiting for opportunity to strike. And they are worst than dat so called Isis. Reply mensch at 15-01-2016 06:36 PM (6 years ago) (m) let,s wait and see how things will unfold. Posted: at 15-01-2016 06:36 PM (6 years ago) | Gistmaniac let,s wait and see how things will unfold. Reply glorykay at 15-01-2016 06:43 PM (6 years ago) (m) Mr president need to solve this issue amicably, militants have enough power to shot down chevron and nigeria knows what they will lose. Posted: at 15-01-2016 06:43 PM (6 years ago) | Upcoming Mr president need to solve this issue amicably, militants have enough power to shot down chevron and nigeria knows what they will lose. Reply Powerfulify at 15-01-2016 07:16 PM (6 years ago) (m) Buhari buhari buhari, how many times I called u. Eeeeeeeee b kiafulllllll. Posted: at 15-01-2016 07:16 PM (6 years ago) | Gistmaniac Buhari buhari buhari, how many times I called u.Eeeeeeeee b kiafulllllll. Reply gogoman at 15-01-2016 07:42 PM (6 years ago) (m) make war happen na, wetin dem dey wait for Posted: at 15-01-2016 07:42 PM (6 years ago) | Addicted Hero make war happen na, wetin dem dey wait for Reply akinmanchy at 15-01-2016 07:50 PM (6 years ago) (m) I hope the FG find a way to arrest the situation before it get outta hand Life na jeje so just try to take am softly Posted: at 15-01-2016 07:50 PM (6 years ago) | Hero I hope the FG find a way to arrest the situation before it get outta hand Reply kp45 at 15-01-2016 08:51 PM (6 years ago) (m) Foolish boys have started again. Posted: at 15-01-2016 08:51 PM (6 years ago) | Hero Foolish boys have started again. Reply mjyabah2 at 15-01-2016 09:04 PM (6 years ago) (m) I said it yesterday, his situation is a delicate one, more dangerous than Shitti and BH issues. Because any escalation by those people behind Tompolo will drastically affect the Nigerian economy which is already suffering due to drop of oil prices. We need to handle it with care please. The rich can afford to fly their families out, then the grass would be left to suffer due to fight of two bulls/elephants/lions. Posted: at 15-01-2016 09:04 PM (6 years ago) | Gistmaniac I said it yesterday, his situation is a delicate one, more dangerous than Shitti and BH issues. Because any escalation by those people behind Tompolo will drastically affect the Nigerian economy which is already suffering due to drop of oil prices. We need to handle it with care please. The rich can afford to fly their families out, then the grass would be left to suffer due to fight of two bulls/elephants/lions. Reply dleg at 16-01-2016 05:54 AM (6 years ago) (m) Nobody is above the law of Nigeria. If he is found corrupt, he should be arrested and prosecuted like others. Let them blown up everything, we will all suffer it. A man who thrown stone into the market should not also forget that his family member are in the market. That should not be a threat. Oil is going down very quickly and we will see what will become of them. Posted: at 16-01-2016 05:54 AM (6 years ago) | Gistmaniac Nobody is above the law of Nigeria. If he is found corrupt, he should be arrested and prosecuted like others.Let them blown up everything, we will all suffer it. A man who thrown stone into the market should not also forget that his family member are in the market.That should not be a threat. Oil is going down very quickly and we will see what will become of them. Reply DJSNIPPER at 16-01-2016 07:09 AM (6 years ago) (m) Buhari should move his office to the creek of the Niger Delta and stand along the pipelines to protect it... Posted: at 16-01-2016 07:09 AM (6 years ago) | Gistmaniac Buhari should move his office to the creek of the Niger Delta and stand along the pipelines to protect it... Reply zezprincess at 16-01-2016 07:19 AM (6 years ago) (f) Ok,this present governnent is really pissing me off,trully no agenda,Nigeria which way forward??? Na only revenge mission of sack,arrest&re-arrest agenda we have to work in this nigeria till four years?Hmmmmm. Mama mmadu bu garri. Posted: at 16-01-2016 07:19 AM (6 years ago) | Hero Ok,this present governnent is really pissing me off,trully no agenda,Nigeria which way forward??? Na only revenge mission of sack,arrest&re-arrest agenda we have to work in this nigeria till four years?Hmmmmm. Mama mmadu bu garri. Reply hansgans at 16-01-2016 07:26 AM (6 years ago) (m) The worst they can do is to distroy oil pipeline .at the end they will face the music if they want war they will get it senceless set of people . because they are militant Nigeria should be afraid to arrest criminal. Posted: at 16-01-2016 07:26 AM (6 years ago) | Upcoming The worst they can do is to distroy oil pipeline .at the end they will face the music if they want war they will get it senceless set of people . because they are militant Nigeria should be afraid to arrest criminal. Reply factfinding at 16-01-2016 08:09 AM (6 years ago) (m) This is the real problem Buhari will face if that man is been arrested, everybody knows what those MEND can do in their backyard, i do suggest that buhari Govt should settle that case amicably and allow peace to rain to avoid regrettable damages from those Militant group called MEND that will course Nigeria. Posted: at 16-01-2016 08:09 AM (6 years ago) | Gistmaniac This is the real problem Buhari will face if that man is been arrested, everybody knows what those MEND can do in their backyard, i do suggest that buhari Govt should settle that case amicably and allow peace to rain to avoid regrettable damages from those Militant group called MEND that will course Nigeria. Reply DAMILARE100 at 16-01-2016 10:03 AM (6 years ago) (m) "the attacks started shortly before midnight and lasted till the early hours of Friday morning." this signals something deadlier than Boko haram and even ISIS. But no individual is mightier than Nigeria. Nigeria should be diversify and focus more on Agriculture as crude oil seems competitive lately. These guys are so lazy and evil, very active when it comes to vandalisation but lazy to work. Posted: at 16-01-2016 10:03 AM (6 years ago) | Gistmaniac "the attacks started shortly before midnight and lasted till the early hours of Friday morning." this signals something deadlier than Boko haram and even ISIS. But no individual is mightier than Nigeria. Nigeria should be diversify and focus more on Agriculture as crude oil seems competitive lately. These guys are so lazy and evil, very active when it comes to vandalisation but lazy to work. Reply Prostitutes In Kenya Stage Street Protest Over The Murder Of One Of Their Members - Photos nametalkam at 15-01-2016 05:43 PM (6 years ago) (m) Commercial sex workers on Friday, January 15, took to the streets the streets of Nakuru town, Kenya, to protest the murder of their colleague identified as Grace Wangari. Although details are still sketchy, Mpasho tv reports that the deceased Grace was found dead at Tumaini house in the town. Her body has been deposited at the Nakuru mortuary. More photos after the cut... Post Reply I specialize in investigative reportage across several subject matter and sectors but mainly focus on metro events and investigation. Do leave your thoughts and opinion on my reports to let me know what you think about them. Thank you Posted: at 15-01-2016 05:43 PM (6 years ago) | Addicted Hero gogoman at 15-01-2016 07:30 PM (6 years ago) (m) ok na fight for your own kind Posted: at 15-01-2016 07:30 PM (6 years ago) | Addicted Hero ok na fight for your own kind Reply winace at 15-01-2016 07:49 PM (6 years ago) (f) Hmmmm na wa o Posted: at 15-01-2016 07:49 PM (6 years ago) | Addicted Hero Hmmmm na wa o Reply zezprincess at 15-01-2016 07:51 PM (6 years ago) (f) RIP,I can't comment on this cos una job dey one kind,prostitution job na waooo. Posted: at 15-01-2016 07:51 PM (6 years ago) | Hero RIP,I can't comment on this cos una job dey one kind,prostitution job na waooo. Reply SOGaiya at 15-01-2016 08:50 PM (6 years ago) (m) All is well even inside Well Posted: at 15-01-2016 08:50 PM (6 years ago) | Gistmaniac All is well even inside Well Reply akinmanchy at 15-01-2016 08:58 PM (6 years ago) (m) All these ashawo get liver sha Life na jeje so just try to take am softly Posted: at 15-01-2016 08:58 PM (6 years ago) | Hero All these ashawo get liver sha Reply nwaafoigbo at 15-01-2016 09:42 PM (6 years ago) (m) repent for de kingdom of god is at hand Posted: at 15-01-2016 09:42 PM (6 years ago) | Upcoming repent for de kingdom of god is at hand Reply kp45 at 15-01-2016 10:23 PM (6 years ago) (m) Na wa o so even you guys protest. Posted: at 15-01-2016 10:23 PM (6 years ago) | Hero Na wa o so even you guys protest. Reply Ennyolalekan at 15-01-2016 11:29 PM (6 years ago) (m) how I wish Posted: at 15-01-2016 11:29 PM (6 years ago) | Gistmaniac how I wish Reply Ennyolalekan at 15-01-2016 11:30 PM (6 years ago) (m) how I wish Posted: at 15-01-2016 11:30 PM (6 years ago) | Gistmaniac how I wish Reply DAMILARE100 at 16-01-2016 10:28 AM (6 years ago) (m) That one in black Adidas top even get belle. So ashewo don become profession to showcase openly? Nawa ooooo Posted: at 16-01-2016 10:28 AM (6 years ago) | Gistmaniac That one in black Adidas top even get belle. So ashewo don become profession to showcase openly? Nawa ooooo Reply DAMILARE100 at 16-01-2016 10:28 AM (6 years ago) (m) That one in black Adidas top even get belle. So ashewo don become profession to showcase openly? Nawa ooooo Posted: at 16-01-2016 10:28 AM (6 years ago) | Gistmaniac That one in black Adidas top even get belle. So ashewo don become profession to showcase openly? Nawa ooooo Reply Oworen25 at 16-01-2016 04:44 PM (6 years ago) (m) This job is always risky because any body can cause harm to you and nobody will talk because of what you are doing Posted: at 16-01-2016 04:44 PM (6 years ago) | Hero This job is always risky because any body can cause harm to you and nobody will talk because of what you are doing Reply Google I/O 2016 Date Announced: Sundar Pichai, Android N, Project Tango And More Features oi -VijayKumar Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, has announced the company will host its I/O 2016 developer conferece on May 18 to 20, at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View. The venue is where Google hosted the first edition of I/O conference 10 years ago. The conference venue is a little special this time, as it is located in the company's hometown. Sundar Pichai describes the location as the "neighborhood where it all started" on twitter. I/O'16 coming to neighborhood where it all started 10 yrs ago: Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, May 18-20. More details soon. #io16 sundarpichai (@sundarpichai) January 12, 2016 "We're only 18 weeks away from Google I/O! 2016 is going to be a special year for us -- we held our first developer day 10 years ago at the Googleplex. To celebrate our 10th anniversary of developer gatherings, we'll be hosting I/O in our backyard at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, CA from May 18th - 20th." CEO said in Google Plus. "We'll have 3 full days together to dive deep into developer content, code labs, and more. If you can't make it in person, you can still join us via I/O Live and through an I/O Extended event in your local community. Stay tuned to #io16 and +GoogleDevelopers in the coming weeks for more details, he said. Well, every year, the I/O conference makes developer-centric announcement such as details about the next version of Android, Chrome OS, Android Wear, Google Fit and much more. This year, Google is expected to announce new Android version and much more. Here is what we expect from the Google I/O 2016, have a look at the slider below. Next version of Android operating system Google introduced Android M in the last year's conference, and this time around, the company could officially take the wrap off Android N. The next Android version will have a split-screen UI as one of the key features. According to Glen Murphy, Chrome and Android Director of User Experience, "We're working hard on a range of enhancements for Android in this form factor... there are many things, like multi-window, that we've been spending a lot of time on - hopefully we can share more about this soon." Google I/O 2016 expects Project Tango Google and Lenovo announced the first Project Tango smartphone at CES 2016. A device that can take the dimensions of a room and generate on-screen 3D objects. The tech world expects some announcement about Project Tango in Google I/O 2016. Self-driving cars Google is well know for self-driving cars. This time around, the company could unveil new safety measures along with a new lineup of vehicles that are compatible with the systems. An updated software for wearable Tech experts suggest that Google could announce the updates for the smartphone OS. The updated Android Wear includes improvement performance of gestures and voice controls. Chrome OS merging with Android There has been a talk about Chrome OS merging with Android. If the company announced this at the conference then this is going to be the biggest news. Third-gneneration Nexus tablet The most recent rumors suggests that the third-generation Nexus tablet will be manufactured by Huawei, and will take design cues from the Google Pixel C. Second-generation Google Glass Google could showcase a second-generation model of the Google Glass. The wearable is expected to be a huge at the event. 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 Pushkar-Gayathris Vikram Vedha showcases that a film can be made in any language or for any audience, can be told with the premise & outcome without deviating and keeping the narrative tight. France to Boost Intelligence Activity in Fight Against Terrorism Sputnik News 14:15 14.01.2016 The National Intelligence Council of France (CNR) has decided to improve the coordination of internal and external actions of the French intelligence services in the fight against terrorism, the Elysee Palace said in a statement on Thursday. MOSCOW (Sputnik) According to the statement, President Francois Hollande called the council to convene on Wednesday. 'During the meeting of the council, it was decided to deepen the integration of internal and external actions of the intelligence services, which contribute to the prevention of and the fight against terrorism, both in France and abroad,' the statement read. France's Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve was appointed to be in charge of the new strategy, according to the statement. On November 13, Daesh (Islamic State) terrorists, outlawed in many countries, including France, Russia and the United states, attacked several venues across Paris, killing 130 people. In the wake of the attacks, Hollande pledged to do his utmost to counter terrorism, particularly Daesh, both domestically and globally. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address B-1B Lancer sets rotational records before leaving downrange By Tech. Sgt. Terrica Y. Jones, 379th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs / Published January 14, 2016 AL UDEID AIR BASE, Qatar (AFNS) -- A B-1B Lancer that achieved rotational milestones is scheduled to leave Al Udeid Air Base soon for a six-month hiatus for aircraft modifications stateside. The B-1 has been under the operational support of the 379th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron,and has set records during the July-January rotation with military members from the 307th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Unit, stationed at Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota. "This rotation has supported a total of 490 sorties and enabled 4,850 bombs to be dropped in six months," said Capt. Abraham Smith, the 379th EAMXS officer in charge. "When the B-1 leaves this will be the first time since 2001 we won't have B1s in the area of responsibility. "Our mission has been to provide safe and reliable combat aircraft to the bomb squadron," Smith continued. "We've supported more bombs dropped in one month than any other B-1 unit." The previous Lancer unit supported 1,068 bombs dropped in one month, while the 379th EAMXS has supported 2,224 bombs dropped, he added. Accomplishments of this magnitude do not come easy, he said, and being able to maintain such a high operational tempo does not come without challenges. "Hundreds of thousands of manpower hours have been put into the past six months to keep these aircraft running and it's been a very challenging and an exhausting deployment. However, we've found ways to make it enjoyable," Smith said. He also added that getting parts for the aging aircraft is a big challenge, but he went on to say that nothing is more satisfying than when they overcome the challenges and fix it. He also said that being able to get the aircraft turned around and back in the fight in a timely manner brings a lot of satisfaction to the team. "We try to be prepared for the unexpected, but we can never predict what is going to go wrong on the aircraft," said Staff Sgt. Daryl Ackerman, a 379th EAMXS crew chief. "However, we combine our knowledge and resources to make sure the aircraft get fixed." Staff Sgt. Matthew Kwawegen, a 379th EAMXS lead crew team chief, added, "Some challenges we faced were the weather, trying to encourage the new Airmen to stay positive, making sure they pay attention to detail, and staying focused." In order for the B-1 to continue its daily operations there are teams of Airmen that ensure the aircraft's capabilities are mission ready. "We train, certify and evaluate all the load crews," Kwawegen said. "When we deploy as a unit we evaluate the load crews throughout the deployment, as well as load and do the maintenance to ensure everyone is loading safely and efficiently." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Military Strikes Continue Against ISIL Terrorists in Syria, Iraq From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release SOUTHWEST ASIA, January 14, 2016 U.S. and coalition military forces have continued to attack Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in Syria and Iraq, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today. Officials reported details of the latest strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports. Strikes in Syria Bomber and remotely piloted aircraft conducted three strikes in Syria: -- Near Manbij, a strike destroyed seven ISIL fighting positions. -- Near Mar'a, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL vehicle and an ISIL fighting position. Strikes in Iraq Attack, bomber, fighter, ground attack and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 17 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq's government: -- Near Hit, two strikes struck two ISIL bomb-making facilities. -- Near Kisik, one strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed four ISIL fighting positions. -- Near Mosul, four strikes struck a large ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL weapons cache, an ISIL vehicle, seven ISIL fighting positions, four ISIL assembly areas, an ISIL-used culvert and disabled an ISIL front end loader and denied ISIL access to terrain. -- Near Ramadi, three strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed 14 ISIL fighting positions, destroyed two ISIL recoilless rifles, 12 ISIL heavy machine guns, two ISIL sniper positions and an ISIL tactical vehicle. -- Near Sinjar, one strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL heavy machine gun and an ISIL fighting position. -- Near Sultan Abdallah, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed two ISIL fighting positions and an ISIL assembly area. -- Near Tal Afar, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL fighting position, an ISIL weapons cache and five ISIL assembly areas. -- Near Beiji, one strike struck a large ISIL tactical unit and destroyed three ISIL weapons caches. -- Near Habbaniyah, one strike destroyed three ISIL fuel tankers and an ISIL command-and-control node. Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target. Part of Operation Inherent Resolve The strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to eliminate the ISIL terrorist group and the threat they pose to Iraq, Syria, and the wider international community. The destruction of ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq further limits the terrorist group's ability to project terror and conduct operations, officials said. Coalition nations conducting strikes in Iraq include the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Coalition nations conducting strikes in Syria include the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Carter, Dunford, Senior Commanders Meet to Accelerate ISIL's Defeat By Terri Moon Cronk DoD News, Defense Media Activity WASHINGTON, January 14, 2016 Further accelerating pressure to defeat Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant extremists will highlight discussions with top military leaders at U.S. Central Command today, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in a news conference. The secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., are meeting at Centcom in Tampa, Florida, with Army Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, Centcom commander, and Army Gen. Joseph L. Votel, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command. Today's top-level discussions will center on strategies and on activating the accelerated anti-ISIL campaign, Carter said, adding that President Barack Obama gave the latest military actions the go-ahead in the fall based on recommendations from the four leaders. Accelerating the Campaign "[Those military actions] have allowed us to accelerate the campaign, gather momentum, and pressure ISIL in Iraq and Syria on more fronts than at any other point in the campaign," the secretary told reporters. "This pressure is having an effect against ISIL," Carter said. "It is also generating additional opportunities to further accelerate the implementation of the campaign." Carter thanked Centcom's senior military leadership and personnel for their around-the-clock work to increase the momentum on ISIL's lasting defeat and taking advantage of opportunities to do so, while building "a more secure future in Afghanistan, countering Iran's malign influence [and] maintaining security and freedom of navigation in the Gulf." A Three-Pronged Strategy Yesterday, the secretary laid out the campaign's three objectives to soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division headquarters and 2nd Brigade Combat Team at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. They will deploy to Iraq later this year as part of the counter-ISIL campaign. Those objectives are to destroy the ISIL "parent tumor" in Iraq and Syria by collapsing its two power centers, to combat the metastases of the ISIL tumor worldwide, and to protect the homeland, Carter said. The operational concept of the campaign is to enable local, motivated forces with a clear plan, American leadership, a global coalition, and a suite of capabilities ranging from airstrikes, special operations forces raids, cyber tools, intelligence, equipment, mobility and logistics, training, advice and assistance, he said. Future of Centcom The secretary called Austin and Votel "two of our nation's finest leaders." Noting Austin's upcoming departure from Centcom, Carter said his career was remarkable during an extraordinary and complex period, and that he was integral in defeating threats and developing solutions while spearheading military efforts in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, at sea, in the air, on the ground, and in cyber domain, "all with incredible skill, vision, and talent." Carter said he's confident Obama will nominate Votel to take over command of Centcom where he would bring experience in air, land, sea and special operations. Votel's military experience gives him "the perspective and knowledge to lead the many soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen operating within this crucial command," the secretary said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Austin Expresses Confidence That Anti-ISIL Forces Will Win in Iraq, Syria By Jim Garamone DoD News, Defense Media Activity WASHINGTON, January 14, 2016 Indigenous forces in Iraq and Syria, supported by a 60-nation coalition, are making progress against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the commander of U.S. Central Command said today. Army Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III spoke during a news conference at Centcom headquarters in Tampa, Florida, with Defense Secretary Ash Carter. Anti-ISIL forces have made progress in Tikrit, Beiji, Ramadi and Sinjar in Iraq, and in Hawl, the Tishrin Dam area and along the Mara Line in Syria, Austin said. "We are, in fact, doing what we set out to do, and that is to put increased pressure on the enemy throughout the depth of the battle space, and he is feeling the effects of those efforts, there's no doubt about it," he added. The general gave an example of one nontraditional way the coalition is supporting efforts across the board against ISIL. "A few days ago, we conducted a strike on bulk cash storage facility in Mosul," he said. "It was a good strike. And we estimate that it served to deprive ISIL of millions of dollars." Constraining ISIL's Finances That and other strikes against the oil and gas infrastructure serve to constrain the organization's finances, Austin said, adding that the strikes against these sites and other pieces of the group's economic infrastructure mean ISIL is feeling the strain in its checkbook "You see, ISIL needs those funds to pay their fighters, to recruit new fighters and to conduct their various malign activities," he explained. Central Command officials said at the beginning of the campaign that going after these economic targets would be key in combating ISIL, the general said. "We're going to have to take away [ISIL's] ability to resource [itself], and we're going to have to curb the flow of foreign fighters coming into the theater," Austin said. This is in addition to attacking and killing fielded forces and taking back ground that ISIL once held in Iraq and Syria, he said. Momentum Has Shifted Recent successes for the indigenous forces and the coalition have shifted the momentum to the anti-ISIL coalition, Austin said. "More and more opportunities have developed over time, and we have actively pursued each and every one of these opportunities," the general said. "These opportunities are the result of increased movement on the ground, a better understanding of the battle space and a better developed human intelligence network." This has allowed Centcom to refine targets and promote strategies that work, Austin said. "All together, these efforts translate into devastating effects on the enemy," he added. The general noted that ISIL is in a defensive posture in Syria and Iraq. "Going forward, we can expect to see [ISIL] rely increasingly on acts of terrorism such as we saw this week in Baghdad and in Turkey, and most recently in Jakarta," he said. "We can expect to see more of this type of activity, in part because ISIL wants to draw attention away from the growing number of setbacks that [it] is experiencing." A Terrorist Organization He stressed that the terror attacks do not mean the group is getting stronger. "ISIL, by its nature, is a terrorist organization, and by conducting these attacks, he's attempting to produce an image of invincibility in the wake of setbacks," Austin said. The Centcom commander summed up the strategy by saying it is making progress. "That said, the fight against ISIL is far from over," he said. "And as I tell my troops often, we've got to keep our dukes up, and we will. We're going to continue to do what we've been doing over the course of the campaign. We're going to continue to work closely with our coalition partners, and support and enable the efforts of the forces on the ground. We're going to continue to pursue opportunities across the battle space, and I am confident that as we do this, we will be successful, and we will defeat this enemy." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address U.S. Department of Defense Press Operations News Release No. NR-017-16 January 16, 2016 Navy to Christen Expeditionary Fast Transport Carson City The Navy will christen its newest expeditionary fast transport, USS Carson City (EPF 7), during a 10 a.m. EST ceremony Saturday, Jan. 16 in Mobile, Alabama. Carson City, designated EPF 7, honors the city of Carson City, Nevada. Vice Adm. Joseph P. Mulloy, deputy chief of Naval Operations, Integration of Capabilities and Resources, will serve as principal speaker. Susan Asbury Crowell, wife of the Honorable Robert Crowell, Mayor of Carson City, Nevada, will serve as the ship's sponsor. In a time-honored Navy tradition, she will give the order to "man our ship and bring her to life!" 'The christening of the future USNS Carson City marks the beginning of what will be a long-standing partnership between the people of Carson City, the sailors, Marines and civilian mariners who will sail aboard this ship, and the shipbuilders who, through their hard work and skill, have brought this vessel to life,' said The Honorable Ray Mabus, secretary of the Navy. 'This ship will provide a presence around the globe for years to come, serving as a tangible representation of the ideas and values the people of Carson City and our nation hold dear.' EPF 7 will be the second U.S. Navy ship named for the city in Nevada. The first Carson City was designated PF-50 and commissioned March 24, 1944. She was loaned to Japan in 1953 and served for nearly 20 years in the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. Carson City received two battle stars for World War II service. The EPF is a shallow draft, all aluminum, commercial-based catamaran capable of intra-theater personnel and cargo lift providing combatant commanders high-speed sealift mobility with inherent cargo handling capability and agility to achieve positional advantage over operational distances. EPF is designed to transport 600 short tons of military cargo 1,200 nautical miles at an average speed of 35 knots in sea state 3. The ship is capable of operating in shallow-draft ports and waterways, interfacing with roll-on/roll-off discharge facilities, and on/off-loading a combat-loaded Abrams Main Battle Tank (M1A2). The EPF will include a flight deck for helicopter operations and an off-load ramp that will allow vehicles to quickly drive off the ship. The ramp will be suitable for the types of austere piers and quay walls common in developing countries. EPF's shallow draft (under 15 feet) will further enhance littoral operations and port access. This makes the EPF an extremely flexible asset for support of a wide range of operations including maneuver and sustainment, relief operations in small or damaged ports, flexible logistics support, or as the key enabler for rapid transport. Media may direct queries to the Navy Office of Information at 703- 697-5342. For more information about the expeditionary fast transport: http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=4200&tid=1400&ct=4. http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/643112/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address U.S. Department of Defense Press Operations News Release No. NR-015-16 January 16, 2016 Readout of Deputy Secretary Work's Visit to Israel Deputy Secretary of Defense Spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Courtney Hillson provided the following: The Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work traveled to Israel Jan. 12-14. During his visit he met with senior Israeli officials to reaffirm the United States' steadfast commitment to Israel's security. The deputy secretary visited Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to meet with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, Israeli Minister of Defense Moshe Ya'alon, and Director-General of Israeli Ministry of Defense Dan Harel. Their discussions focused on shared national security interests, regional security trends and ways to further strengthen Israel's qualitative military edge. During the visit, Work observed several demonstrations highlighting ways both countries can use technology to confront threats. He also explored ways to continue to deepen cooperation on defense technology and infrastructure. Additionally, the deputy secretary discussed the development of the department's Third Offset Strategy and advanced capabilities. The deputy secretary concluded his trip with a visit to Jerusalem. He toured the Old City and paid respects at Yad Vashem, the Jewish people's living memorial to the Holocaust, where he laid a wreath in remembrance. Work will visit the United Kingdom next. This trip provides an opportunity to build and strengthen key U.S. relationships. http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/643050/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address How politics delayed Nepal reconstruction By Jared Ferrie PHNOM PENH, 14 January 2016 (IRIN) - After delays due to political haggling, Nepal's government has finally authorised a National Reconstruction Authority to begin rebuilding the earthquake-devastated country, although the actual reconstruction will not begin for a couple of months almost an entire year after the 7.8 magnitude quake killed about 9,000 people. The move comes too late to alleviate the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people still living in shelters made from tarpaulins that provide little protection from the harsh winter. They lost everything in the earthquakes in April and May last year, and then became victims of politicians engaged in a power struggle for control over the NRA, which finally held its first board meeting this week. The NRA can now begin to access $4 billion in funds pledged by international donors for reconstruction. Its first order of business was to task the Central Bureau of Statistics to carry out an assessment of how many homes were destroyed. The NRA's undersecretary, Bhisma Bhusal, told IRIN that the assessment will take about seven weeks, after which reconstruction can begin. Aid agencies welcomed the news. "Better late than never," said Vivek Rawal, a housing reconstruction advisor with the United Nations Development Programme. Initial reports after the quake indicated that half a million houses were completely destroyed, but Rawal told IRIN that an assessment was necessary to verify the exact number of homes that would need rebuilding. Such an assessment should have been done as soon as possible to get accurate numbers and allow reconstruction to begin. One concern is that, during the long wait to get started, people may have unnecessarily pulled down damaged houses that could have been restored. The NRA's former CEO, Govinda Raj Pokhrel, said he had actually asked the Statistics Bureau to begin its survey right after he was appointed back in August. He lost the job in October after Nepal's parliament chose a new prime minister Khadga Prasad Oli of the Unified Marxist Leninist (UML) party, which leads the coalition government and then refused to ratify an ordinance to authorise the NRA. "We started that, but once I left, the work was very slow," said Pokhrel, who is seen as connected to the opposition Nepali Congress party. Despite the political wrangling, the government could have ordered the Statistics Bureau to continue its work. It is not clear why that did not happen. "We would like to know," said Rawal, while stressing that the most important thing was the work at hand. "Now, energies are correctly focused on all these reconstruction policies," he said. Others are less forgiving of the government's interminable delays. Guna Raj Luitel, editor of the Kathmandu-based Nagarik newspaper, told IRIN that the government should start disbursing grants immediately, especially as the destruction of homes had already been confirmed in some areas. "There are data already," he said. "It's petty politics and a lame excuse not to initiate reconstruction now." Pokhrel warned there is a danger the NRA could use reconstruction funding for political purposes for example, by directing money to certain people or areas to gain support. He said there was a risk that the UML could stack the reconstruction body with its supporters, although he said this should not delay the NRA's work any longer. "We need to stop the misuse of funds by the government, which has politicised this NRA," he told IRIN. "On the other hand, we need to help people suffering as soon as possible. That is the dilemma Nepal is facing." Pokhrel said new guidelines allow the government to appoint staff members onto the reconstruction authority who might then exert influence in local communities. Bhusal, the NRA's undersecretary, confirmed that 115 of the authority's 208 personnel are to be supplied by the government. He said he knew nothing about the political background of the newly-appointed CEO, Sushil Gyawali, but several sources told IRIN he is a former UML student leader. Regardless of political connections, Gyawali is widely seen as a good choice to take the helm at the NRA. He headed the Town Development Fund, an autonomous body under the Ministry of Physical Planning and Transport, which provides financing and expertise to build municipal projects such as water systems and health centres. "He has lots of experience and he can work in a very good way with local people," said Bhusal. "We are quite optimistic." jf/ag Theme (s): Natural Disasters, Copyright IRIN 2016 This material comes to you via IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations or its Member States. IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Secretary of the Navy Names Expeditionary Sea Base Ship Navy News Service Story Number: NNS160114-10 Release Date: 1/14/2016 4:01:00 PM From Secretary of the Navy Public Affairs WASHINGTON (NNS) -- Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced the Navy's newest Expeditionary Sea Base (ESB) ship, T-ESB 4, will be named USNS Hershel 'Woody' Williams during a ceremony in Charleston, West Virginia, Jan. 14. Hershel 'Woody' Williams, the ship's namesake, was born in West Virginia and joined the Marine Corps following the attack on Pearl Harbor. In 1944, after serving in Guadalcanal and Guam, he joined the campaign in Iwo Jima. Two days after arriving on the island, Williams picked up a 70-pound flamethrower and walked ahead of his infantry's tanks for four hours clearing their path of enemy machine gun fire. President Harry S. Truman awarded him the Medal of Honor two years later for his actions. Williams served during the Battle of Iwo Jima until he was wounded in March of 1945. He returned to the United States, was awarded a Purple Heart and released from active duty. Later, he served in the Marine Corps Reserves for 17 years. Williams is the last surviving Medal of Honor recipient from the Battle of Iwo Jima. The new 784-foot-long vessel will feature a 52,000 square foot flight deck, fuel and equipment storage, repair spaces, magazines, and mission-planning spaces. Able to accommodate up to 250 personnel, the new ESB ship will support multiple missions, such as air mine counter measures (AMCM), counter-piracy operations, maritime security operations, humanitarian aid and disaster-relief missions, and crisis response operations. In addition, the vessel will be capable of supporting MH-53 and MH-60 helicopters, with an option for future upgrades to support MV-22 tilt-rotor aircraft. USNS Hershel 'Woody' Williams will be constructed by General Dynamics National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO) in San Diego. The ship is expected to be delivered to the Navy in 2018. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN raps DR Congo for displacing thousands by camp closure Iran Press TV Thu Jan 14, 2016 8:1AM The United Nations has condemned the sudden dismantling of a UN camp for displaced people by government forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Rein Paulsen, said the closure of the camp in the restive North Kivu province had forced out more than 4,000 vulnerable people. 'I regret the manner in which this dismantling was carried out and I am very concerned by the collective punishment imposed on these vulnerable displaced people,' Paulsen said. The residents were 'chased from their homes and the site was completely razed by the authorities,' he added. The UN office in the country further said it would seek to make 'recommendations' to authorities to 'avoid such abrupt (camp) closures' in the future. According to Berthe Zinga, who coordinates the country's National Commission of Refugees, humanitarian organizations made attempts to keep the camp open, but the authorities failed to meet the demand. 'We had pleaded... but unfortunately the camp was closed,' said Zinga. DRC authorities had closed another camp for the displaced in December 2014, after allegedly finding several firearms there. There were some 2,300 people in Camp Kiwanja at the time. The latest closure takes place despite repeated UN calls on the government to respect 'international humanitarian law' in the country. The world body warned on Monday that 7.5 million people, nine percent of the population, were in need of humanitarian aid including food. DR Congo has been struggling since President Joseph Kabila's 2011 re-election, which is said to have been marked with voting irregularities. It has been through two wars since Kabila came to power. Political tensions are again high in the African country as new elections are due later this year. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Saudi air raids kill 15 civilians near Yemeni capital Iran Press TV Thu Jan 14, 2016 5:23AM A new Saudi airstrike against Yemen has killed at least 15 Yemeni civilians and injured 25 others in an area outside the capital, Sana'a. According to residents, the attack was carried out on Wednesday, targeting an area near the village of Bilad al-Rus, around 40 km (25 miles) south of Sana'a. The families displaced by the nine months of the Saudi war against Yemen had been taking shelter in the area. Saudi warplanes also pounded the province of Amran, situated 53 kilometers (33 miles) northwest of the capital, with unconfirmed reports that several people were killed. Yemen's Houthi Ansarullah fighters and allied forces killed five soldiers inside Saudi Arabia and 10 pro-Saudi militants in the southwestern province of Ta'izz. Saudi Arabia has been carrying out military strikes against Yemen since March 2015. More than 7,500 people have been killed and over 14,000 others injured since the strikes began. The attacks have also taken a heavy toll on the country's facilities and infrastructure, destroying many hospitals, schools and factories. The Saudi military has also blocked the flow of relief aid into Yemen, creating an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address NATO Aircraft May Be Allowed to Patrol Bulgarian Airspace Sputnik News 19:58 14.01.2016(updated 20:32 14.01.2016) The Bulgarian parliament approved amendments to the defense legislation in the first reading on Thursday, allowing NATO member countries to participate in patrolling the country's airspace, local media reported. MOSCOW (Sputnik) According to the Bulgarian Dnevnik newspaper, 122 lawmakers out of 240 voted for the amendments after a heated debate that lasted for over two hours. Under the legislation, Bulgaria will be able to choose NATO members for joint air patrol missions. As of today, the government has discussed joint air patrolling with Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Poland, the daily said. The country's opposition claims that the reforms are a gross violation of the Bulgarian Constitution and an attempt to abolish the republic's Air Force. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address 'Very real risk of violence' looms over DR Congo elections, senior UN official warns 14 January 2016 The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) faces "very real risks of unrest and violence" over elections later this year while confronting a "significant deterioration" of security in its war-torn eastern provinces, the top United Nations official in the country warned today. "Presidential and legislative elections scheduled for November of this year are a deeply divisive issue, particularly given the continued absence of an agreed electoral calendar or a budget for the elections," Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Special representative for DRC Maman S. Sidikou told the Security Council. Addressing the Council by video conference from the DRC, he noted that formal preparations for a National Dialogue announced by President Joseph Kabila to forge consensus on the process have not yet begun, in part due to strong opposition by many major opposition groups. "In the absence of agreement on the electoral process, political polarization has heightened tensions and contributed to an atmosphere of increased harassment and human rights violations," he said, with the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in DRC (MONUSCO) registering over 260 election-related human rights violations, mostly against opposition members, civil society and journalists since last year. "This, combined with a rising number of human rights abuses by armed groups in eastern DRC, demonstrates a worrying trend of narrowing political space and a real challenge to the conduct of peaceful credible elections," he added. "Given the very real risks of civil unrest and violence related to the electoral process, it is critical that all efforts be made to rebuild confidence among the stakeholders to find a way forward," he said. On a positive note on another longstanding human rights concern, Mr. Sidikou highlighted significant steps by the Congolese authorities, including 20 trials in the past three months which found 19 army officers guilty of rape. Turning to the security situation, where "there has been a significant deterioration in the eastern part of the country in recent weeks," Mr. Sidikou cited the Beni and Lubero areas of North Kivu Province where the Allied Defence Forces (ADF) and the Force Democratiques pour la Liberation de Rwanda (FDLR) pose ongoing and serious threats to the civilian populations. In Beni, despite two years of operations against it, the ADF remains able to coordinate simultaneous attacks on the army and MONUSCO, with over 500 civilians killed since 2014, and tens of thousands of others displaced. MONUSCO has responded with aerial operations and taken immediate steps to strengthen the protection of civilians through increased joint police and military patrols and redeploying additional troops of its Intervention Brigade. In Lubero, civilians have been caught up in fighting between the Mayi Mayi group and the FDLR, being displaced, forcibly abducted, or targeted for massacres or harassment, often on the basis of ethnicity and perceived collaboration with the FDLR. "The situation appears to be worsening in Lubero, potentially into openly inter-ethnic conflict between the Hum and Nande communities," Mr. Sidikou warned. This dynamic could easily spark violence in adjoining territories where competition over land and customary authority has already heightened tensions. "Reports of increased recruitment into ethnically-based self-defence groups are a worrying sign, and the upcoming elections period could further politicize and instrumentalize the groups on the ground," he noted. Referring to the proposed reduction of MONUSCO's force by 1,700 troops, Mr. Sidikou said the drawdown will be accompanied by a "force transformation" to ensure that it will exercise greater operational capability to protect civilians through rapid deployment mechanisms and aerial reconnaissance. The Mission, currently with nearly 20,000 uniformed personnel on the ground, is mandated to use all necessary means to protect civilians, humanitarian personnel and human rights defenders under imminent threat of physical violence and to support the Government in its stabilization and peace consolidation efforts. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Officials: Afghan IS Leader Killed in Drone Strike by Ayaz Gul January 14, 2016 Officials in eastern Afghanistan say a U.S. drone strike Thursday killed Islamic State's top commander in the area, which the militants call Khorasan, along with at least 11 other insurgents. The missile attack by the unmanned aircraft occurred in Achin, a volatile district in a remote part of Nangarhar province, where IS is believed to have set up its headquarters. U.S. military officials in Kabul confirmed an airstrike was launched in that area Thursday, but said they were unable to determine whether Islamic State's local commander, Hafiz Saeed Khan, was among the casualties. A spokesman (Attaullah Khogyani) for the Nangarhar province governor told VOA it was officially determined that Hafiz Saeed Khan, the IS emir for Khorasan, and his fighters were hit by the missile, which caused a massive explosion in Achin's Bandar locality when it hit at about 4 p.m., local time, villagers told reporters. The pace of missile attacks by U.S. drones has increased recently, and scores of militants at IS bases in Nangarhar are reported to have been killed. The Islamic State group did not have any immediate comment about Thursday's drone strike. Khan, a former Taliban commander who switched sides to join the Islamic State more than a year ago, was said to have been killed six months ago, but the terror group denied that report at the time. According to a map the Islamic State issued early last year, Khorasan consists of areas of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. In Washington, the U.S. government announced Thursday that Islamic State - Khorasan is now formally listed as a foreign terrorist organization. It said Islamic State's regional operatives are primarily former members of the Afghan Taliban and the Tehrik-e-Taliban group in Pakistan Pakistan. Islamic State - Khorasan, which is about one year old, said its first major attack in Afghanistan, on Wednesday, targeted Pakistan's consulate in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar. The Islamists said three of their members, including a suicide bomber, took part in the raid, and they claimed seven Afghan security personnel were killed and 10 others were wounded. Pakistani officials said none of the consulate staff was injured. Hours after the incident in Jalalabad on Wednesday, the Afghan air force said it attacked a suspected IS base in the Kot district, killing around a dozen extremists. Khan was one of five mid-ranking commanders from the outlawed Pakistani Taliban to defect and join the Islamic State in 2014. He commanded Taliban fighters in Pakistan's semi-autonomous Orakzai tribal district and was appointed Islamic State's emir for Khorasan in January 2015. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Zimbabwe Government Denies Mugabe Is Ill by VOA News January 14, 2016 A Zimbabwean government spokesman says President Robert Mugabe is in good health, dismissing an online report that he suffered a heart attack. Presidential spokesman George Charamba told reporters Thursday that the report by the website ZimEye was false. He said, 'This is the way the website seeks to improve its hits in order to get dirty money from Google. There is a financial incentive to the grim lie.' Rumors about Mugabe's health are common. He turns 92 next month and takes a long vacation abroad each January. This is the first time this year the government has chosen to respond to rumors. Charamba complained about the recurring rumor that Mugabe has died, saying 'You cannot doubt that there will be a story on the president's alleged death every January.' Mugabe downplays concerns about his health. But the president, who has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980, has shown signs of age. Last year, he was caught on camera tripping and falling down a flight of stairs at Harare airport. In September, he read a speech to parliament, apparently unaware he had delivered the same address a month earlier. Mugabe's long tenure and advanced age have led to concerns about what will happen to the presidency after his death. Senior Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa is seen as first in line to succeed him, but the president's wife, Grace Mugabe, has been making political advances of her own. She is currently the head of the women's league in the ruling ZANU-PF party. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US Officials: Captured Boats Missed Refueling Meet-up by Carla Babb January 14, 2016 A refueling rendezvous that went astray and an engine issue are key pieces of the puzzle behind the incident involving the 10 U.S. Navy sailors who were held earlier this week by Iran, according to U.S. officials. The U.S. Navy boats and their crews were detained for 16 hours by Iranian Revolutionary Guards after apparently veering into Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf near Farsi Island. The boats had intended to meet up with A U.S. Coast Guard boat for refueling, 'but never rendezvoused,' a U.S. official told VOA. The sailors were traveling through the Persian Gulf from Kuwait toward Bahrain when U.S. controllers lost contact with them Tuesday. The Revolutionary Guard members boarded the U.S. vessels and surrounded the crew members, a second U.S. official said. 'They went off course somehow. Initial indications are that when they realized they were in Iranian waters, the engine was not able to get to full power for at least one of the boats,' the official said. An investigation is underway into further details surrounding the incident. When it happened, a U.S. strike group in the area was tasked with the search and rescue. 'When conducting a search and rescue, you are allowed to enter into countries' territorial waters,' one official said. Some assets available included the guided missile cruiser USS Anzio, fixed wing aircraft, and helicopters. The search and rescue was 'simultaneous' with diplomatic outreach, one of the U.S. officials said, and searchers did locate the missing vessels at Farsi Island, but could see the sailors were not in the boats. 'We had visual of the boats,' the official told VOA. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said resolution of the incident was a success for diplomacy, and Defense Secretary Ash Carter said he was grateful to have the service members "back in our hands." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Strikes Target ISIL Terrorists in Syria, Iraq From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release SOUTHWEST ASIA, January 15, 2016 U.S. and coalition military forces have continued to attack Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in Syria and Iraq, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today. Officials reported details of the latest strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports. Strikes in Syria Attack, fighter, and remotely piloted aircraft conducted five strikes in Syria: -- Near Mar'a, three strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical units and wounded an ISIL fighter. -- Near Manbij, a strike destroyed an ISIL vehicle. -- Near Raqqah, a strike struck an ISIL gas and oil separation plant. Strikes in Iraq Attack, fighter, bomber, and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 19 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq's government: -- Near Baghdadi, a strike destroyed three ISIL tunnel entrances. -- Near Albu Hayat, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL fighting position. -- Near Balad, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL fighting position and an ISIL heavy machine gun. -- Near Habbaniyah, a strike denied ISIL access to terrain. -- Near Kisik, a strike destroyed seven ISIL fighting positions. -- Near Mosul, seven strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical units, an ISIL headquarters, and an ISIL bomb-making factory, suppressed an ISIL rocket position, and destroyed eight ISIL fighting positions, two ISIL heavy machine guns, two ISIL vehicles, nine ISIL assembly areas, two weapons caches, an ISIL bunker, and an ISIL command-and-control node. -- Near Ramadi, five strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units, cratered an ISIL-used road, denied ISIL access to terrain, and destroyed an ISIL vehicle bomb, three ISIL vehicles, an ISIL heavy machine gun, four ISIL fighting positions, an ISIL mortar system and an ISIL staging area. -- Near Sultan Abdallah, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL fighting position. -- Near Tikrit, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit. Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target. Part of Operation Inherent Resolve The strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to eliminate the ISIL terrorist group and the threat they pose to Iraq, Syria, and the wider international community. The destruction of ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq further limits the group's ability to project terror and conduct operations. Coalition nations conducting strikes in Iraq include the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Coalition nations conducting strikes in Syria include the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Can the UN patch things up in Congo? By Habibou Bangre KINSHASA, 15 January 2016 (IRIN) - A year ago, the Congolese army and MONUSCO, the UN peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo, were supposed to launch joint operations to take on Rwandan Hutu rebels. Everything was planned down to the last detail, before a major difference of opinion stopped the effort in its tracks. What fouled everything up? The Congolese government was already highly irritated by MONUSCO's criticism of its poor human rights record and its democratic shortcomings when the head of the mission at the time, Germany's Martin Kobler, demanded that two Congolese generals, Bruno Mandevu and Fall Sikabwe, be replaced before operations began due to suspected human rights violations. Kinshasa refused to change the commanding officers it had selected for the mission and strongly denounced what it decried as an intrusion into Congolese sovereignty. The result of this diplomatic tussle: the UN headquarters in New York announced that MONUSCO was pulling its support for the Congolese army, which responded on 28 January by attacking the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) rebels on its own. According to several military and civilian sources, the FDLR believed to then number about 1,500 fighters, including some Congolese nationals largely refused to be drawn into the fight and succeeded in dodging most of the army's offensives. What threat do the rebels pose today? While UN experts stressed in October that the FDLR's capacity was intact, Kinshasa announced on 12 January that the army had neutralised "more than 1,000" rebels in 2015, and claims fewer than 400 are still on the run. Although it is now drawing down, MONUSCO has become one of the largest missions in the world with around 20,000 peacekeepers, a budget of $1.35 billion, and sophisticated equipment like surveillance drones. Since March 2013, it has also had the Force Intervention Brigade at its disposal. This separate 3,000-strong combat force is comprised of South African, Tanzanian, and Malawian soldiers with a unique mandate to go after rebel forces, but operates under MONUSCO's command and control. Since the bust-up, the Congolese army and MONUSCO have carried out several joint operations, notably in June against the Front for Patriotic Resistance in Ituri (FRPI), and in November against Ugandan rebels from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) in response to an unprecedented wave of attacks that left at least 24 dead, including eight civilians, four soldiers, and one UN peacekeeper. But there has still been no official joint offensive against the FDLR, whose leaders participated in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda before fleeing to eastern Congo. Concerned about the general stability of the Great Lakes region, infected for the past 20 years by the poisonous presence of these rebels, the international community is urging renewed cooperation and a return of the "strategic dialogue" that MONUSCO and Kinshasa began in March 2015. This dialogue must define the future objectives of the UN mission, deployed since 1999, in the midst of the Second Congo War (1998-2003). It must also draw up the parameters for its withdrawal. This is expected to be gradual and dependent on the situation in the east, where dozens of armed groups, both local and foreign, are waging myriad conflicts for ethnic reasons, land, or for control of valuable natural resources like minerals and wood. How active are the rebel groups? The FDLR is mainly active in the provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu. Over time, it has lost a number of fighters to MONUSCO's Disarmament, Demobilisation, Repatriation, Reintegration and Resettlement (DDRRR) programme, which in 2002 repatriated more than 12,500 ex-FDLR fighters and as many again of their family members. The rebels who deny accusations of murder, rape, child enrolment, and of generally pillaging Congolese civilians have been weakened by several military offensives, including Umoja Wetu (Our Unity, in Swahili) in 2009, when the Congolese and Rwandan militaries acted in concert. Congolese and UN operations followed: Kimia (Peace, in Swahili) and Amani Leo (Peace Now, in Swahili). The Congolese army says the hunt for the FDLR, with whom some officers allegedly collude to traffic minerals, was derailed by the creation in North Kivu in May 2012 of the March 23 Movement (M23). According to UN experts, this Congolese Tutsi rebellion was backed by Rwanda and Uganda, although both countries deny this. In November 2013, after the defeat of the M23 by the army and MONUSCO, the Congolese government announced the FDLR as the next target. Instead they went after the ADF. Since October 2014, the supposedly weakened Ugandan rebel group has been blamed for killing some 500 men, women, and children in Beni Territory in northern North Kivu, where its founders opponents of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni have hidden out since 1995. At the end of 2013, the FDLR earned a reprieve after announcing it would lay down its arms and commit to peace. In exchange, it hoped to obtain the support of the international community to return to Rwanda and open up a dialogue with Kigali, which categorically refuses to offer an amnesty. Ultimately, the surrender plan has been a failure: barely 200 fighters have turned themselves in. How is the MONUSCO drawdown going? The UN has taken some measures to try to encourage the Congolese government to reopen dialogue. Maman Sidikou, of Niger, has replaced Kobler, and a South African general, Derrick Mgwebi, has relieved Brazil's Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz as MONUSCO's commanding officer. Kinshasa is understood to be happy about the choice of the two Africans, reckoning that there will be fewer "misunderstandings" now. In another olive branch, in his MONUSCO report to the Security Council dated 24 December, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he planned to retool the mission by giving it rapid response units, greater mobility generally, and boosting its surveillance and intelligence-gathering capabilities. In this context, he added, a reduction in MONUSCO personnel should not weaken civilian protection: the core of the UN peacekeeping mandate. The plan foresees the withdrawal of 1,700 soldiers in addition to 2,000 whose departure was already decided in March 2015 against the demands of the Congolese government, which originally pushed for the withdrawal of 7,000 before revising this number downwards. If the UN Security Council decides possibly in March, when MONUSCO's mandate is up for renewal to withdraw the additional 1,700 peacekeepers, this will perhaps be a way to "keep to the blueprint proposed by Kinshasa," a high-ranking Congolese officer told IRIN, on condition of anonymity. He therefore welcomed what he called "a first encouraging step" from the UN, but underlined that "some officials believe the threshold of 7,000 must be achieved by the end of the year". Too soon to draw down? Whatever the number, Juvenal Munubo, a lawmaker and member of the Congolese parliament's Defense and Security Commission, is wary. "The reduction in MONUSCO numbers must not have as its sole justification the desire of the Congolese government to boast about its sovereignty," he said. "It must be the result of actual progress in the reform of the Congolese security sector something that is far from being the case today." Munubo's point was underlined by a recent massacre. In the night of the 6th and 7th of January, some 15 people of the Nande ethnic minority were killed by men armed with knives in the Miriki area of Lubero, a territory in the northwest of North Kivu Province. The identity of the perpetrators remains unclear but the killings have been widely blamed on the FDLR, despite its denials. The massacre occurred near MONUSCO and Congolese army positions, prompting angry demonstrations against both. Bullets were fired, apparently by the Congolese army, and one demonstrator was killed. Shortly after the massacre, an army spokesman announced that reinforcements had been deployed to Miriki to keep people safe and track down the FDLR. His statement implied that the army and MONUSCO were preparing the launch of a joint operation against the Rwandan rebels. A defense department official confirmed this, although the UN would only allude to unofficial collaboration until an official announcement on the resumption of such a partnership by Congolese President Joseph Kabila. hb/ag/oa Theme (s): Conflict, Governance, Security, Copyright IRIN 2016 This material comes to you via IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations or its Member States. IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Navigation Error Caused U.S. Boats To Stray Into Iranian Waters January 15, 2016 by RFE/RL U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said navigation error -- not equipment malfunctions -- caused the crews of two Navy boats to stray into Iranian waters, where they were detained overnight by Iran and released. 'The information that they have given us, and through their commanders, is that they did stray accidentally into Iranian waters due to a navigation error,' Carter said in an interview with Fusion network in Miami on January 14. 'They did not report this navigational error' to Navy commanders at the time the incident occurred on January 12, Carter added. 'It may be that they were trying to sort it out at the time they encountered Iranian boats... We don't know that fully yet.' The day of the incident, U.S. officials had said mechanical problems had caused the boats to stray into Iranian waters. That was given as the reason that the United States need not apologize for the incident as demanded by Iran, since the crew could not be blamed for equipment failures. But defense officials now say the central cause for the crews' entering Iranian waters was the navigational slip, which apparently was caused by human error rather than by an equipment malfunction. The navigation error was compounded by some sort of engine trouble aboard one of the boats, defense officials said. The engine problem did not cause the boats to go off course but apparently prevented them from evading the Iranians once the crews realized they were inside Iran's territorial waters. The boats, known as riverine command boats, were not on a covert mission and were simply making their way from Kuwait to Bahrain, Carter said. The 10 U.S. sailors who were detained are now back with their American fleet and are getting debriefed and undergoing what the military calls 'reintegration,' a series of interviews and physical and mental health examinations to ease their return to duty. A Navy investigation will follow. General Lloyd Austin, head of U.S. Central Command, said the equipment on the boats is being inventoried but nothing at first look appeared to be missing. Iranian state television has released footage of the arrest, showing the sailors as they knelt down with hands behind their heads and their two vessels being surrounded by several Iranian military fast boats. It also released footage of one of the detained men, identified as a U.S. Navy commander, apologizing for the incident. Carter acknowledged that the images made him feel uncomfortable, but he urged against a rush to judgment. 'Obviously I don't like to see our people being detained by a foreign military,' Carter told a news conference at Central Command in Tampa. 'I think we need to give these guys the opportunity to tell us what was really going on and what the overall context [was].' With reporting by Reuters and AP Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/navigation-error-caused-us- navy-boats-stray-iranian-waters-persian-gulf-/27488924.html Copyright (c) 2016. 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 Arrests As Azerbaijani Police Use Water Cannons, Tear Gas Against Protesters January 15, 2016 by RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service QUBA, Azerbaijan -- Security forces have dispersed a protest in Azerbaijan's northeastern Quba district, using water cannon and tear gas and detaining several people amid a national outbreak this week of unrest over worsening economic conditions. Some 1,000 people had gathered for the January 15 demonstration in the district capital to protest unemployment, and demanded that overdue social allowances be paid off and bank loans recalculated. The local currency, the manat, has seen a drastic depreciation brought on by a drop in world oil prices. Quba district chief Yashar Mammadov met with protesters at a location called the Old Bus Station and said he was ready for talks to address their problems. But an RFE/RL correspondent on the scene said demonstrators dismissed Mammadov's promises and continued the protest, prompting the security forces to use water cannon and tear gas. Security forces made several arrests before protesters dispersed, the correspondent reported. The city is now under the authorities' full control. It was not immediately clear whether more protests were planned for January 16. There was no immediate official reaction to the protest in Quba, the RFE/RL correspondent said. Earlier in the day, demonstrators attempted to block access roads leading toward the capital, Baku. The RFE/RL correspondent said police subsequently established checkpoints on all major roads in the Quba district. Quba was the scene of violent protests in 2012 that resulted in a number of convictions after windows were broken at government buildings and a home belonging to the local governor was set alight. In the latest unrest, authorities on January 15 deployed a large number of security forces -- police officers and Interior Ministry special forces -- to Quba, saying they had information that a bomb had been placed in a mosque in the city center. But officials later said no explosive had been found at the site. Scores of protesters and several opposition activists have been detained this week since protests broke out, sparked mainly by price hikes on staples such as flour and bread. Moving rapidly to stifle protests and prevent further discontent, authorities have cut the price of flour and imposed controls over the price of bread. The Economy Ministry said it was waiving value-added taxes on the import of wheat and the production and sale of flour and bread as of January 15. The ministry said the decision should reduce the wholesale price for flour, and listed the prices at which bread should now be sold. 'Anyone who sells flour and bread at higher prices will be held to account in the most serious way,' the statement said. Energy makes up the vast majority of Azerbaijan's exports, and plummeting global oil prices have drastically reduced state revenues. Last month, the situation led authorities to float the national currency, the manat, after using up a large part of its currency reserves to prop it up. Since it was floated, the manat has depreciated by one-third against the U.S. dollar, prompting the Central Bank on January 14 to ban independent currency-exchange outlets from operating. The government said the latest measures intended to regulate the price of bread were meant to protect citizens from the economic fallout of the oil and currency crisis. 'This decision has been made on the instructions of President Ilham Aliyev to strengthen the social protection the population, in particular poor families, from the change in the rate of the manat,' the statement said. The rising price of flour has been a lightning-rod issue during the protests that have taken place this week in several districts -- Fizuli, Aqsu, Aqcabardi, Siyazan, and Lankaran. Scores of people were arrested on January 13 after taking part in the protests, which authorities labeled 'illegal' and which they accused the opposition Popular Front (AXCP) and Musavat parties of staging. Three opposition activists were arrested during the protests. Two of them -- local AXCP and Musavat leaders Nazim Hasanli and Iman Aliyev, respectively -- were detained in Lankaran, while AXCP youth activist Turan Ibrahim was arrested in the capital, Baku. Hasanli and Aliyev were each sentenced to one month in jail for taking part in an unsanctioned protest. Both pleaded innocent, saying they had nothing to do with the rallies. Ibrahim was found guilty of using vulgar words in public, resisting police, and disrupting public order, and was sentenced to seven days in prison on January 14. Aliyev's government has faced increased criticism about rights abuses. Several journalists and rights activists have been jailed over the past year on charges such as hooliganism, tax evasion, and illegal business activities. Rights groups say the charges are often trumped up and leveled in retaliation for opposition activities and criticism of senior government officials. Azerbaijani officials have denied the allegations. Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/azerbaijan-protests-increased- security-popular-discontent/27489831.html Copyright (c) 2016. 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 Venezuela's President Declares 60-Day State of Economic Emergency Sputnik News 20:16 15.01.2016(updated 20:31 15.01.2016) The president of Venezuela has declared a state of economic emergency for sixty days. MEXICO (Sputnik) President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro has signed a decree on a state of economic emergency to address the protection of social rights amid the grave economic crisis in the Latin American country, local media said Friday. 'The state of economic emergency was declared throughout the national territory in accordance with the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and its legal system, for a period of sixty (60) days', the text of the decree published in the Gaceta Oficial says. Maduro said earlier this month that the measures would be aimed at increasing the fundamental indicators of production, product distribution, commercialization and price controls. The announcement came two days after Venezuela's oil price had dropped to $24 a barrel, the lowest mark in 12 years. Up to 96 percent of Venezuela's budget depends on oil revenues, which has a negative impact on the socio-economic situation in the country. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US Heavy Gear Arrives in Lithuania in Latest NATO's Troop Rotation Sputnik News 19:09 15.01.2016 US military equipment sent to Lithuania reached the town of Rukla on Friday as part of NATO's latest troop rotation of Operation Atlantic Resolve, the NATO branch in Lithuania announced via Twitter. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) The latest US troop rotation is part of NATO's cross-continental mission known as Operation Atlantic Resolve, which was launched in the spring 2015, as a way for the United States to reassure allies in Europe. 'US heavy gear arrives in Rukla, Lithuania to be manned by the newest US troop rotation,' Lithuania in NATO tweeted on Friday. Ahead of the announcement of the US heavy gear's arrival, NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow said at the Snow Meeting in Trakai, Lithuania on Friday that NATO would need to focus on its deterrence posture. He described the issue as the most important challenge NATO needs to meet. Over the course of NATO's recent eastward expansion, Russia has repeatedly warned that such a move threatens its national security as well as regional stability. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address War Games Continue: Philippines to Allow US to Use Eight Military Bases Sputnik News 18:51 15.01.2016 The Philippines will offer the US military use of eight bases, a military spokesman said Wednesday after the country's Supreme Court supported a security agreement with Washington; the deal was implemented following the onset of rising tensions with China. The facilities include the former US Clark airbase and air and naval facilities on the southwestern island of Palawan, which faces the South China Sea. Military spokesman Colonel Restituto Padilla said the facilities would be used to store equipment and supplies. The decision permits the full implementation of the Enhanced Defense Co-operation Agreement (EDCA), signed in 2014 but not applied due to legal challenges from groups opposed to US military involvement in the Philippines, a US colony from 1898 to 1946, according to Defense News. It envisions more US troops being rotated through the Philippines for war games and outlines how the US will help Manila build military facilities. "We have resumed talks now that there is a go-signal that EDCA is constitutional," Padilla said. "We are continuing talks and we will finalize the agreement on the locations," he said without giving a timetable regarding when the decision would be reached, Defense News reported. China and the Philippines have conflicting claims to the South China Sea, which is home to major shipping lanes and rich fishing waters, and is a potential source of mineral resources. The Philippines has been looking for closer defense ties with the United States, and accuses China of aggression in the South China Sea. However, China has constantly maintained that it does not seek to undermine the peace and stability of the region. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russian Weapons to Maintain Balance of Power in Balkans Sputnik News 18:32 15.01.2016 Serbia eyes buying Russian-made Tor, Pantsir, and Buk air defense systems as well as MiG-29 jet fighters, in response to Croatia's plans to purchase US-made MGM-140 ATACMS tactical missiles. The Serbian military has already sent its requests to Moscow. They will be considered by the end of January by a bilateral commission on technical and military cooperation, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported Friday. The Serbian Defense Ministry has submitted to the Russian Federal Military and Technical Cooperation Service a list of weapons it would buy, Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said, as a result of his visit to Belgrade. 'We will thoroughly examine and consider the list. As far as possible the request will be fulfilled,' he said. According to the article, the Serbian military's request will be considered by the bilateral commission on technical and military cooperation. Its first meeting is expected to take place before the end of January. Belgrade turned to Moscow after Croatia announced its willingness to put US-made MGM-140 ATACMS tactical missile launchers into service with its armed forces. These are capable of hitting targets at a distance of up to 300 kilometers, sources told Kommersant. 'The Serbian military believes that deployment of such a weapon to the Balkans would change the balance of power in the region. And they did not receive any help from those calling for Serbia to join NATO. As result, they were forced to turn to Russia,' a source said. 'Serbia will not ask for concessions, but we have reasons to expect a lot from Russia. We will not wage war against Croatia. It would be a pointless war by Serbia against NATO,' President Tomislav Nikolic underscored during his meeting with Rogozin. The requests of the Serbian military are predictable. According to Kommersant, Serbia wants to buy medium-range air defenses like Buk and Tor missiles as well as short-range air defenses like the Pantsir-S1. Deliveries of S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems were not even discussed in Belgrade, as the Serbian defense budget cannot afford them. Moreover, the Serbian Defense Ministry wants to upgrade its air force fleet to include several MiG-29 jet fighters. Currently, the Serbian military operates 10 MiG-29 jets (six of them were bought from Russia in 2013), 11 MiG-21's (they are due to be mothballed in 2018) as well as several dozen J-22 Orao aircraft. According to sources, if Russia and Serbia agree on the number of air defense systems and jet fighters, they will be delivered to Belgrade from the Russian Defense Ministry's stock and they'll subsequently be modernized. This course of action is said to be less costly for Serbia. Despite the fact that Moscow and Belgrade have not struck any agreement on military and technical cooperation, Ben Rhodes, national security adviser for US President Barack Obama, said: 'We don't, frankly, think it's in the interests of the region for it to be seen as caught in some Cold War style, zero-sum game between the United States and Russia. That is not a constructive way, we think, for the region to be approached.' He added that the Balkan nations should independently make decision on their future, including NATO membership. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Islamic State - Indonesia and Malaysia Earlier militant groups in Indonesia were under the umbrella of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) affiliated with al-Qaeda, but the emergence of ISIS made the militant groups split into new organizations. Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi called on all Muslims around the world to migrate and join the Islamic army in Syria. He used a lot of electronic media in the form of video. By one estimate about 500 Indonesians joined ISIS in Syria and Iraq, while police called lower numbers of around 200-300. The division between pro- and anti-ISIS is complex. In Indonesia, the Indonesian Mujahidin Council and the Jama'ah Ansharut Shariah - which is a fraction of Jemaah Ansharut Tawheed led by Abu Bakar Baasyir - are anti-ISIS groups. Not all hard-line Islamic movements provide support. Hizb ut-Tahrir for example, despite wanting the Islamic Caliphate, refused to recognize the Caliphate of al Baghdadi. Some JAT activists also rejected ISIS, then broke away and formed a new organization called Jamaah Ansharut Syariah (JAS). The same rejection is also expressed by the leadership of the Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI). The head of the National Counter-Terrorism Agency Saud Usman Nasution said in March 2015 that more than 10 organizations are supporting ISIS. Saud revealed that their support for ISIS is done in various forms, including financial support, dissemination, and recruitment of personnel. One of the organizations, called Saud, once raised the ISIS flag in a rally at the Hotel Indonesia roundabout in 2014. Terrorism watcher Al Chaidar said, ISIS supporters in Indonesia are growing rapidly. Al Chaidar estimated ISIS supporters in Indonesia had reached two million people. The National Agency for Combating Terrorism (BNPT) suspects the ISIS network in Indonesia has existed for a long time. BNPT spokeswoman Irfan Idris said 23 March 2015 the West Java and Banten areas have traditionally been the basis of a radical movement in the name of religion. "It is common knowledge that in West Java there is a lot of brainwashing. Even in one Tangerang region, Tauhid Wal Jihad is active in doing archery and knife throwing". Indonesian police said 20 February 2016 that they had arrested dozens of suspected Islamic militants in two separate raids on the main island of Java. The anti-terrorism squad arrested 36 men who were attending military-style training at a suspected jihadist camp on the remote slopes of Mount Sumbing in Central Java province. Air rifles, knives, jihadist books and flags were seized in the raid. Separately, five suspected militants were captured in Malang, a hilly city in East Java province. Police interrogated alleged militants arrested earlier of links to the January 14 suicide and gun attacks in the capital Jakarta. In response to the attacks, the government submitted a new anti-terrorism law to parliament. Indonesian police conducted raids in multiple locations in the wake of the downtown Jakarta fatal attack 14 January 2016. Indonesian police said they arrested 12 people allegedly connected to the deadly Islamic State-linked terror attack in the capital. National police chief Badrodin Haiti said the group had received funding from unidentified sources within Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility for the attack. Just two innocent people were killed in the late-morning siege near a busy shopping district, despite multiple blasts and a gunfight. The two civilians were a Canadian-Algerian dual national and an Indonesian. Twenty-four people were seriously wounded, including an Austrian, a German and a Dutchman. Five of the militants were killed after they attacked police and other targets in downtown Jakarta with bombs, grenades and guns, while two others were taken alive, according to police reports. Analysts offered various theories as to why the Jakarta attack on soft targets with a poorly trained small group armed with grenades, homemade bombs and handguns produced so few casualties. The low death toll on Thursday pointed to the involvement of poorly trained ISIL supporters whose weapons were crude. The operation may have been hurried into execution as leaders of rival factions jockey to be recognized as emir should IS declare Indonesia as one of its provinces. "Thats why [Indonesian IS fighter] Bahrun Naim plotted this attack," from Raqqa in Syria, said Jakartas police chief Tito Karnavian just hours after the incident. Naim's vision is to unite all ISIS supporting elements in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. The attack carried out by militants in Jakarta was funded by the "Islamic State" militant group. The funds were driven through Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian militant arrested in 2011 for illegal arms possession, police chief General Badrodin Haiti told reporters. He served three years in prison for the charges. After his release, he became increasingly involved in Islamist groups across the world's most populous country, emerging as a key player in militant networks. Naim left for Syria last year to join the fight alongside the "Islamic State" after being released. Indonesia is no stranger to acts of terrorism. In recent years, two luxury hotels in Jakarta were hit by separate blasts five minutes apart on July 17, 2009, killing some foreigners. That attack took place nearly four years after coordinated suicide bombings and car blasts at two sites on the resort island of Bali killed more than 20 people, and the 2002 Bali bombings that left more than 200 people dead. Following the 2002 Bali bombings, the Indonesian government initiated so-called deradicalization programs designed to manage the more radical elements of society. The programs, which include different interpretations of the Koran, mainly target imprisoned Islamists, with law enforcement agencies determined to taken the prisoners' concerns seriously and support their families. They hope that by doing so, those radicalized will renounce violence. Observers are skeptical about the degree of success of such programs. The emergence of Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) had a dramatic impact on the jihadist community in Southeast Asia, particularly in Indonesia and Malaysia. One of the main reasons for the limited ISIS threat is that relatively few Indonesian or Malaysian fighters have returned to their home countries. This seems to be attributable to the fact that the ISIS leadership currently prefers its foreign fighters to remain in Syria and Iraq to defend and expand the caliphate, rather than return to Southeast Asia and wage violent jihad there. The division between pro- and anti-ISIS is complex. On the pro-ISIS side the major support groups are: Jamaah Anshorut Tauhid (Community of the Helpers of Monotheism; JAT). Founded in 2008 by former Jemaah Islamiyah emir, Abu Bakar Baasyir, JAT at its peak in 2010 had many thousands of members and chapters across the archipelago. The organisation split over Baasyirs support for ISIS in mid-July, with some 80 percent of JAT members leaving to join the newly established Jamaah Anshorut Syariah (Congregation of Islamic Law Helpers; JAS). Although now small in size, JAT still facilitated recruitment to ISIS for its members and sympathisers. Mujahidin Indonesia Timur (East Indonesian Jihad Fighters; MIT). Formed by a former JAT commander, Santoso (alias Abu Wardah al-Syarqi) in 2011, MIT comprised an array of jihadist cells in Central Sulawesi, West Nusa Tenggara (especially Bima) and East Kalimantan. Santoso was the first Indonesian jihadist leader to declare allegiance to ISIS, in late 2013, and MIT had strong links into Syria and featured often in the international jihadist media. Despite being the most wanted terrorist in Indonesia, Santoso has proven to be an ineffective jihadist commander and his group in Central Sulawesi was thought to number just 30 men and to control a small tract of land at Biru Mountain near the city of Poso. Although small in size and with little capacity, Santosos MIT had considerable symbolic power because it was seen as controlling territory and thus having a safe base (qaidah aminah) in which Islam can be fully implemented. Jamaah Tauhid wal Jihad (Community of Monotheism and Jihad; JTJ). Founded by Aman Abdurrahman (alias Oman Rochman) in 2004, JTJ has a loose structure and most of its activities are based in cells, numerous of which have become involved in terrorist operations. Ring Banten. This group split from Darul Islam, Indonesias oldest jihadist organisation, in 1999 and its members were involved in both the 2002 Bali bombing and the 2004 Australian embassy bombing. One of its leaders, Rois (Iwan Dharmawan), was on death row for his role in the latter attack. Several of its members joined ISIS in Syria. Gema Salam (contraction of Gerakan Mahasiswa Untuk Syariat Islam; Students Movement for Islamic Law). Since 2013, Gema Salam has become a strong advocate of the ISIS cause on campuses in many parts of Indonesia. It follows the teachings of Aman Abdurrahman and runs the Shoutussalam.org website, one of the most prominent pro-ISIS sites in Indonesia. It also translates and publishes online the Indonesian version of ISISs Dabiq journal. Mujahidin Indonesia Barat (Western Indonesia Holy War Fighters; MIB). Established in West Java in 2012 as a splinter group from a Darul Islam faction led by Abu Umar, it has a number of members who have joined ISIS in Syria. FAKSI (Forum Aktivis Syariat Islam; Islamic Sharia Activists Forum). Created by Muhammad Fachry (real name Tuah Febriwansyah) and Bahrum Syam in early 2013, FAKSI was based on the militant al-Muhajirun group in Indonesia and quickly became a leading source of pro-ISIS media activity in Indonesia. Its main site is al-Mustaqbal.com, which promotes the most extreme forms of ISIS ideology and is a major platform for spreading the teachings of Aman Abdurrahman. FAKSI organised a series of public lectures to advocate for ISIS, including mass pledges of support. Bahrum joined ISIS forces in Syria in May 2014 and quickly rose to prominence on social media and then as head of the Katibah, while Fachry busied himself with selecting and training ISIS recruits in Indonesia. There are unconfirmed reports that Bahrum was killed in Syria. In November 2015, there was a pro-ISIS group meeting to form a new organization called Jemaah Ansyarul Khalifah. Unfortunately the evidence of this organizational structure has not been found, although there is Al-Mustaqbal's website that disseminates the ISIS understanding. The site run by Muhammad Fachry alias Tuah, who was sentenced to five years in prison and a fine of Rp 5 million after three months of confinement, was declared legally and convincingly to disseminate information that could affect violence. On the site, Tuah called to spread ISIS propaganda videos and invite readers to leave for Syria to fight President Bashar Al Assad. The verdict granted for Tuah alias Fachry was lighter than the prosecutor's demand, which is a sentence of eight years in prison and a fine of Rp50 million. Sidney Jones, a terrorism researcher, said Tuah had an important role in the ISIS movement in Indonesia. "Fachry is actually the biggest actor who organizes pro-ISIS groups across Indonesia through the Almustaqbal.net site, which is now closed by the Indonesian government. If we look at what he did to recruit people for ISIS, (the verdict) five years is far too light," Jones told BBC Indonesia. East Indonesia Mujahidin (EIM) / Mujahidin Indonesian Timur (MIT) is an ISIL-linked terrorist group operating in Indonesia. MIT members have ties to other US Department of State designated FTOs, including Jemmah Anshorut Tauhid (JAT) and Jemaah Islamiya (JI). In July 2014, MITs leader, Abu Warda Santoso, pledged allegiance to ISIL. MIT has become increasingly bold in its attacks on security forces, which includes the use of explosives and shootings. Acting under the authority of and in accordance with section 1(b) of Executive Order 13224 of September 23, 2001, as amended by Executive Order 13268 of July 2, 2002, and Executive Order 13284 of January 23, 2003, on 21 September 2015 John F. Kerry, Secretary of State, determined that the entity known as Mujahidin Indonesia Timur (MIT), also known as Mujahideen Indonesia Timor, also known as Mujahidin of Eastern Indonesia, also known as Mujahidin Indonesia Barat, also known as Mujahidin Indonesia Timor, also known as Mujahidin of Western Indonesia (MIB) committed, or poses a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism that threaten the security of US nationals or the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States. By early 2016 governemnt troops had been aggressively pursuing Abu Wardah Santoso, Indonesia's most wanted militant and leader of the East Indonesia Mujahidin (EIM) network, which has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group. At least five members of the EIM network were killed by security forces this past week. Members of the group are thought to be hiding in Poso, where more than 1,000 people died in 2001 and 2002 in violence between Christians and Muslims. Indonesia has the worlds largest Muslim population, 87 percent of its more than 250 million people. Approximately 10 percent of the countrys population are Christian, three percent of whom are Catholic. Indonesias federal system and weak oversight gives provinces wide latitude to enforce negative interpretations of Indonesian law, ignore court decisions, and apply Shariah law in ways that violate constitutional protections. With more than 17,000 islands, Indonesia is the worlds largest archipelagic nation. As a result, securing land and sea borders remains an ongoing challenge. Although Indonesia does not provide a safe haven for terrorists, terrorists meet and train in the isolated area near Poso, Central Sulawesi. In 2014, the local legislature in the province of Aceh passed a new bylaw that strengthened Shariah law and for the first time ever expanded it to non-Muslims, both Indonesians and foreigners; an estimated 90,000 non-Muslims reside in Aceh. The bylaw imposes Islamic law on persons of other faiths, establishes new crimes not found in the national criminal code, and potentially forces non-Muslims to be tried in Shariah courts. Indonesian laws criminalizing blasphemy and other forms of perceived religious insults continue to be used against individuals, often on trumped-up charges. In December 2014, police opened an investigation of Meidyatama Suryodiningrat, editor of The The [Shariah] Jakarta Post, for publishing what some believe to be a blasphemous cartoon criticizing the violence carried out by the terrorist group ISIL, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Internal pressures continued to diminish Indonesias respect for religious freedom and tradition of tolerance and pluralism. Deteriorating religious freedom conditions in Indonesia in 2014 were somewhat overshadowed by legislative and presidential elections, but discrimination and violence against religious minorities continued, as well as the harassment and imprisonment of individuals accused of blasphemy. The year 2014 capped off the decade-long presidency of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, under whose tenure religious extremism, and its expression through acts of violence, grew with little government intervention. Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali, known for his support of Islamic extremist elements, also left office in 2014. The Ministry itself has a history of implementing discriminatory practices and laws against non-Sunni Muslims, in particular Shia and Ahmadi Muslims. Hardline groups that incite violence against religious minorities or Muslims, with whom they disagree, continue to operate freely and with relative impunity. In 2014, Indonesia expanded international counterterrorism cooperation, including with the United States. Indonesia sustained pressure on terrorists and their networks, particularly those operating within its borders, but continued to face challenges trying to stem the flow of Indonesians traveling abroad to engage in terrorism. The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) became a major impetus for further counterterrorism efforts. The emergence in July 2014 of a recruitment video calling for Indonesians to join ISIL focused the attention of the government and civil society and religious groups on countering the ISIL threat. Indonesian government officials estimated that up to 300 Indonesians may have traveled to the Middle East since 2012 to engage in terrorist activities. In August 2014, government officials banned support for ISIL. However, this ban is a proclamation and does not have the force of law. Officials are considering measures to revise Indonesias legislative framework to make it more effective. Authorities made at least 10 arrests of alleged ISIL supporters. The Ministry of Communications and Information blocked 20 ISIL-related websites. To complement these actions, officials recognized the need for a counter-messaging campaign; these efforts were nascent at years end. Many of Indonesias countermeasures against ISIL also addressed the broader threat posed by foreign terrorist fighters, whether affiliated with ISIL or other violent extremist groups operating in the Middle East. In September 2014, President Yudhoyono outlined a series of measures to counter ISIL. To prevent the travel of potential foreign fighters, Yudhoyono called for increased scrutiny of passport and visa issuances. The government held a series of coordination meetings with foreign officials, including from transit and destination countries. Yudhoyono announced that Indonesian citizens abroad and foreigners within Indonesia would be monitored more closely. He said the surveillance of terrorist prisoners would be tightened and called for heightened vigilance throughout Indonesia, especially in areas vulnerable to or with a history of violent extremism. In December 2014, authorities in Malaysia arrested and later deported seven Indonesian citizens, accompanied by five children, who were planning travel to Syria to join ISIL. On 10 January 2017 the U.S. Department of the Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) took action to disrupt the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levants (ISIL) global fundraising and support network by designating four individuals Neil Christopher Prakash, Khaled Sharrouf, Bachrumsyah Mennor Usman, and Oman Rochman as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs) pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13224, which targets terrorists and those providing support to terrorists or acts of terrorism. Bachrumsyah Mennor Usman was designated for acting for or on behalf of ISIL. He is an ISIL official who commands ISIL fighters, facilitates funding for ISIL operations in Indonesia, recruits for ISIL, and coordinates travel and communications for ISIL members. Usman had pledged allegiance to ISIL as of mid-2014 and was involved in sending Indonesians to Syria. In early February 2014, Usman claimed he was part of ISIL when he appeared at an event in support of ISIL at a mosque in Indonesia. In September 2014, Usman was identified as the leader of ISILs Archipelago Group also known as Katibah Nusantara in Syria. He was also designated by ISIL to receive training in bomb-making. As of March 2016, Usman had transferred $105,000 to the leader of a group of terrorists in Indonesia identified as the Bekasi cell. ISIL had ordered that the money be used to carry out attacks in Indonesia. The individual receiving the money had been contemplating attacks in Bali, as well as at an international school and at an airport in Jakarta. As of February 2016, Usman reportedly transferred funds to both Indonesia and the Philippines, and he ordered an associate to plan attacks similar to the January 14, 2016 bomb attacks in Jakarta. As of February 2016, Usman commanded an Indonesian-Malaysian fighting unit for ISIL. He was also identified as an Indonesian member of ISIL who had been promoted to the rank of high official and had uploaded to a video-sharing website a video entitled Join the Ranks, in which he urges Indonesians to support ISIL. After the video featuring Usman was released, Indonesian police detected an underground movement to recruit more ISIL members. In March 2015, Usman appeared in an ISIL propaganda video that promoted ISILs links to Indonesia and portrayed Indonesian and Malaysian children receiving military training using machine guns. Additionally, as of April 2016, Usman financially assisted Wiji Joko Santoso the leader of SDGT Indonesian terrorist group Mujahidin Indonesia Timur (MIT) by transferring funds directly to an MIT-affiliated bank account and indirectly to the Philippines for the purchase of weapons for the group. Usman studied under pro-ISIL leader Oman Rochman, collaborated with ISIL supporter and SDGT Muhammad Fachry after Rochmans incarceration, and jointly founded an organization with Fachry that subsequently declared its support for ISIL in February 2014. Usman reportedly departed Indonesia for Syria at the end of March 2014. Usman also had previously been a member of SDGT and Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) Jemaah Islamiyah. Oman Rochman was designated for acting for or on behalf of ISIL in the areas of recruitment and media dissemination, and as of late-2015 was considered to be the de facto leader for all ISIL supporters in Indonesia, despite his incarceration in Indonesia since December 2010. As of February 2016, Rochman, while incarcerated, recruited prospective militants to join ISIL and was likely communicating with ISIL leaders in Syria. Rochman authorized terrorist attacks on January 14, 2016 in Jakarta, Indonesia and issued a fatwa (decree) from prison in January 2016 encouraging Indonesian militants to join ISIL. As of January 2016, Rochman was leading ISIL members in Indonesia and gave the order to a Jakarta attacker in December 2015 to carry out ISIL attacks in January 2016. Rochman pledged allegiance to ISIL in early 2014 and was actively recruiting for ISIL as of early 2015. In 2015, Rochman instructed an Indonesian associate to travel to Syria to join ISIL. He also recruited an individual in prison to travel to Syria to join ISIL after the individual was released from prison. As of mid-2015, Rochman required Indonesian extremists who desired to join ISIL in Syria to obtain a recommendation from him before departing for Syria. Rochman was Indonesias main translator for ISIL, as of October 2014, and disseminated information online from prison, including ISILs call for Muslims to kill Westerners indiscriminately. In August 2014, Rochman was identified as a key figure who spearheaded the spread of ISILs ideology in Indonesia by translating ISIL writings and distributing them through Islamic studies groups and social media. In December 2010, Rochman was sentenced to nine years in prison for violating Article 13 of Indonesias counter-terrorism law. Rochman has been incarcerated for his role in contributing funds and recruiting for a terrorist training camp in Aceh, Indonesia that had been affiliated with SDGT Abu Bakar Baasyir. As of 2016, Rochman remains imprisoned in Indonesia. In May 2014, the Department of State announced the amendment of the designation of al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act and as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity under section 1(b) of Executive Order (E.O.) 13224 to add the alias Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) as its primary name. ISIL was added to the UN 1267/1989/2253 Committee's Consolidated List its list of sanctioned terrorists in December 2015. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Taiwan - Politics The constitution provides citizens the right to change their government peacefully, and citizens exercised this right in practice through periodic, free, and fair elections based on universal suffrage. The press is free, though at times unreliable, and political debate is unconstrained and vigorous. Critics allege that the authorities increased their placement of advertisements packaged as news reports and programs in local newspapers and television. They said the placement deterred a few media outlets from criticizing the authorities. The authorities deny using advertising revenue to manipulate the media. Until the mid-1980s the KMT maintained a single-party rule. Martial law, which had been in force since the 1940's, was lifted in 1987. Beginning in the mid-1980's and accelerating in the first half of the nineties, however, the political system has been transformed into a democracy. Until 1986, Taiwan's political system was controlled by one party, the Kuomintang (KMT), the chairman of which was also Taiwan's top leader. As the ruling party, the KMT was able to fill appointed positions with its members and maintain political control of the island. The peaceful political transition from authoritarian rule to a democracy encouraged the development of a growing number of special interest groups, such as advocates for womens rights, indigenous Taiwanese, and Taiwanese of Chinese descent to pursue political rights and interests such as democracy, justice, and equality. As these groups have become more willing to participate in political rallies and protests to demand that the government consider their specific interests, they have further demanded that Mainlanders (post-1945 Chinese immigrants to Taiwan) should not be the only dominant group in the political structure, and that Taiwanese should join Mandarin as the official languages in Taiwan. Before the 1986 island-wide elections, many "non-partisans" grouped together to create Taiwan's first new opposition political party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Despite an official ban on forming new political parties, Taiwan authorities did not prohibit the DPP from operating, and DPP and independent candidates captured more than 20% of the vote in the 1986 elections. In 1987, President Chiang Ching-kuo ended the nearly four decades of martial law under which dissent had been suppressed. Since then, Taiwan has taken dramatic steps to improve respect for human rights and create a democratic political system, including ending almost all restrictions on the press. Vice President Lee Teng-hui succeeded Chiang Ching-kuo as president upon Chiang's death in 1988, and in 1990 the National Assembly (NA) elected Lee to a 6-year term as President, the final indirect presidential election conducted by the NA. Under President Lee, the Legislative Yuan (LY) passed the Civic Organizations Law in 1989, which allowed for the formation of new political parties, thereby legalizing the DPP. In 1992, the DPP won 51 seats in the 161-seat LY, increasing the DPP's influence on legislative decisions. Chen Shui-bian's victory in the Taipei mayoral election in December 1994 further enhanced the profile of the DPP, which won 45 of the 157 seats in the 1995 LY elections. Taiwan's first direct presidential elections were held in March 1996. In 1996, the KMT's Lee Teng-hui was elected President and Lien Chan Vice President in the first direct presidential election by Taiwan's voters. In the November 1997 local elections, the DPP won 12 of the 23 county magistrate and city mayor contests to the KMT's 8, outpolling the KMT for the first time in a major election. In March 2000, there were five candidates in the presidential campaign: Lien Chan (the KMTs candidates), Chen Shui-bian (the DPPs), Li Ao (the New Partys), Soong Chu-yu, and Hsu Hsin-liang (an independent candidate). Chen Shui-bian, DPPs nominee, defeated the other political parties and won the presidency for a four-year term. In 2004, President Chen won reelection, receiving fifty percent of the vote. These events demonstrated the successful transfer of political power from the KMT, the oldest ruling party, to the DPP, previously an opposition party, and that the democratic process was working. The Taiwan Sunflower Student Movement, also known as the March 18 Student Movement or Occupy Taiwan Legislatur, was a protest movement that began on March 18, 2014, in the Legislative Yuan and continued to spread. Police and protesters were in a standoff in Taiwan's legislature 19 March 2014 after students stormed the building to demand the government scrap a trade deal with China. The protesters knocked down a large metal gate as they entered the legislative chamber and were using chairs to keep out police. The students said the deal would endanger Taiwanese jobs and increase Beijing's growing influence. The protesters felt the ruling Kuomintang, or KMT, party had bypassed the democratic process. Taiwans ruling KMT party, known for its engagement with old enemy China, suffered a worse than expected defeat in local elections 29 November 2014. The results hurt the Nationalist Partys odds of holding the presidency in 2016 and may slow talks with Beijing. The elections gave momentum to the chief opposition party, which takes a tougher stance on China. The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a research institute under the umbrella of The Economist Magazine in the United Kingdom, released the 2020 Democracy Index on 04 February 2021. Taiwan ranked 11th out of 167 countries and regions rated. It was the top in East Asia. The EIU report praised Taiwan as a "democratic lighthouse in Asia." Taiwan's significant rise from 31st to 11th in 2019 reflects the establishment of positive political and legal developments in recent years. In addition to increasing political party financial transparency, legislative reform has also helped protect judicial independence from political interference. EIU had released the Democracy Index since 2006. The 2020 edition focused primarily on the democratic and freedom impact of the novel coronavirus on the world. The democracy index of the world political system in 2020 deteriorated from 5.44 in 2019 to 5.37 on average. This was the worst number since 2006, when the Democracy Index was first released. Numbers have deteriorated since 2019 in 116 out of 167 countries and regions. Only 38 improved the index. The report points out that "the major topic in 2020 was Taiwan, which had the largest improvement." The Democracy Index describes the degree of democracy as "Full democracy" (8-10 points), "Flawed democracies" (6-7.9 points), and "Hybrid". It is classified into four levels: "regis" (4 to 5.9 points) and "Authoritarian regimes" (0 to 3.9 points). Norway, Iceland and Sweden are the top three democracy indexes in 2020. Taiwan ranks 11th with 8.94 points, but is the top in East Asia. Japan ranked 21st overall with 8.13 points. South Korea ranked 23rd with 8.01 points. Hong Kong is 87th with 5.57 points. China was 151st with 2.27 points. According to the report, many countries, including China, Singapore, and South Korea, conducted strict lockdown and contact history tracking as well as citizen monitoring in anti-coronavirus measures, which is an index in the majority of Asian countries and regions. While saying that it led to a decline, he pointed out that Japan and South Korea returned to "complete democracy" for the first time since 2014, and Taiwan was evaluated as "complete democracy" for the first time. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Suicide bombing in Indonesia's capital kills 7, injures 20 People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 20:40, January 14, 2016 JAKARTA, Jan. 14, 2016 -- People gather near the explosion site in Jakarta, Indonesia, Jan. 14, 2016. Seven people including two suicide bombers were killed and 20 others injured in suicide blasts in Jakarta, capital of Indonesia, on Thursday. (Xinhua/He Changshan) JAKARTA, Jan. 14 -- Seven people were killed, including five attackers, and 20 others injured in the suicide blasts in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital on Thursday, M. Iqbal, Jakarta police spokesman said. The attackers launched their strikes at a police post and a Starbucks coffee shop some 50 meters away, in a busy shopping compound. 'Two of them (attackers) were suicide attackers, and three others were shot dead by the police just before their planned attacks,' the spokesman said at the scene of the attacks. The two others who died in the attack included a Dutch citizen and an Indonesian national, Iqbal said. The 20 injured victims have been rushed into several hospitals in the city, he said. Iqbal's statement revised previous statement from Brigadier General Anton Charliyan, national police spokesman, who had said that one policeman was killed and two others got injured. The first explosion occurred at about 10:45 local time and was followed by two other blasts and shooting by the suspected militants, Anton said. The explosions in front of the coffee shop injured several people, and the blast at the police post severely injured some policemen and killed the attackers, according to a policeman at the scene. Blood of the attackers and victims remains outside the police post, which has been severely damaged, a Xinhua reporter saw at the scene. All the mirrors of the Starbucks shop were smashed with chairs and tables damaged. The police and the attackers exchanged fires after the explosions, Anto said, adding there were approximately 10 to 14 attackers in total. He revealed that the attacks occurred after the police got warning that the Islamic State (IS) group would launch attacks in Indonesia. 'It is clear that from the warning given by IS group that Indonesia will have a concert, Indonesia will be an international news,' he said. Therefore, 'we have given warnings too,' of the possible strikes, and conducted arrests of several militants in many places in the country, said Anton. The spokesman said that some of the attackers were riding motorcycles and launched grenade attacks. 'Some perpetrators used grenades,' he said. About 300 policemen and soldiers arrived at the scene after the attacks and surrounded the shopping center where some of the attackers were holed up, said Anton. The Indonesian president decided to cut short his working visit in a town of Cirebon in West Java and ordered the authorities to pursue and arrest the attackers in Jakarta. 'We all extend a heartfelt condolence to the victims of this attack. But we all certainly condemn the act which disturbed the security of the people and launched terror to the people,' President Widodo said. Indonesia has experienced a series of major deadly attacks in the past. But in recent years, militants have resort to smaller-scale attacks, mainly targeting foreigners and police. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address WHO declares end to Ebola epidemic in West Africa Iran Press TV Thu Jan 14, 2016 10:42AM The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared that a two-year Ebola epidemic that took more than 11,000 lives in West Africa is now over. The UN health agency made the announcement on Thursday after the outbreak ended in Liberia, which had joined Sierra Leone and Guinea, the epicenters of the outbreak in West Africa. "Today the World Health Organization declares the end of the most recent outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Liberia and says all known chains of transmission have been stopped in West Africa," the agency said. It, however, warned that "the job is not over," as "more flare-ups are expected." The announcement came 42 days after the last Ebola cases in Liberia were tested negative. The time is the equivalent of two incubation periods of the virus. The tropical hemorrhagic virus emerged in southern Guinea in December 2013, infecting nearly 29,000 people. The disease later spread into neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone. Official data shows the outbreak killed 11,315 people, but the actual toll is thought to be much higher as many deaths have purportedly not been reported. The WHO was harshly criticized for its slow response to the outbreak, as local healthcare systems were not equipped enough to handle it. The deadly virus causes severe fever and muscle pain, weakness, vomiting and diarrhea. The epidemic in many cases shuts down organs and leads to unstoppable internal bleeding. Close contact with the sweat, vomit, blood or other bodily fluids of a patient, or the recently deceased could cause the contagious disease. A small number of Ebola cases were also recorded in Mali, Senegal and Nigeria. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Jakarta Blasts Follow Deadly Blueprint of Paris Attacks Sputnik News 17:53 14.01.2016 A series of explosions hit the Indonesian capital of Jakarta on Thursday, January 14, reportedly killing at least 10 people. Later on in the day, Jakarta police confirmed that Daesh (also known as Islamic State) was behind the blasts. As many as six blasts hit central Jakarta, local media reported. One of the bombs went off near a shopping mall in an area where prestigious hotels, embassies and office buildings are located. Another blast occurred near the UN office building, injuring a UN worker. Reports indicate that at least 10 people were killed in a series of explosions in the Indonesian capital after several assailants entered the downtown area on motorcycles, carrying rifles and explosives. Reuters also reported that a police officer was killed in the attacks. According to preliminary data, there were 10-14 attackers. After the blasts, police were involved in a gunfight with the terrorists. The shootout lasted for at least an hour and a half, resulting in three attackers being killed. Currently, the area is has been cordoned off by police. The roads are blocked, and armored vehicles have been deployed to the area. Indonesian President Joko Widodo has called the explosions a terrorist act. 'Our nation and our people should not be afraid, acts of terrorism will not defeat us, and I hope that society remains calm. We all have regrets over those killed during the incident, but also condemn this as it has violated our security and peace and spread fear among the people,' Widodo said. While the president has warned against speculation, claims that Daesh militants were behind them came almost immediately. Later on the day, Jakarta police chief Tito Karnavian confirmed that Daesh militants were responsible. 'We are pursuing the network of assailants, namely the Islamic State [Daesh] network,' he said was quoted as saying by the VIVA news outlet. The attacks were carried out the same way as the series of attacks in Paris in November 2015. Just as in Paris, the terrorists attacked several targets almost at the same time. The level of coordination required for the multiple attacks on Thursday indicates that Daesh could have been involved, analysts say. According to the Al Jazeera broadcaster, Indonesia's police have confirmed that Daesh recently threatened the country directly. CNN security analyst Bob Baer said the Jakarta attacks bear the signature of ISIS [Daesh]. It 'sounds like the Paris attack to me,' he was quoted as saying on the news channel. He added that many Daesh fighters have combat skills received in Syria and Iraq, including in operating explosives. According to Karnavian, Daesh which has been expanding its influence in the world in recent year has started to spread into Central Asia. 'The apparent multiple gunmen acting in synchronicity and the possible use of suicide vests this is hard to pin down at the moment suggests an ISIS [Daesh] signature, as this signature was certainly there in Paris on November 13. This is speculative at this point of course,' Kumar Ramakrishna from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies told The Straits Times. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Islamic State Claims Deadly Jakarta Attack by Steve Herman January 14, 2016 Islamic State has claimed responsibility for Thursday's coordinated bomb and gun attack in the Indonesian capital that left seven people dead, including all five attackers. The Islamic State-linked Aamaq News Agency says the attack in an upscale neighborhood in central Jakarta "targeted foreign nationals and security forces charged with protecting them." Foreigners were among 20 people who were wounded. Earlier, Indonesian national police spokesman Anton Charliyan said an IS-affiliated group was probably behind the assault, and the attackers were likely trying to imitate the November Paris terror attacks. The Jakarta police chief went further, naming an Indonesian in Syria as responsible. "All leaders of Islamic State in Southeast Asia are competing to be the regional chief," Tito Karnavian told reporters. "That's why [Indonesian IS fighter] Bahrun Naim plotted this attack." The violence began with a series of explosions mid-morning in an area near a shopping center, luxury hotels, embassies and other office buildings. The first two occurred in the outdoor smoking area and a parking lot of a Starbucks. A third explosion rocked a small police station. The militants engaged in intense gun battles with police throughout the day. By late afternoon, authorities declared the attack over, saying all five militants were killed. A Canadian national and an Indonesian citizen were also killed, police said. Busy spot "This is a very popular shopping area with restaurants and office buildings. About 50 meters from there is the United Nations office. The U.S. Embassy is almost around 400 or 500 meters from there, not far from the presidential palace, actually. So this is a really centrally located place," said VOA Indonesian Service reporter Frans Demon. While clearing Tamarin Avenue where the attacks occurred, police say they found one large and five small unexploded bombs. It is not clear why the bombs did not go off. Indonesian authorities in November had received a threat from Islamic State about a coordinated bomb attack in the capital. "Around Christmas and New Year's there was a threat by this group [IS] that they will do what they call a 'concert' in Jakarta, meaning they will set off bomb explosions in several places at the same time," said Demon. A heavy police presence now on the streets of Jakarta is aimed at reassuring citizens. Zainal Arifin hopes that it will also stop future attacks. "Jakarta's citizens, including myself, are now scared to go to shopping malls and other public places. But the police say we have nothing to fear because they'll protect us. Hopefully this won't happen again," he said. Another IS external attack A U.S. counterterrorism official told VOA there was no reason to doubt Islamic State's claim of responsibility for the attacks. U.S. military and intelligence officials have been warning the terror group has been placing a greater emphasis on so-called external attacks, devoting more people and resources, while using the attacks in Paris that killed 130 as a model. "It's definitely a symptom of the losses they've been suffering, like in [the Iraqi city of] Ramadi," a U.S. official told VOA on condition of anonymity. The official said Islamic State has repeatedly shown that when its forces falter fighting a more conventional-style war on the ground, it will shift toward more asymmetric, terrorist tactics, both in Iraq and Syria and elsewhere. The official also said it was possible, that like the November Paris attacks, the attack in Jakarta combined the use of "inspired" elements in Indonesia as well as militants taking some direction from Islamic State leaders in Syria and Iraq. The United States condemned the attacks "in the strongest possible terms." A White House statement said the U.S. will stand by its strategic partnership with Indonesia and "the Government of Indonesia as it works to bring those responsible for this barbaric terrorist attack to justice and build a more secure future." Attack condemned Secretary of State John Kerry also condemned the assault. "We stand together, all of us, united in our efforts to eliminate those who choose terror," Kerry told reporters in London. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed solidarity with Indonesia's people. Indonesian President Joko Widodo, speaking to a local television station, condemned the "acts of terror," stressing authorities are working to contain the situation. "Our nation and our people should not be afraid. We will not be defeated by these acts of terror. I hope the public stays calm," said the president, who visited the bombing scene later in the day. Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority nation, has been the target of several terrorist attacks, most notably the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists. Before Thursday, the last attack against foreigners was a twin hotel bombing in Jakarta in 2009. Jakarta has long been warning about the threat of recruitment by Islamic State and other extremist groups. Hundreds of Indonesians are believed to have left to fight with Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. VOA National Security correspondent Jeff Seldin, State Department correspondent Pam Dockens and William Gallo contributed to this report from Washington. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US Transfers 10 Guantanamo Bay Detainees by Carla Babb January 14, 2016 The U.S. Defense Department says 10 Yemeni detainees have been released from U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and sent to the Middle East nation of Oman. 'The Oman transfer of 10 is the single largest transfer to a single country at one time under the current administration.' Cmdr. Gary Ross said in an email to VOA. The mass transfer will raise the number of detainees transferred out of the camp this year to 14. Officials have told VOA the administration is looking to transfer three more detainees later this month. Thursday's transfer follows a forceful promise from President Barack Obama at his State of the Union address Tuesday to keep working to shut the prison down. 'It's expensive, it's unnecessary, and it only serves as a recruitment brochure for our enemies,' Obama said. Some held since 2002 Lawyers and activists say the United States has no right to indefinitely detain people without trial. Some of the Guantanamo Bay detainees have been imprisoned there since 2002. 'Indefinite detention does have rules, and the U.S. is not within those international rules as far as Guantanamo is concerned,' said Gary Solis, a U.S. veteran who teaches the law of war at the Georgetown University Law Center. There are now 93 detainees at the Guantanamo facility. The U.S. claims all have ties to terrorist groups. A defense source close to the transfer process told VOA the mass transfer was due to 'timing and security assurances' from those taking detainees. Military plan for closure The military will submit a plan to Congress by the end of February detailing how to close the detention facility, according to a defense official who spoke to VOA this week on the condition of anonymity. U.S. officials surveyed prison sites in Kansas, South Carolina and Colorado as potential sites to house Guantanamo Bay's remaining terrorism suspects, but Congress has resisted moving the detainees into the United States. 'As the law stands now, the Department of Justice and the military may not, not cannot but may not, send these individuals to anywhere in the United States,' Solis said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Indonesia Conducts Raids Following Its First Attack by IS by Steve Herman January 15, 2016 A suspected terrorist was killed and at least two others arrested Friday, according to Indonesian police, who said they had conducted raids in multiple locations in the wake of the downtown Jakarta fatal attack the previous day. Some of those who were targeted in the raids, which took place near the capital as well as in West Java and Central Sulawesi, were linked to Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility for Thursday's violence. The extent of their connection, if any, to the Jakarta attack was not immediately clear. One of the perpetrators who died Thursday had previously been arrested for possessing ammunition during a visit to the country by U.S. President Barack Obama, Indonesian national police chief Badrodin Haiti revealed on Friday. Some countries, including the United States, kept their embassies closed Friday. Jakarta has mobilized its entire police force to guard the capital a day after the first attack by the Islamic State group in the world's most populous Muslim nation. Angry and saddened Indonesians, in touch via social media, quickly formed the group "We are Not Afraid." Dozens converged on the attack site 30 hours after the incident, chanting and singing. There were shouts of "Kill the terrorists" and condemnations of their acts as being against God. Their vigil was quickly surrounded by local and international journalists, blocking two lanes of traffic on busy Thamrin Street. Police directed vehicles around the peaceful demonstration. President Joko Widodo sought to soothe jittery merchants in the Sarinah shopping mall adjacent to the attack location. "There's no problem. That's the important thing. It all appears to have returned to normal: the shops, the food stalls and the shopkeepers," the president declared. For the relatives of the 31 dead and seriously wounded, things are not back to normal. The wife of an injured Dutch national said she had learned via social media that her husband had been hurt in the attack and left on the street. Amateur video, shot from a building across the street from the Starbucks coffee shop where the attack began, shows a grenade being thrown, then perpetrators walking toward wounded people on the ground to shoot them shortly before more explosions erupted and police arrived where they engaged in an extended gun battle. Two civilians died a Canadian-Algerian dual national and an Indonesian, along with five assailants. Among those injured and currently hospitalized are several Europeans. Security increased Despite Thursday's IS attack in Indonesia, authorities here are gaining praise from security analysts, noting the country has been seeing hundreds of supporters of the terrorist group shuttle between the Southeast Asian nation and Syria. "The fact they missed one shouldn't be taken as a massive failure," said Sidney Jones, director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict. Jones, speaking from Singapore, told VOA the arrests made by police in November and December likely meant a significantly smaller casualty count, but that such an attack was inevitable as "there's been activity brewing for some time." As long as the IS networks remain active with aspirational Islamists intent on doing harm in Indonesia, "we will continue to see attempts," he said. 'Imitate' Paris attacks While Indonesian authorities contend the attack was meant to "imitate" the coordinated Paris siege on November 15 last year, the first IS attack in Indonesia fell short of that level of carnage. Analysts theorize that the Jakarta attack on soft targets with a poorly trained small group armed with grenades, homemade bombs and handguns may have been hurried into execution as leaders of rival factions jockey to be recognized as "emir" should IS declare Indonesia as one of its provinces. 'That's why [Indonesian IS fighter] Bahrun Naim plotted this attack,' from Raqqa in Syria, said Jakarta's police chief Tito Karnavian just hours after the incident. The Islamic State-linked Aamaq News Agency said the Jakarta attack 'targeted foreign nationals and security forces charged with protecting them.' A U.S. counterterrorism official told VOA there was no reason to doubt Islamic State's claim of responsibility for the attacks. U.S. military and intelligence officials have been warning the terror group has been placing a greater emphasis on so-called external attacks, devoting more people and resources, using the attacks in Paris that killed 130 people as a model. 'Symptom of the losses' "It's definitely a symptom of the losses they've been suffering, like in [the Iraqi city of] Ramadi," a U.S. official told VOA on condition of anonymity. The official said Islamic State has repeatedly shown that when its forces falter at fighting a more conventional style war on the ground, it will shift toward more asymmetric, terrorist tactics, both in Iraq and Syria and elsewhere. The United States condemned the attacks 'in the strongest possible terms.' A White House statement said the U.S. will stand by its strategic partnership with Indonesia and 'the government of Indonesia as it works to bring those responsible for this barbaric terrorist attack to justice and build a more secure future.' Indonesia is no stranger to acts of terrorism. In recent years, two luxury hotels in Jakarta were hit by separate blasts five minutes apart on July 17, 2009, killing some foreigners. That attack took place nearly four years after coordinated suicide bombings and car blasts at two sites on the resort island of Bali killed more than 20 people, and the 2002 Bali bombings that left more than 200 people dead. VOA's Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb, State Department Correspondent Pamela Dockins and National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Jakarta Attack Raises Fears of Jihad in Asia by Shannon Van Sant January 15, 2016 Thursday's terrorist attacks in Jakarta have raised concern throughout Asia that the Islamic State group is attempting to create a caliphate in Indonesia, which has the largest Muslim population in the world. The attack in the capital killed two people along with five attackers, and prompted Indonesian authorities to call for cooperation with countries throughout Asia in the fight against Islamic extremism. It also follows the arrests in December of 13 men across the island of Java, including one Chinese Muslim Uighur with a suicide bomber vest. Indonesian authorities believe increasing numbers of Chinese are traveling to the country to wage jihad. Route for militants Biveer Singh of the Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore said Indonesia may be an increasingly popular transit route for militants seeking to join IS. "Most of them are actually en route, either on the way to Syria and Iraq, and on the way back to Southeast Asia, or as some reports indicate, after having come back from Syria and Iraq, on the way back, then go to Southeast Asia,' Singh said. The Chinese Uighur man was arrested December 23 in a house just outside of Jakarta. Authorities believe that he, and many others, are answering a call by Santoso, who lives in the jungles of eastern Indonesia, to fight for the Islamic State group. Todd Elliott, a terrorism analyst at Concord Consulting in Jakarta, says IS propaganda may be prompting Uighurs to leave China's westernmost province of Xinjiang. "The spread of ISIS's propaganda, Xinjiang is not immune to that. I think that is also prompting some Uighurs from that region to seek other countries for jihad,' Elliott said. Chinese crackdown Protests and violence have killed hundreds over the past few years in Xinjiang, and many say religious repression and cultural genocide are inspiring Uighurs to leave China. Beijing has cracked down on the region in what it has called an attempt to root out terrorism. But some say it is a veiled effort to forcibly repress and assimilate the Uighur ethnic minority. This week's attacks in Jakarta, and the arrest of a Chinese Uighur there last month, will likely bolster China's claim that the threat of terrorism within the mainland and abroad is growing. Wang Dong, a professor of International Relations at Peking University, said this shared threat will improve ties between China and Indonesia. "This is actually an indication of really cooperation between China and Indonesia on terrorism, and also because China and Indonesia share the concern of the threat of terrorism,' Wang said. Indonesia has been the target of several terrorist attacks, most notably the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people; mostly foreign tourists. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address China Gears Up to Play Bigger Role in Middle East Politics by Saibal Dasgupta January 14, 2016 Chinese President Xi Jinping's first official visit to the Middle East next week is a signal of Beijing's intention to be a major player in Mideast affairs, analysts say. The Chinese government has not yet announced specifics of Xi's Mideast tour. But official agencies in Iran and Egypt say he will visit the region beginning January 20. This would be the first time in 12 years a Chinese president will visit the two countries. Xi is also expected to visit Saudi Arabia. China, has been signaling its growing interest in dealing with thorny issues in the Middle East. Beijing issued its first ever policy paper on the Arab world on Wednesday, promising to support Arab governments in their fight against terrorism through long-term security cooperation, intelligence sharing and technical cooperation. In December it hosted Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Walid al-Moallem, and also representatives of the Syrian opposition. Beijing recently sent Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Ming to Saudi Arabia and Iran to help lower tension caused by the execution of a controversial Shi'ite cleric and the attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran. The recent moves sparked speculation that China might send its troops to Syria to fight alongside Russian soldiers. Analysts are asking why China wants to step into a diplomatic mine field that poses serious risks. "If you are able to make a difference in the Middle East, you will be regarded as a major country. China faces restrictions in the Middle East, but it is ready to play its role," said Li Shaoxian, vice president of Institute of Contemporary International Relations, a government-run think tank. But Li says, 'Unlike Russia, China has no need or aspirations for a military role. We can accept anything that is in line with the desires of local people in another country.' China is worried that disruptive events in the Middle East may impact the thinking in its vast Muslim population. It is possible that thousands of Chinese Muslims have migrated to fight for different forces in Syria, he said. Managing contradictions Analysts say there are signs Chinese leaders are determined to get a taste of managing disputes in the Middle East, which it has avoided for decades. One in particular is its effort to be friendly with both Israeli and Palestinian leaders. "China is trying to strike a delicate balance. It wants to support the Palestinian cause because this will earn it respect and sympathy in the Middle East. But it cannot turn its back on the useful technologies that Israel can supply," Daud Abdullah, director of the London-based Middle East Monitor told VOA. "We know, for instance, that Israel has been covertly supplying to China the arms know-how it acquired from the U.S." Most analysts believe China will tread carefully, because taking sides in the tumultuous Mideast can have negative repercussions in its own region of Xinjiang, which is a hotbed of Islamic terrorism. For example, it is careful not to take a stance that would displease Turkey because Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang are Turkic speaking people. "I think China is trying to find a political role for itself in the Middle East. It is difficult for China to stay neutral, but it is going to give it a try," Francesco Sisci, professor at the Renmin University in Beijing, said. Economic motives The Middle East is important because the region is one of the three routes chosen for China's Silk Road program, which is expected to boost the Chinese economy in a big way, Sisci said. "Beijing will try to be neutral with regard to tensions among Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria. But they want China to take a more clear cut stance," Hichem Karoui, political adviser at the Diplomatic Institute at Qatar, said. Li cited three other reasons why China wants to play a major role in the Middle East. More than half of China's energy imports come from the region. It is an important aspect of the Silk Road program, which involves building infrastructure projects across several countries. And it is essential to play an important role in the Middle East to be taken seriously as a major power, he said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Unprecedented Reform: Why China's Military Restructuring is Raising Concern Sputnik News 16:41 15.01.2016(updated 17:23 15.01.2016) China is modernizing its military in light of a large-scale reform of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Currently, the focus seems to be on organizational reform and restructuring. The reforms come at a time when Beijing is becoming more assertive about territorial disputes in the South China Sea. The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) itself has admitted before that it is lagging behind. It may have plenty of new weapons and it has just started to build a second aircraft-carrier, but as The Economist notes, the "PLA is failing to make effective use of these new weapons because of outdated systems of command and control." Hence, China's new military reforms come at a time when the country is feeling the need to modernize its army's management system and overcome any organizational issues still in place. In an interview with Sputnik, Vasily Kashin of the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies described the ongoing large-scale reform of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) as an unprecedented event in the country's history. He said that even though such a military transformation will probably result in a negative reaction from an array of political and military figures in China, Beijing should redouble its efforts to implement the reform. "In the past few years, China has faced many challenges, including growing US activity in the South China Sea, which is why Beijing should respond in kind to all this. Judging by the full-fledged military reform proposed by President Xi Jinping, the response will be very serious," Kashin said. What remains unclear is why other countries would react negatively to these reforms, considering that China earlier announced that it will cut down the number of Chinese troops in an effort to create a more efficient fighting force. President Xi announced plans in September to cut the number of Chinese troops by about 300,000 to approximately 2 million soldiers. In light of the new reforms, it is worth mentioning that under the previous organizational structure, the Central Military Commission, with the assistance of a small staff called the Central Military Commission General Office, set policies for the armed forces and exercised supreme command. The mission of executing the commission's decrees fell to the Four General Departments four separate headquarters that served collectively as the PLA's joint staff and de facto ground force headquarters. "The system was cumbersome and completely dominated by the army. Even more concerning for Beijing, this command structure was resistant to Party leadership and prone to developing political fiefdoms," according to an article by the website Stratfor. Following the reforms, the new joint staff, directly attached to the Central Military Commission will replace the Four General Departments, forming 15 functional departments instead a significant expansion from the domain of the General Office, which is now a single department within the Central Military Commission staff. The current global conditions and rising tensions in the South China Sea may have been what trigered China's military reforms. The newspaper Global Times said that new conditions require a strong army and cited the United States as a reason. "If China has a big gap with the US in terms of military prowess, this will affect its international position and other countries' attitude toward China," it said in an editorial posted on its website Saturday. China has made efforts to refrain from military campaigns and it has not been an aggressor for many years now. As the magazine The Diplomat put it, "China has been a supporter of providing financial assistance and offering 'capacity building support' to local armed forces to contribute to counterterrorism efforts instead of directly participating in military campaigns." Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address More Joint Army-Civilian Meetings Hail Successful H-bomb Test Korean Central News Agency of DPRK via Korea News Service (KNS) Pyongyang, January 14 (KCNA) -- Joint army-civilian meetings took place in Munchon, Kaesong, Sinpho and Huichon cities and Paechon, Phyongwon, Popdong and other counties to hail the successful first H-bomb test of Juche Korea. They were attended by officials of the local party and power bodies, working people's organizations, factories, enterprisers, farms and universities, service personnel of the Korean People's Army and the Korean People's Internal Security Forces, working people, youths and students. The statement of the DPRK government was read out and congratulatory speeches were made. Speakers said that through the successful H-bomb test the DPRK appeared in the center of the world as a power with the strongest nuclear deterrent. They said that the service personnel and people of the DPRK will take hold on the nuclear treasured sword and step up the building of an economic giant while mercilessly shattering the evermore escalating nuclear blackmail by the U.S. imperialists. They called upon all the people to bring about a big leap forward and great innovations in the production and construction full of conviction of sure victory and optimism under the leadership of the Workers' Party of Korea and thus make positive contributions to glorifying the Seventh Congress of the WPK as one of victors and glory. -0- NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address DPRK's Access to H-bomb Aimed to Finally Settle Accounts with Aggressors: Minju Joson Korean Central News Agency of DPRK via Korea News Service (KNS) Pyongyang, January 14 (KCNA) -- Upon hearing the news that Juche Korea completely succeeded in the first H-bomb test, the south Korean chief executive rushed to her underground shelter, going busy with holding a 'security meeting' and crying out for forcing the north to 'pay a very high price for it'. Echoing her outbursts, Chongwadae issued a 'statement' and issued an order for 'state of emergency'. In the meantime, gentries of the 'Saenuri Party' cried out for 'nuclear weaponization,' blustering that they would not allow the DPRK's access to nukes'. Minju Joson Thursday says in a commentary in this regard: The south Korean conservative ruling forces' hysteric row of pulling up the DPRK only touches off derision among all Koreans. The DPRK's H-bomb test allows no one to slander it as it is the just self-defensive measure of a sovereign state. It is self-evident that one can not cope with the ever-increasing nuclear threat and blackmail of the U.S. and its followers with their bare hands. This truth has been proved in practice in the whole historic course of the confrontation with the U.S. over the past several decades. This being a hard reality, the south Korean conservative group is vociferating about what it called 'price' in a bid to downplay the significance of the event to be specially recorded in the nation's history spanning five thousand years. This is nothing but a revelation of bitter hatred hostility towards the compatriots in the north. Gone are days never to return when the DPRK could talk to the group. As the army and people of the DPRK paid a very high price owing to the U.S. moves, they are waiting for the moment to finally settle accounts with the U.S. The DPRK had access to H-bomb despite manifold difficulties and hardships not to hurt the compatriots under any circumstances. It is aimed to finally settle accounts with the aggressors and provocateurs keen to do harm to the DPRK and thus ultimately defuse the danger of a nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula and bring an eternal rosy future to the nation. -0- NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address N. Korea's Nuclear Test Seen as Attention-Getting Move by Jee Abbey Lee January 14, 2016 North Korea's purported nuclear test might be an attempt to seek attention from the United States, a former U.S. envoy said. The announcement that the communist country successfully tested a hydrogen bomb came as a surprise, prompting analysts to wonder what might have motivated Pyongyang to make the provocative move. Some say internal politics might have played a role in the decision, and others cite deteriorating ties between North Korea and China, adding Pyongyang did not notify its ally of the test in advance. Bill Richardson, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. who extensively dealt with North Koreans, told VOA Wednesday Pyongyang's sudden move might be aimed at steering Washington's attention toward it. Seeking attention "We're still around. I know you are all worried about the Middle East, Iran and Saudi Arabia, but we still are here in Northeast Asia," said the former ambassador, meaning that's what North Korean officials are likely thinking. Richardson said Pyongyang's message to Washington is this. "We are not going to give up our nuclear proliferation. We are not going to give up developing nuclear weapons. This is our fourth and you need to deal with us," the envoy said. The former ambassador called on Washington to change its approach to Pyongyang, saying the current policy has failed to stop Pyongyang's nuclear development. "Sanctions, strategic patience have not moved North Korea to stop developing their nuclear weapons," he argued. Instead, Richardson called for fresh diplomatic efforts involving key members of the Six-Party Talks, multi-state nuclear talks, in what he called a "readjustment" of the policy. Richardson's comments came amid criticism that the United States might have overlooked the North Korean nuclear issue while trying to resolve disputes over Iran's nuclear development. Some critics noted President Barack Obama did not mention the nuclear test when he laid out U.S. foreign policy's priorities in his highlighted State of the Union address this week. North Korea overlooked? The White House dismissed the criticism, saying the North Korean nuclear issue is a "huge priority" to the president. "If there's one thing I know about the leader of North Korea, he likes attention" Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser, told reporters in reference to Obama's speech. "We didn't particularly feel compelled to give him that attention," added Rhodes. Despite North Korea's apparent unwillingness to give up nuclear weapons, there are still incentives for Pyongyang to negotiate away the weapons, according to Richardson. "I do believe they have an incentive. I think North Korea realistically has to find ways to improve their economic life," the envoy said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address French Arms Exports Reach All-Time High in 2015 - Defense Minister Sputnik News 17:17 14.01.2016(updated 17:18 14.01.2016) According to the French defence minister, the country's arms sales have doubled in 2015, amounting to $17.48 billions' worth. MOSCOW (Sputnik) France's weapon exports were worth 16 billion euro ($17.48 billion) in 2015, an all-time high for the country's defense industry, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Thursday. 'There have been 16 billion in the arms sales, double of the previous year,' Le Drian told BFMTV, adding that it was a record. Le Drian said it was too early to discuss the situation with India purchasing France's Rafale planes, and added that Egypt has already paid the whole price for the Mistral helicopter carriers. In April 2015, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Francois Hollande agreed to supply the Indian Air Force with 36 French-built Rafale fighters. The deal is likely to be signed in January, according to local media reports. In October 2015, Cairo and Paris signed a contract paving the way for Egypt's purchase of the two warships originally built for Russia, after France officially terminated the 1.2 billion euro contract with Moscow on the delivery of the ships in August. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US House of Representatives cancels vote on anti-Iran bill Iran Press TV Wed Jan 13, 2016 7:8PM The US House of Representatives has cancelled voting on a measure to block the implementation of the Iran nuclear agreement. In a fresh attempt to derail the Joint Comprehensive plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and the P5+1 group of nations, the House passed a measure on Wednesday but abruptly cancelled the voting on it after nearly one third of lawmakers did not show up, according to the AFP. The Iran Terror Finance Transparency Act, which would keep the US government from removing certain bans against Iran, passed by a vote of 191 to 106 in the 435-member chamber, a low total caused by the absence of some 137 lawmakers. It was a rare procedural move when House officials scrapped the vote on a bill that was deemed passed when presiding Republican Bradley Byrne brought the gavel down. The bill, which the White House has promised to veto as an effort to kill the landmark nuclear agreement reached last summer, was rescheduled for January 25. The implementation day for the JCPOA, reached between Iran and six world powers in the Austrian capital of Vienna on July 14, 2015, will not go beyond this weekend, a senior Iranian official said Wednesday. The deal puts limits on Iran's nuclear activities in exchange for the removal of all economic and financial bans against the Islamic Republic related to its nuclear program. "Because many members missed this important vote, it was vacated and we'll re-vote when we return,' an aide to House Speaker Paul Ryan told AFP. Ryan, who was put in charge in late October, has made a point of sticking to rules overseeing the timing for House votes, many of which are held open at length as lawmakers make their way to the chamber. Major votes often have a 15-minute time limit. According to House staff, Byrne waited 19 minutes before gavelling the Iran bill vote closed. The Republican-led House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee approved the bill by a voice vote on Friday. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran Removes Core Vessel of Arak Reactor, IAEA Ready to Inspect Sputnik News 14:58 14.01.2016(updated 15:45 14.01.2016) IAEA experts will inspect Iran's Arak reactor whose core vessel has been removed. MOSCOW (Sputnik) Iran has removed the core vessel of the Arak reactor, and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors will visit the site later for verification, Iranian Atomic Energy Organization spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said Thursday. 'Yesterday, we completed the last stage of removing the reactor's core vessel, all associated work was completed today IAEA inspectors will begin verification work tonight,' Kamalvandi was quoted as saying by Fars news agency. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Wednesday the full implementation of the nuclear deal with six world powers would take place no later than this weekend. Araqchi added that the International Atomic Energy Agency was expected to reveal its final report on Iran by Friday. Earlier in the day, Director General of Iran's Foreign Ministry in Political and International Security Affairs Hamid Baedinejad said Iran was on the final stage of fulfilling the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). In July, Iran and the six world powers, namely Russia, China, the United States, France the United Kingdom and Germany, signed a historic deal on Tehran's nuclear program. The deal guarantees the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions' relief. In December, the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency adopted a final resolution to close an investigation into allegations that Iran was developing nuclear weapon, which means all previous UN Security Council sanctions imposed on Iran over its nuclear program will no longer apply once the JCPOA takes effect. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran Removes Core of Arak Heavy Water Reactor as Part of Nuclear Accord by Edward Yeranian January 14, 2016 Iran's Atomic Energy Agency says it has removed the core of its heavy water reactor in the southern town of Arak, apparently completing the final condition of a nuclear deal with Western powers. Iranian state TV reported that Foreign Minister Mohamed Javad Zarif told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry by phone Thursday the removal of the core of the Arak heavy water nuclear reactor is complete. If not disabled the plant could have produced plutonium, a possible element in setting off a nuclear reaction. Under the nuclear deal with Western powers reached in July, Iran has already completed shipping its supply of enriched uranium to Russia, limited the number of centrifuges at its Fordo nuclear enrichment plant, and submitted to the inspection of its Parchin military testing site. Iran Atomic Energy Agency Spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told state TV International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors will visit the plant Thursday to verify the core's removal. Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told journalists the Arak nuclear reactor is due to be redesigned by foreign experts to be used for research and production of medical isotopes. The Fars News Agency quoted Araqchi as saying that the "International Atomic Energy Agency will issue its final report Friday, confirming that Iran has met its commitments under the July nuclear accord" with the P5+1 group of countries. Persian Gulf analyst and former Iranian diplomat Mehrdad Khonsari tells VOA the Iranian government appears eager to complete the final steps of the nuclear accord. "I think that the Iranian government is adamant about the completing the commitment it has made, because it is anxious that the sanctions are removed and that implementation day is not impeded by any outstanding matter," he said. Iran is eager to see part of its $100 billion in frozen assets released by the United States and other world powers, due to take place once the IAEA verifies it has met its obligations under the nuclear deal. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address White House Not Ruling Out Anti-Iran Sanctions Over Ballistic Missile Test Sputnik News 20:09 15.01.2016(updated 21:01 15.01.2016) White House cannot rule out imposing sanctions against Tehran 'at any time' over its ballistic missile program. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) The United States still considers sanctions against Iran over a recent ballistic missile test, White House spokesperson Josh Earnest said during a press briefing on Friday. 'There has been significant discussion about the possibility that the United States could impose sanctions on Iran over their ballistic missile program, and I certainly wouldn't rule out that that's something that could be imposed here at any time,' Earnest stated. 'So that has always been an option on the table.' In December, media reported that Iran tested a surface-to-surface Emad (Pillar) missile in previous months in violation of a UN Security Council resolution. However, the White House spokesperson said Iran has moved forward in upholding its commitments outlined in the agreement on its nuclear program. 'Iran has made important progress in fulfilling the obligations and commitments that they made in the context of that international agreement to dismantle significant portions of their nuclear infrastructure,' Earnest stated. He added he had no updates on the timing of when exactly the agreement would be implemented. Earnest emphasized that Iran would not receive any sanctions relief until the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could 'independently verify' that Tehran was upholding its commitments under the nuclear agreement. Moreover, IAEA would also need to continue to monitor Iran's nuclear program 'to verify their ongoing compliance with the agreement.' The timing, Earnest added, would depend on when Iran would complete the steps it committed to as outlined in the nuclear agreement and once the IAEA would verify they had been made. In July 2015, Iran and the P5+1 group of countries comprising the United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom plus Germany, signed an agreement that guarantees the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions' relief. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iraq recaptures northern village hours after Daesh blitz Iran Press TV Thu Jan 14, 2016 5:29PM Iraqi military and allied volunteer fighters have recaptured a northern village from Daesh militants, hours after it was blitzed by the Takfiri group. Military officials said the allied forces launched a major counter-attack on Thursday to recapture Tal Kusaiba, a predominately Sunni village, some 35 km (20 miles) east of Tikrit. The town had been occupied earlier in the day by Daesh militants. Police said a chief constable of Tal Kusaiba and his guard along with nine volunteer fighters were killed during the morning blitz by Daesh. Laith Hameed, a senior official in the nearby town of al-Alam, said the Iraqi army, supported by the country's air force as well as counter-terrorism forces and Badr volunteer fighters managed to purge the militants from the town's police station and government buildings. Tal Kusaiba is located in the Salahuddin Province, north of Baghdad, where the military and pro-government forces have been battling militants for more than a year. The Iraqi army and allies seized control of the provincial capital of Tikrit in late March last year before pushing back Daesh from the major refinery town of Baiji in October. Iraqis are now fighting Daesh in western Iraq where the city of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, was declared liberated from the occupation of the Takfiri group last December. The major objective for the allied Iraqi forces, however, is to seize control of the northern city of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh Province, which borders Salahuddin. Daesh captured the city in the summer of 2014 and from there began to seize other areas in north and west of Iraq. Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi vowed last month that the year 2016 would be the year for the eventual elimination of Daesh from the Iraqi soil. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address 10 killed, dozens hurt in bombings, shootings in, around Iraqi capital Iran Press TV Thu Jan 14, 2016 11:49AM At least 10 people have been killed and more than three dozen others injured in separate bomb attacks and shooting incidents in and around the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, security and medical sources say. A police source said at least two civilians lost their lives and four others sustained injuries on Thursday when an improvised explosive device went off close to an outdoor market in the town of Taji, 30 km (20 miles) north of Baghdad. Additionally, a policeman was shot and killed when unidentified gunmen opened indiscriminate fire in the town of Madain, about 20 kilometers (14 miles) southeast of the capital. On Wednesday, a bomb attack near a popular restaurant in Baghdad's central neighborhood of Sheikh Omar left two civilians dead and seven others injured. Elsewhere in the eastern al-Obeidi neighborhood of the capital, two civilians were killed and seven others injured when a bomb detonated close to a market. In Baghdad's northern neighborhood of Hussainiyah, a bomb explosion ripped through a commercial district, killing a civilian and wounding seven others. Separately, a bomb attack claimed a civilian life and wounded six others in the al-Jihad neighborhood of Western Baghdad on Wednesday. A bomb blast also killed a civilian and wounded six others in the capital's northern district of Shaab. Moreover, unknown armed men attacked a security checkpoint in the city of Latifiyah, situated about 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of Baghdad, killing a policeman and injuring two others. The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq says a total of 980 Iraqis were killed and 1,244 others injured in acts of terrorism, violence and armed conflict in December 2015. According to the UN mission, the number of civilian fatalities stood at 506. Violence also claimed the lives of 474 members of the Iraqi security forces. A great portion of the fatalities was recorded in Baghdad, where 261 civilians were killed. The northern and western parts of Iraq have been plagued by violence ever since Daesh Takfiri militants began their march through the Iraqi territory in June 2014. Army soldiers and Popular Mobilization Units have joined forces and are seeking to take back militant-held regions in joint operations. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Turkish jets bomb northern Iraq Iran Press TV Thu Jan 14, 2016 7:10AM The Turkish military says its warplanes have carried out airstrikes against militants from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), destroying their compounds in northern Iraq. The military said six fighter jets, accompanied by drones, destroyed militant compounds, depots and shelters inside Iraq. Turkey's airstrikes inside the Iraqi territory have repeatedly drawn fire from Baghdad, which has denounced Ankara for violating the country's sovereignty. The Iraqi government is also urging Turkey to pull out troops from a base in the Arab country's north, into which they were deployed last month. Turkish forces have killed almost 600 PKK militants since mid-December, said the military. The airstrikes were followed by a devastating explosion in a multi-story police headquarters in Turkey's Diyarbakir province on Wednesday, which Ankara blamed on the PKK. The blast occurred when an explosive-laden car hit the headquarters in Cinar District and destroyed its entire facade. The building was then attacked with "rocket launchers and long barreled weapons," the Turkish daily, Sabah, reported. Reports said several people lost their lives. Violence flared between the militant group and the Turkish army last July and shattered a fragile two-and-a-half-year ceasefire between the two sides. The PKK launched its insurgency against Turkey in 1984. So far, more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iraqi troops liberate dozens of families in Ramadi Iran Press TV Thu Jan 14, 2016 6:55AM Iraqi forces liberate dozens of families held by Daesh terrorists in Ramadi as they make their way through the city where remnants of the Takfiri group have still a presence. Army troops regained control over a number of neighborhoods about 110 kilometers (68 miles) west of the capital, Baghdad, on Wednesday. An army commander said two colleges and the southern al-Sufi outskirts in Ramadi, the capital of the Anbar province, were liberated. "If Allah helps us, all the tasks scheduled in the coming days will be completed, and we will finish the liberation of al-Anbar," he said. Last month, Iraqi army and voluntary fighters entered the city which had been under Daesh control since May. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited Ramadi a day after it was liberated. As troops secure the shattered city, traumatized families have scrambled from the rubble, telling of summary executions by Daesh terrorists. On Wednesday, Iraqi security personnel shot down a surveillance drone operated by the Daesh Takfiris west of Ramadi. The drone was used to monitor military units deployed in the region. Separately, Iraqi aircraft struck a militant base in the town of al-Qaim about 500 km (about 310 miles) west of Baghdad, killing a close aide to the Daesh ringleader. The slain militant commander was later identified as Abu Abdullah Qurayshi. The northern and western parts of Iraq have been plagued by violence ever since Daesh began an offensive in Iraqi territory in June 2014. Army soldiers and Popular Mobilization units have joined forces and are seeking to take back militant-held regions in joint operations. According to a US report released earlier this month, Daesh Takfiris have lost 40 percent of their territory in Iraq. The terrorist group still holds much of northern and western Iraq, including the country's second-largest city Mosul, and large parts of Syria. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Japan Expands Military Presence in S China Sea Amid Tensions With China Sputnik News 14:43 14.01.2016(updated 17:26 14.01.2016) Japan is set to boost its presence in the South China Sea in 2016 with Japanese anti-submarine reconnaissance aircraft making transits in locations along the South China Sea waters. Japan's Defense Ministry and Self-Defense Forces have allowed the country's P-3C patrol aircraft to stop at bases of countries facing the South China Sea when returning from anti-piracy activities off the coast of Somalia, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, which quoted Japanese government sources. The newspaper said the move will allow Japan to support US patrols around the islands in the South China Sea. Japan's P-3C aircraft travel between Japan and Africa about every three months. Earlier, the aircraft refueled at bases far from the South China Sea, in countries including Singapore and Thailand. Although their outward journeys will remain the same, the P-3C aircraft, on their return trips, will transit at bases around the South China Sea, in Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia, website the Inquirer wrote. Japan is reinforcing relations with nations that are opposing territorial rights with China in the area. "In June, Japan conducted its first joint search-and-rescue drills with the Philippines, and in November it reached an agreement with Vietnam to hold the first Self-Defense Forces drills in Vietnam waters and to allow the SDF to dock at Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam." Yang Bojiang, deputy director of the Institute of Japan Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told The Inquirer that Japan must have 'racked its brains' to come up with such a way to interfere in the South China Sea. According to the director taking a detour on their return trips will not significantly increase Japan's military spending. But by doing so, "Japan will show its determination to strengthen its presence in the South China Sea, support the US pivot-to-Asia strategy and coordinate its maneuvers in the disputes over the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea." Fu Qiaoshao, an expert of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force, told Global Times that P-3Cs may inform the US of information they acquire in the South China Sea and China should pay attention to the issue. Following the move by Japan in boosting its presence in troubled waters, Beijing responded saying that "hopefully, relevant countries will act cautiously and properly tackle the issue." "As one country seeks its own security, it must consider the security interests of other countries as well as the peace and stability of the region," the Inquirer reported Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei as saying on Wednesday. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Hunt You Down: Russian Navy to Receive Modern Anti-Submarine Aircraft Sputnik News 15:16 14.01.2016 In November this year, the Russian Navy will receive two more IL-38N Novella anti-submarine aircraft, in addition to five that have already been taken on board, the Deputy General Director of Ilyushin Aviation complex Yuri Yudin said. Yudin pointed out that, under a contract with the Defense Ministry, Ilyushin is set to give the Russian Navy 28 units of IL-38N by 2020. The anti-submarine Ilyushin Il-38 aircraft is based on a model that has demonstrated effectiveness for decades. The aircraft is designed to hunt down and destroy enemy submarines. The Il-38N is equipped with the cutting-edge search and aiming system called Novella. This system is capable of detecting airborne targets at a distance of 90 kilometers, the surface at a distance of 320 kilometers. The aircraft can simultaneously track 32 targets of different types. According to the Ministry of Defense, the Novella system includes magnetometric equipment, thermal and optical devices of high resolution, the latest means of electronic intelligence, sensors, gravitational anomalies, and other high-tech equipment. Moreover, the Il-38N is armed with cruise missiles, anti-submarine torpedoes and depth charges. The aircraft can carry a payload of up to five tons. The press service of the Western Military District said that the flight tests of the IL-38 Novella will be held at a military airfield in Pushkin, near St. Petersburg. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Su-25SM Strike Aircraft Exercise Missile Launching in Southern Russia Sputnik News 12:33 14.01.2016(updated 12:34 14.01.2016) Su-25SM strike aircraft are participating in drills in the Krasnodar Territory to practice maneuvers in adverse weather conditions, including launching guided missiles, the Defense Ministry's Southern Military District's (SMD) press service announced Thursday. MOSCOW (Sputnik) In total, the exercises are due to involve about 20 aircraft and more than 100 service personnel. 'The crews of the advanced Su-25SM Grach aircraft from the SMD air regiment, deployed in the Krasnodar Territory, have started to perform live-fly exercises. Launching guided missiles and dropping glided bombs on simulated enemies are due to be drilled,' the press service said. The purpose of the exercises is for military pilots to improve their flying skills in adverse weather conditions, including at night, as well as in mountainous regions at a range of heights. In 2016, Su-25SM pilots are due to perform over 1,500 live-fly exercises to practice the destruction of the combat aircraft, facilities and bases of illegal armed groups. The Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot is an armored ground attack aircraft, designed to provide close air support to troops in all weather conditions. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Kadyrov Called A Disgrace, Then Scores Apology January 15, 2016 by Tatyana Laprad and Robert Coalson An independent local legislator in Siberia's Krasnoyarsk Krai has crossed swords with the powerful head of Russia's Chechnya region in the North Caucasus. But just one day after lawmaker Konstantin Senchenko posted a scathing attack on Ramzan Kadyrov on social media, he apologized 'profoundly' following a mysterious conversation with a representative of the Chechen community whom he refused to name. However, the incident has sparked a social-media debate over Kadyrov, who has been widely accused of gross human-rights abuses and is believed by many to have overseen the assassination of political opponents both in Russia and abroad. The cross-country dust-up began on January 12 when Kadyrov posted an official statement accusing anyone who opposes the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin of trying to foment unrest during Russia's current trying economic times. 'Some people who no one had ever heard of before are climbing out of their skins in order to get attention for opposing Russian President Vladimir Putin,' Kadyrov is quoted as saying. 'The representatives of the so-called nonsystemic opposition are trying to benefit from the country's complicated economic situation. Such people should be treated as enemies of the people, as traitors. There is nothing good about them.' 'These people do not care about the fate of Russia or the peoples of Russia,' he added. He also said they were 'playing a game that was invented by the Western secret services and dancing to their tune.' 'Killing Our Boys' Senchenko, an independent deputy in the Krasnoyarsk city assembly, took Kadyrov's comments personally and on January 14 he posted a scathing response on Facebook addressed directly to the controversial Chechen leader. 'Ramzan, you are a disgrace to Russia,' Senchenko wrote. 'You have discredited everything it is possible to discredit.' Senchenko added that Kadyrov's statement was particularly unbecoming for a man who holds Russia's highest honor, Hero of Russia, and who is a member of the country's Academy of Sciences. 'I remember a time when we here in Krasnoyarsk were collecting aid for our troops who were being sent to fight in Chechnya,' Senchenko wrote about the war in the mid-1990s in which Kadyrov fought on the side of Chechen separatists. 'At that time you were running around in the mountains and killing our boys. Now they are lying in the ground and you are a Hero of Russia.' Senchenko also criticized Kadyrov for the fact that Chechnya's budget consists overwhelmingly of 'subsidies from Moscow,' some of which come from the oil-rich Krasnoyarsk region. "When you take money from state-sector workers and build palaces for yourself, you are already beyond the boundary of good and evil. So, get out of here, academic and hero, and stop preventing normal, honest, working people from building up their beloved Russia.' In comments to RFE/RL's Russian Service the same day, Senchenko said 'I absolutely don't care whether there is any reaction or not. I wrote the post mostly for myself and for my friends.' 'When I discussed Ramzan Kadyrov's statement with my friends I could hear fear in their voices,' Senchenko continued. 'People are afraid and they don't understand how they should proceed -- whether they should leave the country or not. That is why I took this role on myself and publicly said what many people are thinking but are afraid to say in public. Maybe my action will serve as a stimulus for some kind of change and more normal, sensible people will decide to stay and help develop our country instead of leaving.' Later on January 14,state-controlled Grozny TV broadcast a nearly seven-minute story on the incident including audio the channel said was Senchenko apologizing for his remarks. The pro-Kremlin LifeNews and Zvezda television channels also reported the apology. In the comments broadcast by Grozny TV, Senchenko says 'I apologize for any incorrect and offensive words,' adding that the 'situation was emotionally tense and complicated.' The broken and difficult-to-understand audio was, Senchenko wrote on Facebook on January 15, taken from a private conversation he held with 'a respected person' representing the Chechen community in Krasnoyarsk. Senchenko declined to identify the person and did not say if he was aware he was being recorded. He called his post about Kadyrov a 'gesture of despair because my nerves are stretched to their limits, the economic situation is getting worse, and I see no prospects for improvement.' He said he had 'become convinced of the authority of the leader of the Chechen Republic,' adding that many Chechens 'really respect Ramzan Kadyrov and are very offended by statements against their leader.' 'A Lesson To Everyone' In an interview with local VK radio on January 15, Senchenko said he may have spoken overly harshly and that he did not mean to offend the people of Chechnya. He said he has been upset in the past hearing national politicians saying that anyone who disagreed with the government is an 'enemy of the people,' and Kadyrov's declaration was 'the last drop that overflowed the cup of my patience.' He said that if he had known his statement would attract so much attention, he would have 'written more correctly, more formally.' On January 15, Kadyrov posted on his Instagram page a short video clip showing Senchenko, likely from the same conversation with the unnamed representative of the Chechen community, apologizing to Kadyrov and saying that he had acted 'emotionally.' Kadyrov wrote on the post: 'I accept.' Prominent opposition politician Aleksei Navalny posted on Facebook that he regrets that Senchenko walked back his criticism of Kadyrov. 'This is a lesson to everyone not to say things that you are actually afraid to say,' Navalny said. Krasnoyarsk journalist Anton Andreyev quickly wrote on Senchenko's Facebook page that 'maybe now they won't kill you.' By contrast, Putin's human rights ombudswoman, Ella Pamfilova, told journalists on January 15 that she will not apologize for her criticism of Kadyrov's statement, which she called 'a disservice to the president and a shadow over the country.' After Duma deputy Shamsail Saraliyev advised her to 'take a sedative and apologize,' Pamfilova said: 'If I, as the human rights ombudsman, start apologizing to every high official for my criticism of them when they violate the constitution or overstep the law, then I might as well resign.' Meanwhile Senchenko's feeling that he was saying 'what many people are thinking' could be correct. His original Facebook post has prompted something of a social-media flash mob around the slogan of 'Kadyrov Is A Disgrace.' Yekaterinburg journalist Aleksei Shaburov wrote on Facebook: 'Let every honest person write that Ramzan Kadyrov is a disgrace to Russia. They can't force everyone to apologize.' Leonid Volkov, an assistant to Navalny, joined the criticism, accusing Kadyrov of establishing a 'feudal, medieval dictatorship with a personal army that holds his 2 million domestic serfs in fear and boldly, publicly terrorizes 140 million people outside his territory by dispatching murderers.' Duma Deputy and former Krasnoyarsk Krai Governor Valery Zubov wrote on Twitter: 'I consider what [Senchenko] has done a strong, courageous beginning. His action is politically and economically justified.' Ekho Moskvy Deputy Editor Vladimir Varfolomeyev wrote on his Twitter page: 'I don't understand those who today are writing 'Kadyrov is a disgrace to Russia.' 'On the contrary, he is a fairly accurate reflection of it, its very essence,' he wrote. 'This is what our country is like.' Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-chechnya- kadyrov-senchenko-tirade-apology/27490227.html Copyright (c) 2016. 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 Saudi king not aware of his surroundings, report says Iran Press TV Wed Jan 13, 2016 11:54PM Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud is suffering from periodic blackouts and inability to speak, a new report says. The health of the 80-year-old monarch is increasingly deteriorating and he is under regular medical care, the Palestinian Manar online newspaper cited an Arab official as saying on Wednesday. The unnamed source further said that King Salman has lost awareness of his surroundings, prompting physicians to advise his sons to restrict their father's public appearances in a bid not to disclose the worsening conditions. The king is said to have been confined in one of the rooms of his palace. A separate report in early October also said that the king was thought to suffer from Alzheimer's disease or dementia, and the royal government was practically administered by his Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef. The failing health of the Saudi monarch has also led to an intense game of throne among the royal family. On October 23, an unnamed Saudi prince told The Independent that eight of the 12 surviving sons of the founder of Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, support the measure to remove King Salman and replace him with his 73-year-old brother, Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz. The prince also said that a majority of the country's powerful clerics, known as the Ulama, would support a coup to oust the current ruler and install Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, a former interior minister, in his place. There has been mounting discontent at the Saudi king's decisions, including his controversial appointments, the brutal and costly war against impoverished Yemen, and the execution of prominent Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr. Salman was crowned as the king of Saudi Arabia on January 23, 2015, following the death of his half brother, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, at theage of 90. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN veto powers to push for aid delivery in Syria: UN envoy Iran Press TV Thu Jan 14, 2016 11:52AM The UN special envoy for Syria says the five permanent members of the Security Council will push for "immediate action" to deliver humanitarian aid to beleaguered areas in the Arab country. Staffan de Mistura made the comments after meeting with ambassadors from Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States in the Swiss city of Geneva on Wednesday. The ambassadors 'undertook to press for immediate action in support of this effort in the coming few days,' he said. During the session, de Mistura emphasized 'the crucial importance for the people of Syria to see sustained and unimpeded access to a number of besieged areas." On Monday, a convoy of 44 trucks loaded with food, medicine, baby formula, blankets and other supplies entered Syria's southwestern town of Madaya. An equivalent amount of aid also arrived in two other encircled towns of Foua and Kefraya in the northwestern Idlib Province. The Syrian government recently agreed to facilitate the flow of relief aid into Madaya, which has been the scene of fierce clashes between pro-government forces and Takfiri terrorists. Locals told the Lebanese al-Manar TV on Sunday that terrorist groups had hoarded previous aid packages for Madaya and sold it to the locals at inflated prices. Confirming the news, Syria's Ambassador to the UN Bashar al-Ja'afari said aid delivered to Madaya had been looted by terrorist groups and sold to civilians. The situation in Foua and Kefraya could be as dire as Madaya, although media have barely covered it because the two areas are under militant siege. Instead, they have focused on Madaya, in a bid to blame the Syrian government for the crisis. According to the UN, up to 4.5 million people live in hard-to-reach areas of Syria, which has witnessed a deadly conflict fueled by foreign-sponsored terrorists since March 2011. Syria talks Elsewhere in his remarks, de Mistura noted that a fresh round of talks between the Syrian government and opposition groups would be held on January 25 as scheduled. 'The special envoy and his team will continue working hard to issue the invitations in order to ensure maximum inclusivity, with a view to starting the intra-Syrian Geneva Talks on January 25,' de Mistura's office said in a statement. Vienna hosted the first two rounds of talks on Syria on October 30 and November 14 last year. The third round of Syria talks was held in New York on December 18. On the same day, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution supporting an international roadmap for a peace process in Syria. Last month, the UN announced plans to convene negotiations between the Syrian government and the opposition in Geneva on January 25 in another attempt to end the deadly crisis in the Arab country. The previous rounds of peace talks came with no significant results over differences regarding the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The conflict in Syria has reportedly claimed the lives of over 260,000 people and displaced nearly half of the country's pre-war population of about 23 million within or out of its borders. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address New humanitarian aid convoys leaves for Syrian town Iran Press TV Thu Jan 14, 2016 10:8AM A second convoy of humanitarian aid heads to Syria's southwestern town of Madaya as part of an agreement to allow the delivery of food and medicine into the area. Fifty trucks carrying international aid supplies left Damascus for the militant-held town, located about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of the Syrian capital, on Thursday. The convoy is the second of its kind destined for Madaya this week, where doctors estimate 300 to 400 people are severely malnourished. On Monday afternoon, aid trucks from the UN, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Red Crescent, were allowed into the town for the first time since October 2015. The first aid shipment sent to the town included 47 trucks carrying 250 tonnes of food, water, infant formulas, blankets and 7.8 tonnes of medicine and surgical supplies. Simultaneously, aid trucks entered the villages of Foah and Kefraya in the northern Syrian province of Idlib, which are held by foreign-backed militants. In Madaya, there are reports that Takfiri militants are looting food. The situation is being played up by the media to blame the Syrian government because of its siege over the town. Damascus has pledged full cooperation with the UN and the Red Cross to deliver humanitarian aid to all civilians "without any discrimination," including those in hard-to-reach areas. Earlier this week, Syria's Ambassador to the UN Bashar Ja'afari said media reports of starving civilians in Madaya were fabricated in a bid to defame the government. The diplomat also said that aid delivered to Madaya in October 2015 had been looted by terrorist groups and sold to civilians at exorbitant prices. According to the UN, up to 4.5 million people live in the hard-to-reach areas of Syria, which has witnessed a deadly conflict since March 2011. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia Unveils Agreement With Syria on Deployment of Combat Air Group Sputnik News 19:18 14.01.2016(updated 19:53 14.01.2016) Russia has unveiled the text of the agreement with Syria on the deployment of the Russian air group in the country. MOSCOW (Sputnik) The Russian government on Thursday posted on its legal information portal the full text of the agreement with Damascus on the deployment of the Russian combat air group in Syria. The agreement, concluded on August 26, 2015, stresses that the deployment of Russian combat aircraft at the Hmeymim airbase in the Latakia province is carried out at request by legitimate Syrian authorities to ensure peace and stability in the region, has a purely defensive nature, and is not aimed against other countries. 'Syria assumes responsibility for settling all claims that could be put forward by third parties as a result of damage caused by the activities of the Russian air group and its personnel,' the text says. The agreement has been concluded for an unlimited period of time, according to the text. On September 30, Russia's Sukhoi Su-25, Su-24M and Su-34 attack aircraft, with the support of Su-30 jets, commenced pinpoint airstrikes on terrorist targets in Syria at the request of the Syrian government. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Final Countdown? Syrian Army Advances on All Fronts Sputnik News 09:43 14.01.2016(updated 10:06 14.01.2016) The Syrian Army and the country's popular forces, backed by Russian airstrikes, have continued their advance, inflicting heavy losses on the terrorist groups in the country's key provinces, Iranian media wrote on Wednesday. Over the past 24 hours the Syrian Air Force has attacked and destroyed the terrorists' positions in Lattakia, Homs, Damascus, Deir Ezzur, Aleppo, Dara'a and Hama provinces, Fars news agency reported. On Tuesday the government forces stormed a terrorist concentration center in Dara'a al-Balad leaving many militants dead and causing serious damage to their weapons and military equipment. In Hama province, Syrian Army troops stormed a number of enemy strongholds, the agency reported, citing military sources in the area. "Concentration centers of Ahrar al-Sham terrorist group near Atshan village in the northern part of Hama were massively attacked by the Syrian forces, leaving at least eight terrorists dead and wounding ten others,' the sources said. In Aleppo province, Syrian fighter jets pounded a number of terrorist gathering centers in the town of Manbaj in the eastern part of the region. In the meantime, the Syrian Army's artillery hit the military positions of the terrorists in the village of Mansoura in the eastern part of the city of Aleppo, the agency reported. Syrian government forces have recently been making rapid advances against the terrorists in several parts of the country. The advances of the Syrian government forces against Daesh and other terrorist groups have been enhanced by the air cover provided by Russia, which began on September 30 at the request of the Damascus government. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN Chief on Syria: Starvation as Weapon Is War Crime by Margaret Besheer January 14, 2016 The U.N. Secretary-General has called for an end to sieges on Syrian towns, warning all parties to the conflict that using starvation as a weapon is a war crime. "All sides including the Syrian government, which has the primary responsibility to protect Syrians are committing atrocious acts prohibited under international humanitarian law," Ban Ki-moon said Thursday in a speech to U.N. member states. Ban set out his priorities for 2016, which will be his final year as the world's top diplomat. "All sides in the Syria conflict are guilty of heightening the suffering of civilians of committing unconscionable abuses," said Ban. He called for immediate, unconditional and unimpeded access for humanitarians. Aid to the besieged On Monday, aid agencies reached three besieged towns for the first time since October. They found starving people in the government-blockaded town of Madaya and in rebel-controlled Foua and Kefraya. "U.N. teams have witnessed scenes that haunt the soul," the U.N. chief told reporters. "The elderly and children, men and women, who were little more than skin and bones: gaunt, severely malnourished, so weak they could barely walk, and utterly desperate for the slightest morsel." "There can be no denying their suffering," he added. The International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday that another round of aid deliveries to the three towns appeared to be going smoothly. "Three Syrian Arab Red Crescent, ICRC and U.N. cars entered at 1500 local time" into Madaya, ICRC Director of Operations Dominik Stillhart told reporters at the United Nations. He said the convoy is comprised of 44 trucks, carrying mainly wheat flour and some hygienic items to the government-blockaded town. A nutritionist also was accompanying the convoy to better assess the levels of malnutrition. The town of 42,000 received its last aid delivery in mid-October. Tears of joy "According to ICRC team that entered Madaya, the people were very happy, even crying, when they realized that wheat flour is on the way," he said. Stillhart said a convoy of 17 trucks with the same materials was simultaneously heading for the rebel-held towns of Foua and Kefraya. He said eight of the 17 vehicles had already been cleared at checkpoints there. The aid agencies plan to deliver fuel this Sunday to the three towns. The U.N. chief warned that civilians must not be left in jeopardy of further suffering if cease-fires break down and sieges resume. "They too, have a right to assistance, a right to dignity and a right to food," he said. Stillhart added that the U.N. is working to quickly get medical teams and mobile clinics on the ground in those towns. Peace talks In December, the U.N. Security Council long divided over Syria agreed to support intra-Syrian talks led by Russia, the United States and the United Nations. The talks are scheduled for January 25 in Geneva. The secretary-general urged the warring parties to build on that political momentum and not let "regional tensions derail our quest to end this war." He acknowledged there are "still big differences" of positions between the parties, but he said he hoped they would show their solidarity, flexibility and a sense of compromise. "We have to first, and most of all, we have to think about the future of the Syrian people," Ban said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Over 10,000 Opposition Members Fight Daesh Alongside Syrian Army Sputnik News 13:42 15.01.2016(updated 15:07 15.01.2016) Over 10,000 opposition members are fighting Daes terrorists alongside the Syrain Armed Forces, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation stated on Friday. More than 10,500 members of the Syrian Democratic Forces are fighting today against the Daesh terrorists (ISIL/ISIS) alongside the Syrian armed forces, chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Sergei Rudskoy said. 'Troops of the Syrian Democratic Forces alongside the Syrian Army have been playing an increasing role in the fight against terrorism. Currently, the total number of these units are 10,500 strong,' he said. According to him, over the past few days, opposition groups led by Ayman Al-Ghanim Flyat advanced eight kilometers in the direction of Raqqa, which is considered the 'capital' of Daesh terrorists. One of the 'main strongholds' of the Daesh terrorists, a town in the province of Latakia Salma, was liberated with the assistance of the opposition units, the Lt.-Gen. told reporters. 'Three towns, including terrorists' stronghold and the capital of the mountainous Latakia were liberated with the assistance of the opposition unit 'Desert Falcons',' Rudskoy said. The Syrian army with the assistance of the opposition forces has regained control over 10 towns in the province of Hama, the chief of the Russian Genera Staff said. 'At least 24 armed militans who fought alongside terrorists surrendered to the Syrian government forces near the town of Jarjisa [Hama province],' Rudskoy said. The Syrian government forces backed by opposition units have also reclaimed control over 7 towns near Kweiris military airflied. Moreover, the Syrian opposition provided the Russian Armed Forces with information about every fifth terrorist target, Rudskoy noted. 'Over the past five months we have established cooperation with the troops of the patriotic opposition. They provide the command of the Russian aviation group with information about terrorist targets in combat zones. After checking the information, the Russian Air Forces conduct airstrikes. Today, the opposition provides us with information about every fifth target,' Rudskoy said. The Russian operation in Syria forced terrorists to operate under less than ideal conditions, such as fuel, ammunition and food shortages, the statement said. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russian Warplanes Launch 97 Cruise Missiles on Daesh Targets in Syria Sputnik News 13:37 15.01.2016(updated 18:42 15.01.2016) The Russian Aerospace Forces have launched 97 cruise missiles hitting Daesh targets in Syria, the Russian General Staff said on Friday. Since the beginning of the Russian aerial campaign in Syria, Russian warplanes have carried out 5,662 sorties, the Russian General Staff said. 'Since September 30, 2015, the Russian Aerospace Forces have carried out 5,662 sorties, including 145 sorties carried out by missile-carrying strategic aircraft and long-range bombers, 97 launches of cruise missiles both sea and land based have been carried out,' Lt. Gen. Sergey Rudskoy, chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, told reporters. Over 100 days of the Russian military operation, 217 populated areas and over 1,000 square kilometers in Syria have been liberated from terrorists. 'Over 100 days of the operation conducted by the Russian Aerospace Forces in Syria, 217 populated areas and over 1,000 square kilometers were freed from terrorists.' Due to Russian airstrikes destroying terrorist command centers and supply channels in Syria, jihadists started to lack fuel, weapons and supplies, Sergei Rudskoi said. Russian warplanes hit only verified terrorist targets in Syria after checking the information via various channels, the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman emphasized on Friday. 'I emphasize that the strikes by our air group in Syria on terrorist targets are carried out only after data [on terrorist targets] is verified through several channels. Strikes are not carried out in case of risk for lives of civilians,' Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said. According to Konashenkov, this is one of the main differences between the Russian anti-terrorist campaign in Syria and that of the US-led coalition as the Pentagon may approve a decision to carry out airstrikes in an area if the number of civilian casualties does not exceed 50 people. 'As we say, feel the difference. Our aviation does not even plan airstrikes if there is a possibility of civilian casualties,' Konashenkov said. Russia may start to publish data on airstrikes carried out by the US-led coalition in Syria to avoid speculations. 'If our collaugues remain silent about the results of their [US-led coalition] strikes in Syria, we'll have to inform the public of these facts ourselves. If someone still doesn't get that too bad,' Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj.-Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Friday. Russia has decided to conduct humanitarian operations in Syria, Russian General Staff head Lt.-Gen. Sergei Rudskoi said Friday. Russian Il-76 aircraft have already delivered 22 tonns of humanitarian aid to the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor. 'The main batch of [Russian] humanitarian assistance has been sent to the city of Deir ez-Zor, which has been besieged by terrorists for a long time.' Earlier, an informed source told Sputnik that Damascus and armed opposition groups operating in Syria had reached a consensus on allowing deliveries of humanitarian aid to cities suffering from the fight between the conflicting parties. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Run for the Hills: Syrian Army Gains More Ground in Aleppo Sputnik News 10:00 15.01.2016(updated 10:04 15.01.2016) The Syrian Army has clawed back more territory from Daesh in the northern Aleppo province as the country's Air Force jets pounded the terrorists' positions in the region, Iran's Fars news agency reported on Thursday. On Wednesday the government forces clashed with Daesh militants in the eastern part of the province, driving them out of several villages, the agency wrote. 'The Syrian army troops drove ISIL back from Ein al-Beida village and its surrounding farms in the eastern part of the province near the newly liberated village of Aisheh,' the army said in a statement. Also on Wednesday local sources said that the Syrian Army and its popular allies had targeted the militants' positions in one of the western neighborhoods of Aleppo city and had broken through their defense lines. The Syrian Army and the country's popular forces, backed by Russian airstrikes, have in the past few weeks continued their advance, inflicting heavy losses on the terrorist groups in the country's key provinces, destroying enemy positions in Lattakia, Homs, Damascus, Deir Ezzur, Aleppo, Dara'a and Hama provinces. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Turkey: 200 IS Fighters Killed in Retaliation for Istanbul Attack by Ken Bredemeier January 14, 2016 Turkey claimed Thursday that it has killed 200 Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq in retaliation for the suicide bomb attack that killed 10 German tourists in Istanbul two days ago. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Turkish forces hit 500 Islamic State targets with artillery and tank fire along its border with Syria and near a Turkish camp in northern Iraq. He said the attacks had been carried out within the last 48 hours. Davutoglu told a conference of Turkish ambassadors in Ankara that if necessary, Turkey would also launch air attacks against the insurgents and maintain a 'determined stance' against IS fighters until they leave the border areas; but, Turkey's war planes have not flown in Syrian air space since a Turkish pilot shot down a Russian fighter jet in late November. Davutoglu vowed that 'every threat directed at Turkey will be punished in kind.' Meanwhile, Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala said authorities have now arrested seven suspects, three of them Russian nationals, in connection with the suicide bombing. The attack occurred in Sultanahmet Square, home to Turkey's most visited historic sites, such as the Ottoman-era Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia, once a Byzantine church, then a mosque and now a museum. In addition to the 10 killed in the attack, another 15 people were wounded, most of them Germans. Turkish authorities say the attack was carried out by a 28-year-old Syrian member of Islamic State, Nabil Fadli, who had recently entered Turkey from Syria as a refugee, but was not on Ankara's watch list of suspected terrorists. Few details of the Russian arrests have been given, but observers suggest there could be a Chechen connection, since many jihadists fighting in Syria are linked to the conflict in the Russian state of Chechnya. Turkey remains one of the main transit countries for jihadists going to Syria. The Turkish interior minister says everything is being done to stop the jihadists, announcing that 36,000 people from 124 countries are now on Turkey's no entry list. In addition, over the last few days, Turkey has detained more than 70 suspected Islamic State members, although it is not clear if they have any connection to the suicide bombing in Istanbul. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Janissaries Abroad: Turkey to Beef Up Military Presence in Qatar, Somalia Sputnik News 19:18 15.01.2016 Ankara is determined to beef up Turkey's military presence in the Middle East and Africa; after concluding an agreement with Doha to build Turkey's first Middle Eastern military base in Qatar, Ankara has unveiled its plans to create a new military installation in Somalia. Ankara is seeking to expand Turkey's influence beyond the Middle East to Africa in a bid to transform Turkey from the regional state into a sort of neo-Ottoman Empire. 'Turkey is building its first base in Africa The Turkish army intends for the facility to be a training center for Somali troops. The fledgling Somali National Army with the help of African Union troops and American commandos has been fighting a war with Al-Shabaab insurgents for years,' American reporter Kevin Knodell writes in his article for WarIsBoring.com, quoting Turkish Foreign Ministry official Emil Tekin. The initiative has followed the agreement signed between Doha and Ankara to kick off Turkey's first military base in the Middle East. Remarkably, Qatar is already home to the American Al Udeid military base, which has around 10,000 US troops. According to diplomats, the new Turkish installation in Qatar is expected to accommodate 3,000 soldiers. 'Turkey diversifies allies with first Mideast military base in Qatar; is it possible also in Djibouti and in Mogadishu, Somalia, Soon?' Geeska Afrika Online reported on December 26, 2015, as if they had seen it in a crystal ball. 'Though this will be Turkey's first permanent military base in Somalia, the Turks are hardly newcomers. During the years of the Ottoman Empire, Turks frequently made their way to Somalia as both warriors and merchants,' Knodell continues. By strengthening military ties with its Sunni Islamic allies, the Turkish leadership is behaving like a bull in a china shop toward its neighbors, Syria and Iraq. On December 4, Turkey unilaterally deployed 150 troops and 25 tanks in northern Iraq near Mosul without permission from Baghdad. The de-facto 'invasion' was carried out under the pretext of war against Daesh (Islamic State/ISIL) and the necessity to ensure the security of Turkish operatives in the region. The Iraqi government expressed its vocal dissatisfaction with Ankara's move; however, the Erdogan government turned a deaf ear to Baghdad's displeasure. At the same time, it is no secret that Ankara has long been allowing foreign jihadists to penetrate into Syria through the Turkish border. Recep Erdogan's request to establish a US-Turkish 'no-fly' zone over Syria was aimed at splitting up the country, Bangkok-based geopolitical analyst Tony Cartalucci wrote in his article for New Eastern Outlook in October 2015. 'Long sought after 'buffer zones' also sometimes referred to as 'free zones' or 'safe zones' still stand as the primary strategy of choice by the US and its regional allies for the deconstruction of Syria's sovereignty and the intentional creation of a weak, failed state,' the analyst emphasized. Furthermore, while conducting its illegal oil trade with Daesh (thus facilitating the group's prosperity), the Erdogan regime cracked down on the Kurdish Peshmerga, by bombing PKK and YPG fighters the US-led coalition's allies in fighting Daesh. Ankara's aggressive military policy has led to the ruining of the longstanding relationship between Russia and Turkey, which nearly ground to a halt after a Turkish F-16 jet shot down a Russian Su-24 bomber in Syrian airspace. In this light, Erdogan's decision to project Turkey's military power outside of the country's borders should come as no surprise. 'In 2016, don't be surprised to see Turkish troops and advisers pop up in surprising places,' Knodell concludes. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address New truce deal agreed between Ukraine conflicting sides Iran Press TV Thu Jan 14, 2016 8:11AM The Ukrainian government and pro-Russia forces have struck a new truce deal, following the failure of a previous agreement. The deal was agreed on Wednesday following talks between Russian and Ukrainian envoys in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, with the aid of a senior negotiator from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). A spokeswoman for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's peace negotiator said the new ceasefire agreement would take immediate effect in honor of the "Old New Year" holiday that was celebrated Wednesday in ex-Soviet republics. Ukrainian and OSCE officials said the person who pushed the latest deal forward was Boris Gryzlov, an envoy picked by Russian President Vladimir Putin as his personal envoy to the peace negotiations. "Russian representative Boris Gryzlov proposed making another attempt at reaching a ceasefire," Russian news agencies quoted OSCE negotiator Martin Sajdik as saying in Minsk. "This proposal was supported by all of the meeting's participants," he added. Gryzlov, a former speaker of the Russian parliament, had reportedly had a private meeting with Poroshenko before going to Minsk. Ukrainian spokeswoman Darka Olifer said without a ceasefire, no proper solutions to "outstanding political, humanitarian and economic issues" are possible and that is why the country backs the latest initiative. The previous "New Year and Christmas" truce had been cut on December 22, 2015, but fell apart the following day, failing to end to a 20-month crisis in eastern Ukraine that has taken over 9,000 lives so far. Sajdik, meanwhile, said the two sides are to meet again in Minsk next week to assess the degree to which the latest truce is being observed. The OSCE negotiator said Kiev and pro-Russia forces are planning to free a combined total of over 50 prisoners of war as soon as all the technicalities have been resolved. The conflict in eastern Ukraine broke out in March 2014 following a referendum in the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, in which people voted overwhelmingly for unification with Russia. The situation, however, degenerated into a major armed conflict after Kiev dispatched troops to Lugansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine in April 2014 in an attempt to suppress pro-Russia forces there. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Poroshenko: Ukraine To Restore Control Over East This Year January 14, 2016 by RFE/RL Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has vowed to regain sovereignty over the country's separatist east in 2016. 'Ukrainian sovereignty over the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions must be restored,' Poroshenko told journalists on January 14. He added that securing Crimea's return from Russian control was the priority, saying 'de-occupation' of the peninsula that was annexed by Russia in March 2014 must be implemented via international mechanisms and with EU and U.S. help. 'We -- the society, the army, the government -- have largely strengthened our country's defense,' the Ukrainian leader also said. 'This is reflected by the fact that our enemy is losing its willingness to continue its offensive against Ukraine.' 'In January 2015 we had a goal to survive, and in January 2016 we have a goal to succeed,' he added. 'I hope everyone understands the difference.' Fighting between government forces and Russia-backed separatists has killed more than 9,100 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014. Poroshenko said that all points of the cease-fire accords pertaining to the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk that were signed in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, must be implemented by all sides. 'We will not allow any revision of the Minsk agreements,' Poroshenko said. He also stressed that Ukraine has managed to free itself of the 'curse' of its dependence on Russian natural gas. 'The process of our integration into the European energy market started last year and will continue this year,' Poroshenko pledged. According to Poroshenko, in 2015, Ukraine managed to implement a wide range of reforms whose success, he says, is evidenced by the European Commission's decision to introduce a visa-free regime for Ukrainians travelling to EU states. Poroshenko vowed that reforms will continue and that new, corruption-free, law-enforcement structures and judicial institutions would be established. With reporting by UNIAN, AFP and AP Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-poroshenko-vows-to-retake-east/27487949.html Copyright (c) 2016. 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 VANCOUVER, Jan.15, 2016 /CNW/ - Equitas Resources Corp. (TSXv: EQT) (FSE: T6UN) (US: EQTRF) ("Equitas" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into a binding letter agreement dated effective January 6, 2016 to acquire (the "Transaction") all of the issued and outstanding securities of Alta Floresta Gold Ltd. ("Alta Floresta Gold"). Alta Floresta Gold is a private British Columbia company which holds approximately 60% of Alta Floresta Gold Mineracao Ltd. ("Alta Floresta Mineracao"). Alta Floresta Mineracao holds six gold properties, and four production licences, over 184,410 hectares of land in the Mato Grosso, and Para states of the Federative Republic of Brazil. Licence areas are highly prospective, with previous artisanal mining activity. Alta Floresta Mineracao is focused on expanding the production activities and defining additional gold resources at its Cajueiro Project (the "Cajueiro Project"). "In Alta Floresta Gold, we have identified an excellent opportunity that will allow us to leverage its current small scale, low cost, gold production into a much larger operation in the near future." stated Kyler Hardy, President and Director of Equitas. "By incorporating the highly skilled senior management team of Alta Floresta Gold into Equitas, we gain an experienced South American operating team that will advance the Cajueiro Project. Following closing of the transaction, Equitas will be a stronger company with quality gold and nickel assets as well as cash flow. This transaction is in line with our corporate strategy to acquire exceptional property holdings in highly prospective and proven districts. Equitas will also continue an aggressive exploration program on its highly prospective Garland nickel property in the Voisey's Bay district in Labrador, Canada." "We are very pleased to finalise this letter agreement with Equitas, commented Chris Harris, Executive Chairman & Director of Alta Floresta Gold. "This transaction underlines the core value of the Alta Floresta portfolio and especially of our fast-track gold development target at Cajueiro which is already in production. With the depth of our combined management team, we stand poised to create strong value for shareholders as well as to bring employment and business to Brazil. We intend to build on our in-house portfolio development pipeline, by acquiring selected value accretive neighbouring gold resources in Brazil to build a strong, cash flow generating gold junior with attractive growth prospects." The Cajueiro Project The Cajueiro Project encompasses 44,768 hectares and is located 95 kilometers north of the city of Alta Floresta in the Federative Republic of Brazil. The project straddles the border of the Para and Mato Grosso states in the prolific Juruena Belt of Brazil. To date, 48 drill holes for a total of 11,292 metres have tested four zones: Marines, Baldo, Matrincha, and Crente. At the Crente zone, the work has outlined an indicated and an inferred resource, while inferred resources were calculated for the Marines, Baldo and Matrincha zones. All of these zones have near surface oxide potential expansion. Exploration over the last five years has identified five further anomalies within the property package that have similar surface expression to the Crente target. A resource estimate was prepared by Gustavson Associates of Boulder, Colorado in accordance with the definitions in the National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101") in a report titled "NI 43-101 Technical Report on Resources, Cajueiro Project States of Mato Grosso and Para, Brazil effective March 22, 2013. An updated NI 43-101 Technical Report is being prepared for Equitas and will be filed on www.sedar.com within the time periods required under NI 43-101 and will be available on the Company's website. The details of the NI 43-101 Technical Report are summarized below: Table 1. Indicated and Inferred Resources at Crente zone. Indicated Resources Inferred Resources Cut off Grade (g/t) Tonnes (000s) Gold (g/t) Contained Oz Au (000s) Cut off Grade (g/t) Tonnes (000s) Gold (g/t) Contained Oz Au (000s) 0.5 4,529 1.2 168.0 0.5 3.025 1.0 100.3 0.3 7,400 0.9 203.0 0.3 5,261 0.8 127.4 Table 2. Inferred Resources at Baldo, Matrincha and Marines zones. Inferred Resources Zone Cut off Grade (g/t) Tonnes (000s) Gold (g/t) Contained Oz Au (000s) Baldo 0.3 1,411 1.3 61.1 Matrincha 0.3 1,565 1.1 52.9 Marines 0.3 1,167 0.7 27.2 Oz Au = Gold-equivalent ounces. All quantities are rounded to the appropriate number of significant figures; consequently sums may not add up due to rounding. All resources reported above for the Baldo, Matrincha and Marines zones are inferred resources. Mineral resources are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. There is no certainty that all or any part of the mineral resource will be converted into mineral reserves. Alta Floresta Gold started processing alluvial gold mineralization in the Baldo zone in June 2015 with modest gold production to date. Equitas Resources intends to embark on a three phase development plan at the Cajueiro Property. First, the Company plans to install a small gravity plant to process the saprolite mineralization at the Baldo zone. Once permits and the necessary supply agreements are in hand, the second phase of the plan envisions the construction of a carbon-in-leach plant between the Baldo and Crente zones. These two zones are less than 1 km apart. Initial metallurgical test work indicates that in excess of 85% gold recovery can be achieved through gravity separation and cyanide leaching. The third phase would be to increase production at the Cajueiro Project under a full production licence. The Company expects that this could be funded through operating cash flow. Everett F. Makela, P. Geo., VP Exploration for Equitas Resources Corp., a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, has approved disclosure of the technical information in this news release. Transaction Summary A summary of the transaction is as follows: Equitas will acquire 100% of the issued and outstanding shares of Alta Floresta Gold from its security holders in exchange for that number of Equitas shares that is equal to 100% of the issued and outstanding Equitas shares at closing. Upon closing, (i) Alta Floresta Gold will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Equitas, and (ii) former shareholders of Alta Floresta Gold will hold approximately 50% of the outstanding shares of the Company (without giving effect to any issuances of Equitas shares prior to or concurrent with closing). No new insiders or control persons will be created as a result of the Transaction. Each unexercised stock option in Alta Floresta Gold will be exchanged for or replaced with approximately 1.5 options of Equitas at a price of $0.15 per share. Equitas Resources will segregate up to USD$1 million to be applied on closing exclusively to advance the Alta Floresta Gold projects. Subject to TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange") approval, US$300,000 of this will be advanced to Alta Floresta Gold following completion of Equitas' technical due diligence and licence review. Prior to closing, Alta Floresta Gold will use commercially reasonable efforts to become the legal and beneficial owner of 100% of the issued and outstanding equity interests of Alta Floresta Mineracao. Alta Floresta Gold invested in Alta Floresta Mineracao in June 2014, under an investment agreement (the "Underlying Investment Agreement") with ECI Exploration and Mining Inc. ("ECI"), and other ECI related parties, all of which are at arm's length to Alta Floresta Gold. Pursuant to the Underlying Investment Agreement, Alta Floresta Gold has the right to farm-in to Alta Floresta Mineracao up to a 70% equity interest (currently approximately 60% held), and has taken operational control of the Alta Floresta Mineracao business and board. Alta Floresta Gold has the right of first refusal on any sale of the remaining ECI interest, and has the ability through further un-matched investment, to dilute the ECI interest down to a level (10%) at which the ECI interest would convert to a 1.25% NSR. Alta Floresta Gold will have net positive working capital at closing of the Transaction. Equitas will be assuming long term deferred license fees of approximately US$38,000 (as at September 30, 2015) payable by Alta Floresta Gold. The proposed Transaction is subject to a number of terms and conditions, including but not limited to (i) the entering into by the parties of a definitive agreement with respect to the Transaction (such agreement to include representations, warranties, conditions and covenants typical for a transaction of this nature), (ii) the absence of any material adverse change in either party, (iii) the completion of satisfactory due diligence investigations by both parties, (iv) the approval of the directors of each of the Company and Alta Floresta Gold, (v) the completion by Equitas of a private placement generating minimum proceeds of $2,500,000 and (vi) the approval of the Exchange. The parties have agreed that during the period from signing the letter agreement through to execution of the definitive agreement, each of the parties will continue their respective operations in the ordinary course and will not solicit or accept alternative offers. Subject to satisfactory completion of due diligence, the parties expect to execute the definitive agreement by January 31, 2016 and have agreed to use their best efforts to complete the Transaction by February 19, 2016 or as soon as reasonably practicable thereafter. The proposed Transaction will constitute a Reviewable Transaction pursuant to the policies of the Exchange. The proposed Transaction is an arm's length transaction. The Company will not be required to obtain shareholder approval of the Transaction. No finder's fees are payable in connection with the Transaction. Further details concerning the Transaction will be announced if and when a definitive agreement is reached. Proposed Management of the Company Subject to Exchange approval, on completion of the Transaction, it is proposed that the new management be constituted from the two entities, with the new board of directors and technical management team being as follows: Kyler Hardy Chairman and Director Mr. Hardy is a seasoned and successful entrepreneur who has been involved in mineral exploration and the mining industry for over 15 years. He is a founder and former CEO of a geosciences and logistics management business which specializes in the exploration and development of projects in remote areas. Mr. Hardy is experienced in project generation, exploration management, logistics, raising capital, corporate development and developing alliances and strategic partnerships. Chris Harris President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Mr. Harris has over 29 years' experience in mining finance, energy, and commodities with multiple principal investments and director roles and is a Fellow Chartered Accountant (FCA). After qualifying at Ernst & Young in London, Mr. Harris moved to CIBC Wood Gundy in 1991, becoming Director Project Finance in the Energy & Utilities sector. After three years at Enron Europe where he co-ran the European Commodity Finance business, Mr. Harris moved to BHP Billiton to run a global mining merchant investment business for eight years. He then spent three years heading upstream investments for GMI Resources, a shipping hedge fund. Mr. Harris is co-founder of Alta Floresta Gold. Alan Carter Director Dr. Carter has 30 years of experience in the minerals exploration industry. He spent seven years working for Rio Tinto Corp. in South America and the United Kingdom. Dr. Carter joined Billiton Plc in 1998, and in 2000 moved from Lima, Peru to Vancouver. Following the merger of Billiton with BHP, he assumed the role of Manager, Business Development within the BHP Billiton Exploration Group. He was the Chief Operating Officer of Peregrine Diamonds Ltd. from mid-2004 to late 2006. Dr. Carter is currently CEO and Director of Magellan Minerals Ltd., and a director of Peregrine Diamonds Ltd. He has a B.Sc. degree in Geology from the University of Nottingham, and a Ph.D. from the University of Southampton, U.K. David Hodge Director Mr. Hodge, President and Director of Zimtu Capital Corp, has an extensive background in business that includes over 20 years of experience in the management and financing of publicly-traded companies. Mr. Hodge has been a director of mineral exploration companies since 1986, and some of his many strengths lie in leadership and imaginative direction. His success has been founded on a belief in team building, consultation and strong leadership, as well as a willingness to incorporate expert advice into a viable working enterprise. Michael Bennett Technical Advisor, Director and Officer of Alta Floresta Mineracao Mr. Bennett is a senior geologist with 30 years of experience in the minerals exploration industry (24 of these years in South America). He is currently General Manager for the Brazil Manganese Corp in Rondonia Brazil, and was VP Exploration of ECI Exploration and Mining Inc. from 2009 to 2014. He has been responsible for 3 gold discoveries in South America: Bolivia - Puquio North (0.5Moz); Brazil - Coringa (1.1Moz), and Cajueiro. Everett Makela VP of Exploration Mr. Makela brings over 30 years of exploration experience to the team. During a career with Inco and Vale, Everett held roles of increasing responsibility in settings ranging from grassroots evaluations to near-mine resource definition. He excels at target generation, design and implementation of exploration programs, and the creation of joint venture and alliance opportunities. Everett holds an Honours Bachelor of Science in Geology from Laurentian University, and is a member of APGO, PEGNL, PDAC and SEG. He retired from Vale as Principal Geologist, North America in 2012. For further information please visit the Equitas Resources website at: www.equitasresources.com. On Behalf of the Board of Directors, EQUITAS RESOURCES CORP. "Kyler Hardy" Kyler Hardy President Tel: 604.681.1568 Email: info@equitasresources.com All information contained in this news release with respect to Equitas and Alta Floresta Gold was supplied by the parties respectively, for inclusion herein, and Equitas and its directors and officers have relied on Alta Floresta Gold for any information concerning Alta Floresta Gold. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor it Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains forward-looking statements relating to the timing and completion of the proposed Transaction, the future operations of the Company and other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as "will", "may", "should", "anticipate", "expects" and similar expressions. All statements other than statements of historical fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding the proposed Transaction and the future plans and objectives of the Company, are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations include the failure to satisfy the conditions to completion of the Transaction set forth above and other risks detailed from time to time in the filings made by the Company with securities regulations. The reader is cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of any forward-looking information may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted, as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. As a result, the Company cannot guarantee that the proposed Transaction will be completed on the terms and within the time disclosed herein or at all. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking information. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company will update or revise publicly any of the included forward-looking statements as expressly required by Canadian securities law. SOURCE Equitas Resources Corp. Jo Smith, Drew Hamilton and Aaron Turner at Igni. Photo: Gail Thomas In a former Geelong electrical goods showroom Aaron Turner will again ignite diners' passions when he opens Igni on January 20. The chef, whose produce-driven Drysdale restaurant Loam was The Age Good Food Guide 2012's Regional Restaurant of the Year, has teamed up with former Loam colleagues Drew Hamilton and Jo Smith on the 30-seat restaurant, where the focus will be on the open kitchen's charcoal grill. They've given the space a muted grey colour scheme, with a wooden bar, polished concrete floors and comfortable chairs and bar stools. Suckling pig, melon, yoghurt and fennel pollen, one of Aaron Turner's dishes from now defunct Loam. Photo: Supplied The degustation menu, from five courses for $100, will showcase whatever is available on the day. "There isn't a menu as such," says Turner, who has previously worked in Noma in Denmark and El Celler de Can Roca in Spain. "We will create a menu based on a conversation we have with the guests. This allows us to be flexible with small producers and quantities and the guest gets a real bespoke experience plus we get to have a lot of fun." He has been collaborating with Drysdale Cheeses on a cheese wrapped in pork fat and hay. "It's nice to have the relationship and connection to be able to do those sorts of things." Events with guest chefs will also feature. First up on January 24 is Luke Burgess, of Sydney's 10 William Street, with James Viles (Biota) and David Moyle (Hobart's Franklin) in successive months. All restaurant bookings are taken online. Igni is Turner's second Geelong project. Since parting ways with Morgan McGlone of Belle's Hot Chicken in Fitzroy he has also been involved in the Hot Chicken Project, a similar Nashville-style hot chicken and natural wine diner, which is expanding into the shop next door to 84A Little Malop Street. Igni will be open Saturday and Sunday noon-2pm and Wednesday to Saturday 6-9pm. 2 Ryan Place, Geelong 03 5222 2266 restaurantigni.com The Magic Spot III, a gaming business at 3930 Sunset Drive, was raided and shut down Wednesday. SHARE By Federico Martinez A federal raid that shut down several local gambling businesses Wednesday is part of an ongoing statewide crackdown on sites where illegal gambling activity is occurring, authorities said Thursday. Federal authorities from the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrived at The Magic Spot III, a gambling business at 3930 Sunset Drive, early Wednesday. Authorities are not yet releasing the name of the business owner who operated a total of four gambling venues in San Angelo. All four businesses, including Texas Sweep - The Spot, 2401 N. Chadbourne St., which is also known as the Monte Carlo, were shut down on Wednesday. "The majority of these gambling businesses in San Angelo are operating illegally," Tom Green County Sheriff David Jones said. "They can be operated legally, but most are not." Carl Rusnok, director of communications for the Dallas U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the problem isn't just in San Angelo. Many gambling businesses are operating illegally throughout Texas. These businesses have slot machines that allow people to play different games, Rusnok said. Gaming machines are legal and taxed in Texas, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety, but state law makes it illegal for the businesses to pay cash prizes or hand out prizes worth more than $25. Many business operators break the law by giving cash prizes rather than non-monetary prizes. Depending on the type of illegal activity occurring, these gambling businesses are investigated by federal or state authorities, Rusnok said. He did not specify what kind of activity involves federal officials. Although authorities may suspect or know that a business is operating illegally, it takes time to collect evidence so that officials can take action, Rusnok said. San Angelo Police Chief Tim Vasquez said most cases involving Homeland Security and ICE involve "white collar" crimes such as tax evasion or money laundering. The police department and Tom Green Sheriff Deputies assisted in the raid. Several customers who showed up at The Magic Spot III on Wednesday to discover the business closed said they were often given cash awards. San Angelo resident Mary Hernandez, who said she had visited the business on two previous occasions, said she wasn't aware the cash prizes were illegal. Rusnok on Thursday said he could not release any further information about Wednesday's raid at The Magic Spot III, including whether anyone was arrested, still in custody or whether charges were pending. Vasquez and Jones said that because federal authorities are handling the investigation they are not allowed to discuss details of the incident. According to witnesses, more than a dozen law enforcement vehicles arrived at the Sunset location and appeared to arrest at least one person. The Magic Spot previously housed the Magic Hair Salon & Day Spa until 2012, when the place was converted into a gambling business. Former salon owner Mimi Cho, who is still listed in business records as the building's owner, did not return phone calls seeking comment. Melvin Johnson, who is listed as the Monte Carlo's manager on the business' website, also did not return phone calls. SHARE Beloved Dog by Maira Kalman (Penguin) By Maureen Hart Noted illustrator and author Maira Kalman's thesis statement couldn't be clearer: "You, reading this book, most likely have, or had, a dog, You certainly know that your dog is, or was, the dearest, funniest, lovingest, loyalest friend you ever had." Oddly enough, Kalman grew up in a family without dogs, in part because her family feared the way the animals were used against Jewish people in their ancestral Belarus, and in part because her mother, and her grandmother before her, had kept a spotless home. But when Kalman's beloved husband, Tibor, fell ill (he died in 1999), friends suggested that she and their two children get a dog. And they did. At first, she writes, she was reluctant to touch Pete, their Irish wheaten, "(a)nd then, little by little or perhaps with blinding speed I fell madly in love." Inspired by Pete (who lived eight years with them and is memorialized with a quote from James Joyce's "The Dead"), Kalman's "Beloved Dog" rounds up renderings of the dogs she's known, loved or just drawn. Some have their own stories (Max, pet of Ida and Morris Stravinsky, who realizes his dream to travel solo to Paris) and some are companions to well-known humans, including Abraham Lincoln and family and writing style experts William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White. Many of Kalman's hounds have appeared in her 18 children's books, but there's no age limit for this book. It probably helps, though, if readers are, like its author/artist, "besotted by dogs." Michelle Gaitan/Standard-Times Students at Fort Concho Elementary pick up their lunch in the schools cafeteria. Fridays lunch menu consisted of cheeseburgers on whole-grain buns, low sodium Tater Tots or sweet-potato fires, sliced pears, pickles and their choice of white, strawberry or chocolate milk. District aims for healthy, edible meals By Michelle Gaitan Michelle.Gaitan@Gosanangelo.Com 325-659-8238 / @Shellegaitan And Rashda Khan Rashda.Khan@Gosanangelo.Com 325-659-8381 / @Rashda_Sast Chicken nugget Mondays, enchilada Wednesdays and cheeseburger Fridays the favorites still line Texas school lunch menus. But as federal nutrition guidelines rolled down from the U.S. Department of Agriculture over the years, the taste has changed. So has the cost. According to data provided by Kim Carter, food service director with the San Angelo school district, the average cost of a meal served by SAISD for the 2010-11 school year was $2.18. Enrollment for that period was 14,111, and the total number of lunches served was 1,942,235. For the 2014-15 school year, the average cost per meal is $2.30. That's a 12 cent increase per meal. Add to that, enrollment for the 2014-15 period was 14,618 and total lunches served was 1,904,244. Total lunches served include student, adult and a la carte. The SAISD data came attached with a note: USDA regulation changes to school lunch requirements and a la carte sales are causing meals sales to decrease despite growth in enrollment. The Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 reauthorized numerous child nutrition programs, including the National School Lunch and Breakfast program. A new reauthorization was expected last September, but Congress missed the deadline to make changes to the existing legislation. According to USDA's public affairs staff, it's still pending and no new changes have been made. "Four years ago, when these new regulations came into effect, the USDA wanted all grains offered to be 50 percent whole grain. Prior to that any of the grains that you wanted to offer had only to be enriched," Carter said. Now the USDA requires schools to offer whole grain-rich products when they serve pasta, rice, tortillas, chips and hamburger buns. Whole grain-rich products must contain at least 50 percent whole grains. The remaining grain, if any, must be enriched, according to a USDA memo. "That was a big change for our kids. We have worked hard trying to find whole-grain products that are palatable and not extremely high in cost," Carter said. Under the legislation, schools had to increase the availability of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fat-free and low-fat milk served with school meals. Schools also had to reduce the levels of sodium, saturated fat and trans fats in meals, and meet calorie requirements for the nutritional needs of its children. "A student is now required to take a fruit or a vegetable with their school tray. They don't have any option," Carter said. "So our goal is, 'How do we incorporate that to ensure that we have an offering of a fruit or vegetable that children are going to select and consume?' because we want them to consume it." The USDA sets the standards for menu plans in elementary, middle and high schools. The implementation of the updated standard, which made requirements specific to elementary, middle school and high school levels, began in the 2012-13 school year and had to be followed by school districts participating in the breakfast and lunch programs. "Nationwide today more than 97 percent of schools participating in NSLP report they are successfully meeting the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act nutrition requirements," Rodney Ellison Jr., public affairs specialist with the USDA, wrote in an email. Carter said the changes have made her job more complicated. "To come up with a menu plan that meets all of their requirements is a huge mathematical and nutritional puzzle," Carter said. "My belief is, and I believe my purpose is, I am here to serve kids and make sure they're not hungry. And when you're trying to balance out all of the standards they put into place it's I would have to describe it as nothing but overwhelming." HOW SAISD MAKES IT WORK For elementary lunches, SAISD typically offers a choice between two entree options, with vegetables, fruits, milk and grains to go with those choices. For example, on Monday, Jan. 25, elementary students will choose between corn dog made with whole grain-rich breading and cheese pizza with whole grain-rich crust and low-fat cheese. The sides offered that day include green beans, corn and peaches. In middle and high schools, students typically are offered three to four entree choices. They can choose as many fruit and vegetable side dishes as they want as well as additional servings of grains and milk. On a recent visit to the Lincoln Middle School this week, students' entree choices were steak fingers, spicy chicken tenders, chicken spaghetti and pepperoni pizza. The sides offered that day included mashed potatoes, green beans, peaches and a whole grain sugar cookie. "The middle school and high school students get more choices because we're trying to get more kids to eat with us, so we have to give more choices," said Carolyn Loiselle, child nutrition supervisor with SAISD food services. "But we also offer them what we know they'll eat chicken and pizza for the same reason." While students at all levels can always bring lunch from home, in high school they can go off campus for lunch because both Central and Lake View are open campuses. Karina Martinez, a 10th-grader from Central, walked with friends to the McDonald's on North Bryant Boulevard, a popular stop for high schoolers during the lunch hour. "I don't really like school food. It tastes plain," Martinez said. "The pizza doesn't have that pizza flavor." New to the open campus policy, Martinez said even if the school made better-tasting food she would prefer to go off campus for lunch. Junior Amriah Rameriz and senior Sean Martinez from Lake View agreed that school food is not bad, but they mix things up a bit by going other places for lunch. Unlike Central's proximity to multiple restaurants, Lake View students have limited choices. Lined up along the side of the school Thursday afternoon was Dickey's Barbecue Pit trailer offering $5 combos for students. Employee Mike Andrys said he has been setting up for lunch there about four years and is often joined by The Golden Corral. GUIDELINES SAP FLAVOR SAISD's Nutrition Services department's challenge has been to meet the USDA requirements while offering students food choices that taste good. One of the biggest challenges in creating tasty entrees has been weekly sodium limits. People notice when salt is left out. Regulations monitoring sodium intake per student is set for discussion soon by the USDA, but as of now schools are limited to 1,230 milligrams to 1,420 milligrams weekly per student, depending on whether they're in elementary, middle or high school. Sodium target levels are being phased in over the next several years, eventually cutting intake per student down to a little more than half the current acceptable levels. "We've already removed all of the salt in cooking with vegetables and anything like that" and it's been challenging to try and find different spices and things to add flavor back in, Carter said. Along with scarce sodium levels, food items cannot contain any trans fats per serving and can have no more than 10 percent saturated fat. A week's worth of meals must provide at least 550 to 850 calories per student, depending on age. Some students have complained about the texture of the cheese served with SAISD meals. The district uses processed cheese, often called "processed cheese food" or "processed cheese product." "We use the low-fat American processed cheese because real cheese has too much salt," Loiselle said. The good news is the SAISD Food Services department is making it work. For the 2014-15 school year, the Texas Department of Agriculture conducted 242 reviews, with 17 percent earning an "Excellent" rating, and SAISD was one of those school districts. Additionally, SAISD elected to provide free breakfast to all elementary students in their classrooms. "SAISD recognizes the importance of breakfast and we knocked down barriers by making breakfast available to all students and in the classroom so no one feels the stigma of being singled out," Carter said. Since free breakfast began being served in classrooms in 2010, the service has jumped to an average of 5,450 meals a day, up from about 1,050 when it was served only in the cafeteria, she added. Carter measures the success of the program by feedback: "When the teachers tell you the children have stopped asking when lunch is, that means we have met a need." SAISD's breakfast program is being used for case studies by the Baylor University-based Texas Hunger Initiative, an organization aiming to end hunger in Texas "They're using our model for other school districts," Carter said. STUDENT FEEDBACK Fort Concho Elementary, one of 24 schools in SAISD, caters to more than 475 students from kindergarten through fifth grade all with different tastes. "I don't like it, I love it," fifth-grader Isabella Fernandez said about her school's food. "My favorite food in the cafeteria will probably be the chicken patty or the teriyaki dippers. I recommend getting the chicken nuggets first if you're new here and because they're like really soft and not hard like other nuggets are." Third-grader Roman Veia agreed, adding that he likes almost everything on the school's lunch menu except the fish sticks. "They taste like cardboard," he said. Getting more creative in the cafeteria is helping schools counterbalance the strict changes that often result in flavorless foods and unappetizing meals. "We really monitor when we try to bring in a new recipe that we want to try out with the kids," Carter said. "We have a student-based group that will try (new items) or pilot at one school to see how it will go over." Big-hit items such as spaghetti, Carter said, had to be tested and retested to get the new recipe down right when they made the switch to whole-grain pasta and its tougher taste. "We tried eight different kinds of spaghetti to find one that would be an acceptable one to use," she said. "Part of the problem was to find 100 percent whole grain; our kids who normally would eat spaghetti suddenly did not want to eat it." Among five students from first through fifth grade at Fort Concho Elementary, there was a mixed response when it came to the whole-grain spaghetti recipe the district has been testing. Roman described the texture of the noodles as "sometimes hard," and fellow third-grader Alana Madril said she does not like it when tomatoes and onions are added. "The noodles and the meat is sometimes hard when you chew it, and sometimes the sauce is a little spicy," said fourth-grader Katherine Braggs. Surprisingly enough, vegetables, not always known to be child favorites, got approval from the group. Manufacturers have done a good job coming out with products that are kid-friendly and acceptable for student palates, Carter said, but acknowledged that with the new regulations, the district did see a decline of less than 2 percent in the number of students eating their meals. Nearly 3.2 million meals are served in by the district a year, she said. Daily monitoring helps to see what kids are selecting, and if there is a food item that is not popular, the department will look for a replacement as best it can, she said. Nutrition glossary Here are some nutritional terms clarified: Whole grains: Grains are the seeds of plants. Whole grains contain all parts of the grain, including the bran, endosperm and germ. Enriched grains: Enriched means nutrients that were lost during food processing are added back. For example, B vitamins, lost when wheat is refined, are added back to white flour during processing. However, even after enrichment, refined grains often do not provide as many nutrients or as much fiber as their whole grain counterparts. Saturated fats: Saturated fats are usually solid at room temperature and are found mainly in foods from animal sources like meat and dairy products, like butter and cheese. Some vegetable oils such as coconut, palm kernel and palm oil also contain saturated fat. Saturated fat in excessive amounts is the main culprit in raising total and LDL ( bad) cholesterol, which can increase risk of heart disease. It may also may also contribute to increasing the risk of obesity, diabetes and cancer. Trans fats: Trans facts are liquid vegetable oils that have been chemically processed to become semisolid at room temperature through the addition of hydrogen atoms. Trans fatty acids, also called partially hydrogenated oils, are used in some margarines, fried foods and processed snack foods to improve flavor, texture and shelf life. Trans fatty acids act like saturated fats in the body and raise LDL cholesterol levels. However, they also lower HDL (good) cholesterol. Additionally, trans fatty acids may increase risk and incidence of Type 2 diabetes and may compromise fetal and early infant growth and development. Source: University of Michigan Health System Regular vs. processed cheese Regular cheese, such as cheddar, for example, is made by heating milk, stirring in enzymes and cultures, separating the curds from the whey, and salting and knitting the curds into a block or wheel to age. Pasteurized process cheese, on the other hand, is a mixture of already-made cheeses that are reheated, blended together, pasteurized and mixed with an emulsifier to provide a uniform texture, mild taste, smooth- mouth feel and the consistent melt that many people love. Food technologists can lower the fat and then add flavor back in or create a variety of textures and tastes. Often, these light cheeses have less fat and fewer calories than regular cheese because they contain less actual cheese, more moisture and other additions. Source: EatingWell Magazine SHARE By Staff Report The Martin Luther King Jr. Association of San Angelo has four events planned over the weekend to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which this year falls on Monday. The group's theme for this year, which marks the 87th anniversary of King's birth, is "Advancing the Dream: Everybody Can Be Great ... Because Anybody Can Serve." Events begin at 7 p.m. Friday with a youth program at St. Paul Presbyterian Church, 11 N. Park St. Tracy McClendon will head a presentation for young people to better acquaint them with King's life and accomplishments. Gospel Extravaganza will be at 7 p.m. Saturday in the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, 1 Love St., with music by several church groups. The annual Sunday Service for Martin Luther King Jr. Day will be at 3 p.m. at St. Paul Presbyterian. The Rev. Sam Hunnicut, senior pastor of First United Methodist Church, will speak. At noon Monday, an ecumenical service will be at the New Jerusalem Church of God in Christ, 1515 N. Chadbourne St., led by the Rev. Anthony Harris. Martin Luther King Jr. became the nation's towering icon of civil rights reform during the 1950s and 1960s. A Baptist minister, he led movements to eliminate racial segregation in America through nonviolent civic action, serving as the head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. King, born in Atlanta in 1929 and educated at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Crozier Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania and Boston University, was killed in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. For more information on San Angelo activities, call Franklin DeVore Sr. at 325-656-0299.

A train heads west past the Twin Mountains near the U.S. Hwy. 67 entrance to Twin Buttes reservoir.

SHARE By Denise Morris Even as other areas are seeing rail line accidents resulting in disastrous, uncontrolled oil-fueled fires and the costly loss of crude oil, trains through San Angelo are riding on shiny new track laid in the latter half of 2014. San Angelos historic rail lines originally were built in the 1920s and, like most tracks in the country, were showing their age. We feel good to know that throughout the city we have 100 percent new tracks, said Elizabeth Grindstaff, vice president of sales and marketing with Texas Pacifico, about the $2.5 million project. Whenever you are hauling hazardous materials through a populated area, safety is of the utmost importance. Texas Pacifico operates the South Orient Railroad, the main rail line heading from the Mexico border at Presidio northeasterly through San Angelo to Fort Worth, where it meets up with rails linking other parts of the country and Canada. Grindstaff said only 6 percent of the train cargo through town is crude oil, while 90 percent is frack sand. Steel, grain and a miscellaneous other compose the remainder. While oil tanker cars have been involved in rail calamities in other parts of the country, the concern in San Angelo is more about the roadway. We havent had a lot of accidents related to the railroad, said Chamber of Commerce President Phil Neighbors. Our concern for safety is about street traffic, given the number of rail cars that are going through town. People should be careful at the crossings. San Angelos train traffic has tripled since 2012, according to figures provided to the Chamber by Texas Pacifico. The number of rail cars since 2009 has actually increased tenfold, with 30,862 expected for 2015. Ten years ago the annual number of cars was 2,379. Im continually getting calls from people in Santa Rita and other neighborhoods complaining about trains always coming through, said San Angelo Mayor Dwain Morrison. He contends that hauling oil across prairies and towns is in general an unsafe practice, as exemplified by the recent train wrecks. Those poor people in West Virginia, Morrison said Thursday. That site is still burning. Lets get pipelines built and get this oil off the rail line and out of the communities to be safer. U.S. Rep. Mike Conaway, who represents Texas 11th District, could not be reached by press time Thursday. His spokesperson said: The Keystone (XL pipeline) provides solutions for transporting oil. A half-dozen major oil-related incidents have occurred on railways in the U.S. and Canada since 2008. A train carrying 3 million gallons of crude from North Dakotas Bakken oil fields derailed Monday in the unincorporated town of Mount Carbon, West Virginia. The derailment leaked oil into a river tributary, burned down a house, prompted the evacuation of hundreds of families and forced nearby water treatment plants to temporarily shut down. Ten months earlier, an oil-hauling train had derailed and exploded on the same line in Virginia. Trains hauling Bakken oil also have been involved in major accidents in Virginia, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Alabama, as well as in Canada, where 47 people were killed by an explosive derailment in Quebec in 2013. In the Texas oil patch, several oilfield workers died in January when their van hit a crude oil tanker and burst into flames, Reuters news agency reported. The accident was in Dimmit County, in the heart of the Eagle Ford Shale southwest of San Antonio, the report said. Reuters also interviewed the mayor of a small town in Illinois, where oil and ethanol are run through several times each week. These incidents are making the case for us, Barrington mayor Karen Darch, who seeks stricter regulations from the federal government, told Reuters. In San Angelo, Grindstaff said, Its nice to have an inert material as our primary load. If we did have a spill, it would be (a matter of) sand. SHARE By Rashda Khan Trash truck leaves skid hazard on Sherwood Way A mechanical problem with a Republic Services garbage truck shut down one lane of traffic along Sherwood Way between FM 2288 and Sunset Boulevard early Friday morning. The San Angelo Police Department received a call about an unknown chemical spill at 7:05 a.m., according to Tracy Gonzalez, the public information officer for the SAPD. Responding officers determined the substance on the pavement was hydraulic fluid. The truck was leaving the Stripes convenience store at Southland Boulevard and Sherwood Way when its line burst, according to David Harwell, operations manager for Republic, who was at the site during the subsequent cleanup. The driver pulled into a parking lot near the shopping center at Sunset Drive which includes Target and other stores and contacted his employers, Harwell said. "The spill created more of a sheen than a puddle," he said, adding that several vehicles including a fire engine skidded a bit on the slick pavement before law enforcement shut the lane down, but no crashes occurred. By 10:30 a.m., the truck was at Republic Services and had a new hydraulic line, according to Harwell. The only things left marking the incident site were orange traffic cones, a flashing arrow sign, and billowing clouds of dust created by a sweeper. In the midst of it all, a representative of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality was taking notes. Harwell said 15 Republic Services employees were pulled from their regular routes and dispatched to the site to help in the cleanup. The San Angelo Fire Department, Texas Department of Transportation, and six SAPD units were also on scene. "The assistance of TXDOT and the city made it possible for us to take care of the spill so quickly," Harwell said. Questions remain: What caused the line to rupture, why the driver didn't notice the situation sooner, and how much hydraulic fluid was spilled? "We're still investigating," Harwell said. "We are working with compliance agencies in every way and will be filing a report with the TCEQ." SHARE Bipartisan effort sought by president By Simone Pathe WASHINGTON Calling for a systematic change to American politics in Tuesday's State of the Union, President Barack Obama gave a somewhat surprising shoutout to bipartisan redistricting reform. "I think we've got to end the practice of drawing our congressional districts so that politicians can pick their voters and not the other way around," he said, before going off script to add, "Let a bipartisan group do it." Advocates of redistricting reform were pleased to hear the president validate their issue, but they cautioned that sweeping change at the national level isn't likely anytime soon. "I'm sure not what he's proposing will get done in Congress. This is a state-by-state issue. But the president discussing this and he's not the first president to do so is evidence of the changing tide on this," said Brian Cannon, executive director of OneVirginia2021, which advocates for the creation of an independent nonpartisan commission to draw Virginia's district lines. Obama's larger argument was that America's political system needs fixing. He vowed to travel the country this year to push for reforms that increase access to the ballot box. Redistricting reform doesn't typically get the same bully pulpit treatment. "There are windows where people want to pay attention to redistricting," said Michael Li, senior counsel at the Brennan Center's Democracy Program. But the biggest obstacle to redistricting reform, Cannon said, is a lack of awareness of the issue. "There are not too many politicians who want to say, 'I love manipulating my district to get re-elected.'" SHARE About ?For the Record' The records in "For the Record" are provided by the Tom Green County justice of the peace, county and district clerks' offices. The Standard-Times publishes all the records it receives from the office and does not edit them for content. Entries involving criminal cases include the defendant's name, date of birth, and the charge. Civil dockets involve divorces. For corrections or clarifications, please call 659-8252. Following is a glossary of legal terms in the records. Arraignment: The calling of an accused person before a court to answer the charge made against him. Typically, pleas are entered and bonds are set at arraignment. Disposition: The resolution of a case. Deferred adjudication: A type of probation. If the defendant successfully completes the terms of probation, the proceedings are dismissed. Probated: A probated jail sentence is not served unless the defendant violates terms of probation.A COURTS 51ST, 119TH, 340TH and 391ST DISTRICT COURTS Judges Barbara Walther, Ben Woodward, Jay Weatherby and Thomas Gossett presiding Criminal Docket Dispositions Jerry C. Sanchez, 9/65, deferred adjudication completed on a charge of aggravated sexual assault of a child, dismissed. Gary Bruce Cole, 9/58, on a charge of driving while intoxicated, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge. He was sentenced to 1 year in jail (probated 18 months) and fined $750. Jorge Zepeda, 6/76, deferred adjudication on a charge of engage in organized criminal activity. Sharrod Kenyatte Hubbard, 4/70, deferred adjudication on a charge of theft. Joseph M. Santiago, 3/88, pleaded guilty to a charge of fraud possession controlled substance/prescription. He was sentenced to 6 years in prison. Kristy Gladys Winburne, 11/79, pleaded guilty to a charge of theft. She was sentenced to 180 days in prison. Allen Jun Elvena, 6/71, pleaded guilty to a charge of robbery. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Demetrius Allen, 5/85, a charge of unauthorized absence community correction facility, dismissed. Dustin Sequiel Garza Jr., 11/91, deferred adjudication on a charge of possession of a controlled substance. Jake Gonzales, 12/83, pleaded guilty to a charge of possession of marijuana. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison (probated 10 years) and fined $1,500. Albert Bermea, 6/71, on a charge of driving while intoxicated with child under 15 years of age, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail (probated 1 year) and fined $1,500. Boddy Jack Cape, 7/79, pleaded guilty to a charge of credit card or debit card abuse. He was sentenced to 540 days in prison (probated 3 years) and fined $500. Virginia Christin Cardenas, 9/79, deferred adjudication on a charge of aggravated assault. Joshua Keith Anderlohr, 8/83, deferred adjudication on a charge of attempt to commit burglary of habitation. Joshua Keith Anderlohr, 8/83, deferred adjudication on a charge of theft of firearm. Joshua Lance Ayala, 7/90, pleaded guilty to a charge of manufactured delivery of a controlled substance. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison (probated 8 years) and fined $2,500. Jonathan Charles Hegwood, 10/90, a charge of credit card or debit card abuse, dismissed. Jesse Joe Castanuela IV, 12/82, a charge of sex offenders duty to register life/annually, dismissed. Joseph M. Santiago, 3/88, pleaded guilty to a charge of manufactured delivery of a controlled substance. He was sentenced to 6 years in prison. William Ervin Stover, 11/45, deferred adjudication completed on a charge of driving while intoxicated with child under 15 years of age, dismissed. Josh Randall Riley, 7/63, was found guilty by jury on a charge of obstruction or retaliation. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Josh Randall Riley, 7/63, was found guilty by jury on a charge of assault public servant. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Josh Randall Riley, 7/63, was found guilty by jury on a charge of unauthorized use of vehicle. He was sentenced to 730 days in prison. Raul Valentin Garcia, 2/87, a charge of possession of a controlled substance, dismissed. Amy Barboza, 5/77, a charge of bail jumping and fail to appear felony, dismissed-convicted in another case. Susan Gonzales, 9/77, deferred adjudication on a charge of possession of a controlled substance. Leanna Markwell, 9/87, on a charge of evading arrest detention with vehicle, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge. She was sentenced to 180 days in jail. Curtis Wayne Matranga, 8/87, a charge of controlled substance, dismissed-convicted in another case. Kevin Kenneth Ruffman, 2/60, deferred adjudication on a charge of aggravated assault with deadly weapon. George Montgomery, 9/65, a charge of unauthorized absence community correction facility, dismissed. Dustin Emanuel Rowe, 12/78, pleaded guilty to a charge of driving while intoxicated. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison (probated 10 years) and fined $2,000. Margaret Mikala Warren, 3/64, pleaded guilty to a charge of theft of service. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison (probated 5 years). Daniel John Penland, 2/69, pleaded guilty to a charge of driving while intoxicated with child under 15 years of age. He was sentenced to 730 days in prison (probated 4 years) and fined $3,000. Raul Moya Vaquera, 12/68, pleaded guilty to a charge of assault. He was sentenced to 3 years in prison. David Clifton Ables, 1/70, pleaded guilty to a charge of assault. He was sentenced to 6 years in prison. Teresa Ann Smith, 9/68, pleaded guilty to a charge of driving while intoxicated. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison (probated 10 years). Denise Rea Sullivan, 12/86, deferred adjudication on a charge of assault public servant. Vanessa Rocha, 12/91, a charge of manufactured delivery of a controlled substance, dismissed-convicted in another case. Vanessa Rocha, 12/91, pleaded guilty to a charge of possession of marijuana. She was sentenced to 730 days in prison (probated 5 years) and fined $500. Roberto Hernandez Jr., 7/91, pleaded guilty to a charge of theft of firearm. He was sentenced to 180 days in prison. Christopher Watley, 2/84, pleaded guilty to a charge of evading arrest detention with vehicle. He was sentenced to 730 days in prison (probated 2 years) and fined $500. Teresa Ann Smith, 9/68, a charge of credit card or debit card abuse, dismissed-convicted in another case. Teresa Ann Smith, 9/68, pleaded guilty to a charge of driving while intoxicated. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison (probated 10 years). SHARE State hangs back to see if system is fixed By Matthew Waller Texas is a state that believes it can do most things better than the federal government. However, when it comes to the new health care exchanges that open for enrollment Tuesday where people can buy health insurance in an airline ticket-type online system at healthcare.gov the state has chosen not to participate. That decision means that the state has, for now, given up an opportunity to tailor incentives for health care insurance, but also possibly has avoided a wrecked system; thats if things go wrong for the newly wrought portion of President Barack Obamas signature health care reform, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The PPACA does not truly allow states to create and operate their own exchanges, Gov. Rick Perry wrote this summer to Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as the governor rejected participating in the exchange. Instead, it gives the general government the final say as to which insurance plans can operate in a so-called state exchange, what benefits those plans must provide, and what price controls and cost limits will apply. It leaves many questions to be answered later through federal future rule making. In short, it essentially treats the states like subcontractors through which the federal government can control the insurance markets and pursue federal priorities rather than those of the individual states. Texas has more than 6 million uninsured, and about 1 million people dont qualify because of a gap in Medicaid, and another 1 million to 1.5 million dont qualify because they are undocumented, so about 4 million people might have the opportunity to enroll, said Anne Dunkelberg, a health care expert with the liberally oriented Center for Public Policy Priorities. Even back in 2009, legislators were trying to create a Texas exchange, she said. It was thought it would be appealing to run it ourselves, Dunkelberg said. Jennifer Tolbert, the director of state health reform at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care think tank, said there may not be much of a difference among premiums and the choice of plans regardless of whether Texas or the federal government runs the exchange. One difference among states that are running the exchange is that the exchanges get more promotion, and they get more navigators. Navigators guide people through getting coverage or subsidies for coverage. States can get more federal money for navigators if they run the exchange. Texas, meanwhile, is set to get about $11 million for its navigators, Tolbert said. Meanwhile, New York is getting $27 million, and Arkansas is getting $17.8 million, although the number also depends on the number of uninsured, Tolbert said. Perry asked in a letter to Texas Department of Insurance Commissioner Julia Rathgeber this month to adopt state regulations for navigators, including requiring a minimum of 40 hours training. Because of the nature of navigators work and because they will be collecting confidential information, including birth dates, Social Security numbers and financial information, it is imperative that Texas train navigators on the collection and security of such data, Perry said in his letter, having cited legislation that lets Texas adopt more stringent regulations than federal rules. Joining in to handle the insurance markets couldve been beneficial in different ways, Dunkelberg said. States could have contracted only with plans that have the best prices, or they might have made selections based on the best consumer satisfaction records. You can add bells and whistles to help consumers more, she said. Coordination among state agencies involved in the exchange mightve also been more robust, Dunkelberg said. State Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, still believes that the state of Texas can do a better job than the federal government, but he wants to see a major overhaul of the Affordable Care Act. Until that happens, I think Texas is wise to stay back, Duncan said. Lets let Congress have an opportunity to come back in and make reforms and changes to the bill that was basically thrown together in what I would call an unworkmanlike manner. SHARE WASHINGTON What boxer Sonny Liston's manager said of him (Sonny had his good points, the trouble was his bad points) is true of Marco Rubio. His strengths include intelligence, articulateness and, usually, cheerfulness. His misjudgments involve, in ascending order of importance, the Senate immigration bill of 2013, sugar, Libya and S-590. Together these reveal a recurring penchant for ill-considered undertakings. Rubio's retreat, under withering political heat, from the immigration bill was undignified but not reprehensible. The bill had 1,197 pages because the 906-page Affordable Care Act had not slaked the congressional appetite for "comprehensive" solutions to complex problems. The immigration bill solved everything, down to the hourly wage of immigrant agricultural sorters ($9.84). Rubio shared this serene knowingness. His sugar addiction is a reprehensible but not startling example of the routine entanglements of big government and big business. He has benefited from the support of Florida's wealthy sugar producers, who have benefited from sugar import quotas and other corporate welfare that forces Americans to pay approximately twice the world price for sugar. What is, however, startling is Rubio's preposterous defense of this corporate welfare as a national security imperative: Without our government rigging the sugar market, "other countries will capture the market share, our agricultural capacity will be developed into real estate, you know, housing and so forth, and then we lose the capacity to produce our own food, at which point we're at the mercy of a foreign country for food security." This promiscuous invocation of national security brings us to Rubio's enthusiastic support of the Barack Obama/Hillary Clinton intervention in Libya, which Rubio faults for having been insufficiently enthusiastic. This 2011 plunge into a tribal society's civil war, this eight-month assassination attempt using fighter bombers, this supposedly humanitarian imperialism appealed to Secretary of State Clinton and other progressives precisely because it had no discernible connection to any vital U.S. interest. Today, his sensible complaint is that the Obama administration (like the previous administration regarding Iraq) had no plans for preventing chaos after the Libyan regime was decapitated. His not-at-all sensible implication, however, is that America should have buckled down to nation-building there. Rubio's misjudgment regarding Libya indicates a susceptibility to slapdash foreign policies. His support of S-590, the Campus Accountability and Safety Act, indicates a susceptibility to trendy temptations, carelessness regarding evidence, and indifference to constitutional values. Wielding irrelevant laws, spurious social science and financial coercion, the Obama administration is pressuring colleges and universities to traduce standards of due process when dealing with students accused of sexual assault. Claiming that a 1972 law prohibiting sex discrimination in education somehow empowers the government to dictate institutions' disciplinary procedures, the administration is dictating that a mere "preponderance of the evidence," rather than "clear and convincing" evidence, be used in determining a life-shattering verdict of guilt. Stuart Taylor Jr. and KC Johnson a lawyer and an academic, neither Republicans write that the administration justifies this by citing a single "resoundingly discredited" study purporting to prove an epidemic (involving one in five women) of campus sexual assaults. The administration opposes allowing accused students to cross-examine their accusers, and favors a form of double jeopardy allowing accusers to appeal not-guilty findings. Rubio is one of 12 Republican senators collaborating with the administration by co-sponsoring legislation that would codify requiring improvised campus disciplinary proceedings to supplant law enforcement and the criminal justice system. Proposed by Democrat Claire McCaskill of Missouri, the legislation is, as Taylor and Johnson say, "designed to advance the administration's agenda." The legislation's language radiates prejudgment: By repeatedly referring to accusers as "victims," it presumes the guilt of the accused. Taylor and Johnson write: "America's universities are in the grip of a dangerous presume-guilt-and-rush-to-judgment culture. ... An entire generation of college students is learning to disregard due process and the dispassionate evaluation of evidence. And dozens of clearly or at least probably innocent students, whose cases we will detail in a book we are now writing, have been branded sex criminals, been railroaded out of their universities, and seen their hopes and dreams ruined." By co-sponsoring S-590, Rubio is helping the administration sacrifice a core constitutional value, due process, to advance progressives' cultural aggression. The next Republican president should be someone committed to promptly stopping this disgrace, not someone who would sign S-590's affirmation of it. George Will is a Washington Post columnist. Contact him at georgewillwashpost.com. Butterflies in plight: Monarch migration is in Texas. But wait, is this all of them? The Anne Arundel County state's attorney is investigating former Gov. Martin O'Malley's discounted, tax-free purchase last year of taxpayer-owned furniture from the governor's mansion in Annapolis.The probe began shortly after a Baltimore Sun investigation found in September that the Democratic presidential candidate paid $9,638 for 54 mansion furnishings that originally cost taxpayers $62,000. The discounted sale was authorized by outgoing O'Malley administration officials after each item had been classified as "junk."Most of the furnishings now adorn the O'Malley's $549,000 home in Baltimore's Homeland neighborhood.O'Malley officials and state Democrats said Anne Arundel County State's Attorney Wes Adams' investigation is politically motivated."This is a bogus political attack that the Maryland Republicans have tried to make stick, and it's sad that they're wasting taxpayer resources on it," O'Malley campaign spokeswoman Haley Morris said in an email.In mid-October, Maryland Department of General Services Secretary C. Gail Bassette sent "all of the information" about the sale to Adams, according to a copy of an email obtained by The Sun through a public records request."As the Department of General Services lacks the investigational abilities, this information is provided for your review in connection with any wrong doing," Bassette wrote to Adams.A spokeswoman for Adams said the Republican prosecutor, who took office last year as O'Malley was leaving office, declined to comment on the probe, saying he is prohibited by policy from commenting on "any matter under investigation."When asked about alleged political motives, Heather Epkins, Adams' communications director, said that office is legally obligated to investigate the claims."Our office performs due diligence on any complaint given to us," Epkins said. "We don't have the option of picking and choosing."The Department of General Services approved the sale to O'Malley last January despite a policy that forbids private sales of state property to government officials, The Sun found. The agency also did not follow its rule requiring it to solicit bids for such items and did not charge mandated sales tax on the transaction.Shortly after The Sun investigation, Gov. Larry Hogan ordered the agency to conduct an internal review of policies that allowed the purchase. The Republican governor accused O'Malley of "misleading" Marylanders about the removal of the furnishings, saying the former governor never told him about plans to take items with him when he moved out of the mansion last year on Jan. 15.O'Malley officials have said that the former governor and his wife, Baltimore District Judge Catherine Curran O'Malley, who together earned $270,000 in state salaries in 2014, complied with the agency's procedures.Patrick Murray, executive director of the Maryland Democratic Party, said Adams has placed politics over prosecuting crimes since taking office. Murray also took issue with Adams replacing several top prosecutors who had worked for his Democratic predecessor and hiring his campaign consultant as an assistant prosecutor."When Wes Adams hired a political consultant as his highest-paid assistant state's attorney, he signals to everyone that he prioritizes politics and headlines over dealing with homicides, violent crime and the heroin addiction crisis in Anne Arundel County," Murray said. "It's extremely disappointing to see the state's attorney prioritize politics over public safety."Maryland Republican Party Executive Director Joe Cluster said there is "merit" to the investigation given how many policies were ignored to sell O'Malley "junk" furniture that is now used in his home."Stuff was taken from the government. We need to know if it was taken illegally," Cluster said. "Everything is political to them until they do it."O'Malley, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, has declined to be interviewed about the purchases. His representatives have said state officials had authorized the furniture to be thrown away before O'Malley agreed to buy them.The prohibition against preferential sales -- transactions made without publicly soliciting other bids -- applies to all surplus state property, even items declared junk. In addition, state ethics rules and the standards of conduct for executive branch employees forbid state officials from making transactions that involved information unavailable to the public.The furniture was used in the residential sections of the governor's mansion -- not the public areas, which are decorated with antiques. When Hogan moved into the mansion last January with his wife from their Anne Arundel County home, the couple found the mansion starkly less furnished than when they had toured with O'Malley two weeks earlier. Hogan ended up moving in nearly all of his furniture from his Edgewater house.O'Malley's former chief of staff, John Griffin, previously told The Sun that O'Malley asked to buy the furniture only after the state declared it surplus and junk. That declaration took place on the day the O'Malleys moved out of the mansion, records indicate.Griffin said he was not aware of Adams' investigation. "This is the first I'm hearing of it," he said Thursday.Two former prosecutors said a state's attorney investigation into property transactions might focus on theft or misappropriation of state funds and property.Former Attorney General Douglas Gansler, who also was Montgomery County's prosecutor, said Adams has jurisdiction to investigate potential criminal activity in Anne Arundel County.Kurt Nachtman, a former Baltimore prosecutor, said it is difficult to determine what such an investigation is looking for because "the whole process is secret.""They'll be focusing on emails and written correspondence prior to the sale," Nachtman said.The Sun investigation examined multiple emails and dozens of documents detailing the transaction.Samuel L. Cook, the former director of the Annapolis Capital Complex, devised the depreciation formula that was used to determine the prices the O'Malleys paid for the furniture. Cook, who left shortly after Hogan took office, said the process of declaring property as excess and ordering its disposal typically takes several days or weeks.For the O'Malleys it took one day. Records show that the process to declare the furniture as surplus, judge its condition and issue a separate disposal order took place on Jan. 15 -- the day the O'Malleys moved out of the mansion.All 54 items were formally declared "unserviceable," according to the "excess property declaration" forms filed that day by the Department of General Services. The declaration resulted in excess-property disposal orders on the same day, stating that all the items could be disposed of "as junk." Other options for describing the furniture included "good, fair and poor."The state's inventory control manual does not provide a process for valuing property declared junk.The first lady signed the $9,638 check from the O'Malleys' joint bank account on Jan. 17, when her husband was still governor. He left office Jan. 21. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder asked President Barack Obama to declare the area around Flint a federal emergency to combat the escalating crisis over contamination of the city's drinking water.In a late night news release, Snyder said he request the federal emergency and major disaster designation for Genesee County, home to Flint, in order to help "protect the health, safety and welfare of Flint residents."If federal aid is granted by the Obama adminstration, Snyder said possible assistance might include temporary housing and home repairs as well as low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses. It may also cover fixing damage to public facilities and infrastructures, such as city schools and the water system, the governor said in a news release sent out around 11:30 p.m."We are utilizing all state resources to ensure Flint residents have access to clean and safe drinking water and today I am asking President Obama to provide additional resources as our recovery efforts continue," Snyder said in the Thursday night statement.Snyder's request is expected to be reviewed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The president will have the ultimate say in determining whether to provide federal aid.Speaking earlier in the evening to a private reception at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Snyder described how he has been in touch in recent days with a number of federal emergency officials, including the Secretary of Homeland Security and a top White House liaison on state issues to discuss how the federal government might be able to aid Michigan.In a separate interview before the event, the governor said he told federal officials that he "would appreciate your partnership and how we can work together to address the challenges" in Flint. He added that the federal government is already moving to review how its various department may be able to mobilize to aid in the crisis. Snyder did not provide a timeline about how quickly that federal assistance may arrive.The Snyder administration has been criticized for not acting quickly enough to the drinking water ban and for allowing Flint two years ago to switch to drawing water from the Flint River in an effort to save money without requiring corrosion controls which could have reduced lead levels from old pipes. On Jan. 5, he declared a state of emergency in the city and surrounding Genesee County on Jan. 5, but critics said that came months after initial alarm bells about the crisis went unheeded.On Tuesday, he activated the Michigan National Guard, and seven soldiers were initially sent to Flint. A National Guard spokesman said the plan called for getting 30 soldiers into the city by Friday.Earlier Thursday, U.S. Rep. Brenda Lawrence, D-Southfield, called for congressional hearings on lead contamination in the water in Flint and Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township, wrote directly to President Barack Obama asking for his administration to dispatch experts to Flint to help address a crisis that now includes reports of a large number of cases of Legionnaires' disease.The governor said he welcomed both the aid of federal officials as well as investigations led by appropriate authorities."I encourage them to investigate because we want to learn as much as possible from this to make sure it doesn't happen again," he said in an interview.Asked about the continuing anger over his administration's handling of the crisis, including a protest calling for his resignation at the state Capitol Thursday, Snyder said "I appreciate that people are upset about the situation," added that he understood calls for him to step down were "part of public comment."Snyder told the group of several dozen at the auto show reception sponsored by Delta Air Lines that the Flint crisis was "something we wish would never happen to anyone." The reception was hosted by Nolan Finley and Stephen Henderson, editorial page editors, respectively, at the Detroit News and the Free Press.He repeated admissions he has made in recent days and weeks: that his administration "didn't recognize it as quickly as we should have." But Snyder said his team was now moving in the right direction to solve the immediate crisis to identify those who might have been affected by the elevated levels of lead in the water and restore drinking water to the nearly 100,000 residents of Flint.In the longer term, he said local, state and federal officials would look to figure out what went wrong so that a similar crisis does not break out in any other corner of the state.In concluding his remarks, the governor called on others to join him in a cooperative effort to find common solutions to restore the water supply to safe levels. Colorado's lovably eccentric governor had fun with his sixth State of the State address Thursday, interrupting his policy plans and economic development announcements with one-liners about cat videos, Taylor Swift lyrics and a groan-worthy foot-in-mouth moment that brought down the (state) House.He called the Colorado Supreme Court Justices in the audience "The Supremes."Pot-laced gummy bears made the official record, too, as Gov. John Hickenlooper called on lawmakers to address the issue of edibles that look too much like children's candy.And he kicked the whole thing off saying his "rosy glow" and spring in his step wasn't just due to his recent engagement to Robin Pringle, the 37-year-old sitting in the front-row with lawmakers.Hickenlooper also broke good news for Colorado Springs, announcing a cybersecurity project that will be an economic driver for the Pikes Peak Region.Republicans lauded the agreeable tone Hickenlooper took, and at times the caucus even applauded the Democrat's proposals."Let's strive, I mean really try, to be more bipartisan this session," Hickenlooper said. "Let's forgo cheap shots in favor of civility and productive dialogue."He admitted that Democracy can be messy. And in the eternal words of Swift, he said, "haters gonna hate."And the 63-year-old said times are changing rapidly."We didn't know we would one day be texting more than talking, or that dating would be all about swiping left or right," he said, referencing the cellphone dating app Tinder. "And cat videos -- so many cat videos."He got behind some of the biggest goals for Republicans this year, asking for a solution to the problem of over-litigation for defects in home construction and calling out the state's infrastructure needs."The governor was very positive," said Senate President Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs. "He always puts a very positive face on what it's like to live here and what it's like to work here. ... It's true Colorado is thriving. We are rebounding better economically than a lot of states and a lot of people want to live and work in this environment."But Cadman disputed a key point in Hickenlooper's 40-minute address to the 100 members of the Colorado House and Senate."The budget crisis is really just a term that's being used to fulfill a political desire on a political issue," Cadman said after the speech. "The fact is we are about to spend more money than we have ever spent. We are growing at a minimum of around 3 percent, and that is not a crisis."As expected, Hickenlooper used a portion of his speech to call for support of a change to the state budget that will forestall millions in taxpayer refunds next year that are required under the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights."If we can't make this very reasonable change, like many already allowed under TABOR, then what choice do we have but to re-examine TABOR?" Hickenlooper said. "Right now, no one can say with a straight face that our budget rules are working for us."The governor's budget calls for cuts to higher education funding and would allow the state to fall further behind what is constitutionally required to be spent on k-12 education. Hickenlooper has said those cuts can be avoided and greater investments on infrastructure can be made if the Hospital Provider Fee was removed from TABOR limits."Coloradans know we're not fully funding education," Hickenlooper said. "They're fed up with traffic congestion, they're fed up with potholes and they're fed up with our inability to expand our highway system."Hickenlooper spent much of his time at the podium in the chamber of the Colorado House of Representatives talking about economic development wins for the state.The National Cyber Intelligence Center coming to Colorado Springs is one of those."As we see it, this center can be the country's foremost authority on cybersecurity research and development, training and education," he said.Hickenlooper said Colorado Springs is a natural fit for the project because of the city's military assets, private sector interests and the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs cybersecurity program.The center would help businesses, nonprofits and government agencies combat and recover from cyberattacks, teach public officials about cybersecurity and threats to their computer networks and conduct research into cybersecurity threats."I am very excited about this. We need to move as quickly as we can because we are not likely the only ones with this idea," Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers said. "This has all kinds of potential to attract other things" to Colorado Springs.Suthers was in the audience Thursday and Hickenlooper thanked him and UCCS Chancellor Pamela Shockley-Zalabak for their leadership on the initiative.Rep. Paul Lundeen, R-Monument, said he liked the governor's call for compromise.But both Lundeen and Colorado Springs Democratic Sen. Michael Merrifield were dismayed by the only hard-line stance the governor took in his speech."There are pivotal moments in our kids' academic careers when we need to know exactly where they stand on the learning curve," Hickenlooper said. "That's why we're standing firm on ninth-grade assessments."Lundeen and Merrifield have both called for the elimination of exams in ninth grade."The general public disagrees with the governor about the amount of testing that we are overwhelming students with," Merrifield said after the speech.Hickenlooper only reveled in two moments that brought both Republicans and Democrats to their feet.The first was when he recounted the story of a first-generation college graduate who used the state's concurrent enrollment system to obtain an associate's degree before he had graduated from high school.The other was when he called Pringle "the most beautiful woman in Colorado."But the applause turned to groans when Hickenlooper used the poorly chosen transition of "but all joking aside." He tried to recover, but it was too late.Rival jokester under the Gold Dome, Cadman, had the final word Thursday.He said that since he is waiting for the invitation to Hickenlooper's wedding this Saturday, he organized a proper send-off for the couple."Colleagues, present rice," Cadman said, and lawmakers showered the couple with rice as they headed up the center aisle in the House. Suspects, defense lawyers and prosecutors can continue to enter felony plea bargains in which judges are asked to sign off on criminal charges that may not square with the facts.The Ohio Supreme Court this week rejected the recommendation of the state's judges and its own rules commission to require felony charges in plea bargains to be based on the factual circumstances of underlying crimes.The lead proponent, a Cuyahoga County judge, had argued the change would promote transparency and accountability in the courts and ensure convictions bear a resemblance to the crime that occurred.Common Pleas Judge Michael P. Donnelly cited hundreds of cases in which defendants charged with sex offenses were allowed to plead to aggravated assault and other crimes and escape sex-offender registration requirements.Without comment, the justices voted 4-2 to not adopt the proposal. Justices Judith L. French, Sharon L. Kennedy, Judith Ann Lanzinger and William M. O'Neill voted against it.Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor and Justice Terrence O'Donnell voted in favor of the measure. Justice Paul E. Pfeifer did not participate in the vote.The Ohio Judicial Conference, representing the state's judges, and the court's rules commission joined advocates for sexual-assault victims and others in lobbying the court to change plea-bargain rules.Some public defenders and criminal-defense lawyers opposed the change, saying they must have negotiating room to work with prosecutors to find suitable charges to which their clients would agree to plead guilty. Some also feared a flood of trials would occur."I fear that not advancing this will be a tacit endorsement of the practice of taking factually baseless pleas. This was to ensure consistency with the principles of truth and justice," Donnelly said Thursday.Several states and the federal court system prohibit plea bargains in which defendants are allowed to plead guilty to charges that do not reflect the crimes they actually committed, Donnelly said."I am going to continue my blanket policy, and won't accept factually baseless pleas, until the Supreme Court tells me I must. And if that occurs, I will resign," Donnelly said.Greene County Common Pleas Judge Stephen A. Wolaver, who leads the Ohio Supreme Court's criminal-rules committee, said the proposed rules change, unlike most, generated some objections."I know judges can choose to essentially follow the spirit of the (proposed) rule if they choose to do so. I probably will," Wolaver said. "I think a good number of judges would be willing to follow that rule."The Ohio Supreme Court approved minor amendments to other court rules submitted this week to the General Assembly. The court can revise the changes until May 1. Unless lawmakers object, the changes will take effect July 1. Good morning Tempe! Great turn out for the @westbigdatahub event @ASU. #WBDIH pic.twitter.com/lKtbS2l1HD ChristineKirkpatrick (@SuperChristineK) December 10, 2015 "metro data science," which are challenges surrounding transportation, housing and economic development; sustainability and the management of natural resources and hazards; tracking innovations in storage technology, cloud computing, analytics and data visualization; and supporting scientific research and learning. Utah CTO @dfletcher showing @mmlee Utah's Water Restoration data map during @westbigdatahub #BDHubs meeting. pic.twitter.com/hX1G3eDmHe Drew Mingl (@drewmingl) December 8, 2015 Thanks @BigDataUtah and @US_Ignite for your leadership in #NDSO2015 & #BDHubs workshops! pic.twitter.com/lX80Cw6Jdr West Big Data Hub (@westbigdatahub) November 6, 2015 Big Data got a booster shot last November when the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced the Big Data Regional Innovation Hubs program, a three-year, $5-million-plus pilot intended to strengthen the nation's data ecosystem. Four regional consortiums Northeast, Midwest, South and West are coordinating efforts across 50 states and more than 250 organizations that include academia, state agencies, private industry and nonprofits that share common goals.NSF anticipated the program's priority areas will include ways that big data can improve health care and management of natural resources, and support environmentalism, precision agriculture, education, personalized medicine, finance and the energy sector.Western Hub Executive Director Meredith Lee explained that the program is a chance to educate through events like civic hackathons, connect people and groups that don't typically talk so they can share ideas and resources, encourage innovation, and build new partnerships. The Western Hub includes Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming."Personally, I am thrilled that our mission statement specifically calls out that we are looking to address societal challenges through big data innovation," Lee said. "There's a lot of public-private consortia and different partnerships being sponsored by the federal government, by local groups and universities and so forth, but it's really special to have all of these stakeholders at the table to say, yeah, we want to give back to our communities and look at something regionally that will really benefit all the constituents."The Western Big Data Hub blog identifies four focus areas, which include:This program will serve as a bridge for regional knowledge, Lee explained. Utah, for example, has challenges around water resource management, and neighboring institutions in New Mexico and California have information they could use that Utah officials probably wouldn't otherwise have access to. In his 2017 budget, Gov. Gary Herbert proposed $6.4 million in allocations to install water meters that can more accurately measure water usage. Regional collaborations can ensure that investments like these reach their maximum potential, Lee said."Utah, they're really excited about this because it's a way to build awareness," Lee said. "Everything starts to become siloed on a day-to-day basis when you're looking at all these different sectors, so even just convening people in their region and sharing those stories [is a huge asset]," Lee said. "The hope is that from our end, by showing value over the three years, we'll be able to find a sustained vehicle of funding so that we could continue to provide this type of partnership."Utah is among the organizations applying for piece of the NSF's phase two funding, a $10 million grant program called Big Data Spokes. This extra funding would go toward researching the priority areas identified in the first phase of collaboration.Like many states and cities, Utah has been trying for a more data-driven government, said Chief Technology Officer Dave Fletcher, and this program could be one piece of that effort. Though the hubs program is not intended to be a major component of that effort, Fletcher said, it could be a way to enhance collaboration and improve their general approach.Some of the state's focus areas include reducing recidivism and insurance fraud, and supporting environmentalism, health care and public safety. If Utah gains Spokes funding, he said, it will be a chance to prove the value of analytics, thus making it more likely for future investment."Utah has been using a variety of data analytics tools for years, and our agencies have made a lot of progress in the way they use data to improve agency operations and provide services," Fletcher said, adding that as agencies begin to break down data silos and use a wider variety of data, including sensor data from the Internet of Things, and start applying them to societal challenges, "we will see even greater progress. I think the Big Data Hub and Spokes programs have the potential for stimulating these objectives." When it comes to the fast-moving field of traffic management technology, there is something of a bubble between what is known data and what is unknown. And in that space exists a bubble of uncertainty and potential, a place where government might be able to improve its own operations or even address big public problems like congestion and collisions.So much so, theres an industry that works in that bubble. Case in point: INRIX. The company, which gathers traffic data from private vehicles, recently announced three contracts in Colorado and California, where it is either selling data or data analytics to government entities hoping to gain better insights into whats happening on their roads.To two of those agencies the Southern California Association of Governments and the Colorado Department of Transportation INRIX has sold access to its data analytics platform, Insights. According to Gary Carlin, director of public-sector business development for the company, the platform essentially allows states to take existing data and extract value from it.It allows for some fairly in-depth analysis to be performed, puts out graphics and reports. You dont have to have a huge in-house staff for data scientists and analysts, Carlin said.Government entities can turn that information into whatever sorts of application they want, he said. Some popular uses include performing evaluation and impact analysis on public works projects like road expansions.Research into post-project impact analysis is one area thats seen a lot of expansion as of late. In September, the University of Southern California released a study focusing on how a light rail expansion in Los Angeles affected traffic along the citys Interstate 10 corridor. Though public advocates of the project pitched the idea partially on the premise that it would cut down highway congestion, the researchers used traffic data from an array of sensors to show that that wasnt really the case.That kind of data is becoming easier for government officials to access. The Regional Integrated Transportation Information System based at the University of Maryland, for instance, pulls traffic data from INRIX and other sources to give users quick reports they can use to evaluate what potential road improvements might do for traffic and what completed projects have truly done.With that kind of insight, Carlin said, traffic agencies can better guide their decisions on what kinds of projects to invest in. With vehicles becoming more and more connected and highways featuring more and more data-gathering infrastructure, theres plenty of potential for learning more about the way traffic works and the way projects impact it."The ability to access historical traffic data and visually analyze movement patterns helps us pinpoint areas that will most benefit from road or transit improvements while streamlining the cost of our daily operations," said Annie Nam, manager of goods movement and transportation finance at Southern California Association of Governments, in a press release The nice thing about having more data and better analytics, Carlin said, is that it opens up the door for new uses. For instance, when he was training Colorado public employees on how to use Insights, he said one person came up with a use for the data that he had never seen before. The employee, who was tasked with overseeing a contractor, said the contractor had closed off part of a public road to do work. When the contractor delayed the re-opening of those lanes by several hours, the state employee used the analytics tool to show the contractor exactly how that delay affected traffic.Then there are some as-of-yet-undeployed applications the company thinks it could offer the state, possibly through the Colorado DOTs RoadX program. Carlin said INRIX sees an opportunity in Colorado to start delivering warnings to drivers about slow-downs in traffic ahead of them on highways. Thats because those quick drops in speed on highways has led to some pretty bad accidents in the past when vehicles slam into the back of a sudden queue."Colorado has an 11,000 foot mountain pass of Interstate with urban-like traffic congestion. Measuring reliability, delays, mobility, safety and infrastructure conditions for this region is a tricky business," said Ryan Rice, Colorado DOT's director of the division of transportation systems management and operations, in a press release. "[This] technology helps us maximize our dollars, be more surgical with our strategy, and decipher what is or isn't working. The analytics will also help to pair with other data systems to deliver real-time information to travelers."That too could come from existing information.One of the things INRIX does is work with car manufacturers and we get data directly off the vehicles and we actually drive data back to them in the form of traffic data, incidents, and that becomes part of the overall feed, Carlin said. It goes back into the infotainment systems in the cars.In the future, he said, its possible it could also go into the cabs of semi-trucks traveling along the states highways. The lumbering tractor trailers, which need time to slow down, could use that information to avoid rear-ending their smaller road companions.At the end of the day theres a lot of data out there, Carlin said. But by itself its not all that valuable. Its a scene all too common in the libraries of today a patron hunched over a glowing computer screen at one of the communal tables, locked into the digital information source without a book in reach. Perhaps access to a strong Internet signal is not available in their area, or they are looking to hone new skills either way, at the library its free.Libraries around the country are embracing technology, meeting a very real demand and once again making themselves a leading resource for information.According to the American Library Associations 2015 State of American Libraries report, the modern library has evolved from its traditional role as a research-centric establishment to a central location for digital access, learning and literacy.Around 97 percent of public libraries now offer Internet access in the form of free onsite Wi-Fi and 98 percent offer some form of technology training, according to the report. Around 80 percent of institutions in the U.S. provide assistance with online job hunting services.In Spring Hill, Tenn., pop 35,000, a fast-growing suburb of Nashville, officials noticed patrons flocking to the library after hours for access to public Wi-Fi. In 2014, they launched a program to make portable Internet hot spots available to anyone interested in taking them home.With growth in Spring Hill outpacing service providers ability to equip homes with networks, the portable technology has become a popular item to borrow, according to library and city officials. It's just one of the ways public libraries are adapting to the technological needs of their constituents.Jennifer Urban, the librarys circulation supervisor, said the focus on meeting the patrons' connectivity needs has been a worthwhile investment for a community with a growing number of young families.I think theyre popular for a number of reasons. First, we do have a lot of people that travel, so there is a big interest from people when they have a trip coming up, she said. We also have a lot of people that dont have Internet in their homes for one reason or another. [Spring Hill] is an area that is experiencing rapid, rapid growth and development, so a lot of times you talk to people who are new to the area and maybe they dont have Internet set up in their home yet and sometimes there can be a long wait for that."Some residents simply cannot afford the costs associated with their own Internet service plans, according to Urban. For a regular group of library patrons, the take-home devices supply the majority of their online access.One of the things [the former library director] was really hoping to do was to decrease the digital gap a bit. He mentioned how he would get to the library before we opened, and it still happens, people were parked in the parking lot and using the wireless Internet, she said. He just wanted to take library services into the next dimension really, to take it a step further so that people were able to have their informational needs met.Through a partnership with T-Mobile, the telecom service provider, the city library is able to provide roughly 20 devices to the public free of charge. Urban said the operational costs are around $8,500 a month.Since the launch, Urban said there's been a regular waiting list of 20-30 residents and the library hopes to expand the program in the future.Chicagos library system offers digital literacy courses, available by appointment, and has expanded its own fleet of mobile hot spots, according to Director of Library Technology Michelle Frisque.Since May 2015, the city has had its own hot spot program for underserved neighborhoods with limited connectivity options. Though anyone can check out the devices, Frisque said they are only available in strategic locations.Weve selected neighborhoods in the city that are under-connected, meaning that they usually have a broadband adoption rate of under 50 percent, she said. So, that means 50 percent of the people in that neighborhood do not actually have access to the Internet in the home.Roughly 730 devices are available at to any adult cardholder in good standing for checkout in three-week intervals. The library plans to add 230 in February. Frisque said the program was made possible through funding from the Knight Foundation and Google.I think what public libraries do and have always done has always been the same; we're about lifelong learning," said Frisque. For many years that was through books, we still do that through books and reading, but there are other ways that we help people in their curiosity and the way that they explore whatever it is they are interested in.Frisque said patrons can also learn manufacturing skills through the librarys Maker Lab, which features introductions to 3-D printing, or by checking out a Finch robot, which helps to teach programming skills.In Seattle, the public library has seen an enormous demand for Wi-Fi hot spots and is moving to boost the number of devices available to constituents.Library spokesperson Caroline Ullmans said the citys Wi-Fi checkout program, which started in May 2015, is popular for a number of reasons including the lack of home service and income limitations.We started with a grant from Google and most recently, through the support of the mayor and city council, they have added money to our budget to extend the life of the initial Google grant to add more hot spots and serve more people, She said. Over the course of the next year, well be adding 450 more [devices].The waiting list for the 325 available mobile hot spots has surpassed more than 1,000 library cardholders since the programs start. Ullmann said unprecedented demand was behind the citys push to add almost 500 more devices in 2016.We really feel a commitment to help close the digital divide for Seattle residents, particularly those who live on low incomes, she said. A city of Seattle survey from 2014 found that a significant number of people lack Internet access at home more than 50 percent of people whose income was under $20,000 [a year] had no access to the Internet.According to surveys conducted by the Seattle Public Library, 33 percent of its members reported a lack of Internet service at home and 44 percent reported an annual household income of less than $30,000. The hotspot devices have been checked out 2,200 times since the program started.Despite funding challenges, Ullmann said Seattle has been fortunate when it comes to providing services for a city that is very fond of its libraries.During the recession we certainly had budget cuts that resulted in a decrease of our open hours and a decrease in our service overall, Ullmann said. In 2012 we were super fortunate in that the Seattle voters approved a library levy, and thats a seven-year, $123 million levy devoted to restoring the core services that were cut during the recession.The people of Seattle really love their libraries. The majority of residents have library cards and use them regularly," she said. "I think also an important thing we do is provide digital literacy, so not only do we provide the devices, but we teach people how to use them and how to be a smart online." (TNS) -- In an unusual legal assault on a social media powerhouse, the family of a Florida man killed in Jordan in a November terrorist attack has sued Twitter for allegedly smoothing the way for ISIS to use the San Francisco-based online network as a tool in spreading its international terrorism campaign.The family of the slain man, Lloyd Carl Fields Jr., pins blame on Twitter for playing a role in the Nov. 9 attack, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco."For years, Twitter has knowingly permitted the terrorist group ISIS to use its social network as a tool for spreading extremist propaganda, raising funds and attracting new recruits," the lawsuit, filed on behalf of Fields' family, states. "Without Twitter, the explosive growth of ISIS over the last few years into the most feared terrorist group in the world would not have been possible."Twitter could not immediately be reached for comment.Fields, a 46-year-old government contractor, had traveled to Jordan to help train police there under a U.S. State Department program. One of those Jordanian officers shot and killed Fields and four others, with ISIS later claiming responsibility for the attack.The lawsuit alleges that Twitter's "willful blindness" to ISIS activities on the social network amount to "material support to the preparation and carrying out of acts of international terrorism, including the attack in which Lloyd Fields Jr. was killed."Lawyers for Fields' wife, Tamara, maintain in court papers that ISIS has an estimated 70,000 Twitter accounts, and as of 2014 was posting 90 tweets per minutes. The lawsuit also cites numerous instances in recent years when Twitter allegedly rebuffed efforts to persuade the company to restrict ISIS access to the network.The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for Tamara Fields' "severe mental anguish" and "pain and suffering" for the "murder of her husband by an ISIS operative." Top Innovative States 1. Massachusetts, 93.33 26. Georgia, 48.38 2. California, 93.30 27. Hawaii, 45.67 3. Washington, 90.40 28. Wisconsin, 43.30 4. New Jersey, 80.42 29. Ohio, 42.90 5. Connecticut, 77.18 30. Kansas, 42.53 6. Oregon, 77.08 31. Wyoming, 41.20 7. Maryland, 76.82 32. Iowa, 39.57 8. Colorado, 75.12 33. Missouri, 39.25 9. Delaware, 72.72 34. Indiana, 38.27 10. Minnesota, 71.85 35. Florida, 37.82 11. Virginia, 71.77 36. South Carolina, 33.00 12. New Hampshire, 68.60 37. Alabama, 32.57 13. New Mexico, 67.42 38. Nevada, 31.92 14. Rhode Island, 61.95 39. Nebraska, 31.12 15. Texas, 61.25 40. North Dakota, 30.80 16. North Carolina, 60.80 41. Tennessee, 29.85 17. New York, 60.70 42. Montana, 27.00 18. Michigan, 59.75 43. Maine, 24.40 19. Arizona, 59.05 44. Oklahoma, 24.12 20. Utah, 59.00 45. Kentucky, 20.20 21. Illinois, 56.30 46. Louisiana, 19.70 22. Pennsylvania, 51.83 47. Arkansas, 13.33 23. Idaho, 49.82 48. South Dakota, 13.20 24. Alaska, 49.40 49. West Virginia, 12.00 25. Vermont, 49.20 50. Mississippi, 9.00 Possible $10 million for Smart City Startups New York Pushes State Transparency in 2016 Bloomberg presented its latest State Innovation Index , which ranks states on their approaches to invention and ingenuity. Massachusetts tops the list, with California, Washington, New Jersey and Connecticut rounding out the five most innovative states in the nation.Bloomberg ranked the states using a categorical point system that included a series of measurements in research and development, productivity and high-tech services. It weighed tallied patents, and analyzed such drivers as education and employment stats in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.Crunching the figures, the metrics generated scores of zero to 100 for each of the 50 states. The highs hit 93 and the low struck at 9 (). While the lineup's character was well stratified, the top two states were separated only by hundreths: Massachusetts won with a score of 93.33 compared to Californias 93.30. Bloomberg said this was likely due to the ranking system that measured the number of companies in a region instead of cumulative market capital. If market capital held sway, the conjectures were that California wouldve taken the win, thanks to Apple.Venture fund Urban.us is banking on the new surge of smart city and civic tech startups: A TechCrunch article reported that Urban.us is raising $10 million to establish promising ventures.A portion of this funding is said to be committed to three startups: Rachio, a smart irrigation service; Flair, a company that provides intelligent heating and cooling systems; and FutureMotion, the creator of an electric one-wheeled skateboard. Urban.us co-founders Shaun Abrahamson and Stonly Baptiste are making plans to elevate entrepreneurs that have already proven themselves in their markets, but may need a boost to expand.The first fund raised by Ubran.us stood at $1.3 million and populated the funds portfolio with 20 startups that included mobility and analytics services, utilities, and local government. Baptiste told TechCrunch that impacts to global warming will hold a prominent position in the decision-making, especially since cities are likely to double their populations by 2050 and currently produce 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.In a release accompanying his State of the State address , New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo laid out policy goals to heighten the states transparency regulations. Like Congress, which recently took measures to reform the Freedom of Information Act, Cuomo plans to rework New Yorks Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) so it holds departments and officials more accountable to citizen requests. His proposal seeks comprehensive alterations to the law that allows citizens access to state records, and will apply to all agencies in the state.In this vein, the governor has submitted legislation to conduct a study that offers recommendations for public tracking of state contracts and budgeting. A third initiative for greater openness targets political campaign finance and disclosure requirements. Cuomos intentions aim to close the limited liability companies (LLC) loophole attached to political campaign donation limits. Political candidates have leveraged this opening to generate hefty sums of capital. Further details of this policy change require candidates to disclose campaign contributions every 60 days as opposed to current practice that is twice annually. Paul Hembery has played down claims that Pirelli was behind the reported watering-down of planned radical chassis changes for 2017. Red Bull's Dr Helmut Marko, though, blames Mercedes. "Mercedes claims that the tyres would not cope," Austrian media reports quote him as saying, "but this is a poor excuse. "They are in a position of advantage and naturally don't want anything to change." Reportedly, Pirelli was also opposed to the original plans, where significantly higher aerodynamic loads may have proved too much for the tyres to cope without dramatically increasing pressures. Hembery, Pirelli's F1 chief, denies that. "We can make a tyre that can withstand any load we want, but it will not be the same as today," he is quoted by Italy's Autosprint. "An increase of 50 or 60 per cent (downforce) will not see the type of tyres we have used in recent seasons." Hembery suggested that trying to spice up F1 through aerodynamics is not the right road to take. "I remember when we came into F1, Ross Brawn was the head of the working group for tyres and one of the first things he said was 'We do not want faster cornering'. "So we need to be careful. People need to understand that performance in formula one is already very high and an increase of 5 seconds (per laps in pace) is huge. We must be sure that we go in the right direction," he insisted. Another issue, he explained, is that Pirelli needs to do much more testing in order to prepare for the 2017 changes, and currently the teams are not in agreement about how it should be done. (GMM) The pilot programs, funded via the Presidents FY17 budget proposal, would test connected vehicle systems in designated corridors throughout the country, and work with industry leaders to ensure a common multistate framework for connected and autonomous vehicles. US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced a proposed 10-year, nearly $4-billion investment to accelerate the development and adoption of safe vehicle automation through real-world pilot projects. Secretary Foxx made the announcement at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Secretary Foxx also announced that the US Department of Transportation is removing potential roadblocks to the integration of innovative, transformational automotive technology that can significantly improve safety, mobility, and sustainability. Secretary Foxx unveiled policy guidance that updates the National Highway Traffic Safety Administrations (NHTSA) 2013 preliminary policy statement on autonomous vehicles. The new guidance reflects the reality that the widespread deployment of fully autonomous vehicles is now feasible. NHTSA is using all of its available tools to accelerate the deployment of technologies that can eliminate 94 percent of fatal crashes involving human error. We will work with state partners toward creating a consistent national policy on these innovations, provide options now and into the future for manufacturers seeking to deploy autonomous vehicles, and keep our safety mission paramount at every stage. NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind DOT is committing to the following milestones in 2016: Although nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes are a very poor hydrogen oxidation catalyst, as a support, they increase the catalytic performance of nickel nanoparticles by a factor of 33 (mass activity) or 21 (exchange current density) relative to unsupported nickel nanoparticles, the researchers reported. Owing to its high activity and low cost, the catalyst shows significant potential for use in low-cost, high-performance fuel cells, the team suggested. Researchers at the University of Delaware, with a colleague at the Beijing University of Chemical Technology, have developed a composite catalystnickel nanoparticles supported on nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubesthat exhibits hydrogen oxidation activity in alkaline electrolyte similar to platinum-group metals. An open access paper on their work is published in the journal Nature Communications. Polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells are based on two half-cell reactions: hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR) at the anode and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) at the cathode. Pt is the most active catalyst for both HOR and ORR; the high price of the metal (~$50 g1) has hindered fuel cell commercialization. This, in turn, has compelled engineers to (1) work to reduce the platinum loading in the membrane assemblies and (2) find alternate, lower-cost catalysts that offer comparable performance to platinum. Although the various efforts have managed to reduce the total content of platinum-group metals (PGMs) in the state-of-the-art proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) stacks, more than 0.137 g Pt kW1 is still needed, the University of Delaware team said. One promising approach to reduce the cost of fuel cells is to switch the operating environment from an acidic to a basic one (that is, a hydroxide exchange membrane fuel cell, HEMFC), thus opening up the possibility of using PGM-free catalysts and other cheaper components. For the cathode of the HEMFC, some PGM-free and metal-free ORR catalysts have been developed that show comparable activity to Pt in alkaline media. However, for the anode side, only a few PGMs (for example, Pt, Ir and Pd) show adequate activity. The HOR catalyzed by Pt is very fast in acidic conditions so that a very low loading of the Pt catalyst could be used relative to the cathode side in PEMFCs. However, the HOR activities of PGMs are ~100 times slower in alkaline solutions. As a result, a much higher loading of the HOR catalyst is required (0.4 mg Pt cm2 in a HEMFC compared with 0.03 mg Pt cm2 in a PEMFC) to achieve similar performance. Thus, it is highly desirable to develop PGM-free anode catalysts for the HOR in alkaline electrolyte. Unlike its reverse reaction (hydrogen evolution reaction, HER), only a few PGM-free HOR catalysts have been reported. One possibility is to use Raney Ni as the HOR catalyst in liquid alkaline fuel cells. However, it is functional only under very high alkalinity (6 M KOH) while the activity remains low. It is not catalytically active for a HEMFC, which can be mimicked as 0.11 M KOH. Efforts have been made to improve the HOR activity of the Ni-based catalyst in the last decade. Ni alloys, such as NiMo and NiTi, have been shown to enhance the HOR activity. Our recent work has also shown that electrochemically deposited NiCoMo on an Au substrate has a high HOR activity. Zhuang and co-workers decorated Ni particles with CrOx to weaken the NiO bond and stabilize the Ni catalysts. A HEMFC incorporating this PGM-free catalyst has been fabricated, and it exhibits a peak power density of 50 mW cm2. Although the power density is still low (compared with the peak power density of more than 1,000 mW cm2 for PEMFCs), it demonstrates the possibility to fabricate low-cost PGM-free fuel cells. However, their activities are still incomparable with PGM-based catalysts. Zhuang et al. In the Nature Communications study, the team synthesized Ni nanoparticles supported on N-doped carbon nanotubes (Ni/N-CNT) using a wet chemical method. The nanotubes are not only the support for the Ni nanoparticles, but also a promoter for the catalytic activity. Using density functional theory (DFT) calculations to understand the interaction between the Ni nanoparticle and the N-CNT support, the team found that, when nitrogen dopants are present at the edge of the nanoparticle, the Ni nanoparticle is stabilized on the support and locally activated for the HOR because of modulation of the Ni d-orbitals. Owing to its high activity and low cost, Ni/N-CNT has great potential to be used as the anode in HEMFCs, thereby finally bringing to fruition a high-performance and low-cost PGM-free HEMFC. Zhuang et al. This new hydroxide exchange membrane fuel cell can offer high performance at an unprecedented low cost. Our real hope is that we can put hydroxide exchange membrane fuel cells into cars and make them truly affordablemaybe $23,000 for a Toyota Mirai. Once the cars themselves are more affordable, that will drive development of the infrastructure to support the hydrogen economy. Yushan Yan, corresponding author The experimental work was supported by the ARPA-E program of the US Department of Energy under Award Number DE-AR0000009. The computational work was financially supported by the Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under Award Number DE-SC0001004. Stephen Giles was supported by a fellowship from the University of Delaware Energy Institute. The research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. Resources NASHVILLE, Tenn. A small town warehouse supervisor turned in one of three tickets splitting the world-record $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot on Friday, and swiftly announced that he would take his money now, giving up hundreds of millions of dollars in the future. John Robinson said he reached out to his brother for help assembling a team of lawyers and financial planners before deciding to take the winnings in a single lump sum of nearly $328 million, rather than let the Lottery invest the prize and pay him 30 annual installments totaling an estimated $533 million. Why pass up on a certain income totaling more than $200 million? "We're going to take the lump sum, because we're not guaranteed tomorrow," Robinson said. "We just wanted a little big piece of the pie. Now we're real grateful we got the big piece of the pie." They have no plans to move from their small, gray, one-story house in Munford, a town of about 6,000 north of Memphis. Why not move into a luxurious compound somewhere? "I've never wanted that in the past. I don't really want that now," said his wife, Lisa Robinson, who works in a dermatologist's office. "Big houses are nice," her husband said, "But also you gotta clean 'em." They'll pay off their mortgage and their daughter's student loans, but don't plan any big purchases. Both plan to return to work on Monday. "That's what we've done all our lives, is work," Robinson said. "You just can't sit down and lay down and not do nothing anymore. How long are you going to last?" Tennessee Lottery executive Rebecca Hargrove said the couple would get a "small check today for a few million," and collect the full lump sum in about 10 business days. Robinson said earlier Friday that they would help certain friends, give to the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, and donate to their church. "I'm a firm believer in tithing to my church," Robinson said in an appearance on NBC's "Today" show. The couple has a son, Adam, who works as an electrician, and a daughter, Tiffany, who lives nearby in her late grandparents' home. Tiffany said she also wants a horse. "My first thought was, I've always wanted a horse," she said. "I get a horse now. My dad always said, "When I win the lottery.'" Robinson carried the precious slip of paper to New York City and back before showing up at Tennessee's lottery headquarters. Their lawyer went with the family, as did their rescue dog, Abby, who snoozed through most of the excitement. The other tickets were sold in Melbourne Beach, Florida, and Chino Hills, California, each one overcoming odds of 1 in 292.2 million to land on all the numbers. Lottery officials in those states have yet to confirm or identify the winners. News of a possible winner in California was quickly deflated Friday when that feel-good tale was described as a prank. Lawyers who have represented other lottery winners advise against going public until they are ready to manage such a huge windfall. Talking seriously with experts in tax law, financial planning, privacy, security and other safeguards can help keep them, and their winnings, safe, they say. The Robinsons seemed aware of at least some of the risks, even as they told the world that they were sudden multi-millionaires. Their neighbor Mary Sue Smith, told The AP that Lisa Robinson asked her Friday morning to put "No Trespassing" signs on their lawn. "Who will be coming out of the woodwork?" said Mary Sue Smith. "Everybody you knew in high school and elementary ... You know what happens." Mary Sue's husband, Roy Smith, called them "fine people," dependable and hard-working. "It could not have happened to better people," Roy Smith said. "He's a civic-minded person, and he probably will remember the town." Munford's mayor, Dwayne Cole, had wished openly Thursday for an investment in the town, whose annual budget is $3.67 million. He said Munford's needs include fire department equipment, an indoor athletic facility for local schools and a community gymnasium. On Friday, Cole told the AP that they are not the kind to squander their money. "They're small town people who appreciate community, appreciate family values. They appreciate hard work. They are responsible. They've always lived within their means," said Cole, who owns an auto parts store in town. "They have to understand, though, this is a big deal. This is not just a big deal for Munford. This is a big deal nationwide and worldwide. They understand that, I think. I hope they do," Cole added. "I believe they can deal with it. It may be totally overwhelming." Robinson said he bought the winning ticket at his wife's request at the family-owned Naifeh's grocery on his way home from work Wednesday night, even though he wasn't feeling well. His wife stayed up to watch the drawing, carefully writing down the numbers. Then she started "hollering and screaming through the hallway saying, 'You need to check these numbers. You need to check these numbers,'" Robinson said. He did, four times, then thought: "Well, I'll believe it when the news comes in on the morning." General Electrics departure from Connecticut is devastating, both in economic development terms and symbolic loss. When the move one day becomes a case study at any given business or public policy school, it will be a lesson in exactly how not to run a state. GEs leadership made it very clear over several years that they were very worried. They cited: The states ever-worsening budget deficits; Massive unfunded liabilities; Record tax increases and retroactive tax hikes; The poor overall business climate; The lack of respect coming from Hartford. The concerns of the ninth most valuable brand in the world were completely justified. We learned just six months ago that Democratic state lawmakers intended to pass the second largest tax increase in Connecticut history. We also learned there would be changes to the tax code. Those tax changes would prove to be non-starters for certain corporations. Two months ago not even halfway through the fiscal year we learned that we were expecting a $360 million state budget deficit. Combine the deficit with the third worst funded pension system in the nation, a lack of resolve to make structural budget changes, and a perpetually chilly attitude in Hartford toward businesses, and it becomes obvious why GE decided to pull the plug on Connecticut. What are the lessons here? 1) Run a healthy fiscal house with predictability. 2) Keep tax rates competitive. 3) Fund your pensions. 4) Listen to and respect your business partners. Having been involved in economic development for more than 20 years in this state and after hearing nearly every complaint that exists about high taxes, onerous regulations and hostile attitudes, I have always believed the state has to play world class defense, especially with its Fortune 500 companies, before attempting to play offense. Well, we just got run over, and Massachusetts scored. Which brings us to lesson No. 5: It is much more cost effective to retain jobs than it is to spend very large amounts of taxpayer money to bring new jobs to the state. The Democratic majorities at the Capitol will continue to say GEs move had nothing to do with taxes or business costs. I will leave it to the reader to judge whether the decision-makers in Hartford even remotely care about how the business world works. Is it really just a coincidence that we have plunged to the bottom of the barrel in nearly all business-related rankings in only a generation? This corporate calamity could have and should have been prevented. We can and must do much better than this going forward in order to prevent killing our beloved state. State Sen. L. Scott Frantz represents the 36th Senate District, which includes Greenwich, New Canaan and Stamford. Greenwich police are joining a regional task force aimed at a criminal enterprise that is often hiding in plain sight human trafficking. A unit comprised of 16 officers from local and state police, under guidance from the Department of Homeland Security, is being set up to go after human trafficking in the state. The Greenwich Police Department is contributing personnel to the task force in the form of a police detective, and officers are also getting instruction on the criminal practice in which immigrants are coerced or forced into labor or sex at little or no pay. Trafficking rings can be difficult to investigate and prosecute, particularly when it comes to the crime bosses behind them, experts say. The nature of the crime means it typically crosses state or international borders. Language can create barriers and victims can be reluctant to cooperate. These are big, in-depth investigations, said Greenwich police Sgt. Mark Zuccarella, who is assisting with the task force. Now well have the expertise to handle it. While there have been no reported instances of human trafficking in Greenwich in recent years, authorities are quick to note that it could easily be taking place at the local level. I would like to think its not happening in town, but it could happen anywhere, said Zuccarella. We do have hotels, we do have migrant populations doing services. More Information The National Human Trafficking Resource Center Hotline can be reached at 888-373-7888. The hotline is run by the Polaris Project under a federal grant. Hotline operators are trained to identify potential trafficking situations, and will immediately refer tips to law enforcement. Individuals can also send an e-mail to NHTRC@traffickingresourcecenter.org. See More Collapse Shutting down prostitution rings and sexual slavery, especially among young people, is a top priority for the task force. But other forms of trafficking are also being targeted: domestic workers, kitchen workers or other service industry workers who are forced to work for no pay. Organized crime rings typically smuggle people to this country from abroad, then force them to pay off their debt, or they trick people into bondage-like labor conditions. The Internet has made it a lot easier, said Zucarrella. The Internet has broadened all this stuff. The officers working for the task force based in New Haven will bring the full spectrum of law-enforcement capabilities to bear: expertise in finance, computers, surveillance, telecommunications and foreign languages. Their mandate is to work in the state of Connecticut, though their federal affiliation with Homeland Security means they can follow leads to New York, Boston or other cities out of state. The state of Connecticut made trafficking a felony 10 years ago, but only 10 arrests have been made since then, and no convictions, according to a recent report made by researchers with a state commission on women. The report noted that female prostitutes bear the brunt of arrests and prosecution, rarely the organizers or the customers in the trade. Greenwich police Detective Charles Eible will be assigned to the task force on a part-time basis, and the commitment is open-ended. The Greenwich police department, which has committed personnel to a number of other specialized task forces, determined it was a worthwhile pursuit. Greenwich police made a prostitution bust at a spa on Mason Street in 2011, and police also made arrests at similar operations in Cos Cob and Old Greenwich in past years. Alongside contributing the personnel for the task force, Greenwich police are also being trained on the signs when people are forced into slave-like conditions, whether its in a private residence or a business or among a van load of workers driving off I-95. The task force has done a great job of enlightening local, municipal police officers about the bigger trends, and to be more watchful, said Lt. Kraig Gray. In addition to the new focus from law enforcement, the states Department of Children and Families has also created a Human Anti-trafficking Response Team. The team has gained additional staffing and resources aimed at eliminating commercial sexual exploitation of children in the state. Robert.Marchant@scni.com This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Staying true to its mission to eliminate racism, the YWCA held an event honoring Martin Luther King Day Thursday night. We are far from eradicating racism in our country, said Adrianne Singer, president and CEO of the YWCA of Greenwich. The event included a keynote address by Mark Christian, a professor of African American Studies at Lehman College, and the presentation of the YWCA Racial Justice Scholarships to Kyla Johnson and Cory Myrtil, both seniors at Greenwich High School. Government figures including First Selectman Peter Tesei, Sen. Richard Blumenthal and state Representative Fred Camillo also spoke to the audience. Christian began his talk by quoting the Martin Luther King, Jr. line, Ive decided to stick with love. Hate is too big a burden to bear. With that in mind, he made an effort to start on a positive note, end on one, and when he could, hed sprinkle more in between. I want to go beyond this weve got more work to do and focus on the present, now, said Christian to the audience of about 20. He displayed a PowerPoint of current issues, among them wealth disparities, climate change, urban poverty, and fear mongering. Christian occasionally veered into politics, at one point criticizing the conflation of ISIS and the Muslim religion. He called it a practice of scapegoating, or blaming a certain demographic out of an actual fear of something else in this case, he said, perhaps economic insecurity. Its not King-ish, Christian said, smiling. He also introduced Martin Luther Kings speech and sermon The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life as a way to think about the state of human relations in the United States. In Kings speech, the first dimension of life is its length, which is a focus on individual growth and upward trajectory. The second is the breadth, or where we come together, as a community, said Christian. And the third is height each individual should connect with your own god or spirituality of life, said Christian, who is religious himself (I am pretty Christian now, he said. I mean just look at my name.) Christian said the United States seemed to have the length of life well taken care of, but was lacking in breadth and height. There has to be greater opportunity for people to access the American dream its much harder than it used to be, he said. While Christian kept his speech to mostly national issues, Tesei, Blumenthal, and Camillo directed their talk to global matters. At a time of increasing senseless and horrific violence, the lesson of non-violence has extraordinary power, said Blumenthal. We see such extreme violence and disrespect for human life in the world and in this country, Tesei said. If for one moment each individual or group could be like MLK, think of how the world would be. No great idea moves forward without consensus, and likewise no great idea moves forward without a leader, said Camillo. Speeches, words, rhetoric, theyre all fine. But action is what counts, and leadership by example, thats how we live. Thats what he did, Blumenthal said, after awarding Johnson and Myrtil, both of whom had demonstrated community student activism, their scholarships. I am moved when I see young people care and act to bring change to their environments, Johnson said in her speech. It shows excellent wisdom and courage to see beyond circumstances and boundaries to try to design solutions to end injustice. SFoster-Frau@scni.com; @SilviaElenaFF After giving it a provisional nod back in October last year, UK's competition watchdog CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) has given a green signal to the BT-EE deal. Formally announced back in February 2015, the deal will see the British telecommunications giant acquiring UKs leading mobile carrier for a total of $19 billion (12.5 billion), creating a communications giant offering services like broadband, fixed-line, mobile, and TV. When CMA gave the merger a provisional nod last year, the watchdog said it'll publish a final report in January 2016. The only hurdle for the deal at that time was competitors' (Vodafone and TalkTalk) objection to BT retaining its Openreach broadband infrastructure service. However, the deal has been cleared without conditions. As one would expect, BT has welcomed the decision. "The combined BT and EE will be a digital champion for the UK, providing high levels of investment and driving innovation in a highly competitive market," said BT Chief Executive Gavin Patterson. "I have no doubt that consumers, businesses and communities will benefit as we combine the power of fibre broadband with the convenience of leading edge mobile services. I look forward to welcoming EE into the BT family." The company expects the merger to be complete in the coming weeks, following which it says EE owners Deutsche Telekom and Orange will have 12% and 4% of BT shares, respectively. A representative of Deutsche Telekom will also be appointed to the BT Board. Source 1 2 | Via Oppo F1 went official a few days ago and is already available in Vietnam. Oppo is also prepping a European tour in five countries to advertise the phone and meets with fans, bloggers and vloggers. Today Oppo announced the launch of the pre-order campaign for the Oppo F1 in Europe. The smartphone will set you back 229 and you will get a free Oppo Selfie Stick with each purchase. Note that Oppo will charge you 5 for the pre-order and will give you a 5 discount coupon code for the final payment. You should also be aware of the limited stock of the Oppo Selfie Sticks, so if you want to get the freebie, you should hurry up with your pre-order. The Oppo F1 is a 5" smartphone with an IPS 720p display, Snapdragon 616 chip with an octa-core processor and 3GB of RAM, LTE connectivity, 16GB expandable storage, and a 2,500 mAh battery. It has an attractive aluminum unibody painted in golden, and a 2.5D Gorilla Glass 4 screen protection. Finally, the Oppo F1 features a 13MP rear camera with a LED flash and a front 8MP selfie snapper with various software tweaks available for selfie fans. You can even use the screen as a flash in low-light scenes (it lights up at maximum in white for a second). You can place your Oppo F1 pre-order at the source link below. If you are interested in the Oppo F1 tour you can learn more details here. Source Xiaomi's exorbitant growth was bound to hit a wall at some point and this point was 2015, apparently. Falling short of even the most conservative forecasts, the company has only sold a total of 70 million smartphones, where initial expectation put the number in the 80 to 100 million range. That's still around 15% up from the 61.1 million units Xiaomi sold in 2014, but the growth is nowhere near the 227% the company registered in 2014, or the 160% the year before. However, it was unreasonable to expect the Chinese start-up, established in 2010, to be able to sustain such growth trends for more than a couple of years. The company's expansion to India in 2014 was undoubtedly a key factor in those 227%, but from now on moves to smaller markets with gradual growth in the double digits are perhaps the best the accountants can hope for. Source | Via Coming in the spring, Academy Award Winner Morgan Freeman will host and will executively produce a six-part global TV series. The Story of God with Morgan Freeman will air globally in the spring on National Geographic Channels in 171 countries in 45 languages, and in Spanish on Nat Geo Mundo. This TV series will address questions like who is God? Where did we come from? Why does evil happen? What happens when we die? The series will illuminate the remarkable similarities and differences among different faiths. "Over the past few months, I've traveled to nearly 20 cities in seven different countries on a personal journey to find answers to the big mysteries of faith," said Freeman. "I've sung the call to prayer at a mosque in Cairo, taken meditation lessons from the Buddhist leader of the oldest line of reincarnating Lamas, discussed Galileo with the head of the Papal Academy of Sciences and explored the first instructions for the afterlife rendered in hieroglyphs inside the pyramids. In some places I found answers, and others led to more questions. The constant through it all is that we're all looking to be part of something bigger than us. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that we certainly are." Each episode of The Story of God with Morgan Freeman is centered on a different big question about the divine: Creation - Are there similarities among the religious creation stories from around the world? How do they compare with the scientific theory of the creation of the cosmos and the dawn of civilization? - Are there similarities among the religious creation stories from around the world? How do they compare with the scientific theory of the creation of the cosmos and the dawn of civilization? Who Is God? - How has the perception of God evolved over human history? Is God just an idea, and if so, can we find evidence of a divine presence in our brains? - How has the perception of God evolved over human history? Is God just an idea, and if so, can we find evidence of a divine presence in our brains? Evil - What is the root of evil and how has our idea of it evolved over the millennia? Is the devil real? The birth of religion may be inextricably tied to the need to control evil. Miracles - Are miracles real? For many believers, miracles are the foundation of their faith. Others regard miracles as merely unlikely events on which our brains impose divine meaning. Belief in miracles, however we define them, could be what gives us hope and drives us to turn possibility into reality. - Are miracles real? For many believers, miracles are the foundation of their faith. Others regard miracles as merely unlikely events on which our brains impose divine meaning. Belief in miracles, however we define them, could be what gives us hope and drives us to turn possibility into reality. End of Days - Violent upheaval and fiery judgment fill popular imagination, but was the lore of apocalypse born out of the strife that plagued the Middle East two millennia ago? The true religious meaning of the apocalypse may not be a global war, but an inner revelation. - Violent upheaval and fiery judgment fill popular imagination, but was the lore of apocalypse born out of the strife that plagued the Middle East two millennia ago? The true religious meaning of the apocalypse may not be a global war, but an inner revelation. Resurrection - How have beliefs in the afterlife developed, and how has our reaction to the afterlife changed the way we live this life? Now that science is making such rapid advances, we may soon be confronted with digital resurrection. What will that do to our beliefs? To explore each of these topics, host and narrator Freeman went on the ground to some of humanity's greatest religious sites, including Jerusalem's Wailing Wall, India's Bodhi Tree, Mayan temples in Guatemala and the pyramids of Egypt. He traveled with archaeologists to uncover the long-lost religions of our ancestors, such as those at the 7500 B.C. Neolithic settlementCatalhoyuk in Turkey. He immersed himself in religious experiences and rituals all around the world, and became a test subject in scientific labs to examine how the frontiers of neuroscience are intersecting the traditional domain of religion. "As we put this series together, we sought answers to some of mankind's biggest questions, but in the end what surprised us most was to find how personal those answers were for each of us," said executive producers Lori McCreary and James Younger. "There is no wrong answer when it comes to God or what you believe, and we hope The Story of God will help open an interfaith dialogue about ideas and values that we all share, not that we disagree on." For more information on The Story of God with Morgan Freeman, visit www.natgeotv.com, our press room at FoxFlash.com or on Twitter using @NGC_PR. Tags : morgan freeman The Story of God with Morgan Freeman The Story of God with Morgan Freeman tv series faith tv Morgan Freeman news morgan freeman tv series of Australasias major lenders is facing a multi-million lawsuit after two dismissed traders claim the bank condones a culture of sex, drugs and alcohol among senior staff on the dealing floor, an accusation which the bank strongly denies.Former ANZ employee Etienne Alexiou was sacked by the bank for lewd and explicit communications via Bloomberg terminals now the Sydney-based businessman is suing for A$30 million and insisting the company has a highly toxic culture.In a separate claim, former senior bond salesmen Patrick OConnor is suing the bank after he was fired for running up A$37,000 of expenses in just 12 months a sum he reached after charging a myriad of personal expenses to the account, including rent, healthcare costs and A$18,000 worth of rare coins.ANZ has been quick to respond with the financial giants chief risk officer insisting inaccuracies would soon be revealed in court."Mr O'Connor and Mr Alexiou's claims are difficult to read for all of us at ANZ but common sense says their behaviours are not consistent with our code of conduct and cannot be tolerated," he said.Williams added that ANZ had "already identified that many of the allegations made in both claims are not accurate and these inaccuracies will become apparent as the matters proceed through the court system".Court documents filed by Alecious claim a senior ANZ markets trader said; "What a waste, it should have been sprinkled on a birthday cake," after a white substance" was found in the male toilet of the bank's dealing room floor.He says the culture on the dealing floor was in sharp contrast to the official code of conduct demanded by the bank and repeatedly accuses Eddie Listorti, the new acting head of global markets, as acting inconsistently with ANZs code of conduct.Alexiou also claims to have raised concerns about the banks conduct towards investors and clients on three separate occasions. According to his court statement, one included a potential breach of the Corporations Act.Meanwhile, O'Connor, a 10-year ANZ veteran, is demanding that either his job be reinstated, damages be paid in addition to his 2015 bonus of A$800,000 and reinstatement of his unvested shares, or he be compensated for his bonuses, shares, expenses, damages and the loss of future income. About the Journal The Journal of Commercial Biotechnology, in print since 2003, is the definitive international quarterly publication for life sciences business professionals. The Journal is designed specifically for those professionals who need to enhance their knowledge of business strategy and management, improve and advance their product development, or those who want to keep up-to-date with current issues and industry trends. Our focus is on the life science industries, e.g. biopharma (biotechnology & pharmaceuticals, MedTech and digital health; and on food and agricultural products and services to improve organisms. Each issue publishes peer-reviewed, authoritative, cutting-edge articles and perspectives (Biotechnology Industry Perspectives; and Bioentrepreneurship University Insights) written by the leading practitioners and researchers in the field. We publish both submitted and solicited articles (including special editions), addressing topics such as: Management, Leadership, and collaborative teams Commercialization, Marketing, and Innovation strategies and best practices Entrepreneurship, including education Policy Finance & transactions associated with founding, building, partnering and exiting Law, Intellectual Property, Regulation, Reimbursement Bioethics The Journal of Commercial Biotechnology is a unique forum for all those involved in life sciences commercialization to present, share, and explore new ideas, latest thinking and best practices, making it an indispensable guide for those developing projects and careers within this fast-moving and diverse field. New York (HedgeCo.net) After a tough year in 2015, the hedge fund industry was probably expecting outflows in January, but that is a seasonal trend any way. As investors rebalance portfolios and change their allocations, hedge funds usually see outflows during the month of January. However, the most recent report from the SS&C GlobeOp Capital Movement Index showed that the outflows werent as bad in January 2016 as they were in January 2015. The index shows an outflow rate of 2.77% which compares favorably to the 3.28% seen in 2015. From the companys press release: January typically sees the highest outflows of any month as investor rebalancing occurs, said Bill Stone, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, SS&C Technologies. This seasonality can be seen in SS&C GlobeOps Capital Movement Index for January 2016 which came in at -2.77% following a gain of 0.75% for December 2015. In terms of the year-over-year comparison, the -2.77% for January 2016 is an improvement over -3.28% for January 2015 , a favorable result particularly in view of recent market turmoil. In addition to the movement index, the company released the recent results for the SS&C GlobeOp Hedge Fund Performance Index for December and it showed a decline of 0.34%. Rick Pendergraft Research Analyst HedgeCoVest Soldiers of Odin is not: a racist organisation, a National Socialist movement, a drug ring, a motorcycle club, a criminal organisation, the originally Kemi-based organisation writes on Facebook. Soldiers of Odin, one of the organisations at the heart of the ongoing debate over civilian street patrols, has denied all racism allegations despite previously describing itself as an organisation fighting for white Finland. The organisation admits, however, that its founder espouses a National Socialist ideology and that some of its members have a criminal record. It is true that the founder of the club is a National Socialist in terms of his ideology. His writings do not speak for the organisation. Every individual has the right to write whatever they want and espouse whatever ideology they want, the organisation argues. It is also true that the club includes people with criminal records. A criminal record is something none of us can change, a part of the past. We can have a great effect on the future, it adds. Carl Haglund, the chairperson of the Swedish People's Party, and Ville Niinisto, the chairperson of the Green League, urged Prime Minister Juha Sipila (Centre) to explicitly denounce all racist street patrols, such as Soldiers of Odin, in a joint statement published on Wednesday. Sipila later declared to members of the media that there is no need for civilian street patrols in Finland. Soldiers of Odin currently describes itself as an immigration-critical, yet safety-oriented, club with an interest in street patrolling and as the eyes and ears of the police. We do not want to provoke anyone, but we want to make sure people are aware of us by being visible. We will help anyone, regardless of their ethnic background, it writes. The club members can defend themselves if necessary, as is appropriate. Soldiers of Odin also reminds that it can exercise the general right of apprehension, similarly to anyone else in Finland. MTV Uutiset was the first news outlet to report about the announcement by Soldiers of Odin. Aleksi Teivainen HT Photo: Minna Raitavuo / Lehtikuva Source: Uusi Suomi St. John dedicates cross honoring slave cemetery The Rt. Rev. Porter Taylor led the dedication service. FLAT ROCK The Rev. John Morton stood at the foot of a pine-covered slope and prayed for the souls that lay underneath plain fieldstones and unmarked crosses. Related Stories We honor them. We love them, he said. We wish we knew their names and were confident that one day we will. The occasion was the installation of a granite base and six-foot-tall cross memorializing the slaves and freedmen buried in the cemetery at St. John in the Wilderness in Flat Rock. Crane operator Tim Roberts, of Jims Crane Service, slowly lowered the three-ton base into place and then maneuvered the cross onto a square with two holes for the bolts. Stonemason Nelson Motes and his son, John, guided the cross into place. I had it quarried and I finished it, said Motes, a St. John parishioner who operates a granite countertop business in Zirconia. I created the size and shape that you see. It started out as a flat piece of stone 16 inches thick and roughly 3 feet by 6 feet. From there its just making a cross out of it and making it work. Make it work he did. A crowd of St. John parishioners looked on. Many of them had worked on the project for two years. Others were Flat Rock history enthusiasts. The St. John Historic Churchyard Committee received a $6,000 grant from the Foundation of the Episcopal Diocese of Western North Carolina to help fund the project. Historic Flat Rock, Inc., the Historic Churchyard Committee at St. John and private donors also contributed. Motes had the granite quarried from Elberton, Ga., then set to work with chisels, cutters and pneumatic drills. Most of the graves contain slaves and servants whose names remain unknown. Until 1971, they were marked by simple fieldstones. That year parishioner Clyde H. Bloehorn installed 60 hand-made crosses. Forty-four years later, the crosses had fallen into disrepair, and the parish wanted to do more to honor the occupants. Church records identify 19 slaves or servants buried in the cemetery, from the households of Flat Rock residents and church founders with familiar Charleston and Flat Rock names: Mr. and Mrs. Molineaux, Dr. King, W. Cuthbert, Judge King, R.J. Middleton, E.L. Trenholm, Mrs. Reed, H.L. Farmer, Jas. R. Pringle. The dead ranged in age from infants to 85, buried from 1836 to 1881. Its estimated the slave graveyard has about 100 graves but no one knows for sure. The church will dedicate the cross at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 10, in a service that the Rt. Rev. Porter Taylor, Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Western North Carolina, will attend. Its hoped that descendants of slaves in the cemetery will be invited to attend. The Irish flag will be flying high at the Oscars next month after our home-grown talent was rewarded with a record nine nominations. Leading the charge and hoping to take home the gold is 21-year-old star Saoirse Ronan, who received her second-ever Academy Award nomination for her acclaimed role in Brooklyn. The delighted actress described it as "the most personal film I have ever done". "When we made Brooklyn, we had no idea of what was to come," she said in a statement yesterday. "I am honoured to represent this film with my friends - John, Nick, Finola, Yves, Colm, Amanda. This has all been a dream. To see how the film has been embraced has been heart-warming. Thank you so very much to the Academy - you are a group of people I respect greatly and to be recognised by you means so much. Thank you." For the first time in years, next month's star-studded ceremony on February 28 will see two Irish-funded independent movies competing for a precious golden statuette in two of the biggest categories. Ronan's movie, set in 1950s' New York, also received a nod in the coveted Best Picture category, going up against another Irish film, Room. Debut Dublin director Lenny Abrahamson will make his Oscar debut after being nominated in the Best Director category for his work on the novel by Emma Donoghue - who got the Best Adapted Screenplay nod. Ronan will be hoping to snatch the Best Actress gong from Room star Brie Larson while Donoghue will be fighting it out with Nick Hornby in the Screenplay category. Kerry's finest export Michael Fassbender will be hoping to take home the gong he was denied for 12 Years a Slave after he was nominated for Best Actor for his role as Apple boss Steve Jobs. His date for the night will be his Swedish girlfriend Alicia Vikander, who was nominated in the Best Supporting Actress for her stint in The Danish Girl. In other Irish hopes, Benjamin Cleary has been nominated in the Best Short category for Stutterer. Meanwhile, writer Donoghue, whose best-selling novel prompted her to write the screenplay, said she celebrated her nomination with a pastry. "I'm not a drinker, so I bought my favourite French pastry. I bought two of them and I thought, 'I can always console myself with them if there's no joy,'" she said. She was on live radio when the good news of her nomination first broke. "I haven't had a chance to ring any human being. I've been on the phone doing interviews. There's no time for dancing in the streets with champagne bottles. "I was talking to BBC Radio 5 and I was on standby for the interview and they played the nominations, so it was bizarre." She said that her partner Chris had to calm herself down in the run-up to the announcement of the 88th Academy Award nominations by doing yoga poses on the floor. Reacting to the news, the Irish Film Board have described it as a "golden age for Irish film". Children who discovered the body of murder victim Alan Desmond took camera-phone pictures him, but for days were too afraid to tell gardai about their gruesome find, an inquest into his death has been told. One mother said that the children were afraid they would be in trouble if they contacted gardai. Denise Warner told Dublin Coroner's Court that her 11-year-old son returned from playing in fields with friends at Killinarden Hill in Tallaght on May 18, 2013 and said "the man is still lying there". The body of Alan Desmond (37) of Kilclare Avenue, Tallaght, was discovered among shrubs and undergrowth in fields to the rear of a secluded, abandoned farmhouse located about 800m off a country lane. The victim's sister, Denise Desmond, said she had visited the site where her the body was found a number of times since. "I've been up there, I go up there every anniversary," she said. Alan Desmond's last known movement was to leave the home he shared with his mother at Kilclare Avenue on April 29, 2013 at about 10pm. Playing Denise Warner told Coroner Dr Brian Farrell that her son returned from playing in the fields at Killinarden Hill around 8.35pm on Saturday May 18. "He said a friend had taken pictures on her phone. He said they'd seen him (the deceased's body) the previous Wednesday but were afraid to ring the guards in case they would be in trouble," she said. Ms Warner said she explained to her son that the dead man's family would want to know where he was. She phoned Tallaght Garda Station and Gda Brian O'Connor, who was on patrol in the area, called to her home and asked her son to show them what he had seen. Denise Desmond asked Ms Warner from the public gallery if her son was okay. She wept as Ms Warner explained that the boy was fine, he had tough days but had received counselling. Det Insp John Walsh said Mr Desmond's body was found in undergrowth around two miles from his home. Gardai believe he was killed at the scene. More than 100 statements were taken and over 300 lines of enquiry followed, but Mr Desmond's murder remains unsolved. "His phone deactivated on May 2 and we believe he was deceased prior to that," Det Insp Walsh told the court. Asked if there were any threats to Mr Desmond's life, Det Insp Walsh replied "not that we are aware of". The victim's identity was confirmed using fingerprint technology as a visual identification was not possible, the court heard. The cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the back of the head from what is believed to have been a handgun. No murder weapon has been found and the coroner appealed for anyone with information to come forward. The jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing by a person or person's unknown. A roofer has been found guilty of scamming 3,000 from a frightened 84-year-old woman for unnecessary work at her northside cottage. John McCarthy Jnr, aged 21, was convicted of theft from Kathleen Byrne on November 3 2014, a charge he had denied. He faced trial at Dublin District Court, during which the pensioner said she was intimidated and brought by the roofer to the her local Post Office to withdraw the cash from her savings. Cottage An engineer also told the court the work McCarthy said he would carry out at her Raheny cottage was not needed. The court heard he claimed he went to a building supplier a 15-minute drive away, but after two hours he had still not returned. Judge John Brennan said that it was a "quite despicable" act. Ms Byrne, he added, was a vulnerable 84-year-old woman living on her own and had 3,000 extracted from her in circumstances where no documentary evidence - such as receipts or quotations - were provided to her, which he imagined would be normal for responsible businesses. He also said she was not given any time to consider her options and she was "ferried" to the post office to get the money. Judge Brennan adjourned sentencing until a date in March to allow for a pre-sentence probation report on McCarthy as well as a victim impact statement to be prepared. The court heard Ms Byrne lived in a thatched cottage, which also had a flat roof over extensions to the property. She told prosecuting solicitor Stephanie O'Brien that "two well-dressed lads" arrived and she thought they were "good fellas". They said her roof was dirty and mossy, and offered to clean it for 120. She told them they could clean the roof. After about 20 minutes the defendant came down and told her "the whole roof is broke, you can see the boards and the felt is gone". At first she was quoted 2,000, then the price went up to 3,000, and then to 4,000 to replace the roof. She said she could not afford that. Money McCarthy - with an address at The Lane, College Farm, Newbridge, Co Kildare - said he would bring her into Raheny Post Office and she got into his van and he drove her. When she came back from the Post Office and got into the van again, she was asked: "Did you get the money?". She handed over the 3,000, which the man counted. Ms Byrne said she was driven back to her house and when they arrived the men said the work was done, "but it was not done. I looked behind me and they were gone". She said two other men were left working on the roof, and that she had been confused and upset and intimidated. Two foreign men had been left working on the roof with blow torches and could not answer when asked questions. News that the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission has been trawling through my phone records, and those of another journalist, not only angers me, but should anger all those who believe in free speech. I consider it an attack on me as a private citizen, on my livelihood and my right to work. People have a right to bring complaints to GSOC, and I have no problem with that - but the manner in which GSOC go about their business is something that now has to be questioned. After all, it was a mighty high horse they straddled and preached from two years ago when they had suspicions that their own phones were being tapped by gardai. Personal But that doesn't seem to have stopped them picking through my phone records, pulling out the personal numbers of my family and friends, putting two and two together and getting eight. We have to stand up to practices that feel like they belong in East Berlin in the 1950s, not just as journalists but as a people who believe in a free press. The right of a journalist to protect their sources is one that has been defended for as long as printing presses have been stamping ink onto newspapers. In any democracy there is a need for press freedom to inform the public of what is going on in the world. Sometimes it is straightforward. You report what you see, what witnesses and spokespersons tell you, and the information that comes from official press offices or the emergency services. Other times it is more complex. People may have information that they know is in the public interest but they want to remain anonymous to protect their personal safety, their job, a relationship or a reputation. The job of a journalist is to take this information when it is supplied to them, verify it independently and possibly print it if it is indeed in the public interest. The assurance that is given is that the journalist won't reveal the source. It is a relationship built on a trust that journalists have gone to prison to defend in the past. Recently I received information that my mobile phone, and possibly an email account, were accessed by GSOC as part of their investigations into a complaint made by a member of the public. The person claimed a member of the force gave the media information about him. On the face of it, it appears that the garda watchdog accessed my phone records for a period of time in 2013 and picked through every telephone number I was in contact with, or who was in contact with me, and then went through a process of finding out from all these numbers who might have supplied me with information. Spotlight The time and money spent on this task must have been enormous. On any day I make and receive scores of calls on my phone both in work and in my personal life. All of these numbers must have been investigated by GSOC, teased out, examined, identified, checked and labelled. My wife's, my parent's, my brother's, my sister's and everybody else's numbers had the heat of a GSOC spotlight on them for all I know. One of the first things that struck me on hearing that my phone records may have been accessed, was just how paranoid GSOC must be. First, they assumed someone had supplied me with information that might concern this member of the public. Secondly, they jumped to the conclusion it was a garda. I know gardai. I know gardai not only because I deal with them every day of the week through work, but because I have friends who are gardai. I know lots of other people too. People from all walks of life. I have a life outside of work, as does everyone, and I have friends outside of work, as does everyone. Some of my friends are gardai, an organisation I have massive respect for - my grandfather was a garda who joined the force as it was being first established. What annoys me most is that friends of mine have been contacted by GSOC for no more reason than their phone numbers were on my phone, and they have been asked questions. Am I living in a modern progressive democracy, or am I living in some sort of Communist regime where Big Brother is monitoring my phone and email and at any moment I might get a tap on the shoulder from some sort of Stasi officer? Tap Worse still, could any of my friends or family get a similar tap on the shoulder to be asked to explain why they know me and what we have discussed in the past? And where does the ability of journalists, not just me, in doing their job lie in the light of all of this? Who will contact a journalist if they think that, despite an assurance from the reporter that they will remain anonymous, GSOC or some paranoid busybody could start trawling the journalist's phone looking for them, wondering what they had for breakfast? Maybe that would suit the State - a distrust between the public and journalists. Maybe now I have to resort to disposable mobile phones, multiple SIM cards, pay-as-you-go anonymity - just like Nidge, Fran and Elmo in Love/Hate - just like a common criminal. More than 60pc of all households are now paying their Irish Water bill, the company has claimed. New figures show that some 110m was collected in water charges for the first nine months of billing, with 61pc of customers now paying their bills. This compares with 44pc after the first three months of billing, and 55pc after six. Some 928,000 people have now paid part or all of their bills, with 98,000 paying the charge for the first time in the last three months. The company said that the money would help fund works totalling 522m across the network this year. "Total revenue from charges paid to date by domestic customers is 110.8m," Irish Water said in a statement. "Revenue received during the third billing cycle was 42.3m, an increase from 38m in the second billing cycle and 30.5m in the first billing cycle. "Overall, payment levels from bill cycle three therefore show both an increasing number of customers now paying water charges, and increased revenue received to help fund the repair and improvement of water services." Figures However, anti-water charge TD Paul Murphy said the figures did not confirm that 61pc were paying. "In fact, the figures they provide confirm nothing of the sort," he said. "They simply provide the figure that 928,000 people have paid at least some of their bill. That figure is utterly worthless - because it includes those who paid the first bill and then joined non-payment, and those who paid the first and second bill and then joined non-payment. "While Irish Water claims that 98,000 people paid bills for the first time in the third billing period, they don't tell us how many who had previously paid stopped paying? Therefore, we simply don't know whether the number who paid the third bill increased or decreased, or what percentage paid," he added. He said that people continued to boycott the charging system, and the strength of opposition meant that "huge pressure" would be exerted on the next government to abolish bills. Right2Water protests are scheduled for January 23. A Labour Party minister has reacted angrily after he learned of a significant jobs announcement in his constituency just hours before it took place. Minister for Drugs and Equality Aodhan O Riordain is understood to have become incensed after he was only told of an event to announce the creation of 450 jobs in East Wall at 8.30pm on Wednesday. Mr O Riordain was unable to attend the event because it clashed with the launch of a new programme in Dundalk Institute of Technology aimed at preparing frontline workers to recognise and respond to domestic abuse. It's understood the Dublin Bay North TD was left furious when he learned of the jobs event, which was attended by Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Jobs Minister Richard Bruton. No Labour politician was at the Irish headquarters of the firm Oracle. Mr O Riordain is believed to have told officials in the Tanaiste's office that the short notice period was "unacceptable". Focus He is also believed to have questioned whether he was "deliberately kept out of the picture". Coalition sources last night suggested that it was the responsibility of the Tanaiste's office, and not officials in the departments of Jobs and An Taoiseach, to inform Mr O Riordain. A Fine Gael source told the Herald: "Our focus is on ensuring jobs be created more than anything else. We are delighted that over past four years, 135,000 jobs have been created - that's where our focus is." Almost 50 Irish teens, some as young as 12, had their social media photos hijacked and posted on an international porn site with claims several even had their photos traded online. A major Garda investigation is under way into the image-harvesting scam, with a senior detective confirming that they were now following a definite line of inquiry as to the individual who uploaded the private images. The IP address used to upload the photos from social media pages to the international porn site was traced to Ireland and the individual - who operated by the nickname 'Irish Exposed' - showed a preference for young girls with Irish social media accounts. 'Sickening' One young Dubliner, Lizzy Ryan (19), who had eight friends exploited by the site, said she found it "sickening" that some people were now attempting to blame the innocent teens for what happened. Lizzy, from Templeogue, said it was "very disturbing" that clear preferences were shown on the site for the social media photos that depicted young girls. "I find it appalling that some people out there are actually victim-blaming. I think it is sick that some people are trying to focus the blame on the people whose images were taken, rather than those who were exploiting," she told the Herald. "It is weird how people are out there saying: 'It is their fault'. It is absolutely nothing to do with the girls involved." She said several of her friends had been traumatised by what happened though, luckily, her own social media photos were not uploaded. "It is exactly the same as breaking into someone's home and stealing their printed photos," she told the Herald. Many of the photos were taken from private social media pages - and it remains unclear how 'Irish Exposed' gained access to the images. Another teen, Katie Kirwin (19) from Cork, admitted she found some of the vile comments on the site about the photos to be "sickening and quite alarming". Katie had virtually all her social media photos harvested without her permission and displayed on the porn site. The greatest number of comments and hits were recorded for the photos taken when she was aged just 14 and 15. "It is really quite worrying. Of course, you'd be concerned about who has looked at those photos and who has attempted to download and store them," she said. Innocent Katie pointed out that all the images were innocent social shots with none being provocative or risque in any way. "Virtually all my photos are of just my face. In many cases, they are the face of a 14-year-old and 15-year-old child," she said. Katie has now lodged a formal complaint with gardai over what happened. In one case, a porn site user queried where he could find more images of a specific girl. An appeal for information yesterday on the scam via Cork radio stations, RedFM and 96FM, shocked gardai when it emerged that almost 50 Irish teens had been targeted, rather than the 25 initially suspected. Thursday night's debate underscored that the competition between Trump and Cruz will be rough-and-tumble in the days leading up to the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses, a shift from the relative civility that's defined their relationship until now. The candidates tangled over Cruz's eligibility to serve as commander in chief and the real estate mogul's "New York values," with Trump besting his rival with an emotional recounting of his hometown's response to the Sept. 11 attacks. "When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York," Trump said. "That was a very insulting statement that Ted made." Trump renewed his suggestion that Cruz may not be eligible to serve as commander in chief, saying the senator has a "big question mark" hanging over his candidacy, given his birth in Canada to an American mother. Cruz suggested Trump was only turning on him because he's challenging for the lead in Iowa and the businessman agreed. Thursday's debate was one of the last high-profile opportunities other candidates on stage had to sway voters' views. But none appeared to emerge with a breakout moment. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who holds a slight advantage over the field of more mainstream candidates, found himself in heated exchanges with both Cruz and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Rubio likened Christie's policies to President Barack Obama's, particularly on guns, Planned Parenthood and education reform an attack Christie declared false. Seeking to undermine Rubio's qualifications for president, Christie suggested that senators "talk and talk and talk" while governors such as himself are "held accountable for everything you do." Cruz confronted Rubio late in the debate over his support for a Senate bill that would have created a pathway to citizenship for people in the U.S. illegally, an unpopular position among GOP primary voters. Rubio tried to flip the criticism around on Cruz, accusing him of switching positions on immigration himself, as well as on numerous other issues. "That is not consistent conservatism," Rubio said. "That is political calculation." Cruz was also on the defensive about his failure to disclose on federal election forms some $1 million in loans from Wall Street banks during his 2012 Senate campaign. He said it was little more than a "paperwork error." Rubio and Christie are among the candidates seeking to break out of the establishment pack, particularly in the New Hampshire primary, which quickly follows the leadoff Iowa caucuses. The race in Iowa has settled into a tight, two-way contest between Trump and Cruz. Thursday night's debate came at the end of a week that has highlighted anew the deep rifts in the Republican Party. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a rising GOP star, was widely praised by many party leaders for including a veiled criticism of Trump's angry rhetoric during her response to Obama's State of the Union address only to be chastised by conservative commentators and others for the exact same comment. Trump said he wasn't offended by Haley's speech and argued his anger is justified. "I'm very angry because our country is being run horribly," he said. "And I will gladly accept the mantle of anger." Trump also stuck with his controversial call for temporarily banning Muslims from the United States because of fear of attacks emanating from abroad. He said he had no regrets about the proposal and noted his poll numbers went up after he announced the plan. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who has emerged as a frequent critic of Trump, urged the front-runner to reconsider the policy. "What kind of signal does that send to the rest of the world?" said Bush, who has struggled to gain any momentum in the race and often appeared overshadowed Thursday night. Ohio Gov. John Kasich also broke with Trump on the Muslim ban, but like the entire GOP field, called for at least a temporary halt on the Obama administration's plan to allow thousands of Syrian refugees into the country. "I've been for pausing the Syrian refugees," Kasich said. "But we don't want to put everybody in the same category." On the economy and national security, the candidates agreed any of them would be better than Obama or Hillary Clinton. "On Tuesday night, I watched story time with Barack Obama, and it sounds like everything in the world was going amazing," Christie said. Bush suggested the country was less safe under Obama and declared Clinton would be a "national security disaster." Rubio went even further, saying Clinton was "disqualified for being commander in chief," accusing her of mishandling classified information and lying to the families of Americans killed in the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya. Ben Carson, who has fallen behind his rivals despite being well-liked among Republican voters, generated laughs after joking about having to wait nearly 15 minutes to get his first question. "I was happy to get a question this early on," the retired neurosurgeon said with a big smile. Tighter rules for Thursday's debate, hosted by Fox Business Network, resulted in a smaller cast of candidates in the main event. Businesswoman Carly Fiorina was bumped to the undercard event, as was Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, though he chose to not participate in the early evening contest. Toward the end of the debate, a handful of audience members in the hall broke out into a "We want Rand" chant. Republicans have one more debate scheduled a Jan. 28 event in Des Moines before voting begins in Iowa. ___ Pace reported from Washington. AP writer Steve Peoples contributed to this report. ___ Follow Julie Pace on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jpaceDC and Bill Barrow at http://twitter.com/BillBarrowAP Once again, the United States is subject to mass hysteria about the possibility of an imminent attack by Islamic radicals. This time, the reason for fear is not an attack on our country, which killed more than 3,000 people, but one in Paris, France, which killed about 130. The fear and paranoia is being manifested by the media, presidential candidates and other politicians sounding the alarm and calling for action against terrorists. The measures proposed range from sending thousands of troops back to the Middle East to fight ISIS, to calling for a ban on admitting Syrian refugees. More extreme measures are being urged by some. These include registering all Muslim-Americans with the government, closing down or spying on mosques, or even limiting the size and number of public events. Considering the recent violence in our country, whether a gunman in Colorado killing people at a Planned Parenthood facility, a boy in South Carolina killing people attending church, or the parade of unarmed suspects being shot down by police, here are a few statistics to keep in mind. Since 9/11, twice as many people in America have been killed by extremists like white supremacists as have been killed by Islamic radicals. In the past 14 years, 26 people in the U.S. were killed by Islamic radicals. In the same period, more than 30,000 children were killed by firearm violence. The likelihood of an American being killed by a police officer is more than 50 times higher than the likelihood of being killed by a terrorist. Psychologist Daniel Freeman defines paranoia as the inability to correctly assess risks. Please keep that in mind next time you hear people calling for extreme, un-American actions to combat radical Islamic terrorists. Harry Donald Wilson Jr. Honaker, Virginia Halloween is coming! Here's when to trick or treat in your town lifestyle Game on! IU to resume series with Kentucky starting in 2025-26. Kentucky coach John Calipari confirmed at SEC media day the two schools have agreed in principle to restart their annual regular-season series. LOS ANGELES (JTA)-The prevalence of transgender issues in pop culture seems to have reached a pinnacle this year. Caitlyn-nee Bruce-Jenner appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair. The movie "Tangerine," which stars transgender actors, took film critics by storm. Director Tom Hooper's "The Danish Girl," currently in theaters, tells the story of one of the first sex-change operations. And the second season of Amazon's Emmy Award-winning "Transparent," about a Jewish family coming to terms with their father's decision to become a trans-woman, was released to raves on Dec. 11. At the same time, the Jewish community is coming to terms with how to include transgender Jews in synagogues, workplaces, schools and summer camps. In November, for example, the Union for Reform Judaism unanimously passed a "Resolution on the Rights of Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming People." It points out past efforts to include transgender people-the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion admitted its first openly transgender rabbinical student in 2003-but concludes "there is more work to be done to make our Movement and our society fully inclusive of transgender and gender non-conforming people." According to a recent Pew poll, nearly 90 percent of Americans say they personally know someone who is lesbian, gay or bisexual. However, according to a recent Harris Poll, only 16 percent of Americans say they personally know someone who is transgender. "That means that for 84 percent of Americans, everything they know about transgender people, they learn from the media," said Nick Adams, director of programs for transgender media at the LGBT media advocacy organization GLAAD and a transgender man. "For the past 60 years, trans characters have been portrayed as either psychotic killers, as in 'Silence of the Lambs,' or the butt of jokes, as in 'Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.'" But that's changing. Now a host of pop-culture offerings explore transgender issues, including Netflix's new sci-fi thriller series "Sense8," which was created by transgender filmmaker Lana Wachowski and her brother Andy, and stars transgender actress Jamie Clayton. The long-running CBS soap opera "The Bold and the Beautiful" introduced a transgender plotline this year in which the lead model for a fashion company, Maya Avant (played by Karla Mosley) is outed as transgender. The show also includes transgender actor Scott Turner Schofield playing the recurring role of Nick, a transgender man and Maya's friend. "Only very recently have film and television portrayals of transgender characters begun to move beyond these offensive, defamatory stereotypes," Adams said. "I do believe that shows like 'Sense8,' 'Transparent' and 'The Bold and the Beautiful' are allowing viewers to develop a greater understanding of the transgender experience." This gradual "mainstreaming" of transgender issues has had a profound effect: Research indicates that increased awareness of transgender issues may also lead to more legal protections. More than two-thirds of residents in every state support transgender non-discrimination laws, according to a new study by researchers at the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, even though not every state has passed them. In this spirit, the issues that transgendered people face are increasingly addressed within a Jewish communal context, too. "The more it's been talked about in popular culture, there has been more willingness of families and parents to try and understand when their child presents differently than 'the norm,'" said Rabbi Denise Eger, the founding rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood and a longtime LGBT rights activist. "We're able to talk about it now earlier, before kids go through puberty, because we're listening to the voices of our children, we're listening to the voices of our families in our congregations, and we're able to provide resources." The Orthodox LGBT group Eshel is making inroads among more traditionally observant Jews. The group consults with Orthodox rabbis, holds Shabbat retreats for LGBT people and provides support for Orthodox parents struggling to accept their child's gender or sexual identity. "The rabbis of the Talmud were way more comfortable identifying and talking about a spectrum of gender identity than rabbis are today," said Miryam Kabakov, co-executive director of Eshel. "We try to remind them of that." Many Jews looking to bring transgender education to their community are turning to the Institute for Judaism, Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity at HUC-JIR. Its director, Joel Kushner, trains seminary students and consults Jewish institutions on helping transitioning youth and adults feel welcome. Kushner said the higher visibility of transgender issues in pop culture is emboldening trans people to "come out" and be spokespeople for the cause. "The calls that I get are almost always spurred by real-life situations that someone is faced with, and they're looking for help," Kushner said. "They've been made aware by 'Transparent' and all that, and I think it moves them a little bit to take more action because it has become more prevalent, like in 'Orange Is the New Black' [featuring Emmy-nominated transgender actress Laverne Cox]. I was getting the calls before, but it's almost like the popular culture references have given those who want to do this in their communities a little bit more support or latitude." But not all Jews are so eager to embrace transgender inclusion. Earlier this month, conservative radio host and columnist Dennis Prager published an incendiary column in The Jewish Journal titled "The Torah and the Transgendered" on Dec. 4, and a follow-up, "The Hate Is All in One Direction" on Dec. 11. In his first column, he warned against "dropping the Torah and substituting compassion as standards" for accepting transgender people in our congregations, suggesting that "we are creating a Brave New World in which definitions of male and female no longer have meaning" and that "we are playing with fire and that future generations will pay a big price for this unprecedented experiment." The reaction from the Jewish community was swift and uncompromising. In the pages of The Jewish Journal, Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center lambasted Prager's "public display of ignorance and willful misreading of Jewish texts, primarily the Torah." Rabbi Heather Miller of Beth Chayim Chadashim, an LGBT Reform synagogue in West Los Angeles, wrote to Prager that "the type of shaming and verbal violence you inflict through the power of your pen and spoken word kills." Others pointed out in letters published in the Jewish Journal that the Mishnah and Gemara acknowledge six different genders that include male, female and various combinations of the two, and that the Torah is hardly as narrow-minded as he portrays it to be. Prager also singled out one transgender rabbi in his column: Rabbi Becky Silverstein, director of education at the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, who was raised female but identifies and presents as a transgender male. "Obviously the congregation and the rabbi believe that the Torah's view on gender distinction is irrelevant," Prager wrote. Silverstein told JTA he feels supported by his congregation and the larger Jewish community, before and since the column was published. He sees the debate over transgender Jews as a natural progression of the efforts to make gay and lesbian Jews feel included, and part of a wider conversation about gender identity made visible through popular culture. "I'm sure there were folks struggling with these issues privately" before it became a mainstream topic of discussion, Silverstein said. "We know that before [the Jewish Theological Seminary] ordained lesbian and gay rabbis, there was a secret society of lesbian and gay rabbis who met and talked each other through being closeted. So these institutions existed, but certainly not in the public eye." As transgender people become more accepted in traditional Jewish spaces, Silverstein expects that many gendered Jewish rituals will be reconsidered, from allowing people to self-identify their side of the mechitzah, the divider separating the men's and women's sections of the synagogue, to the inclusion of a female-to-male person in an Orthodox minyan to the pronouns used to call someone to read from the Torah. Ultimately, Silverstein said, recognizing these distinctions can benefit everyone. "If we can master nuance in different narratives of the trans community, certainly we can recognize nuances in different people's journeys throughout our community, whether they relate to gender or other things," he said. The Rohr Jewish Learning Institute (JLI) will present The Jewish Course of Why, the institutes new six-session winter 2016 course that will begin during the week of Feb. 7, 2016 Rabbi Yossi Hecht, director of The Chabad Jewish Center of Ocala and The Villages will conduct the six-course sessions at The Chabad Jewish Center 10:45 a.m.-noon on Sundays, starting Feb. 7 and at The Lady Lake Community Building noon -1 p.m. on Mondays, starting Feb. 8. No religion is known for its rational basis and its welcoming of questions and intellectual debate quite like Judaism, explained Rabbi Zalman Abraham of JLIs headquarters in Brooklyn. In preparing for the course, we turned to over 30,000 people who each submitted their biggest questions about Judaism. We then selected the most popular among them and addressed each one with resonant insights from the greatest minds in Jewish history. The Jewish Course of Why spans a diverse range of topics, from fun, light, and off-the-beaten-track questions, to more complex and controversial issues. Some of the courses 50 questions include: Why are there so many Jews in Hollywood? Why do Jews eat gefilte fish and cholent and wish each other mazal tov and lchaim? Why does the Bible sanction slavery and animal sacrifices? What is the cause of anti-Semitism? What does Judaism say about Christianity and about the role of women in Jewish life? In addition to the above, the course offers insight into mysterious Jewish practices, strange biblical narratives, and enigmas of Jewish identity. Were excited to be offering this fun and dynamic learning experience here in Ocala and Lady Lake, said Hecht. The Jewish Course of Why gives our participants the opportunity to expand their Jewish knowledge and intellectualize their Judaism by exploring rational insights into the most intriguing questions that Jews have today. Like all previous JLI programs, The Jewish Course of Why is designed to appeal to people at all levels of Jewish knowledge, including those without any prior experience or background in Jewish learning. All JLI courses are open to the public, and attendees need not be affiliated with a particular synagogue, temple, or other house of worship. Interested students may call 352-291-2218 or visit http://www.myJLI.com for registration and other course-related information. On Dec. 21, 2015, Florida became the fifth state in the nation to introduce a landmark resolution to confront the anti-Semitic BDS movement. Building on the nationwide momentum created by Tennessee, legislators in Florida have decided to confront this growing threat as well in 2016. Numerous efforts have increased to boycott Israeli political leaders and businesses. Also, the number of anti-Semitic attacks against Jewish and pro-Israel students on university campuses continues to grow nationwide and in Florida specifically. Parents, students and grassroots activists in the sunshine state are increasing pressure on their state legislators to publicly condemn this anti-Semitic movement by adopting Tennessees landmark resolution. Florida and Israel have enjoyed a long history of friendship and are great allies of our shared Democratic values, stated Proclaiming Justice to the Nations (PJTN) Board Chairman Stanley G. Tate, of Miami, who was instrumental in the early development of the Florida Prepaid College Program where he served as chairman of the Foundation from 1987 to 2005. Tate worked closely with Florida State Senator Miguel Diaz de la Portilla (R - Miami) and State House Representative Lori Berman (D-Lantana) in drafting SR 1184/HR1001, a bi-partisan resolution to condemn the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement and halt the increasing incidents of anti-Semitism on Florida campuses. BDS is an international anti-Israel, anti-Zionist propaganda campaign and by extension, an anti-Semitic and anti-Jewish campaign. The BDS movement calls for: Boycotting Israeli products, academics, and cultural leaders. Pressuring companies to stop doing business with Israel and divesting from companies that do business with Israel. Sanctioning Israel for its legitimate self-defense measures to protect Israelis of all ethnicities from terrorism, and Hamas rocket/missile attacks. The BDS campaign was started in 2005 by 171 Palestinian non-governmental organizations in support of the Palestinian cause for boycott, divestment and international sanctions against Israel. Citing a body of UN resolutions and specifically echoing the anti-apartheid campaigns against South Africa, the BDS campaign called for various forms of boycott against Israel until it meets its obligations under international law. During a recent interview for an upcoming documentary exposing the BDS movement, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz stated, So what does BDS stand for? Bigoted, Double Standard. That is what BDS is all about. It is bigoted because it focuses only on the nation state of the Jewish people, and it applies a double standard to the nation state of the Jewish people. Mr. Dershowitz went on to say, The General Assembly of the United Nations has issued more declarations against Israel than all the rest of the nations in the world combined. Bottom-line... the BDS movement promotes the delegitimization of Israel with the stated goal... to eliminate the State of Israel, utterly and completely. The president of PJTN, Laurie Cardoza-Moore, stated, unfortunately, now the president of the United States has joined the growing chorus of global voices calling for boycotting Israel. His past treatment of Israels PM and his absence during Netanyahus address before both houses of Congress in March of 2014 and his recent endorsement of labeling products manufactured in Judea and Samaria further lends legitimacy to the BDS movement and anti-Semitic attacks. Obamas despicable action of boycotting Americas only legitimate ally in the Middle East threatens to further isolate and demonize Israel. The time has come for elected state leaders to step forward and condemn the hate speech and targeting of pro-Israel and Jewish students on college campuses that has been fueled by the BDS campaign. The incidents of anti-Semitic attacks in general, and against Jewish students on college campuses specifically, have seen a dramatic increase over the last several years. In closing, Cardoza-Moore stated, The recent Florida resolution can serve as a positive example and concrete model of a firm step that other state legislators can take as we begin to expose the malicious intent of the BDS campaign and confront it head-on! With 70 percent of Americans supporting Israel over the Arab-Israeli conflict, I am calling on Christians, Jews and people of conscience to add their voices to this groundbreaking initiative by contacting PJTN.org and launching this initiative in their states. Its time to confront these anti-Semites head-on! RAANANA, ISRAELMore than 2.5 million tons of edible food, with a market value of NIS8 billion (roughly US$2 billion) is wasted in Israel annually, according to an inaugural report, Food Waste and Rescue in Israel: The Economic, Social and Environmental Impact, released today, Jan. 6, 2016, by global consulting group BDO Ziv Haft and Leket Israel, the national food bank. The report, the first of its kind in Israel, highlights the economic, social and environmental benefits of rescuing unused food for the more than two million Israeli citizens living below the poverty line. BDO applied a unique model that evaluated the loss of food in Israel throughout the chain of value: from agriculture to packaging, industry, distribution, and ultimately the consumer. Through percentage of loss they evaluated the extent of rescued food translated into economic terms. The findings of the report also revealed that in total NIS18 billion worth of food was wasted in Israel in 2015 alone, a figure that represents 1.6% of the national GDP. Accumulated food loss during all stages of the chain of value is 85kg per household, value at NIS 616. About 75% of the food loss, in quantitative terms, is the loss of fruits and vegetables. According to the report, NIS 3 billion worth of food rescued annually is what is needed to bridge the gap between the normative expenditure of the general population and those suffering from food insecurity. In laymens terms, NIS3 billion is what is needed to turn the food insecure population from insecure to secure. Meaning, the rescue of 600,000 tons of food, constituting just 25 percent of all food waste in Israel and valued at NIS 3 billion, would address this food consumption gap. Food rescue is clearly preferable compared to the alternative of attempting to bridge this food insecurity gap by means of allocations, donations, subsidies or support for the needy. Leket Israel is meeting this need by distributing over 30 million pounds of produce and manufactured perishable goods annually. Today, with the assistance of donations and 58,000 annual volunteers, Leket Israel operates the countrys foremost food rescue organization by reclaiming and distributing over a half million pounds of nutritious food every week to benefit Israels poor. The research demonstrates the significant economic and social impact of food rescue to Israels national economy. Rescuing 25 percent of food waste translates to a savings of NIS 3 billion, equivalent to the food purchasing gap between the food insecure and food secure, said the CEO of Leket Israel Gidi Kroch. The cost of such food rescue is 75% lower than the alternative of providing support, subsidies or allowances to the needy, and additionally offers significant environmental benefits. The revelations of this report are proof of the benefits, successes and overall impact of food rescue initiatives. This must be acknowledged by the Israeli Parliament as well as the leadership of other countries and serve as motivation to adopt such initiatives on a national scale, urged Kroch. Even modest gains at cutting waste dramatically improves societal conditions, and does so at a relatively low cost. The price of adopting a food rescue program is significantly less expensive than the many social welfare programs being used all around the world. Lack of food rescue is a result of a market failure, whereby perception is that food rescue has no cost-benefit to the national economy. Here in lies the dissonance because, the market price of the lost food does not reflect the value of the food when it is transferred to consumption of the food-insecure population. In addition to that, food-rescue has socio-environmental contributions, and therefore the benefits of food rescue to the economy is significantly larger than the market price of the food saved said Chen Herzog, Chief Economist of BDO Consulting Group at BDO Ziv Haft Israel Kroch concludes that the report proves it is possible and necessary to increase substantially the volume of food rescue in Israel. Currently, Leket Israel aims to increase the volume of food rescue at least 300% by 2020. Reaching this ambitious a goal requires support from policymakers in Israel and a number of measures which will not cost the country a single shekel. Some of the steps involve legislation: Setting a National target for food rescue, which will determine a reduction of 50% in food loss by 2030, according to the principles formulated by the United Nations and adopted by the US government and European countries in September 2015. Completion of the legislation encouraging saving surplus food similar to the Good Samaritan Law in the United States. Imposing a food rescue requirement on government agencies and funded bodies. Requiring organizations funded by the state to enter into contractual agreements with recognized food rescue organizations (including security agencies, army, government corporations, etc.). Leket Israel-The National Food Bank is the leading food rescue non-profit organization that rescues fresh, perishable food, which would otherwise be considered waste, from farms, hotels, military bases and catering halls in an effort to aid the quarter of the countrys population that lives below the poverty line. The organization works with 190 non-profits throughout the country to distribute nutritious food to over 140,000+ Israelis weekly. Last year alone, Leket collected over 25 million pounds of food for the needy. For more information, please visit http://www.leket.org. Link to the English executive summary: http://leket.org/english/text/1523.aspx. PARIS (JTA)-Last year may have been traumatic for France and its Jews, but it was a pretty good one for Rudy Abecassis. In a year that began with the Charlie Hebdo shooting and the subsequent killing of four at a kosher supermarket in Paris, Abecassis, 32, a Marseille-born computer specialist who moved to the Paris region in 2009 to find work, had a good job at a time of rising unemployment. The income was sufficient that his wife, Emilie, was able to quit her secretarial job after the birth of their second child over the summer. The couple shared a spacious apartment in Bussy-Saint-Georges, a middle-class suburb that has been spared the anti-Semitic violence prevalent in other areas around this city. Yet on Dec. 27, Abecassis and his family left behind their comfortable lives and moved to Israel, joining nearly 8,000 French Jews who immigrated to Israel in 2015. "We're not fleeing," Abecassis said last month, as he and his family prepared to spend their last night as Parisians on an inflatable mattress in an otherwise empty home. "Our lives here have been good and we love France for it. We're leaving with sorrow, but we want to live in a Jewish country of our own, where we are not outsiders who need to be tolerated." French immigration to Israel, or aliyah, has rocketed to record levels over the past three years as the country has confronted rising anti-Semitism and a series of attacks that claimed nearly 150 lives in Paris in 2015. But while violence against Jews is often identified as the major driver of French aliyah, many immigrants cite a broader mix of reasons for choosing to leave, including Zionist sentiment and alienation from an adamantly secularist society increasingly intolerant of the religiously devout. "The reality is more complex than the narrative according to which French Jews are leaving in record numbers because they're feeling threatened by their Muslim neighbors," Daniel Benhaim, France director of the Jewish Agency for Israel, the quasi-governmental body responsible for facilitating aliyah. Benhaim cites as evidence the fact that a majority of French Jewish emigres come from middle- and upper-class areas with little anti-Semitism. Only 15 percent are from poor areas with large Muslim populations and a high incidence of anti-Jewish attacks-a result, Benhaim said, of a reluctance to forego France's generous social welfare benefits. "Those who leave can afford to let go of the French welfare system," Benhaim said. "Mostly they live where anti-Semitic attacks are relatively rare, and in many cases, anti-Semitism is not a primary catalyst for moving but a sort of a background presence." For religious Jews, France has become a less welcoming nation in recent years. Confronted by the struggle with radical Islam, the nation's well-established policy of public secularism has grown even more stringent, with heated debates on pork-free menus in school cafeterias and heightened criticism over municipal funding for Jewish institutions. Abecassis told JTA that he refrains from wearing a yarmulke in public-not out of fear for his physical safety, but because doing so would be "out of place, almost defiant." Others say they feel socially excluded because of their faith. "I see how the guys at work look at me, with my beard and kippah," said Eran Azoulay, who immigrated to Israel with Abecassis and 15 others on Dec. 27 as part of the newly launched French aliyah program of the Jerusalem-based International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. "They're not going to invite me to the pub after work. I am living in a bubble because I'm religious, and Israel's the only place where I can step out of the bubble." To French Jews who live in more violence-prone areas, the aliyah spike feels like a kind of capitulation. Prosper Ovadia, 63, the owner of a single-chair barbershop in Paris' 10th arrondissement, a crime-stricken area with a large Muslim and African population, said he refuses "to run away from the scum who are trying to throw me out." Still, Ovadia concedes it would be unwise to forego the $1,500 he receives monthly in welfare benefits. "Anti-Semitic attacks or not, I can live with dignity here," Ovadia said. "Not in Israel." Despite its difficulties in competing with the French welfare system, Israel has received record numbers of French immigrants since 2013, when 3,000 Jews moved to Israel. The following year, the number more than doubled to 7,238, an all-time high that made France for the first time the Jewish state's largest source of immigrants in any given year. France maintained that distinction in 2015 with 7,900 emigres. Abecassis says he and his wife never even contemplated leaving before 2012, the year their eldest son, Noah, was born. It was also the year an Islamist killed four Jews at a Jewish school in Toulouse, prompting the government to post armed guards at Jewish schools. Abecassis realized he had to choose between sending his son to a Jewish school guarded by a soldier with a machine gun or a secular public school. "We're not really afraid he'll be shot," Abecassis said. "Statistically, Israel is more dangerous. We just wanted him to grow up like a normal Jewish French kid, as we had." The United States reportedly eavesdropped on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials in part because of the Iran nuclear deal. WASHINGTON (JTA)-At first blush, it appears like a bombshell: The United States listened in on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's phone calls. But on closer examination, the revelations reported Dec. 29 by The Wall Street Journal might not be so far reaching. Spying on allies is both routine and legal in the United States, though perhaps not very politic. Here's what the controversy is all about and what may happen next. What exactly did the Obama administration do? According to the Journal, the National Security Agency eavesdropped on Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, in part to assess whether Israel planned to strike Iran and to track the prime minister's efforts to scuttle the emerging nuclear deal with Iran. In the process, conversations between Israelis and American lawmakers and Jewish organizations were swept up by NSA surveillance. The Obama administration did not directly order those conversations be monitored, but neither did it prevent the listening-in. "We didn't say, 'Do it,'" a senior U.S. official told the Journal. "We didn't say, 'Don't do it.'" Isn't spying on foreign leaders routine? Yes and no. The Journal reported that the NSA asks presidents whether they want information on foreign leaders, allied or not. Obama, apparently like virtually all his predecessors, gave the nod. But after documents released in 2013 by Edward Snowden showed the NSA had been eavesdropping on the cellphone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Obama suspended the practice for much of the NATO alliance. Kept on the list: Netanyahu and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president. Netanyahu stayed in part because of concerns he would strike against Iran without warning the Americans-a move that would have had far-reaching consequences for U.S. interests-and because he was actively rallying Congress, Jewish community leaders and others against the emerging Iran nuclear deal. How did Jewish groups wind up getting snooped on? The NSA is prohibited by law from monitoring Americans without a warrant. But when U.S. citizens in contact with foreigners are spied on incidentally, the information doesn't have to be trashed as long as their identities are obscured-a process known as minimization. That's how the Obama administration wound up with reports on meetings between Israeli officials and members of Congress and Jewish organizational leaders. Several Jewish groups-including the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League and the Zionist Organization of America-were troubled by the revelation, even if they weren't entirely surprised by it. "It's obviously deeply disturbing and highly problematic, but frankly not entirely surprising," said David Harris, the American Jewish Committee's executive director. "We have always assumed it's what various governments, for a variety of reasons, tend to do." Jewish groups weren't likely to be shocked because they've been caught up in government surveillance before: The case against two former staffers for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, launched in 2004 and scrapped in 2009, arose because the staffers were swept up in U.S. government tracking of Israeli diplomats. For this article, AIPAC declined to comment and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations did not return a request for comment. What about lawmakers caught up in the sweep? Reactions among members of Congress, predictably, divided along partisan lines. Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., the sole Jewish Republican in Congress, called for an investigation, saying the Journal report suggested "laws were broken." House Republican leaders wrote the NSA demanding paperwork that would show the rules of minimization were observed. GOP presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Ben Carson all said the matter deserved greater scrutiny. "Instead of focusing on deterring the Iran nuclear threat and fighting against the mullahs who chant 'Death to America,' President Obama has treated Israel, our staunch, democratic ally in the Middle East, as his real enemy," Carson said. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told the Journal that in general "we haven't had a problem with how incidental collection has been handled concerning lawmakers." Schiff, who like others on the committee would likely have seen some form of the NSA reports, could not be reached for comment. Doesn't Israel also spy on the United States? Israel ostensibly swore off spying on the United States in the wake of the arrest of Navy civilian analyst Jonathan Pollard. Yisrael Katz, Israel's intelligence minister, said Wednesday that Israel does not spy on the United States and expects the same from Washington. But if the Journal report is accurate, that isn't quite true. According to the Journal, soon after Obama assumed office, Unit 8200, the Israeli military's eavesdropping unit, gave the NSA hacking software that the agency later discovered allowed 8200 to "poke around U.S. networks." Will there be political fallout? On Capitol Hill, not likely. For all the Republican calls for an investigation, curbing spying-even on an ally-runs the risk of being cast as soft on national security in an election season now increasingly focused on the threat of terrorism. As CNN has noted, the GOP congressional leadership has been muted about the affair. But the revelations are certain to complicate recent efforts by Obama and Netanyahu to smooth over their differences exacerbated by the Iran deal fight and the failed bid by Secretary of State John Kerry to restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. So who gets to say 'I told you so'? AIPAC. For years, the prominent pro-Israel lobby's leaders have repeatedly advised the Israelis to allow the group to lead advocacy on the Iran issue. The fact that the Israelis were aggressively advocating on their own appears to have handed the U.S. security apparatus a legal path to monitor efforts to derail the deal-and perhaps to preempt them. Had AIPAC led the effort, that wouldn't have been possible, since the deliberations would have been legally out of bounds for U.S. eavesdroppers. "I would bet that AIPAC's leaders recognize, consciously or unconsciously, that Israel's engagement in this way was inappropriate," said Steven Aftergood, who directs the Federation of American Scientists project on government secrecy. "And because it was inappropriate, it was likely to be counterproductive." The latest explosion of populist conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia has effectively produced a temporary Middle Eastern Arab alliance with Israel. The common threat of Iran has united the Saudi Arabia aligned Arab world, placing nation after nation on Israel's side in the issue of the security of the Middle East. This security alignment between Israel and the Arabs is besides the Israeli economic and cultural presence that is growing throughout the Arab World and the potential for cooperation expansion in all three areas. With the cross between populist economic cooperation and strategic cooperation that is part of the Iran Nuclear Deal, the West largely falls on the side of Iran. Additionally, the West has been vocally against the severing of diplomatic ties between Iran and the Arab nations that have affected such breaks. This vocalization is in favor of Iran as such a tactic has been employed against the Iranian government. The latest conflict was sparked by the announcement on Saturday, Jan. 2, 2016, that the government of Saudi Arabia had executed 47 people on charges of terrorism. One of the executed was Shia Muslim cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, with a violent anti-Saudi reaction ensuing in Shia Muslim majority Iran. On the night after the execution announcement, the Saudi Embassy in Iran's capital, Tehran, was sacked and burned. With the Iranian authorities accused of allowing the attacks, on the morning of Jan. 3, the day after the embassy storming, Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties with Iran, beginning a cascade of nations doing some form of the same. These nations notably include Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Sudan, and Djibouti as of Jan. 7, 2016. International observers have expressed deep "concern" at this diplomatic component of the conflict, although potent and violent protests continue from Washington, D.C., to the small Arab island nation of Bahrain. Many of the most violent protestors have been on the side of Iran, and in Iran proper, anti-Saudi protestors burned Israeli flags, as reported by the Boston Globe on Jan. 3. The Iran/Saudi Arabia conflict has polarized the Middle East in a new way. The nations aligned with Saudi Arabia are effectively aligned with Israel as well, creating a security favorable environment for the Israelis in the Arab World, potentially as a fallout from the Iran Nuclear Deal. Saudi Arabia never deeply supported the Deal, as it created an influx of money that strengthens Iran, a power threat to the Saudis. Israel never supported the Deal either because of security concerns, so lately therefore the same alignment as was present behind the Iran Deal has come out in the open once more. There are other back stories to the current Arab alignment with Israel as well. After the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) General Debate in early fall 2015, Bahrain was first noted by Global News Breakdown as effectively easing relations with Israel. This was partially in the context of the Iran Nuclear Deal, as the Bahraini foreign minister expressed extreme distrust at the United Nations with the Agreement, stating that it "does not touch on real problems of the region." The core of their UNGA statements was substantively against Iran as an entity, not just against the Nuclear Deal. Soon after the UNGA General Debate, a Hanukkiah was publicly lit in Bahrain for the first time ever, injecting the important element of populism to the Israel/Bahrain relationship. Turkey recently made the appearance of making well with Israel over their mutual row from the Israel Defense Forces 2010 Gaza flotilla interception, Turkey being aligned with the Saudis against Iran as of late as well. On Nov. 27, 2015, the Financial Times carried the story, "Israel to open diplomatic mission in UAE," which, as reported by the Times, comes after a long period of intense enmity between the two states. Besides these reports, the UNGA General Debate where Bahrain made their statements against Iran was also the opportunity for other Arab nations to voice similar accusations against Iran as a threat to security and to express populist tension because of Iranian President Rouhani's perceived wrongful placement of blame for the 2015 Hajj Disaster on the Saudi authorities. The newest realignment of the Middle East against Iran gives Israel the opportunity for increased political and security cooperation with their Arab neighbors. With the hatred of Israelis so pervasive still among Islamist elements in the Arab world, widespread populist level economic or societal cooperation is yet to have a major inroad, but the ground is made ready for expansion in all three areas through the security alignment against Iran. Caleb R. Newton is a global affairs analyst living in Central Florida and the founder of Global News Breakdown. Find him at Global News Breakdown, Dissecting Society, and the Times of Israel. Contact him at calebrnewton@globalnewsbreakdown.com. Mr. Gill (an alias to protect his family still in Pakistan) was marked for death. His crime? Being an outspoken Christian in his native Pakistan. Miraculously, he escaped to America, learned English and now is not only surviving but thriving while waiting for political asylum so that he can bring his wife and children to Orlando. In a rare public appearance, Mr. Gill will share his personal story at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church on Saturday, Jan. 23 from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. He will also share why a fatwa (a death sentence) was issued against him, his observations on the refugee crisis, and why our politicians and clergy must speak out publicly against Christian and Jewish persecution. In addition to the talk, there will be a Pakistani dinner prepared by Mr. Gill. The cost for the evening is a $20 donation to support the third annual 2016 Prayer March For Persecuted Christians and Jews, which will be on April 17, 3:30 p.m. at Lake Eola. All students attending this event will be admitted free of charge. Prince of Peace Lutheran Church is located at 1515 S. Semoran Blvd., Orlando. The dinner event will be held in the Family Life Center. The talk is sponsored by Burning Bush Ministries. For more information or to RSVP, call or email Rev. Bruce and Barbara Lieske at blieske7@bellsouthnet or 407-461-2944. The Jewish National Fund (JNF) will host its first ever Orlando Gala and Backstage Tour at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016, to honor Jim Pugh and Chuck Steinmetz with Lifetime Achievement Awards for their dedication to the Orlando community and JNF. Guests will be treated to a an exclusive backstage tour of the newly opened Center as well as a special performance by Davis Gaines, who has performed as the Phantom in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical "The Phantom of the Opera" more than 2000 times, on Broadway, in Los Angeles, and in San Francisco. The Lifetime Achievement Award is bestowed on exceptional and senior community leaders who, throughout their life, have become a symbol of Jewish and non-Jewish philanthropy and tzedakah through giving back to their community. "We are thrilled to be honoring Jim Pugh and Chuck Steinmetz this year. Both are respected leaders in the Central Florida community, both are strong business leaders, and both have been, and continue to be, major philanthropists," said Deborah Meitin, JNF Orlando Board president. "The location of this special event couldn't be more fitting as both Jim and Chuck were essential in making the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts a reality," said Laura Abramson, JNF's director of Orlando. Pugh serves as the chairman of the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts and is the owner and chairman of Epoch Residential, a multi-family housing developer based in Florida. Under his guidance, Epoch developed over 37,000 housing units in 56 cities across the U.S., which has led the company to being recognized as one of the top 50 multi-family housing developers in the nation. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Holocaust Memorial Center in Orlando, and in the past has served as a member of the Board of Directors for the Lou Frey Institute of Politics and Government, chairman of the Investment Advisory Council of the Florida State Board of Administration, and a member of the President's Advisory Committee on the Arts at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. A Florida native, Steinmetz currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts and the past owner of Middleton Pest Control and All America Termite and Pest Control companies. Under his ownership, Steinmetz's companies grew to become successful businesses with branches in over 10 U.S. states. He has previously served as chairman and CEO of the Orlando Science Center and on the Crummer Board of Overseers at Rollins College's graduate business school. He has been the recipient of numerous awards for his work on pest control, including being named Entrepreneur of the Year by Inc Magazine in 1992, and receiving the Pest Control Technology Profession of the Year award in 1996. The Orlando Gala and Backstage Tour will take place on Feb. 16, 2016 at 6 p.m. at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, located at 445 South Magnolia Avenue in Orlando. Sponsorship information and tickets are available online at jnf.org/theatergala. For more information on this event or ways to get involved with JNF in Orlando, please contact Laura Abramson at labramson@jnf.org or 407.804.5568. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (l) meets with King Salman of Saudi Arabia on Sept. 3, 2015, in Washington, DC. Some experts are linking Iranian-Saudi tensions to the U.S. pullback from the Middle East region and the Saudis' belief that America doesn't have their back. Amid heightened tensions between the two most powerful Muslim nations in the Middle East, experts say the loudest sound might be American silence. Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a Shi'a Muslim dissident who was arrested in 2012 by Saudi authorities, was one of 47 men executed on Jan. 2 by Saudi authorities in the largest mass execution in decades. While nearly all of the 47 men killed had ties with Sunni Muslim terror groups like Al-Qaeda and Islamic State, the inclusion of al-Nimr set off outrage in Iran, which views itself as the protector of Shi'a Muslims, with the potential of exacerbating deepening sectarian tensions throughout the Middle East. "Surely, martyr #SheikhNimr will be graced by God & no doubt Divine revenge will seize oppressors who killed him & it is the point of relief," Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wrote in a scathing message on his Twitter account following the execution. The next day, Iranian protesters stormed the Saudi Embassy in Tehran over the execution. This led several Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, to cut or downgrade diplomatic ties with Iran. Other Arab allies of Saudi Arabia, such as Jordan and Egypt, have also denounced the attack. Nevertheless, despite backing opposing sides in conflicts in Syria and Yemen, with the latter involving direct Saudi involvement against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, the current tensions have not yet led to direct military confrontation. "The most significant outcome would be if the recent diplomatic tensions would be spill over into violence," Dr. David Andrew Weinberg, a senior fellow and expert on Saudi Arabia and Gulf states for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, told JNS.org. With Saudi Arabia and Iran possessing two of the most powerful militaries in the Middle East outside of Israel, direct military confrontation appears unlikely for the time being, especially with low oil prices affecting their national budgets. But Weinberg pointed to a number of indirect scenarios that could develop. "I think the real question from here is whether pro-Iranian terror groups in places like in Iraq or Bahrain carry out terrorist attacks like they have pledged to do so if the cleric was executed," Weinberg said. "Or, if there could be sustained unrest in Saudi Arabia's eastern provinces that affect oil exports or military confrontation in Persian Gulf waterways." Despite being the de facto leader of the Sunni Muslim world and home to Wahhabism, a fundamentalist Sunni ideology that has inspired terror groups like Al-Qaeda and Islamic State, Saudi Arabia also has a significant Shi'a Muslim minority community (around 10-15 percent of the population), mainly found in its oil-rich eastern provinces and located close to Iran. Tensions between the two Saudi Muslim communities date back centuries, and many Shi'a Muslims today complain of discrimination, poverty, and marginalization within Saudi society. Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, who had spent time studying in Iran, had become an advocate for Saudi Arabia's Shi'a minority, while also being critical of the Saudi monarchy and even espousing anti-American rhetoric, according to a 2008 State Department assessment of al-Nimr that was released by WikiLeaks. While Weinberg called the Saudi decision to include al-Nimr in the mass execution a "reckless decision," he sees the move as part of a more assertive foreign policy under King Salman, at a time when the U.S. has pulled back from the region. "I think the U.S. has been relatively disengaged on things that the Saudis care deeply about, like the Syrian civil war and the removal of President Bashar al-Assad as well as efforts to push back on aggressive actions of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in the region," Weinberg said. "The Saudis are inclined to lash out because they don't feel America has their back," he added. Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council think tank, echoed Weinberg's assessment, arguing that the Obama administration is breaking with decades of U.S. policy to support its regional allies such as Saudi Arabia. "The silence out of the White House is deafening," Berman told JNS.org. "In the past, the U.S. would have pushed back against Iran." Berman attributed America's relative silence on the Iranian-Saudi tensions to fear that putting too much pressure on Iran would give the Islamic Republic an excuse to back out of the nuclear deal, something that President Obama has said is a defining moment of his presidency. "The nuclear deal was originally supposed to have concessions from both sides, but now it is looking much more lopsided. The Iranians can do whatever they want, because if they (the U.S.) pushes back, the Iranians can just walk away from the nuclear deal," Berman said, adding, "For the Gulf states, this is a very teachable moment. They used to rely on the U.S. to back them and to assert order. However, they increasingly can't expect that." The move by Saudi Arabia may also have been a preemptive one, as Iran is set to receive a major infusion of cash through $150 billion in sanctions relief as well as increased trade and foreign investment. The sanctions relief comes despite Iran's continued violations of international sanctions. In October, Iran test fired its Emad ballistic missile in defiance of international sanctions against its ballistic missile program. A United Nations Security Council panel in December said that the test violated a Security Council resolution. The Emad missile is an intermediate-range ballistic missile that has a claimed a range of up to 1,000 miles and is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, according to U.S. officials. Despite the violation, the Obama administration has held off on new sanctions, with the international community preparing to lift sanctions on Iran as part of the nuclear agreement reached last summer. For Israeli leaders, the Obama administration's position on the recent Iranian-Saudi tensions may not come as a surprise. Both Israel and Saudi Arabia came out strongly against the White House's push for the Iran nuclear deal. The two countries have also been more quietly critical of Obama's stances during the Arab Spring, such as not supporting longtime ally Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak during his ouster in 2011, as well as Obama's warm overtures to Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood party, which rose to power after Mubarak. Additionally, personal tensions between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been well-documented, with the two leaders not seeing eye to eye on a host of regional issues from the peace process to Iran. "If I were an Israeli leader, I would sense that at least on a tactical level, there is more room for dialogue with the Saudis than before because they aren't feeling protected by the United States," Berman said. "I think Riyadh (the Saudi capital) and Jerusalem have been left out in the cold with U.S. reconciliation with Iran," he added. Despite the diplomatic moves and harsh rhetoric, the tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran have yet to spill over into direct or indirect military confrontation. Nevertheless, Saudi Arabia's increasing anxiety over an emboldened Iran may continue to fuel greater sectarian tension and conflict in the region. "Iran, with the nuclear deal, is increasingly on the march, and it is now a question of whether anybody is going to push back," Berman said. NEW YORK (JTA)If you want to understand why the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, or BDS, has gained so much ground in the past two years, look no further than intersectionality, the study of related systems of oppression. Intersectionality holds that various forms of oppressionracism, sexism, classism, ableism, and homophobiaconstitute an intersecting system of oppression. In this worldview, a transcendent white, male, heterosexual power structure keeps down marginalized groups. Uniting oppressed groups, the theory goes, strengthens them against the dominant power structure. As you might have guessed, the BDS movement has successfully injected the anti-Israel cause into these intersecting forms of oppression and itself into the interlocking communities of people who hold by them. So its increasingly likely that if a group sees itself as oppressed, it will see Israel as part of the dominant power structure doing the oppressing and Palestinians as fellow victims. That oppressed group will be susceptible to joining forces with the BDS movement. At Columbia University, Students for Justice in Palestine managed to form an alliance with No Red Tape, a student group fighting sexual violence. What does opposing sexual violence have to do with Israel and the Palestinians? The way that No Red Tape conceives of sexual violence is a form of oppression that is related... to other forms of oppression, said one group member. Sexual violence is a deeper political issue, and it cannot be divorced or separated from other oppressed identities, said another No Red Tape member. Intersectionality with the anti-Israel cause, unfortunately, has not been limited to groups working against sexual violence at Columbia. The anti-Israel website Mondoweiss recently declared that since Mike Brown was shot by police in Ferguson ... solidarity between the Black Lives Matter and Palestine movements has become an increasingly central tenet of both struggles. Other examples of groups and causes intersecting with BDS supporters abound, both on and off campus. While anti-Israelism has long found a sympathetic ear among segments of the far left, it has not, until recently, enjoyed much popularity among ethnic minorities. Moreover, until recently, BDS supporters probably werent organized enough to do the necessary outreach to and stewardship of fellow marginalized groups. Now, evidently, they are. While he never uses the term intersectionality, Mark Yudof, president emeritus of the University of California system and chair of the recently established Academic Engagement Network, which aims to fight anti-Israel sentiment on campus, ominously describes efforts to connect the dots and co-opt the language of human rights. The BDS movement is moving to integrate itself with nearly every progressive campus cause, Yudof said. In other words, intersectionality with anti-Israel forces is not just some faddish academic theory bandied about by radical academics and sociology majors. BDS supporters are building alliances, and using those relationships as an opportunity to sell their cause. Much more than a theoretical framework, intersectionality is a comprehensive community relations strategy. Nor will intersectionality remain primarily a campus phenomenon for long. Yudof worries that future leaders of America will be viscerally anti-Israel because of the distorted discourse on todays campuses. He points out that what happens on campus never stays on campus. Indeed, the growing acceptance of intersectionality arguably poses the most significant community relations challenge of our time. Ultimately, how popularand threateningintersectionality becomes depends on the degree to which the far left, constituting about 10 percent of society, is successful in inculcating its black-and-white worldview, simplistic perspectives and resentment toward those perceived as powerful with the mainstream left. But we can influence the direction of this discussion. Publicly attacking intersectionality and its adherents is not likely to do much damage. To the contrary, calling out Israels detractors can paradoxically have the effect of popularizing their views and bringing them further into the mainstream. Rather, the Jewish community and especially, the Jewish community relations movement, must do more to establish our own intersectionality with groups on the mainstream left, which is not nearly as prone to radical currents. Strengthening ties to these more moderate groups will erect a firewall between the far left and mainstream left on Israel, making it far less likely that the latter will ever take the bait from the BDS movement. To do this, we need to understand the various issues and causes of the groups that make up this segment of the population, and make common cause whenever possible. Promoting Israel alone is not going to cut it because the various groups will have no reason or incentive to join forces with us. Just as BDS supporters embrace the agendas of the groups they seek to persuade, we must work on issues our key partners deem important. We may not be able to discredit intersectionality with Israel across the board, but we can limit its reach. David Bernstein is president and CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the representative voice of the Jewish community relations movement. Follow him on Twitter @DavidLBernstein. A year ago today (Jan. 7, 2016), the world was stunned by the events unfolding in Paris. First, brothers Sherif and Said Kouachiboth masked, dressed in black, and armed with Kalashnikov assault riflesforced their way into the editorial offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine, killing 12, including staff members, security personnel, and a guest. The next day, a lone gunman armed with a pistol and a machine gun shot several people in a Paris suburb, killing a policewoman. And the following day, while the brothers were engaged in an 8-hour standoff with police, gunman Amedy Coulibaly took several people hostage at a kosher supermarket in Paris, demanding the Kouachi brothers be allowed to go free. Coulibaly killed four hostages before commandos stormed the supermarket, killing him and freeing 15 other hostages. The motivation for the interconnected crimes became clear when officials listened to the testimony of witnesses who had heard the gunmen shouting We have avenged the Prophet Mohammed in Arabic. Charlie Hebdo, a satirical publication, had often featured unflattering cartoons of Mohammed. The brothers, both Islamic extremists, were voicing their outrage with their targeted murders. And a sympathizer was coming to their defense with a hail of bullets in a Jewish grocery store. Now, we have seen more heinous attacks by radical Islamistsin France, in Mali, in California, and elsewhere. These attacks have become all too familiar. Yes, they outrage and grieve us. But surprise at such acts of violent extremism ceased long ago. In Israel, we have lived with them for many years. And now, the rest of the world is coming to knowsadlythe reality Israelis face every day. In the wake of the San Bernardino shooting, and similar attacks throughout the world, I fear all of us are losing our surprise at such violence in the name of extreme Islamist ideals; this violence has become business as usual. My friends, the battle against this extremism is not just Israels battle. It is our battle. Let us pray for the day when the free world will unite, with firm resolve, to fight it. And let us pray for the day when God will bless His world with the most precious gift of shalom, peace. Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein is the founder and president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. A video showing young and religious Israeli menalong with at least one enthusiastic old mandancing at a wedding and celebrating the killing of an Arab family has gone viral. Its not dancing of the ballroom kind familiar in the better circles of the West, but men only jumping up and down to the beat of music, along with words that urge violence toward Israels enemies. Women may be doing something similar in another room, but outside the range of this video. Its the kind of dancing common at religious weddings, but here with the celebration of killing Arabs. The reaction to the video has been a campaign, almost wall to wall from various elements of the Israeli establishment against Jewish extremists. Also in the air are claims, most prominently by religious settlers, that the Shin Bet is violating the rights of young men implicated in the murder, by denying them access to attorneys and torturing them, including rape by sodomy. One rabbi has said that the wedding video was fabricated by Shin Bet. Shin Bet personnel and leading officials up to the Prime Minister deny those charges, and say that the Shin Bet is operating within the provisions of law, which allow extraordinary measures, as approved by a judge, in extraordinary circumstances. Officials are explicit in denying the claims of extreme torture. The concept of torture is one of the vaguest in the language, whether English or Hebrew, and lends itself to assertions with a strong taste of politics. An Israeli Supreme Court decision permitted moderate physical pressure under special conditions. One can also argue at length about that designation. We are also hearing of Shin Bet focusing on an underground movement that calls itself revolt, which seeks to replace existing Israeli institutions with a Judaic monarchy. Observers compare the Jewish extremists to the Muslims of Islamic State. Both base their movements on religious doctrines, have Rabbis or Imams who interpret the doctrine to encourage actions against outsiders (Arabs and Christians in the case of Jewish extremists), and employ secretive, autonomous cells that operate according to common themes, but without a strong central leadership. The Ashkenazi chief rabbi, David Lau, has said that what the extremists preach is not Judaism. Muslim religious authorities have said that the barbarism of the Islamic State is not Islam. Jews and Muslims can argue about the Judaism or the Islam that they prefer, but both are stuck with doctrines authored over the centuries that advocate deadly violence. Security personnel note the difficulties in getting evidence to bring forth indictments against those they are sure were involved in the burning of an Arab house and other crimes. Young people have been trained how to resist interrogation, and their level of religious intensity is high. Religious social scientists who have studied the movement note that it is not easy for them to penetrate. Among their findings is that it has recruited boys and young men who rebelled against their families, left home and school, and were vulnerable to something that offers comradeship and an attractive message with a high spiritual component, a clear notion of who are the enemies and what should be done. Family members of those accused and others in the religious settler community claim that the young people are innocent, and have alibis. Some claim that the Shin Bet and other security services have no business going after Jews, who may be a bit extreme but are serving the sacred goal of doing what they think is necessary to protect the Jewish nation. A primary worry of those concerned about extremism is that they will get their hands on a military missile--stolen from an IDF base by soldiers who have joined them--and use it against a Muslim site on the Temple Mount. That would escalate Israels problems beyond anything yet experienced. The issue has opened a rift within Jewish Home. Party leader Naftali Bennett is calling the extremists terrorists who must be dealt with as terrorists. Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel, is demanding the closing of Shin Bets activities against Jews. Some are predicting a split in Jewish Home, with Bennett seeking his future in Likud, or joining with Likud dissidents trying their luck in creating a new party. The issue is more fundamental than one or another politicians future. Jewish Home derives from the National Religious Party, with its long history of joining Orthodox Judaism to a political movement with educational and economic underpinnings, under the heading of Religious Zionism. Bar Ilan University and Bank Mizrachi have both moved beyond their original places within the Orthodox community, but not completely. There is a state-supported educational network, from nursery schools through high schools, along with teachers colleges. Rabbis and religious activists are speaking and writing, often with great emotion, about this controversy, with subtle nuances or sharp differences between them. Others are quiet, perhaps waiting until they are sure of what to say. It is not easy for one Orthodox rabbi to criticize another. In this case, however, there have been calls to identify and separate from the flock those who preach hate and violence against Arabs. The ultra-Orthodox are outside this issue. They may be counting on some addition to their flocks from Orthodox moving to the right religiously, and despairing of the political conflict. Since 1967, the principle efforts of Religious Zionists have been to promote Jewish settlement in areas of the Promised Land liberated by the IDF. They have, by and large, left other religious issues (e.g., Kashrut, Shabbat) to the ultra-Orthodox parties. A high incidence of young men volunteering for the elite units of the IDF and advancing to the officer corp are Religious Zionists, many of them settlers. Among the difficult tasks of Orthodox Israelis--whether of not they are settlers or voters for Jewish Home--is preserving some kind of balance between Jewish norms that dont sit comfortably with one another. One set is humane and pluralistic, and urges accommodation with outsiders. Another distinguishes between actions appropriate toward Jews and toward non-Jews, with various kinds of preferences with respect to Jews. Rabbis and activists are currently wrestling with the limits of what Jews should do in order to preserve the character of Israel, and what they should support or oppose as actions of the Israeli government directed against Orthodox activists said to be extremists. The Arab who manages the kosher bakery and coffee shop where I buy the Friday newspaper, asks me to turn on the over if I get there before any other Jew. He thanks me and refers to me as Rav. I correct him. I am not a Rabbi, only an oven lighter. Comments welcome. Ira Sharkansky (Emeritus), Department of Political Science, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, irashark@gmail.com. Sorry... ..An error has occured: If you have any queries about this error, try emailing feedback@mirror.co.uk and we'll do what we can to help you. ZID:308457493 This domain has expired. If you owned this domain, contact your domain registration service provider for further assistance. If you need help identifying your provider, visit https://www.tucowsdomains.com/ It started with a barrage of WhatsApp messages announcing Netflix is here. Seconds later, I was registering myself on their website. The process is simple, but needs a credit card even though the first month is free. This is an old trick. If youre not interested in continuing beyond the free month, the onus is on you to cancel in time, or youll get charged. The standard membership is Rs 500 per month. This is for some reason deemed too expensive by every single Indian tech website. But while they were busy predicting early death for Netflix, I learnt that multiple households can use the same account. So Ive subscribed to the premium option that streams in Ultra HD and can be used on four screens simultaneously. Needless to say, my mum and brother have been given my password and `800 per month shared among three households doesnt seem expensive at all. I find the collection of shows and movies good, even though their Indian movie selection process seems suspect and they seem to have an unhealthy obsession with Pablo Escobar (Colombian drug lord). However India, despite its attempts at shining, has among the worst internet services in the world. Netflix has recommended a 5Mbps internet connection for smooth streaming. This is far from what most households have. But the real culprit is FUP (Fair Usage Policy) which is a term made up by internet service providers which lets them limit the data in your unlimited data connections (see box, right). Regular HD streaming uses 3GB of data per hour; ultra HD streaming uses 7GB of data per hour. At that rate, most Indian households will finish their monthly data allowance in a few days. The only solution is to get your internet from a local cable guy. To conclude, as selfish as it may seem, I hope Netflix doesnt become a huge hit in India and come under the governments scanner. The last thing I would want is censorship and cigarette warnings within episodes of Narcos. Agarwal is a writer, director, producer of web content and television shows. Actor-filmmaker Kamal Hassan and director Gautam Ghosh have been included in the Shyam Benegal committee that has been set up by the government to holistically look into the functioning of controversy ridden Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) making it a six-member body. Sources said Kamal Hassan and filmmaker Gautam Ghosh have been included in the committee. The I&B ministry had set up the panel on January 1 to take a relook at the functioning of the Board. The committee, under filmmaker Shyam Benegal will suggest changes in the current film certification process. (PTI) Benegal and other members of the committee, including filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, adman Piyush Pandey and film journalist Bhawana Somayaa had last week met information and broadcasting minister Arun Jaitley in Mumbai, where Minister of State Rajyavardhan Rathore was also present. Read: Bollywood hails move to revamp censor Jaitley had last week said that film certification guidelines needed contemporary interpretation and should be as non-discretionary as possible. Read: Govt decision welcome, says CBFC chieg Pahlaj Nihalani on censor revamp committee Earlier, before the panel was set up, Jaitley had made his desire known that he would like the Certification Board to controversy-free and added that he had discussed the matter with some experts as to what should be the future role of this body. Global software major Infosys Ltd on Thursday appointed noted investment manager Punita Kumar Sinha, wife of union Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha, as an independent director on its board. In a regulatory filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), the IT bellwether said Punita Kumar Sinha was appointed as an independent director with effect from Thursday. Her appointment comes in place of Carol M Browner, who resigned as a board member on November 2015. In a brief profile in the filing, the company, however, did not mention that Punitas husband is a minister in the the central government. Sinha is the son of former finance and external affairs minister Yeshwant Sinha in the previous NDA government (1999-2004) and Punita Sinha is former senior managing director at The Blackstone Group. The news about the appointment came on one line on page four of the seven-page press release on its third quarterly results under Board Changes and had no detail about her. Punita Sinha is also a founder and managing partner of Pacific Paradigm Advisors, an independent investment advisory and management firm, focussed on Asia. Her appointment and its announcement without details came under flak in the social media, as she is a wife of a union minister with an important portfolio (finance). Congress MP Rajeev Shankarrao Satav tweeted: Infosys Appoints Punita Sinha, Wife of Jayant Sinha, as Director. Clear case of #Nepotism? Her Husband has a Day Job Union Minister of State, Finance and She is privy to Govts Financial Policies, said user Pankaj Tiwari. So it's kosher that MoS finance Jayant Sinha's wife gets a I cr directorship with #Infosys when FIL was FM huge controversy over #Mauritius swati chaturvedi (@bainjal) January 14, 2016 If it is correct for Punita Kumar Sinha w/o Jayant Sinha to take up ind directors post at Infosys, how was Nalini Chidambaram wrong ? Thakursahab (@65thakursahab) January 14, 2016 Besides Punita, outgoing independent director Jeffrey S Lehman was re-appointed for a two-year term from April 14, 2016. After a period of conservative growth plans, Max Group is finally ready to press the pedals to accelerate growth. The group on Friday announced its demerger into three listed companies Max Financial Services Ltd, Max India Ltd and Max Ventures and Industries Ltd. The idea behind the split is to provide investors a choice to continue to be associated with all these businesses, or with respective businesses that suit their investment objectives. Alongside, the companys founder, Analjit Singh, has formally stepped down from the chairmanship and board of two companies Max Financial Services Ltd and Max India Ltd. However, Singh will remain chairman of the companys younger venture, Max Ventures and Industries Ltd (MVIL). I will chair the new kid, MVIL, which is virtually a startup. Now I dont want to be seen as a promoter but as a sponsor, Singh said at a press conference. Singh will be the founder and chairman emeritus of Max Group and Rahul Khosla will be the new president. HSBC Indias former chairman Naina Lal Kidwai, who joined the Max Group, will be the chairman of Max Financial Services. Singhs son-in-law, Sahil Vachani, will be MVILs new MD. Max Group splits into 3 companies The company will evaluate new ideas in the wider world of business, Singh said. New wave of possibilities that is appearing in the market are driven by digital technologies, e-commerce, affordable solutions... I would be disappointed if we dont find one new area in next 12 months to do. Investors are reaching out to us and yes, there are conversations around acquisition plans. In the next nine to 18 months, there can be a lot of traction in the financial services category.., Khosla said. The demerger will lead to a more specific value discovery for each vertical. Also, it will provide sharper management focus to each underlying business. Max group recorded a consolidated turnover of Rs 14,877 crore in 2014-15. Its investor base includes institutions such as Goldman Sachs, IFC Washington, Temasek, Fidelity and New York Life. Among other rejigs, Mohit Talwar, currently deputy MD of Max India, is being elevated to the position of MD, Max Financial Services and Max India. Rajesh Sud will be vice-chairman and MD, Max Life Insurance. He will also continue to be chairman, Max Bupa, and will lead the groups activities in the insurance and financial services sectors. Tara Singh Vachani, CEO, Antara Senior Living, has been elevated as its MD. The automatic sharing of tax information between India and Britain scheduled to begin from 2017 is expected to figure in the Economic and Financial Dialogue (EFD) between finance minister Arun Jaitley and chancellor George Osborne in London during January 18-19. Jaitley is scheduled arrive in London on a three-day visit on Sunday, mainly for the eighth round of the EFD that was launched in February 2005. The seventh round was held in New Delhi between Jaitley and Osborne in July 2014. The talks next week are expected to take the tax agenda further, besides other items that figured in the November visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, including bonds to be issued in London for infrastructure financing in India, official sources told Hindustan Times. The 1 billion-pound line of credit from UK Export Finance to support Indian infrastructure projects, announced by Osborne during his 2014 visit to New Delhi, is also expected to figure in the talks. The line for credit was for projects such as the Bengaluru-Mumbai Economic Corridor. Tax issues, including evasion, often figure in official interaction between the two governments, mainly due to the large Indian diaspora in Britain and growing British investment in India. The joint statement after the seventh EFD said: The UK and India reiterated their determination to lead on tackling tax evasion, noting that the two countries would begin exchanging tax information on an automatic basis from 2017 with each other and with a large number of jurisdictions as part of their commitment to early adoption of the new Global Standard. Targets to double or increase trade between the two countries have been a challenge in recent years. Latest figures show Britain ranks 18th in the list of Indias top 25 trading partners. Two-way merchandise trade during 2014-15 stood at $14.34 billion, marking a decrease of 9.37% as compared to 2013-14. Indias merchandise exports to the UK declined by about 4.67% from $ 9.77 billion in 2013-14 to $ 9.32 billion in 2014-15, and imports from UK declined by 16.97% from $ 6.04 billion in 2013-14 to $ 5.01 billion in 2014-15. Britains share in Indias global trade has gone down from 2.07% in 2013-14 to 1.89% in 2014-15. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The traders of the upscale Khan Market in the national capital on Friday sent a legal notice to actor Salman Khan asking him to withdraw the trade name Khan Market from his shopping web portal and stop its unauthrorised use. The notice was sent today as the previous request to Salman Khan through a letter on January 3 had failed to evoke any response from his side, said Sanjiv Mehra, president of Khan Market Traders Association. We do not want to enter into litigation with Khan over the issue and are only trying to preserve the goodwill and unique identity of Khan Market which has been established by the local traders over generations for the past 65 years, Mehra said at a press briefing. The legal notice served to Salman stated that the shopping web portal khanmarketonline.com launched by him on December 27 may not only be construed as deceptive and misleading for traders but also affects consumers of the brand name of the upscale market. The things sold on khanmarketonline.com would also be construed as sold by traders of the actual and physical Khan Market. Your web portal is misusing the name Khan Market and hence amounts to passing of your goods as the goods belonging to traders of the market, said the notice. It added: Your web portal is deceptively similar and lead to confusion that the portal is operated by the traders. Mehra said the association has been in touch with the personal staff of Salman and a message was received from his private secretary to mail our request regarding the issue. The SMS from Salmans staff Mr Kamte has asked us to send our request through email so that they could do the needful. The SMS also assured that there is no intention to hurt anyones feelings or business, said spokesman of the association Dinesh Bali. Hoping that the issue will be resolved without any litigation, Mehra said the legal notice sent to Salman has given him seven days time to stop using the name and further action will be decided based on his response. The odd-even formula implemented in Delhi by the AAP government may spell bad news for car owners not following the rule but seeking insurance claims. Several insurance companies are internally deliberating on whether or not to honour claims during this period in cases where drivers have violated the rule. However, they are yet to get clarity on the legal status of the same. So, if you have driven a car with odd number on the day when even-numbered cars were allowed, you may have some problems in getting your claims, since you have violated the law. The odd-even law was notified under Section 115 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 and has full effect as a law. Insurance companies have not taken any final decision on this and the policy could differ from company to company, sources said. Internally the issue is being debated and there is no clarity yet, but technically one has to find out whether claims would be given to people who have not been following the law, said a senior executive at a private general insurance company who did not wish to be identified. Tapan Singhel, MD and CEO, Bajaj Allianz, however, said that there is no clarity on the issue and it also depends on the contract signed between the insurer and the customers. Even the verdict of the Delhi High Court has confirmed the same (the odd even formula). Therefore, technically and legally speaking, the insurance companies would be entitled to reject claims arising in relation to vehicles driven in violation of the odd even notification, Manoj Kumar, managing partner at corporate law firm Hammurabi and Solomon and member, Governing Council, Bar Association of India told Hindustan Times. The formula is in place in the capital from January 1 till January 15 with an aim to curb pollution. The odd even project, which has received support from several corners, may even be re-introduced. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The traders association of Delhis poshest market has decided to wage a legal battle against Bollywood actor Salman Khan. The Khan Market Traders Association has sent a legal notice to the actor on Friday, asking him to change the name of his online shopping portal, khanmarketonline.com. After the announcement made by Salman Khan in December, we gave him and his office ample time to consider a name change. On January 3 we sent him a letter requesting him, but we didnt receive any response. Finally we have sent a legal notice to their office, said Sanjeev Mehra, president, Khan Market Traders Association. Mehra said that ample time was given to the actor to change the name of his online portal but they had to take legal recourse in order to preserve the goodwill and reputation of the 65-year-old market. The legal notice sent to Salman Khan stated that the web portal launched by him on his birthday, December 27, with the name khanmarketonline.com, may not only be considered deceptive and misleading for consumers and traders but also affects trade of the market. The things sold on khanmarketonline.com would also be construed as sold by traders of the actual and physical Khan Market. Your web portal is misusing the name Khan Market and hence it amounts to passing of your goods as the goods belonging to the traders of the market, the notice read. Your web portal is deceptive is deceptively similar and leads to confusion that the portal is operated by the traders, the notice added. By Friday afternoon however, the traders association received an SMS from Salman Khans office asking them to send their request via email and assured them that necessary action will be taken. Around 2pm we received a message from Salman Khans office assuring us that they are ready to consider our request. The message also made it clear that they had no intention to hurt anyones feelings or business, said Dinesh Bali, spokesperson of the association. Bali also said that they are looking forward to resolve the matter without any litigation and the association has decided to give the actor a week to change the name of his venture. Four eunuchs allegedly robbed a man in south Delhi on Wednesday night after he refused to give them a drop back home. The eunuchs beat up the victim when he tried to resist the robbery attempt, police said. While three of them managed to flee with the victims gold chains and a new mobile phone, a fourth accused was chased and overpowered by the man. Local residents later alerted the police control room with a police team later arresting the fourth accused. A case of robbery and hurt has been registered against the accused at the Kotla Mubarakpur police station. The victim, Amar Singh, in his complaint told police that he was returning to his Badarpur home after work in RK Puram when the crime took place. Singh stopped his Wagon R car to purchase beverages from a shop in South Extension-I. Suddenly, four eunuchs arrived and got inside his car. They asked Singh to drop them to Sarai Kale Khan. When he refused, they robbed him. . The votes are in: popular support for Delhis odd-even road rationing plan is overwhelming. A two-day online poll run by Hindustan Times found that people regard the plan as a success, want it to continue and they would support similar measures. A day before the plan was to end, the Supreme Court on Thursday refused to urgently hear a petition challenging a Delhi high court verdict that approved its implementation till January 15. The apex court even described the petition as a publicity stunt. People are dying due to air pollution We are doing car pooling and you want to challenge it for publicity, a bench headed by Chief Justice of India TS Thakur told advocate B Badrinath, who had appealed for an urgent Supreme Court hearing against a Delhi high court order that refused to cut short the 15-day initiative. The public also seems to have a positive view on the scheme, which ends on January 15. Special coverage: All you wanted to know about Delhis odd, even plan Hindustan Times launched an online poll on Tuesday, asking its readers to rate the 15-day traffic plan. They were also asked if the formula should continue in Delhi, and whether they would support a traffic congestion tax if it reduces pollution and jams on city roads. As many as 15,261 readers responded to the questions till 4pm on Thursday, with many giving the AAP governments initiative a thumbs up. An overwhelming 60.43% said that the AAPs governments radical policy was a success, while 21.28% thought it was a mixed bag. Only 18.29% of the respondents felt that the odd-even formula was a failure. When asked whether they were ready to pay a traffic congestion tax, 66.72% of the readers replied in the positive. While 30.76% said no, only 2.52% of the respondents said they had no opinion on the issue. As many as 68.27% of the readers said they wanted the odd-even formula to continue in Delhi, a far cry from the 29.8% that refused to support it. The ones without an opinion were a paltry 1.93%. However, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal declared that the odd-even plan would not be extended. The government needs time to assess the impact of the experiment on air quality, he added. People dying of pollution; why challenge Delhis odd-even: SC Kejriwal has defended the scheme by describing it as an emergency measure aimed at reining in off-the-chart pollution in Delhi, where the air is probably the filthiest in the world. Nevertheless, the jury is still out on the success of the plan, with some saying that the city witnessed a marginal dip in pollution during the period and others gushing over fewer traffic jams and smoother commutes. Critics of the scheme, however, say that the citys public transport system is inadequate to handle the heavy commuter load, and the odd-even scheme has done precious little to curb air pollution. (Note: Online polls are not scientific and respondents may not represent all sections of society.) In a country where nuclear families are becoming an urban norm, day care centres/creches form an important support structure for working couples as well as single parents. So important is this structure that many companies are even offering creche services to their employees to retain talent and ensure gender diversity in their workforce. The basic requirement of such institutions, among other infrastructural ones, is that they should keep a child safe. But often many creches fail to do that bare but absolutely non-negotiable minimum. Heres an example: In a horrendous incident in Ghaziabad on Tuesday, a 62-year-old man was arrested for allegedly raping a minor girl in a creche run by his daughter-in-law. If the accused and those who run the creche are responsible for the trauma and torture that the minor has had to go through, the State is equally responsible for allowing such mom-and-pop creches and play schools to mushroom across the country, the non-implementation of the 2013 guidelines for play schools and creches, and failing to keep a hawk eye on even the ones that are registered to ensure that they are following the rules. The result: Anyone with an extra room and a maid to help out is opening a creche and a play school these days, and parents bereft of any family support structure are sending their children to these faux creches implicitly trusting the owners to take care of their wards the way they would do themselves. In 2013, the women and child development ministry finalised the Early Childhood Care and Education Policy that not only made registration and accreditation of such centres mandatory but for the first time also spelt out the kind of curriculum and learning tools children should be provided with. But nothing came out of it and unregulated creches, as the one in Ghaziabad where the recent incident took place, are cashing in on this governmental oversight and endangering children. Way back in 1993, the central government had even started a financial assistance programme for setting up creches in rural areas; this scheme seems to have fallen flat. The states must take express action and launch a drive without delay to close down these unregulated creches and check whether the registered ones are following the rules. Such action could put many parents without any back-up plan in trouble, but they should also realise that by leaving their children in incompetent hands, they are exposing them to several kinds of dangers. The downward spiral in the number of Indian students coming to the UK after the David Cameron government assumed office in 2010 has continued, with the US for the first time overtaking India as the second-largest source country after China. The latest figures of the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) reveal that in the list of first year enrolments, the US accounted for more students than India during 2014-15. China continued to send the largest contingent of students to British institutions. Overall, there is now 50-plus per cent drop of Indian students: from 38,500 in 2009-10 (before the Cameron government came to power), to 18,230 in 2014-15. Compared to 2013-14, there was a drop of 7% in Indian student numbers in 2014-15. For first year student enrolments, the figures show China accounted for 58,845 students, the US for 10,205 and India for 10,125. Except for institutions in Scotland, the India drop is visible across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Reasons for dwindling Indian student numbers include closure of the post-study work visa, negative perceptions about Britain among Indian students, a growing higher education sector in India and better offers from countries such as the US, Australia and Canada. The Cameron government has closed hundreds of bogus institutions that were sponsoring Indian and other non-EU students, and refused a strong demand from Scotland to re-introduce the post-study work visa. Indian students in UK: The downward spiral (Source: Higher Education Statistics Agency) Cameron told the House of Commons on Wednesday that Britain continued to have a world-beating offer for international students: The clarity of our offer is world-beating. Frankly, there are lots of people in our country desperate for jobs...We dont need the brightest and best of students to come here and then do menial jobs. Thats not what our immigration system is for. Julia Goodfellow, president of Universities UK and vice-chancellor of the University of Kent, told Hindustan Times, While overall international student numbers remained solid, the number of new non-EU domicile entrants fell by 3%. Significantly, there were more first year students from the US than from India coming to the UK. She added: In comparison, the number of Indian students enrolling in the US increased by 29% this year, and similar levels of growth are being reported in Australia. We could be doing better than this. Goodfellow said it is essential for the British government to present a welcoming climate for genuine international students and academics and to ensure that visa and immigration rules are proportionate and communicated appropriately. We would also like to see enhanced opportunities for qualified international (non-EU) graduates to stay in the UK for a period to gain professional experience and contribute to the economy, she said. Read more: Decline of Indian students going to UK continues SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Several private schools in the national capital have approached the Directorate of Education (DoE), urging it to reconsider the move to scrap the management quota for nursery admissions. A few schools, though, have started amending their criteria. Alleging that the move was a threat to autonomy of schools, the Action Committee for Unaided Recognised Public Schools (ACURPS), an umbrella body of Delhis private and unaided school associations, has submitted a representation to DoE on the matter. We have submitted a representation to DoE urging them to reconsider the decision and withdraw the notification in this regard. The major issue here is not with the management quota but the arbitrary scrapping of it which is an attack on schools autonomy granted to us by Constitution, a member of the committee said. On the other hand, some schools have started toeing the line and have updated their admission criteria. Queens Valley School, Dwarka which had earlier reserved 20% seats under the management quota, has now merged the seats under general category. Similarly, Mount Abu School, Rohini, which had earlier divided the general category seats as 20% sibling quota, 20% management quota and 35% open seats, has now removed all the criteria. Scrapping 32% management quota, Sachdeva School has updated its criteria in its three branches in Pitampura, Rohini and Sachdeva Global School, Dwarka. PP International School, Pitampura has also followed the same move. Indraprastha International School, Dwarka and Paschim Vihar, have also notified their new criteria after removing the management quota. However, they have reserved 20% seats each under the quota for siblings, alumni and staff ward. Read more: Delhi schools may move court against scrapping of management quota Nearly two weeks after the terror attack at the Pathankot airbase, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has expressed concern about the frequent events organised at the Dhanchiri Camp, located near the Rajokri air force station on the Delhi-Gurgaon border. In its letter to the Gurgaon administration, the IAF has asked the Gurgaon deputy commissioner to control the activities near the defence installation. Dhanchiri Camp, spread across several acres, was developed for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Now, the camp is used for official functions and sometimes marriages too. Last year, it hosted several events and conferences one being an annual conference for surgeons inaugurated by Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar. The IAF has sought immediate intervention of the administration to ensure that the safety and security of the Rajokri air force station is not compromised by these frequent public gatherings. The IAF officials also mentioned in its letter that several temporary constructions have been erected in the camp without permission from the air force. This is dangerous as range firing practice is held at the air force station regularly. The letter went on to say that the height of the structures can lead to security breach as anyone can watch the activities in the station. Construction above 100-metre height around the outer parapet of the air force station is restricted by the ministry of defence. Deputy commissioner TL Satyaprakash said, Although the police station concerned has been informed to address the queries raised by the IAF, I will personally meet them to ensure that security is not compromised. According to sources, there is a makeshift structure set up for a marriage party and the organisers have sought approval from the Haryana tourism department. But, principal secretary of the department Sumita Misra said, I have not received any such intimation, I can comment once I receive the letter. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON How good is the air quality in Gurgaon, given that the condition in neighbouring Delhi makes one want to hold their breath? There is no way to know as the sole air quality monitoring station in Gurgaon does not have the equipment to do real-time recording. The continuous ambient air quality monitoring (CAAQM) station near Rajiv Chowk, off the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway, does not monitor PM 2.5 and PM 10 levels in real-time, without which one cannot get a clear picture of the pollution levels in Gurgaon. The station can monitor only one of the two (PM 2.5 and PM 10) at a time, said an official at HSPCBs headquarters in Chandigarh. Home to over 250 Fortune 500 companies, Gurgaon has done little to keep a tab on its rising pollution levels, especially when Delhi and Noida are working in a steadfast manner to clean the air. The concern assumes significance as the state government is scheduled to host its first Happening Haryana Global Investors Summit in Gurgaon in two months. The Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HSPCB) recorded a major increase in PM 2.5 levels between the last two weeks of November and the first two weeks of December last year. The board recorded 83.65 micrograms per cubic meter (mgpcm) in November, which shot up to 106.75 mgpcm in the first two weeks of December. The problem with Gurgaon is that due to lack of public transport and last-mile connectivity, people have no option but to use private transport. This leads to congestion and pollution. One station will not give us an exact data, said Bhure Lal, chairman of the Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA). It is alarming that a city, which is the highest contributor to Haryanas GDP, does not even have basic equipment to monitor pollution levels. It seems as if the pollution control board is least bothered about residents health, said Sanjay Kaushik, an environmentalist and president of NGO Uthaan. The station in Rajiv Chowk keeps a check on ambient air the natural state of air that humans and animals breathe. Experts say this is insufficient as it does not give the exact composition of air, which varies depending on local factors such as elevation, pollution and smog. Rajiv Chowk obviously doesnt reflect what type of air people in Gurgaon breathe. It is high time we have multiple monitoring centres to get exact figures, said Dr Sewa Ram, associate professor of transport planning in School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi. The government now plans to set up a second station in Cyber City, but the HSPCB wants more funds from the Centre as one monitoring station costs Rs 1.5 crore. We have asked for one more monitoring station and hope that the government sanctions it this year, the HSPCB official said. That all is not well with the air in Gurgaon, is discernible from the increase in respiratory ailments during the winters. Doctors at the Gurgaon Civil Hospital said there has been at least 20%-30% increase in the number of patients with respiratory ailments in December as compared to November. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The Goa government has extended the ban imposed on the entry of Pramod Muthalik, the chief of controversial right-wing outfit Sri Ram Sene, and his associates till March 16 this year to the coastal state. As per the orders issued on Friday by district magistrate of North Goa district, the ban on his entry is extended by another sixty days as the earlier ban expired on January 14, 2016. Muthalik and his associates are debarred from entering Goa during this period. The ban order was reviewed. Since the report from the police department once again expressed the fear that Muthaliks and/or his members entry might create law and order situation in the state, and hence the ban was extended, the order stated. The Goa government has banned the entry of Muthalik and his associates since 2014 fearing law and orders problems. The Goa bench of Bombay high court had also upheld the ban imposed by the state government. Muthalik was linked with the attack on women at a pub in Mangalore in 2009. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Friday questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modis silence on problems being faced by the poor and claimed the BJP governments credibility has eroded very quickly. It is very well to give speeches but Modi is silent on problems faced by the poor, Rahul said, addressing a rally of party workers in suburban Malad in North Mumbai. Rahul also asked party men to shun internal differences and work unitedly to ensure that Congress comes back to power. He used the Marathi greeting on Makar Sankranti Til gul ghya, god god bola (eat sweets, speak cordially) to appeal to the Congress leaders to put an end to factionalism. It takes two-three-four years for the credibility of a government to decline but the BJP governments credibility has eroded very quickly, Rahul said. There are talks of start-ups and connect India. These talks are nice but there are poor people, domestic workers. India is theirs also. The government has forgotten them, he said. Ask anyone about the situation faced by farmers. They will cry while narrating their plight. You cant leave the poor people, the hawkers behind, he said. Modi spoke of Clean India. Modiji and his ministers took up jhadus and cleaned the roads but in Mumbai, there are tonnes of solid waste. You wont be able to clean Mumbai by speeches and staging events, he added. In Uttar Pradesh, many people have demolished toilets built under the Clean India Mission, he said. The budget of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is in thousands of crore but this government gave just Rs 100 crore to make Mumbai a Smart City, Rahul said. When we were in power, we gave a city like Nanded Rs 2,000 crore, he said. Congress will have to get its candidate elected to the post of mayor in Mumbai if the city is to be developed, he said. First we will win Mumbai then the state, and then form government at the Centre, he added. Rahul said during his padyatra in Mumbai on Saturday we will put pressure on the government on the issue of electricity tariff for the poor. The government told the Supreme Court on Friday that it was contemplating a law on passive euthanasia in the country. Additional solicitor general PS Patwalia told a five-judge constitution bench headed by justice Anil R Dave hearing petitions seeking the legalisation of passive euthanasia that the government was studying the apex courts verdict on Aruna Shanbaugs case and the law commissions 241st report that favoured allowing passive euthanasia with certain safeguards. It is in the process. The Medical Treatment to Terminally Ill Patients (Protection of Patients and Medical Practitioners) Bill is pending. The proposed regulation deals with it but the living will is not envisaged here, Patwalia told the bench, also comprised of justices Kurian Joseph, Shiva Kirti Singh, Adarsh Kumar Goel and Rohinton Fali Nariman. NGO Common Cause, one of the petitioners, demanded that a person suffering from terminal illness be allowed to make a living will indicating that he or she not be kept on life support in case there is no hope of a cure. A living will is a legal document signed by a person in advance stating his wishes on the kind of decisions to be made in case hes not in a position to decide due to adverse health. The judges sought to know specifically who would decide whether a patient cannot be cured. Euthanasia has been a controversial issue across the world. Most countries do not allow active euthanasia which involves administering a substance to end the life of a terminally ill patient. Active euthanasia is legal in the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium. The term passive euthanasia used by the Supreme Court in its verdict on Aruna Shanbaugs case is defined as the withdrawal of medical treatment with the deliberate intention to hasten a terminally ill-patients death. Passive euthanasia has got wider acceptance worldwide and is allowed in most states in the US, Germany, Japan, Switzerland and Albania. In India, the law doesnt permit either active or passive euthanasia. But the Supreme Court had in 2011 ruled in favour of passive euthanasia with certain strict safeguards. The top court had said life support can be withdrawn only on recommendation of a panel of doctors after permission by the high court concerned on an application by the patients family or next friend. Patwalia said at Fridays hearing that the controversy revolved around a provision in the Medical Council of India Act that declares practising euthanasia an unethical act. He said the question of withdrawing life support even after a patient is brain dead should be decided by a team of doctors and not the treating physician alone. Shouldnt we wait for it (outcome of the report under the Centres consideration)? How much time the government will take its a legislative function, the bench said and gave time till February 1 to the government to clarify its stand. The bench appointed senior advocate TR Andhyarujina as amicus curiae to assist it. On behalf of Common Cause, advocate Prashant Bhushan said as a patient under coma cannot express his wish, law should allow him to put it down in writing in advance that he should not be tortured. In the absence of any law authorising doctors to do so they keep incurable patients on life support, he said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Peoples Party of Punjab (PPP) chief Manpreet Singh Badal will be merging his party with the Congress in the presence of AICC vice-president Rahul Gandhi in Delhi on Friday. Confirming the development, former Punjab Congress chief Partap Singh Bajwa told HT that Manpreets entry into the party fold would give it a fresh boost, especially when the 2017 assembly polls are set to witness a triangular contest, with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) jumping into the fray. He is a promising face...is secular in character and holds credibility in the Malwa region, Bajwa said. Manpreet would be paving his way into the Congress amidst tremendous opposition from within the partys leadership in the Malwa belt. However, Punjab Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singh and former chief minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal have welcomed the idea of a CongressPPP merger. Amarinder had recently said he would welcome Manpreet in the Congress and the talks for the PPPs merger with the party were on. Bhattal said Manpreets entry will help the Congress to take on the ruling Badals in a big way. Manpreet had launched the PPP on March 27, 2011, lambasting both the Akalis and the Congress. He contested the 2014 Lok Sabha elections on the Congress symbol from Bathinda but lost to the Shiromani Akali Dals Harsimrat Kaur Badal by nearly 20,000 votes in a very close contest. The PPP, however, had failed to open its account in the 2012 assembly elections. Manpreet had parted ways from the ruling Badals, resigning as the Punjab finance minister in the fag-end of 2010, when he said his voice of dissent on the states fiscal health was rebutted within the Akali-BJP government. In a recent interview to the HT, Manpreet had stated that he initially wanted to patch up with the AAP during the last Lok Sabha elections but was now in talks with the Congress. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Separatist groups and two Jammu and Kashmir legislators have been invited to a conference on Kashmir set to be held in Islamabad, and at least one legislator on Friday said he will attend. The invitation for the January 20-21 Round Table Conference has been issued by Sardar Muhammed Yaqoob Khan, president of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Those invited include all constituents of the separatist Hurriyat Conference, civil society members and legislators Mohammed Yousuf Tarigami (CPI-M) and Engineer Rashid (Independent) -- the latter said he will take part. A spokesman for Rashid, who heads the Awami Ittehad Party, said he would leave for Pakistan on Saturday. His party is not recognised by the Election Commission. The spokesman said: Kashmiris being the principal party to the dispute and victims of the conflict should not waste any opportunity to put forward their viewpoint before India, Pakistan or the world community. While in Islamabad, Rashid will meet various political groups and different sections of the society over various aspects of the 68-year-old Kashmir problem, said the spokesman. Tarigami told IANS on phone that he was yet to decide about his participation. Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) leader Mohammed Yasin Malik said he was yet to get an invite. Separatist leaders invited to Islamabad include Hurriyat Conference chairman Syed Ali Geelani, Hurriyat moderate Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Dukhtaran-e-Milat chief Aisa Andrabi, and Hurriyat Conference leaders Shabir Shah, Aga Syed Hasan and Muhammad Yousuf Naqash. The invitees are expected to shed light on the Kashmir conflict and its ramifications on India-Pakistan relations as well as the rise of Hindu right in India. A similar conference was held in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan- administered Kashmir, in 2008. That meeting was attended, among others, by Tarigami, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah, PDP leader Moulvi Ifthikar Ansari and Independent MLA Hakeem Yasin. Pakistan controls the northern third of Jammu and Kashmir state. A central university in Lucknow has found itself in a controversy after students filed a complaint with the Union HRD ministry alleging that the head of the home science department passed casteist, derogatory remarks against Dalit students. According to sources, the students in their complaints cited a few instances where Sunita Mishra allegedly passed casteist remarks. The ministry has been getting a number of complaints from the university from different forums and the VC was asked to look into the matter immediately, said a senior HRD official. The vice-chancellor of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University (BBAU) in Lucknow has been directed by the HRD ministry to probe the matter and furnish a reply in this regard, confirmed an HRD spokesperson. Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University vice-chancellor professor RC Sobti said the university has received a letter from the HRD ministry and that they were looking into the matter. We are seriously looking into the charges levelled by students. We are looking into all the papers and documents that are available with us, Sobti told HT. The recent trouble for the Ambedkar University comes just days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to attend the sixth convocation of the university on January 22 as chief guest. Mishra, however, has refuted the charges and said that her reply has already been sent to the PMO. I have taught in BHU earlier and am now in BBAU. I have never passed any casteist remark. Of course, as a teacher I have to maintain discipline also and correct the erring students, she told HT. Recently, there were four students in the school of home sciences, one under me and the rest under other teachers, who did not attend classes or did their PhD work and were issued notices and then they started all pressure tactics to get the PhD without doing any work. The DRC also recommended action against them. They approached several forums but they all were apprised about the truth through the central grievances portal, which was sent to the PMO on November 11, she said. Read more | Govt is your friend: PM Modi assures Dalit community The drama surrounding the demand for the Pulwama militants memorial row is finally set to end as trader bodies who were negotiating with authorities said the town will open on Saturday, putting an end to the two-week long hiatus. Pulwama residents said on Friday evening there was an announcement from the local masjid that shops will open the next day. In a statement issued by Kashmir Traders and Manufacturers Federation, its president, Mohammad Yasin Khan said the Pulwama deadlock has ended as the government agreed in principle to meet the demands of area traders and civilians. The statement said, Apart from construction of a memorial of martyrs, administration agreed that all the detained youth are being released, and that there would be no further raids or harassment of civilians. Police sources said that a few shops in the town had already opened on Friday. No one knows whether the demands will be met by the government. The delegation that negotiated the deal is keeping mum. They are saying that revealing details might create confusion and it is better that the deal is made public once the town opens up, said a Pulwama-based journalist who did not wish to be named. Sources present during the meeting between the residents delegation and the administration told HT that though the government agreed to release the detained youth no consensus was reached regarding installing the proposed memorial board for militants. The traders associations had decided to put a green banner proclaiming Mazar-e-Shohda, meaning martyrs graveyard as a signboard. It will contain an Arabic verse from the Quran and a quote from an Urdu poem by Muhammad Iqbal. The verse goes like this: Their blood is precious and divine. Like precincts of the Holy Shrine. Since January 1, there has been a continued strike in the sensitive south Kashmir town due to a protracted tussle between residents and the administration over a proposed memorial for militants. The small graveyard in the town where militants are buried doesnt have a signboard to convey, what residents want, martyrs are buried here. When Omais Ahmad Sheikh, a member of the Lashkar-e-Taiba terror group, was buried there last month, the demand to erect a memorial grew stronger. On Wednesday, however, a delegation from the village had met the divisional commissioner of Kashmir Asgar Samoon and decided that the town would open up. Samoon had, however, told HT no decision was reached on the state allowing the construction of a memorial. Pulwama remained shut for the fourteenth consecutive day on Thursday, signalling failure of talks. Protest marches across the Valley In a separate incident, violent clashes took place on Friday in north Kashmirs Palhallan town as residents came out to express solidarity with Pulwama. Reports said soon after the Friday afternoon prayers, people took to the streets following the call given by senior Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Geelani. Protest demonstrations were also held at Nowhatta area of old Srinagar, apart from those at Hyderpora and Ganderbal. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The personal website of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was unveiled with a major revamp on Thursday, recounting not only the achievements of his government but also anecdotes from his childhood when he often celebrated both Hindu and Muslim festivals. The website narendramodi.in is part of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Partys attempt to counter the narrative of the Opposition, which has accused the government and the PM of trying to drive a wedge between communities. Narendra Modi had a wide range of friends from all the communities. As a child he often celebrated both Hindu and Muslim festivals considering the large number of Muslim friends he had in the neighbourhood, it mentioned, adding that these formative years left a strong imprint on Narendra Modi. The portal also gives detailed comparisons on the achievements of the government and how the situation has improved in different sectors, calling Modi as the man with the Midas touch. The biography section of the website gives a detailed account of Modis rise as the tallest leader of Gujarat which, under the Congress rule, once suffered from communal tension. The atmosphere in Gujarat as well as India was very volatile when Narendra Modi was cutting his teeth as an activist. When he reached Ahmedabad, the city was reeling under one of the worst instances of communal rioting, it said. A woman and her daughter sustained serious injuries after they jumped off a moving train in a bid to catch a purse snatcher. The incident took place between the Bhopal and Bairagarh railway stations. According to the railway police, Asha Tiwari and her daughter Anjana, residents of Koriya district in Chhattisgarh, were travelling from Bilaspur to Indore on the Narmada Express. On Friday morning, a thief grabbed Ashas purse from her berth and ran. Asha and Anjana began chasing the thief, who, while trying to escape, jumped out of the running train. The mother and daughter jumped out of the train as well, but got injured in the process, allowing the thief to escape. Upon reaching Bhopal, the two lodged a complaint with the railway police. They were later admitted to Hamidia Hospital in the city. The parents of a Mumbai youth Hamid Nehal Ansari, who was missing for over three years, breathed a sigh of relief after they found out that he was in Pakistan armys custody. Over three years after the Indian engineer went missing in Pakistan where he had gone to meet a girl he had befriended on the Internet, authorities have admitted that he has been in Army custody and facing trial in military courts. In a divisional bench of the Peshawar high court, deputy attorney-general Musarratullah presented a reply from the ministry of defence which stated that Nehal Hamid Ansari was being held by the Army and would be tried by a military court, the Express Tribune reported. Ansari had travelled to Afghanistan for job prospects back in November 2012, Qazi Muhammad Anwar, counsel for Ansaris mother Fauzia, had told the court. He had befriended a Kohat-based woman through social media and had crossed over into Pakistan from Afghanistan. He had been staying at a hotel in Kohat when the police, assisted by the Intelligence Bureau officials, arrested him on November 12, 2012. The intelligence agencies arrested him from a hotel in Kohat and since then his family and friends have been unaware of his whereabouts, Anwar was quoted as saying by the paper. He added that as per a police inquiry report, Mr Ansari was being held by intelligence agencies. After Ansari went missing, his mother had filed a complaint at a police station in Mumbai. She had also contacted the Afghan consulate in the city. The petitioner subsequently sent an application to the human rights cell of the Supreme Court in Islamabad, which forwarded the case to the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances in March 2014, the paper said. In April, the commission directed the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa home and tribal affairs department to form a joint investigation team to trace Mr Ansari. An FIR was subsequently lodged at the city police station in Karak district in connection with Mr Ansaris missing. Hamids mother Fauzia Ansari said that her son had gone to Kabul looking for a job. After a long struggle, we came to know that he is safe there under the watch of government. We are at least satisfied that he is fine. He is very talented but he never got desired job. He didnt have job satisfaction, she told ANI. He came to know about the job opening of manager at Kabul airport. He went to Kabul. We were in continuous touch but after 10 days there was no contact, she added. She said that they had approached the Afghanistan embassy to inquire about her son. They then found out that Hamid was trying to help a tribal girl who was being ill-treated in Pakistan. He was trying to help her and then he contacted other friends of nearby areas. They said that the girl is from tribal area, and no one can intervene in this, she said. Maybe it wasnt a right step though his intentions were good. We were so anxious whether he is dead or alive but we came to know yesterday that he is there, she added. She also thanked the Government of India for their efforts to help her son. Indian government has been very supportive, they showed us many letters which they sent to Pakistan high commission, she said. According to reports, a divisional bench of the Peshawar High Court disposed off the case of Hamid Ansari after the government confirmed that he was currently in army custody and facing a trial in military courts. Hamid N. Ansari, a techie from Mumbai who went missing in Pakistan on November 10, 2012, is reported to be alive and in custody of the Pakistan Army, an activists group said on Thursday. We are relieved and happy to hear that hes safe. But we are uncertain of the future. We want our son to return soon, his happy father Nehal Ansari told IANS. The Pakistan India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) said it is heartening to know that young Hamid N. Ansari is alive. Deputy Attorney General of Pakistan, Mussaratullah Khan on Wednesday informed the Peshawar High Court that the defence ministry had informed him about Ansari who was in the custody of their army and was being court-martialled, PIPFPD India general secretary Jatin Desai said here. The aged parents of then 27-year-old Hamid, a resident of Andheri West suburb of Mumbai, left no stone unturned trying to locate him. He had reportedly entered Pakistan illegally through the Afghanistan border as he was in love with a girl from Kohat whom he had befriended on social media networks. Since the girls parents were planning to get her married soon, Ansari took the risk of entering Pakistan illegally to meet her but soon went missing. The PIPFPD claimed that everyone who tried to help out in this case were targeted, and at least one local media person, Zeenat Shehzadi, is also reported missing. There is no doubt that it is only through a sustained judicial effort that brought the Pakistan Army and government to respond to the court and acknowledge that Hamid N. Ansari is in their custody, though he should have been produced in a court long back, Desai said. His overjoyed family members received the information on Thursday afternoon and are praying that he is released as soon as possible. Hamid, an engineer and an MBA, had been lured by an airlines job in the operations sector, and had gone to Kabul on November 4, 2012 and promised to return within a week. After he went missing, his family feared he may have been abducted by some terror groups and moved the state and central governments for help to trace him out. We recognise the humanitarian efforts of friends, well-wishers and lawyers. It has been a long struggle for Hamids parents. We appeal to the Pakistan government to release him as he has been already in custody for more than three years, Desai urged. The PIPFPD also requested the Pakistan government permit Ansaris parents and family to meet him and said both the Indian and Pakistani governments must view this issue through a humanitarian perspective. The mother of 30-year-old Mumbai man, who went missing in Pakistan three years ago, said on Friday that her son is innocent and should be released as he has already spent four years in a Pakistani jail. We request the ministry of external affairs to help us. It is only now through the media we came to know that they have admitted that Hamid is in a Pakistani jail, Fauzia Ansari, the mother of Hamid Nehal Ansari, told Hindustan Times. Read more: Indian techie who went missing 3 yrs ago now in Pakistan army custody Hamid had crossed over to Pakistan from Afghanistan and went missing while searching for a girl from the Kohat region whom he met on social media and fell in love with. Fauzia had been trying to trace her engineer son along with her husband Nihal ever since he went missing in November 2012. He has spent four years in jail and now they even know he is innocent and hence I appeal to them to release him, Fauzia, a professor in a college in the western suburbs of Mumbai, said. Hamid had left home saying that he was in the process of getting a job in Afghanistan. They later learnt that he had entered Pakistan to meet a girl and marry her. Pakistani authorities have admitted that Hamid, an MBA graduate from Rizvi College in Bandra, has been in the armys custody and facing trial in a military court. Deputy attorney-general Musarratullah presented a reply in a divisional bench of the Peshawar high court from the ministry of defence which stated that Hamid was being held by the army and would be tried by a military court, the Express Tribune has reported. Initially, we filed a missing complaint in the Versova police station in December 2012 after he did not return. But later when they checked his Facebook pages, it was clear that he was in touch with a Pakistani girl. They were even able to get a phone number of the girl but the girl did not respond to any Indian number, Fauzia, who lives in Andheris Seven Bungalows, said. We had a relative in Dubai who got in touch with the number which belonged to the father of the girl but he did not speak much, she added. Fauzia said they somehow managed to get the number of another local person, Atur-ul-Rehman, with whom Hamid was in touch. Rehman told them that Hamid came to Pakistan and he helped him to get a hotel room for two days after which he was arrested. It was then that we realized he was arrested and in Pakistan. Then through the then local MLA Krishna Hegde, we got in touch with an NGO who put us in touch with Zeenat Sehzadi, a local journalist from Lahore, she said. The family filed a habeas corpus in the Peshawar high court with the help of Sehzadi, who was given the power of attorney by them, and the first hearing took place in April 2014. Fauzia says they are not is touch with Zeenat anymore. Reports said the bench later disposed of Fauzias habeas corpus petition, observing that it had become infructuous. The family now is hopeful that the Indian government would pursue their case with Pakistan. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Friday indicated that there is a slim chance of the BJP and the Congress reaching a consensus on the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill unless the ruling government accepts the Opposition demands. Reiterating partys stand on the controversial bill, Rahul said the Congress has put up three conditions in Rajya Sabha, which are putting a cap on the rate of GST at less than 20%, scrapping a proposed state levy and creating an independent mechanism to resolve disputes on revenue sharing between states. The ruling BJP has been reaching out to the Congress after the bill was not allowed to pass in the Winter Session. Rahul pointed out that the Congress did not want to compromise on conditions such as putting a cap on the tax to be charged as the government may increase the taxes in the future and would burden the people. Rahul also made it clear that Mumbai Congress president Sanjay Nirupam would not be removed from his post following the controversy over publishing anti-Nehru articles in the party mouthpiece. Attacking the BJP-Shiv Sena government, Rahul urged party workers to get Congress mayor in the 2017 civic polls. Four persons claiming to be members of the Hindu Sena allegedly barged into the Pakistan International Airlines office on Barakhamba Road and vandalised it. One of them was arrested. The men broke furniture, damaged computer systems and smashed the windows inside the office and threw pamphlets in the air which were against Indias proposed talks with Pakistan. The pamphlets they threw read that till Pakistan does not hand over Hafiz Saeed and Daud to India, no dialogue with them should be initiated. It said the attack was just a warning and that the Hindu Sena would also disrupt the Lahore bus service and Samjhauta Express, police said. According to the police, four men entered the building posing as customers who wanted to make enquiries about bookings at around 3.15 pm. They went to the fifth floor, confirmed with the receptionist that it was indeed the office of the PIA and started ransacking the office. The men reportedly picked up chairs and threw them on the ground. They damaged the centre table and the sofa sets and even broke a plane model in the office. One of them then picked up computer systems and smashed them on the ground. After vandalising the office, then men threw the pamphlets in the air and fled the spot. By then, security and police personnel deployed in the area reached the spot. One of the men Lalit Singh was arrested from the spot, while the other three managed to escape. Following the incident, a case of vandalism and trespass was registered against the men. Hindu Sena chief Vishnu Gupta was arrested on Friday by Delhi Police in connection with the vandalism of Pakistan International Airlines office in New Delhi by the members of the outfit. Gupta has been arrested under Sections 120B (being party to a criminal conspiracy), 147 (rioting), 149 (being the member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 427 (mischief causing damage to property)and 452 (house-trespass after preparation for hurt, assault or wrongful restraint) of IPC, said police. The police are still looking for the other Hindu Sena members who were involved in the vandalism, DCP (New Delhi) Jatin Narwal said. On Thursday, four members of Hindu Sena, a fringe right-wing group, ransacked the fifth floor office of Pakistan International Airlines at Narayan Manzil in Barakhamba Road around 3:15 pm, damaging computers, furniture and other items. Police later arrested one member of the group, who was identified as Lalit Singh, while three others fled. The members also left pamphlets which said,There should be no talks with Pakistan unless they take stern action against people who have caused damage to India and hand over people like Dawood Ibrahim and Hafiz Saeed to India. The incident prompted Islamabad to take up the issue with the ministry of external affairs. Owning responsibility of the incident, Gupta had vented anger at Pakistan holding it responsible for the attacks at Pathankot air base as well as at the Indian consulate in the Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif recently. Gupta was also arrested last October, days after his complaint that beef was being served at Kerala House canteen here was found to be false. The Congress found fresh ammunition to take on the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal in the 2017 Punjab assembly polls after chief minister Parkash Singh Badals estranged nephew Manpreet Singh Badal joined its fold on Friday. The junior Badal, chief of the Peoples Party of Punjab (PPP) that he formed in 2011 after breaking ranks with the Akalis, merged his party with the Congress after meeting its vice-president Rahul Gandhi in Delhi. Confirming the development, former Punjab Congress chief Partap Singh Bajwa said Badals entry would give the party a fresh boost to its poll campaign. Punjab is heading for a triangular contest with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) trying to expand its footprint beyond Delhi through the state. He is a promising face ... is secular in character and holds credibility in the Malwa region, Bajwa said. However, reports suggested that Badals entry has been opposed by Congress leaders in the Malwa belt, considered a stronghold of the PPP leader. In a recent interview to Hindustan Times, Badal said he wanted to tie up with the AAP during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections but was now in talks with the Congress. Former chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh, who recently replaced Bajwa as the state Congress chief, welcomed the PPPs merger as did another top-rung party leader, Rajinder Kaur Bhattal. Singh had revealed earlier that talks were on with Badal for a possible Congress-PPP union. Bhattal, who is also a former chief minister, said Badals presence will help the party take on the ruling SAD in a big way. A former finance minister in the previous SAD-BJP government, the nephew parted ways with the ruling Badals towards the end of 2010, alleging that his opinion on the states fiscal health was rebutted. He subsequently launched the PPP on March 27, 2011, lambasting both the Akalis and Congress. But the PPP failed to open its account in the 2012 assembly elections. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, he lost a close contest to the chief ministers daughter-in-law Harsimrat Kaur Badal, who is now a minister in the Narendra Modi government, in Bathinda constituency by nearly 20,000 votes. (With inputs from agencies) 25-year-old man was killed in alleged firing during an argument over playing of loud music at a Lohri function at Marar village in Patti sub-division on Wednesday night. The victim has been identified as Gursewak Singh. One Jasbir Singh, was crictically injured in the firing. Sources said Lohri was being celebrated at the house of Mahabir Singh in the village when some persons, including Bohad Singh, husband of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) sarpanch Kuldeep Kaur, objected to the loud music being played. In his complaint, Mahabir said the function was organised to celebrating the birth of his cousins child, who was residing in Australia. Sarpanchs husband Bohad Singh and his brother Dilbag Singh asked us to stop the music around 10pm, following which we reduced the volume and told them that we will wind up soon. But after some time, Bohad Singh and his men entered my house with firearms. Sarpanch Kuldeep Kaur, whow as accompanying them asked her husband to teach us a lesson, following which Bohad Singh opened fire, Mahabir said. Bohad shot at my relative Gursewak Singh who succumbed to injuries at the Patti civil hospital, while Bohads brother targeted my father Jasbir Singh who is critically injured, he added. Station house officer (SHO) Balkar Singh said as many as 18 persons, including sarpanch Kuldeep Kaur and her husband, have been booked. A case has been registered against them under Sections 302 (), 307 (attempt to murder), 425 (mischief), 148 (rioting) and 149 (being member of unlawful assembly) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Sections 25, 27, 54 and 59 of the Arms Act at the Harike police station. As many as seven accused, including Davinder Singh, have been arrested. Police also seized three pistols, 12-bore rifle and 16 cartridges, which were used in the attack, said station house officer (SHO) concerned Balkar Singh. The body of Gursewak Singh has been sent to the Patti civil hospital for autposy. Jasbir Singh has been referred to a hospital in Amritsar, the police officer added. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON When she became the first girl from her family to become a graduate, 25-year-old Neetu Meghwal wished that her groom came riding a mare, something that no Dalit in her village had dared to do. Now a constable with the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and posted at Bangalore airport, she shared the dream with a cousin who wrote to the chief ministers office about Neetus wish. Soon, her wish reached the National Commission for the Schedules Castes (NCSC) that asked district authorities to take necessary steps. Cousin Laxman Sariyala said he alerted authorities because he knew upper castes villagers would not allow a Dalit to ride a mare during a wedding procession. Rajasthan has witnessed violent incidents in the past, especially in Bhilwara and some parts of Alwar and Jaipur where Dalit grooms were assaulted for riding a mare during weddings. She studied with us in Pali and has been the only girl among five siblings to get educated and a government job. Her four brothers are daily wage labourers in Goa and a younger sister is illiterate. She had the will to break caste stereotypes but it looks very difficult. His fears came true. Neetus wish has triggered tension in her native village, Khimda, near Somesar railway station, 350km from Jaipur. Khimda has around 400 households; 30% of them belonging to the scheduled caste. Most Dalits work as farmhands in fields of rich farmers. A day before her wedding, police took a written undertaking from the family that it doesnt want Neetus groom to ride a mare considered a traditional prerogative of the villages upper caste inhabitants whose grooms come on horseback to the wedding venue, mostly the brides home. A mare is preferred because it is considered auspicious. Elder brother Champa Lal said the family didnt want the groom to ride a mare during bindoli, a ritual where he takes a round of the village. We want to follow the old tradition where groom comes with the marriage procession, not riding a mare, he said. Neetus phone was switched off on Thursday. Mahavir Mevada, a resident, said the bride told him she was scared but keen that her groom rode a mare. Police dismissed allegations of pressure from upper caste villagers. Sanderao police station SHO Amarlal Meena said the family didnt feel any threat and was assured protection if the groom came riding a horse. In a relief for television actor Ali Asgar Ali Mohammed Agha, the Bombay high court on Friday restrained Maharashtra and Haryana police from arresting the comedian in connection with an offence registered with the Civil Lines police station in Haryanas Kaithal district for allegedly showing self-styled godman Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in bad light on a television show and hurting the religious sentiments of the followers of his Dera Sacha Sauda. Justice Ajay Gadkari granted reprieve to Asgar (49) for a week, as his counsel, advocate Shyam Keswani, stated that the television actor would approach appropriate court in Haryana promptly and seek regular anticipatory bail. The court restrained Maharashtra and Haryana police from arresting Asgar for a week or till he approaches the appropriate court in Haryana, whichever is earlier. The judge also directed the police to release him on solvent surety of Rs 25,000 if he was arrested during this period. The Civil Lines police station has on January 1 registered an offence under Section 295-A (act intended to outrage religious feelings) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against eight actors from the show aired on December 27 on a private channel. The first information report (FIR) has been registered on the complaint of Kaithal resident Dalsher Singh. Read more: It was unintentional: Kiku Sharda on spoofing Gurmeet Ram Rahim The eight actors booked include Kiku Sharda, who was arrested on January 13 and later released on bail. Gaurav Gera, Ali Asgar, Rajeev Thakur, Pooja Banerjee, Mouni Roy, Gautam Gulati and Sana Khan are the others. Apprehending a similar fate in the wake of Kikus arrest, Asgar approached the Bombay high court on Thursday, contending that the show was completely fictitious and the actors had no intention to hurt the religious or personal feelings of anyone; that no specific role had been attributed to him in the police complaint; and that he was willing to cooperate with the investigating agency. His lawyer, Keswani, assured the court that Asgar would fly to Haryana on Saturday itself and approach the appropriate court there for regular anticipatory bail. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sanghs (RSS) plan to reach out to Christians by setting up an organisation on the lines of the Muslim Rashtriya Manch didnt find favour with Catholics who form about 70% of the community. The RSS was planning to float a Rashtriya Isai Manch, modeled on its Muslim wing that was formed in 2002 at the initiative of then chief KS Sudarshan. He made a call to Indianise all churches then but it failed to make much impact. The Sangh, the BJPs ideological mentor, has been sending feelers to the church for more than a year but to no avail. It seems the church is wary of our overtures. Our move is not political but only want to create goodwill with the community and dispel some mutual apprehensions, a senior RSS leader from central Kerala said. RSS leader Indresh Kumar even met two archbishops and many diocese heads in December in New Delhi to discuss the plan. Later, it sent some functionaries to Kerala, which has the highest concentration of Christians in the country. Some sections of the church were initially sympathetic to the BJP government at the Centre but reports of a plan to impose a ban on beef and the growing debate over intolerance sweeping through the country held them back. The VHPs plan to reconvert some believers also added to their apprehension. The Congress, which enjoyed the churchs backing in Kerala, too sniffed trouble and warned the RSS against the move. Cardinal Baselois Cleemis, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, has made it clear that he was yet to be convinced about the need for such an organisation. We will wait and see what they have to offer. They say one thing but something different happens. So, let them be clear what they want. I am not of the opinion that an organisation cannot change positively in the future, he said. People see the move as the state BJPs strategy to court Christians in a state going to poll in three months. When Sangh pracharak Kummanam Rajsekharan took over the partys state president, one of the first meetings he held was with Cardinal Cleemis. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The Mumbai police have claimed adequate security arrangements have been made ahead of Congress vice-presidents two-day visit to the city starting Friday. Officers said police personnel in plain clothes will be posted at all venues Gandhi is scheduled to visit and traffic diversions will me made according to the requirement. Following clashes between Congress party workers in the city, the party officials said instructions have been issued to the party workers, in a bid to avoid a law and order situation. Adequate steps have been taken to secure all venues that the Congress vice-president will visit and is scheduled to hold gatherings at, said Vikram Deshmane, deputy commissioner of police, zone 11. According to the itinerary, Gandhi will attend a party workers meeting at Father Justine Ground in Malad at around 2pm on Friday. He is then scheduled to visit the Congress party office at Azad Maidan around 3.30pm and is likely to be there till around 5.30pm. Gandhi is scheduled to visit NMIMS in Vile Parle, where he will interact with management students. He will then hold a rally on foot from Bandra Bandstand to Dharavi. The police said that there is no specific threat to the events scheduled. They added that while the leader enjoys a scaled security (grade security), the police will ensure that the venues are sanitised before the events begin. We will restrict the entry for people at all venues. Police personnel in plain clothes will be present all the while during the events for better control of the situation and security, said a police officer, who did not wish to be named. While the police officers refused to divulge number of police personnel to be stationed on duty during the events, they added that all police stations concerned, in whose jurisdiction the programmes are scheduled, have been put on alert. Amid recurring incidents of arson and destruction of public property during political agitations, the Supreme Court on Thursday said it would issue fresh guidelines for claiming damages from those indulging in such acts. A bench headed by Justice JS Khehar sought Attorney General Mukul Rohatgis assistance in laying down a set of guidelines to deal with the issue. Such arson has become order of the day. This is a good opportunity to deal with it. There are judgments of this court that there should be recovery for damages and destruction of public property. Unless we deal with it, you may not be able to do it... It is a matter of setting the country in order, Justice Khehar told the Attorney General. I will start working on it, Rohatgi responded. In April 2009, the SC had laid down guidelines for recovery of damages from those destroying public property during protests. The court decided to reopen the issue as no progress was made. Indicating that prima facie, there was material to show that arson was committed during the quota stir launched by Hardik Patel, the bench said judicial intervention was required as politically it might not be possible to deal with the issue. The bench asked the Gujarat police to provide an English translation of the two charge sheets filed against Patel. BJP leader Ram Madhav Thursday denounced actor Aamir Khans remarks on intolerance, saying he should not only preach to an auto-rickshaw driver about the countrys prestige but also to his wife. Madhav also said the government would ensure that in future no need arises for award-wapsi, and asserted that there will be no compromise on the security of the countrys borders and self respect. In an apparent dig at Aamir, who recently courted controversy over his remarks on perceived intolerance in the country, Madhav said, It will not work that you preach to an autowallah how the countrys prestige has to be saved, but not tell the same to your own wife. Madhav, who was addressing students at Delhi Universitys SGBT Khalsa college, said: No one needs to return the awards, everyone will be taken care of, but the country should be respected. The individuals should also take care of the nations prestige. He said: We are dedicated to the security of the country. We want good relations with our neighbours. But with regard to the security of the countrys borders and its self-respect, no compromise will be accepted we will take care that no need arises to return awards years later. Maintaining that in articulation of dreams for the country, sometimes one can be politically incorrect too, the BJP leader said: We feel pained that we are living in such an atmosphere that we cannot see dreams, you cannot talk four good things about the countrys future as it has to be politically correctit has to be secular Madhav said. Swami Vivekananda had asserted in his address in Chicago that Indians not only tolerate but also accept and validate. Every American citizen is respected because of his countrys image in the world. Similarly, we want to make India an honourable nation. Not that the honour of our citizens is not our concern our main aim is to bring honour to India across the world, he said. There is no need of award wapsi. You do not safeguard your country like that. Every citizen should be respected here and if anything wrong happens, that will be taken care of, said Madhav. The BJP leader said ever since Narendra Modi took over as the Prime Minister, the image of the country has improved globally. He further said both his party and the government advocate development for all, which is why the Prime Minister always endorses Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas. A 17-year-old rag-picker, who was allegedly set on fire by three persons suspecting him to be a vehicle battery thief, succumbed to his burn injuries today in a hospital in Pune. Sawan Rathod, who lived on a city footpath, had been hospitalised on Wednesday after he sustained severe burns when the accused, suspecting his involvement in stealing vehicle batteries in Kasaba Peth area, poured petrol on him and set him afire, police said. The boy, who had suffered 75 percent burn injuries, died this morning, hospital sources said. Police have arrested the three accused -- Ibrahim Shaikh, Imran Tamboli and Zuber Tamboli -- in connection with the incident and booked them under section 307 (attempt to murder) of IPC. The trio allegedly took out petrol from a two-wheeler in a narrow lane and set Sawan on fire after beating him up, accusing him of stealing batteries of vehicles parked on the street. They later dumped him at an isolated spot on a river bank. The victim was noticed by other rag-pickers who reported the crime to police. A woman police inspector and two constables were suspended while a home guard was dismissed in Odishas Sambalpur district over alleged torture of a boy in a police station. The Odisha Human Rights Commission has lodged a suo motu complaint while a human rights lawyer moved the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) over the issue. Sambalpur superintendent of police Akhileswar Singh suspended constables Ambuj Sahoo and Jeet Narayan Podh and dismissed home guard Siba Gauda of Hirakud police station after conducting an inquiry. Inspector in-charge Sabitri Bal was suspended by Odisha director general of police KB Singh on the basis of the SPs report. Supreme Court guidelines and NHRCs directives prevent police from keeping minor offenders in custody. The accused allegedly tortured a 17-year-old boy in Hirakud police station of the district, about 300km from Bhubaneswar, for two days in September 2015 after he was picked up on the suspect of stealing a mobile phone. He was freed without lodging a case after his mother paid a bribe of Rs 6,000, it was alleged. But the matter did not end there as a local TV channel aired footage of the torture on Wednesday. The video was apparently captured by a police official on his mobile phone, sources said. The video showed the woman officer and the other policemen assaulting the boy. They tied my hands and legs. The officer kicked my face with her boots while four others hit my feet, legs and neck, the boy alleged. He said the policemen told his mother that he would be taken to a court if she did not pay money for his release. Filling a suo moto complaint, the state human rights commission sought a report on the incident from Sambalpur police in a week. Bhubaneswar-based human rights lawyer Biswapriya Kanungo moved the NHRC demanding a compensation of Rs 10 lakh for the boys family and criminal proceedings against the police officers. The incident shows the pathetic state of law and order in Odisha where law-keepers have no respect for human rights or child rights, Kanungo said. A 21-year-old woman has alleged that she was abducted and gang raped by 11 men for over a month in Delhi, police said here on Thursday. The woman, who managed to escape from their captivity and reached Bareilly on Monday, filed a police complaint on Wednesday. The girl is a native of a village in Sheeshgarh area. We have filed a police complaint and initiated inquiry, said SP (rural) Brijesh Srivastav. We have ordered medical examination, he added. According to the police complaint, the woman was abducted by six men from her village on December 12 last year. According to the woman, the men later took her to Delhi where they, along with five others, raped her for over a month, said the SP. The woman claimed that a private vehicle was used to take her to Kanpur and Delhi where she was kept blind-folded. However, the police said that they were trying to verify her allegations. According to the girl, she was abducted in December but her family members did not file a missing complaint with the police, said the SP. There are several other things on which there is no clarity, he added. Meanwhile, the police are also making efforts to detain the accused. Pakistan will not allow its territory to be used for terror attacks and it seeks a comprehensive dialogue with India, Pakistani finance minister Ishaq Dar said on Friday. Radio Pakistan quoted Dar as saying that Islamabad wished to move ahead for a comprehensive dialogue with India to resolve all issues between the two countries. Dar added that Pakistan wont allow any misuse of its territory against any country. He told Radio Pakistan that the dialogue process between Islamabad and New Delhi has slowed down after the terror attack on an IAF base in Pathankot, which New Delhi has blamed on Pakistani terrorists. The foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan were to meet in Islamabad on Friday but the meeting has been postponed. Dar also said he hoped the talks would begin soon. Incarcerated Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt had an unusual visitor in Yerawada Central Jail on Thursday -- yoga guru Ramdev, official sources said. Sporting his trademark saffron mendicants attire, Ramdev had come to the jail for giving training in yoga to the inmates, mostly in white prison uniforms, where Dutt was also present. After the yoga session on the sprawling campus, the yoga guru and the actor had a brief tete-a-tete in which the actor requested him to pray for his early release. In fact, the two are not strangers to each other and had met at a private Ganeshotsav function in Mumbai in September last year when the actor was out on a months parole. There has been talk in Bollywood of plans to make a biopic on Ramdev and his crusade against graft and corrupt politicians for which he has campaigned several times in the past. Dutt is expected to be released from jail on February 25 after completing the remainder of his five-year term. Kolkata Police on Thursday issued a look-out notice against Ambia Sohrab, Sambia Sohrab and their father former RJD MLA Mohammed Sohrab, who are absconding after a speeding car reportedly owned by them killed an Air Force official during a Republic Day parade rehearsal here. The look out notice was issued after the trio were found absconding from their residence at Jorasanko area in the city, a senior police officer said. Because they are absconding since yesterdays mishap and we could not find them till today afternoon, this look out notice has been issued, the officer said. Kolkata Police sleuths have meanwhile seized Ambias passport during a raid at one of the Sohrabs residences, the officer said. The police have so far raided five houses belonging to the Sohrabs and one of their hotels on Kyd Street in search of the trio. Read: Speeding Audi runs over air force official during Kolkata R-Day drill Sources in Kolkata Police told PTI that reports from the South Police Division as well as from the traffic department on the incident were submitted to Kolkata Police commissioner Surajit Kar Purkayastha during the day. Yesterday the CP had asked for a detailed report. DC South and DC Traffic prepared report on the Red Road mishap and submitted it this afternoon, the source said. A 22-member team was set up by the CP to speed up investigation into the mishap in which 21-year-old corporal Abhimanyu Gaud was hit and killed by a brand new Audi after breaking three guard rails and barging into the parade rehearsal. The car dragged Gaud more than 20 metres after hitting him and he died because of blood loss. Meanwhile, the forensic report of the car suggested it was travelling at a speed of around 90-110 km per hour when it barged through the guard rails and hit the Air Force official. During investigation, it was found that the Audi was yet to get the registration number and was delivered to the Sohrabs with a Trade Certificate (TC) number. As per showroom records, the car has been registered against a company which belongs to Mohammed Sohrab. The records also show that the car purchased for Rs 90 lakh belonged to Sohrabs son Ambia Sohrab, a Kolkata police officer had said on Wednesday. Read: Did 32-year-olds love for fast cars cost IAF official his life? A special court on Thursday acquitted five alleged members of the banned terror outfit Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJI) for want of sufficient evidence to prove the sedition charge against them. Those acquitted include Sheikh Mukhtar Hussain, Naushad alias Hafiz, Noor Islam alias Mama, Mohammad Ali Akbar Hussain, Aziz-ur- Rehman alias Sardar. They had allegedly shouted anti-India and pro-Pakistan slogans in the court on August 12, 2008 during the hearing of a terror case against them. The police had registered a sedition case against them at Wazirganj police station for the sloganeering. On April 29, 2009 the state government granted permission to the police to prosecute them. Special judge SAH Rizvi, in his order, observed that the prosecution could not produce evidence against the accused. Earlier in 2007, the five were arrested by the Special Task Force on terror charge and were lodged in jail since then. The special court acquitted them of the terror charge in November last year. Conjoined twins Riddhi and Siddhi, who were surgically separated at BJ Wadia hospital in Parel in 2014, continue to live in the hospital. Members of the hospital staff told HT that the twins parents have not visited the hospital for more than a year, making them suspect that the family has abandoned the children. The girls were brought to the hospital from their village in Raigad district in May 2013 by social workers from Pratham, a not-for-profit group. The girls were joined at the abdomen in such a manner that that they formed a plus sign, said doctors. A life-saving procedure immediately after they were admitted surgically created a separate rectal opening for passing stool as one of them started developing sepsis a potentially fatal condition resulting from the collection of faecal matter in the body. After their condition improved, doctors performed an endoscopy to find out if the twins shared internal organs. They found that the two girls shared a common bladder, which was then divided during the separation surgery in January 2014. In June 2014, Riddhi underwent another operation to reconstruct a deformity in her pelvis. The twins, who will turn three in May, are now in the paediatric ward of the hospital, and their care-taker Shobha Gaikar is their mummy. Gaikar takes care of them and takes them for walks in the adjoining terrace. The nurses and ward boys are their aunts and uncles. A side room next to the ward has two white cradles where the twins sleep. Dr Ashwini Jogade, medical superintendent of the hospital, has several pictures of the girls on her cell phone. In one of the photos, Riddhi is sitting on a bike with a security guard. They go out in the campus. They have not been outside the hospital though, said Dr Jogade. The girls may have to undergo another surgery to correct bends in their legs. They are currently undergoing physiotherapy and speech-therapy. They can walk without support. We are still observing them and a decision on any further surgeries will be taken within the next few months, said Dr Minnie Bodhanwal, CEO of the hospital. The family already has two girls and they were keen to have a male child. Maybe the familys economic condition is such that it cannot take care of the girls, she added. Workers from Pratham have been trying to get in touch with Arun and Shalu Pawar, the parents. Around six months ago, Subhash Rajan from Pratham visited their village. We learnt that they have shifted to a neighbouring village. We went there and told them about the girls. They promised to visit them but they did not, said Rajan, adding that they will rehabilitate the girls once they are medically all right. HT could not reach the parents for a comment. Sources at the hospital said that after reports about the two developed, many people had offered to adopt them. Read | Conjoined twins separated after 8-hour operation at PGI, Chandigarh The Ghaziabad district administration on Friday said they will stop allowing inflow of polythene bags into the district from January 22, when the polythene ban in Uttar Pradesh comes into effect. The decision was taken at a meeting between district magistrate Vimal Kumar Sharma and various stakeholders at the district headquarters on Friday evening. We have decided to rope in the district police and other agencies concerned to stop the entry of polythene bags into Ghaziabad from bordering areas. We have come to know that manufacture of polythene bags in Ghaziabad is not much and majority of the supply comes in from neighbouring areas, Sharma said. No such material will be allowed from January 22, he said. We are issuing instructions to the police and other departments to keep a tight check at the border areas. Further, we have also decided to hold rallies and conduct plays to educate residents to curb the use of polythene bags, Sharma said. More meetings with other stakeholders are proposed before the ban comes into effect, he said. Environment activists and members of traders associations also shared the administrations views. It is estimated that nearly 12,000 kg of polythene is used every day in Ghaziabad. This is causing major choking of drains and also resulting in death of cattle. We will also distribute eco-friendly bags during campaigns, said Vijay Pal Baghel, an environment activist. Stakeholders and officials also suggested that free distribution of jute bags should be encouraged and those manufacturing such bags should be allowed to advertise on the bags to compensate for the cost of production. According to the notification issued against the use of polythene bags by the state government in December, shopkeepers, wholesalers, vendors, traders or hawker shall not sell, store or use any kind of plastic bags for storing or dispensing consumable or non-consumable goods. The notification also empowered select department officials to enforce the ban sub-divisional magistrates, officers from the Uttar Pradesh pollution control board (of assistant environment engineer rank or higher), sanitary and food inspectors, marketing and supply officers, health department officers (medical officers or officers bearing a higher rank), labour inspectors and food safety officers. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Three men who allegedly robbed a Meerut trader of Rs 25 lakh were nabbed after a dramatic four-hour gun battle between them and 100 policemen in the thick sugarcane fields at Modi Nagar here on Thursday. The fourth accomplice in the robbery is on the run. Vikas Chandra, Pradeep Sharan both from Baghpat and Amit alias Vicky from Delhi were arrested. Both Pradeep and Amit sustained multiple gunshots, while Vikas was arrested unhurt. All four men are said to be 25-30 years old. They were referred to a multi-specialty hospital in Ghaziabad. Two of our personnel got injured, including one who was hit by a bullet in his thigh and chest. They are under treatment. Nearly 40-50 rounds of fire were exchanged during the entire operation, said Dharmendra Singh, senior superintendent of police (SSP) at Ghaziabad. Aas Mohammed, the trader who was allegedly robbed, said four car-borne men blocked his car on Kharkhoda Road at around 10.45 am. First, the robbers hit my car and it derailed. I continued driving, but they shot at my window. They then cornered my car and pointed a gun to my head. I had no option but to hand over the bag containing `25.5 lakh which was to be delivered to a nearby factory, he said. Mohammed, who lives in Shyam Nagar in Meerut, was driving along with two other men. Later, they informed the police. The Meerut police then raised an alarm, and the men were spotted in a car at Upper Ganga Canal in Ghaziabad, about 30 km away from Meerut. As soon as the police van spotted them, they abandoned their car and ventured into the sugarcane fields. Several cops followed them and one constable suffered a gun shot. They also escaped with his Insas rifle, but we managed to snatch the cash bag from them, a police officer said. After this, a reinforced police team combed the fields. On and off, there were rounds fired from either side and the robbers ventured deeper into the sugarcane fields, a police official said. Cops said the robbers fired one shot from the stolen Insas, but it got jammed. A young villager arrived on his tractor and drove through the muddy and thick fields, scanning for the robbers. We gave him a bullet-proof jacket and the policemen took cover behind the vehicle and combed the area, police said. Following extensive search, the three robbers, including two injured, were nabbed from different locations. The police also recovered two 9mm pistols and other arms from the accused. The stolen Insas rifle was also recovered. Search is on for the fourth accused. We are also trying to procure the criminal history of the accused, the SSP added. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON What could have been a game changer in the 2012 Punjab assembly polls has come four years too late. The merger of the Peoples Party of Punjab (PPP) with the Congress on Friday is more out of compulsion than choice as the two poll-weary parties wake up to the reality that Punjabs revolving-door politics is now history and there is a formidable third force in Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Both have been ravaged by successive poll defeats. In the 2012 state elections, the 5% vote share bagged by Manpreets PPP also made the difference between victory and defeat for the Congress, its second in a row. However, Manpreet and his party too failed to open account in the polls. With no poll-worthiness, money and organisational muscle, the estranged nephew of chief minister Parkash Singh Badal contested on the Congress symbol to take on the might of his family in their bastion Bathinda in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Though he could not defeat Badals daughter-in-law Harsimrat Badal, he won the perception battle by narrowing down her landslide win in 2009 to a face-saver. But by not contesting on other seats, Manpreet left the slots open to be lapped up by the AAP which won all its four seats from Punjab. The Bathinda experience had shown Manpreet and the Congress that the enemy is not invincible. Though Manpreets written-off party may not make much of a difference to the Congress poll fortunes in Punjab -- the PPP has no cadres and hardly any support base -- the gains for Congress will be mainly in the perception game. Morale booster for cadres An immediate effect would be boosting of cadre morale after recent exodus of Congress leaders to AAP and the latters hit show at the Maghi Mela. The Congress would no more be seen as party of deserters but also high-profile walk-ins. It will help the party stitch up a grand alliance by roping in the BSP and Left parties to take on Akalis and AAP. Though all Manpreet has is the Badal tag which he himself now dubs as a baggage -- it still stands him in good stead. Many in Punjab would like to see the family feud play out in elections and the rebel Badal take on the mighty rulers. A good orator, he also has crowd-pulling skills. Manpreet still appeals to a section of interllectuals and youth. Manpreet off AAP radar With no credible face for leading the party in Punjab, Manpreet was still on the AAP radar. He too was dabbling with the idea of joining AAP. By pulling him to his side, state Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singh has ended the possibility of him adding to Arvind Kejriwals firepower. Now in the Congress, he would give AAP the handle to claim the Congress too now has a Badal. Rebel Badals resurrection Manpreets entry into Congress has surely revived his political career. With Amarinder announcing 2017 as his last election, Manpreet who had direct contact with Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi --- both are alumni of Doon School with common friends --- he may well be the next state chief- in-waiting. No wonder his entry has caused more heartburn that heart-warming among Congress leaders in Malwa who see him as another from within. Some ambitious young leaders such as Ludhiana MP Ravneet Bittu have voiced their anger against his entry openly while others like Indian Youth Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring may not be willing to share the political space with his arch-foe from Gidderbaha. As for Manpreet, the transition from president of party to playing second fiddle in a national party setup may not be easy. He has also lost some credibility by his double-speak be it talking against nepotism and making his party a family affair or often claiming the PPP is an ideology which he would never forsake. Also, his changing stripes --- from dyed-in-wool Akali to a rebel to a true-blue Congressman --- may not cut ice with many. The merger with the Congress on Friday hasnt gone down well with the second-rung leadership of the Peoples Party of Punjab (PPP). Many known faces of the PPP, including secretary general Gurpreet Singh Bhatti from Fatehgarh Sahib, senior vice-president and chief spokesperson Dr Navjot Dahiya from Jalandhar and Kapurthala district president Gurpreet Raja boycotted the merger function organised by the Congress in Delhi and have kept their options open. When asked, Dahiya made it clear that have not joined the Congress and kept their options open. All of us are not professional politicians who can fit into any party. We had joined PPP as we thought it was on a mission to change Punjab. Lets see what future has in store for us, Bhatti told HT. Apart from these leaders, many others, who stood by Manpreet Singh Badal ever since he floated the party in 2011, admit that they are not happy with the PPP chiefs decision to go for a merger with the Congress. Things were not clear to us. We had asked for respectful and honourable entry of all workers, who faced wrath of the SAD-BJP government for supporting Manpreet, into Congress. Unfortunately, it didnt happen as the decision was taken in haste, said a leader. Source said when Manpreet held meeting with his party workers in Chandigarh on Thursday, these leaders had raised concern over the future of workers. Though Bhatti, Dahiya and Raja were present in Delhi and were planning to join the Congress along with Manpreet, they backed out at the eleventh hour. Sources said these leaders also didnt attend the welcome tea party organised by Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) chief Captain Amarinder Singh at his residence in New Delhi. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON A mortar shell near the house of a local villager threw police into a tizzy on Friday. The cops, who are on their toes after the Pathankot airbase attack, wasted no time in reaching the Naushera Nalbanda village here to examine the shell. They heaved a sigh of relief after it was found that it wasnt a live mortar. Pathankot senior superintendent of police (SSP) RK Bakshi said the mortar is in a defused state and it doesnt seem to have any link to the militants involved in the Pathankot attack. The villager who spotted the shell has been identified as Prem Chand. He said he found the shell lying near his cattle shed and immediately informed police. Cops spurred into action as the area is not far from the spot where the militants had abandoned the vehicle of Gurdaspur SP after abducting him. Police have handed over the shell to security agencies. Cops said it appeared that the shell was brought to the spot by some scrap seller to extract brass. The SSP said police were not taking any chances and have urge locals to alert them on finding anything suspicious. After interrogating Punjab police officer Salwinder Singh for more than 40 hours spread over five days, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has found no evidence so far that connects him with the Pathankot attackers, sources told HT. A senior home ministry official, requesting anonymity, said: There is nothing so far on record that shows that Salwinder had anything to do with the Pathankot attackers. After interrogating him alone for four days and then jointly with his cook, Madan Gopal, and the caretaker of Panj Peer Dargah, Somraj, the NIA sleuths more or less believe that he was abducted by terrorists. But leaving nothing to chance, the agency has decided to go for his lie-detector or polygraph test, likely to take place on Monday, for which the courts permission will be sought. Counter-terror sources said Salwinder had told interrogators that he left Gurdaspur on the intervening night of December 31 and January 1 around 9.15pm for Dargah Panj Peer. He reached there around 10.45pm. A counter-terror official privy to details of Salwinders interrogation said, He claims that he sometimes suffers from seizures or fits which are not related to any medical condition. He stayed there with Madan Gopal and friend Rajesh Verma for around 30 minutes and had tea. On the way back, around 11.45pm, the Pathankot attackers stopped his vehicle and overpowered the trio. Along with his cook, he was blindfolded and left with hands and legs tied by terrorists. The latter told them not to move even one step. The official added that out of fear of terrorists, Salwinder and his cook kept sitting there. Once assured that the terrorists were not coming back, they untied themselves somehow. Salwinder made the first call around 3am to a woman friend, who informed his wife. Then he informed police as well, the official added. The official argued that the NIA probe was regarding the Pathankot terror attack, not about Salwinders personal life or his marital or disciplinary problems. Binoculars found marked as US army property New Delhi: The set of binoculars recovered from the site of the operation at the Pathankot airbase has been found marked as US army property. This is not the first time that a device marked as US army property has been recovered from terrorists who came from Pakistan to carry out suicide attacks here. During the July 27, 2015, Dinanagar attack, three terrorists had brought a night vision device, marked as US government property. When checked with the US authorities, it was found that the device was lost by the American army in Afghanistan. The serial number will be shared with the US to ascertain where the equipment was lost, NIA sources said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The Punjab and Haryana high court on Friday gave the central government a time period of 10 days to respond to a petition seeking the start of operations of international flights from the Chandigarh international airport. During the resumed hearing of the petition filed by the Mohali Industry Association (MIA), the high court bench comprising justice SK Mittal and justice HS Sidhu observed that over Rs 950 crore had been spent on the construction of the new terminal and allied works, and despite the fact that the new terminal was inaugurated in September, the international operations were yet to start. The high court bench posted the matter for further hearing on January 27 and directed the central government operator, Chandigarh international airport Limited, and the Airport Authority of India (AAI) to file their replies within 10 days. During the hearing, the governments of Punjab and Haryana submitted their replies and told the high court that any decision to start operations of international flights was to be taken by the central government. The Punjab government told the high court that the government made repeated efforts and even wrote to the defence ministry and the civil aviation ministry in this regard. The government also appended the letters written by Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal in March 2015, May 2015, August 2015, and December 2015, wherein he had taken up the matter with either the civil aviation or defence ministry. One of the letters was also written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in August 2015. The government also stated that in April 2015, chief secretary Sarvesh Kaushal took up various infrastructural issues with the civil aviation ministry. The communication between the Punjab and central government reveals that Spicejet and Indigo were given permission by the ministry of defence to start international fights but they did not commence due to runway repair in mid- 2015. The letter written by the CM also reveals that apart from the Rs 1000 crore spent on creating the infrastructure for the new terminal, the government had also spent around Rs 500 to develop the vicinity. The new terminal was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September. The petitioner had sought the high courts intervention, stating that the non-operation of flights was causing huge losses, not only to the public exchequer, but to the passenger services and business, demanding to initiate an inquiry to find out whether an administrative action needed to be taken against the government officials responsible for non-operation of the international flights. The increasing number of murder incidents in Tarn Taran district has become a cause of concern for the local people as well as the police authorities, here. As many as four such cases have been reported in the last four days from January 11 to 14. Ironically, the police have failed to arrest majority of the accused behind these crimes. Another frightening aspect of these incidents was that these murders were committed in heinous ways, which suggested the total indifferent attitude of the criminals towards the law and order in the district. In a suspected case of honour killing, a 17-year-old youth, a resident of Dyal Rajputan village, 16 km from here, was found murdered on January 11. The deceased, identified as Avtar Singh, a student of Class 11 at the government high school, Shahbazpur, had going missing since the night of January 9 and his body was found under a heap of straw on the bank of a canal, 4 km from nearby Kuharka village. The police had said Avtar was in a relationship with classmate Sukhwinder Kaur of Kuharka village. According to investigation, the girl had invited Avtar to her house and it was suspected that her family knew about this and was behind his murder. The body, which was without the legs, was partially burnt. Stray dogs were preying on the body when it was found. Meanwhile, another youth was found murdered at Palasaur village, falling under Sadar police station the next day. In this incident of cold blooded murder, some unidentified persons had burnt his body, covering it with quilt. The police registered a case against unidentified persons but have failed to trace the accused so far. In yet another incident, on night of Lohri festival (January 13), a 25-year-old man, identified as Gursewak Singh, was killed in alleged firing during an argument over playing of loud music at a Lohri function at Marar village in Patti sub-division. Another person, Jasbir Singh, was critically injured in the firing. The village sarpanch, Kuldeep Kaur, and her husband Bohad Singh were prime accused in this case registered against as many as 18 persons. Of them, only seven accused have been arrested so far. Meanwhile, another case of murder was reported from Allowal village on Friday (January 14), when the police found a pundit (priest of temple), who was reportedly missing since Wednesday morning, murdered under mysterious circumstances. His body was without head. The deceased has been identified as Inder Lal, a resident of Tarn Taran. His son Surinder Kumar said his father went to someones house at Fatehabad village to hold hawan on Wednesday morning, but did not return home. On Friday, members of the victims family and scores of Tarn Taran residents staged protest against the police inaction in nabbing the killers outside the SSPs office here. Official speak The police are serious about the murder incidents, which have come in light in large number and have constituted special teams comprising senior officials to nab the culprits. These teams are working very hard to trace the killers and reach their hideouts, SSP Manmohan Sharma said. Residents speak Increasing rate of crime in the district is a cause of concern. Maintaining law and order in the society is the primary duty of the police. If somebody commits crime, it means he is not afraid of the police. Such situation is created only when the police deal with criminals with soft hands, opined Tajinderpal Singh, social and farmer activist. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The six Pakistani terrorists who stormed the airbase here on January 2 were fidayeen (suicide squad), it seems from observations in the autopsy report that the civil hospital authorities on Thursday handed over to National Investigation Agency (NIA). The 20-page report carries the details of the attackers DNA and how they died. It claims that they died of multiple bullet injuries, and no hair between the belly button and the thighs indicates that they were fidayeen. Its a ritual in jehadi (Islamic militant) groups to shave all hair off the lower section before going on a suicide mission. Senior medical officer (SMO) Dr Bhupinder Singh declined to reveal what had come out in the post-mortem examination but he agreed that the number of bullets found in the bodies were enough to kill anyone. Check with the NIA for details, he said. The hospital authorities have also handed over the bullets and the terrorists belongings to the agency. Still lying in the civil hospital mortuary, the bodies are likely to be re-examined, if some other agency wants. A week ago, the NIA had handed these over to Punjab Police for autopsy. Interpol is likely to come in and help with identifying the terrorists, so maybe thats why the bodies are preserved. On January 7, a panel of six doctors led by Dr Tarsem Singh performed autopsy on four full bodies and two charred ones, and sent viscera samples to Chandigarh Forensic Science Laboratory, which is yet to send its report. Asked why the bodies had not been cremated after autopsy, Pathankot senior superintendent of police (SSP) RK Bakshi said it was for the NIA to order. Patiala In what seems to be another glaring example of its complacency, the cash-strapped municipal corporation (MC) is losing huge revenue by turning a blind eye to the multiple usage of mobile towers in the city. As per the state governments notification dated December 5, 2013, in case a tower is used by more than one user, there will be 50% additional installation charge for each such user for a particular tower. The one-time installation fee from the original applicant is Rs 50,000. Even as half of the fee is to be charged by MC from each of the additional user on a particular tower, it has not bothered to gather record of such sharing of towers till date. Replying to an RTI query, the MC revealed said it had sent a letter to all the telecom companies last month to furnish the required sharing details, but none of them has replied so far. As per a rough estimate, there are around 400 towers in the city and majority of them have multiple users. Though MC does not have any data on sharing of towers so far, assuming that 50% of the around 400 towers in the city have at least two additional users, the civic body can mop up additional installation charges up to nearly Rs 1 crore, besides Rs 20 lakh of annual user fee Sources said that during its regular inspections, MCs building branch department detected many towers being rented out to different telecom companies. Local RTI activist Davinder Pal Singh said that it was a proven fact in the telecom sector that a single tower was shared by at least 2-3 tenants for optimum utilisation of telecom infrastructure. But two years after the state government policy, the MC did not bother to conduct any survey or carry out inspection at their own level to find out the multiple usage of mobile towers in Patiala, thereby losing huge revenue. On one hand, MC often gives excuse that it is short of money for development funds while on the other, it does not bother to increase its revenue. If they work sincerely, their overall telecom revenue can shoot up to the tune of Rs 2 crore, which can be used for repairing broken roads, he added. LOSS OF ANNUAL FEE TOO By ignoring the multiple usage of telecom towers, the MC not only incurs loss on account of one-time installation charges but also fails to collect Rs 10,000 annual charges, which are to be paid by every user, whether the tower is owned by it or it is on rent. When contacted, MC town planner Nirmal Singh claimed that no proper survey had been conducted so for to ascertain the number of towers being used by multiple users. He, however, said they would soon send another reminder to all the telecom companies, asking them to submit sharing details of their towers. We will also not hesitate in cracking a whip, including sealing of towers, if details are not provided to us at the earliest, he added He added that the revenue of the MC would certainly jump if all the telecom companies paid charges for the shared towers. Joint commissioner Nazar Singh said some time ago, the MC had planned to get a survey conducted from a technical agency to get details of sharing users on towers, but the matter could not be aggressively pursued. But now it would certainly be taken on priority, as the telecom companies were not coming forward to share details on their own, he added Promising quick action, mayor Amarinder Singh said, I will look into the matter tomorrow only and direct the MC commissioner to start gathering these details. We will make all telecom companies to pay the dues to the corporation. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The district rural police on Friday arrested seven gangsters belonging to the Sukha Kahlwan gang and seized nine illegal pistols, a .12 bore rifle, 62 live cartridges, a Mahindra Scorpio and three bikes from them. The arrested have been identified as notorious gangster Gaurav Sharma, 22, alias Goru Baccha of Ludhiana; Ranbir Singh, 23, of East Gobind Nagar in Amritsar, Lakhwinder Singh, 18, of Bhularai village; Jatinder, 26, of Balalo village, Harvinder Singh, 21, of Lakhpur village in Kapurthala district, Kuldeep Singh, 32, of Kanga village and Jagtar Singh, 22, of Kakkar village of Jalandhar. Senior superintendent of police Harmohan Singh Sandhu, superintendent of police (investigations) HPS Khakh and deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Sarbjeet Rai said at a press conference here that Goru has been facing 12 attempt to murder cases in various districts and five criminal cases were already registered against Jatinder. The police officials added that Goru was the right hand of gangster Sukha Kahlwan, who was gunned down by a rival gang, led by Vicky Gonder, in Phagwara on January 21, 2015, and after his death, Goru had started mobilising youths to join his gang and had involved more than 100 criminals. They added that Goru and other members of his gang had orchestrated a conspiracy to free notorious gangster Daljeet Singh Bhana, Vijay Topi, Akal Khatri and Gopi Dallewal from police custody during their hearings in various district courts. They had also planned to kill members of the rival gang, who were involved in the killing of Sukha. The officials added that to generate funds and purchase weapons, they had started taking contracts to kill people or to remove illegal encroachment on the lands. Recently, they had reached a Rs 4 lakh deal with one Joginder Pal of Phagwara to attack the nine persons, who had attacked Pals son on January 9 and chopped off his four fingers. They said Pal had given Rs 25,000 to them as first installment and the deal was stuck by Kuldeep Singh with Joginder Pal. They added that, acting on a tipoff that gangsters were planning to strike in Rawalpindi locality in Phagwara, a team, led by special staff in-charge Inderjeet Singh, sub-inspector Shiv Kumar and the Goraya police raided an abandoned brick kiln in Jagig village near Goraya on Thursday and arrested them. The police have also arrested four persons, who were involved in giving contract to gangsters, including Joginder Pal, Sadananda Davinder of Phagwara and Mohan Kumar of Mussapur village in Jalandhar. The cops said that accused have been taken on a five-day police custody and they would be quizzed about the sources of weapons, other accomplices and their targets. A mid-afternoon phone call at the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, from a SAS Nagar private hospital on Lohri (Wednesday) to inform it of a 40-year-old brain-dead organ donor a native of Solan started a dramatic turn of events at top three hospitals in the region that has saved and transformed several lives in just 27 hours. This HT reporter closely followed the turn of events that saw a successful combination of medical expertise working at speed and policy responses the use of a special Green Corridor that transported the organs in special ambulances in 12 minutes from the PGI to the airport combining together to achieve many firsts. From the moment of the call (1pm Wednesday) to 4pm Thursday), seven organs had been harvested and the PGI had even started the process of transplant of pancreas, kidneys and cornea. The heart and liver were harvested first, followed by pancreas, kidneys and cornea. The recipients had been called on from a waiting list that the PGIMER maintains. For the heart and the liver, the hospital could not find a suitable recipient and thus contacted the Army Research and Referral Hospital, New Delhi, and the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. The RR hospital asked for liver and AIIMS required heart. On Tuesday night, a team of doctors from the RR Hospital left for the PGIMER to collect the two organs, and reached here by 7.30am. The RR hospital arranged a special aircraft for taking the two organs to Delhi, said an official from PGIMER. Lynchpin: Transplant coordinator The PGI transplant coordinator, who is the first to reach to such calls, said, There was some resistance within the family. Finally, by 5.30pm on Wednesday, the donors son confirmed that the donor was ready. At 8.22pm, the donor had been admitted to the ICU, where a bed was reserved for him. While the donors body was stabilised, the PGIMER constituted a brain-death certification committee that certified the patient as such by 5.45am on Thursday. From 9:30am to 2pm, two organs heart and liver were harvested. Minutes later, these organs packed in blue and red boxes were carried in the military ambulance waiting outside the Nehru building, said a PGI official. At 2:20pm, the military ambulance which was led by the PCR vehicle and followed by PGIMER ambulance left for the airport. A dedicated green corridor was established from the PGIMER to the Chandigarh international airport and the journey took 12 minutes for 20 km. PGIMER officials said the organs were received by AIIMS and RR hospital at 4.40pm on Thursday. Know the donor The donor is a 40-year-old male architect from Solans Chambaghat village. He is survived by wife and two sons. The donor was a follower of Radha Soami Satsang, Beas. On January 12, he was volunteering at a satsang ghar in Kasauli, when a tree fell on him and his head hit the rock, sources have claimed. He was rushed to a hospital in Dharampur and then was referred to a private hospital in Mohali. On January 14, at 5.45am, he was declared brain-dead. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Sikh activist Surat Singh Khalsa has completed a year of fasting, seeking the release of Sikh prisoners lodged in jails even after completing their sentences, even as Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (ad hoc) president Jagdish Singh Jhinda met him here on Friday. Khalsas son Ravinderjit Singh Gogi said Jhinda termed the release of four Sikh prisoners, namely Waryam Singh, Baaz Singh, Makhan Singh and Hardeep Singh, in the past year as a victory for Khalsa, who was fighting a battle for justice. He suggested that Khalsa might end his agitation after the release of two more prisoners. In the past year, he has been moved in and out of hospital by the district administration. After a video went viral on social media, purportedly showing him having food, his supporters and Gogi alleged that he had been force-fed under the influence of drugs given by doctors on the governments orders. Meanwhile, members of the sangharsh committee formed by Khalsas supporters honoured the Panj Pyaras (five beloved ones of the guru). Gogi said the Panj Pyaras could visit Khalsa in the next two days. United States (US) Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights Sarah Sewall arrived at Dharamshala on Friday. As a US special coordinator for Tibetan issues, Sewall is scheduled to meet Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama and exile leadership to discuss issues of importance to the Tibetan refugee community. However, the exile government official here refused to disclose the purpose of her visit. Accompanied by Sikyong (Tibetan Prime Minister-in-exile) Lobsang Sangay, the Under Secretary arrived at Dharamshala airport in the afternoon but refused to talk to the media. Sewall is on a visit to India to led the participation in the USIndia Global Issues Forumthe first since 2012to review and expand areas of regional and global cooperation. Sewall also met with civil society representatives to strengthen cooperation around common interests, including countering violent extremism, religious freedom, trafficking in persons and transparency and governance. Sewall also delivered a speech on Democratic Values and Violent Extremism at the Vivekananda International Foundation in New Delhi on Thursday in which she expressed concern over increasing intolerance in India. We have concerns about some of the recent incidents in India, Sewall quoted as saying in media reports. She cited the Dadri incident and attacks on Churches that took place last year and stated that it was much of a challenge for political leaders, as well as religious leaders, to be setting a firm example about the need to uphold constitutional protections. Replying to the show-cause notice issued by the UT education department, Vivek High School, Sector 38, has alleged that the complaint is false, frivolous, malafide and motivated. It also reiterated its status of a Sikh minority institution. The complainant, Navneet Goyal, as Hindustan Times reported on Thursday, had alleged that a notice on the school notice board had claimed that the school was a Sikh minority school, and he was verbally informed that Sikh students would be given preference, which amounted to discrimination based on religion. In a letter marked to the district education officer (DEO), school chairperson HS Mamik has said, It is a well-settled principle that the autonomy of a Sikh minority institution be allowed to function without a minimum interference in managing the affairs of the institution, adding that it appears the complainant has made an attempt to interfere in the matters of a minority institution in order to destroy the administrative autonomy of a Sikh minority institution in the garb of the complaint. Goyal has made a false complaint in order to arm-twist the school to succumb to his pressure for admission of his ward in nursery class, also states the written reply. Besides, a reference has also been made to Article 30(1) of the Constitution of India, 1950 which gives religious minority a fundamental right to establish and administer educational institutes of their choice. Vivek High was established by Sikhs and since its inception has been administered by Sikhs. It also cited that the institution had followed the guidelines laid down in TMA Pai foundations versus State of Karnataka and was giving preference to Sikh community on the basis of the demography of Chandigarh city. Meanwhile, with reference to the departments claim about the school not being granted minority status by the National Minority Commission for Education Institutions (NMCEI), the authorities have claimed that the matter has already been argued and that the judgment was reserved by the commission and was due anytime now. When contacted, director school education (DSE) Rubinderjit Singh Brar said the department was still examining the matter. Sources in the department, however, said the department officials were not taking the matter lightly as they plan to write to the NMCEI, Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) as well as the estate office about the same and reporting the matter at length to come to a conclusion. Meanwhile, Vivek High is already one of the 27 schools to which the notice had to be sent regarding EWS violation as per the department officials. Mamik though maintained his stance. He said, We have no specific percentage mentioned anywhere on reservation of seats but yes, we are a minority institution of the Sikh community. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Autorickshaws in Ranchi continued to stay off the roads for the third consecutive day on Friday as discussions between the striking drivers association and the transport department failed, a member of the striking drivers association has said. Talks with transport officials failed to address the drivers concerns, so the association has decided to continue with the strike, said Ramkumar Singh, working president of Jharkhand state diesel autorickshaw drivers association. We raised our voice against increasing the seat capacity from three passengers and a driver to five passengers and a driver, which has increased the tax amount from Rs 250 every three months to Rs 500, he said. The association had asked transport officials about the rule under which the seat capacity was increased but neither did official reply nor they were ready to meet the demand of doing away with increased tax, Singh said. We have decided to call for a city-wide bandh to protest against the transport departments failure to meet our demands. He said the association would hold a meeting on Saturday to decide on the date of the bandh. The association has been on strike since Wednesday to protest against the transport departments reluctance to issue permits for diesel-run autorickshaws and against police action. Association members said the strike will continue until the government met their six-point charter of demands, including issuing of fresh permits, demarcation of autorickshaw stands and reducing the tax of seating capacity. Nagendra Paswan, district transport officer said, The association stuck to their demands and did weNow, we will discuss about the associations demands with the state transport secretary before taking a final decision. More than 10,000 diesel-run autos have been off the roads since Wednesday. Commuters continued to suffer in absence of adequate public transport. Diesel-run autos constitute 40% of the citys public transport. The 40 buses that ply in the city account for just 1%, while cycle rickshaws make up 3%, according to a survey by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policies. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON For all those of you yet to recover from the news that Comedy Nights With Kapil will end on January 17, heres another bad news: Ali Asgar, aka Dadi, says he will never return as the much loved character in any future seasons of the show. Asgar, who made phrases like Ittu Sa Tha and Dadi Ki Pappi so deeply ingrained in the collective consciousness of the TV viewing audience, wants to concentrate on his new show. He played Kapil Sharmas Dadi on the comedy show for as many as three years. Read: The channels team should have flagged objectionable act, says Kiku Sharda I dont want to play Daadi now. I know Kapil is coming up with a show. But I am done with the role. Now, my focus will be on Woh Teri Bhabhi Hai Pagle. I think we have ended the show on the right note and the character has achieved what it had to. Other actors on Comedy Nights with Kapil experimented with new characters. But I played Daadi for last three years. I was in the same get up. Now if the show comes up on some other channel, I have no objection with someone else playing the role. With due respect, there will be no bad blood, Ali told Times of India. Amitabh Bachchan gives Ali Asgar a peck on his cheek on one episode. (Colors) In another development, Ali was granted anticipatory bail by the Bombay High Court in a case filed against him for spoofing self-styled godman Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh. Justice Ajey Gadkari granted Ali bail on a surety of Rs 25,000 for a week by when the comedian will have to approach a court in Haryana where the FIR has been lodged against him and seven others in the case. Ali had approached the High Court after the arrest of his colleague Kiku Sharda by the Punjab and Haryana police after a case under section 295 (A) (act intended to outrage religious feelings) of IPC was registered against them. I am a law abiding citizen of India, a resident of Mumbai. I have never come to the adverse notice of any law enforcement agency, Ali said. Shah Rukh Khan, a regular on Kapils show, doesnt refrain from showing his affection. (Colors) Ali, along with Kiku, had enacted a skit on a programme titled Jashn-e-Ummed aired in December last year following which a follower of Ram Rahim lodged an FIR in Kaithal, Haryana. The FIR was filed on January 1 by a follower of the Haryana-based religious sect Dera Sacha Sauda. Besides Sharda and Asgar, it names actors Gaurav Gera, Rajiv Thakur, Pooja Banerjee, Mouni Roy, Gautam Gulati and Sana Khan and all known and unknown persons who make or act in the show Jashan-e-Umeed for portraying their leader in bad light. Read: Never wanted dadis kisses to get cheesy, says Ali Asgar As per the FIR, the actors were shown dressed as his holiness and dancing, consuming liquor and seeking donation. No donation is accepted by the Guru and the organization is strictly against liquor consumption, the FIR said. With inputs from PTI Follow @htshowbiz Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif congratulated director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy on her Oscar nomination for a harrowing documentary on the practice of honour killings and vowed that Pakistan would eradicate this evil. A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, which follows the story of a rare survivor, was nominated in the documentary short category of the Academy Awards on Thursday. Hundreds of women are murdered by their relatives in Pakistan each year on the grounds of defending family honour. Their male murderers are then pardoned by relatives under the countrys controversial Islamic blood money laws that allow murderers to escape punishment. The curse of Leonardo DiCaprio: 5 times he shouldve won an Oscar A statement from the prime ministers office late Thursday offered Chinoy, who made history in 2012 when she won Pakistans first Oscar for the another documentary, Sharifs congratulations. Honour killings, the theme of the film, afflict several segments of Pakistani society, it quoted Sharif as saying. He expressed the governments commitment to rid Pakistan of this evil by bringing in appropriate legislation, the statement continued, adding that Chinoys insights could prove helpful. Chinoy said on Twitter that she was delighted that Sharif had made the commitment. #OscarsSoWhite: Outrage against racist nominations Next step is to push all the politicians to call a joint session & get the anti honour crime bill passed that has lapsed in parliament! she said in another tweet. There is no Honor in Honor Killing--It is not part of our religion or culture--It is a stain on our society, she said. Chinoy was feted across Pakistan in 2012 when she won the countrys first Oscar for Saving Face, a 40-minute documentary that exposed the horrors endured by women who survive devastating acid attacks. It focuses on two women, Zakia and Rukhsana, as they fight to rebuild their lives after being attacked by their husbands, and British Pakistani plastic surgeon Mohammad Jawad who tries to help repair their shattered faces. Acid attacks, which disfigure and often blind their overwhelmingly female victims, have long been used to settle personal or family scores in Pakistan, with hundreds of cases reported each year. The attacks along with honour killings fit a wider pattern of eroding womens rights in the conservative Muslim nation, where women are frequently treated as second-class citizens and there is no law against domestic violence. ott:10:ht-entertainment_listing-desktop Scotland Yard has said it is significantly raising the number of police officers after reassessing its ability to deal with a potential Paris-like terror attack in London. The existing number of police officers is being raised by 600, taking the total number of armed officers to 2,800. The number of armed response vehicles is being doubled. Britains current threat level is severe, which indicates a terror threat is highly likely. Scotland Yard had initiated a training programme after the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service Bernard Hogan-Howe said: The tragic attacks in Paris reinforced the vital role that firearms officers would be called upon to play on behalf of all of us, to run forward and confront the deadly threat that such attackers would pose. In the days following Paris I asked my firearms team to increase the number of armed response vehicles available on our streets, which we did. Now I have decided that we take the steps to increase these numbers on a permanent basis, he added. The increase, however, will not change the fundamental principle that police in Britain are not routinely armed, Hogan-Howe said. Scotland Yard said: Armed response vehicle officers continue to receive training as part of their routine cycle to test the response to a marauding terrorist firearms attack. This programme of training was developed following the attacks in Mumbai in 2008 and continues to develop learning from incidents around the world. Fighters of the Al Shabaab militant group said that they had killed dozens of Kenyan soldiers posted with African Union Force after attacking a remote Somali army base. Somali and Kenyan military officials said the fighters had seized the Somali army base near the town of Ceel Cadde, about 550 km (340 miles) west of Mogadishu in a region near Kenyas border. A spokesperson for the African Union peacekeeping force AMISOM said the battle for the base was still under way. Al Shabaab said it had killed more than 60 Kenyan soldiers from AMISOM. Kenyas defence ministry said both sides had suffered casualties but said numbers were not confirmed. An AMISOM spokesperson said that the Al Shabaab toll was exaggerated but did not give a figure. There was no independent figure. The fighting is ongoing, AMISOM spokesperson Paul Njuguna said. A shopkeeper in the Ceel Cadde town said soldiers from AMISOM appeared to have left the town and fighters were now on the streets. We see Al Shabaab in every corner of town, shopkeeper Abdullahi Iidle told Reuters. Some residents have fled. Al Shabaab has been driven out of major strongholds in Somalia by an offensive by AMISOM and the Somali army that was launched last year. But the fighters still control some parts of the countryside and often launch guerrilla-style assaults and bomb attacks. The group, which is aligned with al Qaeda, said it took over the base after a suicide bomber rammed its gates, and also controlled the town, capturing nearly 30 trucks and armoured vehicles. The groups military operations spokesperson, Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, told Reuters it had killed more than 60 Kenyan soldiers serving with AMISOM, while others escaped. Al Shabaab has often inflated casualty figures in the past, while the Somali government and other official estimates have often played down the numbers. A spokesperson for the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) said Al Shabaab fighters overran the Somali army base and AMISOM had counter attacked. The number of casualties on both sides is unknown, Col. David Obonyo, KDF spokesperson, said in a statement. A senior Somali military official confirmed the militants had taken over the base. AMISOM has gone out of the town and base for strategic reasons, Colonel Farah Surow, who is based about 100km (60 miles) from the Ceel Cadde base, told Reuters. African Union troops, now numbering about 22,000 from several African nations, have spent nearly a decade battling Al Shabaab insurgents in Somalia, a country mired in conflict since civil war broke out in 1991. Al Shabaab has in the past year staged multiple attacks against African Union bases in Somalia, part of a guerrilla warfare strategy to drive out foreign troops and impose its harsh version of Islamic law across the Horn of Africa nation. A drawing in French satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo suggesting Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy found dead on a Turkish beach last year, would have grown up to be a sex attacker caused outrage online on Thursday. The cartoon depicts two male creatures running after terrified women with the caption: What would have become of the young Alan if he had grown up? A groper in Germany. Sexual assaults on women in Cologne and other German cities on New Years Eve, many blamed on migrants, have prompted more than 600 criminal complaints and caused a backlash against German Chancellor Angela Merkels policies on refugees. More than 1 million entered Germany last year, more than any other European country. The cartoon was published a week after the anniversary of attacks on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris which killed 12 people in January last year. The phrase Je suis Charlie (I am Charlie), was swiftly adopted by supporters online. This time, many people on social media said the cartoon was offensive while others argued Charlie Hebdo was keeping to its usual provocative tone to stir debate on European attitudes to the migrant crisis. Disgusting cartoon in Charlie Hebdo ("what would've become of Aylan had he grown up? A groper") via @faizaz pic.twitter.com/iB4myFb1ke Sunny Hundal (@sunny_hundal) January 13, 2016 Charlie Hebdo reminding us it's fine to be racist if you claim it's satire and scream freedom of speech. Not Chris Taylor (@the_itch1980) January 13, 2016 The image of Alan lying face down on a Turkish beach last September appeared around the world and prompted a wave of sympathy for the plight of refugees fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa. Republican White House hopefuls sparred in South Carolina in their sixth primary debate Thursday, two weeks before the first nomination votes are cast in the 2016 election. Here are some key quotes from the debate: Story time with Barack Tuesday night I watched story time with Barack Obama. I got to tell you, it sounded like everything in the world was going amazing, you know? - Governor Chris Christie, slamming Obamas State of the Union address in the first of many attacks on the presidents national security record. My friend Donald Back in September, my friend Donald said he had his lawyers look at this from every which way and there was no issue there. Now since September, the Constitution hasnt changed, but the poll numbers have. - Senator Ted Cruz, on Trumps suggestion he may be ineligible because of his birth in Canada. A marked man Theres a big question mark on your head, and you cant do that to the party. - Donald Trump, explaining his preoccupation with Cruzs place of birth. Devil in the details Yes, I made a paperwork error disclosing it on one piece of paper instead of the other. But if that is the best hit The New York Times has got, they better go back to the well. - Cruz, dismissing reports he failed to properly disclose a million dollars in banks loans during his Senate race. Dont knock the Big Apple When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York... And I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made. - Trump, responding to an attack on New Yorks liberal values. Enemies outside No. No. Look, we have to stop with political correctness. - Trump, when asked if he would retract his call banning Muslims from entering the United States. Enemies outside (2) China is running over president Obama like he is a child. - Cruz, riffing on a favorite theme of the Republican White House campaign. And enemies within I am convinced if this president could confiscate every gun in America he would. I am convinced if he could get rid of the second amendment he would. - Senator Marco Rubio. But at least... Everybody on this stage is better than Hillary Clinton. She is a disaster, - Jeb Bush, in one of the evenings rare calls for unity in the Republican camp. ec/arb/pst Jimmy Morales, a former TV comic elected Guatemalas new president on a wave of public revulsion against widespread graft, took office Thursday in a ceremony attended by leaders from the Americas. Invitees to the swearing-in included US Vice President Joe Biden, and the presidents of Mexico, Ecuador and most Central American nations. Spains former king Juan Carlos also attended. Not tolerating corruption or theft, that is something we can do and what we are going to do from the first day, Morales, 46, said as he accepted the presidential sash. Morales was previously best known for a television role as a country bumpkin who nearly becomes president. Elections on October 25 elevated him to the office of head of state for real, by a landslide, despite having no political experience beyond an unsuccessful run for municipal office in 2011. His victory was attributed to widespread public disgust with corruption, especially after his elected predecessor, Otto Perez, was felled by a major graft scandal. Weak political base Yet his political support is weak, with his conservative party holding just 11 seats in the 158-seat Congress. No members from his party sit on the incoming congressional steering committee, and an opposition figure was chosen to be the new speaker in congress. Morales party is also fending off charges that some of its founders, former military officers, are linked to atrocities committed during Guatemalas 1960-1996 civil war. Morales has given few concrete indications of how he intends to make good on his vows to fight corruption, or to combat the countrys high murder rate and poverty. His cabinet was expected to be unveiled hours after the inauguration ceremony, which was delayed more than two hours because of congressional wrangling over its top posts. Ahead of the swearing-in, Biden met with Morales to congratulate him for vowing to fight corruption in his nation of 16 million people. He also stressed that Guatemala should attract more investment to counter emigration. Morales asked for Guatemalan migrants in the US to be given temporary protected status that would preclude them being deported. Biden said he would analyze the proposal. Biden and Morales then went into a closed-door meeting with the presidents of Honduras and El Salvador. Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez said after the meeting that the three Central American nations would hold a technical meeting on migration and security in two weeks, then another meeting would be held with Biden in a months time. The United States this month launched raids to round up and deport mostly Central American migrants who have court orders to leave the country. Washington in parallel has allocated $750 million to improve security and prosperity in the so-called Northern Triangle made up of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, which is prey to vicious gang violence. Academically, emotionally ready Guatemala recorded 6,000 murders in 2015, at least half of them blamed on gangs. Its problems were heightened last year by political instability when protests erupted over a corruption scandal exposing kickbacks to officials in return for lowered customs duties for some companies. That brought about Perezs ouster in September. Most Guatemalans view Morales with fondness as a familiar figure from his 15-year television career on a program he produced. His brother Sammy Morales who co-produced the show told a web magazine, Nomada, asserted Jimmy was prepared academically, emotionally and spiritually to take on his new role. According to his official biography, Jimmy Morales, an Evangelical Christian, has a university degree in business administration, a masters in media and communication and another in strategic studies with a specialization in security and defense. He has been married for two decades to his wife, Gilda Patricia Marroquin, and has three children. Indonesians were shaken but refusing to be cowed, a day after a deadly attack in a busy district of central Jakarta that has been claimed by the Islamic State group. In a new development, police on Friday told an Indonesian TV channel they arrested three men on suspicion of links to the attack that killed seven people, including five attackers. The area near a Starbucks coffee shop, where the attack by suicide bombers and gunmen began, remained cordoned off with a highly visible police presence on Friday. Onlookers and journalists lingered nearby, with some people leaving flowers and messages of support. A large screen atop the building that houses the Starbucks displayed messages that said #prayforjakarta and Indonesia Unite. Newspapers carried bold front-page headlines, declaring the country was united in condemnation of the attack -- the first in Indonesia since 2009. Depok area police chief Colonel Dwiyono told MetroTV that the three men were arrested at dawn at their homes in Depok on the outskirts of Jakarta. Dwiyono, who goes by one name, says the men are suspected militants and are being questioned over possible links to the attack on Thursday. MetroTV broadcast footage of the handcuffed men being escorted by police. Risti Amelia, an accountant at a company near the Starbucks restaurant said she was still shaking and weak when she returned to her office on Friday. Because staff remained emotional, the company decided to send workers home, she said. Two civilians were killed in the attack that began on Thursday morning, an Indonesian and a Canadian. Another 20 people were wounded. Jakarta police chief Major General Tito Karnavian has said the attackers had links with IS and were part of a group led by Bahrum Naim, an Indonesian militant who is now in Syria. A message shared on Twitter late on Thursday claimed the attack was the work of IS, and the US-based SITE Intelligence Group said it was circulated among pro-IS groups on other media. The message said attackers carried out the Jakarta assault and had planted several bombs with timers. It differed from Indonesian police on the number of attackers, saying there were four. It said they wore suicide belts and carried light weaponry. The statement could not be independently verified by The Associated Press, though it resembled previous claims made by the group, which controls territory in both Iraq and Syria. Jakarta is no stranger to terrorism, with the 2009 bombings of two hotels that killed seven people and injured more than 50. The bloodiest attack by Islamic extremists in Indonesia and in all of Asia was in 2002, when a nightclub bombing on the resort island of Bali killed 202 people, mostly foreigners. Those and others were blamed on the al Qaeda-inspired Jemaah Islamiyah. Following a crackdown by security forces, militant strikes in recent years have been smaller and less deadly, and have targeted government authorities, mainly police and anti-terrorism forces. Terrorism experts say IS supporters in Indonesia are drawn from the remnants of Jemaah Islamiyah. An audacious attack in the heart of Indonesias capital by suicide bombers was funded by the Islamic State group, police said on Friday, as they arrested three men on suspicion of links to the plot and seized an IS flag from one of the bombers. National police chief General Badrodin Haiti told reporters that Thursdays attack was funded by IS through Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian who spent one year in jail for illegal possession of weapons in 2011, and is now in Syria fighting for the Islamic State. Supporters of the Islamic State group also circulated a claim of responsibility for the attack on Twitter late on Thursday. The radical group controls territory in Syria and Iraq, and its ambition to create an Islamic caliphate has attracted some 30,000 foreign fighters from around the world, including a few hundred Indonesians and Malaysians. The IS link, if proved, poses a grave challenge to Indonesian security forces. Until now, the group was known only to have sympathisers with no active cells capable of planning and carrying out a plan such as Thursdays, in which five men attacked a Starbucks cafe and a traffic police booth with handmade bombs, guns and suicide belts. They killed two people a Canadian and an Indonesian and injured 20. The attackers were killed subsequently, either by their suicide vests or by police. The attack was funded by ISIS in Syria through Bahrun Naim, Haiti told reporters after Friday prayers, using an acronym for the Islamic State. He did not elaborate. He also identified one of the five attackers as Sunakim, who was once sentenced to seven years in jail for his involvement in military-style terrorist training in Aceh, but was released early. Also Friday, police arrested three men at dawn in their homes in Depok on the outskirts of Jakarta, and more raids were being conducted in Java, Kalimantan and Sulawesi provinces based on evidence found at the scene, national police spokesperson Major General Anton Charliyan said. Now we can be sure that it was the action of ISIS because ISIS flag was found in the house of one of the suspects, he said. Hopefully, the groups (other) members will be captured soon. In recent years, Indonesian anti-terror forces had successfully stamped out another extremist group known as Jemaah Islamiyah. It was responsible for several attacks in Indonesia, including the 2002 bombings of bars in Bali, which left 202 people dead, as well as two hotel bombings in Jakarta in 2009 that killed seven people. Terrorism experts say IS supporters in Indonesia are drawn from the remnants of Jemaah Islamiyah. Jakarta residents were shaken by Thursdays events but refused to be cowed. The area near the Starbucks cafe remained cordoned off with a highly visible police presence. Onlookers and journalists lingered, with some people leaving flowers and messages of support. A large screen atop the building, containing the Starbucks displayed messages that said #prayforjakarta and Indonesia Unite. Newspapers carried bold front-page headlines declaring the country was united in condemnation of the attack, which was the first in Indonesia, the worlds largest Muslim-majority nation, since the hotel bombings in 2009. Risti Amelia, an accountant at a company near the Starbucks said she was still shaking and weak when she returned to her office on Friday. Because staff remained emotional, the company decided to send workers home, she said. Supporters of the Islamic State group circulated a claim of responsibility on Twitter late on Thursday. The message said attackers carried out the Jakarta assault and had planted several bombs with timers. It differed from Indonesian police on the number of attackers, saying there were four. The statement could not be independently verified by The Associated Press, though it resembled previous claims made by the group. Taufik Andri, a terrorist analyst, said that although the attack ended swiftly and badly for the attackers, their aim was to show their presence and ability. Their main aim was just to give impression that ISIS supporters here are able to do what was done in Paris. It was just a Paris-inspired attack without being well-prepared, he told The Associated Press. Those attacks in November killed 130 people. A top Pakistani official has confirmed that Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar has been placed in protective custody while investigation agencies try to verify information provided by India about his alleged links to the Pathankot attack. Rana Sanaullah, the law minister of Punjab province and a top leader of the PML-N party, made the revelation during a television talk show on Thursday night. He said that authorities had sealed two madrassas linked to JeM though none of the offices of the banned group have been closed. Masood Azhar has been taken into protective custody by the counter-terrorism force. This has been done so that if the information (provided by India) on the Pathankot incident is developed by our agencies, then the people connected to the incident can be arrested in that case, he said. So were holding on to (Azhar) for now, so that we can arrest him if necessary in this case, he added. Till now, the foreign ministries of both countries had said there was no information about the arrest or detention of Azhar. Sanaullah, who has himself been accused of having close links to radical groups in the past, further said authorities had not sealed offices of any organisations or caught anyone. Read more: Pak militants attacked Pathankot airbase, Jaish operative tells HT There were two madrassas one in Bahawalpur that was being run by the brother of Masood Azhar, the chief of the banned JeM, and another in Sialkot. We have sealed them because of a suspicion of links with the JeM, he added. India says the six terrorists who attacked the airbase in Pathankot in Punjab on January 2, killing seven security personnel, were Pakistanis linked to the JeM. There were reports of raids in parts of Punjab as the federal government continued its crackdown on the JeM. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif reiterated his vow to fight terrorism in all its forms. He told a gathering of businessmen in Islamabad that if Pakistan did not fight against all forms of terrorism, it could not emerge as a progressive and democratic country. At the same time, there are differences between the political and military leadership over a proposed anti-terror operation that the government wants to start in Punjab. The army wants the operation to be conducted by the paramilitary Pakistan Rangers, which has been active in the raids on JeM seminaries, while the Punjab government wants its own anti-terrorist force to deal with the problem. The sensitivities linked to the issue were also reflected in some comments made by Sanaullah, who said people were aware of the stance and activities of the JeM and other banned groups but we should not talk too much about them because of their links to the Kashmir issue. For 65 years, successive governments have had the consistent view that what is going on in Kashmir is jihad...and no one can deny that people from Pakistan went (to Kashmir). If the Pakistan state policy now is that terrorism cannot be allowed from anywhere on its soil, that is a good policy with which we can face the world, Sanaullah said. Pakistan is also finalising the team it intends to send to Pathankot to collect evidence so that a comprehensive charge-sheet can be presented in Pakistani courts to formally detain JeM activists. Officials said the JeM has already approached the Lahore high court for the release of its members through lawyers. Masood Azhar, in a message to the local media, did not comment on whether his group was involved in the Pathankot attack but insisted his detention was unlawful. If the Pakistani authorities are unable to give enough evidence, it is feared that the courts will set Azhar free as they did in the case of (Lashkar-e-Taiba commander) Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, said Kamil Mir, a Lahore-based lawyer. The Pakistani media has welcomed the action against the JeM, with editorials in some newspapers insisting that the net should be widened to include many other militant groups that are operating in the country with official patronage. The Express Tribune commented on Friday that the much-delayed National Action Plan, or the governments anti-terrorism strategy, may finally be implemented following the action against the JeM. Seven years ago, Bahrun Naim was quietly running an internet cafe in the small Indonesian city of Solo. On Thursday, he was identified by police as the mastermind behind the deadly attack on Jakarta claimed by the Islamic State, pulling the strings from Raqqa, the radical groups de facto capital in Syria. In between, Naim was arrested in 2011 for illegal arms possession and jailed for three years, and police say that since then he has emerged as a key player in militant networks that have sprouted around Solo and across central Java. A year ago, he left for Syria to join the front-lines of Islamic State, and police believe Naim was closely involved in coordinating Thursdays assault. Five of the attackers and two civilians were killed in Islamic States first strike against Indonesia, the worlds most populous Muslim nation where the group wants to establish an Asian beachhead for its caliphate. There had been hints of what was to come for weeks. After the coordinated attacks across Paris in November, the militant intellectual published a blog in which he explained to his followers how it was easy to move jihad from guerrilla warfare in Indonesias equatorial jungles to a city. Reuters contacted Naim on November 24 on Telegram social messaging, using details provided by one of his acquaintances. In that exchange, he said there were more than enough Islamic State supporters to carry out an action in Indonesia. Just waiting for the right trigger, the man identifying himself as Naim said. Read | Police recover IS flag from home of one of the Jakarta blast attackers Naim could not be reached for comment on Thursday. Intelligence experts say that, not long after that Telegram exchange, intelligence officials began to pick up talk in social messaging chat rooms that an attack on Indonesia was imminent. Chatter among Islamists began to become more organised last month and there were discussions for the first time of a multiple attack, said a Jakarta-based security adviser, who monitors radical group discussions on mobile messaging services for the government. Counter-terrorism officials believe there are at least 1,000 sympathisers of the radical jihadist group across Indonesia. Emerging militant networks The eavesdropping helped lead police to the arrest of more than a dozen men across the populous island of Java, who were suspected of planning attacks over the Christmas and New Year holidays. Bomb-making materials, a suicide vest and jihad manuals were found during the raids. Police said some of those rounded up had received funding and support from Naim, who believes Indonesia should be governed strictly as an Islamic country. Naim had been planning the attack on Indonesias capital for a while, Jakarta Police chief Tito Karnavian said on Thursday, adding that he clearly had ambitions to become the leader of Islamic State in Southeast Asia. Sidney Jones, a Jakarta-based expert on Islamist militants at the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, said in a November report, that there was only a slim chance in Indonesia of an attack on the scale seen in Paris, but she warned then that the threat was growing under the governments nose. She noted that in one blog post, entitled Lessons from the Paris Attacks, Naim urged his Indonesian audience to study the planning, targeting, timing, coordination, security and courage of the Paris jihadis. That said, experts have pointed out that the relatively low death toll in the Jakarta assault suggested the involvement of local, poorly armed militants with little or no training. In the Telegram exchange with Reuters, Naim also spoke of more mundane affairs, explaining that he enjoyed life in Syria and had no plans to return to Indonesia. I move around, depending on where our emir orders us to go. Its good here in Syria. Theres electricity, accommodation, water and its free. The services provided by them are good, cheaper than in Indonesia, he said. Read | Indian eyewitness of Jakarta blasts, recalls commandos, gunfire Foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz on Friday dismissed US President Barack Obamas description of Pakistan as a country that will be unstable for decades as predictions, saying Islamabad is taking action against terrorists and extremists. During his final State of the Union address this week, Obama had warned that instability will continue for decades in Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Middle East and parts of Central America, Africa and Asia. He also said some of these places may become safe havens for new terrorist networks. Aziz, the adviser to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on foreign affairs, told a breakfast meeting with Chinese scholars, diplomats and journalists: Whatever the US president said about instability in Pakistan and Afghanistan are his predictions and have nothing to do with ground realities. The Dawn quoted Aziz as saying, Pakistan is taking decisive action against terrorism and militancy and (the) days to come will witness more stability here. Aziz acknowledged there was instability in Afghanistan and said Pakistan is making all out efforts for establishing peace and stability there. He further said that Pakistan will foil all sinister designs against the countrys $46 billion economic corridor project with China. The project will help Pakistan overcome its energy crisis and infuse new life in infrastructure, he said. Aziz referred to a planned meeting of the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan and said both countries are in touch and new dates for the talks will be finalised soon. On Thursday, India and Pakistan mutually agreed to put off the meeting scheduled for January 15 in the wake of the terrorist attack on the Pathankot airbase. The assault has been blamed on the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed. Aziz said there is no competition between Pakistans Gwadar port and Irans Chabahar port, which have been declared sister ports. Gwadar provides a shorter route to Central Asia than Chabahar, he added. A top Afghan police official has accused Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence agency and other elements in the region of backing the Islamic State. Fazel Ahmad Sherzad, the police chief of Nangarhar province, made the allegation close on the heels of an attack on the Pakistani consulate in Jalalabad that was claimed by the IS. Seven Afghan security personnel were killed in Wednesdays attack carried out by a group of terrorists, including a suicide bomber. Daesh militants are supported by regional countries, especially Pakistan, but government forces are investigating the attack on the Pakistani consulate, Sherzad was quoted as saying by Tolo News channel. Sherzad described the attack on the Pakistani mission as worrying and accused the ISI of helping the Islamic State. Officials of the Nangarhar provincial council questioned how the attackers had the infiltrated the heavily guarded zone where the Pakistani mission is located. They said it was surprising that militants managed to enter a so-called safe area. The Jalalabad strike was the first insurgent attack on a Pakistani mission in Afghanistan. Read: 7 Afghan security men killed in Jalalabad gunfight, IS claims attack I dont know how the attackers entered the consulate despite there being many checkpoints near the consulate, said Sohrab Qadiri, a provincial council member. Amid a surge in the activities of the Islamic State in Nangarhar, residents have criticised the government and security forces for not tackling the group that has carried out several attacks since its emergence in Afghanistan last year. Afghanistan has for long accused the ISI of backing and funding militant groups in the country to pursue its strategic objectives. Political analyst Jawed Kohistani told Tolo: There are groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan that do not see peace and security in their interest and they want to achieve their interests through insecurity. The head of the powerful US gun lobby, Wayne LaPierre, challenged President Barack Obama on Thursday to an hour-long televised debate on gun control. LaPierre threw down the gauntlet in a video posted on the National Rifle Association website, a week after the lobbying group rebuffed Obamas invitation to debate the issues during a CNN town hall-style meeting January 7. In the video, LaPierre scornfully dismissed the Presidents original offer before laying down his own debate challenge. The presidents calculation is clear: Destroy the NRA before the election so Hillary (Clinton) can destroy the second amendment after it. Thats why we wont get suckered into any of Obamas fixed fights, he said. But Ill tell you what: Ill meet you for a one-on-one one hour debate with a mutually agreed upon moderator on any network that will take it, he said. No pre-screened questions and no gas bag answers. Americans will judge for themselves who they trust and believe on this issue: You or the NRA. Lets see if youre game for a fair debate. In the video, LaPierre harshly attacks Obama and his record, and vows that the NRA will fight measures the President announced last week that tighten rules on gun sales. We know that the President would ban every gun and bullet in America and effectively turn us into Australia, he said. And we know, if HC is elected she will make sure that happens, he said, referring to Clinton, who is leading the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. He said if Obama really wanted to make America safer, hed pick up the phone and tell his Justice Department to flip Chicago upside down until every criminal with a gun, criminal gang-banger with a gun and drug dealer with a gun is arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned to the fullest extent of the law. That would make a difference, that would save lives. But hes had seven long years to issue that order and he has failed and that is why Americans dont trust the President, he said. In an exchange with the public on Twitter, Obama did not respond to several questions asking whether he would accept LaPierres challenge. Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul won't be on stage for Thursday night's GOP debate in South Carolina, and that could turn out to be his campaign's smartest move thus far. The Kentucky senator's decision to skip South Carolina after being pushed to the earlier undercard debate has generated more interest in his campaign and considerably more airtime than he could have hoped for at the Fox Business debate Thursday evening. Instead of landing in South Carolina, it was New York for Paul, where, in a two-day stint, he has appeared on "The Daily Show," "The Dr. Oz Show," as well as interviews with Fox News, MSNBC and CNN, all providing him the opportunity to talk about why he skipped the debate and what that means for the party, as well as his vision for it. What that translates into is at least 7 million sets of eyes on Paul compared to the 4.7 million that watched the last Fox Business debate, according to CNN. Paul has routinely been at the bottom in terms of speaking times during the debates. However, as recently as Wednesday, Paul was trying to lobby Fox Business executives into letting him on the stage, citing a Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll that was completed before the Jan. 10 Fox Business deadline but released 36 hours after it. Paul's poll numbers likely would have been good enough to get him into the debate, putting him in fifth place. "It occurred within the window of time they prescribed," Paul told The Washington Post. "We're they will reevaluate and count this poll, which comes after the NBC/Marist poll, which also had us alone in fifth place. Our campaign is talking with them about re-evaluating the decision." Fox Business, however, said that the stage was set. Paul said in an interview last week that he believes that the undercard debate should not even exist anymore. "I'm not sure where the purpose is anymore, if there ever was one," Paul told Politico. "I think if you have a national campaign, you've raised a significant amount of money, you're on the ballot, you've employed staff and you're actively campaigning, you've got to be in the debate." The Kentucky senator has repeatedly criticized the debate formats, and, as early as last month, he said he would refuse to participate in any of the undercard debates. "I won't participate in any kind of second-tier debate," Paul said on Fox Business, BuzzFeed reported. "We've got a first-tier campaign. I've got 800 precinct chairman in Iowa. I've got a 100 people on the ground working for me. I've raised 25 million dollars. I'm not gonna let any network or anybody tell me we're not a first-tier campaign. If you tell a campaign with three weeks to go that they're in the second-tier, you destroy the campaign. This isn't the job of the media to pick who wins. The voters ought to get a chance." @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Deadbeat dads are being shamed on Twitter in Arizona, but fear not, deadbeat moms are in the same boat, said Arizona's ABC 15. The state's latest one-two punch has the Department of Economic Security (DES) targeting those that owe child support, which according to Arizona Governor Doug Ducey amounts to $1.49 billion dollars. Ducey made it clear he was not messing around with deadbeats during his State of the State address Monday. To show he means business, the DES tweeted out the names, photos and amount owed by several parents. If you don't want your unlawful and irresponsible behavior going viral: Man up, and pay up. #AZontherise #deadbeat pic.twitter.com/5qhKrYF2a4 Doug Ducey (@dougducey) January 11, 2016 How do you avoid being shamed on Twitter? Pay your child support, said Ducey. He isn't talking about those who missed one payment, but those who owe tens of thousands of dollars - or even more than $100K. "I'm talking to deadbeat dads," said Ducey in Monday's address, according to the Huffington Post. "For too long, you've been able to remain anonymous - able to skirt your financial and legal responsibilities with no shame. Not anymore." In Arizona be late on #childsupport your labeled a #Deadbeat and treated like a wanted sex offender on social media @ArizonaDES @dougducey. World Human Rights (@WHumanRightsWP) January 14, 2016 "Too many of our kids find themselves in difficult family situations because their dads aren't being dads," said Ducey, according to Newsmax. "So guys, I've got a message for all of you out there: Wherever the authorities know of a deadbeat dad in Arizona - find him and hold him to his responsibilities with the full force of law. If you are old enough to father a child in Arizona, you're old enough to assume financial responsibility for that child." Calling the dads "losers," the governor's office discussed the Twitter campaign after the State's address. "Once a government record is put into the public's hands, it's fully protected under the First Amendment," said ACLU attorney Lee Rowland. "We should be thoughtful about the records we make public because you can't ever rebottle that genie." Our #deadbeat effort targets the worst offenders. These 421 criminals have warrants out for their arrest, and they owe $20M total. Doug Ducey (@dougducey) January 14, 2016 @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Hundreds of patients have been infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria because of the use of dirty medical devices called duodenoscopes, according to a report published Wednesday by the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. The investigation, led by Sen. Patty Murray, found that the scopes manufactured by Olympus caused at least 25 outbreaks, leading to 250 superbug infections in different countries from 2012 to 2015 - figures that are greater than previously thought. Duodenoscopes are used to examine the top section of the small intestine or duodenum. Apparently, the medical device posed the risk of infection because its design made it difficult to clean. According to the report, Olympus had been made aware of two infections in the Netherlands in 2013. However, even though the company was supposed to inform the U.S. Food and Drug Administration about the health risk associated with the device, they did not do so until February 2015. As a result, the use of the device continued for years. "It is their responsibility when the device that they have manufactured has safety defects to notify the patients, the doctors, the hospitals," said Murray, according to the New York Times. "People should know this. We should not allow manufacturers to knowingly allow the use of any device or medication that's not safe." The senator also criticized the FDA's slow response regarding the issue. The agency received information regarding at least 11 hospital outbreaks associated with the use of the duodenoscopes in 2013. "Some of the hospitals were late in notifying patients, and the FDA did not take action immediately when they began to get reports," said Murray. Outbreaks from as early as 2008 and 2009, which infected 70 and killed 15 people, have been linked with the duodenoscope. A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official sent an email to the FDA in 2009 saying "there is a real chance that these issues might be more widespread" and recommended that the agency issue "some type of educational alert" about the difficulty in cleaning the device, reported Bloomberg. "We appreciate the report from Sen. Murray and will carefully consider its recommendations, many of which FDA is already taking steps to address," said FDA spokeswoman Deborah Kotz, according to the New York Times. "We agree with the senator that a broader approach to understanding how well duodenoscope devices work in real-time use is critical to public health." @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The conservative advocacy group Citizens United filed a lawsuit on Thursday for access to emails between Chelsea Clinton and her mother, Hillary Clinton, when the latter was secretary of state. Citizens United filed the lawsuit after a Freedom of Information Act request to the State Department wasn't fulfilled. Citizens United President David Bossie said the group was investigating the links between the Clinton Foundation and the work of the State Department while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. Chelsea Clinton is the vice chair of the foundation. The lawsuit covers all emails and other correspondence between Chelsea Clinton and her mothers top aides at the State Department, including Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin and Jake Sullivan. The organization seeks emails from other key people in the Clinton circle, according to Politico, including: Clinton Foundation foreign policy chief Amitabh Desai, longtime aide to former President Bill Clinton Justin Cooper, and the manager of the Clintons' New York home, Oscar Flores. "The real interesting person here is, of course, Chelsea Clinton, who is the lead person. ... We saw that pop up on the grid in all email we received over the past year," Bossie told Politico, referring to other requests and lawsuits by his group. Bossie also noted that there was a connection to Hillary Clinton's 2016 White House bid, saying, "We want to see much more about what Chelsea Clinton was up to because she now has put herself out here on the campaign trail, along with Bill Clinton, as a lead surrogate." He added: "She is somebody who has been a player, a senior adviser to her mother," he said. "She is an officer, somebody with fiduciary responsibility at the Clinton Family Foundation," according to The Hill. Emails between Chelsea Clinton and Hillary Clinton have already emerged as part of the investigation into the 2012 terrorist attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. In one email, Hillary Clinton told her daughter the attack was carried out by "an Al Qaeda-like group," a statement Republicans said is at odds with what the secretary of state said publicly, according to Fox News. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Brazil's federal police have filed formal charges against three mining firms Samarco, Vale and BHP Billiton, along with seven executives, for environmental crimes in connection to a major dam collapse and subsequent mine waste spill that occurred in November 2015. Calling the dam's collapse the worst environmental disaster in the nation's history, the government of Brazil is suing the companies for $5.2 billion to compensate for damages to victims and to clean up the waste, according to Agence France-Presse. Samarco, which operates the Fundao tailings dam, is a joint undertaking between Vale and the Australian company BHP Billiton, the world's largest mining firm, according to the Latin American Herald Tribune. The companies are accused of negligence that led to the eruption of the dam's waste reservoir, which unleashed a 530-mile toxic mudflow in waterways through two Brazilian states and along a stretch of the Atlantic coastline, The Daily Mail describes. The village of Bento Rodrigues was almost entirely buried during the mudslide. It is estimated that 60 million cubic meters of iron mining waste and toxic sludge was released by the mine's failure, according to TeleSUR, and at least 17 people were killed. Two people are still missing due to the disaster. In a press release, Samarco stated that it "did not agree with the charges against its executives because until now there has been no technical study to determine the cause of the accident," reports TeleSUR. The Brazilian police also submitted charges against the engineering company VogBR, which stated in a report in 2015 that the dam was in a stable condition. Brazil's environmental law allows for potential prison sentences of up to five years for environmental destruction that "causes or may cause damage to human health or cause the death of animals or significant destruction of plant life," the AFP explains. The investigation into the disaster is ongoing, with the potential of further charges being filed. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. NASA wants to develop a jelly-like, shape-shifting rover that could be the future mechanical explorers in Mars. The agency has applied to patent this futuristic concept at the U.S. Patent and Trademark office. The new machine, which radically departs from NASA's current rover technology, will be built to address the mobility challenge. Machines with wheels such as the car-sized Curiosity rover presently roaming around the Red Planet are always at risk of getting stuck in rough terrain. The new rover will seek to eliminate this vulnerability by mimicking the way slugs and worms move, according to the Daily Mail. "The presently disclosed robots change shape in the direction of intended travel to provide improved surface mobility along with enhanced protection from the elements," NASA explained in the patent's summary. NASA calls the space exploration rover concept as an "amorphous robot," which contains liquid within a mechanism that that can conform to any terrain and change shape in the direction of its intended travel. Another version will include electromagnetic spheres, along with the liquid and other robotic elements. A third concept entailed a flexible tube that can move like an earthworm. NASA has already demonstrated a shape-shifting rover concept in the past, which it called as "autonomous nanotechnology swarms" or ANTS. These are miniature robotic pyramids joined together to form a swarm that can flow or alter its shape according to the terrain. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Drug behemoth Pfizer is allegedly considering the sale of the pumps and devices business that the company acquired during its purchase of Hospira last year in a deal that could fetch as much as $2 billion for the U.S. drugmaker, according to Bloomberg Business. The possible sale, however, is allegedly still in its initial stages, and its details and specifics are still subject to change, sources who have chosen to remain anonymous have said. As of writing, the drug giant might even choose to not sell the pumps and devices business. Pfizer has refused to provide any information about the alleged sale, with a spokeswoman from the drug company declining to comment on the matter, reported Reuters. Hospira, a company that makes biosimilars and generic versions of injectable drugs, was purchased by Pfizer in September 2015 in a deal that amounted to about $17 billion. The acquisition bolstered the U.S. drugmaker's portfolio of established drugs, including off-patent medicines. Investors have reacted quite positively to the possibility of the sale, pushing Pfizer's shares 0.1 percent, ending in $30.42 in pre-market trading on Thursday, according to The Street. Pfizer has made a lot of waves last year when it announced that it has agreed to a merger with another drug company, Allergan Plc, in a deal that would be worth about $160 billion. If approved by antitrust authorities, it would form the largest ever drug behemoth in the pharmaceutical industry. Check out more Business News here. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. South Carolina senator and former Republican presidential candidate Lindsey Graham will endorse GOP hopeful Jeb Bush for the party's nomination on Friday, despite poor polling numbers nationally, as well as in key primary state. Bush and Graham will hold a press conference to formally announce the endorsement at 9:45 a.m. in North Charleston, S.C., the city of Thursday night's GOP debate, according to USA Today. "His endorsement is very meaningful and along with it come a lot of friends and supporters of his," Bush said in an appearance on Fox News, which first broke the story, according to NBC News. "Lindsey Graham is probably the most knowledgeable person on the Hill as it related to national security, military affairs and foreign policy." While some say that Graham's endorsement helps align moderate Republicans against Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, other observers, including poltiical consultant Matthew Dowd, question the value of Graham's endorsement. seriously?? a guy with 0% (Graham) endorses someone with 5% (Bush)?? what kind of strategy is this? no wonder Trump is winning. Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) January 15, 2016 The former Florida governor has had tremendous difficulty gaining support in the 2016 race thus far. In national averages compiled by RealClear Politics, Bush currently sits in fifth place with 4.8 percent. With the Iowa caucus less than three weeks away, he has 4.4 percent. In New Hampshire, he has 8.7 percent, which puts him in fifth place. It was clear that Graham's endorsement would never go to Republican front-runner Donald Trump for president. Last month, before withdrawing from the race, Graham encouraged Republicans to rebuke Trump. "You know how you make America great again?" said Graham, mocking Trump's campaign slogan. "Tell Donald Trump to go to hell," Graham told CNN. "He's a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot," Graham added. "He doesn't represent my party. He doesn't represents the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for. ... He's the ISIL man of the year." @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. After numerous failed attempts to sell its appliance division, General Electric has finally found a likely buyer. GE is in the process of selling part of its company to China's Haier Group in a deal valued at $5.4 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal. The news comes after GE's numerous attempts to reach a deal with foreign companies, all of which were blocked by regulators. Both companies are looking to rebrand, with GE shifting its focus to more innovative areas like clean energy and medical devices and Haier looking to make itself a household name, The Washington Post reported. The deal is still subject to approval by a slew of regulators, but if given the green light, it will signal a long-term partnership between the two companies in areas like the Internet, healthcare and advanced manufacturing. "Haier is committed to investing in the U.S. In addition, together Haier and G.E. will explore opportunities for joint collaboration and, in doing so, establish a type of new alliance, with comprehensive strategic cooperation between two world-class enterprises, which reflects our common understanding on opportunities brought by the Internet Era,'' Haier Group CEO and chairman Zhang Ruimin said, according to The New York Times. The deal is expected to close in the next six months. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Two Marine helicopters collided off the Oahu coast in Hawaii late Thursday night, with 12 crew members on board. Marine Capt. Timothy Irish said that there were six passengers in each helicopter that were from the Marine Corps Base in Hawaii and that no other passengers were aboard the aircraft during the nighttime training mission. Irish said that officials estimated a debris area spanning about two miles. The surf was choppy just before daybreak, according to the Miami Herald. The Coast Guard is leading the search in coordination with some Navy and Air Force aircraft and a Honolulu Fire Department rescue boat. Emergency teams had arrived at the scene just after midnight to find the remains of the wreckage burning in the water along with an empty life raft, according to The Washington Post. Witnesses said they heard a loud boom over the water and saw a flash in the sky. The search for the missing passengers is going to become an even more tedious task as a rough weather forecast indicates that waves as high as 30 to 40 feet are expected on Friday, according to CNN. The helicopters involved in the collision were CH-53 helicopters, the Marine Corps' largest helicopter, which is capable of carrying more than 20 marines. The aircraft was assigned to the first Marine Aircraft Wing and has squadrons spread across the West Coast and the Pacific. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. K ensington & Chelsea council is expected to rubber-stamp the plan to overhaul what has become a fashionable offshoot of Portobello Road at a meeting on Tuesday next week, arguing that three quarters of respondents from within the Golborne Road area support the proposal. The petition against the plan was launched by fashion designer Bella Freud. It will squeeze out traders and threatens a vibrant community of people, she says. Golborne Road is one of the few remaining authentic markets in west London. You can still get a bargain antique, a good piece of vintage or a tasty cheap meal from its food stalls and cafes. Objectors claim that doing up the street increasing pavement space, installing heritage-style street lights, raising sections of the road to slow traffic, and planting trees will mean rate rises for independent business owners, antique shops and market traders in the street, and increased rents for those who live there. Wendy Mandy, of the Golborne Association, describes the proposal as back-door gentrification. It will end up being just a boring street with nothing special, she warns. However, the council said 75 per cent of respondents from within the Golborne Road area support the plan. On that basis, council officers recommend that the proposal be approved. They hope that work on the year-long project will start this spring. Timothy Coleridge, the councils cabinet member for planning policy, says he is confident that the works will make the street more attractive without compromising its unique character. Mahmood Siddiqi, Kensington & Chelseas director of transport and highways, agrees that particular elements of the scheme [have proved] unpopular with some members of the community, but says that overall, it will improve the area. The Geography Department at Bridgewater State University is proud to offer Project EarthView. This blog gives students who use EarthView a place to post follow-up questions and to find other cool geo-education resources. The blog has plenty of geography-education resources for grown-ups, too! See pre-August 2011 archive. News, events, history, and other mid-week tidbits. Candidates for federal, state, county, township, municipal, and school board offices in Itasca County, Koochiching County, and northern St. Louis County are invited to submit a statement to Hometown Focus sharing their background, qualifications, reasons for running for office, and positions on important issues. Candidates must focus on their own merits and may not speak negatively about specific individuals and groups. Candidate statements are not paid advertisements, nor do they indicate endorsement by Hometown Focus or any of its employees. Submissions should be no longer than 400 words. Candidate statements will be published in the October 21 and October 28 editions of Hometown Focus to ensure our print subscribers are able to read them before Election Day (Tuesday, November 8). The deadline is one week prior to publication (Friday for the next Fridays edition). Send your candidate statement and a photo (optional), along with a contact phone number, to tucker@htfnews.us. Statements can also be mailed to or dropped off at 401 6th Ave. N., Virginia, MN 55792. Call 218-741-0106 with questions. * * * * * The Celebration of Life service for Dorothy Jalonen that was planned for October 10, 2022, has been postponed due to complications from Hurricane Ian. The hospitality industry relies on its reputation for confidence, and that confidence can be shattered when guests learn that their private information has been compromised. What can hotel owners do and how should they work with brands and management to prevent a cyberattack? In the article below, my partner, Bob Braun reminds hotel owners that because they are generally required to indemnify brands and managers for costs the managers and brands incur which could include a costly data breach it is in the owners' best interests to have a comprehensive plan in place. This article first appeared in Hotel Business Review in December 2015, and is reprinted with permission from www.hotelexecutive.com. Not Just Heads in Beds Cybersecurity for Hotel Owners | by Bob Braun, Hotel Lawyer and Data Security Advisor The basics of the hotel business have traditionally been simple: good location, fair prices, appropriate amenities and good service were the keys to success. While those factors are important today, hotels are no longer simply a "heads in beds" business; hotels are increasingly brand-oriented. Brands focus not only on the services and products they sell, but on developing the perception and recognition of the brand associated with those goods and services. That means that hotels, like all brands, need to focus more and more on understanding their customers and how to reach them, whether through loyalty programs, advertising, social media or otherwise. The upshot of the focus on branding in the hospitality business is that hotels gather lots of information about their guests, ranging from credit card data to addresses, phone numbers, travel plans and preferences, birthdays, and more all of which are valuable not just to the hotel brands and operators, but to cyberthieves. While hotel companies have understood this for years, they are, along with other customer-intensive industries, learning that collecting that information comes with responsibilities and, possibly, liability. Cybercrime is big business. In 2014, there were 42.8 million detected security incidents (and, most likely, many more that were never discovered). Estimates of annual cost of cybercrime to the global economy ranges from $375 billion to as much as $575 billion as companies face increased vulnerability, ranging from greater technology available to cybercriminals and new types of cybercrime, like crypto-ransom. Cybercriminals began targeting hotels years ago. In a 2010, a Forbes magazine article quoted Nicholas Percoco, who said that "The hospitality industry was the flavor of the year for cybercrime. These companies have a lot of data, there are easy ways in and the intrusions can take a very long time to detect." The lesson for hotel owners is that they cannot stand idly by hotel owners must be proactive by instituting best practices in their own operations, requiring the same from managers, and obtaining insurance coverage to fund the inevitable costs of a breach. The Wyndham Case The threat to the hospitality industry became particularly evident in the recent federal court case brought by the Federal Trade Commission (the FTC) against Wyndham Hotels. On August 24, 2015, the Third Circuit United States Court of Appeals issued its ruling in the case FTC v. Wyndham Worldwide Corporation. The case was highly anticipated by the data security community generally for its expected ruling on the authority of the Federal Trade Commission to regulate data security standards, but nowhere was the anticipation more keen than in the hospitality industry. After all, this decision didn't deal with retailers, banks or dating sites it addressed a major hotel player and, by implication, all operators, brands and owners in the industry. The decision should be a wake-up call to hotel owners because, as described below, hotel owners may ultimately bear the cost of data breaches involving their hotels. Owners should look at the Wyndham decision as an opportunity to consider whether their brands and managers have taken the steps necessary to protect guests and, ultimately, the hotel owner. The case arose out of a suit brought by the FTC against Wyndham, a global hotel company, for failing to adequately safeguard its computer network, allowing hackers to access customer information, resulting in the compromise of more than 600,000 credit card records and financial losses in excess of $10 million. Wyndham argued that, among other things, the FTC lacks authority to regulate data security standards of commercial entities. The lower court ruled in the FTC's favor, and Wyndham appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. On August 24, 2015, the Third Circuit affirmed the district court, upholding the FTC's data protection authority. The result is that for the first time, the United States has what amounts to a data security regulator. What Went Wrong The FTC claimed that Wyndham made some mistakes. First, Wyndham's privacy statement on its website claimed that Wyndham had made claims that it knew were untrue that it maintained systems that were safe, while Wyndham already was aware that it had been hacked multiple times. The FTC has brought claims against website operators and by website operators, we mean businesses for the same thing as a violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits unfair and deceptive trade practices. Essentially, the FTC took the position that Wyndham had engaged in false advertising. But the Wyndham decision is particularly helpful because it identifies clearly what Wyndham did or did not do that violates the FTC's standards for data security, and not just for advertising. Specifically, the FTC claimed that Wyndham: failed to use readily available security measures, such as firewalls stored credit card information in clear text failed to implement reasonable information security procedures prior to connecting local computer networks to corporate-level networks failed to address known security vulnerabilities on servers used default user names and passwords for access to servers failed to require employees to use complex user IDs and passwords to access company servers failed to inventory computers to appropriately manage the network failed to maintain reasonable security measures to monitor unauthorized computer access failed to conduct security investigations failed to reasonably limit third-party access to company networks and computers Security professionals recognize that this list is a fair representation of minimum security requirements for any information system. Any company that does not address these requirements is likely to experience a breach. While this list does not identify every possible shortcoming, it makes it clear that any firm that collects and maintains data and is guilty of these failures will be seen as engaging in unfair or deceptive trade practices, and can expect that they, too, will be subject to action by the FTC, as well as private plaintiffs. What Should Hotel Owners Do? Many hotel owners don't consider the impact of data security because they don't directly collect, store or utilize personal information; they engage managers and brands to do that through reservation systems, loyalty programs and marketing. But hotel owners should be concerned, because they are generally required to indemnify brands and managers for costs the managers and brands incur. To put it simply, if there is a breach, and if the brand or manager has to pay money to manage the breach, the owner will likely have to pay the bill, or at least have a significant struggle over the issue. To be clear, most hotel franchise agreements provide that the hotel will be responsible for defending the franchisor and holding them harmless, even where the data breach came from within the franchisor's reservation system. And independent properties that use third party reservations systems will almost always hold the user the owner responsible for a breach. The cost of a data breach can be high, and not just in the direct costs of notifying guests, remediating a system and dealing with regulatory reactions all of which are likely to be a direct or indirect cost to hotel owners. The lasting cost is the damage to the reputation of the company that suffered the breach. And while that might seem to be the hotel brand and not the hotel owner, a brand that is known to be insecure will inevitably lose clientele, and the resulting drop in business will be borne, in the end, by the owner. The list also has a potential benefit to hotel owners, because it allows owners to express their expectations of hotel brands and managers. Owners can, and should require their managers and licensors to follow the standards set by the FTC as part of their duties, and bear the cost if they do not. At the same time, hotel owners should be aware that they, too, are subject to this regime. Hotel owners have to consider that they own, hold and maintain sensitive personal information, such as employment records, health information, financial data and business secrets. As a result, they have a legal obligation to protect that information. Hotel owners must both protect their information, and require their business associates to do the same. Owners should also consider one additional factor that isn't addressed in the Wyndham decision, but permeates almost every data breach: The human factor. At least 95% of reported data breaches can be traced to an intentional or unintentional act by a person within or associated with the affected organization. The fact is that a company can comply with all of the deficiencies noted by the FTC and still be subject to a breach, because an individual employee or contractor can, effectively, bypass all technological protections, simply by responding to the wrong email or clicking on the wrong website. Hotel companies are, as we know, focused on individuals, whether it is serving guests or cultivating employees and associates. Hotel owners should demand of their brands and a manager that they focus on the importance of individuals in thwarting these attacks and creating an industry that engenders the public's trust. Pre-breach Planning Hotel owners should take steps to plan for a data breach. Like other businesses, they should have a comprehensive plan in place, ready to be implemented, when there is a data breach involving one of their hotels. This means having a protocol for addressing the breach, and most importantly, identifying, by name, a response team, including attorneys, security experts, C-level executives, public relations professionals and others who can act immediately to identify the scope of a breach, the proper response and make executive decisions to limit damage. Cybersecurity Insurance In particular, cybersecurity insurance should be a special emphasis for hotel owners. First, owners should realize that many, if not most, general liability insurance policies exclude claims based on a data breach while, in the past these claims might have been covered under existing insurance, they are now generally excluded. Instead, owners need to obtain a special endorsement covering cyberclaims. Insurers offer both first- and third-party insurance for cyber losses. First-party coverage insures for losses to the hotel's data or lost income or for other harm to the business resulting from a cyberattack. Third-party coverage insures for the liability to third parties, both guests and governmental or regulatory agencies that arise from a data breach or cyberattack. First-party coverage can include: Coverage for loss of data; Legal and technical services to assess whether a breach has occurred, and to analyze the impact of the attack; Business interruption coverage where the hotel might not be able to conduct business due to a cyberattack or data loss. Coverage for investigating threats to commit attacks against the hotel systems and payments to extortionists who threaten to disclose sensitive information, or to hold it ransom an increasingly common practice among cybercriminals; and Data loss and restoration, including the retrieving and restoring data, hardware, software or other information destroyed or damaged as the result of a cyberattack. Third-party coverages address: Legal, technical and forensic services necessary to respond to governmental inquiries and fines, penalties, investigations or other regulatory actions; Costs to notify customers, employees or other victims affected by a breach (although care should be taken to ensure that both "voluntary" notices and notices required by law are covered); Crisis management and public relations expenses; Credit and fraud monitoring services to the guests and others affected by a breach; and Costs associated with lawsuits, judgments, settlements or penalties resulting from a breach. Owners should be aware that there are wide differences, both in the coverage and costs, of policies. As a result, owners should take care in evaluating and comparing different policies and, consider engaging an expert to evaluate the scope and cost of coverage. Finally, hotel owners should consider requiring their brands and managers to maintain this coverage and to apply it to a claim before seeking indemnification or reimbursement from an owner. No business is safe from privacy breaches and cyberattacks, and hackers grow more sophisticated each day. This issue is particularly important in the hospitality industry, which relies heavily on its reputation for confidence, something that can be shattered when guests learn that their private information has been compromised. The answer is not, however, just a shifting of liability or allocation or risk; it requires an effort by all involved ownership, branding and management to reduce the risk, and hotel owners play a key role in that effort. View source The new year brings the opportunity to discuss what we think some of the important social media marketing trends for the service industry will be in 2016. The importance of social media will only increase in the future, which means it's important for business operators and owners to stay up to date. It's never a good idea to have to play catch-up, and it's never a good feeling when you have to call on your young employees to explain what the hot new social networking app is. The worst part is, and chances are, your business is being talked about on that app. Staying up to date can also give you another way to communicate with consumers and employees, allowing you to build a long term relationship and brand loyalty. Here are four trends you're going to want to pay close attention to as the year progresses: Mobiles will increasingly replace PC's Currently, the estimated amount of mobile phone users in the U.S. by Statista.com is 184 million. By 2018, that number is expected to grow to 220 million. The ability to market to your consumers right into the palms of their hands is the stuff science fiction stories used to tell about, and with the usage estimated to grow you simply cannot afford to miss out on the move to mobile phones. Furthermore, consumers are now more likely to respond to marketing that speaks to them on a personal level as opposed to one broad and generic call to action. Phones offer that personal level. If you're a restaurant operator you'll have an even greater ability to call immediate attention to what's currently going on in real time, possibly allowing you to sell specials faster and allowing you to rotate inventory before it passes its expiration date. Hotel managers and staff will be able to better sell rooms by using location-based technology such as iBeacons, RFIDs, and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). Imagine being located close to an area where a convention or large sporting event is going on and broadcasting room availability specifically to those attending the event. Integration of the 'Buy Now' button Along with smartphones becoming the number one way in which consumers interface with your brand or business, the importance of the 'Buy Now' button will skyrocket. Impulse buying has long been a bad habit of Americans which companies have taken full advantage of and the 'Buy Now' button was invented to take care of this, as well as to make purchasing more convenient for the user. This should become a major source of revenue for you, especially when partnered with the location-based technology that makes it able to precisely target your consumers. Your consumers will be able to jump on offers immediately. Social media customer service becomes the expectation Quite possibly the most important social media marketing trend of 2016 for the service industry. Communicating with your consumers on their time and schedule is now the expectation. To be fair, many operators in the restaurant industry have always kept a close watch on social media to make sure that they catch any complaints, but it seems the hospitality world still has a lot of work to do. A recent post here on Serviceable illustrated the top and bottom companies in customer service experience for the consumer. Alarmingly, some of the larger hotel chains were near the bottom. Consumers now check twitter, Facebook, and of course, Yelp for accommodation information before booking a room or trip. They notice complaints on brands and brand locations and know when these concerns are not addressed. In most cases, the consumer's immediate reaction is to simply move on to the next business on the search results list. Not caring about customers online means you don't care about them face to face. Social Sites will develop their own search engines According to these statistics from Kissmetrics, consumers are increasingly likely to search for you on a specific social site to see what kind of business you are, what kind of presence you have, and what others have to say about you. All of this information can be found on your business' Facebook page, for instance. If your page or profile on the social sites is appealing, provides a good experience, and has the buy button to immediately seal the deal, you'll provide consumers with a one-stop shop where they can learn, buy, and share in one or two clicks. All of this equals better customer service and a better customer experience. As you can see, in 2016 all of the important social media marketing trends for the service industry start with the mobile phone and intertwine from there. In a business where things already move fast, get ready for even more demand for quick problem solving to customer issues. Consumers already have up to the minute, real-time ways to book reservations, book rooms, and to lodge a complaint. Now they will expect us to respond to them with the same speed they are used to interacting with us. If you've spotted any trends you think should be on this list please share with us and our community. Business / Local by Felex Share THE Dangote Group says it will start operations in Zimbabwe this year, with its chief strategist, Abdu Mukhtar, yesterday asserting that they now feel "comfortable and excited" about investing in the country.Mukhtar said the group had been satisfied with the preliminary work carried out and was ready to roll out its projects.As such, he said, the group's geologists, who arrived in the country on Wednesday, would remain in the country for site visits and collection of samples for analysis ahead of the setting of a cement manufacturing plant.Mukhtar made the remarks after meeting Acting President Emmerson Mnangagwa at his Munhumutapa offices yesterday."As you know, we're part of the Dangote Group that was here a few months ago and we're here to continue to work on the projects that we said we're going to do in Zimbabwe," he said."Everything is on track, we're back and happy. We'll continue to come back here this year and 2016 is going to be a very active year. We'll be coming in and out to do all sort of things as we kick-start the projects."Dangote Industries Limited, which has also expressed interest in coal mining and power generation, is owned by Africa's richest man, Aliko Dangote. The Forbes Magazine estimates the businessman's net worth at more than $18 billion.Mukhtar, who was expected to also hold a series of meetings with officials from the Office of the President and Cabinet and other senior government officials, said a lot of background work had been taking place since Dangote's visit in August last year.Said Mukhtar: "We've been doing a lot of work in the background, analysing detail, looking at all sorts of things and doing all sorts of analysis. Now we feel we're very comfortable, so we're here actually with experts who'll go out into the field."They'll be here for about three weeks. We've a very good programme where they'll go around the sites identified for these projects."This visit will see samples being collected that we'll go and analyse further and based on that we'll start looking and zeroing in on the sites where these projects will take place. As you know, we're talking about doing a cement plant here, we're thinking about a power generation plant as well as coal mining."The government has proposed a number of sites where the company could set up the cement manufacturing plant.Mukhtar said their commitment to invest in Zimbabwe remained high and all the planned projects were on track. "Our commitment to invest in Zimbabwe remain very high, we remain positive, very interested and excited about what we plan to do here," said Mukhtar."We said a lot to the Acting President and assured him that we continue to be committed and interested in these projects. So far we've been getting a lot of cooperation and support from officials from the government of Zimbabwe and we've not had any problems."The Dangote Group has already registered a company with the Zimbabwe Investment Authority and has been licensed.Dangote Group has a vast business empire that spans manufacturing, logistics and power generation in several African countries, including Zambia where it has established a $400 million cement manufacturing plant.Dangote's investment deals will be a major boost to the economy and they are expected to complement the mega deals Zimbabwe has sealed with China and other countries. It looks like you've reached a page that doesnt exist (anymore). Please use the navigation or search above to find content on Hospitality Net. Go back to home In year-over-year comparisons, occupancy fell 9.0% to 39.4%. Average daily rate for the week increased 0.4% to CAD125.09. Revenue per available room dropped 8.7% to CAD49.28. The Canadian hotel industry reported mostly negative results in the three key performance metrics during the week of 3-9 January 2016, according to data from STR, Inc. In year-over-year comparisons, occupancy fell 9.0% to 39.4%. Average daily rate for the week increased 0.4% to CAD125.09. Revenue per available room dropped 8.7% to CAD49.28. Among the provinces, New Brunswick reported the largest increases in occupancy (+1.6% to 34.7%) and RevPAR (+5.8% to CAD37.99). Alberta experienced the steepest declines in occupancy (-24.8% to 34.2%) and RevPAR (-31.5% to CAD43.13). British Columbia posted the largest rise in ADR, up 9.6% to CAD149.70. Prince Edward Island reported the largest decrease in ADR, down 9.1% to CAD92.56. About STR STR, Inc. provides clients - including hotel operators, developers, financiers, analysts and suppliers to the hotel industry - access to hotel research with regular and custom reports covering the United States, Canada, Mexico and Caribbean. STR provides a single source of global hotel data covering daily and monthly performance data, forecasts, annual profitability, pipeline and census information. STR founded the STR family of companies and is proudly associated with STR Global, STR Analytics and Hotel News Now. STR also founded the Hotel Data Conference. For more information, please visit www.str.com. AC Hotels National Harbor The agency's first work for AC Hotels by Marriott is anticipated to launch in Q1 2016 across a variety of lifestyle and business outlets, including print, out-of-home, video, digital, social and mobile. AC Hotels by Marriott, Marriott International, Inc.'s new upper-moderate-tier, design-led lifestyle brand, announced today the appointment of NYC-based Figliulo&Partners (F&P) as its global agency of record (AOR) following a competitive review. F&P will handle all positioning and branding responsibilities for the lifestyle brand, one of 19 within Marriott International's global portfolio. "We chose F&P because of their strategic thinking, breakthrough creativity and commitment to innovation," said Dan Vinh, VP Global Marketing, Lifestyle Brands at Marriott International. "We are excited to work with F&P to create experiences that inspire creativity for the next-gen traveler." AC Hotels celebrates the beauty of classic modern designs with its European soul and Spanish roots, born from the signature vision of renowned hotelier Antonio Catalan, who founded the brand in 1998 and grew it into one of the most well respected hotel brands in Spain. Following its success in Europe, a joint venture was formed with Marriott International in 2011, which launched AC Hotels by Marriott into France, Italy, Portugal, Denmark and the U.S. The brand, which currently offers a global portfolio of more than 80 hotels, is on a significant growth trajectory, with more than 50 additional locations slated to launch over the next several years, 22 of which are expected to launch in 2016. The appointment of F&P as AOR supports AC Hotels' stateside expansion and their focus on creating premium design properties at an unusually smart value. The agency's first work for AC Hotels by Marriott is anticipated to launch in Q1 2016 across a variety of lifestyle and business outlets, including print, out-of-home, video, digital, social and mobile. "As entrepreneurial thinkers and creative risk takers ourselves, we understand Marriott's intention behind AC Hotels by Marriott. They are doing something different in their category," said Mark Figliulo, Founder and CEO of Figliulo&Partners. "We had immediate chemistry based on the belief that good design improves lives." AC Hotels by Marriott is the latest win for F&P and joins a roster of clients across several industries. Earlier this year, the agency was named Creative AOR for Virgin Atl The Ehmer Group, a San Francisco-based member of Hotel Brokers International, announces the successful marketing and sale of the Sleep Inn located at 110 Hawkins Road in Travelers Rest, South Carolina. Travelers Rest is a gateway to beautiful mountains and home to many outdoor attractions. The Hotel will be converted to a Best Western. Richard Ehmer, President of The Ehmer Group, arranged the sale. The Sleep Inn, a Choice Hotels branded property, is a 60-room, three-story interior corridor, limited service hotel sitting on a 1.7 acre lot with excellent visibility from Interstate 25. The Hotel has enjoyed increasing ADR and RevPAR over the past two years and is in good condition when compared to its market comp set. The Hotel is located just minutes from downtown Greenville and only 17 miles from the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport. "This hotel transaction presents the new owner with the opportunity to reposition this hotel in a market that has continued to grow over the past several years. Being so close to Greenville, the hotel and the area of Travelers Rest will no doubt benefit from this expanding economy. The Ehmer Group is honored to continue to serve our clients and watch as they grow, succeed and flourish in new markets," said Mr. Ehmer. Richard C. Ehmer is President and Principal Broker of The Ehmer Group a full-service hospitality real estate investment and consulting firm, located in San Francisco, California. The Ehmer Group offers a full range of hospitality advisory services and assists a broad range of clients with the acquisition and disposition of hospitality assets in the United States and abroad. The Ehmer Group works extensively with key hospitality executives and principals to assist them with the marketing and sales of their assets, led by Mr. Ehmer, who has negotiated hundreds of successful transactions on behalf of his clients. The Ehmer Group represents the full spectrum of hospitality owners, including hospitality REITs, public hotel companies, gaming companies, insurance companies, hotel management companies, offshore investors, and multiple-to-single asset owners. Their experience covers resorts, full service hotels, boutique hotels, select service hotels, limited service hotels, casinos, development projects, and leasehold transactions. The firm also has expertise and experience with the negotiation of franchise agreements and hotel management contracts for their clients. Founded in 1959, Hotel Brokers International members lead the industry in hotel real estate sales. HBI hotel brokerage specialists have successfully negotiated more than 10,000 hotel real estate transactions and consistently account for the largest share of all select-service and economy hotel sales in the United States. The organizations database currently comprises more than 100 property listings and the HBI website attracts more than 55,000 monthly site visitors. Founder and host of the popular Hotel Investors Marketplace Webcast, HBI also developed the Certified Hotel Broker professional designation program. In addition to hospitality real estate advisory services, HBI offers affiliate membership to professionals in allied fields, including franchising, lending, appraisals and investment services. For more information about HBIs hotel listings or to become a broker or affiliate member, visit www.hbihotels.com. For more information contact: Richard C. Ehmer, President The Ehmer Group Phone 415.225.5176 rehmer@ehmergroup.com Glenda J. Webb, Managing Director Hotel Brokers International Phone 816.505.4315 gwebb@hbihotels.com A$AP Rocky spoke with Ebro in the Morning today, and he covered a ton of different topics, from A$AP Yams influence on hip hop, to his being listed on Forbes 30 under 30 feature, to the lack of real competition in the rap game today. The hosts used the last point to segue into the recent comments made by Ian Connor and A$AP Nast about Travi$ Scott stealing A$AP Rockys style. The Fashion Killa has emphasized the Yams tribute show is all about love and bringing the hip hop community together. He stays true to his word, stepping back from Ian Connors comments. Instead, he reminds people that if youre going to do something an influence peopleyou cant be arrogant about it when somebody gets inspired. These are very wise and thoughtful words from Rocky, who deflates the situation while still acknowledging the similarities between the two rappers. He also says we should, let the people decide if he a biter or he authentic and mildly chastises Connor for instigating the controversy. In the end as long as youre authentic it doesnt matter how similar you are to anyone else. ASAPRockyIanConnor Standing 55 and skinny as a rail, Connor is not your typical model (Im literally shaped like a 10 year old boy). Indeed, the 22-year-old also moonlights as a creative consultant, fashion guru, social media maven, member of A$AP Mob, roommate of Fredo Santana. With a rare existential confidence, a true DGAF attitude that rivals that of Tyler, the Creator, he has amassed a massive social following and earned consultant work with everyone from Kanye West to Kylie Jenner. Clearly, the self-described King of the Youth is doing something right. He got his start on Tumblr Connor was born in New York and moved to Atlanta at age 9. Connors current social media hegemony spans Twitter, Instagram, & Tumblr. It was Tumblr where he first made a name for himself. He used the site to promote his L3NF line of tees and sweatshirts, a collaboration with Glyn Brown, then blew up when designer Will Fry reproduced Connors face Warhol-style across one of his mesh tops that would be worn by such rappers as Trinidad James. It wasnt long before streetwear brands like Lumieres, Stussy, & Bape started contracting Connor for model work. Trust Nothing but Your Clothes. Ian Connor (@Souljaian) December 6, 2014 Hes A$AP Rockys creative director and Rocky is his manager Connor eventually worked his way into the inner circle of A$AP Mob by way of Rockys best friend, A$AP Bari. In an interview with Complex, Connor describes the process of gaining acceptance w/ the Mob: I chased behind Bari like a fucking dog, like, Hey, whats up, Bari? All the time. Id be like, When we hanging? And hed be like, Im not hanging out with you today, little *****. Id be like, Aw, fuck you! But still follow him around. Id take pictures of him as he was walking away. I looked up to Bari so much until we were inseparable. Conner explained what drew him to Bari: Bari was that fashion nigga. I knew he wasnt rich but he had rich clothes. He was a true, I-dont-give-a-fuck-type nigga, and I was like that too. Even if I didnt have a home, I was sleeping on the floor, I always made sure I had my clothes. While Rocky now manages Connor, Connor serves as Rockys creative director. Hes taken liberties within the role, starting beef with the likes of Travi$ Scott on Rockys behalf when Rocky wants nothing to do with it. Travi$ [Scott] No. 1? said Connor. Who influenced Travi$? Whos the father? Rocky. A$AP Mob. Nast. Ian Connor. Illz. Bari. He manages Playboi Carti I feel like Ian Connor and carti just slap box in random art lofts all day, everyday Pancake Sauce (@celticsbaby20) January 12, 2016 Hes on Kanye Wests creative team When he was 19, Connor received a text from Virgil Abloh, Kanye Wests creative director, and theyve been in touch ever since. Abloh is a role model of sorts to Connors role model A$AP Bari, so by the transitive property, Connor looked up to Abloh as well. Its your fathers father, so you automatically gotta fuck with your grandfather, he explained in an interview with SSense. In 2015, Abloh and Kanye invited Connor to work with them as a creative consultant. Connor modeled for both the rollout of Yeezy Seasons 1 & 2; at the later while the rest of the models stood still and tall, Connor slouched, smoking a cig and scrolling through his phone. A signature moment. Ok Cool, Whats Next? A video posted by Ian Connor (@ianconnorsrevenge) on Sep 16, 2015 at 12:28pm PDT Hes styled for Wiz Khalifa and Kylie Jenner While Connor briefly held the title of creative director to Wiz Khalifa, this past fall he moved on to an even more high-profile client: Kylie Jenner. Connor has also landed himself numerous consulting gigs, working with such notable streetwear brands as Emotionally Unavailable, Pink Dolphin, & FourTwoFour. As he considers Bari to be his father, Connor has a protege whom he considers to be a child of his own: 20-year-old Shane Gonzales, fashion designer and founder of Midnight Studios. Got The Kylie Jenner Styling Job, Got The Yeezy Season 2 Styling Modeling Job, Manage and Got Carti Signed. All Within This Week. Ian Connor (@Souljaian) September 12, 2015 And Tonight We Shift Cultures Thank You. A photo posted by Ian Connor (@ianconnorsrevenge) on Sep 15, 2015 at 5:16pm PDT Sus. A video posted by Ian Connor (@ianconnorsrevenge) on Jan 1, 2016 at 2:19pm PST He thinks serial killers are cool For some reason I find serial killers cool, he told Viper Mag. I find them really amusing and interesting. I couldnt say a specific serial killer cause there are pros and cons for each. Serial killers and people behind the scenes. Youve got your rap artists but at the same time you have the people with the brains that work with the artists, mentally training them. Those are the people I look up to. I wouldnt namedrop them because I like them to remain low-key. He likes taking airport bathroom selfies with unsuspecting old white men Bye L.A. A photo posted by Ian Connor (@ianconnorsrevenge) on Oct 17, 2015 at 4:02pm PDT Bye Atlanta A photo posted by Ian Connor (@ianconnorsrevenge) on Oct 21, 2015 at 12:16pm PDT Bye New York A photo posted by Ian Connor (@ianconnorsrevenge) on Oct 26, 2015 at 5:22pm PDT Bye New York A photo posted by Ian Connor (@ianconnorsrevenge) on Dec 2, 2015 at 6:39am PST Bye Arizona A photo posted by Ian Connor (@ianconnorsrevenge) on Dec 9, 2015 at 3:05pm PST Awwhhh You Caught Me! Bye L.A. A photo posted by Ian Connor (@ianconnorsrevenge) on Dec 12, 2015 at 7:08am PST Bye New York A photo posted by Ian Connor (@ianconnorsrevenge) on Dec 14, 2015 at 4:48pm PST Bye America A photo posted by Ian Connor (@ianconnorsrevenge) on Jan 12, 2016 at 3:31pm PST He wants to die young Connor is only 22, but mortality is often on his mind. He doesnt do drugs he only smokes cigarettes and smokes occasionally but he has plans out to ride out into the sunset like a 21st century Hendrix. Im old as shit, he told Complex. Im not trying to be part of the 27 club or nothing, but I dont want to make it to 50 or even 40. Im trying to die like the young legends. I want to be young forever. News / Africa by Staff reporter The case in which a South African farmer from Limpopo province is charged for assaulting and kidnapping several Zimbabwean workers and firing 300 others for demanding pay for overtime, has been moved from Villa Nora to Liphalale Magistrate Court.The trial, which was set to start yesterday, will now be heard in Liphalale town on January 28.At least 90 of the Zimbabweans who were left stranded earlier last month at Liphalale Police Station are still holed up at Water Base Disaster Management Centre, where a non-governmental organisation, Gift of the Care Givers, is catering for their welfare.The farmer and proprietor of Johannesburg Farm in Liphalale area, Mr T J Van der Walt, and nine other top managers were charged by police for assault and kidnapping of the Zimbabweans.The workers' spokesperson, who is a former foreman at the farm, Mr Thembani Ndlovu, said the Department of Labour was representing them in the matter."The matter has been transferred to Liphalale town and we are very hopeful that we will succeed," he said."The department of labour is assisting us in ensuring that justice prevails and that Mr Van der Walt pays the money he owes us."Mr Ndlovu said most of the victims were still at the Water Base Disaster Management centre, though others have started seeking employment opportunities in other towns.He said most of the victims had been employed at the farm since 2005.Mr Ndlovu said Mr Van der Walt was the one who processed their work permits, though most of them had expired."The Zimbabwe Consulate sent a team to assess the situation last month and promised to help us recover our money," he said.Zimbabwe's consul general Mr Batiraishe Mukonoweshuro was not available for comment yesterday. Since 2013, Mos Def who now goes by Yasiin Bey has been residing in Cape Town, South Africa. He left after becoming disillusioned with certain aspects of America, and has not expressed any interest in moving back to America. Now, hes been arrested for possessing fraudulent travel documents. The Home Affairs ministerial spokesperson Mayihlome Tshwete has been active on Twitter as of 30 minutes ago, answering questions about the arrest. Apparently, Yasiin Bey came to South Africa legally using his United States passport, but has since overstayed the length of his visitors permit. When he tried to depart South Africa recently, he presented World Passport, which was described by the state spokesperson as not much in the way of valid identification. The Brooklyn natives family is also under investigation for overstaying their visitors permits. They have all been given fourteen days to depart the country. Its unclear what the penalty against Yasiin Bey, whose real name is Dante Terrell Smith, and his family will be for breaking the law, but it appears the courts will try to avoid barring the popular public figure the country. Perhaps this explains why the well-respected emcee had to hastily cancel his US tour earlier this year. Bey said he was barred from entering the US, but it seems he was more accurately unable to leave South Africa without being detained. Its unclear how Bey was able to make his cameo in Travi$ Scotts Piss On Your Grave video, as the video was filmed in Paris. MosDefYasiinBey This Tuesday Terra Tech Corp (OTCMKTS:TRTC, TRTC message board) announced the company signed a definitive agreement to acquire formerly private cannabis dispensary Blum Oakland. The news sent the stock through the roof and TRTC put up 100% over two sessions. Yesterday TRTC got slashed 21% down from its new high. The PR concerning the acquisition of Blum hit the wire before the opening bell on Tuesday and the market's reaction was imminent and unambiguous - traders set TRTC's stock on fire, sending it up in leaps and bounds. With the press release dropping big numbers such as Blum's annual revenue of around $14 million and 1000 patients being served by the dispensary on a daily basis, this excitement is in part understandable. The PR also does not fail to mention that the addition of Blum, TRTC has become the first U.S. publicly traded company that has some involvement in all parts of the so-called seed-to-sale cycle of the green leaf. CEO Derek Peterson also highlighter the upcoming legislative changes that are to be implemented in California over 2016 which should allow entities like the Blum dispensary to operata on a for profit basis. The merger is expected to close by the end of March 31. The news release contained no new information on Terra Tech's Nevada properties, whether they be dispensaries or cultivation and production facilities. The market got a little too excited over the announcement, it seems, sending TRTC well into overbought territory. Yesterday's pullback was only logical, in terms of both technicals and plain old-fashioned profit taking. The stock has not been doing terribly well lately despite the uplisting to OTCQX and it's understandable that people would choose to cash out various portions of their investment when presented with a 100% jump. After the slip TRTC is back within normal trading ranges and it remains to be seen how the price will move from this point on. As the second week of this session winds down, I find myself amazed at how quickly things have started. These first two weeks flashed by as the familiar sounds of lawmakers, members of the press and engaged citizens filled the hallways of the Capitol. Multiple committee meetings have already taken place, my fellow lawmakers and I have introduced some of our new pieces of legislation at hearings and activists and concerned Missourians have testified to make their voices heard across a large variety of issues. Its certainly good to see the building back in full swing as the second Regular Session gets underway. I would like to take some time this week to discuss a few important social and economic developments that concern the residents of the 33rd District. Many of the constituents battle with financial problems on a daily basis and often need some help to make ends meet. Buying a home can be an especially stressful experience as it is one of the largest and most important financial decisions many people will ever make in the lifetime. I want to let you know that the Missouri Housing Development Commission (MHDC) has a few programs available for eligible homebuyers needing financial aid. The first program from MHDC, the First Place Loan Program, provides assistance for making down payments and closing costs to buyers purchasing their first home. The cash assistance comes in the form of a grant and the program also offers 30-year, fixed rate mortgages through more than 70 participating lenders throughout the state. The Commission also offers federal tax credit aid through the MHDC Mortgage Credit Certificate (MCC) program. Starting February 2016, the MCC will allow eligible first-time homebuyers to apply credit to their federal tax liability, which reduces the amount of taxes the borrower has to pay. You can visit www.mhdc.com to learn more about both of these helpful financing programs so you can gain some peace of mind when dealing with the process of starting a home. The second topic for todays column addresses the executive order announced by the president last week that seeks to stamp out our Second Amendment rights. Instead of working for the improved safety of all Americans, the president has issued this order as a way to position himself politically in the media. The new order states whether you sell your gun from a store, at a gun show or over the Internet, you must conduct background checks and be licensed. However, federal law already requires a license and background checks for gun dealers at stores and gun shows. This new executive order doesnt change that at all. The presidents executive order is nothing more than an attempt to pose himself in a good light. While the order still needs to go through the rule-making process, and it is unknown exactly what the official guidelines will come to look like, this action fails to provide meaningful solutions to the nations more pressing problems. Ultimately it can be viewed as nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to improve the presidents image. On a lighter note, I would like to inform you about a very fun event coming up in Oregon County at the end of the month. The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) is hosting a fish gigging outing on Saturday, Jan. 23, 2016 from 4 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Participants will meet at the MDCs Ozark Regional Office in West Plains before leaving as a group to gig on private land. Event-goers can expect to learn how to gig from the front of a boat, learn about sucker fish and gain some knowledge about the rich history gigging has in the Ozarks. Aaron Jeffries, MDC deputy director, said the event is designed for young students ages 10-20 who have no previous gigging experience. For more information about this event, or to register for participation, call the MDC Ozark Regional Office at (417) 256-7161. Mike Cunningham is a Republican member of the Missouri State Senate, representing District 33. Contact him at 573-751-1882 or www.senate.mo.gov/cunningham 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. News / Africa by Staff reporter "South Africans cannot believe that a man who never went to school is the President and that is the reason why he must be attacked 24/7" President Jacob Zuma said on Friday.According to News24, Zuma was speaking in his capacity as the patron of the Jacob Zuma Foundation at the Dube House official residence in Morningside, where he was bidding farewell to 19 students going to study at the American University of Nigeria, in Nigeria, Zuma said being poor was one of the reasons why he decided to start the foundation."I suffered because I never went to school and that is the reason why I decided to educate myself... There are people whose business is to say that we cannot have a man who never went to school running a country."We must rubbish him 24/7... No one has ever said it is a miracle for this man to have become president and wrote a column about it."Zuma said if he listened to his critics he would have "that disease white people call stress but I don't have it because I know better".He said one of the most painful things was that when someone came from a poor background, people tended to undermine that person even when they were no longer poor.'Laughing stock'"They can't believe that you come from a poor background and that you have managed to make something of yourself and so they try to make a laughing stock out of you."They try to make you feel like you are not capable and make you feel like you don't know what you are doing and [you are] just useless."It is even more painful when it comes from those who occupy strategic positions in society... Those who are given an opportunity to enlighten society but they do the opposite."If you come from a poor family, by nature, you are automatically placed and labelled according to different social classes," he said.Zuma said he did not regret sharing that he did not have a formal education with the country.'No media attacks white people'"We are so unfair on ourselves, especially black people. There is no media that attacks white people... There was one person who was given a position with just a matric to act as a CEO, and it was not a big deal. If it was a black person, there would have been a lot of noise."Zuma said South Africans blamed everything on him. "If a person loses their shoelaces in South Africa, they say it is Zuma and I love it."He told the students to work hard to improve their circumstances.Poverty and inequality gave him sleepless nights, he said. "Poverty, inequality and unemployment is man-made and not made by God, we must resolve it properly."He told the students to be determined to succeed so that they could come back and participate in the economy. Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 16-01-14 Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article From: The Athens News Agency at CONTENTS [01] Eurogroup: Lot of work has been done, Greece must send plan for pension system reforms [02] Greek tourism thrives in 2015 recording a 5.7 pct rise in arrivals [03] Labour minister: Pension reform bill to be voted in early February [04] Tax authority slaps provisional 3.3-mln-euro fine to aide of former PM [05] Supreme Court orders retrial for 36 acquitted in 1999 'bubble stocks' case [01] Eurogroup: Lot of work has been done, Greece must send plan for pension system reforms BRUSSELS (ANA-MPA/ M. Aroni, C. Vasilaki) - Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem and European Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said on Thursday the institutions are waiting for Greece to submit specific fiscal proposals for reforming Greece's social security system. Speaking to a joint press conference along with European Stability Mechanism Managing Director Klaus Regling after the Eurogroup meeting, the two officials stressed that these proposals should be sent "soon" from the Greek authorities so that teams of the institutions may visit Athens and start the first program review. Dijsselbloem described the first review as "crucial", noting that apart from the social security reforms, there are other fiscal issues left open. Moscovici said we are still in the beginning as far as the social security reforms are concerned which is a main issue for the first review. He reiterated that the climate of trust has been significantly improved concerning Greece after the implementation of many reforms by the Greek government. On the same tone, the head of the Eurogroup said that the Greek prime minister and the finance minister are focused on implementing the program and that a lot of progress has been made since the summer. On his side, Regling said that Greece's debt service needs will reach 4 billion euros in the first quarter of 2016, which means the completion of the first review must take place as soon as possible. [02] Greek tourism thrives in 2015 recording a 5.7 pct rise in arrivals International tourist arrivals in Greece increased 5.7 pct in 2015 compared to 2014, the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises (SETE) said on Thursday, announcing its official data collected from the country's airports. According to the report, 843,000 more tourists came to Greece in 2015, with the total number of airport arrivals reaching 15.5 million. In December, Athens maintained its robust numbers with a 15.5 pct rise in arrivals compared to the same period of 2014, while for the entire year the Greek capital achieved an impressive 22.6 pct jump. For the rest of the country, the Ionian and Cycladic islands secured the lion's share of tourists in 2015 recording a 3.7 pct and 15 pct boost in international arrivals respectively, while the Dodecanese, Crete and the Peloponnese showed a drop of 2 pct, 0.8 pct and 12.3 pct respectively for the same period. Excluding Athens, the country as a whole recorded a slight drop in arrivals (about 1,000 less) in December of 2015, compared to the same period in 2014, but an increase (about 77,000 more passengers) for the full year. [03] Labour minister: Pension reform bill to be voted in early February Labour, Social Insurance and Social Solidarity Minister George Katrougalos said on Thursday the pension reform bill will be voted in early February, as the parliamentary procedure cannot be completed within January. "We don't have time for the end of January," he told journalists at the sidelines of an OECD meeting in Paris. "Because you need to have a discussion; a serious bill like this cannot be submitted [to parliament] with an emergency procedure. We intend to table it in January, so the vote may take place in the first ten days of February," he added. Katrougalos also expressed his optimism that the bill will be approved without any problems for the government. "In my opinion, there's no chance the parliamentary majority will not be solid. On the contrary, we hope we will widen it," he said. [04] Tax authority slaps provisional 3.3-mln-euro fine to aide of former PM Greece's audit center for taxpayers with large wealth charged on Thursday a close aide of former prime minister Antonis Samaras, the lawyer Stavros Papastavrou, with a provisional fine totaling 3.3 million euros in connection with a bank deposit found in an HSBC Swiss bank account and sums recorded in the so-called 'Lagarde list'. Last year, Papastavrou and his mother, who is also listed as one of the account holders along with Papastavrou's now deceased father, was summoned before a financial prosecutor to explain how they gained possession of some 5.4 million euros held in the account. The charges against them include those of tax evasion and money laundering. The ongoing investigation into the "Lagarde list" revealed that the bank account belongs to Papastavrou and his parents and the prosecutor ruled after an extensive tax audit that he has to pay 3.3 million for the years 2000-2012. Papastavrou denied the charges and argued that he's a "political target" and that authorities "are trying to condemn him with evidence of unknown origin or with no evidence at all". [05] Supreme Court orders retrial for 36 acquitted in 1999 'bubble stocks' case Greece's Supreme Court on Thursday rescinded an Athens Criminal Appeals Court ruling that acquitted 36 defendants of charges in the notorious 1999 'bubble-stocks' case on the Athens exchange. Adopting the recommendation of Deputy Supreme Court Prosecutor Haralambos Vourliotis, it ordered a retrial on the grounds that the original court decision to acquit was not justified to the standards required by the Constitution and the penal code. The 36 defendants in the case were business people, investors, brokers and ship owners that allegedly colluded to manipulate the Athens exchange and create 'bubble stocks' in 1999. They faced charges of fraud and money-laundering. Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 16-01-15 Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article From: The Athens News Agency at CONTENTS [01] FM Kotzias to participate in EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting [02] Visitors, revenues to museums and archaeological sites up in Jan-Sept 2015 [01] FM Kotzias to participate in EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias will be in Brussels on Monday, January 18, to participate in a meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council (FAC). The discussions at the FAC will focus on the situation in Syria and the course of the "Vienna Process". The Foreign Ministers will also discuss developments in Iraq and the efforts to combat ISIS/Daesh, as well as the Middle East peace process in light of the Quartet's recent visit to Israel and Palestine. The FAC agenda also includes the situation in Ukraine [02] Visitors, revenues to museums and archaeological sites up in Jan-Sept 2015 Visitors to Greek museums in September 2015 increased by 1.4 percent, and revenues from entrance tickets rose by 0.3 pct compared to the same month last year, the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) said on Friday. It also said that in the period January-September 2015, there were 6.9 pct more visitors in museums and revenues rose by 7.8 pct, compared to the same period last year. In terms of archaeological sites, ELSTAT said, that the number of visitors fell by 2.5 pct in September 2015 while revenues dropped by 3.2 pct in comparison with the same month last year. In the period January-September 2015, the number of visitors in archaeological sites rose by 4.8 pct and revenues increased by 3.4 pct. Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 16-01-15 Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article From: The Athens News Agency at CONTENTS [01] Greek budget revenue surpassed targets in 2015 [02] German Chancellor Merkel to meet President Pavlopoulos on Jan 18 [03] Russian President Putin receives Greek counterpart Pavlopoulos in Moscow [04] Hellenic Sugar Industry needs refinance deal, Econ Min says [05] Cosco expected to submit improved offer for Piraeus Port by Wednesday [01] Greek budget revenue surpassed targets in 2015 The Greek government surpassed a medium-term programme target for a primary deficit of 0.25 pct in 2015 and was very close to recording a primary surplus for the year, after revenues surpassed targets by around 2.0 billion euros in the last few months of 2015, ANA-MPA sources said on Friday. Based on available revenue data (direct and indirect taxes), the revised budget estimates for 2015 envisaged cash revenue surpassing initial targets by 1.956 billion euros. The sources said that these revenue might be lowered after a revised estimate but were still surpassing the government's targets. These data will offer additional support to the government ahead of negotiations with its creditors on completing a first assessment of the economic adjustment programme. [02] German Chancellor Merkel to meet President Pavlopoulos on Jan 18 BERLIN (ANA-MPA/ F. Karaviti) - The refugee crisis, "which constitutes a plague for Greece and Germany" and the course of the reforms under the third financial support program will be on the agenda of the meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President of the Republic Prokopis Pavlopoulos on Monday, January 18, in Berlin, German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said. Referring to the issues to be discussed at this meeting as well as at the meeting on Friday between Merkel and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and between the ministers of the two countries, Seibert stressed that they will discuss the improvement of the guarding of the European Union's borders, the conversion of illegal into legal migration as well as the reasons of the refugee inflow. The German government spokesman added that apparently in Greece's case will be discussed the course of the reforms in the country. [03] Russian President Putin receives Greek counterpart Pavlopoulos in Moscow Greece considers Russia's contribution to dealing with the huge challenges worldwide of high importance, stated President of Republic Prokopis Pavlopoulos during his meeting on Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the presidential mansion at the outskirts of Moscow. "The challenges are not only economic, but they also have to do with the people and the democracy," noted Pavlopoulos adding that "whatever differences between Russia and EU will be solved as soon as possible according to the institutional procedures." The President of the Greek Republic underlined that his visit to Moscow inaugurates the Greece-Russia 2016 year and invited President Putin to visit Greece in 2016. The Russian President expressed his content over Pavlopoulos' visit to Moscow and stressed that 37 events will be held in both countries within the framework of Greece-Russia 2016. Putin also noted that Greece is a country with which Russia has exceptional historic bonds. On his part, Pavlopoulos stated that the events for the 2016 Year of Greece and Russia can and should bring the two countries and the two peoples even closer. Finally, he expressed the hope the war in Syria comes to an end, peace prevails and people are protected from the terror attacks of the Islamic State that commits crimes against humanity. [04] Hellenic Sugar Industry needs refinance deal, Econ Min says Hellenic Sugar Industry needs a new refinance deal to remain alive and there are only two ways to achieve this. Either a bank refinancing or a transfer of state funds with the liquidation of property assets. There is no other way yet discovered," Economy, Infrastructure, Shipping and Tourism Minister George Stathakis said on Friday. Speaking in Parliament, responding to a question by communist party deputy Diamanto Manolakou accusing the government of continuing the EU's monopoly policy leading Greek farmers to extinction, Stathakis referred to accumulated problems inherited by the current government and said that Hellenic Sugar Industry was constantly downgraded, while production price surpassed costs. "We have made the first move with a share capital increase worth 30 million euros to give time to take all decisions necessary to keep the company afloat. These funds were used to repay debts, while producers received 20 pct. We are giving a battle to keep Hellenic Sugar Industry open. There will be an integrated business plan for the company's development in the period 2016-2019 and everyone must contribute to promote the necessary changes," the Greek minister noted. [05] Cosco expected to submit improved offer for Piraeus Port by Wednesday Cosco Group Limited is expected to submit a new improved offer for the purchase of 67 pct of Piraeus Port Authority by Wednesday 20, 2016, sources told ANA-MPA on Friday. The sources said the Chinese company could ask for a two-or-three day extension although company officials seemed puzzled by a move of the majority of Piraeus Port board members to request a renegotiation of the contract. Shipping ministry sources said that the concession contract has been completed as far as the government concerned and said that although there were room for changes, these would be minor to affect the financial offer. The concession contract is expected to be approved by Piraeus Port shareholders and the Greek Parliament. According to Chinese sources, Cosco seems willing to improve its offer. Piraeus Port's market value was 364 million euros currently and the Chinese company has committed to implement investments worth 350 million euros in the port. Piraeus Port said that revenue from Pier I amounted 9,837,278 euros in the January-September period, although the Greek-listed company presented losses of 14,667,487 in that period. The outcome of a tender to sell a 67 pct majority stake to Cosco will prove a catalyst for the wider investment climate in the country, as the government has embarked on an ambitious privatization programme seeking to sell majority stakes in the Thessaloniki Port Authority (Danish APM Terminals and ICTS from the Philipplines have expressed interest). Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 16-01-15 Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article From: The Athens News Agency at CONTENTS [01] Tegea Archaeological Museum in the running for European Museum of the Year Award [02] Greece and Turkey are both victims of the refugees crisis, says Turkish ambassador Kerim Uras to ANA-MPA [03] Canadian investments are welcome to Greece, says State Minister Pappas to Canadian envoy Morrill [01] Tegea Archaeological Museum in the running for European Museum of the Year Award Greece's culture ministry and the Arcadia Antiquities Ephorate on Friday announced that the Tegea Archaeological Museum has been nominated as a candidate for the European Museum of the Year Award (EMYA) in 2016. The museum was included in a list of candidates posted on the website of the European Museum Forum, which organises the competition, after a meeting of the judges' committee in Zagreb. The winning museum will be announced at a ceremony to be held from April 6-9 at Tolosa and San Sebastian in Spain. The Tegea Museum's dossier was put together in the spring of 2015 and submitted to the EMF with the support of the Stasinopoulos-Viohalco Public Benefit Foundation. The museum is situated in the traditional settlement of Alea in Tripoli, in the centre of the Peloponnese and was one of the first public museums of the independent Greek state, founded in 1907. Recently, it was been extensively refurbished, with improvements to both the building and the exhibition, using EU funds and reopened in 2014. It is the only Greek museum participating in this year's EMYA competition. Established in 1977 under the auspices of the Council of Europe, the EMYA is awarded annually with the aim of encouraging the best practices and innovative actions by museums in Europe [02] Greece and Turkey are both victims of the refugees crisis, says Turkish ambassador Kerim Uras to ANA-MPA "Greece and Turkey are both victims of the refugees crisis", said in an interview with ANA-MPA Turkish ambassador to Greece Kerim Uras and accepted that the re-admission of refugees from Greece to Turkey is not working, however, he referred to "practical problems" noting that "political will exists from both sides towards a more effective dealing with the problem' The Turkish ambassador expressed his optimism over the solution of the Cyprus issue which , as he said, would be a beacon of hope in a distressed region. Referring to Turkey-EU relations he said that regarding the refugees issue their relations should be under the spirit of burden and responsibility sharing and that the "visa liberalisation and the opening of chapters would be a positive move that will eventually lead to full membership". [03] Canadian investments are welcome to Greece, says State Minister Pappas to Canadian envoy Morrill State Minister Nikos Pappas met on Friday with the ambassador of Canada to Greece Keith Morrill at Maximos mansion. Pappas clarified that Greece welcomes the Canadian investments in Greece but always provided upon strict respect to the law. Moreover, they discussed the rapidly developing bilateral relations in the sectors of investment, trade, tourism and culture as well as the timely role of the Greek Diaspora that works as a bridge between the two countries. They also noted the importance that, both Greek and Canadian government, give to the adoption of development and not austerity policies against the economic crisis. The minister of State stressed that Canada's decision on the relocation of 25,000 Syrian refugees constitutes an example for the European countries that have shown reluctance to assume their share of responsibility on the refugees crisis. Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article On Thursday, cancer claimed the life of British actor Alan Rickman in a London hospital surrounded by family and friends. He was 69. Rickmans career spanned five decades and included standout roles that ranged from a breakout appearance in Broadway's Les Liaisons Dangereuses in the mid-80s to Love Actually in 2003. Advertisement Actress Emma Thompson, who co-starred with Rickman in Love Actually, called him the finest of actors and directors. Alan was my friend and so this is hard to write because I have just kissed him goodbye, the British actress said in a statement. He was, above all things, a rare and unique human being and we shall not see his like again. Here are three piece of trivia about a man people grew to love the world over: Two days after arriving in Los Angeles in 1987, Rickman was offered the role as villain Hans Gruber in the now-classic action movie. But he didnt quite like that the antagonist wore full terrorist gear. Advertisement So, he left a note for producer Joel Silver suggesting Gruber wear a suit instead. He also wanted to tweak the script so the villain could appear as a hostage in one scene. Silver didn't receive the note well but when Rickman was handed a new script, he noticed his suggestions had been added. It showed that it pays to have a little bit of theatre training, Rickman said in a Bafta speech last year. Alan Rickman and wife Rima Horton attend day two of the Qatar Goodwood Festival at Goodwood Racecourse on July 29, 2015 in Chichester, England. (Photo: Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Qatar Goodwood Festival) Advertisement In recent years, several petitions have popped up, calling on the Queen to offer a Knighthood to the British actor but it never happened. Rickman is one of a few distinguished actors including Ralph Fiennes, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Kate Winslet who also haven't received the honour. (Photo: Kickstarter) Before Rickman graduated from the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in 1974, he earned a degree from the Chelsea College of Art and Design. During his postgraduate studies, he worked at the student journal Ark as a copy editor and writer. The experience led him to a string of freelancing jobs all before computers" came into the picture. After he graduated, he and his friends founded an agency in Londons Soho neighbourhood. They designed magazine layouts, album sleeves, dust jackets for books, and dabbled in advertising. Advertisement In a 2014 interview, Rickman said he and his friends learned quickly that we had to pay our bills immediately, but that the same rule did not apply to our clients. Pinched for cash, Rickman turned to acting. It came to a natural finish when I started to work in fringe theater and then went to RADA, and the others merged with Alan Aldridge at Ink Studios, the actor said. Happy endings. Also on HuffPost News / International by Stephen Jakes The family of the late Caiphas Kadzutu who passed away on January 3 2016 in the United Kingdom is appealing for funding amounting to 5000 to repatriate his remains to Zimbabwe for burial.Kadzutu 's only son David based in the UK said his father died after he visited the UK to witness his graduation and later fell ill leading to his death there.David, the deceased's son, the 5th in the family of 5 daughters said his father Caiphas was born on July 1 1928 and had intended to visited him for his BSc Honours Mental Health Nursing graduation on November 27 2014, the day he got his visa."Dad then travelled and arrived here on Valentine's Day, February 14 2015 for the graduation celebrations and to see his grandchildren" David said. "He then suddenly fell ill due to broncos pneumonia which took his life on January 03 2016 at St Peter's Hospital in Chertsey. Dad was a widower since 2009 and he passed on as l was in the process of extending his visa."David said his father is survived by 5 daughters, only son and several grandchildren."We are appealing to raise some financial assistance to about 5000 to repatriate him to his final resting place in Zimbabwe and for his funeral both in UK and Zimbabwe. Any form of donations will go a long way" he said.Donations: https://www.gofundme.com/jscwr3j5?rcid=0d2cae49e8004458a31f36cbeb9df3ff Baby boxes are coming to the Saskatoon area thanks to the owners of a local store called Ready Set Baby Planners and Boutique. But for a price. The store announced their product just two weeks after the Alberta government revealed its plan to bring the 75-year Finnish tradition to Canada. Maternity boxes are essentially a starter kit for new parents. They contain everything from diapers to toys and, traditionally, the box itself comes complete with a built-in mattress. Advertisement But the kit goes beyond material things, says Debbie Oesch, co-owner of the Martensville store. They come with information which is the biggest part for me about breastfeeding, about pre-natal care, about finding a mentor to help you with getting along after the fact, she explained to CBC. Co-owner Jan Hiebert added that the education is crucial, especially for new moms and teen moms who really need that extra assistance. For now, the store plans to sell the $140 kits themselves, however, they hope to partner with corporate sponsors in the future. This month, the Alberta government began a new program called Welcome to Parenthood which has been distributing 1,500 baby boxes to new parents in the province. Advertisement According to Jennifer Weber, Government of Albertas senior manager of Early Childhood Development Services, the program is currently in the testing stage, which is why the boxes are not yet available across the country. However, they hope the program will eventually lead to changes in other provinces, including Saskatchewan. Our job ... with this research study is to create the best evidence around the effectiveness of this support, education, mentorship, and the tangible resource (or the box) with its context, Karen Benzies, from Welcome to Parenthood, said. Our job is to create the evidence to inform decisions by provincial governments. The baby box tradition was originally introduced as a way to lower infant mortality rates. According to Statistics Canada, the infant mortality rate in Saskatchewan has decreased since 2005. Despite this, in 2012, the prairie province was tied with Newfoundland and Labrador for the third-highest infant mortality rate. At that time, Saskatchewan had 5.5 deaths per 1,000 kids less than one year old, compared to Canadas average of 4.8 deaths. ALSO ON HUFFPOST: Getty Images Best Buy is predicting a 30-per-cent drop in its Canadian sales for this quarter, following a disappointing holiday sales season that analysts blame on online sales and a lack of exciting new gadgets. Sales at Best Buys international division fell a steep 26 per cent in the nine-week holiday shopping period ending January 3, the company reported this week. Revenue was US$911 million, down from US$1.23 billion during the 2014 holiday season. Advertisement Minnesota-based Best Buy doesnt break out its numbers for Canada, but the country accounts for most of the electronics retailers international sales. The company also operates a small number of stores in Mexico. The company's U.S. division also saw a decline in sales, but by a much more mild 0.8 per cent. Still, the lower holiday sales were enough to tank the company's stock this week, which went from trading at around the US$29 mark to trading around the US$26 mark after the report was released. The sinking loonie accounts for some of the lower numbers in Canada, as Best Buy reports in U.S. dollars. But "currency fluctuations" are only one reason the company cited. The projected 30-per-cent decline in revenue is also due to the ongoing impacts of the Canadian brand consolidation" and "softness in the Canadian market, the company said in its holiday earnings report. Advertisement Future Shop customers are turned away by closed signs at a store in Winnipeg, Saturday, March 28, 2015. Best Buy closed the Future Shop chain last year, a move that hasn't yet proven itself in the company's earnings numbers. (Canadian Press photo) The Canadian brand consolidation refers to Best Buys decision last year to shut down 131 Future Shop locations, and reopen 65 of them as Best Buys. Thats a move that some analysts say hasnt proven itself yet. Future Shop made it a strategic goal to own Black Friday, retail analyst David Gray told Business in Vancouver. Now, with the Future Shop brand gone, it will be interesting to see where that consumer spending goes, whether people will associate those discounts with Best Buy. Advertisement Alex Arifuzzaman, a partner at retail analyst InterStratics Consultants, says the real problem for Best Buy is online sales. The whole industry is changing and online sales are really impacting consumer behaviour when it comes to electronics, he told the Financial Post. It is a hypercompetitive area because the margins are very tight. A lot of the high-margin Best Buy items that were making money in the past have also declined cables, ink cartridges, CDs. And there arent enough exciting new products to replace those declining ones, said Alan Middleton, a marketing professor at York Universitys Schulich School of Business. There doesnt seem to be a new exciting piece of consumer electronics on the horizon, no major new device, he told the Post. Advertisement One of the things that tends to drive people to the electronics retailers is the really new stuff. A snow-camouflaged Quebec man was arrested Wednesday after Vermont authorities found him pulling 182 pounds of Xanax on a sled across the U.S. border. According to a release from the U.S. attorneys office, Cedrik Bourgault-Morin was found by Vermont border agents near North Troy, an area known to be used by smuggling organizations. Advertisement Authorities say they received an alert after a sensor was triggered on area railroad tracks. Border agents followed footprints in the snow from the Quebec-Vermont border and found Bourgault-Morin pulling a sled behind him, loaded with a large object wrapped in white camouflage. The 21-year-old was arrested after agents observed him throwing snow over the sled in an attempt to hide it. Prosecutors say 300 vaccum-sealed bags containing $1.6 million worth of Xanax were found inside a large duffle bag, strapped to the sled. Bourgault-Morin, currently being held in a Vermont prison, has been charged with possession and intent to sell the anti-anxiety prescription drug. Advertisement Are you ready to take on the next big trend? Introducing Tribal Spirit, our new campaign starring the one and only @KendallJenner. The Full collection launches in-stores on 1st February. #TribalSpirit #MANGOGirls A video posted by MANGO (@mango) on Jan 13, 2016 at 11:54pm PST Hans Neleman via Getty Images Kid walking on trunk If one Canadian foundation gets its way, outdoor playgrounds will be a riskier and more unstructured place for kids. On Thursday, the Lawson Foundation announced its Outdoor Play Strategy which includes $2.7 million in grants, to be spent on developing outdoor play programs across Canada. Advertisement "Children's play is in decline, Marcel Lauziere, CEO and president of the The Lawson Foundation, said in a press release. Kids actually need unstructured outdoor play play that includes taking risks because we know that this is important for their healthy development." They dont need to be told whats safe and whats not safe. They need to figure that out for themselves." Three Alberta organizations Vivo for Healthier Generations, The City of Calgary and Edmonton's Glenora Child Care Society will be receiving a total of $422,000 in related grants. The announcement comes after reports funded by the non-profit found that children need more opportunities to play outside. Advertisement In one of the studies, spearheaded by researchers at The University of British Columbia, found that risky play like climbing, jumping, rough and tumble activities and exploring alone improved children's physical and social health. It also suggested safety standards and supervision on modern playgrounds actually prevent children from engaging in the kind of play that is beneficial. "Children's play is in decline." Vivo, a Calgary non-profit that works to improve healthy living in communities, will use its grant to fund an initiative called "Play Ambassadors." The program will staff playgrounds with professionals to help facilitate play, without dictating or discouraging kids from taking risks on their own. Play ambassadors are used at "The Land," an "adventure playground" or "risky playground" in the U.K. made famous in a 2014 article in The Atlantic titled "The Overprotected Kid." Advertisement Kids playing at "The Land" are free to do anything they please from building rope swings to starting tire fires. The play ambassadors are present just to make sure things don't get too out of hand. In the past three years, the workers have almost never needed to stop an activity the worst injury a kid has received is a scraped knee, according to The Atlantic. While playgrounds similar to "The Land" exist around Europe and the U.K., they are much less common in North America, where perceptions tend toward thinking risky play is too dangerous, according to The Globe and Mail. The foundation is hoping to change that perception by reframing the importance of risk in parents' minds. Advertisement Adrian Merrick, an early childhood educator, says its important parents think of risk as a potential learning experience, adding that too many parents "micromanage" their kids' activities. They dont need to be told whats safe and whats not safe. They need to figure that out for themselves," Merrick told Global News. The City of Calgary will use the grant to develop a "Play Charter," to support unstructured and risky play into existing parks, playgrounds and programs. Another important factor is giving kids access to year-round opportunities to explore the outdoors. For the Glenora Child Care Society, the grant will go towards opening up more opportunities for kids to play outdoors in the winter. Kids will be given the chance to feed birds, make snow sculptures and take regular outdoor winter field trips. Advertisement Also on HuffPost: News / Local by Melody Baya A GROUP of women from Mpopoma suburb yesterday staged a demonstration at Bulawayo's Western Commonage Magistrates' Court protesting against the granting of bail to a rape suspect who allegedly held a 14-year-old captive for four days and subjected her to anal sex.The women, including the rape victim's mother, who were joined by the MDC MP for Bulawayo Metropolitan province Jasmine Toffa and eight child activists, were demanding that rape suspects must be remanded in custody until finalisation of their cases.The protestors were briefly detained and released without charge.Police locked the gate to the courts and screened people who wanted to go inside as the women sang and waved placards denouncing the granting of bail to the rape suspect.Some of the messages read "pasi nerape" (down with rape) while others were written "No bail for rapists."Acting Bulawayo police spokesman Assistant Inspector Abednico Ncube said he could not immediately comment on the matter.Patricia Tshabalala, the patron of Vulindlela Guardians for Orphans in Mpopoma suburb where the 14-year-old rape victims lives said they mobilised to demonstrate against the granting of bail to rape suspects.She said granting bail to rape suspects puts the lives of victims at risk.Tshabalala said their decision was sparked by the latest decision by a magistrate at the court to grant $100 bail to a rape suspect who allegedly held the 14-year-old captive for four days while subjecting her to anal sex.The incident occurred in Mpopoma suburb.The suspect was granted bail by magistrate Abednico Ndebele.The assailant who cannot be named to protect the victim, is allegedly the mother's ex-boyfriend.He is alleged to have misled the girl into believing that her mother wanted her to collect something from his house when they met at a local park."My ex-boyfriend is the one who raped my child. He took my child on December 31 and only released her on December 4. My daughter told me that he forced her to have anal sexual intercourse with him," said the mother.Tshabalala said the courts, by granting bail to rape suspects, were not protecting the victims."How can they grant bail to such criminals? The law is supposed to protect our children, our girls, and not show lenience to such people," said Tshabalala.Last October, a teacher who was in July freed on bail for allegedly raping a 14-year-old girl, allegedly killed the victim to conceal the crime. Bernard Chiwengwa, 45, a teacher at Nyamhondoro Secondary School in Mudzi reappeared in court facing a fresh charge of murder barely three months after his release on bail for allegedly raping the girl.The teacher allegedly abducted the young girl and murdered her soon after his release on bail. CP Torstar is selling its printing plant and introducing a voluntary severance plan for employees, internal emails obtained by The Huffington Post Canada show. The changes will affect more than 300 staff altogether. The company announced Friday that 220 full-time staff and 65 part-timers will lose their jobs at the printing plant when the work is outsourced to Transcontinental in July. The company will save about $10 million a year, but still needs a buyer for the Vaughan, Ont. plant and surrounding land. Advertisement Torstar's flagship publication, the Toronto Star, has begun negotiations with its union toward a transition. Jobs will be cut in a number of departments and Im sorry to say that our newsroom is also affected, one email read. Twelve temporary contractors in editorial will also be cut early, most of whom worked on the Star's new tablet publication. One permanent employee was also laid off. John Cruickshank, publisher of the Toronto Star, answers a question at the Torstar annual general meeting in Toronto on May 7, 2014. (CP) Advertisement StarTouch, the company's free tablet app, was launched just last September. The company promised it would revolutionize the way readers get their news. They created the app with a degree of experimentation and uncertainty about what was needed in the marketplace, the email said. Between 70 and 80 people were hired for the StarTouch launch. StarTouchs user base is growing, the note to employees said, and long-term success will take time. The app was launched with a degree of experimentation and uncertainty about what was needed in the marketplace. Last year, the Star took down its paywall after launching digital subscriptions less than two years before. Digital revenue continues to be a work in progress for virtually every media company, the Friday morning email said. Torstar is also launching a voluntary severance program for employees represented by union Unifor. These decisions are being made because of the very challenging market conditions that are affecting the Star and other media organizations, publisher John Cruickshank wrote in another email. Advertisement With files from The Canadian Press ALSO ON HUFFPOST: Chris Amaral via Getty Images Young girl (8-10) with dog on bed, smiling New research has found toxic levels of cadmium in jewelry sold at Aldo and Ardene stores in Canada, reports the CBC. CBC's Marketplace recently conducted the investigation, which revealed some of the accessories sold in these stores have a thousand times more of the heavy metal than what Health Canada has deemed safe for children. Advertisement According to Canada's "Industry Guide to Children's Jewellery" there isn't a hard and fast number associated to the amount of cadmium allowed in accessories sold to kids under the age of 15. However, "Health Canada has proposed a guideline for cadmium content in children's jewelry which would limit total cadmium to 130 mg/kg." Cadmium is a carcinogen. Simply wearing the jewelry doesn't pose a threat, however. The concern is ingestion. Health Canada states that ingesting this metal has been associated with "renal, hepatic, cardiovascular, hemotological, neurological, reproductive/developmental and immunological effects." More simply, it can damage lungs, kidneys and bones. For its investigation, Marketplace had a group of pre-teen girls choose accessories, which were then tested at two universities. Of 50 jewelry pieces, seven "contained between 15 and 7,000 times the Health Canada threshold for cadmium in children's jewelry." In fact, one pendant was almost pure cadmium. All seven of the items were purchased at Aldo and Ardene. Advertisement Marketplace's results coincide with the findings of Health Canada, which has discovered an increasing amount of cadmium in kids' jewelry since caps have been set on the amount of lead allowed in these same products. This suggests "that cadmium may be increasingly substituted for lead in certain low-cost children's jewelry. Cadmium in children's jewelry has been detected at levels up to 93 per cent." Aldo has agreed to remove the items from their shelves. "We are committed to increasing our monitoring efforts, and we will work with our vendors to enforce compliance with our internal guidelines," a spokesperson wrote to the CBC. Ardene, on the other hand, will investigate the matter further. Back in 2012, an investigation like this one was done in the United States by The Ecology Center to test jewelry sold at various stores, including Walmart, Target, Forever 21, and Claire's. Cadmium was found in 10 per cent of the jewelry pieces. A new poll suggests that while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's decision to name a gender-balanced cabinet is popular among Canadians, there's one group that remains resistant to the idea Conservative men. The numbers from Abacus Data, released to The Huffington Post Canada Friday, show 75 per cent of respondents support Trudeau's much-discussed move to name an equal number of men and women to his inner circle. Advertisement Fifty-one per cent think a 50/50 gender split in cabinet sends a positive message about politics, while 10 per cent say the impact is negative. Thirty-nine per cent believe the split makes little difference. Trudeau's appointment of 15 women to cabinet in November fulfilled a campaign pledge, but the quota also sparked debate after several pundits argued that merit, not gender, should be the only consideration when doling out ministerial portfolios. Shortly after he was sworn in as prime minister, a reporter asked Trudeau why it was so important to have a gender-balanced cabinet. His quick response "because it's 2015" made international headlines. Advertisement And it seems most men and women agree with the PM. Eighty-two per cent of women and 68 per cent of men say the policy is good for the quality of the cabinet and work it can accomplish. Young people are the most enthusiastic, with 85 per cent of women and 83 per cent of men in the 18 to 29 age demographic backing the policy. But while women of every age group are broadly in favour, men in older demographics are less so. Seventy-five per cent of men aged 30 to 44 think Trudeau had the right idea, while 65 per cent of men aged 45 to 59 and 59 per cent of men aged 60 or over feel the same. Conservative supporters split And it appears the move has divided Tory supporters. A majority of Conservative women 65 per cent think the idea for a gender-balanced cabinet was a good one, while 35 per cent say it was a misstep. Sixty per cent of Tory men, however, say it was a bad idea, compared to 40 per cent who are in favour. Liberals are unsurprisingly supportive. Men and women who voted NDP also like the policy. Advertisement The poll was conducted online among 1,500 Canadians aged 18 and over between Jan. 8 to 12. Abacus says a random sample of panelists were invited to complete the survey from a larger pool of more than 400,000 Canadians. The margin of error for a similar poll is 2.6 per cent, 19 times out of 20. Abacus chair: No upside for Tory politician to challenge precedent Abacus chairman Bruce Anderson told HuffPost that older, male, and conservative voters have long tended to show more resistance on a variety of gender issues. But in time, those voters often shift toward the opinions of younger, female, and centrist voters. "It would surprise me if that isn't what happens in this instance," Anderson wrote in an email. "Clearly a Conservative politician would be taking a risk, with no evident upside, in campaigning against the precedent that Mr. Trudeau has established." And because male and female Conservatives don't see eye-to-eye on this issue, Anderson predicts there won't be any Tory leadership aspirants pledging to "turn back the clock." "That's not to suggest that explicit commitments to gender parity will become the new normal," he said. "But clearly a Conservative politician would be taking a risk, with no evident upside, in campaigning against the precedent that Mr. Trudeau has established." Advertisement One of Anderson's daughters currently works for the prime minister. Ambrose: Trudeau's stance offended some women In a wide-ranging interview with HuffPost in December, interim Tory leader Rona Ambrose conceded her party has work to do to win over young Canadians and women. Ambrose said while she thinks it's "important" to have gender parity in cabinet, she did not like how Trudeau announced the move in advance. "It makes some of the women feel like that's the only reason they got the job," she said. "Because it's 2015, you should just get the job because you're good. And, you're a woman." Ambrose, a cabinet minister under former prime minister Stephen Harper, said Trudeau's position offended some women who want to compete to land jobs they deserve. Advertisement "We don't want to be told: the reason, the No. 1 reason you're there is because Justin Trudeau needs parity in his cabinet," she said. Ambrose appointed a number of women to key roles in her shadow cabinet, including Ontario MP Lisa Raitt as finance critic and Alberta MP Michelle Rempel as critic for immigration. "When you create an environment where women can succeed, then you don't need quotas," she said. Also on HuffPost Getty Seven Mile Dam, Waneta, BC, Canada In Paris, Canada agreed to drop our greenhouse gas emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. To achieve this goal Canada will need to cut fossil fuels out of our transportation and home heating energy budgets by the middle of this century. Advertisement As I describe in my article "Dispelling Some Myths About British Columbia's Energy Picture": fossil fuels represent 60 per cent of B.C.'s current energy needs. To replace that energy will require a lot of new electricity and we have already exploited almost all of the easily accessible hydro. To put the numbers into perspective I created a new unit of power a "Site C Dam equivalent". As I calculated at my personal blog, the Site C Dam is expected to generate 5,100 GWh of electricity. To replace the energy currently provided by gasoline and diesel fuels only, and considering the gains associated with electrification, we would need to find the energy equivalent to almost nine Site C Dams. To replace natural gas would represent another 16 Site C Dam equivalents. Given that we are approximately 25 Site C Dam equivalents away from our goal, it is clear that any observer who claims that B.C. does not need the power to be generated by the Site C Dam is either being disingenuous or simply does not understand B.C.'s energy needs. Let's make something else perfectly clear, there are some legitimate complaints about how First Nations have been consulted in the Site C Dam decision. But that is not the topic of this blog post. I am only dealing with B.C.'s energy needs in this post. Advertisement BC Hydro has evaluatedvarious energy generationand storage technologies including establishing approximate costs for the various options. These documents make it abundantly clear that BC Hydro cannot do all the work on its own. There are hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure (including transmission lines) needed to meet our Paris Agreement commitments. This is where the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) come into the story. Canada has pledged to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. B.C., like many constituencies, has recognized that the public sector cannot pay for all the power projects we need right away. That is why the province has championed the public private partnership (P3) approach. A P3 is a method of paying for infrastructure where a private partner takes on the risk of building infrastructure in exchange for guarantees that they can recoup their costs through sales or tariffs over a set period of time. As BC Hydro puts it: BC Hydro acquires power from Independent Power Producers (IPPs) to help meet electricity needs. IPPs develop and operate projects such as wind, water and biomass. IPPs include power production companies, municipalities, First Nations and customers. IPPs provide approximately 18,902 GWh electricity each year. BC Hydro has a detailed document explaining their procurement practices with respect to IPPs. To ensure the cost-certainty necessary to finance investments, IPPs are generally provided with long-term contracts. Long-term contracts provide cost certainty for the producer; while providing BC Hydro with an understanding of their future expenses. Because the contracts are written for the long-term, they do not follow the ebb and flow of the day-to-day energy market. This means that some days BC Hydro gets a better deal and others the IPPs get the benefit. B.C. is doing well, at the moment, with respect to energy demand. While we meet most of our electrical energy needs using large-reservoir hydro, the majority of our energy needs are being met by using fossil fuels. Canada has pledged to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. This can only be accomplished by substantially increasing our supply of electricity. To do so we will need to develop alternative energy supplies as most of our readily-available, large-reservoir hydro has already been tapped. Given our future energy needs we also cannot ignore readily available large energy sources like the Site C Dam project. Advertisement Given the extent of our future energy needs we need to start planning and funding future energy projects as soon as possible. Our national and provincial governments do not have the financial or professional resources to manage this transition alone. This means that they need to access the vast financial and intellectual resources of the private sector. The only way to involve them is to provide the private sector with guarantees that we will buy the energy they produce at a fair price and we need to provide those guarantees in the form of enforceable contracts. Canada has made a commitment in the Paris Agreement that was praised by the environmental movement. Now it is incumbent on the environmental community to help us meet that commitment. That means making compromises with respect to IPPs and energy generation. It is time we worked together to meet our future energy needs. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook Getty Photo credit: Roman Konigshofer Panama should be on your list of places to visit in 2016, and it should probably be the place you visit first. This Central American country, loaded with history, tropical beaches, Latin culture, and outdoor adventures, packs a lot of vacation-worthy punch for its small size. Advertisement The country's use of the U.S. dollar, convenient distance from the U.S. and Canada and affordable accommodation, food and transportation prices set it above other Central American countries. Panama's tourist hotspots don't attract the attention that other Latin American tourist destinations do (think Costa Rica, Belize, Cancun and Cabo San Lucas), so you can experience true Panamanian culture without camera flashes and selfie sticks. These six reasons to visit Panama are guaranteed to set your sights on the country known as the "Bridge of the World" for your spring break destination. 1. Domestic Travel Is Easy Photo credit: Ravi Sarma You probably won't want to stay in one place for your entire visit to Panama, and you definitely won't have to. It's easy to travel to many of the country's top highlights in just a couple of weeks. Visit Pacific Ocean beaches, the Caribbean beauty of Bocas del Toro, the Panama Canal, the green mountain highlands of Boquete and the towering skyscrapers of Panama City all in one short break from winter. Advertisement 2. The Weather Is Perfect When you're escaping the cold of the Great White North, you want to return home with a suntan. Panama's dry season spans from mid-December to mid-April, which means you'll enjoy minimal rain with temperatures around 30-degrees Celsius in the daytime and 21-degrees Celsius at night. Travelers who don't prefer the heat will find refuge in Panama's cooler mountain regions. 3. You Won't Stop Adventuring Photo credit: Roman Konigshofer There are plenty of places in Panama to lounge under a palm tree and sip a tropical drink, but the country is also a haven for outdoor enthusiasts. Surfing, snorkeling, kayaking, sailing, jungle hiking, ziplining and kiteboarding are just a few of the countless adventures you can engage in when visiting this diverse Central American oasis. 4. The Money Is Easy Panama's currency is the U.S. dollar, which is extremely easy for Americans and nearly as easy for Canadians. You won't have to carry a calculator in your back pocket everywhere you go. Be sure to stick to small bills, less than $20, to ensure the person from which you're buying is equipped with the proper change. 5. It's Affordable Advertisement Photo credit: Geoff Stearns Whether you're searching for a budget-friendly destination or not, Panama's affordability will probably encourage you to experience more. Panama's tourist infrastructure is not as advanced as its neighbor to the north (Costa Rica), and visitors benefit through lower accommodation prices, cheaper tours, $1 beers and countless other ways. Panama's lack of tourist infrastructure also means you enjoy uncrowded beaches and tourist sites. 6. The Panama Canal The Panama Canal is something you may underestimate until you see it for yourself. You may even wonder if it's worth seeing, and the answer is an emphatic, "Yes!" It takes just 20 minutes in a taxi to arrive at the Panama Canal's Miraflores Locks from downtown Panama City. The on-site museum will occupy your time while you await a container ship's arrival at the locks. Watching the massive (and many smaller) ships rise and lower by the power of what is known as one of man's greatest engineering feats is something most visitors never forget. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook ALSO ON HUFFPOST: Food and ambiance, they can't exist without each other. Think about it for a moment: eating chips while watching your favourite Netflix show. Catching up with friends over dinner at your neighbourhood restaurant. Enjoying a delicious, home-cooked family meal. For New York restaurant owner and designer Tara Oxley, eating is all about the experience. When Oxley launched her Brooklyn restaurant in 2014, Eugene & Co., she wanted the 38-seat eatery to have the same homey, cozy feeling she had as a child. Oxley grew up in an Italian family, where food was a big part of life. Since her family was always on the move -- her father served in the army -- her mother always made every new home comfortable. Oxley has continued this tradition in the interiors of her restaurant from a mahogany bar to plush, leather banquettes. Advertisement Oxley studied architecture and design at Parsons School of Design and the Fashion Institute of Technology. She was the design director for nine years at BR Guest Hospitality. Oxley shares the importance of design in experiences, and what she's learned as a first-time restaurant owner: How do you define design? Design is art with a purpose. There needs to be a utilitarian approach to a space, but it needs to be aesthetically pleasing and welcoming as well. It influences people's lives without them realizing it. Design is also about giving meaning to something. It's about experience. That's why the concept of the design transcends single disciplines and can be applied to anything from software and fashion, to industrial and interiors. Advertisement What were some of your early influences? My family never put any restrictions on what colour I painted the sky when I was a kid. When I was very little, I always watched my mother paint. I'd watch the beauty of her hand on the clean white canvas, and then very slowly, with the use of colour, blending and shadows, these most amazing pieces of art began to come to life. Watching a blank canvas come to life as a child makes you think that you can do that, too. I selected a different canvas/medium. Tara Oxley, photo credit: Eugene & Co. What have you learned about yourself since you got your start as a female restaurateur? I am tired -- I have never worked harder in my life, but I could not be more proud of the achievements I've made in opening my own restaurant. I've been designing places for someone else my entire life, whether it was houses, offices or restaurants. All the time, I had someone else who had the final say. So having the final say and actually doing it for myself is a really interesting and rewarding process. Advertisement What does customer-centric business mean to you? Everything. I love people. I love their stories. I love making their families an extension of my own. This means consistently offering great and relevant experiences for our customers. Customers are stepping into an environment that we create, so we have to do everything within our means to create an environment that makes them feel like they're at home. They come back for the environment, they come back for the food. You can't have one without the other -- it's a symbiotic relationship. Eugene & Co., photo credit: Eugene & Co. Anything else you'd like to add? I attached the "& Company" to signify our ties to the neighbourhood and to honour those who helped us make the restaurant a reality. The company is what makes all of us. Inside Eugene & Co: The mahogany bar was reclaimed from a Polish Veterans of Foreign War bar in Brooklyn, New York The plush leather banquettes, rehabbed school chairs, and whitewashed walls took 120 hours to create A melted candle chandelier was shipped all the way from Italy I'm fascinated by creative women -- their passions, challenges, and contributions to society. If you know a creative woman to feature, please tweet @kmarano. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook MORE ON HUFFPOST: Sasha_Suzi via Getty Images Girl with pleasure uses head-mounted display Virtual reality, smart homes and digital assistants -- what was once science fiction from our favourite episodes of The Jetsons, is now well on its way to becoming science fact. We're only two weeks into 2016, and I predict that it's going to be a big year for technological innovation. While some have said that 2016 is set to be "the Dawn of the Drone Age" I want to take highlight other digital trends -- some were showcased at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and others. Well, I just think they're pretty cool! Wearables and Headsets I briefly touched on this subject in my article "How Films like Back to the Future Predicted Accessible Technology" in October of last year. In only three month's time, I am not surprised by the amount of news coverage that can be found when it comes to wearables and headsets. Advertisement The rise in popularity of devices like the Fitbit and Misfit prove that there's a strong business case for the digital tracker market; so much so in fact, that watchmakers Fossil acquired Misfit for a healthy $260 million last year, and they aren't the only ones making timely business moves. Facebook earlier in 2015 saw the promise in the wearables market with their $2 billion acquisition of virtual reality start-up Oculus Rift and it doesn't stop there. Sony's PlayStation VR and the HTC Vive were also big hits at this year's Consumer Electronics Show and are scheduled to release later this year. That's right, soon we can look forward to sitting in a room with our friends and loved ones, and instead of ignoring us with the constant distraction of their cell phones, they'll transition to headsets wear they don't even have to look at us at all. That last part was sarcasm if you hadn't already guessed. Smart Appliances and Devices If you're more of a homebody and using digital trackers or headsets isn't really your thing, perhaps you'll appreciate these next devices instead. The Kwikset Kevo Bluetooth Door Lock allows you to unlock your doors with a simple tap of the deadbolt (as long as you've got your smartphone or their compatible key fob on you). This is great for anyone who is tired of fumbling for their keys or perhaps doesn't have the dexterity to turn a key. Advertisement This is also quite similar to the LifeControl technology we've developed at Reality Controls, which can be expanded from locking your computer, to granting access physical doors and monitoring anyone who has a fob on them. Now that you're safely inside your home, why not let your devices do some work for you? Bosch's line of smart appliances (compatible with Home Connect) should have you covered. Whether it's checking on what groceries you might need with their "fridge cam" (not the actual name) or their coffee machine that can brew you up some international recipes for those extra adventurous days, they've got something for everyone, not matter what's your flavour. Granted, these are novel tasks but it showcases what is possible. I think it's only a matter of time before we see your microwave coordinating its schedule with your oven to prepare the ideal meal moments before you walk through the door, but maybe I'm an idealist. Digital Assistants Who hasn't had the fantasy of owning their own HAL 9000? We might not have self-aware AI as of yet, but the Amazon Echo is definitely one step closer. My wife and I were visiting a friend of ours who works for Amazon and he had one placed in his kitchen. Not only was he able to ask "Alexa" (the name given to the devices AI) what the weather would be like over the weekend, but he also had it set timers for the meal we were preparing, cue up the holiday playlist and even finish off by telling me a joke. Now, I know this is nothing new, and is similar to that of what you can do with Apple's Siri or Google Now, but it's the first of its kind that I've interacted with that is outside of a computer or smartphone. The only drawback in my eyes is that it uses Microsoft's Bing search engine to collect real-time information, and well, do I really have to explain further. Advertisement Other hopefuls like the Jibo and mycoft are worth mentioning. Both of these devices were started through crowdfunding campaigns and show a ton of potential, but I won't be 100 per cent sold until there's a standalone assistant built in-house by Google. Whether all or none of these trends were on your radar, the fact remains that the future is upon us. I'm curious to see where things go over the next 12 months. My only hope is that as our devices get smarter, we make the conscious effort to do the same. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook MORE ON HUFFPOST: On January 18, Americans celebrate Martin Luther King Day in honour of the man whose outsized oratorical skills and commitment to nonviolent activism made him chief spokesman for the civil rights movement. He, his prose, and the holiday inspired in his memory have subsequently become internationally recognized symbols of equal rights for all. I am often reminded of King, who uniquely demonstrated that eloquence trumps bigotry, when researching Canada's earliest LGBT activists. They, like King, were at the forefront of a dramatic civil rights movement, making powerful and persuasive arguments for social justice in the face of sometimes brutal suppression. However, their considerable contributions are little known. Of all these people, perhaps the one who stands out most as a trailblazer is James Egan. Remarkably, way back in 1949 -- at a time when no one else in Canada would even dare -- he began publicly demanding justice for gays and lesbians. He was a lone voice arguing for acceptance of a form of sexuality almost universally derided and subject, for men at least, to criminal punishment. His cause would have seemed hopeless to most and thus exemplified King's oft-repeated assertion that "Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase." Advertisement Infuriated by malicious portrayals of homosexuality in both tabloid and mainstream press, Egan began writing letters-to-the-editor in protest. In the spring of 1950, one of his epistles was published for the first time. This, as he later noted, opened the floodgates to his involvement as an activist and he threw himself into the cause. He later wrote, "I simply let [the press] know that there was at least one person out there who was not going to sit by and let them get away with what I considered to be gross inaccuracies and libels." Echoing King's statement that "There comes a time when silence is betrayal," Egan added, "There were never any articles published from the gay point of view, which in my mind equaled a conspiracy of silence." [1] With nothing other than the courage of his convictions to back him up, he set an outstanding example of the power of the pen. His written arguments for acceptance soon became published in a variety of publications. What I found most striking about Egan's archival records was a pile of typed, hand-signed correspondence he received from editors of Esquire, Ladies' Home Journal, Maclean's and Time. Poring through them, I was impressed by the gutsiness he demonstrated in writing to such prominent magazines and the respectful and well-considered replies he often received. At Egan's insistence, these publications demonstrated a willingness to at least debate an issue so taboo that most of society considered it off limits for discussion. In one letter I found dating from 1950, an editor from Esquire wrote to Egan thanking him for his letter in which he outlined concerns about the magazine's portrayals of homosexuality. The editor stated, "Whether or not everyone agrees with us is of small importance when we realize that a great many people have started thinking about a subject that has long been shrouded by convention." Egan was not satisfied with a reply that others might have timidly accepted as progress. Demonstrating his feisty nature, he scribbled the following in the letter's margin: "Better, almost, to be shrouded by convention then the drivel published by Esquire." [2] Advertisement King stated, "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." This quiescence was entrenched amongst homosexuals who, in a climate of pervasive fear, had little appetite for activism in the 1950s. Those brave enough to speak up received little support from their community. "In a world where exposure meant ruin, most gay men adhered to the Omerta of silence."[3] Frustrated by this complacency Egan recalled, "I was pissed off that most members of the gay community ... didn't give a hoot about what came to be known as 'gay liberation.'" [4] A decade after he began his letter writing campaign, the Toronto Star published the following by Egan: [5] "[T]he homosexual minority suffers from prejudice and discrimination of a virulence and severity unknown to any other minority. [T]o remain within the law, [homosexuals are] condemned to a life of enforced celibacy -- a situation that is unacceptable to the majority of healthy human beings and one with which most homosexuals are unable and unwilling to live." In 1964, Egan played a key role in the publishing by Maclean's of the first article by a mainstream press in Canada that took a generally positive view of homosexuality. [6] This event is considered a defining moment in the country's slow but enviable turn towards greater acceptance of homosexuality. Years after dropping out of the public eye, Egan and his partner Jack Nesbit were involved in an historic Supreme Court challenge in the mid 1990s. The case, which involved a challenge to the then-legal exclusion of pension benefits to same-sex couples helped force the government to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act in 1996 to include sexual orientation. King stated, "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." Measured by this yardstick, Egan deserves to be well remembered. To paraphrase King's famous speech, titled "I've been to the mountaintop," he climbed that mountain, saw a promised land of acceptance few in his day imagined possible, and then demanded and helped achieve greater social justice. Advertisement I invite you to follow me on Facebook and Twitter and to read my other Huffington blogs. (left to right) Jack Nesbit and Jim Egan in the mid 1950s. [Photographer: Unknown] [Source: Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, Accession 2004-122/01, Box Location 8.2.8] Letter from Esquire rejection letter to Jim Egan in 1950. [Photographer: Ron Levy] [Source: Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, Accession 1988-00, Box location 6.5.6, Folder "Egan Rejections"] References: [1] Egan, James, and McLeod, Donald W. Challenging the Conspiracy of Silence. Toronto: Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, 1998. pp. 43 - 44 [2] Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, Accession 1988-00, Box location 6.5.6, Folder "Egan Rejections" Advertisement [3] Brewster Hugh, "Outcasts," The Walrus, June 2014 pp. 36-41 [4] Egan, James, and McLeod, Donald W. Challenging the Conspiracy of Silence. Toronto: Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, 1998. p. 91 [5] The Toronto Star July 5, 1960. Letter to the editor, "Canada's 'vicious' laws against homosexuals" [6] Lesbian and gay liberation in Canada: a selected annotated chronology, 1964-1975. Donald W. McLeod. p. 3 Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook ALSO ON HUFFPOST: An interview with Clive Weighill - Saskatoon Police Chief and President of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police Ryan Meili: Long before I had a chance to meet you, I quoted you in A Healthy Society. You said we need to get tough on poverty, poor housing, racism, and the social issues that lead us down the road to crime. Advertisement Clive Weighill: Some politicians talk about getting tough on crime. I'm saying you don't just want to get tough on crime, you have to get tough on the issues of poverty, poor housing, disadvantage. People are products of their environment, and if we can't solve those social issues, we're not going to solve the big picture in the end. I firmly believe that we have to work on poverty. The health region did a great study on health disparity in Saskatoon that really fleshed it out, proving that when people are living below the low income mark, compared to people that live in a very affluent environment, how many more people get into drugs, how many more people are committing suicide. All of these issues are so much different when people are living in poverty than mainstream Canada. RM: We often talk about those issues in the health world as the social determinants of health -- income, education, housing -- the things that make the biggest difference in whether we'll be ill or well. CW: They're the social determinants of crime as well. It's not hard to see across the prairie provinces -- and this is not casting any blame, we have to be very careful when we talk about this -- but with an Aboriginal population that's so marginalized, we're seeing the same things are happening because you have a huge population that's really at a disadvantage. Advertisement It leads to young men wanting to be involved in gangs because it gives them a place where they can feel that they have a bit of power, where they fit in, where they've got some kind of a future, something they don't feel they have in general life. RM: I'm also wondering about the other way around, the health impacts of being involved in the justice system. Once somebody has been incarcerated or charged, what do you see in terms of that affecting the trajectory of their life, whether it's further involvement in crime or just their health? "If we can't fix that social circumstance we're not going to fix the systemic problem, so we'll still be investigating missing and murdered women." CW: A large majority that are in penal institutions are suffering from some type of mental illness, substance abuse issues -- that's part of what's got them to where they are. My fear is that when people are incarcerated, if they're on remand they're not getting any help for their issues because they're just on remand. If they are sentenced the programming still isn't sufficient to help anybody get over substance abuse or mental health issues. They're certainly not preparing people for that transition from when they are incarcerated to get them back into society. You can lock somebody up, put them away for ten years, but if you don't give them help and you put them right back into the same environment they came from, you're going to replicate the problem you had in the first place. Advertisement It's hard to get the understanding of short mandates for government to look long-term at how to fix some of these issues, because they're looking at a four-year term. They have to convince the taxpayers of what they're doing. We're dealing with people -- people's feelings, people's mental health, people's status -- this is not a four-year fix. Look at the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. The [former] prime minister and his party would say that this is a crime issue. But it's a systemic issue that's causing this -- it's young women that are placed in vulnerable situations because of their social circumstances. If we can't fix that social circumstance we're not going to fix the systemic problem, so we'll still be investigating missing and murdered women. RM: There's something of a parallel between how we address issues of crime and justice, and how we address health issues, putting most of our money into the end stages: doctors and hospitals, prisons and police. How do we change that? How do we move upstream from that approach, and start to use what we've learned in health and justice to address the source causes? CW: You do what you get measured on. What do health regions get measured on? They get measured on wait times in the hospital, in emergency rooms. They don't get measured specifically on what they're doing with mental health. We're not putting enough people into mental health and addictions support, problems that, if addressed, could curtail a lot of the problems that we're seeing in society. So my hope would be that health starts to spend its money in this way. We could have a family come in and say, "our son's schizophrenic, he hasn't been on his pills." We have to get a Mental Health Act warrant issued, we arrest him, we take him to emergency, we wait five or six hours, finally a psychiatrist comes to see him, says the guy's OK as long as you put him back on his meds. Out he goes again, and five days later the parents are back on our door again. Advertisement RM: We talk about revolving-door prisons -- there are revolving door emergency rooms too, and psych wards. And it's often the same people going through all of them. CW: Look at the United Way's 'Plan to End Homelessness'. When you get people some proper housing and take care of them properly, you see how many fewer times they have interactions with the police, how many fewer trips to emergency, how many fewer ambulance rides. All of these things are very expensive. If you spend the money up front you eliminate a lot of big costs. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook ALSO ON HUFFPOST: George Osborne on Newsnight: BBC George Osborne has made clear a referendum on the UK leaving the European Union will be a one-off. The Chancellor told BBC 2s Newsnight the vote this year, likely in September, would settle the question that has divided the Tory party for at least a generation. Some eurosceptics have suggested two referendums - vote to leave and another to potentially to return after two years of negotiations. Boris Johnson was reported to be flirting with the idea. Advertisement The comments also underline how the UK Government believes its re-negotiation efforts with European leaders will conclude with a substantial offer of a new deal on control on migration and Britain retaining power over Brussels to voters. Asked whether the referendum would settle the matter, he said: You know, I think it will for, you know, for at least a generation, probably for my lifetime. He went on: Theres no second vote. This is the crucial decision of our lifetimes. Do we stay in the European Union, a reformed European Union, or do we leave. Advertisement Speaking in Berlin amid talks with the finance minister Wolfgang Schauble, he said he was pretty optimistic an agreement will be struck next month, and the essential pieces of the deal falling into place. He added: I think were also going to be able to deal with the abuse of free movement and people travelling just to claim our welfare benefits. The Chancellor also insisted he is not ruling out recommending a vote to leave - pinning hopes of staying in on a reformed EU - and at one point described himself as "a Eurosceptic, like many of my Conservative colleagues" because he wants to make changes. News / Local by Melody Baya A BULAWAYO woman brutally assaulted her sister's six-year-old daughter after she found her engaging in sex with her five-year-old son, a court heard.Jennifer Mupasi, 24, of Emganwini suburb told Provincial Magistrate Abednico Ndebele that she found the girl engaging in sex with her son.The girl is still admitted to the United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH).The girl's mother lives in South Africa."I used a stick to hit her after I found her engaging in sex with my son."I hit them both, she and my son," said Mupasi.She pleaded guilty to a charge of ill treatment of a child or neglect of children and young persons.Mupasi was remanded in custody to January 20.Ndebele said the trial would commence once the child was discharged from hospital.The girl, who is still admitted in hospital, is said to have sustained severe injuries all over her body according to the medical report produced in court.Prosecuting, Mufaro Mageza, told the court that sometime between January 1 and January 11, 2016, Mupasi used an unknown blunt object to beat up the girl.On January 11 at around 3PM, police were tipped off about the assault, leading Mupasi's arrest."The victim sustained swollen eyes, swollen nose, swollen lower and upper lip of the mouth, multiple bruises on the back and buttocks," said Mageza.The prosecutor said the girl was taken to the UBH for treatment and a medical report would be produced in court as an exhibit. The Republican presidential candidates congregated in South Carolina on Thursday for the latest and angriest primary debate ahead of the opening Iowa caucus on Feb. 1. Advertisement Hosted by Fox Business, the field was reduced to seven, with businessman Donald Trump, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, former neurosurgeon Ben Carson, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Ohio Governor John Kasich taking the stage to bad-mouth each other and Barack Obama. Here are the key moments: He's Canadian! The birther issue, born during the 2008 campaign and nurtured by Trump in 2012, has haunted Cruzs campaign in recent days, the Senators purity coming under suspicion over a Canadian birth certificate. According to the Constitution, only a natural born citizen can hold the top job. Trump contends this disqualifies Cruz. Legal experts say otherwise, however its been a useful stick with which to beat the Texas senator over the side parting for a week. Cruz had a prepared answer for Trump, even questioning tycoons purity over his Scottish mother. The whole thing was wonderfully preposterous, with Cruz besting the exchange. Advertisement #GOPDebate crowd boos Donald Trump's birther attack on Ted Cruz... https://t.co/BFxBhE69sS India Cause (@indiacause) January 15, 2016 Or as one tweeter put it: Ted Cruz vs. Birther Question --->pic.twitter.com/YgRoYOmNYw Benny (@bennyjohnson) January 15, 2016 On my first day in office, I'll rip up the Internet! Declining poll numbers have all but ended Ben Carsons campaign. That and his belief that ancient pyramids were used as grain silos. On Thursday he said that nasty Internet comments were not representative of Americas Christian-Judeo heritage, but stopped short of promising to police the online sphere for civility. The idea had several high-profile converts If @RealBenCarson is able to reform internet comments, hes got my vote #GOPDebate Arianna Huffington (@ariannahuff) January 15, 2016 If Ben Carson is going to do something about Internet comments he might have my vote tbh. Molly Ball (@mollyesque) January 15, 2016 Advertisement Ben Carson is right about Internet comment sections. daveweigel (@daveweigel) January 15, 2016 I'm walking here! Hitting back over the birther issue, Cruz recently highlighted Trumps New York values, playing to the Republican voters' distrust of "big city liberals" and their progressive views on women, guns and abortion. As Cruz pointed out, Not many conservatives come out of Manhattan. Trump, however, gave a staunch defence of the Big Apple, noting the citys resilience after 9/11. It was the moguls best moment of the night, ending with a scolding for Cruz: "That's was very insulting." It's the apocalypse! Carson was asked about fighting Isis, the area that has proved a banana skin for the brain surgeon. The candidate started with a jibe at Obama, stating the president doesnt understand modern warfare. He then described what sounded like a techno-shooter from the '90s, including a riff on electromagnetic pulses. Advertisement Ben Carson's Answer On Fighting ISIS Is Nonsense Sorry, Dr. Ben Carson, we're having a *very* hard time following. #GOPDebate Posted by HuffPost Politics on Thursday, 14 January 2016 Still no Muslims! Despite the outcry at home and abroad, Trump still wants to ban Muslims from entering the US. When asked if he wanted to revise his opinion, Trump said flatly no. Bush offered a rare moment of internationalism in response. Donald, Donald, I hope you reconsider this, because this policy is a policy that makes it impossible to build the coalition necessary to take out ISIS," he said. "The Kurds are our strongest allies. They're Muslim. You're not going to allow them to come to our country?" Climate change! Activist Jack Monroe clashed with a feminist academic during a fiery TV debate on trans issues on Thursday, calling the belief that trans women aren't women "bang out of order". Monroe sat alongside Julia Long, a lecturer in sociology and long-time feminist, on Channel 4 News, after the publication of the first report by the Women and Equalities Committee in Parliament. The committee's transgender equality inquiry sparked the fury of Dr Long, who believes trans issues stray away from its prescribed purpose. View the full clip of the debate, above. Advertisement Jack Monroe appeared alongside Julia Long in Thursday night's debate In the heated exchange, Dr Long hit out at the committee's findings that people should be free to self-identify and select their own gender, claiming that this would place those victimised by male partners in jeopardy. Long said: "I'd like to begin by saying I think it's really ironic that the first act by this committee that calls itself the women and equalities committee, the first report that they publish is something that actually antithetical to women's rights." She cited the case of Christopher Hambrook, a prisoner who exploited laws in Canada which allow for self-declaration of gender in order to carry out a series of sex attacks at two separate womens' shelters. Advertisement The fiery debate was sparked during a segment on Channel 4 News Monroe hit back, saying that example was extreme. "We call all pull cases out where we can say this has happened and that has happened but those cases are very, very rare, and to try and deny services to women on the basis that those women are trans women is abhorrent, Monroe said. "I was raped by a cis (to be defined by the gender assigned at birth) man and again by a lesbian woman... I don't use either of those experiences to try and deny cis straight men or gay women access to rape crisis services." Long replied: "The kind of language that Jack is using there is really illustrative of the heart of this problem where even terms like male and female are becoming meaningless." "But who are you to decide who is a man and who is a woman? Monroe asked in reply. Advertisement Monroe launched the blistering attack "By using the term men, I imagine that you're talking about trans women and you're classing trans women as men which is bang out of order for a start. "Trans women are women and it is not for you to say that trans women are men and it's not for you to say that being transgender is some kind of frivolous lifestyle choice where someone is going to decide 'oh you know I'm going to decide to identify as a woman so I have access to a rape crisis centre'. "If men want to go out and assault women they do, rapists are rapists. Trans people are not rapists by default." Monroe took to Twitter to hit out at Long and Channel 4 News following the interview, claiming the academic may receive a payment for her appearance, whilst accusing the producers of not sticking to the debate brief. I wouldn't have accepted the Channel 4 'debate' if I'd known I'd be reduced to defending myself as 'not automatically a rapist coz trans'. jack monroe (@MxJackMonroe) January 14, 2016 Advertisement Julia Long in the green room when the next news segment came on: "Oh look pregnant women, oooh that's transphobic." I didn't react. jack monroe (@MxJackMonroe) January 14, 2016 I wasn't paid but Ch4 told Long they'd 'sort her something out' after. Match her fee with a donation to @stonewalluk in my name, thanks. jack monroe (@MxJackMonroe) January 14, 2016 Former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie earned boos and catcalls from the Question Time audience after suggesting people are not struggling and are better off now than they have ever been. The TV pundit was rowing with Labour MP Cat Smith over whether the state should be funding the struggling steel industry when he suggested Britons are thriving. He appeared to shrug off her invitation to visit a food bank in her Lancashire constituency. Advertisement Kelvin MacKenzie: They are not struggling right now. They are better off now than they have ever been. Youve got no idea." While some would point to a growing economy and record unemployment, others argued inequality is growing and there is vast regional and local differences in wealth - as well as hundreds of thousands of food parcels being relied upon. Advertisement In one of the more provocative exchanges, Mr MacKenzie took issue with the notion of a state bail-out to create steel industry jobs because it would mean making steal that no-one wants to buy at any price. He went on: From the left we always get the same thing, turn on the printing machine. Explain to this audience how their money is going to keep people in work. MP for Lancaster and Fleetwood Cat Smith challenges the former Sun editor Ms Smith, MP for Lancaster and Fleetwood and a member of Jeremy Corbyns front bench, replied: Its funny how you manage to find money for war but not enough to support people in this country with jobs. Mr MacKenzie hit back: Is that what you are saying - you would rather create steel in one part of the country . rather than go to war. Advertisement Its about priorities, Ms Smith responded. I want to be on the side of working people in this country who are quite frankly struggling right now. There is a reason we are seeing an increase in food banks. But Mr MacKenzie was having none of it, as the Labour MP urged the journalist to come with me to my local food bank. Oh, working people, he opined. They are not struggling right now. They are better off now than they have ever been. Youve got no idea. Boy (11-13) eating sandwich in school gymnasium, eyes closed Steven Errico via Getty Images Nearly a third of teachers are giving food to children who are too hungry to do their schoolwork, new research has revealed. Nearly 80% of teachers have reported children coming to school hungry at least once a week, and 38% said this happened every day, a poll conducted by YouGov for Kellogg's revealed. Advertisement In 2012, similar reports caused the Royal College of GPs, the National Association of Head Teachers and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health to urge the government to provide free school breakfasts to those 1.3m children who already qualify for free school meals. At the time Dr Clare Gerada of the Royal College of GPs said: "Providing free school breakfast to those eligible for free school meals would be a start. Though clearly it would not address the underlying issue of poverty, [it] would at least mean that children from poor families would not jeopardise their chances of learning." Jill Rutter, head of research and policy at the Family and Childcare Trust, voiced her encouragement for schools to "take up the opportunities offered by Kelloggs and set up a breakfast club." Over the past 16 years, Kellogg's claims to have set up more than 1,000 breakfast clubs in some of the most deprived areas in the UK. Interestingly, 41% of teachers polled cited benefit cuts as the cause of pupils arriving to school hungry, and 35% said cost-of-living pressures. Advertisement Nearly a third of university students are also going without food at least one day a week to meet living costs, according to a survey by The Student Room . The report found 79% students have committed theft, 45% of students admitted they have, or know someone who has, turned to selling drugs, as well as a further 35% turning to exotic dancing or escort work, in order to fund their living costs at university. This poll coincides with the government's announcement of their decision to cut maintenance grants, a highly controversial move which will effect many students from lower income households. University community manager at The Student Room Hannah Morrish said the results of the study show "how vulnerable many students are, not just financially, but socially as well." A man carries a child as they try to reach a shore after falling into the sea while disembarking from a dinghy on which they crossed a part of the Aegean sea with other refugees and migrants, from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos, on Sunday, Jan. 3, 2016. More than a million people reached Europe in 2015 in the continent's largest refugee influx since the end of World War II. Nearly 3,800 people are estimated to have drowned in the Mediterranean last year, making the journey to Greece or Ita Santi Palacios/AP Thousands of people who donated money in memory of the drowned Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi have raised enough to buy boats that will rescue other refugees crossing the Aegean Sea. Over 2 million was raised in the days after pictures of Kurdi's body washed up on a Turkish beach surfaced, described by charity Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) as a "tidal wave of support". Advertisement That money has now bought two ships being used to patrol the waters between Greece and Turkey, rescuing desperate migrants who's vessels become punctured or destroyed in the harsh oceanic conditions. On Thursday, three children perished attempting to journey between the two countries. "We felt morally obliged to do something in the Aegean so shifted focus momentarily from the central Mediterranean to the Aegean because this is where we need to be," MOAS director Martin Xuereb said of the move. Migrants disembark a boat after crossing the Aegean "We felt compelled after the deaths of Aylan and Galip Kurdi. He told Sky News: "The boat is totally privately funded and receives funds from all over the world - from people inspired by what we do and people who don't feel indifferent by what is happening." Advertisement Its two launches were named after Aylan, 3, and his brother Galip, 5. Their purchase of a new 'fast response daughter craft' means smaller boats can be quickly deployed from the mothership 'Responder' to assist migrant boats in need of help. While the slew of people attempting to reach Europe from north Africa and the Middle East has stemmed, people trafficking remains a lucrative business and many have died in their pursuit of crossing the Aegean since January 1. MOAS has only been able to conduct missions in the Aegean since December 28, rescuing 59 people on its first outing in the European waters. Two boatloads of refugees were helped, one after an engine failure, the second because it was overcrowded. Advertisement A primary school has banned children from bringing in birthday cakes to lower the risk for pupils with allergies and avoid disruption to the school day. Karen McCarter, headteacher Norbreck Primary Academy in Blackpool, said she didn't want to be a "killjoy" but the school couldn't take the risk of giving children a cake when they couldn't account for the ingredients. The letter sent to parents read: "We have decided that it is no longer possible for children to bring birthday cakes to school. Advertisement "There are many reasons for this, some of them serious. As we are not able to account for the ingredients in the cake, we could therefore unknowingly give a product to a child to which they are allergic." Birthday cakes will no longer be allowed at Norbreck primary academy The note continued: "Even if we had a list of ingredients, in a busy school day, it is too much to expect teachers to read ingredient lists and then decide who can and who cannot eat the product. "Any cakes sent into school for birthdays or other reasons will be sent home uneaten. "I appreciate that this is sad, but in our modern society in which we are held accountable, we cannot take the risk. Many thanks for your understanding and compliance with this." Advertisement McCarter explained at least 10 of the 610 pupils at the school had previously felt left out due to not being able to eat a birthday cake. She said it was also hard to know where the cakes were made and if it was in line with the school's healthy eating initiatives. In a statement sent to HuffPost UK Parents, she wrote: "Historically birthdays cakes were brought into school on a very rare occasion, once or twice a year, but now it is happening on such a regular basis that it is disrupting the school day. "I am sure that parents appreciate that a teachers time is best spent educating their children rather than cutting up cake, handing it out and cleaning up afterwards. "Also as many cakes are homemade the ingredients are unknown which could potentially lead to problems for children with allergies. Advertisement "All children are made to feel special when it is their birthday and the class teachers ensure that all birthdays are remembered and celebrated. The birthday cake is something to share outside of school with family or with friends at a party, like it always has been. "I have asked parents not to send their children to school with cakes in the future and no-one has been in touch to express any concern about the decision." Blackpool council confirmed that no parents have lodged any official complaints regarding the birthday cake announcement. Sophia Walker, editor of parenting blog Milk Drunk Diary said she could understand the reasoning for the ban. "Birthday cakes at school are great fun and a great tradition," she told HuffPost UK Parents. "However, I know a number of teachers, and they are stretched to capacity, while being more accountable than ever - so this is no surprise." Advertisement Siobhan Freegard founder of Channel Mum also believes this is a valid choice. She explained: "The school arent trying to spoil childrens birthdays but simply to keep all their pupils safe. "They have a duty of care to children while on school property and that means looking after those pupils that suffer from food allergies. Some conditions are potentially fatal - and you would not want to risk a serious incident simply for a slice of cake." Freegard noted this rule is becoming more common in many schools as food allergies rise. She added: "Instead of cake, schools now tend to allow younger pupils to celebrate by bringing in stickers or party favours, or in the infants, by wearing a party hat or crown. "This still allows children to feel special without putting anyone at risk or excluding them as they cant eat the treats on offer." Aby Hawker, 40, PR consultant at Falcon PR, and mum to Olivia, nine, and Harry, seven added: "My genuine feeling is that kids with allergies have to be aware of what they can and can't eat so they can make others aware and avoid foods that can cause them to react. Advertisement "In life there will be cake. Knowing how to deal with the fact that you can't have a slice is no bad thing." Cllr Tony Williams told The Guardian: "To be left out because you are allergic is a little bit cruel. I understand why the school is doing this because its very difficult to take cake to school to share and leave children feeling left out. "I have never known it to be a problem anywhere else, but if the school has children who are allergic then its common sense." VIDEO: Paul Golding talks passionately about the migrant crisis ***THE MIGRANT CRISIS WILL END IN BLOODSHED, CIVIL WAR AND THE UK OVERRUN***Paul Golding talks passionately about the migrant crisis.... Posted by Britain First on Thursday, January 14, 2016 Britain First has published a slick faux news video as it seeks to push its anti-immigration agenda through its popular Facebook page. The far-right group published the clip this week, with party leader Paul Golding presenting a close to 10 minute-long broadcast complete with swish moving graphics. Advertisement But despite the newly enhanced production values, many of the 'facts' used by Golding remain wildly inaccurate, crammed with personal opinion and vastly sensationalised. Leader Paul Golding presents an edition of the new 'Fox'-style bulletins The clip, which can be viewed in full above, is reminiscent of conservative American media channels, such as Fox News. Last year, a Fox News contributor declared parts of Birmingham to be a "no-go zone" for police, prompting a furious backtrack days later. Advertisement And in the same week, a Fox host demanded all Muslims must "kill radical Islamists". But this style is effective. According to Pew, consistent conservatives in America are drawn to Fox's coverage, with almost half saying it is their primary source of information. Britain First's latest move appears to emulate this success, allowing them to carefully select and present information to the group's 1.2 million Facebook followers without being troubled by traditional journalistic standards. And their first broadcast provides a depressing glimpse into the way facts and figures can be manipulated - and misrepresented - to further their political objectives. Even the group's first bulletin reveals five myths which are blown apart by actual facts... Caitlyn Jenner has responded to jibes made about her by Ricky Gervais, during this years Golden Globes. READ MORE: The former Olympian-turned-reality star was the subject of one of Ricky's jokes during the ceremony, and his quip received a mixed reception from viewers. Advertisement Speaking about the time that has passed since last time he hosted the awards, Ricky remarked: Ive changed. Well, not as much as Bruce Jenner, obviously now Caitlyn Jenner. Ricky Gervais at the Golden Globes What a year shes had. She became a role model for trans people everywhere, showing great bravery in breaking down barriers and destroying stereotypes. She didnt do a lot for women drivers, but you cant do everything. The jokes were praised by some critics, who lauded Ricky for taking a risk with his comedy, while others suggested it was transphobic to use Caitlyns transition as the basis of a joke. Advertisement Caitlyn has now had her say, telling reporters at the TCA Press Tour: On Ricky, I think what I'm gonna do is call the Golden Globes and see if they need a new host for next year. That'll solve that problem. Caitlyn Jenner She was at the event to promote the upcoming second series of her reality show, I Am Cait, which has gone behind the scenes of her coming out story, as well as seeing her become more involved in the transgender community. While Caitlyn was initially greeted with an overwhelmingly positive reception when she first came out as trans, shes since faced backlash over several comments shes made in the press, most notably when she said the toughest thing she faces as a woman is deciding what to wear. She was also confronted by protesters from an LGBT organisation when she showed up to an event in Chicago, who branded her an insult to transgender people. Advertisement I Am Cait series two kicks off on E! in March. See Ricky's fellow Brit comedian Noel Fielding's reaction to the controversy below: Celebrity Big Brother fans have called for Megan McKenna to be removed from the house, following her outburst about Tiffany Pollard. READ MORE: The Ex On The Beach star branded her housemate a ghetto c*nt in an violent Diary Room outburst on Thursday (15 January) nights show, which saw security guards storm the house. Megan McKenna had a meltdown in the Diary Room The comment came after Megan had a furious showdown with the Flavor Of Love star, during which she was called to the Diary Room to cool down. However, as her rant continued she made the controversial comment, with some viewers accusing her of racism and calling for CBB bosses to throw her out of TV compound. Advertisement I Feel Megan Should Be Removed From The House For That 'Ghetto' Comment #CBB (M)ISTA (P)RINCE (@ImDatPrince) January 14, 2016 I hope Megan is pulled up for her racist comment tomorrow too. #cbb Jak (@JakBerLon) January 14, 2016 GHETTO??????? I am offended on behalf of Tiffany and I want Megan removed from the house. #CBB (@CcLDN_) January 14, 2016 Oh Megan I was with you until you called her ghetto. #cbbuk#cbbmegan Nedra, Texas Ranger (@nedralovesme) January 15, 2016 ....a "ghetto" c***t...okay Megan,I was backing you until that moment,cos we all know what you REALLY wanted to say. LONG SIGH. #CBB Clara Amfo (@claraamfo) January 14, 2016 Advertisement So Megan gets to get off calling @TiffanyPollard ghetto. Privilege at its finest. I'm so done with them. #CBBUK#CBBpic.twitter.com/tBJGPgYrai Elijah Mercer (@J_AlPrufrock) January 15, 2016 Right howay then @bbuk is Megan getting reprimanded for calling Tiffany a 'ghetto cunt' or what? Silly Old Daniel (@sillyolddaniel) January 14, 2016 @bbuk Megan should be removed! Disgusting behaviour Pauline Neil Masson (@Pmasson3010Neil) January 14, 2016 Surely Megan needs to be removed from the house. People have been booted out for less. Something is clearly wrong with her. #CBB#cbbmegan Stubbsisgo (@Stubbsisgo) January 14, 2016 I'm at home and Megan is frightening me. I'd like her removed please. @bbuk@BBUKLive Ashley (@XanSpence) January 14, 2016 Advertisement While Megan has remained in the house following her outburst, she has been reprimanded by Big Brother for her aggressive behaviour. Tiffany Pollard squared up to Megan A tweet sent from the shows official Twitter account confirmed that she had been issued a formal warning. Megan received a formal warning this morning for her behaviour last night. #CBBBOTS Big Brother UK (@bbuk) January 14, 2016 Viewers can expect to see the fallout from the argument on tonights episode, which will also see one housemate leave in the second eviction of the series. Advertisement Find out who goes on Celebrity Big Brother, tonight at 9pm on Channel 5. The NHS is one step closer to offering pregnant women, who have an increased chance of having a baby with Down's syndrome, a new test to detect the genetic condition. The National Screening Committee (UK NSC) approved the new blood test - known as non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT). Advertisement Currently women are only offered a test that is considered "highly invasive", where a needle is inserted into the womb to take a genetic sample. This test carries a risk of miscarriage. The UK NSC said women with a one in 150 chance or greater of having a baby with Down's syndrome, Patau's syndrome or Edwards' syndrome will be offered this newer test. Although the National Screening Committee has approved the test, it still needs to be given final approval by the government before it can be rolled out on the NHS. Advertisement Lead author of the study, Lyn Chitty, professor of genetics and fetal medicine at the UCL Institute of Child Health and Great Ormond Street Hospital, told the Telegraph: "The NIPT test offers expectant mothers greater accuracy in screening for Downs Syndrome with the use of a simple blood test. "Introducing NIPT into NHS maternity care means that more women can be safely reassured about the health of their baby without having an invasive test which increases the risk of miscarriage." With the new test, a blood sample is taken from the mother and analysed for DNA belonging to the unborn child. Results can received within five days. Clare Murphy from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service said this is "great news". She told HuffPost UK Parents: "This test has been available privately for some time, but at a significant cost to women and their partners. "It is great news that it may soon be available on the NHS to women at a higher risk of carrying a pregnancy affected by Down's syndrome. Advertisement "It will give these women highly accurate results on which to base their decision whether to continue or end the pregnancy, without the risk of suffering a miscarriage or a serious infection - as is the case with the current invasive test that is offered. "It often seems there are few significant breakthroughs in improving the care of pregnant women - this is one of them, and we hope ministers approve its roll-out as soon as possible." Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) called the new test "the most exciting development in pregnancy care for decades" during a pilot project in 2014. Professor Alan Cameron, vice president of Clinical Quality for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), was also pleased with the news. Advertisement He told HuffPost UK Parents: "The RCOG welcomes the news that non-invasive prenatal testing has been recommended for high-risk women on the NHS. "This test is the most accurate and safest way of detecting diseases that may have potentially serious consequences, both enhancing the information available to pregnant women and reducing unnecessary invasive procedures. "Should the test be rolled out, resources and training for healthcare professionals offering this testing will be necessary, in particular around communication and counselling expectant parents about the implications of the test results." A Department of Health spokesperson said, according to The Mirror: "We welcome these important recommendations from the UK National Screening Committee, which have the potential to transform antenatal, bowel and cervical screening. We are now considering the recommendations." However, Dr Anne Mackie, director of screening at Public Health England, said a number of questions about the tests use had not been answered. Advertisement She told The Guardian: "We don't know how good the test is for other genetic conditions - Edwards' and Patau's syndromes - that are currently part of the programme, and the evidence review also found that up to 13% of the NIPTs carried out didn't give any result at all." News of the test was made public in October 2015 when the results of a successful trial were released. The trial of the new DNA test involved 11,692 women at Kings College Hospital, London and the Medway Maritime Hospital in Kent. Three in five pregnant women at high risk of carrying a baby with the condition opted for the blood screening rather than the current testing. Professor Kypros Nicolaides, who led the research, said according to the Mail Online: "We showed it can be integrated into standard NHS care and that women do accept it." Advertisement News / National by George Mponga Zimbabwe Empowerment Movement (ZEM) party leader Mr Garikai Sithole has been accused of swindling students here after asking them to pay $30 application fees for a non-existent scholarship.Mr Sithole, who claims to run a scholarship fund named after his father, the late Zanu Ndonga leader Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole, has allegedly been registering the desperate students for the fake scholarship.He would convince the students that the scholarship fund, administered by the Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole Trust, was set up to pay for the education of vulnerable students from primary school right up to university. But the Trust under which the scholarship fund was set up has not yet been registered.GZU director of Information and Publicity Mr Anderson Chipatiso warned students in a statement yesterday against falling prey to the bogus scholarship fund.Mr Chipatiso said students wishing to access educational assistance under any scholarship fund were supposed to do so through the university administration."It has come to Great Zimbabwe University's attention that there are individuals going around the City of Masvingo promising to facilitate scholarships to underprivileged and vulnerable students upon payment of an application fee," he said."The individuals purport to be representing trusts/organisations. In that regard, the university wishes to advise as follows: That the university is in no way involved or connected with the so-called trusts/organisations.""Students are encouraged to verify with the university the registration status of such organisations or trusts before they commit to anything.''Mr Chipatiso said all bona fide scholarships were administered by the university and the trusts or organisations themselves, warning that normally scholarship funds that ask students to pay application fees were bogus. He also asked students who were asked to pay application fees to approach the police.Mr Sithole accused GZU authorities of frustrating efforts by his political party to help under privileged students."We approached GZU asking for a list of students with fees arrears and they never came back to," he said. "The Ndabaningi Sithole Trust was formed as a way of honouring the good work that my late father did during his lifetime.'' Mr Sithole defended payment of application fees to access the scholarship fund, saying the money was paid to the bank and not to him personally. He conceded that the Ndabaningi Sithole Trust was yet to be registered and said he would soon do so.ZEM was formed early last year, with Mr Sithole declaring himself leader, but up to now the outfit has not yet managed to hold an inaugural congress to elect its leadership whose composition remains a mystery. George Sampson is set to join the cast of Emmerdale, after landing a mystery role in the ITV soap. The youngster rose to fame when he won Britains Got Talent back in 2008, and hes now set for a guest appearance on the show. Advertisement George Sampson While bosses are yet to reveal details of his character, George has shared his excitement, stating: I'm really excited to play a guest part in Emmerdale. The cast and crew have been really friendly, and the village is a spectacular place to be. "It's such an iconic show and it's brilliant to be able to be a part of it." This isnt Georges first acting role as back in 2011, he landed a part in Waterloo Road. His credits also include Sky sitcom Mount Pleasant and Casualty. George isnt the only familiar face joining Emmerdale in the coming months, as Corrie star Jonathan Wrather has also landed a role. Jonathan is set to play Tesss husband, Pierce Harris, and his arrival is sure to cause havoc for his wife and Paddy Kirk. Catch up on all the latest Emmerdale news and spoilers here. 'Emmerdale': Where Are They Now? See gallery David Cameron meets soldiers working on flood relief in York city centre after the river Ouse burst its banks in December Darren Staples/PA Wire Poor and rural areas vulnerable to flooding risk missing out on new defences because the method the Government uses to carve up funding is not fit for purpose, critics say. Questions have been raised over the Governments insistence on getting value-for-money for every pound it spends on flood defences for discriminating against some cities, towns and villages at risk. Advertisement The Huffington Post UK has been told by the Environment Agency that an average saving of almost 10 of damage caused by floods is being made for every 1 it spends on schemes. The figure is higher than the 8 return for every 1 committed during the last major UK flooding two years ago, signalling it is more difficult for flood defence schemes to get funding now. Labour and the Liberal Democrats fear the importance of the benefit-cost ratio - the main criteria when applications for flood defence cash are submitted - penalise poorer areas where property and land values are lower, and rural and suburban areas where fewer people live. Advertisement Water rises above cars as flooding blights the market town of Cockermouth, Cumbria, in December There is also confusion over how stringently the formula is applied. The 8:1 figure was widely quoted by the Department for the Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Environment Agency which it is responsible for. For every 1 we spend on flood defences, we get an 8 benefit #growingtheeconomyhttps://t.co/LVWwzX6d2J Defra UK (@DefraGovUK) March 12, 2015 But when questioned by The HuffPost UK, Defra insisted there is no rule other than that a project cannot be loss-making - or gets a return of less than 1 for every 1 spent. This is contrary to the widespread understanding that there was an 8:1 rule in place, as reported in the Guardian which suggested the bar had been raised in 2011 as the coalition Government was looking for cuts. And the Environment Agency, which actually decides on funding flood defences and dealing with the aftermath of downpours, signalled a scheme with the highest benefit-cost ratio will usually be the leading choice. Advertisement Defra refused to provide any details on the benefit-cost guidance Whitehall gives the Environment Agency beyond a two-line statement. It would also not provide details on when the 1:1 rule was introduced. Flood-hit communities across Yorkshire and Cumbria in particular have complained bitterly about proposed defences being postponed or shelved, with their low return for investment seen as a reason why. It was reported how a flood defence scheme for the Cumbrian town of Kendal - where almost 1,400 people were left homeless by the deluge - was in line for funding in 2011 but has been delayed until this year at the earliest. The Environment Agency suggests the project in Kendal would save 3.80 saved for every 1 spent - much lower than the current average. The Environment Agency was more transparent when approached by The HuffPost UK. After the last floods that wrought havoc in the South West in 2014, its then chairman Lord Chris Smith insisted there was a limit on the amount we can contribute to any individual scheme, determined by a benefit-to-cost rule imposed on us by the Treasury and that government rules are at the heart of the problem of schemes not getting built. Advertisement He said: It's important to realise a fundamental constraint on us. It's not only the overall allocation for flood defence work that limits what we can do. An Environment Agency spokeswoman explained the process. She said in full: The decision process for capital FCRM (flood and coastal risk management) projects initially uses cost-benefit analysis to identify the option which offers the best economic value for the money invested. Other factors are also considered such as properties and infrastructure protected, environmental benefits, community choices, and partnership funding. The option with the highest benefit-cost ratio will usually be the leading choice but the process also tests if investing somewhere else would deliver a better return on investment. The final option choice is determined by local priorities and affordability. The overall benefit-cost ratio achieved by the Government's investment programme since April 2011 is just under 10:1, she said. The issue is at the heart of the ongoing row over whether cash for flood defences had been cut since 2010 - critics say it has, ministers say it hasnt. HuffPost UK detailed more here. The value-for-money argument reared its head during the 2014 floods after David Cameron intervened to get two Somerset rivers dredged that had long failed the benefit-cost test. Advertisement David Cameron in flood-hit Somerset in 2014 Senior Labour and Liberal Democrats have told The HuffPost UK the Government needs to review its rules and guidance and display more transparency over how decisions are made. Labours Shadow Environment Secretary Kerry McCarthy said: There is a shameful lack of transparency by the Government on what basis important decisions about our flood defences are being made, and the trade-off between value for money and where there is greatest risk or need. This is a real concern for small businesses, small farmers, and small communities who feel forgotten by the Government, particularly those who have suffered several flooding incidents in recent years. Advertisement Given the dismal lack of action the last time Letwin was appointed to lead such a review, this latest version will not convince anyone that this Government takes flooding seriously. .@timfarron "The PM pulling on wellies, wading through some water for a photo op does not make people believe he is doing enough" #flooding Lib Dem Press Office (@LibDemPress) December 29, 2015 Lib Dem leader Tim Farron, whose Cumbria constituency includes Kendal, said: In 2012 I raised the issue that more funding was needed to deal with the torrential rain and 'freak' weather that was becoming more prevalent. In the years since I have repeated that call and do so again today. We need to urgently review every shelved flood defence scheme but more than that they must review this benefit-cost ratio. To me, it is not fit for purpose. It honestly breaks your heart when you meet people who have lost everything like the lady, a week before Christmas who came out of her home in tears to speak to me and said 'where can I turn, I've lost everything and have no insurance?' or the homeowner whose home floods virtually every time we have heavy rain and now faces a premium of over 2500. Of course, I do everything I can to help, but seeing their helplessness makes me angry and determined to do something to make it better. Advertisement If the conspiracies and betrayals on show in French political thriller Spin seem a little far-fetched, its star Gregory Fitoussi assures me its by no means as dramatic as what occurs in the real-life corridors of power. Unfortunately, even if the writers try to go as far as they can with the fiction, I think we still fall short of the reality, he says with a grin. I think the reality is far more disturbing. And I think its getting worse and worse, because the amount of communication makes us feel informed, but its not true. Advertisement People think they can inform themselves, but I think theyre wrong. Were not sure of our sources, whether we can rely on them or not. Gregory Fitoussi plays Ludovic, a spin doctor intent on the acquisition of power, even if means betraying his friend Spin, seen by some as a very French answer to Borgen and House of Cards, explores the intense rivalry between two spin doctors, master and pupil turned competitors for the ear of the nations leader. Advertisement Gregory, who already has a very respectable and devoted fanbase since his suave appearance in the first series of Mr Selfridge as well as French crime drama Spiral, plays the ruthless Ludovic, whose ambition pushes him to turn on his former mentor Simon Kapita (Bruno Wolkowitch). Hes a very special guy, says Gregory fondly. If I have one thing in common with him, Id like to put myself in a higher place like him, I have ambitions, but I wouldnt use the same ways as him. This guy doesnt have feelings, he doesnt know how to love anyone except himself. Hes a narcissist, but hes smart and knows his own strengths. I admire his tirelessness, but thats it. Even if Ludo does go to extremes in his pursuit of influence, Gregory says he still doesnt compare to the real characters he encountered during his research. Advertisement Ludovic (Gregory Fitoussi) and Simon (Bruno Wolkowitch) were once friends, but Ludovic's ambition has come between them I met someone who was doing this job for real, and the guy I met was so self-confident and arrogant, he had his shirt open, and he was talking like he was king of the world, even with me when he didnt have to. He told me, We do exactly what we want to do, we make them say this, do that and this kind of power must be overwhelming, even if they dont realise it. Because it is a real power. Why are we so hungry for political drama these days? Gregory believes it comes on the back of more and more information, via social media, hundreds of news outlets, but still the nagging feeling that were only being told half the real story People are really interested in what happens when the camera turns off and how those people talk to each other, how they hide things from other people, is his take on this burgeoning popularity. He recently played a spin doctor in a film about his countrys former leader, Nicolas Sarkozy. Advertisement Nowadays, there are those conspiracies about everything, as soon as anything happens in the world. There are those who think everything is fake and constructed, its a very serious problem, its one of the main reasons people want to see it on drama, they want to see whats going on for real, theyre saying stop lying to us, we know theres something on going behind the scenes. The one thing weve seen over and over again, both in drama and in real life, is that there is hardly any public figure who does not fail in the face of such scrutiny. Do we expect too much of our political leaders? They are humans, says Gregory, with a suitably Gallic shrug. I dont want to excuse them for their mistakes, but we have no idea how hard it is, what theyre doing, and even if we have corruptions with people who reach for it, there are some of them who have ideals and really want to make things better for people, but it must be really difficult to stick to your ideals. And as soon as they make one mistake, we all know one word that is not good, it becomes a big thing. So does Gregory forgive these errant leaders? No, because they decided to do that job, and it is a crucial thing they have to get right, he adds. As soon as they make that decision to live that life, they have to be people we can trust and rely on. They have to be an example, and I dont see one who is an example. Advertisement A couple are appealing for Group B Strep pregnancy screening to be made mandatory, after their baby died from an infection that could have been prevented if caught early by a simple test. Shaheen McQuade, 24, and Craig Blackie, 32, gathered 12,000 signatures on a petition calling for all pregnant women to be given a swab test that detects the Group B Streptococcus infection. They presented the petition to Holyroods public petitions committee on 12 January and MSPs promised to take "definitive action" on the matter. Advertisement "No mother should ever have to cope with losing a baby," McQuade told HuffPost UK Parents. "To live with the knowledge that it was preventable is a million times worse. It is indescribable the feeling I have to learn that a simple 11 test would have saved my son's life. "The NHS took a gamble with my son's life and they lost." McQuade's son Zach lived for two weeks McQuade's son Zach Blackie died in August 2015, when he was just two weeks old, after contracting the early-onset GBS (group B streptococcus) infection, which lead to meningitis. McQuade unknowingly carried the infection. The NHS states it's estimated around one in four pregnant women have Strep B bacteria in their vagina or digestive system. Most babies exposed to Strep B will be unaffected, but in around 1 in every 2,000 cases they can become infected. Advertisement As newborn babies immune systems aren't fully developed, Strep B bacteria can quickly spread through their body, causing serious infections, such as meningitis. If McQuade had the detector test while pregnant, Zach could have been treated with antibiotics. On 12 January, McQuade and her partner attended Scottish Parliament to discuss her petition and were pleased the MSPs were keen to take matters further. "The MSPs said on 12 January it is time to take 'definitive action' and want to push the Government to make it mandatory," she explained. "The Scottish Parliament will now be writing to the Government and then take it from there. "This test is very important for people to know about. Group B Strep not only causes bacterial meningitis, it can cause sepsis and septicaemia, still births and miscarriages, and can leave children with mild or serve disabilities and development problems. "There are 22 other countries that routinely screen expectant mums and the rates have decreased by up to 86% in those countries, where in Scotland the rates have increased by 10%. Advertisement "If other countries can do it then why can't we." McQuade and Blackie want to raise awareness so this doesn't happen to another couple McQuade said when she gave birth to Zach, she couldn't believe how lucky she was. "They say when babies smile that it is just an instinct, yet my son smiled every single day," she said. "On 14 August he was unwell and my health visitor advised it was just colic, however a couple of hours later I could see he was getting worse and called an ambulance. Zach was taken to Wishaw General where he was tested for meningitis. "A couple of hours later my world was shattered forever when the doctor advised that he did in fact have bacterial meningitis and would not survive," said McQuade. "He was moved to Yorkhill hospital were he fell asleep the following day. "No words can explain the devastation and heartache this has caused me." Shortly after, McQuade had a meeting with a consultant who treated Zach at Yorkhill. The consultant explained Zach had developed meningitis from the Group B Strep infection that he picked up during labour. Advertisement McQuade said: "I was devastated to learn that a simple swab would have alerted midwives that I was carrying this in the birth canal. "If I'd had a swab at the beginning of labour, Zach could have received antibiotics, which would would have almost certainly prevented the infection being passed on to him and he would still be here. "This is something I was never made aware of during pregnancy." McQuade said she asked doctors why mothers are not routinely swabbed when they go into labour and as of yet, she doesn't feel she has received a satisfactory explanation. In December 2015, McQuade set up a petition to request mothers are routinely swabbed during pregnancy. She received more than 12,000 signatures and comments from women who also had similar experiences. Having now taken her petition to parliament, McQuade is hoping the MSPs will be able to take matters further in discussions with Westminster. Advertisement McQuade received positive feedback when she attended Scottish Parliament Pregnant women are routinely screened for Group B Strep in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Belgium, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Argentina and Kenya. Public Health Minister Maureen Watt said, according to The Mirror: "I would like to reassure women that if, during pregnancy or following the birth of their baby, there is a risk of an infection, they will be monitored and treated appropriately. "We take this matter seriously and work hard to improve the situation. "A number of actions on Group B strep are under way, including a national study that will be used to inform research and develop new tests. She said the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) are reviewing their advice on Group B Strep this year. Advertisement The UK NSC last made a recommendation on Group B Strep screening in pregnancy in November 2012, when they ruled the test should not be offered to all pregnant women as there was "insufficient evidence" to demonstrate that the benefits would outweigh the harms. They stated: "Current screening strategies are unable to distinguish between carriers whose babies will be affected by early onset GBS {Group B Strep] and those which would not. "As a result many thousands of low risk women would receive intravenous antibiotic prophylaxis during labour. The consequences of expanding antibiotic usage in this way are unknown." Ken Livingstone during the Evening Standard Mayoral Debate in London. Rebecca Naden/PA Archive A defiant Ken Livingstone has declared that he would still be involved in Labours Trident review if former Shadow Defence Secretary Maria Eagle was in post. The former London Mayor spoke out after a day of claim and counter-claim over his exact role in overseeing the partys nuclear deterrent policy for the next general election. Advertisement Mr Livingstone said that he had recommended to new Shadow Defence Secretary Emily Thornberry last week that he should step aside from the defence review, but only because they agreed on most things. He told LBC Radio: Last Friday I had lunch with Emily Thornberry, and after an hour and half I said You and I agree on everything.I think you should lead this, you dont need a co-chair of it. I recommended it. But Mr Livingstone - who also joked that he wanted a new policy of better relations with North Korea - stressed that he would not have agreed to step aside from the defence review if Ms Thornberrys predecessor had not been sacked in Jeremy Corbyns reshuffle. Advertisement Ms Eagle, like many of the Shadow Cabinet, had expressed strong support for renewing Trident, before she was removed from her defence brief to Shadow Culture Secretary earlier this month. Maria and I didn't agree on it, Mr Livingstone told LBC. We completely disagreed on Trident. If Maria Eagle was still there I wouldn't have recommended that at all. The former GLC leader was appointed by the ruling National Executive Committee in November as co-convenor of Labours International Policy Commission last year, working alongside Hilary Benn on overseeing foreign and defence policy. He said today that "defence is a sub committee of foreign affairs, while party sources said the review of Trident would feed into the wider policy process for international affairs. Advertisement Maria Eagle, former Shadow Defence Secretary at party conference last September Yet there was confusion over whether the NEC ever had granted Mr Livingstone any formal role at all in the defence review, which was first put under the authority of Ms Eagle in September, and Mr Corbyn confirmed at party conference that she would lead it. Following the November NEC meeting, Mr Livingstone appeared at a Left Book Club evening to announce he was now co-chair of the defence review. The first Ms Eagle knew of the move was from Twitter. Although Ms Eagle continued to stress she was still in the lead on the review, it is understood the message from the party leadership was that Mr Livingstone had to have a key role following his appointment to the international commission. Ever since then, he has clashed with Labour MPs, not least for suggesting last week that Britain's membership of Nato would be part of the defence review. Party sources insisted today that the former Mayor had not been sidelined and would in fact have a key role in overall policy, alongside Mr Benn. Advertisement Some Labour MPs have told HuffPost UK that some around Mr Corbyn had not understood the policy process. Others suggested that Livingstone had been effectively ousted by trade unions worried that the review would not be balanced. New Shadow Defence Secretary Emily Thornberry Ms Thornberry confirmed today that she alone would lead the Labour defence review and made clear that an interim report would not be ready before June at the earliest. Her timetable means that a free vote for Labour MPs on Trident looks almost certain, given Jeremy Corbyns opposition to the current official policy of renewing the weapons system. The Government is expected to hold a Commons vote in March. Some journalists today pointed out the stark difference in messages from Mr Livingstone and Ms Thornberry on the timing of the review. Advertisement Compare and contrast. Labour's trident review from Wednesday to Friday. Now Ken Livingstone has "no formal role" https://t.co/XvrgrGy5Tm David Grossman (@davidgrossman) January 15, 2016 But Mr Livingstone, who had suggested the defence review could be done within 8 weeks, told LBC that it will be fun co-convening the overall policy commission alongside Mr Benn. He joked: We are going to look at better relations with North Korea and things like that. Mr Livingstone added that: Emilys report will come up to me and Hilary and we will jointly look at it.I said to Emily, you should lead on this, youve got to explain this in Parliament, youve got to make that campaign at the general election. You should lead the defence review. Unites General Secretary Len McCluskey - who is determined to back Trident at party conference this year - today welcomed Ms Thornberrys announcement. Our members will be reassured by the scope and calendar of this review because it is evidently designed to ensure that all voices are heard in this important process, he said. Advertisement This announcement also sends a clear signal to Labour MPs and members that Jeremy Corbyn is determined this review will result in a policy that will equip the country for the modern-day defence challenges. "Importantly too for Unite, it also confirms to the tens of thousands of workers in the defence sector that they will be playing a full and active part in shaping any future Labour party policy, and we will be making a very strong case for their jobs and communities. Meanwhile, Twitter users reflected on the days claims that Mr Livingstone had never been on the defence review in the first place. If Ken Livingstone goes into a woods alone and resigns from a job he never had, apparently that makes a sound. Rupert Myers (@RupertMyers) January 15, 2016 Schrodinger's Livingstone - until we open the Defence Review, he's both participating and not participating. . (@twlldun) January 15, 2016 Advertisement If Ken Livingstone can come out & appoint himself to a job without Labour saying anything, I'm the new Shadow Minister for Political Gossip. Marie Le Conte (@youngvulgarian) January 15, 2016 An advert featuring four muscular men and one toned woman has been accused of "contributing to body image pressures" felt by Londoners. The ad, from fitness trainers LDN Muscle, can be seen in various locations around the London underground at the moment. The striking image features brothers Max and Lloyd Bridger and twins James and Tom Exton, alongside popular Instagram star and blogger Alice Liveing (known more commonly as Clean Eating Alice). Advertisement While some have labelled the ad as "appalling", others have argued that the image merely promotes a healthy lifestyle. For those of you commuting into or around London... Keep your eyes peeled.... #TweetUsAPhoto pic.twitter.com/HJRK9otEPO LDNM (@LDN_Muscle) January 11, 2016 Speaking to HuffPost UK Lifestyle, Danny Bowman, a 20-year-old who suffers from Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) says he thinks images such as the LDN Muscle advert "contribute to male body image pressures". He adds that such images can be particularly damaging to those who suffer from mental illnesses such as anorexia, bulimia and BDD. Advertisement "It puts added pressure on men to look a certain way," he says. "If I saw this ad I would feel huge pressure to look that way. "This advert is not right and shouldn't be looked at as the norm." Others on Twitter have also spoken out against the ad: @LDN_Muscle Stereotypical male image rubbish & a painfully thin girl too. Appalling TNT (@tnturner88) January 6, 2016 But not everyone agrees with the criticism the advert has received. The company's Facebook page is full of comments from fans showing their support for the ad, while on Twitter, many others have pointed out that the LND Muscle team promote a "healthy image": Na- if you have a problem with the @LDN_Muscle ad you need to reevaluate. These guys promote nothing but healthy image; steroid free, no bs. Harrie Verges (@HarrieVerges) January 12, 2016 @LDN_Muscle those that are saying it's unrealistic are too damn lazy to attempt get a aesthetic body. So they shame to feel better StevenDavid (@its_StevieBoy) January 12, 2016 Advertisement According to the LDN Muscle website, the team are passionate about promoting a body-type that is attainable if you're willing to work hard. "We are, and always have been 100% natural, using only legal, commonly available supplements- strictly no pro-hormones, steroids or performance-enhancing drugs," the site reads. "We are intent on spreading the natural ethos we all uphold. LDN Muscle aims to open peoples eyes to the dishonesty, false claims and naturally unattainable physiques that are sadly often sold to people with a gimmicky supplement or generic one size fits all plan." Speaking to HuffPost UK Lifestyle, LDN Muscle co-founder Tom Exton says the company has "no issue with promoting a healthy lifestyle, via the use of our company founders who are evidence of the training, nutritional advice and lifestyle included in our Guides, website and on social media". He adds: "The advert was not designed to exert any pressure on anyone to look a certain way, but provide an eye catching demonstration of what can be achieved. Advertisement "I work behind a desk in the city every day, seeing this poster on my commute too, so those physiques are certainly 'attainable'. "We believe any negative response is merely a symptom of the almost hyper-sensitive society we live in today and the need for some to look for 'offence' wherever they can find it. We haven't taken it personally. "It was a fairly small minority of negative remarks anyway and we have had a lot of support on our social media channels over the last few days mainly in support! "Not only have the adverts opened up the discussion around male body image but we are now everywhere. "It hasn't changed our outlook at all, we will continue to help tens of thousands of people to reach their goals in an educated, sustainable and healthy way as we always have done. And we still won't wear T-shirts if we don't want to." Advertisement The backlash against LDN Muscle's tube ad seems reminiscent of the criticism Protein World received for their 'Beach Body Ready' ad last year. The ad, which featured bikini-clad model Renee Sommerfield, was accused of "body shaming", although the Advertising Standards Authority eventually ruled that is was "not offensive". What do you think about LDN Muscle's ad? Let us know in the comments below or tweet us @HuffPoLifestyle Look backstage at theater. Thorney Lieberman via Getty Images A student society has been banned by its university after putting on a play which included a character being drugged and raped. The play, written by members of Liverpool Medical Students Society, was intended to be performed at an annual event named Smoker, and was titled "James Bond in Hymens are Forever". It featured characters such as James Bondage and Mrs Sluttypenny, and was accused of mocking the anti-rape slogan 'no means no'. Advertisement Liverpool University's investigation into the play began in 2014. At the time, the university, the Liverpool Guild of Students and the Liverpool Medical Student Society released a joint statement. They said: "The university, the Guild of Students and the Liverpool Medical Students Society are shocked at the content of this material which is clearly unacceptable." The society were in talks with both the university and the university and the Guild of Students. Originally a spokesperson for the society was invited to draw up an action plan to address the society's issues, however the society has now been de-ratified, meaning from the first of February it will be refused access to university and guild services. Justification for the de-ratification of the society was given in an email by the university and the Liverpool Guild of Students. They said: "Unfortunately, a full and completed action plan has not been forthcoming and the LMSS officers refused to engage with the chair of the investigation panel." The society has responded to this news in a letter, published in the Liverpool University's student paper The Sphinx accusing the university and the Guild of unjust actions. The letter argues: "Accusations of non-cooperation are frankly untrue, as the LMSS Officers repeatedly attempted to arrange meetings with the Guild which appeared to be ignoted". Advertisement A radio phone-in caller has alleged he was nearly sacked for refusing to check-in Lord Janner, as the peer would not give the name of a '15 or 16-year-old boy' he was with. Hotel worker Mark, who claimed he worked at a high-end London establishment in the late 1980s, recalled Janner threatening him with the sack for not allowing him and a child into the hotel's swimming pool. Advertisement Infuriated at the move, Janner allegedly retorted: "Do you know who I am? I am QC Janner and I will get you fired if you do this to me." After the incident, Mark told LBC's James O'Brien he was pulled into the hotel manager's office and castigated for his actions. SEE ALSO: Lord Janner Appears At Court After Threat Of Arrest "Next time you dont say anything - you let him do what he wants, hes a very important man," the front-desk worker claims he was told. Speaking of the 30-year-old experience, Mark told O'Brien: "This is why his name never went away for the rest of my life, and I will not look away now, now that I know he died." Advertisement "The victims are going to be short-changed." The allegation came as the CPS announced it was dropping a child sex abuse case against Janner in light of his death. He had been accused of abusing children, facing 22 counts of sex offences that allegedly occurred in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. The 87-year-old was due to a face a "trial of the facts", where a jury would have decided whether the claims were true, without holding him criminally responsible because an onset of dementia left him unfit to stand trial. His death last December meant the law would not allow for proceedings against him, Prosecutor Richard Whittam QC said. File photo dated 15/03/13 of Martin Lewis who is to donate half a million pounds to enable food banks to roll out a pioneering programme enabling thousands of people to get free help with money and debts. Andrew Matthews/PA Wire Martin Lewis, founder of the MoneySavingExpert site, has written a damning open letter to David Cameron, voicing his concern over the legality of the government retrospectively changing the terms of student loans. Lewis called the move "disgraceful", saying it goes against "all the principles of good governance". In the letter, which has been published in full on The Huffington Post UK, Lewis says: "I've already hired lawyers to look into whether a legal challenge is possible, but this is just as much a moral issue as a legal one. Advertisement "So today I've sent the following letter to the Prime Minister to ask him to take a personal interest." Lewis, who formerly headed up the Independent Taskforce on Student Finance Information, a government-backed organisation, then directly addresses Cameron, writing: "The decision to backtrack on this is hugely damaging. It means many lower- and middle-earning graduates will repay thousands more over the life of their loans. "However, even more important than the additional cost is the message this sends. The regulator would not allow any commercial lender to make a change to its terms this way. It is therefore surely wrong for the Government to do so. "Present and future generations must be able to trust the Government to keep its word on student finance." Advertisement In November, George Osborne revealed the earnings threshold of 21,000 at which graduates must begin to pay back their loan will be frozen for five years. This means that students who have paid the higher course fees of 9,000 a year, which were introduced in September 2012, will face higher repayments, as the income threshold will not match increases in average earnings. The government had previously stated that income threshold would increase annually from April 2017. Following the announcement, Callum Cant, a recent graduate and member of the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) group, said: "Millions of graduates are being cheated by the government. "This move shows the utter contempt and lack of respect that they hold for us - in no other contract would you think so lowly of the other partners that you feel free to remorselessly worsen the terms half way through." Hope Worsdale, who sits on NCAFC's national committee, added: This shows that the government is intent on waging ever more unjust attacks on borrowers and the low waged. Our opposition must be as unflinching as their attacks. Advertisement A Department for Business, Innovation & Skills spokesperson said: Students do not have to pay anything back until they are earning 21,000 and will only pay back 9 per cent of earnings above that amount. While the economic recovery is underway, graduate earnings havent risen as they were expected to and we consulted on the change with the sector and student organisations in the summer. A former star of the hit childrens show, Power Rangers has been charged with murder in Los Angeles. Advertisement Ricardo Medina But he has now been rearrested and charged for attacking Josh Sutter with a sword and stabbing him multiple times. At the time, Riacrdos lawyers said he was acting in self defence after he was assaulted by his flatmate at the home they shared in Palmdale, California. Investigators said at the time that the actor retreated to his bedroom with his girlfriend following the row, when Sutter forced his way into the room. Advertisement It was reported that Medina then grabbed a sword he kept near the door and stabbed his roommate in the abdomen, before calling emergency services. But the victim's family believe he has been rearrested because detectives don't believe his initial story. Medina played the Red Ranger on 'Power Rangers Wild Force' In a written statement, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said: "Ricardo Medina, 36, is charged with stabbing Josh Sutter multiple times with the sword during a January 31, 2015 argument over the actor's girlfriend. Speaking three days after the attack, the actor said he was "very sorry", whilst his agent, Gar Lester, called him a "sweet soul". Advertisement The actor, who played the Red Ranger on Power Rangers Wild Force in 2002 and and later played Deker on Power Rangers Samurai, could face between 26 years and life in prison if found guilty. News / National by Staff reporter THE government is working on a cocktail of fiscal and monetary policy interventions to compel companies to pay taxes amid heightened concerns that evasion and avoidance of levies by corporates has bled the economy into its current crisis, businessdigest has learnt.High-ranking government officials said Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa was concluding an exercise meant to introduce punitive measures, through the fiscal policy, to tax offenders early this year as part of efforts to discourage tax offenses at a time government revenues continue to dwindle.Fiscal tools, said a top official in the Treasury chief's office, will include measures to improve tax collection from the informal sector "bearing in mind that the country's economy is getting more and more informalised each day".The government, added the source, has also tasked Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor John Mangudya to come up with measures, in his 2016 Monetary Policy Statement that is also expected this month, to improve tax collections.Another source at the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) said the government agency noted with concern how some big companies are devising methods to evade taxes.This comes as the central bank is seeking ways to deal with illicit financial flows mostly in the form of tax evasion and avoidance.According to Zimra, Zimbabwe missed its revenue collection target by 6% in 2009 before surpassing it by 15% in 2010. Growth was maintained in 2011 when the country collected US$2,8 billion - 11% above target.Zimra figures for the third quarter of 2015 show a country in dire straits as net collections of US$878,22m, which is 91,1% of the target of US$964m. The revenue collector said there was a 0,71% decline in net revenue collections from the same period last year where US$884,46m was realised. Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister has urged Britons to "respect" his country's death penalty, as the brutal Saudi justice system strains relations between the two countries. Adel Al-Jubeir faced tough questioning from Channel 4 News' Jonathan Rugman, who told the minister his country has a "terrible image problem" and asked: "You don't have to execute as many people as you do, do you?" Al-Jubeir responded: "We have a fundamental difference, in your country, you do not execute people, we respect it. In our country, the death penalty is part of our laws and you have to respect this as it is the law." Advertisement The questioning comes after an international outcry over a number of high-profile executions in the state, including that of prominent Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. Most of those executed were beheaded while some were shot by firing squads. Adel Al-Jubeir faced tough questioning from Channel 4 News Some 47 prisoners were executed by Saudi Arabia in one day earlier this month, prompting mass condemnation and protests across the Muslim world. In the Channel 4 interview, Al-Jubeir said his country had to do more to address its bad reputation in the UK. Advertisement "With regards to the perception of Saudi Arabia among the British public, this is a problem that we need to work on. We have not been good at explaining ourselves," he said. "We have not done a good job at reaching out to the British media or the British public or to the British institutions, academic institutions, think tanks and so forth. We maybe not have been as communicative as we should be." At the time of Al-Nimr's execution, Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team at international human rights organisation Reprieve said: 2015 saw Saudi Arabia execute over 150 people, many of them for non-violent offences. Today's appalling news, with nearly 50 executed in a single day, suggests 2016 could be even worse. Alarmingly, the Saudi Government is continuing to target those who have called for domestic reform in the kingdom, executing at least four of them today. Advertisement "There are now real concerns that those protesters sentenced to death as children could be next in line to face the swordsmans blade. Some familiar faces will be joining policeman Jimmy Perez on his scenic isle, when Shetland returns tonight on BBC1. Ciaran Hinds and Saskia Reeves turn up as a married couple, inevitably with their own secrets, while Anna Chancellor is on form as the lover of Perezs own colleague Julie Graham. Its the third series of popular Shetland, and the series, originally based on the books of Ann Cleves, has taken a leaf out of the book of Nordic Noir, giving over the whole of this six-part series to one case for Jimmy Perez. Advertisement Jimmy Perez (Dougie Henshall) returns to 'Shetland' with a special six-part story Actor Dougie Henshall who plays the lead detective is a fan of this direction. It means theres room for telling a familiar story in a much more detailed, nuanced way. Theres also a lot more room for the other characters to have stronger storylines, the audience wont just be stuck with me. Everyones returning, plus we have some wonderful new characters. This is a brand new story, although it hasnt lost the essential spirit of Ann Cleeves novels. She was at the read throughs, and very gracious about the writers taking her characters on a new journey. Advertisement For Dougie, this series also sees him exploring new aspects to his central character. Usually somebody dies, and he has to find out about it, end, he laughs. This has become much more personal. His daughters leaving, and the purpose of his life is suddenly disappearing. I dont think he cares very much about himself. All the stuff hes been repressing ends up coming out in a variety of ways. Like everyone else, Dougie hasnt been immune to the influence of Nordic Noir on the TV crime drama genre. Although he chuckles at the thought of being the Scottish 'Wallander', he admits, The Killing showed us that not everything has to be Midsomer Murders. It was, for all TV drama producers, a watershed moment. And of course the island itself helps us. The beauty adds weight and grandeur to the storyline. If in doubt, you can just turn the camera and point it somewhere new, and its always breathtaking. 'Shetland' returns tonight on BBC1 at 9pm. An American church has been suspended from the Anglican Communion because its support for gay marriage constitutes a "fundamental departure from the faith and teaching", church leaders have decided. Following a meeting of Anglican primates in Canterbury this week, an agreement was reached on measures against the US Episcopal Church to uphold a "traditional doctrine" of marriage as being between a man and a woman. The decision has been called "a warning to liberal-thinking Christians everywhere" by one former archbishop. Advertisement There were fears that the week-long meeting, held by the Archbishop of Canterbury, could result in a permanent schism in the Anglican church over long-running dispute between sections of the Church over homosexuality, amid division dating back to the liberal church's consecration of Canon Gene Robinson, who is gay, as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003. A liberal church in America has been suspended for endorsing gay marriage The primates' statement said: "The traditional doctrine of the church in view of the teaching of scripture, upholds marriage as between a man and a woman in faithful, life-long union. The majority of those gathered reaffirm this teaching." The leaders added there was a "unanimous desire to walk together" and the divisions had caused "deep pain throughout our Communion". Advertisement And they asked the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, to lead a task group "with the intention of restoration of relationship, the rebuilding of mutual trust, healing the legacy of hurt, recognising the extent of our commonality and exploring our deep differences". Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby The Episcopal Church has been banned from taking part in ecumenical and interfaith bodies, internal committees or votes on doctrine or polity for a period of three years. Members of the conservative Anglican group Gafcon welcomed the action but added: "This action must not be seen as an end, but as a beginning. "There is much that causes us concern, especially the failure to recognise the fact that the Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC) has also rejected the collegial mind of the Communion by unilaterally permitting the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of those in active homosexual relationships. We fear that other provinces will do the same." Advertisement Gafcon added the divisions had meant Anglican leaders had been "unable to guard biblical truth and restore godly order" and it was "disappointed" the agreement made no reference to "repentance". But the decision was met with dismay by some. Labour MP and former Anglican minister Chris Bryant, who is gay, tweeted: "I've finally given up on Anglican church today after its love-empty decision on sexuality. One day it will seem wrong as supporting slavery." I've finally given up on Anglican church today after its love-empty decision on sexuality. One day it will seem wrong as supporting slavery. Chris Bryant MP (@RhonddaBryant) January 14, 2016 Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Friday, Gafcon's general secretary and former Archbishop of Sydney Peter Jensen said the decision was "inadequate" but welcomed the liberal American church being reprimanded for its views. He said: "It's a good statement because it represents very, very clearly... that there is a widespread global disquiet with what has happened in the United States and in Canada and is happening elsewhere in the West. Advertisement "This represents something of a warning to Liberal-thinking Christians everywhere." He added that there is "immense disquiet about sexual flourishment" in the West. His comments angered many of Radio 4's listeners. Peter Jensen could not be further away from Christian values or modern day society. Horrendous views on gay marriage @BBCr4today Nick_Osborne (@nick_osborne) January 15, 2016 Peter Jensen displays the arrogance that, if reflected back at him, would make him cry "persecution". @BBCr4today#TransLivesMatter Helen Belcher (@HelenCBelcher) January 15, 2016 Peter Jesen on @BBCr4today referred to LGBT as "sexual disorientation" is it really 2016? @stonewalluk Chris McCleary (@c79mc) January 15, 2016 Cute that clergy like Peter Jensen on @BBCr4today think most important issue facing us is what people do with their willies The Prodigal Bum (@prodigalbum) January 15, 2016 Just because the man (Peter Jensen) is religious I'm not sure we should be letting him be openly homophobic on @BBCr4today. Alexandra (@albridgwater) January 15, 2016 Advertisement The summit itself was tumultuous, as the Archbishop of Uganda walked out after failing to get a resolution passed for the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada to withdraw from Communion activities. Stanley Ntagali said the church's should be excluded "until they repented of their decisions that have torn the fabric of the Anglican Communion at its deepest level". A woman has told of how a bar of soap saved her life by making her realise she had cancer. Karen Stojanac, 51, is still in recovery after being diagnosed with invasive lobular stage two breast cancer in her left breast. Prior to her shock diagnosis, she'd had no other symptoms, until she found a lump while exfoliating in the shower with new soap which her son had bought her for Christmas. After having recurring nightmares about the lump getting bigger, she went to get checked out and was given the devastating news. Advertisement Karen Stojanac The businesswoman, who runs a kitchen company with her husband Ivo, 55, said: "My son had bought me exfoliating Lush soap for Christmas, and I was using it in the shower when I found a lump. "I waited about three weeks, telling myself it was nothing as no one in my family has had breast cancer so I thought there was no way it could be that. "But something was niggling inside me. I kept having a dream that my lump was getting bigger and bigger, as though someone was giving me a warning to get it checked out." Advertisement She added: "That lump turned out to be benign, but the biopsy I had done in January 2012 found a cancerous lump on my left breast. "I was very lucky. I would have never had that mammogram if I hadn't found the lump in the shower that day. "My son saved my life with that present." Stojanac said the soap was "an unusual thing" for her son to buy and added: "I really believe someone was looking over me." After being diagnosed at the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guilford in January 2012, Stojanac kept her cancer a secret from her two children Mario, now 25, and Melita, 23, for a month because she didn't want to worry them. Advertisement However, after they grew suspicious of her numerous private phone calls to the hospital, she broke the news. "It was all very quick. I had a biopsy, mammogram and ultrasound and within a few days I was told the news," she recalled. "I just went into shock and couldn't believe it. I remember the doctors telling Ivo not to worry, that they would look after me. The doctors were speaking but it just sounded like echoes to me. "I had to be strong for everybody else though." At the end of January 2012, Stojanac had a lumpectomy at the Royal Surrey County Hospital. During the operation, however, tissue was removed which was later analysed, proving there was cancer still in the breast. She was told she needed further surgery to remove all of the cancer cells. This was done a week later at the same hospital. Advertisement The now 51-year-old then had four weeks of radiotherapy - but sadly, that wasn't the end of her brush with the disease. Straight after radiotherapy, she suffered lymphedema - a build up of fluid - which caused her left breast to swell to twice its usual size. Karen Stojanac Then six months later, when it didn't get better, she had to have an operation to remove the fluid and a further operation when this reoccurred soon after. For the past four years she has been on tamoxifen - medication to decrease the amount of oestrogen in her body, as the type of cancer she suffers from can be due to too much oestrogen. She has one year left of the treatment. Advertisement She said: "I owe everything to my fantastic surgeon Tracey Irvine and her team. I don't think the NHS get enough credit. She said that having cancer "changes you as a person". "Your body is never the same again, and you get tired more easily," she explained. "Your outlook on life changes too. You just want everyone to be happy." On top of the cancer, Stojanac has also been battling liver disease for more than a decade. When she was 37 she suffered from a bad bout of glandular fever and during tests for that she was diagnosed with primary biliary cirrhosis, an autoimmune disease which affects the liver. Doctors told her they'd never seen the condition in someone so young before. The mum-of-two said: "I had glandular fever and didn't recover from it well and after a liver biopsy they found out what I had. I was told I wouldn't get to my 40th birthday. "I still take about nine tablets a day for my liver disease, and have regular monitoring and six monthly ultrasounds and liver function tests." Advertisement The disease gives her bad fatigue, itchy skin and sharp pains on her right hand side. Story continues below... 11 Little Known Breast Cancer Facts See gallery "I'm just hoping I won't get to the stage where I need a liver transplant," she said. "I think I'm lucky I'm still here. I'm blessed to have a wonderful husband, and two beautiful kids. "I don't look at myself as someone with two life threatening diseases." She added that she doesn't let her health hold her back: "Whether it's going power walking or doing boot camps, I'm always back out there. "With both lumpectomies I was back in work after a week, and I was working throughout the radiation therapy - as well as having dinner on the table every night," she said. "I get up in the morning and I'm still breathing, you just have to carry on." An article in the Guardian on bosses' pay by the director of the High Pay Centre, Deborah Hargreaves, presents the disparity between bosses' pay and the average wage in the UK thus: "Chief executives in the FTSE 100 companies took home 4.96m in 2014 compared with average wages of 27,645. And, if anything, the pay gap is getting wider. A typical incentive award for a top boss increased by 50% of salary compared with the previous year, while workforce wages were up by 445. Bosses' remuneration has risen from around 47 times average wages in the 1990s to around 180 times today." The pay gap shown by the above figures will be even wider if the salaries of bosses are expressed as a multiple of the median wage instead of the average wage. The average wage is skewed towards the top, thus most workers will earn below the average. The median wage is a better measure as it means half of the workers will earn below it and the other half above it. Advertisement Free-market ideologues would argue that salaries are fixed by market forces, and questioning such a disparity in income is tantamount to the politics of envy and interference in the freedom of markets. Such an argument is not really sustainable. A company is a joint enterprise, and for it to be successful all its employees need to feel valued and justly rewarded. Such a disparity in income sends the wrong message to the many people who are working hard to make the company successful. It will lead to dissatisfaction and low morale amongst the workforce, and will eventually negatively impact the success of the company. A good boss will not accept such an obscene disparity in income between himself and his employees. Such salaries have become a virility symbol for bosses to compete with each other. It shouts - I am more important than you; just look at the size of my package! If the wages paid by a company to its poorest employees are so low that it requires the state to top up their wages to provide them with the basics of life, then inflated salaries paid to the bosses are effectively being subsidized by the taxes we pay. It is a transfer of wealth from the many to the very few at the top. How can that be right? Where is the free-market in such practices? If the income distribution is more equitable, the subsidy by the state to the low paid will be reduced, leaving more money for the government to spend on the NHS, infrastructure, police etc., things that are necessary for a civilized, functioning society. Advertisement Surely, then, that gives our elected government the right to enact laws and regulations to fix maximum salaries of bosses as a multiple of the lowest wage in that particular company. This will incentivize the bosses to increase the pay of their poorest employees to increase their own pay. The multiple should be certainly much lower than the figures quoted above. Our taxation system needs to be overhauled to reflect the huge disparity in incomes; it is too narrowly set. Currently, we have a tax-free allowance of 10,600 and then a jump to 20% up to 42,385 then 40% up to income of 150,000, and a tax rate of 45% on income above 150,000. A more progressive taxation system would start at a much lower rate and continue to rise incrementally well beyond the 45%. I am not a tax expert, so I leave it to those with the expertise to set the rates in such a way that we as a society ensure that the wealth of the nation is more equitably distributed. Certain parts of the UK media sometimes have trouble getting their facts right when covering "Europe". It's understandable, to a certain extent. Europe's institutions are complicated, journalists cover lots of different issues and they work to tight deadlines. Nonetheless, this week's reporting of a judgment from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on monitoring personal communications at work has set something of a new benchmark. Numerous outlets - primarily, but not exclusively, from the UK - have portrayed Tuesday's judgment as giving bosses across the continent a new "right" to snoop on all of their staff's personal messages sent using Facebook, Twitter, What'sApp, Gmail or any other platform. Advertisement It sounds scary, and it makes a good story, but it's not true. First, the ECHR does not just invent new rights which instantly apply across the continent. It looks at complaints - usually brought by individuals, against their governments - on a case-by-case basis and decides if there has been a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. As explained in the ECHR press release, this particular case was brought by a Romanian man - Bogdan Barbulescu - from Bucharest. Bogdan worked in sales for a firm which strictly banned using company computers for personal reasons. He was asked by his bosses to set up a Yahoo Messenger account to deal with enquiries from clients. When challenged by his employers, Bogdan said that he only used the service for professional reasons. Advertisement His bosses then showed him a 45-page transcript of his communications, which included a number of private messages to his brother and fiancee. Bogdan was then fired for breaking company rules. After taking his case all the way through the Romanian court system, Bogdan turned to the ECHR in Strasbourg claiming that Romania had violated his human rights. The ECHR agreed that the case did raise certain legal questions under the human rights convention concerning the right to privacy and correspondence. However, it also agreed with the Romanian courts that it was reasonable, in the context of disciplinary proceedings, for a company to check that employees were actually working during work hours and that computer equipment was not being used against the rules. Given Bodgan's assurances, the company had also accessed the Yahoo Messenger account in question believing that it contained work-related material. Also, the courts in Romania had only used the transcript to prove that he had broken company regulations, rather than focusing on its content. Advertisement The ECHR said that the Romanian courts had struck a reasonable balance between the employers' interests and Bogdan's right to privacy, so Romania had not violated the human rights convention. Bogdan and the Romanian authorities now have three months to appeal against the ruling, if they want to. Legislation has not been altered as a result of Tuesday's judgment, either in Romania or any of the 46 other Council of Europe member states, which include the UK. In short, not much has changed. On the positive side, perhaps this week's misinformed media storm will help persuade workers and their bosses to clarify exactly where the boundaries lie concerning personal communications at work. On the downside, this has been a striking example of how far and wide inaccurate scare stories can spread if journalists, and others, don't get their facts right. Advertisement Well the unionstogether campaign has certainly hit the headlines! As the Trade Union Bill commenced its Second Reading in the House of Lords, the Guardian newspaper ran our campaign against the silencing of the trade unions' political voice across its front page. Our key arguments were made again and again on the floor of the House of Lords, as not only Labour but both Liberals and Crossbench peers lined up to attack the political aspects of the Trade Union Bill as 'authoritarian', 'unjustified', and 'worrying'. One peer, Lord Tyler, a former Liberal MP for North Cornwall, went so far as to put a motion down calling for the political clauses of the Bill to be withdrawn. Although that motion didn't go to the vote, it has now been superseded by a Labour motion that calls for Clause 10 and 11 to be looked at in more detail by a Select Committee of the House of Lords. Given that this Committee must be politically balanced, it seems this will be an opportunity for this part of the Bill to be looked at properly and fairly - not pushed through by an ideological Conservative Party, hell-bent on loading the dice in their own favour. Advertisement What is clear is that all the voices on the unionstogether campaign team - and yep, that means our activists who share graphics, tweet, lobby your MP and turn up to our campaign events - are making a difference here in Westminster. Conservative Ministers are starting to squirm under the scrutiny. Their current line, delivered by Minister Nick Bowles, is that the Bill is about 'employment and industrial relations' and that 'Therefore no assessment has been made in relation to the impact on the finances of any political party." Really?! So the Tories hadn't noticed that the Bill was about to deliver massive financial damage to Her Majesty's official opposition? Accept that at face value and they look incompetent... if you don't accept it at face value, it just looks sinister. Tory 'sources' claim that a manifesto commitment to 'seek agreement' on Party Funding has nothing to do with plans to strip Labour's affiliated trade unions of their political funds. Interesting that nobody was willing to put their name to such a bold statement - almost as if they don't want to be labelled publicly as an idiot or a bare-faced liar. Advertisement One of the stars of the show so far has been the Labour leadership in the Lords, led by the very capable Baroness Basildon. If you haven't already seen the video where she explains what is happening, do take a look: http://action.unionstogether.org.uk/watch. Much of the activity of faith-based organisations contributes to health and wellbeing. However, commissioners and health and social care professionals don't always understand this, and faith-based practitioners often don't recognise it themselves. I have to admit I do like to watch the odd romantic comedy, and with any funny film there is often a punchline or silly phrase which then gets stuck in my head. My Big Fat Greek Wedding has a great scene where the father is explaining how wonderful the Greeks are and how much of modern language is influenced by Greek - "Tell me anything and I will show you it is Greek!" Sometimes the links were somewhat tenuous. When FaithAction became part of the Department of Health Voluntary Sector Strategic Partnership (DHSP) in 2009, this was a phrase I found myself saying again and again. Many faith groups and faith-based organisations would say, and still do, that they do not have anything to do with health. I would then say, "Tell me what you are doing and I will show you how it's health or wellbeing". Unlike the claim in the film, there is a genuine overlap of health and wellbeing with the activities of faith organisations, which play a great part in health improvement. Advertisement One of the problems we face in the UK is that when we think of health, we picture hospitals, doctors and nurses. This 'medical' bias in thinking goes some way to explaining our devotion to Accident and Emergency departments when a trip to the pharmacy would do. The cost in time and to taxpayers' money is huge. Faith communities underestimate the contribution they make to health and wellbeing and the potential they have to positively affect this area. FaithAction has published a paper on faith and public health, and on 24th February we will be hosting an event on Faith and Health with Department of Health Minister Alistair Burt MP, to explore and highlight the impact of faith organisations in this area. There are many issues that require medical help, but there are also many issues presented at doctors' surgeries where the solutions are not necessarily medical, and a 'social prescription' is what is needed. Some GPs are experimenting with hosting on-site chaplains, to whom patients can be referred if they want. The 'socialisation opportunities' (which many of us would call simply an opportunity to make friends and be part of a living community) within faith communities are significant. The scope and breadth of faith-based activity in the UK means that well over half the population accesses a service provided by a faith-based organisation every year, from toddler groups in church halls (a vital intervention around postnatal depression) to welfare to work provision. The following are areas that need to be addressed in order improve recognition of this work. Language - Of course one of the greatest barriers to mutual understanding is that of language or jargon: both that of health and social care and that of faith. Navigating the language is part of what I find myself doing when I meet with faith leaders and leaders of faith-based organisations. Advertisement Impact - Measuring impact is one of the challenges for faith and community organisations, and sometimes it seems as though there is a greater requirement for faith organisations to 'prove their worth' than there is in other sectors. There will be soon a guide to evaluation and impact produced by FaithAction's Rodie Garland. Learning from experience - There is much to be learned from those who have gone before, navigating the language issues and demonstrating their impact. These case studies are a good starting point for faith and public health projects. All these areas and more will be explored at the Faith & Health conference on 24th February. The real change that needs to take place is a recognition and engagement among those who plan and direct services: the commissioners. When FaithAction first became involved with the Department of Health, we were invited into a number of policy settings. Of these, mental health was the area with the most scope for faith-based organisations. As we heard again and again, medical and therapeutic interventions were important, but what was valued more often by those using the services were simple opportunities to deal with isolation and loneliness. Out of this came the Friendly Places Pledge. As I sit here in my office listening to the howling wind outside, it's more than my toes that feel a certain chill. I hold in my hand a press release from the UK Screening Committee with recommendations for the staged rolling out of the new Non-Invasive Prenatal Tests, or #NIPT. These tests look for a woman's 'risk' factor of having a baby with Down's syndrome, Patau syndrome or Edward's syndrome. It was embargoed of course. Such secrecy. Such planned drip-feeding of information to the public. So much goes on behind closed doors. Advertisement Of course our community knew this was coming. Of course we knew the test would be rolled out 'as standard', albeit in phases. The press release was not a shock. Yet still I shed a tear when I read it. It says nothing earth-shattering, it's wishy washy. But it is symbolic. And why will this news cause upset millions today? They will see a link. Or a retweet. Or someone will mention it at the school gates. The claims will go like this: 'Miracle new test will cut miscarriage rates'. 'Safer, earlier test detects chromosomal abnormalities'. 'NHS to roll out new test to women at risk'. 'Disability activists have concerns.' or similar. And we will spend the day justifying our children's lives. And explaining that as miscarriages lower, terminations will increase. The test is not diagnostic, an invasive procedure is still needed to confirm a diagnosis. Advertisement We will point out that the test is optional. My daughter was not a 'risk', and neither was she 'abnormal' in any way. She is what she was meant to be. Down's syndrome has been around since the beginning of time. And militant activists we are not - rather parents with heart, those who know, the true experts, wanting the best for all and willing to share and educate and support. My head knows we are inching forward with key medical professionals to provide training to enable them to give truly unbiased support. Working together is vital. My head knows the learning disability nursing teams are on standby to help new parents. My head is proud that the debate surrounding the ethics of a screening programme designed to target one particular genetic group is in the public domain now, that questions are being asked. But still I sit here with a heavy heart waiting for those hurtful headlines and the terminology that will sting. I think of countless other families, more importantly those reading and listening who have Down's syndrome themselves, who will smart at the celebrations they see. Advertisement Today this will explode on our screens. And I weep for the much wanted babies to be lost, each one of them who would bring as much unique wonderment to the world and their families as Natty does to ours. So let's continue to educate and be the change we wish to see in the world, however hard that may seem. Let us share honestly the joys and challenges of bringing up a child with Down's syndrome to allow others to make truly informed decisions. _________________________________ The press release from the UK Screening Committee 15/01/2016 Speaking in the European Parliament this week, I made the point that the North East is perfectly placed to gain from greater energy cooperation across the North Sea. We provided the fuel for the industrial revolution, today we have the skills, industries and geography to provide the fuel for many future generations. We have to seize the moment. Therefore, I have joined together with a cross-party group of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) representing coastal constituencies surrounding the North and Irish seas. This week we launched a manifesto for a Northern Seas electricity grid. Our aim is to build the political support for investment and infrastructure investment. Energy Ministers will be meeting in The Netherlands on the 4 February to set out a joint plan. MEPs have got in first to steer the plan putting our constituents at the heart of it. The development of stronger regional cooperation in the Northern Seas will help create local jobs and growth, reduce costs and ensure energy security, as well as EU technology leadership in off-shore wind and other emerging marine renewables. Such cooperation will also help the EU to implement and achieve the commitments made in December at Paris as part of the COP21 climate agreement, helping to limit global warming to under 1.5C. Advertisement Although oil prices continue to fall, latest figures show a huge push towards increasing our renewable energy capabilities across the globe. World investment, mainly in solar and wind, went up by 17% to 180 billion in 2014 alone. With North East workers in the North Sea offshore oil and gas industry and its supply chain hit hard by the low oil price, we have a skilled workforce who could be redirected and retrained to build and maintain such a North East renewables grid. They understand building infrastructure in turbulent seas. They have developed a common North Sea safety code which could inform new safety rules for integrated renewables. Within the European Parliament we are already on the front-foot in promoting our role in delivering the Energy Union. On 15 December 2015, our resolution on improved electricity interconnection stated that "offshore wind in the North Sea region has the potential to generate over 8 % of Europe's power supply by 2030". Regional cooperation on technical elements of the energy system in the Northern Seas has already been taking place for a number years. This has mostly come under the North Sea Countries' Offshore Grid Initiative (NSCOGI), established in 2010, although in 2014 the EU adopted the Maritime Spatial Planning directive, an instrument that favours consistent cross-border planning. The NSCOGI five year celebration conference in Ostende on 23rd October 2015 was an occasion for Member States to renew their commitment, while the Belgian Minister Marie-Christine Marghem expressed her intention to propose a new action plan for the coming five years. NSCOGI represents a solid foundation for further cooperation. Nevertheless, new cooperation structures such as a High Level Group are necessary to provide more political direction and cooperation should be broadened beyond grid issues, to include the deployment of a coordinated at-scale offshore wind programme, bringing together regulators, industry, trade unions, and other key stakeholders. Advertisement Connectivity is the key issue to realise our ambitions. The states surrounding the North Sea generate enough electricity to supply the energy needs of every home in the European Union. Over a quarter of this energy comes from renewable sources, yet a lack of infrastructure means that states have few means by which to pass it between them. And since renewable energy cannot be stored, if it is not used straight away it is lost - at an estimated total of 126 million kWh per year. That's why last year's announcement of plans to install the world's longest subsea electricity cable by 2021 is so welcome. The cable will connect the UK to Norway for the first time and will mean that nearly three quarters of a million British homes will benefit from Norway's highly developed hydropower capabilities. Importantly, installing the interconnector, maintaining it and building the infrastructure to support it will create local, skilled jobs. British consumers will see their energy bills go down, too. News / National by Stephen Jakes The Zimbabwe National Students Union President, Alistair Pfunye has said the union is gravely concerned with the government of Zimbabwe's absolute lack of will in resolving the now deplorable conditions besieging Zimbabwean students.He said this perpetual dereliction of academic and and educational and responsibilities is in sharp juxtaposition the ZIMASSET and Zimbabwean constitution which sanction the universal provision of and access to education."Zinasu is demanding that the Zimbabwean government also honour regional and international treaties that it is signatory to. The sustainable development goals, SADC protocol on education and development, and African Youth Charter all provide for the availability of education to all with any unnecessary prejudice," he said."Operationally the government is in defiance of all its pledges and absolutely lacks absolute will as exhibited by the 2016 national budget which reduced to nothing student teachers' allowances and is also responsible for the 'disappear factor' of student nurses allowances. This, coupled with non-providence of allowances to students on attachment is a major assault on students' welfare and livelihoods."He said Zinasu firmly believes that short-changing students of their livelihoods allowances is not a solution but directly constitutes the perpetuation of the problem."Students believe that eradication of corruption, setting up of better governance systems which allow transparency and public accountability are the first critical steps in eliminating this problem," he said. Zinasu is strongly convinced that rampant corruption in institutions of higher and tertiary education, of the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund (ZIMDEF), absolute unconstitutionalism and abuse of administrative systems are the problem."Pfunye said these under any climate can never be mitigated by an onslaught on students' allowances and livelihoods."Zinasu has since started engaging the government through the ministry for immediate pragmatic resolution of such. Failure by government to provide immediate recourse will directly result result in Zinasu employing any means necessary to force the government to address this extreme compromise on students' welfare, livelihoods and dignity," he said. On Tuesday, "15 months of absolute hell" came to an end for Durham University student Louis Richardson. He had been at the centre of a court case, accused of rape and sexual assault, but, to the relief of him and his family, was cleared of both charges. Despite being found innocent, Richardson's "hell" may not yet be over. What happens when, having gone for a job interview, Richardson's prospective employers Google his name (a whopping 77% of employers research candidates), and come across a host of articles about the Durham student being accused of rape? Advertisement In this job climate, it's not far-fetched to think that they might just opt for another applicant, who doesn't happen to have been embroiled in a court case. We need a logical, informed discussion around whether those accused of rape should be granted anonymity. Before I'm shut down by those who will tell me anonymity for the accused will only be detrimental to rape victims coming forward - I acknowledge this issue, and I think it is a hugely important one. After all, rape conviction rates in the UK are some of the lowest in Europe; just 13% of reported rapes end in a conviction. I am in no way advocating rape accusers should have their anonymity withdrawn - as one columnist has. Advertisement This would be incredibly harmful for rape victims who are already concerned about the stigma about coming forward, and who face the monumental task of bringing their attacker to justice. Additionally, just because charges are dropped, does not mean the accused is innocent - there may just have not been enough evidence for a conviction. Nonetheless, we need to have this discussion. Sandra Paul, a criminal defense lawyer at Kingsley Napley, says: "Pretty much every employer and business acquaintance searching this chap's name in future for example, before an interview, before he attends a meeting, sees a customer or whatever will know what happened these past 18 months. The fact that he was falsely accused of rape will always be known and precede whatever else he has to say or contribute. How can that be right or fair?" It's also important to note these false accusations are few and far between. And, as Telegraph journalist Radhika Sanghani points out: "It's important to remember that the number of false rape cases are minimal. Over five years, 109 women in the UK were prosecuted for false rape claims. Considering an estimate of 425,000 women would have been raped over that time period in England and Wales alone, it is a tiny figure." But they do happen. Back in 2014, Ben Sullivan, the former president of Oxford University's debating society, was accused of rape, and later cleared. The 21-year-old described the time as a "year-long nightmare". "This has done terrible damage done to my reputation. That has been incredibly difficult. In the age we live in anyone can find out anything about you so quickly. My age group are very afraid of who has dirt on them." Advertisement Last year, a YouGov survey found 74% of the public agreed with the statement "People accused of rape should have their identities kept secret and not reported by the media unless they are found guilty." Anonymity for rape suspects was actually introduced into British law in 1976, but repealed by the Conservatives in 1988. Yes, this discussion needs to take into account the impact this would have on rape victims, but it's high time we realised our justice system is for everyone - those accused of crimes included. Five days after the awful news of his death, David Bowie will be back dominating the Official Charts again later today. The nation will have paid tribute to its musical hero. We are all familiar with this tradition now - a great, iconic artist passes away, the media responds by playing their music around the clock and fans say goodbye by refilling their music collections with the songs of their favourite artist. In the case of David Bowie, there is something different at play however. With his 26th studio album only released last Friday (on his 69th birthday), he was always going to have a Number 1 album this week. Sales reports through last weekend left no room for doubt, the acclaim for his extraordinary Blackstar album had ensured it was set to become the first chart topper since Adele took over the summit seven weeks ago. Advertisement It is important to underline this fact - that Blackstar was always on course for Number 1, even before Monday's sad news. And that in itself says everything about Bowie's continuing relevance, five decades since Space Oddity became his first UK hit in 1969. It is a fact which also underlines his position as a creator, not just of great smash hit singles, but deep, resonant albums which have stood the test of time and will remain all-time greats for years to come. Remind yourself of all of Bowie's singles and albums and where they charted in the UK. When Uncut unveiled a list of the 200 greatest albums of all time just last month, seven of them were Bowie albums - more than any other act. Indeed, while the passing of many other artists (such as Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse) have resulted in resurgence of their greatest tracks, in Bowie's case, the greatest impact will be on these bodies of work. Of course, we will all have a favourite Bowie single - whether it is Heroes, Space Oddity, Life On Mars, Starman, Let's Dance, Ashes To Ashes or any of the many others - but it is his role as the creative genius behind a slew of genuinely great, innovative albums which truly sets Bowie apart. In the period from 1971 to 1980, Bowie found himself in the middle of a hot streak which has rarely (if ever) been matched, before or since. In those 10 years, he produced 11 albums - Hunky Dory, The Rise & Fall Of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars, Aladdin Sane, Pin-Ups, Diamond Dogs, Young Americans, Station To Station, Low, Heroes, Lodger, Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) - many of which stand comparison with any albums of any era. And, as a result, more than a dozen will find themselves in the Official Albums Top 100 today. Advertisement When it comes to the boy from Brixton, everyone had their own favourites. He was such a prodigiously talented artist, who touched so many diverse and far flung musical bases, there is an album in the Bowie canon for everyone. And so much of it was so remarkable. Speaking personally, my favourites are Ziggy Stardust and Scary Monsters. For the current generation of music fans, the issues I faced as a young Bowie fan are non-existent though - while I plumped for Ziggy because it was the only Bowie album for sale in the only shop in our small town which stocked albums, anyone looking to explore the Bowie canon in 2016 can do so easily, thanks to the digital download and streaming services which make every note of it available instantly. How long we will continue to see Bowie's musical imprint cast across the Official Charts, it is impossible to know just yet. But as music magazines prepare to pay their tributes, as TV and radio continue to reflect on his legacy, as events such as the Brit Awards pay their respects, it could be some time yet. I'd never encountered a Tangophone before, and that's because the one at the 2 Cambridge Street apartment in Edinburgh is the only one in the world. We'd just arrived in Edinburgh for the start of one of the lesser-known festivals in Festival City, the Scottish International Storytelling Festival, so it seemed perfect that we found ourselves in unique accommodation that was full of stories itself. The Tangophone, owner Erland Clouston explained, was how we should summon him if we wanted anything during our stay at the delightfully quirky two-room 'micro-boutique hotel' that he runs with his French wife Helene in Edinburgh's Cambridge Street, directly across from the Usher Hall and around the corner from the Traverse Theatre. Indeed, the other guest on the night we arrived was directing a play that was about to open at the theatre. Advertisement So what is a Tangophone, I asked Erland, who's also a freelance journalist who has previously worked for The Guardian and The Express. The house is still also their own home, and feels beautifully intimate as if you are indeed house guests rather than paying customers. 'Well,' said Erland, 'it's constructed from a tuba we found in a Nice musical-antiques shop. It was a bit of a challenge smuggling it aboard our easyJet flight home. I've connected it to a sound-recording kit purchased at Maplins, and a snippet from one of very many tango CDs borrowed from Edinburgh City Libraries.' Press the button and the tuba plays a snatch of tango music, loud enough to summon him or Helene from their own areas of their 1862 Edinburgh townhouse, which has been lovingly restored with period furnishings to create a cosy and romantic feel. In fact our room has another of Erland's inventions above the bed, an Amor-A-Tron (above), which plays a piece of suitably romantic French music, or you could press the Zen-A-Tron (below), which plays some relaxing Eastern music. Advertisement On the mantelpiece was a mix of postcards, old photos, books, and a vase of flowers. These are all the owners' own possessions, not things that were bought in order to furnish a guest bedroom. You're welcome to browse and get drawn into the stories behind them, like looking at old photos in an antique shop and reading postcards written a hundred years ago. It was definitely getting us into the mood for the Storytelling Festival. In the hallway a micro-movie theatre is fixed to the wall and shows a 1905 black and white movie of a Scotsman's Visit to London, with a running gag showing the porter repeatedly holding out his hand for a tip, and repeatedly being ignored. Nearby another micro-theatre plays a sequence of clips of people screaming. Erland explained. 'This is my tribute to the Wilhelm Scream. It was a sound effect used in many Hollywood movies, and became a standing joke among sound engineers. They would all use this same scream whenever someone was being shot or stabbed or falling off a cliff, in a western, in the jungle or wherever. Just do a search for Wilhelm Scream on YouTube.' Advertisement The scream was used not just in old westerns but in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Toy Story, Batman Returns and many more. Clearly, 2 Cambridge Street is no ordinary guesthouse, and staying there is an education... and a lot of fun. The two guest bedrooms both have private bathrooms, and there's use of a guest lounge/library, where breakfast is served on willow-pattern plates in the morning. There's no set menu and Erland asks the night before if you have any likes, dislikes or allergies. 'And are you happy to try the Mystery Starter?' We were happy to try it and were glad that we did, but of course won't reveal the mystery. As well as fresh orange juice, toast and good coffee, one of us had a poached egg topped with an eggy-cheesy souffle served in a ramekin with fried chorizo on top, and the other tried sourdough bread with gruyere cheese, a poached egg and red chili pepper slices on top. It looked as good as it tasted, and it tasted amazing. For all its quirky character, 2 Cambridge Street is comfy, homely, friendly, and does all the things good accommodation should. It's a place that's impossible to describe. It isn't a guesthouse or a conventional b&b, it's not really a hotel, and not a private apartment. It's quite simply wonderfully itself, though The Sunday Times called it 'one of the best 100 hotels in the world'. Advertisement More Information Visit the 2 Cambridge Street website, which is certainly worth reading. For more information on the 2015 Storytelling Festival, see: The theme of the 2016 Scottish International Storytelling Festival is The Right to Dream, which takes place from 21-30 October 2016. The 2016 theme will explore our ability to dream something different into existence, acknowledging the power of storytelling to lift you out of time and place with the liberating power of imagination. Great stories well told have the ability to evoke indelible images in the mind of the listener. The best of Scotland's storytelling talent will merge with invited guests from Spain, Portugal, Central and Southern America offering a plethora of dreamscapes and myths in a ten-day celebration of live storytelling, oral traditions and cultural diversity. The Author Mike Gerrard writes regularly about travel for numerous outlets, and he and his wife Donna Dailey publish the Beyond London Travel website, which has a large section on Edinburgh and the rest of Scotland. Photos 2015 exposed the truth of children drowning in Greece, of frozen families walking thousands of miles and of the squalid conditions of camps. 2016 should be a time to talk more about, and demand, solutions to the refugee crisis. The only voices we seem to hear from are from the extreme right and left, both equally delusional in their worldview. One side naively demand that we hand out a million passports to strangers, the other side is ignorant enough to believe that's actually happening. Advertisement So what is happening? Well actually nothing at all. Literally nothing. Having gracefully decided that processing asylum claims is not her responsibility, Europe is instead engaged in a brilliant game of snakes and ladders, watching old women and babies crawl their way across a continent in the hope that somehow they will spread around enough so that no one will notice. Some of the countries even set time limits for them to reach the other side whilst the destination countries simultaneously construct barbed wire fences for their arrival. No one has a clue where they will end up but that works for now because the more time they spend walking, the less time our institutions have to spend abiding that awkward 1951 Refugee Convention written in the wake of The Holocaust. In the end though, the refugees are still there hanging around, only now they've wound up at a series of bottlenecks; Idomeni, Dunkirk, Calais. We then blame them for being there, as if they had a plethora of options along their journey. As though Hungarians were lining the streets holding out passport forms, job advertisements and giving up their houses for good measure. And in the meantime NGOs are tanking millions more man-hours and euros following people on the move, especially children, attempting to prevent them from dying. The only solutions that have been deemed worthy of a chat in Parliament was bombing IS targets in Syria. Again left and right were deluded. It will neither create a million new terrorists nor destroy ISIS. In the minds of the right someone had finally claimed they had an answer. For the left, they had a scapegoat for all the pain and suffering. Benn made a speech and it sounded historic. In reality we've all forgotten it already. It was merely a distraction to the main issue of 1 million people fleeing terror, currently floating around in Europe and another ten million waiting in the wings displaced in the Middle East. Advertisement Yes we need a solution in Syria but it's a proxy war with NATO and Saudi on one side and Russia and Iran on the other. No one seriously believes that is going to get wrapped up in a hurry. Like it or not, what happens in Syria is deemed immensely important to our government and we are heavily invested in trying to control its outcome, and not for the purposes of countering terrorism. Our government must rightly focus on national strategic interests but the refugees are the victims in our political game. Its for the public alone to take an interest in their survival and execute pressure to ensure that they do. UNHCR stats show 1 out of every 3 are children and that 86% have come from, in order of size, Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. Those 86% have all experienced death and destruction to varying degrees. They also don't end up in northern Europe because they wouldn't stop earlier but because they couldn't. They have no right to work in Turkey. In Greece they get a permit to travel for 2 weeks. Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary barely let them through let alone stay. And by the time they get to Austria they have no option but to spread out, to Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Holland. A minuscule 1% have chosen to try the UK and are waiting at Calais and Dunkirk. Whilst these other nations do their part, the UK is yet to process a single asylum claim from the camps, despite the presence of hundreds of unaccompanied minors and families from agreed conflict zones. They only need protection, not passports. It was that photo, of 3 year old Aylan Kurdi that gave enormous impetus to the relief effort. Volunteers and aid doubled overnight and many lives have been saved since. When the public takes enough interest and commits to engaging in the politics of reason rather than the politics of fear, the policy solutions that already exist stand a chance of being executed. The European Union and UNHCR have ample tools, processes and knowledge to keep people safe but they have neither the government funding nor the authority. They are paralysed by a lack of political support. Advertisement This is not an easy time to be a liberal. A belief in freedom and equality for all is being sorely tested by those who are only too happy to abuse the freedoms that are available in a liberal society. Some abuse those freedoms so that they can organise mass suicide attacks, as in Paris. Others organise sexual assaults against women in Cologne and other European cities. As a result, liberals are mocked by their critics: see what your liberalism brings you? Liberals need to have a clear answer, just as they need a clear answer to a deeply offensive cartoon published this week in Charlie Hebdo, exactly a year after 11 people were killed in a jihadi attack on the magazine's premises in Paris. The cartoon shows two pig-snouted men trying to grab the backside of a fleeing woman, with an inset drawing of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, whose lifeless body on a Turkish beach was photographed and published around the world last September. Advertisement The caption reads: 'What would little Aylan have become if he had grown up? An arse groper in Germany.' Shocking? Of course. Offensive? Deeply. Funny? Not to me. When I wrote a year ago in defence of Charlie Hebdo, I said: 'Charlie Hebdo is often offensive, deliberately provocative and frequently vulgar. That is its point -- and that is the point of a free society.' Which it is, but it is not always easy to stick to the principle in the face of such deliberate provocation. No liberal believes in absolute freedom. We restrict freedom of speech by outlawing incitement to violence or racial hatred, and we restrict freedom of movement by putting in place border controls. Liberals are not anarchists: they believe in the need for some kind of State structure to protect life and liberty. (That is why Thomas Paine described government as a 'necessary evil'.) These days, many liberals believe that government can be a force for good, helping to reduce inequalities and promote a welfare system that offers help to those who need it. But after the shocks of the 2007-8 global financial crisis, faith in government has been badly dented -- and as the Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson wrote this week: 'What is liberalism without public trust in government? A college class.' The liberal belief in equality includes equality of the sexes, which means that no woman should fear for her safety in a public place. Anyone who threatens an individual's safety, whether that individual is male or female, risks being sanctioned by a government put in place to protect the lives and liberties of all. And here's the crucial bit: those sanctions must be imposed no matter whether the offender is a refugee, an asylum-seeker, an illegal immigrant, or the holder of a European passport. Advertisement So the principle should be clear. The men who attacked women in Cologne and elsewhere should be prosecuted, just like anyone else, regardless of where they came from. And if the publishers of Charlie Hebdo were in the UK, there might well be a case for considering a prosecution for incitement to racial hatred. (What does the cartoon suggest? Aylan Kurdi was a would-be migrant from an Arab state. So were some of the alleged attackers in Germany. Therefore, all migrants from Arab states are assaulters of women and deserve our hatred.) But it is not enough to punish the transgressors. We need to be tough, as someone once said, on crime, and also on the causes of crime. Which means doing more -- much more -- to teach new arrivals in Europe that the offer of sanctuary does not come cost-free: if they want the protection afforded by a liberal democracy, they must accept the laws and norms that go with it. The men who behaved so disgustingly on New Year's Eve knew perfectly well that what they were doing would not be acceptable, but they thought they were untouchable. They must be proved wrong. Some liberals may feel uncomfortable when one group of people for whose rights they campaign attack another group whose rights they also support. What is a pro-refugee feminist meant to do? I think the answer is perfectly clear: you can defend the rights of refugees without defending every action of every refugee, just as you can be a feminist without defending everything said or done by every woman. Liberals need to do more to dispel the impression that they are woolly-minded or soft-hearted. It took blood, sweat and tears to replace feudal autocracy with liberal democracy, and we need to be alive to the danger that in the face of continuing provocations, whether from testosterone-fuelled young men or from Charlie Hebdo, anti-liberals like Marine Le Pen, Donald Trump and Nigel Farage will seize every opportunity that they are given. Liberals also need to make sure that they deal with all manifestations of extreme illiberalism equally. So while the government frequently expresses its concern about what might be being taught in some Islamic faith schools, or madrassas, I hope it will also be pressed to take a look at the allegations reported in The Independent yesterday of appalling abuses in some of Britain's ultra-Orthodox Jewish yeshivahs, where it is alleged that children are being subjected to corporal punishment, prevented from learning English, and, in the words of one former student, 'bred in racism, sexism and bigotry'. Advertisement Seven seconds. It's the time it's taken you to read this far - and it's also the basis for a shocking statistic. A horrifying truth. You see, in that short time - seven seconds - records suggest that one more elderly or vulnerable person in the UK will have succumbed to the winter chill. Or to put it bluntly, died - probably alone - from the cold. Count it. One pink elephant; two, three, four, five, six, seven pink elephants. In fact, it doesn't matter what colour the elephants are - the important part is that there's a great big, whopping elephant in the room; next door to us; over the road; down the street; round the corner - and currently, it's being ignored. Advertisement So here are some numbers for you. 44,000. That's the number of elderly and vulnerable people who died from the cold last winter. That's a 150% increase on the previous year and the highest number since the turn of the millennium. Like I said, pretty big elephant, right? The worst bit? Most of these deaths could have been prevented. It's very easy to lose sight of big numbers, but we're talking about people's grandparents, friends and neighbours here. Ever since I became Channel 5 weather presenter in 2010, I've been aware of this growing problem. In that year, we had one of the coldest winters on record - 'Snowmageddon', the tabloids coined it. But this movie-like scenario had no happy Hollywood ending. Thousands of 'excess' deaths were caused by the extreme conditions five years ago, and the death toll has been rising ever since. Advertisement So, you're probably thinking, how can this be possible in a first world, affluent country? Surely we're all used to the British weather by now? Well the problem is, despite our national obsession with the weather, we're pretty terrible at dealing with it. Our neighbours in Scandinavia have much colder winters than we do and yet Britain still experiences much higher death rates. Why is this? Well, one reason is that in general, our homes aren't insulated like theirs, and the same amount of money hasn't been invested on making our homes more energy efficient. But research also shows that in the UK there's a general lack of awareness regarding the effect that the cold weather can have on a vulnerable person's health - and how easily it can be prevented. Three years ago I began working with a charity called Leonard Cheshire Disability. They had a centre close to where I lived, in Wandsworth, so quite often I would pop in to help cheer up the residents. Advertisement On one such visit, manager William Gallagher told me about their 'Winter Warmer' campaign. Aware of the horrendous facts and witnesses to the rising death toll in their local area, they were trying to launch an initiative to help educate local people in how to stay warm and stay safe in winter. At the time they had no funding, very limited budget and relied on volunteers to help out. Knowing my input could make a difference, I was delighted to become the 'face' of the campaign. To increase awareness we went to the shopping centre down the road with a photographer from the local newspaper, bought loads of blankets, took lots of photos and asked the people of Wandsworth to donate any blankets or warm clothes they could afford to give away. William and his staff worked tirelessly and altruistically to hand out Winter Warmer packs (containing food, blankets and information) and worked alongside social services to provide after-care for those homes they visited that were below standard. The results were incredible. That winter, Leonard Cheshire Disability saw a dramatic decrease in deaths in the area. Vulnerable people became aware of the help they could get locally, residents of Wandsworth donated and more people got involved. But we didn't want to stop at Wandsworth. Once we knew it was working, our mission was to take this campaign nationwide. Advertisement Put simply, the Winter Warmer Campaign isn't just a charity - it's a movement. It's about paying it forward. Looking out for people. Giving something back. With the hard work and effort by all involved, the campaign has seen huge growth already - lottery funding, collaborations with Age UK and the local emergency services, and this Christmas just gone, William and I worked on reaching out to people nationwide by appearing on Channel 5 news to talk about the campaign. It's proven that cold weather causes a massive increase in heart attacks, strokes, pneumonia, depression, worsening arthritis and increased accidents at home. With utility bills soaring each year, those most at risk can't always afford to turn the heating up or don't have proper winter clothing and blankets to help keep them warm. So if you want to help this winter, here are some simple, quick steps which could just save a life. With most call outs to Leonard Cheshire happening when conditions are between 2-8 degrees don't wait until it freezes over to take action. No matter how mild it may seem, dare to knock on an elderly neighbour's door, and double check they have the heating on. The magic numbers are 21 and 18 - the ideal temperatures for your living room and bedroom. If you don't have an elderly neighbour, pop down to your Gran's house, or your friend's Gran's house, and make sure she has a fleecy blanket to put over her knee when she's sat still. Advertisement While you're in town, drop off an old pair of gloves or a scarf to your local disability centre. Check that vulnerable family members or colleagues have tinned food in the cupboards for those days that it might be too cold or too icy to go down to the shops. They might seem like little things, but every action helps prevent the next unnecessary death. After all, the seven minutes it took you to read this far? That's 60 more. We can't waste another second. I'm a very ordinary David Bowie fan. I own only a handful of his albums, never managed to see him live, and didn't even realise which part of London he was from until the recent coverage in the wake of his death. But, just like the other 12,000 or so people who've signed the petition I started on Change.org, I'd love to see him feature on the next 20 banknote. After the sad news on Monday, the number of people who've written their own tributes, proposed statues, laid flowers in Brixton and Beckenham, and even taken to the streets to sing his songs says much about Bowie's success in creating music and imagery with both mass appeal and personal resonance. Most people I've spoken to since can think of specific memories we associate with David Bowie songs. For me these include childhood memories of my Dad singing his own rendition of Space Oddity across the house to ask if I was ready for school each day: "Ground control to Major Tom / Have you got your trousers on?" Others mentioned memories of life-changing road-trips, surviving bouts of depression, or even meeting life partners to the soundtracks of Hunky Dory, Heroes or Earthling. These albums and songs permeated both the mundane and wonderful moments of our lives in equal measure. They simultaneously hold deep personal meaning and constitute part of a shared cultural dialogue between all of us. And so, in the moment of first hearing the news of his passing on Monday morning, even those of us who'd never met David Jones (the real person behind this supernova of creativity), experienced a sense of loss. Advertisement The marks Bowie has left on popular culture are already indelible, but it's a natural part of our collective feeling of loss to want to somehow acknowledge his amazing body of work and the man behind the talent. The road names and statues will come in time, but for someone so unique and with such profound influence it seems like only meagre recognition. And so, once my friends and I hit upon the idea of petitioning to feature Bowie on the 20 note, it seemed like an obvious way for everyone to acknowledge him. Bowie was an outsider. Some have suggested that the man who refused a knighthood would be unlikely to want to feature on currency - perhaps the ultimate symbol of the establishment. But he also made the music and imagery of a cult artist part of the mainstream by sheer force of talent. After gaining mainstream popularity he continued to challenge and innovate, shifting the cultural landscape with him each time he did. If his image is taken to befit the next 20 note he'll be doing the same all over again by changing the rules of who can appear on currency. In the UK, our banknotes have been reserved until now for stuffy historical characters, who few people find a great deal of emotional connection to. Fry, Churchill, Darwin, Faraday, Elgar, Austen, Smith, Watt - all great luminaries who made seminal contributions to the world, but with whom almost no-one has any feeling invested. With Bowie on the bills all that changes. We can begin to ditch our homage to industrialists (James Watt), elitists (Elgar) and individuals who've become totemic of a continued neo-liberal wet dream (I'm looking at you Adam Smith) and show that what matters to people in this country, the ones who still have to use cash notation rather than bank transfers of several zeros, are the people that have made our lives happier and richer. No single person has done that for so many as David Bowie. Advertisement Nigel Killeen via Getty Images Victorian Police barrier/crime scene tapeMelbourne, Australia A man has been charged after police seized drugs with a street value of more than $23 million dollars from a cargo ship at Port Botany in Sydneys south on Thursday. Police say Australian Border Force officers stopped two men as they left the ship yesterday evening and found six kilograms of ice and a kilogram of cocaine in the backpack of one of the men. Advertisement A search of the ship allegedly uncovered 16 more kilograms of ice and another kilogram of cocaine. A 35-year-old man was charged with importing a commercial quantity, and a marketable quantity, of a border-controlled drug and is due to appear before court on Friday. Police say the bust was the result of an intelligence led operation involving the ABF and the Polaris Joint Waterfront Taskforce. $23 million drugs seized, man charged #Polaris Joint Waterfront Task Force https://t.co/ymMix2Glbx NSW Police (@nswpolice) January 15, 2016 Advertisement In September last year, that same taskforce busted an alleged multi-million-dollar cigarette smuggling operation that police say involved corrupt waterfront officials. Twelve people were charged during that operation. Callie Marshall Brisbane is on the brink of change. At least, thats what Matthew Haynes, founder of Analogue Digital -- a start-up that brings the worlds most innovative artists to the Sunshine State during an annual design conference -- will tell you. The conference, which takes place in May is Haynes passion project -- which aims to add an international touch to Brisbanes creative scene by curating a list of some of the biggest names in the industry. The headliners this year? British street artist, D*Face (an associate of Banksy) and New York typographer Jessica Hische. Advertisement The primary reason for hosting The Design Conference is because I feel the creative industry here in Brisbane is somewhat fractured compared to other Australian cities like Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide, Haynes told The Huffington Post Australia. We want to glue the creative leaders in Brisbane to the next generation of creatives, binding them together over a common love for creative business, design thinking and world class popular culture." The project was conceived in 2009 and this year turned to the crowdfunding platform Pozible to raise additional funds as a means to pay the international artists on the roster. I quickly learnt you cant just pay world class artists a few hundred dollars because these people get paid that in an hour, Haynes said. Advertisement D*Face's 'Last Ride to Rocklyn' mural in Culver City, Los Angeles. On Wednesday, the Pozible campaign reached $15, 000 as Haynes revealed Jessica Hische as the fourth international presenter with one more artist to be announced upon reaching the target of $20,000. Ticket holders can expect two days where theyll experience presenters sharing ideas, discussing their creative philosophy, what keeps them up at night, their fears and ultimately, connect with the audience on a human level. When you have some of the best creative directors on stage dropping talks that are just mind-blowing -- its pretty powerful stuff, Haynes said. Haynes, who has a Bachelor of Graphic Design however describes himself as a horrible artist said he was on a mission to provide young people with the skills and knowledge to be able to build innovative products that made life more efficient, drove the economy forward -- and provided the people of Brisbane with a creative community they wouldn't want to leave. Advertisement Andrew Gibbs, creative director of Human Ventures explained there was a time when he felt as if all of his artist friends were leaving Brisbane for more opportunities elsewhere. "I noticed a long time ago that certain creatives, when they got to a point in their career, would decide Brisbane couldn't offer what they want and leave for places like Melbourne or Berlin," Gibbs told HuffPost Australia. This took a toll on what was once a thriving underground scene. It also coincided with the cease of the annual festival, Straight Out of Brisbane in the mid-2000s. "It was a bit of a catalyst in my world -- things took a shift and it was everyone for themselves. There was no longer a community of artists and the creative scene became quiet," Gibbs said. Advertisement California-based artist Madsteez headlined last year's design conference. But with the rise of social media and ease of access to technology, Gibbs said he believed that in the last five or so years Brisbane's art scene was reinvigorated. "The line between experimental, underground and mainstream has been blurred nicely. It seems like now, underground artists are being valued and supported -- and the mainstream is interested in what they're doing," Gibbs said. There's been a rise in one or two person teams starting events and festivals -- a lot of them, simply making it happen without grants or funding. "This sharing economy approach of linking up venues with artists is becoming more and more popular -- and it makes sense," Gibbs said. "But you cant just flick a switch and have a vibrant laneway community like Melbourne -- that took decades." Advertisement Of course, as the city continues to emerge and these events and festivals gain traction, Gibbs explains the importance of building a creative hub that's unique to Brisbane. Haynes agrees. Melbournes the graffiti and street art capital of the world and theres always something going on in Sydney, Haynes said. But I think things are about to turn around in Queensland. I think Brisbane's best creatives are on the verge of saying you know what Sydney? Were not going to uproot our entire lives for the sake of your industry success. Were just going to try and make it happen here in Brisbane, said Haynes. Shortly before 130 were killed in the tragic attacks in Paris, 43 people also died in Beirut in a similar attack. Innocent human lives were taken in both instances for which ISIS claimed responsibility. There was hardly any international reaction to the attacks in Beirut, compared to the reactions to Paris. Ironically, Muslims, who also make up approximately 54 percent of Lebanon's population and are generally among the victims of ISIS attacks, became the scapegoats, as has apparently become customary around the world since 9/11. When a man or a woman blows him/herself up, kills and injures hundreds of innocent people, what happens afterwards is what is most noteworthy: money starts to flow, projects get funded, people get hired, security apparatuses get expanded, weapons get sold. The more fear that can be instilled in taxpayers during such times, the less objectionable they become, the fewer questions they ask and the less they hold their representatives accountable -- certainly, a dream come true for any opportunist who is more than willing to exploit the situation to the fullest. However, who can hold it against them that they do what is right for their careers? War profiteers do what is right for them. However, the rest of us need to deal with the truth that "jihadist terrorism" is the (undesired) outcome of an historical "Western" strategy of playing groups in the "Middle East" against each other, destabilizing the region and capitalizing on it--naturally, supported by the many Middle Eastern by-standers, because greed does not discriminate based on religion, ethnicity, or national allegiance. That may explain why the terrorism narrative lacks logic--we have to fear dangerous terrorists who hate us so much that they are willing to pay the ultimate price, who choose to kill 130, 43, or 14 innocent people even though they would be able create damages at much higher rates by using many other methods of modern warfare. The majority of their victims are Muslims, while we continue marginalizing Muslims, and our media is providing these killers with the most powerful platform to reach their goals, allowing them to terrorize us by repeating the same "sensational" images over and over, 24/7, and the list goes on. The narrative does not make sense. Advertisement Similar to other forms of politics, the terrorist narrative, too, is about economics and power. It is a crucial catalyst for the 21st century military industrial complex. Makers of the war on terror, in fact, don't have a problem with Islam or Muslims per se, as their close relationships with one of the most repressive Islamic regimes in the world who support these terrorists, shows. Except, at some point, they start believing their own dehumanizing messages, regardless of the truth factor. In the war on terror, Muslims happen to be the convenient group to build the narrative around. It could have been anyone. However, in the 21st century, people all around the world are becoming more and more aware that they have more in common than differences. They are inter-connected, exposing and exchanging information with each other. Isolating and marginalizing certain groups to justify wars is not as effective a tool as they used to be. Too much information is out there. People can more easily see behind the inaccuracies that they are told, even though technology is also a powerful tool to create artificial realities as the irrational fear of terror attacks in the USA shows. Wars are generally not democratic, they never have been. They represent the interest of the few at the cost of many. Democracy limited to the voting booth has not done justice to the many who elect the officials but have little to no say in what the officials do later on their behalf. However, technology may turn out to be the tool that enables the emphasis of democracy to shift from voting booths to a more effective platform, especially after the votes have taken place--a tool that may be particularly useful for the voters in the dominant "West" as they elect the key players and are more likely to be heard; the higher their numbers, the louder their voices. Advertisement News / National by Staff reporter Zimbabweans have clogged the South African embassy in Harare seeking study and work permits.SA ambassador to Zimbabwe, Vusi Mavimbela said there has been an upsurge this year."The queues are longer this year, others are actually being turned away and are asked to submit their applications at a later date since the embassy is also dealing with backlog of both study visas as well as work permits," said Mavimbela is quoted saying by the Zimbabwe Independent.The embassy is processing about 6 000 applications a month which translates to about 72 000 applications a year as hordes of Zimbabweans seek economic refuge.Traditionally, applications reach a peak between November and March.South Africa is Zimbabwe's major trading partner with imports from that country accounting for nearly 70%.On Wednesday government said it had received over 14 000 applications from graduates of tertiary institutions seeking possible employment in several countries showing the level of desperation amongst unemployed Zimbabweans.The export of labour will start as soon as the human export policy done by the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development has been approved by cabinet. Control over food, and the resources necessary to produce food, has had a long and intimate relationship with the economic logic that currently rules our world. When common lands were taken from commoners in England's "great enclosure movement" several hundred years ago, it was justified as a transformation of "waste" into "improved" land. To "improve" literally meant to do something for monetary profit. Peasant evictions and the commercialization of agriculture were claimed necessary to the process of modernization and increasing productivity, thus purportedly contributing to the common good. This historical moment of massive dispossession arguably marks the very origins of capitalism. The same rationality that underlay England's enclosure movement vindicated colonial endeavors around the world. Imperial projects fathomed their legitimacy in particular and peculiar valuations of improvement and progress, constructing ideologies by which expropriating local populations was adding to the "common stock." Advertisement Such ideas persisted in 19th century Hawaii, informing the Mahele enclosures and subsequent plantation development. Missionaries and business interests melded morality with the logic of profit, advising that land privatization would liberate innate human desires and build a strong and productive nation. As the sophisticated agricultural systems of Hawaiians were displaced and denigrated, plantation agriculture was advocated as the best, and only, way to "progress." In many ways, endorsements of capitalism's enclosures and exploitations have not strayed far from their origins. Only slightly repackaged today, the restructuring of the food system towards increased privatization, corporatization, industrialization and financialization is proclaimed necessary to "feed the world" and advance social progress. In contrast, social movements are asserting the possibility of an agricultural system designed to feed people rather than corporate profit. Resisting dominant ideas that have long justified extreme inequality and dispossession of indigenous and peasant producers, the food sovereignty movement is claiming alternative potentials in the commons, democracy, equitable distribution, respect for place and diversity, and agroecology. Rooted in their rights to land, water, seed, knowledge, culture, and livelihoods, some call the peasant-led food sovereignty movement the largest in the world. Organizations like La Via Campesina bring together 200 million small and medium-sized farmers, as well as landless people, migrants and agricultural workers. They are defending against land grabs, "free trade," enclosure of seed and genetic commons, corporate power, human rights violations, environmental degradation, and policies that create hunger. In their mobilizations, they are making systemic connections between what appear as singular and isolated injustices. Advertisement Women, who produce a majority of the world's food and bear the heaviest burdens of systemic oppressions, are leading food justice and food sovereignty movements. From January 15th to the 20th, women from Mexico, Nigeria, Malaysia, and Switzerland will be in Hawaii to share stories alongside local activists and cultural practitioners, linking diverse but connected struggles. As we challenge and think beyond the corporate food system, we cannot separate the local from the global. To give just one example, the seeds being developed by Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow, DuPont and BASF in Hawaii are the foundation of the industrial-food-feed-fuel complex that is a primary driver of climate change. While these companies may donate to localized "ecological protection" programs, they are concurrently working at international and national policy levels to undermine the possibilities of a climate-sane food system. At the same time it is critical to think beyond particular corporations, and to consider structural drives and the ideologies that sustain them. For instance, to the fact that many migrant laborers in the fields of Hawaii's agrochemical+seed industry operations were themselves peasant producers, displaced from their lands and livelihoods by the corporate food system and its undergirding notions of productivity, progress, and economic development. Perhaps more than at any other point in history it is upon us to think, and care, globally. While we engage in specific struggles for justice, our resistance must seek to understand structural links between oppressions. If we fail to see systemic connections, we will not address the depth of change necessary. Most importantly, the possibility of fundamentally different futures requires extending our concerns, compassion, and solidarity universally. Advertisement Speakers at the Food Justice Summit will also be honorary guests of the Martin Luther King Jr celebration. The wisdom of Dr King is as relevant as ever, especially in thinking about a food system (and world) beyond the compulsions of capitalism. As spoken in his last speech to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference: We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life's marketplace. But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. It means that questions must be raised. You see, my friends, when you deal with this, you begin to ask the question, "Who owns the oil?" You begin to ask the question, "Who owns the iron ore?" You begin to ask the question, "Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that is two-thirds water?" After the December 15 Republican debate, Donald Trump caught some flack for not seeming to know what the nuclear triad is. But how familiar are most people with what the nuclear triad involves? Did you know that we still have nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert -- a relic of Cold War-era policy -- even though that probably increases the risk of nuclear war? And let's not even get started on self-assured destruction (that's right, self-assured, not mutually-assured). Or rather, let's do get started on it. One of the biggest reasons nuclear weapons are the threat they are today is because no one is talking about them. They've only merited a few minutes discussion at all of the primary debates combined, and few of the political candidates on either side of the aisle have taken much of a stance on them. Admittedly, North Korea and Iran have been in the news for their nuclear arsenals -- or lack thereof -- but how many Americans know much about their own country's arsenal? Before we can truly move to a safer society, we need to discuss and understand where we are now. Dr. David Wright, Co-Director of the Global Security Program for the Union of Concerned Scientists, sat down with me to discuss these issues and many more associated with the global nuclear threat. You can listen to the full podcast at the Future of Life Institute. Advertisement However, whether you listen or not, there are some important points to take away: As Wright mentions early in the interview: Some people in the military today say that the risk of an accidental nuclear war starting because of a mistaken launch is greater than any other type of start to a nuclear war. But nuclear weapons have plenty of safeguards to prevent an accidental launch of a nuclear weapon, right? Not necessarily. The purpose of a hair-trigger alert is to quickly -- in a matter of minutes -- launch nuclear weapons if we detect an incoming strike from another country. In such an event, the safeguards would be overridden. If we get a false reading, which has happened many times throughout our nuclear history, those safety features may not help. Wright mentions one particular instance from the early 1980s, but the Union of Concerned Scientists has also recorded dozens of these events. But hair-trigger alert is necessary to prevent another country from launching a nuclear strike against us, right? Not really. The whole point of our nuclear triad is that we're fully prepared to strike back. Even if our nuclear planes and silos were taken out in an attack, our nuclear submarines -- which are difficult to detect in the ocean -- would still be able to retaliate, which should ensure deterrence. Wright argues that "nuclear weapons should only be used to deter the use of nuclear weapons by another country, and if necessary, to respond to the use of nuclear weapons against you." This is known as sole purpose, which is contrary to the Obama administration's stance, which left open some options for using nuclear weapons as a response to other threats, such as chemical weapons or biological weapons. When a country uses nuclear weapons for anything besides deterrence, then specialized weapons become necessary for each potential threat. The result is a huge nuclear arsenal that really shouldn't be necessary and would hopefully never be used, yet costs tax payers tremendous amounts of money. A nuclear arsenal designed only to deter another nuclear attack would look much different and be significantly smaller. Advertisement In fact, as Wright points out, the Joint Chiefs of Staff reported that we could cut our own nuclear arsenal from about 1500 to 1000 weapons, and we would still be just as safe. Instead, we're about to spend $1 trillion over the course of the next couple of decades to enhance our current nuclear weapons systems. As we get closer to the U.S. primary elections, it would be good for all of the candidates to go back to square one and have a real discussion about the goals of a nuclear arsenal and what the country's real concerns are. Said Wright, "If we're worried about terrorism, nuclear weapons are not going to help with terrorism, so let's take that off the table." He argued that the candidates really need to discuss "what is it we actually need or want nuclear weapons to do and what does that lead to." Most likely, that discussion would lead to a very different and significantly smaller nuclear weapons arsenal than the one we have now. Another important nuclear risk to consider is that of self-assured destruction, also known as the nuclear winter theory. Initially, the idea behind deterrence was that one country would avoid attacking another out of fear of retaliation. However, as nuclear winter became more well understood, scientists and world leaders realized that even if only one country launches an attack, without the risk of retaliation, its own citizens would still be at risk. That's because so much ash and soot and smoke and particles would block out the sun, sending global temperatures plummeting for many years. This would cause severe food shortages and mass starvation. Even a small nuclear war between India and Pakistan could lead to 1 billion deaths worldwide as a result of nuclear winter. And speaking of extreme climate change, just how do the risks of our current state of climate change compare to the risks of nuclear war? Wright explains that it's not the best comparison because nuclear war is lower risk but higher consequence (i.e. less likely to happen, but if it does, a lot more people will die). However, he also said: Advertisement Nuclear weapons are harder to deal with because they're somewhat invisible. A lot of people don't realize that since the end of the Cold War that there are still about 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world, that those weapons are typically much larger -- much, much larger -- than the weapons used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And so it's hard to get people to pay attention to this. It's hard to get political will to even start to grapple with this problem. So why are nuclear weapons such a difficult problem to deal with, and why does the issue seem to be escalating again? Perhaps one part of the answer is that too often, people view nuclear weapons as the "ultimate safety net." Yet, as Wright says: Today, nuclear weapons are a liability. They don't address the key problems that we're facing, like terrorism and things like that, and by having large numbers of them around ... that you could have a very rapid cataclysm that people are, you know, reeling from forever. Photo Credit: Syrian refugees at Killis Refugee camp in Turkey. Photo Human Rights First In his final State of the Union address President Obama focused on the importance of American leadership, both what it has accomplished and where it must improve. "When it comes to every important international issue, people of the world don't look to Beijing or Moscow to lead--they call us," he said. According to the President, American leadership in the 21st century is about "rallying the world behind causes that are right." U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power echoed Obama's call at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. Power said that the world "constantly looks to the United States to lead" and "many believe little will happen if the United States does not act." The ambassador declared that the United States' "greatest strength is in our values" and that inflammatory political rhetoric will "compromise and undermine those values." Power specifically addressed an issue notably absent from Obama's speech--refugee resettlement. She reminded the crowd of the atrocities taking place in Syria, including gassings, barrel bombs, and violent extremists selling women in the street. She disparaged the idea that some politicians could "call to turn away people fleeing these horrors." Power pressed that those who say "keeping 'others' out is the only way to keep us secure misunderstand who we are and what makes us strong. Compromising our core values never makes the U.S. safer." Advertisement Several Iraqi, Syrian, and Pakistani refugee families attended the event, and Power told their tragic stories of danger and escape, and how they eventually found safety and freedom in the United States. She asked the audience, "Does anyone of us want to live in a country where we turn away a family like this?" To widespread applause, she addressed the families: "America welcomes you, our families welcome your families ... These families are part of the fabric of American life." America needs leadership that embodies our core values. Obama and Power's attention to that fact is a welcomed call for progress. Yet the administration's eloquent rhetoric must do more than counterbalance the harmful speech against refugees. The administration must also act. Unfortunately, Obama's actions towards refugees, thus far, have not embodied the American leadership he and Ambassador Power extolled. Despite facing the largest refugee crisis since World War II, the United States has only agreed to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees--a mere fraction of the more than four million Syrian refugees forced to flee the horrors in their home countries. And Congress is considering legislation, the so-called SAFE Act, which would make it nearly impossible for the administration to even reach this modest goal. The United States has historically been the undisputed leader in resettling refugees in times of global crisis. Right now it's falling short. If Obama and Power's call for American leadership is to be realized in the global refugee crisis, the United States must welcome significantly more Syrian refugees. Advertisement Another refugee crisis deserves U.S. attention at home. As Obama and Power spoke in support of American ideals and leadership, thousands of families across the country remain terrified of deportation raids targeting Central American families fleeing violence. When pressed, Power agreed that all Central American migrants should have a meaningful opportunity to have their case heard and receive protection if they are refugees. But she did not address how her call for sympathy for families fleeing violence in the Middle East could be squared with the administration's recent actions toward Central American families. Earlier this week over 100 House Democrats condemned the administration's move to deport refugee mothers and children from Central America. The lawmakers highlighted that these actions are not in line with American values. "You and your Administration have upheld time-honored American values by offering refuge to those fleeing violence and disorder in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. We commend you for that," they wrote. "However, these same fundamental American values have not been applied in your Administration's policies towards Central American refugee mothers and children." Near the end of his State of the Union address Obama declared, "Our collective futures depend on your willingness to uphold your duties as a citizen... to stand up for others, especially the weak, especially the vulnerable, knowing that each of us is only here because somebody somewhere stood up for us." Refugees from Syria to Central America, with nowhere to turn, need us to stand up for them. That means safe, fair, and robust asylum procedures and resettlement commitments. That's what American ideals in action would look like. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. UN Photo/Cia Pak Violent extremism is a direct assault on the United Nations Charter and a grave threat to international peace and security. Terrorist groups such as Daesh, Boko Haram and others have brazenly kidnapped young girls, systematically denied women's rights, destroyed cultural institutions, warped the peaceful values of religions, and brutally murdered thousands of innocents around the world. These groups have become a magnet for foreign terrorist fighters, who are easy prey to simplistic appeals and siren songs. Advertisement The threat of violent extremism is not limited to any one religion, nationality or ethnic group. Today, the vast majority of victims worldwide are Muslims. Addressing this challenge requires a unified response, and compels us to act in a way that solves -- rather than multiplies -- the problem. Many years of experience have proven that short-sighted policies, failed leadership, heavy-handed approaches, a single-minded focus only on security measures and an utter disregard for human rights have often made things worse. Let us never forget: Terrorist groups are not just seeking to unleash violent action, but to provoke a harsh reaction. Advertisement We need cool heads and common sense. We must never be ruled by fear -- or provoked by those who strive to exploit it. Countering violent extremism should not be counter-productive. This month, I presented to the United Nations General Assembly a Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism, which takes a practical and comprehensive approach to address the drivers of this menace. It focuses on violent extremism which can be conducive to terrorism. The Plan puts forward more than 70 recommendations for concerted action at the global, regional and national levels, based on five inter-related points: Number one, we must put prevention first. The international community has every right to defend against this threat using lawful means, but we must pay particular attention to addressing the causes of violent extremism if this problem is to be resolved in the long run. There is no single pathway to violent extremism. But we know that extremism flourishes when human rights are violated, political space is shrunk, aspirations for inclusion are ignored, and too many people -- especially young people -- lack prospects and meaning in their lives. Advertisement As we see in Syria and Libya and elsewhere, violent extremists make unresolved and prolonged conflicts even more intractable. We also know the critical elements for success: Good governance. The rule of law. Political participation. Quality education and decent jobs. Full respect for human rights. We need to make a special effort to reach out to young people and recognize their potential as peacebuilders. The protection and empowerment of women must also be central to our response. Second, principled leadership and effective institutions. Poisonous ideologies do not emerge from thin air. Oppression, corruption and injustice are greenhouses for resentment. Extremists are adept at cultivating alienation. That is why I have been urging leaders to work harder to build inclusive institutions that are truly accountable to people. I will continue to call on leaders to listen carefully to the grievances of their people and then act to address them. Advertisement Third, preventing extremism and promoting human rights go hand-in-hand. All too often, national counter-terrorism strategies have lacked basic elements of due process and respect for the rule of law. Sweeping definitions of terrorism or violent extremism are often used to criminalize the legitimate actions of opposition groups, civil society organizations and human rights defenders. Governments should not use these types of sweeping definitions as a pretext to attack or silence one's critics. Once again, violent extremists deliberately seek to incite such over-reactions. We must not fall into the trap. Fourth, an all-out approach. The Plan proposes an "all of Government" approach. We must break down the silos between the peace and security, sustainable development, human rights and humanitarian actors at the national, regional and global levels--including at the United Nations. The Plan also recognizes that there are no "one size fits all" solutions. We must also engage all of society -- religious leaders, women leaders, youth groups leaders in the arts, music and sports, as well as the media and private sector. Advertisement Fifth, UN engagement. I intend to strengthen a UN system-wide approach to supporting Member States' efforts to address the drivers of violent extremism. Above all, the Plan is an urgent call to unity and action that seeks to address this scourge in all its complexity. Together, let us pledge to forge a new global partnership to prevent violent extremism. Ayahuasca cooking I grew up as teenager in the '80s in Brazil, listening to Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, smoking pot, and, like so many worldwide, distrusting the U.S. government and its never-ending wars. Now, at 44, I am re-considering my disdain for the U.S. I have learned to love the civil rights and freedoms I found there on my travels. I feel at home in the multicultural, psychedelic, gay, ecological, and beautiful San Francisco. That is perhaps why I was open to accept an invitation to participate in an "all veterans" ayahuasca Peruvian-vegetalismo style ceremony. My motivations to attend were mixed. While editing our books Ayahuasca y Salud ([Ayahuasca and Health], Los Libros de La Liebre de Marzo, 2013) and The Therapeutic Use of Ayahuasca (Springer, 2014), I had come across many reports on the therapeutic potentials of ayahuasca, but the evidence was always limited, and debatable. I felt that somehow the current glorification of the therapeutic potentials of ayahuasca was a direct result of the process of demonization of hallucinogens. Because mainstream society tends to discredit these experiences so much, a quasi-apologetic counter-discourse on their benefits popped all over the place. Advertisement While a part of me still felt very uncomfortable with how the U.S. treats soldiers as national heroes, I was curious. I had never met a solider. How would these soldiers be? Big, muscular, and sexy guys? Rednecks? Did they regret having killed people? Did they think they were doing the right thing by going to war? Could ayahuasca really help them? Would their presence in the ceremony influence my own experience? Would they perhaps display aggressive feelings, as ayahuasca was traditionally used in warfare among indigenous people in the Amazon? Could they actually be re-traumatized by their visions? I gathered what courage I had and headed to the retreat. When I got there, I discovered that in fact there were only two veterans. I quickly learned the difference between a "combat vet" (who went to war) and a regular vet, who is a solider, but did not go to war. Both can have severe traumas. The two veterans were sweet and, yes, big men with muscles. One was a pilot and the other had been a soldier in Kuwait. They both had many other issues besides combat trauma. One had been sexually molested, and the other lost a great part of his family at early age, among other sad stories. Advertisement One of them cried and screamed the whole session. He rocked back and forth, like a child. He also whispered, and talked to himself. He made guttural and profound sounds for hours, which were kind of disturbing. These sounds seemed to come from another world. After the first ceremony, he shared with me some war stories, his panic while in the field, having to shoot, and seeing ahead only women and children, smoke, fire, buildings falling down, chaos. He told my friend a vision that constantly haunted him: a frozen black burnt body with the arms outstretched, like a statue. I felt so much sorrow in my heart, and tenderness for him. From the theoretical dilemmas I had constructed, and the Rambo-like figures I had conjured, he became a fellow human being to whom I could relate. The next day, we all took the brew again. I was processing my own stuff. There was a moment that I felt an urge to purge, and went to the toilet. While vomiting, I saw a horrible war scene, perfectly clear and visual. I had the feeling I was vomiting for him. This is something that can happen in ayahuasca; its part of the "tradition" so to speak. Of course, one can argue that what I saw was informed by what he told me, the movies or the media; or, that I was just in a suggestive state. However, I sincerely felt I was relieving some of his pain. The ceremonies were concluded with "integration circles." Normally, I do not like this kind of thing, which is common in the U.S. and Europe, but not in Brazil, Colombia or Peru. I felt it was some kind of forced spiritual nudism. This over-verbalization, characteristic of Western societies, seemed poisonous to me; when taking ayahuasca I searched for enchantment, beauty, magic, and other ways of understanding reality. Advertisement However, this time, it was a joy to hear the vets' stories. They were very grateful to the experience. I felt the urge to hug one guy after he spoke, and did so, which he reciprocated for a long time, in silence. One of the vets was hugging other men in the room, telling them how much he loved them. I left the retreat feeling positive: yes, definitely, ayahuasca can help war veterans! So I started to research a little on the topic. There has been an emergence of many research trends using marijuana, MDMA, and ayahuasca to treat veterans with PTSD. One fundraising campaign stated: "Don't we owe them? These soldiers were wounded while they were protecting us." I did not like this approach, which seemed to use the same kind of patriotic rhetoric and uncritical thinking that leads to wars in the first place. This was at the root of my dislike for the US when I was a teenager. To me, veterans deserve as good treatment as any human being who is wounded. If anything, they frequently are victims of the war machine and those who profit from wars. A fundraising video promotes the story of a war veteran to advertise a specific retreat center. So, if ayahuasca can help heal traumas, does this means that we should fabricate a "need" for ayahuasca, try to sell retreats to people in general, and turn the brew into any kind of commodity? Another question: should we try to treat veterans so that they can go back to war? And what about offering treatment to soldiers on duty? After spending almost a week together in "prayer," the Primates of the Anglican Communion have released a statement calling for official "discipline" of the Episcopal Church in America until it repents for the changes it has made in its doctrinal position on marriage. In a statement released by the Primates on Thursday, they noted: "Recent developments in The Episcopal Church with respect to a change in their Canon on marriage represent a fundamental departure from the faith and teaching held by the majority of our Provinces on the doctrine of marriage." They continued on, saying: "The traditional doctrine of the church in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds marriage as between a man and a woman in faithful, lifelong union. The majority of those gathered reaffirm this teaching. Advertisement ...Given the seriousness of these matters we formally acknowledge this distance by requiring that for a period of three years The Episcopal Church no longer represent us on ecumenical and interfaith bodies, should not be appointed or elected to an internal standing committee and that while participating in the internal bodies of the Anglican Communion, they will not take part in decision making on any issues pertaining to doctrine or polity." Globally, positions on same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ inclusion in the Church are varied. In the United States, a growing majority of Christians are fully supportive of same-sex relationships. This trend is also reflected in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. However, the majority of Christians globally are still opposed to same-sex relationships. There are many reasons for this reality, including a lack of education on issues of sexuality and gender identity, a lack of exposure to theological discourse on these issues, and a lack of cultural acceptance of same-sex relationships. Whenever I see large Christian bodies making statements like the one released from the Primates Gathering, I also wonder just how many LGBTQ+ people these leaders actually know. These statements not only reflect a lack of education and understanding, but they also reveal a great deal of fear rooted in ignorance. While I don't doubt for a second that the Primates gathered actually believe that the Scriptures teach that marriage is exclusively between one man and one woman, I also am aware that these leaders have likely never taken the time to examine the lives of and hear the stories of those of us who identify as LGBTQ+ Christians. If Christianity is anything, it's incarnational. Our faith is rooted in the story of God becoming a human being and experiencing life among us, as one of us. Christian faith is rooted in the principle of "kenosis", a theological word used by the Apostle Paul in his hymn of praise in his Letter of the Philippians, chapter 2 where he describes how Christ refused to exploit his power and instead, stepped into solidarity with the humanity, becoming Emmanuel, "the God who is with us." In the Christian story, God himself desires to walk in the shoes of humanity, to experience their reality, and allows that to shape him. Advertisement Embedded in this story is the idea that experience shapes our perception of reality. No concept is scarier to Christians, influenced by Western, modernistic, post enlightenment thought, than to believe that our lived expiree and our emotions could be key components influencing our concept of truth. But this is a fundamental part of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. That we walk with those whom we perceive as "far off," those who we don't understand, those who we perceive as "sinful." And it is in that process of walking alongside of them that God speaks to us most powerfully and our concept of reality is shaped most drastically. What I am saying is this: I believe that the Anglican Primates who are calling for separation from the Episcopal Church because of its position on same-sex relationships are acting out of fear and ignorance because they have never actually sat across a table with and walked along side with any LGBTQ+ disciples of Jesus. It is easy to demonize from a distance. It's easy to declare "heretic" when you've never walked in the shoes or experienced God through the eyes of your "other". These Primates, and in fact, all those who are animatedly opposed to LGBTQ+ Christians need to follow the Biblical imperative and get to know some faithful LGBTQ+ followers of Jesus. They need experience life through our eyes. They need to see just how God-honoring our relationships and our "lifestyle" can be. Because until they do that, they will only be grasping on to disembodied theology, and nothing is more dangerous, destructive, or deadly. What does all this mean for the future of the Anglican Communion? As much as many of my conservative friends might think this is a major move that threatens to cause a catastrophe in the communion, I don't think that's even remotely true. The Archbishop of Canterbury said last week that if a schism were to happen, it would be a "failure" to act as a communion of Christians, but it wouldn't be a "disaster." Nonetheless, it is my hope that the Primates aggressive actions wouldn't result in a schism, but rather, would open the door for further conversation and dialogue. Schism should be reserved for only the most severe cases of heterodoxy and immorality, and disagreements on same-sex relationships don't even come close to that. court room "Take a number." Though rarely pleasant words to hear, you tolerate them from a teller at the DMV or your butcher the day before the Fourth of July. They are not words you would ever expect to hear from your attorney if you have been accused of a crime. But that's essentially what the New Orleans public defenders' office in Louisiana has begun telling arrestees this week, as funding shortages and staff attrition have forced the office to place new clients on a waiting list for representation. The people the public defender is making wait in line are most at risk in our justice system: usually poor, often a person of color, and facing severe sentences. Yet, these are the people who most need the public defender's help investigating the state's case against them and quickly uncovering favorable evidence before it is lost. Advertisement This is why the ACLU and the ACLU of Louisiana yesterday filed a class-action lawsuit against the New Orleans public defender's office as well as the Louisiana Public Defender Board for failing to abide by defendants' Sixth Amendment right to legal representation. But this is not a problem of the public defender's making. It is the result of the state of Louisiana's stubborn refusal to fund its public defender system adequately. And New Orleans is not alone. Fifteen of the state's 42 defender districts have been driven to similar desperation, attempting to stave off insolvency with measures like firing staff attorneys and investigators, hiring freezes, and waiting lists. The state public defender board, which oversees the defender districts, has predicted that the system will collapse by the end of the summer, when most districts will simply run out of money. The impending downfall of Louisiana's public defender system is both ordinary and extraordinary. It is ordinary in that all too many states fail their constitutional obligation to provide competent representation to people who cannot afford an attorney. States from New York to Florida, from Mississippi to Missouri, and from Idaho to California have all faced severe public defender crises in recent years due to legislative neglect. Each of these dysfunctional states is dysfunctional in its own way. Louisiana is extraordinary in that the primary source for public defense funding comes from fees defendants must pay if found guilty of a crime. That means public defenders can only guarantee their salary if enough of their clients are convicted of crimes. Acquittals are bad for business. Other states impose such fees, but only Louisiana requires its public defenders to feed off their clients' guilty pleas to survive. Advertisement This is more than an abstract concern. Several district defenders have openly admitted asking local law enforcement to write more tickets to keep their offices afloat. This is because over two-thirds of the funding available for public defense comes from fees on traffic tickets. If this transgression seems mild, keep in mind that most Louisiana traffic offenses -- yes, like speeding -- carry up to 30 days jail time. Other districts have attempted to close the public defender's budget gap by requiring that defendants awaiting trial cannot be released until they pay their public defender's $40 application fee. Defendants in these districts may be forgiven if they have difficulty reckoning who their public defender works for: them or the district attorney's office. Just as Louisiana's "user-funded" system leaves public defenders no choice but to risk jailing their clients to earn revenue, it places them at direct odds with reforms aimed at reducing the prison population. District defenders across the state have blamed funding shortages in part on their local prosecutors' increased use of diversion, in which the prosecution agrees to dismiss the charges if the defendant completes a treatment plan. Diversion is increasingly popular for avoiding unnecessary convictions and incarceration. But the public defender does not collect a fee if her client is successful. She therefore has a powerful incentive to avoid diversion when her job is at risk. In a state with the highest incarceration rate in the world, this is inexcusable. Medical doctors subscribe to an extrapolation from the Hippocratic Corpus: "First, do no harm." Among other things, the precept seeks to avoid iatrogenic treatments in which the cure is worse than the disease. Our foreign policy establishment needs a corresponding professional creed to avoid chronic adventurist follies that harm more than benefit our national security. Included in the oath of every the President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Director of the Office of National Intelligence, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Director of the National Security Agency should be a promise to do no harm to the United States in fashioning and executing actions bearing on foreign policy. In honoring their "First, do no harm" oaths, they should be informed by St. Francis of Assisi to distinguish between the plausible and the fanciful. He pleaded, "Lord, grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Advertisement The starting point is a theory of man that recognizes the DNA of the species craves power, riches, sex, beauty, fame and creature comforts over the higher principle of justice--the end of civil society. At any given point in history, the number of earthly inhabitants who are actively pursuing justice and mastering their sordid passions can be counted on one hand with fingers left over. The exclusive method of diminishing the misery index of the world is to splinter power--to pit ambition against ambition--to prevent any political faction (including a majority) from oppressing another. Limitless power irrespective of the form of government--monarchical, oligarchical, or popular--will beget tyranny. That understanding was the genius of James Madison. He featured a separation of powers, checks and balances, and individual rights in our Constitution and Bill of Rights: a bicameral legislature with different terms, rules, and constituencies, limited and enumerated powers, and authority to remove the president through impeachment and conviction for crimes against the Constitution; a president elected indirectly by an electoral college favoring small over large states; an independent judiciary with life tenure; transparency; and, robust protection of private property, freedom of speech, press, and religion, due process, and privacy. But Madison, like Albert Einstein, was a prodigy probably not to be seen again for a thousand years or more. Thus, the birth of our Constitution was styled "Miracle At Philadelphia" by Catherine Drinker Bowen, and Lord Gladstone effused, "the American Constitution is, so far as I can see, the most wonderful work ever struck off by the brain and purpose of man." The United States Constitution, however, also required a political culture that celebrated liberty and the rule of law. That culture had evolved over more than five centuries from Magna Charta to the Mayflower Compact to the Virginia House of Burgesses to the Connecticut Charter Oak. It did not spring forth from James Madison's head like Athena from Zeus. As Thomas Jefferson admonished, "If a nation hopes to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it hopes what never was and never can be." Advertisement Our foreign policy fools untutored in Madison's theory of man routinely embrace the delusion that the United States can give birth to western-style democracy in foreign lands barren of any supporting political culture or Madisonian genius. Accordingly, we chronically go abroad in search of monsters to destroy; and, with fantasies of plucking democracies from Neanderthal cultures dancing in our head. Think of our recent foreign policy "Hail Mary" passes in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, South Sudan, Nicaragua, Ukraine, Yemen, Kuwait, and Syria. The arguable and rare exceptions of Taiwan and South Korea prove the rule. The double standard for men and women continues in the workplace. The recent media debate about whether Carrie Fisher is aging well or not in the blockbuster, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" movie, is an example of women facing scrutiny about looks and appearance in the workplace that does not equally apply to men. It's a given that the Hollywood lens is more critical for actresses in the film industry with unrealistic Fountain of Youth expectations. But why isn't the focus on Carrie Fisher's acting and her onscreen chemistry with Harrison Ford almost 40 years after the first "Star Wars" movie's debut? Harrison Ford remains multi-generational eye candy as the suave, silver fox with impeccable line delivery and comic timing in his iconic portrayal of Han Solo. Nobody thinks he looks long in the tooth - and he doesn't because our expectations are different for men. Advertisement I think the critics are doing Carrie Fisher a disservice. Her performance is powerful, intelligent and empathetic - not to mention the fact that her character, Princess Leia, is also a General in the Federation Army now. Who says women can't do the same work as men? We see age discrimination happening to men and women in the workplace, but there are far fewer examples of men being let go because of their less than youthful glow. Female TV anchors have been known to age-out far earlier than their male counterparts who are permitted to gray gracefully and own their wrinkles from well-earned life experiences. Women anchors are often asked to move on after they have aged out - typically in their 40's. Some media markets even showcase an anchor woman's legs in strategically short skirts to boost viewership and ratings. Since when did reporting the news require a mini skirt? In 2020, the millennial generation will compromise more than 50% of the workforce, which will infuse a youthful vitality into the marketplace and skew the majority of workers to a younger generation. But even the millennials will age in the future. They may not believe it now, but it will happen to them, too. Are youthful looks essential or desired in the workplace for other job sectors? Must your account, lawyer or physician be beautiful and young to serve you well? If so, perhaps organizations should allow for beauty expense accounts that pay for personal trainers, Botox, and elective cosmetic surgeries for their female employees. Sarcasm aside, will we ever embrace the concept of aging gracefully and honor the wisdom, experience and knowledge of our more seasoned professionals? Advertisement Advancements in health care enables people to live longer and healthier lives, which means people will be working past the traditional retirement age of 65. As a professional woman approaching my fifth decade, my Social Security projection indicates that I will need to work until I am at least 74 before I am eligible for federal retirement benefits. As a woman committed to empowering others with authentic self-confidence in career pursuits, I hope we can teach the next generation that looks come and go, but intelligence and authenticity are long lasting. I think we should focus on reaching our full potential and celebrating our gifts and strengths since growing old is a privilege not everyone will have. The Dove brand is rooted in listening to women. Based on the findings of a major global study, The Real Truth About Beauty: A Global Report, Dove launched the Campaign for Real Beauty in 2004. The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty has done an extraordinary job shining a light on self-esteem and how beauty, individually defined should be a source of confidence and not anxiety. The campaign started a global conversation about the need for a wider definition of beauty after the study proved the hypothesis that the definition of beauty had become limiting and unattainable. Among the study's findings was the fact that only 2% of women around the world would describe themselves as beautiful. Since 2004, Dove has employed various communications vehicles to challenge beauty stereotypes and invite women to join a discussion about beauty. Thank you, Dove, for empowering women and moving the needle in the right direction with a bold movement for self-esteem. We have a long way to go, but with the support of global brands and corporate entities like Dove, we can make a lasting cultural shift. Advertisement Let's cut Carrie Fisher a break and acknowledge that she rocked in the new "Star Wars" movie. The Force is with her -- find your inner force! "We have learned that any solution to our problems require much more that the piecemeal measures attempted in the past. It demands nothing less than a fundamental change in our approach to the idea of development, a paradigm shift toward the parallel pursuit of democracy and a market economy." So said the late Kim Dae Jung, South Korea's former president. When the country was undergoing its economic throes in the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Kim knew that South Korea needed radical changes in order to resuscitate the economy. South Korea was emerging from a long period of dictatorships and a command economy dominated by the the political elite and chaebols (conglomerates owned by wealthy families). When Kim was elected president in 1998, he ditched authoritarian rule and took the country on a sharp turn towards democracy. The result? South Korea's economy bounced back with a vengeance. Today, corporations like Samsung, LG, Hyundai, SsangYong, Kumho, etc. compete on the international stage with the world's leading brands. Advertisement And it's not just gadgets and cars that South Korea is exporting, the country's pop culture have found its way into the hearts of people far and wide. Korean television dramas are popular not just in Asia but places as far away as Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. The musical genre of K-pop has become a mainstay in the teen subculture all over the world with the Korean boy band, BigBang, even becoming the "gods of pop" in Indonesia. In 2012, Korean musician Psy took the globe by storm with this Oppa Gangnam Style dance video. Somewhere in here is a lesson for us in Singapore. When I met Kim before he became president, he had repeated to me that it was unfortunate that much of Asia was still under undemocratic rule which stymied the development of our societies. It is a view I share deeply. Innovation does not take place in the halls of government buildings and it cannot be kindled from ministerial pronouncements. Innovation thrives in a culture that not just tolerates but celebrates openness, diversity and, yes, dissent; it flourishes in an environment where people have free and full access to information. Financial analyst Michael Schuman expressed this point perfectly, writing in Time magazine in 2010: "Fear caused by political control doesn't foster an atmosphere conducive to free thinking. Censorship and limitations on information curtail the knowledge and debate necessary for the generation of new ideas. I'm not the only one who believes this is true. Some Koreans...argue that the country couldn't have become more innovative without democracy." It is no accident that freedom of expression and innovation are so commonly juxtaposed in the entrepreneurial world. Advertisement But even before the 1997 meltdown, economist and Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman had pointed out that Singapore's top-down, input-driven growth model was unsustainable: "One can immediately conclude that Singapore is unlikely to achieve future growth rates comparable to the past." This is because, Krugman explained, "Singapore's growth can be explained by increases in measure inputs. There is no sign at all of increased efficiency." But instead of liberalising our society and encouraging the hard work of innovation like the Koreans did following the financial crisis in 1997, the PAP took the easy way out by transforming our city into a tax haven and attracting the super rich of the world. Instead of making policy adjustments to retain our local talent and investing in our people, our rulers found it expedient to bring in foreigners by the millions. Of course, these measures generated GDP growth but it was growth that masked deeper structural problems of our economy. For one thing, labour productivity levels remained dismal even as GDP expanded. The problem persists to this day with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong lamenting that we have "maxed out" on easy ways of achieving economic growth - a tacit admission that Paul Krugman was right. "Productivity is very tough to do," Lee acknowledges. Indeed it is. Analysts observe that it is harder now to retool Singapore's economy. The PAP has done everything - or almost everything - to kickstart the productivity engine. In 1991, it came up with the National Technology Plan to propel Singapore into the "major league of a world-class innovation-driven economy by 1995." Five years later, it launched the SME21 plan to "promote SMEs is to help them tap into global networks." This was followed by a 2001 report from Economic Review Committee (ERC) which promised to "make Singapore a knowledge economy powered by innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship." Nine years later, another committee, the Economic Strategies Committee (ESC), was formed to "make skills, innovation and productivity the basis for economic growth." Now in 2016, the government has reincarnated the ERC and ESC in the form of the Committee on the Future Economy, or CFE, to (predictably) "recommend strategies to enable companies and industry clusters to develop innovative capacities." In between, there were a myriad of schemes - costing taxpayers more that $20 billion - to boost productivity. They included promoting R&D, enhancing of public-private sector collaboration, upgrading workers' skills and capabilities, increasing foreign-worker levies, subsidising businesses in purchasing IT equipment, and so on. Bodies like the National Productivity Board, SPRING Singapore and, more recently, the National Productivity and Continuing Education Council were established to lead the productivity chase. And yet, for nearly two decades, productivity gains continue to elude us, and we have produced few innovative enterprises that are able to compete internationally. Such a scenario does not paint a bright future of our economy. In fact, Nomura's Global Markets Research predicts that the failed productivity drive will be a drag on economic growth until the end of this decade. We have tried everything except the one that is key: Freeing our society from authoritarian rule. It is clear that the anachronistic paradigm of undemocratic, one-party dominance - where debate, a free media, and a fair election system are non-existent - is the proverbial albatross around Singapore's neck. And because we have taken the easy way out all these years, we are ill-prepared to weather the global economic storm that is about to descend upon us. There is gloom in our housing market, our dollar continues to weaken even as we spent $40 billion of our reserves trying to prop it up, our oil-rig builders Kepple and Sembcorp Marine are under severe strain from cancelled projects; our flagship shipping company Neptune Orient Lines collapsed under unsustainable losses and was sold off; household debt of Singaporeans soared to become one of the highest in the world and, perhaps most frighteningly, China's economy seems on track to becoming the epicenter of the next global economic meltdown - an economy of which we are the biggest foreign investor. Assuredly, we will not be able to avoid the upheaval. The question is, when we emerge from it, will we divest ourselves of the many excuses we have put up to defer from opening up our political system, or will we continue down the dead-end alley of authoritarian rule? News / National by Stephen Jakes Harare Residents Trust has accused the Minister of Local Government Saviour Kasukuwere for micro managing the local authorities after he issued a directive that local authorities must not have seminars outside their areas of jurisdiction."Minister Saviour Kasukuwere has given a directive to the local authorities not to have seminars outside their areas of jurisdiction," said the trust."This means the local authority will only hold its seminars in venues in its town or surrounding areas, and not waste ratepayers money travelling long distances outside their town or city of jurisdiction."The Harare Residents Trust said it believes that while this is a noble move, the Minister is undermining the provisions of the Constitution which give local authorities the right to determine their affairs without external influence."The Minister is violating the Constitution Section 274 on Urban local authorities which specifies that; there are urban local authorities to represent and manage the affairs of people in urban areas throughout Zimbabwe, urban local authorities are managed by councils composed of councillors elected by registered voters in the urban areas concerned and presided over by elected mayors or chairpersons, by whatever name called," said the trust."Minister Kasukuwere is unnecessarily trying to micro manage urban local authorities, undermining the essence of elected councillors, who are elected by the citizens." On May 8, 1943, 149 pupils at the First Boys High School in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki were officially 'expelled'. In the following months they were transported, along with their families, to concentration camps - the vast majority to Auschwitz. Only six survived, most of them hiding in Thessaloniki, and only 2 survived the concentration camps. While the whole world is aware of the atrocities that took place during the Second World War, what has always astounded me is how recently, historically, the horrors of Nazi Germany took place. Only 72 years have passed since the majority of Europe was reduced to a pile of rubble due to the barbaric views of one individual. The Stolperstein, literally meaning 'stumbling stone' in German, is a monument created by the German artist Gunter Demnig and its main purpose is to commemorate individually the victims of Nazi oppression during the Holocaust. They have been created in memory of the countless Jews that were murdered as well as Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, Romani, and all others who were blacklisted by the Nazis. Advertisement A Stolperstein consists of a simple cobblestone with a bronze head cover. The text on the cover is always in the national language of the state, with the individual's name, their year of birth and date of death or, to be more tragically blunt, the year they were murdered. Even stones for survivors are put in place, since surviving the camps was literally a journey to death and back. Approximately 56,000 Stolpersteine can now be seen in more than 650 cities and 20 nations throughout Europe making the project the world's largest memorial. However, one country, until now, has yet to join the growing list. Greece played a pivotal - although sometimes forgotten - role in the Second World War. Their resistance during the Greco-Italian-German War in 1940/1941 and during the occupation with hundred of thousands of Greek civilian and military victims is legendary. It is therefore remarkable and inexplicable even, that Greece has taken so long to join the list of countries in which Solpersteine have been placed. The history of Jews in Thessaloniki stretches back over two millennia. When the Nazi occupation of Greece began in 1941, they began to persecute the Jews as they had done in much of mainland Europe. Within 7 months, almost 60,000 had been deported and murdered thus causing a near wipeout of the community in the city, which has never truly recovered. Today, the number has dwindled to 2,000. A city, which, prior to the world war, had more than 36 synagogues, now has just a handful. It is said that Apostle Paul, during his travels across Greece, visited one of Thessaloniki's synagogues to preach in the synagogues that Jesus was the Son of God. Thanks to the determination of one individual, Apostolos Dereklis, who has fought for the Stopelsteine to be placed outside the school for decades, he finally saw his perseverance rewarded in September last year. The first Stolpersteine have now been placed outside the front sidewalk of the public school building of the High School (the other will be unveiled later in January) and a bronze lane on the front of the premises of the headquarters of Nazis Adolf Eichmann and Alois Brunner in Thessaloniki. Advertisement Apostolos, an alumnus of the High School and son of Thessaloniki, has overcome numerous hurdles in his mission to see Stopelsteine placed outside the building. Greece is known for its interminable bureaucracy and this was one of the main obstacles. There were also unfortunate side events, such as the new Jewish memorial monument in the city of Kavala being vandalized just a few weeks after it was unveiled. The unveiling had already been delayed by city officials, which caused dissonance amongst the Greek-Jewish community. The opening ceremony finally took place after pressure on Kavala's mayor from the Greek government and international groups. After the vandalism, city officials acted swiftly to repair the monument in order to prevent further criticism and distress. While Apostolos has endured three years of efforts, his initiative has not been in vain. Fifty two Stolpersteine now line the sidewalk outside the school - a long overdue reminder of those children who were murdered. The Mayor of Thessaloniki, widely known for his open mindedness, representatives of the Jewish Community and the German Consul to Thessaloniki were present during inauguration. The next lot of 29 Stolpersteine will be unveiled in a ceremony on January 28th, and by the end of 2017, 149 Stolpersteine, one for every victim and survivor, will line the sidewalks in 2017. In his own words, it is our moral and civic duty to keep alive the memory of those murdered during the Holocaust and to pass on to future generations, the belief in the possibility of human co-existence without any kind of discrimination. Apostolos' vision is simple. Rather than dwell on the numerous setbacks to get the Stolpersteine placed in Thessaloniki, he wishes to look forward. He once observed ordinary members of the public walking past the stones shortly after the first unveiling. Some walked by without noticing, immersed in their daily commute to and from work. Some did notice and leant over for a closer look. Upon reading the names one by one, followed by their year of birth and death, the shock on their faces was evident. The realisation of how young these children were serves as a timely reminder of the atrocities that once went on in their own city. Apostolos has achieved his mid-aim, albeit with difficulty. He has provided a springboard for current and future generations. He intends that in future, the process for those wishing to do the same will be a lot less time consuming - there should be no need for the bureaucracy that he had to contend with. Everyone feeling the need to commemorate relatives and friends should be able to through fast track permission to place the stone in front of old living premises, work places or study institutions. Apostolos' next step is to enable descendants and friends of the victims to install with no big bureaucratic efforts their Stolpersteine in front of the old premises, work places and study facilities of victims all over Greece. Advertisement Cities with momentum pulse with creative energy from the minute you arrive--the palpable buzz of technological, artistic and economic progress emerging from every cafe, office and street corner. Sometimes it seems like ideas may burst from air itself. Silicon Valley has it, London has it, and this week, Davos, Switzerland has it in multiples, as it does every year during the World Economic Forum annual meeting. And JLL has quantified this intangible urban vibe in our latest annual City Momentum Index. What gives a city its momentum? A global city is no longer defined by its past, but by the region's apparent future. Today, a city's momentum revolves around innovation, 'liveability' and the ability to transform and adapt to constantly changing socio-economic forces. This future is impacted by forces of globalization, urbanization and technological advancement. Technology, in particular, tends to thrive where the urban fabric is one that is gaining momentum. Advertisement The JLL City Momentum Index (CMI) tracks the rate of change in urban economies and commercial real estate markets to identify cities with the most dynamic economies. Covering 120 established and emerging cities around the world, and now in its third year, the CMI measures short-term socio-economic and commercial real estate momentum along with related measures of 'future-proofing': whether a city has the educational, innovative and environmental resources to maintain long-term sustainable momentum. The Index is unique in assessing a city's real estate market dynamics - its rates of construction and absorption, price movement, and the attractiveness of its built environment for cross-border capital sources and corporations. 2016 CMI Highlights Innovation-rich cities dominate 2016's CMI Top 20 list. Many of the 'Top 20' cities in the 2016 CMI - London, San Francisco and Sydney are examples - are home to vibrant mixed-used districts which create and amplify opportunities to conceive and commercialize new ideas. This reinforces the idea that city momentum involves much more than GDP growth. It also requires building an innovation-oriented economy through technology. It means creating cutting-edge new businesses. And it involves attracting talent and nurturing a diverse and inclusive workforce. Real estate drives momentum. There is growing recognition that real estate can have a key role in accelerating city momentum by providing the infrastructure and environment for creativity, productivity, innovation and entrepreneurship. As a result, the role of commercial real estate is changing from housing businesses to envisioning and developing built environments that attract companies and talented people. Transformational projects create momentum and competitive advantage. To build momentum - or even to maintain their current competitive position - cities need to commit to bold moves. Such activities will be required to meet the demands of growing urban populations, to respond to increasing strains on resources and to support the shift to new and different types of economic activity. As we track the world's top 500 significant urban transformation projects, it is neither a surprise nor a coincidence that several of the most visionary and innovative programs are found in CMI Top 20 cities. A new model of 'Established', 'Emerging' and 'New World' Cities Advertisement As the traditional concept of a global city hierarchy continues to shift, a new model of city clusters is emerging. It supports the idea that successful, innovation-focused cities come in different shapes and sizes. 'Established World Cities' -London, New York and Tokyo, for example - remain dominant commercially, but face new competition. They continue to gain momentum, often by executing bold urban projects. New university campuses and research centers are being developed in London's White City and on Manhattan's Roosevelt Island, while Tokyo's role hosting the 2020 Summer Olympics is providing a catalyst for urban renewal. They are being challenged by other established cities which are competing for global reach and influence. Sydney's economic and real estate momentum continues to accelerate, thanks in part to the development of mixed-use projects like Barangaroo, a waterfront project that includes a dedicated financial district. In Seoul, the Songdo International Business District is providing a template for smart cities. 'Emerging World Cities' are on a fast track to maturity that is often driven by innovation. Bangalore and Shenzhen, for example, are home to some of the world's fastest-growing tech companies. Others are working to develop similar attributes: Nairobi, for example, is pushing to become Africa's technology center with development projects like Konza Technology City, an innovation district that will include space for educational institutions and technology firms. 'New World Cities' are re-defining what it means to be global, as a number of these smaller cities compete successfully against larger neighbors. Dublin registered the strongest real estate momentum in the CMI. Auckland has emerged as one of the world's most sustainable and liveable cities. And Austin's educational system and low business costs continue to drive its strong growth in the U.S. technology sector. Our goal in developing the City Momentum Index is to provide a mechanism which identifies signals of impending change and highlights the characteristics that empower cities to compete successfully in a new and constantly evolving economic landscape. Click here to see the complete JLL 2016 City Momentum Index. Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump speaks as Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, looks on during the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, in North Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt) After facing many years of stringent obstructionism and historically unprecedented levels of disrespect from congressional Republicans, President Obama was relatively charitable in his final State of the Union address while discussing the hyper-partisan politics that long ago took over Washington. The president called on his audience to "fix our politics" by restoring "basic bonds of trust between... citizens" -- something that was seemingly lost when right-wingers began accusing the President of being a closet-Muslim who was born in Kenya. He continued: "[Democracy] doesn't work if we think the people who disagree with us are all motivated by malice, or that our political opponents are unpatriotic. Democracy grinds to a halt without a willingness to compromise; or when even basic facts are contested, and we listen only to those who agree with us... It's one of the few regrets of my presidency - that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better... There's no doubt a president with the gifts of Lincoln or Roosevelt might have better bridged the divide, and I guarantee I'll keep trying to be better so long as I hold this office." Advertisement Right-wing commentators did not take kindly to the Presidents humility. "The president is either utterly unaware of or unwilling to admit his own role in perpetuating divisiveness and polarization," opined conservative columnist, Jennifer Rubin, in a hasty, late-night screed that may as well have been written on Mars. "Instead of compromise and conciliation," she continued, "he rebuffed a "grand bargain" and jammed through Obamacare on a party-line vote and abused executive power to go around Congress on immigration, guns and the environment." The only problem with this line of thinking is that there was never any "grand bargain" to be made with Republicans. From day one, the GOP wanted only to stop the president from enacting his "socialist" agenda. "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president," remarked the current Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-Kt), back in 2010. What is particularly ironic is that the policies that Rubin lists above are not "left-wing" or radical by any stretch of the imagination. Indeed, the abhorred Obamacare -- which, after more than 50 previous attempts, was finally repealed by Republicans last week, with absolutely no plan of their own -- is a centrist and formerly Republican model (which may explain why they have no plan to replace it). It was the right-wing Heritage Foundation that first put forth an individual mandate model as an alternative to a publicly-funded model, which is found in the majority of other industrialized nations. Before this reform became "Obamacare," it was "Romneycare," named after former Governor of Massachusetts and 2012 Republican challenger to Obama, Mitt Romney. When Romney signed "Romneycare" into law, he was praised by the Heritage Foundation for building a "patient-centered" healthcare market. As far as I know, Obama has yet to receive such praise from the folks at Heritage. Mother Jones put together a helpful list of top Republicans who supported Obamacare before it became Obamacare. Advertisement It appears that it is not so much the policies, but the man (and party) supporting them, that earns universal condemnation from Republicans. Consider another policy that Rubin indignantly lists: Obama's recent executive actions on gun control. These measures, which include closing the gun-show loophole -- something that has somewhere around 80-90 percent support from Americans -- and making the background check system more efficient, are widely considered to be modest measures. Indeed, there's a good chance that Republican saint, Ronald Reagan, would have supported them, as he did the Brady Bill and the 1994 ban on assault weapons. "Every year, an average of 9,200 Americans are murdered by handguns, according to Department of Justice statistics. This does not include suicides or the tens of thousands of robberies, rapes and assaults committed with handguns. This level of violence must be stopped." While this may sound like Obama, it was written by Ronald Reagan in a 1991 New York Times editorial. The list goes on and on. Before Obama entered office, debt was no big deal for many Republicans. "Reagan proved deficits don't matter," said Vice President Dick Cheney back in 2002, while recalling President Reagan's tripling of the debt from $900 billion to almost $3 trillion, after demanding tax cuts for the wealthy and increasing military spending. And what about Immigration reform? Same story. In 1986, Reagan signed the bipartisan Simpson-Mazzoli Act, which created a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants. As many others have pointed out (including Reagan's own daughter), Reagan wouldn't stand a chance in today's extremist GOP. Beyond these sudden and dramatic shifts in policy, Republicans have done their very best to ensure the Obama administration remain paralyzed. The amount of time it has taken for Obama's judicial nominees to be confirmed, for example, has been unprecedented compared to his predecessors. Going back to George H.W. Bush, who had to deal with a Democratic congress, judicial nominees were almost immediately confirmed within a few days. The wait jumped under Clinton, plateaued under Bush Jr., and skyrocketed under Obama to a delay of about 80 days on average. This is not just a case of "both parties do it." No doubt, the Democratic party has its partisan ways, but the GOP has taken party politics to a whole new level. Republicans never had any intention of compromising with the Obama administration or Democrats. From day one, partisan politics have ruled, and obstructing Obama was the prime goal, as the above quote from McConnell reveals. Obama's desire to "fix politics" sounds good and noble, but nothing is going to be repaired until the people throw the zealots who currently occupy Congress out onto the street. When you're paying someone a salary to provide work for your business, it's only natural for you to want them to show up on time and put in eight solid hours of work. After all, when an employee has a timely arrival and is ready to get started, you can relax and focus on the work that you need to do to grow your business. But what about those employees who can't seem to make it by the designated start time? They always have excuses for their tardiness, whether it's traffic or a sick child. Unfortunately, after a series of late arrivals, you will have no idea whether those excuses are actually real or made up. Even employees who are on time each day may not be productive. You can find them standing around the water cooler or taking extended lunch breaks without asking for permission. As an employer, it is well within your rights to monitor employees to make sure they're earning the money you're paying them, but should you? Here are a few things you need to keep in mind before you put measures in place to track the hours your employees actually work in a given week. Advertisement Focus on Results First If you're losing sleep over that employee who you feel is "cheating the system" by showing up five minutes late every day, look at the big picture. Sadly, it is very possible that the employee who puts in only seven hours of work each day would far surpass an eight-hour employee in the same role. When you refocus your attention on work output rather than the number of hours an employee occupies a desk, you may discover time isn't as important as you think. Either way, if you choose to discipline the employee, focus on their work output before mentioning any tardiness issues. If possible, tie their attendance problem into any other work-related issues you bring up. Do It Legally Before you start monitoring your employees, you need to be aware of the privacy laws that may apply to your efforts. There is technology that allows you to monitor each employee's computer usage. You can also use time clock-type apps to monitor their arrival and departure times each day. However, you may find yourself wondering whether or not these options are not only moral but also legal. The truth is that when employees are using your devices and being paid to work a set schedule each day, you do have the legal and moral right to monitor their activities. However, taking it to the next level by posting surveillance cameras around your office spaces without letting anyone know could put you in legal murky water. In fact, some states have laws against this practice, and making audio recordings without a disclosure may even be a violation of federal law. Instead of taking on this legal risk, it is better to use tracking where it absolutely applies and trust employees when it doesn't. Advertisement When Tracking Applies For some businesses, employee monitoring is a natural part of business processes. Hourly workplaces have long had time clocks to track when employees show up and leave each day. As wall-mounted time clocks have been replaced by smartphone apps, businesses have been able to even more easily track hourly workers. However, salaried employees tend to resent being asked to clock in and out each day. There are instances where tracking makes sense, though. If it's sold as a way to track billing for employees such as attorneys, who log billable hours each day, a business can often justify time tracking through an app. Promoting It the Right Way If you do decide to bring time tracking into the workplace, it's important to take the right approach to avoid upsetting your employees. Keep in mind that time tracking software makes the entire timesheet preparation process easier, and this is something everyone needs to know. Employees are likely to much more receptive when you let them know that the purpose of the new tracking method is to enable them to easily collect daily information about their work hours, thereby making it possible for them to avoid having to scramble to get their payroll data in on time. A business can even divide work hours by project and explain that the new software is being used to make sure the team doesn't exceed its allotted work time on a given task. Additionally, time-tracking software can offer several other useful tools that will appeal to employees. Many applications also provide tracking for quotes, lead management, invoices and job management. Therefore, if you select a comprehensive time-tracker, you can get your employees on-board by showcasing how much time and energy they will save by utilizing the program. A Crisis Pregnancy Center in Chicago Source: Visviva Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) lie about abortion to dissuade women from exercising their Constitutional rights to reproductive health care. Sadly, states are complicit in this chicanery by referring women to them. A new study has documented that this nationwide campaign of disinformation extends to contraception and its relationship to sexually transmitted infections. As is often the case, these lies hurt the most vulnerable among us, those who are young, poor, and with limited education. Lying about abortion The misinformation and disinformation dispensed by these centers is well-documented. For example, in 2006 Rep. Henry Waxman launched a Congressional investigation into their deceptive practices. The investigation documented that 20 of 23 centers studied provided false information to researchers posing as clients. Common lies Common themes include false claims about abortion increasing the risk of breast cancer, infertility, and mental health problems. Researchers at the University of North Carolina have documented in the medical literature the unethical practices of these centers. Using a "secret shopper survey" approach, researchers called or visited 32 crisis pregnancy centers across the state. More than half provided false claims about abortion. Sixteen percent asserted a link with breast cancer, 21% with infertility, and 26% with mental health problems. Advertisement Lies on the Internet In a complementary study, these investigators examined the claims of websites sponsored by crisis pregnancy centers in 12 states. Of 254 websites examined, 80% provided one or more false or misleading medical claims. The most frequent lies included putative links between abortion and mental health risks, preterm birth, breast cancer, and future infertility. In a just-published study of these websites, researchers at UNC documented that these centers target adolescents with inaccurate information about male condoms as well. This is especially pernicious, given the heavy reliance of adolescents on the Internet for medical advice. Of the 254 websites studied, 85 provided information about condoms or sexually transmitted infections (Figure below). Most discouraged use of condoms, claiming that they frequently break or are ineffective in preventing infections. Only 2% correctly cited the contraceptive effectiveness of condoms. Only 9% correctly cited the protection against sexually transmitted infections afforded by condom use, and an equal percentage advocated correct and consistent use. Source: Bryant-Comstock et al. In contrast, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention condoms are a well-documented means of reducing the risk of sexual transmission of infections, including HIV. Thus, lies about condom effectiveness for contraception and disease prevention may indirectly increase the risk of unintended pregnancy, preventable abortion, and life-threatening viral infection. To jeopardize the health -- indeed, lives -- of adolescents to advance a political agenda is reckless and cruel. A paradox An Internet advertisement for a North Carolina crisis pregnancy center illustrates the contraception advice dispensed. Under Our Commitment to You: Advertisement "Clients are served without regard to age, race, income, nationality, religious affiliation, disability or other arbitrary circumstances." (Marital status is apparently a non-arbitrary circumstance, as indicated below.) From its Statement of Principle: "Does not recommend, provide, or refer single women for contraceptives. (Married women seeking contraceptive information should be urged to seek counsel, along with their husbands, from their pastor and/or physician.)" Should a single woman request a referral for contraception, her request would be denied. Pragmatists might disagree with this approach. For married women, the first-mentioned source of advice about contraception is "their pastor." What training in obstetrics and gynecology is offered in divinity school these days? The paradox: at this center single women routinely receive counseling against abortion, but single women cannot get help avoiding an unintended pregnancy that might lead to an abortion. Unethical practices Three principles of bioethics provide the foundation for all health care. Beneficence holds that what providers do for women is in their best interest. Withholding critical information or providing false information clearly violates this principle. Autonomy means choosing among available health care options based on a full and accurate description of the risks, benefits, and alternatives. Disinformation about the safety and efficacy of abortion and contraception is inconsistent with this principle. Finally, justice implies equitable access to health care. Crisis pregnancy centers disproportionately prey on those with limited education and resources. Crisis pregnancy centers are, at their core, misogynistic. Disrespectful of women and their autonomy, these centers care more about their religious agenda than the needs of the individual woman. As noted by a legal scholar, Advertisement This environment does not place the woman at the center of the health care process. Instead political battles structure and replace concern for women's health. The broader literature on health and inequality teaches us that an inability to seek out credible information will likely be worse for a woman with few financial resources, or who may simply not know how to navigate this highly political health care landscape. Martin Luther King Jr. is the only American practitioner of nonviolence we honor with a federal holiday. In fact many of our holidays celebrate warriors (Washington, Lincoln) or commemorate war (Memorial Day, Veterans Day). But in this age of ISIS -- and seemingly relentless eruptions of violence in the US and abroad -- is Dr. King's message of peace still relevant? That was a question we set out to investigate in The Power of Nonviolence, a Humankind documentary project distributed worldwide by NPR and airing during the King Day weekend on public radio stations in most major cities. It is also available online. Advertisement Last June, several months after we commenced production, the world was stunned by an atrocity in Charleston, South Carolina. An unemployed 21-year-old named Dylan Storm Roof, a devotee of white supremacist websites, had entered the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on a quiet evening. Roof was welcomed into a Bible study session, where he sat for an hour as the only white person in a class with African American congregants. He then began ranting against blacks. Roof abruptly brandished a gun he'd purchased at a retail store in Charleston. He began shooting indiscriminately. As U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch would later describe the scene: "The parishioners had Bibles. Dylan Roof had his .45-caliber Glock Pistol and eight magazines loaded with hollow point bullets." Dylan Roof's rampage left six women and three men, aged 26 to 87, including the pastor, bloodied and dead in their church. The depravity of this troubled youth shocks our conscience. But few people were prepared for what happened next, after Roof was captured by police. At his initial court appearance in Charleston County, less than forty-eight hours after the shooting spree, the magistrate called upon victims' family members. Advertisement One after another, the survivors came forward - to voice forgiveness. "You've hurt me, you hurt a lot of people. But God forgive you and I forgive you!" one cried out. Another described a relative who'd fallen to Roof's hail of gunfire: "She taught me that we are the family that love built! We have no room for hate, so we have to forgive." And another: "Everyone's plea for your soul is proof that they lived in love and their legacies will live in love. So hate won't win." These gestures of forgiveness were breathtaking. And then another unexpected development five days after the church massacre: The governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, called for the Confederate flag - widely seen as an enduring pro-slavery symbol - to be removed from the State House. The next month, in a silent ceremony, the flag there was taken down for the final time. University of Florida religion professor Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons, a long-time civil rights activist, credits the victims' families. "To me that is a current example of nonviolence, of showing love in the face of hatred, in a way that I think just rocked the country," she told me in an interview. "I was absolutely floored. And initially, you know, I have to be honest, I said, 'I don't forgive him.' It was only later, when I saw what their actions did, was I able to say, 'Oh, my God, that was, I mean, that was God at work.' I really felt that, but not right away, because I was angry, and did not feel forgiveness in my heart toward him at all. And many, many of my friends, you know, said the same thing. But I think a number of us came around to see the power. I mean, that was soul force at work." The term "soul force" was used by Mohandas K. Gandhi, the Hindu leader of nonviolent action in India, and was later adopted by Dr. King in the American equality movement that he led. It offers an alternative to use of brute force. And it provides a way for principled people to stand in their integrity - trusting in a higher power to gradually set things right. Advertisement This is not to diminish the need for political action, in some cases. King, of course, was also a skillful tactician in his quest to alter the oppressive conditions of Jim Crow segregation in the U.S. south. But it defines the spirit in which lasting change must occur. Otherwise, sooner or later, violence begets further violence. As Gandhi famously observed: "An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind." Professor Simmons noted that this approach is rooted in the African American experience of Christianity, the soil from which Dr. King arose. "I was in Mississippi for two years doing Mississippi summer, and beyond," she recalled of the mid-1960s. "And we would have these mass meetings before we would set out on whatever mission we were about, trying to get people registered to vote, or whatever. "And you heard this all the time, particularly from the old people. Their understanding of the suffering of Jesus, and how Jesus forgave those who had hung him on a cross. This is deeply engrained in their spiritual understandings of how they're supposed to operate in the world. And these people would testify in these mass meetings. You know, they didn't hate the sheriff, they didn't hate these people who were doing horrible things to them, and had always been doing horrible things. They would say they forgave them. And it was very much a part of their deep Christian understandings." The spirituality of nonviolence is a core tenet of the world's religious traditions. Our series presents voices of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and others who draw their personal strength from that belief. In this season of swaggering politicians consumed in a game of punch/counterpunch and of truly menacing forces in a dangerous world, this message can seem starkly counter-cultural. But it derives from an age-old truth: the force of brutality may prevail temporarily, but only doing to others as we'd have them to unto us will stand the test of time. A beautiful African woman and her child wait for a doctors appointment The UN's first Sustainable Development Goal is to "end poverty in all its forms everywhere" by 2030. The UN measures extreme poverty in financial terms -- the 836 million people who live on less than $1.25 a day. This way of measuring poverty is simple and convenient, and forms the basis by which most global development organizations now categorize poverty. But while it is simple and convenient, it belies a complex reality of human behavior and incentives that we need to understand if we are to help people rise sustainably and inclusively out of poverty. And while in the global north we often think in terms of market incentives and economic definitions of poverty, when we come to design development programs, unless we consider human behavior and incentives, we may find our way of thinking gets in the way of success. Advertisement For example, in 2013 as part of a program financed by USAID to support the creation of farmer cooperatives in Uganda, Global Communities partnered with Birmingham Southern College to help assess what made individuals in the community of Bushenyi willing to cooperate with one another. We anticipated that economic factors would be the main driver for individual farmers to band together in co-ops. After all, farmer co-ops are primarily a business venture designed to improve incomes. We expected that any social benefits of cooperation would simply be an added bonus to the increased income. However, the Ugandan farmers had a different set of priorities. The initial survey found that economic benefits did not have a statistically significant effect on a farmer's willingness to join a cooperative. Instead, it was the social benefits that were the primary drivers of the farmers seeking to form co-ops. In the northern Ugandan community of Lira, which had a history of conflict with the Lord's Resistance Army, we anticipated that violence would have weakened social ties and negatively affected the desire to cooperate. A study of these participants indicated that, once again, social benefits were the single-most important driver for joining cooperatives. What are these social benefits? For the Ugandan farmers, social benefits were defined as giving and receiving emotional support, meeting others who can provide help in times of need, and meeting others with whom to socialize. The farmers also sought to meet people with access to tangible goods, like tools and equipment, as well as intangible goods like knowledge and skills to help them meet other needs. And while social benefits were the primary motivator for individuals to join co-ops, participants did see their income rise, and saw them rise further after each harvest they collectively marketed. Forming cooperatives did help reduce poverty, but that was not why they formed them. This research is not alone; there is a growing body of research into behavioral design in global development that considers the importance of human behavior and behavior-related incentives in developing policy and program design. Programs that do not take human behavior into account very often fail. For example, mosquito nets have become used for fishing, endangering fish stocks and failing to stop malaria, and play water pumps notoriously failed because the way children play did not match the requirements of many hours of continuous play for the pumps to work. So when we consider how to reduce poverty, we first need to understand the human behavior of the communities with whom we work, and build appropriate incentives into our programming to ensure that poverty-reduction programs are sustainable. Advertisement We are continuing our research and believe it deserves testing in other environments. If social capital broadly outweighs financial capital as a behavioral driver it represents inherent resilience-seeking behavior. And with the growth in climate-related and other disasters worldwide today, we should learn from community members themselves how to help build resilient social networks as an outcome that is a good in and of itself, such as those that have been highlighted by the Rockefeller Foundation's Global Resilience Partnership. The unprecedented Powerball jackpot is supposed to bestow extraordinary riches upon the long-awaited winners. But did you know that each of the three winners will receive less over a 29-year payout than ten U.S. for-profit college companies receive from your tax dollars every single year? Worse, seven of those ten colleges have been under investigation in recent years by federal and state law enforcement agencies for deceiving their students, lying to government regulators, and other abuses. The Powerball jackpot will be divided among three winning tickets bought in Tennessee, California and Florida, and each ticket is worth $528.8 million, paid out in installments until the year 2045. That's a great deal of money -- about $18 million a year for each of the three winners. But according to from the U.S. Department of Education, the following companies received much more in federal student grants and loans in just the 2014-15 year: Apollo / University of Phoenix: $1.99 billion Education Management Corp.: $1.47 billion DeVry: $1.47 billion Kaplan: $877 million Career Education Corp.: $803 million Walden University / Laureate Education: $792 million Grand Canyon Education: $723 million ITT Educational Services: $664 million Bridgepoint Education: $639 million Strayer Education: $542 million Not every one of these dollars is wasted. There are good teachers and programs within these companies, and some students are able to get solid training and build careers. But seven of these companies -- Apollo / University of Phoenix, Education Management Corp. (operators of the Art Institutes and Brown Mackie College); DeVry, Kaplan, Career Education Corp. (Sanford-Brown, Cordon Bleu), ITT Tech, and Bridgepoint (Ashford University) -- have faced law enforcement probes, and there is strong evidence that these companies have deceived students about things like the cost of tuition, job placement rates, and likely starting salaries, and left students across the country jobless and buried in student loan debt. These figures do not even include additional hundreds of millions in federal education aid for military service members and veterans from the Defense Department and the Veterans Administration. And all of these for-profit college companies were in fact receiving much more in federal aid until a few years ago, when the truth about abusive practices in the industry finally filtered down to prospective students, and enrollments plummeted. The University of Phoenix was until recently getting as much as $3.7 billion of your tax dollars in a single year. Corinthian Colleges, which collapsed this year under the weight of numerous charges of fraud and abuse, was receiving as much as $1.4 billion annually. So it looks like a surer path than Powerball to getting a billion dollar check from the government is to operate a big for-profit college, even, and maybe especially, if you're ready to break the law. Advertisement BEIRUT -- Reports of residents starving to death in the besieged Syrian town of Madaya near Damascus have shocked the world over the past week. On Monday, residents finally received long-awaited humanitarian aid for just the second time since government forces and their Hezbollah allies imposed a siege on the town in July 2015. Advertisement One aid basket containing food and other essential supplies was delivered to each family and is meant to last them for a month. What will happen when families run out of food again? 'Aid is only a small part of the solution.' "Aid is only a small part of the solution," Louay, a resident of Madaya, told me. I interviewed Louay last week before the Syrian government allowed aid to enter the town. He told me that he last ate a proper meal more than a month and a half ago. He has been surviving mainly on water and leaves. Now, he says, he is relieved that his family has some food for the next month, but as long as the siege continues, there are no guarantees that aid will be regularly allowed in again. "We did not cook a proper meal when we received the food basket," he said. "I am afraid that once we run out of food we are back to eating leaves." A convoy of vehicles loaded with food and other supplies organized by The International Committee of the Red Cross makes its way to the besieged city of Madaya. (AP). Around 40,000 people in Madaya have been struggling to survive under siege for the past six months. Residents told me horrific stories of the daily hardship they endure. They described people living in Madaya as "walking skeletons." It took an international outcry for the Syrian government to finally allow U.N. humanitarian agencies and their partners to bring in aid. Once again, the world witnessed the Syrian government's brutality in depriving people of basic food and other lifesaving supplies. "Left to die under siege," an Amnesty International report published in August last year, documents the use of starvation as a method of warfare in Eastern Ghouta, where at least 160,000 civilians have also been under a Syrian government siege since 2013, just 32 kilometers from Madaya. In 2014, Amnesty International highlighted the plight of nearly 200 civilians who had died from starvation and lack of medical care as a result of a siege on Yarmouk, just south of Damascus. The town of Daraya near Damascus has also been under continuous siege and relentless bombardment by government forces since 2012. Several Eastern Ghouta residents told me that they had had limited access to food, fuel, water and electricity since 2013. They have been forced to rely on aid from local organizations. The siege has created a war economy whereby suppliers and non-state armed groups sell food and lifesaving necessities at inflated prices. 'We are trapped in a circle of death. You will either die from an airstrike or the lack of food.' Mustafa, whose name has been changed for security purposes, and his family were smuggled out of Eastern Ghouta in October 2015 after paying thousands of dollars. I recently met Mustafa and his wife in Turkey. "I am not happy that I left my home and my family," his wife told me. "But my son needed an operation. Hospitals do not have surgical supplies and the qualified doctors have left. The Syrian government will never allow us to leave so we did not have any option other than to use all the money we had left to pay smugglers." Advertisement Mustafa lost his brother, sister-in-law and niece in a missile attack on their home in August 2015. Residents of the besieged Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus, Syria, queue to receive food supplies. (AP Photo/UNRWA, File). "We are trapped in a circle of death. You will either die from an airstrike or the lack of food," he said. Civilians living under siege in Madaya, Eastern Ghouta, Yarmouk and elsewhere in Syria are living in utter destitution. Their survival depends on the whim of the Syrian government and whether or not it chooses to give permission to allow humanitarian agencies to do their job. The government has only occasionally allowed aid convoys to enter the besieged residential areas around Damascus despite repeated calls from international and local human rights groups about the desperate need for aid in these areas. Thousands more civilians have been besieged in Deir al-Zour by the armed group calling itself the Islamic State and in other towns, including Foua and Kafraya, by armed opposition groups. On Sept. 20, 2015, an agreement to implement cease-fires in Madaya, Foua and Kafraya was reached between the Syrian government and non-state armed groups. Sadly, but not surprisingly, both parties violated the provisions that would have contributed most to easing civilian suffering: humanitarian aid continued to be restricted and the injured were not allowed to leave. Civilians have been pawns in a deadly game between the warring parties. Civilians have been pawns in a deadly game between the warring parties. Louay and Mustafa feel lucky to have survived another day. For many others, their luck ran out before they were able to receive aid or escape. Advertisement Syrian civilians living in besieged areas have also lost faith that U.N. Security Council resolutions will do anything to alleviate their suffering. To them resolutions 2139 and 2165, which call for unfettered access to humanitarian aid and lifting of all sieges across Syria, have become merely ink on paper. All parties to the conflict have blatantly failed to comply with these demands. As our nation and the world wrestle with how acts of terrorism are insidiously impacting our way of life and grapple with how to shape the contours of a meaningful and appropriate response to such acts, two recent events occurred which have the capacity to offer our nation solace and hope. One was the re-authorization of the James Zadroga Act, which provides aid to 9/11 responders through a victim's compensation program and through the WTC Health Program. This achievement, which was by no means guaranteed, came about only after months of harsh criticism, political maneuvering, turning a blind eye, and lack of leadership from some lawmakers who seemed completely disconnected from the real impact that the horrific tragedy had on the responders and their families. Fortunately, the tide turned and now the 9/11 responder community may rest assured that, despite their mental and physical suffering, they will be taken care of throughout their lifetime. Certainly caring for those who, on 9/11 and the months following, rescued, recovered and rebuilt our city is an integral and essential part of our struggle to come to terms with the deadliest attack on our homeland in modern times. It is, without a doubt, the right thing to do, and Congress should be commended for its action. However, it is wrong to think that this act brings to a close our nation's internal response to 9/11. There is another vital dimension of this chapter, which can aid us in chiseling away at a more profound response to terrorism. Since 9/11, I have immersed myself in caring for the responders as Director of the WTC Health Program at Stony Brook Medicine in New York. I carry with me the fragments of many tragedies that came out of that fateful time --the unfinished lives, the broken families, the failed marriages, and the secondary impact on the children dealing with their parents' illnesses, anxiety and fear. These fragments led me to seek clarity and meaning by interviewing hundreds of the responders and members of their family. The responders themselves helped me to do so, by entrusting me with their stories as part of our oral history program, "Remembering 9/11". The second event that happened was the donation of the archive of these interviews to the Library of Congress. In this holiday season, these oral histories represent a significant and important gift to our nation which continues to suffer from the lingering uncertainty and instability that the 9/11 terrorist attacks produced, and that recent attacks perpetuate. As time passes, the attacks' effects on our society and our way of life seem ever more opaque and insidious: coloring our beliefs, influencing our social relationships, shaping our culture, and redefining our identity. This is where, I believe, a fundamental problem lies. How long can we continue to speak circuitously about 9/11 and ignore the deeper existential conflicts that continue to haunt us? News / National by Stephen Jake A political analyst Methuseli Moyo has said it is obvious that President Robert Mugabe will soon leave office either alive or dead and Zimbabweans must strategies to prevent another Mugabe to assume office."THE intensification of the drama, suspense, intrigue, threats, counter-threats, expulsions and smear campaigns in Zanu-PF are the clearest sings that the Great Leader is indeed about to leave the earth," Moyo said."You and me need to think and strategise on how to prevent another Mugabe taking over because that would be another missed chance for independence, just like 1980 was."This comes at a time when Mugabe is set to celebrate his 92 birth day this year in February. "We didn't want anybody telling us anything about Africa, much less calling us Africans. In hating Africa and in hating the Africans, we ended up hating ourselves, without even realizing it. Because you can't hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree. You can't hate your origin and not end up hating yourself. You can't hate Africa and not hate yourself." -Malcolm X One of the challenges that people of African descent continue to face from the days of slavery is the question of identity. Many of us still do not know who we truly are. This was largely done by design. The slave masters stripped Africans of their names, their languages, their culture and customs, and of their history. Not only this, but Africa has always been depicted as a negative place filled with savages and cannibals. Generations of African people living in the Americas only knew of Africa as the "Dark Continent." Pro-slavery propaganda insisted that it was actually a benefit for an African to be taken away from their African homeland and this was a view even some Africans came to accept. Jacobus Capitein, who was born in Ghana, felt that it was the will of God that made him a slave so that he could be brought to the "blessed" land of Holland. He later became a defender of slavery. Today most people of African descent would agree that slavery was no blessing to their ancestors, yet many of them still perpetrate one of the cornerstones of slavery; that is the stripping of our cultural identity as African people. Advertisement It's not uncommon to meet African people who are born in the United States or in the Caribbean who would react negatively to being called Africans. Herman Cain, for example, insisted that he was a "Black American" not an African American. There was a situation a few years ago in which a student of Jamaican descent requested her teacher not to refer to her or any of the other students as African Americans since they are not from Africa. Although it may seem like a trivial issue to many people, including people of African descent, I think it's actually very important that people of African descent learn to see themselves as such for various reasons. In the first place, we are the only group of people that came to the Americas by force. Unlike most other ethnic groups that came to the United States, we did not leave Africa in search of a better life or in search of the American Dream. If anything, we actually lost a better standard of living by being taken to America. A fact that many people are not aware of is that in many ways West African societies were more advanced than even European societies were. When the plague was devastating Europe, civilizations such as Mali and Songhai were thriving in Africa. Today we still view Africa as a "Dark Continent" which is filled with misery, poverty, and starvation, but this was not always the case. African people were in no hurry to leave their homeland and some of the slaves committed suicide in hopes that their spirits would return to Africa. Secondly, we have the richest and most diverse background of any other ethnic group in the Americas. When we look at our historical roots we can trace them to various kingdoms such as Songhai, Mali, Asante, Dahomey, Kongo, Benin, Oyo, Futa Jallon and Kuba. Most African people in the Americas have a basic understanding of slavery and what that entailed, but our history is much more complex than that. Many of us trace the origins of our history to slavery, when slavery was actually a disruption of our history. When an African American, such as Herman Cain or Whoopie Goldberg for example, rejects the term "African" they are in effect rejecting thousands of years of African history and reducing their historical understanding of their own identity to 200 years of slavery in America. Advertisement Finally, the term African is a term that connects African Americans to a global community of people of African descent that are connected by a common history and a common experience. Whether you are Jamaican, Guyanese, Trinidadian, Ghanaian, Nigerian, or Kenyan you have felt the sting of British colonialism. Haitians, Martiniquans, Senegalese, and Guineans have all felt the sting of French colonialism. Brazilians, Angolans, and Mozambicans have all suffered through Portuguese colonialism. And just about every group of African people in the world has experienced American racism in one form or another. The experiences may differ, but all people of African descent have been victimized by racism and oppression in one form or another. I think one of the reasons why so many African people living in the United States and the Caribbean do not like thinking of themselves as African is because of the collective ignorance that many of us still have about our African roots and why those roots are important. The many African kingdoms that I listed above are largely unknown to many people of African descent, yet those same people would have gone to schools that taught them much about European civilizations such as Greece, Rome, France, and Britain. When the education system is geared mostly towards European history and culture, and the media depictions of Africa are still largely negative and misinformed, it's easy to understand why many people of African descent would look at their own ancestral roots negatively. Today many of us still struggle with what we perceive to be conflicting national and ethnic identities. This is especially true in America where our historical experiences create what W.E.B. Du Bois described as a "double consciousness." African Americans are a people that were ripped from the African continent and most still know very little about their African roots, so many African Americans simply do not see themselves as Africans. Yet, centuries of discrimination and being treated as second-class citizens has also taught African Americans that they still are not fully American either. In fact, the history of African Americans up until the present has largely been a history of struggling to be accepted by America and, as movements such as Black Lives Matter demonstrate, this fight for acceptance and recognition continues. The famed actor and activist Paul Robeson perhaps said it best when he said, "I am an American who is infinitely prouder to be of African descent." -- Dwayne is the author of several books on the history and experiences of African people, both on the continent and in the diaspora. His books are available through Amazon. You can also follow Dwayne on Facebook. On January 1st Wolfgang Albers, head of the Cologne Police Department, issued a press release stating that the night of New Year's Eve had passed without incident. A few days later, as is now widely known, he was hurriedly dismissed from his post by the German government. Albers is not the only person to have ignored the disgusting acts committed on New Year's Eve; for two days some of Cologne's public television networks remained silent about what had transpired, despite the fact that a crowd of nearly 1,000 men surrounding, molesting and robbing hundreds of women right in the city center is a difficult thing to ignore. Other acts of violence committed by young asylum seekers have come to light in other German and European cities after this scandal emerged in Cologne. Moreover, it seems that this is not an entirely new phenomenon. On January 11th a report from the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter, which was immediately republished by international media, stated that in 2014, during the yearly music festival "We Are Sthlm" that takes place in Stockholm and in which approximately 170,000 young people attend, 15 people filed cases of various aggressions and injuries by bands of young asylum seekers, the majority of whom allegedly had come from Afghanistan without any family. Just as was the case in Cologne, the police did not release any information on the violence even though the victims brought forward numerous charges of molestation, including one charge of rape. When questioned as to why the forces of order had no information on the events that transpired, the spokesperson for the Stockholm police responded with a terse "I don't know." Advertisement "Political forces must take the lead in this public debate by overcoming the conflict between vapid appeasement and the return of xenophobia that seems to be dominating the public scene in the majority of European countries." It is difficult to justify the silence from Cologne and Stockholm, not only because the public has the inalienable right to be informed of such horrendous crimes, but also because the silence will only exacerbate current problems. It will certainly not help to resolve the problem of growing racism against refugees and migrants; the attempt to suppress the news has likely created a boomerang effect that will provoke indignation on the part of the public, increase skepticism over the authorities' ability to effectively regulate the new waves of immigrants, and feed the flames of far-right movements. The silence from Cologne and Stockholm will also raise significant doubts regarding local public authorities' ability to address fundamental questions or find satisfactory answers regarding the issue of assimilation of new immigrant populations. It is becoming increasingly evident that the central question is: Up to what point can a peaceful cultural existence be possible with new migrants and refugees coming mainly from largely Islamic countries? Although this question encompasses various aspects of our society, the problem becomes most evident when the daily interactions between people are taken into account. When considering this issue, it is necessary to know if these migrants and refugees are willing to accept and respect the freedom that nearly every European country bestows upon its women, minorities and gay people. Advertisement A few days ago, the The Guardian published an editorial that urged readers to not be afraid to raise difficult questions regarding the assimilation of migrants and refugees. This reasonable suggestion was certainly not heeded by the Swedish and German authorities, who, with the willing collaboration of some media outlets, had chosen to ignore a serious episode of violence that emphasizes the necessity of raising questions on cultural coexistence. Ignoring a problem undoubtedly does not make it easier to find a solution, which will never occur unless the problem can be discussed openly. It seems a public debate on the subject of immigration is necessary; one that will confront the heart of the multiculturalism issue. Political forces must take the lead in this public debate by overcoming the conflict between vapid appeasement and the return of xenophobia that seems to be dominating the public scene in the majority of European countries. Six food halls have opened in the past five years in Manhattan, from Gotham West Market to Eataly near Madison Square Park, Plaza Food Hall at Fifth Avenue, Gansevoort Market in the Meatpacking District, Hudson Eats at Brookfield Place in Battery Park City, and City Kitchen in Times Square. Prepare your palate.... Gotham West Market 600 Eleventh Avenue New York, NY 10036 (212) 582-7940 Opened in 2013, and has become a favorite of our City's foodies. Some of the city's star chefs do their thing at this food hall offering both counter and communal table seating. Here is a tiny tour of the treasures you will find... Uma Temakeria; Chef Chris Jaeckle (all'onda) serves made-to-order sushi hand rolls, featuring temaki and NYC's first sushi burrito.Indie Fresh; chef prepared healthy foods. Ample Hills Creamery; Brooklyn-based Zagat's #1 rated ice cream shop in New York City.Blue Bottle Coffee; best coffee ever. The Cannibal; market-driven charcuterie, small plates, beer and cocktails.El Colmado; Chef Seamus Mullen of Tertulia.Genuine Roadside; AvroKO, the design and hospitality firm creates burgers, shakes, tacos, cocktails and more. Ivan Ramen Slurp Shop by Ivan Orkin, the world-renowned ramen expert.Choza Taqueria; authentic Mexican food.NYC Velo has its second bike shop. Evelyn's Kitchen; owner and executive chef Ayala Donchin serves her signature Pudgies (soft, doughy, 'more-than-a-cookie' cookies!) in flavors such as Banana Pudding, Coconut Cream Pie and Devil Dog. Eataly 200 5th Ave New York, NY 10010 (212) 229-2560 Oscar Farinetti is the founder and creator joined by Mario Batali, Joe Bastianich and Lidia Matticchio Bastianich bringing the best Italian products made by regional farmers, bakers, and pasta makers. Eataly is the largest Italian marketplace in the world, offering a variety of restaurants, food and beverage counters, bakery, retail items, and a cooking school. The restaurants on the menu at Eataly include Baita, Pranzo, La Pizza & La Pasta, Le Verdure, Il Pesce, Manzo, and La Piazza. The Plaza Food Hall at The Plaza Hotel 1 West 59th Street New York, NY 10019 (212) 759-3000 Located in the most famous and elegant hotel in the City, the 32,000-square-foot space is a haven for locals, tourists, and hotel guests to meet, dine, and shop in a space much like European food halls. Dive into divine fare by Billy's Bakery, Chi Noodle Bar, Epicerie Boulud, FP Patisserie, Kusmi Tea, Lady M, La Maison du Chocolat, Luke's Lobster, No. 7 Sub, Olma Caviar Boutique & Bar, Ora di Pasta, Pain D'Avignon, Piada, Pizza Rollio, Sabi Sushi, Tartinery, Todd English Food Hall, Vin Sur Vingt, Vive la Crepe, William Greenberg Desserts, YoArt Frozen Yogurt Boutique; all in one divine space scattered with table seating, communal seating, and bar seating. Advertisement Gansevoort Market 52 Gansevoort Street New York, NY 10014 (212) 242-1701 Located in the Meatpacking District, an airy 8,000-square-feet of seating, browsing, and eating. Enjoy; Bangkok Bar, The BRUFFIN Cafe (a light and flaky, brioche-like pastry filled with high quality ingredients sourced from around the world), Cappone's Salumeria, Champion Coffee, Crepe Sucre French crepe bar, Dana's Bakery, Sushi Dojo Express, Donostia, Ed's Lobster Bar, feelfood, Flower Girl NYC, Heermance Farm, Il Conte Italian Pasta, Luzzo's Pizza, Meatball Guys, Meyers of Keswick, Mission Ceviche, M'o Il Gelato, M Terranean, Organic Gemini, Palenque, Tacombi Tacos, tease NYC, and Yiaourti. Hudson Eats - Brookfield Place 200 Vesey Street New York, NY 10281 (212) 417-7000 First and foremost the views are spectacular: seating in the second floor space overlooks the New York Harbor and New Jersey beyond. Battery Park City's 600-seat, 35,000-square-foot food hall features are star studded lineup that expands constantly: Umami Burger, Tartinery, Blue Ribbon Sushi, Black Seed, Little Muenster, Skinny Pizza, Dig Inn, Sprinkles, Olive's, Chop't, Dos Toros, Mighty Quinn's, Num Pang, Northern Tiger, Amada (coming soon), Digg Inn Seasonal Market, Financier Patisserie, P.J. Clarke's, and Parm. Le District is the 25,000-square-foot French inspired marketplace of bustling districts of culinary-specific stations, restaurants (Beabourg, le Bar, L'Appart), and a fantastic fresh grocery. City Kitchen - CITY KITCHEN at ROW NYC 700 8th Avenue at 44th Street New York, NY 10036 Showcases nine gourmet vendors to the heart of it all; Times Square. Lobster rolls from Luke's, doughnuts from Dough, sushi from Azuki, burgers from Whitmans and seasonal fare like Wooly's shaved ice and Sigmund's Pretzels. Kuro Obi features ramen bowls, Gabriela's serves fish tacos, and another outpost of Madison Square Park Lebanese favorite, Ilili Box. The space has an industrial feel; white subway tile, steel and leather stools, reclaimed wood, marble countertops and Italian glass chandeliers. Food Hall Happenings....on to the next! Eataly's founder, Oscar Farinetti, has announced plans to open two more Eataly locations in Manhattan, while a Nordic-themed food hall is slated to open in Vanderbilt Hall inside Grand Central Station. Advertisement Group of friends (16-19) studying outdoors, elevated view By, Alan Hance and Stephen Buka, Brown University This post was originally published on Footnote, a website that brings academic research and ideas to a broader audience. On a fall day in Providence, Brown University student Kate Nussenbaum watched her "scientific hero" Adele Diamond share research on child brain development with an audience of teachers, child care workers, Brown students, community leaders, and local policy makers. Advertisement Diamond, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of British Columbia, discussed how children develop a particular set of skills, called executive functions, that are essential to success in school and throughout life. She also addressed a topic practitioners in the room were eager to hear about: what educators and caregivers can do to help children who lag behind. Diamond's presentation kicked off a day-long symposium in October 2014 that was the culmination of months of planning by a group of students (including Nussenbaum), professors, and leaders from local organizations. They were participants in a program called TRI-Lab that connects education and research to real-world problem solving. TRI-Lab is part of a university-wide effort to foster collaboration between students, faculty, and the broader community and promote "engaged learning" that blends theory and practice. This new effort, the Engaged Scholars Program (ESP), expands the Brown educational experience by supporting students' involvement in internships, volunteering, research, entrepreneurship, and other forms of experiential learning that complement their academic studies. A key element of ESP is the integration of opportunities for research and practice into student concentrations (majors) within departments. Another component is interdisciplinary programs like TRI-Lab, which has students collaborate with faculty and community leaders to learn about pressing challenges in the local community and pursue solutions to these problems. Advertisement The theme for TRI-Lab's inaugural year was early childhood development, with a focus on the health and well-being of Rhode Island's children. Nussenbaum, who graduated in May with a degree in cognitive neuroscience and a focus on brain development, wanted to pursue engaged scholarship through TRI-Lab because of the unique chance it afforded to engage with the community outside the university. "It seemed like the perfect opportunity to wrestle with some of the questions I had already been [considering] in a more tangible way," Nussenbaum says. "How do I devote myself to research but still feel like I'm doing good in the world? How do I make sure the research I'm doing is relevant?" Over the course of the year, she worked with and learned from fellow students specializing in cognitive science, public health, and urban education, as well as experts like Steve Buka, chair of the Department of Epidemiology at Brown's School of Public Health, and Leslie Gell, director of Ready to Learn Providence, a local organization that works to improve early childhood education for low-income children. Nussenbaum, Gell, and Buka's TRI-Lab group wanted to narrow their focus to a topic in child development that was of interest to both researchers and practitioners. Executive functions was a natural fit, as it has received a great deal of attention in both the academic and education worlds in recent years. Executive functions are the cognitive processes by which our minds manage thought and behavior. They include the ability to juggle various pieces of information (working memory), to shift between thoughts and perspectives as a situation changes (cognitive flexibility), and to choose whether or not to engage in particular thoughts and actions (inhibitory control). Advertisement Almost everything we do that involves higher-level thinking relies on executive functions. They enable students to engage productively in class discussion, following the thread of conversation and contributing at the right moment. Studies have found that deficiencies in executive functions can lead to poor performance at school and work, substance abuse, violence, and a host of other challenges. Research has also shown that children from higher-income households perform better on tests of executive functions than children from lower-income households. This disparity has drawn the attention of educators because it may offer a potential explanation for - and possible solution to - the wide disparity in educational achievement between students from different socioeconomic backgrounds. If researchers and educators can figure out how to improve the executive functions of low-income children to match those of their high-income peers, we may begin to close the stubborn achievement gap. Solving this problem requires first closing another gap - between how academics think about "executive functions" and how the term is used in the early education world. By bringing together a diverse group of stakeholders, TRI-Lab revealed points of divergence between the worlds of research and practice. While both are concerned with similar problems and share common goals, they don't communicate often and, when they do, they speak different languages. The purpose of the TRI-Lab symposium - and the research brief the group produced to accompany it - was to close this gap and align practitioners and researchers on what executive functions are, why they matter, and how they can be improved. A corresponding goal was to encourage researchers who study executive functions to think about the educational needs and challenges of the community and how their research might be applied in the classroom and the home. For practitioners like Leslie Gell, it's the application of research that is most essential. Her organization recently received a $3 million dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Education to implement a program designed to strengthen executive functions in elementary schools across Providence. Understanding the research on what works is essential for practitioners like Gell who are trying to improve executive functions among low-income children. Advertisement As for Nussenbaum, she won a Rhodes Scholarship to study the science of attention, memory, and learning at Oxford. Seeing the myriad ways different people approached the same problem in TRI-Lab helped her realize that she wants to focus her efforts on research. The program also made a lasting impression on how she wants to conduct her academic work. "Even though I've decided to pursue the research path, it's really important to... be thinking about how this research can eventually be applied, how I can do work to make sure the applications of this research actually move forward," says Nussenbaum. "Those are definitely questions that are going to remain on my mind." Another lesson Nussenbaum learned from her engaged scholarship at Brown? There are no easy answers to the question of how to connect academic research and real-world policy and practice. It was challenging for a group of people with diverse backgrounds, interests, and goals to come together and develop a high-impact project everyone could contribute to. Yet while there may not be a clear-cut path for how to do this kind of work, it all starts with expanding student learning to the world beyond the classroom. Sidenotes (a) Brown's Anthropology, Environmental Studies & Sciences, Engineering, Theater Arts & Performance Studies, and Public Policy departments are participating in the launch of ESP, and more departments will be added each year. Students concentrating in these disciplines have the opportunity choose the "engaged scholars" track, which incorporates engaged courses, practicums, and a capstone project within the discipline, as well as opportunities for interaction with engaged scholars from other fields. Advertisement (b) Subsequent TRI-Lab projects have focused on access to healthy foods and the public health risks associated with climate change. (c) Nussenbaum also learned more about the Providence community outside the walls of her campus. She was surprised to learn, for example, that more children in the city are raised in single-parent than two-parent homes. (d) The unequal level of executive functions in children from different backgrounds is likely a result of the fact that these capabilities develop slowly in the brain.4 Their progress can therefore be disrupted by environmental factors such as exposure to stress, violence, and chaotic home environments, all of which are more prevalent in low-income households.5 (e) The educational achievement gap is apparent across grade levels in Rhode Island. 58% of low-income fourth-graders have proficient reading skills and 48% have proficient math skills. Among higher-income fourth-graders, 83% are proficient in reading and 77% in math. 71% of low-income students and 93% of higher-income students in Rhode Island graduate from high school in four years.1 (f) The program, called Mind in the Making, was developed by the Families and Work Institute based on a review of over a thousand academic studies and interviews with dozens of researchers. It aims to teach educators and parents what executive functions are and how they can help children cultivate these skills. Endnotes Everywhere memory is in danger--in our heads, in our disappearing bookstores, in the Twittering reduction of communication to chatter, and as the black market in physical markers of memory scales unparalleled heights enriching the world's richest collectors to the benefit of revolutionary terror. Not merely the ongoing destruction of Palmira by ISIS, its ancient marbles drilled and hacked into pieces by concrete cutters but thousands of heads, busts, arches and columns throughout Irak and Syria disappeared into the salons and vaults of the world's wealthiest families. And now at greater risk than ever before are the most prized residues of classical Rome scattered across the sands of Libya. Libya is but the latest country to be placed on the International Council of Museum's (ICOM) Red List of endangered cultural objects. Marbles, sandstone pieces, bronzes, ceramics: most of them were never at risk when Libya was under the grip of the bloody dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who like Egypt's Mubaraks saw them as important pieces of family treasure. Just as did Saddam Hussein in Irak. Aside from their all too obvious value on the black market, the great puzzlement to many of us in the West, is why these treasures possess seemingly no meaning to the multiple jihadist radicals blooming up across Africa and the Middle East. How could it be that these crusaders for the memory of the Prophet have no appreciation for the wonders of the world from which the Prophet sprang? Advertisement The quick answer from armchair pundits is that today's jihadists are loser nihilists swallowed up in a whirlpool of fundamentalist dementia, men--mostly men--who have no idea what their bombs and kalishnikovs are destroying. More careful thinkers propose a more complex explanation. One of the most interesting is Scott Atran, an American anthropologist who has spent his life examining religious movements. In a recent article, "ISIS is a revolution," in the online magazine Aeon, Atran argued at length that the West fundamentally misunderstands the mission of the radicals allied with the Islamic State. "Despite our relentless propaganda campaign against the Islamic State as vicious, predatory and cruel - most of which might be right - there is little recognition of its genuine appeal, and even less of the joy it engenders. The mainly young people who volunteer to fight for it unto death feel a joy that comes from joining with comrades in a glorious cause, as well as a joy that comes from satiation of anger and the gratification of revenge (whose sweetness, says science, can be experienced by brain and body much like other forms of happiness). Take away the Islamic State's outward targets and concentrate instead on the nature of their internal fervor. Their profile is not so far many other revolutionary zealots--including the dedicated militants of the underground Weatherman movement of 1970s America, founded by star scholars Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, symbolized perhaps most grostesquely by their infamous celebration of the murder of pregnant actress Sharon Tate when Charles Manson stabbed her with a fork in her abdomen: "Offing those rich pigs with their own forks and knives, and then eating a meal in the same room, far out! The Weathermen dig Charles Manson," followed by fists held high with fingers extended and the cry, "Eat Fork." More deeply in American history, look closely at the British accounts of the insatiable American revolutionaries in 1775 or the wanton terror that followed the beheadings and disembowelments of the French aristocracy in 1789. Or as Mao Tse Tung reportedly remarked, "A Revolution is not a picnic." Advertisement Of course, most of America, including most of the 1970s American left, curdled at the thought of comparing the American or French Revolutions with the bombings and rhetoric of Dohrn, Ayers and the Weather Underground. To see the Weather activists, some of whom I later knew and lived with, as leading a genuine national uprising appears to us today as ludicrous, even embarrassing. But most of those who were in it and have long since blushed with deep embarrassment at their youthful engagements, still speak of the unparalleled joy of engaging in a messianic transformation--a transformation that aimed essentially at unraveling the criminal Vietnam War and the persistent racism that was a betrayal of America's highest ideals. Which returns us to ISIS and its proliferating campaign of destruction. "[T]here is also a subliminal joy felt across the region for those who reject the Islamic State's murderous violence yet yearn for the revival of a Muslim Caliphate and the end to a nation-state order that the Great Powers invented and imposed," Scott Atran writes. "It is an order that has failed, and that the US, Russia and their respective allies are trying willy-nilly to resurrect, and it is an order that many in the region believe to be the root of their misery. What the ISIS revolution is not, is a simple desire to return to the ancient past. The idea that ISIS seeks a return to medieval times makes no more sense than the idea that the US Tea Party wants to return to 1776. 'We are not sending people back to the time of the carrier pigeon,' Abu Mousa, ISIS's press officer in Raqqa, has said. 'On the contrary, we will benefit from development. But in a way that doesn't contradict the religion.'" Still, why the wanton destruction of the region's magnificent architecture and artifacts? For some, the answer is religion. Just as the "Christian" Old Testament warns "thow shalt have no other gods before thee" so Islamic monotheism also rejects any recognition of earlier or other gods or their temples. For those relatively few religious fundamentalists monuments of faiths and civilizations gone by are symbols of apostasy. But for the genuine architects of the would-be new Caliphate--many of whose leaders come from Saddam Hussein's secular Baathist movement--the bowls, the arches, the statuary are plain symbols of Occidental occupation, which in venerating the Romans, the Phoenicians and the Greeks all but erases a thousand years of Arab accomplishments in science, poetry and architecture. To blast those monuments of Western Civilization into piles dust, or to disappear them into the halls of greedy western plutocrats, is a direct and simple assault on the dominance of western memory. Advertisement To that end, as more and more ancient treasures are placed on ICON's Red Lists of endangered artifacts--a Red List that is itself largely financed by the U.S. Government--they in fact become even more important targets of the far-flung and highly disparate jihadist revolution. But in destroying these ancient markers of the past what then, westerners ask, does the would-be Caliphate positively seek? Here again, Scott Atran explains, their objective--not so different from Turkish president Ercep Erdogan's dream--is to remount the lost Ottoman Empire in modern terms and forever erase the artificial boundaries drawn by the victors of World War I. "All of the European political imports and even nationalism itself (except maybe for Turkey, Egypt and Iran, which are still more built around ethnicity and faith than national identity per se) have failed in the Middle East, and miserably so. People are longing for something in their history, in their traditions, with their heroes and their morals; and the Islamic State, however brutal and repugnant to us and even to most in the Arab-Muslim world, is speaking directly to that. "What inspires the most lethal assailants today is not so much the Quran but a thrilling cause and a call to action that promises glory and esteem in the eyes of friends. Yet the U.S. and Western powers don't seem to recognize that revival. The hackneyed solutions amount to a tired call to shore up the broken nation-state system imposed in the aftermath of the First World War by the European victors, Great Britain and France, and a reaffirmation of 'moderate Islam', which appeals to young people's longings for adventure, glory, ideals and significance even less than does the eternal promise of shopping malls." Or the artifacts of Greece and Rome that the West hallows that western democracies revere as the hearthstone of their civilizations. Advertisement This article first appeared on the blog of Intentional Insights, a nonprofit organization that empowers people to refine and reach their goals by providing research-based content to help improve thinking, feeling, and behavior patterns. How can we gain a richer life purpose and meaning through rational political engagement? You pass through the long security line at the United States Capitol building in Washington, DC. While the line of tourists streams forward into the Exhibition Hall, you turn right, and head to the Senate appointment desk. There, you sign in, get an ID badge, and are guided by a security officer to a large meeting room. You mingle with political staffers, reporters, and various notables. Soon, your state's Senator walks in. You introduce yourself, talk to the Senator one-on-one for several minutes, describe what you care about, and how s/he can help improve US policy. The Senator hears you out, responds to your concerns, and connects with you on a human level. This story may sound unreal, but it does happen. I'm living proof, as that is my story. I, along with Agnes Vishnevkin, my wife and fellow Intentional Insights co-founder, met with Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown at the constituent coffee hour that he holds regularly. We talked with him about the issues we cared about, such as using reason and science to inform education and family planning. We also shared with him about Intentional Insights and its mission of translating complex academic research into practical strategies and tools that help people achieve their goals in daily life. He heard us out and expressed support for our issues and perspectives, and endorsed the mission of Intentional Insights. I was especially surprised when, after I told him I research meaning and purpose and decision-making practices in the Soviet Union, he started speaking to me in Russian. Advertisement Apparently, he studied Russian as his undergraduate major, and still remembered it, which impressed me quite a bit. So what does this political advocacy have to do with meaning and purpose? Well, a strong sense of meaning and purpose clearly correlates with serving others. Likewise, developing and cultivating social and community bonds generally leads to a powerful feeling of a meaningful and purposeful life. And my and Agnes' meeting with Senator Brown at constituent coffee hour included both. We met Senator Brown as part of the 2014 Lobby Day and Policy Conference hosted by the Secular Coalition for America. We received training in how to lobby politicians, panel presentations on how to advocate for reason-based political decision-making, and supporting materials on the benefits of using science and data to inform policy. Such political advocacy offers an indirect but powerful means of serving others through influencing the government to adopt the most rational approaches in serving the public good. Moreover, the event offered the opportunity to develop and cultivate social and community bonds with fellow Americans who cared about reason-oriented political decision-making. I was excited and enthused to meet so many others across the country who wanted the government to make decisions based on rational evidence, not on traditional cached thinking patterns, gut reactions, genetic differences, or anti-science dogmatic claims. Advertisement The Ohio Secular Summit blog post describes how those who participated found it an empowering and meaningful experience. This demonstrates on a concrete level the research-based evidence of how we can gain a sense of purpose and meaning from serving others through political advocacy, especially when united together with members of our community in a way that helps cultivate social bonds. Calling, sending letters, e-mailing, and signing petitions is harder to translate into a visceral sense of meaning and purpose. I would suggest stopping and thinking through intentionally about how you serve others through your political advocacy to advance the public good. Through such actions, you can become a true agent of change in your society, and find meaning and purpose through helping create a world where the government relies on research-based strategies to evaluate reality clearly and make effective decisions, enabling all of us to live optimally happy, healthy, fulfilling and flourishing lives. Have you engaged in any political advocacy, by yourself or with others in your social circle? If so, what benefits do you think you gained? If not, how could you gain benefits from doing so? How could your local community and our society as a whole can benefit from such activities on your part? If you think these activities would be beneficial for you, what are practical steps you can take to help yourself and others in your social circle engage in political advocacy? To avoid missing out on content that helps you reach your goals, subscribe to the Intentional Insights monthly newsletter. The generosity of readers like you made this article possible. If you benefited from reading it, please consider volunteering or/and making a tax-deductible contribution to Intentional Insights. Thank you for being awesome! --Photo credit Daily Beast The video of a Chicago police officer gunning down a teenaged Laquan McDonald has reignited a fervor for democracy in the city often described as the most politically corrupt--that is, anti-democratic--in America. People are taking to the streets, and even more so the internet, to express their disapproval with Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the corporate-political power structure he represents. And people are not just whining. They're saying that the power structure should fall, and they're talking about how to make it happen. They themselves sometimes join in the make-ing. In other words, famously-blase Chicagoans seem to have taken the reigns of agency. At the same time, the video's release has made editors and producers think twice before taking police at their word. The data as to why we shouldn't have trusted the police line was there; it was readily available. But the gatekeepers refused to truly see it. Maybe they just couldn't imagine living in a world wherein they have some power, and stuff is still messed up. Why? In that case, they would be partially to blame. Advertisement Regardless, now the media gatekeepers don't stop at asking police what happened--maybe due to the demands of their readers. Editors are asking whether an officer had been deposed, under oath, while giving his or her story. And the good editors still doubt enough to seek every possible verification. (Google "police and perjury" and see what you find.) When an officer says "he pointed a gun at me," reporters are now asking "did you recover a gun? Who is it registered to? Is there a clear chain of custody for that gun? Please give me any video that shows the incident." That didn't happen for years. I doubt this is a seismic shift in the moral conviction of editors and producers. I think it is the power of the people's demands for true investigation when our system fails a fellow citizen. In one way, sure, I got Laquan's video released. Technically it was my lawsuit in which a judge decided the city should release the video. But my work was a very small part. William Calloway brought the story to my attention. (Will has a GoFundMe page if you want to help keep him doing activism.) He realized the importance of Laquan's case after reading stories by the social justice reporter Jamie Kalven and his organization, Invisible Institute. Advertisement But Calloway and Kalven are Chicagoans. They came from all of us. They came from neighborhoods that had had enough of being treated like enemy combatants. Many of their supporters came from neighborhoods that were fed up to hear of the brutal policing in places not their own. Now that some of us are having occasional victories against an oppressive system, a whole bunch of people realize that they, also, might be able to. --Brandon Smith is a Chicago-based independent journalist who, with the help of whistleblowers and the Freedom of Information Act, has reported on civil rights abuses, privatization of public assets, digital privacy concerns, and pollution of land and water. He can be reached at hey@brandonsmith.com or on Twitter at @muckrakery. It's not my problem... I was recently at a cocktail party where the issue of child trafficking in the United States came up in the course of conversation. "It's not a problem in our community," said one person. "If it is really a problem, the police and the FBI will take care of it," said another. "It's not really a problem here in the US," said a third. As evidenced by the tone of a single cocktail party, these types of opinions are widespread. Sadly, they are completely misinformed. In spite of what many Americans believe, slavery did not end in this country in 1865. So-called "modern slavery" is not something that exists only in other countries; it is a thriving industry here in the United States as well. Advertisement An Unquantifiable Problem In some ways, I can't blame the folks at the cocktail party for their ignorance. Try googling to find statistics about child trafficking, sex trafficking, victims of child pornography, or related topics. You'll find nothing but "guesstimates" for the last decade or so - that is, if you can find any numbers at all. After some digging, you might find a 2008 article by the National Council of Jewish Women that quotes Ernie Allen, former president of the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children in Alexandria Virginia, as claiming that "up to 300,000 Americans under age 18 are lured into the commercial sex trade each year." The article further cites a Central Intelligence Agency, report that says "more than 10,000 foreign children are brought here annually as sex slaves or indentured laborers." You might find the annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report issued by the U.S. Department of State, which usually takes hundreds of pages to deliver very few hard numbers, if there are any at all. What the 2013 TIP Report can tell us is that an "estimated" 27 million persons are victims of trafficking at any moment, while only 40,000 (a mere .14%) were successfully identified globally in 2013. 99.86% of trafficking victims remain silent and invisible not only to society, but also to governments and law enforcement agencies around the globe. Even Yuriy Fedotov, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime admitted in his preface to the 2012 UN report on Trafficking in Persons that "gaps in knowledge remain." Fedotov appealed to Member States to do more. He wrote, "We need comprehensive data about offenders and victims in order to assist in the development of sound policies and appropriate criminal justice responses." Advertisement The numbers presented above, whether "guesstimates," estimates, or confirmed data, only represent trafficking, as defined by the UN's Palermo Protocol. This says nothing about the huge number of children currently being exploited through child pornography and other types of abuse that don't fit the definition of trafficking. These numbers are equally hard to quantify and, unfortunately, only seem to be growing. Technology is Contributing to a Growing Epidemic The current growth in child exploitation seems in large part due to the anonymity new technologies provide for perpetrators, as well as the unprecedented accessibility of exploitative content. In spite of heroic efforts by dozens/hundreds of NGO's and local authorities, "The level of paedophilia is unprecedented right now," Joseph Campbell of the FBI's Criminal Investigation Division shared in a June 2015 Time article. "Child pornography and child exploitation is a problem almost at an epidemic level. The anonymity of the web and the ease of posting, sharing, and selling both acts of prostitution and pornography on line have opened a virtual "Pandora's Box" for those who live and work in the shadows. With the proliferation of the internet and technology, the "shadows" have become much bigger and easier to access. A Broken System Intersecting with the rise of technology that facilitates these illegal activities is a child welfare system that is severely broken in this country. Too many children have family members who are complicit in their initial abuse and subsequent trafficking or exploitation. The influx - covered so widely in recent news as merely an "immigration" issue - of unaccompanied minors into this country, is actually a child protection issue. Unaccompanied minors have no safety net and no one to advocate for them. They are vulnerable to the worst kinds of abuse. These children can all too easily become invisible in a system that fails to recognize their needs. Advertisement Further, laws that continue to criminalize victims and justice systems that seem to work against the goals of prevention, detection, and prosecution prevent many of them from coming forward. Though there is progress being made, some state laws in the US still make arrest, rather than identification and rehabilitation, a likely outcome for minors caught "working" in the sex trade. Even when perpetrators are prosecuted rather than their victims, criminal proceedings often require testimony by severely traumatized victims, a further trauma some simply cannot face. And finally, perhaps the most broken part of the system - child exploitation is an incredibly lucrative business. It continues to line pockets, not only of so-called thugs and pimps but of corrupt law enforcement officials and even politicians around the world. A Drop in the Ocean Occasionally all of the stars align and there is a successful - and usually much touted - raid, bust, or sting operation. In October 2014, the press was filled with reports of a "successful" FBI sting that netted 153 pimps and "rescued" 149 of the children they were trafficking. Three things stand out to me from this case: 1) The ratio of pimps to children. How is it possible that there were more pimps than children? We know that pimps generally manage multiple women or children at a time, but in this case there was less than one reported victim per pimp. Did anyone else at the time think this was odd? 2) Since the initial news frenzy, there has been virtually no coverage of what happened to those arrested. A Google search shows no reports of successful prosecutions to date. Sadly, this is not uncommon. The 2010 TIP report states that the ratio of convicted offenders to victims identified in that year was a mere 8.5 convictions per 100 victims detected. Advertisement 3) It is a wonderful thing to bust 153 pimps and (hopefully) prevent them from further abusing children. But if these 153 had just 149 children and there are as many as 300,000 children in sex slavery in the United States, then the ratio suggests that there have to be tens of thousands of pimps operating with virtual impunity in the US at any given time. How is that possible? How can we, as a society, accept that number? Clearly, any operation that removes children from exploitative situations should be applauded. But when there are so many more suffering, even a sting that rescues more than 100 children merely represent a drop in the ocean. "It's not my problem" is no longer acceptable With domestic and international terrorism, refugee crises around the world, and a Presidential race filled with ugly diatribe dominating the news cycles, it seems there is no place for an issue like child exploitation in the news. And when we don't hear about it in the news, so many of us assume it must not be a pressing issue. It is non-existent in the US or it is "not our problem." This type of attitude is exactly what allows this problem to survive and thrive in our country. It is time to bring this "dirty laundry" out of the closet and have a broad open and frank discussion about what we, as civilized and caring society can and should do to mitigate this epidemic. The press can help by pushing forward stories of trials and prosecutions. Individuals can help by becoming more informed and raising awareness among others. They can also push for legislation at local, state, and federal levels that will help mend our broken system. We could even have a national "summit" on Child Trafficking and Pornography and bring together all of those who are working at the NGO and governmental levels so that efforts might be coordinated, focused and more productive. Whatever it is that each of us decides to do, we must do something. "It's not my problem" is no longer an acceptable attitude and inaction is no longer an option. "Roses Re-topo," oil on canvas, Rachel Rossin This is the second in my series on Virtual Reality as an emerging art form. Sitting in a swivel office chair at The New Museum's incubator lab on the Lower East Side, I glide effortlessly across a horizonless, watery blue sky. My gaze has become a force of nature. It pulls me past a distorted refrigerator. I skim over potted plants, a bed, a painting. Bracing myself for impact, I dissolve like a ghost into a hazy open staircase that leads nowhere, and out the other side. The music ends. I make no attempt to move. I'm a little in awe like I've just seen the future. Rachel Rossin, the Virtual Reality Fellow at NEW INC, removes my earbuds. "It's over," she says, meaning "take off that Oculus Rift and get back to this other reality." Screenshot, "I Came and Went as a Ghost Hand," Rachel Rossin Rossin's "I Came and Went as a Ghost Hand" was part of her show "Lossy" at Zieher Smith & Horton gallery. In computer terms, "lossy" refers to the loss of data that can occur when a file is compressed and reconstructed. In Rossin's show, it also refers to how humans consolidate and filter experience to form memories. For this body of work, the artist began by taking intimate photos of her home and studio, scanning these into her computer and manipulating the images. She then used screenshots to create a series of physical paintings in oil and airbrush. Rossin likens this vertiginous oscillation between perception and memory, the real and the virtual to: "(the experience) of walking past the pockets of reality when you're in New York. Walking past the lit windows in the city at night. People's bedrooms, Chinese gyms, little stores. I get the feeling that I am scrubbing a time line like a movie - going back and forth between realities on top of each other." For me, however, these 3-D objects are not like incidental scenes imbued with possible real-time narratives, rather, they look like ancient artifacts, like cave-paintings or rock formations, caught in time. Experiencing "Ghost Hand," I felt like I was seeing familiar things differently, not just because of the data loss which reduces some objects to their raw qualities--color, shape, volume, and which causes erasures, but because of the unsettling experience itself: moving through objects, speeding up, slowing down, torque. When I liken this work to the architectural landscapes of Thomas Scheibitz or the installations of Mathew Ritchie, Rossin disagrees: "I don't think 'Lossy' is an architectural space... It's about the absence and the void in between memories, these memories just happen to be captures of interiors...I see how you're drawing parallels in process between myself and these two but the spaces in my pieces are very personal." Rossin admits that the uncanniness of the scenes, the making strange of the familiar, risks a descent into kitsch surrealism e.g. the melted clocks of Dali's Persistence of Memory. "Yes, an artist worries about Dali as it tends to feel like low-lying fruit, but Dali, like Kahlo is interested in narrative and magical realism much more than Ritchie and Scheibitz." Screenshot, "I Came and Went as a Ghost Hand," Rachel Rossin As "Ghost Hand" amply demonstrates, VR offers the possibility of a new kind of narrative--one that speaks to and through virtualized, cyborg bodies. This language relies far less on symbols and signs, and more on an iconic code that elicits both the memory of embodied sensations and the emergence of new ones. In such a language, affect and narrative results procedurally, through form and process more than through content. In his must-read essay, "Envisioning the Virtual," Brian Massumi discusses this tension between the sensual image and the virtual which produces "a field on intensity" within which the "pressure for resolution" acts as "a formative force." "The question of perception is no longer one of truth or illusion, but of differing modes of reality, in the movement of emergence through which the forms of experience come to pass...(energy) refers to the tension between, on the one hand, the sensuous reality we associate with materiality , and on the other the nonsensuous reality of the abstract that sensuous reality envelops and by which, with equal immediacy, it is supervened." Brian Massumi, "Envisioning the Virtual," The Oxford Handbook of Virtuality (2014) Significantly, in an earlier VR work "n=7/The Wake in Heat of Collapse," Rossin uses the procedural physics of gravity itself to shape narrative. In this work, users progress through three Dantesque landscapes populated by hacked video game and architectural elements, images from pop culture and art history. Rossin coded it so that, as the user descends, the gravity in the landscape decreases algorithmically, according to Fibonacci numbers, a naturally occurring sequence related to the golden ratio. The journey ends with a sophisticated visual pun: a broken staircase constructed from the cover of Susan Sontag's "Against Interpretation," an essay in which Sontag decries contemporary art criticism's tendency to ignore the sensual qualities of the art viewing experience in favor of theory and a convoluted search for meaning. "None of us can ever retrieve that innocence before all theory when art knew no need to justify itself, when one did not ask of a work of art what it said because one knew (or thought one knew) what it did...In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art." Susan Sontag, "Against Interpretation" (1964) Speaking of N=7, Rossin invokes the virtual body of the player in a video game: "In video games you have a certain type of hermeneutics...what you understand as the sort of "body language" or instinct that come with the world. Gravity - especially - falling off of things usually means death. We get this sad little feeling when we watch ourselves die in a video game and there is a pause that actually feels like critical distance and so I used that as a loose Virgil... the thing that pulls you through the layers of the separate worlds." Unsurprisingly, Rossin, who began hacking video games as a kid, writes her own code or "scripts" for Maya, Cinema 4D, and Unity, the software that she uses to create her virtual reality pieces. Although in "Ghost Hand," Rossin gives the user freedom to move through space, the program also moves the user so that she will not miss certain images. Rossin is aware of how disorienting the virtual space can be, so she offers a familiar and friendly cartoon icon: a walking white gloved hand, that serves to reassure and orient the user. It reminds me of what Walter Benjamin wrote presciently, almost a hundred years ago, about the way in which things shift from "real" to virtual modes. "Technology consigns the outer image of things to a long farewell...It is then that the hand retrieves this outer cast as in dreams and, even as they are slipping away, makes contact with familiar contours... which side does an object turn toward dreams? ...It is the side worn through by habit and patched with cheap maxims. The side which turns toward the dream is kitsch." Walter Benjamin, "Dream Kitsch: Gloss on Surrealism" (1925) If Rossin's paintings skirt the edge of kitsch, they are saved by their own opacity. Her images resist telling. In this age of surveillance and TMI, her memories hide in the open. The oddly flat and static image of a woman lying on her stomach on the floor is not exactly human, just as the glowing orb in N=7 is maybe a sun or moon. What does a star or the shadow cast by a staircase mean here except as a marker, a place-holder for some memory of embodied experience? "Roses in a Vase," oil on canvas, Rachel Rossin This MLK holiday reminds me how Alabama has always been a troubling state when it comes to upholding the civil rights of its denizens. Martin Luther King's civil rights activism began in the unwelcoming Heart of Dixie in 1955 when on a cold December evening Rosa Parks refused to relinquish her seat to a white passenger, birthing the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott was the first of what would be many historic marches and protests that would catapult King onto a national stage. His acts of civil disobedience in the 1950's and 1960's help elevate the country's moral consciousness as Alabama struggled with hers. Sadly, in 2016 Alabama is still struggling. So, when on January 6th the state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore ordered all probate judges to cease issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in spite of last June's historic Supreme Court ruling -- Obergefell v. Hodge -- that legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states I wasn't surprised. Rather, I was immediately reminded of Governor George Wallace's 1963 famous inaugural speech when he unabashedly uttered "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!" in defiance of SCOTUS's historic Brown vs. Board of Education ruling upending this country's "separate but equal" doctrine adopted in Plessy vs. Ferguson Advertisement When on January 8th the Mobile County Probate Office reopened its marriage window and resumed issuance of marriage licenses I remembered I was asked by an editor from the UK "what would be MLK's thoughts about the modern LGBTQ movement and the place of people of color in it?" As I comb through numerous books and essays learning more about King's philandering, sexist attitude about women at home and in the movement, and his relationship with Bayard Rustin, I, too, wonder would King today be a public advocate for LGBTQ rights? King's now deceased wife would say yes. In 1998, Coretta Scott King addressed the LGBT group Lambda Legal in Chicago. In her speech, she said LGBTQ rights and civil rights were the same. " I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King's dream to make room at the table of brother and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people," she said. Speculations on what King views would be vary within African American LGBTQ communities. But an overwhelming number in these communities look more to Bayard Rustin -- then and now -- than to King as a spokesperson for supporting our civil rights. Advertisement A blogger wrote me: I tend not to worry much about what MLK would do. I tend to look at someone such as Bayard Rustin as one prime driving force in civil rights and other activism. Rustin was there before WWII. And he never wavered, always looking for something new. It was Rustin who schooled King in Gandhi's ideas. Rustin has simply said that the GLBT movement is the inheritor of civil rights activism in the US... I'll stick with Bayard. Sadly, Bayard Rustin, the gay man who was chief organizer and strategist for the 1963 March on Washington that further catapulted Martin Luther King onto the world stage, was not the beneficiary of King's dream. In the Civil Rights movement Bayard Rustin was always the man behind the scene and a large part of that had to due with the fact that he was gay. Because of their own homophobia, many African American ministers involved in the Civil Right movement would have nothing to do with Rustin, and they intentionally rumored throughout the movement that King was gay because of his close friendship with Rustin. I contend that we must understand King within the historical context of the homophobic Black Church, his waning popularity with the African American community and President L.B. Johnson, and his actions toward Bayard are enough to convince me King would not have spoken up on our behalf. However I, like so many within the African American community -- straight or gay, cannot fathom King marching against same-sex marriage as his youngest daughter, Rev. Bernice King, did. Advertisement On speculating about her father's viewpoint on marriage equality, Bernice said,"I know in my sanctified soul that he did not take a bullet for same-sex marriage" while standing at her father's gravesite in 2004 with thousands of protesters. But is it fair to query whether King would have spoken out on LGBTQ justice when our civil rights movement had not begun? Another blogger wrote chiming in on the debate: King was assassinated over a year before the NYC Stonewall Riots. Gay issues had not reached the level of being a "bona fide" national issue yet, and for King to have made a major public pronouncement regarding GLBT rights would have been historically premature. Note the flak he took even for speaking out against the Vietnam War -- it was charged that he was overstepping his role and the war 'was not his issue.' If King were with us today he would be 87 years old. And had he not by now evolved on the issue of marriage equality, I think the Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice barring same-sex couples marriage licenses would remind him of back in the day of the three Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965 when the state was the battleground in the fight for it's African American denizens' constitutional right to vote. "Had [King] lived long enough, he would have taken some form of enlightened viewpoint regarding gay/lesbian rights. Personally, I speculate that probably he and his wife had private conversations regarding this issue, and I believe that Loretta's unwavering support of GLBT rights throughout the rest of her life reflects the direction of those discussions," a friend told me emphatically. News / National by Staff reporter Zapu president Dumiso Dabengwa yesterday predicted doom and gloom in year 2016, blaming post-congress Zanu-PF and its frail nonagenarian leader President Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace for steering the ship of State aground.In his New Year statement, Dabengwa said Zimbabweans should brace for the worst as Zanu-PF has made it clear that their succession wars were more important than the welfare of the population who voted them into power.Dabengwa said it was crystal clear that the nation has been turned into a political dynasty by a greedy family who think they are entitled to own and control the country.The veteran nationalist, however took time to wish Zimbabweans a happy and prosperous new year even bearing in mind the difficulties that lie ahead. From downtown San Francisco you can throw a stone and hit a few dozen tech companies within a block or two, the majority of which will be out of business in five months. Funding and revenue, they'll soon come to grimly realize, are just as important as product - if not more so. Everyone has a great idea. And a few of those people even have the tools to bring the idea to life. However, simply having a creative idea and turning it into a useful or innovative product is insufficient for growing a successful company. This happens to be why Silicon Valley is famous for birthing companies that shoot up like hot springs - and fall down just as quickly. With recent Stanford MBA grads building robotics tools and Apple dropouts using machine learning to create artificial intelligence applications, there is no shortage of software engineers in Silicon Valley. And there is certainly no shortage of ideas. Advertisement Why then do we see these same entrepreneurs scrambling to write a paycheck four months after their product launches? Building a product is one thing. Making money is another. To succeed in the long run, startups needs investments from Angel investors and Venture Capitalists to pay for development costs, salaries, a working space, etc. At the end of the day, many of these tech-oriented entrepreneurs lack a business mindset and consequently suffer when it comes to raising money. On the other hand, company who do have a business focus don't suffer from this same consequence. Companies who have demonstrated success in raising funds excel with public relations, marketing, client acquisition, press, and public image. This is how you get popularity, and this is how you get money. For many companies, raising money before getting users feels like a Chicken-or-the-Egg scenario: how do you raise money before you have progress to talk about? Or rather - how can you create progress to talk about without the money? The answer is simple: fake it till you make it. Advertisement For a company to be successful at acquiring new clients and getting users, it needs press and marketing. However, as many people would argue, you can't get press and marketing without first getting clients and users. This brings us into a Catch-22. Successful startups have defeated this apparent paradox and got initial traction by creating the appearance of success to attract press, and then use that press to grow their company. A company that fuels its own press. The idea is to focus on the positives. If you can illustrate to the press the measurable success that your company has experienced thus far, focusing on any small or big milestones, you can turn that into a news story. Canadian exploration company Northern Dynasty Minerals is the only partner remaining in the once formidable Pebble Partnership - the poorly-funded proponent of the reckless scheme to build a massive mine in the headwaters of the world's greatest wild salmon fishery. And it's the kind of company that gives the mining industry a bad name. Prioritizing shareholder profits even in the face of grave risk to people and wildlife. Tone deaf to the region's overwhelming opposition (80 percent of Bristol Bay residents). Unable to understand -- or unwilling to concede - that, however important mining is to the world, there are just some places too important to risk. Bristol Bay, Alaska is one such place -- home to the world's largest wild salmon fishery, generating $1.5 billion annually, supporting tens of thousands of jobs, sustaining the region's communities and wildlife for millennia, and supplying half of the world's sockeye salmon. Advertisement Contrast Rio Tinto's record at Pebble, recently profiled in Mines2Markets: Once a major player in the Pebble Partnership, Rio Tinto's top management actively engaged with leaders from the Bristol Bay region and elsewhere over a period of years to try to find common ground -- to determine whether the communities' serious concerns could be answered. In 2014, it concluded that they couldn't. After a strategic review of its copper assets, and based on its consideration of all the circumstances (including a comprehensive EPA scientific assessment of Pebble's risk to the region), Rio's executive team determined that the Pebble project is a bad investment. But rather than just walk away (as Anglo American had elected to do in 2013), it devised an extraordinary plan of community engagement to end its involvement: Rio decided to divide its shares equally between two Alaskan charitable foundations, the Alaska Community Fund (ACF) and the Bristol Bay Native Corporation Education Foundation (BBNCEF). In announcing its decision, Rio Tinto's Copper Chief Executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques explained the unconventional approach: "By giving our shares to two respected Alaskan charities, we are ensuring that Alaskans will have a say in Pebble's future development and that any economic benefit supports Alaska's ability to attract investment that creates jobs." According to the recent profile, both of the charitable foundations have since sold the shares and are "using the proceeds as Rio Tinto intended - to support Alaska's people, hone Alaska's ability to attract resource development that supports jobs, and build strong communities." Proceeds from the sale of Rio Tinto's investment in the Pebble Mine have been used to fund scholarships and training opportunities, as well as to create programs to preserve Native languages, dances, regalia and traditions. Advertisement Rio Tinto's divestment in the Pebble project - and investment in the people of Bristol Bay - demonstrates that successful mining isn't inconsistent with responsible community engagement. It confirms the fundamental fact that there are some places too special to risk, and it demonstrates that, consistent with their economic interests, major mining companies can listen to, and strive to elevate, the culture, vision, and aspirations of affected communities - even those communities that oppose their mining plans. Northern Dynasty has much to learn from Rio Tinto's creative and enlightened approach to the communities and future of Bristol Bay. Rather than attacking the people of Alaska for their determined opposition, suing EPA for doing its job, and throwing its investors' good money after bad, Northern Dynasty should recognize that its own responsibility in "responsible mining" doesn't begin and end with a myopic and, in this case, delusional pursuit of financial profit. Pebble Mine is a bad investment - the wrong mine in the wrong place. Now is the time for Northern Dynasty Minerals to walk away from Bristol Bay. Lincoln enacted the first income tax and the first draft, and supported internal improvements and nationalizing banks. Such centralizing, socialistic, and militaristic restructuring of America was certainly more comparable to the fascism that defined Hitler's Germany than the agrarian-based economies and loose-knit state militias that defined the Confederate States of America. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and imprisoned thousands upon thousands of newspaper editors, judges, politicians, and any other citizens, public or private, who dared to get in his way. Conducting the first "total war" of the modern era -- in which Lincoln's armies intentionally targeted innocent women, children, and old men in the South -- was nothing less than an act of "genocide" against Southerners. There is nothing even remotely comparable in the actions of Confederate President Jefferson Davis or even Southern leaders like Robert E. Lee to the fascist tactics of Lincoln. In this Aug. 28, 1963 photo, The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, gestures during his "I Have a Dream" speech as he addresses thousands of civil rights supporters gathered in Washington, D.C. Months before the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous aI Have a Dreama speech to hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Washington in 1963, he fine-tuned his civil rights message before a much smaller audience in North Carolina. Reporters had covered Kingas 55-minute speech at a high school gymnasium in Rocky Mount on Nov. 27, 1962, but a recording wasnat known to exist until English professor Jason Miller found an aging reel-to-reel tape in the townas public library. (AP Photo) Many Americans celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday by volunteering to help their neighbors and nation. That's a fitting tribute to a man who said life's most persistent question is what we do for others. The national holiday enables an annual renewal of what Ronald Reagan called, "this American spirit of voluntary service... that flows like a deep and mighty river through the history of our nation." But when only 26 percent of Americans regularly volunteer and national service programs turn away more young people than they accept, we wonder whether America is really doing enough to honor King day. Since 9/11, millions of Americans have spent the King holiday serving through groups like Earth Conservation Corps, City Year, Martha's Table, and Habitat for Humanity. Those experiences renew the spirit -- our own and the country's -- at a time of historically low levels of social trust and lingering tensions that divide us by race, ethnicity, income and immigrant status. More service experiences by more people across background, station, belief and borders would promote healing and common purpose. Advertisement This King Day, we can't help thinking of Sargent Shriver's February 1961 report to President Kennedy recommending the immediate establishment of the Peace Corps. That slice of history offers a modern template for how the country could finally achieve large-scale national and international service -- a dream at least 10 U.S. Presidents have shared. Shriver's five-point plan remains a roadmap for our times to engage at least one million Americans in national service -- a goal Shriver and Kennedy had and never realized for the Peace Corps. Shriver's first recommendation to Kennedy was to "supplement and extend the early pioneering efforts so that the variety and experimental quality of those projects not be lost." He did not want a large federal program that would swallow up private innovation, but robust federal grants to existing nonprofits using Americans overseas. Four Presidents -- Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama -- followed that advice by seeding, creating, and expanding a national service movement here at home. Since 1994, nearly a million Americans have served in AmeriCorps, which provides grants to 3,000 nonprofits mobilizing 75,000 Corps members every year. In 2009, a bipartisan majority in Congress passed the Serve America Act to triple those grants so that 250,000 Americans a year could tutor children in low-performing schools, serve meals to the vulnerable, clean up rivers and parks, and respond to natural disasters. If one third of the eligible nonprofits in the United States had just one national service position each, these and other opportunities could double to half a million. Congress should fully fund the Act, which the private sector would match. Advertisement Shriver next proposed that colleges and universities help implement the Peace Corps, noting that the Teachers College at Columbia University had agreed to recruit English teachers in East Africa. Universities, Shriver said, offered several advantages -- an ability to recruit talented volunteers from their students on the spot, train them over four years or after graduation, provide faculty supervision, and develop areas of study that linked service to learning. He called the Peace Corps "a great venture in the education of Americans" with "impact on educational curriculum and student seriousness." If just half of the 4,000 colleges and universities in the United States had such efforts -- as Tufts, William and Mary, Pennsylvania, Tulane, Drake, Miami Dade and others already do -- and offered national service opportunities to just 25 students a piece, 50,000 young people could serve every year at home and abroad. The Lumina Foundation has challenged colleges with prizes to spark widespread innovation. Shriver recommended to Kennedy that U.S. government agencies play leading roles in mobilizing volunteers to help meet their missions, such as helping to eliminate malaria. It would take nearly 50 years, but Shriver's vision is finally being realized. The President's Malaria Initiative has partnered with the Peace Corps and Malaria No More to mobilize 3,000 volunteers in dozens of African countries to help prevent and treat malaria. On the home front, the U.S. Departments of the Interior and Agriculture have proposed a modern version of FDR's Civilian Conservation Corps, with up to 100,000 service opportunities for Americans to restore and protect their national parks and other natural resources. Senators John McCain and Michael Bennet propose to make the new Conservation Service Corps permanent. States and cities have similar efforts through their agencies. Because the infrastructure to fulfill his brother-in-law's vision did not exist in 1961 among nonprofits, colleges and agencies, Kennedy went with Shriver's last option -- creating a federal program that directly administered the Peace Corps. Shriver knew such an approach would constrain the size of the Peace Corps, which numbers only about 7,200 volunteers today. Advertisement In the last page of the report, Shriver outlined concrete next steps and concluded, "If you decide to go ahead on these, the Peace Corps can be in business Monday morning." Kennedy moved swiftly, but confided to Shriver in the Oval Office that "the Peace Corps will be truly serious when 100,000 Americans are serving every year and a million over a decade." More than half a century later, America has the means and the will for national service on a large scale. Multiple surveys show overwhelming support for making national and international service a common experience for more Americans, and the infrastructure Shriver longed for in 1961 now exists. General Stanley McChrystal is leading an effort to dramatically expand national and international service that follows Shriver's roadmap so that the hundreds of thousands of young people who apply to serve every year are not turned away. So as we serve on Martin Luther King Day, let's also build support for this concrete renewal of America's commitment to one of its best ideas -- to provide young and old alike the opportunity to show what they can do for their country. As newly-elected Guatemalan president Jimmy Morales prepares to start his four-year term, the ghosts of the Central American country's past violence are reemerging in a dramatic way. On January 6, Guatemala's Public Prosecutor's Office arrested 18 high-ranking retired military officers for war crimes. These were some of the worst years of violence in a 36-year internal conflict that claimed 200,000 lives, the majority of them from the indigenous Mayan population. The arrests centered on two cases: the 1981 disappearance of 14-year-old Marco Antonio Molina Theissen -- a crime acknowledge by the Guatemalan State when the case came before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights -- and hundreds of extrajudicial executions uncovered at Creompaz, a site currently used for training UN peacekeepers in Coban, Verapaz that was once known as Military Zone 21 (MZ21). Over 550 bodies have been exhumed at the MZ21, and 97 of them have been positively identified, permitting investigators to link victims reportedly forcibly disappeared between 1981 and 1988 with the military officers who were in charge of the MZ21 during those years. Advertisement Never before in Latin America have so many high-ranking military officials been arrested simultaneously in connection with historic human rights cases. Those arrested were at the center of the counter-insurgency apparatus that operated in Guatemala in the late 1970s and into the late 1980s. But these arrests are not only about Guatemala's past. Some of those arrested have long been believed to be leaders of the crime syndicates that developed after the 1996 Peace Accords were signed and that retain tremendous de facto power in postwar Guatemala. Take the case of retired army general Manuel Antonio Callejas y Callejas. He was arrested in relation to Molina Theissen case, but has long been accused of ties to organized crime. In 2002, the United States revoked Callejas y Callejas' visa due to these corruption allegations. He is also believed to be at the heart of the Cofradia crime syndicate, which later evolved into La Linea ("The Line"), a corruption scheme involving the customs authority that cost Guatemala millions of dollars. Last year, investigations into La Linea led to the arrests of the sitting vice president and President Otto Perez Molina. Some of the officers implicated are intimately connected to the National Convergence Front (FCN), the political party founded by retired military officers that brought Jimmy Morales to victory in last year's elections. Among those arrested were retired military officers who were expected to be members of Jimmy Morales' cabinet. And prosecutors have asked judicial authorities to lift the immunity of retired general Edgar Justino Ovalle, deputy-elect for the FCN and reportedly Morales' right-hand man. He is wanted in connection with the disappearances in MZ21. Over the past several years the Public Prosecutor's Office has developed capacity and initiative in prosecuting complex crimes, buoyed by the support of the UN-sponsored International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). This was evident with the dismantling of the La Linea crime syndicate and the resulting arrest and deposal of Perez Molina. The recent arrests were the work of the Public Prosecutor's Office on its own, revealing how far the office has come in its capacity to investigate and prosecute complex cases. This is an important lesson for the United States and the international community as they ponder whether such a body would be useful in places like El Salvador and Honduras, where the lethal mix of inequality and corruption have fueled crime and violence, and which in recent years has led tens of thousands of Central Americans to seek safety in the United States. Advertisement The intertwining of past and present in this case highlights the necessity of addressing impunity at its core in post-conflict societies, and the perils of not doing so in the immediate transition period. Countries undergoing similar transitions from war to peace, such as Colombia, would do well to take notice of the Guatemalan example. The United States should support reform efforts to strengthen rule of law in Guatemala and the rest of Central America. In particular it should listen to the voice of civil society, especially the youth, who played a critical role in the peaceful protests that led to the resignation and arrest of Perez Molina last year. In relation to historic crimes cases, Washington should support efforts to increase the capacity and independence of the Public Prosecutor's Office and the judiciary, especially as recalcitrant sectors mobilize to discredit their work using the outdated language of the Cold War. It was this external influence, as well as malicious litigation practices, that ultimately undid the genocide verdict against former dictator Efrain Rios Montt. The United States could also help investigators by declassifying all documents pertaining to the Central American civil conflicts. Washington should also come clean on its own role in perpetuating the murderous regimes that reigned in Central America during the height of the Cold War. President Obama didn't name any names when he talked about the importance of religious freedom in his State of the Union address, when he called on Americans to "respect every faith" and not insult Muslims or vandalize mosques. Nor did he name names in his Proclamation for Religious Freedom Day, January 16 -- but I'm not bound by his constraints. So let's get to naming, shaming, and reclaiming religious freedom! Let's start with Donald Trump, who bashes Muslims even as armed vigilantes stalk Muslims who are trying to worship in peace, and Republican Congressman Dave Brat, who pretends that only conservative Christians have a right to quote the Bible. I bet the president had bigots like them in mind when he said, in his proclamation: [W]e will continue to enforce hate crime laws, including those perpetrated based on a person's actual or perceived religion. This work is crucial, particularly given the recent spike in reports of threats and violence against houses of worship, children, and adults simply because of their religious affiliation. It's as if some Republican presidential contenders and Members of Congress believe that only right-wing Christians deserve the blessings of liberty, including religious freedom. Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA), an aspiring theocrat who epitomizes Christian right thinking, recently attacked President Obama on a Christian right radio show for citing the Bible's call to care for widows and orphans as the president criticized Republicans' refusal to welcome Muslim refugees. Brat said, "Our side, the conservative side, needs to reeducate its people that we own the entire tradition" of Christian love. Such pandering poppycock would come as a surprise to Jesus, himself a refugee who advocated caring for strangers, who never joined or endorsed any political organization, and who taught, "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36). If Brat is wrong about the notion that the Christian Right owns the Christian tradition in America, then who does? Advertisement One vital voice of historical American Christianity, whose roots reach back to the Mayflower, is the Rev. Dr. John C. Dorhauer, elected leader of the United Church of Christ (UCC), institutional descendants of the Pilgrims. Dorhauer's prophetic voice on issues such as racial justice and marriage equality speaks from the Congregationalist tradition that fights attempts by The Powers That Be to coopt Christianity as a political sock puppet. This is a Christian tradition that evinces love by welcoming, embracing, and celebrating all of God's children, not just the ones who go to a conservative church and vote Republican. Dorhauer, who is a Mayflower descendant, writes, "You might say religious liberty is in my blood," in the preface to a new report by Frederick Clarkson, a Senior Fellow at Political Research Associates. (In the interests of full disclosure, I contributed to the research on this report.) The report documents how a well-funded and growing network of Christian Right legal institutions is advancing the redefinition of religious freedom to affect legal, political, and cultural change. But it rebuts the notion that the Christian right owns the Christian tradition. And it provides tools for progressives to reclaim religious freedom, which is under attack by the right to achieve religious supremacist ends. Dorhauer fully owns the cautionary lessons that come from being a Mayflower descendant and inheritor of Congregationalist traditions. He writes: As proud as I am of my Pilgrim Congregationalist history, I am also aware that within that history is the Puritan experience of the Salem witch trials and the treatment of indigenous peoples: reminders of how religion writ large as a culture's moral compass can bring out the worst in us. By the time our Constitution was written, both the desire to be free from religious tyranny found in the spirit of the Pilgrims - and the need to protect ourselves from religious zealots like the Puritans - would serve to inform its authors. They treated both as instructive, writing into the Bill of Rights language that would preserve our religious liberty and restrict the government's power to establish any religious point of view as normative. Dorhauer rejects the Christian right claim that religious freedom gives them license to discriminate against employees, members of LGBTQ communities, or women. He describes what religious freedom is, and is not: Advertisement I believe in religious freedom, but not the kind that argues that government should grant me the right to refuse to serve or hire someone because they are homosexual. Removing someone's civil rights by empowering the government to protect and preserve my religious homophobia is not my idea of religious liberty. "I believe in religious freedom, but not the kind that argues that government should tolerate employers or medical care professionals who want to deprive women of their full range of health care options. Depriving women of choices that our courts deem legal and appropriate to preserve my religious misogyny is not my idea of religious liberty. A high-profile example of the Christian Right's misappropriation of religious freedom to justify discrimination is seen in the U.S. Supreme Court's 2014 Hobby Lobby ruling, which set a precedent by recognizing religious rights for private corporations to deny the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive mandate. Therefore, the Court allowed business owners' religious beliefs to trump the consciences and health interests of their employees. Dorhauer declares that what the Christian right calls religious freedom "is in fact the kind of oppressive religious tyranny that my ancestors left their homeland to escape." Moreover, in response to the likes of Congressman Brat, he argues, "We can't allow the Religious Right to twist the meaning of religious liberty to the point that it becomes the means by which their theocratic vision is finally and fully realized." As President Obama says in his 2016 proclamation on Religious Freedom Day, which marks the 230th anniversary of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom: When the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was adopted on January 16, 1786, it formed a blueprint for what would become the basis for the protection of religious liberty enshrined in our Constitution. Drafted by Thomas Jefferson, the statute proclaims that 'all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.' The First Amendment prohibits Government from establishing religion, and it protects the free exercise of every faith. Our Government does not sponsor a religion, nor does it pressure anyone to practice a particular faith, or any faith at all. The United States stands for the protection of equal rights for all people to practice their faith freely, without fear or coercion, and as Americans, we understand that when people of all religions are accepted and are full and equal members of our society, we are all stronger and freer. The idea of what religious freedom means is not a settled matter. But Clarkson offers a definition that allows progressives to reclaim religious liberty from conservative Christians who have perverted its meaning in service of theocratic agendas. "Let's first state what religious freedom is so we can better understand how the Christian Right is appropriating it to advance their agenda. Religious freedom is the right of individual conscience; to believe as we will and to change our minds freely, without undue influence from government or from powerful religious institutions. It also means the right to practice our beliefs free from the same constraints. The right to believe differently from the rich and the powerful is a prerequisite for free speech and a free press, the other two elements of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. That is one reason why religious freedom is often called the First Freedom. Religious freedom is integral to the idea of separation of church and state. Separation exists not to limit religious expression, but to safeguard against creeping religious supremacism and the theocratic temptations that have persisted throughout American history into the present." This definition of religious liberty, which is often called our first freedom, is in keeping with the spirit of Thomas Jefferson. The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom which he drafted disestablished the Anglican Church as Virginia's state church and declared that citizens are free to believe as they will, and that this "shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities." Advertisement Clarkson notes, "Historians widely regard it as the root of how the framers of the Constitution approached matters of religion and government. It was as revolutionary as the era in which it was written." Religious freedom is core to America's values because it is the right to believe and behave differently from the rich and powerful, and thus is a prerequisite to free speech. Yet the rich and powerful are trying to purloin the definition of religious freedom by making it a tool of oppression and discrimination. As Political Research Associates Executive Director Tarso Ramos has tweeted: "#ReligiousFreedomIs under attack by those who would convert our first freedom from coercion into a tool of discrimination." This year, as America celebrates Religious Freedom Day, it is important to remember that this freedom is the right to believe and behave as one chooses without fear, because church and state are separated, but it is not a license to discriminate or to impose one's religious beliefs on others. Thomas Jefferson wanted to be remembered for drafting this statute, which establishes that people are free to worship, or not, as they please without discrimination. You may hear much pious palaver from the Christian right about Religious Freedom Day being all about them and their supposed special privileges to impose their beliefs and discriminatory practices on others who think differently from them and their rich, powerful friends. But friends, we know our history, and we won't let 'em hijack our Thomas Jefferson, will we? No, we'll remember him as the proud drafter of a statute that upends such false claims, promotes religious pluralism, and continues to serve as a vital part of the foundation of America's democracy. I attended a Chamber of Commerce luncheon in Torrance, California and listened to a young man explain how the Trans Pacific Partnership would be a boon to business in the United States. After he made his case, I stood up and told the room of approximately 25 people about the TPP's Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) process. In short, any corporation in the TPP can sue a government (state or federal) for expected future profits if that country or state stands in the way of that corporation making money. For example, if the City of Torrance wanted to find a contractor to build a sewer line, and a large foreign corporation wanted to bid on that contract, they would have to let the corporation make their bid. And if the mammoth foreign company doesn't win the contract, the threat of a lawsuit (the average lawsuit costs $8 million) against the City of Torrance for loss of profits could, through legal intimidation, undermine the "buy local" movement. These ISDS cases don't come before a court in the U.S. Instead, they are tried in front of a tribunal of hand-picked attorneys who may have taken turns between writing the TPP or working for the corporations as international trade lawyers and being one of the triad of judges who oversee these cases. There is no higher court, no attorney in the United States who can change venue on these lawsuits. In other words, they are extrajudicial courts, beyond the U.S. court system. Advertisement Here is the exact wording from the text of the 28th Chapter of the TPP: "...the dispute settlement provisions of this Chapter (28) shall apply ... whenever a Party (corporation or government) considers that a benefit it could have reasonably expected to accrue to it ... is being nullified or impaired as a result of the application of a measure of another Party that his not inconsistent with this agreement." The key is "reasonably expected to accrue to it." Those words really say it all. If any party wants to sue another party, let the lawyers make money! Big corporations can sue governments, governments can sue corporations, but when would governments expect to ACCRUE something? Like money. So really, this is about corporations suing governments. After I gave a few examples of how the TPP can ruin the lives of Americans, (which I recorded), I admonished the young man from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for his dereliction of duty in laying out the whole truth. I said, with my best Jewish mother facial expression, "You should be ashamed of yourself!" I could tell that my time was up. Advertisement The Chamber then put it to a vote whether or not they would endorse the TPP. I felt like I was back in high school. I wasn't the popular kid, part of the "in" crowd. The class didn't "get" it, and the head of the Chamber asked, "all in favor, say 'aye'." A few members said their "ayes" and the motion was passed. Another loss for the American people. This is how bad bills get through. No one does the real homework, they just trust each other, thinking "how can this young man from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce be wrong?" When it comes to foreign policy, politicians love to talk about our enemies. It makes sense. People are concerned about what groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) are planning, and everyone agrees that we should do something about them. But the real test for America on the world stage is not our enemies, it's our allies. And the biggest challenge we face right now is how we handle a crucial one: Saudi Arabia. The United States and Saudi Arabia enjoy a strong economic relationship, as the United States is Saudi Arabia's largest trading partner, and Saudi Arabia is one of the largest U.S. export markets in the Middle East. Advertisement But the Saudi government is also behind a lot of America's foreign policy problems. It has provided funding for Hamas and other groups that have committed terrorism in Israel and was the principal financial backer of the Taliban for at least five years before the Sept. 11 attacks -- 15 of the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. The Saudis also fund schools throughout the Islamic world indoctrinating students in a virulent and extreme form of Islam called Wahhabism. Textbooks in Saudi Arabia's schools and universities teach this brand of Islam, and the University of Medina "recruits students from around the world, trains them in the bigotry of Salafism and sends them to Muslim communities in places like the Balkans, Africa, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Egypt, where these Saudi-trained hard-liners work to eradicate the local, harmonious forms of Islam." The government of Saudi Arabia is also repressive towards its own people. Saudi Arabia's Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice ("Religious Police") was formed in 1940 to enforce the implementation of Sharia law, and today some 4,000 members patrol the streets, "enforcing dress codes, the strict separation of men and women, the observance of daily prayers and other behavior that it considers to fall under the purview of Islam. Women, for example, are forbidden to drive." In 2002, 15 girls died in a school fire, prevented from fleeing by the Religious Police, who claimed the students were inappropriately covered. In 2007, a dozen of the police entered a Riyadh family's home and fatally beat a 28-year old man whom they had suspected of illegally possessing alcohol. The list goes on and on. Advertisement One of the first things I learned in the Marines was that leading your peers is one of the biggest leadership challenges you will face. These are people who are the same (or very similar) rank to you, will not suffer direct consequences of ignoring you, and sometimes not friends of yours. At Officer Candidate School and then at The Basic School we all generally helped each other, but out in the fleet our allegiances belonged to our troops and our bosses. When you cannot order somebody to do something, it takes a certain skill set for leaders (officers or enlisted) to convince others to do what you want. Of course, to convince your peers or others on your team to follow your lead, you have to make it worth their while. Certainly this scenario is not limited to the military -- it applies to any industry leader, community organizer, religious director or political boss. And it certainly applies to our national leaders when interacting with foreign countries. And while it is not very challenging for a platoon sergeant to make sure the other platoon sergeants in a particular company are metaphorically marching in the same direction, it can be far more demanding for America's leaders to convince our allies to march with us on issues central to our identity. A classic example is Saudi Arabia. Right now the American public is consumed with ISIS and their aspirations to use radical Islamic terrorism to form a worldwide caliphate. We see our military flying thousands of bombing missions against them, arming and advising the Turkish Peshmerga on how to combat them, and deploying Special Forces troops to engage them in Iraq. But we are not focusing on the steps our "ally" Saudi Arabia has taken to foster the kind of environment that allowed ISIS to flourish, and never does our national conversation about radical terrorism address the anti-Western vitriol and incredible financial support stemming from Saudi Arabia. Not only does Saudi Arabia finance Sunni Salafism around the globe, but it is also responsible for human rights practices consistent with the most backwater traditions that we typically vilify on the public stage. The beheadings conducted by ISIS that shocked the Western world are licensed by Saudi Arabia, and during two-week period in August of 2014, 19 people were beheaded there, nearly half for nonviolent crimes and one for "sorcery." Our political relationship with Saudi Arabia dates back to the Roosevelt administration after World War II, although many of their state practices fly in the face of what America holds dear. Since then, Saudi Arabia has been America's closest Arab ally. Of course, nowhere is it written that to be allies or to work together on a particular initiative do two countries need to share the same world vision, priorities or aspirations. But regarding Saudi Arabia, the American public (and one presidential administration after another) has overlooked much of its record because of what they bring to the table -- oil reserves and a huge checkbook. Advertisement As recently reported in the Council on Foreign Relations, Saudi Arabia was the top destination for U.S. arms in 2014, and the trade is expected to grow 52 percent in 2015 to $9.8 billion. The kingdom has signed agreements to purchase $90.44 billion worth of F-15 fighter jets, Apache Longbow helicopters, Patriot Air defense systems, and many other weapons, munitions, and training services since October 2010 (including $5.4 billion in Patriot missiles in July 2015), according to a 2015 report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. Many American politicians right now seem to be competing with each other to claim how bellicose they would be if elected and how much bombing against ISIS they would authorize. But many military leaders understand that taking military action against ISIS could only result in a temporary tactical success, and that ISIS can only be truly defeated by ideological and political means. However, Saudi Arabia is one of only two countries (the other being Qatar) in the world where Wahhabi Salafism is the state religion, and ISIS is a violent expression of Wababist Salafism. Recent cables released by Wikileaks identify that not only did then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton opine that donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide, but regarding education in many poor Muslim countries, the choice is only between going to an extreme madrassa or getting no education at all. Moderate Muslim education cannot survive in these communities where is it competing with the incredible funding sponsored by Saudi Arabia and wealthy Gulf donors. But this is exactly what brings us back to American leadership and leading your peers. While it may be easy and more convenient politically to focus our attention on the symptom, our leaders need to focus on the root of the problem. Although many American companies benefit from our economic relationship with Saudi Arabia, their concerns pale in comparison to our national security. Leading from the front, and convincing our Saudi partners that it is in their best long-term interests to discontinue sponsoring international terrorism, should be a policy that we wholeheartedly embrace. Our American leaders have many tools in their collective arsenal, including not only the military, but also diplomacy, information and economics. Now is the time to embrace all of these components of national security and lead our peers in a holistic manner to defeat the radical ideology embraced by ISIS and other terrorist groups. Racially-charged murders , police brutality, Twitter debates on Hollywood's award nominations, hashtags that affirm the worth of the Black community and a Black President: is this what you thought 2016 would look like? While this is not an all-inclusive list, these are some of the highlights that paint the picture of the present. Then comes Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a day where black people are supposed to celebrate how far we have come, and evaluate how much further we have to go. There is so much to be proud of, yet so much to be concerned about and so many to mourn. Activism in this new age calls for a new fight, a new plan, but most importantly, a new attitude. This attitude should not be built on today's realities, but yesterday's victories. Time and time again, I feel the frustration from seeing another Black man laid out by a cop, or another college campus deal with racial tensions, but I am reminded to act from a positive place because of my predecessors. This is what Charlayne Hunter-Gault, one of the two African-American students who desegregated the University of Georgia in 1961, taught me during our one-on-one for an exclusive interview in 2014. We talked about her experiences and her legacy, but not through eyes of rage. Mrs. Hunter-Gault spoke from a place of courage, and we could take a page out of her book as we stand up to fight our new battles today. Advertisement She kept her eyes on the prize. Mrs. Hunter-Gault told me that she would sometimes go three days before she heard a human voice. What may be worse than the name-calling and taunting is silence and being ignored. But this did not stop her focus: "I learned what I came here to learn." This paid off in big and small ways. She recalls the first day her Greek Culture professor, Dr. Bess, acknowledged her in class because he was so impressed by one of her essays. This was the first time her classmates approached her with positive things to say, and this was a day she remembers as her most impactful. This perseverance is something we must remember during a time where it may seem like we can't win, because the victory only comes to those who keep going. She was there for others. After graduation, Mrs. Hunter-Gault went on to give fifty years to a trailblazing career in journalism, covering news in a way that reflected accuracy and uplifted the black community both in the States and in Africa. She learned that rioting and protesting wasn't her method of fighting - writing was. She credits her trials at UGA as the birth of her purpose: "Almost subconsciously, I made the decision that once I left here, I wanted to be sure that people got covered accurately...I wanted to write about people in a way that is recognizable to themselves." But her most proud accomplishment was that she did her best to be there for her children, and they noticed. This commitment to serve others in work and in personal life helped change lives, the true root of activism. If we remember why we do what we do, we'll do it better. If we do it with other's well-being in mind, we will do it to the best of our ability. She had help. I was relieved when Mrs. Hunter-Gault opened up about how uneasy her journey was, because she made it seem like it was a piece a cake. She, too, needed a mentor: "...you are inevitably going to have frustrations. You're going to have good days and bad days. And what you don't want to happen is to get depressed or distressed, or take something that's gone wrong and really let that bother you." She advised that everyone find a mentor and learn from them. In this modern journey to justice, there's a lot that we may not understand, especially since we were not raised in a blatantly racist society. Mentorship may be the key to coming up with the next-best demonstration that changes a law, an event or just one person that could point us in the right direction. Mentorship might make the difference between giving up and seeing things through. Advertisement She took risks. She emphasized that you have to be willing to take risks in order for anything to change in life. All these points can be summed perfectly by one of her favorite quotes: "When you get to the end of all the light you know and it's time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: either you will be given something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly." Edward Teller Once upon a time, the white working class was the colossus of U.S. politics. White working class voters were the largest bloc in the electorate. They provided the foundation for the New Deal, the most durable political coalition in U.S. history Today, the white working class vote faces multiple challenges to exerting influence, as their numbers and clout have declined. In an increasingly fragmented and narrowly divided America, no voting bloc is too small to be ignored. So, for those who seek their votes, the riddle of working class whites remains. Are they driven by economics, or values, or race, or something else? Have they changed their politics since the days of unions and stay-at-home moms? Or have they stayed the same even as their numbers declined? To satisfy our curiosity, we looked at two generations of survey data from the American National Election Study. Other than declining numbers, these surveys indicate little that has changed among working class whites is unique to the working class. . There is a combination of populist governmental activism, combined with racially conservative policy restraint that appeals to working class whites. Advertisement WHO ARE WORKING CLASS WHITES? Working class whites remain a critical voting group. There is disagreement about how to define the working class: do you use income, where less income equals working class? Or education, where less equals working class? Are they in unions? Or is it some combination? If you say working class whites are whites without a college education, you report substantial shifts in the group to the Republican Party. If it's low income, you find growing support for Democrats. If you look at union members and their families, you see more orientation to economic progressivism. As self-proclaimed veteran pollsters, we are comfortable with another measure: self-identification by the working class. 'Self-identification' questions correlates to the combination of occupation, income, and education measures used above to define 'working class'. It captures labor union members. So we assume that the working class knows and can identify itself. Doing that, we see that, since 1972 self-identified working class citizens comprise approximately half of all white respondents. The number of white respondents identifying as working class citizens dropped overtime from 52 percent in 1972 to 40 percent by 2012. Whites make up less of the working class population than ever. It wasn't always this way. Back in the 1950s, one in three workers was in a union and most white voters were working class. Down South, unions were weak, but the small town white working class and farmers provided the backbone for populist Democrats. These voters were a critical part of Roosevelt's New Deal coalition, cobbled together from elite liberals, urban minorities, working class and labor union voters, older Americans, and southern whites. They dominate the presidency for nearly 40 years, and congressional elections 60 years. But the coalition aged and unraveled. Ever since, the national Democratic Party has struggled with white voters with calloused hands. Advertisement But the working class experience is less relevant to whites than ever before. The American upper income earners are growing as the middle-income earners (between 50K and 100K) are shrinking. Whites and Asian Americans are far more likely to be in the middle and upper income categories, and in occupations associated with them, than are blacks and Hispanics. WHY THE WHITE AMERICAN WORKING CLASS IS CHALLENGING TO POLITICIANS. The Democrats struggle with the white working class because they present enduring contradictions. A half-century ago Martin Lipset observed white working class voters are often politically and religiously conservative. They are more charitable than white collar middle income earners and professionals. And (unlike Europe) the white working class in the U.S. never organized major socialist political parties or challenged the fundamentals of the capitalist economic system (this is what Louis Hartz meant when he said there was an 'American Exceptionalism' - but more on that another day). The American working class is aspirational. The American Dream of income and class mobility, that the kids will do even better than the parent, is widely held in the working class. When surveyed over time, most Americans think they are doing as well or better than their parents did. But the share has been falling over the years. And, among the working class, the threat of declining status and security has grown more acute every year. WHY CARE ABOUT WORKING CLASS VOTERS? The working class used to be an "easy lift" for national Democrats. Democrats did great things for labor in the 1930s. Nearly one-third of the voters of the U.S. were in a labor union in the mid-1950s --this number has fallen to 11% by 2011. Democrats in manufacturing states could count on substantial numbers of voters coming from working class and union households. In the south anti-union sentiment in the 19th century kept organized labor at bay, and in the Deep South in particular much of the laboring class was often not white, and also often excluded from politics through Jim Crow. But in the manufacturing states, labor provided organizational and financial support as well as votes. Democrats think working class whites need its policies. Republicans think working class whites need its values. Several explanations exist for the unraveling of the coalition. These explanations are usually rooted in the consequences of progressive politics. The New Deal and progressive policies after World War II like the G.I. Bill spread economic prosperity. But liberalism changed in response to the demands of new groups (ethnic and racial minorities, women, environmentalists), and the product was inconsistent with the old liberalism of the New Deal. Liberalism wasn't about making sure that workingmen could provide a living for families anymore. It was about compensating grievances of people on the margins. Was the price to Democrats the white working class? A decline of affection for Democrats among working class whites is evident in ANES data. But, as it turns out, they've cooled no more toward Democrats - or Republicans-- than anyone else. A look at the 'feeling thermometer' scores for the two major parties shows that the downward trend of affect toward both parties is the same for working class whites as other whites (See Figures 3 & 4). The level of warmth is, on average, a little higher for Republicans than for Democrats. But, in terms of identification, the shift has not been from Democratic to Republican, but from Democratic to independent. GOP gains among the working whites are modest after four decades (see Figure 5). SO HOW ARE WHITE WORKING CLASS VOTERS DIFFERENT? We used a technique called OLS regression to introduce statistical controls for several white voter features, including party identification, ideology, education, income, age, and sex, so we could isolate the effect of being self-identified white working class, and living in a union household, to compare working class whites to other whites on attitudes towards government, the role of government in the economy, and race issues. Attitudes Toward Government: Whites in the working class are more distrustful of government than other Americans. But white Americans in general have declining trust in government, think government is growing less responsive, and their external efficacy is weakening. With each passing year, citizens become less trustful, believe government is less responsive to their concerns, and are less convinced they can influence political decision-making. Working class whites express greater cynicism toward government than the middle or upper class. However, these differences are not larger now than 40 years ago. Attitudes Toward Equalitarian Values and Government Spending: A major controversy about working class whites is that they vote against their economic interests because of social issues - 'what's the matter with Kansas' argument popularized by Thomas Frank. Data from ANES show working class white support for government jobs, government spending for services, and equalitarian values are unchanged since before the Reagan Revolution. Working class whites are more supportive of government guaranteeing jobs and income and, in general, of equalitarian values than other whites. They are not, however, more supportive of government spending on services in general, probably because it is hard to tell what target groups would benefit from this spending. Advertisement One way of interpreting these results is to say that self-identified working class whites should be receptive to populist arguments for a more active federal government. But, that support is conditioned on government activity being aimed at improving the wages and employment opportunities available to white working class people. Racial Attitudes: Does race matter? There has always been a racial subtext to the white working class. In the South, Jim Crow kept black labor from competing with white labor. Nationally, some organized labor unions were slow to integrate. And, tensions over integration have always been most pronounced in working class white neighborhoods, which most often bore the disruption from integration. The working class whites support for greater economic equality does not translate into support for race-based policies. In Figure 6, we display averages on the ANES Aid to Black Scale by year for working class whites and for working class southern whites. As the figure illustrates, support for aid to blacks as decreased over time and southern whites are typically less supportive than whites generally. These results are reflected in statistical models. After we engage statistical controls, working class whites are still less supportive of aid to blacks. This primarily reflects differences between working class southern whites and all other whites more generally. Support for aid to blacks over time has decreased among white respondents regardless of region or class, but it is always more pronounced among working class whites in Dixie. Advertisement SO WHAT?Our initial look into the political world of working class whites afforded few surprises. We see a political world of the white working class that is less efficacious, less trusting, and finds government less responsive. This world is open to government action on jobs, but not on programmatic poverty spending. It is a world that is skeptical about aid to minorities, especially among southern working class whites. The political world of the working class white looks very much like it did in the hey-day of the working class's political power between the 1930s and the 1960s. Government is an acceptable actor to intervene in the economy if it does so to create employment. But, when government acts to assist through programs or other policies that do not promote employment or wages, the working class reacts with skepticism. And, it is skeptical of assistance to blacks, especially the southern white working class. News / National by Staff reporter Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa reportedly used a private jet owned by multi-millionaire arms dealer to fly to Dubai for a private meeting with President Robert Mugabe - but he was, however jettisoned by the ever presence of First Lady Grace Mugabe who allegedly did not give him a chance for a one-on-one with the 91 year old.As details surrounding the embattled VP trip to Dubai emerge, the Daily News was told by the authoritative sources that the South African millionaire Ivor Ichikowitz- who is involved in arms dealings- provided the jet but it was not clear at the time of going to press yesterday why Mnangagwa decided to use the controversial businessman's plane.Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko also left for Dubai to meet the Mugabes. NEW YORK, NY - JANUARY 13: People walk into the offices of Al Jazeera America, a cable news channel that debuted in August 2013 on January 13, 2016 in New York City. Al Jazeera America announced today that they are shutting down. Employees of the struggling news network known as AJAM were informed of the decision during an all-hands staff meeting on Wednesday afternoon. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Perhaps the Middle Eastern media barons behind Al Jazeera America should have read more Marshall Mcluhan before spending billions to launch the news channel, scheduled to be shuttered come April. The late media theorist Mcluhan once compared reading a morning newspaper to "slipping into a warm bath." We may think we seek out our media, but for the most part, our news gathering remains habitual. The fictional Tony Soprano began every morning, shuffling onto his driveway in his bathrobe to pick up his daily Star Ledger. In homes and nursing homes across American, viewers migrate from Wheel of Fortune to The O'Reilly Factor. Millions drink their first cup of coffee with NPR's Morning Edition. A friend of mine has a martini every Friday evening, when Shields and Brooks arrive on the PBS Newshour. Now that's a habitual viewer. Advertisement Al Jazeera America had the ambition, if not the nerve, to think they could ask viewers to start a new viewing routine, precisely at a time when millions of established viewers were abandoning television, and younger consumers were defining themselves as having never paid a cable bill. The network's CEO Al Anstey alluded to this trend when he admitted that "Our business model is simply not sustainable in an increasingly digital world." Curiously, the Al Jazeera English website was navigating quite nicely in that digital world, and making inroads with American news consumers, at precisely the time Al Jazeera made its expensive foray into American cable. Many had turned to Al Jazeera English to follow news of the Arab Spring and subsequent tumult in Egypt. Then-secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised the in-depth coverage, calling it "real news," a direct slap at American cable news' emphasis on loud, emotional chatter. When Al Jazeera America launched, the video streams began to dry up on the Al Jazeera web site. Consumers were instructed to tune into the cable channel. In the short time that Al Jazeera America has existed, the three big network news divisions have launched streaming services, available on Roku, Apple TV and other devices, to reach those without a cable subscription. Advertisement Al Jazeera America has been justly praised for its sober, long-form journalism. But the network's disappearance will not necessarily endanger such coverage. Again, while Al Jazeera hemorrhaged money trying to imitate the BBC and CNN, the "Serial" radio podcast and "Making A Murderer" on Netflix have demonstrated how digital, streamed content can fill a healthy appetite for sustained, complicated, non-fiction narratives. My first job was supposed to be as a dishwasher until my buddy heard me mention I was applying for the job and got there an hour before me. I ended up becoming the kitchen slopboy/custodian--mopping the basement and scraping out the grease under the prep table after the health department again threatened to shut down the swanky Pagoda. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets... The place is long-gone but I still have that first green pay-stub reflecting my 9 hours that July 1979--for $3 an hour. I remember looking at the top right and seeing $27.00 "gross pay" (pretty accurate considering the nasty work). Then at the bottom was "net pay" for six bucks less. It was my first non-paper route payday so after I cashed the check, I asked my dad who had ripped me off. "Well," he said pointing out the little boxes, "that's the federal tax, that's the state tax and that's social security." Advertisement "FICA?" "Yep. It's for when you retire." Since then, I've come to assume that the odds that the money I've put into Social Security might have been better placed on a racehorse named FICA." Perhaps even better odds were had last week on my $10 on Powerball. The Tweets covering the odds of winning were hilarious... More likely to get attacked by a polar bear AND a grizzly bear on the same day More likely to die purchasing a PowerBall ticket More likely to have your name selected from a phone book containing the name of every American More likely to go jogging But, as I told the woman at 7-Eleven, I've spent dumber $10 in my life. Which got me to thinking... Emergency Mismanager Michigan's Gov. Rick Snyder is embroiled in a scandal involving his appointed Emergency Manager re-routing the water of Flint to avoid piping in Detroit's city water, choosing instead to send along via the public plumbing the polluted water of the Flint River until Lake Huron could be used. This save-a-buck Emergency Manager that bypasses elected officials sent lead-poisoning into the homes of Flint, and may have caused thousands of cases of irreversible brain damage. He is not only back in the cross-hairs of Rachel Maddow and Michael Moore, but the US Attorney General's office and the Environmental Protection Agency... Advertisement Meanwhile, Gina Balaya, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit, said Tuesday her office is working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on an investigation. She would not say whether the investigation is a criminal or civiI matter. (Detroit Free Press link) Snyder, a venture capitalist, was re-elected in November 2014 and won by 4% of the votes--basically the population of Sterling Heights--a Detroit suburb. Of the 7.6 million people who could have voted for Snyder or his opponent the highly capable, undynamic and unknown Mark Schauer, nearly 4.5 million people stayed home. US Voters--the Toledo in the BCS Poll of Citizenship If voter turnout were the BCS rankings, Belgium would be the Crimson Tide and the United States would be Toledo at #31. Fingers are pointed at Gov. Snyder whose "not on my agenda" pledge about not signing right-to-work bills led to him signing a right-to-work bill and who quickly reinstated the Emergency Manager with a 37-day end-around after voters rejected the position in 2012: Advertisement Following the measure's defeat, Governor Rick Snyder and state lawmakers quickly began the process finding a replacement for the law. On December 13, 2012, the Michigan legislature approved a new version of the bill which was then signed by Gov. Snyder on December 27. (link) To quote my Aunt Joan, "Don't get mad at a three year-old at a wedding who behaves like a three year-old at a wedding." Is anyone shocked that a venture capitalist is finding loopholes in the law and slashing quality for the bottom line? Not a bad new deal... Bribing Voters - The True $1 Billion Powerball Let's examine those 4.5 million people who could very well be outraged about Flint's water and see if they can be coerced to the polls next November--or at least take 25 seconds on an app that sends an absentee ballot right to your recliner. Options might include installing voting booths beside gas-pumps, public restrooms or lottery counters. But I'll go back to my first green pay stub and suggest an Citizenship Tax of $5 per paycheck. Then when you vote, you get a rebate from the state. Imagine the revenue Michigan might have hauled in this past election if all eligible voters paid $120 per year into the till--even if every two years they got their $240 back, the interest alone would be staggering. Taking the last election cycle, here's what it would have looked like: Advertisement $1.8 billion collected ("invested" if you don't believe in taxes):120 x 7.6 million voters x 2 years (10 per month, including the non-election year) ("invested" if you don't believe in taxes):120 x 7.6 million voters x 2 years (10 per month, including the non-election year) $765 million in rebates paid back to 2014 voters: 240 x 3,188,956 voters paid back to 2014 voters: 240 x 3,188,956 voters $1 billion retained by the state for clean water, safe roads; and that's excluding interest earned. Just as folks are happy about that big tax-return (really your money lent to Uncle Sam for 12 months) they're probably going to show up in Belgium-like numbers to claim their winnings--even if it goes immediately toward 120 Powerball tickets. Worst-case scenario, if 100 per cent of us vote and the money does get paid back, the house still wins with the interest. Surely CPA Rick Snyder would agree. And in the bargain the majority-winner will be elected from a true majority of voters. BEVERLY HILLS, CA - JANUARY 05: Producer/director Amy Ziering, Lady Gaga, music producer/writer Diane Warren and director/writer Kirby Dick attend the screening and reception at the Peninsula Beverly Hills of the documentary 'THE HUNTING GROUND' featuring a performance of the original song 'Til It Happens To You,' written by Diane Warren and Lady Gaga and performed by Lady Gaga at Peninsula Hotel on January 5, 2016 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Rochelle Brodin Photography/WireImage) We are thrilled that "Til It Happens To You," The Hunting Ground's original song, has become the fifth song from a documentary ever to receive an Academy Award nomination. We are grateful to Lady Gaga and Diane Warren for their inspiring and moving contribution to the film. Viewed more than 24 million times online, the song's video debut sparked a 34 percent increase in calls to the National Sexual Assault Hotline and has become an anthem for survivors of sexual assault around the world. This recognition is about more than awards; it's about the long overdue change it will help bring. Advertisement So, too, is The Hunting Ground. This past year marked a major turning point in the fight against campus sexual assault. Since The Hunting Ground premiered at Sundance last January, we've challenged powerful institutions that have covered up the problem on their campuses for decades. Together with our partner organizations and student activists, we have started a national conversation about the culture of campus sexual assault in America and how to stop it. Almost a million people watched the film on CNN, while more than four million people have watched The Hunting Ground online. We've taken our message to diverse and influential audiences to spark change -- from Washington, D.C. to ESPN Headquarters and the most powerful corporate executives in the country. This outreach, along with the work of our partners, including the White House's It's On Us campaign with Generation Progress, has helped foster a rising tide of action to prevent sexual assault on college campuses nationwide. In 2016, Delta Airlines will continue to show It's On Us PSAs on all flights and 6,000 radio stations across the country will play PSAs featuring "Til it Happens to You." The Hunting Ground has also hosted events with governors and state legislatures, the Department of Education, Department of Justice and the Office of Violence Against Women. Policymakers are listening. In 2015, dozens of state legislatures introduced bills tackling campus sexual assault. This included "Enough is Enough," a bill in New York that was signed into law last July following The Hunting Ground screenings to the New York State legislature. As Governor Cuomo said during his State of the State Address on Wednesday: "We were right when we passed the most aggressive law stopping sexual violence on college campuses in the nation." Advertisement At the federal level, Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Claire McCaskill introduced the Campus Accountability and Safety Act with broad, bipartisan support. Academia is listening. There have been nearly 1,000 screenings on U.S. colleges. More than 50 schools have conducted sexual assault climate surveys, a critical first step for administrators to understand to prevent harmful trends assault on their campus, and hundreds institutions have begun reforming their policies. And as of this month, there are 197 open investigations for colleges in possible violations of the federal Title IX law. Naturally, change does not come easy. We have been met with naysayers, including those who go so far as to attack the scientifically established statistics and the documented accounts of survivors in our film. Not surprisingly, these attacks are coming from schools whose wrongdoings the film exposed, like Florida State University and Harvard Law School, which have decided to attack the messenger rather than the problem on their campuses. Whether they want to hear it or not, the fact is that if we don't make changes, 1-in-5 women will continue to be sexually assaulted while in college, as confirmed by multiple studies. As filmmakers, we strive to focus on urgent, complex topics that will generate awareness and discussion. Our 2012 documentary, The Invisible War, lifted the curtain on the crisis of sexual assault in our military, spurring Congressional hearings and dozens of successful reforms. The Hunting Ground, too, has shone a light on some uncomfortable truths. And in challenging the status quo, we have exposed those powerful institutions that are the most afraid of change. Matryoshka, I've learned, is the name of the Russian nesting dolls I saw growing up. It is also the name of the book recently written by Joan Leof. It's unusual in its format as it consists of a collection of personal essays with reflective questions at the conclusion of each one. It is also unusual in writing style with some essays written to tell a story and others written more as poetry. The book reads much like what I imagine Leof's life is like, holistic and open minded. The two essays that stood out most for me were the ones entitled "The Tiny Doll Inside My Matryoshka Dolls" and "A Grandma by Any Other Name." Without giving too much away, I liked the first because the author bares her soul. It's written with painful and brutal honesty not often seen even in the genre of personal memoir. I liked the second for much the same reason. It shows the softer, more humorous side of Leof. The author shares her "out of the box" spirit with essay topics about her three marriages. She writes about her experiences of being ostracized for an interracial marriage, and for being a non-driver, to learning to love her own body. To open your mind with new ideas and learn more about Matryoshka dolls, tantric sex and what the heck laughter yoga is, I'd recommend a good short read of Matryoshka: Uncovering Your Many Selves Through Writing. Advertisement Joseph McCarthy This post originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times. I've never felt more uncomfortable than I do today," ex-CIA official Jack Devine remarked recently in a radio interview. "We're all vulnerable." He isn't the only one worried about some great Islamic menace at work in America. A school board in Tennessee made headlines after arguing that "the impressionable nature" of middle school kids makes it unwise to teach the history of the Islamic world up to AD 1500. A recent poll discovered nearly half of Americans are "worried that they or someone in their family will be victims of terrorism." The resulting picture is of America under assault from a hostile ideology -- one that is spreading, brutal, a threat and unprecedented. Advertisement As a native son of the Soviet Union -- the Evil Empire, as Ronald Reagan called it -- I am, frankly, offended. Spreading influence? The U.S.S.R. covered an area the size of North America. But that was just home base. When I was in second grade I wrote down a list of countries that were "our friends." We had communist regimes in China, Cuba, Angola, North Korea and South Yemen. We had puppet governments in Eastern Europe, client states in Africa and Southeast Asia, rebel armies in Latin America, and Communism Lite socialists in India and Chile. We had a lot of friends. I wanted to collect a coin from each. Brutality? The Cambodian despot Pol Pot executed people for wearing eyeglasses, part of his extermination of a quarter of the country's population. One could teach a graduate course just on communist war crimes. Threat to American civilians? In 1983, the Soviet high command thought a NATO war exercise in Europe was cover for a nuclear missile attack and came perilously close to launching a preemptive strike of its own. If you are an American over age 33, you came within minutes of being wiped off the map. How's that for uncomfortable? Advertisement And yet, as the red banner of communism marched across the globe and the threat of domestic collaborators gripped the nation, America not only faced down this ideological adversary, but also eventually rejected the concomitant paranoia. That's worth remembering. The Red scare of the 1950s had everything going for it. It had a war in Korea keeping the nation on edge. It had the evidence of communist takeovers in China and growing movements in Vietnam and Cuba. It had the new medium of television beaming maps of falling dominoes and footage of marching armies into American living rooms. It had Sen. Joseph McCarthy's allegations, lists and hearings bringing the U.S. to the brink of hysteria. Above all, it had an entire population grappling with their safety and future in a newly nuclear world. Long after it was over, Americans would marvel at how such an un-American movement had convulsed the land. The remarkable thing about the Red scare, however, is not how far it reached, but how short-lived it was. It collapsed in dramatic fashion. In 1954, McCarthy was eviscerated on live television by chief counsel for the U.S. Army, Joseph Welch, who famously asked: "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" McCarthy slinked off into obscurity, and the nation shook off its paranoia and moved on, determined, defiant and calm. It's hard to overstate the implications of America's triumph over the Red scare. At its core lay a terrifying premise: The communist ideology was so insidious and toxic that no one -- not your neighbors, not your children, not even yourself in your own mind -- was immune. McCarthyism told the nation that it was besieged by an unstoppable evil. In finally rejecting that premise; America rejected defeatism. Advertisement That uniquely American decision played out repeatedly during the harrowing grind of the Cold War. Each decade -- from the Cuban missile crisis, through the horrors of Vietnam, through the arms race and proxy wars of the early 1980s -- American society was forced to again reject paralyzing paranoia. Suddenly, communism suffered a stunning, worldwide collapse; seemingly overnight, the greatest threat to America's national welfare went from thermonuclear warheads to Bill Clinton's sexual peccadilloes. And then, for the first time in 40 years, a generation grew up without an existential threat -- but thus also without the mind-set necessary to confront an ideological enemy without descending into panic. That's my generation. My family escaped the U.S.S.R. shortly after I tallied up all those communist friends, and I'm now a naturalized U.S. citizen. As America's political and military leaders are engaging a new, brutal ideological enemy, I draw on the history of my adopted land to remind myself: America beat back hysteria before and can do it again. We're seated by the gate at Logan, held captive by the airline's whim, watching a steady stream of half dressed, overdressed passengers walk, toddle and run by, but the place remains stale and lifeless somehow. Until a little princess, right out of a storybook, walks into the seating area of our gate. She is unhurried, functions in her own dimension, immune to the chaos, the germfest, the push to get to point A to B. Her presence casts a tiny spell on me. My book collapses into my lap. I'm drinking her sweetness in: a beautiful, clean-faced, bright-eyed little girl--a gene pool home run. Advertisement What would my path have looked like with children in it? Rarely do I question my decision to forgo becoming a vessel of reproduction. My goal in life was to become CEO of a wildly growing company, not wiping little beasties' noses. I even left my husband when he wanted them. But as sometimes happens, this delightful girl seems to be showcasing my poor decision. She looks like what I imagine my little girl would have looked like had I not married my sandy-haired husband of 5'7" and 27-inch waistline, but Bob Redford. Not to mention that I never did become the CEO of wildly growing company, and the jobs I have had have been sort of wildly unsatisfying. I watch her, feeling that regret wash over me. She stands on sea legs between her mother's thighs, crunching Cape Cod potato chips with less than perfect execution, savoring what makes it into her mouth. She babbles, a form of self-engagement, and randomly feeds "Kit-Tee," a wide-eyed cat peering out from a crate on the floor. Women of all ages watch her, heads cocked, wearing expressions of maternal yearning, remembrances, maybe regret, like my own. Advertisement I bet she still has that baby smell thing going on, you know, like puppies. I surmise, too, that Zoe's recently graduated from applesauce and whipped franks to adult food. And now, I think, and a disgruntled flatline my mother used to wear when I was in high school settles on my lips, her parents are giving her junk food, creating an unhealthy palate and a rhythmic type of oral indulgence. I elbow my boyfriend. "If that sweetness were mine, I'd give her a hard cooked egg and fruit to eat, not crap food." He eyeballs Zoe for a nanosecond, nods and returns his gaze to his handheld. I think of the other things I'd feed Zoe: Greek yogurt, kale crisps (much softer than potato chips), hummus, non-GMO whole grain crackers, organically grown vegetarian stuff. And then, Zoe begins to choke. When adults get something caught in their throat, we place a napkin to our mouth, cough, grumble it away. If that doesn't work? We set into panic. We choke like hell to obtain clear passage. We don't care how much attention we draw doing it. We want to live and we fight like hell to continue doing so. Zoe, on the other hand, doesn't understand death. Maternal instincts, ingrained in women's DNA, alert three to their feet. Those not wearing headphones or enthralled with an electronic device, register a disturbance. Advertisement Zoe has one hand on her mother's knee, stabilizing her squat before Kit-Tee's crate. She brings herself upright and faces me. Her blue eyes have teared up, no sound comes from her windpipe. The fragments of crap food are lodged in her throat. She is the little girl I never had and wish was mine and she can't breathe. Someone, do something. The book slides off my lap and crashes to the floor, and then Zoe's mother scoops her up and lays her across her knees. The little girl lies there flat as an ironing board. Zoe? Three deft pats on her back and Cape Cods chips in a variety of shapes project from Zoe's mouth. Saliva slips over her lips. Oxygen returns to her lungs. She cries. The maternal patrons lean in, ask if Zoe is okay. Her mother waves them off. "Yes, thank you," she says. My dream child is back on her feet; the waterworks have subsided. Her father strokes her cheeks dry. Her mood changes back to the state of pre-choking as if by a flick of a switch. She's perfect again. She asks for another chip. This makes a number of bystanders chuckle. I listen, curious to learn if good ole mom is going to give her toddler just off Gerber Stage Four another chip. Advertisement "You can have some Goldfish," she says. Goldfish?! In a Mickey Mouse sort of voice, I say onto the open pages, "How 'bout some yogurt?" My boyfriend elbows me subtly, a prompt to behave. Over the P.A., a flight attendant announces the initial stages of boarding. We gather our things. I impart a secret smile to Zoe, which she catches. Means nothing to her. When we're settling into our seats, an emaciated gray-haired woman with a Tom Petty overbite slides in. Her thighs are the same width as my forearms, and Zoe appears in the aisle. She's screaming like a banshee. Ear piercing stuff. I barely get a glimpse of her because she passes by so swiftly--her father carries her like a surfboard. This must be a common position for her--flat and rigid. Zoe's mother follows behind, toting a handbag crammed with baby survival equipment and the crate containing Kit-Tee. She wears an expression indicative of the relief she's feeling that her husband has finally stepped up to the plate, but also of deep embarrassment about her imperfect daughter. Emaciated Woman and I snap together our respective seat belts. By the sounds of it, Zoe has been strapped into a seat four or so rows behind us. Amid the chaos of the 737's boarding, she has stopped crying and is sweetly introducing Kit-Tee to neighbors. And now again, I wish she were mine, mine, mine. The cabin is packed. There's tight clearance, cramming of luggage in overhead bins. Last minute phone calls are made. The air is stale. Actually there is no air. Tim is giving emergency landing instruction, his props old and yellowed. The teenager across the way is licking the remnants of a BK cheeseburger from his thumbs. Zoe's voice pierces through all this clear as a bell. She has dismissed her affections for Kit-Tee and is dead set against keeping her seatbelt fastened. Advertisement "No, no, no, Mama!" My dazzling opinion of this little girl, wanting to drown in the pools of her aquamarine eyes, having envisioned birthing her through my own womb and canal, flickers like a film noir played on an old projector. I don't want it to, of course. I want her to remain fresh, magical, novel, her presence filling me with regret about what I could have had. The flight gets underway. The minutes slip into hours, it's horrendous. Not because of turbulence, the crew, Emaciated Woman, or lack of turkey, sprouts and avocado sandwiches. It's because Zoe's steady stream of "no!" is now followed by parental correction with an edge and curmudgeon-type shushing. My iPod is packed away in cargo below; I have no way of tuning out the racket, which would have kept Zoe magical to me. Instead, I watch the display that shows the plane's elevation, speed, and the long ass Midwest state we're hovering over. We're practically standing still at 500 MPH. My boyfriend types away on his laptop, the time flies by for him. I listen to little Zoe carry on; tearing apart her magicalness. She was so perfect before. When descent at last begins from 40,000 feet, cabin air pressure intensifies. Zoe begins wailing with a set of lungs worthy of crossing the English Channel. I know this: if I stayed married, I couldn't have had all the daring affairs with executives my father's age. I wouldn't have experienced the freedom of telling off Gloria Steinem and discovering the rugged beauty of the West, proving myself and doing "boys' chores" where my leg "got broke." So what's the seduction of remorse, regret? Even if we are self-actualized, accomplished people who have had good lives, why do we actually sort of like that deep longing for what we could have had? And that's when I discover something really genius about not doing things. It makes us heroes in our own minds. It buoys us up. We can't do everything, there will always be paths we could have taken. And the brilliance of that is we get to imagine doing it all and being perfect at it. I know I know we're supposed to stay in the moment, but most of us don't because the moment can be as boring as a...well, a long plane ride. So, thinking of all those unlived lives can be a way to boost self-confidence for one happy soaring moment. Advertisement If we'd written the novel, we would have written a bestseller. Not going to Hollywood to audition for all those bit parts and staying back east, we get to imagine our lives as movies stars. Not going to law school means we can tell ourselves we would have been kick-ass prosecutors, killing it in the courtroom. People tell us not to regret what could have been, but actually it's sort of fun. Not becoming a mother is so much better than actually becoming a mother because I can imagine I would have had the perfect child. Never mind the choking, the quick-switch moods, the screaming like a banshee. I would have nourished my daughter perfectly, and she would have been absolutely flawless. Zoe snaps me out of my reverie. She's back to her ear-piercing scream. Somewhere around 15,000 feet the display shows the aircraft has overshot SFO. The plane's nose is sticking into the Pacific. I see around me that people are glimpsing in Zoe's direction--even Emaciated Woman--and shrugging their shoulders in a way that suggests they wish they could envelope their ears with them. Land is drawing ever closer out Emaciated Woman's window, but we're back on track, the pilot tells us the 737's nose is destined for the runway. We drop elevation in big chunks until at last the wheels skid. Only minutes remain before we get off this tin bus and little Zoe will disappear from my life forever. When she and her parents file out before us, I catch those beautiful aquamarines, her body is horizontal and at waist-height again. In my mind I make peace with her, thank her for giving me the chance to be a perfect mother to a perfect child. Advertisement She has returned to lightheartedness and answering the saint-of-a-lady behind her about what color Kit-Tee is. The State of our Union is Strong. President Obama and Governor Nikki Haley represented this strength last Tuesday as they reminded us of enduring American values like civility and inclusion. Their words demonstrate that we have durable, resilient democracy in the leadership of both political parties. At the same time, the state of Oregon has offered us nearly two weeks of a 21st century governing challenge. One that has demonstrated a durable, resilient democracy among American citizens. Earlier this month, a group of armed men seized a federal bird sanctuary headquarters in remote Harney County, Oregon. The group members claim that militant action is a justified resistance against government oppression. Specifically, they feel aggrieved over federal regulation on public lands and want to impose their own rules for land use. National reactions to the siege have ranged from alarm to scorn. However, much of the back and forth has been a healthy and important democratic discourse questioning how we use and manage public lands and define terrorism and pointing out double standards in law enforcement. Wanting to avoid violence, federal law enforcement has taken a "wait it out" strategy. Advertisement The state of our union is strong in Oregon, where locals have demonstrated the capacity for calm, discerning leadership in crisis. The closest city to the siege is Burns, with a population of 2,800, 30 miles away. At a Burns Town Hall, citizens put aside their differences over land use (which are significant) and criticized the armed action. Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward has been a key communication link, even meeting with the militants and offering them an escorted departure. Open deliberation and the unconditional rejection of violence is a sign of resilient democracy in action. Federal land use is a long-simmering issue across the American West. Arguments magnify the tensions of East vs. West priorities: wilderness vs. livestock; urban vs. rural; day trips vs. country livelihoods. Yet almost everyone agrees that the laws governing public land are inadequate and obsolete--leftover from the 1870's push to settle the West. To prevent widespread land degradation and abuse of the system, the grazing laws were revised in the 1930's and then the 1970's. However, much has changed since then and the law has not evolved accordingly. The Oregon siege is an extreme example of the modern struggle for legitimate power in a legal and leadership vacuum. Frustration with the inadequate law and the failure of government to respond and modernize it has led to an unacceptable outcome: citizens' use of force to be heard. In the Information Age there are better and more accessible democratic alternatives. Let Oregonians Update the Grazing Law We don't yet know how the drama in Oregon will turn out. But one way we can support peaceful civic progress in future disputes is through new civic technologies that allow group participation in lawmaking. Advertisement Civic technology is any information-sharing platform that facilitates citizen engagement and communication on behalf of the public good. Examples include voting and resident feedback apps. More recently, tools for broadening participation in legislation are multiplying around the world. Policy Forge in Austria, Open Ministry in Finland and Plataforma in Brazil are some of the ongoing experiments with inclusive lawmaking. The intention behind these open government developments is to build democratic legitimacy through transparency and shared decision making. Why not use the latest in civic technology to encourage a modern upgrade of the law governing Oregon's public land? Oregon is already a national leader in civic innovation. Its Citizens Initiative Review is a deliberative process that includes citizens in policymaking. Across the USA, cities are also experimenting with new forms of collaboration. Just this week, Washington, DC went online with its Draft Open Data Policy . Open government platforms such as these, which allow scrutiny and participation in the formation of rules, create an unprecedented accountability mechanism for democracy. Likewise, citizens in Oregon can use Madison, a hosted solution developed for use in the US Congress. They can then download the legal language from Cornell University's Legal Information Institute. Here's the link to US Code Subchapter IV on Range Management. You can find all US law on this site, and anyone can put this platform to work, running deliberative discussions without technical heavy lifting. The questions for Harney County are who should administer the process and what are the rules for creating content together? Ideally, a trusted local institution or individual would organize and facilitate the effort, and those directly impacted by the law would be vital participants. In Oregon this could include everyone from farmers and ranchers to birders and hikers. The Bureau of Land Management and its scientists are also essential players, but outside expertise might also be important and bring with it new kinds of forecasting tools like data science. The challenge will be to find the balance so the process is inclusive but not unwieldy. The state of the union is strong in Oregon. The threat of violence has been met with a counter force of civility. In today's world of governing crises, the reputation of democracy is at stake. Harney County's adherence to civic rules of engagement despite deep differences is a bright light on a murky horizon. The Oregon standoff is not over yet, but let us look to the citizens there with hope for an auspicious outcome. Harney County can stand as an example for Americans and the world of a more resilient form of democracy. One that rejects violence and grandstanding in favor of communication and compromise to solve a difficult problem. The European Commission (EC) is the executive body of the European Union responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and day-to-day running of the EU. Commissioners swear an oath at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, pledging to respect the EU Treaties and to be completely independent in carrying out their duties during their mandate.The Commission operates as a cabinet government, with 28 members of the Commission (informally known as "commissioners"). There is one member per member state, though members are bound to represent the interests of the EU as a whole rather than their home state. One of the 28 is the Commission President (currently JosA Manuel DurAo Barroso) proposed by the European Council and elected by the European Parliament. The Council then appoints the other 27 members of the Commission in agreement with the nominated President, and then the 28 members as a single body are subject to a vote of approval by the European Parliament. The first Barroso Commission took office in late 2004 and its successor, under the same President, took office in 2010.The term "Commission" is used either in the narrow sense of the 28-member College of Commissioners (or College) or to also include the administrative body of about 23,000 European civil servants who are split into departments called Directorates-General and Services. The usual procedural languages of the Commission are English, French and German. The Members of the Commission and their "cabinets" (immediate teams) are based in the Berlaymont building of Brussels.More Photos At:www.glynlowe.com/bruxelles-brussels Recent months have seen many unexpected manifestations of global risks that the Global Risks Report has been warning about over the past years. A number of seemingly disparate events make us think that a wide range of global risks are looming larger on the radar screen than ever before. Have we reached a new level of risk? On New Year's Eve, Brussels cancelled its customary fireworks display due to fears of a terrorist attack. Towns in northern England and in Missouri were hit by floods and California entered the fifth year of drought, followed by storms making the effects of climate change on weather patterns hard to ignore. Add to this the sabre-rattling between Saudi Arabia and Iran over the execution of a Shiite cleric and Chinese stock market wobbles that fuelled fears of another major global economic downturn -- and we cannot ignore the fact that we have entered an era when risks are more present in our lives and are threatening global stability from all directions and at a higher level. And as manifestations of these risks are coming together in one year, is the threat of a perfect storm of global risks overblown? Will 2016 only be the starting point? Advertisement Backing up the sense of generally increasing risk levels, the Global Risks Report 2016 finds a perceived increased likelihood of events across all five categories of global risk: economic, environmental, geopolitical, technological and societal risks, and three of them are likely to manifest themselves in 2016. The international security situation continues to dominate policymakers' agendas around the world. Risks are abounding: terrorist threats and the refugee crisis continue to loom over Europe, and tensions in the Middle East, between Russia and Ukraine continue to threaten global security. Trust among countries is being stretched to a breaking point by increasing strategic competition between major powers, and already frail states that are being further undermined. Reflecting this new status quo of increased fragility, geopolitical risks dominate the Global Risks Report 2016 for the second year in a row. The spill over effects of conflict into global economies should not be underestimated and are also becoming imminent. The refugee crisis threw European leaders off the delicate balance between European priorities and increasingly polarized societies at home. At the outset of 2016, the continuation of the European integration process, which has ensured the stability of the continent and primacy of economic policies over the past 60 years cannot be taken for granted. The refugee influx led Denmark and Sweden to close the Oresund bridge and this year will likely see a referendum in the UK on Brexit and opinion polls show growing anti-EU sentiment in the UK. Should the UK set the precedent of leaving the EU, other member states could follow. Advertisement Uncertainty in Europe would further undermine the already faltering confidence in the global economy driven by troubles in emerging markets: China's wavering stock markets and uncertain future growth, Brazil's many challenges, and high debt levels in many countries including G20 nations such as South Africa, Argentina, or Indonesia. Taken together, the world could be facing another major economic downturn or even a crisis. Given the slow productivity growth of recent years and the fact that the "arsenal" of fiscal and monetary policies is almost empty, the consequences could be dire. New technologies could contribute to future global growth provided that we know the associated risks and pre-empt them through shared standards and norms as well as regulation. Adding to this is the uncertainty surrounding the economic effects of the Paris climate change agreement. While the agreement represents an important step towards mitigating global warming -- it comes at a time when we are starting to feel the early effects of climate change, and to realise the need for mitigation to be accompanied by adaptation effort -- it is clear that significant changes to industrialized as well as emerging market economies will be needed to limit global warming to 1.5 to 2C. If managed right, investments in "greener growth" could fuel innovation and allow economies to leapfrog. At the same time, the first effect of climate change, including higher frequency of storms and floods could entail major human and economic cost. In this more risky, but also more uncertain world, leaders need to take action in an environment of "shifting sands" as each of these risks could have significant impact on any individual, business or country independently, but combination of risks could create cascading effects that are difficult to anticipate and to navigate. The year 2016 may be the warning sign of more to come. It is the higher likelihood combined with the uncertainty and the interconnected nature of global risks that calls for a "resilience imperative" through collaboration among governments, businesses and civil society. Resilience to global risks is not a luxury and needs to be part of any business or national development strategy. No one is safe. No opportunity should be lost. Student raising hand in class Brandon, a six-year-old in the Houston Independent School District, had two working parents until his father was laid off. Brandon lost his health insurance when his father lost his job. Brandons mother quickly scrambled to try to enroll her son who has asthma in new coverage, but met some obstacles and didnt know where to turn. Then the school district, which had been working with the Childrens Defense Fund (CDF) and AASA (The School Superintendents Association), through a partnership supported by The Atlantic Philanthropies, stepped in and helped her find coverage for Brandon under the Childrens Health Insurance Program (CHIP). With his new health coverage, doctors discovered Brandon also had high blood pressure and prescribed medicine to control it. Now the school nurse monitors his blood pressure every day and Brandon is healthy and happy to be in school learning. Advertisement This morning, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Acting Deputy Secretary Mary Wakefield on behalf of HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell and Acting U.S. Department of Education Secretary John King spoke from Brandons school district to encourage other districts across our country to take important steps to ensure children everywhere are in school each day healthy and ready to learn. They called on school districts to recognize the strong link between childrens health and academic performance and to forge deeper connections between health and education for students and families by increasing access to health insurance coverage and health care, creating school environments with physical and mental health supports to help students succeed, and strengthening coordination between health and education systems at the local and state levels. The Secretaries urged state and local health and education entities to collaborate around five action items: Helping eligible students and family members enroll in health insurance; Providing and expanding Medicaid reimbursable health services in schools, including immunizations, health screenings and others; Providing or expanding services that support at-risk students, including through Medicaid-funded case management; Advertisement Promoting healthy school practices through nutrition, physical activity, and health education; and Building local partnerships and participating in hospital community needs assessments. The Departments of Health and Human Services and Education have created a toolkit of existing resources to support real action in states and communities to strengthen the link between health and education. CDF and AASAs school-based child health outreach and enrollment model that links health enrollment to school enrollment is one the Secretaries highlight as a best practice to increase enrollment in health coverage for students and their families. After five years of piloting school-based child health outreach and enrollment in Texas, in 2007 CDF began working in partnership with AASA to introduce and expand health enrollment as a routine and ongoing part of school district operations. The model provides a basic question for districts to add to their school registration materials: What type of medical insurance do you have for this child? Parents who answer none are noted and able to receive information from school district staff on Medicaid, CHIP or other health coverage options. But it doesnt stop there. Parents can receive help applying for or renewing coverage for their children and for themselves and are introduced to community partners who can help them successfully navigate the process. CDF and AASA over the years have partnered with school districts in Texas, California, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi including urban, rural and suburban school systems serving elementary through high schools and hundreds of thousands of Black, Latino, Asian and White students. This work has gotten many children health coverage and led to an increased awareness among school superintendents, staff and parents about the important and positive connection between health and academic success. Many now see a link between chronic absences, poor health and lack of health coverage. When children with chronic conditions like asthma have health insurance allowing them regular access to doctors and needed treatment, they come back to school healthier just as Brandon has. In one of these districts, the Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District (ECISD) in Texas Rio Grande Valley, health coverage screening has been built into the daily operations of Parental Involvement Assistants, or PIAs. Each of the districts 41 school campuses has a PIA who, among other responsibilities, calls absent students homes every morning to ask why students are missing school. The PIAs make a home visit that same day if they dont reach anyone, about 80 visits each day. If a child is home sick, the PIA asks about their insurance status and, if the student lacks coverage, offers the parent assistance filling out the application. During a recent phone call, a mother told the PIA all three of her children were previously enrolled in Medicaid but were no longer covered. The mother, whose native language was not English, had received three notices about renewing coverage but hadnt understood them, and had not been able to renew. The PIA helped her navigate the process to reenroll the children in Medicaid. Sandra Rodriguez, the districts PIA Coordinator, is especially excited they have a new school-based health center attached to the district headquarters to refer families to through a partnership with the Doctors Hospital at Renaissance. The clinic serves all students regardless of ability to pay and served about 2,000 children, parents, and school district staff in its first four months of operation. For many Edinburg families this is the first time they can receive care near their home, school, and work, and regardless of their immigration status. Thanks to additional support from another local health system, the 945-square-mile district will soon have two mobile clinics making scheduled visits to school campuses farther from the clinic site. News / National by Staff Reporter FIRST LADY Grace Mugabe blocked Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa from having private talks with her husband in Dubai over the festive season.Mnangagwa was widely believed to be the front-runner to succeed Mugabe after the December 2014 sacking of his long-time rival former vice-president Joice Mujuru.According to Zimbabwe Independent, Mnangagwa hired an expensive private jet to visit Mugabe, who is on annual vacation in Dubai, seeking to clear the air and possibly obtain assurances concerning his prospects of succeeding him.Mnangagwa though, took his wife Auxilia with him and son Sean to Dubai where they dined with Mugabe, Grace, Mugabe's daughter, Bona, and her husband Simba Chikore as well as Mugabe's sons Robert Jr and Chatunga.Mnangagwa's backers said he wanted to use the Dubai meeting to put his presidential ambitions back on track."However, he was never afforded that opportunity by Grace who steadfastly remained by her husband's side and never left him alone to allow for any private discussions to take place," said a source close to the First Family."Even the children, particularly Chatunga (Mugabe's last-born son), were ever present and the most Mnangagwa got out of the visit were the normal family dinners".The paper said the First Family were not happy with the fact that their guests had hired a private plane which was formerly owned by the Malawian government and sold to an arms company by former Malawian president Joyce Banda.The plane was bought in 2013 by Bohnox Enterprises, a firm registered in the British Virgin Islands, which operates from South Africa, where it is loaned to VIPs by the jet company Fortune Air. Both companies are linked to Paramount Group, Africa's largest private defence and aerospace firm.The sources say Mnangagwa offered Mugabe the use of the plane which the President politely declined. The U.S. presidential primary race is getting interesting -- perhaps more interesting than it has been for the past 80 years or so. I'm talking about the Democratic primary, although the Republican side is usually interesting in its own special way. Beltway pundits are beginning to think that Bernie Sanders has a good shot at the nomination. And it may be even better than they think. On the standard political story, victories in Iowa and New Hampshire could provide momentum for Sanders and change the dynamics of the race. But the way in which this happens is also important for understanding the present situation. The Iowa caucuses will be held on Feb. 1, just 18 days from now. New Hampshire Democrats will vote on Feb. 9. The voters in these contests are the ones who have been paying the most attention to the candidates and to the issues. And Sanders is leading in both of them. This means that the national polls, which still show Clinton in the lead, may be skewed by the lack of engagement of these voters. The numbers could change quickly once people get to know a little bit more about Clinton's challenger. If the first two weeks of 2016 are any indication, 2016 is shaping up to be a very big year for the US to make the shift beyond coal, to clean energy. From Oregon to New York, and from Wall Street to Main Street, it feels like there has been big news breaking almost every day, and it all points in the same direction - a nation moving closer to being powered by 100 percent clean energy. Just today, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced that the Obama administration will be compiling a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement on coal leasing on public lands and putting an immediate suspension on all future and modified coal leases. This is major news that deserves to be praised: The federal coal leasing program is broken, outdated, and does not consider the threat of climate change in our communities. And that's only what happened today! Earlier this week in New York, after a three-year campaign by the Sierra Club and our allies, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced in his state of the state address that the state will move entirely off coal by 2020 coupled with a transition glide path for coal affected communities and a commitment to mandate 50 percent of New York's energy is sourced from renewables by 2030.. Advertisement This was jaw-dropping, considering that until the announcement, New York - home to four coal plants - had been the only state in the country actually trying to pull coal plants out of retirement, and put them back into service. This big victory is the result of an intense three-year public campaign that targeted each plant individually, and included a call for a coal transition from 70+ state legislators. New York is only the second large state to move to end all coal generation, after California, and it's the ninth state overall. And, this is just the first time a Governor of a state has announced they will use administrative action to move completely off coal (Governor Gregoire in Washington and Governor Kitzhaber in Oregon led efforts there to retire their state coal plants.) Other big news came early in the new year from the West Coast, as Oregon utilities agreed to a plan to phase out imported coal generated electricity by no later than 2035. The only coal plant in the state is already announced to retire, so the next step was to push out the coal being imported over the wires from other Western states. The agreement calls for PacifiCorp and Portland General Electric to meet 50 percent of electricity needs from renewable sources by 2040 - double the current standard - and eliminate coal use by 2035. The agreement was reached between the utilities, environmental organizations, and consumer advocates, and will be introduced as legislation before the Oregon state legislature next month. It's the culmination of a multi-year campaign that was contentious at times, leading one PacifiCorp spokesman to quip, Advertisement "Some of these folks we've never worked with before, so it is actually exciting to find some common interests. You don't see PacifiCorp and Sierra Club on the same letterhead very often." This momentum continues to hit the bottom lines of coal companies, and on January 11, Arch Coal - the nation's second largest coal company - announced it was filing for bankruptcy protection. Headlines from coast to coast proclaimed this a very bad for the prospects of the US coal industry - Mother Jones wrote that "the coal industry is off to a terrible, no good, very bad year." The fact is, much hangs in the balance. Two-thirds of US coal plants are still operating, and the industry remains powerful and well-connected politically. At the same time, the precarious state of the industry throws into sharp relief the need for transition plans and funds for workers and communities traditionally reliant on coal. As I said in my statement about the Arch Coal announcement: "Arch Coal's bankruptcy is the latest sign of a profound shift in America's energy landscape. With one-third of the nation's coal plants slated for retirement, due to grassroots advocacy and increased competition from renewable energy, the coal industry's prospects are fading. The bankruptcy of America's second largest coal company, which comes on the heels of an historic, universal climate agreement in Paris, is a clear signal that coal is a fuel of the past, and that America's future will be powered by clean energy that doesn't harm public health or our climate." "As we transition away from coal to clean energy, it is essential that all levels of government and the private sector invest in the coal workers and the communities who have powered our country for a over a century, so that they can enjoy new economic opportunities that provide long term stability. Congress in particular should support these communities during this transition by making sure that coal workers, and their families, continue to have financial stability, education and training opportunities, as well as all of the healthcare and pension benefits they've earned through their years of service. Additionally, lawmakers need to provide the kind of funding necessary for cleaning up the toxic legacy left behind by the industry. "Coal workers and their communities were the backbone of America's industrial revolution, were critical in our victory in two world wars, and were major contributors to the rise of American prosperity. As coal is replaced by cleaner forms of energy, we must provide those workers and communities with the support and gratitude they are due." Dear David: When I first heard your brilliant new song "Lazarus" -- before the video came out -- I thought I knew what was going on. I felt certain you were about to do what Bob Dylan did with Time Out of Mind in 1997: release a contemplative masterpiece with a strong death theme, that would breathe new life into your artistic career. It made perfect sense too. The story of Lazarus is such a dramatic one, with so many creative possibilities. It seemed the perfect backdrop for a new Bowie tour, and that was really exciting. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten something my father used to say: it's the people you think you know best who'll surprise you the most. I sure did think I knew you pretty well. I was a high school misfit in the early 80s when I first discovered you, and everything got better after that. The experience started with pictures in magazines, songs on the radio, and two of your albums -- The Man Who Sold the World and Station to Station -- which I bought at a used record store in Boston. I'm not sure why I selected those particular records, when many others were also available. Maybe the vinyl had the fewest scratches; maybe I liked the pictures on the jackets; maybe they were just the cheapest ones in the store. In any case, they became the soundtrack of my life for months to come. I didn't understand them in any context though; they were simply two examples of Bowie music that'd dropped into my life, like Thomas Jerome Newton in The Man Who Fell to Earth. And like Mr. Newton, they seemed alien at first, but once I'd listened to them a few times, your humanity came shining through. I heard it in the romance of "Wild is the Wind," in the dark theatricality of "All the Madmen," in the incomprehensible-but-oh-so-catchy "Station to Station." Advertisement I spent hours on the orange shag carpet in my living room, listening to you with my eyes closed. My parents didn't get it, but I think they were glad I wasn't out roaming the streets, looking for trouble. You became a friend. A secret, sexy, adventurous, sincere, questioning friend. The perfect blend of larger-than-life and regular dude. You liked playing dress-up, but not all the time. People went nuts over your fabulous clothes and makeup, but your legs were pale and Irish-looking, like mine. You were known as a wildly sexual performer, but your tender love songs melted my heart. Your eyes were two different colors, just like my grandfather's. Then I went off to college and Let's Dance came out. And I'll be honest: that one jarred me. It wasn't that I didn't like the songs -- although I wasn't crazy about most of them -- it was the fact that they were played on pop radio that bugged the crap out of me. A pop star? No. Not you. You were too good for that. But since I had no say in your career decisions, I did my best to see the positive side of the pop Bowie thing. You did look gorgeous with your new blond hairdo, and you seemed to smile more than in the past. You seemed happy. Maybe that's why I went through a phase where I tried to look like you. As you'll see from the photo I've included, I went to the hairdresser in August of '83 and asked to have my long, blond hair trimmed into a Bowie cut. Then the greatest thing happened: I heard that the Serious Moonlight tour was coming to Foxboro, Massachusetts -- about half an hour from where I went to school -- and immediately bought a ticket. A general admission ticket. Meaning that if I arrived early enough, I could be in the front row. Advertisement The night before the concert, I didn't sleep. I couldn't believe I'd actually be in your presence, and couldn't stop trying to figure out how to meet you. Would it be possible to get backstage? Would I be able to slip you a note? It was all too much for my head to handle, and I'm embarrassed to say that when I got to the show -- in a van with some friends and acquaintances -- I pretty much lost control of myself. Fueled by some primal instinct -- and beer too -- I charged into the audience and somehow wormed my way to the very front. Just like in my fantasies, but different. Thinking back on that day now, I'm surprised I wasn't killed, and still feel guilty about pressing ahead, forcing other fans to step aside for me. The bruises I sustained were slow to heal, but at the time, I felt no pain. In my mind, I was fulfilling my life's destination, but to everyone else, I was a crazed, obnoxious girl, acting rabid and dangerous. Needless to say, you and I didn't meet that day. There was a moment, though, when I truly believed you looked down and smiled directly at me. In fact, if I close my eyes now, I can still see your infectious smile, your glowing skin, those beautiful dimples. It meant the world to me, even though I now realize you were probably just smiling into a sea of bright lights and screaming faces. I calmed down after that. Eventually came to my senses. But I never stopped loving you, exploring your music, or hoping to someday meet you for real. I got to know Ziggy -- or at least tried to understand him -- and most of your other work. If I had to pick a favorite album, I guess it'd be Hunky Dory, but why pick favorites? In their own way, they're all genius, all special, all distinctly, magnificently Bowie. And how excited was I when my daughter came home from summer camp to tell me how much she'd enjoyed the movie Labyrynth? But now, I guess we need to talk about Blackstar. Oh, David. Nobody got it on your birthday, when you released that stellar -- no pun intended -- record. Even the two accompanying videos didn't do the trick. Your physical appearance and those eye bandages with the buttons were disturbing as hell, but you were Bowie, after all. It was makeup, right? Makeup and lighting. You did it better than anyone, and you'd been writing songs about death since the Major Tom days. You knew how to give your fans a good show. Advertisement And you did. At the end of the "Lazarus" video, when you crawled into that closet, we all expected the next one to be a little more upbeat. We wanted the curtain to rise on that that smile, that dimpled assurance that it was all just another stunning performance. You were playing Lazarus, after all. But like my dad said, it's the ones you think you know best.... So now you're a Blackstar. Time has changed you; we can't trace you now. On the other hand, you did so much to change the world for the better. Just ask any high school misfit. friendship of the religions concept: muslim and christian girl standing together and smiling at camera Peaceful American Muslims are unfairly and ignorantly being lumped together with evil extremists in the aftermath of the Paris and San Bernardino attacks. Last month, Donald Trump -- dismayingly, still the Republican frontrunner -- further poisoned already toxic political discourse by proposing the U.S. ban all Muslims immigrants from entering the country. Unfortunately, this sort of rhetoric is widespread, and is unmistakably contributing to the increase of recent anti-Muslim hate crimes. But anti-Muslim rhetoric is out of step with reality. Not only are Muslim Americans successfully integrating into U.S. society, they are actually more opposed to intolerance and violence than many other Americans. Nevertheless, many Americans are still succumbing to hysteria. The question is, why? Advertisement There is a natural human tendency to fear what we do not know. And most Americans simply do not know Muslims. Trump's divisive rhetoric reflects the dark side of unfamiliarity. However, the silver lining is that once more Americans become friends and neighbors with Muslims, anti-Muslim prejudice is bound to subside. Muslims make up just 1 percent of the American population, sixty percent of whom have been in the U.S. for 25 years or less. Muslims tend to stand out because of unfamiliar religious and cultural customs, such as their prayer schedule, head scarves, and strange-seeming names. These differences sometimes breed suspicion, and in more extreme cases hostility, largely because these traditions are new to Americans. At the same time, most Americans see and hear Muslims only on film or on the news, which disproportionately overlook the mundane, peaceful lives of ordinary Muslims, instead focusing on violent religious extremists. A lack of personal contact with Muslims allows this distorted picture to flourish, leading many Americans to see their Muslims compatriots as a dangerous threat, rather than as fellow human beings and loyal Americans who contribute positively to society. Polls suggests that as many as seven in ten Americans seldom or never interact with Muslim Americans. Just three in ten are acquainted with a Muslim. Advertisement At one percent of the population, American Muslims are also too few to have much political clout, which makes them easy and safe target for unscrupulous politicians seeking to capitalize on ignorance and fear. It's easier to lump all Muslims together and scapegoat them as a group than it is to acknowledge that terrorism is a complex, multi-faceted problem. Fear of the unknown is certainly not new. In America, new immigrant groups, from the Jews to the Irish to the Italians, have faced similar discrimination and generalized misunderstandings about their culture and people. The cure for this is interaction, integration and acculturation. Muslim Americans are trying to assimilate, and are succeeding. But it can be difficult to swiftly overcome stereotypes when only 1 out of every 100 Americans is Muslim. It's a time-consuming process that many groups have had to suffer through. But the evidence is clear. Increasing familiarity and assimilation does markedly reduce hostility to "strange" out-groups -- it breeds knowledge, understanding, and tolerance. In 2009, Gallup measured public support for marriage equality and found that 40 percent of American adults saw it as "legally valid," while 57 percent disagreed. Only 27 percent of those who did not know someone who was gay thought gay marriage was "legally valid." But support for gay marriage was nearly double that among people who did know someone who is gay. Advertisement Gallup explained that those who know someone who is gay or lesbian are "significantly more supportive" of gay marriage. The polling found that interacting with gays and lesbians led to greater acceptance and more tolerant attitudes. Mere acquaintance makes a big difference. Michael Shermer, editor-in-chief of Skeptic magazine, has said that LGBTQ role models in the public eye were "essential for awakening empathy and understanding, and thus for expanding the moral sphere ever outwards." Muslim Americans don't get this significant, sympathetic presence in media and popular culture. Lack of exposure renders them mysterious and threatening to many Americans. Mona Chalbi at the FiveThirtyEight blog finds that the more likely a person is to know a Muslim, the more likely they will express positive feelings toward Muslims as a group. This pattern holds regardless of the personal characteristics -- political affiliation, education, race or age. If Muslims are hostile toward Americans, you would expect exposure to them would breed more contemptment, not less. Terrorism is real, and it's natural to be afraid of it. But these fears are exacerbated by politicians and pundits using ignorance of Islam and unfamiliarity with ordinary Muslims to incite panic across America. To restrict Muslim immigration due to the acts of a few unrepresentative extremists would be to base U.S. policy on fear instead of facts. The rare cultural magic that transforms outsiders into insiders and turns fear into fraternity has worked for 300 years in the United States. The magic will work for Muslims, too, if we act like Americans and let it. It might seem strange to report that metalheads and fans of Ziggy Stardust are fighting over the Periodic Table of Elements, but no one could ever accuse rock and roll of being traditional. Music lost two trailblazers over the past two months, and their fans responded by creating dozens of humorous, outlandish and sometimes impossible Change.org petitions to honor their legacies. In the process, heavy metal and glam rock enthusiasts worldwide shined a light on how people are using the social web to grieve. Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister, the hard-partying bassist for metal masters Motorhead, joined the concert in the sky on December 28. Only two weeks later, on January 10, pop and glam chameleon David Bowie lost his battle with cancer. Advertisement Deaths are deeply personal experiences, and grief is often private. But a quiet remembrance isn't very rock and roll, and as hundreds of thousands of people are proving, the social web enables us to create memorials just as loud and raucous as the concerts of those they memorialize. Soon after Kilmister's death, 142,000 Motorhead fans launched a Change.org petition to label the as-yet-unnamed chemical element 115 'Lemmium.' What better to call one of the heaviest metals on the planet? Reporters quickly took notice of the peculiar memorial. National Public Radio featured the story, and prominent physicist Brian Cox, Ph.D. gave the petition his seal of approval on Twitter. Don't usually support petitions, but this one surely must be right https://t.co/ZTlBjjerYI Brian Cox (@ProfBrianCox) January 6, 2016 Advertisement In Washington and New York, London and Rome, people found ways to show just how much Motorhead's music meant to them. Being rock and roll, of course, just naming an element after Kilmister wouldn't suffice. More than 40,000 fans started a petition to rename the Jack and Coke - Kilmister's favorite drink - as 'The Lemmy.' Their petition target? "Everyone in the world." It was a wild, excessive stunt that Lemmy would appreciate. Less than a week later, a Food and Beverage Magazine cover story officially debuted 'The Lemmy'. "We are honored to represent the industry and bring the moniker The Lemmy to every bar in the world!" publisher Michael Politz said. Excess won. Not to be outdone, Bowie fans responded with a petition to name another unnamed element 'Stardust'. Fans argue that nearly all elements are synthesized in the hearts of stars - not unlike early suspicions about Bowie - making the ask perfectly good science. People feel a personal connection to artists like Lemmy and Bowie, and platforms like Change.org enable us to connect with likeminded communities and create public displays of grief and remembrance. The trend has become so commonplace we take it for granted. But it wasn't always this way. Advertisement Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain's 1994 suicide sparked memorials and gatherings in major cities like Seattle and New York, but fans in other countries or in smaller towns missed out on the sense of community created by Cobain's death. Fans felt Cobain's suicide as distinctly as they did the loss of Lemmy and Bowie, but those feelings were fragmented by the limitations of geography and communication technology. Though grunge rock to the core, a eulogy in a locally published music 'zine can't match the connecting power of the Internet. The global scope and sustained nature of online memorials to Lemmy and Bowie is only possible on the social web. Bowie fans in the United Kingdom are asking the Royal Mail to issue an official Bowie stamp due to the performer's undeniable contributions to British culture. Nearly 9,000 people are trying to build a statue of Lemmy Kilmister to commemorate his contributions to heavy metal. In dozens of petitions started in countries around the globe, fans are paying tribute to their heroes and raising awareness about the contributions of these artists to the cultural fabric of society. The petitions, due in large part to the outsized reputations of their subjects, are powerful. British Prime Minister David Cameron called Bowie a 'genius', while Motorhead inspired a generation of musicians to push the limits of the genre. Both had fans in high places. The Italian fan who petitioned God to return David Bowie to Earth is unlikely to get a response, but she found nearly 2,000 people who shared her feelings. Lemmy and Bowie touched fans everywhere. Now those fans are using places like Change.org to pay tribute to artists they consider friends. Advertisement Whether their tastes run towards Bowie-style glam, Motorhead's shredding guitar or something completely different, people are participating in an online conversation that shows us no one has to grieve alone. The Mormon Church is a fairly new religion, not quite 200 years old. It was founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith, and though Mormons believe that it re-established the original church of Christ, and in fact that resurrected beings in the form of Peter, James, and John, John the Baptist, Elijah the Prophet of the Old Testament, and Christ Himself, appeared to guide and to restore priesthood power, there are many problems of the Mormon Church today that are typical of newer religions, which older religions no longer struggle with. These problems include: 1.Image and visibility 2.Demands to be included among other world religions 3.Justifications of past wrongs 4.Re-writing of history 5.Frequent excommunication of dissenters 6.Missionary work 7.Pressure to have large families 8.Becoming world-wide 9.In-fighting among the faithful 10.Creation of a "canon" Because Mormonism is such a new church and is still quite small in comparison to Catholicism or mainstream Protestantism, it is constantly still trying to brand itself properly in the media. There was the era of asking to be called "LDS" rather than Mormon and the current era of the full church name "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints," a mouthful that even the faithful sometimes do not use. The Mormon church also strenuously objects to any attempt to paint it as less Christian than other Christian religions--despite the fact that it also takes pride in castigating mainstream Christianity for its "apostasy." Advertisement There is the problem of famous and infamous Mormons who pop up in media coverage, and the need to decide if they are allowed to "represent" Mormonism. Ammon Bundy, the Church decided, could not be allowed to use Book of Mormon references without comment. The rest of Mormonism did not want to be conflated with his own interpretations of the faith that used to be proud of Donny and Marie Osmond. And there is still the need to correct false impressions that the mainstream Mormon church still practices polygamy--or that Mormons have horns. Justifying past wrongs and rewriting history are also common practices of newer religions. Once a church has been long established, small inconsistencies or even big ethical problems of the past seem less of a derailment. But claims that Joseph Smith was a pedophile have to be dealt with in a church that relied so heavily on his authority to re-establish the "one true Church." In the 70s and 80s, the Mormon church worked by telling members not to listen to "anit-Mormon" literature and refused to address questions of Joseph Smith's problematic relationships with women other than his wife, Emma. Now the church has come out with an essay admitting the undeniable historical facts, but explaining them in terms of Joseph Smith's vision of polygamy. There is a fine line between calling Joseph Smith the prophet wrong and suggesting he might have misunderstood God's full intent. It's a line the official stance is trying to straddle. Much has been made of the recent excommunication of dissenters like Kate Kelly of Ordain Women and John Dehlin of Mormon Stories Podcast. The Mormon church, because it is still negotiating its own image, feels it cannot afford the negative publicity such dissenters bring. The Catholic church also excommunicated far more often in its past than it does today, with a longer history and sense of security in its own identity. While I personally may disagree with these excommunications, on a more objective note, they make sense to me because the church is still desperate to contain everything Mormon under the umbrella of the Quorum of the Twelve. Advertisement Missionary work and the pressure to have large families (including the practice of polygamy) are also common strategies of new religions to grow their membership. Mormons have been fairly successful at "branding" their missionary force with suits and white shirts and ties, along with the standardized white on black missionary tags. If they were not so iconic, the "Book of Mormon Musical" could not have been so successful at parodying them. There is an interesting tension within many small religions as they grow to move away from an insular identity and a geographically restricted location to a world-wide identity and a geographically diverse church. Practically, this means translations of scripture or conferences (something Mormonism has done well since the early 20th century with its extensive missionary force and language learning). On a more philosophical level, it means looking at parts of the Church that cannot be translated and changing them or modifying them for different locales, from white shirt requirements that seem very Western to not shopping on Sunday in places where food isn't refrigerated. This week, as Elder Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve insisted that the new policy excluding gay married couples and their children from sacraments within the church, I thought again of the importance of the creation of a canon for any church. As a Mormon, I have watched as certain texts have moved from "canon" status to non-canon status, such as Mormon Doctrine by Bruce R. McKonkie. I watched as the "doctrine" of excluding black members from priesthood ordinances was reversed, and then became a policy that was racially motivated, not from God at all. I once wrote that "The Family Proclamation" was church doctrine and then was corrected by someone who argued it was only a statement, that it hadn't been voted on by common consent of the church, nor added officially to canonized scripture, as other official proclamations (including the one rejecting polygamy) had been. Joseph Smith's translation of the Bible became doctrine when it was added to the printed scripture of the church, but before that was difficult to access for lay members. In the interim, it's easy for members to be confused about what is and isn't "canon" or "scripture" (Mormons often say that General Conference talks and the church's official magazines are scripture, but General Conference talks are sometimes edited before being printed, so what does this mean?). It makes sense that there would be in-fighting among members about what is and isn't official doctrine, from political questions about the church's official position on abortion, to the non-position on evolution that changed from some years ago when the church rejected evolution. While there are songs and other references to Heavenly Mother, the church officially sanctioned members who publicly prayed to her some years ago, but now has an essay about Her status doctrinally. Advertisement Following the jihadist attack on a kippa [Jewish skull-cap] wearing Jewish teacher in Marseille, the president of the city's Jewish community, Zvi Ammar, advised French Jews to leave their kippas at home. In my view, it is time for the Israeli Foreign Office to assist French Jews in leaving France before it is too late. Following his recommendation for Jews to take off their kippas, "until better days," Mr. Ammar was fiercely criticized. As reported in the European Jewish Press. France's Chief Rabbi, Haim Korsia, said that Jews should continue wearing their kippas in public in order to form a "united front." "We will not cede!" he stated. "We will continue to wear the kippa." Similarly, Joel Mergui, president of France's Consistory, an umbrella organization that administers to Jewish congregations, stated, "Don't touch my kippa! He [Ammar] knows as well as I do that wearing a kippa or not won't resolve the issue of terrorism." And finally, Roger Cukierman, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), agreed with Mergui, stating, "It translates to a defeatist attitude, to giving up." Advertisement Regrettably, I must concur with Mr. Ammar. Marseille Jews should indeed keep their kippas tucked away and out of sight, since preserving life takes precedence over the Torah, and the French Jewry is in grave danger. The publications in the media do not even begin to describe what is really happening. French Jews, and the whole of the European Jewry, have been experiencing various levels of hostilities on a daily basis for a long time now. Many of them have already taken off their kippas, tucked in their Star of David necklaces, removed the mezuzahs [cased excerpts from the Torah (Old Testament)] from their doorposts, and even avoid visiting places associated with Jews. Worse yet, according to the European Union's Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA), a staggering 77% [of Jews] do not even bother reporting abuse or harassment. The situation in Europe has been escalating for years, but now it is becoming crystal clear: in view of the wave of radical Islamic terrorism and the recent waves of Muslim immigration to Europe, the Jews have no future there. In a 2013 televised conversation I had with the late, Prof. Robert S. Wistrich, who was then head of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, he said that in the current state of affairs, European Jewry has 10-20 years left. The Israeli Foreign Office is urging European governments to increase protection of Jewish communities, but it is too little too late. Currently, Europe's Jews have two options if they want to stay safe: Convert to Islam or run for their lives. Advertisement Before history repeats itself, France's Jews must leave their country. As one who experienced the hardships of making Aliyah [immigration to Israel] myself, I can sympathize with their agony. It is not easy to leave behind the country you grew up in, loved, and considered your home. This is especially true of France, whose legacy of equality, justice, and separation between state and religion paved the way for the rest of the world. But I see no other option. The Israeli Foreign Office must send out delegations that will ease the French Jewry's absorption process in Israel. It should set up Hebrew schools and help France's Jews find suitable employment in the Israeli job market. NORTH CHARLESTON, SC - JANUARY 14: Republican presidential candidates (L-R) Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) participate in the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum and Performing Arts Center on January 14, 2016 in North Charleston, South Carolina. The sixth Republican debate is held in two parts, one main debate for the top seven candidates, and another for three other candidates lower in the current polls. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) On May 21, 1946, less than a year after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, physicist Louis Slotin performed a dangerous experiment his colleagues at Los Alamos called "tickling the dragon's tail." He took two half-spheres of beryllium, each containing a plutonium core, and brought them together as close to critical mass as he could without triggering a nuclear chain reaction. Slotin had done this before, keeping the two half-spheres apart with the blade of a screwdriver. But this time, the screwdriver slipped, the half-spheres made contact and there was a bright blue flash and a burst of heat. Slotin quickly separated the pieces but had absorbed a frightening amount of radiation. Advertisement "Well, that does it," he said. Nine days later, Louis Slotin was dead at 35. We tell this sad story as a cautionary tale -- although probably one told much too late -- to which the Republican Party nonetheless should pay heed. After years of tickling the dragon's tail, flirting with the demagoguery of America's right wing and egging on a growing rage within a core constituency of disaffected, working class white Americans, the dragon has started to breathe fire, and the flames have spread in all directions. The result is the maddening success of raving nativist Donald Trump and to a lesser extent, Senator Ted Cruz. Establishment Republicans are shocked, shocked that such a thing is possible. Late last week, Washington Post columnist and former Dubya speechwriter Michael Gerson fell into the prose version of a dead faint. He wrote that, "Trump's nomination would not be the temporary victory of one of the GOP's ideological factions. It would involve the replacement of the humane ideal at the center of the party and its history. If Trump were the nominee, the GOP would cease to be." Humane ideal? Gerson seems to fantasize a Republican Party that hasn't existed since Wendell Willkie ran against FDR in 1940. This was followed by an article in the New York Times headlined, "For Republicans, Mounting Fears of Lasting Split." Patrick Healey and Jonathan Martin reported, "Rank-and-file conservatives, after decades of deferring to party elites, are trying to stage what is effectively a people's coup by selecting a standard-bearer who is not the preferred candidate of wealthy donors and elected officials." They quoted Leo Martin, a 62-year-old New Hampshire machinist: "The Republican Party has never done anything for the working man like me, even though we've voted Republican for years. This election is the first in my life where we can change what it means to be a Republican." Advertisement In the GOP's rebuttal to President Obama's State of the Union, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley tried to throw a cross block. "During anxious times," she said, "it can be tempting to follow the siren call of the angriest voices. We must resist that temptation... Some people think that you have to be the loudest voice in the room to make a difference. That is just not true. Often, the best thing we can do is turn down the volume." Too little, too late (especially given the virulently racist response by some in social media to the Indian-American Haley's speech, including, surprise, Breitbart and Ann Coulter). Yet in his Post column, Gerson writes, "Liberals who claim that Trumpism is the natural outgrowth, or logical conclusion, of conservatism or Republicanism are simply wrong." But it's Gerson and his chums who are in denial, refusing to see that their party has been sowing dragon's teeth for decades. Start with 1964 and Barry Goldwater's "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice" (not to mention his opposition to the Civil Rights Act). Then careen through Richard Nixon's embrace of "the silent majority" and his 1968 dog whistle campaign slogan, "This time, vote like your whole world depended on it." Pause as Ronald Reagan opens his 1980 general election campaign at the Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi, just miles from the earthen dam where the bodies of civil rights organizers Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney were found. Here's George H.W. Bush and Willie Horton; and the Karl Rove-orchestrated whispering campaign on behalf of Dubya against John McCain in 2000, implying that McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child. All of this and so much more have created the current Republican pickle. Add fear mongering that tramples reason and truth, the thoughtless pursuit of profit at the expense of factories and jobs, the slavish devotion to the hands that feed the party its campaign cash. Then stir in the desecration of checks and balances and the chronic dysfunction of government decried by those most responsible for it, in the manner of the fireman turned arsonist who strikes the match, then wrings his hands at the charred ruins he created. This is not to say that Republicans invented inertia, corruption and dirty, race-baiting tricks, but you get the picture. GOP, you've really done it this time -- tickled the tail once too often and now you're paying the price, as are the rest of us. At risk is not just electoral defeat but the collapse of an already frail democracy. Here be dragons. NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 21: United States Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) enters the 'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert' taping at the Ed Sullivan Theater on September 21, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Ray Tamarra/Getty Images) Ted Cruz has been attacking "New York values," something he declined to describe at first, saying people across the country would simply "know" what he means, until Thursday night's GOP presidential debate, when pressed to give more detail. He then said, "Everybody understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal and pro-abortion and pro-gay marriage. And focus on money and the media." That was rich considering how much he and his wife Heidi -- a Goldman Sachs investment manager for several years -- love that New York money, and thus support the very values to which he's pointing. Not only are some of his biggest campaign contributors Wall Street financiers, like the hedge fund operator Robert Mercer, who backed Cruz with $11 million (and who lives on Long Island) but as the New York Times reported yesterday, Cruz and his wife took an undisclosed loan from her employer, Goldman Sachs, to fund his first Senate campaign, in addition to one from New York-based Citibank. Advertisement But it gets richer: Just a few months before Cruz took that Goldman Sachs money, Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and CEO of the New York-headquartered investment banking firm, had been given an award by the Human Rights Campaign, because Blankfein and his firm had become leaders on marriage equality. Goldman Sachs wasn't just another "pro-gay" company -- it was one that had been a driving force on influential Wall Street for LGBT equality. Goldman had long provided full benefits for domestic partners, and since 2002 had even paid for gender confirmation surgery for transgender employees. Blankfein used all of his clout to pressure the New York legislature in 2011 to pass a marriage equality bill, which it did with four critical Republican votes. He signed a letter urging legislators to vote "yes" and urged other chief executives to put the pressure on as well. Ted Cruz claimed his failure to disclose the loan to the Federal Election Commission was a "paperwork" mistake, but it's obvious that disclosing that he took a loan against his assets rather than actually liquidating those assets -- as he and his wife claimed -- would have messed with the narrative that he and his wife sacrificed all that they had. Their money actually made more money for them, staying invested during the time the loan had been drawn. As commentators have discussed, disclosing the loan also would have sent the wrong message to the tea party at the time when Cruz was running as a tea party darling. Banks were being bailed out, angering tea party activists, and Goldman had been at the forefront of the firms whose reckless actions led to the mortgage crisis. Advertisement But what's been less noted is how the religious right, another force behind Cruz, would have responded if it knew at the time that Cruz was taking a loan from a company that had helped make marriage equality a reality in June of 2011 in New York State, less than a year before Cruz took that loan. Much of Cruz's campaign has been based on his supposedly uncompromising evangelical beliefs, including opposition to gay marriage. His father, Rafael Cruz, is a a pastor and leader in that movement, with a new fire and brimstone book out. Certainly any card-carrying evangelical opposed to marriage equality should have been loudly lambasting Goldman Sachs at that time -- and even now -- and should have been boycotting it rather than taking a loan from it. And let's not forget that Cruz had no problem being hosted at the Manhattan home of two gay hoteliers in New York last year who introduced him to some funders -- until the news got out and Cruz ran for cover. While he put out a statement typically attacking the Times for reporting on the event and reiterated his opposition to same-sex marriage, a Cruz aide, clearly worried about how evangelicals would respond, told CBS News that "in retrospect, knowing what we know now, we might have chosen a different venue." "It begins with a not knowing, trying to sit with the images and emotions that emerge in the dream narratives and attempting to give them space, and then to give them form." Kristin Victoria Barron is an artist, designer, and dreamer who is deeply interested in one's interior life, and that which does not have form in the physical world. With her multi-disciplinary creative studio KRIEST, Barron offers bespoke home design services, along with classical, material-driven small scale sculptures and lighting inspired by the dream world. Through dream journaling she is able to document a personal and intimate process, and work with the imagery to create and form her dreams into physical work. Childhood memories, primitive cave paintings, shamanic sculpture, and zoomorphic symbols also play a huge part in Barron's inspirations. I caught up with Barron right off the heels of Design Miami where she showed her new pieces from the Alkahest collection with Patrick Parrish Gallery. Advertisement Where does the name Kriest come from ? It was a term of endearment that comes from a series of derivations based on a black magic priestess. There are some Salem witches in my ancestral pile. What inspires your work ? It comes from my dream journals and meditations on images from my dream narratives. I record all of my dreams in a journal that I keep by my bed. For the dreams that continue to posses a lot of gravity in my waking life, I begin to sketch about those as a way to meditate on them. Selected sketches become small wax models that I make over and over again and finally select only one. The chosen form is moulded in silicone and cast in bronze. It is an intuitive process choosing the final form, the rest are destroyed. Tell us more about the Alkahest collection ? The Alkahest pieces come from a dream about a monolithic gothic Cathedral that is melting from the inside out. The interior of the cathedral has turned into a lava like sludge, pouring out from cracks in the windows and the doors and flowing into the streets. What materials do you primarily work with? I am drawn to materials that are both additive and reductive like wax and clay. It allows you to be constantly responding to the image you are creating. It allows you to be too hot, too cold, and then nestle into the goldilocks zone. Advertisement Where is your studio? Right now I am straddling Manhattan and LA. But, come the New Year my studio will be tucked away in the pine forest in the San Bernardino mountains, about 100 miles east of LA. It is achingly beautiful there. Was this your first year showing at Design Miami? Yes, it was very exciting. I showed with Patrick Parrish Gallery, New York. What pieces did you showcase and how many? A pair of lamps from the Alkahest collection, an edition of 12 with 2 artist proofs, also a grouping of candle sticks from the Alkahest Collection, from an edition of 100. Who are you mentors? Vladimir Rodin. He is an incredible artist who I met at a Russian Ball in New York years ago. He is a sculptor who escaped from the Soviet Union in the 1970's after studying theatre at the Moscow Art Theatre and working at the Hermitage restoring antiquities. He has taught me a tremendous amount about an old world approach to craftsmanship. But, perhaps most importantly he has taught me about the incredible richness of working slowly and with extreme presence. The deep gold is the incredible idiosyncrasy and possibility that this way of meditative working invites. In this space one can work very intuitively. What projects whether object or interiors are you working on? I am working on a private commission for a cremation urn, a sculptural installation downtown LA in the old Coca-Cola building with Brian Thoreen, as well as a new collection of lighting and sculptural objects. Advertisement For more on KRISTIN VICTORIA BARRON - http://kriest.com "Zanu PF is a violent party by its very nature; violence of which I came face-to-face with during the Hurungwe West by-election of June 2015 and that was subsequently reported as factual by the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission."Zanu PF is an institution that does not respect the will of the people and I do not want to be part of it. You cannot have a situation where there is bloodshed every time there is an election or when people deem it fit to exercise their democratic right. On the controversial succession issues he said "The issue of (President Robert Mugabe's) succession should be dealt with swiftly as everyone is focussing on it at the expense of the economy. It is important that the President, as the centre of power, makes this decision as he has the power to appoint and not elect a successor.Because of a lack of a succession plan, Zanu PF imposed provincial chairpersons on the people against the mandate of the Zanu PF constitution. While Mujuru was in office, there was a natural succession plan which would see her assuming the leadership in the unfortunate event that anything befalls the President."Now the focus of all Zanu PF cadres is to fight amongst each other at the expense of the economy; to see who will succeed Mugabe as there is no succession plan in place"."At the rate they are going, Zanu PF is heading down the slippery slope of self-destruction. When the ruling party indiscriminately chooses to violate its own constitution and instead be at the whim of the First Lady, it becomes dangerous for its longevity.There is nothing wrong with Mugabe's age so long as he is capable.However, when that capability is questioned or compromised and it becomes more and more apparent that decisions are being made from another quarter and that nobody is calling the First Lady to order, then things are likely to fall apart.This is because whether we like it or not, the First Lady is not a politician and to all intents and purposes, should not have been allowed to have the power to expel Zanu PF members en masse or to insult and harass people as was witnessed (in 2014).Moreover, the First Lady is generally not liked as a politician by the majority of women who are the backbone of Zanu PF. Syrian refugees cross into Jordan, at the Hadalat border crossing, east of the Jordanian capital Amman, on January 14, 2016, after being stuck between the Jordanian and Syrian borders.The number of Syrian refugees stuck on the border with Jordan has climbed from 12,000 to nearly 16,000 since December, the kingdom's government spokesman said on January 11. / AFP / KHALIL MAZRAAWI (Photo credit should read KHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP/Getty Images) Many Americans believe that we are extraordinarily open in welcoming "the needy and oppressed." But the refugee crisis in Syria, followed by the attacks in Paris and California, has brought out the worst in some people. They want to close the doors to these refugees, even if doing so means death for them. How do they justify this stand? By using, among other means, age-old psychological tricks: 1. Pretending that these refugees "hate us and want to destroy our Western civilization" thus equating the people fleeing from the haters with the haters. Advertisement 2. Evading the fact that we Americans have a special responsibility for helping the refugees, since the U.S. government's invasion of Iraq is a major cause of the refugee crisis. 3. Using clever analogies to dehumanize the refugees. For example, the meme circulating on the internet: "If 10 percent of M&Ms were poisoned, would you risk having one?" Immediately this suggests, falsely, that: -- 10 percent of refugees are terrorists. -- Turning away genuine refugees is like throwing out unpoisoned M&Ms -- a sensible precaution. -- Refugees have no more moral standing than M&Ms. The point is not that people lose awareness of the fact that the refugees are human beings and not candy. Rather, this awareness and its significance are clouded over with an impression of danger, of poisoned candy people. Advertisement This makes it easy to evade the fact that turning away refugees is like kicking drowning people back into the lake as they struggle to save themselves -- infinitely worse than simply refusing to save a drowning person. But don't we have a right to protect ourselves from potential murderers? Certainly, but what makes the refugees potential murderers? If we make the all-important distinction between refugees on the one hand, and asylum seekers and other migrants on the other, we find that only three of 859,629 refugees admitted to the United States since 2001 have been convicted of planning terrorist attacks -- all of them on targets abroad and none successfully. One reason for the low number is that refugees, especially now Syrian refugees, are vetted extremely carefully, over a period of two to three years, before being admitted into the United States. Only the dumbest terrorist would try to come here as a refugee. Nevertheless, it would be disingenuous to leave it at that. For even if we don't need to fear refugees, might we not have reason to fear their children -- even children born and raised here? Since 9/11, American courts have prosecuted 508 defendants, mostly Muslim, for allegedly plotting terrorist attacks on civilians. But a little digging undermines this scary picture of Muslims. In The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terrorism, Trevor Aaronson documents that many of these 508 defendants were mentally disturbed or impoverished people who were induced by the FBI's informants or undercover agents to participate in terrorist plots created by the FBI. These informants were often themselves criminals or underachievers who agreed to create terrorists in exchange for lighter sentences and money. Since 9/11 there have been only seven terrorist attacks in the United States, and several failed attacks. Aaronson's claims have never been challenged by the FBI. The fear of immigrants, however, also has a cultural source. The worry is that a large influx of Muslims would make our culture more intolerant. But only a small minority of American Muslims is likely to want an intolerant political culture, since such a culture could easily be turned against them. Nor are they likely to find political allies to help them. Moreover, the social and religious outlook of American Muslims is closer to that of other Americans than to non-American Muslims. So either Muslims who come to America are more tolerant than most Muslims worldwide, or they become more tolerant after they have been enculturated, or some of both. Advertisement A last argument against admitting refugees is advanced on allegedly moral grounds. Mark Krikorian argues that it's wrong to admit refugees here instead of helping them to resettle in Middle Eastern camps, because for the cost of resettling a refugee here over a five-year period, we can resettle 12 in Middle Eastern camps. Unfortunately, life in the camps is dangerous. Moreover, camps are excellent places for recruiting new terrorists. By contrast, refugees resettled here will soon start working and contributing to the economy. And thousands of Americans are willing to spend their own money to resettle them, just as they did in the 1980s and '90s, under President Reagan's Private Sector Initiative. In short, there is no good reason to keep refugees out, and many good reasons to welcome them. It's time for another private sector initiative to help solve the refugee crisis. Noted internationally for performances that combine innate musicality with interpretive insight, David Loebel joined the faculty of New England Conservatory as Associate Director of Orchestras in 2010 following an eleven-year tenure as Music Director and Conductor of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra. Loebel has conducted orchestras all over the world and honored five times by ASCAP for his adventurous programming. He is a recipient of the prestigious Seaver/National Endowment for the Arts Conductors Award. "Why Do You Give Two Beats?": Pierre Boulez Remembered - By David Loebel - In the days since Pierre Boulez's death on January 5, innumerable tributes have hailed him as the dominant European composer and conductor of the post-war era. Not mentioned as often, however, is his role as an educator of musicians and audiences. Like his New York Philharmonic predecessor Leonard Bernstein, Boulez was a born teacher; this was the Boulez I was lucky enough to know. *** My path crossed that of Boulez at two crucial times in my conducting life. Although I grew up in a musical household, as a teenager I was turned off by anything having to do with classical music. Fortunately, my interest was reawakened during my college years, a time that coincided with Boulez's first extended relationship with my hometown band, the Cleveland Orchestra. It was through that now-legendary partnership that I really heard--not just listened to--revelatory performances of the great twentieth century masterpieces in which Boulez excelled: Le Sacre du Printemps, Jeux, Bluebeard's Castle, Arcana, and many others. I could not have wished for a better initiation. Advertisement Whenever possible, I attended Boulez's Cleveland Orchestra rehearsals with scores in hand, occasionally gathering the courage to ask him about the music I'd heard. Although many still saw him as a cold, calculating ideologue, to this aspiring conductor he was unfailingly warm and approachable, scribbling in my scores with his inimitably tiny, beautiful handwriting to show me the reasons for his musical decisions. (The last note of Le Sacre, he said, was "just noise" unless one plays the grace notes preceding the penultimate note slower than Stravinsky notated them). Boulez and Cleveland parted ways in 1972 and he didn't return to conduct there until 1986. It was a happy reunion; my father, a violinist in the orchestra, wrote that he hoped I could someday have a relationship with Boulez. Miraculously, that came to pass a few years later when I was given carte blanche to attend his rehearsals with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, another magnificent ensemble with which he'd formed a special bond. Over the next several years I spent countless hours watching Boulez in action, marveling at his formidable intellect, x-ray hearing, and beautifully functional gestures. By 1990 he was no longer the enfant terrible who talked about blowing up opera houses but rather a beloved elder statesman. One morning upon entering Orchestra Hall I ran into a senior member of the CSO's staff. "How are you?" I asked. "Great," he replied; "How can I not be great when Pierre is in the building." Boulez's kindness and generosity were even more bountiful than twenty years earlier. He sat with me once for nearly an hour answering questions about La Mer, something a musician of his stature was certainly not obliged to do. During this period I was invited to participate in one of the conducting workshops Boulez periodically taught. That it took place in Carnegie Hall with the Cleveland Orchestra was intimidating enough; to have to actually conduct in front of him made it all the more nerve wracking. But like any great teacher, he put me at ease without for a moment lowering his astronomically high standards. Advertisement At one point in Messiaen's Chronochromie, I gave an extra beat before giving the real upbeat; it was the tiniest of gestures--no more than two inches big-- given with one index finger and mostly for my own benefit. He snapped at me immediately "Why do you give two beats?" I sheepishly eliminated the gesture the next time and the lesson was clear: the conductor's job is to give the orchestra the precise amount of information it actually needs, not a bit more (or less). The workshop included a concert by Boulez and the Cleveland Orchestra that remains among the very few truly great performances I have ever heard. It was as though this supremely sensitive orchestra, having seen him try to explain the mysteries of conducting, became even more attuned to the deep subtleties that so enriched their already superlative music making. My last visit with Boulez occurred in Cleveland in 2010, a few weeks before his 85th birthday, during what proved to be his last visit to America. For the first time he seemed old. I found myself asking him questions to which I already knew the answers, just for the joy of hearing him talk about whatever was on his mind. *** No one would have objected if Boulez had spent his life surrounded by a tiny handful of his intellectual equals (if indeed such people actually exist). We must always be grateful that he chose a different path. His interest in his younger colleagues reminds us that for the sake of future generations we are obliged to share what we've learned, be it the intricacies of complex music or how to change a tire. In an age when buzzwords like "charisma" and "marketability" have all but drowned out the notion of serious, selfless music making, Boulez stands as proof of the first rule of conducting: the conductor's authority stems from his knowledge of the score, period, end of discussion. To gain that knowledge and authority a conductor must think like a composer, not merely noticing what is going on in the music, but constantly asking why. Advertisement My connection with Boulez was never as close as that of a student and teacher, but for me he became something more important--a role model whose insights on matters large and small, theoretical and practical, remain among the most valuable lessons I've ever received. In my own inadequate way I try every day to incorporate those lessons into my own work and, more importantly, to pass them on to today's young musicians. David Loebel http://davidloebel.com New England Conservatory http://necmusic.edu First of all, here's a news flash to the GOP candidates for president: Barack Obama is not running for a third term. So, why are you saying you are going to kick Obama out? Is he behind in his rent? What kind of language is that when you are referring to the president anyway? I'm going to ask you a question my mother used to ask all of her children: Were you born in a barn? The current president makes this group of ghoulish debaters look like witless wonders compared to his level of intelligence. So light of weight are they when it comes to substance that I wonder if their ankles weren't tied with weights to the podium last night. Considering the brains standing behind the podiums, including the brain surgeon himself, well, maybe brain matter doesn't matter anymore. While Donald Trump does his best Mussolini impression and shows his high level of smarts by coming up with one conservative name from New York, William F. Buckley, who is now dead many years, he seems oblivious to the irony. Buckley was an intellectual conservative who could spar with the best minds because he had one. The term "back in the day" comes to mind, when two opposing viewpoints could have a civil if not prickly discussion. Advertisement But let's examine some of the comments that transpired after the malarkey on the stage came to an end. On MSNBC, Omarosa Manigault, a realty show contestant who was fired on The Apprentice and pilloried by the audience for the rancorous tactics she employed to try and win, stated her case. Ms. Manigault announced proudly that when it came to Donald Trump, Hillary would not be able "intimidate", "buy out", or "undermine" him the way she undermines others. Well, apparently if you watched this woman on The Apprentice, she has first hand experience with such behavior, so what's so wrong with it? While Ms. Manigault gleefully claimed Hillary was "shaking in her boots" at the very thought of Mr. Trump, she herself had trouble sitting still in her chair. Having Ms. Manigault on as a commenter was a low point in Chris Matthews debate discussion last night, and in his reaction to Manigault you could tell that he knew it. Thank God for April Ryan, a woman with experience, smarts, and dignity, who came on a few minutes later and was able to eradicate the bad taste left by Manigault. Finally, somebody with a breath mint. What bothers me so much about TV journalists covering Trump is how they have hung on his every word as if he actually says something that's worth repeating. There is nothing intelligent nor insightful in any of Donald's talk. He has not one plausible plan, and has only vague policy ideas that will magically deport all Mexican illegals, take out the parents of terrorists (only those influenced by ISIS), and bring our jobs back from abroad. Never mind that he manufactured in Bangladesh when he had the chance, not in America. Trump claims that Americans don't want to hear about policy, and it is clear that some don't. Wait till he becomes president, he says, then he'll show everyone his stuff. Advertisement Folks, the premiere of Trump's The Real President of Washington, DC is gonna be a barn burner. And let's not forget the sophisticated language these presidential wanna-be's are using. Trump says Hillary would be "horrible." Bush says Hillary would be "terrible." Christie says she'd be "a "disaster." They don't say why, and there have to be at least some logical reasons for those words. We had a real disaster in 2008, and many of us have not recovered our losses. How many people in their fifties who lost their long-time, well paying jobs found themselves vying for a job at Starbucks? How many never got a job again that paid them what their old job did? How many people found their IRA accounts depleted and the homes they owned foreclosed on? Nobody in this bunch talks about that disaster. Not one head on the stage had that topic mushing around in its brain matter, not even in the brain of the brain surgeon himself. None said anything meaningful about how they would prevent another such disaster. Hillary is the disaster. Never mind that on her husband's watch we had an economy that boomed for the majority of us, and he left behind a surplus. Trump says Obamacare is a "horror show" but what about what preceded it? How many got sick and their insurance company, run by some multi millionaire CEO, kicked them out they way Trump's going to kick out the president? What is he going to replace it with? Does the country really want to go through what we did to write the last bill? Why doesn't MSNBC's Hallie Jackson ask him that instead of, "Where are you going next?" Meaning, what place on the planet, not in his mind. After Trump pats her on her cheek and swaggers off, she turns around looking like she just got kissed by Elvis. Well, the knives are out folks. That's what the pundits are saying. One of these candidates will vie for the title of Top Chef! Let me say this; I'm not convinced Mrs. Clinton nor Bernie Sanders are shaking in their boots. They might, however, be afraid, but not of Donald Trump himself. Mrs. Clinton knows him personally. They might be afraid of what is happening in America, though. Maybe they fear the mob mentality Mr. Trump has stirred up. What Trump calls anger is not anger at all. It's hatred. Anger is the result of feeling powerless and not being able to do anything about what you fear. Trump's crowd feels what he calls his anger and the answer of getting rid of all that collective anxiety is an automatic weapon and a wall. Advertisement There are cavernous subplots resonating in Trump's realty show, and how that might play out is scary indeed. It's a crying shame that when President Obama took office, those who were sworn to represent the people of America gathered together while the first African American delivered his inaugural and decided to oppose every idea or policy he put forth. The idea of America, the profound notion that we are all created equal, that we have equal rights and equal voice, the right to an education, the right to a vote, and the right to the pursuit of happiness has been drowned out by the right to bear arms. Trump offers up the people we should be aiming at, but what is it that we are aiming for? Is examining that notion too deep for us? MONTGOMERY, AL - MAY 1956: Civil rights leader Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. relaxes at home in May 1956 in Montgomery, Alabama. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) Martin Luther King Jr. Day presents an important opportunity to reflect on the progress made since the Civil Rights Movement, as well as to meditate on how best to address inequalities that persist to this day. Here, in honor of Dr. King, we highlight writers who have made significant contributions to the discussion of race relations in this country. Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and an unwavering call to fix our broken justice system, from the influential lawyer behind the Equal Justice Initiative. Advertisement Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates This profound winner of the National Book Award, hailed by Toni Morrison as "required reading," explores the biggest questions about America's racial history through the intimate lens of a father's concern for his son. Citizen by Claudia Rankine Told through essay, image, and poetry, Claudia Rankine's provocative book is a powerful testament to the effects of mounting racial aggressions on the individual and collective in the twenty-first century. The Butler by Wil Haygood A mesmerizing inquiry into the life of Eugene Allen, the butler to eight American presidents who ignited a nation's imagination and inspired the Lee Daniels film "The Butler." The Help by Kathryn Stockett In this best-selling novel three women, two black and one white, join together to write a tell-all book about working as a black maid in the South that could forever alter their destinies and their small town. Advertisement Freedom's Daughters by Lynne Olson From the Montgomery bus boycott to the lunch counter sit-ins to the Freedom Rides, Lynne Olson skillfully tells the long-overlooked story of the extraordinary women who were among the most fearless, resourceful, and tenacious leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. The Freedom Writers Diary by The Freedom Writers Erin Gruwell, a teacher in Long Beach, California, challenged her "at-risk" students to confront intolerance and misunderstanding and to record their thoughts in diaries, which was the genesis of this inspiring book. Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin With symbolic power and lyrical precision, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's reckoning with his identity as the stepson of a Pentecostal minister in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. Carry Me Home by Diane McWhorter The Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatic account of the Civil Rights era's climactic battle in Birmingham as the movement, led by Martin Luther King Jr., brought down the institutions of segregation. Walking with the Wind by John Lewis This is Congressman John Lewis's gripping firsthand account of the fight for civil rights in Nashville during the '50s and '60s. His vision for nonviolent action and perseverance was inspired by the teachings of Gandhi and his leadership and courage helped to alter the course of U.S. history. Advertisement Passing by Nella Larsen This groundbreaking and candid exploration of shifting racial boundaries, first published in 1929, tells the story of two childhood friends whose paths have diverged: Clare Kendry, who passes as white despite her African American heritage, and Irene Redfield, who has chosen to remain within the black community. The People Could Fly by Virginia Hamilton Breathtaking and beautifully readable retellings of Black American folk tales of slaves who possessed ancient magic that enabled them to fly away to freedom. At the same time, this is a tale of those who did not have the ability to fly but had to rely upon their imaginations to set them free. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison Pecola Breedlove is a young black girl who prays every day for the blonde hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to fit in with her peers. This novel is a powerful examination of beauty, conformity, race, class, and gender from the legendary Toni Morrison. The other day my pops read an article about why highly intelligent people sometimes opt to hide their intelligence, and he asked what I thought. I stared at him for a moment, poured myself a coffee, ate half a yogurt and forgot the question. I did a little research and here's what I've learned: 1. In a competitive situation it is often better to have your opponents underestimate you, which is especially useful if they are already likely to underestimate you for other reasons, such as being young, small, female or inordinately beautiful. My editor is young, small, female and highly intelligent; on top of which she's also gorgeous, so I know people underestimate the daylights out of her, which is as big a mistake as thinking the badger with foam dripping from its maw is smiling at you when you reach into its den to pat it on the head. The minute you think you've outwitted Samantha, and re-inserted some of the brilliant lines she has edited out of your book, you have effectively reached into its wee house and taunted the cute little badger (which, by the way, is in the same family as the weasel and the wolverine), and you will draw back a bloody stump. Advertisement Samantha and the equally underestimated badger use their considerable skills to protect their young, and bend authors to their will. The badger and editor will one day rule the world. Mark my words. 2. When dealing with an intellectually-challenged authority figure, it is often better to play dumb. If you've ever had to deal with a teacher, boss or policeman who was an idiot, you don't need to be Einstein to grasp this concept. It is never wise to point out the mistakes or shortcomings of an imbecile who holds your fate in his hands. Grossly stupid people tend to be proportionately petty and spiteful. Although it seems to go against the very laws of nature, it is impossible to outwit a moron, so another strategy must be employed in an effort to maintain order in the universe. You may not be able to outwit him, but you can thwart a simpleton by carrying out his bad orders in a completely literal way. Next time your boss chews you out in front of the entire office and threatens to terminate you if you don't get your ass in gear and "light a fire under the sales department," well. Just make sure the sprinklers are working, then sit back in your cube with your umbrella, and let it rain. 3. Hiding your smarts is excellent camouflage. The nail that sticks up gets hammered." (Japanese proverb) Tall poppy syndrome is a pejorative term used to describe a social phenomenon in which people of genuine merit are resented, attacked, cut down, or criticized because their talents or achievements elevate them above or distinguish them from their peers. (Wikipedia) Budweiser syndrome is an accurate term used to describe a uniquely American phenomenon in which undistinguished and largely uneducated people wish to elect equally unremarkable officials with whom they would feel comfortable having a beer rather than choosing leaders who are really smart. (Pammy) Throughout history there have been many instances where it would have been advantageous for the brainiac to keep her IQ on the DL. I'm guessing there were some mad smart gals in Salem back in 1692, working at the sackcloth shoppe, doing math in their heads and people were like, "No man can add that fast! She's a witch! Throw her in the lake with a rock tied around her neck!" Nowadays, at least here in the U.S., we extol wealth and excess, but only if it is achieved through hard work, the lottery or leaked sex tapes. Don't go acting all Mensa when your stock splits and you've become a Fortune 100 company. Just tell people you've worked, like, really hard to get where you are. And then pretend to cry. No one has ever been thrown into a lake with a rock tied around her neck because she was rich and stupid...pity. 4. Playing dumb is an excellent ploy for finding out how much or how little other people actually know and is an excellent way to gauge character and communication skills. It's the old "give 'em enough rope and they'll hang themselves" strategy. I know a little something about writing, but I sit quietly by when some blustering Barnard announces he is a wordsmith. (I've yet to meet an actual writer who refers to her or himself as a wordsmith.) Another clue that I am not dealing with an actual wordsmith is the person's inability to speak with proper grammar, and their rampant use of malaprops. Advertisement You soon learn that the only things the gasbag writes are text messages and poorly crafted emails -- and that he lies about where he went to school pacifically because, for all intensive purposes, Harvard isn't all its cramped up to be. 5. Clever cluelessness can get you out of extra work. Want to avoid extra assignments? Don't wear your brains on your sleeve. Practice saying "I don't know anything about that" while blinking as if you feel a stye coming on. If forced to undertake the task anyway because they think you're really smart and just playing possum to avoid work, fail in such a breathtaking way as to ensure you will never be asked to do anything extra ever again. In 1999, a couple of smartypants at Lockheed Martin were tasked with building yet another satellite for NASA. I'm not sure, but I think they were overdue for a vacay, and had had enough of hearing, "But you guys are so smart. Come on. Just one more." "Fine," they said tersely in unison, and proceeded to build the satellite using the English system of measurement rather than the metric, which is what NASA uses. The use of two different measurement systems prevented the spacecraft's navigation coordinates from being transferred from a spacecraft team in Denver to a lab in California. The orbiter was then lost in space. Even I know that science uses the metric system for measuring stuff, so what kind of rocket scientists would build a $165.6 million Mars orbiter using the English system of measurement? I'll tell you. Two guys who said enough is enough with the 'just one more' crap. Advertisement "Who's smart now?" were their final words before departing for Aruba. The varying aspects of poverty in the United States don't surprise me much, anymore. There was a time, when I first traveled the nation, living in homeless shelters, that I was surprised on a daily basis. Now, after numerous cross-country trips, after years and years of managing homeless shelters, it's rather difficult to rouse that old blank stare and feeling of slack jawed bewilderment. But happened it did, just last night. I'm operations manager at Carlisle CARES homeless shelter. CARES is an emergency shelter in suburban Pennsylvania. Yesterday, I infuriated a mentally ill woman who shouted insults and obscenities at me. This poor woman dressed me down so loudly that everyone could hear her. Most folks are familiar with at least one command shouted in anger. But, she shouted a command I'd never heard before. "Eat Cat Food, _______!" followed by a pejorative term, oddly, not one used for a female cat, but for a female dog. After the heated moment ended, the folks I work with who couldn't help but over hear her, chuckled mightily at the unique comment. It wasn't until later that night, at the shelter, as 50 or so homeless people bedded themselves down on the floor of a church, that I came to understand her intention. "Eat Cat Food, ______!" wasn't an exclamation of anger. It was a curse. Advertisement First, let's set the stage for any discussion of poverty so severe that it results in homelessness. Untreated mental illness is a big problem. Not because many people who experience homelessness are mentally ill and off their medicine. In fact the opposite is true, the vast majority of homeless people are the working poor and their families. But, let's face it, it only takes one person hearing voices, talking in tongues, or setting fires, to make a big impact on everyone in a shelter and the surrounding community. The hard-core delusional folks who strip off their clothes or scream at passing cars stand out. So I stepped into the shelter where statistically, last night, 96% of the homeless population was lucid and doing fine - impressive considering they and their families have no home and no support team to shelter them as they endure heart-breaking poverty - and I started talking with folks who had overheard, "Eat Cat Food, _______!" Only, and here's the source of my complete and total surprise... they weren't rocking their heads incredulously at the absurdity of the comment, the way my co-workers and I had. No, a trio of women aged 34 to 61 was talking to me about - wait for it - how it tasted! You read that right. These three women spoke to me without shame or even surprise about the fact that they had eaten cat food, "Some of it's like tuna, only less expensive. Oh, and crunchier." How could I possibly be so stupid? The youngest woman recounted her experience, "My grandma used to give it to us, it wasn't all that bad." Sadly, my face or my silence must have given me away. One of the woman looked at me and asked - now she was the one surprised - "What, you've never had cat food?" Advertisement I've spent the morning web searching statistics on the consumption of pet food by humans in the United States. Most of what I found dates back to the 1970's. A New York Times article archived by Google explained that a study spearheaded by then Senator George McGovern had been leaked to the media and that unconfirmed sources claimed that humans ingested 30 percent of the pet food sold in the country. You can imagine how this horrified the companies that produce food for animals. According to the 1974 New York Times article, "The Pet Food Institute in Washington D.C., are busily knocking down the rumors, which dismay and even irritate them with the inevitable resulting question (and potential higher cost) of human food standards for pet food ingredients and processing." So while I couldn't identify statistics supporting the anecdotes told by the women in the shelter, I could explain the crunchy quality they noted in their remarks. The same article reveals that according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, "Lungs, spleens, gullets, intestines, bruised or emaciated muscle tissue go routinely into pet foods. So do '4-D' animals (dead, dying, diseased or disabled); those with infectious conditions are chemically denatured and sent to rendering plants, to be turned first into meat meal and bone meal. The rest are decharacterized with ground charcoal to keep them out of human-food channels." The story of my daughter Harper is that everybody's life, even if they have special needs, has a purpose. My daughter Harper Elle Howard was born on April 12, 2010, with a very rare, non-hereditary, life-threatening genetic disorder called CDKL5 epilepsy -- at just two weeks old, she started experiencing seizures that were so severe, my husband Dustin and I (and Harper's big sister Lily) were very frightened. Advertisement We were just a couple from Carrollton, Texas, and were totally unprepared for what lay ahead. But Harper's journey held more in store both for others and for our family than we ever could have imagined. When does your absolute terror as a parent turn into an inspiring story for people around the world? While you're living it, it's impossible to tell ... The Seizures Stole My Baby Away At 19 months old, Harper had a huge surge of seizures that seemed to just steal everything from her, and that's when she became almost like a vegetable. At worst she was having 40-plus seizures a day. "Traditional" pharmaceutical meds were totally ineffective at controlling Harper's seizures and, even worse, sometimes left her catatonic. Advertisement As hard as it is to say, I used to lay in bed with her every night and cry and every morning in the shower pray that if God didn't heal Harper he'd just show her mercy and take her home to be at peace. Looking back, I should have known then that Harper's life had some kind of greater purpose ... but things like that are often impossible to see when you're living them in the moment, day by day. Finding CBD ... and Hope for Harper In 2013, after watching Dr. Sanjay Gupta's CNN special "Weed" and endless hours of research online, we found a CBD oil from hemp called RSHO - and really, that's the only thing that not only brought us hope, but stopped Harper's seizures ... completely. I'll never forget giving the CBD oil to Harper and seeing the immediate impact it had on her quality of life. Within the first three days we had eye contact and verbalization sounds from her, an attempt to interact with us physically and she was now able to show us that she was with us mentally. It wasn't long before she went a day without a seizure! And then another day without a seizure! In this April 29, 2014 file photo, an oral administration syringe loaded with high CBD hemp oil for treating a severely-ill child is shown at a private home in Colorado Springs, Colo. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley) Advertisement Before we knew it she was at 45, 50 then 60 days without a seizure. Harper even came out of her stupor, her shell, and interacted with the family, we got her little personality back. She got to meet her baby brother Seth after he was born late in 2014. How was this even possible? After three years of living in hell there was finally light! Harper does not simply exist here on Earth but rather she lives! But, believe it or not, that was nothing. Harper's miracle actually laid half a world away... Saving a Desperate Baby Girl in Brazil Without knowing just how far it might reach, I launched "Hope 4 Harper," aFacebook and blog where I set out to document Harper's struggle with CDKL5 and how RSHO hemp oil stopped her seizures and helped give some of her life back. How could I ever know that Katiele Fischer, a mother of another CDKL5 daughterAnny Fischer in Brazil, would find Harper's blog from thousands of miles away as she desperately searched for her own answers? From half a world away, Katiele found Harper's blog and had RSHO shipped to her illegally from relatives in the U.S. to Brazil. She documented everything with a doctor and lawyer. Advertisement Just like Harper's, Anny's seizures started to disappear. When the worst happened and Katiele was caught importing the CBD oil illegally, Katiele did something that inspired even our family. In April 2014, Katiele stormed up the steps of ANVISA, Brazil's FDA, and sued the federal government of Brazil for her right to access RSHO to save little Anny. A screenshot from the documentary "Illegal," which depicts the Fischer family's struggle to secure CBD oil treatment for their daughter. In just three days, ANVISA ruled that it would be "inhumane," to keep CBD oil from Anny, setting a legal precedent that would end up changing the world. Dozens of families across Brazil sued the government after Katiele's ruling, revolutionizing cannabis laws in the ninth-largest economy in the world forever. As things stand today, Brazil is not only allowing CBD hemp oil to be imported into Brazil as a medication with a doctor's prescription, the Brazilian government is subsidizing the payments under their healthcare system. And now, Brazil is allowing CBD from hemp to be imported for more than epilepsy, but also for several other medical indications, including Parkinson's disease and chronic pain. Advertisement What makes me angry that the FDA (our US government) has hesitated to act as quickly for the health interests of our people, freeing them from pain and suffering, in a country known for supposed freedom! After what happened in Brazil, I now read that Colombia, Chile, and now even Mexico have legalized CBD oil as well. My heart is full! My Harper, unknowingly to us, helped change the world. Despite all of her struggles and all of her suffering, I like to think that Harper was an angel, and that helping save all of these poor suffering people in Central and South America will be a part of her legacy forever. Losing Hope ... On Friday, January 8, 2016, our family tragically lost our little angel Harper. As a mom, I really can't write into words what it's like to lose your daughter, it's a hole inside of you, and really nothing ever fills that, nothing will ever make that better - or make it go away. For five short years that felt forever long we walked this fine line of hope and hopelessness while Harper fought each day simply to survive so she could do her job here on Earth and change the world. However, on behalf of the Fischers' bravery, and for suffering families in Brazil, and all of the thousands of Anny Fischers out there around the world, I want the world to know about Harper's story. Advertisement Our family also decided to donate Harper's body to science to help find a cure for CDKL5 epilepsy, and reach out to seek funding for research. Harper is actually the first-ever brain "banked" to find a cure, making her another first. In the end, I am honored that she chose me to be her partner in helping her accomplish more in five years than most people do in a lifetime without ever having to utter a single word herself. Please help me urge our U.S. government to take similar steps as the government of Brazil did for the health and wellness of their people. Write your senator or congressman a letter, and urge them to support ending the schedule-1 for THC and to support new research! Or, if you're not a writer, please donate to help CDKL5 research. Harper is watching all of us, and she would want the world to know. Mike Weinstein, director of training and security at the National Armory gun store and gun range, shows how to safely fire a Glock 9mm hand gun during a Concealed Weapons Permit class on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2016, in Pompano Beach, Fla. President Barack Obama unveiled his plan Tuesday to tighten control and enforcement of firearms in the U.S. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky) With President Obama's executive action on gun control, we have yet another round in the gun debate. On Rosh Hashanah last September, I gave a sermon on Jewish ethics and gun control, which was subsequently published in the Huffington Post. Since that publication, I have heard from advocates both for and against gun control. I have learned a great deal through dialogue, and my optimism says that if I can learn, then perhaps we as a society can hear each other and make progress on this issue. I come to ethical issues from my own particular tradition that I believe has a universal message. In that sermon, I outlined that Judaism has a strong ethic of self-defense, including being able to have a weapon (Berachot 58a). It also, however, has an equally strong stance that you should not have an unnecessary dangerous object in your home (Bava Kamma 46a), and you are also forbidden to provide a weapon to a dangerous person (Avodah Zarah 15b). In general, classic Jewish sources accept weapons as necessary evils (Shabbat 63a). Advertisement How do we apply this balance of ethics in the gun debate today? My conclusion was and remains that, according to Jewish law, people have the right to own a gun for self-defense, which accords with the Second Amendment. However, every effort should be made to deny guns to dangerous people or not to create a hazard in the home, which goes along with a comprehensive system of background checks, safety requirements and education. And, in direct conflict with much of American culture, Jewish tradition doesn't see weapons as part of recreation or sport. I did make a mistake in my sermon. I used the very murky term "assault weapon," which can mean any semi-automatic gun with cosmetic changes and often a low caliber ammunition, confusing it with an "assault rifle," which is a fully automatic gun that is currently banned and has been for years. Also by mentioning assault weapons, I drew attention away from the that fact that 99% of crimes are committed with handguns, which are the real problem. And while much ink has been spilled by the gun control community about gun shows, "cop-killer bullets," and high-capacity magazines, those aspects account for a very small percentage of gun violence. In defense of gun control advocates, however, most of our first-hand experience has been as victims or friends of victims of gun violence. That is more experience than we want to have. While some factors like high capacity magazines or clips may contribute to a small percentage of gun violence, it hard to see a justification for their existence in a non-military setting at all, no matter how small their influence. And even if the number of guns bought legally in America without a background check is not 40% - as many gun control advocates have claimed - but actually closer to approximately 15%, that is still an awful lot of unchecked guns and in my opinion ought to be zero. Finally, smart-gun technology, including tracers for lost or stolen guns, should not be dismissed because the technology is currently imperfect and undeveloped; the technology of the future needs our investment and promotion. More than 30,000 people die from gun violence each year in the United States. We have to do something to reduce this number and save lives. Advertisement If we truly care about reducing gun violence, gun control advocates, myself included, need to be more precise and careful with our terms and data. We need to actually address the larger problem: easy access to handguns that are either stolen, bought on the black market (both of which are already illegal) or acquired privately and legally without a background check. We also need to talk about education: are you really safer having a gun in your home? People tend to be irrationally afraid of many things. We can be scared of spiders and snakes but not of cars or alcohol, even though the latter is more likely to be part of what kills you. Similarly, we can be irrationally afraid of both guns themselves as objects or of intruders into your home or store. It is in fact the government's job to make a safer society through traffic laws, airport security screening, and gun legislation, and that includes making it more difficult for people contemplating suicide, who are abusive to their partners, the mentally ill, stalkers, and children to get their hands on guns. There is a consensus in the scientific community - no matter how fervently it is denied by people who often profit from the gun industry - that gun control does make society safer. Gathered around the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC on August 28, 1963, accompanied by Mahalia Jackson singing "How I Got Over," and Bob Dylan's strumming accompanied vocals of "When The Ship Comes In", diverse people were in attendance for Dr. Martin Luther King's historic "I Have a Dream" Speech. In a time of civil rights infringement against black people, marchers demanded jobs and freedom at the March on Washington, while receiving a grand hope for the future--a vision that seemed impossible at the time that ignited tremendous change. And just like Dr. Martin Luther King's impossible dream, Chicago must continue to dream of a day very different than the present with so much gloom hoovering over the city with more than 120 gunshot victims in Chicago already in 2016. All children in inner city Chicago neighborhoods can dream of a day where they can freely play and walk to school in their communities without the looming thoughts that they could be the next gunshot victim. Advertisement Mothers can dream of a day where their tears they cry for their children will be joyful tears of accomplishments rather than from them having to bury them. Students can dream of a day where their education is equal to those of neighboring suburbs so that they have the tools to achieve educational success without having to overcome educational gaps. Black men and women can dream of a day where they feel protected by law enforcement instead of stigmatized and racially profiled so that affected communities can work with law enforcement to better serve communities. Troubled black youth can dream of a day where there is an emphasis on them being offered redemption, rehabilitation, and mental health counseling so that they don't become a product of mass incarceration. Advertisement Chicago residents can dream of a day where the wonderful talents, culture, and beauty of the city is no longer overshadowed by the death toll from gun violence. I can dream of a day where I don't worry about my family in Chicago inner cities or receive updates on childhood friends who died to gun violence. Forget about itthat it that is those burly security guards barring access to that VIP room where Rahm Emanuel sits. He's the one with no secure access. That's because his fate rests in the hands of two women ensconced there for the foreseeable future. And, they've got their futures (not his) to build. Those two women would be would-be President Hillary Clinton and already-a-President, Cook County's Toni Preckwinkle. Advertisement So, if you're distressed about Chicago's turn for the worse these Rahm-days, not-to-worry. Hillary Clinton and Toni Preckwinkle have now taken charge. That's because the Illinois Democratic primary is fast upon us. And Clinton's and Preckwinkle's Primary decision making will have an enormous impact on Chicago's future. Consider Clinton's decision-tree. She has to decide whether to even be seen with Rahm. She has to decide whether to ask Rahm to mobilize his political allies to get out the Primary vote for her. She has to decide whether to ask that other Clinton to call in the Rahm-card. For, after all, it was he who made Rahm Emanuel, and Rahm can still raise money, and Hillary really needs it, what with Bernie Sanders nipping at her heels and all. Consider Preckwinkle's. Does Preckwinkle overtly support the mayoral ambitions of those jockeying to replace Rahm, now that she's secured the Cook County Democratic Party's endorsement of her protege, Kim Foxx? Does she appear at their fundraisers? Does she help those would-be mayors get out the Primary vote, thereby helping them build their future political leverage against Rahm? Does Preckwinkle get seen with these guys and girls at confabs about Chicago's future? (Of which there will be a lot more, as this tale of Rahm's two cities unspools.) Coincidentally, last week, I saw Preckwinkle at one of those confabs. She walked into the room fashionably late and worked it like a rock star. Yes, she was wearing her unfashionable sensible shoes, but she sure didn't walk-in like a sensible policy wonk. Nope, not hardly: she walked in like the queen maker she has made of herself. She worked out that room as well as I've ever seen anyone do. Advertisement Say, Clinton and Preckwinkle get past March victorious (and I'll be glad of it): Clinton for herself, Preckwinkle for Foxx. No victory party just yet. That's because, of course, there is still the November election to deal with. There are still the tens of millions that need to be raised for Clinton's presidential campaign. There are still the (mere) millions needed to make Foxx's case, so that she wins big. There are still the hundreds of thousands of voters to mobilize. But, girlfriends: not-to-worry: Clinton and Preckwinkle will run this board. That's because they just like Rahm and the other political men in their sensible shoes (Get it? Shoe choice is irrelevant!) - crave power, not policy, most of all. Ignore those Clinton and Preckwinkle goody-two-shoes, literal and otherwise. Ignore apologetic, old-school, plodding, good-girl political campaigning. It hasn't worked. It's history. (And, I'm glad of it.) Instead, pay attention to Clinton and Preckwinkle, now getting-it-together in that VIP room, each determining her sensible next steps to win 2016. What is that winning strategy, you ask? Forget about it. No mystery there, either. It's doing everything you have to do. It's powering forward. (Just like Rahm and the other guys would, were they lucky enough to be sitting in these chairs, wearing these shoes.) And, when Clinton and Preckwinkle open that door, Rahm and the other guys will just have to follow, making the best of it they can. (And, I'm glad of it.) News / National by Staff Reporter Ailing Minister for Masvingo Provincial Affairs Shuvai Mahofa is under probe following revelations that she looted some of President Robert Mugabe's first daughter Bona's wedding gifts donated by big companies in Masvingo in 2014.Some party members are saying the development will likely see Mahofa losing her ministerial post if proven guilty.TellZim News was informed that Mahofa was left with an egg in the face at a meeting held in Harare a few days before the Victoria Falls conference in December when Masvingo Women's League chairlady Veronica Makonese openly told Grace that Mahofa was involved in a spate of corrupt activities.It was also Makonese who told Grace that Mahofa looted Bona's wedding anniversary gifts and some donations which were supposed to be used at the Gutu - Mushayavanhu rally held recently."It was drama when Makonese burst and told Grace everything in front of Mahofa - she said Mhai munhu aripadivi penyu uyo haakudei (that lady next to you does not love you) and Mahofa screamed as she tried to stop Makonese.However, Makonese refused to be stopped and went on to give a blow by blow account of how Mahofa was making money using the name of Zanu-PF and Grace," said the source.Makonese confirmed that she reported everything to Grace but was reluctant to go into details saying the issue was still under investigation."Yes I told the First Lady everything. However, I cannot go into details, the whole issue is being investigated including that of the Mushayavanhu rally. I am not at liberty to divulge everything to you at the moment," said Makonese.Zanu PF Masvingo provincial chairperson Ezra Ruvai Chadzamira refused to give details regarding the issue saying it was a Women's League matter but he however confirmed that an investigation team was coming to Masvingo."We don't know what exactly happened but we were informed that Makonese said something nasty about Mahofa at a meeting held in Harare just before the conference. Yes it's true that an investigation team is coming to Masvingo," said Chadzamira.Although Mahofa who was reportedly ill could not be reached for a comment, party members said she fell sick soon after the Harare drama."She fell sick soon after that dramashe is aware of the consequences of the outcome of the investigations," said the source. Chicago Public Schools' ethics watchdog recently released its annual report on investigations within CPS, focusing on issues like families lying to get their children into selective-enrollment schools, the Barbara Byrd-Bennett scandal and employees using their tax-exempt status to buy personal items, including a refrigerator, a TV and even Three Stooges DVDs. The report says the Office of the Inspector General received more than 1,300 complaints of abuse during fiscal year 2015 for problems like fraud, theft and "financial mismanagement" by CPS. The OIG investigated 322 cases, citing a small staff, a focus on more complicated issues and time spent on post-investigation work like hearings and trials for why so few cases actually were investigated. Though the 55-page report includes many different investigations and recommendations for CPS, here's a short list of some of the biggest and most interesting takeaways. Advertisement 1) Lying to get into selective-enrollment schools The report targets selective-enrollment school fraud as a large problem within CPS. It notes several cases of students who live in the suburbs attending city schools, including a Walter Payton College Prep senior who lived in Des Plaines, a Whitney Young Magnet High School student who lived in Elmwood Park and a Lane Tech freshman who lived in Burbank. But suburbanites going to CPS schools isn't the only problem -- the OIG also lists "tier fraud" as another issue for selective-enrollment schools. Since admission to these schools also factors in socio-economic status, families who lie on applications saying they lived in a poorer part of the city also commit fraud. The OIG says CPS needs to step up its game to stop families from lying to get into these schools and current policies just aren't enough. Some students who are found to have committed enrollment fraud are allowed to stay in school or transfer back into a selective-enrollment school fairly quickly. The OIG also argues there isn't any "meaningful monetary penalty" to stop people from attempting fraud, especially since many of the families who try are "families with the financial means to seriously consider comparable educations at expensive private schools." 2) Barbara Byrd-Bennett The report touches on one of the big stories of 2015: the federal bribery investigation against former CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett. She was indicted in October on five counts of wire fraud and 15 counts of mail fraud for allegedly pushing CPS contracts worth more than $23 million to her former employer SUPES Academy in exchange for kickbacks. Byrd-Bennett has plead guilty to one count of wire fraud. But it's not over yet- the OIG report says their investigation is ongoing. Advertisement 3) Abusing tax-exempt status The OIG investigated 13 cases of school employees using CPS's tax-exempt status to buy stuff for themselves. One employee racked up nearly $23,000 of tax-free purchases including a Kindle Fire, an iPad mini and an iMac. One teacher bought a refrigerator, a washer and dryer and two Xbox gaming systems and another admitted to buying a pair of headphones, an Apple TV and Three Stooges DVDs. The report says many of the employees admitted they had bought items for themselves and not for the classroom, but some still stuck by their stories. One employee said she deserved the tax-exempt status on her GPS because she used it to get to school and another said he needed the electric razor to make himself look acceptable for class. For more than 30 years, I have been unearthing problems with the way the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) sells coal that belongs to the American people. Rather than serving the interests of the American taxpayer and the climate, the federal program has done what's best for coal companies. Roughly 40 percent of the coal that is mined in America every year comes from public lands, the vast majority coming from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana. However, because of the problems with the program that I revealed American taxpayers cannot be assured that they are getting a fair return on this tremendously valuable natural resource that belongs to them. It is really a tale of two reviews by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) - one in 1983 and one in 2014 and both at my request. Unfortunately, the storylines from both of these reports were strikingly similar. Because of a lack of competition and other problems, the federal government has been selling this federally-owned coal at rock bottom prices. Advertisement My first GAO review found that the Reagan Administration had sold coal in the Powder River Basin for roughly $100 million less than it was worth. That scandal ultimately led to the resignation of President Reagan's first Interior Secretary, James Watt. However, by 2014, we were back to business as usual at the Interior Department when it came to leasing our nation's coal. In fact, my 2014 GAO review was the first review of the coal program in 20 years. And the GAO found that many of the problems they discovered in the coal program had persisted since the 1980s. There was still a woeful lack of competition for these coal leases and numerous other problems that undermined the effectiveness of the program. One major problem: As a result of selling this coal at bargain basement prices, we have been, in effect, subsidizing the coal industry to mine coal that belongs to the American people so that it can be burned here and around the world and worsen climate change. This is just plain wrong. The United States has to lead by example in fighting climate change, and that should start with the way that we manage the coal and other fossil fuel resources on public lands that belong to the American people. Advertisement Fortunately, the Obama Administration announced today that it will take action to comprehensively reform our nation's coal program. The urgency of climate change has helped overcome the inertia of the BLM to do what is right for the American people. The Administration will also stop issuing new coal leases until those reforms are put in place, a recommendation I have been making for years. The reforms announced today closely track with legislation I have introduced. They include overhauling when, where and how to lease coal, accounting for the impacts of coal leasing on the climate and reforming the way we calculate the value of publicly-owned coal to ensure that taxpayers aren't getting shortchanged. But there are a number of measures that the Interior Department should implement this year before President Obama leaves office. The Interior Department should immediately increase the royalty rate paid to the American people for coal production on public lands. It should issue regulations to ensure that we take into account the impacts on our climate and the possibility of exports when leasing this coal. And it should vastly increase the transparency of coal leasing so that the American people can see and understand what is being done. Andover-Newton Theological School is located in Newton Centre, MA. The mission of this institution has been to provide theological education and training future ministers for the American Baptist, United Church Of Christ, Unitarian-Universalist Association and other denominations. Andover-Newton has a beautiful campus with old ivory covered buildings, an impressive chapel , a tranquil green lush quadrangle with stately Adirondack chairs. I have visited there on several occasions presenting at conferences and received superb hospitality. But Andover Newton will now close its doors. Currently the numbers of students there are 225, many of whom are part time. The school has 14 faculty members and 32 staff members according to a recent published article Newton seminary poised to relocate, contract - The Boston...https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/.../divinity/.../story.h..Nov 12, 2015. So how did this theological school get into this predicament ? Well, for one thing demographics are changing in churches; less people are attending, more churches are finding themselves closing their doors or those that have the resources are merging with other congregations, even with other denominations. According to the Boston Globe article Enrollment in US seminaries has fallen over the past decade, from about 73,000 in 2004 to 67,000 in 2014, according to the Association of Theological Schools. Other institutions like Austin Theological Seminary Austin, TX and Princeton Theological Seminary Princeton, N.J. have had long-standing partnerships with the University of Texas at Austin and Rutgers University respectively, where students could earn a dual degree with a Masters of Divinity and a Masters of Social Work. These programs have demonstrated to be successful particularly with regard to vocational employment. The phenomena happening at Andover Newton and elsewhere speaks to the changing dynamics of religious life and the education of church leaders. More and more institutions are offering coursework on line ( i.e. Chicago Theological School, etc. ). Andover Newton is seriously looking into a merger with Yale Divinity School. The existing school would move to New Haven, CT and the buildings at the Andover campus would be sold. I feel for the current students because I can only imagine that this is a stressful ,anxious time for them. If you are attending the present school in Newton Centre, MA and you are commuting from your home several hours away in New Hampshire and you are also a student pastor for a local church, the closure of your school is going to greatly complicate your life. I hope and pray that this merger between Andover Newton and Yale Divinity School goes smoothly and without complications. I understand the reason for this decision fiscally and in terms of responsible stewardship. Yes, this may mean that theological education can no longer be tied to brick and mortar. Steely Dan may have been right when they observed " I'm never going back to my old school. " However, this also means that the students and their families affected by this merger need to be protected and ensure that they will be able to complete their degree. Also, denominations need to get smarter. They need to advocate for theological seminaries to offer more dual degree programs in Divinity and Social Work, Psychology, Education. This needs to happen now. The future of the Church is in the balance. May it be so. More than 20 years ago I received an assignment to go to Oklahoma City after the bombing of the Alfred E. Murrah Federal Building. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols conspired to destroy a symbol of government power -- without regard for human life. One-hundred-sixty-eight people were killed and 680 injured in that incident. The people of Oklahoma City asked themselves, "Why?" and especially, "Why here?" Jannie Coverdale lost her two grandchildren, Elijah and Aaron, in the blast. Jim Denny could only identify his 3-year-old son Brandon by a birthmark on the boy's thigh when he arrived at the hospital. Advertisement One of the victims, Rebecca Anderson, was a licensed practical nurse who rushed to the bomb site immediately after hearing the explosion. "She was probably the finest woman God ever put on this earth," her husband, Fred Anderson, said. In the weeks that followed, investigators determined that the killers had links with militia groups throughout the country. The militias and paramilitary organizations sought a New World Order and to create division within the country based on racial heritage or country of origin. All in the name of our "constitutional freedoms." Scenes of bloodshed also played out in Waco, Texas, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho, where extremists and the federal government dueled in deadly standoffs. Little has changed since that time -- in fact, some militia members have been emboldened by rhetoric in Congress. Advertisement Oregon's Rep. Greg Walden, in urging clemency for Dwight and Steven Hammond -- the ranchers jailed for arson on federal property -- spoke angrily on the House floor of his constituents' "tension," "frustration" and "anger" over federal land management policies. These are words that inflame emotions, not soothe them. Any sympathy for armed rebellion in Harney County is misplaced. The lesson I'm learning in Oregon is many good people want to help the Hammonds but not the Bundys. Our sister paper, the East Oregonian, wisely notes residents in the sparsely populated high desert area are "largely rebuffing" the militant Ammon Bundy and his followers. "The real question is how that land should be managed and how grazing and natural resource extraction will remain viable and part of the multiple use doctrine that historically governed public lands," the East Oregonian writes. "Government policy once fostered the timber, livestock and mining industries that became the economic lifeblood of rural Western communities. Current policy -- the result of environmental lawsuits and regulatory and legislative changes -- is largely responsible for draining that lifeblood." On the coast, we may be far from Harney County, but many of the same issues prevail. We have thousands of acres of timber and coastal land. We have a federal government overseeing and considering approval of a billion dollar pipeline over the will of impassioned citizens of all political persuasions. We have conflicts between Native Americans and management of their tribal lands. Fishermen face national and international regulations that may, to their eyes, defy logic. Advertisement All these issues must be vigorously debated and legislated. But nuance doesn't play well in a crisis. The words "good" and "evil" are so strictly defined by each of us in our own way that it's almost impossible to accept shades of gray. Extremism triumphs. Events like the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation only set back the conversation -- there is little value to legislation from the barrel of a gun or in the aftermath of tragedy. The bombing of the Murrah Federal Building seems long ago and far away, but the lives lost in Oklahoma City in 1995 are irreplaceable. "The Oklahoma City blast had repercussions that went far beyond the death toll," we wrote in 1995. "The American people suddenly got a glimpse of a new terrorist threat -- a threat from within." "The antigovernment movement has experienced a resurgence since 2008, when President Obama was elected," writes the Southern Poverty Law Center. Factors fueling the movement include changing demographics driven by immigration, a struggling economy and the election of the first African-American president. The "inspiration" provided by many in the militia movement is no more of a divine message than that of the jihadists. Advertisement We conclude with this message from the Oregon State Police, who issued this statement last Wednesday, on behalf of all 36 sheriff offices in the state. "The sheriffs of Oregon are united in the support of Harney County and its residents. We are supplying logistical and operational support to the community while the FBI works for a peaceful resolution with the militants at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge," they said. "We want the good people of Harney County and the state of Oregon to know that we will always unite to provide support and assistance to ensure the safety of our residents, for any length of time, whenever criminal activity or an emergency, fractures the peace and security in our communities." Children in a religious program Every January 16 is Religious Freedom Day, a day to celebrate one of our fundamental freedoms and recognize the anniversary of the signing of the Virginia Religious Freedom Statute. This statute may not be immediately familiar to most people, but its substance is acknowledged by nearly all Americans, as it served as the ideological basis for the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The idea of religious freedom was conceived as a shield protecting against government overreach when it comes to religious matters. All Americans, be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, atheist, and so on, should have the freedom to practice their faith or worldview free from burdensome government regulation or required participation; faith and other individual thoughts are private waters that government shall not wade in except in extreme circumstances. Advertisement Jefferson's Virginia Statute communicates this perspective well, interestingly enough, emphasizing our freedom from government imposition of faith, an aspect of religious freedom too often overlooked today. The statute states (admittedly in outdated gendered terms) that "no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities." Unfortunately, much has changed in the centuries since the Constitution was adopted. The shield of religious freedom has often been transformed into a sword by religious conservatives who seek to force their faith on others and use that faith as an excuse to discriminate against their fellow Americans free from legal repercussions. Take for instance the passing of various state Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, which, unlike the federal version of this law, protects private citizens from civil penalties for discriminating against others because of religiously motivated views. While the religious freedom properly understood mandates government religious neutrality, recent statements by public officials seem to reject that at the expense of the nonreligious. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia went as far as to say religious neutrality just doesn't exist specifically asserting with his question "there is no place for that in our constitutional tradition...to be sure, you can't favor one denomination over another but can't you favor religion over nonreligion?" This transformation of religious freedom, from a defensive barrier between people and the government, into a weapon used to promote special rights to discriminate, not only fans the flames of prejudice, but weakens the overall health of religious freedom in our country. When the majority religion receives government support and their beliefs are seen as a civic virtue, those identifying with minority faiths and philosophies are alienated and may fear government reprisal for how they think and believe. That's not religious freedom. Advertisement Mutating the concept of religious freedom in such a way also impacts other areas such as the justice system. As some people take advantage of special rights for the religious, use their religion as a way to discriminate, and exempt themselves from laws that the rest of us have to follow, the idea that all of the laws apply to all Americans equally is jeopardized, which in turn weakens the very rule of law. You could say that Joshua Elias's inspiration and motivation behind his paintings stem from reading too much Philip K. Dick or Robert A Heinlein, but you'd be wrong. The intense and highly remarkable idea behind his series, "Floating Cities," amongst many others, is a recipe of pure imagination, creative understanding and a touch of Sci-Fi. Elias, an American painter, channels his own experimental and systematic origins while also guiding these origins out of others. Having grown up with an artist mother and days spent roaming around The Art Institute of Chicago, Joshua Elias realized the beautiful pros of visual art early on. His father, a salesman, took on territory in California and brought the family with him. After graduating high school, Elias attended San Diego State, where he bounced from a Communications major to Fine Art. Elias survived his twenties, as most of us do. But this run included the loss of close friends, a house whittled away by a fire, and a short "beatnik era," where he traveled through Europe. His Kerouacian quest lead him to West Berlin, where he spent some time teaching Theatre and Drama to the military, and won an award for excellence in teaching. After his travels, he returned to California, specifically Los Angeles, and began his career as a professional artist equipped with pockets full of inspiration. Advertisement It started as a focus in film and design. Elias made short films in college and then began crafting sunglasses made out of 35 mm film, with the message of a carbon copy Los Angeles, everyone with a similar vision. After repeatedly visiting a bookstore, and purchasing discount European art books, Elias moved on to oil paints, thus commencing the road to perfecting his craft. Shifting from linen to canvas, Elias chooses his platform based on his mediums, which are usually oil paints, but sometimes his own concoction. Usually, when starting a new piece, Elias will make his own paint using linseed or cooked oil and ground pigment together, to create a specific consistency that satisfies his needs to saturate a surface. Throughout the interview, Elias commented on the importance of the weave and creating on an organic exterior. "Each surface, whether it be a canvas or linen, has a subtle weave in the material. I start out with homemade paint in order to fully supply the weave. Sometimes linseed oil, sometimes rabbit skin glue. This way the pigments coat better and I can mix on the canvas using cake knives or a variety of brushes. I always start at the upper left corner of the canvas. It took me a while to figure out why- sometimes I'm still not sure. When I start there, my canvas becomes an organic surface. Like the curves of a body, my surface becomes an organic form." Elias's portfolio is a collection of works that are stunning in color and surprising in depth. The hues of each piece seem to work perfectly next to each other, whether in a calming manner or a specific kind of beauty that is achieved by discordance. Like many pieces of abstract art, Elias's work means the most with a little explanation. But don't let that dishearten you, Elias's work is just as lovely without commentary. Referred to as "maps" by both Elias and critics alike, each painting acts as a guidance that, although already existing, is often hidden beneath the surface of the human mind. Citing a "thunderous explosion of hypnagogia" as message and influence, Elias paints subjects that dive into this creative subconscious/conscious. Every painting that's ever been made has some kind of a story, but Elias tells a different, relatable tale, connecting us all in a way that we were unaware of. Advertisement "It's the state of transition between wakefulness and sleep, but I think it's more than that. I always knew I had a vision; I still do. It's this private, unspoken time, like it's a faux-pas. We are most creative during this time and the greatest things come from this period. But that's only where it begins," Elias explains. "My paintings revolve around this theory of concealed time, notions and existence. We all have our own personal architecture. We are constantly building these worlds, just by living our everyday life. This sounds a bit Sci-Fi but, I believe these silent little worlds of ours are slowly making their way onto this plane, into this life. We do what we have to do, live our life, but these cities, our personal architecture, keep building. I think that one day, this will be the way we relate to each other. It is these places where we house our ideas and visions, and I am working to bring forth all of these visions. I am exploring this romantic notion by painting, with hopes that people will connect in this way and bring out their own city. These are our 'Floating Cities'." His relationship to art does not end with his own creations. Elias lives in the Los Angeles Brewery Arts Complex, surrounded by neighbors of fellow artists and teachers. An experimental idea that turned into an act of support, Elias along with a few friends started Laemmle's Art in the Arthouse. This program supports established artists by displaying their work around the Pasadena theatre, as well as curating solo exhibitions, and digitally displaying the artist's work before the daily showings of arthouse films. In the upcoming Spring, Joshua Elias will have an exhibition at the Jill Joy Gallery and a solo show at Fathom Gallery in Los Angeles. In addition, he will show at the Non Objective Exhibition at Fullerton College in September 2016, and an ongoing solo show at Ehlers Estate in Napa Valley in the beginning of March. He will also spend a week working at an Artists Writing Retreat in Reykjavik, Iceland. Advertisement You can learn more about Joshua Elias by visiting his website: www.joshuaelias.com Evacuations are always relatively sudden, stressful and difficult. Incoming information changes by the hour. They are expensive especially when you factor in lost wages. And they can be dangerous. In the face of Hurricane Rita in September 2005 when Texas's mayor asked Houston residents to evacuate by saying "Don't follow the example of New Orleans," there was gridlock, emergencies and empty gas stations. The evacuation contributed to 60 deaths including 24 nursing home residents on a bus that caught fire and exploded. And all too often, the evacuation turns out to be for naught. In September 2004, over half of New Orleans residents evacuated in advance of Hurricane Ivan using the state's contraflow plan for the first time. (On-ramps work, exit ramps don't, and there is nowhere to go but out.) But delays were horrific, and many went back home to watch Ivan sputter out. Nonetheless, Ivan exposed a contraflow plan in need of revision, and one year later, preceding Katrina, the state, without any federal assistance, would evacuate 93 percent of Greater New Orleans. It would be cited as the most successful rapid evacuation of a major city in American history. But clearly, not nearly enough attention was paid to those without a car, credit cards, road experience and a network of family and friends outside the city. Analyses show that the elderly are the least likely to evacuate due to reasons ranging from stubbornness to staying to care for a beloved pet. Analyses also show that the primary reason that the Katrina evacuation did not save more lives was due to the failure of levees and floodwalls built by the Army Corps of Engineers . Two days before Katrina's landfall, Max Mayfield, then-director of the National Hurricane Center personally called Mayor Ray Nagin, telling him that some levees in greater New Orleans could be overtopped. Those who stayed knew they would lose electricity and perhaps get some soggy carpets. But no one predicted the levees themselves would break. After Katrina, many businesses relocated to other cities because evacuations themselves shut down businesses. No one should treat the call to evacuate as something simple or obvious. Experienced evacuation volunteers can all agree that even in the best of circumstances, an evacuation is a living nightmare. By Christian Jarrett A lot of so-called "positive psychology" can seem a bit flaky, especially if you're the sort of person disinclined to respond well to an admonition to "look on the bright side." But positive psychologists have published some interesting findings, and one of the more robust ones is that feeling grateful is very good for you. Time and again, studies have shown that performing simple gratitude exercises, like keeping a gratitude diary or writing letters of thanks, can bring a range of benefits, such as feelings of increased well-being and reduced depression, that often linger well after the exercises are finished. Now a brain-scanning study in NeuroImage brings us a little closer to understanding why these exercises have these effects. The results suggest that even months after a simple, short gratitude writing task, people's brains are still wired to feel extra thankful. The implication is that gratitude tasks work, at least in part, because they have a self-perpetuating nature: The more you practice gratitude, the more attuned you are to it and the more you can enjoy its psychological benefits. The Indiana University researchers, led by Prathik Kini, recruited 43 people who were undertaking counseling sessions as a treatment for their anxiety or depression. Twenty-two of them were assigned to a gratitude intervention; for the first three sessions of their weekly counseling, this group spent 20 minutes writing a letter in which they expressed their gratitude to the recipient, an hour in total (whether they chose to send these letters was up to them). The other participants acted as a control group, so they simply attended their counseling as usual without performing the gratitude task. Advertisement Three months after their counseling was over, all of the participants completed a "Pay It Forward" gratitude task in a brain scanner. Each was "given" various amounts of money by imaginary benefactors whose names and photos appeared onscreen to add to the realism of the task. The researchers told the participants that each benefactor said that if the participant wanted to express their gratitude for the monetary gift, they'd appreciate it if the participant gave some or all of the donation to a named third party (again, identified by photo and name), or a named charity. The participants knew this was all an exercise, but were all told that one of the transactions, chosen later at random, would actually occur -- that is, they'd actually receive the cash amount offered to them by one of the benefactors minus the amount they chose to pass on (and the money they opted to pass on really would go to charity). Related: Why You Shouldn't Race Through Those Thank-You Notes The researchers found that, on average, the more money a participant gave away, and the stronger the feelings of gratitude they reported feeling, the more activity they exhibited in a range of brain areas in the frontal, parietal, and occipital regions. Interestingly, these neural-activity patterns appeared somewhat distinct from those that usually appear when brain-scan subjects complete tasks associated with emotions like empathy or thinking about other people's points of view, which is consistent with the idea that gratitude is a unique emotion. Most exciting, though, is the finding that the participants who'd completed the gratitude task months earlier not only reported feeling more gratefulness two weeks after the task than members of the control group, but also, months later, showed more gratitude-related brain activity in the scanner. The researchers described these "profound" and "long-lasting" neural effects as "particularly noteworthy," and they highlighted that one of the main regions that showed this increased sensitivity -- the "pregenual anterior cingulate," which is known to be involved in predicting the effects of one's own actions on other people -- overlaps with a key brain region identified in the only previous study on the neurological footprint of gratitude. Advertisement This result suggests that the more practice you give your brain at feeling and expressing gratitude, the more it adapts to this mind-set -- you could even think of your brain as having a sort of gratitude "muscle" that can be exercised and strengthened (not so different from various other qualities that can be cultivated through practice, of course). If this is right, the more of an effort you make to feel gratitude one day, the more the feeling will come to you spontaneously in the future. It also potentially helps explain another established finding, that gratitude can spiral: The more thankful we feel, the more likely we are to act pro-socially toward others, causing them to feel grateful and setting up a beautiful virtuous cascade. However, let's not allow the warm glow of all this gratitude to melt our critical faculties. It's important to realize this result is incredibly preliminary. For one thing, as the researchers openly acknowledge, they didn't conduct a baseline brain scan of the participants before they started the Pay It Forward game, so it's possible, though unlikely given that participants were randomly assigned to the gratitude and control groups, that the participants who performed the gratitude task simply had more neural sensitivity to gratitude already, not because they performed the gratitude task. Another thing: Members of the control group didn't perform a comparison writing task, so we can't know for sure that it was the act of writing a letter of thanks, as opposed to any kind of writing exercise, that led to increased neural sensitivity to gratitude. Still, neurological investigations into gratitude are in their early days, and this research certainly gives us some intriguing clues as to how and why gratitude exercises are beneficial. For that we can be, well, grateful. Advertisement More from Science of Us: We met by chance at the opening reception for Live in the Vineyard, a twice-yearly music, food and wine event that was happening in my part of the world--Napa Valley. Jason was hanging out with some friends of mine from New York City and I teased him about his ripped shirt, unaware that this hipster look was part of the fashion collection of the hot designer Christian Benner, who happens to be his business partner. Like a good Jewish mother, I admonished Jason for his holey clothing not knowing who he was or how unbelievably impressed I would soon be. As head of a record label, Jason Flom already gets a certain amount of rock star credibility. The man has signed music greats such as Katy Perry, Lorde, Jessie J, Hayley Williams, Kid Rock and Matchbox Twenty to name but a few. However, his current role as CEO of Lava Records was not what ultimately grabbed my admiration and interest. A few days after we met, I sat Flom down for an interview to discuss some of the other ways he spends his time and money. Advertisement You have several ongoing passion projects right now, the Christian Benner clothing line, the Innocence Project, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the Bronx Defenders Bail Fund and your latest love, The Church of Rock and Roll. Where do you find the time for all of this? I have been in the music industry since 1979 and I remain passionately devoted to it. When I served as Chairman and CEO of Atlantic Records, Virgin Records and Capitol Music Group the demands on my time were intense. Lava Records has a much smaller roster and staff which allows me time to focus on other passion projects, most importantly my charitable endeavors. I'm very fortunate to be partners with the best label in the business, Republic Records which in turn is a division of Universal Music Group, which is the number 1 music company in the world. Let's talk about all of these projects a bit. Your true love of all things rock and roll has no limits. What is this new Church of Rock and Roll idea all about? The Church of Rock and Roll is a movement which allows people to connect around shared values of personal freedom, inclusion, creativity, art, music, rebellion and irreverence. We started just a few weeks ago but we already have a website and Instagram account @thechurchofrockandroll. We welcome people from all faiths and all walks of life. Our core beliefs are that people should be kind to themselves, others, animals and the Earth--the church is designed to be an antidote to intolerance and prejudice. Religion at its best motivates people to be their best and to help others and that's what we stand for. The Church of Rock and Roll is a place for those that don't have something that they identify with or want to join. We are just getting rolling but we see a future with music festivals, pop up events and lots of weddings--all kinds of them! And we plan to give back by donating to good causes. Advertisement Can we now discuss the leather jackets and torn t-shirt look? When I met Christian Benner he was working in a basement on the Lower East Side making his clothing in a workspace that was half the size of a ping pong table. I was amazed that without a publicist or any promotion his clothes were being worn by some of the most important figures in pop culture--it all happened organically from his Instagram account! Christian is a gifted artist and an extraordinary person so I jumped at the chance to partner with him and together we opened a store on Front Street in the South Street Seaport. The Christian Benner store is truly a rock and roll oasis. Jason, you created the Joseph Flom Special Counsel position at the Innocence Project to honor your father's memory. Not too many people get to give a 1 million dollar gift. That's a big statement. Obviously, the Innocence Project is a cause you are fully committed to heart and soul. Why give so much time and money to this cause? My father, Joseph Flom, came from very modest roots. He instilled in me from a very young age the importance of helping those less fortunate. As a founding board member of The Innocence Project, I am very proud of our work--we have gotten hundreds of wrongly convicted people out of prison using DNA testing to accurately and positively determine guilt or innocence. This work assists some of the most vulnerable people in our society and in many cases we have been able to identify the real perpetrator. It's incredibly gratifying and humbling work. You also mentioned another project in the field of criminal justice. Several years ago you and your Dad developed a bail fund to help people post bail who can not afford it. Advertisement Yes, this bail fund works with the Bronx Defenders, a holistic public defender office located in the South Bronx. In 2007 I became aware that thousands of people were being sent to Rikers Island for months or even years because they were unable to post bail for "nuisance crimes" such as trespassing or drinking in public or smoking a joint. Many of them served months or even years without ever being convicted of a crime. The poorest people were being penalized unfairly. It's worth noting that when bail is posted by the Freedom Fund, 97% of clients return to court. Of those, over 1/2 of the cases are dismissed outright once they are out of jail. In this way the bail fund levels this inequity. It's my hope that this initiative will be replicated in cities all across America. Is there anything else you want people to know about you? Companies with this type of executive show higher returns by more than a third. Why aren't more companies hiring them? Fortune 500 companies with the greatest representation of one specific type of executive in management positions deliver return to shareholders that is 34 percent higher than for companies with the lowest representation. And yet, few companies rush to recruit these leaders. This executive category is not a field of expertise, nor level of experience. Leaders with this impressive impact for shareholders share one common trait: they are female. Advertisement It's well documented: Companies that are closer to gender parity in management positions deliver return to shareholders that is 34 percent higher than for companies with the lowest female representation. To paraphrase Canadian Prime Minister Justin Troudeau, "Why gender parity? Because it's 2016." And it's also profoundly in the investors' best interest. Troudeau, who is speaking at this week's annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, was elected to his current office in the Fall of 2015, and immediately appointed a cabinet of half women and half men. In private sector corporations, such leadership from the top is still lacking. In fact, the key to achieving these impressive returns starts with a commitment from a company's chairman, CEO and board of directors that sets the tone for the organization. Progress is achievable, but only when the Board of Directors, its CEO and its Chairman lead the way. For example, look at what has happened this year in the UK: with active engagement of corporate chairmen, the UK surpassed the United States in its corporate board diversity. In 2010, a group of far-sighted corporate leaders launched the 30 percent Club, with a goal of achieving a minimum of 30 percent women on FTSE 100 company boards by year-end 2015. They've achieved a level of 26.1 percent, up from 12.5 percent just five years ago. Comparatively, U.S. boards within the S&P 500 stand at 19.2 percentage for female membership. Advertisement What did the UK do differently than the U.S.? Their boards of directors actively supported a measurable goal, and proceeded to advocate for and cultivate a qualified and competitive pool of female candidates. It's notable that shareholders also played an important role in advancing that agenda by making it clear to the boards and their chairmen that the issue of gender parity mattered to their stakeholders. The macroeconomic case for gender parity A chairman and board that actively prioritize and sponsor women leaders for executive positions and board memberships will achieve gender diversity more rapidly. The impact of gender parity goes beyond the individual corporation. A September 2015 McKinsey study suggests that $12 trillion of macroeconomic growth worldwide could be added to the global GDP through the achievement of gender parity ideals. As the McKinsey report states, "The private sector will need to play a more active role in concert with governments and nongovernmental organizations, and companies could benefit both directly and indirectly by taking action." The urgency for gender parity in the public and private sectors increases as the pace of change increases in the global economy. In the World Economic Forum's 2015 10th Anniversary Global Gender Gap report, Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the WEF, observes "The current (gender) inequalities risk being exacerbated in the future. The Fourth Industrial Revolution will transform the global economy and society in an unprecedented manner...We must clearly understand the progress thus far, as well as the future outlook, to reap the opportunities and mitigate the challenges." The role of the corporate chairman I'm privileged to be chairman of the JLL (NYSE: JLL) board of directors, joined by two other women on the board. I have observed the following ways that corporate chairmen can achieve more gender diversity on their boards and in the C-suite: Advertisement Sponsor highly-qualified women candidates. When a board seat opens, shortlists are typically formed from a large pool of highly qualified candidates of both genders. Nominating Committee Chairmen can play an active role in advancing gender parity by considering a female-only slate, or actively sponsoring women for the role. In my experience, women are generally more inclined than men to expect their qualifications, credentials and experience to speak for themselves. A strong background does help bring a candidate to the table--but it's not enough to win the final vote. I've seen many women make it to the shortlist, but then lose the seat to a male candidate more adept at seeking active advocacy while competing for the position. Groom women for leadership roles. An active mentorship program can position more female candidates to seek and achieve sponsorship, and ultimately more effectively compete for board seats. By exposing proven, successful women executives to new relationships and a wider pool of leadership styles beyond their specific roles, companies and industries, the mentorship programs organized by the 30 percent Club and others were able to position more women to effectively compete for board seats. Set the organizational tone. The role of a chairman is to see the big picture and oversee macro-level goals for the organization. By conveying that gender parity is a priority for the board of directors, the chairman sets the stage for the entire company -- and sends a message to women candidates that competing for a board seat or a key executive position will be a gender-blind process. Walk the walk. Acting on shareholders' behalf, nothing sends a stronger message than taking action and voting for qualified women to fill board seats and key executive positions. The trickle-down effects include broad benefits to the organization, from increased profits and innovation, to pay equity, productivity and overall employee engagement. Advertisement As stewards of shareholder interests and leaders with vision, corporate chairmen are uniquely positioned to effect gender parity in the private sector. By recognizing that progress is not happening organically and taking action to move toward gender parity more rapidly, corporate chairmen and their organizations can reap both cultural and business rewards. News / National by Staff Reporter SOUTH Africa - based Zimbabwean businessman, Agrippa Masiyakurima was briefly arrested in Harare over the weekend after he allegedly fired gunshots following an altercation near the country's military headquarters - KGVI Barracks.Masiyakurima runs a civil engineering firm, Bopela Group of Companies, which provides back-up service to a number of telecommunications companies.The site is a few hundred metres from President Robert Mugabe's official residence, State House, and adjacent to KGVI Barracks.Police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba confirmed the incident and said police were investigating the matter."The incident occurred on January 10 along Borrowdale Road near Airforce Headquarters. There was a misunderstanding between Agrippa Masiyakurima and municipal police and a gun was discharged into the air. The case has since been referred to CID Homicide for further investigations," Charamba said.Bulawayo24.com first broke the story last week through whatsapp chats sent in by a witness ( Gun shots near Mugabe's State House - WhatsApp update ).Informed sources said the shoot-out occurred at a site along Borrowdale Road after Masiyakurima, popularly known as Bopela, was invited to resolve a confrontation between his workers and Harare City Council officials.The businessman has reportedly won tenders to rehabilitate NetOne's infrastructure."Bopela was having breakfast with his friend (identified only as Choto) at Sam Levy's Village when he received the distress call from his workers who wanted to erect a mobile phone network booster near KGVI," the source said."The two teamed up to try and resolve the issue, but arrived to see fists flying. Bopela then discharged his gun five times into the air, drawing the attention of soldiers manning the gate to Airforce headquarters."The soldiers subdued Bopela and about 16 of his workers as well as the council officials before police from the riot unit arrived. The group was bundled into a police truck, but later released under unclear circumstances," said an eyewitness, who claimed traffic was blocked for some time during the altercation Steven Avery appears in a Calumet County courtroom during the opening day in his murder trial Monday, Feb. 12, 2007, in Chilton, Wis. The 44-year-old and his nephew, Brendan Dassey, 17, are accused of killing 25-year-old Teresa Halbach in Manitowoc County on Oct. 31, 2005. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps, Pool) Warning: Spoilers for Making a Murderer ahead. 1. At every stage in the criminal justice system, poor people in the United States, disproportionally people of color, receive less justice than anyone else. When a criminal charge is filed against a person, a fair defense requires a committed and passionate lawyer with adequate training and resources to fight the awesome power of the State. Advertisement Anyone who watches Netflix's 10-plus hour series, Making a Murderer, concerning the Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey cases in Wisconsin, will see how Steven Avery's trial lawyers, zealously fight for their client's interests at every turn, personifying, at its best, the constitutional right to effective counsel. By comparison, viewers see 16-year-old Brendan Dassey's first lawyer announce to TV reporters immediately after his appointment that his client is guilty, only later to be removed by the judge for, among other things, allowing, in his absence, detectives to interrogate his intellectually and socially immature client -- yielding statements that would later be used to convict him. Early on in the series the viewer learns that Avery is only able to afford to afford his lawyers after receiving a lucrative settlement in a civil case filed against the Manitowoc Police Department in Wisconsin (for railroading Avery in an earlier sexual assault case in which he was innocent, costing him 18 years in jail). Not all "paid" or "private" lawyers are good attorneys, and not all "court-appointed" lawyers and public defenders are bad. However, it is a sad but true fact, as Making A Murderer ably illustrates, that the quality of justice in this country directly correlates to the amount of resources a defendant has. And, because, in the United States people of color are uniformly paid less, hired less, and have less, justice is, unfortunately, not colorblind. Making a Murderer is filmed in Wisconsin where the population is overwhelmingly white, but it is important to remember that it is people of color in our criminal justice system, who, at every turn, disproportionately suffer the negative effects of race and class on our criminal justice system. Advertisement 2. Police officers, prosecutors and other people in authority are not inherently good -- or bad. Making a Murderer successfully shows that police officers, prosecutors and other public officials are no different than any other people: Some of them are "good" people and some, are very, very bad. It is important for us as private citizens, to remember this, whenever we interact -- during a traffic stop, when called for jury service, etcetera -- with people in authority. 3. Criminal defendants -- like victims -- have innocent family members who are deeply affected by the level of fairness in our criminal justice system. The heartbreak, isolation and desolation of the Avery and Dassey families as they are forced to navigate the criminal justice system seeps through each of the 10 episodes in the series. With over 2 million people in jail in America, Making a Murderer reminds us of the many other millions and millions of families -- sons, daughters, parents and so on -- affected each and every day by their loved ones incarcerations. A young monk welcomed us to Myanmar. "Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving." Terry Pratchett A few days ago I wanted to meet a friend for lunch, but my car was in the shop. I called Uber and was quickly picked up by a friendly and delightful driver from Guinea, Africa. We began to talk about Guinea's location, and he was overjoyed when he discovered that I had actually traveled to Africa and visited several countries there. A story emerged which highlighted, perfectly, why we should all travel. The driver worked on the morning of his daughter's wedding, and he drove that day in the suit he was going to wear at the event. One of his clients asked him who it was that taught him how to put on a suit. The driver, who speaks clear English and has been in the USA for almost 30 years, admitted he was very angry about it. As though the savage from Africa had to be taught to put on a suit! People in America, he said, do not travel often enough, and have no idea about the cultures of other places. I agreed. Advertisement Since my discussion with him, I have done a little research, and yes, it is true that the vast majority of Americans have never traveled out of the country. I have had people tell me they are not interested in going to other places because America is the "best". I'm not going to argue about patriotism, but my question is, how do you know? If you have never been to another country, how can you know what is "best"? And does everything have to be rated as good, better and best? Can't it just be different? I realize that not everyone wants to travel, but there is no question that it provides invaluable experience and insight to the traveler and to the people the traveler knows or meets. "The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page." I agree, St Augustine, I agree. There are over 40,000 Buddhist temples in Thailand! We were blessed at the Wat of the Golden Buddha. Here are five excellent reasons to see other parts of the world. 1. Travel takes you out of your comfort zone. Your comfort zone is, well, comforting, but it does not give you the opportunity to stretch yourself or to grow. When you step out into new surroundings you achieve something, instead of stagnating you are in motion, and you are learning about the world around you. Traveling solo is a great option. Some Women might fear being on their own, but it can be very empowering. Market day in Tanzania. 2. Traveling can help you conquer your fears. Afraid of water? Go to the beach, or a lake. Afraid of heights? Climb a hill, or better yet, go to a vista point at the nearest national park. Fear is paralyzing. So get up and move. If not now, when? Advertisement Our family in Ancient Rome 3. Travel is mind expanding! It gets you out of a routine and makes you use your brain, your ears, and your eyes. When traveling there is so much that has to be taken in: new sights, new flavors, new noises. It takes your complete attention. You are no longer on "auto-pilot". Swimming pigs in the Exumas, Bahamas! 4. Travel introduces you to different cultures and new perspectives. The culture you live in isn't the only one on the planet, you know! Ever thought about doing volunteer travel, especially abroad? These trips are not expensive, and you usually get all of your meals plus a place to stay. Airfare is reasonable to Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean, and many other places from the US. Volunteer travels can be eye opening and have a major impact on your life by showing you how others live, think, and do things. Volunteer Tourism is becoming more and more popular, and for good reason. There are trips for every taste, be it teaching children or scuba diving for research or digging wells or teaching skills to help people make a living. There are many ways to make a difference. A volunteer trip to Ecuador took me completely out of my comfort zone, and it ended up being a wonderful trip. Fish Market in Puerto Lopez, Ecuador. 5. Traveling can be a little scary, and that is probably the best reason to do it. We fear what we do not understand. Travel educates. It challenges us to learn about ourselves, to learn the cultures of other countries, and understanding is the path to knowledge, and hopefully, wisdom. "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." Mark Twain Advertisement Friends I made while volunteering in Mozambique came to visit me in Cozumel It is not difficult to find the perfect trip for you (even if it is to the National Park nearest you). There are just so many opportunities! Get on Google and Google to get away! Seeing the world will make a difference not only in your life, but in the lives of others. And no excuses about being "too old". I took my first Citizen Science trip when I was 53! Just make up your mind and go do it! With my new friends in South Africa! Vintage La Brasca family photo in Sicily beckons Why do we travel? If you believe travel contributes to personal growth then you may grok with the idea that travel satisfies a yearning and search for identity, a lifelong and never ending quest. What aspects of travel are educational, what aspects aspiration or inspiration? For me, a highly satisfying stage in any journey starts with planning, extracting as much joy as possible from the entire experience. Solo travel has become a hot topic of late. When given the choice though, let's be honest, who truly prefers to travel alone or with strangers? Destination travel to mark life cycle events, a multi-generational cruise or a plan to convene for a family reunion may hit the mark. You may even be reading this, contemplating your next destination, culling information to share with kith and kin. Advertisement The Journey Begins in the Kitchen Cooking for family and friends, choosing recipes from a storied regional cuisine with its high quality wines - Sicily in this case - is a fine start. With this in mind farro di zuppa is a great use for a meaty ham bone left from the winter holidays on a blustery day in Los Angeles, perfect to hunker down with for Sunday supper. The soup mix was purchased from an independently owned one location institution of foodie-ism in Santa Monica, California, Bay Cities Italian Deli. Perusing the deli case, another Sicilian specialty was procured, caponata, a melange of tomato, eggplant and sweet red peppers is a readymade appetizer delicious with their fresh baked bread. What a treat while the soup is warming. Added to the mix was their signature sandwich, the 'Godmother,' a cold cut sandwich with heat, when ordered 'the works' style. Staying true to the regional theme, a half used bottle of wine from Planeta poured into the kettle to simmer. In that moment I was transported to Planeta's center for agriturismo where the grapes originated, imagined in my mind by the website. The left over wine was from a, "Calling all Italian Americans Dinner Party," a few nights before in which Sicilian style baked cod topped with garlicky potato paste was the main course. While cooking, a glass from Baglio del Cristo di Campobello Laluci is as nice to say as it is to drink. The Morgante Nero D'Avola and Dona Fugata Sedara are lovely well priced reds that stand up to a hearty fish such as cod. Advertisement Film critic Ryan Lattanzio noted stony flavors bring to mind sluices off ancient church steps. Photo courtesy of Lewis H. Perkins Multi-Directional Migrations The wines that went over so well in Los Angeles went over just as well in Tucson where the Sicilian American extended family of snow birds from Wisconsin congregates annually. Invariably, talk of the collective dream about a trip to the old country to track down the Italian origin story emerged. This year we decided to only drink wines from grapes indigenous to Sicily - Grillo for the white and Nero d'Avola for the red. This way to Sicily from Janis and Mike's in Tucson On one of our group hikes, the cousin, Matt Bernhardt who has a keen interest in genealogy, noted the prickly pear cactus that dots the landscape is similar to Sicily. Turns out this is the result of a reverse migration. The Spanish first introduced these cacti to Sicily from its native Mexico, a short jog over the U.S. border from Arizona. Today, Sicily is the world's second largest producer of their fruit ficudinnia, as they are known locally. Prickly pear cacti in Tucson remind us of Sicily The island of Sicily is situated in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea and often is referred to as one of the original, ancient melting pots as a multi-ethnic crossroads between Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Bits and pieces are known about the La Brasca immigration, entering by sea from Albania in the 1500's, not all that different from today. The La Brascas landed in Cefalu and migrated again to the hills above Palermo where they became orchardists and fruit merchants growing it into a fruit exporting business marketed in Paris, France which operates today. Sicily in 2017 or bust, we have decided. Now we just have to stick to this tune. Advertisement A glass of wine to transport us to the old country. Photo courtesy of Matt Bernhardt What qualifies a person as an Italian American? Can tokenism be a positive? Does having an Italian last name, even if it's a hyphenated married name, does this make you more Italian than let's say than someone whose life was changed by reading, "Eat, Pray, Love," in college? Does having one parent marrying into an Italian American family here for three generations count for something? What is an Italophile? If I had to eat one type of cuisine day in day out for the rest of my life, it would probably be Italian. If I had to choose design products from apparel to home fashions from one nation, it would probably be Italy. The region of Italy to visit on my bucket list is Sicily, partly because my daughter carries a Sicilian last name, and partly because it has an exotic and unique appeal. I know I'll get to Lake Cuomo someday and back to Venice, Tuscany and the Amalfi coast, but for now I am stuck with a vision of staying on a vineyard with an inn with my big Italian American family. We would need a place to stay with enough variety of accommodations for those who want the creature comforts of a roof and four walls. Personally, when I'm in the countryside, I have a yen for glamping or fancy camping. Don't get me wrong, I love a good hotel. Connecting with terrain in nature, but not having to work hard pitching a tent, is my idea of bliss. Safari-style vacations help me unplug from the hustle bustle of daily life and grow in spirit. I promise to check back with a new post when I get there. Needed: A Democratic Mobilization to End the Drug War.Peace Caravan from Honduras to NYC Starts on March 28. Mexican President, Enrique Pena Nieto took a victory lap last week, hours after Mexican authorities re-captured fugitive drug-industry executive, El Chapo Guzman. Echoing George W. Bush's Iraq War victory boasts, Mexico's president tweeted: "Mision Cumplida" -- Spanish for "Mission Accomplished". Advertisement Mision Cumplida? Not exactly. The simple truth is that as long as we militarize our collective response to the public-health problem of drug abuse, we will reproduce the conditions that make violence, corruption, and new bad guys inevitable. Violence will continue to plague Mexico and Central America until the United States and is neighbors abandon the discredited drug war strategy that was started by Richard Nixon 45 years ago -- and that continues to drive international policy today. Taking down bad guys -- no matter how big or how evil they are -- will not end the horrendous criminal and state violence that has overwhelmed Mexico and Central America in recent decades. The capture of El Chapo does, of course, end an embarrassing episode for Mexican President Pena Nieto. But multiple scandals including his administration's dishonest and inept handling of the case of the 43 disappeared students from the Ayotzinapa Teacher's College in Guerrero had already pushed his popularity to historic lows even before the spectacle of El Chapo's escape from Mexico's only "Supermax" prison last in July 2015. Advertisement Yes, Pena Nieto will seek to keep the story of El Chapo's capture alive as long as possible. The "El Chapo Show" includes movie stars, rumors about El Chapo's Hollywood ambitions, and more serious speculation about who may be exposed if El Chapo "talks" after possible extradition to the U.S. All these distractions help Pena Nieto avoid addressing the profound crisis of legitimacy he and his government face. In the U.S., drug warriors -- in the DEA, the Pentagon, and elsewhere -- also like keeping the focus on El Chapo and his ilk because such drama eclipses drug war victims, drowns out its critics, and disguises the ever-more-obvious failure of almost five-decades of war and prohibitionist dogma. The good news is that the drug war's detractors refuse to stay quiet, and instead are organizing an international movement to put an end to the madness. A consensus is building in Latin America that the "war against drugs" is unwinnable; that it is not possible for societies to shoot their way out of their "drug problems": Advertisement Mass protest against the drug war swept Mexico in 2011 as victims of drug war violence took the lead, mobilizing a citizenry stunned by tens of thousands of murders. Ex-presidents from Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and elsewhere started speaking up a few years ago, openly "breaking the taboo" on discussing drug policy reform. Uruguay recently legalized marijuana via executive leadership, legislative action, and popular referendum. Regulation of drug cultivation has been part of the negotiations in Havana, Cuba between the Colombian government and its historic rebel foes (FARC) as they hammered out historic peace accords slated for implementation this March. Late last year Mexico's Supreme Court ruled that marijuana cultivation for personal use is constitutionally protected. Advertisement Momentum to reform drug policy is also growing north of the Rio Grande. In the United States a movement is growing to reform our semi-privatized criminal justice apparatus that today punishes, incarcerates, and devastates the lives of a vast and unprecedented number of Americans - disproportionally African-Americans and Latinos - for drug offenses, large and small. Twenty-three U.S. states and the District of Columbia have already legalized medical cannabis. Three states have gone further by legally regulating marijuana for recreational use. Other states, including California --bellwether and largest state in the Union -- will consider similar legalization in Nov. 2016 ballot referendums. Drug policy and criminal justice reform have also become hot topics of debate in the 2016 presidential primary process. Sen. Bernie Sanders has been the clearest. Speaking on late night TV, Sanders cited the "large number of lives that have been destroyed because of this war on drugs" and the fact that the United States has "more people in jail today than any other country on earth", as reasons why "we have to end the war on drugs." In Canada, newly elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pledged to legalize marijuana nationwide. If Trudeau can make good on his pledge, Canada would become just the second nation on earth to take this step (Uruguay was first). Advertisement The United Nation Takes up the Debate On April 19, 2016 the United Nations convenes a General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) to take a fresh look at the "world drug problem". The global meeting, requested by Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico, may not produce any immediate breakthroughs. Most of the world's governments continue to be guided by fear and are not yet prepared to abandon the absurd "drug free world" slogans from the 1980s. Nevertheless, a worldwide network of researchers and reform advocates are actively organizing to use this "UNGASS moment" to introduce new research and common-sense best practices to promote an "evolutionary" shift that can transform global drug policy in coming years. But genuinely putting the brakes on the drug war and the prison industry that feeds off it requires more than convincing arguments and viable strategies. It will take sustained pressure from an informed, organized, and creative citizenry who can make the damage wrought by the drug war visible, while demanding real change. Caravan for Peace, Life, and Justice Making drug war damage visible, encouraging debate and demanding change are at the heart of the "Caravan for Peace, Life, and Justice" that begins in Honduras on March 28th, deep in drug war affected Central America. From Honduras the caravan will travel to El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and Texas all the way to New York City and the UN Special Session. Advertisement Riders on the caravan will be leaders from drug war-affected families and communities; drug policy experts, community organizers, religious leaders, academics, journalists, health professionals, immigrant rights defenders, students, musicians, elected officials, artists, photographers, civil rights advocates, former law enforcement professionals, and informed citizens from around the world -- all working together to make the unacceptable cost of the drug war visible. Expand Democracy; End the Drug War Solving the drug war problem -- like so many of the big issues facing humanity - should be about using the best possible research and science to design forward looking policies that are then vetted and embraced by democratic societies. The war on drugs is already widely discredited after half a century of failing to evolve in light of scientific and public health evidence showing it to be ineffective and even counter-productive. Common sense dictates that we should already be pushing more countries to implement good faith policy initiatives like Portugal did -- decriminalizing all drugs and investing in compassionate care for problematic drug users -- with stunningly positive results. But drug war thinking has taken root in our military, police, and penal institutions where it eludes scientific critique and democratic scrutiny. The old paradigm of prohibition, criminalization, militarization, murder, and mass incarceration will not fade away of its own accord, and events like the capture of El Chapo give it, undeserved, new life. A true end to drug war will take courage, creativity, patience, and focused political will. That's why democratic initiatives like the Caravan for Peace, Life, and Justice to promote dialogue, explore solutions, and bring people together across international boundaries to help each other create democratic change, are so important. Credit: Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office By Fred Rosen My daughter had just been born and I was looking for a case to write a true crime book about. This was before the Internet became prominent, so I was perusing the Florida paper. That's when I saw the story that became "The Mad Chopper." Lawrence Singleton, a merchant seaman, had been arrested in Hillsborough County, Florida for murdering a woman. A neighbor had called police when he heard a commotion from within the dude's house. When the cops got there and knocked, Singleton came to the door with a condom dangling from his dangle. He was covered in blood. Inside, the cops found his victim: prostitute Roxanne Hayes, in a bloody heap on a sofa. READ MORE: The Cleveland Torso Murderer Since the case took place in the same county as Lobster Boy had, it immediately attracted me. That is, until I read further and discovered that Singleton was notorious in Northern California, where he had, years before, kidnapped a teenager, took her to a remote area outside Modesto, raped her and cut her arms off. Advertisement The living room of Singleton's Tampa home where Police found the dead body of Roxie Hayes. Investigators speculated that the rope would have been used to drag the body out of the house. Credit: Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office Uggghhh! That wasn't my kind of story. I prefer things a little less gruesome. I checked in with my editor Paul Dinas, this time to tell him about my good luck at having a daughter. I didn't mention the case. And then, fate played a hand. "I just saw this guy's picture on the front page of the Daily News," said Paul. "He's this ugly guy with a bulbous nose and he chopped a girl's arms off!" "Paul, I saw that story too, not really my cup of java." "Fred, you just became a father. You need work. We'll call it The Mad Chopper!" A few years before, I had been denied tenure as an assistant professor at Hofstra University. That was on the same day I had to decide whether to turn over the tape in the Lobster Boy case, that eventually led to the killer's conviction. Despite the correct way I had dealt with that ethical conundrum of a journalist getting involved in a criminal prosecution, Hofstra didn't care. Advertisement At the school, I had pissed off the wrong people. They wanted me out. Paul had given me my break and started me as a true crime author right before I left. And he was right; I needed the work. "I'll do it," I told Paul. "I'll write The Mad Chopper, but under a pseudonym. Kent Allard, one of the secret identities of The Shadow." And just like that, I was on assignment, had my advance check and could afford to buy diapers, Dr. Seuss books, baby formula. But I had to leave my newborn to do it. Until I became a father, I had never known how difficult it was to leave your child for business. Nevertheless, I flew to Florida and went to the house where Singleton had lived. The culvert where Singleton stuffed Mary Vincent after he cut off her forearms. Credit: The Modesto Bee I talked to the detectives on the case and then the prosecutor. The crime scene photos were pretty bad. Then I flew to Northern California. On the campus of the University of California at Berkeley, I drove to Hitchhikers Corner, where years before, Singleton had picked up Mary Vincent, a hitchhiking 15-year-old. Advertisement Singleton was kind and polite to her. Continuing to drive east, in an isolated area outside Modesto, his true nature came out. He was the kind of drunk who got violent when the liquor got ahold of him. After drinking heavily, he brutally raped Mary, twice, and then strangled her. Thinking she was dead, he found an isolated canyon to dump her body. But he was worried she would be identified and in some way, traced back to him. That was why he cut off her arms with a hatchet, to get rid of her fingers and their prints. After dumping her in a culvert, he took off. As I looked down at that culvert, I could only imagine Mary's pain. Singleton had miscalculated. Mary was alive. When she regained consciousness, she set off across the hellish landscape under a hot sun, until she found help. One of her severed limbs would later be found near the Golden Gate Bridge. But finding Singleton wasn't easy. The detective on the case, Richard Breshears, had to use forensic hypnosis to get Mary to give him details that would eventually help police track down her mutilator. Once the cops arrested him and Breshears got him in an interview room, Singleton used the "other guy "defense--someone else had raped and mutilated Mary. Didn't work. Between Mary's eyewitness statements and terrific police work, Singleton was convicted. For his brutal crimes, he got 14 years in prison. But because Singleton was a good prisoner, he was paroled after eight. When he was released, no community in Northern California wanted to harbor him. He had to be moved by authorities; locals wanted to lynch him. Advertisement Credit: Open Road Media and Wikimedia Commons Eventually, a deal was made and Singleton was allowed to go back to Tampa, his hometown, to serve out his probation. That's where he graduated from rapist and mutilator to outright murderer. As I flew back home from San Francisco, I couldn't help but think Mary Vincent could have been anyone's daughter. And when Open Road put out this new edition of my book, this time I wasn't so squeamish; I put my name on it. Last September I glanced up as the door of the house opposite opened and my neighbor brought her kids out for a photo of her darlings in their new school uniforms. Blazers hanging sensibly loose. Faces fresh with the excitement and apprehension of a new year, a new class, a new teacher. It made me laugh. Not five minutes earlier, I too had positioned my children at the front door and made them hold still, despite the itch of that not-yet-removed label at the back. Why do we do this? Isn't school horrible? By and large we hated it ourselves, and yet we inflict the same on our children. At just this time, I became involved with A World At School, an initiative of the charity Theirworld which, by hook or by crook, gets Syrian refugees into school. Their world invited me and my colleagues at Silverfish Media to Lebanon to film their work there -- an enterprise which, via a plethora of partnerships, is making school a real possibility for hundreds of thousands of displaced kids. I admit I hesitated. There had to be more pressing emergencies. The airwaves at the time were full of the tragedy on the Mediterranean, and the long, desperate march of the migrants. For those who have found some sort of sanctuary in Lebanon (and more than a million have done so) surely there was no immediate concern? And after all, school is horrible. But as the stories came in, of the likes of Mayass and Ahmad and Nour, deprived of education and facing grim alternatives (barely-paid labor for the boys, and child marriage for the girls) I began to feel my hackles rise. What are kids supposed to do if they don't go to school? It's not just the short-term misery of it -- what is their future? How can they succeed and contribute as adults if they have missed out on school? They would be forever needy. If the term "lost generation" ever applied anywhere, it would surely apply here. How would they ever rebuild their lives? How would they ever return to, and rebuild, their country? I was right to think that. But it's not just about what young people need. It's about what they can give back. They aren't empty vessels, chicks in a nest, open-mouthed recipients of largesse. They have something to offer. They have talents. In the Bekaa Valley, with the peaks of Syria's Anti-Lebanon range in the distance, we met three young boys -- Samir, Abdulrahman and Mohamed -- who are big-time into rap music. They live in a shack at the end of a row of shops, the size of a garage, and so they are some of the luckier refugees. And, luckier still, space has been found for them in school. As their rap has it: to know sweetness, you need to try the bitter. They know bitter I'll spare you the details - and they know this is sweet. They learn, if for nothing else, to improve their artistry, and their classmates are delighted test audiences. But there are many who aren't so lucky. Hundreds of thousands of them. While we were filming, a man approached me and complained in steady, firm, but anguished Arabic. Our translator explained: he couldn't find a school for his kids. This dad was in utter despair: what was he supposed to do to give his children a chance? What was he supposed to do? Long after the translator had gone, he continued to describe his situation. He knew I couldn't understand him. But perhaps he knew I understood enough to get the message: a parent whose children have missed one, two, three years of school - with no hope in sight, with the clock ticking cruelly on their childhoods - is a parent in agony. You don't need a translator for that. You need one dad to see another dad's face. And just as that core instinct to parent is universal, so too is the ambition for education to do more than just deliver the basics. Parents share a further aspiration: for our youngsters to find that extra special something - their 'thing', their passion, their talent - which will make them uniquely them, and give them their role in the world. Returning to the classroom in Lebanon is not just school. It's an escape from a past of untold horror and loss. It's an escape from a present of domestic drudgery or childhood marriage or child labor. And it's a springboard to a future of self-expression, of fulsome contribution. For Mayass it could be as a doctor. For Ahmad, the budding engineer, it could mean literally rebuilding his homeland. For the rapper brothers, Samir, Abdulrahman and Mohamed, it could be a career in music. Like your kids and mine, they have dreams. The chance to have their talent nurtured and admired. Fame, perhaps, and fortune. Or at least a contribution made. It's the chance to live, really. My neighbor's photo appeared later that September day on my Facebook timeline. Along with my own and those of family friends in this country and beyond. I scrolled through a collage of new beginnings; pencils and minds sharpened, ready for the new term. There is a headiness to this readiness which makes parents everywhere want to capture it and share it. Because these are the kids' milestones, and they are ours. Their futures, and ours. School may be horrible. But there's something worse than having to go to school. And that's having no school to go to. To know sweetness, you need to try the bitter. Please watch the film 'Straight Outta Syria' featuring the brothers rapping. By Gilad Shiloach Militant groups from Lebanon to Yemen are taking social media tips from ISIS and creating sets of small, digital stickers that they can post like emojis. Only unlike the standard smiley faces and dancing girls, these are a whole lot grislier. Vocativ deep web analysts revealed last year that ISIS loyalists were using a series of icons depicting beheadings and a slew of other macabre scenes in their communications on the cloud-based messaging app Telegram, which is popular among Islamic State supporters. Now, it looks like ISIS is a twisted, social media trendsetter. Vocativ has discovered that other groups--from Hezbollah in Lebanon to the Houthi rebels in Yemen--are using similar stickers that do everything from praise jihadi fighters to call for the death of Israel. Read More: ISIS Loyalists Can Download A Secret Set Of Terrorist Emojis Supporters of rebels in Syria, Shiite militias in Iraq, Houthi rebels in Yemen, the Revolutionary Guards in Iran and even the Shiite opposition in Bahrain have shared their own versions of the stickers as an integral part of discussions across Telegram. Advertisement Backers of the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah posted small pictures of the group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, alongside some of his most famous quotes. Iranians affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards have shared anti-American quotes. Iraqi Shiite militias created icons of the legendary fighter "the Angel of Death." And Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have used the stickers to threaten their Saudi enemies. Use of the icons has become extremely common among these various extremist and militant groups on Telegram. It is hard to visit the groups' channels without seeing them across the social media platform. A screenshot of icons posted by supporters of Iraqi Shiite militias on Telegram. Not only has ISIS inspired loyalists of various groups across the Middle East to post the icons, but it also appears the Islamic State may have inspired the groups more broadly to take to Telegram. After becoming popular among ISIS supporters and members, the messaging app quickly became a platform used by many other groups across the region. A screenshot of digital stickers posted to Telegram by Hezbollah supporters. When President Barack Obama told the people of America on Monday that "it is the responsibility of Muslims around the world to root out misguided ideas that lead to radicalization," he was stating what should have been obvious: Americans and Europeans cannot purge Islam of the poisonous ideology that has taken root within the faith. The United States, France and Russia can drop all the bombs they want on Iraq and Syria, but they cannot defeat the Islamic State by destroying buildings and trucks. If they wished, they have the power to send thousands of ground troops, armed with heavy weapons, to occupy both countries, wipe out ISIS forces, and then stay there to keep order. That still would not result in the elimination of ISIS. Its followers would simply go underground and bide their time. Advertisement The loud voices that have responded to the mass murders in Paris by calling for intensified military action have a thin grasp of history. The United States sent more than a half million troops to Vietnam but did not prevail. The Soviet Union was forced to retreat from Afghanistan. France did not keep Algeria. We should have learned that Western powers cannot permanently impose their will by force on insurgent movements whose adherents have long-term ideological commitments. Sunni Muslims need to destroy ISIS If ISIS is to be extirpated from the Muslim world, it will have to be done by Sunni Muslims, not by outsiders. Their mentors and sympathizers, primarily in the Gulf, will have to undertake a serious effort to uproot the ideas and beliefs that are the foundation of the Islamic State. Doing that will be especially difficult for Saudi Arabia, which spent two decades and billions of dollars to spread worldwide a version of Islam that is uncomfortably similar to that of the Islamic State. It's hard to argue with Richard Bulliett of Columbia University, who wrote: "King Salman faces a difficult choice. Does he do what President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and many Republican presidential hopefuls want him to do, namely, lead a Sunni alliance against the Islamic State? Or does he continue to ignore Syria, attack Shi'ites in Yemen, and allow his subjects to volunteer money and lives to the ISIS caliph's war against Shi'ism?" He predicted that "In five years time, Saudi Arabia will either help defeat the Islamic State, or become it." King Salman and other prominent Saudis have said all the right things about ISIS atrocities, and for a time Saudi warplanes participated in the international coalition conducting air strikes against ISIS positions. But the Saudis then transferred their planes to the war in Yemen--a war against Shiites, while the conflict with ISIS is a war against Sunnis.Saudi Arabia's ideological dilemmaThis ideological dilemma for Saudi Arabia can be traced to November 1979, when a group of armed Saudi renegades took over the Great Mosque in Mecca at gunpoint and held it for days against futile efforts by Saudi Security forces to retake it. The rebels accused the Saudi regime of being unreligious: westernized, liberal, tainted by un-Islamic ideas. One of them was proclaimed the mahdi, the Rightly-Guided One who will restore the true faith. Advertisement In the end the rebels all died, but their ideas prevailed. As an old adage in region goes, they lost the battle but in many ways they won the war. So traumatized were the Saudi rulers that they acted to burnish their religious credentials by implementing many of the rebels' demands. They tightened up on social practices, removed unveiled women from television, and unleashed the muttawa to enforce rigid rules of behavior. They abandoned their longstanding practice of tolerating the semi-clandestine religious services of foreign workers. More than that, they pumped billions of their oil dollars into spreading their Islamic ideology, as it had been taught by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the 18th century preacher who had demanded that Islam purge itself of alien influences and shun contact with unbelievers. From West Africa to South Asia, the Saudis dispatched imams to preach this uncompromising version of the faith; they sent textbooks; they financed religious schools called madrasas; they paid to build mosques. These religious messages did not, of course, tell Muslims that they should go to Europe and kill innocent people. But they did teach that Islam worldwide must defend itself against its relentless enemies, the "crusaders." Bombings of ISIS by Westerners reinforce that idea.Weaponry can't overpower ISIS' beliefs That ideology came back to bite Saudi Arabia when Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda compatriots returned from the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan and attacked the Saudi regime--which in their view had committed the unpardonable sin of allowing half a million non-Muslim troops, led by Americans, to use Saudi Arabia as a base for attacking Muslim Iraq in Operation Desert Storm. With its instinct for self-preservation, the Saudi regime now portrays itself as a firm foe of the kind of extremism represented by al-Qaeda and ISIS. But the ideas it spread have taken root among many disenchanted and disenfranchised Muslims--the ones who believe that if they enforce their version of a purified Islam as it was practiced in the time of the Prophet Muhammad, a purified world purged of heretics and apostates such as the Shiites, they can achieve peace and prosperity in accordance with God's law. No amount of weaponry can overpower that deeply-held belief among the small percentage of Muslims who sympathize with the tactics of ISIS. Only the Saudis and their allies in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait can do that. Can the Saudis lead that effort without repudiating the faith they have promoted for the past generation? ASSOCIATED PRESS ** FILE ** Maulana Masood Azhar, the imprisoned leader of Jaish-e-Mohammed, or Army of Mohammed, which was outlawed by Pakistan's government and declared terrorist group by the U.S. government, waves from a police van at the High Court in Lahore in this March 22, 2002 file photo. An appeals court in Lahore Saturday, Dec. 14, 2002 ordered the head of one of the country's main Islamic militant groups released from house arrest, adding to a growing list of radicals freed in recent months. (AP Photo/str, File) NEW DELHI -- Amid reports of detention of Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar by Pakistan in connection with the Pathankot terror attack, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday said the government is keeping a close watch on everything and will take appropriate action. "The confirmation regarding the arrest of Jaish-e-Mohammad chief is yet to be obtained from the Pakistani Government. The Government of India is keeping a close eye on everything and will take appropriate action, BJP leader Siddharthnath Singh told ANI. Advertisement "Therefore, we should wait for the response from the government," he added. Pakistan has detained several militants belonging to JeM, including Masood Azhar, and sealed its offices, reported Pakistan media on Wednesday. Media reports suggested that Azhar was also taken into protective custody and was being questioned. However, the Ministry of External Affairs later in the evening said there was no official confirmation from Islamabad on the arrest of Azhar. "We have no official confirmation on the arrest of JeM chief Masood Azhar. We have seen the press release that has been put out by the Pakistani side, but we have no official confirmation on the arrest," said Swarup. Advertisement Contact HuffPost India Also see on HuffPost: Hindustan Times via Getty Images NEW DELHI, INDIA - OCTOBER 3: Members of Khudai Khidmatgar protest against the killing of Mohammed Akhlaq, resident of Dadri, in front of Rajghat, on October 3, 2015 in New Delhi, India. Akhlaq was killed by a mob on the night of September 28 following rumours that he and his family had consumed beef at Bisada village. (Photo by Virendra Singh Gosain/Hindustan Times via Getty Images) Bringing back horrific memories of the Dadri lynching incident, a group of 'cow protection' vigilantes beat up a Muslim couple on a train in Madhya Pradesh on the suspicion that they were carrying beef. According to a report on The Indian Express, seven members of the Gauraksha Samiti assaulted the couple at Khirkiya railway station, in Harda district of Madhya Pradesh. At first, the 'activists' demanded to check the couple's luggage accusing them of carrying cow meat. When 38-year-old Naseema Bano protested they started abusing her and pushing her around. That is when 43-year-old Mohammad Hussain stepped in. He alleges that the Samiti's men also beat him up. Advertisement Hussain told IE, "They pushed my wife around when she objected to our luggage being searched. We live in India and know what is wrong and right, we eat only goat meat. Besides, the black bag from which the meat was seized did not belong to us. Finally, a constable came to our rescue and saved my wife." Hussain remembers standing near the gate of the compartment when the Samiti members started searching people's bags. His wife was sitting inside. They were a relative in Khandwa and were returning to their hometown Harda on the train. "When some passengers objected to their luggage being turned upside down, the activists roughed them up before they started searching the bags kept near Naseema. When she objected, they pushed her towards the toilet. Then, I called a relative who lives near the station. He rushed over with other local residents and engaged in a scuffle with the samiti members, he said. A packet of meat was also seized - which Hussain denies was a part of their luggage - but it was found to be buffalo meat. Advertisement Two members of the Samiti were arrested. ABP News reports: "Rajput and Santosh were sent to jail and a search launched for at least five other members of the samiti. Both have been booked under sections 294 (obscene language), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) of the IPC and Section 153 of the Railways Act (endangering safety of passengers travelling by railway by willful act or omission)." Contact HuffPost India Also see on HuffPost: News / National by Staff reporter The Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition has challenged President Robert Mugabe to "evict" his deputy Phelekezela Mphoko from Harare's Rainbow Towers Hotel where he is staying since his appointment in December 2014.In a statement Thursday, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition said Mphoko's continued stay in the expensive hotel is unwarranted and needlessly a bleeding government's sparse coffers."As CIZC, we challenge President Robert Mugabe, as the appointing authority, to do the honorable thing of whip his subordinate into line if the sentiments that 'Zanu-PF is a party of the people' are anything to go by," said the civil society.The Coalition said government should rather use the money paid for Mphoko's hotel accommodation to buy maize for millions of starving Zimbabweans.Crisis added: "We implore VP Mphoko to show his integrity by doing the noble thing of moving into a government house so that not much of the taxpayers' money is spent to sustain his extravagant lifestyle." ANI NEW DELHI -- Former union law minister Hansraj Bhardwaj on Friday alleged that some of his Congress Party colleagues, especially former HRD Minister Arjun Singh, had asked him to influence the judiciary during his time in office under the first Manmohan Singh-led UPA Government from 2004 to 2009. "There was no pressure. When the comments came from the court, it appeared that the proclamation might be quashed. So, my colleague asked me that why can't you do something so that we win this case. I said that the court has to decide this. Ultimately, the decision went against the government, then President's Rule could not be imposed and re-elections were held," Bharadwaj told ANI. Advertisement "Those who want that a particular decision should come from the court, then it is wrong....It was Arjun Singh's group, everyone knows it. I met him in the Central Hall of Parliament, and he said that this case is not proceeding along expected lines. He said that I might lose my job if I do not set it right. I replied who are you to decide about my job," he added. When asked if pressure had come from the Prime Minister, Bharadwaj said, "It was not in Manmohan Singh's nature to pressurize anyone." He was referring to a 2005 Supreme Court verdict, which stopped the UPA Government from imposing President's rule in Bihar when a Janata Dal (United) and BJP coalition was attempting to form a government. The UPA Government wanted the ruling to be in its favour, but the apex court thought otherwise. Advertisement Contact HuffPost India Also see on HuffPost: Mukesh Singh Artist Mukesh Singh has infused life in an epic tale of political and familial intrigue that has enthralled readers for centuries. The artist in collaboration with Scottish playwright Grant Morrison, the writer of Batman, came up with '18 Days, a graphic novel that added new depths to the most legendary battle ever fought in the Mahabharata. The book was published last year, following the animated series -- both were published by Bengaluru-based company Graphic India. Advertisement On its website, '18 Days is described as the "story of three generations of super-warriors, meeting for the final battle of their age. 18 Days is a re-imagining of the great myth, the Mahabharata and follows the course of the climactic war that concludes the age of the gods and begins the age of man." Singh received a lot of praise for his work that has strong Western influences. Check out more illustrations here. Brahma Cosmos Mukesh SIngh Laksha Graha Mukesh Singh One With Nature Mukesh Singh One With Nature Mukesh Singh Wishing Tree Mukesh Singh Temple Of Science Retreat Mukesh Singh The Bomb Mukesh Singh Endwar Mukesh Singh Battle Inhumans Mukesh Singh Krishna in Battle Mukesh Singh Karna Refuses Mukesh Singh Kaurav Bliztkreig Mukesh Singh Battle Mukesh Singh Bheem Beserk Mukesh Singh Here's the link to the animated series: Advertisement Contact HuffPost India Also See On HuffPost: 25th Anniversary of Desert Storm At 8 a.m., Jan. 16, 1991, Iraqi forces were firmly planted in Kuwait after the U.N. Security Council deadline for their withdrawal had expired. During his evening changeover briefing, retired Brig. Gen. George A. Gray III, then commander of the 1st Special Operations Wing, gave the order to begin taking the P-Pills that 1st SOW Airmen had been issued earlier that August at Hurlburt Field, Fla. The P-Pills, designed to help fight the effects of chemical agents, became a very real reminder that war was upon them. At 3 a.m. Jan. 17, 1991, Operation Desert Shield was over, and Operation Desert Storm had begun. Desert Storm began 22 minutes earlier for a small group of Air Force Special Operations Command Airmen when four MH-53 Pavelow helicopters guided eight AH-64 Apache helicopters through total darkness to destroy two Iraqi air defense radar sites. This proved to be crucial to the initial invasion, opening a hole in the air defense network and allowing F-117 Nighthawks and Coalition aircraft to strike targets in Baghdad. At that point, all hell broke loose and people were dropping bombs all over the place, said retired Lt. Col. Corby Martin, former MH-53 pilot for 20th Special Operations Squadron. It looked like a 4th of July fireworks display. In the 1st SOW everybody was focused, everybody knew what they were doing, said retired Col. Chris Snider, former wing electronic warfare officer for the 1st SOW. We had experienced crews, experienced maintenance and a lot of combat veterans. The 1st SOW began its missions on day one of Desert Shield. I landed in-country with about 60 others from the 1st SOW tasked with finding a suitable airstrip, said Snider. We found an airfield being built out in the middle of nowhere I mean it had nothing in the control tower, most of the plumbing hadnt been finished and it was still two or three years away from being completed. That airfield was King Fahd Air Base, AFSOCs headquarters for the war. There were no tire marks on the runway when we landed, said retired Col. Ray Chapman, former MC-130E navigator with the 8th Special Operations Squadron. It was a ghost town think of Chicago International Airport before anybody ever set foot on it. From this air base, the 1st SOW would launch psychological and combat operations. One of the MC-130E Combat Talons Is missions was to drop leaflets warning Iraqi military troops if they did not surrender, they would be bombed. Chapman was one of the flyers who conducted those missions. The boxes were on a static line [attached to the aircraft] and the loadmaster would toss the boxes out. Then the boxes kind of explode and the leaflets start drifting to earth, said Chapman. According to Chapman, they typically flew above anti-aircraft threats at around 9,000 feet, making accurate leaflet drops extremely difficult. Up that high, the winds can change and these leaflets can end up somewhere other than where they were intended to go, but the coolest thing was when wed come back from a mission and the surrendering Iraqis would be holding the leaflets that wed dropped. In addition to dropping more than 17 million leaflets during the war, Chapman, along with other MC-130E crews, released something more powerful. The BLU-82 Daisy Cutter, the worlds largest conventional bomb at the time was dropped 11 times by Air Force Special Operations Forces. [The BLU-82] looks like a Volkswagen, its gigantic, said Chapman. This thing is 15,000 pounds of get your attention, hurt somebody type of stuff We owned the Air. We had air superiority from minute one when we started Desert Storm. Additional combat sorties were flown by AC-130H Spectre aircrews, but not without a degree of peril. According to Ret. Chief Master Sgt. Bill Walter, an AC-130H Spectre gunner, The Iraqi tactic was to hold fire until the aircraft passed over their sites, then turn on their radars after the gunships were essentially boxed in. Weather was poor, and crews were diverted in-flight to hunt for Scud missiles in designated kill boxes," making missions flown in Operation Storm dangerous. Spectre crews successfully engaged numerous Iraqi targets including armor, vehicles, gun sites and personnel, said Walter. On multiple occasions, crews were locked up, forced to perform aggressive maneuvers to keep from being shot down. On the morning of Jan. 31, one mission did turn deadly, and Spirit 03 was lost to enemy ground fire. Following the loss of Spirit 03 and the end of the Battle of Khafji, gunship crews were once again placed on airborne alert for the remainder of the war, although several AC-130A crews fired on Iraqi columns in Kuwait in the last hours of the war," said Walter. But, the determination and sacrifice of 1st SOW Airmen helped shorten the ground campaign to only 100 hours, bringing a swift and decisive end to Operation Desert Storm. It wasnt just the experience level, said Snider, but the fact that we went to so many exercises and played so many war games and that we did it continuously. The [training] gave our personnel the mindset of going to war. According to Snider, that mindset, still shows to this day. On Feb. 28, 1991, after just a month and a half of fighting, President George H. W. Bush declared a ceasefire and an end to hostilities. AFSOC aircrews tallied over 10,000 flight hours and 5,000 sorties through Desert Shield and Desert Storm. News / National by Staff reporter Acting President Emmerson Mnangagwa has toured two assembly plants for Samsung refrigerators and television sets in Graniteside, Harare.The plants have capacities to produce 50 000 television sets and 50 000 refrigerators per year.His first port of call was the plant for refrigerators in Graniteside before proceeding to a television plant which is situated at the Central Sorting Offices.He expressed confidence, the project will grow and contribute to the growth of the local economy."We toured the assembly plant where this company Samsung is assembling fridges, six different types of fridges," said Mnangagwa.It was established that the company has not yet started operations due to challenges in accessing requisite licences.However, Mnangagwa has given the green light to the investor and indicated he will talk to the stakeholders involved to fast track the process."I have to discuss with relevant authorities - the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Industry and Commerce and also ZIMRA, to make sure they do their part. We are all anxious to lure investment into the country," Mnangagwa said.Zimbabwe is in need of foreign direct investment to inject cash and create employment and the government has put in place mechanisms to reduce bureaucracies in licensing investors.There are other initiatives underway to ensure the ease of doing business in Zimbabwe is improved. Author of book about the first untethered flight in space The most noteworthy part of Civil Service Exam is to have a learned, experienced and dedicated guide. The conduct and pattern of the exam demands high level of dedication, patience, perseverance and to a great extend an able helping hand to fuel their preparations. We at IAS ABHIYAN has redefined the preparation of IAS Exam much more simpler by providing Free Daily Current Affairs be it Section Wise for Mains /Prelims inFOCUS/ Prelims Booster /Prelims inShots /Abhiyan Pedia, Quality Mock Test Series, Compilations of Standard/NCERT Books, Monthly Current Affairs Digest (CAD) specially designed for Prelims and Mains. As part of your IAS exam preparation, take a few minutes every day and practice concentrating on a single point for some time at IAS ABHIYAN. Follow your dream and keep up your dedication and sincere preparation under the right mentor from IAS ABHIYAN to guide you throughout your journey. Arise, Awake, and Stop not till the goal is reached. Switzerland is becoming something of an incubator for digital brokerages. First Knip, the mobile-centric broker that scored US$15.7m in series B funding in October, and now FinanceFox, which has just raised US$5.5m in a bid to move the brokerage process online.The funding round for the Zurich -based business was led by Salesforce Ventures, with participation from AngelList, Idinvest, Seedcamp and Speedinvest.Like Knip, which aims to move the insurance brokerage and policy management process onto the customers mobile phone, FinanceFox also has some lofty ambitions, claiming to be: 30 years of insurance expertise brought to the 21st century.You can now handle all your insurance matters and get expert advice in one simple app - anytime, anywhere, the company said, adding that its app is designed to be a complete overview over a customers insurances in one click, from current contracts, coverage and rates, to filing claims and sending medical bills completely paper-free.But the company isnt digitalizing the entire process. It still relies on a team of experts and is officially registered as an insurance consultancy.Personal, made-to-measure consultancy is our main objective. Communicate directly with your support team in our service center - digitally or in person, whichever you prefer. We're there to guide you along every step of the way, from insurance enquiries to claims, all the way to a new insurance plan or provider, the company said.But it does look like FinanceFox has traditional brokers in its crosshairs. Although the company claims that upon request [its services] can also be handled in collaboration with your existing insurance consultant, it does say that its aim is to become the consumer partner in all insurance matters. Previous additional support from insurance agents and other insurance brokers will be transferred to us, the company said. The School Committee approves a superintendent search committee, job posting and salary range to begin the search for a new superintendent. North Adams School Committee Approves Superintendent Search Panel NORTH ADAMS, Mass. The School Committee on Thursday took the first steps in finding a new superintendent by approving a search committee and job description. The city hopes to have a new superintendent of schools in place by July 1 to replace James Montepare, who is retiring after more than 40 years in the school system. The Massachusetts Association of School Committees is providing technical assistance and will be doing a first pass on applicants to ensure their qualifications and eligibility, but it will be up to the 11-member search committee to narrow the field to a few finalists to recommend to the School Committee. Appointed on Thursday to the search committee are community members Maria "Toni" Diamond, Mary Lou Accetta and Howard "Jake" Eberwein. Parents appointed are the Rev. David Anderson and Jennifer Bernard. The administration and staff representatives are Greylock Principal Sandy Cote, 21st Century Site Coordinator Noella Carlow, Drury High teacher Stephanie Kopala, Colegrove Park teacher James Holmes and school Building and Facilities Manager James "Matt" Neville. City Councilor Joshua Moran was appointed to the committee by council President Benjamin Lamb. Vice Chairwoman Heather Boulger expressed some disappointment that the committee was heavily weighted to the educational side, noting that the three community members had academic backgrounds while there were only two parents. Diamond is a retired Berlin, N.Y., superintendent who grew up in North Adams and returned seven or eight years ago; Acetta is special education director at McCann Technical School who left the School Committee last year and Eberwein is dean of graduate and continuing education at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and former superintendent of the Pittsfield Public Schools. Anderson, pastor of First Baptist Church, has a child at Colegrove Park and Bernard, a psychologist with the Brien Center, has a child at Drury High. Other than the parents, "there isn't a community representative," she said, feeling the committee should have had more input from other district partners. "I think of a community as more like our business partners, like Mass MoCA or a social service agency integrated with our programs," she said. "I just wanted to put it out there." School Committee member John Hockridge was more concerned with having five of the 11 members employees of the school district. "I know the School Committee at the end makes the choice but here are staff who are in effect interviewing and choosing their boss," he said. "It seems a little uncomfortable to me." Mayor Richard Alcombright responded that the School Committee would do the hiring and that having staff and faculty on the search committee was the norm. The template for the committee had been provided by the MASC and in consultation with district's point person there, Patricia Correira, he said. The mayor said he also had tried to appoint representatives in line with the School Committee's discussion of committee's makeup. Ensuring that MCLA was represented, for example. The salary range was set at $125,000 to $135,000, with benefits to be negotiated. The current salary is $129,495. Boulger noted that hiring a new superintendent would put that person close to what Montepare was leaving at. Alcombright said it was critical to have a competitive salary or "we aren't going to be able to compete for qualified candidates." MASC had suggested starting closer to $128,00, but he felt it should be lower. He said the surrounding district salaries are: Berkshire Hills $141,000 (1,307 students); Lenox $115,000 (732); Pittsfield $157,000 (5,608); Williamstown-Lanesborough $150,000 (1,204) and Adams-Cheshire $117,000 (1,361). North Adams has 1,463 students. "It's a balancing act between finding a qualified candidate and what we can afford," said Hockridge. "I thought we would have to go higher than that." Community members are encouraged to take a brief, anonymous survey to indicate those skills they believe are most important in a new superintendent for North Adams. The committee will discuss the findings on Feb. 8 with Correira. "This is the most important hire we are ever going to do," said Alcombright. "This is the most important job in the city of North Adams, this is the investment ... We need to do everything we can to get the best qualified candidate." Leonardo DiCaprio faces the horrors of the early American wilderness in the ultimate survival tale 'The Revenant.' 'The Revenant': Will Haunt You Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's "The Revenant," starring Leonardo DiCaprio in the ultimate survival tale, is the adult equivalent of those scary films when you were little that gave you nightmares for a week, causing Mom to decree, "That's it, no more watching those movies." Chronicling the mostly true travail of Hugh Glass, a trapper in what would become the Dakota Territory, circa 1823, DiCaprio's tour de force chillingly reminds that the real horrors of life are far more frightening than anything one can conjure. This is deadly serious stuff, unremitting in its mission to ferociously parallel the terrors capable of being unleashed by both humankind and nature. Life is distilled to its fragile nub. There is nary a moment's rest and virtually nothing that might be misconstrued for comedy relief. The screenplay by Inarritu and Mark L. Smith, adapted from the book by Michael Punke (based on preserved lore), depicts the uncanny determination of DiCaprio's frontiersman to hunt down those who left him to die after he was mauled by a bear. It is excruciating in its gruesome attention to detail, made all the more eerie by the juxtaposition of man's brutality and the visual beauty of the location landscapes, wondrously captured by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki. Here, where Glass fights every potential cause of his demise, a slip here, or a wrong move there, the yin and yang of our existence gets a full workout, with beauteous Mother Nature all along deceivingly claiming her neutrality. The challenge posed by human enemies, every bit as fickle and dangerous, sends us reeling in revulsion. Trying to explain, or at least help us fathom the sense of this daunting environment, no metaphor is left unturned. But note that the scenario also pays haunting lip service to the spiritually inclined, thus allowing one to infer answers, philosophical or otherwise, from the ghostly revelations Glass envisions as he trudges forward. They are mostly images of happier times with his Native American wife, before she was brutally killed, leaving him to raise his young son, Hawk (Forrest Goodluck). They've embarked on the trapping expedition together. News / National by Staff reporter Immigration officials manning the country's entry and exit points have been warned to desist from engaging in corrupt activities as they are the first contact that investors and visitors meet.The warning was made by Home Affairs Minister Dr Ignatius Chombo when he visited the Harare International Airport.Immigration officials based at the airport had an opportunity to air their grievances to Dr Chombo.Assistant Regional Immigration Officer Mr Evans Siziba took Dr Chombo on a tour of the airport and immigration officers on duty interacted with the Minister.Dr Chombo promised the officials that their grievances will be addressed but warned them that government will not tolerate corruption which is said to be rampant at the country's ports of entry."The installation of close circuit television (CCTV) devices, scanners and check point machines at all national ports of entry and exit is meant to curb corruption," said Dr Chombo.Immigration Principal Director Mr Clemence Masango noted that some of the challenges raised by the workers can be solved by management but other challenges require the intervention of the government.The Minister of Home Affairs is set to tour all the country border posts. SVHC Launches Health Text Message Service BENNINGTON, Vt. Southwestern Vermont Health Care understands that everyone could use a little guidance and encouragement in their efforts to make healthy choices. To support community members, SVHC has launched a new service that sends healthy and inspiring text messages to participants cell phones three times per week. Each one offers a health-related timely, friendly tip or reminder. We hope the messaging service encourages members to make healthy choices while also showing that we care about their long-term health, said James Trimarchi, SVHCs director of planning. We want our community to know that we care about them all the time not just when they visit their doctors office. For example, the message on November 27the day after Thanksgiving, which is one of the biggest shopping days of the yearwas, If youre out shopping today, keep in mind that most fast foods are high in salt, fat, and sugar. Carefully choose healthier food options, because to your friends and family, your health is more important than any holiday gift. Enrollment in the service is easy. Those interested can text enroll to 802-768-9224. In response, subscribers will receive a text message with a link to the enrollment agreement and instructions to text agree as a response. Those who want to stop receiving the text messages, simply text stop. SVHC chose to use texts because cell phones have become powerful tools for providing real-time guidance and support. The program was first tested by SVHC employees in November. T20 World Cup: I'm Concerned About India Making it to The Top Four - Kapil Dev 'PCB Can't Take Any Objection as BCCI is The Richest Board': Kaneria on India's Decision of Not Travel to Pakistan T20 WC: 'Lockie Ferguson Has Ability to Break The Game Open' - Tim Southee Opens up on New Zealand's Pace Attack T20 World Cup 2022: India's Second Warm Up Match Against New Zealand Washed Out in Brisbane News / Regional by Nqobile Tshili THE government has suspended a ban on the movement of animals from Umzingwane district following last month's anthrax outbreak, saying the situation was under control.Last month, the government banned all animal movement from the district to prevent the spread of anthrax to other districts and provinces. The Matabeleland South acting provincial veterinary officer Mbuso Moyo said yesterday: "We've since relaxed conditions that had seen animals not being allowed to be transported from Umzingwane. We're no longer strict on animal movement now."He said Umzingwane district has not recorded new cases of anthrax since the government released vaccination doses in December."Since we started vaccinating cattle the number of cattle dying because of anthrax has decreased. In the past week we haven't come across any deaths. I can safely say the situation is now under control," he said.Moyo said vaccination had been carried out for free for all farmers in the district.Following the outbreak of anthrax, the government released 16,000 doses of anthrax vaccine for Umzingwane district.The outbreak of the virus killed over 45 cattle while 55 people were hospitalised.Two weeks ago, the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development responsible for livestock Paddy Zhanda visited the affected areas and expressed satisfaction over the handling of the situation.He said the last animal deaths occurred before Christmas, adding that swift action by the government and its partners had brought the situation under control. We work towards an equitable, gender-just, self-reliant and sustainable fisheries, particularly in the small-scale, artisanal sector We work towards an equitable, gender-just, self-reliant and sustainable fisheries, particularly in the small-scale, artisanal sector We work towards an equitable, gender-just, self-reliant and sustainable fisheries, particularly in the small-scale, artisanal sector We work towards an equitable, gender-just, self-reliant and sustainable fisheries, particularly in the small-scale, artisanal sector News / Regional by Whinsley Masara POLICE have arrested a 33-year-old man found in possession of 11 kilogrammes of gold worth nearly half a million dollars at the Plumtree Border Post.National police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba said Fisher Matura was arrested on Wednesday by officers from the Minerals and Border Control Unit."The Zimbabwe Republic Police would like to confirm the arrest of Fisher Matura who was found in possession of 11,485 kilogrammes of gold worth $442,775 at Plumtree Border Post," she said.Snr Asst Comm Charamba said members of the ZRP Minerals and Border Control Unit received a tip-off that Matura wanted to smuggle gold out of the country."He was driving a silver Hyundai minibus. The car had already gone through all the necessary immigration and Zimra processes. The police officers stopped and searched the vehicle and discovered 12 gold bars and two gold cones hidden in a false compartment under the chassis of the vehicle wrapped in a khaki paper," she said.Snr Asst Comm Charamba said the suspect failed to produce any export or gold buying permit as required in terms of the law and was arrested."Police would like to warn all those who are involved in smuggling gold outside the country that we've stepped up operations at our border posts.The Zimbabwe Republic Police will not allow those bent on derailing the country's Zim-Asset initiatives and hence will arrest all those law-breakers," she said.Recently, police revealed that a 33-year-old Kwekwe man who was facing charges of attempting to smuggle gold worth about $1million is on the run after defaulting court.Tudhope James Roy was arrested in September last year while trying to smuggle 28,5 kilogrammes of gold valued at about $970,000 into Botswana.Roy was arrested after police recovered the gold wrapped in eight packets in a false compartment in his vehicle.He appeared at Plumtree magistrate court on November 18, 2015, where he was remanded to December 2, 2015, but on that date he did not turn up for trial.Weeks after Roy's arrest, five cases of individuals attempting to smuggle gold whose value ranged from $200,000 to $500,000, were reported at the same border post.Figures from the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development reveal that the country recovered gold and diamonds worth $2,4 million from unlicensed dealers between October 2014 and August 2015.Recently, Home Affairs Deputy Minister Obedingwa Mguni, who is also the National House of Assembly Member for Mangwe Constituency, said there was a need to tighten security at border posts.He said culprits were taking advantage of loopholes at the border posts to smuggle minerals. News / Regional by Sukulwenkosi Dube A 28-YEAR-OLD man from Matobo District who fatally assaulted an 18-year-old teenager who had stabbed him over an unpaid $5 debt, has appeared in court facing murder charges.Isaac Tshuma struck Mduduzi Sibanda with a log several times all over the body and left him for dead.Sibanda was rushed to the United Bulawayo Hospitals on the following morning and was pronounced dead on admission.The court heard that Sibanda met Tshuma who was carrying some groceries and confronted him over the $5 which he owed him. Tshuma is said to have told Sibanda that he did not have any money and this did not go down well with the teenager who then demanded Tshuma's groceries leading to the altercation.Tshuma who appeared before Plumtree magistrate, Livard Philemon, was remanded in custody to January 23.Prosecuting, Jane Phiri said Tshuma is alleged to have fatally assaulted Sibanda on January 8."On January 8, near Samdindi River in Ntunjambili area, Sibanda met Tshuma who was coming from the shops carrying groceries. The teenager demanded his $5 from Tshuma who indicated that he had no money."This didn't please the teenager who then inquired how Tshuma was able to buy groceries if he did not have any money."Sibanda then demanded the groceries in place of the money and when Tshuma refused with the groceries, Sibanda picked up a stone and struck him on the forehead. He thereafter stabbed him with an Okapi knife," said Phiri.She said Tshuma armed himself with a log and assaulted Sibanda all over the body and left him unconscious.Phiri said Tshuma was found on the following morning by Peacemore Dube who alerted other villagers.She said Sibanda was bleeding from the nose and mouth and was rushed to UBH where he died on admission. In the magical action-packed movie The New Adventures of Aladdin, best friends Sam (Kev Adams) and Khalid (William Lebghil) dress up as up as Santa Claus to steal everything they can from Galeries Lafayette. But Sam is quickly caught by children and their needs tell the story of Aladdin. In the skin of Aladdin , Sam begins then a trip to the heart of Baghdad , a city with Arabian wealth. While telling the tale, the people suffered from the terrible tyranny known Vizier for his ferocity and his questionable breath and the young thief taking on his alter-ego Aladin tries to save the day and win the heart of a princess. The movies hero, Kev Adams who plays Sam and Aladdin in The New Adventures of Aladdin, is the actors debut starring role after playing support roles in movies. I really wanted to be back on a carpet driving alongside a Genius but also to participate this story full of humor while confronting the real world. The original script was 250 pages, it was a monumental epic and I loved it! shares Adams on his casting. I was indeed very happy to play a hero even if its not from my roots, especially since the cast is made actors who mostly have no link to this part of the world. I would add that we shot in Morocco, the only country Maghreb where I have no family roots! But when you are in the cinema, as part a story or a fairy tale, the religious affairs or ethnicity have no place to be. It remains essential the characters, the sets. That being said, the story of Aladdin reminded me of the ones who instilled values in me like my Tunisian my grandfather. And in Morocco, every day we saw and worked with people who do not have much but who are all willing to give. It's very touching, very motivating, continues Adams. The New Adventures of Aladdin is also director Arthur Benzaquens first feature film. Written by Daive Cohen, the movie had found its way to production ten years after the script was conceived. He had never actually found the opportunity to do so. Daniel Tordjman, the producer offered him this occasion. When they asked me to realize I have admit that a big doubt came over me, given the ambition project ... But Daniel and Daive insisted. This adventure like us. We all three worked on "Zak". Four years together, writing mounting through filming or post-production it is a full time job. We knew knew each other perfectly and operate as a trio since then, says Benzaquen on landing the directors seat. Moreover, Benzaquen notes that what is great about the story is that it was written there are hundreds of years but it remains extremely modern. We considered a lot of countries for filming, especially India, but Morocco prevailed. First because by our roots, Daive, Daniel and I are from Morocco. Seriously, there there was the scenery we needed and especially for me the most important: a hand extremely skilled and very flexible. The Morocco now receives a very large number foreign film, especially Americans. For example, we used the sets of Kingdom of Heaven by Ridley Scott. Our Moroccan experience has been a real pleasure, in Marrakech, in the studios of Ouarzazate, as in the desert. I also filmed Galeries Lafayette sequences for the part present the film and some technical additions background-green in Belgium. The New Adventures of Aladdin opens January 27 from Pioneer Films. Back to top Transcript of a Press Briefing by Gerry Rice, Director, Communications Department, IMF Thursday, January 14, 2016 Washington, DC Webcast of the press briefing MR. RICE: Well, good morning everyone and welcome to this briefing on behalf of the International Monetary Fund. Im Gerry Rice of the Communications Department. Nice to see everyone here this morning. I want to wish you a happy new year, those colleagues in the room and also online. We had a very interesting 2015 and we look forward to an equally interesting 2016. Let me begin with some announcements about travels and events and then Ill turn to your questions in the room and, if there are any, online also. As usual we are embargoed until 10:30 thats Washington time, 10:30 a.m. So whats upcoming? A few things. Next week we will release our World Economic Outlook Update. So that will be next Tuesday, January 19 and this will be lead of course by our Economic Counselor and Director of Research Maury Obstfeld, and there will be a press conference. We are launching from London - the Bank of England actually, and thats going to be 10:00 a.m. GMT. Unfortunately its early in the morning here for those of you in Washington. Its 5:00 a.m. but youll have the material under embargo in the usual way and anything else you need on the wheel and if of great interest to you, media relations would be able to help you with that. Thats on the 19th. On the 20th the Managing Director Christine Lagarde will be in Davos for the World Economic Forum, and on that day in Davos, she will speak on the economic impact of migration at a panel discussion that morning. Then later that same day, she will speak on another panel on the transformation of finance. Just in terms of her very public appearances on January 23rd she will speak on the global economic outlook panel which is a bit of a tradition in Davos. Thats on Saturday. Thats the Wednesday and the Saturday of the big public events of the Managing Director. I mentioned them in particular because relatedly well be publishing two research papers next week. One will be on that issue of migration and one will be on the interesting and emerging issue of virtual currencies which I know some of you have an interest in. Theyll both be published also on January 20, and we will get those to you in advance under embargo in the usual way. So thats for Christine Lagarde. Our Deputy Managing Director Min Zhu will also be in Davos as usual, and hes speaking on several panels also. Min will then travel to Botswana and Ghana speaking at a conference in Botswana and then to Ghana for a conference on enhanced data for better macro policies. As you know the Managing Director just came from Africa as of last weekend. She was visiting Nigeria and Cameroon and Im sure you saw some of the news items related to that. So with that let me turn to questions in the room and lets start the new year with Greece. QUESTIONER: Thank you. When will the Fund mission goes back to Athens? What the objective of this mission will be? Will it be the first review or discussion on the proposed pension reform? Also, how do you comment on the reports that say that the IMF rejects this proposal? MR. RICE: Theres a bundle of questions there. Let me try and answer them. We dont have exact timing of the mission. Its still being discussed with the authorities. The team would expect to discuss the recent economic and policy developments and the authoritys plans to ensure that the Greek economy can return to growth and sustainable public finances over the medium and long run. This includes the authoritys plans to reach their ambitious medium term fiscal targets not least the pension reforms that you mentioned, as well as structural reforms to support the fiscal effort and long term growth. We have said in 2015 that in addition to a comprehensive policy package, Greece also requires debt relief from the European partners to ensure that sustainability, so that message continues into 2016. Both policies and debt relief are critical components for a program that the fund could support and the conclusion of discussions with us will depend on progress on both of these fronts. QUESTIONER: I asked you about the proposal for the pension reform I guess that your received a couple of weeks ago. Do you agree with that? MR. RICE: Yes, we have received the authorities draft proposals for pension reform. The team is in the process of assessing those proposals carefully and has not yet completed its evaluation. We would expect to discuss this in more detail with the authorities and with the partners during the upcoming first review of the ESM program. Why the emphasis on pension reforms? I think weve discussed this here before. Greeces pension system is unaffordable. As it stands the contributions are not sufficient to finance the generous level of benefits requiring transfers of the state of close to 10 percent of GDP each year. Addressing the imbalance in the system through pension reform is essential to the sustainability of public finances that I mentioned, and the credibility of the authoritys ambitious fiscal targets. MR. RICE: Well stay on Greece for a minute. QUESTIONER: The Prime Minister and his ministers ask you many times to leave Greece and the Greek problem. Why do you insist to stay? MR. RICE: Maybe just as a first order of business. Just to remind you, Greece has requested a program from the IMF. And beyond that the context is as you know that Greece faces a number of challenges. Some of them I just mentioned, the unsustainable public finances, the vulnerable banking sector, the structural impediments to growth and we have said as I said many times now -- it was a big message of 2015 continuing into 2016 -- that the program needs to walk on those two legs that weve talked about, the policy package, the debt relief. And its the IMF that has been I think most vocal in pushing for that package of policy response and debt relief. And you know both of those are essential. QUESTIONER: There are a lot of rumors about Mr. Thomsens whereabouts. Can you tell us where is he these days? Berlin? Can you tell us if he met with the finance minister of Germany and the finance minister of France? MR. RICE: I dont have the details of who Poul met with, but its not unusual for the Director of the European department to meet with finance ministers in various countries, thats not at all unusual. Where is Poul? Poul is at the Euro group meeting today. No mystery about that. And again hell probably almost certainly meet a number of finance ministers there. Are we on Greece? QUESTIONER: Yes. MR. RICE: Okay, then Ill come to you. Good morning. QUESTIONER: Good morning. On the debt relief issue does the IMF go hand in hand with the Europeans or are you guys standing on opposite sides regarding a new program? MR. RICE: We work closely with the Greek authorities, we work closely with our European partners and as I mentioned the issue of debt relief, debt sustainability and the linkage with the policy package is something that will be discussed with the authorities and with the European partners in the context of the upcoming review. QUESTIONER: Which is to be completed when? MR. RICE: Well as I mentioned earlier I dont have the date for you yet on that. QUESTIONER: But it will not be before the program expires in March right? MR. RICE: I dont have a date for the discussions. You know, were already in the process of thinking about what the new program would look like. Its not so much about the old program. So thats not really a major consideration. QUESTIONER: Hi, thank you, so if I understood correctly you still dont know? You cannot tell us when the IMF will decide whether or not it will join the bailout program, right? MR. RICE: Dont have a date for the discussions of the review, and thats where that discussion would take place. QUESTIONER: Is it really considerable for the IMF not to join the program given the consequences that could result from this decision? You know that the Germans are insisting on the IMF to be involved in the program, otherwise they could maybe back up. Is it really considerable for the IMF not to join the bailout? MR. RICE: I think what you are touching on, theres been a lot of speculation about the IMFs role in the program or nonrole. Maybe theres been reporting that the IMF wants to quit the program. I think thats what youre touching on. I just want to say quite clearly theres no truth to that. Theres no truth to this. Weve remained engaged in policy discussions with the Greek authorities on a continuous basis since the summer and then looking forward. We stand ready to support Greece not only with advice, not only with technical assistance but also with financing. Once -- and again going back to what I said -- once a comprehensive set of policies and credible debt relief are in place. The two legs. But maybe just one other comment. Ultimately this is not all about the IMF. This is about Greece, about putting in place the necessary policies and delivering on the needed debt relief to put Greece on the path of sustainable public finances and growth. Thats what this is all about and thats what the IMF has been trying to do. Thats our objective. So Im going to take maybe two more on Greece and then Im going to move off Greece. A stranger from foreign shores has returned to our midst. QUESTIONER: (inaudible) from Athens come back to you, but I missed you as you missed me I hope. MR. RICE: No comment. (Laughter) QUESTIONER: Yes, no comment, correct. Let me tell you something. The start of the IMF in the process of negotiations with Greece cannot be called constructive. The IMF must decide if it wants to compromise. If it doesnt it should say so publicly. This is one of the recent statements of the Greek Prime Minister Mr. Tsipras in Financial Times if Im right three weeks ago. Was such a statement pleasant for you? MR. RICE: I just answered that question. I dont really have that much more to say. QUESTIONER: Let me ask you more openly something like are you satisfied by the way of the Greek government cooperating with the IMF in the negotiations? MR. RICE: Were fully engaged with the authorities as I mentioned in the discussions. QUESTIONER: Are you satisfied also? MR. RICE: The discussion are ongoing - theyre productive, they are moving forward and we are fully engaged and our objective is to support Greece as best we can. QUESTIONER: One more last question please, what is your position about the opposition of parties in Greece? They say that are not going to support structural reform measures. What is the message that you would like to send to the political system in Greece right now given the fact that they voted for this bailout program a few months ago? MR. RICE: I dont have any message for the political parties in Greece. I just reiterate what Ive said that we think there needs to be a program thats standing on two legs--strong policy package and strong debt relief, and thats very important for the future of Greece, and thats what we are working with the authorities -- we are working toward that. You are going to have the last word on Greece. QUESTIONER: Okay, thats the last one. Is the Managing Director planning the Prime Minister Tsipras next week in Davos? MR. RICE: Yes, its planned that they would meet. QUESTIONER: They would meet at the 21st? MR. RICE: I dont have the date or the time, but they are planning to meet. QUESTIONER: Thank you. MR. RICE: You know, in Davos a number of you have been there but many, many meetings take place, planned and spontaneously. Even at head of state level. But, yes its planned that they would meet. So can we move off Greece? QUESTIONER: I think we may be interested in the same subject. Im obviously going to ask you about the Ukrainian debt. Now, Ukraine is officially in default as you know, so my question is how you intend to proceed in this new situation with the program if indeed you are planning to proceed. MR. RICE: Just a reminder, the mission for the second review was in Kiev the latter part of November, and since then the staff discussion with the authorities have been continuing. Theyve been constructive. Significant work at the technical level has helped to advance mutual understandings and also has allowed for the adoption of the 2016 budget and that was in late December last year so we remain engaged to finalize the policy framework for 2016 that would then pave the way for the completion of the second review. I do not have a board date for you today when the second review would take place. It depends on resolving some outstanding issues which we hope would be soon. The outstanding issues I can tell you revolve around structural fiscal measure needed to ensure medium term sustainability. I mentioned the budget adopted by Ukraine toward the end of the year which implies a deficit of about three and three quarter percent GDP and that is broadly consistent with the programs objective. I think our Resident Representative in Kiev has also talked about that today. On the debt issue our position is pretty much as weve discussed before that we continue to encourage the Ukraine and Russia to achieve a cooperative solution that contributes to the financing and the debt objectives of the program and the board would be assessing those efforts at the time of the second review but again I do not have the board date for you today on that. QUESTIONER: And the Fund is just an observer? The Fund does not partake in part of the discussion. Have you communications from Moscow say this year? MR. RICE: Youre right about the observer status on the debt negotiations and Im not aware of any communications from Russia. QUESTIONER: Okay, the new framework of lending into arrears involves potentially other countries. For instance, Ive seen speculation that it is actually directed more at China because China is not a member of the Paris Club and the Chinese also are a very big donor, a very big lender to many of the same countries that the IMF is working. Are the Chinese debts secure in the new environment, will the IMF standby the obligations? MR. RICE: I wouldnt characterize the lending into arrears policy that was adopted toward the end of last year as being aimed at any particular country, because we think its in the best interest of the membership at large and thats the rationale for the policy. I wouldnt want to get into how it might or might not apply to individual countries in a speculative way. QUESTIONER: Thats understandable but the change in rules came at this particular junction which definitely had a bearing on the Ukrainian situation and thats why I was asking you about your contacts with the Russians about the situation because obviously this new situation where Ukraine is in arrears and where the new policy is undergoing, its the first test. I think its also a test for the IMF. From what you just said and please correct me if Im wrong, you are saying that the first actual discussion of this new situation will happen at the second review -- at the conclusions of the second review for the Ukrainians. MR. RICE: Yes, what I was saying was that the whole range of issues related to the Ukraine program will of course be discussed in the context of the second review and that will include the debt and profile and everything else. Weve discussed it here before, as you know the change -- the revision and the lending into arrears policy is something that the staff of the IMF has been pushing for for quite some time and weve talked about this. QUESTIONER: Are there any intermediate steps, intermediate procedures that you need to follow in this situation before the second review where -- you will require reports from departments on how to proceed in this situation of default? MR. RICE: Im not aware of any special reports or intermediate steps but of course theyll be in the context of the second review, a staff report as always will be discussed by the Board, put to the Board, and then you get to see it, too, because we publish those staff reports. I think all that information would be there. I'm not trying to be evasive here. QUESTIONER: Normally, I know what happens, which steps happen, in sequence. Here, I'm not sure I understand. Thank you. MR. RICE: Okay. Are we on the Ukraine? Let's finish with Ukraine. MR. TALLEY: Good morning. You talked about the second review. Given the distance from the last review, why are you not combining the second and third reviews into one, to a larger lump sum payment, and you mentioned no frustrations or delinquencies in terms of anti-corruption efforts. Is that still sand in the works? I do have one question on Greece. Would a failure of either the two legs that you mentioned, credible policy or debt relief, have a consequence of Greece defaulting on its debt to the IMF once again? So, the IMF has to be involved in order to get its money back. MR. RICE: You know, maybe just on the last one, I think it's prudent just for me to reiterate that we think we need both of the legs. We need the strong policy package and we need the debt relief. We think that's what is required for sustainable growth over the medium term. You know, in terms of the IMF's role, we will play as constructive a role as we possibly can, and the nature of that role, and I think I was pretty clear on what the nature of that role could be, I think will depend on the discussions with the partners and the Greeks in the coming days. On Ukraine, you were asking about the corruption, I think. MR. TALLEY: Two things. Why are you not combining the two reviews, and how are anti-corruption efforts -- MR. RICE: I don't have any indication that the reviews are about to be combined. My information at the moment, is the second review that we are looking at. On the other issue, as you know, the program includes a number of measures to fight corruption, including the establishment of an anti-corruption bureau, strengthening asset disclosure requirements for high level officials, and enhancing the anti-money laundering framework in Ukraine. The status is the authorities are working on the implementation of those measures, and the program reviews will, of course, be checking the progress. Again, as I mentioned, I think this is something that will be laid out in fuller detail in the staff report, which we will publish subsequent to the Board discussion. QUESTIONER MR. RICE: Good morning. QUESTIONERQUESTIONER: Two questions for you on China. First of all, there has been a lot of turbulence emanating from China in the markets to start the new year. Wondering if you can comment specifically on how they have managed the currency? Obviously, the IMF approved the RMB being included in the SDR last year. Since then, there has been continued talk about them being too heavy handed in their interventions, whether they are trying to devalue the currency competitively. How comfortable is the IMF with how China is managing its currency? MR. RICE: Well, maybe just stepping back a little bit, of course, China has embarked on this historic rebalancing of its growth model. As we said before, we think this is something that is good for China economically and good for the world. Nonetheless, this shift to the new growth model is going to be bumpy, is bumpy, and the effects are being felt in various parts of the world. The Managing Director said last week that this reinforces the need for more clarity on policies, especially exchange rate policy. I think we have seen in recent days some efforts by the Chinese authorities in that direction. Our views on China's fundamentals remain unchanged. We think a focus of policies and communications on maintaining strong fundamentals and promoting continued rebalancing will be helpful. As I just mentioned, more clarity, communication around the exchange rate regime would be useful. Again, the authorities are working on this and have made recent communications to that effect. On the macro fundamentals, you know, the authorities obviously should aim for an appropriate growth target, and if growth would risk slipping below that target, we have recommended the first line of defense should be fiscal stimulus. We will have more to say on China on Tuesday in the context of the WEO Update, including on the forecast. I think we will have more details at that point. QUESTIONER: Just a quick technical follow up. There seems to be a perception in the market that there are certain conditions placed on the RMB's inclusion in the SDR, in particular, that the spread between the offshore and onshore rate remain as narrow as possible. I have not found that condition in any of your public documentation, but can you clarify? Does that condition exist? MR. RICE: What I would say on that issue is we have noted the widening of the spread between the onshore and offshore exchange rates of the RMB. We are gathering the relevant information on that, and we will be discussing that with the authorities, the factors behind it, and possible policy responses. In terms of the SDR process, clearly the decision has been made following the technical assessment by our Executive Board. That process is fully on track. QUESTIONER: Do you have any comment on policy in Southern Africa? MR. RICE: You know, clearly Southern Africa like other parts of Africa is affected by these changes in the global economy that are taking place right now. We just talked about China and the shift to the growth model. China is now, I believe, Africa's largest partner in terms of economic activity. Clearly, the relative slowdown in China has an effect for Africa and for Southern Africa as well. The changes in commodity prices is another major factor obviously affecting these African countries, and the whole monetary policy environment is changing as well. The effects, I think, from various parts of the world to Southern Africa are something that will have an impact. I don't have specifics for you on Southern Africa. It is again something that Maury Obstfeld can say more about on Tuesday. In Western Africa, clearly the Managing Director -- the discussions were centering around these issues. To some extent, and every country is different, but to some extent, these broad shocks, and she spoke in particular about the double shock of the commodity price shock, and then in those countries, the security situation they are facing as well is another factor. QUESTIONER: My comment perhaps in the question, you have had no approach from Zambia or South Africa about a possible program? MR. RICE: The answer is no in both cases. QUESTIONER: I have two questions. First, about the impact of the refugee crisis in Europe, and Im not talking about the destination countries like Germany. I'm talking about countries like Greece, Macedonia, and Serbia. Also, I know that next week there will be a press conference about your economic outlook for 2016, but can you tell us whether your outlook will be similar or not to the one published by the World Bank? MR. RICE: Welcome. We won't give out the numbers from the forecast before it is launched. I think you would understand that. I can tell you that the issues related to migration and the refugee crisis is something that has been taken into account in working towards the latest updates, so it is something that I think will be further discussed in that context, and as I mentioned at the top of the meeting, we will actually be publishing a paper next Wednesday, on the whole issue of migration and refugees, with a particular focus on Europe. QUESTIONER: I have a question on the 2010 governance reforms. When are the reforms going to turn into application here at the Fund now that it's been approved by the U.S. Congress? Secondly, are you comfortable with the fact that Congress is willing to increase its oversight of the IMF? You know, they detailed that in the budgetary bill they passed in December. MR. RICE: For those who haven't followed it as closely as you do, toward the end of December, the U.S. Congress approved the IMF 2010 governance reforms. We consider this a very important step for the Fund, for the membership. Once effective, the reforms will strengthen the IMF's resources and will support global financial stability and of course, the reforms also significantly help to strengthen the representation of dynamic emerging and developing countries in the membership of the IMF. In terms of the next steps, what I can tell you is progress has been made in the reform implementation. I would expect things to fall into place very shortly to allow the reform to become effective, which technically requires the U.S. authorities to notify the Fund that the U.S. is fully accepting of the reforms. Again, we expect that soon, and that process is on track. On the question of potential increased oversight by the Congress, that's something I think I would prefer you talk to the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. authorities about, exactly what that might mean. I'm not aware of any sort of added oversight/regulation that is related to this reform, but it is something that maybe the Treasury can elucidate. QUESTIONER: I wanted to clarify one little point. You have a mission [to Ukraine], as I understand it, in late January. Do you expect the dates for the second review to be announced after that mission or does the mission have nothing to do with the review or the dates? MR. RICE: I'm not aware of the mission. Let me check on that for you and get back to you. QUESTIONER: (Inaudible) MR. RICE: Again, I'm just not aware of it. We will confirm or not after this meeting. QUESTIONER: (Inaudible) MR. RICE: You know, we have technical missions and technical assistance missions going out all the time. I do not believe this is a review mission, but there could be some TA or capacity building. That's entirely possible. MR. TALLEY: Just one on quota and one clarifying Madam Lagarde's comments. Does the Board plan to vote on repeal of the systemic exemption any time in the very near future that you're aware of? Two, the MD mentioned needs for better managing liquidity for emerging markets in a time of stress. She mentioned no specific proposal but there have been proposals put forward by the IMF before. Is this something that is clearly on the work schedule to get accomplished in this year or is this just a in-passing comment that yes, the world needs this? MR. RICE: Thank you. On the systemic exemption, which you mentioned, I would just like to remind again for those -- I know you follow it closely -- for those that don't, that the revision to the systemic exemption is something that the staff of the IMF has been advocating for some time. It goes back at least to a May 2013 paper that marked the start of the latest round of policy reforms in the context of reform of our lending framework, particularly related to sovereign debt. Then there was a paper last year in 2015 proposing to repeal the systemic exemption. There has been discussion for some time on eliminating the systemic risk exemption for some time. That's just the context of it. Yes, the Board meeting on that topic is going to be on January 20. Your second question was on? MR. TALLEY: (Inaudible) MR. RICE: Oh, yes. You are right that Madam Lagarde made a fairly comprehensive speech on this topic just the other day, just on Tuesday, at the Banque de France conference. There she was talking broadly about the need to strengthen the global financial safety net in various ways. The fact that the quota legislation has been approved by the U.S. Congress, and that is about to come into effect, I think is one important element that helps in the strengthening of the global financial safety net because it doubles the IMF's resources, permanent resources, amongst other things. That is part of it. She also pointed to, as you say, the need to strengthen that global financial safety net in other ways. At the moment, there is an asymmetry and imbalance in the financial safety net globally. We feel that more needs to be done to strengthen it with a view to the emerging markets in particular. There have been a number of, I would say, ideas, rather than formal proposals going around. Again, you're right that this is an important part of the IMF's work program for this year in the context of our work on strengthening the international monetary system. I dont have specifics on that right now, but again, you're correct. This is a big issue for the coming year, and you can expect to hear more from the IMF on that issue in the period ahead. I am going to take a couple of question online, and then I'm going to wrap up this briefing. He has a question on Nigeria, which I won't take, because we said a lot about Nigeria over the last several days. I think we said a lot. You also have a question on Burundi. There is talk that the IMF recommended the inclusion of payments to the country for its peacekeeping in Somalia in order to be more transparent and make it part of the budget, what is the IMF's position on this. On Burundi, I would refer to the March 2015 staff report, the completion of the sixth review, under the extended credit facility. In that report and in the spirit of enhancing fiscal transparency, the authorities had committed themselves to include the data related to revenues and costs concerning Burundi's participation in peacekeeping operations into their future budget. So, this was something that Burundi had committed to. The context is that prior to the second quarter of 2015, the IMF supported arrangement was making progress. However, the program has deteriorated with the onset of the security challenges in the country, and the completion of the seventh and eighth reviews is not possible. As such, the program is off track at the moment. Staff is monitoring the situation and gathering information. Of course, the discussions continue. That is on Burundi. There is a second question from Egypt. How do you see the decision of the Central Bank of Egypt to monitor the imports of Egypt, is it really a step needed to face the lack of dollar in Egypt. On that import question, I can tell you we have not yet had the chance to discuss these proposals with the Egyptian authorities, so we look forward to that. We would like to stress the need to raise exports in order to promote growth and for exchange rate flexibility to support this, allowing the exchange rate to move to a market clearing rate where supply meets demand, would boost exports, and prevent foreign exchange shortages. I think that might help with that question. I'm going to leave it there for today. Thank you for coming. Happy New Year. We will see you in a couple of weeks post the update. Thank you. * * * * * IMF Survey : IMF Middle East Training Center in Kuwait Explores Emerging Global Issues Center expands training to tackle rising global challenges Inclusive growth, fiscal reforms critical for policymakers in region Training emphasizes private sector development and diversification About a year after its inauguration, the IMFs Middle East Center for Economics and Finance (CEF), funded by the Kuwait Investment Authority, continues to expand its training on building the knowledge and technical skills needed to effectively manage economies throughout the Arab world. Interview with Oussama Kanaan Since its inception, the center has offered about 120 activities, and provided training to more than 5,400 officials from the 22 countries of the Arab League. Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have been important beneficiaries from the establishment of the center, with over 1,600 trained officials to date. The CEFs mission is to build capacity through hands-on training for policymakers from the Arab League, as well as to lead conferences, symposia, and seminars geared at strengthening the design and implementation of sound economic policies for the region. IMF Survey caught up with Oussama Kanaan, CEFs Director, about the centers recent high-level events, current developments, and how he sees the center expanding to provide solutions to some of the regions most pressing economic challenges. IMF Survey: How do you see the CEFs training evolving as a result of new issues emerging from the rapidly changing global environment? Kanaan: The Center has been strengthening its training for Arab policymakers and practitioners in the core economic areas of the Fundnotably fiscal, monetary and exchange rate policy, international trade and finance, economic growth, and statistics. In these areas, our program is evolving to support the most pressing issues of the region. These include serious macroeconomic and fiscal pressures due to falling oil prices, intensified conflict, and a migration and refugee crisis. Additionally, global challenges, such as climate change and income inequality, should be considered when forming economic policies. This has led us to take an increasingly multidisciplinary approach to complement our core economics courses, and step up our joint training efforts with the World Bank, OECD, and WTO. For our most recent symposium, The World is Fast: How to Understand It and Thrive in It, which was held last November jointly with the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, we chose the broad theme of the economic implications of new global trends. For that event, we invited Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize winning author, as the keynote speaker. We knew he would enrich the event by taking not only a flexible approach, but also a bold one in discussing many of the pressing global issues with the participating economists. The CEF recently held a panel discussion on subsidy reform in the context of falling oil prices. Featured in this photo are the events speakers (from left to right): Firas Raad (World Bank); Oussama Kanaan (IMF-CEF); Ananthakrishnan Prasad (IMF) and Imed Limam (AFESD). (Photo: Hussein Ahmad) IMF Survey: What were the key lessons from that event on the impact of global trends? Kanaan: The events main objective was to explore ways in which Arab economies could successfully cope with emerging global challenges. In my view, the symposium and follow-up discussions brought up three crucial points for policymakers in the region: First, rapid economic globalization is raising productivity growth and the competiveness of exports from emerging market economies, especially in East Asia. This makes it more urgent for competitor economies, including in the Arab world, to take steps to accelerate private sector development. Priority measures include institutional and legal reforms to ensure good governance, removing impediments to trade and investment, and ensuring a level-playing field between public sector companies and small and medium-sized enterprises. The need to expand and diversify private sector production and exports has become even more pressing for the GCC countries in view of declining oil prices. Second, the digital revolution has further raised the pace of economic globalization, and compounded its positive impact on many emerging market economies competitiveness and exports including services outsourced from developed economies. Given the rising competition in international markets, it is particularly important for developing economies, including those in the Arab world, to press ahead with steps to invest in and raise the quality of education and vocational training to ensure that the potential benefits of the digital revolution are adequately harnessed. The third global challenge stems from the potential adverse economic impact of global warming if carbon dioxide emissions continue on current trends. The Arab Gulf region is particularly vulnerable to waves of very high heat and humidity that could pose a challenge to human habitability by the end of this century, potentially diverting resources to counter their impact and dampening economic growth. This underscores the urgency of measures to curb emissions, such as those agreed at the Paris Climate Change Conference. IMF Survey: Do you think these lessons could easily be taken on board when forming economic policies? Kanaan: Global trends that impact national economies gradually or with a longer time lagsuch as the economic impact of the digital revolution or climate changeare often more difficult to measure. Part of the difficulty stems from the absence of comparable past occurrences, unlike, for example, economic depressions or financial crises for which lessons could be derived from past episodes. Nevertheless, I think it is important for thoughtful, well-rounded discussions among economists to seriously consider the potential impact of global challenges especially when that impact can be influenced through economic policies. For example, the adverse impact of global warming could, over time, be tempered through appropriate taxation of fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions. IMF Survey: The Center co-organizedwith the Central Bank of Kuwait and the IMFs Middle East and Central Asia Departmentthe Islamic Finance Conference: Meeting Global Aspirations. How was the feedback from participants? Kanaan: Islamic Finance is not typically associated with the work of the IMF, and participants were impressed by the Funds spearheading, jointly with Kuwaits Central Bank, of a global discussion in an area which, while outside of international finances mainstream, has been rapidly growing in importance. Feedback was particularly positive on the discussion of the links between Islamic finance and inclusive growth. A particularly well-received message, underscored by the Managing Director in her keynote address, has been that Islamic finance has ample potential to contribute to broad-based growth. Only one quarter of adults of the worlds Muslim population has access to bank accounts, and Islamic finance is highly suited to small and medium-sized enterprises and startup financing. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde participates in the Islamic Finance Conference: Meeting Global Aspirations in November 2015 (photo: IMF) In retrospect, I see that the IMFs early involvement and analytical work in Islamic finance, even at a time when it was viewed as a rather marginal topic for international organizations, has helped to pave the way for its current prominent role in guiding sound practices. A good example is the IMFs recent work with standard-setters toward establishing international norms and best practices for Islamic finance, and how best to incorporate these practices in surveillance work. Imperial Valley News Center DOE Announces $220 Million in Grid Modernization Funding Washington, DC - The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today built on its Grid Modernization Initiative an ongoing effort that reflects the Obama Administrations commitment to improving the resiliency, reliability, and security of the nations electricity delivery system. During his visit to a utility control center in Miami, FL today, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz announced the release of DOEs comprehensive new Grid Modernization Multi-Year Program Plan, a blueprint for modernizing the grid. The Secretary also announced the award of up to $220 million over three years, subject to congressional appropriations, to DOEs National Labs and partners to support critical research and development in advanced storage systems, clean energy integration, standards and test procedures, and a number of other key grid modernization areas. Additional programs, initiatives, and funding opportunity announcements related to the Grid Modernization Initiative will be announced in the coming days. Modernizing the U.S. electrical grid is essential to reducing carbon emissions, creating safeguards against attacks on our infrastructure, and keeping the lights on, said Secretary Moniz. Our Quadrennial Energy Review and Quadrennial Technology Review identified needs and opportunities to invest in the grid. This public-private partnership between our National Laboratories, industry, academia, and state and local government agencies will help us further strengthen our ongoing efforts to improve our electrical infrastructure so that it is prepared to respond to the nations energy needs for decades to come. The Grid Modernization Initiative represents a comprehensive DOE effort to help shape the future of our nations grid and solve the challenges of integrating conventional and renewable sources with energy storage and smart buildings, while ensuring that the grid is resilient and secure to withstand growing cyber security and climate challenges. Todays announcements fall under the Grid Modernization Initiatives framework. The Grid Modernization Multi-Year Program was developed by DOE in close collaboration with a wide range of key external partners. The program lays out a blueprint for the Departments research, development, and demonstration agenda to enable a modernized grid, building on concepts and recommendations from DOEs recently released Quadrennial Energy Review and Quadrennial Technology Review. The up to $220 million in research and development funding falls under the Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium. The consortium involves 14 DOE National Laboratories and dozens of industry, academia, and state and local government agency partners across the country. These funds are being awarded in response to a challenge to the National Laboratories to establish a comprehensive grid-related research and development effort to address a range of emerging challenges and opportunities in the nations power grid. Find more information on the Grid Modernization Initiative at Energy.gov and on the selected National Lab partnership projects at http://energy.gov/doe-grid-modernization-laboratory-consortium-gmlc-awards. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Travel to Japan, Burma, the Republic of Korea, and China Washington, DC - Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel later this week to Tokyo, Naypyitaw, Seoul, and Beijing to consult with U.S. allies in the region; see first-hand progress in Burmas post-election democratic transition; conduct the interim Strategic Security Dialogue with the Chinese government; and discuss a range of other regional and global issues. This is the Deputy Secretarys third visit to Northeast Asia in the last 11 months, and his second trip to Burma. In Tokyo, Deputy Secretary Blinken will meet with his Japanese and Republic of Korea (ROK) counterparts in both bilateral and trilateral meetings to discuss a variety of topics including the recent North Korean nuclear test, regional issues, and cooperation on global priorities including health security and development. In Naypyitaw, the Deputy Secretary will meet with key officials involved in Burmas democratic transition. In Seoul, Deputy Secretary Blinken is expected to meet with senior level ROK officials to discuss a range of bilateral issues, including our rock solid commitment to ROK security in the face of recent DPRK provocations. In Beijing, Deputy Secretary Blinken will meet with Executive Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui to conduct the second interim Strategic Security Dialogue and discuss further cooperation on North Koreas destabilizing activity in the region. The Deputy Secretary will also meet with Director of the Taiwan Affairs Office, Zhang Zhijun. Watch: Viral Video Of Glass Octopus Leaves Internet In Wonder News / Regional by Auxilia Katongomara A BULAWAYO High Court judge has issued a provisional order interdicting the Hwange District Administrator from installing a substantive Chief Mvuthu until a chieftainship dispute before the courts is finalised.The ruling by Justice Maxwell Takuva follows an urgent chamber application filed by Silibaziso Mlotshwa ,21, the eldest daughter to the late Chief Mvuthu, seeking to stop the DA from forwarding the name of her uncle, Saunders Mlotshwa, as a designate or substantive Chief Mlotshwa, to the Minister of Rural Development, Preservation of Culture and Heritage Abedinico Ncube.Chief Mvuthu Mlotshwa died in 2014.Silibaziso had earlier filed summons arguing that she was disqualified from being a chief just because she was a woman.Justice Takuva on Tuesday granted the provisional order stopping any process until the matter was finalised."The first respondent be and is hereby interdicted from forwarding the name of the second respondent as a substantive or designate Chief Mlotshwa for Hwange District to the third respondent and or President of Zimbabwe pending the finalisation of the summons issued under HC/3449/15," ruled Justice Takuva.According to summons filed at the High Court, Silibaziso said she was supposed to be appointed chief taking over from her late father because she is the eldest of her father's three daughters.Silibaziso's uncle, Saunders Mlotshwa, was appointed chief instead of her because she is a woman.Silibaziso contends that being a woman is not an impediment to becoming a chief.In the court papers, Silibaziso is the plaintiff while the Hwange District Administrator, Mlotshwa, Rural Development, Preservation of Culture and Heritage Minister Ncube and President Robert Mugabe were cited as the defendants.Silibaziso, through her lawyer Nkosilathi Mlala of Sansole and Senda legal practitioners, is seeking an order nullifying the appointment of Saunders as the substantive Chief Mvuthu.In her summons, Silibaziso said following the death of her father, the DA, acting on discriminatory grounds and ill-conceived advice from unknown uncles and relatives, appointed Saunders as substantive Chief Mvuthu.Silibaziso argues that the DA acted against provisions of the Nguni customs and norms as well as against clear provisions of Section 3 of the Traditional Leaders Act."The late Chief Mvuthu Mlotshwa is survived by three daughters and the plaintiff is the eldest.The plaintiff was disqualified from being appointed a chief because she is a woman. This is despite the fact that being a woman is no longer an impediment in the Nguni culture and statutes for one to be appointed a chief," read the papers.Silibaziso argued that in KwaZulu-Natal where the Nguni originate, there are now many female chiefs who have undertaken tasks equally competently."Zimbabwe has a total of six female chiefs dotted around the country. Three of the female chiefs in Zimbabwe are of Nguni (Ndebele) origin, that is Chief Sinqobile Mabhena of Umzingwane, Chief Ketso Mathe of Gwanda and Chief Nonhlanhla Sibanda of Insiza. They are all from Matabeleland South province," said Silibaziso.She said the appointment of her uncle Saunders was an abomination to the Nguni culture because he had never lived in Hwange but spent most of his adult life in South Africa."His appointment is anti-people and motivated by malice, greed, sexism, misogyny and hostile patriarchy which harks back to the centuries old tradition long overtaken by evolving Nguni culture and a new constitutional dispensation," Silibaziso argued.She said since the death of her father, she had been fending for the whole family after assuming duties as the head of the family."The plaintiff continues to act as paterfamilias (head of family) executing her duties diligently and with a sense of pride".Silibaziso said her late father was a progressive man who prepared her to assume the position of Chief as heir apparent and that she had remained a selfless person to the point of exploitation by her uncle and 'so called relatives'. Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the IndyArts email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Ailment: Thinking you can get away with it Cure: And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini Acts of selfishness are commonly made in the hope that they'll go unobserved. While not necessarily performed with malice, they may be motivated by self-preservation, or the hope of the greater good wounding one person to save another. But there is almost always a payback, even if it takes years as happens in And the Mountains Echoed, the challenging, thought-provoking third novel by Khaled Hosseini. Read it and you'll find yourself thinking twice before trying to get away with something you know in your heart of hearts you shouldn't do. In the mountains of Afghanistan, a deeply bonded brother and sister are separated when still very young a theme first explored by Hosseini in The Kite Runner. Their father tells himself he's doing it for good reasons but it turns out to be the first of several underhand deeds in this dark, haunting novel. As the action moves from the mountains to the city of Kabul and from there to France, Greece and America we meet the siblings' aunt, Parwana, who pushes her more beautiful sister Masooma out of a tree, realising that in Masooma's shadow she will never get the husband she wants. Masooma, permanently crippled by the fall, thereafter needs Parwana's daily care until, that is, Masooma asks to be left to die in the desert, a suicide that can only be achieved with Parwarna's full complicity. Then there is Idris, who forms a bond with Rhosi, a girl desperately in need of surgery for the horrific axe wound to her head sustained when the rest of her family were massacred. Idris promises to help her, but when he goes back to his new, expensive life in America, he is gradually distracted by his own concerns, and forgets. We become acutely aware of how one moment of selfishness can reverberate over a lifetime. When, years later, Idris meets Rhosi again, he pays bitterly for his inaction. Parwana's payback comes in more subtle ways, which are nevertheless shattering. What may make life easier in the short term may haunt you in the long. thenovelcure.com Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the The Life Cinematic email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Barely more than a year ago, only a fairly hardened cinephile would be able to name you an Alejandro G. Inarritu film, but the Mexican filmmaker is now poised to become just the third man in Oscar history to win two consecutive Best Director awards. It couldnt be for more different films. 2015s Birdman, a satire on Hollywood narcissism centring on a failed superhero actor, mocked attempts at earnestness, while Inarritus latest offering, The Revenant, demands you to emotionally commit to one mans heroic struggle against nature. He is oft-quoted for dismissing the current blight of superhero movies as explosions and shit that dont mean nothing about the experience of being human, so with this artistic virtue clearly in mind, I ask what he thinks The Revenant tells us about the human experience. Its hard to for people like us that are surrounded by concrete and air-conditioners and Wi-Fi(1) to understand these people [fur trappers in 19th century Montana], he tells me, their closeness to nature and their position as an organism of the macro-organism that is planet Earth. They were absolutely present and constantly aware of nature, so for me it was very interesting to explore that sensorial way of living; a human being as a beast, as a creature, and how it felt because we have changed vastly in the last 150 years. Leonardo DiCaprio, who stars as Hugh Glass, a real-life trapper who was attacked by a grizzly bear and left for dead, only to turn up at a fort 200 miles from where he was left very much alive, is as central to the film as Tom Hanks was to Cast Away or Matt Damon was to The Martian (a rival of Leos at this years award ceremonies). He gives an incredibly visceral performance which he threw himself into, famously braving freezing waters and eating raw bison liver. Inarritu believes men of lesser talent and dedication would have crumbled in the role. Leos very committed, the director tells me, looming forward in his chair.(2) He has a very passionate way of working but a very cold mind. This was vital as we went through so many moments that required a lot of patience and control on his part in order not to lose it, its a resiliency he possesses on top of the craft. I think any other person under those stressful conditions, asked to deliver something so specific to such a standard, would have lost their mind very easily. Access unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows with Amazon Prime Video Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign up Instead, he didnt only not lose his mind but harnessed so much passion. We both had to, it was a beautiful thing. The films long and brutal shoot required both the director and his leading man to adapt on the spot and explore the narrative as it was unfurling in front of the camera, something Inarritu thinks not enough films do these days. We rehearsed for months to explore and work out the technical aspects, but of course when you arrive the conditions have changed, be it geographically or in terms of temperature. For a shoot like this you have to be very smart and present, and not rely on repeating what was agreed two months ago because that would be kind of boring. Thats what a lot of films do now and thats fine, but it doesnt present a challenge as a director. Films used to be a journey, which you embark on and can get lost in but thats the fun part of it. I think we found that with this one and that was the beauty of it. One mans struggle against the elements is a familiar premise that has cropped up a few times in cinema this year. Ridley Scotts aforementioned lost in space thriller The Martian brought new life to it by getting rid of the weeping family back home and the Is Daddy coming home, mama? narrative that comes with it. I ask Inarritu if he was tempted to discard the familial element to his film, and have Hughs battle with nature be motivated entirely by some primordial urge to survive. For me, the context of these men was very important to understand, he says. Most of them had a relation with a Native American women and often families, which some would reject and hide while others embraced, and that created a huge tension because at that time slavery was still legal and the country was still infected with prejudice. Many trappers faced a huge dilemma. I thought we needed to see this man in his complete human experience, not only as an individual. If I dont know who this guy is and what he cares for, its hard for me to get into much more. It needed that emotional spine to give a spiritual dimension to the movie. While Inarritus Academy Award double is up in the air, DiCaprio is a near certainty to win Leading Actor for his part in The Revenant, something which has oddly eluded him up to this point. His only real challenge comes from last years winner Eddie Redmayne, who follows up 2015s very Oscar-y disabled role (ding!) in the historical (ding!) biopic (ding!) The Theory of Everything with a similarly Oscar-y transgender one (ding!) in another period drama (ding!), The Danish Girl. The didactic, culturally instructive Important Film that you should watch has become a mainstay of awards season now, and makes me worry that morals are sometimes trumping art. Alejandro isnt too perturbed by this, saying that I think that those two things are not always against each other. Its about whoever is doing that story having integrity and being completely honest with the circumstances and the context of the people theyre depicting. He did caution however: I think one of the dangers is when you subordinate your art to the politics, when the politics is commanding it, and you sacrifice an art form just to do kind of a statement. In this case for me it would be more interesting to just write an article, rather than take two years of your life creating something that maybe you can write in two pages." The Revenant is in IMAX and cinemas now. (1)Inarritu does however admit that he generally lives his life without a cell phone or internet. My sons cant understand it, he says. (2)With roughly shorn hair and beard he cuts a friendly yet fearsome figure. Id fancy his chances with a grizzly bear. Sign up to Roisin OConnors free weekly newsletter Now Hear This for the inside track on all things music Get our Now Hear This email for free Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Roisin OConnors email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} David Bowies Blackstar album, released days before the stars death from cancer was announced, has topped the UK charts with sales of 150,000 copies. Fans picked up more than 500,000 Bowie records last week, with 19 of his back catalogue albums appearing in the Top 100. Ten Bowie albums made the Top 40. Recommended Read more Elton John performs hauntingly beautiful David Bowie tribute The Official Charts Company (OCC) said that Blackstar was already heading to number one before news broke of Bowies death on Sunday. Sales however accelerated and have exceeded the 94,000 opening week figure recorded by Bowies 2013 album, The Next Day. The lyrics to the jazz-inspired Blackstar have been closely scrutinised, with several songs alluding to the advanced stage of Bowies illness, which he disclosed to producer Tony Visconti during the albums recording. His 2014 retrospective Nothing Has Changed The Very Best Of leaped back in the chart at Number 5, followed by The Best Of 1969/1974 at Number 11. The OCC said it recorded 623,000 combined Bowie sales and streams. The figure includes 241,000 album sales and 167,000 singles purchased. Bowie tracks were streamed over 19 million times on audio streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play and Deezer. Following reports that Bowie had been privately cremated in New York in line with his wishes, a statement on Bowie's Facebook page said the family was arranging "a private ceremony" in his memory. They also welcomed the concerts and tributes that have been planned, but said they were not officially endorsed. Bowies family said they were overwhelmed by the tributes that have been paid to the singer since his death. Sign up to Roisin OConnors free weekly newsletter Now Hear This for the inside track on all things music Get our Now Hear This email for free Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Roisin OConnors email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The world said goodbye to two very talented performers this week, David Bowie and Alan Rickman, and it turns out they were once referenced in the same The Simpsons, scene. Two of Rickmans most memorable films, Love Actually and Harry Potter, were parodied, in a clip circulating again today in light of the actor's death. The clip begins with Homer and his Springfield pals trying to understand their wives by watching Love Indubitably, featuring a Prime Minister voiced by none other than Benedict Cumberbatch using his power to declare his love for his secretary, Eliza Commonbottom. Parliament erupts into cheers as they kiss as All The Young Dudes by David Bowie, who also sadly and unexpectedly died this week, blasts out. Recommended Read more The Simpsons creator Matt Groening is in talks with Netflix Then, not randomly at all, Rickman appears dressed as Professor Severus Snape to give a speech about love. Love is more powerful than all my magic, he says, before Shakespeare, Churchill, Sherlock and Isaac Newton perform The Full Monty as director Alfred Hitchcock steps out of Dr Whos Tardis and breakdances. The scene originally aired in February 2013 during the episode 'Love is a Many-Splintered Thing'. Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the IndyArts email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} If fans regularly flock to Friends locale Central Perk, tour filming locations featured in Game of Thrones and book holidays to the island from Lost (no, it doesn't move), we're certain there are those among you who've considered a sojourn to the places that appeared in Vince Gilligan's beloved television series Breaking Bad. So for any superfans currently planning a trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico anytime soon, Journeypod has offered some necessary advice. Rule one: don't knock - the house isn't only home to some of the decade's most memorable television scenes, but reportedly a woman named Fran - and a male presumed to be her husband - who would rather not have fans constantly requesting they look around her house. Considering the residents had to put up with overexcited members of the public throwing pizza onto their roof in homage to the scene from the series that saw Bryan Cranston's Walter White angrily do the same, it's not difficult to understand why (creator Gilligan himself had to step in and instruct people to stop). Apparently, though, the lady's husband "is more 'open' to curious onlookers, going so far as to kindly converse with fans about "...all the stories you can imagine from the shooting." The good news is that just up the road, you can stop in at Twisters - an eaterie that resembles chicken restaurant Los Pollos Hermanos; perhaps you should just get your photo and stop in there instead. News / Regional by Pamela Shumba TSHOLOTSHO North MP Professor Jonathan Moyo on Wednesday handed over $3,000 to Mbiriya Primary School in his constituency to complete a classroom block and electrify teachers' cottages at the school.Prof Moyo, who is also the Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Minister, requested Tsholotsho Rural District Council to drill a borehole at the school to address water challenges faced by the community.The minister visited the school to check on progress on the construction of the $25,000 classroom block.The project had stalled due to shortage of resources.The Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services (ZPCS), working with the community and Tsholotsho RDC, is carrying out the construction works.The school received $5,000 in June last year from Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, while Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko weighed in with building materials after pledging to build a classroom block for the school.Prof Moyo donated $3,000 to buy outstanding building materials."VP Mphoko pledged to put together the resources and materials necessary for the construction of the classroom block. What we see here is work in progress towards its construction. The intention had been to complete the project before schools opened this term but there were challenges in terms of putting together not just the materials but also the building team. There's quite some considerable progress now and the ZPCS offered their artisans," said Prof Moyo.The plan now, he added, is for them to complete the project within four weeks.Prof Moyo acknowledged that there was a serious shortage of schools in the constituency but expressed optimism that the government's schools construction programme will address the challenge.He added: "The shortage of key infrastructure in schools, clinics and hospitals is a challenge. In Tsholotsho the average distance that children have to walk is between seven and 10KM and in some cases more than that."Fortunately, the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has a very far reaching infrastructure programme to build at least 2,000 schools across the country. Tsholotsho is one of the priority districts. It has two constituencies and both have been earmarked for support under that infrastructure programme."He said many schools, including Mbiriya needed to be rehabilitated to improve the learning environment for pupils."There are so many things wrong with the existing schools. For example, Mbiriya has no Early Childhood Development (ECD) block. We've to make the old schools conducive for learning and building the new schools to reduce the distances walked by the school children."There's a plan that we have and we're initially focusing on five high schools and at least one primary school in each of the 10 wards. We've a situation where there are few schools, which have been affected by the weather over the years and the infrastructure needs to be rehabilitated. We have to address the issue of rehabilitating the schools as well as coming up with new ones."Mbiriya Primary School acting headmaster Forward Ncube expressed gratitude to Prof Moyo for the donation."We appreciate Prof Moyo's efforts to improve infrastructure not only at our school but others in his constituency. I'm certain that the classroom block will be complete in four weeks."This gesture will also go a long way in improving our pass rate, which is very low due to serious shortages of facilities and learning resources," said Ncube.He, however, said the school needs two more classroom blocks and teachers' cottages to accommodate all the 380 pupils and their teachers.ZPCS Matabeleland region chief staff officer (administration) Chief Supt Alois Sibanda promised Prof Moyo that he would assign more artisans to the project to complete it in four weeks.Villagers applauded Prof Moyo for addressing their water problems, saying they were depending on the school for water, which was not adequate. Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the IndyArts email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} It probably wasnt wise of HMRCs top business tax collector to infer that the Welsh traders who took their town offshore as a protest against the loopholes used by global brands to avoid paying tax were small-fry. The Town That Took On The Taxman, screened by BBC Two documentary next week, takes the rebellious local business owners from Crickhowell to the Isle of Man and the Netherlands where they are given an understanding of how it is that companies including Facebook, Google and Caffe Nero have limited UK corporation tax liability. Recommended Read more HMRC chief Lin Homer to quit following criticism from MPs Led by Steve Lewis, owner of the Number 18 Cafe, and advised by tax experts, the traders set up an offshore company which apes the structures used by multinationals and present their plan to James Harra, HMRCs Director General of Business Tax. Pleading for a level playing-field for small businesses, they ask for the same VIP treatment that HMRC gives the likes of Google, which is regularly called in for informal discussions about its tax arrangements. But Mr Harra tells them: There are 5m small businesses and 2,000 large ones. I dont have the ability to put a named person on every small business. HMRC puts its resources into understanding what high-risk multinationals are doing. The only way to give HMRC a major headache, the Welsh traders are independently advised, is by turning their protest into a national movement which would force the taxman to plug a substantial loss of revenue. Small towns across Britain are now signing up to the fair tax campaign including Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire and Leek in the Peak District. But can Crickhowell maintain a united front? Mr Lewis faces his own rebellion from colleagues harbouring ethical doubts. Dont get in my way, he snaps at Irena Kovaleva, the towns Russian oligarch (she owns the optometrists and the ice-cream parlour) when she suggests that vital public services would suffer if all business taxes were withdrawn. Mr Lewis, who has paid 137,000 corporation tax over the five years in which Caffe Nero has paid zero, is preparing a minimal tax submission which will ring alarm bells at HMRC. Told that he faces a four-year tax tribunal battle to make his case stick, the cafe owner said: Id like to fight the legal battle and change the law to create a transformational change in the tax system of Britain. Guided by presenter Heydon Prowse, the traders set up a company in the tax haven of the Isle of Man and are shown how they can cite intellectual property to reduce the profits they declare. A tax avoidance expert in the Netherlands, used by big firms to avoid withholding taxes on dividends, tells the visitors that paying tax is merely the individual choice of every citizen. As for Ms Kovaleva, she eventually returns to the fold after Mr Lewis convinces her that victory is within Crickhowells grasp. The Town That Took On The Taxman, BBC2, January 20 at 9pm Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the IndyArts email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} I guess that Chris Packham, the naturalist and presenter of The World's Sneakiest Animals, knew exactly what he was doing when he described the male fiddler crab's habit of waving his "oversized appendage" in the air to attract the attention of passing females. Mucky devil. In a script that might have made the late Frankie Howerd blush (titter ye not) with its saucy euphemisms, Packham certainly succeeded in catching my attention, waving his dirty great innuendo around like that. Just as well that I appreciate a bit of anthropomorphic smut as much as the next BBC2 viewer. I should point out that the oversized appendage in question is in fact a claw, and that male fiddler crabs try to seek out and hang around with other, less well endowed, male fiddler crabs to make themselves look better. Anyway, when they do find a female fiddler crab their relationships are rarely purely planktonic. Culture news in pictures Show all 33 1 /33 Culture news in pictures Culture news in pictures 30 September 2016 An employee hangs works of art with "Grand Teatro" by Marino Marini (R) and bronze sculpture "Sfera N.3" by Arnaldo Pomodoro seen ahead of a Contemporary Art auction on 7 October, at Sotheby's in London REUTERS Culture news in pictures 29 September 2016 Street art by Portuguese artist Odeith is seen in Dresden, during an exhibition "Magic City - art of the streets" AFP/Getty Images Culture news in pictures 28 September 2016 Dancers attend a photocall for the new "THE ONE Grand Show" at Friedrichstadt-Palast in Berlin, Germany REUTERS Culture news in pictures 28 September 2016 With an array of thrift store china, humorous souvenirs and handmade tile adorning its walls and floors, the Mosaic Tile House in Venice stands as a monument to two decades of artistic collaboration between Cheri Pann and husband Gonzalo Duran REUTERS Culture news in pictures 27 September 2016 A gallery assistant poses amongst work by Anthea Hamilton from her nominated show "Lichen! Libido!(London!) Chastity!" at a preview of the Turner Prize in London REUTERS Culture news in pictures 27 September 2016 A technician wearing virtual reality glasses checks his installation in three British public telephone booths, set up outside the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, Netherlands. The installation allows visitors a 3-D look into the museum which has twenty-two paintings belonging to the British Royal Collection, on loan for an exhibit from 29 September 2016 till 8 January 2017 AP Culture news in pictures 26 September 2016 An Indian artist dressed as Hindu god Shiva performs on a chariot as he participates in a religious procession 'Ravan ki Barat' held to mark the forthcoming Dussehra festival in Allahabad AFP/Getty Images Culture news in pictures 26 September 2016 Jean-Michel Basquiat's 'Air Power', 1984, is displayed at the Bowie/Collector media preview at Sotheby's in New York AFP/Getty Culture news in pictures 25 September 2016 A woman looks at an untitled painting by Albert Oehlen during the opening of an exhibition of works by German artists Georg Baselitz and Albert Oehlen in Reutlingen, Germany. The exhibition runs at the Kunstverein (art society) Reutlingen until 15 January 2017 EPA Culture news in pictures 24 September 2016 Fan BingBing (C) attends the closing ceremony of the 64th San Sebastian Film Festival at Kursaal in San Sebastian, Spain Getty Images Culture news in pictures 23 September 2016 A view of the artwork 'You Are Metamorphosing' (1964) as part of the exhibition 'Retrospektive' of Japanese artist Tetsumi Kudo at Fridericianum in Kassel, Germany. The exhibition runs from 25 September 2016 to 1 January 2017 EPA Culture news in pictures 22 September 2016 Jo Applin from the Courtauld Institute of Art looks at Green Tilework in Live Flesh by Adriana Vareja, which features in a new exhibition, Flesh, at York Art Gallery. The new exhibition features works by Degas, Chardin, Francis Bacon and Sarah Lucas, showing how flesh has been portrayed by artists over the last 600 years PA Culture news in pictures 21 September 2016 Performers Sean Atkins and Sally Miller standing in for the characters played by Asa Butterfield and Ella Purnell during a photocall for Tim Burton's "Miss Peregrines Home For Peculiar Children" at Potters Field Park in London Getty Images Culture news in pictures 20 September 2016 A detail from the blanket 'Alpine Cattle Drive' from 1926 by artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner is displayed at the 'Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum for Contemporary Arts' in Berlin. The exhibition named 'Ernst Ludwig Kirchner - Hieroglyphen' showing the complete collection of Berlin's Nationalgallerie works of the German artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and will run from 23 September 2016 until 26 February 2017 AP Culture news in pictures 20 September 2016 A man looks at portrait photos by US photographer Bruce Gilden in the exhibition 'Masters of Photography' at the photokina in Cologne, Germany. The trade fair on photography, photokina, schowcases some 1,000 exhibitors from 40 countries and runs from 20 to 25 September. The event also features various photo exhibitions EPA Culture news in pictures 20 September 2016 A woman looks at 'Blue Poles', 1952 by Jackson Pollock during a photocall at the Royal Academy of Arts, London PA Culture news in pictures 19 September 2016 Art installation The Refusal of Time, a collaboration with Philip Miller, Catherine Meyburgh and Peter Galison, which features as part of the William Kentridge exhibition Thick Time, showing from 21 September to 15 January at the Whitechapel Gallery in London PA Culture news in pictures 18 September 2016 Artists creating one off designs at the Mm6 Maison Margiela presentation during London Fashion Week Spring/Summer collections 2017 in London Getty Images Culture news in pictures 18 September 2016 Bethenny Frankel attends the special screening of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" to celebrate the 25th Anniversary Edition release on Blu-Ray and DVD in New York City Getty Images for Walt Disney Stu Culture news in pictures 17 September 2016 Visitors attend the 2016 Oktoberfest beer festival at Theresienwiese in Munich, Germany Getty Images Culture news in pictures 16 September 2016 Visitors looks at British artist Damien Hirst work of art 'The Incomplete Truth', during the 13th Yalta Annual Meeting entitled 'The World, Europe and Ukraine: storms of changes', organised by the Yalta European Strategy (YES) in partnership with the Victor Pinchuk Foundation at the Mystetsky Arsenal Art Center in Kiev AP Culture news in pictures 16 September 2016 Tracey Emin's "My Bed" is exhibited at the Tate Liverpool as part of the exhibition Tracey Emin And William Blake In Focus, which highlights surprising links between the two artists Getty Images Culture news in pictures 15 September 2016 Musician Dave Grohl (L) joins musician Tom Morello of Prophets of Rage onstage at the Forum in Inglewood, California Getty Images Culture news in pictures 14 September 2016 Model feebee poses as part of art installation "Narcissism : Dazzle room" made by artist Shigeki Matsuyama at rooms33 fashion and design exhibition in Tokyo. Matsuyama's installation features a strong contrast of black and white, which he learned from dazzle camouflage used mainly in World War I AP Culture news in pictures 13 September 2016 Visitors look at artworks by Chinese painter Cui Ruzhuo during the exhibition 'Glossiness of Uncarved Jade' held at the exhibition hall 'Manezh' in St. Petersburg, Russia. More than 200 paintings by the Chinese artist are presented until 25 September EPA Culture news in pictures 12 September 2016 A visitor looks at Raphael's painting 'Extase de Sainte Cecile', 1515, from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence during the opening of a Raphael exhibition at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, Russia. The first Russian exhibition of the works of the Italian Renaissance artist Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino includes eight paintings and three drawings which come from Italy. Th exhibit opens to the public from 13 September to 11 December EPA Culture news in pictures 11 September 2016 Steve Cropper and Eddie Floyd perform during Otis Redding 75th Birthday Celebration - Rehearsals at the Macon City Auditorium in Macon, Georgia Getty Images for Otis Redding 75 Culture news in pictures 10 September 2016 Sakari Oramo conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Chorus and the BBC Singers at the Last Night of the Proms 2016 at the Royal Albert Hall in London PA Culture news in pictures 9 September 2016 A visitor walks past a piece entitled "Fruitcake" by Joana Vasconcelo, during the Beyond Limits selling exhibition at Chatsworth House near Bakewell REUTERS Culture news in pictures 8 September 2016 A sculpture of a crescent standing on the 2,140 meters high mountain 'Freiheit' (German for 'freedom'), in the Alpstein region of the Appenzell alps, eastern Switzerland. The sculpture is lighted during the nights by means of solar panels. The 38-year-old Swiss artist and atheist Christian Meier set the crescent on the peak to start a debate on the meaning of religious symbols - as summit crosses - on mountains. 'Because so many peaks have crosses on them, it struck me as a great idea to put up an equally absurd contrast'. 'Naturally I wanted to provoke in a fun way. But it goes beyond that. The actions of an artist should be food for thought, both visually and in content' EPA Culture news in pictures Culture news in pictures Culture news in pictures Mostly, as with successfully promiscuous beings of my own species, I was filled with a mixture of emotions at some of these animals' ways. I mean, they are just animals, after all; it isn't like you've discovered your bank manager engaged in an orgy or you accidentally bumped into your neighbour at a party pretending to be a male/female in order to gain sexual advantages. You'd have views on that, I'm sure, but it seems too odd to censure an emperor marmoset or a cuttlefish (for it is they, respectively, who indulge in the above behaviour), for pushing the boundaries of acceptable behaviour in the same way. On the other hand, I also feel a certain ambivalence towards the utterly amoral behaviour of the red kangaroo. Without any resemblance to its Aussie human co-habitants, obviously, the red roo spends most of its time trying to mate with the females in the mob behind the back of their "husband", the established dominant male. Disgraceful. On the other hand, the really interesting thing is what lies behind this evolutionary behaviour. After all, in the majority of creatures the males have a good knockout competition or scraps to determine who is the biggest, beefiest and toughest male, and therefore who bags the rights to the ladies, passing on their big, tough manly genes to the next generation. It occurs to me that the red kangaroo, and a few other species (including us lot, as it happens), also place a premium on what is called by Packham "sneakiness", but to my mind is just another form of intelligence the ability to deceive while appearing to be a perfectly respectable member of the red kangaroo/human community, and thus survive in a nasty world. Well, that's how I see it, anyway. Talking of an all-out assault on civilised values, I've now caught up with the ITV revival of Birds of a Feather. My memory may be wrong on this (the original BBC run ended in 1998) but I think I am right in saying that this programme was the first on British television to feature the phrase (and look away now if you're easily offended) "skid marks" that is, outside regional television news reports about road traffic accidents. If there is a televisual equivalent of a pair of knickers of uncertain vintage having to be pressed into service after nearly two decades, this was it; tired, faded and driven by sheer desperation. Sign up to the Independent Climate email for the latest advice on saving the planet Get our free Climate email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Independent Climate email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A beekeeper in the US is breeding honeybees can kill the varroa mite, one of the main reasons why colonies have been dying off around the world, according to a report. Jeff Berta, who lives on a farm in western Pennsylvania, has a honeybee queen whose appear to be resistant to the mites, according to the NPR radio station. The queens mother was from a colony in Vermont which managed to survive the cold winters there and also outbreaks of disease. And its father was a drone from bees raised at Purdue University which were found to groom themselves in a unique way. The bees will take the mite and they will bite the legs and will chew on the mite, Mr Berta told NPR. And if they bite a leg off of the mite, the mite will bleed to death. So the bees are actually fighting back. That's the type of genetic line we're after right now. A honeybee with a parasitic varroa mite has been compared to a human infected with a blood-sucking domestic cat. The queen, known as number 18, is being studied by scientists with funding from the US Department of Agriculture. Most efforts to save honeybees from the mites have used pesticides designed to kill the latter, while sparing the former, with limited success. However breeding honeybees with genes that enable them to fight off the mites is not a simple process. Queen 18 was born as a result of artificial insemination. If released into the wild, her descendants could mate with bees that do not have the same grooming technique. Bee geneticist Christina Grozinger, of Pennsylvania State University, who works with Mr Berta, said: You cant produce a stock and say, Now Im done! And that was it! Now we can sell it everywhere! You have to constantly re-select and constantly have to have people very interested in working as part of this effort. Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Lifestyle Edit email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} As a blizzard engulfed Chicago on the night of 18 January 1935, the manager of Marshall Field's department store was having second thoughts about a window display. It contained 36 pairs of a new men's undergarment called the "French jockey short", along with a poster featuring a chap sporting a pair of the same, standing proudly with his hands behind his back. They were billed as being for sport, leisure, work, and play but would you want to wear them in sub-zero temperatures? Were they too skimpy? The display, it was decided, would be changed in the morning. The Wisconsin hosiery firm Coopers Inc had chosen Marshall Field's for the unveiling of its product, and the head of marketing, Arthur Kneibler, was banking on a successful campaign. The Great Depression had not been kind to the firm, but Kneibler was convinced there was a market for smaller underwear. He'd designed the shorts himself, based on a postcard he'd received from the French Riviera depicting a man in a bathing suit. His patent application described a garment that was "snug and smooth fitting", and avoided "bunching or gathering of the material of the garment in the crotch or at any other place". The staff at Marshall Field's never got around to changing the window display. The following morning, 600 pairs quickly sold out at 50 cents each, and eager shoppers ended up dismantling the display themselves in pursuit of the last remaining pairs. Coopers Inc couldn't churn them out fast enough. On 25 March the New York Times remarked how "this new type [of] underwear has swamped manufac- turers with orders from every part of the country". When they eventually went on sale in Britain in 1938, Simpsons of Piccadilly was shifting 3,000 pairs a week. The Y-fronted underpant had arrived. @rhodri For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The mammoth Las Vegas tech trade show, CES, is over for another year. It was even more mammoth this year, covering 2.47 million square feet of exhibit space, with 3,800 exhibitors. There were 170,000 people there, most of them ambling annoyingly right where I was trying to hurry. Sometimes you feel CES is the same year after year: this will be the year of the drone, we were told. We were told the same twelve months ago, just as 2015 was going to be when wearables hit the big time. Both were on show in much bigger numbers this time around. Still, there were new gadgets, some of which are almost ready. Heres a selection of the half-dozen most striking items I wish Id stuffed into my carry-on. HTC Vive Virtual reality is one of the buzz phrases of CES. The original VR helmet, the Facebook-owned Oculus Rift, had its price announced. It was pricier than expected (499 and you need a powerful computer to connect to it) which means that rival versions could be cheaper. HTC revealed the latest version of the HTC Vive with a new feature called room tracking. Of course, it does all the things VR is great for, creating a 360-degree world that you can interact with fully. But now, as you walk towards the edge of a room, or an object in, you know, the real world, the headset shows a blue wall to stop you in your tracks. And a camera system lets you see objects in the room ghosted over the virtual environment. The Vive stood out for me because of its unbelievably smooth graphics with none of the motion sickness some VR headsets have been known to cause. Its due in April with price to follow soon. Panasonic DX900 TV TVs have always been at the heart of CES and this year was no different, with striking releases from all four big players: Samsung, LG, Sony and Panasonic. I saw a lot of beautiful screens. LGs OLED TVs look stunning, though they suffer a little in bright living rooms. Panasonics flagship DX900, due in the next month or two, has the most impressive picture at all. It was the first TV to be certified as meeting the new Ultra HD Premium standard, so it has precise levels of brightness, resolution, contrast, black levels and more. Whatever the details, the results were spectacular. Not least, 512 individually controlled lighting zones are kept isolated from one another by a honeycomb structure. So black areas and brightly lit ones wont overlap. The standard includes compatibility with HDR, the latest TV tech which promises bright skies and deep shadows are both full of detail. This is easily the best TV picture Ive seen, though LG has promised a screen with even higher resolution (8K) before the end of the year! Knomo Drop & Go Wireless charging pads for phones mean no more fiddling about to insert cables. Sounds minor? Not when youre used to just plonking your phone down. Its one of those little pain points which are best avoided. Knomo, the brilliant London-based bags and luggage maker, has created a special iPhone 6 case. Put that on your smartphone and when you just drop it into the special pocket on the front of the bag, itll automatically connect to start charging from the battery supplied. This feature will be on the companys top-end bags to start with but expect it as an option in lower-price models soon, too. Naim Mu-so Qb Naim is the high-end audio maker in Salisbury which last year launched the Mu-so. At 895 it wasnt cheap, but a snip compared to the companys premium products which retailed at over 100,000. The Qb (its more or less shaped like a cube, get it?) and compact enough to fit more or less anywhere. The original Mu-so is bigger and needs more space. The dial that controls inputs, volume, playback and so on is a handsome touchscreen. Most importantly, the sound is stunning, a close match to the outstanding audio on the first Mu-so, with plenty of bass, volume and rich detail. And its 595, so a substantial saving on the original. Although itll still be too expensive for some, this is a great piece of kit. Nextbit Robin Mobile phones arent a major part of CES but the just-launched Nextbit Robin was there, and looked fantastic. This is a smartphone designed by Scott Croyle, formerly of HTC and responsible for great phone design then, too. The Robin, with its rectangular corners, matte-pastel back and LEDs to show you battery strength, is designed for the Cloud. Theres 32GB of storage on board but it also has access to 100GB of cloud storage so you never run out of space because it can up- and download apps and content as space allows. You can specify what content stays aboard the phone so youre not marooned if your signal drops. Technics SL-1200G record deck Vinyl is enjoying a renaissance. So Technics previewed a phenomenal high-end deck. It will go on sale in April and will probably cost around 2,500. This is a new version of the turntable that every top DJ favoured. This looks as striking, is as capable and powerful as previous versions. The direct-drive motor has been improved to banish cogging sound degradation caused when there are minute vibrations as the deck spins. There are features enough to satisfy the most demanding DJ. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Phone operators have warned that BT's 12.5 billion takeover of mobile operator EE could lead to price rises of as much as 25 per cent for customers. The Competition and Markets Authority has given its approval for the merger between BT, the UK's largest fixed-phone company, and EE, the UK's largest mobile operator, after a six month investigation. It concluded that competition would not be affected. But rival TalkTalk was quick to disagree. It warned that the BT and EE tie up, combined with Three's 10.25 billion takeover of O2, could lead to price rises of 25 per cent or more. The EU will rule on the Three deal in March. Read More: BT Broadband deals and offers "If the experience of other European markets such as Ireland and Austria is any guide, moving from four to three mobile providers will lead to price increases of 25 per cent or more," said Dido Harding, chief executive of TalkTalk. The CMA took extra time to consider the deal because competitiors and customers feared that prices would rise as the combined behemoth came to dominate the market. But it concluded that even if BT attempted to use its dominance in back haul companies used to carry mobile traffic, it would not create a monopoly across the industry. Business news: In pictures Show all 13 1 /13 Business news: In pictures Business news: In pictures Flybe collapses Airline Flybe has collapsed. All future flights on the Exeter-based airline have been cancelled leaving more than 2,300 staff facing an uncertain future, and wrecking the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers. The chief executive, Mark Anderson, said: Europes largest independent regional airline has been unable to overcome significant funding challenges to its business. AFP via Getty Business news: In pictures Future product placement will be 'tailored to individual viewers' Marketing executives say that product placement in films and televison shows on streaming services such as Netflix may be tailored to individuals in future. For instance, if data shows that a viewer is a fan of pepsi, a billboard in the background of a shot would host an advert for pepsi, while for a viewer known to have different tastes it could be for Coca-Cola Paramount Business news: In pictures Corbyn wishes Amazon a happy birthday In a card sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the company's 25th birthday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn writes: "You owe the British people millions in taxes that pay for the public services that we all rely on. Please pay your fair share" Business news: In pictures No deal, no tariffs The government has announced that it would slash almost all tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Notable exceptions include cars and meat, which will see tariffs in place to protect British farmers Getty Business news: In pictures Fingerprint payment NatWest is trialling a new bank card that will allow people to touch their hand to the card when paying rather than typing in a PIN number. The card will work by recognising the user's fingerprint NatWest/PA Wire Business news: In pictures Mahabis bust High-end slipper retailer Mahabis has gone into administration. 2 Jan 2019 Mahabis Business news: In pictures Costa Cola Coca-Cola has paid 3.9bn for Costa Coffee. A cafe chain is a new venture for the global soft drinks giant PA Business news: In pictures RIP Payday Loans A funeral procession for payday loans was held in London on September 2. The future of pay day lenders is in doubt after Wonga, Britain's biggest, went into administration on August 30 PA Business news: In pictures Musk irks investors and directors Elon Musk has concluded that Tesla will remain public. Investors and company directors were angry at Musk for tweeting unexpectedly that he was considering taking Tesla private and share prices had taken a tumble in the following weeks Getty Business news: In pictures Jaguar warning Iconic British car maker Jaguar Land Rover warned on July 5, 2018 that a "bad" Brexit deal could jeopardise planned investment of more than $100 billion, upping corporate pressure as the government heads into crucial talks AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures Spotif-IPO Spotify traded publically for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. However, the company isn't issuing shares, but rather, shares held by Spotify's private investors will be sold AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures French blue passports The deadline to award a contract to make blue British passports after Brexit has been extended by two weeks following a request by bidder De La Rue. The move comes after anger at the announcement British passports would be produced by Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto when De La Rues contract ends in July. The British firm said Gemalto was chosen only because it undercut the competition, but the UK company also admitted that it was not the cheapest choice in the tendering process. Business news: In pictures Beast from the east economic impact The Beast from the East wiped 4m off of Flybes revenues due to flight cancellations, airport closures and delays, according to the budget airlines estimates. Flybe said it cancelled 994 flights in the three months to 31 March, compared to 372 in the same period last year. Labour MP Chi Onwurah said that the merger seemed to suggest significant consolidation in the market and reduction in the potential for effective competition. My concern, particularly on the wholesale issue, was that it wasnt forward-looking enough so it looked at what we had now but it didn't seem to be looking at what would be the situation in two, three, four years when we have had even more consolidation, Onwurah told Cable.co.uk. But BT disagreed. Gavin Patterson, chief executive of BT said: The combined BT and EE will be a digital champion for the UK, providing high levels of investment and driving innovation in a highly competitive market. I have no doubt that consumers, businesses and communities will benefit as we combine the power of fibre broadband with the convenience of leading edge mobile services. A prospectus of shares will be issued in the week commencing January 25 with the deal set to close on January 29. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} One of Alan Rickman's final projects was with students trying to make a video go viral to raise money for the refugee crisis. The actors distinctive, gravelly voice was enlisted by Oxford University students for their charity OneClickGiving. The 30-second video was released in December, just a few weeks before he died from cancer aged 69. In it, Rickman spoke over a video of a tortoise nibbling on a strawberry and explained that each click generates revenue, which is in turn donated to charities supporting the refugee crisis. Were trying to make a viral video to help refugees," he says. "Were slowly gathering views as this tortoise munches away. It works like this: the more views it gets, the more advertising revenue YouTube will generate. Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Show all 30 1 /30 Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman at the UK premiere of 'A Little Chaos' at ODEON Kensington in London, 2015 Getty Images Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman poses with actress Kate Winslet and actress Helen McCrory as they attend the UK premiere of 'A Little Chaos' at ODEON Kensington in London, 2015 Getty Image Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman signs autographs for fans before the opening ceremony during the Febiofest Prague International Film Festival in Prague, Czech Republic, 2015 Getty Images Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman poses with 'Elle & The Pocket Belles' as he attends on day two of the Qatar Goodwood Festival at Goodwood Racecourse in Chichester, 2015 Getty Images Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman shakes hands with the Queen Elizabeth II during the Dramatic Arts reception at Buckingham Palace, 2014 Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman arrives at the Giffoni Film Festival meeting with the jurors in Giffoni Valle Piana, Italy, 2014 Alan Rickman: Life in pictures 'A Promise' film photocall, 70th Venice International Film Festival, Italy, 2013 Rex Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman walks on the red carpet as he arrives to attend the World Premier for the film 'Gambit' in Leicester Square, in London, 2012 Alan Rickman: Life in pictures (L-R) Alan Rickman, Tom Felton, Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Matthew Lewis attend the New York premiere of 'Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2' at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center in New York, 2011 Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman attends the 'John Gabriel Borkman' after party at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City, 2011 Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman at the Broadway opening night of 'Seminar' at The Golden Theatre in New York, 2011 Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Actors Sir Christopher Lee (L) and Alan Rickman attend the Royal World Premiere of 'Alice In Wonderland' at Odeon Leicester Square in London, 2010 Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman poses at the Gibson Guitar celebrity hospitality lounge held at the Miners Club during the 2008 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver attend the photocall for 'Snow Cake' as part of the 56th Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) in Berlin, 2006 Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman shares a laugh with Mos Def at the premiere of HBO's 'Something The Lord Made' in New York, 2004 Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman attends the UK Premiere of 'Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban' at the Odeon Leicester Square in London, 2004 Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Actor Alan Rickman and Lyndsey Duncan attend the '2002 Tony Award' nominees brunch in New York, 2002 Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman and Julia Roberts at 'Hollywood Salutes Bruce Willis: An American Cinematheque Tribute' at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, Beverly Hills, 2000 Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Sigourney Weaver (L), Tim Allen (C) and Alan Rickman (R), pose for the premiere of the science fiction, action comedy film 'Galaxy Quest' outside Mann's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, 1999 Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman at the Golden Globe Awards Ceremony in Los Angeles, 1997 Rex Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman with Laim Neeson, Natasha Richardson in 1997 Rex Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Actresses Cybill Shepherd (L) and Christine Baranski (C) present an Emmy to Alan Rickman (R) for outstanding lead actor in a mini-series or special for his lead role in the HBO production of 'Rasputin' during the 48th Annual Emmy Awards in Pasadena, California, 1996 Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson and Phyllida Law at the Premiere of "Winter Guest" in Glasgow, Scotland, 1993 Rex Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman, Juliette Stevenson and Michael Maloney in 1990 Rex Alan Rickman: Life in pictures Alan Rickman in 1984 Rickmans talent, humour and wit have formed the basis of an outpouring of tributes from his friends and those within the film industry after news of his death broke on Thursday. The ultimate film villain, he amassed legions of fans for his stern, unnerving portrayal of Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series and in films such as Die Hard and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. He died surrounded by his family and friends in London. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} For the best part of a decade, the actor Dan Haggerty brought a grace and charm to an unlikely show that would become a huge family favourite. Based loosely on the life of a real life 19th Century frontiersman called John Capen Adams, Haggerty starred as the main character in NBCs The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams. The show, based on a film of the same name, was first broadcast in 1974 and the two-hour finale was shown in 1982. The star died at home surrounded by family and friends (Getty) On Friday it was reported that Haggerty, had passed away at his home in Californias San Fernando Valley. He was surrounded by his family and friends according to the TMZ website. The report said that the actor was diagnosed with with cancer a few months ago after he underwent surgery for back pain. He had returned home from the hospital where he was receiving treatment after doctors told him that time was growing short. Haggerty also worked as a stunt consultant and animal handler for many films involving not only bears but tigers, mountain lions, and wild boar for films such as Tarzan and his own television and movie projects. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} An lawyer in Houston has filed a legal challenge to Canadian-born Ted Cruzs eligibility to be US president. In a twist to the so-called birther controversy that has simmered between Mr Cruz and his rival Donald Trump, Newton Schwartz asked the US Supreme Court to decide if the Texas senators birth to an American mother and Cuban father while they lived in Calgary, violated the US Constitution's requirement that a president be a natural born citizen Mr Cruz has argued that because his mother is American, he became a US citizen at birth. During the Republican debate on Thursday night, Mr Cruz said that his status was no different to former presidential candidate John McCain, who was born in Panama. Ted Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother and Cuban father (Ted Cruz) Mr Trump has repeatedly questioned Mr Cruzs presidential eligibility. On Thursday night, he admitted that he had raised the issue with more vigour since Mr Cruzs polling numbers had grown. The Surpeme Court has never ruled on the issue and Mr Schwartz filed a suit to seek a declaratory judgment on whether or not Mr Cruz was eligible. The Associated Press said that Mr Cruz was born in Canada in 1970 to an American woman, Eleanor, who was born in Wilmington, Delaware. But the senator held dual citizenship between the two countries for decades before renouncing his Canadian citizenship upon his election to the Senate in 2012. Mr Cruz'z rival, Donald Trump, has repeatedly questioned his eligibility to be president Such a natural born US citizenship is provided for in the Constitution, but legal challenges to it are rare, especially on the presidential campaign trail. Mr Schwartzs filing said this this natural born citizen Constitution requirement has never been defined or determined by the US Supreme Court, nor has it ever been amended or repealed as prescribed by the Constitution. Many have suggested that Mr Trumps hammering of Mr Cruz has contributed to the Texan senators once-significant lead being erased. Voters in Iowa will vote on February 1, in a so-called caucus that represents the crucial first contest in the primary season. A poll released Wednesday by Bloomberg Politics and The Des Moines Register put Mr Cruz at 25 percent and Mr Trump at 22 - a statistical tie, given the polls 4.4 per cent margin of error. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Yasiin Bey, the hip-hop artist formerly known as Mos Def, has been arrested in South Africa for attempting to use a "world passport" which doesn't exist. A government spokesman said that Bey attempted to use a false passport when leaving the country on Thursday, the Associated Press reports. Bey has 14 days to leave the country and is now banned from returning to South Africa for five years. The New York rapper has lived in Capetown since 2013 and appeared in court where he was told that he can appeal the ruling. News / Regional by Staff Reporter Cattle farmers in Matabeleland South have accused Rural District councils for not having policies to ensure that the farmers get pastoral farming in the province.A farmer and businessman Campion Mathias Hauta Moyo said most rural district councils in Zimbabwe particularly those in Mashonaland are fairly well up because of the natural resources that obtain therein beefed by an efficient application and administration of such resources."Our district council in Matobo Rural District is highly endowed with one of the best potential for pastoral farming in the country, yet it rates among the poorest districts in the country," Moyo said."The type and quality of grass, the vegetation, the animal breed, the enthusiasm of the rural farmer to name but a few of its attributes is first to none in the country. The market potential in the European Economic community if taken advantage of would take our district to greater heights."He said contrary to that his observations are that the development system that the district council is pursuing is totally retrogressive and militates gravely against any form of progressive postural farming. Sign up for a full digest of all the best opinions of the week in our Voices Dispatches email Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Voices Dispatches email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Tim Peake is to become Britains first ever person to walk in space when he jumps out of the International Space Station. Major Peake will set out alongside Nasas Tim Kopra to repair a broken power unit on the space station. The two will be outside of the space station on what is referred to as an Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA) for six-and-a-half hours, during which there will be no toilet breaks. The walk will begin at 12.55. Recommended Read more Live updates as Tim Peake becomes first ever UK spacewalker During that time there will be two blocks of daylight for 45 minutes, as the station catches the sun on its journey round the Earth. The rest of the mission will be done in complete darkness. The two have been preparing for the walk since not long after Major Peake arrived on board the station, last month. But there was also months of practising for such an event while on Earth. The two astronauts will undertake what the European Space Agency (ESA) has described as a minutely choreographed work to fix a broken power unit. The unit doesnt cause a problem at the moment because the space station has more solar panels than it needs, but it wil get it back up to full functioning. Major Peake will begin to breathe pure oxygen two hours prior, because the pressure inside their suits is lower than that of the ISS. The pair will enter an airlock before opening its hatch and heading outside. Like rock climbers, the astronauts must always be tethered to Space Station supports. Tim Peake Spacewalk in numbers Colonel Kopra will lead, heading to the solar units that need to be repaired. Once given the green light, Major Peake will follow with the replacement equipment. They should finish the repairs in under three hours, and at that point ground control will perform some checks. During the second half of the EVA, the astronauts will lay cables for new docking ports and reinstall a valve that was removed last year. If they are ahead of schedule, the pair will be assigned "bonus tasks", including laying another cable and cutting some unnecessary power caps. The ESA warned: "A spacewalk is a test of patience and alertness." The six hours will be tiring for the pair as they fight against the pressurised suits. Sunrises can also be "blinding for moments" from space, according to the ESA, and they will need to check on each other frequently and make sure their suits have no damage. They will be able to drink water from pouches, but will not have a toilet break. In pictures: Tim Peake goes into space Show all 12 1 /12 In pictures: Tim Peake goes into space In pictures: Tim Peake goes into space Major Tim Peake blasting off into orbit on board the Soyuz space capsule on his way to becoming the first British astronaut to join the crew of the International Space Station (ISS) PA In pictures: Tim Peake goes into space Major Tim Peake (left) blasting off into orbit on board the Soyuz space capsule on his way to becoming the first British astronaut to join the crew of the International Space Station (ISS) PA In pictures: Tim Peake goes into space Photographers take pictures as Russia's Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft carrying the International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 46/47 crew of Britain's astronaut Tim Peake, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and US astronaut Tim Kopra blasts off from the launch pad at Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome AFP In pictures: Tim Peake goes into space Expedition 46-47 crewmembers ESA astronaut Tim Peake, NASA astronaut Tim Kopra and commander Yuri Malenchenko launch into space from Baikonur cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan Getty Images In pictures: Tim Peake goes into space The Russian rocket launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in front of the world's media following weeks of preparation PA In pictures: Tim Peake goes into space The Russian rocket minutes before launch In pictures: Tim Peake goes into space Tim Peake, member of the main crew of the expedition to the International Space Station (ISS), waves to his children from a bus prior the launch of Soyuz TMA-19M space ship at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan In pictures: Tim Peake goes into space US astronaut Tim Kopra waves as he boards the Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft at the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome, prior to blasting off to the International Space Station (ISS) Getty Images In pictures: Tim Peake goes into space Britain's astronaut Tim Peake (bottom), Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko (top) and US astronaut Tim Kopra board the Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft at the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome, prior to blasting off to the International Space Station (ISS) Getty Images In pictures: Tim Peake goes into space British astronaut Tim Peake, member of the main crew to the International Space Station (ISS), during inspecting his space suit prior the launch of Soyuz-FG rocket at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan AP In pictures: Tim Peake goes into space British astronaut Tim Peake, left, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, center, and U.S. astronaut Tim Kopra, members of the main crew of the expedition to the International Space Station (ISS), walk to report to members of the State Committee prior to the launch of Soyuz TMA-19M space ship at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan AP In pictures: Tim Peake goes into space From left, British astronaut Tim Peake, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and U.S. astronaut Tim Kopra, members of the main crew to the International Space Station (ISS), wave to their relatives near a bus prior the launch of Soyuz-FG rocket at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan AP Once they return, their colleagues inside the station will help with a 25-minute clean-up and further checks. Only then will they be able to get out of their suits and adjust to the pressure back in the station. There have been 191 spacewalks for maintenance at the space station, including a similar walk completed in 2014 by Nasa astronaut Reid Wiseman, who will help guide the current EVA from mission control in Houston. Major Peake, a former Army Air Corps and helicopter test pilot, is the first Briton aboard the ISS and the first fully British professional astronaut employed by a space agency. Previous "Brits in space" have either had US or dual citizenship or been on privately funded or sponsored trips. He arrived at the ISS on December 15 and will stay for six months. Additional reporting by Press Association For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The last moments Marina Litvinenko spent with her husband are still vivid in her mind. He had just died after days of excruciating agony from radioactive poisoning, and the doctors asked if she wished to see him one final time. When we went into his room, it was so different. We didnt need protective gloves, she recalled. I could kiss him. This time, no one said it was dangerous; nobody told me not to do so. Looking back, she reflects: It was not known at the time that he had died from polonium. That came a few hours later. But I dont regret one little bit that time we had together, that I was able to touch him again. I will always hold on to that piece of memory. It just adds to my determination to try and find justice. The extraordinary and shocking murder of Alexander Litvinenko, by the administration of polonium-210 in the centre of London, remains officially unsolved after almost a decade. But the lethal attack, described by his wifes lawyers as an act of state-sponsored terrorism that put thousands of lives at risk, has become a matter of bitter accusations and recriminations. Next week, the long-awaited report of a public inquiry into the death, chaired by the coroner Sir Robert Owen, will be presented to Parliament. The incendiary claim at the centre of the inquiry is the allegation that Mr Litvinenko was assassinated on the orders of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. For Marina Litvinenko, the report will be fruit of a tireless campaign. We have waited and waited, sometimes despairing we will ever get anywhere. The waiting was painful, she told The Independent. Maybe this could have been done five years ago instead of ten. But more of the truth has come out over time. Things which had been secret before are now in the open. Sir Robert Owen has been very fair, very thorough. He has helped us get out a lot of information. I will accept what he says. The life and death of Alexander Litvinenko have been enmeshed in secrets and intrigue. Before his death, he had claimed that the Russian secret service the KGB and its successor FSB, for which he worked had been corrupted by criminality. It had been used by the Kremlin, he also claimed, to blow up buildings in Moscow, with the attacks blamed on Chechens to justify military action in Chechnya. Mr Litvinenko, it has emerged, had also become an agent of MI6 while in exile in Britain, earning 2,000 a month. On MI6s behalf, he had been assisting Spanish authorities investigating alleged links between President Putins inner circle and the Russian mafia when he was killed at the age of 44. Two men, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, have been named by Scotland Yard as suspects for the murder. It is highly unlikely, as things stand, that they will face trial. The Russian government has refused UK requests for their extradition. Mr Lugovoi is now an MP in the Duma in Moscow; three weeks into the public inquiry last year, President Putin awarded him a medal for services to the motherland. The Russian government maintains that nothing before, during or since the Owen inquiry has proved that it ordered Mr Litvinenkos killing and absolutely no evidence has been produced that President Putin or anyone close to him were responsible. Officials in Moscow claim that Mr Litvinenko was involved in an illicit trade in polonium and poisoned himself. Mr Lugovoi, a former KGB officer and Mr Kovtun, a former army officer, have denied any involvement in the murder. Mr Kovtun suddenly offered, after the inquiry began, to give evidence via videolink. He was granted core participant status which gave him access to some of the 15,000 inquiry documents; then he announced he was unable to take part. Sir Robert concluded: This unhappy sequence of events drives me to the conclusion either that Mr Kovtun never, in truth, intended to give evidence and that this has been a charade. Alternatively, if he has at some stage been genuine in his expressed intention to give evidence, obstacles have been put in the way of his doing so. Mrs Litvinenko, a slim, petite woman of 52, is certain that vital information has been suppressed by Moscow. Both Lugovoi and Kovtun had plenty of opportunities to present their case. It is a shame that the opportunity was not there to question them. They could have been questioned about: If they did it? Did they do it by themselves? Who sent them to do it? How did they obtain that polonium? Why was it that a weapon of mass destruction was used to carry out a murder in Britain? Questions have been raised about Mr Putin [that] he needs to answer. He gave Lugovoi an honour, he made him an MP, he made him a TV star; he obviously appreciated Lugovois activities. Although the alleged prime suspects are outside the reach of British law, any finding of the Kremlins complicity in the murder by Sir Robert will undoubtedly result in serious diplomatic and political repercussions at a highly sensitive period in relations between Russia and the West. With Ukraine now a semi-frozen conflict, Moscow and Nato are slowly rebuilding contacts, not least because both find themselves fighting Isis. Russias help, it is acknowledged in the West, is essential in seeking a ceasefire in the Syrian conflict. President Putins musings this week that Bashar al-Assad, viewed as the main obstacle to a deal between the Damascus regime and the opposition, may be given refuge in Russia, illustrates the aces he holds. The British government initially refused to hold a public inquiry into Mr Litvinenkos death. Home Secretary Theresa May admitted in a letter three years ago to Sir Robert, who had asked for an inquiry, that international relations were a factor in the decision. A year later, the governments position reversed, as the West slid towards another cold war with Russia over the Ukraine conflict. David Cameron was particularly vocal after Moscow-backed separatists were accused of shoot- ing down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. Mrs Mays original stance had shocked and disappointed Mrs Litvinenko. Looking back, she said: I wonder if it was just her own decision, I think it was the decision of the government. But what happened showed that, if one way is blocked, then you can try another way. That is certainly not the case in a certain other country. I have had nothing but sympathy and support in England. People have come up to me in the street and wished me luck in our campaign to get the truth about Sasha. What action does Mrs Litvinenko expect the British government to take? She chose her response carefully. It is premature to expect things now; we dont know what Sir Robert is going to say. But even if Lugovoi and Kovtun cannot be extradited, what kind of relation can this country have with people who could have organised this kind of terrorism in the British capital? There must be worry about what is happening to Russia and how it affects other countries. Mrs Litvinenko, who has kept her Russian nationality, said she despairs that anyone who criticises the state in Russia is now considered an enemy of the people. Look what happened to Boris Nemtsov [a liberal politician shot dead in Moscow in February last year], look at other killings. At the same time, people in Russia are being constantly fed propaganda about everything from the economy to Ukraine. Mrs Litvinenkos father died last year. Her 80-year-old mother, Zinaida, lives in Moscow. They last met in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, three years ago. Marina Litvinenko has not stepped foot in Russia since leaving 16 years ago. I have been thinking about going back for a visit. I dont need a visa they can refuse, I have a Russian passport, she pointed out. My friends say, You will be alright, you are too high profile now for them to do anything. But I think about what has happened to some people far higher profile than me and I wonder. I will decide after the report comes out. I will have to think about my family. Marina and Alexanders son, Anatoly, was 12 years old when his father died. We are very close, we talk about all that has happened. He is now 21 and things have not been easy for him in the last ten years. But he has been very strong through all this, a source of strength to me, she said. Anatoly is an undergraduate at University College London. He is deeply interested in Russia, Russian literature, Russian politics, said Mrs Litvinenko. There is a new, very special generation of young Russians who are growing up. They feel Russian, they are proud of their heritage. They will want to bring about changes in the future, they will be good for Russia. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A culture of bullying, sexual assaults and rape was claimed to be widespread at Deepcut barracks in the year Cheryl James, an 18-year-old recruit, was found shot dead, The Independent can reveal. Almost 60 allegations of such incidents, said to have taken place in 1995, were made to Surrey Police by former recruits but have hitherto escaped public attention. The force investigated the death of Private James and three other recruits found shot dead at the army barracks in Camberley, Surrey, between 1995 and 2002. Details of the allegations are included in a little-noticed appendix which Surrey Police provided to a review commissioned by the Ministry of Defence into the deaths. The disturbing themes are set to be examined during a new inquest into the death of Pte James, found dead with a bullet wound to her head in 1995. This week, a pre-inquest hearing was told there was new evidence she was being sexually exploited by senior ranks and could have been raped the night before she was found. Last night her father, Des James, told The Independent: I believe there was a serious problem with the culture in that camp. I think there was a culture that breached regulations, a culture of drug use, alcohol bingeing, bullying and sexual intimidation. There was very little respect for individual recruits. The inquest is due to begin at Woking Coroners Court next month and is expected to take at least two months, with more than 100 witnesses expected to give evidence. It has taken Pte Jamess parents 20 years to get to this point. The original inquest into her death, which lasted just one hour, recorded an open verdict. Neither the bullet that killed her nor her clothing and rifle were forensically examined by the Royal Military Police, which initially investigated the death. Backed by Liberty, the parents of Pte James succeeded in getting High Court judges to order a new inquest in 2014 on the basis of new evidence discovered in documents obtained from Surrey Police. There is no evidence that was collected that could prove that the rifle that was found by the side of her was the rifle that killed her, and there was no evidence that, even if it was, she was the person who fired it, Mr James told The Independent. We just want to know what happened to our daughter, he added. Mr James is keeping an open mind when it comes to how and why his daughter died: I dont know. Its important to follow the evidence. He would not elaborate on the nature of the evidence, but described it as incredibly damning. Pte James was one of four young recruits found shot dead at Deepcut between 1995 and 2002. In June 1995, Pte Sean Benton, 20, from Hastings, East Sussex, was discovered dead with five bullet wounds to his chest. Another young recruit, Pte Geoff Gray, 17, from Hackney, east London, was found with two gunshot wounds to his head in September 2001. And Pte James Collinson, 17, from Perth, was discovered with a bullet wound to the head in March 2002. The families of the four recruits have battled for years to get to the truth of what really happened at the army barracks. Previous investigations by military police and Surrey constabulary were criticised over failures to collect key evidence. It is alleged that the investigating authorities were too quick to conclude that the deaths must have been suicides. A subsequent review by Devon and Cornwall Police revealed that potential suspects were not properly investigated by Surrey Police. The Deepcut deaths are now coming under renewed scrutiny, with the families of the other recruits shot dead at various stages of seeking new inquests. Allegations that Pte James may have been sexually abused at Deepcut are given credence by a series of accounts which were given to Surrey Police by dozens of former recruits at Deepcut during the investigation into her death. According to the dossier of allegations compiled by Surrey Police and submitted to the MoD investigation, detectives were told by one 18-year-old female that she knew of at least one female recruit having been raped at Deepcut. And a 21-year-old female told officers she was aware of an incident where two female trainees while babysitting for an officer were both indecently assaulted by him. Another former recruit, a 16-year-old female, is listed as having stated she was raped by a named NCO but refuses to make a formal allegation. And a 21-year-old female is described by Surrey Police as being an alleged victim of multiple rape by unknown offenders at Deepcut. Officers also list the case of a 23-year-old female who while in bed one night was attacked and assaulted by unknown offenders who placed something over her head to prevent her identifying anyone. Another former recruit, a 19-year-old male, told officers that incidents of bullying at Deepcut were too numerous to document. States that there was no point trying to report the incidents due the chain of command. This meant that if you were being bullied by an NCO you could only report it to another NCO who more often than not was a close colleague of the perpetrator. And a 17-year-old female informed police she had sex with a senior NCO because she was too scared to refuse. A 19-year-old former male trainee described how he witnessed female recruit being made to run naked wearing beret and mess tins around parade square. Physical, as well as sexual abuse, repeatedly features in the allegations. A 21-year-old former male recruit told officers how a non-commissioned officer entered accommodation block in the early hours and made a group of recruits stand outside in their boxer shorts where he threw darts at them. Another recruit, an 18-year-old male, described his time at Deepcut as hell. The Blake review into the four deaths, commissioned by the MoD, and released in 2006, found there was harassment, discrimination and oppressive behaviour at the barracks, but concluded the deaths were probably self-inflicted and ruled out the need for a public inquiry. The bulk of its work was done before an inquest into James Collinsons death had concluded, which meant it only dealt with the particular facts of three of the deaths. The Blake work was a review of evidence that we werent allowed to see and neither were our lawyers; we had no right of reply, commented Mr James. Mr James had to sit and listen this week as lawyers argued at a pre-inquest hearing that new evidence indicating his daughter was sexually exploited by senior officers and could have been raped should be considered. It was a very emotional day and I left the court immediately afterwards and went for the train. It was very difficult, he said. His described his daughter as a very compassionate, caring young lady who was full of energy and constantly smiling and laughing. And Mr James added: After 20 years we finally have a proper inquest for Cheryl and understandably that is what the other three families want for Sean, Geoff and James. Once the inquest process has been exhausted for all four, lets see if the evidence demands an inquiry. Describing the toll of not knowing what happened to his daughter, he said: Its something that becomes your waking thought every single day... You always think of the police being on your side and its a shock to find out that is not the way it is. He added: I think the British public need to understand that four kids were shot and died at Deepcut and there has been no meaningful inquiry. No matter all we have been told, there has been no meaningful inquiry into those deaths. In a statement, an MoD spokesperson said: Our thoughts remain with the family and friends of Pte Cheryl James. The inquest will now be a matter for the coroner, but we will of course continue to co-operate with and provide support to the coroner where needed. Timeline: Search for answers 1995: In June, Private Sean Benton is found dead with five bullet wounds to the chest. A coroner rules it a suicide. In November, Pte Cheryl James is found dead with a bullet wound to the head. An open verdict is recorded. 2001: Pte Geoff Gray is found dead with two bullet wounds to the head. An inquest records an open verdict. 2002: In March, Pte James Collinson is found dead with a bullet wound to the head. An open verdict is recorded. Surrey Police brought in to investigate all four deaths. 2003: Surrey Police asks Devon and Cornwall Police to review its investigations. 2004: Adam Ingram, armed forces minister, commissions Nicholas Blake QC to review the deaths. 2006: Blake review concludes that on the balance of probabilities the deaths of Ptes Benton, James and Gray were self-inflicted. It also says there is no evidence of foul play in the death of Pte Collinson. However, it finds some recruits at the Surrey barracks suffered harassment, discrimination and oppressive behaviour. 2011: Devon and Cornwall Police report finds that possible suspects in the deaths were not properly investigated. 2014: New inquest ordered into the death of Pte James. The review concludes that on the balance of probabilities the deaths of Ptes Benton, James and Gray were self-inflicted. In the case of Pte Collinson, it offers no conclusion, but says there is no evidence of foul play. Families had to fight for six years to get a redacted version of a review by Devon and Cornwall Police, called Operation Stanza, of the original Surrey Police investigation into the Deepcut deaths. The report, released in 2011, revealed how leads about potential suspects in the four deaths were not properly pursued. 1. Private Sean Benton, 20, from Hastings, East Sussex, found dead with five bullet wounds to his chest in June 1995. A theory that two individuals could have been responsible was not fully investigated by police, according to the review. It concluded: xxx and xxx [names redacted] should have been considered for TIE [trace, implicate or eliminate] status either to eliminate them from or implicate them in the enquiry. A structured TIE policy would have enabled a more accountable and transparent elimination or implication process. 2. Private Cheryl James, 18, from Froncysyllte, North Wales, found dead with a bullet wound to her head in November 1995. Regarding an individual who could have been responsible for her death, the review states that: insufficient investigative work took place to identify this unknown male who could have potentially been a suspect. It cites another individual who was not properly looked at, stating: a further potential suspect reported to the RMP has not been identified. 3. Private Geoff Gray, 17, from Hackney, east London, found dead with two gunshot wounds to his head in September 2001. An investigative opportunity may have been missed to TI [trace and interview] xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx of Private Gray and with whom he was still in contact until the evening of his death. Documentation suggests there may have been antagonism between Private Gray and xxx. Operation Stanza believes a personal interview should have been conducted with xxx, states the review. Another theory about who may have killed Private Gray does not appear to have been thoroughly examined. xxx should have been considered for TIE status to eliminate him from or implicate him in the enquiry as he had argued with Private Gray shortly before his death. 4. Private James Collinson, 17, from Perth, Scotland, found dead with a single gunshot wound to the head in March 2002. A hypothesis that xxx or xxx murdered Private Collinson was not thoroughly examined, with both individuals being treated as witnesses, The review goes on: They were not directly questioned concerning their potential involvement in Private Collinsons death, although xxx was interviewed on at least four occasions. Operation Stanza believes they should have been considered for TIE status either to eliminate or implicate them from the enquiry. In the reports overall conclusions, the authors say there was evidence to suggest a prevailing mindset which may have caused the opportunity for gathering evidence to be ignored, missed or undermined. The review adds that if a murder in mind approach [treating murder as at least a possible cause of the deaths] had been used, Surrey Police would have been able to adopt a far more defensible position in relation to their investigative conclusions. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} An independent inquiry examining historical child sex abuse in England and Wales is to resume its investigation into Lord Janner now that a criminal trial of facts has been dropped. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) which is chaired by New Zealand judge Justice Lowell said preparations for its public hearing will resume later this month but added that it will measure the evidence against the Labour peer differently to the dropped criminal trial. It cannot reach findings of criminal liability against named individuals and it is not bound by the same criminal standard of proof as in a criminal trial, the IICSA said in a statement on its website. The public hearings which will now take place in the Janner case are not therefore the same as a trial of the facts in a criminal court. They will be focused on different issues, subject to a different procedure and determined according to different standards of proof, it added. The inquiry will first examine the factual basis for evidence against Janner and will make findings of fact where appropriate. Any allegations it finds to be true will then be assessed only via the level of institutional failure to protect children with recommendations subsequently made to prevent similar incidents in future. The trial of the facts into allegations of sexual abuse by Janner was formally dropped this morning following the Labour peers death aged 87 in December. Although the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had declared Greville Janner unfit to stand a criminal trial last year due to his deteriorating and irreversible dementia, a formal examination of the evidence against him had been scheduled for April. Janner had faced 22 counts of sexual abuse dating back to the 1960s. His family has always maintained his innocence. The trial of the facts would have seen a jury asked to decide whether the incidents had taken place, although there would not have been a guilty or not guilty verdict either way. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} An orthodox Jewish school which operated illegally for 40 years and does not teach children English has been ordered to shut down. The Charedi Talmud Torah Tashbar school in Stamford Hill, north London has been ordered to close by the Deparment for Education next month after Ofsted inspectors warned that it was failing to meet the minimum standards required. Recommended Read more Swastika daubed outside Jewish school in London Inspectors who investigated the school, which has more than 200 pupils, said that its curriculum, taught in Hebrew, encouraged cultural and ethnic insularity because it is so narrow and almost exclusively rooted in the study of the Torah. The school was found to severely restrict the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils and prevent them from developing a wider, deeper understanding of different faiths, communities, cultures and lifestyles, including those of England. UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. City went on to win the match at Molineux Stadium three goals to nil. Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 16 September 2022 Members of the public stand in the queue near Tower Bridge, and opposite the Tower of London, as they wait in line to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II, in London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 15 September 2022 Members of the public in the queue on in Potters Fields Park, central London, as they wait to view Queen Elizabeth II lying in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 14 September 2022 The first members of the public pay their respects as the vigil begins around the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Hall, London, where it will lie in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2022 Crowds cheer as King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort arrive for a visit to Hillsborough Castle Getty UK news in pictures 12 September 2022 Crowds line the Royal Mile, Edinburgh, as King Charles III joins a procession from the Palace of Holyroodhouse to St Giles Cathedral following the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II Katielee Arrowsmith/SWNS UK news in pictures 11 September 2022 Members of the Public pay their respects as the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland, is driven through Ballater AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 10 September 2022 Britain's Prince William, Prince of Wales, Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales, Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, Britain's Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, wave at well-wishers on the Long walk at Windsor Castle AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 9 September 2022 King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort wave after viewing floral tributes to the late Queen Elizabeth II outside Buckingham Palace Getty UK news in pictures 8 September 2022 A screen commemorating Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in Piccadilly Circus, London Britain EPA UK news in pictures 7 September 2022 Police officers stand guard after Animal Rebellion activists threw paint on the walls and road outside the Houses of Parliament in protest, in London, Britain Reuters UK news in pictures 6 September 2022 Queen Elizabeth II welcomes Liz Truss during an audience at Balmoral, Scotland, where she invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2022 Visitors at the PoliNations garden in Victoria Square, Birmingham, which is made up of five 40ft high tree installations and over 6,000 plants. The PoliNations programme aims to explore how migration and cross-pollination have shaped the UKs gardens and culture PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2022 Undergraduates at the University of St Andrews take part in the traditional Pier Walk along the harbour walls of St Andrews before the start of the new academic year PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2022 The Massed Pipes and Drums parade during the Braemar Highland Gathering at the Princess Royal and Duke of Fife Memorial Park PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2022 Number 12 Company Irish Guards at Wellington Barracks, central London, before commencing their first Guard Mount at Buckingham Palace PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2022 A salmon leaps up the weir at Hexham in Northumberland, despite the drought warnings and low water levels, the River Tyne is still flowing well allowing the salmon and sea trout to head up river to spawn. Every year tens of thousands of salmon make the once-in-a-lifetime journey along the Tyne to spawn, having been out a sea PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2022 Flowers are placed at the gates outside Kensington Palace, London, the former home of Diana, Princess of Wales, on the 25th anniversary of her death PA UK news in pictures 30 August 2022 Edinburghs waste workers clearing mountains of rubbish at Forrest Road as they return to work following their 11 days of industrial action PA The schools failings are spelt out in a series of Ofsted reports into the school after it applied to be a private school. The reports between 2012-14 were disclosed under Freedom of Information requests. According to the reports, the school states that as a matter of religious principle it does not allow pupils to learn English, nor provide for any secular education. Despite the school failing to meet the minimum standards three times, no action has been taken to shut it down and it continues to operate. Sir Michael Wilshaw, the Chief Inspector of Schools, disclosed in December that Ofsted was considering prosecuting those involved in the running of unregistered Islamic religious schools. A Government consultation on combating schools which promote intolerance will end later this month. The British Humanist Association, which campaigns for a crackdown on all illegal faith schools, welcomed the decision but called on the Education Secretary to move against scores of other schools like it. Were glad that the Government has now moved to shut this particular school down... However, there are clearly many more out there just like it. The situation revealed by these reports is simply outrageous and those in government who have failed to act in the past ought to be ashamed of themselves for standing idly by while thousands of children have their childhoods stolen. Every year, every month, every week that these places are allowed to stay open, a huge number of children remain isolated, indoctrinated, and very likely abused, so we will certainly be writing to the Government to ask that action is taken far more swiftly in the case of other schools than it has been here. A Department for Education spokesman said: It is a criminal offence to operate an unregistered independent school. This schools application for registration has been rejected and on 30 December it was informed of this decision. It has been told to close by 12 February. The school was unavailable for comment. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A British Airways flight has been held on the runway for two hours after the aircraft was apparently damaged by a traffic cone. Passengers on board the flight from Aberdeen to London on Thursday evening were told the plane could not take off after a rogue traffic cone became wedged beneath the aircraft. Engineers said they could not inspect the damage until all passengers and their luggage disembarked and reduced the weight of the aeroplane. Joe Churcher, whose girlfriend was on the flight, live-tweeted the incident and reported the pilot had never seen anything like it. A passenger on the flight, Claire Buckley, said the captain had sounded genuinely stunned that it could have happened as he updated them on the situation. They were eventually told the skin of the aircraft had not been pierced and the dent in the cone had popped back out as the weight of the aeroplane was removed. UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. City went on to win the match at Molineux Stadium three goals to nil. Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 16 September 2022 Members of the public stand in the queue near Tower Bridge, and opposite the Tower of London, as they wait in line to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II, in London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 15 September 2022 Members of the public in the queue on in Potters Fields Park, central London, as they wait to view Queen Elizabeth II lying in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 14 September 2022 The first members of the public pay their respects as the vigil begins around the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Hall, London, where it will lie in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2022 Crowds cheer as King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort arrive for a visit to Hillsborough Castle Getty UK news in pictures 12 September 2022 Crowds line the Royal Mile, Edinburgh, as King Charles III joins a procession from the Palace of Holyroodhouse to St Giles Cathedral following the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II Katielee Arrowsmith/SWNS UK news in pictures 11 September 2022 Members of the Public pay their respects as the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland, is driven through Ballater AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 10 September 2022 Britain's Prince William, Prince of Wales, Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales, Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, Britain's Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, wave at well-wishers on the Long walk at Windsor Castle AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 9 September 2022 King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort wave after viewing floral tributes to the late Queen Elizabeth II outside Buckingham Palace Getty UK news in pictures 8 September 2022 A screen commemorating Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in Piccadilly Circus, London Britain EPA UK news in pictures 7 September 2022 Police officers stand guard after Animal Rebellion activists threw paint on the walls and road outside the Houses of Parliament in protest, in London, Britain Reuters UK news in pictures 6 September 2022 Queen Elizabeth II welcomes Liz Truss during an audience at Balmoral, Scotland, where she invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2022 Visitors at the PoliNations garden in Victoria Square, Birmingham, which is made up of five 40ft high tree installations and over 6,000 plants. The PoliNations programme aims to explore how migration and cross-pollination have shaped the UKs gardens and culture PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2022 Undergraduates at the University of St Andrews take part in the traditional Pier Walk along the harbour walls of St Andrews before the start of the new academic year PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2022 The Massed Pipes and Drums parade during the Braemar Highland Gathering at the Princess Royal and Duke of Fife Memorial Park PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2022 Number 12 Company Irish Guards at Wellington Barracks, central London, before commencing their first Guard Mount at Buckingham Palace PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2022 A salmon leaps up the weir at Hexham in Northumberland, despite the drought warnings and low water levels, the River Tyne is still flowing well allowing the salmon and sea trout to head up river to spawn. Every year tens of thousands of salmon make the once-in-a-lifetime journey along the Tyne to spawn, having been out a sea PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2022 Flowers are placed at the gates outside Kensington Palace, London, the former home of Diana, Princess of Wales, on the 25th anniversary of her death PA Passengers were told the extra weight pushed the fuselage down onto it. The flight was later cleared for takeover - but the airports ground crew were taking no chances and a staff member was spotted standing guard over the cone as passengers got back on the plane. The aeroplane landed safely in London without further incident. A spokeswoman for British Airways said: "The safety of our customers and crew is always our top priority. "Our highly-trained engineers inspected the aircraft before it continued on its journey. "We are sorry for the delay to customers' travel plans." Additional reporting by PA Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Prostitutes should be free to work the streets without fear of arrest in managed red-light districts in major UK cities, to help protect them from attack, according to campaigners. Calls are being made for police forces across the country to consider setting up street prostitution zones where Britains estimated 80,000 sex workers and their customers can freely mingle. This follows the establishment this week of a permanent zone in Leeds where prostitutes can work between 7pm and 7am without the risk of prosecution. Figures seen by The Independent show that there has been a huge increase in the number of prostitutes willing to report violent crimes in Leeds thanks to the polices more tolerant approach. In the first year after the scheme launched as a pilot project in 2014, more than 60 per cent of sex workers said they were willing to report crimes to the police compared with just 7 per cent before the scheme began. This increased to 100 per cent in the first quarter of 2015-16, according to figures from National Ugly Mugs, a project that seeks to end violence against sex workers. In contrast, prostitutes working in areas of the country covered by police forces with high enforcement levels make just a handful of reports about violence. There has been a massive sea-change in Leeds, said Alex Feis-Bryce, the chief executive of National Ugly Mugs. If sex workers do not feel able to report violent crimes to the police, the offenders get away with it and then everybody in the community is less safe. Police forces in other areas should now consider this scheme to protect women on the streets, who are the most vulnerable to attack. More than one sex worker is raped or attacked every day in the UK, according to figures from 2014. London has the highest number of reported incidents, totalling more than two a week. Suggestions are now being put forward for managed schemes in cities like London, Bradford and Newport. The Home Office says it would be up to individual police forces to decide. The Conservative London Assembly member Andrew Boff plans to put the idea to Londons Mayor, Boris Johnson. In a 2012 report, Mr Boff said sex workers in London were 12 times more likely to be murdered than the national average for women in general, and that three-quarters of them were likely to be assaulted or raped in the course of their work, but they were less likely to trust the police or report a crime. The scheme in Leeds has been overwhelmingly successful, Mr Boff told The Independent. I would like to see such zones come to London as well. We have a number of problems with street prostitution in London, but this scheme isnt something you can just pick up and drop anywhere. Its about seeing where we can manage the issue. Gwent Police said last summer it was considering plans to introduce managed prostitution in Newport, a city where it was claimed girls of 14 were selling sex on the streets for 2. They were waiting on the results of the Leeds scheme and said extensive consultations would take place before any decisions were made. In Bradford, a senior councillor, Andrew Mallinson, has also made calls for a managed zone on the back of the project in Leeds, but says he was criticised by police officers for not having a full understanding of the support already in place. He said: Bradford has its issues. If I dont know what support is in place, then how are other people going to know. Id welcome this scheme. Prostitution relates to so many other problems such as drug abuse, poor housing and homelessness it should be a priority. Dr Kate Brown, a lecturer in social policy and crime at of the University of York, one of the architects of the Leeds scheme, said the city has now seen a dramatic increase in reports of crime against sex workers. Dangerous offenders have been convicted as a result and enhanced support for women has been put in place where previously there were Asbos, cautions and fines. Wed be happy to talk to other authorities about the results. But there are some in Leeds who are concerned about the creation of the permanent prostitution zone, the announcement of which followed the recent death of 21-year-old sex worker Daria Pionko, who was found with fatal injuries inside the managed zone. Ian Staines, who runs a business in the heart of the industrial district where prostitutes are allowed to operate, said he is fed up with finding condoms and drug needles, and seeing people having sex near his premises. It shouldnt be up to the police to decide whether or not they enforce the law in a particular area. They have already said they have limited resources. They should be enforcing the law and they are not doing their job. A spokeswoman for the English Collective of Prostitutes, which campaigns for the abolition of prostitution laws, said: A managed zone is no substitute for decriminalisation. Some women complain that the police wash their hands of the area and they feel segregated from the protection of the local community. Only decriminalisation will improve sex workers safety by allowing women everywhere to report violence, exploitation and abuse without the threat of arrest. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The Archbishop of Canterbury plans to fix the date of Easter, bringing an end to one of the longest-running disputes within the church. The Most Rev Justin Welby said that he hopes to make the change within the next five to ten years, in a move that will probably have huge knock-on effects for schools and other seasonally-dependent industries, according to reports. Mr Welby said that he will consult with other authorities including Pope Francis and the Coptic Pope to negotiate a change to the date. It is very unlikely that any change will be made without the full assent of all those authorities. Recommended Read more Why 150 million people are celebrating Christmas today Pope Francis has already discussed changing the date of Easter. Last year he said that we have to come to an agreement about changing the date, at a meeting of priests from around the world, according to the Catholic News Agency. Mr Welby did warn however that churches have been attempting since the tenth century to fix the date of the festival, which at the moment is set with reference to the moon and the sun. The legal foundation for changing the date of Easter has been in law since the Easter Act of 1928. But for it to be changed, churches need to assent to it though the law allows the Government to simply decide to fix the date, authorities have deferred to churches since it was passed. Easter 2015: Unusual films involving resurrection Show all 10 1 /10 Easter 2015: Unusual films involving resurrection Easter 2015: Unusual films involving resurrection Alien (1979) Sigourney Weaver, as Ripley, in Alien. 20th Century Fox Easter 2015: Unusual films involving resurrection The Terminator (1984) Schwarzenegger in The Terminator, sent from the future to kill an unborn child that is destined to defeat his organisation. Rex Easter 2015: Unusual films involving resurrection Beloved (1998) A young woman killed by her mother to save her from a slave owner returns to haunt her. Based on the novel by Toni Morrison. Easter 2015: Unusual films involving resurrection It's A Wonderful Life After wishing he had never been born, an angel grants George Bailey's wish - only for him to realise how many lives he's affected in his own. AP Easter 2015: Unusual films involving resurrection The Lion King (1994) The circle of life, the moment before newborn cub Simba is shown to the rest of the kingdom. Rex Features Easter 2015: Unusual films involving resurrection E-T.jpg After being stranded on earth E.T is rescued by a small group of children - but events soon transpire against them. Easter 2015: Unusual films involving resurrection The Crow After he and his fiancee are murdered on the night before their wedding, musician Eric Draven rises from the dead to take vengeance. Easter 2015: Unusual films involving resurrection The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Warderobe (2009) C.S. Lewis' tale sees Aslan - a loose depiction of Christ - sacrifice himself for the traitor Edmund. Aslan later rises from the dead in the presence of sisters Susan and Lucy. All Rights Reserved Easter 2015: Unusual films involving resurrection A Matter of Life and Death (1947) David Niven and Kim Hunter star in a film about a wrongful survival and eventually death. Rex Easter 2015: Unusual films involving resurrection Meet Joe Black (1998) A young man (played by Brad Pitt) is killed in a car accident and his body inhabited by death. Later, in return for his experiences, death restores life to the man. REUTERS/HO Old Since the fourth century, the date of Easter has fallen on the first Sunday, after first full moon, after the spring equinox. That means that it can vary hugely from year-to-year. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Plans to build a memorial to honour nearly half a million forgotten Muslim soldiers who fought for Britain in the First World War have been drawn up by a Nottinghamshire GP. More than 400,000 Muslim soldiers from pre-Partition India fought alongside British troops during the conflict, but their vital contribution to the war effort has, many argue, gone largely unacknowledged. You dont read it in the textbooks or see it in the films, Dr Irfan Malik told i. Recommended Read more Tate to play war damaged instruments to mark World War I centenary Dr Malik, who lives near Sherwood, in Nottingham, alighted on the idea of a memorial after he began to research his ancestral village of Dulmial, in the Punjab Province of Pakistan, and found both his great-grandfathers fought for Britain. From our village, 460 of the 860 men helped out, Dr Malik said. It was generally voluntarily a lot of them felt pride in going out. For many years there were no men in the village. Dr Malik, 47, has formed the World Wars Muslim Memorial Trust, which aims to raise 25,000 to build a Muslim-themed tribute to the men whose loyalty and sacrifice helped the Allied forces win the war. Named the Great War Muslim Memorial, Dr Malik said the project is in the early planning stages, but it has already won the backing of Tazi Husain, a retired surgeon who was the driving force behind a memorial in Tempsford, Bedfordshire, to honour 75 Second World War women agents who helped resistance movements in occupied Europe, unveiled by Prince Charles in 2013. Dr Malik said: We want it to look Islamic in theme Muslims were loyal to Britain in the First and Second World Wars. We were there and we were part of it. Dr Malik hopes the tribute will show young, disaffected Muslims their ancestors contributed to the war effort and will encourage community cohesion. Jahan Mahmood, a military historian and former Home Office terrorism adviser, has welcomed the plans. The Muslim community by and large dont know about this story. Its a failing on behalf of the Government, he said. Mr Mahmood believes the Great War Muslim Memorial has the potential to garner a sense of belonging among Muslims and make them feel more British. A low sense of belonging is used in the radicalisation of Muslims. I hope the memorial will help Muslims feel like stakeholders in modern-day Britain. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Britains lowest paid workers could be stripped of tax credits under controversial plans Angela Merkel has reportedly offered to David Cameron as part of his efforts to reform the UKs membership of the European Union. With the Prime Minister struggling to win support for his plan to reduce immigration by barring EU migrants from claiming in-work benefits for four years, the German Chancellor is offering him a concession that would strip migrants of tax credits but only if they are earning the minimum wage, according to the Daily Mail. But to ensure the rules are not discriminatory, they would also have to apply to British workers on the minimum wage too. The plan was dismissed as nonsense by Tory eurosceptics, who said the plan would have no impact on the ultimate aim of reducing net migration to the UK at the same time as hitting the poorest households in the UK. Other reports suggest Ms Merkel is suggesting a plan to tighten the criteria over who is entitled to claim in-work benefits under freedom of movement rules. European Commission president Jean Claude Juncker said on Friday that he was confident a deal with Mr Cameron would be reached at the next Brussels summit in February, paving the way for a summer referendum in either June or July. Cameron on EU It comes as George Osborne ruled out a second referendum a plan first suggested by his Tory leadership rival Boris Johnson saying the upcoming vote was a once in a lifetime decision. Theres no second vote. This is the crucial decision of our lifetimes, he told BBC Newsnight. Dominic Cummings, a former Tory Cabinet adviser, immediately accused him of trying to scare voters into voting to remain in the EU. Jonathan Faull, the head of the European Commission's British referendum task force, said on Thursday there was a "very good prospect" of Mr Cameron securing a comprehensive EU renegotiation deal "rather soon". News / Religion by Ihechukwu Njoku A YouTube clip showing controversial Nigerian Pastor T.B. Joshua's dramatic encounter with 'Lucifer' has gone viral, amassing over 500,000 views in just one month since its release online.The video titled 'Face To Face With Lucifer' shows a peculiar scenario that unfolded in Joshua's church when a self-professed 'occult wizard' came to seek prayers at The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations (SCOAN) in Lagos, Nigeria.In the clip, an eerily looking man with a menacing black beard introduces himself as Professor Chukwudi Okakpu, an alleged 'Grand Llama of Science Beyond Material'.Amidst his extraordinary claims, the Satanist professed to have had face to face encounters with 'Lucifer' and to have endorsed 'anti-Christs' globally."I can stay here and appear in any part of Europe," Okakpu, dressed in a flowing white suit, calmly stated, adding that he 'operates like a spirit'."If you are such a person that patronises shrines or herbalists, I am the ultimate," he sensationally claimed.The video shows Joshua praying for Okakpu who sways uneasily several times before eventually falling to the floor.Several of his 'followers' proceed to come out from the crowd and are also prayed for, after which the 'professor' renounces his devilish past.Okakpu proceeds to return the following week with some of his 'occultic' garments to testify to the changes in his life after 'accepting Jesus Christ'."This is a video satan does not want you to watch," Emmanuel TV states in its introduction of the clip on YouTube. "A satanic 'general' renounces his covenants with devilry and witchcraft in a church service that made hell and its minions quiver!"As with most of Joshua's videos, the contents have elicited controversy with opposing views as to its authenticity.Several online commentators insisted Joshua's deliverance services are nothing more than a scam involving arranged actors while others argue they are genuine and godly.Joshua's YouTube channel Emmanuel TV, where the clip was uploaded, is the third most subscribed channel in Nigeria with nearly 300,000 subscribers and 110,000,000 views. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn must get back to the best aspects of the early New Labour period, the leaders top political advisor has said. Andrew Fisher, who was recently reinstated after a controversial party suspension, told a seminar at University College London that some policies of New Labours early period had been incredibly successful. Mr Fishers conciliatory praise for Tony Blairs government is likely to surprise some of his critics on the right wing of the party, who tried to get him sacked when he was first appointed. Recommended Read more Jeremy Corbyn adviser called for Tony Blair to face trial for Iraq War The policy chief however told the meeting that New Labours early mantra of adopting what works was important and had produced good results in terms of poverty reduction. I think there was that early period of New Labour where they were talking about things that we would want to get back to: joined-up government, what matters is what works, evidence-based policy-making, he said. I think they moved away from some of that and I think its very important to get back to that and I think we need to do be rooted in all of those things. The successful policies of that period, whether its Sure Start, drop-in centres, the minimum wage, the New Deal programme, tax credits, pension credit, were all built in that early stage when there was still that mantra. Mr Fisher was suspended after previous comments emerged in which he had referred to Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell as scumbags and others in which he had criticised the Labour party at length. Andrew Fisher was a trade union official before becoming Jeremy Corbyns political adviser (leapeconomics.blogspot.co.uk) At the time Mr Corbyn however said he had full confidence in Mr Fisher. The partys national executive committee voted to reinstate his Labour membership after an internal investigation Speaking at the seminar, which was on the topic of the future of the left in Britain, Mr Fisher caveated his praise of Tony Blairs government. They [New Labour] did help produce a fall in the poverty rate, child poverty rate and pensioner poverty rate, but they didnt deal with widening inequality, he said. They slowed the rate of widening inequality but they didnt actually send it into reverse, which is what wed want. Leading New Labour figures have been less positive in return about Mr Corbyn and his top team. Tony Blair himself said last year that anyone who believed in Mr Corbyn's policies "in their heart" should "get a transplant". Labour MPs Caroline Flint and Siobhain McDonagh both made official complaints about Mr Fisher's comments, for which he received a warning from the party and wrote a letter of apology. Mr Fisher was coy on specific matters of policy during the seminars discussion. He said he was currently neither for or against the idea of a universal basic income recently floated by the RSA think-tank and would listen to representations. The policy chief also called for an end to the perverse auction of harsher immigration policies and said the party had some thinking to do about how it could capture the initiative on that issue. He also spoke positively about suggestions that monetary policy could play a wider active role in managing the economy, especially in times of crisis. Mr Fisher is Mr Corbyns political advisor. Within the party, political advisors play the role of chief policy advisors on their particular brief. Before joining Labour Mr Fisher set up the Left Economics Advisory Panel and wrote a book called The Failed Experiment: How to Build an Economy that Works, about the 2008 financial crash. He worked as a trade union official. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Labour did not lose the last election because the party was too left wing, but because voters did not see Ed Miliband as a leader, feared it would be forced to work with the SNP and blamed the party for the financial crash, an internal report concludes. The analysis of last years general election campaign by Margaret Becket MP, which was leaked to BBC News, also says there was a failure to connect with voters on immigration and benefits policies. However the Learning the Lessons report, which is expected to be formally published next week, does not say that Labours policies were too left wing. Some of the left-wing policies were the most popular [and] individual policies polled well - the issue was the lack of a consistent, cohesive narrative, it said, citing the mansion tax as a vote winner. Labour should try to convince the public that the party was not to blame for the financial crash of 2007-08, according to the report. We must take the global crash myth head-on which dogged us through the last Parliament, it says. And Labour should also defend the New Labour Governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The report says: We should be proud of our record of major social change. Jeremy Corbyn has said the party lost the election because it was too similar to the Conservatives. We cannot go on being Tory lite. Weve got to be true to ourselves, he said previously. Labour lost the election because I dont believe we offered a credible alternative to what the Conservatives were offering. A Labour spokesman said the review was in its final stages and will conclude next week. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Theresa May is facing calls to rethink the discriminatory new earnings threshold of 35,000 for non-EU migrants that could starve Britain of vital talent in the teaching, charity and entrepreneur sectors when the changes take effect in April. Overseas workers who have lived in the UK for five years will have to prove they will be paid the new minimum threshold in order to stay in the country. Those who fail to demonstrate earnings of more than 35,000 will be denied settlement in the UK and will face deportation according to the new Home Office policy. The Government temporarily exempted nurses from the new rules last autumn in response to fears about widespread shortages of workers across the NHS. But the earnings threshold could be applied to migrant nurses in the future should the Government decide to take them off the Shortage Occupation List. Former Cabinet minister Alistair Carmichael, who was David Cameron's Scottish Secretary before the election, told The Independent that discriminating on the basis of income would harm the UKs place at the forefront of the global economy, while shadow immigration minister Keir Starmer said there were real concerns over how key industries would be affected. Mr Starmer, who served as the Director of Public Prosecutions from 2008-2013, urged ministers to look more closely at the threshold, which is currently 20,800 around 5,000 less than the average UK salary. A petition launched earlier this week to try to force the Government to rethink the sharp rise in the minimum income requirements has attracted more than 2,000 signatures. Joshua Harbord, who set up the petition on the Parliament website, told The Independent that he decided to take action because he knew a number of incredibly upset and scared people who were set to be affected by the changes but had no one speaking up on their behalf. These arent the benefits-scrounging, baby-sprouting terrorists that everyone seems so afraid of, he said. "They're people who have worked in the UK for years, making friends and families, building homes and communities and contributing to this country's culture and economy. The petition, which calls for the Government to scrap the new 35,000 threshold for non-EU citizens, could be debated by MPs if it reaches 100,000 signatures but only needs 10,000 to receive a response from the Government. May announces asylum plan At the very least, I want an answer from the Home Office, and for the population in general to realise it's impossible to rationalise this insanity, Mr Harbord said. "I want them to take responsibility for this incredible mistake, even if they never intend to correct it or make amends. Ultimately, I just want my friends and the thousands of other people who face deportation to be allowed to remain in their homes and their jobs." Mr Carmichael, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, is writing to Ms May calling on her to publish the Governments latest assessment on how many people will face deportation when the new rules take effect in April. Britains rising immigrant stars Show all 8 1 /8 Britains rising immigrant stars Britains rising immigrant stars Sportsman Al Bangura is helping Sport for Freedom and the Premier League raise awareness to stop child trafficking Anna Huix Britains rising immigrant stars Novelist and lm-maker Xiaolu Guo came to London on a scholarship to the UKs national film school and has settled in east London with her partner and child Anna Huix Britains rising immigrant stars Comedian Sajeela Kershi tells her own stories about being a Muslim immigrant Anna Huix Britains rising immigrant stars Campaigner Meltem Avcil says: I want Yarls Wood closed. These people are not criminals Anna Huix Britains rising immigrant stars Fashion designer Marta Marques has launched her own womenswear label with her partner Paulo Almeida Anna Huix Britains rising immigrant stars Scientist Aarti Jagannath won a scholarship from the British Council to study in Britain Anna Huix Britains rising immigrant stars Food entrepreneur Edin Basic started Firezza in 2001 with a friend from Mostad Anna Huix Britains rising immigrant stars Actor Noma Dumezweni will play an adult Hermione Granger in the West End production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child from July Anna Huix The Home Offices own assessment of the policy in 2012 admitted that the higher threshold would have a significant impact on teachers, nurses, marketing managers and IT professionals. Mr Carmichael told The Independent: Britain must remain open for business we should be looking to attract the best and brightest not turn them away. "Discrimination based on income fails to take talent and new sectors like tech start-ups, whose staff might be paid less than 35,000, are essential to keeping the UK at the forefront of the global economy. The Home Office has yet to respond to a request for comment. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A Conservative minister with responsibility for taxation attended a dinner with a tax intelligence company that promises financial efficiencies to its paying clients, records show. David Gauke, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, has strategic oversight of the UK tax system including corporate tax and international tax issues. Mr Gaukes register of ministerial gifts and hospitality released in a barrage of documents close to Christmas shows he attended an awards dinner organised by the company, Tolley, in May 2015. Representatives from the financial services industry can pay a standard rate of 3,180 per table to attend the annual dinners 2016 iteration, with the option of a platinum table available at 3,960. It is not clear what the minister discussed with representatives from the industry at the dinner. Asked in writing by Labour MP Helen Goodman what conversations he had and whether any minutes could be provided, Mr Gauke simply replied: I attended the dinner in May 2015 in a personal capacity. The awards dinner was to announce the winners of the Tax Awards 2015. Mr Gauke had previously won Tax Personality of the Year in 2011 and had been invited to attend. The ceremonys organiser, Tolley, is a tax products specialist. It says on its website that it can help provide financial efficiencies to its clients. Treasury minister David Gauke (Rex Features) The Independent asked the Treasury whether the ministers attendance at the dinner indicated that he endorsed the services of the company, but did not receive a reply to that specific point. Mr Gauke hit the headlines in 2012 when he said it was morally wrong to pay tradesmen in cash for a discount because it meant others would have to pay more tax. Late last year the Office for Budget Responsibility announced that George Osbornes tax avoidance crackdown has missed its target by hundreds of millions of pounds. The OBR said six of the specific measures pursued by the Chancellor had unperformed by 50m or more each. In November the Public Accounts Committee of MPs warned that HMRC had made "little or no progress" on measures to reveal the scale of aggressive tax avoidance happening in Britain The Government says it has made cracking down on tax avoidance a priority. In September HMRC said it had collected 1bn from users of tax avoidance schemes as a result of new rules. The Government will not tolerate tax avoidance and Accelerated Payments has been a real game changer, Mr Gauke said at the time of that announcement. A Treasury spokesman said of Mr Gaukes attendance at the dinner: As a previous winner of the Tax Personality of the Year award, the minister was invited to attend this event to see who won the award in 2015. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Security forces from Burkina Faso and France are attempting to take control of a luxury hotel in the centre of country's capital Ouagadougou, which was stormed by Islamist gunmen, who took hostages and killed at least 20 people, according to eyewitnesses and officials at the scene. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has said it was responsible the attack, in tandem with another extremist group, SITE Intelligence Group reported. Around thirty hostages, including a government minister, have been freed, the country's Communications Minister said. At least 10 bodies were found inside a cafe next to the Splendid Hotel, the Internal Affairs Minister said. It is unclear how many people are still inside. The director of the university hospital, who spoke to patients wounded in the attack at Hotel Splendide in downtown Ouagadougou late on Friday, said around 20 people have been killed. The hotel was also reportedly on fire. "We have received around 15 wounded people. There are people with bullet wounds and people who are injured because of falls," said Robert Sangare, director of Ouagadougou's university hospital centre. Two unidentified armed men approach a vehicle, near to a hotel, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso AP (AP Television) Mr Sangare said one European woman being treated at the hospital told him the attackers appeared to target white people, according to Reuters. The attempt to retake the hotel was reported on Twitter by Gilles Thibault, the French ambassador to Burkina Faso. Local media reported that the commandos were made up of Burkinabe security forces with support from French special forces and US intelligence. The country's foreign minister, Alpha Barry, earlier told Reuters that special forces had secured a perimeter around the hotel. Reports over Twitter suggest a cafe-restaurant opposite the hotel, which is popular with westerners, has also been targeted. The gunmen were said to have fired in the air as they stormed the four-storey hotel before security forces arrived. An intense exchange of gunfire between the gunmen and Burkinabe forces followed, according to a Reuters witness. A journalist at the scene said US troops were also conducting a rescue mission at the hotel, CNN reports. The US Embassy in Ouagadougou tweeted: "We are closely following the situation downtown". Several cars were ablaze outside the hotel, an Associated Press reporter near the scene on Friday said. A video, purportedly of the Hotel Splendide on fire, appears to show the flaming cars in the streets. The French embassy in Burkina Faso have called the incident a "terrorist attack" and have urged people in the area to "go home". The Ambassador repeated the assertion on Twitter and extended a curfew in the city from 11pm to 6am. Mr Thibault also added that an Air France flight from Paris to Ouagadougou was diverted on Friday night to Niamey, Niger. The hotel is sometimes used by French troops with Operation Barkhane, a force based in Chad and set up to combat Islamist militants across Africa's vast, arid Sahel region. It is also reportedly popular with other foreigners and UN employees. A senior member of the group called in December for Muslims in several countries, including Burkina Faso, to wage jihad. AQIM, along with two other groups, also claimed responsibility for an attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali, which killed 20 people in November. Two militants killed 20 people from nations including Russia, China and the United States at the luxury hotel in Mali's capital on 20 November, before being killed by the security forces. Burkina Faso has endured bouts of political turmoil since 2014 when veteran President Blaise Compaore was overthrown in a popular protest. Additional reporting by various agencies Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Republican candidate Donald Trump has slammed President Obamas effort to turnaround perceptions of Syrian refugees by calling his Syrian guest at the State of the Union address a trojan horse for terrorism. In the Republican debate on Thursday night Mr Trump was questioned on his view about President Obama inviting Syrian refugee, 55-year-old Refaai Hamo, to sit beside Michelle Obama during the State of the Union address Tuesday night. Dr Hamo, who fled to Turkey in 2013 after seven family members were killed in anti-government warfare, arrived in Detroit in December with his three daughters and his son. Mr Trump responded: It was all very nice, it was perfect. But fear and terror - its reality - just look at Indonesia, bombings all over. Look at California and Paris." [Dr Hamo] doesnt represent what you have in that line of migration. Its the trojan horse. They [the refugees] are going to do great destruction. The Republican candidate said he had noticed very few women and children in the so-called lines of refugees, and only saw strong, powerful men. Mr Trump then referred to the married couple who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State before embarking on a killing spree in San Bernardino, California last year. We cant let these people come into our country and break our borders. We cant do it, he said. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie added at the debate: Syrians should stay in Syria. They shouldnt be going to Europe or to the US." Mr Hamo received a lot of public support for telling his story. Mr Obama reportedly spotted Mr Hamo, who also lost his wife in Syria, when he spoke to Facebook group Humans of New York. I am so proud and honored to be in this country and look forward to one day becoming an American citizen so that we can be part of making America a strong and great country, Mr Hamo said, as reported by USA Today. Republicans have come under fire for suggesting that too many Syrian refugees want to come to the US - it has been pointed out that any Syrian wanting to emigrate to the US can wait up to two years to carry out detailed background checks. Around 2,000 Syrian refugees have entered the US in the last four years. Mr Trump also said during the debate that he had no regrets for calling for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the US. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} An American father has been accused of murdering his three-year-old son because his teenage girlfriend disliked children and had threatened to leave him. David Creato, 22, was charged with murder and endangering the welfare of a child on Tuesday following the discovery of his son Brendans body in Cooper River Park, New Jersey on October 13. Creato had reported Brendan missing three hours earlier, claiming hed woken up to find the boy missing from his home in Haddon Township. I just woke up and he wasn't in my apartment, the dad told the police operator on a call obtained by 6ABC. I don't know if he wandered out or what happened. I don't know where he is. The door was locked. I guess he unlocked it and left, he added, telling officers that the boy was wearing only his pyjamas, neon socks and Mickey Mouse slippers when he vanished. Three hours later, following a frantic search, officers found Brendan in Cooper River Park. Brendan Creatos body was found partially submerged in Cooper River Park, New Jersey (pictured) on October 13 (Google Images) Prosecutors say he was a victim of 'homicidal violence' and appeared to have been smothered, strangled or drowned, thanks to bruising near his collarbone and his brain showed signs of oxygen deprivation before his death, according to NJ.com. Creato was arrested on Monday with bail set at $750,000 as he is considered a potential flight risk. Prosecutor Christine Shah conceded that the case against Creato was largely circumstantial and based on there being no signs of forced entry at the property and on the intense relationship Creato had with his 17-year-old girlfriend Julia Spensk. Miss Spensk, prosecutors claim, had a serious dislike of children and resented Brendan getting in between her and Creato, who had custody of the boy every other weekend. She is said to have told Creato that the visits got in the way of their love affair and told him she would break up with him unless he severed contact with both Brendan and the boys mother. A GoFundMe account which set up after Brendan's death raised $19,407 towards his funeral costs. The case continues. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Water towers in America usually boast the names of the communities they serve, often with a mascot or slogan; totems of civic pride. Not here. Smudged by driving snow on a recent morning, this one merely proclaims: FLINT WATER PLANT. And this one stands for betrayal, hardship and scandal. Cast your eyes down to the neighbourhoods beyond; homes with sagging roofs and dilapidated porches, and you will see them, bundled-up figures shuffling down the streets. Some carry their loads in their arms, others push trollies through the drifts. The state of emergency is a week old now and this is their new daily grind: fetching bottled water from wherever they can find it. Recommended Read more Michigan residents sue local government over lead in tap water The novelty of it police, fire stations and the state National Guard were ordered by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder to start handing out water just this Tuesday is itself a bad joke. The events that led to this crisis began nearly two years ago. Its just that no one was paying attention. Now an entire city of 100,000 is barred from drinking its own water even cooking with it because of poisonously high levels of lead. Actually, many of the residents knew trouble was likely as soon as an emergency manager sent to wrestle Flint out of bankruptcy switched the city away from water coming in from Detroit to water drawn directly from its own river. That was April 2014, the moment when the state began poisoning the entire Flint population. All because Detroit water had been too expensive. Anyone who has lived here long knows the Flint Rivers reputation. It is filthy, not least because of what the car factories, most of them now gone, used to pour into it. I thought it was a joke, recalls Rhonda Kelso, who is above all anxious about the health impacts for her already fragile 12-year-old daughter, Kaylynn, who has a heart condition, hearing and speech impediments. She and other residents are lead litigants of a first lawsuit against the state claiming damages; others are sure to follow. Pastor Bobby Jackson, whose modest homeless shelter, Mission of Hope, is now crammed to the gills with cases of bottled water donated by citizens all across America, couldnt believe it either. I grew up by that river. You wouldnt swim in it, you wouldnt go near it, he says. Ill tell you a story. He grew up eight houses away from the river. A favourite trick, he relates, was to put water from the river in a bottle and then mix it with dry ice from ice cream carts. The reaction with all the chemicals in the water would invariably cause a small explosion. Almost from day one, residents began to complain. Water was coming out of the taps the colour of urine. They said it was making them ill. For Kristina McDermott, 45, who now walks six blocks to and from her home to the Mission of Hope daily to fetch a case of bottled water, the symptoms were severe headaches. Traces of e-coli bacteria were detected and periodic boil orders were issued. But city leaders insisted that otherwise the water was just fine. They drank it before the cameras to prove it. They shouldnt have done. The disaster that has since befallen Flint, the city that gave the world wheels, is a parable of decay and negligence that is the shame of a country which has let its most basic infrastructure fall into decay, whether airports, roads, rail lines or, in this case, water lines. But its worse than that. No one here is in any doubt at all, that it would never have happened anywhere else. This is Flint, where more than 40 per cent of its population is under the poverty level, illiteracy is over 30 per cent, and violent crime levels are among the highest in the country. It is nearly two thirds black. Flint is dispensable. Flint is poisonable. The bacteria was one thing. This week Governor Snyder revealed that there has been a spike in Legionnaires Disease in the city that has already taken 10 lives. But more alarming is confirmation that because nothing was done to address the corrosive nature of the Flint River water a simple phosphate additive would have done the trick it instantly began scouring the citys mostly lead-based and decrepit network of service pipes. The entire city was thus exposed to lead poisoning. The city has now been reconnected to the Detroit supply, but it may be a year before the water is safe to drink again. In the longer term, a new pipeline will feed water from Lake Huron. But meanwhile the question is this: how much did the states leaders know and when did they know it? Among those alleging a cover-up and possible criminal culpability on the part of Governor Snyder and other top officials has been Michael Moore, the film maker of the left, who is a Flint native. This weeks Legionnaires Disease update sent him straight to Twitter. And now, murder. BREAKING: 10 people dead in Flint from Legionnaires Disease. Flint River water suspected. No arrests yet. #ArrestGovSnyder. Now the truth is out many in Flint are angry and afraid. Dr Mona Hanna-Attisha, director of the Flint Childrens Clinic, sees it daily in mothers coming in with their toddlers. You look at the fear and anxiety in their eyes. They dont know if in five or 10 years their kids are going to have a learning disability or behavioural problems. It is a population-wide trauma. Picking up fresh water at the main fire station, Lloyd Michaels, 52, lifts his shirt to reveal a rash across his lower back. His says that his black labrador is losing his hair. I am paying $150 a month for water you cant drink. You cant cook with it, you cant do anything with it. I cant even give it to my dog, he says. Back at the Mission of Hope, Ms McDermott reports that she has disconnected her water entirely. Just because Flint has the highest crime rate, just because Flint has the highest poverty, it doesnt mean that Flint should be forgotten this way, she says. Its like we live in one of those nasty countries that dont have anything. There are a few heroes here. Pastor Jackson is one, using the mission to get fresh water to as many of his neighbours as possible. We really got kicked in the butt good, he accepts. But he also pays tribute to all those now shipping cases of water to the mission or sending him cards with cheques stuffed inside. The postmarks are from all over the country. I am loving it, because this is the America I know, he bellows. I think God makes adversity sometimes so we all come together. Another hero is Dr Hanna-Attisha. After a team of researchers from Virginia Tech first suggested last summer that lead may be a problem, she began her own investigation, analysing data showing elevated levels of lead in the blood of Flint children from 2015 and comparing it with 2013. The results were mortifying. The numbers had doubled across the city. In one neighbourhood, 16 per cent of children had elevated lead levels, a tripling in two years. She sounded the alarm in a news conference in September. To her shock, the state tried to discredit her. For a good week and a half to two weeks, we were attacked. Which made me feel physically ill, she says. But we knew we were right and we went on the offensive. She calls not adding the anti-corrosion phosphates an act of criminal negligence. Only now, with the state of emergency in force, has she been fully vindicated. But it bothers her profoundly that it took so long and, of course, that it happened in the first place. Her conclusion: because its Flint. It is just a consequence of loss of manufacturing and recession and joblessness and decaying infrastructure. No one has invested in anything. This community is predominately inner city, predominately minority. This would never would have happened in a more affluent community, she argues. She admits she has to take care not to become too political. I am not suggesting it was purposeful, she says carefully, but it was preventable. The fall of Flint: R ustbelts capital No city in the American rustbelt embodies all that ails it the collapse of manufacturing and the shipping of jobs overseas more than Flint, Michigan, the birthplace of General Motors. It is a story of decline told most famously in Roger and Me, a film directed by Michael Moore, a Flint native. Made in 1989, it documented Moores efforts to confront GMs then chief executive, Roger Smith, about plans to close several of the citys car plants, cutting its workforce from a high of 80,000 to 50,000 by 1992. Today, there is only one GM factory left, employing 5,000 people. And, in the meantime, Flints population has dropped from a high of 200,000 to about 100,000. Nearly half are living under the poverty line and tax revenue to keep the city alive has all but vanished. In 2014, the remaining GM plant announced it could no longer use Flint water because it was corroding parts. Ball bearings are apparently more important than people in this city at least. David Usborne Sign up to our free fortnightly newsletter from The Independent's Race Correspondent Nadine White Sign up to our free fortnightly newsletter The Race Report Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the The Race Report email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Ithaca College President Tom Rochon announced his resignation today after much reflection following student protests against his failure to stem racism on campus. Mr Rochon served nine years as College President and said he would step down in July this year. I am proud of the progress and accomplishments achieved by the college over what will be a nine-year tenure as president, Rochon wrote in a statement. I look forward to working with the college community over the next 18 months in a constructive and collaborative way, making progress on issues of diversity and inclusion, shared governance, and decision making. Recommended Read more Students demand Ithaca College president resigns amid campus racism The announcement follows a 1,000-student walkout in November, protesting against a series of racist incidents on campus. This includes alleged racial profiling by campus police and a fraternity party with a Preps and Crooks theme. The same month, a poll found that almost three quarters of its student population had no confidence in Mr Rochon. The 316-strong school faculty voted with the same results a few weeks later. School alumni also joined in the protest, according to Buzzfeed. The protests were inspired by similar demonstrations at the University of Missouri, which led former university President Tim Wolfe to resign amid claims he did not successfully handle racial rows at the school. Facebook group POC at IC, a campaign group for Ithaca College, celebrated Mr Rochons announcement by posting: There is power in the collective. We did it! Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} New York City is one step closer to taking horse-drawn carriages for tourists off busy, polluted streets as City Hall and Union represenatives battle out a compromise to keep drivers jobs and move the horses to a new stable. Sources say that New York City Hall and Central Parks horse-drawn carriage industry are nearing agreement on a deal that could maintain the carriage drivers jobs but also take animals off the city streets. According to am New York, the compromise would bring to an end a long, ongoing debate that started more than two years ago when Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed to move the horses to greener pastures and called the tourist horse rides inhumane. Its over, he told a news conference in 2013. We are going to quickly and aggressively move to make horse carriages no longer a part of the landscape in New York City." Mayor de Blasio faced backlash from drivers and from a more unlikely source - Irish actor Liam Neeson said it would be unconscionable to deprive the drivers of their livelihood. The union that represents around 300 drivers and stable workers, Teamsters Joint Council 16, is reportedly working to find a new home for around 75 horses in a stable within Central Park. The move would take away the need for the horses to travel from their West Side stables to the Park alongside motor vehicles and traffic pollution. The mayors office, the Union spokesman and the activist group behind the campaign, NYCLASS, decline to comment for am New York. Opinion / Columnist With unrelenting infighting in Zanu-PF, and lately, the deepening economic crisis, many thought that Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa would make good of his newly acquired strategic position as vice president, and bring to an end the nonagenarian's political career.But, to the anger, particularly of those party elites who have been doing the bidding for his ascendancy, the vice president, reluctant to take Mugabe head-on, continues to play a distinctly subservient role. What they don't understand is that his position is no different from those of previous vice presidents; he is just a rebottled Simon Muzenda, or Joseph Msika, specifically appointed to aid Mugabe's eternal rulership. If he had any capacity to challenge the president, surely, he wouldn't be his deputy.To be sure this is not to say that Mnangagwa is not ambitious. Every politician does have ambitions.But, it is to say that it is rather the complex nature of his political relationship with Mugabe which explains why the vice president is unlikely to make that long awaited pre-emptive strike. Instead, Mnangagwa is likely to wait until the nonagenarian has succumbed to biology or has decided to resign.In the meanwhile, he will continue selling a dummy to his allies in the party - whom he doesn't need more than he needs Mugabe - that playing consummate servant to the president is part of his realpolitik strategy, and that it's only a matter of time before he attacks.Nothing is more illustrative of the centrality of Mugabe to Mnangagwa's sense of identity as a politician than the Midlands Godfather being prepared to go to any lengths inorder to preserve this political relationship. His obsession with keeping his relations with the president on good terms is even done at the expense of his close allies that Mnangagwa thinks are deemed rebellious by the president. The legend is that for fear of antagonising the president further, when Jonathan Moyo was defenestrated from the party, he didn't even receive a phone call from Mnangagwa.Indeed, this should be a warning to Chris Mutsvangwa that nothing comes in between Mnangagwa's obedience to the president. if booted out of the party, Mutsvangwa should not expect the vice president to visit his residency and comfort him.But, judging by the letter recently written by government ministers Makhosini Hlongwane, Tapiwa Matangaidze and Annastacia Ndhlovu - to the Secretariat of the Commissariat, following unrelenting attacks by G40, and with virtually no protection from "The Crocodile", some of his allies seem to have realised this, and are ready to jump ship. This leaves only July Moyo, a marginalised politician as the only ally of consequence in Mnangagwa's camp.How did it all start?When and how the two men might have met remains a subject of speculation. However, the president might have dropped a hint when he said that when he was working as a teacher in Mapanzure, a remote rural village in Zvishavane, he was introduced to Mnangagwa's uncle.It seems, towards the end of the liberation war, the vice president, who at that time was studying in Zambia, was incorporated, at Mugabe's instigation or approval, into Zanu-PF structures as Mugabe's special assistant. This move was seen as a thank you to the Mnangagwa family who had acted as young Mugabe's guardians when he was teaching in remote Zvishavane. An image that emerged after independence, which can be dated back to the 1970s, and another one that appears to have been taken on Independence Day, have been used to claim that this special relationship is indeed old, and strong too.Mnangagwa himself has been mum about how they met. He is a man who says very little, a carefully crafted quality that is in sync with the image of a strongman that he has built for himself.Mugabe's enforcerThough we might not be sure about how this relationship might have started, there is no doubt that Mugabe must have initiated contact between the two of them.As a practical politician, Mugabe acknowledges his limitations; he is not a doer, but a strategist or thinker. What he needed was someone who literally, could get his hands dirty. To psychoanalysts Mnangagwa has something that Mugabe desperately lacks, and that drew him to the president.What precisely made Mugabe pick him amongst many potentials is not clear. But, what we know is the legend - which has been questioned that as a teenager, the vice president was already blowing up strategic sites during the Second Chimurenga war. Since then he has not held back. For example, the ruthlessness with which he executed the campaign in the second round of the 2008 presidential elections, and Gukurahundi, amongst several deployments, seems to have cemented his place in the King's court. Whereas, Mnangagwa needs Mugabe as part of his identity as a politician, to the president, "The Crocodile" is a vital cog in Mugabe's ruthless political machine.However, in as much as ruthless efficiency in the completion of difficult tasks has its rewards, failure can invite disastrous consequences. We have to remind ourselves that, though the decline of former Zanu politburo member Eddison Zvogbo's political fortunes can be linked to his rebelliousness, what actually triggered his fallout with the president was his failure to give Mugabe a constitution that gave the executive branch of the state limitless power. Mnangagwa is very much conscious of this.Irrational loyaltyThere is no doubt that the president is a man who is capable of inspiring and cultivating intense loyalty. It is one of his unlimited political talents. But surely, that is not enough to explain Mnangagwa's total and mostly blind loyalty to the president, even in the face of embarrassing moments as in the case with the First Lady telling the nation that the vice president is her junior who takes notes from her on how to run the government, or his allies slowly deserting him.This is because, in return for doing dirty work for the president, and for his loyalty, Mugabe has ensured that Mnangagwa is rewarded handsomely, and the prize has been proximity to power. It is no wonder that Mnangagwa has held a ministerial position since independence.Most of these positions have been critical; for example, defence, security, home affairs and justice, amongst many. The unwritten promise of the ultimate prize, the presidency, explains the vice president's outrageous loyalty.In other words, rather than sheer political talents as some might want us to believe, the vice president is very much aware that he owes his political career to Mugabe.Even if he wanted to abandon, and then challenge Mugabe, he is so lonely on Zimbabwe's political stage, and does not have the political tools to do it. Zimbabwe's history is littered with those who have attempted to challenge the president and have found themselves in political wilderness; Joyce Mujuru, Didymus Mutasa, Rugare Gumbo, Edgar Tekere and Simba Makoni.The vice president knows that he is no exception. His rise was engineered by Mugabe, so can his fall if the president so chooses. So, for all the talk of a powerful Mnangagwa, the "Crocodile" is only powerful to the extent that the president wants him to be.Mugabe's most potent tool against his student is his mind; so complex, but most importantly so inscrutable. No-one knows what the president is thinking, and what he is going to do next and how. This sends a chill even amongst the most hardened politicians such as Mnangagwa.Indeed, this explains in large part why the vice president is totally subjugated to Mugabe. Man is wolf to man, the vice president seems to be aware of this old saying. The two of them might be happy together; share an old joke here and there.But it's like sporting with a lion. You have to be on the watch all the time, and any move that could be misjudged can have disastrous consequences.In other words, those who think that at some point, Mnangagwa will wake up one day and release himself from the obedience of the president by launching his own ambitions, will be disappointed.Indeed, what better opportunity can present itself than when one has the strategic vice presidency position, and there is pervasive discontent within the party as a result of Mugabe's insistence on continued leadership, and then the president leaves a cashless economy that has the potential to collapse at any time?The only place that he wants to be as long as Mugabe still wants to be president, is by his side.Romance unravellingBut all things do come to an end. Mnangagwa and Mugabe have had a partnership that has worked since the 1980s. As long as they had nothing coming in between their political relationship, they kept on rising.But, that was until recently when the president decided to crash land his wife's political carer onto their boat. The dilemma is that the boat has got only room for two people, and one of them is going to have to make friends with the deep and cold waters of Zimbabwe's political terrain. It is not going to be the president. Neither is it going to be his wife.Indeed, the duo seem to have initiated an attack on Mnangagwa. With implicit approval, the president's wife has been at the fore front of bloodletting against the vice president. Not shy of controversy, this has included efforts aimed at undermining and embarrassing Mnangagwa. More potent has been Grace Mugabe's attempts to silence the vice president by expelling his most vocal ally, the Minister of War Veterans, Chris Mutsvangwa.President Mugabe has opted for coded attacks on his long-time political partner. What seems to have riled the president is Mnangagwa's appeasing attitude towards the Europe and the US.Early this year, Mnangagwa told the press that Zimbabwe "cannot do without the West", prompting Mugabe to subtly warm Mnangagwa when he told delegates at Zanu-PF's December conference that the ruling party was divided on the West's imposed sanctions a polite way of saying that I am not happy if this is meant as a direct challenge. In addition, Mugabe's anger at the security sector's involvement in politics is exclusively directed at the army general, Constantine Chiwenga, who allegedly, in return for the vice presidency, has been attempting to aid the ascendancy of Mnangagwa.But the truth of the matter is that Mnangagwa's political career is at the mercy of Mugabe.He wouldn't be vice president if Mugabe thought that he could be challenged by him.Mnangagwa understands that the longevity of their relationship besides loyalty and being Mugabe's fixer, also depends on a functioning state with resources.However, his attempts to fix the economy by stirring the nation towards the "Devil West" and criticising the indigenisation policy might be misjudged as a direct challenge. An anti-West stance and indigenisation policy are at the centre of Mugabe's political showmanship and rhetoric.The consequences of a backlash from the president would be far worse than those suffered by Maurice Nyagumbo, Zvobgo, Tekere or Mujuru. After all, they say, friends make the worst enemies.--------------Tinhu is a Zimbabwean political analyst based in London. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Investigators in the western state of Colorado believe two 16-year-old girls - at least one of them obsessed with the 1999 Columbine massacre - planned a copycat attack at their own school located just ten miles away. Prosecutors this week charged the second of the two teenagers, formally accusing her of plotting the assault on classmates and staff at Mountain Vista High School, located in a suburb of Denver. Brooke Higgins appeared in Douglas County District Court on Thursday, where she was charged with conspiracy to commit first degree murder. Her friend and alleged co-plotter, Sienna Johnson, was handed similar charges last week when she appeared in an adult court. Bail for both of them was set at $1m. Prosecutors say they have seized a journal kept by Sienna Johnson in which she had written poetry and macabre drawings (Twitter) Reuters reported that both girls attended the school in the Denver suburb of Highlands Ranch and were arrested in December after two anonymous tips to authorities. Prosecutor Mark Hurlbert said told the judge that Higgins was fascinated with the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, where two students shot dead a teacher and 12 students before killing themselves. He said that the teenager wrote in a journal that she wished she could have taken part in that massacre and took a photograph of herself outside Columbine High. She also searched online for how a juvenile could buy firearms and told a friend she would warn her to stay away from the school when the attack was about to take place, he said. Brooke Higgins appeared in an adult court this week (Family handout) Last week, prosecutors said a journal was seized from Sienna Johnson in which she had allegedly drawn a map of the school and recorded the movements of security officers. She had also allegedly taken steps to acquire firearms and had gone target shooting with a pellet gun. She had also written poetry and macabre drawings. I feel very stranded and alone, she wrote in one entry. On the same page she reportedly highlighted the words Theyre still after you. Dagny Van Der Jagt a lawyer for Brooke Higgins, issued a statement distancing her from the other school girl. She said: The girls were casual school acquaintances who had associated with each other for a brief time. She added: They have different backgrounds, personalities, motivations and behaviours. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} According to the Republicans, President Obama is a petulant child and Hillary Clinton belongs in the court house. Those were just two of the most pithy and extreme statements to be voiced by the seven male Republican candidates in the main Presidential debate on Thursday night. Americans are now half-way through the scheduled run of Republican debates, just 10 months before they decide who they want in the White House. The two-hour debate in Charleston, South Carolina covered many topics including stock markets, taxes, jobs, infrastructure and health care, but most of the primetime debate was focused on three issues - immigration, the war on ISIS and guns. Below are the seven most extreme statements of the evening. 1) Barack Obama does not believe that America is a great global power. Barack Obama believes that America is a arrogant global power that needs to be cut down to size. And thats how you get a foreign policy where we cut deals with our enemies like Iran and we betray our allies like Israel and we gut our military and we go around the world like he has done on 10 separate occasions and apologized for America. Florida Senator Mario Rubio lamented President Obamas so-called attempts to dismantle the army and pander to enemies of the US. He referred to the 10 US sailors who were detained overnight in Iran for sailing into foreign waters. And I give you my word, if I am elected president, no service man or service woman will be forced to be on their knees, and any nation that captures our fighting men will feel the full force and fury of the United States of America. 2) When Im president of the United States, we are going to win this war on ISIS. The most powerful intelligence agency in the world is going to tell us where we are, the most powerful military in the world is going to destroy them. And if we capture any of them alive, they are getting a one-way ticket to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and we are going to find out everything they know. Mr Rubio was also particularly vocal on how to defeat ISIS. His comments come the same evening that the number of inmates at the US military prison fall to below 100 for the first time in its history. Recommended Read more Donald Trump and Ted Cruz end truce in lively Republican debate 3) She wouldnt just be a disaster, Hillary Clinton is disqualified from being commander in chief of the United States. While Texan Senator Ted Cruz received little criticism for failing to disclose a $1 million bank loan to finance his campaign, Mr Rubio insisted that Democrat Hillary Clinton is not fit to run as President and be in charge of the FBI due to her misuse of her work email account. Jeb Bush added Ms Clinton is under investigation by the FBI. If she gets elected, her first 100 days, instead of setting an agenda, she might be going back and forth between the White House and the courthouse. 4) [] criminals dont buy their guns from a gun show. They dont buy their guns from a collector. And they dont buy their guns from a gun store. They get they steal them. They get them on the black market. Guns were a big focus of the night. Mr Rubio insisted that criminals dont buy their guns from a traditional outlet like a shop. The comments come as President Obama is attempting to tighten up security controls and background checks on those who legally buy guns. Businessman Donald Trump blamed Americas massive mental health problem for the high number of mass killings, while his colleagues insisted that the Democrats wanted to abolish the second amendment. 5) This guy is a petulant child. Thats what he is. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie did not share much of the airwaves but when given an opportunity to speak against President Obamas policy on guns he came down hard, arguing the President's gun policies were more like a dictatorship than a democracy. President Obama recently cried on air when he said he often thought of the primary school children that were shot dead at Sandy Hook. The American people have rejected your agenda and now youre trying to go around it. Thats not right. Its not constitutional. And we are going to kick your rear end out of the White House come this fall," said Mr Christie. 6) With grandiose language, the president talks about red lines and nothing to follow it up; talks about ISIS being the JV team, they form a caliphate the size of Indiana with 35 (thousand) to 40,000 battle-tested terrorists. Despite comments from the debate moderator that ISIS is not a traditional war - it is more like a global network that has sophisticated intelligence operations, former Florida governor Jeb Bush resorted to traditional battle language. Most Republicans declared themselves the next Commander in Chief. 7. No. Donald Trump responded to a question as to whether he wanted to rethink his position on calling for a temporary ban of all Muslims from the country. We have to find out whats going on. I said temporarily. I didnt say permanently. I said temporarily. And I have many great Muslim friends. And some of them, I will say, not all, have called me and said, Donald, thank you very much; youre exposing an unbelievable problem and we have to get to the bottom of it. But we have a serious problem. And we cant be the stupid country any more. Were laughed at all over the world, he added. You can read the full transcript of the debate in this document. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Republican presidential rivals Donald Trump and Ted Cruz ended their truce in last nights GOP debate, with the billionaire questioning whether the senator is even eligible to stand for election to become president. The controversial New Yorker and Texas senator traded attacks at the debate in North Charleston just two weeks before voters in Iowa pick their Republican and Democratic presidential choices in the first of the campaigns caucuses. Both men, who have been chasing the backing of the conservative Tea Party movement, had been on friendly terms prior to the debate. But no niceties were exchanged before the audience in South Carolina, with Trump even questioning his rivals constitutional claim to serve as president because he was born in Canada. According to the US constitution only natural born citizens can become president, with this widely interpreted as requiring a candidate to have been born in the US or to a US citizen parent. The 69-year-old frontrunner said: Who the hell knows if you can even serve in office? Theres a big question mark over your head. Donald Trump's most controversial quotes Show all 14 1 /14 Donald Trump's most controversial quotes Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Isis: "Some of the candidates, they went in and didnt know the air conditioner didnt work and sweated like dogs, and they didnt know the room was too big because they didnt have anybody there. How are they going to beat ISIS?" Getty Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On immigration: "I will build a great wall and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me and Ill build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words." Reuters Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Free Trade: "Free trade is terrible. Free trade can be wonderful if you have smart people. But we have stupid people." PAUL J. RICHARDS | AFP | Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Mexicans: "When Mexico sends its people, theyre not sending their best. Theyre sending people that have lots of problems. Theyre bringing drugs. Theyre bringing crime. Theyre rapists." Getty Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On China: "I just sold an apartment for $15 million to somebody from China. Am I supposed to dislike them?... I love China. The biggest bank in the world is from China. You know where their United States headquarters is located? In this building, in Trump Tower." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On work: "If you're interested in 'balancing' work and pleasure, stop trying to balance them. Instead make your work more pleasurable." AP Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On success: "What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate." Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On life: "Everything in life is luck." AFP Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On ambition: "You have to think anyway, so why not think big?" Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On his opponents: "Bush is totally in favour of Common Core. I don't see how he can possibly get the nomination. He's weak on immigration. He's in favour of Common Core. How the hell can you vote for this guy? You just can't do it." Reuters Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Obamacare: "You have to be hit by a tractor, literally, a tractor, to use it, because the deductibles are so high. It's virtually useless. And remember the $5 billion web site?... I have so many web sites, I have them all over the place. I hire people, they do a web site. It costs me $3." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Barack Obama: "Obama is going to be out playing golf. He might be on one of my courses. I would invite him. I have the best courses in the world. I have one right next to the White House." PA Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On himself: "Love him or hate him, Trump is a man who is certain about what he wants and sets out to get it, no holds barred. Women find his power almost as much of a turn-on as his money." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On America: "The American Dream is dead. But if I get elected president I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before and we will make America great again." GETTY Born in Calgary, Alberta, to a US citizen mother and a Cuban father, Cruz accused Trump of mentioning his birthplace simply because Cruz was leading some polls in Iowa. The 45-year-old said Trump who has also questioned whether Hawaiian-born President Barack Obama is really a US citizen had asked his lawyers to look into the issue of Cruzs birth in September and concluded there were no issues. Since September, the Constitution hasn't changed, but the poll numbers have, Cruz retaliated. And I recognise that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are dropping in Iowa, but the facts and the law here are really clear. Im not going to be taking legal advice from Donald Trump. The senator then questioned Trump on his apparent endorsement of New Yorks liberal values. He said: Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan Im just saying. Everyone understands that the values of New York City are socially liberal, are pro-abortion, are pro-gay marriage. Trump cited the 9/11 attacks in response and said that Cruzs claim had insulted him. The people in New York fought and fought and fought, and we saw more death, and even the smell of death... And it was with us for months, the smell, the air, he said. And we rebuilt Downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers. And I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made. Additional reporting by Reuters Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Alone in a hotel room in a small Vietnamese town, Jim Reischl waited restlessly. Recounting the story later, the Vietnam veteran said he had traveled 8,500 miles, with an arthritic knee, for this long-sought reunion. I am getting a bit excited, he said. Geez, I havent seen her in 45 years! Then came a knock on the door. On the other side stood the woman hed left behind when he shipped out of Saigon in July 1970. The young bar hostess whod told him she was pregnant. He hadnt believed her, but hed also never stopped thinking about her. Now she was about to walk back into his life. Reischl, 68, came to Vietnam as a 21-year-old Air Force sergeant and was stationed at Tan Son Nhut Air Base outside Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City. After his year-long tour, he went back to Minnesota, became a government cartographer, married twice, had a son and suffered Agent Orange-related health problems. But he never forgot his first lady. Around 2005, after his second marriage ended, Reischl set out to search for the woman he remembered only as Linh Hoa not her actual name. He began by scouring the Internet, eventually contacting Father Founded, a group that helps link soldiers and their Amerasian children through DNA testing and other means. The secret army still fighting Vietnam war Show all 4 1 /4 The secret army still fighting Vietnam war The secret army still fighting Vietnam war 322802.bin KC Ortiz The secret army still fighting Vietnam war 322804.bin KC Ortiz The secret army still fighting Vietnam war 322803.bin KC Ortiz The secret army still fighting Vietnam war 322801.bin KC Ortiz An estimated 100,000 children were born to U.S. servicemen and Vietnamese women during the Vietnam War, most of whom eventually immigrated to the United States. Many were adopted by American families. Since 2012, with the help of Father Founded volunteers, Reischl has traveled to Vietnam five times, speaking to journalists and placing ads in local newspapers. The most recent read: I am in search of you. It has been many years. I am not looking for a relationship. I want you to know that. I just would like to talk with the wonderful lady I knew in 1969 and 1970. Last spring, in a trip chronicled by The Washington Post as part of a project about Amerasian children left in Vietnam, Reischl went back to visit the $5-a-month apartment where the couple had spent lazy days making love, watching a black-and-white TV and listening to Beatles and Blind Faith records. He still remembers the day she told him she was pregnant. These photos of Reischl and Hanh were taken in the fall of 1969. Reischl was sent home the next summer, and although he told Hanh of his departure, apparently she did not understand and thought he had simply disappeared. He has kept the photos for 45 years (Quinn Ryan Mattingly/For The Washington Post) She wanted me to stay with her and live in Vietnam. At the time I said, Im not going to live here, stay here. It was totally foreign to me, Reischl said. I was young and stupid, I guess. Reischl showed neighbors a photo of the young woman he had snapped from a taxi the last day he saw her. She was standing on the balcony watching him ride away. Nobody remembered her, but Reischl said he vowed, I will never officially stop looking. In September, a 64-year-old woman sitting by her bedridden husband in the village of My Luong in Vietnams Mekong Delta picked up her iPad and clicked on a news site. She idly opened a locally written article about kids abandoned during the war. Scrolling down, she was shocked to see a photo of her younger self, in the arms of a khaki-clad soldier Reischl. The moment I saw it, I knew, the woman, Nguyen Thi Hanh, recalled. Suddenly the memories of the first love re-emerged. Also flooding back were thoughts of their daughter. For there had been a child after all. The reunion between Hanh and Reischl after 45 years was emotional, but the pair quickly settled into an amicable and cheerful rhythm. (Quinn Ryan Mattingly/For The Washington Post) After Reischl shipped out, a devastated Hanh left Saigon to take refuge in the countryside. On Dec. 18, 1970, she gave to birth to a baby girl with large eyes and pale skin whom she called Nguyen Thanh Nguyen Thuy. Her given name meant First Tear, Hanh said, because I was alone and didnt have any family with me at the time. Hanh, then just 19, let a friend take the child to an orphanage, thinking she would still be able to visit her. But the friend disappeared, and when Hanh went to the orphanage, the nuns told her they had no record of her case. Hanh joined the South Vietnamese Army and, after the fall of Saigon in April 1975, spent two years in a Communist reeducation camp. There, she met her husband, now 74 and incapacitated from a stroke. The couple has two grown children. Over the years, she said, she never stopped looking for her child and never forgave Reischl for deserting her. I was still angry with him, she said. After she saw the news article, Hanh emailed the reporter, who helped her link up with Reischl back in St. Cloud, Minn. Texting, phone calls and Skype chats followed. Their improbable reunion happened this past weekend in Hanhs home town. Nice to meet you . . . again, Reischl said when he opened the door and saw the petite Hanh, her hair still parted on the same side as he remembered it. He held out his arms. Hanh burst into tears. She became emotional again when the two sat down for an interview. The white-haired Air Force veteran put his arm on her chair as if to comfort her close, but not too close. The two are now determined to find the child they lost. Reischl brought a DNA kit so they could submit a sample from Hanh to a database for Amerasians seeking relatives on a family heritage website. Without this effort, they say, their reunion will not be complete. It's a lie to say I'm completely calm and carefree about this event, Hanh said later. I have mixed feelings about it. Im quite happy with my current life otherwise. My only unfulfilled dream is to be able to find my first daughter. Nga Ly Hien Nguyen in My Luong, Vietnam, contributed to this report. Copyright: Washington Post For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Authorities in an Indian state have been accused of excluding poor candidates from running for office by making a functional toilet compulsory in their homes. Anger over changes to electoral regulations in Haryana, where an estimated 40 per cent of homes do not have lavatories, provoked an appeal to Indias Supreme Court that delayed the polls. But judges upheld the controversial Haryana Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act last month, which also banned anyone with previous criminal charges against them, with overdue loan payments or electricity bills or without a set level of educational qualifications from standing in elections. The law stipulates that candidates must also submit a self declaration to the effect that he has a functional toilet at his place of residence. Opponents argued that the requirements excluded an unacceptable proportion of prospective politicians in the panchayat (village administration) elections. Women voters in a line outside a polling station at Dabua village on the outskirts of Faridabad, Haryana (AFP/Getty Images) Required educational attainment is set at matriculation for men but at Class 8 for women and anyone in scheduled castes. The Haryana state government defended the law by saying it would improve the quality of village administration, literacy and sanitation awareness. The verdict justifies our stand that villages need educated representatives. This will strengthen democracy at the Panchayat level, a Haryana government spokesperson told NDTV. But the All India Democratic Womens Association (Aidwa) called it a blatant constitutional violation. This will have long term implications for the fundamental rights of all the socially and economically marginalised sections including Dalits and women, a spokesperson said. In pictures: World Toilet Day Show all 20 1 /20 In pictures: World Toilet Day In pictures: World Toilet Day Bangladesh Rubina, 38, has lived in Mollar Bosti slum in Dhaka for 3 years. She moved from the countryside when her husband got a job in Dhaka. The toilet she uses is known as a shared hanging toilet and is situated 20 metres from her house. She says that once, in middle of the night, she went to the toilet and someone knocked the toilet door so hard she thought they were going to break the door down. She got very scared and since then, she has been too scared to use the toilet after 9pm In pictures: World Toilet Day Haiti Martine is 27 years old. She lives near a river in Cayimithe. "I don't have an enclosed toilet. My toilet is a hole in the ground by my house, which is now full and has become really dangerous. I only use it at night when I can have some privacy. In the day time, I use a community toilet which is about 15 minutes away from my house" In pictures: World Toilet Day Belgium Rosalie, 9, goes to school in Brussels. "At my school we have separate toilets for girls and boys on every floor. My classroom is on the 3rd floor. We have 22 toilets, which are shared between 230 pupils and 20 adults. The teachers at school let us go to the toilet whenever we need to" In pictures: World Toilet Day India Saritadevi lives in Ittava village in Uttar Pradesh. She has no access to a toilet in her house and so uses a local field. She suffers from a lack of dignity and privacy when she visits the toilet. She says she is humiliated by men, enduring people throwing stones at her, shouting abuse, making vulgar gestures, and playing offensive songs In pictures: World Toilet Day Australia Renee is an artist who left her former home in the densely populated suburbs of Sydney to live a quieter life in bush surrounds, a one-hour drive north of the city. She has built a shed on ten acres of land and has included an outside toilet and bathroom. Ironically, Renee is able to enjoy total privacy out in the open as she is surrounded by wild bush and forest, far from other houses In pictures: World Toilet Day Ghana Ima, 47, is a public toilet attendant in Kumasi, Ghanas second largest city. She lives in a rented room with her husband and four children aged 14-22. She is a very dedicated worker and relies on the income from her job to fund her children's education. She does not have a toilet at home. During the day, she uses the public toilet where she works, but at night she is forced to use plastic bags as it is not safe to walk long distances in the dark In pictures: World Toilet Day UK June is the Allotment Secretary at Gordon Road Allotments in Finchley, North London. "We used to have a portable toilet, which had to be emptied every so often. It was very smelly and not very nice. Now we have a waterless compost loo, which enables women to stay down at the allotment all day if they wish. It also makes a big difference when we have Open Days. This year, for the first time, we were in the National Gardens Scheme book and had an open day with 170 visitors. We wouldnt have been allowed to host this event without the compost loo" In pictures: World Toilet Day Thailand Sineha, 71, uses a public toilet which is inside the temple she visits. "They are convenient and cleaned daily by the maid. It is a safe place because we have security guards here 24 hours a day and separate toilets for men and women" In pictures: World Toilet Day Mozambique Assucena, 14, is a Grade 8 student who loves to study and play football. She lives with her mother, grandmother, sister and two cousins. Her grandmother sells beer to provide for her extended family. Assucena shares a toilet with more than 30 other people from different families. "When it rains, the toilet floods. It really smells bad" In pictures: World Toilet Day Ecuador Fabiola, 69, lives in Cumbaya, a valley near Quito. Between the ages of seven and 21, she shared a toilet with 20 other people, who lived in her condominium. Now she lives in a large apartment, which has five bathrooms. Her bathroom is the biggest one and she is very proud of it as her current situation contrasts vividly with her childhood In pictures: World Toilet Day Brazil Lorena, 16, is a student. She has just moved into one of Rio de Janeiro's favelas. "I dont have a toilet but I am working hard to try and build one. In the meantime, I have to use my mother's. We only get water on Thursdays and Sundays, when the taps are opened. One day I would like to have a bathroom with running water. I am very vain, I like to have my hair and nails done and use perfume. Some people around here have been in poor health, partly due to the poor sanitation situation in the area" In pictures: World Toilet Day USA Mary is a writer who lives in New York City. "Living with two housemates, it is important to schedule our bathroom time and take turns cleaning it. I used to live in Beijing, where I had to use a public bathroom as my apartment didn't have a private toilet. While it was safe and relatively clean, I used to hate putting my coat on just to go to bathroom in the middle of night during winter. That experience made me really appreciate the privacy and comfort of having a clean toilet at home" In pictures: World Toilet Day Ethiopia Meseret, a restaurant manager in Addis Ababa, shares a one bedroom government house with her two children, two sisters and mother. She was widowed nine years ago when her husband was shot during the aftermath of the 2005 elections. Her shared toilet is a long way away so at night, for safety, the family use the side yard next to their house In pictures: World Toilet Day Japan Eiko, 61, lives in Tokyo. "Since this department store is close to my home, I often come here for shopping. When I was a child, the public toilets were not clean and smelled bad, but every time I use the bathroom here, I feel so relaxed. I could spend many hours here!" The department stores toilet, called the "switch room", is a special place where people can switch their mood and feel relaxed. The toilets are an extreme example of good sanitation and have features like surround sound music and heated seats. In the powder room next to the toilets, Eiko can charge her mobile phone, watch TV and have a foot massage, turning a basic daily function that we all have to do into a pleasurable and multisensory experience In pictures: World Toilet Day South Africa Nombini has two Porta Potties, which are used by the 12 people who live in her home. When she first moved to Khayelitsha in 2005, she did not have a toilet so she had to go in the bush, across a main road. "It was terrible in the bush, the cars hit you. When we were given a Porta Potty in 2009, it was much better than going in the bush. Flush toilets are first class compared to the Porta Potty though. My dream is to have a flush toilet" In pictures: World Toilet Day Zambia Susan, 46, is the founder of a community school for children with physical and mental disabilities. "It makes me proud and happy to teach disabled children so that in the future they can have a better life and not just stay at home. I was attacked by Polio at the age of two. Its not easy being disabled in Lusaka. Using the toilet is a challenge, especially in the rainy season, as I have to crawl to the toilets on my hands" In pictures: World Toilet Day Kenya Eunice is the Co-Founder of Kasarani Academy in Naivasha. Previously, the school only had two toilets which were used by 250 pupils. Tenants living nearby used the toilets as well and left them in a poor condition. Because of this, Eunice found that the children preferred to practice open defecation in the grounds around the school, which quickly became a public health issue. Eunice and her husband Paul have now invested in child-friendly toilets. These tiny toilets have prevented adults using them as they cannot fit through the doors. "Parents will enrol their children here because of our child friendly toilets" In pictures: World Toilet Day Romania Ghita, 48, from Buzescu village, says she is the proud owner of one of the biggest bathrooms in the village. It is 20 square meters. 35% of the population of Buzescu village are Romas who are prosperous and proud to show it off. However, there is no running water or sewerage in the village so toilets are on-site In pictures: World Toilet Day Madagascar Vanessa, 17, is a student who lives in Antananarivo. She says she worries when she is on her period at school. "At home, I have a shower outside my house and I can keep clean but when Im at school, I feel embarrassed during my periods as there is no space to change or wash. I worry that my sanitary napkin will leak if I keep it on for too long while Im waiting to come back home to change it" In pictures: World Toilet Day Cambodia Ms Moeun Sothy is a secondary school student, who lives with her grandmother and her aunty. At home she is responsible for collecting water for the household from the local water source. At her school she is on the childrens rota for cleaning the school toilets once a week. She believes that handwashing with soap is really important, especially after using the toilet Aidwa strongly opposes the attempts of the Haryana Government to disenfranchise a huge section of the population from contesting the ensuing panchayat elections in the state. It is clear that these conditions will target people suffering from socio-economic deprivation from contesting elections. According to the 2011 census, 69 per cent of households in Haryana state have toilets and 30 per cent of people are forced to defecate in the open, the Times of India reported, despite continuing efforts by the local government to improve sanitation. According to its own analysis, Aidwa said the new law would exclude 83 per cent of Scheduled Caste women, 72 per cent of other women, 71 per cent of Scheduled Caste Men and more than half of other men from elections. The court appeal delayed the Panchayat elections due for October in Haryana by three months and the first phase of polls were conducted on Sunday. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} It is barely midday but Swapnil Sankhe is already onto his fifth glass of wine. From behind the bar in a concrete-walled room dotted with low-hanging lights, the effusive sommelier gives the go-ahead and Mr Sankhe swills around a large goblet of red, pokes his nose in and takes a sip. Im getting a mix of fruit plus some wood flavour, Mr Sankhe says of an open barrel 2013 Shiraz. The self-confessed wine novice, inspired to learn more by a recent trip to Europe, is among millions of increasingly affluent Indians developing a taste for the tipple who are fuelling a boom in the domestic wine industry. In the tasting room at the Sula Vineyards, home of Indias leading wine-maker in the southern grape-growing region of Nashik, the crowd is curious, well-off and worldly. We want her to become a global citizen, we want her to try everything, says Mr Sankhe pointing to his 10-year-old daughter Gargi, who is brimming with excitement at having been allowed to sample a fruity Riesling and a crisp Brut Rose. Sales of wine in India shot up by 75 per cent between 2009 and 2014 to 24 million litres, according to figures compiled by research group Euromonitor International. The industry, valued at almost 200 million, is projected to continue grow at a healthy 15 per cent each year. Driving the growth are increasing numbers of urban young professionals, especially women, with disposable incomes and an expanding choice of watering holes springing up across Indias major cities of Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. Millions of upwardly-mobile young people are now forming their drinking habits with wine in the mix, unlike a decade ago when their only real choice was between local beer and cheap, low-quality spirits. The ten best wine glasses Show all 10 1 /10 The ten best wine glasses The ten best wine glasses 564281.bin The ten best wine glasses 564282.bin The ten best wine glasses 564283.bin The ten best wine glasses 564284.bin The ten best wine glasses 564285.bin The ten best wine glasses 564286.bin The ten best wine glasses 564287.bin The ten best wine glasses 564288.bin The ten best wine glasses 564289.bin The ten best wine glasses 564290.bin Of the 1.2 billion majority-Hindu population, most are not prohibited by their religion from drinking alcohol, although cultural taboos persist, especially amongst the older generation and outside metropolitan areas. A handful of states ban alcohol entirely and there are regular dry days coinciding with public holidays across the country. Bottles of basic Indian-made red or white wine now sell for as little as 150 Rupees (around 1.50), depending on the state, although most people buy varieties for between 300 and 500 Rupees (3-5). Despite taxes hugely inflating the cost of drinking in bars or restaurants, Indians are generally embracing wine as a sophisticated treat, to be enjoyed occasionally in the right setting. Producers are working on developing wines to match different Indian dishes, to encourage the habit of drinking with a meal. Complex wine does not work with complex food, we have to design wine that suits the Indian pallet, says Jagdish Holkar from the All India Wine Producer Association. Indian wine for Indian people may be the trend at the moment - exports still constitute only a fraction of total production and sky-high duty on imported wines mean they are out of reach for all but the wealthiest citizens. But things are changing in this respect too - Sula wines, for example, can now be found in Marks & Spencer shops in the UK. The Wine Society of India, which offers an education on foreign wines through masterclasses and tastings, says in the last two years, it has seen a 50 per cent increase in active members, to 10,000 enthusiasts. However, there is certainly some snobbery towards the quality of Indian wine among elites, who consider expensive Old World wines to be premium products. The audience we speak to want to be different and unique. If we talk about Indian wine, they would be indistinguishable from the crowd, says Priya Gandhi, the Wine Societys commercial director. Rajeev Samant, Chief Executive of Sula Vineyards says his company, with its logo of a moustachioed sun, has never shied away from promoting its origins, with the aim of making wine more accessible to an unfamiliar audience. Vodka has gone out. Wine is in, says Aniket Gulabi, 28, a trendy IT worker who has joined his friends on a road trip to the vineyards in Nashik, around 100 miles north-east of Mumbai. Tours of their expansive Nashik site, with a step-by-step guide to the wine-making process, cost an affordable 350 Rupees a person and are a key means of raising awareness, attracting more than 200,000 visitors last year. The numbers are so huge [in India]If even one per cent of the population become regular wine drinkers, we wont be able to keep up, says Mr Samant. Sitting on a balcony with sweeping views across neat rows of grape-vines, Ankita Bajpai, a 25-year-old banker from the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, has just tried wine for the first time. Its awesome - very fruity, she says. Spending the day at the vineyard as part of a long-weekend visiting friends in the South, she doesnt believe she has adopted foreign habits. The inspiration is from Western countries but the experience is Indian, she says. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A 70-year-old hermit has been airlifted to hospital after spending her entire life in the Siberian wilderness. Agafia Lykova, who is the last remaining member of a deeply religious family which fled persecution in 1936, was evacuated from her homestead near the Abakan river to a hospital in Tashtagol after suffering a pain in her legs. After she phoned the "mainland" with an emergency telephone to ask for medical help, the Keremovo regional governor Aman Tuleyev ordered her evacuation by helicopter, according to the Kemerovo region website. The Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper reported her leg pain was related to cartilage deterioration. Ms Lykova and her family belonged to the Old Believer sect which split off from the Russian Orthodox church 350 years ago. Her father, Karp, fled with his wife and two children after a Soviet patrol shot his brother. They settled more than 150 miles from the nearest village and by the time they were discovered by Soviet geologists in 1978 did not know Stalin was dead and had no idea of the second world war. For decades, the family survived on their homestead, where temperatures fell as low as -40C, their only reading material prayer books and an ancient family Bible. Doctors say they have now "removed the acute pain" in her legs and plan to keep Ms Lykova in hospital over the next week. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A three-way legal battle is raging over tens of thousands of pages of unpublished scribbling left behind by the acclaimed French mathematician Alexander Grothendieck when he died 14 months ago. Grothendieck, regarded by some as the greatest mathematician of the 20th century, was a recluse for the last two decades of his life. His unpublished writing scribbling was his own word has long been the subject of speculation and argument. Does it open new mathematical vistas, like his celebrated work in algebraic geometry, for which he won the mathematical Oscar, the Fields Medal, in 1966? Grothendiecks discoveries in the 1960s on the profound relationship between spaces and numbers are still vital to modern genetics, robotics and cryptography. Recommended Read more A mathematical formula reveals the secret to lasting relationships Or do his notebooks, covering an estimated 50,000 densely packed pages, mostly concern his support for pacifist and ecological causes and his obsession in old age with satanic influences? A former pupil who saw some of the unpublished work reported that there were pages and pages on the individual stories of the 76,000 French Holocaust victims (including Grothendiecks own father). The mathematicians death in November 2014 raised hopes that the notebooks would be published or made available to experts and scholars. They have, however, become the subject of a three-way legal battle between the mathematicians children, the French national library and the University of Montpellier. Grothendiecks five children are disputing what they say is the paltry valuation of 45,000 placed on at least 30,000 pages of the documents by the Bibliotheque Nationale de France. They are also disputing the claim of the University of Montpellier to own another 20,000 pages given to Grothendiecks alma mater by a former pupil in 2012. The case has been placed in the hands of one of Frances leading property and probate lawyers, Corinne Hershkovitch. A trial is likely later this year. Meanwhile, Grothendiecks children have provided five large metal trunks full of other documents to Jean-Pierre Gillot, a leading Parisian trader in rare manuscripts. They have asked him to establish a fair and reasonable market price for their fathers work. Wealthy American universities are circling with interest and open cheque books. There are thought to be at least 30,000 handwritten pages in the metal trunks. Those which do include mathematical work can take up to 10 hours a page for an expert to decipher. Grothendieck, born in Germany and for a long time stateless, was naturalised French in 1971. He abandoned academic life in 1991 to become a subsistence farmer and militant pacifist and ecologist. He has in recent years become an iconic figure to the radical green movement. His unpublished autobiography Recoltes et Semailles (Harvests and sowings), running to thousands of pages, has been posted on the internet. Grothendieck was awarded two of worlds most prestigious mathematics prizes the Fields Medal in 1966 and the Crafoord Prize in 1988. He refused the second because, he said, science would be overturned by a total destruction of civilisation without historical precedent. Three years later, Grothendieck already something of a recluse moved to Lasserre, a small village in the Pyrenees, and refused to see visitors, including his family. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} An Austrian travel firm which allegedly offered hunting trips culminating in sex with prostitutes has been forced to remove its website, according to reports. Premium-Hunting.com is said to have posted adverts for its so-called Romantic Weekend Hunting package, which offered hunting sessions ending in a cosy night with a lovely companion. Details of the offer were exposed by the Austrian animal rights group Association Against Animal Factories (VGT), which strongly criticised the hunting trips. Since VGTs made its allegations public, the Premium-Hunting.com website appears to have been taken down. Nobody from the company was available to speak about the allegations. A representative for VGT told The Independent that its prostitute claims had been reported correctly in the media adding that the activist groups staff had taken screenshots of the offer before the Premium-Hunting.com website vanished. Text purportedly from the website reads: After an exciting day's hunting what could be better than a cosy night for two, or even three, in a remote mountain cabin. Everything is possible. The hunters return will be welcomed back by a lovely companion, and of course absolute discretion and confidentiality are guaranteed. VGT boss Martin Balluch called for the trips to be banned, adding: It is hunting with prostitutes. It seems that with money anything is possible. He also demanded hunting be made illegal in general, according to MailOnline. Hunting is a popular pastime in Austria where organised hunting tours compete with one another to outdo the competition. Wild pigs and deer are amongst the most common animals killed on the trips. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Prosecutors have opened an investigation into how a volunteer trialling an experimental painkiller was left brain-dead and five more in hospital in France. All six patients were volunteers in a clinical trial being undertaken by research company Biotrial for the reported drug manufacturers, Bial. A spokesperson for Biotrial said it was being conducted in full compliance with international regulations and its own procedures, which includes health monitoring. We are in close and regular contact with the health ministry and authorities in France, the company said in a statement. The priority at Biotrial remains the safety of our subjects. We are very grateful for the support we have been receiving from our clients and partners today. The French health ministry announced what it called a serious accident on Friday, saying the trial had been suspended and all volunteers recalled. A statement released today did not confirm the name of the drug being tested but French media reports claimed it was a new cannabinoid-based painkiller. Marisol Touraine, the French health minister, later said that the pill did not contain cannabis or its derivatives but acted on the body's endocannabinoid system. Taken orally, the drug was undergoing a Phase 1 clinical trial at a licensed private European laboratory that specialises in clinical trials, a spokesperson said. The trial aimed to evaluate the safety, tolerance and pharmaceutical properties of the molecule in healthy volunteers. The person since declared brain-dead was admitted to Rennes University Hospital on Monday but the first patient in the case had entered the previous day. Other patients went in on Wednesday and Thursday, while the sixth was taken in this morning as a precaution. Two others were involved in the trial but had taken a placebo,Ouest France reported. Marisol Touraine, the French health minister, was in Rennes this afternoon to meet the patients families and hold a press conference with the CEO of Biotrial, Jean-Marc Gandon, after ordering an investigation. Health news in pictures Show all 40 1 /40 Health news in pictures Health news in pictures Coronavirus outbreak The coronavirus Covid-19 has hit the UK leading to the deaths of two people so far and prompting warnings from the Department of Health AFP via Getty Health news in pictures Thousands of emergency patients told to take taxi to hospital Thousands of 999 patients in England are being told to get a taxi to hospital, figures have showed. The number of patients outside London who were refused an ambulance rose by 83 per cent in the past year as demand for services grows Getty Health news in pictures Vape related deaths spike A vaping-related lung disease has claimed the lives of 11 people in the US in recent weeks. The US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has more than 100 officials investigating the cause of the mystery illness, and has warned citizens against smoking e-cigarette products until more is known, particularly if modified or bought off the street Getty Health news in pictures Baldness cure looks to be a step closer Researchers in the US claim to have overcome one of the major hurdles to cultivating human follicles from stem cells. The new system allows cells to grow in a structured tuft and emerge from the skin Sanford Burnham Preybs Health news in pictures Two hours a week spent in nature can improve health A study in the journal Scientific Reports suggests that a dose of nature of just two hours a week is associated with better health and psychological wellbeing Shutterstock Health news in pictures Air pollution linked to fertility issues in women Exposure to air from traffic-clogged streets could leave women with fewer years to have children, a study has found. Italian researchers found women living in the most polluted areas were three times more likely to show signs they were running low on eggs than those who lived in cleaner surroundings, potentially triggering an earlier menopause Getty/iStock Health news in pictures Junk food ads could be banned before watershed Junk food adverts on TV and online could be banned before 9pm as part of Government plans to fight the "epidemic" of childhood obesity. Plans for the new watershed have been put out for public consultation in a bid to combat the growing crisis, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said PA Health news in pictures Breeding with neanderthals helped humans fight diseases On migrating from Africa around 70,000 years ago, humans bumped into the neanderthals of Eurasia. While humans were weak to the diseases of the new lands, breeding with the resident neanderthals made for a better equipped immune system PA Health news in pictures Cancer breath test to be trialled in Britain The breath biopsy device is designed to detect cancer hallmarks in molecules exhaled by patients Getty Health news in pictures Average 10 year old has consumed the recommended amount of sugar for an adult By their 10th birthdy, children have on average already eaten more sugar than the recommended amount for an 18 year old. The average 10 year old consumes the equivalent to 13 sugar cubes a day, 8 more than is recommended PA Health news in pictures Child health experts advise switching off screens an hour before bed While there is not enough evidence of harm to recommend UK-wide limits on screen use, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health have advised that children should avoid screens for an hour before bed time to avoid disrupting their sleep Getty Health news in pictures Daily aspirin is unnecessary for older people in good health, study finds A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine has found that many elderly people are taking daily aspirin to little or no avail Getty Health news in pictures Vaping could lead to cancer, US study finds A study by the University of Minnesota's Masonic Cancer Centre has found that the carcinogenic chemicals formaldehyde, acrolein, and methylglyoxal are present in the saliva of E-cigarette users Reuters Health news in pictures More children are obese and diabetic There has been a 41% increase in children with type 2 diabetes since 2014, the National Paediatric Diabetes Audit has found. Obesity is a leading cause Reuters Health news in pictures Most child antidepressants are ineffective and can lead to suicidal thoughts The majority of antidepressants are ineffective and may be unsafe, for children and teenager with major depression, experts have warned. In what is the most comprehensive comparison of 14 commonly prescribed antidepressant drugs to date, researchers found that only one brand was more effective at relieving symptoms of depression than a placebo. Another popular drug, venlafaxine, was shown increase the risk users engaging in suicidal thoughts and attempts at suicide Getty Health news in pictures Gay, lesbian and bisexual adults at higher risk of heart disease, study claims Researchers at the Baptist Health South Florida Clinic in Miami focused on seven areas of controllable heart health and found these minority groups were particularly likely to be smokers and to have poorly controlled blood sugar iStock Health news in pictures Breakfast cereals targeted at children contain 'steadily high' sugar levels since 1992 despite producer claims A major pressure group has issued a fresh warning about perilously high amounts of sugar in breakfast cereals, specifically those designed for children, and has said that levels have barely been cut at all in the last two and a half decades Getty Health news in pictures Potholes are making us fat, NHS watchdog warns New guidance by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the body which determines what treatment the NHS should fund, said lax road repairs and car-dominated streets were contributing to the obesity epidemic by preventing members of the public from keeping active PA Health news in pictures New menopause drugs offer women relief from 'debilitating' hot flushes A new class of treatments for women going through the menopause is able to reduce numbers of debilitating hot flushes by as much as three quarters in a matter of days, a trial has found. The drug used in the trial belongs to a group known as NKB antagonists (blockers), which were developed as a treatment for schizophrenia but have been sitting on a shelf unused, according to Professor Waljit Dhillo, a professor of endocrinology and metabolism REX Health news in pictures Doctors should prescribe more antidepressants for people with mental health problems, study finds Research from Oxford University found that more than one million extra people suffering from mental health problems would benefit from being prescribed drugs and criticised ideological reasons doctors use to avoid doing so. Getty Health news in pictures Student dies of flu after NHS advice to stay at home and avoid A&E The family of a teenager who died from flu has urged people not to delay going to A&E if they are worried about their symptoms. Melissa Whiteley, an 18-year-old engineering student from Hanford in Stoke-on-Trent, fell ill at Christmas and died in hospital a month later. Just Giving Health news in pictures Government to review thousands of harmful vaginal mesh implants The Government has pledged to review tens of thousands of cases where women have been given harmful vaginal mesh implants. Getty Health news in pictures Jeremy Hunt announces 'zero suicides ambition' for the NHS The NHS will be asked to go further to prevent the deaths of patients in its care as part of a zero suicide ambition being launched today Getty Health news in pictures Human trials start with cancer treatment that primes immune system to kill off tumours Human trials have begun with a new cancer therapy that can prime the immune system to eradicate tumours. The treatment, that works similarly to a vaccine, is a combination of two existing drugs, of which tiny amounts are injected into the solid bulk of a tumour. Nephron Health news in pictures Babies' health suffers from being born near fracking sites, finds major study Mothers living within a kilometre of a fracking site were 25 per cent more likely to have a child born at low birth weight, which increase their chances of asthma, ADHD and other issues Getty Health news in pictures NHS reviewing thousands of cervical cancer smear tests after women wrongly given all-clear Thousands of cervical cancer screening results are under review after failings at a laboratory meant some women were incorrectly given the all-clear. A number of women have already been told to contact their doctors following the identification of procedural issues in the service provided by Pathology First Laboratory. Rex Health news in pictures Potential key to halting breast cancer's spread discovered by scientists Most breast cancer patients do not die from their initial tumour, but from secondary malignant growths (metastases), where cancer cells are able to enter the blood and survive to invade new sites. Asparagine, a molecule named after asparagus where it was first identified in high quantities, has now been shown to be an essential ingredient for tumour cells to gain these migratory properties. Getty Health news in pictures NHS nursing vacancies at record high with more than 34,000 roles advertised A record number of nursing and midwifery positions are currently being advertised by the NHS, with more than 34,000 positions currently vacant, according to the latest data. Demand for nurses was 19 per cent higher between July and September 2017 than the same period two years ago. REX Health news in pictures Cannabis extract could provide new class of treatment for psychosis CBD has a broadly opposite effect to delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main active component in cannabis and the substance that causes paranoia and anxiety. Getty Health news in pictures Over 75,000 sign petition calling for Richard Branson's Virgin Care to hand settlement money back to NHS Mr Bransons company sued the NHS last year after it lost out on an 82m contract to provide childrens health services across Surrey, citing concerns over serious flaws in the way the contract was awarded PA Health news in pictures More than 700 fewer nurses training in England in first year after NHS bursary scrapped The numbers of people accepted to study nursing in England fell 3 per cent in 2017, while the numbers accepted in Wales and Scotland, where the bursaries were kept, increased 8.4 per cent and 8 per cent respectively Getty Health news in pictures Landmark study links Tory austerity to 120,000 deaths The paper found that there were 45,000 more deaths in the first four years of Tory-led efficiencies than would have been expected if funding had stayed at pre-election levels. On this trajectory that could rise to nearly 200,000 excess deaths by the end of 2020, even with the extra funding that has been earmarked for public sector services this year. Reuters Health news in pictures Long commutes carry health risks Hours of commuting may be mind-numbingly dull, but new research shows that it might also be having an adverse effect on both your health and performance at work. Longer commutes also appear to have a significant impact on mental wellbeing, with those commuting longer 33 per cent more likely to suffer from depression Shutterstock Health news in pictures You cannot be fit and fat It is not possible to be overweight and healthy, a major new study has concluded. The study of 3.5 million Britons found that even metabolically healthy obese people are still at a higher risk of heart disease or a stroke than those with a normal weight range Getty Health news in pictures Sleep deprivation When you feel particularly exhausted, it can definitely feel like you are also lacking in brain capacity. Now, a new study has suggested this could be because chronic sleep deprivation can actually cause the brain to eat itself Shutterstock Health news in pictures Exercise classes offering 45 minute naps launch David Lloyd Gyms have launched a new health and fitness class which is essentially a bunch of people taking a nap for 45 minutes. The fitness group was spurred to launch the napercise class after research revealed 86 per cent of parents said they were fatigued. The class is therefore predominantly aimed at parents but you actually do not have to have children to take part Getty Health news in pictures 'Fundamental right to health' to be axed after Brexit, lawyers warn Tobacco and alcohol companies could win more easily in court cases such as the recent battle over plain cigarette packaging if the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is abandoned, a barrister and public health professor have said Getty Health news in pictures 'Thousands dying' due to fear over non-existent statin side-effects A major new study into the side effects of the cholesterol-lowering medicine suggests common symptoms such as muscle pain and weakness are not caused by the drugs themselves Getty Health news in pictures Babies born to fathers aged under 25 have higher risk of autism New research has found that babies born to fathers under the age of 25 or over 51 are at higher risk of developing autism and other social disorders. The study, conducted by the Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment at Mount Sinai, found that these children are actually more advanced than their peers as infants, but then fall behind by the time they hit their teenage years Getty Health news in pictures Cycling to work could halve risk of cancer and heart disease Commuters who swap their car or bus pass for a bike could cut their risk of developing heart disease and cancer by almost half, new research suggests but campaigners have warned there is still an urgent need to improve road conditions for cyclists. Cycling to work is linked to a lower risk of developing cancer by 45 per cent and cardiovascular disease by 46 per cent, according to a study of a quarter of a million people. Walking to work also brought health benefits, the University of Glasgow researchers found, but not to the same degree as cycling. Getty Biotrial, with headquarters in Rennes and offices in London and Newark, New Jersey, says on its website it has over 25 years of experience in clinical trials and uses state-of-the-art facilities. In France, adults volunteering for Biotrial tests can earn between 100 and 4,500 (76 to 3,400). Frances medicines agency (ANSM) has launched an investigation into the laboratory. A spokesperson for the European Medicines Agency in London said it did not have full details of the case but that it was monitoring the situation. The last drug trial disaster in Europe occurred in 2006, when six healthy volunteers given an experimental drug in London ended up in intensive care. One of them was described as looking like the elephant man after his head swelled up, while another volunteer lost his fingertips and toes. Additional reporting by agencies Opinion / Columnist "If the poverty and degeneration around us is not an indicator of complete failure for ZANU (PF), then what is? If 90% unemployment, widespread poverty and lack of food security for many is success, then I cannot imagine what failure is," wrote Vince Musewe."In my opinion, no amount of reframing the problems we face or leadership change within ZANU (PF) will change these facts. What the country needs is a new government, a new paradigm, a new beginning."Could not agree with you more Vince, we definitely "needs is a new government, a new paradigm, a new beginning". Those of us old enough have been alive in 1980 or later in 2008 would tell you that is exactly what we thought we would get but look where we are today. The devil is always in the detail, we failed to produce a detailed plan of how we would get the just, free and prosperous Zimbabwe we wanted and got serious lost.He who fails to plan; plans to fail! Vince, you did not say how we are going to have this new government and what would constitute a new government and beginning. Just to make sure you, I and the reader are on the same page on this; a Tsvangirai and/or Mujuru government would NOT constitute a new anything. These two are corrupt and incompetent; we already know that and therefore it would be foolish to pretend they are the competent and visionary leaders the nation should be seeking. The new government and beginning will only come from implementing all the GPA reforms Tsvangirai failed to implement during the GNU. There are more quality debates on this internet site and the few other independent sites in one month than one would get from going through all Zimbabwe's parliamentary records of the last 36 years! The number of quality debates would increase tenfold if the country had a functional free media so that all present the public print, radio and TV media are finally doing what they should have been doing all these years i.e. promote freedom of expression and open debate instead of brainwashing our people.One of the GPA reforms to be implemented is media reform. All aspiring leaders will be taken through the mill of this dynamic free media, freedom of expression, open debate and democratic competition to separate the grain from the chaff. A healthy and functional democracy will not deliver the Albert Einstein of politics, because there are not many geniuses out there; what it will do is deliver the best there is.I have said it once and will say it again; implement all the GPA reforms and let democracy work its magic. Implementing all the GPA reforms is the key to open the door to new era of good and stable government in Zimbabwe. Before the 2013 elections, SADC Heads of State advised Tsvangirai and MDC not to take part in the elections until all the reforms were implemented. Sadly MDC paid no heed landing us in this political and economic mess of a corrupt and tyrannical Mugabe government. SADC's advice was good back then and it is still good today. We must insist on having all the reforms implemented before the next elections. To argue that we must not demand the implementation of the reforms because Mugabe will never agree to their implementation is to completely miss the point! We have allowed Mugabe to dictate, hence the reason he is a dictator, for the last 36 years and look where he has landed us? If we are serious about getting out of this mess then we cannot allow Mugabe to dictate to us anymore. Indeed the very essence of implementing the democratic reforms is to dismantle the dictatorship. Of course being a dictator he would not want the dictatorship dismantled.We are seeking a new government and new beginning; we are seeking what we, the people of Zimbabwe, want and not what Mugabe wants!We are on the threshold of political change; the present system is unsustainable and is set to change, that much is clear. In 1980 we were on the threshold of change but instead of getting the free and democratic Zimbabwe we fought for we got this corrupt and tyrannical Mugabe dictatorship.In 2008 the nation was once again on the threshold of political change, the nation voted for democratic change only to be betrayed by MDC. The opportunity to bring about change was wasted; Mugabe bribed Tsvangirai and his MDC friend to kick all the reforms into the tall grass. If we are not careful the upcoming change will not deliver a new and better Zimbabwe because history has the habit of repeating itself.If we are serious about getting a new and better Zimbabwe we must be clear what we need to do to get it and then keep our eyes on the ball. We have waited for 36 years and counting for free, fair and credible elections this is the pre-requisite for good and stable democratic government and our only way to end the economic meltdown our wait will be over if we get all the 2008 GPA reforms implemented! For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A suicide bomber who was killed during a police raid in Saint-Denis following the deadly Paris terror attacks has been identified. A prosecutor from Paris said the man was 25-year-old Chakib Akrouh. Akrouh, a Belgian-Moroccan, blew himself up in the apartment in the Paris suburb on 18 November - five days after the attacks took place in the capital. He had been hiding there with Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the alleged ringleader of the attacks. Abaaoud's cousin, Hasna Ait Boulahcen, was also killed in the raid. According to the prosecutors statement, Akrouh was identified using DNA from his mother. On November 13, 130 people lost their lives as a result of a series of coordinated terror attacks in Paris. Locations included the Stade de France and the Bataclan concert hall. Earlier it emerged that Salah Abdeslam, a suspect who has been on the run since the attacks, had made contact with his defence lawyer. It is thought that Abdeslam drove the three suicide bombers to the Stade de France. According to information given by an unnamed source to Belga news agency, Sven Mary, the Brussels-based lawyer, declined to comment. Speaking to Belgian TV news, Mr Mary said: I cannot and do not want to talk. Federal prosecutors in Belgium declined to comment and said the report was just a rumour. Additional reporting by agencies For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Russias Ministry of Justice has issued a bizarre new diktat barring prisoners from swearing while incarcerated at pre-trial detention centres. The Moscow-based Inferfax news agency reported that a profanity-laden prison slang known as fenya is now prohibited, although it wasnt clear what punishments convicts would face if they continued cursing. The decree is in keeping with Vladimir Putins hatred for swearing, which last year saw him ban all profanity on Russian TV, film, theatre and newspapers. Those moves were widely interpreted as Putins attempt to encourage Russians to adopt family values influenced by Russian Orthodox Christianity. The latest ban is not Putins first attempt to stamp out fenya. In 2013 prison guards were barred from using the decades-old criminal slang, which the Ministry of Justice described as being threatening, insulting and defamatory. A 2002 report in The Moscow Times revealed how fenya had been in existence for at least several decades, although its origins remained a mystery. Fenya is the language of the camps and prisons. Developed over decades, it is made up of thousands of words and expressions that describe everything from a corpse [zhmurik] to a scam [kinut], the report says. As the zeks [prisoners] left the zone, they took their language with them, and fenya has infiltrated standard Russian to the point that many speakers don't even know the unsavory derivations of the words they are using, it adds. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} No Muslim-majority country in the world supports Isis, new research has shown as Indonesia reels from the groups latest terror attack. The so-called Islamic State claimed responsibility for suicide bombings and shootings in Jakarta yesterday the first time it has targeted the worlds largest Muslim country. A chart created for The Independent by Statista showed only 4 per cent of Indonesians declared a "favourable view" of the jihadist group the same figure as in Saudi Arabia. You will find more statistics at Statista The highest support little over a fifth - was seen in Syria, where hundreds of thousands of civilians live in swathes of the country controlled by Isis and more than four million refugees have fled the country. Research showed Nigeria, Tunisia and Malaysia to have comparatively widespread support, the figure was put at 0 per cent in Iran and Lebanon. Responding to research carried out by the Pew Research Centre, Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding (Caabu), told The Independent that the results were no surprise. Moment of terror... a man points a gun towards a crowd of people in central Jakarta (Reuters) I think it emphasises that Isis are seen as a threat to communities across the Arab world Muslims have been their primary victims after all, as was the case with al-Qaeda, he said. The brutal nature of their rule, the way they have treated women, all the beheadings, have not endeared them to people. (Respondents) also know that by their actions, Isis are trying to turn the non-Muslim world against them. Thursday was the first time Isis had claimed an attack in Indonesia, where previous bombings had been attributed to an al-Qaeda affiliate called Jemaah Islamiyah. Seven people, including five attackers, a Dutch UN employee and Indonesian policeman died as bombers and gunmen attacked a busy shopping district, injuring 20. In pictures: Jakarta attacks Show all 10 1 /10 In pictures: Jakarta attacks In pictures: Jakarta attacks People carry an injured police officer near the site where an explosion went off in Jakarta In pictures: Jakarta attacks Indonesian special forces officers identify victims at the scene of a bomb blast in Jakarta EPA In pictures: Jakarta attacks Police gather outside a restaurant near the scene of an attack in central Jakarta, after militants launched a gun and bomb assault in the center of the Indonesian capital Reuters In pictures: Jakarta attacks The scene of a bomb blast at a police station in front of a shopping mall in Jakarta EPA In pictures: Jakarta attacks Indonesian soldiers in armoured vehicles at the scene of a bomb blast in Jakarta EPA In pictures: Jakarta attacks An Indonesian special forces officer identifies victims at the scene of a bomb blast in Jakarta EPA In pictures: Jakarta attacks A police armored vehicle is parked outside a Starbucks Cafe near where an explosion went off in Jakarta AP In pictures: Jakarta attacks Police officers take cover behind a car during a gun battle with attackers near the site where an explosion went off in Jakarta AP In pictures: Jakarta attacks A member of the police bomb squad unit approaches the scene of an explosion following an attack on a police box in central Jakarta Reuters In pictures: Jakarta attacks Indonesian forensic policemen work inside a cafe after a bomb blast in front of a shopping mall in Jakarta EPA More than 200 million people identify themselves as Muslim in Indonesia according to 2011 research 87 per cent of the population and are predominantly Sunni. Officer have arrested three men on suspicion of links to the plot and seized an Isis flag from one of the bombers. Joko Jokowi Widodo, the Indonesian President, said terrorists would not win. This act is clearly aimed at disturbing public order and spreading terror among people, he added, The state, the nation and the people should not be afraid of, and lose to, such terror acts. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Russian military officials have claimed Vladimir Putins forces do not even plan air strikes that might harm civilians, despite reports of hundreds of Syrians being killed. Since the beginning of its campaign in September, the Russian air force has carried out 5,662 sorties, including 145 by fighter jets and bombers, and launched 97 cruise missiles Lieutenant General Sergey Rudskoy said. He claimed Russian jets were targeting Isis fuel and weapons supplies and had resulted in the liberation of more 217 population centres covering 1,000 square kilometres in Syria from terrorists. Russia's reported air strikes That report, carried by the Russian government-owned Sputnik news agency, clashed with those from international observers claiming that the strikes have killed up to 800 civilians, as well as hundreds more non-Isis rebels being targeted by the Syrian regime. Amnesty International put the civilian death toll from Russian strikes at 200 at least in a report released last month, while the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) put it at almost four times that figure, saying more than 600 Isis militants were also killed. The Russian defence ministry previously dismissed the claims as fake information and its spokesperson, Major General Igor Konashenkov accused the US-led coalition of covering up civilian casualties today. I emphasise that the strikes by our air group in Syria on terrorist targets are carried out only after data [on targets] is verified through several channels, he said. Strikes are not carried out in case of risk for lives of civiliansour aviation does not even plan airstrikes if there is a possibility of civilian casualties. In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Show all 20 1 /20 In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria Syrian citizens check a damaged house that targeted by the coalition airstrikes, in the village of Kfar Derian, a base for the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, a rival of the Isis group, between the northern province of Aleppo and Idlib In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria A Syrian boy (L) looking at a destroyed car that activists say was targeted by the coalition airstrikes, in the village of Kfar Derian, a base for the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, a rival of the Islamic State group, between the northern province of Aleppo and Idlib In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria Parts of a missile that activists say was fired by coalition airstrikes, in the village of Kfar Derian, a base for the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, a rival of the Isis group, between the northern province of Aleppo and Idlib In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria Tthe guided-missile destroyer USS Arleigh Burke (DDG 51) launching Tomahawk cruise missiles against Isis targets In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria The USS Arleigh Burke (DDG 51) launches a Tomahawk cruise missiles in the Red Sea, to conduct strike missions against Isis group targets in Syria In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria The guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea (CG 58) launching a Tomahawk cruise missile against Isis targets in Syria, as seen from the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) in the Arabian Gulf In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria US navy sailors standing watch on the bridge while Tomahawk cruise missiles are launched against Isis targets in Syria, aboard the guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea (CG 58), in the Arabian Gulf In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria An F/A-18C Hornet, attached to Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 87 prepares to launch from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) in the Arabian Gulf, to conduct strike missions against Isis group targets AFP/Robert Burck In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria The US-led airstrikes in Syria against Isis targets in and around the city of Raqqa In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria A fighter from the Isis group holds a piece of what the IS is saying is a US drone that crashed into a communications tower in the Syrian city of Raqqa In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria Fighters from the Isis organisation pray at the spot where the jihadist group said a US drone crashed into a communications tower in the Syrian city of Raqqa In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria Fighters from the Isis group load a van with parts that they said was a US drone that crashed into a communications tower in the Syrian city of Raqqa In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria Fighters from the Isis group load a van with parts that they said was a US drone that crashed into a communications tower in Raqqa In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria Fighters from the Isis group gesture as they load a van with parts that they said was a US drone that crashed into a communications tower in Raqqa. A US-led coalition on carried out its first air strikes and missile attacks against jihadist positions in Syria, with Damascus saying it had been informed by Washington before the operation began In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria A Syrian man rides his bike past a communications tower that was destroyed after a US drone crashed into it, according to fighters with the Isis group, in the Syrian city of Raqqa In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria People inspect a shop damaged after what Isis militants say was a U.S. drone crashed into a communication station nearby in Raqqa In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria A man holds the remains of what Isis militants say was a U.S. drone which crashed in Raqqa In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria Resident gather in the back of a van the remains of what Isis militants say was a drone which crashed in Raqqa In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria A man inspects the remains of what Isismilitants say was a U.S. drone which crashed into a communication tower in Raqqa In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria A man inspects the remains of what Isis militants say was a U.S. drone which crashed in Raqqa The Sputnik report quoted Maj-Gen Konashenkov claiming that the Pentagon approves air strikes expected to kill civilians as long as the number is under 50. If our colleagues [the US-led coalition] remain silent about the results of their strikes in Syria, we'll have to inform the public of these facts ourselves, he added. A spokesperson for US Central Command (CentCom), which has confirmed eight civilian deaths in American strikes in Iraq and Syria between April and July, declined to comment on the report. Although we will not comment on claims made by Russian media, we can inform you that US and Coalition forces work very hard to be precise in airstrikes, and are conducting one of the most precise air campaigns in military history, Max R Blumenfeld told The Independent. US and Coalition forces take all reasonable measures during the target planning and execution of airstrikes to mitigate risks to non-combatants, and to comply with the law of armed conflict. Furthermore, in the event of allegations, we take all reports of non-combatant casualties seriously and assess all incidents as thoroughly as possible. A damaged building after what activists said were airstrikes carried out by the Russian air force in Idlib city, Syria (Reuters) As the United Nations reported the death of a 16-year-old boy in the starving town of Madaya, which is besieged by the Syrian army and Hezbollah, Russia was trumpeting its own humanitarian operations dropping food in the government-held city of Deir ez-Zor. The UN Security Council was scheduled to hold an emergency meeting today to press all parties in the Syrian civil war to lift multiple sieges putting an estimated 400,000 civilians at risk of starvation across Syria. Britain joined the US-led coalition of a dozen nations bombing Syria in December, while Russia is co-ordinating its operation with the Syrian government and Iran and an Islamic Military Alliance has been formed by Saudi Arabia. UN-brokered peace talks on 25 January are hoping to bring the Syrian government and opposition together, although Isis and other terrorist groups that control huge swathes of the country are not invited. The five-year conflict has so far killed at least 250,000 people and forced more than four million Syrians to flee their country as refugees. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The US military has admitted killing at least eight civilians in less than three months of air strikes in Syria and Iraq. A spokesperson for the Pentagons Central Command (Centcom) said the preponderance of evidence revealed when allegations over five attacks were investigated indicated that eight people were killed and three injured. We deeply regret the unintentional loss of life and injuries resulting from those airstrikes and express our deepest sympathies to the victims' families and those affected, he added. British teenager dies in US airstrikes on Isis - London Live The Coalition takes all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties during the course of military operations. In all of the cases released today, assessments determined that although the air strikes complied with the law of armed conflict and all appropriate precautions were taken, civilian casualties unfortunately did occur. The first strike was in Hawija, Iraq, on 12 April 2015, when a missile targeting an Isis tactical unit killed two unidentified civilians. In Syria on 11 June, another Isis unit was being targeted in Suluk, Raqqa governate, when three civilians died. Eight days later, a civilian was injured after appearing in the target area after the US aircraft released its weapon against two Isis vehicles in Tall al Adwaniyah, Syria. A US air strike on the Isis-held town of Kobani in 2014 (Getty) On 29 June during strikes against Isis units and vehicles in Haditha, Iraq, two more civilians were injured. After the US aircraft engaged the target and two seconds prior to impact, a car slowed in front of the Isis vehicles while a motorcycle simultaneously passed by, a Centcom spokesperson said. The target vehicle was destroyed in the strike but there was insufficient evidence to determine the level of injuries to the civilians operating the passing car and motorcycle. Three civilians were later killed in a strike against what the US terms an Isis High Value Individual in its de-facto capital of Raqqa on 4 July. Centcom is reviewing further claims of civilian casualties in Syria and Iraq and said it will provide information on those investigations when they are completed. In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Show all 20 1 /20 In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria Syrian citizens check a damaged house that targeted by the coalition airstrikes, in the village of Kfar Derian, a base for the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, a rival of the Isis group, between the northern province of Aleppo and Idlib In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria A Syrian boy (L) looking at a destroyed car that activists say was targeted by the coalition airstrikes, in the village of Kfar Derian, a base for the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, a rival of the Islamic State group, between the northern province of Aleppo and Idlib In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria Parts of a missile that activists say was fired by coalition airstrikes, in the village of Kfar Derian, a base for the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, a rival of the Isis group, between the northern province of Aleppo and Idlib In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria Tthe guided-missile destroyer USS Arleigh Burke (DDG 51) launching Tomahawk cruise missiles against Isis targets In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria The USS Arleigh Burke (DDG 51) launches a Tomahawk cruise missiles in the Red Sea, to conduct strike missions against Isis group targets in Syria In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria The guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea (CG 58) launching a Tomahawk cruise missile against Isis targets in Syria, as seen from the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) in the Arabian Gulf In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria US navy sailors standing watch on the bridge while Tomahawk cruise missiles are launched against Isis targets in Syria, aboard the guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea (CG 58), in the Arabian Gulf In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria An F/A-18C Hornet, attached to Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 87 prepares to launch from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) in the Arabian Gulf, to conduct strike missions against Isis group targets AFP/Robert Burck In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria The US-led airstrikes in Syria against Isis targets in and around the city of Raqqa In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria A fighter from the Isis group holds a piece of what the IS is saying is a US drone that crashed into a communications tower in the Syrian city of Raqqa In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria Fighters from the Isis organisation pray at the spot where the jihadist group said a US drone crashed into a communications tower in the Syrian city of Raqqa In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria Fighters from the Isis group load a van with parts that they said was a US drone that crashed into a communications tower in the Syrian city of Raqqa In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria Fighters from the Isis group load a van with parts that they said was a US drone that crashed into a communications tower in Raqqa In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria Fighters from the Isis group gesture as they load a van with parts that they said was a US drone that crashed into a communications tower in Raqqa. A US-led coalition on carried out its first air strikes and missile attacks against jihadist positions in Syria, with Damascus saying it had been informed by Washington before the operation began In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria A Syrian man rides his bike past a communications tower that was destroyed after a US drone crashed into it, according to fighters with the Isis group, in the Syrian city of Raqqa In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria People inspect a shop damaged after what Isis militants say was a U.S. drone crashed into a communication station nearby in Raqqa In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria A man holds the remains of what Isis militants say was a U.S. drone which crashed in Raqqa In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria Resident gather in the back of a van the remains of what Isis militants say was a drone which crashed in Raqqa In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria A man inspects the remains of what Isismilitants say was a U.S. drone which crashed into a communication tower in Raqqa In pictures: Syria air strikes (2014) Syria A man inspects the remains of what Isis militants say was a U.S. drone which crashed in Raqqa Earlier on Friday, Russia had accused the US of killing civilians while denying reports its own air strikes have killed hundreds of innocent civilians and targeted anti-government rebels instead of Isis. Amnesty International put the civilian death toll from Russian strikes at 200 at least in a report released last month, while the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) put it at almost four times that figure, saying more than 600 Isis militants were also killed. Britain joined the US-led coalition of a dozen nations bombing Syria in December, while Russia is co-ordinating its operation with the Syrian government and Iran and an Islamic Military Alliance has been formed by Saudi Arabia. UN-brokered peace talks on 25 January are hoping to bring the Syrian government and opposition together, although Isis and other terrorist groups that control huge swathes of the country are not invited. The five-year conflict has so far killed at least 250,000 people and forced more than four million Syrians to flee their country as refugees Sign up to Simon Calders free travel email for weekly expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calders Travel email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Simon Calders Travel email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Within a few hours of arriving among the cobbled lanes of old Fort Kochi, Kerala's historic heartland, you already get the impression that this region might actually live up to its extravagant nickname. India's southernmost state is known as God's Own Country, as proud Keralites remind visitors constantly. It is a slogan daubed in lurid paint on trucks and buses, stencilled onto the rear of rickshaws and etched onto street signs. This year, the region celebrates 60 years of statehood, with processions, performances and parties adding to the usual Kerala Piravi (birthday of Kerala) celebrations on 1 November. The vibrant town of Kochi has one of the largest Catholic communities in the country (a legacy of Portuguese colonisers) and as the anniversary coincides with All Saints' Day the festivities will be even more impressive. After Goa became a haven for hippie beach-bums in the early Seventies, Kerala began to capitalise on its reputation as a more authentic beach destination than its northern neighbour, with pristine stretches of sand but still slightly off the tourist trail. This remains the case today, with even the most accessible of beaches remaining relatively empty. Yet the gods have bestowed more than beautiful beaches on their west-coast domain. Beyond lies a backwater wilderness of canals, rivers and traditional hamlets, and even further the incredible highland hinterland of the Western Ghats. This mountain chain runs almost a thousand miles down the western flank of the subcontinent, from the edge of Gujarat to the southern tip of India. Rising gently to a height of 8,839ft, this is an area of incredible fertility, so as you wind upward you pass copses of rubber trees, banana, mango, papaya, cloves, cashew, spindly betel nut palms and the towering toddy palms with their hanging dreadlocks of nuts that provide the local hooch, known as toddy. Higher up you enter shady coffee plantations and, higher still, tea plants scrawl in sculptured mazes across the misty slopes. Even in the context of this most vibrant of countries, Kerala boasts an incredible richness of cultures: Christian cathedrals soar above the historic coastal towns and colourful mosques and Hindu temples stand as spiritual lighthouses along the shimmering backwaters and up the foothills of the Western Ghats. National parks such as Periyar, Eravikulam and Silent Valley, home to elephants, leopards and tigers, are interspersed with sacred forests and fascinating places of pilgrimage. Indian Outskirts (01628 532 020; indianoutskirts.com) offers a nine-day tour that features Kochi, the backwaters of Vaikom and the highland plantations of Wayanad. It costs from 850pp, with domestic transport and accommodation, but excluding international flights. Kuoni (0800 540 4748; kuoni.co.uk) has a one-week Highlights of Kerala small group tour that takes in Kochi, Periyar National Park, and spends a night on a houseboat. It costs from 1,570pp including guiding, accommodation with some meals, transfers and flights from Heathrow. Float your boat A trip to Kerala without experiencing the backwaters is like drinking tea without a dash of delicious masala spices. This vast region of tangled waterways lies between the glimmering beaches and the highlands of the Western Ghats. A variety of voyages is available, from half-day jaunts to overnight cruises where you can soak up the balmy atmosphere of these Indian bayous in pampered decadence. If you go for a short trip there is often the option of motorised and non-motorised shikharas (timber and bamboo canal boats), and while a motor will clearly give you the opportunity to experience a wider area, there's no substitute for drifting silently down narrow waterways with just the dip of the boatman's bamboo punt (left) to disturb the kingfishers that flash along the banks. The Lotus (00 91 12423 67088; thelotuskerala.com) offers single night cruises or extended voyages in northern Kerala from 18,000 rupees (184) per night for a double cabin, B&B. Ancient cures Kerala has established a reputation as a centre for alternative medicine, thanks to its practice of ayurveda, a healing system which dates back around 6,000 years. Increasing numbers of visitors are choosing to spend extended periods, often months, in ayurvedic centres, especially around Kochi. Countless others come for a brief visit and a consultation that will give them an insight into this ancient health regimen. An introduction to ayurvedic massage at Dr Veena's Ayurmantra (00 91 82 8145 9500; drveenasayurmantra.com) costs from 12,000 rupees (123), including pick up and drop of from your hotel, an explanation of the concepts behind this form of medicine and the massage itself, with customised oil mixtures (above) tailored to your body type. Other centres offering similar treatments include Kochi's Haridra Spa (00 91 48 4236 5319; haridraspacochin.com) and Sreekrishna Ayurveda Panchakarma Center (00 91 984 7119 060; krishna yurveda.com) in the city of Alappuzha (or Alleppey). High and mighty The hill stations of Kerala came into their own as havens for homesick colonials, and even today they provide a perfect retreat from the tropical heat. The tea plantations around Munnar are the most popular, but for a more off-track experience head to Wayanad. Rangers at Muthanga and Tholpetty can organise guided hikes or 4x4 tours of the wildlife sanctuary (wayanad sanctuary.org; entry 110 rupees/1; vehicles from 50 rupees/0.50). Legend has it that the coffee bushes covering the endless Keralan hillsides are the offspring of just seven precious beans that were smuggled here from Yemen in the 17th century by Indian saint Baba Budan when he returned from a pilgrimage to Mecca. Coffee will only grow in shade, so the plantations remain wonderful natural habitats for local endemic species. Malabar grey hornbills and Malabar parakeets cackle in the canopy and Malabar giant squirrels (as big as domestic cats) climb jackfruit trees that are shrouded with pepper creepers. Elephants, and more occasionally tigers and leopards, are seen in plantations around the fringes of national parks. Beach beautiful Kerala encompasses an estimated 360 miles of beaches, and thanks to the geography of the state (long and narrow), you're never far from the coast. If you want simply to soak up the rays or doze blissfully under the coconut palms in between dips in the balmy water there are endless deserted beaches to choose from. Be mindful that that swimwear can attract curiosity. Almost anywhere on the coast you can also kayak on the backwaters and canals or catch a few waves in a country that is only just acquiring a reputation as a surfing destination. The waves here are rarely big so the area is ideal for beginners or intermediate surfers. Lighthouse Beach, Kovalam has its own surf club in the form of an organisation designed to help Indian children discover surfing (kovalamsurfclub.com; 00 32 48602 0580). Soul and Surf (01273 931 282: soulandsurf.com) opened late last year at Varkala, combining laid-back beach vibes with surfing and yoga. A double B&B room at Surf and Soul costs from 54 a night, and a six-day surf & yoga package would cost an additional 145pp. Neeleshwar Hermitage Getting there There are no direct flights to Kerala from the UK. Airlines offering one-stop flights to Kochi and/or Trivandrum include Emirates (0344 800 2777; emirates.com) from six UK airports via Dubai; Etihad (0345 608 1225; etihad.com) from Heathrow, Manchester and Edinburgh via Abu Dhabi; Jet Airways (0808 101 1199; jetairways.com) from Heathrow via Mumbai; Air India (020 7760 3290; airindia.in) from Heathrow via Delhi or Mumbai; and Gulf Air (0844 493 1717; gulfair.com) from Heathrow via Bahrain. Getting around An estimated 20 million people travel on Indian railways every day, and it's a great way of getting around. There are more than 30 main stations (and many smaller ones) stretching along the coast of Kerala. It's worth paying a bit extra (usually less than 5) to get a travel agent to book your tickets for you; be sure to book in advance in case there are local holidays, festivals or pilgrimages that you might not be aware of. Taxis are cheap; an air-conditioned car will set you back less than 10 for an hour. If you don't mind sacrificing air-conditioning (and, at times, a touch of reliability) a classic Ambassador taxi has a retro style all of its own. Alternatively, you can hire a Royal Enfield motorcycle for less than 10 a day in most tourist areas. Be aware, though, that road conditions vary, as do standards of driving. Where to stay Tucked between pristine backwaters and the beach, Neeleshwar Hermitage (pictured above; 00 91 124 4010 072; secret-retreats.com/neeleshwar) is one of the finest luxury resorts in north Kerala; its spacious bungalows have sumptuous open-air bathrooms and plunge pools. Doubles from 12,000 rupees (123). Vythiri (00 61 49362 56800; vythiriresort.com) is set in rainforested valleys near Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, and is one of the state's most popular jungle resorts for domestic tourists, yet few international visitors even seem to be aware of its existence. Doubles start at 15,000 rupees (153) per night all inclusive. Fort Bungalow in Kochi (thefortbungalow.com; 00 91 99613 75553) offers the sort of charming and relaxing family hospitality for which Kerala is famous. Double rooms start at 1,800 rupees (18), B&B. More information British passport-holders require a visa, obtainable from indian visaonline.gov.in for $60/40. incredibleindia.org Sign up to Simon Calders free travel email for weekly expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calders Travel email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Simon Calders Travel email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} On a circular hill, near the convergence of three rivers, a fairy who'd wept a river of tears was comforted by a dragon prince. The fairy, Au Co, and the dragon prince, Lac Long Quan, fell in love and bore a sac of 100 eggs. From these 100 snow-white eggs, the Vietnamese people were born. At this mythical spot, upstream from Vietnam's capital, Hanoi, the nation's ancient kings honoured their founding ancestors by building temples. Today, the Hung kings' temples are rooted in a region where time-honoured traditions are upheld and life seems to move at the same pace as it perhaps once did when Au Co and Lac Long Quan roamed the land. I was visiting the area on a new Pandaw cruise, the first to navigate the Song Hong or Red River, which passes through Hanoi, and its tributaries in northern Vietnam. Pandaw, which has been operating on the Mekong since 2003, decided to venture north this winter, since the Mekong has become overcrowded with cruise traffic. At Hung Lo village, a group performed a traditional xoan song recital that honours the royal ancestors. Afterwards, the singing villagers showed us rice noodles, hanging on horizontal poles like clothes on a washing line, set in the temple courtyard that was all sweeping dragon roofs and red flags. Conical hat makers demonstrated how Vietnam's distinctive bamboo-framed hats, worn by paddy workers, are crafted. The Red River Delta is second only to the Mekong Delta as a rice-growing territory. Everywhere on our route took us through the iridescent green sea of paddy fields as we listened to tales about the pivotal role that rice plays in Vietnam's cuisine and culture. At the ancient village of Duong Lam we discover how different types of rice are chosen for particular soils, before we supped on rice wine in the 300-year-old home of a Catholic family. At Dong Ho village, we visited an artist who combines sticky rice liquid with oyster powder, mixed with natural dye from burnt bamboo leaf, seeds, and indigo in order to fashion rare folk paintings; at Yen Duc, we watched water puppets, made from the jackfruit tree, enacting rural scenes of rice growing and harvesting on a liquid stage. And at Mai Chau, an exquisitely beautiful high-altitude valley, we learnt how hovering dragonflies play a role in the rice farmer's life. Rice farmers watch dragonflies to predict the weather. If they fly low, there will be rain; if they fly high, it will be sunny, in which case the rice farmer will rise early to tend to his paddy before the sun becomes too hot, our guide, Duc, explained. After wandering through the paddy fields we dined on rice dishes at the exceptional Mai Chau Ecolodge, where tantalising fresh spring rolls with shrimp and pork were wrapped in a rice paper parcel, and steamed rice was served with grilled pork and fresh, green tea leaves. For the Vietnamese, rice is the staff of life. Every day in the Pandaw dining room we would be served this key ingredient of Vietnamese cooking, from banh xeo, a rice crepe stuffed with bean sprouts, vegetables, herbs and tofu, to stir-fried Halong Bay prawns and spring loofah with fragrant steamed rice. The Delta landscape After three-course lunches and a Hanoi beer, afternoons were spent idly gazing at the scenery drifting by, from the loungers and sofas on deck. Clouds flirted with lofty peaks and forests were mirrored perfectly in the still waters that would occasionally ripple like silk. Small sampans puttered about, their paddles dappling the quiet river. Gently sloping banks, some patched with maize, bananas or sugar cane, shelved into the river's edge that anchored duck pens, small brick factories and bamboo jetties. Pandaw's RV Angkor is a teak and brass colonial-style boat furnished with 16 cabins that host 32 guests. She navigated the northern pea-green rivers at a leisurely pace, as she made her way through the sun-baked delta. From Viet Tri, we journeyed 576km upstream to Hoa Binh and Mai Chau before returning downstream through Hanoi and out to Halong Bay. Our journey combined Vietnam's river pastures, villages dedicated to arts and crafts, and snapshots of local and international industry. At the Russian-built Hoa Binh Hydroelectric Power station one of the world's more unusual cruise stops we descended into the turbine hall whose background was a huge piece of colourful illuminated socialist propaganda. Aboard Angkor On our penultimate day, we sailed past huge shipping containers at Haiphong, Vietnam's second largest port. With early evening cocktails in hand on deck, we were fascinated by the parade of outsized ships, low slung cargo boats that looked like crocodile snouts ploughing through the water, raised fishermen's shacks that resembled white dog kennels on stilts, and the clink and clank of heavy industry. From Haiphong, the Angkor emerged into the teal-green waters of Halong Bay, where soaring limestone karsts loomed over the boat. Legend relates that Lac Long Quan sprayed a thousand pearls from his mouth, which erupted into the hundreds of karsts now scattered in the bay. Sitting on deck under a grey-blue sky, it wasn't hard to conjure up a descending dragon (the meaning of Halong) amid this other worldly seascape. After Halong Bay the boat made its way back to Thang Long (ascending dragon), the ancient name for Hanoi. Although the city is the capital of Vietnam, the majority of Vietnam's ancient kings ruled from the Red River Delta area from 2000 BC, their seat of empire following Au Co's river of tears that led from the Hung kings' temples to the sea. Sailing through this intriguing heartland had opened an unforgettable window on the people, paddies, pagodas, landscapes and history of this fabled land. Getting there Inside Vietnam Tours (0117 2443370; insideasiatours.com) offers the 10-day Red River cruise (bit.ly/PandawVietnam), transfers, three nights in a Hanoi hotel, private transfers and international return economy flights from Heathrow to Hanoi from 3,165pp. Vietnam Airlines (020 3263 2062; vietnamairlines.com) flies non-stop from Heathrow to Vietnam six times a week three times to Hanoi, and three times to Ho Chi Minh City. Return fares from Heathrow to Hanoi start at 581.. More information Vietnam tourist board: vietnamtourism.com British passport holders can travel to Vietnam for up to 15 days without a visa until 30 June (vietnamembassy.org.uk). Sign up to Simon Calders free travel email for weekly expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calders Travel email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Simon Calders Travel email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Last month, Donald Trump came up with an incendiary idea for tackling terrorism: ban Muslims from entering the United States. Shortly afterwards, a passenger named Mohammad Tariq Mahmood checked in at Gatwick airport with his brother and nine of their children for their holiday flight to Florida. They had all successfully applied in advance through the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, or Esta America's online visa alternative (available at esta.cbp.dhs.gov; price $14 per person). But the dream trip became a nightmare when they were told that their authorisation to fly had been cancelled. The airline and travel insurers refused to cover their losses. How could they be granted permission to travel, only to have it revoked at ludicrously short notice? Well, the US Department of Homeland Security specifies: An approved Esta is not a guarantee of admission to the United States. A separate sequence of checks is made on all passengers on all flights to the US, which is why you have to provide Advance Passenger Information (API) ahead of departure. The specific focus of this step is aviation security. After the terrible events of 9/11 and subsequent attempted attacks such as the Shoe Bomber, the US is hypersensitive to the possibility of terrorists hijacking or destroying aircraft. So, regardless of your success in obtaining an Esta, the security authorities will check your name and other details against watch lists. If something triggers concern, experience suggests they will err on the side of caution and bar you from boarding. Some Muslim travellers feel they are unfairly picked out for extra scrutiny. But The Independent has heard from passengers from other backgrounds also denied boarding without explanation or recompense. The only sure way to avoid being turned away from a US-bound flight? Don't try to fly to America. Sign up to Simon Calders free travel email for weekly expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calders Travel email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Simon Calders Travel email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Beach resorts, bars and restaurants, hotels, markets, shopping malls, tourist attractions, places of worship, foreign embassies, ferry terminals and airports in the course of your next holiday, might you visit any of those locations? I ask because that is the Foreign Office list of potential terrorist targets in Indonesia. It appears in the updated travel advice following Thursday's attack on the capital, Jakarta. Once again, some angry young men took out their hatred of civilisation by taking as many lives as possible in the course of losing theirs. My typical holiday calibrates very closely with the venues on the FCO list, with the possible exception of those foreign embassies. So, for my next visit to Indonesia, what should I do? Be vigilant and take care at all times, urges the Foreign Office. You should regularly review your security arrangements. Now, I appreciate there is little more that the FCO can say. But as a tourist, as opposed to a hot-shot expatriate executive, I don't actually have any security arrangements. And while I shall do my best to take care at all times, in truth I can't promise that my vigilance won't dwindle after some Bintang beer at a beachside bar. While I should probably have a three-point plan to minimise risk, in reality it's more likely to be a three-pint plan to maximise fun. Jakarta's historic core, Kota, is well worth a visit, but the Indonesian capital is never going to rank alongside another urban giant, Istanbul, as a great tourist destination. Turkey's biggest city contains more of interest in a single square, Sultanahmet, than the whole of Jakarta. Which, according to the mad ideology of medieval savagery, made this ancient forum an ideal place to slaughter a dozen tourists on Tuesday this week. Should we all pack up and go home or, to be precise, not pack up and stay at home? No, because then hatred is handed a victory. The rational collective response is to flock towards places visited by terrorism trusting that our luck and the authorities' skill will prevail against the inhuman international lottery of random murder. No medal for pedalling Don't fret about threats you cannot control just focus on the risks you can minimise. Twenty years ago, the travel association Abta held its annual convention in Istanbul. Unlike 2016, when there are 23 departures a day from the UK to Turkey's largest city, in 1996 my trip involved flying from Heathrow to Stuttgart to Thessaloniki and hitch-hiking onwards across the Greek-Turkish border. The trip was enlivened by my choice of baggage, a folding bicycle. I intended to soak up the ambiance of Istanbul as I commuted from my digs in the Ali Baba Guest House in Sultanahmet to a conference venue three miles north of the Golden Horn. For five days I persisted with my cunning time- and taxi-saving plan. But had I spent much longer in the tangle of traffic, it would surely have proved a life-expectancy-limiting measure. Istanbul welcomes almost everyone, but not cyclists, careful or otherwise. Points, not pints After the Istanbul attack, Sarah Watts asked: We're booked to go to Olu Deniz in Turkey, in August this year. We've received conflicting advice as to whether we should travel there. What is your honest opinion? My honest opinion is that the overwhelming odds are on Sarah and her family having a happy holiday. But since she went to the trouble of getting in touch, I thought I should devise a proper three-point risk-management plan: 1. Be aware of the dangers of rip tides, and understand how to deal with them. You can find an excellent guide online at bit.ly/RipSafe; 2. Given the traffic-accident rate, which is many times worse than the UK, watch out when you're crossing the road, and don't rent a car; 3. Wear a hat and apply plenty of sunscreen. August can be phenomenally hot in Turkey. Wherever you go in the Mediterranean this summer, feel free to follow the same rules. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Turkey suffered another terrorist attack in six months this week at the hands of Isis jihadists who struck Istanbul. That was their fourth attack in six months and comes as Turkeys strongman President Recip Tayyip Erdogan intensifies his war on the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought the state for political and human rights for the countrys beleaguered twenty million Kurds. Turkey can hurt Isis when it wants to. It has, ostensibly, killed 200 Isis jihadists in response to Tuesday's suicide attack - but this comes after the fourth terrorist attack it has suffered in six months, and almost two years since the international community launched its own campaign against Isis. Rather than launch a serious campaign against the terrorist group, as the West and the international community have called upon him to do, Erdogan remains focused on the PKK, which continued the tit-for-tat conflict by striking a police HQ last night and killed six people. That is because Erdogan is in electioneering mode: targeting the PKK and marginalising the Kurds allows Erdogan to divide the country and rally the nationalist vote ahead of a proposed referendum that could grant him greater powers and the chance to become a modern-day Sultan. Recommended Read more Cameron needs to lead like Thatcher in Syria Erdogan also wants to save face: his approach to the Syria conflict has been disastrous. Syrias jihadist and ineffective rebels have failed to overthrow the Assad regime, despite the considerable resources and political capital Erdogan has invested in them. That includes Ahrar Al-Sham, the group that enjoys close ties with Al-Qaeda and wants its own "Islamic State". To compound matters, Syria now has an autonomous Kurdish region led by the Democratic Union Party (PYD), a sister-group of the PKK. The rise of Syrian Kurdistan, which has considerable cultural and social ties with Turkeys Kurds, is a success story amidst the devastation of the Syria conflict. It has also revitalised Kurdish nationalism in Turkey and the previously moribund PKK. Having once advocated peace with the PKK and even criticising the logic of using force to defeat the group, Erdogan now wants to destroy the Kurds capacity to mobilise by conducting what Human Rights Watch describes as an indiscriminate military campaign against Kurdish towns and cities. Erdogan will, therefore, go as far as it takes to expand his powers - even if that means more war and bloodshed. The West must intervene and stop Erdogan. If defeating Isis is a priority then that means stopping Turkey from weakening the only real partner the US has in its war on the jihadists. Along with the PYD, the PKK has risen to international acclaim for being the most effective, pro-Western anti-ISIS force. There is plenty the West can do. In the short-term, it must force a ceasefire and mediate a peace process, such as the settlement put forward in 2013 but that quickly unravelled. Turkey must also be pushed to lift its embargo on Rojava, where Kurdish towns and cities require urgent humanitarian assistance. Lifting this embargo will alleviate the humanitarian crisis and, therefore, the refugee flow into Europe. For all that to happen the West needs to force Turkey into action. That requires threatening Turkey with expulsion from NATO if it fails to pursue a peaceful settlement. Expulsion from NATO makes sense from a Western security perspective since Erdogans personal ambitions have transformed Turkey into anything but an indispensable ally over the past decade. Under Erdogans control, Turkey has rejected western alignments and has directly challenged Western security interests. Even with the resurgence of Russian militarism, Turkey has failed to live up to its commitments as a NATO ally, having failed to support Western sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine and even strengthening economic ties with Moscow after sanctions were imposed. Ankara also refused to send combat troops to NATO missions in Afghanistan and Kosovo, voted against US-backed Security Council sanctions on Iran and, before the Syria war, forged strong ties with Iran and Syria, whose governments at the time were facilitating and sponsoring terrorist attacks in Iraq against US personnel and Iraqi civilians. Erdogan also strained relations with Israel, courted Sudans President Omar al Bashir who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for genocide and war crimes in Darfur and was the last recipient of Muammar Gaddafis infamous International Prize for Human Rights. Turkey should be warned that being a member of NATO is a privilege, not something to be abused. And Erdogan will not be indifferent to the threat of expulsion, as even the threat itself will diminish Turkeys great-power status. Losing Turkey as an ally could make life more complicated for the US, but Turkey is no longer the asset it once was. Instead, it has become a liability and a destabilising actor in the region one that poses a direct threat to the Wests campaign to defeat Isis. Opinion / Columnist In one of the best commentaries on Zimbabwean politics, Vivid Gwede, has exposed some of the weakness of the arguments we have been bombarded with on why Zimbabweans should support Mai Mujuru and her yet to be launch People First political party."When the 9 of previous Zanu-PF cadres is reflected in the mirror of the opposition political plane as People First it looks like 6, a different number. But when reflected back into government, will the 6 not turn back to 9?" asked Gwede (Nehanda Radio opinion).After 34 years right at the heart of government individuals like Mai Mujuru, Didymus Mutasa, Rugare Gumbo, Kudakwashe Bhasikiti, etc. have behaved just like every other Zanu PF leader mean, oppressive, corrupt and some like Mutasa and Bhasikiti has done their fair of shedding innocent blood. Just because Mai Mujuru and other lost the factional war for the control of the party and were kicked out of the party. The act of being kicked out of the party, some people now argue, has been so transformative Mai Mujuru and friends are now democrats!PF are Zanu PF by another name; period!"It is as if Zimbabweans are now being asked to 'democratise' within the (dictatorship) 'straitjacket' ", observed Vivid.The truth is there are many, particularly in the fracturing MDC opposition camps, who are doing their very best to encourage the nation to change the dictator Mugabe, yes, but not to change the present undemocratic political system. It is not only Mugabe and Zanu PF who do not want free, fair and credible elections for the obvious reason that, given their track record of economic failure and political oppression, know they will never win such elections; Tsvangirai and his MDC friends too know they will never win free and fair elections, not with their record as breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent.By failing to implement even one reform during the GNU Tsvangirai and his MDC friends proved beyond doubt that they are breathtakingly incompetent and corrupt. By having a tyrannical regime that has denied the opposition any democratic space to present their policies and be subjected to close media and public scrutiny Mugabe has done corrupt and incompetent opposition leaders a great favour, their competence has never been put under the free media microscope!So MDC leaders like Tsvangirai do not want any of the GPA reforms implemented, they do not want free, fair and credible elections and, in short, they do not want democratic Zimbabwe. They want Mugabe removed from office and then they would implement the electoral law reforms designed give the dictatorship an outward democratic appearance and nothing more. Or as Vivid Gwede aptly put it, "democratise within the (dictatorship) straitjacket.Unless the people wakeup to the political machination of our political leaders the nation will find itself wearing the same dictatorship straitjacket be is with a new political name, colours, etc.! If the people want free, fair and credible elections then they will have to demand the implementation of the GPA reforms, at present none of the politicians want the reforms implemented! None! Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Pilot Whale, by the wonderful Moose Allain. Follow him on Twitter. Buy his stuff. Jo Facer started teaching at Michaela school last week. All teachers say, 3-2-1 and slant. No child does anything until you say: Go. Each lesson begins with children handing out books; this takes 10 seconds and you count it down. Every second of every lesson is used; routines are meticulous to ensure this happens and everyone uses the routines. This, for me, has been the hardest part: on top of learning 240 names (the expectation is that every teacher knows every childs name), youre always thinking about the systems that others have long since automated. It is hard. Michaela, in Wembley Park, north-west London, was started by Katharine Birbalsingh. Via Sam Freedman. Demands to publish Margaret Beckett's report into Labour's defeat had become like those of Chilcot. "We need to know the truth." As I was told that the report is anodyne, I couldn't see why Jeremy Corbyn didn't publish it. Now it emerges that he will, next week, and the BBC has been leaked some of its findings. Labour didn't win enough votes: that sort of thing. What the agitators really ought to be agitating to see is a different, top secret report called "2015: What Happened?" It was a "frank internal post-mortem for Labour's senior party officials", according to Philip Cowley and Dennis Kavanagh in The British General Election of 2015. They quote from it: "Anecdotally, canvassers found it difficult to navigate issues surrounding the popularity of the leader and the impact of a potential coalition with the SNP." I am told that its findings were brutal, and that it is unlikely ever to see the light of day. Patrick Kidd says that one of the recommendations of the Beckett report, to hold shadow cabinet meetings outside London, was not only something Gordon Brown did with the real Cabinet but it was also done with William Hague's shadow cabinet, when it was called Operation Starburst. Jon B recalled that John Birt's plan for Tony Blair, never enacted, to split the Treasury to curb Brown's power was called Operation Teddy Bear. Any more political Operations? Would a Top 10 be possible? And finally, thanks to Glenny Rodge for this: "My doctor says I've got to give up poorly thought out fruit-based puns. "I was peachless when he told me." Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} January appears to have become enshrined as Retail Month, when people send or take back the presents they were given and get the things they really wanted instead. We are still "tracking" a couple of items we bought online in the final, terrible days before Yuletide, but which never arrived. Somewhere in postal purgatory lies a jiffy bag containing a DVD box set of Last Tango In Halifax, a present now without a point, as we had to buy something else to replace it at the last moment. For this the tall blonde woman had to go to a "shop", one of those old-fashioned buildingy things you used to find on the "high street". But shops aren't what they used to be either. Many of them are new and improved and therefore even worse than before. For instance, I occasionally go into WH Smith in one of the mainline railway stations to buy a newspaper or a competitively priced bag of Revels. They used to have four or five tills and a queueing system, which meant you were usually in and out of the shop in a couple of minutes. Sometime last year they ripped all this out and replaced it with eight self-service machines and one till, which is the only place from which you can buy cigarettes. This means there is always a queue of half a dozen people for the one till, some of whom are buying gaspers with bags of change or out-of-date credit cards, and all of whom will miss their train. At the machines are terrified Belgian tourists, old people panicking, someone (usually me) who has put the wrong money into the wrong slot in the wrong machine, and at least one person lying on the floor having a stroke from the stress of it all. And in the middle there's one WH Smith employee, herself so stressed and miserable that she is planning to give in her notice at the end of the day. The money saved by sacking the till workers has no doubt done wonders for the share price and senior executives' emolument packages, but regular customers now buy their papers elsewhere. At my bank, which is light blue in its colour scheme and occasionally light- fingered in its dealings, something similar has occurred. Gone are the old, low-tech counters, with expensive people sitting behind them. Now there's just one counter, with a queue of angry customers waiting, while a tiny man with a wispy beard tries to persuade everyone to use the machines. But in the age of internet banking, why go to a bank unless you need to talk to someone? Not all problems can be solved by screens and buttons. So the machines remain unused and the queue grows longer and longer. "I see Lloyds still have counters", said the women behind me the other day. If they keep them, they'll soon have all the customers as well. I think the idea is that we are supposed to be impressed by the machines, and to feel grateful to our newsagents and banks for compromising their standards of service to look cool and technologically advanced. The mistake we make is to assume that the people who made these decisions were malevolent, rather than just half-witted and useless. Of course the machines are pretty useless themselves, always going wrong and screaming "unidentified item in the bagging area!" at passers-by. It's a sort of brotherhood between man and machine, a shared incompetence. Only unemployment can change these men's minds, and only machetes can change the machines'. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The Conservative MP Michael Fabricant last year went incognito for The Independent to chronicle the highs and lows of his life as a candidate fighting the general election. Now, victorious, he returns in his own name with a candid fortnightly take of what life is like on the green benches and what really goes on in the tea rooms of Westminster Monday morning arrives and we all receive an email from the Speaker. Its subject line: Protocol in the Chamber. Both newbies and oldies, and not just men it seems, have been behaving badly. One heavily pregnant MP left the Chamber immediately after her speech which is not the done thing at all. You should wait until at least two other MPs have spoken before leaving. After all, they might comment on what you have just said. But she was hungry and, presumably, so was her unborn child. It seems such things matter little when it comes to Parliamentary protocol. Mind you, it was only five years ago that the Commons authorities finally decided to shut one of the estates many bars to create a nursery for children of those MPs who have to juggle childcare and their obligations in the House. Who knows if well ever see the day when mothers will be allowed to breastfeed in the chamber. Certainly no one could object on grounds of screaming. Other MPs appear to have committed the offence of walking between the Speaker and whichever MP happens to be speaking in the Chamber at the time. You should never break the sightline. I say to the Speaker in a point of order that its not just the new MPs who are breaking the rules. Older ones do too, including an elderly former miner who constantly walks in regardless of whomever might be speaking. The Speaker pretends not to know which particular Beast I am referring to. On matters of protocol, Tuesday was a historic day in the Commons. For the first time specific clauses of a piece of legislation were certified as being relevant only to England and other clauses just to England and Wales. What this meant was that only MPs representing English seats or English and Welsh seats could vote on these clauses as they do not affect other nations of the United Kingdom. Im in favour of the change: its hard to explain to my voters why MPs in Scotland should be allowed to have a say on things which dont have any effect on their constituents. Needless to say thats not how the Scottish Nationalists saw it. There was much shouting and charges of it being an outrage. But when it came to it, there were no votes. I was a bit disappointed. I was hoping that the Serjeant-at-Arms would have to expel wild Scots from the voting lobbies, but it was not to be. Talking of nationalism I made sure I was in the chamber on Wednesday to see Labour MP Toby Perkins propose that there should be an English-only national anthem for sporting events. So should it be Jerusalem (that would be my choice), Therell always be an England, or what? Despite amusing opposition from Jacob Rees-Mogg, the motion was passed and, as I represent a seat in Middle England, I was proud to be one of the supporters of his Bill. Michael Fabricant is the Member of Parliament for Lichfield in Staffordshire Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} One hour was all it took for the first inquest into the death of 18-year-old Private Cheryl James to be concluded. She had been found with a bullet through her head, lying in a wooded area only feet away from her guard post in the Deepcut barracks. Police handed the 1995 inquest over to the Army, and since there was apparently not enough evidence to prove a suicide or foul play an open verdict was swiftly recorded. The lack of evidence was, according to lawyers for the James family, no accident: key witnesses were not interviewed, Pte Jamess clothing was not examined and was later lost, along with the bullet fragment and all the other bullets from her SA-80 rifle. The Army has been quite content to leave the case a mystery. Recommended Read more The secret shame of the barracks from hell That is no longer possible. Last year, a High Court judge quashed the open verdict and ordered a fresh inquest. Now three other families, whose children also died in mysterious circumstances at the Deepcut barracks between 1995 and 2002, are preparing to challenge the open verdicts that were recorded. If their suspicions are not proved false, the story of Deepcut barracks will mark one of the darkest moments in British military history. Allegations from recruits paint a picture of an institution warped beyond recognition by physical and sexual abuse of young soldiers. In 2002, Surrey Police recorded interviews with several female soldiers who reported knowing of colleagues who had been raped; one 16-year-old recruit said she had been raped, but refused to make a formal allegation; a 17-year-old said she had sex with an NCO as she was too scared to refuse; a 23-year-old claimed to have had a bag put over her head in bed and been assaulted by several men. Male recruits described perpetual bullying. It is into this context that The Independents report earlier this week fits, citing claims that Pte James had been sexually abused by officers, and could have been raped on the night she was found dead. All three of the open verdict cases beside Pte Jamess invite scepticism. How could Pte Sean Benton, 20, have possibly killed himself in 1995 as the Army claimed when he was shot only once from close range, and four times in the chest from a distance? How can Pte Geoff Grays death in 2001 have been an accident, when two bullet wounds were found in his head, a total of five bullets fired in his direction, and a figure witnessed running away from the scene? The parents of Pte James Collinson whom they describe as happy dispute that he would have killed himself, as the Army claimed, in 2002. Needless to say, the Armys unwillingness to look closely at these cases is a grave misjudgement. It is understandable to seek to protect troops. But when that instinct leads to potentially protecting the reputations of rapists and murderers, it damages the name of the Army and its thousands of soldiers. Inquests should be reopened into all three cases. These should not involve Surrey Police, which has sought at every corner to delay the inquest into Pte Jamess death, asking last year that the case be delayed (after 20 years of waiting), and passing over documents only after pressure from the James familys legal team. Its 2002 handling of the Deepcut reinvestigation was queried by Devonshire and Cornwall Police in 2005. Outsiders are needed. The wall of silence the Army has put up around Deepcut has led to comparisons to the police and Hillsborough. Just as a public inquiry was needed in that case, one should not be ruled out over Deepcut, if reopened police inquests are stymied. The families deserve to know what happened. So does the nation. And the only way for the Army to ensure there is no repeat is to face the facts, whatever they may be. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} What would you do differently if you were guaranteed a minimum income every week, regardless of how you choose to spend your time? Spend more time caring for or just with your children? Learn a new skill? Start your own business? It seems like a bold suggestion, but a Basic Income is something that the Green Party has longed campaigned for. What is it? Its an unconditional, non-withdrawable income payable to each individual. Its not subject to means testing and there is no requirement to be working or actively seeking work. The Basic Income offers genuine social security to everyone and sweeps away most of the bureaucracy of the current welfare system. Fundamentally it allows people the freedom and flexibility to do more of what they want to do - as well as supporting them in the caring roles they might need or choose to do. A Basic Income would also protect people from rising insecurity in our increasingly flexible labour market and the darker side of the emergent gig economy- and help rebuild our crumbling welfare state. I became convinced of the need for such bold thinking at the end of last year when I held one of my weekly constituency surgeries at a food bank in Brighton. While I was there, meeting some of the many people who needed emergency handouts in the week before Christmas, it struck me how drastically the safety net that is the British welfare state is failing. Not only are benefits falling in real terms, but the complexities and brutal sanctions of the welfare system are often catastrophic for those relying on social security. That failure of the welfare state is compounded by fundamental changes to the labour market which are making the world of work increasingly precarious for many. Well-paid jobs on permanent contracts have dwindled, while short-term employment, zero hours contracts and low pay are rife. Its clear why the Basic Income, which has often been dismissed as utopian, is making its way into the mainstream. In Alaska a version of the Basic Income in this case funded by oil revenues - has been in place since the 1970s. In Finland the newly elected Government is set to launch a pilot project and in the Dutch city of Utrecht Green Councillors and others are leading the way by trialling this bold new policy. A group of benefit claimants in the city will be given 660 a month without means testing. Crucially theyll be able to get work, and keep the payment on top of any wages they earn. Recent support, and further exploration, of the Basic Income has come from the Royal Society of the Arts, the think tank Compass, the innovation charity Nesta and even the French Ministry of Labour. A number of models for the Basic Income exist and all need further investigation. Its crucial that any shift towards this bold new policy protects and increases the income for the poorest and those who arent able to work. A universal payment for all must not undermine additional help for those who need it most. Some say the Basic Income sounds too good to be true and that its unaffordable. The exact cost, of course, would depend on the level of payment but what is clear is that shifting to a universal payment would significantly cut the cost of administering the many different types of means-tested benefits we have at present. Recommended Read more Junior doctors are masters at doing nothing Crucially this is a policy designed to be redistributive costing those with the most money more. Britain in the 21st century is home to both a growing number of food banks and a growing number of entrepreneurial pioneers. Fewer and fewer of us are engaged in traditional 9-5 jobs at the office or factory for reasons both good and bad and that means increasing amounts of uncertainty. Social security is called that for a reason, yet it hasnt kept apace with the changes to our work economy. The basic income could be the big answer that everyones looking for - thats why a real investigation into a new model is so vital. Anyone whos serious about building an economy which provides dignity for all and frees up our time as well as our minds - should, at the very least, be backing serious research into the possibilities offered by a basic income. The UK Government should commission research into this bold policy and join the efforts already being made to answer the big economic and social challenges we face. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Ill never forget Monday 11 January 2016. The morning started normally but quickly developed into a where were you when day. It was my last stint standing in on the Radio 2 breakfast show, and the first half-hour flew by with listeners texts, travel and sport updates, plus I chatted to a nice chap about his alpacas and the perils of feeding them before sunrise. (Apparently theyre pretty stealthy and sneak up on you undetected frankly terrifying in my opinion.) So far, so jolly. After the 7am news, read by the formidable Moira Stuart (whose presence and years of experience Id soon be very grateful for), I glanced at Twitter, only to see one solitary tweet simply saying, No mention of David Bowie? Such a simple question but one with weight; its wording immediately rang alarm bells I knew this wasnt about a tour announcement or scandal. Fair to say at this moment my stomach dropped, and I looked through the glass to my producer Graham to see his expression darken as he read the same tweet as well as numerous messages all pinging through on his phone. I spotted Joe, breakfast show producer on BBC6 music, our cooler cousins who live downstairs, looking slightly ashen-faced and talking to Graham. I knew then that David Bowie had died. Like most people, my initial reaction was one of absolute shock at the unexpected news. He had chosen to keep his illness private and had released an album just a few days before. I was lucky enough to interview him on The Big Breakfast years ago. I was really nervous for some reason we were perched on low stools in a teepee and there was I, a 23-year-old gob on a stick interviewing an icon, but I remember he was incredibly kind and warm to me. Its always a challenge for me to tackle serious subjects on the radio, so Monday was tough. I find the transition from joking about the spelling of orang-utan (no G on the end a common misconception) to talking about serious stuff a sticky one. To be on air as huge news breaks is very humbling, and whether its politics, a pop stars passing or terrorist attacks, we DJs want to do it justice. Hosting the Radio 1 breakfast show the morning after 9/11 was unforgettable expats who lived in New York were emailing the show unable to sleep in the small hours, Manhattan time. One guy told me it was a comfort to hear our accents which made them feel closer to home and further away from the horror that had engulfed NYC the day before. As far as popular culture goes, Mondays story couldnt be much bigger. Now we had official confirmation that David Bowie had indeed passed away and not wanting to over- or indeed under-egg the moment, I was grateful to my producer Graham for quickly typing out a short statement announcing his death. I read it with a heavy heart and played Starman the first of dozens of Bowie tracks that would be played that day. Then the floodgates opened thousands of texts, tweets and emails from listeners, many in tears, most shocked, all devastated. Id never been to a Bowie gig but, like millions of people, I loved his music on the radio, appreciated his genius but couldnt claim to be his No 1 fan or aficionado. I soon realised that didnt matter as the DJ I was just there as a conduit for these messages. If wed been able to print every one we couldve created a truly stunning book of condolence written by folks just feeling the need to share, to pay respect. Over the course of the morning, more tributes were made by everyone from David Cameron to Kanye West, but they paled beside the heartfelt words of his real fans. I need vests! Revisiting my childhood in middle age Ive been suffering from a cold back an area of my body Ive never really taken much notice of. Other bits have been toned, exfoliated, squished into frilly underwear, shaved, plucked, moisturised, painted and plaited. My back has always just been there, quietly going about its business, not wanting any fuss. Until now. It is demanding to be covered, cosseted. If crop tops were my twenties, hoodies my thirties, then my forties are all about the vest. It needs to be tucked in tightly too, otherwise it feel like I have a cold draught whistling up my jumper, literally spine-chilling. Am I regressing to my seven-year-old self or is it because Im trundling through middle age? There are well-documented childhood behaviours that repeat as we age one guilty pleasure is eating some foods like chilli with a spoon only; onesies are essentially Babygros; and surely my coffee flask is just an adult sippy cup. Im wearing vest tops, though. Ive yet to source adult vests. Im worried theyll be a slippery slope to elasticated trouserland. Is Trumps Muslim paranoia already US policy? Since bottom-burp namesake Donald Shredded Wheat hair Trump suggested Muslims should be banned from entering America, weve seen worrying evidence that it might be happening. Imam and former Lib Dem candidate Ajmal Masroor was recently prevented from flying to New York to lead prayers at a mosque in Queens. When he checked in for his Virgin Atlantic flight to New York, he was informed that his US visa had been revoked. I love the Big Apple, but trying to get in is always a big faff, even for a blond, blue-eyed lass like me. Though, of course, I could still follow Islam how are they to know? Thats what makes it so farcical. Sure, working at JKF immigration is a serious job. Im not expecting scenes from The Aviator all dishy pilots and vanity cases but the transition from the friendly plane to queuing in the vast passport control hall rather jolts. Its an atmosphere not dissimilar to a prison exercise yard guards glaring at you menacingly as if a knife fight could break out when actually youre just there to go sightseeing, shopping and eat sandwiches bigger than your head. Breaking the law to help a toddler? Id be tempted too What would you have done in Rob Lawries shoes? The ex-soldier and father of four had been volunteering at the sprawling Calais refugee camp known as the Jungle. During his frequent visits building shelters, he befriended an Afghan man called Reza and his four-year-old daughter Bahar or Bru, who in looks, name and cuteness is similar to Boo from the movie Monsters, Inc. Bru was bright as a button and her dad wanted a better life for her. He begged Rob to take her home with him to the UK and deliver her to close family down the road from Robs home in Leeds. Rob repeatedly refused but, exhausted late one night, agreed in a moment of madness, a decision he now regrets. There was no Hollywood happy ending. He was caught, charged with immigration offences and tried in a Boulogne court. Reza and Bru plus dozens of Jungle volunteers were there this week to see him cleared before heading back to the camp. Bravo to the French court for showing compassion for what was a foolish yet loving act. I cant pretend I wouldnt have been tempted to help Bru, who tonight instead of sleeping snug in bed like my kids will like hundreds of other children in the Jungle be at the mercy of the cold under canvas in hellish conditions. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The delivery of medical care is to do as much nothing as possible" - Rule number 13 from Samuel Shems The House of God. While the novel may be intended to satirise hospital medicine, this is very good advice. Medicine can be dangerous stuff. It tends to be a sensible idea to make sure its really necessary before you give it. If youre not careful, doing things, rather than doing nothing, does more harm than good. Administered at the wrong time, that magic electric medicine in the paddles on TV stops being medicine, and becomes good old-fashioned deadly electricity (Thank you Mitchell and Webb). Doctors become very good at doing nothing, and justifying exactly why they are doing it. Swathes of patients notes are given over to itemising the reasons why a specialist isnt going to subject them to unnecessarily aggressive treatment. Often they will even go on to tell you the exact type of nothing they are doing. Patients diagnosed with a whole host of terrifying sounding conditions, including actual cancer will be told that the best management for them currently is watchful waiting or even masterly inactivity. Ask even the most stereotypically gung-ho surgeon, trained to believe operations are good for people, how best to manage a condition. They will develop a glazed look in their eyes and recite the mantra The management for any condition is conservative, medical, then surgical. Offer a walking stick before amputation. If Conservative management of a situation fails, only when you have run out of all other options, do you resort to something drastic. So it is highly unlikely then, that nearly the entire Junior Doctor workforce in Britain would decide to stop doing nothing on a whim. Yet when faced with prospect of the new contract, 98% of us voted to do something and strike. Getting this level of consensus amongst doctors is a feat in itself. If theres one thing we enjoy more than doing nothing, its disagreeing with one another. The first industrial action taken by junior doctors since the 70s is definitely at the surgical end of the spectrum. It isnt without risk, only the danger is not to the general public. There will be other doctors in hospitals to look after them. We risk being vilified for supposedly abandoning our patients, in the name of furthering our champagne swilling, jet-set lifestyles (seriously my life is like one long Jay Z video). At first glance, the issues were getting so worked up about seem pretty self-interested. Why should anyone else care about a pay cut and an attack on our right to have lives outside of the hospital? Im writing this on the back of seven 13-hour night shifts. Thats roughly two weeks' work in the space of one, at night. I certainly dont feel at my sharpest, or healthiest. If you ask us to do this sort of thing more often for less (which the new contract does), some of our enthusiasm might start to wane. You may find that some doctors simply arent able to carry on. Jeremy Hunt has described junior doctors as the backbone of the NHS. I have a little gem for him I picked up at medical school: your backbone (or spine as we call it in the trade) is important. Its generally a good idea not to damage it. We have whole hospital units dedicated to sorting out the problems that occur when you do (for now at least). The government have resorted to scare tactics, saying A&E departments may face closure on strike days, affecting patient safety. Firstly this is unlikely, since doctors wont strike if their absence isnt safely covered. Secondly, surely a day of closure is still less dangerous than the permanent A&E closures they seem to favour. In any case, the strikes are continuing as it is now safer than doing nothing - both for patients and doctors. Opinion / Columnist I would like to thank Vivid Gwede for summing up so precisely what our political leaders from all sides of the political divide are doing here; asking Zimbabweans to "democratise within a dictatorship straitjacket". These leaders have been doing this all the time for the last 36 years!When power is not restrained by the principles of moral justice and reason it has the tendency of transforming a sheep into a wolf. This is what has been happening in our beloved Zimbabwe and the challenge here is to break this cycle.It is our liberators from white colonial oppression who, as soon as they got into power, abandoned all the pre-independence promises of freedom, justice, one-man-one-vote and even the sanctity of human life. It is President Mugabe and his Zanu PF cabal who have fashioned this dictatorship straitjacket and, for the last 36 years, have forced us to wear it or be damned (as if a sane man forced to wear a straitjacket is not damned already). Tsvangirai and his MDC friends promised to end the dictatorship but as soon as they got on the gravy train they too forgot their promise to the people. Now that they have tasted the sweetness of absolute power and the economic benefits it brings, they are more determined than ever to get back on the gravy train. They know they must promise the people something to win back their confidence and vote and so they are telling the people removing Mugabe is the only thing the nation needs to do; which is nonsense.When the people elected Mugabe back in 1980 they did not know he would turn out to be a corrupt and murderous tyrant because there was no stamp "dictator" on his forehead to warn them. He has gone on to corrupt the nation's Police, Judiciary, ZEC, etc. so they serve him and his no-regime-change mantra instead of the nation. Removing Mugabe and replacing him with someone who will then inherit a ready-made dictatorship in the hope that he/she will become a benevolent dictator in folly because there is no such thing as a benevolent dictator.What these politicians are doing is keeping the dictatorship intact because they want the dictatorial powers for themselves when they replace Mugabe. Even with his track record of economic ruin, rigged elections and over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans murdered to establish and maintain his de facto one-party dictatorship, President Mugabe will never admit he is a dictator.If we do not dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship and instead settle for removing the dictator we know, Mugabe, we will be leaving the door wide open for the next president to be a dictator too! Our goal should therefore be to end the dictatorial system of government and with that we are guaranteed to remove current dictators and stop any ever emerging in the future.The only sure way to force the nation's political leaders to adopt the basic principles of moral justice and reason and to adhere to these values throughout their time in office is for the people to have the power to remove from office any leader found wanting or who falls foul of these principles. The people's right to free, fair and credible elections is therefore not just another political skirmish, it is the battle royal. Zimbabwe is in this political and economic hell-hole because the people have never had the power to remove from office corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical leaders like President Mugabe. As long as leaders retain the power to rig elections, inherent in the dictatorship, then this nation is going nowhere, we will remain stuck in this hell-hole.No nation in human history has ever enjoyed peace, freedom and economic prosperity when with one half free and the other slave or, as is the case here, the sane majority in straitjackets ruled by a tiny minority whose insatiable greed for power and wealth has robbed them of moral compass and reason. The fight to have all the GPA reforms implemented and finally secure for ourselves and for posterity the right to free, fair and credible elections is therefore the battle royal, we must win it at all cost! European stocks fell, snapping a two-day rebound, amid renewed concern about global-growth prospects. By the close in Dublin, the ISEQ Overall Index was down 2.4pc, or 158.43 points, to end the trading day at 6,454.55. The leaders on the Dublin market included recruitment firm CPL Resources, which rose 0.8pc to 6.10, while Applegreen was up 3pc to 5.20. On the other side of the board, the laggards included speciality baker Aryzta, which slipped 3.5pc to 41.50, while hotel group Dalata dropped 2.6pc to 5.20. Elsewhere, the Stoxx Europe 600 Index declined 1.5pc at the close of trading. It pared a drop of as much as 3.3pc as energy producers reversed losses, following oil prices higher. Europe's benchmark has still tumbled 18pc since an April high, inching closer to the common definition of a bear market. "Everything boils down to concerns about global growth," said Ralf Zimmermann, a strategist at Bankhaus Lampe in Dusseldorf. "There are few people out there willing to buy the dips because everyone is scared that the sell-off will be deeper the next day. And it has been. Sentiment is rock bottom. I would sell any highs. There is definitely potential for bigger losses." Stocks are falling in 2016 on concern China's slowdown may be worse than expected and as oil slumped further. A rally in Europe on Wednesday weakened heading into the close, signalling that investors lack the conviction to drive a rebound after stocks' worst-ever start to a year. Prospects for global profit growth are also worsening, with analysts cutting forecasts by the most since 2009, according to a Citigroup index. Among stocks active on corporate news, Renault plunged 10pc after its offices in France were raided by government fraud investigators as part of a probe into vehicle emissions. Additional reporting by Bloomberg Central Bank Governor Professor Philip Lane will not be following in his predecessor's footsteps and gifting a portion of his salary to the State, the Irish Independent has learned. Professor Lane, who took up the post in November, is entitled to a gross salary of 254,048. The former Trinity College Dublin academic is entitled to the same pay packet as Professor Patrick Honohan, but the latter had been voluntarily returning a portion of his salary. Prof Honohan's time at the helm of the regulator was dominated by the economic crisis, budget austerity and the bailout years. A Central Bank spokeswoman said the Governor's salary had been determined by the Central Bank Commission. She added that Governor Lane would not be gifting part of his pay, but declined to comment further. "This [Governor Lane's gross salary] is in line with the salary that applied to his predecessor," she said. "Governor Lane is accepting the agreed salary. He's not gifting a portion." The Central Bank's annual report for 2014 showed Prof Honohan had gifted 57,000 of his salary to Finance Minister Michael Noonan. The gross salary of the Central Bank Governor has been falling fractionally each year. In 2011, it was 276,324, dropping to 265,186 in 2013 and subsequently to 254,048. The Governor, however, is not the best-paid official in the Central Bank. Deputy Governor and Financial Regulator Cyril Roux was entitled to a gross salary of 310,000 in 2014. Former deputy governor Stefan Gerlach earned 230,350. Meanwhile, the Dame Street institution has been named 'Central Bank of the Year' by the publications 'Central Banking Journal' and centralbanking.com. The judging panel, made up of members of 'Central Banking' editorial staff and former senior central bankers sitting on the publication's advisory board, highlighted the introduction of the bank's tough mortgage deposit rules. Noting the impact on property prices, the judges said the move demonstrated the Central Bank of Ireland's "resolve to tackle sensitive issues in an independent manner". Governor Lane said the award was an honour. "The bank remains vigilant and willing to take macro prudential measures to fulfil its mandate of 'protecting stability and protecting consumers'," he said. "Now that we have the appropriate toolkit in place to protect financial stability, I believe the willingness of the Central Bank to intervene in a structural and proportionate manner is evident and clearly demonstrates the Bank has undergone a transformation since the financial crisis." 'Central Banking Journal' also said Governor Lane supported the continuing efforts of the European Central Bank's governing council to deploy non-standard measures in fulfilling its price stability mandate. He added: "Developments in emerging economies should be monitored closely, given their importance in determining global output and their growing impact on the global financial system." The price of diesel has dropped to 1 in a Dublin city centre garage. The Mount Brown Emo filling station in Dublin 8 has dropped its diesel price to 99.9 cents a litre. Earlier this week, garages in Mayo and the north-west of the country were offering the lowest prices, but now the cheapest diesel can also be found in Dublin. Today, Applegreen announced that it had reduced the price of its unleaded petrol and diesel by up to three cents. While prices vary across Applegreen stores, the company said from today the cheapest diesel will now be 1.01 per litre, while the cheapest petrol will be 1.16 per litre. The drop in fuel prices in Ireland follows crude oil falling to a 12-year low of less than $30 a barrel on international markets. This time last year, motorists in Ireland were paying as little as 122.8c per litre of petrol and 117.8c for diesel. Yesterday, Dermot Jewell, Policy and Council Advisor with the Consumer Association of Ireland said experts are predicting that fuel prices will continue to drop, making it cheaper than water. Currently, a one-litre bottle of Ballygown is currently 1.00 in Tesco, while a one-litre bottle of Volvic in Supervalu costs 1.06. Prices can vary greatly from brand to brand and shop to shop, but market analysts are predicting that bottled water may, for a time, be more expensive than petrol. If you listen to the experts and their comments now and if you look to the reality weve seen at the pumps of the price reduction below a euro for diesel, then yes it is very, very likely that it is a real potential. Petrol would drop below the somewhat outrageously price bottled water. How long it will last is another issue. We already have stations here in Ireland who are selling [diesel] below a euro a litre. Experts are saying that there is still the potential for the 99.999 cents to drop as much as another 14 cent which would be phenomenal. Its exceptionally good news. What needs to be brought into mind is that this is a factor in the reality of the goods and services we have imported. So if the fuel is cheaper we could see a reduction in the prices of goods and services. It should reasonably follow. The average price of a litre of petrol is now 125.9c, with diesel at 114.9c across the country, according to Pumps.ie. Oil prices fell again yesterday after a rise in weekly US crude inventories fed into bearish sentiment about the deepening global supply glut that has brought prices close to levels not seen since 2003. Shoppers queue to get into one of Primarks latest stores, in central Madrid. Photo: Antonio Heredia/Bloomberg Warm, wet weather dented the performance of discount-clothing chain Primark in the run-up to Christmas. Its owner, Associated British Foods (ABF), said sales at the retailer rose 7pc in the 16 weeks to January 2, but that its performance was also affected by currency headwinds. It added that the like-for-like sales performance of the chain in the first seven weeks of ABF's financial year, which began in mid-September, was "strong", benefiting from a weaker performance in the corresponding period the previous year when the autumn was warm. But in the nine weeks leading up to Christmas, and over the festive season itself, like-for-like sales were weaker. ABF finance director John Bason insisted that the weaker pre-Christmas performance was nothing to worry about. "Footfall was fine," he said. "It's specific to those weather- related items. We'll move on from that." As it had expected, Primark's operating profit margin in the latest period was lower than last year as a result of the stronger US dollar. But the margin decline was lower than had been anticipated. Primark, which has its headquarters in Dublin and which trades as Penneys in Ireland, accounted for 5.3bn (7bn) of ABF's total 12.8bn revenue in its last financial year and for 673m of its nearly 1.1bn group adjusted operating profit. ABF's activities include sugar production, agricultural and grocery products. It owns a range of well-known household brands, including Patak's, Ryvita, Jordans, Ovaltine and Blue Dragon. The company said that Twinings Ovaltine achieved strong sales growth in Australia and an improvement in Thailand. It added that trading at George Weston foods in Australia was also "much improved". There are currently 299 Primark stores, 166 of them in the UK, and ABF has expanded the chain across Europe over the past decade, opening in countries including Germany, France, Spain and the Netherlands. It will open its first-ever store in Italy, in Milan, early next summer. Last September, Primark also opened its first store in the United States, in Boston. It has since opened its second, an 80,000sq.ft premises, at the King of Prussia Mall in Pennsylvania. "We expect to open a further six stores in the US later this calendar year," said ABF. "In addition, in calendar 2017, we now expect to open a 70,000sq.ft store in the American Dream shopping mall in New Jersey." For its current financial year, ABF stuck with its forecast for a modest decline in adjusted operating profit, brought about by currency pressures. The group also reiterated expectations for an improvement in sugar profits in 2017. (Additional reporting Reuters) Former Clerys workers have secured their first major victory as the Government has engaged two experts to carry out an extensive review of company law. Labour court chairman Kevin Duffy and company law specialist Nessa Cahill will deliver a report in eight weeks, with recommendations on how to prevent what happened to the 460 staff in Clerys from occurring again. The review will look at how to prevent companies restructuring or separating valuable assets from their operations arm in a bid to avoid their responsibility to employees. Staff at Clerys learned in June that they were to lose their jobs, just hours after the store building was sold. A liquidator was appointed and staff were entitled only to statutory redundancy. Gerry Markey, a former Clerys employee who worked with the company for 34 years, welcomed the news at a rally outside the O'Connell Street landmark. "This is what we've been angling at for quite a number of months. The law has to be examined and it has to be made sure that nothing like this can ever happen again," he said. "What was done was so horrible and there was no need for it. "The law has to be changed to protect workers and their rights and to give them at least 28 days' notice so that they can fight for what they need. Justice He added: "It's not too late for other workers. It's not going to benefit anybody who has already been affected, but it will protect other workers for the future. This is the proof that there is justice for workers." Labour junior minister Ged Nash paid tribute to the former Clerys staff. "We believe the way they were treated was disgraceful and we want to ensure the risk of these types of abuses happening in the future are minimised," he said. "It's important that in circumstances like this employees are put in the centre of our law." Mr Nash said that it was "corporate law gymnastics" that allowed the restructuring of Clerys, which was fully compliant with the law. As part of the process, the Company Law Review Group will also examine legislation with a view to recommending ways company law could be changed to better safeguard employees and creditors. "It's a good day in the Justice for Clerys workers campaign," Siptu organiser Ethel Buckley said. "In the Clerys liquidation a number of loopholes were starkly highlighted. What we expect from this review is that these loopholes will be addressed and that the legislation will be amended to ensure that what happened to the Clerys workers cannot be repeated." Opinion / Letters Dear EditorI would like to respond briefly to the 'opinion piece' by Herald Political Editor, Tichaona Zindoga which appeared in the ZANU-PF - controlled broadsheet yesterday titled 'Biti's big bite of opposition cake'. I see it as nothing but a Professor Welshman Ncube bashing stunt poorly disguised as political analysis.I am no political guru myself, but have encountered most 'post-2000' democratic political leaders, close enough to proffer objective judgement. What is astonishing about the piece is a futile attempt at portraying MDC President Professor Welshman Ncube as a nonentity in Zimbabwean politics. The constant Welshman Ncube bashing - also usually associated with 'post 2005' MDC-T fundamentalists - is quite surprising, if not irritating, for someone of 'nonentity' status. I am at a loss to figure out what makes a political party a 'party'. Parliamentary presence perhaps? Certainly not, considering that Mr. Zindoga's employers are beneficiaries of thirty-five years of plunder, expropriation, intimidation and widespread electoral fraud legitimised only by SADC and the AU.His so-called political analysis lacks depth and substance, littered with the usual stereotypical rhetoric we have become accustomed to from the state mouth piece when it comes to not only Professor Ncube but also other opposition leaders. One wonders, what is it about this learned man that attracts so much vitriol? More important, Zimbabwe claims to be a multiparty democracy because of players like Professor Welshman Ncube.For a political editor, it is astonishing that Mr. Zindoga can get his facts so horribly wrong. Yes, if his 'standards' of electoral excellence are anything to go by, Professor Ncube did not do so well in the last ZANU-PF stage managed polls. However, a quick Google search or mere enquiry from 'enlightened' Herald reporters would reveal that Hon. Priscila Misihairabwi-Mushonga, Hon. Jasmine Toffa, Sen. Tholakele Khumalo and Sen. Joyce Ndlovu are in fact MDC deployees. Of course, according to Mr. Zindoga, proportional representation is not part of REAL electoral democracy in Zimbabwe!Predictably, he quotes the contested MPOI / Afro Barometer report since it places his boss, Robert Mugabe, at the top of the political pile. Yet, a sample of one thousand people would really not be much to write home about in serious statistical practice. Besides, getting 2,68 % of the vote in a plebiscite supervised by ZANU-PF dicey electoral institutions would really not keep me awake at night. The missing piece in Mr. Zindoga's puzzle of analytical claptrap is how ZANU-PF has managed to maintain its so-called high level brand. I would not want to bore the readers but simply to remind Mr. Zindoga that until there is a truly free and fair, democratic election in Zimbabwe, we will assume that all Parliamentary seats are a result of obscene benevolence from ZANU-PF's electoral Father Christmases. Tendai Biti has never contested as a presidential or national candidate, so measuring his electoral efficacy with the same analytical scale as Professor Ncube is misdirected.I do not do the bidding for any political party leader, but the danger is that people like Mr. Zindoga who bend over backwards to cast Professor Ncube as a nonentity, or opposition party leaders as 'foreign funded' are reading the script backwards. I dare say without the deadly combination of (foreign) Chinese support, abuse of the security services, traditional leaders and electoral institutions - not to mention high jacking of public media - ZANU-PF would long have been history. Professor Ncube's role in Zimbabwe, coupled with his service to the legal sector, is, as Gugu Magorira says, a game changer, cast in stone in the annals of history. Mr. Zindoga's opinion does really not matter anymore.Sincerely yours,Rejoice Ngwenya an average political observer Stock trading grew faster in European dark pools last year than it did on public exchanges, signalling that a regulatory campaign to clamp down on the practice is struggling to change behaviour. The region's dark pools - venues that don't display prices before trades take place - enjoyed a 45pc jump in the value of trading they handled in 2015, according to broker and equity-market operator Investment Technology Group (ITG). Public exchanges saw a 28pc increase. Dark venues are expanding more quickly than their "lit" counterparts, even though the European Union is planning to impose tough restrictions on them. EU institutions are concerned that public markets will become less efficient and share prices less accurate if dark pools grab a sizable share of equity trading. At the same time, US regulators have fined several dark venues, including ITG, for rule breaking. "It's a continuation of a trend that we've seen since these platforms launched," said Rob Boardman, chief executive officer of ITG's European arm. "The buy-side finds significant value in dark liquidity, and we expect that this demand will continue." ITG's data doesn't include bank-run pools known as broker-crossing networks, which match trades between the bank's customers. EU regulations will eventually require banks to phase out these pools or convert them into regulated platforms. The data capture activity on European equity trading venues called multilateral-trading facilities, or MTFs. Dark trading on MTFs increased to 6.6pc of the overall European stock market in 2015 from 5.7pc in the previous year, according to data from Fidessa Group Plc. (Bloomberg) With oil dropping below $30 a barrel, producers in western Europe's biggest crude exporting nation are now considerably worse off than they were in the darkest hours of 2008. Norway's oil "industry is in a crisis now, we can't deny that," said Bente Nyland, director general of the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate. Mr Nylan said there's a tendency for oil companies to prioritise short-term earnings rather than "long-term value creation," as prices fall. But the government is ruling out further stimulus. Finance Minister Siv Jensen said budget proposals put forward last year already contain "a lot of expansion" and will help stem job losses. The administration is now pegging its hopes to a currency devaluation that has tracked oil's decline and helped exporters in other industries. It's also stepping up its reliance on its 740bn wealth fund - the world's biggest - to deal with budget holes. "The financial crisis was nothing compared to this," said Teodor Sveen Nilsen, an analyst at Swedbank. (Bloomberg) A video of a young boy being reunited with his lost puppy has been viewed millions of times since it was posted online last week. The clips captures the moment little Khane Williams from Lubbock, Texas discovered that his puppy Kase, who had been missing since December, had been found. After weeks of looking for the missing dog, Khane's mother Paula discovered he had been taken in by a family living close-by, where he was fed and cared for. Paula decided to film Khane's emotional reunion with his much loved puppy, which has already been viewed more than 3 million times. "Oh Kase, I missed you," Khane says before he bursts into tears. Paula originally shared the video on a Facebook page aiming to finding missing pets in the area. "It's like an out of body experience," Lenny Abrahamson said as the news broke he'd landed a Best Director Oscar nomination for 'Room'. "When I heard I couldn't stop laughing. It's something you dream of but never believe it can actually become a reality." Emotions were running high yesterday as Irish talent scooped a record nine Academy Award nominations. The good news comes after the Irish Film Board urged the government this week to double its state funding to 20mk. Abrahamson's film 'Room', and 'Brooklyn' - starring Saoirse Ronan and directed by John Crowley - both got the nod in the Best Picture category and will go up against 'The Martian', 'The Revenant', 'The Big Short', 'Bridge of Spies' and 'Spotlight'. "It's a tough category, especially for two small independent Irish productions," Abrahamson said. "We had a fraction of the budget of the US films. "The Revenant, for example, was made for 160m while Room was made for 12m. The fact they are in the same category is astounding." Saoirse Ronan received her second nomination for her role as emigrant Eilis in the film adaptation of Colm Toibin's 2009 novel 'Brooklyn'. The 21-year-old actress described the film as one of the "hardest" projects she has ever worked on. "It is the most personal film I have ever done, the hardest one too," she said. "This has all been a dream. To see how the film has been embraced has been heart-warming". Golden Globe winner Brie Larson, the lead in 'Room', has been nominated for Best Actress alongside Cate Blanchett for 'Carol', Charlotte Rampling in '45 Years' and Jennifer Lawrence's depiction of the miracle mop millionaire 'Joy'. Author Emma Donoghue, who adapted her acclaimed novel 'Room' for the silver screen celebrated her nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay by tucking into French fancies. "I'm not a drinker so I bought my favourite French pastry. I bought two of them and I thought, 'I can always console myself with them if there's no joy,'" she said. Nick Hornby also landed a Best Adapted Screenplay nod for 'Brooklyn' but faces stiff competition from 'The Big Short', 'The Martian' and 'Carol'. Kerryman Michael Fassbender was picked in the Best Actor category for his depiction of Apple boss Steve Jobs. He will go up against favourite Leonardo DiCaprio in 'The Revenant', Eddie Redmayne for 'The Danish Girl', Bryan Cranston in 'Trumbo', and Matt Damon in The Martian'. Video of the Day Unfortunately Irish production 'Viva' missed out in the Best Foreign Language category but 'Stutterer' by Irish director Benjamin Cleary made the cut for best live action short. Last but not least, Irish makeup artist Catherine Biggs, from Dublin, is part of the make-up team that was nominated for an Oscar for 'Mad Max: Fury Road'. The Irish Film Board, which funded both 'Room' and 'Brooklyn', described the nominations as a "triumph for Irish film." "It's a staggering achievement for the Irish film industry to be recognised amongst the very best in the world," IFB chief executive James Hickey said. "It's a day for the Irish film industry and the entire country to be very proud. It truly is a golden age for Irish film," he added. Speaking to the Irish Independent last night, Oscar-nominated Lenny said he planned to celebrate with a beer or two. "I will go to a bar with the production team at Element Pictures and spend the whole night shaking my head in disbelief," he said. "I really hope these nominations help the Irish government invest in talent. "If we can obtain this many nominations on 11.5m, think what would be possible if we had double that." The Academy Awards will be held on February 28 in the Dolby Theatre. Asked if he was looking forward to the ceremony Lenny said: "I am. These things are usually quite boring till your category which is terrifying but the dresses and glamour is extraordinary." Saoirse Ronan has revealed how she heard the exciting news that she had been nominated for an Oscar for her performance in Brooklyn. Speaking to RTE Ten on Thursday night, following the nominations announcement, she said she had just moved in to her new apartment in New York. "It was my first night in this apartment and I was still kind of getting used to the New York traffic so I had my ear plugs in my ears and I actually had the best night's sleep I've had in days because I as a bit jet-lagged," she said. Saoirse had returned to New York from a stint doing press for Brooklyn in LA. Expand Close Saoirse Ronan in Brooklyn. Photo: AP / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Saoirse Ronan in Brooklyn. Photo: AP "I was finally getting to sleep, I was in a really deep sleep which was weird considering what was going on today, and about 8 o'clock, half eight, mam ran in and all I could hear was, 'We're going to the Oscars, we're going to the Oscars!' "It was kind of muffled and I couldn't make out what she was saying but she had tears in her eyes and I pulled out my ear plugs and she was able to tell me the news straight away. Everyone from home started calling me. It's wonderful." Saoirse was previously nominated for an Oscar in 2008 when she was just 13 for her performance in Atonement, something she says went "over her head" at the time. "It's a huge honour to be recognised now a second time, it's unreal," she said. "I think to have gone through something like that when you are young, it was great, but to a certain extent it does go over your head a bi which is good. "I was away working at the time when I was nominated when I was younger so just to be able to embrace it now and because I've been part of the Brooklyn experience from the very beginning and I'm here with it now it's almost like watching a kid growing up, walking for the first time and going to school, it very much feels like we've all just been on this adventure from day one together." The 21-year-old actress, who was born in New York, but grew up in Carlow, said she's "extra proud" to be representing an Irish film at this level. "If you want to be recognised for anything for me to be able to be given so much kind of recognition and have a film seen on such a kind of large scale that's Irish and very very personal to me makes me extra proud," she said. Video of the Day "Because it's a story that my mam and dad went through themselves. They went to New York in the 80s and had the experience that Eilish did and to be able to kind of relive that and honour that story and beginning that whole journey back home in Ireland..." "When we were there two years ago RTE came down and were broadcasting the whole thing and everyone came out in Enniscorthy to support us. That's the wonderful thing about home, we're so small as well, we naturally sort of have an underdog mentality so when anyone is able to represent us we really get behind them. "I could feel that when I waws back at home and to have that film that means so much to me and began where I grew up literally do so well couldn't mean more to me." Read More Saoirse bagged just one of nine nominations for Irish stars and filmmakers for this year's Oscars with the Irish film Room, directed by Lenny Abrahamson picking up four. The actress believes there's a "movement" starting in Irish film. "When we took [Brooklyn] to Sundance last year Lenny was there with Room and I've seen him since and a lot of other filmmakers kind of joined together to celebrate Irish film even a year ago I really do feel like it's a genuine movement starting at home, things are starting to bubble up and I feel like filmmakers are becoming a bit braver and making the stories they want to make a little bit more more, because of Brooklyn and Room hopefully doing so well. "And to be part of that shift and see it happen is really, really exciting because I want to be involved in as many Irish films as I can, for as long as I'm doing this. It's something that has always been very important to me, and to have the first Irish film that you do be part of this real push is brilliant. Long may it continue." ONTARIO, Calif.CalExotics was once again a hit at ANME as attendees visited the booth to get a peek at whats coming for the 2016 spring season. ANME was a complete success. Our customers and show attendees loved all our new products, packaging and marketing support. They were especially captivated with our Living Beyond Breast Cancer partnership and new line of products. This organization continues to touch the lives of so many people. It is an honor to be a part of it and our customers want to join in for such a worthy cause, says Susan Colvin, founder and CEO of CalExotics. CalExotics and Living Beyond Breast Cancer have partnered for nearly 10 years, beginning with the popular Papillon Massager. The company has expanded its partnership with a complete line of female-centric products, Inspire. Inspire is designed to help positively affect the overall well-being and health of women with a portion of the proceeds benefiting this vital cause. Living Beyond Breast Cancer is a nonprofit dedicated to connecting those affected by breast cancer with trusted information and a community of support. CalExotics kicked off the show with the Inspire collection, culminating with a portion of their show sales being donated to LBBC, amounting to $18,689. In addition to Inspire, CalExotics showcased other new collections, Luxe and Hard Vibes. Luxe is a technologically advanced touch sensor vibrator. It features 10 functions of vibration with two touch sensors allowing the user to increase the speed on any function with their own touch. Attendees were astonished at the technology, and placed pre-orders to ensure they would be the first to have it. Luxe also has a display perfect for the retail environment; it showcases product details and gives consumers a hands-on experience to help close the sale. Hard Vibes is a collection of classic, hard style vibrators that brings together best-selling and new styles with cohesive new packaging. Its broken down into four categories; Mini, Slimline, Power+ and Signature, to aid in merchandising and selling. New products were also added to several best-selling collections including Apollo, Booty Call, Clitoral Pumps, COLT, Embrace, Jack Rabbit, Kits, Nipple Play, Optimum Power, Power Studs, Pumps, Scandal and Silhouette. For more information on CalExotics, their products and marketing support, visit CalExotics.com or contact a company representative. I was braced for a chilly reception last year as I was ushered into a hotel room to interview Alan Rickman, who died yesterday aged 69. The actor was known to have struggled over the decades with the transition from jobbing thesp to international star, and stories abounded of him treating overly-inquisitive journalists with Severus Snape-levels of disdain. He once cancelled a tete-a-tete with a UK newspaper, feeling nothing he might say could possibly be of interest to anyone. The grapevine had it wrong, as it happened. Rickman was thoroughly down to earth, exuding dry wit and a surprising conviviality. Conspicuously absent was the frosty hauteur he had so convincingly emanated as Harry Potter anti-hero Snape. Rickman's good humour endured even as I peppered him with questions about Die Hard, the film to which he owed the overnight fame he gained in 1988 at the age of 42. "Die Hard was a huge event in my life," he told me. "I walked into a screening in New York anonymous and walked out not anonymous. It was the first film I ever made - I was very ignorant." He was also forthcoming about his difficult childhood. Rickman's father died when the future actor was a child, leaving his mother to raise the family alone. "That was my reality from when I was eight. You don't have the power of analysis. You think, 'this is shit', and get on with it." Besides Harry Potter and Die Hard, it was his portrayal of Eamon de Valera in Neil Jordan's 1996 film 'Michael Collins' for which he will be remembered here. "With de Valera, I knew what Neil's opinion was," he told me, "And I knew it was a country divided. I couldn't play either of those. I had to do the homework and play the person and hope Neil would cut it so it would remain there for people to make up their minds. I'm not sure that is what happened - but that is what I was playing." During his last appearance in Ireland, last March, Rickman told of his love for the country. "To a very large extent, it feels like I'm coming home," he said. Video of the Day "I had an Irish grandmother that I never knew and Welsh parentage on the other side, so it's just Celt meeting Celt. It's good to walk the streets here and smell the oxygen. It feels like stuff to do with where I came from." Mugshots: Steven Avery, the subject of the Netflix show 'Making a Murderer', pictured in police photos in the 1980s The writers and directors of Making a Murderer say they are not arguing for Steven Avery's innocence. ** WARNING: SPOILERS** Avery was wrongly convicted of a crime in 1985 and served 18 years before he proved his innocence and was released. He then sued local law enforcement for his wrongful conviction and as that lawsuit was moving forward he was charged with murder by that same county in which he lived and was suing. Netflix's documentary series Making a Murder charts Avery's story from 1985 to present day and exposes failings in the criminal justice system, prompting several petitions from the public calling for Avery's release. However, Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos have said that they are not arguing for Avery's innocence. Speaking to Paul McLoone on the Anton Savage Show on Today FM, they said they simply saw the case as a "window through which to look at the American criminal justice system". "Here was a man failed by the system in the mid 80s and 20 years later was stepping back into it," said Moira. "The question in 2005 [when they started filming] was has the criminal justice system made significant profess or was it just not that different to the system of 1985?" Laura added, "There's been some backlash in the United States where people are thinking we've taken up Steven Avery's case and we're interested in advocating or arguing his innocence but that was never what this series was about. "We were in it to ask bigger questions and to show essentially the state of the system." Expand Close Ken Kratz, who acted as prosecutor in the trials of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Ken Kratz, who acted as prosecutor in the trials of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey Laura also hit back at claims by former Wisconsin state prosecutor Ken Kratz that they ignored "key" evidence. "We absolutely disagree," she said, "None of the evidence he listed in his famous email to the press of his strongest evidence was never during this two year prosecution, the evidence that he was pointing top as the proof of his case. Video of the Day "We based what we put in the series on his press conferences, his opening statement, his closing statement. We wanted to put the State's strongest evidence and then have the defence come back with its strongest defence. "We're storytellers so that sort of conflict was in our interest, to make the State's case as strong as we can make it." Expand Close Making A Murderer: Jodi Stachowski and ex-fiance Steven Avery. Credit: Netflix / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Making A Murderer: Jodi Stachowski and ex-fiance Steven Avery. Credit: Netflix It has also recently been revealed that back in 2005 Avery filed documents claiming his brothers Charles and Earl may have have been responsible for the murder of photographer Teresa Halbach, the crime for which he is currently serving time. Laura explains, "His defence attorneys were arguing to the judge that hey should be allowed to essentially name names because their concern was, if we take this trial and do a good job of persuading the jury that Steven Avery was not responsible for Teresa Halbach's death the jury might struggle to acquit because they will want to know if it wasn't Steven then who was it? "So the defence made an argument to the judge that there were other people who had the same opportunity, the same motive, which was essentially none, to kill Teresa Halbach." The defence listed several names but the judge ordered that the motion be filed under seal to protect the reputations of those people and that document was not unsealed until after Avery was found guilty. Read More However, Laura feels it's "unfortunate" that the document has now come to light. "I think it's just driving what Moira and I consider to be a distraction now in terms of a response," said Laura. "It's still driving a quest for answers and the truth about who might have killed Teresa Halback and really that was the job of law enforcement. They were the ones trying to investigate this case and they had an opportunity to investigate it fairly and thoroughly and in our opinion that did not happen. "So it has fallen on amateur sleuths and average citizens to of course care about these things but they're really not in a position I would think to do the job the investigators should have done back in 2005." The most recent development in the saga is the fact that Avery's ex-fiance Jodi Stachowski, who features in the documentary, has now revealed she thinks Avery is guilty and claims he was violent and abusive throughout their relationship. Read More "We based our series on what we found in the public record and tried to fill all our characters in all their complexities, flaws and all," said Laura of the developments. "One of the themes of the series is that we're all human beings, we all have flaws, we're all under pressure, we all decide to do good but make bad choices sometimes and this is a muddy area, there's no black and white. It's an array of greys here." She added, "When I read the petitions, at least one of them claims Steven's due process rights were violated and if that is in fact true and that's what people feel, the solution to that is Steven gets a new trial./ Every accused has a right to a fair trial." The directors revealed that Avery now has a new lawyer and they do not know if they will be able to speak to him while he has new representation. "We're interested in continuing to pursue this story should there be significant developments and if we think a new episode or more is warranted then we will continue to follow the story." DUBLIN'S Moore Street is the most policed in the city, a court was told after a trader was arrested for selling cigarettes. A lawyer for grandmother Catherine Teeling (66) maintained the famous street had the most gardai on duty per square metre. Judge Anthony Halpin advised Teeling that she could instead try writing and selling her memoirs, after noting she had 52 prior convictions. He gave her a two-month suspended sentence. Teeling, of Avondale House, Cumberland Street, pleaded guilty to having 30 packets of cigarettes and four of tobacco for sale with no tax stamp. The offence happened on August 22 last. A plain-clothes garda saw the accused with a plastic bag at 10.05am shouting out: "anyone want cigarettes?" The total potential loss of revenue to the State was 230. The court heard Teeling's prior convictions dated between 1995 and 2012. Solicitor Yvonne Bambury said Teeling was "not a woman of any great means." Police "It is the most police-populated street in Dublin," Ms Bambury said. "Would she not take up professional writing or something?" the judge asked. "She could write her memoirs. There's a lot of homegrown cinema here, she might be able to sell the rights and it might be called Catherine Teeling's life story." He suspended the sentence for two years. A 22-year-old student and mother of one, who allegedly called a security guard a fucking asshole, a dickhead and a thick shit, has been awarded damages for defamation in the Circuit Civil Court against his employer. Jodie Hayes told the court that in May 2013 she had been with friends at River Island store in the Ilac Shopping Centre, Dublin, when she was asked to leave the shop by security guard Wayne Mitchell. She said when she asked him why, Mitchell had told her you know why and directed her out of the store. She had been embarrassed in front of friends and other customers. Hayes, of Rory OConnor House, Hardwicke Street Flats, Dublin, denied calling Mitchell the names which were later described in detail to Judge John Hannan. She sued security company Vision Security Group Ltd, of Suite 6 Plaza, 256 Blanchardstown Corporate Park, Ballycoolin. The company denied having accused Ms Hayes of shoplifting. Mitchell told the court that the store management had taken the decision to bar Ms Hayes from the store after she had been very abusive two weeks before the incident, when she was asked to leave the store after one of her friends allegedly removed a security tag off an item. The court heard there had been no suspicion that Ms Hayes had done anything suspicious. Hayes said Mitchell had told her she could come back to the store when she had calmed down. She told Judge Hannan she did not know she had been barred. Judge Hannan said he accepted Ms Hayes had been defamed. He said he was satisfied that words had been spoken to Mr Mitchell, but Ms Hayes had left the store thinking that she could come back. The judge said although Mr Mitchell had tried to do his best, when Ms Hayes did come back to the store, the security guard took the decision to approach her and spoke to her in front of her friends and other customers. Judge Hannan, awarding Hayes 7,500 damages along with her legal costs, said she had not suffered any significant injury out of this incident and her shopping habits in the store had not been affected. Djair Carlos De Oliveira has been given a suspended sentence for assault causing harm and harassment of his ex-boyfriend. Photo: Courtpix A WAITER who attacked his ex-boyfriend in the street, stubbing a cigarette out on his face, has avoided jail for assault and harassment charges. Djair Carlos De Oliveira (27), a student nutritionist, also bit into his exs wrist and tried to stab the mans new partner with a kitchen knife in the street. He persisted in contacting the victim after they broke up, demanding answers as to why he ended the relationship. De Oliveira went on to continue harassing him with text messages while on bail. The accused had been bereft at the split, and took it extremely badly when his ex started a new relationship, Dublin District Court heard. Judge Dermot Dempsey today gave him a one-year suspended sentence and ordered De Oliveira to have no contact with the victim and stay away from his home and workplace. Suspending the sentence for two years, he also fined him 100. De Oliveira, a Brazilian national with an address at Dublins North Circular Road, pleaded guilty to assaulting his ex-partner at Chancery Hall Apartments, Blackhall Place on October 30, 2013, and producing a kitchen knife in a dispute at Blackhall Place on January 23 this year. He further admitted harassing the victim at various locations between June 3 and August 24, 2014 with hundreds of missed calls and text messages. He harassed the victim again between June 16 and September 7 last year, making phone calls and sending text messages to the victim, questioning his relationship status. Defence solicitor Declan Fahy said his client was happy to abide by the conditions. Previously, a garda sergeant told the court: one of the texts read: Why cant you answer me? I am going to destroy your life, I am going to Facebook your family. The sergeant said the victim and his new partner were exiting a Spar shop when the accused grabbed him, refused to let go and quenched his cigarette out on his face, under his eye. The victims statement read that De Oliveira bit me on the left wrist, which drew blood. In the attempted stabbing, there was a scuffle in which De Oliveira pulled a knife with a four-inch blade out of his jacket pocket and went for the victim's new partner. The accused tried to stab him, making a jabbing motion. The victims new partner managed to get the knife out of his hand. De Oliveira had come here three years ago, was in college and hoped to become a nutritionist. He accepts his behaviour was entirely inappropriate, another defence solicitor Yvonne Bambury had said. He felt genuinely bereft and upset at the loss of the relationship. The accused, who had since been diagnosed with OCD, apologised. He had had some alcohol taken at the time of some of the events, Ms Bambury said. A worker in a care home who assaulted residents by roughly treating them now feels like a demon in her community, a court heard today. Brendan McDonagh, counsel, told a District Court sitting in Castlebar, that Joan Gill (62), Dublin Road, Swinford, Co. Mayo, has effectively been a prisoner in her own home since film footage covertly filmed by RTE's Investigations Unit was screened by the national broadcaster last year. Read More In the footage Mrs. Gill, now retired, is shown ill-treating two intellectually disabled residents at the HSE run centre. One of her victims, identified as 'Miss A', who is intellectually disabled, is shown on video being dragged from her chair across the floor in what is known as Bungalow 3 of the ten-acre Aras complex. Mrs. Gill pleaded guilty to three counts of assault in the sittingroom area of Bungalow 3 on various dates in November 2014. Detective Sergeant Gerry Lee told today's court that the defendant co-operated fully with the Garda investigation and accepted fully on viewing the CCTV footage that what she had done was wrong and if presented with the same situation again she would take a different course of action. Mr. McDonagh said his client was apologetic, embarrassed and shamed by what had happened. 'She feels like a pariah in her own community, counsel said. As a result of looking at the (film) clips she feels horrified and incredibly ashamed. He added that since the RTE programme Ms. Gill has stopped walking downtown in Swinford and had taken early retirement. While his client's actions had been reckless, cocunsel continued, she had never intended to do any harm. Mr. McDonagh went on to explain that Mrs. Gill, who had been working in Aras Attracta for 25 years, had enjoyed an ublemished career up to the incidents. Judge Mary Devins will consider the penalties to be imposed on Mrs. Gill at a district court sitting in Ballina on February 23. On that date, Judge Devins is to deliver a verdict against other Aras Attracta care workers who have pleaded not guilty to single charges of assault against residents. They are: Patrick McLoughlin (56), Mayfield, Claremorris, Co.Mayo, Christina Delaney (35), Seefin, Lissatava, Hollymount, Claremorris, Co. Mayo, Joan Walsh (42), Carrowilkeen, Curry, Co. Sligo, and Kathleen King (56), Knockshanbally, Straide, Foxford, Co. Mayo., The judge earlier excused herself from a case involving a fifth defendant, Anna Ywunong Botsimbo (34), Lowpark Avenue, Charlestown, Ms. Botsimbo's case will now be tried by a different Judge. The video evidence on which the State case against all the defendants is based was filmed covertly by RTE following contacts by a number of 'whistleblowers' three in total who contacted the station's Investigative Unit to express concerns over aspects of patient care at the facility. Strike action by a teachers union could close second-level schools and third-level colleges for a day each in coming weeks. Lecturers in institutes of technology are planning to strike on February 3 and now their union colleagues in almost half the countrys second-level schools, as well as colleges of further education, are also threatening to stop work for day before the General Election. The decisions by the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) follows separate ballots by their 10,000 members at second -level and 4,000 at third-level. If the one-day strike at second-level goes ahead, it would close about 350 community colleges and comprehensive and community schools, where the TUI has members. No date has been set for the stoppage, but the TUI said it would happen before the General Election unless there were meaningful talks on a range of issues, including lower salary scales introduced for new teachers in 2012 and the problem of casualisation in the profession. TUI president Gerry Quinn said 30pc of second-level teachers were employed on a temporary and/or part-time basis and this proportion grows to 50pc for those under 35. As a result of casualisation, students are often taught by a succession of teachers in a given subject area over the course of the Junior or Leaving Certificate cycles. Clearly, this is undesirable, he said. He said the continuing ban on filling promotional posts and cuts to guidance had made it increasingly difficult for schools to support students and were having a devastating effect on the quality of service. At third-level, key concerns of TUI members include funding for institutes of technology, a 32pc rise in student numbers over a time of when lecturer numbers have fallen by 10pc and the precarious employment status of many lecturers. Tanaiste Joan Burton has been accused of making "election gimmick" promises on childcare, which Labour pledges will cost just 2 per hour. In angry Dail exchanges, Sinn Fein's Mary Lou McDonald said the Labour promise was "on the back of an envelope and not costed", as she dismissed the plans reported in yesterday's Irish Independent. Ms McDonald said Labour in Government had broken all its promises on childcare and could not be relied upon to deliver the latest pre-election pledges. "Your activities have hurt parents and children and you continue to hurt parents and children," Ms McDonald told the Dail. The Labour leader hit back and said the Sinn Fein leader, Gerry Adams, had "no credibility" when it came to whether he had been in the IRA. Ms Burton also referred to Sinn Fein's record in managing alleged child abuse and she specifically referred to accusations involving Mr Adams's past. "Gerry Adams is a man who cannot even fess up in regard to what happened with certain murders," Ms Burton commented. In a renewal of vitriolic Dail clashes between Ms Burton and Ms McDonald, the Sinn Fein deputy leader said Labour had promised not to cut child benefit; had failed to deliver a promised comprehensive pre-school service; and imposed lone-parent payment cuts without the promised improvements in child care. "In fact, you've broken every single promise that you made," Ms McDonald said. Recession The Labour leader said her party's childcare scheme - providing 40 hours weekly subsidised care for children aged nine months to 12 years at 2 per hour - will be fully outlined in its election manifesto. She said it would be fully costed and elaborated in detail. Ms Burton also defended the party's childcare record set against the worst recession in generations. She said the party was working on more quality childcare at affordable prices while also improving standards among childcare providers. The Tanaiste also told Social Democrat leader Stephen Donnelly the Government did not accept EU criticisms of "a political Budget" delivered last October. Ms Burton said the Government was creating jobs and building a sustainable economic recovery. Also yesterday, Sinn Fein leader Mr Adams vowed to lead the party through the 32nd Dail and warned that Fianna Fail would not be considered as a senior Coalition partner. Mr Adams, speaking as he campaigned in Cork, predicted that Sinn Fein were poised to make historic gains, with the party set to run 50 candidates in the General Election and contest every constituency nationwide. Sinn Fein soared from just four Dail seats in 2007 to 14 at the 2011 General Election. With the party now above Fianna Fail in opinion polls, some analysts indicated they could win up to 30 seats. Mr Adams again scotched rumours about him bringing the curtain down on his leadership. Aaron OLeary (12) from Ballinhassig, Co Cork, who returned from hospital in the UK after a double lung transplant. Photo:Daragh Mc Sweeney/Provision Aaron OLeary (12) from Ballinhassig, Co Cork, who returned from hospital in the UK after a double lung transplant A schoolboy is recovering at home after a life-changing double-lung transplant in the UK, weeks after he asked Santa for new lungs for Christmas. Aaron O'Leary (12) from Ballinhassig, Co Cork, who lives with cystic fibrosis, returned from the Freeman Hospital Newcastle on Wednesday. He was met by cheers from friends and family upon his arrival at Cork Airport. Aaron is looking forward to celebrating his new lease of life following the surgery. "I feel really well, better than I ever was and I can breathe really well," he said. "I can do a lot more now, I can actually play games properly now and I can go on cycles." His mother Caroline said the news came just in time for Aaron, who had been on the transplant list for six months. "We were very worried about him," she told TV3 News. "He was on oxygen every day and fighting to breathe, really." GSOC were granted powers to access phone and email records last year. (Stock image) Under laws enacted last year, the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) was granted garda-style powers in relation to access to phone and email records. For years gardai of the rank of chief superintendent and above have been able to request such records from phone companies, internet service providers and email services. The new laws bestowed the same privileges on GSOC investigators. Critics say it means they can get access to such records without having to apply to a judge or inform the individuals involved that their records are being accessed. Indeed, the two journalists at the centre of the current GSOC investigation only found out from external parties that the commission had been scrutinising their records. The legislation was brought in by Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald against the backdrop of several controversies in the garda force in recent years. The Garda Siochana (Amendment) Act 2015 was a far-reaching piece of legislation which effectively added GSOC into a number of acts governing garda investigative practices. The legislation amended a range of acts dealing with issues such as surveillance and the interception of postal packets and telecommunications messages. It was seen as a way of strengthening the powers of GSOC. However, it is unlikely legislators envisaged that the first high-profile use of the act by GSOC would be to gain access to the phone records of journalists, possibly across a two-year period. Under Irish law, telephone companies must retain call and text records for 24 months. Cell site information, which gives the rough location of a mobile phone when a specific call is made, must also be kept for two years. Email records must be kept for one year. Investigators can seek information not just on emails, but also when a person logged on or logged off from a specific internet service. Phone records have played a key part in a number of garda criminal investigations in the past, including the murder of Dublin woman Rachel O'Reilly by her husband Joe. Cell site analysis helped place the advertising executive at the family home on the day of the murder, when he had claimed to be elsewhere. Laws allowing the garda watchdog and gardai to access the phone and computer records of journalists and members of the public will be subject to a High Court challenge. Digital Rights Ireland, a campaign group opposed to the retention of phone and email data, is bringing the case follow- ing a successful challenge to an EU directive on the issue two years ago. The case comes amid criticism of the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) for accessing the phone records of at least two journalists while investigating allegations of leaks by gardai. GSOC scrutinised the phone records of two journalists follow- ing a complaint by a friend of the late model Katy French, who died of a drug overdose in December 2007. However, the exact nature of the complaint is unclear and the journalists involved were not informed their records were being accessed. The Digital Rights Ireland case seeks to strike down Irish data retention laws and the laws allowing gardai and GSOC access to phone and email records. At the very minimum, the group is seeking to have the law changed so that the approval of a judge would be needed. Transparency International also called for judicial oversight and the right for journalists to appeal against applications to access their phone or email records. Under existing laws, such records can be accessed on the approval of a chief superintendent in the case of gardai, while in the case of GSOC the permission of a commissioner is required. GSOC would not clarify whether this power could be devolved downwards to a lower level investigator. A GSOC spokeswoman said she was not authorised to comment on the issue. The complaints body was at the centre of a major political controversy two years ago when it claimed gardai were bugging its offices. A report by retired High Court judge John Cooke found no evidence of any surveillance taking place, and "much less" that gardai were responsible. GSOC was also involved in controversy last year when a garda sergeant took his own life not knowing he had been cleared by a Garda Ombudsman investigation. GSOC's trawl of the journalists' phone records is thought to be the first time ombudsman's investigators have used powers given to them last year in the Garda Siochana (Amendment) Act 2015. One of the reporters involved, Conor Feehan, works for Independent News and Media, the publishers of the Irish Independent. The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) said it was "worrying" that there was "no oversight" of the process. It is seeking an urgent meeting with GSOC following the revelations. "Citizens have the right to make complaints to GSOC and we absolutely recognise that," said NUJ secretary Seamus Dooley, "but the investigation of phone records and data is only something that should be done in extreme cases and should be done by application to a court." Mr Dooley said investigations by GSOC could jeopardise the ability of journalists to do their job and protect whistle-blowers who act in the public interest. Digital Rights Ireland chairman and UCD law lecturer TJ McIntyre said: "We are challenging primarily the obligation to retain this information on the entire population. "As part of that challenge we are saying the mechanisms governing access to information are also inadequate." Transparency International Ireland chief executive John Devitt said GSOC had the right to investigate alleged leaks by gardai if the leak was not in the public interest. However, he said a balance needed to be struck and a journalist's sources needed to be protected. "We would suggest that the current legislation ought to be reviewed so that gardai or GSOC have to convince a judge on why accessing the data is in the public interest and allow a journalist or a publisher a right to appeal a decision," he said. "That can be done in a way that doesn't compromise or prejudice an investigation." Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy said the revelation that journalists' phones were being monitored by GSOC could have a "chilling effect" on whistle-blowers coming forward with issues of public concern. "It's very important that avenue is available," she said. "This goes much wider than two individual journalists. I've got to say the media - even though I'd be very critical of elements of it - have to be that fourth estate, have to be part of the accountability. "I share the concerns that have been expressed by the National Union of Journalists. I think it can have a chilling effect in terms of people being very hesitant about coming forward." Last night, Fianna Fail Justice spokesperson Niall Collins also called for a review of legislation surrounding GSOC so that journalists could protect sources. Almost 50 Irish teens and children as young as 12 had their social media photos hijacked and exploited on an international porn site amid claims several even had their photos traded online, it has emerged. A major Garda probe is underway into the 'image harvesting' scam, with a senior Cork detective confirming they are now following a definite line of inquiry as to the individual who uploaded the private images. The IP address used to upload the photos from social media pages to the international porn site was traced to Ireland - and the individual, who operated by the nickname 'Irish Exposed', showed a preference for young girls with Irish social media addresses. One young woman, Lizzy Ryan (19), who had eight friends exploited by the site, said she found it "sickening" that some people were now attempting to blame the innocent teens for it. Lizzy, from Templeogue in Dublin, said it was "very disturbing" clear preferences were shown on the site for the social media photos which depicted the youngest girls. "I find it appalling that some people out there are actually victim-blaming. "I think it is sick that some people are trying to focus the blame on the people whose images were taken rather than those who were exploiting," she told the Irish Independent. "It is weird how people are out there saying 'it is their fault'. It is absolutely nothing to do with the girls involved." She said several of her friends are effectively traumatised by what happened though, luckily, her own social media photos were not uploaded. Many of the photos were taken from private social media pages - and it remains unclear how 'Irish Exposed' gained access to the images. Another teen, Katie Kirwin (19) from Cork, admitted she found some of the vile comments on the site about the photos to be "sickening and quite alarming". Katie had virtually all her social media photos 'harvested' without her permission and displayed on the porn site. The greatest number of comments and 'hits' were recorded for the photos taken when she was aged just 14 and 15 years. "It is really quite worrying. Of course you'd be concerned about who has looked at those photos and who has attempted to download and store them," she said. Katie said all the images hijacked from the Irish teens were innocent social shots with none being provocative or risque. "Virtually all my photos are of just my face. In many cases they are the face of a 14-year-old and 15-year-old child," she said. Katie has now lodged a formal complaint with gardai over what happened. "Some of the comments are absolutely disgusting. They are vile," she said. Another young woman was left deeply upset when vicious comments were passed about a photo in which she had gained weight. In one case, a porn site user queried where he could find more images of a specific girl. And in another case, a site user offered to trade photos he had for more images of another girl. An appeal for information via Cork radio stations RedFM and 96FM shocked gardai when it emerged almost 50 Irish teens were targeted rather than the 25 initially suspected. Gardai have appealed to anyone whose images were 'harvested' to contact Angelsea Street Garda Station. A journalist at the centre of the GSOC phone snooping controversy has revealed his friends were contacted by investigators because their numbers were on his phone. Conor Feehan, chief reporter with the 'Herald', which is owned by Independent News and Media (INM), said he felt angry after learning of the invasion to his privacy, adding he would be left with little option but to revert to using throw-away sim cards and phones in a bid to protect the identity of his sources. He said the job of a journalist is to take information, verify it independently and possibly print it if it is in the public interest. "The assurance that is given is that the journalist won't reveal the source," he said. "It is a relationship built on a trust that journalists have gone to prison to defend in the past." Mr Feehan's mobile phone records - and those of Ali Bracken of the 'Irish Daily Mail' - were allegedly accessed by the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) and An Garda Siochana during an investigation in to a complaint lodged by a friend of the late model Katy French. Mr Feehan said every number in his phone - from his wife, parents and siblings to politicians and minor celebrities - and his emails may have been under the spotlight. This also includes his friends, some of whom are gardai - an organisation which he says he has had massive respect for. "After all, my grandfather was a garda who joined the force as it was being first established," he said. "What annoys me most is that friends of mine have been contacted by GSOC for no more reason or suspicion than their phone numbers were on my phone, and they have been asked questions. "Am I living in a modern, progressive democracy, or am I living in some sort of Communist regime where Big Brother is monitoring my phone and emails and at any moment I might get a tap on the shoulder from some sort of Stasi officer? "Who will contact a journalist if they think that, despite an assurance from the reporter that they will remain anonymous, GSOC or some paranoid busybody could start trawling the journalist's phone looking for them, wondering what they had for breakfast? "Maybe now I have to resort to disposable mobile phones, multiple sim cards, pay-as-you-go anonymity - just like Nidge, Fran and Elmo in 'Love/Hate' - just like a common criminal." Mr Feehan, who also writes for this newspaper, said it was an essential part of a journalist's job to speak to sources who reveal information in the public's interest. "In any democracy, there is a need for press freedom to inform the public of what is going on in the world," he said. "Sometimes it is straightforward... Other times it is more complex. People may have information that they know is in the public interest but they want to remain anonymous to protect their personal safety, their job, a relationship or a reputation." 'Sunday World' Investigations Editor Nicola Tallant (far left) believes gardai may have also accessed her phone records last year. Ms Tallant said the lives of her sources were being "put at risk" by the exercise. "These people come to us in confidence to highlight some of the most dangerous people in our society and their practices. "The fact that certain members of An Garda Siochana are accessing my personal records, without question, puts their lives at considerable risk." Charlie Haughey with Fianna Fail deputies and PJ Mara (left) make their to the press conference in Government Buildings following his election as Fianna Fail leader in 1979 .Pic Tom Burke Broadcaster Vincent Browne and PJ Mara attend the funeral of the late former Irish Independent Editor Vinnie Doyle in Rathfarnham Pictured at the removal of the remains of Charles Haughey at Donneycarney Church were Coleman Doyle and PJ Mara...HN PJ Mara with Fine Gael deputy Dan Neville at the funeral mass for Sean O Ceallaigh,(father in-law of Taoiseach Enda Kenny.TD ) at the Church of St.John the Baptist,Clontarf in 2012 Colm Mc Carthy,Vincent Brown,PJ Mara and Eamon Dunphy at John Giles Book launch in the AVIVA Stadium in 2010 Former political strategist and lobbyist PJ Mara has passed away at the age of 73. Charles Haughey's enforcer and close confidante had been in hospital since late last year and died overnight, independent.ie has learned. He was regarded as the 'king of spin' and played a central role in the careers of both Mr Haughey and Bertie Ahern. In 2013 he became a father for the second time and had continued to work and travel extensively for Digicel. Mr Mara will be best remembered as Mr Haughey's trusted political advisor who was regularly mimicked by comedian Dermot Morgan on RTE's Scrap Saturday in the early 1990s. Expand Close PJ MARA AND CHARLES HAUGHEY / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp PJ MARA AND CHARLES HAUGHEY Read More He also served as a senator for a brief period between 1981 and 1982 after being nominated by Mr Haughey. His notoriety in Irish politics began to grow between 1983 and 1987 when he filled the roll of press secretary to Fianna Fail. Expand Close Broadcaster Vincent Browne and PJ Mara attend the funeral of the late former Irish Independent Editor Vinnie Doyle in Rathfarnham / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Broadcaster Vincent Browne and PJ Mara attend the funeral of the late former Irish Independent Editor Vinnie Doyle in Rathfarnham In 1987 he was appointed Government Press Secretary and remained in that position until 1992 when he moved into the private sector. However, he returned to Fianna Fail as director of election to help Bertie Ahern secure a history three election wins in 1997, 2002 and 2007. Expand Close Charlie Haughey with Fianna Fail deputies and PJ Mara (left) make their to the press conference in Government Buildings following his election as Fianna Fail leader in 1979 .Pic Tom Burke / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Charlie Haughey with Fianna Fail deputies and PJ Mara (left) make their to the press conference in Government Buildings following his election as Fianna Fail leader in 1979 .Pic Tom Burke Speaking after the birth of his daughter in 2013, Mr Mara said that he had become a father again "later than you planned". But he was delighted, describing the little girl as "a beautiful baby". "Its a new life its interesting, it keeps me engaged and another responsibility," he said. Expand Close PJ Mara with Fine Gael deputy Dan Neville at the funeral mass for Sean O Ceallaigh,(father in-law of Taoiseach Enda Kenny.TD ) at the Church of St.John the Baptist,Clontarf in 2012 / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp PJ Mara with Fine Gael deputy Dan Neville at the funeral mass for Sean O Ceallaigh,(father in-law of Taoiseach Enda Kenny.TD ) at the Church of St.John the Baptist,Clontarf in 2012 More recently he was depicted by Tom Vaughan Lawlor in the RTE drama 'Charlie'. Fianna Fail Leader Micheal Martin paid tribute to Mr Mara this morning. Expand Close Colm Mc Carthy,Vincent Brown,PJ Mara and Eamon Dunphy at John Giles Book launch in the AVIVA Stadium in 2010 / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Colm Mc Carthy,Vincent Brown,PJ Mara and Eamon Dunphy at John Giles Book launch in the AVIVA Stadium in 2010 "It was with great sadness that I learned this morning of the passing of PJ Mara. "In a series of general elections as well as the referendum on the Good Friday Agreement, PJ proved himself to be the most effective campaign director in Irish political history. He brought immense humour, judgement and commitment to the role. "As Government Press Secretary for five years he brought a new energy and professionalism to the role which was recognised throughout Europe during the 1990 Presidency of the European Council. "Whether it was international statesmen or a local party stalwart PJ was always available to encourage and support. "PJ was a true original who it was an honour and a pleasure to know and to work with. Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has also paid tribute to Mr Mara. On Today with Sean ORourke this morning, Mr Ahern said Mr Mara was a really loyal and good friend. Mr Ahern said: I have been close to him since the early 1970s since I joined Fianna Fail. I knew him from growing up in north Dublin and we all knew each other. PJ was a wonderful person. He was hugely clever and smart. He could handle any situation. The most tense battles in Leinster House PJ would be at the heart of it. He was never one to dodge a fight as some people do in politics. But he was always a bit of fun when the rocks and bottles were flying in Leinster House. Some of the schemes he would come up to get out of the mess were brilliant. There was nobody better to be spending time. I travelled the length and breath of the country with him in the 1970s and he was always wonderful company. He made a huge contribution to Irish political life and he had a wide array of friends from across the political spectrum. PJ was never afraid to stand at the top of a room or push people aside if they got in his way in the political corridors. I had loads of great times with him wondering how we would get Charlie [Haughey] to calm down and save all our skins. Broadcaster and journalist Eamon Dunphy also paid tribute this morning. He was always a distinguished figure. Even as a kid, he always had a presence about him. He was always going somewhere. "He was a brilliant man and very erudite." He recounted a story about Mr Mara being the "perfect host" to two representatives from the British Government who had been sent over after Charlie Haughey was elected leader of Fianna Fail. "He held court in the Horseshoe Bar and was so charming, you could see these guys 'well is this is press guy, what's the leader like'? "He was brilliant at his job and he understood politics," Mr Dunphy. "He knew how to win elections - you have to remember he was at the heart of three political victories for Fianna Fail." He served on the board of Unicef Ireland, and its chairman Paul Connolly paid tribute: "While PJ was best known for his work in the political and communications sphere, it was his deep personal commitment to the cause of children's rights that drew him to support UNICEFs work for children throughout the world. "PJ was a valued director of Unicef Ireland and he brought his vast experience to bear in support of the board of directors. "PJ made a huge contribution to Unicef and he will be sadly missed." He also served on the board of Digicel. PJ Mara was an amazing friend, colleague and intellect who made an indelible impression on everybody he worked with," Digicel chairman Denis O'Brien said. "He joined the Digicel Board in 2003 and made a vast contribution to our strategic direction and growth. He was an astute adviser and a tremendous and insightful ambassador. We will miss him dearly and our thoughts and prayers are with his family and Sheila." Special Olympics Ireland also paid tribute to Mr Mara: "As a member of the board of the 2003 Special Olympics World Games, PJ Mara used his considerable experience and insight of media relations to advise on how the media could assist in stirring the imagination and generating the enthusiasm among cities, towns and communities across the island to embrace the thousands of athletes from around the world and their families during their stay in Ireland. "He used his knowledge and contacts to ensure that the goodwill of all government departments and politicians was harnessed for the sucess of the Games. "He continued his support for Special Olympics Ireland as a member of the Board of Patrons Of Special Olympics Ireland over many years up until his sad passing. Former ICTU General Secretary David Begg also paid tribute this morning and offered his condolences to Mr Mara's family. "I didn't know PJ all that well but I met him a number of times over the years and he always struck me as being an extremely nice man. Personal friend and journalist David Davin-Power told RTE Morning Ireland that PJ "never forgot where he came from". "He knew how the media worked, he knew you had to be a bit of a comedian at times," he said. "He was very likeable, the kind of figure you don't really see nowadays but could still give a tongue lashing to men like myself. A Labour Party minister has reacted angrily after he learned of a significant jobs announcement in his constituency only hours before it took place. Minister for Drugs and Equality Aodhan O Riordain is understood to have become incensed after he was told of an event to mark the creation of 450 jobs in East Wall just after 8.30pm on Wednesday. Mr O Riordain was unable to attend the event because it clashed with the launch of a new education programme in Dundalk Institute of Technology, which is aimed at preparing frontline workers to recognise and respond to domestic abuse. It is understood the Dublin Bay North TD was furious when he learned of the jobs event, which was attended by Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Jobs Minister Richard Bruton. No Labour politician was present at the Irish headquarters of software firm Oracle. Mr O Riordain is believed to have told officials in Tan-aiste Joan Burton's office that the short notice period was "unacceptable". He is also believed to have questioned whether he was "deliberately kept out of the picture". Coalition sources last night suggested it was the responsibility of the Tanaiste's office, and not officials in the Departments of Jobs and An Taoiseach, to inform Mr O Riordain. A Fine Gael source told the Irish Independent: "Our focus is on ensuring jobs be created more than anything else. "We are delighted that over the past four years, 135,000 jobs have been created. That's where our focus is." Speaking at the event, Mr Bruton described Dublin Bay North as being like "the fertile crescent found between the Tigris and Euphrates", adding: "We're bound between the Tolka River to the south here and the Moyne River to the north." Asked afterwards why there was no Labour Party representative at the event, Mr Bruton said "no significance" should be read into the absence. "There's always an oppor- tunity for everybody to come. Everybody is invited who wants to come. This is not a political event," he said. A spokesperson for Ms Burton's office said: "The Tanaiste's office takes responsibility for contact with Labour ministers and TDs." A member of the fire service takes a short break as flooding continues in Bandon, Co. Cork in 2015. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA Wire A 50m defence scheme for Ireland's most flood-prone city won't be fully in place for seven years with traders now demanding special protection and repair funds. Detailed plans for the Office of Public Works (OPW) scheme will not be ready until early this year - a delay of almost 12 months from when the plans were first expected to be ready. Cork traders said they did not believe construction work would even begin until 2017. The scheme, the largest flood defence plan in OPW history, is unlikely to be fully operational until 2023. Cork Business Association chief executive Lawrence Owens said it was "a miracle" that the city avoided being flooded last month while other towns such as Bandon and Midleton were badly hit. He warned that Cork needed immediate steps to mitigate potential flooding and help traders if it did occur. The 'Wild Atlantic Way', which stretches across 2,500km along the western coast of Ireland, was one of the most popular destinations with those surveyed MORE than three-quarters of visitors to Ireland said they would return, with the vast majority believing that our hotels offered value. The new survey of inbound tourists sought out their impressions of the country and why they visited. Tucking into pots of warm stew and enjoying pints of Guinness and thimbles of whiskey were ranked as some of the best 'Irish experiences' by thousands of tourists who flocked here during the summer. The Irish language and Irish coffees completed the list of the best traditional experiences in Ireland, according to just over 5,000 tourists who were surveyed about their summer holidays here this year. While almost one-third said they enjoyed a pint of the black stuff, visiting natural beauty spots was the most popular excursion for holidaymakers as just under a quarter said they took in some of the idyllic scenes around the countryside. One-fifth said they visited an area of historical significance, while a further 17pc said they listened to traditional Irish music, according to the Europcar Tourism Index. Expand Close Click to view full size graphic / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Click to view full size graphic The 'Wild Atlantic Way', which stretches across 2,500km along the western coast of Ireland, was one of the most popular destinations as more than half of the tourists surveyed who visited during May and September admitted to driving at least one section of it. The vast majority - 95pc - said they enjoyed their experience along the route and the Cliffs of Moher in Co Clare were the most popular stop-off point . Skellig Michael, which features in the new blockbuster film 'Star Wars', also ranked in the top destinations along the popular driving route. Dublin, which is home to almost 800 pubs, offered the best nightlife experience, while counties Galway, Kerry, Kilkenny and Clare followed suit, according to the holidaymakers surveyed. More than half had previously visited Ireland, while 77pc said they would come again. One-fifth said they visited Ireland because of their heritage and roots, almost one-quarter said the landscape attracted them, while 10pc said it was the people and culture. A quarter of the tourists were from Britain, the US ranked second at 15pc, while Australia and Germany followed closely behind at 6pc and 5pc. Failte Ireland, Ireland's tourism body, welcomed the data and said that it found the news that 95pc of hotel customers reported finding fair to excellent value for money as particularly encouraging. "This strong level of competitiveness in the tourism sector is also echoed in our own research and is a central component to sustained growth into the future. The trick is now to avoid complacency," Alex Connolly, Failte Ireland's head of communications, said. He added: "The amazing reception to our Wild Atlantic Way initiative is particularly welcome and it is clear from the data that its impact is only just starting to be felt." Colm Brady, business development director of Europcar Ireland, believes the results of their survey offers "a real insight as to what tourists are doing when they visit our shores". "CSO figures for this year show that visitor numbers increased significantly from 2014. This increase in visitor numbers correlates with our own figures at Europcar Ireland as we too are seeing an increase in the number of tourists using our service with over 400,000 tourists renting from Europcar this year," he added. - T. S. Eliot Thoughts After Lambeth "The World is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time: so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, and save the World from suicide." Premium John Downing Opinion Last time the Tories diced with economic disaster it took them another 18 years to win an election I was listening to the young woman from the Daily Mail trying to recruit a gang of reporters to club together and hire an aeroplane to fly back to Brussels. She got an enthusiastic response from another British colleague who was celebrated for lavishly spending his employers funds. Yesterday's revelation that GSOC has accessed the mobile phone records of two journalists has caused great concern in the media, with the NUJ describing it as a "fishing expedition" that will compromise the ability of journalists to protect their sources. For crime reporters it raises the prospects that they may now be under surveillance on two fronts - this new GSOC power to access phone records comes on top of existing concerns that garda management has been monitoring communications to identify gardai alleged to be speaking to the media without authorisation. The case relates to leaks regarding the investigation into the death of the model Katy French. While GSOC has refused to comment, it seems it trawled through records of calls made to and from the journalists in order to identify gardai who were in contact with them. This type of investigation - the equivalent of identifying every person called by the journalists or who might have called them over a period of time - raises significant issues for the privacy of the journalists themselves, the privacy of other people in touch with them and, most importantly, the protection of confidential sources. The recent experience of garda whistle-blowers Maurice McCabe and John Wilson has shown that internal channels are often not enough to tackle widespread wrong-doing. State bodies such as An Garda Siochana are at their most responsive only when an issue reaches the point of public scandal, making it all the more important that sources be able to raise concerns with the media without fear of retribution. This can only be done when journalists' sources are protected. As the European Court of Human Rights recognised in 1996, "protection of journalistic sources is one of the basic conditions for press freedom . . . without such protection, sources may be deterred from assisting the press and informing the public on matters of public interest". However, the GSOC and garda powers to access phone records are a fundamental threat to this principle. These powers are used on the basis of an internal authorisation only - there is no requirement that a judge grant a warrant before phone records are examined. This means that there is no independent assessment as to whether this type of surveillance is genuinely necessary and proportionate in a particular case. This is not merely an issue for journalists - other sensitive communications such as those between lawyer and client or TD and whistle-blower are equally exposed to monitoring without any external approval being needed. The lack of safeguards puts Irish law in clear breach of our international obligations. In a strikingly similar case from 2012, the European Court of Human Rights held that the Netherlands violated the Convention on Human Rights by putting two journalists under surveillance to identify the source of leaks within the intelligence services. While the protection of sources is not an absolute principle, the court held that it should be set aside only where an independent judge finds in advance that there is an overriding need to do so in the public interest. However, instead of prior independent authorisation, Irish law offers at most a possible remedy after the fact. But this is of little value to either the source or the journalist. As the European Court noted in the Netherlands case, even a successful lawsuit establishing that surveillance should not have been carried out "cannot restore the confidentiality of journalistic sources once it is destroyed". The bell cannot be unrung. These problems are exacerbated by the lack of any requirement that a person be notified that they have been the subject of surveillance. The European Court of Human Rights has described notification as a presumptive requirement for surveillance systems, and it has been implemented in other jurisdictions such as Germany and Belgium. But in Ireland there is no provision for individuals to be informed when surveillance against them has ended, or where it has been used improperly. It is not surprising, therefore, that while Irish law has a complaints mechanism for wrongful surveillance, in practice no successful complaint has ever been made. It may be that accessing a journalist's phone records in a particular case is genuinely a necessary and proportionate measure in the public interest. However, this is a decision that should be made by an independent judge - not by the investigating body - and with the journalist being notified of the fact of the access. The current case highlights significant failings in Irish law which, if pursued by journalists or the NUJ, would almost certainly result in a finding that the law does not comply with the European Convention on Human Rights. Dr TJ McIntyre is a lecturer in the UCD Sutherland School of Law and chair of Digital Rights Ireland A century ago, great men such as James Connolly, Padraig Pearse and many others fought and died for Ireland. These exceptional leaders would turn in their graves if they knew the kind of Republicans that are around today. Let's start with Pearse McAuley, who killed a garda and, in more recent times, attacked his partner in Co Cavan. And what about the thugs who murdered Paul Quinn in a hay shed in Co Monaghan? In my own Co Fermanagh, what about the Republicans who murdered 11 people at Enniskillen in an atrocity known as the Poppy Day Murders? Then there are the parts of South Armagh and Louth where the self-styled 'oil barons' or fuel smugglers live. Gerry Adams said Thomas 'Slab' Murphy was a good Republican. God help us all if his like were running the country. My message to the Irish people is simple: if Sinn Fein become part of any government, we had better all be wary. People of Ireland, please do not insult the heroic men and women of 1916 by voting for sham republicans. Name and address with Editor Where have manners gone? As we begin the commemorations of 2016, I wonder what we have learned in the past 100 years? Not good manners, if the attitude of some shop staff and many personnel in front-desk positions in public life is anything to go by. Dealings over the telephone are no better, the conversation punctuated with comments such as "no problem" and "see you later". The days of greeting people and common courtesy seem to be over. You are more likely to be asked "Are you all right?" or "Are you okay?" when you enter a shop - as I have been asked recently - than at the front desk of an accident and emergency department in a hospital. I left school at 15, which was normal enough for someone my age, but we were taught then that good manners will get you anywhere. What beggars belief is that today, in this so-called highly educated society, you probably need a Master's degree in business or management to hire staff to serve people, in both the public and private sectors. Alive and well, and gone unchecked, are the self-embracing Irish with their over-developed sense of their own charm and obliviousness to common mankind. Bring on the party. James McConnell Churchtown, Navan, Co Meath Screening needed for refugees The impression I got from reading Glyn Carragher's letter (Irish Independent, January 13) was that he is against the screening of refugees and that new rules and security screening and other such measures to try to stop terrorists are eroding "basic freedoms and human rights". I don't agree. Surely the attacks in Paris last January and November, Tunisia in April and July, Yemen in July, California in December and Turkey twice recently represent an attack on basic freedom and the rights of citizens of those countries and cities to travel and exercise their right to that freedom without fear of injury or death? These acts of terrorism must deem the screening of refugees mandatory, as must the physical and sexual attacks on women in a number of German cities and elsewhere in Europe by large groups of men reportedly of Middle Eastern origin, some of whom, as reported by the media and the police, were recently-arrived migrants. I fully accept that the majority of refugees are decent and law-abiding, but terrorist groups and criminal elements will infiltrate refugee groups, especially where there is an open-door policy as advocated by Germany's Mrs Merkel. The objective of screening is to try to stop these groups from coming in and allow access to refugees fleeing war. I am sure the families and friends of all those killed and injured in the terrorist attacks - and those victims who were physically and sexually assaulted - would strongly support a screening programme. Perhaps if one had been in place, some of their loved ones may still be alive. E O'Doherty Tralee, Co Kerry We'll vote when we have facts John Downing (Irish Independent, January 11) assumes that the 15pc in opinion polls who "don't know" how they will vote in the forthcoming election are irresponsibly apathetic and should "equip themselves" with facts in order to arrive at a sensible decision on polling day. Many of us, in fact, are pro-life, family values voters who are waiting to hear from the individual candidates before casting our votes. Not so long ago, voters like me had two Christian Democrat parties (Fianna Fail and Fine Gael) from which to choose. Now that we are getting confused messages from the leaders of both of these parties, we have to wait to see how the individual candidates from these parties compare with independent candidates on issues such as the Eighth Amendment. When we have this information we will make our decisions. Jim Stack Lismore, Co Waterford Pension increase? Not really In real terms, the state pension was reduced by 9 a week over the past five years. It increased by 25 a week over the previous five years under a different administration. Calling the recent 3 a week adjustment an increase is rather disingenuous. Voters should bear this in mind when marking their paper at the next election. Their ballot is transparent, unlike the Taoiseach's ministerial annual scorecards or his party's 2011 pre-election funding. This patronising politics must be marked. People should vote only for non-party and first-time candidates at the next election to give us the Republic our 1916 leaders dreamt of and died for. Michael Terry Castleknock, Dublin 15 It's 'not all men', Colette In her article (January 12), Colette Browne made reference to regular harassment and assaults against women on public transport systems across Europe (presumably by Europeans). The impression given was that this behaviour is endemic. Although I am not a regular user of public transport - I do occasionally avail of it - I have never witnessed a single incident of harassment against women. Colette also referred to a "belligerent cohort of 'meninists', whose relentless mantra is 'not all men'". Perhaps the reason that this mantra needs to be repeated is to keep reminding certain people that it is "not all men", which is more or less the same point that Colette was making in defence of the overwhelming majority of refugees. John Bellew Dunleer, Co Louth Republican U.S. presidential candidate Senator Marco Rubio (L) shakes hands with rival candidate businessman Donald Trump at the conclusion of the Fox Business Network Republican presidential candidates debate in North Charleston, South Carolina, January 14, 2016 Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump and top challenger Ted Cruz ended a longstanding truce in spectacular fashion on Thursday night with bitter exchanges during what may have been Trump's strongest debate performance to date. The New York billionaire and the Texas senator appeared to have a split decision by the end of the night, a sign that for all the bluster, little took place that could derail Trump from his lead position with a contest in Iowa on Feb. 1 to begin the search for a Republican presidential nominee. Projections that the debate would be a free-for-all were accurate. Beyond the Trump-Cruz theatrics, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida turned in a pugnacious performance with attacks on Cruz and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Florida Governor Jeb Bush presented himself as a voice of reason against Trump. A Google snap poll showed viewers believed Trump, who in the most recent debates was at times less engaged, won the night with 37.3 percent to Cruz's 26.6 percent and Rubio's 12.1 percent. Until the Fox Business Channel debate in North Charleston, South Carolina, Trump and Cruz had been friendly because they have both been chasing conservatives of the Tea Party movement and did not want to anger them. With Trump now needing to fend off Cruz's rise in Iowa, he pushed his charge that Cruz may not be constitutionally qualified to serve as president because he was born in Canada. The U.S. Constitution says only "natural born" citizens can become president of the United States. "Who the hell knows if you can even serve in office?" Trump told Cruz, drawing a scattering of boos in the audience. Born in Calgary, Alberta, to a U.S. citizen mother and a Cuban father, Cruz accused Trump of bringing up his birthplace simply because Cruz was leading some polls in Iowa. Cruz said Trump, who led the movement questioning whether the Hawaiian-born President Barack Obama was really from the United States, had asked his lawyers to look into the issue of Cruz's birth in September and concluded there were no issues. "Since September, the Constitution hasn't changed, but the poll numbers have," Cruz said. "And I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are dropping in Iowa, but the facts and the law here are really clear." Trump said Democrats would sue if Cruz were on the Republican ticket, putting their party's chances of winning at risk. Cruz shot back that he had spent many years studying constitutional law: "I'm not going to be taking legal advice from Donald Trump." The birthright issue has dogged American politics before: 2008 Republican nominee John McCain survived questions about his birth in Panama because he was born on a U.S. military installation there and it was judged to be U.S. soil. In 1967, Republican candidate George Romney faced questions about his birth in Mexico, but his candidacy never advanced far and the issue was abandoned. 'NEW YORK VALUES' While Cruz seemed to have parried the attack for now, he was stung by Trump on another issue: Whether people who live in New York City have the same values as other Americans. Cruz has lately begun denouncing "New York values" to connect Trump to the city's famous liberalism. "Everyone understands that the values of New York City are socially liberal, are pro-abortion, are pro-gay marriage," Cruz said. Trump, in perhaps his most heartfelt remarks of the night, harked back to New York's response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to defend his home city. "The people in New York fought and fought and fought, and we saw more death, and even the smell of death... And it was with us for months, the smell, the air. "And we rebuilt Downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers. And I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made," Trump said. Rubio, in third place behind Trump and Cruz in Iowa and hoping a strong outcome there will help him in the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 9, frequently inserted himself into arguments and tried to put pressure on Cruz. He accused Cruz of proposing a value added tax as part of his tax plan and of being soft on immigration. "That is not consistent conservatism," he said. "That is political calculation." He attacked Christie as well, accusing him of have liberal positions on education policy and abortion. Christie interrupted a Rubio-Cruz exchange with this blast: "I'd like to interrupt this debate on the floor of the Senate. You had your chance, Marco you blew it," he said. Cruz, who has taken the lead in some polls of Iowa Republican voters, did well on social media. Social media monitoring tool Zoomph saw total positive mentions for Cruz climb by more than 150 percent while he sparred with Trump. Trump is far ahead nationally. A Reuters/Ipsos rolling national poll on Jan. 12 showed Trump had 39 percent of the vote, Cruz 14.5 percent, Bush 10.6 percent, Carson 9.6 percent, while 6.7 percent favored Rubio. 'April showers are one thing, but sometimes Mother Nature springs less seasonal surprises upon us'. Photo: PA Fed-up residents in a Welsh village where it has not stopped raining for 81 days in a row may at last have a silver lining after forecasters have predicted dry weather. People living in Eglwyswrw, Pembrokeshire, have experienced rainfall every day since October 26. As well as dampening the spirits of locals, it has also caused problems for farmers - who have had to keep their livestock indoors. However, while Eglwyswrw's predicament has seen it gain international headlines as well as close in on the previous record, villagers hope Saturday's predicted dry spell will be correct. Farmer and local councillor John Davies, 52, described the rain as being as of biblical proportions. He said: "I think everybody in the village is starting to get fed up with it now. "The forecast for tomorrow is finally dry weather, but to be honest that's been predicted before and hasn't materialised. "I think people would much prefer some decent weather than for the village to end up in the record books. "It is grinding people down both physically and psychologically. "Our sheep are pretty hardy animals but even they are looking depressed. Their fleeces are not getting the chance to dry out because of the endless rain. And I've also had to keep my cattle indoors since October. Howard Lewis, who runs a Shire horse centre in the village, said he had never seen the ground so saturated from rainfall. The 73-year-old added: "We've had some bad years but I can't remember it raining every day for so long. "It's making people miserable, all we are getting is grey skies and rain." A weather station nearby at Whitechurch has recorded at least 0.2mm of rain - to comply with the Met Office definition of a "rainy" day. But while there has been no let-up in the rain, those living in Eglwswrw have at least escaped flood problems as the village stands 423ft above sea level. And the tightly knit west Wales community also has a bit to go before it can claim the British record for most consecutive days of rainfall. That was set between August 12 and November 8 1923 when it chucked it down for 89 days in Eallabus, Isle of Islay, Argyllshire, Scotland. Met Office meteorologist Emma Sharples said the rainfall figures for the Whitechurch station were consistent with this winter's extreme rainfall. She said: "The wind has been mild and moist from the south and south west. Warm air holds more moisture and the direction of the wind has been key - the Pembrokeshire coast is the first point at which the rain bearing clouds meet the land." A plainclothes police officer aims his gun at attackers during a gun battle following explosions in Jakarta A man is seen holding a gun towards the crowd in central Jakarta, Indonesia when seven people were killed. Militants claiming to be loyal to Isil launched combined bombing and shooting attacks in the Indonesian capital Jakarta yesterday, killing at least two people - including a Canadian citizen. The city was stunned by the Paris-style attacks in which five terrorists are also believed to have been killed. Witnesses described a series of bombs exploding in the centre of the city. "A massive bomb went off in front of our new Indonesia office," Jeremy Douglas, regional representative for the United Nations Office for Crime and Drugs, said on Twitter. He went on to give a live update of events, adding: "Apparent suicide bomber literally 100m from the office and my hotel. Now gunfire. "Serious exchange of fire in downtown Jakarta. Didn't experience this in 3.5 years in Pakistan." The assault, which began with an attack near a Starbucks outlet, claimed two lives before security forces moved in. Police said one of the dead was a Canadian and one a police officer, without providing further details. Police described the attacks as apparently inspired by the Bataclan attacks in Paris in November, which killed 130 people and were led by men who had returned from fighting with Isil in Syria. The attacks were claimed on a website that has previously been used to publicise Isil attacks. Isil quickly put out a claim of responsibility - a marked difference to the case of the most recent suicide bomb attack in Istanbul, which was attributed to the group but which it has still not admitted. Hundreds of Indonesians are thought to have joined Isil fighting in Syria and Iraq, some of whom have returned. Indonesia has a long history of terrorist attacks on civilian targets - not least the Bali bombing of 2002, when 202 people were killed, many of them tourists. Since then, security agencies across South East Asia have broken up a number of militant cells. But in 2014, the man regarded as the spiritual godfather of the militant Jemaah Islamiyah group in Indonesia, Abu Bakar Bashir, who is serving a long prison sentence, declared allegiance to the freshly announced 'caliphate' of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Security had been stepped up over the New Year period after Isil issued a warning that there would be a "concert" in Indonesia. In the event, three suicide bombers and two men armed with pistols began the attacks yesterday morning, starting at the Starbucks opposite a busy shopping mall. After an initial suicide bomb explosion, the men armed with pistols took people inside the cafe hostage, shooting one foreign national - said initially to be Dutch. A local man tried to intervene, and was also shot. Police moved in, managing to shoot dead the two attackers, but in the meantime there had been a number of other suicide bombings. There was another siege at Sarinah's, the city's oldest department store, which is nearby. In total, police later said five attackers, as well as a Canadian victim and a police officer, had been killed by the time the incident was declared over. Two more attackers were seized alive, while two more bombs were found undetonated. Seventeen people, including the Dutch man, were wounded. When the area was finally secured a few hours later, bodies were sprawled on sidewalks. But given the firepower the attackers carried - handguns, grenades and homemade bombs - and the soft targets they picked in a bustling, crowded area, the casualties were relatively few compared to the mayhem and carnage caused by the Paris attacks. "We have identified all attackers... we can say that the attackers were affiliated with the Isil group," national police spokesman Major General Anton Charilyan told reporters. Isil backers have circulated a claim of responsibility for the Indonesian suicide attacks resembling the extremist group's previous messages. Jakarta police chief Major General Tito Karnavian told a news conference that the first suicide bombing at the Starbucks restaurant caused customers to run out. Outside, two gunmen opened fire, he said. A Dutch Foreign Ministry spokeswoman in the Netherlands said the injured Dutch national was seriously injured and was undergoing surgery. At about the same time, two other suicide bombers attacked a nearby traffic police booth, killing themselves and an Indonesian man. Karnavian said that minutes later a group of policemen was attacked by the remaining two gunmen, using homemade bombs. This led to a 15-minute gunfight in which both attackers were killed, he said. Police then combed the building housing the Starbucks and another nearby building, where they discovered six homemade bombs - five small ones and a big one. "So we think their plan was to attack people and follow it up with a larger explosion when more people gathered. But, thank God, it didn't happen," Charilyan said. Karnavian also said the attackers had links with Isil and were part of a group led by Bahrum Naim, an Indonesian militant who is now in Syria. It was the first major attack in Indonesia's capital since the 2009 bombings of two hotels that killed seven people and injured more than 50 others. A crocodile has ripped a womans arm off while she was sitting at a creek in Australia. The woman, aged in her 60s, was at Three Mile Creek in Wyndham, about 3,200 kilometers north of Perth, when the croc lunged. The woman was rushed to hospital after she was found walking along a road with part of her arm below her elbow missing. Authorities in Northern Australia have now launched a major hub tot trap and kill the animal. The crocodile leapt about six feet out of the creek to attack the woman. "Apparently she was sitting beside the creek and the croc came out and grabbed her and took her arm off," said local cafe owner Mike Snowball. It came out of the water and grabbed her and did a death roll and took her arm off near the elbow. The woman was flown to a hospital in Darwin and is in a stable condition. Rangers later caught the croc and killed it. "Because this crocodile attacked a person and it was in an area used by people and pets it was imperative that we removed it and we ensured that it was destroyed quickly and humanely," said Peter Carstairs, from the Balanggarra Parks and Wildlife office. in the past fifteen years, a network of about 30 groups claiming to promote human rights and peace have received large grants from the European Union and individual governments. The scale of this funding, with annual budgets upwards of $1 million, as well as the extreme secrecy and impact, are unique; there are no parallels in relations between democracies. Although the EU has funded a few U.S.-based groups that oppose the death penalty, and there are some other isolated examples, Israeli NGOs are specifically and intentionally targeted. Imagine the response if Europe were to provide $2 billionthe per capita equivalentto fringe American NGOs focusing on controversial issues, such as abortion or immigration. [my emphasis] Since [Justice Minister Ayelet] Shaked wants to brand left-wing groups with a mark of Cain of sorts, a far more appropriate name for her proposed piece of populist legislation could be the Selection Law, a reference to the way Jews were marked to distinguish them from other Europeans during World War II in Nazi camps. The justice minister never even considered postponing her efforts to advance this provocative and divisive piece of legislation so that it would not coincide with the 20th anniversary of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabins assassination on Nov. 4, 1995. Instead, she decided to fire it off like a poison dart, right at the heart of Israeli democracy. 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 as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter. . ..Abu Yehuda..15 January '16..When Israel built its security barrier back in 2003, the Palestinian Arabs and their supporters squealed like pigs. Despite numerous changes to its path to accommodate Arab complaints, some ordered by Israels Supreme Court, it became afor them, a symbol of alleged apartheid and the focus of often violent demonstrations that continue to this day.The reason is simple. The barrier stymied one of their best weapons, the suicide bombing. Its often said that the Second Intifada was ended by Operation Defensive Shield, in which the IDF (despite the name) went on the offense against terrorist nests in places like Jenin and cleaned them out. But according to a member of the security forces who spent those dark months frantically racing from place to place to intercept human bombs before they could explode in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the fence, while not impermeable, greatly reduced the number of possible entry points and made it much easier to stop them.A similar situation exists today, as Israel moves to render one of our enemies most important soft weapons impotent. I refer to the Transparency Law that is presently being considered in the Knesset to limit the ability of hostile foreign powers to conductof Israel by funding Israeli non-governmental organizations. These NGOs, usually claiming to be human rights groups, develop and disseminate tendentious data accusing Israel and the IDF of violations of international law and generally atrocious and ugly behavior.For example, Breaking the Silence collects anecdotes from soldiers accusing the IDF of war crimes. But these stories often cannot be corroborated, are hearsay, exaggerated, or lack context. BTS refuses to give details to the IDF so they can be checked out and actual violations prosecuted. BTselem does the same with accusations that Israel violates the rights of Arabs in the territories, relying on one-sided testimony from Arabs and anti-Israel activists.This material is then used as evidence in dishonest legal proceedings against IDF soldiers and officers, and in UN reports and resolutions condemning Israel. It is used to turn popular opinion against her, so that the international community and the US can pressure her for concessions to the Arabs and against muscular responses to terrorism and aggression. It is used as a justification for sanctions on Israel, such as the labeling of settlement products.Every group that wants to attack Israel, from Students for Justice in Palestine to the Obama Administration, partakes of the false, exaggerated and context-free facts created by these NGOs. In addition, the large anti-state community that is supported by this massive pot of foreign money is an internal political danger, and a challenge to Israels sovereignty.Israel has only recently awakened to the damage that is being done to it on a daily basis. The dimensions of the enterprise are massive. Prof. Gerald Steinberg of NGO Monitor , which tracks foreign money in Israeli NGOs, notes that While the groups claim to be impartial, they almost entirely focus on alleged Israeli misbehavior toward Arabs and ignore violations of the human rights of Jews. Recently, grants to Breaking the Silence were made conditional on their finding a minimum number of cases of IDF misconduct . The NGOs are happy to give their bosses what they want.This is big bucks, and nobody spends this kind of money for an extended period unless they believe they are getting something for it. And of course it is a meal ticket for the large group of activists that directly benefit from it.So when Israel threatened to pass a law that willon all material that they produce, the Israeli Left and their allies abroad went bonkers, pulling out all the stops in their attacks on the law. Here is one example at random, from journalist Mazal Muallem Opponents of the law note that it only applies to funding from foreign governments, whereas right-wing groups receive funds primarily from private individuals like Sheldon Adelson. But other than Adelsons ownership of the Israel Hayom newspaper and his generous contributions to Birthright Israel, both of which are matters of public record, there is very little right-wing money going for propaganda purposes in Israel. And note that the so-called human rights industry receives plenty of private money itself in addition to its subsidies from hostile governments.This law, which Muallem called a McCarthy-style brutal, ugly and wild persecution that is reminiscent of regimes best forgotten, does not prevent anyone from speaking their mind and does not punish anyone for doing so. The argument that it is anti-democratic is an inversion of reality:It can be argued that Israel has actually been at war with much of the Muslim world since its founding in 1948, with periods of extreme violence interspersed with cold war, all against a background of terrorism such as the flareup we are now experiencing. Despite this, Israel has maintained a very permissive public culture, in which Israelis are permitted to say and write almost anything with impunity numerous Haaretz writers call Israel an apartheid state and accuse it of genocide on a regular basis, and the authorities do not punish them or the newspaper in any way.During its quiet times, Israels long-term war is reminiscent of the cold war between the US and the Soviet Union, in which proxy conflicts predominate, and in which the worlds nations take sides with the powers in conflict. Despite public statements to the contrary, its clear that the European Union and many of its members are firmly on the anti-Israel side.The Israelis who have chosen to become paid agents of foreign powers on the other side of the conflict are skating very close to treason, usually defined as aiding the enemy in time of war. It is a testament to Israels commitment to an open society that they are not treated as traitors, and now may merely be required to tell whose payrolls they are on. Benedict Arnold, Guy Fawkes and Vidkun Quisling would have welcomed such an opportunity!The NGOs have called upon all of their friends abroad to help fight the menace of transparency. Even the Obama Administration has stepped in , with US Ambassador Dan Shapiro meeting with Justice Minister Shaked and expressing his administrations concern that the law would impact free expression and peaceful dissent. Shaked responded that she appreciated his concern, but as Israels democracy is in fine shape, there is no need for other nations to intervene in internal legislation (she might have added like you tried to intervene in our last election).Along with the big gun, some others (Mao would have called them running dogs) close to the administration have chimed in. For example, the Union for Reform Judaism , the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Congress have all opposed it, using similar and equally unpersuasive language.Possibly an indication of how important this issue is to the EU is the fact that BTselem received a 30,000 Euro grant from a group associated with it, specifically to fight the law in Israel.Its not surprising that the recipients ofof Euros every year are upset about anything that might threaten their gigs. Indeed, if it were possible to somehow stop the flow which the proposed law unfortunately does not do the government would have to create a new poverty program for the legions of activists, some of whom have never held actual jobs, who would become unemployed.The soft weapon of NGO money is wounding Israel no less than the suicide bombings of the Second Intifada. Like the security fence that stopped terrorist infiltration, we can build a legal fence against it. The squeals of those feeding at the trough of EU money must be ignored, and the Transparency Law passed by the Knesset. A father-of four accused of trying to smuggle a four-year-old Afghan girl from a refugee camp into the UK said he was "ecstatically happy" having being spared jail by a French judge. Rob Lawrie (49), an aid worker and former soldier, was given a 1,000 fine, suspended for five years, after being found guilty by a court in Boulogne, France, of putting a child's life in danger. He broke down before the court, packed with supporters, as he described his actions as "completely irrational and stupid". He said: "I didn't think it through. The whole idea in retrospect makes no sense. It was the fruit of a very tired and irrational mind." Mr Lawrie, from Guiseley, Leeds, insisted he was only trying to help Bahar Ahmadi, known as Bru, when her father begged him to get her to relatives living in Leeds. He was arrested in Calais in October when border police with sniffer dogs found two Eritreans in his van, whom he said had sneaked in without his knowledge. It was only when he was handcuffed in custody that he told the authorities to go back to the van and look for the little girl, who was then returned to her father in the camp. Mr Lawrie had faced the prospect of a five-year jail sentence and a 30,000 fine for aiding illegal immigration but prosecutors chose not to pursue a trafficking charge, recognising that the motive for his rash decision was "humanitarian". He told judge Louis-Benoit Betermiez that Bru's father, with whom he had formed a close bond, had repeatedly asked him to help get his daughter to Leeds and that he had "constantly" refused. But one evening, when he was "physically and emotionally drained," the little girl had fallen asleep on his lap and he buckled. "I could not leave her. I am sorry," he said. "I saw his desperation for a better life for his child. If I had thought it through I would not have done it. In the light of day now, without the emotion, I would not have done it." He insisted that Bru's safety had been "paramount" and that he did not put her in the boot but in a "factory-fitted" bed above the driving compartment with mattress and pillows. He rejected the idea that he was trafficking for money, telling the judge: "Her father is a farmer from Afghanistan. He doesn't have any money whatsoever. "I have not only raised many thousands of pounds - I have put thousands of my own money into this. There is no way I would ever do this for money." There were loud boos and hisses in court when prosecutor Jean-Pierre Valensi described the conditions in which the child was hidden as "undignified" because she could not get out. Lucille Abassade, defending, argued that the compartment could be opened and the girl's life was not in danger. She said a child could not be considered an illegal immigrant under law. Mr Lawrie had earlier explained how he had closed his carpet cleaning business, sold the family car and travelled to Calais after being moved by the plight of Alan Kurdi, the toddler washed up on the beach in Turkey in September. He spent 8,000 of own money on helping migrants at the squalid "jungle" camp. The former soldier, who served with the British Army's Royal Corps of Transport in Germany for seven years in the 1980s, said the case had "cost him everything". His second wife, whom he admitted he did not consult about his decision to go to Calais, had subsequently left him, taking with her their four children aged between seven and 14, and he has been left on the edge of bankruptcy. The court heard how Mr Lawrie, who has bipolar disorder, was raised in a children's home and had attempted suicide three times - most recently in November, following his prosecution and the family breakdown. Mr Betermiez said the conviction should act as a "warning" and that Mr Lawrie might be jailed if he commits another offence in France within 12 months. But a jubilant Mr Lawrie said afterwards: "Thank you to France for realising compassion is not a crime and compassion was in the dock today." Alex is the first hurricane to form in the month of January since 1938 A rare January hurricane in the Atlantic has weakened to a tropical storm after moving over the Azores. Tropical Storm Alex's maximum sustained winds have decreased to near 70mph and it is moving away from the Portuguese island chain, where it brought rain, high waves and wind. The storm is expected to lose tropical characteristics later in the day. Alex was about 35 miles north of Terceira in the central Azores and was moving north near 28mph. It was the first hurricane to form in the month of January since 1938. Azores authorities closed schools and government offices on several islands, and officials told people to stay indoors. Regional airline SATA cancelled flights. The archipelago has a population of around 250,000. Rescuers are searching for survivors after two US Marines helicopters carrying 12 crew members collided off the Hawaiian island of Oahu during a night-time training mission. It is not yet known what caused the crash, or if any survivors have been found. The transport helicopters were both carrying a crew of six from Marine Corps Base Hawaii, when they crashed. The CH-53Es came from the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, Marine Capt Timothy Irish said. Known as Super Stallions, they are the US military's largest helicopter, capable of carrying a light armoured vehicle, 16 tonnes of cargo or a team of combat-equipped Marines, according to a Marine Corps website. A Coast Guard helicopter and a C-130 aeroplane has already spotted debris offshore, officials said. The search includes aircraft from the US Navy and Air Force, a Honolulu Fire Department rescue boat and Coast Guard cutters. A swell approaching the area will bring dangerously high waves to beaches and seas of up to 20ft near the rescue operation, National Weather Service meteorologist Matthew Foster said. Elaray Navarro, who lives across the street from the beach at Haleiwa, said she heard two "booms" that were loud enough to shake her house. "I threw my blanket off, put my slippers on and ran outside thinking it was a car accident," she said. "I pray to the man upstairs to help them. To bring them home safely." Kengo Kuma, the architect of Japan's new 2020 Olympics stadium, has refuted allegations by British-Iraqi designer Zaha Hadid that his design borrowed from blueprints she made that organisers dropped last year. "In the design, I would like to say there are no similarities at all," Mr Kuma told reporters when asked about complaints by London-based Zaha Hadid Architects over apparent similarities between her design and Mr Kuma's. Mr Kuma noted, however, that both architects had to meet strict specifications for the new, 80,000-seat structure in downtown Tokyo that will replace Japan's old National Stadium. "The conditions set for the competition mean that automatically some similarities emerge," he said. He added that "the concept is completely different, so it is absolutely a different building, despite the similarities". Ms Hadid's company said on Thursday that the Japan Sport Council was withholding money owed for work on the 2020 Tokyo stadium design, while demanding her company give up claims to copyrights. After her original design was rejected as too costly, Ms Hadid complained the new design chosen by the sport council, made by Mr Kuma in collaboration with two companies that earlier worked with her team, was similar. Her office said it submitted a report to the sport council detailing the similarities in "the structure, layout and numerous elements" between her design and the newly picked one replacing hers, demanding copyright negotiations. Mr Kuma said he could not comment on those discussions. He said he did not think that the Japan Sport Council had decided against working with Ms Hadid because she was a foreigner, though working in Japan as a non-Japanese might be challenging. "I don't know, as I've never worked as a foreigner here," he said. "But from my own personal point of view, communicating and holding meetings might be difficult. "Japan needs to work harder to really open its doors to make it a more welcoming environment for people from other countries to work in," Mr Kuma said. One man is brain dead and three others are facing possible permanent brain damage after volunteering to take part in a botched drug test in western France. The prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into what health minister Marisol Touraine called "an accident of exceptional gravity" at the private Biotrial clinical lab in Rennes. The drug trial, which was testing a new painkiller compound, involved 90 healthy volunteers who were given the experimental drug in varying doses beginning on January 7, she told reporters. Six male volunteers aged between 28 and 49 have since been taken to hospital, including one now classified as brain dead, she said. The chief neuroscientist at Rennes Hospital, Professor Gilles Edan, said in addition to the brain dead volunteer, three others could have "irreversible" brain damage. A fifth man is suffering from neurological problems and a sixth is being kept in the hospital but is in a less critical condition, he said. Prof Edan said there is no known treatment for the experimental drug Biotrial was testing. It was a based on a natural brain compound similar to the active ingredient in marijuana. Ms Touraine said the medication was not based on cannabis, as some media reports claimed. She urged calm, saying that no drug on the market was implicated in the failed trial. She said the drug was produced by the Portuguese pharmaceutical company Bial. All the other volunteers are being contacted, Ms Touraine said. It is rare for volunteers to fall seriously ill when testing new drugs. Researchers generally start with the lowest possible dose for humans after extensive tests in animals. The French ministry statement said those who had fallen ill had taken an oral medication in the first phase of testing, which was studying safe usage, tolerance and other measures on healthy volunteers. Biotrial, with headquarters in Rennes and offices in London and Newark, New Jersey, says it has over 25 years of experience in clinical trials and uses "state-of-the-art facilities". In France, adults volunteering for Biotrial tests can earn between 100 and 4,500 euros (76 to 3,400). In 2006, Britain saw a similar incident when six previously healthy men were treated for organ failure hours after being given an experimental drug targeting the immune system. That prompted a review of procedures and resulted in the UK regulatory agency imposing new testing standards, including recommendations to use the lowest possible dose and to test new drugs in one person at a time. The six men in Britain now apparently have a higher risk of cancer and autoimmune diseases tied to their exposure to the experimental drug. Ben Whalley, a neuropharmacology professor at the University of Reading, said standardised regulations for clinical trials are "largely the same" across Europe. "However, like any safeguard, these minimise risk rather than abolish it," Dr Whalley said. "There is an inherent risk in exposing people to any new compound." SHARE By Mike Ellis of the Independent Mail A man charged with murder should be freed on bond because his morbid obesity is threatening his life, his attorney said. Bryan Garrison, a 5 foot 5 inch man weighing 601 pounds, urgently needs treatment for sleep apnea, said David Standeffer, Garrison's defense attorney. Garrison, 29, was identified by Anderson County Sheriff's Office Investigator Grady Epps at an earlier hearing as being the triggerman in the July 28 shooting death of 24-year-old Roytavus Oneal Blanding. Garrison, along with six others, is charged with murder. Garrison was driving one of three cars that went past the porch of a home on West Whitner Street when gunfire erupted between the cars and the people at the home, according to prosecutors. A man from the home is charged with attempted murder. Surveillance video shows the three cars as they sped away, running a red light. Standeffer said there have been no witnesses or evidence showing Garrison fired a gun. Several guns were used in the shooting, according to spent cartridges found at the home. Circuit Court Judge Lawton McIntosh said he would review his medical records before deciding if Garrison should be released on a bond or remain in the Anderson County Detention Center. Follow Mike Ellis on Twitter @MikeEllis_AIM By Siddhartha Thyagarajan The Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha recently said that India in 2016 would be in the top 100 countries in the World Banks Ease of Doing Business rankings. In the latest rankings released in October 2015, India moved up 12 places from 2014. India currently ranks 130 out of 189 countries. The World Bank releases the ranking each year. According to the World Bank, the rankings are an assessment of the regulatory performance in each country and a measure of how each improves over time. The ranking is based on several indicators, which include the ease of starting a business, registering a property, procuring credit, paying taxes, trading across borders and resolving insolvency. During a Make in India workshop last year, state governments in India decided to implement a 98-point action plan to aid business reforms in all states and improve the Ease of Doing Business. A recent report by the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) provides an assessment of the business reforms implemented by each states. The report studies the performance of states from January 1 to June 30 and ranks the states accordingly. The figures indicate the degree of implementation of the 98-point plan of business reforms. The report goes on to categorize states in four groups based on the results. Leaders: No states achieved this status. The leaders group signifies states which have an overall implementation of 75 percent and above. Aspiring Leaders: Seven states are in this group. The aspiring leaders group is for states that had an overall implementation of 50-75 percent. Acceleration required: Nine states are in this group. This group is for states with 25-50 percent overall implementation. Jump start needed: Sixteen states were placed in this group. This is for states with an overall implementation of 0-25 percent. Our assessment The tables and figures above are good primary indicators for investors looking to invest in India. An interesting element to note is the wide variance in results across states. There are some states that are consistent performers in all categories and in the comprehensive rankings as well. However, some states only perform well in certain categories. There could be several reasons for this. Local government bodies and the ruling party may differ state-to-state the ruling party in each state may have different priorities. For instance, Delhi ranks amongst the top five states in the obtaining infrastructure-related utilities categories; however, it does not rank so well in all other categories barring one and is sufficiently low on the comprehensive ranking as well. One of the poll promises of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Delhis ruling party was the easy provision of electricity and water supply, which can be attributed to the infrastructure related category. The low rankings can be attributed to differentiated priorities in some cases and simple inefficiency in others. The key take away for investors is that it would be poor business acumen to consider each state in India uniform. Each state offers a unique set of business opportunities and functions in manners that are specific to that state itself. Investors that identify their business needs and align them with the best performing states stand to reap higher benefits in India. While the intent and ability to implement business reforms is vital for the creation of a conducive business environment, sole reliance on related figures might be misleading. Thus, a corporation should use the rankings and associated figures cautiously. Investors who are in the pre-investment stage of strategizing their market entry in India can use the figures to aid their decision. State-specific reports such as the one discussed in the article are also a good reference point for businesses that are looking to expand their operations in India. Corporations must note that results of the report are a tool to aid business decisions. The figures are not a final authority to make such decisions. The key to a successful business operation in India is finding the right balance between a reliance on figures and a true assessment of the on-ground situation. About Us Asia Briefing Ltd. is a subsidiary of Dezan Shira & Associates. Dezan Shira is a specialist foreign direct investment practice, providing corporate establishment, business advisory, tax advisory and compliance, accounting, payroll, due diligence and financial review services to multinationals investing in China, Hong Kong, India, Vietnam, Singapore and the rest of ASEAN. For further information, please email india@dezshira.com or visit www.dezshira.com. Stay up to date with the latest business and investment trends in Asia by subscribing to our complimentary update service featuring news, commentary and regulatory insight. Managing Your Accounting and Bookkeeping in India In this issue of India Briefing Magazine, we spotlight three issues that financial management teams for India should monitor. Firstly, we examine the new Indian Accounting Standards (Ind-AS) system, which is expected to be a boon for foreign companies in India. We then highlight common filing dates for most companies with operations in India, and lastly examine procedures and regulations for remitting profits from India Using Indias Free Trade & Double Tax Agreements In this issue of India Briefing magazine, we take a look at the bilateral and multilateral trade agreements that India currently has in place and highlight the deals that are still in negotiation. We analyze the countrys double tax agreements, and conclude by discussing how foreign businesses can establish a presence in Singapore to access both the Indian and ASEAN markets. Passage to India: Selling to Indias Consumer Market In this issue of India Briefing magazine, we outline the fundamentals of Indias import policies and procedures, as well as provide an introduction to engaging in direct and indirect export, acquiring an Indian company, selling to the government and establishing a local presence in the form of a liaison office, branch office, or wholly owned subsidiary. We conclude by taking a closer look at the strategic potential of joint ventures and the advantages they can provide companies at all stages of market entry and expansion. Its core operating profit of Rs. 123.60 crore, registered growth of 3.51% qoq and 43.38% yoy. Operating margin stood at 18.21% for the current quarter, expanding by 60 bps qoq and 373 bps yoy. On standalone basis, the companys net profit of Rs. 49.07 crore for the quarter , registered growth of 19.13% qoq and 10.69% yoy. Its revenue stood at Rs. 381.04 crore, clocking growth of 2.26% qoq and 14.71% yoy. It reported operating profit of Rs. 79.02 crore for the quarter, registering growth of 22.19% qoq and 18.75% yoy. Operating profit margin at 20.73% expanded by 339 bps qoq and 70.49 bps yoy. For nine months ended December 31, 2015, the company reported net profit of Rs. 152.53 crore, registering growth of 3.54% yoy. Its income from operations stood at Rs. 1115.39 crore, increasing by 13.47% yoy. Estimates-Mixed In Q3FY16, NIIT Techs revenue stood at Rs.679 crore, up by 14% yoy aided by healthy performance in the service business. Operating profit witnessed a sharp increase of 43% yoy to Rs. 124 crore in Q3FY16. Margins expanded by 60 bps qoq to 18.2% in Q3FY16 due to business mix, marginal shift in effort mix, lower domestic government revenues and currency tailwinds. PAT was recorded at Rs. 74 crore, up by 54% yoy. Amongst geography, US contributed 46% of overall revenue in Q3FY16, 34% of revenue came from EMEA (reduced mainly due to cross currency impact) and rest 20% of total revenue came from ROW. The total order intake for the quarter stood at USD 123 million; including GBP 23 million contracts win from Ofcom. Growth in BFSI (38%) was mainly due to higher revenue in US, while TLL (Transportation) was down by 100bps to 36% mainly as major programs in US had gone live in Q2FY16. Result Highlights (Rs. in Crore) NIIT Technologies, Global IT services and software solution providers, reported consolidated net profit of Rs. 74.20 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2015, registering growth of 8.79% qoq and 53.94% yoy. The companys revenue stood at Rs. 678.70 crore, clocking growth of 0.11% qoq and 14% yoy.Its core operating profit of Rs. 123.60 crore, registered growth of 3.51% qoq and 43.38% yoy. Operating margin stood at 18.21% for the current quarter, expanding by 60 bps qoq and 373 bps yoy.On standalone basis, the companys net profit of Rs. 49.07 crore for the quarter , registered growth of 19.13% qoq and 10.69% yoy. Its revenue stood at Rs. 381.04 crore, clocking growth of 2.26% qoq and 14.71% yoy.It reported operating profit of Rs. 79.02 crore for the quarter, registering growth of 22.19% qoq and 18.75% yoy. Operating profit margin at 20.73% expanded by 339 bps qoq and 70.49 bps yoy.For nine months ended December 31, 2015, the company reported net profit of Rs. 152.53 crore, registering growth of 3.54% yoy. Its income from operations stood at Rs. 1115.39 crore, increasing by 13.47% yoy. Result Reported Bloomberg Estimates Variance % Consolidated Net Sales 679 694 (2.16) Consolidated Net Profit 74 71 4.22 Consolidated EPS for the quarter stood at Rs. 7.72. Management Comments: Commenting on Q3FY16 numbers, Arvind Thakur, CEO and Joint MD, NIIT Technologies, Operating Margins continued to expand sequentially during the quarter improving 60 bps to 18.2% Business in the US contributes to 46% of overall revenues during the quarter. EMEA to 34% while the revenue share from APAC contributed 10% to total revenues and revenues from India contributed to 10% of the mix. Amongst industry segments, BFSI grew 2.1% contributing to 38% of total revenues. Travel and Transportation revenues declined 3.7% resulting to a share of 36% and Manufacturing/Distribution contributed 9%. Revenues from Government contributed 3% of the revenue mix. COO, Sudhir Chaturvedi added that the company had strong intake of new business during the quarter and 4 new logos were added during the quarter including a large engagement from UK regulator Ofcom. Stock Commentary: NIIT Technologies Ltd is currently trading at Rs. 519.15, down by Rs. 52.9 or 9.25% from its previous closing of Rs. 572.05 on the BSE. The scrip opened at Rs. 575 and has touched a high and low of Rs. 585.9 and Rs. 505.7 respectively. So far 1940878(NSE+BSE) shares were traded on the counter. The current market cap of the company is Rs. 3497.42 crore. The BSE group 'A' stock of face value Rs. 10 has touched a 52 week high of Rs. 632 on 18-Nov-2015 and a 52 week low of Rs. 335 on 26-Mar-2015. Last one week high and low of the scrip stood at Rs. 594 and Rs. 524 respectively. The promoters holding in the company stood at 30.84 % while Institutions and Non-Institutions held 53.18 % and 15.98 % respectively. The stock is currently trading above its 50 DMA. How online medical advice fares in terms of costs? Is cost-efficiency the only criteria? What are the risks involved? Do e-medical platforms really create value? The online industry is booming in India and the new entrant into the internet-driven technology is online medical advice. Today, several e-medical platforms are making their presence felt, helping patients get medical advice.The emergence of these marketplaces, however, has given rise to a new debate about whether such online medical advice is on par with meeting a specialist or a doctor in-person. Moreover, it will be important to review the financial impact of using or not using such platforms, as discussed below.A comparison between the cost of seeking online medical advice and meeting a doctor in-person reveals that the online platform is cheaper than an in-person meeting. A prescription written by a general physician online costs as low as Rs 100 as against the regular fee of Rs 200-300 charged by doctors in their clinics. Moreover, a patient will save on transportation costs and time by consulting a doctor or specialist online.No matter how tempting it may sound to consult a doctor over the internet, but online medical advice has some limitations. It works well for those who have benign medical problems such as viral fever, headaches, and seasonal flu. But, the same is not applicable for those who have complex medical problems that may require the patient to take physical examination.The biggest shortcoming of online medical advice is that the patient cannot hold the doctor responsible if anything goes wrong. Most of the platforms have built their terms and conditions such that they cannot be held legally responsible.An in-depth analysis of online platforms reveals that inexperienced doctors or medical practitioners can also register themselves on those sites by paying a fee. This means that the advice offered by these portals is not necessarily qualitative or coming from an experienced practitioner. Hence, one should exercise a high level of caution while taking medical advice online. The Finance Minister was addressing the CMDs of the banks through video conferencing here today. He also discussed the banks preparedness for the second tranche of the Sovereign Gold Bond Scheme. He said that the Government is keen to expand the scheme in the subsequent tranches as well. This was followed by a review by Shaktikanta Das, Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) with all the CMDs of the Banks. All the banks assured to activate their branch network to inform the investors about the advantages of the bonds. The Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley asked all the banks to make their best efforts to reach-out to potential investors to invest in the Second tranche of the Sovereign Gold Bonds which will be kept open from 18th January, 2016 to 22nd January, 2016. He said that this is an attractive opportunity for the investors.The Finance Minister was addressing the CMDs of the banks through video conferencing here today. He also discussed the banks preparedness for the second tranche of the Sovereign Gold Bond Scheme. He said that the Government is keen to expand the scheme in the subsequent tranches as well. This was followed by a review by Shaktikanta Das, Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) with all the CMDs of the Banks. All the banks assured to activate their branch network to inform the investors about the advantages of the bonds. To increase the awareness among depositors, the Government is continuing with the Media campaign on AIR and FM radio, in print media and through Mobile SMS campaign. Information is also available on the website www.finmin.nic.in/swarnabharat and on the toll free number 18001800000. The First Tranche of Sovereign Gold Bond (SGB) was issued on behalf of the Government of India by RBI at the branches of scheduled commercial banks and designated post offices through its e-kuber system from 5th November, 2015 to 20th November, 2015 . A total of 62169 applications were received for a total subscription of 915.953 Kilograms of gold amounting to Rs 246.20 Cr by the Banks and Post Offices. Earlier, the Government had launched Sovereign Gold Bond on 5th November, 2015. The main objectives of the scheme is to reduce the demand for physical gold and shift a part of the gold imported every year for investment purposes into financial savings through Gold Bonds. Sovereign Gold Bonds are issued by RBI on behalf of the Government of India on payment of the required amount in rupees and are denominated in grams of gold. The Bonds are restricted for sale to resident Indian entities including individuals, HUFs, trusts, Universities, charitable institutions. Minimum permissible investment is 2 grams of gold to be paid in rupees. The maximum amount subscribed by an entity will not be more than 500 grams per person per fiscal year (April-March). Government has fixed the rate of interest for the year 2015-16 as 2.75 % per annum , payable on a half yearly basis. The bonds will be available both in demat and paper form. The rate for the Bonds will be fixed on the basis of simple average of closing price for gold of 999 purity of the previous week published by the India Bullion and Jewellers Association (IBJA). These bonds will be available at Banks and Post Offices. The tenor of the Bond will be for a period of 8 years with exit option from 5th year onwards to be exercised on the interest payment dates. KYC norms will be the same as that for gold. Exemption from capital gains tax will also be available. On maturity, the investor will get the equivalent rupee value of the quantum of gold invested at the then prevailing price of gold. Jan 15: Thanks to the climate change, Maharashtra seems to be experiencing a unique grape growing season with warmer December resulting in advancing the harvest generally by a couple of weeks earlier than usual and the unseasonal post-monsoon rains causing lower yields with a resulting increase in grape prices to as high as Rs. 50 a kg., writes Subhash Arora who collected data from 5 wineries and feels that the Karnataka-based KRSMA Winery has been the only exception out of the information collated SULA VINEYARDS Affected by the climate change like the other Maharashtra producers, Sula Vineyards, Indias largest wine producer started the wine grape harvest on December 16. This year the effects of climate change and global warming are highly apparent with our harvest starting fully two weeks earlier than ever before, says Rajeev Samant, Founder CEO of Sula. He adds that the industry as well as wine growers are bearing the brunt of climate change and now have to rapidly adapt their practices to cope with the often adverse effects. Continuing with its annual production growth of 20% which he feels will be the industry average this year despite lower yields, Sula will crush around 13,000 tons of grapes, 20% higher than the 2015 vintage. Working with over 400 grape growers in Maharashtra and Karnataka with 10-year assured buyback contracts for its three wineries in Maharashtra and the one in Karnataka respectively, total payments to the farmers are expected to cross Rs. 500 million this year, he says. The last three harvests were of excellent quality and quantity but 2016 looks to be much more challenging with lower yields due to unseasonal post- monsoon rains. Wine grape prices have again increased this year with red grape prices going to as high as Rs. 50/kg for premium quality, says Samant who takes pride in sharing that in the sixteen years since Sula began operations the company has built very strong relations with heir growers whose ranks are growing every day. There has not been a single contract dispute since beginning, he adds. Giving an overall picture, an optimistic Rajeev estimates that the industry will crush over 27,000 tons of grapes in 2016 and will set an ambitious target of 100,000 tons within 5 years. GROVER ZAMPA VINEYARDS Their vineyards are mainly spread across three major locations of India-mainly Bangalore, Solapur and Nashik regions for the supply of their grape requirement under own/ leased vineyards and through contract farming. Bangalore region normally meets majority of grape requirement every year for our Super premium and premium brands. This year will be challenging due to bad weather and record rains (up to 230 mm) received during the month of November 2015 because of low pressure belt created around Chennai, says Sumedh Singh Mandla, CEO of GroverZ. This was challenging as the vineyards were in pre -bloom to bloom stage and it rained continuously for several days without much sunshine. We had to take swift measures to control any damages due to downy mildew and other infection. We expect slightly less yield but good concentration in fruits. Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Sauvignon Blanc and Viognier from some of our top vineyards are looking outstanding, he adds. Solapur Region: This region covers Solapur and Osmanabad districts in Maharashtra and Bijapur district in Karnataka and provides them around 30% of grapes from contract farmers for premium and classic segment wines every year. This year would be unique for the quality of grapes because of controlled yield and reduced bunch weight due to very low rainfall received during last rainy season. We are expecting compensation of some premium quantity loss from Bangalore region and also hope that the region receives good pre monsoon rains for the vineyard for next year, according to Sumedh. Nashik Region also contributes same as Solapur and is in risk of uncertainty since last two vintages we have been receiving heavy rains and hailstorms just before harvest. This year the rains were short and water reservoirs are filled less than usual and look dry as of now. We are expecting good quality grapes with consistent tonnage provided there is no uncertainty or drastic changes in the weather till harvest. We need 4000 tons of grapes this yea- 50% higher than last year. Sumedh also stresses their need for super premium quality grapes as he says, our business plan is heavily dependent not only on the quantity but also the quality of grapes as we mainly focus on growing super premium and premium range in our portfolio for both domestic and international markets. FRATELLI First time in their history Sauvignon Blanc was harvested in December, on 28th this year, says Alessio Secci, Directory- Fratelli. The grape was healthy and of high quality with high acidity and very fruit forward. It has already undergone fermentation and has been racked too. Chardonnay from Plot G and H of their Garwar vineyards was fermented on January 5 and 6 for their varietal. The grapes were very healthy with prominent acidity and true-to-varietal characteristics. Fermentation is already over for this varietal. Chardonnay grapes from Motewadi Plot C were picked next day to make VITAE barrel fermented single vineyard varietal and transferred in French oak barrels to ferment. These grapes have been monitored and checked to make the VITAE Chardonnay. Next to be harvested were Gewurztraminer-Chenin Blanc-Muller-Thurgau on January 8 from Plot I in the Motewadi vineyards to produce VITAE Tre blend. Muller harvested on 12 January is very aromatic, fresh, and clean. About 100 tons of grapes have been harvested as of yesterday. Akluj has also seen the climate change suggested by Samant. Alessio says, a much warmer climate was seen in December which was also dry, making it faster ripening for white grapes. However, the first week of January saw lowering of temperature but it has been still dry and windy with a very good day-night temperature difference of 12C with day-time temperature arising to as high as 30 C . We will continue to harvest Muller in the next 2 days, followed by Chenin Blanc. Beginning next week Merlot will be the first red grape to be harvested, followed by Syrah to be used to make Rose and then Sangiovese for making Sangiovese Bianco. A very promising harvest both in quality and yield but it is still too early to judge, adds Kapil Sekhri, Director. He feels this is surely a unique harvest this year: last year we started the harvest Jan 10. This year we started two weeks earlier, on 28 December. YORK WINERY It seems to be generally business as usual at York though. Today we have been crushing Sauvignon Blanc, normally the first grape to ripen and the others following very soon, said yesterday Kailash Gurnani, Chief Winemaker and Director. We are expecting some Zinfandel for Rose & Shiraz also by the end of the month from some early pruned plots. Most of the Chenin Blanc will be harvested in the first or second week of February with grapes for sparkling to be harvested before those for still wine. The reds are lined up to come in second half of February with a small spill-over to March, says Kailash keeping his fingers crossed about weather. He explains though that the combination of pruning regime and weather conditions has made the harvest 2-3 weeks earlier than usual. Many companies & grape growers pruned their vineyards in the first half of September- some even in end- August! In the past it has predominantly been second half in September till early October. He agrees that this year the weather in December has been warmer than last year. The night time temperature on average in December 2015 has been 1-2 degrees warmer; day- time temperatures have been even 4-5 degrees higher than December 2014. he says. The weather has been consistently warm with only a few peaks & troughs. Sunshine has been good with some but not too many cloudy days. The acidity in whites is pretty good and hopefully the reds should be able to attain phenolic ripeness easily with good tannins and acid retention. When asked if they were affected by Climate Change, Kailash said, ' If the change in the current weather pattern is attributed to global warming, then definitely we have been affected by it . To protect ourselves from rain damage in end of Feb & March, which is traditionally the final ripening stage of the crop, we are pruning earlier. So climate is pushing us to change our strategy in the vineyards.' KRSMA Located in Hampi Hills in Karnataka, about 12 hours away from Bangalore and 6 hours from Hyderabad, KRSMA is known to start the harvest on January 1 since they started their business. This year does not seem to be any different. Krishna Prasad, the aficionado and passionate wine producer who with his wife Uma Chigurupati is a hands-on boutique producer has already finished the harvest. Krishna called to say, our harvest is over. We started harvesting on January 1 and finished on January 10. Even the fermentation of Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay is over. There are now resting on lees. The Cabernet and Sangiovese are in different stages of fermentation while some are already undergoing malo-lactic fermentation. KRSMA has also harvested a small quantity of Syrah this year. We have had a small maiden harvest weighing about 1.4 tons. We had no rain during the flowering period and little during the growth period. The temperature during the last month of ripening was between 14C and 28C. The reds look great so far and it looks like we will use 60% new oak and may age this vintage longer for 24 months. Overall, this vintage of Cab looks outstanding. The Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay also look more complex than in the past. His immediate worry is that New York will be out of Sauvignon Blanc which he shipped in February last year. It will soon be sold out and the next vintage will not be available till May. He is not happy with a gap in the supplies in the US market. The challenges as pointed out by Rajeev Samant notwithstanding, the Indian producers are generally quite upbeat partially because they have made good sales in 2015-16 and are optimistic about the next 5 years although the rising prices of grapes might be a dampener on their bottom line. Subhash Arora Sula, Grover, Fratelli and York are part of the Wines of India group formed by a group of producers while KRSMA is ensconced in a unique spot with unique micro-climate-editor In the last week of August 2015, a new site popped up in the seedy back alleys of the internet's dark web called the ISIS Red Room. Claiming to have captured 7 Islamic State militants, it promised to put a 'live and interactive' show by putting their fate in the hands of the viewer. From midnight till 2.00 in the morning, they would make the Jihadists wear women's clothes and interview them, after which they would pick out two for the rest of the show. The other five were supposed to be "assets for future business opportunities." The selected two would then be subjected to the most gruesome forms of torture one could imagine. Worst of all, the audience could ask for absolutely anything. It quickly became a sensation on popular community websites like Reddit and 4Chan, drawing the attention of hundreds at a time. What is a Red Room? Getting its name from a popular Japanese flash game of the same name, a red room on the dark web is a virtual torture platform where pretty much any and everything heinous happens. People streaming the torture live send in money via bitcoins to the organisers who carry out the 'requests' once the payment is confirmed. The fate of the innocent in the red room lies in the hands of the viewers, and believe you me, it often gets pretty gruesome. It's not illegal to be there, but it's also not something you'd want to visit on a Sunday afternoon to avoid boredom. These people had managed to get hold of 7 Islamic State terrorists, and were going to punish them for their atrocities. Red Room style. The only difference, it was going to be absolutely free of cost to everyone across the world. They didn't reveal their names, they didn't even explain how they managed to catch these supposed ISIS Jihadists. All they did was give a date and a countdown to a "free, BRUTAL, live" show of torture. Leading up to the main event, many supported the action they were taking. Many more despised their behaviour, calling them out, telling them torture was wrong, and how "taking pleasure in the suffering of others makes you as bad as ISIS." People had taken their sides, but everyone was equally curious to know if these people would actually go ahead with what they had promised the dark web. Here's how things played out between the 29th and 30th of August 2015- 23:00 hrs GMT: They came up with an update, an hour before the show was supposed to go live. 23:25 hrs GMT: Claimed site hacked. 23:55 hrs GMT: A TLL expired session message appears. 00:00 - 01:00 hrs GMT: Website worked for a bit. 02:00 hrs GMT: A YouTube stream claiming to be the Red Room pops up but most claim it to be a hoax. 03:00 hrs GMT: Site still down. 04:00 hrs GMT: Site claims the stream is live. 04:55 hrs GMT: Stream done. A number of threads discussing what actually might have happened crop up on websites like 4chan and Reddit. Everyone had their own theory. Some believed it outright - they said the FBI shut the stream down. There were others who thought it was just a troll trying to pass some time. While some thought it was a human experiment going to show how many people would actually turn up to watch deranged people perform sick acts on living beings, there were also some who thought the whole thing was just a trick of the devil. An anonymous chat with a regular user of the dark web made me question the authenticity of the whole thing too. Whatever it may have been, it goes to show two things - 1. There no limit to what one man can do to another. 2. Even though this wasn't what it promised to be, Red Rooms are very much a thing and the public definitely has a large enough appetite for live torture. What is the dark web? Picture yourself entering a rainforest with a torch, if you must. You don't know what lies ahead but are motivated enough to explore everything it has to offer. So you keep turning over rocks and discovering new things. Most of the times, it's not pleasant, but you always knew that before entering, didn't you? The dark web is quite similar to a rainforest. It's vast, it's untouched, and of course, very seedy. Michael K Bergman, an American academic and entrepreneur, has been researching this other side of the internet from the 90s. Back in 2001, he published a paper on the deep web with some startling facts, some of which are still used today. In the paper, he wrote that the dark web is so big that it's immeasurable. People like us, are searching not more than 0.03% of the total web pages available. There's much to talk about the dark web, but more on that later. Snape aka Alan Rickman will always remain in the memories of his lovers, both for the kind of work he has done as well as the sort of personality he was. Whether it was 'Hans Gruber' from Die Hard, Sheriff of Nottingham in Robinhood, or Colonel Brandon in Sense And Sensibility, Alan Rickman has time and again given us unforgettable on-screen characters to cherish! Check out these 11 roles he played with absolute aplomb, apart from Harry Potter. 1. Die Hard pixshark Way back 1988, Rickman had played the much charming (yes!) thief and murderer in the Bruce Willis starrer Die Hard. And even while playing a villain in the movie, he made sure that he played a worthy one. You can make out in the film that he's the kind of adversary McClane would have a tough time defeating. 2. Truly, Madly, Deeply moviestillsdb This is probably one of the cutest love stories of all time, and one of those rare occasions where you'd see Rickman in a role other than a villain. His portrayal of a lover cum ghost in the film was totally awww-worthy. Rickman even won various Best Actor awards for this one. 3. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves sky Even though the Kevin Costner starrer isn't a gem, it's only because of Rickman's role as the sheriff of Nottingham that the film is still memorable. While the film in itself was an average one, Rickman won the critics' heart with his role in this one. 4. Sense and Sensibility bbcamerica Although he didn't appear to be the most favourable choice for the role, he plays Colonel Brandon, a man stuck in a love triangle with Kate Winslet's character, perfectly. He definitely surprised with this role, considering this wasn't his forte. 5. Galaxy Quest pinterest This one has got to be one of the finest, and most hilarious, sci-fi spoof movie. While Rickman had time and again proved himself to be amazing at villainous roles, his role of Alexander Dane, the science officer of the ship, was proof enough that he could ace comic roles as well. 6. Love Actually earnthis.net Rickman beautifully played the role of a middle-aged man who contemplates cheating on his wife in this one. Even in an out and out love story, he manages to bring out that dark streak in his character, which is brilliant. 7. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street fanpop Even though it's a Johnny Deep flick, and Rickman plays a supporting role in it, his character manages to leave an impression on you. He plays judge Turpin, who turns Todd's life around, and Rickman, once again, proves that he can do justice to any role, no matter what. 8. Dogma pixgoood In Kevin Smith's controversial religious comedy, Rickman plays Metraton aka the voice of God! He doesn't have much of a role in the film, but wearing those 100-pound wings, he comes, does his job, and succeeds in leaving a lasting impression. 9. Michael Collins fanpop There's no doubt that director Neil Jordan's biopic on Irish patriot Michael Collins was one of Liam Neeson's most memorable roles. But even in a biopic, Rickman's supporting role as Sinn Fein president Eamon de Valera stands out. 10. Alice in Wonderland pcwallart Although Rickman doesn't appear in the film, who couldn't identify his thick British accent as the caterpillar? In fact, all Rickman fans are in for a treat, considering he has already dubbed as the caterpillar for the upcoming sequel of the film, Alice Through the Looking Glass. 11. A Little Chaos youtube This is probably and sadly the last film where you'd actually get to see Rickman act. In fact, he directed the movie himself as well. The film created a lot of buzz in various international film festivals, and was also critically acclaimed. After bird flu and swine flu comes dog flu! Unlike the first two however, dog flu doesnt infect humans. Heres everything you need to know about this virus thats causing dogs across the US to fall sick. Dog flu is caused by the H3N2 canine influenza virus. The flu is causing dogs to fall sick with the same symptoms that humans get when they fall sick. Fever, coughing, sneezing, weakness, loss of appetite, runny nose and lethargy are some of the symptoms of dog flu. However, some dogs dont show any symptoms at all. via Tasanimalhospitals So far it hasnt infected any humans but the CDC is monitoring it closely. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), USA, there is no evidence of transmission of canine influenza viruses from dogs to people and there has not been a single reported case of human infection with a canine influenza virus. However they add that influenza strains are constantly changing and may evolve to become harmful to humans, which is why they are keeping a close eye on the situation. In fact, the H3N2 strain is a type of avian flu virus that has adapted to infect dogs. via Tumblr It is highly contagious among dogs. Dog flu is highly contagious through dog-to-dog contact. So far, 2000 cases have been reported across 25 states in the US. Dogs get it through contact with infected dogs, or through contact with contaminated objects, such as toys, clothing, water bowls, etc. According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, dogs frequently in contact with other dogs are at a higher risk of infection, so dogs in kennels and shelters are more susceptible. In fact, many dogs look completely healthy in the first stage of the infection, but they can still spread it to other dogs at that point. via Dogs.Lovetoknow Dog flu is usually not fatal and may be prevented with a vaccine. Most cases of dog flu last two or three weeks and are not fatal. However, CIV H3N2 is difficult to diagnose and if it is not caught in time, certain severe cases can be fatal, especially if the dog has other pre-existing health problems. It may be prevented through vaccination, so American veterinarians are recommending that all pet owners have their dogs vaccinated immediately. They also suggest that people avoid bringing their dogs in contact with other dogs, strays especially. via Telegraph The virus first surfaced in South Korea in 2007 and has spread to a few countries since. The first reported case of this virus was in South Korea in 2007, after which it spread to parts of China and Thailand. The first case was reported in the US in April 2015, and the authorities are not sure how it travelled there. Whether or not it will travel to other countries remains to be seen. In what is seen as the latest show of anger by the German people towards the Syrian refugees, a small town on Thursday sent a bus with 31 Syrian refugees on a road trip to Chancellor Angela Merkel's office. AFP The Bavarian district chief behind the journey to Berlin, Peter Dreier, said his rural area was buckling under the strain of a mass influx that brought 1.1 million migrants to Germany last year. Dreier, who had travelled to Berlin separately by car, said he had agreed to personally pay for the refugees' first night in a Berlin hotel, stressing that the bus had also been paid for by "a private person", not with taxpayers money. However German refugee support groups criticised the refugee road trip, saying "people are being exploited for the sake of media footage". AFP Even while Germany and the Chancellor Merkel won praises from over the world for the country's openness to welcome those fleeing the conflict in Syria, the reality back home is different. Right from the beginning, some far-right groups had expressed reservation over the move as they feared a demographic re-engineering of the country. However the voices have become louder following the incident at Cologne on New Year's eve, where over six hundred woman were sexually assaulted by Arab and African migrants. Even though the Government initially tried to cover-up the issue, Chancellor Merkel has admitted that something has to change. AP The events of New Years Eve have dramatically exposed the challenge were facing, revealing a new facet that we havent yet seen, Merkel recently told reporters. After facing rebellion from within her own party the government has now proposed a legislative changes that would make it easier to deport asylum-seekers who commit crimes in the country. With the growing anger over crimes committed by refugees, right-wing vigilante groups have also started physically targeting these migrants. Germany had in 2015 accepted a record 1.1 million asylum seekers, mostly from Syria. At a time when the nexus between terrorists and drug smugglers in Pakistan has come under a harsh spotlight after the Pathankot airbase attack, a new study by AIIMS has found that opioids worth Rs 7,500 crore are consumed in Punjab every year. Of these, heroin's share is a massive Rs 6,500 crore. AFP Is the Pakistani ISI behind it? This is a startling revelation given that almost all the heroin that comes to Punjab is through the Pakistan border, pumped in by smugglers allegedly aided by ISI. It is this smuggler network that the terrorists who attacked the Pathankot airbase are believed to have used. Generations are have been destroyed. Security agencies have so far insisted that Pakistani heroin is not consumed in Punjab; it merely passes through to bigger cities like Delhi. But this study - a first of its kind survey by the National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre (NDDTC) at AIIMS - busts the myth. It says that in a population of around 2.77 crore people, there are more than 1.23 lakh heroin-dependent people. Based on the previous studies, Punjab's opioid dependents are four times more than the global average. In effect, not only are the drug smugglers being used to push jihadis into India, they are also creating an army of heroin addicts in Punjab. The study has found that 0.84% (around 2.3 lakh) of the entire state's population is opioid dependent. It takes into account both opium derivatives as well as artificial substances that have the same effect as opiates on the nervous system. Over Rs. 20 crore is spent daily on drugs. Previous studies conducted in select districts of Punjab had shown widespread use of synthetic or pharmaceutical opioid drugs. The survey reveals that opioid-dependent people are spending approximately Rs 20 crore daily on these drugs. On an average, a heroin-dependent individual spends about Rs 1,400 per day. The study - 'Punjab opioid dependence survey: Estimation of the size of the opioid dependent population in Punjab' - was presented to Punjab health minister Surjit Kumar Jyani on January 6. "I have my doubts about the figure of Rs 20 crore per day. At the same time, the government is seeing this as a warning sign. We will aim for a drug-free state," he said. While around 2.3 lakh people are opioid-dependent in Punjab, around 8.6 lakhs are estimated to be opioid users. Heroin-dependents are the highest at 1,23,414. For the survey, NDDTC collaborated with Delhi based non-profit organisation Society for Promotion of Youth and Masses. rediff It's also leading to HIV. The study was conducted between February and April 2015. Data was collected from 3,620 opioid dependents from 10 districts. Among the men aged between 18 and 35 years, four in 100 are opioid dependent, while 15 in 100 could be opioid users. "We must also note that this survey estimates a much higher number of injecting drug users in Punjab (around 75,000) as compared to the existing estimate (under 20,000). Thus, there is a clear threat of an explosive epidemic of HIV among injecting drug users in Punjab," said the lead investigator and the principal author of the survey, Dr Atul Ambekar. In this survey, interviews were conducted mostly at the drug-dependence treatment and rehabilitation centres at the government civil hospitals of Punjab. Each respondent interviewed was asked to send three more people whom he knew and who were also opioid dependent. The respondents thus came voluntarily to participate in the survey and were interviewed in government hospitals. How long will we ignore? Previous studies in 2008 and 2012 (UNAIDS and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime studies respectively) for Punjab indicated that pharmaceutical injectables were the drugs of choice. The current study shows that heroin is commonest. "Our data shows that 80% of opioid-dependent people in Punjab have tried to quit taking drugs but only 35% have received help. This may indicate either inadequate availability of services or reluctance / low acceptance among the people to access available services," added Ambekar. We never shy away from celebrating our freedom fighters. Their sacrifices for the country will, and should, never be forgotten. But there are many who got lost in the sands of time. Like India's youngest freedom fighter, Baji Rout. This is the story of the braveheart. On 10th of October, 1938, around 8 PM, when the British police had arbitrarily arrested some individuals of Bhuban village in Odisha, leaders of the Prajamandal from the village started protesting outside the police station. All they were demanding was the freedom of the people arrested. Instead of having a dialogue with the Prajamandal, the British opened fire at them killing two. But this made matters worse for the British. The number of people protesting only increased, and since a couple of their friends had just been killed, they posed a bigger threat. The British realised that they wouldn't be able to fight them off so they tried to flee the place. They opted to go to Dhenkanal via Nilkanathpur Ghat - it was the shortest route to Dhenkanal. indiaholidays/google maps In the wee hours of 11th October, they made their way to the Nilkanthpur Ghat. It was pouring and they had to make their way across the river Brahamani. Thirteen-year-old Baji Rout was on guard on a country boat at this time. The British troop ordered him to ferry them across the river. The news of the brutality carried out by the British had already reached Baji by this time. He also knew that the locals were after the troops, and that he must stop the British. Without thinking of the consequence, Baji refused to ferry them across the village. The troop tried to twist his arm and get him to do it. They even threatened to kill him if he didn't listen. It was never worth consideration for Baji - he knew what needed to be done, and he did just that. He refused again. One of the soldiers hit him in the head with the butt of his gun. Remember, this boy was just 13. The strike fractured his skull severely. He fell down, but it didn't stop him from standing up again. Gathering whatever strength he had left in his young body, he warned the British to back off. He would NOT ferry them. Not while he was alive. A soldier pierced his bayonet into his skull as another opened fire at him. Baji, along with his friends, Laxman Malik, Fagu Sahoo, Hrushi Pradhan and Nata Malik were all killed. odisha.gov.in But this incident didn't go unnoticed. It shook up the entire nation and added fuel to the fire that was burning for India's freedom. People from all across the country lauded the sacrifice of brave Baji. He was a martyr now. odisha.gov.in Lest we forget. The undersea search for the Malaysian airliner that vanished almost two years ago has found a likely 19th century shipwreck deep in the Indian Ocean off the west Australian coast, officials said on Wednesday. AP A sonar search for the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 found what appeared to be a man-made object on December 19, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said in a statement. A follow-up investigation using an underwater drone captured high-resolution sonar images on Jan. 2 that confirmed that the find was a shipwreck, said the bureau, which is running the search for the Boeing 777 which vanished on March 8, 2014. The Shipwreck Galleries of the Western Australian Museum conducted a preliminary review of the images and advised that the wreck was likely to be a steel or iron ship dating from the turn of the 19th century, the bureau said. The bureau on Thursday corrected the potential age of the wreck to the middle of the 19th century or later. It looks like a large iron or steel sailing ship sitting upright and very intact dating from mid-to-late 19th, possibly early 20th century, museum maritime archaeologist Ross Anderson told the bureau in a statement. It appears it is collapsing in classic iron ship fashion with the bow and stern triangles upright and intact and side plating collapsing out to starboard, Anderson added. Anderson said he was not able to identify the name of the ship based on the image or say whether it had three or four masts, which would narrow the possibilities. He estimated it was 80 meters (260 feet) long. It is all but impossible to identify ships or their country of manufacture/port of origin without being able to do more detailed artefact studies, as so many have been lost over the years, Anderson said. Often the best clue is something like crockery that may have visible the name of the shipping line or similar, he added. The wreck was found under water 3.7 kilometers (12,100 feet) deep, 2,600 kilometers (1,600 miles) southwest of the Australian port of Fremantle where the three search vessels are based, the bureau said. People The sea hunt similarly found what appeared to be a man-made object in March last year 3.9 kilometers (12,800 feet) deep. But it wasnt until May that a closer look confirmed that it was not plane wreckage but the wreck of a cargo ship built in the mid-to-late 19th century. Hundreds of such ships were lost during voyages across the Indian Ocean. Neither ship is likely to be identified because of the cost of mounting closer examinations. Flight 370 is thought to have crashed in the Indian Ocean with 239 passengers and crew aboard more than 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) southwest of Australia after mysteriously flying off course during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. AFP Searchers have been combing a 120,000-sq.km. part of the Indian Ocean since late 2014. A wing flap found in July on the other side of the Indian Ocean, when it washed up on Reunion Island, is the only debris recovered. More than 80,000 sq.km. of the seafloor have been scoured so far, and the search is scheduled to be wound up by the middle of the year if nothing else of Flight 370 is found. In what can only be described as absolutely sick, supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are mocking the thousand of people under siege by government troops in the most despicable way. AnonHQ After reports emerged that these people who are besieged for over six months now are deprived of basic necessities including food, Assad as posting images of lavish meals online. These sadistic posts are ironically being done under an Arabic hashtag, which means "solidarity with the siege of Madaya. Mic Mic Twitter Last week some images from Syrian town of Madaya had surfaced on social media showing horribly malnourished children and residents eating grass and leaves in order to survive. AnonHQ The image of a very malnourished child crying, the corpse of a skeletal man, and a woman cooking grass in boiling water as a source of food were also shared on social media. AnonHQ International charity organization Doctors Without Borders said that at least 28 people, including six babies under one year of age, have died from hunger-related causes in Madaya. They have also identified 250 people with severe acute malnutrition, including 10 patients who are in immediate need of lifesaving hospitalization. Earlier this week the UN Food Programme's first truck carrying essential supplies was allowed to enter Manaya. The Syrian civil war began in the early spring of 2011 as a protest against President Bashar al-Assads government. However, it soon degenerated into an armed conflict, with rebel forces vowing to remove Assad from power. It has been estimated that between 140,000 and 350,000 people have died so far from the conflict. AFP An estimated 10.9 million Syrians, almost half the population have been displaced, and 3.8 million have been made refugees in other countries. By TMCnet Staff Share Insurance provider Aflac has announced that it has achieved certification by J.D. Power for its phone customer service. "As a founding principle of Aflac, we value our customers above anything else," said Aflac U.S. President Teresa White. "We are both honored and pleased that our contact center program has been certified for customer service excellence by J.D. Power. We see this as the ultimate recognition of our efforts." The company -- best known for its TV commercials featuring a duck quacking the companys name as users discuss its supplemental insurance programs for people who get injured on the job -- received the J.D. Power 2015 Certified Contact Center Program certification after passing a rigorous audit. J.D. Power looked at Aflacs training, recruiting, employee incentives, management responsibilities and quality assurance. The company was evaluated on things like representative courtesy, knowledge, concern for the customer, promptness and timely resolution of customer issues. Since almost all contact centers use some kind of automated phone system, J.D. Power also looked at how well Aflacs system worked, including how clear the information was and how easy it was to navigate the phone menu. In addition to the audit, J.D. Power also derived its results from a random sample of customers whod interacted with the companys call centers in Columbus, Georgia, and Omaha, Nebraska. A company must perform in the top 20 percent of customer service scores to be certified. The certification will certainly give Aflac an edge, even though it already has a well-recognized brand with its famous commercials. Dealing with insurance isnt a pleasant affair, since when people really need it theyre dealing with one of the worst moments in their lives. In the case of Aflac, most of its customers have suffered some kind of serious injury at work when they call in. If word spreads that its easy to deal with a provider over the phone, it could help the company attract more business. Follow us on guran of lagaan actor rajesh vivek dead Mumbai: Actor Rajesh Vivek, who was part of Bollywood for more than two decades, died following a heart attack in Hyderabad on Thursday, a close friend said. He was 66. "I knew Rajesh for more than 40 years. It's extremely sad and a huge loss to the industry," his friend Vishnu Sharma told IANS. Rajesh, known for his role of the astrologer Guran in Aamir Khan-starrer "Lagaan", and as the postman in Shah Rukh Khan's "Swades", was shooting in Hyderabad for a southern film where he had a massive heart attack. "He passed away today (Thursday) around 3 o'clock in the afternoon," Vishnu Sharma said. His last rites will be performed in Mumbai on Friday. Latest Bollywood News Follow us on katrina kaif approached abhishek kapoor for the role of firdaus in fitoor New Delhi: Katrina Kaif approached Abhishek Kapoor for the role of Firdaus as the actress is a fan of Charles Dickens' celebrated classic Great Expectations, the inspiration behind Fitoor. Set in Kashmir, the upcoming film will see Katrina stepping into the character inspired by beautiful but cold Estella while Tabu is playing eccentric Miss Havisham and Aditya Roy Kapur is Pip, an orphan. Before I started casting, Katrina did reach out to me. She heard that I am making this book and she had read it in her school. She wanted to be a part of it. She is perfect for the role as she is very beautiful and she is also aspirational like her character in the film, Abhishek told PTI. Katrina has never attempted a film like that. So, it was also a challenge for me and also interesting to see how it would play out with Tabu and Aditya. It would make for an exciting experience for me. The Rock On director, who is returning behind the camera after a gap of three years, said he always wanted to try his luck in an out-an-out love story and what better than Dickens' classic tale of romance. I have not tried love as a genre and this is a classic tale of love. It just talks about love in a totally different context. I find it very fascinating and I thought that if I set it in India, it would appeal to our audience, said the director, who also read the novel in his school days. Abhishek feels the enchanting beauty of Kashmir provides the perfect setting for the film as it complements the beauty of the two leading ladies. As a child, I have grown up watching most romantic films set in Kashmir. Those movies left a mark on me. Then for a couple of decades nobody shot in Kashmir. It is very special place, not like other hill stations. The beauty of Kashmir is not real, not a fantasy but surreal. The film's story is also like that. The characters in it are kind of lost in time and Kashmir has that air about it. The director said he kept the theme of the novel intact but drew his characters in a more believable manner. Havisham's character doesn't make you feel the pain she went through after her lover left her at the altar on the day of her wedding in the novel. I have not tried to make her in a caricature way. I have tried to make her dilemma and problems far more believable. The film is about real emotions and the effect of heartbreak, it just doesn't go away. There is a lot more bitterness to that and you pass this negativity on others. Also starring Aditi Rao Hydari and Rahul Bhat, the romantic saga hits theatres on February 12. Latest Bollywood News Follow us on know what kiku sharda said on gurmeet ram rahim mimicking controversy New Delhi: Actor- comedian Kiku Sharda who was arrested yesterday for mimicking godman Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, believes that it was incorrect to "solely" blame him for the act. "It was a dance performance. We had a choreographer. If we knew it's going to hurt sentiments, it could have been avoided. Maybe my knowledge was less, I wasn't sure that it would become this big. It could've been shot and edited. Why should I be solely blamed?" Kiku said in an interview to a news channel. Kiku was booked and arrested by Haryana Police following a complaint that he spoofed Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh of Dera Sacha Sauda sect. He was sent to 14 days' judicial custody on Wednesday by a court in Haryana's Kaithal town, hours after his arrest here. His arrest was followed by a debate in the mainstream media. Many celebrities took to the micro blogging site Twitter to express their concern on the matter. Most of them believed that it was absurd to arrest an actor who was doing his job. A few hours after his arrest, on Wednesday, Kiku who is popularly known for his role as Palak in the show "Comedy Nights With Kapil" star was released on a surety bond of Rs.1 lakh by the Kaithal court. However, he was arrested again by Haryana Police, this time from Fatehabad district (near Hisar), for the same offence. He is likely to be presented before a Fatehabad court on Thursday. The actor feels if he had received the court summons in advance, "things would have been different". "On the day of my shoot in Mumbai, where I was shooting for 'Comedy Nights With Kapil'...the cops come and tell me that there is a warrant and we need to move and go to another city in another state so, that is too sudden and harsh. If I had received the summons before, things would have been different," he said. Kiku was accused by sect follower Uday Singh of dressing up like Gurmeet Ram Rahim and mimicking the self-proclaimed godman. "In the show ('Jashn-E-Ummeed'), he (Kiku) was shown dressed up like our respected guruji. He was shown with liquor and dancing with two girls. He did a mockery of guruji. Whosoever saw it, their feelings were hurt," Uday Singh told media persons. The show, in which Kiku dressed up like the sect chief, was aired on December 27. With inputs from agencies Latest Bollywood News Follow us on shocking mandana karimi s boyfriend might ditch her on bigg boss 9 finale New Delhi: The popular reality show Bigg Boss 9' has come with a lot of ups and downs both for the contestants and the audiences. While initially the show failed to make the impression like its earlier seasons, BB9 is becoming more interesting as its heading towards its finale. From tasks to elimination to revelations, a lot is happening on Bigg Boss 9 which is either surprising the contestants and the audience or is coming as a shock for everyone. Recently, Imaam Siddique's entry in the Bigg Boss 9 surprised one and all. And now when the show is just few episodes away from the grand finale, we have got hands on some more shocking news. As per the media reports, Mandana Karimi's boyfriend is planning to ditch the Moroccan beauty on national television. We all know how Mandana kept on talking about her boyfriend on the show. Although she didn't revealed the name of her man, but she is, reportedly, dating Gaurav Gupta who happens to be a Mumbai-based businessman. The actress, reportedly, thought to make their relationship official by announcing about it on Bigg Boss 9 finale. But if the media reports are to be believed that Gaurav will not be supporting Mandana on the finale and the reason is his mom. Reportedly, Gaurav's mother doesn't want him to go to BB9 and makes things official on national television as she feels this is a mere publicity stunt. Infact, not just Gaurav, even Manadana's family won't be coming in her support on Bigg Boss 9 finale. Now that is indeed a rude shock especially for Mandana Karimi. And if this is the case, we wonder if Mandana's rumoured boyfriend Gaurav is reconsidering his relationship with her. Latest Bollywood News Follow us on what is salman replacing srk as filmfare host for rs. 2.5 crores New Delhi: The bond between superstar Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan has always been the centre of attraction of people. While the two actors have been on a cold war for several years, their recent growing bromance between became the talk of the town. It seems that the actors decided to keep aside their grievances. Infact, both King Khan and Salman are often spotted praising each other publicly. But, if the gossip mills are to be believed the Sultan' actor will now be replacing King Khan as a host of Filmfare awards this year. While Salman is being a masterstroke for the award show, his fees is what's grabbing the eyeballs. According to the media reports, the Bajrangi Bhaijaan' actor is charging a whopping amount of Rs. 2.5 crores to replace SRK. Reportedly, a source was quoted saying, The anchoring of the award functions has become tedious to do and watch. How many combinations can one watch Kapil Sharma and Manish Paul in? Salman is a masterstroke. He is popular and Bigg Boss has proved what a fabulous host he is. He was pursued relentlessly and the pay is close to 2.5 crores! However, there hasn't been an official confirmation about this buzz. On the other hand, there have been reports, that Shah Rukh Khan will be hosting the Filmfare awards along with comedian Kapil Sharma and Karan Johar. Now we actually wonder if it's Salman Khan or Shah Rukh Khan who will host Filmfare awards this year. Latest Bollywood News Follow us on when ramdev baba gave surprise visit to sanjay dutt in jail Mumbai: Incarcerated Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt had an unusual visitor in Yerawada Central Jail on Thursday -- yoga guru Ramdev, official sources said. Sporting his trademark saffron mendicant's attire, Ramdev had come to the jail for giving training in yoga to the inmates, mostly in white prison uniforms, where Dutt was also present. After the yoga session on the sprawling campus, the yoga guru and the actor had a brief tete-a-tete in which the actor requested him to pray for his early release. In fact, the two are not strangers to each other and had met at a private Ganeshotsav function in Mumbai in September last year when the actor was out on a month's parole. There has been talk in Bollywood of plans to make a biopic on Ramdev and his crusade against graft and corrupt politicians for which he has campaigned several times in the past. Dutt is expected to be released from jail on February 25 after completing the remainder of his five-year term. Latest Bollywood News Follow us on oscar awards will it be a fifth time lucky for leonardo dicaprio New Delhi: Leonardo DiCaprio is among those Hollywood actors whose stardom and acting skills are recognised globally. For those who are not a big fan of Hollywood flicks, he is the Titanic' hero; the film became immensely popular and shot the actor to instant stardom. For those who follow Hollywood flicks, Leonardo is the hero of some of the most remarkable movies and has essayed challenging characters. The actor who is blessed with swoon worthy looks has been nominated for Academy awards this year. The best actor nomination has been awarded to him for his portrayal of Hugh Glass in The Revenant. DiCaprio will face-off against Bryan Cranston, Matt Damon, Michael Fassbender and Eddie Redmayne for the Best Actor award, which would mark his very first Academy Award win. If he wins! All the years when Leo, as he is popularly called, is nominated for an Academy award, his fans find a shooting star to wish for a win. Sadly, their wishes have never come true. Seeing the ones he is competing with, it looks like he might finally take an Oscar home this year. Bryan Cranston might have won hearts for his drama series Breaking Bad, but the movie Trumbo for which he is nominated isn't one that created a buzz. Matt Damon who has been nominated for his movie The Martian, has delivered better performances than this in the past. Experts from the industry are not betting on Damon to win one. Michael Fassbender's Steve Jobs was a commercial failure, so it is unlikely that he will be given an Academy award. Probably, Leo's biggest rival in Oscars is Eddie Redmayne for Danish Girl. He did an incredible job in the trans drama. Caprio's fans are betting on the fact that since his toughest competitor Eddie already has an Oscar (he won for The Theory Of Everything in 2015); the Academy will be generous enough to give it to the former. As soon as the nominations were announced, Internet pleaded the Academy to give Leonardo an Oscar this time. Many people on Twitter voiced their complaints about how the talented actor hasn't won an Oscar yet. Caprio has been nominated five times, and his first nomination came when he was just 19 for his role in What's Eating Gilbert Grape. It has been 23 years since. After that, he was a common sight at the Oscars but it broke all his fans' hearts every time he stood up to congratulate his rival for the win. Here's a list of times he came back home empty-handed: 1994: Nominated for Best Supporting Actor for playing Arnie Grape in What's Eating Gilbert Grape. He lost to Tommy Lee Jones for his performance as U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard in The Fugitive. 2005: Nominated for Best Actor for his role as Howard Hughes in The Aviator. He lost to Jamie Foxx who won it for his phenomenal performance in Ray. 2007: He again won the Best Actor nomination for his role as Danny Archer in Black Diamond. He lost to Forest Whitaker for his role of a former Ugandan president in The Last King of Scotland. 2014: His portrayal as the hedonistic, hard-partying king of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street earned him a nomination. But, the award was swept by Matthew McConaughey, for his performance as Ron Woodroof in Dallas Buyers Club. We wish this fifth nomination for Leonardo gets him the coveted award that has scrupulously evaded the talented star so far in what has otherwise been a dazzling career. The award show will be held on Sunday, February 28th at the Dolby theatre at Highland Centre in Hollywood. Latest Hollywood News Follow us on 5 takeaways from delhi government s odd even plan New Delhi: The trial period of Delhi government's ambitious odd-even scheme ended on Friday amid speculations that it could be reintroduced in the future. The move, aimed to curb the alarming levels of pollution in the national capital, has triggered a nationwide debate on whether it made any significant impact on Delhi's air quality. While the Arvind Kejriwal government has described the road rationing scheme as a success, the opposition BJP and Congress alleged that it only added to the woes of daily commuters. The Delhi High Court also observed that the odd-even scheme of the AAP government was a success to some extent as it was the idea that had appealed to the people and not the fear of Rs 2000 fine imposed for violations. Delhi Transport Minister Gopal Rai has said a decision on the second phase of the scheme will be taken after a review of the 15-day trial period and its impact. As the trial period of the controversial experiment comes to an end, we analyse five key takeaways from the much-debated plan. 1) Ease in Traffic : The biggest lesson learnt from the scheme is that it led to lesser traffic congestion. During the period of the scheme, commuters found the traffic movement easy. The result was a much-needed respite from the brain-numbing, back-breaking, soul-crushing traffic. A total of 9144 violators were penalised by different authorities overseeing the implementation. The experiment also helped in swift movement of fire services and ambulances in the capital. 2) Impact on pollution level: The damage brought upon Delhi's air quality due to years of unchecked pollution cannot be undone in 15 days. A fortnight is too short a period to draw a conclusion. Air pollution, as a rule, is worse during the winter on account of weather conditions. In the first week, there were reports of worsening air pollution levels but there were reports of improvement in the capital's air quality in the following week. India Spend reported that the air quality in Delhi worsened by 50 per cent during the first week. Their conclusion was backed by reports sourced from three other agencies System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research ( SAFAR), Monitoring stations of Delhi Pollution Control Committee ( DPCC) and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). In its analysis of the same week, the Centre for Science and Environment reported that despite hostile weather conditions, peak pollution during odd and even scheme has been much lower. EPCA (Environmental Pollution Control Authority) has clearly enunciated that the plan does made a great impact on the peak level of pollution. Data released by (SAFAR) and Central Pollution Control Board also showed a fall in pollution levels after January 8. Vehicular pollution is, perhaps, not the main contributor in Delhi. An analysis by TERI on Wednesday showed that PM 2.5 levels started peaking January 3 onwards, but fell from January 8 when the weather stabilised and wind speed improved. "We believe that the odd-even scheme has helped bring down the peak levels. Emissions may have reduced by about 5%, but it's very difficult to assess and quantify the exact impact without large datasets or simulation models, said Sumit Sharma, Fellow at TERI. 3) Overcoming Metro fear: Before the execution of the plan, there were apprehensions of overcrowding among commuters due but the formula. Attempts were also made to create a scare by circulating undated photographs on social media. However, regular metro users reported no more traffic than is normal for peak hours at Rajiv Chowk. The average daily ridership between January 1 and January 13 stood at 27.5 lakh as opposed to the usual 26 lakh, indicating a marginal impact of the scheme that took thousands of cars off the city's roads. At 29,74,304, January 11 (last Monday) saw the highest ridership during this period, according to official data released by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC). 4) Public Transport: The government had made arrangements for 3,000 additional buses and Delhi Metro had also increased the number of trips. Moreover, Rs 2000 fine (valid 2 hours only) was a strong deterrent for lawbreakers. Delhiites actively participated in the campaign by pooling resources and using public transport. Not that we needed the odd-even plan to tell us this, but last mile connectivity is still a problem. It will have to introduce a fairer policy that brings under its ambit two wheelers (proven to be bigger pollutants), women drivers and industries. Apps like Odd-Even Ride, Ola Cab Share, BlaBla Car and Shuttl offered Delhiites the opportunity to car pool with verified users. 5) Curbing Vehicular pollution is not the only answer: If the government is really serious about pollution control, then car rationing should only be the beginning. After all, most of the pollution meters continued to show PM (particulate matter) levels way above permissible limits during the implemetation period of the scheme. The government needs to curb major pollutants road dust, burning of biomass and municipal solid waste, and industrial stacks which contribute a far greater share of the city's air pollution, a study by the Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur has found. The vehicular pollution from trucks, cars and two vehicles made up 9%-20% of the particulate matter pollution depending on whether it was summer or winter. The draft report found that particulate matter (PM) pollution from road dust was the highest of all in both categories: PM10 and PM2.5. Road dust contributed 56 peer cent of all PM10 pollution while it was 38 per cent for PM2.5. The AAP government must take measures to steer up garbage management plans and put a tab on toxic industrial emmissions that are doing greater harm to Delhi's air. Latest India News Follow us on police arrest hindu sena chief for attack on pakistan airlines office New Delhi: The Delhi police today arrested Hindu Sena chief Vishnu Gupta in connection with the vandalism of Pakistan International Airlines' Delhi office by members of the outfit yesterday. Gupta has been arrested under Sections 120B (being party to a criminal conspiracy), 147 (rioting), 149 (being the member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 427 (mischief causing damage to property)and 452 (house-trespass after preparation for hurt, assault or wrongful restraint) of IPC, said police. "The police are still looking for the other Hindu Sena members who were involved in the vandalizm," DCP (New Delhi) Jatin Narwal said. On Thursday, four members of Hindu Sena, a fringe right-wing group, ransacked the fifth floor office of Pakistan International Airlines at Narayan Manzil in Barakhamba Road around 3.15pm, damaging computers, furniture and other items. Police later arrested one member of the group, who was identified as Lalit Singh, while three others fled. The members also left pamphlets which said, "There should be no talks with Pakistan unless they take stern action against people who have caused damage to India and hand over people like Dawood Ibrahim and Hafiz Saeed to India." The incident prompted Islamabad to take up the issue with the ministry of external affairs. Owning responsibility for the attack, Vishnu Gupta vented anger at Pakistan and held it responsible for the attacks at Pathankot air base as well as at the Indian consulate in the Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif recently. Gupta was also arrested last October, days after his complaint that "beef" was being served at Kerala House canteen here was found to be false. Meanwhile, India's Ministry of External Affairs has asked Delhi Police to strengthen the security around the airline's office. "MEA has directed the police to beef up security near and around the PIA office," the ministry spokesperson said today. The Pakistan High Commission had earlier asked the MEA to provide adequate security to the PIA offices in New Delhi and Mumbai, as well as to take action against the miscreants. (With PTI inputs) Latest India News Follow us on indians known as hindus when they go abroad mohan bhagwat Mumbai: RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on Thursday said India has accepted diversity and all Indians, when they go abroad, are known as Hindus. "We are all Hindus. There is diversity in the country, but when we go out of India, people (there) call us Hindus," he said. "There is no country in the world today whose basic thinking is that all people are their own. India is the only country which thinks so," Bhagwat said, addressing a public meeting in the tribal Nandurbar district of north Maharashtra. He said India can teach the world how to solve global problems. "Everything is in our hands," Bhagwat said, speaking at the Satpura Hindu Convention organised by RSS. "The root of our culture lies in valleys, forests and agriculture. Till the time Lord Ram was in the palace at Ayodhya, he did not have the powers to kill Ravana. Ravana was killed with the powers Ram got by wandering around in forests and valleys," Bhagwat said. Speaking about India's religious diversity, Bhagwat said all religions were accepted here. "To be together, it is not necessary to be alike," the RSS chief said. "We are people of a country where we worship God in different forms. A Hindu is one who recognises that God. We have been respecting each other's differences," Bhagwat said. Latest India News By Rory Lidstone, Contributing Writer Share For modern contact centers, the worst-case scenario possible is not having enough lines or agents available to field as many calls as possible. Certainly, putting customers on hold is a reality of call centers, but the goal should be to minimize this occurrence at all times. This is part of why cloud contact centers have gained so much popularity; they offer a level of scalability that allows companies to avoid missed connections. While the idea of a flooded contact center is a frightening prospect for any contact center manager, imagine if the call center was for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). According to a recent article from Gili Cohen over on Haaretz.com, this is exactly whats going on in Israel right now. Over the past few weeks, an influx of calls to the IDFs induction center has made it difficult for new draftees to contact the unit that determines the status of their placement. Understandably, this has led to a lot of concern, along with harsh feedback, from the young people about to be drafted and their parents. The issue has caused many to reach out to other military offices, chief among them the office that deals with public complaints. Of course, this didnt help out the callers much as they were often met with the standard response that the complaint office is not the conscription center. No explanations were given and the complaint office was also bogged down by higher than normal call volume. Curiously, a division of the IDF previously boasted that the draft call center was built to be as capable as call centers in the business sector. This may be true, but without the flexibility and scalability to meet spikes in call demand, even the best call center will falter. And this is exactly what happened in Israel. The IDF phone system simply collapsed under the strain of calls caused by a large number of placements during the current drafting period. The problem is reportedly being fixed, and in the meantime, the IDF is suggesting people contact the units Facebook (News - Alert) page instead, where inquiries will be responded to every day of the week except Friday and Saturday. Edited by Kyle Piscioniere Follow us on at 27.5 lakh metro ridership above average during odd even New Delhi : Delhi Metro's daily ridership,across the duration of the odd-even car rationing scheme, was over a lakh more than the average number of commuters the mass transit network carry usually. The average daily ridership, between January 1 and January 13, stood at 27.5 lakh as opposed to the usual 26 lakh, indicating a marginal impact of the scheme that took thousands of cars off the city's roads. At 29,74,304, January 11 (last Monday) saw the highest ridership during this period, according to official data released by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC). The lowest ridership was on January 2 (Saturday), a day after the scheme kicked in, when 24,27,909 commuters took the metro. The two Sundays, exempted from the scheme, in the intervening period had ridership figures of 18.7 lakh and 21.2 lakh respectively. Delhi Metro breached the 30 lakh ridership barrier in May last year and which further rose to 32 lakh mark on August 28,the highest ever ridership recorded so far. Latest India News Follow us on the mumbai techie whose love story ended in pakistani jail Peshawar: Hamid N Ansari, an engineer from Mumbai who went missing in Pakistan three years ago while searching for a girl he fell in love with over the Internet, is reported to be alive and in custody of the Pakistan Army. The Pakistan India Peoples' Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) said "it is heartening to know that young Hamid N Ansari is alive". "We are relieved and happy to hear that he's safe. But we are uncertain of the future. We want our son to return soon," his happy father Nehal Ansari told IANS. The Ansaris said they now hope the government would pursue the case with Pakistan. I would be able to see my son in flesh and blood, said Hamid.'s father Deputy Attorney General of Pakistan, Mussaratullah Khan on Wednesday informed the Peshawar High Court that the defence ministry had informed him about Ansari who was in the custody of their army and was being court-martialled," PIPFPD India general secretary Jatin Desai said. However, the official did not provide details what charges had been brought against the 28-year-old. On hearing this, the divisional bench disposed of the case. The case was heard for over 18 months before the government admitted that Ansari was being held in the country. Ansari had travelled to Afghanistan for job prospects in November 2012, Qazi Muhammad Anwar, counsel for Ansari's mother Fauzia, had told the court. He had befriended a Kohat-based woman through social media and had crossed over into Pakistan from Afghanistan. He had been staying at a hotel in Kohat when police, assisted by the Intelligence Bureau officials, arrested him on November 12, 2012. "The intelligence agencies arrested him from a hotel in Kohat and since then his family and friends have been unaware of his whereabouts," Anwar was quoted as saying by the paper. He added that as per a police inquiry report Ansari was being held by intelligence agencies. After Ansari went missing, his mother had filed a complaint at a police station in Mumbai. She had also contacted the Afghan consulate in the city. The petitioner subsequently sent an application to the human rights cell of the Supreme Court in Islamabad, which forwarded the case to the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances in March 2014, the paper said. In April, the commission directed the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Home and Tribal Affairs department to form a joint investigation team to trace Ansari. An FIR was subsequently lodged at the city police station in Karak district in connection with Ansari's missing. (PTI/IANS) Latest India News Follow us on mp muslim couple assaulted on suspicion of carrying beef in train New Delhi: A Muslim couple was assaulted by activists of the Gauraksha Samiti in a train over suspicion of carrying beef in Madhya Pradesh's Harda district. The incident took place yesterday at Khirkiya railway station when the couple objected to the search of their luggage by Gauraksha Samiti members. The couple, according to police, was travelling from Hyderabad to Harda in a general compartment of Khushinagar Express. Police said the right-wing activists claimed to have seized beef from a bag but later laboratory test found it to be a buffalo meat. 43-year-old Mohammed Hussain said that he and his wife, 38-year-old wife Naseema Bano, were returning to their home in Harda district from Hyderabad when they were attacked. Hussain claimed that the bag, which contained meat does not belong them. "They beat my wife when she objected to our luggage being searched. We live in India and know what is wrong and right, we eat only goat meat. We were rescued by a police constable," he said. Police have so far arrested two persons, identified as Hemant Rajput and Santosh, in connection with the case. Police also arrested nine local residents, including one relative of the couple for manhandling Samiti activists. However, they were released on bail. The incident took place just months after a 50-year-old Muslim man, identified as Mohammad Akhlaq, was lynched following rumours that his family has consumed beef in Bishada village of Dadri in Uttar Pradesh. However, the Uttar Pradesh Chief veterinary officer's report later claimed that the meat found at Akhlaq's home was not beef but mutton. Latest India News Follow us on netaji disappearance mamata seeks probe into russian angle Kolkata: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee today sought probe into the 'Russian angle' in Netaji's disappearance, and that she didn't believe that Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose died in air crash. "I don't believe that Netaji died (in air crash). This is my opinion as individual. We don't know whether he is still alive or not. Maybe not, as it has been so many years. It is a shame for the entire country as the truth is yet to be unveiled," Banerjee said. She was speaking at a programme in Kolkata commemorating the 75th anniversary of Netaji's great escape from Kolkata. Mamata also spoke of reports of Netaji family being put under surveillance after Independence. "If Mahatma Gandhi was father of the nation, Netaji was leader of the nation. Had he died in the crash then why would his family be snooped even after Independence? "I think the Russia angle needs to be probed. I want an answer regarding it," Banerjee added. "Lots of things are being said about country's foreign policy. We need to abide by it. But we also need to look into the Russian aspect into Netaji's disappearance as it is said that there are lot of files regarding Netaji (lying) there," she maintained. The West Bengal government had declassified Netaji files with the state police and state Home department last year. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi had visited Russia. I don't know whether this matter came up. Was there any discussion with the Russian administration after we declassified the files. I think India must take it up with Russia," Banerjee said. Banerjee regretted that Netaji's disappearance mystery is yet to be solved. "A person dedicated his entire life to the nation and the nation couldn't find time to reveal his truth?" Banerjee said. (With PTI inputs) Latest India News Follow us on pakistan to decide new dates for talks with india soon Islamabad: Pakistan and India are in touch on holding talks between their foreign secretaries and new dates will be decided soon, a senior Pakistani official said on Friday. Sartaj Aziz, adviser to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on foreign affairs, said this at a breakfast meeting here with Chinese scholars, diplomats as well as journalists. The talks were to take place on Friday in Islamabad but they have been rescheduled following the attack by Pakistani terrorists on an Indian Air Force base in Pathankot. Latest India News Follow us on sp salwinder singh to undergo lie detector test next week home min New Delhi: Superintendent of Police Salwinder Singh, who is being questioned in connection with the terror attack on the Pathankot air base earlier this month, will be subjected to a lie-detector test next week, the Ministry of Home Affairs said today. Salwinder was today questioned for the fourth consecutive day by sleuths of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) at their headquarters in the national capital. Salwinder Singh, along with his jeweller friend Rajesh Verma and cook Madan Gopal, had claimed that they were abducted by terrorists on the intervening night of December 31 and January 1 a day before the militants entered the IAF base in Pathankot and carried out the terror strike. Investigators have found some inconsistencies in the statements of Salwinder regarding the events on the night that he was allegedly kidnapped. Salwinder has undergone several rounds of questioning. NIA sleuths have also questioned Salwinder's cook and the caretaker of the Panj Peer Dargah that the police official claimed to have visited before being abducted. Salwinder's past record has also gone against him. He was recently charged with misconduct by female constables in Gurdaspur and is also alleged to have links with the drug mafia that operates across the border. (With PTI inputs) Latest India News Follow us on charlie hebdo cartoon depicts alan kurdi as a groper draws ire A year after it faced a ghastly terror attack that left eight of its staff, two policemen and two other men dead on January 7, 2015, French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is back in the news. The reactions to this issue of the controversial publication, however, are far from the support and sympathy it has received over the past one year. The controversial publication has always been in the news for it's over the top cartoons and a provocative brand of humour. This time though, it may have taken things too far for the liking of many of its supporters. The latest issue of the magazine carried a cartoon that depicts Alan Kurdi the three-year-old Syrian toddler whose death triggered a wave of sympathy for the war-torn migrants as growing up in Germany and turning into a sexual molester. Aylan drowned along with his brother and mother on September 2 when the boat they were travelling from the Greek island of Kos to the Turkish town of Bodrum capsized. The family fled after Islamic State militants advanced upon their home town of Kobane. The cartoon, which has been drawn by the magazine's acting Editor Laurent "Riss" Sourisseau who was present at the Charlie Hebdo office att he day of the attack portrays two men running after a terrified woman with their arms stretched out. The cartoon is titled, "Migrants," and the cartoon's text reads: "What would little Aylan have grown up to be? (A) groper in Germany." Inset is a rendering of the famous picture of Alan lying face down on a Turkish beach. The photograph soon came to be a symbol of sympathy for the migrants who were fleeing their war-torn countries to seek refuge on safer ground. However, recent incidents of molestation and robbing of women during the New Years revelry in Cologne by men appearing to be Africans or Arabs has turned the sentiment against them. The scale of the Cologne assaults has shocked world and put a spotlight on the 1.1 million asylum seekers who arrived in the country last year. The cartoon has drawn severe criticism from critics and on social media platforms, with users dubbing it as offensive and racist. "This disgustingly racist Charlie Hebdo cartoon makes me question 'Je suis Charlie' in its entirety," tweeted Australian journalist Ebony Bowden. "I wonder how many lovers Charlie Hebdo has now?" tweeted George Galloway, a former British MP and London mayoral candidate. "A disgusting racist Islamophic cartoon of little Aylan Kurdi later..." Mina Al-Oraibi, an Iraqi journalist based in London, tweeted: "Charlie Hebdo latest racist cartoon dishonouring memory of poor Alan Kurdi is unforgivable." However, the publication has some support in people like Maajid Nawaz, chairman of London-based counter-extremism think tank Quilliam, who argued in Facebook posts that the critics had missed the point of the cartoon. The cartoon, he argued, only brought to fore the European anti-migrant attitude. "Taste is always in the eye of the beholder," he wrote. "But these cartoons are a damning indictment on our anti-refugee sentiment." Islamic terrorists stormed the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo killing 12 in response to the Charlie Hebdo's publications of images of Islam's central prophet, Mohammed, of whom Islam strictly prohibits depictions. Following the attack on its office a year ago, Charlie Hebdo became one of the best-known publications in the world and the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie flashed across social networks. The magazine soon became a global icon for freedom of speech. The first issue brought out by the surviving staff sold a record 7.5 million copies. This development came amid reports that it was virtually on the verge of being shut down about a month before the attack. Latest World News Follow us on four indian youth planning to join isis held in syria New Delhi: Syria has taken four Indian youth in its custody, who were planning to the join terrorist outfit ISIS, and asked the Indian authorities the verify their details. Syrian Deputy Prime minister Walid Al Moaulem, who is on a three-day visit to India, said the four youth had entered Syria and were taken into custody in Damascus. "Four Indians were taken into Syrian custody in Damascus. The four young Indians were planning to join the ISIS and had entered Syria from Jordan," Moaulem told reporters here. He, however, did not give details like the name, from where the youth come from and when were they taken into custody. The development assumes significance as India has been trying to stop radicalised youths from joining the terrorist organisation. Moaulem, who is also the Foreign Minister, said he would not be in a position to help in release of 39 Indians who were taken hostage by ISIS militants from Iraqi city of Mosul in June 2014. "I will try to secure their release if they are in the custody of Iraqi forces but won't be able to do anything if they are still in the custody of ISIS," Moaulem said. Recently, police arrested three youth from Nagpur airport while they were planning to leave the country for joining the ISIS. In November last year, an intelligence report had revealed that a total of 23 Indians have so far joined the ISIS of which six reportedly killed in different incidents. With PTI Inputs Latest World News Follow us on isis claims responsibility for attack on pakistan consulate in jalalabad Kabul: The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for an attack on a Pakistani consulate in eastern Afghanistan today, which Afghan officials said left at least seven members of the security forces dead. In a statement translated by the SITE Intelligence Group, US monitors of militant groups, the "Khorasan Province of the Islamic State" said three of its "soldiers" attacked the consulate in Jalalabad, capital of the volatile province of Nangarhar, which borders Pakistan. It claimed to have killed "dozens" of consulate staff. Afghan officials said seven members of the security forces were killed in the attack. Attaullah Khyogani, spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar province, said another seven people were injured during the attack, which began when a suicide bomber detonated explosives outside the consulate in the provincial capital Jalalabad and ended with a gun battle between Afghan security forces and militants. He said that three attackers were killed, including the one who had detonated explosives on his body at around 9 AM. The siege ended when the two gunmen, who had taken position in a guesthouse close to the consulate, were killed at around 12.30 PM local time, Khyogani said. Hazrat Hussein Mashraqiwal, the spokesman for the provincial police chief, said the dead included three police and two intelligence service officers, one each from the army and border police. Seven people were wounded, including three civilians, he said. It was the first insurgent-style attack on a Pakistan embassy or consulate in Afghanistan, an official at the Pakistani embassy said, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media. Pakistani government properties have come under attack in the past during protests by Afghans angry at Islamabad's perceived support for the Taliban, who have waged war on the Kabul administration for more than 14 years. The scene of the attack is close to a hospital and schools as well as the Indian consulate. The schools were evacuated, officials said. The Pakistani consulate is usually busy during morning rush hour as people queue for visas. The suicide bomber joined the visa queue before blowing himself up, officials said. The embassy official said all consular staff were evacuated. In Islamabad, the foreign affairs ministry condemned what it called "the terrorist attack" on its Jalalabad consulate and requested a thorough investigation. Latest World News Follow us on istanbul suicide bomber registered as refugee before attack Istanbul: The suicide attacker who detonated a bomb that killed 10 German tourists in the heart of Istanbul's historic district had registered as a refugee just a week earlier, Turkish officials said Wednesday, raising questions over whether extremists are posing as asylum-seekers to inflame anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe. Turkish authorities identified the assailant in Tuesday's attack as a Syrian man who was born in 1988, and said he was affiliated with the Islamic State group. Turkish media, including some close to the government, identified him as Nabil Fadli and said he was Saudi-born. The extremist group has not so far claimed the attack. Meanwhile, Turkish police arrested five people suspected of direct links to the bomb attack which took place just steps from the historic Blue Mosque in Istanbul's storied Sultanahmet district. The suspects were not identified. The bomber had recently entered Turkey, authorities said, and Interior Minister Efkan Ala confirmed reports he had registered with an Istanbul branch of the Migration Management Authority, providing fingerprints that allowed officials to quickly identify him. Ala said the bomber wasn't on any Turkish or international watch lists for IS militants. "This person was not someone who was being monitored," Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said. "It is a person who entered normally, as a refugee, as an asylum-seeker." The attack wounded 15 people, including nine Germans and citizens of Norway, Peru and South Korea. Six of the victims remained hospitalized on Wednesday. Although not as deadly as two attacks in Turkey last year that were blamed on IS, Tuesday's bombing had heightened resonance because it struck at Turkey's $30 billion tourism industry, which has already suffered from a steep decline in Russian visitors since Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border in November. The fact that the bomber had registered as a Syrian refugee suggests central planning by Islamic State leaders, either to cover their tracks or provoke a backlash in Europe against legitimate Syrian asylum-seekers, said Firas Abi-Ali, an analyst with the security consultancy IHS Country Risk. "It seems to make it less likely this was anything but a centrally commanded operation by the Islamic State," he said. It is not the first time the group has taken advantage of the chaos caused by the huge influx of asylum-seekers into Europe by ensuring that suicide bombers were registered and fingerprinted and would thus be identified as refugees after their deaths. Two of the suicide bombers who died Nov. 13 at France's national stadium had registered in Greece and their forged Syrian passports were found on their bodies. Thousands of Muslims have fled the territory under Islamic State control in Syria and Iraq and the extremists have repeatedly threatened those who leave, saying they will regret their journey to Europe. The Soufan security firm said in an analysis Wednesday that IS was not short on volunteers for suicide missions and the migrant crisis was posing a security challenge for Europe. "Given how much time the Islamic State has had to administer explosives training in Raqqa, Mosul, and elsewhere, the group is likely not running low on bomb-makers or suicide mission volunteers," the firm said. "The chaos on Europe's southern borders, involving a combination of overwhelming numbers of refugees, inadequate screening processes, and untold numbers of false travel documents, is a security challenge of the highest order." In addition to the five people suspected of direct links to Tuesday's attack, more than a dozen other suspected IS militants were detained Wednesday and 59 a day earlier, although officials said none appeared to be tied to the Istanbul bombing. They included three Russian nationals taken into custody in the Mediterranean coastal city of Antalya, a popular destination for tourists. The state-run Anadolu Agency said the suspects were allegedly in contact with IS fighters in conflict zones and had provided logistical support to the group. Nearly 3,000 Russians, mostly from the predominantly Muslim North Caucasus, are believed to have gone to fight alongside IS militants in Syria. Families of IS recruits and human rights activists in the Caucasus have described Turkey as the main gateway to Syria for Russian fighters. Some IS fighters of Russian origin are believed to have left IS to settle in Turkey, families say. On Wednesday, Davutoglu contended that in addition to the Islamic State group, other forces he did not identify were behind Tuesday's attack and were using the extremist group as a "pawn." "We are working intensely to find the true actors in the background who are using this terror organization," Davutoglu said, without elaborating. The Turkish premier said other countries fighting the Islamic State group had to adopt "a sincere stance," accusing Russia both of preventing Turkey from carrying out raids on the extremists and of bombing schools and hospitals in Syria instead of fighting IS. Asked whether Turkey would retaliate for the attack with aerial strikes on IS positions, Davutoglu said: "I say this clearly, we would respond to every attack directed against us with the force we see fit." Germany meanwhile, sent a team of investigators to Istanbul on Wednesday to support Turkish authorities investigating the attack. German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said there was no sign Germans were specifically targeted. "According to the investigations so far, there are no indications that the attack was directed specifically against Germans, so there can't be any connection to our contribution to the fight against international terrorism," de Maiziere said. Following the November attacks in Paris, Germany Committed Tornado reconnaissance jets to aid the military effort against the Islamic State group in Syria and started flying missions from the Incirlik air base in Turkey last week. It also sent a tanker aircraft, as well as a frigate to help protect a French aircraft carrier in the eastern Mediterranean. Germany already was helping supply and train Kurdish forces fighting IS in northern Iraq but has not taken a direct combat role. Those killed in Tuesday's blast included two couples. Authorities didn't identify the victims but said they ranged in age from 51 to 73. Latest World News By Steve Anderson, Contributing Writer Share For those still looking for health insurance in the last few days of open enrollment, there's good news if you're living in Minnesota. The MN sure exchange will be doing everything it can to get enrollment settled, and that includes a plan to hike call center staff, according to a report from the Daily Journal. Open enrollment ends January 31, and that's just ahead of a key deadline to get insurance effective for 2016. While MNsure believes it will meet projections for signups, it knows that the last days are often the busiest, and thus plans to bring in more staff to make sure the events of last year don't take place again. Last year was marked by customers waiting over an hour in some cases to get help, and since data shows that almost half of all callers hung up before the call was answered, that shows a serious problem afoot. Throw in news that average wait time doubled from six minutes in December 2014 to over 13 minutes a year later, and the reason behind a new staffing push should be apparent. While some natural phenomenon may have contributed to these wait timesan ice storm in central Illinois left one call center wildly understaffed, backed up by an overlapping renewal date for low-income residents---the combination of more predictable weather and increased total numbers of staff should combine to produce better results. Planned advertising encouraging users to call in advance of deadlines is also planned, though reports suggest that particular message hasn't gone over so well. Trying to blame the victim on that front likely isn't helpful, but MNsure's other moves should be welcome. Increasing staffing isn't a bad idea, but MNsure should also be looking into some cloud-based tools to allow workers to work remotely if need be. That ice storm that crippled a call center likely wouldn't have been near so much a problem with cloud-based tools to allow the employees to carry on receiving calls from home; the adage that work isn't a place you go to but a thing you do perhaps should have been kept more clearly in mind. While there may have been some technological or legal issues preventing such things from happening rapidly enough to matter this time, it should be a thing kept in mind; we still have a good two months of winter left to go, and the next ice storm, blizzard, or other unpleasant weather event could be a day away. Still, MNsureand exchanges like itare soldiering on, and attempting to make a better overall customer experience. That's good news for those still looking for health insurance, and should get everyone taken care of. Edited by Rory J. Thompson Follow us on does masood azhar s reported detention reflect pakistan s resolve to tackle cross border terror New Delhi: While neither India nor Pakistan have officially confirmed the detention of Jaish-e-Mohammad Chief Maulana Masood Azhar, the media reports emanating from our western neighbour suggests that the Nawaz Sharif government has taken JeM chief into protective custody' in connection to Pathankot attack. A minister of Pakistan's Punjab province has also said the same thing on a local TV debate. The refusal of Pakistan government to confirm the detention is understandable because they don't want to send out a message to their internal audience that they are taking action under duress. It seems that that Pakistan, for the first time, is acting quickly against a militant group that is accused of launching terror attacks in India. Does it signal a change in Pakistan's approach towards cross-border terror? Honestly speaking, It's too early to come to any such conclusion because we can't overlook what they did in the past especially when Mumbai attacks took place or Indian Parliament was attacked. First they refused to accept involvement of any Pakistan based group in these attacks and when confronted by India with concrete evidence, they agreed to arrest the culprits under international pressure. They deliberately made weak charge sheet against these terrorists and a pliable judiciary became a willing partner in absolving these militants. Read Also: Why talking to Nawaz Sharif is dangerous if Pak Army is not fully on board Since the Pakistan Army had provided patronage to all such terror groups, who they so cleverly call non-state actors, almost every accused, named in these cases, is today roaming free in Pakistan. And the two big names are - Hafiz Saeed and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhavi. There is no denying the fact that Nawaz Sharif has always tried to normalise relations with India but he was always vetoed by Pakistan Army. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's surprise visit to Pakistan to wish Nawaz Sharif on his birthday seems to have infuriated both the terror groups operating from Pakistan and a powerful section of Pakistan Army. To pour cold water over the goodwill generated by Modi's Lahore visit, JeM launched attack on Pathankot airbase in India. Pakistan Army's complicity is underlined by the media reports that suggest that these terrorists were given training at a Pakistani airbase. Obviously, it would not be possible in absence of at least a section of Pakistan's Armed forces extending tacit support to these terrorists. So how do we expect Pakistani Army to take against those who are their own creation and who they keep referring to as strategic assets'? They have always differentiated between good terrorists' and bad terrorists'. They take action against those who threaten Pakistan but turn a blind eye to those who target countries like India, Afghanistan and even USA. In fact, Pakistan Army extends tacit support to such strategic assets'. Does it not astonish that JeM is functioning freely in Pakistan despite the fact that the government has actually banned it? How can a banned outfit continue to operate cocking a snook at the law enforcement agencies? Does it not expose the double-speak of both the civilian government and military establishment in Pakistan? Having said all this, it also can't be denied that we can't afford to become prisoners of history. If Pakistan has decided that it will also bring their strategic assets' under the net of anti-terror operations and will not spare those who are indulging in cross-border terrorism from India to Afghanistan then it will bring a paradigm shift as far as peace and security in this region is concerned. But the question is how can we trust the sincerity and resolve of a government that lacks the guts to officially confirm the detention of a dreaded terrorists like Maulana Masood Azhar? Even if they arrest him under pressure from international community especially Americans who want them to save peace talks with India, will they go whole- hog in making a water-tight case against him that could stand scrutiny in a court of law? Latest World News Follow us on maulana masood azhar arrest never happened jem New Delhi: Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Muhammad has countered the Punjab government's claims of taking banned group's chief Maulana Masood Azhar into protective custody' for his role in Pathankot terror attack. According to Indian Express, the group on Thursday issued a statement in Urdu on Facebook in which it strongly refuted the claims and mentioned that 'the arrest never happened'. "Disbelievers and hypocrites across the world are celebrating our arrest," it reads. "Even if they happen, what difference will it make? No difference, except one. Allah willing, there will be more enthusiasm and excitement among people of the faith, and the work of jihad will gather more strength and energy," it further reads. The latest development came amidst Pakistani media reports that Azhar, his brother and several individuals belonging to his dreaded outfit have been arrested in connection with the Pathankot terror attack. Confirming the news, the Punjab government yesterday said that Azhar has been taken into protective custody along with his accomplices. Furthermore, describing Afzal Guru as a martyr, the JeM in its statement said, "Those taking the mujahideen as helpless and weak are greatly mistaken. You made the children of the martyr Afzal Guru cry, and since then, you have been crying, screaming and shrieking everyday." Yesterday, a hand written piece by Azhar was released online on Al Qalam, considered Jaish's online mouthpiece. It had warned the Pakistani government that 'crackdown against JeM is very dangerous for this country'. Meanwhile, the Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan, who were to hold talks in Islamabad on Friday, mutually agreed on Thursday to reschedule the talks to a date in the 'very near future' as New Delhi welcomed Islamabad's statement on the investigations into the terror attack on the Pathankot airbase. A cross-border terror attack on the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot on January 2, believed to be carried out by the Bahawalpur-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad, had killed 13 people, including seven Indian security personnel. Latest World News Follow us on entire j k including pok our integral part india New Delhi: In sharp reaction to Islamabad's reported move to make strategically located Gilgit-Baltistan a province, India on Thursday said the entire Jammu and Kashmir including Pakistan Occupied Kashmir is its integral part. "We have seen recent media reports stating that various options are under consideration in Pakistan regarding the political status of Gilgit-Baltistan. India's position is crystal clear on this. The entire state of Jammu and Kashmir which includes areas currently under Pakistan's occupation is an integral part of Union of India," External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said. Gilgit-Baltistan is strategically located and provides the only land link with China. The USD 46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is also proposed to pass through the area, which India objects due to the disputed status of the region. He said India's concerns are regarding "exploitation of resources" and implementation of economic projects in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir are well known and have been shared with all the countries and organisations concerned. There were reports that Pakistan was planning to make Gilgit-Baltistan as its fifth province. Elections were held in Gilgit-Baltistan region in June last year. India had objected to the elections strongly, saying it is an attempt by Pakistan to "camouflage its forcible and illegal occupation" of the regions which are its integral part. Replying to a question on whether India was seeking extradition of Khalistani militant Paramjeet Singh alias Pamma from Portugal when some Sikh advocacy groups were opposing such a move, Swarup said government wants him to face trial for the crimes he committed in India. "As far as we are concerned, Paramjit is a known terrorist and has Interpol Red Corner notices against him. He was detained by authorities in Portugal on December 18, 2015 based on these Red Corner alert. He is accused of a number of criminal cases in India including the murder of the president of Rastriya Sikh Sangat and for this reason we are seeking his extradition from Portugal," the spokesperson said. Follow us on government to act on whatsapp pics or fb posts on accidents nitin gadkari New Delhi: Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari today floated an idea that a simple click of the mouse or a snap on Whatsapp about an accident or the site itself can help the government machinery swing into action and thus, save lives. He exhorted people to leverage the Internet to make India accident-free. "I do not want anyone else to suffer as I did after a road accident. It deeply pains and hurts me to see India top on global list with 5 lakh accidents every year," the Road Transport and Highways Minister said while attending a road safety forum here. "Come join the government in drive to make the nation accident-free like Sweden." Launching a Facebook page to generate awareness, Gadkari made a strong case for using the Internet technology to alert authorities about accidents, regardless of such mishap spots. A Road Safety Authority, he said, is also on the anvil and the Prime Minister has given his nod for it. "We are committed to minimising deaths due to road accidents by 50 per cent in 5 years and government has identified 726 black spots where at least 50,000 people have lost their lives," he said. Gadkari disclosed that the government has already got on to the frontfoot to address critical issues, be it faulty designing or lack of over- or under-passes on roads, and Rs 11,000 crore will be spent to fix the same. India sits on the top of the heap as it accounts for the highest number of 5 lakh road accidents in a year, in which 1.5 lakh lose their lives and another 3 lakh are maimed for life. "It pains me to see the huge number of accidents as such magnitude of casualties neither happens in a war or extremist killings," the minister pointed out. He went on to add that not just 30 per cent of driving licences in India are "bogus", but a large number of government drivers suffered from cataract problems. He put the shortage of drivers in India at 22 per cent. He was clear that government is committed to addressing all these issues and will set up 3,000 driving, vehicle fitness and pollution certification centres across the country where driving licences will be issued only after computerised tests. Also, he asked NGOs to impress upon people the need to adhere to traffic norms, safe driving and the like. Those doing exemplary work on road safety issues will be chosen for annual awards, the minister added. "We have constituted annual awards system for NGOs doing exemplary work in road safety with Rs 10 lakh for the winner and Rs 5 lakh and Rs 3 lakh for second and third slots, respectively," he said. Also, talks are on with state governments for mandatory lessons to school kids on road safety, besides an all-India exhibition through a train, for which consultations are going on with the Railways Ministry. Follow us on modi govt fighting decisive battle against poverty ram madhav in du New Delhi: BJP general secretary Ram Madhav today underlined the efforts being made by Narendra Modi government to eradicate poverty from India. Narendra Modi government is fighting decisive battle against poverty in the country. We are determined to eradicate this menace, Ram Madhav said. Ram Madhav further said that both his party and Modi government are in favour of development for all' and that's why Prime Minister Narendra Modi always speaks of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas. The BJP general secretary was speaking on the topic India towards the change' while participating in Makar Sankranti Milan' programme organised by National Democratic Teachers Front' at Guru Teg Bahadur Khalsa College of Delhi University. He pointed out that Modi government's initiatives on education' and skill development' will benefit 19 crore youngsters belonging to Scheduled castes and Scheduled Tribes. (BJP general secretary Ram Madhav) The senior BJP leader asserted that Modi government's primary goal was to ensure respect and equality for every Indian. Our goal is to ensure security, prosperity, respect and equality for every citizen of India. We are responsible to the people of India and our objective is to bring out a positive change in the country. We have to learn about the pain of present times, glory of the past and dreams of the future, Ram Madhav added. Extending his good wishes to the countrymen on the occasion of Makar Sankranti, Ram Madhav said, Sankranti is all about celebrating positive changes in the society as a festival. Sakranti means thorough change and Change for good. Follow us on j k pdp wants assurance from pm modi on agenda of alliance New Delhi/Srinagar: People's Democratic Party (PDP) has toughened its stand on government formation in Jammu and Kashmir with reports suggesting that the party wants an assurance from the BJP bigwigs that spirit of the agenda for alliance will be respected and upheld. Naeem Akhtar, PDP leader and a close confidant of Mehbooba Mufti, said that PDP 'was expecting concrete action on an agenda for governance agreed upon last year, to continue an alliance'. "An agenda of alliance was drafted and it has to be implemented," he said. There are also reports doing the rounds PDP leaders are against any 'reassurance' from the level of BJP general secretary Ram Madhav and that a written assurance must come from either the Home Minister or the Prime Minister. Akhtar said that party chief Mehbooba Mufti has not spoken to anybody on government formation or becoming the chief minister in the state after Sayeed's death. The PDP leader also said that his party was reviewing how much of the 'common vision' of PM Narendra Modi and Mufti Mohammad Saeed regarding J&K had been taken forward. On the other hand, senior BJP leader and J&K in charge Avinash Khanna said that it was awaiting a first move by Mehbooba Mufti on forming the new government. "PDP is yet to make a first move. Let the PDP lay out their cards, then we will comment," he said. The state is under Governor's rule as Mufti, picked by the PDP to replace her father as CM, has refused to take oath after the week-long state mourning on the death of J&K CM Mufti Mohammad Sayeed ended on Wednesday. Meanwhile, former J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah yesterday said the PDP's review of the performance of its coalition with the BJP was a vindication of opposition charge that the government did 'absolutely nothing' in the past 10 months. "Effectively making our point that their government did absolutely nothing for 10 months," Omar said. "Why is BJP in a fix? PDP needs to explain why it surrendered these issues for 10 months and still praised coalition," Omar said in response to media reports. Referring to the PDP's stand of addressing the external and internal dimensions of the Kashmir issue, the opposition leader said both facets of the issue were playing up and there was confusion about both. Follow us on ram jethmalani withdrew offer to defend sonia rahul gandhi after parliament disruption New Delhi: Senior advocate and MP Ram Jethmalani had offered to defend Congress President Sonia and Rahul Gandhi in the National Herald case but "revoked" it when she did not act on his "advice" to allow Parliament to function in the normal way. He had made the offer to Gandhi in a letter on December 10, 2015 telling her that he had "no reason to doubt" her stand that the prosecution instituted against her and Rahul by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy is "false and malicious". "But this is to be established in Court and not by tumult and disorder in the Rajya Sabha", he told Gandhi at a time when Congress paralysed Rajya Sabha during the winter session. The former BJP leader told Gandhi that as a senior practising counsel and Parliamentarian he was "not happy" with what has been happening in the Rajya Sabha House "for the last few days". "The institution of Parliament is suffering total loss of public respect. This does not augur well for Indian democracy," he said in his letter. Jethmalani today put the letters written by him to Gandhi on his blogspot. He told Gandhi that he neither needed any fees nor any other favour from her. "My services will be service to the nation". "I hope you will allow the Parliament to function the normal way", he had said concluding the letter in which he had also referred to himself as an "expelled" member of the BJP and "you know my role in recent Bihar elections". Jethmalani had pitched for Nitish Kumar as Chief Minister. Two days later, he wrote another letter to Gandhi saying "you neither acknowledge my letter nor followed my advice. The Parliament was not allowed to function. Now I stand relieved from my promise to you". Incidental, the blogspot also has a letter from Gandhi dated Dec 11 acknowledging his communication and saying "I appreciate your kind offer of assistance". Jethmalani wrote to Sonia on December 10 soon after the Delhi High Court dismissed her petition seeking quashing of summons issued to her and Rahul in a complaint case filed by Swamy alleging irregular transfer of shares from Associated Journals Ltd to Young Indian Ltd. "I know you have many great lawyers in the party. Still, my services are available to you if you need," Jethmalani had said. "You will be surprised to receive this letter from me. But if you know my clean politics and professional integrity, you should not be surprised at all", he wrote to Sonia. In a letter to a newspaper which had published the story of his offer yesterday, Jethmalani today said he did not give a certificate of innocence to Sonia. "It is not the role of a lawyer. A lawyer is not entitled to refuse to defend anyone merely because he believes him to be guilty. This is prohibited by express statutory rules of Professional Conduct framed by the Bar Council of India and known to everyone who claims to be educated.... "When Mrs. Gandhi did not act on my advice to allow Parliament to function in the normal alway, I was entitled to revoke my offer," Jethmalani said. Follow us on smriti irani wants more opportunities for girls in research Thiruvananthapuram: Science research institutions should give more opportunities to women, Dalits and those from economically-backward sections, Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani said today. She said this as she inaugurated the first phase of permanent campus of Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) at Vithura near here. Irani also urged higher education students and faculty in the country to exploit the Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN) programme to expand the avenues for collaborative research. The programme would ensure that the best of global academicians come to the country's higher education institutes, she said. "I am extremely happy to share that under the GIAN programme, we, for the first time in the history of independent India, have employed every government institution," she said. "Tell us which foreign academician you want to invite to your institution, so that new knowledge can be infused. We can engage an interaction between our faculty members and foreign academicians who come to your institution and possibly support jointly such projects that can emanate from such interaction under the GIAN programme," she said. The Minister said the GIAN programme would ensure that the best of academicians come to the country's institutions and teach the students for a minimum of seven days to one semester charging absolutely no additional costs from them. The programme is aimed at tapping the talent pool of scientists and entrepreneurs, globally, to encourage their engagement with higher education institutes in the country. According to Irani, when an institution enables more and more women students and those from financially backward and minority and tribal sector in the field of science, such students achieve resounding success not only in their own life but also in the institution that they come from. She also added that if the state government submits a proposal for a new Kendriya Vidyalaya at Vithura, the Centre would consider it favourably. Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said at a time when many changes are happening in the field of science and technology, the presence of IISER is expected to ensure best quality education for students. IISER-TVM is the fifth IISER established by the HRD Ministry. Follow us on when lalu prasad yadav played proxy for minister sons New Delhi: Controversies seem to follow RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav after his both sons Tejashwi Prasad and Tej Pratap were inducted by Nitish Kumar in his Cabinet at prominent posts. While Lalu's elder son Tej Pratap, number 3 in the Cabinet, looks after health and environment departments, his youngest son Tejashwi, besides holding the Deputy CM post, is in charge of road construction and building construction departments. Soon after Tejashwi took charge of road construction department, its principal secretary Arun Kumar Singh visited to 10 Circular Road to meet the new minister. Singh met Tejashwi and his father, Lalu, where the later asked him to build a pontoon bridge in his son's constituency, at Raghopur. However, Singh was later replaced by Lalu's trusted IAS officer and Sudhir Kumar, who was with him during his tenure as Railway Minister. During this rejig, another IAS officer RK Mahajan, who was posted in Education Department, was made Principal Secretary of Health department held by Lalu's elder son Tej Pratap. After taking charge, Mahajan paid a visit to meet his minister. It was as that time when Lalu had asked his son to leave them for a while as he had something important to discuss with the officer. Earlier this month, the RJD chief stirred another row when he made a surprise inspection of Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS). This gave an opportunity to the opposition BJP to accuse Lalu of behaving like a 'super CM'. Recently, Lalu called up Darbhanga Medical College and Hospital's (DMCH) civil surgeon to take steps for the reinstatement of some female health workers whose services had been discontinued by the health department. This gave the opposition more ammunition to slam his leadership by 'proxy'. This was also the second time when Lalu had interfered into health department matter. The entire issue came to light after the Dr Sriram Singh wrote a letter to the DMCH medical superintendent, referring to telephonic instructions from Lalu, seeking their immediate reinstatement. 10, Circular Road in Patna, where Lalu and his wife Rabri Devi live, has emerged as more important bungalow than any other official residence in Bihar. This is not only home to two former CMs, but also to two ministers. The National Working Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Thursday called on the National Assembly to commence impeachment proceedings against President Muhammadu Buhari for allegedly breaching the constitution by submitting two versions of the 2016 budget. The opposition party called on the National Assembly to thoroughly investigate the shameful act, including the distortion and bandying of figures by the Presidency to accommodate their personal interest and ensure that appropriate sanctions is meted to whoever has a hand in the dubious action that has brought embarrassment to the legislative body. The Senate on Thursday identified the Senior Special Assistant to the President (Senate), Senator Ita Enang, as being behind the doctoring and circulation of fake copies of the 2016 budget proposals. The Senate, therefore, vowed not to work on the fake budget proposals allegedly circulated by Enang until it receives an electronic copy of the budget document, which will be reproduced for senators. Reacting to the indictment of a senior presidential aide by the Senate in the controversy surrounding the budget, the acting National Chairman of PDP, Prince Uche Secondus, called for the impeachment of President Buhari. In a statement, Secondus noted that the opposition party arrived at this decision after rising from a meeting on Thursday. The party also asked the Ministers of Finance (Kemi Adeosun) as well as her Budget and National Planning counterpart (Udo Udoma) to resign having failed to provide the much needed capacity in the management of the nations economy resulting in the embarrassing crashing of the nations currency to as low as N305 to a dollar. Not done, the PDP called for the immediate resignation of the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emefiele, for plunging the countrys currency policy into chaos; an action that has thrown investors into total confusion. The party further admonished the government to stop pretending that it knows what to do when feelers from the seat of power shows clearly that Nigerians by voting for APC have just discovered they boarded a one chance bus. We sympathize with Nigerians who are seriously undergoing terrible hardship because of the now obvious inept leadership of APC despite the promise of one Naira to a dollar. What hope can a government that allows its currency to break a 43 year old record crashing to over N300 to one dollar offer and yet does not show it has clear focus of what to do? The party said that APC government rather than address very grievous national issues created by its lack of capacity to govern, has instead resorted to violation of peoples rights in the name of fighting corruption. On the continued detention of its spokesman Olisa Metuh for nearly 10 days by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, the PDP insisted that the action is a clear breach of fundamental Human rights and reiterated its earlier call on the commission to release him unconditionally with immediate effect. The party further called on all lovers of democracy especially the international community to note the fact that rule of law and respect for citizens rights, essential ingredients of civil liberty have taken flight in Nigeria under President Buharis watch. Transportation Minister, Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, yesterday, confirmed the removal of subsidy on petrol, pointing out that it was not included in the 2016 budget. Speaking on a panel at the Business Eye Roundtable discussion in Lagos, Amaechi noted that this was part of the policies and steps taken by the federal government to save the economy. For the federal government, if you know the president, he doesnt support borrowing but he has catapulted to borrowing. If you know the president, he doesnt support removal of subsidies, we are not saying it but you know it is there. We are not saying oil subsidy has been removed, but check it in the budget; it is not there so where would he pay from? And if you know the president very well he would not spend anything outside the budget, Amaechi said. I am one of the vocal ministers who can say it has been removed but I am just saying it is not in the budget. The former Rivers State governor said this in reaction to a statement by the Chief Executive Officer, RTC Advisory Services Limited, Mr. Opeyemi Agbaje who urged the federal government to put in the right polices which would tackle the economic deficits in the country. My fear is that in government itself, there is insufficient realism around the real problem. I dont think polices are right. They are not dealing with the reality of problem, Agbaje had said, adding, I think the mind-set has not fully accepted the ramifications of the economic dimensions of the problem. The federal government needs to be bold, tell Nigerians the truth, face the issues around how we can get investments into this economy, and subsidies and spending. The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Engr. Babachir Lawal, has urged leaders in the South East geo-political zone to call pro-Biafra agitators to order. The SGF condemned the activities of the groups, saying they threaten the peace of the country. The Movement for Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) have been in the forefront of protests calling for the creation of a Republic of Biafra. Mr. Lawal, who spoke in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital, during a one-day working visit to the state, said the protesting youths were misguided by causing crisis in the country and called for an end to their activities. According to the SGF, by agitating for a Biafran republic, the protesters were creating the impression that Nigeria is not one and advised leaders in the South East to create employment opportunities for the youth to keep them busy to stop them from engaging in acts that threaten the peace of the nation. Some misguided youths in the South East zone are causing crisis in the country and I charge all Igbo leaders to rise to the occasion and call these misguided youths to order. These misguided youths create the impression that Nigeria is not one, and insecure, he said. Responding, the state governor, David Umahi, said he would ensure improved welfare of the people and rapid development of the state. The governor, who thanked God for making the visit of the SGF a reality, attributed his achievements in office to the handiwork of God. The Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Biafran War was a war fought to counter the secession of Biafra from Nigeria. The war which began on 6 July 1967 ended on 15 January 1970. 46 years after the bitter war ended, clamour for the state of Biafra has resurfaced as some Nigerians of Igbo extraction say they want freedom from Nigeria. In light of this, INFORMATION NIGERIA is taking a retrospective look at the war by putting together these 12 things everyone must know about the civil war that lasted 30months Biafra represented nationalist aspirations of the Igbo people, whose leadership felt they could no longer coexist with the Northern-dominated federal government. The war happened as a result the culmination of an uneasy peace and stability that had plagued Nigeria from independence in 1960. This situation had its genesis in the geography, history, culture and demography of Nigeria. Immediate causes of the war in 1966 include a military coup carried out by Maj. Kaduna Nzeogwu which led to the death of prominent Northern leaders like Tafawa Belewa, a counter-coup led by Yakubu Gowon, which led to the brutal murder of Aguiyi Ironsi, Nigerias first head of state, his deputy Fajuyi, etc and the persecution of Igbo living in Northern Nigeria. The former Eastern Region under Lt. Col. Ojukwu saw the act of the creation of states by decree without consultation as the last straw, and declared the Region an independent state of Biafra but the Federal Government in Lagos saw this as an act of secession and illegal. Several meetings were held to resolve the issue peacefully without success, therefore the Nigerian government had no choice but to use force in getting back the territory. The Federal side expected a quick victory but by the end of April 1969, after almost two years of bloody and destructive war, the envisioned quick victory had eluded the Federal side, the rebel enclave had been drastically reduced in size but the Biafrans were still holding on. On the 10th of January 1970, the self acclaimed Head of State of Biafra, Lt. Col. Ojukwu, realizing the hopelessness of the situation fled the enclave with his immediate family members handing over to Army Maj. Gen. Phillip Effiong. The Commander of the Biafran Army, who took over the administration of the remaining enclave surrendered to the Federal Government on 14th January 1970 bringing an end to the war, secessionist attempt and bloodshed. Over the two and half years of the war, about two million civilians died from starvation and diseases. Only five countries (Tanzania, Gabon, Cote dIvoire, Zambia and Haiti) officially recognised the new republic but did not provide arms and ammunition, whereas Britain supplied amounts of heavy weapons and ammunition to the Nigerian side. The war cost the Igbos a great deal in terms of lives, money and infrastructure. It has been estimated that up to three million people may have died due to the conflict, most from hunger and disease caused by Nigerian forces. President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday commended the President of Benin Republic, Boni Yayi, over his decision to ensure smooth transition at the end of his tenure in March. Buhari made the commendation during a joint media briefing with the visiting Benin Republic president at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. President Buhari expressed appreciation to his Beninese counterpart for being a good neighbour and for his consistency in identifying with the challenges facing Nigeria. He said: He is saying goodbye to us because he has agreed to abide with his countrys constitution. It is his second term, ending in March and he has made an undertaking with his country that he is going to respect the constitution of the country. He is preparing his party to produce a candidate that he will back in the elections. He has been very large-hearted. He has done so many things for his country in terms of security and economy. And I thanked him very much for his consistency in identifying with us and for being such a good neighbour and I assure him that Nigeria is very interested, necessarily, because good neighbourhood is good for our security and for our economy. Mr. Buhari assured that Nigeria will continue to be good to its neighbours as a deliberate policy to enhance internal security and economic prosperity in the country. The president equally expressed appreciation to Benin Republic for voluntarily contributing troops to check the menace of insurgency across member countries of the Lake Chad Basin Commission. The All Progressives Congress, APC, has told the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, that Nigeria is not a banana republic following calls by the latter for the impeachment of President Muhammadu Buhari. The party also dismissed another call by the PDP for the resignation of some Ministers and the governor of the Central Bank, Mr. Godwin Emefiele over their seeming inability to halt the plummeting value of the naira. In a statement by the national secretary of APC, Mai Mala Buni, APC reminded the PDP that Nigeria was a country governed by a set of laws. The statement read thus: The attention of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has been drawn to Thursdays comical statement credited to the acting National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Uche Secondus calling for the removal of President Muhammadu Buhari, resignation of two ministers and the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria by the National Assembly. The APC wishes to remind the PDP that Nigeria is not a banana republic, but a country governed by laws. It is confusing and worrisome that the PDP calls for an investigation into the budget issue and at the same time calls for the removal and resignation of the aforementioned. In both content and context, PDPs statement constitutes a distraction to the National Assembly. The APC is confident that the 8th National Assembly will not be distracted by the PDP in its new desperate plot to divert attention from the ongoing investigation into mind-boggling cases of corruption perpetuated under its defunct 16-year rule. Nigerians are still shocked and recovering from the wanton looting perpetuated in the last 16 years under the PDP. We invite the PDP to support current efforts aimed at social, economic and institutional reforms. York University issued apologies to over 500 prospective students after they received acceptance letters in error. The Canadian university was forced to send out emails of apology after a processing error incorrectly notified hundreds of students that their applications had been accepted. There was a processing error whereby approximately 500 individuals were sent emails indicating they had been accepted for admission to York, York University spokesperson Joanne Rider told CBC News. This occured immediately after the university had sent emails to acknowledge their applications had been received. The university is still in the process of reviewing the students applications and Jock Phippen, director of student recruitment and admission, clarified that the correction emails were sent to clarify the mistake and did not imply the students applications had been rejected. We really empathize that theres a small group of students that got this message and they get anxious and excited, and so we did do the outreach and tried to do it as quickly as possible, he told the Toronto Star. Rider said that students will likely learn whether or not theyve actually been accepted into the university some time in the coming months. We know this is an important decision point for students and families, she said. It was explained that the university needs to receive marks to make offers and this will occur in mid to late February. UPI. A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Friday remanded the National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Olisa Metuh in prison custody. Metuh, who was arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on seven-count charges bordering on money laundering, criminal breach of trust and criminal diversion of public funds contrary to Section 15(2), (d) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2012 and punishable under Section 15(3) of the same Act, pleaded not guilty. An oral application for bail by his lawyers; Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN), Ifedayo Adedipe (SAN) and Emeka Etiaba (SAN), was refused by Justice Okon Abang, who ordered that the application be properly filed so that the EFCC counsel, Sylvanus Tahir, can respond to it. Justice Abang, therefore, remanded the opposition partys spokesman to Kuje Prison till January 19. Recall that Metuh had been in EFCC custody since last Tuesday. The erstwhile Senator representing Akwa Ibom North-West, Aloysius Etok, has declared that it would take a long time for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to reclaim power at the centre following its inglorious fall from the top. Speaking on Thursday in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, Etok, who was one of the prominent politicians in the state that recently defected to the All Progressive Congress (APC), attributed the problem facing the opposition party to impunity that characterized the leadership of the party. Recall that Etok, a two-term senator, lose his bid to return to the Red Chamber for a third term as former Governor of the State, Godswill Akpabio, clinched the PDP ticket and later went on to win elections to represent the senatorial district. The former senator, who noted that lawlessness and impunity in the party were major reasons many people are leaving the party, also faulted the claim by the PDP in Akwa Ibom that even if election was conducted 100 times it will win, saying the party has failed to understand that times have changed. According to him: Impunity, lawlessness and arrogance; these things made them to move away from the people and became very far away from the people. How will you expect the North-East to vote for PDP realizing that the party people played pranks with their lives? Even as a senator, I feel the pains that I joined in approving the international loan of one billion dollars and the money was taken and shared among people. You can fool people sometimes but you cannot fool them all the time. If there is a rerun in Akwa Ibom the election will respect all the laws covering the election and will not be done in the usual way, so you cannot say who will actually win because for one, you must be able to get the people to come out. Former president of Nigeria Goodluck Jonathan has become a grandfather again, Vanguard report. On January 11, Jonathans adopted daughter, Inebharapu Paul, welcomed her first child with husband Simeon Onyemaechi at Memorial Hospital West, in Pembroke pines Miami, Florida. Their son has been named Kachiside Onyemachi what means The way God has written it. The ex-president left everything he is doing in Nigeria to join the new mother and her husband yesterday, January 13, in Miami, Florida. On September 23, Jonathans daughter Faith Sakwe and her husband Godswill Edward also welcomed their first child. The baby girl was born in the USA and was christened Princess Eliana Godswill Edward. On December 20, 2015 the former president joined his daughter and family to dedicate his granddaughter to God at the Word Illumination Ministry in Gwarimpa, Abuja. Addressing the congregation at the service, he called on Nigerians to pray and work for the good of the country, stressing that God would see the nation through its period of hardship. Source:Naij Indonesian police have arrested three men over links to attacks in Jakarta that left seven people dead including five attackers, local TV reported. The arrests on Friday came less than 24 hours after the shooting and bombing rampage, the first of such attack in the country since 2009. Colonel Dwiyono told MetroTV that the trio were arrested at their homes in Depok district on the outskirts of Jakarta at dawn. At least 20 people were wounded when at least five attackers opened fire near a Starbucks coffee house in the city. Those killed included an Indonesian and a Canadian. Officials said the attackers were armed with light weapons and suicide belts. Six blasts occurred about 50 metres apart in the central business district, which also houses a United Nations office. The attacks were claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in a statement on Thursday, in which the group claimed it had killed 15 people. Jakarta police chief Major General Tito Karnavian said the attackers were part of a group led by Bahrum Naim, an Indonesian ISIL supporter who is now in Syria, the Associated Press news agency reported. Al Jazeeras Sohail Rahman, reporting from Jakarta, said many circumstances surrounding the attacks on Thursday remained unclear. The All Progressives Congress, APC, has reacted to the call by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for the impeachment of President Muhammadu Buhari. The PDP attacked the president Thursday after the senate accused the presidency of altering the 2016 budget. Senate president, Bukola Saraki, said a copy of the budget received from the president was different from what his aide, Ita Enang, distributed to its members. Lawmakers had earlier told PREMIUM TIMES that the original document was missing. In a statement Thursday, PDP asked the National Assembly to impeach the president, and called for the resignation of the finance minister, Kemi Adeosun, and budget and national planning minister, Udo Udoma. The party also demanded the resignation of the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele. APC dismissed the call as comical. It is confusing and worrisome that the PDP calls for an investigation into the budget issue and at the same time calls for the removal and resignation of the aforementioned, the party said in a statement by its national secretary, Mala Buni. In both content and context, PDPs statement constitute a distraction to the National Assembly. The party said it was confident that the 8th National Assembly would not be distracted by the PDP in its new desperate plot to divert attention from the ongoing investigation into mind-boggling cases of corruption perpetuated under its defunct 16-year rule. Source: Premium Times Punch The Senate on Thursday summoned the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, to appear before it next week Tuesday to explain the alarming weakening of the nations currency against the United States dollar. Vanguard PORT HARCOURTA medical doctor with Rivers State-owned Braithwait Memorial Specialist Hospital, BMH, Dr. Livy Ijamala, has died from Lassa Fever, bringing to three the number of people killed by the disease in the state. The Sun The Nigerian military has warned the public of a new tactic in use by the extremist Boko Haram sect to move Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) around in order to unleash deadly attacks on the public. Thisday After days of confusion over the whereabouts of the 2016 Appropriation Bill, the Senate finally disclosed yesterday that the Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari for National Assembly Matters, Senator Ita Enang, smuggled fake copies of the bill into the National Assembly. Daily Times Edo 2016: Grumblings in APC over Oshiomholes backing for Obaseki Less than three months to the March governorship primaries of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Edo State, there are loud grumblings within many camps in the party over the seeming support one of the aspirants is receiving from outgoing governor Adams Oshiomhole. Guardian EDO State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, yesterday broke his silence over his position on the choice of his successor as he told members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) drawn from the three senatorial districts of the state that while he would ensure there are primaries, he, however, would not be indifferent to the choice of his successor from the lot that arejostling for the partys gubernatorial ticket. Daily Trust Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal yesterday dismissed a motion exparte seeking for an interlocutory injunction to stop the January 27, 2016 swearing-in of Alhaji Yahaya Bello as Governor of Kogi state. Justice Halima Mohammed, the chairman of the three-member panel, who dismissed the motion exparte filed by the Labour Party (LP) against the Kogi Governor-elect at the tribunals sitting in Lokoja, said the application was incompetent. Leadership The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has filed a seven -count charge of alleged corruption against the detained National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Chief Olisa Metuh. The Nation The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has said that a former Chairman, Board of Trustees (BOT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Anthony Anenih, benefited from the N400million allegedly received by the partys spokesman, Olisa Metuh. Tribune THE National Working Committee (NWC) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on Thursday, called on the National Assembly to commence impeachment process against President Muhammadu Buhari, for the various constitutional breaches he had committed since his assumption of office, especially the submission of two versions of the 2016 appropriation Bill before the National Assembly The Islamic Movement in Nigeria, also known as the Shiite Islamic sect, on Thursday said its leader, Sheik Ibraheem El-Zakzaky and his wife, Zeenah, were recuperating from gunshot wounds at an undisclosed location in Abuja. This was disclosed by the groups spokesman, Ibrahim Musa, who said El-Zakzaky was visited by the contact committee of National Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs, NSCIA on Wednesday. On Wednesday 13th January, 2016 some members of the contact committee set up by the NSCIA visited Sheikh Ibraheem Yaqoub Zakzaky, leader of the Islamic Movement, who is incarcerated by the federal government since 14th December, 2015. According to a member of the committee, Prof. Dahiru Yahya, they met the Sheikh and his wife, Sister Zeenah Ibraheem, in Abuja, and are all recuperating from the bullet wounds they sustained during the armys attack on the Islamic Movement in Zaria. The Islamic movement welcomes this development. It is a step forward in quelling the anxiety of the teeming millions of Muslims and Non-Muslims alike, all over the globe, in knowing at least the whereabouts of the Sheikh and the condition of his health, Mr. Musa said. The movement, however, stuck to its guns for justice in the December 12, 2015 clash between some soldiers and its members in Zaria, Kaduna State which left a yet-to-be ascertained number of Shiites dead as well as the unconditional release of its leader. However, we are still adamant in our request that the Sheikh be set free unconditionally, because up to now the government has not been able to justify the unjustifiable atrocities committed by the army that led to his arrest. So far we have been able to establish some figures that indicate how gruesome the avoidable attack by the Nigerian Army has been. In our list, there are about 730 people, men and women who are still missing since that fateful Saturday 12th December, 2015. These missing people were either killed by the army or are in detention. Their whereabouts is still unknown and undisclosed. Also there are 220 brothers of the Islamic movement in detention in Kaduna Central prison, some of them with fatal gun wounds and burns. Reliable reports from some detention facilities owned by the Nigerian Army in Kaduna, Bauchi and Abuja have confirmed the detention of some brothers of the Islamic movement therein. As at the time of writing this statement, no single corpse has been handed to the families of those killed. In as much as we commend the NSCIA for its effort to resolve this crisis initiated and executed by the military, we still demand answers to some questions that the Chief of army staff couldnt answer when the contact committee met him in his office. The questions are as follows as narrated in a national daily by a member of the committee: What is the actual number of the dead, and when are they going to be handed over to their relatives for proper burial? Are the injured receiving adequate treatment? said Mr. Musa. The group, therefore, demanded the unconditional release of Mr. El-Zakzaky, his followers and the bodies of those killed for burial according to Islamic rites. While calling on human rights activists to prevail on government to do justice to them, they also called for the setting up of an independent judicial commission under the supervision of the international community. At least 150 people suspected to be members of the Boko Haram terrorist group were on Thursday arrested by the Police in Ondo, headquarters of Ondo West Local Government Area of Ondo state. The suspects were reportedly armed with various offensive weapons and loaded themselves in a truck before they were intercepted and arrested by the Police. It was gathered that the suspects were heading for an undisclosed location when the Police at the Funbi-Fagun Police division intercepted the truck conveying them. The suspectsm who were said to hail from the northern part of the country, were conveyed in a truck with registration number KANO NSR 97 XZ, and were said to be coming from Kebbi state and heading towards Ore town in Odigbo Local Government Area of the state before they were apprehended by the police at Lipakala junction in Ondo town. The operation, which was led by the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in charge of the Funbi-Fagun Police division, Mr Olu-Ojo Ogunmoyole, also involved men of the Special Ant-robbery Squad (SARS) of the state police command and officers of the Department of State Security (DSS). The suspects were initially held at the Funbi-Fagun police division before they were later transferred to the State headquarters of the Police command in Akure. Items said to be recovered from the suspects include 18 locally made guns, two jack knives, 22 cutlasses and many torch lights. As news of the arrest of suspected Boko Haram members filtered into the town, many trooped to the police station at Funbi-Fagun to catch a glimpse of them before they were transferred to the police headquarters. The news has also created apprehension among residents of the town. One of the suspects, who identified himself as Abdulahi Sheriff, said they are not members of Boko Haram, saying they are all farmers coming from Benin-Kebbi to seek greener pastures in the southern part of the country. He explained that their movement from the North was due to the prolonged dry season which he said has affected their activities. He, however, could not give any reasonable explanation for the purpose of the dangerous weapons found on their possession at the time their truck was intercepted. The Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of Funbi-Fagun police station, Mr. Ogunmoyole, said the suspects were intercepted during a surveillance operation carried out by the anti-robbery squad attached to the division. He explained that the suspects were transferred to the command headquarters for further investigation. US Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump and his top challenger Ted Cruz have clashed over Cruzs Canadian birth and the business tycoons New York values during a tense debate. With the February 1 nomination ballot in Iowa, a swing state, coming into sharp focus, the debate on Thursday was a key one to influence voters, who will start to pick the partys nominee to run for the White House in November. Texas Senator Cruz, who was born in Calgary, Alberta, to a US citizen mother and a Cuban father, accused Trump of bringing up his birthplace simply because Cruz was leading some polls in Iowa. Cruz said Trump, who led the movement questioning whether the Hawaiian-born President Barack Obama was really born in the US, had asked his lawyers to look into the issue of Cruzs birth in September and concluded there were no issues. Since September, the Constitution has not changed, but the poll numbers have, Cruz said. And I recognise that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are dropping in Iowa, but the facts and the law here are really clear. Trump said Democrats would sue if Cruz were on the Republican ticket, putting their partys chances of winning at risk. Aljazeera. A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja today remanded embattled Peoples Democratic Party, PDPs spokesman Olisa Metuh in prison custody following his arraignment before it by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over allegations of his involvement in a N400 million fraud via his firm, Destra Investment Limited. With this new development, it would interest you to know that Metuh wouldnt be the first prominent Nigerian Kuje prison would host. The prison which was established in 1989 and located in Kuje, Kuje Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has played host to several others. INFORMATION NIGERIA in this piece brings you a list of 6 prominent Nigerians to have been remanded there Chairman of DAAR Communication Plc, High Chief Raymond Dokpesi in December 2015, joined the list of eminent Nigerians to be remanded in Kuje prison. The media mongul was ordered by a judge to be remanded in Kuje prion after he was unable to meet his bail conditions. Pension theft: Mr. John Yusuf in 2013 was remanded in Kuje Prison. Recall that Yusuf was handed a two year jail term or fine of N750,000 for conniving with others to defraud the Police Pension Office of N27.2bn, a judgement that was highly criticised. Yusuf was later re-arraigned for fresh charges, Justice Bello had remanded him in prison custody, pending the determination of his bail application. Former Chairman of the House of Representatives Adhoc Committee on Fuel Subsidy, Hon Faruk Lawan and House Committee Clerk, Boniface Enemalo, were remanded in Kuje prison by an Abuja High Court in February 2013. Farouk Lawan and Boniface Emenalo had been arraigned by the office of the Attorney General in a seven count charge for allegedly soliciting and collecting a bribe of $620, 000 from Chairman of Zenon Oil and Gas, Femi Otedola, following a probe by the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee on Fuel Subsidy. The chief security officer to former head of state, late General Sani Abacha, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha and former aide to the late Chief MKO Abiola, Lateef Shofolahan were also at a time kept in Kuje Prison. He was tried and convicted for murder of Chief Kudirat Abiola by a Lagos High Court in January 2012. Al-Mustapha spent nine years and seven months in Ikoyi, Kirikiri and Kuje prison. Metuh today became the latest addition to this list. What do you think, serves him right??? A gas pipeline in Warri Southwest Local Government Area of Delta State conveying gas from Escravos-Warri-Lagos-Abuja was last night blown up by suspected former militants of the Niger Delta. The strategic pipeline is a property of the Nigeria Gas Company, NGC, and its destruction is believed to be a signal of resumption of hostilities in the volatile oil-rich region. A riverside dweller in one of the Ijaw communities, who confirmed the incident, said they could not sleep throughout the night as deafening sounds of explosion and gunshots rented the air, shattering the fragile peace. They blew up the gas pipeline from Escravos to Warri Lagos and Abuja at three different points. They struck at Opudebubor, Okpelama and Kpokpo area, Chanomi creek and Sahara, behind Chevron Nigeria Limited, CNL. We do not know what is going to happen next, but there is tension since last night over the bombing and many residents are afraid that it will continue. Some are already fleeing their communities because they suspect that government would deploy security agents to hunt for those bombing the pipelines and they do not want to be caught in the ensuing crossfire, Vanguard quoted the source as saying. The bombing of the pipeline came on the heels of an alarm raised by ex-Niger Delta warlord, Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo, earlier on Thursday that some persons were planning to bomb crude oil facilities and pipelines and other facilities in the Niger Delta and attribute the havoc to him. Tompolo, who has a bench warrant for his arrest issued by a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos, fingered those allegedly dissatisfied with the re-election of Governor Henry Seriake-Dickson of Bayelsa state as behind the plot and urged them to desist I want to admonish those that are still aggrieved as a result of the outcome of the election not to resort to destruction of national assets, especially crude oil facilities and pipelines and attribute it to me because of my position on the election. The former militant leader warned that destroying crude oil facilities would not do the country any good and urged Nigerians, especially the Niger Delta region, to support the President Muhammadu Buharis administration to succeed. When contacted Friday morning, Chairman of Delta Waterways and Land Security Committee, Chief Boro Opudu, said, I am hearing rumour about such incident but I have not confirmed what happened. I cannot, therefore, speak on the matter until I have my facts. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned that the use of starvation as a weapon in Syria amounts to a war crime after the second international convoy arrived to the famine-struck town of Madaya to deliver humanitarian aid. Ban said on Thursday residents in the rebel-held town, which has been under siege by government troops for several months, were in desperate need of humanitarian assistance. Let me be clear, Ban told reporters, the use of starvation as a weapon of war is a war crime. All sides, including the Syrian government which has the primary responsibility to protect Syrians, are committing this and other atrocious acts prohibited under international humanitarian law, he added. Al Jazeeras diplomatic editor James Bays, reporting from the UN headquarters in New York, said that even though Bans comments represented some of his strongest language yet after almost five years of war in Syria, this did not mean that any action was going to be taken. The UN Security Council will be meeting to discuss the besieged areas in Syria in an open session on Friday, and despite the fact that Ban Ki-moon has described these as war crimes, the Council wont be taking any action on that, he said. A referral to the International Criminal Court requires a vote by the Security Council and its certain on an issue like this that Russia and China would use their veto, Bays added. Aljazeera. Government Ekpemupolo (popularly known as Tompolo) has dissociated himself from the attacks on oil installations in the Warri area of Delta state on Friday. The ex-militant leader condemned the attacks in a telephone chat with The Nation. However, he did not rule out a connection between the destruction and the arrest warrant issued by a Federal High Court in Lagos. I am not responsible for the attack and I condemn it as a dastardly act. I am aware that some persons might want to destroy oil installations and link it with me that was why I said before time that I have nothing to do with it, Tompolo said through Mr. Paul Bebenimibo, his media aide. I could not have gone ahead to carry out such action knowing that every finger will be pointed at me because of my case with the Federal Government, he added. He urged those who carried out the attacks to change their ways, stressing his willingness to help the Federal Government and relevant security operatives to fish out the masterminds of the attacks and bring them to book. Congress is launching yet another attack on Net neutrality by advancing a bill that would strip the FCC of authority to investigate complaints about cable companies. Net neutrality rules have been under a two-pronged attack ever since they passed last year. On one front, Internet providers are suing the FCC to overturn rules that reclassified broadband as a common carrier service. Meanwhile, their lackeys in Congress have repeatedly tried to pass measures that would defund the agency or prohibit it from enforcing Net neutrality until the lawsuits are settled -- which could be years down the line. [ Also on InfoWorld: The truth about T-Mobile, Net neutrality, and video throttling. | Cut to the key news in technology trends and IT breakthroughs with the InfoWorld Daily newsletter, our summary of the top tech happenings. ] Now H.R. 2666, the "No Rate Regulation of Broadband Internet Access Act," proposes codifying a promise that FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has made repeatedly: There will be no rate regulation of broadband Internet access. Sounds simple, right? However, "rate regulation" has a very broad definition in the minds of broadband giants and their allies. ISPs have never had to seek FCC permission before raising rates, but under the new rules customers and edge providers can complain to the agency about prices and business practices that are "unjust" or "unreasonable." ISPs want to change that. U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee's subcommittee on communications and technology, made it clear in a hearing this week that he wants to forbid the FCC from acting upon customer complaints about broadband rates, billing errors, or data usage caps -- though complaints to the FCC have produced results where calls to customer service fell on deaf ears. "Rate regulation by after-the-fact second-guessing is rate regulation nonetheless. We should assure that the specter of rate regulation of broadband is off the table permanently," Walden said. Former FCC commissioner and current telecom lobbyist Robert McDowell wants the ban extended to interconnection rates charged to edge providers as well: "To avoid any confusion as to what H.R. 2666 is intended to address, it should be revised to state with specificity that it refers to all forms of regulation of the rates for Internet access services, including peering and interconnection." Never mind that after-the-fact second-guessing of rate regulation effectively motivated ISPs to settle long-standing interconnection disputes with edge providers, ending slowdowns of popular services like Netflix. The Internet experience of hundreds of millions of users be damned when big money is at stake. It's no accident this bill is advancing as the FCC begins informally gathering information on various business practices denounced by Net neutrality advocates, such as data caps and zero-rating data programs. "Comcast and other broadband providers are increasingly expanding their practice of usage caps and overage fees, and as the cable giant begins pushing its luck ever harder (by, say, exempting its own streaming service from the caps), pressure is building for the FCC to actually do something about this," DSL Reports writes. Usage caps aimed at discouraging cord cutters who stream television shows through services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon could end up defeating the spirit of Net neutrality. What Harvard Law School professor Susan Crawford calls the "sledgehammer of usage-based pricing" allows broadband providers to "make the use of services that compete with their own businesses feel expensive to consumers. Today, these include streaming TV; tomorrow, the squeeze will come in home security, telemedicine, distance education, or anything else that requires modern-day levels of data capacity. It allows these giants to pick and choose among the providers of new businesses that will be allowed to reach consumers effectively. " Comcast CEO Brian Roberts recently said users should be charged for Internet data the same way they're charged for electricity: the more you use, the more you pay. "But Comcast doesn't want its prices regulated by government the way electric prices are," Ars Technica writes. Not even Comcast is pretending that this new practice has anything to do with congestion or network capacity. In a script leaked to Reddit, its customer service reps are instructed to "never say that the data usage plan -- don't say data cap' (we do not limit a customer's use of the Internet in any way) -- is about congestion management (it is not). Do say fairness and providing a more flexible policy to our customers.'" What a beautiful example of doublespeak! "Got that?" writes Crawford. This is about fairness, not congestion. Americans love the idea of "fairness." But in this particular context "fairness" makes zero sense. No "power user" is having any effect on anyone else's download experience -- there's plenty of capacity. (The Netflix/Comcast fracas last year made this eminently clear: as soon as Netflix paid up, presto, Netflix subscribers weren't faced with a spinning wheel.) Broadband providers get away with this because most U.S. households have only a single choice of provider. As a user from Atlanta complained to the FCC, "If it weren't for [Comcast's] monopoly in my neighborhood, I would have left them years ago. Aren't monopolies illegal?" Instead of passing H.R. 2666, "Congress should stop trying to chip away at the FCC's authority to protect Internet users and start working to ensure that everyone has affordable access to an open and fast Internet. That's a goal that everyone needs to get behind," says Matt Wood, policy director at Free Press. Congress also championed bills forbidding the government from negotiating drug prices -- and pharmaceutical companies have thanked them by raising the prices on life-saving drugs by 5,000 percent. Do we really want to give broadband providers carte blanche to do the same with Internet access? Many people are complaining about a completely undocumented version of the Windows Live Mail 2012 patch KB 3093594, dated Jan. 8 in Windows Update and distributed about the same time as this month's Patch Tuesday. This latest version of KB 3093594 has been accused of slowing Windows Live Mail to a standstill and "losing" both sent mail and folders. It looks as though the Jan. 8 version of KB 3093594 is the same as the Dec. 17 version of KB 3093594, which was designed to fix the Dec. 14 version of KB 3093594 but failed miserably. On Dec. 14, I wrote how Windows Live Mail 2012 patch KB 3093594 had a nasty habit of crashing Windows Live Mail and freezing Windows. The patch was distributed after Windows Live Mail customers with @outlook.com, @hotmail, @live, or @msn email accounts received messages -- apparently from Microsoft -- warning that their systems wouldn't work "in a few weeks." Using the same distribution technique as standard malware, customers were told to click on a link (from an email message!) that would download and install the fix. On Dec. 18, I wrote about the new version of KB 3093594. The KB article now states: Known issues about this update Issue 1: After you install this update (that was released before December 17, 2015), you may find that the program crashes soon after start. Solution: If you installed this update before December 17, 2015, you may have experienced a crash in the Windows Live Mail app soon after start. To fix this issue, download and reinstall the same update that's described in this article. Issue 2: After you install this update that's released on December 17, 2015, you may experience mail sync issues. This issue occurs because of a server-side problem. Microsoft is researching this issue and will post more information in this article when the information becomes available. Reader LL wrote to me at the time with a description of the problem, saying that the Dec. 17 version of KB 3093594 works if your account on outlook.com says "Outlook Mail (Preview)." If it says anything else, your system will crash. Now it looks like we have a new version of KB 3093594 dated Jan. 8. But the KB article has not been modified and there's no notification of the update that I can find. However, poster MichaelBuckle on the Microsoft Answers Forum says of this version: Using a third-party program called Windows Update MiniTool, I downloaded the file from Windows Update without having to install it. I can confirm that it is the existing patch re-issued on 17 December 2015, and not a new fix. If you got suckered into re-installing the patch, you aren't alone. Poster Dori on AskWoody.com says: I had forgotten all about this problem and yesterday installed KB3093594, which was included in the general Windows Update. Since my WLMail 2012 (hooked up to Outlook.com) was working fine and I had seen that support for WLM was being ended I should have excluded this update, however Anyway, operating WLMail is now like walking through treacle and the Sent box is behaving peculiarly, i.e. the sent mail is visible online in Outlook.com but not on the desktop in the client. Even worse, I could not find the update in my Installed Update list to uninstall it! This is even though it is there in the Update History. On the Microsoft Answers forum, poster jiggy1 says: I have the latest updates and the issues I STILL have with windows live mail since KB3093594 are: 1. Font changes on headers on launching mail with new emails 2. Message 'sent to' column STILL shows the recipient's name with the account column empty ( I cure this by moving each mail to the junk folder and back again but it creates 2 emails one of which I then delete ) 3. My folders and sub folders sometimes disappear from time to time, which I am able to make visible again by creating an empty folder with any name and then delete it (in the same location). This makes the folder re appear normally again! 4. Emails sent take ages to appear in the sent folder, and don't show in the outbox, they are in limbo somewhere??? None of the suggested fixes work permanently, only those I have listed above. They need to sort this ASAP! If you're using Windows Live Mail 2012, my first suggestion is to give up. Microsoft apparently doesn't care about WLM and hasn't devoted enough resources to solving the problem it created. My advice is to move to Outlook.com or (my favorite) Gmail. Microsoft's suggestion in the original email is to "upgrade to Windows 10 and use the built in Mail application to stay connected and get the latest feature updates" -- a recommendation that's so patently self-serving it's embarrassing. The folks at Microsoft know darn well that the Windows "Universal" Mail app is underpowered and buggy. I guess this is what it's coming to: patches that break things and don't get pulled or fixed; patches that look and behave like malware; undocumented, stealthy patches. It's harder and harder to trust Microsoft to maintain the software it produces. The MasterCard Foundation has had its hand in breaking down barriers to employment for young people in developing countries for a few years now. This past year, however, the foundation has been on a tear to help the youth population living in sub-Saharan Africa develop their skills and knowledge sets to find gainful employment and improve their livelihoods. The foundation's latest investment in Africas young population is the Youth Forward Initiative, launched last month. Youth Forward is $74 million employment program formed by The MasterCard Foundation and its partners, the Overseas Development Institute, Solidaridad, GOAL, NCBA CLUSA, and Global Communities. The initiative is launching in Uganda and Ghana and will zero in on young people ages 15 to 24 living on less than $2 per day who are unemployed, underemployed, or out of school and looking for quality work or interested in starting a small businesses. Youth Forward is focusing its work on the agriculture and construction sectors, two industries that are expected to have the highest growth potential within the next several years. By the programs end, the foundation wants to help some 200,000 young people find sustainable jobs. There are a couple of good reasons why the foundation is concentrating on lifting young people out of poverty, particularly in Africa. Around the globe, there are some 1.1 billion people aged 15 to 24. In Africa, an estimated 60 percent of the continents young people are unemployed. In sub-Saharan Africa, the unemployment problem is particularly acute, as it has the fastest projected youth population growth between now and 2050. Youth unemployment in sub-Saharan Africa is a multi-pronged problem that goes beyond the ratio of jobs needed to jobs available. Additional problems such as widespread illiteracy, failures in basic education systems, conflict, and lack of skills training programs are also major contributing factors, here. Most of which the MasterCard Foundation is hoping to mitigate with its youth-focused funding either by partnering up for projects like Youth Forward, or through the foundations Youth Livelihoods program. Related: Making STRYDEs: How the MasterCard Foundatin is Helping African Youth Boost Their Income The MasterCard Foundation's Youth Livelihoods program aims to help young people overcome the multitude of hurdles they face to sustainable employment and improved livelihoods. Through the program, the foundation is providing skills training, practical skills development, financial literacy, and soft skills development in marginalized youth populations, mainly in Africa. The MasterCard Foundation isnt the only big funder investing in the potential economic success of Africas young people. The Rockefeller and Coca-Cola Africa foundations are also prominent players, here. Related: Theres a great Bette Davis quote that goes something like, Old age aint no place for sissies. It puts me in mind of the recently departed month and the image of decrepit Father Time ambling out of the year. Certainly for nonprofits that depend on a year-end fundraising blitz, December has never been for the faint of heart. Nor, for that matter, is January, when the donation tally is complete. That high-stakes setting informs the success story I have to share. Last year, I was part of a daring December initiative. A nonprofit organization of which Im a board member, Astor Services for Children and Families, took a popular free event and, for the first time, required a contribution to attend. Thats practically the definition of risk-taking for nonprofits. Yet, the outcome was an event that generated positive buzz and raised a significant amount of moneyin fact, more than other signature events in recent years. How it was accomplished may be of value to othersat any time of the year. Art with Therapeuticand FundraisingValue By way of background, Astor Services, based in the Hudson Valley and The Bronx, provides children's mental health services, child welfare services and early childhood development programs. Until 2015, Astors December event, known as Sugar Plum, was essentially a holiday craft fair. The timing often dovetailed with a community-wide celebration honoring the regions Dutch heritage. Participants shopped for crafts and enjoyed festive music and refreshments. But it was more of a goodwill event than a substantial fundraiser. The catalyst for change is an inventive art therapy program. Among those Astor serves are young people with behavioral and emotional problems. The Paint What You Feel program in abstract expressionism encourages kids to channel strong emotions through a paintbrush using the techniques of masters like Gerhard Richter. The results can be phenomenaland saleable, providing evidence of the programs therapeutic value and capacity to unleash impressive talent. The Power of a Program As an organization, that was the first key decision in reinventing our holiday eventto refocus around a specific program. As a way to revamp, putting a program literally on display delivered the necessary "wow!" And it aligns with conventional wisdom that people give to programs. No surpriseprograms are definable. Theyre understandable. They tell donors quickly and clearly a good deal about how an organization fulfills its mission. And programs offer a window on organizational thinking, particularly in terms of innovation. Art therapy isnt new. Supporting emotional healing on the scale of a Richter-inspired painting is tossing ideas into new territory. Spotlighting the Paint What You Feel program products elevated the holiday event to signature status and generated a level of excitement that went beyond seasonal good cheer. Comments along the lines of youd expect to see this work in an NYC gallery were consistent. Some of the paintings sold for hundreds of dollars. Getting the Board Onboard The other major piece in the retooling process was the decision to sell tickets and charge an entrance fee. It redefined the event and endowed it with signature status. Naturally, it was also the greatest risk. It encouraged donors to expect a great deal more. And it meant a far greater fallor flop, to get more to the pointif more than the inevitable few were disappointed by the event. What also made a significant difference in the fundraising outcome was a far stronger show of support from Astor board members. Where in the past only a sprinkling of members attended the Sugar Plum event, the signature version rated a must-attend from nearly the entire board. There was a contribution requirement for board members, but most went beyond their own donations. With the boards interest in the event piqued, more of the members friends and associates were approached to purchase tickets and participate in the event. Benefits of Fresh Thinking With year-end success so important, the tendency with fundraising is to play it safe. Stick with whats familiar. Follow the usual pattern of appeals. So when an organization takes a risk, its worth noting. For Astor, between the program focus and funding choices, a previously fun but underwhelming event rocketed to signature status. And given that December 2016 is a long way off, theres talk at Astor of redefining what holiday event implies. There can be many opportunities throughout the year to showcase exciting young artiststo their benefit and the organizations as well. Susan J. Ragusa is a nonprofit strategist in the Hudson Valley region and metro New York. Email susan@susanjragusa.com or connect with Susan on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Google+. @targanl @Subaru_Canada ST. JOHNS (January 15, 2016) Subaru Canada, a long-time participant and supporter of the Targa Newfoundland international rally ever since its inception in 2002, recently announced the return of a broad ranging incentive and support program for Subaru competitors, their immediate families, and for Targa event staff. The Subaru Canada program, implemented in recognition of the fact that Subaru products have competed in every Targa Newfoundland, sets out various incentives and awards for Subaru participants. Participants and/or any immediate family member (mother, father, spouse, son or daughter) who purchase or lease a new Subaru from January 1 December 31, 2016 will be eligible for a C$750.00 rebate. This rebate is also being made available to the Targa event staff. Participants who use any model of Subaru for entry into any of the 4 main categories within Targa Newfoundland (Open, Modern, Classic, and Grand Touring) will receive a C$500.00 Entrant Award which goes towards their entry fee. Performance awards are also included in the program. These would apply towards Subaru entrants in any of the 4 competition categories: Open, Modern, Classic and Grand Touring. A Subaru that achieves first place in any of the categories will receive a cash award of C$2,000.00, second place C$1,500.00 and third place C$1,000.00. Brian Hyland, Director, After Sales Parts Operations, states that Subaru Canada has been a long time supporter of Targa Newfoundland and is very excited to be able to make this offer available once again to those Subaru participants in the 15th Anniversary 2016 Targa. Subarus finished 1-2 in Open last year and are hoping for the same type of results in 2016. We wish all participants good luck and safe driving in the coming event. Owned and operated by Newfoundland International Motorsports Limited, Targa Newfoundland is one of three internationally recognized Targa motorsports events in the world. The 2016 competition will start in St. Johns on September 12th and concludes back in the capital on September 17th. The annual rally will cover more than 1,600 kilometers of the challenging, twisty roads of the central and eastern portion of Newfoundland, including over 440 kilometers of closed-road, flat-out Targa stages. Contact: Media: Robert Giannou 1-877-332-2413 rgiannou@targanewfoundland.com Competitors: Darren Sheppard 1-877-332-2413 registrar@targanewfoundland.com Websites: http://targanfld.com/ www.facebook.com/targanl www.twitter.com/targanl From: Darren Sheppard/ General Manager Join us for the 15th Anniversary Targa Newfoundland September 10th to 17th, 2016 Enjoy Targa: Watch from a Safe and Secure Place Newfoundland International Motorsports Limited 303 Thorburn Road, Suite 2-D, St. Johns, Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada. A1B 4R1 Tel: 709-722-2413 Tel: 877-332-2413 Fax: 709-753-7646 targanfld.com www.facebook.com/targanl www.twitter.com/targanl Terry OSullivan has a problem. General president of the Laborers International Union of North America, OSullivan thinks the half-million union members he represents at $35 billion LIUNA are headed for disaster. Thats because, as insured members of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., theyre paying into a mandatory program with a whopping $52.3 billion deficit. The PBGC, the Washington-headquartered federal insurance agency that provides modest replacement income for multiemployer pension participants whose defined benefit pensions have become insolvent, estimates that unless changes are made, it will run out of money by 2025. Last year, in an attempt to prop up the PBGC, Congress doubled annual premiums for the agencys 10.4 million multiemployer participants, from $13 per person to $26; it will probably keep hiking them for the foreseeable future. (The PBGC has no official comment on its plans.) Were not for premium increases to an entity that we believe is doomed, says Washington-based OSullivan. We think Congress will recklessly increase premiums. But its more than a premium rise that is nettling OSullivan. He wants a wholesale exit from the PBGC and asserts that his union can take care of participants who fall victim to employer bankruptcies without help from the troubled federal agency. Multiemployer pensions have long disagreed about mandatory PBGC participation. Its always been a debate, says Randy DeFrehn, executive director of the National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans (NCCMP) in Washington. Consumer advocacy groups such as AARP and the Pension Rights Center have been calling for a taxpayer bailout of severely underfunded multiemployer pensions, along the lines of the financial and auto industry rescues after the 200809 global financial meltdown. But Congress has no appetite for such an answer to an impending retirement crisis affecting middle class workers. As a result, the union world has been left to craft its own solutions. When the PBGC was formed as part of ERISA, the comprehensive pension legislation enacted in the mid-1970s, many multiemployer officials didnt want to join its insurance program. Their plans, which have an equal number of union and employer trustees, already had a way to deal with employer bankruptcies: Pay the benefits of affected workers by keeping them in the pension. Officials also viewed the PBGC as having been created with single-employer plans in mind. Mandatory PBGC inclusion was held in abeyance until a study in the late 1970s convinced the agency that multiemployer pensions needed a safety net in the then-unlikely event of failure. Congress responded by shepherding multiemployer plans into the insurer via the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1980. From 1980 through 2003 the PBGCs multiemployer program was fully solvent. That started to change after the dot-com bubble burst, and worsened in the wake of the financial crisis. Congress began raising premiums to reduce the growing deficit. The Kline-Miller Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014 (MPRA) sought to prevent seriously troubled plans, those calculated to become insolvent within 20 years, from folding. In a controversial move, the MPRA gave multiemployer plan trustees the power to reduce participant benefits despite the fact that ERISA forbids such cuts. In its multiemployer program during the 2014 fiscal year, the PBGC paid $97 million in financial assistance to 53 pension plans covering the benefits of 52,000 retirees. An additional 23,000 people in these plans will receive benefits when they retire. Not every multiemployer plan official is seeking to sever ties with the PBGC. Charles Storke, lead attorney for Californias Western Conference of Teamsters Pension Trust (WCTPT), has ongoing discussions with Congress and the agency. The question is, how much more do they need to be effective without putting pressure on the system and, in particular, the plans that are not as strong as Western Conference? says Storke, a partner with San Francisco law firm Trucker Huss, of premium increases. We dont relish seeing those premiums double or even triple. Storke believes such fees are the price of belonging to the multiemployer pension community. With 550,000 participants spread across 13 states, the WCTPT handed the PBGC $14.3 million in premium payments last year. At $35.7 billion in assets, the well-funded San Ramonbased plan is too big for a PBGC bailout even if it were needed, Storke notes. But the WCTPT wants to support smaller pension funds that the agency could help, assuming it returns to fully funded status. Wed rather work with Congress and with the regulators and find a solution to this extremely difficult problem, Storke says. LIUNAs OSullivan sees an opening to a PBGC exit with Congresss potential enactment of a new pension model. This plan design originated in a February 2013 report called Solutions Not Bailouts, by the NCCMPs Retirement Security Review Commission. The report, assembled by 40 multiemployer stakeholders, also included a recommendation that resulted in the MPRA legislation allowing benefit reductions for participants in plans nearing insolvency. The NCCMPs proposed pension model wouldnt require PBGC insurance. Dubbed the Composite Plan, it would be a hybrid of defined benefit and defined contribution, a voluntary retirement savings and income delivery framework that multiemployer pensions could adopt individually after negotiating at the union-employer level. The legacy pension would continue to receive some new assets, while the rest would flow into the new plan. The NCCMPs DeFrehn, who expects a draft bill from Congress this spring, points out that a 21st-century pension plan would make union membership more attractive to employers and employees. Theres got to be a different way, OSullivan says, calling for what he describes as tools, time and flexibility: We have to reinvent how we provide retirement security. Follow Frances Denmark on Twitter at @francesdenmark. Investors and logistics experts disagree about whether the widened waterway will boost activity in ports such as Houston and New York. In December, banking on increased volumes of cargo passing through the soon-to-be-expanded Panama Canal, Monmouth Real Estate Investment Corp. spent $18.4 million on an industrial building near the Port of New Orleans. The real estate investment trust owns more than 14 million square feet of warehouses in Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Texas and other states, but the deal for a 175,000-square-foot building leased to FedEx Ground Packaging System marked its first acquisition in Louisiana. Perhaps reflecting uncertainty about how the wider canal might affect trade routes, there has been relatively little private real estate investment so far. Eugene Landy, chairman of the Freehold, New Jerseybased Monmouth REIT, says the deal reflects his forecast that a wider Panama Canal will reshape shipping routes for consumer goods arriving in the U.S. Much of the cargo shipped from China and other Asian manufacturing hubs lands at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, but Landy explains that importers want an alternative to Californias congestion, regulation and high labor costs. Shippers who have a second option will tend to go to states that are more business-friendly, he says. People prefer Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida to California. For years investors have eyed the long-delayed project in Central America, but not everyone sees a wider, deeper Panama Canal as a game changer for U.S. supply chains. Its an incremental change, says Tim Feemster, managing principal at Foremost Quality Logistics, a consulting firm in Dallas. Its going to be gradual. The $5.25 billion expansion of the Panama Canal, which began in 2007, will allow bigger boats to reach ports on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Now the largest ship that can squeeze through the canal holds about 5,000 containers. After the expansion, due for completion in April, huge ships with as many as 14,000 containers will be able to navigate the waterway. Today such big boats stop in Los Angeles or Long Beach, where their cargo is unloaded and much of it reloaded onto trains headed east to the greatest concentrations of the U.S. population. Some 59 percent of Americans live in states east of the Mississippi River, according to U.S. Census data. A wider canal means that cargo could travel by ship to an East Coast port and then move by train for a shorter distance. Water transport is the cheapest form of transport, Landy says. The basic efficiency of the canal is that you double the size of the ship, but you only increase fuel consumption by 50 percent. This vision of a shift in cargo traffic has sparked a spending spree at East Coast ports. Atlantic and Gulf Coast ports have planned to invest $29 billion in infrastructure improvements from 2012 through 2016, according to the Alexandria, Virginiabased American Association of Port Authorities. Ports from New York to Miami to Houston have been deepening channels, upgrading container facilities and otherwise preparing for the arrival of megaships. The ports of Norfolk, Virginia, and Baltimore are ready for post-Panamax ships, and those of Houston, Miami and New YorkNew Jersey are nearing completion of improvements that will allow for the big vessels, according to Fitch Ratings. But not every port is poised to cash in, Feemster says. He predicts that Charleston, South Carolina; Norfolk; and New YorkNew Jersey will see increased cargo volumes. Miami, however, is unlikely to win new traffic because of its distance from East Coast population centers. For now, the Port of Savannah, Georgia, is the second-busiest (by container traffic) East Coast port after New YorkNew Jersey, but its unclear how it will cope with a distinct topographic disadvantage: To get there, ships must travel some 20 miles up the Savannah River. Bill Diehl, president of the Greater Houston Port Bureau, a nonprofit group that tracks shipping in and out of the ship channel, says a deeper Panama Canal does nothing to drive demand for consumer goods in the U.S. He warns that its easy to overstate the effect of an infrastructure improvement, no matter how massive: Just because theres a new road to Walmart doesnt mean Im going to buy more stuff from Walmart. Aside from the occasional dockworker strike at West Coast ports, most logistics professionals are happy with the current pattern of moving goods by water to California and then by rail to the rest of the country, Diehl contends. In reality, what most supply chain people want is predictability, rather than better, faster, cheaper, he says. Moving cargo through the Port of Los Angeles is predictable, so youve got to beat them pretty good with better, faster, cheaper. As of 2013 the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach dominated the U.S. cargo market. They brought in 14.6 million containers that year, according to the Washington-based World Shipping Council. The largest East Coast port, New YorkNew Jersey, tallied 5.5 million containers. But Landy believes its only a matter of time before the East Coast begins to lure containers that once landed in California. At what point does it tip? Nobody knows that, he says. If you assume even a small change, its going to be a significant shift. FinanceFox, a Swiss broker technology startup, has announced that is has raised $7.9 million (US$5.5 million) in funding as it looks to build its platform.The app, which currently has offices in Berlin, Zurich and Barcelona, allows users to manage their insurance and obtain advice on their mobile devices but the company isnt digitalising the entire process as it still relies on a team of experts and is officially registered as an insurance consultancy.You can now handle all your insurance matters and get expert advice in one simple app - anytime, anywhere, the company said, adding that its app is designed to be a complete overview over a customers insurances in one click, from current contracts, coverage and rates, to filing claims and sending medical bills completely paper-free.Personal, made-to-measure consultancy is our main objective. Communicate directly with your support team in our service center - digitally or in person, whichever you prefer. We're there to guide you along every step of the way, from insurance enquiries to claims, all the way to a new insurance plan or provider, the company said.The funding round for the business was led by Salesforce Ventures, with participation from AngelList, Idinvest, Seedcamp and Speedinvest.It appears that FinanceFox has traditional brokers in its crosshairs as, whilst the company claims that upon request [its services] can also be handled in collaboration with your existing insurance consultant, it does say that its aim is to become the consumer partner in all insurance matters.Previous additional support from insurance agents and other insurance brokers will be transferred to us, the company said.Switzerland is becoming something of an incubator for digital brokerages as Knip, the mobile-centric broker, scored US$15.7m in series B funding in October last year. A UK regulator investigating British insurers found one insurer refused more than 4,000 mobile phone claims on the basis that customers had not installed a certain app.City watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) found others declined claims because there was no SIM card in the phone at the time of the incident.An FCA report found mobile phone insurers reject four in every 10 claims they receive, and one firm turned down more than 50%.Three insurers were found to take an average of 15 days to process claims while others were found to sell policies to customers who cant claim on them, as their mobile is too old to be eligible for cover.James Daley, managing director of Fairer Finance, said: Mobile phones today are very expensive items costing as much as $1045 (500) so mobile phone insurance is starting to become something of a necessity.Yet customers are largely either grossly overcharged by their network provider for a policy or treated appallingly by a cheaper firm that fights every claim.The regulator needs to do more to bring this industry to task, he told The Daily Mail.In its report the FCA has said it will continue to keep a close eye on the industry to ensure firms improve their service.Three companies have also voluntarily agreed to pay compensation to customers. Another has been referred by the regulator for further investigation.Enforcement powers such as fines or suspension were also being considered. Recruitment is as much about culture as competency New Hampshires new law removing the monetary cap on prize values at promotional raffles and other similar events conducted by insurance producers went into effect this month. H.B.171 (An Act relative to rebating), which was signed by New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan in June 2015, went into effect on Jan. 1, 2016. Previously, when a producer in New Hampshire conducted contests, sweepstakes, raffles or drawings in connection with the marketing or promotion of insurance products, the cumulative prize values could not exceed $1,000 during a 12-month period. However, this limit did not apply to insurers. The law now removes the monetary cap on promotional events for producers. The Professional Insurance Agents of New Hampshire Inc. (PIANH), a statewide trade group for independent insurance agents, brokers and their employees, said the new law will help independent agents compete on an even playing field against direct writers. PIANH helped draft and introduce the bill. Producers and carriers still need to follow a set of requirements to qualify for exceptions to the anti-rebating law. Organizers for promotional events must make sure that there is no participation cost to entrants. Organizers must also make sure that the events are open to consumers who are not policyholders and that the consumers are not required to purchase policies in order to be eligible to enter the contests and receive prizes. Topics New Hampshire Brazils Federal Police accused Vale SA and its Brazilian joint venture with BHP Billiton Ltd of environmental crime related to a November dam collapse that destroyed a city in the countrys southeast and sent waves of toxic mud downstream into the Atlantic Ocean. Seven company executives and engineers were also indicted, as well as consulting company Vogbr, which was responsible for technical reports on the stability of the dam operated by Samarco Mineracao SA, the company co-owned by the two global miners. Samarcos CEO Ricardo Vescovi is among the indicted, according to a police statement. The decision by the Brazilian police gives more ammunition to prosecutors seeking financial compensation from Samarco. The company has already been ordered to pay 20 billion reais ($5 billion) for the recovery of a river and nearby communities following the accident, considered by the government the countrys biggest environmental tragedy ever. Vale said in an e-mailed statement that it received the news of its indictment with surprise because the causes of the accident are still unknown. Samarco said it doesnt agree with the indictment of its professionals as there is no technical conclusion about the causes of the accident. Vogbr didnt immediately respond to phone calls and an e-mail seeking comment. Samarco laid out on Wednesday a contingency plan in case any other of its dams collapse, the press office for Minas Gerais state prosecutors said in a statement. The plan was presented with a two-day delay that will cost the company at least 2 million reais in fines. It was considered insufficient by public prosecutor Mauro Ellovitch, who may increase fines to 5 million reais from 1 million reais per day until the company comes up with a satisfactory plan. Samarco may face difficulties to pay fines and honor debt obligations as it had its mining activities suspended since the accident and its stock of iron ore pellets is running out. Vale and Samarco had their mining rights declared unavailable by a judge last December, which means the companies are not allowed to sell or transfer their mining assets. Related: Copyright 2022 Bloomberg. Topics Fraud Law Enforcement Pollution Mining Willis Towers Watson announced that Rowan Douglas, head of Willis Towers Watsons Capital Science & Policy Practice, has been made a CBE in the United Kingdoms New Year Honours List for services to the economy through risk, insurance and sustainable growth. The CBE, or Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, is one of the U.K.s highest national honours, bestowed by The Queen for distinguished service and innovation in any field, Willis Towers Watson said in a statement to announce the honor. Douglas has been recognised for his inspirational influence promoting the role of re/insurance related capabilities to confront major social and economic issues. In recent years, his work has focused on the global challenge of resilience to natural catastrophes, climate risks and sustainable development through formal engagement in recent United Nations agreements and pending reforms to international financial regulation and corporate risk disclosure. Most recently, in 2015, Douglas was elected as the founding co-chair of the Insurance Development Forum (IDF). Over the years, Douglas has also played a leading role in the analytical revolution that has supported the re/insurance sectors resilience, as founder of the risk information company WIRE, CEO of Willis Re Global Analytics, and chairman of the Willis Research Network. He has served on the U.K. Prime Ministers Council for Science & Technology, the Natural Environment Research Council and working groups of the Royal Society. Douglas began his career in 1992 as a reinsurance underwriter at Syndicate 1095 in Lloyds. In 2014 he received the Kenneth R Black, Distinguished Service Award from the International Insurance Society, New York. John Haley, CEO of Willis Towers Watson, said: Rowan has been driving innovation through Willis Towers Watson and the global industry since he joined our firm in 2000. This high recognition is richly deserved for his significant achievements over the years and we warmly congratulate him on the past and look forward to the future. This award is a powerful reminder of our values and the growing responsibility the re/insurance industry will have confronting risk and building a more resilient and sustainable future. Dominic Casserley, Willis Towers Watson president and Deputy CEO, added: It has been a great pleasure to work closely with Rowan on our global agenda to confront the growing resilience deficit. His deep respect among business, finance and policy leaders and unwavering commitment provides him with a unique ability to shape the response to some of the greatest challenges of risk and resilience. We are enormously proud of Rowans work and his recognition with a CBE is at once remarkable and thoroughly well deserved. Douglas commented: This honour reflects the collective efforts of many friends and colleagues from Willis Towers Watson and beyond over the years. As we enter 2016 it is humbling to have this work recognised by the initials CBE and thrilling to have its future empowered by the initials WTW. He continued: Following the global agreements of 2015, we are now facing a global resilience revolution and world leaders recognise the expertise, experience and capabilities of the re/insurance sector lies at the heart of it. I am delighted this award came as Willis Towers Watson was formed: our remarkable new company provides the complete platform to deliver on these future needs for the companies, countries and communities we serve. Source: Willis Towers Watson Topics Reinsurance Willis Towers Watson The designation of MetLife as a systemically important financial institution by the Financial Stability Oversight Council is a done deal. But exactly what that means in terms of higher regulatory standards is still not clear. Those details could come this year, said Adam Hamm, a non-voting member of FSOC representing state insurance regulation, who spoke about his experience at an insurance industry conference. His remarks came less than an hour before news broke about MetLifes plan to preempt any potential issues by pursuing a separation of its retail insurance operations. There hasnt been an answer from the Federal Reserve Board on exactly how those SIFIs are going to be regulated. I wouldnt be a bit surprised if those final rules, or at least initial building blocks that resolve [how] Prudential and MetLife are going to be regulated at the holding company level, come out from the Federal Reserve Board in 2016, he predicted. Hamm spoke during a panel titled, A View From the Outside Looking In, at the Property/Casualty Insurance Joint Industry Forum in New York on Jan. 12. Moderator Charles Chamness, president and chief executive officer of the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, asked Hamm and other experts to prognosticate about changes in the political and regulatory environment in the presidential election year. He also specifically asked Hamm, who is a non-voting member of FSOC, to give an insiders view of the work of the Council. After predicting a level of turnover in state insurance commissioners that is consistent with 2015, Hamm told attendees to keep an eye on data breach legislation in Congress. Hamm who has decided not to run for reelection in 2016 and who currently chairs the National Association of Insurance Commissioners task force on cybersecurity said, Theres some motivation and some consensus developing around that cybersecurity bill, although he ultimately predicted that the typical gridlock of a presidential year would keep it from being finalized in 2016. Addressing Chamnesss question about FSOC, Hamm described the struggles that he and Roy Woodall, the former Kentucky insurance regulator, face in trying to help the rest of the members understand state insurance regulation. They are serious but intelligent people, mostly with banking backgrounds, he said, rattling off names like Jack Lew, Secretary of the Treasury and FSOC Chair, Janet Yellen, Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Martin Gruenberg, Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Mary Jo White, Chair of Securities and Exchange Commission, who are among the 12 federal government representatives and 10 voting members of the Council. Woodall, who participates as an independent member with insurance expertise, is also voting member, while Hamm and two other state regulatorsone from banking and one for securitiesare nonvoting members. Michael McRaith, Director of the Federal Insurance Office, is also a nonvoting member. Noting his respect for the rest of the group, Hamm said its not easy to defend insurance in that room. It is an uphill battle to make positive movement with my colleaguesnot just to understand the difference between banking and insurance but to actually make decisions that incorporate that. At the end of the day, we have seen in the designations of Prudential and MetLife [as SIFIs], which I strongly disagree with, he said, inviting Forum attendees to read the dissenting opinion he wrote on MetLife late last year. It is disturbing that the Council continues to diminish the role of the state insurance regulatory framework, he wrote in that opinion. It is unclearwhat additional tools beyond those already at an insurance regulators disposal could effective address the risks the Council identifies, which are, in large part, concerns emanating from insurance legal entities that state insurance regulatory authorities are specifically designed to address. At the Forum, Hamm said, I believe that FSOC got those two wrong, referring to MetLife and Prudential, for which he noted that his FSOC predecessor, Missouri Insurance Director and NAIC President John M. Huff, had penned the dissent. Hamms comment at the Forum came just about 45 minutes before MetLife publicly announced a plan to pursue the separation of a substantial portion of its U.S. Retail segmentthrough a public offering of shares in an independent, publicly traded company, a spinoff, or a sale. Currently, U.S. Retail is part of a Systemically Important Financial Institution (SIFI) and risks higher capital requirements that could put it at a significant competitive disadvantage, said Steven A. Kandarian, MetLife chairman, president and CEO, in a press statement. Even though we are appealing our SIFI designation in court and do not believe any part of MetLife is systemic, this risk of increased capital requirements contributed to our decision to pursue the separation of the business. An independent company would benefit from greater focus, more flexibility in products and operations, and a reduced capital and compliance burden. Back at the Forum, attendees weighed in on their views of the participation of the federal government in the insurance industry. As part of an audience poll, attendees were asked, Do you think the federal government is interested in further expanding its regulatory oversight of insurers? A whopping 87 percent said yes. That was the largest majority vote on any question in the survey that also touched up views about economic growth and industry financial results. Speaking from the stage, Hamms co-panelist, Michael Pritula, director and senior leader of the Global Insurance Practice of McKinsey & Company, offered the view of the majority. The Fed and FIO will grow in importance for the industry. Their toe in the water is going to become a foot, he told said, responding to Chamnesss call for predictions. On a different question about the federal governmentthe outcome of the presidential electionthe 80 attendees who responded the Forum survey picked a Democrat over a Republican by a slimmer margin55 percent to 45 percent. Sclafane is Executive Editor of Carrier Management, where this article was originally published online. Topics USA Legislation Cyber ACE Limited completed its acquisition of Chubb yesterday, creating the worlds largest publicly traded property/casualty insurance company. ACE paid approximately $29.5 billion in the aggregate in cash and stock, based on the most recent closing price of ACE Limited shares and the number of outstanding shares of The Chubb Corp. common stock at the time of closing Thursday. Effective immediately, ACE is adopting the Chubb name globally and the company began trading today on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CB. ACE and Chubb are now one, and we could not be more excited about moving forward together with our new colleagues and our new brand, said Evan G. Greenberg, chairman and CEO of Chubb Limited, after the closing. The company said that the Chubb Limited parent company name will be official upon a publication from the Swiss Commercial Register, which is expected within a few days. While the company commences business operations and marketing activities globally under the Chubb name effective immediately, the company said local ACE and Chubb insurance companies around the globe will continue to operate with their current names pending local regulatory requirements and other considerations for effecting the transition to the new Chubb name. The transition has no impact on policies or coverage in force, the company said in a statement. The company also unveiled a new logo that Greenberg said is a simple expression of the firms name, with no extra symbols or visual distractions. Its a simple, refined, modern expression of Chubb. The new Chubb brand logo will be used in nine different colors. These colors reflect the diversity and energy of our culture, our thinking, global presence, the many different customers we serve and the many products we offer, Greenberg said. Related: Topics Chubb U.S. Risk Insurance Group Inc., has acquired Southlake, Texas-based managing general agency and wholesale insurance broker, American Underwriting Managers (AUM). For 17 years AUM has served the needs of retail insurance agents and insureds alike primarily in Texas and surrounding states. With numerous carrier partners and a personal relationship driven culture, AUM is a leader in the surplus lines and admitted contract binding business. U.S. Risk, a specialty lines underwriting manager and wholesale broker, is headquartered in Dallas. Source: U.S. Risk Insurance Group Topics Mergers & Acquisitions USA Texas Underwriting Join ITR and TMF Groups tax experts at 2pm CET (1pm GMT) on November 15 as they discuss how finance leaders are increasingly faced with doing more with less, and how CFOs should adapt. Un ottobre da sogno per Antonio Conte: lex ct della Nazionale italiana, attualmente alla guida del Chelsea, nelle ultime quattro gare di Premier League ha collezionato solo successi, conditi da 11 reti segnate e addirittura nessuna incassata. Numeri da record che non sono certo passati inosservati alla Federazione inglese, la quale ha conferito al tecnico leccese lambito premio di Manager del mese. Unavventura oltremanica iniziata in sordina, quella di Conte, pur a fronte di tre vittorie nelle prime tre gare di campionato. A far vacillare, anche se solo per un momento, le certezze del patron del club londinese, Roman Abramovich, i risultati conseguiti tra la 4a e la 6a giornata, coincisi con un pareggio sul campo dello Swansea City e, soprattutto, con le due pesanti sconfitte subite dal Liverpool, sul terreno casalingo di Stamford Bridge, e dallArsenal. In particolare, la debacle interna coi Reds, aveva irritato non poco il numero uno russo, poiche occorsa proprio nel giorno della sua 250esima partita da presidente della societa. Come detto, solo un momento. Dopo lincontro dellEmirates, il tecnico salentino cambia modulo, adottando un piu equilibrato 3-4-3 e inserendo elementi di corsa come lo spagnolo Pedro. Una svolta totale perche, di li in poi, il Chelsea inanellera solo e soltanto vittorie: 2 gol allHull City e al Southampton in trasferta, 3 ai campioni dInghilterra del Leicester e 4 allo United in casa, con un meraviglioso numero zero nella casella delle reti subite. Un fantastico poker, ottenuto tra l1 e il 29 ottobre. Un cambio di marcia sbalorditivo, confermato dal 5 a 0 rifilato ai toffees dellEverton nel primo match di novembre, e una scalata che, man mano, ha portato i blues al secondo posto in classifica, a soli 2 punti dal Liverpool capolista. E allora, non poteva mancare il riconoscimento di migliore allenatore del mese, ottenuto surclassando tecnici del calibro di Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool), Arsene Wenger (Arsenal) e Mark Hughes (Southampton). Tanta, ovviamente, la soddisfazione: E un grande onore e voglio condividerlo con i giocatori e con la societa ha dichiarato Conte sul sito ufficiale della Premier League -. E la prima volta che lavoro in un altro Paese, con una cultura diversa, e portare la propria filosofia non e facile, ma ora sono contento di questa scelta. A completare la festa, la premiazione del fantasista belga, Eden Hazard, come miglior giocatore di ottobre. Due risultati importanti per il club, ottimo incentivo per la rincorsa al trono dei campioni, occupato dal Leicester di Ranieri. Il prossimo appuntamento per l11 di Conte sara al Riverside Stadium, tana del Middlesborough neopromosso. Il tempo di festeggiare e gia finito. What Is an Export-Led Growth Strategy? The last 40 or so years have been dominated by what has come to be known as export-led growth or export promotion strategies for industrialization, at least when it comes to matters of economic development. Export-led growth occurs when a country seeks economic development by engaging in international trade. The export-led growth paradigm replaced the import substitution industrialization paradigm. This is what many interpreted as a failing development strategy. While an export-led development strategy met with relative success in Germany, Japan, and East and Southeast Asia, current conditions suggest that a new development paradigm is needed. Export-led growth has a lot to do with self-sufficiency. Import substitution, on the other hand, is the opposite. It is an effort by countries to become self-sufficient and lower their dependence on developed nations. They do this by developing their own industries so they can compete with other countries that rely on exports. Keep reading to learn more about export-led growth and its history. Key Takeaways An export-led growth strategy is one where a country seeks economic development by opening itself up to international trade. The opposite of an export-led growth strategy is import substitution, where countries strive to become self-sufficient by developing their own industries. By the 1980s, many developing nations liberalized trade and began to adopt the export-oriented model in lieu of import substitution. The period between 1970 to 1985 saw the adoption of the export-led growth paradigm by the East Asian Tigers. Mexico became a base for multinational corporations under NAFTA to set up low-cost production centers and provide cheap exports to the developed world. Import Substitution Import substitution became a dominant strategy in the wake of the U.S. stock market crash in 1929 up until around the 1970s. The fall-off in effective demand following the crash led to the decline in worldwide trade by 66% from 1929 and 1934. During these dire economic circumstances, countries implemented protectionist trade policies such as import tariffs and quotas to protect their domestic industries. Following World War II, a number of Latin American and East and Southeast Asian countries deliberately adopted import substitution strategies. The post-war period saw the start of what would become a prominent trend toward further openness to international trade in the form of export promotion strategies. Following the war, both Germany and Japan rejected policies that shielded infant industries from foreign competition and instead promoted their exports in foreign markets through an undervalued exchange rate while taking advantage of reconstruction aid from the United States. The belief was that greater openness would encourage greater diffusion of productive technology and technical know-how. With the success of both the post-war German and Japanese economies combined with a belief in the failure of the import substitution paradigm, export-led growth strategies rose to prominence in the late 1970s. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, which provide financial assistance to developing countries, helped spread the new paradigm by making aid dependent on governments willingness to open up to foreign trade. By the 1980s, many developing nations were now beginning to liberalize trade, adopting the export-oriented model instead. Post World War II, both Germany and Japan promoted their exports in foreign markets believing that greater openness would encourage the diffusion of productive technology and technical know-how. The Era of Export-Led Growth The period between 1970 to 1985 saw the adoption of the export-led growth paradigm by the Four Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan), which led to their subsequent economic success. While an undervalued exchange rate made exports more competitive, these countries realized there was a much greater need for foreign technology acquisition if they wanted to compete in auto manufacturing and electronics industries. Much of their success has been attributed to their acquisition of foreign technology and its implementation compared to their competitors. The ability of these countries to acquire and develop technology was also supported by foreign direct investment (FDI). Some newly industrializing nations in Southeast Asia followed their example as did several countries in Latin America. This new wave of export-led growth is perhaps best epitomized by Mexicos experience that began with trade liberalization in 1986 and later led to the inauguration of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. Fast Fact China's GDP growth rate dropped from over 10.6% in 2010 to 6% in 2019. The drop in growth is due to the democratization of GDP growth as countries worldwide have followed export-led strategies. Real-World Example of Export-Led Growth NAFTA became the template for a new export-led growth model. Rather than using export promotion to facilitate the development of domestic industry, the new model became a platform for multinational corporations (MNCs) to set up low-cost production centers to provide cheap exports to the developed world. While developing nations benefited from the creation of new jobs as well as technology transfer, the new model hurt the domestic industrialization process. This new paradigm was expanded globally through the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995. Chinas admission into the WTO in 2001 and its export-led growth is an extension of Mexicos model. But China was much more successful in leveraging the benefits of greater openness to international trade than Mexico and other Latin American countries. This may partly be due to its greater use of import tariffs, stricter capital controls, and its strategic skill in adopting foreign technology to build its own domestic technological infrastructure. China was dependent on MNCs around 2011 when 52.4% of Chinese exports came from foreign-owned firms, which accounted for 84.1% of the trade surplus. The threat of a trade war between China and the U.S. following the 2016 federal election caused MNCs based in China to rethink their positions. On one hand, they face possible disruption to operations in China and a possible lack of inputs. On the other hand, relocating to other low-wage countries is not ideal because countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia lack the technological capabilities and human skill sets that China possesses. While export-led growth has been the dominant economic development model since the 1970s, there are signs that its effectiveness may be exhausted. The export paradigm depends upon foreign demand and, since the global financial crisis in 2008, developed nations have not regained strength to be the main supplier for global demand. Emerging markets are now a much greater share of the global economy making it hard for all of them to pursue export-led growth strategiesnot every country can be a net exporter. It looks like a new development strategy will be needed, one that will encourage domestic demand and a better balance between exports and imports. In the United States, the two big ridesharing companies are Uber and Lyft. Both are receiving additional capital funding as their quest for growth gathers steam. In May 2015, activist Carl Icahn threw his considerable weight behind Lyft with a $100 million investment. He calls it "a bargain," and acquired a seat on the board. Although Lyft is still a minnow in the ridesharing business compared to Uber, that hasn't stopped venture capitalists and other investment entities from throwing money at both companies. Uber's Big Investors Uber was founded about five years ago with a killer app concept that an individual could hail a car ride not with a wave of the hand, but with a smartphone. The concept caught on with the Silicon Valley venture capital crowd; by summer 2015, its total funding reached $10 billion. There is an almost insatiable appetite to buy into Uber and its leadership in car-hailing business. For example, in August 2015, Google Ventures plunged over $250 million into Uber, and the company's biggest investors also include blue-chip Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Fidelity Investments, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Goldman Sachs, Blackrock, Lone Pine Capital, and dozens of other venture capital firms, hedge funds and private billionaires. Traditional Wall Street hasn't been left at the curb either. The thinking among Uber financial supporters is that a tidal wave of cash will drown any rival and allow realization of the ultimate goal, a monstrously successful initial public offering (IPO) valued at $70 billion or more. Obviously, the reality of this goal is not guaranteed, and no one knows if Uber will crash and burn before the big payday. Lyft's Big Money Investors Lyft is clearly the smaller of the two companies, operating in 65 cities in the United States only, while Uber covers 250 cities worldwide. Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape, has a fractious history of public feuds with Icahn, but he poured $60 million into Lyft through his firm Andreessen Horowitz LLC. A major investor in Andreessen's firm is former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, who a few years ago promised to destroy the yellow cab business in New York City. In early 2015, Lyft also raised over $500 million in funding from a Japanese venture capital firm. Meanwhile, there is another facet of the rivalry between Uber and Lyft. As China pushes aggressively to grow Didi Kuaidi, its own dominant ridesharing service, against inroads in China from Uber, it is investing in Lyft. Alibaba, Tencent, and Softbank Capital have also piled in, joining the anti-Uber alliance. Plenty of Invested Money, Still Big Losses Although there is plenty of capital provided to both Uber and Lyft in this ridesharing war, the operating losses continue to pile up. Aggressive venture capitalists are used to that in the short run. In June 2015, Uber's operating loss was revealed to be a staggering $470 million. The company tried to downplay the number as much as possible, saying that it is "unconcerned." Uber's financial engineering continues frenetically anyway. For example, in June 2015, it issued an 8% convertible bond maturing in 2022. In October, Uber announced another $1 billion round of financing, the eighth time it has added outside capital in the last five years. Lyft, meanwhile, lost $127 million, yet it continues to aggressively raise capital, though it falls well short of Uber's war chest. In November 2015, Lyft announced plans for another $500 million funding round, valuing the company at $4 billion compared to Uber's $70 billion potential IPO valuation. The capital markets continue to be exceptionally bountiful for growing upstart companies such as Uber and Lyft. However, those conditions can change overnight if markets hit a speed bump, limiting or delaying growth for the ridesharing business as venture capitalists and Wall Street hit the road. Agriculture dividend stocks are equities of companies engaged in some aspect of agribusiness and which pay out regular dividends. Agribusiness includes farmers that raise animals and harvest fruits and vegetables, farm equipment manufacturers, processing plants that clean and package livestock for shipping, and chemical producers that develop crop fertilizers. Companies with a history of paying stable dividends at regular intervals tend to be more established and at a more mature stage of their growth cycle, allowing them to return more of their earnings to shareholders. For investors, these companies can provide a stable source of dividend income even if their stock prices decline sharply with the overall market, which has happened in recent months. However, dividends are not necessarily guaranteed, especially in difficult economic times, such as a bear market or recession. Established companies may cut dividend payments if cash is running low. Below, we look at the top agriculture dividend stocks in the Russell 1000 by forward dividend yield. Companies with payout ratios that are either negative or in excess of 100% were excluded, because the dividends of such companies are likely not sustainable. A payout ratio that exceeds 100% or is negative (meaning net income is negative) indicates the company may be borrowing to pay dividends. In these two cases, the dividends are at a relatively greater risk of being cut. Agriculture dividend stocks do not have their own benchmark index, but they are broadly represented by the VanEck Agribusiness ETF (MOO). MOO has outperformed the broader equity market. The index has provided a total return of -3.5% over the past year, above the Russell 1000's total return of -13.1%. These market performance numbers and all statistics below are as of Sept. 15, 2022. Forward dividend yield: 16.26% Payout ratio: 42.09% Price: $125.93 Market cap: $1.3 billion 1-year total return: 148.2% CVR Partners is a company that manufactures and markets nitrogen fertilizer products, which are used to increase the quality and yield of crops. It sells its products on a wholesale basis. CVR Partners' operations include an ammonia unit, a urea ammonium nitrate unit, and a gasifier complex. CVR's latest cash distribution of $10.05 per common unit was paid on Aug. 22, 2022. Forward dividend yield: 8.83% Payout ratio: 38.23% Price: $8.45 Market cap: $10.9 billion 1-year total return: 26.0% ICL Group is an Israel-based specialty minerals and chemicals company. It produces a variety of fertilizer products, salts, flame retardants, food additives, and ingredients for personal care products. Forward dividend yield: 2.74% Payout ratio: 18.39% Price: $91.20 Market cap: $13.9 billion 1-year total return: 14.9% Bunge is a global agribusiness and food company. It supplies and transports agricultural commodities, including sugar, ethanol, wheat, and corn. The company also processes oilseeds and grains. Bunge announced on Aug. 11 a quarterly cash dividend of $0.625 per common share. The dividend is payable on Dec. 2 to shareholders as of Nov. 18, 2022. Forward dividend yield: 2.55% Payout ratio: 16.03% Price: $72.10 Market cap: $25.9 billion 1-year total return: -3.3% Tyson Foods produces a range of frozen and refrigerated beef, pork, chicken, and other food products. The company's operations include breeding stock, contract farmers, feed production, processing, marketing, and transportation. On Aug. 11, Tyson announced a quarterly dividend of $0.46 per share on Class A common stock and $0.414 per share on Class B common stock. The dividends are payable Dec. 15 to shareholders as of Dec. 1, 2022. Forward dividend yield: 2.44% Payout ratio: 76.82% Price: $24.58 Market cap: $1.2 billion 1-year total return: -18.4% Fresh Del Monte Produce is a producer and distributor of a variety of fresh produce and prepared foods worldwide. The company's offerings include bananas, pineapples, melons, and deciduous fruit, among other similar products. The comments, opinions and analyses expressed herein are for informational purposes only and should not be considered individual investment advice or recommendations to invest in any security or to adopt any investment strategy. While we believe the information provided herein is reliable, we do not warrant its accuracy or completeness. The views and strategies described on our content may not be suitable for all investors. Because market and economic conditions are subject to rapid change, all comments, opinions, and analyses contained within our content are rendered as of the date of the posting and may change without notice. The material is not intended as a complete analysis of every material fact regarding any country, region, market, industry, investment, or strategy. The British actor Alan Rickman has lost a battle with cancer and passed away in London on Thursday, his family has confirmed. Rickman had been dealing with his illness in secret and wanted to keep his medical problems a private matter. The family statement said, "The actor and director Alan Rickman has died from cancer at the age of 69. He was surrounded by family and friends." Rickman had an acting career that spanned five decades with memorable roles in movies such as "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," "Love Actually" and as villain Hans Gruber in action classic "Die Hard" in which he starred opposite Bruce Willis and was a role he was offered two days after arriving in Los Angeles at the age of 41. To millions around the world he will always be famed for his portrayal of Professor Severus Snape in the "Harry Potter" franchise. He will also be recalled for his immaculate portrayal of Eamon de Valera in the movie "Michael Collins," alongside Liam Neeson. Rickman publicly spoke of his unhappiness about the Hollywood ending of "Michael Collins." Originally, the 1996 biopic had an alternative conclusion. He told the Guardian We shot an ending that didnt make it into the film, and Im sad about that because I think that would have made it more equivocal. But, of course, theres pressure from Hollywood to have a happy ending. He once said Talent is an accident of genes, and a responsibility. In April 2015, Rickman had married his lifelong partner Rima Horton, who he met when he was 19 and she was 18 and whom he lived with in London for over 50 years. Rickman was studied at RADA in London and during his career, in addition to his parts in movies, he played roles on Broadway, in the West End and even recently in the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in the title role in Ibsens "John Gabriel Borkman," which went on to New York. Rickman had a massive following of fans and among them was a scientist who, in 2008, concluded that the worlds most appealing male voice would mix elements of Rickman, Jeremy Irons and Michael Gambon. Tributes from around the world have abounded since his passing. "Harry Potter" lead Daniel Radcliffe posted a moving tribute to Rickman. He wrote: "Alan Rickman is undoubtedly one of the greatest actors I will ever work with. He is also, one of the most loyal and most supportive people I've ever met in the film industry. "As an actor he was one of the first of the adults on 'Potter' to treat me like a peer rather than a child. Working with him at such a formative age was incredibly important and I will carry the lessons he taught me for the rest of my life and career. Film sets and theater stages are all far poorer for the loss of this great actor and man." There are no words to express how shocked and devastated I am to hear of Alan Rickman's death. He was a magnificent actor & a wonderful man. J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) January 14, 2016 What desperately sad news about Alan Rickman. A man of such talent, wicked charm & stunning screen & stage presence. He'll be sorely missed Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) January 14, 2016 Today a friend, a role model and a truly amazing person lost his battle. I have so many good memories. #Always #RipAlanRickman Devon Murray (@DevonMMurray) January 14, 2016 Rupert Grint, who played Ron Weasley in the franchise, released a statement saying, I am devastated to hear about the passing of Alan Rickman, I feel so privileged to have had the opportunity to work with him on numerous occasions Even though he has gone I will always hear his voice.Old friend and stage and screen colleague Emma Thompson wrote this moving tribute: Alan was my friend and so this is hard to write because I have just kissed him goodbye. What I remember most in this moment of painful leave-taking is his humor, intelligence, wisdom and kindness. His capacity to fell you with a look or lift you with a word. The intransigence which made him the great artist he was his ineffable and cynical wit, the clarity with which he saw most things, including me, and the fact that he never spared me the view. I learned a lot from him. He was the finest of actors and directors. I couldnt wait to see what he was going to do with his face next. I consider myself hugely privileged to have worked with him so many times and to have been directed by him. He was the ultimate ally. In life, art and politics. I trusted him absolutely. He was, above all things, a rare and unique human being and we shall not see his like again. Recent film roles included an art-loving lord in the Coen brothers scripted farce "Gambit" (2012), as Ronald Reagan in Lee Danielss "The Butler" and a humorous, imperious King Louis XIV in "A Little Chaos." Speaking in Dublin at a screening of "A Little Chaos" Rickman spoke about his love of Dublin and Irelands acting talent: Rickman is still to be seen in "Eye in the Sky," a thriller about drone warfare that won rave reviews at the Toronto film festival in 2015, and repeating his voice-over as Absolem the Caterpillar in "Alice Through the Looking Glass," also due for release in 2016. Amazingly Rickmans last aired TV interview was just six months ago on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" where he spoke with the Irish American star about "Harry Potter," while inhaling helium. Known for his bass voice and an his amazing roles as stern and terrifying villains the actor certainly showed his warm and playful side in this clip. The 26-year-old actress is recognised in the Actress in a Leading Role category for her part in the movie adaptation of Emma Donoghues book Room. The nomination is the first time Brie has ever been acknowledged by the Academy and it certainly took a while for the news to sink in when the names were announced on Thursday (14.01.16). She said: I thought, 'Holy s**t!' It's that mixed with a total flat line." Brie is currently hard at work shooting the new movie Kong: Skull Island in Australia, and said the combination of her exhaustion following a tough days filming and the shock of the nomination had a dramatic effect. She told E! News: It was a very physical day, a lot of climbing. I just climbed mountains all day today in the hot Australian sun so I was just exhausted. So I was tired so I thought this is the perfect way to do it while your body is just really exhausted and you're kind of relaxed about it. "I didn't realise how strong my reaction would be. My whole body was shaking. I started crying. It really was when they gave [Lenny Abrahamson] a best director nomination that I really lost it. He's so deserving of it. So well deserved and so exciting to see." Brie is shooting Kong: Skull Island alongside actors including Tom Hiddleston and Samuel L. Jackson, and said her castmates were quick to offer their congratulations after the news broke. She added: "I'm on a giant text chain with all the actors from the movie. There are like 14 of us on it and they all just flooded my phone and they said they were going to bang down my door with champagne. But it's 12.15 am and I have to get up for work in the morning so it just doesn't seem reasonable to me. We'll do champagne another day." As Pierce Brosnan took to the set of this latest film in London this week, sporting a long black coat, suit, a white beard and gray hair, you would be forgiven for mistaking him for another famous Irish figure. Playing the role of Liam Hennessy, a former IRA man turned government official, the former James Bond actor struck a striking resemblance to Sinn Fein leader and County Louth TD Gerry Adams, also long accused of having been an IRA member. Despite stating that he would never totally disassociate himself from from the republican organization, and at times failing to condemn violence committed by the IRA during the Troubles, Adams, 67, vehemently denies his own membership. Although there seems to be a very obvious influence played by Adams on the films wardrobe choice for Brosnan, the Sinn Fein leader has taken it in good spirits, even attempting to confuse us further with a Pierce Brosnan/James Bond imitation in An Phoblacht. I never knew Pierce Brosnan was so good looking. Gerry Adams (@GerryAdamsSF) January 14, 2016 The former 007, 62, plays Hennessy in a yet untitled Jackie Chan action thriller adapted by David Marconi and Peter Buchman from Stephen Leathers book, The Chinaman. The film was originally to be titled The Foreigner, but this name has since been abandoned. The film will reunite the Meath man with director Martin Campbell 20 years after he worked with him on Golden Eye. Brosnan played Bond for four films between 1994 and 2005. READ MORE: Could Irishman Aidan Turner be the next James Bond? Irish actress Charlie Murphy is also listed among the cast, best known for playing Siobhan in the hit Irish drama Love/Hate. The Chinaman, published in 1992, tells a fictional tale of revenge akin to that of Liam Neeson in Taken. Nguyen is a member of the Viet Cong who witnessed the rape and murder of his two eldest daughters long before we meet him living his peaceful life as a takeaway business owner in South London. When his wife and youngest daughter are killed in an IRA bombing at a department store, he promises that those responsible will be brought to justice. Hounding Brosnans character Hennessy, a Sinn Fein advisor, and dubbed The Chinaman by a freelance journalist covering the bombings, Nguyen mounts his own campaign of terror against those responsible for his familys death. Brosnan will also return to our screens in 2016 when he joins the ranks of The Expendables 4, the Sylvester Stallone franchise also starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Statham, Hulk Hogan and Dwayne Johnson. Can you tell Brosnan and Adams apart? Is the similarity too glaringly obvious to be a coincidence? A national opinion poll taken here between December 5 and January 7 has revealed the concerns that many Irish people have about the number of refugees who will be arriving here over the next few years. Ireland has agreed to take in 4,000 refugees (plus eventual family reunions), and a sizable number of them will be arriving this year. Nearly half of the people questioned in the poll for the Sunday Independent newspaper think we are taking in too many refugees, and more than half are worried there may be terrorists among them. In the wake of what happened in Paris and elsewhere, including San Bernardino, that fear is understandable, although it is already being dismissed by immigrant support groups and advocates of multiculturalism as groundless, ignorant and even racist. It seems likely, however, that if the thousand-plus people questioned across Ireland for this poll had known about the sex attack rampage carried out by immigrants in the German city of Cologne on New Year's Eve, the results would have shown an even greater level of concern. Instead of the poll showing around half of people here being worried about taking in refugees, the number probably would have been even higher. But people here did not know about Cologne because the news about the attacks was suppressed for several days and the poll in Ireland was almost complete before the truth of what had happened there emerged. When it did come out it became a major story across Europe as well as in Ireland, which is not surprising given the horrific details. People in Cologne always gather in the square in front of the Cathedral to welcome in the New Year. In Dublin, crowds of people gather near ChristChurch Cathedral to do the same and listen to the church bells at midnight. Similar gatherings happen in cities around the world. This New Year's Eve in Cologne was different, however. What should have been a joyous event welcoming in the New Year turned into a nightmare well before midnight. A crowd of over a thousand men, mostly of Arabic and North African appearance (the police description), had gathered in the square, and many of them were aggressive and either drunk or high. They began throwing bottles and firecrackers around, and as people tried to move away to safety groups of them began surrounding and sexually assaulting women. Even women accompanied by boyfriends or husbands were mugged and groped by the mobs swirling around in the crush. With only 100 police in the area, they were outnumbered and could do little to control the situation and stop the attacks. Women who managed to force their way out of the jam of gropers, which took some time, then ran in terror towards the nearby train station or down the crowded side streets towards the Rhine. They were pursued and surrounded, had their breasts squeezed and underwear torn off, and many ended up with bruised and scratched arms and thighs. Within a few hours at least two women had been raped. What happened the next day was extraordinary, even by the usual standards of political correctness. Despite the night of mayhem, a Cologne police statement issued the following morning described the New Years Eve celebrations as peaceful. The German media that day did not report the extent of what had taken place the night before. Both failures were later attributed to a refusal to accept that this could have happened on such a scale and, even if it had, an over-riding belief that it had to be minimized to avoid stirring up anti-immigrant sentiment. But ordinary police officers knew the truth and were unhappy at the high level cover-up. An internal police report was leaked to the media which said that dozens of men had been questioned on the night, many of whom had residence permit papers identifying them as recently arrived refugees. In the forecourt and on the cathedral steps were a thousand people, mostly males of an immigrant background who were indiscriminately throwing fireworks and bottles into the crowd," the report said. "Women literally had to run the gauntlet through the mass of drunk men, in a way you cant describe. Many women came to officers shocked and crying and reported sex assaults." Despite the truth starting to seep out in the next couple of days, the Cologne police chief continued to caution against blaming a particular group before an inquiry could be carried out. But the cover-up lasted little more than a few days due to the outrage of women and the volume of complaints. The day after New Year's Eve more than 170 women filed criminal complaints, the majority for sexual assault. Women who were in the square and in the surrounding streets on the night described it as absolutely terrifying and said that as they were being battered, groped and robbed they were called bitches and prostitutes. The number of complaints filed has now passed 500, and nearly half are for sexual assault. The Cologne police chief resigned following criticism from a government minister of the way the policing of the celebrations had been organized, although this is another way of deflecting blame from those who carried out the assaults. Even worse, after it had become clear that this was a mass sexual assault by hundreds of immigrants, the local mayor, a woman, advised that in the future women in Germany would need to be careful in situations like this and keep at least an arm's length away from men. The mayor, who also promised to produce "guidelines" for women in Germany, is still in office despite her comments. As the full details of what happened in Cologne on New Year's Eve have become clear, some very basic questions about the implications of the arrival of so many refugees in Europe from North Africa are now being asked. It has since emerged that this did not just happen in Cologne on New Year's Eve but in several other German cities as well where young male immigrants also took part in mass sexual assaults. Cologne was not an isolated event. There is a pattern which indicates underlying issues that need to be discussed. What seems to have angered many Germans is the sense of betrayal they feel, having opened their borders and taken in over a million refugees in the past year. Having shown such generosity to the refugees, how could some of them have behaved in such an appalling manner? This sense of betrayal was exacerbated by reports that some of the refugee gropers had told police that they could not do anything to them because they had been "invited to Germany by Mrs. Merkel." They tore up their refugee identity papers, boasting to police they could easily get new ones. Apart from the lack of any gratitude, this contempt for the system was shocking for many Germans, even for all the younger idealists who have been so emotionally involved in trying to help refugees. A lot of very naive preconceptions were suddenly getting a rude awakening. Among the issues involved in all this is the very high number of young men among the refugees who have arrived in Europe, even though the media always concentrate on pictures of families or children. The vast majority of those who forced their way across barriers as they tramped their way up through Europe, ignoring all immigration rules, were young men. They came not just from Syria or its neighboring countries, but from other countries in North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. Many appeared to be economic migrants rather than refugees fleeing the Syrian war in fear of their lives. Some time ago this column looked at the pros and cons of the rescue missions being conducted by the Irish Navy in the Mediterranean and pointed out that one such rescue had saved around 320 migrants from leaky boats, but around 300 of them were young men. The immediate liberal response to this point is to claim that this always happens in emigration flows, that young men go first and later other family members follow. Irish emigration to the U.S. and the U.K. is cited as an example. But thats simply not true. Over the past century young Irish women and men emigrated in roughly equal numbers. Added to this imbalance among the refugees are cultural differences. Many of these young men are from Arabic countries where women are expected to cover up and be subservient. These young men are not used to the equal status and freedom in dress and expression that women in Europe have, and they may misinterpret or resent that freedom and equality. This problem is further complicated by religious differences in the way women are regarded. It is also complicated by the sudden availability of alcohol and an inflated sense of entitlement. In general, what happened in Cologne on New Year's Eve has been a wake-up call to people in Europe who, like people in Ireland, have not been consulted by the politicians who have been taking decisions on the refugee crisis. In particular, it has been a wake-up call for many on the liberal left who have been forced to reconsider their idealistic and often simplistic thinking and accept that there are serious difficulties involved in all of this. This will be important in the year ahead when another 1.5 million refugees are expected to arrive in Europe. With Germany now feeling that it has done its part and it is up to other countries to share the burden, where will they go? One thing emerges clearly. British Prime Minister David Cameron's policy of selecting people in the Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan now seems wise. Those chosen to be given new homes in Britain will be those most in need, which will mean they will largely be families and children who have fled directly from the war in Syria and have lost everything. Ireland would do well to copy this wise policy. Taking in refugees who have already forced their way into Europe only encourages even more to come. Those who arrived in Europe last year are not the most vulnerable. The most in need are the young, the old and the weak among the millions left behind in the miserable refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan. Findmypast is working in partnership with IrishCentral to share fascinating insights into your Irish ancestors. Click here to get a special half price subscription, and discover your Irish roots today! The importance of burial with the kin-group Once the religious wars of the 17th Century ended, one of the few places in Irish society where there was no sectarian divide was the graveyard. Most graveyards accepted people of every denomination for burial. In part this was because in the 17th Century the Established Church, the Anglican Church of Ireland, took over the pre-Reformation cathedrals, churches and burial grounds. For the Irish population, no matter what church they attended on a Sunday, the most important thing was to be buried with their own kindred. Religious divisions that were so important in life, were finally set aside in the graveyard. The main exception to this rule were the Quakers, who always kept their own separate burial grounds. There are also a small but significant number of 'denominational' burial grounds around Ireland, but these tend to be smaller graveyards that have long since fallen into disuse precisely because of changing rural populations and the decline of congregations. Returning home for burial Many of those who died away from home were usually brought back for burial. In general however, this tradition is only evident where the documentary records have survived, so that we have most evidence about the prosperous middle-classes, gentry and aristocracy. From the second half of the 19th Century, there's a greater survival of Irish records, and we can see that this tradition was also observed by the ordinary working people. A frequent problem which most researchers face at one time or another, is that although the documentary evidence clearly shows that the family remained in a locality, there are no burial records or gravestones for them. Experience has shown that what has usually happened is that earlier generations of the family originated outside of the district. As family members die, they are brought some distance from their usual place of residence, to the place where the family may have originated a generation or more earlier. Frequently, you will find generations of a family buried in an extended family plot. This emphasises the notion that in death, what the Irish wanted was to be buried amongst their own kindred. Burial of suicides and non-baptised children The custom of burying people with their own kin was so strong, that it was only interrupted in cases of death by suicide or (exclusive to the Catholic population) by the death of unbaptised children and stillbirths. The burials of children not baptised were never recorded in official or institutional records, but occasionally records survive amongst family papers, in private letters and diaries, or in stories passed down through the family. Infants that died before they could be baptised were sometimes buried outside the walls of the graveyard or on grass-verges along a road. More commonly, unbaptised children and those that died by their own hand were buried in kileens, i.e. an older graveyard in the locality that had long fallen out of use. At the root of this tradition, was the belief that the souls of unbaptised children and of suicides, were not at rest, and might be taken by the fairies (daoine sidhe). In Irish culture, the sidhe were wild, malignant spirits, who preyed on humans. The strength of these folk beliefs should not be dismissed. In remote rural communities, belief in the fairy folk persisted into the 20th Century. In 1895 Bridget Cleary was murdered by her husband while her father and brothers stood by, in the apparent belief that Bridget had been swapped for a fairy changeling. And as late as the 1930s in Ireland, there was one known case of infanticide where the child was killed in the belief that the fairies had stolen the baby, and left a changeling in its place. Burial registers and gravestone inscriptions As a rule of thumb in the 18th and 19th Centuries, Catholic parishes did not keep burial registers. All other denominations in Ireland maintained burial registers and these records can provide excellent information unavailable elsewhere. Burial registers for Church of Ireland parishes in Dublin city for example, record huge numbers of catholic burials. Burial records should always be looked at, alongside gravestone inscriptions. In the last few decades local history societies and government training schemes have taken transcripts of gravestones from many of their local burial grounds. Many of these surveys have been published, and are available online. For example Brian Cantwell's monumental work, Memorials of the Dead, which covers counties Wicklow and Wexford, is now available on Findmypast. But if you'd prefer to get out in the fresh air to do your graveyard research, a good tip taken from archaeologist friends, is to bring white chalk. If you want to read an inscription that appears illegible due to time and weathering, chalk over the carved words to bring the inscription into relief. Failing chalk, a handful of wet-grass rubbed over the headstone, will also reveal the carving. My father showed me this ruse one afternoon, to reveal the grave of Napper Tandy of 1798 fame, buried in Castlebellingham churchyard. For more stories on tracing your Irish heritage from Findmypast click here. Findmypast is working in partnership with IrishCentral to share fascinating insights into your Irish ancestors. Click here to get a special half price subscription, and discover your Irish roots today! Findmypast have been taking a look at how the British newspapers covered the events of Easter week in Dublin in April 1916. News of the Rising started to filter through on Tuesday April 25th. A smattering of local papers managed to squeeze in the late news that at least 12 lives had already been lost, and that Irish rebels were in control of parts of the city. By the weekend, eyewitnesses had been found and the papers were full of vivid accounts of the unfolding events which sound like something straight out of Rebellion. On the Saturday, the Aberdeen Evening Express announced "Women Assist Rebels 19 persons killed". In a piece drawing largely on accounts in the Belfast Telegraph they described the attack on Dublin Castle that formed a pivotal and controversial moment in Rebellion, the shooting dead of an unarmed police officer. Like many other commentators the Aberdeen paper was fascinated by the involvement of women in the fighting. "By this time the rebels had gathered in strong force, and at the side of each man there marched a woman in uniform, carrying bandoliers with a plentiful supply of cartridges." Most of the eye witness accounts, unsurprisingly, came from English people. The Liverpool Echo gathered together as many accounts as they could. One of the fullest came from Herbert Godwin from West Drayton in London who had been in Dublin from Good Friday until the following Wednesday. He described the taking of the GPO and Jacobs Biscuit factory and was obviously quite struck by the imposing Countess Markievicz. Mr Godwin seemed perplexed by the nonchalant attitude of some of the Dubliners themselves. He quoted a conversation with a tram driver, whose tram had been commandeered to provide more fortifications to the stronghold at Stephen's Green. One account that appeared widely in the papers that weekend came from a Mr A. Reid from West Kensington in London who described a young girl's act of bravery. He may well have been referring to Florence Williams, who was awarded a Military Medal for her part in rescuing injured soldiers, according to the Sinn Fein Rebellion Handbook published by the Irish Times the following year which you can find on Findmypast. The Sunday Mirror that week described widespread looting of the city's shops. For more stories on tracing your Irish heritage from Findmypast click here. From the American citizenship of one of the signatories of the Irish proclamation for Independence to the old-fashioned different time zones in the United Kingdom. Surprising facts about the Easter Rising you may not know. On Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, the Easter Rising, one of the most important events in Irish history, began. Here's a look at some little-known facts about the pivotal Irish event. Thomas Clarke Five of the seven signatories of the Irish proclamation had visited America, but only one was an American citizen. Thomas Clarke had lived in America for years before returning to Ireland. His American citizenship did not save him from execution. Original proclamations of Easter 1916 There are 30 original copies of the Proclamation of Easter 1916. One sold for $1 million in 2006. In New York, the American Irish Historical Society houses one. The Proclamation was published in two parts and contained different point sizes as the printer did not have enough fonts. Who decided would be executed on 1916 General John Maxwell, supreme commander in Dublin, decided who would be executed. On May 2, secret military courts sentenced Patrick Pearse, Thomas Clarke, and Thomas MacDonagh to death. Thirteen more would follow. British Prime Minister Asquith warned Maxwell the killings could rebound on the British, but Maxwell ignored him. One woman was sentenced to death, Countess Markievicz, but her sentence was never carried out. Roger Casement was hanged in August 1916 in London, the last to be killed. A young Michael Collins Michael Collins was in the GPO but played a smaller role than might have been expected. Just 26, he was an aide to Joseph Mary Plunkett, who was dying of consumption at the time. Collins at first thought the Rising was a failure, but when he returned from internment in Wales he realized he was wrong as a new spirit of solidarity with the Easter Rising was spreading. A Swede and a Finn at the GPO A Swede and a Finn fought with the Irish in the GPO. They were crewmen on a foreign ship and felt solidarity with the Irish. A 1916 participant who remembered the men stated he saw the two trying to enter the GPO. There were two strange-looking men outside and I went to the window and I saw two obviously foreign men. Judging by the appearance of their faces I took them to be seamen. I asked what they wanted. "The smaller of the two spoke. He said: 'I am from Sweden, my friend from Finland. We want to fight. May we come in?' I asked him why a Swede and Finn would want to fight against the British. "I asked him how he had arrived. He said he had come in on a ship, they were part of a crew, that his friend, the Finn, had no English and that he would explain. "So I said: 'Tell me why you want to come in here and fight against England.' He said: 'Finland, a small country, Russia eat her up.' Then he said: 'Sweden, another small country, Russia eat her up too. Russia with the British, therefore, we against.' "I said: 'Can you fight. Do you know how to use a weapon?' He said: 'I can use a rifle. My friend no. He can use what you shoot fowl with.' I said: 'A shotgun.' "I decided to admit them. I took them in and got the Swede a rifle, the Finn a shotgun. I put them at my own windows." A Hollywood star A famed Hollywood actor fought for the British. Did you know that one of the British officers who took the surrender of Padraig Pearse went on to become a famous Hollywood actor, who numbered among his five wives the even more famous Hedy Lamarr? Major John Lowe is present in one of the most famous and commonly reproduced photographs taken during the Rising the moment of Pearses surrender as captured on Saturday, April 29. The picture shows the Commander of Dublin Forces in Ireland, Brig Gen WHM Lowe, (Maj Lowes father) facing a clearly un-humbled Pearse, who is offering his surrender. On Pearses right is Elizabeth OFarrell (a nurse with Cumann na mBan), who carried the subsequent surrender dispatches to rebel commandants. On the left of the photo, to Brig Gen Lowes right, is his aide-de-camp and son, Major John Lowe. Pearse subsequently surrendered unconditionally, and Major Lowe escorted him to Kilmainham Gaol (Jail). John Lowes army service didnt end in Ireland; he served in Gallipoli, Egypt, and the Somme before being taken prisoner by the Germans in 1918. When the war ended, Lowe tried his hand at acting in the German film industry thereby starting down a career path that would eventually lead him to change his name in order to keep his acting career quiet from his disapproving father. So John Lowe became John Loder, eventually moving to Hollywood, CA where he gained fame in movies, on stage and TV. Read more Best songs of the 1916 Easter Rising The world's first-ever radio broadcast The rebels were responsible for the worlds first-ever radio broadcast. In 1916 wireless communication was in its infancy and, in general, signals were targeted to particular receiving stations. The idea that a signal might be just broadcast into the atmosphere in the hopes that someone might pick it up was a fairly radical one. On Easter Monday, however, rebel leader Joseph Mary Plunkett sent seven men from the GPO across OConnell Street to occupy the Dublin Wireless School of Telegraphy. The school had been shut down and sealed by the authorities at the start of the war, and the equipment was dismantled. By Tuesday morning, however, the rebels managed to get a damaged transmitter working, and they began to send out messages in Morse code: Irish Republic declared in Dublin today. Irish troops have captured city and are in full possession. Enemy cannot move in city. The whole country rising. From then until the building had to be abandoned under machine-gun and sniper fire the next day, the message was broadcast at regular intervals. This is widely accepted as being the worlds first radio broadcast and, although it was indeed intercepted by several receivers, the rebels never knew if their message was being picked up because they couldnt get any receiving equipment to work. Dublin v London 1916 time zones Dublin and London were in different time zones in 1916? From 1880 until 1916, Ireland and Britain maintained different time zones Britain, of course, followed Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), but Ireland followed Dublin Mean Time (DMT), which was precisely 25 minutes behind GMT. The Statute's (Definition of Time) Act, 1880, which legally defined the difference between GMT and DMT, was superseded by the Time (Ireland) Act, 1916, which was An Act to assimilate the time adopted for use in Ireland to that adopted for use in Great Britain. In other words, DMT was abolished. This change came into effect on October 1, 1916. However, the Rising began four months earlier on April 24, at approximately 12 oclock Dublin Mean Time. Therefore, when modern commemorations of 1916 begin at midday outside the GPO, theyre actually 25 minutes early. First shot fired in Co Laois The first shot fired in the Easter Rising was actually in Co Laois. Did you know that the first shot of the rebellion was fired in Laois? Unsurprisingly, the first shot of the Rising has more than one claimant. One claim that has many supporters is that the first shots came from the Volunteers of Laois, who destroyed a section of railway track at a place called Colt Wood on the night of April 23 the day before the Rising began in Dublin. A monument to the event was erected near Colt Wood in 1996, in an area called Clonadadoran on the N8 highway between Portlaoise and Abbeyleix. The monument bears three plaques: a copy of the Proclamation; a picture of a derailed train; and a dedication that names the Volunteers and reads: On Easter Sunday night, 23rd April, 1916, acting under the direct orders of Patrick Pearse, the Laois Volunteers participated in the demolition of a section of the Abbeyleix-Portlaoise railway line at a location near here. The purpose of this exercise was to prevent British military reinforcements from reaching Dublin via Waterford after the Rising had started. This demolition was followed by the firing of the first shot of the 1916 Rising. Other activities engaged in by the Laois Volunteers included an attempted similar demolition of the Carlow-Kildare railway line and a raid on the Wolfhill Royal Irish Constabulary Barracks. Thomas Clarke's name amiss? Why did Thomas Clarke's name appear first on the proclamation? It remains one of the biggest mysteries around the Proclamation as it seemed to indicate he was of higher rank than Pearse. It has never been answered satisfactorily. *Facts six to nine are excerpted from "Things You Did Not Know About Easter 1916" by Mick O'Farrell. To purchase this excellent book, go here. *Originally published in May 2016. Updated April 2021. IrishCentral History Love Irish history? Share your favorite stories with other history buffs in the IrishCentral History Facebook group. A French court gave 49-year-old Rob Lawrie only a suspended 1,000 fine on a charge of putting the childs life in danger by transporting her in a storage compartment of his van rather than on a child seat with a seatbelt. Lawrie, an unemployed father of four, had befriended the girl and her father in a squalid migrant camp in northern France. He had told the court he tried to kill himself in November after he was arrested and his marriage subsequently broke down. Compassion was in the dock today and France sent out a message that compassion will win, he told reporters after the trial. Lawrie could have faced up to five years in jail and a 30,000 fine for aiding illegal immigration, in a case that went to the heart of Europes dilemma over how to deal with its worst refugee crisis since the Second World War. However, the judge said that, considering the circumstances of the case, it was enough to give Lawrie a warning with the suspended sentence. He will not have to pay the fine unless he commits another offence in France. A tearful Lawrie told the court he had acted on the spur of the moment, finally relenting after repeatedly refusing her fathers requests that he take Bahar Ahmadi, known as Bru, to relatives just a few kilometres from his own home in northern England. It was very cold... the little girl, she fell asleep on my knees, and I couldnt leave her. Im sorry, he said, adding that he knew it was wrong and regretted doing it. Lawrie had been a volunteer helper in the makeshift migrants camp in Calais known as the jungle where Bru and her father lived. On October 24, Lawrie had set off in his van with Bru hidden in a compartment over the drivers seat, but French police caught him and returned Bahar to her father in the camp. Police also found two Eritrean men in the back of the vehicle. Lawrie said he had been unaware of their presence and authorities did not press charges. Secondary school teachers will hold a one-day strike before the General Election. The action comes after members of the Teachers' Union of Ireland voted 89% in favour of industrial action over issues of pay and security of employment for young teachers. Members will engage in a one-day strike on a date yet to be decided. They say the stoppage will go ahead unless their demand for meaningful talks is met. Lecturers in Institutes of Technology will also strike on February 3 over serious concerns in their sector. Their union, the TUI, has said key concerns include chronic underfunding of the sector, a rise in student numbers when the amount of lecturers has dropped and the precarious nature of many lecturers' employment status. The UN Secretary General has described the use of starvation as a weapon in Syria, as a war crime. In a Press conference Ban Ki Moon said humanitarian teams in the war torn country are witnessing scenes that 'haunt the soul.' The performance was included in that of parent group, Associated British Foods (ABF), which yesterday reported a 2% drop in group revenue for the 16 weeks to January 2 at actual exchange rates, but a 3% jump in constant curreny terms. Regarding Primark, total sales were only 3% ahead of the corresponding period the previous year due to the weakening of the euro against sterling. However, the retailer still saw strong like-for-like sales performances across its stores in the first seven weeks of its financial year, benefiting from comparison with a weaker performance in the prior year when the autumn was unseasonably warm. The following nine weeks saw weaker like-for-like sales due to warmer and wetter weather across Europe, leading up to Christmas. Consumers in Primarks core market of Britain avoided buying winter clothes during some of the countrys mildest November and December temperatures, with retailers Next and Marks and Spencer blaming the weather for disappointing sales before Christmas. Primark Christmas sales hit by warm weather https://t.co/HixEDtmxR5 pic.twitter.com/F6jrisRNDb Sky News (@SkyNews) January 14, 2016 Primark sold fewer coats, hats, scarves and thermal clothes, causing sales at shops open more than a year to fall in the nine weeks to January 2 compared with the same period the year before. Since hitting an all-time high in early December, ABFs share price has lost 16% on concerns about the impact of the weather. Finance director John Bason said the weaker pre-Christmas performance was nothing to worry about. Its specific to those weather related items, he said. The scale of operating margin decline at Primark was lower than initially envisaged by ABF, said Jack Gorman of Davy Stockbrokers. Effective buying and a lower level of markdowns were the principal reasons for this, acting as a potential offset to the lower like-for-like in the period. After its successful entry to the US last year, 2016 will see Primark open six more US stores as well as its first Italian outlet in Milan, which will be followed by a shop in Florence next year. Additional reporting Reuters. Britains biggest grocer, which was plunged into the worst crisis in its almost 100-year history in 2014 after it overstated profit, said UK same-store sales rose 1.3% in the six weeks to January 9, much better than expected. The volume of goods sold was up 3.5%. On a quarterly basis, Tesco is at least managing to slow the decline in sales in its British shops. Thats undoubtedly a boost for Drastic Dave Lewis, the Tesco CEO so dubbed because of the huge changes he is having to make to try restore the grocers fortunes. But while he will welcome a little Christmas cheer, no one should underestimate the trolley full of challenges he still faces. The profit overstatement is still the subject of an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office, with the risk of an as-yet-unknown financial penalty. Then theres debt. Tesco put its total borrowings at 17.7bn (25.6bn) at its half-year results in October, plus a 4.2bn pension deficit. And analysts estimate that the company will make an operating profit of about 930m in the year to February. Mr Lewis has not had the luxury enjoyed by Georges Plassat, his counterpart at Carrefour, when he became CEO of the then struggling French supermarket chain. Mr Plassat unearthed a raft of undervalued international assets he could sell for high prices, such as the business in Colombia. Tesco has sold its Korean arm the jewel in its international crown for 4.2bn, but efforts to offload a majority stake in Dunnhumby, the data analysis business that runs Tescos Clubcard loyalty scheme, did not go as well. Mr Lewis is also taking action on price, through cutting the cost of essentials and Tescos pledge to match the price of branded goods at the checkout. He has said any outperformance on profit will be reinvested to try to make Tesco more competitive on price with rivals such as German discounters Aldi and Lidl. Tesco traditionally traded at a big price-to-sales premium compared with Carrefour and the European peer group. It is understandable why some investors may spy value in Tesco, helping explain a 4.5% jump in the shares on Thursday. They are now off the near-20 year lows hit this month, with the market starting to wonder about a recovery. But for progress to continue, Mr Lewis will have to keep cutting prices to stem the tide of the German no-frills discounters. Mr Lewiss predecessor, Philip Clarke, failed to land a knock-out punch on pricing five years ago. After all, for a company with the size and clout of Tesco, putting rivals in the shade should be for life, not just for Christmas. Siptu general secretary Joe OFlynn said the One Cork initiative was a no- brainer and would consolidate the strength, resources and expertise locally. We have insisted, from the outset, that this be a ground-up initiative; that the ownership would be by the lay activists and that people would effectively not just take ownership but direct the project, he said. Once we got to know each other and built trust we developed co-ordination and solidarity. Mr OFlynn said that, prior to the development of the One initiative, shop stewards in different unions often did not know each other. He said it was important to come together to refute the myth that unions have no place in modern society and are a thing of the past. The pilot project in Cork will be replicated in Belfast before being extended. ICTU President Brian Campfield says Cork's rich trade union legacy can and will be built on #ONECork pic.twitter.com/3I2XmQ8jlB SIPTU (@SIPTU) January 14, 2016 Sharon Cregan, One Cork co-ordinator, said the initiative has been established to better equip and increase the capacity of the trade union movement in Cork city and county to deal with the many challenges which face workers and trade union members. It involves a much deeper level of collaboration between the unions at workplace and societal levels to organise, campaign, educate, train, and communicate with workers, their families and the wider community, said Ms Cregan. She said the work of One Cork will focus on a number of areas, including organising workers into trade unions on a collaborative basis and communicating workers rights more effectively. Linda Kelly, Impact organiser, said One Cork has begun its collaborative work in Cork University Hospital, UCC, and CIT, as well as in the retail sector and has already delivered real, tangible benefits to workers on the ground. In UCC and CIT, One Cork has met with hundreds of students who are also part-time workers and briefed them on their rights and entitlements as well as the benefits of union membership, said Ms Kelly. We found that many were on the lower minimum wage rate of 6.06 per hour when they should have been on the full rate and we have advised them how to go about getting the full rate, which is now 9.15 per hour. They are also asked to ensure any structure they develop isnt in a bats flightpath. The mammals are equipped with a echo- location which can pinpoint the tiniest insects in the middle of the night, so critics say its highly unlikely a healthy bat would fly into a barn door. A councillor says he is aware of a number of recent cases where council planning officials have sought comprehensive bat studies to be lodged as part of a planning application. Cllr Gerard Murphy (FG) described it as bureaucracy gone mad and cited incidents where the protection of fauna and flora were getting out of hand, such as the EU directives on hen harriers and, in particular, the freshwater pearl mussel. The existence of the latter in the River Blackwater has put major development in the north Cork region on hold as sewerage systems in the region are deemed not up to scratch and pollution is affecting the mussels breeding capabilities. In a document seen by the Irish Examiner, the council wrote to a couple in north Cork who wanted to convert a derelict building into a retail unit. Several conditions were laid down. One of them read: The existing building has the potential to host a bat roost; accordingly you are required to submit a bat survey to identify any potential roosts, commuting routes and feeding areas within the proposed site. Likely impacts of the development (both during construction and ongoing) on roost sites/feeding areas and the significance of such impacts should be addressed in the report. Mr Murphy said as far as he and the couple were aware, there had never been a bat colony in the building they planned to develop, or anywhere near it. He said: Ive seen a number of recent planning applicants being asked this kind of information and for a study by experts to confirm the existence or non-existence of bats in the area. These applications, which on the face of it should be simple and straightforward, have suddenly been hit with unexpected demands which lead to the added expense of surveys. Anywhere has the potential to house bat colonies. The planning (guidelines adopted by council officials) even states that the development cant interfere with their flight routes. As far as Im aware, bats use echo-location whereby ultrasonic sounds allow them to identify exactly what is around them. By comparing the outgoing pulse with the returning echoes, the bats brain and auditory nervous system can produce detailed images of its surroundings. This allows bats to detect, localise, and even classify their prey in complete darkness. These creatures have been around for millions of years and theyre obviously very adaptable. They know what they are doing when in flight at night, said Mr Murphy. He said nobody denies we have to protect wildlife. But I think we are over-conscientious about these type of guidelines when compared to other EU countries. As dad Paul and mum Caroline, spent a couple of hours sorting through two months of medication for their miracle 11-year-old at home in Ballinhassig Co, Cork, Arron made up for lost time, familiarising himself with the Xbox hed been deprived of during his stay at Freemans Hospital in Newcastle. Hes a different child altogether. People who saw him since we came home but who hadnt seen him over the last five weeks couldnt believe the difference. Even we could see him transforming under our eyes since the operation took place, Paul said. Arron, who has cystic fibrosis, was extremely unwell prior to the transplant which was carried out on December 7. At one point his lung function was as low as 29% now its heading above 80%. Hes no longer on oxygen. Prior to the operation, he had been on home IVs (intravenous antibiotics) every couple of weeks, now, hopefully, a thing of the past. Hes regained his appetite and his breathing has improved immeasurably. On Tuesday night, friends and supporters turned out to welcome him home when he flew into Cork Airport. The banners were out, there were photographers, there was a crowd from the Cork City Childrens Hospital Charity, the airport police gave us a blue-light escort to the roundabout at the edge of the airport and we were taken home to Ballinhassig in a garda minivan. It was a great welcome home for us all, Paul said. He himself was enjoying looking out at green fields rather than concrete for the first time in five weeks, while himself and Caroline relaxed in front of a real fire and enjoyed a glass of wine. The next few weeks will be all about making sure Arron is kept infection free and there will be regular visits for a while back to Freemans in Newcastle, but nothing is a bother when it comes to the health of the OLearys son. Its a pleasure to be back to our routine, and to see Arron so well, hes 110%. It was very hectic in the UK before we left, going through all the medications and chatting to so many consultants, so we are really happy to be home, Paul said. The deputy leader of Fine Gael said it was not appropriate that schools can insist that only children who have been baptised Catholic can get a place in their local school. He was answering questions on Irelands adherence to the UNs Convention on the Rights of the Child in Geneva, whereby the issue of discrimination on the basis of religion was allowed in schools. Members of the committee questioned why 96% of schools have a religious patron and more than 89% of schools are under the control of the Catholic Church. Mr Reilly raised the issue of parents having to baptise their children to get them into their local school. He admitted that while the Government is committed to a more pluralist system, change has been very slow, although 95% of the schools built in the past few years are multi-denominational at the request of their communities. We have a much more open and pluralist society now there are 81 different nationalities in one school I know, said Mr Reilly. Patronage is lagging way behind the actuality of our system, with the clearly defined separation of Church and State. After the day-long hearing, Mr Reilly said: My personal opinion is that it is not right that people can be discriminated against on the ground of religion either for employment or admittance to school. The Constitution allows religion to protect their ethos, and so they can in effect still do that though the bar has been raised considerably. Mr Reilly said one way to change discrimination on the basis of religion is to hold a citizens convention and then to have an expert group address it. If we got the right kind of wording then maybe it could be changed through legislation rather than changing the Constitution, he said. The issue was raised with the UN committee by Equate Ireland, which pointed to recent research and found that 46% of people would not choose a Christian school if they had a choice locally, while one in five knew of someone who had baptised their child just to get them into a local school. It was also raised by Atheist Ireland, a group that accused the State of giving misleading answers when it appeared to suggest that the Admissions to Schools Bill would resolve the discrimination issue. Atheist Ireland said the report from the UN next month will add to the eight sets of findings from various UN and Council of Europe bodies telling Ireland to stop breaching human rights. Fianna Fail, in a pre-election education policy launch, said it wants to end the right of schools to deny access to people who have not been baptised, and increase the number of schools that have religious patronage. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission raised the issue of the State outsourcing childrens services such as health to private bodies that do not necessarily comply with human rights. Garda Ciaran Folan, aged 44, of Fethard-on-Sea, Co Wexford, had pleaded not guilty at Limerick Circuit Court to five charges that between September 2007 and January 2008 he misappropriated sums of 478.90, 954.79, 1,056.64, 462.16, and 357.78 when he was acting as finance officer at Clifden Garda station in Co Galway temporarily. Following submissions by defence counsel Colm OBriain on the first day of the trial, Judge Tom ODonnell yesterday directed the jury to return not guilty verdicts on all five charges as Garda Folans payslips were inadmissible as evidence. The most precious part of the Oscars is right now. The time when you are shortlisted for something but you havent yet not won is the golden time, said Emma Donoghue as she declared her intention to enjoy every moment of her nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay before the movie worlds biggest night on February 28. The Dublin-born author, tipped for adapting her own novel, Room, for the big screen, is one of nine nominations for Irish films in the countrys best showing at the Oscars. Room director Lenny Abrahamson shares the limelight in the Best Director category while the film itself is nominated for Best Picture and Brie Larson is in for Best Actress. Competing against Room for Best Picture is Brooklyn, the film version of Colm Toibins novel, directed by Corkman John Crowley. Brooklyn also brings a Best Actress nomination for Saoirse Ronan, while Nick Hornby is nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. Michael Fassbender is nominated for Best Actor for his lead role in Steve Jobs while Stutterer, a film written and directed by newcomer Benjamin Cleary, is nominated for Best Live Action Short. President Michael D Higgins, who as Arts Minister revived the Irish Film Board, led the congratulations. This years Oscars shortlist is a remarkable testimony of the vitality and diversity of the talent available to the Irish film industry, he said. James Hickey, chief executive of the Irish Film Board which supported Room and Brooklyn, said: Its a day for the Irish film industry and the entire country to be very proud. The nominations came just a day after Mr Hickey appealed for the restoration of the boards funding after a series of cuts. Arts Minister Heather Humphreys paid tribute to the hard work, talent and dedication in the film industry. As the economy continues to improve, I aim to further enhance the supports for the Irish film industry and I will continue to use every opportunity to promote Ireland as a location for film investment, she said. Saoirse Ronan, a previous Oscar nominee when she was 13, said the nomination was a dream. It is the most personal film I have ever done; the hardest one too. I am honoured, she said. While the Government blamed the lack of funds due to the economic crisis for cutbacks in areas that affect the lives of young people, Childrens Minister James Reilly, attending the day-long hearing in Geneva, said employment is the best way out of poverty. Leading members of the committee, which was examining how Ireland was abiding by the convention, raised a host of issues whereby they believe the country is breaching its obligations to children. Kirsten Sandberg, who will be part of the team writing the final report from the UN committee, asked what was being done about very expensive childcare services and the crisis in homelessness, with children housed for too long in emergency accommodation and often too far from their school. Mr Reilly said the Government is taking the homeless issues very seriously and listed a series of schemes that have been initiated, but said it would not be resolved in the short term. Questions were posed by Yasmeen Muhammad Shariff, vice-chair of the committee, about what happens if an adolescent is a victim of rape or incest and wants an abortion, or does not have funding to travel outside the country for one. She was told the services available reflect the current legal position in Ireland and that is the extent to which the state services will address the issue. In briefings before the hearing, Abortion Rights Campaign spokeswoman Alison Spillane said abortion remains illegal except in very rare circumstances. What this means in practice is that marginalised girls, such as young asylum-seekers and girls in the care of the State, bear the full burden of the Irish States abortion ban, while more privileged girls can circumvent it by travelling abroad, said Ms Spillane. Mr Reilly and his team were praised by the committee for the way they engaged with the questions and issues. However Ms Sandberg said she was amazed at all the nice policies and strategies but wanted to know how they were working on the ground. Another, Gehad Madi, said he applauded Mr Reilly clarifying many issues personally and acknowledging hurdles being faced. Costs to consumers were rising very rapidly, Mr Noonan told the Dail as he said that the Central Bank and other agencies would help complete the review. His decision comes after pressure from Fianna Fail finance spokesman Michael McGrath who, for months, has highlighted the plight of drivers facing hefty rises. Somebody who paid a premium of 400 in 2014 will probably pay 650 to 700 after this year, said Mr McGrath. Outlining reasons for the insurance hikes, Mr Noonan said the frequency of claims by drivers had been rising, that the amounts claimed had also increased, and there had been a rise in legal costs. He also blamed the increases on a fall of investment, which had prompted companies to hike raise prices. Premiums are certainly rising very rapidly, said Mr Noonan. There will be a particular focus on motor insurance. Insurance in Ireland has been fraught for some time. The Central Bank has explained that for some time investment income was used by insurance companies to keep premiums lower and to bolster their positions. However, investment income has gone down now so the companies are raising their premiums. Fianna Fail finance spokesman Michael McGrath Mr Noonan has refused demands to reconstitute the Motor Insurance Advisory Board, which previously helped cut premiums by as much as 40% over a decade. Instead, the review would take a number of months, he said. Mr Noonan also went as far as saying the economic recovery was partially to blame for motorists being hit with higher insurance costs. I am informed by both the insurance industry and the Central Bank that the frequency of claims has increased over the past year, he said. This is associated with improving economic conditions. They also state that the number of large claims has increased. However, Mr McGrath insisted that this would not go far enough in protecting consumers. Instead, some taskforce overseeing the sector was needed, he reiterated. There is no transparency in the sector, said Mr McGrath. Seven out of every 10 claims are settled out of court by insurance companies, with no register or evidence as to consistency with regard to the settlement of those claims. I welcome the fact that departmental officials will examine the sector but I ask the minister to go further and to formally re-establish the aforementioned board. The Government was accused of engaging in disgraceful auction politics in the Dail after yesterdays Irish Examiner revealed the EU Commission has concluded that the Government is putting the recovery at risk by political budgeting. During Leaders Questions in the Dail, Social Democrats TD Stephen Donnelly criticised Tanaiste Joan Burton and the Governments decision to expand spending in the budget by more than 3.3bn, at a time when the economy was already growing strongly. The report states that recent fiscal policy decisions are influenced by the current political context, which is the upcoming election and the disgraceful auction politics we are seeing from the Government, said Mr Donnelly. The Co Wicklow TD highlighted the reports concerns saying the erosion of the tax base by the Government is a damning indictment and is a tactic straight out of the Fianna Fail playbook. What is worse is that the Government parties are only warming up, he said. The Fine Gael-Labour Party election promise to eliminate universal social charge will cut the revenue base annually by 4bn to 5bn. Social Democrats TD Stephen Donnelly This, of course, is to be paid for by what the report describes as strong but generally volatile corporate taxes. Given that the Government is eroding the tax base and the safety nets have all been used up, when the next economic shock hits from China or elsewhere, as it will at some point we will be much more vulnerable than we were in 2008. How can the Tanaiste be so irresponsible with Irelands finances and Irelands future? How can she so blindly repeat Fianna Fails mistakes, which she decried and which led to the crash in 2008? Responding to Mr Donnelly, Ms Burton defended the Governments handling of the economy, saying the commission report expressly praised the progress made by the Irish economy. All such reports have issues to raise and want to look forward to risks in the future, which is reasonable and prudential, said Ms Burton. I have no issue with that and we have those conversations with the review group on an ongoing basis. There is no problem with that. However, these comments in the executive summary recognise that Ireland has achieved a remarkable turnaround and it is the job of the Government to ensure the recovery that has been made to date is not only sustained but grown and that it extends to every single part of the country, so every family and individual benefits. Jobs Minister Richard Bruton Jobs Minister Richard Bruton refuted the Commissions statement that unstable and temporary tax incomes were being used to make permanent tax cuts. I dont think it is true that we are using volatile taxes, he said. The Revenue Commissioners have clearly said that our corporate tax revenue, which has been very strong this year, is based on substance and is sustainable. We are managing a very prudent approach and thats in sharp contrast may I add to previous government who approached elections with a 20% increase in spending. Paddy ODriscoll aged 53, of Skibbereen, West Cork, and Michelle ORiordan, aged 27, of Mayfield, Cork, drowned on December 4, 2014, although their bodies were not recovered for 10 days. Cork Coroners Court heard the pair were captured on CCTV entering the Port of Cork premises on Custom House Quay shortly before 6pm on that date. Sgt David Callaghan said it was his belief the pair died soon after entering the unprotected quay area, as Mr ODriscolls watch was stopped at 6.10pm. The social media giant confirmed it will look into the incidents after a number of young women complained that their images had been shared on an explicit internet forum over the course of five years. One victim said the perpetrators obtained her pictures despite her efforts to safeguard her profile by enabling Facebooks strictest privacy settings. Katie Kirwan, 19, said she was informed that her images were on the website earlier this week. She said the forum member posting her images had targeted a group of Cork teenagers who are all known to each other. Ms Kirwan said the first picture of her shared to the forum was posted five years ago and in that time her photographs have amassed over 1m views. The images are accompanied by graphically violent and misogynistic comments by users of the site, some of whom add doctored pornographic pictures using the source material obtained from Facebook. It was just so scary to think that 14-year-old me was walking around, and that unbeknownst to me there could have been any weirdo on the street looking at me going oh thats the girl Ive seen on the website last night, she said. Katie Kirwan, 19 One theory is that the perpetrator obtained access to the womens images by setting up a fake Facebook profile and befriending the victims. Its someone in our friends list, definitely, said Ms Kirwan. We looked through and we all have one page in common that, when we looked at it closely, appeared to be a fake page. That page has since been deleted, so we have a theory that it is the person behind that page. Gardai are also investigating following the young womens complaints, which were first made public on the Neil Prendeville Show on Red FM. However a senior Garda source described the legality surrounding the matter as a grey area. Yes, we have received a number of complaints and we will investigate them insofar as we can within the legal ambiguities which exist, the garda source said. Whether a crime has been committed has to be established. It is not clear or straightforward. Fergal Crehan is MD of TheHitTeam.com, a company that specialises in using legal methods to remove leaked photos and videos, internet targeting, and revenge porn. Mr Crehan, a barrister, agreed that it is unclear whether, under existing law, any offence has been committed. Unlike the UK, Ireland has no law criminalising publication of intimate images of persons without consent, said Mr Crehan. If such a law is introduced, and it should be, then consideration might be given to including cases like this, where non-explicit images are used, but in a sexual context. In some cases, a victim might be able to assert copyright in the image, and have it taken down by the website. Also data protection law grants a right to control ones data, including images, and to object to publication of it without consent. This offers victims a quick, discreet fix, so long as the website is EU-based. Unfortunately, many are not. Facebook said it takes the safety of its users seriously, and also fights against the exploitation of children. The judge praised the valour of the plaintiffs husband and the garda driver in dealing with the attack. Susan OGorman, 40, of Grenagh, Co Cork, settled her case against the State at the High Court in Cork yesterday afternoon on the second day of her action arising out the injuries she suffered on Sunday, May 22, 2011. Ms OGormans husband, Declan OGorman, had gone to the assistance of a garda in the landcruiser when he saw an attacker armed with a knife. Later the armed man took control of the Garda jeep-type vehicle and reversed it at force into the car in which Ms OGorman was sitting as a passenger, before driving off to Cork Airport where the violent drama ended on the runway. Mr Justice Paul McDermott said he was impressed by the valour of Declan OGorman and Garda Michael Bohane in dealing with what he described as a murderous attack. It just shows you when people do the right thing and try to support gardai in some cases there is a price to be paid. I am sure the gardai would be very grateful for the intervention of Mr OGorman and the huge cost that entailed for Mr OGorman and his wife, Mr Justice McDermott said. The judge said it was a difficult case and he was glad the matter had been resolved. The plaintiffs senior counsel, John Lucey, said in opening the case on Wednesday: The case I make out against the state is essentially that the garda car was left unmanned with the keys in the ignition while the perpetrator was followed down the street but he about-turned and drove off causing this problem. My case is negligence against (the state) for the manner in which the garda vehicle was left with the keys in the ignition and later to be driven which led to the circumstances where the plaintiff was injured, he said. The garda vehicle was driven away by the culprit, Edmond Stapleton, who was previously dealt with by Cork Circuit Criminal Court. He crashed through a barrier at Cork Airport and tried to drive into a plane full of passengers but the car which was damaged cut out on the runway. Stapleton was jailed for 12 years with the last five suspended. Ms OGorman testified: The drivers door was open in the garda car. The guard had blood streaming down his face. Edmond Stapleton got into the jeep. I jumped back into to the car when I saw him getting into the jeep because I didnt know what was going to happen. He reversed the car into our vehicle at speed. I was in or on my way into the passenger seat. WE LOOK forward to the year ahead with a mixture of optimism and realism. The economy is doing well; unemployment rates are falling and people are beginning to have the confidence to spend again. But we live in an increasingly connected world and what happens over there is going to impact on us here and vice versa, from climate change to the Syrian crisis and much in between. As we plan for the year ahead, there are the regular programmes where we systematically work with people on a long-term basis to lift them out of grinding poverty but, then, we always have events that are completely unforeseeable and we must be ready to scale up and deal with the humanitarian consequences. Take last spring, when the earth began to shake violently under the mountains of Nepal. Two earthquakes hit the tiny, landlocked Asian country in April and May. Badly constructed houses crumbled to rocks. Roads quickly became impassable and many rural villages were cut off. With monsoon rains looming, thousands of people were in urgent need of shelter and everyday basics. Like most such disasters it is the poor who suffered most. Concerns team remains on the ground today, helping thousands of people to rebuild their lives. We wont stay there forever, but we will stay as long as it takes to get people up and running again. Other emergencies will undoubtedly happen in 2016, and we must be ready to attend to those in most urgent need in the immediate aftermath of such large-scale disasters. Unfortunately, it doesnt look like there will be many people re-establishing their former lives in Syria anytime in the near future. The Syria crisis highlighted the fact that problems in the world are no longer over there. If anyone needed any more evidence of that, they need only recall the despair and upset many felt at the sight of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi dead, face-down on a Turkish beach last September. If 2015 had a moment, this was it. This war, halfway across the world, was the major catalyst for the huge flows of refugees we saw attempting to get into Europe and beyond, of which little Aylan was just one. More than 4m Syrians have fled their home country, seeking safety and refuge anywhere they can. Despite common misperceptions in the media, the majority of these refugees have not come to western countries they are instead living in neighbouring countries, namely Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Turkey alone is hosting more than 2m Syrian refugees, Lebanon 1.2m. Such generosity is extraordinary. Alas, Syria isnt the only country caught up in an ongoing brutal and incessant conflict. South Sudan, Central African Republic, Yemen, and Burundi among others are ongoing battle zones requiring humanitarian responses by aid agencies. The ebola outbreak in West Africa was also a reminder that over there could quickly become relevant over here. Thankfully, in recent months, Liberia was officially declared ebola-free and Sierra Leone soon followed suit, and Guinea more recently. The virus was finally defeated with deep collaboration and co-operation between national governments, NGOs, health experts, and frontline teams on the ground. Uniquely, Concern teamed up the Glasnevin Trust for a safe and dignified burials programme, for which we won an EU health award. With West Africa now officially free of the virus, this wont guarantee complete eradication of the disease and we may still get one or two isolated cases in 2016. Many lessons have been learned by all involved, but no-one should get complacent as we move through the new 2016. Efforts to make the world a better place for all in 2016 and beyond, saw heads of state from 193 countries, including Taoiseach Enda Kenny and President Michael D Higgins, gather in New York to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals last September. Diseases and mass displacement of people are everyones problem, and everyones responsibility. As is climate change. Recent unusual weather patterns in Ireland, the UK, South America, and the USA will see droughts, floods and food shortages in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa escalate in the coming months as El Nino takes full effect. Agreement at the recent gathering of world leaders at the COP21 summit in Paris, however, marked a milestone in international environmental policy and while, overall, 2015 was a tumultuous year, as it reached its end there were seeds of hope and optimism. These can be further built upon in May of this year when we will see the World Humanitarian Summit take place in Istanbul. There are real and tangible reasons for optimism, but we must continue to help those around the world who need it. The world, its many challenges and its peoples are more interconnected than they have ever been. We ignore such universality at our peril. Anne OMahony is director of international programmes, Concern Worldwide Readers are warned that the following report contains content that may be upsetting, even though the Irish Examiner has chosen not to publish the most graphic, degrading, and offensive comments about the women photographed, which dominate the site. The website claims to pay tribute to the women pictured, but the accompanying descriptions and fantasies leave the reader in little doubt that this is a realm where the commodification of women is encouraged; with each comment, posters attempt to outdo each other in their attempts to degrade the oblivious subjects of their sordid attentions. The users are English-speaking, but appear to be widely spread across the globe. There is an active Irish community, however. We've been contacted by over 20 young Cork girls whose social media profile pictures have been hijacked by porn site pic.twitter.com/DDeJchqM2L Neil Prendeville (@NeilRedFM) January 14, 2016 A user identified by the handle Irishexposed is described as a Respected Member of the site a title more than likely bestowed in recognition of the vast volume of pictures he has posted to the site. The user starts a comment thread, often giving the first name and location of the woman detailed within and a series of pictures. What follows is an array of degrading comments. A consistent theme in these Irish threads is the nature of the original pictures. All are typical of the kind of photographs posted to social media by teenagers selfies, group shots, pictures of themselves dressed up for a night out; girls posing for the camera, but nothing more provocative than a pout. Shes fucking asking for it by the looks of it, is one of the milder comments by one male. omg these hot little [deleted] are so asking for my [deleted] !!!! another user says. Other users post pictures showing a print-off of the original photograph, pictured next to an erect penis. In some of these pictures, the print-off is covered in semen. Safe to say Ive just found my new favourite [deleted] toy, a forum member writes of one woman, identified as a teenager from Cork. Always cute yet always slutty, another comment reads. Another threadis simply entitled cork ireland in which the discussion starter encourages fellow members to specifically share images of young women from Cork. Pretty much wanted to start a thread for local sluts. Hopefully people will post their fav local irish teens.. happy fapping! a user with the handle ccfc12345 writes. Would anyone be interested in doing a queen of [deleted] game to find out who the biggest [deleted] slut in cork is at the moment? the same member asks. One user posts pictures of a young woman he describes as a well developed teen, while another superimposed girls heads onto nude pictures. Great fake chris thanks. Theres plenty more cork sluts where she came from! ccfc12345 writes in response to one photoshopped picture. Another conversation attempted to arrange a real- world meet up, where fellow forum members can engage in mutual masturbation over images of Irish women. In another thread, a user posts publicity pictures of Rebellion actress Sarah Greene, and describes how he has known her since he was 13 years old. He then makes vile comments about her, to which ccfc12345 asks: Got any [pictures] of her when she was 13? Kates Story: I discovered a whole forum dedicated to me Ellie OByrne Kate is one of 26 Cork girls whose social media pictures were harvested from Facebook for an international porn site, appearing via a link called Ireland Exposed. The third-level student was shocked and sickened to discover that there was a forum on the porn site devoted to her, circulating hundreds of her Facebook profile pictures and uploads. The photographs were lifted from my Facebook page even though it was on private settings, Kate said. I found out because I received a message via the other messages function on Facebook from a man telling me that my photos were being used on a porn website. At first, Kate ignored the messages as she wasnt friends with the individual, but eventually she asked him for proof when he persisted in his warnings. He sent me a link and I discovered a whole forum dedicated to me, Kate said. My full name was there with a link to my Facebook page. I was absolutely distraught and I had a little bit of a breakdown, she said. Eventually Kate told her mother, who was disgusted, and then she contacted the porn website, which eventually removed all content relating to her, but Kate said that she recognised two other people on the list of Cork girls featured on the site. She said that when she searched the site, it was disturbing to see that the most viewed and commented on images were those containing girls that were clearly underage. Some of the girls were as young as 12 years old in the images. Photograph had been doctored to appear to depict them in pornographic scenarios. In some of the comments, men fantasised about raping the girls. PORN SCAM - Kate had photographs taken from her Facebook page when she was 19. Natasha was traumatised after her photos were used on site Neil Prendeville (@NeilRedFM) January 14, 2016 Theyre fully aware that the girls are underage, Kate said, speaking on The Neil Prendeville Show on Red FM. Theyre totally innocent photographs. Kate herself was 17 in the earliest pictures that had been uploaded to the site. Kates photos were also printed out and then rephotographed, being used for sexual gratification by men, whose body parts were pictured. There were hundreds of them. Its horrible and traumatic. I want to warn other girls; you see girls with 2,000 Facebook friends; they dont know all of those people and you can do anything with a photograph these days. For Kate, the most frightening aspect of the discovery was that the person who had added her to the site seemed to know her. It was somebody who knows me, because my Facebook was on private and Im not somebody who makes friends with people I dont know on Facebook, for my own safety, she said. "The person mentioned my circle of friends and it sounded like he was very familiar with me. Katies Story: I was just horrified... they followed my life for so long and I had no idea Photographs of Katie Kirwan, who is now 19, were posted on a porn site for five years before she learned that someone had harvested Facebook for the images from her teenage life. A friend of mine messaged me on Facebook saying she had a friend who found her on it, Katie said yesterday. "She decided to look through it for her, and instead she found me amongst several others. Katie is one of a number of women from Cork who unknowingly have had their pictures posted on the explicit site. They collectively came forward to raise awareness of the issue, contacting The Neil Prendeville Show on Red FM earlier this week. We would all know each other. It was girls that would know each other, you could see that someone had obviously looked at one girl and found another girl through her, she told the Irish Examiner yesterday. Katie found out she was on the site earlier this week. I was just horrified. Theres no other word for it really, she said. PORN Katie has had her entire teen life cyber stalked by international porn site. She has over 1 million likes & horrific comment under pics Neil Prendeville (@NeilRedFM) January 14, 2016 Photos of Katie as a young teenager were first posted to the site five years ago. It was just so scary to think that 14-year-old me was walking around and that, unbeknownst to me, there could have been any weirdo on the street looking at me going oh thats the girl Ive seen on the website last night. I have over a million views, she said. They started posting me five years ago and they stopped in September of last year. They followed my life for so long and I had no idea. Katie has reported the matter to the gardai. Despite contacting the website to report her objections, the pictures remain online and she hasnt received any reply from the site hosts. She said that this has all happened despite turning on strict privacy settings on her Facebook account. The women exchanged ideas as to how the pictures have been harvested. There are loads of theories, but I really dont know. The scary thing is it could be anyone, she said. Its someone in our friends list, definitely. We looked through and we all have one page in common that, when we looked at it closely, appeared to be a fake page. That page has since been deleted, so we have a theory that it is the person behind that page. The person behind this suspected fake profile deleted their account on Wednesday. Katie said that she will not allow what happened to her to dictate how she uses the internet. It can happen to you at any time, anywhere, she said. Even if you dont use the internet, someone can still take a picture of you and use it like that. There are no measures that are enough. I feel that the perpetrators are the problem, they need to be caught and made an example of. You dont have to be on social media for this to affect you, she said. THE general election is almost upon us. It hasnt been officially called yet, but this week it finally felt like a campaign of sorts had begun. The following are some incredibly well thought out election-related points, as well as some entirely random ones. -The Taoiseach has a date for the general election in his head but he wont tell us. -Fine Gael is secretly optimistic it might get an overall majority although it is categorising this under wildest dreams. Either way the party is confident, bordering on cocky. -Labour isnt sure what to think. -Fine Gael says it wants to go back into government with the Labour Party. -The Labour Party doesnt trust Fine Gael. Its dead right. If it can, Fine Gael will eviscerate its junior coalition partners, with hardly a backward glance. -Labours gay marriage advert that never was is the best thing that party has done so far in this pre-election period. It displayed a much needed sense of humour. -Fine Gael makes hardly a single move without passing it through a focus group first. -In a case of dont fix it if it aint broken, Taoiseach Enda Kenny will be taking his usual minimal approach to media debates and any opportunities for close questioning. -Expect to see and hear a lot from Fine Gael ministers Frances Fitzgerald, Simon Coveney, Paschal Donohoe, and Simon Harris. Michael Noonan will be used on just a handful of important occasions. On the other hand James Reilly will in all likelihood be taking a holiday from the national airwaves for the duration of the campaign. -On the available evidence Fine Gael looks likely to bypass the usual publication of a general manifesto and will simply bring out a supplement with Independent Newspapers. Most of the detail has been leaked there (and carried on the front pages) anyway. -No more boom to bust, the Taoiseach keeps telling us out of one side of his mouth, and out of the other side comes yet another vote-buying wheeze involving the USC or US-style taxes. -The Tanaiste is at almost exactly the same lark. Think Brown Thomas this time, rather than Tesco. -Fianna Fail wont coalesce with Sinn Fein. -Fine Gael keeps bringing this up as an active possibility so that well see a vote for Fianna Fail as a vote for Sinn Fein. -Fianna Fail wont coalesce with Fine Gael. If it did, it would ultimately be cannibalised. But who knows what any of them might do in a post-election frenzy? -Fianna Fail cant seem to tell us then how they might make up the numbers to get into government. -Overall Fianna Fail appears not to know its arse from its elbow at present. The partys coalition strategy begs far more questions than it will answer. -How long will it be before Fianna Fails coalition discipline breaks down and the loyal frontbench members decide to revert to old habits and put forward their own views? Anyone spotted John McGuinness lately? -Sinn Fein has been busy making the moves on Fianna Fail recently but says it would only coalesce if it is the larger party post-election. -It said the same about Labour, but ruled out Fine Gael altogether. -Its worth having a look at a tweet by @electionlit, showing a #ge16 chart as to who is or is not going to go in with whom. Given the Lanigans Ball complexities involved, this was an act of public service. As someone subsequently tweeted, the graph looked like the outcome of a bad speed-dating session. The various and varying party positions would certainly have the making of a good pub quiz round. My little #ge16 sheet as to who has ruled out going in with who........ Is it right? pic.twitter.com/RYzEQW4Yks Alan Kinsella (@electionlit) January 8, 2016 -People before Profit/Anti Austerity Alliance(PBP/AAA) are refusing to go near Sinn Fein with a barge poll, despite them all being on the left of our rather narrow political spectrum. -Sinn Fein has signed up to the Right to Change political grouping but its clear that PBP/AAA see them as the cuckoos in the nest and vote-grabbing chancers. -At any rate it is hard to see the relationship between PBP and AAA lasting much beyond polling day in the unlikely event they were to attempt to negotiate any sort of Coalition deal. -Independent TDs are looking to be called just that on the ballot paper independent, instead of non-party, as is currently the case. -But Shane Ross, Finian McGrath, Michael Fitzmaurice, and Tom Fleming et al are also part of the Independent Alliance, a political grouping seeming somewhat at odds with their independent status. -Funnily enough, given they are all independent TDs, with widely differing views, it sounds like a recipe for disaster. A non-starter. -Fine Gaels director of elections is MEP Brian Hayes, a man whose decision to opt for Brussels showed a good realisation of the Taoiseachs selective and unfair grudge-holding abilities. Interesting though that Hayes is seen as talented and cunning enough to play such a pivotal role. -Billy Kelleher is performing this role for Fianna Fail but the Cork TD appears to be reluctant to spin the party line to journalists a key part of the job after admitting before Christmas that his party is unlikely to be part of the next government, and would probably go into opposition if it was not the largest grouping in any new coalition. -Labour has a seriously dysfunct-ional backroom election operation. -Its a fairly safe bet that even if Alan Kelly had been anywhere near that boat which Tanaiste Joan Burton fell out of in Kilkenny shed still have ended up getting herself out of the water. Kelly is the partys director of elections but apparently lacks the ability to bring people with him. Brendan Howlin, not someone known as being especially close to his leader either, heads up a separate election committee. Too many cooks anyone? -Health Minister Leo Varadkar has been throwing his toys out of the pram over the health services. Why wouldnt he? Hes learning that when youre in there youre on your own as far as Cabinet colleagues are concerned. -Even if Gerry Adams is intending to stand down he wouldnt tell us. So Mary Lou is going to have to keep pretending hes the best thing since sliced bread. -Expect various people and parties to throw doubt on the results of forthcoming opinion polls. Theyre at it already, Fianna Fail in particular. It says its support is understated, and is probably correct. -The US media would laugh at what is being described as negative campaigning here. In truth, it is simply campaigning. -The media is obsessed with the coalition question which does favour Fine Gael overwhelmingly. Its worth noting a speech given by BBC director of news James Harding after the British general election last year. Bear in mind the coalition question was a new and novel media obsession during that campaign, unlike here. Harding said the polls allowed numbers to infect the BBCs thinking and there was too much coalitionology which directed the narrative of the news coverage and not enough on policy. Irish media take note. A convoy of 44 trucks from the UN World Food Programme, International Committee for the Red Cross, and the Syrian Red Crescent has arrived in the rebel-held town of Madaya from the Syrian capital, Damascus. Madaya, a former mountain resort near the Lebanon border, has been under siege for months by forces loyal to Syrian president Bashar Assad. Just seven people were killed despite multiple blasts and a gunfight, and five of them were the attackers themselves, but the brazenness of their siege suggested a new brand of militancy in a country where low-level strikes on police are common. It took security forces about three hours to end the attack near a Starbucks cafe and Sarinahs, Jakartas oldest department store, after a team of at least seven militants traded gunfire with police officers and blew themselves up. An Indonesian and a Canadian were killed in the attack and 20 people, including a Dutchman who works for the UN Environment Programme, were wounded. Two of the militants were taken alive, police said. Islamic State fighters carried out an armed attack targeting foreign nationals and the security forces charged with protecting them in the Indonesian capital, Aamaaq news agency, which is allied to the group, said on its Telegram channel. Jakartas police chief Tito Karnavian told reporters: Isis is behind this attack definitely, using a common acronym for IS, and he named an Indonesian militant called Bahrun Naim as the man responsible for plotting it. Police believe Naim is in the Syrian city of Raqqa. The drama played out on the streets and on television screens, with at least six explosions and a gunfight in a movie theatre. However, the low death toll pointed to the involvement of local militants whose weapons were rudimentary, experts said. Police responded in force within minutes. Black armoured cars screeched to a halt in front of the Starbucks cafe and sniper teams were deployed around the neighbourhood as helicopters buzzed overhead. Karnavian said one man entered the Starbucks cafe and blew himself up, wounding several inside. As people poured out of the cafe, two waiting gunmen opened fire on them. At the same time, two militants attacked a police traffic post nearby, using what Karnavian described as hand grenade-like bombs. After the militants had been overcome, a body still lay on the street, a shoe nearby among the debris. The city centres notoriously jammed roads were largely deserted. Indonesia has seen attacks by Islamist militants before, but a co-ordinated assault by a team of suicide bombers and gunmen is unprecedented and has echoes of the sieges seen in Mumbai seven years ago and in Paris last November. Australian Attorney-General George Brandis, who was in Jakarta recently to bolster security co-ordination, told The Australian newspaper he had no doubt IS was seeking to establish a distant caliphate in Indonesia. The last major militant attacks in Jakarta were in July 2009, with bombs at the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels. The country had been on edge for weeks over the threat posed by Islamist militants. Counter-terrorism police had rounded up about 20 people with suspected links to IS, whose battle lines in Syria and Iraq have included nationals from several Asian countries. Indonesia has the worlds largest Muslim population, the vast majority of whom practice a moderate form of Islam. The country saw a spate of militant attacks in the 2000s, the deadliest of which was a nightclub bombing on the holiday island of Bali that killed 202 people, most of them tourists. Police have been largely successful in destroying domestic militant cells since then, but officials have more recently been worrying about a resurgence inspired by groups such as IS and Indonesians who return after fighting with the group. Alarm around the world over the danger stemming from Islamic State increased after the Paris attacks and the killing of 14 people in California in December. On Tuesday, a Syrian suicide bomber killed 10 German tourists in Istanbul. Authorities there suspect the bomber had links to IS. Harits Abu Ulya, a expert on militancy who knows Bahrun Naim, the militant named by Indonesian authorities, said he expected more attacks. This is an indication that he has been learning from the Paris attacks and he has studied the strategy, he said. I still have doubts about the capability of the local militants to carry out attacks on a bigger scale. But it is a possibility. Ahead of its annual meeting in Davos, next week, the groups 2016 Global Risks report ranked the migrant crisis as the biggest single likely risk, while climate change had the greatest potential impact. Sixty million people have been displaced by conflicts from Syria to South Sudan, pushing refugee flows to record levels 50% higher than during the Second World War. Including terrorist attacks such as those on Paris last year, and geopolitical fault lines stretching from the Middle East to the South China Sea, the world is arguably less politically stable than at any time since the end of the Cold War. Economic fears, particularly for Chinese growth, and frequent extreme weather events, are further red flags, resulting in greater risk than at any time in the surveys 11-year history. These will be the main topics at next week's World Economic Forum in Davos https://t.co/cAxNSpJgqw pic.twitter.com/49DKsv7Jnu Bloomberg (@business) January 14, 2016 Almost every risk is now up over the last couple of years and it paints an overall environment of unrest, said John Drzik, head of global risk at insurance broker, Marsh, who compiled the report. Economic risks have come back reasonably strongly, with China, energy prices and asset bubbles all seen as significant problems in many countries. Last year, the threat of conflict between states topped the list of risks for the first time. Previous editions highlighted economic threats. British finance minister George Osborne, who will be one of those heading to Davos, an Alpine ski resort, set the mood last week, warning that 2016 opened with a dangerous cocktail of new threats. The January 20-23 meeting will bring together players from geopolitical hot spots, such as the foreign ministers of arch-rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia, and the biggest-ever US delegation, including vice-president Joe Biden. North Koreas invitation has been revoked, after it conducted a nuclear test, defying a UN ban. The immediate problems of Middle East tensions, Chinas turbulent markets, and a tumbling oil price are likely to dominate corridor conversations. However, long-term concerns identified in the report centre on physical and societal trends, especially climate change and the attendant danger of water and food shortages. While last months climate deal in Paris may signal to investors to spend trillions of dollars replacing coal-fired power with solar panels and windmills, it is only a first step. For businesses, the transition from fossil fuels remains uncertain, especially as political instability increases the risk of disrupted and cancelled projects. Burma Constitution Drives Wedge Into Peace Dialogue Fundamental rifts emerge as ethnic leaders, government and military officials convene for a fourth day of political talks in Burmas capital. NAYPYIDAW Fundamental rifts emerged as more than 700 representatives of ethnic armed groups, political parties, civil society, the government and the Burma Army convened for a fourth day of political dialogue in the capital Naypyidaw on Friday. Thursdays talks, which focused largely on issues of federalism, wound down with a feeling of skepticism among many ethnic representatives, as the Burma Army stood by its demand that the 2008 Constitution be kept as the cornerstone of political decisions related to defense and security. The military-drafted charter has been a recurrent obstacle throughout the peace process, as it does not provide the level of state autonomy demanded by ethnic minorities as requisite to lasting peace. Participants argued that tethering discussion to the document implies that ethnic armed groups will be required to disarm, and that states will not be guaranteed equal rights. They [the Burma Army] have not explicitly said that all ethnic groups have to disarm, but they keep saying that the discussion will be based on the 2008 Constitution, said Nai Tala Nyi, a former executive member of the New Mon State Party (NMSP), who attended the Union Peace Conference this week as a representative of the intelligentsia. The charter stipulated that there be only one military in the Union, and army representatives have repeatedly suggested that non-state armed groups simply lower their guns and join the Burma Armed Forces. Ethnic representatives said the central government is afraid that states may attempt to secede if given too much autonomy, though ethnic leaders have insisted that they are committed to staying in the Union if a political solution can be found. They are very worried that ethnic groups will secede, Tha Main Tun, a central committee member of the Karen National Union (KNU), told The Irrawaddy on the sidelines of the conference. He said his colleague, Kweh Htoo Win, spoke forcefully about the issue on Thursday, but that military representatives responded with apprehension. Nai Layie Tama, general secretary of the Mon National Party, said the ethnic groups and the government have a very different idea about what would qualify as an acceptable form of federalism. We want power to be based on the population [of respective ethnic states], but they want power to belong to the central government, Nai Layie Tama said. We are talking about equal rights, but they are talking about centralized power. We have very different points of view. The Union Peace Conference, which began on Tuesday, will continue until Jan. 16. The unprecedented meeting marks the first steps in the political dialogue, a new phase for the peace process, after a ceasefire was reached between the government and eight non-state armed groups on Oct. 15 of last year. The accord was touted proudly by the administration of President Thein Sein as a nationwide ceasefire agreement, though it has been widely criticized for excluding a number of armed groups. Many others, including some of the countrys most power and influential non-state actors, refused to sign the pact out of solidarity with those left out and on account of ongoing conflict in several parts of the country. A new government led by Aung San Suu Kyi will be formed in March, after her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), swept a Nov. 8 general election by winning a majority in both houses of Parliament. Suu Kyi has said that pursuing a lasting peace in the country, which is fractured by decades of civil war, will be the top priority of her administration. This weeks discussions are to be archived on the record and presented to the incoming government in advance of a second round of dialogue. Burma Burma Army Clashes with Taang Rebels Amid National Day Celebrations Ethnic Taang troops clash with the Burma Army in Shan States Kutkai and Namtu townships on Taang National Revolutionary Day. Ethnic Taang troops clashed with the Burma Army in Shan States Kutkai and Namtu townships on Jan. 12, in the midst of celebrations for Taang National Revolutionary Day. The Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA) was celebrating its 53rd revolutionary day when Burma Army soldiers fired near Hopon village in Kutkai even after both sides had ceased engagement, an official from the armed group said. Tar Gote Ja, vice chairman of the TNLA, told The Irrawaddy on Friday that the attack near Kutkai was likely timed to coincide with the groups celebration. Military operations in both areas have been silent in the days since the skirmishes initially erupted. The TNLA is a member of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), an alliance whose members are boycotting the current peace conference in Naypyidaw. Members also abstained from a multilateral ceasefire with the government on Oct. 8 because it excluded a number of the countrys ethnic armed groups, the TNLA among them. The TNLA has said that it is ready to hold talks with a National League for Democracy (NLD)-led government, which will assume power in March. Burma Health, Safety Red Flags Shutter Mandalay Chili Sauce Factory Mandalay municipal authorities shutter a local chili sauce enterprise after discovering that the production process presented fire hazards and deeming the products unfit for consumption. Asia Judge Demands Evidence in Ranong Murder Case Four Burmese migrants have been accused of stabbing a Thai woman to death. Two of the defendants are 15 years old. A judge in Thailands Ranong Province has ordered that evidence be presented within nine days in order to charge two 15-year-old Burmese migrants accused of involvement in the fatal September stabbing of a Thai woman. The court ordered that the two minorsMoe Zin Aung and Kyaw Soe Winbe transferred to juvenile detention, while the two other migrants facing trial will remain in prison pending their trial. All four have been detained without charge since their arrest in October of last year. The provincial court accepted the case against the four migrants earlier this week. The two adult suspectsWai Lin and Sein Kadonewill appear in court on Jan. 18 for their arraignment. Ei Ei Moe, the mother of Moe Zin Aung, told The Irrawaddy on Friday that if police do not present evidence within nine days, the judge said he would release the two boys. The judge also ordered police to respect the rights of the two minors, reminding the officers that Burmese are also humans, Ei Ei Moe said. Suspects in the case worked on fishing trawlers in Thai waters to support their families back home. Their arrests caused controversy amid a forced reenactment of the crime, an irregular search at one suspects home and allegations of torture during interrogation. The case is expected to be highly scrutinized, as it follows closely after a death sentence was handed down to two Arakanese migrant workers convicted of murdering two British tourists on Koh Tao, an island in southern Thailand. The verdict in the case was viewed as highly suspect and the penalty the subject of international outrage. Burma Kachin IDP Youths Share War Hardships With NLD Patron Three Kachin youths displaced by conflict in northern Burma meet National League for Democracy patron Tin Oo, sharing their familiarity with the hardships of war. RANGOON Three Kachin youths living in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) outside Myitkyina met National League for Democracy patron Tin Oo and the NLDs Education Network on Friday at party headquarters in Rangoon, where the trio shared their familiarity with the hardships of war. We dont want war. We dont want fighting between us, a tearful Lu Htoi told Tin Oo as the 15-year-old recounted her experiences at the Shwe Zet IDP camp outside the Kachin State capital. Lu Htoi, an eighth grade student, expounded on the economic toll that the conflict has taken on her family. People living as war refugees have difficulties. I feel small living at others village and attending others school. As our parents do not have money, they could not give us pocket money to buy snacks. When we told our parents, they felt sad, she said, adding that day jobs could earn her parents between 3,500 kyats to 4,000 kyats, the equivalent of about US$3. Its not enough for family food and pocket money for children. Zau Kham, also 15 but from the Mai Na IDP camp, said the Kachin conflict forced his family to leave farmlands behind, trading that life for one in which even finding firewood can be a struggle. Even if there was no war, if we could go back to our village, we are worried about landmines buried nearby our village, he said. Schooling, too, is a challenge. There is a school for fifth to eighth graders at the Mai Na camp, but the space is not enough for all students, requiring them to break their collective education down into staggered shifts. In the rainy season, as our school is in lowlands, it floods. We have to study in standing water. Tin Oo told the IDPs that the incoming government, led by NLD chairwoman and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, would make peace its top priority. If there is no peace, we cant do anything, neither projects nor development work, he added. Acknowledging the suffering of civilians caught up in the conflict, not just children but also the elderly and sick, Tin Oo described economic self-interest among the warring parties as one of the biggest barriers to peace. About 2,400 IDPs have been living for more than four years at the Mai Na and Shwe Zet IDP camps. The three young envoys for the camps travelled to Rangoon for the Wa Madai Pan Chyang (Black Orchids) exhibition in Rangoon, a showcase of photos taken by Kachin IDP youths. The photos and accompanying texts were the result of a 10-day photography and storytelling workshop organized by the Insightout! Project for the past two years, at the two camps and Mai Ja Yangs Unlung Boarding School for IDPs. Jeanne Marie Hallacy, director of the film This Kind of Love, was involved in the project and described it as more than a typical exhibition. This event, the black orchids story and photo exhibition, is the combination of these workshops and its not an exhibition but an event, because these youth ambassadors are here to speak on behalf of everyone in their schools, their families, villagers, she said. So, in this time, when the government is convening talks about how to keep sustainable peace in Myanmar, in Naypyidaw, they are here as a way to highlight the fact that there are still tens of thousands of displaced persons in Myanmar who are waiting for an opportunity to have a peaceful return home. The exhibition of 57 photos, taken by young Kachin IDPs aged 11 to 16 years old, portray daily life in these conflict-affected communities, and will launch at 6 pm on Saturday at the Pansodan Scene art gallery in downtown Rangoon. Pansodan Scene is located at 144 Pansodan Street, 2nd Floor, near the corner with Mahabandoola Street in Kyauktada Township. Burma USDP Member Khin Shwe Defends His Support for Suu Kyi Khin Shwe, a distinguished member of the USDP, disavows rumors that he faces expulsion from the party over his support for the opposition. RANGOON Khin Shwe, a distinguished member of the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), has disavowed rumors that he is facing expulsion from the party over his support for the opposition in a Nov. 8 general election. Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Friday, Khin Shwe confirmed that he was summoned by party officials for questioning a week before the election, when he publicly declared his support for Aung San Suu Kyi, but that he had not received any indication of further action from the USDP and that his future within the party remains unclear. Himself an elected representative for the Upper House in Kawhmu Township, on polling day Khin Shwe cast a ballot in favor of Aung San Suu Kyi to represent his constituency in the Lower House. I voted for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi because she was contesting the Lower House, and I contested the Upper House, he told The Irrawaddy shortly after he cast his vote in November. Then I voted for my partys candidates for the [Rangoon] divisional parliament. Asked on Friday whether he regretted either voting for Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), or admitting it publicly, he replied that there was nothing to have regrets about. It would be no problem at all if he were cut loose from the USDP, he said, as the term of the current government will come to an end in late January. Khin Shwe is the owner of the Zaykabar Group of Companies, and his daughter is married to the son of Parliament Speaker Shwe Mann. Shwe Mann, who was ousted as USDP chairman in a surprise upset last year, is also viewed as an ally of Suu Kyi. Regarding rumors that the Speaker could also face expulsion, Khin Shwe said that he did not know of any such plan to further ostracize the former party strongman. Aung San Suu Kyis NLD party won a decisive victory in the November polls, granting them a majority in both houses of Parliament and the power to select the next president. She herself is ineligible for the post due to a clausewhich is believed to have been written precisely to exclude herdisqualifying those with a foreign spouse or children. She has stated her intention to rule above the president. Economy Real Estate Market Braces for Possible Tax Hike Deputy Finance Minister urges Parliament to revise the property tax paid by some buyers, despite criticism within the real estate industry. RANGOON Deputy Finance Minister Lin Aung urged Parliament on Thursday to revise the property tax paid by some buyers, despite criticism within the real estate industry. The proposal would boost the tax imposed by the government on buyers who are unable to declare their source of income. Specifically, it would levy a 15-percent tax on declarations up to 30 million kyats (US$23,000), a 20-percent tax on declarations between 30 and 100 million kyats, and a 30-percent tax on all higher declarations. Just last April, the government had set the rate for this particular income bracket at 3 percent for up to 100 million kyats. Than Oo, vice chairman of the Myanmar Real Estate Association, said that while such a tax increase might not immediately impact the real estate market, more dramatic effects would likely kick in once the market was back on a track to full health. You cant compare this to income and sales tax rates, the latter of which depends on the market. I dont think the market will be able to support a tax increase, Than Oo said. Demand for high-end property in commercial centers such as Rangoon has seen a steep decline in recent years, even though prices have remained high. At least in part, this can be attributed to the wait-and-see attitude many landowners have adopted toward Burmas political situation. After a new government has been formed, the property market might change. And at that time, well see harm done to the market due to the tax increase on property buyers, Than Oo said. Zaw Zaw, senior manager of Unity Real Estate Agency, echoed the warning, adding that he did not think it a good idea to collect tax from property investors based other peoples income tax. As we all know, Burmas property market is in decline right now. How can the government try to collect tax without any real demand in the market? he said. Zaw Zaw added that there is only demand in Rangoon in suburb areas, including North Dagon, South Dagon and small townships, where property is worth less than 100 million kyats. Rangoons highest value properties are located in six downtown townships, Lanmadaw, Latha, Pabedan, Kyauktada, Pazundaung and Botahtaung, as well as along main roads. We wouldnt see an immediate impact because of a tax hike. I think the impact would be felt in the long run, he said. Prices arent falling, and on top of that, demand is significantly down. Burma Trouble Brewing Over Tuborg Terminology The new brew bears the name of a beloved tune about Thingyan, against the wishes of the songwriters family. MANDALAY Each April, as Burmas favorite festival nears, the sound of a familiar tune can be heard through loudspeakers and car radios: Tupo Tupo. The beloved tune, written by Mandalays Myoma Nyein, has become synonymous with Thingyan, the water festival celebrating the Burmese New Year. The title, Tupo, was derived from the sound of Burmese drums and gongs played throughout the holiday. The well-known musician was surprised last year when, sometime in April, a new beer was being advertised with an uncanny name. In English you might know it as Tuborg, a Danish brew owned by the Carlsberg Group. As Myoma Nyeins family recalls, the company had approached the family to discuss using the name of the song as the transliterated version of their brand. The family says they met with representatives of Carlsberg Myanmar four times since 2014, and every time the family said no. I always denied them the use of the name Tupo, said Shwun Myaing, Myoma Nyeins son, speaking to reporters in Mandalay on Friday. I asked them after our last meeting, and their brand manager said they would not begin production and they would try to meet with us again. The family alleged that the companys advertising used the name Tu Po to capitalize on the songs popularity around the beers launch, which coincided with the festival. Later in 2015, they said, cans and bottles were produced with labels reading Tu Po Beer. The Burmese script on the product and the advertising is identical to the song title, which the family took issue with, especially because there is a Burmese character sounding more like the Roman letter b, which they believed would make for a more accurate transliteration. They could have spelled it in Burmese using Bo instead of Po, but they just used the well-known Tu Po to win over the market, Shwun Myaing said, especially around Thingyan. If they did it by mistake, that would be forgivable. But they met with us, and despite our disapproval, they used it anyway. The family said they plan to notify the Carlsberg Groups Rangoon Office with an ultimatum: Change the spelling within one week, or face the courts. Admittedly, an intellectual property case against an international corporation in a country with loose laws might not be much of a threat, but Myoma Nyeins family wanted to make sure their point was heard. Since we dont have a proper copyright law, we know were going to lose the case, said Zaw Myo Oo, the songwriters grandson, but we are doing this for every Burmese person losing their copyright due to a lack of rule of law. Myoma Nyeins fans have also chimed in on the Tu Po debacle, overwhelmingly to his defense. Theik Tun Thet, a respected Mandalay author and a devotee of the songwriter, said that the company, Carlsberg, surely knew that they would have problems if they used the name Tu Po. Thats why they met with Myoma Nyeins sons, he said. If they were being honest, they wouldnt transliterate it as Tu Po, which is pronounced completely different [from Tuborg], he added. Now Myoma Nyeins song is the name of a beer, and Thingyan festival will seem like a beer-drinking festival. When contacted by The Irrawaddy on Friday, Carlsberg Myanmar marketing director Birgette Weeke said the upset was the result of a misunderstanding. Its quite late to do the changes as it has been on the market for a long time, Weeke said. However, we never wanted to offend anybody, so we will contact the family immediately to resolve the matter and, of course, we will take any appropriate action. Human Rights Kachin Displaced Pin Their Hopes on New NLD Government Living in limbo for more than four years, many IDPs hope the new government will prioritize peace in Kachin State so they could go home. MYITKYINA, Kachin State For more than six months in 2011, Ywe Ja refused to leave her home in Burmas Kachin State despite heavy fighting around her village. It was where she was born, and she had built a life there as a teacher with a farmer husband and a young child. Then the authorities start seeing Kachins as part of the KIA [Kachin Independence Army]. Business and social rivals could accuse you of having links with the KIA and the army would arrest you without any investigations, she said. Worried that her husband would fall prey to these suspicions and heavily pregnant with her second child, she finally left Tar Law Gyi, a village about two hours drive from Myitkyina, the Kachin State capital, in March 2012. Two weeks after arriving at the St. Paul Jan Mai Hkawng camp, she gave birth. I never thought Id end up staying here so long, she said, sitting in the thatched-walled meeting room of the camp that she now helps to manage with the support of Karuna Myanmar Social Services, run by the Catholic Church. There is no more fighting in her village, but her family has not returned, fearing the continued presence of the Burma Army and land mines in the area. For the first time since leaving her home, however, Ywe Ja is full of hope. I didnt vote in the 2010 elections because I didnt think it was going to make a difference. This time, I woke up really early to vote. Im very happy that NLD won. I think they will prioritize the peace process, she told Myanmar Now, referring to Aung San Suu Kyis National League for Democracy, which won the Nov. 8 election in a landslide. It was a sentiment echoed by other internally displaced people (IDPs) this correspondent spoke to. They are pinning their hopes on the NLD government to achieve peace and begin the process of demilitarization that would allow them to finally go home, almost five years after fighting resumed between the army and Kachin rebels. Fighting has displaced around 100,000 people in Kachin and northern Shan States since June 2011 after a 17-year ceasefire broke down over long-held grievances. With peace proving elusive, the displacedin both government and rebel-controlled areashave become disillusioned. The longer [the IDPs stay in these camps], the more difficult it is for them. There are no jobs nearby and there are land constraints to create your own livelihoods. Foreign aid has been reducing and because everything is up in the air, those who are helping are losing steam and the displaced are losing hope, said Phyu Ei Aung from Metta Foundation, one of Myanmars largest non-governmental organizations that has been providing emergency assistance since 2011. Violence against women is also rife, with a majority of cases being husbands taking out their frustration over the situation on their wives, she added. Metta documented 583 cases in 41 camps in the 15 months between April 2014 and March 2015. It is little wonder then that many have been galvanized by the election results, where NLDs strong showing in ethnic states surprised observers. In Kachin, it won 22 out of 30 elected seats for the two houses of Parliament and more than half of the state legislature, giving it a strong mandate to govern at both local and national levels. All the displaced are looking forward to the new government to create [a country] where everyone is able to live happily and peacefully regardless of their race and religion, said Ja Khun Ya, a 40-year-old from the same village as Ywe Ja. Lives Interrupted Since fighting resumed, the IDPs have been languishing in small, hastily-built shelters that flood in monsoon and become unbearably hot in the summer, facing dwindling aid support and an uncertain future. The United Nations World Food Programme, which provides food assistance to Kachin IDPs, told Myanmar Now it is facing a US$51 million shortfall. The organization has already started to replace food assistance with cash to IDPs in places with access to markets but said this is not directly linked to the shortfall. The situation is even more dire for those who are outside of government-controlled areas due to their remote locations and even more scarce aid. Many fear the worst is yet to come. In the camp, we dont have any income, only expenses, Lahtaw Khun Ya, also 40, said. I have eight children and my husband was diagnosed with diabetes last year so he cannot do manual labor. But he went with some friends for a laborer job today, she added. The IDPs say they are willing to work, but jobs are few and far between. They say most end up working in construction sites for a daily wage of around $2.30 for women and $4.70 for men, but much less sometimes. The employers sometimes pay us less. They would say, You are receiving support from aid agencies so 2,000 kyats ($1.50) is enough. We dont have a choice, Ja Khun Ya said. In the bigger Zi Un camp, where 710 people are supported mainly by the Kachin Baptist Convention, dozens of women make money sewing traditional Kachin headgear, which allows them to stay close to their children. It is a time-consuming task, taking about 40 to 50 minutes to earn 100 kyats ($0.08) for each headpiece. Young men, meanwhile, have dropped out of schools to find jobs. Twenty-year-old Zau Phan says he would like the opportunity to finish his high school. After failing his 10th standard exam last year, he now works as a tenant farmer in another town. He was one of the few IDPs who did not vote. I was away and Im not interested in politics, but yeah, Im hoping for change. But its difficult to guess what would happen, he said. Lingering Scars Aid workers, however, warn against setting too high an expectation. I dont think we will see any drastic changes for a year or two. Even if the IDPs can go back to their villages because the political situation is now good, we would still need to assist them so they can go back to making a living like they did before the fighting, Mettas Ei Phyu Aung said. Lu San, a 39-year-old mother of four who used to run a small store, said she went through the lengthy bureaucratic process to gain approvals to briefly go back to her village across the river from Myitkyina a few months after fleeing. They had left the shop and hundreds of baskets of paddy. There was nothing left. All the valuable stuff had been looted. I heard later the army took them, she said, her voice rising at the memory. Mental scars will also need to be healed. Many lost friends and families, and almost everyone lost their possessions. They have also heard tales of neighbors and fellow villagers being tortured, maimed and killed, mainly by the Burma Army, fuelling fear and hatred as well as distrust among the different ethnic groups that make up these villages. Born in 1942, Hkun Baw La says he has heard and seen what he said were atrocities committed by the military government toward ethnic minorities in the 1960s. Yet ordinary citizens forged lasting friendships and in his village, home to Shan, Kachin and Bamar, a Christian church and a Buddhist monastery stood side-by-side before the fighting, he said. Now there are peoples militias in many villages, including Hkun Baws, where the Shan and Bamar received weapons from the government to protect themselves against the KIA, the IDPs said. Lu San has a plea for the NLD and the political leaders who are currently in Burmas grandiose capital Naypyidaw for a five-day peace conference. Please withdraw the troops as soon as possible, and please prioritize de-mining and sending us back. We are yearning to go home. [gallery type="slideshow" ids="104617,104618,104619,104620,104621,104622,104623,104624,104625,104626,104627,104628"] PANGA VILLAGE, Mon State Occupying more than 1,000 acres of land beside a road in Thanbyuzayat Township, the salt farms of Panga reflect a shimmering white under the tropical sun in Mon State. They are among the less conventional of various types of farms scattered along Burmas coastline, wherein the harvest is gathered from seawater. About a two-hour drive outside the state capital Moulmein, salt farmers manning the evaporation ponds come into view. They only work from December to May, when there is sufficient sunlight to evaporate the accumulated seawater, leaving behind its salt. The ponds, stretching out to the horizon, were previously manned by locals, but as much of Mon States indigenous population has migrated to neighboring Thailand for more lucrative work, most of the sea salt farmers in Panga these days are from the Irrawaddy Delta. Friday, January 15th, 2016 (7:11 am) - Score 2,172 As expected the Competition and Markets Authority has today officially approved the 12.5bn merger between national UK fixed line telecoms giant BT and mobile operator EE. But what comes next and how might existing customers or services be impacted. Most industry observers have long expected the deal to go through without much trouble, not least since BT and EE have tended to focus on two different sides of the market (fixed line and mobile). Most of this was confirmed after Ofcom effectively gave the deal a green light in August 2015 (here), which was followed by the CMAs provisional approval in October 2015 (here). Todays news means that Orange will hold a 4% stake in the new business (plus around 3.4bn in cash) and EEs other parent, Deutsche Telecom, should end up holding 12% with a seat on the board. The old Orange UK and T-Mobile brands may now finally be sent to the graveyard of telecoms past (here) as BT will see little reason to retain them. John Wotton, CMA Inquiry Chair, said: Since our provisional findings, we have taken extra time to consider responses in detail but the evidence does not show that this merger is likely to cause significant harm to competition or the interests of consumers. The retail mobile services market in the UK is competitive, with 4 main mobile providers and a substantial number of smaller operators. As BT is a smaller operator in mobile, it is unlikely that the merger will have a significant effect. Similarly, EE is only a minor player in retail broadband, so again it is unlikely that the merger will have a significant effect in this market. We have also found that in supplying services such as backhaul, wholesale mobile or wholesale broadband services a combined BT/EE would not have both the ability and the incentive to disadvantage competitors such that there would be significant harm to competition. We have heard wider concerns about the sector, including about Openreach and its regulation by Ofcom. Our job has been to examine the specific impact of this merger on competition and consumers and, where relevant, weve looked at how these issues might be affected by the merger. There is also an ongoing Ofcom review into the sector and its future regulation, where such concerns may have more relevance. Naturally our thoughts now turn to what the future holds and how closely, or not, BT intends to integrate the two sides of their new business. The first impact is almost always felt in terms of management and staff, with EE having already confirmed the loss of their CEO (here). The merged company will also seek to reduce duplication of roles for further efficiency savings. BT expects to achieve combined operating cost and capex synergies of around 360m per annum in the fourth full year post Completion, which they say is equivalent to a net present value of around 3.5bn before integration costs or around 3.0bn after integration costs. However any savings could easily be reduced by other possible changes in the market (example). BTs ability to leverage their existing fixed line infrastructure in order to support more cost-effective mobile (3G and 4G) service delivery via the EE network is another obvious benefit of the deal, although the impact from this may yet be affected by the uncertain outcome of Ofcoms on-going Strategic Review (here) and their earlier Dark Fibre proposal (here). BTs rivals, particularly Vodafone, Sky Broadband and TalkTalk, fear that the combined group would have too much power to undercut their own services, not least by combining the strengths of their extensive national fixed line network with EEs mobile platform to cut prices, impact backhaul supply and or limit the markets MVNO options. But this is mostly an area for Ofcom to monitor and regulate. Dido Harding, CEO of TalkTalk, said: Its a disappointing decision which will increase costs for all mobile customers. This entity will create a company that is more powerful than BT before its privatisation it will have a huge market pressure and squeeze out smaller mobile companies. Another big question mark hangs over the future of EEs existing network sharing deal with Three UK, although the reduced likelihood of Three UK securing a similar 10.25bn merger deal with O2 (here) suggests that the current agreement will probably be retained. The Consumer Angle On the consumer front wed expect that you wont see any big changes immediately, it normally takes several months (sometimes years) before such big deals have progressed to the point where theyre even able to answer some of the more difficult end-user service questions. Mind you there are a few easy predictions that can be made. BT will no doubt build some new quad-play bundles and or mobile related features that can leverage the strengths of the new business, which will include selling those services to the EE customer base. Obviously this creates a conflict with the existing BT TV (YouView) service as EE has its own independent TV product (here) and so its likely that EEs product may be sacrificed. This is less of a problem for EEs Home Broadband product as that already uses a BT platform, although going forwards they may seek to re-align the packages more closely with their own. Likewise the EE brand itself may eventually fade away because there will be a desire for a singular identity and to avoid the situation of having two operators with different names selling basically the same service, although this usually takes years to occur and for now BT has said that they intend to retain the EE brand. Similarly BT has managed to retain PlusNet as a semi-separate brand for quite a few years. BT will also gain a significant high-street presence via EEs stores, which is something that TalkTalk, Sky Broadband and Virgin Media would struggle to match. Wed be very surprised if BT didnt attempt to leverage that for some additional promotion, although fixed line services can create plenty of complex problems (e.g. ADSL reliability) that such stores would struggle to tackle. Gavin Patterson, BTs Chief Executive, said: It is great news that the CMA has approved our acquisition of EE. We are pleased they have found there to be no significant lessening of competition following an in-depth investigation lasting more than ten months. The combined BT and EE will be a digital champion for the UK, providing high levels of investment and driving innovation in a highly competitive market. I have no doubt that consumers, businesses and communities will benefit as we combine the power of fibre broadband with the convenience of leading edge mobile services. I look forward to welcoming EE into the BT family. The elephant in the room here is that both BT and EE have a mixed history when it comes to customer support quality (example). Sadly neither operator has got this aspect quite right and so some customers will perhaps rightly fear the worst of both worlds outcome, with support getting worse instead of better. BT Chairman, Sir Mike Rake, recently recognised this and has pledged improvements (example). But what of the more distant future? Some analysts have previously hinted that the new company structure could eventually leave BT exposed to being gobbled by Deutsche Telekom, but that is very early speculation and realistically nothing is likely to happen for several more years, if at all. BT has however hinted that there is scope for some new Joint Ventures (JV) with the company, most likely focused on the TV side of things. In keeping with that Sir Mike Rake hasnt ruled out the possibility of bidding for Channel 4, if it were to be privatised in the future. BT will now commence the formal process of completing the deal. A prospectus is set to be issued in the week commencing January 25th with the deal set to close on January 29th, when Deutsche Telekom and Orange will receive their shares in BT. The operator is then expected to provide more detail on any future plans when they publish their next quarterly results on 1st Feb 2016. Email Links to our top local news stories of the day, Monday through Saturday. CONS of Teaching Experience & General Life: 1) 80% of them do not make an single effort: Their are the exceptional students that are always attentive, and the low level ones that are blatantly disrespectful or cannot even utter the alphabet. I'm a little annoyed by the fact that a majority of our orientation was focused on wishy-washy things like child psychology, intrinsic students motivation, the ~*rewarding feelings of teaching*~, magic tricks, extravagant projects etc. these were probably 80% intangible and to be honest, I didn't use anything I learnt in orientation except for some simple games. There is no way to sugarcoat this, but some of these students are atrociously misbehaved in every aspect. They bully other students, do not clean up after themselves, go through my personal things and computer, and know full well a foreigner can do nothing about it due to lack of communication. I was baffled at the lack of basic rules instilled in these students such as keeping hands to themselves, pushing their chair in, doing what the teacher tells them etc. There was a grand total of one classroom management course being taught to us during orientation, and that involved intricate reward system which I didn't even attempt on my students because first, it is incomprehensible and they would not respect it. Thankfully, homeroom teachers started sitting in my every class to help with classroom management. Even then, they were allowed to just chatter and not participate. I really thought due to Confucianism ideals, students in East Asian countries would be very respectful and eager to learn. I heard stories of teachers in Thailand, Taiwan, China etc. that had pretty diligent students but I have to be honest, I did not have a good time with teaching these Korean students 80% of the time. The 20% that actually want to learn and give their all are overshadowed by the undisciplined students that are pretty much nightmare material. It was pretty traumatic at some points witnessing fights, shoving, crying, and trying to force a few English words on them. 2) Reliant on a single "Mentor Teacher": I was assigned a "mentor teacher" that basically helped with all errands, paperwork, Unfortunately, some do not speak fluent english like mine which made it very hard to communicate. Though I fared pretty well by myself, there were times when I wish I could just speak Korean to the staff instead of me being seen as the clueless foreigner. Fortunately, I liked my mentor teacher alot and had a positive experience with him. Others may not have been so lucky. 3)Emphasis on Hierarchy and Status aka ALWAYS FREEZING: I was told from day 1 to always bow to my vice principal and principal. I had to do a legit 90 degree bow and greet them in the most formal Korean. It is a cultural norm, but I found out the other day that schools here don't turn on the heat in wintertime with the exception of the principal's office or secretary office. It annoyed me to no end that students are constantly freezing, the hallways are cold, teachers are allowed sparse heat. What happened to "everyone is equal"? The fact that my heater gets turned off 2 or 3 times within a few hours duration is very upsetting to be honest. How are employees supposed to work comfortably without heat in the winter and air conditioner in the summer? Where is the professional standard? And teachers,students are more inferior to the office people and heads of the school? Students always bow to the principal and anyone older than them, but they are probably some of the worst behaviour humans I've ever seen. Korea is centered around respect to elders and "saving face" but I don't think there is any intrinsic motivation behind these gestures other than they have to. In North America, we just wave hello or good morning but it is very rude in Korea to elders. Why than, are some of these students so terrible and without manners? It is a country where people are always wearing a mask. 4) Selfishness and lack of public manners: This is true for the old people especially, because they feel more entitled than everyone else to push to the front of the line or shove on the bus or subway. People are spitting everywhere, always budging, and honestly if you are a stranger to them Koreans treat you like you're invisible. A friendly hello or conversation? Never. They are very self centered and always taking selfies in front of mass groups of people too, or checking themselves out, their are even mirrors in the toilet when you bend down. It is a little too superficial and people are obsessed with themselves. PROS of Teaching Experience & General Life: 1) Teaching on some good days: my favorite class, Kindergartens are so unlike the rest of my students. They sit patiently, repeat every single word and are very disciplined, ready to participate. It was a very enjoyable experience teaching them, because they actually learned. Also, I love making crafts with the younger students. These hands on activities are interesting and stimulate learning, especially for the girls because they love crafts 2) Lack of Tax and Tip; a night out and eating out everyday hardly breaks the bank compared to back home, it is very cheap and "service" is given aka. free food just for ordering in their cafe or restaurant. Life here, whether from shopping to movies to traveling and food are very cost efficient. 3) cafe and dessert culture: I never knew how many ways Bingsu could be served until I came here, everything from Mango to Chocolate to a whole half honeydew melon. The cafe's here are themed and creative, with many animal cafes and good drinks. It was become a norm to spend whole days at the cafe doing work with friends and having a good time. 4) Ease of meeting up with friends: as a english teacher, one is likely placed with other foreign teachers in their towns. I have 5 other english teachers within 5 minute of me since we are from a very small town. The bond is very good and meeting up, or having movie nights happens often because we can all share our struggles and experiences in a foreign country, bonding through that. 5) Ease of traveling: In my time here, I',ll have traveled to Bali,Cambodia,Thailand,China and pretty much every province in Korea except for a few far off ones I've had no interest in going to. Our program offers cultural trips that take us to different places, and since Korea is close to South-east Asia- trips are easily planned on holidays. One of the most rewarding experiences here was the amount of traveling I got to do. 6) There is always something to do: Unlike Vancouver my home, with just one downtown and a few clubs- every big city in Korea has multiple downtowns that literally have everything to do at night. It is never,ever boring and the cost aspect of it allows for many exploration days. Overall, my experience here has been positive but negative at the same time. I would say 60% positive 40% negative. Like every new place, the initial illusion always wears off and you are left seeing the true color of the country and people. No place is perfect. But Korea has given me alot. I leave with no regrets as I have accomplished many things, and I am looking forward to going home and starting the next chapter of my life from this point forwards. : their parents drove pretty average cars and seemed to be working in business when I expected them all to be from poor farmer families. Definitely much more priveleged than advertised, in my school anyway.probably 80% of students go to "hagwons" or afterschool classes to improve in school subjects, forced by their parents.Korean was spoken all around, minimal effort was made especially for low level students and the younger students. MKE Diner News and notes on the restaurant scene from dining critic Carol Deptolla SHARE By of the The owners of Port of Call, the restaurant on the Riverwalk at 106 W. Wells St., closed it in early January to make the transition to Pier 106 Seafood Tavern. The interior is being remodeled and the opening is expected before the end of the month, said Jordan Mendez, special events coordinator for the restaurant and for Milwaukee River Cruise Line, which operates the Edelweiss boats. The cruise line's owners also own the restaurant, which is a departure point for private cruise charters. Mendez said the change is being made to return the restaurant to a seafood focus. The new menu was still being finalized; the chef is Blake Bengsch. Port of Call opened in 2010. Journal Sentinel file photo This week the Legislative Sessions opened in Annapolis, Maryland, and Richmond, Virginia. Photos by Nikki Davis and Chuck Epes. With the turning of the calendar to a new year comes new Legislative Sessions in two of the main Bay statesMaryland and Virginia. The outcomes of Maryland's 90-day session and Virginia's 60-day session will have a major impact on the Chesapeake Bay and each state's rivers and streams. Here at CBF, with the support of our members, we have several important priorities to advance. In Maryland, CBF's top priority will be asking legislators to make big chicken corporations responsible for the excess manure their chickens produce. These corporations making big profits need to do their part to clean up the excess manureinstead of leaving small local farmers and Maryland taxpayers holding the (poop) bag. Some of our other priorities include working to ban plastic bags at retail stores, stopping unfair raids on funds for environmental programs that support the Clean Water Blueprint, and supporting efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Click here for a complete Maryland Legislative Session preview. In Virginia, many of our priorities involve ensuring there is proper funding in place to implement best management practices to reduce pollution. These include supporting state funding for conservation practices to reduce pollution from farms, and increasing funding for the Stormwater Local Assistance Fund. In addition to funding efforts, some of our other priorities include moving menhaden management from the General Assembly to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, supporting upgrades at wastewater treatment plants, and advancing oyster restoration and expanding sustainable oyster harvests. Click here for a complete Virginia Legislative Session preview. Not to be forgotten, while Pennsylvania's Legislature meets on a year-round cycle, we are still hard at work fighting for clean water in the Keystone State. Our top current priority is pushing for the promised "reboot" of water quality efforts which will accelerate pollution reductions to the level that will get Pennsylvania back on track. Other efforts include working with farmers to reduce pollution, advocating for adequate funding for restoration efforts, and pushing for the Lower Susquehanna River to be listed as impaired. No matter where you live in the watershed, we'll need your support for the elected leaders of your state to uphold their commitment to clean water in the Bay and local waterways. Stay tuned for important updates and calls to action in the coming weeks. This Week in the Watershed: Legislative Sessions, Oyster Uproar, and Coal Ash Despite uproar from hundreds of local citizens, Virginia's State Water Control Board approved permits for Dominion Virginia Power to dump drain water from coal ash ponds into the James and Potomac Rivers. (Roanoke TimesVA) into the James and Potomac Rivers. (Roanoke TimesVA) A coalition of environmental groups are coming together in support of a Maryland bill that will require large poultry companies to take responsibility for the manure their chickens produce. (WGMDMD) Bonus: CBF Press Release . to take responsibility for the manure their chickens produce. (WGMDMD) Bonus: . There is still major concern among the environmental community regarding the decision by the Hogan Administration to delay oyster restoration efforts on the Tred Avon River. (Baltimore SunMD) Bonus: Bay Journal recap of the Tred Avon oyster restoration delay. efforts on the Tred Avon River. (Baltimore SunMD) Bonus: recap of the Tred Avon oyster restoration delay. Menhaden will be a central topic in the upcoming Virginia Legislative Session, along with several other environmental issues. (Virginian-PilotVA) will be a central topic in the upcoming Virginia Legislative Session, along with several other environmental issues. (Virginian-PilotVA) CBF is lending a hand in the development of an artificial reef in Smoots Bay, off the Potomac River. Reef balls will be the building blocks for the reef. (ABC News WMARMD) in Smoots Bay, off the Potomac River. Reef balls will be the building blocks for the reef. (ABC News WMARMD) Nutrient trading is a new concept in the world of Maryland agriculture. Time will tell how effective it is in reducing pollution. (Star DemocratMD) is a new concept in the world of Maryland agriculture. Time will tell how effective it is in reducing pollution. (Star DemocratMD) With the Maryland Legislative Session now upon us, what's on the wish list of several environmental organizations? (Star DemocratMD) What's Happening Around the Watershed? January 14-16 College Park, MD: Join Future Harvest CASA for their 17th annual Cultivate the Chesapeake Foodshed conference. One of the region's largest farm and food gatherings, you'll be able to experience seven different conference tracks, interact with other farmers and food lovers, and enjoy local fare. Click here to register! January 16-February 6 Across Virginia: Help restore the health of the Chesapeake Bay and Virginia's rivers by participating in CBF's Grasses for the Masses program. Participants grow wild celery, a type of underwater grass, in their homes for 10-12 weeks. After 10-12 weeks of growing, participants will gather to plant their grasses in select local rivers to bolster grass populations and help restore the Bay. Workshops are being held throughout Virginia. Click here to find one near you! Drew Robinson, CBF's Digital Media Associate Pulse News and notes on health, medicine and fitness SHARE By of the The Medical College of Wisconsin's "Healthier Wisconsin Endowment" has awarded $250,000 over three years to an effort aimed at improving physical education support for children in the Milwaukee Public Schools. A national fitness assessment tool found that more than 17% of Milwaukee students failed to score in the "healthy fitness zone" on all six assessments. MPS will work with David Nelson, an associate professor at the medical college, on programs to improve fitness levels and attitudes toward fitness. They will collaborate with Marquette University, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee and the Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association. In this 2013 file photo, a supporter of raw milk sports a button during a state Senate committee hearing about the possible sale of raw milk. Credit: Mark Hoffman SHARE By of the An attempt to legalize the sale of unpasteurized milk direct from a farm to consumers has gained some traction in the Wisconsin Legislature, but opponents say they aren't backing down. Assembly Bill 697 would allow a dairy farmer to sell raw milk, and raw-milk products such as butter and cheese, directly to consumers on the farm where the milk and dairy products were produced. Current law generally prohibits the practice. AB 697, which now has sponsorship from at least 18 members of the Assembly and three members of the Senate, also exempts dairy farmers from needing a dairy plant or food processing license if the only milk products they process are raw-milk items sold on the farm. More than 30 states allow sales of unpasteurized milk to consumers, with a variety of restrictions. "I think this is a decent platform to start from," said Rep. Chris Danou (D-Trempealeau), one of the bill's sponsors. "The one thing I would like to see, quite frankly, is some labeling requirements. I think that's still important to make it clear that it's not a pasteurized product," Danou said. Through pasteurization, milk is heated to a high temperature to kill pathogens. With little exception, Wisconsin law prohibits the sale of unpasteurized milk to the public because it might carry bacteria that cause illnesses. But there's demand for raw milk from people who believe it has beneficial properties not found in the pasteurized product. Some people will travel for hours to buy it in a private transaction that could get the seller in trouble with the law. "This is clearly an activity that continues to happen. I think we would be better off to get it out in the open," Danou said. Danou said he's trying to schedule a hearing on AB 697 before the Agriculture Committee where he's a ranking member. "It's a solid bill. We will see where it goes," he said. Those who oppose raw milk sales, including public health officials, say there are no health benefits from unpasteurized milk that can't be obtained in a safe way from pasteurized dairy products. Numerous attempts to expand raw milk sales in Wisconsin have failed, partly because the dairy industry has said it would be too risky for food safety and a food-borne illness outbreak could taint the dairy industry's reputation. "The concerns are still the same. We can't see why legislators keep coming back to the well on this issue that's definitely not the right step for Wisconsin. It's a step backward," said Shawn Pfaff, spokesman for the Wisconsin Safe Milk Coalition that represents dairy, medical and public health groups opposing raw milk sales. Wisconsin has been at the center of a national controversy over raw milk sales. That's partly because of the trial of Loganville farmer Vernon Hershberger, who in 2013 was acquitted of three criminal charges that included operating an unlicensed retail store and operating a dairy farm and dairy processing facility without licenses. In 2015, state officials suspended for 30 days the Grade-A milk production permit of a Durand dairy farm blamed for a raw-milk illness outbreak that sickened nearly 40 people. Raw milk advocates say the risks to public health have been exaggerated and the decision to buy an unpasteurized dairy product ought to be left to the consumer. "This doesn't seem to be a place where the government needs to hold," said Lars Bergan, a farmer from Westby. There wouldn't be confusion in the marketplace because the consumer would be buying direct from the farm, said Vince Hundt, a raw milk advocate from Coon Valley. SHARE Scott Greer will portray Lennie in the Milwaukee Repertory Theaters production Of Mice and Men. Milwaukee Repertory Theater By of the When Mark Clements first read "Of Mice and Men" as a middle-class British schoolboy, he didn't grasp the context of John Steinbeck's American story, the painful dislocations wrought by the Dust Bowl, the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression. But young Clements warmed to the humanity of the close relationship between migrant farmworker George and his hulking, simple-minded friend Lennie. And, as an only child and self-described shy person, Clements said, "even as a kid at that age I could understand Steinbeck's elegiac depiction of what isolation and loneliness is for all of those characters." A few decades after that initial reading, Clements has returned to Steinbeck's characters with a deeper understanding of the American Dream that propelled those two men along California trails. He's directing the Milwaukee Repertory Theater's new "Of Mice and Men" production; performances begin Tuesday at the Quadracci Powerhouse Theater. Clements, the Rep's artistic director, staged an acclaimed production "Of Mice and Men" in 2007 at Philadelphia's Walnut Street Theatre. In his laudatory review for The Philadelphia Inquirer, Howard Shapiro wrote that "Clements' staging squeezes the play's juice and mixes in all the pulp he serves up not just the story, with all its impact, but also manages a theatrical tension that never lets up." The new Milwaukee Rep production features notable local actors Jonathan Wainwright (as George), James Pickering, Chike Johnson and Jonathan Gillard Daly. But it also reunites Clements with Philadelphia actor Scott Greer, who sparkled in the demanding role of Lennie in the Philadelphia production. In his Philadelphia Inquirer review, Shapiro wrote that "Greer has it down: the innocent expression that draws empathy from every seat in the house; the eyes, half-vacant and half-terrified; a childlike nervousness that seeps into every reaction." "It was pretty important to me to get Scott back," Clements said. "I can't imagine anyone doing this better..." 'Like a 4-year-old' Since that Philadelphia production, Clements has gained new insight into Lennie's character through his own life experience. He now likens Lennie's mood swings to those of his own 4-year-old daughter. "You have this kindly character who's basically like a 4-year-old," Clements said of George's lumbering friend. "It is literally like what I am dealing with on a day-to-day basis (at home). She's either utterly unreasonable or furious, or absolutely adorable. "You put the 4-year-old brain and sensibility in a 400-pound man, that's potentially very, very dangerous." In their struggle to survive as itinerant workers, George and Lennie bond over the dream of owning their own small ranch where they, in Lennie's words, "could live offa the fatta the lan." "I think this is one of the most articulate and erudite and elegiac kinds of depiction of what the American Dream actually is, and the pursuit of it," Clements said. More than once during this conversation Clements invoked "Death of a Salesman," another classic American drama he has directed. "The dream is possible," Clements said, especially after Candy offers his small stake for a potential down payment on the ranch. But, Clements pointed out, the dream is "as fragile as falling in love." "Do we resist dreaming that dream?" he asked rhetorically. "Do we resist falling in love so ultimately we don't get hurt?" Story still upsets some people Published in 1937, nearly 80 years ago, Steinbeck's novella has not lost its power to upset some people. Both "Mice and Men" and Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" are on the American Library Association's list of frequently banned and challenged classics, with language (including use of the N-word) and blasphemy among the reasons given for challenging "Mice and Men." Last May, several community members asked the Coeur d'Alene school board in Idaho to remove "Of Mice and Men" from the ninth-grade curriculum and limit it to voluntary, small-group discussions. But school board trustees voted 4-1 to retain Steinbeck's book. A local high school teacher testified that "many students relate strongly to the story, 'especially young men who are often the most difficult to engage with literature,'" according to a report in The Spokesman-Review. Steinbeck adapted his own story for the stage, with polishing assistance from George S. Kaufman, who directed the 1937 Broadway premiere. That production won the 1938 best play award from the New York Drama Critics Circle, besting Thornton Wilder's "Our Town." "I do love the fact that he wrote the adaptation," Clements said. "It's very simple." Clements said there were many "power lines" in the stage version of "Mice and Men," often spoken by unsophisticated characters in conversation. "You have to find a way of making those land with an audience" without seeming stagy, he said. Clements said he has told cast members "we are not trying to 'give a take' on this play": no changes of locale, no stunts, no tricky concepts. His goal, the director said, is simply "to serve this play well in its time, in its period, to serve the material as best we can." He does not worry that historical nuances of a play written in the 1930s will be lost on a contemporary audience. "Lennie's relationship with George, George complains about it all the time, it's a codependency and we all have those," Clements said. "Lennie is a burden at times, and yet actually what Lennie gives (George) is way more than what he loses." IF YOU GO The Milwaukee Repertory Theater performs "Of Mice and Men" from Jan. 19 through Feb. 21 at the Quadracci Powerhouse Theater, 108 E. Wells St. For tickets, visit milwaukeerep.com or call (414) 224-9490. Members of the Overpass Light Brigade, a group of artist-activists, gather at a mound in Lake Park to protest a bill that would weaken protections for mounds on private land in the state. Credit: Overpass Light Brigade What we hold onto says a lot about who we are. An incomparable aspect of our state's culture came under attack when a bill was proposed to make it easier for landowners to excavate and perhaps destroy surviving Indian mounds in Wisconsin, calling it a "common sense" measure. These easy-to-miss treasures, subtle contours in the landscape, are our state's most enduring form of public art. Their erasure would echo an unfortunate history of other removals, of the displacement of indigenous people by newcomers and settlers. Hundreds of people, including members of Wisconsin tribes who traveled from distant points in the state and beyond, gathered at the Capitol on one of the coldest days in recent memory to protest the bill. As they gathered Tuesday, hoisting "Save the Mounds" placards, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) announced that the measure would likely not come up for a vote this spring. Rep. Robb Kahl (D-Monona), though, told those gathered at the Capitol, "They will push this bill again I assure you," adding that development interests in his own district are at issue. "You need to keep your voices loud, and you need to keep coming back," Kahl said. The bill is supported by various manufacturing and development organizations, including Wingra Stone and Redi-Mix, which is in a legal battle with the state and the Ho-Chunk Nation over control of mounds in a quarry it owns. Indeed, this controversy has been recurring for generations, each time raising awareness about these ancient survivors, the soft bumps that pervade the state in public parks, backyards, fields and private lands. It is striking how little is known about these mounds. Why are there so many here? What purpose did they serve? What were their meanings? What we do know is that as many as 20,000 of these earthen sculptures existed here when European and American explorers and settlers first arrived in this part of the world. Complex, patterned clusters of them were embedded into the landscape "harmoniously, even artfully," write Robert A. Birmingham and Leslie E. Eisenberg in "Indian Mounds of Wisconsin," one of the more approachable and authoritative books on the subject. The mounds were created by native people during the relatively recent prehistoric past, from about 800 B.C. to 1000 A.D. They were so numerous, especially in the southern part of the state, that they created a significant obstacle for 19th-century farmers. The elaborate, earthen animal forms, or effigy mounds, are especially concentrated in Wisconsin, though they are found in neighboring states as well. Some of them are or were enormous, including a destroyed bird effigy near Muscoda that had a wingspan of a quarter mile. The "soil shadow" of that mound can be seen from the air, according to Birmingham and Eisenberg. These effigies, of which there were about 3,000, are unique to our region and do not appear to have been created elsewhere in the world, scholars say. Many mounds contain burial remains, though not all, and about 80% of the mounds that once existed here have already been lost, most plowed under long ago, according to scholars. Their meanings remain a point of conjecture. Those gathered at the Capitol Tuesday, as well as artists and activists with the Overpass Light Brigade who gathered at a mound in Lake Park that evening, spoke of them as sacred. They described them as living memorials, spaces where ancestors, spirit guides and creation itself can be revered and called upon. "We are shown how to live by this nurturing Mother Earth," JoAnn Jones, a tribal judge of the Ho-Chunk nation, told the crowd in Madison. "Look at this creation. It will teach you everything you need to know to live your life... "Ho-Chunks are still protecting these mounds for our future generations. They can look at them and wonder, they can dream, they can see the beauty of the mind of our ancestors." The bill from Sen. Chris Kapenga (R-Delafield) and Rep. Robert Brooks (R-Saukville) places a significance on whether actual burial remains can be detected on the site of the mounds. I would argue that the cultural significance and what Jones called the visible "beauty of the mind of our ancestors" is equally worth preserving. Because the mounds remain puzzling and are often unassuming in their aspect, they are often dismissed as a primitive art form or, worse, unremarkable humps of earth. When considering the Land Art movement of the 1960s, poetic and often minimal interventions in the landscape, considered so radical then, it could be argued the mound builders were centuries ahead of their time. The mounds are also made of and with nature. To those who look and see so little I would recommend the approachable writing of Increase Lapham, the state's pioneering scientist, who in the middle of the 19th century devoted years of his life to identifying these mounds for a seminal text published by Smithsonian Institution, "The Antiquities of Wisconsin." Lapham wrote that the earthenworks were made by "people far advanced in the arts." For me, there is meaning in the minimalism of the mounds. Though sidled up beside a tempestuous Great Lake, Wisconsin's is not a dramatic topography. This is the time of year when a uniform blanket of white allows us to see its shape, the genial valleys, rolling drumlins and modest rises carved by advancing and retreating glaciers. The form of the landscape carries waters into wide, resolute rivers and countless lakes. Our state is a place of subtle, grounded beauty and steadiness. If the mounds were inspired, at least in part, by a sense of place and available materials, as so much art has been through the centuries, then these quiet, sinuous forms reflect something of our part of the world back to us. They are and should remain an inextricable part of the Wisconsin landscape. Or, as Lapham himself put it in an 1836 newspaper editorial: "Let us hope in Wisconsin, the case will be different that here at least the future traveler will not have to regret the loss of those records of an ancient people." Mary Louise Schumacher is the Journal Sentinel's art and architecture critic. Follow her on Facebook (facebook.com/artcity), Twitter (@artcity) and Instagram (marylouises). Email her at mschumacher@journalsentinel.com. Claudio Parrone Jr., Amante T. Gray, Shannon Nettesheim and Ben Parman perform in Starlings. Credit: Laura Heise SHARE By , "God's judgment against those who include too many will be less harsh than the judgment against those who include too few." So tweeted openly gay Episcopalian bishop Gene Robinson, upon learning that the Anglican Church had disciplined the Episcopalian Church for accepting gay marriage. Several hours after Robinson tweeted, Ben Parman's "Starlings" an alternately funny and gut-wrenching play unfolding in a nondescript Chicago hotel hosting a gay Christian conference made its world premiere Thursday night in a Soulstice Theatre production directed by Erin Nicole Eggers. Would that the benighted Anglican leadership could come to Milwaukee and see it. "Starlings" begins as a furiously fast screwball comedy, featuring a hyped-up Neal (Parman), a broody Matt (Claudio Parrone Jr.), and an anxious Kelly (Shannon Nettesheim), channeling Holly Golightly. Now in their mid-thirties, they'd been close in high school, back when Matt and Kelly were going to marry. Back when all of them, each one Christian, had been "on fire" for Jesus. Before Matt realized he was gay. And before Kelly married Ethan (David Sapiro), who'd worshipped Matt and has struggled with homophobia since. Kelly has engineered this reunion, but she's also hedged her bets, bringing along Deante (Amante T. Gray) her ostensibly calm but also wary co-worker as a buffer. It's a tall order, thanks to the swirling, roiling currents of guilt, resentment, anger and love that dramatically slow the pace, threatening to engulf each of these characters. Neal takes the prize, as Parman demonstrates in a galvanic, emotionally raw performance reflecting the tortured psyche of a man who can't square his sexual orientation with his religion. Neal describes himself as "all references and no resume" while invoking a dazzling, dizzying array of cultural references from "Hamlet" to Bobby in Sondheim's "Company." Each persona tells us something of who Neal is while ensuring that every confession comes disguised. And much like Hamlet or Bobby, each one suggests a man who doesn't want to choose, which can make Neal prickly and angry when he feels boxed into a corner. Matt fares best at calling Neal out, culminating toward play's end in a conversation making as smart and moving a contribution to the halting dialogue between homosexuality and Christianity as I've seen on stage. In a play built around such two-actor dialogues, there are also memorable exchanges between Neal and Deante about race and between Matt and Kelly about their past. Toward the close of the first act, there are also some flat, overly expository passages. The emotional journey involving one character Sapiro's Ethan is neither convincing nor fully developed. Ditto some of the themes in this ambitious play. All of these things are fixable and very much worth fixing. "Starlings" may still be a fledgling. But it's a rare bird and has the potential to soar. Kudos to Soulstice for sponsoring its inaugural flight. IF YOU GO "Starlings" continues through Jan. 30 at Soulstice Theatre, 3770 S. Pennsylvania Ave., St. Francis. For tickets, visit online at www.soulsticetheatre.org/. Read more about this production at TapMilwaukee.com. TAKEAWAYS Unconditional Love: Just after intermission, there's a beautiful exchange between Neal and the slightly older Carlos (Andres Ricardo Garuz), who calls to mind bearded images of Christ. It's a microcosm of the play: Beginning in humor that both belies and betrays how painfully shy and awkward Neal can be, it moves toward honest and open exchange, bathed in love that's so complete and so nonjudgmental that it's actually painful. In retrospect, one sees this scene as the pivot on which the entire play turns as well as an unbounded expression of grace and acceptance, in a world that needs more of both. Pieces of the Puzzle: In that late, great exchange between Neal and Matt that I reference above, Neal analogizes what it's like being gay to existence as a jigsaw puzzle of an Impressionist painting, in which others try to fit a piece or two before they "get frustrated and walk away." It's an apt metaphor for how difficult it always is to puzzle out another and how intent each of us is, during that process, in solving the puzzle by our own lights and thereby failing to grasp or even see the entire picture. Or see how, as Impressionism continually reminds us, we ourselves play an active role in creating that picture meaning that we're inevitably implicated in what we see. And also meaning that the picture itself can never truly be complete but is always inherently dynamic and evolving. Viewed this way, Parman's puzzle metaphor also describes the structure of this play. Its uniquely shaped pieces don't immediately snap into place. They'll never entirely come together and shouldn't to form a squared off, well-made play. But they clearly stand in relation to each other, allowing us to move them around in our mind, making multiple, shifting pictures just as this play endorses the notion of multiple, alternative pluralisms. Neal's Hamlet Complex: As suggested above, Neal's insistence on multiplicity aligns him with Hamlet, in both positive and negative ways. Refusing to be pinned down, Hamlet brilliantly exposes the lies within language, offering a radically deconstructive interpretation of how words mean and whether they can mean at all. As with Hamlet, Neal's extreme skepticism readily exposes the untruths that surround him. But as is also true of Hamlet, Neal's radical negativity occasionally flirts with nihilism; skeptical of nearly everything, he risks choosing nothing, while standing on an ever-narrowing patch of ground. Matt isn't wrong in suggesting that Neal thereby risks spurning the grace on offer from the God he professes to love. And as the haunted look in Parrone's eyes makes clear, Matt know what's he talking about; like many of the characters in this remorselessly and scrupulously honest play, Matt has a hard time loving himself, freely and without guilt. The Dream of a Common Language: Parman suggests that if we're going to move forward from such crippling isolation, we need to undertake the hard work involved in talking with each other. Especially when we see things differently. Hence the importance in this play of both Deante and Carlos, people of color who in different ways underscore Neal's blind spots. In one of the play's highlights a conversation during which Deante and Neal are getting to know each other Deante plays the same game Neal has been playing: He invokes the names Paulo Freire ("Pedagogy of the Oppressed") and Ann Atwater (North Carolina civil rights leader), neither one known to Neal. "This is how people feel around you all the time," Deante pointedly says with reference to Neal's relentless, often distancing references and puns (they can place the audience at a distance as well, and purposefully so; those puns one doesn't get can be as alienating to an audience member as they are to the characters surrounding Neal). Eating a helping of humble pie, Neal forces himself to ask who Ann Atwater is. Responding, Deante talks about how dialogue between Atwater and a Carolina Klansman over school desegregation developed into a deep and meaningful friendship. Deante's point, embodied in the exchange between him and Neal, is that we can escape the prison house of the self if we'd open our hearts and minds (this is also a play with many references to open, shut and guarded doors). One of the strengths of Parman's dialogue in this scene is that it doesn't overpromise what we might accomplish in trying to mediate our differences. But it does insist that even if we inevitably must stand apart, we try to find some common ground on which we can do so together. Life Imitates Art: "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life," Oscar Wilde insisted. Wouldn't you know it: Kelly quotes another of Wilde's quips at one point, without even realizing she's done so. At other points, Parman suggests in footnotes to the script that while a character may not know the reference to something that character says, "the play does" thereby recognizing that we always walk in the shadow of the cultural artifacts that shape our world and influence us. At its best, art gives us new ways of seeing and living our lives, by exposing us to people we didn't know and allowing us to witness and emulate difficult but insightful conversations we don't know how to start or sustain. At its best, "Starlings" does the same. And as I've tried to suggest, that best is very good. An example, to drive this point home: Six years ago, Geoffrey Nauffts' "Next Fall" dramatizing the relationship between two gay men, one of whom is devoutly Christian and worried he's ticketed for hell was nominated for a Tony Award for best play. As I said in reviewing a 2014 Milwaukee production, "Next Fall" asked good questions and then continually ducked them while creating stereotypes. "Starlings" consistently engages those same questions, thoughtfully and without resorting to stereotype. It's not nearly as smooth or tight a play. But it's smarter. Braver. More honest. Much more moving. And yes: better. Weekend Getaway Brian E. Clark SHARE A restored Danish windmill in Elk Horn, Iowa, stands 60 feet high. Brian E. Clark By , Swedish-Americans have three museums to tell their story, including facilities in Chicago, Minneapolis and Philadelphia. Americans of Norwegian descent have the Vesterheim Museum in Decorah, Iowa, founded in 1877 as part of Luther College, and the new Norwegian Heritage Center in Stoughton, which opened last year. But Danes, who arrived in the United States later than their fellow Scandinavians, didn't have their own facility until 1994 when the Museum of Danish America opened in Elk Horn, Iowa. The museum is about halfway between Des Moines and Omaha, Neb., both of which had large Danish immigrant communities. Elk Horn, population 660, is also the site of a 60-foot-tall, 168-year-old Danish windmill. It had fallen into disrepair on the Jutland Peninsula in Denmark, was moved to Iowa by town residents led by farmer Harvey Sornson and restored in time for the country's bicentennial in 1976. The museum has more than 42,000 artifacts, including a piano owned by musician and comedian Victor Borge, who was born in Copenhagen and fled Nazi-occupied Denmark during World War II to settle in the U.S. Disguised as a sailor, he sneaked back into Denmark during the war to see his dying mother. Executive Director John Mark Nielsen said the surge of immigration that sent more than 350,000 Danes to America began didn't begin until after the Civil War. By contrast, Swedes and Norwegians had been coming to this continent for several generations by then. Nielsen, who can count three Denmark natives among his four grandparents, said the spark was the Dano-Prussian war of 1864 when Denmark lost a third of its territory the southern provinces of Schleswig and Holstein. Following the war, he said, Danes suffered discrimination: The use of the Danish language was banned, Danes could not sell their land to Danes and young Danish men were drafted into the Prussian army. "That war led to a massive migration to the U.S.," he said. "Ironically, many of these immigrants were listed as Germans when they came to the U.S., but they thought of themselves as Danes." Nielsen said most of them initially went to what was called the "Danish Belt," which stretched from Milwaukee through Racine, down to Chicago and then west across Iowa to central Nebraska. The Elk Horn museum is at the nexus of three Iowa jurisdictions (Audubon, Shelby and Cass counties) that boasted high numbers of Danish immigrants around the turn of the 20th century. "In addition to coming later, they spread out more," said Nielsen, a former professor at Dana College in Blair, Neb. Though many Danes settled in the Midwest, others moved to Utah, Arizona, Louisiana and California. "From an immigration studies standpoint, Danes assimilated faster than any other immigrant group. Part of the reason was because universal education had started in Denmark in 1814, so they were literate." Nielsen said another reason Elk Horn got the museum was because it was the site of the first Danish folkhogskola, (people's high school), in 1878. These institutions, which originated in Denmark, still exist in Scandinavia and are something akin to an American junior college, focused on continuing education for adults rather than more-formal university degrees. Nielsen was on the committee at Dana College that began planning the museum. Some of the artifacts that ended up in Elk Horn were kept at the college which closed in 2010 until the structure was built. Nielsen said the museum has a strong Wisconsin connection. Noted landscape architect Jens Jensen, a Danish immigrant and colleague of Frank Lloyd Wright, is celebrated at the museum with a green roof on a recent 8,000-square-foot addition and the Jens Jensen Prairie Landscape Park surrounding the museum. Jensen, who designed many elements of the West Chicago park system, also started The Clearing Folk School in Door County's Gills Rock. Jensen's work focused on using native plants to echo natural environments, Nielsen said. Jensen's great-grandson, also named Jens, lives and works in Madison and runs Jensen Ecology, which focuses on environmental restoration work. In addition to telling the story of Danish immigrants in the "Across Oceans, Across Time," exhibit, Nielsen said there is a main floor gallery that shows the work of Danish and Danish-American artists. Legos, one of the globe's most popular toys, were invented by a Danish carpenter, so there is a Lego room in the museum where kids and their parents can play. "We deal with the long history of relations between the United States and Denmark, too, and have exhibits on items used in the homes of Danish pioneers to modern furniture," he said. "We also have some of the early sculptures by Gutzon Borglum, the Danish American who designed Mount Rushmore. From more contemporary times, we have the Principia bicycle ridden by a Danish journalist from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., in 2012 when he was sending stories and videos back to a Danish television station about the upcoming presidential election. He rode through a lot of red-state areas and attempted to explain rural American conservatism to his readers." In addition to the museum at 2212 Washington St. and the Danish Windmill, 4038 Main St., Elk Horn has Jens Dixen's House, a small North Dakota homesteader's cabin, which is on a hill next to the museum. Bedstemor's House is a 1908 Victorian at the corner of College and Union streets that has been restored and furnished in the period between 1910 and 1920 when young Danish-American families lived there. (Bedstemor means grandmother in Danish.) More information: See the museum's website at danishmuseum.org or call (712) 764-7001. For details on other things to see and do in and around Elk Horn, see danishvillages.com or call (712) 764-7472. Getting there: Elk Horn, Iowa, is about 450 miles southwest of Milwaukee via I-94, Highway 151 and I-80. Brian E. Clark is a Madison writer and photographer. SHARE By of the Fifteen illegal immigrants convicted of committing crimes were arrested in a roundup in the past week in Milwaukee and surrounding suburbs, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced Thursday. Their crimes included vehicular homicide, strangulation and suffocation, battery, burglary, theft, domestic abuse, drug possession and drunken driving, according to ICE. All but two were from Mexico. The others are from El Salvador and Belarus. They are facing deportation proceedings. No names were provided. Last year, ICE conducted 235,413 removals nationwide, 91% of whom had previously been convicted of a crime, according to ICE. The family of Teresa Halbach has slammed the Netflix documentary series that casts doubt on the guilt of the man convicted in her killing, according to a story in People magazine. "It's terrible," Halbach's aunt, Kay Giordana, told the magazine, saying the Netflix documentary series "Making a Murderer" about convicted killer Steven Avery is re-traumatizing the Halbach family. "I can't believe this came out. It is really unfortunate," Giordana says in a story posted on the magazine's website. Avery, now 53, was sentenced to life in prison in 2007 after being convicted of the 2005 killing of the 25-year-old photographer in Manitowoc County. He had previously been released from prison after 18 years for a rape that DNA evidence showed was committed by another man. Avery filed a new appeal seeking his release after the documentary aired. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett ended 2015 with $810,000 cash on hand for his spring re-election bid. Credit: Rick Wood By of the Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett is heading into his spring re-election fight with more than $800,000 in his campaign war chest. Barrett, who is seeking his fourth term as mayor, ended 2015 with $810,000 cash on hand, a figure that dwarfs the money raised by his top challengers. Ald. Bob Donovan, who announced in July 2014 that he would challenge Barrett this year, ended last year with about $27,000 cash on hand. And Ald. Joe Davis had just under $25,000 cash on hand at the end of last year. Campaign finance reports filed Friday show Barrett raised $272,000 during the latest reporting period, from July 1 to Dec. 31. During that time, his campaign spent approximately $98,000. Barrett's campaign raised just over $500,000 and spent about $191,000 last year, his report shows. Donovan's report shows that he raised about $61,000 between July 1 and Dec. 31, with his campaign spending about $73,000 during that same time period. During 2015, Donovan's campaign raised slightly less than it spent bringing in about $100,000 last year and spending about $103,000. And Davis, who announced his mayoral bid in October 2014, raised about $23,600 and spent just over $35,000 during the July 1 to Dec. 31 reporting period. Davis did not provide campaign fundraising or spending totals for 2015 in his latest report. He is not seeking re-election to the council. In an unusual move, Donovan is simultaneously running for re-election to his Common Council seat while challenging Barrett in the mayor's race. But in the campaign finance report filed Friday, Donovan indicated that all the contributions he received during the latest reporting period were for his mayoral campaign. Also running is political newcomer James Methu, who said he would file a campaign finance report by the midnight Friday deadline. The primary election is Feb. 16 and the general election is April 5. Barrett officially launched his re-election bid in December, saying in an email to supporters that he still wakes up every day "determined to make a difference for our city's future." But his challengers have criticized the mayor on a range of issues, especially public safety citing last year's spike in homicides in the city. Barrett has touted his economic and public safety efforts. And he said that if re-elected he would continue working to create more family-supporting jobs, giving young people more opportunities, and building partnerships between police officers and neighborhoods. Barrett was first elected mayor in April 2004, and was re-elected with more than 70% of the vote in both 2008 and 2012. While he cruised to re-election as mayor in 2012, that same year he lost to Republican Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin's historic recall race. Walker, who also defeated the Democrat Barrett in the 2010 governor's race, became the first governor in U.S. history to survive a recall. Barrett has been mayor for about 12 years, less than half the time that Milwaukee's longest-serving mayor, Henry Maier, spent in office. Maier was mayor for 28 years, from 1960 to 1988. Barrett began fundraising for his 2016 bid about three years ago. Former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold (left) is challenging sitting Sen. Ron Johnson this fall. Credit: Journal Sentinel files Political junkies say the race between Sen. Ron Johnson and Russ Feingold will be the same as most current political discourse: ugly and mean. "Historically, rematches between candidates are often pretty negative affairs," Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette University Law School poll, told Journal Sentinel reporter Bill Glauber. Republican strategist Brian Nemoir told Glauber, "Ron Johnson has the job of reminding people of why this guy wasn't elected six years ago, and Feingold has the job now of running against an incumbent and comparing the promises he made to what he has or has not delivered." "I think at the end of the day these guys bring very different visions of our country to the table," Nemoir said. "The contrasts will be crystal clear...and if that means defining the other one in a light they consider less favorable, that is what is going to happen in this race. I don't know if there is an opportunity for either one to be better liked by the end of this." How depressing. These two should, instead, have a substantive debate about the issues that really matter to Wisconsin voters. They are capable of doing that they clearly see the world in very different ways. Their race is a proxy for the national struggle between conservatives and liberals and an important race for both parties. The "Johnson-Feingold race is shaping up as one of the more important Senate contests in the country and outside groups are already spending millions of dollars on the campaign. What does that mean? Expect the airwaves to be clogged in the coming months with negative ads designed to define the candidates," Glauber reported. But that's not the kind of race Wisconsin voters deserve. They deserve a race that's based on a discussion of the issues, such as national security, jobs, the economy, education, trade, climate change and repairing the nation's crumbling infrastructure. The candidates should answer questions like these: How will their lives be better? How will they be safer? How will they make ends meet? How will they get their kids educated without suffocating debt? Where will they find work? Will that work be able to sustain them? Voters deserve to hear clear, thoughtful statements from each candidate on his positions more than sound bites. They deserve new ideas on how to meet the nation's challenges. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has said that 2016 should be a year of ideas for Republicans, but he's only partially right. It should be a year of ideas from Republicans and Democrats and anyone else who is going after citizen's votes. We're under no illusion that mean and ugly will go away simply because we ask it to. Negative ads often work. But negative campaigning doesn't get the nation anywhere; it doesn't move improve lives. It poisons the debate. So in between the ads, maybe Johnson and Feingold can still find time to discuss substantive ideas and policy. Let's go there. SHARE Clearly the only explanation for Jeb Bush's almost effortless stroll to the Republican nomination is the pernicious stranglehold of big money in politics. Oh, wait. Bush is in the low single digits in most national polls, despite his campaign and his super PAC raising more than $100 million. Perhaps that's only because Donald Trump, the billionaire populist, is buying the nomination with his dragon's hoard of gold? Well, no. Trump has spent less than any other major candidate. But surely Hillary Clinton, with her close ties to Wall Street, her husband's storied hobnobbing with the global .001%, not to mention her vast Rolodex of Clinton Inc. supporters going back four decades, has bought herself the nomination? It doesn't look that way, according to the polls. She's losing ground to Sen. Bernie Sanders in both Iowa and New Hampshire. And he's done so by declaring nothing short of war on what he calls the "billionaire class." "American democracy is not supposed to be about billionaires buying elections," Sanders told some students at the University of Chicago. You'd think that if the "billionaire class" all 536 people had the kind of unfettered control over the U.S. political system Sanders believes them to have, Mr. Sanders would be asking, "Would you like fries with that?" Instead, he's got a plausible, if not yet entirely probable, shot at the Democratic presidential nomination. And even if he doesn't emerge victorious, he's already dragged Clinton to the left on the issues the billionaires are supposed to care about. And Trump, widely disliked among his fellow billionaires at least the Republican ones has had remarkable success demonizing his wealthy peers. The simple fact is that almost everywhere you look, the super-rich are being stymied by democracy. In 2014, David Brat, an unknown academic, defeated the second most powerful Republican in Congress, then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, even though Cantor spent more money on steak dinners than Brat did on his whole campaign. The recent referendum on marijuana legalization in Ohio was lavishly funded and failed. And just a reminder: Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney and his plutocrat pals. Those evil corporations aren't faring much better. We constantly hear about their vise grip on Washington, yet we still have the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world (not counting United Arab Emirates). Big corporations rightly want to be able to repatriate their profits earned overseas without being taxed on them again. (Most countries allow corporations to pay taxes on profits solely in the jurisdictions where they were earned.) And yet they can't get it done. Even the dreaded Koch Brothers, those supposed supervillains, have failed to buy the policies they prefer. And yet, to listen to countless pundits and politicians, we live in an oligarchy. Clinton, who benefits from no less than five super PACs, thinks the Citizens United case, which made super PACs possible, is such a threat to democracy that the First Amendment should be rewritten to get rid of them. Democrats don't like Citizens United because they think it might blunt their advantages. According to OpenSecrets.org, of the top five organizations i.e., unions and corporate PACs that give to federal candidates, all (mostly public unions) give 97% to 100% of their donations to liberals and Democrats. By the way, Koch Industries is No. 49 on the list, and the National Rifle Association is No. 74. You know what plays a bigger role? Politics. The NRA is a good case in point. President Barack Obama insists that the "gun lobby" owns Congress, which is why he can't get the gun-control policies he wants passed. The truth, however, is that politicians care more about votes than money, and if they follow his advice, they'll also follow so many Democrats who were fired for agreeing with Obama. That's actually how democracy is supposed to work. Jonah Goldberg is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior editor of National Review. Email goldbergcolumn@gmail.com Twitter: @JonahNRO Republican-sponsored legislation that relaxes regulations for the states aquaculture industry will help an industry that is growing nationally, supporters say. But conservationists say they were blind-sided by the bill and fear it could harm public waterways. Here, Peter Fritsch, president of Rushing Waters in Palmyra, stands in front of some the fish ponds. Credit: Michael Sears By of the Republican-sponsored legislation that relaxes regulations for the state's aquaculture industry will help an industry that is growing nationally, supporters say. But conservationists say they were blindsided by the bill and fear it could harm public waterways. The bill addresses digging, dredging and repair work in and around streams and rivers work that now in many cases requires owners of fish farms to get approval from the Department of Natural Resources. In some cases under the bill, fish farms would be exempted from some of that oversight and allowed to fill in wetlands and grade soil along public waterways. Bill sponsor Sen. Tom Tiffany (R-Hazelhurst) says the industry needs more certainty from regulators at a time when consumers are eating more fish much of it from fish farms. Some operators have waited seven years or longer for approval of wastewater permits from the DNR, he said. But environmentalists and conservation groups said that in addition to raising environmental concerns, they were stunned by the swift nature of the bill's progress. The northern Wisconsin legislator introduced Senate Bill 493 on Jan. 4 and convened a public hearing the next day before the Senate Committee on Sporting Heritage, Mining and Forestry, which Tiffany chairs. Representatives of the aquaculture industry testified in favor of the bill. A DNR staff member also was present. In her testimony, Pam Biersach, director of the Bureau of Watershed Management, said that grading on the banks of trout streams has "significant potential to create difficulty meeting physical and chemical water quality standards" for a stream, and could break up habitat and affect fish reproduction. George Meyer, executive director of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, attended the hearing, but only because of an interest in another bill. "What is really troubling about it is that DNR was there and knew about it, thank God, but 10 or 12 people from the industry were there to provide testimony, but no one from the environmental community," said Meyer, who had been unaware of the proposal. Said Helen Sarakinos, policy director for the River Alliance of Wisconsin: "The process stinks. You have wide-ranging legislation that could be a game-changer for the quality of trout streams and have it noticed ... and hold a hearing less than 24 hours later in the midst of the one of the busiest legislative weeks we have had." Tiffany brushed aside the criticism, saying he held a hearing on aquaculture issues on Dec. 9 in Antigo. No bill had been written at that time. But he said drafting began shortly afterward. The Christmas holidays slowed progress by legislative drafters, Tiffany said, and he and other lawmakers are under pressure from legislative leaders to wrap up the session and head home by March. The bill was approved 5-2 in committee on Thursday, with two Democratic members of the panel voting against it. "There was no intent whatsoever to hide this from the public," Tiffany said. Tiffany says the bill's impetus is to treat fish farms more like the rest of agriculture, which under state law has more latitude with management of land near waterways. He also wants to help an industry poised for growth. Fish farms range from bait producers to facilities such as Rushing Waters Fisheries in Palmyra, which raises rainbow trout for the retail market and operates a restaurant and trout farm for fishing. At the Jan. 5 legislative hearing, Ron Johnson, a former aquaculture specialist with the University of Wisconsin Extension, told the panel that worldwide, aquaculture is the fastest-growing segment of agriculture, growing at 8% annually. Johnson also worked on aquaculture for the state agriculture department and owned and operated a trout farm for 11 years. In Wisconsin, he estimated the industry's annual revenue at $5.7 million, according to his prepared testimony. State fish farms have "fallen far short in their ability as producers," he said. "The one outstanding roadblock preventing the Wisconsin aquaculture industry from expanding and increasing capacity is the complexity, inequality and overwhelming volume of regulations. "Aquaculture is agriculture, but is not treated as such in all state statutes." At Rushing Waters, owner Peter Fritsch said the legislation would ease the way for his business to receive a variance from the state because he would not be able to meet a tougher new standard for phosphorus discharge that comes off his farm without spending more than $1 million in pollution-control equipment. Trout are raised in 49-degree spring-fed water, which is discharged into a small creek, then flows into the Bark and Rock rivers. The watershed violates standards for phosphorus a source of algae blooms. The federal Clean Water Act requires businesses with water permits, from factories to fish farms, to meet stricter phosphorous limits in their discharges. Fritsch said that best management practices of the industry go a long way toward protecting the waterways from potential pollution from fish farms. "We're in a pickle," said Fritsch, who is also president of the Wisconsin Aquaculture Association Inc. "My entire livelihood depends on clean water." When news of the changes came, Trout Unlimited sent a message to members expressing its worries that the bill would harm trout habitat in the state. The bill could have "longstanding negative effects," the group said in an email to members. Meyer, a former DNR secretary, agreed regulations for the industry must be streamlined. But he said Tiffany's bill goes too far by allowing modifications of springs, altering public waterways and letting fish farm owners who operate dams cut off the flow of water to streams. Tiffany said his bill doesn't pose any harm to the environment. Opponents, he said, don't fully grasp the details. On Thursday, he met with the president of Trout Unlimited in Wisconsin to brief him. The group remains wary. "Trout Unlimited always listens ... but our position remains as previously stated," said Henry Koltz, president of the group. SHARE Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. By of the U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said Friday that he made an "honest mistake" when he erroneously called South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley an "immigrant" during a radio interview. "I just misspoke," Johnson said. During a Wednesday interview with WLS radio in Chicago, Johnson praised Haley's response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address. When asked by the program host if Haley might receive some angry tweets from presidential candidate Donald Trump, Johnson said, "Let's face it: No two people agree on everything. And Governor Haley is an immigrant. She has powerful stories of being an immigrant and experiencing discrimination herself. And so she's obviously gonna react different to somebody who's never experienced that. I tend to align myself more with Governor Haley's comments on the issue." Haley was born in South Carolina. Her parents are immigrants from India. Johnson's comments were first reported by BuzzFeed. Johnson was in Milwaukee on Friday to discuss health care during a meeting with members of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Assocation of Commerce. Johnson favors the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, in favor of a health care system that injects more "free-market discipline." "I'm not saying every word of Obamacare is awful," Johnson said. Johnson is running for re-election in a rematch race against former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold. The first time they faced each other in 2010, Johnson announced his candidacy about eight months before the general election. The current contest has already been underway for months. A November Marquette University Law School Poll of 803 registered voters showed Feingold with 49% support and Johnson with 38%. More than a third of voters surveyed were unable to rate Johnson on whether they held a favorable or unfavorable view of him. "Why does a pretty good chunk of Wisconsin not know enough about me to have an opinion? I view it as an opportunity but it's also easily explainable," Johnson said. He indicated voters have paid intense attention to other political figures, including Gov. Scott Walker, who won a recall election and then re-election to a second term, and House Speaker Paul Ryan, the Janesville congressman who was the GOP vice presidential candidate in 2012. Johnson said he has worked hard to get around the state to talk with constituents and explain his positions. "I've put myself out there," he said. "I've certainly honored the two promises I've made: always tell you the truth: never vote with my re-election in mind." Brooks says judge can't 'tell him what to do' on Day 13 of Christmas Parade trial Prosecutors have said they intend to rest their case Wednesday. It's unclear how long it might take Brooks to present his own defense. SHARE By The Madison School Board on Thursday expelled a 6th grader accused of bring a BB gun to a district middle school, despite a petition drive with more than 800 signatures arguing against the expulsion, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. The board's action, however, included the possibility of immediate reinstatement, and an attorney for the 12-year-old said the boy may only miss an additional day or two on to of a 15-day suspension already served. The attorney, speaking for the family, said evidence that the boy even had a BB gun at Cherokee Heights Middle School is scant and said the family may pursue an appeal to keep the expulsion off of his record. School administrators say the confessed after the fact to having brought a BB gun to school, though they acknowledge the boy didn't threaten anyone, police were not called and no one saw the boy in possession of a gun. SHARE One in a Billion A boy's life, a medical mystery: A three-part series about a little boy with a rare, devastating disease. In a desperate bid to save his life, Wisconsin doctors must decide: Is it time to push medicines frontier? Read the series By of the The federal government will sequence the genomes of 150,000 to 200,000 people over the next four years in a major assault on the genetic secrets behind complex common illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, strokes and autism. The announcement Thursday continues the rapid progress in genetics in the six years since the Medical College of Wisconsin and Children's Hospital of Wisconsin sequenced all of the genes of a Monona boy and used the results to craft a treatment of his illness, a disease entirely new to medicine. The landmark, lifesaving treatment of Nic Volker, made public at the end of 2010, spurred praise from the director of the National Institutes of Health and has been followed by major new genomics programs. In 2011, the national agency in charge of genomics announced $416 million would be spent on efforts to make the contents of our genetic scripts into a standard part of medical care. In 2013, the federal government announced a $145 million expansion of the Undiagnosed Diseases program. The genome is the term used to describe the 3.2 billion pairs of chemical bases that make up a person's genetic code, the blueprint we inherit from our parents. It was only in 2003 that a national scientific effort produced the first human genome, a feat that had taken seven years and $600 million. At a cost of $240 million, the new genome-sequencing effort on common diseases will take place at four national centers: Washington University in St. Louis, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Baylor College of Medicine and the New York Genome Center. At a cost of an additional $40 million, the federal government will also fund four centers for the study of rare Mendelian diseases at the Broad Institute, Yale University and two joint centers collaborations between University of Washington in Seattle and Baylor University, and Johns Hopkins University and Baylor again. There are more than 7,400 rare Mendelian diseases, often caused by a mutation in a single gene. So far scientists have found the genetic mutations responsible for a little more than half of those diseases, about 4,300. "We are at an extraordinarily exciting time," said Eric Green, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. Green praised the rapid development of the sequencing technology that makes it possible to read an entire genome in a little more than a day at a price approaching the once-mythical goal of $1,000. "We will cross that threshold," Green said, "and it will mean studies that were once unimaginable are now quite possible." Already, the federal sequencing effort has made significant progress in improving our understanding of diseases. Green's institute has sequenced the exomes of over 20,000 people. The exome is the portion of our genes that carries the recipes for making proteins, a frequent source of the problems that cause disease. The exome sequencing work led scientists to identify 1,600 genes that underlie a few hundred rare diseases. The disease that almost killed Nic Volker was a severe type of inflammatory bowel disease caused by a single mistake in the child's genetic script. Because scientists found the mistake they were able to make a diagnosis and treat Nic with a transplant of umbilical cord blood. Reddit Email 0 Shares By Saad Salloum | Baghdad| (Niqash.org) | In an interview, Raad Jabar al-Khamis, a representative of the Christian Sabean-Mandaean minority, talks about why all minorities in Iraq will leave the country over the next decade. Raad Jabar al-Khamis has held many senior political positions on behalf of Iraqs Sabean-Mandaean minority. The Sabean-Mandaeans are a tiny Christian minority in Iraq, characterised by ancient rituals that cross between Christianity and Islam. Despite the fact that this minority has been able to secure one of the quota seats, dedicated specially to the countrys minorities, in Iraqs Parliament, al-Khamis says that this is largely symbolic and that Mandaeans have no real political power thanks to power sharing deals between the countrys larger ethnic and sectarian groups. As it is, it probably doesnt matter anyway, he says. The way things are going all members of Iraqs minorities, and especially the Christian ones like his, will have left the country during the next decade. NIQASH: The Mandaeans are well known for running the minoritys affairs in a particularly democratic way. Can you tell us more about this? Raad Jabar al-Khamis: This is true. In fact, we have three different leadership organisations. These are the Mandaean Spiritual Council , the Mandaean General Assembly and the Community Affairs Council. All of these were originally formed in the 1980s and each one represents the different social groups within the minority. For example, the Spiritual Council is composed of clergy and headed by the Mandaeans spiritual leader, Satar Jabar Helo. Meanwhile the General Assembly represents members of all the different family groups or tribes and these representatives have been elected by their own families. This council is like the Mandaeans own Parliament, of sorts. And finally the Community Affairs Council is another kind of authority, with members coming from the General Assembly. This body manages the more general, custodial affairs of all Mandaeans Many religious and social leaders have already left Iraq. That makes every other Mandaean want to leave too. NIQASH: In terms of these democratic processes, how did you end up being elected the Mandaean representative on Baghdads provincial council? Al-Khamis: We hold other internal elections inside our community to select the candidates who will take up the special minority quota seats. I competed and won, which is how I got the job as Mandaean representative on Baghdads provincial council. NIQASH: It doesnt seem like the interests of the Mandaean minority are particularly well represented by any of Iraqs political parties. Have you thought about starting your own party? Al-Khamis: We havent done this as yet. Some Mandaeans have joined left wing parties, as have members of other Iraqi minorities. But we did start a committee composed of between nine and 15 members, whose job was to try and build bridges and to encourage cooperation with decision makers in other parties, as well as to represent the Mandaean people in any political forums. We believe this fills the political gap. NIQASH: Do these different groups work together at all? Al-Khamis: Theres a lot of coordination between the religious leaders and the political committee. The clergy try not to get involved in the details of daily political affairs. Still the religious leaders have an important role to play when it comes to any candidacies. While the final decisions should be made democratically by the Mandaean General Assembly, theres no doubt that if the clergy accept a candidate this is seen as an endorsement. NIQASH: The Mandaeans have had a quota seat one that is automatically given to a Mandaean politician in the Iraqi Parliament for several elections now. How do you feel about the minoritys participation in Iraqi politics? Al-Khamis: In reality our participation is symbolic. It has no significant political weight and there is no real or active participation in the political process. The Mandaeans are not represented in any of Iraqs federal ministries, we dont even have one general manager. The only high-ranking position we can get is as the general manager of the endowment for Christians, Yazidis and Mandaeans [the body taking financial care of the minorities religious buildings]. This is really disturbing because the Mandaeans are one of the oldest religious groups in Iraq. NIQASH: So what would the Mandaeans like to see happening? Al-Khamis: We would like to participate in the political process without marginalization or exclusion. However the power sharing deals between the major political groups in this country the Sunni Muslim parties, Shiite Muslim parties and the Iraqi Kurdish dont allow minorities to make any real progress or to participate. Personally I believe that giving Mandaeans responsibility for a service- provision ministry would give us an opportunity to serve our country. But I also think this is impossible at this stage. NIQASH: What do you think the future holds for Mandaeans in Iraq? Al-Khamis: In the past we were just worried that all Mandaeans would leave Iraq. But now we think that Iraq will actually lose all of its minority groups within the space of ten years and ten years is optimistic. Many Mandaeans have already left the country and this includes religious and social leaders. That makes every other Mandaean want to leave too. Immigration is no longer a matter of choice. It is an inevitable reality. Via Niqash.org Related video added by Juan Cole: VOA from last August: Minorities in Iraqs Kurdistan Push for Greater Political Voice Reddit Email 31 Shares Asma Afsaruddin | (Huffington Post) | On Sept. 29, 2015, President Obama addressed the United Nations summit on violent extremism. He stated that part of the international effort to stamp out terrorism must be a continued rejection by Muslims of those who distort Islam to preach intolerance and promote violence, and it must also be a rejection by non-Muslims of the ignorance that equates Islam with terror. The president expressed similar sentiments in a televised speech immediately after the tragic killings in San Bernardino, California on Dec. 2, 2015. The president was right on the mark. Despite the fact that Islam and Muslims often make the headlines in our major media outlets, there is still considerable ignorance about both. Islam is often presented in Western sources as a frozen, monolithic tradition that incites violence and that remains hopelessly at odds with modernity. There are also a number of Muslims today of a particular stripe often termed jihadist Salafist who similarly emphasize an unchanging essence within the Islamic tradition; more dangerously, they understand Islamic doctrine to require Muslims to resort to unending violence against non-Muslims. As a professor of Islamic studies, I very rarely come up against this latter mindset personally; the deleterious effect of such a worldview, particularly on vulnerable Muslim youth, was however brought home to me in a forceful way recently. A couple of years ago, I had an undergraduate student in my class War and Peace in the Islamic Tradition who stood out in a couple of respects. He was an American-born young man who had converted to Islam and had then proceeded to acquire an Islamic education in Saudi Arabia, where he was exposed to Wahhabi ideology. For most of the semester, this young man whom I will call Fulan became my sparring partner on most of the issues we discussed in class, especially concerning the meanings of jihad in different historical contexts. Jihad in its basic meaning signifies struggle or striving, which can be carried out in different ways. Unusually for an undergraduate, his acquired Arabic was very good, and he had used that linguistic training to study medieval Arabic texts in Saudi Arabia. Fulans favorite authority was a well-known Muslim scholar by the name of Ibn Kathir, who lived in the 14th century during a tumultuous period. Ibn Kathir wrote fiery tracts on the military jihad, which he urged the population in Syria to undertake against the Crusaders who were ravaging the Lebanese coast at the time. It was during this period that Ibn Kathir highlighted a verse from the Quran (9:5), which states, When the sacred months have passed, then slay the polytheists wherever you may encounter them. The verse was directed specifically at the Meccan polytheists who had attacked the Prophet Muhammad and his small community of Muslims in the seventh century. Seven centuries later, Ibn Kathir dubbed it the sword verse so as to create a general religious mandate to fight the new invaders of his time. Ibn Kathir had studied with a famous theologian, Ibn Taymiyyah, who belonged to the Hanbali school of law from which Wahhabism emerged in the Arabian peninsula in the 18th century. Ibn Taymiyyah had been traumatized in his youth by the attack of the Mongols on his native city of Harran in the 13th century, causing his family to flee from there and settle in Damascus. In some of his legal opinions, Ibn Taymiyyah forcefully called upon his fellow Muslims to fight the Mongols and rout them from Islamic lands as a religious obligation. Not surprisingly, Ibn Kathir and Ibn Taymiyyah are quite popular with ultraconservative revivalist Muslim groups today, and their writings exhorting Muslims to carry out military jihad, stripped from their historical context, are often cited by militant ideologues. Fulan was very enamored of these two theologians. He was convinced that other scholars who held diametrically opposed views on jihad were clearly wrong. Fulan would sometimes vociferously complain that I did not accord Ibn Kathir the prominence he deserved in my class. Other scholars emphasize spiritual and intellectual striving as important components of jihad. Instead, we read translated excerpts from the writings of many different scholars, some much earlier than Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Kathir, living in very different times. Many of these earlier scholars paid scant attention to Quran 9:5 and did not refer to it as the sword verse. In fact, a number of them had maintained that the verse only applied to the Meccan Arabs in the seventh century who had attacked Muhammad and his followers. The verse therefore allowed defensive fighting specifically for the first generation of Muslims against their hostile enemies who had persecuted them for their faith. Since it was their violent persecution that was the reason for going to war, the verse did not apply in a general way to non-Muslims who were peaceful. We also read texts by other scholars who emphasized spiritual and intellectual striving as important components of jihad. After all, jihad in its basic meaning signifies struggle or striving, which can be carried out in different ways. Unlike contemporary militants who sneer at the concept of spiritual jihad as an undesirable innovation not supported by early texts, scholars throughout Islamic history in fact have stressed the importance of the struggle of the soul (in Arabic: jihad al-nafs). This internal, spiritual struggle is the further development of the Quranic concept of patient forbearance, which manifests itself in non-violent resistance to wrongdoing and in the constant struggle to do good. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, a Hanbali jurist from the 14th century, whose name is often invoked by Wahhabi scholars, wrote a beautiful moving treatise describing the inner spiritual struggle as a continuous feature of jihad. Needless to say, this particular work is ignored by militants and apparently was not part of the texts that my student had been exposed to in Saudi Arabia. Fulan was very perturbed by these alternate views. How could other good Muslims not have the same views as Ibn Kathir and Ibn Taymiyyah? Wasnt there but one true orthodox conceptualization of jihad because there could be only one true interpretation of the Quran? For the last half of the semester, Fulan quietly mulled over the texts that challenged his deeply held convictions. Faced with the textual evidence, he could start to entertain the possibility that there were other views worthy of consideration. Perhaps the contexts for some of these varied interpretations were important after all. Interpretations of law, whether religious or secular, are always influenced by specific historical and cultural contexts. One could conclude that Ibn Kathir and Ibn Taymiyyahs views were as strident as they were because of the dangerous times they lived in. The Islamic world was under siege during their period by foreign aggressors who could only be effectively repelled by a military counterattack. These two scholars were not speaking for all Muslims everywhere for all time. Interpretations of law, whether religious or secular, are always influenced by specific historical and cultural contexts. To drive this point home, I asked my students to reflect on the mindset that has developed in America after Sept. 11, which is comparable to the one during the Mamluk period. In such crisis-ridden circumstances, ordinarily peace-loving people will clamor for military retaliation against a ruthless violent enemy that threatens to annihilate them. Towards the end of the semester, I held a debate in the class between two opposite camps one that espoused mainstream views of jihad as a principled response to prior aggression and the other that championed the scorched-earth version of never-ending militancy. Fulan was placed in the camp of mainstream scholars to my surprise, he entered his role with great enthusiasm, advocating forcefully for his side. The transformation in him was quite dramatic but perhaps not unpredictable. This young impressionable student had been exposed to an array of credible, reasoned views on a very fraught topic and developed an appreciation for the diversity of perspectives within the Islamic tradition. He had discovered to his chagrin that there was no monolithic Islam. I like to think that the next time Fulan is fed a line by militants about how jihad means violence directed against non-Muslims en masse or against Muslims who reject their views, he will stand up to them and challenge their dangerous fanaticism on good scholarly and moral grounds. To a considerable extent, the war with the so-called Islamic State and other terror groups today is one of ideas, especially when it comes to the recruitment of gullible youth into their ranks. The American classroom that fosters candid and dispassionate exchange of diverse perspectives on the thorniest of issues today can be a valuable ally in this battle of ideas. This was published in partnership with the Berggruen Philosophy and Culture Center. Asma Afsaruddin is Professor, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Indiana University Reprinted with authors permission from Huffington Post Related video added by Juan Cole: World Public Forum Dialogue of Civilizations: Asma Afsaruddin at Rhodes Forum 2013 Reddit Email 0 Shares By IMEMC | Four people, including three Americans, have filed a civil suit against the state of Israel, seeking compensatory damages for injuries suffered during an attack aboard a U.S. ship in international waters during the year 2010. At a Washington press conference, Tuesday, the plaintiffs said they wanted compensation for the harm and distress, injuries and losses caused by the attack. Israel has refused to acknowledge responsibility and liability for the attack and is yet to pay compensation to victims aboard the Challenger I, which was part of a Freedom Flotilla set to deliver humanitarian aid and medical supplies to the Gaza Strip, which was and still remains under an Israeli blockade. According to the complaint, the U.S. ship has never been returned by Israel and is still being held there. Israeli special forces stormed the ships and killed nine civilians aboard another ship in the flotilla, the Turkish Mavi Marmara. That event has since frozen relations between Israel and Turkey. That case was referred to the International Criminal Court by the Union of the Comoros because the Turkish vessel was sailing under its flag. The family of a 19-year old American-Turkish national, Furkan Dogan, who was killed in the Mavi Marmara raid, last October, sued former Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on war crimes charges. The latest lawsuit filed Monday is the first U.S. case brought against Israel relating to the Freedom Flotilla. The plaintiffs and their attorneys spoke to Anadolu Agency, following a press conference that announced the suit: States are generally immune from suit in United States courts. But that immunity is waived in a number of circumstances. When agents of foreign governments commit wrongful acts in the United States that cause personal injury, and egregious acts against U.S. nationals anywhere in the world, they are not entitled to immunity, said lawyer Steven Schneebaum. He noted that both exceptions apply to the facts of Challenger I case because a U.S. flagged ship falls under U.S. jurisdiction. The case is ground-breaking as it relies on an exception in American law that allows lawsuits to be brought against foreign states, in limited cases. According to professor Ralph Steinhardt, a member of the plaintiffs legal team, Israels sovereignty does not allow it to attack American flagged civilian ships and attack those on it. The attack on Challenger I was a patent violation of international law, including the laws of war, human rights, and the law of the sea, according to the George Washington University international law professor. A UK-based international lawyer representing the plaintiffs, Sir Geoffrey Nice, described the case against Israel as a real test for the rule of international law. This case, alongside the others, the one in the International Criminal Court and the one in California would have the following very clear political outcome: If Israel has enjoyed special privileged status of impunity because of protection by the United State of America, then that impunity is on the way out, he said. One of the plaintiffs, Huwaida Arraf, said she has been intimidated by Israeli and U.S. authorities on several occasions since she began to seek redress for her grievances. A dual U.S.-Israeli national and human rights activist, Arraf said that she was physically abused by Israeli soldiers who slammed her head against the deck of the ship, and stood on it, before they handcuffed and placed a hood over her head. In 2014, for example FBI came to my house while I was at work while my child and my parents were at home, she said, noting that there was no reason for FBI agents to go to her home. She believes her activism work was the reason behind the visit. She added that she has to endure hours of interrogation by airport officials whenever she travels to Israel. Another plaintiff, David Schermerhorn, said the group wants Israeli authorities to be held accountable for what they did. They should not get away with needless violence against unarmed civilians and with stealing humanitarian aid and our belongings, he said via conference call. Schermerhorn claims he was injured when a stun grenade thrown at him exploded one foot from his head, causing permanent partial vision loss in his right eye. Hakan Camuz of Stoke & White LLP based in London that represents the passengers on all ships in the flotilla told Anadolu Agency that he hopes the U.S. courts will uphold the case. He implied that it would be a political decision if the court failed to uphold the case. The plaintiffs, like all those on the flotilla, were trying to do the right thing by bringing to the worlds attention the cruelty of the blockade and its dire humanitarian consequences for the ordinary people of Gaza, he said. They wanted to bring the residents of Gaza food, medical supplies, the necessities to survive, but were stopped with unjustified, brutal force, for which we now seek a just remedy, he added. Via IMEMC Related video added by Juan Cole: AJ+ from last summer: [5 yrs. later] Israel Seizes Freedom Flotilla Boat Bound For Gaza Reddit Email 0 Shares By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | The GOP presidential debate last night veered even further right on international issues, given the absence of Ron Paul, who represents the Libertarian wing of the party that is less interested in foreign wars. Ted Cruz started off with a promise of war on Iran over the brief detention of 10 US sailors who drifted into Iranian waters: And I give you my word, if I am elected president, no service man or service woman will be forced to be on their knees, and any nation that captures our fighting men will feel the full force and fury of the United States of America. As Glenn Greenwald pointed out, the more Neoconservative US media were hoping to use the Iran incident to cast a pall on the nuclear deal and the end of sanctions, and gin up war fever in the US. Why an incursion of the US Navy into Iranian territorial waters and a brief detention after which the sailors and their ship were released should be an affront to the US as opposed to Iran is not clear. It is also not clear what the US Navy was actually doing in Iran. Cruz attacked Obama for not bringing the incident up in his State of the Union address, but that was because Obama and John Kerry had assurances from Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif that the sailors would be released shortly. They could get that assurance because Kerry and Zarif have a good working relationship coming off two and a half years of intensive diplomacy. That, Mr. Cruz, is how you resolve minor conflicts. Not with the full force and fury of your country, especially when it is in the wrong in international law. And what the full force and fury really means is that you intend to get US soldiers, sailors and Marines killed for no good reason. Then Maria Bartiromo threw this set of soft balls to Chris Christie: BARTIROMO: We know that recent global events have many people worried Iran detaining American sailors, forcing them to apologize; North Korea and its nuclear ambitions; an aggressive China; and a Middle East that continues to deteriorate, not to mention ISIS is getting stronger. As noted, the detention of American sailors was their own fault and they did commit a wrong so if they apologized that was only right (what do you think would happen if 10 Iranian sailors came up near the New York shore?). Chinas aggression seems mainly to be doing landfill in their territorial waters. China hasnt invaded anybody recently, whereas the US has thrashed about invading numerous countries, and droning the ones it didnt invade. Rather than strengthening, Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) has lost 40% of its territory; and it isnt clear what she means that the Middle East is deteriorating except that Israel is stealing a lot of Palestinian land in the Occupied West Bank and killing Palestinians when they resist. Christie responded that he would work with US allies. As far as I can tell, Sec. Kerry has done that very intensively. What alliances would Christie strengthen, exactly? Then Christie said, Its a its absolutely disgraceful that Secretary Kerry and others said in their response to whats going on in Iran that this was a good thing; it showed how the relationship was getting better. He associated himself with Cruzs saber-rattling and underscored that the GOP candidates saw the diplomatic resolution of the 16-hour detention of US sailors who came into Iranian territory to be a terrible waste of an opportunity for a war. JEB! took on President Obamas attempt to calm the public the eff down about Daesh: Think about it. With grandiose language, the president talks about red lines and nothing to follow it up; talks about ISIS being the JV team, they form a caliphate the size of Indiana with 35 (thousand) to 40,000 battle-tested terrorists. Hes missing the whole point, that Americas leadership in the world is required for peace and stability. Yes but actually Daesh doesnt have territory the size of Indiana. It is more like Oklahoma. And theyve lost a lot of it in the past year. And 35,000 fighters isnt very many. Iraq under Saddam Hussein had a million-man army, which the US handily defeated. We should have our hair on fire because of 35,000 juvenile delinquents in some dusty desert towns in countries where the government collapsed (JEB!s brother made one of those governments collapse, by the way). Then Donald Trump linked the Paris and Jakarta bombings to immigration. But those were done by locals. Trump used the San Bernardino shootings as a reason to stop immigration. But he didnt refer to the Planned Parenthood shooting from around the same time, done by a white guy whose family had been here for a bit. John Kasich then broke from the consensus that the US has to strengthen its alliances in the Middle East, by attacking Saudi Arabia. In terms of Saudi Arabia, look, my biggest problem with them is theyre funding radical clerics through their madrasses. That is a bad deal and an evil situation, and presidents have looked the other way. And I was going to tell you, whether Im president or not, we better make it clear to the Saudis that were going to support you, were in relation with you just like we were in the first Gulf War, but youve got to knock off the funding and teaching of radical clerics who are the very people who try to destroy us and will turn around and destroy them. Then Kasich quickly lost the Millennials by remembering that he used to be worried about the spread of something called communism in Central America back in the 1970s. Then Kasich quickly backed off everything he said about Saudi Arabia: You see what the Saudis deliver them a strong message but at the end of the day we have to keep our cool because most of the time theyre going right with us. And they must be part of our coalition to destroy ISIS and I believe we can get that done. So I guess the Saudis are our essential allies and generally good guys but just have this one bad habit about which we have to stage an intervention. Chris Christie said he wanted to overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Syria but also to rebuild the coalition against Daesh/ ISIS. Im puzzled. If you weaken Daesh, you strengthen al-Assad. If you weaken al-Assad, you strengthen Daesh. And, what about al-Qaeda, the third force in Syria. If you weaken the other two, doesnt it take over? JEB! pointed out to Donald Trump that the US has Muslim Gurkhas fighting for our empire against Daesh and we would lose them if we were mean to all Muslims. Kasich took the same line, recalling the Gulf War (Millennials scratching heads): It was a coalition made up of Arabs and Americans and westerners and were going to need it again. And if we try to put everybody in the same call everybody the same thing, we cant do it. And thats just not acceptable. Isnt it disturbing that the argument is so nakedly instrumental, and nothing to do with the Constitution or American values? Even Kasich was against letting in Syrian refugees. But the US has given T.O.W. anti-tank munitions to Salafi Syrian rebels through Saudi Arabia, prolonging and intensifying the war. Some of those weapons have gone to Daesh and al-Qaeda. So we should displace people through our covert intervention but then not help out the displaced? Then Trump argued for a trade war with China. Marco Rubio disagreed with him. Cruz wants to abolish the IRS but will balance the budget and expand the Pentagon. My eyes glazed over. Message seemed to be, white rich billionaires being unfairly taxed, regulated and facing competition from Asian businesses, which also isnt fair, and were not being allowed to sail into other peoples waters with impunity, and our Middle East and Asian allies are secretly screwing us over, and there are 35,000 armed fanatics in the desert, and nobody has sent in the US Army, and there are all these non-white people around here and while most violence may be done by white people but it just wont be allowed in the case of recent immigrants, and that has to be paused even though several of the candidates had an immigrant parent or grandparent. - Related video: Full 6th GOP Debate With Running Majority Report Commentary 1/14/16 Arla Foods has taken full control of UK business Westbury Dairies after joint venture partner First Milk decided to leave the partnership to focus on cheese and liquid milk. Westbury, based in Wiltshire in south-west England, produces skimmed milk powder and bulk butter, including Anchor butter for Arla, which acquired the freehold of the site in December 2013. The Westbury site is now an integral part of that global network of Arla production sites and will benefit from being so, further helping the UK to play an even more significant role in our global strategy, Peter Girtz-Carlsen, executive vice president of Arlas UK arm, said. For its part, First Milk said the decision to sell its stake in Westbury comes as a further step in its drive to re-shape itself around cheese and liquid milk after a challenging period for the co-operative. In November, the company sold Glenfield Dairy to fellow UK group Grahams The Family Dairy for an undisclosed sum. Westbury is billed by the companies as the UKs most modern skimmed milk powder and bulk butter production facility. As part of the agreement, First Milk will continue to have access to Westburyd powder drying capacity during peak milk production and at other predetermined times of the year. The financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. Westbury was set up by three UK co-ops, First Milk, Milk Link and Dairy Farmers of Britain in 2003. Dairy Farmers of Britain went out of business in 2009. Arla became a shareholder in Westbury in 2010. Two years later, Arla agreed a deal to merge its UK operations with Milk Link. The Westbury facility started producing Anchor butter for Arla in the autumn of 2012. 12/23/2015 // Hartford, CT, USA // cttriallawyers // Neil Ferstand // (press release) FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 18, 2015: Hartford, CT The Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association (CTLA) and Civil Justice Foundation (CJF) are proud to support the 2015 Hartford Gun Buyback Program. As in 2013, CTLA worked in conjunction with Law Enforcement, Community Agencies, the States Attorney, Hospitals and the physicians of the Connecticut Childrens Medical Center in helping to make our communities safer. Participating at the press conference to announce the 2015 program, CTLA Past-President Michael J. Walsh commented on CTLAs opportunity to participate in this collaboration; The Hartford police, despite all their good work, cannot do this alone. Those of us who work in Hartford, and live in the suburbs, we just cant drive into Hartford on Monday mornings, and drive out on Friday afternoons, and act like we have no responsibility for the City that supports us. We need to be active participants in helping to solve the Citys problems. We hope this will be one small step forward in a continued effort to make Hartford the strong and safe City that we all know it to be. For further information, please contact Neil Ferstand, Executive Director [email protected] Media Information: Address: 150 Trumbull Street, 2nd Floor Hartford, CT 06103 Phone: 860 522-4345 Url: http://ctlablog.org/connecticut-trial-lawyers-association-and-the-civil-justice-foundation_13795.html It's only fair to share... Pinterest Linkedin email Print 01/10/2016 // Dallas, Texas, United States // Attorney Keith Clouse // Keith Clouse // (press release) Dallas employer lawyer Keith Clouse notes that the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently issued a statement and provided information regarding workplace protections for individuals who are, or who are perceived to be, Muslim or Middle Eastern. In light of recent attacks both in America and elsewhere, the EEOC reiterates that discrimination in the workplace based on religion, national origin, or race is strictly prohibited by law. The EEOC created its guidance in an easy-to-read question and answer format, using scenarios an employer might face. For example, may a retail employer refuse to hire a female Muslim woman who wears a hijab (head covering) because it might bother customers? No, doing so would be the same as refusing to hire the woman because she is Muslim. Or, how should a manager respond when an Arab-American employee complains that a coworker regularly calls him names, such as the local terrorist or ISIS? The manager must take steps to correct the coworkers behavior and to ensure that such harassment stops. To speak to an employment law attorney about workplace discrimination, send an email to [email protected] or call (214) 239-2705. This article is presented by the Dallas employment law lawyers at Clouse Dunn LLP. Media Information: Address: 1201 Elm Street Suite 5200 Dallas, Texas 75270 2142 Phone: 214.220.2722 Url: http://dallasemploymentlawyer.cdklawyers.com/eeoc-provides-information-regarding-workplace-protections-for-muslims_13799.html It's only fair to share... Pinterest Linkedin email Print 01/03/2016 // Dallas, Texas, United States // Attorney Keith Clouse // Keith Clouse // (press release) Dallas non-compete lawyer Keith Clouse notes that an employer that takes these steps may increase its ability to enforce a non-compete agreement. 1. Choose the right covenant. An employer may restrict an employees right to solicit employees, compete, or solicit customers. Select the least restrictive covenant that will protect the employers interests. 2. Choose the right employees. Be selective and enter into agreements only with those employees who have the capacity to damage the company in a measureable way. 3. Know the law in the applicable jurisdiction. Non-compete law varies widely from state to state. Pick the right states law to apply to the agreement and make sure the non-compete agreement complies with any required elements. 4. Provide appropriate consideration. State laws governing consideration vary. Provide adequate consideration so that a court may enforce the agreement. 5. Enforce all non-compete agreements. If a company has sufficiently narrowed the number of employees bound by these agreements, the company should be able to pursue any breach of a non-compete agreement. Doing so shows that the company has valid business interests worthy of protection and sends a strong message to other employees. To speak to an employment law attorney about non-compete agreements, send an email to [email protected] or call (214) 239-2705. This article is presented by the Dallas employment law lawyers at Clouse Dunn LLP. Media Information: Address: 1201 Elm Street Suite 5200 Dallas, Texas 75270 2142 Phone: 214.220.2722 Url: http://dallasemploymentlawyer.cdklawyers.com/key-considerations-regarding-non-compete-agreements_13797.html It's only fair to share... Pinterest Linkedin email Print 01/15/2016 // Hartford, CT, USA // cttriallawyers // Neil Ferstand // (press release) Originally published: The Indiana Lawyer, Dave Stafford, Jan 13, 2016 Nearly 300 people have accused a prolific Munster heart doctor of malpractice for implanting pacemakers or defibrillators they didnt need and routinely scheduling unnecessary procedures, among other allegations. The sweeping claims against Dr. Arvind Gandhi and other practitioners at Cardiology Associates of Northwest Indiana could take years to unwind, and they may change the calculus that sets surcharges physicians pay to the Indiana Patients Compensation Fund. That fund covers malpractice claims beyond practitioners insurance limit of $250,000, up to the statutory cap of $1.25 million. The first verdict came Dec. 8, when a Lake Superior Court jury ruled against Gandhi, awarding Shannon Greer $450,000. Her late husband, Ken Greer, died after the doctor treated him for an infected pacemaker. Two more malpractice cases have cleared medical review panels, each with findings of malpractice, and those cases are scheduled for trial early next year. Another roughly 170 cases naming Gandhi, and in some cases his associates, have been submitted to medical review panels. Many cases also name Community Hospital of Munster as a defendant. We believe we have ample evidence to show Community Hospital was acting in concert with the doctors, and that the hospital was putting profits ahead of patient safety by allowing doctors to do things they were not qualified to do, said attorney Barry Rooth of the Merrillville firm Theodoros & Rooth P.C. His firm, Cohen & Malad P.C. in Indianapolis, and the Law Office of Paul Rossi LLC in Lowell represent plaintiffs, who lawyers say now number more than 290. Lawyers for Gandhi, who retired last year, and the hospital deny the malpractice allegations or that Community improperly permitted doctors to perform procedures. Attorneys at Eichhorn & Eichhorn LLP in Hammond represent Gandhis insurer and declined to comment on the Greer verdict or whether it would be appealed. Community strongly denies the allegation that the hospital was aware of unnecessary procedures performed by Dr. Gandhi or that he lacked credentials to perform cardiac procedures, said Marie Forszt, director of marketing and community relations for the hospital. Dr. Gandhi, a board-certified interventional cardiologist, met the credentialing requirements established by the hospital through its medical staff for the various procedures performed. Gandhi has been under investigation since at least 2008, when a former nurse and doctor at Community filed a whistleblower suit alleging unnecessary implants of pacemakers and defibrillators, violations of the False Claims Act, and Medicare fraud. Community said the federal investigation concluded with a settlement and no findings against the hospital. Rooth, though, said plaintiffs medical records show doctors in the practice routinely performed unneeded procedures, sometimes scheduling patients for invasive procedures such as angiograms every six months. In one case, he said a patient was given 21 scheduled angiograms over a period of years. There is no such thing as a routine angiogram, Rooth said. Because of the nature of the cases, he said many contain 15 or more instances of alleged malpractice. Kirk Pinkerton, an attorney with Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP in Schererville, represents Gandhi. His position consistently has been whatever procedures he performed were medically necessary and justified and with a view to improving the patients health and quality of life, Pinkerton said. In the cases weve reviewed, the medical necessity for the procedure was warranted, and I think its a lot of people trying to get on the bandwagon who think they can get some easy money, which its not going to be, he said. But Cohen & Malad attorney David Cutshaw said the records show it was Gandhi who appeared to be putting money first. Going through all these records just makes you angry hes doing this to people, Cutshaw said. The cost of some unnecessarily implanted devices compares with the price of new cars, he said, and patients were wrongly exposed to risk, pain and injury from procedures doctors ordered without cause or against professional guidelines. The expense, the inconvenience, and having a device in your body you dont need, obviously thats a reminder every day, he said. There are all kinds of conditions were seeing and looking at as were going through these cases. He noted theres developing evidence to show cardiac rhythm therapy devices implanted unnecessarily may worsen heart conditions or cause heart failure. Cutshaw said a doctor who reviewed 12 defibrillators implanted by Gandhi found seven of the procedures were unnecessary. The doctors up there reported him through proper channels to the hospital, and nothing happened, he said. Forszt disputes that. The plaintiff attorneys continue to allege that the hospital somehow knew that Dr. Gandhi performed medically unnecessary procedures and allowed him to do so. This is simply not true. The cases, dating as far back as to 2004, are unique, she said, and each will require independent medical review. She also noted that in the two pending cases in which medical review boards found malpractice, the panels found the hospital did not breach the standard of care. Cutshaw said attorneys reported their discovery findings regarding Gandhis practice to the Indiana Attorney Generals Office, which he said referred the matter to Medicaid fraud investigators. Spokesman Bryan Corbin said the AGs office could not confirm whether providers are under investigation, but there currently are no Medicaid fraud cases involving Gandhi. The plaintiff firms in these cases previously represented patients of another Lake County doctor who was accused of hundreds of acts of malpractice, former nose doctor Mark Weinberger. Following a federal sentence on 22 counts of health care fraud, Weinberger is living in Florida on supervised probation. Attorneys won a $55 million settlement against Weinbergers insurers on behalf of 282 malpractice clients. Tina Korty, general counsel for the Indiana Department of Insurance, said its too soon to forecast the Patients Compensation Funds eventual liability due to Gandhi-related cases. But an expected result is higher future surcharges on health care professionals. Korty said as a result of past multiple claims the PCF paid on behalf of single providers or entities, actuaries contracted by the state are adding multiple-claim events as a factor used to set rates various practitioners pay. In addition to potential claims from Gandhi, the fund has dealt with claims resulting from Weinbergers cases, and in the 1990s, those linked to Orville Lynn Majors. The former Vermillion County Hospital nurse was convicted of murdering six patients under his care and is serving a 360-year sentence in Indiana State Prison. It seems the potential is there for these to continue to pop up with the Patients Compensation Fund, Korty said of multiple-claim events. While the PCF has yet to pay any claims connected with the Gandhi cases, it will pay $200,000 of the Greer judgment if that verdict is finalized. Were probably a couple of years from getting a real idea what the medical review panels think about these cases, Korty said. Its so early, a lot of the details are just not there yet. She noted it typically takes about five to seven years for a medical malpractice judgment to be rendered from the time a notice of complaint is filed Media Information: Address: 150 Trumbull Street, 2nd Floor Hartford, CT 06103 Phone: 860 522-4345 Url: http://ctlablog.org/munster-cardiologists-practice-faces-some-300-medical-malpractice-complaints_13801.html It's only fair to share... Pinterest Linkedin email Print The Tennessee Fish and Wildlife Commission will hold its first meeting of 2016 Jan. 21-22 (Thursday-Friday) in the Delta Room of the Big Cypress Lodge located at the Bass Pro Shops in Memphis. Committee meetings will be held on Jan. 21 starting at 1 p.m. while the formal commission meeting will begin at 9 a.m. on Jan. 22 Among the items on this months agenda, will be a report from Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency Wildlife and Forestry Division Chief Mark Gudlin on the preliminary harvests of bear, deer and sandhill crane hunting seasons. In addition, he will also give a brief update on the recent cougar sightings in the state. A rule concerning the required permits to hunt and fish on Reelfoot Lake/Wildlife Management Area will be presented to the TFWC. The TWRA held a public meeting in December at Reelfoot Lake State Park and the Agency is making the recommendation to the TFWC that no changes be made to the current permits. The TWRA will report to the commission that the Agency has begun a process of amending the endangered or threatened species proclamation. The TWRA plans to bring the revision to the TFWC for approval in June or July 2016, depending on the commissions meeting dates. The Boat and Law Enforcement Division will present the 2015 Tennessee Shikar Safari Wildlife Officer of the Year. A representative from Shikar Safari will be at the Friday portion of the meeting to make the presentation. The TFWC will be meeting for the first time at this years location which opened in 2015. The commission is returning to Memphis for the first time since its January 2014 meeting. The Big Cypress Lodge is located at 1 Bass Pro Drive. The public is invited to attend the meeting. ---TWRA--- The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency has announced that it has created its page on its website with information on cougars for the public. Recent cougar sightings have been confirmed at four locations in Tennessee and the TWRA is taking a proactive stance in making information available. The cougar has not been seen in Tennessee since the early 20th century until recently. Cougars primarily inhabit the western region of the United States and extend to the east as far as the western edge of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and close to the eastern borders of Colorado and Texas. The information can be viewed on the TWRA website (www.tnwildlife.org0 and click on the Cougars in Tennessee icon located on the top of the front page. Presentation of the National Flag and 1916 Proclamation by Army Personnel to Cathaoirleach of Kilkenny County Council, Cllr. Mary Hilda Cavanagh and Chairman of the 2016 Commemoration Committee, Cllr. Joe Malone, on 1st January, 2016, at County Hall, John Street, Kilkenny, to mark the commencement of the Year of Celebrations: Ireland 2016. L to R.: Lt. Shane Flood, Cllr. Mary Hilda Cavanagh, Cathaoirleach, Cllr. Joe Malone and Sgt. Kieran Kennedy. In her address, Cathaoirleach Mary Hilda Cavanagh said In the coming 12 months, here in County Kilkenny and, indeed, all over Ireland, community events will take place that represent the outcome of many hundreds of hours of reflection, consultation and discussion involving thousands of people all over the country. During these consultations, the most consistently expressed wish is that 2016 should be a year that belongs to everyone. The people of Ireland expressed the clear desire that whatever ones political affiliation or interpretation of historical events, 1916 should be regarded as the property of no one but the inheritance of Irish people everywhere. Equally remarkable is the widely articulated desire that 2016 should be about looking to the future more than looking back, and that the primary purpose of looking back should be to rediscover the ideals and consider the context of the actions of the revolutionary generation in the present, as a guide for our future. In the consultations people of all ages and backgrounds expressed a wish to rekindle the idealism that in 1916 found expression in the desire to be independent, to be the authors and carriers of our cultural heritage, and to be equal among ourselves and among the nations of the world in short: to create a country worthy of the title Republic, 2 she concluded. Tanaiste and Leader of the Labour Party, Joan Burton TD, is proposing to host a major Global Arts Forum for Ireland and believes work on it should get underway by the summer. Modelled on the Global Irish Economic Forum, this international event would focus on highlighting Irelands arts and culture. Subsequent events could then take place in other major cities globally where there is a strong Irish cultural link. Speaking from Cartoon Saloon, the successful animation company based in the centre of KKilkenny city, the Tanaiste said: We have put a huge amount of effort into highlighting Irelands excellence as a business location and this has paid off in spades. This weeks figures from the IDA show the agencys most successful year in decades with more than 187,000 people now employed in multi-national companies here. Given our wealth of talent and creativity, I believe we need to put the same effort into highlighting our work in the fields of arts, culture and design. We have world class artists, musicians, writers and designers, such as the creative team here at Cartoon Saloon, and a Global Arts Forum for Ireland would be an opportunity to both highlight this and to map a strong and healthy future for arts and culture at home and abroad. I also believe that such a Forum could then be taken to cities across the globe with strong links to Ireland to bring the message to a wider audience. This will lead to new opportunities, job creation and an exchange of ideas. The Tanaiste is on a visit to Kilkenny with Minister of State and Labour candidate in the Carlow Kilkenny constituency Ann Phelan. They visited Oscar-nominated animation company Cartoon Saloon. The animation sector is estimated to be worth some half a billion euros to the Irish economy. The Tanaiste also outlined Labour plans to get more children involved in the arts, through Cul Camps in publicly-funded arts centres. The GAA has had great success with its Cul Camp training programmes for children of all ages. Lets do something similar for the arts using the infrastructure of publicly-funded arts centres, said Minister Burton. While many of our arts centres provide services to young people, with the help of the Arts Council we could build on this by encouraging more arts centres to get involved and transform this into a national programme, she said. I would like Labour to take a lead in working with the Arts Council on setting up and financing this proposal. The Tanaiste and Minister Phelan are also attending a Womens Networking Lunch and visiting St Kierans College today. The school recently provided a site to the Department of Education for two new non-denominational schools for the Kilkenny city. Gardai are investigating the circumstances under which a large number of sandbags used as a defence barrier against floods, were thrown into the River Barrow at the Quay in Graignamanagh. The incident occurred on Sunday afternoon and a woman passing by called the gardai who are following a definite line of enquiry. There was a huge reaction on line and Facebook was full of critical comments about the actions of the young men. And the town had the added heartbreak of a burst water mains for three days last week which meant people in Graignamanagh had no running water and it compounded the sense of misery among townspeople. The water system was unable to cope with the pressure it came under following the floods. And it would appear that the method of dealing with such breakages has changed with a new complex system in place where Irish Water have to be contacted before anything can happen. And the Bolger family, Barrow Lane will not see the inside of their house for at least six to seven weeks following the flooding of the street, just off the Quay in Graignamanagh. Jack Bolger is 78 years of age and has been unable to get insurance for his lovely home which has been destroyed. As of yet, he has no idea what he will receive from the Government and doesn't know what to do until such time as he has a commitment from them. A NEW commemorative sign has been put in place at the entrance to the Deerpark Colliery, which flourished in north Kilkenny from 1924 to 1969. A NEW commemorative sign has been put in place at the entrance to the Deerpark Colliery, which flourished in north Kilkenny from 1924 to 1969. In addition to the mining museum at the Castlecomer Discovery Park, the sign is intended to honour the memory of all men and boys who spent most of their short lives hundreds of feet below the ground. Aptly called as the name originally came from a herd of deer introduced by the Wandesforde family, the Deerpark Colliery mine was originally sunk in 1924 and was the showcase of the Irish coalmining industry. Sophisticated hauling gear, giant washeries and screening systems gave access to extensive areas of untouched coal. In fact, the Skehana anthracite coal seam, which lay 700 feet below the surface, was extracted through 11 miles of underground roadways. The buildings inside the gate of the site entrance are the bathhouse, built in 1939, and various other buildings including bike sheds, offices, an ambulance shed, a forge and sawmill for making and repairing the tools that the miners used. A strong room housed the explosive material that was used underground. There was also an area for livestock, which included horses, ponies and donkeys. The daily output averaged 400 tons of coal, with 600 men and boys employed. Thirteen boys and men lost their lives during the course of their mining duties at this colliery. In 1969 the mine was closed as it became uneconomical to run. The story of coal and coalmining is explored in more detail in the Footprints in Coal exhibition that is open daily at Castlecomer Discovery Park. This sign has been erected by permission of John and Sylvia Ward with financial support from the Green Mines Interreg Project. For more information about the Castlecomer Discovery Park, contact 056 4440707 or see www.discoverypark.ie. Last week, Minister of the Environment Phil Hogan and . Liam Herlihy, chairman of Glanbia, took time out from their busy schedules to visit Kilkenny Archives at St. Kierans College. The purpose of their visit was to view the newly installed archival shelving, which Glanbia PLC., have donated. Last week, Minister of the Environment Phil Hogan and . Liam Herlihy, chairman of Glanbia, took time out from their busy schedules to visit Kilkenny Archives at St. Kierans College. The purpose of their visit was to view the newly installed archival shelving, which Glanbia PLC., have donated. Mgr. Kieron Kennedy was on hand to welcome the distinguished visitors to the St. Kierans College campus, as were Mr. Brendan Conway (chairman) , Mr. Peter Seaver (Hon. Treasurer) and Mr. John Kirwan the consultant archivist. The Rev. Dr. Fergus Farrell (committee member) was also present. Mr. Brenan Conway chairman of Kilkenny Archives invited Minister Hogan and Mr. Herlihy to view the refurbished and extended archives storage area. He referred to the day as a bench mark dayin the progress of archives in Kilkenny. Grant from Kilkenny Borough Council for Kilkenny Archives Minister Hogan brought the good news that the Kilkenny City Borough Council, aware of the valuable work being done for archives in Kilkenny (city and county) by Kilkenny Archives, have agreed to grant-aid the work this year and in 2014. New archival shelving paid for by Glanbia PLC The new archival shelving was installed in early March in two of the six rooms which Mgr. Kieron Kennedy and the Trustees of St. Kierans College have placed at the disposal of Kilkenny Archives. They believe that Kilkenny Archives will have a pivotal educational role on the College campus (and for Kilkenny as a whole) in the years ahead, alongside the Outreach of the National University of Maynooth, and the Waterford Institute of Technology. The Maynooth Outreach at St. Kierans College will this year accept First Arts Students. Glanbia archives Mr. Herlihy was delighted to see Glanbias own archives, representing a number of the old co-operative creameries, which are now part of this ever expanding dynamic Irish company. Minute Books and other records are in situ from : Ballingarry, Ballyhale, Ballypatrick, Ballyragget (later Avonmore), Bennetsbridge, Callan, Castlecomer, Castlehale, Donaghmore, Dungarvan, Freshford, Barrowvale (Goresbridge), Glenmore, Graigcullen, IDA, Kells, Kilkenny (city), Kilmanagh, Leinster Milk, Loughcullen, Miloko, Moyglass (Killenaule), Muckalee, Mullinavat, Piltown, Slieverue, Shelburne and Windgap. There are also records from non-dairy companies such as Letterkenny Timber Co. Ltd., and The Bacon Co., of Ireland. All these records have been fully accessioned and are currently available for consultation. Inch Creamery Awaiting to be catalogued are the records from Inch Creamery, Co. Wexford, which only arrived at Kilkenny Archives last week. These include Minute Books, milk records and a number of framed illustrations including a portrait of Francois Mitterand, President of France, partaking of a YOPLAIT yogurt. Inch Creamery. Inch was an early creamery. Around the beginning of the 1890s the first of the Irish creameries were established. By 1893 there were at least thirty in the country. In 1895 the farmers around Inch came together and set up their creamery with a foundation date of 29 March 1895. The clergy often paid a key role and Inch is no exception with the then Archbishop of Dublin advancing a loan of 100.00 provided a creamery along the lines of those advocated by Sir Horace Plunket who is perceived as the founder of the Irish creamery movement. To put the archbishops loan into perspective the site of the new creamery was purchased for 10.00 plus ten 1 shares in Inch Cramery. By 1900 there were over 800 co-operatives in the country of which 350 were creameries. Barrowvale Creamery One of the oldest illustrative items in the Glanbia Collection is a view of the old Barrowvale Creamery at Goresbridge which buildings have been subsumed into later developments on the site which is just of the Main St., at Goresbridge, very near the bridge from which Goresbridge derives its name : the really old name for the area as opposed to the site at the bridge was Grange Silvae. The surname Gore commemorates a family of that name which built the nearby Barrowmount House in the very early years of the eighteenth century, which for many years in the last century was owned by Jack Donohoe formerly of Lower Grange and Ballellen, whose family would have supplied milk to Barrowvale. Jack Donohoe and his wife Lulu are best remembered to-day for their ownership in the 1960s of the famous mare, Height O Fashion. Other archival collections Kilkenny Archives is also home to the following collections: The Prior-Wandesforde Family Papers ; The Barton of Ballyline (Callan) Papers ; The Paper of the Estate Office of Kilkenny (A.G. Davis) ; Kilkenny Castle Papers ; Gowran Castle Papers; Kavanagh Estate Papers, Ballyragget ; The Maidenhall-Lavistown Papers; The Briggs-Swifte Papers; The Wheeler-Cuffe Papers of Lyrath and The Papers of The Praesidium of Our Lady Queen of Charity (Legion of Mary). Kilkenny Archives website is: www.kilkennyarchives.com. Their direct land line number 056-7753622. Arising from this extended facility Kilkenny Archives are in a position to accept further donations. Lending to small and medium sized businesses is extremely strong with a 92% approval rate in Kilkenny last year. Lending to small and medium sized businesses is extremely strong with a 92% approval rate in Kilkenny last year. In 2013 Allied Irish Banks issued 35 million in loans, which were sanctioned and drawn down by customers in the city and county. Chief Executive of AIB, David Duffy was in the city to address the Kilkenny Chamber Spring Luncheon which took place in the Rivercourt Hotel last Thursday. Mr Duffy said he was very aware of he plight of distressed homeowners and outlined how the bank has several options available to their customers. The most important thing is to get people who are in difficulty to engage with the bank. There are a wide range of options including where customers can volunteer their homes to the bank or the bank can offer a split mortgage. A split mortgage may involve a period of no interest upfront or part of the mortgage may be written off to bring the remainder down to manageable levels, he said. He also pointed out that 80% of customers are still meeting their mortgage repayments but added that he was aware of the despair of some customers. We look at each situation and try our best to negotiate and find a solution, he said adding that the bank was not interested in taking legal action against its customers if at all possible. It is about restructuring and getting people back to a healthy financial situation where they can put money back into the economy. It is about getting people to functioning efficiently, he said. He also said that Kilkenny has a strong agricultural market and that many of the banks agri customers are gearing up for 2015 and when the quotas come in adding that 32% of the banks business profitability is from the agri sector. Even after the sharp sell-off that kicked off the new year, the stock market isnt bargain-priced. The good news: Stocks are cheaper than they were on New Years Evemaking this a good time to beef up your investments in solid companies like the ones I recommend below. These seven picks, in my view, will beat the marketwhether the sell-off accelerates or ends today. I have a lot of confidence in my fund picks. But when Im hunting for stocks, I often turn to Morningstar. Morningstar is far better known for its fund coverage, but it employs more than 100 stock analysts. More important: The track record of Morningstars stock picks is superb. Over the past 10 years, the recommendations of Morningstar Stock Investor, which draws on the work of the firms analysts, returned an annualized 9.6%an average of 2.3 percentage points per year better than Standard & Poors 500-stock index. (The figures are through December 31, the last date for which returns for the newsletter are available.) Whats more, the clearly written newsletter, which costs $125 a year, doesnt have a huge audience. Unlike what happens when a big brokerage makes a call, the price of a stock rarely pops or drops dramatically when Morningstar makes a buy or sell recommendation. Subscribe to Kiplingers Personal Finance Be a smarter, better informed investor. Save up to 74% Sign up for Kiplingers Free E-Newsletters Profit and prosper with the best of Kiplingers expert advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and more - straight to your e-mail. Profit and prosper with the best of Kiplingers expert advice - straight to your e-mail. Sign up Editor Matt Coffina, like most market analysts, sees stocks as close to fully valued. But below are his best picks for 2016. Returns, prices and related data are as of January 14. Berkshire Hathaway Class B (symbol BRK.B (opens in new tab) $128.07). Warren Buffett, who painstakingly assembled this sprawling conglomerate, with annual sales of about $212 billion, over the past half-century, is 85 years old and irreplaceable. But hes done as much as any CEO could to prepare the firm for his successors, including delegating most of the stock picking to two much younger men. Berkshire lost 15% over the past year, setting up an attractive buying opportunity. The stock trades at 1.2 times book value (assets minus liabilities). In Buffetts view, Berkshire is undervalued when it trades at 1.2 times book value, and he will buy back shares when its valuation falls to that level or below. That effectively sets a floor under the stocks price unless, of course, book value falls. Cooper Companies (COO (opens in new tab) $124.04) is the third largest manufacturer of contact lenses in a business that four global companies dominate. It stands to benefit from the growing number of people in emerging markets who are getting contacts and the shift in developed nations to more expensive lenses that are disposed of daily. Coffina says Cooper should generate double-digit-percentage annual earnings growth over the next five years. The stock trades at 16 times estimated 2016 earnings, a bit more than the price-earnings ratio of Standard & Poors 500-stock index. Another defensive pick is Express Scripts Holding (ESRX (opens in new tab) $77.51), the largest U.S. pharmacy benefit manager, with more than 1.3 billion claims processed in 2014. It contracts with major insurance companies and employers to provide prescription medications. Its size in this fast-growing industry gives it unrivaled power to negotiate prices with drug companies. Its growing mail-order business, which supplies prescription drugs directly to consumers, boasts especially healthy profit margins. The stock, at 13 times estimated 2016 earnings, looks like a good deal. Looking for a bargain in the battered oil patch? Magellan Midstream Partners LP (MMP (opens in new tab) $66.19) could be your ticket. Many oil-and-gas master limited partnerships took on too much debt and pledged to pay high payouts to investors, who took a beating for those excesses last year, when energy prices cratered and the biggest MLP, Kinder Morgan (KMI (opens in new tab) $13.98), slashed its dividend by 75%. Magellan sank with other MLPs, losing 8% over the past 12 months (the figure includes Magellans payouts). But Magellan is in glowing financial health compared with most of its competitors, Coffina says, and it should be able to generate high-single-digit percentage annual profit growth over the next five years. Moreover, Magellan is somewhat insulated from drops in energy prices. About 85% of its revenue comes from charging fees for the transportation and storage of oil and gas in the central and eastern U.S. The MLP yields 4.6%, and Magellans distribution looks secure. One negative: As with all MLPs, the payouts youll collect from Magellan can complicate tax preparation. Health care stocks in the S&P 500 gained 7% last year, handily beating the S&P 500s 1.4% return. Health care continues to be my favorite sector. Unlike some big drug makers, Switzerland-based Novartis (NVS (opens in new tab) $82.70) has remained innovative, and most of its patent losses are behind it. It has a large a pipeline of potentially important drugs in development, including treatments for heart failure and cancer. Novartiss American depositary receipts trades at 16 times forecasted 2016 profits, a bargain if even only a couple of those development-stage chemicals become blockbuster drugs. [page break] Online travel agency Priceline Group (PCLN (opens in new tab) $1,121.38) makes just 12% of its bookings in the U.S. But its a huge player overseas, thanks partly to its 2005 acquisition of Booking.com. In the U.S., chains are increasingly driving business to their own Web sites. In Europe, where Priceline gets 55% of its bookings, chain hotels arent nearly as big as they are in the U.S. Independent boutique hotels are less likely to cut their ties with Priceline, which typically takes a 15% cut of revenue for online bookings. Priceline has been hurt by the strong dollar. It trades at a reasonable 16 times 2016 earnings estimates. Ventas (VTR (opens in new tab) $54.64) is a real estate investment trust that owns 1,600 senior-living communities, assisted-living and skilled-nursing facilities, and other medical buildings in the U.S. and Canada. It rents out most of its facilities, but derives about one-third of its revenues from facilities it operates itself. Most of the occupants of all of these facilities are relatively affluent patients with private insurance, meaning Ventas has little exposure to the vagaries of Medicare and Medicaid funding. Coffina says that the high quality of the REITs properties will also protect Ventas from overbuilding in senior housing. The stock yields 5.3%, and Ventas has boosted its dividend at an annual rate of 6.4% over the past five years. See my Other Picks: The 7 Best Bond Funds for 2016 and: The 7 Best ETFs for 2016 Steve Goldberg is an investment adviser (opens in new tab) in the Washington, D.C., area. He, one or more clients, or both own all these stocks except for Cooper and Ventas. News regarding Chicago's housing market can be a mixed bag at times. While the median price of Chicago homes grew at a rate below the national average in 2015, that's not to say that all aspects of the market are unhealthy. A good case in point would be Chicago's new home construction which has grown steadily over the past several years. At the start of 2012, 809 newly built homes were listed for sale in the city. By June of 2015 that number had grown to 2,294 listings and continues to trend upwards. Keeping tabs on this data is NewConstruction-Chicago.com, a site that recently launched a cool interactive map. Created by compiling closing data from the Multiple Listing Service in 2015, the map shows the highest concentration of sold newly-constructed homes on the city's North Side. The neighborhoods just north and northwest of downtown such as Lincoln Park, Lakeview, Bucktown, Wicker Park, and Ukrainian Village are seeing tremendous growth when it comes to building new homes. The high-end segment did especially well with 180 new Chicago homes selling for more than $1,000,000 in 2015. While new construction is typically positive for most neighborhoods, it can also have the consequence of reducing housing stock and population as multi-unit buildings and even multiple adjacent lots are often swallowed up and replaced by single family homes -- as seen most notably in Lincoln Park. As a result, neighborhoods like Logan Square and Avondale are seeing notable progress in the sub-$1,000,000 segment as upper-middle class residents are looking further northwest to build after finding less value in some of the more tony northside neighborhoods. Compared to their neighbors to the north, downtown and the areas south and southwest of the Loop showed relatively little new home activity in 2015. With new condo projects in the pipeline, 2016 and 2017 should see an uptick in new home sales closer to downtown. New Construction Market 2015 [NewConstruction-Chicago.com] Report: Chicago Saw Nation's Lowest Home Price Growth [Curbed Chicago] Who would have guessed that Lincoln Park was seeing population loss? [Crain's] Kaitlyn Myers SHARE Kaitlyn Myers By Josh Farley of the Kitsap Sun TRACYTON People who knew Kaitlyn Emily Myers remember her as an adventurous and giving 18-year-old who planned to become an elementary school teacher. But her friends and family say nothing defined her as much as the radiant smile she was eager to share. "Her smile was just huge," her mother, Paulina, said. "She just let her teeth show. She didn't hesitate to let it shine." Myers died Saturday at Harrison Medical Center, about a week after her car slid off Tracyton Beach Road on Jan. 1 and landed upside down in the Port Washington Narrows. Firefighters were able to restore her heartbeat, but she never recovered. A 2015 graduate of Olympic High School, Myers was enrolled at Olympic College and had planned to transfer to Central or Western Washington universities to earn her bachelor's degree, her family said. She had an active social life, picking up friends in her Honda Accord, going shopping or on Starbucks outings and often eating french fries, a favorite food. "Kaitlyn was one who'd like to go out and adventure all the time," said Aira Bautista, who met Myers in the seventh grade at Fairview Middle School. Her smile would often brighten days and, in at least one case, influenced a home purchase. Lydia Wilson, a neighbor and close friend of the Myers family, recalled their move to Tracyton six years ago. She and her husband liked their home, but it was their daughter, Brianna, who warmed up to it by spotting the house next door and the girl inside. It was Myers, who had that smile on her face. "We got the OK from our daughter because of that smile," Wilson said. She had a way of connecting with generations outside her own. Her mother recalled her ability to talk to adults from a young age and her love of working with kids, even babies in day care centers, which propelled her down the teaching path. "She could relate to children so easily," said friend Natanya Phan, who'd met Myers in the third grade at PineCrest Elementary. "She was just a bright soul." Myers was employed at All Star Lanes & Casino in Silverdale since she was 15, working as a party attendant. "If you were having a bad day, even just her smile would make you feel better," said Taylor Terpone, a childhood friend and co-worker at All Star Lanes. She also volunteered each week at PineCrest, the same school she attended as a child, and had been a substitute teacher at the Olympic Educational Service District on National Avenue in Bremerton. She had a shy veneer, her mother said, "but once you got through that shyness, she'd talk your ear off. She just warmed right up." Friends and family remained with Myers throughout her time at Harrison, until doctors said she was unable to recover. Myers is survived by her parents, Tim and Paulina Myers, and her brother, Branden Myers. A celebration of her life will be held 1-3 p.m. Monday at Crossroads Neighborhood Church, 7555 Old Military Road NE. SHARE Richard Neil Brandenburg of Mill Creek Oct. 19, 1933 to Nov. 28, 2015 Veteran Richard Neil Brandenburg passed away in his home on November 28th. Dick was born and raised in good 'ol Bremerton. He attended Lulu D. Haddon Grade School, Coontz Junior High School, and was proud to be a Bremerton High School Wildcat. He was voted "Best Smile" his senior year. He had the one and only paper corner at First and Washington and sold papers to Navy Yard workers; he sold live bait at 4:30 in the morning at the site of the NAPA store on Kitsap Way, and worked as a cleanup boy at Moultray's Bakery on 4th Avenue. He went on to college, starting at WSC and finishing at the UW with a degree in Economics. Dick served in the Air Force and upon his return, became the first commercial office leasing broker in Seattle in the late 60's and worked in downtown Seattle for many years. He finished his career as the Director of the Port of Bremerton for five years, retiring in 2000. A memorial service will be held January 27th at 2:00 p.m. at the University Presbyterian Church in Seattle. For more information go to www.asacredmoment.com/obits SHARE Andrea Bowman, Allyn North Mason levy effective, affordable On Feb. 9 our North Mason community will be asked to approve a Maintenance and Operations replacement levy for the school district. Having been both a teacher and school administrator in the North Mason School District from 1997-2012, and now a parent of a kindergarten student, I cannot express enough how critical it is to continue to vote yes, as this community has done for over a decade. This replacement levy is a necessity, not a luxury. It serves to close the gap between what the state funds and the actual costs required for running quality schools. This levy supports everything from essential student learning materials to adequate staff to student ratios to ensuring staff receive current research based professional development to keeping our buildings and grounds well maintained. I want to also thank the North Mason School District School Board and leadership for their thoughtfulness in not asking for more funds, but merely replacing one ending levy with an identical rate. It is evident that they understand that the needs of the school district must be balanced against the financial realities of our families. This M & O replacement levy is both needed and affordable. I will be voting yes for North Mason Schools without hesitation. Please join me in keeping our history of passing levies intact and in taking care of the schools which our children, our future, attend. SHARE By Sara Lindberg "I just can't take it anymore. The voices are getting stronger and I find that I can't pull myself away. It's getting too hard and I don't want to live. Please help me." Sitting across from me, she speaks those words. Desperation, fear, and sadness mix with the tears running down her face. I can't help but notice her hands; they shake as she tries to control them. It's the only thing she feels like she can still control. She settles herself enough to answer a few questions; the questions I hate asking. There are usually three that I start with. Sometimes it's easier just to go for it, they know what's coming. "Are you thinking about hurting yourself about killing yourself?" "Do you have a plan?" "Do you have means to do it?" For some reason the last one is the hardest. I have been asking those questions for 15 years, and the answer to the third question feels so final. If they are confident enough in their plan to have a means to carry it out, we are really close to losing them. On any given day, this conversation is taking place. It may be happening in a counselor's office, a classroom, with a therapist, pastor, or a friend. We are lucky if it is taking place that means there is hope. It's the ones who don't talk about it that we lose. Those who have meticulously answered all three of those questions on their own. We lost them before they even left us. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention there were 42,773 suicides reported in 2014, making suicide the 10th leading cause of death for Americans. It was recently reported that in Kitsap County there were 52 suicides in 2015, the most ever recorded by the coroner's office. There is a direct correlation between teen depression and suicide. The CDC reports that for youths between ages 10 and 24, suicide is the third leading cause of death. It results in approximately 4,600 lives lost each year. The top three methods used in suicides of young people include firearm (45 percent), suffocation (40 percent) and poisoning (8 percent). Death from suicide is only part of the problem. More young people survive attempts than actually die. A nationwide survey of youths in grades 9-12 in public and private schools in the United States found that 16 percent of students reported seriously considering suicide. Thirteen percent reported creating a plan, and 8 percent reported trying to take their own life in the previous year. There was one morning in particular that I remember the most. It was winter, so the faint sign of light in my office was coming from a small lamp tucked in the corner. I had just arrived at work and saw the shadow of someone sitting in one of my chairs. I wasn't expecting anyone this early, so I found myself a bit apprehensive about what to expect. Sitting in the dark was the one student I worried about the most. He was the one that I thought about when I went home at night; wondering if I would see him the next day. His head was down, and his hands were trembling. Tears escaped his eyes as he looked up at me. His voice was quiet, but serious as he spoke to me. "I almost did it last night." I found myself wanting to say something; start asking the questions and going through my list of what to do, but I stopped and just listened. "I was sitting in my room with the gun. It was loaded. I had it in my mouth and my finger on the trigger and then I heard it my mom's voice. She had just come home and called out my name. I stopped." Even writing this now, many years later, I ache for him. His pain, desperation, isolation, hopelessness, and helplessness, was too much; killing himself was the only option he felt he had. I always think about the interruption that night. His mom calling out his name that defining moment in her life. The moment that saved his life. Time is what we talk about with youths. Many of them report an urge to kill themselves that sometimes lasts a short time. If they can get through it, they do not complete suicide. If they do not have access to end their life, they wake up the next day. If someone happens to interrupt them, they can get help before they feel the urge again. If they have a lifeline someone to reach out to we see them at school. There is no empty chair in a classroom. Trust, or identifying one person they can go to, is also key. One person they can trust to be vulnerable with; to open up and share their thoughts with. This is what we desperately hope for in the fight to save their lives. Finally, human connection is a powerful thing. When it seems that there is no one who understands, a hand reaching out is sometimes the one thing that begins the journey toward seeking help. I'm not sure I have the answer for how to end this. I don't even know if we will ever celebrate a decline in youth suicides. It seems as though the numbers are staggering. Any suicide is one too many. What I do know is that our kids need us. They need to see hope in our eyes and feel heard and accepted when they come to us. We need to help them understand that they are not alone in a world that feels so lonely. We need to tell them to keep holding on. There is help. There is hope. They are not alone. This is not how their story has to end. SHARE Advocates for preserving the military commissary benefit warned a House subcommittee Wednesday to avoid reforms that promise to preserve current savings for patrons but instead change how savings are measured, creating a lesser benefit that shoppers over time might reject. Advocates for service families and the military resale industry also criticized the tools that commissary reformers want tested to make base grocery stores cheaper to operate: variable pricing and private label brands. Last October the Department of Defense finally agreed with congressional leaders that current commissary savings must be preserved as a condition for enacting reforms that would force stores to run more like commercial grocers to slash annual taxpayer support of $1.4 billion. But advocates for commissaries advised the House armed services' military personnel subcommittee that they know "protecting the benefit" has multiple meanings. What they want preserved are the 30 percent savings on groceries the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) has touted for years, and verifies using item-by-item price comparisons across thousands of products. "Any proposal to alter the commissary operating structure or reduce its funding level must [also] preserve the savings," said Eileen Huck, deputy director of government relations for National Military Family Association. Brooke Goldberg, deputy director of government relations for Military Officers Association of America, joined Huck in complimenting the Defense Department for making benefit preservation a priority of commissary reform. "We hope this includes using DeCA's current marketbasket calculation methods for savings," Goldberg added. "It's important to not reinvent what the patron benefit is. If the Pentagon uses new metrics to determine current savings levels, [then] going forward we will not be measuring apples to apples." Peter Levine, deputy chief management officer for the Department of Defense, conceded last fall that earlier department proposals to reform commissaries focused primarily on saving money, as critics charged. Levine promised a more gradual approach to commissary reform, guarding the benefit by initially testing concepts like variable pricing to replace a requirement that commissary goods be sold at cost plus a 5 percent surcharge and one more percentage point to cover spoilage costs. He said the plan likely would include authority to adopt "private label" or commissary-brand products to be sold alongside national brands as a way to increase profits while offering patrons even lower prices. The department also will see authority to convert commissaries to non-appropriated fund (NAF) activities such as for-profit exchanges. And a new defense retail board would be tasked to drive new efficiencies and adopt common business practices across all military stores. Many of the recommendations are from a Pentagon-funded review of commissary operations completed in September by Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Rep. Joe Heck, R-Nev., arranged for Levine and BCG representatives to discuss their ideas in closed-door meetings with the subcommittee late last year. Wednesday he invited a few military associations and representatives from the military resale industry to sound off on the BCG report, including its call to sell private label brands and to vary store prices by base or by region. Patrick B. Nixon, president of the American Logistics Association, which represents manufacturers, distributors and brokers of products sold in commissaries and exchanges, said patron confidence in current commissary pricing is "rock solid." They know they pay cost plus a surcharge, regardless of what commissary they shop, and shelves are stocked with quality name brands, reflecting customer preferences in the private sector retail market. "Its strength is predictability," Nixon said. "In a pilot that proposes to change product pricing, whether by store or region, can you improve on the current level of predictability? If you introduce a private label program that requires a retailer to price, position and promote a product line [to spark] artificial customer preference to make a profit, can you improve on the current level of predictability? What are you going to tell the patron?" To ensure that their brands sell well in commissaries, manufacturers spend almost $500 million a year stocking shelves, promoting and displaying goods, managing inventories and holding special on-base events. If DeCA creates private-label products to compete with brand names, it will have to hire its own employees to stock and promote these goods. In time, brand-name manufacturers could decide to turn off that $500 million tap, warned Tom Gordy, president of the Armed Forces Marketing Council, which represents manufacturers of consumer products sold on base. The BCG study failed to take account of how industry would react to commissaries promoting private-label products, Gordy said. "They are missing a major piece of the pie here," he added. Heck hinted he favors at least testing the cost-lowering initiatives raised by the Boston Consulting Group including variable pricing of products using local prices off base. If the target for patron savings stay at 30 percent, for example, Heck said, a commissary in San Diego still could price items higher than a commissary in Mississippi, and patrons at both stores could see 30 percent savings compared to prices off base. Huck said her association opposed that idea because, apart from housing allowances, military pay doesn't change when families are assigned to higher cost areas. So variable pricing would disadvantage these families. Lawmakers seemed to divide over the reforms discussed. Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., said military lives are complicated enough without having to worry about shifting prices at their commissaries. "Since I've been on this committee I've had more opportunity to look for cost savings in the commissaries than in the F-35 [Joint Strike Fighter program], said the retired Army National Guard command sergeant major. Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., a retired Marine Corps Reserve officer, said he supports the reforms discussed, saying they won't harm the benefit but only threaten those who "run the system We've got to challenge government to deliver services more efficiently. And no area ought to be immune." Contact Tom Philpott at P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA, 20120, or milupdate@aol.com. 'Chicago P.D.' Will Address Police Officers Killing Civilians By Mae Rice in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 14, 2016 8:03PM PASADENA, CA - JANUARY 13: (L-R) Actors Colin Donnell and S. Epatha Merkerson, of 'Chicago Med', and Executive producer Dick Wolf speak onstage during the 'Chicago Fire', 'Chicago P.D.' and 'Chicago Med' panel discussion at the NBCUniversal portion of the 2015 Winter TCA Tour at Langham Hotel. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images) NBC drama Chicago P.D. will tackle the issue of police officers shooting civilians, executive producer Dick Wolf told a TV critics' meeting Wednesday, according to an AP story. As the creator of Law & Order, Wolf is best known for shows whose plotlines closely resemble current events. Chicago P.D.which premiered in 2014, and is part of a Chicago-based drama franchise that also includes Chicago Fire and Chicago Medwill take a looser approach. The AP reports that Wolf said: We steal the headlines, not the (story) body copy Will there be an examination of police shootings under perhaps a variety of circumstances? Absolutely. We do not steer away from anything, but I am not a mouthpiece for the Chicago P.D. or any police department. Wolf also expressed appreciation for how dangerous policework is: It's a very, very dangerous job, and mistakes are going to get made. But I defy anybody to think that in rollouts across this country that there are cops ... who sit there and say, I think I'm going to go out and shoot an unarmed black teenager tonight. Police fatally shooting civilians has been a central issue in Chicago ever since the video of officer Jason Van Dyke fatally shooting Laquan McDonald was released this past November. Since then, further cases have emerged, including one accidental shooting of a 55-year-old mother of five. Chicago P.D. airs on Wednesdays at 9 p.m. CST. Chicago Producer Murdered On Vacation In Belize By Mae Rice in News on Jan 15, 2016 10:27PM Photo via LinkedIn ABC 7 reports. Swaney was in Belizes Cayo District on vacation, and was staying at Nabitunich Farm, near a town called San Jose Succotz. She was killed when she stayed behind from one of the farms group horseback riding trips, Benque Viejo Police Superintendent Daniel Arzu told ABC7. When the trip returned, they found her personal effects on the deck, and went in search of her, then called the police. The police couldnt find her that night, but found her at 8:15 a.m. on Friday, with bruises on her neck and lacerations on either side of her head, Arzu told ABC7. She was taken to San Ignacio Hospital in Belize and was pronounced dead; an autopsy is underway, and local police are investigating. Coworkers remember Anne as an innovator, according to ABC7: "She was a trailblazer in the digital news space and was one of our first website employees," said John H. Idler, president and general manager of ABC7. "Anne helped us evolve our business and our newsroom, but most importantly, she was a kind person who was always had a smile and a positive attitude." Though there is no nationwide tourist advisory for Belize, tourists are told to be careful there, due to a recent uptick in violent crime across the country. SHARE By Ali James of the Knoxville News Sentinel The military have added their own brand of social media to their armory, and civilians such as Knoxville media professional Chuck Morris have been enlisted to help. Morris is the principal of Morris Creative Group, a full-service marketing agency. As part of an American Society for Engineering Management program, Morris teaches social media practices to the Engineering Directorate at the U.S. Army's Redstone Arsenal, the Missile Defense Agency, and U.S. Department of Energy. The goal, he said, is to use social media to be able to work more collaboratively. "The program has been in place for about four years, and I've been involved for around three years," Morris said. "There is a group of us; we all kind of knew each other, and they roped me into it because I teach social media at UT." Because Facebook, Twitter, Wiki, LinkedIn and other social networks are so widely used, the potential for their use by the military is nearly limitless, Morris said. "I teach them some of the principles of using the public versions, and we really apply them behind the firewall due to security concerns," he said. MilSuite is a group of secure, professional social media tools. Four collaboration tools that mirror existing social media platforms appear as desktop icons and include: milWiki, a living military encyclopedia; milBook, a networking tool; milWire, a micro-blogging application for sharing content across milSuite and external sites; and milTube, a video-sharing platform. Usually the milSuite training is delivered at Y-12 and in Huntsville, Ala., over multiple days, with the social media module just a half day of a two-week curriculum, Morris said. These tools make communicating and tracking projects easier for military personal at home and at satellite locations all around the world, he said. "One of the things that the military has relied upon is email," Morris said. "And one of the problems is that it's not always immediate, you can't always attach larger files and video, and you've got to follow the thread and constantly archive." Social media, Morris added, is a collaborative tool that teams can utilize in real time. "Messages are sent immediately; everyone will see the messages in real time," he said. "Media like photos and video can be uploaded automatically to the cloud; they do not have to dig through their inbox." To demonstrate his point, Morris said that a Redstone Arsenal team working on the Apache helicopter might have a team that is giving feedback about a weapon from the field, and the high brass management can collaborate on that project in real time. The milSuite application becomes a repository about that weapon or that division. "If we can't have conversations face to face, it's the next best thing," Morris said. "You can also invite people from all over the world. There are no barriers to how you can collaborate with these social media tools. "You tend to think of Facebook and Twitter with people posting that they had a tuna fish sandwich," he said. "Social media is how we communicate collaboratively. We've never had communication tools that are so robust in history. Think about the cloud and how that's changed everything." Morris said the military is encouraging all branches of its personnel to embrace social media using the appropriate security guidelines. "The issue that the military has is that the wheels turn very slowly, and the mandate came two to three years ago," he said. "And some divisions haven't heard about milSuite. They're fairly shut down about it, as it's been drilled into them that everything in social media is a security risk. We live in a cybercrime kind of world, (so) I do understand their very real concerns." Military personnel are not generally familiar with social media, Morris said. "There's a collective eye roll, because most of these guys are engineers, are in the military and they know about operational security, and they don't know how it applies to them in the least," he said. "But by the end of the class, most of them really do see that it will facilitate a greater collaboration in teams." Morris said he teaches from a marketing perspective. "I teach them how to use social media well; be very intentional about content," he said. "Be a contributor more than a taker where you're really participating in the tool itself and delivering a lot of value to those that you're collaborating with." The same principles that apply to social media that most of us use are the same in a collaborative team environment, he said. He also touches on setting up a professional milSuite profile, the differences between email and social media, and how to decide the best communication method for certain applications. "It becomes a living document," Morris said of the milWiki app. "If you're doing a technical manual on a Hellfire missile, the old one would be a Word doc on a server, and (if) someone makes a change to it, it might have a date stamp, but we don't know if it's the latest. In social media, they know it's the latest document. That's powerful; suddenly I'm not guessing, I know it's the latest information." MilSuite's Eureka app provides soldiers an easily accessible location where they can share their experiences and put their ideas in front of an authority, Morris said. Ideas can be tagged and voted up or down. Ultimately, users can place innovations and proposals in front of leaders who might be able to implement them. MilWire is an aggregator of news and information. Users can receive targeted information by choosing particular topics or users to follow. In addition, milWire users can post content including hyperlinks and videos, and link to information in all of the milSuite applications to increase visibility on a topic. Authorized milSuite personnel can share multimedia such as training videos and maintenance procedures. "By the end of the class, a lot of them want to go back to their team and use it collaboratively," Morris said. "That's when I feel like I've done my job." Murder suspect Tyler Enix is seen during a hearing on Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2016, in Knox County Criminal Court. Enix, charged with the Oct. 28 murder of his ex-wife Kimberly McFarland Enix, had his arraignment rescheduled to Friday. (AMY SMOTHERMAN BURGESS/NEWS SENTINEL) SHARE Homicide victim Kimberly McFarland Enix is pictured with her daughter, Brooklynne, in photo taken from Facebook. The 2-year-old girl was recovered safely in Ohio after she was allegedly kidnapped by her father, Tyler Enix, who is charged with the murder of the child's mother. (FACEBOOK) By News Sentinel Staff Tyler Enix, charged with killing his ex-wife before fleeing the state with their daughter, will face trial this summer. Criminal Court Judge Steve Sword set an Aug. 8 trial date for Enix at a hearing Friday. Knox County Public Defender Mark Stephens represented Enix. On Dec. 16, a grand jury indicted Enix on charges of felony murder, first degree murder, especially aggravated robbery, especially aggravated kidnapping and carjacking. Enix, 37, is accused of killing ex-wife Kimberly McFarland Enix in their Fountain City home in late October and then leaving with their 2-year-old daughter, Brooklynne Emerie Enix, in his ex-wife's Chevrolet Impala. Although the couple divorced in April, neighbors said Tyler Enix lived at the condo in Templeton Court Condominiums complex. Knoxville Police Department officers found Kimberly Enix's body during a welfare check after she failed to show up at Beverly Park Place Health and Rehab for work. An Amber Alert for Brooklynne was issued in Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio due to Enix's history of violence toward several ex-wives and a girlfriend. The next day, Stephen Adams of Mount Gilead, Ohio, saw the Impala on the road and alerted authorities there. Enix, peacefully surrendered to police and remains in the Knox County jail on a $1 million bond. At Friday's hearing, Kimberly Enix's ex-husband, Chris Morrison the father of two of her children and her grandmother were in the courtroom. "I want to see him put away for life," Graham said. "I can't stand it to see him." She said she and the rest of the family are looking for closure. Morrison said the months without Kimberly Enix have been difficult. "It's a daily struggle for us," he said. He and his daughters have been looking at photos of Kimberly Enix to remember her, but he said the girls are struggling without their mother. "The question that always comes up is why," Morrison said. " The murder was senseless and didn't have to happen." Union County High School (Saul Young/News Sentinel) SHARE By News Sentinel Staff A former Union County High School bookkeeper has been indicted on a charge of embezzling more than $30,000 in school funds, state investigators said. Tammy Collins admitted to using school funds to pay her personal credit cards and other debts, as well as making unauthorized payments to herself and skimming from the school's cash collections, according to the results of a special investigation by the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury released Thursday. The thefts were committed between January 2013 and September 2015. Collins was indicted on one count of felony theft by a Union County grand jury Nov. 19. Comptroller investigators also found that Collins forged the name of an assistant school principal on several fraudulent checks, and made personal purchases on the school's Walmart store account using school funds. The stolen funds totaled at least $30,045, according to the Comptroller's findings. The Comptroller's report also notes "significant deficiencies in financial processes" at the school that contributed to Collins' ability to conceal the thefts: -- The school principal failed to separate financial duties adequately or to provide increased oversight when appropriate. -- The principal did not require and retain adequate supporting documentation for disbursements. -- The principal allowed employees to use school collections to cash school and third-party checks, resulting in school bank deposits that were not made intact. -- The principal paid employees directly from internal school funds instead of forwarding the payroll information and compensation to school board administrative offices for processing as required. As a result, payroll taxes were not calculated and paid timely. The numerous school checks also helped conceal the fraudulent checks Collins wrote to herself. "The officials of Union County High School have indicated they have corrected or intend to correct these deficiencies," the Comptroller's report states. More details as they develop online and in Friday's News Sentinel. SHARE By Jamie Satterfield of the Knoxville News Sentinel The final suspect in a $20 million "butter and eggs" numbers racket confessed guilt Thursday. Maurece Damon McDowell formally pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to charges of operating a gambling enterprise and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The News Sentinel earlier this week reported McDowell had struck a deal with federal prosecutors Jennifer Kolman and Anne-Marie Svolto. His father, Clarence McDowell, pleaded guilty to similar charges in November, as did Knoxville fashion designer Marcus Hall. Chief U.S. District Judge Tom Varlan set an April 21 sentencing hearing for the younger McDowell. The numbers game, which mirrors a centuries-old form of gambling in which participants bet on commodities prices, was based not on butter and eggs but on the daily drawings in the Illinois state lottery. The scheme spanned from January 2009 to June 2015, when the IRS Criminal Investigation Division raided Hall's Marc Nelson Denim business on Depot Avenue as well as a complex of stores owned and operated by the McDowells in a Lonsdale shopping center constructed with federal empowerment zone money. Hall is famed in the fashion world for his novel raw-denim designs and has been lauded by the Knoxville Chamber. He has now confessed keeping his business afloat with proceeds from the numbers racket. SHARE The University of Tennessee College of Nursing is sponsoring a Saturday meeting with members of the Knoxville area delegation of the Tennessee General Assembly to address topics of special interest to nurses. Confirmed to attend are state senators Richard Briggs and Becky Duncan Massey, and state representatives Harry Brooks, Martin Daniel and Eddie Smith. Others also may attend. The event begins with coffee and informal networking from 9-9:30 a.m. Saturday in Room 201 of the College of Nursing, 1200 Volunteer Boulevard on the UT campus. The program is planned to run from 9:30-11 a.m. The meeting will focus on three policy issues, all of which are expected to be intensely debated in the upcoming legislative sessions. First, organizers hope to discuss proposed legislation that would grant advanced practice registered nurses in Tennessee expanded authority to practice without the level of physician supervision now required by law. Second, Gov. Bill Haslam's proposed Insure Tennessee plan as a substitute for the federal government's plan for Medicaid expansion will be discussed. Third, nurses and legislators will discuss the increasing problem of opioid prescription drug abuse statewide, particularly in East Tennessee. The program is free and open to the public. Please register by email to Sharon Davis, sdavis93@utk.edu, or Carole R. Myers, cmyers9@utk.edu, if you plan to attend the meeting. Public pay parking is available at the Volunteer Hall Parking Garage, behind the College of Law at 1545 White Ave., about three blocks from the College of Nursing. Use the White Avenue entrance only. News Sentinel staff Alleged greenway killer Timothy Dwayne Ison during his appearance before Knox County General Sessions Court Judge Geoff Emery for a preliminary hearing Monday, June 1, 2015. Emery ruled there was probable cause to send the case to a grand jury review of the first-degree murder case against Ison. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL) SHARE Stefany Fairbanks By Jamie Satterfield of the Knoxville News Sentinel A 25-year-old slaying suspect labeled a sociopath as a teenager is too dangerous to ever go free, prosecutors allege in a notice filed Friday. The Knox County District Attorney General's Office on Friday filed notice it will seek life without parole if Timothy Dwayne Ison is convicted of first-degree murder in a random, fatal attack on a woman on the Third Creek Greenway in May. It is rare for Knox County prosecutors to seek what is the second toughest penalty allowed under the law, particularly with a defendant as young as Ison. But prosecutors Leslie Nassios and Kyle Hixson argue in the notice Ison's youth belies his potential for rehabilitation. The fatal stabbing of Stefany Fairbanks, a 42-year-old woman Ison had never met, "was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel in that it involved torture or serious physical abuse beyond that necessary to produce death," the notice reads, tracking the legal language required to justify the request for life without parole. The notice also notes the slaying "was committed at random and the reasons for the killing are not obvious or easily understood." That provision of the law on aggravated factors justifying life without parole is rarely invoked in cases across the state as stranger killings remain a rarity both in Tennessee and across the nation. The prosecutors, too, cite Ison's criminality, which began at age 14 and also involved strangers. It was 2004 when Ison forced his way into the Chilhowee Drive home of Ted and Judith Cope, both strangers to him. He terrorized and brutalized the couple and tried to burn them alive after shooting Ted Cope. The couple survived. The state tried then to send his case to adult court. But a forensic psychiatrist who has been evaluating Tennessee's killers for decades concluded Ison was mentally disturbed with all the hallmarks of a sociopath. Under juvenile law, that finding meant Ison could not be tried as an adult. He was supposed to receive mental health treatment. But Tennessee has few facilities for the mentally ill and even fewer for juveniles. Ison wound up in a juvenile detention facility after only a brief stint in a mental health facility. He was released at age 19. Ison went to prison a short time later in Kentucky for an assault. The details have not been released. He served 11 months, violated his parole and spent two more months locked up in Kentucky. He had been free from prison two years before the alleged slaying of Fairbanks. Fairbanks was nearing her car in the parking lot at 3110 Sutherland Ave. when witness Esther Campbell testified she saw a woman later identified as Fairbanks with a man walking close behind. As Campbell and a friend neared the pair, Fairbanks began yelling for help and fell into the grass. She died within minutes. The suspect "calmly" walked away, said Campbell. Police later found a blood-covered Ison heading to his car in the same parking lot where Fairbanks earlier had parked. Tennessee law requires formal notice be filed by prosecutors whenever they seek either life without parole or the death penalty, and, unlike all other sentencing decisions in criminal cases, only a jury can decide if a defendant should die either behind bars or in the death chamber. Ison's case is set for trial in February, but the life without parole demand, which carries additional constitutional protections, will force a delay. SHARE By Hugh G. Willett The Farragut Board of Mayor and Aldermen voted Thursday night to appoint businesswoman Louise Povlin to fill the seat vacated by North Ward Alderman Ron Honken, who resigned effective the end of 2015. Povlin, who will fill the North Ward seat until the August election, said she will be running for the post in August. Povlin is the owner of Anytime Fitness and currently sits on the Farragut Municipal Planning Commission and the Farragut Business Alliance Board. She said she believes attracting and supporting small businesses is an important priority. Povlin was one of seven candidates from which the board chose. The others were Drew Carson, Richard Cataldi, Jeffrey Devlin, Rose Ann Kile, Mark Littleton and John Underwood. Members of the BOMA met with each candidate individually for about 20 minutes in December. Each candidate was given five minutes to speak at Thursday's BOMA meeting. In the short presentation before the BOMA before nominations were made, Povlin told the board that she was passionate about Farragut and the principles on which the town was founded. She said she is looking forward to receiving more education on local government at a variety of workshops and training classes she will now be able to attend. Povlin said her immediate priorities following her swearing in ceremony on Jan. 28 would be to "get her feet under her," and to "get to know more of her constituents." "I want to get in front of more people in my district," she said. Thursday's selection process took less than five minutes. Alderman Ron Pinchok nominated Povlin. Alderman Bob Markli nominated Richard Cataldi and Vice Mayor Dot LaMarche nominated Rose Ann Kile. Under Roberts Rules of Order, as explained by Town Administrator David Smoak, the first candidate that received a majority of votes was selected. On the first vote, Povlin received votes from Pinchock, Mayor Ralph McGill and LaMarche. No further votes were held. Markli, who nominated Cataldi, a retired U.S. Navy officer and Lenoir City High School math teacher, did not vote for Povlin, but after her selection he praised her work on the town's planning commission. Mayor McGill said the town was fortunate that it could choose from such a field of candidates, many of whom had distinguished military careers and advanced educational degrees. "Any one of these candidates could serve," he said. McGill urged the candidates not chosen to continue to volunteer on one of the many boards and committees. "You guys will be the leaders of those committees," he said. Cataldi didn't waste any time in declaring that he would run for the seat in August. Immediately after congratulating Povlin he told her, "I'll see you in August." Vice Mayor LaMarche, who will be bringing the Women in Municipal Government meeting to Farragut later this year, said she thought all the candidates were great and was especially pleased to see another woman on the board. SHARE By Richard Locker NASHVILLE State legislators failed to agree again Thursday on a process for the General Assembly to confirm state Supreme Court and other appellate judges appointed by the governor, and will try again next week. At issue is how to implement a portion of the state constitutional amendment ratified by voters 14 months ago that altered how Tennessee selects its five Supreme Court justices and 24 judges on the state Court of Appeals and Court of Criminal Appeals. Prior to the 2014 amendment, the state constitution said the appellate court judges shall be elected by the voters. But the amendment now requires the governor to appoint the 29 judges, the Legislature to confirm them and for retention votes by the people at the end of an initial eight-year term when the governor's appointment is for a full term, or at the next statewide August election in cases where the governor's appointee fills a vacancy occurring during an eight-year term. The Legislature ended its 2015 session last April with the House and Senate failing to agree on the details of the confirmation process. Legislative leaders appointed a new conference committee of five House members and five senators earlier this week to negotiate a compromise but when the panel met Thursday, the same divisions that existed last April remained. It will resume its work Tuesday morning. Lawmakers agree that when both houses of the Legislature vote to confirm a judicial appointee sent up by the governor, confirmation occurs. They also agree that if both chambers vote to reject, the nominee is rejected. What they disagree on is what happens if one chamber votes to confirm and the other votes to reject or fails to vote at all. Sen. Mike Bell, R-Riceville, argued that rejection by either chamber means the nominee is rejected. Others, including Sen. Jeff Yarbro, D-Nashville, disagree. "If one body votes to reject and the other body does not vote to do so, I don't think that should constitute a rejection. I think if one body votes to confirm and the other body does not, that shouldn't constitute a confirmation. I think the clock continues to tick and unless both bodies reach the same conclusion before the end of the 60-day period, then I think the constitutional amendment is relatively clear what happens, which is confirmation by default," Yarbro said. The constitutional amendment also provides that "confirmation by default occurs if the Legislature fails to reject an appointee within 60 calendar days" of either the date of appointment, if made during the annual legislative session, or the date the next legislative session convenes. The conference committee also argued Thursday over a proposal that would allow either chamber to act unilaterally if it declares that the other chamber is refusing to schedule a vote to confirm or reject. Rep. Bill Dunn, R-Knoxville, favors having the House and Senate meeting together and if a majority of the combined 132 members 67 votes to confirm or reject, the appointee is confirmed or rejected. Anything less, he argued, gives 13 percent of the Legislature 17 members of the 33-member Senate the power to decide the outcome. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Brian Kelsey, R-Germantown, said "the Legislature has not only a duty but a responsibility to decide this issue and I hope we decide it quickly and I think we will." China hopes the Group of Twenty (G20) summit this year will guide world economic growth and international cooperation, a senior official said Thursday. China will host the G20 summit in the eastern city of Hangzhou from Sept. 4 to 5. The country formally took over the G20 presidency on Dec. 1, 2015. "China expects this year's summit to promote the leading role and the ambition of the G20 in the global economy. We should work to transform the G20 from a crisis-managing mechanism to a long-term governance platform," State Councilor Yang Jiechi said at the opening ceremony of the first G20 sherpa meeting. The G20 is a major forum for global economic and financial cooperation that brings together the world's major advanced and emerging economies, representing around 85 percent of global GDP, 80 percent of world trade, and two-thirds of world population. In 2008, the first G20 summit was held in Washington, D.C., and the group played a key role in response to the global financial crisis. Yang called on the participants at the sherpa meeting to show ambition, determination and insight to make the G20 play a greater role in boosting world economic growth, improving global economic governance and increasing people's welfare. The theme of the Hangzhou summit is "building an innovative, invigorated, interconnected and inclusive world economy." Preparations for the summit will focus on innovation in growth patterns, improving global economic and financial governance, boosting international trade and investment, and promoting inclusive and interconnected development. Yang also briefed the participants on China's economic prospects, saying the Chinese economy will maintain a generally sustainable and stable growth trend through reform, innovation and more emphasis on quality. "China will actively participate in international economic cooperation and governance to inject impetus into domestic reform and mid-to-high economic growth," Yang said. Greg Johnson, Knoxville News Sentinel columnist. Willie Nelson. Leona Helmsley. Pete Rose. Jesse Jackson Jr. Al Capone. Knoxville Democratic state Rep. Joe Armstrong. All charged with income tax shenanigans. All except Armstrong convicted. Armstrong is just going on trial and is innocent until proven guilty so he is not yet eligible for the rogue's gallery of tax cheats. And he is not guilty by mere association with the Red Headed Stranger, the Queen of Mean, Charlie Hustle, a dirty Chicago pol and Scarface, aka Public Enemy No. 1. But his attorney, Gregory P. Isaacs, opened the door of comparison this week when he implied Gov. Bill Haslam and Tennessee U.S. Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker used political position for personal gain. "Look at Gov. Haslam," Isaacs told the court this week. "We don't even know his financial situation." The governor is not on trial. Armstrong is. Haslam did not willingly walk into a bank, willingly borrow money, willingly buy cigarette tax stamps at a low price, willingly work on legislation to raise the cigarette tax, willingly sell the cigarette tax stamps for gigantic profits and willingly deposit the proceeds into his personal bank account. Armstrong did. Then he did not report the income to the Internal Revenue Service. Armstrong blames his accountant. Armstrong was in court this week seeking and getting postponement of his trial on tax evasion, defrauding the IRS and lying on tax forms. Isaacs maliciously impugned Tennessee's highest-ranking Republicans to argue Democrat Armstrong should not be identified as a powerful politico since it might prejudice the jury. Isaacs also argued Armstrong is an esteemed legislator. Isaacs can't have it both ways. Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Atchley called him on it, citing a tape-recorded conversation in which Armstrong, eyes on political optics, said, "No one can know about this. I can't be seen to profit from big tobacco." The judge seemed to agree Armstrong's political chicanery was fair game since Isaacs was so political. The only politician on the above list of tax scofflaws is Jackson, who was sentenced to 30 months in prison for tax fraud for using $750,000 in campaign funds to live the high life and not reporting the income. An FBI press release after Jackson's conviction lends relevant perspective. "Jesse Jackson Jr.'s journey from the halls of Congress to federal prison is a tragedy of his own making," said U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen. "In a betrayal of his oath of office and his duty to the citizens he represented, Mr. Jackson violated the integrity of our government and disrespected those he served," said Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI Field Office Valerie Parlave. IRS Criminal Investigations Chief Richard Weber said, "The Jacksons were granted the privilege of political office to better the lives of others but used it instead for their own selfish benefit." So did Armstrong. He flipped the tax stamps with profit aforethought. Isaacs made his laughably ludicrous "everybody-does-it" argument in delusional desperation because he knows Armstrong might enter the lineup with Capone, Jackson et al. SHARE Tennessee has made it more difficult for motorists who do not have automobile insurance: Fines have tripled and vehicles can be towed if the drivers cannot provide proof they are insured. The law is timely and necessary and follows similar changes in several other states. The measure that took effect on Jan. 1 is aimed at cracking down on the state's estimated 660,000 uninsured motorists. Besides the towing provision, the state has increased the minimum fine from $100 to $300 for not having proof of insurance. The law also requires the development of a statewide electronic insurance database by 2017 that will enable law enforcement officers almost immediately to verify a driver's claim of insurance. One aspect of the law is worth noting. Law enforcement officers are not required to have vehicles towed for owners who don't produce proof of insurance. They simply have the option to do so, state Rep. William Lamberth, sponsor of the legislation, told the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Under provisions of the law, local law enforcement agencies must establish a policy for the process before an officer can summon the tow truck. Such policies should be drafted to make it less likely rogue officers could abuse their power. Lamberth, R-Cottonwood, said he hopes each law enforcement agency will take a hard look at motorists who are flagrantly disregarding the insurance requirement and take action. "If you're not going to follow the law," he said, "you should not have the ability to drive on our roadways." Some opponents of the new legislation contend that the law is an unfair burden for low-income motorists who cannot afford high insurance rates. This same complaint was lodged in 1977 when the state first required vehicle owners to carry insurance. The complaint might be understandable because, except for public transportation in the state's major cities, vehicles are about the only way to reach a place of employment. While owning and driving a vehicle is a privilege and not an enshrined right, and the state is well within its responsibilities to regulate that privilege, agencies and officers should be sensitive to the financial stress added to low-income motorists of piling a towing charge on top of the increased fines. According to an annual survey by Insure.com and reported in April 2015, the average automobile insurance rate in Tennessee was listed at $1,263 per year per vehicle 24th among all 50 states and the District of Columbia and below the national average of $1,311. Glenn McLendon, a Nashville regional director of insurance and membership at AAA in Tennessee, believes the new law will have a significant impact. He said effective enforcement will get out the message that, if one thinks automobile insurance is too expensive, "look how expensive it will be if you get caught (without it)." Not purchasing even the minimum level of insurance is irresponsible and dangerous: It leaves drivers open to lawsuits when others, including passengers, are injured in accidents. Thus, the law is a necessary step to keep irresponsible motorists off the roads and to make them think about their choices if they are apprehended. SHARE Some of the conventional wisdom about Obergefell v. Hodges and the doctrine of interposition is fallacious. The statement that this case legalizes same-sex marriages throughout the U.S. is false. The ruling is only an opinion. Opinions are not law and can legalize nothing. Legalizing acts is exclusively the constitutional duty of Congress. It has been stated that there is no mechanism in the Constitution legalizing nullification. This is a logical fallacy, an argument from ignorance. It is a fact that the 10th Amendment does not exclude nullification from the state's reserved powers. James Madison sanctioned nullification in the Virginia Resolution of 1798, writing "the states who are parties [to the compact] thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them." Note well the word "interpose." The Tennessee Constitution approves nullification in Article I, Section 2: "That government being instituted for the common benefit, the doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind." Twenty-two states declared Dred Scott v. Sandford (1856) did not bind them. Wisconsin denounced the Supreme Court for "assumption of power," declaring "that the several states ... have the unquestionable right" to exercise "positive defiance" on behalf of their interpretation of the powers reserved to the states by the Constitution. Some have asserted that the Constitution's Supremacy Clause is the ultimate authority. This is a logical fallacy, a bare assertion. The Constitution is supreme only for laws "which shall be made in Pursuance thereof" (Article VI, Section 2). A Supreme Court opinion is not law. As Thomas Jefferson noted, "The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal." Tom Pardue, Church Hill, Tenn. SHARE On the armed occupation of a public building and land in Oregon, the News Sentinel and other media are mindlessly adopting the rhetoric and narrative of the occupiers, using the terms "federal land" or "government land." The militias like to paint themselves as super-patriots standing up to the big, bad, tyrant government, and they want land returned to the states or sold to private individuals. However, this is not "government" land. It is public land, owned by the people of the United States and managed by the federal government. The government has made many mistakes in management, and reforms need to be made. But Americans should resist calls to return public lands to the states or private ownership. The historic record is clear that the states will not manage this land in the public interest. As legislatures nationwide become increasingly owned by corporate interests, public lands returned to the states would either be neglected (Tennessee cannot even maintain its state parks) or sold to the highest bidder. It is instructional that a Tennessee legislator who supports the occupiers, state Rep. Andy Holt, has been fined for releasing massive amounts of hog waste into public streams. On the reaction of some Oak Ridge City Council members to the secular opening of a meeting by a representative of the Rationalists of East Tennessee, I am glad that the members who interrupted or walked out during the remarks were offended. That is the point. How many times have non-religious people or those of non-Christian religions been forced to sit through prayers at public meetings, prayers that often are political rantings about social issues or calls for America to "come back to God," which means, "Let's make sure our religion is crammed down the throats of everybody, everywhere, all the time"? Thomas Wright, Knoxville By Choi Sung-jin The economic ministries, in their joint administrative briefing to President Park Geun-hye Thursday, vowed to revitalize the economy through balanced policies of bolstering export and domestic demand. But most of their specific steps were focused on how to support exporters more effectively. Private economists have said Korea should shift from export and manufacturing to domestic demand and services but their calls seem to have fallen on bureaucrats' deaf ears, analysts said. This shows policymakers' sense of urgency that they cannot boost the growth rate and business confidence without reinvigorating exports, which fell 7.9 percent last year from 2014. More problematic than the return to the export drive of the 1960s and '70s was that most of the measures unveiled were a rehash of previous programs, with undue focus on the Chinese market, which has been visibly cooling off. The officials are counting on the Korea-China free trade agreement, which goes into effect in earnest this year. The government will concentrate its administrative support in information, education and consulting on about 25,000 companies that export to China. It plans to hold the "Korea-China FTA Grand Exhibition" and explanation sessions in Beijing, Shanghai and Qingdao in February. It also will make strenuous efforts to eliminate nontariff barriers in China, such as customs clearance, sanitation and safety issues, transform the estate for Korea-China industrial cooperation in Saemangeum - vast reclaimed land along the western coast - into a forward base for exporters to China, and attract 1 trillion won ($828 million) from Chinese investors, by extending the system that provides residential qualifications for foreigners who invest 500 million to 700 million won or more. In addition, the government will support Korean companies' acquisition of Chinese firms, spend 4 trillion won to establish a distribution network in China, expand premium-quality agricultural and fisheries products, such as kimchi, rice and fish cakes, provide trade financing of 4.8 trillion won for suppliers of contents, health services and brands, offer tax credits for firms that shift from domestic sales to exports, spend 1.5 trillion won on securing five bonded warehouses in China and establish an automated export reporting system for Korean online vendors. Economic watchers here say the measures come as China's stock markets plunge, reflecting the country's economic slowdown. If the demand sags in the world's largest economy, Korea's China-oriented export and economic plans will be among its first victims, they say. The economic officials also said they would make the most of the improving relationship between Korea and Japan in the aftermath of the settlement of the "comfort women" issue and the resumption of summits between President Park and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. This may prove to be hasty expectations, too, given the social stirs caused by the hurriedly sealed and half-baked deal on the former sex slaves, they said. "Korea, a small and open economy, can never ignore the importance of exports in its economic strategy," said an analyst at a civic group. "It is regrettable, however, to see the Park administration increase its dependency on large exporters and unpredictable foreign markets instead of fulfilling its promise of pursuing growth by boosting workers' income and enlivening domestic demand." By Choi Sung-jin Although international oil prices plunge to their lowest in decades, LG Electronics is making a massive investment in the solar energy business, causing expectations - and concerns. Business outlooks for sunlight power generation are uncertain, at best, as global oil prices threaten to sink to the $20-a-barrel range, industry sources said. "However, now is the time to secure a future growth engine through preemptive investment," said an LG Electronics executive. The company signed a memorandum of understanding to expand manufacturing capacity at its solar panel plant in Gumi, North Gyeongsang Province, with the municipal government Wednesday. It will invest 527.2 billion won ($436.7 million) to add six more manufacturing lines to a total of 14 by 2018, said Lee Sang-bong, a president in charge of LG Electronics' energy business center. LG Electronics' capacity to produce solar modules will increase from 1 gigawatt to 1.8 GW in 2018, and the company plans to raise it further to 3GW by 2020 through additional investment, which is sufficient to supply power to 1 million households for a year. The investment will create 870 jobs in research and development, business/marketing and manufacturing, Lee said. According to IHS, a market survey firm, the global solar generation market this year is estimated to grow 17 percent to 68 GW, from 58 GW last year. Demand in the U.S. market, the second largest in the world with 15 GW to China's 20 GW, is expected to increase sharply, riding on robust economic recovery in the world's largest economy. The U.S. government is encouraging power generation from sunshine by extending tax credits to it until 2022, industry sources said. LG Electronics aims to raise the efficiency of its solar modules, which now stands at 19.5 percent, hovering above the 18-percent level regarded as highly efficient, company officials said. The company also has lifted the efficiency of its solar light cells to 22 percent. By Kim Jae-won Millennials expressed little loyalty to their employers, with two-thirds expected to leave their workplace in five years, a survey from a global consulting firm showed Friday. Millennials refers to a demographic group born from the early 1980s to the early 2000s. Deloitte said it surveyed 7,700 Millennials born after 1982 in 29 countries. It found that 66 percent hoped to have moved on by the end of 2020. The participants have a college or university degree, are employed full time and predominantly work in private-sector organizations with more than 100 employees. "This remarkable absence of loyalty represents a serious challenge to any business employing a large number of Millennials, especially those in those markets like the United States where Millennials now represent the largest segment of the workforce," Deloitte said in a report. It said Millennials have little loyalty to employers because they feel underutilized, believing they are not being developed as leaders. "Of great significance in the current survey results is the finding that 71 percent of those likely to leave in the next two years are unhappy with how their leadership skills are being developed fully 17 points higher than among those intending to stay beyond 2020," according to the report. But Millennials expressed positive views of business in the survey. Their opinions on business motivation and ethics showed they remain upbeat about business' potential to contribute to society. Almost nine in 10 believe that "the success of a business should be measured in terms of more than just its financial performance." But market watchers said the survey failed to reflect the tough realty Millennials face in the labor market. Government data showed Korea's youth unemployment rate for those between 15 and 29 reached a record high of 9.2 percent in 2015, up from 9 percent a year ago. It is far higher than the average unemployment rate, which reached 3.6 percent last year, up from 3.5 percent in 2014. Observers said the real unemployment rate for youth is far higher than official data, considering the government regards part-timers to be employed. Statistics Korea said a part-timer who works more than one hour a week is included in the group of the employed. By Park Jin-hai POSCO, the local steel giant, said Friday that it has no plans to sell products produced by its Vietnamese plants as part of its strategy to defend the interests of the company's local subcontractors. The latest decision is in sync with corporate efforts to better care of company partners, though POSCO was in financial trouble hit by market oversupply and weak demand for steel products. "We will use steel beams produced at POSCO's facilities in Vietnam for internal use only," Chairman Kwon Oh-joon said in a meeting with local reporters in Seoul. Kwon stressed that the decision was a result of its collaboration with the government to control its business expansion in Korea so as not to distort the ecosystem in related industries. "Products made in Vietnam will be used for POSCO plants and projects initiated by POSCO E&C," said a company official. The local steel giant had earlier tried to bring in steel bars produced by its Vietnam plant _ POSCO SS-VINA _ to fill in the profit void left by its international rivals. That plan raised heated debate as products from its Vietnamese plants were more expensive than those by products manufactured by key Japanese and Chinese rivals. But the price has been set far higher than those by local manufacturers, resulting POSCO's local partners joining in collective action against the plan. POSCO previously had contracts with local construction companies in a bid to sell those bars and H-beams through its marketing arm POSCO P&S. However, 11 local steelmakers unions including Korea Iron & Steel and Dongkuk Steel filed an appeal with the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, asking it to prevent POSCO from importing the cheap Vietnamese-made steel bars. Unlike the H-beams that major local steel mills produce, smaller local companies produce steel bars. "At a time when local steelmakers are suffering from an industry-wide slump, if POSCO brings in cheaper overseas-produced steel, we will lose the ability to prevent the import of Chinese steel products to the country," said an industry watcher. POSCO, targeting the construction market in Southeast Asia, invested $600 million in the construction of its Vietnam plant with an annual capacity of 1 million tons. The plant began operations in January last year, but due to slow demand in the Southeast Asian building market, POSCO considered bringing the steel bars into Korea, where demand has been picking up from late last year. The company decided to import 100,000 tons of steel bars, over 1 percent of the nation's total annual demand of 9 million tons. In October and November, it imported 3,200 tons and 4,700 tons of Vietnam-made steel bars, respectively. As the chairman showed the company's stance on the import of Vietnam-produced beams, the dispute of POSCO profiting on small companies, will dissipate, but POSCO has lost another tool to fill in the profit void caused by an ongoing struggle in the steel industry. "Since late last year, we have not imported Vietnamese-produced steel bars. When demand rises, we will import them in small amounts through POSCO P&S," said an official. K-pop girl band KARA / Korea Times file It's official. Popular K-pop girl band KARA will no longer be, agency DSP Media said Friday. It said three members of KARA - Park Gyu-ri, Han Seung-yeon and Goo Hara - will not be re-signing their contracts. They have decided to pursue other activities. "We want to cheer them on and wish them the best," said DSP Media. But Heo Young-ji, the latest member to join the band, will stay on with the agency. KARA debuted in 2007 and enjoyed soaring popularity, particularly with hit songs "Mister" and "Lupin." It also did extremely well in Japan, where the band sold a record number of CDs and DVDs for a South Korean artist in 2011. In 2013, KARA became the first K-pop girl band to perform at Tokyo Dome. KARA has gone through several member changes. Kim Sung-hee left in 2008 and was replaced by Goo and Kang Ji-young. Kang left in 2013, and Nicole in 2014, to pursue acting and singing careers, respectively. As the new Nokia started on Thursday, chairman Risto Siilasmaa once again dismissed the idea that the former handset giant would return to the production of mobile phones. "Unless something really revolutionary would be developed," he added, noting that he did not see anything like that now. But Nokia would license out its brand to manufacturers, Siilasmaa said in an interview with Finnish national broadcaster Yle. Thursday was the launch date for the company based on the takeover of Alcatel-Lucent. Of the company's 113,000 employees, 37.5 percent are in Asia or the Pacific region, followed by 36.5 percent in Europe. In terms of turnover, North America will be the most important continent. One third of the Nokia work force are involved in research and development under a 4.2-billion-euro budget for innovations. Yle noted that its two major competitors, Huawei and Cisco, spend more on development. Siilasmaa underlined the mental learning process the company has gone through. Siilasmaa said he had encouraged entrepreneurship in the new Nokia. He noted such an approach should be possible to maintain even in a large corporation. Siilasmaa recollected how the joining of forces with Siemens had produced a bundle of problems. "It was driven by politics and not by efforts to increase the value of the company," the chairman said and noted that Nokia had learned the lesson. As part of its rebirth process, Nokia then bought the Siemens' part of the joint venture. Commenting on the last difficult phase of old Nokia, Siilasmaa said the talk with Microsoft about the handset branch had been difficult and was broken several times. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken will visit South Korea next week for discussions on how to deal with North Korea in the wake of its fourth nuclear test, both countries announced Thursday. The No. 2 American diplomat will be in Seoul Jan. 19-20 and meet with First Vice Foreign Minister Lim Sung-nam, Seoul's Foreign Ministry said in a release. He is also expected to hold a meeting with Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se. His discussions in Seoul are expected to focus on ways to punish Pyongyang for the nuclear test, including drawing cooperation from China to adopt a new U.N. Security Council resolution imposing fresh sanctions on the North. In Washington, the State Department said Blinken will "meet with senior level ROK (South Korea) officials to discuss a range of bilateral issues, including our rock solid commitment to ROK security in the face of recent DPRK (North Korea) provocations." Ahead of Seoul, Blinken will visit Tokyo for trilateral and bilateral meetings with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts to "discuss a variety of topics including the recent North Korean nuclear test, regional issues, and cooperation on global priorities including health security and development," the department said. The trilateral session is set for Saturday. After Seoul, Blinken will head to China to meet with Executive Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui for the second interim Strategic Security Dialogue and discuss further cooperation on North Korea's destabilizing activity in the region, the department said. Blinken will also meet with the director of the Taiwan Affairs Office, Zhang Zhijun, it said. The Asia trip will also take him to Naypyitaw, Myanmar, for meetings with officials involved in the country's democratic transition, the department said. (Yonhap) South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Lim Sung-nam headed Friday to Tokyo for talks with his American and Japanese counterparts largely on North Korea. The significance of security cooperation among the regional powers has grown since the North's nuclear test last week. The U.N. Security Council is working on a resolution to impose new sanctions on Pyongyang. The three nations are also exploring ways to counter the North's nuclear and missile threats more effectively. In Tokyo, Lim plans to pay a courtesy call on Japan's Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida later Friday. On Saturday, he is scheduled to hold a series of bilateral meetings with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Akitaka Saiki. Lim, Blinken and Saiki will then have a group meeting. "The issue of responding to North Korea's nuclear test will be the most important focus," a senior South Korean ministry official said. Seoul, Washington and Tokyo are struggling to elicit Beijing's full support for their efforts to take tough punitive steps against Pyongyang. Lim is expected to brief Blinken and Saiki on the results of the consultations between the top nuclear envoys of South Korea and China held in Beijing Thursday. Also to be discussed are regional and global issues such as cyber security and development cooperation, according to the ministry official. The U.S. deputy secretary, meanwhile, will visit South Korea next week as part of his Asia tour. During his two-day stay starting Tuesday, Blinken will meet with Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se. (Yonhap) By Jhoo Dong-chan A New York court has turned down a suit filed by "nut rage" incident victim Park Chang-jin against former Korean Air Executive Vice President Heather Cho, sources said Friday. Previously, the same court dismissed a case brought by Kim Do-hee, a junior flight attendant over the incident. Claiming that he suffered from a severe physical and mental breakdown after the incident, Park filed a suit with the Queens County Supreme Court in New York against Cho in July. The written decision for the dismissal was not disclosed but experts said it was likely to follow the precedent of Kim who also sued Cho on the same charges last March. In Kim's case, Robert L. Nahman, a judge in charge on the U.S. Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of Queens, reportedly said upon the dismissal last month that it would be better if a Korean court dealt with the case because the plaintiff, the defendants and witnesses reside in Korea and all evidence is in Korea as well. A series of the dismissals from the U.S court seemed to reflect Cho's repeated requests insisting the New York court dismiss the suit so that she can stand trial in Korea. Cho offered some 100 million won ($82,433) to Park and Kim through a Korean court to settle the case during her trial last year. But neither took the money and filed separate lawsuits in the U.S. instead. Both Kim and Park reportedly demanded larger compensation through the U.S. judicial system for verbal and physical abuse from Cho who was dissatisfied with the way Kim served her macadamia nuts on a Korean Air flight taxiing at New York's JFK International Airport in December 2014. According to reports, Park has extended his paid sick leave to Jan. 7. Kim has also been on unpaid sick leave which will end on March 18 after using 90 days of paid sick leave last year. By Jung Min-ho When the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak swept the country last year, The Korea Times raised the possibility of a virus mutation (http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2015/06/116_180045.html), citing its unusually high infection and low fatality rates. Following the report, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the government conducted genome sequencing studies of the virus together and concluded that no genetic mutation had occurred. Speaking to reporters on June 18 in 2015, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said, "The virus has been sequenced. So far, no genetic changes have been detected that could make the virus easier to transmit among humans." However, after their own sequencing program, a group of researchers drew a different conclusion this month: the virus apparently had mutated from the one found in Saudi Arabia, where Korea's first MERS patient was infected. "Virus strains from South Korea showed strain-specific variations," lead author Kim Dae-won of the study, "Variations in Spike Glycoprotein Gene of MERS-CoV, South Korea, 2015," said. "Genetic variations elucidated in this study show an unreported sequence in the RBD, which suggests that MERS-CoV circulating in South Korea during the outbreak in 2015 had a higher genetic variability and mutation rate." It is unclear whether WHO investigators lied about the virus mutation. If not, however, the study suggests that they failed to figure it out at a critical time of crisis. In a recent press release, the Ministry of Health and Welfare admitted the virus mutation occurred, which it had long denied. The ministry still insists that the virus mutation was not the cause of its more rapid spread and lower fatality rate, but it has not given a plausible explanation of what caused it. Also, the ministry downplayed the importance of the study, saying that the genetic difference with the sample from a past outbreak in Saudi Arabia was only minor. However, some experts say that even one amino acid sequence change can affect fatality and infection rates, urging the ministry to investigate the apparently unusual behavior pattern of the virus. In Korea, the fatality rate of the disease reached about 20 percent, which is far lower than the approximately 40 percent elsewhere. Meanwhile, the state-run Board of Audit and Inspection has requested the ministry to take disciplinary action against 16 key officials, including Yang Byung-guk, the head of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for failing to contain the MERS outbreak. Lax ministry guidelines and a poor response largely contributed to the rapid spread of the virus, the BAI noted. Thirty-eight people out of the total of 187 infected with the virus died since the respiratory disease was confirmed in Korea on May 20, 2015, and thousands more were placed under quarantine as a precautionary measure. Cho Suck-rae / Korea Times file The Seoul Central District Court sentenced Hyosung Group Chairman Cho Suck-rae, 81, to three years in prison for evading taxes and embezzlement, Friday. Cho was not taken into custody because of his health. The court also fined Cho 136.5 billion won ($112 million) for undermining justice in taxation. According to the court, Cho invested money in deals unrelated to the profits of its affiliate firms, including Nautilus Hyosung, Galaxia Electronics and Hyosung Information, and bought stock in the firms at higher than market prices. By Lee Kyung-min Arthur Patterson Prosecutors demanded 20 years in prison for Arthur John Patterson, the key suspect of the "Itaewon murder" at the final hearing of his trial at the Seoul Central District Court, Friday. The court is expected to deliver its ruling next month. "The suspect in this case killed a person by fatally stabbing him nine times, either for fun or for no apparent reason," a prosecutor said. "The brutal and bizarre nature of the crime is further compounded by the suspect's failure to admit to the crime, not to mention him showing no remorse. His crime completely shattered the life of a family," the prosecution said. It asked the court to reflect the nationwide frustration and anxiety over the crime that remains unsolved for almost two decades. The prosecution sought the term in accordance with sentencing guidelines which stipulate that suspects who were 18 or younger at the time of the murder are subject to a maximum of 20 years in prison, instead of a life sentence, the harshest punishment. The Korean American, 37, denied the charges made against him for the last time. "I did not stab Mr. Cho. It was Edward Lee who stabbed the victim. I only watched Lee stabbing Mr. Cho," Patterson said. Patterson was belatedly indicted in December 2011 over the stabbing death of a Korean student Cho Joong-pil at a Burger King restaurant in 1997. The trial began in September last year following his extradition here from the U.S. The victim, Patterson, and Edward Kun Lee are the only three people who were present at the murder scene. Lee was initially indicted for killing Cho, but later acquitted in 1998. Patterson claimed that Lee has been changing his testimony constantly following advice from his father, who has been present at every hearing for the past few months. He added that Lee had no clear memory at the time of the murder, as he was under the influence of narcotics, adding that Lee's father has been giving instructions to help get him convicted. The prosecution-submitted evidence included earlier investigation reports by a prosecutor who indicted Lee in 1997. Earlier, the victim's mother, surnamed Lee, testified against Patterson demanding that the court bring justice for her dead son. "My family's life has been in a shambles for the past 19 years following the death of my son," Lee told the court. "My son was a good-natured, selfless boy who had great academic prospect." In November last year, Seoul National University professor Lee Yoon-seong, the pathologist who performed the autopsy on the victim testified in court that it was possible for someone smaller than Cho to kill him, indicating Patterson who is small in stature. In December last year, the court conducted an enactment of the murder using actors in a mock-up of the bathroom. Investigators for the prosecution recreated the mock-up as the original had been destroyed. The judge ordered the measure to help determine the credibility of the conflicting testimonies offered by Patterson and Lee. By Rachel Lee The government has cut off its financial support to the firms involved in the Rajin-Khasan project, a joint logistics project between the two Koreas and Russia, according to administration sources. Last December, the government decided to provide a maximum of 100 billion won ($88 million) in low-interest loans to POSCO, Hyundai Merchant Marine and the Korea Railroad Corporation, all of which participated in the project aimed at transporting bituminous coal produced in western Siberia to South Korean firms through North Korea. The decision to stop the support comes as such backing could violate a resolution that the United Nations Security Council is working on to impose tougher sanctions on North Korea in the aftermath of its recent nuclear test. There is speculation that this could lead to the cancellation of the project. "This is an indirect investment through Russia, but the government had no other choice but to suspend the financial support for now," an official said. "It's even tough for the Export-Import Bank of Korea to provide support directly through its own account." The Park Geun-hye government sees the Rajin-Khasan project an integral part of its Eurasia initiative aimed at connecting roads and railways for the construction of a multi-purpose logistics networks among Eurasian nations. Embarked on in 2008, Pyongyang and Moscow have been refurbishing a railway between the Russian border town of Khasan and the North's port city of Rajin. In the United States, Congress passed legislation to step up sanctions against North Korea earlier this month, which included for the first time terms for a secondary boycott, which refers to sanctions not only of U.S. citizens and businesses but also foreign ones that do business with North Korea. By Yi Whan-woo President Park Geun-hye has reignited the debate over whether South Korea should agree to allow the U.S. to deploy its terminal high altitude area defense (THAAD) system here to intercept nuclear-capable missiles fired by North Korea. In a New Year's address, Wednesday, Park said the government will start reviewing whether to deploy THAAD for "security and national interests" as a countermeasure to the North's latest nuclear test. China raised deep concerns about Park's comments, while voices are growing in the United States for an early deployment of the advanced missile defense system in its allies. Debate is heating up here as well. Some opposition lawmakers have shown support for THAAD deployment. Concerned about provoking North Korea and China, opposition lawmakers had previously been against deploying THAAD. However, Rep. Lee Seok-hyun of the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea (MPK) said Thursday, "The best counter-measure against Pyongyang's nuclear threats would be deploying THAAD." Lee also serves as the National Assembly vice speaker. Citing Washington's claim, MPK Vice Floor Leader Baek Kun-ki, said, "THAAD is seen as an essential element to deter North Korea's attacks; but I'm against bringing it on to South Korean soil." Saenuri Party spokesman Rep. Kim Young-woo said, "I believe the President made a judgment that a more powerful way is needed to press North Korea and that's why she brought up the issue of THAAD. "I think the government and the ruling party should actively go over this together." Park's comment also spurred responses from both the U.S. and China, which have wrangled over THAAD. As an integral part of the U.S. missile shield, THAAD is designed to shoot down short, medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles at a higher altitude in their terminal phase using a hit-to-kill method. China protested that the system's long-range radar could be used to spy on its military activities. "A nation should consider neighboring countries' security as well as regional peace when it thinks of its national interests," a Chinese foreign ministry official said. Meanwhile, Jon Wolfsthal, senior director for arms control and nonproliferation at the U.S. National Security Council said, "If we see a need or if there is a desire among Japan or South Korea and the U.S. to cooperate and deploy those capabilities, we believe that there is a role for them both in deterrence and protection of forces. "But I don't have anything that we're going to announce or changes that we have in mind today." Yoon Soon-ku, right, director-general at the Ministry of National Defense's international policy division, shakes hands with Chinese defense ministry's Foreign Affairs Office Director Rear-Adm. Guan Youfei during working-level defense talks between the two countries in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, Friday. / Yonhap By Yi Whan-woo China has vowed to join the U.N. Security Council's (UNSC) efforts to take tougher sanctions against North Korea in response to Pyongyang's latest nuclear test, the Ministry of National Defense said Friday. "China made clear that North Korea's fourth nuclear test is in violation of the UNSC sanctions as well as the Sept. 19 Joint Statement on Pyongyang's nuclear program," said Director-General Yoon Soon-ku at the defense ministry's International Policy Division. "And it will join the UNSC to press the North." The announcement came after working-level defense talks between South Korea and China in Seoul, Friday. Yoon led the South Korean delegation while the Chinese side was headed by Rear-Adm. Guan Youfei, the director of the Chinese defense ministry's foreign affairs office. "During today's dialogue, China made it official that that it's absolutely against Pyongyang's nuclear program and tests," Yoon said. "Beijing said it will hold on to its three principles in relation to North Korea denuclearization, peace on the Korean Peninsula and dialogue. "South Korea and China will work closely to settle issues on Pyongyang's nuclear program." Yoon added Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also summoned North Korean Ambassador to China Ji Jae-ryong to protest Pyongyang's latest test. This was the first defense meeting between the two nations since Jan. 6 when North Korea purportedly exploded its first hydrogen bomb in Punggye-ri, North Hamgyong Province. If true, it would be the Pyongyang's fourth nuclear test following ones in 2006 and 2009 and 2013. The UNSC imposed a set of four resolutions 1718, 1874, 2087, and 2094 on the North between 2006 and 2013 to prevent the military regime from developing weapons of mass destruction. The surprise test last week showed that such U.N. pressure has not been successful and the Kim Jong-un regime has advanced its nuclear technology. North Korea has also not followed steps toward denuclearization in line with the Joint Statement made among on Sept. 19, 2005 among members of the six-party talks on its nuclear program. China is one of the five permanent members of the UNSC and a six-party talks participant. But it was seen that Beijing was largely reluctant to exert influence on Pyongyang due to concerns over a possible collapse of the Kim Jong-un regime and an influx of millions of refugees. Meanwhile, the vice ministers of South Korea, the United States and Japan will meet in Tokyo today to discuss their joint response to the alleged H-bomb test. First Vice Foreign Minister Lim Sung-nam will join his two counterparts U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Akitaka Saiki. This will be the highest level of dialogue involving the three allies since Jan. 6. Given the serious nature of the Kim regime's nuclear ambitions, the three allies have underscored their need to bolster their joint security alliance. They also have been urging China's to play a "constructive role" on North Korea. Officials from the South Korean and Chinese defense ministries began talks Friday to discuss a joint response to North Korea's recent nuclear test. The annual director-level consultation in the Ministry of National Defense in Seoul is the first direct meeting between the two countries' militaries since the North conducted what it claims was a successful hydrogen bomb test on Jan. 6. Director General Yoon Soon-ku for international policy represented the South Korean defense ministry, with the Chinese side headed by foreign affairs office director Rear. Adm. Guan Youfei. The focus of the annual working-level talks, which were first launched in 1995, is on coordinating the two countries' military efforts to rein in North Korea after its defiant nuclear test. Collaboration in fields like regional security and military exchanges is also being discussed, according to the Defense Ministry. (Yonhap) China's top anti-graft body on Thursday identified corrupt officials on key posts as priority targets of the graft-busting campaign in a communique. The communique was issued after the sixth plenary session of the 18th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the Communist Party of China (CPC), which was held from Tuesday to Thursday. It said in the general work requirements for 2016 that those who hold important posts and are likely to be further promoted but have not stepped back from their serious corrupt behaviors will be "top priority." According to the communique, the CPC will maintain a heavy-handed approach against corruption, "with unabated forces and unchanging rhythm." Anti-graft officials will work to reduce corruption and prevent corruption cases from growing. Work also needs to be done to make sure officials "do not dare to be corrupt" and to strengthen the system so that officials "are unable and unwilling to be corrupt." Greater efforts will be made to pursue fugitives and recover stolen assets as part of upgraded international cooperation against corruption, according to the communique. The communique stressed the Eight-Point Regulations calling for frugality, warning that holidays are particularly prone to breaches of the regulations. It emphasized the exemplary roles of the "key minority," or officials of high rank, in following the frugality rules, saying efforts to implement the regulations will not relent during holidays. The communique specified that those who attend private VIP clubs or organize secretive get-togethers will be punished heavily. For those who attend the gatherings, disciplinary officers will talk with them and require them to review their mistakes at intra-Party conferences. The disciplinary inspections will be increasingly strict, the communique said, and problems concerning formalism, bureaucracy, hedonism and extravagance discovered during the inspection will be seriously investigated. The communique also stressed easing public access to supervision of officials. It called for strictly punishing those involved in corruption that undermines the most direct interests of the people, and strengthening the integrity of the Party's grassroots organs. Outstanding problems such as forceful seizure, extorting bribes and embezzlement, as well as corruption and extravagance in poverty relief work, will be the focus of the campaign. The communique vowed to build a "loyal, clean and responsible team of discipline and inspection staff" who are loyal to the Party and trusted by the people. It urged disciplinary officers to assist local CPC committees in leadership transfer, so that appointed officials are clean. The majority of South Koreans believe the resumption of loudspeaker broadcasts to North Korea was a good decision, a local poll showed Friday. Last Friday, South Korea reinitiated these broadcasts, which criticize the North Korean regime and blast K-pop music and radio soap operas, two days after North Korea claimed to have tested its first hydrogen bomb. Seoul had suspended these broadcasts since August when the two Koreas agreed to diffuse military tensions and hold a reunion of family members separated by the 1950-53 Korean War. About 60 percent of the respondents supported the broadcasts, a survey by Gallup Korea showed. Some 26 percent disapproved of the measure, and the remaining 14 percent were ambivalent. By political party, 78 percent of the ruling Saenuri Party supporters favored the broadcasts, compared with 45 percent of the proponents of the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea. About 49 percent of independents liked the measure, while 27 percent of them didn't. By age group, 78 percent of those aged 60 and above considered the measure to be appropriate. About 63 percent of those aged 19-29 and those in their 50s agreed, but those in their 30s and 40s were mixed, with supporters slightly outweighing opponents. The telephone survey was conducted on 1,005 South Korean adults nationwide from Tuesday to Thursday. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points at a confidence level of 95 percent. (Yonhap) China will support efforts to adopt a United Nations resolution against North Korea for its fourth nuclear test, Yonhap reported Friday. "China will join a United Nations Security Council resolution as the fourth North Korean nuclear test is a violation of the previous UNSC resolutions and the so-called Sept. 19 agreement," Rear. Adm. Guan Youfei of China's defense ministry said. He also said China is opposed to the North's nuclear test, reiterating China's stance on the North's nuclear arms program. But China will uphold three principles of denuclearizing, keeping the peace on the Korean Peninsula and the resolution through dialogue and negotiations, the official said. Guan was in Seoul for the annual working-level defense policy talks with South Korea. South Korean President Park Geun-hye had urged China to take a role in punishing the North following its Jan. 6 nuclear test. By Ranjit Kumar Dhawan The Cold War was one of the important phases in modern history. The ideologies of capitalism and communism divided the world into two blocs. These caused the U.S. and Soviet Union to compete in heavy militarization and arms race for the "mutually assured destruction." British Prime Minister Winston Churchill described this ideological divide as an "iron curtain". The Korean peninsula also became an arena of Cold War rivalry. Soon after independence from brutal Japanese colonial rule (1910-45), the Korean peninsula was divided by the Allied Powers along the 38th parallel as a temporary measure to bring it under their trusteeship. But the Cold War rivalry between the Allied Powers led to the establishment of two hostile regimes on the Korean peninsula. South Korea became a frontline state in the "containment of communism" policy of U.S. President Harry S. Truman in East Asia. The Cold War turned hot when the Korean War broke out on June 25, 1950. Hundreds of thousands people died in the war which was brought to an end through an armistice on July 27, 1953. The Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin wall and subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union. The victory of liberal democracy and capitalism over communism was regarded by the famous political scientist Francis Fukuyama as "the end of history." However, the Korean peninsula remains divided into two antagonistic states and is still a Cold War zone. The Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) which was created after the end of the Korean War (1950-53) has kept the peninsula divided and areas along this dividing line remain among the most heavily militarized and dangerous regions in the world. A visit to the Joint Security Area in Panmunjom village reminds of the hostility and uncomfortable peace that prevails on the Korean peninsula. Here brothers regard each other as enemies and frequently threaten to destroy each other. Each side shows the visitors about the brutality committed by the other since the start of the Korean War. The Korean War ended more than six decades ago but there was no peace treaty. As a result, the two Koreas remain technically at war with each other to this day. The need for a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War was never taken seriously. Despite several predictions by strategic analysts that the North Korean regime would collapse, it did not collapse in the last seven decades and there does not appear to be any major threat to the regime. North Korea has not yet become a failed state. After the death of Kim Jong-il in December 2011 there were predictions that the new successor Kim Jong-un would pursue liberal policies based on what was taught to him in a Western country. But these predictions have also failed as Kim Jong-un remains as much paranoid as his father and grandfather. In the last four years Kim Jong-un has eliminated several of his adversaries. His regime is also developing more and more lethal weapons. On the other hand, President Park Geun-hye has been showing to the world about the economic benefits of Korean unification. But apart from making speeches on unification she has not visited North Korea since becoming president. The Park administration is also developing an army base at Pyeongtaek in Gyeonggi Province to host more and more U.S. soldiers. Cold War rivalry continues on the Korean peninsula. To bring about "the end of history" on the Korean peninsula it is required to not only denuclearize North Korea but also to remove all foreign troops from South Korea and unify the Korean peninsula through peaceful means without any foreign interference. The author is a Ph.D. candidate at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India. Reach him at rkdhawan13@hotmail.com. By Kim Ji-myung There are numerous incidents in history which could only be properly explained after seemingly remote factors that of humans along with environment and ecology and their interactions were found and connected. One broad example is the fact that the success or failure of sea-faring countries in the Imperialist period between the 15th century to around 1910 largely depended on their skills to cope with the climate, sea and the unfamiliar, tropical regions. For another example, we can look to Japan and their approach to the occupation of Manchuria. At the time, a medical scientist and official named Shimpei Goto (1857-1929) held multiple key roles in Japan's occupation, becoming the political minister at the Government General in Taipei, and then the president of the Southern Manchuria Railway Company in 1906. But why would the Japanese assign a medical scientist to important governing positions in colonial territories? Well, Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese war in 1905 was due in part to the nation's superior knowledge of and programs for military hygiene. So the Japanese authorities understood that hygienic governance would be a crucial factor for success in Manchuria. This led to Shimpei, who studied medicine at Tokyo University and then studied bacteriology and public hygiene under hygienist Max Joseph von Pettenkofer in Germany, being placed in such a key role of the occupation. Over the past decades, as research continues across academic borders, the relationships between the history of civilization and the natural environment and ecology have been newly defined. And in order to focus greater effort toward research activities on this growing area of importance, a group of academics - from many areas including Korean and Western history, social science and natural sciences - has recently launched the Korean Society of Ecological and Environmental History (KSEEH). "Ecological and environmental factors are deeply linked to the daily lives of people. By adding this dimension of space to the time and people dimension of historical research, we may come up with valuable answers to issues on human-environment relationships," stated the KSEEH, which is led by president, Dr. Kim Dong-jin, of the Korean National University of Education. The launching symposium of KSEEH, which will be held at Yonsei University, Seoul, in January 2016, will feature many guest speakers, including Prof. Micah S. Muscolino of Oxford University. Muscolino authored The Ecology of War in China: Henan Province, the Yellow River, and Beyond, 1938-1950, and Fishing Wars and Environmental Change in Late Imperial and Modern China in North China. He concludes that "efforts to procure and exploit nature's energy in various forms shaped the choices of generals, the fates of communities, and the trajectory of environmental change." Other participants, either giving presentations or contributing papers, will include: Dr. Lee Hyun-sook of Yonsei University, a scholar of ancient medical history of Korea who is heading the Korean Institute of Ecological and Environmental History, an affiliate of the KSEEH; Prof. Zheng Xianyue of Daren University, China, an expert in the medical history of diseases, especially in relation to the environment; and Prof. J. Donald Hughes of the University of Denver, well known in Korea as an environmental historian. Environmental history is concerned with the interaction between human societies and the rest of the natural world. It regards the environment as a major force in historical events and in the course of nations and civilizations. Prof. Hughes takes the case of Easter Island as an example of a society that destroyed its own resource base through deforestation and overpopulation. Yet how can an environmental historian explain what happened on Easter Island before and after Europeans encountered the island? Written historical sources on the topic are few. There are the accounts of explorers, including ship logs. On April 5, 1722, Dutch admiral Jacob Roggeveen sighted and named the island, describing it as bare of trees, with a small population and a number of large standing statues. Other explorers followed, including English Captain James Cook. There are also writings of 19th-century missionaries and 20th-century anthropologists. These reveal that the islanders pushed down all the statues by the mid-19th century. The ones now standing were re-erected by the Europeans, Americans, and Japanese in the 20th century. There was even a native written language on Easter Island, but when most of the population was enslaved and taken off the island in the mid-19th century, the knowledge necessary to read it was lost, and it remains undeciphered. From these sources alone, the ecological disaster is inexplicable, although without them the rest of the evidence could not be integrated into an historical account. Pollen analysis reveals the presence of forests until about 500 years ago. This indicates that a densely forested island became deforested during the period of human occupation. Dwelling sites show agricultural activity almost everywhere on the island by 1500. It is evident that in the environmental history of Easter Island, historical source work and science supplement one another nicely. There are, of course, many other debates on the topic, such as professionalism, environmental determinism as opposed to anthropogenic causation and so on. As in any emerging area, the debate surrounding these kinds of issues seems unlikely to decline; rather, it is more likely that it will intensify. Vigorous discourse between differing viewpoints will sharpen analysis by scholars. In that regard, the birth of a research group on the topic is drawing attention and interest. The writer is the chairwoman of the Korea Heritage Education Institute (K*Heritage). Her email address is Heritagekorea21@gmail.com. Japanese politicians have often made shameless remarks regarding their country's colonial rule of Korea. But the latest distortion on "comfort women" by Sakurada Yoshitaka, a six-term lawmaker of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, is particularly thoughtless and untimely. His remark came less than three weeks after Korea and Japan reached a deal on compensating the women who were forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese Army during World War II. Even though Yoshitaka withdrew his remark in the face of a strong backlash, we strongly condemn him for describing the women as "professional prostitutes." His remark is not only disrespectful to the elderly victims of wartime sexual slavery who are still demanding Japan's sincere apology. It also undermines the spirit of the Korea-Japan deal, which was reached after strenuous consultations by the neighboring countries for future-oriented relations. Japanese politicians are urged to refrain from voicing opinions on the comfort women issue that contradict the Dec. 28 deal. If such malicious views keep surfacing from them and the media, Koreans will continue to doubt Japan's sincerity about implementing the deal and offering heartfelt consolation to the victims. Japan should remember that its foreign minister admitted in the agreement that its military was responsible for the sexual slavery. As such, there should be no more argument about who is responsible for the wartime sexual enslavement. It is the view of the international community that these women were forced into sexual slavery against their will and their rights were severely violated. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is partly to be blamed for the distorted view of comfort women held by the likes of Yoshitaka. Abe had called the comfort women "victims of human trafficking" in a Washington Post interview prior to his trip to the U.S. in April 2015. His remark angered many Koreans who interpreted it as denying Japan's responsibility for the wartime sexual slavery of Korean women. In the agreement, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida vowed to provide 1 billion yen ($8.5 million) from Japan's national budget to help 46 surviving Korean victims. Japan has stressed that the deal resolved the comfort women issue finally and irreversibly. But many Koreans are not satisfied with it. The victims themselves strongly protest the deal, saying that they will not take any of the funds to be offered by the Japanese government. At this time, the Japanese leaders should take the initiative to show that they truly repent on their wartime atrocities instead of provoking Koreans with reckless remarks that deny history. The parliamentary vice speaker called Thursday for the deployment of an advanced U.S. missile defense system as part of the country's self-defense against the threats posed by North Korea's nuclear and missile programs. Lee Seok-hyun, vice speaker of the National Assembly, said the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery in South Korea has become an "indispensable self-defense." THAAD is designed to shoot down ballistic missiles in their terminal stage using a hit-to-kill program. Lee, who is affiliated with the main opposition Minjoo Party, said during a meeting with party officials, "It is natural for South Korea to come up with self-rescue measures," citing North Korea's advances in its nuclear capabilities. North Korea claimed last week that it successfully carried out its first hydrogen bomb test and fourth nuclear test, sparking concerns around the world about the country's defiant pursuit of nuclear ambitions. Experts have warned that it is only a matter of time until the North masters the technology to make nuclear warheads small enough to fit on a ballistic missile. Lee's comments represent a departure from the party, which has been cautious on the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system, citing China's opposition. China has repeatedly expressed its opposition to the possible deployment of a THAAD battery in South Korea as the radar system could monitor military facilities in China. Still, Washington says the THAAD battery is a purely defensive system designed only to counter ballistic missile threats from North Korea. On Wednesday, President Park Geun-hye said she will consider whether or not to deploy a THAAD battery based on South Korea's security and national interests by taking into account threats posed by North Korea's nuclear and missile programs. (Yonhap) The United States believes that the THAAD missile defense system has a role to play in East Asia in terms of deterrence and force protection, a senior White House official said Thursday. Jon Wolfsthal, senior director for arms control and nonproliferation at the National Security Council, made the remark during a security seminar in response to a question about calls for more missile defense in the region, including the possibility of THAAD deployment to South Korea, in the wake of North Korea's nuclear test. "If we see a need or if there is a desire among Japan or South Korea and the United States to cooperate and deploy those capabilities, we believe that there is a role for them both in deterrence and protection of forces," he said during the Center for American Progress seminar. "But I don't have anything that we're going to announce or changes that we have in mind today," he said. Talk of deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery to South Korea has gained traction in the wake of last week's nuclear test. South Korean President Park Geun-hye said during a New Year's news conference she will consider the issue according to national interests. It is no secret that the U.S. also wants to deploy a THAAD unit to South Korea, where some 28,500 American troops are stationed, to better defend against ever-growing threats from North Korea's ballistic missile and nuclear programs. But the issue has become one of the most sensitive for South Korea because China sees a potential THAAD deployment as a threat to their security interests and have increased pressure on Seoul to reject such a deployment. Seoul and Washington have maintained they have never held any formal consultations on the issue. (Yonhap) By Choi Sung-jin Korea and Japan are fiercely competing to carve out a larger share of the rapidly enlarging construction market in Vietnam, business sources said Friday. The Vietnamese government plans to build up the country's poor social infrastructure with airports, railways and subways, and it is estimated to spend more than 30 trillion won ($24.8 billion) doing it. The Japanese builders' main advantages are abundant funds and accumulated know-how while their Korean competitors' strengths are their experience of rising from a developing to a developed country and superior information technology, sources said. The central and provincial administrations in the Southeast Asian country are going all out to build roads and expressways, thinking that the lack of social infrastructure is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to brisk economic development, they said. In 2014, motorcycles accounted for 81.4 percent of all means of transport in Ho Chi Minh City, remaining almost unchanged from the 81.8 percent of 2004. Bus transportation and other means of mass transit slightly increased, from 6.9 percent to 8.4 percent, during the period. "Unless we quickly improve underdeveloped roads and establish mass transit and modernize our rail system, our transportation problems will pose a big obstacle to economic growth," a Vietnamese government official was quoted as saying at a recent workshop in a report by the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA). In Vietnam's two biggest cities, Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) and Hanoi, there are no urban transportation systems such as city buses that are seen in major cities of the world. Up to 80 percent of Ho Chi Minh City's main roads are four lanes or narrower, which explains why motorcycle use has hardly declined over the past decade. Until recently, the Vietnamese government had pushed for a $31 billion high-speed railway to run through the country from north to south, in which the well-funded Japanese builders enjoyed a competitive edge. The country's parliament later rejected the ambitious project, forcing the government to shift to the modernization of existing railways, subway systems in major cities and new ports and airports. "The Japanese builders once seemed to win most of the projects to construct Vietnam's transportation infrastructure but the situation has changed now," said Park Sang-hyup, head of KOTRA's Ho Chi Minh City office. "Korean contractors with strength in the IT sector are now moving around briskly." Among the major projects up for grabs are a $16.5-billion project to build a new airport in Ho Chi Minh City, a $9-billion railway master plan and a $1.8-billion project to build the fifth subway line in the capital city, which has completed its feasibility studies and is seeking main contractors. Also under way are programs to build mass rapid-transit systems incorporating buses and rail in major cities, which require not only hardware but software, such as traffic control systems, in which Korean companies have advantages. "The Vietnamese government also is well aware that the expansion of roads and railways alone will not work, and that it is important to establish an efficient operational and control system," said a transport expert here. "The Korean builders need to differentiate themselves by emphasizing their competitive edge in these areas." By Lee Min-hyung The proposed deal of CJ HelloVision by SK Telecom is causing concerns that it may deepen market inequality in the nation's broadcasting industry. "If the deal is approved, SK Telecom will likely solidify its grip on the broadcasting industry by launching bundled products," said Lee In-ho, an economics professor at Seoul National University. The deal is causing strong backlash from its rivals runner-up KT and the third-largest mobile carrier LG Uplus which argue that the deal will deteriorate profitability of the cable TV industry, as SK Telecom is expected to launch bundled products which include free cable TV services in return for using its telecom service. They are also stepping up criticism over the leading carrier, claiming that the deal will tarnish fair competition. In November, SK Telecom signed a deal with CJ HelloVision in what the telecom says is a move to expand its presence into building a converged media platform which covers both telecom and broadcasting sectors. The deal, if approved, will allow SK Broadband, SK Telecom's wholly-owned subsidiary, to merge with the cable TV affiliate of SK Group by April. "It is certain that SK Telecom will strengthen its grip through aggressive mergers and acquisitions (M&A) to eliminate its existing and potential competitors," Lee said. "The government should come up with regulatory measures to prevent the possible market confusion." SK Telecom waits for approval from relevant government bodies to go ahead with the deal. Nothing has yet been unveiled, however, expectations are that the government will approve the deal with strong regulatory strings attached over worries that the takeover may pull down fair competition. "There are no institutional measures to prevent conglomerates with huge capital from expanding their dominance into broadcasting," Lee said. "It is too early for the government to approve the deal unless specific regulatory measures are established." He said the M&A between the telecom and broadcasting sector is strongly regulated by the government in overseas countries. "The U.S. government disapproved a takeover deal between the telecom market leader, AT&T, and fourth-largest carrier T-Mobile, over worries that it may hurt fair competition in the industry," he said. The French government approved a deal between its leading Internet service operator, Numericable, and the country's No. 2 mobile carrier SFR, with strong regulatory measures attached, including disposal of subsidiaries, the professor added. SK Telecom previously claimed the move came in its strong bid to become what it calls a converged media platform provider. "But SK Telecom has failed to prevent clear blueprints for its global strategy following the deal," he said. "The move translates into a move to dominate not just telecom, but cable TV, the high-speed Internet service market, which will limit fair competition." The deal will also tarnish credibility of the government's efforts for fair competition, shrinking competition among its rivals, he added. LG Uplus previously denounced SK Telecom, claiming that the deal is against Article 7 of the nation's Fair Trade Law, which prohibits takeover deals against fair trade. LG Electronics' mobile chief Cho Juno answers questions during a news conference to unveil the firm's latest V10 smartphone at a launch event in Seoul, in October last year. / Korea Times file LG mobile chief Cho Juno challenges Samsung By Kim Yoo-chul Korea's top two handset producers plan to unveil new devices at this year's mobile expo in the Spanish city of Barcelona. LG Electronics was the first among Google Android backers to send out official press invitations to a launch event at February's Mobile World Congress (MWC), which is all but certain to be where LG will introduce its G5 phone. "A day ahead of the official opening of the MWC, LG plans to unveil a new flagship mobile via a press event," an executive at LG Electronics said Friday. Last year, the LG Group's technology affiliate skipped the world's most-influential annual mobile convention to avoid being outshone by Samsung Electronics, which unveiled its new flagship device to gain most media attention. "The unveiling of LG's new flagship handset was delayed months after the release of the new Samsung flagship handset," the executive said. "But this year will be different. LG Electronics is ready to take on Samsung." Samsung Electronics' new mobile chief, Ko Dong-jin, earlier confirmed plans to release the Galaxy S7 at the MWC. A spokesman at LG Electronics in Seoul said the company had no official comment about the possibility of a new flagship mobile at the MWC. Fate of LG's mobile chief The strategy shift comes after LG Electronics' mobile chief, Cho Juno, who is a de facto chief executive of the company, faces questions about his management ability after the mobile business' continued dismal performance. LG Electronics released its previous flagship handset, the G4, at the end of last April. While LG's management had confirmed that the G4 was selling well, market analysts estimated that so far it has underperformed the G3 by more than half. LG's vision for recovery is through focusing on high-end devices, such as the new V10. But with two major high-end models launched a year, sales of the V10 have not been impressive. "Considering the competitive landscape and LG Electronics' weak brand power in the field, we do not believe this is the road to success for LG Electronics and believe the company's handset business could well face continued or even increased pressure," said Bernstein Research's Mark C. Newman. Cross-town rival Samsung, which is faring better than LG in sales and profit, named Ko as president of the company's mobile business, resulting in long-time CEO Shin Jong-kyun taking a role in managing overall strategies. That has been widely considered as Samsung's reaffirmation to tackle market uncertainty and prevent a further decline in profit through technological upgrades. Unlike Samsung's changes, LG Electronics offered a bigger role to Cho, who has more experience with management strategies than technology development. "The nomination of Ko means Samsung's strategy is to pursue hardware innovation," said an official at one of LG's technology affiliates. "The reason why Cho has been given a second chance, despite his controversial ability, was that LG's upcoming flagship mobile device seems to have great potential, raising expectations that the G5 will be qualitatively different than those manufactured by its main Chinese rivals. LG's mobile chief Cho will be aggressive." LG's target, the Samsung Galaxy S7, will have upgraded features in hardware and content but minimal surface change and will offer consumers a chance to buy the S7 at a cheaper price. While the S7 will support high-end camera technology and faster in-house application processors, the LG G5 will follow Samsung's move to make its body from metal. It is very unlikely the G5 will use an OLED screen. "LG's decision to choose the MWC for its new flagship is also partly due to enhancements of application processors supplied by U.S.-based mobile chip giant Qualcomm, as its two previous versions G4 and V10 had been forced to use Qualcomm's less-powerful Snapdragon 808 due to an overheating issue," the official said. LG implied that the new model had an improved user experience because the invitation included the phrase "Play begin," with a small green present box. "When you open the box, then you will experience new things," LG Electronics said. One thing that is a near-certainty is that the new model will focus strongly on video streaming. LG said it was now in partnership with Netflix to help the service break into new territory. In return, LG is getting exclusive access to much of Netflix's content. China has officially begun a new round of lunar exploration and will send the Chang'e-4 probe to the far side of the moon in 2018, China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) announced Thursday. The photo of the Yutu moon rover taken by the camera on the Chang'e-3 moon lander during the mutual-photograph process after the successful landing of the moon probe on the moon on Dec 15, 2013. [Photo/Xinhua] The far side of the moon is never visible to Earth because of gravitational forces and has never been explored by humans. Chang'e-4 will be the first mission in human history to embark on this expedition, said Liu Jizhong, chief of the lunar exploration center under SASTIND. China already boasts mature science and technology for sending a probe to the far side of the moon, and is open to cooperation with international society, said Liu. China achieved its first soft-landing on the moon with Chang'e-3 in December 2013, and it is still sending messages back to Earth. Liu said Chang'e-4 is very similar to Chang'e-3 in structure but can handle more payload. It will be used to study the geological conditions of the dark side of the moon. China sent a letter of intent of cooperation to foreign countries in early 2015. China also plans to launch its Chang'e-5 lunar probe to finish the last chapter in China's three-step (orbiting, landing and return) moon exploration program. The Chang'e-5 lunar probe is now being developed by Chinese scientists, Liu said. A lawsuit filed by the prominent whistleblower Zhou Xiaoyun against governments that refuse to publicly disclose how 177 million yuan (US$26.87 million) allocated for assisting left-behind children has been spent has been accepted by a court in southwest China's Guizhou Province, the Beijing Times reported yesterday. The city government of Bijie allocated about 60 million yuan every year since 2012 to help children left by their parents after five boys, whose parents died, remarried or left home for work, suffocated while trying to keep warm by burning charcoal in a trash bin on November 16, 2012. But similar tragedies followed. On June 9, 2015, four siblings, aged between 5 and 15, committed suicide by swallowing pesticide a year after their mother left home and three months after their father went away for work. "Death is my dream," eldest brother Zhang Qigang said in a farewell letter. On August 4, a 15-year-old girl was raped by two relatives, aged 17 and 20, when her migrant worker father was away. They then killed her and her 12-year-old brother. Zhou wondered why the plight of left-behind children in Bijie had not been addressed, and on June 16 he demanded full disclosure of how and where the funds had been spent. On July 26, the city government announced that 177.24 million yuan had been allocated over three years to improve students' living conditions, but no details were disclosed. "They are just general figures," Zhou told the paper. "I want to know exactly where the fund goes and how it is spent." On October 8, Zhou asked the provincial government to order the city government to provide a detailed account of the spending, but his request was rejected on December 7. He then filed a lawsuit against the two governments, demanding full disclosure. The Intermediate People's Court in the provincial capital Guiyang will soon hear the case, the paper reported. Taiwanese voters will go to the polls on Saturday to elect the island's new leader and legislature, however, voter sentiment is weighed down by uncertainties surrounding post-election cross-Strait stability. Liu Tung-lung, a retired senior government official and member of the Kuomintang (KMT), told Xinhua that he was anxious, not about the election result but the uncertainty of the island's future relations with the mainland. "I would be upset if Eric Chu [the KMT candidate] lost the election, but I could live with that. The KMT has lost before," he said. "What worries me most is Tsai Ing-wen's [Democratic Progressive Party candidate] cross-Strait policies, especially her stance on the 1992 Consensus." Candidates' cross-Strait policies have been under close scrutiny since the campaign started, especially in the televised debates. Both Chu and James Soong of the People First Party clearly expressed support for the 1992 Consensus while Tsai has remained ambiguous, so far. Tsai has repeatedly promised to maintain cross-Strait relations and in her campaign rally in Kaohsiung on Thursday she reiterated that if elected she would try her best to maintain cross-Strait stability. Yet she has avoided a clear statement on the 1992 Consensus. On several occasions, including TV debates, she said the DPP acknowledged the historical meeting in Hong Kong in 1992 but claimed that the 1992 Consensus was "not the only option but one of the options." Denying the 1992 Consensus means denying the foundation of cross-Strait relations in the past two decades, Liu said. "If the elected leader held such a stance, I would be worried about our future," he said. Several political heavyweights have expressed similar concerns. In his New Year's Day speech, Ma Ying-jeou, the island's current leader, called on his successor to carry on the current cross-Strait policies and value the 1992 Consensus. Hau Pei-tsun, former head of Taiwan's executive authority, said in an earlier public speech that voters should choose whoever upholds the 1992 Consensus and abandon those who disagree with it. The two sides of the Taiwan Strait had establish certain mutual trust since 2008 mainly because the KMT accepted the 1992 Consensus, said Tang Shao-cheng with Chengchi University, Taipei. "If the DPP candidate was elected and continued to avoid the issue, such mutual trust would be seriously undermined and this would bring huge uncertainty to the relationship," he said. For ordinary Taiwanese, a safe and peaceful society and vigorous economy are the biggest concerns. Lien Chih-ching, a Taipei bank clerk, told Xinhua that since the economic situation is not promising now, people are hoping that closer cross-Strait cooperation can help boost Taiwan's economy. "people like me can only benefit if we live in a peaceful society with economic opportunities," he said, adding that no matter which candidate wins the election, he or she has to face this reality. Yang Li-de, a Taipei businessman, said that he expects cross-Strait relations not to return to what it was before 2008 if the DPP wins. "The two sides should not set a ceiling for economic cooperation. I hope the relations can continue to advance." Since 2008, the two sides have held 11 rounds of talks and signed 23 agreements including lifting bans on direct shipping, air transportation and postal services in 2008, and the long-awaited Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement in 2010. The two sides also lifted the ban on mainland tourists to the island. About 3.22 million mainland tourists visited the island in 2014 and in the first nine months of 2015 the figure reached 3.11 million. Wang Chih-ching, a taxi driver in Kaohsiung, has been a long-time supporter of DPP but he admitted that mainland tourists have brought him more business. "I hope cross-Strait exchanges will not cease and more mainland tourists come to visit after the election," he said. Risk of being sidelined Business people are concerned about the stagnation of economic cooperation across the Taiwan Strait. Guo Tai-chiang, chair of Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers Association, said it is not enough to maintain the status quo, specially in economic cooperation between the two sides. "The industry wants the cooperation to go deeper," Guo said. The uncertainty of cross-Strait policies is keeping business people on their toes, said Lai Cheng-I, chair of Shining Building Business Co. Ltd. "We care the most about whether the two sides will continue trade agreement talks," he said. Yin Chi-ming, chief executive of think tank "National Policy Foundation", warned in an article in Monday's Taipei-based Commercial Times that Taiwan may face the risk of being sidelined in global trade and economic cooperation if cross-Strait relations sour and talks about the follow-up agreements of the economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) fail. With constructive and smooth cross-Strait economic cooperation, Taiwan firms are able to expand global business with the support of the mainland market and they should not give up this advantage, Yin said. The mainland remained Taiwan's biggest trade partner in 2015 while the island had a trade surplus of 27 billion U.S. dollars. The SLFP does not condone the continuation of the Emergency Regulations (The Public Security Ordinance) more than a day necessary Read more A cloud of grey covers Shanghai on Thursday morning as the air quality index rose to 225 points in the downtown area. [Photo by Zhang Suoqing/Shanghai Daily] The Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau issued a yellow smog warning yesterday as the air quality index rose to 225 points. The lowest in the city's four-tier system, yellow alerts come when the AQI is forecast to be between 201 and 225 for the next 24 hours. Yesterday's warning was issued at 11am and was the second since the turn of the year just two weeks ago. PM2.5 particles were again the major pollutant, with their density in some parts of the city surpassing 160 micrograms per cubic meter, or six times the World Health Organization's safe level. The alert meant that activity was suspended at selected building sites and heavy polluting factories, while vehicles carrying construction materials were ordered off the roads. The Shanghai Environmental Monitoring Center blamed the poor air quality on pollutants blown into the city from northern and western regions, as well as a lack of wind to disperse them. Today's AQI is expected to be between 205 and 225 in the morning, before falling to between 185 and 205 in the afternoon. Despite the gloomy outlook, today and tomorrow should be slightly warmer, with the high set to reach 10 or 11 degrees Celsius. Sunday will be wet and cooler, with a maximum temperature of 8 degrees, forecasters said. The mercury managed only a fraction above freezing in the downtown Xujiahui area yesterday, while in some suburban areas, it fell to as low as minus 4 degrees. Yosemite National Park says that it is forced to change many historic names around the park because of a trademark dispute with Delaware North, the concessionaire which recently lost the contract to run facilities at Yosemite. This is bad. Yosemite says it is making the name changes "unwillingly," and the two sides are fighting over whether Delaware North actually owns trademarks for place names in the national park and how much ransom the company wants to give the names back. Essentially, the name changes sound like a negotiating gambit by Yosemite to put public and political pressure on Delaware North. How about this: just fix it. The new names chosen by Yosemite are unspeakably cheesy. The classic Ahwahnee would becomes The Majestic Yosemite Hotel. Curry Village would become Half Dome Village. The Wawona Hotel? How does Big Trees Lodge sound. The Badger Pass ski area would also get a name, as would Yosemite Lodge. From the Sacramento Bee story: A missing ingredient in Wednesdays Los Angeles County town-hall style meeting on homelessness was a frank discussion of the difficulties in filling the homeless great need for affordable housing. I watched the afternoon-long session online and was impressed with the sincerity of the people in the homeless aid field. Theyd come to express their opinions on a draft of a plan that will be presented to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. The ideas in the draft are good, but they are the same ideas that have been batted around for years by those providing services to the growing numbers of homeless. Afterward, I called John Maceri, executive director of OPCC (formerly known as the Ocean Park Community Center) and the Lamp Community. The combined organization assists the homeless in a wide area of Los Angeles, reaching beyond city limits up to Malibu. I very much appreciated that the county and the city are working toward a fully integrated strategy, Maceri said. But he said the ideas offered by the county staff have been recommended before. Thats not a criticism. It is a recognition that the county and the city are catching up to what the providers have been saying for a long time now they are working together, or beginning to, in a focused way. Finding housing for the homelessand providing them with care for physical and mental illness and with substance abuse rehabilitationis a first priority for many advocates for the homeless. They favor a policy known as housing firstsettling people in apartments and then providing the care and job training they need. The county draft proposals noted that homeless people couldnt afford rent in high-cost Los Angeles County. And, the Republican Congress has drastically reduced funds to subsidize rents for the poor. The county staff failed to single out the Republicans for the blame they deserve. Nor did they say where the funds should come from. The county staff also failed to mention another stumbling block. Los Angeles and the other 87 cities in the county control zoning in their areas, and residents have long been opposed to building affordable housing in their neighborhoods or encouraging landlords to open their properties to subsidized housing for the poor. Los Angeles County runs services for the poormental health, drug rehabilitation, county hospitals, foster children programs, general relief aid and, of course, the jail, where too many end up because of punitive city laws. But it has no control over the city zoning laws and regulations that permit or deny construction of low cost housing. Maceri noted the obstacles, including Nimbyism (not in my backyard) among residents who exert pressure on elected officials. There will have to be compromise, he said. Residents will have to have affordable housing in their neighborhoods. There is more, of course, to this complicated issue, and more talks will no doubt be held. Fresh ideas, anyone? Republican presidential campaign frontrunner Donald Trump made hilarious and ridiculous remarks immediately after North Korea's fourth nuclear test. Republican presidential campaign frontrunner Donald Trump made hilarious and ridiculous remarks immediately after North Korea's fourth nuclear test. President Obama may not publicly echo Mr. Trump's view, but he may have applauded Mr. Trump's argument privately. So here comes the next question: How will President Obama respond to the fourth test? Most likely, President Obama's follow-up moves will be developed in the next couple of days. He or his team will talk and/or meet with counterparts in South Korea and Japan to convey the message of assurance, to reaffirm the American security commitment. Possibly, some cooperative and coordinated political and economic moves against North Korea will be taken. Discussion of missile-defense deployment in Northeast Asia will come back to the table again. The routine joint military exercises with allies will be conducted next month or the month after next. The basic message is: Don't worry, be happy, I am still here protecting you guys. The United States will urge the United Nation Security Council to issue a statement to express grave concerns, to condemn North Korea's provocative moves, and to urge North Korea to exercise restraint, etc. This mission has been accomplished now//before??//. Countries concerned will be asked to implement the past sanction resolutions strictly. Finally, the United States will try to cook a United Nation Security Council sanction resolution to punish North Korea economically and financially. The United States will become pushy and demanding once again. American diplomatic envoys will flock to Beijing, urging China to do more. They expect China to do anything possible to punish North Korea harshly, and to bring North Korea down to its knees. What else President Obama can do? Nothing meaningful is likely. It is just a routine job for him, and that pattern has been there for the past seven years. President Obama called his policy toward North Korea "Strategic Patience". He might be patient enough, but patience is not North Korea's game. "Strategic Patience" has turned out to be a great failure. Among the four nuclear tests done by North Korea, three were done in President Obama's two terms. In 2010, two major regional security crises erupted, which almost brought the Peninsula to the brink of another war. North Korea launched several satellites, which might boost North Korea's ballistic missile technology research and development. North Korea also disclosed its fairly well-advanced uranium enrichment program in 2010. North Korea's 5MW reactor resumed operation, and a light-water reactor is in construction. Meanwhile, the uranium enrichment plant is expanding. North Korea keeps moving forward, while the Obama administration keeps waiting and watching with "strategic patience". Follow China.org.cn on Twitter and Facebook to join the conversation. Flash Iraqi security forces on Thursday recaptured territories seized earlier in the day by Islamic State (IS) militants in Salahudin province, security sources said. At least 30 IS militants were killed in the fighting, when government troops and allied paramilitary units, known as Hashd Shaabi retook the areas of Tal Gseiba and al-Madad, some 30 km east of the provincial capital city of Tikrit, said Jasim al-Jbara, head of security committee of Salahudin provincial council. Earlier in the day, a provincial security source told Xinhua that the extremist group carried out a major attack at dawn from their positions in Makhoul mountain range and advanced in several routes to capture a large area from Fat'ha in the northern part of the province to Tal Gseiba and al-Madad, and cut the strategic road between Tikrit and the city of Kirkuk. Elsewhere, IS militants also attacked the towns of Seiniyah, north of Tikrit, and Mkeishifa, south of the provincial capital, but were pushed back, the security source said on condition of anonymity. The latest IS advance forced dozens of families to leave their homes and head to the town of Alam, just near Tikrit, which is located some 170 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, the source added. The mosques in Alam called on residents to take up their arms and prepare to defend their town and families from possible IS attacks, he said. Meanwhile, local authorities in the town of Dowr, southeast of Tikrit, imposed a curfew and put its police and tribal fighters on alert for possible IS attacks, the source added. The Sunni Arab predominated province of Salahudin has been the scene of a major offensive by Iraqi security forces and Hashd Shaabi units, which managed to retake control of key towns of the province from IS militants who seized large part of it in June 2014. In Iraq's western province of Anbar, the security forces and allied Sunni tribal fighters, aided by Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition aircraft, made significant advance early Thursday in Sajjariyah district in the eastern part of Ramadi, some 110 km west of Baghdad, capturing a large part of the district, a provincial security source told Xinhua. The troops also captured al-Soura district, adjacent to Sajjariyah after clashes with extremist militants; 16 militants and five security members were killed and six others wounded in the fighting, the source said on condition of anonymity. Meanwhile, federal police attacked IS checkpoints in Huseiba al-Sharqiyah area, some 10 km east of Ramadi, killing seven IS militants, the source added. During the past three days, the troops evacuated more than 800 civilians, most of them women and children, from the districts of Soufiyah and Sajjariyah, to government-run camps in Habbaniyah and Ameriyat al-Fallujah, both east of Ramadi, the source said. IS militants have been using civilians as human shields, preventing them from leaving their homes. Some civlians managed to escape despite the IS threat to execute them, but many others failed. On Dec. 28, security forces captured downtown Ramadi from IS control, raising the Iraqi flag on the government complex there, but small parts of the city have yet to be fully secured due to a large number of bombs planted by the IS and because the troops wanted to avoid casualties among civilians. For months the troops have been fighting to retake control of key cities and towns in Anbar, Iraq's largest province, from IS militants who previously seized most of Anbar and tried to advance toward Baghdad. Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. will close all of its U.S. stores for part of the day Feb. 8 while its employees attend a national team meeting, a company spokesman said Friday. The meeting will discuss food-safety changes, allow employees to ask questions and thank them for their hard work during this difficult time, Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold said in an email. Stores will open at 3 p.m. local time that day, he said. As of September, Chipotle has 1,906 restaurants worldwide, 1,895 of which are in the U.S. Advertisement The Denver-based burrito chain has struggled to attract customers after E. coli outbreaks were linked to the companys restaurants. Chipotles December sales were down 30%, according to a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In November, Chipotle temporarily closed 43 restaurants in Washington and Oregon after 22 E. coli cases were linked to its eateries. Those locations have since reopened. A month later, 141 Boston College students were reported to have contracted norovirus after eating at a Chipotle in Brighton, Mass. The chain specifically mentioned this incident in an SEC filing last week, saying that it worsened the adverse financial and operating impacts from the E. coli outbreaks. Chipotle also said it was served with a federal grand jury subpoena in early December in connection with a criminal investigation being conducted by the U.S. attorneys office for the Central District of California in conjunction with the U.S. Food and Drug Administrations Office of Criminal Investigations. The company said it was asked to produce a broad range of documents related to a norovirus outbreak in August at a Simi Valley Chipotle restaurant. Chipotle has said it will fully cooperate in the investigation. For more business news, follow @smasunaga. The University of Phoenix once again can recruit on military bases and receive federal tuition assistance for active-duty troops, after the Pentagon on Friday lifted a temporary ban on the nations largest private university. In October, the U.S. Department of Defense put the University of Phoenix on probation, saying the for-profit college had sponsored recruiting events on military bases without proper approval. Officials said the university also had distributed so-called challenge coins small medallions that traditionally are given out by commanding officers as tokens of appreciation without trademark approval. Defense Department spokesman Benjamin Sakrisson said Friday the University of Phoenix had cooperated and responded to the agencys concerns. The University of Phoenix still will be subject to heightened monitoring for a year and could face new sanctions if there are additional violations. Advertisement University of Phoenix President Timothy Slottow praised the Defense Department for reinstating the tuition benefits. In a statement, he said the school is committed to compliance, transparency and continuous improvement. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> Military benefits such as the Defense Departments Tuition Assistance Program and the GI Bill for veterans are an important source of revenue for for-profit colleges. As the largest player in the industry, the University of Phoenix has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of both programs. Federal lawmakers and advocates argue that student aid regulations incentivize for-profit colleges to target active-duty military personnel and veterans. Thats because federal rules require for-profit schools to derive at least 10% of revenue from non-federal sources. Because they rely heavily on federal student loans and Pell Grants, for-profit colleges have historically struggled to comply with the rule. But military benefits such as the Defense Departments tuition-assistance program and the GI Bill are not counted as federal funding. The for-profit college industry has faced scrutiny from state and federal regulators in recent years amid evidence of aggressive recruiting, high costs and poor student performance. Twitter: @c_kirkham ALSO Kmart to close several stores, including 3 in California Chipotle to close all restaurants Feb. 8 for part of the day Olympus to recall and redesign medical scope linked to superbug outbreaks British artist, architect and engineer Cecil Balmond is creating a large-scale sculpture honoring Cyrus the Great, the emperor who ruled Persia 2,600 years ago. Farhang Foundation, a Los Angeles nonprofit promoting Iranian art and culture, commissioned the work, Freedom: A Shared Dream, which will be installed next year on Santa Monica Boulevard in Century City. The foundation held an international competition for the commission, vetting more than 300 submissions. Balmonds public installations include Britains tallest public artwork, ArcelorMittal Orbit, a 376-foot-tall observation tower built for the 2012 Olympics. He was chosen for the Farhang project, though, largely because the jurors felt his design a gigantic, modern-day interpretation of the Cyrus Cylinder best embodied the values of diversity and personal freedom for which Cyrus the Great stood. Advertisement Jurors for the competition included the Museum of Contemporary Arts Bennett Simpson, Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts Kamran Diba and the Los Angeles County Museum of Arts Linda Komaroff. The Cyrus Cylinder is talismanic of a great vision for all peoples, Balmond said. I hope my design is an artwork which projects the cylinders deep values, not only to L.A. but also to the world. Can you tell us more about your vision for the sculpture? The sculpture is made of two cylinders, one within the other. The interior cylinder is gold colored, and the outer cylinder is silver. In the daytime, the silver will sparkle, and at night, the gold will be illuminated. The shapes are not solid but made from moving lines, like a kind of script. These appear to travel as you drive past and have an innate motion. They also evoke the writing on the original Cyrus cylinder at the British Museum. The form is held up by two circular rings, all crafted in stainless steel. Whats your process in concepting a work of this scope? My process is to imagine Im a passerby looking at the sculpture, and then I sketch what I see. I elaborate on the sketches extending the idea, testing contrary ones, before coming back to the original instinctive idea in this case, for L.A., a set of traveling lines. Then I go to the computer, draw and visualize, and then refine. How do the values of Cyrus the Great show up in the work? The values of Cyrus the Great is a message for all time, for all people. The declaration of human rights is a precious jewel for humanity, and I conceived the sculpture as such, a golden treasure [the inner cylinder] buried within the surface silver, the appearance of our lives. Did the aesthetic of L.A. factor into the design at all? The work was conceived for that specific site in L.A., the strong sunlight bouncing against the silver and at night, the gold lighting up as the great secret of Cyrus. Your piece will be exhibited in a high-profile public spot. What do you hope it sparks in passersby? I would like passersby to be excited by the sculpture and to feel it has not a superficial value but a timeless feel to it. Now that youve won the competition, how close will you have to stick to the design you submitted or is there room to improvise? The realization will follow very closely to the original idea. I am very happy with the form and dont consider any need for variation. What else are you working on right now? In addition to this work, Im working on public sculptures for Iowa City, Chicago, Arizona, Toronto and Syracuse, N.Y. Im also involved in city design projects around the world plus am furthering my research into the overlapping areas of art and science. deborah.vankin@latimes.com Follow me on Twitter: @debvankin Architectural arrangement of ceramics. A group show of artists exploring humble materials from Los Angeles and Mexico City. And another exploring the visual affinities between Korean and American minimalists. Plus: industrial sculpture, explorations of color and meditations on the black figure. Here are nine shows to see this week: Edmund de Waal, Ten Thousand Things, at Gagosian Gallery. Both an artist and an acclaimed novelist, de Waal is a figure whose passion for words feeds his art and vice versa. For his first solo exhibition in L.A., he will present arrangements of objects including the ceramics he makes inspired by music, poetry and the architecture of Rudolph Schindler. Through Feb. 18. 456 N. Camden Drive, Beverly Hills, gagosian.com. Punk Povera, at Wuho Gallery. This group exhibition gathers painting, drawing and sculpture from L.A. and Mexico City inspired by a pair of cultural movements: Arte Povera, the Italian art movement that focused on the use of simple materials, and punk, the musical and fashion movement that favored grit over excess. Opens Saturday at 6 p.m. and runs through Feb. 21. 6518 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, wuho.architecture.woodbury.edu. Artist Derek Fordjour has a new series of paintings on view at Papillion gallery in Leimert Park, including The Charleston, from 2015. (Derek Fordjour / Papillion) Derek Fordjour: Eight Paintings and Yashua Klos: How to Hide in the Wind, at Papillion. A pair of new shows at Papillion explore the black figure in unique ways. In a series of new paintings, Fordjour places arrangements of figures against patterned and other carnivalesque backgrounds. Klos, in the meantime, creates elaborate collages that find ways of integrating faces and heads into architectonic elements that appear to float in space. Opens Saturday at 4 p.m. and runs through March 6. 4336 Degnan Blvd., Leimert Park, Los Angeles, papillionart.com. Dansaekhwa and Minimalism, at Blum & Poe. A survey of some 35 works pairs pieces by key American minimalists (Sol LeWitt, Carl Andre, Agnes Martin) with important works from Koreas Dansaekhwa movement, whose artists (figures such as Lee Ufan and Kwon Young-woo) were renowned for creating monochrome works in imaginative ways. Opens Saturday at 6 p.m. and runs through March 12. 2727 S. La Cienega Blvd., Culver City, blumandpoe.com. Marcia Hafif, Glaze Paintings and Works on Paper From the 1970s, at Marc Selwyn Fine Art. Throughout her career, Hafif has been obsessed with color: the colors of the Pacific Ocean or Roman architecture hues that she reproduces in paintings and installations that serve as meditations on the subtleties of tone. In her first solo show at Selwyn, Hafif is showing some of the early works graphite drawings and glaze paintings that helped shape her practice. Opens Saturday at 6 p.m. and runs through Feb. 20. 9953 S. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills, marcselwynfineart.com. Advertisement Marianne Vitale, at Venus. A sculptor known for her weighty pieces is having her West Coast debut show with a pair of installations that will feature 60 tons of steel railroad track and a series of nearly 100 11-foot white pine timbers. Opens Saturday at 5 p.m. and runs through Feb. 27. 601 S. Anderson St., Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, venusovermanhattan.com. Ron Jude: Lago, at Gallery Luisotti. In his fourth solo show at the gallery, Jude explores the landscape of the Salton Sea, the famously polluted body of water, near which the photographer spent some of the formative years of his childhood. Opens Saturday at 6 p.m. and runs through March 12. Bergamot Station, 2525 S. Michigan Ave., Santa Monica, galleryluisotti.com. Xara Thustra: Stop Men, at Last Projects. The San Francisco artist and activist, known for producing work in a wide range of media graffiti, posters, video, performance and more is unveiling new paintings and a pair of traveling murals. Opens Saturday at 7 p.m. and runs through Jan. 30. 6546 Hollywood Blvd., #215, Hollywood, alastprojects.org. The Contenders screening series, at the Hammer Museum. The Hammer is rounding out its influential film-screening series, done in collaboration with New Yorks Museum of Modern Art. Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahis Taxi screens at 7:30 tonight and will include a conversation with artist and director Peter Sellars. This will be followed early next week by screenings of Spotlight and The Look of Silence. For screening information, see hammer.ucla.edu/contenders2015. 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood, hammer.ucla.edu. FINAL WEEK: James Turrell, at Kayne Griffin Corcoran. In his latest solo exhibition at Kayne Griffin Corcoran, Turrell debuted a series of large-scale works made from elliptical glass that, over 2 1/2 hours, go through thousands of different parts of the color spectrum. (Just the show for Pantone-heads.) Through Saturday. 1201 S. La Brea Ave., Mid-City, kaynegriffincorcoran.com. New Objectivity: Modern German Art in the Weimar Republic, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. A dark and gripping show explores the art of Germany following World War I, before the rise of the Third Reich. Featuring a mix of photography, painting, drawings and ephemera from the era, the exhibition captures the social, political and economic tumult of the Weimar period. Not to be missed. Through Monday. 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Mid-Wilshire, lacma.org. Matthew Barney, River of Fundament, at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Barney is a video and performance artist known for producing lush works inspired by fantastical mythologies. His latest (which includes an epic six-hour film) reimagines the birth and death cycles of the Egyptian Book of the Dead (or at least Norman Mailers take on the Egyptian Book of the Dead). Plenty decadent. Through Monday. The Geffen Contemporary, 152 N. Central Ave., downtown, moca.org. Mapping the Information Age, at Christopher Mount Gallery. During the infancy of microprocessing, companies such as Intel, IBM and Hewlett-Packard would create colorful prints that were used as maps for constructing early microchip technology. Not intended to be art, these curious technological artifacts (dating to 1990) offer a range of intriguing abstract geometric patterns of the sort that would no doubt impress the likes of Piet Mondrian. Through Wednesday. Pacific Design Center, 8687 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood, christopherwmountgallery.com. ONGOING EXHIBITIONS Spiritual Language, at TAG Gallery. Roughly 40 artists, including Fabian Debora, Alex Kizu and Juan Carlos Munoz Hernandez, have contributed works to this group show, which will serve as a benefit for Homeboy Industries. Proceeds from the sales of the works will go to the organization; the gallery also is accepting donation of art supplies to help support Homeboys art-related programs. Through Jan. 23. 2525 Michigan Ave., D3, Santa Monica, taggallery.net. The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris, at the Hammer Museum. Known for his elegant depictions of frigid Canadian landscapes, Harris was part of the Group of Seven, a group of painters who were proponents for establishing a distinctly Canadian school of painting in Harris case, one with distinctly Modernist overtones. His sparse landscapes, depicted in stained-glass hues of blue, white and green, often with exalted rays of light descending from the heavens, have practically religious overtones. Through Jan. 24. 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood, hammer.ucla.edu. Uh-Oh: Frances Stark, 1991-2015, at the Hammer Museum. This is a survey of work by L.A.-based artist Frances Stark, whose wide-ranging practice shes done everything from carbon drawings to elaborate digital animations covers a similarly broad terrain of subjects, including critiques of institutions and intimate views of the artists personal life including animated productions of private online chats. Through Jan. 24. 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood, hammer.ucla.edu. Giant Robot Biennale 4, at the Japanese American National Museum. Giant Robot the shop and gallery has long focused on Asian and Asian American popular culture, showcasing works and decorative merchandise by figures such as Yoshitomo Nara and Takashi Murakami. Since 2007, founder Eric Nakamura has partnered with the Japanese American National Museum for this biennial, which showcases pop-infused works by an array of young artists. Through Jan. 24. 100 N. Central Ave., downtown Los Angeles, janm.org. David Korty, at Night Gallery. The Los Angeles-based painters latest series, titled Figure Construction, begins with the color blue. He uses the same inky backdrop on works that contain layered blocks of painted text, drawings and pattern fragments, which cohere into abstracted human figures. The show also includes a number of the artists geometrically inspired ceramic works. Through Jan. 30. 2276 E. 16th St., downtown, nightgallery.ca. Somewhere Over El Arco Iris: Chicano Landscapes, 1971-2015, at the Museum of Latin American Art. Guest curator Julian Bermudez has gathered 25 works that tell a story of landscape through the works of Chicano artists over more than four decades. This includes classic pieces by noted California figures such as Gronk, Frank Romero, Patssi Valdez and Carlos Almaraz. But it also includes up-and-comers such as Shizu Saldamando and Jaime Germs Zacarias. Extended through Jan. 31. 628 Alamitos Ave., Long Beach, molaa.org. Hannelore Baron: Collage & Assemblage, at Jack Rutberg Fine Art. Taut works of assemblage and collage take their power from the found materials the artist used: bits of fabric and other gewgaws found in thrift stores and junkyards, charged objects that retain the sense of having once served other purposes. Born in Germany (her family fled the country in the wake of Kristallnacht), Baron was part of New Yorks artistic milieu at mid-century, but her pieces, which feel faded and worn, suggest the claustrophobia of isolation and confinement. Extended through Jan. 30. 357 N. La Brea Ave., Fairfax, jackrutbergfinearts.com. Stas Orlovski, Skazka, at Young Projects Gallery. The L.A.-based Orlovski is known for his haunting stop-motion animations that employ bits of vintage childrens books and Victorian drawings. This new work, which features a soundtrack by experimental audio artist Steve Roden, is inspired by 19th century magic-lantern performances and includes a stage-set and larger-than-life projections onto silhouettes. Through Feb. 5. Pacific Design Center, 8687 Melrose Ave., Space B230, West Hollywood, youngprojectsgallery.com. Kori Newkirk, at Roberts & Tilton. Known for creating sculptural pieces out of synthetic hair and pony beads, the Los Angeles-based artist is now taking on the idea of the circle in myriad ways, including a series of sculptures crafted from found bicycle wheels. Through Feb. 6. 5801 Washington Blvd., Culver City, robertsandtilton.com. Rafael Rozendaal, Abstract Browsing, at Steve Turner. A series of Jacquard woven tapestries explores the architecture of the Internet, a subject that has long-fascinated this Dutch-born artist. He is also presenting a series of wall works inspired by haiku. Through Feb. 6. 6830 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, steveturner.la. Steven Hull, Never Again Sharpen Your Teeth on the Rope That Holds You Safely to Shore, at Rosamund Felsen Gallery. The Los Angeles artist, known for the dexterous ways in which he combines painting and sculpture to create theatrical installations, has put together a show inspired partly by seaside carnival, partly by an ocean voyage. The exhibition his 11th at Rosamund Felsen includes paintings, large-scale wood sculptures and oil paint transfers. Through Feb. 6. 1923 S. Santa Fe Ave., downtown Los Angeles, rosamundfelsen.com. Various Small Fires (Working Documents) at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. A show that illuminates unusual bits of LACMA history, such as the plan to have a robot patrol the galleries or the time a dog worked as a security guard. Included in the mix is Ed Ruschas working sketch for his infamous mid-60s canvas The Los Angeles County Museum on Fire. Through Feb. 7. 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Mid-Wilshire, lacma.org. Minoru Ohira: Iki and Yabo, at Offramp Gallery. Iki in Japanese means chic; yabo, unrefined. In this exhibition, the Japanese sculptor examines the fine line between the two concepts in a series of largely wooden sculptures that evoke and deconstruct elements of architecture. Through Feb. 7. 1702 Lincoln Ave., Pasadena, offrampgallery.com. Victor Hugo Zayas, at the Museum of Latin American Art. Gritty abstractions the color of charcoal, acid and steel capture the industrial innards of Los Angeles. Zayas, a painter who maintains a studio on the banks of the L.A. River, will have a survey of more than 40 works on view at the museum works that chart the evolution of the citys industrial landscape. Through Feb. 7. 628 Alamitos Ave., Long Beach, molaa.org. Toba Khedoori, at Regen Projects. In her fourth show at the gallery, the L.A.-based artist, known for her detailed renderings of plants, architecture and other objects, takes to canvas as well. Her pieces reveal aching detail that, at moments, teeters into abstraction creating images that are more than mere representation. Through Feb. 13. 6750 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, regenprojects.com. Customizing Language, at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. Organized by guest curators Idurre Alonso and Selene Preciado, this group show gathers artists from the Americas to look at the ways in which language often reflects political reality. Featuring the work of figures such as Marco Ramirez ERRE, Regina Jose Galindo and Mely Barragan (whom I wrote about as part of the Tijuana art series in October). Through Feb. 14. 6522 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, welcometolace.org. Sadie Barnette, Superfecta, at Charlie James Gallery. In a series of multimedia works from photography to meticulously rendered drawings the artist looks at the culture of horse racing, touching on issues of fantasy, escapism and chance. Through Feb. 20. 969 Chung King Road, Chinatown, Los Angeles, cjamesgallery.com. George Porcari, Greetings From LA: 24 Frames and 50 Years, at Haphazard. Since the 60s, artist George Porcari has been photographing Los Angeles from the street to the beach. In this exhibition, he uses those images to make large-scale photo collages set around a blank space or void that shapes the tone of the images above and below. Through Feb. 20. 1542 Sawtelle Blvd., Sawtelle, Los Angeles, haphazard.co. Ishiuchi Miyako: Postwar Shadows at the Getty Center. Showcasing several bodies of work by the Japanese photographer, this exhibition includes her moving images of objects and clothing that survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Each image captures deeply personal details such as patches, mends and stains, all evidence of the full lives once inhabited by these garments. Also on view will be a small exhibition of contemporary Japanese photographers. Through Feb. 21. 1200 Getty Center Drive, Brentwood, getty.edu. The Wartime Photographs of Ansel Adams, at the Skirball Cultural Center. Adams powerful black-and-white images from Manzanar during World War II protested what he described as the enforced exodus of American citizens: Japanese Americans who were forcefully detained for the course of the war. Its a stirring view of life for Japanese Americans during a dark period in American history. Through Feb. 21. 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Brentwood, skirball.org. Diana Thater, The Sympathetic Imagination, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The Los Angeles-based video artist is widely known for groundbreaking video installations that incorporate the architecture of a space while exploring a range of natural phenomena: from the underwater lives of dolphins to the ways in which bees communicate. For the show at LACMA, she is showing works shot in Claude Monets garden in Giverny, France, and at the Galtaji Temple in Jaipur, India. Through Feb. 21. 5905 Wilshire Blvd. Mid-Wilshire, lacma.org. Noah Davis: Imitation of Wealth at the Museum of Contemporary Art Grand Avenue. In 2013, Davis re-created a series of works by famous artists and put them on display at the Underground Museum, his alternative art space in Arlington Heights. The idea was to display works of high cultural value in an unlikely setting. Now, the Museum of Contemporary Art has re-created the installation a work made more poignant by the artists recent death. (The piece is viewable free of charge through the windows of a storefront space adjacent to the museum.) Through Feb. 22. 250 S. Grand Ave., downtown, moca.org. John Outterbridge, Rag Man, at Art + Practice. The renowned Los Angeles assemblage artist is showing works produced mainly over the last decade and a half from scavenged materials such as twigs, bones and hair. Works from the recent series Rag and Bone Idiom evoke talismans and healing rituals. Through Feb. 27. 4339 Leimert Blvd., Leimert Park, artandpractice.org. R. Luke DuBois: Now and Sandow Birk: American Quran, at the Orange County Museum of Art. OCMA opens a pair of new shows: one by the New York-based DuBois, an artist who often employs data to create unique visualizations, and the L.A.-based Birk, who has spent nine years transcribing and illustrating every verse of the Koran in a uniquely American way. Through Feb. 28. 850 San Clemente Drive, Newport Beach, ocma.net. Rain Room, at the L.A. County Museum of Art. It was universally panned by the critics when it appeared at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. (New York Magazine critic Jerry Saltz described it as the worst single work of art that I saw all this year ... a high-tech amusement-park ride.) And my colleague Christopher Knight labeled it brainless amusement in his review of the experience. But who cares when you can take the worlds most awesome selfie inside it and share it with the world on Instagram? Through March 6. 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Mid-Wilshire, lacma.org. Disguise: Masks and Global African Art, at the Fowler Museum. This exhibition looks at the art of disguise through the work of a dozen contemporary African and African American artists touching on everything from elaborate masks to the illusionist camouflage of the digital sphere. Expect to see work by artists such as Zina Saro-Wiwa, Jacolby Satterwhite and Brendan Fernandes. Through March 13. UCLA, north campus, Westwood, fowler.ucla.edu. Frank Gehry, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Featuring more than 200 drawings and 65 models, as well as countless photographs and video, this retrospective looks at the life and career of one of L.A.s most celebrated architects. Totally worth it just to see the original design for downtowns Disney Hall. (Glad they went for the option that was built.) Through March 20. 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Mid-Wilshire, lacma.org. In Focus: Daguerreotypes, at the Getty Museum. A selection of some of the museums 2,000 daguerreotypes go on view alongside daguerreotypes from the collection of singer-songwriter Graham Nash, a prominent collector of this early type of photography. Through March 30. 1200 Getty Center Drive, Brentwood, getty.edu. Robert Cremean: The Beds of Procrustes and The Seven Deadly Sins, at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. The California artist is known for cool, diagrammatic pieces that employ the human figure in ways that riff on bigger questions of art, myth, faith and sacrifice. For his show in Pasadena, one installation examines the legend of Procrustes, the Greek mythological bandit who would torture people in various ways in order to force them to fit onto an iron bed, while another uses human figures to interpret each of the deadly sins. Through April 3. 490 E. Union St., Pasadena, pmcaonline.org. Hard Edged: Geometrical Abstraction and Beyond, at the California African American Museum. A new exhibition features the work of 46 artists from emerging figures to well-established names working in the arena of geometric abstraction. This includes works by fresh voices and standard-bearers, including well-known figures such as Rashid Johnson, Senga Nengudi, David Hammons and Tim Washington. Through April 24. 600 State Drive, Exposition Park, caamuseum.org. Alice Konitz, Los Angeles Museum of Art (LAMOA), at Occidental College. This is a work of sculpture that also serves as a micro exhibition hall. The space was established in Konitzs backyard in 2012 but will be on view at Occidental College for the course of the academic year. The inaugural exhibition features work by L.A. artist Alice Clements. Through spring 2016. In front of Weingart Hall at Occidental College, 1600 Campus Road, Eagle Rock, oxy.edu. Popol Vuh: Watercolors of Diego Rivera, at the Bowers Museum. The Popol Vuh is a nearly 500-year-old Mayan text, written in Quiche, that recounts that cultures creation myths. This sacred text inspired a series of watercolors by Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, an artist who was preoccupied with indigenous themes. Now 17 of these paintings, on loan from a museum in Mexico, are on view at the Bowers. Through May 29. 2002 N. Main St., Santa Ana, bowers.org. Alex Israel, at the Huntington. In 2012, the San Marino library and museum unveiled the first of its contemporary interventions with low-key works by Ricky Swallow and Lesley Vance. Now the museum is getting bolder, with a series of installations by painter Alex Israel, whose pop-inspired canvases and objects touch on topics such as celebrity, glamour and power. Through July 11. 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, huntington.org. Senses of Time: Video and Film-Based Works of Africa, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. For one of its long-term installations, the museum has gathered works of video or film by contemporary African artists that explore the body and the looping nature of time. This includes pieces by figures such as Yinka Shonibare, Sammy Baloji, Berni Searle, Moatax Nasr and Theo Eshetu. Through Jan. 2, 2017. 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Mid-Wilshire, lacma.org. Islamic Art Now at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Contemporary works from LACMAs permanent collection by 20 artists who live in or have roots in the Middle East look at questions of society, gender and identity. Runs indefinitely. 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Mid-Wilshire, lacma.org. Find me on Twitter @cmonstah Sean Penn says his recent Rolling Stone article about Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman based on an interview with the fugitive drug lord who was recaptured last week was a complete failure. "I thought, this is somebody upon whose interview could I begin a conversation about the policy of the war on drugs," Penn tells Charlie Rose in an interview that will air on "60 Minutes" on Sunday. "That was my simple idea." Now, the Oscar winner tells Rose, "I have a terrible regret. I have a regret that the entire discussion about this article ignores its purpose, which was to try to contribute this discussion about the policy in the war on drugs." See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour >> Penn's journalistic effort wound up being an afterthought to news of El Chapo's capture on Jan. 8, one day before the story was published, and the Mexican government declared that the sit-down, which happened in early October of last year after weeks of clandestine planning, was crucial to the arrest. This is Susan King, a veteran movie writer at the Los Angeles Times and guardian of the Golden Age of Hollywood galaxy. Every Friday I get to share my passion for vintage movies, TV, radio, music and theater in my Classic Hollywood newsletter. And speaking of TV, it may be hard to believe, but ABCs Happy Days, starring Ron Howard, Henry Winkler (as the Fonz), Tom Bosley and Marion Ross began its 11-year run on the network 42 years ago today. Advertisement When I came to Los Angeles to attend USC film school in 1976, a group of us decided to go to a Happy Days taping. But the series was so popular that there were no tickets available for months. We were told that, if we wanted, we could stand in line for a few hours and try to get in to the dress rehearsal. So we decided to take a chance and stand in line at Paramount with what seemed to be hundreds of fans. We eventually did make it into the rehearsal, but I have no memory of what the episode was about. Truth be told, I dont think I even heard what the actors were saying because of the screams of delight from the mostly female audience members whenever their dreamboats -- Winkler, Howard as Richie, Anson Williams as Potsie and Donny Most as Ralph -- appeared on stage. All I can say about the experience is, Ah, youth! Dont Touch That Dial Everythings coming up Myrna Loy Wednesday on TCM in a seven-film retrospective beginning at 3 a.m. Pacific time with the 1940 comedy Third Finger, Left Hand followed by one of the funniest films she made with William Powell, I Love You Again, also from 1940. She and Powell team up for 1941s Love Crazy, and she co-stars with Don Ameche in the rarely seen 1946 comedy So Goes My Love. Loy goes dramatic with terrific results in William Wylers multi-Oscar-winning 1946 drama The Best Years of Our Lives, which follows three servicemen returning from World War II. Rounding out the Loy-fest are two enjoyable comedies she made with Cary Grant: 1947s The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer and 1948s Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. Around Town The latest classic to hit the big screen thanks to Fathom and TCM is one of my all-time faves, 1969s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, penned by William Goldman, directed by George Roy Hill and starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. The western, which won four Academy Awards, will screen at select theaters around the country on Sunday and Wednesday with an introduction by TCM host Ben Mankiewicz. From the Hollywood Star Walk Notable births this week include Lloyd Bridges (Jan. 15); Debbie Allen (Jan. 16); Katy Jurado (Jan 16); Ethel Merman (Jan. 16); Eartha Kitt (Jan. 16); Shari Lewis (Jan. 17); Donna Reed (Jan. 17); Mack Sennett (Jan. 17); Betty White (Jan. 17); Kevin Costner (Jan. 18); Cary Grant (Jan. 18); Oliver Hardy (Jan. 18); Danny Kaye (Jan. 18); Tippi Hedren (Jan. 19); Janis Joplin (Jan. 19); Dolly Parton (Jan. 19); John Raitt (Jan. 19); George Burns (Jan. 20); and Patricia Neal (Jan. 20) The Screwball Genius This Saturday marks the 74th anniversary of the death of the legendary Carole Lombard, who was one of the best, if not the best, of the screwball film comedians. She earned an Oscar nomination for 1936s My Man Godfrey, opposite ex-husband William Powell, and starred in such comedies as 1937s Nothing Sacred and True Confession. She married Clark Gable in 1939, and the two were one of Hollywoods most golden of couples. Lombard was returning home to Los Angeles on Jan. 16, 1942, after selling some $2 million in war bonds in Indiana when the plane she was traveling in veered off course and crashed into a cliff near the top of Potosi Mountain in Nevada. Lombard, her mother, Gables press agent, 15 soldiers and the crew were killed. She was just 33. Lombards final film, To Be or Not to Be, was released posthumously. Here is the L.A. Times obituary/appreciation that appeared in the paper on Jan. 18, 1942. For more vintage Hollywood, go to the Classic Hollywood Los Angeles Times Facebook page and follow me on Twitter at @mymackie. Time is a loop, and Weezer is here to prove it. In 2014, the long-running Los Angeles guitar-pop band released Everything Will Be Alright in the End, which sparked all kinds of talk that, after years of experimentation, Weezer had returned to the hooky, clean-lined sound of its self-titled 1994 debut. Now the group is back with a blistering, fuzzed-out new song, King of the World, that bears a striking resemblance to Pinkerton, Weezers second album, from 1996. See more of Entertainments top stories on Facebook >> Advertisement Posted online late Thursday, King of the World comes from a new Weezer record, also self-titled, due April 1. In a statement, frontman Rivers Cuomo said the album -- which the band is releasing itself following a short-lived deal with Republic Records -- was inspired by his experiences on L.A.'s Westside, including hanging out with people in Venice and Santa Monica, the beach, the Hare Krishnas, the Sikh on roller blades with the guitar, girls on Tinder within a 4 mile radius, seeing other bands, the kids from La Sera. I would just tweet out does anybody wanna hang? and then Id get together with people who responded and talk about life, he added. I love California. I wanted the album to make you feel like you were there with us SoCal weirdos even if youre in Milwaukee in December. This summer, Weezer will tour North America behind the album, beginning June 10 in Houston and wrapping in early August with shows in San Diego, Santa Barbara and Irvine. See complete dates at the bands website. Twitter: @mikaelwood On a sweltering June afternoon, women in heavy hooped skirts and men in thick wool suits bustled around a historic building in the former capital of the Confederacy as it was transformed into a Civil War hospital for the new PBS drama Mercy Street. Despite the commitment to period authenticity on set, evident in the artfully distressed walls, sullied cots and dozens of background players in bloodied uniforms, the cast and crew looked forward to the minutes between takes when the air conditioning was switched on, allowing them to appreciate at least one very modern comfort. See more of Entertainments top stories on Facebook >> Advertisement Dubbed Gone With the Wind meets MASH by its creative team, Mercy Street is inspired by real events and, in a novel twist for a Civil War series, features two female protagonists who are volunteer nurses at the hospital Mary Phinney, a staunch Northern abolitionist (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Emma Green (Hannah James), a genteel Southern belle from a wealthy slave-owning family. The series, which premieres Sunday on PBS, presents a fresh perspective on this great American cataclysm by focusing not on battlefields and bayonets but on the drama at a luxury hotel-turned-hospital in Union-occupied Alexandria, Va., in the early days of the war. Mercy Streets ensemble also includes Josh Radnor as a pioneering, morphine-addicted surgeon, McKinley Belcher as a free black man with a natural talent for medicine and Gary Cole as Emmas entrepreneurial father, who refuses to sign an oath of loyalty to the Union. Director Ridley Scott and former ER show runner David Zabel executive produce the series, which is PBS first original scripted drama in more than a decade. With the end of the wildly popular Downton Abbey in sight, the public broadcaster is betting that the perennial fascination with this era, particularly among its viewers Ken Burns The Civil War remains the networks most-watched series after all will help establish Mercy Street as its next marquee drama. The themes are completely relatable, and theyre relevant today, said executive producer Lisa Quijano Wolfinger on the shows set. This was no mere platitude: Five days earlier, nine black churchgoers had been gunned down in a racially motivated attack in Charleston, S.C., the very city where the Civil War began sparking a heated national debate about the Confederate flag. The series was created by Wolfinger, a documentary filmmaker who originally planned to make a docudrama about Civil War medicine. She turned to Zabel for help marrying the medical science with the narrative drama something he knows plenty about, having written 45 episodes of ER over the course of eight seasons. The duo originally envisioned a one-off special, but Beth Hoppe, chief programming executive at PBS, saw the potential for an ongoing series. She and I always talked about the fact that PBS was stuck in the hamster wheel of just acquiring British drama, Wolfinger recalled, referring to scripted programming such as Sherlock, Call the Midwife and of course Downton Abbey. Its time for Americans to tell American stories, as far as Im concerned. In the course of her research, Wolfinger came across the memoir of a woman with a mouthful of a name Mary Phinney, the Baroness von Olnhausen whod volunteered as a nurse at Alexandrias Mansion House Hotel. Owned by the wealthy Green family, the hotel was converted into a hospital during the war. The Greens daughter Emma, whose sweetheart was a Confederate spy, tended to wounded Southerners at the hospital. The surrounding city of Alexandria was also a destination for escaped slaves or contraband, as they were designated by the Union on their way to freedom in the North. The discovery of Mansion House, with so many diverse people coming together in a single space, represented a light bulb moment, according to Zabel. I didnt want to get into cliche binary oppositions of North and South, black and white, he said. I felt like in this place with all of these various agendas bumping up against each other, you could really explore this moment in a much more variegated way, diverse way. It didnt reduce itself to certain simplistic attitudes and perspectives. Another key inspiration was Louisa May Alcotts Hospital Sketches, a collection of letters the Little Women novelist and abolitionist wrote during her time as a Union nurse. Wolfinger was excited by the opportunity to create a series about interesting and messy women. I took the gamble, because I wanted to make TV that I wanted to watch, she said. The hospital setting also conveniently provided a way to tell a Civil War story without having to film expensive battle sequences, which would have been exceedingly difficult on a PBS budget. This being PBS, historical accuracy was of paramount importance. The network enlisted a panel of advisors, including military historian James McPherson and Anya Jabour, an expert in Southern women of the Civil War era. We are held to a higher standard, and we should be, said Hoppe, noting with pride that documentarian Burns had given the series a ringing endorsement. On location at the Laburnum House, a Neoclassical revival building in Richmond standing in for Alexandrias Mansion House, the series medical consultant Dr. Stanley Burns shows Radnor a complicated surgical procedure using a model abdomen. Burns, a collector of early medical photography and devices, gently scolds Radnor for referring to a tenaculum as a shepherds hook: Thats like referring to rocket propulsion in 1862! For all the carnage it created, the Civil War also led to critical innovations in the world of medicine. These changes are reflected in Radnors character, Jedediah Foster, who trained in Europe and is an early adopter of new-fangled inventions like painkillers and hypodermic needles that are viewed with skepticism by some of his peers. He is a cynic about human nature but an idealist when it comes to medicine, explained the actor, best known for his work as Ted Mosby in the long-running sitcom How I Met Your Mother. In the chaos of wartime, many women saw an opportunity to step out of their traditional gender roles, particularly by volunteering as nurses, Wolfinger said. Theyre flying in the face of social convention by being in an all-male environment. Those constraints all are temporarily broken, and so youve got these women busting through the door, and trying to make a difference in a very difficult world. This is particularly true for Emma Green, played by James in her first professional role. In the series pilot, Emma treks through the filthy streets of Alexandria dressed in a pristine white dress, enormous hoop skirt and perfect spiral curls. The Scarlett OHara look is wildly ill-suited for work at the hospital, where rats scurry between beds filled with maimed, battle-scarred young men. For James, who grew up on a farm in nearby Madison County, Virginia just 10 minutes from the town where the real Emma eventually settled with her husband Mercy Street represented a kind of homecoming. And while she made a point of trying to understand her characters Southern pride, she was more troubled by a conversation with a cab driver who discovered she was working on a Civil War series and asked if she was fighting for the right side. (Hint: Not the guys in blue.) This seems like it was ages ago, but the issues are so prevalent, she said. People feel like theyre so affected are still affected by what happened years and years ago. meredith.blake@latimes.com Another taste of congee Are you tired of congee yet? Good, because you probably havent tried the congee at Huo Zhou Wang, a new Hong Kong-style porridge specialist in the food court attached to the San Gabriel Hilton. Congee is a homey dish, something you can make with tap water and the dregs of last nights rice pot, but Huo Zhou Wang is kind of a swank place, with elaborate menus, lots of marble and rustic clay bowls. Congee at Huo Zhou Wang. (Amy Scattergood / Los Angeles Times) Advertisement Whats more important are the tanks of live seafood in the rear crabs, lobster, prawns and abalone for those times when you want to experience the kind of porridge a billionaire might fancy. The house special congee, spiked with dried scallops, large prawns and a handful of Manila clams, is just splendid enough, with a toasty flavor, tons of umami and the kind of slight chewiness you might expect from a well-executed seafood risotto in Venice. With the addition of an abalone $19.95 at the moment there is an extra jolt of salinity, of hidden depths. To season the congee, you use neither salt nor pepper but a sharp condiment made from fermented yellow beans. In last weeks Food section, I wrote about seven of my favorite bowls of congee. Huo Zhou Wangs seafood congee might be better than them all. Jonathan Gold Black pepper tofu tacos from Trejos Tacos, opening soon on La Brea Avenue. (Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times) Tofu tacos yep, were serious If youve driven along La Brea Avenue near Olympic Boulevard in the last couple of weeks you may have noticed a big sign for Trejos Tacos featuring the face of actor Danny Trejo, that cool guy from the Machete movies and From Dusk Till Dawn. This is Trejos new taco restaurant a project from the actor, film producer Ash Shah and Jeff Georgino. Daniel Mattern (formerly of Cooks County) designed the menu. Its scheduled to soft open early next week, then officially open with expanded hours and an expanded menu the week after. One of the most exciting bites? The tofu tacos. Yes, the machete-wielding guy from all those action movies is serving tofu tacos. And they are inspired by none other than Yotam Ottolenghis black pepper tofu. The fried squares of bean curd are buttery and rich, smothered in a tangy black pepper sauce, served on a fresh corn tortilla with pickled onions. Jenn Harris Loaves at Lodge Bread in Culver City. (Amy Scattergood / Los Angeles Times) Bread, one of lifes small pleasures The bread scene in Los Angeles has been taking off in odd ways instead of giant, shiny new bakeries with rows of deck ovens, bakers in this town have been taking the DIY approach. Witness two of the newest bakeries, Lodge Bread in Culver City and Seed Bakery in Pasadena. These are tiny operations. At Lodge Bread, the 940-square-foot shop is built around a giant Bassanina steam-injection deck oven that takes up most of the space. Bakers and co-owners Or Amsalam and Alexander Phaneuf are making amazing loaves of high-hydration, darkly baked bread, dark brown discs that they stack on the shelves near the oven like history books. At Seed Bakery, Joseph Abrakjian uses natural levain and whole-grain flours, baking spelt boules and loaves of 100% rye adjacent to the few crowded counters. The breads farro, einkorn, kamut chalked on the board make the place sound more like a heritage seed bank than a boulangerie. The bread is spectacular, the crumb a network of flavors, the crust a real crust. Which, by the way, makes for excellent toast which both bakeries have on their menus. We may live in the Era of Toast, but it means nothing without spectacular bread. Amy Scattergood Market Report Its a paradise for lovers of winter greens right now, especially with the cooler temperatures and all this rain. Look for colorful shades of chards, durable kales and delicate lettuces, as well as nettles and mustard greens. Its also high time for other brassicas cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts as well as sweet mandarins and other citrus. And dont forget beets and root vegetables, such as turnips and rutabagas. Whats just left: Winter squash is making its way out. Whats on the horizon: Snow peas. What to cook: Now is the perfect time to make the simple Portuguese soup caldo verde. Combine onion and sausage (preferably Spanish chorizo) in a pot with a little oil, cooking until the sausage is browned and the onion softens, then stir in chicken broth, kale and potatoes. Simmer the stew until the potatoes are soft and the kale is tender. Break up some of the potatoes to thicken the soup if youd like, and serve with a drizzle of olive oil. Noelle Carter The in fashioned cocktail from Hatchet Hall in Culver City includes a country ham bourbon. (Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times) Ham it up at the bar Theres an Old-Fashioned cocktail, and then theres the In Fashioned, a drink on the menu at the Old Man Bar at Hatchet Hall in Culver City. The restaurant is known for its country ham plate, and the drink program makes full use of the menus star ingredient. In the In Fashioned, a country ham-infused bourbon is mixed with a couple dashes of Redeye bitters and pecan bitters. The drink is garnished with a maraschino cherry thats been wrapped in a lemon peel, and a wafer-thin slice of country ham. The drink is much sweeter than an Old-Fashioned, balanced by a serious ninja kick from the meaty bourbon. Just consider this drink your first dinner course while you nibble bits of the luscious, salty ham with each sip. If a wine spritzer is more your speed (no one is judging), order the Gruner Coke. Its a mix of Gruner Veltliner, Riesling and grapefruit liqueur. Jenn Harris Cookbook of the week The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen, by Jacques Pepin (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $17.95). In honor of the French chefs 80th birthday, his memoir has just been republished, with a new foreword by Anthony Bourdain. Its a fantastic way to celebrate Pepins career, which has continued unabated through years spent cooking for Charles de Gaulle, teaching us all how to cook with Julia Child on PBS, and writing cookbook after acclaimed cookbook. Pepins beautifully written memoir takes us back to his childhood, when he began work as a 13-year-old apprentice at Le Grand Hotel de lEurope in his hometown of Bourg-en-Bresse near Lyon. Pepin moved to Paris as a teenager, and before he came to the United States in 1959, hed cooked at Maxims in Paris, served in the French navy and been personal chef to three French heads of state. Pepin is as warm and engaging on paper as he is on screen, and his book provides not only stories but recipes and personal photographs that trace his many decades of cooking. Its a great read, as Pepin is endearing, candid and often remarkably funny. And if you get hungry while you turn the pages, you can always put the book down and make Pepins recipe for cheese souffle. Amy Scattergood MORE: Whats looking good in the food world right now Its 2016, and once again, it's #OscarsSoWhite and male. What is the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences doing to be more inclusive? Were trying to move in that direction. That could be a statement from the academy's PR team. But that phrase didn't come from the academy. Those are the words uttered by former MTV host Mark Goodman, during a 1983 interview with the late David Bowie. Bowie had interrupted an otherwise pleasant interview to ask why, in a year when Michael Jackson was at the top of the charts with "Beat It and Billie Jean, MTVs programming was almost entirely white. Im just floored by the fact that there are so few black artists featured on [MTV], Bowie said. Why is that? Were trying to move in that direction, said Goodman. But then he explained that MTV also had to be mindful of the sensibilities of white people in some town in the Midwestthat would be scared to death by Prince. Thats very interesting, said Bowie, who ended that year below both Michael Jackson and Prince in total Hot 100 Billboard singles ranking, and spent far less time at No. 1 than Lionel Richie. Bowie smiled, and repeated: Isnt that interesting? In retrospect, Goodmans illogical hemming and hawing from 1983 sounds a lot like the aversion to diverse talent we see in the film industry in 2016. For the second year in a row, all of the actors nominated for Oscars are white. This is strange, considering that the audience is so much more diverse and enthusiastic than that. People of color represent only 37% of the U.S. population, but bought 46% of all movie tickets in 2014. Mexican-born director Alejandro G. Inarritu is holding it down for Latinos with a director nomination, but he is a solitary, off-camera figure in an industry in which only 4.2% of speaking roles in the top 100 films of 2012 were held by a Latino. Latinos, meanwhile, are the most avid moviegoers in the country. But perhaps the starkest gap between talent and nominations is among black actors and producers. Just like MTV had trouble playing the hottest artists of the time, the academy cant even recognize black people for making movies about black people. Straight Outta Compton got nominee nods but not for F. Gary Gray, the black director. The mostly black cast, including Jason Mitchell, who delivered a brilliant performance as the late rapper Eazy-E, were also snubbed. Instead, the white writers were nominated. Sylvester Stallone received a deserving nomination for his reprisal of Rocky Balboa in Creed but neither the films black star, Michael B. Jordan, nor black writer-director Ryan Coogler, were recognized. More from Bowies 1983 interview: Do you not think that [not being able to play popular black music on MTV] is a frightening predicament to be in? David Bowie continued to press on with his line of questioning about MTVs failure to feature black artists. His interviewer got defensive, saying that the station was simply following industry conventions. Without directly talking about money which would be a no-no for MTVs anti-establishment image he implied that offending white stakeholders could hurt their bottom line. The film industry often tries the same excuse. When director Ridley Scott was criticized for casting white people in the key roles for Exodus: Gods and Kings, he said it was a financial decision, based on other peoples biases. I cant mount a film of this budget, where I have to rely on tax rebates in Spain, and say that my lead actor is Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such, he said. The television industry is starting to learn that given the chance, women and people of color will excel and bring in revenue. How to Get Away With Murder star Viola Davis put this to words when she accepted her Emmy, saying that the only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. But whereas there are sparks of hope in the film industry, the academy has trouble giving women, and people of color, those opportunities to be recognized. According to a 2012 study by The Times, the Oscar voting body was 94% white, and 77% male. If it doesnt get its act together quickly, the academy is going to be in a worse place than MTV was. In the late '90s, a black college student named David K Far-El started an internship at MTV. In a video lecture published last year, he said that every afternoon, white people at the station would gather around the television and tune in to BET to watch programs like Rap City and Video Soul. Far-El was confused, and asked what in the world they were doing watching a rival station with lower production values and budget. They told him: this is how we tell what black America is doing. More than a decade on from the Bowie interview, MTVs own legacy was still hurting it. In order to stay relevant to Americas teens, MTV had to scramble to get content and ideas from a black station. Unless the film industry, especially the academy, can address the structural issues that are preventing it from keeping pace with the television and music industries progress on inclusion, theyre going to be hurting for years to come. On Twitter, many people of color are saying that if the academy is uninterested in their experiences, then they are uninterested in the academys ceremony. Its possible that a lot of moviegoers will boycott the televised ceremony again like so many did last year. People may even create their own alternative award shows, with hashtags like #BlackTwitterMovieAwards. It says a lot that it took David Bowie, a white guy from England who had briefly flirted with fascism, to put an American network in the hot seat for its fear of black musicians. But it says even more that after the music and television industries have begun to learn from their mistakes, that the academy is still not able to recognize brilliant artists of color when they see one. In 2015, writer and former attorney April Reign created the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag a mixture of humor and serious criticism of the constant failures, and excuses, of the film industry. At the end of his interview, David Bowie left us with a little preview of that sentiment. After delivering a series of excuses, interviewer Mark Goodman tries to wrap things up. We can only teach a little bit at a timedoes that make sense? he asks. Valid point? David Bowie pauses, and grins. I understand your point of view, he says, and laughs. At a certain point, thats pretty much all you can do laugh. Follow me @dexdigi for more on the intersection of culture and the Internet You are here: Home Flash One foreign citizen was killed and four other foreign nationals injured in the suicide bombings in Jakarta on Thursday, Indonesian foreign ministry said in a statement. The dead was a Canadian national and the four wounded persons were Algerian, Austrian, Dutch and German. The Indonesian government remains highly committed to fighting terrorism and will spare no effort to ensure the security of nationals and foreign citizens in Indonesia. Indonesia encourages all citizens and foreign nationals to remain calm and continue with its daily activities. All business and premises within the vicinity of the incident are expected to be fully operational and normal by Friday. Seven people were killed, including two suicide bombers and three other militants, and 20 others were injured in the attack at the police station and a Starbucks coffee shop at the shopping center compound. The organization driving a controversial effort to vastly expand charter schools in Los Angeles has selected one of the states most visible charter school advocates as its first executive director. Myrna Castrejon, 50, is leaving her position as a lobbyist and strategist for the California Charter Schools Association to lead Great Public Schools Now, a nonprofit organization established to carry out the charter expansion strategy, which was first developed by billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad and his foundation. In her new position, Castrejon will become the face of an initiative that is stoking tumult among educators and push-back from the Los Angeles Unified School District. An early proposal called for raising $490 million to enroll half of the districts students in charter schools over the next eight years. Advertisement Castrejon, senior vice president of government affairs for the charter association, begins her new role Feb. 22. She said a key priority will be reaching out to leaders of the nations second largest school district who, just two days ago, publicly opposed the plan developed by the Broad Foundation. L.A. Unified Supt. Michelle King on Thursday echoed concerns raised by the school board, saying she does not support any initiatives that propose to take over the district by encouraging students to enroll in charters. The proposal called for the creation of 260 new charter schools. It was obtained by the Times in September. Great Public Schools Now, which launched in November, has sought to temper criticism of the proposal by stating that it was simply a draft. Supporters say they always intended to seek community input before releasing a final plan. I hope that critics will look at the work that we do moving forward and then decide whether that work has value rather than speculate about our motives or what happened or what did not happen, Castrejon said. Ultimately, our success will be defined by our outcomes and our actions. Castrejon provided data and guidance for the expansion plan before it became public, and said she will now work on the final draft. She did not provide additional details of the plan or provide a release date. In an indication of how contentious the charter debate has become, on Monday, while Castrejon was still at the charter association, it filed a lawsuit alleging that LA Unified misdirected $224 million in bond money that it claims had been earmarked for charter schools. The goal of charter advocates, Castrejon said, is not to undermine traditional public education but to support a range of successful schools. United Teachers Los Angeles President Alex Caputo-Pearl said the appointment of a non-educator was evidence that the nonprofits focus would be on creating charters at the expense of traditional public schools. We believe this appointment shows they are not interested in a holistic public education system that serves all kids, Caputo-Pearl said. zahira.torres@latimes.com For more education news, follow @zahiratorres on Twitter. Education Matters receives funding from a number of foundations. The California Community Foundation and United Way of Greater Los Angeles administer grants from the Baxter Family Foundation , the Broad Foundation, the California Endowment and the Wasserman Foundation to support this effort. Under terms of the grants, the Times retains complete control over editorial content. John Duarte is a fourth-generation California farmer. Just outside Modesto, his family owns one of the biggest agricultural nurseries in the country. Duarte Nursery is famous for its grapevines, and its almond, walnut and pistachio root stock. The family also cultivates vineyards and orchards. In all, its a $50-million-a-year concern. Which is why Duarte is able to finance his million-dollar legal fight with the federal government, a fight where the government will almost certainly find itself on the losing side. Advertisement The trouble started in 2012. Thats when Duarte, 49, hired a guy to plow 450 acres that hed purchased here in Tehama County, about two hours north of Sacramento. The idea was to plant a crop of winter wheat, which would later be replaced by a walnut orchard. The land is typical of farms in the area, rolling grassland on top of gravelly clay loam soil. When it rains, water gathers in puddles called vernal pools. The pools evaporate instead of drain, thus offering habitat to creatures like the fairy shrimp, a creature you may remember from your list of greatest childhood disappointments as sea monkeys. Duarte was aware of the smattering of vernal pools and swales on his property, and asked his contractor to plow around them. Some he did, some he didnt, but none was destroyed. After all, the plow was going only 4 to 7 inches deep, maybe a foot in a few places, but not far enough down to disturb the impermeable clay-like layer beneath the pools. As a farming matter, you dont really want to plant in puddles that dont drain. As a legal matter, the government takes a dim view of wetlands destruction. Vernal pools are considered wetlands. Years ago, in the course of refining the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency adopted a rule that plowing is not regulated by the act, so long as plowing does not turn a wetland into dryland. This allows farmers to plow their land without the onerous permitting process required when wetlands are otherwise put to human use. In the winter of 2012, a project manager from the local office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer, which is responsible for enforcing the Clean Water Act, happened to drive by Duartes field as it was being plowed. He decided that the land was being tilled too deeply. What he observed did not count as plowing, he concluded. It was deep ripping, which is not allowed, as it can destroy wetlands. The Corps sent Duarte a cease-and-desist letter. Duarte contends that the project manager was simply mistaken. He and his attorneys say that rather than admit the mistake, the government has doubled down, leading to multiple lawsuits (by Duarte against the feds; by the feds against Duarte), millions of dollars in legal costs and, of course, lost wheat revenue. The case has resulted in some spectacularly absurd contortions on the part of the Corps: The agency claimed that the cease-and-desist order, which raised the specter of fines and even imprisonment, was merely a suggestion, not a command. No one forced Duarte to stop working his wheat field, government lawyers said. That was simply his own choice. The federal judge hearing the case found the claim mind-boggling like holding a gun to Duartes head, he wrote, then claiming Duarte should have known the weapon wasnt loaded. In another instance, when Duarte gave Corps staffers access to his land to examine the vernal pools and furrows, they brought a steam shovel. Theyve dug 20 or more pits right in the middle of the wetlands they claim I have destroyed, he said. Finally, and perhaps most deliciously, the Corps maintains that the raised parts of the plowed furrows, which are maybe 3 to 4 inches tall, created small mountain ranges, which discharged pollutants (i.e., tilled dirt) into the wetlands. On Wednesday, under drizzly skies, Duarte stood on one of those teensy mountain ranges and smiled. We call these Sierra de minimis. :: Duarte and his attorney, Anthony Francois of the Pacific Legal Foundation, had picked me up in Sacramento and driven me to the field. I had to see it for myself. Along the way, we passed some of the northern Central Valleys most glorious landscape sun-dappled hills, 100-year-old olive groves, and many, many orchards planted with walnuts and almond trees that began life at Duarte Nursery. Thanks to recent rains, the medians were a nearly fluorescent green. We talked about the Lodi cherry harvest, the battle against GMOs and Duarte Nurserys pioneering work on in-vitro micropropagation of avocados. The Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative outfit, fights government infringement on private property rights. It works free of charge and is supported by foundations and individuals, and has won a string of Supreme Court victories. Though I often find myself in vehement disagreement with its positions, I cant say its wrong on this one. (Duartes high legal bills are being incurred as he pays a second set of lawyers to defend him against the governments countersuit.) Duartes specific claim against the Corps of Engineers is that he was deprived of his constitutional right to due process. Our lawsuit says they were required to give Duarte a hearing before forbidding them to use their property, Francois said. Court documents show that when Duartes first attorney contacted the Corps to ask for details about his alleged violations, the senior project manager who flagged the plowing told his bosses in an email that the attorney was on a ranting fishing expedition and ignored the request. (I reached out to the Army Corps of Engineers and the Justice Department, which represents the Corps. Neither would comment on pending litigation.) Duarte, to his surprise, has become a symbol for government overreach. Earlier this week, he was in Orlando, discussing his plight at a meeting of the American Farm Bureau. On the day I met him, an op-ed piece by Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan appeared in the Omaha World Herald, citing Duartes situation as another example of Washington bureaucrats sticking their nose where it doesnt belong. Francois thinks this case could go on for years, and perhaps reach the U.S. Supreme Court. On Wednesday, Duarte, Francois and I walked across the gravelly dirt of Duartes fallowed field. A few wisps of the winter wheat he planted in 2012 remained. A flock of geese honked over us as they flew south in a wobbly formation. The only thing that marred the stark view was a red couch marooned in a shallow stream on the northern end of the property. Whether that was a form of pollution worthy of government attention, I really couldnt say. robin.abcarian@latimes.com Twitter: @AbcarianLAT Southern California Gas Co.'s effort to plug its leaking natural gas well involves higher stakes than simply stopping the fumes that have sickened many residents of Porter Ranch. The company also is trying to avoid a blowout, which state regulators said is now a significant concern after a seventh attempt to plug the well created more precarious conditions at the site. If a blowout occurs, highly flammable gas would vent directly up through the well, known as SS25, rather than dissipating as it does now via the subsurface leak and underground channels. Advertisement State officials said a blowout would increase the amount of leaked gas, causing greater environmental damage. That natural gas also creates the risk of a massive fire if ignited by a spark. The risk of fire already is so high that cellphones and watches are banned from the site California Department of Conservation spokesman Don Drysdale called the possibility of fire a concern even without a blowout. The department is the umbrella agency that oversees the oil and gas regulators responsible for well safety. The chief deputy director of the department, Jason Marshall, and a senior oil and gas field regulator assigned to daily watch at Aliso Canyon, Scott McGurk, told The Times the site and wellhead were made more unstable by the gas companys attempts to stop the leak by pumping a slurry directly into the well. The last of those efforts, which stretched over several days beginning Dec. 22, expanded a crater around the wellhead, state and gas company officials said. The crater is now 25 feet deep, 80 feet long and 30 feet wide, those officials said. The wellhead sits exposed within the cavernous space, held in place with cables attached after it wobbled during the plugging attempt, Marshall and McGurk said. The well pipe and its control valves are exposed and unsupported within that hole, atop a deep field of pressurized gas. Southern California Gas is now attempting to stop the leak by drilling relief wells to intercept the damaged well. Workers are not expected to reach the base of the well, 1.6 miles below ground, for at least six weeks. If the wellhead fails, the thing is just going to be full blast, said Gene Nelson, a physical sciences professor at Cuesta College. It will be a horrible, horrible problem. The leak rates would go way up. Sempra Energy, which owns the gas company, declined repeated requests from The Times to discuss current conditions at SS25. A gas company spokeswoman said the utility would not speculate on those questions. At a meeting with community representatives last week, the gas companys senior vice president for operations, Jimmie Cho, said attempts to plug the well from above were halted for safety concerns. As much as whats going on is not a good thing, we dont want to take a risk of that wellhead being lost, Cho said. State officials agreed. If one pushes too hard and breaks the well in its entirety, we, the public residents, the operator, have a much bigger problem, Marshall said. The gas company would not provide current photos of the site or allow media access. It did not provide a reason. Aerial photographs obtained by The Times, taken by a pilot who slipped through no-fly zones imposed after the leak began, show the tension cables strung to hold the jeopardized well in place. The photos, taken five days before the final plug attempt Dec. 22, show that the earth and the asphalt pad that directly surrounded the well are gone, scoured out by the backwash of mud repeatedly forced at high pressure into the leaky well in an attempt to plug it. Statements by gas company officials and regulators, and descriptions found in internal records describe the conditions around the well. A bridge was cantilevered into place when the crater cut off access to the exposed Christmas tree of valves and ports that allow operators to control the well, those officials and documents show. That wellhead is the only control operators currently have on a well that features a 2 7/8-inch pipe surrounded by a 7-inch casing. Engineering schematics show that the pipe and casing pierce an underground reservoir of gas and that both were used to insert and remove gas from the storage cavern. For all but the top 990 feet, there was no larger pipe to contain a leak if either pipe ruptured. The two-mile long depleted oil reserve that houses the gas is the largest natural gas storage field west of the Mississippi River. Each fall it is pumped with as much as 86 billion cubic feet of natural gas to run power plants and heat homes in Los Angeles during the winter. The gas company reported Oct. 23 that gas was escaping through small cracks in the rocky ground around well SS25, which is among 112 former oil extraction wells that have been converted for the natural gas storage operation. In November, efforts to force heavy mud into the well resulted in blasting open a small vent in the ground from which gas could escape more readily. By early January, state air quality regulators estimate, the leak had released more than 77 million kilograms of methane, the environmental equivalent of putting 1.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in the air. Independent health impact studies are not yet complete. Mercaptan added to allow gas to be detected by smell has sickened residents more than a mile away, and Southern California Gas is paying to house more than 2,500 in temporary lodging and has installed air purifiers into the homes of a similar number who chose to stay. Data captured by aerial surveys commissioned by the state Air Resources Board, which monitors pollution, show the amount of methane released increased over the first three weeks of November to 58,000 kilograms per hour from 44,000. During that time, a Texas well control company was attempting to plug a suspected hole in the 7-inch well casing by pumping it with increasingly heavier slurries of mud. The mud was pushed against pressurized gas in the well, and the slurry began to find its own escape routes, gouging out a growing hole around the well, according to descriptions provided by Marshall, McGurk and by Cho. During one of those attempts Nov. 13, a hole in the ground opened 20 feet north of the well, McGurk said last week. Gas that had seeped through diffuse rock fissures on the western side of the narrow ridge began streaming instead from the new vent, he said. In one internal state report obtained by The Times, an agency official described that kill effort as a blowout to surface. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> A large column of gas, aerated mud, and rock formed a geyser around the wellhead, the state observer wrote. Mud brine also began to flow from around the wellhead fissures. McGurk said the vent allowed a serious amount of gas to escape, at which point the state began requiring a state regulatory official to be at the site every day. Three more efforts to plug the well were made in November, with increasing amounts of backwash and scouring along the wellhead itself that left the well jutting out of a deep hole, without surface support, according to interviews, descriptions contained in agency records and company statements. During that time, a pilot taking weekly readings for the state Air Resources Board noted a spike in the rate of gas being released to the air from that location. paige.stjohn@latimes.com ALSO Oscars 2016: Heres why the nominees are so white -- again Chino Hills 7-Eleven still waiting for its Powerball winner to come forward Tension between ranchers and federal officials is dangerously high in Nevada Good morning. It is Friday, Jan. 15. There are two new (and adorable) mountain lion kittens living in the Santa Monica Mountains. But theres an outstanding question: Whos the daddy? Heres what else is happening in the Golden State: TOP STORIES Political pressures Advertisement As she prepares for her reelection, L.A. County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey is facing increasing pressure to prosecute a police officer who shot an unarmed homeless man in Venice. The decision on whether to press charges could put her at odds with law enforcement or civil rights groups. Whatever she decides theres going to be very unhappy people, said Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State L.A. Los Angeles Times Gas leak conditions High stakes are involved in Southern California Gas. Cos repair of a leaking well in Aliso Canyon. State regulators now say that a blowout is a significant concern. A blowout would increase the amount of gas that is leaking from the well and create the risk of a massive fire. Gas company officials declined to comment or provide media access to the well site. Los Angeles Times Undercover informant Huntington Park Councilman Valentin Amezquita is the FBI informant at the center of a bribery case involving the company that tows and stores vehicles for the citys police department. While meeting with the companys owners, Amezquita wore a wire, and details of those recordings are now part of a federal affidavit in the case. Los Angeles Times DROUGHT AND CLIMATE Land war: Columnist Robin Abcarian visited a Northern California nursery to see firsthand the dispute that erupted between a farmer and the U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers. Farmer John Duarte is the new face of government overreach after he was accused of destroying wetlands on his property. The case has resulted in some spectacularly absurd contortions on the part of the Corps, Abcarian writes. Los Angeles Times Water diversion: Gov. Jerry Brown is painting a dire picture of what could happen if his $15-billion plan to divert water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta doesnt come to fruition. If we dont have the project, the delta will fail, water will not be available and California will suffer devastating economic consequences, Brown said. The move to divert delta resources is opposed by environmentalists. Reuters L.A. AT LARGE Improved LAUSD: Single-sex schools, language programs and more science and math education are among Supt. Michelle Kings ideas to make the Los Angeles Unified School District more attractive to parents. Her comments came during a meeting with The Times editorial board. King also criticized a proposal to turn half of the districts schools into charters. I dont agree or support any initiative that says were going to take over or take part of L.A. Unifieds kids, she said. Los Angeles Times An endorsement: Former Mayor Richard Riordan endorsed a proposed ballot measure that would place a two-year moratorium on developments that dont comply with existing planning and zoning rules. The backing came with harsh words for the citys current mayor. He isnt doing anything for the poor but helping the rich get richer through these zoning deals on land development, Riordan said. Los Angeles Times New title: An aide to Mayor Eric Garcetti has adopted the title of executive vice mayor, something that has never before existed in L.A. city government. Despite the name, Rick Jacobs, a deputy chief of staff, is not the No. 2 official in the city. LA Weekly POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT Major fine: The California Public Utilities Commission fined Uber $7.6 million for failing to meet data requirements in 2014. Representatives for the ride-sharing company plan to appeal the decision. The commission had required Uber to turn over driver data that would show whether drivers were serving all manner of passengers. Los Angeles Times Legal fees: Litigation against the Sheriffs Department helped increase Los Angeles Countys legal fees including attorneys costs, settlements and judgments 24% last year. The county spent $118.9 million in fiscal year 2014-15. Every cent the county spends on litigation is precious funding that we cannot use to house the homeless, promote better health and wellness for children, upskill our workforce, and provide countless other needed services to our communities, said Supervisor Hilda Solis, chairwoman of the Board of Supervisors. Los Angeles Times CRIME AND COURTS Abuse lawsuit: A woman is suing Orange County billionaire Henry T. Nicholas III for $70 million, alleging that he abused her during their relationship and then reneged on a promise to financially support her for the rest of her life. In her lawsuit, Melissa Montero states she quit her job as a restaurant manager after Nicholas promised to support her if she devoted her life to him. Los Angeles Times New names: There are some new names coming to Yosemite National Park. The Ahwahnee Hotel will become the Majestic Yosemite Hotel, and Curry Village will be known as Half Dome Village. The changes come amid an ongoing lawsuit with the parks outgoing concession company, which argues it owns the intellectual property rights to the original names. Los Angeles Times Religious liberties: Doctors at a Catholic hospital do not have to perform sterilization procedures on women. A San Francisco judge has ruled Mercy Medical Center did not engage in sex discrimination when it denied a woman a tubal ligation on religious grounds. Associated Press CALIFORNIA CULTURE Oscar goes to : What does critic Kenneth Turan take away from Thursdays Academy Award nominations? Despite the mysterious exclusions, despite the perplexing and continually disturbing absence of people of color from the acting nominations, the voters in the specific branches gave indications of taking their jobs seriously, of looking past the obvious films to make their choices, he writes. Los Angeles Times Buy you a drink: Time to find a new pickup bar. Foxfire was known as a place for older, experienced women and the younger men who love them. Now, the restaurant is closing. Foxfire became code in the male Southern California world for fun, for men to try their Leykis 101 moves and get lucky again and again. And there was fun for ladies who were looking for sugar daddies, too! OC Weekly Government cheese: Should people be guaranteed a small paycheck from the federal government? Its an idea thats taken root in California. California offers perhaps the most likely venue to try such an idea at the state level; we have a powerful ballot initiative system that would allow for the quick advance of such a proposal, and deep-pocketed potential backers to campaign for it, writes Joe Mathews. Zocalo Public Square City as a muse: The late David Bowie lived in Los Angeles for 10 months during the mid-1970s. David Bowie came to Los Angeles to get involved in the movie business, and things didnt work out the way he expected. In the process, though, he made one of his best albums and gave a definitive performance in what became an unquestionable movie masterpiece. LA Weekly CALIFORNIA ALMANAC San Francisco will have clouds and sun with a high of 57 degrees. Los Angeles will be sunny and 64. In Riverside, there will be sunshine and 63 degrees. San Diego will have clouds and sun. Temperatures are expected to reach 63 degrees. AND FINALLY Todays California Memory comes from Connie A. Summer: I came to California on a bus with a few other women Marines fresh out of boot camp. Another bus took us to Orange County. I could smell orange blossom for the first time and saw my first palm tree. I will never forget that first moment we set foot in the Pacific Ocean. I fell in love with California, and it loved me back. I am 81 now and only returned to New York to visit. Guess California is in my soul. If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. Send us an email to let us know what you love or fondly remember about our state. (Please keep your story to 100 words.) Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to Alice Walton or Shelby Grad. Planned Parenthood filed a federal court lawsuit Thursday alleging extensive criminal misconduct by the anti-abortion activists who produced undercover videos targeting the handling of fetal tissue at some Planned Parenthood clinics. The people behind this fraud lied and broke the law in order to spread malicious lies about Planned Parenthood, said Dawn Laguens, the organizations executive vice president. This lawsuit exposes the elaborate, illegal conspiracy designed to block womens access to safe and legal abortion. The anti-abortion activists, who named their group the Center for Medical Progress, began releasing a series of covertly recorded videos in July alleging that Planned Parenthood sold fetal tissue to researchers for a profit in violation of federal law. Advertisement Planned Parenthood has denied any wrongdoing, saying a handful of its clinics provided fetal tissue for research while receiving only permissible reimbursement for costs. The lawsuit says the videos were the result of numerous illegalities, including making recordings without consent, registering false identities with state agencies and violating non-disclosure agreements. The civil lawsuit was filed on Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. It seeks compensatory and punitive damages, as well as legal fees. A Planned Parenthood lawyer, Beth Parker, declined to estimate how much money would be sought, but it said the amount would include extra money spent since the videos release on additional security for Planned Parenthood clinics. Interested in the stories shaping California? Sign up for the free Essential California newsletter >> David Daleiden, a founder of the Center for Medical Progress who oversaw the video operation, said he looked forward to confronting Planned Parenthood officials in court. My response is: Game on, he said in an email. I look forward to deposing all the CEOs, medical directors, and their co-conspirators who participated in Planned Parenthoods illegal baby body parts racket. The lawsuit alleges that Daleiden and several collaborators, including longtime anti-abortion activist Troy Newman, engaged in a complex criminal enterprise to defraud Planned Parenthood. The suit contends that the Center for Medical Progress violated the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organization Act (known as the RICO Act), engaging in wire fraud, mail fraud, invasion of privacy, illegal secret recording and trespassing. According to the suit, Daleiden, Newman and other defendants used aliases, obtained fake government IDs and formed a fake tissue procurement company, Biomax, in order to gain access to private medical conferences and health care centers, and to tape private professional conversations of medical providers. The videos provoked an outcry from the anti-abortion movement, and prompted numerous investigations of Planned Parenthood by Republican-led committees in Congress and by GOP-led state governments. Thus far, none of the investigations has turned up wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood in regard to fetal tissue research, but Republicans in Congress and in several states are seeking to cut off government funding to the organization. The videos created a poisonous environment in which Planned Parenthood staffers were targeted with hate mail and death threats, said Parker, the organizations lawyer. She cited the attack in November on a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado in which three people were killed; the man arrested in the shooting depicted himself in court as a warrior for the babies. Planned Parenthood is the leading abortion provider in the United States, and also provides a range of other health services, including cancer screenings, contraceptives and testing for sexually transmitted diseases. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> ALSO LAPD officer who mistakenly shot teen in replica gun case was justified, commission finds Informant in FBI bribery case was Huntington Park councilman Santa Monica makes its own mark with minimum wage increase Im Davan Maharaj, editor of the Los Angeles Times. Here are some story lines I dont want you to miss today. TOP STORIES #OscarsSoWhite, the Sequel Advertisement For the second year in a row, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is facing criticism over an all-white group of acting nominees. It comes as the academys leadership is in the midst of a major push to diversify its membership, but many challenges remain. Times senior culture editor Mary McNamara describes the plot lines of most of this years best picture nominees as white men triumphing over enormous odds. More About the Oscar Nominations -- The big snubs and surprises, reactions and the complete list of nominees. -- Kenneth Turan: Nominations favored chest-beating action pictures, but theres more to it. -- What are your thoughts?Join the conversation on Facebook. Murky Waters Off Iran Ten U.S. sailors, two videos and lots of questions. Before President Obamas State of the Union address, two Navy boats were off course in the Persian Gulf when Iranian forces detained them. They were eventually released, but Iranian TV aired one video purporting to show several Americans kneeling, hands behind their heads. Another video showed the U.S. commander of the two boats apologizing profusely. New details of the incident have emerged, but the picture is far from clear. A Sharper GOP Debate In the first Republican debate of the year, nearly all the candidates started off by going after President Obama and Hillary Clinton. But thats about where the unity ended, as the seven on the main stage clashed over citizenship, conservatism and more. (Can you define New York values?) Heres what happened. The Dish on Immigration in Big Sky Country In the tiny Montana town of Dillon, the locals like to shoot the bull over coffee and eggs in a Mexican restaurant called Los Koritas. A recent conversation about illegal immigration sparked a spirited debate. A few surprises emerged too, challenging some notions of mis viejitos my little old men and women as the owner calls the customers. To Prosecute or Not to Prosecute L.A. County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey faces a decision that is bound to upset someone: If she files criminal charges against an LAPD officer in the fatal shooting of an unarmed homeless man, she risks the wrath of law enforcements rank-and-file. If not, community activists will be outraged. The pressure only grew after Chief Charlie Beck called for charges in the case. Nor does it help that shes trying to get reelected. Heres how the case raises the stakes for Lacey. CALIFORNIA -- Efforts to plug Porter Ranch-area gas leak weakened a wellhead, regulators say. -- Who is the Powerball winner in Chino Hills? -- The L.A. Police Commission finds the officer who mistakenly shot a teen in a replica gun case was justified. -- LAUSDs new leader says single-sex campuses could improve academic achievement. -- Mountain lion kittens are born in the Santa Monica Mountains, but the father is still unknown. NATION-WORLD -- Is the Ebola epidemic in West Africa really over? -- A French court rules compassionately in a refugee smuggling case. -- The frontman for a heavy-metal band hopes to rock the vote in Taiwan with his candidacy. -- Residents of Flint, Mich., are told not to drink tap water because of lead contamination. -- Astronomers have spotted the brightest supernova ever seen. HOLLYWOOD AND THE ARTS -- Alan Rickman, who played Professor Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films among many other roles, died at 69. -- Movie review: 13 Hours is Michael Bays confusing take on the fatal Benghazi attack. -- Theater review: Orwells 1984" has never seemed so current and terrifying as on the Broad Stage. -- Rene Angelil, Celine Dions husband and longtime manager, has died of cancer at 73. -- Q&A: Kirsten Lepore brings a real third dimension to Adventure Time. BUSINESS -- Exxon Mobil says its Torrance refinery is safe. -- L.A. real estate agents are hoping to land Rams players, coaches and executives as clients. -- The U.S. is developing guidelines for self-driving cars, as a new report details safety issues. -- David Lazarus: Our privacy is losing out to Internet-connected household devices. SPORTS -- Former Dodger shortstop Maury Wills has the law on his side in his Hall of Fame bid. -- Should the Rams switch their uniform colors or design when they come back to L.A.? WHAT OUR EDITORS ARE READING -- The site of the Salem witch hangings has been pinpointed, and a Walgreens overlooks it. (Boston Globe) -- Does having more parking spots cause more driving? (CityLab) -- A visual history of 125 years of fingernail fashion. (Mashable) ONLY IN CALIFORNIA The Ahwahnee Hotel has hosted heads of state, movie stars and your average visitor to Yosemite who just wants to chill out with a glass of iced tea. But on March 1, it will become the Majestic Yosemite Hotel. A legal spat between the government and the facilitys outgoing operator is prompting a name change for the hotel and several other landmarks. Even the name Yosemite National Park is in dispute but a spokesman says that will remain. No plans to move Half Dome, either. Please send comments and ideas to Davan Maharaj. Los Angeles beleaguered school system doesnt need the aggressive shake-up some critics have called for so much as consistent, steady progress and collaboration, new schools Supt. Michelle King said in a meeting Thursday with The Times. In her first extended interview since taking office this week, King talked more about the listening she intends to do in coming weeks than specific decisions she may make, suggesting that shell take a cautious, measure-twice, cut-once approach to problems at the Los Angeles Unified School District. I see the district as having ... pockets of success, and I see building on the achievements we have, she said. And then I see areas we want to strengthen. Advertisement That diplomatic style was clearly part of what won over school board members, who voted 7 to 0 to hire her this week after a five-month, nationwide search. She replaces Ramon C. Cortines, who retired in December. King said she would not depart from current, defining board policies, including a mandate to limit suspensions and a push to make all graduates eligible to apply to a state college. The key, she said, is to resist one-size-fits-all solutions for schools. I stay away from: This is the way; this is the bullet, she said. Some of the districts detractors are impatient with Kings seeming patience. They point to lagging student achievement, financial problems, drift in the instruction division, a divided, sometimes fractious board, and a recent history of failed or abandoned initiatives, such as one to deliver an iPad to every student. Join the conversation on Facebook >> What she has provided, to her credit, is a sense of reassurance, said Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC. What seems to be missing is a sense of urgency. And if I were the parent of a student, I think Id be looking for a leader willing to make dramatic change to make sure my children get the education they deserve. That may be to come, but it hasnt been evident in her tone. King said she and the school board understand collectively the urgency needed but repeatedly noted that she views cooperation among all those involved with the schools students, parents, teachers and administrators as the best way to solve problems. They charged me with bringing the district together, she said. King, 54, has spent her entire 31-year career in L.A. Unified, staying mostly in the background after three years as a well-regarded principal at Hamilton High. But board members spoke of seeing a new side in interviews for the top job, of a person who is, as they put it, brimming with ideas, ready to hit the ground running. King cited several continuing initiatives she embraces: Starting single-gender campuses. Two for girls are scheduled to open in the fall. Integrating more science concepts into all grades. Follow the Times education initiative to inform parents, educators and students across California >> Expanding popular programs such as those that help students become fluent in a second language at an early age and making sure these programs continue from the elementary grades through high school. The new leader conceded that finding the money for such goals will be challenging. We wont be able to do everything, King said. I call it a delicate dance. An outside organizations proposed charter expansion plan, which would drain district enrollment, could make matters worse because district funding is based on student attendance. Backers of the expansion said recently that the goal has evolved to focus on high-quality public schools of all sorts, not solely on charters. But advocates for charters opened a new front this week by suing the district over its school construction bonds, asserting that charters are not receiving their fair share. Charters are independently operated and exempt from some rules that govern traditional public schools. Most are nonunion. When pressed about the charter proposal, which was spearheaded by the Broad Foundation, King took a loyalists stance. I dont agree or support any initiative that says were going to take over or take part of L.A. Unifieds kids, King said. She said, however, that she has no hostility toward charters: I support all schools that serve our kids. howard.blume@latimes.com Twitter: @howardblume The Times receives funding for its digital initiative Education Matters from the California Endowment, the Wasserman Foundation and the Baxter Family Foundation. The California Community Foundation and United Way of Greater Los Angeles administer grants from the Broad Foundation to support this effort. Under terms of the grants, The Times retains complete control over editorial content. ALSO Oscars 2016: Heres why the nominees are so white -- again Chino Hills 7-Eleven still waiting for its Powerball winner to come forward Tension between ranchers and federal officials is dangerously high in Nevada The red tape stretched across the road leading to the concrete riverbed. Juan Mendez ducked under the tape, which warned: Danger Hazardous Material Do Not Enter. Then he watched Los Angeles sanitation workers take apart the dwelling on the banks of the Arroyo Seco that for four years he had called home. Early Wednesday morning, the part-time screen printer with a felony conviction watched workers in hard hats and white hazmat uniforms study a plywood box for any health hazards: human waste, razors, hypodermic needles. Advertisement Then the 42-year-old turned and walked away as the workers tossed his belongings down a concrete slab, where a skip loader scooped what had become debris pillows, bike wheels, stuffed animals, pots and chairs into sanitation trucks. Juan Mendez, 42, and Vanessa Lopez, 24, comfort each other after losing their sleeping place under the Avenue 19 overpass and the 110 Freeway. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) Los Angeles is trying to work out a plan for dealing with its vast homeless population. But while strategies are plotted, the job of clearing out homeless encampments goes on. We average about 117 [clearings of] encampments per month, said Steve S. Pedersen, the chief environmental compliance inspector of the Bureau of Sanitation. In the first two weeks of 2016, 55 camps already have been scraped away. See the most-read stories this hour >> In 2015, the Bureau of Sanitation cleared 1,349 encampments. This weeks cleanup, along the Arroyo Seco between Avenue 19 and Avenue 26 in Lincoln Heights, was prompted by a strong series of El Nino-fueled storms and the fear that people and encampments could be swept away during the deluges. By the time the sweep was complete, the Bureau of Sanitation reported that 18.5 tons of trash were removed, including 150 pounds of urine and feces and 170 pounds of hazardous waste. Sanitation department crew members remove a homeless encampment under the Avenue 19 overpass and the 110 Freeway. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) The camps that were cleared have been targeted at least three times before, said Elena Stern, spokeswoman for the L.A. City Department of Public Works. They are on property owned by the city with no public access. People have removed the permanent No Trespassing signs, Stern said. Temporary fliers were taped to columns and fences along the river embankment, reading: Property of the City of Los Angeles NO trespassing, parking, dumping and storage of personal property. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> Early Wednesday morning, Monica Alcaraz, a homeless outreach worker, gripped a rope anchored at the top of the sloping embankment. She scaled the wall to the ledge underneath the overpass where people were living. I wanted to let you know that the LAPD and everything theyre coming down, and theyre cleaning everything up, she told them. So if you want to start gathering your stuff, that would be really good. Alcaraz offered them trash bags and let them know about the nearby Recycled Resources winter shelter, where they could go for food, clothes and maybe shelter, if there was room. A couple who lived under the Avenue 19 overpass and the 110 Freeway move out from their encampment. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) She talked to a 20-year-old former Avenues gang member who had been staying in an encampment there with his girlfriend for the past six months. He declined to give his name because he said his life was in danger. Im waiting for people to forget about me, he said. Im not active anymore. He told Alcaraz that his gang activity brought heat to the house and that he had to leave in order to protect his family. Patrolling along the Arroyo Seco toward Avenue 26, LAPD Officer Ulises Taveras told people to be prepared for the cleanup within the hour. NEWSLETTER: Get the days top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >> We understand that homelessness is not a crime, and theres no way possible that well arrest our way out of this, Taveras said. So were approaching it differently. Taveras, a Quality of Life officer whose job includes homeless outreach, has been patrolling the Arroyo Seco area heavily for the past couple of months. As he walked along the river, he knocked on dwellings. He asked one man how a smoldering chair in the flood channel caught fire. LAPD Officer Ulises Taveras speaks to a man found wandering near a homeless encampment along Arroyo Seco. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) He told the man to try to get as much as you can. If its trash, just leave it, all right? Well take care of it. Were going to get rid of it. After police secured the area, workers spent the entire day clearing the bulk of the 14 encampments. Caltrans tackled those adjacent to the highways, and city sanitation workers handled camps under bridges and along the riverbed. Three other agencies the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, the Department of Mental Health and Behavioral Health Services also descended to pass out information and try to connect people to services. Ed Leibowitz of the citys Homeless Services Authority said that they encountered 12 people during the cleanup. Four agreed to enter substance-abuse programs. At least one other person was interested in services but did not commit. No homeless people from the cleanup surfaced at the Recycled Resources shelter in Highland Park that Wednesday night. Taveras said he will continue to patrol the Arroyo Seco between Avenue 19 to Avenue 64 two to three times a week ever mindful of the rains. LAPD officers check on homeless encampments along Arroyo Seco. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) The morning after the sweep, three dwellings were untouched. Stern, the spokeswoman for the Department of Public Works, said they were spared because they werent close enough to the river to be threatened by swelling waters brought on by storms. William Scott raked the ground in front of the woodshed he built. Music wafted from speakers he jury-rigged to a utility pole. Another remaining dwelling had a gated stone courtyard built by Porfirio Vasquez, a stonemason with a pet black cat. Taveras said a 74-year-old man lived in the third structure, though he sometimes moves to an encampment in Boyle Heights, as he has for the past 20 years. Officials said all three encampments likely will be removed in the future. lisa@latimes.com Twitter: @lisabiagiotti ALSO Another major accident reported on steep Beverly Hills road Name changes for Ahwahnee Hotel and other Yosemite attractions draw outrage After fatal shooting on BART train, transit company discloses not all security cameras are real A Los Angeles police officer who mistakenly shot a teenager last year after seeing a group of boys with a replica gun was justified in opening fire, even though the wounded teen hadnt been holding the toy weapon, the L.A. Police Commission decided this week. The Feb. 10 shooting generated calls for better training of LAPD officers and renewed concerns within law enforcement over the dangers of realistic-looking toy weapons. Jamar Nicholson, then 15, and three of his friends were rapping and dancing in the alley that morning part of their typical routine before school, they previously told The Times. One of Jamars friends was holding a toy gun. Advertisement Suddenly, the teenagers said, two men in dress shirts and ties ran toward them and started shooting. The officers had been driving by when one looked over and saw someone pointing what he thought was a gun at somebody else in the alley, according to a redacted copy of a report that LAPD Chief Charlie Beck submitted to the Police Commission. Thinking a robbery or killing was about to happen, the officers jumped out of the car and ran down the alley, the report said. One of the officers told investigators that when he gave an order to drop the gun, the person turned and pointed it toward him. I thought he was going to shoot at me, the officer said, according to the report. So at that point, thats when I fired. Jamar, then a high school freshman, was shot and wounded in the upper back. What the officer thought was a real gun in fact had a small orange tip, police said, indicating it was a fake. An attorney representing Jamar challenged the account contained in Becks report, saying Jamars friend never pointed the replica gun at the officer. Neither officer, the attorney said, identified himself as police. Had they taken a moment to learn the context -- that these were four kids getting ready to go to school -- this wrongful shooting never would have occurred, attorney John W. Harris said. But they never did that. Harris has filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of two of the teenagers and their parents, alleging the officer used excessive force. He said he was not surprised but disappointed in the commissions 4-1 decision. Their rendition of the facts are just totally opposite of what our investigators have determined, he said. They got it wrong. The names of the two officers involved in the incident were redacted from the report released by the commission. One of the officers was faulted for the tactics leading up to the shooting, according to the report. The commissioners unanimously agreed with Beck that the officer had deviated from LAPD policy by running into the alley without cover or his partner. Police commissioners declined to discuss their decision Thursday. One commissioner, Steve Soboroff, said only that it was dangerous for children or teenagers to play with toy guns. As a father and grandfather, he said, I would get them a different kind of toy. Jamar was one of 36 people shot by on-duty LAPD officers in 2015; 21 were killed. Follow @katemather for more LAPD news. Individuals arrested in Los Angeles while protesting the killing of a black man in Ferguson, Mo., have filed a class-action lawsuit accusing the city and police of violating their constitutional rights. The federal lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges that in November 2014, the Los Angeles Police Department surrounded several hundred protesters as they marched downtown and in the Westlake district. Police then arrested or detained and questioned dozens of individuals without lawful dispersal orders, the suit says. One of the protests occurred Nov. 26 at Sixth and Hope streets and involved about 130 protesters. Two days later, about 40 protesters were detained and questioned at Beverly and Alvarado streets, the suit says. Other demonstrations also resulted in arrests and detentions. Advertisement The suit, filed on behalf of protesters by the National Lawyers Guild Los Angeles, alleges that police corralled, detained, interrogated protesters and that the demonstrators were forced to give up personal information. Protesters were told they were detained for blocking traffic, according to the lawsuit. The Los Angeles protests were among dozens around the country after the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and the subsequent decision by a grand jury not to indict the white police officer involved. Most of those protests resulted in few arrests. But more than 323 protesters were arrested over several days in Los Angeles. Only about 9% of those arrested had been charged by last summer, according to a Times review. The class-action suit, which names police Chief Charlie Beck and other high-ranking officers, alleges the LAPD gave dispersal orders at one location, but arrested protesters at another location who had not heard the order or warnings that they could be arrested. The suit accuses the LAPD of violating the 1st, 4th and 14th Amendment rights of the protesters. Most of the plaintiffs, according to the suit, were held for about 14 hours and not allowed release on their own recognizance, which is typically granted. Beck, however, eventually ordered their release because of the Thanksgiving holiday. Carol Sobel, a veteran civil rights lawyer and one the attorneys who filed the suit, said the city and police have failed to curtail alleged rights violations that have resulted in large damage awards to plaintiffs involved in past protests. Those settlements include a $5-million award to protesters arrested during the 2000 Democratic National Convention, nearly $13 million awarded to those arrested during a 2007 May Day protest, and $2.45 million awarded to protesters arrested during Occupy L.A. sit-ins in 2012. They dont learn from the mistakes of the past, Sobel said. Sobel said that as part of the 2000 and 2007 settlements the LAPD agreed to provide officers better training on the rights of protesters, but has failed to do so. During the 2007 May Day rally, officers swung batons and fired rubber bullets on a mostly peaceful crowd, injuring 250 people. An LAPD spokesman, Capt. Andrew Neiman, declined to comment on the latest lawsuit, citing the ongoing litigation. Police have previously defended their actions during the Ferguson-related protests. The objective was to allow protesters to exercise their 1st Amendment rights, but concerns over public safety led to police action, said LAPD Capt. Jeff Bert, who oversaw the on-the-ground response. Bert said he delivered dispersal orders but acknowledged that the chaotic circumstances posed challenges, particularly during the first night of demonstrations. On Nov. 26, protesters initially gathered outside the federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles but moved to 7th and Figueroa streets, where police said they ordered the crowd to disperse. But many protesters and others say they never heard such an order. The lawsuit alleges that the crowd was allowed to move to 6th and Hope streets where they and other demonstrators were detained. Charmaine Chua, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said she asked to leave and police refused. About 130 arrests were made, including people there who were not protesting, the suit alleges. Two nights later, protesters marched to 8th and Alvarado and about 40 protesters were penned by riot-clad officers. An order to disperse was given about an hour later and protesters were informed they would be individually questioned. Those protesters werent arrested, but they say they were handcuffed, searched, videotaped and questioned about their identities before they were allowed to leave. richard.winton@latimes.com Twitter: @lacrimes Flash The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday urged to convene Syrian political talks on Jan. 25 as planned earlier, stressing "we must not let regional tensions derail our quest to end this war." Syrian refugees gather in front of refugee tents after they entered Jordanian territory, near the town of Ruwaished, at the Hadalat area, east of Amman, Jordan, Jan. 14, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua] "My Special Envoy (Staffan de Mistura) and I continue to press for the convening of a further round of political talks on January 25th," said Ban when he briefed the UN General Assembly meeting on priorities for 2016, urging all parties to build on the momentum generated by Security Council resolution 2254. The Security Council resolution, adopted in December 2015, endorsed an international roadmap for a Syrian-led political transition in order to end the conflict in the country, which calls for Syrian peace talks to begin in early January. "Moreover, we must not let regional tensions derail our quest to end this war," Ban added. Iran and Saudi Arabia are currently locked in a diplomatic row over Sunni-majority Riyadh's execution of a prominent Shiite cleric, along with 46 others over terror charges. The executions have sent large number of Iranians onto the street, while some of them stormed Saudi diplomatic missions in Tehran, the capital of Iran, and in the northeastern city of Mashhad. Later, Riyadh cut its diplomatic ties with Tehran over the attacks on its embassy. The row between the two regional powers has raised concern about whether the Syrian and Yemeni peace process will be affected. The UN chief also called for "immediate, unconditional and unimpeded humanitarian access" in Syria, stressing that "the use of food as weapon of war is a war crime." A professional skateboarder showed his winning ticket for the $1.5-billion Powerball jackpot on Instagram. Another man held an impromptu press conference in the parking lot of the Chino Hills 7-Eleven where the ticket was sold, claiming to be the winner. Then there was the poor nurse in Pomona, whose son text-messaged her a photo of her winning ticket, which led to a flood of media at her home and her work Thursday afternoon. But in the end, all were hoaxes. In California, lottery officials still dont know who the local winner is. Advertisement I never wouldve thought Id spend half my day [Thursday] trying to shoot down all these crazy stories about how they won, said Alex Traverso, a California State Lottery spokesman. Thanks to photo editing software and the biggest jackpot in U.S. lottery history, claims of people winning the lottery on social media soared this week, and even managed to trick some in the media. People can put together some pretty elaborate things. Sometimes it looks like a normal ticket, Traverso said. But the red flag right off the bat -- you dont share that [you won] with anyone. If youre serious that youve won ... $528 million is not an amount of money to be trifled with. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> The most successful hoax so far occurred Thursday, when a spokeswoman for a network of California healthcare facilities began shopping a story to local media that one of the networks employees was the winner -- and possibly thanks to the companys generous chief executive buying thousands of tickets for his employees and patients. But in the end, the spokeswoman, the chief executive, the nurses boss, her coworkers and even the nurse herself, had all fallen for a prank -- her son had sent her a Photoshopped picture of her ticket that appeared to have the winning numbers. The son eventually confessed it was a joke, but by then it was too late. The nurses family and the company spent the rest of Thursday trying to quell the rumors. A lot of what were seeing is someone having their moment in the sun, Traverso said. But it hasnt risen to this level before because everyone right now is trying to figure out who this winner is. The magnifying glass isnt usually there when its a smaller amount. Interested in the stories shaping California? Sign up for the free Essential California newsletter >> Three tickets matched Wednesdays winning Powerball numbers -- one each in Florida and Tennessee and one out of the Chino Hills 7-Eleven. Each ticket is worth about $528 million. Lottery officials arent investigating any claims of winners who go online, Traverso said. Thats the weird thing about it. Weve had large jackpot winners for hundreds of millions of dollars. They dont put their picture on social media. They dont tell everyone theyve won. People are more cautious than that, he said. Traverso said the fastest way lottery officials have to spot fakes on social media is the number sequence at the bottom of the ticket, just above the barcode. That identifies the store where the ticket was sold, among other things. Im really surprised how things are working out, Traverso said. It just makes me want the rightful winner to come forward sooner rather than later. For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter. MORE ON POWERBALL: Search is on for mysterious Powerball winner A CPAs advice for Californias Powerball winner: Dont answer the phone Chino Hills, where everyone will get free plastic surgery thanks to Powerball! Not A proposed ballot measure that would place a two-year moratorium on developments that dont comply with existing planning and zoning rules was endorsed Thursday by former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan. The Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, which could appear on the November ballot, is backed by the Coalition to Preserve L.A. Supporters want to end spot zoning, which occurs when City Council members approve mega-developments on parcels that are zoned for smaller buildings. If a person moved to the city now and heard Mayor Eric Garcetti talk, theyd assume hes a member of the Tea Party, Riordan said in a statement. He isnt doing anything for the poor but helping the rich get richer -- through these zoning deals on land development. Advertisement Riordan, a Republican, served two terms as mayor from 1993 to 2001. Garcetti is a Democrat, though the mayors office and City Council are nonpartisan. A spokeswoman for the mayor defended his record on supporting policies that affect low-income residents. His administration is well on its way to meeting the goal of building 100,000 new housing units by 2021 and doubling the production of affordable housing for low-income Angelenos, said Connie Llanos with the mayors office. The mayor is also launching the study and implementation of a new development linkage fee for affordable housing that could raise up to $100 million for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. The mayor has previously said he was concerned that the measure would prevent needed development in the city. If that happens, it could increase rents for middle-class families, he said. Riordan said his endorsement was motivated in part by what he sees as the construction of oversized buildings in West L.A. and Hollywood. Those developments often come at the expense of housing that is truly affordable to the citys working poor, he said. Coalition supporters are gathering signatures to qualify the measure for the November election. They need 61,486 valid signatures for it to get on the ballot. If that happens, the Los Angeles City Council would also have the option to adopt the proposal as an ordinance without putting the issue before voters. A major supporter of the Coalition to Preserve L.A. is the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which opposes Palladium Residences, two 30-story residential towers that a developer wants to bring to Hollywood. In order to build the project, city leaders would have to change the parcels zoning and make an amendment to the general plan. The foundations headquarters are next to the proposed site. Twitter: @TheCityMaven A 24-year-old man was sentenced Thursday to more than 25 years in state prison for the Halloween killing of a 5-year-old boy who was dressed as Spider-Man, prosecutors said. Marcus Denson had previously pleaded guilty to one count of voluntary manslaughter and two counts of attempted murder for the Oct. 31, 2010, slaying of Aaron Shannon, Jr., according to the Los Angeles County district attorneys office. Densons sentencing in a downtown courtroom marked the end of another chapter in the tragic daytime killing in a South Los Angeles backyard. Advertisement Prosecutors said that Denson and another man, 26-year-old Leonard Hall, had entered rival gang territory in the Florence neighborhood and came through the alley behind the young boys familys home in the 1000 block of East 84th Street. As they passed through about 2 p.m., Aaron was running into the backyard to show off his Spider-Man costume to relatives gathered at the home, prosecutors said. A single gunshot struck the boy in the back of the head. Family members tried to revive the boy. He was taken to the hospital in an ambulance and died the next day. He was 5 years old and 3 months -- one thousand nine hundred and eleven days to be exact. Thats all he got, Aarons grandfather, William Shannon, later said. Aarons uncle and grandfather were also struck by gunfire but did not suffer serious injuries, prosecutors said. Denson, who was 18 years old at the time of the shooting, was arrested within days of Aarons death. In 2013, he pleaded guilty as part of a deal with prosecutors. He later provided testimony in the three trials of Hall, telling jurors that Hall was the gunman. Both men were members of the Kitchen Crips gang; Aarons familys home was in a rival gangs territory, but police and prosecutors said none of the victims had ties to any gang. Juries in two of the trials were unable to reach a unanimous decision about Hall, but the third jury convicted him in May of one count of second-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder. He was sentenced to 128 years to life in state prison. Before receiving his sentence, Denson spoke of the fateful day that clipped short the life of the young boy, according to media reports. I was at the wrong place at the wrong time, he said. I have remorse in my heart. Thats why I came clean. For breaking news in California, follow @MattHjourno. ALSO California man indicted on terrorism charge Informant in FBI bribery case was Huntington Park councilman LAPD officer who mistakenly shot teen in replica gun case was justified, commission finds A man who was shot by a Los Angeles County sheriffs deputy after authorities say he yelled profanities at the deputy then turned his body and aggressively reached behind his back has died, authorities said. The man, whose identity has not been released, was shot about 7:50 p.m. Thursday after the deputy pulled him over because the mans vehicle matched the description of a vehicle used in an assault with a deadly weapon case, the Sheriffs Department said in a statement. After the man pulled over, officials say he immediately stepped out of his vehicle and began yelling profanities at the deputy while appearing to [be] challenging him to a fight. Advertisement The deputy told the man to put his hands in the air but he did not, officials said. Eventually, the man turned his body and aggressively reached behind his back appearing to retrieve a weapon, and began to draw the possible weapon on the deputy, the departments statement said. Thats when the deputy fatally shot the man. A knife was recovered at the scene, authorities said. A passenger in the vehicle was being interviewed by investigators. The shooting will be reviewed by the Sheriffs Departments homicide and internal affairs bureaus. The L.A. County district attorneys office will also investigate, as is customary in officer-involved shootings. Anyone with information about Thursday nights shooting is asked to contact investigators at (323) 890-5500. For breaking news in California, follow @MattHjourno. A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge could rule as soon as Friday on whether the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California must release information about the recipients of millions of dollars in turf replacement rebates. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is suing the regional water agency to block the release of the data to the San Diego Union-Tribune, a sister newspaper of the Los Angeles Times. Three other agencies West Basin Municipal Water District, Foothill Municipal Water District and Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District joined the suit after it was filed at the end of July. The newspaper is seeking the names and addresses of people and businesses who have received money to swap their lawns for drought-tolerant landscaping as part of the turf replacement rebate program. Advertisement The rebate program exploded in popularity last year, going through its $340-million budget in a matter of months. The data has remained private since Judge James C. Chalfant issued an order in August that temporarily prevented the MWD from giving it out. The MWD has already released detailed rebate information for agencies not involved in the suit. All parties appeared at a hearing Thursday before Chalfant, who did not issue a tentative ruling. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> Chalfant said his decision would hinge on a section of the California Public Records Act that allows the release of utility customers names and addresses when the public interest in disclosure of the information clearly outweighs the public interest in nondisclosure. Chalfant noted this is the most rigorous judicial test and leaves the burden of proof to the DWP. Kelly Aviles, an attorney for the Union-Tribune, argued that the public has a right to the information in order to scrutinize the effectiveness and fairness of a ratepayer-funded program. Im hopeful that the judge understands the minimal privacy interests do not override the publics ability to obtain information on how the millions of dollars in this program were spent, Aviles said after court Thursday. In November, the Los Angeles city controller released an audit criticizing the program for not being a cost-effective method of water conservation. Tina Shim, an attorney for the DWP, said the agency has complied with the disclosure of many other categories of information, and that its their primary concern is for the privacy of recipients who may not have known their information would be made public. NEWSLETTER: Get the days top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >> Were concerned about a public agencys obligation to protect the privacy interests of private customers, Shim said. These are private individuals. These are not public employees, these are not people who have committed any crimes, these are not people have broken or violated any ordinances. Shim and other attorneys argued that there are other ways to assess the efficiency of the program that dont require the release of this data. When discussion turned to disclosure of rebates paid to businesses and public agencies, Chalfant seemed to side with the Union-Tribune. Were talking U.S. Supreme Court and California Supreme Court authority here: There is no privacy right, constitutional privacy right, in a corporation, he said. A corporation has no privacy interest here in not having their name and address revealed. Were talking about individuals. Were not talking about corporations or public agencies or even businesses. An attorney representing the three smaller districts said she was concerned mainly about the pairing of the names and addresses and cited legal precedent of records of just one category being released instead of both. Heriberto Diaz, an attorney representing the MWD, said the agency believes the interest in disclosure outweighs the interest in nondisclosure. Both MWD spokesman Bob Muir and DWP spokesman Joe Ramallo declined to comment until after the judge gives his ruling. Twitter: @taygoldenstein ALSO: Oscars 2016: Heres why the nominees are so white -- again Chino Hills 7-Eleven still waiting for its Powerball winner to come forward Tension between ranchers and federal officials is dangerously high in Nevada The Ahwahnee Hotel and other Yosemite National Park landmarks soon will be renamed amid a legal dispute between the government and the facilities outgoing operator. On March 1, the famed Ahwahnee a name affixed to countless trail guides and family memories will become the Majestic Yosemite Hotel. And Curry Village, a collection of cabins near the center of the park that has carried the same name since the 1800s, will become Half Dome Village, park spokesman Scott Gediman said Thursday. This is not something we did willingly, said Gediman, noting that the government was fighting to reclaim the old names in hopes that they someday will be restored. Advertisement It would totally change the experience to visit Yosemite without these names, said Jeanne ONeil, a Bakersfield resident who has visited the park annually for 36 years. Each time, she stops at the Ahwahnee for a glass of iced tea. I would expect this decision to create a huge public outcry, ONeil said. The dispute arose after Delaware North which had operated Yosemites hotels, restaurants and outdoor activities lost a $2-billion bid last year to renew its contract. The company said that it had been required to purchase the assets of the previous concessionaire, including its intellectual property, at a cost of $115 million in todays dollars when it took over operations in 1993, spokeswoman Lisa Cesaro said. That intellectual property included the original names, she said. Now Delaware North wants to be paid more than $50 million for the rights. Cesaro said the company was willing to lend the names for free until its court claim is resolved. Its always about the money, ONeil said. The National Park Service has said that rights to the names were never part of Delaware Norths original deal, and that the new concessions contract with Aramark makes clear that the names will not be sold this time either, Gediman said. Still, the name changes were necessary so that Aramark could reliably plan ahead for its takeover in March, Gediman said, and so that visitors would have advance warning about the moves. Yosemite National Park another name that also is claimed by Delaware North and remains in dispute will stay put, Gediman said. Park Service officials have accused Delaware North of opportunistically following the lead of other private operators, who have experienced mixed success in claiming the naming rights of government-owned icons like Tavern on the Green restaurant in New Yorks Central Park and Phantom Ranch at the floor of the Grand Canyon. As the Yosemite legal battle continues, the courts first must decide if Delaware Norths trademark is valid and, if so, whether the amount the company is seeking is legitimate. The government claims that the intellectual property is worth $3.5 million. The Ahwahnee Hotel a onetime host of Queen Elizabeth II, John F. Kennedy and Charlie Chaplin is the most valuable asset in the Yosemite deal. The 1920s hotel has a huge stone fireplace where thousands of people unwind each year playing board games, grabbing a hot drink or sitting on the built-in benches around the hearth. Also affected will be: Yosemite Lodge at the Falls, becoming Yosemite Valley Lodge. Wawona Hotel, becoming Big Trees Lodge. Badger Pass Ski Area, becoming Yosemite Ski & Snowboard Area. Yosemite is an iconic public asset. Its names exist in peoples hearts, said Julie Mastrine, a 24-year-old activist at Care2, a Bay Area technology company that is hosting a petition urging Delaware North to drop its claim to the names. Its preposterous that anyone can claim to own them. Follow me on Twitter: @gtherolf NEWSLETTER: Get the days top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >> ALSO How one student asked the state to tackle a looming education question Informant in FBI bribery case was Huntington Park councilman Will Inglewood score big with the NFLs return? Angering coal supporters, the Obama administration announced a temporary ban on new coal leases on federal lands Friday as part of a broad environmental and economic review of the nations federal coal program. The decision, which was lauded by environmental advocates, came three days after President Obama said in his State of the Union address that he would push to change the way we manage our oil and coal resources, so that they better reflect the costs they impose on taxpayers and our planet, adding: Weve got to accelerate the transition away from old, dirtier energy sources. Coal is Americas leading source of electricity but emits more carbon dioxide than other types of fuel, which has pitted industrial groups against environmentalist and Obama administration officials seeking to cut emissions to fight global climate change. Advertisement The new review announced Friday concerns the coal that private companies mine from federally owned land, which accounts for about 40% of all coal produced in the U.S. Most coal on public lands is in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana, and the nations coal leasing program has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. Administration officials have previously questioned whether taxpayers were getting underpaid for leases granted to private mining concerns, which officials said have included winning bids that paid out $1 a ton for taxpayer-owned coal. A 2013 Interior Department inspector general report said taxpayers were losing tens of millions of dollars in revenue annually because the Bureau of Land Management was selling coal leases at rock-bottom prices, as The Times has previously reported. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> One Boston-based think tank estimated that leasing coal for prices below market value had cost taxpayers nearly $29 billion in revenue over the last 30 years. The Institute for Energy Economic & Financial Analysis study found that since 1991, nearly all the lease sales had only one bidder, and that companies offered to buy the coal rights to public land at cut-rate prices. Administration officials said they hope to make the leasing program more transparent and more competitive with a review that will make suggestions that would modernize the nations coal program. A shovel prepares to dump a load of coal into a 320-ton truck at the Black Thunder mine in Wright, Wyo. (Matthew Brown / AP) We havent undertaken a comprehensive review of the program in more than 30 years, and we have an obligation to current and future generations to ensure the federal coal program delivers a fair return to American taxpayers and takes into account its impacts on climate change, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said in a statement Friday. Administration officials described the temporary ban on new leases on federally owned land as a pause that would not affect coal operations already underway on public land nor leases that have passed environmental reviews and are near finalization. In a conference call, Jewell said such holds on leases also happened during two reviews decades earlier under the Nixon and Reagan administrations. There will be exceptions for metallurgical coal, which is used in steel production, and for emergency leases when there is a demonstrated safety need or insufficient reserves, the Department of the Interior said in a statement. The move was immediately hailed by environmental groups, including Greenpeace, which said the federal leasing program undercut Obamas climate agenda by giving away our coal at subsidized rates, propping up this outdated energy source without regard for the damage done to communities or our climate. In 2014, Greenpeace released a report that said the Interior Department has leased 2.2 billion tons of coal under the Obama administration, accounting for 3.9 billion metric tons of carbon pollution, more than the 3.7 billion tons that was emitted in the entire European Union in 2012, the group estimated. U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who advocates keeping fossil fuels in the ground to prevent climate change, said the halt in new leases could have positive long-term effects. A new coal lease can lock in 30 to 50 years of additional coal mining, so ending new leases for coal is a great place to start, Merkley said in a statement. Congressional Republican leaders opposed the Friday decision. Coal on federal land belongs to all Americans, but the president is denying people access to their own abundant, low-cost energy source, U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said in a statement. The ramifications for the country will be terrible: lost growth, lost jobs, and lost revenue that would have gone to schools, bridges, and roads, Ryan said. The presidents policies have already ravaged coal country, destroying jobs and peoples way of life, and this will increase that suffering. U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ken.), chairman of the Energy and Power Subcommittee, accused Obama of circumventing Congress to launch another unilateral attack on coal. Industry groups also opposed the move. The idea that future coal leasing requires a pause to evaluate environmental impacts defies credulity, said National Mining Assn. President and Chief Executive Hal Quinn. Every federal coal lease sale and subsequent mining project must pass multiple levels and sequences of both federal and state evaluation, Quinn said. It is stunning that the administration believes a process that already pushes the development of coal projects beyond a decade needs more red tape and delays. Karen Harbert, president and chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerces Institute for 21st Century Energy, said, At this point, it is obvious that the president and his administration wont be satisfied until coal is completely eradicated from our energy mix. Administration officials said their review and suspension of new federal leases will be carried out in the form of a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, with public sessions set to begin soon to help determine the precise scope of the review. The fate of the review is expected to fall into the hands of the next president. The Interior Department plans to release an interim report on the review by the end of 2016, as Obama finished his presidency, but the full review is expected to take three years. Follow @MattDPearce for national news ALSO Helicopters carrying 12 Marines collide off Oahu; no word on survivors The Dreamers: They anger the GOP and power Democratic campaigns Supreme Court to decide corruption case of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell Actor Dan Haggerty of Grizzly Adams fame died early Friday of cancer, said his longtime friend and manager Terry Bomar. He was 73. Haggerty learned he had cancer of the spine in August and died at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, Bomar said. Born Nov. 19, 1942, in Los Angeles, Haggerty was the son of an entertainment industry veteran. His parents wanted him to be a priest, but Haggerty proved a wild child who went off track and became fast and furious, Bomar said. Advertisement As a young man he got a job with a ranch in the San Fernando Valley that trained animals for movies. He became an animal handler, wrangling rabbits and frogs for various film productions, and was a stuntman on the side. The combination of skills led to his discovery as an actor. He was working on a movie shoot in Canada, filming a scene that required him to chase a tiger across a frozen lake in an attempt to rope it, Bomar said. Apparently, this proved a memorable escapade. A colleague on the set later tapped the bearded Haggerty for the role of the burly, amiable woodsman in the 1974 back-to-nature TV movie The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams and later the series of the same name. The family-programming hit premiered in 1977 and ran for 37 episodes and made Haggerty and his bushy beard famous. The role was a natural fit for Haggerty, who remained a rough-and-tumble free spirit, and who would have worn the beard regardless, Bomar said. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> In 1985, a jury found him guilty of one count of selling cocaine to undercover officers who were part of an entertainment industry task force run by the LAPD at the time. Jurors threw out a second count, apparently because Haggerty had grown so genuinely fond of the two officers. Legally speaking, that meant the case had morphed into entrapment. A few months later, Haggerty suffered serious injuries in a motorcycle accident on Benedict Canyon Road. While still recovering, he was sentenced by a federal court for failure to pay taxes. He bounced back quickly, this time appearing in public to extol the merits of his court-mandated community service: Im trying to give back to the system. The systems been good to me, he told a Times reporter in 1987. He marketed Cajun barbecue sauce, tried his hand as a restaurateur and kept acting. He reprised his Grizzly Adams character in several TV movies and appeared on dozens of other shows, including Charlies Angels, CHiPs, and The Love Boat. Later productions romanticized motorbikes, nature and family and at least one starred a chimpanzee. He shattered more bones in a second motorcycle crash in 1991; this time, rumors flew that he had died. Badly shaken, Haggerty told a reporter he had been moved to write a letter to Pope John Paul II and was delighted to get an encouraging letter back. Haggerty wasnt a choirboy by any stretch of the imagination, said Bomar. He was a pirate! He would light up any room he walked into he had infectious laughter. See the most-read stories this hour >> Fans never stopped identifying him with Grizzly Adams, a role he relished. He loved the bear on the show a female called Boz, short for Bozo. On occasion, he would shave off his trademark bushy beard for charity. But there were limits to his identification with mountain men. Bomar recalled a celebrity autograph-signing appearance Haggerty made in Tennessee. In keeping with the show, organizers had decided the setting should be a cabin in the trees. Haggerty arrived before his manager, and called him in a fit: Theyve got me so far out in the woods so deep and dark youve got to be kidding me! Bomar recalled the lifelong Angeleno saying. Im scared to death! Haggerty was divorced once then remarried. He was preceded in death by his wife Samantha. He is survived by daughters Megan and Tracy Haggerty, sons Dylan, Cody and Don, all of Los Angeles, and one grandson. ALSO Oscars 2016: The snubs, surprises and outrage Name changes for Ahwahnee Hotel and other Yosemite attractions draw outrage Mountain lion kittens born in Santa Monica Mountains, father still unknown Under steel gray skies, emergency volunteers dodged ice and snowdrifts as they made their way along the streets of the neighborhood of Mott Park, handing out free bottled water and filters from a U-Haul truck with a sheriffs escort. At each doorstep, the message was the same please dont drink unfiltered tap water. Sam Berry, a 29-year-old pipe fitter wearing a Carhartt work coat and camouflage hunting boots, was halfway to his pickup in the driveway when a volunteer intercepted him, thrusting a case of water into his arms. Advertisement Berry was grateful. For weeks, he and others in this aging industrial city have lived with the worry that their drinking water has been contaminated with lead. Health officials are warning that routine things like bathing their children and brewing a cup of coffee constitute a risk. I dont know what Flints going to do, Berry said. Theyre trying so hard to turn this town around, but who wants water like this? Gov. Rick Snyder late Thursday asked President Obama to declare a major disaster in Genesee County and expedite federal aid to citizens affected by the polluted water supply. We are utilizing all state resources to ensure Flint residents have access to clean and safe drinking water, and today I am asking President Obama to provide additional resources as our recovery efforts continue, Snyder said in a statement. The governor also mobilized the Michigan National Guard, which on Friday was to begin distributing water and water filters and testing kits. On the ground in Flint, Mich. The water crisis is only the latest, and worst, to befall this city. Battered by a tough economy its fortunes rising and falling along with the auto industry Flint over the last four decades has withered to a city of 100,000, its streetscape dotted with abandoned houses, its decline documented by filmmaker Michael Moore, a native son. About 40% of its residents live below the poverty line. Berry was among those determined to tough it out and raise his 8-month-old son, Micah, in this tree-shaded working-class neighborhood of neat lawns and enclosed front porches. But then the water went bad. To save money, the state which has been running Flints financial affairs gave up on drawing the citys drinking water supply from Lake Huron and instead began pumping it out of the Flint River, an industrialized waterway with a reputation for filth. The switch was only supposed to last about two years, until a new state-run line connected to the lake. Residents immediately noticed a difference in the water, which proved highly corrosive: 19 times more than Lake Huron water, according to researchers from Virginia Tech who tested the water last summer. We are treating it as a population-wide exposure. Everyone whos on Flint water now should be using filtered water or bottled water. Jennifer Eisner, a spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Some residents filed a class-action lawsuit alleging the water was corroding city pipes and leaching lead because the state wasnt treating it with an anti-corrosive agent, a violation of federal law. City and state officials tried to reassure residents that the water was safe. Former Mayor Dayne Walling even drank it on local TV. (He has since reversed his position.) They told us it was safe, said Harold Harrington, business manager of the local plumbers and pipe fitters union who led a team of eight volunteers installing filters for the elderly and disabled Thursday. Harrington said the river water had a distinctive fishy odor and officials should have known it was dangerous. When General Motors switched back to lake water because it was corroding the parts, that should have showed people back in October 2014 that the river water was suspect, he said. Berry was among those horrified. Hed bathed his son in the tap water. Hed used it to mix his sons formula. Last October, the city reverted to using the lake water, but researchers continued to detect low levels of lead because of the damaged pipes. Volunteers from the United Auto Workers distribute bottled water and filters to residents of the Mott Park neighborhood of Flint, Mich. (Molly Hennessy-Fiske / Los Angeles Times) The long-running effects werent clear. Blood tests now wont necessarily show elevated lead levels for those exposed during the last 18 months, said Jennifer Eisner, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Human Services. We are treating it as a population-wide exposure. Everyone whos on Flint water now should be using filtered water or bottled water, she said. The number of cases of Legionnaires disease has soared in surrounding Genesee County in the last two years: 87 cases, including 10 deaths, compared with six to 10 cases on average annually in the county. So far, the recent increase cannot necessarily be attributed to changes in the water supply, in part because some of those who fell ill were not exposed to Flint water, according to Dr. Eden Wells, the chief medical executive for the Department of Health and Human Services. The state Department of Environmental Quality is evaluating the Flint water system now to see what part of the plumbing would need to be addressed, according to department spokeswoman Melanie Brown. On Thursday, more than 30 Michigan National Guard troops were prepared to help distribute drinking water and filters and offer other assistance; the American Red Cross has volunteers at five fire stations, two of which had been mothballed because of the citys dwindling population. Among the pipe fitters installing water filters Thursday was Marcus Eubanks, 34, a father of six. The schools are using bottled water, his children have had their blood tested with no sign of elevated lead levels, but he and his wife worry. Hes still paying his water bill $130 a month although he said it hardly seemed fair. Some are calling for free water for the next six months, or free bottled water. Two of Eubanks cousins have moved, but hes got three years of apprenticeship left. Were trying to do the best we can until they get a permanent solution, he said. In Mott Park, volunteers delivered filters to Zakia Shaheed, 63, who said her 10-year-old grandson had elevated lead levels in his blood and had been prescribed medication. A few streets over, they gave water to Kadija Bah, 29. Originally from Senegal, Bah said she has been fielding calls from friends and family across the country worried about her and her 6-month-old daughter, Miriam. Back in Senegal she had to avoid tap water. But, she said, I would never have thought it would happen here. Down the block, Molly Panek, 43, a pharmacy technician who grew up in Flint, told volunteers she didnt need water: her father had installed a pricey reverse osmosis filter system at her white frame house. Not everyone, she said, can afford to be so proactive. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> I love this city and I plan on staying here, she said. But I dont like the idea that my neighbors are ill. Sheriff Robert Pickell said some officials have told him the pipes will fix themselves in a few months, but he doesnt believe it. He urged state and federal officials to send more aid and resources to repair the pipes and assist the emergency response. People have lost faith in the capacity of the government to deal with the problem, he said, as he watched volunteers shuffling by with cases of water. Its going to take a lot to gain that back. molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com ALSO: Oscars 2016: Heres why the nominees are so white -- again Chino Hills 7-Eleven still waiting for its Powerball winner to come forward Tension between ranchers and federal officials is dangerously high in Nevada Flash Indonesian police arrested three alleged attackers in a pre-dawn raid at outskirt of Jakarta on Friday and hunted for other jihadists across the nation, a day after bombings and gun attacks in the country's capital, police spokesman said. The three persons were allegedly linked with the deadly blasts at a police station and a western branded Starbucks coffee shop on Thursday that killed seven and injured 20 others, said Brig. General Anton Charliyan, spokesman of the national police. "We found some IS flags in one of the suspects' house, so we can ensure that the blast is linked with the Islamic State," he said at the national police headquarters. The spokesman said that the national police anti-terror squad has been hunting for other jihadists across the country. "The police anti-terror squad keep intensively hunting for their target," Anton said. The three suspects are now being detained at a police office in Depok town, Anton said. The indonesian police blamed the IS for the bombing attacks in the capital. As many as 800 Indonesians have joined the IS group in Syria and Iraq, according to Said Agil Siraj, chairman of Indonesia's biggest Muslim organization of Nahdlatul Ulema. Thursday nights fractious presidential debate was the long Republican campaign condensed into little more than two hours: Donald Trump sailed above the other candidates, who mostly engaged in round-robin fighting that left each of them wounded and him largely unscathed. As a result, the debate, the sixth in a nomination contest that has defied predictions, left a GOP establishment that fears disastrous repercussions from a Trump nomination no closer to finding a way to head him off, with the first balloting now a little more than two weeks away. Trump repeatedly dismissed the nuanced arguments of his peers in favor of the blunt and forceful assertions that have made the billionaire the partys national front-runner. Advertisement See more of our top stories on Facebook >> 1 / 22 Donald Trump and Ted Cruz spar in the Republican debate. (Scott Olson / Getty Images) 2 / 22 The main stage of the Republican debate. (Scott Olson / Getty Images) 3 / 22 Dr. Ben Carson. (Timothy A. Clary / AFP-Getty Images) 4 / 22 Marco Rubio, left, and Donald Trump. (Rainier Ehrhardt / Associated Press) 5 / 22 Ted Cruz makes a point in the debate. (Chuck Burton / Associated Press) 6 / 22 John Kasich. (Chuck Burton / Associated Press) 7 / 22 Chris Christie, left, and Jeb Bush talk during a break. (Chuck Burton / Associated Press) 8 / 22 The field for the prime-time Republican debate. (Rainier Ehrhardt / Associated Press) 9 / 22 Dr. Ben Carson. (Chuck Burton / Associated Press) 10 / 22 Chris Christie. (Timothy A. Clary / AFP- Getty Images) 11 / 22 Jeb Bush. (Chuck Burton / Associated Press) 12 / 22 The candidates before the debate. (Rainier Ehrhardt / Associated Press) 13 / 22 Rick Santorum speaks to reporters after the first Republican debate. (Scott Olson / Getty Images) 14 / 22 Carly Fiorina after the first debate. (Rainier Ehrhardt / Associated Press) 15 / 22 Mike Huckabee after the first debate. (Timothy A. Clary / AFP-Getty Images) 16 / 22 Rick Santorum speaks to reporters. (Scott Olson / Getty Images) 17 / 22 Mike Huckabee, left, Carly Fiorina and Rick Santorum after the first debate. (Chuck Burton / Associated Press) 18 / 22 The field in the first Republican debate. (Scott Olson / Getty Images) 19 / 22 Rick Santorum makes a point in the debate. (Scott Olson / Getty Images) 20 / 22 Carly Fiorina speaks in the debate. (Timothy A. Clary / AFP-Getty Images) 21 / 22 Mike Huckabee participates in the debate. (Scott Olson / Getty Images) 22 / 22 Mike Huckabee, Carly Fiorina and Rick Santorum before their debate. (Timothy A. Clary / AFP-Getty Images) Declaring that I will gladly accept the mantle of anger, he made clear that he understands what many of his establishment foes still seem not to that much of what they see as weaknesses in his campaign are the wellsprings of its support. But in this debate, he also sanded some of his sharp edges with humor and worked to humanize himself. His opponents, by contrast, often acting with visible desperation to attract attention as voters start making up their minds, seemed mostly intent on fighting among themselves. That precluded any single candidate from rising above the others. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, tied with Trump in first-voting Iowa, tried to take on the businessman repeatedly, but found his complaints dismissed. He was himself pummeled by other candidates who want to replace him as Trumps main nemesis. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, in particular, clashed angrily with Cruz over their positions on immigration and taxes. Back when the campaign started, Rubio offered an upbeat new-generation pitch as the centerpiece of his campaign. But as Thursday night showed, he has stepped away from some of what made him distinctive as he has tried to conform to the GOP electorates mood. He now has adopted a much harsher tone and a bleaker assessment of the nations standing. In the course of the conflict, he and Cruz emptied their opposition research files onto each other, with Rubio at one point moving from criticism of Cruzs positions on immigration, trade, crop insurance and ethanol supports to accuse the Texas senator of having once called Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who leaked U.S. secrets, a great public servant. Edward Snowden is a traitor. And if I am president and we get our hands on him, he is standing trial for treason, Rubio said. Republicans typically pick as their nominee the person who placed second the last time out, but this race has been nothing the party has seen before. The second-place finisher last time, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, has done so poorly that he was relegated to the three-candidate opening debate, which was held before the seven finalists took the stage. Instead, it is Trump who has controlled the race. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Thursday showed him in first place nationally, with the support of 33% of Republican primary voters. Cruz was second at 20%, Rubio at 13% and Ben Carson at 12%. No other candidate reached double digits. The survey also showed a dramatic shift in Trumps direction on another important measure. In March, 23% of GOP primary voters said they could see supporting him. Now its 65%. Trump and Cruz had maintained a friendly alliance through 2015, but that shattered in recent days and again Thursday, a reflection of the race in Iowa, which is closer than the national standings. The latest Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll in that state had Cruz at 25% and Trump at 22%, with Rubio at 12%, Carson at 11% and the rest trailing behind. The debate fisticuffs between the two Iowa leaders started with a days-old dispute about whether Cruz, born in Canada to an American mother, fulfilled the Constitutions requirement that a president be natural-born. I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling in Iowa, Cruz said, but the facts and the law here are really quite clear. Trump responded by citing a contrary view by Cruzs former Harvard professor and jocularly suggested he was concerned lest there be complications if he picked Cruz as his vice presidential nominee. Cruz again attempted to take on Trump when he defended an assessment days ago that Trump represented New York values. Trump came back with a defense of his hometown that cited the worlds appreciation for the city after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attack. It was with us for months, the smell, the air, Trump said. And we rebuilt downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers. And I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made. Trumps debate presence has improved as the campaign has worn on; on Thursday, as he has in more recent debates, he seemed to shrug off many criticisms as if telling voters they should as well. His conflicts were far less fierce, for example, than those between Cruz and Rubio. The two angrily debated the intent of Cruzs tax plan would it be a flat tax or a value-added, or VAT? and later took up immigration. Rubio has argued that Cruz once favored the same legalization process that he has supported, if haltingly of late. In response to Cruzs criticism, Rubio insisted that his immigration plan was concocted at a dramatically different time two years ago, before the Islamic State sought to recruit immigrants to the U.S. But Cruz would not relent: Radical Islamic terrorism was not invented 24 months ago, he said, citing precursors to the Islamic State. But even the emotional disputes between the two illustrated the difficulties of breaking out of the pack. As Rubio tried to press an argument against Cruz, he ran into a competitor for the establishment mantle, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who relegated him to silence with an arch put-down. No, you already had your chance, Marco, and you blew it, Christie said. That was the question left hanging at the conclusion: Have they all missed their chance to take down Trump? cathleen.decker@latimes.com For political news and analysis, follow me on Twitter: @cathleendecker . For more on politics, go to latimes.com/decker. ALSO As Democratic polls tighten, Clinton adopts a more aggressive approach Debate takeaways: The Trump-Cruz feud is here to stay, and Rubio tries anger on for size Trump inspires unease in both parties, as State of the Union and its response make clear Like Winston Smith after his re-education in 1984, or Randle McMurphy after his lobotomy in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Ayman al-Aloul seems to have been vanquished by the authorities. Aloul is a journalist in the Gaza Strip. As editor of the Arab Now agency, he wrote about the quality of life in that depressing, overcrowded sliver of oceanfront territory, and about the failings of the Hamas government that runs it. He has posted photos of Gazans scrounging for food in garbage containers and has blamed Hamas for power blackouts. In a society in which such internal criticism is rare, he stood out. So much so that on Jan. 3, Aloul was arrested. When he was released nine days later, he announced that he wont be writing about the governments failings anymore. In an interview with the Associated Press, he described being beaten in jail and sent to a room known as the bus, where he was bound painfully to a tiny chair for an entire day. He was repeatedly slapped in the face during his incarceration, he said. Advertisement Ive decided not to talk about the general situation anymore, he said. The experience I went through was very difficult. In the future, Aloul told the AP, he will focus on more anodyne topics like sports, food, literature and fashion. The mistreatment of journalists in the Arab world is nothing new, of course. For years, Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank have harassed, detained and beaten them, shut down their publications and confiscated their equipment, according to Human Rights Watch. Alouls story isnt the most egregious example of media suppression in the world. But it is particularly sad heartbreaking, really to see a journalist acknowledge so frankly that he has been defeated. In Gaza where Palestinians live under a punishing Israeli blockade, unemployment is running at 43%, poverty is relentless, war has become familiar, and democracy simply doesnt exist people who write honestly and independently are badly needed but in short supply. Incidents like this one only discourage others from filling that role. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook When Hillary Clinton was working on healthcare reform as first lady more than two decades ago, she disappointed some left-wing Democrats by refusing to push a system that would offer government health coverage to all Americans. Instead, like many top Democrats and liberal leaders, Clinton advocated a centrist approach that would guarantee health coverage while preserving the current system of commercial insurance. That political strategy later became the foundation of President Obamas successful push to enact the Affordable Care Act. Now, Clinton finds herself replaying some of the same battles over how to achieve universal healthcare as she runs for president and tries to beat back a challenge for the Democratic nomination from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Advertisement Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, is exciting liberal activists by championing a proposal where the government supplies healthcare in whats known as a single-payer system, an elusive ideal that many on the left have demanded for more than half a century. Clinton argues that Obamas hard-fought healthcare law, often called Obamacare, should be defended and improved. She has called for new consumer protections to lower the cost of prescription drugs and safeguard patients from surprise medical bills and limited insurance networks. Now is not the moment to plunge the country back into a divisive battle. Jake Sullivan, a senior advisor to Clinton The divergent views epitomize the differences between the candidates Clinton as a battle-hardened realist, with Sanders the uncompromising crusader and the healthcare debate has become one of the most rancorous parts of an increasingly competitive primary. Polls show Sanders closing the gap with Clinton in Iowa and leading her in New Hampshire, the states that hold the countrys first two nominating contests. Sanders, who has repeatedly introduced single-payer legislation in his 2 1/2 decades in Congress, wants to use new taxes to expand Medicare to everyone. He says it would save patients money by reducing insurance premiums. We can do better. We must do better, Sanders said at a candidate forum in Las Vegas last week. The Clinton campaign has fired back. Clintons daughter, Chelsea, claimed during a campaign stop in New Hampshire this week that Sanders would dismantle Obamacare and strip millions and millions and millions of people off their health insurance. The Sanders campaign rejected the charge, saying its plan would expand coverage. Clinton has also called Sanders proposal financially unrealistic, arguing that it would require raising taxes on the middle class. And her campaign criticized the senator for potentially delaying details on how he wants to fund the plan until after the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1, which would backtrack on an earlier pledge. Sanders wants to basically start all over again, start a contentious debate to try to get to a single-payer system, Clinton told MSNBCs Rachel Maddow on Thursday. But hes not telling us what it will look like and what it will cost. After some mixed signals from his campaign, Sanders said Thursday that he would provide new information before the caucuses. This intra-party battle over single-payer healthcare dates back decades, as many Democrats have long hoped the federal government would assume responsibility for providing health insurance for all Americans, just as Medicare now covers the elderly. But after years of failed efforts to provide Medicare for all, as the idea has been called, many Democrats including liberal lions such as former Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass) concluded they would have to compromise first if they were ever to get to universal coverage. Even President Obama said he would support a single-payer system, if he could do anything he wanted, former Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), a liberal Democrat who helped craft the Affordable Care Act, said in an interview Thursday. But he and we chose a moderate alternative that we felt would accomplish the goals of getting people insurance coverage. And even this more moderate approach was extremely hard to pass. Five years after its passage, the health law has expanded coverage to some 17 million Americans. But millions more remain uninsured. And for many consumers, the law has not yet delivered on Obamas promise to lighten the burden of healthcare costs. That has helped create an opening for Sanders, who has been able to use his presidential campaign to thrust single-payer back into the national conversation at a time when hes gaining in polls. Liberal supporters feel he might actually have a chance, said Robert Blendon, a Harvard University professor who studies healthcare and public opinion. Hes saying to them, I have an issue youve always cared about. Single-payer systems can take different forms. In Canada, the government provides insurance but pays private medical providers for healthcare, much as Medicare does in this country. In Britains National Health Service, the government not only provides insurance but also employs doctors and owns hospitals. These systems can be more affordable because their administrative costs are often lower than those of commercial insurers. But political opposition in the U.S. to any form of single-payer coverage has remained strong from the healthcare industry and from conservatives wary of more government involvement in medical care. When work began on the Affordable Care Act in 2009, neither Obama nor any senior Democrats on Capitol Hill proposed a single-payer system. It never would have passed, Waxman said. Still, some Democrats held out hope that the law could at least advance the cause. Early versions of the legislation included a provision to create a new government health plan, known as the public option, to compete with private insurers. Another version proposed to expand Medicare eligibility by allowing Americans as young as 55 to enroll. Both proposals were bitterly opposed by insurers and other industry groups, as well as by many centrist Democrats, all of whom were needed to pass the legislation. The ideas were dropped. Clinton does not seem interested in reopening the issue. Now is not the moment to plunge the country back into a divisive battle, said Jake Sullivan, one of her senior advisors. After all, in the end, Blendon said, Voters tend to go for the middle road. ALSO As Democratic polls tighten, Clinton adopts a more aggressive approach debate takeaways: The Trump-Cruz feud is here to stay, and Rubio tries anger on for size Trump inspires unease in both parties, as State of the Union and its response make clear The nations fast-growing Asian American and Pacific Islander population needs to find its voice, organizers of a new super PAC focused on voter registration and turnout in battleground states said Thursday. The political action committee, AAPI Victory Fund, will focus on six states that are pivotal in 2016 elections and are also home to rapidly growing Asian American and Pacific Islander populations: Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Nevada, North Carolina and Virginia. There is this moment, which has occurred because of history, where in six states we could be the margin of difference, the groups chairman, Shekar Narasimhan, said Thursday. It is time for the community to mobilize and develop a common agenda and a common purpose. Advertisement Narasimhan is co-chairman of the Democratic National Committees Indo-American Council. Chris Lu said, deputy secretary of Labor, said the Asian American and Pacific Islander communitys political presence doesnt match its population or its influence in technology and business. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are less likely to register to vote or to turn out on election day, he said. Now is our moment, Lu said. For far too long, Asian Americans have sat on the sidelines in politics. We know the number of people that are naturalizing, the numbers that are voting, is increasing -- but we need to do more. Thursdays announcement was held at the National Press Club in Washington. A second launch is scheduled in Silicon Valley on Jan. 30. Dilawar Syed, a Californian who is the groups vice chairman, is president of North America operations for Freshdesk, a provider of customer support services. He also served on President Obamas Advisory Commission on Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders. Syed, who has been involved in local politics for a decade, said recent rhetoric from Republican presidential candidates -- notably Donald Trumps call to bar Muslims from entering the United States -- made him realize it was necessary for the Asian American community to organize. We have heard some horrible things this election season, Syed said. There is a frankly shocking narrative of division, absolute hate and total bigotry. It is un-American. It is plain wrong. Its time for us to step up as a community and make sure that we remain who we are. Both the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee have begun reaching out to Asian American and Pacific Islanders, as have several presidential campaigns. AAPI Victory Fund plans to hold off on endorsing a candidate until after the major parties pick their nominee. Syed said the groups leaders havent decided whether the super PAC will give money directly to candidates and run advertisements on their behalf, as other Asian American and Pacific Islander-focused PACs do. ------------- For the record 3:28 p.m.: An earlier version of this post reported that super PACs may make direct contributions to political campaigns. Such donations are forbidden. ------------- The focus is really on voter registration and participation, Syed said. Well go from there. Follow @sarahdwire on Twitter Read more about the 55 members of Californias delegation at latimes.com/politics More: Obama gives upbeat assessment of his presidency, and aims to have a say in who follows him Clinton and Sanders take aim while OMalley seeks spotlight Military-style assault rifles such as the one used in the San Bernardino massacre would be banned from sale or transfer in California under legislation introduced Thursday. Supported by state Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris, the proposal would outlaw guns with bullet buttons. Such weapons have detachable magazines that can be replaced by pressing a button -- allowing for quick reloading as well as the illegal use of magazines that hold more than 10 bullets. Advertisement We must close the loopholes in our assault weapons ban so that guns like the ones used in San Bernardino, Newtown, [Conn.] and Aurora, [Colo.] cannot be bought legally in our state, said Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco), a co-author of Assembly Bill 1664, introduced by Assemblymen Marc Levine (D-San Rafael) and Phil Ting (D-San Francisco). If the legislation passes, all rifles sold in the state would have to have permanently affixed magazines. Harris supports a second bill, Assembly Bill 1663, that would ban bullet-button guns and require current owners of guns with bullet-buttons to register them as assault rifles. Both proposals drew immediate opposition from gun advocates, including Sam Paredes, executive director of Gun Owners of California. There are tens of thousands of these guns in the possession of law-abiding citizens in California, and they are not using them in crimes, Paredes said. Previous attempts to ban such weapons either stalled in the Legislature or were vetoed. Harris involvement -- as well as the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino -- could give the effort added momentum. The devastation wrought by gun violence on innocent victims, children and families in this country, is an international embarrassment, Harris said in a statement. This is a common-sense solution that closes a dangerous loophole in Californias assault weapons ban. The state outlawed the sale of assault rifles in 1989, and has limited the capacity of magazines sold to 10 bullets. But the ability to replace magazines in seconds has been seen as a way to get around the ban, said Amanda Wilcox of the California Chapters of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. We support the goal of AB 1664 to finally close the loopholes in a manner that will prevent the firearms industry from continuing to sell these lethal military-style weapons in our state, Wilcox said. A bill vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown three years ago was much broader -- not only barring semi-automatic rifles with magazines that were detachable by any means, but also requiring owners to register some low-capacity rifles as assault weapons. That bill is similar to the new AB 1663. In his veto message, the governor wrote that he didnt believe that this bills blanket ban on semi-automatic rifles would reduce criminal activity or enhance public safety enough to warrant this infringement on gun owners rights. The new legislation goes too far, according to Brandon Combs, president of the Firearms Policy Coalition. Weve seen these types of attacks on semi-automatic firearms in the past, and weve defeated those. So we are cautiously optimistic that the Legislature and governor will see through this, Combs said. Twitter: @mcgreevy99 Gov. Jerry Brown warned Thursday that if his multibillion-dollar delta tunnels project fails to move forward, it would deal a body blow to Californias economy and prosperity. Hoping to combat the idea that building the massive tunnels is simply a water-grab that would benefit Southern California, Brown reiterated that Bay Area cities such as Livermore and Santa Clara derive large swaths of their water supply from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. We run the very substantial risk that water to Silicon Valley will be cut off and Californias engine of wealth and innovation will be dealt a body blow. And I dont think anyone in their right mind would want that, Brown said after an event hosted by the Assn. of California Water Agencies. Advertisement Browns comments came as his administration rolled out an update to a state water action plan, launched in 2014 as a road map for managing Californias water. See the most-read stories this hour >> The revised plan continues to focus on conservation, repairing fish habitats, and preparations for the states next drought. It also takes into account major changes instituted over the last two years, such as mandatory cuts to water usage, lawn restrictions for new housing developments and better groundwater management. But Brown used the rollout of the updated plan to express a sense of urgency to complete the delta tunnels, which he has said are crucial to the states future. If we build the conveyance correctly, if we manage it then we can produce more water reliably, and the whole system will work better for people, farmers and fish, Brown said Thursday. And if we dont get that, the water wars will continue. The so-called delta fix pushed by the governor would build two massive tunnels underneath the Sacramento River, bypassing the delta to deliver water from the north to the semi-arid south, home to most of the states population. Consensus on changes to the states water delivery system has proved elusive; residents of the delta region resent that their water is being routed south, environmentalists have pressed concerns over the fish that get sucked into pumps, and San Joaquin Valley farmers complain that limits placed on pumping to protect fish have decimated their farms. To those who say forget the fish: No. The fish are part of Gods creation as are we, and we all have to make it work. Gov. Jerry Brown, on finding a Delta water fix A coalition of labor and business groups voiced support for Browns plan Thursday. Expanding water storage above ground and below ground is necessary but ineffective if there is no way to reliably transport that water across the state, said Michael Quigley, executive director of the Alliance for Jobs, one of a number of groups touting the plan. The Santa Monica-based Natural Resources Defense Council said in a statement that Browns proposal doesnt do enough to restore the deltas ecosystem and that California should be focusing more on local efforts to capture stormwater instead of letting it flow to the ocean. The govenors plan not only distracts local agencies from making these key investments, but it also fails to improve and reduce diversions from this precious estuary, the group said in a statement. Brown has already been forced to scale down his delta project, which drew scrutiny from federal fishery regulators. The pared-down proposal is still under review by state and federal agencies. Construction of the tunnels will cost an estimated $15 billion. This is not a nicety, Brown told reporters after the event when describing the tunnels project. Its a fundamental necessity of Californias current and future prosperity. For more on California politics, follow me @cmaiduc. MORE FROM POLITICS Kamala Harris backs bills to close loopholes in California assault weapons ban Californian to help lead super PAC focused on registering Asian American voters Nancy Pelosis vineyard makes her fourth-richest Californian in Congress Ten Years Ago An early morning electrical fire broke out at Palace Cleaners in the 2100 block of Foothill Boulevard near the Ross Dress for Less store. Although responding firefighters were able to contain the blaze to the cleaning business only and knocked it down in 15 minutes, total damages there were estimated at $675,000, including the structure and its contents. Twenty Years Ago Inducted into La Canada High Schools athletic hall of fame in January 1996 were Kris Puttler (1988), Chris Jones (1989) and Billy Koury (1989). Following custom, the induction ceremony was held in the school gymnasium the same night as a Spartan home basketball game. Thirty Years Ago Members of the Public Safety Commission, on learning one of the fire engine companies at Los Angeles County Fire Station 82 in La Canada Flintridge was to be removed from service for a four-month period due to county budget cuts, pushed City Hall officials to set up a face-to-face meeting with the county fire chief to ask for its return as soon as possible. Forty Years Ago La Canada Country Club officials reported to the local sheriffs station that two of the greens on its golf course had been destroyed by someone driving a car over them. The incident occurred on a Friday night and was discovered by the course maintenance manager the following morning. Fifty Years Ago George Jundt, owner of Jundts Pharmacy, then operating in a shopping center that stood approximately where McDonalds is today, prepared his stores 100,000th prescription for a customer living in the Meadow Grove area of town. When Mrs. S. Bartley Cannell walked into the drugstore to pick it up for her husband, Jundt gave it to her at no charge to mark the occasion. When the shopping center was facing closure to make way for the Foothill (210) Freeway, Jundt moved his pharmacy to the new Plaza de La Canada. A Rite-Aid now occupies the former Jundt location in the plaza, on Foothill Boulevard at Oakwood Avenue. Sixty Years Ago About 150 members of the community attended a banquet at the Youth House to pay tribute to Mrs. La Canada, Harriet McGregor, on her retirement as executive secretary of the La Canada Valley Chest and Welfare Council. McGregor took the post in 1945 just after completing wartime service at Lockheed, where she had run a drill press. At the party marking her retirement, she was gifted with a television set and a sterling bracelet. Compiled by the Valley Sun archives by Carol Cormaci Wow indeed! Wow Air quickly sold out its $99 seats from Los Angeles and San Francisco to Iceland -- and flights dont even begin until June. The super-low-cost airline based in Iceland announced the low one-way seat prices Tuesday through the end of 2016. Will we ever see those prices again? Wow isnt saying when the next reservations open and what airfares will cost. Flights from L.A. begin June 9 and from San Francisco on June 15. Advertisement As of late Thursday, the cheapest West Coast one-way tickets from Los Angeles (LAX) to Reykjavik (KEF) showing on Wow Airs website were: --$329 to $379 in June, July and August; --$229 on selected dates in September. The airline also connects to European cities, with prices that were starting at $199 each way. The lowest price for tickets from L.A. to Paris via Reykjavik on Thursday started at $265 each way. Though Wows prices include tax and government fees, they dont include those pesky airline extra charges. On the West Coast flights, Wow allows you a small carry-on for free but then charges $48 for a larger carry-on bag, $67 for a first checked bag and $10 to $12 for seat reservations. And those are prices for fliers who buy online; add-on costs at the airport are higher. Outbound flights leave four times a week from LAX on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Wow also flies to Iceland from Boston (there are still $99 seats available) and Washington. ALSO Wow Air to start $99 flights from LAX to Iceland and $199 flights from LAX to Europe Does travel insurance allow you to cancel your trip to Istanbul after deadly terrorist attack? Palm Springs airport gate will go all retro for Modernism Week Indonesian authorities said Friday they had identified one of the attackers responsible for the deadly explosions in Jakarta a day earlier as a former terrorism convict who was released from prison early. The disclosure came as police beefed up security in government offices, police stations, shopping centers and diplomatic missions across the capital following Thursdays attack that left two civilians an Indonesian and a Canadian and five assailants dead. One of the assailants was identified as Afif, who was sentenced to seven years in prison on domestic terrorism charges in 2010. The circumstances of his early release were not disclosed. Advertisement See more of our top stories on Facebook >> Photographs showed Afif, dressed in a baseball cap and jeans, and wearing a backpack and shoulder bag, pointing a gun at a crowd at the scene of the attack on Thamrin Street in Jakarta. Police said the backpack contained explosives and that Afif eventually blew himself up along with another attacker during a shootout with police. Police spokesman Anton Charliyan said another attacker, whose name was not revealed, was also a former terrorism convict. Indonesia, the worlds most populous Muslim nation, was the scene of several major militant attacks by Al Qaeda-affiliated groups in the 2000s, but Jakarta had not seen a significant attack in several years following a harsh crackdown by police. Authorities said the Thursday attack was directed and financed by Islamic State, the militant organization based in Iraq and Syria, by an Indonesian living in Syria. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the blasts in online statements, but analysts said the attack caused significantly less damage than other coordinated attacks attributed to the group, such as the November rampage in Paris that left 130 dead. Indonesian authorities named the mastermind of the Jakarta attack as Bahrun Naim, who reports said had been living in the Islamic State-held town of Raqqa. Bahrun praised the Paris attacks in a blog post in November and encouraged militants in Indonesia to carry out similar operations. Jakarta police chief Tito Karnavian said Bahrun had instructed operatives in Indonesia to attack the police and places frequented by Westerners on Christmas and New Years Eve. We are in the pursuit of other cells and actors, Karnavian said. Dozens of Indonesians rallied Friday at the scene of the blasts outside a shopping mall, carrying flowers and shouting, We are not afraid! Police in the city of Balikpapan in East Kalimantan province said they had arrested one suspected militant, but it was not clear if he was related to the Jakarta attack, the Antara news agency reported. President Joko Widodo said on Twitter that there is no place for terrorism in Indonesia. Special correspondent Pathoni reported from Jakarta and staff writer Bengali from Mumbai, India. ALSO How U.S. sailors almost started a crisis with Iran British man who sneaked girl out of refugee camp gets plenty of sympathy Heres why global jitters about a China meltdown are probably overblown This rainy port city on Taiwans northern tip hit its peak as a shipping hub in 1984. But as China opened up its economy and became the worlds factory floor, business leeched away. Now most of the raucous sailor bars Keelung was famed for have closed, and one-third of its 370,000 people leave on weekdays to work in the capital, Taipei. When I was in my 20s, you could work in a factory that packs shipping crates and that was fine, said Lo Ching-an, 50, owner of an often-empty tea store in central Keelung. Now thats basically gone. Its really pathetic. Local peoples spending power isnt too strong, and a lot work in Taipei. They just come back to rest. Residents best economic hope now is to catch the interest of cruise ship tourists, but most still disembark and immediately board buses for sightseeing in Taipei, 15 miles to the southwest. Voters threw out Keelungs mayor last year and have the islands two major political parties squirming days ahead of Saturdays presidential and legislative election. Advertisement Keelung is hardly alone in its economic anxieties. Taiwan went into recession in September, and export orders have fallen every month since April. Demand is falling for goods such as high-tech hardware, and as exporters get squeezed, Taiwanese complain its hard to find a job that pays enough to afford a comfortable living. While many overseas observers of Taiwans elections are focused on the self-ruled islands fragile political relations with China, a large number of voters here simply want candidates to tell them how theyll help people find jobs and earn money. In part because of Taiwans economic malaise, the Nationalist Party -- which has controlled parliament and held the presidency since 2008 -- lost nine mayoral and country magistrate seats across the island in elections in late 2014. Keelung voters ousted their Nationalist mayor after eight years, installing a member of the Democratic Progressive Party for only the second time ever. Their political performance was terrible, from infrastructure to economic development, and peoples living standards were equally horrid, said five-term Keelung City Council member You Hsiang-yao of the Democratic Progressive Party. The economy is a major reason why opinion polls have shown DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen in the lead over the Nationalists Eric Chu. Incumbent President Ma Ying-jeou has pushed closer economic links with mainland China to boost the islands economy. John Deng, minister of economic affairs, said Friday that though there was a slight slump in trade volumes across the Taiwan Strait in 2015, in general, business on both sides is thriving. But critics say the benefits have failed to trickle down. To address those concerns, the Nationalists have pledged to raise Taiwans minimum monthly wage by 50% over four years -- to 30,000 Taiwan dollars, or $900 -- if Chu is elected. The DPP proposed last year changing labor laws to raise wages and shorten working hours, from 84 hours every two weeks to 40 per week. During the shipping heyday, more than 2.2 million 20-foot-equivalent units (the volume of a standard-sized container) of cargo would pass each year through Keelungs slate gray bay. Though Chinas growth hit Keelungs shipping container traffic hard, locals also blame Taiwan policymaking. In 2009, a port management company under the transportation ministry shifted much of the citys remaining business to a nearby port, in New Taipei City. That port faces the open sea and, unlike Keelungs, its geography would allow it to be expanded with new construction projects. Both the Nationalists and the DPP declined to estimate their support in Keelung. But You, the city councilor, said internal polls show the DPP candidate for parliament is leading his closest rival by 3 percentage points. Tsai and the DPP have talked frequently about diversifying Taiwans trade relations away from mainland China, and pushing for homegrown innovation. But theyve made few sweeping pledges for improving the economy, perhaps in part to avoid letting down voters later, some say. I think Taiwans structural problem will take a long time to solve, but people want to see some instant solutions and improvement, said Andrew Tsai, economist at KGI Securities Investment Advisory in Taipei. This would be the biggest challenge to a new president, because peoples expectation may be too high and would be disappointed to find that there is no silver bullet for Taiwans economy. Wang Jian-chyuan, vice president of the Chung-hua Institution for Economic Research, agreed. Taiwan is heavily reliant on China when it comes to investments and exports. Its very difficult to separate ourself tradewise. Its hard to make a U-turn from China. But Taiwan needs to find its niche, he said. Its important to not put all our eggs in the China basket. In Keelung, vendors at the fish market shake their heads when asked about business. An oil painting exhibit at the giant Keelung Cultural Center sees only the occasional cruise-ship tourist who stumbles on it, even though thousands disembark every week from boats a block away, a staff member said. Keelung has tried for years to reel in cruise ships carrying up to 4,000 people from North America or elsewhere in Asia. Cruise ship passenger arrivals to Keelung jumped to 800,000 least year, from 450,000 in 2014, largely due to the mass opening to mainland Chinese tourists since 2008. Forty percent of Taiwans tourists come from mainland China, government officials say. Since his victory last year, Keelungs mayor, Lin Yu-chang, has encouraged those passengers to stay in the city a while instead of hopping on tour buses headed for Taipei, an hour away. Keelungs incentives include preparing souvenir gift packs for tour agents to hand to disembarking passengers, and starting a local tour bus loop. Beginning this spring, the bus will connect the port to local attractions such as a historic customs building and harbor viewpoints. Keelung is really fitting for a day tour, said Meg Huang, manager of the harbor-side YM Oceanic Culture & Art Museum. I think in the future the city government will work hard to make people stay here. Some see tentative improvement already. Tourists who linger often reach the Keelung Miaokou Night Market area a few blocks inland, adding some buzz during the daytime to streets of food stalls festooned with yellow lanterns. Some of their spending power is pretty strong, especially the ones from Malaysia and Singapore, said Tseng Mei-chen, owner of a clothing store behind the market. She said she expects cruise ships eventually to lift the service trade. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> Keelungs port is also deepening water at two piers and redoing three publicly owned portal cranes to raise overall shipping capacity by 50%. Keelungs rank has sunk from the worlds seventh-busiest post in 1984 to so low that it has fallen off the chart, to 35% of its peak volume last year, the port companys Keelung harbormaster Kao Chwan-kai said. Private firms involved in marine shipping have laid people off across the board since the ports busiest period, he said. As marine cargo shipping volumes have fallen, so have the working population and job opportunities, he said. His corporation wants the Port of Taipei to share Keelungs marine shipping load, not replace it. Its not a competition, but a sharing of resources, Kao said. Jennings is a special correspondent. Staff writer Julie Makinen in Taipei contributed to this report. ALSO: How U.S. sailors almost started a crisis with Iran Oscars 2016: Heres why the nominees are so white -- again Chino Hills 7-Eleven still waiting for its Powerball winner to come forward You are here: Home Flash China on Friday called on the parties concerned to ensure the Syrian political talks go ahead on Jan. 25, as scheduled. "Parties concerned should continue to support the mediation efforts of the UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, and promote positive progress of the talks," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei told a routine press briefing. China will continue to play a constructive role in facilitating the peace talks, he added. The UN envoy said on Wednesday that he and his team will continue working hard to start the intra-Syrian peace talks in Geneva on Jan. 25. After meeting with representatives from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, the special envoy told reporters that the officials would press for immediate action in support of the efforts in the coming few days. A crowd of several thousand people bangs mustard-yellow thunder sticks and cheers as two stilt walkers in colorful, bird-like costumes twirl in front of an outdoor stage. Two dozen percussionists pound out a Caribbean rhythm as a 20-foot papier-mache statue of a pregnant woman, symbolizing hope, gazes down on the festivities. Heavy metal band frontman Freddy Lim bounds onto the platform. But the audience isnt here to listen to the 39-year-old Taiwanese musician and his group, Chthonic (pronounced Thon-nick, a Greek word meaning spirits of the underworld), thrash their way through songs like Broken Jade, Supreme Pain for the Tyrant or Quasi Putrefaction. These days, Lim leaves his black combat boots and white face paint at home; his jet-black mane is pulled into a neat ponytail. His tattooed biceps are covered by a black turtleneck and yellow jacket. Raising a microphone, Lim launches not into song but a stump speech. Advertisement He attacked me, saying, You have long hair, you are a long-haired man, you are not normal, you have something wrong in your mind, youre crazy. Freddy Lim, recounting an attack by Nationalist Party incumbent Lin Yu-fang Lets get rid of those old, untrustworthy politicians, urges Lim, who is running for Taiwans parliament. Lets use all our power, in this last week, to strengthen and develop the New Power Party! Yes! the audience answers in sync, pounding the thunder sticks into a cacophonous din. Lim is perhaps the most unconventional legislative candidate in Saturdays elections, which will see Taiwanese go to the polls to elect a president as well as the 113-seat legislature. But his move to found the New Power Party last year and run for office is emblematic of a new wave of political activism on the island mostly by younger, liberal Taiwanese animated by concerns including gay rights, environmental protection and government transparency, and fed up with conventional two-party politics. The island has seen a huge number of new parties founded in the last few years; of the 28 fielding candidates on Saturday, just eight participated in the 2012 legislative election. Less than two years ago, some of todays would-be national lawmakers were staging a sit-in inside the chamber, protesting a trade pact with mainland China. Now these veterans of the so-called Sunflower Movement and other activists say fighting the establishment from the outside can get them only so far. Freddy Lim, frontman of the heavy metal band Chthonic and now a candidate for parliament, says one of his goals is deepening democracy in Taiwan. (Philippe Lopez / AFP/Getty Images) Weve found that social movements have limits, so weve joined parties, said Tseng Po-yu, a 24-year-old Sunflower veteran who is running as a Green Party candidate in New Taipei City. Shes going up against a 16-year incumbent from the ruling Nationalist Party, as well as a candidate from the Democratic Progressive Party, long the countrys main opposition. When considering what party to join, she said, no one who wants to change Taiwan would join the Nationalists. And the DPP is too big, as a newcomer cant have much power. You can do more in a third party. Like Tseng, Lim is aiming to oust a Nationalist Party incumbent whos a generation his senior. Lin Yu-fang, 64, has held his Taipei seat for several terms; his district covers the run-down, aging area of Wanhua, as well as parts of Zhongzheng, the capitals heart of power, home to the presidential office and the central bank. The incumbent has sought to emphasize his experience and trustworthiness. But Lim has been endorsed by Tsai Ing-wen, the DPPs presidential nominee, who is ahead in the polls and whose party is not running a candidate in Lims district. Things have turned nastier as the race comes down to the wire. Lin sparked controversy last week when he called his rock star opponent mentally abnormal because his hair is longer than a womans. Such comments, Lim says, only reveal the outdated attitudes of the Nationalists. Most of us, we have long-haired friends, right? Not everyone, but most of us, he said, sitting in the cramped basement of his campaign headquarters, his voice raspy from nonstop electioneering. But he attacked me, saying, You have long hair, you are a long-haired man, you are not normal, you have something wrong in your mind, youre crazy. Nobody can accept that. Chthonic formed in 1995. The group, sometimes referred to as Asias Black Sabbath, has long had politics on its mind. One of its songs, UNlimited Taiwan, calls for the United Nations to acknowledge Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Taiwan has been excluded since 1971, when the world body recognized the Communist-led government in Beijing as the legitimate representative of China, a status held until then by the Nationalist-led government in Taipei. We have the land, the strength, the power. Rise up, overcome, take it over. Ignored too long, we became stronger. Tear down the walls and let us run over. The band has toured internationally and the government has even paid for it to perform abroad as a cultural ambassador. Besides geopolitics, Chthonic has sung about Taiwans tribal minorities, and Lim served four years as chairman of Amnesty Internationals Taiwan chapter. Though seeking to become, in essence, the establishment may seem the antithesis of heavy metal, Lim says: The political landscape in Taiwan in recent years has been very energetic.... But Im worried if we dont have new parties, we will lose this energy we have, and it will return to the traditional bipartisan landscape it was before. By running himself, Lim believes he can set an example and motivate others. Lim is not the only nontraditional candidate hoping to break into the legislature. Wuer Kaixi, a member of the Uighur ethnic group from mainland China who was a leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy protests, is running with the small Constitutional Reform Fraternity Coalition. The Nationalists have responded with some fresh blood of their own. Among their candidates is Lin Li-chan, a native of Cambodia who came to Taiwan as a bride almost 20 years ago barely speaking a word of Chinese. Touring as a rock star and campaigning have some similarities, Lim says. Every time you have a show, you need to have the same level of enthusiasm.... As a politician, you are giving the same speeches in front of different audiences, or you are meeting people on the street. You also need to maintain consistent enthusiasm. Its sort of like being a preacher. But as a musician, he says, he rarely liked to party with fans after a performance, and when he would go out in public, he would don a hat to avoid being noticed. Before, if anyone recognized me on the street, Id try to run away. Now, I greet them, he said. If he does make it into the legislature, his priorities are deepening democracy by reforming the referendum process and creating an impeachment mechanism to get rid of unsuitable politicians, he said. Longer term, he wants to normalize the political status of Taiwan, which is officially known as the Republic of China. Taiwan has been self-ruled since 1949 when the Nationalists fled the mainland after losing Chinas civil war and set up their own government in Taipei. Since then, the island has been trapped in a sort of political limbo. Beijing regards the island as a breakaway province that must be reunited with the mainland someday. But the islands constitution, brought from the mainland, is also a historical vestige, asserting that the Republic of China controls the entire Chinese territory. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> Taiwan is functionally an independent country. We dont pay taxes to anyone, we have our own money, our own government, Lim said. But its not in the United Nations, and most countries including the United States do not have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, because of pressure from Beijing. This is a very awkward situation for Taiwan. Lim has converted many of his music fans into political supporters along with people who may not appreciate heavy metal but like his politics. We are going to vote for Freddy, because we care about our children and the future generation, said Tsai Yu-hsiu, 72, chairwoman of a volunteer group for Lims campaign. Hes capable. ALSO: How U.S. sailors almost started a crisis with Iran Oscars 2016: Heres why the nominees are so white -- again Chino Hills 7-Eleven still waiting for its Powerball winner to come forward U .S. airstrikes targeting Islamic State militants and infrastructure in Iraq and Syria inadvertently killed eight civilians and injured three others during a three month period last year, the Pentagon said Friday. The assessment, which covered April 12 to July 4, brings the total confirmed civilian death toll to 14, including three children, from U.S. air attacks, according to the Pentagon. We deeply regret the unintentional loss of life and injuries resulting from those airstrikes and express our deepest sympathies to the victims families and those affected, U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, said in a statement. Advertisement Human rights and humanitarian aid groups say the Pentagon vastly underestimates the number of casualties from errant bombs or poor targeting. They estimate that several hundred civilians have been killed or wounded in the approximately 9,650 airstrikes launched by the U.S. and its allies since the air war began in September 2014. Central Command did not release its investigation into the civilian deaths, but issued a two-page release that summarized the militarys findings. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> According to the release, three civilians were killed during a July 4 air strike against an Islamic State leader in Raqqah, Syria, when a car and a motorcycle entered the target area after the weapon was released by a U.S. aircraft. Two civilians were injured on June 29 after a U.S. warplane dropped a bomb on a militant vehicle in Haditha, Iraq. Two seconds prior to impact, a car slowed in front of the targeted vehicle while a motorcycle simultaneously passed by, the U.S. military said. The target vehicle was destroyed in the strike but there was insufficient evidence to determine the level of injuries to the civilians operating the passing car and motorcycle, the statement said. On June 19, a civilian was injured near Tall al Adwaniyah, Syria, after appearing in the target area after the U.S. aircraft had released its weapon against two Islamic State vehicles. Three more civilians were killed on June 11 near Suluk, Syria, during strikes against the militants. Two civilians were killed on April 12 near al Huwayjah, Iraq, during a strike on an Islamic State tactical unit. Central Command said the attacks all complied with laws on armed conflict and that appropriate precautions were taken to prevent civilian casualties. The command is reviewing additional cases. NEWSLETTER: Get the days top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >> Military officials say U.S. pilots, crews and targeters take extraordinary efforts to avoid killing civilians. Military and intelligence personnel calculate the blast area and potential risks to civilians before bombs are dropped on a specific target. U.S. spy satellites and drone aircraft relay live video before and after the bombs hit. The known death toll from U.S. bombing pales beside the vastly greater suffering in Syrias multi-sided civil war, which has left more than 200,000 civilians, military and insurgents dead since 2011. The U.S.-led coalition, Russia and Syrias government all conduct daily airstrikes against various militant groups in the country. The U.S. military maintains that unlike Russia and Syria, it uses satellite-guided and laser-guided munitions for more precise targeting against Islamic State than dropping so-called dumb bombs. A White House fact sheet released Friday claimed that airstrikes have destroyed more than 3,450 vehicles and tanks, more than 1,120 artillery and mortar positions, 1,170 oil storage tanks and other oil infrastructure, and more than 13,500 checkpoints, buildings, bunkers, barracks and training camps. Last month alone, the White House said, coalition airstrikes killed dozens of senior Islamic State leaders, including external operations planners, explosives facilitators, financial emirs, and other key positions. Bombing in support of Iraqi troops helped push Islamic State out of Ramadi, a strategic city west of Baghdad, but left much of the city in ruins last month. Other airstrikes have targeted militants urban strongholds in Raqqah in Syria and Mosul in Iraq. Follow @wjhenn for military and defense info. ALSO Did Iran toy with the U.S.? California winner will have to share $1.5-billion Powerball jackpot Tension between ranchers and federal officials is dangerously high in Nevada It was nearly nightfall Tuesday and the two camouflaged U.S. Navy speedboats were off course in the Persian Gulf, possibly taking a shortcut through Iranian waters and apparently running out of gas on their more than 300-mile journey back to base. When Iranian naval vessels approached, the 10 U.S. sailors aboard the two 50-foot-long riverine boats tried to make a run for it. But one boat developed engine trouble that slowed its escape, and the crew and both craft were quickly seized. To complicate matters, U.S. officials said Thursday, the Navy crew inexplicably lost all radio and other communications with the 5th Fleets operations and command center during the tense encounter, leaving the Pentagon in the dark. Advertisement The Navy was able to track the missing boats as they were apparently towed to a military pier on Irans Farsi Island where the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps happens to operate a base. The result was the 16-hour detention of all 10 U.S. crew members by the Iranian military, an incident that provoked international headlines and several rounds of high-level diplomacy before the quiet release of the sailors and their vessels on Wednesday. But while the Pentagon initially appeared to portray the encounter as a case of a simple mechanical malfunction, new details emerged Thursday that suggest otherwise. The way those sailors were treated was entirely inappropriate. ... The U.S. Navy would never demand Iranian sailors hold their hands on their heads and coerce a confession. James Stavridis, retired U.S. admiral The mechanical problems, according to a more complete account from U.S. officials, were only part of a litany of troubles that befell the U.S. Navy that evening in the middle of one of the most volatile waterways in the world. The situation became only more complicated when a U.S. aircraft carrier task force led by the Harry S. Truman, on patrol in the gulf, quickly launched search helicopters into Iranian airspace. That served to further alarm Tehran, even as U.S. officials began considering a possible rescue operation. That sparked a frantic series of phone calls between top State Department and Pentagon officials, backed by the White House, and their Iranian counterparts as both sides sought to prevent an apparent accident from escalating into a hostage standoff and a potential armed confrontation. The eventual release of the Americans they had been fed and given blankets and were allowed to sail back to a waiting U.S. cruiser with all their equipment defused the budding crisis. Relieved U.S. officials said the high-level contacts were a side benefit of the intense negotiations that produced the landmark nuclear deal with Tehran last summer. The Pentagon is investigating whether the crew members were mistreated during their brief detention, why the two boats lost communications, and why they entered waters strictly off limits to U.S. vessels. Iranian media said the boats were more than a mile inside Irans internationally recognized 12-mile limit. It clearly was a mistake, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Thursday in an interview with the cable network Fusion. That much seems clear by now. It was a navigational mistake. The incident has embarrassed the Pentagon and put the White House on the defensive as President Obama delivered his State of the Union speech and as the first major step of the nuclear deal the dismantlement of Irans nuclear infrastructure and the easing of United Nations sanctions may be just days away. 1 / 8 Iranian President Hassan Rouhani steps to a lectern on live television in Tehran to announce that all our objectives have been met in a nuclear deal reached with world powers Tuesday. (AFP/Getty Images) 2 / 8 President Obama, with Vice President Joe Biden at his side, discusses the deal in the East Room of the White House. (Andrew Harnik / Getty Images) 3 / 8 European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, left, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond and U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry gather on stage for a group picture after reaching a deal on Irans nuclear program in Vienna on Tuesday. (Carlos Barria / Associated Press) 4 / 8 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking in Jerusalem, called the agreement between Iran and six world powers a historic mistake, and said that Israel was not bound by the deal and would continue to do whatever was necessary to defend itself. (Abir Sultan / EPA) 5 / 8 Iranian security officials wearing the Islamic black gown (chador), watch members of the media in front of Irans Bushehr nuclear plant in 2010. (Abedin Taherkenareh / EPA) 6 / 8 The heavy water nuclear facility near Arak, Iran, on Jan. 15, 2011. (Hamid Foroutan / Associated Press) 7 / 8 Technicians from the International Atomic Energy Agency inspect a uranium conversion plant at Isfahan, Iran, in 2007. (Abedin Taherkenareh / EPA) 8 / 8 Iranian and Russian workers at the nuclear power plant in Bushehr, Iran, in an undated photo. (Iran Atomic Energy Organiztion / EPA) It also raises questions of whether Iran violated international law by using the detainees for propaganda purposes. After the release, a video on Iranian television purported to show several Americans kneeling, with their hands clasped behind their heads. Another video showed the U.S. commander of the two boats, later identified as Lt. David Nartker, as he apologized profusely and blamed a navigational error. He did not explain how that occurred. State Department spokesman John Kirby said Thursday that the video did not violate the Geneva Convention on treatment of prisoners of war, because the U.S. is not at war with Iran. But he made clear his unease. The video on the face of it is its difficult to watch, and theres no question about that, he told reporters. And nobody likes to see our sailors in that position. I cant speak for the motivations for why they did it, why they put it out there, if they did it for propaganda purposes, I would we would certainly join in those that are expressing concerns about that. I mean, thats you know, thats less than helpful. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the Obama administration wasnt willing to hold Iran accountable because it is too invested in the nuclear deal. The administration is pretending as if nothing out of the ordinary has occurred, he said in a statement. It places our Navy and Coast Guard vessels and the men and women who sail them at increased risk in the future. James Stavridis, a retired U.S. admiral and former NATO supreme commander, said Iran had humiliated the Americans on camera. The way those sailors were treated was entirely inappropriate in my view, he said in a telephone interview. The U.S. Navy would never demand Iranian sailors hold their hands on their heads and coerce a confession of guilt or apology to be broadcast. The Iranians behavior in this situation was completely uncalled for. The 5th Fleet said that the sailors were unharmed and that they are being debriefed at a U.S. base in Qatar. It may take several days to complete the debriefings and determine what happened, officials said. Pentagon officials believe the boats, from the Navys Coastal Riverine Group 1 based in San Diego, were low on gas and heading for a rendezvous with a refueling ship three miles outside the Iranian 12-mile limit. A sailor may have punched the wrong coordinates into the GPS and they wound up off course. Or the crew members may have taken a shortcut into Iranian waters as they headed for the refueling ship, officials said. A senior State Department official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said Washington first got word of the incident about noon Tuesday. It was 8 p.m. in the Persian Gulf. Secretary of State John F. Kerry and Carter were meeting their Philippine counterparts in one of the ornate diplomatic rooms on the eighth floor of the State Department. Both U.S. officials excused themselves and raced out to investigate. Kerry already had a phone call scheduled for 12:45 p.m. with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to talk about the nuclear deal. Kerry reached out first to Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Susan Rice, Obamas national security advisor. When he spoke to Zarif at 1 p.m., the State Department official said, Kerry told him that the two boats were transiting between Kuwait and their base in Bahrain, home port of the 5th Fleet, when the Navy lost communication with them. They were now docked at Farsi Island. Kerry made clear, the official said, that the most important priority was that the sailors be released safely and unharmed and as quickly as possible. If we are able to do this in the right way, we can make this into what will be a good story for both of us, Kerry told Zarif, according to the official. The Pentagon also was reaching out on a separate channel of communications between 5th Fleet and Iranian authorities. Were thinking, Oh my gosh, we lost comms. Are they in distress? a Pentagon official said. So were going to do all we can to find them, starting at the last point at which you track them. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> After the diplomats got involved, the Navy called back its helicopters to avoid complicating the effort to release the sailors, another official said. Operating from his seventh-floor office, Kerry spoke to Zarif again at 2 p.m. The Iranian diplomat assured him he was trying to gather information and that he agreed with the imperative of getting this resolved as soon as possible, the State Department official said. In another call, about 3:15 p.m., Zarif told Kerry that he had been informed that the sailors would be free to go at dawn because it was not safe for them to leave in the middle of the night. In the end, the sailors were released much later about 11:45 a.m. local time. They quickly sailed back into international waters one boat still with a bum engine and were picked up by the Navy. ALSO Oscars 2016: Heres why the nominees are so white -- again Chino Hills 7-Eleven still waiting for its Powerball winner to come forward Tension between ranchers and federal officials is dangerously high in Nevada Ecuador has assured its cooperation over Swedish prosecutors' formal request to interrogate WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at his location in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. "We will cooperate with the Swedish authorities so they can take some statements. We have said that from the beginning," said Ecuadoran Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino in an interview, as reported by teleSUR. Patino added that the interrogation would occur under Ecuador's law because Assange, who faces a rape allegation, is under the country's jurisdiction. He noted that he didn't know "exactly what the procedure is," but that Ecuadorian prosecutors would conduct the questioning, according to Inquirer.net. Swedish prosecutors could also be present. Patino also questioned what is taking "so long" for Swedish authorities to agree to interrogate Assange under Ecuador's law, adding that Sweden's hesitancy has fueled "suspicions," Inquirer.net reported. The 44-year-old Australian has been staying in Ecuador's embassy since 2012. Prosecutors want to question Assange on a rape accusation that allegedly occurred in 2010. However, he has refused to travel to Sweden because he fears that he would be extradited to the United States and face a trial over WikiLeaks' publication of hundreds of thousands of classified military and diplomatic documents in 2010, Yahoo! News reported. Last August, Sweden's prosecutors dropped their investigation of Assange's alleged sexual assault due to the expiration of the five-year limitation on bringing charges, teleSUR noted. The 2010 rape allegation, however, is still present because it carries a 10-year statute of limitations Assange, meanwhile, has denied the sexual assault and rape allegations, insisting that the sexual encounters were consensual and claimed that the accusations are all false and part of a smear campaign to jumpstart his extradition to the U.S. to face trial for WikiLeaks' whistle blowing, the news outlet added. The classified information WikiLeaks' revealed exposed the whole extent of U.S. military abuses carried out during the Iraq and Afghanistan War. WikiLeaks, which launched in 2006, has also published a procedures manual for Camp Delta, the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay. The 400,000 classified military documents from the Iraq and Afghanistan War indicated how many Iraqi civilians were killed, "the role that Iran has played in supporting Iraqi militants," and plenty of "accounts of abuse by Iraq's army and police," CNN listed. On Wednesday, WikiLeaks' Twitter page insisted that Sweden is carrying out "an illegal PR war" against Assange. Swedish authorities offered to question Assange in London last March, Inquirer.net further reported. But Ecuador's capital, Quito, refused to agree to an interrogation until the two countries signed an accord on general legal cooperation, which they finally accomplished in December. 2015 Latin One. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Jimmy Morales has been sworn in as Guatemala's new president on Thursday, Jan. 14. The former comedian's administration is facing doubts over how the Central American country will be led, Yahoo! News reported. Guatemala is currently weighed down with widespread poverty, extensive corruption, and violent criminal groups, issues that have greatly affected former President Otto Perez Molina. "Thanks to those that fought against corruption and the traditional way of doing politics in our country ... to those that defended the elections, to those that believed, thanks to you the world saw the true face of Guatemala," Morales said during the ceremony, as reported by teleSUR. "There are no magic solutions, but a new Guatemala is possible. Things can be better... We will not tolerate corruption and theft. We will be drastic and severe." The inauguration ceremony happened in the Miguel Angel Asturias and was attended by other Latin American presidents, including Ecuador's Rafael Correa, Honduras' Orlando Hernandez, Dominican Republic' Danilo Medina Sanchez, and Costa Rica's Luis Guillermo Solis, teleSUR listed. United States Vice President Joe Biden had a meeting with Morales and the heads of El Salvador and Honduras before his swearing in on Thursday, Yahoo! News noted. Aside from praising Morales for his commitment to combat corruption, Biden also took note of the thousands of Guatemalans who protested on the streets to demand change and chose Morales to be the next president. Morales petitioned Biden to include Guatemala to the list of countries that have been given temporary protected status, which gives its eligible citizens in the U.S. a degree of temporary protection from deportation and permits them to work and travel, according to Yahoo! News. Morales hasn't yet announced his Cabinet members, and his political process was already impeded when prosecutors formally inquired for the equivalent of impeachment proceedings against an allied lawmaker, who is suspected of violating human rights back in Guatemala's civil war from 1960-1996, the news outlet added. "He is a president who takes office without a party, without well-qualified people he trusts and with a state apparatus that's really in financial and institutional ruin," said Edgar Gutierrez, an analyst at San Carlos University in Guatemala, as quoted in Yahoo! News' report. In his final report, outgoing acting president, Alejandro Maldonado, urged his successor to maintain the battle against violence in the country. Maldonado said that despite the lowered statistics on criminal violence, the percentages "continue to be ominous," and Guatemala should commit to the continued efforts in fighting crime and rehabilitating wrongdoers, teleSUR reported. 2015 Latin One. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A new care system in Uruguay has recently extended parental leave after a birth of a child. LaRed21 reported that parents of newborn children can enjoy more time with their kids to better guide them in their development. It explained that both the mother and the father now have the right to work on a part-time basis until the baby reaches six months old. In addition, parents who are independent workers will also be given 10 days leave shouldered by social security, while those who are dependents can take 13 days of consecutive leaves. Dependent workers, as per LaRed21, will be given a subsidy for each day they are absent, which is equivalent to the daily average of their eligible allowances for the last six months. Three years ago, mothers were granted with 14 weeks of maternity leave, two weeks more than the time they enjoyed prior to the passing of a law on parental benefits in Uruguay. An earlier Montevideo report indicated that the new law in Uruguay also gives exceptions for special cases like premature delivery or an illness acquired after childbirth. According to El Observador, the Uruguayan Association of Parents and Children Premature (Aupaprem) called on the government last year to also extend the maternity leave of those giving premature birth. The group explained that parents of these children need to spend more time with their infants who remain inside the ICU of hospitals for a few months. Aupaprem president Andrea Milgron said in the El Observador report that a mother of a premature baby would need to have at least two to three months time with her baby after leaving the hospital. The same report claimed that 1.2 million of the 15 million premature babies born worldwide die because they are not given proper medical care and attention. Uruguay's new law on parental benefits also states that parents can be absent in their work to attend to their duties involving their children. This legislation in the country marks an important period for parents, especially mothers, who are granted more time to spend with their newborn children by law. A study on infant feeding last year revealed that mothers have more career concerns that interrupt breastfeeding for their infants. Their work usually gets in the way of their breastfeeding responsibilities. "At a national level, 11 percent of women said that they stopped breastfeeding 'for work reasons,' the study said, noting that the new law in the country will lower these percentage results. 2015 Latin One. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, lawyer was slapped with a misdemeanor charge after authorities said he forged an immigration document. Jonathan M. Love was charged for making it appear like a Mexican man who wanted to stay in the United States was not eligible, Fox News Latino reported. The charge, which was filed in Seattle's U.S. District Court, followed a civil case filed in 2015 by Ignacio Lanuza against Love and the federal government Lanuza's civil case sought damages for the legal costs he had to bear, the news outlet added. It was dismissed and appealed, but the case against the federal government still stands. The U.S. Attorney's Office said that Lanuza's removal process began after he was caught by an ICE officer in 2008, Fox News Latino further reported. Love handled the case in 2009 and submitted a document to the Immigration Court that, according to him, was signed by Lanuza in 2000. Prosecutors said that Love forged the date to make Lanuza not entitled to have his removal from the U.S. canceled. Matt Adams, Lanuza's representative in the civil case and is a lawyer for the Northwest Immigration Rights Project, said that the charges against Love "are an important step in establishing accountability and sending a clear message that all people are entitled to a fair hearing," Fox News Latino added. "We hope that the Department of Homeland Security will review all of the cases this ICE attorney handled to determine whether there are other victims who need relief," Adams wrote in an email, as quoted by Fox News Latino. He continued, "The anti-immigrant forces that express outrage over people violating our immigration law, demanding their immediate deportation, ignore the fact that those same immigration laws provide many people an opportunity to demonstrate that they qualify for lawful residence or other lawful status in this country." Lanuza married his girlfriend, a U.S. citizen, in 2009, Fox News Latino wrote. He pushed for the cancellation of his ICE removal because of the marriage and also for meeting the requirement of staying in the U.S. continuously for 10 years. However, Love said that Lanuza lost his right to appear before an immigration judge after he was caught by Border Patrol officials in 2000, the news outlet noted. Love said Lanuza signed a document while with the Border Patrol during that year. Now, Lanuza and prosecutors said that he didn't sign the document and that Love forged the form. With this, Love, while acting as a lawyer, deprived Lanuza of his constitutional rights, such as the right of a "full and fair immigration removal proceeding free from false and fabricated evidence," Fox News Latino reported. 2015 Latin One. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Drug cartel lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was recaptured, which has generated worldwide interest. The drug lord's arrest is feared to spark a bloody internal battle for power involving the drug world's most powerful woman. According to a report with The Mirror, the notorious leader of the feared Sinaloa drug cartel in Mexico might be extradited to the United States, following charges of drug trafficking. Experts fear now that "El Chapo" is out of the picture, other drug gangs might be out for a bloody battle for supremacy. One such drug lord who seeks to take "El Chapo's" crown is the drug underworld's most powerful and ruthless woman, Claudia Ochoa Felix. This alleged leader of the ruthless Los Antrax has her own Instagram account, where she is known by her followers as "La Emperatriz de los Antrax." Felix, who hails from Culiacan, Mexico, is also known as the "Kim Kardashian of organized crime." She is known to post countless selfies on her Instagram, and has even posted a picture of her touting her own customized pink AK-47. With "El Chapo" behind bars, the question remains whether or not the drug kingpin will be extradited to the US. Should Guzman stay in Mexico, the Sinaloa Cartel will still remain on top, with the jailed leader still running things, albeit "behind the scenes." It is believed that Guzman's second-in-command, Ismael Zambada Garcia, or "El Mayo," will take the lead. It now falls to Zambada to keep up the gang's ranking as the world's largest and most feared. Newsweek reports that over the course of the past few years, Mexican authorities have captured or killed almost all of Mexico's leading drug lords. Drug policy expert and Mexico crime author Nathan Jones suspects that Guzman's capture and possible extradition could significantly impact Sinaloa cartel's internal operations, and that Guzman could possibly lose control over his proxies. Jones, however, said that this illustration was "a worst case scenario." Felix allegedly took the reins after Los Antrax and her boyfriend, Jose Rodrigo Arechiga Gamboa, were arrested. The femme fatale would constantly take to her social media, posing in stilettos next to masked men, carrying a deadly assault M16 rifle. Felix was quick to delete any evidence of her being involved with the gang once word got out of her supposed rise to power. The curvy mother-of-three continues to deny that she is "La Emperatriz de los Antrax." Los Zeta is another extremely violent cartel who pose a danger to Mexico now that Guzman is behind bars. Reports say that the drug cartel might start a war with Sinaloa. With most of "El Mayo's" sons being extradited or arrested, Sinaloa's second stands alone. Other drug gangs might take this as a sign of weakness, and target the drug cartel's businesses, territories and assets. "Instead...it might have created more violent fragmented networks that increase overall levels of violence." said Jones of Mexico's future, now that "El Chapo" has been arrested. 2015 Latin One. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Brazil police have accused three giant companies, including Vale and Samarco, its joint-venture with BHP Billiton, of environmental crimes following a major dam disaster, which devastated towns in November. In a report with The Wall Street Journal, Brazil police are taking a step forward to press formal charges. This move will start a more thorough investigation by police. In Brazil, formal charges can be filed by prosecutors, only after police have finished their investigation. The Brazilian federal Police did not name any of those accused, the report says. They did refer only to the positions of the accused, which included Samarco's chief executive, and its director of operations. Vogbr Recursos Hidricos e Geotecnica Ltda., an engineering consultancy firm was also cited. The firm reported last year that the Fundao dam was "stable." The engineer who was responsible for the report was also cited. Samarco, in an official statement said that they didn't "agree with the accusation against its professionals." They protested that there has been no "technical conclusion" as to the cause of the accident at the moment. Samarco did not provide any contact information for any of its employees or lawyers. Vale, on the other hand, said that they were "surprised" by the accusations. Vale and BHP Billiton both insisted that Samarco was solely responsible for the dam disaster. However, leading prosecutors have noted that Vale deposited iron tailings from one of its own mines into the Fundao reservoir. Prosecutors called it a "direct polluter." The company said that the accusations of the Federal police are "based on premises." Sydney Morning Herald reported that the federal police said that "more accusations" made against companies or individuals is entirely possible. Police in Minas Gerais are currently investigating the role of the mining giants in the deaths of 17 people as well as the material damage caused by the mining disaster. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's administration has handed out the respective fines against the mining giants. The Brazilian Supreme Court has also ordered all assets of Vale and BHP Billiton to be frozen and subsequently used to cover the payment of damages to those affected as well as their families. Following the disaster, residents of Bento Rodrigues, who had little to no warning of the impending disaster, said that they could do nothing more than run. Some areas of the town look like they had been hit by a tornado, and residents have, in the meantime, been gathering all that they can find salvagable. 2015 Latin One. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. More companies in Costa Rica are making use of fiber optics to provide many households in Costa Rica with high speed internet connections, with speeds up to 100 Mbps. Central America Data says that one of the companies who is pioneering this move is Netsys. The company will reportedly start offering residential fiber optic services, particularly in the area of Rohrmoser. Another company, Coopeguanacaste, will be targeting the districts of Nicoya, Santa Cruz and Carrillo. According to the report, both of these telecommunications companies say that they will offer more affordable internet packages than their competitors, such as the state-owned telecommunication companies like ICE, Tigo Star and Cabletica. The internet market in Costa Rica has not been very competitive, and prices between companies have remained static. The website reports that this price stagnation does not offer service penetration in different areas of Costa Rica, and in no way does it encourage the adoption of high speed internet. Another company, JASEC, is already offering its fiber optic services to its 1,200 clients. The company said that it plans to provide 46,000 connections with speeds of up to 100 Mbps in Cartago. Nacion reports that the the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) is planning to offer its fiber optic service by June of this year, and plans to reach approximately 150,000 new connections. Adolfo Arias, head of ICE's infrastructure division, says that price is "subject to the commercial capabilities." Cabletica, on the other hand, said that it is currently in the "design phase" of FTTH for its so-called "specific projects." The company said that it has no future plans of extending the service. The Telecommunications Company has been known to provide housing sectors, which also includes residential and condominium towers, with the option to use fiber optics. The telecoms company currently offers an Internet service with DOCSIS 3.0 technology that provides its subscribers with internet speeds of up to 100 Mbps. The benefits, the company says, are similar to FTTH, which offers streaming videos at 4K. The scope of FTTH services, and pricing, will depend mostly on increased competition. Giles Maury, senior manager of Deloitte Consulting, said that today's networks are "underutilized." He added that improving the situation of internet connection "is not a technological issue." The change for these companies to adopt fiber optics internet has come from the increased demand of its customers for video calls, gaming and HDTV. All of these services require high-speed connections. 2015 Latin One. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Lenovo is out to provide Xiaomi with some major competition for its mid-range offering, the Xiaomi Redmi 3. The Chinese tech company released its offering, the Xiaomi Redmi 3, with much fanfare. Both companies promise customers a bang for their buck with their high quality, mid-range offerings. In a report with Tech Times, Lenovo has announced its new mid-range offering, the Lenovo Lemon 3. The new smartphone makes a nice addition to the mid-range market, which continues to grow every quarter at an aggressive rate. Many companies have come to put their money into producing more "budget phones," as more consumers tend to favor them over the flagship ones. This is reportedly Samsung's current strategy, but it remains to be seen if the South Korean tech giant will put this into practice. Both the Lenovo Lemon 3 and Xiaomi Redmi 3 are similar in nature. Both mid-range devices sport a 5-inch display, and have Snapdragon chip. Both devices are packed with a RAM of 2 GB, and an internal storage of 16 GB. Both of the device's cameras are nearly identical, sporting a 13-megapixel rear camera, and a 5-megapixel front camera. What consumers will find most tantalizing is the price tag these phones will offer, with the Lenovo Lemon 3 priced at $105 and the Xiaomi Redmi 3 priced at $106. While both phones are quite similar, there are, however, some hints of uniqueness to both. One of the notable differences between the phones is the battery, with the Redmi 3 beating out the Lemon 3 with its massive 4,100 mAh as opposed to the Lemon 3's decently sized 2,750 mAh battery. The Lemon 3, however, boasts of a better resolution for its device, 1,080x1,920 pixels as opposed to Xiaomi Redmi 3's HD pixel resolution of 1280x720 pixels. The Xiaomi Redmi 3 is available in more color options, which includes White, Gray, Black, Yellow, Pink, Blue, Gold and Green, GSM Arena reports. The Lenovo Lemon 3 is available in only 2 color options --silver and gold, Both phones will initially be available in China, and there is no word yet as to when both companies plan to release the phones to other countries. No word of a global launch has been said as of yet, so interested consumers have plenty of time to decide which of the two to purchase. Both phones come with similar specs and pricing, so it will all become a matter of choice as to which would become more of a priority to the potential customer. In short, the Xiaomi Redmi 3 would be a better buy for those who desire a bigger battery, while the Lenovo Lemon 3 would be a better choice for those who want a crisp and clear phone resolution. 2015 Latin One. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Beware! How Sex Traffickers Lure Young Latinas media@latinoshealth.com By Staff Writer Jan 15, 2016 05:41 AM EST According to Latina Magazine, there is a multi-billion trafficking industry in the U.S. A percentage of this underground industry is young teens ages 12 to 14 who are tricked into pornography and prostitution. Those who are especially vulnerable are those who come from low-income households including Latinas. An expert from an organization for at-risk youth shared factors that make young women and children more susceptible, which include poverty, lack of fluency of the language and a dubious citizenship status. Most trafficked people are geared to submission by mentioning their immigration status and their will crumble when deportation is used to let them fear their captors. The San Diego Tribune adds that some women and girls are forced or coerced into prostitution or other types of sex trade. Most of the trades and underground businesses are reportedly linked to gangs and the tally of victims is thought to be many but exactly how much is unknown because many go unreported. Here are tips to prevent human and sexual trafficking: 1.) Give direct information to teens and children According to UNICEF, the more a child knows about the hazards and negative effects of human trafficking, the less they are likely to be trafficked. Giving them information about what happens when they go in the industry and how it will affect them may deter their interests from it. 2.) Awareness campaigns Human trafficking is a community concern and the best way to combat it is to arm the people with knowledge. According to HumanTrafficking.org, gathering people for these kinds of campaigns can help them be more aware of how not to be lured by tactics used by these criminals. Poverty is a big factor and those who have little means to find work may be tempted or tricked in sex trade. Interventions such as job fairs and skills development in the community can greatly help. 3.) Keep teens in school As mentioned, teens make up of a big chunk of those that are trafficked in the underground history. According to the Latina Mag, teens that do well or are more engaged in school are less likely to fall in the hands of traffickers. After school extracurricular activities can also keep them safe as it gives them less time to hang out at places where traffickers are on the prowl for new victims such as the mall or gas stations. Subscribe to the latinos health newsletter! Cajamarca in Peru will be visited by thousands for its carnival, known to feature a variety of fun activities and spectacles. Particularly, the craziest carnival in Peru will begin with the balloon wars. PeruThisWeek revealed that the Cajamarca Carnival Board featured their summer festival program in December 2015. New provincial mayor Manual Becerra Vilchez serves as head of the board and announced the revival of various traditional components of the festival for the 2016 carnival. The Municipality of Cajamarca and other sponsors are already pooling funds to ensure the success of the event. One of the priorities of our management will recover and give value to our cultural, social and historical events, which is what gives us identity, said Mayor Becerra. Cajamarca is deemed by many as the capital of the Peruvian carnival, which is why the city is exerting a lot of effort to guarantee an excellent show for the thousands attending. The Cajamarca Carnival is set to commence with its first event on Jan. 21, 2016. The festival will continue until Feb. 18. Locals and potential visitors are already excited with the opening activity, which is said to be the biggest water fight in Latin America, dubbed balloon wars. Latin Correspondent revealed that it has become a tradition for people to gather at the main square every year, carrying water balloons, water pistols, and buckets with the aim of drenching any person in sight. Although locals and guests generally view the activity as good clean fun, there are also detractors who claim that the balloon wars only waste a lot of water. Authorities also previously planned to ban the activity, saying that it may damage ancient architectural creations. Overall, the popularity and significance of the balloon wars resulted to it becoming an official part of the Cajamarca Carnival. The year 2016 will feature the second official balloon war, which will happen in the Ohapaq Nan complex, based on the same Latin Correspondent report. The municipality provided a huge cistern and hoses in the wetland area for participants to prepare their balloons. There will also be free water balloons, prizes and related contests during the activity. Authorities are aiming to make the complex the main battleground for the balloon wars to keep people away from the citys center and prevent potential damage to heritage sites. Local police are also expected to be available to set limits to revelers. Andina cited that there will be about 12,000 local and foreign tourists joining the carnival. 2015 Latinos Post. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A number of shows had specific individuals read and respond to mean tweets about them. Recently, the Define American organization came up with a video showing undocumented Latinos reading offensive messages about them with different reactions. Huffington Post revealed that the video, titled Mean Tweets: Undocumented & Unafraid Edition, is part of the #WordsMatter initiative by Define American, and inspired by the segment Celebrities Read Mean Tweets, on Jimmy Kimmels comedy show. The initiative aims to have politicians and aspiring candidates to stop using the term illegal when referring to undocumented immigrants. The organization gathered five young undocumented immigrants from the San Francisco Bay Area. The participants were asked to read several mean tweets with Everybody Hurts by REM playing in the background. The Latinos reactions ranged from shocked to funny. I dont know why people think Trumps plan is so crazy. China built a wall and they have almost no illegal Mexicans, one tweet read. The participant replied that China is in Asia while the United States is in the West, which explains the absence of Latinos in the region. Learned more Spanish in an hour at my hotel pool than I did in 2 years at school. #arizona #borderjumpers, another tweet went. A meaner tweet asked, Afraid to go back to the third world [expletive] you crawled out of? There are no illegal immigrants. They are illegal aliens. Emphasis on illegal! Criminals. Get them out of here. The reader, however, had a kinder response, saying that green may not be his color as an alien. Another user tweeted that he thought that they were supposed to melt over 94 languages in Kentucky. More tweets followed, showing discontent on the presence of undocumented immigrants in the United States. Define American is an organization founded by Jose Antonio Vargas, who is an advocate against politicians and media agencies that use illegal to describe immigrants. According to Vargas, the word marginalizes and dehumanizes the pertained individuals. He said that the hope is for more people to better understand and empathize with the experience of immigrants. "Define American is always striving to highlight stories of immigrants and explore issues of identity in America, which is why we created this piece ahead of our Define American Film Festival," Vargas told MTV. The video was made in a lighthearted manner to counter the misinformed and stereotypical widespread comments on the internet that pertains to over 11 million undocumented immigrants, including Vargas, The Flama stated. 2015 Latinos Post. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Previously, authorities wanted to investigate Kate del Castillo for arranging the secret meeting between Sean Penn and Joaquin El Chapo Guzman. A new series of text messages hinted that the drug kingpin may have primarily wanted to meet the Latin actress. DailyMail wrote that in September 2015, del Castillo and Guzman exchanged hundreds of flirty messages. Their relationship began in 2012 when the actress wrote to the drug lord. However, the two never met personally until the October 2015 interview with Penn. The recently published text messages in GrupoMilenio, a Mexican newspaper, allegedly presents how the Sinaloa cartel leader wanted to meet with del Castillo, and seemed to have never even heard of the Hollywood actor Penn. NBC News cited that the texts suggested that El Chapo started courting del Castillo in September 2015 and wanted to personally meet the actress. Guzman texted del Castillo that he was in Sinaloa and eager to meet her. He also stated that he does not drink, but would if she brought wine and tequila. Del Castillos messages were sent to Guzmans attorney. Text messages between El Chapo and his lawyer also showed how the latter explained to the drug lord that the actress wanted to bring Penn with her. Guzman, however, was not certain who the actor is. Guzmans lawyer told him that Penn appeared in the film 21 Grams, by Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Guzman told his attorney that he was searching for Penn on the internet, based on the same NBC report. Mexican officials are still in the process of investigating the meeting between Penn and del Castillo and Guzman. Their government is checking on possible illegal activities but clarified that the two actors were not their specific targets. In another report by NBC News, del Castillo tweeted that people should not believe everything that are being said about her. She thanked fans for their support and said that there are people who came up with false stories. She added that she looks forward to sharing her version. She also tweeted that the fake stories were meant to distract people from the real issues. Guzman has escaped from a high-security prison facility in Mexico two times before. He has been on the run for six months after his second escape until he was recaptured earlier in January 2016. Extradition proceedings are set to commence to possibly send Guzman to the United States to face other charges against him, NBC wrote. 2015 Latinos Post. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The First Lady of Venezuela accused United States authorities of kidnapping her two nephews. Cilia Flores alleged that the US Drug Enforcement Administration operated an illegal operation in her country, thereby violating its sovereignty. Yahoo revealed that congresswoman Cilia Flores stated that she has evidence that the DEA illegally seized her nephews, Franqui Flores de Freitas, 30, and Efrain Campo Flores, 29, who were arrested due to drug trafficking charges. The two men were arrested in Haiti in November 2015 and then moved to New York, where they are contained for charges of conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the United States. The two pleaded not guilty to the charges in December 2015. The Guardian reported that in October 2015, the two narconephews met a DEA informant in Honduras, requesting for aid to send 800 kilograms of cocaine into the United States through an airport on Roatan Island, one source stated. Their capture was an embarrassment to President Nicolas Maduro since the case may hint a wider involvement of Venezuelan authorities in drug smuggling from Colombia to Europe and US. However, socialist party officials deemed the charges as Washingtons attempt to cast doubt on the leftist government. According to Cilia, the arrest happened on Venezuelan soil, which is a violation of the countrys sovereign power. Cilia added that the DEA tried to connect high-ranking government officials to make it seem as if Venezuela is complacent with the drug trade. She cited that major drug traffickers are actually arrested in her country. Other officials claimed that drug interdiction efforts have been better since the DEA was removed in 2005 after former president Hugo Chavez accused them of spying. Cilia continued that she has photos and other evidence of the DEA committing crimes in Venezuela of kidnap and vengeance, Telegraph revealed. The congresswoman continued to lambast the DEA, claiming that their objective was to destabilize the country before the parliamentary elections in December 2015, where President Maduro lost control of the National Assembly after 16 years. She also said that the DEA are the biggest cartel bosses of all. We have evidence that the DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] was here on Venezuelan territory violating our sovereignty and committing crimes on our territory. The DEA committed the crime of kidnapping, which the [legal] defence will prove, the First Lady said in the same report by The Guardian. The U.S. embassy in Caracas did not immediately comment on the issue. 2015 Latinos Post. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The advantage of having a presidential debate in the same week as a sitting president's State of the Union is that his words as fresh in voters' minds. President Obama, in his last national address before stepping down next January, broached a wide array of subjects - ranging from immigration reform, gun violence, and climate change - on Tuesday. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley somewhat surprisingly agreed with some of the president's rhetoric in delivering the Republican Party's official response. Haley specifically, but not by name, cited growing angst towards undocumented immigrants and said certain GOP candidates were adding fuel to the fire. Thursday's debate is set in Haley's governing state; in North Charleston and minutes from the site of June's mass shooting that left nine churchgoers dead. Given that the sixth Republican debate is on the Fox Business Network, gun control and immigration reform talks is expected to take a back seat to economic issues. But this debate is special for two reasons. For starters, it marks the first primary without either Rand Paul or Carly Fiorina, both which fell below the polling criteria. It also marks the first time GOP front-runners Ted Cruz and Donald Trump will meet following the insinuation that Canada-born Cruz isn't eligible to become president. Cruz denounces the claim, much like Haley took a not-so-subtle swipe at Trump's immigration plan. One can only wonder if Republican candidates will take the opportunity to pile on Trump. When: Jan. 14, 2016 Where: North Charleston Coliseum and Performing Arts Center, North Charleston, South Carolina Time: Primetime debate begins at 9 p.m. EST. The first debate starts at 6 p.m. EST. Television: Fox Business Network Moderators: First debate: FBN anchors Sandra Smith and Trish Regan; primetime debate: FBN Managing Editor Neil Cavuto, Global Markets Editor Maria Bartiromo Live stream: FoxBusiness.com (no cable subscription required), Fox Business app First debate participants: Mike Huckabee, Carly Fiorina, Rick Santorum, Rand Paul (elected not to attend) Main debate participants: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Chris Christie 2015 Latinos Post. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Education has won in Chile! Chilean students are off to a good start this year. Finally, the hard work of thousands of students in Chile who have been fighting for their right to free university education has paid off. Around 165,000 aspiring professionals will be able to get free education in 2016. With Gratuity 2016, 30 universities in the South American nation will be providing free schooling to college students. Educational institutions that had the most number of applicants include the following: 1. Valparaiso University 2. University of Concepcion 3. University of Santiago 4. Austral University of Chile 5. Federico Santa Maria Technical University 6. University of Bio Bio Courses with the most enrolees are medicine and obstetrics, with commercial engineering, civil engineering, dentistry and construction trailing behind. Education Minister Adriana Delpiano said that second year students under the government's financial aid will also benefit from Gratuity 2016. According to the Latin American Post, Gratuity 2016 is President Michelle Bachelet's first major feat since she took over the country in June 1, 2006. As they say, it's never too late to make a change. "We always believed that education is a right, and the fact that we are moving ahead strongly in that direction fills us with joy," said Bachelet. From 2006 to 2010, the now 64-year-old leader's first presidential term, university students from all over the country were prompted to host rallies after Augusto Pinochet enacted the Organic Constitutional Act of Teaching (LOCE) on the last day of his 16-year rule. Students wanted LOCE abolished. When Pinochet took office, the education sector was privatized and a drop of 20 percent in the budget happened. There was a reorganization on the entire process of privatization of universities. In addition, the budget cuts resulted to public universities having to require tuition from their students. As a result of the changes in the education sector, on May 30, 2006, 790,000 Chilean students marched all over the country in protest. To date, the "Penguin Revolution," named after the protesters' uniforms, remains the biggest student strike in decades. President Bachelet therefore announced new regulations in the Chilean educational system the day following the march. However, most students were left dismayed as their demands have not been met still. Elitism was still an issue, as it remained slightly dominant with the new changes at the time. In 2009, the LOCE was modified and renamed the General Law on Education (LGE), but many students and teachers said it has failed to "reform the government's basic financial strategy for a more equal educational system." It seemed that economic profitability in Chilean education still remained. Inequality between poor and rich students remained. With Gratuity 2016 though, real hope is possible. Hopefully, Chile will start seeing some real change. 2015 Latinos Post. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Latino women are becoming more aware of healthcare. In 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended girls aged 11 to 12 to have their three-series vaccination for the human papilloma virus (HPV) since it was found to be the most common sexually transmitted infections in the U.S. The deadly virus causes vulvar, cervical and vaginal cancers. While one would think that people in rich communities would have more resources for their vaccines, a new report published Thursday in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention says otherwise. The researchers looked at individual demographics and communities, as well as geographic data, that factor in on people's vaccination decisions. Apparently, the new study found that Latinos, black people and American Indian/Alaska natives have higher HPV vaccination rates than their Asian and white counterparts. In addition, girls living below the poverty line have had more frequent vaccinations than those above poverty. According to the Guardian, the finding is rare since low-income communities generally have limited access to healthcare. The study also revealed that Hispanics residing in white communities were as likely as their white neighbors to disregard taking the HPV vaccine. This means that a person's geographical location makes a big influence on one's vaccination choices, according to the study's lead author Dr. Kevin Henry, who is also a health outcomes researcher at Temple University and Fox Chase Cancer Center. A percentage of 61.1 of girls in poor communities were given the first shot in the series, while only 52.4 percent received the first shot in richer communities, the report said. Henry said that while Hispanic girls are known as more likely to get the HPV vaccine compared to white girls, the community where these girls live matters since they will be influenced by their surroundings, according to Hutch News. "You're finding everything is inverse essentially. You're finding that the wealthier people have less vaccination yet they have more resources, so in some respects, they should be higher," Henry said. According to the president of the non-profit National Alliance for Hispanic Health Dr. Jane Delgado , she is "thrilled" with the findings of the new study. Her organization reportedly organizes outreach programs on HPV vaccination. "When we did focus groups with mothers, the mythology was 'Oh Hispanic parents, they don't want to think of their daughters having sex,' but you know what, Hispanic parents want to protect their girls from cancer," she said. She added that even though most Latinos have been born in the U.S., there is nationalized healthcare in most Latin American countries. This results in individuals with less susceptibility to stigma against the HPV vaccine. "In Latin America, very often, the idea of vaccines is very accepted," Delgado said. However, Delgado is worried that vaccination rates are still lower than what health workers expected. According to a CDC report in July 2015, in 2014, only 40 percent of teenage girls and 22 percent of teenage boys received the required doses of the HPV vaccine. During its first release, the FDA's recommendation of the HPV vaccine had been highly criticized by parents as advocating early sex, according to NPR. Fortunately, the tides are changing and rates of the HPV vaccine in the U.S. have become higher in Latino and poor communities in the past years. Hopefully, more Hispanic women, who are known to have high rates of cervical cancer and cancer deaths in the U.S., will take the vaccine and complete the advised three shots. Know more about HPV vaccines in the video below. 2015 Latinos Post. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. One of Chile's most celebrated designers Alejandro Aravena bagged the prestigious 2016 Pritzker Architecture Prize for his wide variety of work. Considered the Nobel Prize for the field of architecture, the award is a great honor that highlighted his abilities to incorporate design principles with social responsibility, sustainability and economic restraints. According to a report from Fox News, the 48-year-old architect was the fourth Latin American to be recognized by the Pritzker award body. Some of his well-known projects include buildings for Santiago's Universidad Catolica de Chile, such as the UC Innovation Center - Anacleto Angelini , the Siamese Towers, the Medical School, the School of Architecture and the Mathematics School. While Aravena is universally recognized for his diverse architectural feats in his native country and overseas, he won the jury over with his commitment to remain involved in public service through his body of work. "Alejandro Aravena epitomizes the revival of a more socially engaged architect, especially in his long-term commitment to tackling the global housing crisis and fighting for a better urban environment for all," the jury explained in the citation from Arch Daily. "He has a deep understanding of both architecture and civil society, as is reflected in his writing, his activism and his designs." Fox News revealed that the Hyatt Foundation sponsors the prestigious prize and president Tom Pritzker praised Aravena for practicing "architecture as an artful endeavor in private commissions and in designs for the public realm and epitomizes the revival of a more socially engaged architect." He continued that the renowned designer is recognized for creating built work that offers opportunity to poverty stricken citizens, while keeping natural disasters and energy consumption in mind. Through his work and advocacies, Aravena is able to lead as an example in practicing his craft to affect people's lives positively. Aravena heads a Santiago-based firm called Elemental that's focused on creating socially relevant projects, according to a report from New York Times. When he and former colleague Andres Iacobelli started the firm, they were interested in creating for the public. "If we believe we're good designers, why not try to apply our skills to issues that matter?" Aravena said. "Social housing is a difficult question and it deserves professional quality, not professional charity." After being recognized with a Pritzker, the architect revealed that he's looking forward to experiment more after earning the freedom to blaze more trails in architecture and design. Instead of being pressured, he explained the team's load is even lighter now with nothing else to prove in the field. On Friday, according to The Guardian, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt will meet with Pope Francis at the Vatican for a rare meeting about the tech industry. The said meeting will also be graced by the presence of Jared Cohen, Head of Google Ideas, who also appears to be joining the meeting according to a source from the Vatican. Schmidt and Cohen, who co-wrote the book entitled "The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business," declined to comment on the reported meeting. However, a Twitter user named Iacopo Scaramuzzi otherwise started the idea. Pope Francis' knowledge on computers may be very limited, but he once said the internet is "a gift from God," per the Catholic Herald. venerdi @ericschmidt executive chairman di google viene ricevuto da @pontifex in vaticano iacopo scaramuzzi (@iscaramuzzi) January 11, 2016 The Pope has also been following those who practice capitalism and inequality. His visit to the U.S. must have been the commencement of that discussion, but failing to visit states that practices inequality left the topic in his speech alone. He said, "On the global level, we see a scandalous gap between the opulence of the wealthy and the utter destitution of the poor. We should never overlook the fact that those who for whatever reason lack access to social media run the risk of being left behind." The Pope's view on the technology industry has far more meaning just its plain purpose. In his message at the 48th World Communication Day, he said, "In a world like this, media can help us to feel closer to one another. Creating a sense of the unity of the human family which, can in turn inspire solidarity and serious efforts to ensure a more dignified life for all." In a previous report by the Catholic Herald, signs that the Pope is not at all oblivious of the technology world. The report said that the Pope urged its catholic followers to reach out to their neighbor through social media. He also implied how those who communicate become neighbors too. What has been currently a practice on social media, like the flowing messages on religious sayings, has also been discussed by the Pope. He said that Christian witness is not about overflowing religious messages. Instead, they come in the form of your presence and the patience to listen to their religious questions. The news about Schmidt's meeting with the Pope fails to deliver the topic that will be discussed. Meanwhile, we'll have to wait after it transpires to see what their rare talk on the technology industry covered. Schmidt estimated to have a net worth of $10.6 billion is currently the Executive Chairman of Alphabet. This week, Google has reportedly appointed its former VP of product management for Google Apps (who also is behind the experimental Google Cardboard VR), Clay Bavor, to be VP of a dedicated division for virtual reality. A cardboard do-it-yourself VR kit is not exactly a high-margin tech product, and not something where you'd expect Google to create a new, full division of its company with dozens of new, open positions looking to be filled. Here are some reasons why Google, which has so far only dabbled in DIY virtual reality for smartphones, may be doubling down on VR now. Timing: The VR Tipping Point This year is when virtual reality finally comes to consumers, as headsets like the Facebook-backed Oculus Rift, the HTC and Valve collaboration Vive, and PlayStation VR are all poised to hit store shelves for the first time in 2016. But this year is just the beginning, which could be why Google is jumping in now. According to figures from tech analyst Digi-Capital cited by InformationWeek, virtual reality revenues are expected to reach $30 billion by 2020. Selling first-generation VR headsets to early adopters this year won't generate that kind of cash, especially considering that to run smoothly, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive will require the latest computers and GPUs, approximately seven times more powerful than the average home PC in use right now. That narrows the market to about one percent of PC owners. PlayStation VR, of course, requires a PlayStation 4. But as a rule, technology tends to get cheaper, faster, and smaller (and also more ubiquitous) every two years or so, a phenomenon described by Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore half a century ago. The market for VR is likely to explode in the coming years, especially as it goes mobile. As Digi-Capital wrote in its analysis, "Moore's Law and a flagging PC market searching for growth could bring [VR] within reach of mass consumers by 2017," adding that "we might need to wait for the second generation of Mobile VR with full positional tracking... in 2017/2018 for it to become a true mass market." Rather than seeing Google's move as a late entry, perhaps the company is looking at that sort of timeline as it relates to smartphone technology. After all, Samsung Gear VR found a use for the ridiculously high-resolution Quad HD screens that many scoffed at just a couple years prior as an unnecessary gimmick. VR Isn't Just a Game The first generation of VR -- with the half-exception of Samsung Gear VR -- largely revolves around gaming, and naturally so. Besides being an obvious application of the immersive technology, PC gamers tend to have the most powerful rigs to run these headsets. But the applications for VR are eventually much vaster, as Google is clearly aware of after its Cardboard VR was credited last week for helping a doctor with a life-saving procedure on a sick baby. VR could bring practical benefits to other important fields, enterprise, and eventually could be a major way people consumer media, as Hollywood and Silicon Valley knows. Google has already begun introducing Cardboard to schools this year, and the company is beginning to enhance the product through developers. On Wednesday, Google announced an update bringing spatial audio to its Cardboard VR. Spatial audio reproduces the way humans hear sounds in the real world, and now it's supported by Cardboard's software development kit (SDK) for Android. "Human beings experience sound in all directions -- like when a fire truck zooms by, or when an airplane is overhead. Starting today," announced Google Cardboard product manager Nathan Martz, "the Cardboard SDKs for Unity and Android support spatial audio, so you can create equally immersive audio experiences in your virtual reality (VR) apps. All your users need is their smartphone, a regular pair of headphones, and a Google Cardboard viewer." While Google isn't letting on about any possible plans beyond Cardboard, the large, yet-undeveloped applications for VR has clearly lit a fire under the company. Especially when you consider how Google makes its (boatloads of) money. Virtual Reality Advertising Google is a massive multifaceted tech firm founded on search. Google is a massively successful business founded on selling ads. This could be the ultimate reason Google is getting serious about VR, as Forbes pointed out. In order to continue dominating the search and advertising business that gives Google (or Alphabet) the kind of cash to throw at risky propositions like delivering Internet via hot air balloon-drones, a Fiber-optic ISP seemingly designed to encourage and mitigate barriers for its direct competitors, or curing death by aging, Google needs to win the next field of digital advertising. And it appears that VR has a good chance of being just that. By getting as many cheap VR kits to as many smartphone owners as it can, and dedicating a division to focus on how the company can take advantage of VR, Google may be taking its first steps towards getting a new generation of immersive marketing right in everyone's faces. Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley rolled out a proposal he calls a "workers bill of rights for the 21st century" on Thursday, which lists a number of liberal reform measures to help American workers. Under his bill of rights for American workers, the former Maryland governor aims to combat economic inequality, while helping the working class and families achieve the American Dream. Included on the list are a number of reforms that his fellow 2016 Democratic contendeds have also publicly supported, like paid family leave, $15 minimum wage, equal pay and reducing the burden of college debt. However, he also introduces several ideas to address worker issues that have not been given much attention on the campaign trail. One is doing away with erratic work schedules. "Erratic and constantly changing schedules leave many workers-especially in growing low-wage industries-unable to plan ahead to make ends meet," O'Malley said in a press statement sent to Latin Post. To fix this, he is calling for a proposal called "The Right To A Predictable Weekly Schedule," which is a bill championed by congressional Democrats that mandates employers to give their workers at least two weeks notice of their schedules. Employers are also required to pay their workers when they are told to be available for an on-call shift, even if they are not asked to come in or get sent home early. Another less popular proposal that O'Malley is raising in his campaign is the struggle for workers to get full-time positions. "The Right To Full-Time Work" promises that O'Malley will "launch a new, national campaign to promote full-time employment." "We still have urgent work to do to build on that legacy and protect it from Republican attacks - especially when it comes to America's middle class and the working people who, too often, have been shut out of the recovery," he said. The Italian authorities have arrested Cheikh Tidiane Diaw, the suspect who killed American artist Ashley Olsen in Florence, at his home on Wednesday night. According to chief prosecutor Giuseppe Creazzo, a "decisive" DNA evidence connected to the murder case led to the capture of Diaw, who was an illegal immigrant from Senegal. Olsen was found dead in her apartment on Saturday, Jan. 9, after her Italian boyfriend asked the victim's landlord, Claudia Colivicchi, to open the apartment for him because he was unable to reach her. According to CNN, Olsen's naked body was found on a bed in a mezzanine loft of the studio apartment. The authorities said Olsen was strangled and but the two cranial fractures found could have killed her. Based on the street-mounted security cameras and witnesses' reports, 27-year-old Diaw and 35-year-old Olsen had left the Montecarla nightclub in Florence in the wee hours of Jan. 8 and went to her home. During the questioning, Diaw claimed that he and the victim had consensual sex, were drunk and had been high on cocaine. The suspect's lawyer, Antonio Voce, added that Diaw denied strangling the victim, saying he never intended to kill her and left her alive on her bed. Diaw, however, told the investigators that they had fought when she tried to push him out of the apartment over fears her boyfriend would catch them. After being pushed against the door, Diaw punched Olsen in the neck and then pushed her to the ground, where she hit her head. The suspect then helped her to the bed and left, Chicago Tribune reported. Meanwhile, the Italian authorities detained Diaw after the DNA evidence connected to the suspect was found in a used condom and on a cigarette butt spotted in Olsen's toilet. The biological samples taken from the victim's fingernails also belonged to Diaw. "We have collected very serious evidence of his guilt," Creazzo said, as per Us Weekly. Creazzo also added the investigation continues but that no other suspects were at the scene of the crime. Olsen was originally from Summer Haven, Florida. She was living in Florence, where her father, an architect, works at an art school. On Monday, her father was seen with friends outside her building, leaving flowers. "The police haven't really said anything yet. My son is waiting for the police to share more," Olsen's grandmother Ann Olsen said. Ashely Olsen was an American artist who had lived in the city for three years. When her body was found, her well-trained pet beagle, Scout, was seen pacing the studio loft space. Meanwhile, her family members gathered at the chapel of the morgue where her body was being held late Thursday. And a funeral was scheduled at the Santo Spirito church in Florence's Oltrarno neighborhood on Friday afternoon. The oil industry has entered a challenging phase recently with oil prices dropping and oil-producing nations continue to face financial crisis. These include Venezuela and others like Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia, per The Wall Street Journal. The news comes after yet another downslope in prices of crude oil on Tuesday. The publication reports that oil prices went down to $30 per barrel and the global benchmark, Brent, is now down to 18 percent as 2016 began along with other benchmarks. The news is not so appealing, especially for global exporters who have been facing a financial crisis in their home countries following the oil price drop crisis. The publication further reports that the cause of the recent global oil price slide include investors facing deep debts as well as some political effects like leaders being questioned for their response to the rising global issue. The news agency revealed that in light of this, Nigeria's oil minister is calling all the members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries for an emergency meeting. However, the agenda remains unknown but the global oil price slide will definitely be at the top of the agenda. Meanwhile, as many countries experience financial crisis which is hugely contributed by the current oil price, Venezuela may be forced to have drastic economic changes to be able to wade out the global crisis in crude. "Chavismo's economic model can only work with a high oil price," Asdrubal Oliveros, head of the local firm Ecoanalitica told Fox News Latino. Meanwhile, the newly seated opposition leader President Nicolas Maduro has already announced Venezuela's oil selling price which is at $24 per barrel. "If prices stay like this, it would mean the government has a cash deficit of $25 to $30 billion to pay its debts and import the products the country needs," Oliveros said as quoted by the news outlet. While Venezuelan government continue to push through despite the crisis, Oliveros revealed his analysis and his suggestion for the leaders to take into consideration. To gain financial resources, Venezuela must "request a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), privatize public companies or get into further debt. Or they could also mix those options," Oliveros continued. However, going for the IMF, Alexander Guerrero, economist and professor at Universidad Catolica Andres Bello, analyzed that the IMF may want something in between their aid. "They will request an immediate end to economic controls like price regulations and currency exchange restrictions, the base of Chavismo's economic model," he said as quoted by the publication. Marc Mejia, the father of Olalia Mejia who allegedly died because her mother rolled over her while on drugs, recently announced and urged social media followers to forgive jailed mother. Although it has been the most challenging and hurting time for all members of the family, they are however asking for positivity, per Fox News Latino. In the midst of darkness and grief, Marc, the father of eight-month-old baby Olalia from New Jersey is asking for his social media followers to stop the hate messages against Olalia's mother, Lisa Scalia. This is in light of the recent outpour of messages and social media traffic that the family received after Scalia allegedly rolled over on her baby Olalia while in bed, causing her to be found unresponsive at Scalia's home in Ventnor and died five days later. "Please everyone remember that Lisa Marie loved Olaia Marie ... she definitely made the biggest mistake anyone can make but I refuse to believe she did this horrible act on purpose... no one is in more pain than me except probably her... if I can forgive her I know everyone can forgive her... Please pray for her as well.. Thank you everyone for all the love," Marc wrote on Facebook. Meanwhile, Daily Mail reports that Scalia is currently jailed at a bail of $100,000 and is charged with multiple crimes including child endangerment and drug possession. According to the publication, authorities investigated and found out that Scalia rolled over on her child while under the influence. The investigation results also revealed that Scalia was in possession of 34 bags of heroin and 10 Oxycodone pills. Although there are still no official statements coming from Scalia herself, medical reports say that there is still no official cause cited that will further put Scalia under more charges. Meanwhile, the news agency reported that upon being discovered last Jan. 3, baby Olalia was revived in the incident but died on Jan. 9 at a Philadelphia hospital. All her organs were also donated as authorized by her father Marc, who also shared it on Facebook. "I have decided to allow my babies organs to be donated with the hope that she will bring a miracle to another family," he wrote. Marco also recently announced via Facebook that there would be one final day for baby Olalia's funeral, which would be at the Lady Star of the Sea Church from 10 to 12 a.m.. Anyone who wishes to be a part of the farewell ceremonies are welcome. Celine Dion's show this weekend at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas have been cancelled due to the death of her husband Rene Angelil. According to the reports, Angelil died at his home in Henderson on Thursday at the age of 73, following a years-long battle with throat cancer. The reports on Angelil's death were confirmed on the website of the Canadian diva. He is survived by Dion and their three children: 14-year-old Rene Charles and 5-year-old twins Nelson and Eddy, as well as his adult children from previous marriages: Anne-Marie, 38, Patrick, 47, and Jean-Pierre, 41. "Rene Angelil, 73, passed away this morning at his home in Las Vegas after a long and courageous battle against cancer," Angelil's rep said in a statement, as per People. "The family requests that their privacy be respected at the moment." According to the Clark County Office of the Coroner or Medical Examiner, Angelil died under the care of a physician and his death was due to natural causes and no further investigation was expected. Angelil had battled three bouts of cancer, which led to Dion's multiple career hiatus. But last year, the "My Heart Will Go On" hitmaker went back to Las Vegas after Angelil's urged her to perform again. But Dion revealed her husband's excruciating fight with throat cancer in an exclusive tell-all interview with ABC News' correspondent Deborah Roberts. Angelil's cancer returned in 2014, following the removal of a tumor in December 2013. He had been previously being diagnosed with throat cancer in 1999. Meanwhile, Caesars Palace has announced the cancellation of Dion's weekend shows because of Angelil's death. According to USA Today, the 47-year-old Canadian songstress will be back on Feb. 23. The statement also revealed that the couple, who tied the knot in 1994, had celebrated their 21st wedding anniversary last month. "With heavy hearts, we regret to inform you that Celine performances Saturday, Jan. 16 and Sunday, Jan. 17 at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace have been cancelled," the statement read, as seen on Daily Mail. "Celine earlier today announced the death of her husband Rene Angelil after long fight with cancer. Celine will return to The Colosseum on Feb. 23 to resume performances." Before his death, Angelil had been sick for years. In August, Celine Dion said her husband was on a feeding tube for the last two years, Dion. And after a series of procedures in Boston hospitals, he was back living at the family's home in Las Vegas. Despite being scared, Dion has kept a brave face until the end of her husband's cancer ordeal. Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas announced the launch of Human Trafficking and Transnational Organized Crime unit (HTTOC), a new unit focused on combating human trafficking on Thursday. The new HTTOC unit will initially include five investigators, a victims' advocate, a forensic accountant and three attorneys. According to Arklatex, the unit will coordinate with the local law officials and enforcement agencies to track down the criminal industry. The unit's main priority are those under labor and sex trafficking, by which is now making an estimated income of $32 billion annually. The head of the new enforcement unit will be Kirsta Leeburg Melton, the Attorney General's Office persecutor, who has been assigned to work human trafficking cases since 2009. According to Melton, what drives human trafficking is the "huge links in the culture between pornography-use and the demand that creates a demand for prostitution." She also added that now is the perfect time for the community to see what is really happening, especially to understand the truth behind human trafficking. "We don't see them, but they're there," Melton said pointing out to the victims of human trafficking. She also added that "every life is worth the fight," that's why everyone must help and make a move. According to her, no one should be silent and immune to this tragedy where women, men and children are being forced to engage in this modern-day slavery. She also hopes for Texas to finally become a safe haven for residents. "The fundamental goal of our new unit is to see that Texas becomes and remains a place where human life is not for sale," she added. According to Dallas News, with annual net of about $99 million in Dallas alone, Paxton described Texas as "the heart of trafficking." In fact, the National Human Trafficking Resource Center recently reported 330 cases of human trafficking in Texas alone, involving 110 children and 211 adults. "Fortunately, through this new unit and through recent changes to the law, Texas is in a great position to make headway in the fight against trafficking, and we will take the fight to the doorstep of traffickers at every opportunity," Paxton said during a press conference. He also added that HTTOC is now being financed and plans to add more personnel to the group. The unit will now be expecting to work hard to get more traffickers prosecuted to prevent more people, especially children, to be trafficked in the future. Tequila is gaining momentum in Latin America and its 2015-2019 projections show promising future, per PR Newswire. T,he abundant supply of agave, tequila's number one ingredient has boosted the production of the alcoholic drink. According to the news outlet, since 2004, there has been a consistent supply of agave that manufacturers don't see it running out soon. Another key factor why tequila is booming in the Latin America region is the exemplary number of consumers who prefer tequila than the conventional beer; which is said to be tequila's number one competitor in Latin America/ The alcoholic brand of tequila comes in several forms and strength. Alcohol experts will probably realize its distinct flavors, but for others, it's quite refreshing to know that the tequila comes as normal, premium, high-end premium and super-end premium. From 2014 to 2019, producers of tequila can bet on a 1.89 percent growth in terms of volume and a 2.62 percent revenue. Reports about its market size include the potential vendors in a specific region as well as the growth prospect against other alcoholic brand competition. Currently, tequila is being produced by six distinct distillers mainly Cuervo International, Diageo, Patron, 1800, Brown Forman and Beam Suntory. Sixteen distillers have also tried and is currently producing the alcoholic drink. Regarding agave, tequila's raw material and primary ingredient, Newswire said that it takes about eight to 10 years before a full-grown agave can be used in tequila production. In 2004, 51 hectares of land has been planted with agave, making it the largest recorded plantation of the said plant. That being said, the eight- to 10-year tenure of the plant has been completed and it will be ready for harvesting. This year might commemorate that prediction. Also, in 2013, Mexico recorded a 16 percent increase in tequila exports, mainly the agave tequila rose. The Spirits Business, on the other hand, revealed some of the tequila brands that you need to try this 2016, including Corazon, a Sazerac owned tequila brand that is under the super premium category. The Karma Tequila, a ultra-premium, gluten-free tequila, is said to be double-triple distilled in order to reduce hangover. Patron is an entry at the 2015's "Brand to Watch." The brand advertises their tequila under the "Know your NOM," where they tell you exactly how they control their brand from distillation until they reach the shelves. A French PE school teacher is under investigation after he led schoolchildren onto a closed French Alps ski slope where an avalanche killed two of them and a Ukrainian tourist, a prosecutor announced Thursday. The Alps avalanche incident killed three people; a 16-year-old girl, a 14-year-old boy and a 57-year-old Ukrainian man who was not part of the group. Meanwhile, Yahoo! reported that, the police is still waiting to take the school teacher into their custody because he is still in the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. According to the French interior ministry, other students and people involved in the ski party are now "safe and sound." According to the investigation, the school teacher accompanied 10 of his students from the Saint-Exupery High School in Lyon to Les Deux Alpes ski resort despite the warnings placed in the area after the recent bad weather conditions. Grenoble prosecutor Jean-Yves Coquillat also said that the ski resort was actually closed that time and, because of the heavy snowfall that blanketed the mountains, has high avalanche risk. "We have to interview the hospitalised teacher as soon as we can," Grenoble prosecutor Jean-Yves Coquillat said to the reporters on Thursday. The avalanche risk level of Les Deux Alpes ski resort on Wednesday was raised to 3 on the scale of 5 which means that "a single skier can set off a snowslide," said Dominique Letang, Director of the National Agency for the Study of Snow and Avalanches. Officials have said that the danger had been well posted on the piste with warnings in four different languages. "In 90 percent of cases, it's the action of a human being that causes an avalanche," Letang said. A huge rescue operation consisting of 80 military personnel, police and dog search-and-rescue teams were launched after the incident Wednesday afternoon around 15:45 local time. Coquillat made it clear that only three were dead. Back in Saint-Exupery High School, students and their families were still incredulous over the incident as they pay tribute to victims on Wednesday evening. Dozens of candles were also lit alongside near the site of the disaster with notes saying, "Thoughts with the students and pupils" and "Thoughts with the families, stay strong." A boy named Alain is still in shock toward what happened as he shared, "This outing takes place several times a year, with the same instructors, and there have never been any problems." French President Francois Hollande also offered his sincere condolences to the families of those who died saying "the solidarity of the whole nation" is with them. An Iraqi refugee is being accused of attempting to make electronic transmitters in order to remotely detonate bombs at two Houston malls, a federal agent said Wednesday. Omar Faraj Saeed Al Hardan was indicted on three charges related to the terror plot. The suspect pled not guilty in court Wednesday, The Associated Press reports. U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes decided to hold Al Hardan without bail, saying there was a significant risk the suspect would attempt to flee from authorities, if given the opportunity. Al Hardan came to Houston from his native Iraq in 2009. At some point, he became a supporter of the Islamic State terror organization and began plotting to set off explosives in two of the city's major shopping centers, one of which was the popular Galleria mall. According to testimony from Homeland Security Special Agent Herman Wittliff, Al Hardan was also learning how to make electronic transmitters to trigger the bombs. In a search of the suspect's apartment, authorities found many cellphones, which he reportedly planned to use for the plot. "He wanted to build them (the transmitters) for ISIL," Wittliff said, referring to the Islamic State terrorist group. "For what purpose?" prosecutor Ralph Imperato asked. "So he could kill people," Wittliff said. Witliff also testified that Al Hardan was communicating with another Iraqi refugee, Aws Mohammed Younis Al-Jayab of California. The two corresponded on Facebook Messenger throughout 2013 and 2014, discussing potential plans and strategies on how to provide support for ISIS. The agent said the two men talked about getting weapons training and eventually traveling to Syria to join the ISIS militants. He also alleged that a confidential federal informant provided Al Hardan with training on how to use an AK-47 in November 2014. The court heard excerpts from a recording of a conversation between the suspect and his wife, taken in 2014. "Once I get the passport I will leave America, I will leave. I will make a widow of you," Al Hardan told his wife, according to the excerpt. "I will go to Syria. I am not wacko. I am not wacko. I am speaking the truth. I want to blow myself up. I want to blow myself up ... I am against America." If convicted, Al Hardan could be sentenced to up to 25 years in prison. Not only does Hillary Clinton have a strong lead in the 2016 Democratic presidential race, but a new poll shows that the front-runner has overwhelming support from people of color, while more white Democrats are leaning towards Bernie Sanders. According to a NBC News poll released Tuesday, Clinton has a huge lead over Sanders with African Americans, 63 to 20 percent, and Hispanic voters, 54 percent to 33 percent. She also holds a 15-point lead over the Vermont senator among Democrats nationwide, with 52 percent of voters compared to his 37 percent. The poll, which was conducted from Jan. 4 to Jan. 10, shows former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley coming in with just 2 percent of the vote. Despite her advantages, the poll shows that Sanders is pulling in more white and younger Democrats. According to a NBC News/SurveyMonkey Weekly Election Tracking Poll, 46 percent of white Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters back sanders, while 44 percent pick Clinton. Sanders also tops Clinton with a double digit lead among millennial voters ages 18 to 24: 68 percent said they support him, while just 26 percent are standing with the former first lady. Clinton, however, has a 25-point advantage over Sanders among Democrats aged 65 and older. Plus, she has the support of 56 percent of women, compared to Sanders who has 32 percent, and men, 46 percent to 43 percent. Earlier this month, a Gravis Marketing poll conducted from Dec. 23 to Dec. 27, revealed that former Secretary of State Clinton had a 23-point lead over Sanders in Nevada -- a state where Latinos make up a large voting bloc. She received 50 percent of support among likely Democratic caucus goers, compared to Sanders, who received 27 percent. Meanwhile, O'Malley came in at one percent, while 22 percent of respondents said they are still undecided. The same poll shows that GOP front-runner Donald Trump leads the Republican field in the Silver State with 33 percent of support from likely Republican primary voters. That gives him a 13-point lead over Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who stands at 20 percent. The fate of 12 Marines remains unclear after two U.S. military helicopters apparently collided and went missing off the coast of the Hawaiian island of Oahu late on Jan. 14, the U.S. Coast Guard said. Marine Maj. Christian Devine told CNN that the Coast Guard was searching for survivors. A fire and a debris field, including an empty life raft, had been discovered about 2.5 miles north of Haleiwa Beach, Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Sara Mooers added. Debris field drifted 8 miles Rescue efforts are apparently complicated by the fact that by the morning hours of Jan. 15, the debris field had drifted about eight miles offshore, leading to a search area that is about 6 miles offshore and spans about 11 miles along the shoreline, Hawaii News Now reported. "Anytime you are dealing with a debris field ... that's pretty normal that it will move," Coast Guard Lt. Scott Carr explained in an interview with the local channel. "As you go over time in any search and rescue, the area typically starts to get bigger." The Coast Guard's rescue operations had begun when U.S. Marine Corps officials reported the missing aircraft around 11 p.m. on Jan. 14, CNN noted. A Coast Guard helicopter was dispatched to the incident site shortly after midnight. Choppers have long, troubled history The helicopters involved in the apparent collision are two Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion, which the U.S. military has used since the mid-1960s. Due to the aircraft's large size and troop capacity, the choppers have been involved in a large number of aerial accidents during their operational history. Last month, two Army pilots from Fort Campbell were killed when their AH-64D Apache helicopter crashed during a routine exercise, ABC News recalled. And in March 2015, 11 veteran Marines and soldiers lost their lives when their UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crashed during a training mission off the coast of Florida, the network added. U.S. and Mexican authorities have kicked off discussions to plan the extradition of drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera to the United States, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice announced on Jan. 14. During a visit to Miami, Mexican Attorney General Arely Gomez Gonzalez met with unidentified department officials to preview the proceedings, the first time officials from both nations have tackled the matter in face-to-face discussions, according to Reuters. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch last week made a point out of congratulating her counterpart on Mexico's recapture of Guzman, who had escaped from a maximum-security prison last July. American officials have said more than one extradition petition is pending for the head of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel. Mexican authorities back extradition The Mexican government, meanwhile, changed course following Guzman's rearrest and is now open to turning the drug lord over to the United States, CNN recalled based on a statement from the country's Attorney General's Office. "With the capture of Guzman Loera, it will be necessary to initiate the corresponding extradition procedures, which, in accordance with extradition law, consist of several steps," the Attorney General's Office said in the statement. "Once notified, the defendant is entitled to three days to present objections and 20 days to sustain them, though the latter term can be extended." Appeals could delay turnover to U.S. Guzman is expected to fight extradition, and legal experts have predicted that the ensuing legal battle could last well over a year. An unidentified official from Mexico's foreign ministry told CNN that the kingpin's eventual extradition was "likely," but that the process would indeed take time. "If the (foreign ministry) issues an agreement conceding (Guzman's) extradition, the defendant has the right to request a stay against said determination," the Attorney General's Office explained, adding that the drug lord, a Mexican national, could appeal to two separate tribunals to delay or halt his turnover to U.S. authorities. Three Columbia University students participating in a volunteer mission in Honduras were killed on Jan. 13 when a bus on which they were traveling veered off a road and fell at least 260 feet into a ravine east of the Tegucigalpa, the country's capital. Olivia Varley Erhardt, 20, Daniella Moffson, 21, and Abigail Flanagan, 45, had been completing a medical service mission to help the poor in the Central American nation, the New York Daily News reported. They were traveling to Tegucigalpa in order to board a flight that was to take them back to the United States. "This terrible and tragic loss is all the greater because these individuals were dedicating their passion and very special talents to serving those in need," Columbia University President Lee Bollinger said in a statement. "Other Columbia students were injured in the bus accident. We are working to ensure that they are receiving all necessary medical attention." Crash caused by driver's error According to the Honduran newspaper El Heraldo, the road accident was due to human error and left at least 17 other passengers injured. The three American students were initially taken to hospitals in Valle de Angeles and Tegucigalpa, respectively, where they eventually succumbed to their injuries. The U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa said it was working with local officials to determine the exact circumstances of the incident and to help affected families. "We are aware of information related to the bus accident in Valle de Angeles, (and) we are working with local authorities to determine the state of U.S. citizens involved," the mission told El Heraldo. "The U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa is making the appropriate consular assistance available." 'My daughter was perfection' Family members in the United States, meanwhile, mourned the loss of their loved ones from afar, the New York Daily News noted. Moffson's father, 58-year-old Michael Moffson, 58, told the newspaper that his daughter dreamed of becoming a pediatrician and tremendously enjoyed volunteering. "My daughter was perfection," he said. "She was a beautiful girl, beautiful in and out. She did this because she was a good girl." A state investigation was launched on Friday to explore the man-made water crisis in Flint, Michigan, just one day after Gov. Rick Snyder turned to the federal government for help in dealing with the fiasco. The Republican governor is under fire for his handling of a water crisis that has exposed the entire Flint community to toxic levels of lead. The drinking water in Flint -- a municipality that is 56 percent black and one of the poorest cities in the nation -- first became contaminated with lead shortly after officials decided to start using the Flint River as a water supply in April 2014 to save money, reported The New York Times. That's when community members began complaining that their tap water had a nasty smell and taste and caused rashes. For months, state officials brushed off their complaints, telling them that the water was safe to use for bathing and cooking. However, an independent research study conducted in Feb. 2015 discovered elevated levels of toxic lead in children's blood, which can cause irreversible behavior problems and learning disabilities. Months later, Gov. Snyder decided to switch the water supply from the Flint River back to Lake Huron in October. He has also been distributing free water filters to residents as a way to deal with their poisoned drinking water. Earlier this month, federal authorities launched an investigation into the water contamination, while Snyder declared the city to be in a state of emergency last week Tuesday. On Thursday, he sent President Barack Obama a letter requesting an emergency and major disaster declaration amid the ongoing crisis. The Republican governor is also seeking additional federal aid in the effort to provide Flint residents with clean drinking water. "We are utilizing all state resources to ensure Flint residents have access to clean and safe drinking water and today I am asking President Obama to provide additional resources as our recovery efforts continue," Snyder said in the statement, according to Fox News. Meanwhile, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette launched an investigation Friday into the Flint water crisis to see whether any laws have been violated. "In 21st century America, no one should have to fear something as basic as turning on the kitchen faucet," said the top prosecutor in a statement, reports NBC News. "I look forward to working with federal, state and local officials, community leaders and Flint residents as we seek answers regarding state law and hope through the process we can help restore some of the trust in our government while helping families move forward." At 5 feet,135 pounds, Maria Teresa Osorio de Serna probably does not seem like a particularly threatening person. But the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration recommends, in no uncertain terms, that people "do not attempt to apprehend this individual" -- even though Osorio de Serna now tops the agency's list of most wanted international fugitives. Then again, it's not likely that the everyday citizen will have a run-in with Osorio de Serna any time soon, given that the 65-year-old Colombian national has replaced Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera at the top of the infamous DEA wanted list. Guzman was captured by local authorities last month and is now in the midst of a legal battle to slow down his likely extradition to the United States. Fugutive's life shrouded in secrecy Guzman -- who has turned into somewhat of a folk hero -- may have chronicled his life in a recent interview with actor Sean Penn. On the other hand, very little is known about Osorio de Serna, who is wanted for "money laundering and cocaine conspiracy," the BBC noted. The woman is believed to have laundered enormous amounts of money, but BBC sources in the Colombian underworld told the channel that they had barely even heard of the suspect. Ties to Escobar and at least 4 aliases In the United States, sources point to Osorio de Serna's alleged connections with Pablo Escobar, the late powerful head of the Colombian Medellin Cartel, Mother Jones reported. Her whereabouts are a mystery, with some indications pointing to a residence in her native Colombia and others suggesting a domicile outside Miami. And even though the DEA is keen on catching Osorio de Serna, the federal agency did not offer any further comments when asked to provide more details about Guzman's "replacement," the magazine noted. The few details that are known include her hair color (black), eye color (brown), as well as her aliases -- Maria Teresa Correa, Maria Teresa de Serna, Gloria Bedoya and Iris Conde. After months of legal wrangling over a refinery, the case of PDV Sweeney vs. ConocoPhilips results in a win for the responder which received as an award an amount of $10 million. Texas Lawyer gives the backdrop of the case which had been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Recent developments in the oil industry such as the decreasing prices of oil that can led to loss of revenue, rising prices caused by technological upgrade, and the need to increase captial cost, have led companies like ConocoPhils Co. and PDV Sweeney to form joint ventures. The joint venture partnerships are meant to mitigrate risks while ensuirng business continuity if not profitablity. In this case, PDV Sweeny and PDV Texas Inc., which later became the petitioners, provided oil from Venezuela to the eventual respondents ConocoPhils Co. and Sweeny Coker Investor Sub., which were in charge of converting this crude raw material into saleable oil. The plant where the oil was converted was based in Houston, which is also the location of CoconoPhils Co. The case began prior to September 2015, when the petitioners asked the court to make their partners vacate their share of the "partial" award in relation to the oil refinery. ConocoPhils Co. and Sweeny Coker countered with a request to confirm the ownership and worth of the "partial" and "final awards," at the same time determining explicitly the monetary awards to be issued to the respondents. Upon re-examination of both the "patial" and "final awards," the Court issued a list of rewards to be issued in favor of the respondents, amounting to a total of $10 million. Prior to this settlement, this case and its background had been saddled with complications. In a related report filed by Law 360, the Venezuelan government had appropriated illegally ConocoPhilips' oil-related properties and other services in 2007. This in turn triggered several arbitrations between the Houston company and Venezuela that often related to wins by the former and which the latter always sought to appeal. Eurasia Review ominously hints that Venezuela will have to contend with similar issues in the future and is currently preparing to protect itself. The oil-rich but cash-strapped nation has declared that it will no longer allow foreign companies to invest in its properties if this means being dragged to international courts later on due to disputes and other arbitrations. As a leap of progression for Massachusetts, the marijuana legalization bill will set its meeting tomorrow, in hopes of following the leads of states that have legalized the plant, such as Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington. The Massachusetts Joint Committee on the Judiciary will have a hearing on Wednesday. The meeting will focus on a proposed bill that would finally regulate and legalize the use of marijuana. The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol is led by Dick Evans, its chairman, and supports a 2016 ballot initiative to put an end to marijuana prohibition and criminalization in Massachusetts. Evans assisted in drafting the bill, called H.1561, and will join Rep. David Rogers, lead house sponsor, to show strong support of the bill. According to the official press release published in various marijuana news blogs, Evans and Rogers will be available for the media to answer questions at 12:30 ET. The two will entertain reporters right outside the hearing room in the State House, and it will also be an opportunity for them to discuss the details of the legislation. Evans and Rogers will also talk about how it would be better for Massachusetts if marijuana is legalized, because it will run in a system that will make it regulated and taxed in the same way as alcohol. "It's time for Massachusetts to replace the failed policy of marijuana prohibition with a more sensible system in which marijuana is regulated similarly to alcohol," said Evans in a statement, as published in The Weed Blog, a go-to source for information for marijuana news from all over the world. "We support this legislative effort, but we are also committed to moving forwards with the initiative so that voters can take over if the legislature fails to act," added Evans in the same post. A website called Regulatemassachusetts.org is the online hub for all the information needed about the bill. In the homepage, the benefits for legalization are listed, such as safer communities, and its role in boosting the state's economy. Evans added that whether the legalization occurs as a result of voting or in the legislature, the result will be the same. "Our communities will be safer because marijuana will be produced and sold by licensed businessmen instead of criminals in the underground market," further explained Evans in the same statement. Evans went on to suggest that if marijuana is legalized in the states, the citizens will be safer because the police will have more time addressing more serious crimes instead of enforcing failed prohibition laws. "Adults will no longer be punished simply for using a substance that is significantly less harmful than alcohol," Evans concluded. Happening in November, voters in U.S will decide whether marijuana should be legalized or not. In California, however, it is easy to get hold of weed legally. In related news, one of the donors funded $500,000 to legalize recreational marijuana. Also, there are four measures competing to legalize marijuana in California. Julian Sonny of Elite Daily wrote how to get legal weed in California. Sonny who moved from New York, arrived in California and realized that there are hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries in LA. In his blog, he mentioned that one can get a hold of legal marijuana by seeing a doctor, specifically 420 doctor, specializing in giving medical marijuana licenses. Interested person must have a real medical condition such as back problems, sleeping issues and loss of appetite. These are all considered valid reasons to get a card. The doctor will prescribe what is needed for the actual medical condition. The doctor will instruct if the weed should be smoked, inhaled or eaten. The license to use weed will cost $45 and may take only for about 30 minutes, Sonny added. In related news, Business Insider reported that a new committee solicited $1.25 million to legalize recreational marijuana use in California. One of the donors is Silicon Valley venture capitalist and Facebook exec Sean Parker. Through Sean N. Parker Foundation, he shelled out $500,000 to the fund. Meanwhile, ABC 10 News shares four measures competing to legalize marijuana in California. 1. ADULT USE OF MARIJUANA ACT POSSESSION: Adults would be allowed up to one ounce of dried marijuana (not in its concentrate form, like hash), six living plants (and the marijuana they produce) and no more than eight grams of concentrates (including what's contained in marijuana products). RETAIL TAX: Places a 15 percent excise tax on all sales of marijuana, medical and non-medical. Medical patients would not have to pay a regular sales tax. 2. MARIJUANA CONTROL, LEGALIZATION AND REVENUE ACT POSSESSION: Adults may grow marijuana at their legal home and have whatever their plants grow within the same premises. A limit on how much can be grown would be set by local neighborhoods, but beyond this, MCLR does not limit possession. RETAIL TAX: Non-medical users would pay the state and local sales and use taxes in the jurisdiction where the marijuana is purchased. 3. CALIFORNIA CANNABIS HEMP INITIATIVE POSSESSION: Anything less than 12 pounds of dried, cured marijuana flowers and 99 flowering female marijuana plants qualifies as personal use and would be exempt from permit or license requirements or taxation. RETAIL TAX: Imposes an excise tax of no more than 10 percent on retail sales, plus the standard sales tax. Prohibits the taxation of medical marijuana and related products. 4. CANNABIS CONTROL AND TAXATION ACT POSSESSION: Personal use would be limited to three ounces or less of dried marijuana and up to six plants, plus whatever those plants produce. RETAIL TAX: Existing state and local sales and use taxes would apply to purchases, plus a state excise tax of 5 percent on retail sales on non-medical marijuana. Half of U.S states allow marijuana for medical use while eighty-three cities banned recreational marijuana. However, the issue of marijuana decriminalization is in the hands of voters come November 2016 election. The European Commission has launched a preliminary review to determine whether Poland's new right-wing government had violated democratic law standards of the European Union. Frans Timmermans, first vice president of the European Commission, has announced the decision. As to not prod on the possibility of confrontation with the Polish government, he said that the commission would take "a very cooperative approach." Timmermans also emphasized that commission's investigation is aimed to clarify the facts in an objective way and to start a dialogue with Polish authorities without prejudging the outcome, The Guardian reports. The Commission has stepped in after Poland President Andrzej Duda recently approved laws enabling the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government to appoint the heads of public TV and radio, and choose judges for Poland's constitutional court. Furthermore, other additional changes of this controversial law include measures that would rein in the court's ability to overturn new laws; allow the government to directly appoint the country's top prosecutor; and pardon the head of the security services, who had been appealing a conviction for abuse of office. This law extending executive power to different legal branches had instantly ignited protests against the law as it removes checks on government power hence risking genuine democracy. Reportedly, a spokesman for Law and Justice, the new governing party in Poland, had stated that the government is willing to cooperate with the Commission. However, to date, this inquiry of EU authorities had Polish officials criticizing their plans. Poland's Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, who will appear in the European Parliament next Tuesday declared how she will be defending the government's moves against EU. "Poland has been wrongly accused of violating the rules of a democratic state of law. It's not true. It's slander. Democracy in Poland is doing well." Szydlo said, as per Wall Street Journal. In two months, the commission will begin an official assessment using a three-step process enacted in 2014 to determine whether the government of Poland violated European Union rules. If the assessment concludes that Poland acted wrongly, recommendations will be offered to resolve the situation. If Poland refuses to act, the commission could impose sanctions including stripping the country of European Union voting rights, an event never before accounted in alliances. Jan 15, 2016, 9:02am ET Ford begins production of 2016 Focus RS The Ford Focus RS is on its way to dealer showrooms. Ford has officially kicked off production of its hotly anticipated Focus RS performance hatchback. Ford announced on Friday that the first example of its latest Focus RS has rolled off the assembly line at its factory in Saarlouis, Germany. Previously off-limits to U.S. buyers, the 2016 Focus RS will finally land in dealer showrooms on this side of the pond starting this spring. The Focus RS promises to be on serious performance machine thanks to a turbocharged 2.3L four-cylinder engine tuned to produce 350 horsepower and 350 lb-ft of torque. Sending that power to all-four tires via a performance all-wheel drive system, Ford says the Focus RS can scoot from 0-60 in just 4.7 seconds. The Focus RS is just one of three performance on tap for Ford in 2016. Later this year the Blue Oval will also launch the F-150 Raptor and the GT supercar. Pricing for the 2016 Ford Focus RS will start from $35,730, which doesn't include an $875 destination charge. MINI introduces 2016 John Cooper Works Convertible Jan 15, 2016, 2:46am ET The JCW is the fastest Convertible MINI has ever built. MINI has introduced the 2016 John Cooper Works (JCW) Convertible just a few days after sitting out the Detroit Auto Show. As its name implies, the newest JCW-badged model is a hot-rodded version of the Convertible that was presented last November at the Tokyo Auto Show. It's powered by a 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine that uses a turbocharger to generate 228 horsepower from 5,200 to 6,000 rpm and 236 lb-ft. of torque from 1,250 all the way up to 4,800 rpm. These figures represent a 20-pony bump over the last-gen JCW, and 39 more horses than the Cooper S, the next model down in the lineup. MINI promises the JCW Convertible reaches 60 mph from a stop in 6.4 seconds with the standard six-speed manual transmission, and it performs the same task in 6.3 seconds when it's ordered with the optional six-speed automatic. It goes on to a top speed of about 150 mph regardless of which transmission it's equipped with. The JCW stands out from the stock Convertible with a noticeably more muscular look. MINI has fitted the ragtop with a deep front bumper with large air ducts, bigger fender flares, a revised rear bumper with two exhaust tips, and 17-inch alloy wheels. Of course, it also gets a sprinkling of John Cooper Works emblems. The JCW features a power cloth soft top that can be opened and closed in 18 seconds at speeds of up to 18 mph. It also offers a sliding roof function that lets the passengers retract the front section of the top by up to 15 inches. Trunk space checks in at 7.6 cubic feet with the top up and 5.7 cubic feet with the top down. The 2016 MINI John Cooper Works Convertible will go on sale nationwide in April, a month after the regular Convertible. Pricing starts at $35,600 before a mandatory $850 destination charge is factored in. Police have caught an Allentown man accused of a deadly shooting during a drug deal Sunday night, the city's first homicide of 2016. Ulric Daron McKenzie (Courtesy Photo) Ulric Daron McKenzie, 34, of the 200 block of North 10th Street, was arrested without incident Friday morning in Bronx, New York by U.S. Marshals, the Lehigh County District Attorney's office announced. McKenzie is being detained pending extradition to Pennsylvania on charges of homicide, conspiracy to commit homicide and carrying a firearm without a license in connection to the killing of Chonce Acey. Prosecutors revealed Wednesday that Acey's shooting was during a drug deal, where Acey and another man attacked a third man and McKenzie opened fire. Sunday night, a driver flagged down police to report a man lying in the road, police said. Acey, of the 1400 block of Washington Street in Easton, was found by Allentown police with multiple gunshot wounds in a supermarket parking lot near 401 Tilghman St. Chonce Acey, 28, of Easton, was found Sunday night mortally wounded in Allentown, authorities say. (Courtesy photo) Acey was pronounced dead from his wounds at 9 p.m. Sunday at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Salisbury Township, the coroner's office said. His death was ruled a homicide. Authorities said surveillance cameras recorded the shooting. The video shows a white Chevrolet Avalanche parked in the lot, and two men fighting with a man inside the truck. The two attackers were Acey and another man only identified as D.D. in court records. The video shows Acey and D.D. running as a firearm is fired from inside the truck; officers found three .380 shell casings in the lot, police said. A witness told officers McKenzie shot Acey, and that McKenzie was injured in the fight, police said. After the shooting, the witness reported, McKenzie was dropped off at his apartment. Police searched McKenzie's apartment on Tuesday, but he was not there, authorities said. Police interviewed D.D., who said he went to the lot for the drug deal and was eventually involved in the fight with the backseat passenger. D.D. reported the passenger fired a handgun several times, and that he was grazed by a bullet on his torso. "Media speculation that the shooting of Acey may have been in retaliation for his appearance as a witness in a Northampton County criminal case is unfounded," Martin said in a news release. Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Ed Pawlowski Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski speaks at a ceremony for new police officers last year in Allentown City Hall. (lehighvalleylive.com file photo) Allentown City Council next week will take a vote of no confidence in the embattled mayor's ability to lead the city. The no-confidence vote is on the agenda for council's Wednesday night meeting. The city on Friday afternoon released the agenda and an accompanying resolution laying out the reasoning for the vote. "Allentown City Council concludes that the continued service of Mayor Ed Pawlowski as Mayor of the City of Allentown is a detriment to the well-being of the city, its residents and city employees," the resolution states. " ... Council concludes that (Pawlowski) is no longer an effective leader and can no longer carry out the duties of the Office of Mayor." Pawlowski is embroiled in a pay-to-play scandal. He has not been charged criminally but has been indirectly identified by the U.S. Attorney's Office as being involved in a scheme to solicit campaign donations in exchange for city contracts. Several players in the scheme have pleaded guilty to conspiracy and fraud charges in recent months. Among them are the city's former finance director, Garret Strathearn, and its former controller, Mary Ellen Koval. The latter entered her plea on Thursday. Court documents detailing the charges against the former city officials say public official No. 3 is at the center of the scheme. The documents say the man was elected to represent Allentown and also ran for state office; federal authorities specified he announced April 17 he was seeking a federal office. Pawlowski previously ran for Pennsylvania governor, then announced on April 17 he was running for Pat Toomey's U.S. Senate seat. Days after the FBI raided Allentown City Hall, Pawlowski announced he was suspending his 2016 run for that seat. "Court documents indicate someone only matching the description of (Pawlowski) was involved in these alleged actions violating numerous federal statutes in connection with the FBI investigation," the resolution says. Pawlowski has denied any wrongdoing. If approved, the resolution would only be symbolic. Council does not have the power to remove the mayor. Wednesday's meeting is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. in council chambers at Allentown City Hall, 435 Hamilton St. Nick Falsone may be reached at nfalsone@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @nickfalsone. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Martin Tower in Bethlehem Martin Tower, 1170 Eighth Ave. in Bethlehem, is seen in December 2011. (Lehighvalleylive.com file photo) ( ) A group of Bethlehem businesses and city residents are suing city council over its vote last month to rezone the Martin Tower site. The new zoning allows for the demolition of the 21-story tower and the creation of more retail space than previously allowed on the 53-acre site. In the lawsuit filed Wednesday in Lehigh County Court, attorney Marc Kaplin said the city failed to follow protocol on getting the zoning amendment reviewed by the planning commission, and that should void the rezoning. The commission never reviewed two versions of the draft amendment ordinance, according to the lawsuit. And the November version of the proposal was received by the planning commission short of the 30 days required before a public hearing, the lawsuit says. The commission received the November draft on Nov. 12. The public hearing was Dec. 8 and city council, without the commission's review, on Dec. 15 voted 6-1 to approve the rezoning of the property. The lawsuit was filed by the Hotel Bethlehem; Donegal Square; the Taylor Family Partnership; Rocco and Electra D'Amato; Steven and Barbara Diamond; Deni Thurman-Eyer; Robert Romeril; and Clint and Sonia Walker. All the businesses with the exception of the Taylor Family Partnership are in the city's downtown Main Street area; the Taylor family owns a Shell gas station and convenience store about a quarter-mile away from Martin Tower. The new zoning permits a mix of office, residential and 380,000 square feet of retail space on the site at Eighth and Eaton avenues. It also permits demolition of the tower, eliminating a requirement under a 2006 rezoning of the property that the landmark be rehabilitated and reused as part of the property's redevelopment. The suit mentions blogger Bernie O'Hare's reporting on correspondence between the administration and developers Lewis Ronca and Norton Herrick. He obtained it through a Right-to-Know request. City officials said the draft amendment was prepared without any assistance of the developers, and that the city had not seen any plans or materials from the developers. On Thursday, the departing chairman of the Bethlehem Planning Commission said the city's administration did not tell "the complete truth" about the controversial Martin Tower proposal. James Fiorentino said he believed, in light of the correspondence, that the city's administration knew about details of the rezoning and failed to disclose those details to planning commission members when asked. Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Lehigh University sign Lehigh University said it disclosed the incidents involving research hamsters to the federal government, which expressed satisfaction that the school took sufficient corrective actions last year. (lehighvalleylive.com file photo) An animal research watchdog group has filed a federal complaint over Lehigh University researchers' treatment of two hamsters, including one that was bagged in a freezer before it died. Stop Animal Exploitation Now filed the complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and seeks that Lehigh be fined the maximum $10,000 for two incidents from last year. Lehigh failed to properly impanel a review committee to go over what happened and it should have prohibited the facility director from ever working with animals again, said Michael A. Budkie, SAEN's executive director. Budkie said in the first incident last March, a hamster was deprived of food or water for 36 hours. The next month, researchers euthanized a hamster using carbon dioxide and placed it in a plastic bag in a freezer. The animal was later found outside the bag, he said. "Their own information says that they could tell the animal awakened in the freezer, got out of the bag and crawled around, trying to get out," Budkie said. "I can't imagine anything more horrible than that." Lehigh disclosed the incidents on its own to the National Institutes of Health in a July letter from Alan Snyder, Lehigh's vice president and associate provost for research and graduate studies. University spokeswoman Lauren Weaver said in a statement that the letter "was provided per Lehigh's commitment to self-reporting to federal officials" with the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW). "OLAW expressed satisfaction with the corrective actions regarding these incidents," Weaver said. "Lehigh University remains committed to protecting the safety, health and welfare of all animals." Neither Lehigh nor the federal records detailed what research the hamsters were used for. Lehigh barred two people involved in the incidents from its animal research facility, but Budkie said the university's response wasn't sufficient. The facility director -- that person is not identified in the documents -- also served as a principal investigator and chairman of the internal review panel, although he was eventually removed from heading the review board. "We feel this person ought to be removed and prevented from working with animals, period," said Budkie, who is based in the Cincinnati, Ohio, area. "They've obviously demonstrated a willingness to cover up the incident." Budkie said the Lehigh incidents and SAEN's work highlight flaws within the federal government's oversight and responses. He said a memo of understanding between the NIH and U.S. Department of Agriculture calls for the sharing of information. The Department of Agriculture is the regulatory agency that enforces federal laws that protect research animals, but hasn't moved to do that in dozens of cases over the last two years until prodded by SAEN, Budkie said. He said animal research should be eliminated at Lehigh and other research facilities entirely. Taxpayers pay about $14 billion a year to the government to fund such work, he said. "The use of animals in research is old science and we would be better served if they moved to the 21st century and concentrated on cutting-edge technology that doesn't involve animals," he said. SAEN learned of the Lehigh infractions through its systematic review of registered animal research facilities in the U.S., Budkie said. Jim Deegan may be reached at jdeegan@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @jim_deegan. Find lehighvalleylive on Facebook. A 36-year-old Maryland man suffered minor injuries last month after causing a crash on Route 33 in Bethlehem Township that led to the man's 2000 Ford F-150 flipping up and then down an embankment, Pennsylvania Stare Police report. Paul E. Oakes, of Elkton, was traveling south at 12:47 p.m. Dec. 11 in the left lane when he crossed into the right lane, with the passenger side front portion of the pickup striking the driver's side rear portion of a 2005 GMC truck driven by Samuel J. Borneman, 33, of Barto, Pennsylvania, police said. Oakes' pickup left the side of the highway, went up an embankment, flipped onto its roof before returning to its wheels as it descended, police said. Oakes was taken for treatment of minor injuries to St. Luke's University Hospital in Fountain Hill, police said. Borneman was not hurt, police said. Oakes was cited with a traffic violation involving failure to maintain his lane, police said. Drug paraphernalia was found in Oakes' truck and he was "showing signs of being under the influence," police said. The investigation is continuing, police said. Bethlehem Township emergency medical and firefighting personnel assisted at the scene, police said. The news release doesn't say why it was sent out more than a month after the crash. Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem is seen in June 2013 on South Side Bethlehem. In the foreground is an ore crane that had been used by the former Bethlehem Steel Corp., prior to the company's bankruptcy and site's redevelopment fueled, in part, by the casino's opening. (Lehighvalleylive.com file photo) A New York City man was arrested late Wednesday night, after yelling at security at Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem and spitting in the face of a Bethlehem paramedic, court records say. Edwardo Fransicooltaro (Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com) The incident was at least the third since around the New Year's holiday in which security staff at the 24-hour casino in Bethlehem were verbally abused, court records say. Edwardo Fransicooltaro, 49, had been permanently barred from the Sands on Feb. 1, 2014, due to an altercation, Bethlehem police wrote in court records. Police then responded about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday to reports of him being drunk and disorderly, including yelling at Sands security and causing a scene that drew onlookers, records say. Fransicooltaro was taken to Bethlehem police headquarters, where police determined he was drunk to the point that medical attention was required, records say. He allegedly spit twice into the face of a female paramedic as he was being loaded into an ambulance. He was arraigned Thursday night before District Judge Richard Yetter III on charges of aggravated harassment by a prisoner, defiant trespass, public drunkenness and disorderly conduct. He was sent to Northampton County Prison in lieu of $20,000 bail, with a preliminary hearing tentatively scheduled Jan. 22 before District Judge Joseph Barner in Bethlehem. In the previous incidents: Salbado Orantes (Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com) Salbado Orantes, 39, also of New York City, was caught on surveillance about 10 p.m. Dec. 30 urinating outside the Sands' bus garage "where he could easily be seen by the crowd of people standing in the garage," Bethlehem police wrote in court records. Giving police a false name, Orantes "appeared agitated and continued to use obscene language at police and Sands security throughout the encounter," police said. A breath test showed his blood-alcohol content to be 0.236; penalties begin for most adults at 0.08. Orantes was arraigned before District Judge Daniel Corpora on charges of public drunkenness, disorderly conduct and false identification to law enforcement. He was sent to Northampton County Prison in lieu of $1,000 bail, and remained incarcerated Friday, records say. He waived a preliminary hearing Thursday on the charges and is scheduled for formal arraignment March 17 in county court. Lydia I. Drummond (Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com) About 3:30 a.m. Jan. 1, 29-year-old Lydia I. Drummond, of the 1100 block of Liberty Street in Allentown, refused orders to leave the casino because she was drunk and yelled and screamed at security until police arrived, records say. While being escorted to a patrol vehicle, she allegedly spit into the face of a city police officer. Drummond was arraigned, also before Corpora, on charges of aggravated assault, public drunkenness and disorderly conduct and sent to Northampton County Prison in lieu of $5,000 bail. She faced a preliminary hearing tentatively scheduled Friday before Barner, the outcome of which was not immediately available. Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Matthew Spink and John Hoffman.jpg Matthew Spink, left, who said he is a police officer in Wayne County, Pennsylvania, and his brother John Hoffman were charged Friday in a Nazareth burglary. (Courtesy photos | For lehighvalleylive.com) A Wayne County, Pennsylvania, police officer was arrested overnight and charged in a Nazareth burglary, borough police report in court papers. Matthew Conrad Spink, of the first block of Maple Street in Nazareth, identified himself to borough officers responding to the apartment complex burglary as a Lehigh County, Wayne County, officer doing undercover work, borough police said. Spink said he'd been an officer for seven months, borough police said. And while the police chief in the Wayne County township didn't immediately return a reporter's phone message on Friday morning, the county's 911 coordinator confirmed there is a person of that name on the township force. Borough police, as well, confirmed Spink's identity as a police officer, Chief Thomas Trachta said. Spink, 23, told a borough officer just after midnight that he received a call from a woman describing suspicious captivity at 176 S. Green St., police said. He did not identify the woman, police said. Spink entered the apartment complex through a second-floor balcony door, then let in his brother John Brandon Hoffman, 32, of the same address, police said. The pair went into several unoccupied apartments before picking the lock of an occupied apartment, police said. Spink identified himself and his brother to the residents as undercover police officers who were responding to a call at that location, police said. There were no 911 calls at that address before borough officers were requested, police said. Spink was recognized by one of the residents as a former student of hers, police said. He remained in the apartment and directed his brother "to go and search other apartments," police said. When borough police arrived, Spink came outside and identified himself as a Lehigh Township, Wayne County, police officer, court papers say. Spink tried to convince borough officers that he was at the apartment complex on official business, police said. He showed an officer that he got into the building by climbing up on an outside air conditioning unit and grabbing the porch railing of an unoccupied apartment, police said. "The defendant is not authorized to be in or resides at 176 S. Green St." and "he is not authorized to act as an undercover police officer in the Borough of Nazareth," police say in court papers. Spink also allegedly didn't tell borough police ahead of time he was planning to enter apartments there. While walking around the complex with officers, Spink, who appeared to have been drinking and smelled of alcohol, "through casual conversation" identified Hoffman, police said. Hoffman was gone by that point, but police said they found him in front of his home and he resisted after police told him he was under arrest. He also smelled of alcohol, police said. Victims later identified Hoffman as being present in the apartment, police said. Spink was arraigned at 7:45 a.m. Friday before on-call District Judge Richard Yetter III on charges of burglary, conspiracy to commit burglary, trespassing and criminal mischief, court papers say. Bail was set at 10 percent of $25,000 and Spink was not in Northampton County Prison later Friday morning, a Department of Corrections employee confirmed. A preliminary hearing is tentatively scheduled 9 a.m. Jan. 22 in District Judge John Capobianco's Nazareth court. Hoffman was arraigned before Yetter on the same four charges, in addition to a count of resisting arrest, court papers say. He was sent to prison in lieu of $25,000 bail, with no 10 percent option. He remained jailed later Friday morning. His preliminary hearing is tentatively set for the same time and place as his brother's. Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. TRENTON -- An investigation into a set of a Trenton Bloods gang seized $1.3 million in drugs over two years and culminated Wednesday with the arrests of 10 alleged high-level Sex Money Murder gangsters in raids conducted in two states, authorities announced Friday. Trenton Police Director Ernest Parrey during a morning conference said federal, state, county and local law enforcement have made more than 60 arrests, and seized 2.8 kilos of heroin, 2.3 kilos of cocaine, 1 kilo of crack since neighborhood complaints in the Southard Street area sparked the investigation in 2014. Parrey said the street value of the drugs seized through the investigation topped $1.3 million. Authorities said the Williams-led effort supplied drugs to other central New Jersey markets, as well as towns in the Pocono region of Pa. "This was truly a full-court press," Parrey said. "But it is only the beginning.The lawlessness in Trenton will not be tolerated." The investigation culminated in 10 raids on Wednesday - seven in Trenton and one each in Lawrence, Hamilton and Morrisvile, Pa., when police arrested 10 people - including a former alleged leader of the Sex Money Murder set, Parrey said. Police also seized 1,282 grams of cocaine, 100 grams of crack cocaine, 13 Oxycodone tablets, a double-barrel shotgun, a semi-automatic handgun, $5,069 in cash and five cars - a 2004 Lexis, 2000 Audi, 2007 Mercedes Benz, 2005 BMW and a 2006 Chevrolet Impala, Parrey said. "This was a massive investigative undertaking,'' acting Mercer County Prosecutor Angelo Onofri said. "It represents the remarkable good that can be accomplished when all levels of law enforcement join together.'' Arrested Wednesday were: Bobby J. Williams, 35; Khalfini Richardson, 31; Capitol Wellons, 30; William Enmond, 52; Mark Uffer Johnson, 54; Bryant Little, 53; Hedy Campbell, 51, Jermaine McKinney, 33; Tyron Shawn Robbins, 48, Nattia Abrams, 42. Williams, who has Sex Money Murder ties and served four years in prison for drug dealing in 2008, was arrested on the first block of Southard Street, along with Richardson, Wellons, Enmond, Johnson, Little, Campbell and McKinney. All were charged with weapons offenses as well as drug possession and distribution offenses except McKinney, who was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia, police said. Robbins and Abrams were arrested on the 100 block of Carroll Street, police said. Robbins was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia. Abrams was charged with outstanding warrants. No bail information was immediately available Friday. Keith Brown may be reached at kbrown@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @KBrownTrenton. Find The Times of Trenton on Facebook. A Nazareth area woman injured last week in a crash with a tractor-trailer died of her injuries Thursday afternoon, the Lehigh County Coroner's Office announced. Jessica Yoo (Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com) Jessica Yoo was pronounced dead at 2 p.m. at St. Luke's University Hospital, Fountain Hill. The cause was blunt-force head injuries, and her death was ruled an accident, the coroner's office said. She was 31. Yoo, of Bushkill Township, was the driver of a car that crashed about 8:58 p.m. Jan. 7 into the trailer of a tractor-trailer as the rig was pulling out of Schall's Brakes and Repairs at 7710-16 Beth-Bath Pike (Route 512) in East Allen Township. Responders cut Yoo free from the wreckage and rushed her to St. Luke's. Yoo, whose maiden name was Mariano, was married to Keaton Yoo, said her mother, Jodi Mariano. She worked with her family at J.F. Reichel Funeral Home in Nazareth, Mariano said, declining further comment. The truck driver in last week's crash, 41-year-old Joshua Absolom Shaw, of Blakeslee, Pennsylvania, was uninjured. Pennsylvania State Police and the coroner's office are investigating the crash, according to Thursday's announcement. Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. northampton county courthouse The Northampton County Courthouse, 669 Washington St., Easton. (lehighvalleylive.com file photo) For the first time in county history, a Northampton County judge will allow a sexual abuse expert to testify for prosecutors during a child rape trial. But psychologist Veronique Valliere will need to provide more details about her testimony for defense attorney Philip Lauer to review. Valliere will be called to testify against Joseph Gerhart, 49, of Allentown. He is accused of raping two children at a home in Upper Mount Bethel Township between 2003 and 2011. The children, a male and a female, were between the ages of five and 11 when the alleged crimes occurred, according to court records. Gerhart faces 12 charges. Assistant District Attorney Anthony Casola wants to take advantage of a precedent-setting Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision that allows testimony from experts on why it takes some child rape victims years to report their abuse to authorities. Lauer sought to block the testimony. Northampton County Judge Paula Roscioli will allow Valliere to testify, but she will need to supplement her vague report with more details about her testimony. Her decision was filed Thursday. She will need to define and explain "counterintuitive behavior" in child rape victims. In other words, it seems counterintuitive to most jurors that victims of child rape fail to fight back, fail to stop the abuse and fail to report it. She needs to give more information to back up her opinion that child rapists often groom their victims to make it easier to abuse them, and she'll need to provide more detail on her testimony about the effect sexual abuse can have on a victim's cognitive, emotional and psychological functioning. The trial is scheduled for Feb. 1. Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook. New Jersey State Police are requesting help identifying the vehicle that struck and killed a 52-year-old pedestrian last week on Route 46 in Knowlton Township. Several photos of scuffed, black pieces of the vehicle were posted Friday on the agency's Facebook page, along with a plea for information. "Please share! Any information is appreciated!" the state police say in the Facebook post, adding the hashtag #ItTakesAVillage. Emmet Myers Jr., of Knowlton, on Jan. 6 was walking east on the shoulder of Route 46 when he was struck near mile post 2.9, according to state police. The crash was reported at 1:18 a.m., and Myers was pronounced dead at the scene. State police ask anyone with information on the crash to contact Hope barracks detective bureau at 908-459-5098. Tips can be offered anonymously. State Police Seeks Public's Assistance with Fatal Hit-and-Run Pedestrian CrashThe New Jersey State Police is seeking... Posted by New Jersey State Police on Friday, January 15, 2016 Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @type2supernovak. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Whenever a government loses control of the situation there has to be a scapegoat, and on the issue of flooding its not Sir Philip Dilley the Environment Agency chairman who resigned on Monday. After his PR blunder of refusing to interrupt his holiday to visit the flooded areas he gave up his 100k position on the grounds that what had started out as a part-time non-executive post was now looking suspiciously like actual work. No, this winters devastating floods we are asked to believe, werent so much the result of government failings, but of an over concern for the protection of wildlife! If we have to choose between people and wildlife, we will always, of course, choose people, Sir James Bevan Chief Exec of the Environment Agency told the BBC at the turn of the year. Like me, you may have been puzzled by this message and couldnt quite see its relevance to what was happening across the North on that day, and the plot thickened to Bisto consistency a few days later when Liz Truss announced in a speech at the Oxford Farming Conference that Defra will be allowing farmers to dredge ditches without seeking permission from the Environment Agency because they know their land best. Her own experts say that dredging is useful for improving navigation and land drainage, but has little value in flood prevention. So again, what was going on? Following these perplexing pronouncements, matters finally became clear on Tuesday, when the Prime Minister attended a meeting of the Liaison Committee, a commons committee that takes evidence from the Prime Minister on matters of public policy. On this occasion the PM answered questions on a range of issues including the recent flooding. Towards the end of proceedings Mr Cameron trotted out a well-rehearsed anecdote concerning an epiphany for him. His road to Damascus moment came in the village of Kelmscott in his constituency some time ago when he visited a site where farmers were being sued by the Environment Agency for dredging without permission thereby allegedly destroying the habitat of the local water voles. At that moment, two water voles appeared on the river bank, almost in conversation, and in my mind, at that moment, the argument was settled, he said. Not exactly an anecdote that Peter Ustinov would be proud of but good enough to elicit polite laughter from his fans. But what was the point of the story? How in the PMs mind had the argument been settled? My verdict is that the PM had concluded that there was no case to answer since two water voles had survived the dredging thereby demonstrating that nature is resilient and requires no special protection. In that moment, nature conservation was dismissed as so much red tape. The Yorkshire Post a day later re-trumpeted the thoughts of our dear leader, Britain needs an attitudinal change on the issue of flood protection, which shifts the focus away from protecting nature and towards protecting property, Prime Minister David Cameron has said, A consistent but patently false message orchestrated across government and the media. So in a PR sleight of hand, a veritable legerdemain, the PM has deflected the argument away from accusations of upland mismanagement of water catchment areas by the Environment Agency, farmers and grouse shooting landowners on to tree-hugging sentimental conservationists and a pair of homeless water voles. * Phil Aisthorpe has been a Lib Dem member since September 2015 having previously been a life-long Labour supporter. In a previous life, Phil worked as an IT planning manager and business strategy manager with a leading UK financial services organisation. Almost all Liberal Democrats agree on the EU. A remarkably high number give the same reason for their support Peace. Securing peace was the primary goal of the Founding Fathers of the European Union. Making war unthinkable and impossible through economic integration and prosperity were the means to the end. Peace and Prosperity. The debate so far has focused on the economic arguments. After years of political debate and endless studies its no surprise that the impact on the economy and our jobs is the top concern of most voters. But polling shows peace is a decisive argument in favour of remaining in the EU. It does not rate as highly and is mentioned only by those who are already supporters and some therefore draw the conclusion it is not useful to talk about it. I disagree. I conclude the opposite that it has not been talked about enough! The facts are indisputable we have had more than seventy years of peace unprecedented in European history despite our common Christian teaching of Love thy Neighbour. The Leavers try to dismiss the claim by saying it is not the EU but NATO that keeps the peace but this is wrong. NATO was powerless to stop the military junta in Greece deposing Makarios in Cyprus which provoked the Turkish invasion to prevent the imminent ethnic cleansing of the island. It is the UN that now patrols the border not NATO. It was the European Union that brought Greece along the path to democracy and membership when the junta was itself deposed and it was the EU that offered Turkey a privileged partnership and a customs union to promote trade. Under Franco, the military dictator of Spain the border with Gibraltar had been closed for years. Even water supplies were cut off. After he died Spain too was brought along the path of democracy to EU membership. But before being admitted the objections of the nationalists had to be overcome. Now 10,000 people cross the border every day to work in a Gibraltar transformed from naval base and dockyard to a prosperous economy built on tourism and financial services. The EU has provided billions of Euros to implement the Good Friday Agreement, bringing peace not just to Ireland but London, Guildford and Warrington too. It could only be an aristocratic English Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and MP for Chipping Barnet that could seriously think it was in Britains best interests to leave the European Union and hats off to Catherine Bearder for outing her and calling for Theresa Villiers resignation. It is only an English MP and Leader of the House of Commons, Chris Grayling that could honestly believe it would be disastrous for Britain to stay in the European Union. Right-wing nationalists are belligerent and sow discord. We need to call them out, to name and shame. We must make peace the argument for remaining in. We must remind every voter why the EU was started and continues to be important. We know this a message which will inspire and motivate our members so lets go out and shout about it. * Mike Biden is an Executive ordinary member in Winchester. A lifelong supporter of the Liberals, he has become an activist since his retirement. His career saw him in senior corporate positions in Sales & Marketing and as a Chief Executive. This week, were featuring the maiden speeches of our newest Lib Dem lords. This one is still warm from the press. Sharon Bowles only made it on Wednesday. As part of the Strathclyde Review, she drew on her experience in the European Parliament when it came to dealing with secondary legislation: My Lords, I rise for the first time, deeply conscious of the honour that it is to serve in your Lordships House. I am grateful for the kind way in which noble Lords have received me, for the friendliness of all staff and for the elegant and discreet way in which the attendants and doorkeepers have steered me from uncertain manoeuvres. I thank the noble Lords who introduced me, my noble friends Lord McNally and Lady Falkner of Margravine, and all those who have enriched my life and learning, without whom I would not be here. I hope to contribute to various deliberations drawing upon my experience from both strands of my career. The first strand was that of scientist, engineer and patent attorney for over 25 years, running a professional business and immersed in leading-edge technology. The second strand was nine years in the European Parliament, culminating in five years as chair of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, facing a vast and profound agenda due to the financial and eurozone crisis. Many noble Lords have long-standing experience of the conventions of your Lordships House, so I speak now with great respect. Nonetheless, secondary or delegated legislation exists in other legislatures and I have been deeply involved in the establishment and scrutiny of European secondary legislation, while keeping a watchful eye on that of the United States. My somewhat unoriginal observation is that secondary legislation works well until you hit a problem: then it works rather badly and does not fail-safe. Financial services legislation is highly delegated in most countries and Europe now has delegated Acts and regulatory technical standards, the latter also involving the European supervisory authorities. Scrutiny is by the European Parliament and the Council of member states; each can veto independently, but not amend. From that well-populated setting, and with your Lordships indulgence, I will elaborate three experiences that resonate with the wider debate around delegated legislation. The first is that of overarching constraint. Europe has the ECJs Meroni constraint, which limits delegation of discretionary power. Despite debate, constraint has had useful benefits. It reduces the likelihood of secondary legislation doing extraordinarily large or unexpected things. But perhaps even more importantly, it fosters vigilance on how to frame the delegated power with objective, legislation-specific guidance: an important aid for transparency, benefiting individuals and businesses as well. In the context of the review of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, I venture that greater vigilance over the framing of delegated power is a natural response to other curtailments, even if the drafting of that guidance will rarely seem as exciting as other amendments or may even upset the odd Sir Humphrey. The second experience is the inability to amend. On the technical standards for the European Markets Infrastructure Regulation, EMIR, a committee stage motion to reject was carried. Only a couple of parts in a complex, interconnected proposal were wrong, but they were important parts affecting small and medium-sized business, and it also went against the grain of prior understandings. A subsequent plenary rejection would have meant deadlines missed and various embarrassments to be felt all round, so a clarifying interpretation was obtained from the European Commission and, although it was not as good as proper correction, the fact is that without corrective opportunity, secondary legislation risks being, if not second-rate, at least second-best legislation. I also extracted a commitment to consultation for future proceedingseffectively, a correction in advance opportunitybut it is still thought that limited corrective amendment has a place. The third experience is of a scrutinising Chamber feeling conflicted, which also came to light in our EMIR adventure. The Council privately agreed about the identified problems, but it emerged that various member states were embarrassed to vote against technical standards that had been signed off by their national regulatory authoritieswhich is a story in itself. However, they were glad that the European Parliament could take responsibility for the remedy. Of course, the constructs are different, but this shows the usefulness of independent veto powers for separate Chambers. Europe has travelled in the direction of fuller framing of delegated power and, in contrast, I cannot disguise consternation about the extent and scope of some of our delegated legislation. What I have read and heard in your Lordships House on this subject, as in all things, is thoughtful and has raised similar remedies to those that I favour. I do not see a single silver bullet, but constraint, guidance and corrective amendments are tools for avoiding secondary legislation becoming second-best. Todays publication of the Transgender Equality Report by the Commons Women and Equality Committee should lead to some big improvements to services and better rights for transgender people. It has some useful recommendations around health services ensuring, for example, that GPs have sufficient training in how they should treat transgender people. The Committee certainly seems to have listened to many of the concerns put to them. Their approach to the spousal veto question was more cautious than I would have liked. They basically said that it needed more consideration but didnt recommend doing away with it, even though they accepted that a spouse could stand in the way of a transgender person getting their legal recognition. However, if the law is changed to abolish that cumbersome process, as the Committee. This is a big step forward: In place of the present medicalised, quasi-judicial application process, an administrative process must be developed, centred on the wishes of the individual applicant, rather than on intensive analysis by doctors and lawyers. One of the things I thought was most important is their recommendations around the treatment of young people who identify as transgender, especially around the prescription of puberty blockers. Its important that young people can get them in time to stop their bodies developing in a way that causes them huge distress. The Committee understood that: There is a clear and strong case that delaying treatment risks more harm than providing it. The treatment involved is primarily reversible, and the seriously dangerous consequences of not giving this treatment, including self-harming and suicide, are clearly well attested. (Paragraph 252) 49.Accordingly, we recommend that, in the current review of the service specification and protocol for the Gender Identity Development Service, consideration be given to reducing the amount of time required for the assessment that service-users must undergo before puberty-blockers and cross-sex hormones can be prescribed. My worry is that there is such a long wait before children can even be seen, particularly in Scotland. Waiting lists at the Sandyford Clinic in Glasgow, Scotlands only clinic for gender-variant children and adolescents, are now standing at one year. Imagine what thats like if your 10 year old child has told you that they are a different gender. They are approaching the point where their bodies are changing and if they have to wait for such a long time to even be seen, that process may advance to the point where it does cause significant harm. Liberal Democrats have been reacting to the publication of the report. Tim Farron said: It is great to see the Committee has endorsed many of the recommendations on which Liberal Democrats have campaigned for many years. There is a lot of work left to do in this area to ensure that Britain truly is a free and equal society but this report marks progress. I am calling on the Government to work with the trans and non-binary community and all others to immediately implement the recommendations of the report. Equalities spokesperson Meral Hussein-Ece said: I welcome the considerable work the Committee has devoted to this positive report. I would however have liked to have seen more definitive recommendations on a number of issues that affect trans individuals for example the spousal veto. I sincerely hope the Government will now build on the great work the Liberal Democrats advanced on this agenda in Coalition. And LGBT+ Liberal Democrats gave a cautious welcome to the Report: LGBT+ Liberal Democrats chair Adrian Hyyrylainen-Trett said I welcome the commitment to review and continue the excellent work started out by LibDem former Minister Baroness Lynne Featherstone in her time as Minister for Equalities. We must not be complacent however, as much work remains to ensure the government acts on the recommendations of the report. Many of the proposed reforms in the report are topics that Liberal Democrats have campaigned on for many years, including allowing X Gender Markers on passports and removing medical obstacles when obtaining Legal Gender Recognition. I hope that the government can also extend the work done here and look further at the issues affecting non-binary and intersex people. Trans former parliamentary candidate Zoe OConnell added: Todays report is another step closer to equality for trans people, and I hope that the government will act swiftly both to resolve the breaches of the NHSs legal obligations on waiting times and to bring forward legislation on other issues without undue delay. I am however disappointed that the committee has remained timid in a number of areas, in particular failing to fully recognise the harms caused by the Spousal Veto and not endorsing the more progressive informed consent model of treatment. LGBT+ Liberal Democrats will continue to campaign for reform in these and other areas, in line with party policy. * Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings Last month I travelled with the Liberal Democrat International Office to visit our liberal colleagues, the Republican Party of Georgia (RPG), in Tbilisi nestled between Russia and Turkey. The occasion was the Republican Partys bi-annual Party Congress, and the Liberal Democrats had been invited to send a speaker for their discussions on the economy. Politics in Georgia is a difficult to sum up in a few words. It is East meets West both politically and geographically; a country with a strong European identity but with Soviet overhangs. The Patriarch can condemn homosexuality and hold an open-air mass for the EU in the same week. The RPG are a junior party in the Georgian Dream coalition government, with relatively few seats but a good chunk of influence. The rest of Georgian Dream leans a bit more populist and at times socially conservative. Fellow liberals the Free Democrats fell out of the coalition in 2014 in a bitter and personal dispute that ended in dubious corruption charges, while former governing party the UNM remain tainted by their corruption and abuses of power during their final term. And in the wings perhaps lies the spectre of pro-Russian political elements often feared, but rarely seen. The party congress was quite the event with around 1000 attendees not bad for a party with a total membership of perhaps 8000. The use of a camera crane to catch swooping shots of the crowds singing the national anthem certainly got my attention. But to get attention was a bit harder, as questions and comments were taken merely by the virtue of sitting at the front. The congress did start with someone attempting to suspend the standing orders (proving that certain aspects of liberalism are truly global). I was struck by the honesty with which the party chair addressed the issue of coalition admitting to a dilution of the partys image and the failure to distinguish from other, less liberal parties; solutions are obviously harder to find, but theres a clear contrast to our internal messaging while in coalition. The Republicans face a dilemma well known by many smaller parties in coalition. To remain in the coalition is to further weaken your independent identity; to leave is to risk rejection by the electorate. Much hinges on their internal power within the coalition as a well organised and competent party in an environment of rather amateurish politicians they can make the argument for positions beyond their meagre polling results. Electoral success for the continued coalition seems the most likely outcome, even as support for Georgian Dream drops although dont rule out a return to government for the Free Democrats either. Our International Office is working with the RPG to support their development of an election strategy for 2016, along with other international partners including the Dutch party VVD. With threats to liberalism looming large all across the world, it is heartening to see liberal parties working together. * Robbie Simpson is a PhD student based in Glasgow and was the Liberal Democrat candidate in Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill in May 2015 Stacy London Talks Midlife Hair Care and Menopause The star of What Not to Wear wants women to be their best selves, no matter how old they are. Jan 17, 2016, 5 AM This booklet stamp from Sweden pictures a newly hatched maiasaura, based on a reconstruction of a fossil found in the United States. A booklet of 10 stamps with five designs marks the 100th anniversary of the Swedish Museum of Natural History at its current location. This high-denomination coil stamp featuring a white-tailed eagle was designed and engraved by Lars Sjooblom. The design is based on an 1861 painting by Ferdinand von Wright. By Denise McCarty A new stamp from Sweden has a United States connection. It shows a reconstruction of a 75-million-year-old fossil found in the United States, according to the press release from Postnord, the company established in 2009 through the merger of Swedens Posten AB and Post Danmark. The stamp is one of five in a booklet of 10 commemorating 100 years of the Swedish Museum of Natural History in its present location at Frescati in northern Stockholm. The building was designed by Swedish architect Axel Anderberg. The booklet was issued Jan. 14. Released at the same time was a stamp picturing a white-tailed eagle and the Europa Think Green stamp. Connect with Linn's Stamp News: Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Keep up with us on Instagram All seven stamps focus on nature and the environment. Britt-Inger Hahne, head of stamps at Postnord, said, A theme celebrating nature and the environment seemed like a good start to 2016. Sustainability and environmental issues are high on our agenda, both for Postnord as a company and Sweden as a country. The Swedish Museum of Natural History stamps are nondenominated. The inscription brev on each stamp indicates that it pays the basic domestic letter rate (7 kronor). The dinosaur stamp is the second in the booklet of 10. It pictures a newly hatched maiasaura in the foreground with a royal fern (Osmunda regalis) in the background. Postnord said that this plant has more or less remained the same since dinosaurs roamed the Earth. The press release did not provide any additional details about where the fossil was found, but maiasaura, which means good mother lizard is Montanas state fossil and found only there. The website of State Symbols USA said: Fossil skeletons of this dinosaur have been found with nests of eggshells and hatchlings, proving for the first time that some dinosaurs lived in herds and fed and raised their offspring. So far fossil remains of this Late Cretaceous dinosaur have been found only in Montana. The first stamp in the booklet pictures the fetus of a quagga (Equus quagga Quagga), an extinct subspecies of the plains zebra. Swedish naturalist Anders Sparrman brought this fetus back from South Africa in 1775. The stamp also pictures the museums dome. Illustrated on the third stamp in the booklet is an 80-million-year-old flower fossil (Silvianthemum suecicum), discovered in Skane, Sweden, and magnified pollen grains from a dandelion, masur birch and amaranth. The next design depicts a predaceous diving beetle (Hydroporus figuratus) in the foreground and a diatom in the background. This beetle was first described in 1826 by Swedish entomologist Leonard Gyllenhaal. The final stamp represents the work of Swedish Museum of Natural History researchers in mapping the entire heritage of the mammoth. Eva Wilsson designed the stamps, and Lars Sjooblom and Piotra Naszarkowski engraved the designs. Sjooblom also designed and engraved the White-tailed Eagle stamp. The design is based on the 1861 painting White-tailed Eagle Devouring its Prey by Ferdinand von Wright. The 50kr denomination is to pay the postage on packages. Postnord reports that it is the first in a series of Bird stamps created to meet the needs of online merchandisers. The stamp was printed by a combination of intaglio and offset in coils of 100. Also issued in coils of 100 was the 14kr Europa stamp for international letters weighing up to 50 grams or domestic letters up to 100 grams. All of this years Europa stamps are to share a common design created by Doxia Sergidou of Cyprus representing the theme Think Green. For ordering information, visit the Postnord site. Information is also available from Sweden Stamp Agency in North America, 1 Unicover Center, Cheyenne, WY 82008-0001. Jan 14, 2016, 4 PM Two of the new stamps issued by China in January show illustrations of cheerful monkeys to celebrate the coming Year of the Monkey. One stamp shows a parent monkey with two children, an apparent nod to a recent revision in Chinas one-child policy. By Michael Baadke China issued three different stamps in January welcoming the new year and recognizing the Year of the Monkey as identified in the traditional Chinese zodiac. Something thats caught the attention of collectors and international news reporters, however, is the fact that one of the stamps portrays an adult monkey holding two baby monkeys who are each giving the adult a kiss on the cheek. A CNN news article by Jessie Jiang and Pamela Boykoff published Jan. 6 points out that the new stamp comes only days after the country officially ended its decades-old one-child policy. China enacted restrictions on family size in 1980, generally limiting families to a single child in an effort to curb the nations population growth. Exemptions allowing two children under certain circumstances were enacted a few years later, and expanded earlier in this century. Chinas Xinhua news agency reported recently that a revised policy announced by the Communist Party of China will allow all couples to have two children effective Jan. 1. Xinhua reported Oct. 29 that according to an issued communique, The change of policy is intended to balance population development and address the challenge of an ageing population. In an announcement for its new Year of the Monkey stamps, China Post broached the subject of family with regard to the new two-child stamp, stating: One of the stamps depicted a cute monkey holding a peach with one hand whilst clinging to a tree branch, signifying the delivery of luck. Meanwhile, the other was covered with an adult monkey holding two babies by the hand, which conveys publics expectations regarding family harmony and longevity. The Year of the Monkey stamp designs were created by artist Huang Yongyu and engraved by Zhao Chuan and Ma Rong. The stamps were printed by Beijing Stamp Factory. Xinhua reported that the 92-year-old Huang, a Chinese master painter, previously designed the sought-after 8-fen Golden Monkey stamp issued Feb. 15, 1980 (Scott 1586). The web portal China.com reported Jan. 7 that the stamp artist conceived of the design with the new second child policy in mind. The new 1.20-yuan stamps were issued Jan. 5 in panes of 16 each, and are also found in a folded pane of 10 consisting of five stamps of each design. The Year of the Monkey begins this year on Feb. 8. A New Years Greetings stamp issued by China Jan. 10 also features two children smiling human children enjoying fireworks to welcome the new year. Additional fireworks light up the night sky behind them. This Greetings stamp is also denominated 1.20 yuan. It was issued in a pane of 20, and in a pane of eight consisting of two blocks of four stamps with decorated selvage showing children holding strings of firecrackers. The designer of the New Years Greetings issue is Wu Guanying. Additional information about Chinas new stamps can be found on the China Post website, or by contacting China Post, No. 3 Financial Street, Xicheng District, Beijing, China. Information is also available from China Stamp Agency in North America, 1 Unicover Center, Cheyenne, WY 82008-0001. We and our partners use cookies to Store and/or access information on a device. We and our partners use data for Personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement, audience insights and product development. An example of data being processed may be a unique identifier stored in a cookie. Some of our partners may process your data as a part of their legitimate business interest without asking for consent. To view the purposes they believe they have legitimate interest for, or to object to this data processing use the vendor list link below. The consent submitted will only be used for data processing originating from this website. If you would like to change your settings or withdraw consent at any time, the link to do so is in our privacy policy accessible from our home page. The dinosaur model is larger than the exhibition area, so it welcomes guests to the museum at the elevators, as they enter the hall. An incredibly long-necked dinosaur, with leg bones the size of couches, is so massive that is has invaded not one, but two rooms at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City. The enormous titanosaur an herbivorous beast that weighed 70 tons (64 metric tons) when alive some 100 million years ago is the newest permanent exhibit to join the museum. It measures 122 feet (37 meters) long, almost the length of three school buses. The behemoth is so large it dwarfs the museum's famous model of the blue whale by nearly 30 feet (9 m). But the whale wins in heft; in real life, blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) weigh up to 200 tons (180 metric tons), almost three times as much as the titanosaur, museum researchers said. [See Photos of the Titanosaur Reconstruction] The titanosaur dates to the Cretaceous period, but the dinosaur's modern story began in 2012. That's when a rancher in southern Argentina stopped by the Museum of Paleontology Egidio Feruglio in Argentina to disclose that he had found fossils on his land. In 2014, paleontologists visited the desert site by the farm of La Flecha and found a treasure trove of dinosaur remains. A dinosaur uncovered in the desert outside La Flecha in southern Argentina now has a cast on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. (Image credit: Copyright Alejandro Otero) After 18 months of excavations, the researchers uncovered 223 fossilized bones from six individual titanosaur dinosaurs, including an 8-foot-tall (2.4 m) femur, or thighbone. The femur's unique shape and size suggest that the titanosaur is a new species and one of the largest dinosaurs ever uncovered, researchers told journalists today (Jan. 14). One of the dig's leaders, Diego Pol, earned his doctorate at a joint program between Columbia University in New York and the AMNH, in the lab of Mark Norell, the museum chair of paleontology. Soon after the dig began, Pol sent Norell a photo of himself lying on the dinosaur's gigantic femur, much like a person would recline on a living room couch, Michael Novacek, senior vice president and provost of science at the AMNH, told journalists. All of the individual dinosaurs discovered were young adults, identified as such because their neck vertebra hadn't fully fused together, as they do in adults, the researchers said. The young dinosaurs had died at three different moments in time, anywhere from a few years to centuries apart, the scientists said. It's possible that the titanosaurs were separated from their herd and died of stress and hunger, the researchers said. However, the study announcing the new species to the scientific community is about four months away from publication. This means that the researchers were unable to share the species name. Instead, they called it "the titanosaur," and explained how it came to reside in the museum. After excavating the fossils, researchers spent six months transforming 84 of the bones into 3D, lightweight fiberglass replicas. The scientists filled in the missing gaps, including the skull, by studying the bones of related dinosaurs. Research Casting International (RCI) produced the model with Argentina's Museo Palenontologico Egidio Feruglio. (Image credit: Copyright AMNH D. Finnin) "The skulls of these kinds of sauropod dinosaurs are very rare," Norell told Live Science. "They're extremely fragile the bones are really paper thin." Though they found a few elements of the fossilized skull, the researchers chose to model the skull after a few well-preserved skulls of smaller animals related to titanosaurs, and "scaled it up to the size that this animal would be," Norell said. [Photos: One of the World's Biggest Dinosaurs Discovered] In all, the titanosaur would have stood about 20 feet (about 6 m) tall at its shoulder, and 46 feet (14 m) tall with neck held at a 45-degree angle. The museum replica's neck is slightly lower, thanks to the approximately 19-foot-high (5.8 m) ceilings in the room. In addition to the replica, museumgoers can see original fossils of the dinosaur's humerus, ulna, radius and scapula, on temporary display. The entire exhibit, called "The Titanosaur," opens Friday (Jan. 15). Titanosaurs have been found on every continent of the world. The new exhibit replaces a Barosaurus, another long-necked, but smaller sauropod. Another upcoming exhibit at the museum, "Dinosaurs Among Us," is about the evolution of birds and opens to the public March 21. Follow Laura Geggel on Twitter @LauraGeggel. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science. A beachgoer got quite the slithery surprise when a 20-inch-long (50 centimeters) venomous sea snake washed ashore at Coronado Dog Beach near San Diego Tuesday (Jan. 12). The yellow-bellied sea snake (Pelamis platura) is very uncommon in California, but three (including this latest sighting) have washed ashore in Southern California in the past few months. The beachgoer who found the yellow-bellied sea snake Tuesday alerted lifeguards to the serpent at around 2:30 p.m. local time, according to a statement from the city of Coronado. They placed the lethargic snake in a bucket, but just like the other snakes of that species that have washed up recently on California beaches, it died soon afterward. The snake has since been turned over to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Usually found in the tropical parts of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, including the western coast of Central America, Hawaii, Japan, and the eastern coast of Africa, these snakes have striking yellow bellies that serve as warning signals to other animals that they are venomous, meaning they inject a toxic substance when they bite a person or other animal. No human deaths have ever been reported as a result of P. platura. [See Photos of Snakes from Around the World] Greg Pauly, assistant curator of herpetology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, previously told Live Science that yellow-bellied sea snakes pose little threat to humans because their venom, fangs and small mouth size are better suited to smaller prey, such as tiny fish. Still, officials and experts advise people to keep their distance if they come across one of these snakes. The snake the washed ashore on a Coronado beach is a yellow-bellied sea serpent, a species that is highly venomous. (Image credit: City of Coronado) In total, only six yellow-bellied sea snakes have ever been reported north of the tip of Baja California, Mexico, Pauly said. Two were found on California beaches in 2015 one on Oct. 16 at Silver Strand Beach in Ventura County, and the other on Dec. 12 at Bolsa Chica State Beach south of Los Angeles. Prior to that, the last reported sighting occurred in 1972. Although experts are surprised by the sudden surge of P. platura in this area, the cause is relatively clear: Warmer waters in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, caused by El Nino, bring many unexpected tropical species northward through a mix of rising sea-surface temperatures and altered currents, expert say. "In general, we see fish moving north that are unusual in these areas like hammerhead sharks or mahimahi and it's unusual to see the snakes, but not unexpected when you have these really warm waters from the El Nino event," said Karen Martin, a professor of biology at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. What is less clear is why these snakes are washing up on beaches. Yellow-bellied sea snakes don't move well on land, so if they're on the shore, it is a sign they are unwell, Martin said. "[It] probably reflects the stress of them being far from home and maybe the travel and possibly that they're getting out of their natural range and having difficulties as they get farther north," she said. Sea snake sightings may be rare in Southern California, but they aren't the oddest creatures spotted in the area. In 2013, an 18-foot-long (5.5 meters) dead oarfish washed up on Catalina Island, followed a few days later by a smaller oarfish landing on a beach near San Diego. That wasn't the end of the surprises: When scientists took a look inside the smaller oarfish, they found hundreds of thousands of eggs in the animal's ovaries. The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles requests that, if you do see a yellow-bellied sea snake, you report the sighting, along with a photo and a description of the location, to nature@nhm.org. Follow us @livescience, Facebook& Google+. Original article on Live Science. A man in India can see clearly once again now that surgeons have removed a "fairly long live worm" that had crawled deep inside his left eye, a new case report says. The slender worm, which was later identified as a parasitic species known as Loa loa, can be transmitted to people by the bites of mangrove flies, which carry the larvae of the worms. This leads to an infection called loiasis. The 25-year-old man's job may have made him more vulnerable to getting bitten by an infected fly, doctors said. "His occupation as a fruit vendor may have increased his risk for infection, as fruit flies may carry the parasite," said Dr. Bhagabat Nayak, an ophthalmologist and eye surgeon at the Dr. R.P. Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences in New Delhi, India. Nayak co-authored the case report, which was published online Jan. 8 in the journal BMJ Case Reports. Additionally, the case also occurred in August 2014, which is the rainy season, when the flies that can transmit the parasite may breed, Nayak said. The flies that transmit the parasite to people are more commonly found in tropical regions and the rain forests in West and Central Africa, as compared to India, he said. When he went to the eye doctor, the man's eye was painful and red. He was seeing "floaters," which are small specks, threads or clouds that move in a person's field of vision, and he had reduced vision in his left eye over a two-week period. The man said he felt like there was a shadow in his left eye and that something was moving inside it, blurring his vision, Nayak said. [7 Absolutely Horrible Head Infections] An eye exam confirmed that something visible was indeed wriggling around in the man's eye, and it was clearly a live worm. The case report described the critter as "a fairly long live worm moving around in a haphazard and relentless manner throughout the vitreous cavity," which is located toward the back of the eye, behind the lens and in front of retina. This image shows the tubular body of the worm under high microscopic magnification after it was removed from the mans eye. (Image credit: 2016 by the BMJ Publishing Group Ltd) This is the first reported case of loiasis in that part of the eye, the authors said. Removing an "eye worm" The worm might have migrated to the vitreous cavity while still in its larval stage, either moving through blood vessels located in the eye or burrowing through the tissue layers of the eyeball, Nayak said. It may then have grown once it got into the cavity, Nayak told Live Science. When the L. loa worm is found in the eye, it's referred to as an "eye worm." But the parasite can also get into other areas of the body and affect the subcutaneous tissue, or the area under the skin in the limbs, Nayak said. The young man's doctors decided to surgically remove the "eye worm" rather than use drugs that could have killed the worm inside the eye. The doctors were concerned the drugs may cause toxic damage to tissues in the retina and macula, the area of the retina responsible for central vision, and that could lead to blindness, Nayak said. After the worm was removed from the man's left eye, microbiologists identified the creature as an adult maleL. loa worm. None of the man's doctors had seen this type of eye worm before, although they had treated other species of worms inside the eye, Nayak said. Worms inside the eye are generally rare in India, he added. Two weeks after surgery, the fruit vendor reported that his vision had improved signficantly and his floaters had disappeared. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science. Blanca Rosalinda Ramirez, 64, entered into the arms of the heavenly father on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016. She was a dedicated wife and mother who always put her family first. She influenced many young minds as a career-long teacher with Laredo I.S.D. She was known for her creative and artistic ability. Regardless of age, she was always fun-loving and remained young at heart. She was preceded in death by her parents, Pablo and Ester de la Pena. Left to cherish her memory are her husband, Raul Ramirez Sr.; her children, Raul Ramirez Jr., Denise (Ramon) Alcala, and Cesar (Loreleen Vasquez) Ramirez; and her siblings, Felipe (Gabby) de la Pena, Rosario Anguiano and Esther (Homero) Gonzalez. The family will be receiving condolences Friday, Jan. 15, 2016, from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Joe Jackson North Funeral Chapels, 1410 Jacaman Rd., where a Vigil for the Deceased and Rosary will commence at 7 p.m. Procession will depart the funeral chapel Saturday, Jan. 16, 2016, at 9:10 a.m. to San Agustin Cathedral for a Mass of Christian Burial at 10 a.m. The Rite of Committal and Interment will be held at 9:15 a.m. on Thursday, January 21, 2016 at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery. You may express your condolences and sign the guestbook online at: www.joejacksonfuneralchapels.com. Arrangements have been entrusted to the care and direction of the funeral service professionals at Joe Jackson North Funeral Chapels, 1410 Jacaman Rd., Laredo, Texas 78041; (956) 722-8850. Local News, Business & Finance, Health & Wellness, Press Releases By Long Island News & PR Published: January 15 2016 Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today announced settlements with 96 health club operators across New York State to resolve his investigation of compliance with the states Health Club Services Law and New Yorks General Obligations ... New York, NY - January 14, 2016 - Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today announced settlements with 96 health club operators across New York State to resolve his investigation of compliance with the states Health Club Services Law and New Yorks General Obligations Law. The 96 operators have signed Assurances of Discontinuance agreeing to modify their contracts to comply with NYS lawsand to pay penalties and fines. The settlement agreements stem from an investigation by the Attorney Generals Office that revealed widespread violations of the law, including failure to make required disclosures to consumers, and compliance with obligations required of health clubs under state law and inclusion of unenforceable release and/or waiver of liability provisions in their contracts. Many people opt to sign up for a gym membership in January and then, you hope, actually go to the gym, said Attorney General Schneiderman. Today my office announced settlements with dozens of health clubs across the state to ensure members are treated fairly and clubs comply with state law. As you consider your own wellness goals, follow a few basic tips to make sure youre getting the membership you want at the price you expect. By following a few tips, you can make sure youre taking care of both your health and your wallet. January is the number one month for enrolling in health club memberships. Prompted by New Year resolutions and health club promotions, consumers flock to health clubs and sign contracts prepared by health club operators. New York States Health Club Law provides consumers with certain protections. For example, no health club contract can exceed $3,600 a year or be for a term longer than 36 months. In addition, all health club contracts are cancelable within three days of the signing of the contract, and at any time for any of the following reasons: if the health club ceases to offer the services stated in the contract; if the consumer moves 25 miles from any health club operated by the seller; and if upon a doctors order, the consumer cannot receive the services as stated in the contract because of significant physical disability for a period in excess of six months. Such notices must appear on all health club contracts. The health club must provide refunds within 15 days of such cancellation. Schneiderman offered the following tips to consumers when considering a health or fitness club: Become an educated consumer and visit or call more than one health club to earn about dues and when they must be paid, hours of operation, variety and frequency of classes and ability to use multiple locations Do not give in to high pressure sales tactics or feel obligated to sign a contract immediately. A reputable gym will give you enough time to read the contract thoroughly, tour the facilities, and check out other options before making an informed decision. Tell the health club representative you need time to think about joining the club and ask for free passes to determine if the club is right for you. Talk to other members. If a health club requires you to pay a down-payment or pre-pay your dues, ask it is bonded or has filed the proper financial security to protect you against losses of pre-paid membership dues. A health club is exempted from this requirement if they do not offer pre-paid memberships or if they offer a monthly payment option and the monthly dues do not exceed $150, memberships do not exceed one year and the contract does not contain an automatic renewal provision. To verify a club's compliance with this requirement, consumers can call (518) 474-4429, fax (518) 473-6648 or write to the New York State Department of State, Division of Licensing Services at 84 Holland Avenue, Albany, New York 12208. Determine your fitness goals and select the facility that best fits your needs. If youve been inactive for a while or have a serious health condition, its always a good idea to consult with a medical professional when setting your fitness goals. Consider the location. If your gym is across town, youll be less likely to work out. Choose a fitness club that is convenient to your work or home so that location is not a deterrent to getting regular exercise. Can you afford it? Monthly gym fees add up and after any introductory periods are over, the price could jump higher than your budget can handle. Be sure to do the math before you join and make sure you can afford a gym membership. Look for health clubs that allow members to make monthly dues payments and permits cancellation for any reason. Remember that the grounds for cancellation are limited to those set by New York State law if you sign a long term contract! Did you get everything in writing? Read the contract carefully and make sure that all verbal promises made by the salesperson are included. The terms of the contract are defined by the document you sign, so always be sure to get everything in writing. The Attorney Generals investigation into health clubs compliance with state law remains ongoing. This matter was handled by Assistant Attorneys General Benjamin Bruce, Judith Malkin, James Morrissey, Michael Danaher, Stephen Barry, Irma Nimetz, Richard Yorke, Christina Bedell, Rachael Anello, Deanna Nelson, Glen Francis Michaels, and James Williams. The Executive Deputy Attorney General is Marty Mack. Looking to stay up to date about all of the news stories and local headlines that are important to Long Islanders? We've rounded up the top coverage for all of the important topics from multiple sources around Long Island, so you can be sure you've got the most recent update on the top stories for Long Island. Have an idea for a news story? Email us at news@longisland.com Columnists Press Releases Thoughts that come to the mind expressed in the Internet realm. Chintanaigal pronounced chin-than-aye-cle (as in cubicle)) Halmstad Elementary in Chippewa Falls is among the top eight elementary schools in the state, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction said Friday. Next, it will be up to the U.S. Department of Education to decide how Halmstad stacks up nationally. Halmstad, which has 413 students, is one of eight schools nominated by the DPI for the National Blue Ribbon Schools Program, recognizing overall academic excellence or progress in improving student achievement. Were very excited about it, said Halmstad Principal Wade Pilloud. Its nice to have someone from the outside acknowledging all of the hard work, the effect and the time that everybody has put in, he added. No other Chippewa County school was nominated. Pilloud said the schools faculty takes pride in the nomination. Students have not been told of the honor as of Friday morning. Joining Halmstad in being nominated are: Addison Elementary School in Hartford; Marengo Valley Elementary School in Ashland; Muskego Elementary School in the Muskego-Norway School District; Oconto Falls Elementary in Oconto Falls, Swallow Elementary in Hartland; Wilson Elementary in Beaver Dam; and Woodland Elementary in Barron. These elementary schools are working every day to provide their students with a safe learning environment where young people can build a foundation for future academic and life success. I wish these nominees well in the next phase of the Blue Ribbon process, said State Superintendent Tony Evers. Next, Pilloud said the school is assembling a team to complete the Blue Ribbon Schools application and then undergo a national review process. Awards for Exemplary High Performing and Exemplary Achievement Gap Closing are given in early September. More than 8,000 schools have been recognized by the Blue Ribbon Schools Program since it began in 1982. It's unlikely the Assembly will pass a bill this session that would allow people with concealed weapons permits to carry guns on school grounds and, in some cases, inside school buildings, a top Republican lawmaker said Thursday. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said he supports the concept of the bill, introduced by Sen. Mary Lazich, R-New Berlin, Rep. Robert Brooks, R-Saukville, and Rep. Jesse Kremer, R-Kewaskum, but said there's not an outpouring of support for it throughout the state. Under the bill, concealed carry permit holders would be allowed to carry weapons on school grounds. It would be up to local school boards to decide whether weapons would be allowed inside school buildings. If they decided to ban weapons in schools, they would be required to post notices at the building's entrances. Vos said the bill is being introduced late in the session lawmakers are only scheduled to be on the floor for a couple more months and the Assembly's Republican caucus hasn't discussed it at all. "And quite frankly, as I've traveled around the state and I have been home in my district, there haven't been a whole lot of people who have asked me for this, just like I said about campus carry," Vos said. "I support the bill, but it is not a high priority for Republicans. In fact, it's not a priority at all. But I would definitely be open to the discussion in our caucus, and we'll see where it goes." Vos said it does appear the bill adheres to the Republican principle of supporting local control, and he agreed that each district should be able to decide the issue for themselves. On other bills that have moved quickly through the Legislature, Vos said, there has been a "groundswell" of support to usher them through. Gov. Scott Walker signed concealed carry legislation into law in 2011, making Wisconsin the 49th state to adopt the policy. However, the law doesn't allow guns on school property. This bill is about empowering local school boards and administrators with the authority to develop concealed carry policies, if deemed appropriate, to specifically meet the needs of their districts, with respect to all school buildings," Brooks said in a statement. The bill's authors have noted this law would prevent a parent legally carrying a concealed weapon while dropping a child off at school from being charged with a crime. But Kremer said that's of secondary importance to the heart of the issue, which is safety. Kremer said the authors held onto the bill for a while, but felt it was important to bring it forward as soon as possible. "The concern that we had was, if were holding onto this bill, what happens if something happens in a school, and people find out we had this and we didnt at least try to allow it?" Kremer said in an interview. "Its not a mandate on the schools. No one has to allow it." Kremer said he thinks the policy could act as a deterrent to someone who would do harm at a school. "Its not only for personal protection, but its also for prevention," Kremer said. "If youve got a school that allows concealed carry holders, a bad guy, a terrorist for that matter, isnt going to know whos carrying. So they might bypass that school. So my hope is ... that our schools would allow this." A similar proposal was introduced 2013 as an amendment to a bill that would have allowed retired and off-duty police officers to carry weapons on school grounds. However, that amendment wouldn't have allowed school boards to ban guns in instructional buildings, and the bill failed. Jim Palmer, executive director of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, said that change is a "sensible improvement" from the original proposal, but he doesn't know whether it's enough of a change to earn the support of his organization. "Law enforcement officers are certain to have some reservations as to whether this bill would make their jobs more dangerous, and whether it will do anything to improve the safety of our schools," Palmer said in an email. "Statistically, there simply isnt any cumulative evidence to suggest that schools are soft targets, but an argument can be made that allowing more guns in our schools would do just that." Concealed weapons permit holders "simply dont have the significant training and experience in responding to dangerous situations like law enforcement officers do, and that should be a concern for anyone who genuinely believes that allowing more guns in our schools will make them any safer," Palmer said. While Vos said people throughout the state aren't clamoring for the legislation, Brooks's office noted a handful of school officials, including superintendents, principals and school board members, who support the bill. But those opposed to the bill say it would set schools up for a "wild west" environment. "As a legislator and a mother to a kindergartner and 4th grader in our public schools, I am deeply disturbed with the Republicans latest gun proliferation proposal," said Rep. Chris Taylor, D-Madison, in a statement. "Republicans response to the publics calls for common sense gun safety measures is to ignore empirical studies and expand the areas where guns can be carried." Kremer said while he understands people "don't want to talk about guns and kids," he believes the bill could prevent a tragedy. "If there is a teacher in the school who winds up carrying now and it's allowed their job isn't to run down the hall, their job is to prevent someone from breaching that door," Kremer said. "Your job is now to protect your kids and your classroom, and take out the intruder. Because right now, you can't." Christopher Whiteside MBE is County Councillor for the Egremont North and St Bees Division of Cumbria County Council. The division includes St Bees, Bigrigg, Wood End, Moor Row, part of the Mirehouse area of Whitehaven, and surrounding countryside. He will hold this office until the county council is abolished on 1st April 2023. He is also Chairman of the North-West region of the voluntary wing of the Conservative party. Chris lives and works in Copeland with his wife and family. Shabaab, Al Qaedas branch in East Africa, reported today that its forces have overrun an African Union base in the southern Somali town of Al Ade. The attack has reportedly left over 60 Kenyan troops dead. In a statement released on its Shahada News website and translated by the SITE Intelligence Group, the jihadist group said that fighters from the Shabaab al Mujahideen Movement mounted a broad attack on Friday morning, on a military base of Kenyan forces in the area of Ayl Adi [Al Ade], which lies 360 miles south of the capital, Mogadishu. Additionally, it said that the operation, which was carried out by its Saleh al Nabhani Battalion, began with a suicide bombing followed by an assault team breaching the perimeter of the base. The fighting lasted for more than an hour before leaving nearly 100 soldiers from the Kenyan forces died, according to Shabaab. However, the BBC has reported that just over 60 Kenyan troops were killed. Additionally, Kenya has denied that the base was an African Union base, saying it was a Somali base that was stormed and Kenyan troops counter-attacked, the BBC reported. The two bases neighbor each other in Al Ade. In addition to killing over 60 soldiers, the jihadist group also claims to have taken over 30 vehicles and large quantities of weapons, ammunition, and military gear. Shabaab ends its statement by saying that this attack on the Ayl Adi base is considered the largest attack incurred by the Kenyan forces since their entry into Somalia. The Saleh al Nabhani Batalion is named after the senior Al Qaeda East Africa operative of the same name. Al Nabhani was wanted by the FBI for his involvement in the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania before being killed by US forces in Somalia in 2009. The Kenyan jihadist was also wanted for his involvement in a 2002 attack on an Israeli hotel and airliner in Mombasa. Another battalion of Shabaab, the Sheikh Abu Zubayr Battalion, which is named after the Shabaab leader who was killed by a US drone strike in 2014, has been responsible for several attacks in Somalia over the past year. Last June, the jihadist group said the battalion killed more than 60 Ethiopian troops. Shabaab released photographs which appeared to back up that claim. In late June, the battalion assaulted an African Union base in the southern Somalian town of Leego and reportedly killed more than 50 Burundian troops stationed there. Shabaab has been able to mount attacks in the region despite the presence of a large African Union mission in Somalia. The jihadist group has also launched numerous suicide assaults on heavily guarded hotels in Mogadishu this year. It has also continuously targeted African Union troops in southern Somalia and has taken back some territory in the process. The jihadist group has also been able to mount attacks in the central part of Somalia and into neighboring Kenya, as well. In late November, Shabaab said its forces temporarily took control over a Kenyan town bordering Somalia. Caleb Weiss is a research analyst at FDD's Long War Journal and a senior analyst at the Bridgeway Foundation, where he focuses on the spread of the Islamic State in Central Africa. Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here. SVI Finalizes Acquisition of Seidel Electronics Published: 15 January 2016 by Mike Buetow by Mike Buetow PATHUMTANI, THAILAND -- SVI Public Co. has acquired Seidel Electronics, an Austria-based EMS company with plants in Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovenia. Terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed. However, SVI said the purchase price is less than 15% of its annual revenue and the company is not required to disclose further details. SVI had sales of $167 million year to date through September, the last quarter it has currently reported. Seidel has more than 600 employees and an annual turnover of more than EUR 90 million ($98.5 million). The company also has minority interests in a pair of product design and development companies in Austria and Slovenia. SVI said the acquisition will bolster its presence in Europe, where it currently is "under-penetrated." SVI had indicated the pending acquisition last December, although at the time it did not disclose Seidel's name. On Newsstands Now: Here's Everything You'll Find in CityBeat's Latest Issue From a Bigfoot hunt to delightfully spooky ghost stories from one of Cincinnati's watering holes, here are the stories you'll find in CityBeat's latest print edition. By CityBeat Staff Oct 19, 2022 For many of us, Bigfoot is a legend present only on an episode of Ancient Aliens, or perhaps only among the towering, mysterious pines of the Pacific Northwest. However, for CityBeat's latest issue, we went on a hunt for Bigfoot in a place where the massive furball had allegedly been spotted before Ohio's Pleasant Hill Lake Park... The Canaveral Port Authority welcomes the start of StreamLines Blue Stream weekly liner service at its new Canaveral Cargo Terminal, which GT USA manages and operates. The service adds Port Canaveral to this valued trade route that includes Central America, Europe and the Caribbean. The first call at Canaveral is scheduled for January 31, 2016 with the arrival of the M/V Norderoog. StreamLines N.V. part of the Seatrade Group, is a container line providing refrigerated and dry container service specializing in fresh produce and perishables. The launch of this new service is part of the companys development plan and expands Port Canaverals relationship with StreamLines parent company Seatrade, which currently offers GreenSea specialized service calling monthly at Canaveral. With five ships with 1300 TEU capacity and 250 reefer plugs, the weekly Blue Stream service will offer one of the fastest services from Florida to Europe at just 11 days and from Central America to Port Canaveral in three days. Port Canaveral is the exclusive U. S. port of call for this service. Pablo Gonzalez, General Manager, StreamLines N.V., said, We see Canaveral as an important transit point for refrigerated, dry and project cargoes between Central America, Florida and Europe. Working closely with our U.S. general agents, North American General Agents, we are committed to first-class customer service by providing Fast, Dedicated, Direct service. From Canaveral, the M/V NORDEROOG will proceed directly to Rotterdam, Netherlands, with calls in Tilbury, United Kingdom, and Radicatel, France. After departing Europe, the schedule loop takes the vessels to the French West Indies ports of Fort de France, Martinique, Pointe a Pitre, Guadeloupe and Phillipsburg, St, Maarten serving a Caribbean market based westbound out of Europe that is quite familiar to StreamLines. From St. Maarten, the vessels then proceed on to Moin, Costa Rica; Puerto Cortes, Honduras; and Santo Tomas, Guatemala and from there directly on to Port Canaveral. According to Alberto Cabrera, Port Canaverals Senior Director of Cargo Business Development, This service will strengthen Floridas perishable import market from Central America and provide a Central Florida gateway to shippers seeking to lower inland transportation costs and to get their product to market faster. At the same time, it creates an efficient outlet for Florida shippers to export products directly to northern Europe. Canaveral Cargo Terminal, operated by GT USA, is Port Canaverals new state-of-the-art facility handling multipurpose cargo and containers. GT USA is investing $100 million into facilities, infrastructure, equipment and workforce. Willard Marine, Inc., a global leader in the manufacture of mission-proven boats, has received an order to produce a 33-foot, fiberglass harbor patrol boat for the Oceanside Police Department in California based on the iconic Crystaliner boat design. The order from Oceanside Police Department marks the first Crystaliner to be purchased from Willard Marine since they acquired the licensing and manufacture rights from Crystaliner, which folded in 2012. Willards more contemporary Crystaliner design includes new electronic systems, upgraded hull construction and powerful firefighting features. With a length of 33 feet and beam over 10 feet, its large open deck space is ideal for search and rescue missions, law enforcement safety and firefighting operations. Driven by twin Yanmar 8LV-350 inboard diesel engines, the vessel is capable of a cruising speed of 27 knots. The Oceanside craft will feature a Darley PSDE 125 single stage centrifugal fire pump producing over 1,250 gallons per minute at 150 psi. The Oceanside Police Department currently patrols the coastal and offshore region of San Diego, Oceanside and parts of Orange County, with three Crystaliner vessels that have been in service 15 to 30 years. The Crystaliner platform is conducive to the multitude of activities our officers are involved in such as marine rescues to include vessel tows and dewatering, marine firefighting, harbor patrol and diving, said Lieutenant Karen Laser of the Oceanside Police Department. We are excited Willard Marine is reviving these designs, as their performance abilities are best suited for the variety of functions our marine community expects of us in our area of responsibility, Laser added. Crystaliner has been a staple of the law enforcement and surf and rescue departments along the Pacific coast for decades, said Ulrich Gottschling, President and CEO at Willard Marine. We are proud to offer the classic design and finish of a Crystaliner that many first responders are so passionate about while re-engineering them to perform reliably in the rigorous and demanding missions of todays law enforcement professionals, Gottschling explained. Since its founding in 1957, Willard Marine has developed world-class watercraft for the U.S. military, Department of Homeland Security, foreign governments, law enforcement agencies, search and rescue organizations and private companies. Willard Marine is also the exclusive builder of commercial vessels originally designed by SeaArk Marine and Crystaliner. Based in California with facilities in Maryland and Virginia, Willard Marine is ISO 9001:2008 certified and the sole American manufacturer of SOLAS rescue boats. Trucks carrying commodities and other exports were unable to reach the Guaruja side of Brazil's largest Port of Santos on Friday, a day after containers holding chemicals caught fire and sent poisonous gases into the sky. A port spokeswoman said access would be restricted while firefighters snuff out the blaze that hit up to a dozen containers at the terminal operated by logistics company Localfrio. The fire, which caused dozens of people to go to the hospital after breathing the noxious smoke, is considered under control, the spokeswoman said. With trucks unable to reach the Guaruja side of the port, terminals there may have to rely on stocks, although some products are arriving by train. Santos is Brazil's main commodities exporting port, but is still a few weeks away from receiving new crop soybeans to export. Brazil is the world's top exporter of soybeans, sugar and coffee and the No. 2 corn exporter. Besides the Localfrio terminal, a neighboring container terminal operated by Santos Brasil halted operations due to the fire. But the other 53 terminals are operating normally with stocks, the port spokeswoman said. Representatives at TEAG and TEG bulk sugar and grain terminals in Guaruja said late on Thursday that loading continued despite the nearby fire. Firefighters are trying to extinguish the blaze without water because the fire started when rainwater mixed on Thursday with the chemical compound dichloroisocyanuric acid at the port. More than 50 people sought medical attention from inhaling gases released by the fire, according to local media. The mayor of Guaruja has urged residents to stay inside or cover their faces with cloth if they need to go out. Fires have been common at Santos in recent years. A blaze at a neighboring fuel tank facility in April took a week to snuff out, preventing trucks from unloading soybeans. Reporting by Roberto Samora U.S. imports of light crude from across the Atlantic are set to jump this month to their highest in more than two years, according to market sources and trade data that indicate global oil flows are being scrambled by the lowest prices in years and the end of the 1970s era U.S. export ban. Shipments totaling some 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) are booked or underway from producers including Norway and Nigeria, a surprisingly rapid revival of flows that had dwindled to nearly nothing in 2014-2015, after the U.S. shale oil revolution got in full swing. The arbitrage has opened as a result of an inversion in the spread between benchmark U.S. crude oil prices and global Brent. After five years at a discount due to the eruption of domestic production, U.S. futures are again trading at a premium of $1 a barrel or more in the months ahead. Traders are split on whether the revival of the once-routine trans-Atlantic trade rout represents the new normal for markets, or a brief blip. It may suggest that U.S. oil production is declining more quickly than some analysts estimate, with imports likely to grow as shale drillers slash spending and cut rigs. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said this week it expects output to fall by 700,000 bpd this year to 8.7 million bpd. But some wonder if the import binge is the result of distorted signals in the futures market. U.S. crude jumped to a premium over Brent in late December, as investors bet the end of the U.S. ban on crude oil exports would eliminate the discount. "The East Coast is especially sensitive to the Brent-WTI spread. It's cheaper to buy West African or North Sea barrels," a shipping analyst said. While two U.S. crude cargoes have been exported since the ban was lifted, traders said few are likely to follow. Instead, the spread has made it profitable to import a flotilla of foreign oil - even with U.S. domestic crude stocks 95 million barrels higher than a year ago. In December, imports of crudes and condensates coming from Africa that compete in quality with U.S. lighter grades, such as the Eagle Ford shale, rose to 10.75 million barrels, up 10 percent from a year ago, according to import flow data available via ThomsonReuters Eikon. In January 2014, oil imports from Africa had touched their lowest level since 2009, with only 2.87 million barrels, according to the Energy Information Administration. But this month, more than 15 million barrels of grades such as Nigerian Bonga and UK Brent are set to sail across the Atlantic, according to fixtures and trade sources, which would be the most for any month since 2013, U.S. data show. With the booking of a Norwegian Ekofisk crude cargo this week, as much as 2.5 million barrels will come from the UK and Norwegian North Sea, traders said, matching the amount sent in August last year, which was the most in two years. IMPORT REVIVAL The armada will, ironically, cross paths with the first cargoes of U.S. domestic crude being exported to Europe in four decades after several companies raced to take advantage of the end to a longstanding ban on most overseas sales. The first of two such shipments were aboard the Panamax tanker Theo T, carrying its historic cargo west into the Mediterranean on Thursday, according to ship tracking data. About a thousand miles due south, Suezmax tanker Nordic Freedom was heading east toward Philadelphia after loading around 1 million barrels of Bonga crude offshore Nigeria. The unusual cross-shipment of two medium to light crudes highlights what traders say is the questionable financial viability of U.S. exports, which they say have been spurred by political reasons rather than arbitrage economics. On Thursday, U.S. futures settled at a $1.08 a barrel premium to Brent futures, with the spread for later-dated futures trading even wider. June WTI futures settled at a $2.42 a barrel premium to Brent. With Louisiana Light Sweet - a benchmark for waterborne Gulf Coast crude - trading at roughly a $1.50 a barrel premium to WTI and more than a $2 a barrel premium to Brent, it makes more economic sense to import barrels to the United States rather than the other way around, traders say. BATTLE FOR MARKET SHARE A higher demand of imported crude in the United States is arriving at a bad moment for producers of Latin American crudes, who have been struggling to maintain their market share amid deep budget cuts and weaker demand by U.S. refiners currently shutting deep conversion units for seasonal maintenance. "More favourable pricing from Middle Eastern crude marketers and a greater acceptance of the new Basrah Heavy grade among US refiners could mean that higher values for sweet crudes are increasingly the new norm, with the recent changes in export legislation if anything helping to underpin this dynamic," said the firm JBC Energy in a report this week. LLS has been trading this week at a $5.50 a premium to the medium sour Gulf Coast benchmark as refiners scramble to secure light, sweet barrels, its widest spread since mid-October. Imports of Latin American heavy and medium grades are expected to fall sharply in January, following a 4 percent drop to 68.08 million barrels in December, compared with the same month of 2014, according to Reuters data. By Marianna Parraga and Liz Hampton International engineering and project management consultancy Royal HaskoningDHV has announced a simplified organisation and management structure. As of 1 January 2016 the company has consolidated its activities into four Business Lines and four regions, enabling closer collaboration and faster decision-making. Chairman of the Board Erik Oostwegel said: Our clients operate in an increasingly volatile and complex environment and simplifying our internal structure helps us to serve them with even better, future-proof and integrated consultancy services. Combining related disciplines into a leaner structure helps us to boost internal collaboration and knowledge-sharing. In addition, closer alignment between global and local teams through the regional structure helps us to respond to market opportunities effectively and efficiently. The new structure consists of four Business Lines offering services to public and private clients globally. Business Line Directors will have an additional regional responsibility: The Business Line Water, led by Anke Mastenbroek, offers clients solutions for the entire water cycle, from capture and storage, through intake and treatment, to flood risk management and coastal protection. Anke is also responsible for the Africa, Middle East and India region. The Business Line Industry & Buildings, led by Marije Hulshof, provides clients with support and added value for real estate and industrial challenges, as well as sustainable resources and energy solutions. Marije is also responsible for the Asia Pacific region. The Business Line Transport & Planning, led by Anton van der Sanden, offers services to clients with transport, infrastructure and urban and regional development challenges. Anton is also responsible for the Netherlands region. The Business Line Maritime & Aviation, led by Craig Huntbatch, delivers solutions for marine and ports facilities and airports and all airport-related services to clients. Craig is also responsible for the European and Americas region (excl. NL). As of 1 January 2016 Royal HaskoningDHVs Executive Board consists of Erik Oostwegel (Chairman), Jaska de Bakker (CFO) and Henry Rowe, following the recent departure of Piet Besselink, who decided to pursue opportunities outside of the company. Traction in the global fishing vessel market continues to grow, as Kleven signed a contract with Norways Slvtrans on the delivery of a live fish carrier vessel. The vessel is to be delivered from Myklebust Verft in September 2017. This is the second order from Slvtrans on a vessel of the same NVC 387 design from Rolls-Royce the first vessel will be delivered from Myklebust Verft in March 2017. Slvtrans is one of the worlds largest transporter of live fish. The 80 m long vessels will have a load capacity of 3200 m3 each, and its three tanks can take in up to approximately 500 tonnes of live fish in total. Eastern Shipbuilding Group (ESG) has not given up its fight against the U.S. Coast Guards decision to award Stage 2 of the offshore patrol cutter (OPC) program to Austal USA. Although it The 2nd Marine Division Combat Skills Center continued the development of future Marine scout snipers during a known-distance firing range as part of the pre-scout sniper course at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Jan. 12. The course, now in its second week of instruction, brought Marines to the Carlos Hathcock Range for known-distance firing with a suppressed M40A5 sniper rifle. The known-distance shooting is the time for students to develop their skills in shooting fundamentals, such as making wind calls and annotating shooting data on their rifle, said Sgt. Bradley S. Brouwer, the chief instructor of the course. Marines worked in teams of two as a shooter or spotter. Together, they engaged targets at 300, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900 and 1,000 meters. Additionally, targets between the 300 and 800 meter range were moving. Known-distance firing is the focus of the second and third weeks in the basic scout sniper course, and doing it here gives our newer Marines an edge, said Cpl. Sean Mitchell, a student in the course. This course is designed to be a glimpse of what the school consists of. We know what we will be expected to do when we get there so we can more accurately assess how we will perform. Marines familiarized themselves in different shooting positions, to include the sitting, prone and standing position while utilizing a tripod for stability. The remainder of the week will be spent doing unknown distance firing at range SR-7. This training is important to help our students better themselves in their skills, Brouwer said. It is our intent to teach them and allow them practice to become better prepared for the basic scout sniper course since the attrition rate is currently high. The course is scheduled to conclude next week following day and night land navigation and stalking exercises, in which students will be challenged to remain undetected in the pursuit of a target. The Marines have been doing well, Brouwer said. Rifle scores have been decent, and our newer Marines are learning a great deal. His bulky, brown pack soaked in rain water made it a challenge to walk up the already steep hills of the jungle. His shoulders ached in a constant, annoying pain from the weight of the pack. The mud under his feet made him slip and fall every 100 steps. Through all these tangible problems and an array of intangibles, the Marine kept his composure and focused on the mission at hand to locate, close with and destroy his enemy. Marines with Alpha Company, Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, participated in a platoon exercise in the jungle training areas of Camp Hansen in Okinawa, Japan, Jan. 7-9, 2016. The Marines, normally stationed at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, got their first taste of jungle terrain this year. The purpose of this exercise is to get the Marines out into some new terrain and out of the Pendleton mindset to where its just open ground, said 1st Lt. Colton Morgan, a platoon commander with Alpha Co., BLT 1/5 31st MEU. This will give us an opportunity to see how we can conduct operations in the jungle terrain and really refine our (standard operating procedures) and techniques. The training lasted three days, with the company pitting its platoons against one another. On this exercise basically were going to have three platoons going out to the jungle, said 1st Sgt. Edward Lemus, the company first sergeant with Alpha Co., BLT 1/5, 31st MEU. First platoon is going to play the enemy thats already been dropped off and embedded in the jungle. We have two additional platoons that are going out and theyre going to be the platoons that attack. During the exercise, the Marines had to not only worry about enemy platoons but also navigate through the rough jungles of Okinawa. Specifically this type of training in Okinawa is important, because it allows the Marines to familiarize themselves with their surroundings as well as to go ahead and bond as a team, trusting in their abilities to apply the fundamentals of jungle warfare, said Lemus, a native of Woodland, California. The Marines were very alert in the jungle terrain, making sure to stay true to the very basics of warfare. It gives the guys a good chance to evaluate themselves, their squad and really examine how proficient we are, said Morgan, a native of Madisonville, Texas. For the past 15 years its been nothing but desert, and its better to get back to our roots and make sure we can still operate just as efficiently in this type of terrain. Though it was just a training event, the Marines took every part of it seriously. Everything you do is important, especially the little things in an environment like this, said, Cpl. Jordan Ninde, a fire team leader with Alpha Co., BLT 1/5, 31st MEU. Ninde, a native of Fishersville, Indiana, says he and his team learned a lot from the exercise and how to operate in the terrain for future operations. It got us out of our norm, and we will be able to refresh and refine our skills of jungle warfare because of it, said Ninde. Aspiring Japanese officers completed one of the most significant events in their training by visiting U.S. Marines and fulfilling a combine operation training requirement on Camp Kinser, Okinawa, Japan, Jan. 15. Three hundred and sixty Japan Ground Self-Defense Force officer candidates attended a presentation of Marine Corps weapons, vehicles and martial arts to better understand the force they may work with in the future. These events give us the opportunity to share one anothers knowledge and experiences between our different, yet alike forces, said Lance Cpl. Jerry Tolenoa, a motor transport operator with Combat Logistics Regiment 35, 3rd Marine Logistic Group, III Marine Expeditionary Force. Japanese and U.S. Forces are dedicated to strengthening their alliance by continuing bi-lateral training in the Asia-Pacific region, according to Marine Corps officials. The two forces have worked together at sea, in Australia and during humanitarian operations across Japan and the Philippines. More recently, Marines and JGSDF took part in Exercise Forest Light. The semi-annual, bilateral exercise took place last September when they trained on command post exercises and multiple field training events in Japan. These types of events strengthen our already established bond even at the lowest level, said Tolenoa. For example, myself as a lance corporal and the candidates to be able to bond and talk about things like one anothers vehicles and weapon systems highlights our connection both personally and professionally. The visit began with opening remarks by U.S. Marine Col. Christopher Feyedelem, the commander of Headquarters Regiment, 3rd Marine Logistics Group, to inform the candidates about how Marines operate and train in the Pacific. Being here at an event like this has given me a better feel about what Marines do, said officer candidate Suhn Suke Kikuchi. For many of the Japanese candidates, this event has been their first time on a Marine Corps installation. Today helped me understand a little bit more about the Marines Corps, especially by the size of the base compared to our tiny school. At the end of the event, both forces gathered to exchange gifts. This experience has reminded me of the importance of the job that Im doing for the Marine Corps, said Tolenoa. I enjoyed the interaction with the officer candidates and answering their questions. The visiting members of the JGSDF were happy and grateful to be here and interact with Marines, according Kikuchi. I look forward to working with Marines, especially now the JGSDF is emphasizing on amphibious operations so I think its especially important to learn about the Marine Corps., said Kikuchi. Next month I will start my training to become an infantry officer, so I really look forward to training with and learning from Marines. Chinese financial markets have been a bit stormy lately: Short-term rates are up, banks are hoarding cash, and the central bank is seemingly responding with tough love. And on cue, headlines are fretting a potential credit crunch in the worlds second-largest economy. In our view, however, these fears seem overwrought. Higher rates and cash squeezes are fairly normal near month-end in China, and while the readings are a bit more extreme this month, evidence suggests this is largely just politics and Chinese markets as usualnot a big concern for global markets. In China, banks must meet regulatory capital requirements at the end of every month, and it isnt unusual for them to draw down buffers early then rebuild them before the audit. This scramble usually occurs in the last week or so of each month, and when demand for cash rises, so does the price. Exhibit 1 shows the 7-day Shanghai Interbank Offered Rate (SHIBOR) since 2011 began. Only three of the short-term spikes occurred before the 20th of the monthall others (circled) occurred after that. Current levels, though high, arent unusualsimilarly high rates throughout 2011 and earlier this year didnt wreak havoc. Exhibit 1: 7-Day SHIBOR Source: Shibor.org, as of 12/23/2013. Historically, the Peoples Bank of China (PBOC) has helped keep SHIBOR down by boosting liquidity amid the scramble. In June, however, officials allowed rates to spike in an apparent effort to spook banks into reducing off-balance sheet lending. These loans (aka shadow financing) accounted for about 30% of all new financing in the years first five months, which didnt please Chinese regulatorsthey cant control off-balance sheet loans as they can traditional financing, making money supply more difficult to manage. Plus, these loans typically go to regional governments, which use the cash to fund unapproved construction projects, further messing with the national governments growth plansand exacerbating municipal governments already sizeable debt load. Many of these loans are wrapped into wealth management products (WMP), which Chinas state-run banks offer as higher-yielding alternatives to traditional deposits. About half of the nations WMPs mature every three months, and another 25% mature semiannually, driving up banks demand for cash in June and December. Withholding liquidity at these times is an easy way for the government to encourage banks to lend more judiciously. Evidence suggests theyre doing the same today. After decelerating in September and October, off-balance sheet lending resurged in November, suggesting banks were once again defying the governments goals. Now, with year-end capital requirements looming and most WMPs in need of refinancing, the time seems ripe for another shot across the bow. Compounding matters, the central government is tightening fiscal policy somewhat. Historically, year-end government spending has helped boost liquidity. This year, that funding source isnt as great as in years past. But, as in June, the PBOC seems likely to eventually ease up. Then, officials announced theyd provide liquidity to select banks who did play by the rules, and market pressures eventually eased. This time, officials have already provided the first round of those targeted liquidity injections, adding about $50 billion to the system on December 19 as SHIBOR jumped. Some suggest the continued use of opaque, nontraditional liquidity injections rather than normal open market operations suggests the PBOC wont be accommodative enough, while others suggest rising rates mean the central bank is powerless. Yet its not that the central bank cant intervene. Its more that they dont want to add cash to the extent many observers seem to wantits out of step with their longer-term aims. However, still-rising rates give them incentive to step in further as neededa full blown credit crunch and banking panic isnt exactly on the governments Christmas list. The Communist Party relies on financial stability and continued growth to keep the masses more or less placated under one-party rule. Allowing a full-blown funding meltdown (u la US financial markets post-Lehman) would be tantamount to asking for an uprising. In short, a bank shock, as some describe it, seems highly unlikely. Officials have heavy incentive to keep the financial system functioning, and they have plenty of firepower. Forex reserves totaled about $3.5 trillion at last count. China also has a fairly robust history of recapitalizing the state-run banks dominating its financial network. Not that banks are starving for cash. According to the PBOC, they have about $250 billion in excess reserves on deposit with the central bankrelatively high, according to the bank. Analysts estimate total reserves ($3 trillion) amount to about 15% of all on- and off-balance sheet loanslevels the Basel committee would consider robust. In a true bank shock, banks wouldnt have anywhere near that big a buffer. Not that we expect Chinese money markets to be cheap and awash with liquidity from here. While SHIBOR eased after June ended, it remained elevated compared to the first half of the year as the PBOC remained hesitant to add broad liquidity. Judging from the latest editorials in state-sponsored media, reining in the state-run banks remains a top goal. The government is also moving toward a more market-driven banking system, which would expose banks with weaker balance sheets to risks they havent historically faced, keeping demand for cash high. Marry that with tightish supply, and borrowing costs seem unlikely to drop back to 2011s average levels. But global stocks likely dont need easy Chinese money markets for this bull market to continue. With expectations so low, a financial system that simply keeps functioning smoothly and an economy that keeps growing at a brisk (if not double-digit) pace is likely good enough to surprise most investors to the upside. Chinas having a Lehman moment! A hard landing! No, a soft landing! Credit crisis, housing bubble, fundamental weakness ... People always seem worried about the worlds number two economy. So its no shock some slower-than-expected data released this week prompted another round of fears. But in our view, there is little indication the countrys slowing growth portends ill for its future or the rest of the globes. Chinese growth started slowing in 2010, and fears were quick on its heels. In 2011, the media advertised how to say hard landing in Chinese (ying zhuolu)while so-called panda bears worried it would probably lead to a world depression. Ironically, overconfidence was considered one reason China would land hard. Some folks were still imagining how fallout would look in 2012, and others still believed it had already started. In 2013, hyperbole subsided some, but a landing of some sort was still thought inevitable. What actually happened? China grew 9.2% in 2011, 7.8% in 2012 and 7.7% in 2013. Suffice it to say, there is still no landinghard or otherwisein sight. But that didnt prevent renewed fears after January and Februarys data disappointed. Trade kicked them off: Exports fell -18.1% y/y in Februarycontracting sharply from Januarys 10.6% y/y growth. There was nothing fundamental suggesting weakness, though. The Lunar New Year almost always skews January and February results since the holiday lands in January some years, February in others or stretches across both, distorting the year-over-year comparisons. Combine the readingswhich China does for most January and February dataand exports contracted a modest -1.6% y/y. Still a decline, but not a surprise after the government admitted exports between December 2012 and April 2013 were artificially inflated by exporters falsifying customs bills to disguise illegal capital inflows. This likely skews year-over-year trade numbers at least through Aprilmore declines wouldnt surprise. Most other figures released Thursday had rosier results: January and Februarys combined retail sales grew 11.8% y/y, fixed-asset investment rose 17.9% y/y and industrial output rose 8.6% y/y. But instead of appreciating the growth, many folks focused on missed expectations and slower rates of expansion than last year. The data doldrums dont much surprise, thoughChina related sentiment has turned more dour in general lately. Jitters still linger from a small solar firms recent bond defaultthe first onshore default since Chinas central bank started keeping track in 1997. And what some feel are high credit levelstotal Chinese public/private debt hit 226% of GDP in 2013have been fueling credit bubble babble even as officials crack down on lending. But neither those, nor missed expectations, necessarily signal fundamental weakness. China is well-equipped to deal with any extant fiscal and banking issues, and the risks appear widely overestimated. Plus, China is still growing! Dont get us wrong: If China slumped to growth of 1 or 2%, it would be a negative. But that doesnt appear at all likely. China probably just slows a bit from last years 7.7%. That might not sound wonderful, but even slightly slower growth compounds. Consider: Though Chinas GDP growth has fallen from double-digit rates to mid-single digits in less than a decade, it has become the worlds second largest economy and keeps contributing greatly to global GDPincreasing its contribution by around $327 and $340 billion in 2012 and 2013, respectively. That doesnt mean there arent soft spots in Chinas economy. Property sales did fall -3.7% y/y in January and February, after rising 26.3% last year. But we suspect the fall is a side effect of the governments efforts to curb rising home prices. For years and lack of better options, many Chinese citizens bought second and third homes as investments, driving up prices. To keep housing more affordable for its rapidly expanding urban population, the government hiked property taxes and capital gains taxes and limited purchases of second and third homes. Falling sales now shouldnt surprise. Moreover, weakness in one or two spots likely isnt big enough to derail other thriving areas, like services, which grew in both January and February. And though exports hogged headlines, imports grew around 10% y/y in both months, suggesting domestic demand is resilient. Chinese officials seem to agree. Where slowing growth might have spurred a massive stimulus package in years past, they seem pretty comfortable with a small slowdown these days. After the latest data came out Thursday, Premier Li Keqiang remarked that the State Council would consider annual growth of 7.2% in line with their target of about 7.5%still perfectly satisfactory. Chinese officials know growth is slowing, and they want folks to set rational expectations. Which seems pretty inconsistent with a huge stimulus package, in our viewpotentially disappointing anyone expecting a spending blitz. A few targeted measures like we saw in early 2012 and 2013 wouldnt surprise, but a 2008-sized package doesnt appear to be in the cards. Nor does it need to bedemand is rising, not falling. A slowing China neednt mean a weakening world, either. Chinas issues are unique to China, and though some other Emerging Markets are experiencing hard times (because of their own problems), others are doing fine: Mexico, the Philippines and South Korea to name a few. And the Developed world is faring even better! There is no evidence of a worldwide demand dearth. Rather, fundamental strength is all over the globeproviding a good backdrop for stocks. War Between Saudi Arabia And Iran Could Send Oil Prices To $250 The rift between Saudi Arabia and Iran has quickly ballooned into the worst conflict in decades between the two countries. The back-and-forth escalation quickly turned the simmering tension into an overt struggle for power in the Middle East. First, the execution of a prominent Shiite cleric prompted protestors to set fire to the Saudi embassy in Tehran. Saudi Arabia cut off diplomatic relations and kicked out Iranian diplomatic personnel. Tehran banned Saudi goods from entering Iran. Worst of all, Iran blames Saudi Arabia for an airstrike that landed near its embassy in Yemen. Saudi Arabia's Sunni allies in the Arabian Peninsula largely followed suit by downgrading diplomatic ties with Iran. However, recognizing the dire implications of a major conflict in the region, most of Saudi Arabia's Gulf State allies did not go as far as to entirely sever diplomatic relations, as Saudi Arabia did. Bahrain, the one nation most closely allied with Riyadh, was the only one to take such a step.Many of them are concerned about a descent to further instability. Nations like Kuwait and Qatar have trade links with Iran, plus Shiite populations of their own. Crucially, Qatar also shares a maritime border with Iran as well as access to massive natural gas reserves in the Persian Gulf. These countries are trying to split the difference between the two belligerent nations in the Middle East. "The Saudis are on the phone lobbying countries very hard to break off ties with Iran but most Gulf states are trying to find some common ground," a diplomat from an Arab country told Reuters . "The problem is, common ground between everyone in this region is shrinking."The effect from the brewing conflict on oil is murky, but for now it is not having a bullish impact. In the past, geopolitical tension in the Middle East, especially involving large oil producers, would add a few dollars to the price of oil. This risk premium captured the possibility of a supply disruption into the price of a barrel of crude. However, recent events barely registered in oil trading. That is because the global glut in oil supplies loom larger than any potential for a supply disruption. Oil dropped to nearly $30 per barrel on January 12 and oil speculators are not paying any attention to the tension in the Middle East. Also, the conflict could simply manifest itself in an intensified battle for oil market share. Iran has put forth aggressive goals to ramp up oil production in the near-term. And Saudi Arabia continues to produce well in excess of 10 million barrels per day while discounting its crude in several key markets, particularly in Europe in order to box out Iran.But what if the current "Cold War" between Saudi Arabia and Iran turned hot?Saudi Arabia has a variety of reasons to not back down, not the least of which is the very real sense of being besieged on multiple fronts. An article in The New Statesman by former British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, John Jenkins, clearly laid out the threats that Saudi Arabia sees around every corner: extremists at home; a growing Iran; toppled allies from the Arab Spring; low oil prices; and a fractured relationship with the United States. The nuclear deal between Iran and the West was confirmation on the feeling in Riyadh that it is becoming increasingly insecure.Already the two rivals have engaged in proxy battles in Yemen and Syria, supporting opposite sides in those wars. A full on direct military confrontation would be something entirely different, however. It would have catastrophic consequences for oil markets, even when taking into account the current supply overhang. Dr. Hossein Askari, a professor at The George Washington University, told Oil & Gas 360 that a war between the two countries could lead to supply disruptions, with predictable impacts on prices."If there is a war confronting Iran and Saudi Arabia, oil could overnight go to above $250, but decline [back] down to the $100 level," said Askari. "If they attack each other's loading facilities, then we could see oil spike to over $500 and stay around there for some time depending on the extent of the damage."While not impossible, war is speculative at this point. Also, $250 and $500 per barrel are numbers pulled out of thin air, and may seem a bit sensationalist. But despite the glut in global oil production somewhere around 1 mb/d the margin from excess to shortage is thinner than most people think. OPEC is producing flat out and spare capacity is actually remarkably low right now. The EIA estimated that OPEC spare capacity stood at just 1.25 mb/d in the third quarter of 2015, the lowest level since 2008.As a result, even though it remains a remote possibility, direct military confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Iran could well put oil back into triple-digit territory in short order.Article Source: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/War-Between-Saudi-Arabia-And-Iran-Could-Send-Oil-Prices-To-250.html By James Stafford of Oilprice.com 2016 Copyright OilPrice.com - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors. 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. Oil Wars 2016 - US vs Russia vs Saudi Arabia vs Iran The oil price collapse is having a devastating impact on ALL of the worlds major oil producers as it's not just a case of what is the break-even price but the price necessary to finance government budgets that are now in deep deficits which has been triggering increasing global instability as the price has slid to $30. In fact the budgets of virtually every major oil producer requires an oil price north of $80 just to break-even. With several such as Russia requiring $100+. Furthermore the oil price slump of 2015 has played a large part in sparking economic mass migration out of African oil producers such as Nigeria whose government requires an oil price of $120 to balance it's budget. Russia - $110 Government Budget (52% of revenues), $20 Break even Russia, the worlds third largest oil producer and second largest exporter remains in war, war mode so as divert the attention of the Russian people away from an economy in meltdown as Czar Putin turns his military ambitions far beyond the Ukrainian war zone by expanding his military operations into Syria under the cover of fighting jihadists when the truth where Russia is concerned has always been one of first countering the U.S. Military Empire and secondly to undermine the European Union at every opportunity that has always been seen as the two real threats to the Russian Empire and not some high on religion fanatics roaming the Syrian desert. Thus Russia's war in Syria is primarily concerned with doing damage to the European Union and Secondly undermining the U.S. presence in the region. To illustrate the crisis that Russia faces is the fact that Russia requires an oil price north of $110 to balance its finances and for every $1 below $110 Russia loses an estimated $2billion in revenues, worst still is that the Russian industry needs an oil price of $20 just to break-even which could be hit this year. With crude oil currently trading at $30 that's a a huge revenue loss of well over $160 billion per annum that has plunged the Russian economy into recession for the whole of 2015 that looks set to further intensify during 2016 as Russia's hard earned foreign currency reserves look set to have completely evaporated before the end of 2016. Whilst the cowering in fear population may be calm today, however if the oil fails to recover or worse dips to as low as $20, then Russia is in for a perfect storm of a totalitarian state on the edge of a major civil revolts as the population panics, prompting troops on the ground Ukraine style. China - $30 break even Most will be unaware that China is the world's fourth largest oil producer, though all of it is for domestic consumption and even more is imported. The economic slowdown in China is one of the primary drivers for the collapse in the global oil price which is also making itself felt in the global stock markets. So whilst lower oil prices should act to support the Chinese economy, other drivers such as over capacity far surpass the low oil price stimulus that shows no signs of recovering for much of 2016. In fact low oil price will be hurting Chinese producers and refiners just as badly as western oil majors, that likely are already being propped up by the Chinese government which means despite being a heavy consumer, China also needs an oil price floor of about $40 below which the pain tends out weigh the gain. So China does not look set to spark a fundamental turn around in crude oil demand for much of 2016. In terms of instability, a weak economy is likely to further encourage the Chinese Empire emboldened by a new fleet of air craft carriers to continue to assert its dominance over the asian region the most evident example of which is the construction of artificial islands on reefs in the South China Sea an area claimed by several other nations including the Philippines and Malaysia that could prove a flash point between U.S. and Chinese vessels. Iran - $70 Govt budget, $25 break even The continuing thawing of Iran / U.S. relations implies the potential for an huge increase in the supply of oil out of Iran which has the worlds fourth largest oil reserves and second largest gas reserves. Whilst it will take the whole of 2016 for Iran to ramp up production by even another 1m b/d. However a more immediate supply boost will likely come from the release of 50 million barrels of oil in storage for the hoped for economic boost which is fast evaporating given an oil price of just $30, which is well below the minimum of $70 required for Iran to cover government spending. Lifting of sanctions means that even if Iran does not actually turn on the taps, just the ability to do so at anytime will be enough to keep oil prices depressed for virtually the whole of 2016. Especially given the internal and external pressures pulling on Iran to raise more revenues such as the Iran's proxy wars against Saudi Arabia in Syria and Yemen whilst at the same time retaining its influence and network of control over Shia Iraq. Saudi Arabia - $100 Govt Budget (85% of revenues), $10 break-even Those who have been looking to Saudi Arabia for signs for a cut in production have been greatly disappointed as instead Saudi Arabia has ramped up production to 10.2m b/d compared to 9.6m b/d a year ago and thus further contributing to the worlds crude oil glut that is seen by much of the media as part of a 'War on U.S. Shale oil industry' aimed at annihilating competition such as that from the fracking industry. However, despite $620 billion of reserves most of which is parked in its sovereign wealth funds, Saudi Arabia is not immune to the instability triggering consequences of the oil price collapse which is seeing Saudi Arabia's wealth disappearing at the rate of about $100 billion per annum as the Kingdom is reliant on oil exports for 85% of its revenues. In fact rather than reigning in government spending, Saudi Arabia is engaged in two costly major proxy wars against Iran in Syria and Yemen and each passing day brings increasing risks of a hot war between Iran and Saudi Arabia that would probably trigger at least a temporary speculator driven spike in oil prices. So rather than Saudi Arabia using oil prices to kill off the competition the real story is more of a totalitarian state being destabilised by the oil price collapse that is fighting multiple proxy wars and an internal insurgency, as it should not be forgotten that Saudi Arabia is a family dictatorship that is only able to retain power by means of terror and bribery of ordinary Saudi citizens with oil money that is fast running out of. So in the grand scheme of things the U.S. shale industry is way down on the priority list of worries for the Saudi totalitarian regime. The reality of the Saudi Arabia is one of a regime that is rotten to its very core, that literally has hundreds of wannabe Al-Saud Saddam Hussain types running around trying to stoke the fires of sectarian conflict both in neighbouring states and within Saudi Arabia itself, who are increasingly wielding power against a fragile centre that sows the seeds for what is unthinkable today that of a revolution or even civil war, let alone the possibility of a hot war against Iran. Given the fact that Saudi Arabia has not cut oil production to date is very telling, in that it shows that the Saudi totalitarian Islamic fundamentalist state fears three things - 1. It's people 2. I's oil becoming obsolete / worthless as a consequence of new renewable energy sources prompted by climate change. 3. Anything Shia, which the Saudi wahabi ideology perceive as apostates. Which means no matter how loudly other OPEC members scream at Saudi Arabia to cut production, it's just not going to happen, in fact I would not be surprised if we find out in a few months time that Saudi Arabia has further INCREASED production in an attempt to monetize the oil in the ground whilst it still has customers for it and ahead of Iran opening the taps. This illuminates why Saudi Arabia this week announced intentions to put its oil industry (Aramco) on sale, which is because it understands that the nations 266 billion barrels of oil in the ground could become worthless long before it can be produced and sold, so instead are trying to forward sell Saudi Arabia's oil reserves to clueless investors. By the end of 2016 some of these Al-Saud wannabe Saddam Hussain's will have made enough of a name for themselves so as to make it into the mainstream media as they leave their finger prints as the instigators of regional instability through extreme acts of violence of which the recent executions were just a taste of what is to follow. Iraq - $80 budget, $12 break even Iraq still desperately trying to rebuild its devastated cities after the U.S. and allies went on a decade long rampage across the nation all on the basis of lies such as that its was for 9/11 or that there were weapons of mass destruction ready to hit europe within 45minutes, the consequences of which still continues plague Iraq to this day which remains a divided nation of between Sunni's and Shia's. After America's departure the one hope that Iraq had towards building a better more stable future was Iraq's huge oil reserves which given a price of $100 would be more than enough for the central government to paper over the cracks and buy off the various competing factions with petro dollars. However, again despite a low break even price of $12, $30 is just not enough to meet the requirements for a fragile Iraq which implies that 2016 could turn out to be just as bad a year for Iraq as was 2015, as the factions such as the Kurds, and various Sunni and Shia militias attempt to seize control of the oil producing regions resulting in continuing sectarian warfare. In fact the Kurds by the end of 2016 could come to be seen in a similar manner as ISIS is today, as Kurdistan seeks to control Iraq's northern oil fields and take all of the revenues from themselves therefore risking a Shia Iraq / Kurd war. United States - $65 break even The consensus view in America is that Saudi Arabia is engaged in an oil war to knock out America's shale oil industry. However, when one looks at the facts the reality is more like the US oil war on Saudi Arabia as evidenced by the fact that it is the United States which has effectively doubled its oil production over the past 10 years from 4.5 million barrels a day to over 9 million today that virtually rivals that of Saudi Arabia which is producing little more than it was 10 years ago (10.2 against 9.7 10 years ago). This view whilst obvious remains invisible to a propaganda driven mainstream press that instead of reflecting reality instead peddles and regurgitates the view that it is all Saudi Arabia's fault. The U.S. shale oil production peaked during 2015 at approx 5.7 million barrels per day and today has declined to 5.15 million barrels a day, with expectations for the decline to steepen during 2016 in response to a sustained low oil price resulting in a bloodbath amongst the US shale oil industry that could kill off half of the industry this year leaving output at least 2m b/d lower at approx 3m b/d. Therefore US total oil output could fall to approx 7m b/d by the end of 2016. Whilst the majors should fair better having locked in prices for multiple years as high as $60, nevertheless will be scrapping hundreds of billions in exploration and drilling projects during 2016 resulting in further job losses. So on the basis of fundamentals there is little sign for an end to low prices any time soon as it will be slow grinding process of wiping out approx half of the US shale industry which is the only peaceful method of bring price stability to the oil market. Which means any bottom in the crude oil price is unlikely to spark a return to anywhere near the likes of $100 with a real risk that the crude oil price could sink even lower, as given these fundamentals $20 is very possible (60% probability), and whilst today it is difficult to imagine the oil price trading as low as $10 as some suggest (Standard Chartered), nevertheless it is no longer impossible (20% probability). War is Coming! The bottom line is a sustained low oil price far below levels necessary to finance government budgets means that something major is going to give during 2016 where not even the likes of Russia or Saudi Arabia or Iran are immune. The current trend is towards an escalation of the conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran. However, either one of these totalitarian nations may implode into civil war during 2016 much as we have seen with Syria and Libya during the past few years. And even Russia is not immune to such a fate, which I am sure has many western intelligence agencies busy trying to engineer Russia's demise much as Russia is busy trying to disrupt the European Union and American influence in its bordering regions. This is just an excerpt from my forth coming in-depth analysis and detailed trend forecast for crude oil prices for 2016. Ensure you are subscribed to my always free newsletter to ge this analysis in your email in box, as well as the following planned newsletters - Interest Rates 2016 US Dollar Trend Forecast US House Prices Forecast 2016 and Beyond Stock Market Trend Forecast 2016 Gold and Silver Price Forecast 2016 Also subscribe to our Youtube channel for notification of video releases and for our new series on the 'The Illusion of Democracy and Freedom', that seeks to answer questions such as 'Did God Create the Universe?' and how to 'Attain Freedom' as well as a stream of mega long term 'Future Trend Forecasts'. Source and Comments:http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article53690.html By Nadeem Walayat http://www.marketoracle.co.uk Copyright 2005-2016 Marketoracle.co.uk (Market Oracle Ltd). All rights reserved. Nadeem Walayat has over 25 years experience of trading derivatives, portfolio management and analysing the financial markets, including one of few who both anticipated and Beat the 1987 Crash. Nadeem's forward looking analysis focuses on UK inflation, economy, interest rates and housing market. He is the author of five ebook's in the The Inflation Mega-Trend and Stocks Stealth Bull Market series that can be downloaded for Free. Nadeem is the Editor of The Market Oracle, a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication that presents in-depth analysis from over 1000 experienced analysts on a range of views of the probable direction of the financial markets, thus enabling our readers to arrive at an informed opinion on future market direction. http://www.marketoracle.co.uk Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any trading losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors before engaging in any trading activities. Nadeem Walayat Archive 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. A judge in Henry County General District Court on Thursday set bond at $7,500 for a woman who recently was charged with obtaining prescription drugs by fraud and related charges. Saria Resha Hickman, 24, who had lived in Georgia all her life before moving to the Martinsville area, was charged with three counts of obtain drug or controlled substance by fraud-first offense and three counts of utter or attempt to employ as true prescription, knowing such document to be forged all felonies. A criminal complaint, which is the same in all the cases, alleges the following: On Dec. 28, 2015, Walgreens Pharmacy at 2705 Greensboro Road notified the local 9-1-1 center about a fraudulent prescription. Walgreens pharmacists advised that a young female dropped off a prescription with Dr. Vincent Jones name on it, along with a signature that was supposed to be Jones. The head pharmacist advised that he was familiar with Jones and that the prescription in question was not of Dr. Jones. The head pharmacist had a prescription already at the store from Jones, with the signature from the prescription in question totally different. On Dec. 28, Investigator M.M. Price of the Henry County Sheriffs Office spoke with Jones office manager, who advised that they had not heard of the names on the fraudulent prescriptions. Walgreens contacted Jones, and he stated that at no time did he write that prescription. The incident happened at CVS on Greensboro Road and Walgreens in Collinsville and 2705 Greensboro Road, Martinsville. Video surveillance showed at each location, a young female wearing a red shirt and long hair dropping off the fraudulent prescriptions. The female in question was arrested by the Martinsville Police Department on a city charge on Dec. 28, and after Henry County Sheriffs Office followed up with MPD, HCSO determined it was the same person. The female was identified as Saria Resha Hickman. At the bond hearing Thursday, Judge Edwin A. Gendron Jr. set a $7,500 bond, with conditions that Hickman may not leave Virginia; must submit to drug/alcohol screening; refrain from possessing weapons; refrain from use of alcohol; and refrain from use of illegal drugs/controlled substances not prescribed by a health care provider. Rich Acres Elementary is among 46 schools throughout the state that recently were recognized as Title 1 Distinguished Schools, earning the achievement by increasing academic achievement of economically disadvantaged students. Renee Scott, principal at Rich Acres Elementary, received a plaque of recognition at a recent meeting of the Henry County Public Schools School Board. The recognition comes from The Virginia Board of Education, taking into account the 2013 to 2014 and 2014 to 2015 academic years. Rich Acres gained eligibility for the award by surpassing all of the state and federal accountability benchmarks for two consecutive years. Rich Acres met the guidelines of achieving SOL pass rates at or above the 60th percentile for the areas of reading and mathematics. Im very proud of the schools staff and students dedication to education, Scott said. Scott noted that this is her first year at Rich Acres, having previously served as assistant principal at Bassett High School. Rich Acres promotes a culture of success, Scott said. Every student and staff member is held to high standards. Woolwine Elementary, located in Patrick County, also was one of the 46 schools that were recognized. Im very, very proud of this award, Dee Owens, principal at Woolwine Elementary said. We have a long history of excellence at our school. Owens explained that she doesnt take the recognition lightly, explaining that there are over 1,000 elementary schools in the state of Virginia. Its a collaborative effort, the teachers, staff, students and community all play a large role in our school, Owens said. Owens attributes the success of the school to the school system restructuring its approach to instructional methods. Owens noted that a previous principal at Woolwine won the Title 1 Distinguished Schools honor in the past, but this is Owens first time being presented with the honor. In conjunction with the Title 1 Distinguished Schools, nine schools in the state have been recognized as Title 1 Highly Distinguished Schools, meaning that the schools scored at or above the 85th percentile, as opposed to the 60th percentile. The nine schools that were designated as highly distinguished are located in Amherst, Bath, Franklin, Scott, Smyth and York counties, Richmond and Norfolk cities and the town of West Point. New Year: champagne in the glasses and celebration of the new year with its promises and hopes. But there is not much hope and optimism in the Danish media. The New Year started with the introduction of ID-control on the Danish-Swedish border. Not since 1954 has it been necessary to show identification between the two Scandinavian countries. For more than 60 years you could travel freely between them. This is extremely indicative of the situation at the dawn of 2016. As I write these lines refugees are being driven in busses to tent camps in Denmark while the snow is falling. Not for lack of places in the asylum centers, but because the Danish politicians think it is the right signal to send: A signal to the men, women, and children who have risked their lives fleeing wars and the problems that the Danish politicians have played their part in creating. The Danish right-wing government continues unabated and rejects any criticism of their inhumane asylum policy, including the latest from the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) that the governments policy puts refugees in distress in mortal danger. The Swedish Social Democratic/Green government introduced a law making the transportation companies responsible for checking the IDs of their passengers before transporting them across the border from Denmark to Sweden. Concretely, it means that the train normally going from Denmark to Sweden across the bridge now stops at Copenhagen airport (close to the bridge), where all passengers have to show legitimate ID before entering a new train taking them to Sweden. Lack of ID means they are kept in Denmark, and thereby unable to seek asylum in Sweden. Not long ago, Sweden was portrayed as the humane bulwark of Europe. The Green Party minister shed crocodile tears as she announced these measurestears do not help the refugees the least bit, and do not alter the fact that the policies of the Swedish government are now used as an excuse for governments all over Europe. The Swedish ID controls are used by the Danish government as an excuse to introduce border control on the Danish/German border, and so the dominoes begin to fall in open and boundless Europe. Schengen and the entire project EU is crumbling. The one million refugees who have come to the EU amount to less than two refugees per thousand Europeans. That this number can bring one of the richest areas in the world to its knees reveals the deep crisis of European capitalism. Danish hypocrisy The Swedish ID check is convenient for governments across Europe: If the oh-so-humanistic Sweden can do it, so can we. The Danish government had, however, already started to do what they could to keep refugees away from Denmark, long before Sweden closed the border. As late as November, the government hastened a bill on refugees through Parliament in 3 days. This bill included many restrictions on the legal rights of refugees. For example they can be detained without being offered seeing a judge (they have to know to request it themselves). The bill also makes it possible to accommodate refugees in tent camps, which they were very quick to apply. They delayed action on some of the 34 parts of the bill. The rest will be discussed next week in the Danish Parliament. The next part of the asylum package includes ordering police to seize the refugees valuables, including jewelry. The discussion in the media now is on how far to go: if this bill also includes wedding rings or not, and how the police are to assess what is valuable or not, and what has affection value. Also, the new bill delays the right to family reunification from 1 to 3 years for war refugees (the refugees whose families need most to escape their conditions). At the same time they tighten the rules for gaining permanent residence, they reduce benefits for refugees (that are all ready now very low), and make it illegal for refugees to live outside detention asylum centers. That the Danish government introduces border control on the border with Germany is "just" a small part of their total brutal attacks on refugees. The pace with which attack follows attack is breathtaking. That the politicians, in all seriousness, suggest and most likely decide to confiscate the refugees private property and isolate them in camps would not very long ago have seemed like something from a dystopian novel, not the evenings edition of the news. The attacks on refugees now are a harbinger of the future of the entire working class. Whipping up a mood Danish Prime Minister Lars Lkke and Secretary of Integration Inger Stjberg gave as the reason for the need of border controls that we should never again see the chaos that occurred in September, with refugees walking on the highways. Alas, how terrible! They talk as if it was the beginning of the collapse of civilization that a few hundred people walked on the highway. The politicians themselves did nothing to help the thousands of people who needed help. People who are fleeing wars, where bombs have destroyed much more than highways: homes, schools, and entire cities, not to mention hundreds of thousands of lives. The government uses the classic scapegoat to divert attention from their extreme unpopularity and the enormous dissatisfaction that exists with their policy. The Liberal minority government was elected in June with less than 20 percent of the votes. The populist right-wing Danish Peoples Party became bigger than the Liberals but did not want to enter government, because it would discredit them completely. The government is in fact incredibly weak, but that is exactly why they cannot stop, but must go further and further. The right wing, with the Danish Peoples Party leading the way, is obviously whipping up a mood. But the Social Democrats do not lag behind. Negotiations on the governments asylum package fell before Christmas, because the Danish Peoples Party and the Social Democrats called for the creation of the refugee villages. In a December 18 article in the Danish paper Politiken, Henrik Sass Larsen, group leader for the Social Democrats, wrote: We will do everything we can to limit the number of non-Western refugees and immigrants coming to this country. Therefore, we have gone a long wayand much longerthan we had dreamed of going. We have done that, because we do not want to sacrifice the welfare society in the name of Humanism. For the welfare society is . . . the political project of the Social Democratic Party. It is a society built on the principles of liberty, equality, and solidarity. A mass migrationas seen in, for example, Swedenwill economically and socially undermine the welfare state. Henrik Sass Larsen is not the only Social Democrat who uses the welfare state as a battering ram against the refugees. In an article entitled No, we Social Democrats are not Danish Peoples Party light, the authors Peter Hummelgaard, Member of Parliament (S), Kasper Fogh Hansen, former party counselor, and Thomas Gyldal Petersen, Mayor of Herlev (S) proved exactly the opposite of what the title claims. Just like the Danish Peoples Party, they lay the responsibility for austerity on the refugees. Not only that, in the most disgusting wayjust like the Danish Peoples Partythey portray the refugees, i.e., workers from other parts of the world, as the enemy and a problem for Danish workers. We have not spent a century building a harmonious society characterised by high equality to abolish them again through uncontrolled immigration. It will not be the top of society, who will pay the price, they are probably just happy at the prospect of even cheaper labor. The consequence of accepting refugees has very quickly become cuts in the municipal welfare. It will be the most disadvantaged who are paying. They claim that they differ from the Danish Peoples Party, because they want to help the refugees, but among other things they propose To organise reception centers for refugees on the borders of Europe. Maybe even huge refugee cities, with hospitals, schools, universities, agriculture, businesses, and so on, which can be home to many of those who have left their home countries. Until they can return home. For the tops of the Social Democrats, the principle of liberty, equality, and solidarity openly only apply to Danish workersthe labor movements original international solidarity has long since been thrown on the dunghill. It was thrown on the dunghill concurrently with the Social Democrats becoming the foremost pillar of capitalism. They defend a system that is in a blind alley. The crisis of capitalism means a crisis of reformism. The only defense the Social Democrats can put up around the welfare society that is left, after their own harsh austerity when they were in government, is to try and build high walls. International competition sentences this strategy to death, but they have nothing else. The Danish workers, through battle, won the welfare state, which was progressive and meant a semi-civilized life for awhile. That is over now. And the Social Democrats now use welfare to defend reactionary racist policies. They whip up hateful sentiment against refugees and immigrants to move the focus away from the problems of capitalism and their own failed policies. It has its own internal logic. The next step in the cycle is attacks, as we have already seen in countries like Sweden, Germany, and France, where asylum centers have been burned down, mosques vandalized, etc. The media helps to inflame hatred, not least after the terrorist attacks in Paris both at the entrance and exit to the year 2015, and after the sexual harassments in Cologne on New Years Eve, when the media focused at least as much on the background of the perpetrators as the monstrous attacks themselves, and politicians in Europe were very quick to catch the ball and link it to the refugees. The hateful rhetoric from the establishment incites the most radicalized right wing to go from words to action. We have to say things as they are: the same rhetoric today resembles that which has throughout history been a prelude to pogroms. The other side All is not black and pessimistic, after all, at the beginning of 2016. The historically high number of refugees in the world is an expression of capitalism being in a historical dead end. The fact that the year began with the Chinese authorities suspending stock trading twice during the first week because of falling stock prices is just another symptom of the extreme turbulence that exists worldwide. The strategists of capital have no idea what to do. They do not have a solution to the crisis, but stumble blindly with an extremely short-term perspective to keep the skin on the nose here and now. We increasingly see a split in the bourgeoisie on the way forward, but no roads ends in a solution on a capitalist basis. On the other hand, we see that the crisis of capitalism has awakened the consciousness of the masses to the fact that something is fundamentally wrong, and the realization that politicians do not have any answers. The old established political parties are rejecteda process we see throughout Europe, also in Denmark. General confidence in the political system is historically low. The latest survey from the weekly newsletter A4 from Dec. 22 showed that Danish public confidence in politicians in Parliament has not been lower in recent times. In the study, six out of ten Danes declares that they have very little or little confidence in politicians in general. And the proportion who responded that they have very little trust in politicians is historically high, at almost one in four voters, which is an increase from one in ten voters in 2011, and one in six a year ago. When the politicians in September were terrified of refugees walking on the highway, the Danish population took matters into their own hands and did what they could to help with food, clothing, and transportation. Normal Danes drove to the border, giving lifts to refugees even though they risked being charged with human smuggling. In August and September there were two large demonstrations against the policies of the government. It is dangerous for the bourgeoisie when the masses reach the conclusion that the political establishment is not part of the solution, but part of the problem. The massive demonstrations in the autumn against the governments immigration policy broke several years of stagnation, and put pressure on the politicians. But as the movement died down, the politicians continued their attacks on refugees with even greater brutality. However, it must not lead us to conclude that the movements were in vain; we have not gone back to the status quo. The deadlock is broken. It has in particular had an effect on the many young people who have not previously participated in any movement. Many have felt that they were the only ones in the world who were dissatisfied. Their isolation is now beginning to crack. The next conclusion is that it is not enough to go on the street; it is necessary to organize and to have a political programme. A system in crisis creates polarisation, both to the right and to the left. The fact that the right wing can grow as successfully as in Denmark, for example, where their xenophobic policies gain ground far into the labor movement, is due to the total absence of answers and an alternative from the left wing. In countries like Spain, Greece, and the UK, where alternatives from the left have emerged, the populist right wing have received very little support. But as we saw in Greece, the Left reformism that Tsipras stood for also has limitations. Promises are not enough to stop austerity and privatisations. The only thing that can stop the crisis of capitalism and stop this barbarism we see now is a break with capitalism, and the revolutionary transformation of society on socialist lines. Source: Denmark: Border control and tent camps - signs of a system in crisis We havent seen this in a long time: the number of requests for residency visas to Lebanon has literally exploded. Since the news of Michel Samahas release came out, bomb carriers from around the world want to move here. Claude El Khal, 2016 Its a dream come true, says the president of The Worldwide Association of Transporters and bomb carriers (TWAT), finally a haven where we can live and work in peace.Almost everywhere, we are discriminated against, he adds as he wipes off his tears, people call us names, "terrorists" they say, its so unfair, were just normal folks trying to make a decent living.Its not our fault if terrorism has become such a booming business, says a bomb carrier who asked too remain anonymous, and a man needs to work you know. We all have wifes and kids to take care off. We just obey orders thats all, we do nothing wrong.The news of Michel Samaha, a Lebanese former Minister and Member of Parliament arrested on terrorist charges, being released on bail has spread like wildfire among bomb carriers throughout the world.It has become somewhat of a legend, confirms a veteran transporter who has been in the bomb carrying business for decades. All my life I had to work in the shadows, hiding, now I can move to Lebanon and do my job openly, then eventually retire a respected man.Imagine, says cheerfully the president of TWAT, Michel Samaha was caught the hand in the cookie jar transporting explosives from Syria to Lebanon in his own car, he was also taped talking in details about what to do with these explosives and now hes out, enjoying the comfort of his own home. This man is my hero.He concludes enthusiastically: Lebanon is such an amazing country! Google clashed with California transportation officials last month over draft rules that would require a licensed driver be in an autonomous car in case the technology malfunctions. Now with some help from the federal government, the Mountain View tech giant could get its way. By Queenie Wong Full Story: http://www.siliconbeat.com/2016/01/14/obama-administration-unveils-4-billion-proposal-for-self-driving-cars/ Two minutes isnt much time to explain a complicated business model. But thats the challenge facing entrepreneurs competing in an international business contest, including the 20 startup founders who made their pitch at Challenge Cup Boise on Wednesday. By Zach Kyle [email protected] Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/business/technology/article54642480.html#storylink=cpy This remote expanse of southeast Oregon, now in the spotlight for a long anti-government standoff, was one of the most prosperous pockets of the state just 40 years ago. No place earned more money per resident in 1973 than Harney County. All of that changed within a generation. The decline of the timber industry felled the mill, then the regional economy. Timber supported a third of the countys employment base in the 1970s. It now accounts for virtually none. By Molly Young | The Oregonian/OregonLive Full Story: http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/01/behind_the_harney_county_standoff_decades_of_economic_decline.html#incart_2box_business Archive December 2019 (1) April 2018 (1) September 2017 (1) June 2017 (1) April 2017 (1) February 2017 (1) January 2017 (1) December 2016 (2) October 2016 (2) August 2016 (1) July 2016 (2) May 2016 (1) April 2016 (1) February 2016 (2) January 2016 (3) November 2015 (2) September 2015 (2) July 2015 (2) June 2015 (1) May 2015 (1) April 2015 (4) March 2015 (2) February 2015 (1) January 2015 (1) December 2014 (2) November 2014 (2) September 2014 (3) August 2014 (6) July 2014 (4) June 2014 (11) May 2014 (3) April 2014 (5) March 2014 (5) February 2014 (1) January 2014 (2) December 2013 (3) October 2013 (3) September 2013 (3) August 2013 (5) July 2013 (5) June 2013 (1) May 2013 (2) April 2013 (8) March 2013 (11) February 2013 (3) January 2013 (8) December 2012 (5) November 2012 (3) October 2012 (5) September 2012 (8) August 2012 (4) July 2012 (13) June 2012 (18) May 2012 (17) April 2012 (26) March 2012 (36) February 2012 (16) January 2012 (35) December 2011 (21) November 2011 (34) October 2011 (21) September 2011 (32) August 2011 (33) July 2011 (18) June 2011 (12) May 2011 (28) April 2011 (13) March 2011 (10) February 2011 (18) January 2011 (8) December 2010 (8) November 2010 (27) October 2010 (6) September 2010 (7) August 2010 (15) July 2010 (30) June 2010 (24) May 2010 (56) April 2010 (19) March 2010 (17) February 2010 (23) January 2010 (33) December 2009 (42) November 2009 (26) October 2009 (16) September 2009 (2) August 2009 (21) July 2009 (28) June 2009 (8) May 2009 (20) April 2009 (28) February 2009 (25) January 2009 (60) December 2008 (23) November 2008 (41) October 2008 (32) September 2008 (20) August 2008 (26) July 2008 (28) June 2008 (24) May 2008 (33) April 2008 (16) March 2008 (44) February 2008 (44) January 2008 (28) December 2007 (38) November 2007 (48) October 2007 (79) September 2007 (31) August 2007 (40) July 2007 (52) June 2007 (60) May 2007 (34) April 2007 (16) March 2007 (42) February 2007 (11) January 2007 (38) December 2006 (46) November 2006 (26) October 2006 (26) September 2006 (53) August 2006 (49) July 2006 (33) Chicken will be the best-positioned protein due to its low price position in times of pressure on consumer spending power but rises in production costs and the long-term impact of COVID-19 threaten to disrupt the sector, according to Rabobank. Medgadget was invited to the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center to witness a minimally invasive procedure to help a man with hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT). The disease causes irregular formation of blood vessels within the body, including the brain, which leads to a bunch of unusual symptoms ranging from nose bleeds to poor neurological function. The patient, in his early 30s, has suffered from symptoms of HHT since his late teens. Since then hes had a number of surgeries, including the removal of a large part of his skull that became infected. Recently new symptoms, such as frequent and debilitating seizures, have appeared that have taken a toll on him. To further diagnose the problem he was referred to the specialists at the HHT Center of Excellence at UCSF, one of the few places in the U.S. that specializes in HHT. Dr. Steven Hetts, an Associate Professor of Radiology at UCSF and Chief of Neuroradiology at San Francisco General Hospital, as well as a member of the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery, was suspecting that the patient may have developed an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) within the brain. AVMs are large defects that connect arteries to veins directly, bypassing the capillary system and causing any of a series of problems. These lesions typically happen in larger organs in HHT patients (lungs, brain), and have been known to cause symptoms similar to what the patient was experiencing. X-ray angiograms of the brain are often used to look for AVMs and actually spotting them requires high-end equipment, meticulous and steady procedural discipline, teamwork, and a keen eye when repeatedly looking at the images. Most importantly, years of experience develop a sense of what to look for and the associated intuition to spot abnormalities within a complex picture. When we arrived into the catheterization lab the patient was already under anesthesia. Because the angiograms required the patient to hold his breath during image capture, he was kept under controlled MAC sedation. This lets the patient hear whats going around him and to follow the frequent repeat instructions of keep your eyes closed and hold your breath. Following sedation, a catheter is inserted at the groin and guided up the femoral artery toward the brain. It is used to deliver an X-ray contrast agent into the vasculature within the head. Snaking it up different branches of the vasculature allows for imaging of different parts of the brain. A dual C-arm fluoroscopy system from Siemens was used for imaging in two planes at the same time, which lets one understand the 3D nature of the vasculature being examined. The process of navigating the catheter around, injecting the contrast agent, and taking images was done repeatedly by the surgical team that included Dr. Hetts at the helm, two radiologists in training, and a surgical tech. The anesthesiologist meanwhile kept the patient cruising, nearly asleep, but not quite, but neither really awake. About every ten minutes the patient was asked to not blink and to do a breath hold for about ten seconds as the contrast was injected and X-ray shots were taken. The surgical team working directly on the patient standed behind a leaded glass shield and wore leaded suits as they guided the catheter around, keeping them safe from stray radiation coming off the X-ray source. For additional safety, during the imaging process they stepped out of the operating room as the X-ray made a series of high resolution exposures. After each imaging process, Dr. Hetts reviewed the shots taken, looking for any signs of AVM lesions, changing contrast, zooming in and out, and considering where to look next. For better or worse, there were no AVMs discovered during this angiogram and there will have to be further studies done to diagnose the cause of the patients latest seizures and other medical troubles. We spoke with patients parents who were hopeful about what doctors at UCSF will be able to do for him, and having struggled with managing the disease understand there are further challenges ahead. Were glad to see that doctors today have the capability of navigating through the brain using extremely narrow, flexible, slick, and strong guidewires and catheters while imaging the organ with impressive quality using advanced fluoroscopes. This being essentially a new field, were confident that there will be a lot more progress in the coming years in neuroradiology for addressing strokes, cancers, and other debilitating conditions. Were glad to see the folks at UCSF are helping to lead that effort. Links: HHT Center of Excellence at UCSF and Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery Wed like to thank the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery for helping to organize this tour. According to the society, it was founded in 1992 as the American Society of Interventional and Therapeutic Neuroradiology (ASITN), the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery (SNIS) is a scientific and educational association with over 600 members worldwide. The SNIS is dedicated to advancing the specialty of neurointerventional surgery in order to provide the highest quality of patient care to the public. SNIS draws its membership from three areas interventional neuroradiology, endovascular neurosurgery and interventional neurology. Its the bringing together of these three subspecialties under one umbrella that gives SNIS its diversity and strength. by Larissa Faw , January 14, 2016 More details on the big Publicis Groupe restructuring, announced last month, were released today. All global creative networks - Publicis Worldwide, Leo Burnett, Saatchi & Saatchi, and BBH - as well as production shop Prodigious and communications agency MSLGROUP are now united under the leadership of CEO Arthur Sadoun. Sadoun has formed a Creative Board that will be led by Mark Tutssel, Chief Creative Officer, Leo Burnett. Under the reorganization, brands will still execute individually, but clients will have full access to the entire range of the hubs participants. To that end, every shop can now tap the expertise of Publicis' 7,000 digital executives and will be able to utilize every agency's social, mobile, CRM, and e-commerce platforms. All agencies also have the ability to develop multi-channel content through the use of the Prodigious' production platform. advertisement advertisement At the same time, Publicis is consolidating its specialized agencies Arc, Saatchi X, Vivid, and The Creative Counsel under the Arc brand to bring together its shopper marketing capabilities. Another unit under the hub is the start-up incubator The Drugstore that will allow Publicis Communications clients access to "creative innovation and guidance." This start-up is currently available in London, Johannesburg, Sydney and Zurich, and will continue to roll out in all of Publicis Communications' key markets by the end of the year. Meanwhile, the management of Publicis Communications will be led by a group of network leaders known as the Global ComEx. Four key positions created at ComEx level include Sophie Martin-Chantepie as Chief Talent Officer, Charlotte Duthoo, Chief Transformation Officer, Patrick Dumouchel as global CFO and Bill Cochrane as CFO for North America. Saatchi & Saatchi is represented by CEO Robert Senior and COO Justin Billingsley and Leo Burnett by CEO Tom Bernardin and North American President Rich Stoddart. Andrew Bruce (NA CEO) and Loris Nold (APAC CEO) represent Publicis Worldwide alongside Neil Munn CEO of BBH, Guillaume Herbette CEO of MSLGROUP and Jean-Francois Valent , CEO at Prodigious. Publicis plans on appointing global chief client officers for select groupe units later this year. by Richard Whitman , Columnist, January 14, 2016 In late 2014, 72andSunny reached out to Brooklyn mural artist Maya Hayuk to participate in the creation of an ad campaign for Starbucks. The work was to promote the new Starbucks Mini Frappuccino. After concepting with 72andSunny for eight days on the project, Hayuk told the agency she was too busy to create the new work and the two parties parted ways. When the Mini Frappuccino campaign launched in 2015, Hayuk felt the rainbow-style artwork the agency used in the campaign was a bit too similar to her own work and she filed a $750,000 copyright infringement claim against Starbucks. The lawsuit stated: "Starbucks brazenly created artwork that is substantially similar to one or more of Hayuks copyrighted works. Hayuk's lawyer added: When things like this happen, it cheapens the value of the art -- its really true. And her only source of income is her art. advertisement advertisement Alas, Hayuk's claim did not stand up in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York which, on January 12, ruled that Hayuk's claims amounted to an attempt to monopolize concepts based on certain colors or shapes. The court rejected Hayuk's claim because it said her work was "fine art" and, because of that, her work is not subject to the usual tests of similarity that separates non-protectable ideas from protectable expression. On this, the ruling read: "Plaintiff urges the Court to apply the "ordinary observer" test, asserting that "the Hayuk Works are not composed of unprotectable elements -- they are fine art, creations of pure imagination" and 'incapable of being parsed into protectable and unprotectable elements.' The mere status of being 'fine art,' assuming the Hayuk Works to be such, does not, however, confer automatic protection over the entirety of the works, and Plaintiff cites no authority to support this proposition." The court also held that Starbucks couldn't be held liable for stealing the core of Hayuk's work which the court said amounted to a claim that Starbucks copied her style, which is not protected by copyright law. Specifically, the ruling read: "What the Plaintiff has described as the 'core' of her work in the aggregate, namely the use of overlapping colored rays, and colors and shapes, is tantamount to a set of unprotectable concepts or methods over which there can be no copyright monopoly conferred." While it's always nice to root for the underdog, sometimes the agency wins and that's one of those times. In late 2014, 72andSunny reached out to Brooklyn mural artist Maya Hayak to participate in the creation of an ad campaign for Starbucks. The work was to promote the new Starbucks Mini Frappuccino. After concepting with 72andSunny for eight days on the project, Hayuk told the agency she was too busy to create the new work and the two parties parted ways. When the Mini Frappuccino campaign launched in 2015, Hayuk felt the rainbow-style artwork the agency used in the campaign was a bit too similar to her own work and she filed a $750,000 copyright infringement claim against Starbucks. The lawsuit stated: "Starbucks brazenly created artwork that is substantially similar to one or more of Hayuks copyrighted works. Hayuk's lawyer added: When things like this happen, it cheapens the value of the art -- its really true. And her only source of income is her art. Alas, Hayuk's claim did not stand up in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York which, on January 12, ruled Hayuk's claims amounted to an attempt to monopolize concepts based on certain colors or shapes. The court rejected Hayauk's claim because it said her work was "fine art" and, because of that, her work is not subject to the usual tests of similarity which separates non-protectable ideas from protectable expression. On this, the ruling read, "Plaintiff urges the Court to apply the "ordinary observer" test, asserting that "the Hayuk Works are not composed of unprotectable elements - they are fine art, creations of pure imagination" and 'incapable of being parsed into protectable and unprotectable elements.' The mere status of being 'fine art,' assuming the Hayuk Works to be such, does not, however, confer automatic protection over the entirety of the works, and Plaintiff cites no authority to support this proposition." The court also held that Starbucks couldn't be held liable for stealing the core of Hayuk's work which the court said amounted to a claim that Starbucks copied her style which is not protected by copyright law. Specifically, the ruling read, "What the Plaintiff has described as the 'core' of her work in the aggregate, namely the use of overlapping colored rays, and colors and shapes, is tantamount to a set of unprotectable concepts or methods over which there can be no copyright monopoly conferred." While it's always nice to root for the underdog, sometimes he agency wins and that's one of those times. by Philip Rosenstein , Staff Writer, January 15, 2016 All 12 of our candidates are a lot better than Hillary Clinton, shouted RNC chairman Reince Priebus before introducing the seven GOP candidates present in last nights Fox Business debate. The short time that Reince spent on stage was dominated by an attempt to appease all possible factions of the Republican Party. He spoke of South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and repeated that whomever you support, you must work with your fellow Republicans to win the White House. The Republican debate adequately opened with a question on President Obamas last State of the Union. All those who addressed it exhibited an intense dislike and distrust of the President and his Tuesday speech. Gov. Chris Christie described the speech as story time with Barack Obama. The rifts weve seen develop over the past few weeks -- Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz taking their gloves off and the Chris Christie-Marco Rubio squabble -- were on full display in South Carolina. advertisement advertisement Donald Trump had a strong showing, especially when a tussle with Ted Cruz digressed into a discussion about "New York values." Trump was able to invoke the September 11 attacks in a surprisingly careful and measured way, when discussing the significance of Manhattan conservatives. It's worth noting that Manhattan houses Fox News, Wall Street, The National Review and many top GOP donors, including the billionaire David Koch, a Cruz contributor. Trump defended his Muslim ban as well. When flatly asked if he was thinking of rolling back his comments, he responded: No! Cheers were heard throughout the crowd and he repeated: I want security, a few times. Jeb had a stronger night, though most likely too late to make a convincing bid for the nomination. If he goes down, hell go down swinging. Bush told Trump point blank: I hope youll reconsider [the Muslim ban]. He won't. Sen. Marco Rubio was questioned about a pro-Rubio super PAC ad aired about Chris Christie, which pegged the New Jersey Governor as too liberal. Rubio adeptly attacked Christie for his closeness to President Obama, while making a broader point about the importance of conservatism. It is difficult to tell who won the exchange, as Christie quickly rejected a number of Rubios assertions, though CNN's Reality Check this morning notes some of Rubio's attacks were true. The Rubio-Cruz skirmish continued last night as well, with additional accusations of flip-flopping. Like Christie, Cruz said flat out that much of what Rubio attacked him for was just false. Fact-checkers are having another field day with last nights debate, deciding if the candidates were any closer to reality this time around. Brooks appointment is effective immediately. The search for a new MPA president and CEO began when Mary Berner stepped down in September to become CEO of Cumulus Media. Nancy Telliho has been serving as interim president and CEO during the search process. Brooks previously served as the executive vice president and managing director of GMs ad agency, GM MediaWorks, where she built the GM Media Lab. She also worked at GearDigital and The Martin Agency. advertisement advertisement Stephen M. Lacy, chairman of the MPA board of directors and chairman and CEO of Meredith Corporation, stated that Brooks responsibilities will include aggressively evangelizing and expanding MPAs media tools. He explained that she will focus on Magazine Media 360, a project that tracks magazine audience numbers to media buyers and Print Industry Sales Guaranty, which measures the effectiveness of magazine advertising. My first and primary goal is to be an influential and effective industry voice promoting the innovation and strategic value of the magazine industry to all stakeholdersparticularly the advertising and marketing communities, Brooks said. Its likely Brooks was chosen for her agency experience in what she calls viewing magazine media through a clients lens. This could be beneficial as publishers continue to grapple with determining how to grow revenue through online advertising. by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, January 15, 2016 Just how much money are newspapers losing? While it may not be representative of the entire industry, at least in one case, owning newspapers cost one family almost a cool half-billion. Holy moly! According to court filings from a legal battle over the estate of former newspaper publisher Richard Mellon Scaife, who owned the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and several other local newspapers in Pennsylvania, the businesses managed to suck up a family fortune of $450 million over the course of decades. Rival newspaper Pittsburgh Post-Gazette first reported the news, not without a certain amount of glee. In a court statements cited by the Post-Gazette, an attorney for one of the Scaife family members declares: The Tribune-Review is probably losing an order of magnitude of $10 million in the early years. That apparently refers to the period after Scaife first acquired the Tribune-Review in 1970. However losses mounted rapidly: That went from $10 million to $70 million in those later years. Much of the money was disbursed to the newspapers from a family trust fund. The lawsuit was brought by Scaifes son and daughter against three trustees who oversaw the fund and acquiesced to Scaifes plans over the years. One of Scaifes main motivations in continuing to publisher the Tribune-Review was his feud with the owners of the Post-Gazette, suggesting the decision to dump half a billion into money-losing enterprises was perhaps not entirely rational. Recently, Tribune-Review publisher Trib Total Media announced restructuring plans including merging The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review with two other regional newspapers to form a new publication known simply as the Tribune-Review. The company laid off 153 staffers as part of the transition. On a more positive note, elsewhere in Pennsylvania, H.F. Gerry Lenfest, the owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, has bowed to financial realities and put the newspapers under the control of a nonprofit organization. The newspaper publisher Philadelphia Media Network will continue to operate as a for-profit company but will be taken over by a nonprofit called the Institute for Journalism and New Media, which is receiving a $20 million donation from Lenfest as an endowment. Lenfest received sole country of the newspaper publisher after his business partner, Lewis Katz, died in a small plane crash in 2014. The two had just won control of the company in an auction following tortuous bankruptcy proceedings. Kienbocks disease, is a rare, debilitating condition that can lead to chronic pain and dysfunction. It happens when one of the eight small carpal bones in the wrist, the lunate bone, becomes damaged because there is no blood supply. It is also known as avascular necrosis of the lunate or osteocronosis of the lunate. If blood supply is cut off to body tissue, oxygen and nutrients cannot reach the tissue, and it will die. This is necrosis. Kienbocks most commonly affects people aged from 20 to 40 years of age, and it occurs in men more often than in women. It rarely happens in both wrists. Symptoms Share on Pinterest Kienbcks disease causes pain the wrist. Common signs and symptoms are: Swelling, pain, and stiffness in the wrist Clicking or clunking in the wrist Weakening of grip strength Tenderness directly over the lunate bone Difficulty or pain when turning the hand upward Disease progression The carpal bones consist of eight wrist bones that connect the hand to the forearm. These are the bones that make flexible positioning of the hand possible. The lunate bone is crucial for proper movement and support of the joint. Damage to this bone can lead to stiffness and pain and eventually arthritis of the wrist. In the early stages, the patient might experience pain and swelling, similar to a wrist sprain, but, unlike a sprain, the symptoms will persist and get worse. The progression of Kienbocks disease varies between patients, but it tends to develop slowly and subtly over a number of years. In time, the mechanics of the wrist become affected, leading to abnormal stress and wear inside the wrist. There are four stages. Stage 1: The lunate loses its blood supply. The bone appears normal in an x-ray but may show changes on an MRI. There may be pain, swelling, and a risk of fracture. Stage 2: X-rays show that the bone is unusually dense. When bone loses its blood supply, it hardens. Stage 3: The bone starts to fragment and collapse. Stage 4: The lunate has completely collapsed, and nearby bones have also become damaged and arthritic. Not all patients reach this stage. Causes There is no evidence that Kienbocks disease is inherited, but genetic factors may play a role. Kienbocks disease does not appear to have a single cause, but it probably stems from multiple factors: Share on Pinterest In Kienbocks disease, a disrupted blood supply causes the lunate bone to collapse. Problems with arterial blood supply. Most people have two blood vessels supplying blood to the lunate bone, but some have just one. Blood does not drain away properly through the veins. Trauma may affect blood supply, for example, a single blow to the wrist. There may be skeletal variations, for example, an abnormally shaped lunate bone. Another cause could be that the ulna, the long bone in the forearm, is shorter than normal. If the ulna and radial bones are different lengths, this may put extra pressure on the lunate in certain wrist motions. This extra stress could lead to Kienbocks disease. Diseases that may increase the risk include lupus, cerebral palsy, sickle cell anemia, and gout. One study found that 9.4 percent of patients with cerebral palsy also had Kienbocks disease. There is no evidence to confirm that certain jobs increase the risk of developing Kienbocks disease. Diagnosis Most people who have Kienbocks disease live with the condition for months or years until the until the symptoms become problematic, and they seek help. Patients normally approach the doctor with wrist pain. The doctor will ask about symptoms, medical history, previous trauma, and how long the person has had the symptoms. They will also examine the hand and wrist. Kienbocks disease may be difficult to diagnose accurately in the early stages, because the signs and symptoms resemble those of many other conditions, such as wrist sprain and any cause of arthritis. During Stage 1, an x-ray will show an apparently normal lunate bone, but an MRI scan can help to assess the blood supply to the lunate. In the later stages, an x-ray will reveal the damage, and a CT scan may be able to determine the number and sizes of the bone fragments. Nebraska State Treasurer Don Stenberg is encouraging seventh and eighth graders to enter the 14th annual Why I Want to Go to College writing contest for a chance to win a Nebraska Educational Savings Trust (NEST) scholarship and a ticket to the May 1 Storm Chasers game at Werner Park in Papillion. The annual writing contest is sponsored by the Nebraska State Treasurers Office and the Omaha Storm Chasers. Three winners will be chosen in each of Nebraskas three U.S. Congressional districts, and three winners will be selected from outside Nebraska. First-place winners will each receive a $2,000 contribution to a NEST college savings plan. Second-place winners will each receive a $1,000 contribution to a NEST plan, and third-place winners will each receive a $500 contribution to a NEST plan. Nebraska winners and their families will receive tickets to the May 1 game. The writing contest is an ideal opportunity for seventh- and eighth-grade students to reflect on their educational goals and their future career possibilities. At the same time, the contest is an opportunity for students to practice good writing skills, to learn to express themselves clearly and persuasively, and to begin saving for college or to add to their existing savings, Stenberg said. Stenberg asked school administrators, teachers, and parents to encourage students to enter the contest and to learn more about saving for college. Students in public schools, private schools, and home schools are invited to enter. Families easily can save for college for their children and grandchildren through the Nebraska Educational Savings Trust, the state-sponsored college savings program that allows for tax-free investments and tax-free qualified withdrawals. Nebraska account owners qualify for up to $10,000 a year in state income tax deductions, Stenberg said. A total of 1,064 entries was received last year. As in the past, preliminary judging will be done by students and faculty in the College of Education at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and final selections will be made by Treasurer Stenberg. Entries are due March 18. Contest rules are available at https://treasurer.nebraska.gov/csp/scholarships/essay/college/2016/contest-announcement The following rules apply to entries: * Must be focused on the students educational goals and dreams for the future. * Must be students original work. * Must be typed, double spaced on 8 X 11-inch paper. * Must be accompanied by required cover sheet. * Must be no more than 750 words in length. * Must be postmarked by March 18, 2016. Winners will be notified in late April. *Mail entries to Megan Burdek, Omaha Storm Chasers, 12356 Ballpark Way, Papillion, NE 68046. About NEST NEST is a tax-advantaged 529 college savings plan that provides four plans to help make saving for college simple and affordable: NEST Direct College Savings Plan, the NEST Advisor College Savings Plan, the TD Ameritrade 529 College Savings Plan, and the State Farm College Savings Plan. The Nebraska State Treasurer serves as the Program Trustee. First National Bank serves as the Program Manager, and all investments are approved by the Nebraska Investment Council. More than 69,000 families in Nebraska and more than 232,000 nationwide are saving for their childrens higher education through NEST. For more information, visit www.NEST529.com or treasurer.nebraska.gov. Elderly people who sleep poorly and awaken frequently are more likely to have hardened blood vessels or oxygen-starved tissue in the brain, according to a report published in the journal Stroke. Share on Pinterest Sleep fragmentation may affect brain arteries and tissues. Image credit: American Heart Association As people age, they experience new sleep patterns. Insomnia creeps in and falling asleep takes longer. Sleep fragmentation, when sleep is interrupted by repeated awakenings or arousals, can also be a problem. Changes that occur in circadian rhythms, the body clock that coordinates timing of bodily functions, including sleep, can cause older people to become sleepier in the early evening and to wake earlier in the morning. Sleep problems can stem from an underlying medical or psychiatric condition, but they are also a risk factor for further health issues, including cardiovascular disease. Poor sleep quality has been linked with more severe arteriolosclerosis in older peoples brains and of higher levels of oxygen-starved brain tissue, or infarcts. These factors increase the risk of stroke and cognitive impairment. In the current study, researchers wanted to see if there was an association between sleep fragmentation and detailed microscopic measures of blood vessel damage and infarcts in autopsied brain tissue from the same individuals. Rats can absorb disease agents from their local environment and spread them, according to a new UBC study. The results also indicate that the threat rats pose to the health of poultry and humans has been underestimated. Researchers studied the feces of rats caught at an Abbotsford, B.C. poultry farm, and discovered they all carried avian pathogenic E. coli, a bacteria with the ability to cause disease in chickens and potentially humans. More than one quarter of the rats were carrying multidrug resistant strains of the bacteria. The findings support lead author Chelsea Himsworth's theory that rats act as a "pathogen sponge," soaking up bacteria from their environment. "If rats can absorb pathogenic E. coli, then they could potentially be a source of all sorts of other pathogens that we have not anticipated," said Himsworth, assistant professor in the UBC School of Population and Public Health and leader of the Vancouver Rat Project, a group aiming to address the knowledge gap about the health threats associated with rats. Himsworth was surprised to find that the E. coli strains carried by the farm rats were very similar to those found in chickens, and totally different from E. coli strains found in urban rats. "Basically, the rural rat gut looked like the poultry gut, and nothing like the urban rat gut," she said. This latest study follows previous research by Himsworth that found human pathogens, including MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and C. difficile, in the feces of rats in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. "Rat infestations ought to be taken seriously," said Himsworth. "They need to be tackled with an educated, informed approach in collaboration with scientists and pest control professionals. Eventually, we would like to see the development of municipal programs for managing rat infestations and rat-related issues in B.C., similar to what is currently in place in U.S. cities like New York." "Avian pathogenic and antibiotic resistant E. coli in wild rats" will appear in the Journal of Wildlife Diseases in April. Have you ever been to the supermarket and chosen foods based on nutrition labels? If so, be cautious, because the nutrition values you see on labels can substantially differ based on the recommended serving size, with undesired consequences for your purchase behavior. According to a new research published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, smaller recommended serving sizes on nutrition labels can unknowingly lead you to buy more than you need. Consumer researchers from Germany, who conducted the research, found that shoppers bought more yogurt when the recommended serving size was smaller. In their study the researchers analyzed millions of food purchases in European supermarkets before and after the introduction of a front-of-pack nutrition label. The data covered two years and 61 products from a healthy (yogurt) and unhealthy (cookies) category. "Smaller recommended serving sizes will let all nutrition values on the label appear smaller too, independent of the product's actual nutritional composition" says lead author Dr. Ossama Elshiewy from the University of Goettingen. Shoppers, who read nutrition labels, tend to ignore the smaller recommended serving size and think that these products are healthier than others. "The problem is that people are comparing calorie information that is not comparable," Dr. Elshiewy adds. Co-author Dr. Steffen Jahn, also from the University of Goettingen, suggests to always check the recommended serving size when reading nutrition labels. "This will prevent you from underestimating nutrition amounts and will make your choices healthier." Research from Boston Children's Hospital suggests the possibility of restoring at least some visual function in people blinded by optic nerve damage from glaucoma, estimated to affect more than 4 million Americans, or from trauma. As reported online January 14 by the journal Cell, the scientists restored vision in mice with optic nerve injury by using gene therapy to get the nerves to regenerate and -- the crucial step -- adding a channel-blocking drug to help the nerves conduct impulses from the eye to the brain. In the future, they believe, the same effect could be achieved with drugs alone. In the study, previously blind mice turned their heads to follow patterns of moving bars after given the treatment, say co-senior investigators Zhigang He, PhD, and Michela Fagiolini, PhD, of the Department of Neurology and F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center at Boston Children's. The technicians doing the tests did not know which mice had been treated. "By making the bars thinner and thinner, we found that the animals could not only see, but they improved significantly in how well they could see," says Fagiolini. While other teams, including one at Boston Children's, have restored partial vision in mice, they relied on genetic techniques that can only be done in a lab. Generally, their methods involved deleting or blocking tumor suppressor genes, which encourages regeneration but could also promote cancer. The new study is the first to restore vision with an approach that could realistically be used in the clinic, and that does not interfere with tumor suppressor genes. Getting nerves to conduct The key advance in restoring vision was getting the regenerated nerve fibers (axons) to not only form working connections with brain cells, but also to carry impulses (action potentials) all the way from the eye to the brain. The challenge was that the fibers regrow without the insulating sheath known as myelin, which helps propagate nerve signals over long distances. "We found that the regenerated axons are not myelinated and have very poor conduction -- the travel speed is not high enough to support vision," says He. "We needed some way to overcome this issue." Turning to the medical literature, they learned that a potassium channel blocker, 4-aminopyridine (4-AP), helps strengthen nerve signals when myelin is absent. The drug is marketed as AMPYRA for multiple sclerosis, which also involves a loss of myelin. When they added it, the signals were able to go the distance. A paradigm for treating glaucoma and optic nerve injury While the study used a gene therapy virus called AAV to deliver the growth factors that trigger regeneration (osteopontin, insulin-like growth factor 1 and ciliary neurotrophic factor), He and Fagiolini are testing whether injecting a "cocktail" of growth factor proteins directly into the eye could be equally effective. "We're trying to better understand the mechanisms and how often the proteins would have to be injected," says He. "The gene therapy virus we used is approved for clinical study in eye disease, but a medication would be even better." With regeneration kick-started, 4-AP or a similar drug could then be given systemically to maintain nerve conduction. Because 4-AP has potential side effects including seizures if given chronically, He and Fagiolini have begun testing derivatives (not yet FDA-approved) that are potentially safer for long-term use. The researchers are further testing the mice to better understand the extent of visual recovery and whether their approach might get myelin to regrow over time. "The drugs might need to be paired with visual training to facilitate recovery," says Fagiolini. "But now we have a paradigm to push forward." The world's first national tissue bank for pancreatic cancer is to launch in the UK, to help push forward research into the cancer with the bleakest prognosis. The Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund Tissue Bank brings together surgeons, pathologists, oncologists, researchers and database experts to co-ordinate a national - and ultimately international - resource that will help to develop new treatments and bring these to patients much faster. The Tissue Bank is being funded with 2 million from the UK research charity, Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund (PCRF). Its founder and CEO, Maggie Blanks, said: "Researchers told us that progress was being held back by the scarcity of high-quality tissue samples on which they can test their ideas and validate their research. For research results to be more meaningful, the samples must be collected, handled and stored consistently, following strict procedures. A nationally co-ordinated tissue bank will not only ensure that more samples become available to researchers, but that these are quality controlled to provide a much better basis for the very best research to be carried out. It's a huge commitment for the charity, but thanks to the generosity of our supporters we've been able to make it happen." Around 8,800 people in the UK are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer each year. It's known as the UK's deadliest cancer, with a survival rate of just 3% - a figure that has barely improved in 40 years. New treatments are desperately needed: surgery to remove the tumour offers the best chance of survival - but most patients are diagnosed when the cancer has already spread to other organs. Without surgery, the average survival time from diagnosis is 6 months. The new facility, based at Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), will store tissue donated by consenting patients with diseases of the pancreas undergoing biopsy or surgery at partner hospitals in five cities initially: London, Southampton, Oxford, Leicester and Swansea. All samples will be anonymised before being banked. Uniquely, the PCRF Tissue Bank will not only house samples of patients' pancreatic tumours and other pancreatic diseases, but will also store blood, saliva and urine samples. Each donation will be logged with detailed medical and, where possible, genetic information so that researchers can request exactly the right type of sample for their research. Data generated by all research projects using Tissue Bank samples will be fed back into a bespoke database, and will be made freely available to the global research community, to inform and underpin their own research. The development of the Tissue Bank has been driven by Professor Hemant Kocher, a pancreatic cancer researcher at Barts Cancer Institute, QMUL, and consultant pancreas and liver surgeon at The Royal London hospital, Barts Health NHS Trust. He said: "This is a highly ambitious venture, but one that is crucial to enabling researchers to investigate new treatments for this most lethal cancer. At the moment, we can help only a small proportion of patients with surgery. For the majority of those diagnosed, and for those who see their cancer return even after surgery, there's very little else we can offer. "The Tissue Bank will also help us to tackle this disease with earlier diagnosis," he added. "Many proteins associated with pancreatic cancer are also found in blood, urine and saliva, so having these materials from patients alongside the tissue samples helps us to find ways to diagnose the disease at an earlier, curative stage," he added. The six initial key NHS partners are: Barts Health NHS Trust, the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust; ABM University Health Board, Swansea; University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust. These key partners will act as Tissue Bank collection centres, adding samples of tissue, blood, urine and saliva from around 1,000 new patients each year. "We're already in discussions with more hospitals around the UK who are interested in becoming partner centres," says Professor Kocher. "This underlines the determination of all those in the UK's pancreatic cancer community to really pull together and drive progress." Graph theoretical analysis is proving to be helpful in understanding complex networks in the brain. Investigators in the Republic of Korea used a graph theoretical approach in examining the changes in the configuration of the two hemispheres of the brain in 12 patients after stroke. They found it helped understand the dynamic reorganization of both hemispheric networks in the brain and to predict recovery of motor function. Their findings are published in Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience. Graph theoretical analysis is a powerful new tool for characterizing functional neural networks that is being used to improve understanding of neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injury. "The physiological effects of neurological disorders are best assessed over an entire network, rather than just being locally assessed at the site of damage," explained lead investigator Yun-Hee Kim, MD, PhD, Professor in the Department of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea. "We therefore investigated the reorganization of network topology in both the ipsilesional hemisphere (the side of the brain affected by stroke) and the contralesional hemisphere. We also tried to predict the recovery of motor function by examining the relationship between specific network measures immediately after onset and an enhanced motor function score three months after stroke." All 12 patients underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) - a functional neuroimaging procedure using MRI technology that measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow - within two weeks after stroke onset and subsequently one, three, and six months later. Motor impairment in upper and lower extremities was measured on the same day as the fMRI procedures. The investigators found that the ipsilesional hemispheric network showed active reorganization during recovery. The randomness of the network significantly increased for three months post-stroke, but after three months, there was no significant reorganization in either hemisphere. Predicting the recovery of motor function is crucial for rehabilitation planning and therapy development. The investigators describe an indicator for predicting the recovery of motor function from graph indices: the characteristic path length (CPL). By examining the characteristics of the network topology, the investigators discovered that the proportional CPLs could be an indicator of recovery prediction. The lower the CPL of the ipsilesional hemispheric network immediately after onset, the better the recovery shown after three months. "The graph theoretical approaches of the network in each hemisphere were helpful for understanding dynamic reorganization of brain network after a stroke and finding an important implication for recovery, although the precise biological mechanisms of recovery after a stroke must still be determined," said Dr. Kim. "We expect that our findings will become one of the important implications for clinical research and therapeutic plans." A team of scientists from Germany, USA, and Russia, including Dr. Mark Borodovsky, a Chair of the Department of Bioinformatics at MIPT, have proposed an algorithm to automate the process of searching for genes, making it more efficient. The new development combines the advantages of the most advanced tools for working with genomic data. The new method will enable scientists to analyse DNA sequences faster and more accurately and identify the full set of genes in a genome. Although the paper describing the algorithm only appeared recently in the journal Bioinformatics, which is published by Oxford Journals, the proposed method has already proven to be very popular - the computer software program has been downloaded by more than 1500 different centres and laboratories worldwide. Tests of the algorithm have shown that it is considerably more accurate than other similar algorithms. The development belongs to the field of bioinformatics - a cross disciplinary field of science. Bioinformatics combines mathematics, statistics and computer science to study biological molecules, such as DNA, RNA, and protein structures. DNA, which is fundamentally an information molecule, is even sometimes depicted in computerized form in order to emphasize its role as a molecule of biological memory. Bioinformatics is a very topical subject; every new sequenced genome raises so many additional questions that scientists simply do not have time to answer them all. Specialists' time, as well as the specialists themselves, is worth its weight in gold. This is why automating processes is key to the success of any bioinformatics project, and these algorithms are essential for solving a wide variety of problems. One of the most important areas of bioinformatics is annotating genomes - determining which particular DNA molecules are used to synthesize RNA and proteins. These parts - genes - are of great scientific interest. The fact is that in many studies scientists do not need information about the entire DNA (which is around 2 metres long for a single human cell), but about its most informative part genes. Gene sections are identified by searching for similarities between sequence fragments and known genes, or by detecting consistent patterns of the nucleotide sequence. This process is carried out using predictive algorithms. Locating gene sections is no easy task, especially in eukaryotic organisms, which includes almost all widely known types of organism, except for bacteria. This is due to the fact that in these cells, the transfer of genetic information is complicated by "gaps" in the coding regions (introns) and because there are no definite indicators to determine whether a region is a coding region or not. The algorithm proposed by the scientists determines which regions in the DNA are genes and which are not. A Markov chain (a sequence of random events, the future of which is dependent on past events) studied in known genes can be used for this. The states of the chain in this case are either nucleotides or nucleotide words (k-mers). The algorithm determines the most probable division of a genome into coding and noncoding regions, classifying the genomic fragments in the best possible way according to their ability to encode proteins or RNA. Experimental data obtained from RNA give additional useful information which can be used to train the model used in the algorithm. Certain gene prediction programs can use this data to improve the accuracy of finding genes. However, these algorithms require a training set involving type-specific training of the model. For the AUGUSTUS software program, for example, which has a high level of accuracy, a training set of genes is needed. This set can be obtained using another program - GeneMark-ET - which is a self-training algorithm. These two algorithms were combined in the BRAKER1 algorithm, which was proposed jointly by the developers of AUGUSTUS and GeneMark-ET. BRAKER1 has demonstrated a high level of efficiency. The developed program has already been downloaded by more than 1500 different centres and laboratories. Tests of the algorithm have shown that it is considerably more accurate than other similar algorithms. The example running time of BRAKER1 on a single processor is -17.5 hours for training and the prediction of genes in a genome with a length of 120 megabases. This is a good result, bearing in mind the fact that this time may be significantly reduced by using parallel processors, and this means that in the future the algorithm may be able to function even faster and generally more efficiently. Tools such as these help to solve a variety of different problems. Accurately annotating genes in a genome is extremely important - an example of this is the global 1000 Genomes Project, the initial results of which have already been published. The project was launched in 2008 involving researchers from 75 different laboratories and companies. As a result, sequences of rare gene variants and gene substitutions were discovered, some of which can cause disease. When diagnosing genetic diseases, it is very important to know which substitutions in gene sections cause the disease to develop. Under the project, genomes of different people are mapped, especially their coding sections, and rare nucleotide substitutions are identified. In the future, this will help doctors to diagnose complex diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. BRAKER1 enables scientists to work effectively with the genomes of new organisms, speeding up the process of annotating genomes and acquiring essential knowledge about life sciences. Discovery could reveal how well -- and how fast -- treatment finds and kills cancer. Tracking the path of chemotherapy drugs in real time and at a cellular level could revolutionize cancer care and help doctors sort out why two patients might respond differently to the same treatment. Researchers at The Ohio State University have found a way to light up a common cancer drug so they can see where the chemo goes and how long it takes to get there. They've devised an organic technique for creating this scientific guiding star and in doing so have opened up a new frontier in their field. Previous efforts have been limited by dyes that faded quickly and by toxic elements, particularly metals. A study published this week in the journal Nature Nanotechnology highlighted two novel accomplishments. First, the researchers created a luminescent molecule, called a peptide and made up of two amino acids. Then they hitched that light to the cancer medication so that it revealed the chemo's arrival within cells. "This is very important for personalized medicine. We really want to see what's going on when we give chemo drugs and this work paves the way for the exciting endeavor," said Dr. Mingjun Zhang, the biomedical engineering professor who led the study. Biomedical engineers strive to find techniques that behave naturally within the body and leave without doing harm. This research holds promise for doing just that because the peptide is one that should easily coexist with human cells and leave as harmlessly as it entered. "You can combine your drug with this luminescent vehicle," Zhang said of the tiny fluorescent particle devised in his lab. "Composed of natural amino acids, the nanoparticle is inherently biocompatible. Our biological machines can easily take care of it." This work was done in petri dishes in Zhang's lab and work in animals is currently underway. In the body or tissue of an animal or person, scientists would watch the fluorescent signal with an optical detection system, he said. Zhang and his colleagues sandwiched their peptide to a common chemotherapy drug so that its light was hidden until the two elements peeled apart upon entering the cells. Zhang was particularly delighted to see that the blue peptide, which can be seen under ultraviolet light, maintained its luminescence for extended periods of time. Previous work to track drugs using organic dyes has been hampered by their tendency to fade with time. "You can label it and you can attach it to a drug and see where the drug goes and when it is released," Zhang said. And it could be that the biomedical advance can give patients and their doctors information on how well and how quickly a medication is working for them. "Maybe for some people a drug is taking effect in a few minutes and for somebody else it's hours and for somebody else it never takes effect," Zhang said. The research team used doxorubicin, a widely used chemotherapy drug, for their lab work, but the discovery could apply to different types of treatments. Better understanding of the complex interplay of cells and drugs is critical to development of treatments that are finely tuned for individual patients. The Ohio State work builds on research that earned a trio of scientists the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Their work on green fluorescent protein found in jelly fish led to the discovery that scientists could illuminate cellular-level activity that had previously been cloaked in mystery. High Court will hear arguments on Whole Woman's Health v. Cole in March; Decision expected in late June. Nearly 60 leaders in the field of public health submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court last week arguing that two Texas laws restricting abortion clinics creates a 'grave risk to public health.' The Supreme Court is set to hear opening arguments March 2 on this landmark case, which is known as Whole Woman's Health v. Cole. The public health brief filed Jan. 4, 2016 by the American Public Health Association (APHA), deans of schools of public health, and other public health leaders from across the nation argues that the laws would effectively shutter many clinics that now provide abortions in Texas and make it hard, if not impossible, for many women to obtain necessary and constitutionally protected health care, thereby violating the 'undue burden' test established by the Court in 1992 in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. "If the High Court upholds the Texas laws women there will be forced to travel very long distances for abortion care or will lose access to this service altogether," says Susan F. Wood, PhD, Executive Director of the Jacobs Institute of Women's Health at Milken Institute School of Public Health (Milken Institute SPH) at the George Washington University. "Without access to safe, legal abortion care, women of reproductive age will face sharply increased health risks," says Wood, who is also an associate professor of health policy and management at Milken Institute SPH. The amicus brief supports the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing an abortion provider in the state of Texas. At issue are two Texas laws, which require that physicians who provide abortions in clinics (one of the safest of all medical procedures) also have hospital admitting privileges; and that abortion clinics meet strict building standards designed for ambulatory surgical centers. This brief argues that these requirements are unnecessary to protect women's health and will lead to widespread clinic closure. The Center for Reproductive Rights has said that upholding Texas' law would lead to the closure of all but 10 abortion clinics -- leaving 500 miles between San Antonio and the New Mexico border without a single clinic. The brief warns that if left in place, the state's laws would disproportionately affect lower-income women, who are less likely to have access to either contraceptive services or transportation to a distant, safe abortion provider. "The Texas laws are the very definition of unconstitutional burden," says Sara Rosenbaum, JD, the Harold and Jane Hirsh Professor of Health Law and Policy at Milken Institute SPH and a coordinator of the brief. "Abortion is a safe and critical component of comprehensive reproductive care," Wood adds, saying: "If the Texas laws stand, women will face significant risks, not only in Texas but across the nation as other states follow its lead." Novel strategy shortens time to heart attack diagnosis drastically, enabling faster start of treatment of patients and better use of healthcare resources. Results from the TRAPID-AMI1 clinical study have been published online by the Annals of Emergency Medicine2, confirming a novel approach for a more rapid diagnosis of heart attack in patients with acute chest pain. The strategy is based on the cardiac troponin T high-sensitivity test from Roche and reduces the observation time needed to rule-in or rule-out a heart attack from 3-6 hours to just 1 hour. It is well established that a fast and reliable diagnosis of heart attack is critical because every hour of delay from the onset of symptoms to treatment increases the mortality risk3. "Thanks to this new approach, we can now shorten the time to heart attack diagnosis for millions of patients presenting in emergency rooms with acute chest pain all over the world," says Christian Mueller, professor of cardiology at the University of Basel, Switzerland, one of the study's principal investigators. "Patients no longer have to wait for three or more hours in the emergency department, not knowing whether they have an acute, life-threatening disease or if their chest pain is caused by other reasons." Every minute counts A heart attack, or acute myocardial infarction (AMI), is a common cardiac event in which the blood supply to an area of the heart muscle is interrupted, causing the muscle cells to die. Prompt treatment is essential as every 30 minutes of delay increases the relative risk of mortality by 7.5 % in patients with AMI3. Patients with chest pain and other symptoms suggestive of AMI account for approximately 10-20% of all emergency room consultations and every 43 seconds, someone in the United States will have a heart attack4. Troponin is a heart muscle protein that is released into the blood stream during a heart attack. A limitation of the earlier generations of blood tests was the time required to detect the troponin release, sometimes requiring up to six hours with less sensitive troponin tests. The mortality rate of heart attacks is highest within hours of onset, so an early diagnosis and initiation of treatment greatly impacts outcome and potentially saves lives. The European Society of Cardiology adopted this accelerated diagnostic concept at their annual meeting held in London (UK) in August 2015. Their new clinical practice guidelines (2015 ESC NSTEMI) now support the 1-hour diagnostic algorithm with high-sensitive troponin testing validated in the TRAPID-AMI study5. "Results of the TRAPID-AMI study once again demonstrate how diagnostics can influence clinical practice to contribute to better patient outcomes," says Roland Diggelmann, Chief Operating Officer of Roche Diagnostics. "At Roche, we continuously invest in clinical studies to foster innovation and to advance healthcare. We provide physicians and patients around the world with diagnostic tests and solutions that improve health and save lives." More about the TRAPID-AMI study TRAPID-AMI is a prospective observational study supported by Roche and investigated more than 1,200 patients with acute chest pain during 2011-2014. The study was conducted in twelve institutions from nine countries and three continents, led by Professors Christian Mueller, University of Basel (Switzerland), and Bertil Lindahl, University of Uppsala (Sweden). It is the first clinical trial validating a short diagnostic procedure constructed from two blood tests taken from the patient one hour apart in early chest pain patients (i.e. with a pain onset of maximum 6 hours since hospital entry). This new approach was proposed in the earlier APACE trial on patients with later presentation6. The TRAPID-AMI study results demonstrate that the new diagnostic procedure shortens the time to diagnose heart attack to one hour from three hours or more, enabling healthcare professionals to treat the majority of patients much earlier as recommended in the new guidelines (2015 ESC Guidelines for the management of acute coronary syndromes in patients presenting without persistent ST-segment elevation)5. More about the cardiac troponin T high-sensitivity test from Roche The Elecsys cardiac Troponin T high-sensitivity (cTnT-hs) test from Roche detects cardiac troponin which is the preferred biomarker for the diagnosis of heart attack in clinical practice. In combination with an electrocardiogram (ECG), it has become the gold standard for the diagnosis of heart attack. The high sensitivity of the Roche cTnT-hs assay in conjunction with this novel procedure significantly accelerates "rule-in" and "rule-out" decision-making, thereby maximising the potential for effective treatment. At the same time, the faster decision-making may help to better manage the emergency room workload and related costs for healthcare systems. Estate planning seminar Feb. 8 COLUMBUS -- A free estate planning seminar will be offered from 6-8 p.m. Feb. 8 at Columbus Community Hospital, third floor conference center. Speakers Jim and Tom Fehringer will discuss the benefits of planning ones estate and setting your house in order. This seminar is free and open to the public. Seating is limited, so RSVPs are required by Feb. 3. For more information or to make a reservation, call 402-562-3377 or email foundation@columbushosp.org. K roundup at Lutheran school COLUMBUS -- Immanuel Lutheran School will hold a kindergarten roundup from 6:30-7:30 p.m. Feb. 4 at the school, 2865 26th Ave. Parents and children are welcome to attend this fun and informational evening. For more information call the school at 402-564-8423. Blood drive at Schuyler Feb. 2 SCHUYLER -- The American Red Cross will hold a blood drive from 11:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Feb 2 at the Oak Ballroom. All blood types are needed. Donors are asked to bring a blood donor card or drivers license, or two other forms of identification. Individuals who are 17 years old, weigh at least 110 pounds, and are in generally good health are eligible to donate without consent. Drink extra water and eat prior to donating. For more information or to schedule an appointment, call Catherine at 402-352-5231. Walk-ins are also welcome. Medication aide course at CCC COLUMBUS -- A medication aide course will be offered from Feb. 3-March 9 in the West Education Center at Central Community College-Columbus. The class is offered in a lecture/lab format, and students must attend 14 mandatory class sessions. It will begin with an orientation from 2-3 p.m. Feb. 3. Class size is limited, so preregistration is required to reserve a space. The cost is $354, which includes in-state tuition, textbook and supplies. For more information or to register, contact the CCC Extended Learning Services Office at 402-562-1225; toll-free at 1-877-222-0780, ext. 1225: or email cwagner@cccneb.edu. Cell Phones for Soldiers project COLUMBUS -- The VFW Club, 2720 23rd St., is still accepting used cell phones to be donated to the Cell Phones for Soldiers project. Phones can be dropped off from 411 p.m. WednesdaySunday. For every cell phone valued at $5, calling cards are issued to deployed troops giving them 2 1/2 hours of free talk time. Since 2004, more than 11.6 million phones have been recycled or repurposed. Approximately half of the phones processed are reconditioned and reused. Phones and components that cannot be refurbished are dismantled and responsibly recycled to reclaim materials. For more information about this program, visit www.cellphonesforsoldiers.com. Goose Lake WMA reopens LINCOLN (AP) Goose Lake Wildlife Management Area, located southeast of Chambers, is now reopened to the public. The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission say the area was closed to all access in September after an invasive aquatic plant infested the lake. The plant, called the Eurasian watermilfoil, can spread quickly to form thick surface mats that interfere with boating, fishing, swimming and other forms of recreation. Boats and other water sporting equipment are able to transport the plant, so the closure was put in place to assure the plant did not spread to other bodies of water. Winter recreational activities pose little threat of spreading the plant since the lake has frozen over, but the Commission reminds all water users to clean, drain and dry their equipment when they leave the water. Leaders from large pharma including Celgene and Amgen, biotech including NantWorks, NantKwest, Etubics, Altor Bioscience, and Precision Biologics, major academic cancer centres and community oncologists announced the launch of The National Immunotherapy Coalition (NIC), a historic alliance - in collaboration with Independence Blue Cross, one of the nation's largest payers and Bank of America, one of the largest self-insured companies in the U.S. - with a singular focus: accelerating the potential of combination immunotherapies as the next generation standard of care in patients with cancer. This unprecedented collaboration of multinational pharmaceutical, biotechnology companies, academic centres and community oncologists will make possible access to over 60 novel and approved agents under exploration in the war against cancer and will enable rapid testing of novel immunotherapy combination protocols, forming the basis of The Cancer MoonShot 2020. The NIC will design, initiate and complete randomized clinical trials in cancer patients with cancer at all stages of disease in up to 20 tumour types in as many as 20,000 patients by the year 2020. The QUILT Program The QUILT (QUantitative Integrative Lifelong Trial) program is designed to harness and orchestrate all the elements of the immune system (including dendritic cell, T cell and NK cell therapies) by testing novel combinations of vaccines, cell-based immunotherapy, metronomic chemotherapy, low dose radiotherapy and immunomodulators - including check point inhibitors - in patients who have undergone next generation whole genome, transcriptome and quantitative proteomic analysis, with the goal of achieving durable, long-lasting remission for patients with cancer. The multiple Phase 1 and 2 protocol designs will be a collaboration between academia, pharma, and clinical scientific experts in immunotherapy in accordance with the recent published U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidance of "Co-development of Two or More New Investigational Drugs for Use in Combination." Multiple companies are currently exploring first-in-human clinical trials as part of agreements between government agencies, including Immunology Branches of NCI, academia and community oncologists. Multiple randomized Phase 2 trials testing genomically and proteomically informed novel combinations of immunotherapy agents, will pave the way to identifying cancer therapy combinations with the lowest toxicity and the highest quality of life. Both academic cancer centres and community oncologists will participate in the QUILT Program to enrol 20,000 patients by 2020. The QUILT Program will be stratified across multiple Phase 1 and Phase 2 trials, addressing up to 20 tumour types including breast, lung, prostate, ovarian, brain, head and neck, multiple myeloma, sarcoma, pancreatic cancer, among others. Pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners have made an unprecedented commitment to make more than 60 novel immunotherapy, targeted therapy and chemotherapeutic agents available to be combined across multiple tumor types. "There are unique times in history when events and advancements in technology converge to elicit a quantum leap in medical care. This is not only a unique time, but also a unique inflection point in the history of cancer," said Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, M.D., Founder and Chief Executive Officer of NantWorks and the Chan Soon-Shiong Institute of Molecular Medicine. "The era of immunotherapy has taken the oncology world by storm. For the first time in 40 years there is a glimmer that we may be able to win this war against cancer. Large pharma and biotech companies are developing dozens of agents to activate the immune system. The problem is that while these drugs are being developed individually in silos by each entity, they need to act together when it comes to activating the immune system. If we follow the current path of drug development, it may take 40 or 50 years before we have worked out the right cocktail combination and countless lives will be lost as a result of this inefficiency." Dr. Soon-Shiong continued, "Our knowledge in the science of genomics, proteomics, immunology and immunotherapy has advanced and converged at an unprecedented speed, making now the time for the rapid deployment and orchestration of immunotherapy for the benefit of millions of cancer patients. The Cancer MoonShot 2020 Program, the National Immunotherapy Coalition and the QUILT Program are designed to do just that, bring together a diverse group of visionary leaders and stakeholders to pool resources and bring to patients a dramatic improvement in cancer care." Nation's First Insurance Coverage by Independence Blue Cross for Next Generation Panomic Sequencing Immunotherapy Moves Precision Medicine in Oncology from Bench to Bedside "The insurance coverage of whole genome transcriptomic tests in patients receiving immunotherapy by Independence Blue Cross is a landmark milestone in moving precision medicine in oncology from the bench to the bedside" Dr. Soon-Shiong stated "Independence Blue Cross has taken the visionary lead to cover next generation sequencing. We are in discussions with the rest of the insurance industry, including Blue Cross on a national basis to encourage the industry to follow Independence's lead." "At Independence Blue Cross, we are proud to be the first major insurer offering reimbursement to our members for this next generation whole genome sequencing," said Daniel J. Hilferty, President and Chief Executive Officer of Independence of Health Group. "We are committed to bringing state-of-the-art advances in oncology care to our members and making care accessible and affordable." Mission of Cancer MoonShot 2020 Program The mission of the Cancer MoonShot 2020 Program is to rapidly enrol and complete randomized Phase 2 clinical trials to validate the potential of panomic (whole genome, transcriptome and proteomic) analyses and to evaluate novel combination immunotherapies as the next generation standard of care. This coalition combines the efforts not only of major academic centres but also the community oncologists, enabling accelerated recruitment of patients to multiple Phase II trials. Utilizing a secure cloud-based infrastructure to integrate and enable the participation of both major academic and community oncologists at a national scale, the goal is to complete randomized clinical trials in patients with cancer at all stages of disease, across up to 20 tumour types in 20,000 patients within the next 36 months. By comparing standards of care to the next paradigm of less toxic immunotherapy combination therapy, the findings of these in the randomized QUILT Program will inform the design of Phase 3 registration trials, with the goal of bringing transformative advances in combination immunotherapies to cancer patients by 2020. Col. Craig Shriver, M.D., FACS at the John P Murtha Cancer Center at Walter Reed Military Hospital and United States Army said, "We validate big science through our clinical trials network. There are 1.2 million active duty military members, 9.3 million beneficiaries that receive military health care. That's a huge network. Just in our active duty force, we get a thousand active duty members a year that come down with cancer. If a thousand active duty members were still getting injured in Afghanistan or Iraq, we would not accept this. So it's the same thing with how militaries respond to infectious diseases, illnesses that affect the readiness of our active force. Cancer is that threat." Large Pharma and Biotech Collaboration In this historic collaboration, large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies - NantWorks, NantKwest, Etubics, Precision Biologics, and Altor Bioscience - along with others, have agreed to contribute their novel immunotherapy molecules, including adenovirus vaccines, neoepitopes antibodies, and natural killer cells, to accelerate the development of next generation immunotherapy combination cancer therapies across all tumour types. "I am pleased that visionary leaders in the healthcare industry have agreed to participate in the early formation and launch of this coalition. Several pharma companies, biotechnology companies and others are currently assessing the opportunity to join the coalition at this early stage. As the Cancer MoonShot 2020 program coalesces and demonstrates rapid enrolment of patients, I am hopeful that many more multinational pharma leaders in the immunotherapy space, as well as other leaders in biotech, will agree to join this collaboration to accelerate immunotherapy development for the benefit of cancer patients." said Dr. Soon-Shiong. Celgene has established a research centre of excellence focused on immunotherapy approaches such as checkpoint inhibitors, CAR-T therapies, NK cells, stem cells and others. Celgene has also advanced new approaches to chemotherapy, including the development of Abraxane, the first cancer nanotechnology therapy globally approved for the treatment of breast cancer, lung cancer and pancreatic cancer. Celgene will participate in the Cancer MoonShot 2020 Program by applying its deep and diverse library of important molecules, both approved and in the development pipeline, to the QUILT Program. Robert J. Hugin, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Celgene Corporation said: "At Celgene, we are fully committed to the Cancer MoonShot 2020 Program as a part of our longstanding efforts to discover and develop new therapies for difficult to treat cancers. We have learned that the research and development of breakthrough treatments for patients requires novel approaches, bold science and strong vision. To realize this vision, we are excited to participate in the Cancer MoonShot 2020 Program by applying our deep and diverse library of important molecules, both approved and in the development pipeline, to the QUILT Trials, which we believe will play an important role in the rapid advancement of immuno-oncology for patients with life-threatening cancers." Paul Seligman, M.D., MPH, Amgen, Chief of R&D Policy: "At AMGEN, we are committed to using genomics and deep insights into biology to develop novel therapies for cancer. We are committed to the goals of collaborative research efforts in immuno-oncology and the development of innovative combination therapies. It is a time of unprecedented progress in our ability to understand how to harness the power of the immune system to treat tumours, and collaborative approaches represent a tremendous opportunity to combine the efforts of key stakeholders to accelerate progress." Luciano Rossetti, M.D., Executive Vice President and Head of Global R&D for the biopharmaceutical business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany: "In 2014, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, and Pfizer formed a global strategic alliance to jointly develop immuno-oncology compounds. Forging strong partnerships between academia and the healthcare industry is of strategic importance in sharing knowledge and more effectively addressing existing challenges in cancer care. We look forward to learning more about this initiative, as we share a common goal of improving patient outcomes through the combination of highly innovative novel-novel therapies in the field of immuno-oncology." Frank R. Jones, Ph.D., Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Etubics Corporation: "At Etubics, we specialize in developing innovative immunotherapies and vaccines for a wide-range of resilient diseases including cancer, so it goes without saying that we are extremely excited about this new initiative. We recognize the value in an immune stimulation treatment approach and look forward to volunteering our agents for combination clinical trials that we anticipate will produce ground-breaking results." Hing C. Wong, Ph.D., CEO and Founder of Altor Bioscience Corporation said, "We have focused our technology pipeline on cytokine-based immunotherapies. We have discovered exciting results when combining our immunostimulant molecules with other elements of the immune system, such as natural killer and T cells. The opportunity to accelerate development of our molecules in combination with other technologies in the field of immuno-oncology is a major step to advancing their clinical development. We have enthusiastically joined this coalition and are honoured to been given this opportunity to play a part in the Cancer MoonShot 2020 program." Academic NCI - Designated Cancer Centres and Community Oncologists The successful accrual of 20,000 patients by 2020 will require both community oncologists and major medical centres to collaborate for the common good. The partnership also anticipates the participation of the military health system. Tom Kurtz, CEO of Windber Medical Center and Windber Research Institute: "Walter Reed has had a long standing partnership with the Windber Research Institute and through our collaborative efforts, we were responsible for providing over 90% of the breast cancer tissue genetically analysed by the NIH Cancer Genome Atlas study. This human tissue repository is the nation's foremost Platinum-rated, CLIA CAP certified bio-repository for cancer tissue housing over 90,000 tissue specimens, and will be utilized as the tissue repository resource to support the QUILT Program. We are proud to be involved in this historic national initiative and to expand the efforts to elucidate the biologic mysteries of cancer and build on our work in genomics over the last decade. Windber Medical Center is a small community hospital supporting a population of 4,000. Cancer is a major issue as our population ages. It is a major honour and opportunity for our community to participate and have access to cutting edge technology through this Cancer MoonShot 2020 program." Michael M. Crow, President of Arizona State University said, "American higher education cannot assume that its competitive position in the world is unassailable. Our research universities must innovate to survive, and this Cancer MoonShot 2020 Program is an opportunity to innovate in healthcare research and training for the benefit of humanity. This program will link scientists and technological advances across dozens of areas around a single goal: clinical treatments individualized to the disease in a particular person. ASU is proud to be partners with NantWorks and the Chan Soon-Shiong Institute of Molecular Medicine in the development of a campus in Phoenix where the next generation of scientists, clinical decision specialists, integrated precision medicine engineers and medical data analysts can be trained for both research and healthcare delivery." Ralph H. Hruban, M.D., Professor of Pathology & Oncology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Director of The Sol Goldman Pancreatic Cancer Research Center: "We are at a crossroads, a time of discovery that's transforming the ways we manage cancer. Johns Hopkins researchers and clinicians are working tirelessly to understand cancer better and to move treatments from bench to bedside so that patients can have a better shot at beating the disease. It is my hope that the National Immunotherapy Coalition, and others like it, will advance the understanding of cancer, not by small steps, but instead by leaps and bounds." Mark C. Poznansky, M.D., Ph. D. Director Vaccine & Immunotherapy Center, Physician - Massachusetts General Hospital, Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School: "The time is now to create an accelerated path, and advance medical science forward to save lives and improve health worldwide. The National Immunotherapy Coalition clearly unites and leverages the resources and expertise of a diverse network of medical and business professionals to safely and rigorously accelerate the pace of discovery, development and actualization of cancer treatment. By accelerating the development of new safe and cost effective therapies combating cancer, we can bring them to those that are most in need faster and more cost effectively than current approaches." Manuel Hidalgo, M.D., Ph. D. Chief, Division of Hematology/Oncology and Clinical Director, Cancer Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School. "We are now glimpsing the potential of modulating the immune system to treat cancer in an effective way. Integrating multiple treatment strategies in innovative clinical trial protocols is the path to make a real impact in cancer care. In the Cancer Center at BIDMC, we are constantly working to discover and implement new treatments for our patients. We are very excited to work with The National Immunotherapy Coalition and join efforts to advance cancer medicine." Azra Raza, M.D., Columbia University, Director of MDS Center, Professor of Medicine: "We are very pleased to have the opportunity to work with the National Immunotherapy Coalition and collaborate with a world-class team who share a commitment to reduce cancer incidence and to improve the quality of life of those affected by cancer. Being able to pool resources and agents, we will be able to make a significant leap in developing new immunotherapeutic and combinations that will most benefit patients with various cancer types and stages." Vivian S. Lee, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., University of Utah Senior Vice President for Health Sciences, Dean of the School of Medicine, CEO, University of Utah Health Care: "There really is a no more fascinating or promising time to be in medicine. The National Immunotherapy Coalition is an amazing opportunity to discuss obstacles that may impede the successful moonshot for cancer and reach the goal of establishing an effective vaccine for this disease in 5 years instead of 20. The University of Utah is deeply committed to solving these dilemmas and I, for one, am heartened that we will help lead the way." Andrew M. Evens, DO, MSc, FACP, Professor & Chief, Division of Haematology/Oncology, and Director of the Tufts Cancer Center at Tufts Medical Center: "Tufts Cancer Center is honoured to join a group of world-renowned expert physicians, scientists and researchers who have a shared passion for fighting cancer. We understand that cancer can affect every aspect of a person's life and the lives of their loved ones. That's why we are dedicated to research focused on helping bring new and innovative treatments to patients in less time." Stephen D. Nimer, M.D., Director of the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and a Professor of Medicine, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine: "Every day, the physicians and scientists within Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center's site disease groups and multidisciplinary research programs, are working to make exciting breakthroughs that can transform the way cancer patients are diagnosed and treated. We look forward to working for the National Immunotherapy Coalition and developing the most innovative strategies to fight the most deadly forms of cancer. Payers, Providers and Technology Solutions Beneficiaries and patients will undergo next-generation molecular sequencing and gain access to over 60 novel and approved molecules to be tested as immunotherapy combinations in 20,000 cancer patients across all tumour types in a master protocol: The QUILT Program. Daniel J. Hilferty, President and Chief Executive Officer of Independence of Health Group said, "Independence Blue Cross is committed to bringing state-of-the-art advances in oncology care. Although the science is still evolving, experts agree that immunotherapy is a game-changing approach that is expected to revolutionize the way we treat cancer in the future. We are proud to participate in the National Immunotherapy Coalition. We look forward to continued collaboration among this incredible team to develop the most innovative cancer fighting strategy in our lifetime." Jim Huffman, Senior Vice President, Head of US Health and Wellness Benefits, Bank of America: "Bank of America provides coverage for about 500,000 employees and their families and for the past five years has worked closely with NantHealth to explore innovative methods for improving health & wellness for their associates. We are doing our part to address an issue that affects the lives of our employees, our customers and clients, and the people in the communities we serve around the world. We are committed to providing the most advanced cancer care to our employees and the National Immunotherapy Coalition with its national footprint of oncologists practicing cutting edge medicine is a valuable resource we will now be able to offer to our 500,000 beneficiaries. Bank of America has partnered with Dr. Soon-Shiong and his team over the past five years to bring advanced health and wellness to our associates and their families, and we are proud to be a part of this Cancer MoonShot 2020." Paul M. Black, Allscripts, Chief Executive Officer & Director: "The National Immunotherapy Coalition is an exciting step towards a more efficient future in cancer treatment, partnering research and health information technology in an entirely new way. As a leader in healthcare information technology solutions, the EHR solution for the NIH and the NCI, we will play the critical role of connecting this newfound medical insight to the communities of healthcare professionals at the frontlines of care delivery. Combining the cutting edge research being done by NantWorks with the power of their Allscripts clinical information solutions will better harness the enormous volume of newly available data, allowing the dissemination of new discoveries much more rapidly to connected communities than has been possible in the past. We have seen already that when new research is presented in the clinicians' workflow efficiently and in a way that feels natural to them, it allows them to focus first and foremost on the well-being of all those dealing with cancer." John Chen, Blackberry CEO: "At Blackberry, we understand the value that lies at the intersection of healthcare and technology, which is why we are constantly making advancements to reflect the ever-changing healthcare landscape. As we already power many of the tools that clinicians rely on heavily, we are confident that our involvement in the National Immunotherapy Coalition will be an asset to the future of Cancer treatment. This unique collaboration is pioneering extraordinary solutions to cancer care and we are truly honoured to be a part of it." Advertisement Dr. David Belin from the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Cambridge said, "Most people who use cocaine do so initially in search of a hedonic 'high'. In some individuals, though, frequent use leads to addiction, where use of the drug is no longer voluntary, but ultimately becomes a compulsion. We wanted to understand why this should be the case."Drug-taking causes a release in the brain of the chemical dopamine, which helps provide the 'high' experienced by the user. Initially the drug taking is volitional - in other words, it is the individual's choice to take the drug - but over time, this becomes habitual, beyond their control.Previous research by Professor Barry Everitt from the Department of Psychology at Cambridge showed that when rats were allowed to self-administer cocaine, dopamine-related activity occurred initially in an area of the brain known as the nucleus accumbens, which plays a significant role driving 'goal-directed' behavior, as the rats sought out the drug. However, if the rats were given cocaine over an extended period, this activity transferred to the dorsolateral striatum, which plays an important role in habitual behavior, suggesting that the rats were no longer in control, but rather were responding automatically, having developed a drug-taking habit.The brain mechanisms underlying the balance between goal-directed and habitual behavior involves the prefrontal cortex, the brain region that orchestrates our behavior. It was previously thought that this region was overwhelmed by stimuli associated with the drugs, or with the craving experienced during withdrawal; however, this does not easily explain why the majority of individuals relapsing to drug use did not experience any craving.Chronic exposure to drugs alters the prefrontal cortex, but it also alters an area of the brain called the basolateral amygdala, which is associated with the link between a stimulus and an emotion. The basolateral amygdala stores the pleasurable memories associated with cocaine, but the pre-frontal cortex manipulates this information, helping an individual to weigh up whether or not to take the drug: if an addicted individual takes the drug, this activates mechanisms in the dorsal striatum.However, in a study published in, Dr. Belin and Professor Everitt studied the brains of rats addicted to cocaine through self-administration of the drug and identified a previously unknown pathway within the brain that links impulse with habits.The pathway links the basolateral amygdala indirectly with the dorsolateral striatum, circumventing the prefrontal cortex. This means that an addicted individual would not necessarily be aware of their desire to take the drug.Dr. Belin said, "We've always assumed that addiction occurs through a failure or our self-control, but now we know this is not necessarily the case. We've found a back door directly to habitual behavior. Drug addiction is mainly viewed as a psychiatric disorder, with treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy focused on restoring the ability of the prefrontal cortex to control the otherwise maladaptive drug use. But we've shown that the prefrontal cortex is not always aware of what is happening, suggesting these treatments may not always be effective."In a second study, published in, Dr. Belin and colleagues showed that a drug used to treat paracetamol overdose may be able to help individuals addicted to cocaine overcome their addiction - provided the individual wants to quit.The drug, N-acetylcysteine, had previously been shown in rat studies to prevent relapse. However, the drug later failed human clinical trials, though analysis suggested that while it did not lead addicted individuals to stop using cocaine, amongst those who were trying to abstain, it helped them refrain from taking the drug.Dr. Belin and colleagues used an experiment in which rats compulsively self-administered cocaine. They found that rats given N-acetylcysteine lost the motivation to self-administer cocaine more quickly than rats given a placebo. In fact, when they had stopped working for cocaine, they tended to relapse at a lower rate. N-acetylcysteine also increased the activity in the brain of a particular gene associated with plasticity - the ability of the brain to adapt and learn new skills.Co-author Mickael Puaud from the Department of Pharmacology of the University of Cambridge said, "A hallmark of addiction is that the user continues to take the drug even in the face of negative consequences - such as on their health, their family and friends, their job, and so on. Our study suggests that N-acetylcysteine, a drug that we know is well tolerated and safe, may help individuals who want to quit to do so."Source: Newswise Advertisement Soon after joining up, her fiance left for work one morning and never returned. Matturi said, "When some friends tracked him down and asked the reason for abandoning the house where we were living together, his answer was: 'I don't want an Ebola family'."The tropical pathogen, one of the deadliest known to humankind, is spread through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person showing symptoms such as fever or vomiting, or the recently dead. The fever, which can cause fatal hemorrhaging, organ failure and severe diarrhea, spread to 881 health workers, killing more than 500.As well as shattering health services, economic growth and family life, it has also sewn deep fissures in communities hit hardest by the contagion.Ebola bred fear and suspicion, particularly in rural areas where many believe that foreigners are responsible for spreading the disease, including the very humanitarian groups who helped overcome it.Victor Koroma, another member of a Freetown burial team, said, "I was forced to move home six times as landlords or neighbors found out how I was earning a living. In some instances, I was openly called the Ebola Corpse Man and, since the nickname was persistent, I had to move."The hostility encountered by both west African and western aid workers and medical staff has manifested itself not just in low-level disapproval but in sporadic bloodshed.Guinea and Sierra Leone saw numerous episodes of mobs attacking ambulances and burial teams as they imposed a state of emergency and began restricting movement of their populations.The violence reached a grim nadir in 2014 when eight members of an outreach team in southern Guinea were slaughtered by protesters who denied the existence of Ebola and denounced a 'white conspiracy'.The hostility has hit not just health workers but also survivors, made pariahs by the fear of contagion and because their very existence is a painful reminder for families who lost loved-ones.A UNICEF survey of 1,400 households across Sierra Leone in 2014 found that Ebola survivors suffered high levels of stigma, shame and discrimination.In another survey by Sierra Leone's health ministry and the United States' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 96% of respondents reported discrimination toward people who had beaten Ebola.An exacerbating factor has been the discovery that the virus can stay in semen for at least nine months after a patient has recovered, six months longer than previously thought.Scientists are working to establish how long it can persist in other bodily fluids and tissues such as the spinal column and the eye, and for how long it could remain infectious.Ebola passed on from survivors whose blood had been given the all-clear is thought to have been behind two small outbreaks in Liberia after it was initially declared Ebola-free.Medical charity Doctors without Borders estimates around three-quarters of survivors are dealing with a variety of post-Ebola complications including headaches, fatigue and eye problems.Momoh Sesay, a middle-aged farmer in Kambia, a major trading post in northwestern Sierra Leone, was already struggling with grief after losing his two wives and four children to the epidemic.He survived his own infection, but encountered hostility rather than sympathy when he returned home.Sesay said, "Everything was went well at first when I was discharged. But as soon as word went round that some male survivors sometimes have the virus in their semen, many of my best friends would wave to me from afar and then hurry on."Source: AFP Kanthapuram AP Aboobacker Musliar, an internationally known Sunni Islamic scholar based in the southern Indian state of Kerala, has been in the headlines recently for his misogynistic statements. Aboobacker Musliar is the chief of the All India Sunni Jamiyyathul Ulama, a religious organization belonging to the Barelvi school of Sunni Islam. Early this year, Aboobacker Musliar visited New Zealand, where he is establishing a mosque to further his religious influence. On January 2, he posted a message on his certified Facebook page: "The western Hamilton city of New Zealand, where more than two hundred families of Muslims live without a single Masjid [mosque] in the province except the one in the East. Some of our brothers have bought land in the West and want to build a masjid which will accommodate three hundred worshipers and to be a beacon of Islam in the area. If anyone wish to built [sic] or contribute in this great endeavour, please contact us."[1] On January 4, he posted: "Touched down Wellington International Airport, New Zealand. Thank you for the grand reception. Many brothers turned out to the Kiwi capital."[2] But it is Kerala where Aboobacker Musliar's influence among Muslims is widespread. The southern Indian state has recently attracted attention for growing Wahhabism and other forms of Sunni religious orthodoxies. From this state, a journalist went to Syria to join the Islamic State (ISIS), and some UAE-based Keralite Muslim youths were deported back to Kerala because of their pro-ISIS connections. Aboobacker Musliar: "Women Have No Mental Strength And [No] Power To Control The Universe, Which Lies In The Hands Of Men" On November 28, 2015, at a camp of the Muslim Students Federation (MSF) in the town of Kozhikode in Kerala, Aboobacker Musliar spoke out against women. Following are excerpts from an Indian media report about his statements:[3] "Musliar... said that women have no mental strength and [no] power to control the universe, 'which lies in the hands of menOC Gender equality is something which is never going to be a reality. It is against Islam, humanity and was intellectually wrong...' "'Women can never equal men. They are fit only to deliver children. Women cannot withstand crisis situations,' he said. He also wondered [aloud] whether there was even a single woman among the thousands of cardiac surgeons. "The 76-year-old Islamic scholar's remarks against reserving seats for women in elections recently set off another controversy; he had called reserving 50% reservation of seats for women in civic polls was 'too high'OC "Referring to the ongoing debates over allowing girls and boys to sit together in colleges, Musliar said that this was 'part of a calculated move to destroy Islam and culture.' He also rejected recent allegations regarding incidents of sexual exploitation at madrassas [in Kerala] and asked those who raised allegations to bring evidence to prove it. A controversy had erupted recently after a woman journalist [V.P. Rajeena, a sub-editor for Jamaat-e-Islami's Malayalam-language daily Madhyamam] wrote on her Facebook about allegations of sexual abuse of young boys and girls in madrassas." Aboobacker Musliar: "Islam Stands For The Safety Of Women In A Milieu Of Extreme Feminism And Misogyny" After a controversy erupted over his statements, Aboobacker Musliar wrote on his Facebook page on November 30, 2015: "This is to clarify the misunderstanding stemmed out of the remarks I made about gender equality during one of recent speeches. Islam stands for the safety of women in a milieu of extreme feminism and misogyny. A fair approach is one that empowers them through education and social upliftment...." "I referred to the nobility of motherhood while talking on the duties of men and women in family life and reiterated the plain fact that 'only woman can give birth.' I stick to the statement that childbirth and upbringing of the children are of the noblest deeds we can ever think of. This pro-women statement has been deliberately distorted and misinterpreted, and quoted me as saying women are capable only of childbirth." "Through this distorted presentation of my statement and also taking it out of the context, without even making an attempt to crosscheck their 'story' with me or anybody in our organization, these media houses are proving our doubts about Islamophobic media houses in Kerala who are trying to thrive by sensational victimizing a community and its leaders, as evident from other examples such as 'gender equality issue in Farook college', 'claims on human trafficking by orphanages." "I also maintain my position [about the understanding] of nature suggests to take responsibilities in the social and personal life according to the differences in the gender. I have no problem in anybody stigmatizing me as misogynist for saying the fact that men and women are different. While I disagree with those who believe that gender differences are social construction, I respect their right to express their opinion and also expect they may respect my right to disagree with their opinion, informed by the basic tenets of Islam." Woman Journalist Sandhya PP: "The Moment He [Aboobacker Musliar] Saw Me He Said A Woman Can't Interview Him" Following this controversy, some women journalists have emerged with their own experiences trying to interview Aboobacker Musliar. Journalist Sandhya PP said: "Thirteen years ago, when I was working with Asianet, I had to interview Kanthapuram AP Aboobacker Musliar. One of my male colleagues arranged the interview for me. They did not know that a woman [journalist] was coming to interview the leader. The moment he saw me he said a woman can't interview him. If it was necessary, then the cameraman could interview him. But I was firm on my decision; later he agreed with a demand that visuals of me sitting with him or questioning him could not be aired. Since the interview was very topical, we had to telecast it after agreeing to all his demands. But being a woman, I felt ashamed."[4] Safeera Madathilakath, another journalist, recounted her experience, stating: "Some unforgettable incidents occurred during my life as a media professional in Thiruvananthapuram [the capital of Kerala]. One such incident was when I went to report on an event attended by Kanthapuram [Aboobacker Musliar]. When I was about to enter the venue, some of his followers rushed to me and said women are not allowed. I tried to convince him that I came for reporting, but they didn't allow. Since I didn't budge, they shouted at me so menacingly that I got scared and thought they might thrash me. The men who shouted at me questioned why I had come with mics instead of sitting at home. I asked why they couldn't behave properly, to which they called me a curse and [said that] for their ustad [literally: teacher, but Aboobacker Musliar], girls were haram. Till then, no men had ever behaved so badly to me."[5] Endnotes: In a January 2, 2016 article on the New Age Islam website titled "Mehdi Hasan - Your Islamism Is Truly A State Of Your Mind," MEMRI South Asia Studies Project director Tufail Ahmad writes about the Al-Jazeera English television host and former political director of The Huffington Post UK. The following is the article: Mehdi Hasan "In an article in The Indian Express newspaper of December 31, 2015, Al-Jazeera television channel's internationally known pro-Islamism gladiator Mehdi Hasan summarily describes all his critics as 'right-wing Internet trolls' and also as bhakts - a term that means 'loyal' and represents those who essentially support Narendra Modi, the former tea-seller who was elected prime minister by India's masses in 2014. "A search of Twitter does not show that Mehdi Hasan is being criticized, for reasons that can be described as attacks on his family, his employer, or his personal life. On the contrary, bhakts have questioned Mehdi Hasan for holding Islamist views against non-Muslims, much like the Islamic State (ISIS) thinks of non-Muslims. "Reading his article, it does appear that Mehdi Hasan, who is loved by Islamists and jihadists across the world for being their advocate in the mainstream media, nurses deep personal animosity against Narendra Modi, the elected leader of the world's largest democracy. Islamism, based on Islamic shari'a, is the opposite of democracy and sometimes uses elections to advance the cause of shari'a in public life and governance. "Let me remind Mehdi Hasan what David Cameron, the elected leader of the world's oldest democracy, the United Kingdom, said about India's elected leader: '[Modi] got more votes than any other politician anywhere in the universe.' "However, Islamist minds like Mehdi Hasan's cannot grasp the workings of democracy, and therefore, in his article, he fails to see that Modi is the elected leader of the world's most vibrant democracy. Elsewhere, I have argued that Modi is the European Enlightenment's best representative in India. "Like Islamists and 'Pakistanis,' Mehdi Hasan scorns 'Modi-led India' as if he doesn't want such an India to exist. This Islamist's ideological audacity is such that he hosts television programs titled 'Is Modi's India flirting with fascism?' Why not start from home, by launching a television series called 'Is Qatar flirting with jihadism?' [Al-Jazeera is Qatar-based]. "Is Mehdi Hasan Flirting With Latent Jihadism? ''As for the laughable charge of 'Islamism,'' writes Mehdi Hasan, using words like 'laughable' to shrug off a serious intellectual charge on his mind - True, Hasan's liberal supporters can laugh off Islamism, but the bhakts, who essentially abide by the Constitution of India, will not. The audacity of Mehdi Hasan is that he bends truth to argue that he is being criticized only in India. "He writes: 'Never have I experienced the sort of backlash that I have had to endure online [in India]... not from Nigerians, Israelis, Egyptians, Pakistanis, Palestinians, Americans, or Britons.' This audacity is totally shameless and false. In the UK, leading columnist Nick Cohen, in a piece dated 5 October 2013 on the website of The Spectator, wrote this about Mehdi Hasan: 'Lftists should pause before denouncing Hasan as a charlatan and a sell-out. They are the purer hypocrites and greater fools. Hasan is from the Islamist religious right... He is a religious reactionary.' "In a piece dated 6 June 2014 and published on the website of The Telegraph newspaper, British author Saif Rahman noted that the Islamist rhetoric employed by Mehdi Hasan is to the ideological benefit of global Islamism. He wrote: 'Mehdi commonly uses identity politics and accusations of Islamophobia & racism to obfuscate, divert or silence debate.' He added: '[Mehdi Hasan] has a tendency to mock and deride moderates and reformers, revealing a more conservative mindset of his own. He asks progressive Muslims like Mona Eltahawy, "Are you a practicing Muslim?" and sneers at the "crusades" led by Muslim reformists like Irshad Manji. In the UK, he labels other modernizers like Maajid Nawaz "Islamophobes."' "In India, not many people know that Mehdi Hasan is a globally known Islamist, loved by Islamists and just as much by their non-Muslim cousins on the remnants of the Left. "Saif Rahman also notes: 'One of the facts... [that Hasan] rarely highlights nor writes about is the fact that he's a Shia Muslim, despite it influencing where much of his opinion & politics derives from.' "Mehdi Hasan's comments about non-Muslims being cattle is not incidental; it emerges from Mehdi Hasan's mind, which thinks in terms of Muslims versus the infidels - much like the militants of ISIS, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda think of non-Muslims as infidels. "Rahman notes how Mehdi Hasan talks about Yazid, the sixth caliph of Sunni Islam, in these words: 'All of these Ulema [Islamic scholars] unanimously agree that, at the very minimum, if Yazid was not a kafir then - at the very minimum - he was a fasiq [depraved/sinner], a transgressor, a breaker of Islamic laws, a corrupt individual, a tyrant, a killer, a drunkard, a dog lover, a music-lover... a homosexual, a pedophile, a sexual deviant... someone who slept with his own mother! These are their views, [expressed by] these Ulema, in their books. Not mine, not Imam Hussein's view, not [Shia cleric] Ali Al-Sistani's view! This is their view of Al-Yazid, all there in black and white. Yet Allah should be pleased with him? Allah should be pleased with him? Indeed, the fact is that Yazid was not simply a fasiq, he was an out and out kafir!' "I do not know how India's Sunni clerics will react if they hear that Mehdi Hasan spoke these words: Yazid slept with his own mother. It will be really interesting to know what critical stuff Mehdi Hasan, the Indian-British Shia Muslim, has written as a journalist about Shia Islam, Imam Khomeini, or other Iranian theocrats. "Mehdi Hasan: Non-Muslims Are Cattle "Saif Rahman produces another passage from the mind of Mehdi Hasan explaining how this Indian-British Shia Muslim defines kafirs: 'In Islam to believe is to know; to disbelieve is not to know. That is what it fundamentally comes down to. It (to disbelieve) is to remain ignorant, to cover up knowledge. After all, what is "Kaffar?" Kaffar comes from the root word which means to cover up, to conceal. A Kaffar is one who covers up that knowledge is clear. The French Orientalist scholar Lamens (?), he once wrote that the 'Koran is not far from considering unbelief, disbelief as an infirmity, as an illness, as a disease of the human mind.' Subhanallah, non-Muslims [e.g. the French Orientalist scholar] point this out to us.' "This statement coming from the Al-Jazeera television host makes it absolutely clear that Mehdi Hasan considers non-Muslims not merely cattle but as a disease. Saif Rahman's article is available on the website of The Telegraph of London, and can be read there by anyone interested. "With such a mind, there is absolutely no difference between Mehdi Hasan and Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi of the Islamic State. It will be very relevant that India's liberal-left keeps distance from him, for the sake of their own legitimacy. "Simply because Mehdi Hasan is appointed as a host on Al-Jazeera or as the UK political director of The Huffington Post does not mean that he is not a true representative of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi in our mainstream, and therefore a long-term ideological threat to the modern democratic civilization. "Not only that. Mehdi Hasan has held homophobic views against gays and lesbians. In 2013, he wrote an article in the leftist magazine of London, The New Statesman, in which he tried to pretend that he was wrong during his youth for holding homophobic views, but in the same article he resisted any message for the reform of Islam. In fact, it seems that his only purpose in writing the article was to polish off his persona while defending homophobic agenda of Islamists. He argued against any change in Islamic viewpoint on this subject by stating: 'I am willing to accept same-sex weddings in a state-sanctioned register office, on grounds of equity. As a believer in Islam, however, I insist that no mosque be forced to hold one against its wishes.' "In the Islamic world, each mosque is an autonomous institution, usually controlled by a cleric who is backed by a committee of local Muslims. No one is forcing any mosque to hold any same-sex marriage, but the point remains that Mehdi Hasan doesn't see space for gays and lesbians within Islam, and therefore he is anti-reformist, pro-Islamist, comfortable with Islam's anti-equality. "It is clear that much like jihadis, Mehdi Hasan thinks of non-Muslims as cattle and their faith as disease, as an infirmity. But in his column in The Indian Express, he gives a passing reference to this within brackets, to brush it off as a side issue. The fact is that his comment about non-Muslims being cattle and their thought being an infirmity is central to his ideological thinking, and only a fraction of what goes on behind his public face. In one audio statement available on the Internet, he observes, like jihadis: 'We [the Muslims] know that keeping the moral high-ground is key. Once we lose the moral high-ground, we are no different from the rest, of the non-Muslims; from those of human beings who live their lives as animals...' "In the article, Mehdi Hasan notes the point that non-Muslims are a cattle is from the Koran, but like a true Islamist goes on to defend the Koran, arguing that it is merely metaphorical. His arguments are not meant to criticize Islamism. He states: 'I gave a speech in which I regrettably... quoted a verse from the Koran that refers, metaphorically, to unthinking non-Muslims as 'cattle' but...' But - and yes, there is a 'But Gang' of journalists and intellectuals nowadays that seeks to use this three letter word 'but' to justify Islamism, to rationalize jihadism, and, like Mehdi Hasan, to make its way into our social mainstream. Islamists like Mehdi Hasan are doing in the legitimate mainstream what ISIS chief Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi does in the illegitimate mainstream of our era. "Mehdi Hasan's Intellectual Roots In Hyderabad "Mehdi Hasan seeks to garner Indian sympathies by using his past identity: 'I am, you might say, a child of India: Born and raised in the UK but to parents born and raised in India. I spent most of my summer holidays as a child in Hyderabad and even got married there.' Mehdi Hasan should also tell his audiences that it is not incidental that he is Islamist, because Hyderabad, where he spent his childhood, is indeed the vortex of Islamist politics led by [elected Islamist politicians] Asaduddin Owaisi and Akbaruddin Owaisi. It is from here that dozens of Islamist youths have attempted to leave for Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State over the past year and more. "Mehdi Hasan is indeed Hyderabad's global Islamist problem, which is an old problem but births new forces like ISIS, the Taliban, and Al-Qaeda. Hyderabad has always been a center of global Islamism. "The Islamist Nizam [ruler] of Hyderabad supported the idea of Pakistan as the second Islamic state after Medina, where the Prophet Muhammad established the first Islamic state. Also, the Nizam earlier bankrolled Sultan Abdul Majeed II, the fallen caliph of the Ottoman caliphate. Mehdi Hasan, you truly have an historical Islamist lineage. With deep intellectual roots in Hyderabad, it is no surprise that you are indeed an Islamist, the unarmed version of jihadis. "Mehdi Hasan's Identity: Indian vs Pakistani "Mehdi Hasan takes offense at being dubbed 'Pakistani' [i.e. as opposed to 'Indian'] by Indian young people on Twitter, but it is indeed an accurate description for his class of individuals. You do not need to be born in Pakistan to be a Pakistani, for the simple reason that... [a person is] but the body of ideas that your mind contains and teaches others. "Mehdi Hasan should know that he is truly a 'Pakistani' - which today in South Asia is considered a state of mind. If he cannot understand this, let me give a reverse example. [Girls' education rights activist and Nobel Laureate] Malala Yousafzai, though born in Pakistan, is an Indian. She is beloved by Indian young people who stand for everything she stands for - and everything for which Islamists like Mehdi Hasan do not stand for. And there are many in Pakistan of Mehdi Hasan's type who do not like Malala Yousafzai... "Mehdi Hasan, you are not even an ounce of the Indian that [Canada-based writer] Tarek Fateh is, though he was born in present-day Pakistan which was once India. In your piece, you note that you are being 'defamed' as a 'closet Islamist' - but the fact is that you are very much an open Islamist, not hiding in a closet. "Mehdi Hasan flaunts the fact that his parents were born and raised in India. So it should also be known to him that in this country 'secularism' - the joint intellectual collaboration practiced by Indian leftists, liberals, and Islamists - has come to mean the practice of Islamism and Muslimism, as well as the ideology of negative communalism that divides Indians on a daily basis. And therefore, this [Indian version of] secularism is dubbed 'sickularism.' Shekhar Gupta, veteran journalist and a liberal, admitted in a column in The Business Standard newspaper of November 6 (2015): 'The Left intellectual domination of modern Indian thought, and its embrace by the Gandhi dynasty, resulted in lazy, static politics where the word 'secular' became synonymous with Muslim.' "So it serves Mehdi Hasan's Islamism to court the scorn of those who stand on the opposite of Islamism. It serves his Islamism that he is the new darling of India's sickular writers and journalists who never speak in favor of Muslim women's liberty, notably in the Shah Bano case [in which India's Supreme Court ordered a Muslim man to pay alimony to the destitute woman he divorced, Shah Bano, but the court order was quashed by legislation passed by the so-called secular government of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1986, in order to appease Islamists and leftists]. "Mehdi Hasan writes: 'Yet in today's Narendra Modi-led India, those Muslims who dare speak out are told to go to Pakistan.' On the contrary - Muslims who dare to speak out are elected by the people of India. Google some [Islamist leaders'] names: Azam Khan, Asaduddin Owaisi, Akbaruddin Owaisi, and others. Mehdi Hasan should also know that India's liberal-sickularists, unlike the constitutional bhakts who stand for equality of all citizens irrespective of caste and religions, long to find Islamist Muslims to give them ideological succor. Bhakts are truly the children of the Indian Constitution. It is the overwhelming desire of liberal-leftist-sickularist journalists in India that propels them to seek views of extremist Hindus (whose number is essentially in the single digits in this nation of 1.26 billion Indians). It does not automatically follow that Muslims are being sent to Pakistan. "On the contrary, in this country, Indian Muslims have risen to become president, vice president, chief justice of the Supreme Court, chief of the Intelligence Bureau, chief ministers, ambassadors; I urge you to Google. "Conversely, India's liberal politicians - for example, Nitish Kumar - long to and indeed do visit Pakistan intentionally to convey a political message to their Indian Muslim voters - [i.e.] that they are indeed Pakistanis. Sickularist writers and activists such as Sudheendra Kulkarni are out to prove similar points. "It is not Indian liberals who long to invite Malala Yousafzai to India; try to Google and you will find that such a suggestion for inviting Malala Yousafzai to India has come not from the sickular groups but from Shiv Sena, a Hindu-interest political party. This is because India's Kulkarnis and Kumars grasp intuitively that inviting Malala Yousafzai to India will not serve their interests because in India sickularism survives in the womb of Islamism. India's sickular Hindus are routinely engaged in mobilizing Muslim orthodoxies to their electoral benefit. "The Islamist Hiding Under The Rushdie Umbrella? "To gain legitimacy in India and its pro-Islamist Marxist-liberal intelligentsia, Mehdi Hasan quotes Mahatma Gandhi: 'Anger and intolerance... are the enemies of correct understanding.' We know that Mehdi Hasan has his correct understanding - of Islamism. We know for sure that Islamists like Mehdi Hasan are beloved by the leftists in Britain and America. In fact, in the modern era, Islamism has emerged as the soutan (second wife, sometimes concubine) of liberalism, without which the liberal-leftists in many countries find it hard to thrive. Mehdi Hasan uses Mahatma Gandhi's name because it serves his ideological purpose, as Gandhi supported the Khilafat Movement, whose violent version is currently being administered by Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. "Mr. Mehdi Hasan, do you really think that you have become a true follower of Gandhi from today? If not, why to quote him, to just serve your ideological purpose and gain legitimacy? "Mehdi Hasan conveniently quotes Salman Rushdie, who is nowadays on the side of anti-liberty Indian groups led by sickularists and counterfeit intellectuals who never speak for Muslim women's rights, to describe 'Modi toadies.' Why not use this word 'toadies' directly? Why hide behind Salman Rushdie? Mehdi Hasan, your own toadies, hiding behind anonymous internet IDs, are out creating online impression management for you. We, those of us who are on the opposite side of your kind of everyday Islamism, are aware that you write lots of stuff to cover up your Islamism, and therefore it is incumbent upon us to bring out into the open what you try to hide. "You conveniently quote Gandhi and Rushdie to obfuscate and divert attention from your Islamist intellectual enterprise. You even present your interview with [rationalist thinker] Richard Dawkins as a certificate to hide your latent jihadism in our public mainstream. Yes, as a journalist you write many things which are not relevant here; what is relevant here is what you write to cover up. "The Islamist's Unease At Akhand Bharat "Before appearing on Mehdi Hasan's program [on Al-Jazeera], Bharatiya Janata Party leader Ram Madhav did not research his background, or Al-Jazeera's role in promoting jihadism in the post-9/11 years, Being a Hindu, he cannot be expected to be intellectually equipped to deal with questions on jihadism - certainly not on its soft version called Islamism. But I challenge you to get Tarek Fateh on your television program, and we will see you in your true ideological colors. "In your article, you go on to play a victim in order to get the sympathy of Indians by observing that you are 'on the receiving end of their relentless hate and bile.' But the fact is that the modern democratic civilization that respects gays and lesbians as well as Muslim women's freedoms is on the receiving end of your hate and bile, as attested to by portions of Islamist speeches that have emerged from your mind and your mouth. It is known that Islamists like you - the early versions of the cancer that jihadis are - thrive in the politically correct environments of British society from where many jihadis terrorists have emerged. You, though slightly suave, are no different. "You describe your television program as 'gladiatorial' - this is how Islamists view themselves and how they were described as Mard-e-Momin (Islamic Superman) by the Islamist national poet of Pakistan, Muhammad Iqbal. In your column, you took offense that Ram Madhav spoke politically of Akhand Bharat (United India), arguing that Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh could one day unite not by an act of war but through the force of public opinion. "The fact is that India's secular journalists and activists in the past few decades, supported by liberal Pakistanis, did indeed burn midnight candles at the India-Pakistan border to make the border meaningless. In this endeavor of India-Pakistan friendship, it is not Pakistani liberals and Indian rightists who are ill at ease; it is the jihadis in Pakistan and Islamists like you who feel lost at sea. "The fact is that the bhakts will embrace Pakistanis if the Pakistani army's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) - which births and nurtures jihadi terrorists and has been classified by U.S. officials as a terrorist organization - were to cease sponsoring jihadi terrorism in India. You write: 'The bhakt army continues to hound me on social media.' The fact is that your ideas are being questioned, and this your intolerance cannot tolerate. No one has launched a personal attack on you. "It is very interesting to Indians that you write a negative line such as this: 'For the record, I have no ties to Pakistan whatsoever.' Did you really think that having ties to Pakistan is a problem? A true democratic Pakistani would never write this. There are a number of Pakistanis who are at the receiving end of Islamism propagated by your kind, but they are very much proud Pakistanis, and India's people stand by them - and you might not know that such Pakistanis are truly welcomed by the bhakts into their homes. It is not incidental that the best moves for peace with Pakistan in recent memory have been initiated by those whom you describe as bhakts, namely [former Prime Minister] Atal Bihari Vajpayee and [current Prime Minister] Narendra Modi. "The fact is this: Mr. Mehdi Hasan, your mind is consumed by Islamism, and you will understand neither India nor democracy, and certainly not its people. Is your hatred reserved only for the advocates of Akhand Bharat? Or have you also ever felt any unease at the jihadis who speak of uniting all Muslims under one global roof - ummah?" The following are some of this week's reports from the MEMRI Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM) Project, which translates and analyzes content from sources monitored around the clock, among them the most important jihadi websites and blogs. (To view these reports in full, you must be a paying member of the JTTM; for membership information, send an email to [email protected] with "Membership" in the subject line.) Note to media and government: For a full copy of these reports, send an email with the title of the report in the subject line to [email protected]. Please include your name, title, and organization in your email. EXCLUSIVE: In Interview With American Media Activist, Jaysh Al-Fath Cleric Al-Muhaysini Explains Reasoning Behind General Call To Arms Jaysh Al-Fath (JAF), coalition of Islamist groups fighting in Syria, recently issued a statement calling upon Muslims worldwide to join the jihad in Syria, as well as a fatwa that mandated this. In an interview with U.S.-born media activist Bilal 'Abdul Kareem, 'Abdallah Al-Muhaysini, a prominent cleric affiliated with the coalition, explained the reasoning behind the call to arms and the fatwa. The interview, in Arabic with English subtitles, was posted to YouTube in two parts, on January 8 and January 12, respectively. It was also advertised on the Facebook page of the JAF-affiliated media group Al-Muhajirun, which on January 11, 2016 released a video of its own emphasizing the dire need for men in Syria. EXCLUSIVE: AQAP Commander Khaled Batarfi Urges Mujahideen, Muslims To Concentrate On Attacking U.S. On January 7, 2016, Al-Malahem, the official media foundation of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), released an audio recording featuring the group's senior commander Khaled Batarfi urging the mujahideen and Muslims living in the U.S. to concentrate on attacking and defeating it. In the 43-minute recording, the link to which was posted on Al-Malahem's official twitter account, Batarfi emphasized to the mujahideen the importance of being passionate and steadfast in order to achieve their goals. After he recounted multiple stories about the Prophet Muhammad and the hardships he endured for the sake of Islam, he compared the U.S to the tribe of Quraysh, the main enemy which the prophet had focused on, rather than wasting time with minor conflicts against the Jews and the hypocrites. Following Mass Executions In Saudi Arabia, Al-Qaeda Leader Al-Zawahiri Implores Mujahideen To Damage American Interests, Topple Saudi Regime On January 14, 2016, Al-Qaeda's Al-Sahab media wing published a seven-minute audio recording by the organization's leader, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, titled "Aal Sa'ud, the Murderers of the Mujahideen." In the recording, which was distributed via the jihadi forum Al-Fida' and elsewhere, Al-Zawahiri responds to the recent mass execution in Saudi Arabia of over 40 mujahideen, and urges the mujahideen in the Arabian Peninsula to damage the interests of "the American-Zionist coalition" and do their utmost to mar the Saudi royal family's status in the eyes of their American masters. He also urges Muslims in the Arabian Peninsula, primarily the "faithful" clerics, to rise up against the corrupt Saudi regime, and directs the attention of jihadis fighting in Syria to the Saudi crimes while suggesting that they resist the temptation to become agents of the U.S. Al-Zawahiri Urges Jihadis In Syria To Repudiate Saudi Arabia And ISIS On January 13, 2016, Al-Qaeda published a letter from leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri to the jihad fighters in Syria, in the Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Al-Nusra as well as in other Islamist and jihadi groups, titled "Syria Has Been Deposited in Your Trust." In the letter, he warned them of Saudi efforts to usurp the jihad in Syria by holding the Riyadh conference, and urged them not to allow the Islamic State (ISIS) to have its way and monopolize the jihad in Syria. Following is a summary of the letter: Al-Zawahiri begins his message by congratulating Jabhat Al-Nusra for conducting a prisoner exchange with Lebanon, praising it for setting an example. He encouraged the group to continue custom, and to strive for "unifying the jihadi rank" and to accept members of ISIS who want to mend their ways. EXCLUSIVE: ISIS Post Images From Its Assault On Libya's 'Oil Crescent' On January 11, 2015, ISIS posted pictures from its recent assault on Libya's "oil crescent," an area in the eastern part of the country that contains vast oil and gas reserves. ISIS had launched a string of attacks in the last two weeks against oil regions and facilities to the east of its stronghold of Sirte. EXCLUSIVE: The New AMEF Forum: 'Ansar Alkhelafa Europe' By: M. Khayat* Introduction Ansar Alkhelafa Europe (AKE), an online jihadi forum that publishes Islamic State (ISIS) content, is a reincarnation of the Ansar Al-Mujahideen English Forum (AMEF), which for years was a top jihadi forum that catered to English-speaking audiences. In June 2015, AMEF announced that it was closing, naming as reasons for doing so "current developments" and its desire to provide "the best media platform" for the mujahideen in Syria. Later, however, it announced that it was launching AKE, and invited those wishing to join it to contact the AKE administrators. AKE banner Prior to its shutdown, AMEF was unaffiliated with any jihad group; it operated on the Clearnet, the visible and indexed part of the Internet, via the domain ansar1.info. In contrast, AKE was created for the sole purpose of supporting ISIS, and to appeal specifically to European Muslims to do the same. AKE operates on the Clearnet via the domain alkhelafa.eu. AMEF functioned as a tightly knit community, rarely opening its doors to outsiders and enforcing strict security measures to sift through and ban any lurkers; AKE appears to take the same approach. For example, in order to join, applicants must be vouched for by other members who are already trusted. It also appears that some of AMEF's admins and long-standing members have migrated to AKE's, and are possibly members of its "shura council." EXCLUSIVE: ISIS Supporters, Jihadi Fighters Shift Online Propaganda Strategy - Now Favoring Commentary On Current Events Over Threats By. A. Agron* Introduction Over the course of the Syrian conflict, there has been a shift in the online discourse across social media platforms among jihadi supporters and fighters. In the past, many would brazenly post videos and graphic photographs of their experiences in Syria. For example, a Belgian fighter in an elite combat unit, "Abu Islam Al-Belgiki," frequently shared his combat experiences online, even posing with an alleged spy who was crucified and then beheaded, for all of his Twitter followers to see. Recruiters utilized Twitter, Facebook, and Ask.fm for outreach and for spreading propaganda, openly aided those interesting in immigrating to Syria, and often fielded questions about life in Syria. After Ask.fm started cracking down on Islamic State (ISIS) fighters' accounts, around in mid-2015 some switched to Ask.fm clone Ask-book. As the geopolitical situation has impacted the flow of migration to Syria; namely the tightening of Turkish borders and coalition airstrikes. In light of these developments these discussions appear to have been largely abandoned in public forums - which does not mean they are not taking place, but that interested parties are likely using encrypted communications instead. However, it is important to stress that the conversation has shifted among Westerners online, threats in Arabic continue to flow on social media. EXCLUSIVE: Jaysh Al-Fath Recruitment Video Appeals To Muslims Worldwide: We In Syria Are In Dire Need Of Fighters, Doctors, Weapons, Funds On January 10, 2016 the Al-Muhajirun media group, which is affiliated with the Jaysh Al-Fath coalition of Islamist militias in Syria, published a recruitment video that calls upon Sunni Muslims worldwide to join the jihad in Syria to repel the aggression of the "Shiite enemies" and their allies, i.e. Iran, Hezbollah, Russia, the Assad regime and other allied militias. This video thus repeats the message of the previous call to arms and the fatwa that the coalition issued in late December 2015. These publications all reflect a notable shift in the recruitment strategy of Islamist groups in Syria, which previously refrained from calling for fighters from abroad to come to Syria, but are now doing so emphatically. EXCLUSIVE: British ISIS Fighter Ordered To Close Down Telegram Channel By Islamic State Media Center, Urges Followers To Join ISIS In Libya On January 8, 2015, British ISIS fighter Omar Hussain posted his final messages on his Telegram account, revealing that he had been asked to close it by the Islamic State Media Center. He also shared a plea from an ISIS fighter in Libya for those interested in jihad to join the battle in Libya. Omar Hussain was previously very active on Twitter and Tumblr, frequently penning advice articles about life in the Islamic State and offering glimpses into Syria with many photographs. At the time of this writing, his channel had 707 members. ISIS In Al-Furat Claims To Have Downed US Drone In a communique it issued on January 9, 2016, the Islamic State (ISIS) in Al-Furat Province claimed to have downed a US drone near the Iraqi town of 'Akasaht in Al-Anbar. The communique, posted on the Nasher Al-Khilafa channel on Telegram, features photos of a wrecked drone (see below), and states: "With Allah's grace, the soldiers of the Caliphate managed to down an American drone over the 'Akasaht area, in the southern Al-Furat Province, using anti-aircraft missiles fired by one of [its] air-defense units." ISIS Claims Responsibility For Attacks On 'Citizens Of The Crusader Alliance' In Jakarta On January 14, 2016, the Islamic State (ISIS) released a statement in which it claimed responsibility for today's attacks in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. According to the statement, which was posted on leading pro-ISIS online jihadi forum Shumoukh Al-Islam, a group of ISIS soldiers attacked "citizens of the crusader alliance countries" with timed bombs, light weapons, and suicide vests. ISIS Claims Responsibility For Attack On Israeli Tourist Bus Near Cairo On January 8, 2016, the Islamic State (ISIS) posted a statement claiming responsibility for previous day's attack on an Israeli tourist bus in Giza, near Cairo. ISIS said that it had managed to kill and wound some Israelis and members of the hotel security team. Gunmen opened fire on the Israeli tourists as they boarded their bus outside the Three Pyramids Hotel. Egyptian authorities claimed that the attack was carried out by individuals affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), and that their main target was the hotel security team, not the Israeli tourists per se. Caliphate Cyber Army Promotes Latest Video Release On Telegram; Joins Forces with Pro-Palestinian Hackers AnonGhost On January 8, 2015 the Caliphate Cyber Army (CCA), a group of pro-Islamic State (ISIS) hackers, circulated a link to their latest release, "The Establishment of Caliphate Ghosts," that it had uploaded to the Internet Archive. The 13-minute video showed off some of the CCA's successful hacks, and featured the hacking of the website of the Global Security & Training Services (GSTS), an Israeli company. The video features the usual ISIS rhetoric of threats to the West, the conquering of cities, and the destruction of landmarks such as the White House, Big Ben, and the Eiffel Tower. This group of hackers also promoted the name "Caliphate Ghost" in the video; this refers to Pro-Palestinian hackers AnonGhost with whom the CCA have joined forces. Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP) Launches Telegram Channel On November 24, 2015, the Syrian branch of the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), an Al-Qaeda affiliate consisting mainly of Uyghur fighters, launched a channel on the encrypted messaging app Telegram. At the time of this writing the channel has 352 members. Official photos and videos, as well as promotions for new productions, are circulated on the channel. The channel is named after TIP's media wing "Sawt Al-Islam." A Look At Facebook Page Of Iraqi Refugee Living In California Who Expressed Desire To Return To Combat In Syria On January 7, 2015, an Iraqi-born man of Palestinian descent, Aws Mohammed Younis Al-Jayab, was arrested in Sacramento, California, where he was currently residing; he had come to the U.S. from Syria as a refugee in October 2012. His Facebook page appears to be mostly filled with photos of himself and his friends, and shows that he has a keen interest in cars. He also posted occasional anti-Assad political statements regarding Syria. According to the affidavit, on November 19, 2013, Al-Jayab arrived in Aleppo, Syria; Jayab's records show that he returned to Sacramento on January 23, 2014, via London and Los Angeles. Also on his Facebook page are photos of him en route to the U.S. via London and Istanbul, returning from combat in Syria, shared days after his return. AQAP Official Ibrahim Al-'Asiri Threatens: 'We Will Avenge The Prisoners Executed By The Saudi Regime' On January 11, 2016, Al-Malahem, the media wing of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), posted an 8-minute audio recording on YouTube featuring group official Ibrahim Al-'Asiri titled "eulogy for the group of martyrs from the Arabian Peninsula." This is an exceedingly rare appearance by Al-'Asiri, who is known as an explosives expert and military figure rather than an ideologue, and is a highly wanted terrorist. The recording, which was also posted to top jihadi message board Al-Fida', featured Al-'Asiri eulogizing the recently-executed prisoners in Saudi Arabia, specifically those associated with AQAP such as Fares Al-Zahrani and others. Al-'Asiri vows that AQAP will avenge the executed prisoners and that it will continue to carry out attacks in Saudi Arabia. He also says that AQAP's war against the U.S. will not cease. AQAP And AQIM Denounce Saudi Government's Executions, Vow Revenge On January 10, 2016, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) issued a joint statement regarding Saudi Arabia's execution, on January 2, 2016, of 43 clerics and operatives associated with Al-Qaeda. The two groups lambasted Saudi Arabia for executing "mujahideen who confronted the modern crusader campaign" in order to please its "crusader allies." The statement concludes with a reiteration of AQAP's previous threat to avenge the execution of jihadi clerics. AQIM Video Presents Conditions For Release Of Swedish, South African Hostages On January 9, 2016, Al-Andalus media, the media wing of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), released a video, some 3 minutes long, presenting the organization's conditions for the release of Swedish hostage Johan Gustafsson and South African hostage Stephen McGown. McGown and Gustafsson, as well as a Dutch national, Sjaak Rijke, were abducted by AQIM in November 25, 2011 from a restaurant in Timbuktu, and were held hostage along with two French nationals, Philippe Verdon and Serge Lazarevic, who were kidnapped one day earlier from a hotel in Hombori, Mali. Verdon has since been executed by AQIM, whereas Lazarevic was exchanged in a prisoner swap and Rijke was released in a raid led by French Special Forces in 2015. Afghan Ulema In Fatwa On Three Ways Of Choosing Emir-ul-Momineen (Leader Of Faithful Muslims) - Including Taghalub (Rebellion) In August 2015, it emerged that Mullah Omar, the Emir-ul-Momineen (leader of the faithful Muslims), had been dead since as early as April 2013, but that news of his death was withheld by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the Afghan Taliban's umbrella organization). After the news of his death broke, various factions of the Afghan Taliban began staking their leadership claims. Urdu Daily: 40 Pakistani Youths From Karachi Went To Syria And Afghanistan To Join ISIS And Al-Qaeda, A Dozen Died Fighting There According to an Urdu-language Pakistani daily, at least 40 youths from Karachi went to Syria and Afghanistan to join the Islamic State (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda, and about a dozen of them were killed in fighting there. A report in Roznama Jahan-e-Pakistan said that the Pakistani security agencies have tracked at least 10 recruitment centers for Al-Qaeda and ISIS in Karachi. Al-Qaeda's centers of recruitment are based in the areas of Orangi Town, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Malir, Buffer Zone, and the Federal B Area. Pakistani Punjab's Law Minister: 100 Pakistanis Went To Syria And Iraq To Join ISIS Rana Sanaullah, the Law Minister of Pakistan's Punjab province, has said that about 100 people from Punjab have left the country for Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State (ISIS), according to an Urdu-language newspaper. The minister said that a group of ISIS terrorists arrested from the Pakistani town of Daska previously belonged to Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) - a new name for the banned terror organization Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). The group later switched loyalty to ISIS. In recent months, further information about the AKP government's support for ISIS and other jihadis in Syria has come to light. Turkish journalists who have documented their government's support for terrorists and who have published evidence of truckloads of arms and ammunition, as well as fighters, being sent into Syria have been threatened, arrested, and imprisoned by Turkish authorities.[1] Foreign media have also extensively covered Turkey's sponsorship of ISIS and other terrorist organizations, and documented the ease with which thousands of foreign and Turkish jihadis enter and exit Syria under the eyes of Turkish officials. However, Western governments have refrained from criticizing Turkey's conduct in this matter, and continue to call Turkey "a partner in the fight against terrorism." Many in Turkey, including Mehves Evin, columnist for Turkish opposition daily Diken, have asked, in light of this heavy media coverage of Turkey's sponsorship of jihadi terrorists, "Why isn't there a peep from the West?"[2] The following report presents further evidence of the Turkish government's support and sponsorship of ISIS and other jihadi terrorist organizations: After Turkish Daily Cumhuriyet Released Video Footage Of Weapons-Filled Syria-Bound Turkish Trucks, Paper's Editor-In-Chief, Ankara Bureau Chief Are Imprisoned, Charged With Treason, Espionage, And Terrorism On November 26, 2015, Can Dundar, prominent journalist and editor-in-chief of Turkey's oldest daily Cumhuriyet, and Erdem Gul, its Ankara bureau chief, were arrested; they are now being held in isolation pending a trial initiated by Erdogan himself, on charges of espionage, treason, and providing support for terrorism. The charges are in connection with the newspaper's May 29, 2015 publication of video footage of a January 19, 2014 search conducted by Turkish judicial, security, and military officials of three large Syria-bound trucks in the Turkish border province of Adana; the search turned up heavy weaponry concealed under boxes of medicines. The weaponry, including missiles, mortars, anti-aircraft ammunition artillery, and grenades, was being transported by Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT) to jihadi organizations in Syria. Erdogan, at that time prime minister, immediately intervened to stop the search, and to secure the release of the MIT personnel carrying the arms into Syria. Earlier, on January 1, 2014, a similar truck was stopped in the border province of Hatay, but no search could be conducted due to intervention by the local governor on behalf of the government. The Adana and Hatay prosecutors' investigations into both of the incidents, which came to be known as the "MIT trucks affair," and all related legal files, were closed; gag orders were issued, and all security personnel, high-ranking military officers, and prosecutors involved in the searches were arrested. Erdogan, the AKP government, and its partisan media claimed that the trucks had only been carrying humanitarian aid to Turkmens in Syria. Along with the video footage, published 17 months after the incident, Cumhuriyet also published other court documents, under the headline "The Weapons That Erdogan Said Did Not Exist"[3] The following is the video footage published by Cumhuriyet: Following Dundar's imprisonment, an outcry arose in Turkey and in press organizations in Turkey and internationally; he has since received multiple press awards. Additionally, teams of journalists from the anti-AKP media, along with MPs from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), and artists and intellectuals, have been sitting in shifts outside the gates of the Silivri prison compound in Istanbul, where the detainees are being held, in solidarity.[4] MIT Transports Jihadis, Weapons From One Syrian Battlefront To Another - Via Turkey On June 11, 2015, Cumhuriyet also published a video of statements by two bus drivers telling authorities how they had been commissioned by the MIT to transport, on the night of January 9, 2014, over 70 Jabhat Al-Nusra (JN) jihadi fighters, along with a large load of arms and ammunition, from Atme Camp in Syria near the Reyhanli border crossing in the Turkish province of Hatay, to Tel Abyad in Syria, near the Akcakale border crossing in the southeastern Turkish province of Urfa. They showed where they had entered Syria from Turkey, without headlights, stopping near a building in Atme Camp where the JN flag was flying and "La-i-lahe-il-Allah" ("There is no God but Allah") was painted on the wall. At Atme, they said, they had not been allowed off their buses, and the buses had been boarded there by bearded, Arabic-speaking militants who also loaded large boxes of weapons onto them. The drivers said that they then drove back into Turkey and proceeded without stopping to re-cross into Syria at Akcakale. At around 5:30 AM, near Tel Abyad, the militants disembarked with their weaponry. It will be remembered that at that time ISIS was fighting to take control of Tel Abyad, and several days later, on January 13, it succeeded in doing so. According to Cumhuriyet, the jihadis were transported from one point to another in Syria via Turkey because it was unsafe for Islamist fighters to travel through Syrian territory that was under Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) control, such as Kobane. The drivers also stressed that they had committed no crime, as they had been hired by the MIT to work for the government and had been escorted throughout by MIT operatives in two black vehicles. The AKP government called the Cumhuriyet report a lie and libel, and, on February 14, 2014, ordered the investigation into the matter and the related files closed, removed the prosecutor from his position, and sealed and covered up the incident.[5] Left: The Cumhuriyet video showing the building in Atme Camp where the drivers picked up the jihadis. Right: The route taken by the buses carrying jihadis from Atme Camp in Syria to Tel Abyad in Syria, via Turkey. CHP MP Says Sarin Gas Components Were Transferred To ISIS Via Turkey; Erdogan Accuses Him Of Treason; Criminal Investigation Against Him Is Launched On several occasions - at an October 21, 2015 press conference, in an early December 2015 interview with the Russian news agency RT, and in a December 10, 2105 speech in the Turkish parliament, CHP MP Eren Erdem said that components for sarin gas had been imported from foreign countries, some of them European, by Turkish businessmen on behalf of an ISIS operative, and delivered to a terrorist organization in Syria, for the production of chemical weapons that were later used in Syria.[6] Erdem said that his claims were based on a 2013 investigation, case file number 2013/139, by the Chief Prosecutor's Office in the southern province of Adana. According to this investigation, five Turkish citizens the wanted Al-Qaeda/ISIS militant and Syrian citizen Hayyam Qassap were arrested and prosecuted for procuring the toxic components to be transferred to ISIS in Syria. Erdem stressed that the statements he was making were not his own, but that he had been quoting a Republic's Chief Prosecutor. He added that in late June 2013 this case had been closed and a news blackout imposed on it, and that on July 1, 2013 the six accused had been released from prison and allowed to cross into Syria. Erdem launched a parliamentary inquiry in October 2015 demanding government explanations in this matter, but to date Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has not responded. On December 18, 2015, Erdogan publicly accused Erdem of treason. The same day, the Ankara Chief Prosecutor's Office sent a summary of proceedings to the Ministry of Justice for permission to begin legal action against Erdem; if it is sent on to the parliament, the process to strip him of his parliamentary immunity so that he can be tried for treason will begin.[7] Since then, he has been threatened by the pro-AKP media and subjected to a lynching campaign on social media; in addition, he and his family have received death threats. On December 23, 2015, Erdogan blasted Erdem again, calling him a "traitor," and also slammed CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu for his defense and protection of Erdem. The previous evening, in a televised interview,[8] Erdem had reiterated that he had accused neither Turkey nor the government, but had only objected to the release of the suspected businessmen and of a Syrian militant who had attempted to procure illegal chemical components to transfer to Syria via Turkey.[9] "Jihad Hospital" In Turkey For Islamist Terrorists In September 2015, the Turkish opposition daily Birgun visited a 75-bed "jihad hospital" in the border province of Gaziantep that treats the mujahedeen fighting in Syria, and on September 22 reported:[10] "Turkey... is turning a blind eye to a medical support network serving the Islamic Front militants. The administrators of the six-floor, 75-bed hospital in Gaziantep told Birgun that during the first eight months of 2014 they had treated well over 700 militants; they administrators also expressed their gratitude to the local security officials and the AKP municipality for their assistance, and for the AKP government's support." The Birgun report continued: "The AKP government... continues to assist the jihadi organizations, and by permitting the operations of a medical network that extends from Aleppo to Ankara and Istanbul, is trying to strengthen the hand of the Islamic Front, an umbrella organization for many jihadi groups fighting in Syria, which is structured like ISIS and has at least 45,000 active fighters, especially in the Idlib and Aleppo areas. Their wounded are treated in Gaziantep. "The treatment of the wounded fighters is made possible by ImkanDer, an Islamist association, whose regional representative is Sait Gokdere. He is the former executive of the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), that became known in connection with from the 2010 sailing of the Mavi Marmara to break Israel's blockade on Gaza. Gokdere told us that the IHH focused their activities on Syria when the civil war broke out, and that thanks to the AKP government's permission and support, 'may Allah bless them,' they were able to provide health services to the mujahideen at this rehabilitation facility and in the many houses in the area that have been turned into clinics, reaching a capacity of 150 beds. He said that the hospital personnel were conducting their activities, and exiting and entering Syria officially, with the permission of the authorities. "Doctors with whom we [Birgun] spoke explained that the treatment of wounded fighters begins with receiving news [of them] from Aleppo, through their local sources there. They then dispatch vehicles into Syria to bring them over. The seriously wounded are taken to state hospitals in Kilis or Gaziantep, and in the rare cases when they are not able to treat their injuries, they are sent to hospitals in Ankara or Istanbul. Once these wounded mujahedeen are out of intensive care, they are taken to the home clinics or to this hospital. Upon their recovery, they return to Syria to resume fighting." A recovering jihadi in the "jihadi hospital" in Gaziantep. Birgun, September 22, 2015 ISIS In Turkey Since 2013, the opposition media in Turkey have been reporting on the spread of Salafi ideology within the country, and on the steady stream of thousands of Turkish jihadis who join ISIS, Jabhat Al-Nusra, Ahrar Al-Sham, and other terrorist organizations in Syria. An estimated 10,000 Turkish jihadis have gone to Syria to join the fight, as the AKP government has turned a blind eye. Turkish ISIS Militant In Ankara: ISIS "Loves Turkey, Because Of The Ease At The Borders And For Its Allowing Safe Passage To Fighters Of Many Nationalities" Birgun interviewed multiple ISIS militants in the Hacibayram district, in Ankara, which has become an ISIS center. While its report, published July 8, 2015, included names of recruiters and recruits, the Turkish government has done nothing to stem the flow of recruits into Syria. C.A., 29, told Birgun that initially there had been many Al-Qaeda operatives in the area, but that they had declared their allegiance to ISIS. He recounted how, after he decided to go to the Islamic State in February 2014, he had established contact with some well-known people in order to cross the border. He told how upon arrival he had received education in Koranic verses, Hadith, shari'a law, and the high purpose of ISIS's fight, and then had received military training. He said he fought there for nine months and could not remember how many people he had killed. Asked whether he had seen any Turkish police or soldiers during his border crossings, C.A. said: "Turkey permits the crossings to Dawla [the Islamic State]. My first time, I came face to face with a military police officer. They see you, but pretend they don't," Only once, he said, the last time he returned to Turkey was he caught - and that time he was taken before a judge, who released him. Asked about how ISIS views Turkey, and whether "talk that ISIS militants may [be planning to or intending to] conduct operations inside Turkey" was true, C.A. answered: "Dawla loves Turkey, because of the ease it provides at the borders and for its allowing safe passage to fighters of many nationalities. The mujahideen there [in the Islamic State] criticize Turkey because it is not ruled by Allah's rule, but there is no thought or intention to fight Turkey. Turkey, on the other hand, helps us because we fight particularly against the Kurdish PKK. Allah knows, if ISIS is given one month without the [coalition and Russian] air raids, we will eliminate the PKK."[11] Turkish Jihadi: "Jihad Is A Religious Obligation, Like Daily Prayers; If A Muslim Is Hurt In The Arctic, We Would Go There Too" The major mainstream Turkish daily Hurriyet tracked ISIS in five Turkish cities, interviewing the families of many who had joined ISIS, and some jihadis. The report, published September 22, 2014, showed how easy it was for thousands of Turkish and foreign fighters to cross the southeastern border of Turkey into Syria, and how a new breed of Islamist associations, Islamist lodges, Islamist chat rooms, and Islamist bookstores and cafes were popping up around the country encouraging young Turks to join the jihad and to receive Islamic education and preliminary training. The report also mentioned young jihadis who had fought alongside ISIS or the Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Al-Nusra and who had returned to Turkey to receive medical treatment after being wounded. An ISIS recruit, interviewed in Istanbul, told the reporters that he had entered Syria five times. Like the other recruits, he said, he had been escorted by militants to the border, jumped the fence, and ran into one of the houses on the Syrian side. First, he had joined Jabhat Al-Nusra, but then switched to ISIS. Asked whether he would also go to fight in other Muslim countries, he answered: "It is a religious obligation. Jihad [is] like daily prayers. If a Muslim is hurt in the Arctic, we would go there too." Worried families told Hurriyet that that their sons had gone "to die for the Muslims." A father in Gaziantep said that his son, 22, and nephew, 34, had both left to join ISIS, and that when he reported this to police, he was told: "Everybody goes there [to ISIS]. Don't mess with this issue, so as not to get yourself into trouble."[12] In a July 23, 2015 column titled "ISIS Among Us," Aydin Engin wrote in Cumhuriyet that not only were the suicide bomber who carried out the June 5, 2015 attack at the pro-Kurd Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) campaign rally in Diyarbakir, killing six and wounding 400 and the one who carried out the July 20, 2015 attack in Suruc, killing 33, Turkish citizens who had joined ISIS, but that there were thousands more like them across Turkey. He also wrote that ordinary citizens in all the cities and towns of the southern border provinces of Turkey can easily point out ISIS houses, ISIS cells, the wounded ISIS militants brought in daily from Syria to their hospitals, and groups of ISIS members sitting at tables in restaurants. Engin asked how it would be possible for the AKP government and the MIT not to be aware of what every citizen knows so well - i.e. that ISIS is everywhere in Turkey.[13] ISIS Affiliates In Istanbul Hold Events, Call For Jihad - Without Interference By Turkish Security While Turkish police are always present at protests, and frequently disperse crowds with water cannon, pepper gas, and, sometimes, bullets, Islamist organizations are allowed to openly demonstrate and call for shari'a law and jihad, in major cities. Similarly, the AKP government closes down media outlets and websites of dissenters and Kurds, while Islamist websites disseminating ISIS propaganda are left to operate freely. ISIS-affiliated group at an encampment in an Istanbul park allocated to them by the AKP celebrates Ramadan, praises ISIS, and calls to jihad. Photos: Rotahaber and Twitter, July 29, 2014. Endnotes: [1] See MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No 1165, Dictatorship In Erdogan's Turkey - Part II: The Domestic Scene On The Eve Of Crucial General Elections, June 5, 2015. When taxi driver Bideswar Saw (52) walked into the Kasba police station on Tuesday evening and opened a small worn-out leather bag on the table, the officer on duty could hardly believe his eyes: Six bundles of notes, all of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denomination, were stashed in the small leather bag. "I was awestruck at the honesty of the man who told me he knew there was Rs 6 lakh inside the bag and still, came to return it," the officer said. After dropping off a passenger at Howrah station, Saw was headed for Vidyasagar Setu when a man hailed his taxi. "He asked me to take him to Rajabaazar. He got off the cab before Rajabaazar Bridge. After paying his fare, he walked away. As I looked at the backseat, I found a black leather bag. I waited for another 10 minutes, hoping the man would return," said Saw, who has come from Madhubani in Bihar to work in the city. When he didn't return, I kept it with me, without opening it. In the evening, before going home, I thought I should go back to the spot and look for the man but before that, I opened the bag to check inside. When I saw the notes, I went to the Kasba police station," said Saw, who now stays in Kasba. "When we contacted the Narkeldanga police station, we were told a man had lodged a complaint. He was called here and handed over the bag in front of Saw," the officer said. Pakistans former President and Dictator General Pervez Musharraf has warned India of restraining itself in the wake of Pathankot terror attacks and that any mischief from the Indian side will force a strong response from Pakistan that will haunt India. Speaking to SAMAA TV, Musharraf was quoted as saying, In case India perpetrates something wrong against Pakistan, we will give such a fitting response that will always haunt India. Musharraf is known for his inflammatory speeches against the Indian establishment and gave the go ahead for the Kargil war in 1999. Reuters This time, however, Musharrafs explosive comments come at the backdrop of terrorists attacks at the Indian air force base in Pathankot where six militants from the Jaish-e-Mohammad group were killed in a gunfight. Although Pakistan has moved steadily to probe Pathankot attacks, Musharrafs comments show the old-school thought that still exists in the upper hierarchy of Pakistans military. Indias own defence minister Manohar Parrikar had said after the attacks in Pathankot that any individual or organization causing pain to India should be paid back in the same coin but how, when and where "should be of our choice". Since the softening of relations between India and Pakistan, the two nations have shown great maturity to move forward and work on problems rather than get involved in a blame game. The Pathankot attacks will however prove to be a litmus test for both nations and provide a common ground to share their inputs and resolve outstanding issues. COLUMBUS When Jennifer Rukas wasnt flipping burgers this past year, she was flipping through the pages of her college textbooks. The 37-year-old McDonalds general manager was caught off guard Thursday after being called in for an emergency situation on her day off. Instead of a crisis, she was greeted with flowers, balloons and a cap and gown. At first she looked around the restaurant dumbfounded, trying to figure out whose birthday it was until she realized this was her college graduation party. I had no idea, said Rukas, who manages 80 employees at the Columbus restaurant and earned a degree in communications with a concentration in management in mid-November. The five-year Columbus fast-food worker is the first McDonalds employee from 713 restaurants in the companys seven-state Midwest region to obtain a college degree through its Archways to Opportunity program. Shes also the first student in Southern New Hampshire Universitys College of America to earn a bachelors degree in such a short amount of time through online classes. It typically takes a student about four years to finish 120 credit hours, but it took Rukas just 11 months. It took a lot of discipline and a lot less Facebook, she said, adding that her morning consisted of coffee and reading. It went by a lot faster than I thought it would, but it wasnt easy. Rukas put in roughly 50 hours a week at her job while another 30 were spent studying online. The Archways to Opportunity program offers numerous incentives for employees like reimbursement for college expenses, classes to improve English speaking skills and the opportunity to earn a high school diploma instead of a GED. The program was recently made available to more than just corporate employees, opening Archways to Opportunity in early 2015 to those who run things behind the counter, such as managers and crew members. This gives (us) a better opportunity for recruitment because it gives them the opportunity to advance their careers. Now were more attractive to that candidate because they want to go to college, said Steve Wenzl, a business consultant for McDonalds who earned his business management degree through the program years ago and is now working on his masters. We have stronger talent in the restaurants, running better restaurants and ultimately helping grow more sales and more profits. After seeing Rukas reach her lifelong goal of becoming a college graduate, shes now hoping to inspire co-workers to do the same as she has also been recruited as College of Americas volunteer student ambassador, helping consult and moderate the learning community online. She puts her full effort into everything she does and really takes it personally, said Greg Hall, a third-generation owner of the local McDonalds. With a degree in hand, Rukas said shes going to focus on relaxing, spending time with her family and wallpapering her living room. As far as leaving the company to use her degree, theres not a chance. Im hoping in the next few years that there will be some advancement opportunities, but Im happy where I am, she said. Her life has revolved around this company since taking her first job with McDonalds at the age of 16. The Massachusetts native even met her husband at McDonalds and he works alongside her as a shift manager. Im just very happy with where I am right now, Rukas said. This is my second family, my home away from home. LINCOLN In 1942, Rosalie Lippincott was a 15-year-old Nebraska farm girl with a soft spot for young soldiers who sought food for their stomachs and encouragement for their souls. When her schedule allowed she would make the trek on Saturdays from her small hometown of Shelton to North Platte, where thousands of young U.S. recruits were able to forget about their troubles for an hour or two at the North Platte Canteen, the site of one of the largest volunteer efforts of World War II. One of the 6 million soldiers to stop by during the canteens 4-plus years of existence was Simon (Sarge) Kominsky, a Philadelphia native who served his country as a naval crew chief and airplane mechanic. Kominsky spent six months studying airplane mechanics at the Lincoln Army/Air Force Base and on several occasions rode the Union Pacific trains to North Platte, where soldiers could enjoy some sustenance and sundries before resuming their journey. Lippincott and a myriad of other volunteers would gather at the Union Pacific Railroad station in North Platte and dutifully cater to the several thousand men who would depart the trains each day and come to the canteen for some home cooking and camaraderie. Lippincotts high school schedule limited her availability, but she looked forward to her times at the canteen, peeling hard-boiled eggs and filling 20-bushel baskets with her egg salad sandwiches. She also was on dish-washing detail dishes were everywhere, back in the days before Styrofoam, she said and she tidied up the magazine area to create an inviting, homelike environment. Several months ago, Kominsky was sharing his memories of the North Platte Canteen over dinner at The Windcrest on Van Dorn, 7208 Van Dorn St., when one of his fellow residents said, You should meet that woman over there, pointing at Lippincott. She used to volunteer at the canteen! The two Windcrest residents compared notes and immediately connected. They recalled the joy that the canteen brought to both of their lives Kominsky, during his years as an airplane mechanic; Lippincott, as a high school girl who sought to brighten the lives of troubled, frightened young men whose futures were fraught with uncertainty. It was an era of rationing, but the canteen always seemed to have a plentiful supply of sustenance and volunteers. Historians say 55,000 volunteers worked the canteen during its 51-month history, from Christmas Day 1941 to April 1, 1946. Farm women would fry up chickens and take them to the canteen, and pheasant hunters from the Sandhills would donate their game and add to our supply, Lippincott reminisced. The canteen services were free. And, the rewards for helping the miltary? Priceless. If you could see the smiles on their faces, said Lippincott, tearing up at the thought of her wartime memories. These young men were scared, lonesome and afraid, but at the canteen, they were accepted and loved. Kominsky, now 91, went on to a lengthy career in the refrigeration business, owning Allied Refrigeration in Havelock from 1962 until last spring, when a heart attack caused him to retire and move to the retirement community in southeast Lincoln. Lippincott, now 88, and her husband, Dick, who served in the U.S. Army, farmed for 57 years before retiring in 2003. Dick Lippincott died in 2009, and Rosalie moved to Windcrest two years ago. The two residents with canteen ties lauded the efforts of Liz Bartels, executive director of The Windcrest on Van Dorn, for recognizing their bit of history by arranging a photo in which Kominskys military uniform is fitted on a mannequin. Kominsky and Lippincott are available to speak free of charge to groups about their canteen experiences. Groups may call Lippincott at 678-572-9375. LINCOLN Supporters of legalizing poker in Nebraska were dealt a bad hand Thursday when lawmakers defeated a bill that would have classified poker as a game of skill, rather than a constitutionally banned game of chance. That classification would have allowed draw poker and community card games to be licensed and regulated, as well as permit churches and nonprofits to host poker tournaments at events where alcohol is served. "We hear a lot about property tax relief, limited government and the state not getting involved. If we care about those issues, here's an outside-the-box opportunity to show that we take these things seriously," bill sponsor Sen. Tyson Larson of O'Neill said. "We can help our local communities and their fundraising efforts." To qualify, a group would have to seek a poker endorsement when applying for a special liquor license with the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission. All players would have to be at least 21 years old, and games could only be played with cash. Larson said skill is a greater factor in poker than luck, so his bill wouldn't run afoul of the state constitution. But the winning side said encouraging gambling in any form harms families and communities. "We're going into very dangerous territory here by slowly and surely peeling away that which makes us great," said Sen. Lydia Brasch of Bancroft. "I think this is chance. I'm not willing to bet Nebraska's future on expanded gambling." Sen. Jim Smith of Papillion called the bill an ineffective way to achieve the Legislature's goal of reducing property taxes. "It's similar to saying I'm going to lose weight and I'm going to be better fit in the new year by eating a box of doughnuts every day," Smith said. Opponents also pointed to a Nebraska attorney general's opinion which concluded that draw poker is primarily a game of chance. After the maximum six hours of debate, Larson's measure received only 16 votes of the 33 needed to cease debate and force a vote on the bill. The Legislature could continue the bill's debate this year, but only if a senator or committee designates it priority. Larson says he has not yet decided whether he'll do that. The Deputy Foreign Minister for International Economic Relations, Dimitris Mardas, and the Foreign Ministrys Secretary General for International Economic Relations, Giorgos Tsipras, met at the Foreign Ministry on 14 January 2016 with the Assistant Foreign Minister for Economic Affairs of the United Arab Emirates, Khalid Ghanim al Ghaith. During Mr. Mardas meeting, the excellent level of Greek-UAE bilateral relations was reaffirmed in all sectors. A review was carried out of pending matters in the bilateral contractual framework, and shared will was expressed to complete the agreements under negotiation. Particular emphasis was put on the importance of the 3rd meeting of the Greek-UAE Joint Interministerial Committee, which is set to take place within 2016, in Abu Dhabi. Moreover, the Greek side informed Mr. al Ghaith that the Agreement on Mutual Protection and Promotion of Investments between Greece and the UAE is expected to be ratified by the Hellenic Parliament within the current month. During Mr. G. Tsipras meeting with Mr. al Ghaith, a review was carried out of the progress in bilateral economic relations, and the importance of the Greek-UAE strategic relationship in the field of economic and trade cooperation was stressed by both sides. In this context, the interest of the UAE side in encouraging and facilitating investments in Greece was underscored, particularly in light of the positive developments in the Astera and Hellenikon investments. Finally, there was a discussion of issues concerning air transport, with emphasis on the relevant developments in the European space. Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias will be in Brussels on Monday, 18 January, to participate in a meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council (FAC). The discussions at the FAC will focus on the situation in Syria and the course of the Vienna Process. The Foreign Ministers will also discuss developments in Iraq and the efforts to combat ISIS/Daesh, as well as the Middle East peace process in light of the Quartets recent visit to Israel and Palestine. The FAC agenda also includes the situation in Ukraine. Finally, the Foreign Ministers will have a luncheon with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, during which they will discuss the Middle East peace process and Jordans role in confronting the refugee crisis and terrorism. 1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war. 2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war. 3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength. 4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war. 5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites. 6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination. 7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N. 8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N. 9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress. 10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N. 11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.) 12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party. 13. Do away with all loyalty oaths. 14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office. 15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States. 16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights. 17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks. 18. Gain control of all student newspapers. 19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack. 20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions. 21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures. 22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms." 23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art." 24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press. 25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV. 26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy." 27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch." 28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state." 29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis. 30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man." 31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over. 32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc. 33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus. 34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities. 35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI. 36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions. 37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business. 38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand. 39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals. 40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce. 41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents. 42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems. 43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government. 44. Internationalize the Panama Canal. 45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike. Resources for all concerned with culture of authoritarianism in society, banalisation of communalism, (also chauvinism, parochialism and identity politics) rise of the far right in India (and with occasional information on other countries of South Asia and beyond) Claiming authority, producing standards: The IAEA and the history of radiation protection Organizers: Martin Kusch, Department of Philosophy, University of Vienna Maria Rentetzi, Lise Meitner Fellow (FWF), Department of Philosophy, University of Vienna Venue: University of Vienna, Institute for Philosophy Dates: 3-4 June 2016 Keynote speakers: Angela Creager, Thomas M. Siebel Professor in the History of Science, Department of History, Princeton University Soraya de Chadarevian, Professor, Department of History and the Institute for Society and Genetics, University of California, Los Angeles. Jacob Darwin Hamblin, Professor of History, Department of History, Oregon State University Deadline for submission: 31 January 2016 This workshop seeks to bring together scholars working on the history of radiation protection and the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency in shaping, standardizing, and controlling this field. We are interested in papers employing historical, philosophical, or sociological methods in order to investigate the notion of standardization as political, and to critically analyze those legal, political, and diplomatic interests that have shaped radiation protection standards in all major areas of radiation exposure. We wish to focus especially (but not exclusively) on the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency as scientific, metrological and above all -- political organization responsible for (inter alia) the standardization and development of codes of practices in radiotherapy and diagnostics; for supporting the implementation in hospitals and calibration laboratories; for producing codes of conduct on the safety of radioactive waste and spend fuel management; for providing advisory services to all United Nations Members States; and for leading the international coordination of major institutions in the field such as the International Radiation Protection Association and the World Health Organization. Radiation protectionthe science and practices of preventing harmful effects resulting from ionizing radiation to humans and the environmenthas a long history. Since the discovery of radioactivity more than a century ago, scientists have attempted to introduce radiation protection standards. Such standards are specifications and criteria for the evaluation of biological effects of radiation to human tissues and of the harmful effects to the environment. In the early days, producing such standards faced many challenges: how to define the appropriate unit of radiation; how to invent suitable measurement devices; how to detect, and agree on, the effects of radiation on biological systems; or how to settle the acceptable risk to radiation exposure. The evolution of standards, and the controversies that emerged, reflect the complexity of scientists' collaborative production and dissemination of what eventually comes to be considered as objective and reliable knowledge. It also reveals the powerful role of those scientific institutions that assumed the task to create these standards. From the British Roentgen Society, and its first recommendations to users of x-ray technologies in 1915, to the establishment of the field of "health physics" at the Met Lab of the University of Chicago during World War II, scientific institutions enforced new attitudes towards acceptable risk, permissible radiation doses, and radiation protection. After World War II the rapid development and adoption of new medical technologies -- such as the radioisotope teletherapy units and the development of nuclear industry -- posed numerous challenges in the field of radiation protection. During the era of what has been known as the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, the IAEA gradually took the lead in the field of radiation protection. At the same time it plays a crucial role in an exceptionally broad range of scientific and political matters: the establishment of nuclear industry worldwide, the provision of technical assistance, the education of generations of scientists in nuclear matters all over the world, the exercise of political power in order to safeguard the use of nuclear energy and to control the several national nuclear programs. Today, the renewed interest in nuclear power plants and the use of advanced medical technologies pose new challenges to the field of radiation protection. IRPA's 2012 conference theme, "Living with Radiation, Engaging with Society" leaves no doubt that radiation protection is indeed a social and political concern. We would like to make visible the tensions between politics and science in the field of radiation protection. Thus we invite papers primarily on the following topics: 1. the notion of standardization as a theoretical framework for understanding the set of practices that surround acts of radiation protection; 2. the history of radiation protection in relation to major scientific and international organizations with our main focus on the role of the IAEA; 3. standards, radiation units, and notions of radiation risk: What have been the changing notions of risk in relation to radiation? How have these notions shaped scientists' ideas about standards and radiation dosimetry? 4. the collaboration between IAEA and WHO: What kinds of research agendas have shaped the IAEA/WHO collaboration in the field of radiation protection? 5. the role of international organizations in the production and circulation of knowledge about the effects of radiation on humans and the environment; 6. the handling and transportation of radioactive materials and waste: What kind of diplomatic issues have arisen in relation to radioactive disposal for example? How have these issues shaped environmental policy making and public opinions around radiation protection? Shirley Thoen, 59, apologized in district court for the incidents that police secretly recorded at Thomas Edison Elementary, The Times Herald of Port Huron reported. "I lost my patience and let the frustrations of the classroom situation get the best of me," Thoen said. "I should never have allowed myself to lose my patience with the children." According to the newspaper, a police report said cameras that authorities placed in the classroom recorded Thoen stepping on a child's hand, pushing a student down onto a rug, stepping on a student's leg or foot, and dropping a child and then kicking him in the head and neck area. Thoen worked with about eight children between the ages of 4 and 6, according to the newspaper. Judge John Monaghan sentenced her to 93 days in jail, with 73 days suspended once she completes probation. Thoen cannot volunteer or work in settings where she would have direct contact with children. Last fall, paraprofessionals told school officials of inappropriate behavior in Thoen's classroom, and police set up surveillance equipment. Video captured Thoen dropping the one child and kicking him on Oct. 29 and the teacher was put on leave the next day. Thoen, of Marysville, retired after pleading guilty in December to two counts of assault and battery. She had been with the district 36 years. The mother of one of the children assaulted told the court Thursday that her son displayed an aversion to school, but couldn't express it verbally. "I never got to know my child was hurting all of those months," Lindsay Schneider said. "I kept him in an environment that I assumed was safe because people around me principals, administrators and the defendant herself gave me a false sense of security." SAGINAW If the deaths of David Bowie, Alan Rickman and Grizzly Adams star Dan Haggerty are any indication, 2016 certainly isnt off to a good start. It hasnt fared well for media, either: MLive Media Group announced it would cut 29 positions. And today, Cumulus Media announced 96.1FM WHNN will experience a format evolution meaning, in part, no more Johnny Burke and Blondie and the popular morning talk show. Johnny Burke and Blondie will be leaving WHNN with our thanks for their contributions to the heritage and history of the station, Cumulus Operations Manager Scott Stine said in a news release. Starting at 5 p.m. today, the station will feature great songs from the 80s, 90s and today. The station will now be known as My 96.1 The Best Variety of Yesterday and Today, the release states. Stine says Johnny Burke worked at the station for 20 years and Blondie, whose real name is Bonnie Belger-Holzhei, worked at 96.1 for 10 years. According to Cumulus Media, WHNN first launched its oldies format in 1990. To connect better to listeners who, according to current and relevant research, the station says want music that makes them feel younger, hipper and in the now, 96.1 will introduce a new morning show that plays much more music and reflects the tone of The Best Variety of Yesterday and Today. The Johnny and Blondie duo undoubtedly leave a lasting impact for station listeners in mid-Michigan and locally in the Thumb. Caseville Chamber of Commerce President Steve Louwers says hes worked with Johnny and Blondie for the 15 years hes headed Cheeseburger in Caseville, one of the biggest festivals in the state. They did live remote broadcasts from the Riverside Bar for the past decade to promote the festival. Louwers remembers the two waking him up at 6 a.m. to interview him on air. We became friends, Louwers said. He talked about our festivals and how good of a job people in Caseville do. They were both very respectful. For the past eight years, Johnny and Blondie were grand marshals for the festivals signature event, the Parade of Tropical Fools. The parade would often feature floats showcasing the Johnny Burke Childrens Foundation, a nonprofit Burke founded in 1997 to raise money for children with specific needs in the mid-Michigan area, according to its Facebook page. That just shows the kind of person he is, Louwers said. Theyre extremely easy to work with, Louwers said, and hed like to get them at least one more time for grand marshals. Thats a huge part of our community, he said of the parade and now defunct morning show. Thats a shame. They were good people. Theyve done tremendous things for Caseville. Louwers says Rob Pillsworth, a Caseville Chamber of Commerce board member and owner of Key North Surf Shop, was instrumental in bringing Johnny and Blondie to Caseville. He was great for our community, Pillsworth said. The group he had, and Blondie and himself, they were so involved in community organizations. To me, thats so important. Thats tough to find anymore. Between involvement with the Ribstock festival and Cheeseburger, Pillsworth said Johnny and Blondie had a huge calling. I think he leaves a big impact, he said. I dont know if the guy ever slept. And Johnny had that Cleveland and Detroit rock n roll in him, Pillsworth added. As long as the duo doesnt move out of the area, theyll be part of the program for sure, he said. When you lose the local stuff, you lose the community, Pillsworth said. A message seeking comment was left with Johnny Burke. As for WHNN, the station is airing a Commercial Free-Get to Know Us Weekend, starting at 5 p.m. today. Send Letters to your Representatives in Congress: Use a POP Vox account Find Your Representatives in Congress: US House ... US Senate ... or easier HERE US House Leadership: HERE US Senate Leadership: HERE US House Clerks Off. HERE (Good Links)How to Lobby your Congressmen: CLICK Air Force Gets Its Own Combat Dive Badge After Using the Navy's for Years Air Force officials said there is a notable distinction between Navy divers and their divers, which was a key reason for... A top official from Bell Helicopter said the company's design for the U.S. Army's future tiltrotor fleet will be far different than the 30-year-old design of the V-22 Osprey. The chopper, known as the V-280 Valor, is part of the Army's Joint Multi-Role Demonstrator program to develop the technology for the Pentagon's Future Vertical Lift program. The concept aircraft advances the design of the V-22, the first tiltrotor aircraft flown by Marine Corps and Air Force, according to Vince Tobin, vice president of Advanced Tiltrotor Systems for Bell Helicopter. "The V-22 has instructed on what tiltrotors can do, and that is great, but the V-280 is not a V-22," Tobin told an audience Thursday at an Army aviation symposium put on by the Association of the United States Army. "We are going to do it better than we did on the V-22. The V-22 was designed in the 1980s ... and we have taken it under our imperatives to fix what wasn't perfect on the V-22 and get as close to perfect as we can on the V-280." Bell, which is owned by Textron Inc., partnered with Lockheed to develop the V-280, which is scheduled to make its first demonstration flight next year. The Army's development effort could lead to a potentially $100 billion Future Vertical Lift program to replace the service's fleets of UH-60 Black Hawk utility helicopters made by Sikorsky and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters made by Boeing, though any aircraft probably wouldn't enter service until the 2030s. "Back in 2011, one of the first things we wrestled with is do we want a ramp or do we want a ramp or do we want doors," Tobin said. "We ended up making the decision that the Army comes out of medium aircraft out of side doors. It was a bigger deal than you might think because if you know about a V-22, the entire cell rotates engine and all ... and everything that has to go between that has to go through that rotation point. "We had fellow engineers that were pretty convinced that there was no way that you could not rotate the engines. It took us having to show a picture of the XV2 -- the very first tiltrotor ... that picture gave the engineers a little bit of a challenge that said the fellow engineers of the 1950s figured it out so we need to figure it out." The resulting fixed-engine design opened the door for other improvements, Tobin said. In addition to allowing for side doors, the new design resulted in an improved wing design, he said. Engineers originally thought that the wings on the V-22 had to be swept forward, Tobin said. "The reason why V-22 wings are swept forward is because the engineers at the time didn't know how far the blades would flap in forward flight," Tobin said. "If you don't know how far the blades are going to flap, you better sweep the wings forward so the blades and the wings don't come in contact with each other. "What we learned from over 300,000 hours now of V-22 flying is those blades don't flap in forward flight." Selecting a straight wing design meant that that the mid-wing gear box was unneeded, Tobin said. "Now we don't have to have a drive system coming into change the direction over top of the fuselage like on the V-22s ... that was a big deal -- no mid-wing gear box. We are down from five gear boxes on a V-22 to four." The new wing design is now ready for the upcoming demonstration, Tobin said. "We actually have a wing put together for the demonstrator -- the upper and lower surfaces are on the wing, all the hydraulics lines, all the electrical and all the test equipment is inside," Tobin said. "We are putting this airplane together, and we expect to fly it in the fall of 2017." -- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com. Related video: Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Thursday a "navigation error" led two small Navy patrol craft off course and resulted in their seizure by Iran's Revolutionary Guards in the Persian Gulf. "There was a navigational error of some kind," Carter said. He stopped short of blaming the 10 young sailors in the crew. The incident occurred Tuesday, just hours before President Barack Obama gave his final State of the Union address and set off a flurry of high-level diplomatic activity to gain the release of the boats and the sailors on Wednesday. Carter was careful not to assign initial blame to the sailors, their equipment or their commanders for possibly giving the crews the wrong navigation plan until the Navy can complete an investigation, which was already underway. However, he said the sailors "were clearly out of the position they intended to be in." Carter made the remarks at the headquarters of U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida, where he introduced Army Gen. Joseph Votel, the head of Special Operations Command, as his choice to replace Army Gen. Lloyd Austin as Centcom commander. "He was my only recommendation to the president to succeed Lloyd," the secretary said of Votel. Austin, who will be retiring, said he was leaving to Votel a campaign that was making progress against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, also known as ISIL. "We are in fact doing what we set out to do," he said. Iran's seizure of the two 49-foot Riverine Command Boats, and the jarring videos on Iranian media of U.S. sailors made to kneel on deck in custody, dominated the brief question-and-answer period that followed the introductions of Austin and Votel. Carter skirted a question on the video showing one of the U.S. sailors apologizing for straying into Iranian waters. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Obama has seen the videos and "he's obviously interested in learning more about the situation." "I don't like to see our people being detained by a foreign military," Carter said, but "we don't know the full context. We need to give these guys the opportunities to tell us what was really going on before we can know. I want to give them the chance to describe what happened." The videos also showed the Iranian Revolutionary Guards confiscating the weapons aboard the two patrol craft and lining them up on deck. Austin interjected that "the gear that they deployed with was largely there when we got the boats back," but the Navy was conducting an inventory. Debriefings of the sailors have already begun, Carter said. "The information that they have given us, and through their commanders, is that they did stray accidentally into Iranian waters due to a navigation error," he said earlier in an interview with FUSION television's Jorge Ramos which was airing on Spanish-language Univision. The Navy and the Pentagon have said that the two boats were en route from Kuwait to Bahrain, headquarters of the Navy's Fifth Fleet, when they were intercepted by Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps vessels. The most direct route likely would have kept the two boats close to the western coastline of the Persian Gulf but the two boats were seized within the three-mile territorial limit of Iran's heavily-guarded Farsi Island in the middle of the Gulf. It was unclear whether engine trouble aboard one of the boats may have contributed to the navigation error. "They did not report this navigational error at the time" to commanders, Carter said. "It may be that they were trying to sort it out at the time they encountered the Iranian boats and discovered they were inside of the territorial waters of Iran." Carter also dismissed speculation that the two boats may have been on a covert mission to scope out the island. "They were simply transiting from one place to another," he said. -- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com. Related Video: The Pentagon's recent announcement that military service chiefs will review all Silver Star medals and service crosses awarded since Sept. 11, 2001, means the case of Marine Sgt. Rafael Peralta could be headed to the secretary of defense for the fourth time. In a Jan. 14 letter to Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-California, called on the general to submit the case of Peralta, a Navy Cross recipient, to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter for another review under the new mandate. Hunter cited the Marine Corps' history of supporting Peralta for the Medal of Honor, the testimony of three eyewitnesses who say Peralta saved their lives, and recent comments from Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as support for giving the case another look. Dunford mentioned Peralta by name earlier this week while voicing support for the Pentagon's medals review. "I was with the division when he was recommended, and I reviewed that case, and I sat on the board, and I thought that particular case was certainly in the same category as others who received the Medal of Honor," he said Jan. 12, according to a Defense Department news report. Peralta, a scout team leader assigned to 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, is credited with falling on an enemy grenade to save fellow Marines during a 2004 house-clearing mission in Fallujah, Iraq, using his body to absorb most of the shrapnel. He died as a result of his wounds and a ricochet bullet to the back of the head. Peralta's family received his Navy Cross -- the second-highest award for combat valor -- in 2015, after Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel determined that Peralta did not meet the standard of proof for the Medal of Honor. It was the third time in seven years that a defense secretary had reviewed the case and come to the same conclusion. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates described the first review of the Peralta case in 2008 in his 2014 memoir, Duty. In the book, he said he had initially approved Peralta for the medal, but had to reverse his decision after a team of pathologists concluded the Marine could not have acted consciously to save his fellow troops because of the damage he had already sustained from his head wound. Hunter's letter to Neller challenges that conclusion, noting that part of the grenade fuse had been found embedded in the center of Peralta's body armor. "By the Defense Department's logic, upon detonation of the grenade, the fuse would have had to travel through the concrete ground-level floor, move several feet to Peralta's location, and again cut through the concrete floor at a speed fast enough to embed securely in his body armor," Hunter wrote. "This is impossible. Bottom line: The position of previous Defense Department leadership is not supported by the facts." Gates' successor, Leon Panetta, declined to re-open Peralta's case in 2012, saying the "margin of doubt" in the case was still too significant. When Chuck Hagel succeeded Panetta in 2013, Hunter unearthed new evidence in support of Peralta's heroism, including his shrapnel-scarred rifle and photographs from the day of his death. Hagel reviewed all the evidence, old and new, but ultimately agreed with his predecessors' decisions. Shortly after Hagel announced his decision, the Washington Post published an investigative story citing Marines who served with Peralta and claimed they had embellished the story of the sergeant's heroism after he was killed. Other eyewitnesses have contested this account, saying they stand by the original narrative. "I was within arms' reach of Peralta when Peralta put the grenade under his body," Robert Reynolds of Ritsville, Washington, told Marine Corps Times in 2014. "If he hadn't done that, I would have been dead. Facts don't lie." Hunter spokesman Joseph Kasper said it's possible new leadership at the Pentagon would see the Peralta case in a different light. "Peralta falls within the parameters of upgrade eligibility," he said. "The Marine Corps has always said they stand firmly behind his nomination. It's another opportunity for an objective look." For Peralta family friend and spokesman George Sabga, another review of the Marine's case would an opportunity for the Defense Department to right what he believes are inconsistencies in the medal awards process and a refusal on the part of senior leadership to critically evaluate decisions made by their predecessors. "Peralta just hangs like a scab on this whole Medal of Honor thing," he said. Peralta's sister, Icela Peralta Donald, told Military.com that the family hadn't heard about the medal review. She said she was thrilled at the possibility that her brother could have another opportunity to get the medal his family believes he deserves. "This is amazing news," she said. "My whole entire family knows that one day, Rafa, my brother, is going to get the Medal of Honor. Hopefully not only my brother but all the people who deserve to be awarded will get it." Donald said her family had not given up on the process, despite the series of disappointments they have weathered as one defense secretary after another declined to approve Peralta for the medal. "It's not something that we have tried to fight," she said. "It's just that people have faith in what my brother did." Last October, the family attended the christening of the USS Peralta, the Navy's new guided missile destroyer. Peralta's mother, Rosa Maria Peralta, donated her son's medal to the ship in a gesture of support for the troops who would deploy in her. "We all just think that that's the heart of the ship," Donald said. "It's in the perfect place." -- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@monster.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck. Related video: Updated 6:06 PM EST Efforts to locate the 12 Marine crewmembers of two CH-53E Super Stallions believed to have collided during routine night training have been continuing for more than 12 hours in the area, where it's nearly 1p.m. local time. Capt. Timothy Irish, a spokesman for III Marine Expeditionary Force said the Marines were alerted to a possible incident at 11:38p.m. last night, when the two aircraft from Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 463, out of Marine Corps Base Hawaii, failed to check in on time. Carr said the Coast Guard was first alerted to a problem when two civilians on the beach separately reported seeing a fireball and a flare. Coast guard assets including an MH-65 Dolphin rescue chopper, a C-130 Jet and two cutters continue to patrol a seven-mile debris field. Two Navy guided missile destroyers, the Gridley and the John Paul Jones, are assisting in the effort, as are Honolulu rescue teams and Marines from the nearby base. Nothing has been recovered from the debris field yet, Carr said, but the wreckage is consistent with a military aircraft. Breaking surf up to 40 feet high is adding to the challenge of searching for survivors. "It's very difficult to find things right now," he said. The Marines aboard the two helicopters included several instructor-trainers in addition to the standard four-man crews, Irish said. They were conducting routine night training that was to start and end at Marine Corps Base Hawaii. Marine investigators are still investigating the cause of the crash, Irish said. He noted that there were no early indications that anything was amiss with the aircraft or the planned flight. "This was preplanned and routine nighttime flying," he said. "The squadrons were based here; they know the course Nothing that I've seen personally that was out of the ordinary." Updated 4:20 PM EST As of 4p.m. Eastern time, the search continues amid stormy conditions for survivors of a helicopter crash involving two CH-53E Super Stallions that collided during night training. Coast Guard personnel are searching in a debris field approximately seven miles off the north shore of Oahu, an area that stretches from Mokule'ia Beach to Turtle Bay, Marine Corps spokesman Maj. Chris Devine said in a news release. The search-and-rescue teams are grappling with high winds and choppy waves as they continue to patrol the region. Officials said the winds are reaching speeds of 17 to 23 miles per hour, with 16-foot wave swells, 30-to-40-foot surf, and one mile of visibility. A high surf advisory is in effect, with swells as high as 30 feet expected later in the day. "The Coast Guard is asking that people use extreme caution along the coastal area surrounding the wreckage site which stretches from Mokule'ia Beach to Turtle Bay," Lt. Scott Carr, a spokesman for the Coast Guard's 14th district, said in a statement. "We are urging people to stay out of the water and off the beaches due to debris that could pose potential risk and cause serious bodily harm." An MH-60 helicopter crew from 37th Helicopter Squadron out of Marine Corps Base Hawaii has now joined Coast Guard, Navy and civilian responders in the search, officials said. Officials with III Marine Expeditionary Force will brief the media in a press conference at noon local time, or 5p.m. Eastern time. The cause of the incident remains under investigation by the Marine Corps, officials said. Original Story Two Navy guided missile destroyers and more than two dozen Marines have now joined in search and rescue efforts for survivors of a two-aircraft CH-53E crash off the coast of Oahu. A defense official told Military.com that the USS Gridley and the USS John Paul Jones were on scene providing surface search assistance and "lily-pad support" for the search-and-rescue operation. The Gridley's home port is San Diego, Calif., while the John Paul Jones is based at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii. Capt. Timothy Irish, a spokesman for III Marine Expeditionary Force, said about 30 Marines from Combat Logistic Battalion 3 and Marine Aircraft Group 24 out of Hawaii had also joined the effort in the last hour to provide logistical support. "We're sending food, water, electrical equipment and other equipment to help investigators," Irish said. Marine and Coast Guard officials said they had no new discoveries to report as they continue to search in and around a debris field off Oahu's north shore. No survivors have yet been located. Officials with the Coast Guard's 14th District in Hawaii said they were notified about two potentially downed aircraft at 11:38 p.m. local time Thursday. Search and rescue operations located a debris field off the north shore of Oahu, Scott Carr, a Coast Guard spokesman told Military.com. Carr said he could not speak to anything specific that had been found in the debris field, but said that as of 10.a.m. Eastern time, no survivors had been located. The Coast Guard continues to search the area -- located about 2 1/2 miles off the coast, near the town of Haleiwa -- with an MH-65 Dolphin rescue helicopter and Coast Guard C-130 jet. Two Coast Guard cutters, the Kiska and the Ahi, both from the Honolulu-based 14th district, are en route to assist in search efforts. Carr said the Honolulu fire and police departments had also assisted in the search effort. The Marine Corps has identified the unit to which two CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters believed to have crashed off the coast of Oahu are attached. The choppers are from Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 463, Marine Aircraft Group 24, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, from Marine Corps Base Hawaii, headquartered at Kaneohe Bay. Officials with Headquarters Marine Corps confirmed the Coast Guard is conducting an active search and rescue operation for the two aircraft, which reportedly collided in flight. Six Marines were aboard each helicopter at the time of the crash. The aircraft were on a local training mission at the time of the incident, said Capt. Timothy Irish, a spokesman for III Marine Expeditionary Force, out of Hawaii. -- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@monster.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck. Everything You Need to Know About the Amazon Military Discount, Tips and Tricks The Amazon military discount is a promotion Amazon.com has given around Veterans Day for its Amazon Prime service. LA POSTE has warned of a scam in which people are urged to call a premium rate number to organise the collection of a package or registered letter. Although the warning was issued by La Poste in Basse Normandie, the calls have been received in Herault, Pays Basque and Mayenne. The calls purport to be from La Poste informing householders that they have received a parcel or a letter recommandee waiting for them. The householder is told to call a number beginning with 08 to get more details about the package or letter. However, anyone calling this number is put on hold until they hang up - at a cost of 3/minute. There is no warning of the cost, so for many the first indication they had been scammed was their phone bill. La Poste has issued the following reminders to avoid scams: - For any undelivered parcels or letters, the postman should always leave a note that they called. - La Poste never calls you and asks you to call an 08 number or other premium rate number - La Poste never asks for your card details or pin whether by phone or email - If you receive a message that purportes to be from La Poste you can call their number on 3631 (standard landline rate in mainland France) to find out more. 12:47pm: The Mets have not extended a formal offer to Cespedes, tweets Heyman, but do remain interested in pacts of one to three years if he comes off his demands for a longer-term deal. 12:30pm: MLB.coms Jesse Sanchez tweets that Cespedes is believed to be considering both a five-year, $90MM offer (plus a possible option) with the Orioles against a one-year deal with the Mets which would allow him to hit free agency again next winter. JAN. 15, 11:40am: Jon Heyman tweets that the offer is believed to be for about $90MM over five years and may contain an option for a sixth season. Ghiroli also hears (Twitter link) that theres a possible option attached to the deal, adding that Camden Yards is appealing to Cespedes. Kubatko adds (Twitter link) that there wont be an opt-out clause from the Orioles. JAN. 14, 9:36pm: Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun reports that the Orioles have increased their interest in Cespedes and are considering an offer worth around $18MM per year. That would seem to indicate that the Orioles are on the higher end of the range previously listed by Crasnick, although from my vantage point that still seems to be too light to land a player of Cespedes caliber. Whether thats a launching point into deeper negotiations or an offer near the top of Baltimores comfort zone remains to be seen, but the team does not appear, at this time, to simply be willing to reallocate the ~$150MM offered to Davis to a pursuit of Cespedes. 6:16pm: ESPNs Jerry Crasnick tweets that its believed that the Orioles are willing to go in the range of five years and $75-90MM for Cespedes at this time. While thats a sizable sum, its also considerably south of the general expectations most had for Cespedes entering the season. Crasnick also tweets that the Orioles are becoming increasingly frustrated with Davis and might even be on the brink of walking away from negotiations entirely. 4:57pm: The Orioles have made an offer to outfielder Yoenis Cespedes, an industry source tells MASNsports.coms Roch Kubatko (Twitter link), who adds that Baltimore prefers Cespedes to Justin Upton at this time. Per Kubatko, there are no new developments in the seemingly stagnant talks between the Orioles and Chris Davis. MLB.coms Britt Ghiroli tweets that Baltimores interest in Cespedes is high. The nature of the offer remains a mystery at this juncture, although given Baltimores reported seven-year, $150-154MM offer to Davis, the team clearly has some money to spend this offseason. While many have speculated that Cespedes could eventually change course and seek a short-term deal, that speculation seems largely unfounded; reports yesterday indicated that Cespedes camp has no interest in seeking a short-term deal, and as Jeff Todd and I broke down on todays podcast, players on the level of Cespedes, Upton and Davis typically end up getting paid, even if they linger on the market into late January. For instance, one year ago today, a common narrative was that Max Scherzer didnt have a market and wouldnt be able to secure the mammoth contract he sought; on Jan. 22, he signed a $210MM contract with the Nationals. While the outfield market has been slow to develop, the Orioles could potentially be one of the keys to expediting the signing process for the remaining top bats. Representatives of each of the top remaining bats know that Baltimore has money to spend and a need for offense, with at least one corner-outfield hole to fill. As the two top corner outfield bats remaining on the market, Cespedes and Upton figure to remain linked until one of the duo signs. The pair offers relatively similar skill-sets, though Cespedes offers considerably more defensive upside whereas Uptons keener eye at the plate leads to an edge in on-base percentage for him. Additionally, Upton is two years younger, but he also comes with draft-pick compensation attached to his name after rejecting a qualifying offer. The same cannot be said for Cespedes, who was of course ineligible to receive a QO after being traded from the Tigers to the Mets this past season. The Padres havent yet shut the door on free agent right-hander Fernando Rodney, according to Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune (Twitter link). The Friars may, in fact, try to lure Rodney to San Diego by offering him the opportunity to close games. San Diego has been connected to Rodney on and off for the past couple of weeks. While the 38-year-old Rodney had disastrous results in Seattle last season he logged a 5.68 ERA with 7.6 K/9 against 4.4 BB/9 and lost the closers role before being designated for assignment he had a nice turnaround following a trade to the Cubs. While it was only a sample of a dozen innings, Rodney yielded just one earned run and recorded a 15-to-4 K/BB ratio in that time. Although the Fernando Rodney Experience certainly wore out its welcome in Seattle, the right-hander has drawn interest from the Blue Jays and Cubs as of late (though the Toronto connections pre-dated their acquisition of Drew Storen). A couple more notes on the Padres 2:24pm: Melancon will receive $9.65MM for his final season before free agency, according to Bill Brink of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (on Twitter). 2:03pm: The Pirates and closer Mark Melancon have avoided arbitration, according to a club announcement. Financial terms have yet to be disclosed, although the All-Star right-hander was projected to earn an even $10MM by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz. Melancon, a client of Relativity Sports, is entering his final season of club control before reaching the open market as a free agent. With his agreement in place, the Pirates have seemingly avoided arbitration with all of their eligible players, although theyve yet to announce backup catcher Chris Stewarts reported two-year contract extension. Cascade Township may soon be the site of a new brewery and taproom. Local businessmen and longtime home brewers Jeff Coffey and Eric Fouch are planning to open a brewery in the Cascade Center, 6262 28th St. Under the application name, Blue Sky Brewing LLC, the pair received the necessary approval from township officials on Wednesday, Jan. 13, to apply to the Michigan Liquor Control Commission for micro brewer, small winery and small distiller licenses. The official brewery name has not yet been established, according to Fouch. The board voted to allow the move. The plan calls for the installation of a seven-barrel brewing system with the initial business focusing primarily on craft beer. The owners estimate annual production of about 1,000 barrels of beer per year, but also plan on using the winery license for production and sale of hard ciders and meads and the distillery license for small batches of artisan spirits. The official business plan filed with the township said that initially the business will be 70-percent craft beers, 20-percent ciders and 5-percent spirits. Long-term plans may include a restaurant, but the initial focus will be taproom distribution and light snacks. If state licenses are obtained, the brewery will occupy two storefronts in the Cascade Center, adjacent to the Subway. The approximately 3,100 square feet of floor space will be divided roughly in half for production and an area for patrons. Seating capacity is expected to be 99 inside with an additional 25 to 30 seats outside. Both Coffey and Fouch have been homebrewing for decades. Fouch has been the president of Primetime Brewers, Grand Rapids' oldest home brew club, for the past seven years; he is a 20-year Kent County resident, serves as a township trustee in Gaines Township, and has spent more than 30 years as an engineer, primarily in the automotive industry. Coffey has been a resident of Cascade Township since 1998, is a former board member of the Thornapple River Association, and is employed as an independent contractor. The pair has signed a five-year lease on the Cascade Center location, with possession beginning Feb. 1. walmart.jpg BENTONVILLE, Ark -- Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. will shutter 2 stores in Michigan as part of 154 planned closures in the U.S. and 269 around the globe. The southeast Michigan stores, a Wal-Mart in Hartland and Sam's Club in Waterford, are slated to close by Jan. 28. Wal-Mart operates 94 locations across the state. The Hartland supercenter employs 300, and the Waterford Sam's Club has a workforce of 115. Walmart's goal is to place as many associates as possible who would like to continue with the company at other nearby locations, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman told MLive and the Grand Rapids Press. Nearly 95 percent of the U.S. stores selected for closure are within 10 miles of another Wal-Mart. The Bentonville, Arkansas-headquartered company said it expected to reassign most of the 10,000 workers impacted in the U.S. to nearby locations. North Carolina and Texas were the states that took the biggest hit on store closures. In total, 16,000 Wal-mart employees work at the 269 stores that will be closed around the world. Employees, who aren't placed in new locations, will receive 60 days of pay, and in some cases, severance pay. They will also be assisted with resume and interview skill training. "The decision to close stores is difficult and we care about the associates who will be impacted," Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon said in a statement. "We invested considerable time assessing our stores and clubs and don't take this lightly. We are supporting those impacted with extra pay and support, and we will take all appropriate steps to ensure they are treated well." The closures account for less than 1 percent of the company's revenue and global square footage, the retailer said. The closures follows an October announcement that the retail behemoth was doing a review of its nearly 11,600 stores around the world to evaluate financial performance and how locations fit into the retailer's long term plans. "Actively managing our portfolio of assets is essential to maintaining a healthy business," Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon said in a statement. "Closing stores is never an easy decision, but it is necessary to keep the company strong and positioned for the future." He added that Wal-Mart plans to open 300 stores in the next year. The majority of the U.S. store closures will be Wal-Mart Express, signaling the retailer is stepping back from convenience store format it began piloting in 2011. The closure list also includes 23 Neighborhood Markets, 12 supercenters, seven stores in Puerto Rico, six discount stores and four Sam's Clubs. Wal-Mart will now focus in the U.S. market on its traditional supercenter format, Neighborhood Markets, the e-commerce business and pickup services for shoppers. The most of Wal-Mart's closures outside of the U.S. will be struggling stores in Brazil, which represents only 5 percent of sales in the South American country. Wal-Mart, which operated 558 stores in Brazil before the closures, has struggled as the economy there has soured, according to the Associated Press. Its Every Day Low price strategy has also not been able to break against heavy promotions from key rivals. The remaining 55 stores slated for closing outside the U.S. are primarily small, revenue-losing stores in other Latin American markets. Wal-Mart still plans to to open 50 to 60 traditional supercenter stores, 85 to 95 Neighborhood Markets and seven to 10 Sam's Club in fiscal 2017, which begins Feb. 1. Outside of the U.S., another 200 and 240 stores are slated to open in the next 12 months. In fiscal year 2015, Wal-Mart reported annual revenues of $485.7 billion and profits of $16.3 billion. The retailer has a global workforce of 2.2 million employees. Shandra Martinez covers business for MLive/The Grand Rapids Press. Email her or follow her on Twitter @shandramartinez. KENT CITY, MI --When you think of food challenges, you think of monstrous burgers or gargantuan pizzas. Maybe even a 21-scoop ice cream sundae. But a stromboli? Voters in our search for Michigan's Most Extreme Challenge picked Papa Piccione's huge stromboli as the winner of our search. "We have a 5lb. stromboli," said owner Jeff Sabin. (You) must complete it in 45 minutes or less. If completed, it's free. If you fail, it's just $20. Only two have finished it, and over 50 have failed." Well, I am going to be the next in line to take on that challenge. Wish me luck. Overall, we had about 50 entries in our search, and some great challenges nominated and voted on by the readers of MLive. I'm putting together a plan to compete in a few of these challenges across the state. Look for my itinerary next week. For now, I'm hoping to visit Kent City on Friday, Jan. 22. Anyone want to join me? Papa Piccione is located at 80 S Main St. in Kent City. More info on the Papa Piccione Facebook page. Michigan's Most Extreme Food Challenges Top 5: 1. Papa Piccione's Pizza (Kent City)-5lb stromboli challenge--14.99% 2. The Corner Bar (Rockford)-Hot Dog Hall of Fame; 20 chili dogs--10.45% 3. The Parlour (Jackson)-Dare to be Great; 21 scoops of ice cream--9.25% 4. Goog's Pub and Grub (Holland)-Googantuan Big Macatawa; 2.5 lb. burger; 1 lb. fries--8.85% 5. Arturo's Tacos (Grand Haven)-Super Burrito Challenge; 4-6 lb. burrito--6.46% John Gonzalez is on the Life + Culture Team for MLive.com. He covers travel, events, TV and coordinates Michigan's Best. Email him at gonzo@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Google+. More than 500 short stories from all over Michigan were submitted for consideration in the fourth annual Write Michigan short story contest sponsored by the Kent District Library and Schuler Books & Music. Rachel Williamson, age 10, of East Grand Rapids, was thrilled when her name was among the 10 in the youth category that were chosen to move into final competition. Rachel's story was titled "Blown Away" and recounted an experience she had sailing on Reeds Lake. The story is filled with vivid descriptions of the experience on a particularly windy day during a youth sailing lesson. "I'm 10 years old and just learned to sail this summer," said Rachel. "It's been pretty smooth sailing so far. Yet on that day, Reeds Lake was brimming with trouble just waiting for me." Other local young people also made the semi-final list including: Ella Satterhwaite, with "When It Rains," and Madeline Oostema, with The Jungle Dance," both of Ada; Parker Hammond, with "Elliot and Charlie," of Grand Rapids; and Sarah Shapin, with "The Pencil," of Kentwood. Names on the finals list from the local area in the teen category are: Evelyn Pae and Lauren Wilkinson, of Ada; Sammy D'Alexander, of Cascade, Audrey Clayton, Chloe Stegman, and Katie Winkle, all of Grand Rapids; and Quinn Baar, of Hudsonville; in the adult category are: Colleen Alles, Patricia Clark, both of Grand Rapids; Emily Haines Lloyd, of Wyoming; and Danielle Adams, of Comstock Park. Semi-finalist's short stories now will enter the final competition. Winners will be chosen by public voting at www.writemichigan.org from now until Jan. 31 for the $250 Readers' Choice award, and by a panel of judges for the $250 Judges' Choice and $100 Judges' Choice Runner-up awards. Winners will be announced Feb. 3 and honored at an awards ceremony at 2 p.m., March 19, at KDL's Cascade Township branch, 2870 Jacksmith Ave. SE, Grand Rapids. An assistant professor at the University of Michigan who traveled to Florida in part to have sex with a 14-year-old pleaded guilty to federal charges Wednesday. James Cavalcoli, 51, is on an unpaid leave of absence from the University of Michigan, where he is an assistant professor of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, according to spokeswoman Mary Masson. Masson said in an email that she was unable to discuss the confidential matter further. Cavalcoli has been with the school for almost 13 years. Cavalcoli was charged with attempting to coerce and entice a minor into sexual activity and traveling with the intent to engage in illicit sexual activity after trying to meet a boy for sex in Florida, court records show. Although he thought he was corresponding with the teen's father for years, Cavalcoli was actually messaging back and forth with a law enforcement officer, records show. In the messages, Cavalcoli referred to himself as a "bl," which stands for "boy lover." He was arrested by federal agents when he went to meet the boy and his father at the Bonaventure Resort and Spa in Weston, Fla., outside Ft. Lauderdale in August, court records show. Cavacoli faces up to life in prison for attempting to coerce a minor and up to 30 years in prison for traveling for illicit sexual activity, according to sentencing guidelines outlined in the plea agreement. He is scheduled for sentencing on March 25. Darcie Moran covers cops and courts for MLive and The Ann Arbor News. Email her at dmoran@mlive.com or follow her on Twitter @darciegmoran. Giving out personal information over the phone is never a good idea if you don't know who's on the other end of the line. To protect yourself if someone contacts you, make them tell you exactly who they are. The Washtenaw County Sheriff's Department is investigating two phone scams that have been reported by residents in the Ann Arbor area. The sheriff's office issued a Nixle alert Friday morning warning of the two calls, which try to obtain personal and financial information from victims. In the first scam, the subjects claim to be from the Washtenaw County Jury Services and request monetary donations from the victims. In the second, the subjects say they are calling from the U.S. Treasury Department and attempt to convince the victims they owe money to the government and must pay or risk being thrown in jail. Ben Freed is a reporter for The Ann Arbor News. Email him at benfreed@mlive.com and follow him on twitter at @BFreedinA2. He also answers the phone at 734-623-2528. The Bay City Commission used a visit from U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township, to learn more about how the city could take advantage of a new, $2 billion federal fund geared toward taking out blight. BAY CITY, MI -- The Bay City Commission used a visit from U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee this week to show the congressman why Bay City deserves a slice of a new $2 billion federal program to elminate blight. Kildee, who was in Bay City Thursday, Jan. 14, has led the charge to devote federal funds initially budgeted for mortgage relief programs to be used to deal with urban blight in communities, especially ones such as his native Flint, which is in dire need. The "Hardest Hit Fund" is likely to be distributed through the Michigan State Housing and Development Authority, Kildee said. "And I hope to get as much for the 5th District as I can," he said. Since 2010, Bay City has used grant dollars to knock down 26 blighted properties across the city. This year, using a $250,000 MSHDA grant, up to 18 more properties are slated for demolition. A number of the properties the city owns through tax foreclosure are among those set to be knocked down, including 610, 708 and 709 11th St.; 1300 Broadway; 401 High St.; 400 McEwan St.; and 308 37th St. Another property, 616 Grant St., is owned by Bay City entrepreneur Steven J. Ingersoll, who was convicted of tax fraud last year. Ingersoll has given permission to the city to have his building knocked down. Two commercial properties -- 243 and 245 Saginaw St., a former Firestone Complete Auto Care -- is also on the city's list for demolition. Debbie Kiesel, the city's grant coordinator, said up to 13 properties are going to be put out for bid in the coming weeks to see how much money the city would have leftover from the $250,000 grant. She anticipates the money should be enough to raze 18 properties. A handful of properties are still under review, as the city looks to get permission from the property owners of the identified residences, Kiesel said. As for Bay City securing more dollars from the new, $2 billion federal fund, being proactive and organized by showing the government a need and a cost is the city's best approach, Kildee said. "Then we can make sure as Michigan gets its money, and it goes through the state, that we have enough resources for Bay City, and other communities that have need, can be met," he said. Kiesel said it can be a challenge for Bay City when applying for blight grants because its problem doesn't compare to cities such as Flint or Saginaw, where thousands of properties have been left dilapidated. Bay City has less than 100 buildings on its dangerous buildings list, many of which the city says can be rehabilitated. "Sometimes, we're not even eligible to apply for those grants," she said. "We're putting together a good plan and want to be shovel-ready so we have every possible opportunity to get money." Kildee said he's hoping the $2 billion fund can go to "really distressed communities," like Flint, in addition to communities like Bay City, where a blight problem could grow quickly. "For Bay City, this is when you want to deal with the problem," he said. "The communities that wait end up with contagious blight that spreads like a disease. If there are 25-30 properties Bay City wants to deal with now, that might prevent us from dealing with 250 or 300 properties years from now." Bay City Manager Rick Finn said he appreciated the opportunity to remind Kildee about Bay City and pitch him on securing funds for the city. "We know our needs aren't as urgent as Flint, Saginaw or Detroit, but we still have a need and it's important that we have a handle on it," Finn said. "Money from that fund would make a tremendous amount of improvement. "If we take down 25 or 30 homes, that affects a neighborhood, it affects people and it affects home values. It's critically important to get them down." Dawud Walid, the Executive Director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.jpg Dawud Walid, the Executive Director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations United States Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, center, speaks during a news conference in Newark, N.J., Tuesday, Aug. 11. An international group of hackers and stock traders made $30 million by breaking into the computers of newswire services that put out corporate press releases and trading on the information before it was made public, federal prosecutors said. (AP) DETROIT, MI -- A leader in the Detroit-area Muslim community didn't mince words about his feelings on U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson's visit to Detroit and Dearborn Wednesday. Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who didn't attend any of the DHS events, called it "an utter joke." Johnson met with law enforcers, Muslim students at University of Michigan- Dearborn and Syrian refugees during the day-long visit. He talked a lot about building bridges while maintaining national security. Now, more than ever, it is critical that we build bridges to Muslim communities around this country. - Secretary Johnson #DHSinDearborn Homeland Security (@DHSgov) January 13, 2016 Johnson's trip was part of the agency's "countering violent extremism" efforts, which include supporting communities with the hope of increasing reports of suspicious activity; eliciting help from local law enforcement to "deter and disrupt recruitment or individual mobilization"; and coordinating "efforts to better understand the phenomenon of violent extremism." Walid is one of the biggest advocates for Muslim communities in the Detroit area, but he was intentionally absent, a boycott of sorts. More on Jeh Johnson's visit He believes the agency is giving lip-service to American Muslims and contradicting itself by placing disproportionate numbers of the community on no-fly, or secondary screening lists without explanation. "People with no criminal record who are being deprived of their Fifth Amendment constitutional rights," Walid said. "People are being placed on watch lists, harassed when they are flying and they cannot even confront the evidence because they are not being charged." While Johnson talks about building bridges, he is actually "burning bridges" by "treating American Muslims as a suspect community," Walid said, adding that, based on empirical data on violent extremism, DHS should pay more attention to white men. "I don't see the FBI telling Christians to be vigilant and self-police themselves after people were killed in the attack on Planned Parenthood or the systematic burning of black churches," Walid said. He takes offense to the profiling of American Muslims and called it "problematic" that DHS would choose the University of Michigan- Dearborn, a university with one of the most dense Muslim populations in the nation, to address national security. And the decision by the university to host the visit, Walid called "disappointing." DETROIT, MI -- It was a scheme federal prosecutors called the most serious fraud case in U.S. history. Farid Fata, a disgraced Oakland County oncologist, falsely told patients they had cancer and ordered severely harmful chemotherapy while billing insurance companies for the medically unnecessary and often bizarre treatments. He pleaded guilty in September 2014 to health care fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the U.S., eventually admitting to some form of mistreatment in 553 separate cases. And last summer, crowds of devastated former patients and their families swarmed Detroit's federal courthouse to face Fata at his sentencing. (Victims face disgraced cancer doctor: 'Farid Fata, I hate you') A group of victims has gotten together again, this time to share their stories with a national audience on NBC's Dateline. The hour-long special is scheduled to air Sunday, Jan. 17 at 8 p.m. The feature will include interviews with Fata's victims and colleagues, U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade and George Karadsheh, an office manager at Fata's practice who tipped off federal investigators on Aug. 2, 2013. Four days after Karadsheh's tip, federal agents shut down Fata's clinics, executed search warrants, interviewed employees and arrested the Michigan doctor. Investigators eventually found that patients were given false cancer diagnoses and were treated with abnormal dosages of dangerous chemotherapy drugs. They suffered organ damage, nerve damage, immune system depletion, lost teeth and other permanent ailments. Others were given oddly small chemotherapy dosages, underdosing patients because, as McQuade said after his sentencing, "he was too cheap to give them the amount of medicine they actually needed." U.S. District Judge Paul Borman, after hearing from two cancer experts and 20 victims and relatives of former patients over four days in July 2015, sentenced Fata to 45 years in federal prison, ordering him to pay $17.6 million in restitution. DETROIT, MI -- Time is running out on a possible plea deal for state Sen. Virgil Smith Jr., D-Detroit, who is accused of shooting at his ex-wife. A final pretrial conference -- during which a plea deal could be announced --occurred 9 a.m. Friday, Jan. 15, during which no plea deal was announced. However, another previously unscheduled pretrial conference was set for Feb. 5. It's possible Smith could plea at that hearing. If not, a trial is tentatively scheduled for March 7 in front of Wayne Circuit Judge Lawrence S. Talon. MLive left a message with Smith's attorney, Godfrey Dillard, requesting comment. Smith, who served three years in the state House of Representatives before being elected to the Senate in 2010 and re-elected in 2014, is accused of opening fire with an AR-15 in the direction of his ex-wife, Anistia Thomas, and her Mercedes about 1 a.m. May 10. The altercation occurred after Thomas arrived at Smith's home and found another woman, Tatiana Grant, naked in her ex-husband's bed. The versions of events presented by both women during the a preliminary examination last June were inconsistent. Thomas testified that, although Smith is her ex-husband, they'd reignited an intimate relationship. She drove to Smith's home the morning of May 10 with the intent of spending the night. Before heading there, she sent a text that said, "you are (expletive) up," according to evidence presented at a prior hearing. After parking in the street, Thomas walked to an open side window and said, "Kai," Smith's middle name. Smith opened the side door and told Thomas, "Tatiana is here," the ex-wife testified. Thomas claims she walked to the bedroom, stripped the sheets off the naked woman and asked her if she was sleeping with Smith. Grant claims Thomas was yelling, "He doesn't care about you, he doesn't love you," as Smith grabbed his ex-wife from behind. Thomas denies forcing her way into Smith's home or attacking Grant. "From there, he pulled on me, we wrestled, he punches me in the face a few times," Thomas said at the preliminary examination. "After falling into the TV, he rammed my head into the floor." Thomas said Smith put his right arm into the back of her neck and she "basically stopped breathing." "He kept punching me throughout my body at that point ... " Thomas testified. "He literally rammed my head into the wall by the doorway ... I fall down." Grant said Smith never punched Thomas and never slammed her head into the floor or wall. Grant saw Smith pulling the ex-wife from behind and carrying her in an attempt to remove her from the bedroom. "No," Grant said when asked if she ever saw Smith assault Thomas. Thomas claims Smith forced her to her feet and pushed her out the side door into a railing, causing her to fall and hit her face on the concrete. "He comes out from the side door ... I see him holding a big gun," Thomas said. She said the gun was an AR-15 rifle Smith kept under his bed and previously told her could take off a person's limb. "He starts shooting it in the air ... " Thomas said. "He turns it toward me and starts shooting at me." Thomas ran to the home of a neighbor, also a friend of Smith's. The ex-wife called 911, but the neighbor took the phone from her after hearing her giving police Smith's name. The neighbor forced her to leave and locked the door behind her, Thomas previously testified. Thomas said she then ran to another house where she found help. Smith was arrested and subsequently charged with malicious destruction of property, $20,000 or more; felony assault with a deadly weapon; felony use of a firearm; and domestic violence. The most serious charge, malicious destruction of property, carries a possible prison sentence of up to 10 years. Despite being embroiled in criminal proceedings, Smith has not stepped down or been expelled from his senate seat, although he was stripped of his leadership roles and committee assignments after the shooting incident. He represents the Fourth District, which includes portions of Allen Park, Detroit, Lincoln Park and Southgate. Smith has received prior citations for impaired driving and operating while intoxicated in 2004, for which his license was revoked and reinstated to a restricted status in 2007, according to a statement issued by Secretary of State spokesman Fred Woodhams. He was charged with operating a vehicle while being intoxicated in 2010, but the case was dropped for lack of evidence to prosecute. Michigan is among about 10 states with a full-time Legislature. Senators begin at a starting annual pay of about $71,000. Smith missed 59 of 645 Senate voting roll calls in 2015, the second most among active senators. DETROIT, MI-- Thousands dressed in ball gowns and black ties will be in attendance at Cobo Center Friday night for 'auto show prom.' The North American International Auto Show's Charity Preview will celebrate its 40th year on Friday. Since 1976, the Charity Preview has raised more than $101 million for southeastern Michigan children's charities. More than $43 million of which was raised in the last 10 years. Huey Lewis and the News will perform at the event, which is the largest single night fundraiser in the world. The black tie event runs from 6pm - 9pm. Tickets are $400 per person. You can purchase them here or call 888-838-7500. The 2016 North American International Auto Show is now in its 28th year. The show will be open to the public Jan. 16-24. More than 750 vehicles will be on display, and some 800,000 attendees are expected to pass through the Cobo Center's doors for the event. Tickets to the 2016 public show days are $7 for senior citizens and children between 7-12 years old; $13 for adults; and free for children 6 and under. For more information on tickets, visit naias.com. FLINT, MI -- The Flint Charter Review Commission is looking for the public's input on what form of government the city should have. The Flint Charter Review Commission (CRC) is hosting the Form of Government discussion and Introductory Workshop on Thursday, Jan. 21 from 5:30 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. The event will be held at the Grace Emmanuel Baptist Church, located at 3502 Lapeer Road in Flint, according to a news release from the city of Flint. During the meeting the CRC will be presenting potential forms of government and asking Flint residents which type of government they would like to see in the city, according to the release. The two main forms of local government are Strong Mayor and Council-Manager. The Strong Mayor government type is also known as Mayor-Council, according to the release. This government form has an elected mayor and council with separate legislative and executive powers. This form of government appoints the top administrators and may have veto power over the council. Forty percent of cities, Flint included, are using this form of government. The Council-Manager style of government has an elected city council and a city manager appointed by the council who is an administrative professional, according to the release. City council's responsibilities would include goal setting, strategic planning, adopting budget, approving capital improvement plans, and acting through resolutions and ordinances. In the Council-Manager form of government the city manager would be the administrative head of the city, running the day to day operations of the city and implementing the council's policies and goals, according to the release. The city manager would be hired and fired by the city council. Sixty percent of cities have this form of government. FLINT, MI - Flint City Councilwoman Jackie Poplar says cash from the federal government is the only aid that will help the city in its water crisis. The 2nd Ward councilwoman made her remarks Friday, Jan. 15, following Gov. Rick Snyder's request that President Barack Obama declare a federal emergency in response to Flint's water crisis. Snyder's plea came late Thursday, Jan. 14, and clears the way for expanded federal assistance in addressing the city's water troubles. "The only thing that's going to help us at this point is money," Poplar said. "Money to replace the lead service lines - money is the bottom line. We don't have money to fix all of these service lines." Lead leaching from lead service lines to homes and businesses is blamed for the elevated lead levels found in some Flint children. Federal officials have said Snyder's request is under review and will provide a recommendation to the President Obama as soon as possible, according to FEMA Spokeswoman Cassie Ringsdorf. "We're finally getting the attention that we need and deserve," Flint Mayor Karen Weaver said in a statement. "This manmade water disaster has been devastating and frustrating for the residents of Flint. "This is a public health crisis and an infrastructure crisis. We have a large infrastructure that needs to be repaired. That's why we need federal assistance because we need more than the state can give us." U.S. Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters, along with Congressman Dan Kildee, D-MI, sent a letter to Obama in support of Snyder's request. "Over the last several years, our governor and state regulators have failed to meet their legal responsibilities to protect the public health and well-being of the people of Flint," the letter said. "In addition to the substantial financial commitments we expect the state of Michigan to provide, we are asking for your help in marshaling any available federal resources to combat the near- and long-term health, behavioral, and cognitive effects that are well documented for children and vulnerable populations exposed to dangerously high lead levels and other harmful pathogens." The governor's request includes federal individual help and public assistance to help eligible residents and state and local governments. Possible federal assistance could include grants for temporary housing and home repairs and low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, according to the announcement from Snyder's office. Assistance could also help cover some of the costs associated with damage to public facilities and infrastructure, including city schools and the water system. The Federal Emergency Management Agency will review the request and advise the president. The decision to provide federal assistance will ultimately be left to Obama. Flint Mayor Karen Weaver said last week that infrastructure fixes could cost $1.5 billion. Snyder declared a state of emergency on Jan. 5 for Genesee County, following the county's local emergency declaration on Jan. 4. The water crisis emerged more than a year ago after the city switched water sources in April of 2014. The switch was eventually linked to elevated blood lead levels in some of the city's youngest residents. Snyder activated the National Guard on Tuesday to help assist in water distribution efforts around the city. On Wednesday, Jan. 14, the Virginia Tech university professor who spent months studying Flint's water problems says the failure to treat Flint River water to make it less corrosive could have set off an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease here. Snyder announced the outbreak Wednesday, Jan. 13, during a press conference with the state's top health officials. From June 2014 to November 2015, 87 cases were confirmed in Genesee County. Ten of those were fatal. Officials said there's no evidence of a clear link between the outbreak and the water system change. Dominic Adams is a reporter for The Flint Journal. Contact him at dadams5@mlive.com or 810-241-8803. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Google+. FLINT, MI -- People in Flint are boiling mad. As the water crisis reaches a fever pitch, many residents out picking up free bottled water, filters and testing kits in the city Friday are calling for Gov. Rick Snyder's resignation. "I think he should get ... outta office," said Lawrence Burns, of Grand Blanc, who was getting water for his brother, a Flint resident, at a city fire station Friday morning, Jan. 15. "People up there in Lansing just don't give a damn." Carolyn Simons, who was picking up water at the same firehouse, located at 1525 Martin Luther King Ave., said she feels that if regular folks get thrown in jail for a crime, politicians should, too. "He ought to be locked up," she said about Snyder. The governor's spokesman, Dave Murray, said Snyder has no plans to resign. "We understand people are frustrated," Murray said. "We are working to protect the health and safety of all Flint residents. An important part of that is to make sure they get water, filters and water tests that are available at the firehouses." Many residents said they were appreciative of the water and filters, but still angry they are forced to pay for water that they can't use. "If the water's no good, why are we paying for it?" said Bernice Haynes, who was getting water from Hasselbring Park Senior Community Center. "It's wrong. I'm sick of this mess. We human beings are suffering. They're acting like they're trying to kill us all." Johnny Billings, also at the senior center Friday, said he felt similarly. "I think we ain't got no business paying for service for this water," he said. "They got us paying for water we can't even use." Residents have had to use filters and test the city's water since a significant spike in lead was detected following a switch from Lake Huron water as a source to the Flint River. Recent deaths from Legionnaires' Disease may also be linked to the city's water, some experts have said. The crisis has prompted a response from the National Guard, which upped its presence at city firehouses Friday. Military officials at two of those fire stations estimated they were giving away around 2,600 cases of bottled water a day. The firehouses are open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. The water at the senior center had been donated by a UAW local and a private party. "I think this is a terrible situation," said Justus Thigpen, who was at the senior center Friday. "I've been in Flint since 1952 and never had anything like this." John Counts is an investigative reporter on MLive.com's statewide Impact team. Send tips to johncounts@mlive.com or you can follow him on Twitter. FLUSHING, MI -- Police are warning Flushing residents about fraudulent phone scams hitting people around the city. On Jan. 14 several Flushing residents told police they received fraudulent phone calls. The suspect calls unsuspecting residents identifying himself as a police officer, according to a news release from the Flushing Police Department. The suspect tells the person on the phone there is a warrant out for their arrest for failure to appear for jury duty. The suspect then tells the victim they need to pay a bond as soon as possible to avoid arrest, according to the release. The Flushing Police Department is advising residents that these phone calls are a scam and to make sure no one follows the instructions of the caller. The courts and law enforcement agencies in Genesee County do not make notification of warrants in this fashion and wouldn't ask for the bond over the phone. Anyone with information related to this incident is asked to call the Flushing Police Department at 810-659-3119. Amanda Emery is a police reporter for MLive-Flint Journal. Contact her at aemery@mlive.com or 810-285-0792. Follow her on Twitter or Facebook. GENESEE COUNTY, MI -- Water resources are expected to be delivered to Flint water customers in four communities outside of Flint that receive their water from the city. Genesee County Board chairman Jamie Curtis said bottled water, filters, replacement cartridges and testing kits were being dropped off in Genesee Township, Burton, as well as resources for Flint Township and Mt. Morris Township. Curtis said there are four buildings, including two churches and one business affected in Genesee Township, along with a total of 25 buildings in Genesee Township. Those customers may pick up the items at city and township halls in their communities. "It will get to them quicker this way than the volunteers," said Curtis. Volunteers as part of water resource teams are going door-to-door throughout Flint to provide the items after Gov. Rick Snyder declared a state of emergency in Genesee County due to Flint's continuing water crisis. National Guard soldiers have joined Michigan State Police, Genesee County Sheriff's Office and Michigan Department of Health and Human Services employees in ramped-up distribution efforts in the city of Flint. Burton Mayor Paula Zelenko said it was important not to forget the city's people who are on the Flint water system, and affected by the lead issue. Sixty-five buildings in the city including homes and businesses receive water through Flint's system. The Burton residents affected live primarily on Cheyenne and Menominee streets, as well as some businesses on Dort Highway, according to the city. Burton is billed for the water, with the city of Burton then reimbursed by customers. "As mayor, it is my job to do everything in my power to protect all the residents of Burton," Zelenko said. "That's why I've been working with Genesee County Board of Commissioners Chairman Jamie Curtis and others to address our concerns for those of our citizens who remain on Flint water." Burton has inquired about getting its Flint water customers looped into Burton's system and off Flint water, setting aside $151,000 in community development block grant dollars to create a water main loop for the district. "We have to go through the city of Flint to turn them off, since it's on their water main," said Zelenko, estimating the work would altogether cost $200,000. "We wanted to do this long before the whole Flint River water switch." An issue would remain for those customers, as Zelenko said each resident is responsible for the leads to the city's water main system. "I'm hoping that's where the state remediation, if there is any, will still help those that have lead lines," she said. "They didn't have a choice in the switch, either, if they did have the lead lines. We just want to make sure our residents are taken care of." FLINT, MI - Gov. Rick Snyder is calling for a state oversight board to give Flint Mayor Karen Weaver more power amid the city's ongoing water crisis. "Mayor Weaver has requested that the powers and authority currently vested in the city administrator to be transferred to the mayor," Snyder said in a statement. "I agree with her, and have asked the Receivership Transition Advisory Board to support that resolution." The Flint Journal could not reach Weaver for comment on Friday, Jan. 15. City Manager Natasha Henderson currently runs the day-to-day operations of the city under terms of an April 10 order that former Emergency Manager Jerry Ambrose formalized before he left, giving her the ability to recommend appointments for the top executive positions in the city, to decide litigation and labor disputes, and to prepare Flint's annual budget. Some actions require consultation or approval from the mayor or City Council but that five-page order gives Henderson would have heavyweight influence. A move to give Weaver more control but make Henderson a more traditional city manager under the current city charter and would have her report to Weaver and carry out the mayor's directives on a daily basis. The RTAB will remain, Snyder said. "Flint is in financial distress and will remain in receivership until I am convinced that the city is on strong financial standing," his statement said. "Both the RTAB and the state will support Mayor Weaver and her team to navigate the financial challenges ahead." Snyder asked President Barack Obama to declare a federal emergency in response to Flint's water crisis late Thursday, Jan. 14, clearing the way for expanded federal assistance in addressing the city's water troubles. Snyder declared a state of emergency on Jan. 5 for Genesee County, following the county's local emergency declaration on Jan. 4. The water crisis emerged more than a year ago after the city switched water sources in April of 2014. The switch was eventually linked to elevated blood lead levels in some of the city's youngest residents. Snyder activated the National Guard on Tuesday to help assist in water distribution efforts around the city. On Wednesday, Jan. 14, the Virginia Tech university professor who spent months studying Flint's water problems says the failure to treat Flint River water to make it less corrosive could have set off an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease here. Snyder announced the outbreak Wednesday, Jan. 13, during a press conference with the state's top health officials. From June 2014 to November 2015, 87 cases were confirmed in Genesee County. Ten of those were fatal. Officials said there's no evidence of a clear link between the outbreak and the water system change. Dominic Adams is a reporter for The Flint Journal. Contact him at dadams5@mlive.com or 810-241-8803. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Google+. Hillary Clinton Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton pauses while speaking during a campaign event at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) (AP Photo | Patrick Semansky) (This story has been updated with comment from Dave Murray, press secretary for Gov. Rick Snyder.) FLINT, MI -- During an appearance on the Rachel Maddow Show, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spoke out on Flint's water crisis. Clinton appeared on the MSNBC show on Thursday, Jan. 14. Maddow asked Clinton what she thought was wrong in Flint given the current water crisis. Clinton said she is pleased that FEMA is trying to help the city. She said she has spoken to Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Lansing) and Congressman Dan Kildee (D-Flint Township) to see how they are going to get enough funding to get children tested. "This is infuriating to me. I did a lot of work on trying to get rid of lead in residential housing in Upstate New York. I care deeply about this issue. We know it has effects on behavior and educational attainment." Clinton said on the show. "So when you test kids, we need to provide it quickly, whatever health care they can get, whatever kind of anecdote is possible. And we need to have a fund for education because some of these kids, if they've been too exposed, the damage may be irreversible. And we're going to have to do more to help them actually learn." Clinton went on to say there is a federal role in helping Flint and she would make it a federal role. She said she is "outraged" that Gov. Rick Snyder hasn't asked for the federal help. "Right now, as best I can understand, the governor, the Republican governor, Gov. Snyder, is refusing to ask for the triggering of the federal help that he needs in order to take care of the people who are his constituents. And I am just outraged by this." Clinton said. "I find it -- you know lead is one of the most pernicious, horrible toxins that kids are exposed to, and that has such serious long-lasting effects on their behavior and their learning. I would be doing everything I could, and I would be expecting everybody in a position of authority to do the same." Dave Murray, a spokesman for Gov. Rick Snyder, said Snyder "has been working closely with the White House and our partners in the federal government to bring resources to Flint as we focus on protecting the health and welfare of all residents and making sure they have access to safe, clean water. "Gov. Snyder on Thursday asked President Obama to declare both an emergency and an expedited major disaster for Genesee County as a result of ongoing emergency water response efforts," Murray's statement says. "Earlier, the Governor spoke to the White House, and Homeland Security Secretary Johnson about what kind of assistance the federal government can provide. Governor this week also spoke to the regional director of FEMA, which already has staff in Flint assisting with some aspects of our efforts to help people get the help they need. "Governor already has asked for a pledge from FEMA to coordinate an interagency recovery plan that would coordinate efforts with other federal agencies to provide resources in Flint." Clinton's comments come just a day after two of Clinton's staffers met with Flint Mayor Karen Weaver. Hillary for America National Political Director Amanda Renteria and Policy Advisor Mike Schmidt met with Weaver to discuss the ongoing water crisis. During the meeting, they discussed the urgent need for action from Gov. Snyder, as well as the urgent need of support from the federal government. Clinton has spoken out previously about the Flint water crisis. Clinton said the city's water crisis is "unconscionable," and citizens deserve both immediate fixes and full disclosure from Gov. Snyder. "The situation in Flint, Michigan, is extremely concerning. No parent should have to worry that their kids' water isn't safe," Clinton said in a statement issued Jan. 11. That statement came the day after Denis McDonough, President Obama's chief of staff, said the White House is very concerned about the water situation in Flint during an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" program Sunday, Jan. 10. FLINT, MI - Health officials waited roughly a year and a half to notify Gov. Rick Snyder about spiking rates of Legionnaires' Disease in the Flint area, according to state authorities. State Medical Executive Eden V. Wells said Thursday, Jan. 14, that state health officials typically do not brief the governor's office of ongoing investigations, but continuing issues surrounding the city's water supply spurred the state's health agency to release information prior to a formal report being released. Health and Human Services Department Director Nick Lyon said during a Wednesday press conference with Snyder that his agency became aware of a spike in Legionnaires' cases around Flint in 2014. "In the late summer of 2014, we began to see a spike in these cases and we let the local health department know," Lyon said. "We actually stepped in with them and started doing some of these investigations." Six cases of Legionnaires' Disease were reported in Genesee County in June 2014, which was more than any other month since March 2010 and slightly less than the total number of cases reported in 2013, according to a June 2015 initial report on the outbreak released Wednesday by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. Since June 2014, there have been 87 reported cases of Legionnaires' Disease, resulting in 10 deaths, around the Flint area. The outbreak began just weeks after the city stopped using treated water from Detroit and began using the Flint River as the source of its drinking water, a change made by a Snyder-appointed emergency manager. The change has drawn international attention after it resulted in elevated blood lead levels for some of the city's youngest residents and reports of smelly, discolored water from other community members. Wells said the June 2015 report on the outbreak was initially shared with officials from the Genesee County Health Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who were working to identify a source of the outbreak. The report, which focused on 45 cases of Legionnaires' Disease reported between June 6, 2014, and March 9, 2015, explored each victim's potential connection to the Flint water system and Flint-based medical facilities. A source of the outbreak has not yet been identified. The June 2015 report showed all but 10 of the victims either had Flint drinking water at their residence or were at Flint medical facilities within two weeks of symptom onset. A Thursday release from the Genesee County Health Department stated residents cannot become ill from drinking water containing the bacteria responsible for Legionnaires' Disease. The release stated is a waterborne disease, usually located in man-made water supplies that aerosolize water, such as showers, hot water tanks, humidifiers, cooling towers, whirlpool spas and decorative fountains. Wells said studies continued into the outbreak when researchers observed a second outbreak of the disease. As health officials compiled data in December 2015, Wells said they decided to inform the governor of the problem. Snyder said he was informed of the outbreak in the days leading up to Wednesday's press conference. "The circumstances of these cases prompted the chief medical examiner and other leaders at the Department of Health and Human Services to brief the governor, and he decided to quickly make the information public," Snyder spokesman Dave Murray said. Legionella, the bacteria that can lead to Legionnaires' Disease, tends to thrive in warm, stagnant water, Wells said. The bacteria occurs naturally, which can make tracking its source difficult for investigators. "Legionella is a tough bacteria to investigate," Wells said. Wells said a new report, which include cases from the summer of 2015, is expected to be released within a week. However, investigators will continue working to identify the source and continue observing the Flint area as temperatures begin to warm in the spring, which could spell a return of the bacteria. "You can bet there would be a lot of interest as it gets warmer," Wells said. Barack Obama President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, Pool) (Evan Vucci) FLINT, MI - No face-to-face meetings have been discussed for Gov. Rick Snyder and President Barack Obama on Flint's ongoing water crisis while the president is scheduled to be in Detroit for the North American International Auto Show, a Snyder spokesman said. Snyder Press Secretary Dave Murray said Thursday, Jan. 14, his office has not been in discussions with White House officials for a potential meeting of the two leaders, but Snyder's team is continuing to work closely with federal officials to solving Flint's water woes. "The governor has been in contact with the Obama administration, both with staff in the White House and the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security," Murray said. "We're working with the federal authorities on pathways to potential resources and assistance for our efforts in Flint to protect the health and safety of its residents now and into the future." The president announced last week that he would be visiting the show on Jan. 20. Gov. Rick Snyder declared a state of emergency in the city earlier this month, but the water crisis emerged more than a year ago after the city switched water sources in April of 2014. The switch eventually was linked to elevated blood lead levels in some of the city's youngest residents. On Wednesday, Jan. 14, the Virginia Tech university professor who spent months studying Flint's water problems says the failure to treat Flint River water to make it less corrosive could have set off an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease here. Snyder announced the outbreak Wednesday, Jan. 13, during a press conference with the state's top health officials. From June 2014 to November 2015, 87 cases were confirmed in Genesee County. Ten of those were fatal. Officials said there's no evidence of a clear link between the outbreak and the water system change. U.S. Rep Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township, wrote a letter to the president Thursday asking for immediate federal assistance following news of the outbreak. : The first New Year of foreign students in Russia The New Year about which foreign students have heard so much at home came to Russia. On December 23, 2015 students of the Preparatory Faculty on training of foreign citizens who have come from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Vietnam, Jordan, Zambia, India, Congo, China and Yemen attended the New Year show in Maksim Gorky Rostov Drama Theater. The festive program has pleased both students and teachers. December 25, international students, together with representatives of the deans office and the curators of educational groups, took part in a New Years concert of the University. On December 29, 2015 the New Year concert was held at the Russian Language Department No. 1 of the Preparatory Faculty on training of foreign citizens. The concert program consisted of national songs and dances as well as songs and poems performed in Russian. On December 29, foreign students attended the New Years concert in Rostov musical theater. 30.12.2015 [January 15, 2016] Cale America Reloads with Colorado-Based Regional Sales Manager TAMPA, Fla., Jan. 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Cale America Inc., a leading supplier of payment technology for parking and transportation, has announced that Laura Lierz has been named as Regional Sales Manager. Based near Denver, Laura becomes Cale's first CAPP-certified member and Laura also serves on the Pacific Intermountain Parking & Transportation Association (PIPTA) board. Laura will join Max Corotis who became Cale America's Director of Sales in October of last year. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160114/322355 Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160114/322356LOGO "Cale's growing customer base in Colorado includes the addition of key new accounts like the City of Aspen, Town of Breckenridge and University of Denver," commented Max. "It only makes sense to bring on an experienced account manager in this region to strengthen our ability to support our many customers there. Laura brings a lot of integrity, technical knowledge and long-standing relationships and we are grateful that she will be an integral part of the new Cale America organization." Other parking and transportation programs n the region have worked with Laura as well including the University of Colorado, City of Boulder and Colorado State University. "I LOVE parking. I often dream of a perfect parking world," smiled Laura on her first visit to the Cale America corporate offices in Tampa, Florida. "You can say I am addicted to parking. Parking is my passion." As an original member of T2 Systems, Laura served in almost every customer-facing role. "I saw an opportunity with Cale to be part of a smaller team again, and one that is focused on sitting down with organizations, listening to their parking challenges and coming up with solutions. That's what I want to do." Laura extensive background compliments Cale America's expanding products and services such as mobile payments for parking, EMV chip card solutions, electronic permits and plate-based enforcement solutions, which will be released in the US in 2016. Cale America's Managing Director, Andreas Jansson, said the decision to add Laura to the new Cale team was a perfect fit and the right time. "Having Laura on board is a home run for Cale and its customers," remarked Andreas. "She gives us the ability to support our existing customers better while helping us implement new solutions for campuses, cities and parking operators around the country." About Cale America Cale Group incorporates over 60 years of experience in the design and development of secure and innovative payment solutions for unattended parking and transit locations with cloud-based management applications. Headquartered in Kista, Sweden, the Cale Group has subsidiaries in ten countries and a network of partners in over 30 countries worldwide. Cale America Inc. was established in 2012 and is Cale's largest subsidiary with systems installed in over 200 municipalities, campuses and privately-managed properties throughout the US, Puerto Rico and Bermuda. Contact Information: Andreas Jansson, Managing Director Cale America Inc. 13808 Monroes Business Park, Tampa, Florida 33635 USA 813-405-3900 Email www.caleamerica.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cale-america-reloads-with-colorado-based-regional-sales-manager-300204685.html SOURCE Cale America Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] "Rene Angelil, 73, passed away this morning at his home in Las Vegas after a long and courageous battle against cancer," Dion's publicist confirmed to CNN. "The family requests that their privacy be respected at the moment; more details will be provided at a later time," according to a post on Dion's website. Angelil, Dion's longtime collaborator, stepped aside as his wife's manager in June 2014 because of his battle with cancer. That August, Dion put her career on a temporary hold to help him fight the disease. The Clark County Coroner's Office said Angelil died from throat cancer. "We have determined Mr. Angelil's death was due to natural causes. No further investigation into his death is expected," the coroner said in a statement. Dion and Angelil met after the always-singing 12-year-old Dion recorded a demo and one of her brothers sent it to Angelil, who was a fledgling producer at the time. When Angelil didn't reply, the Dions called him directly to listen to it. That prompted Angelil to audition Dion in January 1981, and once he heard her, he mortgaged his house to pay for her debut album, "La Voix du Bon Dieu." By 1988, she was a star -- and an adult. Dion won the top prize at the Eurovision song contest, held that year in Dublin, Ireland. That's when they fell in love, Angelil said on CNN's "Larry King Live." In 1992, "Celine Dion" hit the stores and produced four chart toppers, including a duet with Peabo Bryson for the Disney movie "Beauty and the Beast." "And that was our key to America, at that point, 'Beauty and the Beast' was our first real hit in America," Vito Luprano, then-senior vice president of artists and relations for Sony Music Canada, said at the time. The duet won an Academy Award and a Grammy. At the time, Dion was 24. A lavish wedding, children, more hit records and the top hit, "My Heart Will Go On" for the movie "Titanic," followed. As did her current Las Vegas residency. Angelil is survived by his wife and the couple's three children, Rene-Charles, 14, and 5-year-old twins Nelson and Eddy -- and his adult children from a previous relationship, Anne-Marie, Jean-Pierre and Patrick. 15.01.2016 LISTEN Beautiful actress Chichi Neblett has thrown caution to the wind, announcing to those who care to listen, that they shouldnt add her to the list of actresses who engage in unnecessary and petty conflicts with each other. Chichi Neblett was unhappy that recent media reports had added her to the list of actresses engaged in petty brawls and conflicts with each other. The Liberian born Ghanaian took to social media on Thursday to clear herself. According to her, she was not in competition with anybody but her herself. No one is prettier than meneither am I prettier than anyone. ..we are all special in our own ways..Love my style. not copy copy lol..not in competition with anyone but myself. keep pushing Chi..Chi with God all things are possible. ..stay blessed, she said on Facebook without mentioning who exactly she was directing her message to. . A mother of one, she has been in Ghana's movie industry for over 10 years and acted in a number of movies. She was never known to have personal issues with another personality in the industry. But her comment on Facebook is raising questions as to whether she now has a bone to pick with somebody. Chichi Neblett, also a beauty therapist, is an enviable movie talent. She has featured in several Ghanaian films but became popular after featuring in 'Chasing Hope', a film by AA Productions. She has since acted in movies like 'Reason To Kill', 'Mummy's Daughter', '4Play', 'Who Loves Me', 'Kiss My Tears', 'Hot Romance', 'Death After Birth, Cheaters, etc. By Francis Addo (Twitter: @fdee50 Email: [email protected] ) She was the subject of small talk two years ago when she posted a picture of herself lying stark naked on a bed on a social media site which raised a considerable number of eyebrows and generated a lot of debate. But in the middle of the entire hullabaloo, the Uncle Obama hitmaker, Deborah Vanessa, has said that she does not regret doing that. She said this in an interview with Delay on the Delay Show. No I dont regret posting my nude photo. In fact that day, it gave me a lot of views on YouTube from 23,000 to 30,000. That picture was not meant for social media, they were for a photographer friend of mine who was writing a book on boudoir photography, she said. Narrating how the picture got in the media circle, she said; it was posted by the photographer after he called and asked for my consent. Deborah Vanessa Owusu-Bonsu was born on 25 August 1984 in Ghana to an Ashanti father and a Romanian mother. She is a television show host, model and musician. She attended Christ the King International School, then Wesley Girls High School and graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Publishing Studies from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. She holds a Masters Degree in Book/Journal Publishing from the University of the Arts, London. In 2012, Owusu-Bonsu recorded and released her first single, Uncle Obama and she is the host of Glitterati show on GhOne television. DEBORAH VANESSA DEBORAH VANESSA 1 DEBORAH VANESSA 2 DEBORAH VANESSA 3 DEBORAH VANESSA 4 DEBORAH VANESSA 5 DEBORAH VANESSA 6 DEBORAH VANESSA 7 DEBORAH VANESSA 8 DEBORAH VANESSA 9 15.01.2016 LISTEN Fritz Baffour, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Ablekuma South, has chastised the government for the unprofessional manner it broke the news about its decision to host the former wo Guantanamo detainees in the country. According to him, the roadmap government adopted in communicating the information to Ghanaians was flawed. The MP had earlier taken to Facebook to lament over the issue of government hosting the two detainees in the Ghana. He among other things wrote: President Mahama, cited moral and compassionate grounds, as well as arcane, diplomatic and top secret considerations in granting asylum to the men from the Middle East. My take on the matter is, any which way you can, Ghanaians in the main are not happy and my Government did not handle the process well, however good intentioned. Mr. Fritz Baffour who is also the chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Defense and Interior further defended his comments on Accra-based Citi FM Thursday. We heard about the Guantanamo bay too from an outside source; the Fox news, who revealed it before our government told us about it. I think the roadmap that was used to reveal what had happened to us was a little flawedIf there is a situation like that I think that we should have been informed or there should have been a way in which that decision could have been passed on to the people of Ghana and I thought that we didnt handle it well, he said. President John Mahama while interacting with the press on Tuesday justified the action and called for compassion for the Guantanamo detainees. But Fritz Baffour said it didnt have to be the president coming to explainand I think that we should have done far better in communicating the decision that has been made to Ghanaians after it had been taken. 15.01.2016 LISTEN Over-540 displaced workers of the five destination companies (DICs) whose valuation and classification contract with government was abrogated in August last year are still awaiting confirmation from the Ghana Revenue Authority and the Finance Ministry to be absorbed into the single window system. The workers were sent home when government abrogated its contract with the DICs - namely Ghana Link Network Services, Gateway Services Ltd., Webb Fontaine, BIVAC and Inspections and Control Services (ICS). Spokesperson for the group, Carl Sowah, told the B&FT in an interview: We are pleading with government to absorb our peculiar expertise into the new revenue generation stream; we don't want our 15 years of investments, skills and knowledge to go waste. We are ready to support Customs with our expertise and years of experience, under the new era, for government to rake in the much-needed revenue. According to Carl Sowah, the frustration of workers keeps growing by the day as the little redundancy package they received from their respective employers has been exhausted, while their chances of securing new jobs remain minimal. He added: I keep receiving calls from members regarding latest developments on the situation. The fact is that our skills and expertise are technical and peculiar; and that makes it difficult for us to find alternative jobs. Mr. Sowah, citing a couple of precedents, petitioned government to absorb them [the displaced workers] into the new revenue generation stream. From the border guard operations to the preventive wing of the then CEPS; from the Pre- shipment Inspection to Destination Inspection; and from the Sales Tax regime to VAT operations, workers of the previous scheme were smoothly absorbed into the current system. Mother-body of the displaced workers, the Maritime and Dockworkers Union of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), is currently engaged in negotiations with the ministries of Employment and Labour Relations and Finance, the GRA, and the Chief of Staff to get its members back to work. General Secretary of the union, Daniel Owusu- Koranteng, told the B&FT in an interview: We -MDU and the TUC - are currently petitioning government to speed up the processes to get the personnel onto the single window system. The Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations asked that we produce a database of the workers, which has been completed and forwarded to the GRA and MoF. What we are expecting is a meeting to discuss the framework within which the absorption process will take place. Mr. Owusu-Koranteng indicated that negotiations with all concerned state parties on the issue have been cordial and supportive, and advised that the process be fast-tracked to address the workers' plight as soon as possible. Dictator Museveni "graduating" his so-called "Crime Preventers" militia; his version of Interehamwe similar to those committed the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda. Several international human rights organizations have demanded that Uganda's dictator Gen. Yoweri Museveni immediately disband the so-called "Crime Preventers," as well as state security forces, made up of an array of killer squads organized by his police chief Gen. Kale Kayihura, raising questions about the integrity and viability of the Feb. 18 presidential election. This is a very important development. By official going on the record against Gen. Museveni's "Crime Preventers," these human rights groups can now refer any crimes by these militias to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Moreover, the dictator can't distance himself from the militias since he officially graduated them in ceremonies and even tweeted the photos himself. The ICC can use Gen. Museveni's own tweets as evidence against him and Gen. Kalihura. These human rights groups are on top of things because memories of Kenya's 2007-2008 election violence are fresh. Other specialized repression units include the Special Forces Command headed by Gen. Museveni's son Brig. Muhoozi Kaneirugaba. The family dictatorship is finally attracting global scrutiny abroad as evidenced by the strong statement of denunciation; but also a renewed sense of determination to resist within Ugandan nation itself. The statement by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Network Uganda (HURINET-U), Chapter Four Uganda, and Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI) reads, "Crime preventers have intimidated members of the political opposition and their supporters. One person interviewed alleged that crime preventers had gone door-to-door in one village, cataloging the political affiliations of villagers to intimidate them and discourage them from voting for the political opposition. Another crime preventer a supporter of an opposition political party told Human Rights Watch that commanders discriminated against him and attempted to expel him from training due to his political party affiliation." The statement adds, "A crime preventer in Fort Portal told Human Rights Watch, 'The commander told me that I should fight hard and fight the other parties. He said that were living in the ruling NRM era so other parties dont need to surface.'" The damning statement continued: "Crime preventers are also vulnerable to being used either paid or duped to support or oppose particular political candidates. Crime preventers from Gulu alleged that one member of parliament instructed them to wear T-shirts with an X crossing out 'JPAM,' the initials of John Patrick Amama Mbabazi, one of the presidential candidates, and to demonstrate against him. One crime preventer in Fort Portal said that a candidate paid his colleagues, armed with sticks, to beat up and disperse his opponents supporters. Crime preventers have also carried out violent arrests and extortion. Between May and October 2015, crime preventers violently beat at least 10 people with their fists and batons in separate incidents during arrests and extorted money from them, based on Amnesty International interviews with 13 victims and witnesses in Kampala and Gulu. Six of them were severely beaten by more than one crime preventer. Those responsible should be prosecuted for torture under Ugandan law covering torture by non-state actors, the groups said. A staff member at an organization that documents cases of torture registered 25 cases of people beaten by crime preventers between September 2014 and June 2015." The human rights organizations condemning the regime's intimidation of Ugandan citizens also reads, "A 25-year-old man in Kampala told Amnesty International that in June 2015, two crime preventers broke his left hand as they beat him with wooden sticks across his head, chest and limbs when questioning him about an alleged theft. He was not subsequently arrested. 'Crime preventers are not here to prevent crime,' he said. 'They are here to do the polices dirty work.' One crime preventer in Gulu admitted to Human Rights Watch: 'Some of my colleagues use a lot of force arresting. There was a day we went to arrest a suspected thief. One of my colleagues just started to beat. They try to beat to kill.'" Thank God the whole world is watching Gen. Museveni's atrocities. If unchecked killings by these security forces and militias could dwarf the 1994 Rwandan genocide. This is because the so-called "Crime Preventers" are Gen. Museveni's version of Interehamwe. The hope is that these international soundings, in addition to the preparation by a growing number of local Ugandan anti-genocidal forces to counter this Museveni madness, might just help to prevent national catastrophe of unimaginable proportions. Ugandans have responded with national defiance as is being advocated by Free Uganda and other anti-regime forces, such the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) whose presidential candidate is Dr. Kizza Besigye. It is important that even the GoForward group, led by former prime minister Amama Mbabazi has now begun to talk up the need for a systemic resistance against Gen. Museveni's evolving violence against the people of Uganda. The resistance which the GoForward Group actualized in Ntungamo, which saw Museveni's organized assault on peaceful Ugandans totally disabled and defeated; this must be the template for national self-defense against attempts by Museveni to commit mass murder and intimidate Ugandans. Instead of calming tension Gen. Museveni declared war on civilian supporters of Mbabazi ignoring the fact that his "Crime Preventers" initiated the conflict. In Ntungamo, a determined populace proved it cannot be enslaved forever. There comes a time when the people lose their fear of guns, bullets and tear gas. They are no longer scared of kidnappings, killings, and all sorts of intimidation by the regime. In Uganda that time has arrived. 15.01.2016 LISTEN Dr Mohammed Amin Adam, Executive Director of ACEP The Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) has called for an investigation into the power purchase agreement between Karpower and Government because the deal stinks more than the controversial $510 million AMERI Group agreement. In a statement issued recently in Accra, ACEP, which commended President John Mahama for engaging PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to diagnose the ills associated with the AMERI deal, stated: We are of the view that the scope of the work should be expanded to cover the Power Purchase Agreement between ECG and Karpower, a different arrangement for procuring power into the country. This is especially so because our analyses of the Karpower deal with ECG reveals another case of poor diligence. Further review of the deal shows that it is worse than a Build Own Operate and Transfer (BOOT) arrangement under which AMERI was procured. A typical PPA should have been over 20 years to spread the cost and thereby reduce the burden on consumers unlike the 10-year deal negotiated for the Karpower ship. Further basis . ACEP said its analysis indicate that the annual capital recovery charge fixed M&O for the 225MW Karpower plant amounted to $118.4 million since the total payment in 5 years amounted to $592 million, adding that Karpower is a 10-year deal so between years 6 and 10, there would be an additional fix cost of $495.8million. It said the variable charge for the deal was $15.2 million while the standby guarantee was $50 million. As far as transfer of ownership to Ghana is concerned, Ghana will take no ownership after five years nor after 10 years when the agreement comes to an end. It is a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), ACEP said. Liquidated damages on full commercial operation default before commercial operation date is $300/MW while the stability clause of the agreement said no change of law affects the contract. Equilibrium clause is provided where there is a cost effect. Karpower Ghana is also exempt from all applicable taxes including personnel income tax. The Government Consent and Support Agreement guarantee this. Also, the limitations of liability are not more than 10 percent of only the annual capital recovery fee. Proposition ACEP suggested that PwC should find out whether the use of BOOT or BOT was cost-effective and had value for money in procuring power projects. Furthermore, it called for the enquiry to consider whether PURC had been conducting due diligence and setting the appropriate benchmarks on PPAs to ensure that consumers were not saddled with higher tariffs, given that PPAs did not require parliamentary approval. We also think that the reason for this exercise falls short of the requirements of probity and accountability. In our view, the study should also provide relevant information to accountability institutions to investigate circumstances under which a deal so cloaked with controversies was negotiated for the country and to punish those found to have exercised such extreme indiscretion and bad faith in negotiating the deal. By Samuel Boadi 15.01.2016 LISTEN The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has rubbished the Electoral Commission's (EC's) decision not to compile a new voters' register for this year's elections. After months of tug-of-war over whether or not there was the need for a new register for the 2016 general elections, the EC commissioned a five-member panel to investigate the issues raised by the NPP that the existing register was flawed. On New Year's Eve, the EC announced that the panel found no merit in the NPP's allegations and therefore rejected the call for a new electoral roll. That was what baffled the NPP. At a press conference at its national headquarters yesterday, the party's Campaign Manager for the 2016 general elections, Peter Mac Manu struggled to make sense of the EC's decision, predictable as he said it was. The Commission is saying to Ghanaians that 'yes, our register is among the worst in Africa; yes it is bloated; but, so long as we don't have a proper national ID card in Ghana; so long as we don't have proper records of the dead, we cannot prevent illegal names from getting onto the electoral roll,' he stated. That, for him, was interesting since the NPP used Nigeria, Senegal, Kenya and Tanzania in its analysis on this point. Interestingly, the EC limited its response to only Kenya and even added South Africa, which was not part of the NPP's analysis, he noted, adding, We will want to know which reasons the EC provides for countries like Nigeria, which is only now rolling out a National ID system for its populace. He indicated, Nigeria's election management body was able to find an effective method of getting a more credible register without a national ID for its 2015 polls. Bloated Register According to Mr Mac Manu, the five members of the panel constituted by the EC themselves confirmed the fact that the existing voters' register was bloated. In their analyses, he said, the panel which included a renowned statistician, compared three key indicators estimated voter population, registered voters and estimated deceased in voters' register from 2010 to 2016 and that in their findings, they revealed that the number of names on the voters' register was unacceptably more than the total estimate of people eligible to register to vote in Ghana. The panel report, using data from both the EC and the Ghana Statistical Service, is of no doubt that both the 2012 register and the current updated register (2014) are bloated and flawed. It makes the case that even if Ghana was able to achieve the statistical improbability of a 100 percent registration of every eligible Ghanaian, the 2012 register should not have exceeded 13,650,237 names. This figure, according to him, was nearly 14 percent smaller than the voters' list used in 2012 and did not take into account those who registered illegally using NHIS cards. . Also, this was the register that the EC itself admits now that the AFIS software was not good enough to undertake any meaningful de-duplication in 2012, he revealed. Furthermore, Mr Mac Manu indicated that the panel was also unconvinced, among others, on the suggestion that there is no perfect register and that all registers since 1992 have been bloated, as claimed by Dr. Wereko-Brobby. The panel observed that, if true, this rather strengthens the case for looking at the accuracy of the register. He therefore noted that despite the EC's strong claims publicly that the panel rejected the call for a new register and suggestions that the panel had okayed the current register, the panel found that the register was flawed and could not be the basis for any election this year or in the future and suggested various ways for rectifying the situation. Togolese Register The NPP described as desperate attempts by the EC to create credibility issues for the document used by the party without any basis or any attempt to be fair to logic, especially on the use of the Togolese voters' register, a soft copy of which they presented to the elections body when it requested for it. For them, this is reminiscent of the theatrics of the EC exposed at the Supreme Court and shows that nothing much has changed at the EC since 2012; that they are desperate to aid the NDC in their propaganda and that after all, they still have a basic challenge with IT or understanding it. The fact is, whether the NPP found a million or a 1,000 Togolese on the register, the case was the same, that the register had been compromised and that there was the need for a new one. It was precisely because of this reasoning that the NPP did not ask for a cleaning of the 76,000 but asked for a compilation of a totally new register. It is as if the NPP had asked for a cleaning of the 76,000 that a case can be made for working for more names; but the evidence presented and the request made was totally not dependent on magnitude, the party chief said. Audit According to the NPP, the decision to audit the existing register shows how the EC is determined not to be transparent or fair the EC, together with whoever the NPP does not know, hired a so-called consultant, failed to even disclose the name of this consultant, what his track record is and the nature of the work he had been tasked to do. The NPP like all political parties we know of were kept in the dark and the EC, which in this case could be the compromised party, hired someone, only for EC to turn around and ask that we take the word of this unknown consultant as it came. How is this possible? Why was the EC determined to hide the consultant and the work he or she did? Why did the EC not allow for observers from the Political Parties to work with and observe the work of the consultant so everyone could have accepted his or her report? The NPP therefore served notice to the EC that we will have difficulties accepting the consultant's work as constituting a credible, comprehensive, independent, competent and conclusive audit of Ghana's biometric voters' register. For them, what will ordinarily suffice is an open, international tender for a credible NIST (National Institute of Standards & Technology) -certified AFIS info-system auditing expert to undertake this important task and in the presence of technical agents of all the political parties. The EC had no reason to botch this one up, by rushing it behind the backs of stakeholders, if it were genuinely interested in doing a good job. By Charles Takyi-Boadu 15.01.2016 LISTEN In the art of life, every man must be a self starter. We cannot wait for lucky breaks. We cannot demand our cheers in advance. To sit down idle and wait for the propitious moment when fate will smile upon us is to court personal disaster. Should Ghanaians sit down to be fooled by green grass? Definitely the answer is no. Co-incidentally, the ruling party has catalogued its so-called achievements in a book which it has been christened The Green Book. This book has become a sort of Mecca and reference point for all NDC apparatchiks. It is similar to Arthur Kennedys Chasing the elephant into the bush. These two books are full of misrepresentations, distortions, falsehood and blatant lies. Come to think of it. Wasnt it their leader and President of Ghana, late Professor Atta Mills who propounded the Dzi wo Fie Asem Mantra that sent the country into obscurity and oblivion? A friend of man translated literally, to mean eat your house matter, amidst a great deal of laughter. Mills mantra is similar to that of Mao Tse Tungs policy of shutting the doors of China to all foreigners. The United States had earlier on adopted the policy of isolation and non interference in the internal affairs of other countries. Latter events were to compel the country to review that policy. Late President Mills cannot there lay claims as the originator of the Eat your House Matter mantra. Let us go back into history. You will recall that when ECOWAS decided on the use of force as the last resort to flush out the illegal government of Laurent Gbagbo from power, late President Mills who had earlier endorsed the agreement returned home only to repudiate the agreement which he had earlier on endorsed. At that time all the top men of the NDC who today are singing the Alleluia chorus for bringing two criminals to Ghana were full of praises for the late President. They touted his credentials into the highest heavens and described him as the best thing to have ever happened in the country. They stated that late President Mills had saved Ghanaian soldiers from being slaughtered in Cote dIvoire. They further said that if Ghana joined forces with ECOWAS to flush out Gbagbo from Cote dIvoire, our citizens and our interests both within and outside might be targeted by forces loyal to Laurent Gbagbo. But today, less than four years after the demise of the former President under mysterious circumstances, the NDC has made a u-turn and gone to beg the United States to send two of the worst criminals being detained in Guantanamo to be sent down to Ghana, obviously for peanuts. What has happened? With this singular act, the Nefarious Destructive Cancer has desecrated the memory of late President, Professor John Evans Atta Mills. In essence they have denounced the late President as an insincere and uninspiring leader who doesnt have to be remembered in our history and statute books for anything. This is the greatest sacrilege of the century. Indeed, the NDC as apolitical party has put a nail on the coffin of our late President. It is tantamount to the greatest desecration of his name and all that he stood for. The late President might be turning in his grave for this singular act of betrayal by people he had trusted who turned out to be wolves in sheep skin President Mahamas emphatic statement that the two released detainees are innocent of the crime they were accused of because they were never tried, nor convicted will make him a laughing stock amongst the comity of nations. What does he know about international diplomacy and terrorism? I am ashamed that my own President could come out with such and infantile statement which does not portray him and the rest of his Cabinet as being on top of issues. We are talking of international terrorism and not about petty thieving. Let the President answer this question. Was Osama bin Laden tried and convicted in a normal Court of Law before the American sniffed the life out of him? The detainees were arrested after an exhaustive investigation process. Why didnt they arrest every Yemeni they found? Their arrest was made after tracking them down with sophisticated devices for long periods of time. The president should not dabble into unfriendly terrain where he knows nothing of. Left to me alone, he should fire all those who briefed or ill advised him into make that unguarded statement. They should not be given any award for common sense because they failed the president and the country at the most critical moment in the nations history. Have Government and the BNI accepted responsibility for the pregnant woman who died in the BNI Cells a few years back? What happened to the operatives who were interrogating her? Have the operatives been apprehended or reprimanded? Nothing of that sort has happened. And the President went off tangent to state that the detainees were innocent of the crime which they were accused of. What do the President and his Mismanagement Team know about international terrorism? Nothing! Let it be said here and there that it was International pressure on the United States that was paramount in the decision to release the criminals and nothing more. Hush, Government and its Mismanagement Team are plunging us deep into Golgotha and Armageddon. That will be our eventual destination. We have been there before and nobody is ever going to convince me that the decision to accept the two detainees will ever bring us any good. The only positive thing that will accrue from that diabolical plan is that some unpatriotic scoundrels will smile their way to the banks. You want to bet? Readers will recall that the Nefarious Destructive Cancer had made the issue of finding the killers of Yah Na and Issah Mobilla a campaign issue. When the NPP was leaving office after losing out in the December 2008 Presidential Elections, it handed over to the NDC three security personnel, who had been implicated in the death of Issah Mobilla, What happened after is something we cannot say because you and I were not there. We woke up one morning to be confronted with the news that one of the culprits had escaped from lawful custody. And this information came to us almost six months after the culprit had made good his escape. Haba! How is this possible in a high profile murder case, one might ask? It sounds unbelievable but it is true. What assurances is President, John Mahama who has relegated to the background the Dzi Wo Fie Asem (Eat your House Matter) mantra of his predecessor giving to Ghanaians that none of these international criminals will be allowed to escape from our prisons? If an ordinary Ghanaian murder suspect could escape from our prisons with ease, I shudder to think what would happen when two freed Guantanamo detainees, who are well versed in international terrorism, are placed under our custody? Will our security capos, not turn the other way and even show these detainees the escape route? And you know that under the Nefarious Destructive Cancer with John Dramani Mahama at the helm of affairs, anything can happen. My brothers and Sisters, these are my genuine fears. The words of our elders are words of wisdom. The wise man hears and gets s wiser. Mr. President and the cohorts in the Nefarious Destructive Cancer should please cool their heads. They cannot invent God and overthrow the world tomorrow. There have been their betters who tried this feat and failed. They should not suppress nor intimidate the masses with their threats of mayhem because they are not sure how long their power to ferment trouble will last. We live in a wonderful world, where the unexpected can happen at any time, Man is not all that sufficient! Mr. President and the Nefarious Destructive Cancer should take note of that. The past cannot be changed. But we must work through the Present in order to shape the Future. I stand as a link between the Present and the Future. Daniel Danquah Damptey ([email protected])0243715297 Self -Appointed Special Aide to Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo Authorities of Kwegyir Aggrey Senior High School at Anomabu in the Central Region say it is becoming increasingly difficult for students to learn ICT with just a few computers in the School. According to the Assistant headmistress of the School, teaching and learning of ICT when six students are crammed around one computer makes teaching and learning a burdensome one. The Assistant Headmistress of the School, Susana Manu revealed this when over 20 HP laptops and assorted books were donated to the School by SNG Canada, a benevolent organization. It is not easy for us. Imagine six students crowded around one computer during ICT lessons. How will the learning of ICT be convenient and easy for the students to understand? We are indeed very happy for such a gesture. This will augment the small number of computers we have to help the students. We are only asking for more. The Assistant Headmistress averred that most of the computers that the school uses are spoilt hence the situation they find themselves in. The ones that we have are almost spoilt. This is really going to help. This will reduce the ratio of students to a computer during ICT classes. Chief Executive Officer of SNG Canada, Gideon Ankrah says the gesture was in collaboration with the Ankrah Foundation in Ghana. According to him, the sole aim of organization is to bring smiles on the faces of students across Africa by supporting them with educational materials. I am more convinced we brought these laptops here. The challenge here was enormous and I believe this gesture will go a long way to enhance teaching and learning in the School. This is not the first time of donating such items. Our first time was in Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region where a similar donation was done. Gideon Ankrah thanked his collaborator Michael and one Mr. Boakye who he says helped to ship the items free of charge to Ghana. The joy of the School knew no bounds as students of the school thanked the benefactors profusely. 15.01.2016 LISTEN Charles Abugri speaking to the press The Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) has come out with a commercial agriculture and investment guide for the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone of Ghana. The guide, which was launched in Accra yesterday, provides information on business environment indicators in Ghana. It covers an inventory of natural resources for large-scale agriculture, including information on climate, soil and hydrographic network and a land suitability assessment under rain-fed and irrigated conditions for 25 different crops. It also contains five proposed large irrigation schemes and 23 potential dam sites that could be developed for hydro power, irrigation, flood control and fisheries. Against a background of selected national socio-economic data, the guide proceeds to highlight findings relating to SADA Zone. Charles Abugri, Chief Executive of SADA, in an interaction with the press, said the commercial agriculture guide had become necessary due to the lack of intimate knowledge about the zone and limited literature devoted exclusively to showcasing Ghanas Northern Savannah Ecological Zone. He said the guide presents information on the resources available in the SADA Zone for large-scale agriculture, including hydrography, soil and climate, adding that major crops experimented include maize, Soyabean, sorghum, pearl Millet, bunded rice, cotton, citrus, pineapple, sugar cane, cassava, groundnut and mango, among others. Within all the districts, the guide shows the effect of game-changing irrigation schemes on soil properties, providing a glance of how a similar transformation as occurred in the Brazilian Savannah could be possible in the Ghanaian savannah, Mr. Abugri said. He said institutions and individuals who are keen on exploring the renewable energy potential within the SADA Zone will also find it useful. In the same vein entities engaged in real estate and renewable energy will find useful information on the potential that the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone offers within these sectors, Mr. Abugri said. He revealed that Queiroz Galvao from Brazil, with the technical leadership of the Soil Research Institute, assisted SADA in the development. Sully Adam, Board Chairman of SADA, said the guide is one of the tools intended to inspire, motivate and attract a renewed interest in commercial agriculture in the SADA Zone. Such a guide should inspire, motivate and trigger national commitment to irrigation. However once irrigation technologies are introduced, there must be accompanying mechanization systems to support it, he said. He therefore welcomed development partners to contribute to the provision of warehousing facilities. By Cephas Larbi [email protected] 15.01.2016 LISTEN The police in Accra are holding three persons over their alleged involvement in two separate robberies in some parts of the city. They are Yaw Appiah, trader; Daniel Armah and Bernard Owusu, both dancers. Yaw and his accomplices-Muhammed, Anyen Bee and Burger now at large-are reported to have on January 6, this year robbed one Peter Zhan, a Chinese national of his HP laptop, three iPhones, one tablet, four wrist watches, jewelries, bags, clothes, shoes and perfumes all valued at GH46,272, $2500, 5,000 and GH30,000 cash. In the case of Armah and Owusu, it is the case of the prosecution that they on January 6, 2016 at La in Accra conspired and robbed one Gloria Adjei of her Infinix Hot Note phone worth GH800, a lady's bag containing an Apple ipad valued at GH2,500 and a purse with cash of GH400. Appearing in a court presided over by Aboagye Tandoh, the accused persons variously denied the offence and were remanded into police custody until January 27. Yaw . Prosecuting, DSP Patience Mario said on the said day, Peter was conversing with his wife at about 6:30pm when he was attacked by Yaw and four other armed men wearing masks and holding locally manufactured pistol. She said Peter reported the case to the Adenta police and a tracking device of the phone led to the arrest of the accused at his hideout in his kiosk at Madina with the phone beside him. The police officer said during a search a mask, and an enema bottle containing a liquid substance suspected to be acid and various currencies were found. DSP Mario said Yaw told the police that the monies were his part of the booty from the robbery. On the part of Armah and Owusu, the two paddies attacked Gloria at about 9pm with a cutlass when she and her friend were returning from the La Pleasure Beach. The prosecutor said the accused persons as a result succeeded in robbing the complainant of the afore-stated items but they were chased and arrested by Gloria and other witnesses in the case. By Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson [email protected] 15.01.2016 LISTEN Fourteen fire outbreaks have been recorded so far in the New Juaben municipality of the Eastern Region, since January this year. According to statistics, 11 bushfires have been recorded as well as three domestic fires causing damage to the local Presbyterian Church at Bonya, a suburb of Koforidua. Speaking to Ghana News Agency, in an interview the Municipal Fire Officer, Deputy Fire Officer (DFO) Gyasi Boateng, cautioned the public against activities that could cause fire outbreak. DFO Boateng indicated that because of the harmattan all combustible materials are dry and advised the public to be careful with fire-related materials and electrical gadgets. He urged the citizenry to quench used fires and put off all electrical gadgets when not in use, adding that a small fire outbreak could become big leading to the destruction of properties. DFO Boateng said investigation was ongoing to ascertain the cause of the fire outbreaks. GNA 15.01.2016 LISTEN A detachment of military personnel on Wednesday landed on the soil of Agogo in the Asante-Akyem North district of the Ashanti Region to forestall a potential upheaval following the gruesome murder of a popular fetish priest by a Fulani herdsman. Thirty-year-old Akwasi Badu was reportedly shot to death at close range in his farm on Monday by Aliu Baba, a 16-year-old Fulani cowboy, after the victim protested the grazing of his farm by cattle that were being tended by the teenager. Peace in the area has been very fragile due to tension between local residents and Fulani herdsmen. Ashanti Regional Minister, Peter Anarfi Mensah, said the latest development renewed the existing tension that tended to breach the peace and security of the area, which therefore, compelled the Regional Security Council (REGSEC) to send military personnel to deal with the situation. He told DAILY GUIDE in an interview that even though the soldiers had since been withdrawn, it was most likely they would be sent back to flush out the Fulanis and their cattle from the area after a review meeting by REGSEC. We have also decided to link up with the Eastern Region to draw a strategy so that we can put up a common front to combat the situation, Mr. Anarfi Mensah disclosed. . The regional minister, who assured residents of maximum security and protection of lives and property, indicated that the security officers had been able to bring the tension under control. We have not let the people down. In fact, our [security] men have been on the ground since; only that we reduced the numbers because in the rainy season these people move about. It is only in the dry season that you see a bunch of Fulanis and their cattle moving into the area, he noted. According to him, the tenacity of the various security agencies to deal with potential threat and breach of security had kept the Ashanti Region in peace, with accompanying reduction in crime wave. Mr. Anarfi Mensah commended the police for their thorough vigilance and hard work, and charged them to keep it up. On the re-occurrence of fire outbreaks at the Kumasi Central Market, the regional minister said permanent solution lies in the re-construction of the market that would take into consideration the various recommendations by fire officers and investigative committees. He added that the Fire Service had also been instructed to put up a temporary fire station at the Roman Hill area as part of temporary measures to deal with the situation, aside sensitisation and education. From Ernest Kofi Adu, Kumasi Queenmother of the market, Mrs. Samira Bawumia and Titus-Glover cutting the tape for the opening of the market 15.01.2016 LISTEN Hajia SAMIRA Bawumia, wife of Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, New Patriotic Party (NPP) vice presidential candidate, has described President John Dramani Mahama as insensitive and unsympathetic to women in the country. According to her, women, mostly traders, are suffering under the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration. She added that the only lives that have been improved under the Mahama administration are those of NDC supporters and that Ghana needs a leader who feels for all citizens and not a group of people. The wife of the NPP running mate further stated that President Mahama was not sympathetic to the plight of the citizenry, thereby giving women less attention coupled with the life of the ordinary Ghanaian which has been deformed and not transformed. Hajia Bawumia made the statement at the commissioning of a market square constructed by the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tema East, Daniel Nii Kwartie Titus-Glover. The well-known market called Kosua Dwoaso in Tema, which was renovated by the MP at a cost of GH140, 000, comes with newly constructed accommodation, washroom and concrete floor among others. She was emphatic that the 2016 polls would offer the opportune time to change government and save Ghana, hence Ghanaians should vote for the NPP led by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for better living condition and to save Ghana. For his part, Hon Titus-Glover noted that it was time for the party to close ranks and aggressively work to ensure victory for the party and victory for the people of Ghana. He declared this year as action year to ensure NPP returns to power after the 2016 general elections, promising more development for the constituents of Tema East, including the construction of an ultra-modern computer lab for the students of Manhean Senior High School (SHS) and expansion of the Manhean Clinic. From Vincent Kubi, Tema 15.01.2016 LISTEN My late mother Afia Anokyewaa opined to me My son make better out of worse situations that life beacons your way in order to move forward positively towards your destiny. It is in light of this time tested principle, that I plead with Ghanaians, to ask for divine wisdom, especially our Religious Leaders both Christians and Muslims together with our politicians, to make better out of seemingly worse situation of the deal of our Executive arm of government, President Mahama. Every patriotic Ghanaian should not degrade terrorist-phobia into Muslim or Christian issues. But we must be guided by principles and honorable values as Ghanaians. It may be in bad taste that the executive arm of our government unilaterally, negotiated for Ghanas two August visitors of Ex-Gitmo detainees with Obamas administration without consulting the other two arms of government, especially, the Legislature. President Mahama, the Son of Jakpa, in his act of bravado became insensitive to the probable atmosphere of terrorist-phobia that has gripped most Ghanaians with possible ramifications that can jeopardize our sense of peace in the country. The Presidents attempted explanation at 12 January, 2016 Press interaction at FlagStaff House on the Ex-Gitmo guys along the lines of his personal Christian principles and compassionate character is indeed a national security threat; one of such ramifications is the response by the Spokesperson for the National Chief Imam, Sheik Aremeyaw Shaibu on 13 January, 2016 peacefmonline.com. True courage of a leader is NOT only being afraid of guns and cutlasses but being able to say I AM SORRY. In as much as the INTENTION and SECURITY background check may be granted our President, for which I personally do as Independent Presidential Candidate 2012 its still not convincing enough For, in the face of procedural notification requirement to Parliament as well as the sudden shock of terrorist-phobia exacerbated by our religious leaders on the innocent good people of Ghana, a BETTER RECONCILIATORY STATEMENT from our President can heal any potential security threat posed by religious misunderstanding. For, all things may be LAWFUL for President Mahama but all may not be HELPFUL to our President and Country. Putting the snippets of information together with a possible irrevocable deal by our President, what can we make better out of the presence of our two Ex-Gitmo detainees, however apprehensive we may cynically disillusion in order to co-exist as Ghanaians and give the world the gift of solution of transforming lives? LETS FACE OUR FEARS REALISTICALLY The Ramifications of possible security threat cannot be ruled out with the presence of Ex-Gitmo detainees in Ghana. Our apprehension should neither lead into self-destruct of ourselves where the issue is degraded into Muslim- Christian faction stances. Nor do we need to fight back our President to possibly repatriate Ex-Gitmo detainees back to Guantanamo as the repercussion can pose great security threat to us all. Nor should we reduce the issue to religious compassionate gestures and prayers for someone to take responsibility of our destiny. Rather the inertia of our religious sectarianism coupled with partisan politics degenerating all of our cherished principles and value systems must give way to momentum towards obligatory Patriotism for self-organization to empathize with one another's challenges in order to translate our fears into impacting Ex-Detainees lives. I believe as a Christian born at the Zongo, our Muslims brothers are more challenged with the tactful handling of the ex-Gitmo detainees. This is due to sectarian conflicts among Muslims in the Middle East. They need our support and understanding in the face of the fact that Muslims were not also consulted as well. The apprehension of our Christian brothers however is no different from the handling of the first century terrorist, Apostle Paul by the then Christian communityas narrated in the holy Bible.(Acts 9) I will urge our Christian brethren to muster the courage of Ananias and share ideas with our Muslims brothers and the government how best to nurture change agent principles in our Ex-Gitmo detainees in Ghana. WHAT GHANA CAN SHOWCASE TO MOVE FORWARD POSITIVELY TOWARDS OUR DESTINY Ghana is blessed with religious tolerance that has eluded most countries in the world. Leaving our two visitors without engaging them productively to help them to lead productive lives and also be beneficial to humanity will be a great failure on us as a country. Our values of conscientious hospitality must be extended to give hope and meaning to life. Our faith community and the government must interact and draw extensive programme based on their respective interests for the two years ahead of them in Ghana. Though we see suspected terrorists out of the two ex-Gitmo Detainees today, we must see special envoy of peace to countries for the world. Office Of Jacob Osei Yeboah, 2012 Independent Presidential Candidate 15.01.2016 LISTEN I spent Christmas and the beginning of this new year in the Brong Ahafo region. A very busy, business friendly region populated by a cross section of development minded and traditionally oriented individuals. While jollying and moving to the rhythms of the holidays in the beautiful township of Nkoranza, my attention got drowned in the most topical issue within that part of Ghana - a ponzi scheme which had found concerted ways to rob its unwary and vulnerable victims of assorted monetary amounts ranging from hundreds to thousands of Ghana Cedis. Each day when I strolled through the town, I experienced a very calm setting of a township which has at least three out of every ten random sampled humans as victims of the ponzi. Shops had been closed, stories of poor holidaying euphoria hit my eardrums from many angles of private and public conversations. The people of Nkoranza, fell prey to the swindling schemes of Jaster Motors and Investment Company, God is Love Fan Club and the most controversial and popular among the group - DKM Diamond Micro-finance Ltd. My interest on the subject hit roof when I heard the news of the kidnapping of a three year old daughter of a staff of Jaster Motors' corporate sister - Jerryson FM (a local radio station with huge listenership in the town) by a victim to demand as ransom, his entire deposits in the vaults of Jaster. I was met by the reality that this saga had potents to devolve into a security mess. Though the police had the young girl rescued, the truth is, every staffer past or present of Jaster Motors, God is Love Fan Club and DKM continues to live under a dark cloud of fear, unknowing when he or she will be attacked by the irate victims whom are rummaging and exploring for means regardless of legality to claw back their funds. The closest circle of my host has a woman in her forties who discloses that she has over sixty thousand cedis locked with Jaster Motors. Several other friends and associates of my host have more bizarre stories that if I chose would fit a concept for writing a sizzling novel, but the consideration of that will be dealt with on another fine day as this. On my return journey from Nkoranza via the economically relative super-active town of Techiman, I encountered a gentleman estimated to be in his thirties who sat across the aisle on the row I was seated in the VIP Bus destined Accra. Our discussion revealed he stayed in Techiman but has travelled and stayed across the Brong Ahafo region within the last five years and has deep knowledge of the business setting of the area. By the time we had cross Offinso into the realm of the Ashanti Region, we were deeply engrossed in the subject of what seemed to be the way out of this saga. His quality insights against my curios queries carried the conversation through. For the characteristic reason that Jaster Motors and God is love functioned differently from DKM, I will restrict this to the talks on the Microfinance firm - DKM Diamond which begun operations in 2006 when the concept of microfinance begun to geminate on the beds of our economic landscape. The entity, duly licensed throughout its valid operations by the Central Bank has offices in Wa, Bolgatanga, Wenchi, Techiman, Sunyani, Nkoranza and other economically active towns within that belt. It is estimated to have engaged over a million Ghanaians in the wheeling of their business. The nucleus of their operations is an insanely attractive depository product which entice customers with hefty and trans-standard returns package. Reports indicate that directors had sustained interest packages of 80% ninety days fixed deposit products through to the recent 50% return package on same time space across these years of their operations. How they managed to maintain that until the eleventh day of May 2015 when the Central bank disrupted their business have unknown explanations that many ears are waiting to consume. I gathered that the firm has customers who have worked with them for over three years and have fond testimonies of their relationship. Many have made fortunes that they would have never encountered from the conventional investment system if DKM had not met them. My VIP Co-Passenger says he was a student in Sunyani when he first heard of them. He graduated from a mere hearer to a customer at a point until he completed schooling. He has friends whom have worked for DKM at a point and can disclose based on interactions with them that on the face, DKM's modus operandi looked genuine and plausible. He takes to an analogy that my banking background appreciates to a minimal extent. A financial intermediation firm scrambles for as much deposits that it can fetch and channels them into short call credit markets which is noted for higher rewards amidst a risky profile. It was then that I was reminded that DKM has quite a substantial fraction of borrowers to it's fixed depositors mass. The insane margin of returns, he believes, was initially a marketing promotional idea that overreached its purpose. Eager to get on, the firm continually pursued same business strategies even in the face of changing general dynamics in the finance market, arguably the root cause of their latter woes. Compounding their hassle was a move by DKM's Chief Director, Delle to go on an entrepreneurial adventure drawing directly from the blood of the microfinance's vault. He established a shea-butter processing plant, transport chain, farms and petroleum pump stations hoping to reap some eggs of gold from these businesses to cushion his riskier financial intermediary expedition. My deductions from these acuity was that DKM was grinding towards a halt, that is if it kept going this tangent of business strategy. The halt wouldn't have been in 2015, but it was really close. But the gentleman whose insights moved me into writing what you are reading had a contrary belief to my assertion that Delle was steering DKM to a halt. He says the firm was evolving, He discloses that in 2015, he understands that the firm had more non-fixed deposits than a year ago. He explains that DKM had warmed into the hearts and minds of the people as a reliable financial partner that folks reposed in them more confidence than it offered the mainstream properly regulated banks. This reveals why religious groups, SMEs, social groups and scores of individuals opened ordinary savings accounts with them as a tail to other investment products they have subscribed earlier. He disclosed as well that the interest on 90-day FD was scheduled to drop by at least 10% by the second half of 2015. To him they were seemingly on course until the Central Bank incautiously grounded their operations. He argued vigorously that after the panic button was hit in May 2015, the firm was never going to get back to work at ease. His latter point I subscribe to unlike his former. This preambles my address to the frail form of supervision the Central Bank grants to the sector of non-Banking financial institutions. Indeed, my thesis at the end of my degree program at the University focused on the Bank of Ghana, in which I recommended that the supervision of the the entire non-Bank and Bank sector should be decoupled from the Central Bank so it can focus on its core monetary economic business. When I bought waakye at a stall in the Nkoranza township, an oldlady whose conversation with a taxi driver I eavesdropped asked a question that when analyzed carefully absolves all the victims from blame save their gullibility. She asked why DKM's offices had a police guard manning or in appropriate sense, complementing its security during the days of its operations. Was that not symptomatic of the state's moral endorsement accredited to the operations of the firm? The Bank of Ghana's license to operate a microfinance firm anywhere in the country is not an absolute infinite green-light. The licenses are subjects to annual renewal, I am reliably informed. How did DKM pass the tests to keep their operating tickets in the past years when it engaged in more severe phases of their business scheme? Did the Bank of Ghana adjudge the firm as liquidly apt for the scope of their business only to realize they have dipped months after? A possibility of that will be more than scary! The prime essence of regulators in liberal markets is the protection of consumers and producers from abuse and severe harm cross respectively. One ideology that seems not to be the reality in Ghana. So its common to see policyholders complain of being ripped off by insurance companies whiles the National Insurance Commission staffs sit in the cozy-set offices enjoying their monthly salaries over no effectual work done. I have a similar account of the million-cedis-making National Communications Authority who seem to only have a mouth when it comes to heaping levies and taxes on services rendered by telcos. These cited bodies has the Bank of Ghana as their senior brother. The nations Central Bank can be credited for creating that path of taking the work of a regulator for granted. Though there are many victims in this saga, I must recount that there is as well some amount of beneficiaries. The gentleman I engaged hinted that many existing debtors of DKM are benefitting from this freeze since the firm has been rendered too weak to pursue them, this I can agree. I believe the debt assets of DKM should be pursued on their behalf by the authority which has suspended its operations. The microfinance sector has many risks for consumers and entrepreneurs alike, hence its hightime the Central Bank whiles it continues to function as the regulator, stops using the ostrich approach in managing its responsibility, a responsibility that has dire national security consequence. PS: A sequel to this article will zoom into the partisan ill-exploitation of this saga and how a national political approach could make or unmake the desired solution. Thanks to Greg Folkers for alerting me to this correspondence in The Lancet: Anticipating the international spread of Zika virus from Brazil. Click or tap through for links to sources and a map showing regions with high risk of transmitting Zika to local Aedes populations by travellers from Brazil. (Spoiler alert: If you live in Florida, skip the Rio Olympics.) In May, 2015, locally acquired cases of Zika virusan arbovirus found in Africa and Asia-Pacific and transmitted via Aedes mosquitoeswere confirmed in Brazil. The presence of Aedes mosquitoes across Latin America, coupled with suitable climatic conditions, have triggered a Zika virus epidemic in Brazil, currently estimated at 440 0001 300 000 cases. Viraemic travellers have now introduced Zika virus into at least 13 additional countries, where susceptible Aedes mosquitoes have become infected and perpetuated local transmission cycles. In Brazil, a precipitous surge in infants born with microcephaly and the detection of Zika virus RNA in the amniotic fluid of affected newborns has been reported. We sought to identify high-risk international pathways for the dispersion of Zika virus and global geographies conducive to autochthonous transmission. We created a global Zika virus spread model by adapting a seasonal model for dengue that integrates global ecological niche data for Aedes aegypti and albopictus and worldwide temperature profiles. In Brazil, we identified airports within 50 km of areas conducive to year-round Zika virus transmission. We mapped the final destinations of international travellers departing from these airports from September, 2014, to August, 2015, using worldwide flight itinerary data from the International Air Transport Association. We used LandScan, a gridded global population dataset, to estimate numbers of people living in geographies at risk for autochthonous Zika virus transmission. 99 million travellers departed from the aforementioned Brazilian airports for international destinations, with 65% to the Americas (figure), 27% to Europe, and 5% to Asia. Traveller volumes were greatest to the USA (2 767 337), Argentina (1 314 694), Chile (614 687), Italy (419 955), Portugal (411 407), and France (404 525). China and Angola received the highest volume of travellers in Asia (84 332) and Africa (82 838), respectively. Argentina, Italy, and the USA have more than 60% of their populations residing in areas conducive to seasonal Zika virus transmission, whereas Mexico, Colombia, and the USA have an estimated 305, 232, and 227 million people, respectively, living in areas conducive to year-round transmission. In parallel to the recent experience with chikungunya, Zika virus has the potential to rapidly spread across Latin America and the Caribbean. With no vaccine or antiviral therapy available, possible interventions include: personal protection (ie, repellent use) and daytime avoidance of mosquito bites (especially pregnant women until more is known about the association between Zika virus infection and microcephaly); daytime avoidance of mosquito bites among Zika virus-infected individuals to disrupt human to mosquito to human transmission cycles (80% of infected individuals are asymptomatic and the remainder have clinical syndromes overlapping with dengue and chikungunya); and community-level mosquito surveillance and control measures. The summer Olympic Games in Brazil in August, 2016 heighten the need for awareness of this emerging virus. The Progressive People's Party (PPP) has condemned President John Mahama over his decision to allow two Guantanamo Bay detainees linked to Osama Bin Ladin's Al-Qaeda terrorist group into the country. President Mahama addressing the media on Tuesday in Accra made a compassionate appeal to Ghanaians to have mercy on the two suspected terrorists who have been 'smuggled' into Ghana against the will of the masses. But the Progressive People's Party in a statement signed by its National Secretary, Murtala Mohammed said the presence of the two former detainees Mahmud Umar Muhammad Bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih Al-Dhuby in the country poses threat to national security, asking the President to come clean on the political reasoning and justification for imposing these prisoners on Ghana. The party described Mr. Mahama's appeal to Ghanaians to allow the two suspected terrorists into the country as a well-calculated attempt by the President to hide behind the veil of religion to loot the masses, urging all sound-thinking Ghanaians not to entertain the President's propaganda over the matter. This propagandist and holier than thou attitude of the President regarding the GITMO prisoners cannot hold. It is but an excuse as usual by a politician to hide behind the veil of religion, looting the masses with impunity. Ghana is a secular country governed by the rule of law not emotions and religious biases. Since news broke that the NDC government had signed an agreement with the US to bring the GITMO prisoners into Ghana, there has been huge public outrage, with many asking the government not allow them into the country for security reasons. But at a press conference in Accra on Tuesday to mark his third anniversary in office, Mr. Mahama gave the assurance that the presence of the two suspected terrorists poses no security threat to the country, saying We don't have anything to fear from them. As Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces, the safety and security of this country is of the greatest concern to me probably more than any Ghanaian; I will not take any decision that will jeopardise the security of this country because it's my duty to ensure that this country is safe. On the performance of President Mahama on the country's economy, the PPP expressed disappointment, saying the President gave an unimpressive account for his seven-year stewardship at the press conference on Tuesday. The PPP believed Mr. Mahama used the press conference to make excuses and blame all others except himself for the current challenges his government is facing, especially Corruption, Excessive Taxation, Utility Price Hikes, Micro Finance Fraud, Power Crisis, Education and National Security. Governments are voted into office to solve the many challenges that bedevil the progress and development of the people, asking him (Mahama) to put an end to the blame game and focus on addressing the mess he has caused the national economy. BY Melvin Tarlue Real Admiral Geoffery Mawuli Biekro (right), handing over the staff of to Commodore Peter Faidoo the new Chief Naval Staff 15.01.2016 LISTEN The Ghana Navy held a pulling out ceremony for Real Admiral Geoffrey Mawuli Biekro, the outgoing Chief of Naval Staff (CNS) at the Naval headquarters, Burma Camp, Accra yesterday. Commodore Peter Faidoo takes over from R/ADM Biekro, who proceeds on retirement after 40 years service to the Ghana Armed Forces. In his acceptance speech, Commodore Peter Faidoo, who has served for close to 36 years in the Navy, gave assurance that he will initiate programmes which will consolidate the gains of his predecessor to ensure a vibrant Naval Force. R/ADM Biekro was appointed the Chief of Naval Staff in March 2013. During his tenure, the Ghana Navy has witnessed significant development in infrastructure, among others. The event was attended by several guests, including the top brass of the Ghana Armed Forces, Retired Navy Officers and Navy Officers Wives Association. R/ADM Biekro was honoured with a citation, art works (Blue Storm) and a 78-inches curved screen Samsung television, among others. The Naval Command has subsequently named the National Training Command at Sogakofe in the Volta region and the auditorium at the Naval headquarters complex in Burma Camp, Accra after him. In his farewell speech, R/ADM Geoffrey Biekro thanked the command for their support which made his nearly three-year tenure as Chief of Naval Staff very eventful. R/ADM Biekro was also happy that the Ghana Navy was adjudged 'Best Navy in West Africa' by the coveted security Watch Africa Magazine during his tenure, adding that this has made the Navy one of the most prestigious, professional and enviable institutions in the sub-region. By Solomon Ofori Egypt's inter-ministerial National Coordinating Committee to Combat and Prevent Illegal Migration (NCCPIM) has launched its first Annual Report. Speaking at the launch of the report in Cairo, NCCPIM head Ambassador Naela Gabr thanked IOM for its support, its role in developing Egypt's national anti-smuggling law, and its awareness raising campaign to inform young Egyptians of the risks and dangers of irregular migration. The report addressed the achievements and challenges of the 2014-2015 NCCPIM National Action Plan, and future plans to develop a National Strategy for 2016-2018. The establishment of a national referral mechanism for migrants in Egypt is an essential element for protecting the rights of migrants as stated by the anti-smuggling law, said Ambassador Gabr. She also called for the establishment of a trust fund to support those in need. NCCPIM's National Action Plan on Preventing Illegal Migration is based on four main pillars: legislative activities, documentation activities, awareness raising activities, and regional and international cooperation. NCCPIM was established by Prime Ministerial Decree in 2014 to coordinate national efforts on combatting irregular migration to, through and from Egypt. It comprises of 20 relevant ministries and government bodies. 15.01.2016 LISTEN The Kenyan Ministry of Health has issued an alert on the outbreak of yellow fever in Ghana, requesting passengers who are entering the country (Kenya) from the affected areas to be vaccinated. Passengers and crew from a local affected area shall have valid yellow fever vaccination certificates, a release signed by the Director of Public Health at the Kenyan Health Ministry, Kepha Ombacho, has stated. He said passengers who arrive in Kenya without valid certificates will have to be under quarantine surveillance for six days. Mr. Ombacho claims the measures are necessary to secure the public health of the people of Kenya, adding that aircrafts arriving from affected areas will also be disinfected. Ghana's Ministry of Health earlier this week confirmed the outbreak of yellow fever and meningitis in the West Gonja and Tain districts of the Northern and the Brong-Ahafo Regions respectively, leading to the death of 10 people. The head of public relations unit of the ministry, Tony Goodman, said there had been no change in the number of cases and deaths recorded. Thirty suspected cases with seven deaths have been recorded relating to meningitis in the Tain district, while a total of 12 cases of yellow fever have been reported, out of which three have died since the beginning of 2016. . It is worthy of note that the responses of the regions and districts so far are appropriate and adequate and we expect these response actions to contain and halt the outbreak. The districts teams have been supported by the regional and national teams in order to contain the spread. There has not been any case for the past two days, the release indicated. The Ghanaian public is requested to report early to a health facility if they see any symptoms, because this can significantly improve treatment outcome and chances for survival. Yellow fever is an acute febrile illness that presents with fever and jaundice (yellowish discoloration of the eyes), muscle pain with prominent backache, and headache. There may be bleeding tendencies. The disease spreads by the bite of infected mosquitoes (Aedes mosquitoes). Symptoms appear after an incubation period of three to six days following the bite of the mosquitoes. Most patients improve and their symptoms resolve after three to four days. Meningitis is an inflammation of the lining of the brain and spinal cord (meninges). Causes include bacterial, viral, parasites and even chemical. Transmission or spread is by direct contact, including respiratory droplets from nose and throat of infected persons or carriers. Signs and symptoms of meningitis include sudden onset of severe headache, fever, vomiting, neck stiffness and photophobia (dislike for light). Other symptoms include lethargy, coma and convulsions. In babies, there may be bulging of the anterior fontanelle (soft part of the bead). By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri Ishmael Tetteh in Court 15.01.2016 LISTEN Ishmael Tetteh, an unemployed man, has been arraigned before the Accra Circuit Court (5), presided over by Mrs. Abena Oppong Adjin-Doku on charges of kidnapping and impersonation. The prosecutor Detective Inspective Kofi Atimbire said that on December 26, 2015, the complainant, Alex Afedo, a carpenter and resident of Christian Village in Accra, could not locate his four-year-old daughter so he reported the matter to the police. According to Inspector Atimbire, the police advised the complainant to make an announcement on radio. The complainant, on Monday December 28, 2015 accordingly made an announcement on Peace Fm. John Kwashie, who is the brother-in-law to the complainant, put his cell phone number out for people to contact him. The prosecutor explained that few hours after the announcement, John Kwashie received a phone call from the accused person who claimed he knew where the missing girl was and demanded GH300 in order to release her. Furthermore, Detective Inspector stated that John Kwashie pleaded with the accused for a reduction and sent the accused person GH200 on different occasions through mobile money transfer. . Explaining further, Detective Inspector Kofi Atimbire said the accused person failed to produce the missing girl and kept demanding for more money. The police monitored and tracked the accused person through his conversation with John Kwashie. He was arrested on January 8, 2016 at Adoagyiri, near Nsawam. According to the prosecutor, further investigation by the police revealed that the accused person posed as a police sergeant in his area. The accused person, who pleaded guilty with explanation, was accordingly charged with two counts of kidnapping and impersonation. The prosecutor pleaded with the court to remand the accused person into police custody so that he could help with further investigations. The presiding judge granted the plea of the prosecution and drew its attention to some irregularity with the charges preferred against the accused person. The court adjourned the case to January 27, 2016. By Elikem kwaku Ahialey Nana Addo 15.01.2016 LISTEN The Deputy National Communications Director of The National Democratic Congress, kweku Boahen has said that Nana Akuffo has throughout his political career never accepted defeat whenever he loses elections Speaking to Ghnews360.com about the opposition New Patriotic Partys dissatisfaction with the Electoral Commissions position on the Voter Register, Mr Boahen was of the view that regardless of what is done to the register; the NPP under the leadership of Akoffo-Addo will not accept defeat in the upcoming elections. According to him, throughout Nana Akuffo-Addos political career, he has never accepted defeat whenever he loses an election and therefore this years election cant be an exception. The NPP are aware of the fact that they are losing the elections and therefore want to prepare for an excuse to challenge the result by feeding on the voters register issue He noted that since 1996 when he lost the NPP Presidential Primaries to Ex-President Kuffour to date, the twice defeated Presidential Aspirant has always had a cause to complain about election whenever it doesnt go his way. He indicated that the November 7 Elections will be less about the nature of the Register but more about the good work done by President Mahama since he assumed office The NPP are only shifting attention and making a case with the voters register because they cannot question the tremendous achievement of the Mahama-led Administration but that is only what will matter come November 7 to the people of Ghana He concluded Geneva (AFP) - The UN human rights chief voiced alarm Friday at the spiralling violence in Burundi over "extremely disturbing" allegations of security forces gang raping women, ethnic killings and mass graves. Burundi has been sliding deeper into violence since President Pierre Nkurunziza announced in April his intention to run in elections last July. The unrest has intensified since his re-election, with political assassinations on both sides, attacks against the police and summary executions. "All the alarm signals, including the increasing ethnic dimension of the crisis, are flashing red," Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein warned in a statement. Zeid warned that "deeply worrying new trends are emerging in Burundi, including cases of sexual violence by security forces and a sharp increase in enforced disappearances and torture cases." He called for an urgent investigation into a spike in violence in Bujumbura last month and witness accounts of at least nine mass graves in and around the capital, including one in a military camp allegedly containing more than 100 bodies of people killed on December 11. "My office is analysing satellite images in an effort to shed more light on these extremely serious allegations," Zeid said. The UN rights office's Africa expert, Scott Campbell, said a team of three experts was ready to deploy to Burundi to investigate grave crimes allegedly committed during the crisis, but so far Bujumbura has not cleared the group. "Our plan is to deploy on January 25th... We are still waiting for a government response," Campbell told reporters. "Our great hope is that these experts will receive visas." - Disturbing violations - Witness testimony suggests that the death toll from the December 11 attacks on three military bases was far higher than the official tally of 87. The UN puts the number at at least 130. The December attacks meanwhile appeared to have triggered "new and extremely disturbing patterns of violations," Zeid said. "We have documented 13 cases of sexual violence against women, which began during the search and arrest operations that took place after the December events," he said. "The pattern was similar in all cases: security forces allegedly entered the victims' houses, separated the women from their families, and raped in some cases gang-raped them," he added. Police and army forces had also arrested "considerable numbers of young men, many of whom were later tortured, killed or taken to unknown destinations," Zeid said. He voiced particular alarm at testimony from residents in various neighbourhoods indicating that the search operations following the December 11 violence had targeted Tutsis in particular. One woman was told she was being sexually abused because she was Tutsi, and in Bujumbura's Nyakabiga neighbourhood, a witness claimed Tutsis "were systematically killed, while Hutus were spared," Zeid's office said. "A complete breakdown in law and order is just around the corner," Zeid warned, stressing that with "the potentially lethal ethnic dimension starting to rear its head, this will inevitably end in disaster if the current rapidly deteriorating trajectory continues." At least 439 people have died in the violence since April and tens of thousands have fled to neighbouring countries out of fear of a return to all-out war. Burundi plunged into civil war on ethnic lines between majority Hutus and minority Tutsis in 1993, at a cost of an estimated 300,000 lives by the end of the conflict in 2006. The Police administration says it is collaborating with Britain and other foreign counterparts to help in providing adequate security for this years general elections. The acting Inspector General of Police John Kudalor admits this years poll is crucial and assured that no stone should be left unturned. In an interview with Joy News, Mr. Kudalor said the police administration will also train personnel on how to be professional in handling elections. Ghanaians will go to the polls to elect a president and 275 members of parliament on November 7, 2016, a month earlier than the date previous elections were held. Some election hotspots have been identified across the country and the need to beef up security in those areas has been emphasized by various stakeholders. Mr. Kudalor told Joy News' Beatrice Adu that the administration is bent on ensuring that the 2016 general elections are made peaceful. So far as general security is concerned, he said the administration has been working with all the necessary institutions to ensure that the police service is able to maintain law and order, and protect lives and properties. Story by Ghana|myjoyonline.com About five people have been reported dead following the fresh outbreak of pneumococcal meningitis at Bole in the Northern Region. Out of the 12 new cases recorded since the beginning of this year, five lives have been lost. Last week, nine people were reported dead in the Brong Ahafo region after the outbreak of the infectious disease. Pneumococcal meningitis causes severe swelling of the protective membrane covering the brain and the spinal cord. Joy News Matilda Wemegah has joined a team of officials from the Health Ministry and the Ghana Health Service to tour the region and reports that measures are being put in place to bring the situation under control. District Director of Health Services, Chief Bumawura Ewuntomash Mahama who was briefing the Deputy Minister and his team at the Bole District Hospital described the situation as an epidemic. Chief Bumawura Ewuntomash Mahama The epidemic in his view can create serious problems if the necessary strategies are not put in place to contain the situation in the shortest possible time. He however stated that our epidemic management teams are meeting; all the sub district teams have set up educational teams and are moving around in all communities to educate residents about the disease. Director of Public Health Dr Badu Sarkodie who also assessed the situation indicated that responses so far from the district has been appropriate and adequate. He is confident the national response plan put in place will help deal with the outbreak. Deputy Health Minister, Dr Victor Bampoe urged the district to intensify their surveillance. He said resources have already been dispatched to the affected districts to prevent the situation from escalating. We are going to have a meeting in Techiman with all the District Directors of the affected districts and see what else they will need so we can send them over immediately, he added. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Naa Sakwaba Akwa | [email protected] 15.01.2016 LISTEN Hanna Tetteh Foreign Affairs minister The Ghanaian government is seeking further clarification from the United States following revelations in a WikiLeaks report that the two ex-Guantanamo bay inmates in Ghana are of a high security risk contrary to information provided by the US government. A report on the two Mahmoud Omar Mohammed Bin Atef,36, and Khalid Shayk Mohammed, 34 compiled by the US whistle blower WikiLeaks suggests that the former inmates took active part in the operations of the terror group AI Qaeda. The revelation is in contrast with claims by the Ghanaian government that they pose no threat to the security of Ghana. President John Mahama in reaction to questions from the media on the issue said the two are of low level risk with no potential danger to Ghana. Speaking to Nii Arday Clegg on the Morning Starr Friday, Foreign Affairs minister Hanna Tetteh said the WikiLeaks risk assessment report on the two individuals were not made available to the Ghanaian government in the year long discussions with the US over the freed inmates. The information in the public domain is one that I respect hence my decision to seek clarification. I am waiting for a response When it comes, I will make it available to the Ghanaian people. I have asked the US Embassy for clarification. The document that was made available to us was the assessment of the two detainees the information from WikiLeaks were not part of documents available to us, she said. Source: Starrfmonline A January 13 report in O Estado de Sao Paulo: Study suggests possible link between zika and other malformations. The Google translation, edited: BRASILIA - Microcephaly may not be the only consequence of zika virus infection in babies during pregnancy. A study published in the journal Ultrasound Obstetrics & Gynecology by Adriana Melo, director of the Professor Joaquim Amorim Neto Research Institute and Ana Brito, of the Oswaldo Cruz Institute, reports the occurrence of two cases where, in addition to microcephaly, victims had an another rare malformation, arthrogryposis, a disease that is characterized by severe deficiencies in the joints. "In all my life I had seen two cases. Since September, there were four others. I saw that there was something wrong," says Adriana. Two of the cases these were babies who died shortly after birth.Ttwo other cases were in fetuses. All were diagnosed with microcephaly. "In two cases (one baby died and a fetus) already had confirmation of Zika infection. We now hope to get results from the other two," she added. The researcher says it is not possible to say whether the arthrogryposis is a consequence of Zika infection. "It's early to assign cause and consequence. Of course this may take more cases to make a more categorical statement. But the important thing is that all professionals be alert," she added. Adriana noted that in addition to joint problems, there is a case which is still under investigation, heart problems. The professor at the Federal University of Pernambuco, Carlos Brito, said that in the state there are also reports of cases of children with problems in articulation whose mothers had during pregnancy complaints like Zika symptoms. "We need to beware. There are cases of eye problems, hearing problems," she added. Adriana advocates a change in the description of the disease: Congenital Zika instead of microcephaly caused by Zika. "The same thing happens with other syndromes, such as congenital syphilis," says the professor. "Maybe microcephaly is the most important symptom, but not the only one. The change of name would help workers to bear that in mind," she added. Adriana says microcephaly identified in babies whose mothers had Zika during pregnancy has very different characteristics from those presented by classical microcephaly, a disease considered rare. "The cases are more serious. There is a greater involvement of the brain," says Adriana. Dr. Zanetor Rawlings 15.01.2016 LISTEN An Accra High Court has dismissed a case filed by some members of the NDC in Klottey Korle constituency seeking to annul the results of the NDC's parliamentary primary in the area. The three; Joseph Narku Botchway, Jacob Amin and Reverend Michael Kwabena Nii Adjei Sowah went to court to challenge the eligibility of the Parliamentary candidate, Zanetor Rawlings who they allege is not a registered voter. According to the court, the plaintiff did not demonstrate in anyway how their rights had been violated or would be violated. The court also indicated in the ruling that the action of the plaintiffs were an abuse of the court. The ruling of the court followed an application by Lawyers of Dr. Zanetor Rawlings praying the court to strike out the case brought by the disgruntled members. It would be recalled that during the NDC's primary on November 21, Dr. Rawlings could not cast her ballot because her name was not found in the voters' register. Zanetor beat the incumbent MP Nii Armah Ashietey in a hotly contested race. Suggestions are that, those seeking Zanetor's disqualification are being supported by the incumbent MP. The plaintiffs were praying the court to compel the EC to provide the following answers: 1. Whether or not Dr. Zanetor Agyemang Rawlings is a registered voter. 2. If so, when was the name entered on the National Biometric Voters' Register. 3. The name of the Registration Officer. 4. The date of registration. 5. The time on which the name was entered on the roll as shown on the print out. 6. The registration centre name. 7. The registration code. . 8. The constituency within which the registration took place. 9. The Voter's Identify Card number of Dr. Zanetor Agyemang Rawlings. 10. Biometric finger print. 11. The type of identification document used in the registration process. 12. Copies of Form 1C that captured the data. 13. Copies of Voter Register Form 1A 14. Whether Dr. Zanetor Agyemang Rawlings' name has been publicly exhibited on any provisional Voters' Register. 15. If so when? 16. Please furnish the Court with the said Voters' Register. 17. If the registration was during the limited registration period in 2014, a copy of the voter registration identification guarantee form. 18. Copies of the registration team details Form 2A. 19. Please furnish the Court with the final Biometric Voters' Register showing Dr. Zanetor Agyemang Rawlings' name. Dr. Ndoum and President Mahama 15.01.2016 LISTEN Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, 2012 presidential candidate of the Progressive People's Party (PPP) has reacted to His Excellency President John Dramani Mahama's response to the Bono Ahafo Micro Finance Crisis in his recent press conference in Accra few days ago saying he wished the president didn't politicized the situation by blaming political opponents for insighting the people against government. Speaking via hang out on ATV mid-day news, he allayed that there should not be blame games over the microfinances way of duping the people of Bono Ahafo. According to him the government rather has a responsibility of keeping the monies of the people of this country safe. He said since the Bank of Ghana gives these financial institutions license to operate, the government needs or has a responsibility in ensuring that the monies of the people are safe. "Bank of Ghana should be able to deliver the same services to the universal banks in the country to these Micro Finance companies. But for the president to say the media's effort in discussing and addressing the issue is politically motivated by political opponents to make government look irresponsible and unpopular in the region is not something we should encourage. The media is allowed to address national issue and so do not expect the president to push blames of their activities to political opponents. I wished he never said that" Dr. Nduom stated. He called on Bank of Ghana to be serious in their duties towards the microfinance institutions since the current situation is not only happening in Bono Ahafo but rather all over the country and as citizens work and always need financial institutions to save their monies, some of them end up falling victims to theses dubious micro finance institutions. He tasked them to be critical in their supervision once they give out license to these institutions just as they do to the Universal Banks like the GN Bank, GT Bank GCB among others. He said the media should be encouraged to dig out more information which hither to would not be known to our leaders and not rather feel they doing something to favor somebody or a political party. Watch Dr. Ndoum responding to president Mahama 15.01.2016 LISTEN I will not demand her immediate resignation because she is no worse than the rest of the hoodlum pack that goes by the political label of the Mahama cabinet. If anything at all, it is her boss who deserves to be resoundingly accorded the boot. I am here, of course, talking about Ms. Hanna Tetteh, the half-Hungarian Foreign Minister of Ghana. Not that it really makes much of a significant difference whether Ms. Tetteh were a full-blooded Ghanaian or not. I, for example, am a naturalized American citizen; it was a conscious and wistful decision for me to make (I still have my old Ghanaian passport somewhere in one of my closets). But in view of the benighted decision by Chairman Jerry John Rawlings and the rest of the Trokosi Robber-Baron Nationalists to turn Ghana into a veritable Banana Republic, and a blood-curdling one at that, I had absolutely no choice but to move on with my life via a much healthier direction. And I have not regretted my decision one bit, particularly as I have watched the country in which I was born and bred literally and steadily revert to the state of nature. Indeed, I feel as American as apple pie, as the cliche goes. But, of course, on any given day, you can bet your proverbial bottom-dollar that a full-half of my soul has Ghana written all over it. You see, what keeps me on my toes, as immutably grateful as I am to be recognized and accepted as an American citizen, nevertheless, is the perennial paradox that as an African-born American black man, the overwhelming majority populace of the United States has yet to come to terms with the need for the full and unreserved acceptance of the ethnic minority as a bona fide American citizen. It is this age-old dilemma of the American-born African that Dr. W. E. B. Dubois alluded to in his geopolitical and cultural classic Souls of Black Folk (1903) as the psychically wrenching Double-Consciousness of the Diasporic African. Hanna Tetteh may just well be morbidly afflicted with this kind of psychical and/or psychological dilemma, as I believe also is the case with Chairman Jerry John Rawlings who once bitterly and tearfully complained to the legendary U.S. television journalist Ms. Diane Sawyer about having been callously abandoned by his Scottish Highland father, Mr. John. You see, ever since Ms. Tetteh picked that patently infantile fight with the recently departed U.S. Ambassador to Ghana on her Facebook page or wall, the dear reader may choose his/her pick, I have not taken her seriously. And then just the other day, we had her huffing over the fact of the medias having widely reported a birthday payola that she shamelessly took from the Chinese Ambassador to Ghana, in the form of the construction of a high school building in her Senya-Braku constituency in the Central Region. Well, she cant convincingly deny the fact that it was a flagrant act of Diplomatic Bribery, because that was exactly what her benefactor told the media, in Ms. Tettehs presence, at the handing over ceremony which also happened to be her birthday. Ms. Tetteh would shortly acknowledge that, indeed, she had specifically made such an appeal. More appropriately speaking, it was an importunate demand. Whatever happened to the self-dignity of the Ghanaian politician even amidst grinding poverty? It is almost as if we have been cursed with an inexplicable return to the original state of humans. I weep for Ghana. And now having vehemently and pontifically defended the inescapably, as well as inexcusably, lame-brained decision by President John Dramani Mahama to accept for temporary resettlement two of the most dangerous inmates from the Guantanamo Bay Maximum-Security Prison, Ms. Tetteh would now have Ghanaians know that she had been kept out of the loop by her much-rumored boyfriend as a direct result of her portfolios have been defined as one that excluded highly sensitive national security matters (See I was not Privy to some Discussions in Gitmo Detainee[s] Transfer Hanna Tetteh MyJoyOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 1/14/16). Like the so-called National Democratic Congress Communication Team Member Mr. Abraham Amaliba, Ms. Tetteh would also have Ghanaians believe that the executive type of presidency adopted by Fourth-Republican Ghana and enshrined in our constitution does not make Mr. Mahama personally accountable to the people on such a highly sensitive security matter as the reckless importation and transplantation of the two high-grade Gitmo Arabo-Muslim terror suspects in their midst. In other words, Ghanas executive presidency makes Mr. Mahama the practical equivalent of Daddy Knows Best. Maybe Ms. Tetteh may want to take a political science course in the functional dynamics of such advanced executive presidencies as pertain to France and the United States, in order to be able to conduct a more intelligent and constructive analysis of hot-button issues as such as the one currently in dispute. An Nkrumah-type of executive presidency, maybe? *Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs 15.01.2016 LISTEN Tim Peake has begun the first ever spacewalk by an official British astronaut. Major Peake stepped outside the International Space Stations Quest airlock just after 13:00 GMT. He and Nasa astronaut Tim Kopra are scheduled to spend six-and-a-half hours on the exterior of the orbiting outpost. Michael Foale became the first Briton to carry out a spacewalk in 1995 . He flew under a US banner with Nasa. Live: Tim Peake walks in space Major Peake and Colonel Kopra will replace a faulty component on the stations exterior, which has compromised a power channel on the outpost. The failed electrical box regulates power from the solar panels. I think a spacewalk is absolutely the pinnacle of an astronauts career, Major Peake told BBC Stargazing Live this week. The European Space Agency (Esa) astronaut added: Weve put a huge amount of effort into this spacewalk. Its hugely exciting and were ready to go. During the EVA the technical term for a spacewalk the two Tims ventured to the very edge of the space station. They had to travel half its length, a distance of roughly 50m which is equivalent to an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Peake and Kopra moved along the exterior using their arms, but are attached to the space stations external structure via steel cords, or tethers. Colonel Kopra exited the Quest airlock first, followed by his British colleague a few minutes later. Kopra then proceeded to the worksite with a toolbox, where anchored a foot restraint as an additional safety measure. The US astronaut then gave a Go signal for Major Peake to follow the Nasa astronaut, carrying the replacement electrical box. While he was waiting for Col Kopras signal, Tim Peake was able to get accustomed to being outside for the first time, including looking down on planet Earth. Luca Parmitano , an Italian Esa astronaut who conducted two spacewalks in 2013, told BBC Five Live : It is unimaginable there are no words to describe the feeling of seeing our planet from above through a visor thats all that separates us from the view, a thin visor of plexiglass. When language evolved, it described what we saw around us. Being on the space station, doing an EVA, walking outside is not something we have experienced [as a species]. Both astronauts have trained in a large indoor water tank called the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at Houstons Johnson Space Center. . Nasa astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria , who holds the US record for cumulative spacewalking time, said the two Tims were well prepared, but added there were key differences between underwater training and a real EVA. One is that translation [moving from one point to another] is quite a bit different without the viscosity of the water, he told BBC News. This is especially true when [Major Peake] will be transporting relatively large masses (like the SSU) relatively long distances. This fact will change his centre of gravity and will affect the results of the inputs he makes with his hands and arms during translation. But he explained: This kind of thing is all in a days work for a spacewalker. Im very confident that the two Tims will complete their tasks with great skill, efficiently and, most importantly, safely. The failed electrical component known as a Sequential Shunt Unit (SSU) is relatively straightforward to swap out: it involves undoing just one bolt. But the ISS takes 90 minutes to orbit the Earth, so the astronauts experience 45 minutes of daylight followed by 45 minutes of total darkness. Peake and Kopra can only work on the SSU in darkness, because in daylight, there could be a current running through the box. They have been given a safe window of 31 minutes to work on changing the SSU. We have to be very careful when we go out to the worksite, because theres nothing protecting us from the high voltages generated by the solar panel, said Major Peake. We need to change that box out and then hopefully the fresh one will work correctly and we can continue with some more tasks. After changing the SSU, Major Peake will carry the failed box back to the starting point. The astronauts will also deploy cables for new docking ports and reinstall a valve that was removed for relocation of the stations Leonardo module last year. Michael Foale, who was born in Louth, Lincolnshire, became the first Briton to make a spacewalk on 9 February 1995, during a US space shuttle mission. Born to a British father and American mother, Mr Foale has dual British and US citizenship. He was selected under Nasas astronaut programme and therefore flew as an American. Traditionally, the British government has not funded human spaceflight, leading a generation of budding astronauts to look to the US space agency as their only route to orbit. But the UK changed its policy after Mr Peake was selected in 2009 as a European Space Agency astronaut. Thus, Mr Peake is the first person since Helen Sharman in 1991 to wear the Union flag in space. -bbc A PRESS Statement TO COMMEND GOVERNMENT ON DECISION TO ACCEPT GUANTANAMO BAY DETAINEES The Coalition of Youth for Positive National Development (CYPOND) warmly appreciates governments decision to offer humanitarian assistance for the two Guantanamo ex-detainees in the persons of Mahmud Umar Mohammed Bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih Al- Dhuby. We wish to seize this singular opportunity to warmly welcome the two gentlemen in our home soil as we also wish them a blissful stay in Ghana. Ghana as a nation has carved for herself, a niche in her quest to remain the gateway to West Africa. As the first black nation south of the Sahara to gain political independence, the country is blessed with very charitable and hospitable citizens who are warm, simple and the true radiation of tolerance for divergent beliefs. As Ghanaians, we believe in the sanctity of human dignity and communally uphold the humane virtue of showing compassion to every living being. It remains important to appreciate that, the multiplicity of culture, religion, ethnicity and even primary socialization remains our strength than weaknesses. They are indeed the pillars on which our peace, unity, tranquility and brotherliness are anchored. It is in this light that CYPOND believes that, the kind gesture extended to the Guantanamo detainees only resonates the true nature and kind heartedness of the ideal Ghanaian, who would not shy away from offering help and solidarity to a stranger who is actually in need. It is the conviction of CYPOND that, no particular human being is born a terrorist, but society made them so. We deem the deportation of the two ex- detainees into Ghana as an opportunity for Ghana to show case to the entire world that, indeed the world has countless reasons to be united and peaceful in our differences, than to be divided and aggressive on each other, because of same differences. We deem it an opportunity for mother Ghana to bear the torch in a new warfare against terrorism and all sort of violence against humanity by seeking to reconstruct the ideologies and aspirations of persons found in the brackets of terrorism, through extending friendliness to them and seeking a positive interface with them, while frantic efforts are made to reconstruct their socialization. The world can only surmount the wave of terrorism by showing extra compassion and deep love, through solidarizing with each other even in our pronounced divergence. As a nation, we need to exemplify to the world that, no single person, group of persons, or country stands to benefit from terrorism, but every single person and nation stand to reap the benefits of tolerance, compassion, true love and charity in truth. We associate ourselves with the thoughts of Pope Emeritus Benedict xvi, when he opined in his Encyclical letter christened Caritas in Veritate that : Charity in truth, to which Jesus Christ bore witness by his earthly life and especially by his death and resurrection, is the principal driving force behind the authenticity of development of every person and of all humanity. Love-Caritas- is an extra ordinary force which leads people to opt for courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace. It appears more obvious now than ever, that these words of deep wisdom shared by the Holy Pontiff are more relevant in todays world that is increasingly divided by all sort of religious, political and ethnic based aggression. In this light, we wish to humbly commend the national Chief Imam, Dr. Sheik Nuhu Sharabutu for extending a hand of friendliness to the ex-detainees, by inviting them to worship in his mosque. We wish to appeal to all other Ghanaians to shed off the aura of anxiety and fear that has been partly fueled by a negative media reportage and petty political propaganda, but to show love and compassion to the two gentlemen who may just be victims of circumstances. Let us offer them the opportunity to pick up the pieces of their lives. Let us by this example make a clarion call for the redemption of thousands of people who might be victims of injustice. We plead with our fellow countrymen not to be hasty at condemning them as terrorist, for even the United States that arrested and detained them over a decade, could not establish any trace of terrorism in them. CYPOND respects the sentiments expressed by some sections of the media, some civil society groups and religious bodies such as the Christian Council of Ghana, the Association of Charismatic and Pentecostal Churches and the Catholic Bishops Conference. We however disagree with them that the presence of the two gentlemen creates security treats for our country. We also disagree with calls made on government to return the detainees from our country. It is our firmly held conviction that, such an action will be unwarranted and will certainly be in detour to our cherished values of hospitality, friendliness and respect for human dignity. For us, the show of compassion should not be premised on the so called virtue of common sense, but our inner desire to emulate Christ who was compassionate to his aggressors even whilst dying on the cross, should be our guiding principle. We wish to remind our cherished religious leaders that the warmth of the early Christians towards Saul their aggressor, who later became Paul, could be a hypothetical example to us, as to how God could win the battle against aggression. We however blame the cloud of fear and panic that has engulfed our citizens, on the largely polarized media reportage and the deliberate manipulation of political buttons, to court the dispassion of the Ghanaian citizenry against their government, all in pursuit of political expedience. The world needs a concerted effort to win the battle against terrorism and all sort of violence on humanity. If the world must be victorious in this battle, the world must learn to make compassion, love, solidarity and consensus building, its cardinal strategies. It is in view of this that, we wish to be emphatic in commending His Excellency President John Dramani Mahama and his government for bearing the torch to exemplify to the world that, we can always show compassion and love, even to people the world might have tagged as dangerous and whose presence in the world might even be seen as inimical to the peace and tranquility that the world desires. We humbly appeal to all Ghanaians to support His Excellency the President and his government, to achieve this goal. We admonish all our country men and women not to be elusive of the fact that, our religious and cherished traditional values also enjoin us to be compassionate and not judgmental. CYPOND associates herself with the thought of His Excellency the President in his recent press engagement that, the fear for terrorism should not be centered on the known, but adequate caution and alertness should be on the unknown. CYPOND thus, wishes our new friends, a live changing stay in Ghana, and will gladly welcome any opportunity to share with them, our cherished Ghanaian virtues. Long live CYPOND Long live H.E the President Long live mother Ghana. Thank you ..................... Puo-ire Prosper (Convener) 0245158578/0204852735 Nairobi (AFP) - A court in Burundi jailed four ex-generals to life in prison Friday for a failed coup, with nine others jailed for 30 years for their role in the unrest. The small central African country descended into bloodshed in April when President Pierre Nkurunziza announced his intention to run for a controversial third term, sparking the failed coup in May. Coup leader, ex-general Godefroid Nyombare, is on the run, but those sentenced at the Supreme Court Friday included four key deputies. Among them are three ex-army generals -- former defence minister Cyrille Ndayirukiye, Zenon Ndabaneze and Juvenal Niyungeko -- and one police general, Hermenegilde Nimenya. The court, which described them as the "coup organisers", were found guilty of the three counts of launching an attempted coup, killing soldiers, policemen and civilians, and the malicious destruction of buildings. Nine officers, from both the army and police, were sentenced to 30 years in prison for "having cooperated" with the coup leaders. All were also banned them from holding public office for 10 years. Eight soldiers, including drivers and bodyguards of the jailed generals, were sentenced to five years for their roles. However, seven others were acquitted, including general Prime Ngowenubusa. Prosecutors had demanded life sentences for all 28 on trial. During the trial, leaders cited the violent repression of anti-government protests to justify their attempted takeover of power. They also said they had not been given proper access to lawyers. All were present at the reading of the verdict in the court, held under high security in Gitega, some 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of the capital Bujumbura. Ndabaneze said he took part in the coup to "defend the constitution and the peace agreement" of Arusha, which paved the way to end more than a decade of civil war in 2006. Months of street protests in Burundi have devolved into regular armed attacks with gunfire disrupting the nights and dead bodies appearing on city streets almost every day. Attacks targeting the security forces have escalated, with rebels armed with assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars attacking police convoys and targeting government installations. On Friday, UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein voiced alarm at the spiralling violence in Burundi over "extremely disturbing" allegations of security forces gang raping women, ethnic killings and mass graves. Addressing a section of NDC members, during the inauguration of the Womens wing of Zongo for NDC at Maamobi a suburb of Accra, the founder of the group Alhaji Saeed Sinare said Dr. Mamoudu Bawumia was forced to accept the vice presidential candidature of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) against his will. Speaking to Miimann Ghana, Alhaji Sinare said its not a secret that deep inside Bawumia I know is NDC, Bawumia was forced to accept that position against his will. His family members who we all know including his late father whom we all cherished is a very strong NDC man who worked so hard for this nation of ours and all of them are NDC members. He further stated that the day NPP will elect a northerner or a Zongo man as their flagbearer that will be the day Allah will love them .With this he doesnt see Bawumia being a flagbearer in 2020 or beyond. Alhaji Sinare witnessed the swearing in of newly elected executives of Zongo for NDC which was originally Zongo for Mahama; the name change was to ensure continuity after John Mahamas tenure. He urged all sworn in executives to ensure massive victory for the partys parliamentary candidates in all 268 zongo communities across the country and resounding votes for H.E. John Dramani Mahama to retain the presidency. When asked who forced Bawumia to join the NPP, he clearly said I dont want to go into that but there was a lot of force on Bawumia, it wasnt his choice, he didnt want it 15.01.2016 LISTEN In the wake of her childish spat on her Facebook page/wall with the most recently departed U.S. Ambassador to Ghana, I vividly recall commenting in one of my columns that leaders, such as those of the Mahama cabinet, who spend a remarkable chunk of their taxpayer underwritten working hours on Facebook and Twitter very likely did not deserve their fat paychecks. The fracas, as I vividly recall, was about President Mahamas disingenuous decision to slash 10-percent off his official salary by cynically calling this cheap political-points-scoring gimmickry his yeomanly contribution towards the practice of fiscal discipline in government. He had also invited members of his cabinet to follow suit. Somebody using a twitter account traced to the U.S. Embassy in Accra had promptly riposted that such callous and unconscionable gimmickry had not taken into account the legion freebies such as free housing and travel expenses enjoyed by government officials that were far out of the reach of the ordinary Ghanaian citizen. A quite convincing denial by the American Chief Diplomat that, indeed, the Embassys twitter account had been used by somebody other than the Ambassador himself had not stopped Ghanas Foreign Minister from intemperately lighting into the American Ambassador, on gross of the gross interference of Washington in Ghanas internal affairs. Even babies with rotten sharp teeth like Mr. Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa, the notorious scofflaw and Deputy Education Minister, then Deputy Information Minister, would join the fray, obviously as a means of ingratiating himself with his bosses. As I hinted then, it was only a matter of time before these unctuous pretenders to patriotism boxed themselves into a corner from which they were highly unlikely to fully recover. And now, predictably, Ms. Tetteh would have Ghanaians believe that 2007 leaked U.S. Defense Department document clearly stating that the two Saudi-born Yemeni terrorists recently resettled in Ghana posed a high-security risk to the interests of the United States and its allies had not been presented to the Mahama government as part of the details of the negotiations that facilitated the resettlement of Messrs. Mahmud Umar Muhammad Bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih Al-Dhuby in Ghana. You would have thought that information, military and intelligence attaches regularly posted to our embassies and diplomatic missions would be clipping up and filing such highly sensitive and significant pieces of intelligence in the archives of our various embassies and diplomatic missions for the benefit of successive governments. And so precisely what were these operatives posted abroad at taxpayers expense doing at these posts? Merely roaming the streets of these Western capitals and window-shopping? Now we are told that Ms. Tetteh is also bitterly complaining that she only came across the aforesaid document on Facebook, and that she had referred the same to the U.S. Embassy officials in Accra for their response. I know she is not diplomatically savvy, not by any objective measure. But how stupid could Ghanas Foreign Minister be to suppose that the U.S. Embassy operatives in Accra would come up with some sort of mea culpa exonerating these Mahama chipmunks from being so clearly and scandalously too obtuse to have conducted a remarkable modicum of due diligence before arriving at an informed decision over whether or not to take in these so-called Al-Qaeda and Taliban footsoldiers, thereby so unwisely presuming to put the lives of millions of Ghanaians at risk. Already, published reports have quoted U.S. Embassy officials in Accra as alleging that President Mahama and his security deputies knew precisely what they were getting themselves and their fellow Ghanaian citizens into when they consented to playing host to Messrs. Bin Atef and Al-Dhuby for at least the next 24 months. And we have not even began to ask and answer the question of what if after two years of proverbial Ghanaian hospitality, Messrs. Bin Atef and Al-Dhuby decide to make Ghana their permanent home? And if these two men were of such low risk to Ghanaians, why were they reported to have been refused re-admittance by the very country, Saudi Arabia, in which they were both born and whose citizenship they ought to be legal holders of? The two men have also tellingly and deviously made it quite clear that they have absolutely no qualms about the bloody operations of terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, even while also quizzically claiming not to be members of the same. I know President really believes in such malarkey. And that is the tragedy here. *Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs Sheikh Aremeyaw Shaibu, spokesperson of National Chief Imam is proposing that the two ex-Guantanamo Bay detainees are counseled and reintegrated into the Ghanaian society. The Mahmud Umar Muhammad Bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih Al-Dhuby arrived in Ghana last week as part of American governments decision to close down the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba where suspected terrorists were held. Their coming into the country has stoked a divisive debate with majority of citizens taking strong opposing position to governments decision to accept them. Some of those against the decision are incensed that the Americans who perpetuated the act of injustice against the detainees for 14 years have outlawed their entry into that country and are rather pushing persons they tagged as terror suspects to vulnerable countries like Ghana. The ex-detainees have expressed their gratitude to the nation for accepting them and promised to lead peaceful lives. Government has also assured the citizens it would be able to contain the two without putting the national security at risk. But the various religious groups and some citizens have condemned the decision and have asked the government to send the two away for fear that Ghana may become possible target for terrorists. However, speaking on Joy FMs Ghana Connect on Friday, Sheikh Aremeyaw emphasized that irrespective of the label on the two, Ghana can give them a chance to reform and live a new life. Earlier in the week, the Muslim community through the Chief Imam appealed to the nation to accept the two on humanitarian grounds. Shedding more light on it on Ghana Connect, Sheikh Aremeyaw said the Muslim religion hates evil and not persons involved in the act. He suggested that through counseling the ex-GITMO detainees can be reintegrated and also advised to discard all evil intentions. Sheikh however discounted that the position by the Muslim community was influenced by religion. The Muslim world has been victim of terrorism, he said, adding the Muslim community has not been a beneficiary of terrorism. He is convinced government has not done anything that is so bad by accepting the request to shelter the two as a nation touted for its hospitality. He also trusted that the government would not deliberately put the country at risk. We can assist them to overcome any bad mentality. "These are young peoplethey get influenced and 14 years they want to put their lives together and also move ahead in life, pursue some education and so on and so forth. Understanding myself what youthful stage means and for the future of one, I thought that it is necessary that if there is any assistance we can give to such peopleour country can assist them to shed off [any violent] mentality. Other guests who connected in the studio with host Evans Mensah are blogger and photographer, Nana Kofi Aquah, General Secretary of Coalition of Muslim Organisations, Ghana, (COMOG) Abdel-Manan Abdel-Rahman, and Presidential Staffer Sam George. Joy News Anny Asabutey and Joseph Adarkwah connected via the phone from New York expressing their personal views and relaying the disappointment of Ghanaians resident in USA in governments decision. Sam George insisted that President Mahama has in any material moment taken the right decision for the country no matter how popular or unpopular it has been. He was certain at the end of the day, the president will stand tall in the face of all these criticisms. He noted that the fact that the US branded the two as terrorist suspects does not make them terrorists as he condemned sweeping statements by some Christian groups rejecting the resettlement of the two in Ghana. Nana Kofi who opposed the decision to host the two argued that the decision would mean that Ghana is supporting Americas injustice. He believes the two should be freed once they have not been charged or found guilty. Abdel-Manan concurred with Nana Kofi. He called for proper resettlement package for the two if America is saying they are not guilty after detaining them for 14 years. He recalled that most of the refugees from neighbouring countries Ghana has been playing host to are some who are hard core criminals more hardened than the two detainees. Irrespective of the differences in position, the panel agreed on the need for discussants to avoid making religious comments. Via CBC News British Columbia: Rise in rat population a threat to human health says UBC study. With Vancouver and the Lower Mainland plagued with a scourge of rats, new research from UBC [University of British Columbia] suggests there may be grave consequences if the rodents' risk to human health continues to be underestimated. The UBC team studied the feces of rats caught at an Abbotsford poultry farm, and discovered that not only was every specimen carrying a strain of avian E.coli, more than a quarter of the vermin carried multi-drug resistant strains of the disease. The study's lead author, assistant professor Chelsea Himsworth, had already gathered evidence of human pathogens, including MRSA and C.difficile, in the feces of rats on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. "[In Abbotsford] we found that indeed rats do carry E.coli, including strains that can be harmful to chickens and be resistant to multiple antibiotics," Himsworth told CBC News. "Previously, we thought the scope of risk associated with rats was narrow," she said. "And now we're saying ... it's as diverse as what is present in their environment." She characterizes the rodents as "pathogen sponges", able to absorb diseases from their environment and then spread them. Himsworth, who also heads the Vancouver Rat Project, wants to see the city tackle the issue in the aggressive manner as that seen in cities such as New York. She says the findings suggests rats could be able to pick up and transmit moreand more dangerousinfectious diseases, and that the results are proof local municipalities need to develop strong rodent management plans. Nana Oye Lithur, Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection has reiterated that the extension of the free registration of inmates onto the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is a demonstration of governments commitment to the welfare of convicts in the country. She said the move is to ensure that prisoners have easy and free access to healthcare in Ghana. "As Social Democrats, the NDC party believes that it is the duty of the Government to pull the marginalized, disadvantaged and the poor into the mainstream of the social-economic order. Oye Lithur said this when she visited the Tamale Central Prisons as part of her working visit to the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions last week. She was accompanied to the Tamale Central Prisons by the Chairman of the Prisons Council, Rev. Dr. Stephen Wengam and Director of Membership and Regional Operations at the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Ben Kusi. In all over 600 Prisoners at Tamale and Navrongo prisons were registered onto the NHIS free of charge. Prior to her visit to the Tamale Central Prisons, the Minister had earlier paid a courtesy call on the Chief of Tamale, Gulkpegu Na Alhaji Al-Hassan Abdulai at his palace. Nana Oye pointed that prisoners in the country will benefit a lot from the free NHIS, saying that it will afford them the opportunity to access free health care in and out of the prisons. Our coming here therefore is a demonstration of the commitment of the Government to carry everybody, bonded or free, along the path of socio-economic freedom. No one, and I repeat, no one will be left behind" she said. She pledged that she will lobby for the Tamale Central prisons to benefit from one of the brand new Land cruiser Nissan Prado that government has donated to the prisons council to fascilitate their transport needs. Again, she said she has discussed with the Energy Minister for the supply of gas stoves for the prison to help reduce the use of firewood and lessen the depletion of the vegetative cover. The Gender Minister applauded the Prisons Council chaired by Rev. Dr. Stephen Wengam for the Efiase Project aimed at raising funds to improve the conditions of the country's prisons. "So far, Government has given 7 brand new Landcruiser Prado Vehicles to the project. The Ministry of Transport has ordered a 60 seater bus for the Prisons Service. The Ministry for the Interior has also donated a 40 seater bus to Navrongo Prison. Through the initiative of the First Lady, H.E John Mahama and the Ministry of Fisheries three (3) containers of Tuna flakes will be delivered soon to Ghana Prisons service to improve the feeding of inmates. "The President himself, H.E John Dramani Mahama has made a personal donation of food items worth about GHC5000 to inmates of the Nsawam Prison. The Northern Regional Prison Service Commander,DDP Robert K. Awolugutu thanked the minister on behalf of the Tamale inmates. NANA OYE LITHUR 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. IVA Struggling with debt? Compare your debt options and write off up to 80% of your unsecured debts from 80 per month Get Started for free What is an IVA? With an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) you can make affordable monthly payments towards a percentage of your debt for 5 years. At the end of the 5 year plan, your remaining debt will be completely written off. Benefits of an IVA Here is a list of the cost common advantages of an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA): Affordability You will only be asked to pay back what you can afford, with allowances taken into account for food, bills, entertainment, travel, childcare and others. You may be sacrificing certain essential costs at the moment. With an IVA they are budgeted for so they will no longer be neglected No upfront costs When you set up an IVA, there are no upfront costs whatsoever. This means that you can put a debt solution in place today without spending a penny You have a finishing line Do you feel like there will be no end to your debt problems? With high interest costs and charges, the balances of your credit accounts may not reduce as you need them to. With an IVA you will become totally debt free at the completion of the IVA (usually 5 years). You can use this as an opportunity to change your financial life, for good Confidential Your IVA is not advertised in the London Gazette or local newspaper. It is your decision whether you would like to disclose it to other people or not No more contact from creditors When you are in an IVA, your creditors will no longer have the right to contact you or refer the debt on to debt collectors/bailiffs. This is a great benefit for most people as it will take away the stress caused by constant calls/texts/emails and home visits Stay in your house Unlike some debt solutions, an IVA will allow you to stay in your current home. This is even the case if the property has a mortgage or is owned outright Your pension An IVA does not have an impact on your pension. You will not have to surrender your pension or withdraw money from it to pay into your IVA Risks of an IVA Here is a list of the cost common disadvantages of an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA): Equity Release If you own your property and it has value, you may be asked to release the equity in the property Credit Rating If you have a perfect credit rating, this will be damaged and you will not be allowed to take out more debt whilst in an arrangement You must keep up with repayments If you do not keep up with your monthly repayments, there is a risk you will be made bankrupt Who qualifies for an IVA? There is no office guidelines to who qualifies for an IVA. It is a legally binding, Government legislation designed to help all people. Generally speaking, insolvency practitioners (IP) will look at your situation if they think the IVA proposal they submit is beneficial to both yourself (the debtor) and your creditors. This often restricts people to a certain criteria which you will have to meet: Over 5000 worth of unsecured debt You must have 2 or more creditors of 2 or more lines of credit Must live in England, Wales or Northern Ireland Must be insolvent Must be willing to pay at least 70 per month into their IVA Must have some type or types of regular income What debts can I include in an IVA? You can include a wide range of unsecured debts within your IVA. These include: Credit card debt/credit cards Loans/loan debt Payday loans Council tax arrears HMRC debt Overpaid benefits Catalogues Gas and electricity arrears Overdrafts/overdraft debt Water arrears Income tax arrears Debts to friends and family Other unsecured debts Note: If you are a resident of Scotland, you will need to apply for a Scottish Trust Deed (legally binding). Speak to our advisors for Scottish Debt Advice. What debts cant be included in an IVA? Secured loans Your mortgage (if you still live in the house) Car finance (if you still have the car) Rent arrears for your current property Court fines/Police fines Hire purchase arrears (if you still have the product) Log book loans (if you still have the vehicle that the debts are secured on) Student loans Other secured debts What does I.V.A stand for? IVA stands for Individual Voluntary Arrangement. It is a formal way to consolidate your debts into one affordable monthly repayment, resulting in the debtor becoming debt free at the end of their payments. Can I apply for an IVA online? Use the IVA Calculator to check your eligibility Prepare your IVA proposal and apply for your IVA. When your IVA is accepted, your creditors can no longer contact you. Pay 60 low monthly payments. After 5 years, you are out of your IVA and completely debt free. Will an IVA affect my employment? In most occupations, your credit rating or credit scoring is not a factor and it may never have been checked in the past, it may also be likely that it is not checked in the future either. There is no law to tell you that you must advise your employer that you have entered an IVA or that you owe money. They will not be notified by your insolvency practitioner. If you wanted to keep it a private matter, in most cases this would be absolutely fine. With some roles such as financial advisors, solicitors or bank workers it may make up part of your contract to advise them of changes like this. In these situations we would advise to inform your employers of your intentions before you enter into any arrangements. This way there will be no nasty surprises for you later down the line. More often than not, we find that your employer would not be concerned by your IVA and that it would not affect your employment status. An IVA is a formal solution and could affect some employments, such as if you were a solicitor or accountant for example. We would always recommend that you receive approval from your employers that your job isnt affected before you sign up for anything. Will an IVA impact my partner? There are certain situations where you may not want to involve your partner at all in your IVA proposal due to personal reasons. Insolvency Practitioners are very aware of these circumstances and can operate solely via telephone and email and at your convenience, so rest assured that your matters can be kept completely private. If the debts which you are looking to place into your IVA are in joint names, then this would be different. Your IP would look to place all of your debts into an IVA, including joint debts therefore you would have to inform your partner of your plans. If your debts are solely yours, then there would be no negative impact on your partner, their credit score would remain unaffected and they would not be entered onto any registers or be tainted in any way. Will an IVA affect my credit score/credit file? Whilst you are in your arrangement, you will not be able to get any credit. An IVA will stay on your credit file for 6 years, so 12 months after a typical IVA. When this time has passed and your monthly payments have ended, you will be able to rebuild your credit rating. What proof will I need to apply for an IVA? Proof of ID Passport/driving license/birth certificate/utility bills/national insurance identification/credit agreement Bank statements 3 months bank statements with all transactions displayed Proof of income 3 months payslips/P60/proof of benefits How long does it take to set up an IVA? Your initial call will only last around 5-10 minutes. The IVA process will be explained to you and you will be told what further information you will need to provide to proceed with your IVA proposal. Once you have returned the required information, an IVA will usually take between 7-14 days to get into place. You will be protected from creditors within this time, your advisor will provide you with documentation via email. How long does an IVA last? Most IVAs will last for a length of five years. The i v a will remain on your credit file for a period of six years and is placed on the Insolvency Register for that period. You can work out what date it will be removed from your credit file, it will be six years from the start date of the IVA term. So if the IVA started on 1 January 2000, it should be removed from your credit file six years from that date, which would be 1 January 2006. When you apply for an individual voluntary arrangement your Insolvency Practitioner (IP) will tell you if you qualify for an IVA, how long it lasts, how much it costs and provide you with any other debt advice which you may need. How much will debt advice cost for an Individual Voluntary Arrangement? The advice cost for individual voluntary arrangements is free of charge. Your I.V.A company will tell you if you qualify for an IVA. They will talk to you about your different debts, provide you with free debt advice and check if your creditors are likely to approve your proposal for your IVA for debt. How does an IVA affect your life? By taking out an IVA you may affect your overall financial position. You will not be allowed to take out credit for 6 years. You will struggle to get a mortgage or remortgage your existing property. It also may affect any future increase in earnings or windfalls you may receive, as these will need to be paid to your insolvency practitioner. Your insolvency practitioner will take control of your debts for this period, they will deal with all of your creditors and this is legally binding. That means you will not be allowed to take out any more debts whilst in the IVA. Once the plan is completed, any debts which you accrue will be managed by yourself. Your ability to take out further debts in the future will not be impacted once the IVA has completed. What is the IVA protocol? The I.V.A protocol is a voluntary set of guidelines which your Insolvency Practitioner (IP) can sign up for which improves the efficiency of Individual Voluntary Arrangements. When you apply for debt advice, it is important that you understand the steps of the debt solution, so you can decide whether or not the solution is the best one for your circumstances. How do I know if creditors will accept my IVA? Generally speaking, most creditors will approve voluntary arrangements for unsecured debt. But some debts can not be included within one formal debt solution. Your Insolvency Practitioner will tell you how likely it is that your creditors will be willing to accept your proposal, based on the voting creditors. Can I pay in one lump sum? There are occasions when you may be eligible for a debt solution which is payable in a one off lump sum as a final settlement to your creditors. This is usually when the money is being gifted from some one else, or you have received inheritance or a windfall for example. With a one-off lump sum payment, the advice is usually the same as when you normally apply for an IVA. You wouldnt have to make regular payments into the solution, your IP can provide you with more advice on one off lump sum solutions for your debts. Your IP will provide you with more advice on the debt IVA and explain what is IVA to you. Who regulates the debt industry? At present the debt industry is not regulated. Some Insolvency Practitioners offices choose to sign up to the Insolvency Practitioners Association (IPA) or register with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). You can contact the IPA using the contact details or email address on their website. Your creditors do not regulate the debt industry and your creditors will not be able to impact any decisions which the IPA or FCA make. In our experience, the regulators will take assertive action on any advisers or businesses which do not comply with their strict codes of practice. To check if a person is regulated by the FCA, enter their name into the search box in the FCA website. Should I use a debt charity? There are thousands of companies which provide debt help in the UK. You may be looking for an alternative to a private company. You should know that charities usually pass their fee charging products to sister companies which charge fees and disbursements, just like private companies. So what you initially thought was a good option, on further analysis could be different to what you originally thought. Charities do have their part to play though. They can help you if you have a problem with your bank accounts, maintenance arrears, living costs, credit reference agencies, child support arrears, bankruptcy, assets, accountancy issues, mortgages, creditor issues, insurance providers, mobiles, your bank account, rates arrears, PAYE contributions or if you want to work out your expenditure. They can make sure that you speak to an adviser or supervisor and look at proposals to offer your lender. A petition has started with the possibility of a debate in parliament about how charities represent themselves and their services. Which charities help with debt? You can contact Money Advice Service, National Debtline, Step Change, Shelter or a combination of the three. Charities are particular useful for a low debt level under 1,000. If the debt is high (such as a debt value of 10,000 or more) you would usually seek an assessment from a professional adviser. If you do decide to use a charity to guide you, make sure you check their charity number and the registration number on their website to make sure you are content that their team can answer your questions in the right ways. A lot of clients of charities have a minimum debt level which does not meet the basis for an IVA, so you could always chat to a charity that is happy to act on your behalf for low debt levels. Although an I.V.A could be the answer to your debt problem, its important to understand the monthly payment so call us on our free phone number. Anyone customers can receive expert feedback on their rights from debt charities, if they cant help they will usually point you in the director of firms which help with IVAs. We are homeowners, will lenders see my proposal differently? In some cases yes. In the majority of cases, if you are a homeowner you will not need to remortgage or take out any additional finances that will effect your property. You will need to sign a additional restrictions which remove your ability to take out additional credit tied to your property, which is something that is restricted once you are in an i.v.a. There are exceptions to this, such as when you have a lot of equity in your property/properties. If you own half of a property and another party owns the other half, only your equity will be affected. If you are landlord and you are in a position of equity, your IP may review your trading position or business to make sure the figures in question are in order. This is usually the case if you have two or more properties, as sometimes the equity can be used to form a repayment to your creditors. But this usually depends on the amount of value built up in your properties. Banks and building societies will not change the terms of your mortgage as long as a contribution is still being made for the duration of your arrangement. Your mortgage payments will be added to your expenses and accounted for within your budget, as long as you can provide evidence that you can afford to continue to make payments into your mortgage for duration of the plan. LOOKING FOR HELP? 100% Confidential. Thousands Helped. No upfront fees you are here: business Startup India: Silicon Valley investors pitch for easier norms Investors' association TiE Silicon Valley President Venktesh Shukla said a large number of startups are failing and "we should allow them to close their units in an easy way. It is extremely critical because lot of their energy is wasted in unproductive work". Via Eurosurveillance: Zika virus infection in a traveller returning from the Maldives. the abstract: We report a Zika virus (ZIKV) infection in a patient with fever and rash after returning to Finland from Maldives, June 2015. The patient had dengue virus (DENV) IgG and IgM antibodies but pan-flavivirus RT-PCR and subsequent sequencing showed presence of ZIKV RNA in urine. Recent association of ZIKV with microcephaly highlights the need for laboratory differentiation of ZIKV from DENV infection and the circulation of ZIKV in areas outside its currently known distribution range. business Asian Paints may test Rs 926: Amit Gupta Amit Gupta of ICICIdirect is of the view that Asian Paints may test Rs 926. business Centum Electronics may test Rs 900 in 6 months, says SP Tulsian SP Tulsian of sptulsian.com is of the view that Centum Electronics may test Rs 900 in six months. The shorting is over. Is it time to start buying BHP Billiton [ASX:BHP] again? A better question might be, could BHPs share price be near the bottom? The shorting is over. Is it time to start buying BHP Billiton [ASX:BHP] again? A better question might be, could BHPs share price be near the bottom? Analysts are starting to feel more positive about BHP. Citigroup have stated BHP is a buy, upgrading their neutral view. Morgan Stanley also believes the big miner might have been oversold. Morgan Stanley might not think its time to buy BHP, but they do believe share prices are close to the bottom. The investment firm has upgraded their view on the big miner to equal-weight, as opposed to over-weight. Despite commodity prices still wavering, BHPs big short may be over. BHP is preferred to Rio Just two weeks into 2016,BHP shares have already dropped 16.40%. It hasnt been a great start to the year and with commodities wavering things arent looking much better. But Citigroup, with their optimistic outlook, has switched their preference from Rio Tinto [ASX:RIO] to BHP as their favourite miner. As you might expect Rios boss, Sam Walsh, doesnt share Citis opinion. The New Year has been an ugly start for big miners, but as Mr Walsh said in a note to staff, Rio Tinto can thrive when others falter. Walsh expects the market carnage to provide an opportunity for Rio to widen the gap between competitors. Of course Rios CEO would make these comments to promote optimism and hope for what will be a tricky year ahead. But this is beside the point. More analysts are looking closer at BHP, trying to predict what will happen next. Citigroup wrote a note to investors commenting on their shift in views. We switch to preferring BHP over Rio given our bearish iron ore view and 20 percent underperformance over the last 6 months. But you might not believe what their target price is. Citi has set a target price of $18 for their new favourite miner. BHPs share closed yesterday at $14.88, making a difference of almost 21%. However, Citi has also stated that BHPs fair value would be closer to $7 per share if spot prices for BHPs commodities were to continue in the longer term. BHPs fall from grace There are a number of reasons why BHPs share price has cracked 11 year lows. And the first reason has to do with commodity prices. Its no surprise to anyone that commodity prices are falling. But drops in coal and iron ore prices are affecting miners, like BHP, more than ever. It seems like every day iron ore prices are declining and negatively affecting investors views on BHP. On Wednesday, when iron ore fell below $US40, BHPs share price dropped below $15 for the first time in 11 years. And this is not a one off occurrence. Every time commodities take a beating, it usually means the same for BHP and other miners. The second reason is the Samarco costs. BHPs biggest iron ore mine in Brazil experienced a huge disaster late last year. The collapsing dams damaged the surrounding communities, while also spreading toxic waste across the countryside. The costs are close to the $4 billion mark for BHP. And this is just the financial costs. BHPs net debt is expected to rise about $40 billion by the end of 2017. The sheer amount of debt is encouraging investors to drive share prices down. Since the event in November, BHPs share price has plunged 36%. Granted, the decline is also attributed to falling commodity prices and the fear of dividend cuts, yet the dam disaster has accelerated the situation to help BHP hit 11 year lows. What to do about BHP shares Share prices jumped up 5.5% this morning. Commodities rallied overnight, giving relief to energy and mining sectors. Its also likely that Citi group and Morgan Stanleys recommendations helped in BHPs climb. So does this mean share prices are going to hit the targeted $18? Source: Google Finance Not today, anyway. BHPs shares have already started to recede from their jump on open. Yet it may be foolish to count BHP out in the long run. Harje Ronngard, Junior Analyst, Money Morning 2016 has not been a profitable year so far for investors. Equities, bonds and commodities have all slumped together since the start of the year. But how large is the damage? And which funds have felt the brunt of the bear? It is not surprising to see oil and mining stocks are the biggest losers of 2016 so far. Many commodities lost up to half their value last year, and it has continued into 2016. Therefore open and close-end funds that have direct exposure to the mining stocks are also greatly affected. Stocks across the banking sector have also struggled in the past fortnight and those funds which hold large positions in the financials sector have been hit. For investors looking to take the leap into miners right now, it does seem like uncertain times although there is some argument that now is the opportunity for long-term investor to get in at a low price. BlackRock World Mining Trust (BRWM) has been one of the biggest fund losers year to date, down 6%. This is because the fund has direct exposure to mining stocks within FTSE 100 that have been volatile in the past fortnight. The investment trust has 9% of its portfolio in Glencore (GLEN), which as lost 13% year to date. It also has 13% of its portfolio in BHP Billiton (BLT), which has lost 14% year to date. And it has 12% in Rio Tinto (RIO), which has lost 13% year to date. The fund carries significant risks, as its portfolio has high exposure to movement in metal and gold prices. Although the sector has been unstable in recent years, the management team at the trust is highly experienced and investors have been well compensated over the long term, so Morningstar analyst Fatima Khizou remains a positive view to the fund, rating it Silver. The yield of the fund is at 13%. Major oil companies like Royal Dutch Shell (RDSB) have not been saved from the market selloff. Shell has lost 10% from year to date, which has led to a drop of 5% in Merchants Trust (MRCH) value, a fund that has 7% of its portfolio in the company. Bank Stocks Fall in New Year Sell Off Financial stocks continue to be hammered in 2016; and it was asset management share prices that experienced the biggest losses within the banking sector. Stockbroker Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) has lost 14% year to date, which is second only to mining stocks as the biggest FTSE 100 losers. Finsbury Growth & Income (FGT) has the most exposure to the stock, having 8% its portfolio in Hargreaves. The fund also has 6% in Schroders (SDR), the asset management stocks that have fallen 13% from year to date. As a result, Finsbury Growth & Income fund has fallen 5% year to date. Despite recent losses, it is Rated Gold by Morningstar analysts who say that the fund managers process was thorough and well-proven over a number of market cycles, which resulted in a concentrate portfolio of companies. Jupiter UK Growth Fund is also at risk if bank stocks continue to slide. The fund has 7% of its portfolio in Barclays (BARC), which has lost 10% year to date. The fund also has 7% in Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY), which lost 9% of its value year to date. The fund has lost 2% since the start of the year. Morningstar analyst Daniel Vaughan said that Jupiter UK Growth was suitable as a core holding for investors seeking exposures to UK equities. The fund has been downgraded from Silver to Bronze by Morningstar analysts due to the recent change of fund manager. Although Vaughan has high regard for the fund managers stock-picking ability, at present there is no analytical support or backup on the fund. Therefore Vaughan is treading cautiously with the fund under the managers sole management and with fewer dedicated resources than previously. Insurance Fail to Insure Against Losses Insurance stocks have crumbled as well. The Old Mutual UK Equity Income Fund has 4% of its portfolio in Direct Line Insurance Group (DLG), and this Bronze Rated fund has lost 3% year to date. Direct Line has fallen 10% from year to date. SVM UK Opportunities, having 6% of its portfolio in the Prudential (PRU), has lost 5% year to date. Prudential shares have lost 10% of value year to date. Drop in Pharmaceutical Giant Share Price BlackRock UK Equity has lost 4% year to date, thanks to 6% of its portfolio in Shire (SHP), a specialty biopharmaceutical company, which is down 12% year to date. The fund is Rated Bronze by Morningstar analysts. BlackRocks three year track record and its stock selection are a little disappointing, according to Morningstar analyst Daniel Vaughan. The management of the lead fund manager Nick Little has been alright but not outstanding, according to Vaughan. Via BBC Brasil: 'Worst of Zika epidemic may be over in Brazil, "says US agency researcher. Edited excerpt from the Google translation: Although it was the first country in the Western Hemisphere to register an epidemic of the Zika virus - which is also being associated with a significant increase in cases of microcephaly - Brazil can not be currently the most dangerous country for travelers, according to a researcher with the US Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC). "Brazil is the country of the continent that first had a Zika epidemic. But it may be reasonable to assume that the worst has passed, while in other countries may still be starting," Lyle Petersen, director of vector-borne diseases at the CDC, told BBC Brasil. "What tends to occur in outbreaks of this type is that a very large number of people are infected in the first wave, when the virus reaches the population. Thereafter, the level of transmission may become much smaller. The data we have show that the greatest number of cases of Zika, especially in northeastern Brazil, took place at the beginning of 2015. So we are seeing cases of microcephaly now," he said. "So it is possible that the level of transmission has already reached its peak at least in this part of the country." On Friday, the CDC may issue a warning to US travellers to avoid Latin America and the Caribbean where there is the possibility of contracting the virus. Petersen did not advance details about the CDC alert. The New York Times said this could bring specific recommendations for pregnant women not to travel "to Brazil and other countries in the region where mosquitoes were spreading the Zika virus linked to brain malformations in newborns." The newspaper says that this may be the first time the CDC recommends that pregnant women avoid a specific area during an outbreak. I still don't find such an alert on the CDC website. Via the Brazilian Ministry of Health: Federal government allocates US$123.5 million extra to fight Aedes aegypti and microcephaly. All summs have been converted to US dollars. Edited excerpt from the Google translation: President Dilma Rousseff signed this Friday (15) a bill providing US$313.8 million for the development of health surveillance, including the fight against the Aedes aegypti mosquito, in 2016. This amount will be an additional US$148.2 million for the Union of Supplementary Financial Assistance to Combat Agents of Endemic Diseases. To intensify the actions and measures of surveillance, prevention and control of dengue, chikungunya fever and Zika US$123.5 million was also approved, above all, due to the emergency situation in public health of national importance that the country is experiencing. This week, the Ministry of Health granted the states an extra US$143.7 million for actions to combat Aedes aegypti. The appeal was granted by decree published on 23 December last year and has already released 100% to the states earlier this week. National home sales fell 0.6% in December from November to December, but increased 10% year-over-year. Buyers trying to get ahead of changing mortgage rules faced obstacles last month. An increasingly short supply of listings in Vancouver and Toronto blunted the impact of changes to mortgage regulations announced in December that were aimed at cooling these housing markets, CREA President Pauline Aunger said in a release. Buyers there had been expected to bring forward their purchase decisions before new regulations take effect in February 2016, but they faced a growing shortage of supply. Meanwhile, supply is ample in many other major urban markets, particularly those where buyers have become cautious amid economic uncertainty. Sales were down from the previous month in over half of markets. December mirrored the main themes of 2015, with strong sales activity and price growth across much of British Columbia and Ontario offsetting declines in activity among oil producing regions, said Gregory Klump, CREAs Chief Economist. The recent decline and uncertain outlook for oil prices means that housing market prospects are unlikely to improve in the near term in regions where job market prospects are tied to oil production. Still, actual sales were up 10% year-over-year overall in December, with B.C.s Lower Mainland, the GTA, and Montreal leading the way. The national average price rose 12% year-over-year; excluding Greater Vancouver and the GTA, where prices increased by 5.4%. The average Canadian home cost $405,538 in December. New listings, meanwhile, rose 2.2% from November to December and, according to CREA, the housing market overall remains balanced. Background The infectious diseases specialist is a medical doctor dedicated to the management of infectious diseases in their individual and collective dimensions. Objectives The aim of this paper was to evaluate the current profile and distribution of infectious diseases specialists in Brazil. Methods This is a cross-sectional study using secondary data obtained from institutions that register medical specialists in Brazil. Variables of interest included gender, age, type of medical school (public or private) the specialist graduated from, time since finishing residency training in infectious diseases, and the interval between M.D. graduation and residency completion. Maps are used to study the geographical distribution of infectious diseases specialists. Results A total of 3229 infectious diseases specialist registries were counted, with 94.3% (3045) of individual counts (heads) represented by primary registries. The mean age was 43.3 years (SD 10.5), and a higher proportion of females was observed (57%; 95% CI 55.358.8). Most Brazilian infectious diseases specialists (58.5%) practice in the Southeastern region. However, when distribution rates were calculated, several states exhibited high concentration of infectious diseases specialists, when compared to the national rate (16.06). Interestingly, among specialists working in the Northeastern region, those trained locally had completed their residency programs more recently (8.7 yrs; 95% CI 7.99.5) than physicians trained elsewhere in the country (13.6 yrs: 95% CI 11.815.5). Conclusion Our study shows that Brazilian infectious diseases specialists are predominantly young and female doctors. Most have concluded a medical residency training program. The absolute majority practice in the Southeastern region. However, some states from the Northern, Northeastern and Southeastern regions exhibit specialist rates above the national average. In these areas, nonetheless, there is a strong concentration of infectious diseases specialists in state capitals and in metropolitan areas. Thanks to Greg Folkers for sending the link to this report from the Brazilian Journal of Infectious Diseases: Brazilian infectious diseases specialists: who and where are they? The abstract: Moorpark College eyes constructing 4,000-seat amphitheater A 4,000-seat amphitheater at Moorpark College could be Southern California's newest entertainment spotbut such a development would be a long way off. The school is taking the first steps toward... CSUCI professors working on ion project Cal State Channel Islands faculty members Scott Feister, Ph.D., assistant professor of computer science, and Alona Kryshchenko, Ph.D., assistant professor of mathematics, recently received $112,480 from the National Science Foundation... Keynote speaker to discuss undocumented college students Award-winning author Javier Zamora will discuss his new memoir, Solito, from noon to 1 p.m. Wed., Oct. 19 on Zoom. The talk is free to students and the community. The... Cal Lutheran awards scholarships for low- and middle-income students Cal Lutheran University recently received $2.5 million to provide scholarships to accomplished students from low- and middle-income families. The donation from the Camarillo-based TOLD Foundation is the largest that CLU... Denver, Colo. Seattle, Wash. Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas Richmond, Va. Boise, Idaho Ogden, Utah Salt Lake City, Utah Omaha, Neb. Sacramento, Calif. Portland, Ore. Housing market predictions are in and one industry veteran in the nations number one city provides reasons why his is the winner.Denver, Colorado has been named the hottest market for 2016 by Zillow, which evaluated homes based on value appreciation, low unemployment rates, and strong income growth.The honor likely came as no surprise to area originators.There are a lot of start-ups here and a lot of job opportunities; it could be the home of the next Google, AirBnB, or Uber, Brian Quigley, a Denver-based originator with The Mortgage Network, told Mortgage Professional America. There is a great quality life with us being right next to the mountains.Denver certainly ticks all the boxes of what is required of a hot market, according to Zillow."As the job market continues to hum and opportunity becomes more widespread, the best housing markets are no longer limited to the coasts or one-industry tech towns, Gudell said. This year's hottest markets have something for everyone, whether they're looking for somewhere to raise a family or start their career.""Trendy tech centers like San Francisco, Seattle and Denver hogged the spotlight in 2015, Zillow Chief Economist Dr. Svenja Gudell said in a release, but this year, the markets that shine brightest will be those that manage to strike a good balance between strong income growth, low unemployment and solid home value appreciation."Of course, the list still includes a number of hot tech centres, but many rely on more than just their tech industries; including Denver, whose booming marijuana industry is credited with helping bolster its tourism. Crude prices began the new year with a continued decline, with posted prices falling below $30 a barrel. The deepening decline has the oil and gas industry scrambling for new ways to adjust. The researcher There has been a big change over the last year, said Jim Duncan, director, commodity market research with ConocoPhillips. In Midland to address the Natural Gas Society of the Permian Basin, Duncan discussed the arrival of the black swan in Texas and why its arrival differs from the severe downturn of the 1980s. A black swan is something that surprises, has a major effect and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact, he said. Examples include the 2008 financial crisis or the dot.com collapse in 2000. The oil bust of the 1980s, when prices collapsed to $10 a barrel, led to a protracted, low-price environment, he said. Whats different this time is the shale revolution and its very different dynamics, he said. What both have in common is supply and demand. Now, as in the 1980s, the market has been oversupplied. Duncan said the dominant question is when will an oversupplied market turn into a balanced market and what will drive the balance. We can all name events that might cause the market to balance, but sometimes its a slow process, he said.. ConocoPhillips has adjusted its outlook and expenditures in reaction to falling prices, as have other companies. Duncan said the industry has reacted to falling prices faster than at any other time in history. The operator Its ugly, but well survive, said Steve Pruett, president and chief executive officer of Elevation Resources. Pruett explained that his companys pricing formula means Elevation and its peers actually receive less for their crude oil. Our pricing formula is generally: Plains WTI + Argus PPlus + Argus Mid/Cush differential less a transportation and trucking charge. Transportation and trucking charges range from $1.83 to $3.45 per barrel for trucking. Argus PPlus was a positive $1.89 per barrel in December. Mid-Cush differential was down 71 cents per barrel, and Plains WTI Posted was $33.77 per barrel, consistent with Sunoco and Valero and close to the other postings for WTI. Putting all of that together, we were $4.20 to $5.82 per barrel below the New York Mercantile Exchanges Cushing calendar month average for December, which was $37.33 per barrel. So $30 NYMEX WTI means we and our peers will be paid in the $25 range for our product, he said. Its horrible but unsustainable. Well start seeing stripper wells that fail, such as a rod parting, left shut-in as was the case in 1986-89 and 1998-99, he said. Those producing condensate in Culberson and Reeves counties have it even worse, as we have too much condensate for our Gulf Coast refiners, and it is getting worse, he said. The investor My No. 1 guiding rule has been to never sell a royalty or a mineral interest, said long-time oil investor Arlen Edgar, who owns both royalties and working interest in wells. There is no question the decline in prices will affect cash flow, he said. But the savvy investor looks beyond current price levels and plans long-term, he said. He speculated that a number of royalty owners either inherited their holdings or bought royalties at a time before oil prices climbed into triple digits. Royalty owners are in a different position than drillers. To finance their projects, drillers have to take on a lot of debt. This price fall will be ruinous for some, Edgar said. Weve seen this many times before and will see it many times again. Even so, he is confident prices will recover. The question is when and its staying power. To illustrate, Edgar read from a Forbes magazine article describing black clouds hovering over the nations oil and gas industry as it suffered from low prices and an oversupplied market. The punchline is that the article was from September 1994, he said. For his part, Pruett agreed a recovery is pending. Its ugly, but well survive. Remember the pendulum analogy: The further the pendulum swings to the left, the higher the swing to the right, he said. Growing up nestled in a cotton farm just north of Stanton, Julia Vickery was enthralled with the subjects of math and science. Self-described as a total nerd, Vickery was a bookworm who played doctor on every person and inanimate object, including her green John Deere toy tractor. Though her career drifted from her early aspirations of medical work, she always wanted to give back to her community. Ive always had a heart for philanthropy, although I didnt know that word, Vickery said. When I was young, I loved volunteering. I really dont know why, but it was always something that meant a lot to me. Vickey began her tenure at Midland College in 1997 working in Student Services. After taking over the Students in Philanthropy (SIP) program from Laura McCabe five years ago, Vickery played a vital role in the development of young philanthropists in West Texas. She has just been a gem to work with, said Suzanne Thomas, Abell-Hanger Foundation SIP program coordinator. She has a heart for her students. She loves to spread the gospel of philanthropy and shes a hoot to work with. Her role at the college is now in a transition period. Midland College is developing a new initiative revolving around student success in the form of providing support and creating goals in order to form firm plans for their futures. Technically, Vickerys new title of Director of Pathways Advising began Dec. 1, 2015, but shes currently straddling a number of positions until her duties become crystallized. Vickery intends to maintain an impactful presence while wearing many hats at Midland College, including advisor, student development and occasional adjunct professor, to go along with her involvement with SIP. It involves all parts of the campus, Vickery said. From the minute they make contact with Midland College until the minute they graduate, and my little bitty tiny component will be providing the advising. Im very excited about. The SIP program, founded at Midland College in 1997 by the Abell-Hanger Foundation, provides student leaders the opportunity to improve the quality of life in their communities. In the program, students evaluate grant applications, plan and execute fundraisers, absorb basic knowledge of local nonprofits and award grants. The best thing is working with the students, Vickery said. Watching them grow. To hear them talk about what theyre doing and where theyre volunteering has led. Getting to see them take the concepts of that program and apply them to their lives is a reward for me. After graduating Midland Lee High School she went to study pre-med at Graceland University in Lamoni, Iowa. But an epiphany changed her plan. Knowing she couldnt handle the inevitable loss of a patient as a doctor, she shifted her major to general studies focusing on science, communications and business. Thats probably why Im so interested in advising, Vickery said laughing. It gives me some insight into my students whenever theyre struggling with the decision of following their passion or taking an easier route. Eventually she followed her husband, Eric Vickery, to the University of Kansas where she earned a Masters degree in genetics. Vickerys had the occasional classroom experience as a teacher, but her current job allows for teaching every day in numerous ways. Even when Im just one-on-one advising, Im teaching students how to do college, Vickery said. Its kind of cool. Whether its how to get in or out of a sticky situation, I really get to teach and influence every day. As the transition into her new position begins to finalize in the near future, Vickerys role in the philanthropic community wont change much. She currently serves as the board development chair for the Girl Scouts of the Desert Southwest. She doubts shell ever leave philanthropy, which is a good thing for the people shes worked with. Julia has done a superb job for us, a program like that is only as good as the directors that run them, said David Smith, Abell-Hanger Foundation executive director. She has a heart for philanthropy and we couldnt be happier with what shes done. Were very fortunate to have her. A 23-year-old Midland man, Zane Paul ONeal, was sentenced Thursday to 23 years in federal prison followed by 10 years of supervised release after admitting to giving Midland woman Sandy Brooke Franklin a dose of methamphetamine that resulted in a foreseeable death, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Western District of Texas. Franklin had been taken into custody because of an outstanding warrant after a traffic stop on a vehicle driven by ONeal on July 27, 2015, according to the release. Uncredited MIAMI (AP) Defense Secretary Ash Carter says it appears a navigational error caused Navy boats to stray into Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf where they were detained overnight by Iran. In an interview Thursday with Univision, Carter said based on information commanders have provided, the boats accidentally strayed into Iranian waters due to a navigational mistake. Less than a day after being detained, the sailors were back with their American fleet. A New York City chef who grew up in Midland will judge a chili cook-off that has been added to the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration. The MLK Jr. Crockpot Chili Cook-off is one of the events planned for Monday at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center, 2300 Butternut Lane. The cook-off, set for 3 p.m., will be hosted by the Midland African American Roots Historical/Cultural Arts Council. Entries, which must be cooked in a crockpot, will be judged by Kirsten Hocker. The chef, a Lee High School graduate, will be a contestant on the Food Networks series Chopped. It will air at 9 p.m. Tuesday. Veterans are invited to eat a bowl of chili at the event, said Robbyne Hocker Fuller, executive director of MAARHCAC. There MLK Day celebration includes a silent auction featuring local vendors. Auction proceeds will benefit the family of Latisha Williams, who is a council board member and 2013 recipient of the Martin Luther King Community Service Award. Williams is hospitalized in critical condition after surgery, according to Fuller. Participants will march from Mount Carmel Baptist Church to the MLK center beginning 5:30 p.m. There will be a van following marchers for seniors who would like to particpate in the march. This years winners of the MLK Jr. Community Service Award will be announced after the march, she said. An event hosted by the Negro Business and Professional Womens Club is set for 7 p.m. There will be performances by the MLK Jr. Community Youth Choir and folklorico dancers from the Hispanic Cultural Center of Midland. Pastor Wendell Smith of Visionary Hollowell Community United Methodist Church will speak on Where are we in the dream? The reason we discussed the theme of Where are we in the dream? is because ... (King) was trying to get to the mountaintop and we definitely havent made it to the mountaintop. (This event) will celebrate Kings legacy because we have reached out all over the city and our community so that we can have unity, Howard said. That was part of his dream, that everybody would come together, regardless of their color, creed, nationality, etc. This was a man that needs to be remembered and his legacy goes down to our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. Its a life that all of us need to try to make an effort to be examples of, Howard said. Jennifer Painter, a Midland ISD teacher and former employee at the Midland Central Appraisal District, is seeking to become Midland Countys tax assessor-collector. Painter, a Midland native and Lee High School graduate, wants to use her MCAD experience and her experience with different software programs. This helps keep me up-to-date on all of the changing technology and learning what works best and what needs more help, Painter said. What you will find when looking at me is someone who is very honest and also dedicated. I want to make sure that when I am elected to be the tax assessor-collector, I will make sure to treat all of my employees with respect and fairness. Painter will run for the Republican nomination against incumbent Karen Hood. Early voting for the March 1 primary begins Feb. 16. Painter believes the Tax Assessor-Collectors Office holds key information Midland taxing entities could use to help keep track of growth trends. As an example, Painter said she would like to create a system that updates the number of vehicles registered in Midland County (in 2014 there were more than 200,000, but the information for 2015 isnt available, she said). Dated information, Painter said, hurts entities and groups when dealing with community issues such as population growth, housing and road infrastructure. I have been thinking about running for office for years, Painter said. Now is a good time in my life. ... I felt like there were things that needed to be changed and I could change them. After graduating from Lee, Painter graduated from Midland College with an associate degree in General Studies. She worked for 4 1/2 years with the Midland Central Appraisal District, working to help with website content and customer service. She joined the U.S. Air Force, serving in the 97th Medical Operations Squadron in the field of Health Services Management while at Altus, Oklahoma, where she helped move medical records into a digital system. During her time in the Air Force, she earned decorations and medals, including the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, National Defense Service Medal and National Defense Service Medal. Following her service in the Air Force, she returned to earned associate and bachelors degrees in Occupational Education from Wayland Baptist University. She currently teaches seventh-grade math at Alamo Junior High. Painter, 35, is the mother of a 10-year-old girl and is the daughter of Midland County Sheriff Gary Painter. Seth Perlman LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) Monsanto says plans to build a $140 million cotton seed processing plant in West Texas, where nearly 40 percent of the nation's fluffy fiber is planted. The St. Louis-based company said in a news release the plant will be its primary hub for cleaning, treating and bagging its brand of cotton seed, Deltapine, from growers with whom they contract. The seed will then be resold. The 88th annual Academy Awards nominations are in, and we're sure you've spotted some "snubs," which comes with the territory for any awards ceremony. Unfortunately, there is a striking issue with the 2016 Oscars' list of nominees: a lack of diversity! 2015 was a great year for black actors, directors and movies, yet we don't get to celebrate them through coveted nominations. Check out some examples of snubs below. You can check out more buzzing news coverage from Music Times right here! One of the best reviewed films of 2015 was the Rocky spin-off Creed starring Michael B. Jordan and directed by Ryan Coogler. Yes, Sylvester Stallone received a nomination, and it is well deserved, but the film itself, its leading actor and the filmmaker behind it are considered three snubs this year. Another critically acclaimed film was Straight Outta Compton, which received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay, but ignored for every other category it should've been in. The screenwriters are white, by the way. Beasts of No Nation might've been ignored by the Academy since it premiered on Netflix, but Idris Elba's performance is hard to ignore. A Best Supporting Actor nom for the British talent was definitely a topic of discussion since the film's release. Another Supporting role that stood out was that of Samuel L. Jackson in Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight. It would've been refreshing to see his name on the list as well. We understand that picking nominees is a tough task, but 2015 was one of the best years for black filmmakers and entertainers. It seems like the Academy doesn't agree with this. Credit goes to Slash Film for bringing this issue up after the nominations were announced. 2015 MusicTimes.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Earlier this month, Boosie Badazz released his heart wrenching album, In My Feelings (Goin' Thru It). Apparently, the rapper is in better spirits. Boosie announced that he plans to release another album, titled Out My Feelings (In My Past), to be released in February. According to a post shared on Boosies Instagram account, the album will drop on Feb. 1 on iTunes. The release date falls just one month after his previous release. He revealed the upcoming date with the albums cover art, which features a collage of photos of pivotal moments from the Baton Rouge rappers past. The covers standout image shows a weeping Boosie draped in a jumper marked by the infamous Angola penitentiary. In front of that image is a more recent photo of Boosie with a big smile on his face. "Out my feelings in my past" dropping February 1st on iTunes all my fans n supporters support me /if u love real music download on iTunes Feb 1st this shit is str8 LIKE ALWAYS Str8 Gangsta shittttttttttt artwork by kdesigns1 A photo posted by Boosie BadAzz (@officialboosieig) on Jan 13, 2016 at 4:22pm PST In My Feelings (Goin Thru It) featured 10 tracks and was released following Boosies successful kidney surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. The project finds him reflecting on the past few months as hes had to battle for his life. He first revealed his diagnosis back in November via social media. Boosies original Instagram post remains on his account but without the striking caption, which read, ""I need all my fans to pray for me doctors told me I have cancer on my kidneys prayer is power that's why I'm letting the world know." Aside from his music, Boosie is also ready to try his hand in the film industry. Earlier this month, he announced his plans for a biopic. He posted a photo with Jamal Woolard, the actor who starred as Biggie in the 2009 film Notorious, captioned with, n talks with the real sharks of the movie industry n it's official "BOOSIE" the movie is on the way be on the look out for casting call , This Movie will be epic. Check back at the top of next month to hear Out My Feelings (In My Past). 2015 MusicTimes.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The Knocks new album is gearing up to be something epic. The New York City pair has nabbed some massive collaborations with the likes of X Ambassadors, Carly Ray Jepson, Cam'ron, Walk The Moon and Wyclef Jean on their debut album 55. They have unleashed the latest track from the LP, "Kiss The Sky" with Jean, a funky jam that effortlessly brings together the talents of both acts. Wyclef starts by shouting out The Knocks and the band, before getting down in a deep voice the funky, chugging bass line. He brings up his pitch during the catchy hooks as The Knocks bring even more funk to the equation. "Working with Wyclef has been a surreal experience for us," JPatt tells Complex. "'Kiss The Sky' came together quickly and organically in one of the sessions we were doing in [Wyclef's] home studio. It was one of those times where we all instantly knew that we had created something special, and it immediately became a priority for us to release it to the rest of the world." Before the album is released, The Knocks are heading out on 21-date, month-long tour kicking off in Brooklyn tonight and eventually ending in Los Angeles on Feb. 13. Cardiknox and SOFI TUKKER will support them for select dates along the way. Stream "Kiss The Sky" below via Complex. 55 will be released on March 4 via Big Beat/Neon Gold. Fans can pre-order the LP on iTunes now. 1. New York City (feat. Cam'ron) 2. Time 3. Classic (feat. Powers) 4. Kiss The Sky (feat. Wyclef Jean) 5. Dancing With Myself 6. Comfortable (feat. X Ambassadors) 7. The Knocks & Matthew Koma - I Wish (My Taylor Swift) 8. Collect My Love (feat. Alex Newell) 9. The Key 10. Tied To You (feat. Justin Tranter) 11. Love Me Like That (feat. Carly Rae Jepsen) 12. Cinderella (feat. Magic Man) 13. Purple Eyes (feat. Phoebe Ryan) 14. Best For Last (feat. Walk The Moon) 2015 MusicTimes.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. It seems the former Scandal star, Columbus Short, is a married man now. Sources say the actor wed Karrine Steffans, a former video vixen and published author. You would think Short fans would be happy for their union but, that's not the case. The marriage between Short and Steffans has been greeted by the rude and negative comments from the Instagram followers of both parties. According to Hip Hollywood, Steffans announced that she was legally married to Short in an Instagram comment to one of her followers. Initially, she posted a photo of her beau, Short with a pretty lengthy caption that expressed her romantic feelings toward the actor. "He is I and I am him..." are the words that began her caption to the Instagram photo. "This is my #MCM, [(man crush Monday] my #MCE, [(man crush everyday)] and so much more," Steffans wrote at the end of her caption. The two have been working on a film project together titled, Meet The Shorts, according to Hip Hollywood, where Steffans plays the role of Short's on screen wife. But, when a comment rolled in on Steffan's Instagram account from a follower who questioned the nature of their relationship, the author of Confessions Of A Video Vixen set the record straight on the nature of their relationship. "Ma'am...this is my husband," Steffans responded to the comment. "Legally. Try minding your business. Lord. You people. So nosy but never know what you'retalking about." The Shade Room captured the conversation between Steffans and the follower. With the exception of the woman in this conversation, most of Steffans' followers appeared genuinely happy for her new found love with Short. Many of them commented congratulatory messages and wished them well. But, over on Short's Instagram account, the messages were not quite so friendly. Short posted a photo of Steffans where he described her as his "woman crush Wednesday" and revealed that their relationship is more than just a movie. WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT/LANGUAGE FOLLOWS KARRINE photo credit: #ME! #WCE #CarryOn#ItsNotAMovie A photo posted by Columbus Short (@officialcshort) on Jan 13, 2016 at 7:31pm PST The post above received a flood comments from those who were against the union of the two and seemed to think it was their business to say so. SonnyAce wrote, "you took an L for this," while other comments about her past rolled in. Seaux.alpha wrote, "she's a pro c**ksucker." Joyce1913 wrote, "crazy man done married supahead. Wow!" Others chimed in with rude and inappropriate comments like, "I hope u know she a big time H," wrote armr6. While angeleyes12627 wrote, "How do you like tasting the b*lls of every dude in the industry?#youmarriedawellknownwh*re" Steffans has received nickname "SuperHead" in the Hip Hop community based off of her own accounts of the many men in the industry that she has been involved with. According to Bossip, the former video model released her book, Confessions Of A Video Vixen, a tell-all book where she describes in detail her sexual relationships with music artists like Sean "Puffy" Combs, Jay-Z, Wyclef, Usher and many others according to the site. Most recently Steffans was connected to another music artist/actor, Rotimi, whom she claimed left her feeling abandoned after the loss of their unborn child. According to BET, Steffans and the Power star were in a relationship, and she got pregnant. Unfortunately, she suffered a miscarriage and claimed that the father of the child left her alone. "I've never in my life seen a man not ache over the loss of his own child until @rotimimusic," she wrote on Instagram according to BET. "I've never seen a man go on vacation while the mother of his dead child hurts so badly...or sing knowing he had a hand in stifling the breath of his own. The truth is a secret but the imagery is a lie and demons dance in the perfect light. But wait...there's more..." Hopefully Short and Steffans will be happy together in their union and continue to watch each other's back like his Instagram post suggests, despite what fans may think. 2015 MusicTimes.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. 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Ahwanhee Hotel...or Majestic Yosemite Hotel View Photos Yosemite, CA Yosemite National Park officials state the name changes to several iconic buildings and landmarks, some that are even on the National Register of Historic Places, come in the wake of a new concessioner contract. Park officials indicate that the renaming will avoid potential trademark infringement issues with the current concessioner, DNC Parks & Resorts at Yosemite, Inc. (DNCY), which is a subsidiary of the Delaware North Companies. Yosemite National Park Superintendent Don Neubacher, indicates, While it is unfortunate that we must take this action, changing the names of these facilities will help us provide seamless service to the American public during the transition to the new concessioner. Yosemite National Park belongs to the American people. Below are the Parks new names for the properties, chosen by park administrators: Yosemite Lodge at the Falls to become: Yosemite Valley Lodge The Ahwahnee to become: The Majestic Yosemite Hotel Curry Village to become: Half Dome Village Wawona Hotel to become: Big Trees Lodge Badger Pass Ski Area to become: Yosemite Ski & Snowboard Area DNCYs park contract dates back to 1993, but that over 20-year relationship ended last year. As previously reported, the National Park Service signed a concessions contract in October of last year, to begin March 1, with Yosemite Hospitality, LLC, a subsidiary of Aramark. That prompted a legal battle with the Park and DNCY, which argues it owns the iconic names through trademarks, which the company estimates are worth over $50 million. It is a claim the park denies, with officials contending that the trademarks, which even include the phrase, Yosemite National Park, were done without the National Park Services approval. Park spokesperson Scott Gediman indicates the cost will be in the millions, saying, Not only will we have to change signs on hotels, but directional signs within the park, its things on websites, brochures; this is also going to impact the Gateway Communities. So, theres a lot of things that remain to be determined. With regards to whether the names will be switched back if the park wins the legal battle, Gediman remarks that remains to be seen, stressing, this unfortunate and is not something we wanted to do. Sacramento, CA Californias Attorney General is leading an effort to close a loophole that she says currently allows rifles to easily be converted into semi-automatic assault weapons. Attorney General Kamala Harris, along with Assemblyman David Chiu, are sponsoring a bill they say will close the bullet button loophole. Harris reports that the loophole allows the owner to use a button to quickly replace detachable magazines, within seconds, so that it becomes a semi-automatic weapon. The legislation would expand the classification of assault weapons to include semi-automatic center fire rifles, which are capable of accepting detachable magazines. Harris and Chiu argue that this is the type of weapon that was used during the deadly attack in San Bernardino, so action is needed. Harris says, We simply must do everything we can to keep dangerous, high capacity firearms off our streets and out of our communities. Two Miami men have been arrested for what Polk deputies are calling an "organized execution" that left three people dead and one person critically injured. On Thursday, detectives said they arrested Andrew Joseph, 35, and Jonathan Alcegaire, 26, and charged them with the shootings. The Sheriffs Office said they worked with the Miami-Dade and Miami police departments in the investigation. David Washington, 24; Eneida "Stacy" Branch, 31; and Angelica Castro, 23, were shot and killed Jan. 6 at a home on East Magnolia Drive in unincorporated Lakeland. A fourth person, Felix Campos, 18, was shot in the face. Detectives said they learned that Joseph orchestrated a robbery and the execution-style shootings at the home and Alcegaire was positively identified as one of the three black males who entered the residence and shot the victims. Investigators said detectives are searching for additional suspects. Joseph is charged with three counts of first degree murder, attempted first degree murder, accessory after the fact of capital felony, conspiracy to commit armed robbery, conspiracy to commit first degree murder, possession of firearm by convicted felon, and tampering in felony life capital proceeding. Alcegaire is charged with three counts of first degree murder, attempted first degree murder, armed burglary with battery, possession of ammunition by a convicted felon, tampering with physical evidence, conspiracy to commit armed robbery, and conspiracy to commit first degree murder. Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz clashed Thursday night over the Texas senator's eligibility to serve as commander in chief and the businessman's "New York values," ending months of civility between fiery contenders seeking to tap into voter anger and frustration. More than two hours of prime-time argument presented voters with a sharp contrast to the optimistic vision of America that President Barack Obama painted in his State of the Union address earlier this week. The candidates warned of dire risks to national security if a Democrat is elected to succeed Obama and challenged claims of recent economic gains. Heated exchanges between Trump and Cruz dominated much of the debate, with the real estate mogul saying the senator has a "big question mark" hanging over his candidacy given his birth in Canada to an American mother. "You can't do that to the party," Trump declared. Cruz suggested Trump was only turning on him because he's challenging Trump's lead, particularly in Iowa, which kicks off voting on Feb. 1. Cruz renewed his criticism of Trump's "New York values," a coded questioning of his rival's conservatism. But the barb appeared to backfire, eliciting an unexpectedly emotional response from Trump about his hometown's response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York," Trump said. "That was a very insulting statement that Ted made." At times, the contest between some of the more mainstream candidates seeking to emerge as an alternative to Trump and Cruz was just as fiery, particularly between Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Rubio likened Christie's policies to President Obama's, particularly on guns, Planned Parenthood and education reform an attack Christie declared false. Seeking to undermine Rubio's qualifications for president, Christie suggested that senators "talk and talk and talk" while governors such as himself are "held accountable for everything you do." Rubio entered the debate as the top target for most of the other establishment-minded candidates. He largely escaped the criticism of his Senate voting record and immigration policies that have dogged him on the campaign trail and in television advertisements blanketing airwaves in early voting states until near the end when Cruz confronted him on immigration. Rubio fired back by accusing Cruz of switching positions on immigration himself, then ticking off a litany of other areas where he said the Texas senator had flip-flopped. "That is not consistent conservatism," Rubio said. "That is political calculation." Cruz was also on the defensive about his failure to disclose on federal election forms some $1 million in loans from Wall Street banks during his 2012 Senate campaign. He said it was little more than a "paperwork error." Rubio and Christie are among the candidates seeking to break out of the establishment pack, particularly in the New Hampshire primary, which quickly follows the lead-off Iowa caucuses. The race in Iowa has settled into a tight, two-way contest between Trump and Cruz. Thursday night's debate came at the end of a week that has highlighted anew the deep rifts in the Republican Party. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a rising GOP star, was widely praised by many party leaders for including a veiled criticism of Trump's angry rhetoric during her response to Obama's State of the Union address only to be chastised by conservative commentators and others for the exact same comment. Trump said he wasn't offended by Haley's speech and argued his anger is justified. "I'm very angry because our country is being run horribly," he said. "And I will gladly accept the mantle of anger." Trump also stuck with his controversial call for temporarily banning Muslims from the United States because of fear of terrorism emanating from abroad. He said he had no regrets about the proposal and noted his poll numbers rose after he announced the plan. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who has emerged as a frequent critic of Trump, urged the front-runner to reconsider the policy. "What kind of signal does that send to the rest of the world?" said Bush, who has struggled to gain any momentum in the race and often appeared overshadowed Thursday night. Ohio Gov. John Kasich also broke with Trump on the Muslim ban, but like the entire GOP field, called for at least a temporary halt on the Obama administration's plan to allow thousands of Syrian refugees into the country. "I've been for pausing the Syrian refugees," Kasich said. "But we don't want to put everybody in the same category." On the economy and national security, the candidates agreed any of them would be better than Obama or Hillary Clinton. "On Tuesday night, I watched story time with Barack Obama, and it sounds like everything in the world was going amazing," Christie said. Bush suggested the country was less safe under Obama and declared Clinton would be a "national security disaster." Rubio went even further, saying Clinton was "disqualified for being commander in chief," accusing her of mishandling classified information and lying to the families of Americans killed in the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya. Ben Carson, who has fallen behind his rivals despite being well-liked among Republican voters, generated laughs after joking about having to wait nearly 15 minutes to get his first question. "I was happy to get a question this early on," the retired neurosurgeon said with a big smile. Tighter rules for Thursday's debate, hosted by Fox Business Network, resulted in a smaller cast of candidates in the main event. Businesswoman Carly Fiorina was bumped to the undercard event, as was Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, though he chose to not participate in the early evening contest. Toward the end of the debate, a handful of audience members in the hall broke out into a "We want Rand" chant. Republicans have one more debate scheduled before voting begins in Iowa, a Jan. 28 event in Des Moines. ___ Pace reported from Washington. AP writer Steve Peoples contributed to this report. It was a quick status hearing Thursday as the appeals process began for convicted killer Bessman Okafor. Okafor is on death row for killing 19-year-old Alex Zaldivar, hours before Zaldivar was set to testify against him in a home invasion case. Hes going to have to forfeit his life for what he did to our son," said Zaldivars father, Rafael Zaldivar. But for now Okafor is locked up - just one of the nearly 400 inmates on death row. On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Florida death penalty process violated the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution. We dont anticipate this affecting any of our old cases that have been on death row where the appeals are finished," state attorney Jeff Ashton said. But Okafors attorneys smell opportunity. This is the issue, because our appeals are not exhausted. My client can raise all those issues that are valid today in his appeal," defense attorney Dean Mosley said. What Okafors attorneys will now include in their arguments over appeal is the new U.S. Supreme Court ruling that Floridas death sentence process is unconstitutional because judges have been determining the aggravating factors for the death penalty, and not jurors. I believe it affects my clients sentence, and I believe ultimately, that death sentence will be nullified," Mosley said. That argument doesnt sit well with the victims family. Its impossible to move on," Zaldivar said. I expect well be in litigation on many cases for many years," Ashton said. We spoke to the state attorneys handling the appeals process and they said it may be another year until Okafors first death sentence appeal is argued in court. Meanwhile, Ashton said his office will work with the legislature to fix the current death sentencing procedure to be compliant with the recent Supreme Court ruling. Ashton is also asking judges, out of an abundance of caution, to delay trials for capital cases until the end of the legislative session. Another issue that has come up since the Supreme Courts decision, is whether juries should have a unanimous sentencing decision for the death penalty. The way it stands now, Florida only requires a 7 to 5 majority to pass, but a proposed bill would require a unanimous jury decision for the death penalty. That particular bill, I think honestly, is a death penalty killer bill," he said. "Its intention is to make the death penalty virtually impossible to obtain. The jury in the Okafor case voted 11 to 1 in its death penalty recommendation. Ashton said Florida will not stop its pursuit of the death penalty for capital felony cases and added that he does not expect that the latest Supreme Court ruling will require new juries to re-sentence prisoners on death row. Marion County authorities say human remains found in November may belong to a disabled man who walked away from his home almost 2 years ago. On Jan. 4, Kim Radabaugh says authorities told her a preliminary report found that some of the remains tested 99.7 percent a child of her husband, John Radabaugh, Sr. She says on Feb. 25, 2014, her stepson, John Radabaugh Jr., was helping his dad rake leaves when he wandered off. He loved to run the wheel barrel, he thought that was important and he took off with a load and his Dad said, Well the phones ringing, and went in and he came back and he was gone, said Radabaugh. For weeks, search and rescue crews looked for the 48-year-old, who had autism, but eventually called off the search. It's been a long time wondering why, why we never found or heard anything and now we have, said Radabaugh. In November, the Marion County Sheriffs Office says three fishermen found human skeletal remains near a lake in Ocklawaha. Radabaugh says the remains were found about 7 miles from their house. "That area was searched a couple of times. We just missed him and that hurts. It bothers me that he was that close to home and we didn't bring him home, but we will now, said Radabaugh. Marion County authorities are waiting for the final report from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Three American companies will make cargo runs to the International Space Station through 2024, according to a NASA announcement Thursday. NASA announced Sierra Nevada Corp. will join SpaceX and Orbital ATK in cargo runs, starting in 2019. SpaceX and Orbital ATK got their second cargo contract. Both companies already take cargo to the ISS. Each company will get at least six resupply missions to the ISS in this new contract. SpaceX and Sierra Nevada will continue to launch their missions from the Space Coast, while Orbital ATK will launch from Florida and the Wallops launch facility in Virginia. Sierra Nevada is developing the Dream Chaser, which is described as a mini-space shuttle. The Dream Chaser launches on the back of an Atlas V rocket. However, it glides and lands like a space shuttle. Sierra Nevada says its Dream Chaser can get cargo back from the ISS within three to six hours. NASA says the reusable vehicle can land in a lot of places if necessary, but will most likely land at Kennedy Space Centers shuttle landing facility. NASA says working with multiple companies gives them more options and also reduces risk, while also maximizing the use of the ISS. These cargo missions will take place alongside the Commercial Crew program, which is slated to begin in 2017 using SpaceX and Boeing vehicles. If all goes well astronauts will fly on private vehicles to the ISS, and NASA will be able to add a seventh astronaut to the station. The next cargo mission to the ISS is currently slated for March 10, with Orbital ATK sending its Cygnus cargo spacecraft to the ISS. If youve lived in Florida for any length of time, youve heard about your blood thinning. As in, Just you wait till youve been here a few years. Your blood will thin and youll be cold when its 60 degrees like the rest of us. As we mentioned in our story Thursday, Thin blood vs. Florida winters: Is it too cold for you?, your blood doesnt actually thin when you get acclimated to Floridas weather. But more on that in a moment. We posted two Viewer Polls Thursday: For Florida transplants, How long did it take for your blood to thin? For Florida natives: How cold is too cold for you? Here are the results: Florida transplants: How long did it take for your blood to thin? A year to 2 years 36% 2 years to 3 years 19% 3 to 5 years 12% 5 years or more 11% Still not used to it 22% Florida natives: How cold is too cold for you? 60-70 degrees 18% 50-60 degrees 27% 40-50 degrees 26% Colder than 40 degrees 29% We received hundreds of comments on our Facebook page, too. Here are some of our favorites: "I'm one of those rare creatures that was born in Florida. My blood is like water it's so thin. I saw snow once, yes only once, and I couldn't have been more miserable!" Kristi R Jensen "I've been here for over 11 years. Still waiting for 'the blood to thin'. I laugh when I hear native Floridians say "it's cold outside" and watch them bundle up in sweaters, gloves, & boots. I'm originally from Pittsburgh, PA and we wear shorts & sweatshirts when it warms up to a balmy 40 degrees back home after the long winter freeze. This ain't nothin, kids!" Wendy Ford "I'm fine with it. I'm a native that went into exile to Kentuckistan for about a decade. I came back in the summer of 2014. That was brutal. The winter was mild. This winter isn't much. Then again I work in temperatures of -10F to 41F & have worked in them for years. I'm loving this 'winter'." Tom Hicks "I lived my whole life in Florida. A year ago I moved to Indiana, and haven't had to adjust to anything. Florida is always beyond hot and that's my perception lol. I'll take the snow over heat exhaustion!" Justin Deming "I am a Florida native. I have a jacket on at 60 degrees. Anything under 60, closed toed shoes replace the flip flops." Tara Hendry "After nearly 19 years in Florida I don't think my blood will ever be the same." Shawn Hoover Is it too cold for you? Will the heat be on in your home this weekend, when temperatures are forecast to drop again? If youre one of those thin-blooded people, the good news is, physiologically, your blood hasnt changed at all. Dr. Timothy Hendrix with Florida Hospital CentraCare says your feeling of being cold has more to do with perception. Physiologically, your body does not change as your body adapts to a warm climate or colder climate, Hendrix said. There are people, when they go to a higher elevation, people will develop more red blood cells, hemoglobin. That may lend to the myth of your blood thinning. When it comes to temperature, our skin is the main organ that tells the body whether its cold or hot. Blood flow to the skin helps regulate body heat. In cold weather, the muscles contract more than normal, which helps reduce the loss of body heat. In warm weather, the blood vessels dilate. However, if your body, and your skin, is used to 80-degree weather all the time, a 20-degree drop in temperature will make a difference. Conversely, if you spend all winter with weather in the 30s or 40s, how great must 60 degree weather feel? And how HOT will 80 degrees feel? To me, this morning at 44 degrees, that was cold, Hendrix said. If Im in that environment on a daily basis, Ill adapt and get used to it. Adaptation has a lot to do with our perception of cold weather. If youve lived your whole life in a colder area, youre more likely to be able to handle it easier (not necessarily that youre comfortable). Youre also more likely to already expect and prepare for the cold. The U.S. military offers training programs for extreme weather, including severe cold weather. In this official video, these trainees are in Black Rapids, Alaska: Now thats cold! And dangerously so. Our 40-degree weather in Florida, while not comfortable under any circumstance, is not necessarily dangerous. However, its not something you want to expose your body to overnight needlessly. Another thing readers brought up Thursday: Florida is a different cold. Its a wet cold. "Moved here 4 years ago from Winnipeg, Manitoba. It's darn cold there but it's a totally different cold. This wet cold gets into your bones and is worse than -35 in Canada. 4 years ago we were swimming at Disney. I wouldn't stick my toes in the water now. -45 is really really cold!" Pam Martin "I'm from central NY and I agree, I always say the same thing and people just don't understand! The cold weather here is a heavy damp cold...goes right into your bones lol!" Beth Wightman "Took about 2yrs. I am from NY. And I don't care what anyone says, Florida cold in piercing. I think it's different cold than up north." Allison Pfeiffer Is that really true? Is Florida cold a wetter cold? What does that mean? Our meteorologists say generally, our readers are right. We do have higher dewpoints here in Florida than colder, northern climates, meteorologist Brian McClure said. A dewpoint is the amount of moisture the atmosphere can hold. Its actually different than humidity, though the two concepts are related somewhat. The higher the dewpoint, the stickier it feels outside. Generally, the dewpoint is higher in Florida than it is up north. Even in Florida, the dewpoint should generally drop when the weather is colder. But even if it drops, it still wont get as low as it might get up north. Check out temperature and dewpoint readings that were taken at Orlando International Airport during the past couple of days: 1/14 9:53 a.m. Temp 56, Dewpoint 41 Temp 56, Dewpoint 41 1/13 9:53 a.m. Temp 57, Dewpoint 31 Now, take a look at the temperature and dewpoint readings on Long Island, New York: 1/14 9:56 a.m. Temp 30, Dewpoint 13 Temp 30, Dewpoint 13 1/13 9:56 a.m. Temp 27, Dewpoint 6 As that dewpoint gets lower, the air gets drier. Hendrix notes that in the winter, CentraCare will see more cases of eczema, dry skin, chapped lips and even nose bleeds. But if youre used to a New York dewpoint, a Florida dewpoint will feel wetter, maybe even colder. As our bodies perspire, which they do even on cool days, there will be a layer of moisture that evaporates from our skin, McClure said. Evaporation is a cooling process, and when there are higher dew points (higher humidity) there will tend to be more moisture that lingers near the thin layer of air near our skin. So where does this leave all of us? At the end of the day, Hendrix says its important to just feel comfortable even in the Florida cold. Stay warm, bundle up and wear layers, Hendrix said. The temperature fluctuation is not going to harm you. EDINBURG As Rio Grande Valley farmers prepare to plant seeds in the coming weeks for this years row crops, many are scratching their heads over what to plant, according to Brad Cowan, the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service agent for Hidalgo County. Commodity prices are not good, he said. That poses a huge challenge; growers dont know what to plant. Right now theyre hoping something will happen to bump up the price on a crop before planting. Commodity prices are low worldwide, thanks to a perfect storm in the global economy, according to Luis Ribera, an AgriLife Extension agricultural economist in College Station. Theres a worldwide economic slowdown, he said. China is not importing as much commodities as they used to. Overall, we had a good production year last year, so commodity stockpiles are high. Thats created a perfect storm for a drop in commodity prices across the board. But farmers farm, and somethings got to go in the ground, Cowan said. Valley growers have to plant something. They try hard to plant the crop that fits their operation and returns the most profit, he said For some, that will likely be cotton. Were hearing that there will be more cotton this year than the 65,000 acres planted in the Valley last year, he said. One reason is cotton growers can try to compensate for low prices by increasing their yields. Cowan said with improved cotton varieties and the success of boll weevil eradication efforts, higher yields are indeed possible. Weve been having good cotton yields lately, the last two years, he said. Some growers have managed to produce four bales per acre. With each bale weighing about 500 pounds, some have been meeting that 1-ton cotton goal that before the decline in boll weevils was just a dream here. Harvesting three to 3.5 bales per acre for irrigated cotton is no longer rare, Cowan said. To produce four bales per acre, a lot of things have to fall in place just right, he said. But without having to worry about boll weevils, getting three bales per acre is becoming more common. There are more bolls of cotton on the plant at harvest when boll weevils arent around to knock them off. On the plus side, rains that fell throughout the fall are going to help, no matter which crop is planted. Many growers have good soil moisture to work with this year, Cowan said. That helps get a crop off to a good start, because some years the soil is so dry that its a real challenge to grow a healthy crop. A wet year may mean growers will plant more corn, he said. Corn acreage here may see an increase because some dryland growers who dont have the ability to irrigate will plant corn, Cowan said. We dont usually recommend growing corn on dryland acres, but in a wet year some growers will roll the dice on that one. One crop that has been steadily increasing in acreage in the Valley over the years will likely not be a candidate for growers this year. Nobody is offering sunflower contracts. Last year we planted about 30,000 acres, a lot of it in the McCook area, but this year there seems to be an oversupply of it. Those companies that usually buy sunflowers are just not buying, but hopefully that market will come back soon. Sesame also seems to be stored in large enough quantities that acreage here will also shrink. But some soybeans will be planted, Cowan said. Prices are down for soybeans from last year, as well as other feed grains, he said. But growers should consider planting soybeans because its a good rotation crop that helps replenish the soil. Grain sorghum, one of the areas largest crops, is also a tricky proposition. The wild card there is the sugarcane aphid, which can drastically reduce yields, Cowan said. In 2014, growers here had to spray a lot of insecticides to manage populations, but not in 2015 because insect populations were low. By contrast, North Texas growers had to spray heavily in 2015. As a result of not knowing what insect pressures 2016 will bring, growers are considering dropping grain sorghum this year, he said. Its not a rosy picture, but Cowan said there is always hope. Something could happen to improve prices before these row crops go to market. You never know; it could very well happen. LUBBOCK - The Texas Alliance for Water Conservation will host its second annual TAWC Water College on Wednesday, Jan. 20, at the Bayer Museum of Agriculture in Lubbock. This event is free of charge, CEU credits (3 TDA, 6 CCA, and 3.25 IA) will be offered, and lunch will be provided. Registration will begin at 8:15 a.m. with the program starting at 8:35 a.m. and concluding about 4 p.m. Designed to connect producers with the latest in irrigation technology and research, TAWC Water College will include presentations from experts in the industry discussing: water management for cotton, grain sorghum and corn; understanding evapotranspiration (ET) and how to use TAWCs online tools to determine your own fields ET; El Nino and long range weather forecasts; and successfully farming under Nebraskas water policy. Keynote speakers will include Texas Water Development Board Chairman Bech Bruun and Texas Department of Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller. Plainview's own City Manager, Jeffrey Snyder, has received some international recognition. He was recently honored with the Credentialed Manager designation from the International City/County Management Association (ICMA). Snyder is one of more than 1,300 local government management professionals currently credentialed through the ICMA Voluntary Credentialing Program. The ICMA says their mission is to create excellence in local governance by promoting professional management worldwide and increasing the proficiency of appointed chief administrative officers, assistant administrators, and other employees who serve local governments and regional entities around the world. The organization's nearly 9,000 members in 27 countries also include educators, students, and other local government employees. "It is an honor to receive this designation from ICMA," Snyder said. "This is a great organization that is committed to building better communities through the promotion of professional local government management. I am truly grateful to the Mayor and City Council for giving me the opportunity to serve as the City Manager here in Plainview." To receive the prestigious ICMA credential, a member must have significant experience as a senior management executive in local government; have earned a degree, preferably in public administration or a related field; and demonstrated a commitment to high standards of integrity and to lifelong learning and professional development. Snyder received an undergraduate degree from West Texas A&M University and a Masters of Public Administration from Texas Tech University. He is also a graduate of the Public Executive Institute at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas in Austin. Snyder served as assistant city manager under Greg Ingham until he replaced him in 2014. Prior to that, Snyder worked for the City of Idalou. "I would also like to say thank you to the City of Idalou who took a chance on a kid fresh out of college and really got me started off in this profession," Snyder said. "I was not sure I knew what I got myself into, but I remember the mayor at the time saying no worriesdon't sweat the small stuff, listen a lot, be patient and you will figure it out. And they did get me started off right there as I laugh thinking about the first time I ran a sewer machine." Snyder is an active member in numerous organizations that exemplify his commitment to the success of his profession and the community in which he serves as a local government manager. He is a member of the Texas City Management Association, Vice Chair of the Panhandle City Manager's Association, member of the Caprock Business Finance Corporation Board through South Plains Association of Governments, Chair of the Covenant Hospital Plainview Governing Board, and is a member of the Plainview YMCA Board. Snyder says he is happy serving the citizens of Plainview and is excited for many more years of service. "City management affords you the opportunity to work with really great people that share a common vision and passion for making a difference in the community that they live and work," he said. We liked this week The Meriden Fire Department announced Monday that it now carries Narcan to reverse the effects of opioid overdoses. Also known as Naloxone, the departments form of Narcan is administered nasally to those suspected to have suffered an overdose. The non-addictive medicine is used in emergency situations. Starting May 5, United Airlines will offer nonstop daily service between Bradley International Airport and Denver International Airport, the Connecticut Airport Authority announced. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy on Monday said the states economy is trending in the right direction, despite bleak warnings from critics and General Electrics announcement that it will move out of state. According to the most recent jobs numbers from the Department of Labor, the private sector has added 113,400 jobs since early 2010, exceeding the 111,600 jobs lost during the 2008-10 recession. Some prison guards will be converted into parole officers as the state continues to shift the focus of its penal system toward integrating nonviolent offenders back into society. The guards will receive the training they need to make the career switch. As a byproduct of Malloys Second Chance Society initiative, there will be fewer inmates in prisons and more in community-based programs. In an effort to help local small businesses get started or expand, a state agency has taken up residency in Meriden City Hall for weekly office hours. A representative from the Connecticut Small Business Development Center is available every Tuesday to offer advice and services to those looking to start a small business. The Meriden YMCA recently purchased a building on South Grove Street, and is turning it into a play museum for children. The 11,250-square-foot building at the corner of South Grove and Hanover streets was formerly home to the Marine Corps League Thrift Shop, which closed at the end of 2015. The state of Connecticut is launching a new website to help fight fraud, waste and abuse in state government. Officials say the website, at FightFraud.ct.gov, will make it easier for the public to report suspicious conduct. We didnt like this week General Electric announced Wednesday that it will move its headquarters to Boston, leaving the sprawling suburban Connecticut campus it has called home over the past four decades for a technology-rich city it says better fits its ambitions as an innovation leader. GE, which has long complained about Connecticuts tax environment, plans to complete the move by 2018. HARRISBURG Allie Ziegmont mounted the saddle with the confidence of a cowgirl far older than her tender 5 years. The Etters girl held onto the saddle bronc rigging and laughed in delight as the cowboys gently rocked the bale of hay underneath it. The little girl exuberantly waved her cowgirl hat to the imaginary crowds during the 100th Pennsylvania Farm Show Exceptional Kids Rodeo. That event, sponsored by the First Frontier Circuit Finals Rodeo, allows children with disabilities and disadvantages to be cowboys and cowgirls for a day. David Murat, rodeo spokesman, said that 123 Milton Hershey School students attended and 93 First Frontier cowboys and cowgirls helped out. The Exceptional Kids rodeo lets us give back to the community, said Murat as the New Holland Arena echoed with the sounds of laughter and joyful squeals. We set up rodeo stations, Those stations mimic rodeo event -- stick horses for barrel racing, a small simulated bull for would-be bull riders, a small wooden calf for calf roping and more. Cowboys and cowgirls greeted the arriving children and presented them with T-shirts, bandanas and hats. The children each had a cowboy or cowgirl escort as they made their way to the various stations. Allie tried out the saddle bronc a few times, squealing in delight. I want to be a cowgirl, she said, jumping up and down. Nearby, fellow student Greg Gulli, 13, seemed equally happy at the bareback riding station. Two cowboys, with children in their arms and smiles on their face, said that sharing rodeo with children is one of their favorite activities. J.R. Mills of Okemos, Mich. and Jason Martin of Vernon, Fla., in their mid-40s, called themselves two of the oldest bareback riders in the country. Every little boy wants to grow up to be a cowboy, Martin said. That was my dream too. Now Im living it every day. Mills, who works as a roughneck in oil fields when hes not on the rodeo circuit, agreed. Most bareback riders are done at age 30, he said. Im 45 and still doing it. I especially find it a blessing to help people less fortunate than I am like were doing today. The First Frontier Circuit Finals Rodeo will perform in the Large Arena at 7 p.m. today and 5 p.m. Saturday. Tickets can be purchased outside the PA Preferred Banquet Hall. A smile crossed the lips of many a Marine in Vietnam who heard the code word Scarface. They knew hovering overhead was a Cobra attack helicopter ready to strike at the enemy. Everything we did was in support of the ground troops, recalled Pat Owen of East Pennsboro Township, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel. There was never a boring day. By his count, the Minnesota native flew more than 1,000 missions during his almost 12 months in Southeast Asia from Dec. 7, 1969 until Thanksgiving 1970. Back then, helicopter pilots received a flight medal for every 20 missions flown. I have 53, Owen said. Not one was a typical mission. Most flights were during the day and involved providing air cover to transport helicopters bringing in men and supplies. Other times he had orders to seek out and destroy enemy units on the ground. We did our share of night flying usually in emergencies, said Owen, adding how that meant escorting helicopters, evacuating the wounded or delivering direct fire support to soldiers in jeopardy. He recalled a mission where a stranded Marine recon team was pinned down and surrounded by North Vietnamese forces. They were desperate for ground fire. We put it down within 20 to 30 feet of their position. We stopped the attack and got the kids out without injury. The Cobra had flight controls at both seats in the cockpit. The man upfront was the primary gunner and had control over a turret mounted just below the forward fuselage. The main weapons were a multi-barreled mini-gun and a grenade launcher. The guy in the back shot the rockets, said Owen, who was a first lieutenant in Vietnam. It was the luck of the draw where you sat. Sometimes you go out flying in the front, but fly in the back seat in the afternoon. We were interchangeable the whole time. Crash One day in March 1970, Owen was in Cobra escorting a CH-46 Sea Knight that was trying to insert a recon team on a ridgeline that was partially concealed by cloud cover. Recon teams were often deployed in hostile territory on the fringes of major combat areas to report on the movement of enemy ground units. Owen remembers using the clouds to sneak into the airspace over the landing zone. Suddenly the Cobra lost power while in a hover and fell into a tangle of tree trunks devastated from a previous bombardment. The helicopter tipped over leaving Owen and his co-pilot stranded with only their service revolvers as protection. I suppose they were meant to be security blankets, Owen said of the handguns. They were kind of worthless. The Cobra came equipped with a breakout knife a heavy piece of metal with a blade along one edge. This was used to shatter the thick plexiglass of the cockpit canopy. Once outside, the flight crew was vulnerable. In Vietnam, there were no front lines, Owen said. The recon teams moved around to find out where the bad guys were. When you up in the mountains, you could only guess where they are. There were a few unsettling moments before a tap on the shoulder scared the wits out of Owen. He turned around and saw that it was the same Marine recon team he was assigned to fly escort into the ridgeline. It was a very pleasant surprise, Owen recalled. Recon Marines were masters at sneaking around until they wanted to be seen and thats exactly what they did. They wanted to make sure the area was secure. They were in their environment. We were not used to it. Team members guided the pilots to a suitable location where they were lifted off the mountain by helicopter. An attempt was made to salvage the damaged Cobra but it had to be dropped and destroyed just short of the runway. Marine helicopter pilots never developed an attachment to a particular aircraft. There were no Memphis Belles in Vietnam. You might be flying a different one every day, Owen recalled. If you got the same one two or three days straight, it was just the luck of the draw. But the pilots had a healthy respect for the design of this first-generation attack helicopter. The fuselage was narrow only 36 inches wide making it a difficult target for an enemy to spot head-on from the ground. There was armor plating around both pilot seats and such vital components as the transmission. As a Cobra pilot, Owen was called on to fly virtually every day often on multiple missions from the Marble Mountain Marine Air Facility near Da Nang. What little down time he had was spent at the beach swimming, at a local night club or taking in a movie or the occasional USO show. On the ground, he served as the intelligence officer of his unit. I got to do what I was trained to do fly my tail off every day, he said. We were not down slogging in the mud like the poor guys in the field. We came back to comfortable surroundings every day. Nor did he suffer the lingering effects of combat duty. Owen stayed in the Marine Corps until 1986. To him, the service branch was like an extended family of fellow veterans whom he could confide in if he needed support. Other survivors of Vietnam were not as fortunate and were abused and neglected by the American public upon their return. Owen moved through the ranks and was among the first Marines qualified to pilot the Harrier jump jet. Upon retirement, he operated a ranch and farm in Montana before moving to Pennsylvania where his wife was from. He is now a financial adviser for the Morgan Stanley investment firm in Harrisburg. Married 27 years, Owen is the father of three adult children and has one grandchild. TURNEFFE ATOLL, Belize A school of shimmering silver jack had just glided by overhead as I crested the reef, where a trio of tall orange sponges rose toward an outcropping of coral and a pair of purple sea fans framed the opening of a dark nook. My heart raced and my breath quickened, a rush of bubbles streaming upward as I caught sight of my prey. The billowy fins, the showy spikes shooting from its spine, the majestic stripes flowing into the distinctive mane. The lionfish. It hovered carelessly in the pristine, bath-warm waters, this sea creature of local legend. I raised an arm, stretched a small piece of elastic cord, and sent a spear through the back of its head. Success! Death at 60 feet below the surface. I was now more than just a scuba diver. I was a trained killer. More Information If you go Turneffe Island Resort: Thirty miles off the coast of Belize City. 1-888-553-5799 or 011-501-532-2990. turnefferesort.com. A luxury private island, with a focus on scuba, fishing, eco-tourism and escapism. Guests are picked up at Belize City's international airport (BZE), with direct flights from several U.S. cities, and then transported by private boat to the island. For 2016, a seven-night stay, including room and board, ranges from $2,090 per person in a deluxe room to $3,590 per person in a private villa. Dive packages, which include room and board, 15 dives and a trip to the Blue Hole, range from $3,290 per person in a deluxe room to $4,790 per person in a private villa. All packages include three meals per day, hors d'oeuvres and island transfers. Packages do not include bar charges. See More Collapse Diving, in its common form, is a gentle adventure. Ive heard many experienced divers liken it to an underwater hike or safari, a pretty good description of what I have found in my decade-plus of exploring the oceans. Thrills come from spotting a rare fish, marveling at a soaring ray or spying a reef shark as it slips by. But one of the main tenets of scuba diving is that you are to look and not touch. Leave the ocean and all its inhabitants as you found them. Visit and admire their world, let them live in it. That is, except for the lionfish. On a recent visit to a stunning atoll about 35 miles east of Belize City, the divemasters and the national government all but implored us to kill this magnificent monster. Although the lionfish is a beauty, theyll tell you, it is an invader to the Caribbean Sea, a scourge on the Belize Barrier Reef, the second largest in the world. The lionfish native to the Pacific Ocean and believed to have been introduced to the Atlantic when a beachside aquarium in Florida broke during Hurricane Andrew in 1992 has no natural predators here. It reproduces often and in great number. It eats its weight in local juvenile fish every day or two. It has a bevy of venom-laced triangular-tipped spikes that keep larger fish away. And it is slowly destroying the natural balance that keeps the reef vibrant. Posters in the dive shack say it is wanted dead or alive, and the government of Belize has at times offered a bounty. So on dives that normally would have been tranquil meanderings gazing at coral or staring at flamingo tongue snails, many of us carried spears and searched the reef for lionfish prey. Kill them, kill them all. The lionfish hunts added adrenaline and intrigue to a journey that probably didnt need it; these islands off the coast of Belize offer some of the most interesting diving, nature and oceanscapes imaginable. The trip was the first my wife, Nikki, and I have made to Central America, with the promise of a dive haven unlike any other in the hemisphere. It didnt disappoint. The journey was a long time in the making, because Nikki had wanted to travel abroad for her 40th birthday, and she had some requirements: The destination had to be tropical, scuba diving had to be on the menu, and we had to leave the kids at home. We also wanted to go somewhere we hadnt been, and with previous dive trips to the Bahamas, St. Martin, Tahiti and Hawaii, we had seen a pretty decent array already. Belize wasnt originally at the top of the list. We first considered several far-flung locations, but decided that all of them were too distant for a week-long vacation from Washington: the Maldives, the Galapagos, the Cook Islands, South Africa. Nikki wanted to try a live-aboard boat, something that I feared because, well, what if you get stuck with a whole group of people you dont like? Even a big boat could get very small very quickly. Instead, we lucked into Turneffe Island Resort, a 14-acre private island that sits at the southern end of the atoll. It is, in many ways, like a live-aboard boat: It can host about 40 guests at a time from Saturday to Saturday, all the meals are served family-style, theres a bar by the pool and a limited number of activities. Which is to say, if you dont dive, fish or kayak, youd better be prepared for a lot of lounging around. (Not such a bad thing on vacation, really.) After arriving at Belize Citys airport just a 11/2-hour flight from Miami, with a very cool route over Havana (sit on the right side of the plane for the view) we met up with a boat that took us, and the rest of the weeks guests, directly out into the ocean. The 90-minute ride took us past slim barrier islands dotted with fishing shacks and then through dense mangroves. On the other side: Turneffe. The resort advertises itself as a private island, and it turns out to be exactly what you imagine celebrities get when they vacation on their private islands. White-sand beaches, 80-degree azure ocean, more staff than guests, postcard views in every direction, and of course, privacy. Our room was a stand-alone villa on the beach a few hundred feet from the waves lapping up on the sand. A screened-in front porch (vital at night because of the mosquitoes) opened to a polished mahogany living area with high ceilings and a four-poster king bed. Missing was a television: There are no TVs on the island, nor are there telephones. If you havent gone a week without television and I hadnt in a very long time it is liberating. There is, however, WiFi, so you can stay in touch with home via email, Skype and FaceTime. One of our favorite perks: pre-dawn coffee service brought to our porch, allowing us to sip fresh Belizean brew as the sun began to ease over the atoll. The beach in front of our villa was dotted with manicured palm trees and hibiscus and plumeria; the sand was neatly combed every morning and, seemingly by magic, had perfect ridges again when we returned at night. A dock and breakwater jutted out into the ocean, where a blissful breeze cooled a thatched gazebo with two chaise longues; it was there that I rediscovered napping in the lazy afternoons. But Turneffe is primarily a dive and fishing resort, and it caters to those who want to fill their time with these activities. Mornings started early with a breakfast in the main lodge at 7:30 before the boats pushed off for dive sites promptly at 8:15. On most days, there were two dives in the morning and one dive in the afternoon. In all, we did 15 dives from Sunday to Friday. Unlike most resorts wed been to, the diving mostly took place about five minutes from the resort, meaning no long nausea-inducing boat rides to distant reefs. We would push off from the docks and almost immediately need to be in our gear. Burley Bradford Garbutt, 46 he goes by Brad led us to sites with such names as Three Amigos and The Zoo and Fabians Roost. His hour-long tours were filled with spotted toadfish and free-swimming eels, goliath grouper and rainbow parrotfish, stingrays and eagle rays and occasional cruise-bys from the majestic hawksbill turtle. Brad, a Belizean native who used to be a commercial fisherman, has been working at Turneffe for 14 years and has gone on thousands of dives here. He started each of ours with a cheery Lets see what nature has in store for us and would gleefully tap on his tank underwater tink, tink, tink, tink to alert us to the underwater treasures he found hiding in crags and holes and among the sponges. One dive site, the Wreck of the Sayonara, was around the scant remains of a dive boat that used to run off Turneffe decades ago. Its captain was Brads father, who worked at an earlier iteration of the same resort. A visit to the atoll must include a day trip to the Great Blue Hole, a national monument and international treasure that is like no other dive site. It is, quite literally, a hole in the ocean floor. Formed as a glacial cave more than 100,000 years ago, it ultimately collapsed under the weight of the rising ocean, forming a perfectly round sinkhole nearly 1,000 feet across, more than 400 feet deep and, seen from above, a midnight blue far more intense than the shallow waters around it. At about 120 feet down a sheer wall you find an amazing array of ancient stalactites proof that this was once long ago dry land, because stalactites dont form underwater. They still get me, Brad said after emerging from his 133rd visit. And next to the Blue Hole, on Half Moon Caye, is a nature preserve that would have commanded Darwins attention. In addition to being home to massive iguanas and hermit crabs, the small island is rife with red-footed boobies and soaring frigate birds, with a (searing hot) stand amid the trees that puts you eye-to-eye with the birds as they nest. Back at Turneffe, the resort also offers a night dive, perhaps the most awe-inspiring hour of the whole visit. Though daunting to slip into darkness, the ocean is perhaps more alive under the moon than in the light of day. Wave a hand through the water, and sparks fly: Small bioluminescent creatures evoke embers from a campfire. Hand-held flashlights revealed octopus wandering along the coral (one turned shock-white and inked at another diver before going orange and shooting away), lobsters ambling through the sand and we even caught a glimpse of a decorator crab, which sticks coral and shells and small animals to itself as camouflage. A stay at Turneffe is not roughing it, and thats reflected in prices that are as high-end as the service and accommodations. But you do get what you pay for. Staff members learned and remembered our names, and the food fresh snapper, grilled pork loin, traditional Belizean rice and beans in coconut milk, seviche was tremendous. Help was there if you needed it but wasnt there if you wanted to be alone. For those seeking a vacation with shopping and nightlife, this definitely is not the right place. Youre on an island far from civilization. After dinner, we shared the bar/pool area with other guests, including a fun-loving group of anesthesiologists from Galveston, a honeymooning couple from Austria and a husband-and-wife team of travel agents from San Diego, scouting the place for dive clients. We spent those evenings with George Cocom, 41, a bartender who has been working on Turneffe for the past nine years. In addition to serving drinks from nightly special concoctions that often had a blue hue to fresh drafts of Belikan, the local beer George is a skilled entertainer. Hes learned a trove of card, dice, rope and other tricks, and he delighted in mystifying guests between raucous games of liars dice around the circular bar. One dastardly card trick made him seem clairvoyant. He would ask his victim to pick nine cards at random and then lay them out on the bar in three rows of three cards. He would then walk away and ask the person to touch one of the cards so that others could see it, to verify the choice. He would then come back, gesticulate a bit, and then, 100 percent of the time, choose the correct card. Anesthesiologists, heres the reveal, with his permission: I was in on it. He taught me the trick on the first night. I was giving him a subtle, consistent signal upon his return to the bar. No cameras, mirrors, marked cards . . . or ESP. He had a ringer, as I suspect he does every week with a new batch of guests. Milosch bagged tons of lionfish on the trip, getting quite good at using the spear and loving it. The group was nabbing them left and right, often feeding them to eels and grouper that would linger, knowing they might get a meal out of it. Sadly, the reef denizens wont go after a living lionfish because of their poisonous spikes, but dead, the venom dissipates into the water and the spikes fall; divemasters hope the native predators will get a taste for it and do their own hunting. We kept some of the lionfish, bringing them to the dock and handing them over to the staff. And a short time later, sitting at the mahogany bar and looking out over an endless sea at sunset, we clinked mugs of Belikan, sat back, and snacked on lightly breaded lionfish bites. The taste of victory? Pretty darn good. The big winners coming out of Thursday, Jan. 14s announcement of the Oscar nominations are The Revenant (12 nominations) and Mad Max: Fury Road (10 nominations). Over the decades, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has gravitated to grand-scale spectacle, and this year it looks as if its members are conforming to type. Both action-oriented films were nominated for best picture, along with The Big Short (five nominations), Bridge of Spies (six nominations), Brooklyn (three nominations), The Martian (seven nominations), Room (four nominations) and Spotlight. Just in case youre counting, only two of the eight (Brooklyn and Room) feature actresses in lead roles. The categorys big omission was Carol, with only actresses in the lead roles. This is the true scandal of this years awards, though no one, so far, is talking about it. Todd Haynes, the director of Carol, was also passed over. What did get attention in the hours after the announcement was that all the nominated actors are white. To be sure, Idris Elba (Beasts of No Nation) should have been nominated in the supporting category, but he seems to have been squeezed out by the Revenant juggernaut that carried Tom Hardy to a supporting nomination in its place. And Straight Outta of Compton, a possible contender for best picture, was nominated for original screenplay. Predictable path So it looks as if its the year of The Revenant. Unless academy members lose their minds completely and give it to Mad Max, I cant see what stops it, except, perhaps, Spotlight. The only complication in The Revenants easy walk to victory is that Alejandro Inarritu won last year for Birdman. Conceivably, there could be some reluctance in conferring the laurel on the same director two years in a row, especially as the first movie was better than the second. But so far, no one is talking this way. In the best actor category, it looks like Leonardo DiCaprios year. He is nominated for The Revenant against a weak field: Bryan Cranston (Trumbo), Matt Damon (Martian), Michael Fassbender (Steve Jobs) and Eddie Redmayne (The Danish Girl). (Its a field made weaker by the omission of Tom Hanks for Bridge of Spies and Steve Carell in The Big Short.) DiCaprio should have won for The Wolf of Wall Street and should have been nominated for Titanic. (Once you accept the notion that Titanic should have been nominated for something hard to accept, I know DiCaprio was the one to nominate. He was the whole movie, its emotional locus and reason for success.) Its about time he won, and his colleagues know it. Best actress is a little more of a question mark. The nominees are Cate Blanchett (Carol), Brie Larson (Room), Jennifer Lawrence (Joy), Charlotte Rampling (45 Years) and Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn). The inclusion of Lawrence shows how much people like her, but I dont think she has a chance, and I also have a feeling this isnt Blanchetts year again, not so soon after winning in this category for Blue Jasmine. If theres any justice, this should be between Ronan and Rampling (whose nomination was a pleasant surprise). But Brie Larson, who won the Golden Globe, may also be a factor. For supporting actor, it looks like its going to be Sylvester Stallone for Creed. He is competing against Christian Bale (The Big Short), Tom Hardy (The Revenant), Mark Ruffalo (Spotlight) and Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies). This means he is not competing against Idris Elba (Beasts of No Nation), Benicio Del Toro (Sicario), or Michael Shannon (99 Homes), who were both great and would have been tough. In any case, Stallone is riding a wave of emotion now. When the nominations were announced Thursday morning, his name got the biggest crowd response of any nominee in any category. Notable omissions But supporting actress is harder to read: Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Hateful Eight), Rooney Mara (Carol), Rachel McAdams (Spotlight), Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl) and Kate Winslet (Steve Jobs). Mara is great, but hers was a lead role, and she might be penalized for it. Id vote for Leigh, but these were all strong performances. If things go as they usually do, the director of the winning best picture will also win an Oscar. That means it will probably go to Inarritu over Adam McKay (The Big Short), George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road), Lenny Abrahamson (Room) or Tom McCarthy (Spotlight). But among the nominees, McKay would be a better choice. His command of tone in The Big Short was astonishing. Still it must be said, or at least should be said, that the years three best directing achievements were not included among the nominations: Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg), The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino) and Carol (Todd Haynes). In the other categories, Son of Saul, from Hungary, looks like an easy walk to best foreign film. And Amy looks like the favorite for best documentary. It goes up against Cartel Land, The Look of Silence, What Happened, Miss Simone and Winter on Fire. Animated interest Finally, one of the most interesting races this year is for best animated feature. For the record, the nominees are Anomalisa, Boy and the World, Inside Out, Shaun the Sheep Movie, and When Marnie Was There. But everyone knows that the competition is between Anomalisa, a very adult film written by Charlie Kaufman; and Inside Out, a very smart family film from Pixar. What makes the animation race interesting is that the people who love Anomalisa also really like Inside Out. But many people who love Inside Out absolutely cant stand Anomalisa. This probably bodes well for Inside Out, but the Anomalisa lovers are pretty adamant, so this is going to be an interesting race. And were this the case in every category whichever wins will deserve it. Mick LaSalle is a San Francisco Chronicles movie critic. E-mail: mlasalle@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MickLaSalle Academy Awards: Airing Feb. 28 on ABC. Chris Rock hosts. SAN ANTONIO A convicted felon was arrested in an undercover operation where he was trying to sell body armor to Bexar County undercover officers, according to a news release issued Friday. John Alameda, 28, is charged with possession of metal/body armor by a felon, a felony charge. If Silver Spring Township officials and a local real estate developer didnt know that an old stone house on Route 11 is the reputed birthplace of the U.S. Bill of Rights before they started demolition there last week, they definitely know now. On Jan. 6, workers began demolishing a two-story stone house at 7086 Carlisle Pike in Silver Spring Township that most recently was the site of Stone House Auto Sales. This just isnt any stone house, however. Built in 1780 as the James Bell Tavern, the structure hosted the Stony Ridge Convention on July 3, 1788, a meeting of Anti-Federalists opposed to ratification of U.S. Constitution, which led to amending the document with the Bill of Rights. Triple Crown Corporation, the propertys owner, legally obtained a permit from the township for the demolition, according to Christine Musser, a member of the townships Conservation and Preservation Committee. Musser said she was informed about the stone houses history by an outside source. After doing some digging about the matter at the Cumberland County Historical Society, she alerted township officials about the matter. Demolition of the historic structure was put on hold and discontinued on Jan. 7, Musser said. To her estimation, about a third of the building was demolished during the initial process. Triple Crown apparently had no clue of the buildings historical significance. It was an oversight, Musser stated. Late Wednesday, January 6, township staff became aware that demolition of a building later identified as the Bell Tavern had begun by Triple Crown Corporation, Silver Spring Township officials said in a news release issued Thursday. Township staff issued a stop-work order on the demolition, and the developer complied. By that time, a portion of the building had been demolished. The stop-work order allowed us to assess the situation and whether the developer was in compliance with our ordinances. Currently, the law requires building and demolition permits to be issued within tight timeframes, the news release read. The onus is then upon applicants to ensure that they are in compliance with other laws and ordinances, including the section of our zoning ordinance that serves as some protection for historic buildings. Whether intentional or by error in 1995, the Bell Tavern was not listed as an historic, protected building on the Townships Cultural Features Map and Historic Buildings List referred to in our zoning ordinance. Based on that, the Township had to lift the stop-work order. Despite the lifting of the order, the developer has continued to suspend demolition, affording us the opportunity to engage in discussions about the preservation of the building. The history Musser is no stranger to Cumberland Countys history. Her pictorial history book about Silver Spring Township was published in 2014 as part of the Arcadia Press Images of America series. According to meeting minutes obtained by Musser, the 1788 Stony Ridge Convention held at the former James Bell Tavern was attended by Benjamin Blythe, one of Shippensburgs first settlers, and Robert Whitehill of Cumberland County. Whitehill is noted as the Father of the Bill of Rights, according to ExplorePAHistory.com, with its conception reportedly happening at that meeting at the Bell Tavern. Before that, Whitehill had led an anti-federalist minority at the 1787 convention to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Anti-federalists opposed a strong central government as proposed in the Constitution. The Bill of Rights, which amended the Constitution with individual rights and limitations of federal and state government limitations, was adopted in 1791, according to Britanica.com. Whitehill went on to serve in the state House of Representatives from 1797-1800; the state Senate from 1801-1804; and the ninth Congress and four succeeding Congresses until his death in 1813. In the 1990s, a historic marker was designated at the site of Whitehills home, Lauther Manor, at 1903 Market St., Camp Hill. The homestead of Benjamin Blythe at 217 Means Hollow Road, Shippensburg, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. What to do? For now, the fate of the Bell Tavern stone house remains undecided. Triple Crown representatives did not respond to requests for comments for this story. Those of us, Township staff and elected officials, who work on behalf of the people of Silver Spring Township, were upset by the circumstance. To further protect historic buildings and sites within the township, we have taken steps to update the historic building map and list, the townships news release reads. We have put in place an interim administrative measure to ensure that future demolition permit applications are screened for historic site compliance by the township prior to the issuance of demolition permits, rather than leaving the responsibility on the applicant. Additionally, we will be considering further preservation measures in the coming days and months to provide greater protection for our invaluable historic architecture in the township. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate After reports surfaced pinning Mexican actress Kate Del Castillo as the connection between Sean Penn and infamous drug lord, Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, she broke her silence on the controversy via Twitter Wednesday evening. Thank you for your support over the past days, Del Castillo wrote in a note shared as a Twitter photo. Not surprisingly, many have chosen to make up items they think will make good stories and that arent truthful. I look forward to sharing my story with you. Items Del Castillo references in her statement could refer to a series of text messages between the fugitive and the actress leaked by Milenio, a Mexican newspaper, and confirmed by federal officials to not be made up. The exchange reveals the relationship between Del Castillo and "El Chapo" as she worked with him to set up an interview with Sean Penn for Rolling Stone Magazine. RELATED: Meet Kate Del Castillo, Mexican actress who brokered 'El Chapo,' Sean Penn interview In the messages, Del Castillo reciprocates Guzmans advances by replying, Apart from our (movie) project, I am very excited about seeing you eye to eye, in person [] we will embrace each other soon. Mexican federal officials have confirmed that the drug lord appears to have been infatuated with the actress, according to the Associated Press. And when Mexican marines raided the house where he had been hiding, the found injectable testosterone, a treatment sometimes used to boost the male libido. It was unclear, however, if the medication belonged to Guzman or one of his associates. RELATED: Kate del Castillo, who set up 'El Chapo' interview, is Eva Longoria's 'dearest friend', co-star The fascination did not look to be one-sided. AP reported Del Castillos life seemed to be imitating her art of playing drug trafficker roles in 2012, when she reached out to El Chapo via a Twitter plea, asking him to do good. She later told the news agency it was intended to be a joke. Regardless, it got the attention of Guzman and his lawyer subsequently contacted Del Castillo and started sending her flowers, AP reported. Still, Del Castillo insists there is more to El Chapos plot-twist filled story. mmendoza@mysa.com Twitter: @MaddySkye This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman took time out of his busy schedule fleeing Mexican authorities to take care of his "chapo," according to media reports. As the increasingly strange saga behind the recapture of the world's most wanted drug trafficker unfolds, Mexican newspaper Reforma reported that the Sinaloa cartel leader underwent surgery at a Tijuana hospital to treat his erectile dysfunction while he was on the run from law enforcement. This required Guzman to travel outside of the Mexican state of Sinaloa, home to both Guzman and the Sinaloa cartel. This was reportedly the only time he went outside his home turf after escaping the maximum-security Antiplano prison near Mexico City in July. RELATED: New video released of raid to capture Mexican drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman According to sources close to the investigation that spoke to Reforma, Guzman had a testicular implant designed to improve his blood flow and get rid of his impotence. Mexican journalist Carlos Loret, according to Sin Embargo, said this procedure required the use of an operating room and was impossible to perform in the Sinaloan mountain range where Guzman was hiding. Authorities captured Guzman at a home is Los Mochis on January 8 after a firefight that left one Mexican marine and six of Guzman's associates dead. There, authorities found injectable testosterone and a prescription for 4,000 pesos worth of drugs meant to improve impotence along with syringes, antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs. Guzman carried on a series of flirtatious text messages with Mexican actress Kate del Castillo, who helped set up the drug lord's now infamous interview with actor Sean Penn for Rolling Stone magazine. RELATED: 'Sons of Anarchy' star to play Texas-born drug cartel leader 'La Barbie' in feature film Penn told "60 Minutes" that his "article has failed" after the conversation surrounding the controversial piece focused on Penn's tactics of obtaining the interview rather than drug policy. Guzman is currently being held in the Antiplano prison where he escaped from in July. The Mexican government has initiated a process to extradite Guzman to the United States. It's not clear how long it may take to extradite the drug lord if the push is successful: Mike Vigil, former DEA chief of international operations, told mySA.com that it could take up to six years for Guzman to be extradited if Guzman's lawyers find ways to gum up the process and if the judge and Mexico's ministry of foreign relations move to send him to the United States. In the meantime, Guzman could find a way to escape from the Antiplano prison a second time, Vigil said. "Time is on his side," Vigil said. jfechter@mySA.com Twitter: @JFreports In 1997, Michael Wayne Haley was arrested after stealing a calculator from Wal-Mart. This was a crime that merited a maximum two-year prison term. But prosecutors incorrectly applied a habitual offender law. Neither the judge nor the defense lawyer caught the error, and Haley was sentenced to 16 years. Eventually, the mistake came to light and Haley tried to fix it. Ted Cruz was solicitor general of Texas at the time. Instead of letting Haley go for time served, Cruz took the case to the Supreme Court to keep Haley in prison for the full 16 years. Some justices were skeptical. Is there some rule that you cant confess error in your state? Justice Anthony Kennedy asked. The court system finally let Haley out of prison, after six years. Cruz is now running strongly among evangelical voters, especially in Iowa. But in his career and public presentation Cruz is a stranger to most of what would generally be considered the Christian virtues: humility, mercy, compassion and grace. Traditionally, candidates who have attracted strong evangelical support have in part emphasized the need to lend a helping hand to the economically stressed and the least fortunate among us. Such candidates include George W. Bush, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum. But Cruzs speeches are marked by what you might call pagan brutalism. There is not a hint of compassion, gentleness and mercy. Instead, they are marked by a long list of enemies and vows to crush, shred, destroy, bomb them. When he is speaking in a church the contrast between the setting and the tone he sets is jarring. Cruz lays down an atmosphere of apocalyptic fear. After one Democratic debate he said, Were seeing our freedoms taken away every day, and last night was an audition for who would wear the jackboot most vigorously. This apocalyptic diagnosis is ridiculous. The Obama administration has done things people like me strongly disagree with. But America is in better economic shape than any other major nation. Crime is down. Abortion rates are down. Fourteen million new jobs have been created in five years. President Barack Obama has championed a liberal agenda, but he hasnt made the country unrecognizable. In 2008, federal spending accounted for about 20.3 percent of gross domestic product. In 2015, it accounted for about 20.9 percent. But Cruz manufactures an atmosphere of menace in which there is no room for compassion, for moderation, for anything but counterattack. And that is what he offers. Cruzs programmatic agenda, to the extent that it exists in his speeches, is to destroy things: destroy the IRS, crush the jackals of the EPA, end funding for Planned Parenthood, reverse Obamas executive orders, make the desert glow in Syria. Some of these positions I agree with, but the lack of any positive emphasis, any hint of reform conservatism, any aid for the working class, or even any humane gesture toward cooperation is striking. Cruz didnt come up with this hard campaign approach in isolation. This approach works because in the wake of the Obergefell vs. Hodges court decision on same-sex marriage, many evangelicals feel they are being turned into pariahs in their own nation. Cruz exploits and exaggerates that fear. But he reacts in exactly the manner that is destined to further marginalize evangelicals. The best conservatism balances support for free markets with a Judeo-Christian spirit of charity, compassion and solidarity. Cruz replaces this spirit with spartan belligerence. He sows bitterness, influences his followers to lose all sense of proportion and teaches them to answer hate with hate. Evangelicals and other conservatives have had their best influence on politics when they have proceeded in a spirit of personalism when they have answered hostility with service and emphasized the dignity of each person. They have won elections as happy and hopeful warriors. Cruzs brutal, fear-driven, apocalypse-based approach is the antithesis of that. David Brooks is a columnist for the New York Times. There are two ways to talk up bipartisanship. You can give the notion lip service. You can lament its loss in modern politics. You can lay the blame of partisan rancor on the times but not at your own clay feet. You can say, Its one of the few regrets of my presidency that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better, as President Barack Obama shared in his State of the Union address Tuesday. Believe me. I am tired of criticizing the president. I miss the first term, when there were more areas of agreement. Obamas decision to focus immigration enforcement on the undocumented with serious criminal records was a smart compromise. I miss the president who increased troop levels in Afghanistan. I applauded when Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act, a bipartisan measure that reformed the 100-1 sentencing disparity for crack versus cocaine offenses. Its hard to believe Obama regrets the Beltways partisan rancor when he spends an entire speech taking swipes at the GOP for being anti-change, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim but none at his own tribe. The president said he wants a bipartisan group to draw lines for congressional districts and work to pass campaign finance reform. That translates into: I want Republicans to help pass laws that help Democrats. At one point, Obama urged Congress to pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership legislation without so much as a nod to the GOP Senate that in June passed a fast-track trade authority bill in truly bipartisan fashion. Likewise, no kudos for the GOP House. Why not point out when both sides worked together? This administration has only one posture the president leaning on the excuse that he never stood a chance because Republicans didnt want to work with him. Then there is the other way to talk up bipartisanship. Gov. Nikki Haley, R-S.C., showed the way in a GOP response that chided both parties for Washingtons dysfunction. We need to be honest with each other, and with ourselves, Haley said. While Democrats in Washington bear much responsibility for the problems facing America today, they do not bear it alone. There is more than enough blame to go around. We as Republicans need to own that truth ... We need to accept that weve played a role in how and why our government is broken. And then we need to fix it. Haley took on Donald Trump (not by name) when she cautioned against following the siren call of the angriest voices. This daughter of Indian immigrants rejected the call to ban Muslims from entering the country indirectly, when she said, No one who is willing to work hard, abide by our laws, and love our traditions should ever feel unwelcome in this country. Haley recalled the shooting in Charlestons Mother Emanuel church that left nine parishioners dead. South Carolinians chose to come together. Haley noted, Some people think that you have to be the loudest voice in the room to make a difference. When partisans turn down the volume, the sound is quieter, you can actually hear what someone else is saying. As for Obama, I dont know how he expects to shake hands if hes always pointing a finger. Debra J. Saunders is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. dsaunders@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @DebraJSaunders Now let us praise laundry lists. Every year at State of the Union time, the president and his staff say the speech will not include them. But the laundry wont keep track of itself. The union is varied and expansive, and so are the responsibilities of its chief executive. Enumerating accomplishments and objectives amounts to lists, which President Barack Obama had in plenty Tuesday night. Obama advanced no ideological claim of what government should do, no technocratic vision of how its performance might be improved. The lists exist because Obama, who sees the next frontier, chose them. His person unites his agenda not quite in the leadership league, he admits, of Lincoln or Roosevelt, but he has obviously thought hard and long about the comparison. This was the way Obama was introduced to the country eight years ago. His victory in the Iowa caucuses had little to do with an ideological vision or policy agenda. That giddy night, he claimed that a divided and disillusioned country found a common purpose. His 38 percent in the caucus proved we are one people. We would move beyond the bitterness and pettiness and anger thats consumed Washington. This was the place, Obama said, where America remembered what it means to hope. Elsewhere he would say: I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions. Obama would bring balance to the Force. Prospectively, with eight years ahead, this was inspiring. Retrospectively, with seven years behind, the same claim comes across as self-centered and a little sad a world-historic figure picking through the refuse of the years for this shiny accomplishment and that. His solutions to 21st-century problems look suspiciously like 20th-century liberalism. And where has Obama left his party and liberalism? Obama is the first Democrat since Franklin Roosevelt to win back-to-back majorities of the national popular vote. But members of his party who venture beyond the 18 acres of the White House will find political ruin. Since taking office, Democrats have lost 13 Senate seats, 69 House seats, 11 governorships, 30 state legislative chambers and more than 900 state legislative seats. In border states that not long ago produced national Democratic leaders such as Arkansas and Tennessee the Democratic collapse is especially pronounced. Few presidents have done better for themselves and worse for their parties. And perhaps most disturbingly for Americas liberal party, trust in government to do the right thing is near historical lows. According to a Pew Research Center average, just 19 percent of Americans trust government to do the right thing all or most of the time. The whole of the Democratic agenda, the whole of Hillary Clintons agenda from gun control to reducing greenhouse gases requires some trust in the capacity of government to act in the public interest. Declining trust in government is part of a larger decline in the trust of institutions. But it is fair to say that the launch of Obamacare, the Veterans Affairs hospital scandal and the IRS political targeting scandal did little to halt the slide. Obama was either complicit in the trend or helpless against it. The same could be said of political polarization which Obama decided he could not fight and joined with enthusiasm. Or the rise of an angry, anti-establishment populism. More than 10 years of belief that America is on the wrong track has hardened into outrage and cynicism, and left some Americans vulnerable to ideologues. These will be remembered as the characteristics of the Obama era not hope, but anger and cynicism. It was a time when many Americans learned to rage. Somehow these trends have produced another cult of personality, on the other political side untethered to ideas, offering only himself as the solution to our problems, turning bitterness and pettiness into a political art. This might be the strangest turn: a Republican Party that copies and amplifies the worst tendencies of our time. michaelgerson@washpost.com Elected climate change deniers are perceived by people around the world as shameless liars. The Pentagon and CIA have stated publicly for years that global warming, caused by billions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions a year, is a national security issue. Texas own congressman, Lamar Smith, and Sen. Ted Cruz are international embarrassments and should be fired by the voters forthwith. Virtually every nation on Earth agreed in Paris to take immediate action to try to prevent catastrophic warming. But the U.S., the biggest economy, might ensure quick success with much stronger leadership, if only the deniers in Congress were defeated in the upcoming elections. Voters may be finally waking up to their power. Unbought candidates may be emerging. If we all use our votes, we can secure a government that runs on compassion, science-based evidence and the public interest rather than on short-term corporate profits. Darby Riley Single-payer better Re: Replace a repealed ACA with what? Editorial, Saturday: Dont repeal Obamacare; replace it. The Affordable Care Act is a great improvement over the former Wild West, profit-oriented state of affairs. A single-payer system would bring us up to the quality of those in Western Europe, Canada, Great Britain, Australia and many other forward-looking countries. David H. Braun Same old hypocrisy Recently, President Barack Obama was so distraught he wept as he recalled the murders of 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary. Compare this present-day attitude of the president to how he regarded these same children before birth. If the parents of these children had found them inconvenient at that time, the president would have approved their abortion. Only in the fever swamps of the liberal Democrat Party would this hypocrisy be regarded as desirable or even normal. John K. Landry, New Braunfels Dont blame NRA Why cant the president show the same passion for aborted babies or persecuted Christians in the Middle East as he does about gun control? I bet more kids die from abortion in America than from gun violence. At first, I really didnt care to watch the town hall because I really didnt want to see any more crocodile tears from Barack Obama. However, I did DVR it and was surprised to see him tolerating people who opposed his views. The NRA, unfortunately, did not attend because they said they were offered one prescreened question. Why are the NRA and its members blamed for crimes that they dont commit? Robert Richter, Seagoville Closing loophole Re: Guns in cross hairs; President calls for stricter laws on weapons, front page, Jan. 8: Since Congress continues to fail us, President Barack Obama recently answered our call to reduce gun violence by taking executive actions that will save lives in cities nationwide and right here in Texas. Volunteers with the Texas chapter of Moms Demand Action as well as moms, survivors and other advocates across the country helped to drive more than 15,000 calls that shut down the White House switchboard as we urged the president to take executive action to reduce gun violence. The presidents orders will narrow the unlicensed sale loophole through which millions of guns are sold each year by clarifying which gun sellers need to get a license and follow all the rules that licensed gun dealers follow. Simply, if you make a living selling guns, you should run background checks. The presidents orders will help reduce gun violence in our cities by giving law enforcement what it needs to crack down on traffickers who fuel the black market for guns that flood our streets and endanger our communities. But millions of guns will still be sold without a background check thats why we still need Congress and our state lawmakers to step up and close the loopholes that make it easy for dangerous people to get guns. And that is why I will continue to fight for a safer Texas. We will not rest until every gun sale includes a background check. Gabrielle Garcia, member, San Antonio and Texas chapters of Moms Demand Action Campaign stench So, here we are, 2016, and once again we begin this charade called the presidential campaign. I call it a charade because I see all the candidates Republicans, Democrats, independents, etc. spitting out lies, innuendo and misinformation, and bringing with them, wherever they go, the stench of the Sadducees and Pharisees that permeates this country right now! It saddens me that in looking at all the candidates, we have the bottom of the barrel to choose from. And it saddens me even more that these candidates are wallowing in a selfishness and what-can-I-get-out-of-this-for-myself campaign. All we, as citizens, have to do is open our eyes and see for ourselves if were not too afraid to look. If these people truly advocate change, truly advocate a better America, truly advocate working together to make a better tomorrow for all of us, then maybe they should heed the advice of a great philosopher who said, Change begins with the man or woman in the mirror. Lord Jesus, have mercy on us all! Ed A. Rivera Rare gaffe Re: Two Wolffs agree on new/old UP rail plan, Gilbert Garcia, Jan. 8: Even a columnist like Gilbert Garcia, far and away the most fair-minded this newspaper has, commits a gaffe from time to time. In his opening paragraph on the Wolffs new/old Union Pacific rail plan, he comments on how bitterly divided the community was. Then he steps on his tongue by adding, More importantly, it also divided the Wolff family. So I can only assume Gilbert considers the Wolff family more important than the rest of San Antonio. Interesting. Mike MacRae Cumberland County announced Thursday that it will file a lawsuit against 22 Pennsylvania telephone service providers for failing to bill, collect and remit proper 911 assessment charges that help fund the countys 911 operations. The lawsuit will seek to recover six years of alleged under-billings, totaling nearly $6.7 million. According to a press release, county officials obtained data through Phone Recovery Service LLC, a telecommunications firm specializing in analyzing 911 system remittances. According to the data, 22 known telephone service providers had been misrepresenting the phone lines upon which the 911 assessments are applied and were significantly under-billing customers, which ultimately resulted in underfunding for the countys 911 system. The press release added that, over the past six years, Cumberland County has utilized $11,271,864 of its general fund to offset the deficit between revenues and expenses an average of $1,878,644 per year of the local tax dollars contributed to support the countys 911 system. A revenue gap of $6,736,104 was identified that would have been directly applied to the 911 system if it were received, thus a reduction in the amount of county general fund dollars required to $4,535,760, an average of $755,960 per year. To be clear, its not the fault of any business as they are just paying the bill received, said Phone Recovery Services Founder and President Roger Schneider. These billing practices, however, are completely illogical, unfair and indefensible. The telephone service providers know it, yet they continue to do it the same way. We intend to hold them accountable in court for these actions. The county had initially been approached in July 2015 about joining several other local governments in enacting the lawsuit; county commissioners unanimously voted shortly after to enter into a contract with Phone Recovery Service LLC and move forward with the suit. The county just recently received and signed its complaint in the suit. This is money that is allegedly owed to the county; this is millions of dollars, said County Commissioner Jim Hertzler during the commissioners workshop meeting Thursday. I think the action we are taking is appropriate to join with other counties in the state to start seeking this recovery. County Chief Clerk Larry Thomas said that the suits outcome mainly hinges on a question of the providers intent and handling of procedures. It is entirely possible that this was an honest mistake, Thomas said. It is a question of whether or not (the providers) followed correct practices. It is ultimately up to the quality of evidence that the plaintiffs present and what the courts decide. We will abide by whatever the courts decide. Ive had to anonymize this letter, but it comes from a US academic who has a long-standing relationship with the author in Turkey. Unfortunately, many things are not going well here. I did not believe that the situation would decay so rapidly. As you might have learned, over the last few days, there has been a huge backlash against some of the academicians who signed a petition calling for a cessation of human rights violations in the southern part of Turkey and for starting peace talks. I am one of them. After the President and Prime Minister criticized these scholars aggressively, the Turkish higher education council and judicial authorities started to investigate. Some universities have followed suit. They accuse the academics of treachery and threaten to fire them and put them in jail. Worse than this, some groups are openly calling for the extermination of these academics. Although one of the mafia members called for a bath with the blood of these academicians, nothing has been done to oppose or curb him. Instead, the atmosphere is getting worse and worse for these scholars. I think it is urgent to try to increase the awareness about this nightmare. I know It would be difficult to believe what is going on here. I wish it were only a bad dream. Unfortunately, it is not a page from 1984It is happening. I would be very grateful if scholars and public outside Turkey raise their voices before it is too late. Yves here. Ed Walkers piece below makes a big argument in an impressively compact space. I wanted to add a couple of thoughts. One reason capitalists wind up with profits that they do not adequately reinvest is that they set their return targets too high. This has been documented periodically. A recent example comes from Andrew Haldane of the Bank of England on short-termism and how it leads to underinvestment. Second is that many projects are best undertaken by government, such as infrastructure that will serve as the foundation for growth, basic research, or other projects where the time frames are too long, the payoffs too ambiguous, or the resource mobilization too great to make sense for the private sector. In keeping with the Ed Walkers use of writings from long ago to shed light on our supposedly modern problems, Michal Kalecki explained in Political Aspects of Full Employment why businessmen prefer to have lower employment and as a result, growth: The reasons for the opposition of the industrial leaders to full employment achieved by government spending may be subdivided into three categories: (i) dislike of government interference in the problem of employment as such; (ii) dislike of the direction of government spending (public investment and subsidizing consumption); (iii) dislike of the social and political changes resulting from the maintenance of full employment. When you have finished Walkers fine piece, please go immediately and read Kaleckis short, penetrating essay. By Ed Walker, who wrote as masaccio at Firedoglake and now writes regularly at emptywheel. You can follow him at Twitter at @MasaccioFDL, and heres his author page at Shadowproof. For a long time, and particularly since WWII, societies around the world have managed substantial parts of their productive activity in non-capitalist zones. In the UK, for example, health care is provided by the National Health Service. It operates in a market society, but it is not part of the process of capital accumulation. The education system is an example in the US. We can think of these non-capitalist enclaves as a social commons. We all share in them, and we all have a stake in seeing to it that they operate at a high level. With the turn towards neoliberalism in the past 35 years, the rich have tried to colonize these non-capitalist sectors. Currently UK capitalists and the Tories are intent on privatizing the NHS for their personal gain. They look at the way the US medical/drug system works for the benefit of the rich and they want that for themselves. In the US, we have already turned over big chunks of the prison system to these people, with predictable results. The big push in the US is the effort to take over the education system for personal profit. In a larger perspective, the capitalists and their economists tell us constantly that European welfare states are impossibly expensive and must be privatized. Why? Why is this such a big deal? It might be easy to put this down to greed, or to the Great Man theory of economic progress, or creative destruction. But perhaps there is something in the nature of capitalism that can explain this better. Two books published in the wake of WWII examine a broad sweep of economic history to try to understand how that war happened. Karl Polanyis The Great Transformation sees the war as the end of the experiment with unrestrained free market capitalism, and offers the hope of a more socialist future. Hannah Arendts The Origins of Totalitarianism offers a dark view of human nature and of the capitalist system, and is much less hopeful. It may seem odd to focus on 70 year old books to analyze our current system and the problems we face, but we have to remember how hard it is to understand ones own time and make sense of it. One reason to read these books is the brilliance of the writers. The works are fascinating works of scholarship, heavily footnoted and discursive in focus, and covering a huge time frame. They seem so different from the books on economics and politics on the best-seller list, with the conspicuous exception of Capital in the Twenty-First Century which plumbs two hundred years of records. Its also important to note that neither of these authors had succumbed to what C. Wright Mills called the Capitalist Celebration, the capitulation of the US left to the spell of capitalism. We have to go back that far to find an actual left criticism of capitalism. Arendt has a strong Marxian flavor. Polanyi sees the value of the increase in productivity brought on by the industrial revolution, but believes strongly in the Enlightenment view that humans can control and direct society to prevent the damage that unrestrained capitalism can bring, damage he describes in detail. Far from celebrating capitalism, both Arendt and Polanyi argue that unrestrained capitalism and free market ideology were significant factors in the rise of fascism. With that background, heres a look at one aspect of the rise of unrestrained capitalism, Imperialism, largely drawn from Arendt. The Industrial Revolution created massive wealth for a few, who for clarity I will refer to as the Capitalists, a group which includes some of the hereditary rich, the aristocrats, as well as wealthy merchants and newly rich manufacturers. The Capitalists quickly found themselves unable to create profitable investments for their capital in their home countries. Arendt calls this superfluous wealth. It had no purpose, no utility in the home country, and little prospect of producing gain for the holder. This led to a decade in Europe in which there was massive financial and real estate fraud in the business sector, and corruption at the nation-state, leading to depressions and massive unemployment. Many of the victims of these frauds were artisans, tradesmen and small merchants, who, Arendt says, believed that they had to invest their small savings in these ventures or risk falling into the out of the middle class. Each round of new technology, each period of growth, was followed by a crisis, usually a financial collapse. Those crises led massive unemployment, the displacement of people from a role in the productive sector of their society. Arendt calls these superfluous people. They had as little utility to their society as the superfluous wealth. Similarly, Polanyi says that government and leading economic writers referred to two groups, the sick, the old and the weak who were the deserving poor, entitled to some assistance from the nation-state; and the able-bodied who could not find work, who were not deserving of assistance, and for whom hunger would serve as a lash to force them to work for any wage, or just for food and shelter.. Arendt says that some Capitalists sought opportunities in foreign lands, but they experienced losses in those investments, as the foreigners didnt play by the rules of the Capitalists. Beginning in the 1870s, the Capitalists demanded that the nation-states protect their investments by force. They wanted profits without risks, and the nation-states did as they demanded. Arendt claims that this served the interests of the nation-state in that that it enabled the productive use of superfluous capital, and the employment of superfluous men as soldiers and sailors, and supervisors or workers in the new colonies, or in the transportation of imports and exports. Arendt says that the driving force of capitalism, the demand for profits, means that capital can never stand still. It must always be in motion. The decisive point about the depressions of [the 1860s and 70s], which initiated the era of imperialism, was that they forced the bourgeoisie to realize for the first time that the original sin of simple robbery, which centuries ago had made possible the original accumulation of capital (Marx) and had started all further accumulation, had eventually to be repeated lest the motor of accumulation suddenly die down. In the face of this danger, which threatened not only the bourgeoisie but the whole nation with a catastrophic breakdown in production, capitalist producers understood that the forms and laws of their production system from the beginning had been calculated for the whole earth. P. 148 fn omitted. The first omitted footnote cites Rudolf Hilferding for the proposition that imperialism suddenly uses again the methods of the original accumulation of capitalistic wealth. Arendt is asking us to think about how wealth was originally accumulated. Adam Smith tells a charming story about the accumulation of capital in Book 1 Chapter 6 of The Wealth of Nations. In that early and rude state of society which precedes both the accumulation of stock and the appropriation of land societies rewarded hard work and talent with extra stuff. Then we jump to As soon as stock has accumulated in the hands of particular persons. Smith doesnt discuss the fact that during the interim period the rich and vicious seized personal property and land by force. He doesnt mention the Enclosures, or any of the bloody history of accumulation of the initial stocks of wealth, either in the home countries or in other lands. For that history, take a look at Polanyi. After this jump, we get Smiths explanation that given the initial distribution of land and other assets, including cash, profits are the natural result of the work of the owners of those initial capital stocks, who organize production and are entitled to keep the profits as compensation for their skill and effort. Smith doesnt discuss the use of force and violence against workers and peasants or the assistance of the nation-state with laws and militia and patents and corruption. Smith is the father of modern economists who ignore the role of force, violence, state power, fraud and corruption and substitute mythic cover stories about entrepreneurship and disruption. Its true that some capital accumulation takes place as Smith says, from frugality, skill, or luck. But its equally true that at the outset of the Industrial Revolution, most capital was held by nobles and aristocrats who took it by force, and the rest was owned by their bankers and a few merchants. Its also true that much current capital accumulation takes place through monopoly, oligopoly, and fraud and corruption. Look no further than the Great Crash. Back to the Imperial period. Arendt points to Rosa Luxemburgs posthumous work, The Accumulation of Capital for its explanation of the roots of imperialism. Luxemburg was a Marxian intellectual and activist, who took part in the German communist uprising in the wake of WWI, and was murdered by the Weimar Freikorps. Accumulation is impossible in an exclusively capitalist environment. Therefore, we find that capital has been driven since its very inception to expand into non-capitalist strata and nations, ruin artisans and peasantry, proletarianize the intermediate strata, the politics of colonialism, the politics of opening-up and the export of capital. The development of capitalism has been possible only through constant expansion into new domains of production and new countries. But the global drive to expand leads to a collision between capital and pre-capitalist forms of society, resulting in violence, war, revolution: in brief, catastrophes from start to finish, the vital element of capitalism. The first sentence of that quote relates to a problem uncovered by Mars, who wrote about the primitive accumulation of capital through force and violence, but was not able to account for capital accumulation in the capitalist system as he understood it. Of course, Luxemburg was a Marxist, so its easy to dismiss both the problem and her insight. It seems to me, though, that we can see it standing alone as an observation of the actual behavior of capitalists and the results of their armed expansion into other countries, in the unrestrained use of their money, assets and power. Luxemburg says that capitalism only works if it has non-capitalist areas, or non-capitalist parts of its home society to colonize. These might be lands and resources in India, or South America, or the Belgian Congo, as they were in the Imperialist period, the period she was thinking about. Or they might be the National Health Service in England, or the education system or the medical system, or the prison system or any other government service in the US. Or it might be the people of Bangladesh who can be colonized to make cheap tee-shirts for greater profits to manufacturers. Three thoughts. 1. The imperative of capital to stay in motion is a force that underlies the expansionary motives of every capitalist. Theres a logic to capitalism. We wont uncover that logic with the economic theories that teach that capitalism is natural and just. 2. The problem for decades has been superfluous capital, not a shortage of capital. 3. The problem with capitalism is that it creates superfluous people, people estranged from the productive life of their society. These people are fertile ground for authoritarian extremism. Yves here. If you have friends or colleagues who would might be new to the topic of how dangerous the investor state dispute settlement process is for not just regulation but national sovereignity, this Real News Network show provides a fine introduction. Even though this short but crisp segment will be largely old hat to regular readers, it does also discuss a device often used successfully in these kangaroo courts, called stacking. which increases the odds of win by the corporation suing for compensation. HOMAS HEDGES, TRNN: Last night, President Obama used a portion of his 2016 State of the Union address to lobby for the Transpacific Partnership agreement or TPP, which is slated to be passed this spring in Washington. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: It cuts 18,000 taxes on products made in America, which will then support more good jobs here in America. With TPP, China does not set the rules in that region, we do. You want to show our strength in this new century? Approve this agreement. Give us the tools to enforce it. HEDGES: But critics of the TPP say the United States-China contention is a red herring. Instead, the TPP represents a huge victory for multinational corporations that have devised a complicated system where they can sue foreign governments for interfering with their profits. MELINDA ST. LOUIS: Even though the treaty is negotiating between governments, its a private corporation that can then try to enforce this treaty, outside of the courts in private tribunals. HEDGES: Melinda St. Louis is part of Public Citizens Global Trade Watch, and says that the TPPs accountability system under whats called Investor State Dispute Settlement or ISDS heavily favors corporations by allowing them to sue governments if they pass laws that threaten a companys profit margin. ST. LOUIS: Theyre made up of three private lawyers who determine whether the extreme investor rights that have been included in the treaty have been violated. And then that tribunal of three private lawyers, who are not bound by precedent, who are not bound by typical conflict of interest rules that you would expect for judges, they decide whether they will award damages to the corporation, which is taxpayer money from the governments. And it has been in the order of millions or even billions of dollars in taxpayer damages, compensation, to corporations. And the violations of the rights that they are claiming are our laws, our judicial decisions, our administrative acts. HEDGES: Proponents of the TPP say its the most progressive deal in history because it protects labor and environment. But deep inside the rabbit hole are another set of rules called Most Favored Nation rules or MFN rules, which allow multinationals to circumvent almost any regulation from existing trade deals, including the quote-on-quote most progressive ones from the TPP. ST. LOUIS: And what that means is that a government has to provide the same treatment to an investor from, from a TPP country as they provide to any other country in any other treaty that they have. And so through that mechanism its actually possible for investors to sue through one treaty, but say we actually want the protections that were included in a third treaty that were not even, that our government isnt even a part of. HEDGES: ISDS and MFN rules are bolstered by the fact that they are privileges only corporations can enjoy. ST. LOUIS: It is only corporations that can bring cases. Governments cant bring cases. They canthey are defendants. But a government cannot challenge a corporation. HEDGES: As if the balance couldnt be tipped any more, corporations increase their odds of winning lawsuits by engaging in a practice called stacking. ST. LOUIS: What corporations will do when they launch an investor state case is theyll stack, and theyll basically say we, the violations of our rights, have been indirect expropriation, minimum standard of treatment, you know, proportionalitytheyll basically list all of the standards that are in the treaty hoping that at least one of them sticks. That, in fact, has happened a lot. In fact, the minimum standard of treatment is the standard by which most investors have received awards and kind of positive outcomes for the investor, because it is so broad and can be interpreted so broadly. HEDGES: Put all those privileges together and you get a judicial system that allows for some absurd lawsuits that are completely legal. Take the case of Phillip Morris and Australia for example. ST. LOUIS: Phillip Morris International, which is a U.S. tobacco company, decided to incorporate its Australian holdings into its Hong Kong subsidiary because Australia and Hong Kong had a bilateral investment treaty that had investor state dispute settlement, or ISDS. The treaty that the United States had with Australia did not have ISDS in it. So they incorporated, their subsidiary took the Australia holdings from Hong Kong, and then launched their investor state dispute settlement through the Hong Kong-Australia bilateral investment treaty. Phillip Morris International then incorporated as a Swiss subsidiary to sue the government of Uruguay, because there was a Switzerland-Uruguay bilateral investment treaty that they wanted to, that they wanted to use to be able to sue Uruguay because Uruguay, like Australia, had instituted tobacco control legislation that was meant for public health purposes. HEDGES: Last month, Phillip Morris lost the case in Australia, but St. Louis says that even when corporations lose, they win. ST. LOUIS: Because just the mere threat of these types of cases can for, especially for a small country, can mean millions of dollars just in legal fees, and so it will make them think twice about enacting a policy that a corporation doesnt like. HEDGES: The 12 member countries of the Trans-Pacific Partnership already have a total of 35 investment treaties between themselves. But if the TPP goes through, that number could close to double the number of options multinationals have to sue foreign governments. The United States hasnt dished out any money to multinationals from ISDS disputes. But that could change very quickly. Last week, the Canadian energy company TransCanada announced it was suing the United States using the North American Free Trade Agreement over the Keystone XL pipeline rejection. ST. LOUIS: TPP does expand the liability and the danger much more than we had before, because not only does it increase the number of treaties that companies can use, but its he first time that the United States has had this type of mechanism in a treaty with multiple developed countries. Before, the only developed country we had ISDS with was Canada, under the North America Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. And so there werent that many Salvadoran or Peruvian companies in the United States that could launch these cases. Well, with TPP, now there are Japanese companies, Australian companies, who will be newly empowered to be able to use this mechanism in the United States. HEDGES: For the Real News, Thomas Hedges, Washington. Team of volunteers working to preserve the Whipple Company Store after Joy Lynn purchased the building. Submitted SHARE The Whipple Company Store & Museum as it looks today. Submitted The Company Store as it looked when Joy Lynn purchased the building in 2006. Submitted A young girl learns about Appalachian life and laundry day as part of the Whipple Company Store & Museum childrens' programs. Submitted The Whipple Company Store as it appeared in 1929. Submitted By Sandra Baer When Joy Lynn learned that the former company store in Whipple, West Virginia was for sale 10 years ago, she jumped at the opportunity to own a piece of her coal-mining family history. She'd wanted to own the "castle" ever since she saw it on a visit to her granny's house when she was 6 years old. The Marco Island winter resident currently spends her summers in West Virginia, giving tours and preserving the 18,000 square-foot Whipple Company Store in Fayette County, WV. "For me, preservation doesn't just preserve the boards on the side of the walls; it preserves our Appalachian heritage and the memories of the people who lived here," said Lynn, who currently serves as museum director of the nonprofit Appalachian Heritage History Museum that operates in the company store. She is bringing it back to its original condition. "It's the oldest and last of its kind coal camp company store," she said. Lynn's relatives worked in the mines, where one of her grandfathers died in a mining accident. They lived in the tiny two-bedroom company homes that eventually sold for about $200 in the 1950s. The children attended the company school and the whole family would attend the company-built church on Sundays. Instead of paychecks, the miners were paid in scrip that they could spend at the Whipple Company Store, which served as a general store, a bank, the post office, a doctor's office and even as a purveyor of caskets when miners reached the end of their lives. "I asked my husband to retire and give me his savings to buy the building and he did," said Lynn, of her husband, Charles, who serves as CEO of the museum. "We had the company house that my mother grew up in nearby, but we decided to clear out space in the store and live right there." In addition to the five-story company store that consisted of a basement, a circular first floor, an octagonal second floor and a rectangular third floor that was topped with a triangular tower, the purchase also included eight acres that Lynn uses for annual car shows. The unique shape of the building provided company officials with an excellent view of all external activities. Lynn's three children initially resisted spending summers in West Virginia, where they assisted with the building preservation, but with time they came to see the importance of highlighting the unique coal miner's history and their way of life. Older residents and former miners came forward to visit the building where they would reminisce and talk about life in a company town. Lynn grasped the value of these memories and began writing them down as another type of preservation project. She also realized that her visitors wanted written information, so she wrote a book about the building and then provided space inside the building to accommodate a nonprofit museum. Last year she started an internship program using the money she received from a federal grant. The interns, who were housed in a building that the Lynn's bought about 12 miles from the museum, spent their time sorting and organizing the many artifacts that littered the floor of the building when it was purchased. "I just want to preserve it and to learn from it," said Lynn, of the building that is now used for children's programs, public tours and private academic research programs. "There's not another place like it in the world." For more information, visit the Whipple Company Store website at whipplecompanystore.com. HARRISBURG Six Pennsylvania farmers who also are veterans received special recognition Thursday at the 100th Pennsylvania Farm Show. The farmer veterans were recognized for their contributions to agriculture and to the nation with honors from the Homegrown By Heroes program. Homegrown By Heroes, the countrys official farmer veteran branding program, is combining its logo with PA Preferred to inform consumers that the products were produced by Pennsylvania military veterans. Two percent of our population feeds us, said state Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding. Two percent of our population protects us. Put together, thats a powerful four percent. Redding and various legislators presented six farmer veterans with state proclamations honoring them as veterans and farmer. Veterans possess a variety of skills that are needed in the agriculture industry, state Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding said. Agriculture is natural fit for our veterans. Troy Jochems of Pottsville said he was honored at the recognition. Jochems, a Marine who served in Desert Storm, also is a farmer who rescues horses and grows hay and lavender. I didnt start out as a farmer, he said. I worked at Yuengling Brewery, bought a beer distributorship and then got into horses. Eventually, he met the woman he married and together they created Hope Hill Lavender Farm of Pottsville. People use our lavender for cooking, he said, We also distill it into essential oils for soaps, lotions and candles. Jochems said that people prefer the natural smell of lavender. Lavender is very popular now, he added, saying his business has taken off. Other events honoring veterans at the 100th Pennsylvania Farm Show on Thursday included and ag-vet forum, an Army-Navy cook-off, a documentary film on women in the military, and a swearing in ceremony at the rodeo for new recruits for all branches of the service. Jeff Koterba December 13, 2015. Endangered Middle Class SHARE Making sense of the Republican race As the primary race for the Republican candidate for president heats up and gets more complex, the members of the local Republican organization, the Caxambas Republican Club of Southwest Florida, tries to make sense out of the race by determining which of the present candidates have the characteristics that make a winning Republican candidate and, more importantly, a great President. To this end, the members have developed what they believe are the six most important characteristics a successful candidate must have as well as rating each of the present major candidates on how they score on each characteristic. The characteristics they have identified (taken from a research list of some 16) are: 1. Honesty: Truthful, trustworthy, talks with candor and not influenced by donors or lobbyists. 2. Leadership: Projects confidence and commitment to principles, decisive without concern for polls nor political correctness. 3. Management: Experience managing organizations, motivating others and balancing budgets and creating jobs. 4. Communications: Motivational, persuasive and optimistic speaker, avoids teleprompter and gains respect and admiration, a good listener. 5. Conflict resolution: Handles unexpected conflicts and able to negotiate settlements with other nations, political parties and dissenters. 6. Knowledge: Possesses knowledge and experience on most major issues from immigration to national debt and deficits, to tax reform, foreign affairs and homeland security. The club will be holding a mock debate at 5:30 p.m., Feb. 3 at the United Church of Marco Island, located at 320 North Barfield Drive. It expects to have "candidates" Bush, Carson, Cruz, Fiorina, Rubio and Trump participating in this timely debate. All members, the media and the general public are invited to attend what should be an informative and fun event. The results of the final character survey, mentioned above, will also be discussed at this event as the Club prepares to release the results of all of their survey polling and debates in advance of the critical Florida primary on March 15. The first winner-take-all primary in the country. Please contact Bob Rommel (239-821-2297, bob@bobrommel.net) for more information. By John Arceri Vice president, Caxambas Republican Club How convenient I am a lifelong Democrat from the liberal state of Connecticut. I never write in because everybody has an opinion, what's one more? However, In the Marco Eagle of Friday, Jan. 8 I read a letter from Jeff Gilbert of Marco Island about Donald Trump not wanting to permit Muslims to enter the country. He probably heard or read this in the news and this is what set me off. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are essential to a free and open society. The danger to this freedom is when people misuse this right to lie and or misconstrue the facts to fit their own agenda. I saw the news when Mr. Trump first said that he thought it would be a good idea to stop all Muslims from entering the country "until a proper vetting process can be established". How convenient for some people to leave off this last part. In fact what Mr. Trump said about Muslims and a proper vetting process is what is being said by many members of congress on both sides of the aisle. Charles Souza Marco Island Laws for drones Just as President Obama has used executive power to implement the necessary gun control measures to protect our society and try to reverse the epidemic of gun massacres in the U.S., so should we act to control the proliferation of drones. Once for recreational use, drones have become the latest threat to our population. They are used by many commercial entities and private companies. In Connecticut, a teenager used a drone with a camera to take unauthorized pictures of young girls sunbathing at a local beach. Next he attached a gun to his drone. The latest adventure was to attach a flame thrower to roast a turkey outdoors. He not only burned the turkey, he set woods ablaze. I know boys do some dumb things and don't think things through, but these attempts at testing the limits of creativity have been dangerous and demonstrate what potential harmful uses could be implemented by someone looking to create terror and destruction. The FAA released guidelines requiring that noncommercial drones be registered. This isn't nearly enough. I am working with Connecticut legislators to ensure that more protective legislation is passed to ensure the public is protected. As with all new technology, the original benefits will be abused by those with the wrong motives. I live part of the year in a condo area in Connecticut and we had a Realtor use an unauthorized drone to take aerial pictures. The drone crashed. We now have a condo rule that no drones are allowed to take off or land on our property. I would recommend others implement such rules and encourage your legislative bodies to draft legislation that protects the privacy and safety of the public. Patricia Karwoski Naples By Jessica Lipscomb of the Naples Daily News A Collier County Sheriff's Office investigation has determined a 19-year-old whose body was found in a canal in Golden Gate Estates last June drowned accidentally. An autopsy found Zion Lopez had twigs and mud in his lungs and stomach, indicating he still was alive when he landed in a canal on Blue Sage Drive, according to reports released by the Sheriff's Office this week. The reports describe him as intoxicated and disoriented on the night he went missing. Investigators learned Lopez and two friends attended a small party at a fourth person's house on the night of June 4. The only other person in attendance was a woman one of Lopez's friends had met through the Tinder dating application. The host's house in the 3200 block of 23rd Avenue Southwest was only about 400 yards away from where Lopez's body was found, according to an investigative report. The four people at the home told deputies Lopez drank nearly half of a bottle of tequila that night and was extremely intoxicated, at some point stripping off all of his clothing. They described him as nearly falling into the pool, injuring his chin on the kitchen floor and bumping into a sliding-glass door, countertop and sofa. According to their statements, he was unable to stand unassisted. Lopez was last seen on the lanai, but when the others went to check on him about 4 a.m., he was gone. The others at the home said they searched for him but did not find anything. The host of the party, who had not met Lopez before that night, admitted throwing away Lopez's clothing and phone, saying they were covered in vomit and broken, respectively. He told deputies he was worried he would get in trouble after he learned Lopez was a minor because he had served him alcohol. The report says the four at the party had not found Lopez by morning but did not call to report him missing, even after hearing news reports of a body found in a canal near the home the day after the party. Lopez was identified after his parents contacted the Sheriff's Office, saying he fit the description of the man whose body was found. Lopez, who had poor vision, was found without his glasses, leading investigators to think he couldn't see well when he landed in the canal. The medical examiner, Dr. Manfred Borges, "agreed that low or no backyard light, intoxication, poor eyesight, the sudden drop-off in the canal itself and no familiarity with the area could have all played into being contributing factors in the case," a Sheriff's Office report says. Attempts to reach the four partygoers were unsuccessful. A Sheriff's Office spokeswoman said the death investigation has been closed but that officials still are considering filing a second-degree misdemeanor charge or charges against whoever provided Lopez alcohol. Lopez's grandmother, Rosa Berrios, said this week that she had not been contacted by the Sheriff's Office regarding its findings. After reading a copy of the report provided by the Daily News, she said she still has doubts that her grandson's death was accidental. "A lot of things don't make sense," she said. "If Zion was so drunk that he couldn't stand up, how did he get outside? From the report, he was hurt. I think that something happened in that house." Berrios also questioned why no one called to report Lopez missing. The two men who brought Lopez to the party both co-workers at a local restaurant were his only friends in Naples. Berrios said the two had picked Lopez up at her home on several occasions. "If they were his friends, when your friend disappears, what do you do? You call the police or you find his family," Berrios said. "They knew where he lived." Originally from the Washington, D.C., area, Lopez had moved to Naples to live with his grandparents in 2014. At the time of his death, Lopez was two days from his 20th birthday and one week away from starting college in the D.C. area. Lopez, a gifted saxophone player, was to attend Bowie State University on a music scholarship, according to his grandmother. "He came from D.C. you know how crime-ridden that area is? And he comes to Naples and he dies, and it's supposed to be nice and safe," she said. "It's unconceivable." SHARE A Burmese python is displayed at a media event Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016 on an Everglades levee north of U.S. 41 East in Miami-Dade County to promote the Python Challenge. The hunt competition is meant to raise awareness about invasive species like pythons and remove them from the wild. The Python Challenge begins Saturday and ends Feb. 14. (Eric Staats/Staff) Jake Edwards, left, a nonnative wildlife technician for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and Jenny Ketterlin Eckles, an FWC nonnative wildlife biologist, search for pythons Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, on an Everglades levee north of U.S. 41 East in Miami-Dade County. The demonstration was part of a media event to promote the Python Challenge, a hunt competition meant to raise awareness about invasive species like pythons and remove them from the wild. The Python Challenge begins Saturday and ends Feb. 14. (Eric Staats/Staff) A Burmese python is displayed at a media event Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016 on an Everglades levee north of U.S. 41 East in Miami-Dade County to promote the Python Challenge. The hunt competition is meant to raise awareness about invasive species like pythons and remove them from the wild. The Python Challenge begins Saturday and ends Feb. 14. (Eric Staats/Staff) Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission nonnative wildlife biologist Jenny Ketterlin Eckles uses a stick with a hook on the end to check brush for pythons Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, on an Everglades levee north of U.S. 41 East in Miami-Dade County. The demonstration was part of a media event to promote the Python Challenge, a hunt competition meant to raise awareness about invasive species like pythons and remove them from the wild. The Python Challenge begins Saturday and ends Feb. 14. (Eric Staats/Staff) By Eric Staats of the Naples Daily News They don't call it the Python Challenge for nothing. The notoriously hard-to-find Everglades invaders are the target starting Saturday as the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission kicks off its python capture contest after a two-year hiatus. But the number of amateur volunteer python hunters taking the prize-money bait has become smaller this time around. In 2013, more than 1,600 hunters from 38 states brought every manner of weapon and strategy to South Florida in hopes of bagging the big one. They caught 68 pythons compared to estimates that tens of thousands of pythons maybe more were slithering all around them, out of sight. As of this week, less than 570 people have registered for the 2016 version. It remains to be seen what the smaller number of hunters will mean for the number of pythons caught this year. Much depends on weather. Pythons are most easy to spot when they are out in the open sunning themselves on cold days. The hunt runs through Feb. 14. The Conservation Commission held a demonstration event for the media Thursday on an Everglades levee north of U.S. 41 East in Miami-Dade to promote the event, which is as much about raising awareness about invasive species than taking them out of the wild. "We need all the help we can get," Conservation Commission Commissioner Ron Bergeron said. Kristen Sommers, the FWC's wildlife impact management section leader, admitted the python hunt's novelty in 2013 helped draw big numbers and worldwide attention, but it was unclear how many of that year's python fighters-to-be actually pulled on their boots and made their way into the wilderness. Fewer adventurers might have signed up this year (they can sign up through the end of the hunt) but they could be the motivated ones, she said. "The ones who are in it are in it to win it," Sommers said. The team that catches the most pythons wins $5,000; the most pythons caught by an individual is good for $3,500. The longest python caught is worth $3,000 for a team and $1,000 for an individual. Second place prizes in each category run from $750 to $1,500. Animal welfare advocates have criticized the python hunt as inhumane. The FWC offers training for how to capture or kill a python humanely. Some also have been skeptical of hunters unfamiliar with the South Florida wilds trampling the ecosystem. The public is not allowed to hunt for pythons in Everglades National Park. The areas eligible for the hunt in Collier County have expanded this year to take in parts of Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Collier-Seminole State Park and the Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park. In 2013, the python hunt was limited to the Big Cypress National Preserve and the Picayune Strand State Forest. FILE - Gina Edwards, founder of the Watchdog City journalism website, speaks about retired Naples Daily News editor Phil Lewis at a Naples Press Club meeting on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2014 at the Hilton Naples. David Albers/Staff By Daily News Staff The Florida Second District Court of Appeal on Friday upheld a ruling in favor of local journalist Gina Edwards, who successfully sued Collier Clerk Dwight Brock over a public records fee. The appeal court affirmed a June 2014 ruling by Collier Circuit Judge Fred Hardt, who found that Brock should have charged Edwards $2 for copies of 350 pages of emails. Hardt ruled that the emails were stored electronically and didn't need to be printed, which meant Brock shouldn't be allowed to charge Edwards $1 per page, as Brock wanted. The only allowable charge, Hardt said, was the cost of the CD on which the files were transmitted. The appeal court didn't issue a written ruling, a common practice in most cases. It heard oral arguments in the case in May 2015. In February 2015, the Daily News reported that the clerk's office had paid about $67,000 for lawyers to represent it in the Edwards lawsuit. Edwards is the CEO and co-founder of Watchdog City, an online journalism site. By Jessica Lipscomb of the Naples Daily News The wife of a Cape Coral man who was killed in a November terrorist attack in Jordan has filed a lawsuit against Twitter claiming the social media company has allowed ISIS to spread propaganda and recruit members. Tamara Fields, the wife of 46-year-old Lloyd "Carl" Fields Jr., filed the lawsuit Wednesday in federal court in northern California, where Twitter is headquartered. Her lawsuit alleges the social networking site "has been instrumental to the rise of ISIS and has enabled it to carry out numerous terrorist attacks," including the one that took the life of her husband on Nov. 9 in Amman, Jordan. Related story: One of the Americans killed in Jordan was a former Cape Coral resident Tamara Fields wrote that she and her husband believed his assignment in Jordan was safe because the country is a U.S. ally. Carl Fields was a government contractor who was training policemen from Jordan, Iraq and the Palestinian territories at the International Police Training Center, which is run by the U.S. State Department. He was eating lunch in the facility's cafeteria when one of the men studying there, Anwar Abu Zaid, opened fire, according to the lawsuit. Carl Fields was one of two Americans killed in the attack, for which ISIS later claimed responsibility. The lawsuit alleges that Twitter's "provision of material support to ISIS" was a proximate cause of Carl Fields' death. Tamara Fields is asking for compensatory damages and an order declaring that Twitter has violated the Anti-Terrorism Act. Twitter hasn't yet filed a response but released the following statement: "While we believe the lawsuit is without merit, we are deeply saddened to hear of this family's terrible loss. Like people around the world, we are horrified by the atrocities perpetrated by extremist groups and their ripple effects on the Internet. Violent threats and the promotion of terrorism deserve no place on Twitter and, like other social networks, our rules make that clear. We have teams around the world actively investigating reports of rule violations, identifying violating conduct, partnering with organizations countering extremist content online, and working with law enforcement entities when appropriate." Shirts for the Run 4 The Cause 5K at Living Waters Church in Estero on Thursday, January 7, 2016. The race is being put on by Christy's Cause, a non-profit started by Christy Ivie to raise money for organizations that are working to end child sex trafficking. (Scott McIntyre/Staff) By Maryann Batlle of the Naples Daily News The first 5K walk and run sponsored by Estero-based Christys Cause raised $16,355, according to the nonprofits founder. About 200 people participated in the 5K walk and run held at Living Waters Church last Saturday, and another 100 people volunteered, according to Christy Ivie, a working mother who launched Christys Cause to help end child sex trafficking in Southwest Florida. The result really speaks to the fact that the community wanted to be involved, said Ivie. And if they couldnt run or walk, they showed up to support as they could and volunteer. So I thought that was really amazing. Just two days after the Christys Cause 5K in Estero, Ivie got a reminder of why she started her group in the first place. The Collier County Sheriffs Office announced on Monday that the agency arrested two men accused of human trafficking. Gregory Bow Legzz Hines, 34, and Keith Big Mike Lewis are suspected of using drugs and violence to coerce at least four women to perform sex acts for clients, according to investigators. The women were trafficked at hotels and private residences across the county, said Sheriff Kevin Rambosk at a press conference the day of the announcement. Those arrests reinforce that efforts to disrupt human trafficking in Lee and Collier Counties have to be done with urgency, said Ivie and Alex Olivares, coordinator of the Human Trafficking Resource Center at Florida Gulf Coast University. Events like the (5K) we just had on Saturday are so important because, even if they open someones eyes just a little bit, youre that much more vigilant. And these (arrests) wont happen without proactive law enforcement and proactive citizens, said Olivares. And, yes, expect more (cases). Ivie said she is has no plans to take a long-term break. She is slated to speak at Florida Gulf Coast Universitys Human Trafficking Symposium on Jan. 21 at the Cohen Center on the main campus. General admission to the full day of workshops is $25. The agenda includes training for people who want to know more about the problem and learn how to help. Living Waters Church, where Ivie and her family are members, has pledged to host the 5K again next year, she said. There is a lot of work to do so that we can expose what is happening, Ivie said. So we can say, No, not here. Not in my community. And my hope is that we can say that in every community so its, No. Not here. Not in our nation. Staff writer Jessica Lipscomb contributed to this report Republican presidential candidates, from left, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., businessman Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush take the stage before the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, in North Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt) SHARE By Arek Sarkissian of the Naples Daily News U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio defended attacks against fellow GOP presidential candidates in Thursday's debate in North Charleston, South Carolina, as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush made a plea for Republicans to rally around a conservative as their nominee, without mentioning Donald Trump by name. After swipes from candidates like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Rubio stayed focused in most of his answers to denounce President Barack Obama and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. He said the country's election of Obama in 2008 brought a president who did not want to fix America and that he did not believe in the U.S. Constitution. "This election is about reversing all of that damage," Rubio said. "That's why I'm running for office." But one of the sharpest attacks of the night against Rubio came from Christie, who has railed against negative campaign ads released by Rubio linking Christie to Obama. Christie has said Rubio "won't be able to slime your way to the White House" with the attacks, and he reminded Rubio that he called out Bush in an earlier debate for attacks. Rubio told Bush then that he shouldn't listen to advisers urging him to go negative. "It appears that the same someone has been whispering in old Marco's ear too," Christie said. But Rubio shot back, arguing that Christie has supported some of Obama's policies, like Common Core education reforms. "I like Chris Christie, but we cannot had a president of the United States who supports Common Core," Rubio said. "Our next president has to be someone who undoes the damage Barack Obama has done to this country." Christie also said, contrary to Rubio's claims, Common Core was eliminated in New Jersey in May. However, like Florida, the state still holds on to Common Core-style testing standards. "This is the difference between being the governor and being a senator," Christie said. "When you're a senator what you get to do is talk and talk, and you talk so much that no one can keep up with what you're saying and figure out whether you're accurate or not. "When you're a governor, you're held accountable for everything you do and the people of New Jersey have seen it," Christie said. The exchange prompted Bush to interrupt, urging Republicans to remember that even as they argue during the primary campaign, they must be ready to unite against a Democratic opponent. Bush has stressed the need for a more conservative GOP candidate who can united the party in earlier comments, a jab at Trump without naming him. "We need to have a compelling conservative agenda that we present to the American people in a way that doesn't disparage people, that unites us around our common purpose," Bush said. Rubio also came under fire for his support in the past for immigration reform by Cruz, who has said that stand with some Democrats put Rubio in a position of favoring leniency for undocumented immigrants over national security. Rubio said Thursday that he has changed his focus on immigration, now believing national security issues promoted by ISIS terrorists change the dynamic of the immigration debate. "This issue is about keeping America safe," Rubio said. "Our No. 1 priority should now become ensuring that ISIS cannot enter the U.S." Earlier in the debate, Rubio outlined his stance on immigrants entering the country." If we do not know who you are and we do not why you are coming, when I am president you are not getting into the United States of America," he said. Bush once again took Trump to task for proposing a ban on Muslims entering the U.S. He asked Trump to reconsider it. "Sending that signal makes it impossible for us to be serious about taking out ISIS and Syria," Bush said to Trump. "I hope you reconsider this." Bush said he was not opposed to stopping refugees from coming to the U.S., but Trump's plan was unrealistic. "We don't have to have refugees come to our country. But all Muslims? Seriously?" Bush said. On the topic of guns laws, Bush praised South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haiey for her leadership during the June 2015 shooting in a Charleston church that left nine people dead. He said the FBI made a mistake in failing to conduct a timely background check of suspected gunman Dylann Roof, which is where the next president should focus. "We don't need to add more rules, we need to make sure the FBI is doing its job, because that person should not have gotten a gun," Bush said. "He would have not passed the background check." Bush said Obama and Clinton would take away the rights of citizens who have done nothing wrong. Instead Bush pointed to a Florida statute he signed into law in 1999 known as the 10-20-life law. "In Florida, if you commit a crime with a gun, you're going away, you're going away for a long, long time," Bush said. "With the violence in our communities, target the efforts toward the people committing crimes with guns." Bush also brought up mental health as another solution to gun violence. Rather than issuing executive orders, Bush said Obama should have gone to Congress with a bipartisan plan to create mental health programs. SHARE Collier County commissioners have the right idea to want to explore additional consolidation of emergency services. There are opportunities to streamline budgets while delivering efficient, effective life-saving medical and firefighting response in a unified fashion rather than through the current fragmented system. However, we fear the approach for a March straw ballot, approved 4-1 Tuesday by Collier commissioners, will backfire because it's flawed. That could set back the momentum going toward long-term integration of emergency services. The question More than 72 percent of Collier voters said in a November 2010 straw ballot that they support fire department consolidation. The 2010 question specifically asked about merging five independent fire districts, which are overseen by elected boards under the jurisdiction of the Legislature not the County Commission with two districts the commission controls. Thankfully, consolidation is progressing. In 2014, voters merged North Naples and Big Corkscrew into the North Collier fire district and Golden Gate and East Naples into the Greater Naples district. Smaller commission-controlled fire districts may be folded into Greater Naples, but the Legislature hasn't even done that yet. The March ballot question asks if the county's ambulance service should become part of a newly created, independently elected fire and emergency services agency in unincorporated Collier. Disenfranchised The focus on "unincorporated area" is a controversy that should be avoided. Naples and Marco Island voters help elect Collier commissioners who ultimately are the authority now over the county's ambulance service, which city taxpayers support. However, if the ambulance service is turned over to a new board specifically elected by voters in the unincorporated area, city voters become disenfranchised. Their ambulance service would be overseen by an unincorporated-area board they can't help elect. Or would it force cities to set up their own ambulance services? The planned March straw ballot doesn't give a say to Marco Island and Naples voters; it mistakenly excludes them. Collier elections office data shows there are 14,472 Naples registered voters and 12,194 in Marco. So 14 percent of the electorate doesn't get a say on a March straw ballot about the future of their ambulance service. Commissioners brushed aside concerns of the Immokalee fire district, which opposed the ballot question. While Commissioner Tom Henning said Naples and Marco Island aren't included because they self-govern, so do fire districts that are taxing, political jurisdictions. It's clear county commissioners don't respect that autonomy. It was evident before when they substituted their judgment for elected North Collier fire commissioners regarding pre-hospital medical response in northern Collier. Timing March is the wrong election to gauge what voters think. There is a council election in Naples, which by design can't vote on the straw ballot. Of 187,095 registered voters in Collier, 94,665 Republicans will be asked March 15 to decide who they want as their presidential candidate. So will 43,404 Democrats. Yet there are 49,026 Collier voters not registered with either party. Notably, there are more of those folks than Democrats in Collier. What type of a turnout do commissioners expect among the 49,026 when this will be the only item on their ballot, except for a few voters on a Fiddler's Creek issue? Additionally, the Collier elections office now will have to print and administer ballots for this large group of registered voters to weigh in on one straw ballot issue, which in the end isn't even binding. We remember unwieldy lines created in the past by a long November general election ballot. But the August primary likely will have other contests, including countywide nonpartisan ones to draw more unaffiliated voters. By waiting at least until August, we also may have clarity on what level of ambulance service the community wants. And, since it's a nonbinding straw ballot, why not find out what city voters think about the next steps in ambulance consolidation. SHARE Dianne Rhodes, Naples Science says Letter writer William Graebe recently suggested global warming is one of the biggest lies to be perpetrated on the world. He must be unaware that global warming and the significant role of humans in causing it is the position not just of the pope and President Obama, but of national academies of science around the world, every major professional organization in disciplines relating to climate, and of virtually all scientists who actually conduct research in the field. For generations, the United States has encouraged science for the benefits it brings to the economy and our lives. Now Graebe would have us believe that practically all scientists have united here and abroad in a conspiracy against us. His assertion that "fake scientific data," defended by the experts mentioned above, have been disproved is simply laughable. Are we to believe almost all scientists active in the field, or a handful of ostriches, including those on fossil fuel industry payrolls? As an example of the "science" he believes in, Graebe states that both Arctic and Antarctica ice is growing. Were he to inquire with NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center, he would find that Arctic sea ice continues shrinking by 5 percent in a decade. Greenland is losing ice mass rapidly as is Western Antarctica. Central Antarctica may be gaining a bit of mass from compression of snowfall up to 10,000 years ago into ice. This information is obtained not only from NASA but from scientists from many nations doing research at the poles. Graebe would presumably try to convince us that they too are part of a worldwide conspiracy. SHARE G.H. Levy, Naples The question There is an important question to ask the following people: The Christians in the Middle East and Africa who have been kidnapped, raped, beheaded and face extinction. The more than one million refugees walking Europe seeking a safe haven for their families. People in Crimea and the Ukraine invaded by brutal Russians. Israelies who have been randomly killed by radical Palestinians. Chinese deprived of human rights. Children in many countries dying from starvation and disease. The millions across the world lacking a source of clean drinking water. Those suffering from radical Islam in so many places. People living in extreme poverty, in Third World and developed countries. The list goes on. So here is the question: Ask these people how important it was and what priority do they give, to the recent gathering of leaders of nearly 200 countries who, in a moment of delusion, committed to changing the world's climate by a definitive degree by a definitive date? I think the answer is predictable. Since biblical times the climate has changed. There is a history of floods, droughts, famine, hurricanes, earthquakes etc. Clean air is an admirable goal but I would suggest the climate controls man rather than man controls the climate. In the U.S. alone, since the Paris meeting, we have had record cold and snow in the West, devastating floods and tornados in the Midwest and record highs in Florida. Who is responsible? You know the nearer your destination The more youre slip slidin away. Paul Simon Its happening again. The inevitability of Hillary Clintons presidential candidacy may not be so inevitable after all. Unlike eight years ago when Barack Obama beat her for the Democratic nomination and ultimately won the office Hillary and her supporters believed she was entitled to, this time her main opponent is not just Sen. Bernie Sanders, a socialist, it is Hillary Clinton herself. Serious media and congressional investigations into Richard Nixons Watergate crimes did not begin until after his landslide win in 1972. In Hillary Clintons case, damaging investigations are occurring in the middle of her campaign. Catherine Herridge, chief intelligence correspondent for the Fox News Channel, reports: The FBI investigation into Hillary Clintons use of private email as secretary of state has expanded to look at whether the possible intersection of Clinton Foundation work and State Department business may have violated public corruption laws, three intelligence sources not authorized to speak on the record told Fox News. This track is in addition to the focus on classified material found on Clintons personal server. As Investors.com notes, Hillary Clintons support among Democrats nationally has taken a serious tumble, falling eight points to 43 percent, according to the latest IBD/TIPP Poll. Support for her chief rival, Bernie Sanders, rose six points to 39 percent. As a result, Clintons lead over Sanders, which had been 18 points, is now just four points. According to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist College poll, Clinton and Sanders are in tight races in both Iowa and New Hampshire. With less than three weeks before the Iowa caucuses, such numbers are not good news for any candidate, especially Hillary Clinton, whose veracity and job record in the various offices and positions she has held are anything but stellar. Very quickly, Clinton has gone from big mo, to slow mo, to no mo. Americans wisely dont fully trust politicians of either party, but Hillary Clinton suffers more than most. Last August, a Quinnipiac University poll found that only 34 percent of those Americans surveyed believed Clinton is honest and trustworthy. Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the poll, reports CNN.com, said that Clinton is experiencing a continuing slide with how she is perceived by voters who continue to say she is not honest and trustworthy. Democrats are likely worried not just about whether Clinton can capture the nomination and the odds still favor that outcome but whether she will be further damaged by the FBI investigations and whether that damage could possibly lead to an indictment, as some Republicans hope. Donald Trump has added to Clintons woes by bringing up her husbands past behavior toward women at a time when she has positioned herself as the womens champion. Voices are being heard among the political classes about the possibility of replacing Clinton on the Democratic ticket with Vice President Joe Biden should that become necessary. Such a move could severely impair the Democrats ability to win the female vote. In a highly unpredictable political year, the Biden scenario would take unpredictability to a new level. I saw a bumper sticker recently that proclaimed the driver was Ready for Hillary. With the candidates disapproval numbers rising and her approval numbers slip slidin away, it doesnt appear that too many other voters are, in fact, ready. Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. SHARE Linda Oberhaus By Linda Oberhaus At 16, Ellie couldn't believe her luck. After answering an ad on Craigslist, she was flown from California to Miami, with promises of her dream job in modeling. Three years later, battered and bruised, Ellie was brought to The Shelter for Abused Women & Children from the hospital. Instead of a dream job, she had been thrust into a nightmare of violence and forced prostitution with a trafficker who sold her for sex on a website called Back Page. Ellie's story epitomizes the unspeakable dehumanization suffered by thousands of human trafficking victims exploited for sexual purposes or forced labor in the United States. But she is one of the lucky ones. The average life span of a human trafficking victim is seven years; Ellie got out in three, thanks to deputies, who identified her as a victim rather than a criminal. Ellie cooperated fully with local law enforcement. She found safe housing, clothing and counseling at The Shelter and was ultimately reunited with her mother in California. Unfortunately, most cases of human trafficking don't have happy endings. January marks National Human Trafficking Awareness Month and it is noteworthy that just this past week, two suspected traffickers were arrested and four victims rescued in Collier County. This follows on the March 2015 bust of the largest human trafficking sting ever uncovered in our area, with 10 arrests and approximately 15 victims rescued. Obviously, human trafficking has found a home in Collier County. As you read this commentary, human trafficking is the fastest-growing and third-largest organized criminal activity in the world, just behind the drug and arms trades. Florida ranks third in the nation for calls to the National Human Trafficking Hotline. In Collier County, the number of human trafficking related investigations jumped from seven in 2013 to 27 in 2014, after the establishment of the Collier County Sheriff's Office human trafficking unit. Human trafficking is a lucrative industry, representing an estimated $9.8 billion in the U.S. and $32 billion internationally. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, a trafficker can make up to $150,000-$200,000 per person each year and the average pimp has four to six girls. It is important to understand that human trafficking can happen to anyone, anywhere and in any situation. In the United States, 83 percent of trafficking victims are American and 50 percent are children. The average age of a trafficking victim is 13. Few ever come forward for fear of retaliation, shame, or lack of understanding of what is happening to them. Although the crisis of human trafficking has more recently made headlines, the problem has thrived in the shadows for many years. For too long, victims of human trafficking have been treated as criminals, facing jail time rather than receiving emergency shelter and the support they deserve. Much like the domestic violence movement of the early 1980s, today's push to raise awareness of human trafficking will initiate the social change needed to provide victims with the services they need to heal and return to society as productive citizens. It is important for everyone to learn to recognize the signs of human trafficking to combat this horrific crime. Be aware of and report any activity that looks suspicious to you. Don't assume it is not your business. Most of the traffickers in the March 2015 sting were operating in broad daylight in single-family neighborhoods. In addition to a high volume of traffic at a residence, individual signs of human trafficking in a victim may include: Signs of physical, emotional, or psychological abuse. Fear, depression, or signs of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Malnourishment or exhaustion. Threats to self or family. Debt owed to employer. Signs of being controlled (someone speaking for them; escorting them to/from work). Gaps in story. Tattoos/branding. If you know of or suspect that someone is a victim of human trafficking or domestic violence, call The Shelter's 24-hour crisis hotline at 239-775-1101. Join us for a Habitat for Humanity of Collier County celebration and home dedication on Saturday in Immokalee at Faith Landing. On Saturday, the homes of 32 families will be dedicated and another 15 families will be celebrated for paying off their mortgages. The ceremony begins at 11 a.m. on Saturday on Durso Court in Immokalee. This emotional event, one of the biggest in Habitat Collier history, will mark a tremendous milestone for these deserving families who have dedicated themselves to work hard and become homeowners in safe, affordable houses. Donors, volunteers, homeowners, applicants putting in their sweat equity hours, staff members and members of the community attend the ceremony as a way to mark the great success of the homeowners who are realizing their dream of homeownership. Each family is given a housewarming basket, a book shelf filled with children's books and the homes are blessed as part of the Habitat ceremony. After the ceremony, families open their homes to visitors. As one of the most productive Habitat affiliates in the nation, Habitat Collier builds 100 homes each year. Habitat offers interest-free mortgages and requires homeowners to undergo an extensive background check to ensure they are financially able to handle a mortgage. This dedication ceremony comes at a time when the availability of affordable housing in Collier County is at a crisis point. People who come to Habitat to apply for a home tell stories of their families living in a cramped bedroom or staying on a sofa belonging to a relative or friend because they cannot afford to rent a place to live in Naples. Of the 15 people who apply for a Habitat home, Habitat Collier only has the money to build one house. Fourteen families are often left without hope or have to wait until funding becomes available. Habitat Collier needs money to buy more land to build more homes. Construction of Legacy Lakes, a 55-home development, and single-family homes throughout Golden Gate Estates are under way, but more housing is needed as more people are priced out of a rental market where the average nears $1,300 per month. To donate, volunteer or share the Habitat Collier story, visit www.habitatcollier.org or please call 239-775-0036. Only a limited number of tickets are available for the Jan. 21 VenturePitch event hosted by the Tamiami Angel Family of Funds at the Conservancy of Southwest Florida in Naples. Tickets can be purchased online at www.tamiami-e.co. The shark tank style event brings together four early-stage entrepreneurs vying for the title of most investible and the opportunity to compete for $50,000 in cash and prizes at Startup Expo in Fort Lauderdale on Feb. 16-17. Presenters include local companies, Nervanix, Koala Home Care, Testimonial Tree and Relax and Order. The presentations will be judged by a local panel of judges, including entrepreneur, investor and Tamiami Angel Fund II member Bud Stoddard; international media partner, investor and Tamiami Angel Fund II member Liza Wong; and founder and managing partner of Gulfshore Capital, Richard Molloy. The program also features a keynote discussion led by Felix Lluberes, executive vice president of KORE Telematics and founder and former CEO of Position Logic. This is an exciting time for the entrepreneurial community and the information technology industry, said Lluberes. VenturePitch has created a unique platform showcasing some of the best and brightest ideas in Southwest Florida. Its also a prime outlet for businesses to provide the opportunity for investors and entrepreneurs to hear directly from local businesses who are providing services that will enhance the way we view technology across a broad spectrum of industries like health care, education, asset tracking and trusted ecommerce. With more than 20 years of experience in the software development industry, Lluberes contributed to Position Logics two-year consecutive recognition on INC 500s list as one of Americas fastest growing companies. Event sponsors include Hahn Loeser, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, Fusion Pointe, TriNet, RocketLounge, Institute for Entrepreneurship at Lutgert College of Business at Florida Gulf Coast University, Gulfshore Business, Business Observer, Florida Venture Forum and Southwest Florida Regional Technology Partnership. For additional information and sponsorship opportunities, call 239-298-6940. The VenturePitch series is part of the Tamiami Angel Funds e.co initiative, a Southwest Florida community based effort to build a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem from Sarasota to Naples. Tamiami Angel Fund I & II LLC are member-managed funds designed to enable private accredited investors to actively participate in a disciplined investment process. The funds invest in promising early-stage through expansion-stage commercial ventures located in the U.S., with a preference to those in the state of Florida. The Funds are members of the Angel Capital Association and the Florida Venture Forum. For more information, visit www.tamiamiangels.com. Lights, Camera, Action! are words New York Times best-selling author Captain Luis Carlos Montalvan and his service dog, Tuesday, will soon hear as film producer Gilbert (Gil) Adler brings Montalvans international bestselling book, Until Tuesday: A Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who Saved Him, to the silver screen. Adler is a film producer, writer and director; his work includes Constantine (2005), Superman Returns (2006) and Valkyrie (2008). Adler will be attending the 2016 Celebrity Martini Glass Auction (CMGA) fundraising event on Saturday, January 16, at Artis-Naples in support of Montalvan and PAWS Assistance Dogs. I want to make a film that will remind us all of the beauty and strength that manifests from expressing kindness, caring and love. In these unsettling times of worldwide anguish and disruption, it simply feels right to share this type of love -- the powerful emotion binding these two -- which radiates from the pages of Until Tuesday, Adler commented. Montalvan is an international award-winning New York Times bestselling author, speaker, and advocate, and Tuesday is his beloved service dog and the recipient of the 2013/14 American Kennel Club Award for Canine Excellence. A 17-year veteran of the U.S. Army, Captain Montalvan served multiple tours abroad and was decorated with numerous awards including two Bronze Stars, the Purple Heart, the Army Commendation Medal for Valor, and the Combat Action Badge. Adler will bring this true story to life in his upcoming film, Until Tuesday. Having a distinguished film producer/director, Capt. Luis Montalvan, and his beloved service dog, Tuesday, support our mission is truly inspiring, says Jeannie Bates, Founder of PAWS. Were so very privileged to have their support for this wonderful fundraising opportunity with the CMGA. Additionally, Montalvan and Tuesday are offering signed and paw-tographed copies of their international award-winning books through the PAWS Assistance Dogs website. The proceeds of every purchase of Until Tuesday: A Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who Saved Him and Tuesday Tucks Me In: The Loyal Bond between a Soldier and his Service Dog, will go directly to fund a greatly needed service dog. There are no limits to quantities ordered and books can be purchased online. PAWS Assistance Dogs is a 501c3 non-profit organization that promotes independence for combat wounded veterans and others with life-changing disabilities through partnerships with skilled assistance dogs. For more information about PAWS Assistance Dogs, visit www.pawsassistancedogs.org or call 239-775-1660. The Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy is extending its deadline for the Florida Celebration of Reading Writing Contest, open to kindergarten through third-grade students in Southwest Florida, including Charlotte, Collier, and Lee counties, to Friday, Jan. 22. The essay topic will focus on the following aspect of Drew Daywalts New York Times best-selling book, The Day the Crayons Quit: The books main character, Duncan, opens his desk one day to find a stack of letters where his crayons should be. His crayons have quit, and each one has written him a letter to explain why they are unhappy. To enter the contest, young authors/illustrators are asked to put themselves in Duncans place and respond to one of the letters he received. Students should select one crayon color to respond to and address the crayons concerns and frustrations. The submission should also include a drawing to illustrate the response. The Florida Department of Educations Just Read, Florida! office will assist in reading and judging entries. Contest winners, accompanied by their parents, will be recognized at a VIP breakfast kicking off the Celebration of Reading event on Friday, Feb. 5 at the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort & Spa in Bonita Springs. The students will be Daywalts guests at the Celebration Student Breakfast and have the opportunity to visit with the author and share their winning submissions. Winners will also be awarded with two $100 travel vouchers from Southwest Airlines, the official airline of the Barbara Bush Foundation. Entries are limited to a maximum of 100 words and must include an illustration no larger than 8 by 11 inches. Entries can be submitted electronically to info@barbarabush.org or mailed to The Barbara Bush Foundation, Attn: FCOR 2016 Student Writing Contest, 516 North Adams St., Tallahassee, Fla., 32301, postmarked no later than Jan. 22. Contest guidelines are available on the Barbara Bush Foundations website events page at http://www.barbarabush.org/events. Select Florida Celebration of Reading. Twelve winning entries will be selected. Winners will be announced in schools and on the Foundations website at www.barbarabush.org. For more information about Celebration of Reading and the Barbara Bush Foundation, visit www.barbarabush.org/events. The Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy is the nations leading advocate for family literacy. The goals of the Foundation are simple: We want children to start school ready to excel and help parents improve their literacy skills. To learn more about the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacys commitment to promote family literacy in homes across America, please visit www.barbarabush.org or join the conversation on Facebook or Twitter (@BarbaraBushFdn). Dignity reluctantly fesses up to fraud that cost taxpayers billions Justice Department has recovered $23 billion in false payments since January 2009 (NaturalNews)Another plaintiff has successfully taken advantage of the Federal False Claims Act (FFCA), recovering $6.25 million for herself and more than $30 million for the federal government after a large, Northern California-based hospital network agreed to settle a lawsuit alleging misconduct and fraud against the Medicare system.San Francisco-based Dignity Health has agreed to pay out $37 million to settle a 2009 whistleblower lawsuit filed by former worker Kathleen Hawkins, who says Dignity submitted many false and inflated Medicare claims between 2006 and 2010. According to the suit, 13 hospitals in the Dignity network routinely admitted patients for procedures they didn't need, and over-billed Medicare for their procedures.Simple outpatient procedures like installing pacemakers and heart stents, for instance, were billed as much more expensive inpatient procedures. Minimally invasive procedures like spinal cord compression operations were also overcharged to the federal government, with taxpayers ultimately footing the bill for this rampant fraud.When Hawkins first filed an ordinance in San Francisco federal court, government authorities immediately launched an investigation into Dignity's billing and accounting practices. They found that, throughout the network, over-billing was common, and that Medicare had been overpaying for brief hospital stays by about $5 billion, while unnecessary tests and procedures were costing it about $1.9 billion.Dignity, which was formerly known as Catholic Healthcare West, initially denied the allegations and any wrongdoing. But the hospital later admitted that it had carried out diagnoses in medical cases that very easily could have been observed, and that some patients were admitted for expensive inpatient care when outpatient visits were technically more appropriate."Hospitals that attempt to boost profits by admitting patients for expensive and unnecessary inpatient hospital stays will be held accountable," stated Health and Human Services (HHS) investigator Ivan Negroni, who helped lead the case. "Both patients and taxpayers deserve to have medical decisions made solely on what is best for the patient based on medical necessity."Hawkins filed her suit under the guidelines of the Federal False Claims Act (FFCA), which provisions for "whistleblower lawsuits" that involve fraud against the government. Any person who has knowledge of medical fraud can file a lawsuit using FFCA, and recover part of the judgment or settlement for themselves.Since January 2009, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has gained back $23 billion in false payments through similar lawsuits filed using FFCA. Nearly $15 billion of this was recovered from cases involving fraud against federal health care programs such as Medicare."Charging the government for higher cost inpatient services that patients do not need wastes the country's vital health care dollars," said acting assistant attorney general Joyce Branda in a corresponding news release. "This department will continue to its work to stop abuses of the nation's health care resources and to ensure patients receive the most appropriate care."One of the largest hospital networks in the U.S., Dignity currently operates 39 hospitals throughout California, Nevada, and Arizona. The hospital group has since agreed to enter a corporate integrity agreement with the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), which requires that companies hire independent review organizations to monitor and audit payment claims.This integrity agreement will last five years, according to the Antioxidants produce better outcomes Evidence of benefits mounts (NaturalNews) Waiting for two minutes before cutting the umbilical cord following birth improves infants' antioxidant status and leads to better infant development in the first few days of life, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Granada and the San Cecilio Clinical Hospital, and published in the journalUmbilical cord clamping is one of the most cross-culturally common medical interventions, and potentially one of the oldest. Yet great variation -- and controversy -- exists regarding the timing of the clamping. In high-income countries, it is typically more common to clamp the cord less than a minute following birth. Yet evidence shows that blood usually continues to flow from mother to infant for longer than this, and that early clamping may therefore increase the infant's risk of various health problems.The World Health Organization recommends that cord clamping take place between one and three minutes following birth.The new study was conducted on 64 healthy pregnant women with uncomplicated pregnancies who began vaginal delivery spontaneously and delivered at the San Cecilio Clinical Hospital in Granada. Half of the infants delivered had their umbilical cords cut 10 seconds following delivery, while the other half had their cords cut 2 minutes after delivery.The researchers found that infants with delayed cord clamping had improved antioxidant capacity. In cases of induced delivery, the infants with delayed clamping had less inflammatory effects than the infants whose cords were clamped after seconds."Our study demonstrates that late clamping of the umbilical cord has a beneficial effect upon the antioxidant capacity and reduces the inflammatory signal induced during labour," said principal investigator Julio Jose Ochoa Herrera, "which could improve the development of the newborn during his or her first days of life."According to Hannah Dahlen, a midwifery professor at the University of Western Sydney, Australia, the study adds to a growing body of evidence that delayed cord clamping improves infant health."The baby ends up with a third more blood volume if you don't do early clamping. If you deprive a baby of a substantial amount of blood volume, it's not too surprising there is an affect physiologically," she said."A large study review found there were several benefits to delayed cord clamping -- babies are more likely to have higher haemoglobin, there is more evidence babies resuscitate better, particularly if they are pre-term, and there is some evidence around behavioural and educational scores being affected."That review was published in the prestigiousin 2013."In light of growing evidence that delayed cord clamping increases early haemoglobin concentrations and iron stores in infants , a more liberal approach to delaying clamping of the umbilical cord in healthy babies appears to be warranted," said researcher Philippa Middleton of the University of Adelaide in Adelaide, Australia, at the time.The 2013 review did find an increased risk of jaundice among infants with delayed cord clamping."But the jaundice that causes serious problems doesn't appear to be part of it," Professor Dahlen said.In addition, even more serious jaundice is easily treated with phototherapy -- hence the 2013 article's recommendation of delayed cord clamping in settings where phototherapy is easily available.Rebutting arguments made by proponents of rapid cord clamping, the 2013 review also found no increase in risk of maternal bleeding from delayed clamping.Yet Australian guidelines still recommend immediate clamping, Dahlen said."More and more women are asking for delayed cord clamping and they are often almost treated like criminals," she said. "Doctors and midwives in the hospital system are saying you could increase your risk of bleeding but we know that isn't true." Under FDA rule, US food supply has become progressively more contaminated with deadly pathogens (NaturalNews) Antibiotic-resistant superbugs are a major detriment to society, with the latest predictions estimating that by 2050 they will kill more people than the number who currently die from cancer. But the problem is not necessarily the drug companies that produce them or the corporate mega-farms that buy them, but rather the government regulatory structure that has been actively perpetuating their use for at least the past half-decade.Often missing from the conversation as to who is responsible for this escalating problem is the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the nation's top dog when it comes to legal drug use. Not only has the FDA long set the standard for the use of antibiotic drugs in livestock, which is believed to be the prevailing cause of drug-resistant superbugs, but the agency has also put at an economic disadvantage farms and drug manufacturers that are trying to utilize other less-destructive means of keeping livestock healthy and food safe.The FDA has known since the 1970s that the advent of superbugs, which possess a mutated resistance to antibiotics, might eventually threaten public health on a large scale. But the agency has repeatedly failed to address the problem, instead demanding more power over food production. The result, as explained by Alice Salles of, has been an increase in generic regulations that have only further promulgated the spread of superbugs."Whatever the stated goals may have been, Washington, DC's one-size-fits-all approach eventually caused a boom in the use of antibiotic-ridden feeds, thusthe occurrence of superbugs," she wrote.While it might seem logical to blame the pharmaceutical industry for manufacturing the antibiotics that have given deadly pathogens apparent superpowers, it is the FDA that is responsible for at least 80 percent of them ending up in conventional animal feed. FDA guidelines-turned-rules have also made it difficult, if not impossible, for smaller drug innovators to come up with novel solutions to the problem. As a result, only the biggest pharma players have a horse in the race, further stifling innovation and improved food safety."On the drug and antibiotics production side, guidelines eventually turned into official rules, and with them an environment unkind to innovation and variety," added Salles. "Unattainable quality requirements now suffocate innovative drug makers, and privilege a handful of companies whose antibiotics have been used in farm animal feeds for more than a decade."It would be irresponsible to leave out the lobbying element, a.k.a. the corporate interests that have taken over many of the most influential positions at the FDA, or at least purchased them politically. This undue influence has led to numerous policy changes over the years that favor large agricultural giants at the expense of small-scale farmers who produce clean, safe food without the need for excessive antibiotics.Rather than grant the FDA further control over the food supply , as some are now contending is necessary to preserve food safety, it is perhaps time to strip away the many caked-on layers of misguided legal fiction that constrain both innovation and decentralized agriculture. Both of these are necessary for a viable food production network that, given the proper free market liberties, will thrive and innovate without putting public health at risk."If the goal is safer meat for consumers, the proper approach is for lawmakers -- at the behest of informed constituents -- to restrict the FDA's authority," concluded Salles.We would agree. Bt toxin destroys human kidneys, causes cancer Roundup makes Bt toxin even more harmful (NaturalNews) More evidence has surfaced showing that Monsanto's Bt toxin, which the company claims doesn't harm humans, is definitively poisoning the populace. New research out of Canada explains that Bt toxin not only accumulates in human tissue but alsoin pregnant women.For their study, researchers from the University of Sherbrooke Hospital Centre in Quebec looked at pesticides associated with genetically modified (GM) foods, and particularly Bt toxin engineered into some varieties of GM corn and soy. They focused on how these poisons affect pregnant women and their unborn babies.Based on an analysis of the blood profiles of 30 pregnant women and 39 non-pregnant women, the team determined that CryAb1, a type of Bt toxin, was present not only in pregnant women but also their fetuses. Additionally, Bt toxin was observed to actually kill human embryos, or inside the bodies of the women.This deadly phenomenon is known as reproductive toxicology, and it's something that Monsanto, when first petitioning the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for approval of Bt toxin, promised wasn't possible. In other words, the companyabout the deadly effects of this poison, which an earlier study out of the same hospital found is present in virtually"This is the first study to reveal the presence of circulating PAGMF [pesticides associated to genetically modified foods] in women with and without pregnancy, paving the way for a new field in reproductive toxicology including nutrition and utero-placental toxicities," wrote the authors.What this means for the general population is that typical consumption of foods containing GMO derivatives from Bt crops could lead to. Rather than just kill insects as Monsanto claims, Bt toxin directly targets unborn human children as well, according to the study, which means GMO crops themselves are a human pesticide."Not only do these cry-toxins (Bt toxin) target the kidney cells of developing human fetuses, but when Cry1Ab and Cry1Ac are combined with Roundup, they can delay apoptosis of human cancer cells," wrote Christina Sarich fromabout the nephrotoxicity and carcinogenicity of Bt toxin."What's worse, glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, also causes necrosis -- i.e. the death of human tissue, and this happens even when the substance is found in much smaller amounts than what is currently being used on our agricultural crops. The stuff is still carcinogenic in therange."So not only is Bt toxin highly damaging to humans at levels commonly seen in food, but so is Roundup, the "safe" herbicide applied to many GM crops. And when combined, these two poisons become synergistically more toxic than they are separately, a fact that was never even considered during their approval.Should products like Bt corn really be on the market if their derivatives have been shown to kill unborn children? ShouldGMO be on the market that has the ability cause cancer or liver damage? The U.S. government still doesn't even require that GMOs be labeled, let alone mandate that they undergo human safety testing prior to approval.If GMOs are different enough from non-GMOs to warrant patents that require farmers to purchase corporate-owned seeds every year, then they're different enough to be labeled, especially if they pose a risk to unborn children. Perhaps more folks need to start filing lawsuits against Monsanto for targeting their families with weaponized "food" that acts more as a contraceptive than actual nourishment. Associate Commissioner Patrick Mullins recently spoke to the commission about an air quality closeout report and how the county could be affected. Mullins said that in 2008, the Southeast Missouri Regional Planning Commissions Air Quality Committee was established. The board is comprised of elected officials, industry representatives, concerned citizens, and representatives from local schools. It serves a seven surrounding county area, said Mullins. Within these counties are two ozone air quality monitors: one in Ste. Genevieve County near the city of Bonne Terre, which you can actually throw a rock and hit the monitor and the other in Perry County near the unincorporated community of Farrar. He added that the old standard for 2008 was 75 parts per billion (ppb) and the EPA has since lowered that standard and now the new standard is 70 ppb. If you recall, this commission on July 6 sent a letter to the EPA director asking EPA to maintain the standard of 75 ppb, said Mullins. Like I said, this has since changed and the new ppb will be 70 ppb. Our current design value and that is what the EPA and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) go off of, are 65 ppb at Bonne Terre and 66 ppb at Farrar. Mullins questioned on where that leaves the county. He said that Missouri DNR will be doing their analysis and making their recommendations to the EPA regarding Non-Attainment Area designation in the coming year. This needs to be submitted to the EPA by October 1, 2016, said Mullins. This means that DNRs recommendations will be based on this years monitor readings and right now we should be safe. EPA will then have another year to make their final determinations. Since that deadline will be October 1, 2017, they will have the monitor readings for 2016 available and that could change things. Especially if we have another hot summer. Mullins said they want St. Francois County to continue to be listed as attainment. Attainment simply means that the county does not have any restrictions on air quality. By being classified as Non-Attainment, directly, the regulations imposed would result in costs to local business, industry, and governments. Indirectly, the simple fact of designation would make economic development efforts more difficult. It would also make it non-attainable, said Mullins. We would be looking at a possible vehicle emission test. Could you imagine taking your vehicle in and getting it tested? I have heard nothing but that its a big cluster, fiasco up in the city. Its a mess, so we dont want that. Mullins said that one of the main arguments for St. Francois County is that St. Francois County is not creating large amounts of ozone. I passed out some information and St. Francois County is not an emitter of ozone, said Mullins. The scientific evidence that we have, these numbers are few years old, but look at volatile organic compounds, that all ties into the ozone. All EPA-identified point sources for the total seven county-region is 1,053.15 tons. The Ford Motor Company in Kansas City, emits 1,300.08 tons per year out West. For oxides of nitrogen all EPA-identified point sources for the seven-county SEMO region is 9,946.15 tons per year. Mullins said Thomas Hill Energy Center, which is a utility plant out West is 12,117.61 tons per year. The entire emissions from point sources for all identified sources in the seven county region does not equal the largest single emitter in either category. The reason I am giving out this closeout report is because it remains important for all of us to do what we can to promote good practices and help keep ozone from forming, said Mullins. That means we need to continue our efforts to educate our citizens on those things we have been talking about for several years now. Mullins said he will continue to attend the air quality meetings held once a month in Perryville and the St. Francois County Commission will continue to educate the public and do a saturation effect in educating the public. Do the little things, stop at the click when you are at the gas station, said Mullins. Use the automatic nozzle and do not try to round up to the nearest dollar or fill the tank to the brim. Why? Because one little spill goes into the atmosphere. Even the smallest spills puts more stuff into the air than fueling your car. Another thing Mullins stressed was that overfilling can actually damage some of the automatic vapor recovery systems in modern cars and repairing that damage can get pretty expensive. On your vehicle is a charcoal canister and by topping off your gas tank increases your odds of damaging that charcoal canister, said Mullins. If that charcoal canister is damaged, youre looking at about a $1,500 fix at an auto shop. He recommended that tuning up your vehicle, including air pressure in the tire. Mullins added that even a small miss in an engine can cause much higher emissions than a well-tuned engine. Plus money will be saved by improving the fuel mileage. Plan your trips, avoid idling, its just the little things, it all adds up, said Mullins. Fuel in the evening on hot days, fueling a modern vehicle is almost an emission-free operation. It is not, though, completely emission free. So just by getting into the habit of fueling your vehicle in the evening, on the way home from work for example, allows those emissions that do escape to disperse before the heat of the next day. Try to plan your trips and do it all at once. So much of the ozone precursors come from mobile sources, just keeping them off of the road is probably the best thing anyone can do. Mullins wants everyone to remember, the formula for creating ozone is Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) plus Oxides of Nitrogen (NOx) plus heat plus sunlight equals OZONE. Remove any of those factors and you break the ozone-creating cycle, said Mullins. VOCs are released when you fuel your vehicle, so do it in the evening. Mow in the evening- for the same reasons. Small engines on mowers, trimmers, blowers and the like emit more VOCs and NOx than your vehicles since they lack the sophisticated fuel management and emission control systems. Mowing in the evening allows those emissions to disperse before the heat of the next day. Conserve energy, the largest single point source emitters of VOCs and NOx are electric-generating utilities. By conserving energy, those power plants dont have to run full out and maybe that next plant wont need to be brought online so soon. Do the little things, stop at the click when you are at the gas station. Use the automatic nozzle and do not try to round up to the nearest dollar or fill the tank to the brim. Why? Because one little spill goes into the atmosphere. Even the smallest spills puts more stuff into the air than fueling your car. Associate Commissioner Patrick Mullins Many plans in place to address BP-like problem: but will they work? Pieces of the puzzle ... Well valve broke in 1979, was never fixed (NaturalNews) A gas leak coming from Southern California Gas Company's Aliso Canyon storage field in Los Angeles County, has led to California Governor Jerry Brown's declaration of a state of emergency. While a somewhat welcome announcement, many residents feel that such a decision is long overdue, considering that the problem began in October 2015, and has been leaking methane into the air on an ongoing basis ever since.This means that for several months, dangerous gas fumes have been moving directly towards a commuter residential area called Porter Ranch. The approximately 30,000 people who live there are understandably worried for their health, and as such, have engaged in numerous protests calling for a fix. To see just how serious the fumes are, check out this Reuters video Additionally, the situation is so dire that several thousand Los Angeles residents have been displaced, creating much tension and question-asking.Why, for example, have regular attempts to fix the leak been unsuccessful? Why has it taken so long for people to take seriously the fact that 62 million cubic feet of methane has been leaking into the air there every single day? Where's the accountability?These questions and many others are what Governor Jerry Brown hopes to have resolved through his state of emergency declaration. In addition to meeting with Porter Ranch residents and touring the Aliso Canyon Natural Gas Storage Facility, he says helpful measures are in the works.For example, it's been made clear that SoCal Gas should maximize the amount of natural gas that's being removed from the facility, and that leaks should be captured when not after relief wells are built. The declaration also aims to identify exactly how the company can stop the leak in the event relief wells don't effectively seal, or and hopefully this doesn't become the case the current leak worsens.Furthermore, Mitchell Englander, the LA City Councilman who represents Porter Ranch, isn't hesitant to express concerns over the severity of this leak. In fact, he's likened the leak to the infamous BP oil leak, with the exception that this one is on land. In aninterview, he stressed that emergency room visits in the area have surged, people's cars are turning black, and that apparently, it was never disclosed to home buyers that "... one of the largest gas storage facilities in the United States was in their backyard."It's sad to note that this might have been prevented, or at least not been so severe, if the well had been fixed back in 1979, which is the year that a valve broke and was never replaced. That's right ... for decades, a known problem was never fixed, and now residents are suffering the consequences. From nausea and headaches to nosebleeds and general feelings of sickness, they're the victims of a problem left unresolved. By the way, SoCal Gas says it they won't be able to drill a relief well which will help remedy the problem and cap the existing well until March 2016. Who knows how people's health will fare for another few weeks, let alone a few more months if it even happens during the time frame specified.Interestingly, the broken valve illustrates a larger point that's fast-afflicting the country: The nation's infrastructure is crumbling, mainly due to outdated construction and long-term neglect. In San Francisco, California, some pipes are nearly 150-years old. In New York City, experts have found that about 1,000 miles of water mains are over 100 years old and numerous bridges are considered structurally unsound. It's obvious that serious infrastructure issues exist yet are often ignored from coast to coast. A prime example of letting a serious issue go by the wayside instead of promptly addressing it is the aforementioned broken valve that hasn't been touched since the late 1970s.As for the methane gas leak that's plaguing California residents, state and county officials say it won't cause any long-term health risks. Still, residents don't feel entirely reassured, especially in light of the fact that they're inhaling the pungent fumes daily. The problem is also so serious that state oil and gas regulators warn of a potential ignition risk near the leak, saying that workers aren't even allowed to bring cell phones to the site.(1) TheBigWobble.org (2) NPR.org (3) NaturalNews.com (4) LATimes.com Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript. The use of "detection dogs" may help researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) locate suitable habitats for bears living in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). This non-invasive technique could play a key role in furthering the recovery of endemic grizzly bears. "The use of detection dogs allowed us to quantify and map key areas of habitat for black bears in the Centennial Mountains located along the Idaho-Montana border west of Yellowstone National Park," Jon Beckmann, WCS scientist and lead author of the study, said in a news release. "Black bears are a proxy species useful for predicting likely grizzly bear habitat. With recovery, a larger grizzly bear population needs room to roam and to reconnect with other populations. The Centennial Mountains region of the U.S. Northern Rockies can provide room and safe linkages -- critical to connecting the bear population in the GYE area to others further north and west." Within a 965 square-mile study area, two Labrador retrievers and two German shepherds, owned and trained by Working Dogs for Conservation, located 616 black bear and 24 grizzly bear fecal samples -- which were later identified by DNA analyses. The location of each sample was inputted into the researcher's scientific model, revealing valuable bear habitat parameters. "We recognize that black bears do not always utilize the landscape in precisely the same manner as grizzly bears," Beckmann added. "But given the paucity of grizzly bears in the study area -- especially during the years of our study -- our approach, data, and model have value to grizzly bear conservation and management. This is especially true given that black bears and grizzly bears in the GYE are known to utilize very similar habitats spatially, but at different times." In general, researchers found bears used habitats that were farther from roads, not privately owned and of lower elevation. Knowing this, conservationists can plan out bear habitat management decisions more effectively. Their study, recently published in the Western North American Naturalist, also informs people of bear whereabouts, so that human-bear conflicts can be avoided. Related Articles Grizzly Bears of Yellowstone May Lose Protection Under Endangered Species Act Amphibian Rescue In 2016: 5 Conservation Goals For This Year For more great nature science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN). -Follow Samantha on Twitter @Sam_Ashley13 Killer whales, the charismatic and toothy black-and-white whales, can live up to 100 years. But they might be at risk of extinction off Europe's industrialized areas, because chemicals that were long-ago banned continue to leach into the seas, scientists said in a recently published study. The study was conducted by researchers from Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Slovenia and the United Kingdom. It took blubber samples from 1,000 dolphins, porpoises and killer whales. The scientists are asking for stronger disposal rules for polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs) used in paints, construction and electrical equipment until the 1980s. "It's really looking bleak...We think there is a very high extinction risk for killer whales as a species in industrialized regions of Europe," Paul Jepson of the Zoological Society of London and lead author on the study, said to a telephone news conference, according to a Reuters article. According to the findings, concentrations of PCBs in blubber from killer whales, striped dolphins and bottlenose dolphins off Europe were within the highest recorded in the world. Harbor porpoises, the fourth species in the study, scored lower levels. PCBs typically drain into rivers from unsealed dump or storage sites. Then they are eaten by mussels and crabs, which are eaten by fish -- the sustenance of predators including killer whales. Once the PCBs reach the marine mammals, they take residence in and store up in the blubber. It's even possible for PCBs to be transferred to the young via their mothers' milk. Worldwide, killer whales live in many areas, including the Arctic and Antarctica, far away from pollution sources. The study authors urge action to set stronger restrictions in Europe, or else: "PCBs will continue to drive population declines or suppress population recovery in Europe for many decades to come," according to the report. Maybe because the U.S. Congress banned PCBs in 1979, levels of the chemical in killer whales in United States waters are not as high as those in Europe. Only as late as 1987, PCBs were banned in nations along the Mediterranean. This study's samples came from populations off the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Strait of Gibraltar and the Canary Islands in Spain. The results were published in the journal Scientific Reports. For more great nature science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN). -Follow Catherine on Twitter @TreesWhales A kinder, gentler car has debuted in Palo Alto. Tesla Motors has made vegan interiors (seats, steering wheels and gear shifts) an option on its new, falcon-winged electric Model X SUV thanks to the urging of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a company shareholder. "By offering a 100 percent leather-free car, Tesla is pushing its eco-friendly business even further into the future," PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman said in a statement. "PETA can now point to Tesla as a source for top-quality vehicles whose cruelty-free seats are as kind to the environment as its engines are." New reservations are being accepted for Model X with a $5,000 payment, with estimated vehicle delivery at the end of 2016. According to Fortune, the base price is $80,000. Police are investigating a shooting outside the Bayfair Center in San Leandro, the third at this mall in the last two years. Late Thursday, an undercover detective spotted two suspects who seemed to match the description of the shooters near the Century Theaters and took them in for questioning. As of Friday morning, it was unclear if the men were indeed involved. The shooting was reported at 6:40 p.m. Thursday in a parking lot between Bed, Bath and Beyond and Old Navy stores, according to police. Officers swarmed the area and detained two people matching a suspect description. Police said there were two groups of people outside of the mall -- one group in a car and another on foot. At some point at least one of the groups shot at the other, police said. It is not known how many shots were fired and it appeared no one was hurt in the shooting, police said. Investigators checked local hospitals late Thursday to make sure no one was injured in the shooting. Police did report at least one car was struck by a bullet. Investigators are asking people who were in the area around 6:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. to check their vehicles for any bullet holes. Officers also spent part of the investigation walking through the mall to look for any evidence. Police do not believe the incident was a random shooting and hope surveillance video at the mall will provide some clues to what happened. In August 2014, someone shot a man in the leg in the parking lot near the Fresh Choice restaurant. And in December 2013, a man was shot in the mall's parking lot. Editors note: Over the next several days we will look back on the stories which impacted our readers and filled the front pages of the Daily Journal in 2015. This is a multi-part series. September Farmington The announcement of Hobby Lobby coming to Farmington was made this month. In a statement, Jessica Copeland with Copeland Development & Construction Company Inc. of Chillicothe said, Copeland Development & Construction Company Inc. is excited to be developing the new Hobby Lobby Store in Farmington, Missouri. Farmington High School was named one of Americas Top High Schools in Newsweek Magazines article Beating the Odds of schools doing an excellent job of preparing students for college while overcoming the obstacles posed by students at an economic disadvantage. Farmington Tourism was busy preparing the first annual Farmington Balloon Glow. Tens of thousands would turn out for the event, which featured 12 hot air balloons. Richard James McKee, 34, was named as the suspect in the Aug. 27 robbery of First Bank in Farmington. It was reported McKee approached a St. Louis County police officer, confessing to the robbery. Video footage obtained after the robbery helped identify an Ohio license plate on the suspects vehicle. The official dedication ceremony for the new Farmington Public Library was held on Sept. 23. Farmington Mayor Mit Landrum declared the library as A building for the ages. In the weeks prior to the grand opening, Library Director Karen Roman announced her retirement at the end of November. Desloge The theme for this years Desloge Labor Day Parade was A Veterans Salute and the grand marshals were military veterans who were heartily cheered by the crowd as they passed by. The 2015 Desloge Labor Day Picnic came to a successful end Sept. 7. The chamber of commerce-sponsored event once again provided the public four days of family-friendly events in the city park, as well as in a few nearby locations. The Desloge Board of Aldermen failed to pass an ordinance allowing the city to use work release prisoners to perform jobs for the city after Alderman J.D. Hodge voted against the measure because of a confidential letter he and the other board members had received. Leadington An opening on the Leadington Board of Aldermen was filled at the September board meeting when city resident Jennifer Parker was appointed to the position vacated in July by newly-elected Alderman Jake Martin. A bid of $6,610 from Harbison Construction for the re-roofing of city hall was the winning bid of three received at a recent bid opening held by the Leadington Board of Aldermen. Three other project bids were approved that evening, as well. Park Hills City Administrator Matt Whitwell reported during the monthly council meeting that general sales tax revenue generated so far during 2015 was 6.8 percent higher than any previous best year and about 10 percent higher than 2014, which allowed the city to start off on an overall positive footing in the new fiscal year. Council members voted unanimously to create an ordinance that authorized the mayor and city clerk to enter into a lease-purchase agreement to finance a new pumper truck for the Park Hills Fire Department. The Parkland Celtic Festival held in downtown Park Hills offered festival goers something a little different, with live Irish and Scottish music and dance, and traditional Celtic foods, along with the usual arts and craft vendors. Organizers were very happy with the turnout from the community, estimated by Marianne Politte, owner of the Claddagh Irish Dance School and festival organizer, to be 1,000 to 1,500 people. Leadwood The West County School District held its middle school cornerstone removal ceremony on Sept. 3 at the old West County Middle School. After removing the cornerstone, a box was found underneath which contained several artifacts placed there by Leadwood School Board members in 1921. A New Testament Bible and two very fragile, tattered documents were among the artifacts. One of the documents listed the board of directors for the Leadwood School district in 1921 and announced a school board special election scheduled for March 6, 1920. The other was a program from the original cornerstone dedication ceremony on May 12, 1921. In addition, two newspapers, The Desloge Sun and The Farmington News, dated May 6, 1921, were also found inside the box. The Leadwood Fire Department responded to a fire on Sept. 17 at Leadwood City Hall. According to Fire Chief Kevin Lewis, the department responded to the dispatch and saw heavy smoke coming from the building. The fire was burning in the central office area and had engulfed much of the materials inside the building. An interim office was opened in the basement of the Leadwood United Methodist Church located across the street from the burned city hall. Bonne Terre The Bonne Terre Chamber of Commerce announced plans of Project Snowflake to make some visible changes around the city during the holiday season because the majority of Bonne Terres Christmas street pole decorations are aged, weathered, beaten up or not working at all. The Bonne Terre City Council put together a Search for Hire Committee to get feedback from the public in hiring the next city administrator. Jim Eaton has been acting as interim city administrator since city leaders severed ties with Larry Barton. Bismarck Declaring that the city had finally won the battle, Bismarck Mayor Seth Radford announced at the September board of aldermen meeting that the Missouri Department of Transportation had agreed to put in a sidewalk along a narrow and busy 925-foot section of Cedar Street (Route N). Concerns about a potential rise in health insurance rates for Bismarck R-5 School District employees was a main topic of discussion by the board of education. The passenger who was fatally shot on a train at the West Oakland BART station last Saturday night was identified by the Alameda County coroner's bureau Friday as 19-year-old Carlos Misael Funez-Romero of Antioch. BART police said witnesses reported that the suspect, who is still at large, used a handgun to shoot Funez-Romero multiple times on a San Francisco International Airport-bound train as it was approaching the West Oakland station at about 7:45 p.m. Saturday and then fled on foot from the train at the West Oakland station. Coroner's officials said Funez-Romero died of multiple gunshot wounds. BART Police Chief Kenton Rainey released surveillance camera photos of the suspect as he was leaving the West Oakland station after the shooting and asked for the public's help in identifying him. BART police describe the suspect as a black man in his late 20s to early 30s who is about 6 feet 2 inches tall with a skinny build, broad shoulders and a scruffy face who was wearing a long green trench coat over a dark hooded sweatshirt with its hood up, dark pants, a dark backpack and was armed with a black semi-automatic handgun. Rainey said a knife was recovered at the shooting scene on the train but police don't know if it belonged to the victim. Rainey said investigators don't know what the motive was for the shooting and don't know what kind of a relationship the suspect and Funez-Romero had, if any. He said anyone with information about the suspect should call (510) 464-7040 and ask for Detective Sanchez or Sgt. Power or can call (510) 464-7011 to make an anonymous tip. On Thursday, the state basically agreed, asking a judge to dismiss the case which put Baker behind bars in 2005. And roughly eight hours later, he walked out of the prison in downstate Robinson, four hours south of Chicago. Good to be free, Baker told NBC5 as he strode through the prisons open door. I guess slow justice is better than no justice! It was a long time coming. Baker argued at his 2006 trial that Sgt. Ronald Watts and members of his South Side tactical team framed him when he refused to pay a bribe at the Ida B. Wells public housing project. Six years later, it was Watts and a second officer, Khalatt Mohammed, who faced federal charges for shaking down drug dealers in the very same neighborhood. This was an egregious frame up, theres no other way to put it, said his attorney, Joshua Tepfer. Ben Baker was framed by a corrupt group of Chicago Police officers. Many of those officers remain on the force. Some have been promoted. Indeed, investigative reports show that Watts unit previously been the subject of allegations of rampant corruption. Two police officers, Shannon Spalding and Daniel Echeverria, said they worked undercover on the investigation of the Watts team, and believed the corruption went far beyond the two who eventually faced charges. Spalding and Echeveria currently have their own lawsuit pending in Federal court, charging they were ostracized and punished for making the allegations. And Tepfer, an attorney for The Exoneration Project, says reports he obtained from the FBI and the Independent Police Review Authority reveal longtime suspicions about the Watts crew, some predating Bakers arrest. Here we are with an example of a systemic problem of Chicago law enforcement, he said. And a code of silence that has had unknowable collateral damage. Standing outside the prison Thursday night, Baker pointed to the irony that the officers who put him in jail found themselves behind bars a few years later. They was investigating these officers at the time I was taking the stand, but they chose to say their credibility was more important than mine, he said. I didnt know he was investigated. But I knew he was dirty. Indeed, Tepfer echoed his clients argument, that it appeared the system chose to look the other way. All of the citizen complaints (about the officers) are accurate and credible, he said. This was a group of cops who were running a criminal enterprise. After Tepfer filed a motion on Bakers behalf in December, it took Cook County prosecutors only a month to agree to vacate his conviction. The convictions tainted, said Fabio Valenti, the Chief of Criminal Prosecutions. Now its a fact that (Watts) is a dirty police officer. Valenti stopped short of suggesting that the other members of Watts crew should face renewed scrutiny. The other officers involved in this arrest, my understanding is they have been investigated, he said. And were never implicated in any behavior like this. Outside court Thursday, Bakers jubilant sister Gale Anderson rejoiced at his exoneration. He didnt win the Powerball, but he did better, she said. He won a date to come home! As he strode to a waiting car for the four hour drive to Chicago, Baker said he was looking forward to his mothers oxtail soup, her cornbread, and a real bathin a tub. Ive got grandkids I havent held yet, he said. Im just ready to get home. With the start of 2016, thousands of Illinois consumers were supposed to receive proof of new health insurance plans from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, after the insurer cancelled the popular Blue PPO individual plan. Many who had to switch to a new plan tell NBC 5 Investigates that 2 weeks into the new year, they have yet to receive that proof and cant get answers from the states largest insurer. The Passaglia family of St. Charles is among those affected. When 13-year-old daughter Grace got sick last week, the family learned that without proof of their new insurance plan, Graces doctor visit would likely not be covered. "We can't make any appointments, we can't get any treatments, we can't get any test, we can't really do anything because we're considered uninsured," father Tony Passaglia said. Business owner Mary OConnor says shes waiting, too, Neither she, nor her 15 employees have proof of insurance, despite turning in the applications before the deadline. OConnor says shes worried about what will happen if anyone gets sick, and is furious with BCBS for its lack of response. Nobody from Blue Cross will answer one phone call, one email, one letter. They will not acknowledge you exist, OConnor lamented. "If they precipitated this problem, by mass cancellations last fall, they should have planned for crisis management. They are doing nothing for crisis management. There's a million ways they could have solved this," Anger at BCBS of Illinois is palpable: consumers online blast the service theyve received, and the Better Business Bureau currently gives the company F rating. But business owners caught in the lurch say the federal government plays a role here, toolooking the other way when insurers keep cutting programs and creating confusion. Business owners caught in the lurch say the federal government shares some of the blame, too: allowing insurers to cut programs and to create so much confusion. Tony Passaglia said he wasnt going to stand by last week as his daughter was getting sicker but not getting care. He said he marched into the BCBSIL Headquarters in Downers Grove to get answers. But all he got was a police escort off the premises, he said. "Security guard came up and says I have to ask you to leave the building," he told NBC5 Investigates. BCBS of Illinois spokesman Michael Deering said he could not estimate how many customers in Illinois are affected, but acknowledged a backlog affecting many customers. In a statement to NBC5 Investigates, Deering said: We can't comment on specific customers or applicants due to privacy policies, but I can tell you that we've seen unprecedented volume of new small group applications for 2016 insurance coverage. We believe these new groups have applied for coverage due to variety of reasons, including the recent federal decision to keep the definition of a "small group" as 1-50 employees. Obviously, changes this year to what plans insurers offered this year also drove volume, as small group employers shopped around and changed their coverage. While we anticipated a greater number of small group applications, the volume exceeded our projections, and it's been complicated by the fact that a large portion of submitted applications were sent after the requested effective date. While weve added additional staff and increased working hours to address the volume, we still anticipate extended processing time to clear these applications. Typically, processing times for new group paperwork averages just two weeks or less, but due to the volume of new small group applications, we're anticipating processing times may be extend to up to 30 days or possibly more, though we're doing everything we can to expedite these new customer requests. For now, we recommend that individuals not terminate their current policy until they've received confirmation of their new coverage from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois (BCBSIL). The reasoning for this guidance is that until a group has gone through all the application processing steps, and BCBSIL is now able to administer benefits under their new policy, the group's insured status is not yet confirmed. Until a group is processed an in the system as approved, neither BCBSIL's account executives, brokers and customer service teams cannot verify the groups benefits and coverage. Therefore, members may be responsible for costs related to prescription drugs, provider or hospital services and fees. Once a group is processed and approved however, members may then submit claims forms to be reimbursed for their qualified out-of-pockets costs associated with medical services. Those forms are available through bcbsil.com. If members have urgent care needs, but have not received member ID cards yet, they may call the hotline phone number, at: 1-800-541-2762. Press 1 at the voice message prompt that says, If you are calling on a policy with a 1/1/16 effective date and have not received your ID card, press 1. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel hosted the citys Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast Friday amid growing calls for his resignation and backlash surrounding the annual event. The breakfast celebrating King's life is in its 30th year, but some notable black leaders will be sitting this one out, as dozens pledged to boycott in their belief that King's life and legacy has not been honored on the streets of Chicago. "At this day and age, we don't think that a 'Kumbaya' breakfast at this moment is the time that we should be at the table with our mayor," said South Side Bishop James Dukes. Dukes stands among many prominent leaders including Rev. Ira Acree, Jedidiah Brown, Bishop Larry Trotter, and Father Michael Pfleger who have spoken out against the mayor hosting this year's event after months of protests and unrest in the city stemming from the police misconduct that occurred under his watch. "Dr. King was an advocate for the poor, said Rev. Ira Acree. He was not an agent for the elite. That's why we're here today to announce that we will support the boycott that the activists and other pastors have called for." As events kicked off at 8 a.m., protesters gathered outside the doors in their continued call for attention to police misconduct. A planned demonstration began at the Chicago Board of Trade at 6 a.m. before traveling to the breakfast at the downtown Hyatt Regency at McCormick Place. One woman stormed into the room of the event yelling "16 shots," holding a sign before being escorted out of the room. [[365421511, C]] More than 70 pastors who typically attend the event were reported to have not shown up Friday. At 9 a.m. the Chicago Teachers Union held an "alternative, peoples-centered celebration of the civil rights leader" at the Local 399 Operating Engineers union hall in the city's South Loop. The mayors office told NBC 5 on Wednesday that despite the scrutiny, Emanuel still "looks forward to joining faith and community leaders on Friday to celebrate the legacy of Dr. King." The end game, for many local religious leaders, it seems, is a meeting on more neutral turf. "We invite the mayor to the table that we create, not at the table that he creates," Acree said. Clinton and Sanders are neck and neck in Iowa, but Sanders is opening up a big lead in New Hampshire according to the most recent Monmouth Poll. Bernie Sanders announced his stop at Dartmouth Wednesday late morning, by Thursday afternoon, nearly two thousand people changed their plans to be at the Spaulding auditorium. "We don't represent the billionaire class, we don't represent corporate America, we don't want their money, we're going to do it another way," Sanders said to a cheering crowd. And he has - with more than 2.5 million individual contributions averaging just 27 dollars a piece. "He's here for the people, I think we need some compassion in America right now," said Norwich, VT resident Lulu Fairclough-Stewart. Before the public event, Sanders held a press conference where he answered questions about Hillary Clinton and her campaign. "They're mad at me today, they're mad at me yesterday, they're mad at me tomorrow, they're going to be mad at me for a long time," he said to reporters. Thursday, Clinton's camp accused Sanders of directly attacking the former Secretary of State in his latest ad which takes a not-so-subtle jab at Clinton accepting donations from Wall Street. Clinton says Sanders broke his promise of a clean campaign. Sanders disagrees. "This is not a negative ad, everybody knows there are two divisions in the Democratic party," Sanders said when asked about the ad. Clinton is also warning voters that Sanders plan for universal health care would raise taxes for the middle class. Sanders says just the opposite. "I want to end the absurdity of American people being force to pay by far the highest cost per capita of any major country on earth," he said. Also Thursday, longtime Ted Kennedy aide and former Massachusetts Senator Paul Kirk announced that he too is joining the crowd in "feeling the Bern." Critics have been calling on Sanders to release the details of his universal health care plan. Sanders promised Thursday to make his plan public before the Iowa caucuses on February first. It took little time in Thursday's GOP presidential debate for front-runners Donald Trump and Ted Cruz to go head-to-head. Contesting Cruz's eligibility for president and Trump's supposed "New York values," they had the biggest clashes of the night, but they were far from alone. Maybe there was something in the South Carolina air or the candidates made some rowdy New Year's resolutions, because nearly each of the seven had a bone to pick with someone else on stage during the Fox Business debate. On a night when Trump said he'd gladly accept the "mantle of anger," it seemed like everyone was happy to get in on the action. Cruz vs. Trump The pair have been jostling for position in polls for the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1, the first contest of the presidential primaries, lately taking jabs at each other in the press. Moderators asked Canadian-born Cruz to respond to Trump's suggestion that he's not eligible to be president. Cruz noted that Trump previously said he didn't think Cruz has a problem, saying that in September, "my friend Donald had had his lawyers look at this from every which way ... and there was nothing to this birther issue." "Since September, the Constitution hasn't changed, but the poll numbers have," Cruz said, noting Trump said his lawyers were confident it wouldn't be a problem and suggesting that Trump brought up the issue of Ted Cruz' citizenship because of Cruz's rising poll numbers. Donald Trump didn't dispute that: "It's true." He also suggested he might name Cruz as his vice presidential candidate. But Cruz turned that offer right on its head: "I'm happy to consider naming you as vice president. And if you happen to be right (about citizenship) you can get the top job at the end of the day." Strong Cruz response to birther business. Crowd on his side it appears Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) January 15, 2016 Trump vs. Cruz Moderators prompted the next round of the Cruz-Trump boxing match, asking Cruz to explain his recent comments about Trump and "New York Values." "There are many, many wonderful, wonderful working men and women in the state of New York, but everyone understands that the values in New York City, are socially liberal, are pro-abortion, are pro-gay marriage, focus around money and the media," Cruz said. Trump, whose buildings dot the city's skyline, heartily disagreed, noting that the city produced National Review magazine founder William F. Buckley. He was also insulted at Cruz's remark because of how the city recovered from the "horrific" Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center. As Trump finished recalling the attack, Cruz clapped, along with the audience. "I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York," Trump said. "That was a very insulting statement that Ted made." .@tedcruz "most people in America know what ny values are...not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan" #GOPDebate Andrea Mitchell (@mitchellreports) January 15, 2016 #TBT: Trump vs. Bush No stranger to scuffles with Trump, Jeb Bush stuck to his plan of attacking his party's frontrunner, and Trump hit back fast. Trump had embarked on a long and tangled explanation of his plan to get tough on China's currency manipulation by threatening high tariffs. Bush blasted that approach, saying "we need somebody with a steady hand." Trump hardly let Bush finish before delivering his retort: "We don't need a weak person being president of the United States. And that's what we'd get" with Bush. Bush also tried to get Trump to "reconsider" his call for temporarily banning Muslims from the United States, saying that the U.S. needed the help of Muslim nations in the fight against ISIS. "What kind of signal does that send to the rest of the world?" he said. Trump gave no ground. "I want security for this country," he said. Christie vs. Rubio Marco Rubio spent a lot of time challenging Cruz on taxes, calling Cruz's proposed "flat tax" a Value Added Tax, which he associates with socialist Europe. "What happens if, God forbid, the next Barack Obama takes over ... and they decide 'we're going to raise it to 30 percent?" Cruz said. For a moment, Cruz, Rubio and Chris Christie were all talking over each other, but moderators gave Christie the green light to change the subject to entitlement reform. Then Rubio started to speak up again. You already had your chance, and you blew it," Chris Christie said, before touting his entitlement reform plan that he says will save Social Security and Medicare. Rubio vs. Cruz: Rubio wasn't done with Cruz, though, listing off a slew of positions near the end of the debate that Cruz has flip-flopped on, from ethanol to Edward Snowden. "That is not consistent conservatism. That is political calculation," Rubio said. Asking for a chance to respond, Cruz noted, "He had no fewer than 11 attacks there. I appreciate you dumping your (opposition) research folder on the debate stand." Trump chimed in: "You think they like each other?" Its hard enough for a child to lose a parent under any circumstances, but when children become orphans in a war zone, their future becomes even more uncertain. Thats why one family in Lyme is trying to help children caught in conflict in Ukraine. Dianna and Douglas Hampton-Dowson turned to social media and created a GoFundMe page to raise nearly $8,000 to host three Ukrainian orphans for three weeks. Dima, Anya and Dasha are 14, 12 and 7 years old but they have already known profound loss in their young lives. The siblings are growing up in a government-run orphanage in Mariupol, Ukraine. Its unclear exactly how their mother died, and no relatives have stepped forward to care for them. Theyve been in terrible situations, Dianna explained. The shelter they were staying in was actually bombed at one point, and they were in the shelter when that happened. With two young children of their own, Dianna and Douglas arent sure if they can commit to adoption just yet, but thought the Frontier Horizon travel program was one way to make a difference. Just to be able to take them away from that even for a short period of time was very important to us, said Dianna. The children arrived in time for Christmas; the Hampton-Downsons treated them to the American version of the holiday but also recreated a traditional Ukrainian Christmas celebration. They toured the submarine base in Groton, visited New York City and went horseback riding at a nearby farm. A smartphone translation app helped the adults overcome the language barrier, but Douglas says the children didnt need it with each other. Its irrelevant to them that they speak totally different languages, he observed. And that they don't really understand each other. They just talk. They have no barrier to it, they just play together. Which is really amazing. Its a lesson in peace that neighbor Anna Fusscas, a Ukrainian immigrant, wishes for her home country. People shouldnt suffer for what the politicians idea of the border of the countries [are], she said. And who suffers the most is the poor people, kids, orphans. International adoption in Ukraine can be a complicated and costly process. Families cannot pre-select or reserve children, meaning there would be no guarantees the Hampton-Dowsons could successfully adopt Dima, Dasha and Anya if they chose to. But they hope to host the children again this summer. We really cant take huge chunks out of these big larger issues but we can take small steps, said Dianna. Thats what were doing here. Sometimes the worst part of having a consumer problem is you can't get anyone on the phone. Or if you do, you get the runaround. But you don't have to keep banging your head against a wall thanks to NBC 5 Responds. Each week we help dozens of people. We can help you too. Every call or email to NBC 5 Responds get a human being on the other end, ready to work on your consumer issue. They call the company for you -- even it your story doesn't make air. Here's one problem we hear all the time: moving complaints. Kate Coffey had trouble with a moving company finishing up her mother's move. After NBC 5 Responds emailed the company, it reached out immediately to fix the problem. If you have a moving complaint, you should call us. But also file a complaint with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Even better, check out their website, before your move. Here are some moving tips: First, avoid generic names. If you call a company and they answer with "movers" or "moving company," move on. Second, never sign a blank document for your move, especially estimates. Finally, get a copy of your moving documents or at least take a picture of them with your phone. And remember to call us! Our number is 844-5respnd (844-573-7763) or fill out the complaint form on the NBC 5 Responds page. With two weeks to go until Iowans head to the polls in the first vote of the 2016 primary season, Republican front-runner Donald Trump ramped up his attacks against rival Ted Cruz on Friday, while Jeb Bush scored a key endorsement for his White House bid. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham announced he is backing Jeb Bush for the Republican presidential nomination, praising the former Florida governor's approach to national security. "I have concluded without any hesitation, any doubt, that Jeb Bush is worthy to be commander-in-chief on day one," Graham said Friday at a joint press conference with Bush. As South Carolina's senior senator, Graham has been a coveted endorsement for some candidates running for the Republican nomination because he holds clout among establishment Republicans in South Carolina, one of the critical early voting primary states. Bush was initially considered a serious contender for the Republican nomination for president, but his campaign eventually lagged behind candidates like Trump and Cruz, who have each positioned themselves as anti-establishment alternatives. Graham launched his own presidential campaign last summer, but dropped out of the race last month having mustered little support in the polls. Graham noted that Bush was the lone candidate in Thursday's debate to explicitly reject Trump's continued call to indefinitely ban non-citizen Muslims from entering the United States. "The thing I admire most about Jeb is that he has stayed true to who he is, that he hasn't tried to get ahead in a contested primary by embracing demagoguery," Graham said. "Donald Trump will damage the ability to grow this party. He will get creamed with Hispanics and young women," Graham said. "Ted Cruz is an ideologue that has no ability, in my view, to bring the country together. So the top two guys, I think, would lose an election we can't afford to lose." Graham, 60, singled out another former rival, Sen. Marco Rubio, as "great on national security" and predicted Florida's junior senator "will be president one day." But Graham said the 44-year-old isn't ready. "We're looking for the whole package here. At 44, I was not ready to be president of the United States." Meanwhile, Trump went on the offensive Friday, calling Cruz "strident" and labeling his remarks about "New York values" in the GOP debate "disgraceful." Appearing in an extended interview on MSNBC's Morning Joe from Des Moines, Iowa, Trump said Cruz "hurt himself" in Thursday's debate with his sweeping remarks about the political ideologies of New Yorkers. Cruz said in the debate: "Everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro- gay-marriage, focus around money and the media." At the debate, Trump countered with an emotional recounting of his hometown's response to the Sept. 11 attacks. "When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York," he said. "That was a very insulting statement that Ted made." Asked by MSNBC Friday about the exchange with Cruz, Trump said: "Y'know, he's a good debater, but he's very strident, and a lot of people are not going to like that." Cruz, who has been dogged by Trump about his U.S. citizenship status, is facing a federal court challenge in his hometown of Houston. A veteran local attorney on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to decide if Cruz's birth to an American mother and Cuban father while they lived in Calgary violates the Constitution's "natural born citizen" requirement. Cruz argues that because his mother is American, he became a U.S. citizen at birth. But the Supreme Court hasn't previously considered the eligibility question. Cruz is also facing scrutiny over a revelation that he had failed to disclose in Federal Ethics Commission filings almost $1 million in loans from banks including Goldman Sachs, where his wife works as managing director. Cruz called the story, originally published by the New York Times, a "hit piece." More than two hours of prime-time argument Thursday presented voters with a sharp contrast to the optimistic vision of America that President Barack Obama painted in his State of the Union address earlier this week. The debate was one of two final opportunities for the candidates to lay out their visions for the country ahead of the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses. In Iowa, where polls indicate a narrowing race between Trump and Cruz, Trump released his second television ad on Friday, which marks a significant departure from the first one he released earlier this year. While that ad painted an alarming picture of a country under attack by jihadists and immigrants entering the country illegally, the new ad is much more traditional, featuring footage of Trump speaking at a recent rally in Lowell, Massachusetts. In the new ad, Trump runs through his central campaign platforms, including his vows to strengthen the country's borders, "fix" it's health care system and the military, and take better care of veterans. The ad will be airing in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, according to the campaign. The Trump campaign is also giving out free tickets to the new movie, "13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi." The campaign has rented a theater in Iowa, for the free screening on Friday. The film depicts the events of the September 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya that killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. Several GOP presidential candidates have slammed Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton for her role before and after the attack in Benghazi, saying she knew from the start it was an act of terrorism. Bustos reported from Miami. White House Correspondent Julie Pace in Washington and Will Weissert in Austin, Texas contributed to this report. DEAR DOCTOR K: What is interval training? What are the benefits of exercising this way? DEAR READER: Interval training simply means alternating between short bursts of intense exercise and brief periods of rest (or a less-intense activity). The payoff is improved cardiovascular fitness with shorter workouts. Aerobic activities such as walking, biking, running and swimming make the heart and lungs work harder, which increases cardiovascular endurance. They also help burn calories and pare down unwanted fat. Aerobic activity is an important part of any well-rounded exercise program. "High intensity" basically means exercising at an intensity that you could not sustain for more than five to 10 minutes before becoming exhausted. In interval training, you do high-intensity exercise for a minute or so, then rest and repeat. I spoke to Howard Knuttgen, research associate in physical medicine and rehabilitation at Harvard-affiliated Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital. He said the seesaw relationship between exercise intensity and duration is what makes interval training work. Here are a few examples of what interval training would look like in practice: -- SWIMMING: Swim one lap as fast as you can. Rest for about the same time as it took you to swim the lap. Repeat. -- WALKING: Walk as fast as you can for a minute or two. Then walk at a leisurely pace for the same period. Repeat. -- GYM MACHINES: Treadmills, elliptical trainers and stationary cycles often have a built-in interval training function to put you through your paces. Interval training allows you to accomplish the same amount of exercise "work" in less time. That could make workouts easier to fit into a busy day. As fitness improves, you should feel better, with greater endurance. But no matter what type of cardiovascular training you choose, you need to do it regularly to see improvement. If you're otherwise healthy, interval training shouldn't present major risks, as long as you start gradually. If a person's heart has normal blood flow, interval training carries minimal risk, and indeed helps keep the heart healthy. On the other hand, if you have heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes or other risk factors for heart disease, talk to your doctor before starting interval training. The possible risk is this: First, a brief period of intense physical work will cause the heart to work very hard. If heart disease has slowed the supply of blood to part of the heart, that part of the heart may not get the blood it needs to do the work. That, in turn, could start a dangerously irregular heart rhythm, one that could lead to cardiac arrest. You can reduce the risk of straining a muscle or joint by starting with a gentle warm-up before your workout to loosen your joints and get your blood flowing. Be prepared to "feel the burn" after your challenging new workouts. It's normal to feel sore for a day or two as your muscles recover. A day of rest between workouts is also a good idea. Dr. Komaroff is a physician and professor at Harvard Medical School. To send questions, go to AskDoctorK.com, or write: Ask Doctor K, 10 Shattuck St., Second Floor, Boston, MA 02115 Sean Penn says his article on Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman "failed" in its mission. Speaking to CBS' "60 Minutes," the actor said his intention in tracking down the escaped drug kingpin and writing about him for "Rolling Stone" was to kick-start a discussion of the U.S. government's policy on the War on Drugs. But the public's attention has instead been focused on the fact that Penn found and met with Guzman for seven hours in a mountain hideout last October while he was still evading Mexican officials. He was apprehended only last week after six months on the run. Excerpts from the interview with Penn were released Friday. The interview airs on "60 Minutes" Sunday. Penn has been drawn into a controversy over whether he may have assisted in the recapture effort, or, conversely, may have prolonged the search by keeping silent until the article was published last week. Penn said the Mexican government was "clearly very humiliated" but insisted he had played no role in Guzman's eventual recapture. "We had met with him many weeks earlier," he says. "On October 2nd, in a place nowhere near where he was captured." Guzman's reason for agreeing to meet with the Hollywood star was first explained as resulting from his interest in having a movie made about him. Then it seemed his interest was in a face-to-face encounter not with Penn, but with the contact who was bringing them together: Mexican actress Kate del Castillo, with whom Guzman openly flirted in recently published text messages. For his part, Penn said he had only one true mission. Guzman, he said, was someone through whom "I could begin a conversation about the policy of the war on drugs. That was my simple idea." The Rolling Stone article set off a bombshell, including criticism over the magazine's willingness to give Guzman approval of the article before it was published. There was also suspicion about Penn's qualifications as a Hollywood star, not an established journalist, to report such a big story. "When you get the story that every journalist in the world wanted, there's a lot of green-eyed monsters who gonna come give you a kiss," said Penn, who believes Guzman gave him access because he's not a professional journalist. In an email exchange with the Associated Press Monday about his meeting with Guzman, Penn said, "I've got nothin' to hide." But he told "60 Minutes" he has "a terrible regret." "I have a regret that the entire discussion about this article ignores its purpose, which was to try to contribute to this discussion about the policy in the War on Drugs," Penn said. "Let's go to the big picture of what we all want: We all want this drug problem to stop," he said, but added that the market for these illicit drugs includes many Americans. "There is a complicity there." But what percentage of the discussion that resulted from the article has been focused on these larger issues? "One percent I think that'd be generous," Penn said. "Let me be clear. My article failed." A 17-year-old boy and two young men accused in the shooting death of a Downey police officer killed during an apparent botched robbery pleaded not guilty to charges on Friday. Officer Ricky Galvez was was gunned down Nov. 18 during an apparent botched robbery while sitting in his car in a parking lot adjacent to the Downey police station. He had just returned from a training program and was not wearing his uniform when he was shot, according to Downey police. Steven Knott, 18, and Jeremy Anthony Alvarez, 21, are charged with capital murder and attempted second-degree robbery in connection with Galvez's death. The murder count includes the special circumstance allegation of murder during the commission of an attempted robbery. Prosecutors will decide later whether to seek the death penalty against the two. Seventeen-year-old Abel Diaz, who was 16 at the time of the shooting, is facing one count each of murder and attempted second-degree robbery. Diaz, because of his age, is not eligible for the death penalty. He could face up to life in state prison if convicted as charged. The criminal complaint also includes gang and gun allegations against all three suspects. Alvarez, the alleged getaway driver, was taken into custody following a police pursuit that ended in the 1000 block of Carob Way in Montebello soon after the shooting. The other two suspects were seen fleeing into a nearby home and taken into custody by members of a sheriff's special weapons team after warrants were obtained, officials said. In a lengthy hearing on Friday, the judge heard arguments from defense attorneys about showing the faces of the defendants in court, arguing it would prejudice the case and anyone able to identify their clients. The judge held off allowing cameras to roll on faces until a later court date after finding out the defense had not seen evidence of surveillance video from the parking lot near the police station where Galvez was shot. The defense also said they needed to review dash cam video of the police pursuit and the arrest of the three men. Diaz's sister, Maricela Alvarado, said her brother told her he did not shoot Galvez. Outside a courthouse in November, she showed reporters a text message Diaz sent her about 20 minutes after the shooting. "Mari I love all y'all,'' the message read. "My homie (expletive) up n did something.'' Investigators believe the suspects were out to rob someone and were unaware that Galvez was a police officer or that they were in a rear parking lot of the police station. Police recovered a handgun allegedly discarded by one of the suspects. They believe it was used to kill Galvez, according to the sheriff's department. Downey police spokesman Lt. Mark McDaniel said Galvez is survived by his mother, a brother and two sisters. Galvez joined the department in 2006 as a police aide. He was hired as a police officer with the department in March 2010. He served two tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan as a member of the U.S. Marine Corps. Police Chief Carl Charles described Galvez as a compassionate and humble man with a "smile that would light up a room." The three defendants are scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 5. City News Service and NBC4's Lolita Lopez contributed to this report. Caitlyn Jenner changed her life last year. Now she's living it and advocating for herself and the transgender community. Just this week, Jenner called for the ouster of 2016 Golden Globes host Ricky Gervais following his opening monologue at the Globes on Sunday that referenced her transition while poking fun at her. "I'm going to be nice tonight," Gervais said. "I've changed... not as much as Bruce Jenner obviously -- now Caitlyn Jenner of course. What a year she's had. She became a role model for trans people everywhere showing great bravery in breaking down barriers and destroying stereotypes. She didn't do a lot for women drivers but you can't have everything can you -- not at the same time." The joke was a reference to a fatal car crash that Jenner was involved in on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, California in February 2015. Jenner, the 66-year-old "I Am Cait" star, suggested Gervais' Globes hosting days should be over. "I think what I'm gonna do is call the Golden Globes, and see if they need a new host for next year, and we'll solve that problem," Jenner said when asked about Gervais' comments at the 2016 Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour. After coming out as a woman in the first season of "I Am Cait," Jenner is focused on increasing her knowledge about transgender issues and advocating on behalf of the community in the E! reality show's second season debuting March 6. Jenner and her posse of five other transgender women embark on a road trip that begins in Los Angeles and winds its way to the Grand Canyon, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Tulsa, Oklahoma, New York, Chicago, Iowa, Kansas City, St. Louis and New Orleans on the series. "We opened up this conversation, but in opening it up there are so many issues in this community that we need to talk about and deal with," Jenner told a gathering of TV critics on Thursday. "I want to change people's thinking on this issue. It's not an issue that has borders. It is all over the world. I would love to take this show global." [NATL] Academy Awards 2016: And the Nominees Are... Jenner comes out of her shell, leaving the comfort of her Malibu home to interact with the transgender community while exploring dating and romance. Her changing relationships with her children and the Kardashian clan, including ex-wife Kris Jenner, are shown in Season 2. "For almost my entire life, I never really liked going out. I never really felt like I fit in. I was more of a loner," she said. "Now after transitioning, I actually enjoy going out." When she's in public, Jenner said she takes 50 selfies daily with mostly young women and boys. "The next group of people coming up really has a different look at all of this," she said. The 66-year-old former Olympic decathlon champion resists the media's label of voice for transgender people. "I am only a spokesman for me and my story," she said. "I have so much to learn in this community. I have so much to learn about womanhood. The platform is not for me. It's for this community." A letter could soon be showing up in your mailbox that looks like its from an official Florida government agency, but its not. The NBC 6 Investigators took the letter to federal investigators who are now doing an investigation of their own. And Florida officials are now referring to it as a scam and are requesting people file complaints with the Florida Attorney Generals Office. When Dan Daley of Coral Springs opened the urgent letter he received, it had him worried. I almost paid it, in a heartbeat, the letter says final notice! said Dan Daley. You dont want to get in trouble, said Daley. Daley is a small business owner who works out of his Coral Springs home. The letter claimed he needs to be pay $74 dollars for employment signs that are required by law to be posted at his business. The letter stated if he didnt pay the money he could face some pretty serious fines. Theres no indicator that its not a state agency, so I almost broke out the check book and paid it, explained Daley. The letter is from the FL Human Resources Compliance with an address at the state capitol in Tallahassee. Daley almost sent the check, until he noticed the postmark on the outside of the letter. The letter was mailed from California. That was the red flag said Daley. Daley is not just a small business owner, hes the Vice Mayor of Coral Springs. The government leader did not recognize the apparent government agency behind the letter. You really do think its a state agency, said Daley. The agency was listed as the Florida Human Resources Compliance, which is not a state agency. And the forms it wants you to send $74 to receive can be printed off the state's website for free. Daley called the NBC 6 Investigators, and we contacted the US Postal Inspection Service. We will find out whos receiving this mail and whether its a legitimate company or not, said Postal Inspector Blanca Alvarez. The NBC 6 Investigators discovered the Attorney General has received more than 70 complaints in the last few weeks. Those complaints led to what's called a Scam Notice on the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulations website. It states if you receive a suspicious letter from someone claiming to be the Florida Human Resources Compliance regarding a fine, please file a complaint with the Attorney Generals Office. Federal officials say the company isnt doing anything illegal, unless they dont send the signs people pay for. The key to finding out if its an actual fraud is if the product thats being sold is actually being provided, said Alvarez. The NBC 6 Investigators put Daleys letter, along with the $75 dollar money order, in the mail on December 2nd to determine if anything would come in return. It has been more than five weeks and nothing has arrived. If the product or service was not received, then we will investigate as potential fraud, said Alvarez. Agents with the US Postal Inspection Service are now looking into the case along with the more than 70 other cases. Inspectors are checking to see if paying customers are receiving the signs. Theyre preying on small business owners and its just not right, said Daley. The NBC 6 Investigators reached out to the company by mail, email, and a phone number linked to the business, but havent heard back. Two Miami men have been arrested in what authorities say was an "organized execution" of three people in Lakeland, officials said Thursday. Andrew Joseph, 35, and Jonathan Alcegaire, 26, are both facing several charges including three counts of first-degree murder and attempted murder, Polk County Sheriff's Office officials said. Joseph was arrested Monday and Alcegaire was arrested Tuesday. Both were booked into the Miami-Dade Jail but will be taken to the Polk County Jail where they will be held without bond. The two suspects were arrested with the help of the Miami-Dade and Miami Police departments, officials said. The shooting happened at a home on East Magnolia Drive in the Combee area of Lakeland, about 30 miles west of Tampa, on Jan. 6. Deputies responding to a call of a shooting at the home found two women and a man dead, officials said. Another man was taken to a nearby hospital with a gunshot wound to his face. The victims were later identified as David Washington, 23, Eneida Stacey Branch, 31, and Angelica Castro, 23. Felix Campos, 18, was hospitalized but survived. Officials said illegal drugs, drug paraphernalia and two firearms were found in the home. Detectives also learned Washington had made several trips to the Miami area to buy drugs, including the day before the shooting, officials said. Authorities said Joseph, Alcegaire and another man arrived at the house and one of them got into an altercation with Washington. Campos told detectives he heard Washington talking with the three suspects before one of them entered his bedroom and shot him in the face. Campos pretended to be dead and heard multiple gunshots, officials said. Detectives learned that a white U-Haul work van was seen leaving the home, and the van was tracked to Miami-Dade, where it had been rented by Joseph, authorities said. According to authorities, the robbery was orchestrated by Joseph, whose arrest history includes 29 previous felony charges in Florida, as well as six drug-related charges in Minnesota. Alcegaire has eight previous felony charges, as well as nine previous misdemeanor charges, officials said. Detectives are searching for more suspects and are asking anyone with information to call the sheriff's office at 863-298-6200. Three NYPD officers rescued a woman in an overturned ambulette while on their way to a memorial for an Ohio police dog that was shot and killed last weekend. Officers Benny Colecchia, Daniel Rich and Matt Wicelinski were traveling on Interstate 80 in Clarion, Pennsylvania, on Thursday afternoon when they came across the crashed vehicle. An ambulette had overturned in a snowy crash, trapping a woman in a wheelchair. The officers used a hammer to break a window. Once inside the ambulette, officer Colecchia used a knife to cut the woman free from her wheelchair, while officers Rich and Wicelinski carried her from the wreckage and administered first aid. They stayed with the woman until emergency crews arrived. The officers were headed to Canton, Ohio, with their three K-9 partners K-9 officers Timoshenko, Dallas and Hudson to pay respects to a Canton Police Department K-9 officer, Jethro, who died Sunday after allegedly being shot by a suspect Saturday. Colecchia, Rich and Wicelinski are members of the NYPDs ESU K-9 unit. Parents of a Connecticut teen who committed suicide two days before Christmas are asking the head of the town's school system to investigate reports that he might've been the target of bullying. The parents of Christopher Lanni wrote a letter to Westport Schools Superintendent Elliott Landon asking the district to look into whether the 14-year-old was being targeted by fellow Staples High School students before he took his own life. "We request a thorough, professional investigation of allegations that Christopher was being bullied at school and/or on social media platforms (i.e. Instagram) by his fellow Staples students," the boy's parents said in the letter. "While we want to maintain our privacy and our sons dignity, please consider this letter our written report and arrange accordingly for appropriate investigative action into this situation that may have affected Christopher and others. If the police need to be involved as to extent of the communications, we understand that necessity as well and respect and value their support." Westport police say they haven't found evidence that Lanni was a victim of bullying, but they're taking another look at the case. Westport school officials say they're also cooperating with police. The parents also asked the school system to take a second look at its policy requiring students to bring computers or mobile devices to class every day, saying that the policy could "subject kids to additional cyberbullying." Westport schools declined to comment on Lanni's death. But according to the Connecticut Post, Landon referenced "misinformation" about Lanni's death at a school board meeting earlier this year. Vice President Joe Biden launched a "moonshot" initiative Friday to hasten a cure for cancer, aiming to use his final year in office to break down barriers in the medical world he says are holding back progress on eradicating the dreaded disease. Biden chose Penn Medicine's Abramson Cancer Center in Philadelphia as his venue to call attention to the institute's pioneering efforts on immunotherapy, in which a patient's own immune system is deployed against cancer cells. After touring the facility's Center for Advanced Cellular Therapeutics, Biden sat down with doctors, researchers and academics to discuss recent advances. "You're on the cusp of some phenomenal breakthroughs," he said. "In my terms not your medical terms we are at an inflection point in the fight against cancer." With barely a year left in the White House, Biden has yet to lay out exactly what he'll do that hasn't been done in the half century since President Richard Nixon declared war on cancer. But Biden said in addition to pushing for more funding, he would use his influence to "break down silos" he says are pervasive throughout the sprawling and fragmented world of oncologists, scientists and benefactors. Since declaring his "moonshot" to cure cancer in October, Biden searching for answers about what's holding back a cure, with all the meticulousness of a physician diagnosing disease. His conclusion: The hold-up, in large part, lies in the cancer world itself. Meeting with scientists Friday, Biden recalled his grandfather's adage that the world has three kinds of politics: church politics, labor politics and regular politics. "I hope you're not offended, but there are four kinds of politics in America. There's cancer politics," Biden said. He deemed that particular flavor even more vexing than the rest. Meetings with nearly 200 of them revealed a community rife with competition, territorialism and "stove-piping" of information that's left researchers and their discoveries cloistered in their own corners, aides and others who met with Biden said. His campaign this year will work to encourage more data-sharing about patient data and treatment outcomes. "My hope is that I can be a catalyst, to oversimplify it, to get everybody on the same page," Biden said. A key focus will be promising advances such as immunotherapy. At the cancer center Biden was visiting Friday, researchers are exploring what's known as chimeric antigen receptor technology, in which a patient's immune cells are engineered outside of their body to hunt for tumors, then infused back into the patient's body. The White House said 250 patients have been treated with the approach, with early promising results. Another priority for the vice president is to further "precision medicine," which personalizes treatments based on the genetic makeup of a patient's tumors. Cancer researchers who met with Biden recently said he was intrigued by the possibilities for improving prevention and early detection. Biden planned to continue the effort next week by convening global cancer experts at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Then he'll chair a series of meetings with Cabinet secretaries in late January about ways to boost federal funds for research and treatment. For Biden, the emotional undertones of his mission are difficult to avoid. After his 46-year-old son, Beau Biden, died from brain cancer in May, Biden entered a period of painfully public mourning, followed eventually by his decision not to enter the presidential race. "This is still a blow that he's still recovering from," said former Sen. Ted Kaufman, a Biden confidante for many decades. "He's in his problem-solving mode. He's more comfortable in this area because of his desire to eliminate this thing that caused him so much damage." When Biden, in a Rose Garden speech disclosing he wouldn't run for president, announced a bid "to cure cancer," more than a few eyebrows were raised. Some wondered whether Biden was unduly raising expectations. "I'm an eternal optimist, but I'm not going to go around saying we're going to cure cancer in five years. That's just not realistic," said Dr. George Demetri, a Harvard Medical School professor and researcher at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who met with Biden's staff. Even President Barack Obama acknowledged that cancer probably won't be cured in the year, or even the next five. But he predicted that over the next 20 years, the world would see strides "never seen before." "They key for us now is to put a lot more money into research," Obama said. "If we do, I think we're going to see some really big breakthroughs soon." Biden acknowledged that some cancers can't be cured, insisting he wasn't naive. But he said he thought it was possible to double the rate of scientific advances. Because cancer takes hundreds of forms, it can't be eradicated by any single advance. But immense progress has been made in recent years. Survival rates for most cancers are increasing, although the American Cancer Society still predicts nearly 1.7 million new cancer cases this year and nearly 600,000 deaths. "What does 'cure cancer' mean? Does it mean prevent cancer? Does it mean nobody dies from cancer? I don't know about that," said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., who has worked with Biden to increase cancer funding. "But I do know that we can enhance dramatically the way we look at cancer, understand cancer and deal with it." RAIN, RAIN, PLEASE COME AND STAY: Sometimes a time-honored nursery rhyme deserves something of a topical twist or modern interpretation. In that spirit, many Californians are imploring wet weather to make itself comfortable 'round the state this winter, the better to build up that snowpack and bust some drought. It's a spirit many destinations are embracing as well, and not just the ski resorts, places that love to see the flaky inches build up. Even some spots in sunnier areas are not chiming in with the ol' "rain, rain go away" rhyme, but rather are supporting any showers that come along with cozy-times packages for guests. THE OJAI VALLEY INN & SPA... is one such resort that isn't resorting to bemoaning any moisture but, rather, applauding it. For sure, you're bound to see a lot of sunshine in the inn's online snapshots -- Ojai is, of course, home to the daily Pink Moment, a sun-pretty, sky-lovely phenomenon -- but the resort knows how to play in the rain as well. There are two packages available through March 2016, one for lovebirds looking to dry their wings -- Romancing El Nino -- and one for families who don't mind playing in a puddle or two (that's the Me, You & El Nino, Too). Each comes with its own stay-inside perks -- a Dark & Stormy cocktail for two is included in the romance package, while the family deal has "an array of complimentary family-friendly in-room movies." And both include an Ojai Valley Inn & Spa umbrella, not just for use around the property should it rain, but for those back-at-home storms, too. FOR SURE, SUNSHINE AND VACATIONS... go together like sunblock and swimming pools, but the weather, as every traveler knows, often has different plans. Definitely in an El Nino year we should expect unpredictable skies, but with gratitude. Snowpack, keep building up while Ojai vacationers retreat to their pretty rooms to sip cocktails, watch films, and cozy in. Uber picked up a hefty tab Wednesday when a judge fined the taxi-alternative's California subsidiary $7.3 million for refusing to give state regulators information about its business practices, including when its drivers turn down ride requests and how accessible vehicles are to disabled riders. The fine was part of a ruling by an administrative law judge at the California Public Utilities Commission, the regulatory agency that allowed Uber and its competitors such as Lyft to operate in the state as long as the companies reported aspects of their activities. The judge agreed with utility commission staff who said Uber's California subsidiary, Rasier-CA, has not filed all required reports, specifically about how often it provided disabled-accessible vehicles, places where drivers tend to turn down ride requests, and the causes of accidents. Uber's app allows passengers to request a ride directly from drivers in the area and allows drivers to decline the request. The utilities commission wants to see whether drivers are accepting fares evenly. Attorneys for Rasier-CA had argued that the company provided sufficient information to the commission. The judge acknowledged that the company provided some of the contested information but said it was not enough. In a written statement, Uber spokeswoman Eva Behrend called the ruling and fine "deeply disappointing" and said the company would appeal. "Uber has already provided substantial amounts of data to the California Public Utilities Commission, information we have provided elsewhere with no complaints," Behrend wrote, adding that submitting more detailed information could affect the privacy of passengers and drivers. In a written statement, the utilities commission said Uber was the only company of its kind not to comply with the reporting requirements. Uber has previously tussled with public officials. In Portland, Oregon, for example it had an extended disagreement with the city that led it to suspend operations. In France, Uber suspended its low-cost service following an escalating legal dispute and sometimes-violent tensions with traditional French taxi drivers. French authorities had ordered the service called UberPop shut down, but Uber refused, pending a legal decision at a top French court. A young San Diego girl proved she had whipped cancer by dancing to Silentos Whip/Nae Nae during a surprise flash mob organized by family and friends Thursday. Madi Taylor, 12, is nearing the end of a long, tiresome road. The Poway girl was diagnosed with Ewing Sarcoma, a type of bone cancer, in 2014. As she began undergoing treatment, her family became the victims of a cancer charity CEO who stole the money raised on the Taylors behalf. But this week, Madi entered the last cycle of chemotherapy to send her cancer into remission, so her friends put together a special way to celebrate. Knowing she enjoyed dancing with the nurses at Rady Childrens Hospital, the group organized a flash mob outside the medical center. A surprised Madi, clad in a giraffe-print onesie, emerged Thursday to find two friends dancing to one of her favorite songs, Whip/Nae Nae. Those two became four, then six, then 10, and soon, a large group of dancers had assembled, including nurses from the hospital. Madi quickly shook off the surprise and happily joined in the dance, with her IV in tow. Madi's family was one of many taken advantage of by WishWarriors CEO Brianna King. The Taylors agreed to be featured by the cancer charity to help it raise money. In exchange, Madi was supposed to receive some financial help with her medical bills. However, after an NBC 7 investigation, the charity's board realized all the money raised had disappeared, taken by King for her own uses. King pleaded guilty to grand theft in September. After days of powerful El Nino storms, San Diegans flocked to Mt. Laguna last weekend to play in freshly-fallen snow, but the massive crowds left behind so much trash, rangers are still cleaning up the mess. On Thursday, U.S. National Forest Service officials said cleanup crews in the Cleveland National Forest region were overwhelmed with work following the influx of visitors to the Mt. Laguna area after the first big snowfall of the season. Three days after the weekend calamity, Forest Service employees from the Descanso Ranger District continue to mend the aftermath, hauling out truckloads of trash and broken equipment, officials said in a press release. With the more El Nino storms in the forecast, Mt. Laguna will likely see its fair share of heavy snow and, subsequently, more large crowds in the weeks ahead. [[364672101,C]] U.S. Forest Service officials want to encourage visitors to abide by a pack out what they pack in code. By hauling out everything thats brought into the tiny mountain community, the amount of trash left behind on Mt. Laguna can be significantly reduced. Simple things like food wrappers or broken sleds amount up to a lot when left behind. If trash receptacles are full, we ask that the public pack items and throw them away down the mountain. If each family does their part it can make a huge difference in the outcome," said District Ranger Julie Hall. We want to be able to accommodate these large crowds and encourage people to come visit, but managing the aftermath is extremely difficult," she added. "We are asking the public for their help and support." The U.S. Forest Service said budget and staffing constraints, coupled with the loss of temporary employees in the winter, makes it difficult to manage larger crowds in the Cleveland National Forest. This past weekend, for example, rangers had to request help from California Highway Patrol (CHP) officers to aid in traffic control. [[364543381,C]] Much like this past weekend, Mt. Laguna visitors should brace for heavy traffic and long waits when heading to the snowy mountains. Over the weekend, traffic wait times reached as long as three hours from Interstate 8 up Sunrise Highway to the peak as visitors tried to get to the Mt. Laguna snow. As delays persisted and traffic backed up for miles, officials temporarily closed and restricted access to both Old Highway 80 and Sunrise Highway. On Sunday, the highway was reopened, but with restrictions, due to congestion at the peak. [[364513311,C]] When visiting mountain communities, including Mt. Laguna, forest officials want to remind drivers to pay attention to posted signs and avoid trespassing or parking on private property. U.S. Forest Service, Cleveland National Forest A new ordinance that goes into effect next month could leave riders on the San Diego trolley and buses facing steep fines of up to $100 if they dont give up seats in priority sections to senior citizens and disabled passengers. The San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) announced Thursday that it would ramp up wheelchair and priority seating enforcement on trolleys and buses based on a new state law and ordinance amendment approved by the MTS Board of Directors. The new rule MTS Ordinance No. 13, which goes into place Feb. 13 says riders will be fined if they refuse to vacate priority seating on trolleys and buses upon request. Priority seating sections have been designated for disabled passengers and seniors age 65 and older. If a rider doesnt follow the ordinance, it could result in a citation from MTS and one of three fines: $25 for the first offense; $50 for the second offense; $100 for the third and subsequent offenses. MTS says all of those fines are also subject to significant court administrative fees. This new policy gives our operators and security personnel another tool to help our passengers with limited mobility, said MTS Chief Executive Officer Paul Jablonski in a press release Thursday. Previously we were only allowed to request that passengers vacate their seat. We could not enforce or compel a person to move. Now we have that authority. This move in San Diego was put into motion in October 2015 after Senate Bill 413 was signed into law, giving California transit agencies, including MTS, the enforcement authority to establish a mandatory move policy. The bill, in part, allows transit agencies to enforce, as an infraction, the act of failing to vacate seating on public transit thats designated for the elderly or those with a disability. In San Diego, all MTS trolleys and buses have multiple areas designated for the disabled and senior citizens. These sections and seats are clearly marked with blue signs. They are located near the entry and exit points of public transit vehicles. MTS operates 95 bus routes and three trolley lines on 53 miles of double-tracked railway in San Diego County. Each day, MTS says more than 300,000 passengers ride the trolleys or buses. In fiscal year 2015, a record 96.7 million riders used the public transit services. Sen. Charles Grassley, serving his first term as chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, formally intervened in at least three Washington, D.C.-area criminal cases in recent months, according to a review by the News4 I-Team. His inquiries to local and federal law enforcement officials raised questions about whether investigators made mistakes or suffered delays in their responses to local crimes. Grassley (R-Iowa) said the investigations, which involve crimes committed hundreds of miles from his home state, are an indication of how he plans to serve the role of chairman of a Senate committee that oversees law enforcement agencies nationwide. I do more oversight than most members of Congress, Grassley told the I-Team. I do more oversight because you only need one vote to do oversight, your own vote. In an October 2015 inquiry to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Grassley questions why two Virginia men were not deported prior to the murder of a Loudoun County, Virginia, teenager as he walked to school. The two men, Henry Dominguez-Vasquez and Juan Aguirre-Zelaya, are charged as accessories in the killing of Danny Centeno-Miranda. Grassley said his review of the case raised questions about why Dominguez-Vasquez and Aguirre-Zelaya still lived in the U.S. at the time of shooting. In a letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Grassley said the men unlawfully crossed the border and skipped immigration court appearances. All three suspects failed to appear at their August 2015 hearing and were ordered removed in absentia, he said. Had these suspects appeared for their mandatory court date, they would have likely not had the opportunity to murder a 17-year-old high school student from Loudoun County. Dominquez-Vasquez and Aguirre Zelaya are scheduled to go on trial later this year, according to a county spokeswoman. Immigration officials told the I-Team theyve received Grassleys inquiry. They said both men will be deported immediately after their criminal cases in the shooting are closed. In a similar inquiry, Grassley asked federal Homeland Security investigators why the suspect in an attack on a Frederick County, Maryland, sheriffs deputy hadnt been deported. Jose Reyes-Reyes is charged with assault for allegedly punching the deputy during a traffic stop. Grassley said his review of the case showed Reyes-Reyes is also an undocumented immigrant who had been released by border protection officials. This attack is yet another example of the utter lack of respect for the law and those who uphold it, and a terrible reminder that our federal, state and local law enforcement officers are now singled out as targets by criminals who seek to murder and maim those who wear the badge, Grassleys letter to federal homeland security officials said. While the unprovoked attack on a law enforcement officer is extremely disturbing, what is more disturbing is the fact that a known criminal alien gang member was involved in this alleged crime. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security declined to answer specific questions about the case from the I-Team. In a third recent case, Grassley questioned local and federal investigators about the 2013 shooting death of Fairfax County, Virginia, resident John Geer. Geer was unarmed when he was shot and killed by a local police officer in the doorway of Geers home in Springfield. The shooting captured widespread attention because of an approximately 18-month wait before authorities released information about the case or charged the police officer involved with a crime. Grassleys formal inquiries questioned why details werent being released by investigators. His letter was eventually cited by a judge who ordered local law enforcement handover records in the case. The government ought to be pretty transparent, Grassley told the I-Team. When the public knows whats going on, people who work in the government are going to be more responsible. Jeff Stewart, a longtime friend of Geer, said hed written to Fairfax County leaders and members of Congress seeking assistance in the case in 2014. Stewart said Grassley was the first person to respond. I found it kind of ironic that once again the only person that got back to me and it was within a day was Sen. Grassleys office, Stewart said. A man with a previous DUI charge is suspected of causing a horrific nine-car crash that killed a woman and injured three other people Thursday morning in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, police said. Nine cars slammed into each other about 9 a.m. on Route 202 at Lottsford Road. Angela Jefferson, 53, was driving a burgundy GMC that crashed with a blue Chevy Silverado driven by Juan Sanchez, 34, Maryland State Police said. The two cars then slammed into seven other cars. A pickup truck went airborne and hit vehicles sitting at a traffic light, a witness said. Jefferson, of Springdale, was trapped inside her car, the Prince George's County Fire Department said. She was extricated and transported in extremely critical condition to a hospital, where she died. Sanchez, of Laurel, was found to have been driving with a suspended license. Police saw there was a warrant for his arrest for failing to attend a hearing for a DUI charge from 2014. He was hospitalized on Thursday for injuries, and a security detail was assigned to him. Sanchez was released from a hospital by Thursday evening and taken to jail. He was released on bond Friday morning. Charges against him for the crash are pending, police said. Police are investigating why Jefferson's and Sanchez's cars crashed. Anyone who witnessed the crash is asked to call state police at 301-568-8101. A 23-year-old Southeast Washington man has been arrested in the death of a 6-month-old baby, Prince George's County police announced Friday. Kareem Bryant is charged with second-degree murder and first-degree child abuse in connection with the death of Mariah Tilghman. Tilghman of Landover was rushed to an area hospital on Jan. 6 after police received a report about a baby who wasn't breathing. She died the next day. An autopsy revealed the baby suffered blunt force injuries to the babys head and chest. The injuries are consistent with shaken baby syndrome, according to the Prince George's County State's Attorney's Office. Police say Bryant, who was in a relationship with the Tilghman's mother, admitted to causing her injuries. The baby was assaulted in her bedroom, and it appears there was family home at the time, Prince George's County Bureau Chief Tracee Wilkins reported. Bryant was arrested in Washington, D.C., and is awaiting extradition to Prince George's County. Detectives are looking for a Silver Spring woman missing since last week. Ana Guardado-Pineda, 44, of the 800 block of University Boulevard E in Silver Spring, was last seen at her residence Jan. 8 about 7:20 a.m. Guardado-Pineda told family members she planned to take the bus to her doctor's appointment in the Aspen Hill area later that morning. She did not arrive to the appointment. Guardado-Pineda is described as a Hispanic woman standing about 5-feet-3-inches tall and weighing 170 pounds. She has brown eyes and black hair. There is no indication of foul play, but police and family are concerned for her physical and emotional well-being. Anyone who has information regarding the whereabouts of Guardado-Pineda should call the Montgomery County Police non-emergency number at 301-279-8000 (24-hour line). A man being pursued by police struck a tree and an unoccupied car before he was taken into custody at an Arlington Metro station, Virginia State Police say. A Virginia State Police trooper stopped 21-year-old Artis Thomas of Washington, D.C. for speeding on I-66 eastbound just before 3 a.m. Police say Thomas pulled off during the traffic stop, prompting the pursuit. The suspect got off the interstate at the North Westmoreland Street exit, and the trooper lost sight of him. Police say Thomas ran off the road, went through a fence and struck a tree. He also hit an unoccupied car in a parking lot. Thomas was arrested just before 4 a.m. when officers found him behind a trash can at the East Falls Church Metro station, Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corrine Geller said. Geller said a gun was found in Thomas' vehicle. Thomas has been charged with driving under the influence of drugs, felony eluding law enforcement, possession of a concealed weapon, hit-and-run, and possession of marijuana. A 73-year-old man in Annandale, Virginia, suspected of murdering a woman with whom he had just made a sex tape has died, police say. Police last month went to the home of the man, Jai Hyun Cho, while searching for a missing woman, 56-year-old Kum Yeon of Alexandria, Virginia, according to a search warrant affidavit. When they arrived, they saw Yeon dead, handcuffed to Cho and having suffered electric burns. As police entered, Cho appeared to electrocute himself and lost consciousness. Police also found a sex tape, and a suicide note from Cho indicating he planned to kill himself and that Yeon was unaware of his plans. Police obtained a murder warrant against Cho, but he never regained consciousness, and died Saturday. Thursday's Republican debate was what it looks like when candidates stop being polite, and start getting real. Three big themes emerged from the more than two-hour live event, and gave a strong idea of what the phase of the campaign looks like in the final stretch before voting begins in Iowa on Feb. 1. Donald Trump and Ted Cruz's nonaggression pact collapsed as Trump's ongoing effort to sow doubts about Cruz's eligibility for the presidency finally pushed Cruz to respond. Cruz delivered a strong answer when he pointed out that Trump himself had said earlier in the year that he considered the legal issue over Cruz's Canadian birthplace settled. They also had an exchange over Cruz's accusation that Trump embodies "New York value." Trump has defined the Republican primary and the debate showed just how far he's shifted the conversation. His rivals even the more moderate candidates running on their appeal outside the party are adopting a darker tone and more bellicose rhetoric. Cruz and Marco Rubio have been at each other's throats for months and now it's an all out war. At the debate they had a series of meatier arguments on national security, immigration and taxes that reveal genuine ideological splits within the party. Backstreet Boys singer Nick Carter walked out of jail in Key West, Florida, Thursday after being arrested following a fight outside a bar. The 35-year-old was being held at the Monroe County jail, and made an appearance before a judge on a misdemeanor battery charge. Carter jumped into a taxicab after he bonded out. He told reporters he was trying to enjoy vacation, and the truth will come out. According to a Key West Police report, Carter was intoxicated when officers arrived Wednesday evening at the popular Hog's Breath Saloon. The report says a bartender refused to serve Carter and Michael Rae Papayans of Palos Verdes Estates, California, who became agitated and aggressive. The bar's staff repeatedly told both men to leave. According to the report, once outside, Papayans head-butted one employee and Carter then grabbed a bouncer by the throat. Papayans, 27, also was held on a misdemeanor battery charge. Jail records don't show whether either man has an attorney. The "Dancing With the Stars" contestant has had previous brushes with the law. He was arrest following an incident at a Florida nightclub in 2002 and in 2005 he was arrested and charged with driving under the influence. After attending mandatory alcohol education classes and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, at the time, Carter told People magazine that he would never "get behind the wheel and drink again," adding that the classes were "so good for me." Previous version of this story said Nick Carter was a former member of Backstreet Boys. Police responded to schools in at least nine Massachusetts communities on Friday afternoon, and several were evacuated as a precaution. Authorities said numerous schools received some sort of a threatening "robo call" shortly before dismissal time. A threat was made against Arlington Catholic School around 2 p.m. and the decision was made to evacuate. As a precaution, police said the nearby Arlington Middle School and St. Agnes School were also evacuated. Around 1:40 p.m., Mashpee Middle/High School also received a threat. Buses were readied, and all students and staff exited the building at 1:50 p.m. Police later determined that the threat was not credible. All after-school and evening activities have been cancelled. Two schools in Weymouth received threats shortly after noon. Both the Adams and Chapman middle schools were evacuated, and after assessing the situation the students were brought to neighboring primary schools. Falmouth High School was also evacuated due to a threat. Falmouth Police later told necn that the investigation revealed the threat was likely a hoax, but that students, faculty and staff were evacuated as a precaution. Boston College High School also received a threat around noon, Boston Police said. The school was temporarily placed in lockdown, but the threat was determined to be unfounded and the lockdown was lifted. The Cape Cod Times reports that the high schools in Bourne and Barnstable also received threats but students were not evacuated. Bourne school officials said the "nonspecific/non-credible threat" was received just before regular dismissal. Police swept the school, gymnasium and other areas, and a police detail has been added for Friday night's basketball games. Plymouth South High School received what school officials said was an "unsettling" phone call just before the 2 p.m. dismissal bell. As a result, all after-school activities were cancelled and the building was searched. Quincy Police also responded to two additional high schools that received similar calls. The investigation into the source of the threats is ongoing by several law enforcement agencies, including federal agencies, as similar threats were experienced in Maryland on Friday. "The disruption to local schools and to public safety personnel is serious and not taken lightly," said a statement released by the state fire marshal's office said, adding that the perpetrators "will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law." Chelsea Public Schools also sent out a release Thursday about a written threat that was left unattended at Chelsea High School. The school and all surrounding areas were searched, but school was in session on Friday. There will be an increased police presence at Chelsea High School in Massachusetts Friday after a threat was made, according to school officials. The threat was a written note discovered inside the school, according to a statement from Chelsea Public Schools. Thursday night, members of the Massachusetts State Police Bomb Squad and Chelsea Police searched the school. School officials say there is reason to believe the threat is just a hoax. Anyone with information may call police at 617-466-4855 or call the anonymous Crime Stoppers line at 617-466-4880. Thousands of Christmas cards from around 30 local Norfolk charities have gone on sale today (October 19) at the Original Norwich Charity Christmas Card Shop inside St Peter Mancroft church in Norwich city centre. Thousands of Christmas cards from around 30 local Norfolk charities have gone on sale today (October 19) at the Original Norwich Charity Christmas Card Shop inside St Peter Mancroft church in Norwich city centre. Revelation Christian Resource Centre and Cafe Revelation in Norwich is a Christian resource centre, offering a bookshop, a meeting place and a welcoming refuge for refreshment open to visitors of any faith or none. Read more Farewell as Yarmouth church leader moves on Captain Marie Burr, the Salvation Army leader in Great Yarmouth, has paid tribute to everyone at the church and charity after she left her post at the end of last month to move to a new role. Read more Norwich Cathedral chorister in BBC final Norwich Cathedral chorister Alice Platten has her sights set on being crowned BBC Young Chorister of the Year after reaching the final stages of the prestigious nationwide competition. Read more Norwich to hear pastor, Policeman and tramp tale Essex Baptist Pastor Dave McDowell has been a Policeman, fed orphans in India and lived under a boat as a tramp. He will tell his remarkable story at the October dinner of Norwich FGB on Wednesday October 26. Read more Pioneer UK leader speaks at Sheringham church Ness Wilson, national leader of the Pioneer network of churches, was the main speaker at a day of teaching and worship held at Lighthouse Community Church in Sheringham on 12 October, to be followed up by Word and Worship sessions at October half term. Read more Youth for Christ lights a fire in north Breckland North Breckland Youth for Christ will be putting on a mini residential camp this year to coincide with Bonfire Night. Read more Delia Smith interviewed at Norwich church Top TV cook and well-known writer Delia Smith spoke about her faith at SOUL Churchs weekly Chapel gathering on October 11. Read more Children's Christian holiday club in Briston A half term childrens holiday bible club is taking place in Briston next week, and there is no charge to take part in the fun. Read more Ashill church puts on music to touch the soul The Fountain of Life Church in Ashill is hosting an afternoon concert in early November with classical, jazz, opera, ballads and pop classics. Read more Fakenhams new rector is officially installed Rev Tracy Jessop has been officially installed as Rector for Fakenham during a service at Fakenham Parish Church on Tuesday September 27, fourteen months after their last reverend retired. Read more Norwich homeless charity holds information evening Homelessness charity St Martins is holding an information evening on Thursday 3rd November at The Forum in Norwich for anyone who would like to know more about the work of the charity and to potentially become a volunteer. Read more Sheringhams harvest flowers and Fairtrade boost Giving thanks for Harvest was the theme of the Harvest Flower Festival held at St Andrews Methodist Church, Sheringham at the beginning of October, which included a Traidcraft stall. Read more ENYP needs Project Coordinator and Youth Worker Norfolk Christian charity ENYP is seeking to appoint new workers who have a passion to support children, youth and community food provision. Read more Christmas resources at Revelation Norwich Christian Resource Centre is all stocked up for Christmas: Cards, wrap, bags, gifts, candles and advent calendars are all ready for you to browse and buy! Read more Christian artist captures delight of the Creator Charlotte Ashenden is a portrait artist with 22 years experience, painting children, adults, houses and animals in an incredibly detailed and realistic style, capturing the character of the subject she is painting. Read more Christian speaker visits Norfolk and Waveney Two local Christian organisations are joining forces to bring pastor and conference speaker Andy Prime to Lowestoft and Norwich later this month. Read more Global Leadership Conference returns to Norwich After a three- year break the Global Leadership Summit returns to Norwich on November 25 at the Kings Centre, hosted by Norwich Youth for Christ. Read more "You can't manage what you can't see" is a popular saying in the network industry. Historically, it's been used for traditional network management, with the thought being that one can't fix a problem on the network without having visibility into the applications, traffic flows, and infrastructure. Recently, though, the meaning of that phrase has changed as "shadow IT" has become increasingly popular. Shadow IT is when lines of business or individual users purchase their own cloud services without any involvement in IT. The problem today is very real. An interesting data point to support this comes from a ZK Research report that showed that 96% of organizations claim to be running cloud applications that are not sanctioned by IT (disclosure: I am an employee of ZK Research). I also find that the magnitude of the problem that IT departments are dealing with is much greater than anyone realizes. I worked with several companies last year that did audits to discover how many cloud applications were being accessed by employees, and in every case, the estimation by IT was off by an order of magnitude. The extreme case was from a CIO that guessed there were about 30 cloud services procured via shadow IT, but in actuality there were more than 600. This week, Cisco launched a new service to help IT deal with this challenge. Cisco's Cloud Consumption as a Service (CCaaS, not to be confused with contact center as a service) is geared to help small and midsize businesses discover and monitor the use of public cloud services across the company (disclosure: Cisco is a client of ZK Research). The service will sell for a mere $1 to $2 per user per month, depending on the number of employees, and will be available through Cisco resellers so the IT department can procure it through the same avenue it buys all of its other Cisco gear from. Unlike some of the other cloud discovery tools that just provide the name of the service, Cisco's CCaaS includes analytics, benchmarking, security risks, and Dun and Bradstreet information to give an indication of the financial stability of the cloud service provider. Armed with the right information, IT can make better decisions on what to do with the cloud services. For example, if the company discovers that a large number of users are all paying for a certain service on a personal credit card and expensing it back to the company, the organization could approach the cloud provider about a discount for volume purchasing. A real-life example, provided by Cisco, is CityMD, an urgent care organization with 50 facilities across New York and New Jersey. Using the CCaS service, CityMD found employees were using over 500 cloud services, with IT only supporting 15 to 20. The service provided the organization with full visibility into cloud usage, enabling it to make an informed decision about the services that are right for it and what the risks are. The doctors want fast results so they turned to the cloud, but with the information of cloud usage at their disposal the IT department can be a more effective partner to the business groups. Now the doctors can have the services they want, and IT can ensure the appropriate security and compliance measures are in place. Shadow IT is here to stay, and it is now a reality that all enterprises need to learn to deal with. How an organization responds depends on the level of risk it is willing to take. The new CCaaS service from Cisco gives the IT department the right information to make an informed decision. Remember advanced persistent threats (APTs)? This term originated within the United States Air Force around 2006. In my opinion, it gained more widespread recognition after the Google Operation Aurora data breach first disclosed in 2010. This cyber-attack is attributed to groups associated with Chinas Peoples Liberation Army and impacted organizations like Adobe Systems, Juniper Networks, Northrop Grumman, Symantec, and Yahoo in addition to Google. APT visibility got another boost in 2013 when Mandiant released its now famous APT1 report documenting several cyber-attacks emanating from a PLA group known as Unit 61398. Driven by a wave of APT attacks and detailed threat intelligence, enterprise organizations doubled-down on threat prevention and detection technologies. Most of them started by deploying advanced anti-malware gateways (aka: network sandboxes") from vendors like Blue Coat, Check Point, Cisco, FireEye, Fortinet, Lastline, Palo Alto Networks, and Trend Micro. According to ESG research, 34% of enterprise organizations have deployed network-based anti-malware gateways extensively while another 46% have deployed network-based anti-malware gateways somewhat (note: I am an ESG employee). With this in mind, Ive discovered an interesting relationship between network-based anti-malware gateways and next-generation endpoint security as part of an extensive ESG research project. From about 2012 through 2014, many enterprises evaluated and deployed network-based anti-malware gateways on their networks. Once implemented, it wasnt at all unusual for these devices to light up like a Christmas tree. In other words, anti-malware gateway devices presented security analysts with conclusive evidence that hidden malware and malicious network traffic was actually all over their networks bots, command-and-control traffic, encrypted traffic, etc. Now security professionals understood at the time that traditional antivirus software was no match for targeted attacks and APTs, but this was more of an intellectual conclusion. Once they deployed network-based anti-malware gateways however, theory gave way to reality. All of a sudden, security analysts were able to provide CISOs with alarming reports and real data revealing the scope of the endpoint security problem on their own networks. The cybersecurity chickens had come home to roost. CISOs realized that network-based anti-malware gateways were only part of a next-generation solution and that they had to do more to protect endpoints themselves. From a cybersecurity market perspective, this trend makes a lot of sense. The Google Aurora attack led to APT awareness and the need to take action. This drove network-based anti-malware gateway deployment (and the FireEye IPO) in the 2012-2014 timeframe. Network-based anti-malware gateway deployment led to widespread exposure of antivirus weaknesses resulting in a wave of next-generation endpoint security deployment as well as industry innovation and funding (i.e. Bit9 + Carbon Black, Countertack, CrowdStrike, Cylance, Invincea, SentinelOne, etc.). Based upon these trends and my research, I believe that 2016 will be a big year for next-generation endpoint security on both the demand and supply side. In the meantime, Ill be presenting the results of ESGs next-generation endpoint security research at the RSA Security Conference, on Thursday March 3. LOOKING TOWARD THE FUTURE Privacy Overview This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful. Reporter Tim Mitchell is a reporter at The News-Gazette. His email is tmitchel@news-gazette.com, and you can follow him on Twitter (@mitchell6). Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. One of Editor & Publishers 10 That Do It Right 2021 A multi-disciplinary team of researchers has developed a new diagnostic test that can change the medical landscape by making it possible for patients to quickly determine if they are infected with an illness, using a simple paper test sensitive enough to detect markers of various illnesses using minute amounts of blood, sweat, or other biological material. The test, developed by biochemists, engineers and chemists at McMaster University, features an all-inclusive patch of reactive material, or reagent, printed on paper that changes colour to indicate the presence of a biological marker for a specific bacterium, virus, or even cancer. "It's a very simple device that anyone can use," says Yingfu Li, a professor of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences at McMaster and one of the authors of a new paper in the German chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie. "There's a huge need for this type of technology." Li explains that the platform can be manufactured cheaply, and easily formulated to detect biological markers for a huge range of illnesses. Only a tiny sample of blood, sweat or other fluid is required, since the test works by detecting and amplifying the target DNA or RNA sequence in a sample. A single molecule of the target can be multiplied thousands of times, producing a visible result. Conceivably, a user could swab a doorknob or dip it in a toilet bowl to test for Ebola, for example. The test is the latest in a series of related developments to emerge from the Biointerfaces Institute, whose mission is to create useful new substances that combine biological agents and physical materials. "The new test involves printing of all required components needed to amplify a DNA or RNA target directly on paper," says the institute's director, John Brennan. "The user only needs to add the sample to the paper and wait a few minutes for a color to develop." The test material is suspended in pullulan, a naturally derived polymeric sugar that is also the platform for the familiar Listerine breath strips. Pullulan allows the testing materials to remain viable for months until used. The new test, which could be commercialized quickly, the researchers say, can diagnose infections even before patients feel symptoms. During cold season, for example, patients could save trips to the doctor and exposing the public by testing themselves at home. The test can also quickly differentiate between illnesses that share similar symptoms, such as headache, fever or diarrhea, permitting a quick diagnosis and earlier treatment. Because it is portable, inexpensive and requires no other equipment, the technology - which can be printed on paper by an inkjet printer - could be used in many environments, such as homes and airports, and in remote locations. Results from the TRAPID-AMI clinical study have been published online by the Annals of Emergency Medicine, confirming a novel approach for a more rapid diagnosis of heart attack in patients with acute chest pain. The strategy is based on the cardiac troponin T high-sensitivity test from Roche and reduces the observation time needed to rule-in or rule-out a heart attack from 3-6 hours to just 1 hour. It is well established that a fast and reliable diagnosis of heart attack is critical because every hour of delay from the onset of symptoms to treatment increases the mortality risk. Thanks to this new approach, we can now shorten the time to heart attack diagnosis for millions of patients presenting in emergency rooms with acute chest pain all over the world, Patients no longer have to wait for three or more hours in the emergency department, not knowing whether they have an acute, life-threatening disease or if their chest pain is caused by other reasons. Christian Mueller, professor of cardiology at the University of Basel, Switzerland, one of the studys principal investigators. Every minute counts A heart attack, or acute myocardial infarction (AMI), is a common cardiac event in which the blood supply to an area of the heart muscle is interrupted, causing the muscle cells to die. Prompt treatment is essential as every 30 minutes of delay increases the relative risk of mortality by 7.5 % in patients with AMI. Patients with chest pain and other symptoms suggestive of AMI account for approximately 10-20% of all emergency room consultations and every 43 seconds, someone in the United States will have a heart attack. Troponin is a heart muscle protein that is released into the blood stream during a heart attack. A limitation of the earlier generations of blood tests was the time required to detect the troponin release, sometimes requiring up to six hours with less sensitive troponin tests. The mortality rate of heart attacks is highest within hours of onset, so an early diagnosis and initiation of treatment greatly impacts outcome and potentially saves lives. The European Society of Cardiology adopted this accelerated diagnostic concept at their annual meeting held in London (UK) in August 2015. Their new clinical practice guidelines (2015 ESC NSTEMI) now support the 1-hour diagnostic algorithm with high-sensitive troponin testing validated in the TRAPID-AMI study. Delhi Likely to Be in Grip of Smog in Next 3 Days, Punjab Fails to Douse Farm Fires; GRAP 2 Enforced BMW has announced that this car will be sent to various markets but hasn't specified which ones. We don't expect the Bavarian to include India as one of those various markets. In you, O Lord, do I take refuge; let me never be put to shame! In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline your ear to me, and save me! Be to me a rock of refuge, to which I may continually come; you have given the command to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress. Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man. For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth. Upon you I have leaned from before my birth; you are he who took me from my mother's womb. My praise is continually of you. I have been as a portent to many, but you are my strong refuge. My mouth is filled with your praise, and with your glory all the day. Do not cast me off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength is spent. For my enemies speak concerning me; those who watch for my life consult together and say, God has forsaken him; pursue and seize him, for there is none to deliver him. O God, be not far from me; O my God, make haste to help me! May my accusers be put to shame and consumed; with scorn and disgrace may they be covered who seek my hurt. But I will hope continually and will praise you yet more and more. My mouth will tell of your righteous acts, of your deeds of salvation all the day, for their number is past my knowledge. With the mighty deeds of the Lord God I will come; I will remind them of your righteousness, yours alone. O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come. Your righteousness, O God, reaches the high heavens. You who have done great things, O God, who is like you? You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again. You will increase my greatness and comfort me again. I will also praise you with the harp for your faithfulness, O my God; I will sing praises to you with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel. My lips will shout for joy, when I sing praises to you; my soul also, which you have redeemed. And my tongue will talk of your righteous help all the day long, for they have been put to shame and disappointed who sought to do me hurt. The film has as many as 20 characters in pivotal roles and interestingly there is no one who plays the lead role. Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! Already a Subscriber? Already a Subscriber? Sign in Terms of Service Privacy Policy The newspaper that became The News & Advance was first published 150 years ago today, on Jan. 15, 1866, less than a year after the end of the Civil War. It was the newest of the towns several daily newspapers, which shuffled owners and editors like cards. By 1895, it would absorb or outlast all the others. The Daily News, as it was first called, was founded by an unlikely triumvirate a lawyer, a doctor and a printer. The printer was Albert Waddill, who would go on to own the paper outright and publish it until 1887, when he sold it to his editor, Carter Glass. The doctor, Robert E. Withers, recalled the founding of the paper in his 1907 Autobiography of an Octogenarian. Withers, who lived in Danville, was passing through Lynchburg when he encountered a boyhood friend, Edward D. Christian, a lawyer, on the street in late 1865. Lynchburg, still occupied by U.S. troops, was in the midst of reviving itself from the war. Newspaper advertising was booming as new and re-opened businesses vied for public attention. Two newspapers, the Daily Virginian and its rival, the Republican, had resumed publication. Christian told Withers he was starting a new newspaper, likely to take advantage of the advertising market. He already had one partner, Waddill, the longtime chief printer of the Daily Virginian, who was jumping ship to the new paper. Waddill started at the Virginian as a printers apprentice when he was 14 in 1829. But Christian also needed an editor and he thought Withers fit the bill, despite Withers utter lack of experience in journalism. He had a medical degree from the University of Virginia. Nonetheless, Withers agreed, partly because he had just gotten into debt buying a farm in Russell County. They hoped to launch The Daily News on Jan. 8, 1866, from their second-floor office on Market Street, now Ninth Street. They missed that first deadline by a week. The four-page newspaper cost five cents. A years subscription was $8. Withers was a Confederate veteran who had been severely wounded. The lead story on the front page on Jan. 15, 1865 was a reprint of a letter from rebel general Jubal Early, who was on the run in Havana, bound for Mexico City. Early, later a longtime Lynchburg resident, wrote rumors he had taken the oath of allegiance to the United States were untrue. He described in great detail how his troops were outnumbered by U.S. forces during his fights in the Shenandoah. Also published on the front was a letter from Varina Davis, wife of former Confederate president Jefferson Davis, and a story on the doings of the U.S. Congress. The first front page also provided a guide to railroad schedules; a directory of churches; a directory of local lawyers; eight other small local advertisements; three state and national news briefs; two sarcastic, short, non-local commentaries; and two short filler items on artificial ivory and Chinese art. Also on the front was a lament about the trouble and toil involved in editing a newspaper, which Withers was learning first hand as he noted in the papers first editorial, published on the second of its four pages. In the editorial, Withers wrote he would devote all his energies to aid the holy work of re-establishing the Old Dominion to her former greatness, or rebuilding her waste places, and once more restoring prosperity and happiness to her now-suffering people That involved disparaging and mocking the citys African-American population, with individuals described as lazy and animalistic, crowding the streets and causing problems. Actually, Withers acknowledged, some former slaves were declining to sign labor contracts for longer than a month. Hundreds of others in Central Virginia had agreed to work for even longer than that, according to the Freedmans Bureau. A poem published on Page 4 in the first edition of The News was a takeoff on Edgar Allen Poes The Raven, titled The Blackbird. It told of an untrustworthy black man, using the n-word instead of the raven in the famous lines like, Quote the raven, nevermore. The Virginia elite feared the power black residents could wield if they were treated as equals. A couple of years later, Withers was asked to run for governor. About the campaign, he wrote, I told them I cared not a jot whether they were Whigs or Democrats, Unionists or Secessionists, all I asked of them was to show by their votes that they were white men, willing to stand with white men in driving back the horde of blacks and their Carpet Bag allies who wished to rule Virginia. The response to this appeal was always prompt, enthusiastic and decided. Withers ended up withdrawing from the race and leaving the paper in 1868 to become a full-time farmer in Russell County. In addition to serving in the U.S. Senate, he later was lieutenant governor of Virginia and U.S. consul in Hong Kong. Christian had sold his interest in the paper a year after it was founded, and Waddill soon became the sole owner. The local and state editor was John G. Perry. The format of Lynchburg newspapers of 1866 was very different than that of today. They were generally only four pages, because those four pages comprised only one sheet of paper, printed front and back, and folded once. Mechanical typesetting had not been invented. The Daily News printed six columns per page, with most headlines only one column. The only illustrations were occasional small logos called cuts because they were produced using an image cut into wood blocks in some of the advertisements. The editors of this era were local political figures and public officials. R.H. Glass was mayor of Lynchburg; his son and later owner of The News, Carter Glass, was clerk of Lynchburg City Council. Withers later became a U.S. senator from Virginia, as did the younger Glass, who authored the Federal Reserve Act. Thomas Whitehead, the first editor of The Daily Advance, had served in Congress. Judging from the content and local emphasis of the first edition, Waddill may have brought some of the news staff of the Daily Virginian with him to The News in 1866. The Daily Virginians daily column of local news had disappeared from its pages, with a similar column appearing in The News. By 1875, The News was the citys dominant newspaper, with a mailed circulation of 1,325, compared to 474 for the Virginian, 525 for the Republican, and 135 for the tiny Press. (These official post office statistics, published in The News, apparently dont include street sales or any newspapers not mailed.) In 1880, The Daily Advance, the citys longtime afternoon paper, was founded by Whitehead, then editor of The News, and prior to that founder of the Amherst Enterprise (now the New Era-Progress). That same year, Waddill hired Carter Glass, the son of R.H. Glass, as a reporter at The News. Carter Glass became editor of The News in 1885 the same year his father became editor of The Daily Advance and then bought it from Waddill in 1888. He bought The Daily Advance in 1895, merging the business operations, but keeping news and editorial separate. The Glass family continued to own The News and The Daily Advance until selling to Worrell Newspapers in 1979. Media General purchased the paper in 1995; The News & Advance was purchased by Berkshire-Hathaway Inc. in 2012. Sources: Files of The News & Advance; The History of Lynchburg Virginia 1786-1946 by Philip Lightfoot Scruggs; Lynchburg and Its People by C. Asbury Christian; Sketches and Recollections of Lynchburg by the Oldest Inhabitant by Margaret A. Cabell; Lynchburg and Its Neighbors by Rosa Faulkner Yancey; Lynchburg, Virginia - The First Two Hundred Years 1786-1986 by James M. Elson; Autobiography of an Octogenarian by Robert Withers. NEW YORK Wal-Mart is closing 269 stores, more than half of them in the U.S. and another big chunk in its challenging Brazilian market. The stores being shuttered account for a fraction of the company's 11,000 stores worldwide and less than 1 percent of its global revenue. The closures will affect 16,000 workers, 10,000 of them in the U.S. The announcement comes three months after its CEO Doug McMillon told investors the world's largest retailer would review its store fleet in amid increasing competition from all fronts, including from online rival Amazon.com. In the U.S., 154 locations will be closed, most of them small format stores called Walmart Express, which were launched as a test program in 2011. The remaining 115 locations to close are spread over Latin America, mostly in Brazil. No stores are expected to close in Virginia, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman told the Richmond Times-Dispatch on Friday morning. Carib launches app They are much more users of multi-channel media, they are challenging our marketing or branding messages, and becoming far less loyal, he said. Forte said, the Carib Brewery has been dependent on consumer inside information through marketing databases and records to understand what their consumers want and do not want. New digital channels and social media in particular are generating fast amounts of unstructured data, and about consumer behaviour and opinions, and this big data complements and rather replaces traditional data, all of these things lead to one important aspect, and that is consumer engagement, and that is where the Carib mobile application platform touches our consumers, he said. Forte said the application allows Carib to engage with consumers on a different level, and provides real time information to their valuable consumers. Carib Brewery partnered with Trend Media, the media solutions division of Digicel Group, to create the application. Country Manager of Trend Media, Vindra Dhanraj said the future of digital development was in mobile through unique platforms like Carib mobile application. She explained the application allows Carib fans the opportunity to showcase their enjoyment with Carib Beer, while earning rewards through engaging and sharing their experiences. She said the mobile site was adaptive for the mobile user to ensure the best user experience. Unlike the traditional application, Dhanraj said there would be no need to download the Carib application. No need to wait for app version updates, the mobile site would have its unique html link that can be bookmarked onto the home screen on any type of mobile devices with browsing capability, she said. She added that Digicel subscribers would enjoy free data browsing on the Carib mobile site. TOFCO workers stage protest However, in an emailed response, Minister of Energy and La Brea MP, Nicole Olivierre, urged both workers and company officials to engage in a peaceful discussion to resolve the issue. I am aware that the workers at Tofco have stopped work in protest of HSE issues at the company. I sympathise with the workers. However, I consider this to be an industrial relations issue between the workers and the company, Olivierre stated. I understand that in the past, workers have made similar claims and the OSH Authorities have conducted investigations. I am also aware that the company sources 31 percent of its labour force from the community. I certainly want to urge both the workers and the company to sit down and have a peaceful discussion to resolve their issues, she added. Under brilliant sunshine and the watchful eyes of police officers yesterday morning, workers carrying placards, some of which read TOFCO refuse to buy proper PPE for workers, engaged in a noisy demonstration to highlight their issues. Workers representative, Clyde Charles, who is employed as a welder, described health and safety at the company as poor saying there were approximately five shock incidents on the Juniper project. He said severe shock incidents occur from poor grounding of the shock welds, and which can cause serious injury to welders. We have five shock incidents so far, we have indiscriminate sand-blasting being done, there was a contractor on the port on Saturday that had to shut down their operations because of the sand-blasting that was being emitted from this yard, Charles said, adding, In the night we have issues where workers working here, there is poor lighting, and also cranes being operated with no light on them. There was also an incident where a pin fell out from a crane and hit a guy in his head, and knocked him out. He had to be off of the job for awhile, he added. Asked why the workers engaged in that particular action yesterday, Charles said, in light of the present economic situation, we work on meagre wages, and if today or tomorrow, one of us get damaged due to the hazardous conditions, for example the sand blasting operations is silicon-based, which is a cancer causing agent, when we leave this job we basically wouldnt have enough to see about ourselves, so we need to see about our health and safety, that is paramount. This is not about money, we not fighting about money, Charles said, and pointed out that the workers were attempting to obtain representation by a trade union as the company was also attempting to get workers sign three months contracts. Workers are also fearful of a repeat of an incident which alleged occured in 2015 an involved the electrocution of two workers at the facility. Carnival artistes back TTPS iRoadsafe campaign The TTPS message to fete-goers this Carnival season, a police release said, is to party in groups, and should you drink, have a designated driver, or arrange for transportation services in an effort to reduce carnage on the nations roads. As of yesterday the road fatality count was six compared to three for the same period last year. The artistes are MTV and Soul Train award winner Bunji Garlin, Faye Ann Lyons-Alvarez, reigning chutney aoca monarch, Rikki Jai and groovy soca monarch for 2015 Olatunji Yearwood, Lyrical, Blaxx from the legendary band Roy Cape, and Crazy. The Wrong Mix: Alcohol & Lyrics iRoadsafe Public Awareness Campaign is a series of public service announcements that promote responsible alcohol consumption by fete-goers, and safe road use during this Carnival season. Several up and coming soca artistes, with popular 2016 releases, are also in the line-up including Nutron, Voice and Teddyson John of St Lucia. The campaign is also supported by Trinbago Unified Calypsonian Organisation, Copyright Music Organisation of Trinidad and Tobago, Arrive Alive, and Beverage Alcohol Alliance among others. stakeholders. Artistes support the initiative by lending their music and brand to the iRoadsafe message produced in the form of public service announcements. The Wrong Mix: Alcohol & Lyrics iRoadsafe Public Awareness Campaign was first introduced for Carnival 2015, and relaunched on December 2, 2015 before the hectic start of this Carnival season. US Military Really Didn't Want You to Know What's in New Washington Post Investigation Richard Masterson Convicted killer's lawyers pressing various appeals for man who is next on execution list Fresh from defeat in the state's top criminal appeals court and with execution looming, lawyers for Houston killer Richard Masterson are launching a flurry of state and federal appeals claiming their client is being sent to his death through legal, medical and judicial bungling. Masterson, 42, is to be executed next Wednesday for the January 2001 strangulation murder of Montrose professional female impersonator Darrin Honeycutt. Masterson is the first of nine convicted killers scheduled for execution at Texas' Huntsville death house in the first six months of 2016. On Monday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected a petition for Masterson that argued former Harris County assistant medical examiner Dr. Paul Shrode wrongly interpreted results of Honeycutt's autopsy, calling a likely natural death a homicide. The appeal also asserted that Masterson's confession to police was obtained while he was profoundly depressed as a result of withdrawal from addictive drugs. The court rejected the petition because its claims could have been presented earlier in the appeals process but did not rule on its merits. "It is always tough ... because one wants to always do the best possible work for the client," said Masterson attorney Patrick McCann. "We will continue to work for Mr. Masterson until the end, no matter what. This is the job." In a death row interview, Masterson said he "accepts responsibility" for his actions , but insisted "I never admitted I murdered anybody." "I feel pretty good," he said. "I'm ready to find out the outcome one way or the other. It's been a long road." Two additional petitions from McCann's legal team were in the hands of appellate judges Tuesday - one challenging the constitutionality of the Texas law protecting the identity of makers of the state's lethal injection drug, the second claiming a judge wronged Masterson by failing to tell jurors they could convict him of the lesser offense of felony murder. Additionally, Washington, D.C., lawyer Gregory Gardner was preparing an appeal to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. In a plea for clemency filed with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Gardner renewed the assertion that Shrode misinterpreted the Honeycutt autopsy, giving little emphasis to evidence that the victim suffered from serious heart disease. He also contends that Shrode's professional performance in jobs elsewhere led, in one case, to a commutation of a death sentence, and, in a second, his dismissal for falsifying his resume. "Because Richard's lawyers failed him at every stage, the court system will not provide relief to him based on insurmountable procedural obstacles," Gardner wrote. "His last chance is executive clemency. The governor is the last line of defense to stop the execution of an innocent, severely mentally ill man." In his recent interview, Masterson said he had met Honeycutt at a Montrose bar and accompanied him home to have sex. During intercourse, Honeycutt asked Masterson to apply pressure to his neck to enhance the erotic experience. After doing so, Honeycutt fell from the bed, conscious but not responding. After a few minutes, Masterson concluded the man was dead. Masterson said he fled the apartment - taking Honeycutt's car - because of his record of Texas and Georgia burglary convictions. Masterson said he never planned to rob Honeycutt, contending that the man's jewelry was present on the corpse when police arrived. After leaving Houston, Masterson traveled to Florida, where he was arrested. On the return trip to Houston, he confessed to his police escort. In the interview, Masterson complained that "Nobody wants to know the truth." He challenged the performance of his lawyers and told a convoluted tale of physical abuse at the hands of his father, sexual attacks by an older brother, multiple sexual escapades with married women and criminal arrests in five states. From early adolescence, he was a heavy user of addictive drugs. "It wasn't just the drugs," he said. "I was addicted to the whole life. Women and drugs. I thought I was God's gift to women." Both Masterson and his lawyers contend he was wronged by the criminal justice system. But, to an extent, Masterson played a role in his undoing. Testifying against counsel's recommendations in the punishment phase of his trial, Masterson conceded that he probably would become violent in prison. "Future dangerousness" is one of two special questions jurors must affirmatively answer in order to assess the death penalty. "I said that if I were attacked, I would fight with any means necessary," he said in the interview. A transcript of Masterson's testimony reveals he also told jurors they should sentence him to death "if they're following the law." Later, Masterson - as a result of profound depression, his lawyers claim - repeatedly wrote the court from death row, asking to be executed. He retracted the requests when prison doctors prescribed an anti-depressant. In his interview, Masterson said execution would "free me from hell." The bright spot in his life, he said, is his girlfriend, Renee, whom he met through a pen pal correspondence. "She's really special," he said. "It's a shame we met under these circumstances. What we share is real, honest and true." Masterson said he hopes "things work out." But if his appeals fail, he said, "I won't have tears dripping down my chest. I'll hold my head up and take it like a man." Source: Masterson found guilty of capital murder of Shane Honeycutt, set to die Jan. 20 Texas goes to the gurney Wednesday, Jan. 20, with its first execution of the calendar year. Set to die is Richard Allen Masterson, 43, who's spent the past 14 years on death row for the murder of Darin Shane Honeycutt. Masterson and Honeycutt knew each other for very little time. Fresh from defeat in the state's top criminal appeals court and with execution looming, lawyers for Houston killer Richard Masterson are launching a flurry of state and federal appeals claiming their client is being sent to his death through legal, medical and judicial bungling.Masterson, 42, is to be executed next Wednesday for the January 2001 strangulation murder of Montrose professional female impersonator Darrin Honeycutt. Masterson is the first of nine convicted killers scheduled for execution at Texas' Huntsville death house in the first six months of 2016.On Monday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected a petition for Masterson that argued former Harris County assistant medical examiner Dr. Paul Shrode wrongly interpreted results of Honeycutt's autopsy, calling a likely natural death a homicide. The appeal also asserted that Masterson's confession to police was obtained while he was profoundly depressed as a result of withdrawal from addictive drugs.The court rejected the petition because its claims could have been presented earlier in the appeals process but did not rule on its merits."It is always tough ... because one wants to always do the best possible work for the client," said Masterson attorney Patrick McCann. "We will continue to work for Mr. Masterson until the end, no matter what. This is the job."In a death row interview, Masterson said he "accepts responsibility" for his actions , but insisted "I never admitted I murdered anybody.""I feel pretty good," he said. "I'm ready to find out the outcome one way or the other. It's been a long road."Two additional petitions from McCann's legal team were in the hands of appellate judges Tuesday - one challenging the constitutionality of the Texas law protecting the identity of makers of the state's lethal injection drug, the second claiming a judge wronged Masterson by failing to tell jurors they could convict him of the lesser offense of felony murder.Additionally, Washington, D.C., lawyer Gregory Gardner was preparing an appeal to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. In a plea for clemency filed with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Gardner renewed the assertion that Shrode misinterpreted the Honeycutt autopsy, giving little emphasis to evidence that the victim suffered from serious heart disease.He also contends that Shrode's professional performance in jobs elsewhere led, in one case, to a commutation of a death sentence, and, in a second, his dismissal for falsifying his resume."Because Richard's lawyers failed him at every stage, the court system will not provide relief to him based on insurmountable procedural obstacles," Gardner wrote. "His last chance is executive clemency. The governor is the last line of defense to stop the execution of an innocent, severely mentally ill man."In his recent interview, Masterson said he had met Honeycutt at a Montrose bar and accompanied him home to have sex. During intercourse, Honeycutt asked Masterson to apply pressure to his neck to enhance the erotic experience. After doing so, Honeycutt fell from the bed, conscious but not responding. After a few minutes, Masterson concluded the man was dead. Masterson said he fled the apartment - taking Honeycutt's car - because of his record of Texas and Georgia burglary convictions.Masterson said he never planned to rob Honeycutt, contending that the man's jewelry was present on the corpse when police arrived. After leaving Houston, Masterson traveled to Florida, where he was arrested. On the return trip to Houston, he confessed to his police escort.In the interview, Masterson complained that "Nobody wants to know the truth."He challenged the performance of his lawyers and told a convoluted tale of physical abuse at the hands of his father, sexual attacks by an older brother, multiple sexual escapades with married women and criminal arrests in five states. From early adolescence, he was a heavy user of addictive drugs."It wasn't just the drugs," he said. "I was addicted to the whole life. Women and drugs. I thought I was God's gift to women."Both Masterson and his lawyers contend he was wronged by the criminal justice system. But, to an extent, Masterson played a role in his undoing.Testifying against counsel's recommendations in the punishment phase of his trial, Masterson conceded that he probably would become violent in prison."Future dangerousness" is one of two special questions jurors must affirmatively answer in order to assess the death penalty."I said that if I were attacked, I would fight with any means necessary," he said in the interview. A transcript of Masterson's testimony reveals he also told jurors they should sentence him to death "if they're following the law."Later, Masterson - as a result of profound depression, his lawyers claim - repeatedly wrote the court from death row, asking to be executed. He retracted the requests when prison doctors prescribed an anti-depressant.In his interview, Masterson said execution would "free me from hell."The bright spot in his life, he said, is his girlfriend, Renee, whom he met through a pen pal correspondence."She's really special," he said. "It's a shame we met under these circumstances. What we share is real, honest and true."Masterson said he hopes "things work out." But if his appeals fail, he said, "I won't have tears dripping down my chest. I'll hold my head up and take it like a man."Source: Houston Chronicle , Allan Turner, January 12, 2016Texas goes to the gurney Wednesday, Jan. 20, with its first execution of the calendar year. Set to die is Richard Allen Masterson, 43, who's spent the past 14 years on death row for the murder of Darin Shane Honeycutt. Masterson and Honeycutt knew each other for very little time. They met at a gay bar in Houston just before 2am on Jan. 26, 2001. Dressed in drag that night, Honeycutt introduced himself as Brandi Houston. He offered Masterson a ride home from the bar and on the way proposed that they go back to Honeycutt's apartment for the night. On the morning of Jan. 27, a friend, Larry Brown, coerced Honeycutt's landlord into letting him into the apartment, and found his friend Shane naked and not breathing on his bed. Masterson had stolen Honeycutt's car and hightailed to Georgia. He was later arrested in Florida picked up for stealing a second car and brought back to Harris County. Jurors reportedly took only 90 minutes to determine his sentence. Unquestioned during the trial was whether Masterson killed Honeycutt he admitted as much on his return to Houston. During an interrogation, in which no attorney was present, he allegedly "add[ed] elements that would elevate the case to capital murder," saying he'd rather die than serve a life sentence. But the way in which he killed his recent acquaintance and whether or not he intended to kill him was not so easily discernible. He said in a statement during the interrogation (which played to jurors at trial over objections from his attorney) that he killed Honeycutt by putting him into a sleeper hold as soon as the two undressed, and that he never actually planned to have sex with him that night. "Something just told me in my mind I said to myself that I was going to kill him," Masterson said. However, Masterson recanted on those statements in his trial testimony, saying that he lied about his actions because he was too embarrassed to tell the officer taking the confession that he planned to have sex with a man. Instead, he said, Honeycutt requested that Masterson choke him during sex. Something "went wrong" and Honeycutt fell forward, gurgling. Masterson said he got up and left the room; when he came back, Honeycutt was dead. The jurors didn't think long on Masterson's intentions, finding him guilty of capital murder. During the punishment phase, a litany of witnesses were brought out to testify to Masterson's violent past including accusations of domestic violence and reported incidents while incarcerated and the jury ruled that he represented a future danger to society. It did not help his cause that, against his attorneys' wishes, he testified that he would defend himself in prison, "whether it's against a guard or inmate or anybody else by any means necessary." Masterson had very little chance of winning his trial all along. In a Jan. 2012 letter written to his judge, Masterson claimed his attorneys had been assigned to his case only "a few weeks" before jury selection, and that the investigator hired to "ask questions about the deceased['s] background and sex practices" never questioned Masterson, among other concerns. A Dec. 2011 letter to that same judge elaborated further, listing a number of individuals charged with heinous crimes who received lesser sentences. "They all had good lawyers they paid," he wrote. "Poor people like me get death." Masterson has railed against his attorneys in letters and waffled on attempts to withdraw various petitions for relief. He's now represented by D.C. attorney Gregory Gardner, who on Dec. 21 filed an application requesting that Masterson be assigned to an expert doctor for a brain scan to determine whether he suffers from organic brain damage. That request was granted Dec. 22, giving Masterson 29 days to complete the necessary procedures. Gardner has not replied to the Chronicle's requests for updates. Masterson would be the 13th Texan executed under Gov. Greg Abbott's reign and the 532nd since the state's 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty. Six inmates are currently on the death row docket with set dates, including James Freeman on Wednesday, Jan. 27. Source: Austin Chronicle, Chase Hoffberger, January 15, 2016 I'm not sure where you're going with this thought as the quote is simply addressing the dangers of people relying on Government help without working and trying to provide for themselves and contribute to society. I believe the Bible passage you quoted to be more about letting go of items such as wealth that inhibit us from following Jesus with our whole heart rather than dictating how the poor are to be taken care of. The Bible is quite clear in both. The New Testament and the Old Testament that we are to work to provide for ourselves and our families. Here are just a couple quotes: 2 Thessalonians 3 10-12: For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. Proverbs 14:23: In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty. You cannot have successful people without poor. By what would you base the standards on to be considered either without the other? Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so. Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have. Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality, as it is written: The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little. And all that believed were together, and had all things in common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the apostles feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, (which is, being interpreted, The son of consolation,) a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus, Having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles feet. When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. Then the righteous will answer him, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you? The King will reply, I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me. Then he will say to those on his left, Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me. They also will answer, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you? He will reply, I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me. Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. Evangelical activists claiming Jesus for the Republican Party have finally met a zealous challenger. Combining the skills of a theologian with those of a political analyst, Hendricks sees little evidence that today's Republican leaders are upholding the Gospel ideals Jesus once taught. Indeed, while Hendricks adduces from the New Testament numerous indications that Jesus championed the oppressed and challenged the powerful, he interprets recent political events as proof that President Bush and his Republican allies have done just the opposite. In the president's frequent professions of Christian faith, Hendricks hears only the echoes of the corrupt triumphalism that the Roman emperor Constantine long ago substituted for the true gospel message. Even many Bush voters may concede the justice of this skeptical critique of right-wing Republican claims clothed in religious rhetoric. But many will balk when Hendricks himself drapes the mantle of Christian sanctity around the policies of FDR and LBJ. Despite his excesses, however, Hendricks provides a corrective to the religious partisanship of the Right. Bryce Christensen I have been pushing for Bernie Sanders with his Democratic Socialism. There has been quite a kickback from the very people who should be endorsing this position, right-wing Republican evangelical Christians. Here's a bit of what I've been saying in opposition to the conservative status quo.Bible quote: Jesus said, "if you wish to inherit my kingdom, go and sell all your possessions and give the profits to the poor, then come and follow me." (Matthew 19:21)Actual Christian response:John Loftus:First off, notice the radical individualism inherent with the misuse of these texts. This may be the over-all problem in America, an antiquated Westward-Ho individualism, and it's still here today. As far as charity and the government goes it's very clear Jesus would never have had a distinction between private and public ethics, nor private charity and governmental charity, nor a separation of church and state for that matter in his ideal kingdom--the one he hoped would be established in his lifetime. Any ethic he proposed would be for all kingdom people and the kingdom itself. That much is clear.It's also clear Jesus knew nothing about psychology, leading us to realize that people are not evil so much as influenced to do bad things by their DNA and their environment. There was no understanding from him that when people did bad things they did them based on subconscious forces largely beyond their control. If they disobeyed they were to be cast into hell, which is what they supposedly consciously chose over obedience and faith leading to heaven.So lazy people consciously choose to be lazy too, and should be left to starve to death because it's their choice, right? This ethic is out of step with all humanitarians and social workers that I know, and I know plenty of them. There are usually children involved. Should we refuse to provide for their parents and let their children starve?The bottom line is that Jesus was a socialist. The first church community in Acts shows us this. You don't like it because you are a Republican and that's it. You like the family values of that party so it makes you adopt the economics of that party too. There are plenty of moral conservatives that reject it on biblical grounds. They don't have a political party to defend since they don't like the moral positions of the democrats (I do). But at least they're being honest with the data on Jesus and socialism [See book recommendations below].Actual Christian response:John Loftus:Success isn't about being wealthy. I'm successful living on a pauper's income. If you mean we cannot have obscenely wealthy people without the poor, which is what we're really objecting to, I probably agree with you. No one should be obscenely wealthy when people suffer so much because they are wealthy. And even if it's possible, if the obscenely wealthy use their wealth inappropriately by buying the news media and our elections, then it is YOU who should want to strip them of this wealth. You have been bought through years of propaganda and don't realize it. You have become the pawn of the obscenely rich. Just look again at the societal health if these Nordic countries compared to yours. It's unbelievable you would be defending this.I find it also extremely bizarre that the GOP is defending the economics of poverty since they're also the party of evangelicals who believe the Bible. It's clear to me their views of the Bible have been bought. It is very odd given what we read about Jesus.We're told early Christians would rather die than deny their faith. Today's Christians, by contrast, have been bought for 30 pieces of silver. Other socialist passages in the Bible not to be dismissed:II Corinthians 8:10-15:Acts 2: 44, 45:Acts 4:32-37Be careful, conservative folks, Jesus said you would be judged by how you treat the poor and he made no distinction between the worthy and unworthy poor:Matthew 25:31-46:I suggest conservative Christians listen to their own conservative scholars:Ronald J. Sider, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus Oberly Hendricks, The Politics of Jesus: Rediscovering the True Revolutionary Nature of Jesus' Teachings and How They Have Been Corrupted This review of Hendricks book on Amazon: (Newser) People like to complain about their bosses, but maybe bosses are a necessary evil. Back in 2013, online retailer Zappos announced it was getting rid of managers and job titles in favor of a new work culture that sounds, frankly, a little work cultish. When the change actually came last March, 210 employees promptly left the company. Now, the New York Times reports that number has risen to 260or 18% of the Zappos workforce. Zappos executive Arun Rajan tells Quartz the majority of the recent deserters were managers. "As the company moves toward a system without traditional managers, this group of employees no longer filled crucial roles within the company," Quartz explains. Rajan says the company would have likely had to lay off some of the managers if they hadn't left voluntarily. The new management system installed by CEO Tony Hsieh is called holacracy and attempts to get rid of the bureaucracy that can hurt employee innovation, the Washington Post reports. According to the Times, many employees were excited to have more freedom within the company, but even Zappos' head of public relations acknowledged the change was "weird." The Post reports some of the innovations being floated under the new management structure include a Zappos airline and Zappos-branded porta-potties. While we have lost a number of folks, it is important to note that we have a significant group of highly talented individuals who will be staying to help move Zappos forward, the Times quotes a statement from Rajan. Employees who leave Zappos because of the new system are offered a buyout. (Read more Zappos stories.) (Newser) "If he can survive the remaining 340-some days of the year, he will definitely win the dumbest criminal of the year," Philly.com quotes police chief David Splain. The dumb criminal in question is Pennsylvania 17-year-old Jason Hayes, who is charged with kidnapping and robbing an old woman at gunpoint. Police say Hayes entered the victim's home through a window early Jan. 3 and woke her up by poking her with a gun, according to Fox 29. When she didn't have any cash to give him, he allegedly made her drive to an ATM, Philly.com reports. Police say he wanted $2,000, but the ATM would only let the victim withdraw $460. Hayes allegedly held the victim and her husband at gunpoint in their kitchen for another hour or so before telling the victim to meet him in a parking lot the following morning with $1,500. "Not that we would believe that a robber would have ever showed up for a scheduled appointment, but it was something we had to cover," Philly.com quotes Splain. Not only did Hayes show up, but he was wearing the exact same clothes the victims described from previous morning. Unfortunately for him, it was the police and not the victim who was waiting for him. According to Fox, Hayes allegedly had $363 and what appeared to be the victims' watch on him when he was arrested. Police say Hayes threatened to kill the couple multiple times, including if they went to the cops. They are "scared to death" of him. Hayes is facing 11 charges, including robbery and kidnapping, in connection with the incident. (Read more weird crimes stories.) (Newser) A San Francisco judge has denied a woman's request that he require a Catholic hospital to perform a tubal ligation to prevent pregnancy. Superior Court Judge Ernest Goldsmith on Thursday upheld his previous tentative ruling that Mercy Medical Center in Redding, California, was not engaging in sex discrimination by denying Rebecca Chamorro the procedure. The judge said the hospital's policy against sterilization also applies to men and that Chamorro could get the procedure at another hospital. Mercy Medical Center said the procedure conflicts with the hospital's religious beliefs against sterilization. Health care provider Dignity Health, which operates Mercy Medical, also says the tubal ligation Chamorro seeks is not medically necessary and would violate the hospital's right to freedom of religion. (Read more California stories.) (Newser) Carly Fiorina came blazing out of the gate during the GOP presidential undercard debate Thursday, delivering backhanded compliments to her two male rivals and a not-subtle swipe at Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton for her husband's infidelities. She first said she is "honored" to be onstage with Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, "two former Iowa caucus winners." The clear implication: Neither man's presidential ambitions have survived the nomination process, leaving them on the 2016 undercard stage in the lower tier of candidates. Then she took a shot at the only other woman in the race. Fiorina sniped, "Unlike another woman in this race, I actually love spending time with my husband." The debate between three of the lowest-polling GOP presidential candidates took place at the North Charleston Coliseum in South Carolina and featured Fiorina, Huckabee, and Santorum. As for Rand Paul? He skipped the forum after being barred from the prime-time debate. Instead, he's inviting viewers to watch his national town hall online. "The revolution will not be televised," he tweeted. "Turn off your TV, watch the real discussion." (Read more Carly Fiorina stories.) (Newser) Donald Trump didn't hesitate when asked whether he's had second thoughts about his proposed ban on Muslims entering the US. "No," he replied during Thursday night's debate. "We have to stop with political correctness." Trump said even some of his Muslim friends have called him and said it was a smart idea"I wonder if any of them will ever come forward publicly?" writes Russell Berman at the Atlanticand he emphasized that he's called for a temporary ban, not a permanent one. "I want security for this country," he said. "I'm tired of seeing what's going on." Jeb Bush interjected and reiterated the same description of the idea he issued the first time around: "unhinged." Among other things, the ban would make it impossible for the US to work with Arab allies to defeat ISIS, said Bush. "I hope you'll reconsider." Chris Christie added: "You cant just ban all Muslims. You have to ban the radical Islamic jihadists," reports the Guardian. (Read more Donald Trump 2016 stories.) Health workers as they spray the body of a amputee suspected of dying from the Ebola virus with disinfectant, in a busy street in Monrovia, Liberia. (Photo: AP) Freetown: The World Health Organisation on Friday confirmed a new death from Ebola in Sierra Leone, a day after West Africa celebrated halting the spread of the virus. "We can confirm the Ebola case in Sierra Leone," the WHO said in a statement, after a 22-year-old female student was taken ill near the Guinean border and died three days ago, with an initial swab testing positive for Ebola. Francis Langoba Kelly, spokesman for the Office of National Security, told local radio Friday that tests on a woman who died in the country's north earlier this month were positive for the virus. Kelly said the country's level of preparedness is high and there is no cause for concern. Nearly 4,000 people died before Sierra Leone was first declared free from transmission Nov. 7. Guinea marked that day on Nov. 29. Liberia had been declared Ebola-free twice before Thursday. Officials warned flare-ups were possible. Ebola has killed more than 11,300 people, mostly in West Africa, since it emerged at the end of 2013. (Newser) It was human error, not mechanical trouble, that led to 10 US service members being detained by Iran after straying into its waters, according to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. "They obviously had misnavigated," he told reporters on Thursday, per the AP. "They did not report this navigational error at the time. It may be that they were trying to sort it out at the time they encountered Iranian boats." The two small US Navy boats had been on their way from Kuwait to Bahrain and a defense source tells CNN that the engine trouble one boat was experiencing wasn't the reason they were off course, but made it impossible to get back to international waters quickly when they encountered Iranian boats near Farsi Island, which hosts an Iranian naval base. The sailors were handed back to the US after being held overnight and Carter says they are still being debriefed. Asked about Iranian video of the sailors kneeling on their boats, he said: "Obviously I don't like to see our people being detained by a foreign military," the AP reports. Other officials say the boats were returned, apparently with all their equipment intact. Experts are wondering whether it was the crew or somebody higher up the chain of command behind the blunder. "This was a debacle," a retired admiral with Persian Gulf experience tells the New York Times. "The Iranians closely monitor their territorial waters, their airspace, and their land borders. We have standard operating procedures to avoid incidents like this, and they obviously werent followed here." (Read more Iran stories.) (Newser) The man accused of killing American expatriate Ashley Ann Olsen says he last saw her alive. His lawyer, Antonio Voce, says Cheik Tidiane Diaw met Olsen at a nightclub, then visited her apartment in the early hours of Jan. 8 where the pair had consensual sex while drunk and high on cocaine. Voce says Olsen eventually asked the Senegalese migrant to leave, fearing her boyfriend would show up, and pushed him toward the door, reports NBC News. Angry that she was treating him "like a dog," Diaw punched Olsen in the back of the head or neck, Voce says, per the Guardian and Telegraph. Voce suspects Olsen fractured her skull at some point during the resulting shoving match. Diaw allegedly told police he pushed Olsen to the ground, causing her to hit her head. Voce says Diaw never actually strangled Olsen, though Diaw reportedly told police he did pick her up by her neck to put her on the bed. Prosecutor Giuseppe Creazzo believes Diaw may have unintentionally strangled Olsen, perhaps while trying to revive her after she hit her head, reports the Daily Beast. However, when Diaw left, Voce says Olsen was on the bed moaning that she didn't feel well. "He did not want to kill her or hurt her," he says. Diaw is believed to have illegally joined his brother in Italy recently, and made money handing out nightclub flyers. He is now charged with aggravated murder. A funeral for Olsen is scheduled for Friday. "She was a beautiful and creative young woman with a happy, exuberant and generous soul," her father says. "We are heartbroken that she was taken from us." (Read more Ashley Ann Olsen stories.) (Newser) The parents of a 16-year-old girl in Texas say she's recovering at home after giving birth in a high school bathroom. A janitor found a baby's body in a bathroom at South Houston High School around 9pm on Wednesday and school officials used surveillance footage to identify the mother, who was then given medical care, reports KHOU. The mother of the teen says neither she nor her daughter were aware of the pregnancy, which the mother suspects is the product of a relationship the girl had with a 23-year-old man who was subsequently reported to police. Their daughter and the man ran away together in August after meeting at a party; the girl returned home two days later and her parents filed a police complaint. Houston police say a sexual assault investigation remains open in that case. Some media outlets, including ABC 13, reported that the baby was stillborn, citing a Pasadena School District rep. However, "we do not know the gestational age of the fetus or whether the baby was born alive or not," a rep tells the Houston Chronicle. Police say the teen could face charges depending on the results of an autopsy. (Read more Texas stories.) (Newser) A drug trial in France has gone horribly wrong, leaving one healthy volunteer brain-dead; three other men may have suffered irreversible brain damage, another has "neurological problems," and a sixth is hospitalized with less severe problems, reports AP. Details on what happened, including what drug was being tested and its manufacturer, remain under wraps. One thing that is known: No treatment is available. Early reports in France suggested it was a cannabis-based painkiller, reports the Guardian, but the health ministry has denied that. The AP describes it as some kind of "painkiller compound." Testing was being conducted by the French company Biotrial, a veteran player in the industry, at a clinic in Rennes. All 90 volunteers who took the drug were healthy before the trial started, reports the BBC. Those hospitalized range in age from 28 to 49 and began taking the drug on Jan. 7. Health Minister Marisol Touraine promised to "get to the bottom... of this tragic accident" and said she's been "overwhelmed" by the tragic turn for participants. "Their lives have been brutally turned upside down." The study had been in phase one, in which volunteers take the drug orally to evaluate its effectiveness and side effects. A message on Biotrial's website states that "serious adverse events" occurred and says that international regulations "were followed at every stage throughout the trial, in particular the emergency procedures for the transfer of subjects to the hospital." (Read more drug trials stories.) (Newser) Some prisoners in Russia are facing a harsh new rule: no swearing. Citing an Interfax report, the New York Times reports that socializing with other individuals using lewd, threatening, demeaning, or slanderous expressions or slang is now a no-no at pretrial detention centers, where detainees often live in large communal cells (up to 80 inmates) for long periods of time. The specific target of the rule is "fenya""the language of the camps and prisons," according to a 2002 Moscow Times report that details how the thousands-of-words-strong "bandit slang" language was developed over decades and has infiltrated everyday language in Russia. How the anti-cussing regulation will be enforced is unclear, Mashable reports. The prison profanity ban is just the latest crackdown on unsavory speech in Russia, which, per the Times, has taken a hard right turn under President Putin. A couple of years ago, Mashable reports, a similar rule was imposed that prohibited prison guards from using fenya with one another or with inmates. And a 2014 law established fines ranging from $70 to $1,400 for people and organizations that violate an accompanying ban on foul language in films, TV broadcasts, theaters, and other media, the BBC reports. Under the law, products and productions with bad words must include warnings to consumers. (Read more Russia stories.) (Newser) Three winning tickets for the $1.586 billion Powerball jackpot were announced after Wednesday night's drawing, one of them in Tennesseeand a family from the Volunteer State volunteered the info that they're the winning clan on the Today show Friday morning, per Today.com. "I was on [my] way home from work, and [my wife] had called me and said, 'Are you going to stop and get a couple lottery tickets?'" John Robinson, a maintenance distribution center worker from Munford, explained on the show. He says he didn't feel like it, but obliged anyway, buying four Quick Pick tickets at a local food mart. John wasn't feeling great that night, so he went to lie down while wife Lisa, who works in a dermatologist's office, stayed up late to watch the drawing. Fast-forward to her waking him up. "We were up all night. We didn't get [any] sleep," Lisa told Today. As for the couple's next move, "I knew that I wanted to get an accountant ... [and] a lawyer and try to follow the procedures that they tell you to follow," says John. Among those procedures, per Tennessee law, is for the person who purchased the ticket to go to lottery offices with the ticket and an ID, Today.com notessomething the Robinsons said they'd do after the Today show. So why go on national TV first? The couple, who have a son and a daughter, say a Memphis estate and tax attorney they reached out to about their windfall thought it was a great idea. "I think the American public wants to hear from them, and even though they want to be private after this is over, they want to let the public know that they're the winners," the attorney said on the show. Tennessee lottery officials did confirm one of the winning tickets was sold at the food mart where John says he bought his tickets, per Reuters. (This had better not be another awful Powerball prankor a heartbreaking mistake.) (Newser) Moviegoers in Urbandale, Iowa, can take in the movie 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi for free Friday night courtesy of Donald Trump. He's rented out space at the Carmike Cobblestone 9 Theatre and anyone who RSVPs can attend the 6pm showing free. That's an $8 value, the Des Moines Register reports. "Mr. Trump would like all Americans to know the truth about what happened at Benghazi, his Iowa co-chair tells the Register. The film, often referred to as "the Benghazi movie," depicts the Sept. 11, 2012, raid on the US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, in which US Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed. The filmmakers insist that it has no political agenda, Variety reports, saying it makes no mention of Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state when the events unfolded and has been criticized for her handling of the situation. However, Variety notes, "Conservative media for weeks has been abuzz about how the movie may impact Clintons presidential hopes." And Trump isn't the only candidate talking about 13 Hours. During Thursday's Republican debate, the Guardian reports, candidate Ted Cruz plugged the film: "Tomorrow morning a new movie will debut about the incredible bravery of the men fighting for their lives in Benghazi and the politicians that abandoned them," he said. During the debate, per the Register, Jeb Bush raised the specter of Benghazi when he claimed a Clinton presidency would be "a national security mess" as she would "continue down the path of Benghazi." Cruz, the Register reports, is leading Trump in Iowa by three points, according to its own polling. As for how to attend Trump's free showing, good luck: The New York Daily News notes that no one answered the contact number Trump's co-chair tweeted out, 515-267-9191. (Read more Donald Trump stories.) The latest cover of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is drawing criticism for linking the European migrant crisis to spate of sexual assaults during New Year through the death of Alan Kurdi. According to Newsweek, a cartoon in the magazine depicts a man chasing a woman and asks 'What would little Aylan have grown up to be? Groper in Germany'. Kurdi, the 3-year-old Syrian boy who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, became the face of the migrant crisis after he was discovered facedown, motionless. Identified later as Alan, the boy's family was on a boat trying to crossover illegally into Greece from Turkey. The magazine's cartoon depicts an illustration of a famous photo of Kurdi lying dead and shows the chasing scene. During New Year revelries in Cologne, Germany, several women claimed to have been attacked or sexually assaulted by men with African and Asian appearance. Immediate reactions to the cartoon included anger and allegations of racism. Several people tweeted termed the cartoon disgusting. Charlie Hebdo has made headlines in the past for its provocative cartoons. Last year, the magazine was targeted by militants who shot and killed 11 of its employees, CNN reports. Many who criticized the magazine for its cartoon on Kurdi said they doubt if they would continue to express solidarity with the publication. The Duggars may face another bombshell as it was recently reported that Anna Duggar is pregnant for her fifth child with Josh Duggar while he is inside a Christian facility. "Anna announced that she thinks she is pregnant again. She believes the baby is a sign that God has forgiven Josh for his many sins, and she's vowed to stand by her husband," a source close to the family said in a report from Radar Online. Josh Duggar had his very serious, life-changing confession last April when he confessed having molested five members of the Duggar when he was still five years old. He was also found out to have porn addiction and has accounts in the cheating site, Ashley Madison in August. "I have secretly over the last several years been viewing pornography on the internet and this became a secret addiction and I became unfaithful to my wife," he once admitted publicly as mentioned in a report by IB Times. Since then, Anna Duggar made frequent visits in the Reformers Unanimous facility in Rockford, Illinois. The most recent was on Christmas. "Everyone just had fun and seemed to be high spirits, including Anna," a source once said. The Duggars have not made an official statement about Anna's pregnancy rumors and have not mentioned about it in their recent Facebook posts that are filled with throwback pictures. Meanwhile, a month after Jill and Jessa's Counting On spinoff got finished, the Duggars are seen with cameramen in Arkansas alerting rumors that the family is on for another spinoff. Fans, however, are kind of frustrated not seeing Jill Dillard or Jessa Seewald (said to be in Guatemala) for the filming, according to Inquistr. Brad Pitt and Angeliina Jolie may be divorcing soon even with the actor's efforts to regain the spark in their marriage. In the recent rumors mentioned in IB Times, a source said that the World War Z actor is trying to please his wife by bringing her to an exotic vacation in Southeast Asia which, unfortunately, ended up as a disaster. "He hoped that he and Angie could reignite the spark between them, but all they did was scream at each other. Angie even humiliated Brad by telling him she's no longer attracted to him because he looks fat, bloated and old. It got so bad at one point that Angie bolted and ran off!" the source said. Brad did not lose hope on the first attempt and tried another strategy so that they can have quality time with their six kids. This time, he brought and pampered them in Thailand. "Despite a luxurious holiday that cost $1 million, Brad and Angie are worse off than ever. The vacation solidified the belief that their marriage is beyond repair. A divorce is definitely coming this year." It was said that the connection between the A-list couple started to waned when Brad caught Anjie flirting with one of their crew during the filming of First You Killed My Father. Photos of the flirting incident also got viral which prompted the actor to immediately fly to Thailand and confront his wife about the issue, Radar reported. Since then, their relationship was never the same. "Brad was ready to fly back to Los Angeles and file divorce papers. But a few friends and his parents begged him to make one last try to save the marriage," the source said. Meanwhile, the Pitts have recently made headlines when they helped the impoverished Shoun family with thirteen children at the slum district of Mundal Bai in the town of Siem Reap, according to New York Daily News. Siblings Shiloh and Zahara are said to have donated $200 worth of new clothes while Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie bought two new bikes for the family. ISIS 'have proven that they offer nothing, no alternative but their own destruction,' John Kerry said. (Photo: AFP) London: US Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday condemned the ISIS-linked attacks in Jakarta, saying the group was merely inviting "its own destruction". "There is nothing in any act of terror that offers anything but death," Mr Kerry told journalists in London following a meeting with Saudi counterpart Adel al-Jubeir. The US politician stressed that terror attacks would not "intimidate nation-states from protecting their citizens and continuing to provide real opportunity, education, jobs, possibilities of a future," and only strengthened resolve to defeat the group. ISIS "have proven that they offer nothing, no alternative but their own destruction," he said. "If that's the choice they leave us, we're going to do what's necessary," he added. Five extremists launched Thursday's assault in the heart of the Indonesian capital, detonating explosives and shooting at people in a district packed with malls, embassies and United Nations offices, killing at least two people. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir added: "We condemn the terrorist attacks that occurred in Jakarta. "If anything it should strengthen our resolve to work effectively together to combat the scourge of terrorism," he said. Republican Senator Lindsay Graham from South Carolina has officially endorsed Jeb Bush for the GOP presidential nomination on Friday just hours after Thursday night's presidential primary debate. "I have concluded without any hesitation, without any doubt, that Jeb Bush is ready on day one to be commander in chief," Graham, who dropped out of the race late last year, said. "He understands that America can't go it alone, but of all the others, he understands how to bring the world on board." Graham specifically praised the Florida governor for arguing against frontrunner Donald Trump's stance on enforcing a temporary ban on Muslims from entering the U.S. "Last night I heard from Jeb Bush the right answer. We cannot and should not declare war on a religion," Graham said. "The thing I admire most about Jeb is that he stayed true to who he is, that he hasn't tried to get ahead in a contested primary by throwing dangerous rhetoric around." Graham did not outwardly criticize any of the other candidates during his endorsement. Instead, Graham praised several of the other candidates, who included New Jersey governor Chris Christie, Ohio Governor John Kasich and Florida senator Marco Rubio. "Well, Marco's been great on national security," Graham said. "Jeb's plan is basically my plan." Graham added that although he and Bush do not agree on every front when it comes to immigration, he believes that Bush has "got the right attitude." "I think he's open-minded to a pathway to citizenship fi that's the will of the Congress," Graham said. Bush responded to the endorsement by saying to Graham, "I am honored to be your student. I will continue tot seek out your advice." Graham also believes that Bush has the best chances of beating the Democratic frontrunner, Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump responded to the endorsement by belittling Graham's run for presidency. "Sen. Lindsey Graham embarrassed himself with his failed run for President and now further embarrasses himself with endorsement of Bush," Trump's tweet read. Trump had also tweeted, "Jeb Bush, who did poorly last night in the debate, and whose chances of winning are zero, just got Graham endorsement. Graham quit at 0." With Graham's endorsement, Bush could have secured South Carolina, which is due to vote on Feb. 20. Lahore: Pakistans Punjab province Law Minister Rana Sanaullah today confirmed that banned Jaish-i-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar has been taken into protective custody along with his accomplices, but clarified he is not arrested. Masood Azhar has been taken into protective custody by the Punjab police counter-terrorism department, Sanaullah told Dawn News. Earlier, the government chose not to confirm or deny the reports that Azhar has been taken into protective custody. We have taken Maulana Azhar and his fellows under protective custody in connection with the Pathankot incident. However, we will arrest him if his involvement in the Pathankot attack is proved, Sanaullah said. He added that operation against banned outfits including JeM would continue under the National Action Programme. India has identified Azhar as the mastermind of the Pathankot attack on January 2. It has also blamed his brother Rauf and five others for carrying out the attack in which seven Indian soldiers were killed along with all the six terrorists. India has shared this information along with two Pakistani phone numbers that were made calls to by the terrorists. According to reports, security agencies have arrested 31 activists of JeM from different parts of the province. After a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif yesterday, his office issued a statement which said that several individuals belonging to JeM have been apprehended in connection with the Pathankot terror attack and some of its offices traced and sealed. Today, Pakistan said that the Indo-Pak Foreign Secretary-level talks will not take place tomorrow as scheduled. Foreign Office spokesman Qazi Khalilullah told a news briefing that both sides were holding consultations to reschedule the talks. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Peshawar: Over three years after an Indian engineer went missing in Pakistan where he had gone to meet a girl he had befriended on the internet, authorities have admitted that he has been in army custody and facing a trial in military courts. In a divisional bench of the Peshawar High Court, Deputy Attorney General Musarratullah presented a reply from the Ministry of Defence which stated that Nehal Hamid Ansari was being held by the army and would be tried by a military court, the Express Tribune reported. However, the official did not provide details what charges had been brought against 28-year-old Indian. On hearing this, the divisional bench disposed of the case. The case was heard for over 18 months before the government admitted that Ansari was being held in the country. Ansari had travelled to Afghanistan for job prospects back in November 2012, Qazi Muhammad Anwar, counsel for Ansaris mother Fauzia, had told the court. He had befriended a Kohat-based woman through social media and had crossed over into Pakistan from Afghanistan. He had been staying at a hotel in Kohat when police, assisted by the Intelligence Bureau officials, arrested him on November 12, 2012. The intelligence agencies arrested him from a hotel in Kohat and since then his family and friends have been unaware of his whereabouts, Anwar was quoted as saying by the paper. He added that as per a police inquiry report Ansari was being held by intelligence agencies. After Ansari went missing, his mother had filed a complaint at a police station in Mumbai. She had also contacted the Afghan consulate in the city. The petitioner subsequently sent an application to the human rights cell of the Supreme Court in Islamabad, which forwarded the case to the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances in March 2014, the paper said. In April, the commission directed the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Home and Tribal Affairs department to form a joint investigation team to trace Ansari. An FIR was subsequently lodged at the city police station in Karak district in connection with Ansaris missing. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Satirical French journal Charlie Hebdo is once again making worldwide headlines for all the wrong reasons. The French journal in its latest editiom have drawn a caricature of Aylan Kurdi, the three-year-old toddler who lost his life in a tragic boat sinking mishap. The newspaper has made an imaginary caricature that what Kurdi would have grown into after 20 years. The latest edition says that Aylan must have grown into a 23 old man who would have molested women Germany. The newspaper related the Aylans drowning incident to the one of molestation of several women in Germany by refugees. Aylans aunt raised serous objection over the caricature. The cartoon also drew criticism from people across the globe. Here is what people are commenting about the new cartoon. Hebdo - 'What would little Aylan have grown up to be? Ass groper in Germany'. Don't be apalled you just don't get it pic.twitter.com/LIYJEYjydy Nesrine Malik (@NesrineMalik) January 13, 2016 Disgusting cartoon in Charlie Hebdo ("what would've become of Aylan had he grown up? A groper") via @faizaz pic.twitter.com/iB4myFb1ke Sunny Hundal (@sunny_hundal) January 13, 2016 So *is* anyone (who has some authority) defending that Charlie Hebdo cartoon as not just massively racist? Wd love to know, for real Oliver Burkeman (@oliverburkeman) January 13, 2016 Who gives ppl@ #CharlieHebdo the right to hurt others? Is it freedom to publish a disgusting cartoon of #AylanKurdi? https://t.co/eK7REtglzu Lutz (@lutzinvancouver) January 14, 2016 I wanna give Charlie Hebdo the benefit of the doubt, but I just can't see the satire in the Aylan Kurdi cartoon. Richard Sherriff (@RichSherriff) January 14, 2016 For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Washington: Top Republican rivals Donald Trump and Ted Cruz engaged in a public spat over the latters birth issue, with the frontrunner telling the Texas Senator a big question mark hangs on your head to be even eligible to be running for the coveted post. Both of them, however, offered each other the vice-presidential ticket if they were to bag partys presidential nominee this summer. At the Republican presidential debate yesterday, the first of the year, Cruz alleged that Trump is now raising the issues because his poll numbers are going up. Trump agreed. Cruz said: I recognise that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling in Iowa. But the facts and the law here are really quite clear. Under longstanding US law, the child of a US citizen born abroad is a natural-born citizen. If a soldier has a child abroad, that child is a natural-born citizen. Thats why John McCain, even though he was born in Panama, was eligible to run for president. He added: I would suggest we focus on whos best prepared to be commander-in-chief, because thats the most important question facing the country. Trump argued that the questions about eligibility of Cruz because he was born in Canada are being raised by eminent constitution lawyers and it is time that the Texas Senator gets it clarified by the Court or else the Democrats are getting ready to file a lawsuit against him. Heres the problem. Were running. Were running. He does great. I win. I choose him as my vice presidential candidate, and the Democrats sue because we cant take him along for the ride. I dont like that, Trump said amidst laughter from the audience. If for some reason, he beats the rest of the field, I already know the Democrats are going to be bringing a suit. You have a big lawsuit over your head while youre running. And if you become the nominee, who the hell knows if you can even serve in office? So you should go out, get a declaratory judgment, let the courts decide, Trump said. The fact is, there is a big overhang. Theres a big question mark on your head. And you cant do that to the party. You really cant. You cant do that to the party. You have to have certainty, he told Cruz. Responding, Cruz said he has spent his entire life defending the Constitution before the US Supreme Court. And Ill tell you, Im not going to be taking legal advice from Donald Trump, he asserted, but later added: Donald, you very kindly just a moment ago offered me the VP slot. Ill tell you what. If this all works out, Im happy to consider naming you as VP. So if you happen to be right, you could get the top job at the end of the day. I like that. I like it. Id consider it. But I think Ill go back to building buildings if it doesnt work out, Trump said. Actually, Id love to get you to build a wall, Cruz responded. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Mumbai: Bollywood stars including Rishi Kapoor, Anupam Kher among others have expressed their grief over the untimely demise of Lagaan fame Rajesh Vivek, one of industrys most popular character actors. Rajesh died yesterday following a heart attack. He was 66. A National School of Drama (NSD) graduate, he was known for his performances in films like Bandit Queen, Lagaan, Swades and Bunty Aur Babli. Calling him a fine actor, Kher tweeted, Saddened to know about the demise of my friend, senior in NSD (National School of Drama) and a very fine actor Rajesh Vivek. He was a Mast Maula in true sense. RIP. Rajesh Vivek. Wonderful actor and a friend. RIP, wrote Kapoor. Actor Manoj Bajpayee posted, Really sad with the unexpected demise of Rajesh Vivek. May god bless his soul. His memories will always be with us. I was with him in Bandit Queen. Our senior from NSD Rajesh Vivek passed away. Have great memories of him while doing Bandit Queen RIP Rajesh bhai, tweeetd Dhulia. Actor Ravi Kishan wrote, Adhbhut (wonderful) actor Rajesh Vivek. May God bless his soul. RIP. Sad to know about the demise of #RajeshVivek, one of the finest actors and a great human being. Lived a faqirs life. RIP, said filmmaker Ashoke Pandit. RIP Rajesh Vivek sir. Your performances will be there for us and stories and energy of your theatre performances, tweeted actor Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub. Music composer Ehsaan Noorani wrote, And now #RajeshVivek is gone this is really sad. Actor-director Satish Kaushik posted, We will miss #RajeshVivek for his great performances in theatre and films. My NSD senior who was just terrific in every role he did... Baba RIP. For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Bhubaneswar: Criticising the Narendra Modi-governments Pakistan policy, the CPI(M) today accused the Centre of holding talks with the neighbouring nation in foreign countries. The venue of the talks between India and Pakistan is now being shifted to foreign countries instead of holding it either here or there. India has all long been saying, the issue between the two countries should be resolved bilaterally but, fixing a venue for talks on foreign soil, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury told reporters here. Referring to the Foreign Secretary-level talks put on hold, Yechury said, Frequent cancellation and postponement of talks is a dangerous trend. The issue should never be allowed to get space for any third party, but resolved bilaterally. The National Security Advisors of both the countries had met in Bangkok in December. Dubbing Prime Minister Narendra Modis policy as VIP diplomacy, he said people of the two countries should be allowed to meet. There is no point if the prime ministers, foreign ministers and foreign secretaries of both countries meet and talk. People on both side of the border should be allowed to meet each other, Yechury said. Stating that relations between India and Pakistan must improve, he accused Modi of using the Indo-Pak issue for political gains. When there is election in Bihar, you stop dialogue and when there are no polls, the government agrees for talks. This is not acceptable. The agenda should not be political or communal, rather priority should be for the betterment of the two countries, Yechury said. You cannot hold talks or suspend or postpone it as per your convenience. Talks and dialogues with Pakistan should continue seeking betterment of the relationship, he said. As far as relations with Pakistan is concerned, the CPI(M) has always maintained that talks should go on, the party general secretary said. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Mumbai: Launching a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi today questioned his silence on problems being faced by the poor and claimed the BJP governments credibility has eroded very quickly. It is very well to give speeches but Modi is silent on problems faced by the poor, Rahul said, addressing a rally of party workers in suburban Malad in North Mumbai. Rahul also asked party men to shun internal differences and work unitedly to ensure that Congress comes back to power. He used the Marathi greeting on Makar Sankranti Til gul ghya, god god bola (eat sweets, speak cordially) to appeal to the Congress leaders to put an end to factionalism. It takes two-three-four years for the credibility of a government to decline but the BJP governments credibility has eroded very quickly, Rahul said. There are talks of start-ups and connect India. These talks are nice but there are poor people, domestic workers. India is theirs also. The government has forgotten them, he said. Ask anyone about the situation faced by farmers. They will cry while narrating their plight. You cant leave the poor people, the hawkers behind, he said. Modi spoke of Clean India. Modiji and his ministers took up jhadus and cleaned the roads but in Mumbai, there are tonnes of solid waste. You wont be able to clean Mumbai by speeches and staging events, he added. In Uttar Pradesh, many people have demolished toilets built under the Clean India Mission, he said. The budget of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is in thousands of crore but this government gave just Rs 100 crore to make Mumbai a Smart City, Rahul said. When we were in power, we gave a city like Nanded Rs 2,000 crore, he said. Congress will have to get its candidate elected to the post of Mayor in Mumbai if the city is to be developed, he said. First we will win Mumbai then the state, and then form government at the Centre, he added. Rahul Gandhi said during his padyatra in Mumbai tomorrow we will put pressure on the government on the issue of electricity tariff for the poor. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday addressed media to speak over the success of odd-even formula in Delhi. Thanking people for their active participation in the drive, he said Delhiites have set an example in front of the world. Mr Kejriwal also mentioned that pollution control was one factor while less congestion on roads was the other which made people happier. Pollution levels came down, but less congestion on roads was one of the benefits that people witnessed, said Arvind Kejriwal in the press conference. Talking about health benefits of following the idea, Kejriwal also urged people to voluntarily continue the drive; the only difference is that a fine of Rs 2000 wont be imposed. A get together has also been arranged by Delhi government at Chatrashal Stadium on Sunday at 3 PM to thank everyone who actively participated in the drive. The odd-even formula has officially ended on January 15, 2016. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Washington: Michelle is not and will not run for presidency, US President Barack Obama on Thursday said, quickly adding that the First Lady would continue her work on issues like obesity even after they demit the office next January. "No," Obama said emphatically at a townhall meeting in Louisiana. "Since you can't run again for another term, is there any way that we as a group can talk the First Lady into running?" an individual who identified himself as Greg Gavins asked Mr Obama. "No. Let me tell you, there are three things that are certain in life: death, taxes and Michelle is not running for president. That I can tell you," said the president whose second term ends on January 20, 2017. Mr Obama's "no" was followed by a big applause from the audience. "But you know what? The First Lady, though, the work she's done around reducing childhood obesity; the work that she and Jill Biden have done on military families and making sure they get support -- I could not be prouder of her." "And I am certain that she's going to be really active as an ex-first lady. Not only is she going to be a very young ex-first lady, but unlike me, she looks young," he said. "I was looking at a wedding picture -- actually, we found the old video from our wedding. We've been married 23 years now. So my mother in law had been going through some storage stuff and found our wedding video. I popped it in. And I looked like a teenager. I realised, boy, I sure have aged. But she looked identical," he said. "Well, I am proud of her too, because most importantly, she's been an unbelievable mom, which is why my daughters have turned out so well," Obama said. Lucknow: As many as 27 persons were today arrested in connection with the communal clashes which took place during a shobha yatra that was taken out on the occasion of Makar Sankranti in Fatehpur town, police said. Twenty-seven people were arrested after an FIR was registered by Jehanabad police in connection with the incident, IG (Law and Order) A Satish Ganesh said here. The Zonal IG and DIG are camping in Fatehpur, where the situation is returning to normal, Ganesh said, adding that PAC and civil police have been deployed at sensitive spots. He futher said that an additional force has been provided to the district, where it will remain for some time. Tension gripped the town yesterday when brickbats were hurled by members of two communities during the annual shobha yatra in Kazipura Kasauli locality under Kasba Jehanabad police station area. While, about ten people, including policemen, were injured, six vehicles and three shops were set afire, police said. Officials said that trouble erupted when the shobha yatra deviated from its traditional route and a section of people from another community objected as the procession also displayed a model of proposed Ram temple in Ayodhya. New Delhi : The spotlight is set to shine on Agatha Christie, one of the worlds best selling novelist at the second edition of the Crime Writers Festival that begins. A nod to the Queen of Crime Writing is being given by British research chemist Kathryn Harkup through her book A is for Arsenic, which celebrates the use of science in Christies novels and among the highlight of the festival. Christie used poison to kill her characters more often than any other murder method, with the poison itself being a central part of the novel. Harkup is lined up in conversation with Dom Hastings, director of Scotlands International Crime Writing Festival. The three-day event is an initiative of the Crime Writers Forum for South Asia and co-produced by Oxford Bookstore and Siyahi is scheduled to be held at the Alliance Francaise and Oxford Bookstore. Writers and filmmakers who work on crime and thriller fiction from across the world examine the genre writing scene in India and abroad. While Scandanavians are renowned for their expertise on crime writing, I see that books on the genre from French and Israeli authors are gaining ground. The authors are very well known in Europe and more translations of their books into English could be a possible reason, says Mita Kapoor of Siyahi, which is co-producing the festival. Authors Namita Gokhale and Kishwar Desai are Festival Directors. Among the international participants are Liad Shoham, a lawyer and leading Israeli crime fiction author who will be in conversation with Niharika Karanjawala to talk about his realistic depictions of Israels criminal justice. Leading French crime fiction writer Veronique Ovalde is lined up in conversation with Kishwar Desai. Bengaluru-based Swedish writer Zac OYeah who had participated in the innagural edition of the festival last year is also attending this year. There were so many authors that we wanted to bring in but had to make sure that the line up was balanced to give representation to both Indian and global authors, says Kapoor. New Delhi: As curtains came down on the odd-even pilot scheme, an independent think tank today said there is no conclusive evidence to prove that the policy improved Delhis air quality or reduced traffic congestion. Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) which measured air quality and traffic volumes at five important locations in the city said while air pollution levels increased in the first week of January, and in the second week despite being marginally better air quality it still remained poor. The CEEW works in collaboration with the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC). There is no conclusive evidence to prove that the odd-even policy improved Delhis air quality or reduced traffic congestion. On the basis of data collected from low-cost air pollution monitors, indicates that the average air pollution levels increased in the first week of January as compared to the previous week. However, in the second week of January, air quality was marginally better, but still poorer than the last week of December. The measurements from the low-cost monitors are almost identical to those of the pollution monitors installed by the Delhi Pollution Control Committee, it said. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today appealed to the people of Delhi to continue observing the car rationing measures voluntarily, which the government claimed has reduced air pollution by up to 25 per cent. It further said that average PM 2.5 level of 306 g/m3 was observed during the first two weeks of January 2016, similar to average PM 2.5 level of 330 g/m3 observed during the first fortnight of January 2014. However, the first two weeks of 2015 had a lower average PM 2.5 level of 226 g/m3 due to unseasonal rains and winds. In the short-term, meteorological variables such as temperature, wind speed and precipitation have a significant impact and as a result it is hard to provide conclusive evidence on the impact of the odd-even policy on air quality, it said. The think tank measured air quality and traffic volumes at five important locations - Connaught Place, GTB Nagar, IIT Delhi, Mathura Road, and Shadipur over the last three weeks. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. United Nations: Nuclear weapons pose an existential threat to humanity, UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Thursday said, days after North Korea claimed to have successfully tested a nuclear device and terrorist outfits like the ISIS and al-Qaeda have openly expressed their desire for the weapon. "Nuclear weapons are an existential threat to humanity," Ban said in an informal briefing to the UN General Assembly. "Countries that regard their security as a matter of retaining or attaining nuclear weapons are only increasing risk -- their own and the world," he said. The Secretary General said that the risks multiply with the emergence of violent and unaccountable non-state actors. "Let us stop this dangerous spiral, and instead put disarmament and non-proliferation back at the forefront of the international agenda," Ban urged. According to him, the threat posed by nuclear weapons is omnipresent yet attracts global attention only intermittently. "Eight days ago, the test of a nuclear weapon by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea provided the latest such jolt. This was a destabilising act that violates Security Council resolutions and imperils collective security." "It underscores yet again the general risk of nuclear weapons - and the specific dangers of the DPRK, which faces severe developmental and human rights challenges," he said. The nuclear-weapon states have made some progress in reducing the dangers, including through reductions in deployed arsenals and improved transparency, he noted. But the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) has still not entered into force, he said. Negotiations on a ban on the production of fissile material have not begun. And some nuclear-armed states are spending massively to modernise their arsenals, Ban said. Ban said he would present a Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism. "Our challenge is to defeat Daesh (ISIS), Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, al Qaeda and other such groups - without defeating ourselves through counter-productive approaches that fuel the extremism we are trying to extinguish. Well-calibrated, security-based counter-terrorism measures remain essential. But human rights must be at the forefront of our response," he said. In 2016, he urged the UNGA members to work towards ending the conflicts that global divisions have helped prolong, do far more to protect vulnerable populations, and show that they are "serious about preventing the upheavals of tomorrow." "My peace operations initiative sets out a comprehensive action agenda to strengthen United Nations peace and security tools, including through closer peacekeeping partnerships with regional organisations and local communities," he said. Ban said if 2015 was a year of global sustainable development action, 2016 must be a year of national SDG traction. "These towering achievements point the world in promising new directions. At a time of massive humanitarian need, they give hope that we can overcome global divisions in the name of the common good," he said. New York: Hollywood actor Sean Penn has expressed regret that the article he wrote after interviewing Mexican drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman failed to spark a debate about the US war on drugs. In an excerpt of the interview broadcast Friday, Penn said his goal in meeting with Guzman was to shine a light on America's role in the international drug trade. "We are the consumer. Whether you agree with Sean Penn or not, there is a complicity there," Penn said told journalist Charlie Rose, in an interview scheduled to air in full Sunday on the CBS program "60 Minutes." "If you are in the moral right, or on the far left, just as many of your children are doing these drugs," the actor said. "How much time have they spent in the last week since this article came talking about that?" Penn added, "I have a regret that the entire discussion about this article ignores its purpose, which was to try to contribute to this discussion about the policy in the war on drugs." His interview was published last Saturday in Rolling Stone, triggering a barrage of criticism, including condemnation of Penn himself. Among other things, the ire has centered on Penn's letting Guzman review the piece before it ran; seeming to glorify or at least go easy on a man blamed for thousands of deaths in Mexico's drug-related violence and contributing to drug addiction in America. Other critics fault him with having engaged in gonzo journalism while real reporters covering the drug trade in Mexico risk their lives daily. Penn challenged the Mexican government's assertion that the interview held in an undisclosed location in Mexico helped the authorities track down Guzman, who was captured the day before the article was published. "There is this myth about the visit that we made, my colleagues and I with El Chapo, that it was as the attorney general of Mexico is quoted 'essential' to his capture," the actor said. "We had met with him many weeks earlier...on October 2, in a place nowhere near where he was captured." The men are suspected militants and are being questioned over possible links to the attack Thursday that killed seven. (Photo: AP) Jakarta: Indonesian police on Friday arrested three men on suspicion of links to the brazen attacks in the heart of the country's capital, and said they recovered a flag of the Islamic State group from the home of one of the attackers. The discovery of the flag bolsters authorities' claim that the attack Thursday was carried out by the Islamic State group, which controls territory in Syria and Iraq and whose ambition to create an Islamic caliphate has attracted 30,000 foreign fighters from around the world, including a few hundred Indonesians and Malaysians. The arrests of the three took place at dawn at their homes in Depok on the outskirts of Jakarta, police said in a text message, citing Col. Khrisna Murti, director of criminal investigations who led the raid. It said they were arrested for suspected links to the attackers. MetroTV. It broadcast footage of the handcuffed men being escorted by police. Read: Indonesia says attack underlines emergence of ISIS threat Five men attacked a Starbucks cafe and a traffic police booth with hand-made bombs, guns and suicide belts Thursday, killing two people - a Canadian and an Indonesian - and injuring 20. The attackers were killed subsequently, either by their suicide vests or by police. National police spokesman Maj. Gen. Anton Charliyan told reporters a black IS flag was found in the home of one of the attackers and police believe they have established their identities. He says two of the five men were previously convicted and imprisoned for terrorism offenses. The IS link, if proved, poses a grave challenge to Indonesian security forces because until now the group was known only to have sympathizers with no active cells capable of planning and carrying out such an attack. In recent years Indonesian anti-terror forces had successfully stamped out another extremist group known as Jemaah Islamiyah. It was responsible for several attacks in Indonesia, including the 2002 bombings of bars in Bali, which left 202 people dead, as well as two hotel bombings in Jakarta in 2009 that killed seven people. Terrorism experts say IS supporters in Indonesia are drawn from the remnants of Jemaah Islamiyah. A few hundred Indonesians are known to have traveled to Syria to join the IS. Few have come back. Still, police believe that an Indonesian IS fighter, Bahrum Naim, who is in Syria may have inspired and instigated the Jakarta attack. Jakarta residents were shaken by Thursday's events but refused to be cowed. The area near the Starbucks cafe remained cordoned off with a highly visible police presence. Onlookers and journalists lingered, with some people leaving flowers and messages of support. Pray for Jakarta (Photo: AP) A large screen atop the building that houses the Starbucks displayed messages that said "#prayforjakarta" and "Indonesia Unite." Newspapers carried bold front-page headlines declaring the country was united in condemnation of the attack, which was the first in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority nation, since the hotel bombings in 2009. Risti Amelia, an accountant at a company near the Starbucks said she was "still shaking and weak" when she returned to her office Friday. But because staff remained emotional, the company decided to send workers home, she said. Pray for Jakarta (Photo: AP) Supporters of the Islamic State group circulated a claim of responsibility for the attack on Twitter late Thursday. The message said attackers carried out the Jakarta assault and had planted several bombs with timers. It differed from Indonesian police on the number of attackers, saying there were four. The statement could not be independently verified by The Associated Press, though it resembled previous claims made by the group. Taufik Andri, a terrorist analyst, said although the attack ended swiftly and badly for the attackers, their aim was to show their presence and ability. "Their main aim was just to give impression that ISIS' supporters here are able to do what was done in Paris. It was just a Paris-inspired attack without being well prepared," he told The Associated Press. Those attacks in November killed 130 people. Why is the establishment fighting Trump if he wants to increase military intervention in the Middle East and take more oil from Iraq and Syria? Presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has by far generated more controversy than any other candidate, partly because he speaks his mind, ignoring the political lefts push for silence under the guise of political correctness. Though at times, Trump appears to be anti-establishment, other remarks made by the savvy businessman eerily resemble those of mainstream neocons, who unanimously support more military spending, more unjustified wars and the continued illegal invasion of other countries. Former Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) may have said it best when he told RT in Oct. that Trump is simply an authoritarian. Paul went on to say: I think Trump is an authoritarian and he brags about it. Im the boss and I tell people what to do. Government happens to be a little different to that.(1) The only thing you want to do if you believe in the market place is you want to get rid of the government. But hes talking about having strong taxes on imports. He wants to punish people and hes the boss. So I think he would be dangerous to the economy. Fast forward three months later to the release of Trumps first TV ad, where he proves the former congressman right. Trumps new TV ad is an outright disappointment to freedom-lovers everywhere, as it points to the likelihood that the Republican candidate is just more of the same.(2) Describing Trumps ad, The Washington Post writes(3): Donald Trumps ad begins with a shot of President Obama and Hillary Clinton. Then comes a US battleship launching a cruise-missile strike. From there it moves swiftly through an explosive montage: The suspects in the recent California terrorist attack. Shadowy figures racing across the US-Mexico border. Islamic State militants. The narrator, a deep-voiced man, speaks ominously: Thats why hes calling for a temporary shutdown of Muslims entering the United States, until we can figure out whats going on. Hell quickly cut the head off ISIS and take their oil. And hell stop illegal immigration by building a wall on our southern border that Mexico will pay for. In the new TV ad, Trump models the invasive military policies of past presidents, including George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, both of whom used their power as president to expand NATO, the worlds largest military alliance, strengthening member countries military stronghold over NATO territory, which continues to expand. As stated in Trumps ad, his foreign policy strategies are really no different than those of Republican establishment contender Jeb Bush, and other war-championing politicians. Cutting the head off ISIS and stealing their oil simply means taking it from its rightful owners: the people of Iraq and Syria. [O]ne cannot take Islamic States oil. It isnt theirs for Trump to take, writes Zero Hedge. That oil belongs to Syria and Iraq.(4) Trumps interests in the Middle East are apparently no different from those of your typical pro-establishment politician, who routinely side with corporations rather than the best interests of American citizens. The U.S. governments primary motivation for never-ending war in the Middle East is fueled by oil, specifically protecting the lucrative operations of powerful corporations such as ExxonMobil. Invading the Middle East to steal more oil is the exact same awful decades-old strategy executed by authoritarian-type politicians working for the shadowy deep state. Not to mention that that is the exact reason why America is currently in the situation it is with Islamic extremism posing an increasing threat to innocent Americans. He [Trump] wants to run peoples lives and run the world and run the economy because that is the way he lives his life. And on occasion he comes up with a correct idea, but an authoritarian is the opposite of a libertarian, said Paul. A libertarian wants to release creative energy to the individuals. We want to get government out of our lives, out of the economy, and out of all these places around the world. So its quite a bit different to the way an authoritarian would approach our problems. To read more about Donald Trump News, please go to Trump.news for all the latest updates Sources: (1) Breitbart.com (2) YouTube.com (3) WashingtonPost.com (4) ZeroHedge.com Submit a correction >> The dispiriting news that GE, a corporate citizen here the last 42 years, has decided Connecticut is not where the company wants to build its future, should be a cold shower for legislators preparing for the opening of a new General Assembly session on Feb. 3. The state needs to do some self-examination. While GE said its main reason for leaving is its desire to reshape itself in the technology corridor of Boston, fiscal uncertainty in Connecticut is undeniably a backdrop in such decisions. Taxing and spending need to come under control. An ever-changing fiscal landscape has become even more treacherous since the financial meltdown of 2008. As evidenced in GEs announcement, the business landscape has changed, too. Addressing the suffocating load of $26 billion in unfunded state employee pension benefits, as Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has begun to do, is a step toward the fiscal stability that corporate leaders want to see in a state government. But much more needs to be done. Savings are to be had in the arena of regionalization. Its time for the Legislature to start putting the squeeze on communities to encourage what to this point has been a purely voluntary effort. As House Speaker Brendan Sharkey, D-Conn., said during a recent meeting with Hearst Connecticut Media editorial board, the state can no longer afford to subsidize inefficiency. In a state of 5,500 square miles we are larger than only Rhode Island and Delaware we have 169 separate political divisions, and 154 separate school districts with superintendents, reading specialists, maintenance chiefs, purchasing agents and so on. Ridiculous redundancies. Target areas are myriad: Does every community need its own school bus contract? Does every police and fire department need its own state-of-the-art emergency communications center? Does a one-school school district need a superintendent on top of a principal? Can not building permit systems be computerized in this digital age, as has been done by an alliance of 20 towns? One of Connecticuts major problems is the dependence of its 169 communities on local property tax, thus creating a heavy dependence by most of those communities on aid from the state. The state, for instance, will spend about $25 million this year in subsidies to communities to help pay for school buses. In the coming General Assembly, Sharkey said he hopes to pass law that will make state subsidies in certain areas school transportation among them contingent on a communitys effort to consolidate with its neighbors. Successful collaborations are underway around the state. Twenty communities, for instance Brookfield, New Milford, Milford and Stamford among them participate in an online building permit system created by the Capitol Region Council of Governments that has reduced paperwork and created greater compliance and revenue. Once again, the landscape has changed. Dreaming that pre-recession happy days are going to return is exactly that: dreaming. And should they return, why not be ready to capitalize on them with a streamlined new ways of doing business. With deficits looming, legislators cant just shuffle pots of money around. Efficiency has to be the new watchword. Its always the right time for elected officials to show spine and leadership. Now is a critical time. For many reasons, college is a unique opportunity for young adults. It not only provides a rare ecosystem where students can learn new skills but also allows for experiences they might not have had access to otherwise. Yet, as an entrepreneur, college is sometimes undervalued. Many people believe the standard courses and majors included in a college curriculum have little or no relevance for entrepreneurs and that aspiring founders are better off jumping into the real world and starting businesses. For this reason, hundreds of entrepreneurs drop out of college each year. However, if done correctly, the college experience can be a very beneficial time for entrepreneurs, and can provide opportunities to learn and grow. Related: 6 Signs You Are Not Ready for Entrepreneurship Here are three ways that college can help you develop as an entrepreneur. 1. Interpersonal skills College is a fantastic opportunity to develop your personality, along with your social, networking and relationship-building skills. You are placed in a community with thousands of other young, ambitious students who want to learn and grow. There are hundreds of opportunities to join clubs, organizations and find ways to form new connections and friends. By being surrounded by so many different people in so many different settings, college is a great platform for those who wish to network and meet new people -- a valuable skill for entrepreneurs. The direct value is it you can broaden your network and expand your knowledge, while the indirect benefit is you will learn how to form connections and relationships with people. Plus, learning how to become charismatic and social is very important for entrepreneurs, as they are often forced to recruit new employees, gain clients and convince investors. All three of these basic functions are impossible without effective interpersonal skills. Related: 7 Signs You're Meant to Be an Entrepreneur 2. Network As touched on above, one of the most valuable assets for an entrepreneur is his network. As an entrepreneur your job is versatile and requires many skills, people, and procedures. When you are fundraising, you need financial investors; when you are hiring, you need talent; and when you are growing your business, you need new leads and clients. For all of these functions, an entrepreneurs network is extremely helpful. When an entrepreneur takes full advantage of his college experience, he can meet other entrepreneurs and people who can be potential employees, partners and investors. In addition, he can meet cohorts who can provide introduction to key employees and partners. 3. Education While general humanities doesnt seem to contain much practical value for entrepreneurs, there are many other ways college can provide excellent education for entrepreneurs. For instance, the mentorship from business professors, teachers and club leaders can be helpful resources for entrepreneurs and tools to learn and grow. Beyond mentorship, college is also a convenient place to learn the raw skills and traits of business. There are plenty of courses focused on the elements of running a business, along with specific entrepreneurship classes. For high school graduates who have an inclination to go into entrepreneurship, making the shift to college can be a tricky one. However, now that many colleges specialize in teaching entrepreneurs, that decision has become easier. Ultimately, college can be a beneficial experience for young entrepreneurs if they take full advantage of it. Related: 7 Dark Truths About Entrepreneurship Related: The 3 Things College Taught Me About Being An Entrepreneur The Secret to Transitioning from Freelancer to Entrepreneur The Challenges of Doing the Publicity Circuit for Your Business Copyright 2016 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved New Delhi: Indias biggest auto carnival the 13th edition of Auto Expo in February will witness a record 80 new launches. Jeep, Italian motorcycle brand Benelli, Indian Motorcycles, and two-wheeler brand Polaris will be participating for the first time in the expo. Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra, Hyundai Motor India, Honda Cars India, Tata Motors, Audi and Mercedes-Benz among others will also show off their product line up. In the previous edition of the expo in 2014, around 70 products were launched. It is expected that around seven lakh people will visit the Auto Expo this time as against 5.6 lakh people during the last edition in 2014. There will be 65 exhibitors participating in the expo against 55 last time. With the world focusing on preventing climate change, the upcoming Auto Expo will lay special thrust will be on electric and hybrid vehicles. The Supreme Court order banning the sale of 2000cc diesel-run vehicles and the governments decision to upgrade to less polluting BS6 norms by 2020 have put auto makers in a difficult situation. Automakers association SIAM president Vinod K. Dasari said that making engine compliant with BS6 norms by 2020 will be a challenge and industry will do its best to meet it, a technology that doesnt exists today. But he cant say for sure whether companies will be successful or not. In other countries moving from BS4 to BS6 has taken 10-12 years and Indian automakers are being asked to do the same in around four years, he explained. He claimed that it was not possible to simply import technology from US and Europe as Indian conditions were different. On the ban over 2000cc diesel vehicles, the SIAM president said: If you want to stop pollution please stop most polluting vehicle, not the vehicle which meets the norms. On January 8, Union minister for parliamentary affairs, M. Venkaiah Naidu dropped in for a presumed cuppa and much more at Congress president Sonia Gandhis residence. In his interaction with the media, Mr Naidu revealed his single-point agenda: convince the Congress chief that after Prime Minister Narendra Modis discussion with her and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Congress shouldnt hold back support to the Goods and Services Tax Bill. Reports also suggested that the government was keen to convince the Congress of an early Budget Session to ensure that the GST Bill was passed in the forthcoming session. The Congress president reserved her comments, while colleagues speaking to the media said the party wanted certain sections of the bill reworked and the response from government was awaited. There has been little movement in resolving technical issues which sound Greek to the average person and Congressmen have dismissed the governments reaching out exercise as little but optics. The government through various channels back and upfront has also entered into dialogue with other Opposition parties and those parties that display equipoise whenever confrontation between government and Opposition looms. All efforts of the government are aimed at securing parliamentary approval for the GST Bill. The governments anxiety to ensure passage of this contentious bill is a throwback to the way Mr Modi and his colleagues built the case for the Land Acquisition Bill last year. Without delving into the issue of necessity or lack of it of a combined indirect tax law, it must be recalled that the Land Bill last year was presented as the universal remedy for all problems and that the governments reforms agenda would come unstuck with its non-passage. This line of reasoning has not changed except that instead of the Land Bill, government publicists are now talking about the GST Bill when criticising Opposition parties for holding the government to ransom in the Rajya Sabha. Last year we saw increased depiction of the Upper House as an assembly of unelectable leaders (forgetting that the finance minister too was one of them) and that it was time to challenge their tyranny. The sentiment remains unchanged though the new phrases are alternate mechanisms and tricks. The jargon may have changed but there is no hiding the fact that a joint sitting of Parliament is being talked about as a threat. Arun Jaitley contends that the mid-command of the Congress Party is agreeable to doing business with the government, but the Gandhis are blocking this because the tactic provides sadistic pleasure. But will political disparagement work when the government is attempting to evolve a parliamentary strategy? Is Mr Jaitley slowly building the case for mid-term polls before it gets too late for the party to win a second tenure by arguing that since it is impossible for government to function smoothly, the Bharatiya Janata Party requires a more emphatic mandate than the one they got. When he was Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee in a speech in Lok Sabha had talked about the need for government and Opposition to work together. To buttress his case he recalled the episode when P.V. Narasimha Rao as Prime Minister deputed Mr Vajpayee to head an Indian delegation to Geneva on a treacherous round of multilateral talks when India was under fire for its human rights record in Jammu and Kashmir. But such cooperation between ruling party and Opposition is possible only in the event of an initiative from the government. In the present case, relations between Mr Modi and the Congress soured from the outset after the refusal to accord Leader of Opposition status to the Congress. Subsequently, the Prime Minister and his closest aides too made constant jibes about Mrs Gandhi and her family, a tactic that continues and will not make the two any more friendly. Consequently, on the eve of every parliamentary session the biggest question is if any business besides the most essential will be transacted. While the government, from Prime Minister downward, made no effort to make its task easier, the Congress Party too remains clueless on its strategy to escape the morass it has slipped into. Because elections in India are fought on the basis of performance or its absence of the incumbent and not on programmatic issues, the Opposition attempts to block key legislation. But repeated obstruction of Parliament would also not help the Congress as wastage of time and resources gets reported superficially in abundance in the media. If it wishes to convince people that its tactics of converting the two Houses into public akharas every morning is correct, then it has to do so with reason and not remain stricken with frenzy as in Parliament. In the run-up to the Budget Session it makes little sense for Mr Modi to allow his ministers to invest so heavily in the passage of the GST Bill. Even if this is passed in 2016, making the new law act effectively and efficiently will remain a challenge for administrators for years. It will not be a quick fix for the problems that have led to the erosion of electoral support for the BJP in 2015. Unruly behaviour in Parliament is the norm and not exception. It is no longer restricted to the Zero Hour. Both government and the largest Opposition party are obliged to take Parliament more seriously and the mutual trading of accusations must end. Lessons can be drawn from the past and a beginning could be made if the government comes out to share with Opposition information on issues of national security. Mr Modi seeks international support to get Pakistan to take action against terror in a routine manner. His cause will not be harmed if he drew the Congress leadership too into consultation. If there is no turnaround on the part of Mr Modi and his team, another session will be a virtual washout. President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to carry out further investigation into the alleged ... President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to carry out further investigation into the alleged misconduct established against some retired and serving officers of the Nigerian Air Force and Nigerian Army.Those affected in the order include embattled former National Security Adviser, Lt.-Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.); former Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh (retd.); and two former Chiefs of Air Staff, Air Marshal MD Umar (retd.) and Air Marshal Adesola Amosun (retd.).The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, disclosed the Presidents directive in a statement made available to journalists on Friday.Shehu said the presidential directive was based on the recommendation of the committee established to audit the procurement of arms and equipment in the Armed Forces and Defence sector from 2007 to 2015.He listed others that the President had asked the EFCC to probe to include: Maj.-Gen. ER Chioba (retd.); AVM IA Balogun (retd.); AVM AG Tsakr (retd.); AVM AG Idowu (retd.);AVM AM Mamu; AVM OT Oguntoyinbo; AVM T Omenyi; AVM JB Adigun; AVM RA Ojuawo; AVM JA Kayode-Beckley; Air Cdre SA Yushau (retd.); Air Cdre AO Ogunjobi; Air Cdre GMD Gwani; Air Cdre SO Makinde; Air Cdre AY Lassa; and Col. N Ashinze.Shehu added that following the submission of the audit committees second interim report, the President had also directed the EFCC to investigate the roles of the officers as well as some companies and their directors in fundamental breaches associated with the procurements by the Office of the National Security Adviser and the Nigerian Air Force.He gave the names of those affected to include: Messrs Societe D Equipments Internationaux; Himma Aboubakar; Aeronautical Engineering and Technical Services Limited; Messrs Syrius Technologies; Dr. Theresa A. Ittu; Sky Experts Nig Ltd.; Omenyi Ifeanyi Tony; Huzee Nig. Ltd.; GAT Techno Dynamics Ltd.; Gbujie Peter Obie and Onuri Samuel Ugochukwu.Others are Spacewebs Interservices Ltd.; Oguntoyinbo Tayo; Oguntoyinbo Funmi; Delfina Oil and Gas Ltd.; Chief Jacobs Bola; Mono Marine Corporation Nig. Ltd.; Geonel Intergrated Services Ltd.; Sachi Felicia; Mudaki Polycarp and Wolfgang Reinl.The presidential spokesman said the breaches identified by the Audit Committee include non-specification of procurement costs, absence of contract agreements, award of contracts beyond authorised thresholds, transfer of public funds for unidentified purposes and general non-adherence to provisions of the Public Procurement Act.He added, Furthermore, the procurement processes were arbitrarily carried out and generally characterised by irregularities and fraud.In many cases, the procured items failed to meet the purposes they were procured for, especially the counter insurgency efforts in the North East.A major procurement activity undertaken by ONSA for NAF was that concerning the contracts awarded to Societe D Equipment Internationaux (SEI) Nig Ltd.Between January 2014 and February 2015, NAF awarded 10 contracts totalling Nine Hundred and Thirty Million, Five Hundred Thousand, Six Hundred and Ninety US Dollars ($930,500,690.00) to SEI Nig Ltd.Letters of award and End User Certificates for all the contracts issued by NAF and ONSA respectively did not reflect the contract sums. Rather, these were only found in the vendors invoices, all dated 19 March 2015.Additionally, some of the award letters contained misleading delivery dates suggesting fraudulent intent in the award process. The observed discrepancies are in clear contravention of extant procurement regulations.The SEI contracts included procurement of two used Mi-24V Helicopters instead of the recommended Mi-35M series at the cost of One Hundred and Thirty Six Million, Nine Hundred and Forty Four Thousand US Dollars ($136,944,000.00).However, it was confirmed that the helicopters were excessively priced and not operationally air worthy at the time of delivery. A brand new unit of such helicopters goes for about Thirty Million US Dollars ($30m). Furthermore, the helicopters were delivered without rotor blades and upgrade accessories. Following a call by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP to the National Assembly to initiate an impeachment process against Pres... Following a call by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP to the National Assembly to initiate an impeachment process against President Muhammadu Buhari, the All Progressives Congress, APC has told the PDP that Nigeria was not a banana republic.The party also dismissed another call by the PDP to sack Ministers and the governor of the Central Bank, Mr. Godwin Emefiele.In a statement by the national secretary of APC, Mai Mala Buni, APC reminded the PDP that Nigeria was a country governed by a set of laws.The statement read thus:The attention of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has been drawn to Thursdays comical statement credited to the acting National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Uche Secondus calling for the removal of President Muhammadu Buhari, resignation of two ministers and the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria by the National Assembly.The APC wishes to remind the PDP that Nigeria is not a Banana Republic, but a country governed by laws.It is confusing and worrisome that the PDP calls for an investigation into the budget issue and at the same time calls for the removal and resignation of the aforementioned.In both content and context, PDPs statement constitutes a distraction to the National Assembly.The APC is confident that the 8th National Assembly will not be distracted by the PDP in its new desperate plot to divert attention from the ongoing investigation into mind-boggling cases of corruption perpetuated under its defunct 16-year rule.Nigerians are still shocked and recovering from the wanton looting perpetuated in the last 16 years under the PDP. We invite the PDP to supports current efforts aimed at social, economic and institutional reforms. The leaders of the Church of England have voted to condemn same-sex marriage and penalised the Anglican Church in the US for officially ... The leaders of the Church of England have voted to condemn same-sex marriage and penalised the Anglican Church in the US for officially recognising it.After all 37 Primates from around the world met in Canterbury, they issued a statement saying, according to traditional doctrine, marriage should be between a man and a woman in faithful, lifelong union.According to a UK news website, independent.co.uk, the decision prompted outrage from liberal clergy with one prominent supporter of gay marriage saying he was thoroughly ashamed to be Anglican because of the decision.The issue has divided the Church, with conservatives and many Anglicans in African countries opposed to same-sex weddings, while liberals and the Episcopal Church in the US support them.The Primates meeting called by the Archbishop of Canterbury in an attempt to sort out the conflict appears to have come down firmly on the side of the conservatives. A Federal High Court in Lagos on Friday ordered the prison remand of a gang of 12 oil thieves at the Ikoyi Prison. The accused are Chr... A Federal High Court in Lagos on Friday ordered the prison remand of a gang of 12 oil thieves at the Ikoyi Prison.The accused are Christopher Okorie, John Mbah, Tammy Bami, Osi Prince, Chukwuji Festus, Kabiru Adeyemo and Ayannubi Moses.Others are Sopuruchukwu Chukwudi, Obinna Ebu, Abdullahi Oyelade, Charles Ubey and Achia Vincent.The remand order was made by Justice Muhammed Idris after the accused were arraigned before him along with their companies Phonic Marine Services Limited and Banquet Chambers Nigeria Limited, as well as their vessel named MV PSV DEBY.They were arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on four counts of the alleged offence.The gang was said to have been rounded up by the Nigerian Navy at about 3.22am on September 3, last year, at Alero Turning Base, near Bakaris jetty.They were allegedly caught in possession of 600,000 litres of Automated Gasoline Oil, otherwise known as diesel, loaded in their vessel named, MV PSV DEBY.The prosecution told the judge that the accused dealt in the product without a valid licence or any lawful authorisation.The accused were charged with the offences of conspiracy, forgery and illegal dealing in petroleum products.EFCC counsel, M. F. Owebe, said they acted contrary to Section 3(6) of the Miscellaneous Offences Act Cap M17, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2014 and were liable to punishment under Section 1(17) (a) of the same Act.The accused, however, pleaded not guilty to the four counts levelled against them.Following their plea, the prosecutor urged the court for a short adjourned date to open trial and equally applied that the accused be remanded in the prison custody pending trial.The accused lawyers, Mr. V. C. Ude and A. A. Adetunji, however, informed the court that they had filed bail applications for the accused persons and equally needed a short date for hearing.After entertaining the parties, Justice Idris adjourned till January 26 to hear the bail applications of the accused persons.He ordered their prison remand pending the hearing of the bail applications. The drama over whereabouts of the 2016 Budget proposal of the Federal Government in the Senate came to a climax yesterday as the Senate ... In defence of its integrity, the Senate vowed not to work on the fake proposals allegedly circulated by Enang until it receives an electronic copy of the budget document which will be reproduced for senators.It was also gathered yesterday that the same alteration of the budget document was done in the House of Representatives, but House officials were quick to intercept the doctoring and insist on the circulation of the original proposals as submitted by the President.Circumstances around the budget document became an issue last Tuesday when it emerged that the proposal as submitted by the President could no longer be traced. The discovery prompted the Senate into a closed-door session following which the Senate Committee on Ethics was mandated to investigate the issue. The issue also led the President of the Senate, Senator Bukola Saraki to meet with President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday afternoon.Senator Saraki yesterday confirmed the doctoring of the budget proposals by Enang at the end of deliberations on the report of the Senate Committee on Ethics and Public Petitions on the issue. Saraki added that the available hard copy of the budget presented to the Senate was different from the one laid before the two chambers of the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari, shortly before both chambers embarked on Yuletide break last December. Senate officials, however, shied away from pointing out the differences between the two copies yesterday.Senator Saraki nevertheless, said the report of the committee fingered the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Senator Enang, for the act. He said the Senate would as such suspend its initial plan to begin consideration of the 2016 appropriation bill until the Presidency submits the soft copy of the original budget that was laid before the two chambers of the legislature. His words:We have received the report of the Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions on investigations surrounding 2016 Appropriation Bill. Our finding is that Senator Ita Enang, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Ita Enang printed copies of the 2016 Appropriation Bill and brought to the Senate.We have discovered that what he brought is different from the version presented by Mr President. We have resolved to consider only the version presented by Mr President as soon as we receive soft copy of the original document from the executive.But briefing newsmen, after the days plenary, Senate spokesperson, Senator Sabi Abdullahi, said, The report about a missing budget is not true. We dont have a budget that is missing. But you recall that the Senate President did inform Nigerians that there is an issue that a committee was asked to investigate. The investigation by the committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions, has been submitted in the executive session. It was a decision we took at the last executive session.Our findings are these: That Mr. President did lay the budget before the joint session of the National Assembly and thereafter, the Senate went on recess and upon resumption, copies of the document were produced by Senator Ita Enang, who is the SSA to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate) and the copies were submitted to the Senate and House of Representatives.What we found out is that the document submitted by Senator Ita Enang, upon our resumption, has some differences, discrepancies with what was originally laid by Mr. President in the joint sitting of the National Assembly.However, the Senate in defence of its own integrity, honour, will not work with what has not been laid on the floor of the National Assembly. We are constitutionally mandated and duty bound to consider only that budget that had been so laid by Mr President.Right now, for reproduction, we are awaiting the soft copy of the originally submitted budget so that the National Assembly can reproduce the copy itself. That is the only time we can have confidence in the document we want to work with.The budget submitted by the President is not missing; we already have copies of it but what we are saying is that for us to reproduce for our members, it is easier, based on the quantum of document that has to be produced, that we get the soft copy of that original version so that we can reproduce it. He disclosed that the Senate has fixed Tuesday, next week to discuss the budget, saying copies of the document would be circulated to senators when the soft copy demanded from the presidency was received.By next week, we want to go down to business, senators have picked dates to speak during the three days set aside for debate on the 2016 budget.The Senate leadership was mandated to speak with all those concerned with the document, that was why the Senate President was in touch with Mr President.Abdullahi refused to speak on the claims by the House of Representatives that it had its own original version of the document.I am not in the position to say the differences between the document submitted by the President and the one brought by Ita Enang. The committee that investigated the issue did not include that in their report.As at the time the Senate President promised to make copies available to senators today (Thursday), he was working on the assumption that what was brought by the executive were copies of the original copies submitted by Mr President, but based on the outcry, it was discovered that there is another version different from what the President gave us, he said.Meanwhile, Senator Enang, who is at the centre of the development, has refused to comment on the level of his involvement, as alleged by the Senate.Enang told journalists who sought his view on the matter that he would not join issues with senators.I have chosen not to comment on this issue for personal reasons.We must work together to make the Senate as an institution to grow. The President is my boss and the senators are my bosses. I wont join issues with them. So, let the whole matter remain as it is, he said. The Leader of the #BringBackOurGirls (#BBOG) movement, Oby Ezekwesilli , on Thursday accused President Muhammadu Buhari of not being emo... Parents of Chibok girls crying yesterday The Leader of the #BringBackOurGirls (#BBOG) movement, Oby Ezekwesilli , on Thursday accused President Muhammadu Buhari of not being emotionally connecting to the crying Chibok girls mothers that marched to the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Thursday.Ezekwesilli said from the feedback they got, it was clear the President feels he has already given his best in the efforts to rescue the girls.The former minister of Education spoke after members of the group converged at the Unity fountain after their interaction with the President.She also said lack of response from government has made the girls parents to feel like they are being ignored simply because they are poor and reside in the village.Ezekwesilli also accused the Minister of Women affairs, Aisha Alhassan, of attempting to break the ranks of the movement through her comments.She said, You heard all the parents said at the meeting, is it because we are poor? Is it because we live in the forest? Is it because we live in the village? But that has no meaning in any society, there is no basis for discrimination on the basics of social status, political view, religious belief and other primordial device against any citizen.In the feedback from the President you can see clearly that the President feels that he has given his best in the efforts to rescue our Chibok girls, our President however was not able to emotionally connect to those crying mothers. That is an important attribute but we will continue to demand and we will take up the responsibility that the NSA has taken and we will make sure that we dont stop until our girls are back and alive. The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, has said the oil sector may the next to be probed by the Federal Government after th... The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, has said the oil sector may the next to be probed by the Federal Government after the ongoing arms deal.Amaechi stated this on Thursday during a panel session at a roundtable discussion organised by Business Eye in Lagos.He indicated that the missing $49bn oil revenue, which the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido, alleged that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation did not remit into the Federation Account, would be looked into.He said, Even before Sanusi and President Goodluck Jonathan began to quarrel, I had to leak that letter. Sanusi wrote that letter to the President in September, I leaked it sometime in January, and that letter was personal: Mr. President, $49bn was missing, and I got a copy of that letter.Instead of the Federal Government to say we are going to address this, they began to debate with the CBN governor and Nigerians join in the debate. Oh, it is not possible. Now, they have seen that is possible. 640 days after the abduction of 219 school girls from Chibok, President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday ordered a fresh investigation in... This was contained in a statement by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu.He quoted the President as announcing this while meeting parents of the abducted girls, representatives of the Chibok community and members of the Bring Back Our Girls movement at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.The girls were kidnapped on the night of April 14, 2014 during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.Jonathan had in the wake of the abduction set up a 26-member fact-finding committee led by Brig. Gen. Ibrahim Sabo (retd.), to investigate the matter.Shehu, however, said the Buhari panel that would investigate the incident would soon be named by the National Security Adviser, Babagana Munguno.The investigation will seek to, among other things, unravel the remote and immediate circumstances leading to the kidnap of the girls by Boko Haram terrorists as well as the other events, actions and inactions that followed the incident, the statement read.Shehu added that the President assured parents of the Chibok girls that he had been doing his best and would continue to do everything possible to rescue them and re-unite them with their families.He further quoted Buhari as saying that he remained fully committed to his pledge to do all within his powers to save the girls.Buhari was quoted as saying, I assure you that I go to bed and wake up every day with the Chibok girls on my mind.The unfortunate incident happened before this government came into being.What have we done since we assumed office? We re-organised the military, removed all the service chiefs and ordered the succeeding service chiefs to deal decisively with the Boko Haram insurgency.In spite of the terrible economic condition we found ourselves in, we tried to get some resources to give to the military to reorganise and equip, retrain, deploy more troops and move more forcefully against Boko Haram.And you all know the progress we have made. When we came in Boko Haram was in Adamawa, Yobe and Borno states. Boko Haram has now been reduced to areas around Lake Chad.Securing the Chibok girls is my responsibility. The service chiefs and heads of our security agencies will tell you that in spite of the dire financial strain we found the country in, I continue to do my best to support their efforts in that regard.This is a Nigeria where we were exporting an average of two million barrels per day at over $140 per barrel. Now it is down to about $27 to $30.You have been reading in the press how they took public funds, our funds, your funds and shared it, instead of buying weapons. That was the kind of leadership I succeeded. That was the kind of economy I inherited.God knows I have done my best and I will continue to do my best.Shehu also quoted the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Gabriel Olonisakin, as saying that in the last three months, the military had liberated more than 3,000 people kidnapped by Boko Haram in the north-eastern part of the country.He said that the military had the ability to rescue the Chibok girls, but added that intelligence is delicate and we dont want to do anything to jeopardise the lives of the girls.Earlier, the Leader of the campaigners, Mrs. Oby Ezkwesili, had told reporters that the President told them that he had no credible information on the current location of the abducted girls.Going forward, the former minister of education said her group would continue to demand for the action that is necessary to rescue the girls.A drama had played out in the morning when the campaigners arrived the Presidential Villa and realised that Buhari was not scheduled to meet them as expected.Rather, the President had sent a government delegation led by the Minister of Women Affairs, Aisha Al-Hassan, to receive the protesters on his behalf at the old Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa because he was hosting the visiting President of Benin Republic, Boni Yayi..Al-Hassan had set the tone of the meeting when she said the government delegation would first listen to representatives of the BBOG and the girls parents before she and other members of her team would respond appropriately.But the highly infuriated Ezekwesili told the government delegation that comprised the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan-Alli; National Security Adviser, Babagana Mongunu; and the Chief of Defence Staff, Abayomi Olonishakin, that they would not speak to any other person apart from the President.We had a meeting with the President on July 8 (2015) and he made some promises. We are here to listen to him. We are going to wait until he is ready to see us, she said.The leader of the parents also said the same thing when he was called to address the government officials.When all efforts made to pacify the delegation did not yield any positive result, the government delegation sent a message to the President.Immediately Yayi left, the President changed his mind and decided to meet the protesters personally. The message was thereafter passed to the protesters.On his arrival at about 1.47pm, journalists were asked to leave the venue to allow the President speak and listen to the campaigners.He left the venue about an hour later.Meanwhile, before the President resolved to meet the protesters, Ezekwesili had had a confrontation with the minister of women affairs whom she accused of not being fair to the parents of the abducted girls with the way she spoke to them.She said the minister was busy chiding the already traumatised parents in her choice of words.This, she observed, was unlike the minister of defence, NSA and the CDS whose tones, she said, connected with the parents. A bill meant to make broadcasting more competitive in the country was passed through second reading in the House of Representatives Th... A bill meant to make broadcasting more competitive in the country was passed through second reading in the House of Representatives Thursday.The bill sponsored by Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Nnena Elendu- Ukeje is titled a bill for an Act to amend the National Broadcast Commission Act cap N11, laws of the federation of Nigeria, 2014, to provide for competition in Nigeria, promote efficiency and Expand opportunities for Nigerians participation in world markets while at the same time recognize the role of foreign completion in Nigeria, and for other matters related thereto.Elendu- Ukeje while speaking on the bill said it is meant to strengthen the National Broadcast Commission as an independent regulator.According to her, the bill will also create room for competition through deregulation, liberalization, privatization, ensuring free market operation and also enforce penalty(s) to parties that go against the provisions of the law.The piece of legislation, she said, will prevent price or rate fixing, price discrimination , restrictive exclusive content, abuse of dominant market position, and unconstitutional boycotting.The proposed law, she said, is a remedy to the obvious lacuna in the NBC Act and strengthens the NBC as Nigeria has no set of codified laws that speaks to the subject matter.Her words: this is one sector that does not suffer from customer ignorance as this sector has been subject to motions/ petitions on the floor of parliament and litigations in the court of law.Justice Chukwujeku Aneke of the a federal High Court had on May 28th 2015 dismissed a suit against DSTV over increase in subscription fees as Nigeria is yet to have a codified set of rules promoting competition in that market.Competition laws exist under different names in different climes. From antitrust law in the US to anti monopoly laws in China and Russia, and Trade law in the UK and Australia, the underlying factor for these laws us consumer protection.According to her, Fourth Schedule, Section 39(1) of the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria states expressly that every person shall be entitled to own, establish and operate any medium for the dissemination of information.She said the institution went further in Section 16(2c) that the state shall direct its policy towards ensuring that the economic system is not operated in such a manner as to permit the concentration of wealth or the means of production and exchange in the hands of few individuals or groups.The intendment of these two provisions is that by liberalizing communication and media, that the sector be competitive in line with our economic policies.The bill passed through second reading without debate when the Speaker, Hon. Yakubu Dogara called for a voice vote. New Delhi: Once a PIL is filed and heard, it cannot be allowed to be withdrawn, the Supreme Court said Friday as it decided to hear on Monday a lawyer's plea that he was getting threats for filing a PIL seeking entry of girls and women in the historic Sabarimala temple in Kerala. "Let people know this that once a public interest litigation (PIL) is filed and entertained, you cannot withdraw it," a bench of Justices Dipak Misra and N V Ramana said. The observation came when Naushad Ahmed Khan, President of Indian Young Lawyers' Association (IYLA) which has filed the PIL on Sabarimala issue, sought urgent hearing of the matter saying he has received 500 threatening phone calls in recent times and asked to take back the PIL. The bench said it may think of appointing an amicus curiae to assist the court in the case and the question of the right of women would be decided "constitutionally" and the plea cannot be withdrawn like this. The IYLA, in its plea, has sought entry for all women and girls in the Sabarimala temple, which, as a practice, does not allow girls after attaining puberty to enter the premises. The temple, however, allows only those women to enter who have reached the menopause stage. The apex court, on January 11, had questioned the age-old tradition of banning entry of women of menstrual age group in the Kerala temple, saying this cannot be done under the Constitution. "The temple cannot prohibit entry (women), except on the basis of religion. Unless you have a constitutional right, you cannot prohibit entry. Anyway, we will examine it on February 8," the bench had said. It had asked the government whether it was sure that women have not entered the temple premises in the last 1,500 years. The bench also observed that it was a public temple and everyone needed to have "the right to access". At best, there can be religious restrictions and not a general restriction, it said. Senior advocate K K Venugopal, appearing for Kerala government, had said the women, who have not attained menopause, cannot preserve the purity during the religious journey to the temple, located on a hilltop, which usually spans 41 days. President Muhammadu Buhari, Thursday said that securing the release and safe return of the missing 219 Chibok girls was his responsibility... President Muhammadu Buhari, Thursday said that securing the release and safe return of the missing 219 Chibok girls was his responsibility.This came as he ordered National Security Adviser, NSA, General Babagana Munguno to set up a panel to investigate the abduction of the girls from Government Secondary in Chibok, Borno State in April 2014.The panel however is yet to be named by NSA.A statement by the Senior Special Assistant to the president on media and publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu on Thursday stated that the investigation will seek to, among other things, unravel the remote and immediate circumstances leading the kidnap of the girls by Boko Haram terrorists as well the other events, actions and in actions that followed the incident.Meanwhile, speaking at a meeting attended by some parents of the abducted girls, representatives of the Chibok community and members of the Bring Back Our Girls movement at the Banquet Hall of the State House, President Buhari said that he remained fully committed to his pledge to rescue the girls.He regretted that the previous government he succeeded failed to purchase the necessary weapons meant to adequately combat insurgency in the country.I assure you that I go to bed and wake up every day with the Chibok girls on my mind. The unfortunate incident happened before this government came into being.What have we done since we assumed office? We re-organized the military, removed all the service chiefs and ordered the succeeding service chiefs to deal decisively with the Boko Haram insurgency.In spite of the terrible economic condition we found ourselves in, we tried to get some resources to give to the military to reorganize and equip, retrain, deploy more troops and move more forcefully against Boko Haram.And you all know the progress we have made. When we came in Boko Haram was in Adamawa, Yobe and Borno. Boko Haram has now been reduced to areas around Lake Chad.Securing the Chibok girls is my responsibility. The service chiefs and heads of our security agencies will tell you that in spite of the dire financial straits that we found the country in, I continue to do my best to support their efforts in that regard.This is a Nigeria where we were exporting average of two million barrels per day at over 140 dollars per barrel. Now it is down to about 27 to 30 dollars.You have been reading in the press how they took public funds, our funds, your funds and shared it, instead of buying weapons. That was the kind of leadership I succeeded. That was the kind of economy I inherited.President Buhari who was accompanied to the meeting by the Minister of Defence, Mansur Mohammed Dan Ali, Minister of Women Affairs, Hajiya Aisha Alhassan, Chief of Defence Staff, Gen Gabriel Olonisakin, Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen Tukur Buratai and the National Security Adviser, Maj.-Gen Babagana Monguno (rtd) however stated he had tried his best to secure the release of the girls.God knows I have done my best and I will continue to do my best, President Buhari said.Also speaking at the meeting, the Chief of Defence staff told the meeting that in the last three months the military has liberated more than 3000 people kidnapped by Boko Haram in the North eastern part of the country.He said that the military had the ability to rescue the Chibok girls, but added that intelligence is delicate and we dont want to do anything to jeopardize the lives of the girls. Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, says the report of the ad hoc committee set up to investigate the claims of the missing 2016 budget ... According to Saraki, the Senate received one version of the budget directly from President Muhammadu Buhari and the other from the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters, Ita Enang.The Senate President, who stated this in a series of tweets on his official Twitter handle on Thursday, insisted that the budget was never missing as was being claimed.He, however, said the Senate would accept only the budget presented directly by President Buhari.He said, The budget was never missing. While the President submitted one, his Senior Special Assistant, Ita Enang, submitted another. Hence the reason for an investigation!Today, the Senate received the report of the ad hoc committee setup to investigate the claims of the missing 2016 Budget.The report of the committee revealed that the Senate received two versions of the 2016 Appropriation Bill one from President Muhammadu Buhari at the December 22nd, 2015 Joint Session of the National Assembly, and another from the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Ita Enang.The Senate will only accept the version of the appropriation bill that was presented by the President. Jimmy Morales, a former TV comic elected Guatemalas new president on a wave of public revulsion against widespread graft, was to take of... Jimmy Morales, a former TV comic elected Guatemalas new president on a wave of public revulsion against widespread graft, was to take office Thursday in a ceremony attended by leaders from the Americas.Police were deployed throughout the capital to ensure security for the event.Invitees included US Vice President Joe Biden, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, Ecuadors President Rafael Correa and Central American leaders. Spains former king Juan Carlos also arrived at a military airbase to take part.Morales, 46, was previously best known for a television role as a country bumpkin who nearly becomes president.Elections on October 25 elevated him to the office of head of state for real, by a landslide, despite having no political experience beyond an unsuccessful run for municipal office in 2011.His victory was attributed to widespread public disgust with corruption, especially after his predecessor, Otto Perez, was felled by a major graft scandal. Weak political base Yet his political support is weak, with his conservative FCN-Nacion party holding just 11 seats in the 158-seat Congress.Thus far, Morales has given few concrete indications of how he intends to make good on his vows to fight corruption, or respond to the countrys high murder rate and poverty.I will work with all my heart and strength not to let you down, he said after his election triumph.His government is expected to be unveiled hours after the inauguration ceremony, which was pared down on his orders to save money.The FCN-Nacion party was formed by former military officers, some of them linked to atrocities committed during Guatemalas 1960-1996 civil war.Morales has denied the party has anyone tied to civil war abuses in its ranks. But one of its newly elected lawmakers is Edgar Ovalle, a former officer accused of human rights violations in the war who is fighting prosecutors efforts to strip him of immunity. Best president Guatemala has still not recovered from the social problems caused by the 36 years of conflict.Plagued by gang- and drug-related violence, it recorded 6,000 murders last year alone.Its problems were heightened by political instability last year when protests erupted over a corruption scandal exposing kickbacks to officials in return for lowered customs duties for some companies.Most Guatemalans view Morales with fondness as a familiar figure from his 15-year television career on a program he produced with his brother Sammy Morales.In 2004, Jimmy said, I want to be president of Guatemala. I thought he was crazy, Sammy Morales told a web magazine, Nomada, in an interview.However, he asserted that his brother was prepared academically, emotionally and spiritually to take on his new role.Guatemala now has the best president it could have. A man who is just, fair, hardworking, honorable, dedicated, persistent, Sammy Morales said;According to his official biography, Morales, an Evangelical Christian, has a university degree in business administration, a masters in media and communication and another in strategic studies with a specialization in secuirty and defense.He has been married for two decades to his wife, Gilda Patricia Marroquin, and has three children. CAMDEN -- A city man was sentenced to 60 years in state prison Thursday for a double stabbing that killed a Merchantville woman and injured her daughter in 2013, according to the Camden County Prosecutor's Office. Gilberto Villanueva, 28, of Camden, was sentenced to 60 years in state prison in connection to a double stabbing that killed a woman and injured her daughter in 2013. Gilberto Villanueva, 28, was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of 50-year-old Suzanne Durocher and attempted murder for stabbing the victim's daughter, Kristen Durocher, in October 2015. Authorities said Villanueva broke into the victims' home on Prospect Street at about 10:30 p.m. on Nov. 13, 2013. Once inside, he reportedly stabbed both women multiple times with a knife before fleeing the home. Suzanne Durocher later died from her injuries. The prosecutor's office said Kristen Durocher ended a relationship with Villanueva two weeks before the attack and told him not to come to her home. She survived the attack and was able to identify Villanueva as her mother's killer, authorities said. She also testified against Villanueva during the trial. According to the prosecutor's office, Villanueva was admitted to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Camden on the night of the attack with a what appeared to be a knife wound on his hand. Hospital staff notified authorities about the injury, and detectives said they connected Villanueva to the stabbing based on evidence and witness accounts. Alex Young may be reached at ayoung@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @AlexYoungSJT. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook. NEWARK -- A controversial college fair for immigrants living in the country illegally is returning to Rutgers-Newark later this month, organizers said. The fair, called undocuRutgers, was first held last year on the Newark campus to provide information for students who want to take advantage of a change in state law that allows "undocumented" immigrants to attend New Jersey colleges at in-state tuition rates. "This event will explain the different process undocumented students face when applying to college and offer information on what resources are available," said Giancarlo Tello, a Rutgers-Newark student and one of the organizers. "Some community colleges will be present as an alternative venue into a college degree." The inaugural undocuRutgers, first held last February, filled to capacity with more than 200 unauthorized immigrants and their families. However, Rutgers officials increased security and limited access to the event after the school received threats. Members of the media were also barred from the fair to help protect the privacy of the unauthorized immigrants, campus officials said. Rutgers repeated the college fair on the New Brunswick campus in October, attracting more than 300 participants. This year's undocuRutgers will be held Jan. 30 from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Ackerson Hall on the Rutgers-Newark campus. In addition to providing information about applying to Rutgers and local county colleges, students from Rutgers University School of Law will also give a presentation on legal issues. Immigrants living in the country illegally can apply to stay in the country temporarily under the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals measure signed by President Obama in 2012. In 2013, Gov. Chris Christie signed legislation, called the N.J. Dream Act, that allows children who were brought to the U.S. illegally to pay in-state tuition at New Jersey's public colleges and universities. Under the previous system, students of any immigration status could apply to any two- or four-year college in New Jersey. However, students who could not prove they were living in the country legally were required to pay out-of-state tuition, which was often double the in-state rate. In the fall of 2014, more than 300 unauthorized immigrants registered at New Jersey public colleges under the new Dream Act, according to a study released last year by New Jersey Policy Perspective, a think tank based in Trenton. However, the study found many students living in the country illegally could not take advantage of New Jersey's new law because they could not afford the tuition at Rutgers and other public colleges. Christie has opposed calls to broaden the new law to offer state financial aid to students living in the country illegally. Unauthorized immigrants are also not eligible for Pell Grants or federal financial aid. The undocuRutgers fair will include information on other scholarships available to unauthorized immigrants, organizers said. Multiple translators will also be available at the event. Students can register for the college fair at admissions.rutgers.edu/undocu. "Any information provided on the registration website will remain confidential and will not be shared with any other organization or agency, both private or governmental," organizers said. Kelly Heyboer may be reached at kheyboer@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @KellyHeyboer. Find NJ.com on Facebook. In 1917, Girl Scouts and their mothers began baking simple sugar cookies in their homes to help fund troop activities. Today, the annual Girl Scout Cookie sale has grown into a $700 million-plus fundraising empire. This year's cookie sale is underway and sales tables filled with colorful boxes will be popping up on strip mall sidewalks everywhere. Here are some little-known fun facts about Girl Scout Cookies. Two bakers, one cookie Girl Scout Cookies are baked at two different bakeries -- ABC Bakers in Richmond, Va., and Little Brownie Bakers in Louisville, Ky. (File photo) Currently, two commercial bakers are licensed by Girl Scouts of the USA to produce Girl Scout Cookies -- ABC Bakers and Little Brownie Bakers. This is why, sometimes, the same kind of cookie gets two different names, according to the Girls Scouts. Each Girl Scout council chooses either ABC Bakers in Richmond, Va., or Little Brownie Bakers in Louisville, Ky. Which bakery a Girl Scout council chooses determines what some cookies are called. For instance, Shortbread cookies look and taste similar to Trefoils, but the name and recipe are unique to each bakery. The only exception is Thin Mints. Both bakeries use the same name for this much-loved cookie. Everything starts in Philly Midge Mason, one of the original Girl Scout Cookie bakers from 1932, and Labria Bagley-Quarterman, from Brownie Girl Scout Troop No. 484, chat before a dedication ceremony in January 2001 in Philadelphia. The Girl Scouts unveiled a historical marker at 1401 Arch St. in Philadelphia where Girl Scouts demonstrated their baking skills in the windows of the Philadelphia Gas Company headquarters. (Sabina Louise Pierce/AP file photo) In 1933, the Greater Philadelphia Girl Scout Council baked dozens of cookies and set up shop at the city's gas and electric company windows. The very next year, the council became the first to sell commercially baked cookies, taking Girl Scout Cookie sales to the next level. Time-tested Thin Mints Thin Mints are consistently the best selling Girl Scout Cookie from year to year. (File photo) According to the Girl Scouts, those chocolatey, minty delights -- Thin Mints -- are the all-time best selling Girl Scout cookies across the country. While they are the top sellers, the four cookies that follow are just as tasty -- Caramel deLites/Samoas, Peanut Butter Patties/Tagalongs, Do-si-dos/Peanut Butter Sandwich, and Shortbread/Trefoils. Ingredients: cookies Emeril Lagasse's staff at Sands Casino Resort in Bethlehem developed five dessert recipes based around Girl Scout cookies including this Peanut Butter Patty Sandwich. (Photo provided by Sands Casino Resort) Ripping open a box of Thin Mints in the car after buying them from an eager Girl Scout in front of the local grocery store is heaven, but select varieties of cookies can be turned into even more delicious dishes when used as ingredients. Thin Mint Cupcakes, Chocolate Coconut Chantilly Pie, and Peanut Butter Cookie Parfait, are just a few of the recipes available at girlscouts.org that can be used to enhance the Girl Scout Cookie experience. There's an app for cookies The Girl Scout Cookie Finder App was developed in 2013 and can be downloaded on most smart phones and other digital devices. (AP Photo/Girl Scouts of the USA) It seems there's an app for everything these days, and cookies have not been left out. The official Girl Scout Cookie Finder app was developed for iPhone and Android in 2013 to make it even easier for customers to find where cookies are being sold. The app can be downloaded and installed on a mobile device, and by simply clicking "Find cookies now," cookie lovers are on their way to finding their favorites. No cookie left behind Extra Girl Scout Cookies are sometimes donated to local food banks. Here Krystal West helps carry out boxes of Girl Scout cookies in Washington Township, Friday, Jan. 9, 2015. (Stephanie Maksin | South Jersey Times) Each year, hundreds of thousands of boxes of Girl Scout Cookies are sold to hungry consumers across the country. However, sometimes there are leftovers. Because the Girl Scouts only sell cookies baked for the current selling season, once the sale is over, councils and troops are encouraged to contact local food pantries and other organizations about donating their remaining cookies. Each box is stamped with a seasonal "use or freeze by" date that corresponds with the end of each cookie season. Where'd that cookie go? More than 40 varieties of Girl Scout Cookies have been discontinued over the years. Pictured are Emily Niner, 8, left, and Amanda Kane, 8, of Brownie Troop 81456 n Chambersburg, Pa. on Saturday, February 14, 2015. (AP Photo/Public Opinion, Ryan Blackwell) As far back as 1917, Girl Scouts and their mothers have been baking cookies to help finance troop activities. In the beginning, there was just one kind of cookie -- simple sugar cookies. But since then, more than 55 kinds of cookies have been baked, packaged and sold as Girl Scout cookies. With 12 different flavors available this year alone, there are more than 40 cookies that have been discontinued over years. Maybe you remember enjoying Double Dutch chocolate cookies with chocolate chips, Kookaburras with layers of wafers and caramel coated in milk chocolate, or Lemon Drops -- sugar cookies with lemon-flavored chips. Kelly Roncace may be reached at kroncace@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @kellyroncace. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook. thirteen-hours-krasinski-tired-paramount.jpg John Krasinski, towards the end of his '13 Hours' fighting Libyan enemies ((PARAMOUNT)) Around the same time President Obama gave his final State of the Union address, "13 Hours," a film about the 2012 Benghazi attack, had its first screening in New York. I'm not sure which one delivered more applause lines to determined partisans. But I'm sure there aren't many people who would have clapped equally at both. Although director Michael Bay has never demonstrated a particular agenda -- beyond his hero worship of guys with big biceps shooting even bigger guns - "13 Hours" involves recent foreign policy, and the bloody attack that occurred on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's watch. And so it's a movie that's going to be reviewed quite a lot this year -- mostly by political pundits and Republican candidates. True, it never really mentions Clinton. In fact, it saves most of its disgust for anonymous, supposedly weak-willed CIA and Pentagon officials; the Libyan disaster, it suggests, was a failure of passion, not policy. (Like every conservative Hollywood war movie since "The Green Berets," it's convinced American warriors can win any conflict if the big brass and the pencil pushers just get out of their way.) In fact, for an anti-politician movie, it's not very interested in discussing politics at all. We don't hear about how Libya got to be such a basket case, or our long history in the region or even why we're there now. "Your country's got to get its (act) together," one American snaps to a Libyan as the film ends - as if America's some uninvolved observer who just suddenly got dragged into all this. Bay's film will still figure in the presidential race this year, thanks especially to its pointed, primary-season release date. But apart from its familiar, pro-military, "Why don't you college-boy pinheads just let us do our job?" gripe, "13 Hours" (the poster's subtitle, "The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi" doesn't appear in the opening credits) mostly avoids Clintonian controversy to concentrate on what Michael Bay is really interested in. Making a Michael Bay movie. That's not an easy thing to fake, as you know if you've ever seen a Peter Berg movie. Sure, everyone knows the tropes - a fluttering American flag somewhere, big grins, golden shots of the sun. Bay's movies are all designed to look like big, old-fashioned Coke commercials, but with shots of cars exploding and flipping end over end. Bay still does it best, though. Because Bay still believes in it. The film has four or five big action setpieces, and they're shot excitingly, if somewhat confusingly -- car chases along madly twisting North African streets, shootouts that light up the night sky, spooky assaults by creepy-crawling militias. (For once, Bay's typically muddled choreography serves the story, emphasizing that no one knows who the real villains are, or where they're coming from.) The film also celebrates, as most Bay films do (including the underrated "Pain & Gain") the bromantic camaraderie of tough guys. Most of the security specialists we meet are ex-military, veterans of shared adventures and sacrifices. They may not have gone to Libya to die for their country, but they're sure as hell still willing to die for a friend. And when the film sticks to those simple characters, and those confusing bursts of violence, it's at its best. Unfortunately while Bay has an eye, he's never had an ear, and Chuck Hogan's screenplay is full of clunkers, tough-guy dialogue that seems made strictly for cheap applause. ("I need a bag full of money and a flight to Benghazi," barks one swaggering hero. "You're not giving orders anymore, you're taking them," another security man snarls at the sniveling CIA chief. "You're in my world now!") At least, though, Bay has resisted his usual urge to give those lines to someone like Mark Wahlberg or Dwayne Johnson and instead cast quietly real actors. John Krasinski is a good, low-key star as Jack, the new arrival who we follow most closely on this awful job; James Badge Dale and Pablo Schreiber are just two of the specialists on his team. All are fine, and that most of the faces are unfamiliar adds to the film's verisimilitude and suspense. Anything could happen to anyone, at any time. And often does. Again, this is not a film - like "Zero Dark Thirty," or "Black Hawk Down" or "Jarhead" - that has a complicated point of view about our country's foreign policy, and the people called upon to execute it. Apart from its general distrust of Washington and college boys, and admiration for the heartland and men of action, its clearest purpose is to make an action movie about a modern-day Alamo. But while we're with these guys, Bay makes sure we can't look at anything else. Or stop hoping - even though we already know the gruesome ending - that somehow all of them are going to make it home alive. Ratings note: The film contains strong language, violence and gore. '13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi' (R) Paramount (144 min.) Directed by Michael Bay. With John Krasinski, James Badge Dale, Pablo Schreiber. Now playing in New Jersey. 1/2 Stephen Whitty may be reached at stephenjwhitty@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @stephenwhitty. Find him on Facebook. Phillip, Sheila, Bloke, and five of their cutest, bluest friends sat huddled together on Little Blue Beach Thursday night watching intently as their visitors greeted them for the first time. These eight critters are little blue penguins from Australia's Phillip Island -- Adventure Aquarium's newest residents. Biologist Michele Pagel said the penguins arrived about two weeks ago. "We thought, like most of the animals, they would be shy at first," Pagel said. But she and the rest of the aquarium staff soon realized these birds are just as interested in humans as humans are interested in them. "As soon as they got here, they would follow us around while we were cleaning in there," she said of their large, indoor enclosure. "They aren't shy at all." Before the little blue penguins were introduced to the public, the window of their enclosure was covered with square tiles. "Every day we would take a tile off of the window to build suspense of what was behind it," Pagel said. However, removing the tiles built more anticipation for the penguins than anyone. "They would wait to see which tile we were going to remove that day, and then they would sit right in that spot and watch the people," she said. All eight little blue penguins at the aquarium are between 1 and 3 years old, stand a little more than a foot tall, and weigh approximately three pounds each. "Even though they are little, they still have spunky penguin personalities," Pagel said. "They have shown nothing but interest for our guests." Pagel said these little birds are very vocal and like to call to their visitors. "When the window was still covered, they could hear the people outside and were calling to them," she said. Little Blue Beach -- an area of Zone A that has been totally redesigned to reflect the fun, warm, beachy atmosphere the birds love -- is a large enclosure with plenty of room for the penguins to swim, hang out, and even nest. "They will live and breed in the nesting boxes," she said of the colorful "beach cabanas" located on the beach. "There are instructions on the internet of how to build these nesting boxes." In Australia, where these birds live freely, residents construct these nesting boxes so the little blues will take up residence there instead of under their homes. "Because a nest of penguins can be noisy and smelly," Pagel said. Eventually, the penguins will choose their boxes and hopefully breed. "There are less little blue penguins in zoos and aquariums than there are African penguins," Pagel said. "Little blues needed facilities to dedicate space to them so they can breed and bolster the population." Adventure Aquarium, along with two other aquariums in the United States, worked closely with breeders in Australia for approximately two years in order to bring the birds to Camden. "There were 24 birds, divided between the three facilities," Pagel said, noting that the Australian breeders were very specific as to which birds should stay together. After obtaining all the permits and passing all the inspections Australian breeders required of the aquarium before sending the birds over, Little Blue Beach is finally complete and the little blue penguins seem to be very happy in their new home. "They bring a lot of personality and fun to the aquarium. I can't say enough about them. I'm smitten," Pagel said. "I know, I'm a biologist, but I can't help it . They're adorable." Visitors can visit the little blue penguins anytime during aquarium hours. For more information, visit www.adventureaquarium.com. Kelly Roncace may be reached at kroncace@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @kellyroncace. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook. PHILADELPHIA -- The cameras were rolling when a New Jersey native proposed to his Staten Island girlfriend on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art this week, though the couple didn't know it. After Michael LaGrasta asked Jessica Goodheart to marry him on the "Rocky steps" on Monday (she said yes), the couple discovered an ABC cameraman had captured their engagement on film. Goodheart told SILive.com that LaGrasta, a fan of the "Rocky" series who grew up in Little Ferry, calls her "my Adrian." LaGrasta had the ring in his pocket as the couple spent the day in Philadelphia but was unsure of where to pop the question until they reached the steps made famous by "Rocky," according to SILive.com. The couple also hit up a few other spots featured in the "Rocky" films, including the pet shop where Adrian worked, before heading back to their Annandale home. Erin O'Neill may be reached at eoneill@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @LedgerErin. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Chennai: Effective implementation of the Hospital Protection Act and deploying psychologists to console the distressed relatives of the deceased will put an end to the issues of ill treatment of medicos, said R. Vimala, who is fully additional in-charge, Director of Medical Education. Tensions arose in the wake of an incident at Stanley hospital where two people, in an inebriated condition, assaulted a doctor. Such incidents are throwing the spotlight on how the community of doctors is now discussing the strict implementation of laws. Director of Medical education admitted that the discussion is on to prepare the proposal stating the same. The perpetrator can be imprisoned up to 10 years according to the Hospital Protection Act. The arrest in itself creates awareness and frightens others from getting into such activities, Vimala added. Deploying psychologists in every health care centre would lessen incidents of assaults on doctors and accentuate the doctor-patient relationship, doctors associations feel. Suggesting more measures, member of PG Doctors association in Egmore Children hospital, G.S. Vairamuthu said that CCTV cameras should be mandated in every ward in all hospitals. A police station along with permanent security guard will prevent gross attacks, he added. Meanwhile, other doctors are frightened as they might be given the additional responsibility of counseling the patients. Doctors in government hospital already bear a big workload. Government should appoint a professional psychologist for the purpose, he pointed out. NEWARK -- A proposed settlement creating civilian oversight of the New York City Police Department's surveillance activities should nix a federal lawsuit filed by New Jersey Muslims that they too were subject to allegedly illegal surveillance, the department said in a legal filing Friday. The filing in federal court argues that the settlement, announced Jan. 7 in a separate but related lawsuit in New York, should render the New Jersey complaint moot, the latest filing says. In the Jan. 7 action, the city agreed to add civilian oversight to its surveillance program and adhere to guidelines over the length of time an unproductive surveillance program should last. The city, which did not admit guilt, also agreed to pay the Muslim plaintiffs' legal fees. "This settlement is important in light of escalating anti-Muslim rhetoric and hate crimes in the U.S., but at the same time we hope Mayor de Blasio will be more vocal about why the department was simply wrong to engage in religious profiling of the Muslim community in the first place," the Center for Constitutional Rights said in a statement at the time. The settlement is pending a judge's approval in New York. The New Jersey case was first brought by several Muslims, mosques and a number of Muslim-owned businesses. They charged the NYPD's long-running surveillance program of the Muslim community that began in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- and came to light after a series of investigative reports by the Associated Press -- was unconstitutional. Dossiers compiled by the police had documented so-called "locations of concern" in Newark -- listing the city's 44 mosques, many Muslim-owned restaurants and businesses and Islamic schools, as part of an undercover operation that sought to find and document where Muslims lived, worked and prayed. NYPD officials defended the now disbanded program as legal and justified, and a later review ordered by then-Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa concluded there was no evidence to show the undercover operation violated New Jersey's civil or criminal laws. But in a 2012 lawsuit filed in federal court in Newark, two advocacy groups --the center and Muslim Advocates -- challenged the spying program on behalf of the eight plaintiffs, charging that the program of "blanket, suspicion-less surveillance" was discriminatory because it focused on religion, national origin and race. That suit was thrown out in 2014 by U.S. District Judge William Martini, but a Third Circuit panel of judges reversed his ruling last year, sending it back to him. In the latest filing, lawyers for New York also argue that the city is entitled to governmental immunity and that the charges were filed after the statute of limitations had passed, among other points. Glenn Katon, the legal director for Muslim Advocates, said the plaintiffs will continue to press their case to protect their rights, although he said the settlement in New York was "a very positive development." Tim Darragh may be reached at tdarragh@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @timdarragh. Find NJ.com on Facebook. The Associated Press contributed to this story. Agree to attend Rowan College at Gloucester County for two years while interning for the county in a department that aligns for your major and you'll receive your education for free. The plan presented recently by the Gloucester County freeholder board addresses needs of college students and the county itself. Rowan College at Gloucester County President Fred Keating introduces the Roadrunner, the college's mascot, during an event at the school. (Tim Hawk/File photo) The Gloucester County Public Service Scholarship is open to 20 students this fall and will cover tuition and fees to attend RCGC. That amounts to a savings of more than $9,000. "This scholarship is better than any scholarship we have," said RCGC President Fred Keating. In addition to taking their courses, students will intern in fields including economic-finance, engineering, marketing, nursing, parks and recreation, social services and technology. As examples of what these students might do, interns working in the economic development department could help develop marketing plans, county Administrator Chad Bruner explained, while those pursuing a health-focused education could assist doctors running flu clinics through the county health department. "There are a lot of opportunities," he said. Students, who must be Gloucester County residents in order to participate, will work in their internships five hours a week during the fall and spring semesters and 20 hours a week during the summer. They must take a minimum of 30 credits each academic year and maintain at least a 2.5 GPA and fulfill their internship hours in order to see the scholarship renewed for the second year. "This isn't a free ride," Keating noted. "They're going to put their time in at the county." If successful, these students will graduate with an associate's degree, work experience and no college debt. This scholarship gives students a head-start when it comes to covering the cost of future higher education, Keating said. Many students today are crushed by college loan debt and often graduate with no job prospects. Also, it's the high price of higher education that prevents many from pursuing a degree in the first place. "A lot of students are getting trapped and affordability is going to prohibit them from going to college. We pay an important role in the affordability issue," Keating said. "This program will be another piece of the puzzle." In addition to giving a student the chance for an affordable education, the county could also see long-term benefits. As interns gain experience interning with the county, they can take on more responsibilities when departments are especially busy. Department managers will also have a chance to see if these students could make future employees, Bruner added. Turnover is a reality in any workplace, so having skilled job applicants with a knowledge of county operations is a plus. "It could be very beneficial for the county and for the prospective student," Bruner said. "I think this could develop into something really special in Gloucester County." Bruner said the county hopes the public service scholarship will one day expand to include Rowan University. Just last week, Rowan President Ali Houshmand raised a similar internship concept in which a student could attain a four-year degree for $25,000. In this program, students would pursue a degree while working for a business in their career path. The business would then compensate the university for the student's services, helping to cover some of the costs of the student's education. Local ideas targeting affordability in education have come in rapid succession in recent months. In November, the university announced a program that would allow students to attain a degree in three years instead of four by taking classes year-round, saving a year's tuition in the process. This week, Houshmand and his colleagues at RCGC and Rowan College at Burlington County unveiled plans for a 3-plus-1 bachelor-degree program. In this plan, students could attend the county colleges for three years, taking university level courses while paying county college tuition and fees. They would move to the university for their senior year, paying university tuition and fees. Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattGraySJT. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook. Some officials have called a plan to make nonprofit hospitals pay fees in lieu of taxes a cop out, designed to keep hospitals from having to pay their fair share. Others have called it an unfair burden on institutions that boost the local economy. But in several South Jersey communities that could see a new source of revenue, it's still not clear just what will happen if a bill on the governor's desk requiring nonprofit hospitals to make payments to their host communities is signed into law. The Hospital Community Service Contribution bill cleared both houses of the state legislature this week. The proposal, which would require nonprofit hospitals to pay $2.50 per bed per day to the towns where they are located, would also make institutions kick in $250 a day for any satellite facilities they may operate. The bill's origins lie in a court ruling last year that found Morristown Medical Center was subject to property taxes, in spite of being a nonprofit organization on paper. It has received support from two of South Jersey's most prominent care providers, Kennedy Health and Inspira Health System. "I think we join other hospitals around the state, and the New Jersey Hospital Association, in letting Gov. Christie know that we support this bill," said Greg Potter, spokesman for Inspira. "This is an extension of our commitment to the communities we serve." In Washington Township, home of Kennedy University Hospital, the possibility of added revenue has been viewed as little more than an added perk. If the bill passes, the town will receive about $210,000 in payments from Kennedy in the first year. Payments under the new law would increase by 2 percent each year. "Kennedy Health has been a significant contributor to the South Jersey community for many years," said Kennedy Health President and CEO Joseph Devine. "As such, we remain committed to the strength and vitality of the municipalities where our hospitals are based. Kennedy was very supportive of this legislation, as we believe it provides for both hospitals and their municipalities to forge stronger relationships, while providing a reasonable approach to help support the public services we receive." Washington Township Business Administrator Bob Smith, however, said the town had long thought of Kennedy first and foremost as an economic driver, not a source of revenue. "I think it's a fair bill -- $2.50 per bed per day is a lot better than zero," said Smith. "I did the math, and I think that's a fair amount to compensate Washington Township for the services we provide to the hospital, which are mostly in the form of police." In other towns, however, it's a bit more complicated. In Mannington Township, The Memorial Hospital of Salem County is losing its longtime status as a taxpaying entity, thanks to its pending sale to the Prime Healthcare Foundation, a California nonprofit. That sale initially meant that $860,000 in tax revenue would disappear altogether. If the new contributions bill becomes law, Mannington would receive roughly $100,000 from the hospital in the first year of payments. That's enough to cover the municipal share of the lost revenue. "Next year, a bill like this would provide us with the majority of what we would lose in tax revenue from the hospital changing status," said Mayor John Emel. "It's something that would be beneficial for us." Emel pointed out, however, that the measure would not help the county or school district, which will still have to make up for lost funding. Mannington's schools received more than $430,000 a year from the hospital's old tax bill, while Salem County got a $320,000 cut. Emel said he supports the legislation because it helps the local budget -- in short, as Smith said, it's better than nothing. In Woodbury, where Inspira has announced its plans to move to Mullica Hill, the news is bittersweet. The move could mean that Woodbury collects payments from Inspira for a time, only to have that revenue cut when the main hospital leaves. Inspira has said the organization will leave some of its services in the city, so the per-bed payment might be replaced with the $250 per day rate reserved for satellite facilities. "We've been following this legislation since its initial phases, and we're appreciative of the legislators who supported the bill. It's something that, as a city, we'd been pushing for a long time," said Mike Theokas, city administrator. But with Rowan University trustees planning another vote on the sale of land to Inspira for a new hospital, Woodbury may have gotten its wish just in time to see the hospital depart. "Exactly what it means from a dollars and cents standpoint, we're still evaluating. We're going to continue to work with the legislators, and count on their advocacy in whatever relationship with the hospital we may have," said Theokas. "There is uncertainty, but we support the legislation, and given the current state of affairs, we're just taking it step by step. We're not making any assumptions one way or the other." Andy Polhamus may be reached at apolhamus@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ajpolhamus. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook. HOSPIT 1 BROWN CarePoint Health, which owns Bayonne Medical Center, is in negotiations with Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey because its latest four-year contract will expire on May 1. (Jennifer Brown | The Star-Ledger) TRENTON -- Two for-profit hospitals in Hudson County have taken the first step in severing their in-network agreement with New Jersey's largest insurance company, although they say they are hopeful a new deal can be reached before the contracts expire in the spring. CarePoint Health, the parent company for Hoboken University Medical Center and Bayonne Medical Center, "has terminated its network agreements with Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey," according to a statement from Horizon spokesman Tom Vincz. The company is sending notices to inform customers in the north Jersey area. CarePoint's spokesman Jarrod Berstein confirmed Thursday the company's four-year-old pact with Horizon is expiring, but the goal is to reach a new contract. "We will continue to negotiate in good faith as we have done in the past and are hopeful for a successful resolution," Bernstein said. There is no immediate impact on Horizon policyholders. But if the insurance company and the two hospitals do not reach an agreement by the time their contracts expire, people may have to consider whether to stick with Bayonne and Hoboken hospitals, or choose a new insurance carrier. "Beginning May 1, 2016, Bayonne Medical Center will be out-of-network for all Horizon BCBSNJ members. And beginning June 2, 2016, Hoboken University Medical Center will be out-of-network for all Horizon BCBSNJ members," Vincz, the Horizon spokesman said. "Horizon is hopeful CarePoint will reconsider its decision to terminate its contracts so that Horizon members can have access to affordable care at its three hospitals," Vincz said. CarePoint's third hospital, Christ Hospital in Jersey City, severed its in-network contract with Horizon in January 2015. Controlling exorbitant out-of-network costs has been a priority among state lawmakers, although they failed last year to pass legislation that would have established an arbitration system to settle billing disputes. The legislation was championed by insurance carriers that singled out CarePoint hospitals for relying on a business model that steers patients from the emergency room to obtain higher reimbursements. For the past three years, Bayonne Medical Center has stood out as one of the most expensive hospitals in the nation, based on their "charges" - the sticker price people pay who are outside an insurance network that is also used as a negotiating point with insurance companies. CarePoint hospitals were among those Horizon excluded from its new OMNIA tiered network of plans, which promise a 15 percent premium discount compared to other Horizon plans. "Because of the proposed tiered network system in New Jersey, we are focused on a timely resolution that protects the viability of urban hospitals like ours," Bernstein said. CarePoint will continue to "embrace our obligation to care for everyone who comes through our door, insured, underinsured or uninsured," he added. "Our goal has always been to be in-network with all insurers at the appropriate reimbursement rates based on the population we serve including more than half who are either uninsured or underinsured." Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. Researchers Put the Bite on Mosquitoes The Aedes aegypti female mosquito sucking blood from a man's arm. Only the female mosquitos bite. (James Gathany, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) If you're traveling to South America, Central America, or even the Caribbean, there's a new mosquito-borne virus that has been linked to birth defects and miscarriages. The Zika virus has been around since 1947 and is rarely fatal in adults. No one has been infected in the United States. So why did the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issue a rare travel advisory about it on a Friday night? Because Zika's "turf" is spreading - now showing up in Puerto Rico and Haiti - and because the virus was found in two Brazilian newborns who died, as well as in the placentas of two women who miscarried. In addition, scientists fear Zika may be the cause of some 3,500 Brazilian children born with microencephaly - or abnormally small heads - in just the last four months. For that reason, the United States has followed the actions of Canada, which last week issued a health advisory urging travelers to guard against mosquito bites when visiting the countries where Zika is present. A case occurred in Canada when a traveler to a country where Zika was present became ill upon returning home. Here's the CDC's advice on steering clear of Zika: Pregnant women in any stage of their pregnancy should avoid travel to Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname, Venezuela, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. That same advice holds for women who are trying to get pregnant, or contemplating starting a family. If any of those women must travel to the affect countries, the advice is to stay and sleep in screened-in or air-conditioned rooms. Don't use a wimpy insect repellent. Instead, use EPA-registered insect repellents containing DEET, picaridin, oil of lemon eucalyptus (OLE), or IR3535. Insect repellents containing DEET, picaridin, and IR3535 are safe for pregnant and nursing women and children older than 2 months when used according to the product label. Oil of lemon eucalyptus products should not be used on children under 3 years of age. Wear long sleeves and pants, preferably the kind treated with permethrin. Also use permethrin-treated boots, socks and tents. Symptoms generally include a fever, rash, joint pain, and conjunctivitis, or "pink eye." The illness is usually mild, running its course in a matter of days. Infection is thought to provide lifelong immunity, according to the CDC. There is no specific medicine to treat the virus, nor any vaccine against the illness it causes. Cases of the Zika virus are prevalent in the tropical regions of the world. (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) Kathleen O'Brien may be reached at kobrien@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @OBrienLedger. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Jersey City police car Two people were injured late yesterday afternoon after being involved in a four car accident, according to a police report. (Journal File Photo) JERSEY CITY -- Two people were injured late yesterday afternoon after being involved in a four-car accident on Route 1&9 South, according to a police report. At 4:55 p.m., a 33-year-old Stegman Parkway woman attempted to make a lane change near Sip Avenue when her Dodge Neon struck three cars, the report states. A Nissan Maxima, driven by a 22-year-old Fairmount Avenue man, had stopped at the intersection. The woman struck the back of his vehicle, the report states. The woman than struck two additional vehicles -- a 2010 Mercedes and 1997 Ford Exhibition -- that were traveling in the right lane, the report states. The Exhibition, driven by a 41-year-old Warner Street woman, crashed into a metal barrier as a result of the crash, police said. All the vehicles stayed at the scene and the Neon and Exhibition had to be towed, police said. The Stegman Avenue woman and a 13-year-old girl were transported to a local hospital with injuries. UPDATE: Bail is set at $1 million, cash only JERSEY CITY -- A 26-year-old Jersey City felon with two robbery convictions has been charged with the murder of 20-year-old Rondell Fairley, who was gunned down on Orient Avenue near Martin Luther King Drive in Jersey City in November. Yesterday afternoon, 26-year-old Michael Reaves, of Jersey City, was arrested and charged with Fairley's murder and weapons offenses related to a firearm, Hudson County Prosecutor's Office Acting Chief of Detectives Gene Rubino said this morning. Fairly was shot in his midsection just after midnight on Nov. 17. He was taken Jersey City Medical Center-Barnabas Health, where he was pronounced dead at about 1:15 a.m. A gun and shell casings were recovered in the area of the shooting, officials said. According to an online profile, Fairley had a young daughter, worked at UPS and graduated from Snyder High School in 2014. Reaves has convictions for drug possession related to a Dec. 19, 2007 incident, a conviction for robbery related to an Aug. 2, 2008 incident and a second robbery conviction for which the date is listed as "unknown," records say. Eighteen years old at the time, Reaves acted as a lookout in the August 2008 armed robbery, in which then-16-year-old Shawn Herbert held a gun up to a man's head and robbed him of cash and other items. Reaves is set to make his first court appearance on the murder charge at 3:30 p.m. today in Central Judicial Processing court in Jersey City. The charge of murder carries a sentence of 30 years to life upon conviction. 99 Hudson rendering.jpg A new rendering for what 99 Hudson St. will look like when it's completed. Construction on the 900-foot tower on the Jersey City waterfront is expected to begin in February 2016. Courtesy of COA 99 Hudson LLC/Perkins Eastman What will be New Jersey's tallest building has shrunk a bit, but it will still tower over the competition. The skyscraper set for 99 Hudson St. on Jersey City's waterfront has been knocked down 50 feet to 900 and it's no longer 95 stories, but 79. The newest plans show 15,650 square feet of retail space, versus the 18,000 initially announced. Still, George Garcia, attorney for the developer told The Jersey Journal, the 781-unit condo building will put Jersey City in rare company. Only 24 buildings in the United States are taller than 900 feet, and all but four are office buildings, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat "It's a signature project for Jersey City," Garcia said. The tower will come with about 7,500 square feet of public plazas. The state's highest building now is the Goldman Sachs tower, also on the Jersey City waterfront. That tower is 781 feet tall. Garcia said construction on 99 Hudson St. is expected to begin next month. New York YIMBY reported earlier this week that the building has received approval from the FAA. Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook. gardner.jpg Hudson County Register Pamela Gardner was 16 when she attended Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech at the Metropolitan A.M.E. Zion Church in Jersey City on March 27, 1968. (Journal file photo) (EJA) Martin Luther King Jr. was "eloquent" in a "dynamic" speech in a Jersey City church on March 27, 1968, Pamela Gardner recalled. -- Pamela Gardner remembers March 27, 1968 vividly. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was coming to Jersey City to speak at Metropolitan A.M.E. Zion Church. She hadn't planned on attending until a friend invited her and her younger sister to tag along. She was 16 at the time and her sister, Andrea, was nine. "It was so exciting thinking that we would get to see him," said Gardner, the Hudson County register. When they arrived at the Bergen Avenue church, hundreds of people were crowded around the building. Knowing there had been concerns about King's safety, Gardner knew he wouldn't enter through the front door. The group made their way toward Belmont Avenue entrance, hoping they would catch a glimpse of their hero. A car started to traveling toward the church, and Gardner knew it had to be King. "That was the car that pulled up," she recalls. "I saw him right up front and close." After encountering him outside, Gardner made her way inside the packed church and found a spot right in the front. King wasn't as big as she had thought he would be. As he stood before the crowd for a talk that Gardner called "dynamic," Gardner could also see a sense of fear in King. "His speech was strong and he was eloquent," she said. "I will never forget it." A week later, on April 4, King was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn. A Jersey Journal story from the event said there was a sense of unity in the church as he urged people to support his "Poor People's Campaign." "What we need is persistent, insistent, nonviolence where we stand up against the evil system without destroying property," King was quoted saying. Gardner admires King because he stood for equality and social justice; it wasn't just about race. King, coming from a good family, did not have to stand up to injustices but he chose to, because he was "a man of unity." Even to this day, she and her sister still talk to each other about that day. Gardner remembers the story Andrea told her about how her grandmother marked the visit from King to Jersey City. Their grandmother had been sitting in the kitchen with "the church ladies" having breakfast and praying King would have a safe journey through their community. Growing up during the era of segregation, King's work was a "dream come true" to Gardner's grandparents. "To them, that was something," she said. "That was achievement. That was a dream come true." A former educator, Gardner worked to instill the values and lessons of Martin Luther King Jr. to children, who sometimes didn't recognize all the opportunities now available to them today. If she had to sum up the message of King, it would be the Golden Rule. "What comes to my mind is the Golden Rule, and that's to treat others the way you want to be treated ... Always work and always try to reach the highest goal and bring someone along with you." 280 pine.jpg Two residents were displaced from their home at 280 Pine St., center, in Jersey City, when a fire started in the overhang between the first and second floors, fire officials said. (Google Maps image) (EJA) Two people were displaced from their home Thursday night by a fire caused by a construction worker's torch, Jersey City fire officials said. Jersey City firefighters responded to the fire at 280 Pine St. at 7:52 p.m. and saw heavy smoke coming from the second floor of the two-family, wood-framed structure, Jersey City spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill said. No injuries were reported, but two residents were relocated by the American Red Cross, Morrill said. Fire investigators determined that workers using an open torch started the fire in an exterior overhang between the first and second floors, said Morrill, who noted that city officials will look into whether the workers had the proper permits. ension prevailed at the Cauvery Junction on the Kempegowda International Airport Road for more than two hours. Bengaluru: A suspicious bag abandoned near an electric transformer put the city police on their toes after a resident alerted the cops suspecting it to be an explosive. Following the incident, tension prevailed at the Cauvery Junction on the Kempegowda International Airport Road for more than two hours. A resident near the HDFC bank near Cauvery Junction noticed a suspicious bag kept next to a transformer. He altered the police at 11 am. Immediately, the local Vyalikaval police rushed to the spot and alerted their higher ups about the bag. As a precautionary step, the police cordoned off 400 meters around the transformer and blocked vehicle movement. Further, electricity supply was disconnected in Sadashivanagar, Vyalikaval and surrounding areas. Within a few minutes the sniffer dogs arrived at the spot but the dogs could not identify any explosive substance. Later, the staff of bomb disposal squad, with extreme precautions, opened the green jute bag to only find four glass jars wrapped in a Chinese paper. They opened the paper to find a liquid in the jars, which is suspected to be alcohol. Around 1.30 pm, city Police Commissioner N. S. Megharikh told reporters that no explosive substance was found in the bag and the glass jars with liquid will be sent for examination. He also said that the vigil was stepped up across the city in the wake of the incident. MahsiahImes.JPG Mahsiah Imes, a Jersey City 15 year-old, is lobbying the city to lower the voting age to 16 for local contests. Jesse Brothers | The Jersey Journal (Jesse Brothers) JERSEY CITY -- A 15-year Jersey City boy is on a mission to earn the right to vote. Mahsiah Imes, who lives on the West Side, does not want to until he's 18 to cast his first ballot. He wants a say in local elections when he turns 16 on Nov. 4. "At 16, you're able to get a job," Imes told The Jersey Journal. "You have to pay taxes ... It can affect us in the long run on who is mayor." Imes' dream is part of a nationwide push to lower the voting age from 18 to 16 to ignite civic engagement among younger citizens. Alex Koroknay-Palicz, president of the National Youth Rights Association (NYRA), said a "belief in democracy" and the rights of young people sparked the movement. "Without the vote, 16-year-olds aren't represented by our leaders and we all benefit from having their voices heard," Koroknay-Palicz said. The New Jersey Constitution grants the right to vote to everyone over 18 but doesn't specifically ban those under 18 from voting. Koroknay-Palicz believes state statute could be interpreted to give municipalities like Jersey City the right to lower the voting age. Imes has reached out to Council President Rolando Lavarro, who told The Jersey Journal he thinks the boy has "some compelling reasons." Lavarro said he's asked new Assemblywoman Angela McKnight, D-Jersey City, to investigate further. "I think it's an interesting idea," he said, adding, "I'm not fully convinced." Giving 16-year-olds the right to vote in local races would not be unprecedented. One Maryland town did it in 2013, and another followed in 2015. The Hudson County chapter of the National Youth Rights Association. Courtesy of NYRA. Imes attends School 24 on Virginia Avenue, where he's started a chapter of NYRA. He said the group took a survey of students, who he said largely support being able to vote in city and school board elections once they turn 16. Asked whether 16-year-olds are mature enough to vote, Imes offered a robust rebuttal, including that children mature physically sooner now than they ever have. Researchers have found the average age of the onset of puberty in girls was 16.6 years in 1860 and had dropped to 10.5 by 2010, Imes noted. School also gives teens an edge over voting-age adults who may not remember much from Civics 101, he said. "When students are taught a full course curriculum they come to know more about politics and government than adults," he said. Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook. rouse.jpg Kamal Rouse was sentenced to 10 in prison today, Jan. 15, 2016, for possession of PCP with intent to distribute and other offenses. JERSEY CITY - A 34-year-old Jersey City man was sentenced to 10 years in prison this morning for drug possession and distribution, burglary and other offenses, Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Leo Hernandez said. On March 24, 2015 Kamal Rouse pleaded guilty to possession of PCP with intent to distribute on July 18, 2013 in Bayside Park on Garfield Avenue in Jersey City. This morning he was sentenced by Hudson County Superior Court Judge John Young, who noted that Rouse would have to serve at least three years and four months before he could ask to be paroled, Hernandez said. Rouse also pleaded guilty to burglarizing a car in the area of Garfield Avenue and Armstrong Avenue and was sentenced to three years for that crime. Finally, he pleaded guilty to criminal restraint at the same location near Armstrong and was sentenced to four years for that offense, Hernandez said. All sentences will run concurrently. The state was represented in Rouse's prosecution by Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Thomas Zuppa. JERSEY CITY -- The 26-year-old man who has two robbery convictions was ordered held on a $1 million cash-only bail when he appeared in court today on charges he murdered Rondell Fairley, 20, on Orient Avenue in Jersey City in November. Michael Reaves, of Jersey City, who was arrested yesterday by the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office's Homicide Squad, was in prison from Aug. 3, 2009 to Sept. 6, 2013 and again from March 6, 2015 to March 25, 2015, according to state corrections records. He has a conviction for drug possession related to a Dec. 19, 2007 incident, a conviction for robbery related to an Aug. 2, 2008 incident and a second robbery conviction for which the date is listed as "unknown," records say. The Aug. 2, 2008 gunpoint robbery was committed with two accomplices, including a 16-year-old boy who was prosecuted as an adult. Reaves' bail was set at $1 million cash only by Hudson County Superior Court Judge Martha Royster. When he appeared in court this afternoon, Superior Court Judge Sheila Venable said that based on the seriousness of the charge, the likelihood of conviction and the potential sentence, she found the bail to be fair. Fairley was shot in his midsection just after midnight on Nov. 17, 2015 near Martin Luther King Drive. He was taken Jersey City Medical Center-Barnabas Health, where he was pronounced dead at 1:15 a.m. A gun and shell casings were recovered at the scene, officials said. In addition to the murder charge, Reaves is charged with weapons offenses related to a handgun, including possession of a firearm by a felon. This afternoon the defendant, who said nothing during the hearing in Central Judicial Processing court, was also ordered to surrender his travel documents. At the hearing, defense attorney Frank Gonzalez entered a plea of not guilty on Reaves' behalf. The accused killer's mother and girlfriend attended the hearing. According to an online profile, Fairley had a young daughter, worked at UPS and graduated from Snyder High School in 2014. BAYONNE -- Plans for an Islamic center in the Peninsula City are expected to be voted on during a zoning board meeting next week, but residents who oppose the project plan to protest in front of City Hall before the meeting. A Muslim non-profit group is looking to convert a warehouse on East 24th Street into a community center that would include prayer halls, classrooms and a soup kitchen. Some residents have cited traffic concerns and possible land contamination as reasons they oppose the project, but have suggested a Catholic church be placed on the land instead. The organization currently leases space from St. Henry's Church. "It's a quiet area. We don't want the cars coming and going at all times of the day, even if it's just on Friday when they have their main services," said Joe Wisniewski, 50, of 23rd Street. At least 100 residents are opposition to the proposed Islamic center. Some in the group are expected to protest at 5:30 p.m. before the 6 p.m. vote. NJ.com readers and Facebook users have been expressing their views on the potential Islamic center. Here are some of your comments: craigoftruth: Honestly if these people would protest against all of the religious places in Bayonne (18 or so) for getting a free ride on taxes, then I would support them. jellogoodbye: Love how Wisniewski goes from complaining about parking to inviting Donald Trump... be more transparent there buddy. Privatize: The taxpayers do not want it then do not allow it PatrickJamesJC: The graphic showing just a couple of cars isn't representative of the expected use. That is a legitimate concern that the neighbors have a right to peruse. Otherwise I don't see an issue here. Muslims are being priced out of Jersey City so this has been a growing community in Bayonne for the last 3 years. On the plus side their households are mostly headed by mother and father. maria85: I am so sick of the opposition to this mosque. The muslims are already there, they're worshipping in the basement of a church. It's not like they're building an ISIS recruitment center. This group opposed to the mosque keeps putting these stupid letters in everyone's mailbox against the mosque. I am so sick of these racist letters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It makes me feel sick to live in such a small minded town. You'd think for a city so close to NYC they wouldn't have such an ignorant mentality. Andy Harris Hopefully more intelligent residents show up at the zoning board meeting to protest in favor of the mosque Jim Micallef That should read "Bayonne racist residents ....." Don't make the entire population of the city appear uneducated. May S. Young Typical racists: poor grammar. Su Garcia No way! Abe Vent WHO IS FUNDING THIS ISLAMIC COMMUNITY CENTER ? TRENTON -- Authorities have charged two men with the November killing of a teenager who was wounded in a shootout in Trenton's Chambersburg neighborhood and found dead behind a house hours later. Pictured is Jermaine Johnson. A photo of Gary Spears was not immediately available. Homicide detectives arrested Jermaine Johnson, 40, of Parkway Avenue in Ewing and Gary M. Spears, 33, of Dickinson Street in Trenton on Friday morning, the Mercer County Prosecutor's Office said. Both men are charged with murder and related weapon charges for allegedly gunning down Elvin Kimble, 19. Johnson and Spears were being held Friday on $1 million bail. Trenton police were called to Chestnut and Rusling streets at about 12:40 a.m. Nov. 25, 2015 for a shooting in progress and found multiple spent shell casings and bullet holes in several parked cars. Authorities said there appeared to a gunfight between people on either side of Rusling Street. At 6:15 a.m. that morning, officers were called back to the area when a resident reported another bullet hole in a parked car. While there, officers were tipped to a body that had been obstructed by a parked van behind a Division Street house. A gun was found near Kimble's body, authorities said. Police said it appeared Kimble was involved in a shootout at Chestnut and Rusling and was able to run to Rusling and Division streets, where he collapsed and died. Kimble died of a single gunshot wound to the back, the prosecutor's office said. The prosecutor's office was able to charge the suspects due to the work of prosecutor's Detective Nancy Diaz, and members of the Mercer County Homicide Task Force. Assisting in the Friday arrests were members of the the U.S. Marshals' NY/NJ Regional Fugitive Task Force. Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@kevintshea. Find The Times of Trenton on Facebook. NEW BRUNSWICK -- An Arizona man took the witness stand this morning and told a judge that his former cellmate told him he killed a boy under circumstances similar to those that ended the life of 5-year-old Timothy Wiltsey in 1991. But Damien Dowdle said he had a lot of questions whether when Bernard Joseph McShane told him in July 1991 that he strangled a 5-year-old boy in 1991, it was Wiltsey, whose mother, Michelle Lodzinski is facing trial next month for her son's murder. Dowdle testified that McShane, who Dowdle said also molested him when he was a teenager before they were cellmates, told him he tried to molest a 5-year-old boy at a big event in Atlanta City in 1991, but strangled the boy after he began to cry and scream. He realized later, after speaking to another inmate, it was probably Atlantic City in New Jersey because McShane spoke of boardwalks and casinos. Dowdle testified that he immediately told his attorney what McShane told him and an investigator followed up on it, but no missing or murdered child was found in Georgia. But, he admitted Friday that he doesn't know if what McShane told him applies to the Wiltsey case. "I still have a lot of questions," he said. "There are some things that exclude the case, like where the boy's body was found. It was five miles away." Dowdle got out of prison in Arizona after serving 18 years for bank robbery and looking up murdered children online. He said he found the Wiltsey case and contacted Gerald Krovatin, Lodzinski's attorney. The story he told is similar to one of several different statements that Lodzinski gave to police. She originally told police that she and Wiltsey went to a carnival in Sayreville the evening of May 25, 1991, and he disappeared when she went to a stand to buy soda. His body was found 11 months later in a wooded area in Edison. Sue Epstein may be reached at sepstein@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @susan_epstein. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Arrest 2 Jan 16.jpeg The arrest of a Montville man by Mendham police this week netted drugs and cash, including marijuana wax. Wax, a more potent form of marijuana, is being encountered by police departments across the state more often. (Mendham Police Department) MENDHAM -- The recent seizure of marijuana during a Mendham traffic stop highlights a growing trend toward a more powerful form of the drug, police and officials say. During the Monday arrest of 19-year-old Paul Saryan, of Montville, police recovered cash, more than a pound of marijuana and nine folds of "marijuana wax." Wax, also known as "shatter" or "dabs," is a refined form of the active chemical found in marijuana, THC, that has been appearing across the state in recent years. "We have seen a big uptick," said Lt. Ross Johnson of the Medham Police Department. "We have had 15 to 20 arrests in the last 12 months due to the drug." Arrests in which police have seized marijuana wax have been reported throughout the state including in Gloucester, Hunterdon, Ocean, Sussex and Union counties. Last year, when Morris County authorities announced their largest pot bust ever, part of that operation seized marijuana wax, which gets its name from its gooey and sticky consistency. "We are hearing reports about the drug from law enforcement across the state," said Angela Conover, a spokeswoman with The Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey. To make the drug, butane and other chemicals are used to draw out THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, from marijuana plants, said Bruce Ruck, director of Drug Information Services at New Jersey Poison Control. Regular marijuana has a THC potency level of less than 10 percent, while wax can have a potency of up to 95 percent, Conover said. Ruck said his center has seen a few cases of people who suffered hallucinations from wax in the past couple months. "Marijuana wax is not marijuana," Ruck warned. "There is an extremely bad hallucinatory side effect." In Mendham, Johnson said police have responded to calls for people who were "far beyond high and debilitated" on wax. Both Ruck and Johnson warned that users don't know what they are ingesting when smoking wax due to the chemical process used in making the drug. "It's the meth of the marijuana world," Johnson said. "The way it is cooked." The popularity of the drug has soared in recent years due to its increased potency, lack of odor and ease of concealment - the drug can be loaded into E-cigarettes. "The drug can be smoked through vaporizers," Conover said. Perceptions that the drug is safer than regular marijuana could be leading people to the drug, but Johnson warned that wax could be 20 to 30 times more potent than regular marijuana. "It is some pretty dangerous stuff," Johnson said. Fausto Giovanny Pinto may be reached at fpinto@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @FGPreporting. Find NJ.com on Facebook. NEWARK -- Gov. Chris Christie and state Department of Health officials acted with a reasonable concern for public health when they ordered the quarantine of a nurse showing a sign of having the deadly Ebola virus, according to a federal court filing. The office of acting state Attorney General John J. Hoffman, representing Christie, former health Comissioner Mary E. O'Dowd and other officials, filed the brief Friday seeking to dismiss a civil rights complaint filed against them by Kaci Hickox, the so-called "Ebola Nurse." Hickox's complaint, the brief says, is claim is "little more than an allegation" that Christie and the other defendants "violated her rights by not believing her assurances that she was not infected." Hickox, 34, had worked in Sierra Leone in the fall of 2014, during a severe outbreak of Ebola, an often fatal disease that can be transmitted through close contact with the blood, secretions or bodily fluids of an infected individual. When she returned to the United States via Newark Liberty International Airport on Oct. 24, 2014, she declared she had come from Sierra Leone. She went through testing protocol established by federal health officials concerned about the spread of the virus and showed no signs of illness. But that very day, Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a set of additional screening measures, including mandatory quarantining of anyone who had "direct contact" with infected people. During those tests, Hickox -- still within the incubation period -- showed an elevated temperature, a sign of possible infection. She would show a high temperature three other times, while tests with oral thermometers showed normal readings. Despite her protests, Hickox was kept in quarantine for three days. She was released Oct. 27, 2014 with the approval of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Upon her arrival at her home in Maine, state officials there tried to keep her under quarantine, but she fought her home confinement in court and won. Hickox filed suit in October, claiming the Christie administration adopted a flawed quarantine process more stringent than federal standards and kept her confined despite obvious evidence she was not ill and did not have Ebola. Her lawsuit seeks damages of $250,000, including punitive damages. A lawyer representing her from the ACLU of New Jersey was not immediately available for comment. In their reply, Christie, O'Dowd and the other defendants say they are protected by "qualified immunity," which protects government officials in cases where they act reasonably. Such legal "breathing room" is particularly important when officials order quarantines involving threats to public health, it says. "Even if it were true that Ms. Hickox was entirely 'asymptomatic' and only 'at risk of exposure' ... she still satisfied the conditions of being subject to quarantine" under the law, the filing says. Further, it says Hickox's "brief" confinement was a reasonable response to the potential threat. She may have lacked all the comforts of home, the brief says, but her conditions were "neither punitive nor inhumane." In addition, the filing says Christie, while speaking about her situation at the time, did not mention her by name and did not put her in a false light by saying she was "ill." Tim Darragh may be reached at tdarragh@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @timdarragh. Find NJ.com on Facebook. chip294.JPG In this Nov. 9, 2015, file photo, pedestrians walk past a still-closed Chipotle restaurant in Seattle. The Mexican fast-food chain will close all of its stores for one day in February for food safety training. (Elaine Thompson | Associated Press) Mark your calendars. Monday Feb. 8 will be a burrito-less day across America ... well only if you exclusively dine at Chipotle for your south of the border cravings. The Colorado-based chain will close all of its stores in February for one day to hold a company wide meeting to review food safety, as well as other issues, the Oregonian reports. The fast-food chain's stocks have been reeling following a series of food poising incidents over the last six months, which left more than 500 of its customers sickened. Sales dropped 30 percent in December, and earlier this month, Chipotle executives warned shareholders stocks could continue to tumble after announcing a California criminal subpoena into the nororvirus outbreak in August. It could take the company years to rebound, experts say. Authorities have yet to find the source of the outbreak, however, the company has been working with a food-safety consulting firm to help resolve the issues, Bloomberg reports. A Seattle-based lawyer told the Chicago Tribune, he expect dozens of more lawsuits against Chipotle over food safety. There have been no deaths reported due to the food poisoning incidents but 12 customers were hospitalized. Craig McCarthy may be reached at CMcCarthy@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @createcraig. Find NJ.com on Facebook. DN 2 CARTER TRNGAR06 KITTS Justice Marie L. Garibaldi in her chambers before her retirement. The first woman justice on the New Jersey Supreme Court, Garibaldi died Friday. (Tom Kitts | Star-Ledger file photo) HACKENSACK -- Justice Marie L. Garibaldi, the first woman to serve on New Jersey's Supreme Court, died Friday at Hackensack University Medical Center. She was 81. Appointed to the Court by Gov. Thomas H. Kean in 1982, Garibaldi -- who retired in 2000 -- was known as the leading conservative on a court known nationally for liberal activism. Garibaldi never married, and never had children. But Chief Justice Stuart Rabner said her legacy was her significant contribution to the legal community. "It is not just that she was a woman who was first, but it was how she was first. She left an army of admirers behind her in every job or appointment she held," he said. "Her colleagues refer to her as among the best one could hope to know. And her law clerks, numbering 46 strong over her 18 years on the bench, remain a close-knit community, loyal to her and to each other." Gov. Chris Christie called Justice Garibaldi's passing a "true loss" to the state. "Justice Garibaldi will always be remembered for maintaining the highest degree of insight and thoughtfulness during the nearly 18 years she dedicated herself to service on the state Supreme Court," said the governor in a statement. "She had a unique, almost legendary talent for getting beyond the legalese and drilling down to the most salient issues in every case that landed before her, and pressing those arguing before her to do just that as well." A longtime Weehawken resident, Garibaldi was born in Jersey City and grew up in Hudson County. A Republican in a bastion of Democratic politics, she joked about being a maverick. "I think if I was born in Morris County I would have been a Democrat," she said in an interview at the time she stepped down from the court 65, five years away from the mandatory retirement age. An only child, Garibaldi majored in economics at Connecticut College and went on to Columbia Law School, graduating in 1959. She was admitted to the bar in 1960, earned a master's degree in tax law from New York University in 1963. She served as the first woman on the board of directors of New Jersey Bell Telephone and the first woman president of the New Jersey State Bar Association. Garibaldi was a tax law expert who served as a prosecutor for the Internal Revenue Service before going into private practice. While working at the law firm now known as Riker, Danzig, Scherer, Hyland & Perretti, Garibaldi was introduced to Kean by a Riker, Danzig partner and served as co-chair of his gubernatorial campaign. After his election, Kean nominated her to the state Supreme Court. She wrote more than 225 opinions for the high court, including the decision eliminating all-male eating clubs at Princeton University and another opinion establishing the standards still used in sexual harassment cases. But she also wrote a 16-page dissent in Kelly vs. Gwinell, the first ruling in the nation holding a social host liable for injuries caused when a drunken guest got behind the wheel of a car. And when the court ruled that anti-war protesters should be allowed to hand out leaflets in shopping malls because those malls are the modern equivalent of village squares, Garibaldi argued in dissent that malls were private property. Her first law clerk, now Judge Jack Sabatino, remembered her as pragmatic and consensus-oriented, and always with a cheerful and positive outlook. "I was there with her on the first day as we were opening boxes together," he recalled. "Clerking for her and being around her was extraordinary." Sabatino, currently Deputy Presiding Judge of the state Appellate Division, said she also maintained lasting mentoring roles with all 46 of her law clerks, hosting reunions known as the "Garibaldifest," in annual dinner receptions typically held in Hudson County. "She always had an interest in what we were up to," he said. "We've all lost a very dear mentor and friend today. I think of her all the time. She made a huge difference in all our lives." While she was the first woman on the court, Garibaldi said she always found her male colleagues sensitive to the concerns of women. "They were all gentlemen before I came and after I came," said Garibaldi in an interview when she announced her retirement. "I didn't have to educate them. The court, with respect to women's issues, agreed with me." Garibaldi, who served in leadership positions on the boards of the Hackensack University Health Network, HackensackUMC and the HackensackUMC Foundation after her retirement, is survived by cousins and several godchildren. Hospital officials, who called her devotion and passion to the medical center "unquestionable," said funeral arrangements have not yet been finalized. Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Chennai: In what was believed to be the first murder in fallout of a corporate ladder race here in the city, the police claimed to have obtained definite clues to solve the murder of Venkateshwaralu, vice-president of a Gujarat-based power transmission company. However, the cops refused to get into details. We are confident that we would be able to solve the case in a day or two. We strongly suspect that the murder was triggered by the intra-company feud, a senior police officer privy to the investigation said. On Tuesday night, Venkateshwaralu was hacked to death by a duo on Kumaran Colony III street while his driver who intervened during the assault survived with injuries. The body of the deceased was handed over to the family at around 1.30 pm. The relatives took the body to Venkatesapuram village in Nellore in Andhra Pradesh. The possible role of the driver was examined initially. Subsequently, the cops started quizzing the employees of the firm, during which they had reportedly come up with something tangible to support their theory. The deceased had worked in Tirunelveli as a top executive in the same company. He had been associated with the company for about a decade. He had been recently moved to Chennai with an elevation as vice-president. Sources indicated that they had fanned out a special to Tirunelveli as well to nab the assailants. The company, which the deceased had worked for, had undertaken the work on power grid laying work for National Power Grid Corporation at Kudankulam for a length of 72 km. It had also worked laying the grid for the state electricity board to a length of 157 km between Kayathar and Karaikudi and another 110 km between Mettur Thermal Power Station and Arasur. By Andrew Feranda After years of uncertainty at the federal level, Congress passed a bill in December that ensures fives year of certain funding for roads, bridges, and transit. That's the good news for New Jersey's deteriorating roads and aging bridges. The bad news is while that crisis is temporarily resolved, New Jersey has its own Transportation Trust Fund (TTF) woes that must be addressed. The Transportation Trust Fund gets its revenue in part from the state's gas tax--the second lowest in the nation. At 14.5 cents per gallon, the rate has not been increased since 1988. Think about that: Ronald Reagan was in office the last time New Jersey's gas tax got a raise. In that time, it has lost a third of its purchasing power, while the cost of materials and labor have doubled. If you had not received a raise in 28 years, your bank account would be in trouble, and the TTF is no different. Without a viable trust fund our state's roads and highways are in jeopardy of falling into further disrepair. The clock is ticking, as the fund will go insolvent on June 30. Our transportation network is vital because New Jersey commerce relies heavily on roads and highways to transport nearly $773 billion in goods throughout the state. Businesses look at the quality of the transportation system when considering whether to relocate or expand. Every dollar invested on improvements could lead to a $5.20 savings in the form of reduce maintenance, delays, and fuel consumption. These savings could be passed on to consumers in the form of more affordable products. Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune.jpg Editorial cartoonist Pat Bagley of the Salt Lake Tribune drew this for the morning of President Obama's final State of the Union address. How close to reality is he? (Cagle Cartoons) Will Republican presidential candidates take shots at President Obama's final State of the Union address tonight at the 6th GOP debate? Enumerating his administration's accomplishments and what he'd like to see done after his term is up, the president called for finding a cure for cancer, raising the minimum wage, fixing the broken immigration system, making college affordable, addressing the opioids epidemic and protecting more Americans from gun violence. And while he did take jabs at some of Republican presidential candidates -- "anyone claiming that America's economy is in decline is peddling fiction" and on banning Muslims, he said "That's not telling it like it is. It's just wrong. It diminishes us in the eyes of the world" -- he also extended a hand to the other side of the aisle. Admitting that American politics has never been more divisive, he said, "It's one of the few regrets of my presidency." But later said he'll "keep trying to be better so long as I hold this office.". What do you think? Gov. Chris Christie has already came out strong, saying he's not buying the president's "fantasy wish list." Is there any room for Republicans and Democrats to work together to reach common American goals? Enrique Lavin may be reached at elavin@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @enriquelavin or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook. -- Police on Thursday asked for the public's help to find a city man wanted in a shooting that left . Dahmir Bethea, 20, of Paterson, was charged with attempted murder and weapons offenses in the Tuesday afternoon attack, according to a police statement. "Paterson police detectives will hunt this individual down vigorously to ensure justice is served," Police Director Jerry Speziale said. "It's in the best interest for this dangerous individual to turn himself in to the authorities immediately." The 32-year-old victim was still listed as critical, but his condition was improving, the police director said. He was shot multiple times just after leaving his vehicle near 19th Avenue and East 33rd Street around 1:50 p.m. Speziale previously described the shooting as an "isolated incident" and said the victim was targeted. Anyone with information was urged to call city Detectives Jay English, Todd Pearl, Rolando Polio, or Passaic County Prosecutor's Detective Michael Boone at 973-321-1342 or 973-321-1120. Tips can also be submitted anonymous at patersonpd.com. Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @noahyc. Find NJ.com on Facebook. West Milford firefighters rescued a German Shepherd from an icy lake Jan. 15, 2016, officials said. (Photo: John Franzino) -- Township firefighters rescued a 6-month-old German Shepherd that fell into an icy lake Friday morning. West Milford Fire Company 4 Deputy Chief Darren Williams and Captain Jeff Boltzer, wearing ice rescue suits, traveled on the ice and reached the puppy, which was about 75 yards from the shoreline on Lindy's Lake, fire officials said. The scared dog tried to attack the firefighters, officials said. "Both the rescuers did not give up and removed the dog from the water, and the puppy was reunited with its human," according to Chief Chris Page of West Milford Fire Company 4. Video posted on YouTube shows the animal apparently frantically paddling in the frigid water and going under the surface. After getting out of the water, the dog appears to at first have trouble using its back legs before running around the ice-covered lake. Officials said town fire companies 1, 4 and 6 responded to the call around 8:10 a.m., along with West Milford police. Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @noahyc. Find NJ.com on Facebook. TRENTON -- Gov. Chris Christie faced an attack Thursday night at the sixth Republican presidential debate in South Carolina from a Republican rival -- something he's largely managed to avoid during the five previous debates. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who has criticized the governor in recent weeks after Christie bashed him for missing votes in Washington, D.C., doubled down on attacks a pro-Rubio group lobbed against Christie. "I like Chris Christie, but we cannot afford to have a president of the United States that supports Common Core," Rubio said. "We cannot afford to have a president of the United States that supports gun control." He added: "Chris Christie wrote a check to Planned Parenthood." The jabs mirrored the attacks against Christie in a scathing attack ad earlier this month. In response, Christie criticized Rubio for doing something he criticized former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for doing in an earlier debate. "I stood on stage and watched Marco rather indignantly look at Governor Bush and say, 'Someone told you that because we're running for the same office that criticizing me will get you to that office.' It appears the same someone has been whispering in old Marco's ear, too," Christie said. Christie said the attacks raised by Rubio weren't true. Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewArco or on Facebook. Follow NJ.com Politics on Facebook. TRENTON -- Gov. Chris Christie said Thursday night he's always opposed allowing Syrian refugees to enter the United States. "I said right from the beginning we should take no Syrian refugees of any kind," Christie said at the sixth Republican presidential debate. But that doesn't comport with what he said on the issue as recently as a little more than three months ago, when he supported the idea of giving Syrians refuge. In September, Christie said "the United States should play their role" in taking in refugees. He specifically referenced the photo of the drowned Syrian toddler that caught the world's attention. "I'd sit down with our allies and figure out how we can help, because America is a compassionate country. We saw the image of that 4-year-old little boy drowned in Syria, and we can't have those kinds of things," Christie said on MSNBC. "I can't come up with an exact number. You'd have to sit with our allies and work together." Nearly a month later, Christie repeated his position. During an Oct. 8 campaign visit to U.S. Naval defense contractor Granite State Manufacturing in Manchester, New Hampshire, Christie told NJ Advance Media that the United States should "continue to support" allies like Germany and Jordan as they take in refugees. He added: "I've said before that if there comes a time when the U.S. needs to take some refugees that we should." However, a few weeks later the governor reversed course, telling Fox News host Sean Hannity that it would be a "danger" to accept even a single Syrian refugee into the United States. "We haven't taken in many refugees, but this president's gonna take in 200,000 to 250,000 Syrian refugees, Iraqi refugees," Hannity said. "How do we ascertain whether or not they are members of ISIS or tied to ISIS?" Hannity added: "Is it a danger to take in even one person?" Christie immediately responded, "It's a real danger to take in any of these folks. That's why I've been advocating for the idea that what we need to do is incentivize our allies around the world, especially in the Middle East, for them to take these folks in." NJ Advance Media staff writer Claude Brodesser-Akner contributed to this report. Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewArco or on Facebook. Follow NJ.com Politics on Facebook. TRENTON -- There was little sign of the once-friendly relationship between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz about a half hour into the sixth Republican presidential debate Thursday night. Moderator Neil Cavuto noted how Trump, the front-runner in the national polls, has recently begun to question whether Cruz is legally allowed to be president because he was born in Canada. The U.S. Constitution says you must be a "natural born citizen" to be president, and Trump has said some experts say Cruz might not qualify. "I'm glad we are focused on the important topics of the evening," Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, said during the debate in South Carolina. Cruz then suggested that Trump, the billionaire businessman and former Atlantic City casino mogul, is bringing this issue up only because the two are now battling at the top of the polls in Iowa, which host the nation's first presidential caucuses Feb. 1. "Back in September, my friend Donald said he had his lawyers look at this from every which way," Cruz said. "There was nothing to this birther issue. Since September, the Constitution hasn't changed. But the poll numbers have." Cruz noted that he is a "natural born citizen" because he was born in Calgary to an American mother and a Cuban father. Cruz added that Trump had at one point suggested that only someone born to two U.S. citizens abroad would be naturalized -- and that Trump himself would be disqualified because his mother is from Scotland. "But I was born here," Trump, a New York City native, interjected. "Big difference." Cruz suggested that "we focus on who is best fit to be commander in chief." Trump noted how the three most recent polls from Iowa show him leading Cruz. "I'm beating you," the real estate magnate and former reality television star said. "So you shouldn't misrepresent the polls." Trump suggested that if he chose Cruz as his running mate, Democrats would challenge his eligibility. Thus, Trump said, Cruz should go to court now to clarify whether he can run. "If for some reason he beats the rest of the field, I already know Democrats are going to bring a suit," Trump said. "If you become the nominee, who the hell knows if you can even serve in office?" Trump and Cruz had long seemed friendly on the campaign trail, even sharing a similar voting base. Cavuto asked Trump why he is suddenly attacking Cruz. "Now he's doing a little bit better," Trump admitted. "I didn't care before. He didn't have a chance. Now he's got a 4 or 5 percent chance." The crowd laughed. "The fact is: There's a big overhang," Trump continued about Cruz. "A big question mark over your head. You can't do that to the party." Cruz, an attorney and constitutional expert, said he's spent his entire life "defending the Constitution in front of the Supreme Court." "And I'll tell you something: I'm not going to be taking legal advice from Donald Trump," he added. That's when U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida jumped in, joking that "I hate to interrupt this episode of 'Court TV.'" Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @johnsb01. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. Official sources said the top brass of the country's security apparatus also took stock of various aspects of internal security and analysed intelligence inputs received in recent past. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: A time-bound security audit will be conducted for all "vulnerable" installations of armed forces, paramilitary and police, Government today announced after a high-level meeting here reviewed the situation in the country in the aftermath of the Pathankot terror attack. Home Minister Rajnath Singh presided the meeting that was attended by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, NSA Ajit Doval and other top officials of security and intelligence agencies to discuss the take-aways from the January 2 terrorist attack on the air base. The government said that "strengths" displayed by all the concerned agencies should be further built upon. "In view of the continuing threats from hostile elements from across the border, the need to further upgrade both intelligence and preventive abilities specially in terms of technology was stressed. "It was decided that the security audit of all vulnerable stations of armed forces, para-military forces and police would be carried out within a given time-frame," a Home Ministry statement said. Discussions were held on the means to further strengthen the prevention, detection and foiling of such dastardly attacks. During the hour-long meeting, it was felt that once the intelligence input had been confirmed, the response time was quick enough, both in terms of decisions that were taken, and in deployment of forces. It was also felt that many strengths displayed by all the concerned agencies, especially in terms of their synergised response needs not only to be commended, but also further built upon, the statement said. The Ministers appreciated the work done by both the intelligence agencies in giving advance warning of the attack and of the security agencies, in effectively meeting the challenge and minimising the possible damage. The Ministers also appreciated the bravery shown by the security forces in the incident and paid homage to those who sacrificed their lives. The need to have a better media communication strategy was also felt. It was decided that in such incidents, media is best briefed by authorised persons on the spot and arrangements for this, including training, should be put in place to meet such contingencies, should they happen in the future, the statement said. Official sources said the top brass of the country's security apparatus also took stock of various aspects of internal security and analysed intelligence inputs received in recent past. Necessary instructions have been given to ensure security in all sensitive locations, border areas and major urban centres, including Delhi where the Republic Day's main function will be held with French President Francois Hollande as the chief guest. Chiefs of Intelligence Bureau and Research and Analysis Wing shared various inputs gathered by the two organizations while chief of National Investigation Agency briefed about the ongoing probe into the terror attack on Pathankot air base, the sources said. Recent intelligence inputs have suggested that there could be 6 to 10 Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists who had crossed over to India from Pakistan through Punjab in recent past. Six suspected JeM terrorists were killed in the Pathankot air base after three days of fierce gun battle but there is a possibility of a few remaining at large, the sources said. Besides, according to a Punjab Police input, there could be 15 terrorists who have breached the International Border and had entered India from Pakistan. An additional 10,000 paramilitary personnel have already been deployed in Delhi to ensure greater security cover ahead of the Republic Day celebrations. Security has been beefed up in Delhi's IGI airport too after another input suggested that terrorists may try to create a hostage-like situation. Both domestic and international flights have been asked to upgrade the scale of security, with some passengers being made to undergo 'secondary ladder checking' in some flights. A 'secondary ladder checking' is conducted just when the passenger is about to enter the aircraft with an aim to ensure that he is not carrying any weapon or chemical. Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, Defence Secretary G Mohan Kumar and senior officers from the Ministry of Home, Defence, paramilitary forces were also present at the meeting. Today's meeting came a day after India and Pakistan deferred the Foreign Secretary-level talks and India gave the go-ahead to the visit of a Pakistan SIT on Pathankot attack. Look for popular awards and laureates in different fields, and discover the history of the Nobel Prize. Select the category or categories you would like to filter by Physics Chemistry Medicine Literature Peace Economic Sciences Select the category or categories you would like to filter by Physics Chemistry Medicine Literature Peace Economic Sciences Decrease the year by one - Choose a year you would like to search in Increase the year by one + Hussain was assaulted when he protested to his wife being mistreated. (Photo: PTI) Harda: A Muslim couple was allegedly thrashed in a train by right wing activists who insisted on checking their luggage for beef after an unclaimed bag containing meat was found in the train. The incident sparked a clash between the two sides at Khirkiya station, 30 km from here, after Mohammed Hussain (43) and his wife Naseem Bano (38) called their relatives for help, according to police. Two members of Gauraksha Samiti have been arrested on Bano's complaint. Nine acquaintances of Hussain were also arrested and got bail. The incident took place on January 13 on Kushinagar Express on its way to Gorakhpur. The trouble began after an unclaimed bag was recovered from the general compartment of Kushinagar Express, which contained meat. Claiming that the bag contained beef though it later turned out to be buffalo meat, about 10-15 people from Chhanera station started checking their train compartment which they had boarded from Khandwa station while returning from Hyderabad. The couple claimed that the men forcibly searched bags of passengers saying that cow meat was being carted out following, which they and some passengers protested. "They assaulted me and my husband," Bano alleged, adding that they were rescued by a policeman Sanjay Banka. When the train was about to stop at Khirkiya station, Hussain rang up his acquaintances who came to the station and a fight broke out between the right wing Hindu activists and them which ended with police intervention, District Additional Superintendent of Police, Kiranlata said. After the incident, police arrested Hemant Rajput and Santosh of right wing Hindu organisation - Gauraksha Samiti - for manhandling Hussain and Bano. The police have also launched a manhunt for seven other accused on the complaint of Bano. Also, nine acquaintances of Hussain were arrested on the complaint of Hemant and released on bail yesterday following a court order, police said. Government Railway Police (GRP) have registered a case against two unidentified people in connection with the seizure of buffalo meat. KOZHIKODE: The mysterious death of a woman, a native of Chulliod in Wayanad, along with two children in Gundelpett near Mysore on Thursday, has again brought to light the plight of the victims of Mysore marriages. It was in the late 1990s that the tales of Muslim women married off to Mysore by poor parents were reported from various border hamlets of the district. Many of these women were tortured and abandoned. Those who escaped the torture are leading a pathetic life back home. The woman, Mubahseera, 24, daughter of Mariyam and Muhammed Pulikkal of Thovarimala, a far-flung village near Chulliode, was found hanging from the roof of her house in Gundelpett on Thursday. She had allegedly killed her two children Muhammed Shayal, 3, and Denha Fathima, three months. But her relatives suspect that it is a murder. The bodies of the victims were brought home after post-mortem in Gundelpett on Thursday. The last rites of the trio were held at the burial ground of Juma Masjid, Chulliod in the evening. Shaji Kottayil, a rights activist of the locality, told DC that the village of Thovarimala had many such victims. Many of them were either abandoned by husbands or they escaped extreme torture, he said and added that the number of women married off to Mysore from the area had dwindled due to the stiff protest from various forums. Though a few of them live happily, the majority had to end lives, flee for life or suffer extreme torture, he added. The end of Feelings Cafe? Romantic restaurant on the market again, newspaper reports The federal government plans to pour $125 million into the fight against a mysterious disease that has ravaged corals in Florida and much of the Caribbean, and now poses a dire threat to the treasured reefs off the Louisiana and Texas coasts. Over a period of time, thousands of acres of lake beds and government land in the city have been subjected to rampant encroachment. Over a period of time, thousands of acres of lake beds and government land in the city have been subjected to rampant encroachment. Despite various reports pointing out this menace, little has been done to revive them. Since scores of realtors and politicians have been a party to the encroachment of land, they have ensured that the Lake Development Authority (LDA) which acts on these reports remains a toothless agency. Since 2006, three state-appointed committees Task Force Committee, A.T. Ramaswamy Committee and Koliwad Committee have submitted their voluminous reports on the encroachment of lakhs of acres of government land and pristine lakes. The Result: The same government has failed to recover even an inch of land, making a mockery of its own committees and its reports. The Lake Conservation Development Authority (LCDC) has turned into a toothless agency with no powers to initiate any action against land grabbers. Read: Guest column: Health of Bengalureans depends on lakes, parks V. Balasubramanian, Chairman, Task Force for Recovery of Public Lands, and freedom fighter H. S. Doreswamy, feel that forming committees is just a delaying tactic by the government, as several politicians across every party are heavily implicated. Their view is how can we expect anyone to punish themselves? Its just unheard of! Mr. Balasubramanian is of the view, If the government is firm on initiating any action against land sharks and land squatters, three crucial steps need to be taken. First, the Lake Conservation Development Authority (LCDA), should be constituted as suggested by the Task Force Committee. Second, a special court should be set up with all the necessary infrastructure to deal with land grabbers sternly. Finally, we are in need of a High Court Empowered Committee, answerable exclusively to the High Court. As far as empowering the LCDA is concerned, the government has been just dragging its feet for the last four years, trying to frame rules. The Act stipulates rigorous punishment and penalties against land grabbers. A guilty person can be imprisoned for up to three years. Unfortunately, the government has shown a lackadaisical attitude, just to save the skin of their netas, says Mr. Balasubramanian. The Karnataka Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act, 2011, has provision for constituting a special court to try cases of land grabbing. The court has both a civil and criminal jurisdiction to complete trials in about six months. Once the rules are framed, they empower the authorities to recover the encroached land or its market value, in a situation where the land cannot be recovered. Sadly, the secretaries, government officials and judges have still not been appointed. It is evident by the governments attitude that it is shielding land grabbers and realtors. He strongly feels that based on the Public Interest Litigation filed by social activist S. R. Hiremath, a High Court Empowered Committee (along the lines of the Central Empowered Committee to probe mining issues) should be set up by the Supreme Court. The committee will impartially assist the court in initiating decisive action. Citys water bodies being killed by rampant construction From once being popularly called the land of a thousand tanks, the city has turned into a land of a thousand sewage tanks,. Uncontrolled constructions around lake areas and excessive dumping of construction debris have killed the water bodies in the city, while the government too has willfully contributed to massive encroachments. Experts say that these lands, especially the lake beds, must be revived and should be used for what they were originally designated. Former KSPCB, Chairman Vaman Acharya, said, If the survey shows that thousands of acres of lake areas are now encroached upon, then the government must facilitate rain water harvesting in these areas and recharge the ground water. Similarly, in recovered forest areas and gomaala land, the focus must be on developing urban forests and public parks. Mr. Acharya went on to cite the examples of Majestic and Seshadripuram, which were once lake areas too, and stressed that not all recovered land could be revamped and utilized for their original purpose. However, he suggested that a subordinate committee to the Koliwad committee must be formed in order to process the survey report and suggest to the government which land should be used for public use and what should be utilized for developing infrastructure. Reusing the recovered land needs a judicial approach and the government must think rationally instead of adopting a radical approach. Water bodies must get their due importance before the state government decides to allot the land for any other public purposes, he stressed. Activist and environmentalist Vinay Sreenivas too emphasized that lake rejuvenation must be the top priority of the state government, and in lands which cannot be used for other purposes, houses for the urban poor should be constructed. The state governments top priority must be to revive the lakes. Also, since the government has done very little to provide housing facilities for the urban poor, the land must be utilized for accommodating the one lakh homeless population in the city. Apart from this, the need of the hour is more playgrounds. Most of the land allotted for playgrounds has been converted into parks. Its time the government set up playgrounds, he said. What the reports say WASHINGTON (AP) The House Jan. 6 committee plans to unveil "surprising" details at its next public hearing about the 2021 attack at the U.S. Capitol. The session Thursday afternoon is likely to be the last public hearing before midterm elections next month. The panel is expected to include new evidence from the U.S. Secret Service about its actions with Donald Trump that day. Ahead of a report later this year, the panel is summing up its findings. The committee says Trump, after he lost the 2020 presidential election, launched an unprecedented attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden's victory. They say the result was the deadly mob siege of the Capitol. Community Its now easier than ever to connect and chat with others in your local area. You can connect with your community by asking general questions, give area updates and recommendations and even let your community know about local events that are taking place. Gurdaspur SP Salwinder Singh, who was allegedly abducted by terrorists involved in Pathankot attack, arrives to appear before NIA in New Delhi. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: Senior Punjab Police officer Salwinder Singh, who is being questioned by NIA in connection with Pathankot terror attack probe, will undergo a lie detector test next week after he gave consent for it. Home Ministry sources said Singh, who is at present posted as Assistant Commandant with 75th battalion of Punjab Armed Police, was questioned for the fifth consecutive day on Friday and confronted with his cook Madan Gopal and caretaker of Dargah Somraj. Singh, shunted barely few days before the January one-two terror strike as Superintendent of Police (headquarters) of Gurdaspur and facing alleged charges of breach of discipline, has in-principle given his consent for a polygraph test, the sources said. The NIA, which has been probing the case, will move an application before a designated court here tomorrow seeking permission for conducting a polygraph test on Singh, who has been allegedly changing his statements quite frequently, the sources said. Singh's car was hijacked by terrorists before they entered the Pathankot IAF base on the intervening night of December 31 and January one. The sources said bringing them face-to-face was necessary because of "conflicting statements". While Singh had told the Punjab police he frequently visited the shrine, Somraj claimed he had seen him for the first time hours before terrorists launched the brazen attack on the Pathankot facility. Singh had said he was kidnapped by the terrorists after his visit to the shrine and later let off as they did not know his identity. Six terrorists were killed in a counter-operation by Indian forces that lasted for about three days and also claimed the lives of seven security personnel. In the meantime, the binocular recovered from the site of encounter is a stolen property of the US army. The serial number will be shared with the US to ascertain where the equipment was lost, the sources said. In the meantime, CFSL has been asked to recover the serial number of AK-47 rifles and revolvers recovered by the NIA after 80-hour long terror strike at the Pathankot IAF base so that the same could be shared with the company to ascertain the country from where it was shipped, the sources said. They said NIA has got a lot of material including clothing, shoes and other material linking them to Pakistan. The NIA was also studying details of the terror strike at Dina Nagar in Gurdaspur district on July 27 last year after investigators of the central terror probe agency found similarities with the attack on Pathankot air base. Three heavily-armed militants in army fatigues, believed to have infiltrated from Pakistan, had on July 27 sprayed bullets at a moving bus and stormed a police station in Dinanagar, killing eight people, including a Superintendent of Police before being gunned down. The case is being probed by the Punjab Police. The Canadian Metallica tribute band, Sandman, has been in the spotlight recently and not only for their power chords. The band was recently served cease and desist papers from their rock idols. The Canadian Metallica tribute band, Sandman, has been in the spotlight recently and not only for their power chords. The band was recently served cease and desist papers from their rock idols.Sandmans drummer, and Sudbury boy, Brent Niemi said the group received a 41-page letter from Metallicas lawyer when they arrived at a gig in London, On., on Jan. 9.It was full of legal jargon, Niemi said. The lawyer was basically asking us to stop using our logo because its too close to Metallicas.We kind of giggled and put it aside and played the show.News of the letter quickly went viral when Sandman guitarist Joe Di Taranto posted a photo of the document on Facebook. Word got back to the Metallica camp, said Niemi.Turns out, Metallica wasnt aware of the letter and blamed their overzealous attorney for the mix up.Metallica cleared it up in a statement to Rolling Stone. "It turns out that a certain letter was delivered to the band Sandman that neither we nor our management were aware of until it surfaced online. Lucky for us, the band was kind enough to post it for us to see, and it turns out that we have a very overzealous attorney who sent this letter without our knowledge."Sandman also received a personal call from Metallicas Lars Ulrich.Lars took time out of his day to phone our guitar player to personally tell him disregard the letter and keep doing what youre doing.Niemi said the band has even more respect for their rock idols now than they had before.We always respected them but this went beyond the music, Niemi said. Theyre actually cool humans and this just showed a lot of class.The cover band, which has been around since 1994, is no stranger to Greater Sudbury.Sandman performed at the Coulson Nightclub many times in the past and Niemi is looking forward to bringing some loud Metallica metal to Sudbury again soon. The next step in determining whether any big projects will be approved during this term of city council will come in April, Mayor Brian Bigger said this week. The next step in determining whether any big projects will be approved during this term of city council will come in April, Mayor Brian Bigger said this week.That's when a staff report analyzing the results of November's big projects meeting is due, Bigger said. Almost 20 'big' ideas were pitched at the meeting, including two arena development proposals, an arts/convention centre, a new art gallery, film studio and a local food centre. See the full list of projects here "City staff in our economic development department are reviewing all of the proposals that we saw, Bigger said. And those proposals will be coming back in mid April and they will all be coming back to council. They will bring their recommendations back to council at that point and time."What happens then?"Obviously, part of that depends on the recommendations of staff and the completeness and the quality of the proposals, Bigger said. I understand that there's an interest in moving forward with large projects, and there's also a huge interest in maintaining and improving our infrastructure.One thing that you're hearing in our council budget deliberations is you're hearing us talk about looking at our long-term financial plans, looking at what we're doing to fix the pipes before we fix the roads, looking at our infrastructure and making sure that we are providing funding toward sustainability."While there are many demands for funding and a limited amount of dollars to go around, Bigger said that doesn't mean city council won't get behind any of the proposals."There are many ways of moving projects forward, he said. We can always set something aside -- the equivalent of a growth fund -- to invest in different projects without knowing the specific project at this point and time."Those are all things that have to be discussed in council and understanding how we're going to moving the city forward and still maintain the roads and the pipes and develop the projects that the public are interested in."But Sudbury MP Paul Lefebvre said Thursday if the city wants to get federal support for a project, the sooner they apply for funding, the better chance they'll have to get approval."Infrastructure projects are on an 'ask' basis, Lefebvre said. If nobody asks for it, we're not going to have it. A lot of times -- most of the time -- these are municipal projects."It's up to them to ask for funding through FedNor and other agencies to ensure they get their projects coming along and that will create jobs."During the October federal election campaign, Liberal Leader and current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to spend $125 billion on infrastructure projects across Canada over the next 10 years, and to give cities more flexibility on what projects are eligible for support.With an increasingly tough economy in Canada and in Sudbury, where unemployment is nearing double digits Lefebvre said the government wants to start making decisions about where the money will go."What we're hearing from the minister of finance is that it is a priority for our government to ensure that the infrastructure funding across Canada come sooner rather than later, he said. It's important for the local partners here provide us with their requests sooner rather than later."When you're seeing (rising) unemployment and a downturn like that, we need to get people working sooner rather than later. Now is the time, not a year from now. Now is the time to get (applications) in as fast as we can, and that's what we're advocating for, to make sure the money starts flowing and to make it happen." Greater Sudbury Police are advising the public about a new email scam targeting people whose names and email addresses were revealed in the AshleyMadison.com data breach in August 2015. Greater Sudbury Police are advising the public about a new email scam targeting people whose names and email addresses were revealed in the AshleyMadison.com data breach in August 2015.Police said the scam involves an email in which the sender claims to have personal data retrieved from leaked information through the website ashleymadison.com.The sender threatens to reveal the targets attempts at infidelity to friends, family and employers via Facebook unless a Bitcoin is transferred to an attached Bitcoin address.A Bitcoin is a digital currency worth around $621 at the time of writing.In July 2015, a group that called itself The Impact Team stole user data from Ashley Madison, a website that facilitates extramarital affairs.In August 2015, the group leaked more than 25 gigabytes of Ashley Madison's data, including user details.The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre provides crime prevention information and the opportunity for victims to report online scams. Their website is: www.antifraudcentre.ca Mehbooba Mufti along with her brother Mufti Tasaduq and other family members offering special prayers for their father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed on his first Friday Ceremony at his graveyard in Bijbehara. (Photo: PTI) Srinagar: PDP continued to play the guessing game on the issue of forming the new government with its ally BJP by saying today that it cannot put a time frame for it. Eight days after the sudden death of the party patron and Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed who headed the 10-month-old PDP-BJP coalition government, the party has not clarified its position amid persistent reports that it is unhappy with BJP over a variety of issues. The issues believed to be nagging the PDP leadership range from Sayeed not being given proper respect when he passed away in Delhi on January 7 to meagre flow of funds from the Centre to the state, which is now under a spell of Governor's rule. "I cannot say anything on it," senior PDP leader and former minister Naeem Akhtar told reporters when asked how much time it will take the PDP to form the next government in the state. Akhtar, who talked to reporters in Sayeed's hometown Bijbehara after 'fateha khwani' (special prayers) organised by the party in memory of the late leader at his grave, said PDP president Mehbooba Mufti has not yet started consultations with senior party leadership on the issue of government formation. "Mehbooba has not yet met her colleagues like (Muzaffar Hussain) Baigh, Dilawar (Mir) and others. After she holds consultations, the future course of action will be announced," said the PDP leader and one of the most trusted lieutenants of Sayeed. Two days back, the PDP, which formed coalition government with BJP in view of hung verdict in assembly elections a year ago, said it was reviewing the progress made on implementing the 'Agenda of Alliance' between the two parties before embarking on fresh government formation in the state. Against this background, union Finance Secretary R P Watal came here yesterday and met Mehbooba Mufti. Though PDP said Watal had met Mehbooba just to express his condolences, the key official of the central government is believed to have explained to her about what has been done by the Modi government and what is in store for the state. Meanwhile, opposition National Conference today sought to fish in the troubled waters as it asked PDP to break its "opportunistic" alliance with the BJP and hold fresh polls to give people of the state a chance to decide their fate. "If PDP is truly not hungry for power at the cost of its own dignity and much more importantly that of the state, they should break their opportunistic alliance with the BJP and give the people a chance to decide their fate in fresh elections rather than asking the Prime Minister for a face saver," NC chief spokesman Aga Ruhullah Mehdi said in a statement. "While PDP is busy enacting a drama of a review in the media about its newfound conscience, they are unrelenting in seeking a face saver from the Prime Minister to market as some sort of a triumph that would enable them to continue with their alliance with the BJP. "PDP has two very clear options, they either break their alliance with the BJP or they start delivering on the promises they had made in the agenda of the alliance. Everything else constitutes delusional exercises of futility," said Mehdi, the MLA from Budgam. The NC spokesman said there was absolutely no reason for people to trust PDP again after it took two months in finalizing a common minimum programme with BJP and spent the next 10 months declaring how well this alliance was delivering. "All of a sudden, after Mufti Sahib's demise, PDP leaders want people to believe they have discovered their suppressed collective conscience by openly admitting they have been lying for the past 10 months. Almost every PDP leader, including Mehbooba Mufti praised the PDP-BJP alliance countless times in the past 10 months. Mufti Sahib himself kept reposing faith in PDP s alliance with the BJP till his last breath. If Mufti Sahab was in fact humiliated by BJP, as Mehbooba Mufti is now indicating through her posturing, what prevented him from speaking up and breaking his pact with the BJP," Mehdi said. He said PDP "swallowed all insults and humiliation for the sole dream of remaining in power at any cost. Not only did PDP willingly subject itself to humiliation but it also compromised on the honour and dignity of the state and its people to remain in power." Naeem Akhtar, on the other hand, said the PDP workers have to remain steadfast in carrying forward the mission of the party founder, Sayeed, and work harder on it following his death. "The message to the workers is that the mission of Mufti sahib is to be carried forward and carried forward at any cost. They (workers) have remained steadfast in the past, and now when Mufti sahib is no more, they need to work harder on it," he added. Hundreds of PDP workers assembled at the Dara Shikoh Park in Bijbehara in Anantnag district where Sayeed was buried on January 7 following his death at AIIMS hospital in Delhi. New Delhi: Manpreet Badal, the estranged nephew of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, on Friday joined Congress after meeting party Vice President Rahul Gandhi. Hectic parleys were held between the former Akali leader and Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh and other senior party leaders before the decision was taken to merge Badal's outfit, People's Party of Punjab, with Congress, sources said. The merger was sealed on Friday during a meeting between Badal and Rahul at the latter's residence here where Singh and AICC General Secretary Shakeel Ahmad were also present, they said. A formal announcement in this regard is likely to be made soon, they added. Manpreet Badal had unsuccessfully contested the 2014 General Elections from Bathinda on a Congress ticket against his sister-in-law and Akali leader Harsimrat Kaur Badal. He was earlier part of the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) government and held the finance portfolio until his exit from the party over differences with his uncle Parkash Singh Badal and cousin Sukhbir Singh Badal. He had thereafter launched the People's Party of Punjab. Newly installed Dragons co-captain Gareth Widdop will make his captaincy debut for the club when he leads St George Illawarra out against Wynnum Manly at Pinklands Oval, Redlands on Saturday, February 6. Widdop is the first confirmed Dragons player who will take part in the clash rather than attending the NRL Auckland Nines with St George Illawarra to announce a further player for their trial match and the Nines each day over the course of the pre-season. The England international expects a number of the club's new faces to also line up against Wynnum Manly and said he expects the Intrust Super Cup semi-finalists to put up a good test. "Whilst the team is yet to be finalised, I am sure that it will be a good opportunity me to play alongside a few of the new players to our Club and for us to put into practice much of what we have been practicing throughout the pre-season," Widdop told Dragons TV. "The pre-season trials are just around the corner and Redland Juniors and their sponsors are putting on a great game for us against the Wynnum-Manly Seagulls. "All the players know they need to put in a good performance as there is a lot of depth within the squad this season as well as competition for places." With a strong supporter base in south-east Queensland, the Dragons will also conduct an open training session on Friday, February 5 at the Redlands Junior Rugby League Club from 3.30pm and at 7.30 meet fans and sign autographs for an hour at Wynnum Manly League Club. The trial against Wynnum is one of two that the Dragons will play in Queensland over the course of the pre-season with a match against the Central Queensland Capras booked in at Rockhampton's Browne Park on Saturday, February 27. Click here for full details of the Dragons' pre-season schedule Video first featured at dragons.com.au New Delhi: Ahead of Republic Day, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, NSA Ajit Doval and other top officials reviewed the security situation in the country as Delhi and many other places continue to be on high alert in the wake of Pathankot terror attack. During the hour-long meeting on Friday presided by Singh, the top brass of the country's security apparatus took stock of various aspects of internal security and analysed intelligence inputs received in recent past, official sources said. Necessary instructions have been given to ensure security in all sensitive locations, border areas and major urban centres, including Delhi where the Republic Day's main function will be held with French President Francois Hollande as the chief guest. Chiefs of Intelligence Bureau and Research and Analysis Wing shared various inputs gathered by the two organisations while chief of National Investigation Agency briefed about the ongoing probe into the terror attack on Pathankot air base, the sources said. Recent intelligence inputs have suggested that there could be 6 to 10 Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists who had crossed over to India from Pakistan through Punjab in recent past. Six suspected JeM terrorists were killed in the Pathankot air base after three days of fierce gun battle but there is a possibility of a few remaining at large, the sources said. Besides, according to a Punjab Police input, there could be 15 terrorists who have breached the International Border and had entered India from Pakistan. An additional 10,000 paramilitary personnel have already been deployed in Delhi to ensure greater security cover ahead of the Republic Day celebrations. Security has been beefed up in Delhi's IGI airport too after another input suggested that terrorists may try to create a hostage-like situation. Both domestic and international flights have been asked to upgrade the scale of security, with some passengers being made to undergo 'secondary ladder checking' in some flights. A 'secondary ladder checking' is conducted just when the passenger is about to enter the aircraft with an aim to ensure that he is not carrying any weapon or chemical. Today's meeting came a day after India and Pakistan deferred the Foreign Secretary-level talks and India gave the go-ahead to the visit of a Pakistan SIT on Pathankot attack. Army chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag had said on Wednesday that the security environment facing the nation is becoming more "complex and dynamic" and that at least 17 terror training camps continue to be active in Pakistani Occupied Kashmir compared to 42 earlier. Parrikar recently has said that there was a need to give back pain inflicted on India by organisations and individuals in the same coin. Indiana's per capita income of $39,578 ranks 39th nationally, and the Hoosier state has been falling further and further behind. Average per capita income has only risen by about $1,100 a year since 2004, when Indiana ranked 37th nationally, according to newly released U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data that was compiled by STATS Indiana. The Hoosier state had the 28th highest income per capita in 1994 and the 33rd highest in 1984. Hoosiers are only making 2.9 percent more than they were a decade ago, which is the 42nd smallest rise in that time among the nation's 50 states. Income growth slowed considerably in Indiana over the last decade, considering it's risen by 18.1 percent over the last 20 years. Last year, the average Indiana resident only made 85.9 percent of what the average American earned. A big reason for the decline is that Indiana has historically relied heavily on manufacturing, a sector that has been shedding jobs because of automation and outsourcing up until only recently. It's estimated the United States has lost around 5 million manufacturing jobs since 2000, and they're often replaced with much lower-paying jobs in sectors like retail and hospitality. The Indiana Democratic Party long has harped on the state's stagnant wages. "This figure indicates that Mike Pence's idea to provide a 'snapshot' of the state's economy is failing the state," party spokesman Drew Anderson said. "The fact is, per capita income for Hoosiers has declined from its 33rd ranking in 2004, and it's because Mike Pence believes quantity of jobs instead of quality of jobs would help him on an election year." State officials involved in Gov. Pence's economic development efforts beg to differ with Anderson. They say the state has shifted its economic development strategy to chase more good-paying jobs, such as in areas like digital marketing, financial consulting, bio-pharmaceuticals and medical technologies. In December, the Indiana Economic Development Corp. announced 17 newly relocated companies would pay an average salary of $82,900, or 85 percent higher than the state's average wage. When those number's were released, Pence touted the state's low unemployment rate and its business-friendly climate. "Companies both large and small are finding success and creating jobs across Indiana because we are a state that works," Pence said. The Indiana Economic Development Corp., formerly the Department of Commerce, said new jobs announced during 2015 should pay an average wage of $24.87, which is above the national average and a 14 percent increase over 2014. CROWN POINT A Lake County jury had to decide if a Gary couple resisted arrest while hitting an officer, or if the officer used excessive force. The jury took about three and a half hours Wednesday before finding Reginald S. Harris guilty of battery against a public safety official and resisting law enforcement. Summer C. Snow was found guilty of battery against a public safety official and resisting law enforcement. Snow, 35, was acquitted on an additional count of battery against a public safety official and disorderly conduct. What was undisputed during the three-day trial in Lake County Criminal Judge Salvador Vasquez's courtroom was that Snow called police about 4:50 a.m. on Nov. 30, 2014, asking for help removing Harris from her car, according to court testimony. What happened after Gary Patrolman Terry Peck arrived to the 1100 block of Jennings Street was disputed throughout the trial by the state and defense. Peck testified that Harris, 36, refused to get out of the red Dodge Durango once he arrived on the scene. Despite repeated warnings that he could be arrested, Peck testified that Harris repeatedly told him he knew his rights and had expensive lawyers. When Peck reached into the vehicle to grab Harris, Peck said he was pulled into the car by Harris who then began hitting him. A scuffle ensued between the men where they both hit each other, Peck said. At some point, Snow began cheering on Harris telling him to beat that, "white boy," Peck testified. Snow and Harris are African-American. Peck was eventually able to gain control over Harris and arrested him. After Harris was placed in the patrol car, Snow refused to give the officer her identification card so he could complete his report. Peck testified that after looking inside of the SUV for any vehicle identification and his flashlight, a verbal confrontation with Snow turned physical. When Peck warned Snow that she too could be arrested, Peck testified that Snow dared him to arrest her, reasoning that she couldn't be arrested because she was the one who called police. That led to a scuffle between them that left both with injuries. Photos showed Peck with scratches to his face, wrist and a knot on his head. Snow had a black eye and a cut lip. Defense attorney Russell Brown argued that it was Peck, not his clients, who escalated the situation that morning. He said Peck began beating Harris before his client even had a chance to react to the officer's command. He argued Snow's comment made that morning were protected by the First Amendment. Brown also said it wasn't a crime under the circumstances for Snow to refuse to show her identification card. Brown said Snow became upset because of how Peck treated Harris. He also questioned how the state was accusing Snow of being disorderly, but did not present any evidence of neighbors being disturbed by his client. Deputy Prosecuting Attorneys Quinton White and Sean Mullins argued Peck was simply doing his job that morning and had nothing to hide. They pointed out how he admitted to hitting Snow and Harris, but he never used his gun, stun gun or mace. They also implied that a gun later found on the scene had fallen out of Snow's pocket at some point. "The defendants went so far to portray themselves as angels that they can't explain the evidence," Mullins said to jurors. The couple was allowed to remain out of jail on bond pending their Feb. 26 sentencing hearing. INDIANAPOLIS | Big money is pouring into Northwest Indiana's competitive state House races as Democrats and Republicans ready their final pitches to voters ahead of the Nov. 4 elections. The 4th District contest between state Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, and Democrat Deb Porter to represent the Valparaiso area is drawing the greatest number of last-minute donations, with both candidates picking up strong support from labor unions. According to Indiana campaign finance reports, the Northern Indiana Operators Union Political Action Committee has given $25,000 this month to Soliday, one of the few House Republicans to vote in 2012 against Indiana's right-to-work law. The chairman of the House Roads and Transportation Committee, Soliday last week picked up $7,500 from the road builders' Build Indiana PAC, to go along the $5,000 they gave him earlier this year, and $2,000 from the Northwest Indiana Contractors PAC. Gov. Mike Pence's campaign fund gave Soliday $3,500 on Oct. 17 and pro-business groups and individuals kicked in $18,000 more this month. Hoosiers for Quality Education PAC, a group supporting charter schools and private school vouchers, gave Soliday $5,000 on Tuesday. The four-term lawmaker needs the money. He reported Oct. 10 just $52,596 cash on hand and campaign debts of $48,668, as Porter, a public school teacher for three decades, launched $393,000 in television ads, according to her pre-election campaign finance report. Late Saturday, a campaign manager for Porter said the $393,000 was not correct, saying a clerical error added a zero and the number really is $39,300. Joel Smith, of the Porter campaign, said its working with the state to fix the error. The Indiana State Teachers Union's IPACE PAC is the top donor to Porter's campaign giving her $63,000 through Oct. 10 and another $14,000 since then. Iron Workers Local 395, the Laborers Union and United Food and Commercial Workers together kicked in $10,000 for Porter this month. The House Democratic caucus added $26,000 to Porter's fundraising total on Oct. 1. In the 11th District, comprising the southern third of Lake and Porter counties, Republican Michael Aylesworth, of Hebron, burned through $36,756 since April 12 and his campaign was nearly $5,000 in debt Oct. 16 when the House Republican Campaign Committee gave him $25,000 to finish the race. His opponent, Democrat Jim Metro, of Cedar Lake, had $35,844 to spend as of Oct. 10, thanks in part to $49,303 in donations from the teacher's union. Since then, Metro has taken in $15,000 from the Operators Union of which he is a member, $9,000 from Iron Workers, $2,000 each from the Pipe Trades, Auto Workers and Food and Commercial Workers unions and $1,000 each from three Laborers union locals. Bill Fine also was nearly out of money until House Republicans swooped in Oct. 17 with $13,500 to support his challenge to state Rep. Mara Candelaria Reardon, D-Munster, in the 12th District of Munster and Highland. Reardon reported $38,964 cash on hand after picking up $20,000 from the teachers union Oct. 6. In the 15th District of Schererville, Dyer, and portions of St. John and Griffith, state Rep. Hal Slager, R-Schererville, declared $35,092 to spend as of Oct. 10, compared to Schererville Democrat Jim Wieser's $7,612. Wieser since has picked up another $2,000 from the United Auto Workers while Pence gave $3,500 to Slager. Republicans and supporters of charter and private schools are making a last-minute push against state Rep. Shelli VanDenburgh, D-Crown Point, in the 19th District, which includes Crown Point, Winfield, Lakes of the Four Seasons and portions of Merrillville and Hobart. On Oct. 16, Republican challenger Julie Olthoff, of Crown Point, received $26,000 from House Republicans and $20,000 from Hoosiers for Quality of Education. VanDenburgh, whose $33,404 campaign fund was more than twice the size of Olthoff's, picked up $10,000 from House Democrats on Wednesday. The teachers union also added $2,000 to its $54,303 in prior donations and Indiana bankers gave VanDenburgh $1,000. INDIANAPOLIS | House Democratic Leader Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City, took the blame Thursday for the unexpected electoral defeats of former state Reps. Mara Candelaria Reardon, D-Munster, and Shelli VanDenburgh, D-Crown Point. "We didn't get it done. We didn't do a good enough job of getting our folks out," Pelath said. "It's not the president's fault, it's not the party's fault ... that is on me." The loss of those two representatives leaves the Democrats controlling just 29 seats in the 100-member House when the General Assembly convenes in January for a four-month session focused on the state budget. Nevertheless, Pelath is confident Democrats still can force the Republican supermajority to consider alternative policy proposals, noting that without Democrats, Hoosiers would have voted Tuesday on a now-irrelevant constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. "The truth is that we have been a very effective caucus here in Indiana, and we're going to continue to be a very effective caucus," Pelath said. "We're pretty good at what we do in terms of finding out where the Republicans are disagreeing with each other and getting in the middle of it." Pelath said Democrats will focus their legislative efforts next year on boosting the economic prosperity of the middle class, raising the state's minimum wage, ensuring public schools are properly funded and keeping Republicans from enacting a radically conservative social agenda. Looking ahead to 2016, Pelath reckons Democrats will be in better shape to win House seats with Hillary Clinton as the party's likely presidential nominee and contested races for U.S. senator and Indiana governor on the ballot. "It will be an entirely different universe of voters and we believe that we're going to be well-positioned to appeal to the center of this state for a new direction," Pelath said. "Tuesday was a very small, short-term setback but we feel very good about the course that we have set for the Democratic Party." INDIANAPOLIS | When the Indiana General Assembly convened 10 weeks ago, no one expected region lawmakers would return with $4 million to help the local match to obtain federal funds for the South Shore Line extension to Dyer. How that money was directed to the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority "to establish or improve public mass rail transportation systems in Lake County" is a tale of big ideas, politics, luck, hubris and compromise. U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Merrillville, set things in motion. As the biggest cheerleader for South Shore expansion -- and the new jobs, residents and developments it could bring -- Visclosky met regularly with state lawmakers and other region leaders to figure out how to pay for it. A little-read report issued in September by the Legislature's Commission on State Tax and Financing Policy was the key to unlocking at least some of the needed funds. That panel, led by state Sen. Brandt Hershman, R-Buck Creek, spent the summer reviewing all of the income tax credits available under Indiana law, including how many people claim each credit, how much the credit costs the state and whether the credit is having economic impact originally expected. One item that stood out to commission members, including state Sen. Ed Charbonneau, R-Valparaiso, a regular in Visclosky meetings, was the Lake County Residential Property Tax Credit. The $300 credit was created in 2001 to help Lake County homeowners with annual incomes below $18,000 pay their property taxes. Those taxes increased dramatically following a 1998 Indiana Supreme Court ruling involving the town of St. John requiring property be assessed at its true market value. The commission discovered that of the 29,050 Lake County residents who claimed the credit in 2012, some 13,400 homeowners whose total incomes topped $18,000 received the credit, because under the law "earned income" did not include most investment or retirement income. At least 23 households with incomes of more than $500,000 got the $300 refund. Lake County officials were aware of the tax credit abuse, but couldn't do much because legislative action was required to stop it. Seeking to close that loophole, Charbonneau filed Senate Bill 383 at the start of the legislative session in January. His plan would have capped eligibility for the credit at $18,000 in total income, and returned the $4 million a year in excess tax credits to Lake County, Hammond, East Chicago and Gary. Those localities were chosen because the state deducts the cost of providing the credit from casino admission tax revenue that otherwise would go to the county and casino cities. Charbonneau's proposal never received a Senate committee hearing. That normally would be the end of the story, except in this case Charbonneau met with Hershman, who also was dismayed by the abuse of the Lake County tax credit, and persuaded him to keep the idea alive. "Once my bill died, it became a scramble to find someplace for it to go," Charbonneau said. Hershman agreed to add it to his Senate Bill 367, which was moving through the Senate, on the condition the $4 million saved by fixing the income definition be sent to the RDA, which Hershman believed was the "best, highest use" for the funds. "It is relatively common that we don't hear certain bills and roll ideas into other bills, just in the interest of time," Hershman said. "This was just more of a fortuitous coincidence than anything." Senate Bill 367, which became a home for dozens of semi-related tax proposals, was approved by the Senate, 44-4, on Feb. 4. Three of four "no" votes came from senators whose hometowns stood to benefit directly if the money was returned to the casino cities and not sent to the RDA -- state Sen. Frank Mrvan, D-Hammond; state Sen. Lonnie Randolph, D-East Chicago; and state Sen. Earline Rogers, D-Gary. Following the Senate vote, Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr., who serves as Lake County Democratic Party chairman, spoke against sending the money to the RDA. He later persuaded the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission to send a letter to legislators insisting the $4 million be returned to Lake County and the casino cities. Back at the Statehouse, state Rep. Charlie Brown, D-Gary, convened a meeting of the Democratic members of the region's legislative delegation. They also concluded the money should not go to the RDA. "There was consensus among everyone there that it would make more sense, and it should be a local decision about how that money is distributed, since it comes from the local community," Brown said. All along, the RDA vowed to use the $4 million for mass transit in Lake County. Prompted by state Rep. Hal Slager, R-Schererville, and state Rep. Mara Candelaria Reardon, D-Munster, the House Ways and Means Committee changed the legislation Feb. 24 to require the funds be spent on Lake County transit. Candelaria Reardon later learned the committee chairman, state Rep. Tim Brown, R-Crawfordsville, and the House sponsor, state Rep. Eric Turner, R-Cicero, intended to keep the $4 million for the state's general fund if the money did not go to the RDA. "It was never in discussion in the Senate or here (in the House) for that money to go back to the locals," she said. "They can be upset about it, but the way I look at it is we are bringing home $4 million for Lake County." On Feb. 27, the House rejected Brown's final attempt to return the money to Lake County, Hammond, East Chicago and Gary. It approved the legislation, 73-24, on March 3. A House-Senate conference committee met to resolve differences in the separately approved versions of the proposal. The word "rail" was added to the Lake County mass transit designation to ensure the money only is used for South Shore Line expansion. Rogers and Hershman battled over that change on the Senate floor Thursday. She had hoped a portion of the money also could be used for regional bus service. Hershman and Charbonneau promised to work with Rogers next year to find other funds for bus transit in Lake County. With that promise in hand, Rogers changed her vote and supported the conference committee report, as did Mrvan and Randolph. It passed the Senate, 47-1, the House, 73-24, and is awaiting action by Republican Gov. Mike Pence. State Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso; state Sen. Karen Tallian, D-Ogden Dunes; and Slager, who each participated in Visclosky's meetings on South Shore expansion, all said they were shocked and pleased the Statehouse found money that will help it. "The Lord works in strange and mysterious ways," Soliday said. "We did not plan this; it just became available." CHICAGO A 36-year-old man was sentenced Wednesday to 16 years in prison after a federal jury found him guilty of transporting guns from Indiana to Chicago, according to court records. A jury in the U.S. District of Northern Illinois found Terrance "Turtle" Griggs, of Chicago, guilty last March on four counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm. U.S. District Judge Elaine E. Bucklo sentenced Griggs to 200 months in a federal prison. Griggs was accused of selling 10 guns and a bulletproof vest to a man that turned out to be a police informant, according to court records. He was also accused of facilitating the sale of another weapon. The guns originated from Indiana, though it wasn't clear from what city. The guns were then transported to Chicago. The weapons were two shotguns, four pistols, three revolvers and two rifles. According to court records, the items were valued at $3,650. According to court records, Griggs also asked the man for heroin in exchange for the weapons. GARY Mozell Haymon has been sober for nearly 40 years, but the Gary resident hasn't forgotten the dark times in his life. Haymon, the founder and chief executive officer of Serenity House of Gary, has used his experiences to help others conquer their addictions to drugs and alcohol. It's those efforts that have resulted in him becoming one of six people nominated for the Drum Major Award. The award, which is inspired by the "Drum Major Instinct" sermon given by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. two months before his assassination, recognizes people who dedicate their lives to improving the human condition. The recipient of the Drum Major Award will be announced at the 37th annual Dr. Martin King Jr. memorial breakfast at 8 a.m. Saturday in the Genesis Convention Center. Haymon said he was amazed when he learned he had been nominated. It's hard to believe I could be considered for such an award, he said. Haymon said his use of substances started as a way to alleviate the pains in his life. He said he had a background in spirituality, but he hadn't fully committed at that time to having God help him through his struggles. Haymon said his alcoholism had become detrimental to others, and he knew things had to change. I got sick and tired of being sick and tired, he said. The process of finding assistance was difficult, but Haymon successfully battled his addiction. Knowing others needed help to reach sobriety, Haymon helped create a club in 1977 on West 25th Avenue in Gary. His efforts to assist those recovering from alcohol and drug abuse resulted in Haymon later establishing the Serenity House of Gary in 1980 at 5157 Harrison St. In addition to helping those with their recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction, the transitional residential facility provides its residents with employment counseling and referrals. Residents there also receive help locating adequate housing after treatment. Haymon said the addiction recovery process at Serenity House incorporates a 12-step program. Haymon said responsibility, reliability and accountability are among the traits he and his volunteers explain to residents as they learn to be independent. We teach people how to live, he said. Haymon said residents are told life can be wonderful if they believe in themselves. During the decades of operating Serenity House, Haymon hasn't lost his excitement to provide recovery assistance to those in need. We do what we do because of the pleasure of serving people, Haymon said. Hyderabad: There has been a strong demand from school managements for conversion of Telugu Medium schools into English Medium. The previous Congress government in June 2013 cited that it would be a blow to Telugu language at a time when it had conducted the World Telugu Conference at Tirupati in December 2012 to promote Telugu. Since then the proposal is pending. The managements have now been urging the Telangana government to allow them conversion arguing that they were suffering huge financial losses. They said they were forced to run parallel English medium sections without government approval for survival. When Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao himself is talking about converting all government Telugu Medium schools into English Medium and the government has already converted Telugu Medium high schools into English Medium in the name of Success Schools, there is no point in insisting on us to continue Telugu Medium, said TRSMA chief S. Sreenivas Reddy. The government feels that their demand is genuine. There is no meaning in the argument that the conversion will be a blow to Telugu language. All English Medium schools anyway have to offer Telugu as second language. Where is the question of neglecting Telugu? said education minister Kadiam Srihari. The total enrolment in schools in TS from Class I to X is 60 lakh, the enrolment in private schools is 32 lakh. Of them, four lakh are in Telugu Medium and parents want to shift them to English Medium. CROWN POINT A woman's nearly six-year legal odyssey ended Thursday after she pleaded guilty to neglect of a dependent in her daughter's death. Maya Willis, 37, of Gary and East Chicago, pleaded guilty to neglect of a dependent, a Class B felony, and was sentenced by Lake County Criminal Judge Clarence Murray to eight years in prison, according to court records. She was discharged from the case Thursday, because of how much time she had already spent in jail while the case was pending. According to court records, she had spent 1,561 days in jail and given credit for an additional 1,561, which equaled to 3,122 credit days. Willis had been scheduled to stand trial next week and faced charges of murder and battery, which were dismissed as part of the plea agreement. She was first charged in the case in July 2010 after her daughter, Mariah Dawson, died Sept. 30, 2009. According to court records, the 19-month-old girl was covered in bruises and scars. Mariah was one of four children Willis had at the time. According to court records, the toddler died from head injuries and blunt force trauma. Willis was released in 2014 from Lake County Jail on electronic monitoring, because of how much time she had been kept in custody without a trial. Indiana's fourth rule of criminal procedure states a defendant can't be detained without a trial for more than 180 days unless the delay is made by the defense, or because the court is congested. Last month, Willis was released from the ankle monitor, because she had not had any issues and had attended all her court appearances. The previously scheduled trial for next week marked the 19th time the case had been set for trial, according to court records. In the past couple of months, trial delays were attributed to depositions taking place of medical experts who had been expected to testify. HAMMOND Two Gary men were arrested Wednesday, and police seized guns, ammunition, cocaine, Ecstasy, prescription pills, marijuana and cash from their home, federal court records show. Darren M. Lynn and Davonte M. Lynn each face one count of possession with intent to distribute and distribution of cocaine and one count of felon in possession of a firearm, according to U.S. District Court records. Authorities began investigating after Hammond police received information a man named "Red" was selling cocaine there, a complaint says. A confidential source paid "Red," later identified as Darren Lynn, $100 for 1.5 grams of suspected cocaine on two separate occasions in early December, court records say. On both occasions, authorities tracked Lynn to his home in the 7200 block of West 21st Avenue in Gary. The Northwest Indiana Regional SWAT Team executed a search warrant at the house Wednesday and located Darren Lynn and Davonte Lynn inside the residence, court records say. Investigators with Hammond police and the FBI's Gang Response Investigative Team recovered six guns, two of them stolen; several types of ammunition; 91.3 gross grams of suspected cocaine in three separate packages; 17 Tramadol pills, a prescription drug; 100 Ecstasy pills; 1.3 grams of marijuana; and cash, the complaint says. SCHERERVILLE Two suspects remained at large Friday after a Thursday armed robbery that ended with a police chase, crash and manhunt in and around the Highland Meijer store. Schererville police said that at 7:06 p.m three black males entered the AT&T store at 1150 U.S. 41 and confronted the two employees with handguns. They ordered the employees into the back of the store and told them to load cellphones into bags and remove cash from the register. The men fled in a green 2006 Nissan. A Schererville police officer in the Whole Foods parking lot near Main Street and U.S. 41 observed the Nissan pass him traveling northbound. He pursued the vehicle, which crashed at U.S. 41 and Ramblewood in Highland, in front of Meijer. Witnesses reported seeing four men exit the car and flee on foot. Police apprehended two of the suspects, one of whom was armed with a semi-automatic handgun. He was later identified as Trevon M. Washington, 19, of Chicago. The other suspect is a 16-year-old male, also from Chicago, who is being charged as an adult. Both were being held at Lake County Jail pending armed-robbery charges. Cmdr. Brian Neyhart, spokesman for the Schererville Police Department, said they did not reveal any information about the other two suspects. Police said they recovered 99 cellphones and $900 in cash from the vehicle, which had been reported stolen out of Dolton, on Tuesday. Officers, K-9s and the Lake County Aviation Unit searched the retail and residential areas at U.S. 41 and Ramblewood Drive late Thursday for the suspects, ordering employees and customers out of Meijer. They called off their search just before 10 p.m. without locating the additional suspects. Anyone with information on the other two suspects is encouraged to call the Schererville Police Department at (219) 322-5000 and ask for Detective Supervisor Jeff Cook. VALPARAISO After spending more than month reviewing all the facts in the case, Porter Superior Court Judge Bill Alexa decided Friday to suspend all but four months of a five-year sentence he gave to man convicted of molesting a boy more than 20 years ago. Terry Hill, most recently of Tennessee, is expected to be released in four days or less after being locked up at the county jail since Dec. 4, according to his attorney Bob Harper. Alexa said he came to his decision after learning that 65-year-old Hill has had no other run-ins with the law since the offenses that occurred from 1994 through 1998. While the county probation department listed him at high risk to re-offend, his risk is actually low and enhanced per office policy of placing all sex offenders at high risk, Alexa said. "I think that's probably a generic thing," he said. Upon his release from jail, Hill will serve two years on formal probation and if there are no violations, will complete the remaining two and a half years on informal probation. He is also required to register as a sex offender. Porter County Deputy Prosecutor Cheryl Polarek and the victim, who is now 32 years old, asked the judge to sentence Hill to the maximum eight years in prison. A jury found Hill guilty in October of one felony count of child molesting, but cleared him of a second, more serious molesting count. It was the second trial involving the accusations, with the first ending two years earlier with a deadlocked jury. Hill was accused of molesting the boy between 1994 and 1998 when the boy was between the ages of 11 and 14 years old. Hill told jurors during the October trial that he did not molest the boy and instead said the boy's mother was being vindictive. The victim testified he never intended to tell his mother he had been repeatedly molested by Hill as a child. But the secret came out in 2006 after he wound up in the hospital after wrecking his car while driving drunk. The victim told the court Friday how he became an alcoholic and never finished college in the wake of the years of sexual abuse by Hill. "He's sick and he's a predator," the man said. GARY Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter held up a phone as he sang along to "Ball of Confusion" by The Temptations in front of a group of law enforcement officials, community members and social workers. Carter told the crowd that though the song was written in the 1960s, it highlights the problems society is still trying to solve. "Are we truly getting anything done?" Carter said. He spoke to the crowd Thursday gathered at Ivy Tech Community College in Gary as part of a workshop about prevention and intervention for minors entering the criminal justice system. Carter sits on the board of the Indiana Parenting Institute, which organized Thursday's workshop. Laura Smith-Wynn, founder and president of the institute, said the workshop was intended to create a dialogue about how to stop the stream of minors going through the juvenile justice system. Smith-Wynn said children today are dealing with problems that previously didn't exist. The institute typically targets parents, but the group wanted to reach the community through Thursday's forum. Carter told the crowd that it was a solid family structure, not lengthy prison sentences, that will deter young people from committing crime and entering the criminal justice system. He said he doesn't believe even the most serious punishment will stop someone from committing a crime. He recalled how there was a quadruple homicide on the day he made closing arguments in a highly publicized death penalty case. "I never use the death penalty as a way of deterring crime," Carter said. "It does not." Instead, he said a hard stance on punishment often reaffirms beliefs for people who weren't going to commit a crime. He urged parents not to let their children stay in a juvenile detention center, because that is where gangs often recruit new members. He pointed out how part of the intake process into a jail or detention center includes asking what gang a person has ties to. When teens do get involved with gangs, Carter said drug cartels only use them for a couple years so they don't learn too much about the structure of how the drugs are getting into the country. Referencing his own children, Carter said he believes a father figure is a critical figure that helps develop a person. His sons signed contracts where they promised to not have children until they were 30 years old. Carter said he did that to deter them from having children out of wedlock, and so that they can be more mature when they become fathers. He said there are signals society sends to children that also affect if a child gets involved with crime. While he was driving his daughter and her friends, one girl told him to avoid going to Gary, because he would get killed there. He said that type of ideology is something the child learned at home. He also said he has attended sporting events where he has noticed a stark difference in facilities for students in north Lake County compared to schools in the rest of the county. "Those send tremendous signals to our kids," he said. Lake County Coroner Merrilee Frey, who also sits on the board, urged the crowd to mentor a child. She said change can happen one child at a time. You may have heard Gov. Mike Pence in his State of the State address challenging all of us to find a way in which religious liberty can coexist alongside civil rights laws, including civil rights laws updated to protect gay and transgender Hoosiers. The American Civil Liberties Union has fought long and hard for religious liberty for all faiths for nearly 100 years, and we believe freedom of religion and freedom from discrimination, both protected by the Constitution, can coexist. As a nation grappling with how to address discrimination in a diverse society, we have decided again and again that, in this narrow conflict, freedom from discrimination prevails. Every American enjoys broad and important religious liberty rights. Clergy and faith leaders, not the government, determine which marriages their religious organizations officiate and bless. The ACLU would defend the constitutional rights of any pastor, rabbi, imam, priest or other faith leader if government tried to dictate the nature of their religious rites or ceremonies. The free exercise clause of the First Amendment protects those faith-based decisions. Further, existing Indiana civil rights law preserves full discretion for religious organizations in their hiring decisions. These current protections for religious organizations will not change. Now, on the threshold of a new General Assembly session, the question is how should gay and transgender Hoosiers be treated in the public square and marketplace where a potential conflict between the freedom to exercise one's religion and the freedom from discrimination may arise. Our legislators are asking themselves whether government can narrowly tailor enforcement of civil rights protections to limit the intrusion on religious liberty. These questions may be difficult. Fortunately, these questions are not new. The longstanding answers are currently reflected in our civil rights laws. Recognizing both the right to freedom of religion and the right to freedom from discrimination, civil rights laws strike a careful and wise balance. That balance protects the faith-based decisions of religious organizations but does not allow individuals to bring their beliefs about racial minorities, women or other protected groups into decisions about employment, housing or public accommodation, no matter how deeply felt those religious beliefs may be. Americans and Hoosiers have enacted our civil rights laws over time to protect individuals and groups from discrimination based upon who they are. And each time we have added civil rights protections to our laws first for race then for other reasons, such as gender we have rejected the notion business owners may refuse, on religious grounds, to serve someone. The same balance should be struck now in Indiana with respect to gay and transgender Hoosiers. I recognize there are many individuals who have deeply held religious beliefs concerning sexual orientation and gender identity, just as there are many individuals from a variety of religions and faith traditions who hold firm beliefs on the role and behavior of women. But historically, as a nation grappling with how to address discrimination in a diverse society, we have decided again and again that freedom from discrimination prevails. Our laws do not allow a shop owner to refuse to serve me unless I cover my head with a bonnet or a scarf, lower my hemline or am accompanied by my husband. Nor should our laws allow a shop owner to refuse to serve anyone because of who they are or whom they love. So, can religious liberty and civil rights laws coexist? Yes, they can. They already do. And the same balance of rights should be struck for gay and transgender Hoosiers. The Second Amendment (right to bear arms) is followed only by the First Amendment (right of speech, assembly and worship). Does this placement mean the authors of the Bill of Rights regarded gun ownership second only to speech, assembly and worship? Well never know for sure, but in recent times, it seems some people would prefer to reverse the order, making gun ownership the essential first right necessary to preserve all the others. While many good reasons exist to own guns, I have difficulty understanding the outsized emphasis given gun ownership and gun rights. Recent pictures from Texas where open carry was just authorized are jarring. One in particular showed a man with an assault rifle slung over his shoulder in a crowded retail shop with a young boy not too far away. I can't accept assault rifles in retail establishments as a good idea. Some say we have plenty of gun laws on the books; they just need better enforcement. Others argue gun laws dont do any good because the bad guys will get them anyway. On the enforcement point, its a case of arguing out of both sides of one's mouth. Enforcement requires resources. Congress has not adequately funded the federal agency that enforces our Swiss cheese gun laws. So laws full of loopholes, enforced by a poorly funded agency, produce loose enforcement. This proves laws arent being enforced. Until they are, no new laws are needed. See the circular logic? What about the other argument that really bad guys will find a way to get what they need? There is merit to this point. Certainly, no law is foolproof, and bad guys may well be able to beg, borrow or steal the firearms they need. But hardened criminals arent the only concern. What about people on the terror watch list or domestic abusers? Also, good people sometimes get momentarily enraged or feel suicidal. Other people have more permanent mental problems. Most of these people are not going to be stealing weapons, but they may go to gun shows where no background checks or waiting periods are required. Why make it so easy for these folks to acquire guns? Worst of all, young children sometimes find ways to access their parents guns and accidentally shoot themselves or other children. Why not childproof guns like we do medicine bottles? Some say, Do what you will, it just wont make any difference. Australias experience is instructive. They suffered a mass shooting in 1996. Their response was to unite around a set of tougher firearms restrictions. In the 10 years since then, firearm suicides were cut in half, and firearm homicides were also almost halved. Isnt that worth notice and reflection? Gun violence is estimated to claim a life every 16 minutes in the United States. There have been more homicides and suicides with guns in every six-month period for the past 25 years than deaths caused by terrorism and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq combined. It doesnt have to be this way. Our firearms death rate is seven times as high as Canadas and 600 times as high as South Korea's. Lets cool the rhetoric and have an adult conversation about this issue. While its no surprise that losing weight consistently ranks at the top of New Years resolutions, Dr. Donna L. Hamilton says obsession with weight is often too narrow a focus. For many, weight is a symptom of a lifestyle thats not conducive to wellness, says Hamilton, author of Wellness Your Way: The Short and Sweet Guide to Creating Your Custom Plan for a Happier, Healthier Life (www.wellnessyourwaybook.com). Since much of our lives revolve around work, it makes sense to focus our attention on workplace wellness, she says. In addition to the mentally and physically demanding work hours, the American Psychological Association states there are many new factors adding potential stress to todays work environment. Because we spend a significant amount of our waking hours working, I encourage people to pay attention to improving their wellbeing at work; doing this is also an effective way to take steps toward improving your overall personal wellness in a way that makes sense for you, says Hamilton, who adds that a holistic approach is your surest way for results. She reviews examples within the five arenas of wellness. Physical arena: This deals with tangible things in your life, including your body and your physical environment. Some of the many things you can do to improve this arena at work include using ergonomically sound office equipment, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, and stopping what youre doing for a moment each hour to stand, stretch and take a few deep breaths. Mental arena: This arena addresses your thoughts and beliefs; its that little voice in your head that seems to narrate your day. Keep this arena fresh by learning something new about your job every day. That may include something about your company or something in a related field. If a racing mind keeps you awake at night, try a brain purge by writing down everything you have to do the next day and completely forget about those items. They will be there on your list in the morning. Emotional arena: This arena deals with the cornucopia of feelings, which can get in the way of work and wellness. If you feel dissatisfied at the end of your work day, for example, write a list of what you accomplished instead of simply focusing on whats incomplete or needs to be fixed. Keep a picture of someone or something that makes you smile on your desk. Loved ones, pets and favorite vacation spots work well. Take a look at it if you feel sad, angry or anxious. Or, take a quick break to read or watch something funny maybe your favorite meme or gif. A few seconds of laughter can help reduce stress and quickly lift your mood. Social arena: This arena includes your habits, hobbies and relationships. The nine-to-five or eight-to-six workday can find you stagnant in this arena. As humans, we have social inclinations, so let this space spice things up in your life. Consider inviting a coworker out to lunch or on a walk during break. How well do you know the people you work with? If youre shy, you may find that a simple invite can lead to an enriching acquaintance at work. According to a study in the Journal of Business Psychology, workers report higher job satisfaction when they feel they have even the opportunity for friendships. Spiritual arena: This arena focuses on personal values and life philosophy, including those things that make you feel more grounded. If you feel stress creeping up, do something that helps you get grounded and centered in the moment. For example, remember your personal mission: your hopes, dreams, and desires. Then, think about how your current work supports you in fulfilling your vision. This can help ease feelings of frustration and lack of control. During lunch, you might also try taking a moment of silent reflection or saying grace before eating. This also helps bring you into the moment and focus on whats really important to you. The apex court had two years ago issued notices to states and Union Territories on the euthanasia issue. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday said it will await the government's stand in its endeavour to examine a plea to legalise passive euthanasia by means of withdrawal of life support system to terminally-ill patients. "Is the government making its stand clear in a reasonable time," a five-judge Constitution Bench, headed by Justice A R Dave, asked Additional Solicitor General P S Patwalia, who sought some time to get instruction from competent authority. The law officer apprised the bench about the 241st report of the Law Commission which has stated that passive euthanasia should be allowed with certain safeguards and there was a proposed law, Medical Treatment of Terminally Ill Patient (Protection of Patients and Medical Practioners) Bill, 2006. He said his contention will also be based on 6.7 regulation of 2002 under Medical Council of India Act which says that practicing euthanasia shall constitute unethical conduct. However on specific occasions, the question of withdrawing supporting devices to sustain cardio-pulmonary function even after brain death, shall be decided only by a doctors' team and not merely by the treating physician alone. Taking note of his submission especially that the Law Commission's 241st report was under government's consideration, the bench, which also comprised Justices Kurian Joseph, Shiva Kirti Singh, A K Goel and R F Nariman, said it will await the outcome of the report which is under the Centre's consideration and posted the matter for hearing on February one. The bench was hearing a PIL filed in 2005 by NGO Common Cause which said when a medical expert opines that the person afflicted with a terminal disease has reached a point of no return, then he should be given the right to refuse being put on life support system as otherwise, it would only prolong his agony. The apex court had two years ago issued notices to states and Union Territories on the issue, even as the Centre had strongly opposed the petition saying it is a form of suicide which cannot be allowed. The NGO had prayed for declaring the right to die with dignity as a fundamental right and sought a direction to the government to adopt suitable procedures to ensure that those with deteriorating health or the terminally ill should be able to execute a living Will and attorney authorisation for termination of life. Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the NGO, explained that there are three types of euthanasia, positive, passive and living Will. He said his emphasis was on the category of living Will in which a person makes an advance declaration that if during his treatment, it becomes clear that there is no chance of revival, he should not be put on life support system or ventilator. The bench, which had several queries on the practicability of the issue, also deliberated as to how putting a patient on ventilator has now become a commercial medical practice. "It (putting a patient on ventilator) is also a torture for the family. It is very expensive," the bench said when the ASG spoke about the commercial angle. While referring to 6.7 regulation of 2002 under Medical Council of India, the bench wanted to know about the implication of the regulation if the four words 'even after brain death' is deleted from it. Patwalia said questions relating to euthanasia and decriminalising attempt to suicide by deleting Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code were raised in Parliament. The ASG said, "The Central Government has taken a decision to delete the same from the statute and some state governments have ratified it but it has not gone from the statute book." The apex court on July 16, 2014, had issued notices to states and Union Territories on the issue, even as the Centre had strongly opposed the petition saying it is a form of suicide which cannot be allowed. At that time, another five-judge bench had said that states must also be heard as the issue pertained not only to the Constitution, but involves morality, religion and medical science. Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi had submitted that the issue should be debated and decided by the legislature and it was not a matter to be adjudicated by the court. The bench had appointed senior lawyer and former Solicitor General T R Andhyarujina as amicus curiae to assist it in the case relating to legalising euthanasia. The Constitution Bench, hearing the matter, was set up after a three-judge bench had on February 25, 2014 referred the matter to a larger bench saying it was extremely important to have a clear enunciation of law in view of inconsistent opinions in its previous judgement. It had said that its verdict of 2011 allowing passive euthanasia was delivered on a "wrong premise". "In view of the inconsistent opinions rendered in Aruna Shanbaug case and considering the important question of law involved which needs to be reflected in the light of social, legal, medical and constitutional perspective, it becomes extremely important to have a clear enunciation of the law. Thus, in our cogent opinion, the question of law involved requires careful consideration by a Constitution Bench of this court for the benefit of humanity as a whole," the court had said. It had said that its earlier Constitution Bench verdict, which was wrongly relied in Aruna Shanbaug case, had held that the right to live with dignity will be inclusive of the right to die with dignity, but the judgement did not arrive at a conclusion on validity of euthanasia. The present PIL has contended that a person whose life was ebbing out should be allowed to die as the continuance of the life with the support system was an unnatural extension of the natural life span. Four of five teenagers accused of raping an 18-year-old woman inside a Brooklyn park have been released from jail, but authorities say they're still facing charges. NY1's Natalie Duddridge filed the following report. Kennety Montgomery, the defense attorney representing 14-year-old Denzel Murray, one of the five teenagers accused of gang-raping an 18-year-old woman inside a Brownsville park last week, says his client is back home with his family. That's because the Brooklyn district attorney's office didn't have its case ready by an important deadline. "If they don't have grand jury action, then you're released," Montgomery said. "The charges aren't dismissed. They aren't lessened. You're just simply physically released." Investigators say the five teens attacked a young woman in Osborn Park in Brownsville. Officers say the teens chased the young woman's father away with a gun. Murray, 15-year-old Ethan Phillip, 17-year-old Travis Beckford and 17-year-old Onandi Brown were charged, but they are free because they couldn't legally be held any longer without an indictment. The fifth teen, Shaquelle Cooper, will remain in jail as he faces an unrelated assault charge. In a statement, Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson said, "Because we are determined to get to the truth about what happened in that park, we need more time to investigate this complex case and gather more evidence. So, therefore, we have consented to the defendants release." As for that evidence, cellphone video is said to have captured the moments before the alleged attack. "I cant speak to the quality. I have not seen it. Ive been briefed on it. I believe it's 9 to 11 seconds," said Police Commissioner William Bratton. "It is a significant piece of evidence as we try to put together what happened, and we are also at the same time continuing to see if theres anybody else that may have seen what went on in that park. Prosecutors now have six months to file an indictment or the case is dropped. In the meantime, the boys are able to go back to school, although they've been advised by their attorneys not to talk about the case. One of the Columbia students killed in a bus crash in Honduras grew up on the Upper East Side, and her friends are remembering her as a compassionate young woman. NY1's Michael Scotto filed the following report. Heartache at Daniella Moffson's old Manhattan high school, where hundreds of people attended a prayer service to mourn the 21-year-old Barnard student who died in a bus crash in Honduras Wednesday night. "It's too raw, it's too painful and it's far too complex," said DeeDee Benel, director of community outreach and programming at The Ramaz School. Moffson, a junior, and Columbia students Olivia Erhardt, a sophomore, and Abigail Flanagan were killed when their bus veered off a road and plunged 260 feet into a ravine. The three women were heading to the airport to fly home after a week-long medical humanitarian mission with about two dozen other Columbia and Barnard students. The three were remembered Thursday at Columbia. Barnard College issued a statement saying the school is "heartbroken" and offering grief counseling. Moffson's roots in the city were deepest. She grew up in this building on the Upper East Side and attended Ramaz, a Jewish day school, just blocks away. Those who knew Moffson said she would often go on missions to help those in need and that she dreamed of becoming a doctor. They recalled a vibrant, kind and compassionate young woman who was always trying to help others, working as a counselor at Camp Simcha, a sleepaway camp for children with cancer. In high school, friends said, Moffson volunteered around the world, including at a home in Israel for abused children. And that was just the start. "After her ninth grade, during the summer, she was at an AIDS clinic in South Africa," said Ira Miller, dean of The Ramaz Upper School. "She wasn't someone who did service for a requirement or because a certain number of hours to fulfill. Daniella did service because it was part of her whole being," Benel said. Moffson's father traveled to Honduras to bring her body back to the states. A funeral was scheduled for Friday morning on the Upper East Side. Columbia scheduled a candlelight vigil for the three women next Tuesday and said it will plan memorial services for them later in the semester. Denouncing Patrick J. Buchanan as a ''Hitler lover,'' Donald J. Trump announced today that he was resigning his Republican registration in advance of a possible challenge to Mr. Buchanan in his expected quest for the Reform Party Presidential nomination. ''It's a very great possibility that I will run,'' said Mr. Trump, the real estate and casino millionaire. He timed his announcement for the eve of Mr. Buchanan's speech on Monday in which he is expected to quit the Republican Party and aim his Presidential campaign for the Reform nomination. Mr. Buchanan brushed aside Mr. Trump's accusations of anti-Semitism as he courted Reform Party officials at a reception here today. ''To get in a slanging match with someone is not why I'm doing this,'' he told reporters outside the Westin Fairfax Hotel. ''We don't run negative campaigns. I'm not in this because I dislike other people.'' Mr. Trump is considered by Buchanan supporters as a straw man fronting for the wing of the Reform Party aligned with Gov. Jesse Ventura of Minnesota, a faction that is opposed to a Buchanan candidacy. For more than five decades, the South Pole has remained free of any one nations rule; rather, under the Antarctic Treaty, which includes signatures from 53 nations, Antarctic territory is a demilitarized, nuclear-free, neutral zone. Or is it? Antarctic Flag, a work by the artists Lucy and Jorge Orta that was first unveiled during their 2007 expedition to Antarctica, stands as a symbolic bricolage of the territorys supporting nations and their shared values but also raises the question of whether peaceful coexistence there is sustainable. The partners and artistic duo, also referred to as Studio Orta, based in France and internationally recognized for their socially mindful practice, are all too aware of potential danger in the region. Come 2048, a 1991 agreement protecting what lurks beneath the ice there oil, coal and kimberlite (thus, maybe, diamonds) will be open for review, and its unclear to what lengths some nations might compete to have sole ownership. For their first-ever New York exhibition, at the Jane Lombard Gallery this month, the Ortas are bringing to the U.S. the series of social sculptures created for their 2007 expedition. We dont want the work to be hermetic; its communicating, Lucy says. The sculptures mainly stem from their series Antarctic Village, commissioned for the End of the World Biennale that same year: for the project, the pair stitched and constructed 50 tentlike domes, then placed them across Antarcticas continent. And the focal point of the exhibition is a social practice project titled Antarctica World Passport Delivery Bureau, which is what it sounds like: an office issuing passports whereby citizens pledge to uphold the inherent dignity of every member of the human race, as it states in their documentation. Anyone may apply so long as they agree to a universal citizenship based on the ideals of the peaceful treaty, as Lucy explains. There are obligations, like agreeing to protect the environment, take account for my daily footprint and agree to help people in distress, take care of global warming. She says she hopes the project will inspire real nations to cooperate for the betterment of humanity. Since 2008, the Ortas have printed 55,000 physical documents, in multiple languages that come complete with a stamp. Gallery-goers can apply for citizenship in person during the show at Lombard, and those not based in New York can sign up online so far, more than 12,000 people have been granted virtual citizenship. Its an art project, if ever were questioned, says Lucy, on the topic of whether the project has any official governmental implications. Weve imagined the idea. Theres no end to where we can take our passport office! Excognito Dance Festival (through Monday) This Brooklyn-based festival alternates between mixed-bill programs featuring the three participating companies, and programs where each gets the stage all to itself. Belinda McGuire performs solos created for her by Doug Varone, Idan Sharabi and Sharon Moore (and one of her own); the choreographer Joshua Beamish introduces two new works in his quirky, fluid style; and in its single company show, LoudHoundMovement presents In the Plague of Dreams, based on a story about an oppressed town. At various times, the Actors Fund Arts Center, 160 Schermerhorn Street, Boerum Hill, 800-838-3006, excognitodance.com. (Schaefer) Flicfest (Thursday through Jan. 30) Showcases for emerging choreography usually offer a slew of small samples, hardly enough to get to know any one artist. Flicfest, in contrast, gives each of its six selected choreographers a feature-length slot to make a statement. Participating artists in the festivals sixth iteration are interested in how we negotiate identity and history today, and how technology shapes behavior. They include Taylor Drury, Hattie Mae Williams, Donofrio Dance, Angel Chinn/Nona Lee Dance Company, Joya Powel and Beck Heiberg. Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 and 9 p.m., Irondale Center, 85 South Oxford Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn, 866-811-4111, irondale.org. (Schaefer) Food for Thought (Thursday through Jan. 23) This years annual performance series-meets-charitable food drive is brought to you by the guest curators Adrienne Rooney, Ali Rosa-Salas and Greta Hartenstein. Two cans of food (to be distributed by St. Marks Church) and $5 gets you in the door to view one of three performances, each with a different lineup of artists. At 8 p.m., St. Marks Church, 131 East 10th Street, East Village, 866-811-4111, danspaceproject.org. (Schaefer) Live Artery (through Jan. 30) For the benefit of visiting arts presenters catching up on the latest in New York dance, Live Artery offers a nearly nonstop buffet of performances this weekend. Highlights include Joanna Kotze on Friday evening, Pavel Zustiak on Saturday afternoon, Preeti Vasudevan on Monday afternoon and Sonya Tayeh on Monday evening. Beginning Wednesday, dances bad girl Ann Liv Young presents Elektra, her take on the Sophocles tragedy that is sure to be characteristically audacious. At various times, New York Live Arts, 219 West 19th Street, Chelsea, 212-924-0077, newyorklivearts.org. (Schaefer) Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener (Friday through Sunday) In Horizon Events, the third floor gallery at MoMA PS1 serves as muse to the thoughtful and unpredictable choreographers Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener. Part improvisation, part installation, the work plays with the peculiar and flexible nature of time and space, just like the physics concept that its title nods to and inverts. The trustworthy crew on this expedition consists of Penelope Armstead-Williams, David Botana, Forrest Hersey, Cori Kresge and Melissa Toogood. At 8 p.m., MoMA PS1, 22-25 Jackson Avenue, at 46th Avenue, Long Island City, Queens, 718-784-2084, ps1.org. (Schaefer) New York City Ballet (Tuesday through Feb. 28) City Ballets winter season starts with a welcome cameo: The principal dancer Robert Fairchild will take a break from his starring role in Broadways An American in Paris to perform in Balanchines jazzy Who Cares? Tuesdays opening night also includes Barber Violin Concerto and Jerome Robbinss sailor salute, Fancy Free. Wednesdays program pairs Balanchines elegant Liebeslieder Walzer with Robbinss sleek Glass Pieces; Thursday brings a trifecta of classic Balanchine: Ballo della Regina, Kammermusik No. 2 and Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3. Tuesdays through Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 2 and 8 p.m., Sundays at 3 p.m., David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center, 212-496-0600, nycballet.com. (Schaefer) The works in this show are small, compared with the canvases that the New York School and the French Tachists were using at the time, and not the least gestural or emotional. The artists of the 10 may have been constrained by economic factors or available materials. More important, they had an entirely different goal, inspired by the utopian geometry of Mondrian, the Constructivists and late Kandinsky, and spiced by the works of their contemporaries, including Victor Vasarely. The Cubans worked out their own mix of these influences, distinguished by a regional sense of color and materials. The term concrete art coined around 1930 by the Dutch artist and designer Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931) denoted works without figurative or symbolic references, art that was free of naturalistic associations and any kind of narrative or sentiment. (In this it set a precedent for the what you see is what you get ethos of the Minimalists.) Concrete works were not abstracted from anything; they represented purely their materials, colors and the self-contained logic of their geometric imagery. The concept of concrete art quickly spawned successive groups in Paris (Art Concret and Abstraction-Creation). After the war, artists in Latin America were attracted by its credo, leading to the formation of concrete-minded groups like Madi, in Buenos Aires in 1946, and Grupo Ruptura and the better-known Grupo Frente which included the artists Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape and the precocious Helio Oiticica in Sao Paulo and in Rio de Janeiro, both in 1952. Cuba was introduced to nonobjective or abstract art in 1949, with a Havana exhibition of works by Sandu Darie, a Romanian who emigrated to the island in 1941 and became a crucial force among the artists of the 10. The shows eight works by Darie, who forged ties with the Madi group, make an especially strong impression. Two paintings from around 1950 establish him as one of the few artists who managed to extend Mondrians bars and colored blocks beyond the masters shadow. Darie did this with bright colors (yellow, orange and black on white, in one case) and intersecting forms that convey a prismatic sense of space. Theres the other side of me that thinks he did it just because he couldnt paint. Maybe in hostility to an art scene that he wasnt making it very big in, he felt forced into a situation of producing a new kind of art which would be a very human reaction, and it wouldnt demean him at all in my eyes if hed just said: Ill put a toilet on show. Lets see how far I can push it. I would understand that attitude perfectly, because the most interesting thing for an artist is to pick through the debris of a culture, to look at whats been forgotten or not really taken seriously. Once something is categorized and accepted, it becomes part of the tyranny of the mainstream, and it loses its potency. Its always been that way for me: The most imprisoning thing is to feel myself being pigeonholed. Im trying to think if theres anyone who truly has honed his craft to a point that you are really, really glad that he stayed with one thing all the way through his life. Of course there is. How stupid of me! Bob Dylan. Hes not actually changed his course very much, and now his music has such resonance that when I first put his new album on I thought I should just give up. M.K. You mentioned Duchamp and Picabia. What about the current crop of London artists who owe a debt to them? Im thinking of the Chapmans, Hirst. The JeM gave the message through a message in their Facebook community. New Delhi: Declaring that disbelievers and hypocrites across the world were celebrating an arrest that never happened, Jiash-e-Muhammad, on Thursday, rejected claims of leader Maulana Masood Azhar's arrest over alleged role in Pathankot air base attack, in a social media group. According to Indian Express, JeM, in a Facebook community it uses to communicate with media and followers said that the arrest was not true, and even if it were, it would not matter much. There will be more enthusiasm and excitement among the faithful and would prompt the jihadist organisation to gather more strength and energy, they said. Adding that one must not take the organisation as helpless and weak, the statement said, "You made the children of the martyr Afzal Guru cry, and since then, you have been crying, screaming and shrieking everyday." Pakistan's Punjab province Law Minister Rana Sanaullah had earlier on Thursday confirmed that Masood Azhar had been taken into "protective custody" along with his accomplices, but clarified he was "not arrested." "Masood Azhar has been taken into protective custody by the Punjab police counter-terrorism department," Sanaullah told Dawn News. Earlier, the government chose not to confirm or deny the reports that Azhar has been taken into "protective custody". "We have taken Maulana Azhar and his fellows under protective custody in connection with the Pathankot incident. However, we will arrest him if his involvement in the Pathankot attack is proved," Sanaullah said. He added that operation against banned outfits including JeM would continue under the National Action Programme. India has identified Azhar as the mastermind of the Pathankot attack on January 2. It has also blamed his brother Rauf and five others for carrying out the attack in which seven Indian soldiers were killed along with all the six terrorists. India has shared this information along with two Pakistani phone numbers that were made calls to by the terrorists. According to reports, security agencies have arrested 31 activists of JeM from different parts of the province. After a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif yesterday, his office issued a statement which said that "several individuals" belonging to JeM have been apprehended in connection with the Pathankot terror attack and some of its offices traced and sealed. Pakistan earlier said that the Indo-Pak Foreign Secretary-level talks will not take place as scheduled and a news briefing said that both sides were holding consultations to reschedule the talks. Last week India put the ball squarely in Pakistan's court, linking the FS-level talks to Islamabad's "prompt and decisive" action in the Pathankot terror attack for which it has provided "actionable intelligence". Narendra Modi had asked his Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif for prompt and decisive action on the basis of specific evidence. Sharif had set up a committee of his top intelligence, army and government officers to investigate India's allegations. Were not trying to trick you, the guitarist Miles Okazaki said at the Jazz Gallery on Wednesday night. Under the circumstances, the reassurance was understandable: Mr. Okazaki was introducing his new band, Trickster, and he didnt want to start off on the wrong footing, not with so many twists in the road ahead. Jazz composers of a certain disposition are always challenging themselves to seek out new vectors, a new framework, a new set of strategies. Mr. Okazaki, who fits this profile, formed Trickster a quartet with Craig Taborn on piano, Anthony Tidd on electric bass and Sean Rickman on drums after delving into some of the extensive scholarship around the trickster, an archetype found throughout folklore and mythology, from the early stirrings of antiquity. This isnt a new region of inquiry for jazz and certainly not for jazz studies, where the notion of trickster-as-improviser goes back at least as far as Ralph Ellisons characterization of Louis Armstrong. (Armstrongs clownish license and intoxicating powers are almost Elizabethan, Mr. Ellison wrote in 1958, in an essay later featured in his collection Shadow and Act.) But Mr. Okazakis interest in the trickster doesnt focus on slippery individualism or masked identities so much as an expression of deep, systemic intrigue: His wilier instincts find their outlet within the structure of his compositions. Thats probably one reason for his decision to enlist Mr. Rickman and Mr. Tidd, his rhythm partners in Steve Coleman and Five Elements, a band that makes dynamic art out of systems of thought, and has just come off a busy year of workshops and residencies, including one in Los Angeles last month. The situation facing Mr. Gorman is a symptom of the broader challenges confronting Wall Street, as new regulations have raised the cost of doing what was once the most profitable work in the financial industry: buying, selling and holding bonds, commodities, derivatives and currencies. Wall Street banks have struggled with difficult markets and the added regulatory burden, while some big European banks have gone further, making major retreats in the business. Among American banks, Morgan Stanley is under particular pressure because, since 2010, Mr. Gorman has already been through four leadership teams within his fixed-income division, trying to find the right formula. So far none have worked. The management turnover itself is causing concern for investors and analysts who worry that Morgan Stanley is unlikely to stick with any strategy for long. Truthfully, over the last few years, Morgan Stanley has flip-flopped on its fixed income business, said Michael Wong, a bank analyst at Morningstar. The flip-flopping has increased my uncertainty about that business. What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? Whats their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source. Learn more about our process. The most basic problem facing Mr. Gorman is that the returns from his company as a whole have remained below the amount Morgan Stanley is presumed to pay its shareholders for their money: 10 percent. This closely watched measure of profitability is called return on equity. In 2013, Mr. Gorman said that he aimed to get Morgan Stanley above that 10 percent threshold. But he has failed so far, and in the first nine months of 2015 the companys return on equity was actually lower than it was during the same period in 2014, coming in at 8.8 percent. Tesco, Britains biggest supermarket, comfortably surpassed forecasts for Christmas sales, buoyed by lower prices, indicating that the company may be recovering from several years in turmoil. Tesco has been hit hard by continuing shifts in shopping habits and the rise of discounters like Aldi and Lidl. An accounting scandal in 2014 further damaged the brand. But Tescos stock rose as much as 8 percent after it reported that sales at stores in Britain open more than a year rose 1.3 percent in the six weeks ending Jan. 9, beating forecasts. International like-for-like sales were up 4.1 percent. Analysts at Jefferies investment banking firm said it was too early to say whether Tesco had turned a corner. Ms. Drake: Anybody whos a traveler rather than a tourist will find somewhere to go on this list. Q. Providence, R.I.? Are you kidding? A. Ms. Drake: No. Look, there are little gems right under our noses that we often miss. Providence has got a nice food scene and a wonderful beachy escape a short ways away. Why wouldnt we include it? Q. Whats wrong with Paris? Rome? Istanbul? A. Mr. Saltzstein: Nothing, of course and most major cities have made previous lists (Paris and Rome included). But if the list was entirely made up of the usual suspects, that wouldnt be much fun, would it? Ms. Drake: I should add that the list was published between the attacks in Paris and Istanbul. Though we pay attention to the climate that visitors will encounter, the attacks were not the deciding factors in their exclusion. Q. This years list comes complete with spectacular drone footage. What else is new this year? A. Ms. Drake: Were also aiming to get folks engaged in the list throughout the year. So we created this hashtag, #52places, on Instagram that will allow you to post photos for consideration to put on this page that we curate. Well also be releasing remixes of the list geared toward certain types of travelers throughout the year. And well be introducing additional visual features within the list too. We want this feature to be something that you can return to when youre planning your travel throughout the year. Q. What kind reader suggestions did you get? And were there lots of these? A. Mr. Saltzstein: Thousands! [Over 6,500 on Instagram alone, at last check.] Weve featured about 25 so far on our Readers Choice page, and plan to continue adding to that throughout the year. Suggestions have spanned the globe, from Malaysia to Utah to Morocco. Q. Terrorism or the fear of a terror attack plays an obvious role in the destinations travelers select. Was this a factor as you put the list together? Ninety percent of the worlds goods travel by sea. The efficient movement of all our stuff from the vague there to the present here is made possible by container ship. The San Francisco-based artist Martin Machado has an unusual firsthand perspective on this tool of globalization: He spends several months of the year working on container ships, on routes that have taken him through the Suez Canal and to ports in cities as far-flung as Honolulu; New York; Dubai; Karachi, Pakistan; Shanghai; and Singapore. On board, Machado is often hired for watch duty, looking for hazards on the water, and for steering ships in and out of port. But he also draws and paints from his cabin and takes photographs, some of which he posts to Instagram. His latest art, inspired by the 18th-century journals kept by Captain James Cook during his famed voyages of discovery around the Pacific, has to do with re-representing the first moments of contact between isolated societies and the Western world. Machados recurring theme is the shipping container itself, loosed from its transport and floating on the sea. There is no record of how many containers are lost at sea each year, but maritime organizations estimate that there are probably hundreds of them floating in the ocean at any one time. Last month, 12 containers fell off a ship belonging to Matson, a shipping company headquartered in Hawaii, on its way to Seattle; one container and its contents washed up on San Franciscos Baker Beach. In Machados newest series, contemporary figures meet historical ones in a kind of dreamscape. Machado replaces the traditional vessel a canoe, say, or a tall ship with the container, which ferries its own very modern ideas into the scene. The images contain deliberate echoes of the explorers and artists who sailed with Cook, because, as Machado explains, this era is fleeting, too. The containers, ships and runs are all going to change, he says. Im trying to capture this moment of time on the sea. Benicio Del Toro shambling around like a latter-day Robert Mitchum is the best reason to see A Perfect Day. A serviceable, watchable movie set someplace in the Balkans in 1995, this oddity was shot in Spain and features a tight, largely English-speaking cast including the American veteran Tim Robbins, and two European actresses, Melanie Thierry and Olga Kurylenko that seems to have been tapped to reach as many film markets as possible. This talent sampler fits the movie, which primarily registers as a would-be business opportunity for investment types. Mr. Del Toro plays Mambru, an international aid worker who tools around the Balkan countryside trying to help locals while also doing his best to stay alive. His primary comrade in battleground salvage jobs is B (Mr. Robbins), a character whose cynical yuks suggest that someone here read Kurt Vonneguts Slaughterhouse-Five at an impressionable age. Mr. Robbins tosses around his lines with amiable lightness, like the professional he is. But hes basically stuck performing second-banana duties for Mr. Del Toro, who dominates the movie with his innate je ne sais quoi-ness, a loose gestural performance and nice slow burns that never quite ignite a much-needed fire. Theres not much of a story, which wouldnt be bad if there was something other than blasts of music filling the longueurs. The action, such as it is, involves Mambru; B; a humorless new recruit, Sophie (Ms. Thierry); and their interpreter, Damir (Fedja Stukan), driving around doing good works. The corpse that early on they try and fail to haul out of a village well becomes the movies guiding visual idea, one that the filmmakers return to several times, though the resonance of this bloated body remains fuzzy. The dead weigh heavily on this land? Humanitarian efforts like Mambrus are doomed to failure? One lesson is that these aid workers need to carry better, stronger rope. Directed by Fernando Leon de Aranoa, who shares script credit with Diego Farias, A Perfect Day is a movie of moments, some quite fine. The most memorable of these have little to do with the aid workers, though, who are soon joined by another beautiful female irritant, Katya (Ms. Kurylenko), Mambrus combustible ex-lover. The bickering between them is discordant filler, particularly given the miseries the bullet-pocked buildings, the orphaned, the starving, the desperate and the dead that surround the aid workers. Theres another story in A Perfect Day, one that oozes in between the cracked walls and gallows humor and finally has little to do with this movie. Mr. Bay likes to go bold and likes to go bonkers, fattening his often-outrageous material with crazed visual strokes and thunderous explosions, helter-skelter angles and scattershot editing. He has moderately scaled back his extreme-cinema approach for 13 Hours, perhaps realizing that its story or the ordeals endured by the C.I.A. security team merit a level of sobriety rather than showboating. Whatever the case, the results are more about the teams prowess and less about his. Mr. Bay still wants to drop jaws (hence the fiery Mercedes), and he continues to bring that certain Bay obviousness to each scene. Here, though, his excesses are most apparent in the emphasis on the numbingly endless fighting than on the image plane. Written by Chuck Hogan, 13 Hours follows the arc of Mr. Zuckoffs book, mixing scene setting with an introduction of Jack Silva (John Krasinski, pumped and cut), a member of the Navy SEALs turned private security muscle who is en route to Benghazi. Once there, he joins a bearded and burly brotherhood that includes Tyrone Woods (James Badge Dale, radiating low-key charisma) and Kris Paronto (Pablo Schreiber), who are also special operations veterans. The real Benghazi contractors were part of a stealthy organization, the Global Response Staff, which, according to a December 2012 Washington Post article, was created by the C.I.A. after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to provide security for field workers. The contractors were, as The Post put it, part of a broader expansion of the C.I.A.s paramilitary capabilities over the past 10 years. Except for occasional glimpses, Richard Gere has always held his dark side in reserve, the better to embody romantic dreamboats like those in his box-office calling cards An Officer and a Gentleman and Pretty Woman. But that was then. At 66, with a snowy mane and an imperial demeanor, Mr. Gere now exerts the magnetism of a swashbuckling lion in winter. With the pressure off to play swoon-worthy heartthrobs, he is free to explore the depths of his talent by inhabiting roles like the homeless man in the recent Time Out of Mind and a creepy megalomaniacal, morphine-addicted philanthropist known as the King of Philadelphia in his new film, The Benefactor. His character, Francis L. Watts, a.k.a. Franny, is a vainglorious manipulator of other people accustomed to getting his way, often by playing God. So long as the camera is studying Franny maniacally bestowing his largess or throwing temper tantrums, The Benefactor is mesmerizing. But Mr. Geres flamboyant performance is the sole raison detre for this melodrama, written and directed by Andrew Renzi. Its other elements are given short shrift. Four of the five defendants suspected of raping an 18-year-old woman at a Brownsville playground on Jan. 7 were expected to be out of jail by Thursday night, after the Brooklyn district attorney alerted the court that he would not make the initial deadline to obtain indictments against them. Under New York law, prosecutors have less than a week from the time a suspect is arrested on a felony charge to obtain a grand-jury indictment. If prosecutors do not make that deadline, the suspects must be released from jail. The prosecutor then has six months to obtain an indictment. Because we are determined to get to the truth about what happened in that park, we need more time to investigate this complex case and gather more evidence, Ken Thompson, the Brooklyn district attorney, said in a statement. So, therefore, we have consented to the defendants release. The case has unsettled residents in Brownsville and throughout the city. Initially, the police reported that five men had approached the woman at Osborn Playground on Jan. 7, pointed a gun at her father, demanded that he leave, and then raped the woman. At his age, Frank Gaul said, he should be retired and spending his days lolling in a rocking chair. Instead, Mr. Gaul, 67, is on his feet eight hours a day, working as a security guard. Mr. Gaul spent his life in Guyana until 2010. That year, at the urging of his wife, Elizabeth, the couple immigrated to New York City, where one of their daughters had moved years earlier. My wife, she took care of the grandchildren, Mr. Gaul said. She lost everything when they left. That left a gap in her. And all her thoughts and her focus was to get to America. Although Mr. Gaul and his wife would have to live with their daughters family in a small apartment in Long Island City, Queens, he had few misgivings about the decision to leave Guyana. He has been accustomed to adversity since childhood. Mr. Gaul, the son of a single mother to whom he was a source of shame, was raised by his grandmother. His mother was never anything more to him than an elusive stranger. Bengaluru: The state government is expecting a total investment of Rs 2,819 crore in the agro-based food processing sector at Invest Karnataka 2016 which includes proposals for two automated milk conversion plants at Dabaspete and Dharwad. A total of 12 proposals based on the PPP model will be showcased at the meet, of which nine are from the animal husbandry sector. The two milk conversion plants with 100-MT capacity, will have a processing facility for manufacture of whole milk powder, skimmed milk powder and dairy whitener. Each plant will have an investment outlay of Rs 325 crore and will meet public requirements when there is a shortage, said an officer of animal husbandry department. The state has also invited partners to jointly set up mega cattle feed manufacturing plants at Vijayapura, Davangere and Chikkaballapura with a capacity of 500 metric tonnes per day per unit. The proposed projects will be taken up under PPP model at a cost of Rs 600 crore. The government is expecting investments to set up blown film plants for manufacturing pouches. These poly pouches and flexi pouches are used for packing milk with an investment of Rs 120 crore expected for the project under PPP model. The proposed plants will be set up at Bidadi. The state is planning to set up a corrugated box manufacturing unit of 1500 MT capacity. The project will be taken up under PPP model at Bidadi and will cost Rs 50 crore. The corrugated boxes are used as shipping containers for dairy products. Plants for producing health drinks, ready to eat foods, flavoured milk and milk shakes are also on the anvil. The proposed plants will be under PPP model and will come up at a cost of Rs 160 crore at Hesarghatta. Wiley Norvell, a spokesman for Mayor Bill de Blasio, said in a statement that the city planned to put forward a framework that addresses vital priorities, including expanding accessibility for the disabled and securing support for public transit. Last summer, Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, called on Uber and other companies to offer wheelchair-accessible vehicles and to contribute funding for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, as yellow taxis do through a 50-cent surcharge. The traffic study cost about $2 million and was being led by the mayors Office of Operations with assistance from the consulting firm McKinsey & Company and from Bruce Schaller, a former transportation official who served mainly during the Bloomberg administration, city officials said. As part of the study, Uber gave the city more data than it had previously provided, including the general locations where rides started and ended. New York Citys dispute with Uber over a cap drew national attention, driven by the companys public relations offensive, but other states and cities have struggled with how to regulate the company. On Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission fined Uber $7.6 million for failing to report driver data. Workers have increasingly raised concerns over whether they should be considered employees instead of contractors, and Seattle voted in December to allow Uber and Lyft drivers to form unions. While the mayors office continues to work on its study, some City Council members have been drafting legislation on regulations for the for-hire industry, although they have not yet reached a final decision on the bills, City Council officials said. A cap on Uber vehicles is no longer part of the discussions, the officials said, but the Council is still considering whether to address surge pricing, a feature in the Uber app that charges higher fares during busy periods. Paul Steely White, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives, a nonprofit advocacy group for pedestrians and cyclists, said the City Council should wait to move forward on the legislation until the study is released. It would be unwise to rush to some regulatory conclusion absent the study and some in-depth conversation and debate about it, he said. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, has said that he wants to create a statewide licensing system for services like Uber and Lyft, but he did not mention the companies during his State of the State speech this week. On Tuesday, two Democratic state senators introduced a bill aiming to divert some of the sales tax revenue generated from Uber and Lyft trips to benefit mass transit. Mayor Bill de Blasio issued a stern rebuke to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Thursday for placing new financial strains on New York City, saying he would use any means necessary to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in state financing that the governor appeared to have cut from his annual budget. Mr. Cuomo responded with a question: What cuts? In a day of abrupt rhetorical shifts, the mayor and the governor, both Democrats, seemed to shift their positions from 24 hours earlier, when Mr. de Blasio praised Mr. Cuomos budget plan and the governor suggested he was imposing fiscal discipline on the city. By days end, Mr. Cuomo said his budget changes, in fact, wont cost New York City a penny. Mr. de Blasio, who on Wednesday had said the state budget represented real progress for New Yorkers, described the governors cuts a day later as unprecedented and unfair to our city. Representatives for both men said in statements that the mayor and the governor looked forward to working together. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas called out Donald Trump this week for the high crime of embodying New York values, which, translated into Republican primary-ese, apparently means that Mr. Trump has cooties. It wasnt hard to figure out what he meant, Mr. Cruz said during Thursday nights debate. Most people know exactly what New York values are, he said. Whatever Mr. Cruz intended by invoking New York values, it was not nice. The toxic coating on his hollow remark incensed Peter T. King, the Republican congressman from Long Island, who cannot stand Mr. Cruz to begin with. The congressman gave the senators words some thought, then had a piece of advice for him. Go back under a rock, Mr. King said. During the debate, Mr. Cruz offered his tidy summary of how 8.4 million people view the world: Everyone understands that values in New York City are socially liberal, or pro-abortion or pro-gay marriage, focused around money and the media. To the untrained pizza palate, the difference between Pepes and Sallys apizza is not immediately apparent. (Apizza, according to Bob Consiglio, Sals son and one of the owners of Sallys, is a New Haven term based on the Neapolitan accent of early immigrants to the city.) Both restaurants pies have thin crusts and are charred at the edges. Frank Pepes is famous for its white clam pie. Sallys signature pie is its original tomato pizza, topped with a sprinkle of grated Parmesan. Pepes and Sallys were among the first pizzerias in the United States and helped establish New Haven as a pizza destination. These are the two institutions that really define New Haven, said William F. Dow III, a prominent criminal defense lawyer in New Haven and a frequent Pepes customer. Devotees also include alumni of New Havens other famous institution, Yale University. Few students have graduated from the Ivy League university without having eaten at least a slice or two. Its very hard to talk about going to Yale without having Pepes or the Spot or Sallys come up in a conversation, said Mr. Zagat, a class of 1966 Yale Law School graduate who studied over pizza with his wife and law school classmate, Nina Zagat. After Sal Consiglio died in 1989, his wife, Flora, ran the business along with their sons, Rick and Bob. When Ms. Consiglio died three years ago, she left Sallys to her sons and their sister, Ruth. Shortly after, the siblings started getting calls from people interested in buying Sallys. After years of making sauce and kneading dough, the siblings decided to sell. The restaurant was never formally put on the market, Bob Consiglio said. Instead, the Consiglios invited bids. By spring 2014, they had half a dozen offers, including one from their cousins at Frank Pepes. We felt if they were going to sell, we could keep it in the family, said Gary Bimonte, one of the seven cousins who own the Frank Pepes restaurants. We just know how hard they worked all these years. At the Republican debate last night in South Carolina, Republicans were happy to talk about, and denounce, the budget deficit and debt. Senator Marco Rubio said that we must bring our debt under control. Mr. Rubio, like other G.O.P. candidates, rails against the deficit as a sign of President Obamas moral failure. He advocates a balanced-budget amendment. As a recovering Republican who retired in 2011 after serving on the House and Senate Budget Committees, I have concluded that this ritual denunciation of deficits and out-of-control spending is a fraud. Not only does the party not care about the deficit, but its practice since 1981 has been to worsen it. We should pay particularly close attention to the Republican budget proposals from the presidential candidates in 2016. If a Republican is elected president, the party will almost surely have maintained control of Congress and, therefore, control the federal budget. But the reaction from others was swift and blunt. For New York City, I think this is one of the worst budgets that its seen in a long time, Maria Doulis, a budget analyst at the nonpartisan Citizens Budget Commission, told Politico. Its a lot of money, a lot of money, said Carol Kellermann, the budget commissions president. The Daily News used its front page to wish Mr. de Blasio luck in the Powerball lottery. (He didnt win, so that option is off the table.) Mr. Cuomo says that the city shouldnt be complaining, that the Medicaid and CUNY plans were part of an efficiency drive that in the end wont cost New York City a penny, and that its not as if Mr. de Blasio is a total loser with the budget anyway, given the states pledges on affordable housing and homelessness, on funding for universal prekindergarten, community schools and other things. It will be up to Mr. de Blasio to defend the citys interests, and for the city comptroller, Scott Stringer, whose office is doing its own analysis, to get to the bottom of the situation in the coming weeks of budget testimony in Albany. The Legislature will have its own say in the process. Maybe it really is a sincere effort to help CUNY and Medicaid, as Mr. de Blasio, perhaps wincing, says it is. But if the budget is as needlessly punishing as experts fear, Mr. Cuomo must not get away with it. NASA announced on Thursday the companies it had selected for a second round of contracts to take cargo to the International Space Station. Two of the contracts will go to companies already performing that task: the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation of Hawthorne, Calif., better known as SpaceX, and Orbital ATK of Dulles, Va. NASA also selected the Sierra Nevada Corporation of Sparks, Nev., which has been developing a mini space shuttle known as Dream Chaser. The first mission is to fly in 2019, and each company will operate at least six cargo missions. NASA officials said the new contracts would provide many more options than they currently have. The Dream Chaser will be able to land like a plane on a runway, allowing payloads like scientific experiments to be unloaded within a few hours. The three contracts, which run through 2024, when the space station is scheduled to be retired, have a maximum value of $14 billion, but NASA officials said they did not expect to spend nearly that much. She and many other women in astronomy have been tweeting about similar experiences using the hashtag #astroSH. The outpouring has surged since Tuesday, when Representative Jackie Speier, Democrat of California, announced a push for legislation to address sexism at universities. Image Representative Jackie Speier, Democrat of California, is pushing for legislation to address sexism at universities. Credit... Chris Usher/CBS, via Associated Press Ms. Speiers proposal comes amid two high-profile incidents of accusations against male university professors. Last fall, Geoffrey Marcy, a prominent astronomer at Berkeley resigned after he was found guilty of sexually harassing students in a campus investigation. On Tuesday, Science, Nature and BuzzFeed reported a case involving a California Institute of Technology professor placed on unpaid leave for unambiguous gender-based harassment. Ms. Speier envisions rules that would ensure better information sharing between universities about problem professors. Were developing legislation that would first require that any investigation at one university where the professor either resigns or is fired, that information would follow them, she said in an interview with Wired. On the House floor, beside a poster of the moon with the words Stop Sexism in Science!, Ms. Speier said, Some universities protect predatory professors with slaps on the wrist and secrecy just like the Catholic Church protected child molesting for many decades. And the stars look very different today David Bowie died Sunday at age 69; here, some of his most idiosyncratic and indelible looks, from his Ziggy Stardust body-stocking and Aladdin Sane stripes to his Halloween Jack eyepatch and Lets Dance leisure suits. Vanessa Friedman reflected on his legacy, noting, In a very essential way, Mr. Bowie helped make fashion writ large fashion the system, fashion the pop culture force the ever-mutating megalith we know today. Its why his effect is felt not just in mens wear but in womens wear, too; not just in ready-to-wear, but in couture; from high to low and back again. Valuational baggage? BagHunter.com, a site that sells Hermes Birkin bags, studied the investment returns for the S&P 500, gold and Hermes Birkin bags since 1980 and determined that historical data along with current indicators show that investing in the S&P 500 or in gold commodities brings with it a huge amount of risk and returns are heavily influenced on external factors out of the investors control. In comparison, an investment in a Hermes Birkin bag has shown to be safe and steady over the last 35 years, with all current indicators showing that this trend is set to continue. But Buzzfeeds Sapna Maheshwari points out some flawed logic, breaking down why its not an apples-to-apples comparison. Hooray for Hedi-wood; that screwy, ballyhooey Hedi-wood On Tuesday night, the @ysl twitter account announced the upcoming Saint Laurent at the Palladium, scheduled in L.A. the week of the Grammys, where Hedi Slimane will present his fall 2016 mens wear and part one of his womens wear collection (part two is set for Paris Fashion Week) and celebrate a decade of his photography blog. The timing was curious: in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, WWD published an article titled Hedi Exiting YSL? Vaccarello Said in Wings. CrazySexySchooled Rashida Jones released the music vid Flip and Rewind, a tour-de-force of 90s R&B fashions. No man, at least not since Noel Coward, wore a dressing gown with more slippery ease or dangerous intent. When the British actor Alan Rickman appeared on Broadway in Howard Daviess 2002 revival of Cowards Private Lives, he brought a refreshing, and slightly alarming, sexual frankness to the role of Elyot, that comedys fast-quipping, martini-sipping hero. Here was a man who dressed as elegantly as he spoke. But whether in black tie or silk pajamas, Mr. Rickmans Elyot knew that his bespoke clothes like his impeccably tailored epigrams could slide away at any minute to reveal a stark-naked lust. Mr. Rickman, who died on Thursday at 69, is best known to the general public for his charismatic creepiness in Die Hard and the Harry Potter films. But onstage he was even more compelling as a serpentine seducer with a conscience someone who lived for the pleasures of his flesh, while a faint voice was always whispering in his ear that one day the bill for such hedonism would have to be paid. When his Elyot in Private Lives said to his bedmate (and ex-wife), Amanda (Lindsay Duncan, his perfect partner), Were in love all right, the words tolled with a rueful ring of doom. The audit found that the council in its meeting on April 4, 2012 selected the contractor who quoted the highest rates for vehicles and ignored the lowest quoted person citing unjustifiable reasons. (Representational image) Kochi: The Local Fund Audit Department in its audit report for 2012-13 has said the Kochi corporation incurred a loss of Rs 20.32 lakh due to the irregular awarding of contract for waste removal and asked the council members who attended the meeting which finalised the contract and the then corporation secretary to pay back the amount to the corporation. The audit report, submitted in July, 2015, though not circulated among councillors, has appeared as an item in the council meeting agenda on Friday. The audit found that the council in its meeting on April 4, 2012 selected the contractor who quoted the highest rates for vehicles and ignored the lowest quoted person citing unjustifiable reasons. Mr Ajith Patil was the corporation secretary. As per the procedure, the councillors and the former secretary will be required to make the payment once the council approves the report. Some of the other findings are irregularities in tendering for waste removal, saline water flushing in drains, implementation of projects for SC/ST welfare, e-toilet and green toilets in different parts of the city. It was revealed that the same vehicle has been used for saline water flushing at different locations on the same day at the same time. The Opposition lashed at the ruling bench alleging that the findings of the Audit Department reveal massive corruption and poor financial management of the previous council. Regarding the green toilet construction, the contractors were paid full amount even before the commission of the facility and they remain closed even now. As the Opposition wanted the agenda to be discussed in detail, it has been postponed to the next council meeting. Today, Louis Vuitton is a luxury fashion label, a status symbol that usually hangs from a shoulder or elegantly dangles from a wrist by way of a leather logoed handbag. But rewind to 1835, and the name belonged to a man who left his home at the age of 14 and began walking 280 miles from eastern France to Paris. Upon arriving two years later, he worked as a box maker and packer before starting his own company in 1854, designing ergonomic trunks or specialty packing for fashion as it was advertised for the wandering elite. Vuittons Trunk of 1906, with beechwood, brass corners, patent lock and monogram canvas exterior not only embodies the brands history and sensibility, but is also the prototype for modern luggage, making it the most appropriate piece to welcome visitors into the new Volez, Voguez, Voyagez exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris that runs through Feb. 21. (The exhibition is expected to be shown in other cities in 2016, with Tokyo being a potential destination.) The extensive, nine-room retrospective covers 160 years, four modes of transport and hundreds of signature pieces by a handful of Vuitton descendants and designers, all of which portray the brands inventiveness and elegance. We wanted to talk about the story of Louis Vuitton and to show how even contemporary pieces conform to past pieces, said Olivier Saillard, the director of the Palais Galliera Musee de la Mode in Paris and the shows curator. NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. Donald J. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas sharply attacked each other on Thursday night over the Canadian-born Mr. Cruzs eligibility to be president and Mr. Trumps New York values, shedding any semblance of cordiality as they dominated a Republican debate less than three weeks before the Iowa caucuses. Their exchanges showcased the intense and unpredictable new phase of the race as polls tighten and 11 candidates jockey for political advantage not only over issues like imposing tariffs on Chinese goods and fighting the Islamic State, but also over matters of character and integrity that drew some of the hardest punches of the race so far. In many ways, it was the darkest debate of the campaign, as the Republicans tried to paint the grimmest possible portrait of an America in decline economically, despite rapid job growth, and militarily, though they praised service members. The ferocity onstage reflected the pressure in the race as it distills into a contest between the anti-establishment Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz, followed by other candidates like Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. Mr. Rubio and Mr. Christie, along with Jeb Bush and John Kasich, are vying to emerge as the leading candidate of mainstream Republicans, yet they struggled to be heard on Thursday night. And, he wrote this book, I think, ostensibly to support the Democratic argument that the middle of Americas hollowing out, and income gap is widening, and rich are getting richer. When he studied all the information as to what was going on, he realized that the biggest reason that were seeing the hollowing out of the middle of America is the breakdown of the American family. The reality is that if youre a single parent a child of a single parent, and you grew up in a single parent family neighborhood, you went to that single parent family school, the chance of you ever, ever reaching the top 20% of income earners is 3% in America. At least I dont know about you, but thats not good enough. And, we have been too politically correct in this country because we dont want to offend anybody to fight for the lives of our children. (APPLAUSE) You want You want to be shocked? You read the first few chapters of Mr. Dr. Putnam book. He talks about Port Clinton, Ohio and growing up there in the 1950s, and how poor kids actually survived and did well, even though they were poor and disadvantaged. But, then he goes to the towns today and these kids are failing, and failing miserably. They dont even have a shot, and we wont even have the courage to have leadership at the federal level not with legislation, but the most powerful tool a president have, the bully pulpit to encourage each and everyone of you, churches and businesses, and educators, and community leaders to lets have a national campaign to rebuild the American family, and give every child its birthright which is a Mom and a Dad who loves them. That will change this economy. (CHEERING & APPLAUSE) REGAN: Thank you. SMITH: Thank you, Senator. Were not finished yet. More Republican Presidential Debate in North Charleston after this. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) SMITH: Welcome back, its time for the closing statements. Candidates will each get one minute, starting with Senator Santorum. Thank you very much, I want to thank the people of Charleston, which has become a little bit of a second home to me, because I am very privileged to have two young men who go to the Citadel here and theyre here tonight, my son John and my son Daniel. (APPLAUSE) SANTORUM: Ladies and gentlemen, America is frustrated and angry and looking for someone whos a fighter, but I also think theyre looking for someone whos a winner. Somebody who can go out there and take on the establishment and make a difference. And take on someone whos going to be the person whos going to be between a Republican holding the presidency and thats Hillary Clinton. Following is immediate analysis of the sixth Republican debate. Read additional fact checks here. The Fox Business Network debate in South Carolina featured Donald J. Trump, Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Gov. Chris Christie, Senator Ted Cruz, Gov. John Kasich and Senator Marco Rubio. These were the highlights: Mr. Cruz, responding to Mr. Trumps recent suggestions that Mr. Cruzs Canadian birth could disqualify him, said the developer seemed to be dismayed at recent shifts in polling. The Constitution hasnt changed, but the poll numbers have, Mr. Cruz said. Mr. Trump responded first by citing polls showing him ahead, earning a smattering of boos. Mr. Trump was asked why he only raised the issue of Mr. Cruzs birth recently. Because now hes doing a little bit better, Mr. Trump said. After the two men each joked that they could name the other as vice president, Mr. Rubio chimed in: I hate to interrupt this episode of Court TV, he said. Mr. Cruz, who said disparagingly this week that Mr. Trump embodied New York values, was asked to define the term: I think most people know exactly what New York values are, he said, adding that New York City had a focus around money and the media. Mr. Trump called the statement very insulting, drawing applause as he evoked the citys response to the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. Rubio, pressed on his past support for immigration reform, said the issue was dramatically different issue than it was 24 months ago, citing the rise of the Islamic State. When Mr. Cruz assailed the Florida senators work on an amnesty bill, Mr. Rubio responded forcefully that Mr. Cruz had changed several positions. That is not consistent conservatism, Mr. Rubio said, thats political calculation. The police said Thursday that they had shot and killed two members of a banned Islamist group blamed for a spate of recent attacks. The police have stepped up their hunt for Islamist militants after a wave of violence that included attacks on mosques, Christian priests and Hindu temples. Two members of the banned group, Jamaat-ul-Mujahedeen, were killed in an exchange of gunfire after the police raided their hide-out on the outskirts of the capital, Dhaka, after midnight, said Sanwar Hossain, a deputy commissioner of the police in the detective branch. The group is believed to be behind several recent attacks, including the bombing of a Shiite shrine and the shooting of three foreigners, two of whom died. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for some of the attacks, including the killing of a Christian convert last week. COLOGNE, Germany In early December, the Cologne police made their New Years Eve preparations. Drawing on the previous years experience, they identified their biggest worry as pickpocketing and fireworks among the crowds. So they increased their holiday deployment, to 142 from 88, concentrating on the banks of the Rhine River, where revelers traditionally gather for a giant fireworks display. As 2016 neared on Dec. 31, however, some 1,500 men, including some newly arrived asylum seekers and many other immigrants, had instead assembled around Colognes train station. Drunk and dismissive of the police, they took advantage of an overwhelmed force to sexually assault and rob hundreds of people, according to police reports, shocking Germany and stoking anxieties over absorbing refugees across Europe. We were just pressed on all sides by people, recalled one victim, Johanna, 18, who agreed to speak by telephone from Lake Constance, Germany, where she lives, only if her last name was not used, fearing hostility, particularly over social media. I was grabbed continually. I have never experienced such a thing in any German city. Much is still hazy about that night. But the police reports and the testimony of officials and victims suggest that the officers failed to anticipate the new realities of a Germany that is now host to up to a million asylum seekers, most from war-torn Muslim countries unfamiliar with its culture. Make no mistake, though: Amaq is putting out the Islamic States message, and the veneer of separation between the terrorist group and what has now become its unacknowledged wire service is quickly disintegrating. Though the group is not officially part of the ISIS media apparatus, it functions much that way. It has become much more assimilated into the Islamic States propaganda infrastructure, and now its a fully fledged and very important part of it. It has become the first point of publication for claims of responsibility by the group though not as a rule, said Charlie Winter, a senior researcher at the Transcultural Conflict and Violence Initiative at Georgia State. He pointed out that one of the biggest attacks the Nov. 13 killings in Paris followed the more traditional route, with the claim of responsibility published directly by ISIS. The Islamic State maintains its official Al Bayan radio station, which puts out daily news bulletins, and its monthly magazine Dabiq, as well as many production companies that put out its grisly videos. Beyond those, there are also media offices in each of the Islamic States provinces. The material that goes out on these official outlets has the ultimate stamp of ISIS approval thats what they want us to know about their ideology and their tactics. Those messages are tightly controlled, honed to both appeal to the largest numbers of recruits as well as designed to intimidate and sow fear. As one example of how much they control their messaging, consider what happened to the British jihadist Omar Hussain. This month, Mr. Hussain published a string of essays about life under the Islamic State and then he was served a cease-and-desist order by the ISIS Media Committee. A Marine veteran who is the longest-held American prisoner in Iran was allowed to receive medical treatment in a hospital outside his prison in recent weeks, his family said Thursday. It is unclear whether the hospital visit might be a precursor to his release. The prisoner, Amir Hekmati, 32, was escorted from Evin Prison in Tehran to a hospital for medical tests, including a CT scan, because of lymph node swelling in his face and neck, Mr. Hekmatis family in the United States said in an emailed statement. He is scheduled for another checkup outside prison in the next few weeks, the statement said. While the precise cause of the swelling was not clear, Mr. Hekmati appeared to be improving, the statement said. The family also was heartened that the Iranian judicial authorities had allowed Mr. Hekmati to leave the prison, albeit temporarily, for the first time since he was incarcerated more than four years ago. The very fact that they took him out of the prison and to a hospital is good, the statement said. The semiofficial Tasnim news agency in Iran, quoting his Iranian lawyer, Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaei, reported on Dec. 30 that prison officials were considering a conditional release of Mr. Hekmati for good conduct. Mr. Tabatabaei also was quoted as saying that his client was eligible for probation under Iranian law, which permits releases for certain inmates who have served at least a third of their sentences. One of those witnesses, an Afghan militiaman, corroborated the American soldiers accounts that the detainees were assaulted by Afghan and American personnel, according to an N.C.I.S. report written in August 2012. A shopkeeper, the only one of the four witnesses who saw the dead body, told the N.C.I.S. that he was beaten by the Afghan militiamen but not by Americans. Still, several former military lawyers told The Times that the sworn statements by the soldiers had provided more than enough evidence for the SEAL command to call for a hearing before an impartial Navy lawyer, who could have decided whether to recommend a court-martial on assault or even manslaughter charges. My reaction is better late than never, Eugene R. Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School, said of the N.C.I.S. decision to reopen the investigation. I think the commands dismissive attitude toward evidence presented by members of another branch of the armed services was disturbing. Former military lawyers cautioned that it could be difficult for the N.C.I.S. to locate the new witnesses and persuade them to talk to the American authorities. The episode happened near the remote village of Kalach in Oruzgan Province, and the area is now back in Taliban control. It took months for The Times to locate the men and arrange to meet them in Kabul for interviews. The detainee who said he saw the other prisoner die goes, like many Afghans, by one name, Assadullah. He told The Times that he, another companion, and the 24-year-old man who died, Muhammad Hashem, were itinerant scrap merchants who were rounded up by the Afghan Local Police after a roadside bomb killed a militiaman near Kalach. He said the militiamen took the three of them and several villagers from Kalach to the American outpost for questioning and that American personnel had grabbed him by the throat and kneed him in the stomach several times. DETROIT When Mark Rosekind became the nations top auto safety regulator in late 2014, the industry was reeling from record recalls prompted by a vehicle defect at General Motors that was later tied to 124 deaths. Mr. Rosekind vowed at the time to punish automakers for violating federal safety rules, and has since levied record fines against several automakers and required them to accept higher levels of government oversight. Now he is trying to reform industry practices further with an agreement involving 18 automakers, announced on Friday with the transportation secretary, Anthony Foxx, that calls for companies to collectively analyze and share safety data. Real safety is finding and fixing defects before someone gets hurt, rather than just punishing them after the damage is done, Mr. Foxx said at the announcement at the North American International Auto Show here. New Delhi: The Delhi police on Friday reaffirmed that the death of Sunanda Pushkar, wife of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, was not natural, as evident from the final report by an AIIMS medical board after analysing the FBIs findings on her viscera samples. Confusion prevailed over the nature of poisoning at this juncture as Delhi police commissioner Bhim Sain Bassi ruled out the presence of any radioactive substance in Sunandas body while Sudhir Gupta, head of the AIIMS forensic science department, claimed that the FBI has not ruled out completely the presence of radioactive substances in the viscera samples. While it has been established that Sunanda died of poisoning, the authorities, and the police in particular, are yet to reveal the nature of the poison. Dr Gupta, who led the team, which conducted the post-mortem on Sunandas body, said due to degraded condition of the viscera samples, they (FBI) could not read the intensity of the substances. Dr Gupta maintained that the FBI analysis of stomach, spleen, liver, kidney and urine had endorsed the cause of death, saying that the same poison is present in all the viscera. He added: The FBI endorsed the AIIMS post-mortem report, saying the cause of death is poisoning. The FBI also mentioned the presence of a dangerous chemical, which may cause death if given (in) injectable (form). It was speculated that some radioactive substance, probably Polonium 210, was found in her body. Read: Swamy accuses Delhi police chief of concealing facts in Sunanda Pushkar's FBI report This development could spell trouble for the Congress MP, and SIT sources said he was likely to be summoned again for questioning soon. This time the SIT would be armed with a fresh questionnaire based on new findings, a source said. The police chiefs reaffirmation over a year after the Delhi police had sprung a surprise by filing a murder case in Sunandas death based on the confirmation by AIIMS that the cause of death was poisoning. Sunanda was found dead on January 17, 2014 at Leela Palace Hotel in New Delhis Chanakyapuri diplomatic area soon after she had a spat over Twitter with Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar. Allegations flew thick and fast that Sunanda had also threatened to reveal some alleged murky deals in the Indian Premier League. It may be recalled that after a controversy, Sunanda had quit Rendezvous Sports World, which was a stakeholder in the IPL Kochi franchise, after she decided to return her free equity worth Rs 70 crores to the franchise. There were allegations that Mr Tharoor was involved in some controversial role in the IPL cricket team. The matter took a political turn as the Congress accused the BJP government of pursuing vendetta politics to hound Shashi Tharoor and other party leaders through a series of inneunedos, insinuations and half-baked truths over the murder of his wife Sunanda Pushkar. Despite a year having passed, the police are still clueless about the cause or the nature of the murder or arresting of the guilty. But BJP leaders like Subramanian Swamy carried on with a malicious witch-hunt against Tharoor, quoting evidence that could only be in the possession of the investigating agencies, Congress spokesman Randeep Surjewala said. While Mr Gupta talked of the possibility of radioactive substances in her body, the police chief said he has no knowledge about any mention of any dangerous chemical in the FBI report. The FBI report had said none of the samples contained any radioactive material. I can confirm theres no radioactive material but certain other findings are there. We had given the entire report to the medical board, which examined it and gave us an 11-page report with 32 pages of annexures, which we are examining, Mr Bassi said. He revealed that the FBI report had said that radioactive levels were within acceptable range and has ruled out any radioactive angle. The police chief said the FBI had found certain other chemical compounds. The medical board has given certain conclusions. We will investigate those, he added. HONG KONG General Electric said on Friday that it had agreed to sell its appliances business to Qingdao Haier of China for $5.4 billion in cash. The deal includes the stake of 48.4 percent that G.E. Appliances owns in Mabe, a Mexican appliances company. The Chinese appliances company, which had revenue of about $32.6 billion in 2014, snapped up the appliances unit after a G.E. deal with Electrolux of Sweden worth $3.3 billion fell apart last year. General Electric abandoned that deal after the United States Justice Department sued to block it because of antitrust concerns. G.E. has tried to sell the unit twice before as part of its efforts to focus on its core industrial businesses. G.E. Appliances is performing well, and there was significant interest from potential buyers, helping drive a good deal which will benefit our investors, customers and employees, Jeffrey R. Immelt, G.E.s chairman and chief executive, said in a news release. Haier has a stated focus to grow in the U.S., build their manufacturing presence here, and to invest further in the business, Mr. Immelt added. LONDON Global markets sank sharply on Friday as crude dipped below $30 a barrel on concerns about China and a potential flood of new oil from Iran. The recent turmoil, across stocks, bonds, commodities and currencies, reflects investors growing anxiety about global growth. The swirl of forces are interconnected, so the volatility in one area can quickly spread to other countries and other markets. The tumult in China, where stocks are now in bear-market territory, is helping drag down oil prices. China, an important energy consumer, is facing a slowdown that could hurt its demand for crude. Oil prices are also getting crimped by the threatened arrival of new supplies to add to the existing glut. The lifting of sanctions on Iran, part of a nuclear deal, paves the way for the country to start exporting more oil. One of the wonders of fashion is how easily it lends itself to odd angles of approach. With an eye on emerging Asian markets, the organizers of Pitti Uomo the mens wear trade show that draws as many as 35,000 international visitors to Florence every January and June they invited Juun.J (pronounced June Gee; his real name is Jung Wook-jun) to present a mens wear collection, a stroke of timing that worked for all involved. Samsung, the South Korean powerhouse behind Juun.J, has been looking to do some reverse colonization, expanding the international horizons of the designers it sponsors. They want to make it like an Asian LVMH, said Jean Colin, a Samsung vice president for global expansion, referring to that mother ship of all multinationals, the Paris-based LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton. And it is well known that Lee Seo-hyun, the Parsons-educated second daughter of Samsungs chairman, Lee Kun-hee, has ambitions to grow the global fashion interests of the electronics giant. Who says the march of globalization can only tilt east? A shy and diminutive man in his 40s, Juun.J is characteristic of a certain kind of journeyman in fashion. While he has won major prizes and held big-time jobs, he has never quite attained name-brand recognition outside South Korea. There, he enjoys cult status, based largely on mens wear designs that often resemble a form of armor. Certainly they did here at Pitti Uomo, where a posse of models notably, all Caucasian were dressed in skintight, motocross-style leathers and voluminous Matrix overcoats emblazoned with paintings of the erotic female robots drawn by the cult Japanese illustrator Hajime Sorayama. New Yorkers may be proud, ornery individuals, quick to voice their differences loudly and unabashedly. But on certain issues, New Yorkers almost always unite. The rent being too damn high is certainly one. And a swipe at the city by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas seems to be another. At the Republican presidential debate on Thursday, Senator Cruz attacked Donald Trump, one of his rivals for the partys nomination, by saying darkly that he represented New York values. Asked to define the term, Senator Cruz offered a sweeping generalization for 8.5 million city dwellers. To the Editor: A Quieter Push to Get Control of U.S. Lands (front page, Jan. 11) allowed land-grab advocates to get the last word with the bogus assertion that land not used for mining, logging or livestock grazing is locked up for no use. What about hiking, camping, hunting and fishing not to mention the wildlife habitat, clean water and open space that Americas public lands provide? Largely overlooked in this whole Oregon wildlife refuge fiasco is the fact that many millions of American taxpayers cherish our public lands in their wild state and visit them with our children and families to enjoy and rediscover the natural world around us. The Bundys and their ilk, holding democracy hostage with threats of violence, would turn these public places into their own private assets. And while many conservatives disclaim the extremists gun-waving, lawbreaking actions, they agree with the sentiment behind the armed seizure of a wildlife refuge that Americas birthright ought to be sold to the highest bidder. They dont speak for the many millions of Americans, here in the West and throughout the nation, who cherish these lands for the benefit of present and future generations. DREW CAPUTO San Francisco The writer is vice president of litigation for the Lands, Wildlife and Oceans program at Earthjustice. To the Editor: Bravo for Anna Sauerbreys levelheaded article Germanys Post-Cologne Hysteria (Op-Ed, Jan. 9). Countries accepting asylum seekers must engage in honest discussion about the challenges of integration. As a policy student advocating increased intake of refugees by United States, I am saddened to see anti-refugee groups seize upon the attacks as proof of their position. Yet I believe that some of our own pro-refugee rhetoric is to blame. In our rush to support and humanize refugees, we paint refugees as universally deserving. We tell naysayers that many refugees have Ph.D.s. We remind them that Steve Jobss birth father was a Syrian refugee. In making the case for refugees by proving their good intentions, we put all refugees at the mercy of the few bad apples. We force ourselves to cover up the real challenges of integration. We minimize horrible attacks. And we allow the other side to say they told us so. Hamburg FOR all its horror, what happened on New Years Eve in Cologne and other German cities might help the Germans solve a longstanding problem. The issue is not the one-million-plus refugees who have come to us in the first place. It is how to deal with problems that immigrants might be, are or will be causing. More than 650 criminal complaints have been filed by women in Cologne regarding that night, and more than 150 in Hamburg, including two cases of rape. A 28-year-old women named Katia said: Suddenly I felt a hand on my bum, on my breasts, I was grabbed everywhere, it was horrific. I was desperate, it was like running the gantlet. Over the space of 200 meters, I think I must have been touched about 100 times. Of the 50 suspects identified in Cologne, the bulk are from northern Africa, mostly from Morocco. These are uncomfortable facts. And until now, Germans have struggled to find an appropriate, decent way to address the issues they raise, without being labeled a Nazi or a fool. At last, this is changing. If Willkommenskultur, the welcoming culture, was the word of the year for 2015, this years leading candidate should be Ehrlichkeitskultur, the honesty culture. Cologne has been the catalyst: It shows that we must talk more frankly, yet not less responsibly, about immigration. It is now up to Chancellor Angela Merkel to transform the new soberness into action. She has already made corrections to her open-door policy, including a stricter deportation law for immigrants who commit crimes. But shell have to do even more, and shell have to do it quickly. SAN FRANCISCO Googles robotics division has been plagued by low morale and a lack of leadership since the units founder left abruptly in 2014. Now Alphabet is cleaning it up. Over the last two months, Alphabet, the new holding company that separated Google from its collection of speculative projects, has reframed the robots effort, moving it from a stand-alone division inside Google to a piece of the X research division. The company has also hired Hans Peter Brondmo, a technology industry veteran who last worked at Nokia, to help with management. Courtney Hohne, an X spokeswoman, confirmed the moves, but declined to comment further. A reorganization of the robots group is one of several recent moves inside the X division, which used to be called Google X but was rebranded with the Alphabet reorganization and recently unveiled a new logo. A range of companies, including tech competitors like Amazon and car manufacturers, are signaling their interest in robotics. Researchers at Virginia Tech who looked into the lead poisoning were even more damning, reporting last month that Michigan officials not only ignored complaints about the smell, taste and color of the water, but also lied about lead levels and tried to conceal evidence. And there have been reports that the city failed in its own lead-testing duties. The state says it has identified 43 people suffering from elevated levels of lead, which poisons the nervous system and can stunt brain development in children. In addition, state officials disclosed this week that in 2014 and 2015, there was a spike in Legionnaires disease cases in Genesee County, which includes Flint, including 10 fatalities, coinciding with the contamination of the water supply. They said they were investigating whether there might be a connection. From 2011 to 2015, Flint was in state receivership, its finances controlled by a succession of four emergency managers appointed by Mr. Snyders administration. The state returned some financial control to the city last year, and Mr. Snyder said Friday that he wanted to give it still more autonomy. It was one of those state-appointed managers who, in a cost-cutting move, switched the city in April 2014 from taking water from Detroits system to drawing water from the Flint River. Almost immediately, people began to complain about the waters color, smell and taste. Bacterial contamination was found, and then the chemicals used to disinfect the water caused a different kind of contamination, but state officials insisted that the problems had been managed and that the water was safe. It was not until September that evidence of lead poisoning became public, and officials began to acknowledge it. It turned out that the river water was corrosive, causing lead to leach from pipes. Thousands of rural folk in Tamil Nadu will be extremely disappointed that their traditional sport of bull taming will not be allowed this harvest season too. To let another Pongal pass without jallikattu is akin to denying an addict his fix. However, since the Supreme Court has stayed the Centres notification lifting the ban, the democratic tradition of bowing to the highest judiciary is more important than giving in to demands to hold the local cultural festival. Considering that neither jallikattu nor rekla races featuring bulls in states like Karnataka and Maharashtra have been held for four years, this is not the time to defiantly consider a state ordinance to overrule judicial wisdom. Tamil sentiment has been building up over the last few years and all Tamil leaders have been appealing to the PM to promulgate an ordinance to override the judicial ban. To do so in the face of an interlocutory petition in which the sport has been stayed at least till March 15 would be embarrassing for the executive. A Union ministers advice that the state should issue an ordinance is gratuitous. Had jallikattu been an unbroken tradition, things might have been different. To accept that the feelings of animal rights activists have gained primacy would be wisest until the top courts judgement. The Indian bull-taming sport is not like the Spanish bullfighting tradition in which the bulls die, or run to their slaughter as in Pamplona, a point that has been missed. But in these times even running a zoo for animals to be stared at by people is considered cruel. Our thinking has to evolve to a higher plane. Rescue crews with the Navy and the Coast Guard were searching off the coast of Hawaii on Friday for a dozen Marines and the debris of two helicopters that are believed to have collided over the high surf just before midnight Thursday. Chief Petty Officer Sara Mooers of the Coast Guard in Hawaii said that each helicopter was carrying six Marines and that rescuers were searching for survivors amid debris found about two miles off Haleiwa, a city on the north shore of Oahu. None of the Marines were found on Friday. The missing 12 Marines were aircrew members aboard two CH-53E helicopters that had been deployed from Marine Corps Base Hawaii (formerly Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay) for a local training mission, Capt. Timothy Irish, a public information officer with the Third Marine Expeditionary Force, said in an interview. The cash-starved public defenders office in Baton Rouge faces chronic underfunding, a federal lawsuit contends, a situation that has led to poor people arrested in connection with crimes being placed on a waiting list, leaving them in jail without access to lawyers. The class-action lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in New Orleans by the American Civil Liberties Union, argues that Louisiana relies on a dysfunctional funding scheme to pay for its public defender program. The system, unique in the nation, depends in great part on fees assessed on traffic tickets. Critics call the funding source highly unreliable. Without access to a lawyer, the lawsuit says, the plaintiffs in the suit, Darwin Yarls Jr., Leroy Shaw Jr. and Douglas Brown, who were arrested on separate felony charges, had no one to challenge the arrest and bail conditions, investigate the charges or negotiate with prosecutors. The suit follows a declaration on Monday by the Orleans Public Defenders office that it would begin to refuse some felony cases including attempted murder, some kinds of rape and armed robbery because it was underfunded and overloaded with cases. 3. SOUNDBITE (English) Donald Trump, Republican presidential hopeful: Last night was very interesting, we went up and you never know whats going to happen. You know its a lot of people, a lot of live television stuff and I thought it was really interesting. I thought a couple of the folks did well, I think a couple of them did very poorly actually. Couple did very, very poorly. 4. Cutaway 5. SOUNDBITE (English) Donald Trump, Republican presidential hopeful: People say, oh well, just say you want to do well in Iowa, just say you want to do well, that way at the end if you come in second or third or fourth, you can say: I want to win Iowa. We have a great relationship with the evangelicals, like fantastic, and with the Tea Party and with everybody in Iowa. And, I really want to win it. I mean to me this is going to be fun. Im going to be here a lot. Im going to be here so much in the next two weeks you are going to be sick of me. You are going to say, oh I cant stand him, I dont want to see him anymore. 6. Cutaway 7. SOUNDBITE (English) Donald Trump, Republican presidential hopeful: And (South Carolina Governor) Nikki (Haley), who is a very good person, she said there is an angry segment and I was supposed to say, I guess, and Obama said it in his speech, he was talking about me, that there (are) people that are angry. And rather than say oh I am not angry, I am not; I am angry. I am angry. I am angry at stupidity. I am angry at incompetence. I am angry when China is making 500 billion dollars a year and sucking our jobs and sucking our money out of our country and we dont do anything about it. I am not angry at China, I am angry at our politicians. I am angry. I am angry when people pour across the border and theyre told let them come in. I am angry when somebody has a baby and we are supposed to take care of the baby for 85 years, because that baby happened to be born, you know the anchor baby thing. Im angry about a lot of things and I wont be angry for long because once we straighten it out I am a very happy person. GENEVA Burundis security forces are engaging in gang rape during a crackdown on political opponents that has included a sharp rise in torture, killings and disappearances in the past month, the top United Nations human rights official said on Friday, sounding an alarm over the increasingly ethnic character of the violence. The charge of sexual violence adds a brutal new twist to a deepening nine-month crisis that has put Burundi, a poor, tiny nation in Central Africa, on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council and the African Union. The United Nations said that at least 439 people, including many critics and people suspected of being opponents of the government, had been killed, and that close to a quarter of a million had fled to neighboring countries since President Pierre Nkurunziza decided in April to run for a third term. All the alarm signals, including the increasing ethnic dimension of the crisis, are flashing red, Zeid Raad al-Hussein, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement released in Geneva. He reported that his office had identified mass graves, including one in a military camp. MOGADISHU, Somalia The Shabab militant group said on Friday that it had overrun an African Union base in a village in southern Somalia and killed dozens of peacekeepers. Residents described what appeared to be a suicide car bombing, followed by a ferocious firefight that lasted at least five hours. The African Union confirmed an attack on its troops. But central details, including the identity of those killed, were not immediately clear. Sheikh Abdulaziz Abu Muscab, a spokesman for the Shabab, which is affiliated with Al Qaeda, said the group had killed 63 Kenyan soldiers at the African Union base near the village of El-Adde and had seized ammunition and military vehicles. A Kenyan military spokesman said that the attack had targeted a Somali military camp, next to the African Union base, and that most of the dead were Somalis, contrary to claims by the Shabab. Irreverent humor is a frequent riposte to news events in Mexico, and a popular way for people here to comment on the coverage of otherwise serious events. The messages between Mr. Guzman and Ms. del Castillo, first reported by the newspaper Milenio, show that Mexicos most wanted fugitive was obviously taken with one of its most popular actresses. He dashed off messages both formal and intimate, mostly paternal in tone rather than overtly romantic. But Mexicans tried to read between the lines, creating a bevy of memes, some lampooning the meeting between Mr. Guzman and the actor Sean Penn that Ms. del Castillo helped arrange. The Twitter hashtag NoSeanPenndejos was meant as a play on words in Spanish at Mr. Penns expense: Pendejo is a vulgar pejorative. In response to his article for Rolling Stone magazine about his interview with Mr. Guzman, Mr. Penn was criticized for his writing style, the arrangements he had made with a violent fugitive to get the interview, and his perceived naivete. Since then, Mexican officials have said Mr. Guzmans meeting with Mr. Penn was being monitored. Mexicos attorney general said the authorities had been able to track down Mr. Guzman because he met with actors and producers, a reference to Mr. Penns visit. Mr. Penn denied that his meeting with Mr. Guzman had contributed to his subsequent capture. He said he believed the Mexican government said it had tracked his visit in part because they wanted to blame him and to encourage the cartel to put him in their cross hairs. There is this myth about the visit that we made, my colleagues and I, with El Chapo, that it was as the Attorney General of Mexico is quoted essential to his capture, Mr. Penn said. We had met with him many weeks earlier, on October 2nd, in a place nowhere near where he was captured. So, as far as you know, you had nothing to do, and your visit had nothing to do, with his recapture? Mr. Rose asked. Heres the things that we know: We know that the Mexican government they were clearly very humiliated by the notion that someone found him before they did, Mr. Penn said. Well, nobody found him before they did. We didnt were not smarter than the D.E.A. or the Mexican intelligence. We had a contact upon which we were able to facilitate an invitation. Are you fearful for your life? Mr. Rose asked. No, Mr. Penn said. In a brief email exchange with The Associated Press this week, Mr. Penn said of his meeting with Mr. Guzman: Ive got nothing to hide. Manchu, the imperial language of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), may be effectively extinct, but a close cousin clings to life in an unlikely place: a collection of towns near Chinas border with Kazakhstan, 2,800 miles from the languages former stronghold in northeastern China. Xibe, a dialect of Manchu, is spoken by thousands of people who live in the Qapqal Xibe Autonomous County, in the far western region of Xinjiang. They are descendants of a garrison of soldiers who were dispatched west more than 250 years ago by a Qing emperor, Qianlong, to protect the empires Central Asian border. It was an arduous, 18-month journey that took the soldiers and their families through some of the worlds most inhospitable terrain. He Wenjun, a 72-year-old teacher, is among the dwindling number of people who can still read and write Xibe, a member of the Tungusic family of languages which is thought to be related to Turkish, Korean and Japanese. Mr. He credits Xibes survival to more than two centuries of isolation in a region largely populated by ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and Russians. Before the arrival of television, Mr. He says, storytelling was a central element of Xibe social life, and a vital conduit for passing along history and tradition to the young. In this clip, Mr. He sings a folk song called Xiao Qiao Cried for Zhou Yu, an episode from the Ming dynasty novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. In it, the legendary beauty Xiao Qiao, or Little Qiao, mourns the death of her husband, the commander Zhou Yu. JAKARTA, Indonesia If the militants who attacked the center of this city with explosives and guns on Thursday hoped to inspire fear and attract followers, they seem to have failed. Instead, life in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, returned to normal on Friday, with traffic jams, long lines for public transportation and hasty breakfasts at streetside food stalls. The terrorist attack, for which the Islamic State has claimed responsibility, appeared to have been met with a shrug of the shoulders by the 10 million residents of Jakarta, as many expressed astonishment that the team of assailants had killed only two people despite striking a popular commercial and shopping area. At least 23 others were wounded, including police officers, but the general sense on Friday was that the outcome could have been much worse. Some argued that the attack highlighted the success of Indonesia, the worlds most populous Muslim-majority nation, in resisting Islamic militancy in recent years, as much as it raised concerns about inroads by groups such as the Islamic State. Instead of expressing fear, residents of Jakarta praised the police for quickly neutralizing the attackers. The topic of the handsome Indonesian police officers who responded to the attack trended on social media on Friday. BEIJING North Korea had detonated a nuclear bomb, and the president of China was urging caution. It was the fall of 2013, and the Norths third nuclear test in seven years, carried out several months earlier, had rattled much of the world. But President Xi Jinping, in a private meeting with President Obama at Constantine Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia, warned against putting too much pressure on Kim Jong-un, the Norths young, volcanic leader. A barefoot person does not fear those who wear shoes, Mr. Xi told Mr. Obama, invoking a Chinese proverb to convey that an impoverished nation like North Korea had nothing to lose by standing up to China and the United States. The conversation was recounted by an American diplomat familiar with the talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of angering the Chinese. Since coming to power in 2012, Mr. Xi has pushed the limits of Chinese foreign policy, challenging Americas influence in the Pacific and using Chinas financial heft to win allies across the globe. But while Mr. Xi has taken a tougher approach than his predecessors on North Korea, he has resisted inflicting crippling punishments on the North, an ally for six decades and a valuable counterweight for Beijing to American military might in Asia. Mumbai: Prime Minister Narendra Modi's efforts to rescue India's ailing power sector and end the country's notorious blackouts are creating an unforeseen headache for state governments: investors are suddenly shying away from their debt. Foreign bond investors, who were falling over each other to buy state government debt just a few months ago, are now giving it a wide berth as Modi's plan calls for states to take over 75 percent of the debts of their utility companies over two years. Those debts have swelled to 4.3 trillion rupees ($65.3 billion) after years of undercharging customers for electricity as state governments sought to win votes. Investors fear a flood of new issuance by states under the rescue plan and at a higher cost. Indeed, RBI data shows state governments are already having to pay sharply higher bond yields to attract domestic buyers. "We would much rather go for a AAA-rated corporate that has less supply risk compared to state development loans at the moment," said Leong Lin-Jing, fixed income investment manager with Aberdeen Asset Management in Singapore. State governments already rely on debt markets to fund 75-80 percent of their gross fiscal deficits, allowing them to divert revenues from other sources such as taxes to fund critical programs such as welfare and infrastructure spending. One top state government official said his state may need to borrow an additional 80 billion rupees to make interest payments on utilities' debt that it has to absorb, in addition to 200 billion rupees it had planned for the year ending in March. "It is a disaster for states, especially those which are fiscally healthy," the official said, requesting anonymity. The government is pushing states to buy into the plan so it can overhaul India's creaky power distribution sector. Massive utility debt has clogged up banks with bad loans and prevented power companies from new investments, which would provide reliable electricity in Asia's third-largest economy. Other federal moves could add further strains on states. The federal government has announced a nearly 25 percent hike in salaries and pensions for its employees. Brokerage Religare estimates a corresponding hike for around 10 million state and local government employees could cost 2.4 trillion rupees. The moves have spooked investors. Despite offering some of the highest yields in Asia, overseas funds have bought only 7 billion rupees ($104.24 million) of the 38.5 billion rupees in regional debt available to them start of this year. In contrast, a similar tranche in November was snapped up in three days, soon after India opened up its debt markets to foreign investors. India had hoped the entry of overseas funds would step up competition for funds and spur more secondary trading in a market that normally sees little trading. Meanwhile, yields on state government bonds for domestic investors have risen by 30 basis points (bps) since November to 8.30 percent on average. "I won't buy more state government bonds now, as already my previous investments in these bonds are seeing mark-to-market losses," said a treasury official at a large state-run bank, which just a month ago was a major investor. But, Mr. Schauble said, If Germany took such a decision, that would not be a German problem, but a huge threat for Europe. The comments by Mr. Schauble were a sign of how worried Berlin has become about the future of the Schengen system and whether Europe can muster an effective response to the crisis after Mrs. Merkel threw open Germanys borders to migrants last year in a humanitarian gesture that earned her, and Germany, accolades. While pointing out a real danger, Mr. Schaubles comments appeared to amount to less of a threat than an attempt to spur action from European Union partners to help reduce the flow of refugees and migrants to Europe. The comments came after it emerged on Friday that Italy was holding up a plan for the 28 European Union member states to contribute 3 billion euros, about $3.2 billion, to Turkey in order to help its government improve the conditions of the refugees living there. In turn, Ankara is supposed to do more to stop migrants from attempting to reach the Greek coast, which is a common arrival point for migrants who move north in the hope of gaining asylum in countries like Germany and Sweden. Italy, which wants more flexibility from Brussels about its ability to manage its national budget, has demanded that the money for Turkey come from the European Unions central budget. ISTANBUL The Turkish authorities briefly detained 27 scholars on Friday, accusing them of spreading terrorism propaganda and of insulting the state after they signed a petition denouncing the militarys campaign against Kurdish militants in southeastern Turkey. Most of the scholars were from Kocaeli University in northwestern Turkey and were detained in early-morning raids on their homes, the semiofficial news agency Anadolu reported. By Friday evening, all had been released, according to Turkish news media reports. All 27 scholars were among more than 1,000 academics from 90 Turkish universities who signed a public statement, We Wont Be a Party to This Crime, that urged the government in Ankara, the capital, to end the deliberate massacre of Kurds caught in clashes between Turkish security forces and militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or P.K.K. The petition angered President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who denounced the group and foreign scholars who signed the document, including the linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky in a televised speech on Tuesday. Mr. Erdogan accused them of treason and of forming a fifth column of foreign powers trying to undermine Turkeys national security. GENEVA Alarmed by starvation in the besieged Syrian town of Madaya, aid agencies sent a mobile medical clinic there on Friday and planned to increase medical support. The aid workers returned late Thursday from a second relief mission to the town this week, and were horrified after witnessing the death of a 16-year-old boy at a makeshift health clinic, presumably from hunger. They were in the town for seven hours, said Christophe Boulierac, a Geneva-based spokesman for the United Nations childrens agency, Unicef. He died in front of them. Among 10 older children the team examined, it also saw a 17-year-old boy whose condition was life-threatening and who needed medical evacuation. We are experiencing record student demand, engage families early in financial aid discussions and are meeting our goals, the dean told her. Why you think I should open myself up to a purely financial comparison when we are so much more than that, I have no idea. It is probably because you have not sat where I sit. So, kindly cease communication with me. I have no doubt that colleges, especially those that do not have endowments big enough to meet the full financial needs of each accepted student, are worried about the consequences of direct financial comparisons. But to deliberately throw up roadblocks that prevent easy comparisons is to turn up an institutions collective nose at anyone with even the mildest pecuniary concerns. Many of these schools would much prefer that prospective students spend far more time on their individual websites and use each of their calculators one by one. There, the colleges can surround the results with sunny explainers and Instagram-worthy pictures. They are selling an expensive product, after all, and have strict goals to meet for each class. They are increasingly focused on numbers, carefully calibrating their aid offers to make sure that the average amount paid by members of the freshman class hits a specific financial target. (Even if the schools are so much more than that.) But that is no excuse for standing in the way of making the process easier for families. If the schools worry that students will abandon their research based on an unfriendly result from College Abacuss calculator, they are probably selling most families short. Given the magnitude of the financial decision, complete with teary-eyed teenagers who set their hearts on an expensive dream school, of course the families will approach the schools directly for more information. Often, theyll come in search of a different, better financial answer. Moreover, schools that stand in the way of making data easier to use are failing to recognize families desperation for numbers that can help them make comparisons. If you want to know how much your child might learn, how much happier they might be, what kind of relationships they might forge, well, good luck. Maybe its impossible to get good data to answer those questions. Or perhaps most colleges simply arent tracking or publicizing such things, with few exceptions. The results of the net price calculators, however, are there for all to see, if only because the federal government forced the schools hands. And those schools that deliberately make it harder for families to compare their net prices are sending their own telling signal to the marketplace of applicants. The biggest of these is surely how a handful of Europeans managed, for good and ill, to do so much. Crowley does not give us an explicit answer, but he provides more than enough information for readers to make up their own minds. Some historians have suggested that Albuquerque owed his success more to divisions within India than to any European advantages, but Crowley makes it clear that infighting among the Portuguese was even worse. The kings court in Lisbon was a snake pit, and Albuquerques captains repeatedly refused to serve under him; in 1514 an attempt was made to poison him. The theory that Christian civilization was simply superior to Muslim and Hindu cultures seems equally unconvincing. As Crowley describes it, Lisbon was less a model of Renaissance reason than a precursor of the Wild West, and most Portuguese were so ignorant about India that it took them years to work out that Hinduism was a religion in its own right, not a provincial version of Christianity. When the Europeans did finally grasp this, many also concluded as one Italian merchant put it that Indias cultures are superior to us in infinite ways, except when it comes to fighting. Fighting or more precisely ships, guns and ferocity does seem to be what it came down to. Portuguese sailors learned to build ships that could plunge into the uncharted Atlantic in search of winds to carry them around Africas southern tip, all the while dying in droves from dysentery, scurvy and thirst. But getting to India was merely a sufficient condition; without devastating guns, the Europeans would have accomplished little. Ships and guns gave Europeans command of the seas, but even when Indians bought or copied European weapons and hired European advisers as they did by 1510 they still could not compete with what Crowley calls the Portuguese berserker fighting style. From the humblest foot soldier up to Albuquerque himself, the Europeans were simply ferocious, throwing themselves at their enemies with reckless courage. Sometimes indiscipline brought on disaster, but often Africans, Indians, Arabs and Turks turned and fled. Portugals leaders were deeply flawed, but they had strategic vision. By 1505 King Manuel understood that a few Europeans could control the Indian Oceans spice trade by seizing choke points at Aden, Ormuz and Malacca, and in 1510 Albuquerque saw that Goa could anchor the whole enterprise (If you lost the whole of India you could reconquer it from there, he told Manuel). The literary style known as magic realism, incorporating fantastic elements into otherwise realistic fiction, has been deployed with much success by Latin American writers. It is also, lately, a Colombian tourism slogan. Now the Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, best known for a memoir describing her six years in the jungle as the hostage of anti-government rebels, has added her first novel to the ranks of the genre. The Blue Line is set mainly in Argentina in the years before and during its Dirty War and in the present-day Northeastern United States. I happened to be reading an advance copy of the book in Buenos Aires as the Argentines were celebrating the inauguration of a new president, Mauricio Macri. In the midst of this joyous demonstration, it was hard to believe that older citizens endured a national event that ranks somewhere below Nazi Germany and Rwanda in the annals of state-run mass murder. From 1976 to 1983, the Argentine military embarked on a Process of National Reorganization in which clandestine military units and death squads made an active verb of disappear by killing young leftists and intellectuals, journalists, communists and anyone believed to have socialist political leanings. The official number of the disappeared is from 10,000 to 13,000, although some estimates put it as high as 30,000. Victims were seized without warrants, held without charge, tortured, sometimes drugged; others were dragged onto airplanes for death flights in which they were pushed out over the sea. When raped women gave birth in the secret detention camps, members of the military handed their infants off to friends of the junta to be raised in right-wing households. A grass-roots movement called the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo drew global attention to their plight before the military relinquished power. Betancourts first novel, translated from French by Lakshmi Ramakrishnan Iyer and Rebekah Wilson, tells the story of Julia, a woman with the supernatural ability to see terrible events through other peoples eyes, anticipating disaster. Much in the book is inspired by the real events of the Dirty War as young Julia and her lover, Theo, the father of her unborn child, are rounded up and incarcerated. Betancourt details some horrific, entirely believable torture tactics, and one of the main characters turns out to have been a child of the disappeared, raised in the home of a murderer. Betancourt ably describes these experiences and the scars they leave, although her characters and their motivations are thinly depicted, in a style that can veer toward the childlike. A 13-year-old Japanese schoolgirl walking home from badminton practice mysteriously disappears. So does a young couple strolling on a beach. A mother and her 19-year-old daughter also vanish on the way back from their routine grocery shopping trip. They are among at least 17 Japanese who were abducted by North Korea in the years between 1977 and 1983. In The Invitation-Only Zone: The True Story of North Koreas Abduction Project, Robert S. Boynton, a journalism professor at New York University, gives us a riveting portrait of these bizarre kidnappings, but offers few clues as to what this project was all about. Why, really, do you think you were abducted? Boynton asks Kaoru Hasuike, one of five victims who were eventually repatriated to Japan after the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, in a bid to improve relations with Japan, admitted to the kidnappings in 2002. The whole thing is still a paradox to me, he says. And so it seems to Boynton as well. Most conspicuously missing in his account is any sustained examination of South Koreas role in the whole affair. Contrary to his assertions, in 1978, when Kaoru was abducted, North Korea was not one of the most admired and prosperous Communist regimes in Asia. North Korea may have been ahead of the South economically in the 1950s, but by the mid-1960s it was already well on its way to becoming a failed economic state. By contrast, South Korea under the leadership of Park Chung-hee was emerging as an economic powerhouse. The year 1966 was a watershed for South Korea. Economically, the G.N.P. growth rate increased from 2.2 percent in 1962 to 12.7 percent in 1966, leading to one of the longest sustained periods of high growth in history. Thats why Kim Il-sung, facing the precipitous decline in his nations fortunes and realizing that the South was outstripping the North economically, began a series of provocative actions in the late 1960s and early 70s, including two assassination attempts on President Park in a last-ditch effort to foment a South Korean revolution and achieve reunification under his control. With the dwindling of the anti-globalization movement over the past decade, the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle can now look like easily mocked millennial optimism: turtles, teamsters, Wiccans, the Free Mumia crowd and beanie-wearing save-the-forests types finding common cause with the victims of corporate capital and glowing with the belief in a better world. Although media coverage of what transpired over the protests five chaotic days in November focused on police brutality and destruction of property, in its full reality, the Battle in Seattle swung from hope-filled carnival to angry riot to a moment of real change a polyvalent, ambiguous and high-stakes drama. In other words, a novelists dream. Sunil Yapas debut novel, Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist, uses plural perspectives to draw in the human elements at play. Victor, a 19-year-old runaway burned out from caring too much, hopes to sell enough weed to protesters to buy himself a plane ticket. Two street medics prepare to take a stand with those whose hearts are mad with hope. And Police Chief Bishop who happens to be Victors estranged father tries to negotiate, along with two members of his force, an increasingly tense situation. Joining these six people, in sections titled Intermission, is Sri Lankas delegate to the convention, Dr. Charles Wickramsinghe, on a mission to gain his countrys admittance to the W.T.O. At the center of the novel is the same question posed by the protests themselves: What kind of world do we want, and what must we do to get it? The protests offer Yapa a unique intersection of answers, even if the attempt to shoehorn them all in can give the novel the feel of a crowded ensemble film, with everyone bumping into everyone else. The activists demand justice, the delegates economic growth, and the cops just want to rein in a city thats slipped out of their control. Charles, the Sri Lankan delegate, gives Yapa the opportunity to consider in the activists fervor what might be blinkered privilege and a wisp of condescension. The activists, in turn, allow Charles to see what a real belief in ones power to make change can achieve. It started out as many love affairs do in the fourth grade: not well. Standing on the tetherball court at Jefferson Elementary School in Maplewood, N.J., James Livengood, 10, angered by something said or not said (depending on whom you ask) by Sara Okin, 9, picked up a fistful of mulch and sticks and threw it at her. One of the sticks hit me in the neck and caused a two-inch scratch, said Ms. Okin, 28, a senior product manager for Refinery29, a fashion and lifestyle media company. I started crying and went to the teacher. James got suspended. His mom made him write me an apology. All was forgiven. Ive always liked her, said Mr. Livengood, 29, co-founder and director of production for Radicle Farm Company, a farm technology company that introduced a living, harvest-at-home salad concept. When I was 11, I had a label maker given to me by my grandfather, and on it I printed, I love Sara Okin over and over. But she did not puppy-love him back. For the next decade, their relationship would be on again off again. Leave the room if you have to change a diaper, says Licia Ronzulli, an Italian member of the European Parliament who started taking her daughter to work at the age of 6 weeks. More broadly, recognize the type of interruption that requires a quick exit (mostly soiled diapers and crying sprees), but otherwise get comfortable responding to a childs needs while on the job. Figure out what the policy is on taking children to your workplace; a growing number of businesses allow parents to take infants until they begin to crawl. (Research suggests babies dont significantly reduce productivity and can actually boost overall employee morale.) The European Parliament offers parental leave, but Ronzulli felt obligated to represent her constituents, so she, with her baby, joined the 750 other elected officials voting in plenary sessions. Arriving to work with an unannounced child is less risky for politicians than for, say, line cooks, and Ronzulli cautions that acting without approval might lead to the loss of your job. Get the right equipment. Ronzulli found that if she kept her newborn, Vittoria, in a sling baby cheek pressed against her chest the child slept. She put a changing table and toys in her office. Also, accept assistance. Colleagues will offer to hold the baby, says Ronzulli, who had bipartisan helpers despite her allegiance to the right-leaning party Forza Italia. Line up a temporary sitter in case the baby is particularly fussy. That role fell to Ronzullis assistant, co-workers and sometimes her mother. Ronzulli nursed in meetings and during votes, whenever the need arose. If someone has a problem with you breast-feeding then they have a problem, not you, she says. Expect a few detractors, especially early on. Engage immediately, Ronzulli says. When another member of Parliament suggested her babys presence dishonored the institution, Ronzulli told the woman she should be ashamed of herself. If you plan to bring a toddler to work, teach the child the applicable rules. Nearly every week for four years, Vittoria traveled with her mother to Strasbourg, France, or Brussels, where she sat through thousands of debates and votes. Id say to her, Youre coming with me to Parliament, Ronzulli recalls, and she would say, Oh, the place where you cannot sing. The Rev. Michael A. Walrond Jr., 44, the senior pastor at First Corinthian Baptist Church in Harlem, wears jeans in the pulpit, rides a motorcycle and encourages posting on Twitter during his sermons. So far it has worked. Since he arrived in 2004, First Corinthian says, church membership has grown to 9,000 from 300. In 2014, he ran (unsuccessfully) for the congressional seat long held by Representative Charles B. Rangel. Known to congregants as Pastor Mike, Mr. Walrond lives in Harlem with his wife, the Rev. LaKeesha Walrond, 44, the churchs executive pastor. RISE I usually get up around quarter to 6. My struggle is always that I dont go to bed early enough, because Im always up reading and getting ready for the sermon. I try to get to the church no later than 7:15. PREGAME My office is not like the typical environment of a preacher getting ready to preach. Its more like a pep rally. Theres people laughing, having a good time. I like being loose when I go out to preach. Theres always anxiety. To stand before thousands of people every week and proclaim a message that you believe is sent from God to the people is an audacious thing. She became the clubs first female boating member when she joined four years ago, and then became the financial secretary. Last year, some members suggested she run to replace the outgoing commodore, and the rest was just luck, she said, with the officer running against her dropping out shortly before the election. Either he didnt want to be the commodore, she said, or he didnt want to lose to a woman. Women are certainly welcome at the Midget, and there are plenty of wives and girlfriends with important roles, including running the Ladies Auxiliary, which organizes events, such as the coming pool and pasta night. But only members may hold office and dock a boat at the club, Ms. Salogub said, adding that she might inspire other women to become members, especially given an overall decline in membership after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The storm damaged many boats and battered the Midgets unusual clubhouse, a Quonset hut bought from the military and transported piecemeal from New Jersey in the 1950s. Ms. Salogub said the club was opened around 1900 a bit west of the current location, to which it moved in 1954. Early members enjoyed a small fleet of motorboats thus the origin of the name and would race up the Hudson River to places like Newburgh and Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Of course, we always got people calling up asking, Do you have to be a midget to belong? Ms. Salogub said. These new cartels continue to traffic drugs, some switching from Colombian cocaine to Mexican heroin to feed an epidemic sweeping parts of America. But they have also used their armies of assassins to move into new endeavors: rackets, extortion, oil theft, even wildcat iron mining. And they are now muscling in on one of Mexicos most lucrative businesses of all: local politics. Ms. Mota isnt the first politician to fall afoul of the cartels new business interests. In a Jan. 11 news conference, the governor of Morelos, Graco Ramirez, revealed that Los Rojos had threatened 13 more Morelos mayors in recent months, and are using the murder of Ms. Mota as a somber warning. It was a deliberate and premeditated action that aims to sow an environment of terror, both among authorities and citizens, he said. The cartel makes telling demands of the mayors, Mr. Ramirez said for example, contracts for valuable building projects or the right to name the town police chiefs. And they are forcing mayors to give them 10 percent of their annual budgets. As Mexicos government provides much of the financing, this means the cartels are feeding from the federal pot and in turn from the United States, which provides the Mexican government with about $300 million a year in drug-war aid. Corruption in Mexico is as old as the country itself, and traffickers have been bribing politicians during the century that they have been smuggling drugs to Americans. Mayors, governors and federal officials have turned a blind eye to opium fields and meth superlabs. In 1997, the federal governments drug czar himself was arrested on suspicion of taking bribes. But now gangsters are flipping this century-old deal. Instead of handing out bribes, they are making the mayors pay them. Politics is not just a way to help their criminal businesses; it is a business in itself. And as they take control of these politicians, the cartels transform themselves into an ominous shadow power, using the tools of the state to affect anyone who lives or works in its jurisdiction. With more than 2,000 mayors in Mexico, most of whom have little protection, the cartels have a big market to tap. The combined booty is potentially worth billions of dollars a year. And, indeed, the tactic of shaking down mayors appears to be expanding beyond Morelos. In 2014, it was revealed that the bizarrely named Knights Templar cartel, based in Michoacan State, was also forcing mayors to hand over a percentage of their budgets. Videos and photos even emerged of the Templars leader, Servando Gomez, also known as La Tuta, sitting down and talking with various mayors. Still, some sellers dont get the message right away. Its almost like the boyfriend or the girlfriend who stops calling, said Mr. Willkie of Brown Harris Stevens. They didnt tell me they didnt like me anymore, he said, quoting the jilted. Well, no, but they didnt call you. In real estate, he said, its the same thing. Loath to resort to discounts, some developers and high-end brokers are quietly ratcheting up commissions and other incentives they offer real estate agents to try to increase sales. The Oosten, a 216-unit condominium in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which began sales more than a year ago, is offering a $5,000 American Express gift card to brokers who can deliver a signed contract for one of its 78 remaining units, listed for $1.14 million for a one-bedroom to $6.42 million for a six-bedroom penthouse. In November, 200 East 62nd Street, a 115-unit condominium conversion that began sales earlier last year, introduced a $10,000 broker bonus for one-bedroom deals closed by the end of December, $20,000 for two-bedrooms and $30,000 for three-bedrooms. In Midtown, a new 93-unit condominium at 252 East 57th Street, which topped out in October, began offering brokers a 1 percent commission within 60 days of a signed contract even if the buyer does not ultimately close. Normally, brokers arent paid until a sale officially closes, which can take as long as two years in developments under construction. Were doing this to try to raise awareness among brokers who have not been to the building, said Steven Rutter, the director of Stribling Marketing Associates, which is handling sales Despite the increase in price reductions, industry experts say the market remains strong. If a property is worth $1 million and you ask $1.4 million and reduce it to $1.3 million, its not an indication of a problem in the market, said Mr. Willkie of Brown Harris Stevens. Its a problem with overpricing. Sales remain robust for the bulk of the market, with competition particularly heated for two-bedrooms, where there are still too few apartments to go around. Its the high end where sales volume has begun to slow. We still see interesting things happening, including record-setting prices closing, said Michael Graves, an associate broker at Douglas Elliman Real Estate. There just happens to be a lot more uber-luxury product coming to market. As a result, he said, buyers are much more patient, and some of the exuberance we saw last year has faded away. Over all, 189 apartments were sold for $10 million or more in 2015, down nearly 12 percent from the record 214 in 2014, according to CityRealty, which tracks co-op and condo sales. Just outside Iowa City, in the sleepy town of West Branch, is the presidential museum of its native son Herbert Hoover. The tourist site, housed in a building not far from the two-room cottage where Hoover spent his earliest days before becoming orphaned at the age of 9, is notable for its sparseness. Unlike the edifices dedicated to more recent or more beloved presidents, a visitor can stroll through the life of our nations 31st chief executive without anyone else around, lending poignancy to Hoovers experience as the man widely blamed for failing to prevent the Great Depression. To its credit, the museum devotes significant space to Hoovers fall from grace following his landslide loss to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, and subsequent despondency, while reminding visitors that he ultimately regained his status as a statesman, working with President Harry S. Truman to help resuscitate Europes economy following World War II. Here in Iowa was another great national motif that of America as the land of second chances. I was now in the eastern side of the state, with no set itinerary. As a native Texan, I am not one for driving in snow. But the weather was merciful and the rural roads well paved, offering a near-seamless tableau of shorn acreage upon which the occasional silo or farmhouse materialized in a state of heartbreaking isolation. Just outside Kalona on Route 1, I came upon a profusion of buggies ferrying Amish families. But traffic was otherwise nonexistent, and so I made my way unharried, in a kind of fugue state, until a beeping notified me that I was almost out of gas. I had just enough to get me to tiny Keota where, at the towns one high school, Martin OMalley was describing trickle-down economics to a mildly interested crowd of about 200. A reporter for the local paper told me where to find the nearest gas station, adding with a sweet smile, I know it means a lot to the folks who organized this event that you came all this way. A few minutes later, as I meandered through Keota, she flagged me down on the street and gently advised me that I would find what I was looking for in the opposite direction. Less than an hour from Keota, I found the turnoff to Vedic City or, rather (as a sign proclaimed it), Maharishi Vedic City: Capital of the Global Country of World Peace. Iowa, as it turns out, boasts one of Americas foremost Transcendental Meditation temples, shimmering on the plains like an alien spaceship. The filmmaker David Lynch was a habitue; Oprah Winfrey had paid a visit; Jim Carrey gave a commencement speech to the 2014 graduating class at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield. The communitys other main attraction is the Raj, a rather sumptuous spa where the ancient healing rites of Ayurveda are practiced. I was tempted to book a room, but the Raj requires a three-day commitment, and with my reporters laptop and ever-buzzing iPhone, I seemed a dubious fit anyway. Instead, I found a hotel in neighboring Fairfield, a new-agey city ominously self-described in one sign as a cast of 10,000 as themselves. Ron Paul, I was later told, had a strong following in Fairfield. LONDON One of the problems for a billionaire wanting to put together a trophy collection of old master art is that the supply of documented works by the most illustrious sculptors and painters has all but dried up. As a result, millions can be made if a work hitherto attributed to a minor or unknown artist can be upgraded to a famous name. Just such an attributional upgrade was rewarded on Jan. 4, when the New York dealer and Renaissance scholar Andrew Butterfield found a buyer for a 15th-century gilded wooden putto that he described in its accompanying catalog as a newly identified statue by Donatello. Speaking on condition of anonymity, three people with knowledge of the sale said the buyer was Jon Landau, the longtime manager of Bruce Springsteen and a prominent collector of Italian Renaissance art. A few years ago, Jennifer Perrine saw a television ad for Lumosity, an online brain training program, and decided shed give it a try. Her mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimers disease, and Ms. Perrine, a freelance writer in New York, began worrying about her own mental abilities. Every time you lose your keys, you think youre losing your mind, she said. This seemed to offer a ray of hope. Lumositys ads, seemingly ubiquitous, appeared on television, radio and podcasts. The company purchased hundreds of search engine keywords so that computer users seeking information on dementia, Alzheimers and memory would encounter its online ads. In one TV commercial, a man declared that with Lumosity decisions come quicker. Im more productive. The company website stated that brain training could help patients with brain trauma, chemofog, mild cognitive impairment and more, adding that healthy people have also used brain training to sharpen their daily lives and ward off cognitive decline. Islamabad: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif vowed Pakistan would eradicate "evil" honour killings as he congratulated director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy on her Oscar nomination for a harrowing documentary on the practice. "A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness", which follows the story of a rare survivor, was nominated in the documentary short category of the Academy Awards on Thursday. Hundreds of women are murdered by their relatives in Pakistan each year on the grounds of defending family "honour". Their male murderers are then "pardoned" by relatives under the country's controversial Islamic blood money laws that allow murderers to escape punishment. A statement from the prime minister's office late Thursday offered Chinoy, who made history in 2012 when she won Pakistan's first Oscar for the another documentary, Sharif's congratulations. "Honour killings, the theme of the film, afflict several segments of Pakistani society," it quoted Sharif as saying. He "expressed the government's commitment to rid Pakistan of this evil by bringing in appropriate legislation", the statement continued, adding that Chinoy's "insights" could prove helpful. Chinoy said on Twitter that she was "delighted" that Sharif had made the commitment. "Next step is to push all the politicians to call a joint session & get the anti honor crime bill passed that has lapsed in parliament!" she said in another tweet. "There is no Honor in Honor Killing- It is not part of our religion or culture- It is a stain on our society," she said. Chinoy was feted across Pakistan in 2012 when she won the country's first Oscar for "Saving Face", a 40-minute documentary that exposed the horrors endured by women who survive devastating acid attacks. It focuses on two women, Zakia and Rukhsana, as they fight to rebuild their lives after being attacked by their husbands, and British Pakistani plastic surgeon Mohammad Jawad who tries to help repair their shattered faces. Acid attacks, which disfigure and often blind their overwhelmingly female victims, have long been used to settle personal or family scores in Pakistan, with hundreds of cases reported each year. The attacks along with honour killings fit a wider pattern of eroding women's rights in the conservative Muslim nation, where women are frequently treated as second-class citizens and there is no law against domestic violence. HORNBROOK, Calif. On a frigid morning in a small metal-sided building, a team of specialists prepared to orchestrate an elaborate breeding routine. The work would be wet and messy, so they wore waders. Their tools included egg trays and a rubber mallet, which they used to brain a fertile female coho salmon, now hanging dead on a hook. Diana Chesney, a biologist, studied a piece of paper with a matrix of numbers, each one denoting a male salmon and potential match for the female coho. This is the bible, she said of the matrix. Its what Carlos says. John Carlos Garza, a geneticist based a days drive south in Santa Cruz, has become a key figure in Californias effort to preserve its decimated salmon stocks. Using the latest genetic techniques, he and his team decide which individual fish should be bred together. At several major state conservation hatcheries, like the coho program here at Iron Gate, no two salmon are spawned until after Dr. Garza gives counsel a salmon mating service, he jokingly calls it. His painstaking work is the latest man-made solution to help fix a man-made problem that is about 150 years old: Dams, logging, mining, farming, fishing and other industries have so fractured and polluted the river system that salmon can no longer migrate and thrive. In fact, today, owing to the battered habitat, virtually all salmon in California are raised in hatcheries. Saturday 4. Poutine Party, 2 a.m. A late-night debate with a Quebecer about the best poutine is akin to arguing about cheese steaks with a Philly native, so bite your tongue and try the faithful rendition prepared at Chez Gaston. This St.-Roch hole in the wall is no-frills, but the piping-hot poutine is spot on: crisp fries with crunch and curds with squeak, all doused in gravy (5.65 dollars). For more comfort with your comfort food, try the citys first location of the small Canadian franchise Poutineville, which opened in an airy, brick-walled space last summer. Here all ingredients are customizable, but the house specialty (10 dollars) substitutes crushed potato chunks for fries and adds a pile of braised beef to Canadas so-called national dish. 5. Outside Wall Art, 11 a.m. The wonderfully preserved Basse-Ville (Lower Town), between the fortifications and the waterfront, dates back over 400 years and is not where youd expect to find daring artwork. But for the last two years, the Exmuro Arts Publics organization has enlivened this historic area during warmer months with outdoor art installations. This temporary Quartier Creation has previously featured neon-hued, tactile works and playful sculptures like three giant pigeons inspecting a huge Campbells Soup can by Cooke-Sasseville, the moniker of two stars of the local art scene. If your visit doesnt coincide with another series of installations, instead stroll these quaint streets until you encounter the areas two massive trompe loeil murals Fresque des Quebecois and Fresque du Petit-Champlain whose depictions of prominent Quebecers and life in the Cap-Blanc harbor district double as local history lessons. 6. St.-Jean Snack, 1 p.m. On bustling Rue St.-Jean, a delicious, light lunch can be cobbled together along the streets less-trafficked western end. Begin at Le Paingruel, a tiny artisanal boulangerie where the fresh-baked goods buttery croissants (1.85 dollars), spiral orange-flavored pastries (2.60) are among the tastiest in the city. Then head northeast two blocks to Cantook Micro-Torrefaction, a micro-roastery and third-wave coffee shop. The gorgeously designed interior has a vaguely Pacific-Northwestern atmosphere (dark wood ceiling, decorative antlers) in which to savor a single-origin espresso. 7. Limoilou Loot, 3 p.m. The northern working-class neighborhood of Limoilou, with its tree-lined blocks of three-story, multiunit houses fronted by curving staircases, is nowhere near the typical tourist trail. But its worth the trek across the St.-Charles River to explore 3e Avenue, one of Limoilous main arteries. Start at Article 721, a funky boutique stocked with an eclectic mix of jewelry, clothing and design objects, many from Quebecois artisans and designers, like adorable onesies with kangaroolike pouches from Electrik Kidz and T-shirts emblazoned with colorful pockets from Poches & Fils. Continue to the kitchenware shop La Folle Fourchette, if only to admire the handmade ash-wood pepper mills from Pierre Chayer Artisan. Then dip in to Le Lievre & La Tortue, a serene teahouse that opened in September, to join hip patrons alternating MacBook clicks and sips. 8. New Old World, 8 p.m. Quebecs Old World culinary ties are being spun today into creative new directions. For a dinner that riffs on the tastes of southern Italy, head to the two-year-old Nina Pizza Napolitaine, a stylishly minimalist pizzeria that pulls chewy, perfectly blistered pies from its black-and-white wood-fired oven. Dont miss the salsiccia e pistacchio pizza (17.50 dollars), featuring a creamy pistachio base topped with fine rabbit sausage, hazelnuts, Parmesan and mozzarella. Or savor the flavors of France at nearby Le Renard et La Chouette, a cheery, unfussy buvette that opened in 2014. Expect groups of friends laughing over glasses of Beaujolais and Gallic-inflected small plates like torchon de foie gras adorned with diced ginger and sea buckthorn berries (16 dollars). 9. Rue of Strange Brew, 11 p.m. Youd be hard-pressed to find a better street for surveying the provinces craft ciders and beers than Rue St.-Jean. For apple-based tipples, visit Le Projet Specialite Microbrasseries, a bustling bar with an elegant interior. Try the Citron Sunrise from Les Vergers de la Colline an appealingly tart, lemony cider or the winelike rose ice cider from La Face Cachee de la Pomme. There are also about 20 area craft beers on tap, but serious beer connoisseurs should instead ascend the foreboding stairs toward the metal-heavy soundtrack reverberating from Bateau de Nuit. This dimly lit bar, which occasionally hosts improv comedy nights, has 10 rotating taps from Quebecs best microbreweries, like Les Trois Mousquetaires and Le Castor. For more soothing tunes, follow the street into historic Vieux-Quebec, where an alleyway leads to Bar Les Yeux Bleus, a cavelike bar with (gentler) live music. London: I was desperately worried that you hadnt read or heard enough platitudinous drivel about David Bowie and therefore felt compelled to weigh in with my own observations. In all honesty I havent heard so much repetitive, imbecilic guff since Mandelas passing. It was even worse than the confected sobfest that greeted the passing of the charming and likeable Lou Reed. The eulogies for Lou were simply a case of the BBC telling everybody that they are dead hip and edgy, really enjoyed Perfect Day and once knew someone, back in uni, who had an album by the Velvet Underground. With Bowie, it was partly the misguided wish to show off that same hipness, but also an attempt to shoehorn poor old Bowie, only hours cold, into their relentless political agenda. And so as soon as the experts had told us, over and over again, that Bowie was a chameleon, they started in on his revolutionary approach to sexual intercourse which was, in short, an atavistic and unceasing desire to shag anything and everything with a pulse, as often as was humanly possible. As far as the BBC was concerned, this made Bowie a sort of combination of Harvey Milk and Peter Tatchell rolled into one: a fearless fighter for LGBT rights, pushing back the barriers of conservative morality and heralding, almost single-handedly, a brave new world of equality for gays, transgendered persons, bisexuals, etc. Missing entirely were Bowies stated political opinions. Arriving back in drab, grey, strike-ridden Britain from America in 1975, he said the country needed a good dose of fascism. Asked to elucidate, he said: I believe very strongly in fascism Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars. He also lambasted declining moral standards, adding: Youve got to have an extreme right-wing front come up and sweep everything off its feet and tidy everything up. And then there was his disdain for the ordinary man, the plebs: See the mice in their million hordes/From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads... None of that stuff got any airtime, oddly enough. It didnt match the template creative liberationist! He also hated rock music. Like another singular performer, the magnificently curmudgeonly Van Morrison, he found its constraints and pretensions tedious, stupid and soul-destroying. In the same year as he said England might be enlivened by fascism, he said rock music was dead. Its a toothless old woman, he remarked, with some acuity. This was not just a tossed-off attempt to grab a New Musical Express headline he was saying much the same thing 10 years later. Like Morrison, he wished no association with rock music. And like Morrison, his finest work was informed directly by the music which preceded rock music in Morrisons case jazz and blues, in Bowies case music hall, Brecht-Weill, the sweeping soundscapes of Dimitri Tiomkin and avant-garde modern classical music. He could rock out Suffragette City, Panic In Detroit and Rebel Rebel, for example, but not very frequently, and he was often indebted to his guitarists, especially Mick Ronson, for the riffs. This brings us to the point missed in all those encomiums. Bowie was successful, and valuable as an artist, not because he was a chameleon who changed characters and reinvented himself as we have been lectured endlessly. Plenty of bands and artists have done that change-of-image business and failed lamentably. He was important because he had a quite remarkable melodic imagination, one which was not tied to the stultifying confines of rock music. The chord changes of his verses were often unorthodox and the melody line skittered around them with enormous range miles away from the root chord, which elsewhere in this staid and conservative medium defines the tune. Then a swirling and unexpected chorus would sweep you off your feet often a very non-rock-song chorus. Starman, Oh You Pretty Things, Changes, Drive In Saturday, The Prettiest Star and more, even than these, the song he gave away to the band Mott The Hoople, All The Young Dudes. Hell, this last may be his best-ever song. How did he come up withsuch a chorus? A chorus that defies prediction. The simple truth, I reckon, is that Bowie, for six years at least, wrote very good songs, songs that were not drawn from the medium with which he came to be associated. And that is why they still have resonance now. In this he is like another, less fashionable, creature: Paul McCartney. The rock press always adored John Lennon and rather despised McCartney. But favourite Beatles songs are almost all by McCartney. Lennon was loved for his supposed edge, for his fatuous political convictions (the attendant hypocrisy forgotten). McCartney just carried on writing tunes which had about them a sophistication and vast melodic range. Compare the melodies of two songs which, initially, have a similar chord sequence: Here, There and Everywhere by McCartney and Woman by Lennon. McCartneys soars all over the place and then, just for fun, changes key twice. Lennons sticks doggedly to the base note of every chord. The experts and the BBC will tell you that Bowie and the Beatles were successful for a whole plethora of what are, in the end, irrelevancies. The attitude, the make-up, the politics. Whereas in truth its much more simple its all about the songs. By arrangement with the Spectator Xiaoxiao decided to send her ex-boyfriend bars of soap from her own fat People get their revenge on ex-lovers in all kinds of ways, but one Chinese woman has a rather original way of taking revenge on her ex and his family. The woman from Zhengzhou, Henan province, posted a photo of a bar of soap made from her own fat to her ex-boyfriend who allegedly dumped her because he thought she was overweight, the Peoples Daily Online reports. The woman, with the screen name of Xiao Xiao loves beauty and eating, claims she underwent surgery to lose weight after the nasty break-up and she will send the revenge gift to her ex-boyfriend and his family to use in the shower. The woman, who is thought to be called Xiao Xiao, posted the message on January 7 on Weibo, Chinas equivalent to Twitter. It read: Yang Xiaolei, do you still remember last Spring Festival? Since [I] cant accompany you to go home this year, I used my own fat to make a soap and give it to your mother for bathing. Spring Festival is the time to give a gift to those low-class men who judge women by appearance. Her post on the social media site has received over 5,400 shares, 4,440 comments and nearly 2,700 likes since last Thursday. Xiao Xiao also posted a screenshot of the text message she sent her ex, according to Whats On Weibo. The message read: Ive made a piece of soap from my own fat to give to your mum for bathing. Chinese New Year the time to surprise those men who judge a book by its cover. The screenshot has since been erased from her account. Her post online has received mixed views. One user said: I believe you will find a better person so tell that man to go to hell. While another user slammed the girl: Your ex-boyfriend was right, beauty and ugliness comes not just from being fat and thin but from the heart. It has not yet been confirmed whether the woman actually posted her ex-boyfriend the soap. Source: www.dailymail.com NEWPORT BEACH Longtime Newport Beach real estate investors acquired more than 3 1/2 acres along the harbor in the Mariners Mile including the landmark Ardell Yacht and Ship Brokers for $72 million this month. Sale of the Ardell Investment Co.s property holdings along West Coast Highway, including the yacht and ship brokers and Amarees property, was finalized Jan. 5, according to the county clerk-recorders database. Real estate investors Manouch and Mark Moshayedi now own the Ardell property and the 4.4 acres across the street housing Sun Country Marine and Johnsons Yachts. Members of the Moshayedi family own a large footprint along Mariners Mile. Mark and Manouch Moshayedi own about 1,200 linear feet along the harbor. Mike Moshayedi owns the property housing Joes Crab Shack, the Winery and the Shamrock Bar and Grill, Manouch Moshayedi said. Manouch and Mark Moshayedi bought the Mariners Mile Marine Center, the gray-and-white office buildings next door to Ardell, for $25 million in 2012. Manouch said hes driven by the Ardell property thousands of times, and has tried to work out a sale for years. You just cant price this type of a property, he said. Its one of a kind. Moshayedi said he had no plans for development, but wants to reach out to community members and leaders to find a good fit for the neighborhood. Newport Beach has identified Mariners Mile as an area for potential revitalization. In 2014, the city held a Mariners Mile planning meeting to look at options for that stretch of the city with the Congress for the New Urbanisms California Chapter. Kim Brandt, the citys Community Development director, said the city likely will start a land-use study soon to discuss bringing in elements the city would like to see, such as a walkway near the bay for pedestrians and better views of the harbor from Pacific Coast Highway. A study would take between nine months and a year, she said. We want to work with property owners and help create a plan for the area that makes sense, Brandt said. Ardell will close its doors next month, according to a company statement. The Ardell name is being retired, the companys statement reads. The management, brokers (and) staff leave with the satisfaction of knowing Ardell provided the highest service for over half a century. Ardells sign has been a fixture of Mariners Mile since the 1950s. The late Arnold Haskell had a vision to create an extraordinary waterfront facility along Pacific Coast Highway in Mariners Mile, according to the statement. He bought more than 700 feet of waterfront property then occupied by the Port Orange Fishing Hole. Staff columnist Jonathan Lansner contributed to this report. Contact the writer: 714-796-7990 or mnicolai@ocregister.com According to the numbers presented in Gov. Jerry Browns fiscal 2016-17 budget proposal, California taxpayers will continue to be punished for the mismanagement of the major state pension systems, about which public employee unions couldnt be happier. While all the numbers are constantly in flux, in 2014-15, the California Public Employees Retirement System saw its status fall from 76.3 percent funded to 73.3 percent, likely due to the fact that investment returns fell far below expectations. The long-neglected California State Teachers Retirement System, as of June 30, 2014, was 69 percent funded. Combined, the systems report unfunded pension promises of more than $160 billion. The current budget shows steep and consistent increases in state funding to the two systems. Whereas CalPERS is set to receive $4.3 billion in state contributions in the 2015-16 fiscal year, which ends June 30, it could receive $4.8 billion the following year. CalSTRS is to receive $1.9 billion this year and about $2.47 billion next year. In comparison, CalPERS and CalSTRS received $3.1 billion and $1.26 billion, respectively, in 2011-2012. While it is perfectly reasonable for costs to rise over time, the rate that costs have risen for the two giant pension funds is mainly a consequence of California trying to play catch-up for years of inadequate forecasting and planning, aggravated by investment losses. But because the pension systems are run for public employees CalPERS board is full of former public employee union leaders the necessary changes and adjustments have been made far too late to avoid calamity. With state legislators still patting themselves on the back for passing watered-down pension reform in 2012, and finally agreeing in 2014 that teacher pensions need to be fully funded, the only real dialogue in Sacramento over the pension problem is how to responsibly fund an irresponsible system. Which is fine, in some sense, but such a limited dialogue locks in taxpayers to funding a system they dont really benefit from. Meanwhile, public employee unions in the education sector are doing what they were widely expected to do: push for extensions of the Proposition 30 increases in sales taxes and income taxes, which were marketed to voters in 2012 as temporary boosts in education funding. In reality, much of the money ended up making less painful the necessary increases to fund CalSTRS, which reports an unfunded liability of over $72 billion, and has been chronically underfunded for some time. Under the funding plan adopted in 2014, the state, school districts and employees will be paying more into the system, with major hikes expected through 2020. While school districts are already feeling the pressure, Prop. 30 is supposed to expired at the end of 2018. Probably knowing the backlash that is sure to emerge without having the cover of temporary revenue, unions are doing what one would expect them to do. We are moving in the right direction now, but with Prop. 30 set to sunset its critical that we continue our investment in all California students by extending Prop. 30, which temporarily continues income tax rates on the wealthiest in our state, said the California Teachers Association upon release of the governors budget proposal. Otherwise, beginning in 2019, we could create a $5 billion sinkhole in annual funding for schools and colleges. The California Federation of Teachers chimed in with: Prop. 30 has demonstrated that asking Californias wealthiest individuals to pay a bit more in income taxes benefits everyone. Just as the governor has recently led efforts around a sustainable, healthy environment, we need his support to extend Prop. 30. CalPERS, for its part, is keeping up the illusion that everything is fine, with the usual talking points about how solid investment returns have been, how much economic activity CalPERS creates by paying out pensions and so on. Given Californias track record, it wouldnt be surprising if Sacramento follows the unions off the fiscal cliff. Some local talent turned up Thursday night in Samueli Theater to perform on the Segerstrom Centers chamber music series, normally reserved for internationally celebrated ensembles. The Dilijan Chamber Players consists of musicians who perform on the Dilijan Chamber Music Concert Series, presented at Zipper Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles and now in its 11th season. Presumably named for the national park in Armenia, the Dilijan series looks into all corners of the chamber music repertoire, but reserves a special place for Armenian music. Thursdays program was all-Russian, however. Violinist and artistic director Movses Pogossian was joined by violinist (and his wife) Varty Manouelian, a member of the L.A. Philharmonic; violist Guillaume Sutre, formerly the first violinist of the Ysaye Quartet, now on faculty at UCLA; cellist Armen Ksajikian, a member of the L.A. Chamber Orchestra; and pianist Armen Guzelimian, long a distinguished partner on the local scene. They performed an early piano trio by Rachmaninoff, a string quartet by Shostakovich, solo piano pieces by Scriabin and a would-be neglected masterpiece, the Piano Quintet by Sergei Taneyev. Taneyev (1856-1915) was a student and close friend of Tchaikovsky, a virtuoso pianist, significant composer and teacher. Among his students were Rachmaninoff and Scriabin. Shostakovichs String Quartet No. 7, from 1960, was the highlight of the concert, though, at least for this listener. It is one of the composers most typical and enigmatic works, by turns quirky and playful, lonely and forlorn, fierce and sinister and yet never settling the matter. Adding to the wonder is the concision of the musical language. The performance, with Manouelian leading the way, was a good one, understated but readily communicative, and light on its feet. The concert opened with a nicely crafted reading of Rachmaninoffs Trio elegiaque No. 1, an attractive piece that nevertheless, at 18 minutes, outstays its welcome. After intermission, Guzelimian provided supple accounts of three short pieces by Scriabin, the early, Chopinesque prelude (Op. 17, No. 3) and the late Two Pieces, Op. 59, jagged, intense and alien. The Taneyev, 50 minutes long, came last. In a nut, its a full helping and then some of Romantic agony and ecstasy, Brahms with borscht, the kind of long-winded thing that some listeners gobble up and that others, including this one, find tiresome after five minutes. Whats more, the performance of it was of a similar type (favorite to some, insufferable to others), in which the gloves are taken off and no holds are barred and its every man and woman for themselves, and every single phrase is milked for the last possible ounce of emotional intensity. The Dilijan players are a fine collection of musicians, though, and the most discerning Orange County audience for chamber music welcomed them warmly. Their season continues Sunday at Zipper when they once again perform the Shostakovich and, yes, the Taneyev. Contact the writer: 714-796-6811 or tmangan@ocregister.com Orange County prosecutors on Thursday publicly explained for the first time why they dont believe that convicted killer Kenneth Clair should be exonerated even though the only DNA evidence related to the crime points elsewhere. Prosecutors said the DNA taken in 1984 from the body of Santa Ana nanny Linda Rodgers shares the same genetic marker as a man who was tested in 2010 after he was arrested in Fresno County in an unrelated case. However, they said the DNA could not have come from that man, whose identity was withheld. He was a child at the time of the slaying, living outside of the United States, with no relatives in Orange County. Related: Santa Ana killer Kenneth Clair is spared death row but not because of online petition The DNA marker, recovered from the victims genital area, can be shared by one in 700 males. The marker is passed from father to son, meaning the DNA found on the nanny also could point to family members of the man tested in Fresno County. Prosecutors declined to say Thursday if they have tested the mans family to see if the DNA matches them. A statement issued by the Orange County District Attorneys Office said the DNA offers no basis to re-open the case. The discovery of that male relative would not in any way diminish the evidence against Clair, the DAs Office said. It would have no tendency to prove that someone other than Clair killed Linda Rodgers. The possibility of conflicting DNA evidence is central to efforts to exonerate Clair, the subject of a change.org petition that has gone viral, amassing 156,000 signatures nationwide. The petition calls for prosecutors to turn over the identity of the person matching the DNA to Clairs defense. Please sign if you feel that the disclosure of the identity of a possible person of interest is something that the prosecution should not be allowed to withhold, says a petition written by Anaheim private investigator C.J. Ford, who is leading the effort to exonerate Clair. Prosecutors said the DNA specimen was not taken from semen and could have been in place long before the killing, but did not elaborate. The district attorneys explanation comes one week after the Orange County Register revealed that federal justices secretly reversed Clairs death sentence in March because of inefficient representation by his lawyer during the penalty phase of his 1987 trial. Supporters of Clair are unhappy that his death sentence was overturned while his guilty verdict was not, saying Clairs new status makes it more difficult for him to fight for his exoneration. Supporters point out that because Clair, 56, no longer faces execution he no longer has access to a government-paid lawyer, a key to getting a new trial. The prosecution now never has to give Clair another trial, said Ford. Ford says he hopes to raise money to hire a lawyer for Clair, and is turning to supporters online to make that happen. Please sign if you feel that the disclosure of the identity of a possible person of interest is something that the prosecution should not be allowed to withhold, said Fords petition. When Brooke Oskarson of Colorado and her boyfriend decided on a whim to visit the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas, she had no idea she was about to find what is considered to be the most valuable diamond ever discovered in the United States. Now you can see it yourself, in its expertly-cut perfection. Today and Saturday, the Esperanza Diamond named after Oskarsons niece is on display at Black, Starr & Frost jewelers in Newport Beach. Also, the master diamond cutter who worked on the stone will be demonstrating his expertise at the jeweler today until 7 p.m. On Saturday, the Esperanza will be on display from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The diamond is the fifth-largest ever found at the Crater of Diamonds, a state park where anyone can pay the $8 entry to try their luck digging for a real diamond. Though the Esperanza is not the largest, its the most valuable found in the United States because of its clarity and total lack of color, explained Adam Graham, vice president at Black, Starr & Frost. Its classified as internally flawless. From a standpoint of looking at a diamond like this, the value is really priceless because theres (just) one, Graham said. Its very difficult to say, Its actually worth this, because theres nothing to compare it to. Even so, there probably will be a value assigned to it soon: once the diamond finishes its national tour through the jewelers locations in Newport Beach and Phoenix, plus a couple of other sites on the East Coast, it will be sold. Bidding and the diamonds tour will end on Feb. 15. Graham said it should fetch north of $1 million. The diamond was 8.52 carats and about half the size of a quarter when Oskarson found it. After cutting, its now 4.6 carats. How does that compare in size to the most famous diamonds? The largest ever found in the United States, at the Arkansas site, was the 40.23-carat Uncle Sam diamond found in 1924. But diamonds found outside the United States are the real giants, like the 189.6-carat Orlov or Orloff diamond found in India. The Hope Diamond, if youre wondering, is 45.52 carats after being cut down several times. Master diamond cutter Mike Botha had the task of cutting the Esperanza Diamond. Because of the rough stones long and narrow shape, he came up with a unusual tear drop-shaped cut, which he calls a triolette, with 147 facets. I got a call to go and look the diamond at the American Gem Societys laboratory in Las Vegas, Botha said. When I laid my eyes on it, I could not believe that a diamond could be so visibly pure. With no traceable nitrogen in the diamond, its colorless and one very hard diamond, Botha said. Yellow diamonds, for example, with more color and more nitrogen in them, are softer and easier to cut, Botha said if one can use the word soft to describe one of the hardest materials on earth. An average diamond can take a few hours to cut, Graham said. Botha said he spent about 180 hours cutting the Esperanza. How will the diamond be transported across the nation, before the highest bidder takes it home? Very securely, Graham said. Contact the writer: aboessenkool@ocregister.com Because of the rains, this Pongal is not going to be a grand one. Pongal would be incomplete without thanking some of the people our lives are totally dependent on. How do they plan to celebrate the harvest festival? Rani, vegetable seller: This 60-something-lady discards moldy leaves as she sorts through the spinach, saying, When I was little, Pongal meant simple celebrations, but now things have changed. Now I work more than 12 hours a day but I earn Rs 100, or less. My business has become quite dull and customers blame me for price hikes (laughs). Because of the rains, this Pongal is not going to be a grand one. So, Ill cook vada, and sakkara pongal, and worship the sun God. Jaya, flower vendor: I have been selling flowers for the past 30 years, but this years Pongal sales are yet to pick up. The prices of flowers have shot up due to the rains but people shold buy them anyway. Yellow flowers tied to doorways prevent bad luck, that is why they are auspicious. I think I will celebrate the festival by visiting the nearby temple, says Jaya, smiling. Sudhakaran, tea master: I dont usually celebrate Pongal as I live alone. Instead I come to work, so that I have a nice time talking to the people around, and they serve me hot pongal too (laughs)! I dont boast of much knowledge but I have a hunch, this year theres an overall price hike. Patturaja, auto driver: My native is Tuticorin, but this time I am not visiting my hometown. Back then, we used to paint pots with rice flour, but now we pressure-cook the same! I remember how bulls and cows were bathed, decorated and worshipped. Those memories are still fresh in me. Ill be driving my auto as usual. After all, we earn for our families, dont we? Saravanan, fancy shop owner: People at home celebrate Pongal and I work here to make them happy. Ill be coming to the shop even on January 15. Theres a saying, Thai piranthal vazhi pirakum, which means that the month Thai brings hope and fresh opportunities. I would like to start the New Year on that note. Marsha Morgan stood on stage, in front of dozens of people, dressed as she felt. From the waist down, she wore a black pencil skirt, tights and high heels, showing off her femininity. From the waist up, the school bus driver still known by many as Marshall wore a white collared shirt and tie appropriate for anyone being nominated to be Capistrano Unified School Districts 2011 Employee of the Year. It was Marshas most public moment, to that point in her life, as a transgender woman. If I was going to accept an award, I was going to accept it as myself, Morgan said about her multigender fashion choice. That was five years ago. Today, Morgan, 53, might be even more secure on the job than she was then. Last month, Capistrano Unifieds board adopted a new nondiscrimination policy that protects employees and students based on their gender and gender expression, as well as other characteristics such as race, sex and sexual orientation. The districts non-discrimination policy hadnt been updated in 15 years. Capistrano Unifieds new policy is a bit of catch-up with other districts. Over the past 18 months, the Irvine, Tustin and Saddleback Valley school districts, among others, updated their policies to address gender issues. The new rule brings the district in line with federal and state laws that protect transgender people against discrimination. The policy also is a possible steppingstone that could allow district officials and teachers to construct school-specific rules and procedures, such as training, that might accommodate transgender people. Danielle Serio, 25, an English teacher at San Juan Hills and adviser for the Queer Alliance student club, worked with the district on the new policy. She hopes it will spark a broader discussion about LGBT issues within the district, something she didnt think possible when she was a student at Tesoro High School in the mid 2000s. In addition to protecting employees, like Morgan, the new rules also protect students. Sid Piravi, a sophomore at San Juan Hills High, says he realized he was transgender in middle school. And with the help of friends and supportive parents, he started living as a male when he entered high school. He said classmates and teachers were mostly supportive. He was featured in the schools newspaper in a segment on LGBT students and became a leader in the Queer Alliance. Still, being trans presents daily hurdles. Every year, Piravi emails his teachers to tell them to call out Sid when taking attendance rather than his legal name, Maya. One recurring Spanish substitute refused to comply with Piravis preferred pronouns, which come up often when learning a Latin language. When I talked to him about it, he said, But youre not a senor, Piravi said. After talking with school administrators, the teacher eventually stopped using pronouns when talking to Piravi. Other issues also remain unresolved. Piravi uses the restroom in the administrative building, away from other students. Morgan still uses the mens restroom when at work, in part because some female co-workers said they werent comfortable sharing their space with her. Previously, the district handled such gender identity issues on a case-by-case basis. But the new policy sets more uniform expectations, for how trans people and other protected groups will be treated and what will happen when the rules are violated. This is the first step that should translate into tangible change, said John Roach, interim assistant superintendent for Capistrano Unified. Next steps, according to Roach, could include rules and training at each school that might resolve specific questions about things like restroom use and pronouns in Spanish classes. For Morgan, the districts new policy is just the latest in years of growing acceptance of the transgender community in South County. Progress is coming, she said, but slowly. Although her employers at the district have been kind to her, Morgan added that she wished officials had been more proactive than reactive over the past five years. Still, Morgan is only looking ahead. This month, she legally changed her name and gender so eager to make the changes that she turned up at the courthouse two hours before it opened. Her bus driver uniform is now embroidered with Marsha instead of Marshall, and the districts new insurance plan will cover her hormone treatments and gender reassignment surgery. It cant happen fast enough, she said. I never thought this would be a possibility for me. Contact the writer: edonnelly@ocregister.com The Republican undercard debate Thursday night concluded with all three candidates promising that theyd be the best to take on the Democratic front-runner glossing over, for the moment, the seven other Republicans theyd have to beat first. You cannot wait to see the debate between me and Hillary Clinton. You would pay to see that fight, said former tech executive Carly Fiorina. Fiorina then cast herself as a stand-in for women everywhere, saying shed been told to accept less than the best her whole life and would not stand by while the United States was told to do the same with Clinton. Citizens, it is time, Fiorina said, echoing consciously or unconsciously the Saturday Night Live parody of Clinton herself. We must take our country backC The other two candidates on the stage, former senator Rick Santorum (Pennsylvania) and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, talked about races theyd run against Clintons allies. You want a fighter? You want a winner? Id appreciate your vote, Santorum said. In a pugnacious, fearful debate in which one candidate raised the prospect of a nuclear doomsday and another the prospect of government taking peoples guns they concluded in hopes that something stuck. But if nothing else, at least they were there. In his closing statement, Santorum mocked another candidate who felt that the undercard debate was beneath him. Im going to take some of Rand Pauls time here for a second,C Santorum said after his own speaking time had run out, speaking of the Kentucky senator who would accept nothing less than the main stage. Earlier in the evening, Santorum had sought to reframe a plan to deport undocumented immigrants as a gift from the United States to both the immigrants and their home countries, bringing the benefit of American-educated and American-assimilated people. Im going to give them the gift of being able to help the country they were born in. Were gonna export America, Santorum said when asked about his plans to increase deportations of people who entered the country illegally. They can start a renaissance in their country so they wont be coming here anymore! he said to loud applause. The tone of Thursday nights debate was unusually fearful and confrontational, as all three candidates onstage hoped for a Hail Mary a single breakthrough moment that would elevate them to the top tier of candidates at long last. For Huckabee, the plan seemed to be playing up conspiracies by President Obama to crack down on gun owners and even seize firearms from lawful owners. Huckabee was cheered when he said hed encouraged gun sellers to disobey Obamas latest executive actions that expanded background checks for gun sales. Huckabee said he wasnt sure that Obama could be trusted to leave guns in their owners hands: If you like your gun, you can keep it too, Huckabee said, paraphrasing a famous and unkept promise by Obama that Americans could keep the health insurance they had after his health-care bill passed. Frankly, we dont buy it. Hes lost his credibility, Huckabee said. Santorum, for his part, raised fears of an apocalyptic attack by Iran, which he said would develop a nuclear weapon because of Obamas efforts to sign and keep a nuclear deal. Santorum said that Iran was not like other countries, and that it might use the weapon to hasten a doomsday for religious purposes. An electromagnetic pulse attack, involving a nuclear weapon detonated in the upper atmosphere, could shut down all electronics in the United States, Santorum said, repeating some of his deeply worried messaging from the campaign trail. Huckabee also offered skepticism about the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan, saying that he saw little hope for rebuilding a nation like the land of the Flintstones. Its been that way for thousands of years, Huckabee said of Afghanistan, although parts of that country were relatively modern before the long and destructive fighting that began with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Huckabee had been asked whether continuing American efforts to aid the Afghan government against Taliban militants was worthwhile. He gave no outright answer, but seemed skeptical that it was. I dont know what were going to make it look like. You cant create for other people a desire for freedom and democracy. The issue of national security dominated the early minutes of the undercard debate, which unfortunately for the three candidates may be the least consequential of the presidential cycle so far. The debate itself was held either at dinnertime or during work hours for most Americans, and its highest-polling candidate, Fiorina, was polling at less than 3 percent nationally. All three candidates criticized Obama for being too passive and permissive in foreign policy, and all promised more aggressive stances toward rivals such as Iran and Russia, as well as the Islamic State. Fiorina was asked whether, in an effort to fight the Islamic State, she would accept an alliance with Russia and Iran. She said no, and added that the United States must stick by Saudi Arabia in its ongoing tensions with Iran. Saudi Arabia is our ally, and Iran is our adversary, Fiorina said after offering a list of Middle Eastern allies whose leaders she knew personally. Vladimir Putin and Russia are our adversary. We cannot outsource leadership in the Middle East to Iran and Russia. Fiorina was also skeptical of Obamas latest efforts to expand background checks for gun buyers. So was the audience: When a Fox Business Network moderator noted that polls show widespread support for expanded background checks, the crowd booed. Not in this room, said Santorum. Thats what the polls show, the moderators replied. And we all believe the poll data all the time, dont we? Fiorina said. Earlier, Fiorina had denounced both GOP front-runner Donald Trump and Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton as examples of crony capitalism. The difference, Fiorina said, was that Clinton works inside government to benefit cronies in the private sector, while Donald Trump sits outside government and rakes in billions buying people like Hillary Clinton, Fiorina said. The undercard, like the main event, was televised on Fox Business Network. The debates are being held in North Charleston, South Carolina, a key early-voting state. Online security breaches are often associated with lost credit card information and the inconvenience of canceling said plastic. Last year, tens of millions of Americans, from mobile phone customers to affair seekers, suffered from such an episode. Perhaps more serious and getting far less attention: health-care data breaches. In 2015, more than 4.7 million health-care records in California were reported compromised in some way via theft, hacking or employee error, according to federal data going back to 2009. Just this week, Blue Shield of California reported a security breach that impacted the data of 21,000 customers, including names and Social Security numbers. The 4.7 million California medical records that were breached last year is a huge spike from just under 400,000 records the previous year. Why the big jump? About 4.5 million of those potentially tainted accounts belonged to just one entity: the UCLA Health System. In May, it reported an attacker infiltrated a part of its network holding sensitive information of patients and providers, including names, Social Security numbers and medical data. Statewide, the number of such incidents has stayed steady over the last three years, ranging in the 30s. Of course, there could be many more. Health-related companies are only required to report to federal officials breaches that may affect at least 500 individuals. Credit card breaches attract more attention because their effects tend to be more immediate and feel more real, says Terry Gold, a security industry analyst. Financial data are typically sold quickly on the dark web and later used to purchase goods that tend to be difficult to trace, such as digital currency Bitcoin and gasoline. The upside to this: You can close affected accounts, and if protections are in place unauthorized charges wont stick. Health-care information, on the other hand, is more permanent and contains ultra-sensitive details, from prescription use to ailments. That kind of information getting out could be detrimental. For example, an employer learns of certain conditions, mental health history or illnesses. Will this affect their consideration for employment? says Gold, program director of the Information Systems Security Association of Orange County, in an email. Health-related files also contain a wealth of financial data that can be used by cyber crooks in a variety of ways. They can sell it online, open new accounts under victims names and purchase online goods. For instance, Anthem, which suffered the biggest health care related hack last year, said the Social Security numbers, income data, birthdays and other identifiers of 78 million people, including patients and employees, were breached when a database was tampered with. All that information can then be leveraged to validate an identity with another disconnected service (such as mortgage, bank, utilities, etc.) where new accounts can be opened and leaving the real person on the hook, says Gold. The general consensus among info-security experts is that all types of hacks will increase in frequency and magnitude. Health-care data will remain a favorite target for hackers, as more doctors offices convert patient records into electronic form and a growing number of people enroll for Obamacare, which means more health-care records being created, predicts credit data company Experian in a 2016 report. Smaller scale breaches, which often go under- or unreported, are just as concerning, says the credit bureau, which was the subject of its own data breach last year. Oftentimes, in such cases, the breach is the result of employer negligence, the report says. Contact the writer: lleung@ocregister.com or (714) 796-4976. Twitter: @LilyShumLeung. Spot government waste or a business scam? Email watchdog@ocregister.com NEW YORK The remains of a mammoth that was hunted down about 45,000 years ago have revealed the earliest known evidence of humans in the Arctic. Marks on the bones, found in far northern Russia, indicate the creature was stabbed and butchered. The tip of a tusk was damaged in a way that suggests human activity, perhaps to make ivory tools. With a minimal age estimate of 45,000 years, the discovery extends the record of human presence in the Arctic by at least about 5,000 years. The site in Siberia, near the Kara Sea, is also by far the northernmost sign of human presence in Eurasia before 40,000 years ago, Vladimir Pitulko of the Russian Academy of Science in St. Petersburg and co-authors reported in a paper released Thursday by the journal Science. They also briefly report evidence of human hunting at about the same time from a wolf bone found well to the east. That suggests a widespread occupation, although the population was probably sparse, they said. Daniel Fisher, a mammoth expert at the University of Michigan who did not participate in the study, said the markings on the mammoth bone strongly indicate human hunting. It makes sense to conclude that the hunters were from our own species rather than Neanderthals, John Hoffecker of the University of Colorado at Boulder commented in an email. But Robert Park, an archaeologist at the University of Waterloo in Canada who has studied the bones of hunted animals in the far north, called the evidence for human hunting pretty marginal. The beast had been found with remains of its fat hump, while hunters would be expected to take the fat for food and fuel, he said. And the skeleton shows far less butchering than one would expect, he said. Park emphasized hes not ruling out the idea that the mammoth was hunted. If people were living this far north that long ago, he said, it implies they had not only the technical abilities to carry out mammoth hunts, but also a social organization complex enough to share the food from the relatively rare kills. Sometimes, novels bring unintended joys and consequences even when youre best-selling author Dean Koontz. In the past six months, three of his novels have been optioned by Hollywood. Two of them (Lightning from 1988 and Dark Rivers of the Heart from 1994) are more than 20 years old. But suddenly his books are in demand because they have female lead characters and Hollywood is looking for roles for strong women, he said. The third is his most recent novel set in Orange County, Ashley Bell, another story about a valiant woman that is in development as a multi-episode television series. I havent been very lucky with movies, said Koontz, the Newport Beach writer who has had 17 of his books turned into television shows or feature films. The most memorable may have been his first, Demon Seed from 1977, a film that starred Julie Christie. He says he hasnt always liked the experience of watching his work made into a movie. On Thursday, Koontz was the guest of the Register Book Club. He talked about his career, signed books and posed for pictures with fans. His appearance was a rare chance to meet his fans, who filled the Register lobby in Santa Ana for two interview sessions. Women are on the ascendance in Hollywood, Koontz said. I was one of the first male suspense writers who featured women in leading roles. Ive known a lot of strong women in my life. Koontz said he has his fingers crossed for his next three film ventures because he will have very little involvement. Hes turning over the reins of his stories to producers he respects. For years, I felt I had to be involved, Koontz said. I like these producers enormously. I have hope for these new projects. He told the Register Book Club audience that he rises at 5 a.m., six days a week, walks his golden retriever and begins writing by 7 a.m. He usually works 10 to 11 hours per day. I almost never eat lunch, he said. I let the fictional world be almost more real than the world Im living in. When he explained that he sits on a prostate-friendly pillow, he got a huge laugh. Koontz said his stories and characters often come from incidents that happen in his own life. But, he admitted, a few of the chase scenes in Ashley Bell were complete fiction. I havent been chased by Nazi cultists through Newport Beach, Koontz said during his conversation with pop culture writer Peter Larsen. Hes got two writing projects that fans havent yet heard about, he said. The first is a novel called Secret Forest that is finished and should be released this summer. The second is a story so secret he hasnt yet told his publisher. He wrote two pages of this most secretive work on Thursday before he came to the Register Book Club. If I told you about it, I would stop writing, Koontz said. ROME The Italian police announced Thursday that a Senegalese migrant had been arrested in the killing of a young American found dead in her Florence apartment last weekend. The mysterious circumstances of the death of the woman, Ashley Ann Olsen, 35, of Florida, immediately drew global attention. Her body was discovered Saturday morning by her boyfriend, who alerted the police. Investigators said Thursday that Olsen had met the suspect Cheik Tidiane Diaw, a 27-year-old Senegalese who is in the country illegally at a Florence nightclub on the evening of Jan. 7. Witnesses saw the two leave the club together, and street cameras recorded them returning to her apartment early Jan. 8. Investigators said they had consensual sex before Olsen was killed. DNA analysis of a condom and a cigarette butt discovered in Olsens bathroom, as well as other biological evidence, suggested that Diaw and Olsen had been the only two people in the apartment at that time. Diaw also stole Olsens smartphone and used it, investigators said. Giuseppe Creazzo, chief prosecutor of Florence, said in a televised news conference that Diaw had been questioned for several hours and had substantially admitted the accusations. Creazzo said that he did not know what Diaws motives might have been, but he suggested that the two might have had an argument. The investigation is not over, Creazzo said, but they are obviously at a good, an excellent point. Investigators are examining whether drugs played a role in the events leading up to Olsens killing, and tests are being conducted. The police said that Olsen had suffered two fractures to the skull and was subsequently strangled with a cord, wire or other object. Diaw was arrested late Wednesday in his brothers apartment in Florence, where he moved a few months ago, the police said, and he had been hired to distribute leaflets for nightclubs. Early local news reports had suggested that Diaw had dealt drugs, but the police said there was no evidence of this. Olsens death came a week after Europe was shaken by reports of rape and sexual harassment on New Years Eve in Cologne, Germany. Witnesses there, as well as the police, described predatory gangs of mostly foreign men, including some refugees, groping and robbing young women. The Cologne police are also investigating at least three cases of suspected rape. The Cologne assaults resonated in Italy. Florences police chief addressed questions about safety that emerged in the local media after Olsens death, assuring the public that Florence remained safe. The case has shaken the city, where Olsen was well known in the international art community. She had moved to Florence a few years ago to join her father, an architecture and art teacher there. She was living in the lively Santo Spirito neighborhood, known for its bohemian atmosphere and bar scene, as well as its partying crowds. In Florence, ours is a huge community of young and creative expats, from every continent in the world, and we are close-knit, Olsens friends wrote in a letter released by an English-speaking magazine in Florence, The Florentine. Of Olsen, they wrote: From a distance she stood out, you saw her coming. Up close, it was the warm and vivacious smile that lit up her whole face that we, and so many others, will remember her by. On her Instagram account, Olsen posted several pictures of her travels through Italy and her walks through Florence with her beagle, as well as romantic poses with her boyfriend, a Florentine artist. The scandal involving sexual assaults by migrants in Europe expanded this week to Sweden. Police covered up reports of assaults on teenage girls at a large music festival in the capital city of Stockholm, out of fear that the perpetrators identity as migrants would derail government race-relation goals. The We Are Stockholm festival lasts five days and draws 170,000 attendees. In numerous incidents at the festival, large gangs of men surrounded young girls and attacked them with no regard for the criminal consequences of their actions. Unfortunately, the polices failure to report these attacks amplifies the concerns of many Swedes that government officials cannot be trusted to speak honestly about the facts surrounding the increasing number of migrants in their country because of excessive concerns over political correctness. It is statistically well-established that crime has grown significantly in Sweden in recent decades. However, Swedish law prohibits the collection and disclosure of information concerning the ethnicity of perpetrators. Regardless, a significant number of Swedes believe that male migrants from the Middle East are responsible for many of the rapes in the country. Internal memos released this week reveal that Stockholm police explicitly considered the ramifications of reporting the assaults at the festival on fraying public opinion regarding migrants. With the recent rise of the Swedish Democrats, an anti-migrant political party, senior officials were clearly concerned about the electoral ramification of publicly disclosing the fact that the attackers were from Afghanistan. Rather than do their job and keep the Swedish public safe, the police were more concerned about the political ramifications of an awkward fact. By favoring short-term convenience over long-term fulfillment of their duties, the Swedish police blatantly disregarded the safety and well-being of young women in order to avoid disrupting their employers top-down narrative about the ease with which migrants were integrating into Swedish society. Gangs of foreign men groping and raping women is unacceptable in all societies, but particularly repulsive in a country such as Sweden that has taken so many strides over the course of the past century to promote the status and dignity of women. Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Kofven lambasted police this week for their glaring omission, claiming that the failure to fulfill their duties honestly and transparently represented a betrayal on numerous levels. A police force paralyzed and distracted by narrow political priorities risks undermining the broader faith in law enforcement that Swedes have developed over many years. Routine policing should not be altered or manipulated in order to accommodate partisan political goals. In the long term, the case being made by champions of an open door migration policy is not strengthened by a categorical unwillingness to discuss the ramifications of this policy in a robust and candid manner. Unsurprisingly, champions of the refugee cause in Sweden rallied to the defense of new arrivals, claiming that sexual harassment can be found among men from a variety of backgrounds, not just Muslims from the Middle East, and reassuring nervous Swedes that most of the refugees arriving in Sweden have great respect for women. As alluring as it may be to believe that these events can be dismissed as statistically insignificant and not representative of the behavior of the larger migrant community, the most disturbing element of this story is the unwillingness of police officers and government officials to speak openly and frankly about crimes committed against their citizens. The debate over the most appropriate asylum policy in the context of both domestic and international factors is a very important debate to have. For the debate to result in an effective consensus that can serve as the basis for sound public policy, all relevant facts must be made available and analyzed in an open and transparent manner. Meanwhile, the situation in Germany continued to deteriorate this week as more reports of sexual assaults surface, with the Merkel government forced to take immediate actions that undermined their unqualified support of ever-increasing numbers of new refugees. Steps must be taken to ensure that women are not put at risk simply because they decide to exercise their independence and walk unaccompanied by male relatives down the streets of their own towns and cities. The fact that a recently arrived refugee grew up in a patriarchal culture that banishes women from public life is no excuse. If the leaders of Sweden, German and other European states continue to operate an open door policy for migrants from Muslim countries, then they must demonstrate that they are taking adequate steps to address the risks that accompany such a policy, rather than indulging in cover-ups and media manipulation drive by concerns over political correctness. Orange County writer and attorney Timothy Spangler hosts The Bigger Picture with Timothy Spangler, Sundays, 10 p.m.-midnight on KRLA 870 AM. Twitter: @timothyspangler Alas, Rod Carriker will not be able to help fund the Rams new stadium in Inglewood. Thats the pseudonym used by Rams defensive end Chris Long when a television news crew found him in a Charlottesville, Va., convenience store this week in search of a winning Powerball lottery ticket. http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js Long, clad in sunglasses, a camouflage jacket and a Levi Garrett Racing cap along with his real, impressively thick mustache did a fine job of staying in character when he described what he, Rod Carriker, thought of the $1.5 billion jackpot. Its massive, Long said. I already told my old lady, if we win, were going down to Myrtle Beach for about 10 months and were getting a timeshare and the whole 9 yards. Maybe a big boat. A couple boats. A lot of boats. Were going to have a great time. The local NBC station seemed to be in on the joke. Sort of. Someone at the station figured out, after the interview, that it was Long pulling a prank, and his real name appeared on the on-screen graphic, but his brief interview was introduced with all the gravity of a State of the Union recap. Long kept the joke going on his Twitter account Wednesday night, when he posted a screenshot of his TV segment and declared that timeshares are a great investment. ANAHEIM Developer Shaheen Sadeghi is pushing ahead with his vision to revive downtown Anaheim, with plans to transform abandoned buildings into restaurants and shops mixed with a string of new residential units by 2019. Sadeghi, founder and head of LAB Holding, will purchase the Packing House dining hall and three nearby, city-owned redevelopment sites spanning more than 7 acres for $10.1 million, under a deal unanimously approved this week by the Anaheim City Council. Were very excited because this is something weve been working on for six years already, said Sadeghi, whose LAB Holding developed and operates the Packing House, a former citrus-storage warehouse that was transformed in 2014 to a public gathering space with more than 20 specialized food stands. We want to develop a local, cultural experience in Anaheims new downtown, Sadeghi said. We want to offer something that is unique and local. Along with the Packing House, originally built in 1919, Sadeghi is responsible for operating the Center Street Promenade in Anaheim, where he has attracted small, locally owned businesses over the past several years. Now, Sadeghi is looking to expand his downtown empire. Even though formal plans havent been submitted yet, Sadeghi has provided clues to city officials on what hes planning to build over the next three years. For example, Sadeghis purchase will include Reel Lumber Services and an adjacent block of land, where he wants to build up to 80 townhouse-style, live-work units for local chefs who will be able to open the spaces to serve food within a development known as HomeMADE. Nearby, hes planning to renovate a Craftsman-style house and find a new use for a building with a barrel-vaulted ceiling, surrounded by up to 16 new residential units. And within the Center Street Promenade, Sadeghi said he wants to build multi-level commercial, office and residential spaces or possibly a hotel as part of a project known as the Business Arts Residential Network, or BARN. More immediately, Sadeghi is overseeing restoration of the Make Building, an early-1900s structure near the Packing House, where he plans to open a winery and brewery. The community was upset that so much of the original downtown was torn down, so were happy to come in and preserve what we can while creating hundreds of jobs, Sadeghi said. The four properties being purchased by Sadeghi were held by Anaheims Redevelopment Agency, which was dissolved in 2012 when Gov. Jerry Brown successfully pushed to eliminate the agencies across California in an attempt to balance the state budget. As a result, Anaheim had to hold on to about 100 acres of redevelopment property until the states Department of Finance could approve a long-range land-management plan. Proceeds from Sadeghis $10.1 million purchase will be split among city, housing authority and other local agencies that share in property taxes from the land, said city spokesman Mike Lyster. I would love for us to find additional parcels to see if we could entice this kind of development in west Anaheim as well, where it would make a big difference as it has here near City Hall and in downtown Anaheim, Councilwoman Kris Murray said. To have it replicated in other parts of the city would be incredible. Contact the writer: 714-704-3769 or amarroquin@ocregister.com LA HABRA A local elementary and middle school were briefly locked down Friday morning after a student reported to an administrator about seeing someone with a knife on one campus. La Habra police were contacted at 8:36 a.m. that a man with a knife was perhaps at Las Positas Elementary School, 1400 Schoolwood Drive. Staff indicated that a child had notified a teacher that the man possibly had a knife, according to a police statement. Officials locked down the school and the adjacent Imperial Middle School for about 10 minutes while police officers searched both campuses, said Cindy Knapp, spokeswoman for the La Habra Police Department. The lockdown was lifted after authorities did not find anyone suspicious near the schools, and classes resumed as usual. We dont take any chances, we want to make sure the kids are safe, Mike Klewer, principal at Las Positas Elementary School, said Thursday morning after the incident was over. Parents were notified via phone call one hour after the incident, Klewer said. Contact the writer: 714-796-7802 or aduranty@ocregister.com Far from mourning the loss of his mate, the male kangaroo pictured in heartbreaking viral photographs with its injured female companion might have been responsible for her death while attempting to mate with her, experts say. The images, taken on a bushland property in River Heads, Queensland, Australia, show a male eastern grey kangaroo holding the head of a dying female, in front of her joey. Photographer Evan Switzer said the kangaroo was acting protectively. I saw the male pick up the female, he looked like he was just trying to get her up and see what was wrong with her It was a pretty special thing, he was just mourning the loss of his mate. He added that hed never seen a kangaroo act that way before and he had seen a lot of dead kangaroos. The media that reported on his striking images also interpreted the interaction as a touching display of a marsupial familys grief, with the male kangaroo propping up the females head so she could see her joey before she died. The joey, in turn, had touched her softly to say goodbye. But Dr Derek Spielman, a senior lecturer in veterinary pathology at the University of Sydney, told Guardian Australia that he had no doubt that the male was, in fact, attempting to mate with the female animal and might have caused the injuries that she died from. He said the photographs showed the male kangaroo mate guarding holding other males at bay. Competition between males to mate with females can be fierce and can end in serious fighting, he said. It can also cause severe harassment and even physical abuse of the target female, particularly when she is unresponsive or tries to get away from amorous male. Pursuit of these females by males can be persistent and very aggressive to the point where they can kill the female. That is not their intention but that unfortunately can be the result, so interpreting the males actions as being based on care for the welfare of the female or the joey is a gross misunderstanding, so much so that the male might have actually caused the death of the female. Spielman added that, though he thought the term was often misunderstood and misused, the reporting of the viral photographs had been naive anthropomorphism. Eastern grey kangaroos can breed throughout the year, but mostly do so in spring and early summer. The kangaroos sinister intentions were first flagged in an explosive blog post by Dr Mark Eldridge, the principal scientist of the Australian Museum. He praised Switzers great photos of the kangaroos, but said they had been fundamentally misinterpreted. This is a male trying to get a female to stand up so he can mate with her, he said. He pointed to the highly stressed and agitated state of the male kangaroo, which had been licking its forearms to cool down. Eldridge also pointed to evidence sticking out from behind the scrotum of the kangaroos sexual arousal. Interest in the blog post caused significant delays to the museums website. Source:www.theguardian.com MOGADISHU, Somalia Kenyan troops were killed when al-Shabab Islamic fighters attacked an African Union base in Somalia, Kenyas president said Friday. He gave no casualty figure but an al-Shabab spokesman said at least 63 soldiers died. President Uhuru Kenyatta described the loss as heartbreaking. Regrettably, some of our patriots in uniform paid the ultimate price, he said in a statement. I want to take this opportunity to express mine and the countrys deepest sympathy to the families and loved ones of the fallen. I stand with you. Our country stands with you. Al-Shabab spokesman Abdiaziz Abu Mudan said on the groups online radio that at least 63 soldiers were killed in the attack in southwestern Somalia that started early Friday. It happened in the town of El-Ade, not far from the Kenyan border. Kenya has provided a major contingent to the AU force that is fighting al-Shabab, a Somali Islamic extremist group linked with al-Qaida, and assisting the elected government of Somalia. Francisco Madeira, the special representative of the African Union Commission for Somalia, condemned the attack, saying late Friday the casualties and injuries were still being verified. Somali military official Ahmed Hassan, speaking to The Associated Press by phone from Elwak, a nearby town, said the attack started with a suicide car bomb, and then heavy gunfire was heard as militants stormed onto the base. Despite being pushed out of Somalias major cities and towns, al-Shabab continues to launch deadly guerrilla attacks across the Horn of Africa country. AU troops, government officials and foreigners are frequently targeted. The group has also carried out many deadly attacks inside Kenya. LOS ANGELES West-facing beaches on the Central Coast may see powerful waves during the weekend, and the rest of the Southern California coast can expect elevated surf into next week. The National Weather Service said a strong low-pressure system north of Hawaii has created large waves that will move into the waters of southwest California late Saturday as a large, very long-period westerly swell. Central Coast surf will peak overnight between 20 feet and 25 feet on exposed west-facing beaches. South of Point Conception, surf may build to 15 feet or higher near Ventura Harbor and exposed beaches of Los Angeles County. Forecasters warned of dangerous rip currents, sneaker waves, beach erosion and minor coastal flooding, especially during high tides. Orange and San Diego counties may see high surf into Tuesday morning. U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria killed eight civilians and wounded an additional three during a period between April 12 and July 4 last year, the Pentagon said in a statement Friday. The release marks the third time the Pentagon has acknowledged civilian casualties since its air campaign against the Islamic State began in August 2014. We are sharing this information with the public as part of our commitment to transparency. We continue to review additional claims of civilian casualties and will provide additional information in the future, the release states. In December, the Pentagon said a number of Iraqi forces around Fallujah had been killed in a friendly fire incident. In May 2015, the U.S. Central Commanded, or CENTCOM, admitted to killing two children in Harim City, Syria, after an airstrike against the Khorasan Group triggered secondary explosions. In November 2015, CENTCOM said that an errant A-10 Warthog strike killed four civilians at a checkpoint in Iraq. Fridays document details five separate incidents in both Syria and Iraq that resulted in civilian deaths and injuries, though unlike in other releases, the Pentagon did not offer additional information outlining specifics of how and why the strikes occurred. Regarding two incidents on April 12 in al Huwayjah, Iraq, and June 11 in Soluk, Syria CENTCOM gave no reason for the death of five civilians. On July 4, in Raqqa, Syria, three civilians were killed during a strike on an Islamic State High Value Individual. CENTCOM blamed the death on the fact that the civilians appeared in the target area after the weapon had already been released from the aircraft. In the other documented incidents in which civilians were wounded, CENTCOM attributed their injuries to similar reasons. By CENTCOMs counts, U.S. forces have killed 14 civilians since the military began bombing in Iraq and Syria in the summer of 2014. This number, according to the advocacy site AirWars.Org, is grossly inaccurate. According to a statement on their site, between Aug. 8, 2014 and Jan. 12, 815 and 1,149 civilian non-combatants appear likely to have been killed in 135 incidents where there is fair reporting publicly available of an event, and where Coalition strikes were confirmed in the near vicinity on that date. AirWars.org accounts for coalition strikes, thus including the other countries participating with the United States in the air war against the Islamic State. This, however, does not include Russia, which has been accused by various international rights groups of targeting civilian population during its bombing campaign in Syria. According to a Pentagon, as of Jan. 10, the U.S. military has carried out 7,390 airstrikes in Syria and Iraq. ANKARA, Turkey Turkish tanks and artillery attacked the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for the suicide bombing in Istanbul that killed 10 tourists, Turkeys prime minister said Thursday the countrys first significant strike against the Islamic extremists in months. Turkey agreed last year to take on a larger role in the fight against IS amid two major attacks that left 135 people dead. But critics contend the country has shown only limited engagement, striking only when attacked and focusing instead on quelling Kurdish rebels. Turkey rejects the accusations, pointing out that it has opened its bases to the U.S.-led air campaign against IS , boosted security along its 550-mile border with Syria to try to prevent IS fighters from crossing it and cracked down on suspected terror cells in Turkey, detaining or deporting thousands of militants. Turkish forces are also training Iraqi Kurdish forces fighting the militants. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said some 200 extremists had been killed over the past 48 hours in Turkeys offensive against IS along the Syria-Turkish border and near a Turkish camp in northern Iraq. He did not rule out possible airstrikes against the group, although a day earlier he said Russia was obstructing Turkeys ability to conduct airstrikes against IS in Syria. The Turkish leader said Ankara acted after determining that IS was responsible for the heinous suicide bombing Tuesday in Istanbuls main tourist district, just steps away from the landmark Blue Mosque. All of the dead were German tourists. Turkish officials say the bomber, a Syrian born in 1988, was affiliated with the Islamic State group and entered Turkey by posing as a refugee. Interior Minister Efkan Ala said seven people had been detained in connection with the bombing. Turkey will continue to punish with even greater force any threat that is directed against Turkey or its guests, Davutoglu said. We will press ahead with our determined struggle until the Daesh terrorist organization leaves Turkeys borders and until it loses its ability to continue with its acts that soil our sacred religion, Islam. Davutoglu was speaking in Ankara hours after Kurdish rebels detonated a car bomb at a police station in southeastern Turkey, then attacked it with rocket launchers and firearms. Six people were killed, including three children, authorities said. Clashes between Turkeys security forces and the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, reignited in July, shattering a fragile peace process. Turkey has carried out numerous airstrikes against PKK positions in northern Iraq and imposed extended curfews in flashpoint neighborhoods and towns in its mainly Kurdish southeast as security forces battle Kurdish militants linked to the PKK. The conflict between government forces and the PKK, considered a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies, has killed tens of thousands of people since 1984. As a result, Turkey continues to identify the main problem as the PKK and (Syrian President Bashar) Assad, said Svante Cornell, director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute. Turkey continues to view (IS) as a lesser evil. Sinan Ulgen, a visiting scholar at Brussels-based Carnegie Europe, agreed Turkey was slow to react to the threat posed by IS, showing to much leniency toward the jihadist recruits who used its territory to enter Syria, in the hope that they would help bring Assad down. However, its not the same battle, the strategies are different, Ulgen said. Whats going on in the southeast against the PKK is a low-intensity conflict which is highly visible. Turkeys battle against the Islamic State is less visible and is going on behind the scenes. He said the crisis with Russia, triggered by Turkeys downing of a Russian warplane it said violated its airspace, has prevented Turkey from carrying out airstrikes against the Islamic extremists. Moscow has warned Turkey against violating Syrian airspace and suggested it would respond to any threat to its aircraft. The U.S. and Turkey were in the middle of a preparing a joint campaign, Ulgen said. If the crisis hadnt occurred the fight (against IS) would have been more visible. The Kurdish rebel attack late Wednesday targeted a police station and adjoining housing for officers and their families in the town of Cinar in mostly Kurdish Diyarbakir province. The force of the blast caused a house near the police station to collapse. The dead included the wife of a policeman and a 5-month-old baby who were killed in the police lodging and two children who died in the collapsed house, the private Dogan news agency said. We were sleeping and woke up thinking it was an earthquake, Shafee Dagli, a Cinar resident told The Associated Press. Then the clashes started. They lasted for about 2 1 / 2hours, from 11.30 p.m. to 2 a.m. We were so frightened. We were awake watching TV when all these fragments blew into our yard from the blast, said Hediye 0zaltay, a mother of five who lives behind the police station. At first we thought there was an earthquake. Then I looked at the police station and saw fire. Laguna Beachs Orange County-record winning streak in girls water polo ended Thursday night at Dos Pueblos of Goleta. In a nonleague tuneup for this weekends Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions, the host Chargers outscored the Breakers by three goals in the fourth period en route to an 11-7 victory that snapped Laguna Beachs 63-game winning streak. Freshman Abbi Hill scored five goals and Ryann Neushul added six assists and two steals for Dos Pueblos (8-3), which led the Breakers (11-1), 8-7, going into the fourth. Both teams open the Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions on Friday. In the Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions: In play-in games: Santa Margarita 13, Los Osos of Rancho Cucamonga 5: Bella Baia had five goals and two assists at Santa Barbara to lead the Eagles (7-6) into Fridays first-round game against top-seeded Laguna Beach at Santa Barbara at 12:30 p.m. Riverside Poly 8, No. 9 San Clemente 7: The Bears scored five first-period goals at Dos Pueblos and then held off the Tritons to reach Fridays first-round game against Foothill at Dos Pueblos at 1:30 p.m. Stanford-bound Lauren Bywater had five goals and four steals to lead Riverside Poly. Center Amber McCutcheon netted five goals for San Clemente. No. 6 Newport Harbor 14, Rosary 6: Lissa Westerman scored five goals and Maddy Kanzler added eight saves at Dos Pueblos to lead the Sailors (6-7) into Fridays first-round game against host Dos Pueblos at 12:30 p.m. Los Alamitos 10, Santiago of Corona 3: Calysa Toledo scored three goals and Madison Ravelo added two at Dos Pueblos to lead the Griffins (10-6) into Fridays first-round game against San Marcos at Dos Pueblos at 2:30 p.m. In the Sea View: Capistrano Valley 10, Trabuco Hills 8: Victoria Higginson scored six goals to lead the host Cougars (1-1 in league). The residents of Hiware Bazar, a remote village in the Ahmednagar district of the state of Maharashtra, India have managed to turn their fortune around in the span of just a few years theyve gone from being a drought-stricken populace in the mid-1990s to the richest village in the nation today. Their story is a truly inspiring one. Hiware Bazar currently boasts of having the highest GDP among all the villages in India. Its 1,250-strong population enjoys an average income of INR 30,000 ($450) per month, also highest in the nation, up from a paltry INR 830 in 1995. 60 of the 235 families in the village are millionaires. Every year, their fields yield bountiful crops of millets, onions, and potatoes that make it hard to imagine that only a few years ago they were barren stretches of land that no one cared about. Yet, up until the mid 90s, Hiware Bazar was indeed a poverty-stricken village reeling in the aftermath of a severe drought in 1972. The peace was shattered, recalls Raosaheb Rauji Panwar, an 82-year-old villager. People became irritable and restless as the struggle to stay alive became severe. Petty reasons were enough to trigger-off bitter quarrels, as there was so much despair and frustration. Villagers started consuming liquor and it added to our ruin. Photo: The Alternative Frustrated with the situation, lots of villagers moved to nearby towns and cities in search of odd jobs as laborers, despite owning several acres of land back home. About 90 percent of the population moved out, and those remaining had no prospects. The village sarpanch (leader) at the time was just an elderly figurehead with no vision and the youth of the village soon realized they lacked a strong leader to look to for guidance and support. So they got together in 1989 and decided to approach a young man named Popatrao Pawar, the only villager with a graduate degree. Pawar was all set to leave the village too, in search of a white-collar job, but the villagers had different plans for him they requested he run in the local elections and become their next sarpanch. Pawar wasnt interested at first, but the villagers persistence finally wore him down. When he was unanimously elected sarpanch, he decided that the time had come for Hiware Bazar to shine. Photo: Appurva Shah/Tehelka One of the first things Pawar did as sarpanch was to convince the villagers to close down about 22 liquor shops. Giving up one of the only things that brought them comfort, or at least an illusion of it, was not easy, but they eventually agreed. The new leader then arranged for loans to poor farmers from the Bank of Maharashtra, and used some of the funds to start projects that would eventually improve the water supply in the region. Pawar started rainwater harvesting and water conservations schemes, and got the villagers to build 52 earthen bunds, 32 stone bunds, two percolation tanks and nine check dams. Photo: Hiware Bazar Water management requires strong community participation, Pawar explained. Our village used to suffer from a lot of problems. Villagers realised how the scarcity of water was the source of all our problems. I told them that it is possible to get enough water for our needs, but only if we start saving all the rainwater we get. The projects worked. Although Hiware Bazar only received 15 inches of annual rainfall, the ponds and trenches they built saved every single drop water, preventing it from flowing out of the village. After just one monsoon, the irrigation area increased from 50 acres to 170 hectares. As the groundwater level began to rise, so did the villagers morale. Photo: YouTube caption With the water shortage resolved, many people who had left the village began to return. The number of families slowly went up from 90 to 235. The people were happier, collaborated more often, and solved problems together. Pawar set up systems so that two to three families could help each other on their farms, fostering a sense of community and avoiding the cost of hiring laborers. Today, they are able to harvest multiple crops, even taming and ploughing stubborn, rocky land for farming. I left for Mumbai in 1965 and worked there for 35 years, said Yadav Dada Thange, a local farmer. I heard about how the people in my village were successfully fighting drought by recharging rainwater. I decided to quit my job and come back to my village, Hiware Bazar. The empty wells I had left, now had plenty of water for my crops. Because of collective community participation, what has happened in my village is nothing short of a miracle. Photo: The Song of Life In 2010, the village got 190 mm of rain, but we managed well because of water management, said Habib Sayyed, who deals with water planning in the village. Thanks to these water conservation techniques, Hiware Bazar had another great harvest that year, and even had water to spare for a special patch of land where they preserve 100 different species of plants. Hiware Bazar is now a model village, with a growing sense of discipline and order. The roads are clean and well-planned, cement houses have long replaced the derelict huts of old, liquor and tobacco have been banned, as have open defecation and urination. Every single house has a toilet, a fact that cannot be said about most villages in India, and people are genuinely happy and proud of their achievements. Sources: Tehelka, The Watchers WH Library board president Tom Moore at Meet and Greet Dec. 3, 2015; photo by Debora Giammarco Citizen demands for an elected board of the Westhampton Free Library, voiced by 60 residents at a board meeting Oct. 30, 2015, were a non-issue at the boards meeting Wednesday night. Thomas Moore, board president, told six residents present that an elected board was not a board priority and it would not be discussed. About 86% of libraries have publicly elected directors. The Free in the WH librarys name means that it is a private 501/c/3 non-profit corporation that elects its own board. New York State Open Meetings law is that the public can speak and ask questions at sessions of public boards but that board members are under no duty to reply. Emails had been sent to the board asking for a explanation of statements by Moore at previous board meetings that there are serious tax and financial implications in moving to an elected board. Residents said the new board seems to be as unresponsive as the previous board, four of whose five members resigned last year including board president Joan Levan. Citizens seeking library reforms have created a website that publicizes upcoming board meetings and carries comments of residents. New library board members include Moore, husband of WHB Mayor Maria Moore, and Susan Rosenberg and Barbara Matros, retired WH high school teachers. Jennifer Mendelson is the sole holdover from the previous board. Trustees Needed; Microwave Radiation Dangers Residents noted that the board now only has four members when it is legally allowed to have seven. They asked if the board is seeking one, two or three candidates. No information was provided on that question. Emailing individual board members is not allowed. The email of library director Danielle Waskiewicz is available but only the general email address of [email protected] is available for the rest of the board. Emails to the general email box bring a return email that the email has been received. Because of growing concern over the alleged dangers of microwave radiation, this writer has brought that issue to the attention of the board. The websites of Dr. Joseph Mercola and Electric Sense say microwave radiation from numerous sources including computers, cellphones and microwave installations is dangerous, especially to children because of their thinner skull bones. Their advice is limit use of cellphones by children to emergencies. They urge disconnecting cellphone bases at night because the device works 24/7. Other advice includes do not use a cellphone in a car and especially a moving car or other vehicle; put the cellphone on airplane mode except when in use; do not bring a cellphone or base into the bedroom, and be considerate of others by not using a cellphone in public places such as doctors offices, public transportation, courtrooms, etc. They advise going wired with laptop computersusing an Ethernet cable instead of wireless, a wired keyboard, and a wired mouse. Apples MacBook Pro does not have an Ethernet connection but an adapter can be purchased from Apple for $29. Apple stores do not sell a wire mouse. Apple staff tell customers to try Best Buy or another computer store. Employee Files NLRB Charges vs. Library The U.S. National Labor Relations Board, responding to a request from ODwyers, has provided a copy of a complaint against the library board by an employee. The complaint, dated Oct. 2 and addressed to board president Joan Leven (whose name is usually spelled Levan), says The employer discriminated against employee (name left out) by disparately calling XXX into a disciplinary review and issuing a disciplinary memorandum because XXX knows XXX is an active union member. Employees of the library voted 31-3 to form a union Aug. 21. There had been no union at the library since its founding in 1896. The complaint says that the employer has interfered with, restrained, and coerced its employees in the exercise of rights protected by Section 7 of the Act by creating the impression of surveillance of employees union activities. It says the library interrogated employees about their union activities in violation of the Act and issued employee XXX a verbal warning as a result of union activities in violation of the act. The charges are being investigated by NLRB agent Sarah Hurley. Loading... OilVoice will be with you shortly... Scientists have found evidence pointing to what looks like the world's largest canyon, hidden under ice in the Antarctic. A team of researchers led by Durham University in the UK found the massive canyon by analysing satellite data of the ice sheet covering Princess Elizabeth Land (PEL) in East Antarctica. While not visible to the naked eye, faint traces of the subglacial landscape can be detected in satellite imagery. If its existence can be verified by direct measurement, the canyon is a major geological discovery. "Our analysis provides the first evidence that a huge canyon and a possible lake are present beneath the ice in Princess Elizabeth Land," said lead researcher Stewart Jamieson. "It's astonishing to think that such large features could have avoided detection for so long." The landscape indicated by the satellite data suggests the canyon system in its entirety is approximately 1,100 kilometres in length (683 miles) and is as deep as 1 kilometre (0.6 miles) below sea level in places. In addition, a discrete feature measuring 140 x 20 kilometres (87 x 12 miles) is thought to be a massive deep-water lake connected to the canyon. One of the reasons the canyon may have eluded detection for so long is that there's very little scientific data on the thickness of the ice sheet under which the chasm is buried. "This is a region of Earth that is bigger than the UK and yet we still know little about what lies beneath the ice," said Jamieson. In fact, the bed of Antarctica is less well known than the surface of Mars." The researchers think that the canyon system was carved out by the flow of water, possibly so long ago that it existed before the ice sheet grew over the top of it. Alternatively, it's possible the flow has been eroding at the ice since after the sheet formed. In addition to using satellite imagery, the researchers detected small sections of the canyon using aerial radio-echo sounding data, bouncing radio waves off the rocky landscape underneath the ice. Further radio-echo sounding measurements over the entire canyon area will now be performed to confirm whether their hypothesis is correct which could have greater implications far beyond the achievement of having found the world's biggest canyon. "If we can gain better knowledge of the buried landscape we will be better equipped to understand how the ice sheet responds to changes in climate," said Jamieson. The findings are reported in Geology. Source:www.sciencealert.com Islamabad: Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain on Friday said Pakistan wanted peaceful ties with India. Islamabad is in favour of peaceful relations with India and wants to resolve all outstanding issues including the Kashmir dispute through dialogue, he said. Mr Hussain said the countrys leadership was fully prepared to deal with the challenges of national security and was determined to eliminate terrorism and militancy. Addressing the graduates of National Security Course here at the National Defence University (NDU), the President said efforts were afoot to ensure peace in the country and in the region. President Hussain said terrorism had become a global issue that required a joint approach by all states to fight the same. He said the international community was supporting Pakistan's counter-terrorism efforts, which he said would intensify the impact of the steps taken against militancy. The President said Pakistan wanted restoration of peace in Afghanistan and was extending cooperation to its neighbour for enduring peace in the region. The President said strategic and political changes at global level had given rise to new challenges that needed a new approach for effective resolutions. He mentioned the nation and the country's armed forces had rendered immense sacrifices in fight against terrorism and added that Operation Zarb-e-Azb was nearing its successful completion against militants. He said the incident of Army Public School in Peshawar that took lives of innocent school children had united the entire nation against terrorism. The President lauded the NDU for maintaining high credibility at national and international levels and said courses offered by it were benefitting both military personnel and civilian officials. He congratulated the graduates of the National Security Course and expressed confidence that the training they had received at the prestigious institute would prove helpful in their professional life and in formulation of policies related to national security. Meanwhile, on Friday, Interior Ministry presented details of terrorists and their facilitators in the parliament. The Senate and the National Assembly were told that at least 332 terrorists have been executed, 2159 have been killed and 1724 have been arrested. Besides, 214 cases pertaining to money laundering have been registered with 322 arrests and 350 million recovered from the suspects. The interior ministry also informed that 933 URLs and 10 websites in use of the terrorists were closed. Moreover, facilitators of the terrorists providing food, shelter and finance to them were also nabbed which include five from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, eight from Sindh, 28 from Diamir whereas 41 cases were registered by Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) in Punjab. Bengaluru on alert after suspicious object found near theatre Bengaluru oi-Sandra Bengaluru, Jan 15: Bengaluru was on high alert after an abandoned box with electric wires was found at Cauvery junction. Immediately the bomb squad was at location. According Bengaluru Police briefing, the bag contained a glass jar with some jute materials. The box with wires found at Bengaluru turned out to be a mere scare and the bomb disposal squad has confirmed that there were no explosives. The police say that the entire incident appears to be a scare. There was a box in which wires and some liquid had been found. The police say that it appeared to be an attempt by someone to create a scare. Bangalore police commissioner N S Megharik informed OneIndia that there were no explosives found. However the city was put on high alert and officials urged the people to be vigilant. OneIndia News From plotting a hijack to creating the JeM, why Pakistan guards Masood Azhar so much In a case of bad karma Taliban outs Pakistan on what India had always said on Azhar How does the Jaish-e-Mohammad operate despite the ban? Feature oi-Vicky The Jaish-e-Mohammad continues to be a powerful player in Pakistan and acting against its chief, Maulana Masood may not be the easiest thing. He is an extremely important player for the ISI and the army in Pakistan and gradually he has attained the status that is enjoyed by Hafiz Saeed of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba. When the Jaish-e-Mohammad is not carrying out attacks, it runs a very effective campaign propagating jihad. There are no checks or balances and the Jaish-e-Mohammad under the name of the al-Rahmat trust continues to publish magazines and distribute pamphlets which send out messages to mujahideens to take up jihad, mainly against India. How does the Jaish-e-Mohammad operate? The JeM operates through the al-Rahmat trust. The trust although proscribed by the United States of America, continues to collect funds and operates two valid bank accounts in Pakistan. In addition to this it has offices which actively carry out campaigns for the JeM. These offices have always been the backbone of the JeM. When the outfit was banned in Pakistan in the year 2002, the activities of the JeM continued through these offices. Today Pakistan has claimed that some of the offices have been sealed, but there is no official confirmation of the same. The offices of the JeM are based in Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi. All these three offices are run by the al-Rahmat trust which is the financial front for the JeM. These offices apart from collecting funds also print and publish several magazines. Many articles in these magazines are penned by Maulana Azhar under the name Saad. The Rawalpindi office is situated at the Fatah Plaza while the Lahore unit is at the Defence Housing area. In addition to this there are smaller units of the al-Rahmat trust which are located at Muzzafarabad. India says that acting against the al-Rahmat trust is very important. This trust acts as a front for the JeM and runs the show even if the main outfit is banned. From plotting a hijack to creating the JeM, why Pakistan guards Masood Azhar so much In a case of bad karma Taliban outs Pakistan on what India had always said on Azhar Maulana Masood arrested or detained: Pakistan's technical trick Feature oi-Vicky We are still in business is what the Jaish-e-Mohammad had to say in a statement. The statement was aimed at refuting news reports which originated from Pakistan that their chief, Maulana Masood Azhar had been arrested. Has Pakistan arrested Azhar? They have not arrested but detained him. There is a primary difference between detaining a person and arresting him. When an arrest has been made there has to be a filing of a case with charges. Also read: Pathankot attack: Is ISI laying the groundwork for revival of Punjab militancy? In the case of a detention, it could be done without charges. Moreover detentions are done for a variety of reasons ranging from preventive to protective. A technicality that Pakistan rides on The news relating to Maulana Masood's arrest is very similar what we got to witness with Hafiz Saeed after the Mumbai 26/11 attack. Following an attack of such a magnitude, there is pressure on Pakistan from various quarters to take action against the masterminds of the attack. If one were to see the manner in which Pakistan acts in such situations, it becomes clear that they take the likes of Saeed or Azhar into protective custody. Pakistan's minister Rana Sanaulla even confirmed that Azhar had been taken into protective custody. Protective custody could mean anything. It could either be to protect him from a drone hit or an attempt to prevent him from planning another attack. Indian officials say that this is always a technicality that Pakistan relies on from time to time. On the other hand, the Jaish-e-Mohammad has come out in the open to deny the arrest of Azhar. They are right, Azhar has not been arrested, but detained. In a statement, the JeM has said that what difference would it make anyway if an arrest is carried out. The mujahideens will be more enthusiastic to work for the cause of Jihad, a statement in Urdu by the JeM read. Modi & Sharif: The two PMs aiming to leave a legacy behind Feature oi-Oneindia By Oneindia Staff Writer For most of the period post Independence in 1947, India and Pakistan have seen more downs than ups. The last 68 years have been marked by a constant low punctuated by some direct wars and proxy warfare. Whenever efforts have been made to revive peace between the two neighbours, some disruptions surfaced (in 1999 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the prime minister of India or in 2008, when Manmohan Singh was at the helm) to put the entire exercise in a jeopardy. But after the terror attack in Pathankot on the very second day of 2016, there is a visible difference in the way things have shaped out. Both the neighbours, despite all the cynicism and criticism, stuck to the hard-earned ambience of continuing the talks (the foreign secretary-level talks were rescheduled by mutual agreement', India welcomed the special probe team from Pakistan to probe the terror attack at the air base and that the national security advisors of both countries were in constant touch with each other) which kindles much hope in the much-troubled India-Pakistan talks. Both PMs are showing a positive will One significant aspect of the current engagement between India and Pakistan is that the prime ministers of both countries are showing a lot of determination in pursuing peace. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had invited his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif along with other South Asian leaders to his oath-taking ceremony in May 2014, was accused of losing the plot on Pakistan later. It was said the Modi government lacked a consistency when it came to Pakistan but the last few developments in the bilateral relation graph of the two countries suggest that Modi is not someone who would go down in history as a failure. He has also made it a point to pursue his pro-peace policy vis-a-vis Pakistan at several corners of the globe despite the noise and disruption created by the Opposition and media in his country. Modi certainly aims at leaving behind a legacy in his Pakistan policy. If he can improve Vajpayee's record to achieve a permanent peace with Pakistan, his place in the history will be invincible. Sharif aims to reverse history Premier Sharif, too, similarly wants to leave a legacy behind. It is very easy for a Pakistani leader to pursue a policy of conflict with India and equally hard to script a tale which is against the trend. Sharif was also the prime minister of Pakistan when Vajpayee had taken up the peace initiative in 1999 but the Kargil War and the military coup that had followed later this year dealt a blow to the leader's statesman-like ambition. Sharif would not like to see history repeating itself 17 years later with a fresh initiative by yet another Indian prime minister from the BJP against being targeted by the elements. But time can run out fast for both PMs Both prime ministers also know that time would not be in their favour for very long. Sharif, who has another two years in office, has the best chance now to cement the civilian administration's authority in Pakistan politics and vis-a-vis the powerful military. If Sharif can display a strong will of establishing his credibility at this hour and help the democracy in his country take a strong stand against the disruptive elements, then he will not only convince his own countrymen about his responsibility but also the forces in the uniform who feel little assured by the civilian rulers' capability. The long-term success of Pakistan's democracy can be defined by the success of the Sharif administration in reining in the terror agents in the wake of a terror attack in a country which is perceived to be the biggest enemy. It's an irony but a true one. For Modi, too, time can be the biggest challenge although his premiership is a year younger than Sharif. The Pakistani response to Pathankot terror attack has been satisfactory for New Delhi so far but it would not take much time for voices both in Modi's own camp and the Opposition to create a disturbance if the momentum looks lost. Modi has so far done a decent job in underscoring India's foreign policy priorities and has shown a lot of will in achieving peace with Pakistan by trying unconventional ways. But all this can prove to be short-lived if New Delhi doesn't get closer to resolving its Pakistan problem fast. Golden intelligence rule: When your cover is blown, you are on your own Pathankot attack: Is ISI laying the groundwork for revival of Punjab militancy? Feature oi-Vicky By Vicky With the National Investigating Agency findings similarities between the Pathankot and the Dinanagar attacks, it is also trying to find out if anyone part of the Punjab militancy had a role to play. While it has established by and large that the drug mafia had a role to play when it came to the infiltration of the terrorists into India, the NIA will also look to find if the Punjab militants had any link. India awaits Pakistan team to probe Pathankot attack There have been intelligence bureau reports in the past which suggest that those part of the Punjab militancy had been hand in glove with the drug smugglers who operate along the Indo-Pak border. Investigators would look into this angle as well since it is also trying to find out who locally had helped the terrorists who attacked Pathankot. Laying the ground work While it has been almost ascertained that both the Dinanagar or Gurdaspur attack carried out last year and the Pathankot strike were the handiwork of the Jaish-e-Mohammad, the motive is also being studied. While one of the motives is to derail the Indo-Pak peace process, the other is clearly relating to Kashmir. With the name of Afzal Guru being quoted, Intelligence Bureau officials say that the message was to further an armed struggle in Kashmir. However there is also another aspect to both the Dinanagar and Pathankot attack. The ISI which has been shielding the Khalistan terrorists since the past 15 years may be trying to lay the ground in a bid to revive militancy in Punjab. It appears as though the Khalistan militants who are familiar with the Punjab terrain are currently being used for logistics and local help, an officer with the Intelligence Bureau said. Both the Pathankot and the Dinanagar attacks would not have been possible without local help. Hence it would be pertinent to probe into the possible role of the Khalistan militants as well, the officer noted. Caretaker of shrine to be questioned During the questioning of the Gurdaspur Superintendent of Police, Salwinder Singh, he had said that he had visited a shrine near the Indo-Pak border before he was abducted. While the NIA is seeking to know why he had visited the shrine twice on December 31, they are also proposing to question the caretaker. The NIA has sought to know why Singh visited the Shrine once again in the night of December 31 when he had already gone there that morning. Was there any activity near that place is what seek to know, the NIA officer informed. The NIA is likely to question the caretaker of the shrine for more details. The shrine is located near Bamiyal, the village from where the terrorists are said to have infiltrated into India. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, January 15, 2016, 8:49 [IST] Uncertainty in J&K, Arunachal: Selfish parties are putting our borders in danger Feature oi-Oneindia By Oneindia Staff Writer At a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is working hard on his government's foreign policy equations with Pakistan and China, two of India's biggest challenges, the domestic complications in the two frontier states of Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh will cause worry at the Centre. The problems in Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh, though have unfolded in contradictory ways, but nevertheless pose challenges to the federal democracy and its security. Peaceful threat' to functioning democracy in J&K The J&K issue has been more of a peaceful threat' with PDP president Mehbooba Mufti showing little urgency in taking over as the chief minister after the death of her father and incumbent CM Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. Apparently, she is yet to overcome the grief of the personal loss but deeper sources suggest that something more serious is at play. The partnership between the PDP and BJP in governance in J&K has not been a rosy affair and Sayeed's demise gave the PDP a scope to reassess its alliance with the BJP. Sources in the party were also alarmed by the number of mourners attending Sayeed's funeral, assuming it to be a warning call. Mufti herself was reportedly unhappy with the way the Centre had handled the PDP over releasing economic packages for the state. The decision to see Mehbooba as her father's successor was also not a well-received one at many quarters, thanks to the leader's views on security issues and human rights violation issues. The Anantnag MP herself, too the past, had expressed her disinterest in the chief minister's post. PDP-Congress alliance not feasible But if the PDP is contemplating dumping the BJP at some level and go for an alliance with the Congress, the move wouldn't be disaster-proof. In terms of arithmetic, the fresh alliance would not ensure a majority (the PDP has 27 seats without the late Sayeed while the Congress has 12 in the 87-member Assembly) while in terms of democracy, it would be betraying the mandate of the 2014 election, particularly that of the Jammu region which had gone for the BJP (25 states and highest vote-share of 23 per cent). The Congress, despite its steady decline in the state, will also look to an unpredictable turn from the PDP to keep the BJP at bay. Till the PDP makes up its mind on an uncertain game it is playing, the state would continue under the governor's rule. Parties have held Arunachal to ransom In Arunachal Pradesh, too, it is the parties' opportunistic game which has held the state to ransom. While the Congress is eyeing the BJP's ouster in J&K, it is at the receiving end in the north-eastern state. Though the intervention by the judiciary could see the crisis nearing its end now, but the fact remains that political parties in India never give up humiliating the very system that gives them a chance to emerge at the top. Arunachal Chief Minister Nabam Tuki, who has been facing rebellion for some time, dropped three senior ministers and inducted three others in early 2014. After a few months, he re-inducted two of them to pacify the dissidence. But his anti-camp had become very active by then and Tuki dropped four top ministers in October last year. The Congress Legislature Party in the state was split on the issue and the rebel camp backed Kalikho Pul as the replacement for Tuki. They also sought the removal of Assembly Speaker Nabam Rebia, reportedly linked to Tuki, and found a backing from Governor JP Rajkhowa, appointed in June 2015. When Rebia refused to let the Assembly session which was summoned by the governor to exclusively take up the notice served by the rebel camp seeking the former's ouster, the rebels held their own session at another venue. In that session, Rebia was removed and Pul was "elected" the new leader of the House. The rebel Congress leaders even found support in 13 BJP and 12 Independent legislators. But since the actual strength of the House is 44 (not 60 as 14 MLAs were disqualified and two resigned, which meant 23 is the majority mark and not 31) as held by Rebia, so Tuki with the support of 23 MLAs was still heading a "stable" government. But the petitions filed by both sides in the Gauhati High Court and Supreme Court over the last two months saw the political situation in Arunachal Pradesh worsen and the governance coming to a halt. In a border state which is marked by ethnic diversity, such a paralysis in the government poses a big threat. The parties only look after their selfish interest of getting into the power by hook or crook, taking little care of the impact the chaos can leave on the political health and security situation in the country. It is disappointing to see how dissident members in the government along with the Opposition are indulging in opportunistic ventures, even at the cost of creating problems for stability at the borders. While the Congress has harboured an immoral ambition of making inroads into the governance in J&K when the PDP-BJP alliance found itself in an uncomfortable position in the wake of the death of a senior leader; it is fighting against itself in Arunachal to allow petty factional interests prevail. On the other hand, the BJP, which has remained apprehensive over the PDP's move in J&K, has fuelled the crisis in government in Arunachal by backing the rebel Congress MLAs. Is this for what elections take place in India? Good news for Pak, China The continuing political stalemate in J&K and Arunachal Pradesh will make Pakistan and China more than happy. The disruptive elements in Pakistan have of late tried to sneak into India and carry out their sinister plans through Punjab since J&K has been under a positive focus and things looked under control there. But now with the PDP-BJP alliance facing a fresh uncertainty in the post-Sayeed period, there is every possibility of the anti-peace camps in Pakistan targeting the border state again. In Arunachal, too, the crisis will encourage the Chinese as well as the anti-India elements. China has refused to acknowledge Arunachal to be a part of India and it is also one of the least-affected states in the north-east in terms of insurgency, thanks to various socio-economic initiatives. But with the government in the state seriously hit by factional feuds, there is every chance of the disruptive elements taking full opportunity of the uncertainty created therein. Arunachal crisis: SC starts examining powers of Governors India oi-PTI New Delhi, Jan 15: The Supreme Court today started examining constitutional schemes on the scope of discretionary powers of the Governor, amid continuing month-long impasse over Nabam Tuki-led Congress government in Arunachal Pradesh. The high-voltage hearing began with the submissions of senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who listed out legal questions, including the Governor's power to convene Assembly session without aid and advice of the government, for adjudication by a five-judge constitution bench headed by Justice J S Khehar. Sibal represents Nabam Rebia who has purportedly been removed from the Speaker's post by rebel Congress and BJP MLAs in an assembly session at a community hall in Itanagar on December 16. It has also been alleged that the Governor had advanced the assembly sitting from January 14 to December 16 without the aid and advice of the Chief Minister and his council of ministers. "Whether the Governor has any discretionary power to summon the House without the aid and advice of the Chief Minister and his council of ministers," Sibal asked the bench that also comprised Justices Dipak Misra, Madan B Lokur, P C Ghose and N V Ramana. "What are the contours of powers of the Governor in sending messages to the House and, in particular, the power of the Governor in dealing with the constitution of the House," he said, adding that the Governor cannot change the party-wise position of lawmakers in the assembly. The court, during the hearing, referred to constitutional provisions and asked questions on discretionary powers of the Governor and said he can always take certain decisions which can be questioned only in the court of law and cannot be stopped and objected to by the state government. The bench said "there may be some grey areas where the Governor can always say that it is his discretion which can be challenged in judicial review only." Sibal also said that the Governor, who is neither the officer of the assembly nor its member, cannot convene a session of the House on his own. PTI India wants constructive border engagement with China: Suhag India oi-PTI New Delhi, Jan 15: India wants to have constructive engagement with China along the northern borders, Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag said today, holding that there has been significant improvement in understanding between the two countries on the boundary front. Even though intrusions have taken place in the disputed areas along the Line of Actual Control, there has been a significant improvement in understanding between the two countries, he said, addressing the Army Day parade here. "India wants to have constructive engagement with China along the northern borders," Suhag said. The Army Chief pitched for modernisation of weapons and equipment to counter different kinds of challenges facing the force. He complimented the soldiers for giving a befitting reply to the enemy at the Line of Control which has been "active" due to cross-border firing and continuous infiltration attempts. Referring to modernisation, Suhag said that to counter different kinds of challenges and commitments, it is important to modernise weapons and equipment. Army Day pics: Things you need to know about it He said that he was happy that the government has sanctioned a number of modern weapons and equipment in the last one year. The priority for the army was new artillery guns, upgradation of mechanised forces, enhancement of army aviation capabilities, he said, noting that better arms needed to be provided to the soldiers. Declare Masood Azhar global terrorist: India to urge China Suhag said the army has already started induction of weaponised version of Advanced Light Helicopter. Earlier this week, Suhag had said acquisition of artillery guns, third generation missiles, upgrading armoured vehicles, augmenting army aviation and strengthening infantry were among "critical areas" for force modernisation which are being fast-tracked. PTI excalibur said: Can you show us the post by Jimmy wherein he "criticizes" the dollar amount? Click to expand... More backtracking! Hilarious!I gave the dollar amount.JB claimed it wasn't measured that way. (Which is a patently idiotic claim considering how many government reports can be quoted measuring it that way. Plus, can anybody show me where budget proposals have put the military budget contingent on anything like GDP? Nah. Of course not)And then he reports it in a dollar amount.The point is JB's criticism was stupidAnd how many countries do we give two farts about?Can you show me anywhere where we put our U.S. military budget contingent on the GDP?As in, the GDP was less so we correspondingly shrank our military budget?The only reason you guys try to throw out that garbage argument is because our spending (to some eyes looking for ways to ignore it) doesn't look as bad.Some people seem under the delusion that ridiculous statements uttered in unison somehow lends credence. Not everything is misleading like your birth date: Mishra slams Afridi over tweet on Yasin Malik Who is Yasin Malik? The Kashmiri separatist sentenced to life in terror funding case Should Kashmir be given to Pakistan: Row erupts after this question appears in MP civil service exam From hijab to Kashmir, Zawahiri was Al-Qaeda's voice for everything anti-India Kashmiri pandits demand compensation, jobs India oi-IANS By Ians English New Delhi, Jan 15: An organisation of Kashmiri pandits on Friday said the central government should provide compensation to traders and one-time relief package to persons displaced from the Kashmir Valley. A delegation of Sampoorn Kashmir Sangathan (SKS) met union Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office Jitendra Singh here and sought his intervention for the redressal of their demands, including on jobs for overage youth from the community, and rehabilitation of displaced Kashmiri pandits. The delegation submitted a memorandum demanding compensation for traders and displaced Kashmiri pandits in proportion to their immovable properties they left behind in the Valley. The minister assured the delegation that the Narendra Modi government was committed to ensuring a dignified return of the displaced community to the Valley, an official statement said. He also assured them that their memorandum will be forwarded to the home ministry. The delegation also sought soft loans for all categories of Kashmiri pandits for self-employment anywhere in India. The memorandum emphasised upon employment opportunities for the Kashmiri pandit youth living outside the Valley. It demanded that the youth over the age limit for government jobs should be given one-time exemption. IANS Pathankot: NIA to subject Punjab SP to lie detector test India oi-Vicky Patahankot, Jan 15: The National Investigating Agency is likely to subject to Gurdaspur Superintendent of Police, Salwinder Singh, to a polygraph or lie detector test. The decision to subject Singh to a lie detector test was taken after it was found that his answers were not convincing enough. Singh was abducted by the terrorists who launched the Pathankot attack. During the questioning of the Gurdaspur Superintendent of Police, Salwinder Singh, he had said that he had visited a shrine near the Indo-Pak border before he was abducted. While the NIA is seeking to know why he had visited the shrine twice on December 31, they are also proposing to question the caretaker. The NIA has sought to know why Singh visited the Shrine once again in the night of December 31 when he had already gone there that morning. Was there any activity near that place is what seek to know, the NIA offier informed. The NIA is likely to question the caretaker of the shrine for more details. The shrine is located near Bamiyal, the village from where the terrorists are said to have infiltrated into India. Meanwhile the National Investigating Agency is trying to find similarities between the Pathankot and the Dinanagar attacks, it is also trying to find out if anyone part of the Punjab militancy had a role to play. While it has established by and large that the drug mafia had a role to play when it came to the infiltration of the terrorists into India, the NIA will also look to find if the Punjab militants had any link. There have been intelligence bureau reports in the past which suggest that those part of the Punjab militancy had been hand in glove with the drug smugglers who operate along the Indo-Pak border. Investigators would look into this angle as well since it is also trying to find out who locally had helped the terrorists who attacked Pathankot. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, January 15, 2016, 19:23 [IST] PIA office attack: Hindu Sena chief arrested India oi-PTI New Delhi, Jan 15: Hindu Sena chief Vishnu Gupta was arrested today by Delhi Police in connection with the vandalism of Pakistan International Airlines office here by the members of the outfit. Gupta has been arrested under Sections 120B (being party to a criminal conspiracy), 147 (rioting), 149 (being the member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 427 (mischief causing damage to property)and 452 (house-trespass after preparation for hurt, assault or wrongful restraint) of IPC, said police. "The police are still looking for the other Hindu Sena members who were involved in the vandalism," DCP (New Delhi) Jatin Narwal said. Yesterday, four members of Hindu Sena, a fringe right-wing group, ransacked the fifth floor office of Pakistan International Airlines at Narayan Manzil in Barakhamba Road around 3:15 PM, damaging computers, furniture and other items. Police later arrested one member of the group, who was identified as Lalit Singh, while three others fled. The members also left pamphlets which said,"There should be no talks with Pakistan unless they take stern action against people who have caused damage to India and hand over people like Dawood Ibrahim and Hafiz Saeed to India." Pakistan International Airlines Barakhamba office vandalised by Hindu Sena activists The incident prompted Islamabad to take up the issue with the Ministry of External Affairs. Owning responsibility of the incident, Gupta had vented anger at Pakistan holding it responsible for the attacks at Pathankot air base as well as at the Indian consulate in the Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif recently. Gupta was also arrested last October, days after his complaint that "beef" was being served at Kerala House canteen here was found to be false. PTI No surprises here: Mallikarjun Kharge is the new Cong chief Sunanda Pushkar death case: Shashi Tharoor to be questioned again? India oi-Reetu New Delhi, Jan 15: After Delhi Police received AIIMS medical board's report Sunanda Pushkar death case, reports are now suggesting that the Special Investigation Team (SIT), which is probing the case, may question Congress leader and Sunanda's husband Shashi Tharoor once again. According to a IBNLive report, "In a new twist to Congress MP Shashi Tharoor's wife Sunanda Pushkar death case, the Federal Bureau of Investigation report on Friday confirmed that she died due to poison, said sources. After the revelation, the noose will be tightened on Tharoor and he is likely to be questioned again in the death case, said Special Investigation Team sources." Delhi police on Friday received the medical board's 'advice' on the FBI lab report on viscera samples of Sunanda Pushkar, wife of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, to identify the cause of her death. "Have been told that Medical Board's advice in late Sunanda's case has been received," Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi said in a tweet. Bassi added that Special Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Deepak Mishra was reviewing the progress. Cow is safer in India than a Muslim: Shashi Tharoor's dig at Modi Govt Sunanda's viscera samples were sent to the FBI lab in Washington DC in February last year to determine the kind of poison that killed her after an AIIMS medical board identified poisoning as the reason behind her death but did not mention any specific substance. The FBI report had virtually rules out the theory of 'polonium poisoning' having caused her death. However, after Delhi police failed to draw any conclusion on basis of the findings, the report was handed over to a medical board for examination before further proceedings in the high-profile case. The investigators have so far conducted polygraph test on six persons, all prime witnesses in the case, including Tharoors' domestic help Narayan Singh, driver Bajrangi and Sanjay Dewan, a close friend of the couple. Tharoor has been questioned in the case. Sunanda was found dead inside her suite at a five-star hotel here in January 2014, a day after she was involved in a spat with Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar on Twitter over the latter's alleged affair with Tharoor, the Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram. OneIndia News (With inputs from agencies) Arvind Kejriwal gets brutally trolled for allegedly following an adult content account on Twitter Targeting Modi, Arvind Kejriwal says his ministers may be raided India oi-IANS By Ians English New Delhi, Jan 15: Central agencies are planning to raid his ministers, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal alleged on Friday, adding Prime Minister Narendra Modi was trying to "fail us". Quoting "PMO sources", Kejriwal tweeted that the raids may be conducted on Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia - known to be the Aam Aadmi Party leader's most trusted confidant - or Health Minister Satyendra Jain. "Officers under them being pressurized to get something wrong signed from them," he said. In another tweet but in Hindi, Kejriwal added: "Modiji, do what you want. Truth is on our side. God is with us. You can't do any damage to us." Arvind Kejriwal to visit Bengaluru for medical treatment Later, during a press conference on the odd-even traffic curbs, Kejriwal said the Modi government was "trying its level best to fail us". "But they won't succeed because our strengths are truth and honesty." The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raided the Delhi Secretariat on December 16, accusing the principal secretary to Kejriwal of corruption. Kejriwal said the CBI searched his office too. The CBI denied this. IANS When Baba Ramdev met actor Sanjay Dutt in Yerwada jail India oi-Reetu Mumbai, Jan 15:Yoga guru Baba Ramdev taught pranayam and yoga asanas to prisoners at Yerwada jail and sked them to give up smoking and hookah as dakshina' for yoga. Ramdev, who taught inmates to stay fit also met actor Sanjay Dutt. "You are in jail because in the heat of the moment your actions led to some unwarranted acts. Many years ago, there were several people who created problems for me. Some of the gangsters' in UP who had sought treatment at our yoga camps for medical ailments used to tell me, let us take care of those who are against you' (Aapka nuksaan kiya hain, hum un logo ko patka denge)," Ramdev was quoted as saying in an Indian Express report. Sanjay Dutt to be released from Yerwada jail on Feb 25 "But I told them that I have never raised my hand on anybody and instead, developed the strength through yoga and meditation to forgive others. This can be done only after you learn to control your anger, " Ramdev Further added. After Yoga session, bhajans were enjoyed. Alongwith jail inmates Ramdev also met Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt, who is serving five-year sentence at the Yerawada central prison in Pune for illegal possession and destruction of an AK-56 rifle in 1993 serial blasts case. As per reports, Dutt will be released on February 25. "Dutt looked calm and composed, and told me he has attended some of my workshops. All he told me was to pray for him," Ramdev was quoted as saying in th ereport. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, January 15, 2016, 15:37 [IST] 'China should be careful not to step into Indo-Nepal issues' International oi-PTI Beijing, Jan 15: China should be careful not to step into "minefields" between India and Nepal, an article in the Chinese media said today, underlining that though it is necessary to provide aid to Kathmandu, it should not be at the cost of Beijing's interests. "Facing Nepal-India rows, China should be aware that the (India-Nepal) disputes cannot be resolved immediately. As a responsible country, Beijing ought to help address the issue in accordance with its own capacities," the article in the state-run Global Times said, referring to the row over Lipu-Lekh Pass and Nepal's new Constitution. It said that China is supposed to play a role as a mediator between Nepal and India. "On the one hand, it is necessary to provide temporary aid to Nepal. Beijing is now transporting oil to its southern neighbour to ease Kathmandu's fuel shortage. On the other, it is of great importance for China to safeguard its own national interests. The aid should not be at the sacrifice of Beijing's interests," it said. "In addition, China ought to be careful not to step into the minefields between Nepal and India. Maintaining a neutral stance is of significance for Beijing," it said. The article said that the "dispute over the Lipu-Lekh Pass have been simmering for years between Kathmandu and New Delhi." "The mention of the pass in the China-India joint statement has triggered Nepalese protests. Therefore, Beijing ought to be extremely careful not to unconsciously touch on sensitive issues between Kathmandu and New Delhi," it said. Nepal's Parliament had raised serious objection over an agreement between India and China to boost border trade at Qiangla/Lipu-Lekh Pass, close to an area which Nepal claims to be part of its territory and had asked both countries to correct their pact immediately. 'Over 400,000 lost jobs in Nepal in five months' During Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Beijing, China and India agreed to hold negotiations on augmenting the list of traded commodities, and expand border trade at the Lipu-Lekh Pass in the joint communique. On Nepal's announcement that Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli will travel to New Delhi next month on his first official foreign visit, the daily said, "Driven by vanity, the Indian government cares a lot about Oli's choice to pay a first visit to New Delhi instead of China...India expects the visiting order to reflect its dominant status in South Asia." It said that the Nepalese government was not serious when suggesting earlier that Oli may visit China ahead of India. "Kathmandu was just sounding out New Delhi's attitude. As Nepalese prime ministers have traditionally chosen India as their first destination for state visits, Nepal was attempting to find some leeway in the negotiation with India over the ongoing blockade triggered by the adoption of the Nepalese constitution, which India feels does not protect the rights of the Madhesi, an Indian-backed lowlands minority," it said. The article also said that China can absorb Nepal into some Beijing-led regional organisations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation by granting observer status. "The regional organisations will serve as a platform for Kathmandu to resolve bilateral and multilateral problems. By joining regional institutions, Nepal will find it easier to come up with a solution to strike a balance between China and India. Beijing, as a close friend of Kathmandu, has a responsibility to help its southern neighbour," it said. PTI Controversy surrounds Charlie Hebdo as it depicts dead Alan Kurdi as sex attacker International oi-Jagriti Paris, Jan 15: The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo sparked outrage with a cartoon depicting drowned toddler Alan Kurdi as a sexual attacker. The magazine depicted Kurdi who drowned on way to Europe would have grown up to be a sexual abuser like those immigrants allegedly involved in the assaults in Cologne in Germany. More than 500 reported assaults against women on New Year's Eve in Cologne blamed on migrants. The cartoon was drawn by Laurent Sourisseau, who was in the Charlie Hebdo offices when his colleagues were shot dead by Islamist terrorists in January last year. The cartoon sparked outcry and many people including prominent journalists condemned the magazine, calling it "disgusting," "racist," and a "disgrace to humanity". Alan Kurdi made headline in September last year when his lifeless body was found lying face down near a beach in Turkey while trying to reach the Greek island of Kos from the Turkish resort town of Bodrum. Heart breaking: Image of lifeless body of Syrian child creates uproar on social media The picture went viral and sparked an international outcry over the human cost of the crisis. Thousands of migrants died last year trying to reach Europe by sea. OneIndia News Indonesia on security alert as police probe attacks International oi-PTI Jakarta, Jan 15: Army trucks thundered through Indonesia's capital on Friday as authorities boosted security at possible terror targets and probed a suspected Islamic State cell blamed for Jakarta's deadly terror attacks. A series of bombings and subsequent gun battles yesterday between the attackers and police in a busy part of the capital lined with malls and foreign missions left two civilians and five attackers dead. Police arrest 3 men on suspicion of links to Jakarta attack Police in the world's most populous Muslim country have blamed the carnage on a network of Islamic State fighters from Southeast Asia forged in the radical jihadist group's war in Syria and Iraq. "An alert has been imposed throughout Indonesia," said national police spokesman Anton Charliyan. "National police are on their highest alert, especially in areas considered targets of terror, like police stations, government offices, embassies, with army backup." He did not elaborate on the army's role but AFP reporters saw a passing convoy of a half-dozen military trucks filled with heavily armed soldiers in central Jakarta, and heightened security elsewhere, with police patrolling in flak jackets. A police car and a half-dozen officers were seen guarding the French embassy near the attack site. Charliyan added police would be conducting raids Friday as they probe those responsible for the bloodshed, which spilled out in dramatic fashion on a bustling street in the mid-morning. He declined to offer further details on the planned raids. The assault left five attackers, a Canadian and an Indonesian man dead and 20 others injured, according to police, in what the country's president called "acts of terror". Police have singled out Indonesian extremist Bahrum Naim as being behind the planning. Naim, believed to be in Syria, is said by authorities to be a founding member of Katibah Nusantara, the grouping of Southeast Asian fighters there. Terror analysts warn that the group, believed to include fighters predominantly from Indonesia but also Malaysia and elsewhere in the region, has threatened for more than a year to bring the jihad home. Indonesian authorities were yet to offer concrete details from their investigations. Muhammad Iqbal, Jakarta's police spokesman, told AFP authorities were working to establish the identities and connections of the dead attackers. PTI Islamic State operatives in Karnataka believed India will be free when Caliphate is set up A PFI linked module of 2016 and the spread of the Islamic State ideology in south India More IS attacks likely as group suffers setbacks: US general International oi-PTI Washington, Jan 15: Islamic State jihadists will likely increase the tempo of attacks around the world as they come under increased pressure in Iraq and Syria, a top US general has warned. General Lloyd Austin, who currently heads the military's Central Command (CENTCOM) overseeing Middle East operations, yesterday made the argument that recent IS-claimed attacks like the ones this week in Istanbul and Jakarta are in fact evidence the group is faltering. "ISIL has assumed a defensive posture in Iraq and Syria," Austin said at a news conference in Florida. "Going forward, we can expect to see him rely increasingly on acts of terrorism such as we saw this week in Baghdad and in Turkey, and most recently in Jakarta," he added. The IS group, which swept through vast rgions of Iraq and Syria in 2014 and 2015 and captured a string of cities, has seen recent setbacks across its self-proclaimed caliphate, including the loss of the key Iraqi city of Ramadi to US-supported local forces. A US-led coalition has also been hammering the group's oil infrastructure, including by blowing up hundreds of trucks used to ferry illicit crude oil around Syria, and this week bombed a financial facility in the Iraqi city of Mosul that US officials said held millions of dollars in cash. Austin, who has headed CENTCOM since March 2013 and will shortly be stepping down, said the IS group is upping its overseas actions to distract from such losses. "ISIL wants to draw attention away from the growing number of setbacks" that it is experiencing," Austin said, using an alternative name for the IS group. "It is important to understand that these terrorist acts don't necessarily mean ISIL is getting stronger," he added. "ISIL by its nature is a terrorist organization and by conducting these attacks, he is attempting to produce an image of invincibility in the wake of setbacks. So overall, we are making progress." Pentagon chief Ashton Carter said he will recommend that President Barack Obama nominate General Joseph Votel to replace Austin. Votel currently heads the Special Operations Command. His nomination would reflect the increased role special operations troops are carrying out in the region as elite US commandos launch raids against IS jihadists. "General Votel has a wealth of in-depth, politico-military experience -- that is working with foreign governments and militaries -- and is therefore well-equipped to handle the complex challenges of CENTCOM," Carter said. AFP AUSTIN, Texas A killing of a Muslim man in what some are calling road rage, and others a hate crime, is bringing renewed attention to the deadly consequences of Texas Stand Your Ground self-defense law. The shooting occurred in Houston on June 26, 2015 when Ziad Abu Naim and his wife, Lisa Aimone, were driving to visit with one of Naims business clients on the way to his mosque for Friday prayers. After turning left at a four-way intersection just a block from their home, Abu Naims vehicle almost struck another vehicle, driven by Robert Craig Klimek, another Houston resident. Moments later, as described by Leah Caldwell in a Jan. 4 report for Texas Observer, Abu Naim was on the ground, bleeding from a gunshot wound: [Klimek] made a right turn and pulled alongside Abu Naims Porsche SUV. Both men rolled down their windows. Aimone sat forward in her seat to catch a glimpse of the man in the other car, and thats when she heard it: Go back to Islam! Abu Naim opened the door and stepped out of the car. Aimone kept her eyes on his back. Within a few seconds, she heard a single gunshot. Abu Naim never recovered consciousness and died in a Houston hospital three days later. Klimek told police he shot Abu Naim after Abu Naim reached inside his vehicle and punched him multiple times, while Aimone insists there was no time for any blows before the fatal gunshot, and that the shouted words point to a possible hate crime. In September, a grand jury declined to indict Klimek on any crimes. His defense focused on Texas Stand Your Ground law. While 23 states have passed some form of Stand Your Ground self-defense law, Texas is considered one of the most most expansive self-defense laws in the country, Caldwell explained: In 2007, the Texas Legislature passed legislation explicitly stating that civilians have no duty to retreat from their vehicles before using deadly force in self-defense. Instead of driving off, you can now legally shoot to kill in certain circumstances. Critics have said the law is so broad that it gives the trigger-happy carte blanche to shoot first and ask questions later. A 2012 study by researchers at Texas A&M University of states with Stand Your Ground laws similar to Floridas found 600 homicides that could be attributed to the law between 2000 and 2010. Theres also real concern that racial bias is at play in the enforcement of the law, and the states selection of whom to prosecute for these kind of road rage incidents. By including vehicles in the Texas version of the law, Professor Tamara Rice Lave of the University of Miami School of Law told Caldwell that it seems to encourage violence against minorities even when other options are available: If somebodys in the car, the ignition is on, the foot is on the gas pedal, then they can easily drive away, she said. If it was a white, upper-class mother getting out of her car and approaching a car, [and she were shot], do I think there would be an indictment? Yes, there would be. It makes a difference who the victim is. Prosecutors also ignored Aimones demands that the killing be investigated as a hate crime. Although Caldwells investigation found years of anti-Muslim rhetoric posted online by Klimek, Aimone said officials were dismissive of the possibility, and added, It was almost like too much work for them to find something to see if it was a hate crime. International news brief: Confident of Pak's commitment, ability to secure its nuclear assets, says US & more From 'dangerous' to 'secure and confident': US makes a u-turn after Biden's comment on Pak Pak rejects Obama's remarks on terror, instability International oi-PTI Islamabad, Jan 15: Pakistan today strongly reacted to US President Barack Obama's remarks that the country could become a safe haven for terrorists and would continue to face instability for decades to come. In his last State of the Union address on Tuesday, Obama had said that "instability will continue for decades in many parts of the world in the Middle East, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in parts of central America, Africa and Asia". He said that the US' foreign policy must be focused on the threat from the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda, but it can't stop there. "For even without IS, instability will continue for decades in many parts of the world in the Middle East, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in parts of Central America, Africa and Asia," he said. "Some of these places may become safe havens for new terrorist networks; others will fall victim to ethnic conflict, or famine, feeding the next wave of refugees," he said. Pakistani Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz rejected Obama's comments in a breakfast meeting with Chinese scholars, diplomats and mediapersons. "Whatever the US president said about instability in Pakistan and Afghanistan are his predictions and have nothing to do with ground realities," Aziz said. He said Pakistan was committed to defeating militancy and had major successes in the fight to eliminate terrorism. Obama makes going after terror networks top priority, names Pakistan among safe havens "Pakistan is taking decisive action against terrorism and militancy and days to come will witness more stability here," he said. Aziz said Afghanistan faced the issue of "instability" but Pakistan was making all out efforts to bring peace and stability in its neighbouring nation. PTI 2008-2022 One News Page Ltd. All rights reserved. One News is a registered trademark of One News Page Ltd. by Graham Pierrepoint If youve been following One News Page in recent times, youll know that its been something of a fantastic twelve months for space travel and exploration from the announcement that there will be intentional trips back to the Moon, signs that water has existed on Mars to the news that gas giant Jupiter will be explored in further detail in the near future, anyone remotely interested in astronomy have had a wealth of news to chew on recently and, if news regarding a former member of our planetary family is anything to go by, the discoveries arent showing any sign of stopping any time soon. Pluto, the cold celestial body that had formerly been referred to as a planet but had the title stripped in recent years demoting it to a 'dwarf planet' has been back in space research and exploration news, as it appears that thermal convection is taking place on its surface. This means that there is evidence of a solid block of ice water floating in nitrogen giving off some interesting effects that have been spotted by NASAs New Horizons mission over the festive period. According to NASA and William McKinnon, deputy lead of New Horizons geology team, this phenomenon could be described as akin to that of a lava lamp as it appears that dark, slug-like forms are moving around as convection continues. For the bystander, this phenomenon may not sound like much to write home about but for anyone with a slight understanding or interest in the makeup of celestial bodies and astronomic research, this is another fascinating find that brings us close to understanding just what makes up the heavenly bodies in our universe and how they tick. Regrettably, a trip to Pluto may not occur during our lifetime but its hopeful that we will know much more about the secretive dwarf in the years to come, particularly if New Horizons continues to return video and snapshots of its enigmatic surface and if 2015 was anything to go by, there is no reason as to why 2016 shouldnt follow in its footsteps as being another great year for extra-terrestrial exploration and whether or not we land on Mars by the end of the decade, you can bet that NASA will dig up some fascinating facts for us in the meantime to tide us over! by Graham Pierrepoint Known for performances with gravitas on the big screen and on the stage, celebrated British actor Alan Rickman passed away this week at the age of 69 leaving behind a legacy of memorable performances that led to his becoming a household name and a number of characters who many will be unable to disassociate from his performance. For many, he was Professor Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series, a role handpicked for him by creator and author JK Rowling who, along with contemporaries and fellow actors alike, was among many offering tributes to the actor, who passed away after battling cancer. Rickman was a stalwart of the stage, having acted and directed a number of performances to critical acclaim alongside well-known big screen character performances over four decades. Certainly, he first came to popular attention as iconic villain Hans Gruber in action movie behemoth Die Hard, his dry, dour delivery providing worthy competition for Bruce Willis earnest and wise-cracking John McClane meaning that we has experienced over 25 years of Rickman at the very height of his prowess. Rickman went on to garner more acclaim for his depiction of the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood : Prince of Thieves, a role which helped propel the movie to an iconic adventure film of its time, and helped cement his reputation as fantastic villain the unmistakable and incomparable voice and delivery that led him to further Hollywood success yet, he was just as capable and captivating in protagonist and even romantic roles, with Truly, Madly, Deeply and Love, Actually being two examples of just how versatile Rickman was as an actor. The role of Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series was a masterstroke in casting on behalf of Rowling, as anyone who has read the original books would be hard forced to imagine anyone bar Rickman in the role the sneering, dour but ultimately tortured professor who would provide a source of antagonism for the boy wizard up until the final storys ultimate revelations. Regardless where you knew Alan Rickman from, his was a provocative and striking style of performance that remained incomparable up until his passing. In a week where the world has also lost the incomparable David Bowie to cancer at the age of 69, we sadly say goodbye to genuine talent and two genuine British icons before January has even left us and yet, undoubtedly, their legacies will live on. General Information on State Sales Tax, Resellers Permit, Tax Certificates, Business Registration, Wholesale License Virtually every type of business must obtain a type of State Sales Tax Number, such as a Resellers Permit, Tax Certificates, Business Registration, Wholesale License Registration. If your business sells products on the internet, such as eBay, or through a storefront, and the item is shipped within the same state, sales tax must be collected from the buyer and the sales tax must be paid on the collected tax to the state. Depending on the type of business and the amount of revenue, the state sales tax collected must be paid either monthly or quarterly. Items shipped within state are taxable. Items shipped out of state are usually not subject to state sales tax if annual revenues are less than four million dollars. Purchases for Resale You are able to purchase items without paying state sales tax. When you buy an item for resale, you purchase the item without paying state sales tax. Items must be for resale or qualified business use. If you purchase an item from a wholesale organization, or even another retailer, and are reselling the item, in most situations, you will be exempt from paying state sales tax. Almost every wholesale company will require a sales tax number before selling an item or product for resale use. The same applies to opening most commercial resale accounts. Wholesale trade shows and merchandise marts usually require a state sales tax identification number in order to allow your business to participate. Online Application For fastest processing, please have the following ready to complete the online application for a State Sales Tax Number. Dedicated to the propagation of Serrada Escrima through the efforts of SGM Anthony Davis, GM Guro Schwarz and efforts made by members of the WSEF, news regarding the WSEF, news and efforts of others throughout the FMA community. Greek Government to Introduce a New Online Gambling Framework Published January 15, 2016 by Florin P Licensing of online gambling is shaping up to become a priority for the Greek government. The Greek economy is not yet out of the woods and with pressure mounting, the Syriza government is trying to find alternative ways of replenishing state coffers. One solution is to create a new licensing regime for Internet gambling operators, after the previous framework failed miserably. The officials have announced their intention to reform the entire system and make it easier for international casinos to apply for a license. Tax Revenues Expected to Surge in 2016 Greek players are big fans of online gambling and Dublinbet Casino and Jackpot City Casino are some of the Internet casinos popular with the local audience. Even so, the lack of a coherent licensing strategy resulted in paltry tax revenues since 2013 and numerous opportunities lost. Over this period of time, gambling operators paid no more than 60,000, an insignificant amount compared to the projected revenue for 2016. The Greek Syriza government is expecting the changes to result in a significant revenue boost, with as much as 500 million to be collected this year. Increasing the revenue 1000 times is not going to be easy, but the Greek Deputy Finance Minister Tryfon Alexiadis considers this to be a plausible scenario. A complete reform of the licensing regime is necessary to create the proper market conditions that will act as a magnet for international gambling operators. A Key Element in Syriza's Growth Strategy The Greek ruling party announced a batch of comprehensive reforms, with seven distinct pylons during the national election campaign. The reform of the online gambling environment is one of the most important changes and the new licenses will revolve around the value of 3 million. Online gambling operators will rejoice knowing that the authorities have no intention to bump the tax rates, so their profit margin shouldnt be affected. It remains to be seen how the Greek will lay out their online gambling plans. From the start, employees complained vociferously that network executives were paralyzed by fear, believing they had to avoid all hints of bias and opinion in order to steer clear of what these executives regarded as the lethal stench of the Al Jazeera brand for American audiences. Executives of Al Jazeera America (AJAM) held a meeting at 2 p.m. Eastern Time to tell their employees that the company is terminating all news and digital operations in the U.S. as of April 2016, resulting in the loss of hundreds of jobs. The announcement marks a stunning and rapid collapse of what, from the start, has been a towering failure. [Subscribe to Glenn Greenwald] Glenn Greenwald is a journalist,former constitutional lawyer, and author of four New York Times bestselling books on politics and law. His most recent book, "No Place to Hide," is about the U.S. surveillance state and his experiences reporting on the Snowden documents around the world. His forthcoming book, to be published in April, 2021, is about Brazilian history and current politics, with a focus on his experience in reporting a series of expose's in 2019 and 2020 which exposed high-level corruption by powerful officials in the government of President Jair Bolsonaro, which subsequently attempted to prosecute him for that reporting. My guest today is progressive political activist and frequent OpEdNews contributor, The PEN. Welcome back to OpEdNews, PEN. Expressway to Trade Hell: TPP (Image by Peaceteam.net) Details DMCA JB: What's on your mind today? PEN: Great to be back with you again, Joan. We've been fighting to stop the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) for a long time, as it has been negotiated in complete and strict secrecy, excluding input from any but multi-national corporate special interests. From leaked documents, we already knew they were planning a dramatic expansion of the rights of those same business interests to supersede our national sovereignty, and to enforce through collateral tribunals their profit "rights" over the people's national interests. They are calling this legal abomination "Investor State Dispute Settlement," as if money should have any prerogative over government at all. It just keeps getting sicker. JB: What do you mean? PEN: When we say an "expansion," it must be understood that they were already moving forcefully in this direction even before the TPP. Just this week, TransCanada sued the U.S Government for 15 billion dollars . . . JB: 15 billion dollars? Yikes! PEN: . . . under the EXISTING provisions of NAFTA, the predecessor bad trade deal, over President Obama's rejection of their dangerous Keystone XL pipeline. And TPP is like NAFTA on steroids. There was so much political opposition to this project, because of the threat to pristine natural aquifers in the MidWest if there was ever a leak, which of course there inevitably will be many, as even TransCanada admits, that President Obama was finally forced to reject it for his part. How many monumental man-made environmental disasters do we have to suffer at the hands of reckless corporate interests before we the people have the right to put a stop to it? JB: How many, indeed? PEN: From the oil well blowout in the Gulf that came close to ending the ecosystem of our entire SouthEast coast to the gargantuan oil spills in AK and elsewhere, time and again we have seen that corporations, for all their claimed "personhood," have absolutely no social responsibility and will sacrifice and put at dire peril our safety, our health, our environment and our future for one extra dollar of profit by cutting corners every day of the week, and twice on Sunday. TransCanada saw the hand-writing on the wall, and strategically "withdrew" their application to build their smelly, leak-prone pipeline, shortly before President Obama's announcement of his decision. JB: A tad fishy, no? PEN: Instead, they shifted to a deceptive PR campaign, flooding YouTube with videos of their thin-walled pipeline under construction with smiling workers. And the whole thing looks so flimsy, being put together with heat sealing, that it looks like if you accidently stumbled with a screwdriver you'd poke a hole right through it. Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane." -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1966. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been 86 years old on January 15 had he not been brutally murdered on April 4, 1968. But today, as we celebrate his birthday with a national holiday in the United States, we're still reminded that we've not arrived at his mountain top nirvana just yet. If fact, today's national discourse and climate is just as corrosive, bigoted, and jingoistic as the era in which he struggled for the liberation of ALL Americans, not just Black Americans. And nowhere was Dr. King's advocacy more profound than in his approach to healthcare. For King the denial of quality healthcare was a national crime that rose to the level of "shocking and inhumane." He was right then and he's still right now. This weekend many Americans -- Black, white and others - will pause and remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the many political, economic and social justice reforms that he championed. That's all good. But beyond the lofty oratory of King's "I Have A Dream" speech and the genteel idolatry of a man who definitely "walked the walk," not just talked the talk, is the deep relevance of his profoundly true statement about healthcare that is not only important for all Americans, but the world community as a whole. For one thing, as only King could do, he's conflated the issue of inhumanity with inequality and injustice in such a simple, yet unadulterated and poignant formulaic statement. Of 17 high-income countries studied by the National Institutes of Health in 2013, the United States was at or near the top in infant mortality, heart and lung disease, sexually transmitted infections, adolescent pregnancies, injuries, homicides, and rates of disability. Together, such issues place the U.S. at the bottom of the list for life expectancy. On average, a U.S. male can be expected to live almost four fewer years than those in the top-ranked country. That's nearly 50 years after Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968. So in celebrating Dr. King's birth in 2016, we should take stock of how far America has come since 1968 and renew our efforts to make healthcare universal and available to all. The poor healthcare performances and outcomes of the United States are a curious paradox and stand in stark contrast to advances in medical and healthcare technology. For example, today, America remains a global leader in medical innovation and technology. The US solely developed or contributed significantly to 9 of the top 10 most important medical innovations since 1975 as ranked by a 2001 poll of physicians, while the EU and Switzerland together contributed to five. Moreover, since 1966, Americans have received more Nobel Prizes in medicine than the rest of the world combined. From 1989 to 2002, four times more money was invested in private biotechnology companies in America than in Europe. The United States also has the most advanced hospitals in the world. Yet we have some of the most horrible health outcomes of any developed nation while we spend the most money on healthcare. There is a serious disconnect here. The United States life expectancy of 78.4 years at birth, up from 75.2 years in 1990, ranks it 50th among 221 nations, and 27th out of the 34 industrialized OECD countries, down from 20th in 1990. Now enter the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Maybe President Barack Obama was trying to heed Dr. King's clarion call to eradicate injustice in United States healthcare system. I don't know. But whatever the motivation and despite of the obvious imperfection of the ACA, commonly dubbed "Obamacare," I believe that the intention was and is noble. So instead of trying to gut, reverse and kill the ACA, forward-thinking political leaders should seek ways to improve, enhance and support it so that it ultimately benefits ALL Americans. Some have posited that the ACA is the most important civil rights milestone since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 asserting that it will close the racial gap in health coverage that is a precondition to eliminating disparities in healthcare. That said, I believe that King would have offered some constructive criticisms of the ACA. I think that he would have protested that the law did not go far enough towards his vision of healthcare equality. He would have pointed out that millions still remain uninsured and that expensive health plans hurt middle class workers, and the subsidies don't go far enough towards helping poor families afford quality healthcare. But King would not have thrown out the proverbial "ACA baby with the bath water." No, he would have acknowledged and supported the good and positive parts of the ACA. Here's what he would have been happy with (compliments the non-partisan Kaiser Foundation http://kff.org/ ): Expanding Health Coverage Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Watching the first Republican Presidential Debate of 2016 -- also their last debate before the Iowa caucuses -- was really the Theater of the Absurd: a field of fantasies from a field of fanatics! While nearly all the candidates present -- except for the Governor of Ohio and a noted neurosurgeon -- concentrated on trying to outdo each other in their contemptuous hatred of President Obama, most were not much less hateful towards each other. Senators Cruz and Rubio, for example, each continued his ferocious attacks on the immigration stance of the other. The other major common ground in the debate was their contemptuous hatred for Hillary Clinton, as they tried to outdo each other with graphic descriptions of just how bad they thought her presidency would be for America. There was little if any effort to relate their views to her actual record of accomplishments -- rabid, rancid, and rancorous comments were the order of the day. One suspects that part of their rancor has to do with the temerity of any member of the female sex having the nerve to think that she could run the nation as well as any man could -- leading to that suspicion was the one thing these Republicans seemed to agree upon: that any of them was far better than Hillary. "Far better" at doing just what was left unclear -- but then that really did not seem to matter to these guys. Among the most despicable moments of the debate was hearing the New Jersey Governor attack our President hypocritically on a host of fronts, while apparently forgetting his own warm embrace of that same President in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. But then, the New Jersey Governor does advocate a needed program to rebuild America's infrastructure of roads and bridges -- perhaps he is looking forward to closing more of those bridges in the future, as he has done in the past, for political reasons. This worthy also talked about "the chill wind blowing through law enforcement -- Obama believes they are the bad guys." This cheap shot was welcomed with applause. Another despicable moment was the group castigation of the President's handling of the recent capture of a small group of American naval personnel who accidentally strayed into Iranian waters; instead of praising their release in only a few hours, the Republican candidates moaned and groaned about their being photographed in a posture of capitulation. Perhaps the candidates would have preferred them to be held by Iran for 444 days, as were our diplomats in Iran in the late 1970s. The obviously-forced apology of one sailor for their straying into Iranian waters seems a small price to pay for their freedom -- but not to these Republicans, who were never in that situation! Then there was the response of the so-called leading Republican candidate to a question about putting his alleged wealth into a blind trust were he to become President (God forbid!) After pretending not to know just what a blind trust is, this blowhard said that his family would just run his businesses under those circumstances. Anyone who has followed this consummate bully knows that he, of course, would just run his family, as he has made clear that he believes he is the only one who could ever handle his affairs -- he claims to be the boldest and the best. The ancient Chinese proverb that "empty rice barrels make the most noise" is proven to be true, once again. All in all, one is reminded of the Biblical story of Samson, the great warrior who "slew his enemies with the jawbone of an ass" according to the Old Testament. There were many such pseudo-Samsons on stage at this Republican debate, and they seem to have comparable jawbones. The nation will "little note nor long remember" (per Abraham Lincoln) just what they said -- but their mean-spirited lack of meaningful content will continue to haunt their Party and the 2016 Presidential Election. Progressive Content Not Found Sometimes, authors delete their progressive content after publishing. To see if the progressive content was renamed or re-published, please click here. For months the public has been told that the names of leading candidates had to be confidential because those applying needed to be assured that their current employers would not find out that they were considering jumping ship. This excuse always seemed hollow, especially with the Los Angeles Times reporting that "St. Louis schools Superintendent Kelvin Adams, Fremont, Calif., Superintendent Jim Morris, and San Francisco Superintendent Richard Carranza" (who just last February received a $65,000 raise) had been among the candidates considered. However, once it was clear that the finalist was from among the district's own ranks, there was no reason for Monica Garcia, Ref Rodriguez, Steve Zimmer and George McKenna to continue their bid to keep King's name from their constituents before taking a final vote. Before making her appointment official, the Board should have come out from behind closed doors to hold one last meeting that included public input. This not only would have given the stakeholders a chance to feel that they were invested in this choice, but it would have given the District the opportunity to clear up any reservations that were raised about the promotion. King was David Binkle's superior when the LAUSD Inspector General's office found that the Food Service division that he ran was "at a minimum being mismanaged and at worst being consistently abused." While the District seems satisfied that forcing Binkle into retirement resolved the problem, it has never explained what roll District higher ups, including King, played in this scandal. Even if Binkle is not correct when he says that his superiors approved, and sometimes directed his actions, the taxpayers are owed an explanation for why they did not realize that the department was being run so poorly. The District has already admitted that there are at least two emails that "have been found for the month of January 2013 related to the phrases 'Request for Travel' and 'LAUSD I'M IN'", but they have refused to release them due to an "ongoing" investigation. It is possible that either of these could validate Binkle's side of the story and prove that his higher ups knew what was happening in this department. Since the emails have not been released, it is not known if either of them includes King's name, proving that she had knowledge of what was occuring. In December, this public document request was renewed, but despite the fact that they were already found for the first request, the District's "anticipated date of production is March 7, 2016." In the meantime, the District's stonewalling keeps open the possibility of a potential skeleton in King's closet. The fact that King was chosen by a unanimous vote of a deeply divided Board also raises another possible red flag. While "the school board had wanted a unanimous decision to emphasize strong support for a new leader," this could also mean that they expect her to maintain the passiveness she displayed under Deasy and Cortines. While the District needs an anti-Deasy who understands that the Board sets policy, a "yes" woman will be just as dangerous. It was very telling that at her first Board meeting, King suggested a change to a resolution and the Board immediately went on to voting on it without even debating her recommendation. It also leads me to question if she is expected to not take sides on important issues facing the district. An effective leader cannot punt by stating that she is "not for or against the plan" by Eli Broad to privatize half of the students. The constant churn of Superintendents through the District has not benefitted the students and, hopefully, the elevation of King will bring some much needed stability. A more open process would have provided a better start, but the stakeholders will have to learn to deal with the cards that we had been dealt. Let's hope that by being placed in charge, King will shed the passivity that served her well during her assent and that she will become the voice for public education that we badly need after the Deasy fiasco. ____________________________________________ I am a former candidate for the District 3 seat on the LAUSD School Board, founder of Change The LAUSD and member of the Northridge East Neighborhood Council. Opinions are my own. Please click here to sign the petition asking the LAUSD to rescind the Teach For America contract. Mandy Patinkin, who learned from top brass CIA operatives what defending the Homeland entails, emotionally expressed feelings lingering among some of the world's comfortable on the December 19, 2015 Colbert Late Show. "Stop this paradigm of violence"an eye for an eye" It hasn't worked, this violence, an eye for an eye" "We need a new paradigm--if war isn't working. We spent $4 trillion on war!" "What is spent on marginalized people in humanity? All of these wonderful young Muslims men and women, who have had no education, no opportunity, no good schooling. So what do they do? They look for someone else who'll say they'll give them a better life" "Why aren't we taking that money used for bombs and making schools and hospitals and homes and opportunities?" "Bombs make a lot of money for lot of people. Education doesn't make money." For a long time, Marine General and Former Commander in Chief of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), Anthony Zinni, has been repeating what he said on Bob Aucone's Freedom Forums about the American World Service Corps (AWSC) Congressional Proposal. "Some people feel best that they can serve in uniform. Others in doing some sort of humanitarian work. Others in maybe working in government to help better create institutions, like rule of law institutions, or working with others in the area of diplomacy, or in other things that can support our effort." "So I would like to see a broad based program that allows for all this." File:Anthony Zinni 1995.jpg - Wikimedia Commons (Image by (From Wikimedia) A1C RANDY S. MALLARD, Author: A1C RANDY S. MALLARD) Details Source DMCA Copyrighted Image? DMCA Retired General and former Commander of the U.S. and International Forces in Afghanistan Stan McChrystal, In the winter 2015 addition of the Peace Corps Association's Worldview Magazine, said: "Nothing is more important than developing in our citizens a sense of responsibility to each other and to the nation." "We are losing our concept of citizenship. This sense of responsibility and contribution that John F. Kennedy trumpeted, and the willingness to sacrifice for an idea that Abraham Lincoln immortalized in 272 words at Gettysburg, feel like faint echoes from earlier, nobler times." "Today, the need for such a common experience of citizenship is more poignant than ever. We are drifting apart. Contrary to the illusion of constant connectivity, Americans are isolated--geographically, ethnically, economically, religiously, and culturally. An affluent student from Greenwich, Connecticut will never meet a student from Harlem." "While a new system of National Service would be expensive, we estimate it would cost $22.3 billion for for one million service year positions. The return on investment is over three-to-one." Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Nothing is more important than the need for the American people to take their government back; to once again make this a government "Of, by and for the people." Sadly we have seen our democracy transformed into an oligarchy in which the rich and powerful, together with the masters of Corporatism, have taken control over this country and its government. Over the past several decades this ultra-powerful entity has placed a vice-like grip on this government. It, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court in the Citizens United decision, is now being allowed to flood our election process with unlimited amounts of corporate money in order to elect those to Congress who will bend to its dictates and facilitate its special interests. Estimates indicate that it will spend as much as $5 billion in this presidential campaign. Let's see how this corporate grip on our government is damaging this country. What we have here is a powerful alliance between Corporate America and the government that is without question, determining the direction of this country. The people of America have no voice, no say in these matters, and their needs, their wants and what they may think are irrelevant to those who are in command of this alliance. For example, in poll after poll, Americans are quite clear about what they believe that their government should do. First, they badly want this government to create millions of more jobs for America's workers; to see new industries developed and jobs returned to this country from overseas. The corporate/government alliance wants no such thing and job creation is not even on the table. Anyone recall when they last heard of a comprehensive plan by this Congress to create jobs? Even one? Americans are sick and tired of constant war and watching massive amounts of taxpayer dollars pumped into the military machine. Iraq and Afghanistan were disastrous and now the U.S. government is caught up in another quagmire in Syria. Check out this article, one of a great many that give the details of the massive U.S. military presence all over the world, with elite U.S. special ops forces existing in some 147 countries. Here is one of the major conclusions that this excellent article presents: "Investing in enduring bases rather than diplomatic, political, and humanitarian efforts to reduce conflict across the region (meaning the Greater Middle East in particular) is likely to do little more than ensure enduring war. Wise words to be sure but they will fall on deaf ears of those who continue to facilitate this government's agenda of war. This controlling corporate/government alliance places an enormous emphasis on expanding U.S. military presence across the world but at the expense of America's many other critically important needs. It's as if everything of importance in America has been put on hold because of this ongoing pursuit of military objectives. It is serving to suffocate America's creative and innovative abilities that once produced great achievements and made America the envy of the world. The people want to see an appropriate portion of those funds shifted from the military into domestic needs, for example, those such as repairing and improving our crumbling national infrastructure and our education system. Americans want to see steps taken to lessen this country's dependency on petroleum and begin the process of developing alternate sources of energy, primarily solar power. That's not going to happen any time soon because the giant petroleum corporations who are a major part of this alliance; they say NO! Bernie Sanders continually talks about the massive inequality of wealth and income between those at the top and the rest of Americans, which is hurting this country and this society in so many ways. Congress clearly has the power to deal with this inequality in many different ways but chooses to totally ignore it. And why? Well, because the wealthiest Americans and the masters of corporatism don't want any part of it and so the Congress does what it is told. The majority of the people are not pleased with the sad state of the electoral process in this country. They see politicians continually elected who then go to Congress and, instead of representing the interests of the country and its people, they answer only to those who control the campaign funds that determine the outcome of most elections. That's deplorable but it's how the system operates and the people are helpless to do anything about it. So what in the world can the American people do to deal with this situation; how can they reverse this direction, what measures can they use, what process can they follow to turn it around? The most effective way to deal with this situation would be to determine how to reverse the Citizens United decision and ban those massive corporate campaign contributions. The best one would be through the Supreme Court reversing that decision. The other would necessitate a Constitutional Amendment, a virtually impossible endeavor. However neither of these options will ever materialize as long as the current court is controlled by five Republican appointed justices who will block any attempt to do it. So what to do? Simply this; that court's makeup would have to be reconstituted into one that would be very receptive to taking the steps to initiate that reversal. Let's look at the ages of the 9 justices on the court to determine how long it could be before one or more would retire or might die in office. Antonin Scalia -- 79 Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Sen. Pat Toomey believes Edward Archer, the Yeadon man who police say shot Philadelphia police Officer Jesse Hartnett in a chilling ambush style attack, had been "radicalized." What isn't known is by whom or what.Sen. Bob Casey believes Archer is emblematic of a new front on the terrorism watch, the "Lone Wolf." Both Pennsylvania's U.S. senators were in town yesterday to talk about the police shooting, and Archer's statement to police that he shot the officer in the name of Islam. And they were here one day after FBI boss James Comey, in a stop in Pittsburgh, said his investigators were handling the incident as a terrorist attack. What seems to be getting murky in all this is just what is considered a "terrorist attack," and its relation to "terrorism." Comey also was in Philly yesterday, and stressed that the FBI had discovered nothing to indicate that Archer was part of any organized cell or had ties to others who still posed a threat to police, as had been alleged by a tipster. But he did say the matter continues to be investigated as a terrorist attack. What's interesting is how the community is reacting to these developments. Last night state Sen. Anthony Williams, D-8, held a community meeting just a block from the shooting scene in West Philadelphia. You can read about that here . Maybe even more important are several other reactions in the wake of the shooting. We talk about that on our editorial page . Don't expect this debate to be defused any time soon. I lean toward what Casey was saying about a "Lone Wolf." I don't know if Archer was moved or radicalized, or if he was just a troubled man looking to glom onto a cause. For some reason, that does not make what happened any less scary. And I challenge anyone to watch the video of Archer approaching Hartnett's police cruiser to feel anything other than a chilling vision of the challenge facing America. PeterZisa.jpg Classical guitarist Peter Zisa brings his flamenco style to Beaverton City Library auditorium for a Jan. 23 concert. (City of Beaverton) Music in Small Spaces, sponsored by the Beaverton Arts Commission, will present "Flamenco! with Peter Zisa" on Saturday, Jan. 23 at 2 p.m. in the Beaverton City Library auditorium, 12375 SW Fifth St. Peter Zisa will perform some of his favorite flamenco guitar pieces, as well as share the story of flamenco history and styles, details of flamenco development and his thoughts about composers. This concert is supported by the Beaverton Arts Commission, the Oregon Cultural Trust, the Cultural Coalition of Washington County, Friends of the Tigard Library, Hillsboro Library, Meyer Memorial Trust and The Walters Family Foundation. Tickets are $16 for adults, $11 for seniors and students, and free for kids 12 and under. For more information or to purchase tickets in advance, visit www.musicinsmallspaces.org. Tickets can also be purchased at the door. -- City of Beaverton Bishop Michael Curry Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop-elect Michael Curry arrives to knock on the door at the Washington National Cathedral, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2015, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana) Update: This post has been updated with input from the rector at Saint David of Wales Episcopal Church. The Episcopal Church was suspended Thursday by the Anglican Communion, the world's third-largest denomination, for accepting same-sex marriage. The Episcopal Church allows clergy to perform same-sex weddings and last year changed its marriage doctrine to include gay couples -- putting it at odds with leaders of the Anglican Communion who live in conservative parts of the world. After meeting Thursday in England, Anglican leaders released a document detailing the church's suspension. For three years, Episcopalians will not be allowed to participate in doctrinal decisions or represent the Anglican Communion in meetings with other Christian denominations or faith groups. For Nathan LeRud, the openly gay dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Portland, the suspension feels personal. "It's weird to have a bunch of bishops in England talking about you," he said. "A lot of gay people have been really hurt by Christianity, and statements like this perpetuate that." At the same time, the suspension sends a message to LGBT members of The Episcopal Church that their leaders are willing to go to the mat for them in the face of pushback, said the Rev. Kerlin Richter, rector at Saint David of Wales Episcopal Church in Southeast Portland. The punishment isn't likely to make Episcopal leaders change their minds on same-sex marriage. "We are going to continue to be who we are," said J.T. Quanbeck, communications director of the Episcopal Diocese of Oregon. "Whatever your orientation is, whoever you are, you are welcome in The Episcopal Church. "We are sorry that a great number of bishops in the world feel otherwise." The schism reflects the challenges of operating an international church, where leaders hail from countries with vastly different cultural values and expectations. It's unclear what will happen at the end of the three year suspension. "I don't believe they will be 'kicked out' or exiled, but they will continue to be at a distance if they don't change their direction," Jeff Walton, communications manager for the Institute on Religion & Democracy, told the Washington Post. Episcopalians shouldn't worry about a policy change within the church, according to a Thursday statement from the Rev. Michael Hanley, bishop of the Oregon diocese. "Our LGBT brothers and sisters should expect to find a welcome in the churches of the Episcopal Diocese of Oregon this Sunday," he said in the statement. -- Melissa Binder mbinder@oregonian.com 503-294-7656 @binderpdx Following successive food poisoning outbreaks last year, Chipotle is closing its stores for a few hours next month to talk about food safety. Chris Arnold, the company's spokesman, said the meeting would happen Feb. 8 and involve all staff. A range of issues will be covered. "We want to thank our teams for all of their hard work, to discuss some of the changes we are making to enhance food safety, to talk about the restaurants role in all of that and to answer questions from employees," he said in an email. Health officials investigated six outbreaks tied to Chipotle last year involving norovirus, E. coli and salmonella. They included one that started in October in Oregon and Washington and spread to seven other states, sickening more than 50 people by mid-November. In December, about 200 were sickened by norovirus after eating at a Chipotle in Boston. Also in December, federal health officials investigated five cases of E. coli poisoning in Kansas, North Dakota and Oklahoma. The outbreaks started in July in Seattle where health authorities tracked five illnesses to one store. In August, nearly 100 were sickened by norovirus after eating at an outlet in Simi Valley, California, and in September more than 60 fell ill in Minnesota. The company's sales slid 30 percent and its stock price plummeted nearly 40 percent. At least nine lawsuits have been filed, including one for Chris Collins, a web developer in Lake Oswego. Bill Marler, a food safety litigator in Seattle, said more suits are coming. "I represent a total of 75 people, but I haven't filed all their lawsuits yet," Marler said. Chipotle hired a food safety expert, changed its food handling practices and has started testing produce before shipping to stores. -- Lynne Terry Josh Salinger of Birdsmouth Construction in Portland wants to change your mind about what used to be called green building. He shakes his head against what he cites as well-intentioned but outdated environmentally sensitive construction or green washing tactics like simply installing reclaimed wood floor in an inefficient, leaky structure. He is not even that impressed with some of the old passive solar strategies of the 1970s. These features don't add up to create a high performance house, which is the latest, highest bar raised on residential construction. Salinger's expectation of a high performance house is that it will last more than a century, be attractive and very comfortable. He also demands that the dwelling be airtight and weatherproof, yet have systems that continually circulate fresh air that's been filtered of particles smaller than smoke, making the house healthy for children and people with allergies or illnesses. Being quiet is also high on his list. He doesn't want to hear machines turning on or blowing, or feel forced air or drafts. He doesn't ever want to sense cold near a window when he's inside. That's not all of it. The building materials can't attract bugs, mold or unnecessary repair bills. And, of course, he wants to cut the energy use down to zero. Right now, 41 percent of the total U.S. energy consumption is used in residential and commercial buildings, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Building designer Ray Culi of R&B Design Studio in Portland is also passionate about smart buildings, particularly when it relates to energy consumption. "We as designers and builders of our built environment need to take serious and meaningful steps in helping reduce consumption and the carbon footprint on every project," says Culi, who has been designing high performance homes since 2002 with his wife, building designer Beate Ioanide-Culi. If Salinger, the Culis and others like them have their way, all new and remodeled construction would conserve or produce the same amount of energy it uses. That is, Net Zero. They, in short, just want to save the planet, one house at a time. That's a tall order, but architects, designers and builders focused on emerging building science and new local and European materials say high performance houses are the way to build, now and in the future. As with any house constructed with materials that exceed standard code, costs can rise 5 to 20 percent, say builders. That could be changing. The U.S. Department of Energy praises builders of high performance homes that have minimal additional costs and hands out Housing Innovation Awards to builders of zero energy ready homes. Last year, Hammer and Hand of Portland as well as Washington builders CVH Inc. of Coupeville and TC Legend Homes of Bellingham received awards for custom houses. Dwell Development of Seattle won in the production category. Portland-based nonprofit Earth Advantage certifies high performance homes in Oregon and Southern Washington -- more than 15,000 in the last decade -- and selects the Green Home Builder of the Year awards. In Southwest Portland's Multnomah Village, Salinger and the Culis worked together to remodel a 1925 house that now meets the high sustainable standards imposed by Earth Advantage to earn Platinum status and also be certified Net Zero Ready. Before the property owner died of cancer in September, he wanted to leave his wife and three young children a nicer, healthier home in which to live. On his lot sat the old bungalow with a crumbling foundation. Water in the basement had seeped in from the abandoned septic system. The walls provided little protection against the cold. There were inch-wide gaps between some of the closed doors and their frames. Single-pane windows rattled and whistled with the wind. A peek upstairs revealed a shaky second floor remodel and permanent odor from a kerosene burner. "It was the home in the worst condition in the neighborhood," says Salinger. It didn't look as if any of it was worth saving. But the owner, who was running out of time, wanted Culi and Ioanide-Culi to design a durable, high performing remodel for the family he would leave behind. If the first floor joists and half of the second floor joists remained, the project would qualify as a remodel, which streamlines the city's inspection process. Salinger's company contributed by designing the basement, and wall and roof assemblies, as well as deconstructing then constructing a new two-story house. The building crew lifted the old bungalow, removed the original foundation, poured an expanded new foundation, then sat the house back down. Structural engineer Bruce Kenny of BKE Engineers called for new floor joists to be installed alongside the old ones to bring the floor framing up to current code. Usable parts of the aging house were repurposed. Bricks from the chimney are now part of the patio in the front of the house. All of the posts and beams in the basement were re-milled and reinstalled as exposed posts and beams in the first floor and above the stairway to support the roof . The worn oak floors were milled down and re- used in the second-floor sloped ceilings and as a decorative screen for the loft space . And all of the original fir studs and she ath ing boards were milled down and reinstalled as wood mosaic accent walls. Even the linear light fixtures were designed by Ray Culi using existing wood from both the flooring and framing. "Since the old wood beams from the basement were being re-expressed structurally in the remodel," says Culi, "we thought 'Why not express the natural wood elements in other non-structural ways as well?'" He says the owner supported the idea of reusing old beams wherever possible. "That's when we came up with the built-in 'big-block' bookshelves for the master bedroom and the wall-mounted 'beam of light' above the master bath vanities, where light illuminates from the top of what appears to be a solid wood beam," says Culi. Some studs were donated to Salvage Works, the architectural salvage store in North Portland, or sent to a wood waste management company to be made into mulch. Metal was recycled, too. In the end, plaster and other unsalvageable debris filled only one dumpster, says Salinger. Then the build began. Since air tightness is essential for an energy efficient building, materials were carefully chosen to create an unbroken, airtight barrier. A continuous thermal boundary and rainscreen separate and protect the house from outdoor elements. Natural insulation materials included cellulose, rockwool and rigid panels of Thermo Cork, which is made from bark left over from making wine corks. The bark is ground up, steam pressed, and the tannins and sap act as natural binders. The carbon negative product has no glues, and is soundproof and bug resistant, says Salinger. The airtight, triple-pane windows and doors from Zola European Windows seal and lock tight "like a submarine door," says Salinger. In most houses, air leaks in through the basement, walls or attic. Here, a balanced ventilation system with a dedicated intake and exhaust port allows air to circulate and remove carbon dioxide, condensation from showers, and cooking odors without allowing air to leak in or out. A Zehnder high-efficiency heat and energy recovery system also helps drive down energy usage and waste. The total heating demand for this remodeled house is 14,000 British thermal units, which makes it 10 times more efficient than many houses this age that need a 140,000 BTU or greater furnace, says Salinger. All the appliances are Energy Star, and the recirculating range hood and clothes dryer don't have vents that send exhaust outside. All of the light fixtures either use LED bulbs or were custom designed by Ray Culi using LED "tape," which use a fraction of the energy of even fluorescent bulbs. The house roof was designed to have a pitch, orientation and size to offset energy usage, and solar panels are ready to be installed on the garage roof. The standing seam metal roof can be used for safe rainwater collection without worrying about toxic substances that leach out of common asphalt roofing products, says Culi. Also outside, tight-knot, insect-resistant natural cedar lap was selected for the siding. Since there is no finish on the wood, it will eventually achieve a gray patina. "If you don't have to paint it, it is more cost effective, will still last a long time and there's no maintenance," says Salinger. "It's the most natural thing you can do and a very modern way to go." He pauses, reflects on the environmentally sensitive building practices of the 1970s and says, "We've actually come full circle." Although there have been advances in man-made materials, building science research has shown that wood, cellulose, cork and other natural materials are effective in high performance homes. "Mother Nature spent millions of years perfecting a tree and that's a reason trees last," he says, "and houses built with them last too." Colorful, natural interior design Helping to work with the family to make this eco-friendly house a home was Portland interior design consultant Kimberly Dahlen. The family's mix of vintage and new furniture reflects their Scandinavian heritage. Some of the new products came from Ikea, including the solid birch dining table and a sofa bed. The children still use their convertible Tripp Trapp solid beech wood high chairs, by Norwegian company Stokke, at the dining table and as desk seating. Wall colors and hard surface finishes were already in place when Dahlen was called in to suggest window shades and bench upholstery. "Upon meeting the owners and seeing the new house for the first time, it was obvious they liked lots of color in their soft furnishings," says Dahlen. Now, bands of chili pepper, mint, emerald and lavender are fluttering in window shades. A vibrant blue colored, cotton upholstery -- called Caribbean in Duralee Wovens' Montego Collection -- was chosen for the master bedroom bay window bench. More than color, however, the family wanted fabrics that were organic or natural fibers. Finding the best window treatments for the Zola tilt-and-turn windows and sliding doors was a challenge, says Dahlen. The tilting aspect of the windows makes it nearly impossible for a shade or curtain to be mounted above and closed in front of the window when it is tilted open. The sliding aspect of the doors means the shade has to fit completely flush so the leading door can slide by. Their solution: Slim, Norman Smart Fit window shades, available at Best Window Coverings in Portland, mount directly to the operable part of the window or door. Dahlen's interior design philosophy of make your house cozy, make it with natural materials and make it to last matches the goal of the entire project. --Janet Eastman jeastman@oregonian.com 503-799-8739 @janeteastman The group's anger was a slow burn. But after decades of being ignored by federal authorities, its members decided to take a very public stand against what they saw as an unjust land grab by the U.S. government. Without warning, they started an occupation of a sprawling national wildlife refuge. The year: 1979. The drama unfolding with armed occupiers holed up at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns is similar to a standoff that made national headlines 37 years ago in Harris Neck, Ga. But there are also stark differences, including the race of the Harris Neck occupiers - mostly displaced descendants of West African slaves -- and the tactics used by the FBI to quickly remove what the media casually called "squatters." Also, the 40 members of People Organized for Equal Rights who set up a camp on the patch of land south of Savannah on April 30, 1979, were unarmed. Instead of guns, the demonstrators, including prominent civil rights leaders, brought concrete blocks and bags of mortar to build new homes. Their protest was straightforward and, upon reflection, heartbreaking. Following the Civil War, a white plantation owner deeded the land on the Georgia coast to a former slave. In the decades that followed, the descendants of slaves moved to Harris Neck to build houses, factories and boats. They fished, hunted for oysters and grazed cattle. Harris Neck evolved into a thriving community. Its members were recognized as a culturally unique group of African Americans called Gullah. But in 1942, U.S. military officials gave Harris Neck residents just three weeks via eminent domain to leave their property so they could construct an airbase for training pilots and conducting anti-submarine flights. As the community's young men fought in Europe during World War II, the U.S. government, encouraged by white county commissioners, came to Harris Neck and gave residents a notice to move, according to historical research by Emory University. Federal authorities bulldozed or burned Harris Neck's houses, barns, businesses or crops. Black landowners received an average of $26.90 per acre, while the government paid whites $37.31. Government officials also left uninhabitable rural land around Harris Neck owned by some of the region's wealthiest whites untouched. Instead of giving the land back to the black landowners and their descendants after World War II, the government left it in the county's care and eventually converted it into the 2,762-acre Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge. In contrast to the Burns occupation, federal authorities secured a court order to remove the Harris Neck demonstrators a day after the 1979 camp-in began. However, four of the unarmed protestors -- Edgar Timmons, Jr., Hercules Anderson, Christopher McIntosh and the Rev. Ted Clark -- refused to leave. On May 2, 1979, U.S. deputy marshals "forcibly removed" the men, according to a story in The Oregonian. "Their bodies taut and motionless," the men were dragged out of their tent, handcuffed and hoisted into a waiting van. Supporters taunted the police, shouted insults. One woman screamed, "Slavery is over with!" At a Savannah news conference, Timmons protested: "You can't tell me that geese, wild birds, cows, lizards and snakes have priority over a taxpaying American citizen." A judge sentenced the four men to a month in jail for trespassing. In 1981, a fire destroyed county records with details on the original home sites. In the years since, the federal courts have rejected the group's claim of ownership. It ruled the land belongs to the U.S. government. After the deadly Ruby Ridge and Branch Davidian standoffs in the early 1990s, federal authorities have also changed the way they approach confrontations with anti-government protestors. (Interestingly, Oregon State Police ended a standoff with Posse Comitatus members who took over an Umatilla County potato-processing facility in 1976 and claimed rights to the land by simply cutting the power, phones and water -- and ordering pizza.) According to a 2010 New York Times story, former Harris Neck residents and the former landowners and their descendants are still fighting for what they see as their lost land. There's was also a Change.org petition that failed to generate enough online signatures to stay active. The Times story ended with an 80-year-old displaced Harris Neck resident rising to speak at a meeting of activists planning their next move: "We're going to move on, and we're going to come on in spite all," he said to amens and mm-hmms. "Won't that be a happy time, when we all get to heaven? I'm talking about Harris Neck, now." Update: There's a documentary about the Harris Neck community on YouTube. -- Joseph Rose 503-221-8029 jrose@oregonian.com @josephjrose Netflix-Watching-Tablet (AP File Photo) What's new for home viewing on video-on-demand and Netflix, Amazon Prime and other streaming services. Pay-Per-View/Video-On-Demand "The Martian" (PG-13), a smart, sturdy science fiction drama built on applied science and creative problem solving and starring Matt Damon as an astronaut left behind on a Mars mission, won two Golden Globes. Also available in 3D version on some systems, and on DVD and Blu-ray. Also new: the animated comedy "Hotel Transylvania 2" (PG) from Adam Sandler and friends, Woody Allen's "Irrational Man" (R) with Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone, and the horror sequel "Sinister 2" (R). Available same day as select theaters nationwide are the comedy "Moonwalkers" (R) with Ron Perlman and the satire "A Perfect Day" (R) with Benicio Del Toro and Tim Robbins. Amazon Prime "Goodnight Mommy" (R) creates an unnerving sense of anxiety as adolescent twin brothers suspect that their mother, wrapped in bandages from surgery, is an imposter. The psychological thriller is in German with English subtitles. In "Just Add Magic: Season 1" three teenage girls find out that grandma's cookbook is actually a collection of spells. Also newly arrived: the crime drama "Serpico (R, 1973) with Al Pacino, the conspiracy thriller "The Parallax View" (R, 1974) with Warren Beatty, and the R-rated comedies "National Lampoon's Animal House" (1978) and "This Is Spinal Tap" (1984). Netflix Suburbia meets the new sexual revolution in the comedy "The Overnight" (R, 2015) with Adam Scott and Taylor Schilling. From Norway comes the provocative and controversial TV thriller "Occupied" (2015), about a Russian invasion of Norway after it stops oil production. The teen drama "Degrassi: The Next Class: Season 1" revives the Canadian high school series for a new generation of kids and "Parks and Recreation: Season 7" brings the Amy Pohler sitcom to a satisfying finish. Hulu "Red Riding Trilogy" (2009) is a mesmerizing trio of British films (titled "1974," "1980," and "1983") that covers 10 years of crime and corruption in the North of England in the shadow of a serial killer. Not rated, for mature audiences. HBO Now Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron rock the desert wasteland in "Mad Max: Fury Road" (R) the smartest and most visceral action film of 2015. On Saturday, Jan. 16, "Sesame Street: Season 46" premieres on HBO. Showtime Anytime Now available: "Boyhood" (R), Richard Linklater's epic of growing up shot over the course of 12 years, and "The Imitation Game" with Benedict Cumberbatch as code-breaking genius Alan Turing (PG-13). Free Did you miss "Sherlock: The Abominable Bride"? You can stream it from the PBS website. New on disc "The Martian," "Irrational Man," "Hotel Transylvania 2," "Out 1," "Mr. Robot: Season One" Available at Redbox "Hotel Transylvania 2," "Irrational Man," "Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials," "Ted 2," "Fantastic Four" Sean Axmaker is a Seattle film critic and writer. His reviews of streaming movies and TV can be found at streamondemandathome.com. The Federal Government has designated Linn County a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, which means federal dollars and an additional law enforcement agent for the county. County law enforcement agencies applied in November. Linn County Sheriff Bruce Riley said the county had applied for the designation once before, back in the late 1990s, but was denied. Its nice to finally get the designation after all these years, he said. To qualify, Riley said the county had to show that the area is a significant center of illegal drug production, show that such activities have a harmful impact on the area, show that local agencies have committed resources to combat the problem, and show that a significant increase in federal resources is necessary to tackle the problem. In 2015, the Linn County Sheriff's Office executed 20 drug-related search warrants and seized $20,000 in cash. Deputies also confiscated two pounds of methamphetamine, 15 pounds of pre-legalized marijuana, and a little over half a pound of heroin. Sheriff's Detective Paul Timm said showing that the county is a hub for traffic from the I-5 corridor, as well as Highway 20 from the coast, was key to securing the designation. Now that its official, Linn County will be folded into the Oregon-Idaho HIDTA program and have access to a portion of a $3.42 million grant allocated to cover 13 counties in Oregon and Idaho, as well as the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in Oregon. Program Executive Director Chris Gibson said the grant money is low, compared to other HIDTA regions, but the addition of Linn County will bring more funding to future grant awards. To get the funding, county officials will first need to identify plans and programs to combat drug trafficking, and then submit a budget. Additionally, the county will have a Federal law enforcement agent designated to work with agencies here. This is because the designation identifies the county as one that affects criminal activity across state lines, given the inclusion of the I-5 corridor as a factor. Linn County joins both Marion and Lane counties as an HIDTA county, which Riley says only makes sense. Just because you cross into Linn County doesnt mean the problem goes away, he said. The HIDTA designation is not permanent, said Gibson, meaning the country could become so well cleaned up that it no longer qualifies for the funding. We do an annual threat assessment to determine whether the threat still exists, he said. Peaks Housing homeless vets: The sheer complexity of issues involved in addressing homelessness can be paralyzing for policymakers. Which is why it's especially important to celebrate the wins, like the announcement this week that the "A Home for Everyone" coalition surpassed its goal of finding permanent housing for homeless veterans in 2015, as The Oregonian/OregonLive's Brad Schmidt reported. Thanks to the collaboration of Multnomah County, the cities of Portland and Gresham, housing nonprofits and several others, the coalition was able to tap federal dollars and work with private landlords to find permanent housing for 695 veterans. Elected officials, including Mayor Charlie Hales, Commissioner Dan Saltzman and Multnomah County Chairwoman Deborah Kafoury personally spoke with landlords to help find available units. It will remain an ongoing challenge, of course. Not only are there more veterans to be housed, but those who have housing may need assistance -- financial, health or otherwise -- in keeping it. And veterans are only one sliver of the population that needs housing or is in risk of losing it. Still, the success so far shows how public and private partners can effectively confront a problem when they leverage data, resources and expertise in a strategic fashion. It's a good model to keep in mind. Snow day makeups: The winter break lasted a little too long for many Portland area families, after weather - or the threat of weather - closed schools for two days. But to its credit, the Portland School Board on Tuesday authorized extending the school year by two days to make up for the loss of class time. June 9 will now be the last day of school. The quick action - as opposed to waiting until later in the year as the board has done in the past - gives greater consideration to families' vacation and child-care planning. Valley Dallas Heard's intrusion: A comparatively inexperienced member of the Oregon Legislature, Rep. Dallas Heard, could be given a pass for overstepping his bounds, learning the ropes. But the Roseburg businessman and farmer ignored the counsel of colleagues and law enforcement to lead his own delegation to Harney County and take a meeting with the armed occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. This is not why the Republican was elected to public office. Heard had no business in such dangerous meddling - and even less for bringing his rogue party along. But he would later reveal his near-delusional sense of standing in the standoff by telling Luke Hammill of The Oregonian/OregonLive: "I was concerned that some of my constituents might have been mixed up in this. A good shepherd's job is to take care of all his flock." It's a wonder the entire Legislature didn't show up.... The only good shepherd in the occupation saga so far has been Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward, who made a tempered peace offering to Ammon Bundy in person but was shunned. Heard's intrusion helped no one, not even the occupiers who suffer Bundy's delusion that federally owned lands should be transferred to Harney County ranchers. If Heard had really wanted to help, he'd have done what so many concerned Oregonians were doing all along: Quietly wishing the best for stressed out Harney County folks and law enforcement officials working around the clock to find the path to a bloodshed-free resolution. By The Washington Post editorial board As President Obama reminded the nation during his State of the Union speech Tuesday, congressional approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) looms as a major piece of unfinished business for his final year in office. The 12-nation trade agreement would knit the United States and 11 Pacific Rim nations more closely together in a rule-based economic zone, with likely benefits for all. Yet presidential candidates across the ideological spectrum have distanced themselves from the pact, including Democrat Hillary Clinton, who helped promote it when she was Obama's secretary of state. And that's to say nothing of those who are crudely trashing the TPP, such as Donald Trump. The upshot is that a pro-TPP member of the Senate Republican leadership, John Thune (South Dakota), called the deal's chances of passage this year "less than 50-50" after Obama's speech. (When Obama touted the pact briefly in his address, most of the applause seemed to come from his own Cabinet members.) Congress and the candidates need to see the latest nonpartisan assessment of the pact's effects, which has been issued by the World Bank. Like many previous analyses, it's fundamentally positive. In a world desperate for new sources of economic growth, the World Bank finds that the TPP would help by stimulating global trade, which had been increasing rapidly until the Great Recession but has been growing less rapidly since then. By 2030, the World Bank calculates, the economic output of TPP member nations could be 1.1 percent larger than without the TPP. The biggest winner would be Vietnam, which would add 10 percentage points to its gross domestic product, along with a 14 percent increment to the unskilled worker's average wage. In other words, it would lift hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, out of poverty. Meanwhile, the TPP would add 0.6 percent to the size of the U.S. economy, not because the deal is somehow tilted to Vietnam but because the U.S. economy is already huge and open to trade, unlike Vietnam's. Indeed, the TPP would increase U.S. unskilled wages by 0.4 percent, according to the World Bank, contrary to much fear-mongering about the impact of free trade on low-skilled, low-wage workers. Skilled workers' wages would also benefit, to the tune of 0.6 percent. To be sure, these projected economic gains for the United States are incremental, not transformational. They do not support some of the political hype the White House has emitted in favor of the agreement. But what they really don't support is the even more hyperbolic disaster scenarios being peddled by TPP opponents. Instead, the World Bank's deliberate analysis reveals that the TPP is likely to be just what its most sober advocates have always maintained: a modest but measurable net plus for U.S. workers and businesses, with the additional benefit of strengthening the U.S. geopolitical position in Asia, whose strategic importance was just underscored by North Korea's provocative nuclear testing. Campaign-season demagoguery notwithstanding, Congress should take its earliest opportunity this year to move the legislation toward final passage. (c) 2016, The Washington Post BURNS -- As the armed occupation of a Harney County wildlife refuge drags into its 13th day, protesters are sending mixed signals about their plans. On one hand, Ammon Bundy and his followers who have taken over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge planned to announce their exit strategy to the community Friday. But they've also contacted nearby sheriffs and other officials looking for support. They've accumulated a large stash of food and supplies after making pleas to supporters online. And at a daily press briefing Thursday, Bundy held forth on the subject of patience, saying he believed the continued presence of the occupiers was giving the county residents courage and hope. "This hope is building and it's a slow process," Bundy said. "We know it has to happen now. We know this is the place, Harney County, and that these are the people." He didn't offer an update on his plans, nor on the the planned meeting where he previously said he would announce plans to leave. Bundy and his affiliates are still seeking a place to hold the meeting after the county government said it couldn't be held at the county fairgrounds. Protesters have indicated they would decamp if county residents wanted them to leave. At past community meetings, many people have been vocal in asking Bundy and the others to go home. Earlier in the week, three members of Bundy's group met with Grant County Sheriff Glenn Palmer. They asked him to come to the refuge and "take a stand," Palmer told the Blue Mountain Eagle. He declined, saying he wouldn't without Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward's permission. Ward told Palmer that he was welcome only if he would "shame and humiliate them into giving up," Palmer told the newspaper. Palmer, calling the occupiers "patriots," said he wasn't willing to do that and decided not to come. Palmer declined comment to The Oregonian/OregonLive. Bundy said he didn't personally meet with Palmer, but that the two have been "in communication." "We're reaching out to these sheriffs, and to be frank, most of them have reached out to us," Bundy said. Palmer has been a critic of perceived federal overreach, railing against gun-control measures in a letter to Vice President Joe Biden and publicly speaking about agencies he believes are imposing rules and regulations without constitutional authority. Soon after learning of the Palmer meeting, Harney County commissioner Steven Grasty arranged a conference call with officials from other counties about being ready for a takeover similar to the one at the Malheur refuge. "I'm thinking 'Wow, what if this grows? Should other counties know what our experience here is?'" Grasty said. In the brief call Wednesday, Grasty asked hypothetical questions such as how the counties would provide for public safety if dozens of militia arrived at their courthouses. Susan Roberts, a Wallowa County commissioner who was on the call, said she's taking steps to prevent an armed occupation like the one in Harney County. Though she doesn't believe an imminent threat exists, Roberts said she wants to educate her community about avenues in place to express grievances about federal land policies. "I'm not saying that we don't agree with this group," Roberts said. "But the means of going about fostering an answer to this is different." Meanwhile, the occupiers at the refuge said they're preparing to bring charges through an extra-legal court system against county and other government officials. The process could end in an attempt to arrest those officials. A self-appointed judge, Bruce Doucette, arrived at the compound to oversee the proceedings along with a "citizens' grand jury" convened by the group. Bundy has distributed a laundry list of charges he said could apply, excerpted from the federal criminal and penal code. "There will be a trial with the redress of grievance. Whatever happens, it's up to the people here in this county," said Michael Emry, an occupier who said he was speaking for Doucette. "You have to have enforcement in a court of law, and that's what this is about." Bundy has said he is occupying the refuge to protest the prosecutions of Dwight Hammond Jr. and Steven Hammond, local ranchers sentenced to prison for burning federal land. In addition to demanding the Hammonds' release, Bundy has demanded that the federal government hand over control of the wildlife refuge to local control. The protesters also have seized upon an account of FBI agents scouting the Oregon National Guard armory in Burns as a means to bolster their beefs with federal authorities. A retired Burns fire chief, Chris Briels, said he confronted two men near the armory because he thought they were from the refuge occupation. When the men refused to identify themselves, Briels called the 911 dispatch center, where he told reporters an operator identified them as undercover FBI agents. The protesters and their supporters said Briels' story is evidence that federal agents are posing as occupiers to sow discord in the community. But in his remarks to reporters this week, Briels never said the men claimed to be protesters. Representatives of the law enforcement response to the refuge takeover declined to comment. Briels is a member of the Harney County Committee of Safety, a group of local residents formed at a community meeting organized by protesters in the week before they started the Jan. 2 occupation. The occupation continues to affect Burns in big and small ways. Three top administrators at Harney County School District 3 announced their resignations this week. All are leaving after the end of the school year. They felt the need to explain that their decisions weren't tied to the refuge takeover, but for personal reasons. -- Elliot Njus and Fedor Zarkhin enjus@oregonian.com 503-294-5034 @enjus 503-294-7674 @ A meeting where armed protesters occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge planned to announce their exit strategy has been called off for want of a venue. "Our county judge has blocked our path," said Travis Williams, a Drewsey rancher on the Harney County Committee of Safety. "We're working on that right now. We will be having one soon, but we do not know when or where." The meeting was planned Friday night at the Harney County fairgrounds, but officials denied their request to use the spot. Steven Grasty, judge of the Harney County Court, which functions as the county commission, said earlier this week that county won't let any group affiliated with the occupiers use its property. Occupation leader Ammon Bundy had been expected discuss his plans to eventually leave town at the session. Members of the safety committee said the county has no right to deny use of the building because its leaders disagree with the group. They're considering legal action, saying the denial infringes on their rights under the First Amendment. A statement published on the committee's website states that it could file an action against Harney County for those violations. The statement goes on to say that the county can't block use of public facilities "as long as we follow the normal process." A First Amendment expert said the government has to meet a high standard to prevent a group from using public facilities. "Government certainly can't exclude the group simply because it disagrees with their beliefs," said Gene Policinski, chief operating officer of the Newseum Institute in Washington, D.C., and senior vice president of the First Amendment Center. "They may be permitted to exclude the group if there's a threat of imminent danger of lawlessness." The fact that Bundy and the other protesters are illegally occupying federal property would likely bolster to the county government's argument, he said. Grasty issued a statement Friday saying Bundy didn't follow the proper procedure to use the fairgrounds,. He also noted that the county "has publicly stated it would not allow the facility to be used by those who are committing criminal activities." The First Amendment doesn't guarantee access to a place simply because it's owned by a goverment, Grasty said. "Given the recent activities at the Malheur refuge by the Bundys and the armed presence throughout the community by various groups, it is Harney County's intent to provide the delicate balance in recognizing the public's free speech be protected while at the same time protecting the public and the public facilities," Grasty said. Meanwhile, occupiers at the refuge said they were hopeful a meeting could be arranged for Monday evening. Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, an Arizona rancher who is participating in the occupation, told reporters Friday that Bundy is preparing a PowerPoint presentation. The safety committee, formed shortly before Bundy and his followers started their occupation at the refuge, drafted a letter to Bundy asking him to leave, but thanking him for bringing attention to the fight for local control of federal lands in the county. Though community members have resoundingly signaled at earlier public meetings that they're ready for the occupiers to leave, the protesters have announced no firm plans. The cancellation of the Friday night meeting prolongs the uncertainty surrounding the future of the occupation, which will soon enter its third week. At the refuge, the occupiers continue to settle in. They have busied themselves in recent days by clearing a short road for cars near a building they're using as a kitchen, pantry and bunkhouse. Members of the group briefly left the occupied refuge headquarters on Friday to remove devices they said were government-installed surveillance cameras from power poles. Also Friday, one group drove government-owned vehicles to the Burns Safeway. One man was arrested outside the store, the first arrest since the occupation began, and the two vehicles impounded. The protesters have repeatedly demanded that Dwight Hammond Jr. and his son, Steven Hammond - local ranchers who were sentenced twice for arson for burning federal land - be freed. They also have demanded that the federal government hand over the wildlife refuge land to local ranchers and loggers. -- Elliot Njus and Fedor Zarkhin enjus@oregonian.com 503-294-5034 @enjus 503-294-7674 @ As we enter Day 14 of the standoff at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, here are the latest developments: * A community meeting with Ammon Bundy scheduled for Friday evening, where armed protesters occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge planned to announce their exit strategy, has been called off for want of a venue. County commissioner Steven Grasty said Wednesday that the county won't let any group affiliated with the occupiers use its property. * As the armed occupation of a Harney County wildlife refuge drags into its 13th day, protesters are sending mixed signals about their plans. On one hand, Ammon Bundy and his followers who have taken over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge planned to announce their exit strategy to the community Friday. But they've also contacted nearby sheriffs and other officials looking for support. They've accumulated a large stash of food and supplies after making pleas to supporters online. * For 13 days, nature lovers across Oregon - and the country - have stewed as they watched armed squatters stroll the lands and historic buildings where they've worked, hiked and tracked sandhill cranes along the Pacific flyway. They've heard Ammon Bundy demand that the refuge's 187,000 acres be turned over to ranchers, loggers and miners as the rightful owners. But their patience grew thin this week as they saw the occupiers use government-owned pliers to snip a barbed-wire fence protecting grass and wetlands that have been dedicated for more than a century to birds and other wildlife. * Harney County's yearslong economic decline helps explain the bitterness that fuels sympathy with the militants at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, if not their tactics. Desert ranching is one of few industries an environment as harsh as Harney County's has been able to sustain, and many residents say federal overreach threatens the future of this fragile bright spot. * Watch Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio call on the Justice Department to take action against the "illegal occupation" of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. * Harney County has told an Ammon Bundy-affiliated group of locals that it can't hold a planned community meeting at the county-owned fairgrounds. The location for the meeting has become a wedge between the Harney County Committee of Safety and the county government, once loosely allied in their desire for Bundy to leave town. The self-appointed committee planned to host Bundy and Montana militia leader Ryan Payne on Friday to outline the militants' exit plan. They've said the 7 p.m. meeting will go on, with or without a meeting space furnished by the county or another community group. * What's unfolding in Harney County isn't Oregon's first go-round with camouflaged, heavily armed militants challenging the federal government. Another event just nine months ago drew far less attention. But those who watched it closely say it emboldened and further galvanized the militant movement a year after the 2014 Cliven Bundy ranch standoff in Nevada. Follow The Oregonian/OregonLive team from the scene today on Twitter: Les Zaitz @LesZaitz Thomas Boyd @thomasboyd Fedor Zarkhin @FedorZarkhin Elliot Njus @enjus Hashtag: #OregonStandoff UPDATE: Protester ordered not to occupy federal property as condition of his release from federal charges now pending in Medford. BURNS - Oregon State Police on Friday arrested one of the protesters occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge after he drove into town, accusing him of having a stolen vehicle. The man was identified as Kenneth Medenbach, 62, of Crescent. He was arrested on suspicion of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, a class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison. He was to be booked into the Deschutes County Jail in Bend with bail set at $10,000, officials said. According to federal court records, Medenbach is currently facing federal charges in Medford and was released from custody in November. A condition of his release was that he would not "occupy" any federal land. He was accused of illegally camping on federal property. He is the first person arrested in connection with the armed occupation of the wildlife refuge, taken over two weeks ago. He was arrested in the Safeway parking lot in one vehicle bearing federal government license plates. A second federal vehicle was parked next to him, but the man police suspect of driving that into town already had gone into the grocery before police arrived. Both vehicles -- a pickup and a passenger van, bore door signs reading "Harney County Resource Center." That's the new name occupiers have given to the bird sanctuary they occupy, which is about 30 miles southeast of Burns. "The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is grateful for the quick actions from law enforcement," said Megan Nagel, spokeswoman for the agency, which manages the refuge. "We will continue to work with law enforcement to recover vehicles bought and paid for by the American people to care for their national wildlife refuge." In 1995, Medenbach was convicted on federal charges for illegally camping on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington state. He was ordered held in custody because of evidence that Medenbach poses a risk to the safety of other persons or the community because [he] acknowledges intimidation practices, references 'Ruby Ridge' and 'Waco, Texas,' and clearly would not follow conditions of release restraining his presence at the scene of the alleged unlawful activity," according to a federal appellate court ruling upholding his conviction. The appellate ruling said there was "evidence that Medenbach had attempted to protect his forest campsite with fifty to a hundred pounds of the explosive ammonium sulfate, a pellet gun, and what appeared to be a hand grenade with trip wires. The government also proffered evidence that Medenbach had warned Forest Service officers of potential armed resistance to the federal government's continued control of the forest lands in question." Mendenbach earlier attempted to squat on federal land in southern Oregon. During those court hearings, he claimed the U.S. Constitution gave the federal government authority to own property only for military installations and post offices, The Oregonian's archives show. U.S. District Court Judge Michael Hogan handled some of the proceedings. Hogan was the judge who in 2012 decided that Harney County ranchers Dwight Hammond Jr. and his son Steven should serve lighter sentences than required by law for setting fire to public lands. Medenbach also has a long history of convictions on charges related to driving documentation and providing false information to law enforcement. His most recent arrest comes amid growing public clamor for action to end the occupation. Law enforcement officials have been taking a low-key approach so far. The FBI is handling the investigation of the occupation, but its presence in Burns is muted. Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward has repeatedly urged the protesters to go home, even offering to give them arrest-free passage out of the county. But at a community meeting earlier this week, he warned the militants that "there is an hourglass and it's running." Whether Friday's arrest signals a change in tactics by police isn't certain. No one from the refuge encampment appeared to show up at the scene of the arrest, though word of it spread through the compound and some of the occupiers hopped in cars to head toward town when they heard. A tow company hauled away the van from the store parking lot as a state trooper drove away the pickup. -- Les Zaitz We asked members of Oregon Birders Online, a listserv operated by the American Birding Association, to share their stories of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. We asked them to describe how the refuge, operated by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, has changed their lives and why it is important to them that it remain a public property. Other conservationists, environmental groups and sporting clubs have begun to voice their concern about the continued occupation of the refuge and its historic buildings. A few have planned protests across the state on Tuesday. Here's what they had to say (comments were edited for clarity and length.) Share your own thoughts in the comments below. "The refuge is a spectacular jewel that has been and should continue to be preserved. It makes me very sad, sick and disgusted to imagine any destruction to the Headquarters or surrounding area that may be carried out by these lawless thugs... I believe that if public lands were turned over to private individuals as demanded by these deranged occupying militiamen, ecosystems could be severely degraded if not completely destroyed. Private ownership would eliminate the necessary grazing, mining, logging (in forests like in the Malheur National Forest to the North of Burns) and water use regulations in place that help keep our public lands what they are- Natural Lands left (somewhat) unmolested by human exploitation for the Benefit of Wildlife." -- John Sullivan of Springfield, OR "I love that the land is protected so the birds have someplace to rest safely on their long migrations of sometimes thousands and thousands of miles. A place to mate and raise their young. I love that Malheur is open to any person who wants to come and gently live on the land, for a few hours or days, sharing the soul-nurturing beauty of creation -- the expanses of sacred land, unfenced." "My heart grieves at the thought of armed men occupying the Headquarters. I worry that by climbing into the tower they have disturbed the owl's nests there. I am deeply saddened that I, and all other people, are banished from this once open and free public land. I worry that the men with guns who took over the buildings might damage the museum. The museum that never charges admission. The free museum with its lovingly created collections and exhibits to teach people about the flocks of geese flying that stirs our souls, the Western Grebes with their brilliant red eyes, the giant sandhill cranes who need natural land and clean water in which to live and raise their young, the burrowing owl who needs undisturbed land in which to make their delicate underground homes." -- Lynette Yetter "These people are bullies, plain and simple. They are holding us hostage to steal our lunch money for themselves, leaving us starving for the few remaining wild places where nature and wildlife are left, at least to some degree, to themselves." -- Cathy Nowak of Union, Oregon "I can say without reservations that Malheur NWR changed my life the first time I visited 8 years ago. I have been back nearly every year since, sometimes twice in a year. The Northern Great Basin deepened my love of nature and inspired in me a complete fascination with birds. I have returned many times to the region as a teaching assistant, and have witnessed teenagers experience the same awakening to the incredible, bottomless depth of beauty in the natural world. The thought that I might not be able to return again this spring or that the HQ (itself a very, very small part of what makes the region so special) might be damaged or soiled by armed conflict fills me with sadness and anger. The individuals who are making their ill-informed and illegal "stand" for their equally ill-informed and dangerous beliefs represent the worst heritage of western settlement in the U.S. They are takers, treating the world like a grubstake and completely ignorant of what the public in public lands actually means. The way I see it, they are despoilers, their belief in complete human dominion of the earth and it's resources is a far greater crime than the admittedly ineffectual management of public lands by the feds." -- Zack Schlanger of Portland "Neighboring ranchers are not shut out of the refuge. They are allowed grazing rights and haying opportunities, regulated and controlled by the refuge management in a way that enhances the land for wildlife, which is the mission of the refuge. The refuge is a good neighbor. It brings in many visitors to the town of Burns, visitors who contribute to the local economy. I respect and trust the stewardship of this land as practiced by trained professionals. I do not believe that armed citizens with no training or familiarity with this refuge can manage it better than the government employees. When they say "we the people" want to claim the land back from the government, I say "we the people" elected our government and hired these capable people to manage this land. I trust them more than the armed militia. The militia's use of force is not the way we govern ourselves under our constitution. We bring change through the democratic process, not at the point of a gun." -- Paul T. Sullivan of McMinnville, Oregon "Malheur NWR is the main destination for most birders who visit Harney County. If the refuge isn't freely accessible, most birders will take their binoculars and dollars to some other county, or just stay home. We're already in the registration period for the John Scharff Harney County Migratory Bird Festival and the associated art show, which are scheduled for April 7-10 this year. This draws birders from all around the country, and even other countries. In-state and out-of-state birders who were thinking about attending will no doubt wait to see how this situation unfolds, or make plans to go somewhere else. If the occupation drags on into spring and the confrontation escalates, the direct economic impacts could be even bigger. There are also likely to be other impacts, the longer this drags on. In other words, these gun-toting clowns could do some long-term damage to the local economy, in a county that's already hurting for jobs." -- Joel Geier of Corvallis, Oregon "I strongly object to these militants obstructing the public from use of the land. We treat these public spaces with respect and appreciate the federal employees and volunteers there for attempting to protect our wildlife. That is the point of establishing a refuge--that it protect the species that live or visit there. It is a monumental task but one that is done well, from what I have seen, including blocking access to sensitive areas during breeding seasons when human presence may impair nesting of certain species. I am afraid that this Bundy gang, armed as they are and trying to start a battle, will not care for any of the facilities or the animals there. I understand that ignoring them while monitoring them, may be the best way not to let the crazies inflame the situation, but I am angered and sickened that they are on that precious land at all." -- Carol Bishop "On my first visit, I spent hours watching burrowing owls choosing a place to live. On another, I encountered wild horses and covey of Quail with 16 baby chicks. In my last visit in late Fall, a short eared owl gave me a fly by [repeated] The volunteers who work at the headquarters are friendly, funny, dedicated folks who work tirelessly to make it a wondrous place for all users. The Headquarters itself is an oasis for all sorts of birds with water habitat as well as trees for Great Horned Owl to nest in. I find that I am angry at outsiders who take advantage of the situation. I believe that the Hammond sentence is wrong but these nuts aren't there for anyone but their own selfish vision of a free country." -- Kay Bridenbaugh We just wish to speak up here for wildlife. People have no idea what all lives at this refuge! It is a huge part of what's at stake. By the way, the Great Horned Owls are going to be looking for their nesting site at the lookout tower very soon! What do you suppose will happen when they find it occupied? Can you imagine what would happen if an owl flies into that tower window in the middle of a night and finds a dozing armed sniper inside? Have you ever been taloned by a Great Horned Owl? I have. Not a pleasant experience. I doubt an owl would attack unless it was defending its young or its partner. But I wonder if it might trigger an alarmed reaction throughout the compound? Yikes! Well, enough of this silliness. -- Terry & Kay Steele -- Laura Gunderson lgunderson@oregonian.com @lgunderson; 503-221-8378 After fuming about the ongoing occupation at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge for days, three men took a trip to the reserve. They spoke briefly with the protesters and checked up on the bird sanctuary they love. Planned rallies What : Several groups have come together to hold rallies against the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge When : Noon on Tuesday, Jan. 19 Where: Portland/Holliday Park near Lloyd Center 911 NE 11th Ave, Portland Bend/Riverfront Plaza downtown 875 NW Brooks St. Eugene Old Federal Building 211 E. 7th Ave, Eugene on these rallies and others in Corvallis and Hood River, which remain in the planning stage. As they drove along the long road out, they noticed a refuge sign covered by an occupiers' gray tarp. One of the men - all members of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers' Oregon and Washington chapters -- filmed as another hopped the fence and ripped off the covering. "It occurred to us that it would be a great protest against the occupation," said Ed Putnam of Bend who watched from the car. The video - taken last weekend -- has gotten 3,900 views so far. For 13 days, nature lovers across Oregon - and the country - have stewed as they watched armed squatters stroll the lands and historic buildings where they've worked, hiked and tracked sandhill cranes along the Pacific flyway. They've heard Ammon Bundy demand that the refuge's 187,000 acres be turned over to ranchers, loggers and miners as the rightful owners. But their patience grew thin this week as they saw the occupiers use government-owned pliers to snip a barbed-wire fence protecting grass and wetlands that have been dedicated for more than a century to birds and other wildlife. The move was intended to let cattle on the grasses, yet naturalists point out that some local ranchers already have access - and the rancher whose land abuts the cut fence has said he didn't want it cut down either. While most refuge supporters stop short of calling on law enforcement to act, they join Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward, the Burns Paiute Tribe and a chorus of community members who want the occupiers to get out. Several other state and national environmental nonprofits and sporting clubs, which represent anglers and hunters who use public lands, also are chiming in by posting videos, creating online petitions and organizing protests critical of the occupation next week in Portland, Eugene and Bend. They had muted their immediate outrage because the FBI and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which runs the refuge, cautioned about provoking tensions at the occupied compound. "But that's gone on long enough," said Tim Blount, executive director of the Friends of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge nonprofit. "I feel offended, violated and that my rights have been pushed back in a corner because it didn't matter to these people." Whether Bundy and the protesters remain, the Malheur nonprofit leaders and the Harney County Chamber of Commerce plan to move ahead with the annual Migratory Bird Festival, a popular Burns-based celebration in April featuring events at the refuge. They've also begun collecting ideas for a re-dedication ceremony, they say, for when the occupiers leave the refuge. In each of the last two years, about 25,000 people have visited the refuge for a range of activities, including hunting and fishing. A Fish & Wildlife report estimates that tourists to the area spend about $15 million annually in Harney County. "It has been very frustrating to watch all this unfold," said Gary Ivey, chairman of the refuge Friends group. "This is the people's land. The idea that these 'ranchers, loggers and miners' have a God-given, constitutional right to the people's lands is ridiculous," he said. "There's no right for economic use, it's a privilege." Ivey and other local birders cite specific concerns. They worry about the owl's nest in the fire lookout, which rifle-carrying occupiers have been using as a watchtower. They fear a lengthy occupation will delay work to prepare the refuge's water system for the spring thaw. Putnam of the Backcountry Hunters & Anglers said he's also concerned about the people involved. He said the occupation is dividing the community and could harm relationships that hunters, lawmakers, federal agencies and ranchers have worked for years to forge. Some refuge supporters have taken their questions directly to the occupiers, posting on the Facebook pages where occupiers tend to communicate with each other. Kim Jones of Hailey, Idaho, questioned Brandon Curtiss, the president of the III% of Idaho group that visited the refuge last week. "What gives these people more right to the land than a teacher, who wants to take his/her students to the refuge to learn about the birds and wildlife in an effort to educate and preserve for future generations?" she wrote on Curtiss' Facebook page on Wednesday. "Further, what gives these people, who aren't even from the area, the right to use equipment they don't own to remove fences they neither built nor own?" Friends of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge has gained about 400 new members to its original circle of about 150 since Bundy and about 20 other protesters took over the refuge on Jan. 2 after a rally to support the imprisoned local ranchers Dwight Hammond Jr., and his son, Steven Hammond. New members and other donors have given about $10,000 to the group since the takeover began, Ivey said. While the Friends would typically spend that money on projects, Ivey said, some of it now might have to go to fix things that they suspect occupiers have broken. And while the Friends are careful about criticizing the law enforcement response, some are pushing the FBI and other agencies to act. An online petition created on a White House Web page raises the point that continuing to allow the occupation could lead to similar actions in the future. Why we love the refuge of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and how the public park has shaped their lives. "Law enforcement inaction up to this point is an egregious violation of public safety and emboldens their erroneous assertions that the US Government has no Constitutional Authority," states the petition, launched by "E.K. of Jonesboro, Arizona" on Jan. 9. "Please end the siege of the refuge and arraign Ammon Bundy as soon as possible." The petition needed at least 150 signatures to become a document people can find in online searches. So far, 5,321 people have signed. The stated goal is to hit 100,000 signatures by Feb. 8. Chris Gardner, a Friends board member, visited the refuge last weekend to witness the takeover for himself. He said he was met by two polite, yet armed men who stopped to question him and then invited him in. Gardner said it was scary and that he declined, having heard rumors that occupiers might want to take a hostage to use in exchange for the imprisoned local ranchers. He would like the occupation to end, but he said he agrees with federal authorities' cautious response. Even scarier than the armed men in the refuge, he and others said, is the potential for violence and bloodshed in a place that brings them such peace. "It's a little like a child being kidnapped - that refuge is like a child to a lot of us," Gardner said. "You want the child back, but don't want the child hurt. We want a peaceful resolution that doesn't further spoil the refuge. "We just want our child back in our arms." -- Laura Gunderson lgunderson@oregonian.com @lgunderson; 503-221-8378 SEATTLE -- Pageant officials say Miss Washington USA, Stormy Keffeler, has resigned her title in the wake of controversy surrounding an undisclosed DUI conviction. Maureen Francisco, co-executive producer of Northwest Productions and Miss Washington USA, confirmed Keffeler's resignation Thursday. Keffeler was crowned in October. The Seattle Times reports police stopped Keffeler in April 2015 for driving on flat tires. Court documents show her blood alcohol level was above the legal limit for driving. She pleaded guilty to a DUI charge in September and served two days in jail. Francisco urged people not to judge Keffeler, calling it a very unfortunate incident and saying "we all do stupid things." KING 5, a Seattle television station, also reported Thursday that Keffeler was present when police responded to an altercation at a Seattle apartment in December. Colorado Rapids midfielder Marco Pappa, formerly of the Seattle Sounders, was suffering from a stab wound when police arrived, the report said. First runner-up Kelsey Schmidt will assume the title of Miss Washington USA and will represent the state at the USA event this year. -- The Associated Press Jamie Goldberg of The Oregonian/OregonLive staff contributed to this report SWEET HOME The Sweet Home School Board heard an update on its superintendent search Monday, and moved forward on a proposal to allow staff members to be vendors on limited occasions. Superintendent Keith Winslow was tapped in December 2014 to temporarily fill the seat when the former superintendent, Don Schrader, resigned. Winslow said the search committee is going over applications from 18 candidates, including one from within the district and nine from within the state. The other eight are from across the nation, including candidates from California, Arizona, Washington, Missouri and Rhode Island. The salary range has been set at $115,000 to $118,000. Winslow said the committee will recommend four to six candidates for the first round of interviews, which are to take place Feb. 2-4. The new person is to be offered a contract by March 14. In other business Monday, the board had a first reading on a policy to allow staff members to serve as vendors with the district, if certain circumstances are met. Winslow said the issue arose because one of the district's maintenance employees owns a backhoe and a scissor lift. Those are costly items for the district to rent, especially if crews have to leave town to get them elsewhere. However, the district has been wary of the conflict of interest potential if it simply rented the vehicles from its own employee even though he'd likely be the person running the machine anyway. Winslow said he spoke with the Oregon School Boards Association, which said such transactions can take place if they're done with transparency and include other bids. The idea is to use local machines only for small projects that have short time windows to be completed, Winslow said. The school board will be notified each time and and the maintenance employee will not be a part of any of the decisions as to when a rental is called for. A second reading is expected next month on the language added to district policies to make the change possible. NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. -- With two weeks to go until Iowans head to the polls in the first vote of the 2016 primary season, Republican front-runner Donald Trump ramped up his attacks against rival Ted Cruz on Friday, while Jeb Bush scored a key endorsement for his White House bid. South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham announced he was backing Jeb Bush for the Republican presidential nomination, praising the former Florida governor's approach to national security. "I have concluded without any hesitation, any doubt, that Jeb Bush is worthy to be commander-in-chief on day one," Graham said Friday at a joint press conference with Bush. As South Carolina's senior senator, Graham has been a coveted endorsement for some candidates running for the Republican nomination because he holds clout among establishment Republicans in South Carolina, one of the critical early voting primary states. Bush was initially considered a serious contender for the Republican nomination for president, but his campaign eventually lagged behind candidates like Trump and Cruz, who have each positioned themselves as anti-establishment alternatives. Graham noted that Bush was the lone candidate in Thursday's debate to explicitly reject Trump's continued call to indefinitely ban non-citizen Muslims from entering the United States. "The thing I admire most about Jeb is that he has stayed true to who he is, that he hasn't tried to get ahead in a contested primary by embracing demagoguery," Graham said. Meanwhile, Trump went on the offensive Friday, calling Cruz "strident" and labeling his remarks about "New York values" in the GOP debate "disgraceful." Appearing in an extended interview on MSNBC's Morning Joe from Des Moines, Iowa, Trump said Cruz "hurt himself" in Thursday's debate with his sweeping remarks about the political ideologies of New Yorkers. Cruz said in the debate: "everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro- gay-marriage, focus around money and the media." His comments evoked a provocative, front-page response from the New York Daily News Friday telling Cruz to "go back to Canada," a reference to the senator's Canadian birth which Trump has raised as a potential barrier to his rival's right to run for president. At the debate, Trump countered with an emotional recounting of his hometown's response to the Sept. 11 attacks. "When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York," he said. "That was a very insulting statement that Ted made." Asked by MSNBC Friday about the exchange with Cruz, Trump said: "Y'know, he's a good debater, but he's very strident, and a lot of people are not going to like that." Protesters briefly interrupted Trump's appearance on the MSNBC show, which broadcasted live from Iowa, chanting, "Donald Trump. Stop the Hate!" More than two hours of prime-time argument Thursday presented voters with a sharp contrast to the optimistic vision of America that President Barack Obama painted in his State of the Union address earlier this week. The debate was one of two final opportunities for the candidates to lay out their visions for the country ahead of the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses. In Iowa, where polls indicate a narrowing race between Trump and Cruz, Trump released his second television ad on Friday, which marks a significant departure from the first one he released earlier this year. While that ad painted an alarming picture of a country under attack by jihadists and immigrants entering the country illegally, the new ad is much more traditional, featuring footage of Trump speaking at a recent rally in Lowell, Massachusetts. In the new ad, Trump runs through his central campaign platforms, including his vows to strengthen the country's borders, "fix" it's health care system and the military, and take better care of veterans. The ad will be airing in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, according to the campaign. The Trump campaign is also giving out free tickets to the new movie, "13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi." The campaign has rented a theater in Iowa, for the free screening on Friday. The film depicts the events of the September 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya that killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. It follows a group of ex-military security contractors trying to save American lives in a dusty and hostile Benghazi. Several GOP presidential candidates have slammed Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton for her role before and after the attack in Benghazi, saying she knew from the start it was an act of terrorism. -- The Associated Press Solar By Degrees This installation at Oregon State University is one of six solar arrays that SolarCity completed for the Oregon University System.The project receieved nearly $12 million in state energy tax credits, and is currently under investigation by the state Justice Department and the FBI. A joint legislative committee held its first hearing Thursday evening to consider the fate of the scandal-wracked Oregon Department of Energy. In an attempt to put an end the Department's ongoing problems, Senate President Peter Courtney and House Speaker Tina Kotek last month called for a "full and open Legislative overhaul" of the agency, including the possibility of disbanding it altogether. The committee plans to meet once-a-month through October, hold public hearings, then make recommendations for restructuring the department to the 2017 Legislature. It is equally divided among Republican and Democratic lawmakers, though two Democratic co-chairs, Rep. Paul Holvey of Eugene and Sen. Lee Beyer of Springfield, will call the shots. Gov. Kate Brown, meanwhile, has undertaken her own management review of the Energy Department. The goals she has outlined include transferring the Energy Department's two largest and most troubled incentive programs to another agency, while restructuring and preserving remaining operations. There is plenty for the committee to consider, including the department's policy-making activities, its controversial siting of new energy facilities and its troubled incentive programs. The open question is how deeply lawmakers are prepared to dive into the agency's many potentially embarrassing problems, and who it will call for testimony. "My intent is to take the time and go through the entire department, program by program... Pretty much a nuts-and-bolts, serious business look at the department, trying to get out of all the emotions around it," Beyer told members Thursday. First up Thursday was Energy Department Director Michael Kaplan, a former staffer for ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber who was tapped to lead the agency in November 2014. He is the agency's fifth director since 2009, a six-year period in which the agency's staff has also seen a complete turnover. Kaplan provided a general overview of the the department's operations, and said "no one was more eager" to address the agency's issues than its staff. He will likely be a repeat visitor and face tough questions. Two Republican members of the committee, Sen. Doug Whitsett of Klamath Falls and Rep. Cliff Bentz of Ontario, were among five lawmakers who asked state and federal authorities last month to launch a criminal investigation into the Energy Department's management of tax credit sales. The agency has issued almost $1 billion in energy tax credits since 2007 to support renewable energy and conservation projects undertaken by businesses, non profits and government agencies. And it has been embroiled in controversy for months over its decision to allow tax credit recipients to sell them to investors at far steeper discounts than state rules allow. Whitsett said Thursday that he was interested in exploring whether some tax credit recipients and the brokers they used received favorable treatment from department staffers, whether the transactions were reported properly and whether the Department of Revenue had collected adequate capital gains from both the buyer and seller in the transactions. "I'm hoping the committee will explore these issues in depth, and take steps to make sure it will not happen again," Whitsett said in an interview. "If it leads us to overt corruption and favoritism, I think folks need to be prosecuted." Beyer and Holvey agreed there was room for the committee to examine the agency's management of the tax credits programs. But they said outstanding policy questions would be dealt with by the Senate and House Revenue Committees in the upcoming session. That includes a proposal to change the state's controversial pricing formula on tax credit transfers. Such a change would benefit government agencies and businesses stuck with tax credits that are currently unmarketable because the state-dictated price is too high to make them attractive to investors. But it could cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. Sen. Alan Olsen, R-Canby told committee members Thursday that he was eager to explore a more basic question: how the department went about approving tax credits in general, and how rigorously it examined applicants and their proposed projects. The Department has faced consistent questions over its approval of questionable tax credits. The state Justice Department and the FBI, for example, are currently investigating its issuance of nearly $12 million in tax credits to support the installation of solar panels at Oregon State University and the Oregon Institute of Technology. The probe was launched after an investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive found that backers of the project submitted false and misleading documents to maintain their eligibility for the credits - documents the department failed to check. The cost of that project, which is the basis of its state and federal tax credits, was also well above comparable projects elsewhere, and the way its developer reported its cost was not consistent with state rules. The governor has suggested that the state needs to audit all the business energy tax credits the agency has issued since 2007 - some 10,000 in all - to determine if there are any more "legacy issues." The committee might recommend such an audit by the Secretary of State's office. But it would be a costly, forensic foray into a world of incomplete documentation and changing rules. It's unclear what the state would do if it found more problems. The Energy Department has bent its rules in the past to provide tens of millions of dollars in additional subsidies to applicants. The governor and lawmakers did nothing to halt the giveaway of those taxpayer dollars. Kaplan acknowledged Thursday that the department had "struggled mightily" with its management of its tax credit and loan programs and come to be defined by them. He said those problems had developed over many years and compounded as rules changed, staff changed and the economy changed. But he said incentives were only one part of the agency's activities, which include the siting of new energy facilities, nuclear safety and policy making on everything from global warming and renewable energy to the efficiency of state buildings. "With all of these things," he said, "I think we will happily and eagerly discuss all of them." - Ted Sickinger tsickinger@oregonian.com 503-221-8505; @tedsickinger A Northeast Portland man who used a machete to nearly chop off the hand of an acquaintance while in a drunken rage was sentenced Wednesday to 12 1/2 years in prison. Investigators say Clemente Banuelos-Delgado and the acquaintance had been drinking vodka in a friend's backyard when Banuelos-Delgado grew upset with her for using Pine-Sol to clean the garage of the home. Banuelos-Delgado then told the woman he wanted to kill her before swinging the machete at her, authorities say. The woman lifted her arm in front of her to block the blow and the blade hacked into her wrist. The machete broke through her bone and left her hand "dangling" from her arm, according to officers who responded last May 27. Surgeons were able to reattach Jocelyn Grissom's hand -- although she has limited use of it today, said Deputy District Attorney David Hannon, who prosecuted the case. Grissom didn't attend this week's plea or sentencing hearings. Banuelos-Delgado had been convicted in 1992 of voluntary manslaughter in California for stabbing to death another man while drunk. Banuelos-Delgado, who is now 52, had remained crime-free until nearly severing Grissom's hand. Banuelo-Delgado faced a minimum 7 1/2 years in prison under Oregon law. During a hearing earlier in the week, Banuelo-Delgado pleaded no contest to first-degree assault. He could end up getting his 12 1/2-year sentence reduced by one year with time off for good behavior. -- Aimee Green 503-294-5119 BURLINGTON, Vt. -- Authorities say a Canadian man was arrested while pulling a sled carrying more than 180 pounds of prescription pills across the border into the United States. The U.S. attorney's office says 21-year-old Cedrik Bourgault-Morin was apprehended early Wednesday after he crossed the border from Quebec along a railroad line into North Troy, Vermont. Prosecutors say Bourgault-Morin was wearing white camouflage and Border Patrol agents were alerted to his presence when he triggered a sensor. Prosecutors say agents found 300 vacuum-sealed bags of anti-anxiety Xanax pills in a duffel bag on the sled. They say the pills had a street value of $1.6 million. Bourgault-Morin was being held Thursday in a Vermont prison. His attorney hasn't returned a call seeking comment. -- The Associated Press For years he applied and waited for a Purple Heart and finally, on Thursday in a room filled with family, friends and others wanting a peek at the historic event, William Yoder received his long awaited honor. Its all right, said Yoder, 94, of Gladwin, who received the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. His great-granddaughter, Sara Rickord of Beaverton, said Yoder isnt very excitable. Yet, when he received the recent call telling him he was being honored, he was very excited. Yoder was injured in France in World War II while serving in the U.S. Army. He points to his right leg that was hit with shrapnel while in combat in 1944. Part of the delay in receiving the Purple Heart was because Yoder went to a makeshift hospital in 1944 when injured. Gladwin County Office of Veterans Affairs Director Krystal Peck recalls how excited Yoder was when she called to let him know his years of waiting were over. He was very happy. He is the sweetest little man you could ever come in contact with. This award was long overdue, Peck said. Peck was joined by other military counterparts in lobbying for Yoders honor. Rickord said Peck was on the ball and did a great job. Yoders great-great nephew, Keaton Haney, 14, of Midland, is proud of his uncle. Its a pretty cool honor, Haney said. Im really happy for him. Haneys father, Larry, said he was shocked by all the people who attended the Gladwin County Circuit Courtroom was standing-room only for the event. Also paying its respects was the Gladwin County American Legion Post. We felt obligated to attend, said American Legion Post 171 Commander Robert Schafer, noting it was a privilege. Most of our active members are here. Gladwin resident Leo Martonosi didnt know Yoder, but was also in combat in France and wanted to attend to show his support. Im very impressed, Martonosi said of the event. I was amazed by all the people that came to show their support. Bob Evans, of Beaverton, wanted to witness the historic day, although he had to do so standing in the back of the crowded courtroom. I wanted to be here to honor a hero, Evans said. He made some real sacrifices back in the day. The U.S. attorney's office says 21-year-old Cedrik Bourgault-Morin (bohr-GOH' moh-RAN') was apprehended early Wednesday after he crossed the border from Quebec along a railroad line into North Troy, Vermont. Prosecutors say Bourgault-Morin was wearing white camouflage and Border Patrol agents were alerted to his presence when he triggered a sensor. Prosecutors say agents found 300 vacuum-sealed bags of anti-anxiety Xanax pills in a duffel bag on the sled. They say the pills had a street value of $1.6 million. Bourgault-Morin was being held Thursday in a Vermont prison. His attorney hasn't returned a call seeking comment. They account for nearly 40% of Pennsylvania Small Businesses Research has shown that womenowned businesses tend to be less financed than men-owned businesses, but in 2022 we are continuing to see an increase of women starting businesses all on their own, while also outperforming those owned and run by men.... Andersen SFS K-9 unit, EOD flight join with local first responders in bomb threat incident When an incident occurs off-base, Andersen security forces and the Explosive Ordnance Disposal flight are sometimes called to assist local responders to mitigate issues. Community members and Airmen worked together Jan. 14th, 2016, to respond to a bomb threat at a local high school here in Guam. Earlier this week, local authorities received reports of a bomb threat against Simon Sanchez High School. With this information, local police and military members from the 36th Security Forces Squadron K-9 unit and 36th Civil Engineer Squadron EOD flight, at the request of local law enforcement, supported efforts with K-9 sweeps and EOD checks. We were able to work with the local responders to properly plan for a possible threat, said Tech. Sgt. Jeremy Tolliver, 36th Security Forces K-9 unit kennel master. The airport police, FBI and Guam Police Department were among the units that we worked with. Teams assembled at the school early morning with the 36th SFS dog handlers and Guam police performing vehicle checks and building sweeps. When an airport police K-9 was alerted by an unusual smell, the building and surrounding area was immediately evacuated and EOD personnel entered to search the area. As soon as the K-9 units alerted us that there may be something inside the building, we cleared the area and began our process, said Senior Airman Brandon Preston, 36th Civil Engineer Squadron EOD. We went to the suspected area and cleared it. Thankfully it was a false alarm and the important thing is we were able to deem the school safe again. Military and local community members have a strong partnership and train together to prepare for a variety of scenarios, whether responding to a real-world situation or working together in a training environment. Both K-9 units from the airport and Andersen train together once a month to ensure the working dogs are exposed to various environments. We perform training quite often with the airport police to ensure the K-9s are constantly being introduced to new smells, Toliver said. They allow us to train our K-9s at the airport, which enables our dogs to work around the civilian planes and sniff out substances. We also train together on-base to conduct various training activities. Its great being able to work alongside our partners. With the constant joint training and communication maintained between Team Andersen and local responders, the relationship with the community continues to build on a daily basis. We all have the same background in law enforcement, so we are all on the same page when it comes to responding to possible incidents, Toliver said. When a situation arises, they know they can rely on us and vice versa. CHANGI NAVAL BASE, Singapore (NNS) -- The littoral combat ship USS Fort Worth (LCS 3) successfully completed a scheduled preventive maintenance availability (PMAV) at Changi Naval Base Jan. 11. Compared to other Navy platforms, the littoral combat ship has a relatively small crew. Routine maintenance outside the scope of ship's force ability is conducted during a PMAV, where labor and technical support is supplemented by civilian contractors who perform much of the preventive maintenance work in port. The maintenance period included more than 500 preventative maintenance checks including 30 in combat systems, 497 in engineering, and 16 in operations. "It's really a joint effort between contractors and Fort Worth's crew to come together and get the maintenance done," said Lt. Brian Newcomb, LCS Crew 101 chief engineer. "Without contractor support it would take an entire department about three weeks to complete the maintenance checks that we completed together in roughly seven days." In addition to preventative maintenance, Fort Worth also has a window of opportunity to receive corrective maintenance, according to Lt. Brian Osborne, LCS Crew 101 main propulsion assistant. "During this availability contractors removed, refurbished, and replaced the fly wheel for a ship service diesel generator (SSDG)," said Osborne. "The SSDGs produce the ships electricity, and it's very important to maintain them so that Fort Worth can continue to successfully contribute to maritime security operations." Fort Worth is the first LCS to deploy under the "3-2-1" manning concept, which allows LCS to sustain a longer rotational presence without fatiguing the crew during the extended deployment. The concept allows LCS to deploy more than twice as long as typical U.S. Navy ship deployments. It is named 3-2-1 because three rotational crews support two LCS ships, one of which is deployed. Future LCS deployments to the region will employ this concept, allowing for enhanced U.S. Navy presence throughout the Indo-Asia-Pacific. Fort Worth is the second LCS to deploy to U.S. 7th Fleet as part of an initiative to simultaneously deploy up to four LCS to the Indo-Asia-Pacific region in just a few years. The third and fourth LCSs are planned to arrive in 2016, when the region will see two of these ships deployed at the same time. The U.S. 7th Fleet conducts forward-deployed naval operations in support of U.S. national interests in the Indo-Asia-Pacific area of operations. As the U.S. Navy's largest numbered fleet, 7th Fleet interacts with 35 other maritime nations to build partnerships that foster maritime security, promote stability and prevent conflict. FORT HOOD, Texas - Family readiness leaders and volunteers with 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division are ramping up to ensure Soldiers and families are prepared and supported during the brigade's nine-month rotation to South Korea. "In preparation for this deployment, we've conducted two deployment fairs for families with local agencies, such as Red Cross, Child and Youth Services, Tricare, legal assistance and many others," said Debbi Nash-King, family readiness support assistant, 1st ABCT, 1st Cavalry Division. "Our family readiness groups are ready to engage." Families can face many challenges when Soldier are deployed, such as navigating a seemingly complex military system for medical care, pay issues, replacing identification cards and paperwork and many other hurdles, as well as external challenges such as vehicle and home maintenance, bills and childcare. "Everything you need to survive a deployment begins with participating in your family readiness group," said Nash-King, a native of Pine Bluff, Arkansas. "The resources we have to offer can make life easier when a piece of the puzzle is missing." Capt. Cathy Zimmerman, 115th Brigade Support Battalion, 1st ABCT, has been on both sides of the fence. She's been the spouse of a deployed Soldier and has deployed herself. Her husband, Capt. Steve Thompson, commander, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 8th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 2nd ABCT, is currently deployed to South Korea. "The FRGs are a foundation for our families to build on so we can support each other through a difficult time," said Zimmerman, who serves as an assistant FRG leader in her husband's company's family readiness group. Besides participating in the FRG, Zimmerman had one other piece of advice for surviving a deployment. "Just be involved," said Zimmerman, a native of Simi Valley, California. "Keep an open communication flow of daily business. Don't let your spouse be out of the loop." For more information, families and service members should contact their unit's FRG. In addition, there is supplemental information at www.militaryonesource.mil or by calling 1-800-342-9647. DECATUR Federal power system regulators have said it's time to rewire a regional power auction that caused outrage when it turned in results that jacked up family power bills by more than 30 percent. Charges for central and southern Illinois customers spiked by $9 a month for the typical residential customer after the April auction run by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, or MISO. But now the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, in overall charge of the nation's power system, said the process must be changed in time for the April auction. FERC issued a ruling saying some of the auction rules were no longer just and reasonable. It targeted provisions allowing MISO prices to go as high as prices set by power grid operators in northern Illinois and the East Coast, areas where costs tend to be much higher. MISO runs the portion of the national power grid covering the Midwest region. FERC also wants changes in the way MISO calculates power supplies coming into and out of its operational area. One of the complaints from the April 2015 auction was that rules limiting power supplies sent from other areas were too restrictive, allowing certain suppliers to drive up prices. The revisions to the auction process come after complaints were filed in 2015 by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Public Citizen, a public advocacy group, among others. Ameren Illinois also joined the complaint and more than 3,000 messages calling for an investigation of the MISO auction were received from customers using an online forum provided by the Citizens Utility Board watchdog organization. Madigan said the entire power auction results, used to lock in power supplies in advance of times of high demand, should be thrown out and customers given refunds. She said the overcharges amounted to some $113 million. FERC still needs to order refunds to consumers for the outrageously high prices, Madigan said. But FERC's ruling so far only refers to the upcoming auction. It is still considering complaints about the conduct of the previous auction, and its decision there will determine if customers get some money back. David Kolata, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board, had called the 2015 auction results absurd and said FERC's actions so far were a positive development for power customers. This is a step in the right direction for consumers who suffered through the jolt of last summer's price spike, Kolata said. A lot of work needs to be done, but the recent FERC ruling aims for reforms that will better protect consumers. FERC also has other issues to investigate relating to the 2015 auction. The attorney general and Public Citizen have accused power company Dynegy of driving power prices higher with a bidding strategy designed to distort the process. Dynegy has repeatedly insisted it did nothing wrong and that it played by the rules. BLOOMINGTON A Bloomington man who claims he is innocent of murdering his father in 1991 has secured a new legal team in his efforts to reverse the conviction that sent him to prison for 60 years. The Exoneration Project based at the University of Chicago has agreed to represent Donald Whalen. Whalen, 47, was convicted in 1991 of beating his father to death during a fight at the former Twenty Grand Tap, a downtown Bloomington bar owned by the elder Whalen. "This is really, really big for me," Whalen said this week in a phone call with The Pantagraph. The first order of business for the new team will be the issue of DNA test results recently completed by defense expert Karl A. Reich with Independent Forensics in Lombard. In June, Judge Scott Drazewski ruled that Reich could perform work to determine if three samples of genetic material from the crime scene could be used to create a DNA profile. In a report filed last week, Reich reported that a profile was developed from material collected on knives found in the bar. At the time, First Assistant State's Attorney Adam Ghrist termed what Reich wanted to do as a "Frankenstein theory." Elliott Slosar, the lead attorney for the Exoneration Project's work on the Whalen case, said "we believe Donald has a really strong claim of innocence and it's our hope that we can help him get the justice he deserves." The Exoneration Project is in the process of reviewing the large amount of legal records that has accumulated over more than two decades since Whalen was convicted. Whalen's connection with the Exoneration Project stems from his search last year for a new lawyer after his longtime Bloomington lawyer was temporarily suspended from practicing law by the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission over violations of ethics rules in an unrelated case. In 2014, former Chief Judge Elizabeth Robb ordered DNA testing on the knives. The state objected to work by Reich to compile several DNA samples to see if one viable sample suitable for comparison to a DNA database could be developed. Robb's decision also ordered the Illinois State Police to take any sample Reich was able to create and sumbit it for comparison to the database that includes individuals convicted of felonies. In their objections to the testing, prosecutors have noted the crime scene was a public place where it's likely that the DNA of many people could be found. Whalen has said he is hopeful the testing will point to the suspect that he contends killed his father. For reasons that differ from those held by the defense, McLean County State's Attorney Jason Chambers said this week that he does not oppose submission of the sample to the database for comparison. The search could be important "because it was never completely ruled out that there wasn't more than one more person involved," said Chambers. Previous tests performed on the knives revealed a mixture of DNA of at least two individuals, including at least one male. Whalen was excluded as a possible contributor to the DNA, but his father was not ruled out. An April 18 hearing is scheduled to review the status of the case. BLOOMINGTON There will be no more delays in the sentencing of a Schaumburg woman convicted of being intoxicated when she was behind the wheel of a car during a 2013 McLean County crash that left a friend paralyzed. Ashley Trenholm, 23, arrived in a wheelchair Friday with her lawyer, who said she is still under a doctor's care for injuries suffered in an October accident that occurred in Schaumburg as she was waiting for a ruling in her 2013 aggravated driving under the influence case in McLean County. Judge Scott Drazewski set a March 11 date for the sentencing hearing, and denied a defense request for another review hearing to allow time to compile the woman's extensive medical records. Her lawyer, Jeff Hall, said he may request an opportunity to reopen testimony in Trenholm's sentencing. In October 2013, Trenholm and her friend, Jesse Sternberg, 20, were on their way to Vandalia when they stopped at a McLean County restaurant where she drank several shots of liquor and a margarita, according to testimony at her Oct. 22, 2015 sentencing hearing. Trenholm pleaded guilty to aggravated DUI in December 2014. Sternberg was permanently disabled with a cervical spinal cord injury. Trenholm was a passenger in a second accident that occurred in Schaumburg after the October hearing in McLean County. She was unable to return to Bloomington for an Oct. 30 hearing where her sentence was scheduled to be imposed because she was involved in the second crash that killed her boyfriend and another driver. When Trenholm failed to appear in court on Dec. 29, Judge Casey Costigan warned Trenholm's lawyer that he would order her arrest if she was not in court on Friday. Costigan will issue the sentencing ruling in March; Drazewski handled the hearing on Friday because Costigan was involved in a jury trial. BLOOMINGTON A single gunshot to the chest killed a Bloomington man, a forensic pathologist testified Thursday during the murder trial of Tracy Newson. Newson, 49, is charged with the November 2014 murder of Carlton Jordan, 47. Dr. Amanda Yeomans testified Jordan died of a gunshot wound to his chest. The doctor explained graphic autopsy photos displayed on a courtroom screen that showed the bullet she found lodged near Jordan's spine. Yeomans' explanation of how the bullet traveled from Jordan's chest to his spine was aided by First Assistant State's Attorney Adam Ghrist, who laid face-down on the courtroom floor as the doctor used a pointer to depict the trajectory of the bullet. Closing arguments are scheduled for Friday morning. According to Yeomans, the fatal shot was fired from above Jordan's chest area. He also had a minor gunshot wound to his arm, she said. Toxicology results indicated that Jordan's blood alcohol level was 0.097 at the time of his death, the doctor said. A motorist is considered intoxicated with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08. In the fourth day of the trial, the jury also viewed an interview of Newson by Bloomington Police Detective Matthew Dick. The interview was conducted in Newson's hospital room, where he was recovering from a gunshot wound he suffered in the altercation with Jordan. During the interview, Newson admitted that he shot Jordan but claimed it was done in self-defense. "I pulled my gun out to bluff him," said Newson. "I just shot the gun" after Jordan allegedly came at him in the hallway outside Jordan's apartment, Newson said. The two men had known each other several months and socialized several times a month, according to earlier testimony. An evening of dominoes and drinks turned violent on Nov. 16, 2014, after Newson allegedly started to insult his girlfriend. Jordan and his wife argued and then became involved in a physical altercation with Newson, who was told to leave the Jordans' apartment. Cynthia Jordan testified that Newson later returned with a hand gun. She said her husband and Newson struggled for control of the weapon that Newson fired at her husband, hitting him in the chest. Newson, who was wounded by the first round from the gun, told police that he went back to the apartment to pick up his girlfriend. The gun was necessary for protection from further assaults, he said. PONTIAC An officer at Pontiac Correctional Center denied Thursday that prison staff members "dropped the ball" and ignored an inmate who cut himself with shards from a broken light fixture in his cell during a 2012 incident in the prison infirmary. A doctor and several other staff members from the prison were called to the witness stand to answer questions posed by Anthony Gay, a former Pontiac inmate who is representing himself in a lawsuit he filed against two correctional officers. The lawsuit alleges that two officers were indifferent to Gay's medical needs. Gay, who is currently housed at Menard Correctional Center in southern Illinois, has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, a behavioral condition that may result in self-harm, according to medical testimony at the trial. Lt. Kristina Skeens could not recall if Gay was included on March 24, 2012, on a watch list that would require staff to check his well-being every 10 minutes. Skeens agreed with Gay that an inmate should not be able to tear down a light fixture, cut himself and stop the bleeding by weaving strips of a bed sheet through the wound within a 10-minute interval without being seen by corrections staff. Yet, Gay was able to do all that and sit for an extended period time before he banged on his cell door to catch the attention of the assistant warden, who was on a tour of the facility. "So you agree that somebody dropped the ball?" the inmate asked Skeens. "No, I don't agree with that because you do this all the time cut yourself," the officer responded. Gay is no stranger to the courtroom or solitary confinement. He has served time in the state's former "supermax" prison at Tamms before the facility was closed in response to criticisms over the harsh living conditions of mentally ill inmates, including Gay. In January 2014, the state reduced the 97 years that had been added to his sentence for multiple assaults on Pontiac guards. Under the terms of his new sentence, he could be released in 2018. Gay, now 39, has been in prison since 1994 when he was sentenced to seven years for a Rock Island County burglary. Andrea Moss, a mental health worker familiar with Gay's history, testified that she had successfully convinced the inmate not to act on his threats of self-mutilation in the past. Other witnesses called by Assistant Attorney General Lisa Cook testified that they were unaware of Gay's injuries and did not hear him breaking the light fixture. Records did not indicate that Gay was on a watch list before he was injured, said the witnesses. Following his cutting episode, Gay was placed in restraints and placed on a watch list, officers testified. Closing arguments are scheduled for Friday. BLOOMINGTON Matt Sorensen, who resigned his McLean County Board seat on Tuesday in the face of federal fraud charges, could get it back next year but he faces stiff competition. Sorensen, a Republican who represented District 2, will be on the ballot for the March 15 primary election, said county Director of Elections Denise Cesario. Four Republicans Diane Benjamin of Ellsworth, Scott Murphy of Downs, Garth Nicholas of Heyworth and Mike Sumner of Downs filed before Thursday's deadline to oppose Sorensen as write-in candidates. Sorensen has not commented on whether he'll try to get back on the board. He said he resigned to avoid being "a distraction to the employees and elected officials of McLean County." The move came after a federal indictment was released Jan. 5 accusing him of defrauding State Farm of more than $400,000 in unearned consulting fees. Since the indictment surfaced, Sorensen's board colleagues have praised his service to the county, including as board chairman but officials haven't ruled out an investigation into his conduct while on the board. Also Thursday, Republican District 2 board member Jim Soeldner told the Pantagraph he hopes to become the board's next vice chairman. The current vice chairman, District 5 Republican John McIntyre, said Tuesday he hopes to become chairman, and other board members have said they'll support him. The board is expected to elect a new chairman, and possibly vice chairman, at its next meeting at 9 a.m. Tuesday at the Government Center at 115 E. Washington St. in Bloomington. The board also is expected to open applications for an interim board member to fill Sorensen's seat until his successor is elected in November and takes office. The board will appoint a candidate. BLOOMINGTON Health risks to visitors and staff at Lincoln Leisure Center are believed to be minimal after a small amount of asbestos was found in a furnace room, health officials said Thursday. "Based on what IDPH (Illinois Department of Public Health) has learned, a health risk to occupants is unlikely," said Melaney Arnold of IDPH. If the furnace room at the city-owned recreation facility at 1206 S. Lee St. was the only area of exposure, contact was minimal, said Dr. John Burr with Advocate Medical Group-Pulmonology. "The amount of exposure that people would get would be relatively small," he said. If asbestos had been found throughout the building including in classrooms risks would be higher, Burr said. Asbestos is a cancer-causing material used in insulation. Among some people, especially smokers, even a relatively small asbestos exposure can cause problems, Burr said. Mesothelioma is a cancer that affects the membranes that cover the lung, heart and other internal organs and is commonly caused by exposure to asbestos fibers. But Burr said mesothelioma is rare and many patients had worked for years making asbestos-containing products. "IDPH has spoken with the city of Bloomington and its licensed asbestos contractor," Arnold said. "Both reported the closure of the facility as precautionary while the contractor removes a small quantity of intact asbestos material. "While closing the building completely is not required by the asbestos rules, the city's action is out of an abundance of caution, not (because of) a release of asbestos fibers." Anyone who has been in the building and is concerned that they have a breathing disorder should go to their doctor and request a chest X-ray, Burr said. BLOOMINGTON Illinois Wesleyan University physics professor Linda French has hiked to the top of all 48 peaks above 4,000 feet in the White Mountains in New Hampshire and along paths nearly 200 years old in England, but she also finds beauty right here in Central Illinois. My current favorite is Clinton Lake State Recreation Area's North Fork Trail, French said Thursday at a Lunch and Learn lecture at the McLean County Museum of History. I recommend this highly. The 9.3-mile trail is rated primitive and difficult, with many steep ups and downs in and out of ravines. French said the trail is particularly beautiful in spring when wildflowers bloom in the woods. Parts of the trail also pass through prairie areas. She uses the trail to train for her more ambitious goals, such as hiking to the top of all 67 peaks over 4,000 feet in New England. For those training hikes, French usually carries a fully loaded pack, wears supportive hiking shoes and uses trekking poles. I have come to love my poles, she said. But hiking doesn't need to be complex or require a lot of special equipment. What I love about hiking is you don't need a lot of specific skills. You just walk, French said. There are no rules. And as much as she likes the challenge of peak bagging and wild trails, French said, We are very blessed here to have access to Constitution Trail. Other favorite places she recommended were Moraine View State Recreation Area, near LeRoy, particularly its Tall Timber Backpacking Trail, and Starved Rock State Park. French said she turned to hiking as a student when I got burned out and needed a break, and it's something she expects to continue doing. She's not alone. French quotes figures from statista.com indicating that 36 million Americans went hiking in 2014. She emphasized the importance of preserving and appreciating wild areas, quoting Henry David Thoreau from his essay Walking, in which he wrote, In wildness is the preservation of the world. The Lunch and Learn series is presented by IWU, the museum and the Collaborative Solutions Institute. http://donpolson.blogspot.com/ Bringing you the very best information, analysis and opinion from around the web. NOTE: For videos that don't start--go to article link to view. EUREKA Few towns the size of Eureka, population 5,300, have a hospital. Fewer still have a modern hospital. But Advocate Eureka Hospital dedicated Thursday afternoon an addition that includes patient rooms and operating suites that are comparable to those of larger Advocate medical centers, said Tim Bassett, director of facilities for Advocate's Central Illinois Region. "This state-of-the-art technology is right in line with other Advocate hospitals," Bassett said during a pre-dedication tour of the 28,000-square-foot, $11.4 million addition. The addition will open for patient care Jan. 26, pending final state regulatory approval, Administrator Anna Laible said. The area was dedicated in a ceremony attended by representatives of Advocate, Woodford County and the state, ranging from Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti to former hospital Administrator Mary Chenoweth Parker, 98. The ceremony culminated when the Rev. Mollie Ward sprinkled water using a branch from the Christmas tree of Advocate BroMenn Medical Center, Normal. "The excitement of the staff and the community is contagious," Laible said. "Everyone is very proud to have this caliber of facility in Eureka, Illinois. We can't wait to use it to treat patients." "This is beyond any expectations that I had," said Chief Nurse Executive Nancy Allen. "The staff has been trained in the new area and is so excited and proud. We will be able to improve our already safe patient environment." The addition includes 11 private inpatient rooms and two operating rooms all larger than existing rooms and with the latest technology, Bassett said. Each patient room includes a bathroom and an area for a family member to stay overnight. The addition also includes pre- and post-surgery areas and central sterilization. The intent is to replace and update portions of the 57,000-square-foot hospital building, most of which was built in 1962. The hospital will remain licensed for 25 inpatient beds (existing semi-private patient rooms will remain available) and the number of full- and part-time employees will remain 140, Laible said. "This project, from start to finish, has been one of the better projects that I've had the pleasure of managing," Bassett said. During 2015, the hospital had 335 inpatient and observation cases and 32,653 outpatient visits, Laible said. "The continued development at Advocate Eureka Hospital is welcomed growth," Eureka Mayor Scott Punke said. "The private rooms and expanded surgery will serve this community and the region very well as Advocate continues to provide us with the best in progressive health care." Scott Ford, Advocate Eureka vice president of development, said $1.81 million has been raised for the addition and he expects the fundraising goal of $2 million to be achieved soon. Parker smiled after the dedication. "Everything is being done right." Cheers ... to B-N schools and Illinois Wesleyan University (and soon, we hope, Illinois State University) for banning hoverboards on campus property. The battery-powered boards are similar to skateboards and were a popular Christmas gift, but several manufacturers have warned users of the dangers related to their use. Those dangers outweigh the fun if the boards either lead to a fire or personal injury. Until the problems are fixed, the boards should be banned from all public areas and buildings. We encourage private entities to do the same. Cheers ... to Gov. Bruce Rauner's administration for considering merit-based pay increases for some state workers. The state's reasoning is good: Merit raises would reward workers who find ways to save taxpayer money, don't miss a lot of work, don't break work rules and do a good job. Cheers ... to Mitsubishi Motors North America and the various taxing bodies who receive tax support from its properties, for agreeing to lower the company's assessed value to a point somewhere between the current amount and the amount sought by the company. The plant remains for sale. In the meantime, taxing bodies won't lose as much revenue as originally projected. Cheers ... to the state for producing a safety study that said schools should consider sharing student information when facing potential emergencies. It should be noted that local districts already do this. Cheers ... to Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, for cutting postage costs by emailing license plate sticker renewal reminders. The office also is offering mail-in driver's license renewals, which means one less trip to the license facility. Not everyone has email, but the bulk of non-users also are traditionally very good about checking when their stickers and licenses need to be renewed. It's the rest of us who need a reminder and email is just the ticket. Cheers ... to the town of Normal for its sound plan to build a new fire headquarters station along North Main Street, near the heart of the ISU campus. Anyone who has driven that route knows the huge amount of pedestrian traffic, as well as motorists traversing the length of campus or visiting any number of restaurants and other businesses along the way. Having the fire station front and center will provide key interaction between firefighters and students, and should improve fire response times. Tuesday, in all the hubbub over the State of the Union, the House sat down to pass another piece of toxic legislation-- literally toxic legislation-- while no one was looking. They passed H.R. 1644, a bill to block the Department of Interiors proposed Stream Protection Rule that aims to better protect mining communities from the harmful impacts of coal mining pollution. It makes drinking water less safe and less clean but helps the bottom line of the big polluters who dole out millions encamping cash to conservative politicians in return for permission to freely dump toxic waste into America's waterways. It was a happy day for coal mining companies. The bill passed 235-188 , although 10 Republicans crossed the aisle to vote with the Democrats rather than be a party to poisoning the drinking water of millions of unsuspecting Americans in coal mining districts. On the other hand, 4 of Congress' most corrupt right-wing Democrats, Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA), Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA), Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX) and, of course, Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN) crossed the aisle and voted with the GOP and the polluters. Without massive financial assistance from the DCCC neither Costa nor Peterson could even compete in the 2016 elections. But what kind of a waste of money is that? And then yesterday the Republicans passed a kind of companion resolution, S.J. 22, a resolution of disapproval of President Obama's Clean Water Act Rule issued in June 2015, seeking to invalidate the entire rule and overturn years of work to define "waters of the United States," reintroducing confusion and uncertainty to regulated industries and concerned communities. This time a full dozen, mostly corrupt, conservative Democrats crossed the aisle to vote with the GOP and it passed 253-166 . The culprits: Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN) Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA) Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX) John Garamendi (CA) Gwen Graham (Blue Dog-FL) Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN) Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR) David Scott (Blue Dog-GA) Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL) Marc Veasey (TX) Filemon Vela (Blue Dog-TX) Tim Walz (MN) Maryland Congresswoman Donna Edwards, an outspoken and career-long champion of environmental protections opposed both these moves. This morning she told her constituents that chipping away at regulations meant to protect safe drinking water is unacceptably dangerous. "Last night," she explained, "President Obamas State of the Union address urged us to come together to overcome challenges and fix our broken politics. Instead, we again see more of the same from my Republican colleagues. This time, they passed two pieces of legislation that threaten one of our nations most vital resources: clean water. 67 percent of Marylanders-- 2 out of 3 residents-- get their drinking water from sources that rely on small streams. If these measures become law, at least 59 percent of Marylands stream miles that feed into our drinking water sources would be at risk of pollution from development and industrial activities. The aim of these actions by the Republican majority is nothing more than to appease their corporate special interests. It is a shame, when we should be debating and addressing issues that will help working families and move the country forward. I look forward to President Obama vetoing both of these irresponsible and destructive measures." Donna is running for the open U.S. Senate seat in Maryland sand Blue America has endorsed her because of her record of standing up and fighting for progressive values. Her opponent is an establishment guy who goes along to get along-- not usually horrible, but not special. Donna is special. Another candidate for Senate, P.G. Sittenfeld in Ohio, also noticed what Republicans are up to. The incumbent he's running against, Rob Portman, who has taken $162,835 in campaign contributions from Big Coal so far, voted for S.J. 22 when it first came up this past summer. "Ohioans," PG told us, "and especially the people of Toledo whose drinking water is perennially threatened by toxic fertilizer run-off into Lake Erie, know the importance of protecting the water we drink. So do the people of Flint, Michigan who now find their drinking water laced with lead. But corporate polluters have always cared more about their bottom lines than they do about the health of regular people. In the Senate, you can bet your bottom dollar that I'll do everything I can to preserve and protect the water we drink, the air that we breathe, and the only planet we will ever have." Three amendments were voted down. Dan Kildee, who represents Flint, where GOP water policies are poisoning children, would have prevented the rules in the bill from being delayed if it protects drinking water quality. It failed , although 15 Republicans crossed the aisle and voted to not poison children with polluted drinking water. Matt Cartwright's amendment would have directed funding from AML certified states for use in revitalizing economically distressed communities which have been adversely affected by discharge from abandoned mine lands. That failed too, although by a closer 203-219 vote, with 22 Republican voting with all but 3 bad Dems. And the other amendment, from Terri Sewell, sought to lower the threshold of postponing the delay of a rule if there is a threat that a delay would cause or significantly contribute to the development of negative chronic or long-term health conditions. That was also voted down but Sewell voted for the rotten bill anyway. The only Democrat who voted with the GOP on every single aspect of this was... Minnesota Blue Dog Collin Peterson, who seems determined to prove to be the worst Democrat in Congress. Donna and P.G. are on the same page in terms of protecting clean drinking water-- and on this same page as well . Both have been endorsed by Blue America and both are running smart, cost-efficient campaigns against opponents heavily funded by special interest groups. So far this cycle, the big coal companies have contributed $640,151 to congressional campaigns. Of that, just $11,000 has gone to House Democrats: Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL)- $2,500 Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA)- $2,000 Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)- $2,000 Ben Ray Lujan (NM)- $2,000 Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)- $1,500 Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)- $1,000 I noticed Big Coal is also picking their pro-pollution champion in the Pennsylvania Senate primary with a nice $2,700 contribution to the transactional Schumercrat in the race, Katie McGuinty. The Republican incumbent, Pat Toomey, is one of Big Coal's all time champions though, so maybe the money to McGuinty is just a little insurance in case Toomey stumbles and, by some miracle, she's the nominee. Shiloh and Zahara sponsored a poor family in Cambodia - following their mom Angelina Jolie's footsteps on charitable actions. According to Daily Mail, the two eldest daughters made time by helping and donating goods to less unfortunate families in Cambodia. Their mom Angelina Jolie has been filming a movie, "First They Killed My Father," at the same place. Reports say that Leida Shoun, who has 12 siblings approached Shiloh and Zahara with their father, Brad Pitt, as they were having an ice cream treat in Siem Reap. The Pitt family was moved by Shoun's current situation and is now sponsoring them. NY Daily News reported that within the day, Shiloh was spotted shopping clothes worth $200 for Shoun's family while Zahara accompanied the family and bought them two bikes. The father of the family of 12 said that it was such a great blessing because they only had a one bicycle for the whole family. "Shiloh and Zahara and their family are very good people. We have known them for a while, they sponsor us. 'I play with Shiloh or Zahara, they meet us in Siem Reap town and we all play together. 'They take us to the arcade in the Angkor Centre, they are all very nice people. I like it when we play ball.' Shoun family said Sources say that Shoun's family lives in a small tin shack in the slum district in Siem Reap. Leida said that his father is not strong enough to work because of his age and they were just depending on the aid they receive to buy food and clothes. They added that they were thankful for this day and to the family for sponsoring them because it makes living easier. In a recent interview of Jolie in Vogue magazine, Jolie mentioned Shiloh's interest in humanitarian and charitable actions as she visits the fields. 'When she was sitting on the floor with her UN cap writing her notes as she was talking to someone, I was flashing on myself fifteen years ago and thinking, I know that moment.' Jolie said. Breastfeeding has many benefits to the health and well-being of a child. A new story further shows the "wonders" of breastfeeding when a police officer saved a newborn baby's life by breastfeeding her until the ambulance arrived. According to Fox News, police officer Luisa Fernanda Urrea responded to the scene at a remote forest settlement in Colombia after Edinora Jimenez called the police -- telling them she found an abandoned baby girl. "I was collecting some oranges when I heard something crying," said Jimenez. "I thought it was a cat until I looked closer and saw that it was a baby girl." When Luisa Fernanda Urrea responded to the scene and saw that the newborn baby girl was starving and at risk for hypothermia, the kind-hearted police officer helped the baby by breastfeeding her until the paramedics arrived. "I'm a new mother and I have milk and I recognized the needs that this poor little creature had," Urrea told Central European News. The report also said that the abandoned newborn baby girl is now under the care of the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare. Likewise, Huffington Post included in its report that the authorities might now be looking for the infant's birth mother to charge her of a crime. "We could be dealing with a case of attempted homicide, although it's the prosecutor who will decide the charge," orphanage director Jhon Arley Murillo said. Breastfeeding is a very important factor in the overall health and wellbeing of a baby because of its several benefits. More than the bond it strengthens between the mother and the baby, breastfeeding provides a stronger and more responsive immune system while it also lowers the risks for asthma, allergies, ear infections, respiratory diseases and other episodes of diarrhea, as identified by WebMD. Mothers are also encouraged to breastfeed their children for six straight months after giving birth without the use of formula feeding for better results. This belief has been supported by many researches and further recommended by many health professionals and childcare specialists. U.S. President Barack Obama paid a visit over a young couple's house on Tuesday, Jan. 13 in a suburban neighborhood in Nebraska. His visit to Jeff and Lisa Martin's living room is the President's first stop before his speaking engagement in the said State. He stayed in the young family's place for 40 minutes before proceeding to the University of Nebraska, according to Capitol Hill Blue. Almost a year ago, the mother of a then newborn baby filled with worry and anxiety wrote a letter 4 a.m. after feeding her child. Uncertain if her letter will ever get to the president, Lisa Martin, an English high school teacher, expressed through her letter the fear she had for the future of her son and the next generation. Seeing herself as a powerless parent to execute the change that she wants to see just to assure a better life for her son, she placed her hope and thereby encouraged the president whom she believes is the right person who can handle the burden that she has. In some part of her letter, Martin raised her concern about climate change and if her son and her son's children will have the chance to still see the things we see now in this planet. One year after sending that letter to the White House, the President replied at her doorstep bringing the assurance that Cooper, Lisa Martin's son will have a great future. The president told her that the future is bright but that requires a nation to follow his policy prescription, as reported by The Huffingtonpost. After the home visit, President Obama then proceeded to the University of Nebraska. "I want everybody to remember, America's been through big changes before," Obama said. "And each time, we overcame our fears and we overcame our challenges. Each time, we made such change work for us. And each time, we emerged stronger and better than we were before. That's what we do as Americans", he added speaking in front of a huge audience with 8,000 people, according to The New York Times. Joey "Salads" Saladino posted a video online that suddenly has become viral. The video shows the prankster with her friend Emily breastfeeding in public with the purpose of showing how people would react to public breastfeeding. Saladino posted the social experiment video on his YouTube account and has since been watched for almost 200,000 times as of this writing. Yahoo Parenting also reports that the video was also posted on Facebook and has gotten more than 111,000 likes and almost 170,000 shares. The video shows Emily publicly breastfeeding her baby while accompanied by Saladino in different public locations such as parks and bus stations. Reactions actually vary: some people had strong reactions while some did not mind at all. "You know there are private places where you can actually do this. You don't need to be doing that in public," says a woman in the video. "I'm sorry, I'm a new mom, and I don't know the rules," replies Emily. There were two men from two different locations that felt offended by Emily's public breastfeeding and one woman who compared public breastfeeding with smoking marijuana on public. However, Emily had a few supporters who said that they do not mind public breastfeeding -- saying that it was alright because babies need to be fed. Saladino also told Yahoo Parenting that he is going to post another video about the public breastfeeding social experiment but with an added twist. "I have a part two where I compare how people treat a girl with [visible cleavage] to a woman breastfeeding," he then shared. Shamsudin Hamid, coordinator of CPS or Concerned Parents of Selangor, spoke with The Rakyat Post about public breastfeeding, "All this while, with concerns over women exposing their cleavage to promote cars and record albums, no one says anything. Only perverts are making a big deal out of these breastfeeding pictures," he concluded. Charlie Sheen revealed that he recently traveled to Mexico to see a doctor, who claims he can cure HIV. While having the treatment, he said the whole experience was "mind blowing" as the doctor injected himself with the actor's blood, trying to prove to him that he was HIV-free. The Two and a Half Men actor appeared on The Dr Oz Show on Tuesday, Jan. 12 where he revealed that he went to Mexico to see Doctor Samir Chachoua -- who claims his series of injections can cure HIV-positive patients, but his license is only allowed within Mexico. Sheen admitted that although he didn't have any "faith" that it will work, he still decided to go through with it. He said after receiving the initial stages of treatment, he saw some "incredible results." Then he stopped taking his antiretroviral HIV medications after he discovered that his HIV became undetectable. While going through the whole process, Sheen also disclosed to Dr Oz that Chachoua injected himself with the actor's blood to prove to him that he was no longer positive with HIV and he was confident with his abilities. However, Dr Oz -- who gained fame on The Oprah Winfrey Show as a health adviser -- said that "It's pretty inappropriate," which Charlie totally agreed. The actor further revealed that earlier that day, before the interview started, he received a bad news about his condition. He said that his HIV was again detectable. Hence, he will go back to some traditional HIV medications and treatments. In the latter minutes of the interview, Sheen said, "I'm not recommending that anybody else does this. I'm presenting myself as some kind of a guinea pig." Charlie Sheen was first diagnosed with HIV in 2011, but was only revealed to public in November last year. "I am here to admit I am HIV-positive," Sheen courageously disclosed on U.S. Today. "It's a hard three letters to absorb," he added. A Planetary Defense Coordination Office was created and well-funded by NASA with the purpose to deal with the danger of an asteroid collision with Earth. The new American Space Agency's initiative is driven by the will of developing an American strategy for space as well as growing concern about near-Earth objects. The goal of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office is to ensure that NASA will be ready in case that an asteroid comes too close to Earth. According to CNN, the new program is designed to coordinate NASA's response in case that any space objects represents a danger for the planet. These preparations for a potential asteroid collision in Armageddon-style will require scientists to discover and monitor comets, asteroids and space junk that could threaten our planet. According to NASA, this will be a costly operation. NASA's budget had kept increasing over the past few years. It was just $4 million in 2010, but it doubled to $40 million in 2014. For the year 2016, NASA will receive $50 million in order to create the new Planetary Defense Coordination Office. According to NASA's former statements, the Space Agency does not believe that an asteroid collision will happen in the near future. Scientists consider that collision course concerns are not likely to happen but are just a matter of scale, according to The Christian Science Monitor. However, the so-called Near Earth Objects are starting to become a growing concern for scientists who are spotting them in increasing numbers. The planetary defense system comes in this context to provide NASA with a ready answer for the next report of asteroids flying too close to Earth. Even if no impact threats are known this time, the recent "Halloween Asteroid" and the 2013 Chelyabinsk super-fireball remind scientists of the reasons why they need to remain vigilant, according to the administrator for Washington-based NASA Science Mission Directorate, John Grunsfeld. The Nation, as you've probably heard by now has made a very persuasive case about why Bernie Sanders would be a The Nation point out that "Sanderss clarion call for fundamental reform-- single-payer healthcare, tuition-free college, a $15-an-hour minimum wage, the breaking up of the big banks, ensuring that the rich pay their fair share of taxes-- have inspired working people across the country. His bold response to the climate crisis has attracted legions of young voters, and his foreign policy, which emphasizes diplomacy over regime change, speaks powerfully to war-weary citizens. Most important, Sanders has used his insurgent campaign to tell Americans the truth about the challenges that confront us. He has summoned the people to a 'political revolution,' arguing that the changes our country so desperately needs can only happen when we wrest our democracy from the corrupt grip of Wall Street bankers and billionaires." Two weeks out from the February 1 Iowa caucuses, there is a dead-heat between Bernie and Hillary , as you've probably heard by now has made a very persuasive case about why Bernie Sanders would be a better president than any of the other candidates . I scratch my head when I see Democrats passionately backing Hillary Clinton; it just makes no sense to me. Why pick someone who's "not that bad" when you can pick someone who's actually great. The editors ofpoint out that "Sanderss clarion call for fundamental reform-- single-payer healthcare, tuition-free college, a $15-an-hour minimum wage, the breaking up of the big banks, ensuring that the rich pay their fair share of taxes-- have inspired working people across the country. His bold response to the climate crisis has attracted legions of young voters, and his foreign policy, which emphasizes diplomacy over regime change, speaks powerfully to war-weary citizens. Most important, Sanders has used his insurgent campaign to tell Americans the truth about the challenges that confront us. He has summoned the people to a 'political revolution,' arguing that the changes our country so desperately needs can only happen when we wrest our democracy from the corrupt grip of Wall Street bankers and billionaires." Voters can trust Sanders because he doesnt owe his political career to the financial overlords of the status quo. Freed from these chains of special interest, he can take the bold measures that the country needs. Sanders alone proposes to break up the too-big-to-fail banks; to invest in public education, from universal pre-K to tuition-free public college; to break the power of the insurance and pharmaceutical cartels with Medicare for All reforms. He alone proposes to empower workers with a living wage. He alone stands ready to put Americans to work rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, and to confront climate change by making the United States a leader in renewable energy. His audacious agenda proves that money in politics doesnt widen debate; rather, it narrows the range of possibility. While Sanders understands this, we fear that his chief rival for the Democratic nomination does not. ...[T]he limits of a Clinton presidency are clear. Her talk of seeking common ground with Republicans and making deals to get things done in Washington will not bring the change that is so desperately needed. Clinton is open to raising the Social Security retirement age, instead of increasing the woefully inadequate benefits. She rejects single-payer healthcare and refuses to consider breaking up the big banks. We also fear that she might accept a budgetary grand bargain with the Republicans that would lock in austerity for decades to come. ...Critics of Bernie Sanders dismiss him as an idealist (he is!) on a quixotic crusade. Meanwhile, the corporate media has paid shamefully little attention to his campaigns achievements, instead lavishing attention on the latest outrageous pronouncements by Donald Trump and the Republican candidates struggling to compete with him. Nonetheless, polls show that Sanders-- even as he still introduces himself to many voters-- is well poised to take on the eventual GOP nominee, frequently doing better than Clinton in these matchups. Moreover, in contrast to the modest audiences at Clintons campaign stops, the huge crowds at Sanderss grassroots rallies indicate that hell be able to boost turnout in November. Whether his candidacy, and the inspired campaign it fuels, will spark a political revolution sufficient to win the Democratic nomination and the White House this year remains to be seen. We do know that his run has already created the space for a more powerful progressive movement and demonstrated that a different kind of politics is possible. This is a revolution that should live on, no matter who wins the nomination. Bernie Sanders and his supporters are bending the arc of history toward justice. Theirs is an insurgency, a possibility, and a dream that we proudly endorse. Guardian Ewen MacAskill did an insightful piece on The Guardian, he seems to be prevailing so far. In yesterday'sEwen MacAskill did an insightful piece on how Jeremy Corbyn is successfully reshaping the Labour Party . It's the kind of reshaping the Democratic Party is desperately in need of-- and the kind of reshaping the Democratic Party establishment will resist with all its collective might. If the party doesn't change-- if it is led by more and even worse versions of Wasserman Schultz, Steve Israel, Chuck Schumer, Steny Hoyer, Rahm Emanuel, Harold Ford, Joe Lieberman, the party will be doomed to whither away-- a tragic betrayal of the legacy of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Corbin's people-powered revolution faced the same adamant, vicious, dug-in opposition from the Labour Establishment. According to a detailed survey by, he seems to be prevailing so far. The Guardian has interviewed Labour secretaries, chairs, other office holders and members from more than 100 of the 632 constituencies in England, Scotland and Wales. Almost every constituency party across the country we contacted reported doubling, trebling, quadrupling or even quintupling membership, and a revival of branches that had been moribund for years and close to folding. ...The survey findings are borne out by Labours national figures, released to the Guardian in a break with party tradition of keeping them secret. Membership jumped from 201,293 on 6 May last year, the day before the general election, to 388,407 on 10 January. Party membership figures are a controversial issue, with the former cabinet minister Peter Mandelson, who is opposed to Corbyn, telling a Labour meeting in the Lords last month that 30,000 long-term members have left the party, real members, tens of thousands. But the newly released figures undermine his claim, showing a total of 13,860 have left since the general election, some of them having resigned while others have gone as part of natural churn. The increase in membership is continuing, with just under 1,000 having joined since Christmas Eve. The Guardian survey, coming after months of infighting within the Parliamentary Labour party (PLP) following Corbyns leadership victory, provides an opportunity for the voices of the party grassroots to be heard. The survey found: The rise in membership has been uneven across the country. In contrast with steep rises in London and elsewhere in England and Wales, the rises in Scotland have been relatively modest, ominous for the partys hopes in Mays Scottish parliamentary election. Members, in spite of unhappiness with public splits within the PLP, say there is no appetite for deselection of MPs. But some acknowledge that proposed boundary changes in 2018 could result in de-facto deselection. Returning members, who had left Labour mainly in protest over the 2003 Iraq invasion, are making an immediate impact, partly because they are familiar with the rules. Both returning members and new ones tend to be mainly leftwing. There are few reports of attempted infiltration from hard-left groups. ...The constituencies attributed this mainly to the Corbyn effect. Garry Parvin, High Peak constituency secretary, reported an increase in membership from 100 to 463-- with 259 joining after the May election before and 30 September. In the main, yes, they are Corbyn supporters, he said. Asked whether remaking the party to reflect leftwing values was more important to them than winning the 2020 general election, Parvin said: Frankly, yes. There are a lot of ideologically driven people who feel that were going to lose anyway so we may as well lose on principle. Breaking this down, Joanne Hepworth, constituency secretary for Pontefract and Castleford, West Yorkshire, said: Weve had 360 new members since the election. We have 610 now. Between 7 May and 12 August, we had 144 new members. The rest have joined since then, mostly during the leadership race. That view is not universal. Brynmor Hollywell, constituency party secretary for Caerphilly, south Wales, said: A lot of us are disturbed about Corbyn. Hes a wonderful individual but not a potential prime minister. Overall, though, support for Corbyn at grassroots level suggests he will eventually prevail in his battle with the PLP [the Parliamentary Labour Party] or if there was to be an attempted coup. Some constituencies do complain that none of the young members have turned up yet for meetings or turned up only once, but others say young members are already actively engaged, with some constituencies reporting potential rifts between long-term members used to rule-bound discussions and the younger ones seeking more zest and passion in their politics. The Rahm-Van Hollen-Israel will never, regardless of who the GOP nominates for president, win back the House. It should be a priority to blow that edifice up and rebuild it from scratch. The DC Dems are about to go into a dark period with Wall Street's own senator, Chuck Schumer, as head of the Senate Democrats. Unless this is somehow balanced, the party will be useless as an engine for progressive values and for the aspirations of working families. A mom from Seattle, Washington traveled to Shanghai on Monday, Jan. 11 -- hoping that she would eventually find the biological parents of her adopted son. The 36-year-old mother decided to make the journey as she wants the boy to see his true parents before he loses his sight. Molly Sano said that her three-year-old adopted son Bennett, whose Chinese name was Long Miao, was diagnosed with Usher Syndrome in December. The doctors in the United States explained to her that it's a rare disease and such cure isn't available yet. Unfortunately, this condition will also take away her son's eyesight by the time he reaches the age of 20. "We just hope that he can see his biological parents with his own eyes, creating special visual memories of them before he loses his vision," Molly said to China Daily. Sano said before that she found Bennett, an abandoned child, in Ningbo in May 2012. No one knew anything about him other than a note saying, "We don't know what else to do. We're too poor to bring him up. We hope someone can help him." The apologetic note also said that Bennett was born deaf. The boy was later taken to Enmei Child Welfare Association, where Sano saw him and adopted him in February 2014. The mother who already had a daughter -- who is one month older than Bennett -- said by the time she laid eyes on the child, she knew right away that he's her son. "He's the most beautiful boy I've ever seen," she added. After adopting the boy, she and her deaf husband, Chris, have been teaching the boy sign language. After they found out about the boy's health condition, Sano has since then become busy communicating with the authorities in Ningbo. She's trying to find any information that could possibly lead them to the boy's biological parents before he goes blind. Its winter, and thus we must pay tribute to the Shotski the bar spectacle/booze delivery system that requires steady hands and friends. The shots in this case are ensconced in small boot-shaped glasses in tiny ski bindings, or regulation shot glasses that have been adhered to the same flat side of a ski. The actual ski in the Shotski is either standard size or the longer cross country style. As for personal preference, this is the trough versus urinal debate of the liquor contraption world. Do you want to be closer to the person slugging back Jagermeister next to you, or do you need more room to enjoy the bliss of simultaneous alcohol consumption? Shotskis typically come in three, four or five-shot sizes. But since this is America, somewhere around 700 people will try to imbibe together in Breckenridge, Colorado, for the annual Worlds Longest Shotski, attempt at Ullr Fest this week. You can see what it looks like when 666 people (that number is just a coincidence, right?) joined up like it was the return of Hands Across in America in 2014. Something so beautiful naturally has mysterious origins. In 2013, Jimmy Fallon mused that he had invented it with his wife Nancy Juvonen. Hes since hoisted it alongside everyone from Tracy Morgan to Victoria Justice. But truth be told, its easier to imagine a bartender showing up at a slope-side haunt early one morning and discovering the remnants of the previous nights party on an outdoor picnic table the last dregs of Buttery Nipple shots inadvertently freezing some glassware to the top of a forgetful skiers equipment. That mountain was Olympus. And while we dont have an app yet to help point you to the nearest Shotski (Im looking at you, Internet), you might be shocked to discover you and three friends are never that far from co-ordering some Lemon Drops. Shotskis come standard at bars near ski slopes and breastaurants. At Twin Peaks, ladies dressed in what appear to be the outfits of lumberjack children chant while your drink is delivered in a manner not that different from the arrival of a birthday sundae. A pair of companies exist to sell you custom-made models, including one, The Roadie, that is foldable because Subarus will take you anywhere these days. The Shotski can also be built with the standard tools of a suburban garage: old skis, duct tape or super glue, and shot glasses. In what other situation can Nirvana be crafted by the hands of mere mortals? The Shotski is ultimately about teamwork and the convenience of an extremely narrow table that you can raise to the height of your face and the face of your friends. Just be forewarned that once youve tasted the sweet kiss of the Shotski, the solitary shot glasses that line the bars of snow barren locales will seem all too far downhill. Medisafe founders, Omri and Rotem Shor, first realized the need for their app when they witnessed their father accidentally overdose on his insulin medication. Fortunately, the Shor brothers were able to act quickly enough to save their father but that moment made them think differently about the medical industry and an app on a smart device could potentially keep accidental overdoses from happening. In an interview with Jon Michaeli, Medisafe EVP of Marketing and Business Development, Michaeli spoke about the large number of prescription medications that are not taken properly in the United States. About fifty percent of patients dont take their medications as prescribed, Michaeli said. This results in 700,000 (overdoses) and underdoses emergencies a year. 125,000 deaths and almost $300 billion to the health system by patients being readminestered to the hospital and having advanced procedures. Things like that. Things that can be avoided or stalled. One way that the Medisafe app helps users keep up with their medication is through a simple and easy-to-use design that allows multiple pill schedules, reminders to refill, and also checks surrounding pharmacies on the best price for each medication. Users know what pills they have taken, when they took them, what they missed, and the app can also provide other information that helps physicians and other medical professionals track the users progress with their medication. Michaeli said that the app helps share information between the patients and doctors. So patients not only show their doctors their phones, which they do, but they also share the reports with them via email or they print them out and bring those to the doctors office, Michaeli said. We know this is happening because we see a lot of feedback from the users and telling us they shared it with their doctor or telling us [MediSafe] was recommended by their physician. Either the physician found out about the app on their own or through another patient. This is another reason the Shor brothers saw Medisafe as a necessity. Medical professionals and patients should have the most information and data about their prescriptions. The Shor brothers also want to make sure that their app keeps this private information private, and Michaeli stated that security is always a primary concern for the team at Medisafe. We take it extremely seriously, Michaeli said. We use, what I would call, the leading practices with respect to encryption of data and security of that data. We know that this is (Protected Health Information). We are a HIPPA-compliant platform and we provide guidance to our users on how to safeguard this data. Everything is also backed up in the cloud and not relying on the device as the storage mechanism. When asked why Medisafe was an important app for users, Michaeli responded that it was about getting all of the important information to the user. Rather than focusing on a specific demographic or age range, the team at Medisafe wanted to create an app centered around a basic need: creating a prescription app that provides the best information to the user and to medical professionals. We talk about an aging population, people taking more and more medication all of the time, blockbuster medications going off-patent and becoming more affordable. There are a lot of reasons why putting together a solution for non-adherence that sits in the patients hands as the one who is empowered with the tools and the resources to get some change. Thats very much needed. The Medisafe app is available on Apple and Android devices and can be downloaded for free. Come, take a walk with me, let me tell you a story: Being a parent is hard. You birth your son, raise him, feed him, clothe him and then one day he doesnt want to cuddle with you anymore. What do you do? Well, if youre Marieke Voorsluijs you just knit yourself a new kid (so much easier than getting pregnant and going through labor). The mother of two sons was tired of them not wanting to cuddle with her anymore so she took their likenesses and made a knitted, print tee-wearing, skateboarding, mall-punk replica. Just as good, right? The designer for Amsterdam knitting shop Club Geluk writes in the post My Son Doesnt Want To Cuddle Anymore So I Knit A Cuddly Version Of Him on Bored Panda: I am a professional knitter who likes to knit weird things for my brand Club Geluk. We knit realistic everyday stuff with lots of details and even wrote a book about it. We knit hams, tvs plants, etc. To set the bar a little higher regarding my knitting skills I thought of knitting my son. He liked it and we worked together on it. Mashable reports that the yarn boy is actually a knitted suit and not a stuffed doll, so one of her sons still needs to wear it. Luckily, Voorsluijs youngest son still fits in it. My knitted son consists of: a knitted head with cap, hands with nails and watch, knitted trousers, a knitted sweater with an obstinate slogan, knitters sneakers and knitted ipod, she writes in her Bored Panda post. Actually the knitted son has characteristics of both my sons. The other one had just grown so much during the process that the smaller one was only able to wear it when it was finished. Yep, thats a human in there. Voorsluijs went on to tell Mashable that the project was a joke and should not be taken too seriously as shes not a smother mother at all. Riiiight, thats what the Bates said too right up until one of them got taxidermied. 2px); width:calc(100% 2px);"> My knitted son and me #knitting #knittingontheedge #knitstagram A photo posted by Marieke Voorsluijs (@mariekevoorsluijs_clubgeluk) on Jan 11, 2016 at 11:45pm PST 2px); width:calc(100% 2px"> My knitted son skateboarding #knitstagram #knitting #knittingontheedge #scarycuddlyknit;;;;);; A photo posted by Marieke Voorsluijs (@mariekevoorsluijs_clubgeluk) on Jan 13, 2016 at 12:55am PST Apple is perhaps the highest-profile case of U.S. companies facing scrutiny from officials in Europe. Starbucks Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and McDonalds Corp. have also had its tax policies questioned. In October, Apple listed scrutiny of its taxes as a risk factor to investors. In addition to European regulators, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service has also examined the company's tax returns, Apple said. Were the tax rates to change, Apple's "financial condition, operating results and cash flows could be adversely affected," the company said in its financial statement for fiscal 2015. On the matter of Apple taxes, Bloomberg Intelligence estimates that "Apple could owe more than $8 billion in back taxes as a result of a European Commission investigation into its tax policies. Apple, which has said it will appeal an adverse ruling, is being scrutinized by regulators who have accused the iPhone maker of using subsidiaries in Ireland to avoid paying taxes on revenue generated outside the U.S. Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has denied that the company uses tricks to avoid paying taxes. In a recent interview on CBS Corp.'s '60 Minutes,' he called the criticism the company has faced from U.S. lawmakers 'political crap.' He said the tax system is outdated and needs to be updated for a digital economy." For now, Apple will continue to play by its own rules until the European Commission and the U.S. IRS decide to clamp down on Apple which could as early as this spring. Last month Apple agreed to pay $348 million for tax evasion in Italy without having to admit to it. Will Apple take a similar approach to negotiations with the European Commission? While we await the answer to that question, you could check out the full BloombergBusiness report here. About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Comments are reviewed daily from 4am to 6pm PST and sporadically over the weekend. Previous Reports on Apple Taxes Probe in Europe Dec. 2015: The EU Postpones Tax Deal Ruling between Ireland & Apple to 2016 Oct. 2015: Fiery Irish Finance Minister Says They'll Fight any Negative Ruling Regarding their Tax Deal with Apple A new report claims that Major U.S. growth mutual funds have been among the largest sellers of Apple shares over the past six months, fueling speculation that the company's days of supercharged growth have come to an end. Amid concerns that iPhone sales may be set to drop, the $77.3 billion American Funds Capital World Growth & Income Fund has sold all of its 1.7 million Apple shares since the end of June, according to Lipper data. The $9.3 billion Hartford Capital Appreciation Fund sold 1.4 million shares over the same period, reducing its position by 91 percent. The Fidelity, American Fund Capital and Hartford Capital growth funds were among the ten largest sellers of Apple over the last six months of 2015. The selling of Apple stock by growth-oriented managers, who seek higher returns from fast-expanding companies, pushes Apple further toward being a so-called value stock more appealing for its balance sheet or cash than its growth prospects. Investors see Wall Street's expectations of fewer phone sales this year as a reflection of a maturing U.S. smartphone market and the economic slowdown in China, where Apple has been deriving most of its growth. The transition of Apple to more of a value than a growth investment is well underway at funds giant Fidelity. Its growth-oriented Fidelity Capital Appreciation fund has sold all of its 2.48 million Apple shares since June, according to Lipper data. At the same time, the value-oriented Fidelity Series Equity-Income fund bought 1.05 million shares after having no previous stake, and making it one of the ten largest buyers in the second half of last year. Companies that transition from growth to value stocks sometimes see share prices stagnate for long periods. Microsoft, a favorite during the late '90s tech bubble, fell below $40 per share in July 2000 and did not trade above that price again for almost 14 years. Some investors are hoping that the biggest breakthrough product in Apple's future will be a car possibly an electric vehicle. While the company has never fully acknowledged it has an automotive project, Elon Musk, Tesla Motors CEO, was quoted on Monday as saying that "it's an 'open secret' that Apple is building an electric car," adding that "It's pretty hard to hide something if you hire over 1,000 engineers to do it." The Reuters report noted that "Overall, 41.4 percent of growth funds hold Apple, a decline from 47.2 percent at the end of 2012, according to Lipper. Apple is held by 20.1 percent of value funds, up from 13.9 percent over the same period." So the transition of AAPL from being a growth stock to that of a value stock as noted by the Reuters article is occurring at a snail's pace because there's still the belief that Apple has the brain power and a solid base of customers to make the leap back to growth should the right product surface. In September Apple's next-generation iPhone 7 will introduce another leap in power, design and features that is likely to put an end to all this doom and gloom that we've all hearing about as the New Year begins in turmoil. I mean just look at the Fox News headline below for today. On January 7 we posted a report titled "The Sky isn't falling with Apple's Stock in the Midst of a Market Selloff Fed by China's Stock Market Troubles," and nothing has changed since then except for the noise getting a little louder. So is Apple (AAPL) going to be a value stock? Yes, someday it will, and the market is beginning to hedge a little. Yet at the end of the day, in my humble opinion, that's a long way off in the distance before it settles down into a being a typical value stock. But for those of you who are a little concerned about Apple's stock, be sure to tune in to their live financial conference call set for January 26 when you'll be able to hear from CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri. It's here where Apple's executive will put Apple's financial numbers into proper perspective and shed some light and color for the year ahead. About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Comments are reviewed daily from 4am to 6pm PST and sporadically over the weekend. Two days ago, the old Irish monsignor who lives across the hall from me at the rectory shared with me a little piece of history. Not quite as elaborate as George Bernanos novel The Diary of a Country Priest, the monsignor shared with me a handwritten copy of the diary of Father Vincent Ryan, the parish priest of Solohead, County Tipperary in Ireland, covering the years 1872 to 1878. Brief and written in short phrases, reading through Father Ryans diary makes you realize that 19th century Ireland and the Wild West have much in common. Abductions, shootings, murders and death by whisky are mingled with births, deaths, departures for America and the bishops visit. On October 13th, 1872, Father Ryan reported that it was the second day of Tipperary races held at Brookville. He wrote that the weather was of the best both for the first and second day. Unfortunately Father records on the 26th that John Ryan died from the effects of a beating returning from the races of Tipperary, and soon after James Glasheen of Monard died from injures he received from a man named Doherty from the town of Oola. The following year, Father once again wrote about the races, and unfortunately another death occurred. On September 20th, 1873, Father Ryan wrote it was the second day of Tipperary races held at Brookville. That same day, Thomas Gavan of Clonbrick died from the effects of a stroke from a stick at Tipperary on returning from Tipperary Races. Poor Thomas Gavan, he got beat to death on his way home from the races. I am sure Father Ryan did not expect what happened during a wedding he performed on February 24th, 1874. He wrote, The widow Nancy Noherty of Seskin married to a man named Byrnes. The widow was on her way in but was abducted by her brother. Not much later poor Mr. Thomas Dwyer, a farmer, was found dead at his own gate. He was returning from Tipperary. Whiskey is the supposed cause of his death. That very same year on July 18th, 1874, Mrs. Michael Hayes of Milltown was shot dead in her bed at 1:30PM. Father Ryan does not provide more details, but does write nine months later that Michael Hayes of Milltown was awarded a 500 pound compensation for the murder of his wife. On June 21st, 1876, a Wednesday, Father recorded that Bishop Croke administered Confirmation. The ceremony lasted from 11 AM to 4 PM. A confirmation, or any ceremony of that length, would cause a riot today. Traveling with my bishop throughout the diocese as he administers the sacrament of Confirmation, a two hour ceremony is about the limit for all involved. A simple search of Bishop Croke reveals he was the second Catholic Bishop of Auckland, New Zealand, and in 1875 became Archbishop of Cashel in Ireland. On November 1876, Michael Ryan Junior was sentenced to three months imprisonment in Tipperary for stealing coal at the Limerick Junction and a few months before, Denis Treacy of Solohead was sentenced to two years imprisonment and hard labor for beating a woman, Mrs. Thomas Treacy. From the names, we know she was not his wife, perhaps a sister-in-law? That same month, Father reports nearly half of the potato crop died. This is not the time of the tragic Irish potato famine, but I am sure many in Solohead were hungry months later. On January 7th, 1877, Thomas McGrath (known as The Fose) stabbed Dan Hanly in four places with a pen knife and the last entry of the diary, written on November 3rd, 1878, states that John Hooby died in Waterford Jail, he was putting in 12 month imprisonment for abduction. The very brief diary Father Ryan left behind provides a small window through time into the life of an Irish county priest. As a lover of history, reading this was fascinating for me, and I hope you enjoyed sharing the view through this small widow with me. Pictures are mine, all rights reserved. A Review Series of Anonymous Tip, by Michael Farris Pp. 193-195 Its been a while since weve gotten a peak into Donnas personal life. Weve only met Donnas boyfriend, Stephen, twice so far: once when we first met Donna waking up in bed with him back in chapter 1, and once when she told him about this particular case while eating lunch after the initial hearing. We know that hes from a rich family and has daddy issues, and that he just graduated at the top in his class from Gonzaga University School of Law. We also know that hes studying for the bar exam and will be going to Washington, D.C., to take a job that is a chance of a lifetime for the next two years as soon as hes finished with the bar. Today were back in Stephen and Donnas bed. Stephen Stockton was wakened by the sound of soft crying. He glanced over at the clock. It was two-thirty. He had only been asleep for an hour after yet another long night of studying for the Bar. Even his Saturday nights were not immune from the necessity of study. He turned over in bed. Whats wrong, Donna? Oh . . . oh, nothing. This is interesting. Donna usually has a pretty hard exterior and seems very sure of herself. Its nice to get to peek inside her a bit more, though its a bit abrupt. Just a few pages ago she was pushing Blackburn to appeal the case and engaging with Gail the prosecutor about their chances. As for Stephen, Im never entirely sure whether or not Im supposed to like him. He goes out drinking and hes living with his girlfriend, both of which would suggest that Farris wants us to see him as a bad guy, but at the same time he studies hard and is uncomfortable with Donnas ethical laps on this case, both of which are things Farris would likely see as positive. Perhaps we actually have a nuanced character, for once? Im not so hot on this bit, though: OK. We can do this the long way or the short way. Do you want to tell me whats wrong, or do I have to cross-examine you and force it out bit by bit? Is let me know if you want to talk about it, Im always willing to listen so hard to say? Oh, all right. Im scared and Im lonely, she replied. Stockton cuddled up next to her. I think I understand the lonely part. I have not been very good company lately. This bar exam has got my attention. Donna reminds him that after he takes the bar hes moving to Washington, D.C., for two years, so its not just the bar. Stephen reminder her that she can still come too, as he had urged in one of their previous conversations. This interaction ensues: Oh, theres no time for a wedding and everything, she said with an exasperated sigh. . . . I guess you could come to Washington without marrying me, and just keep on like we are now. But I thought you said your job wouldnt permit us just living together. Obviously thats not an official rule. But unofficially, it wont look good at all. At least not for long. But we could probably get married in Thanksgiving or something. I think theyd ignore us if a wedding was imminent. So are you coming with me? Oh, I dont know. I dont think so. She flung her pillow against the wall in obvious frustration. Farris has yet to tell us what Stephens chance of a lifetime job is. Im wondering, where things really this different in the mid-1990s? From where Im standing, the only people who blink an eye before living together are evangelical Christians (and, well, Catholics, and other conservative religious individuals, but you get the idea). In fact, I once asked a classroom full of twenty college students how many of them planned to live together with a romantic partner without being married (I promise, it was actually relevant to the subject I was teaching), and all but one of them raised their hand. What job is Stephen taking where hell get in trouble if hes living with his girlfriend? Im also wondering about Donnas motivations for not going with Stephen. Farris hasnt given us any. We know that Donna tried to convince Stephen to stay in Washington state and take a job for his fathers firm, but not why. There are social work jobs in Washington, D.C., too. What is Donnas objection? Does she really like her current workplace? Does she have lots of (unmentioned) friends that she would miss? Do her parents live locally and need her help? Is it because shes a (stereotype) feminist, and doesnt want to follow her man across the country? We dont know, and that makes really getting inside Donnas head here difficult. Anyway, Stephen asks Donna again whats bothering her. Hes not willing to let this one go. Its stuff at work and I dont want to talk about it. What kind of stuff at work? . . . Blackburn. Hes on my back about this particular file. It wouldnt happen to be the case you told me about a couple of weeks ago, would it? The one where you . . . uh . . . stretched the facts a bit? Corliss flopped backwards on the bed and gave a loud moan. Yes, thats it exactly. Come on, Stephen, when she said she didnt want to talk about it you should have let it go. Regardless, Stephen asks if shes in trouble because Blackburn found out shed fudged things. Are you kidding? Corliss replied. He does it all the time. In fact, he invented the whole idea. He even calls it Code B, like we were some kind of secret agents or something. Donna explains why shes in trouble as follows: We lost the trial. The kid went back to her cutesy, cutesy mother when her obnoxious attorney got involved. Weve never lost a Code B case before. Blackburn is furious. Stephen asks if Blackburn is threatening her, and Donna says not directly. She says Blackburn is looking into an appeal and wants everything sanitized first. She explains that a document was entered into the record that might reveal the Code B stuff. Stephen is suddenly very uncomfortable. He tells Donna not to tell him any more factual secrets and explains that it could create ethical problems down the road. Corliss felt even more abandoned. She stared at the ceiling, feeling not just alone, but stripped of all protection and comfort. How can you sanitize a file thats on appeal? Once you are in the appellate courts the file cannot be opened. This guy sounds crazy. Stockton rolled over and put his arm around Donnas sounders and held her tight. Listen, I want you to come to Washington with me. This sounds weird. I want you away form all this stuff. Do you hear me? I dont know how to protect you from this Blackburn creep if you keep working there, but I know how to get you to of town. Corliss said nothing, but tears streamed down the sides of her face as she lay flat on the bed. After about fifteen minutes of silence, Stockton noticed she had fallen asleep. He quietly turned off the light, glad to be finished with the topic, and attempted to go back to sleep. So wait a minute. Did Donna want to talk about it or did she not want to talk about it? She protested many many many times that she didnt want to talk about it, and Stephen had to drag it out of her. When he found out it was about unethical things, he became very uncomfortableeither because he has a strong conscience or because hes becoming a lawyer and wants to keep his nose clean, its not entirely sure which (or, at least, how much weight rests on either)and then she got upset with him for not being willing to talk to her about it. Ordinarily, Id accept this as humans being humans, but given that this is Farris writing, I have to wonder if there isnt a gendered women, so fickle element going on here, especially with all of Stephens talk about protecting Donna. For supposedly being a raging feminist, Donna isnt acting like one hereor, well, I wonder if this is Farris showing that Donnas feminist exterior is covering her actual female weakness? I mean just look of all the talk of her needing Stephen to protect her from this situation at work, and from her boss. And so here I am, now, trying to think about what this passage does to further develop Donnas character. We learned a lot about Stephenhe doesnt take no for an answer, even in personal relationships, and he views himself as Donnas protector, and Donna as in need of his protection. What about Donna? Weve learned that shes scared, but not really what shes scared about, specifically. At this point she doesnt know that Peter is going to sue her and her department, and shes the one pushing the appeal. If she was scared about this stuff coming out, youd think she would just let it be. Theres some suggestion here that Donna is scared of Blackburn, and its true that he did dress her down for losing the case. Even then, Donna was the one pushing him, urging him to authorize an appeal. Donna didnt have to do that, and Blackburn only sent her to make sure everything was sanitized after talk of an appeal. In the end, I may know that Donna is scared, but I feel like I actually understand her less well than I did before. Perhaps shes simply majorly conflicted? Perhaps shes not sure who she is? Because we dont see underneath her firm exterior except for moments like this, its really hard to understand whats going on in her mind at other moments, such as during her meeting with Blackburn about filing an appeal. And thats frustrating. Or am I being too hard on Farris here? Does Donnas character actually make sense? Feel free to weigh in! I got a call from John Fetterman today. He was in New York, killing some time before his appearance on tonight's Larry Willmore Show. "I thought you'd want to know," he blurted out, "I just endorsed Bernie." Wow! That came out of the blue... oh, not the call. I've talked with Fetterman a few times before-- he even did a guest post for DWT -- but I had no idea he was going to buck the Clinton Machine like that. Immediately after John's announcement, the Schumercrat in the race, Katie McGinty, was instructed by Schumer or EMILY's List or Bob Brady or whoever pulls her strings this week, to endorse Hillary. So she did. She is extremely obedient, which is what Schumer loves about her; he knows a guaranteed vote in his pocket when he sees one. As for Sestak, his campaign manager was clear and to the point. "Joe just focuses on the people of Pennsylvania so that he can continue to serve them." I remember from the old days when Sestak was in Congress his expertise as an admiral was often called upon by others and he worked closely with both Hillary-- on Agent Orange-- and with Bernie-- on how to better serve the needs of veterans. He's always expressed tremendous admiration for both of them, so I can't see him endorsing one over the other. Not a lot of people hold our political process in high regard. And why would they? Millionaires and billionaires can go shopping for candidates like its a trip to the grocery store. Giant corporations are buying elections and rigging the system in their favor, and establishment politicians have forgotten where actual people fit into the equation. Thats not how its supposed to work. Bernie Sanders and I are both running for the same reason: we believe that politics is about standing up for people instead of catering to corporate influence. We represent everyday working people who have been cut out of the political process by big money. Doylestown mayor Ron Strouse recently called me the Bernie Sanders of Pennsylvania, but with better hair. All joking aside, I considered it high praise. Bernie is progressive, hes authentic, and hes not for sale. The establishment has their chosen candidate in both of our races, and we both went into this knowing it would be an uphill battle. Bernies proven that you can run a strong campaign without selling your soul to billionaires. Which is exciting, because we badly need people in office who arent afraid to stick their neck out for working people. For ten years as Mayor of Braddock, Ive confronted massive inequality, the result of an economy where wealth only goes to those at the very top, while the rest of us are left behind. There are towns like ours across Pennsylvania, and throughout the United States. Bernie gets this. Hes never shied away from the inequalities plaguing communities like Braddock across the country. Though our races are very different, the issues are very much the same. Bernie Sanders is going to do for this country what I want to do for Pennsylvania: confront inequality in all of its forms. Supporting the interests of working people over the establishment is the easiest choice I will ever make. I'll always choose the innovator over the evolver. Im proud to have Bernies back in Pennsylvania. UPDATED POST When I was an Anglican I remember one of the stories that came out of a Lambeth Conference (the once a decade meeting of all Anglican bishops in Canterbury) An Episcopalian bishop got into an argument with an African over homosexuality. He finally said to the African in a patronizing, snooty Anglican way, When you Africans become a bit more sophisticated and educated you will also come to a more subtle understanding of human sexuality. The African retorted, You are being racist! You think because I have black skin that I am an uneducated jungle man. But we African bishops have our PhDs. We have studied theology at Oxford and Cambridge. We have been to Harvard and Yale. We are not uneducated natives! The Episcopal bishop (for whom racism was the unforgivable sin) was duly chastened. That was in the early 1990s, so the struggle which has broken out in the Anglican Communion has been brewing for decades. News today that the bishops of the Anglican Communion have suspended the Episcopal Church of the USA for three years over their decision to endorse same sex marriage is truly historic. Here are five reasons why this decision is important: 1. The pressure on the Anglican Church to adhere to historic Christian teaching regarding marriage was undoubtedly led by the Africans. This means young, orthodox and majority church of the developing world has formally flexed its muscles. The Africans have stood up to the historic churches of the Northern, developed world. In global terms this is very, very important. Any reader of John Allens brilliant book The Future Church will understand that Christianity is most vibrant in the global South. The church in Africa is young, dynamic, orthodox and growing compared to the aging, liberal, declining church in Europe and North America. This success by the Africans on controlling the direction of global Anglicanism is the first real sign that power is shifting away from New York and Canterbury to Nigeria and Kenya. This means that the churches in the developing world have effectively established an alternative power structure that has successfully challenged the liberal, ruling establishment elite. 2. This is the first step towards a re-orientation in global Christianity away from the domination by the liberal, intellectual, critical and relativistic Northern establishment and the fresh expression of a young, orthodox, vibrant and dynamic Southern Christianity. Some might think that the pressure in Central and South America has already been a marker of the global shift South, but beneath the surface of South American liberation theology and independence has always been a Euro-centrist philosophical and theological bias. African Christianity is much more African than South American Christianity was indigenous to South America. Therefore the orientation South is a genuine shift in culture and worldview from European to indigenous Christianity. 3. As Allen points out, the Southern Church is likely to not only be conservative on moral and family matters, but it is theologically traditional while being liturgically African. An African bishopAnglican or Catholicmay be conservative morally and theologically, but dance in the liturgy to jungle drums. He is also likely to be liberal in financial matters. He is opposed the Northern economic hegemony and wants economic justice for his people. The shift of awareness is therefore not simply about homosexuality. The Africans wish to challenge the global North on many other matters as well, and they now have the platform and the power to do so. Continue Reading The progressive Episcopal Church of the USA has been suspended from the Worldwide Anglican Communion for three years because of their formal endorsement of same sex marriage. The point of the suspension is to encourage the Episcopalians to reconsider their decision and return to the moral values of historical Christianity and the Biblical principles of Christian marriage. The chances that this will happen are remote. Instead the progressive Episcopalians will react in these predictable ways. 1. Sentimentalism Their response will not be with reasoned argument, proof for same sex marriage from the Scriptures, the church fathers and the tradition of the church. This is not only because there is no such proof, but because they have abandoned the whole idea of objective truth long ago. Instead there will be a good bit of bottom lips being stuck out, combined with sadness and deep concern about the decision. They will tell everyone how hurt they are and how distressed they are by the decision. They will pull on emotions as much as they possibly can. 2. False Martyrdom Hand in hand with the sentimentality watch them play the victim card. They will portray themselves as the victims of a great right wing conspiracy. Those nasty conservative homophobes ganged up on them. Then they will combine their own sense of martyrdom with that of the homosexuals they champion. They will portray themselves as standing bravely shoulder to shoulder with the poor, persecuted ones. Go here for my post on The Rise of the Crybaby Bully to study this syndrome further. 3. Pride Ironically the slogan of the LGBTI movement is Pride. Its appropriate because all humility will be absent in their response. Any idea of repentance will be absent from their response. Instead they will hold their heads high with pride. They will march with pride. They will respond with pride, and it will not only be the usual pride and arrogance of the privileged elite, but it will be masked by the faux victim thing. In other words it will be just as nauseatingly self righteous as you can imagine. We few, we faithful few are the brave pioneers who are marching forward to bring Gods justice to the poor persecuted ones. 4. Self Righteousness Attached to the pride will be a huge helping of self righteousness of two kinds. There will be the wounded, pouting self righteousness of the faux victim and there will be the thundering self righteousness of the faux prophet. Because they follow an ideology, not a religion, there is no room for repentance, humility and self criticism. They are right and everyone else must march along or else they will march to the promised land alone! 5. Propaganda Here is Washington Bishop Marianne Buddes statement: Bishop Curry (the present presiding bishop of ECUSA) recommitted our church to be a house of prayer for all people, and the primates decisions will not change the welcome that all of Gods children will find at Washington National Cathedral and the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, Notice the fakery here. Nobody has ever suggested that homosexual people should not be welcome in any Christian Church. What caused the divide was the Episcopal Churchs formal endorsement of same sex marriage. The Episcopalians will try to serve the traditional Anglican fudge: They will make statements that are full of ambiguities, re-interpretations and high sounding rhetoric which has no real substance. In other words, it will be the usual progressive smoke and mirrors act. 6. Counter Attack Dont be deceived by all the hurt faces, the expressions of pain and sadness and deep concern. Theres rage beneath it all and you can bet it is going to come out full strength. Behind the scenes they will go for those who they perceive as their enemies and it will be ruthless. The African bishops will be portrayed as homophobic gay killers. They will be portrayed as ignorant jungle bunnies who ought to mind their own business. It will get racist and it will get ugly. 7. Schism The Episcopal Church of the USA will leave the Anglican Communion and become just another one of the nearly 150 Anglican style breakaway churches. They will do so with all the emotions above. They will march into the sunset holding their heads high, playing the victim and boasting about how they are glad to be identified with the poor, the persecuted and the outcasts. All of this is already happening. Here is Rev Susan Russell writing for the Huffington Post. She manages to pack the sentimentalism, false martyr, noble pioneer, self righteous prophet, propaganda, threats and schism all into one concise paragraph. To be clear: God is not finished with the Episcopal Church yet. We have miles to go and much work to do to overcome the many systemic issues that continue to challenge us as we strive to live into our call to be the Body of Christ in the world. Theres a lot of work ahead but today Im proud and grateful that being considered second class Anglicans is a price we are willing to pay to treat Gods beloved LGBT people as first class Christians. To read Rev Russells full article go here. News and commentary on organized crime, street crime, white collar crime, cyber crime, sex crime, crime fiction, crime prevention, espionage and terrorism. There are several happenings in and around Rhode Island to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. Iran Removes Core of Arak Heavy Water Reactor as Part of Nuclear Accord 01/15/16 Source: VOA CAIRO-Iran's Atomic Energy Agency says it has removed the core of its heavy water reactor in the southern town of Arak, apparently completing the final condition of a nuclear deal with Western powers. The Arak Reactor (IR-40) Iranian state TV reported that Foreign Minister Mohamed Javad Zarif told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry by phone Thursday the removal of the core of the Arak heavy water nuclear reactor is complete. If not disabled the plant could have produced plutonium, a possible element in setting off a nuclear reaction. Under the nuclear deal with Western powers reached in July, Iran has already completed shipping its supply of enriched uranium to Russia, limited the number of centrifuges at its Fordo nuclear enrichment plant, and submitted to the inspection of its Parchin military testing site. Iran Atomic Energy Agency Spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told state TV International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors will visit the plant Thursday to verify the core's removal. Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told journalists the Arak nuclear reactor is due to be redesigned by foreign experts to be used for research and production of medical isotopes. The Arak Reactor (IR-40) The Fars News Agency quoted Araqchi as saying that the "International Atomic Energy Agency will issue its final report Friday, confirming that Iran has met its commitments under the July nuclear accord" with the P5+1 group of countries. Persian Gulf analyst and former Iranian diplomat Mehrdad Khonsari tells VOA the Iranian government appears eager to complete the final steps of the nuclear accord. "I think that the Iranian government is adamant about the completing the commitment it has made, because it is anxious that the sanctions are removed and that implementation day is not impeded by any outstanding matter," he said. Iran is eager to see part of its $100 billion in frozen assets released by the United States and other world powers, due to take place once the IAEA verifies it has met its obligations under the nuclear deal. The best 2-in-1 laptop 2022: our picks of the best convertible laptops These are the best 2-in-1 laptops you can buy right now Here come the Xperia Z5 and Xperia Z5 Compact. Sony's two new flagship phones are finally being released in the U.S. starting in early February, months after they've already been available in Europe and elsewhere. Missing from the mix is Sony's Xperia Z5 Premium, the 4K smartphone that Sony isn't launching here just yet (if ever). Amazon(Opens in a new window), Best Buy, and B&H Photo will be selling unlocked (GSM) versions of the smartphones starting on Feb. 7. The Xperia Z5with a 5.2-inch display running at 1080p resolutionwill cost $599. The smartphone's compact version, which has a 4.6-inch display and 720p resolutionwill cost $499. Both smartphones share approximately the same features, save for their different sizes, resolutions, and the Xperia Z5 Compact's 2GB of memory instead of the Xperia Z5's 3GB. The Compact also has a slightly smaller 2,700 mAH battery versus the Xperia Z5's 2,900 mAh battery. If you're debating which one you might want to check out, PCMag's Will Greenwald had some hands-on time with the Compact last fall. As he described, "720p is hard to swallow even on a 4.6-inch screen these days, with 2,560-by-1,440 screens the norm for high-end phones, and even the regular Z5's 1080p display seeming to lag behind." Both of Sony's smartphones eschew the kind of dramatic curves you might find on one of Samsung's flagship devices. They're metallic, gray, and boxy. They come with 23-megapixel rear cameras and 5-megapixel front-facing shooters. Sony's so-called hybrid autofocus system allows these cameras to achieve a lock on whatever you're shooting within approximately 0.03 seconds, the company says. Though the smartphones' internal storage only goes up to 32GB, both have a micro SD slot in case you want to expand. They're both dust-proof and waterproof, and both use Qualcomm's Snapdragon 810 chip. We'll be curious to see how much traction Sony's two smartphones get, seeing as Sony isn't really a major manufacturer for the American smartphone market. Carriers don't really seem too keen on pushing them, eitherjust look at Sony's Xperia Z4v, which Verizon announced as an exclusive launch around the middle of last year before killing the whole thing four months later. Facebook users in Japan can now react to friends' timeline posts with more pizazz. The social network this week quietly introduced its Reactions emojis there as it expands the reach of this feature. "I'm in Tokyo today to announce the rollout of Reactions in Japan, our sixth country," Chris Cox, chief product officer at Facebook, said Thursday(Opens in a new window). Initially tested last fall in Spain and Ireland, the expressive icons let folks express love, laughter, happiness, shock, sadness, anger, and the usual blue-and-white thumbs-up stamp of approval. The add-on is also now available in Chile, Portugal, and the Philippines. To add a Reaction, hold down the like button (on mobile) or hover over it (on the desktop) to see the options. Then pick your poison and post; the emojis appear on friends' updates and Pages/accounts you follow. When Facebook unveiled its new feature in October, the site boasted seven different symbols. But only six were displayed with Cox's post, suggesting Japanese users do not have access to the "Yay" emoji. Facebook did not immediately respond to PCMag's request for comment. The company also revealed six new Japanese publishing partners for Instant Articles. "We're excited to see how these features get used in Japan, a culture we all learn from in how to communicate visually," Cox wrote. There is still no word on when the function might reach U.S. users. In September, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook was pondering how to incorporate a "dislike" button, or at least "something that allows you to express 'empathy' with 'more options,'" The Washington Post reported at the time. Whatever you do, don't get caught in a "dislike" button scam, which hackers claim is an "invite-only feature" in a bid to get users to click a malicious download link. If you're browsing Facebook in Germany, it's probably going to get a little harder to find people to befriend. Germany's top court recently reaffirmed the decision of two lower German courts, which held that Facebook's Friend Finder tool is an "intrusive" form of networking, Reuters reports(Opens in a new window). In other words, the ability to blast emails to people not on Facebook in an effort to get them to join is an "unacceptable nuisance" because these people have not consented to receive the emails in question. A Facebook in Germany rep told Reuters that the company will look at the court's ruling "to assess any impact on our services." The Federation of German Consumer Organisations, which initially filed the lawsuit back in 2010, praised the court's decision. "What the judgment means exactly for the current Friends Finder, we now have to find out," said Klaus Mueller, who runs the organization. Most recently, Facebook worked with German authorities to come up with a plan for removing hate speech from the social network within 24 hours of it being reported. The agreement came about a month after German officials launched an investigation into Facebook's treatment of hate speechnamely, that the service was leaving some of it online, which was possibly inciting racial hatred against immigrants. Under German law, public comments that incite violence against a specific ethnic or religious group can be punishable by up to three years imprisonment. Facebook maintains that the company was doing nothing wrong or unlawful. Apple hasnt completely fixed a weakness in Gatekeeper, its security technology that blocks harmful applications from being installed. Patrick Wardle, director of research with the company Synack, said in an interview he reverse-engineered a patch Apple released in October and found it wasnt quite the fix he expected. Wardle found he could still bypass Gatekeeper and install malware. Hes going public with his latest findings on Sunday at the Shmoocon security conference, which starts Friday in Washington, D.C. Releasing a patch claiming it is fixed kind of doesnt solve the problem, Wardle said. Users will think theyre secure when theyre not. Wardle, who has studied OS X extensively, found the original bug that Apple patched, CVE-2015-7024. When a user downloads an application, Gatekeeper checks if it has a digital signature and blocks those that dont have one approved by Apple. Wardle found that Gatekeeper only verifies the initial executable that the user double-clicks on. So Wardle found some other code signed by Apple that, when run, will look for other unsigned and malicious executables in the same directory. The problem is that Gatekeeper does not verify that second component, he said. When he studied Apples patch, he found that the company had simply blacklisted the Apple-signed code that Wardle had used in his proof-of-concept code. Essentially, the company blacklisted some of its own files. Apple officials told him that theyd blocked his targeted attack, but Wardle said he pointed out he could simply use different executables to get around the patch. He said the company has indicated it is working on a more effective patch but he decided to go public anyway since users are still at risk. The weakness can also be used in a man-in-the-middle attack, especially when software makers do not deliver their installers over SSL/TLS (Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security). In a demonstration video, Wardle showed how he could inject malicious code into one application, a Kaspersky antivirus software package, that is not delivered over SSL. Were back to square one, he said. Surprisingly, Wardle found early last year that many security software makers still dont use SSL to deliver their installers. These guys are supposed to be security professionals, he said. That means an advanced attacker with network access wouldnt have trouble conducting a man-in-the-middle attack and replicating Wardles attack. At Shmoocon, Wardle will release a tool called Ostiarius the Latin word for Gatekeeper that he says accomplishes what Apple should have done the first time around to fix Gatekeeper. It monitors all the new processes created in OS Xs kernel. If a process isnt digitally signed and comes from a executable that was downloaded from the Internet, it is stopped. Its kind of a global approach, Wardle said. It doesnt care if the executable was run by the user or if an attacker was abusing some signed code to kick that off. Ostiarius will be posted on Wardles website, which has a collection of OS X security tools that hes developed. Businesses are rushing toward Windows 10 as fast as they can, but they simply need more time. To accommodate them, Microsoft is trying something different: creating a transitional list of PCs built on the latest Intel Skylake hardware, but certified to run the tried-and-true Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 operating systems for now. The program tacitly acknowledges that enterprises have a hardware budget they need to spend, and migrating a company from Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 can literally take years. Running an older OS on top of the latest hardware represents a customer-first approach to the transition, Microsoft said. Still, the carrot comes with a pair of sticks. Microsoft will support the list of Skylake PCs running Windows 7 and 8.1 for only 18 months, until July 2017. And while the Windows 7/8.1 integration is being designed with Intels Skylake in mind, new PCs based on upcoming chipsIntels Kaby Lake, Qualcomms 8996 chips, or AMDs Bristol Ridgewill all require Windows 10. Why this matters: Microsofts free upgrade to Windows 10 was really a grassroots campaign to lobby businesses to adopt the new OSand continue their lucrative license fees and support contracts. The 200 million active devices that now run Windows 10 prove the strategy has partially worked. Still, over 55 percent of the worlds PCs run Windows 7, including businesses who consider it to be a stable operating system. Microsoft appears willing to be patient, as long as the migration does happen, eventually. Businesses adopt Windows 10 at their own pace Even as Windows 10 adoption seems to be slowing, it appears businesses are embracing it. The interest is definitely there, said Bob ODonnell, chief analyst at TECHnalysis Research, who ran several surveys of businesses in the fall, both in the United States and abroad. But the interest and when they can do [deploy] it are two different things. Companies are generally positive toward Windows 10, agreed Steve Kleynhans, an analyst at Gartner. Kleynhans said the industry has wrestled with the same sort of transition pains in the past, such as when companies migrated off Windows XP. I dont think that Microsoft needs to push them, he added. Companies are moving as fast as they can. Hardware budgets, however, force a company to buy PCs before they may be ready to roll out. The budget and the process for rolling out new PCs isnt usually aligned with the project of deploying a new operating system across a company, Kleynhans noted. A company may buy a traditional notebook now and deploy it with Windows 7, intending to upgrade it to Windows 10 in a years time. A widening gap between hardware and software Microsoft says its doing its best to bridge the gap between users enthusiasm for new hardware with their attachment to old software. What we wanted to addresswas that customers are buying new hardware every day, Terry Myerson, executive vice president of the Windows and Devices Group at Microsoft, in an interview. Although PC sales continue to drop, they are still the platform of choice for most enterprises, and Windows comes with them. We expect to see 300 million what we categorize as new PCs this year, and they want clarity as to where they can get fully-supported quality in those purchase decisions, Myerson added. Microsofts approach prioritizes keeping users on Windows first. If customers want the latest experience, they can turn to Windows 10. But now Microsoft and its partners have provided a robust list of options for customers to buy the latest hardware that will be patched and supported, while still running a tried-and-true OS, Windows 7 or Windows 8.1. If you really value reliability and compatibility above all else, then theres the option of buying hardware with the platform that was designed for it, Myerson said. The list of approved PCs includes several top brands: Dell Latitude 12 Dell Latitude 13 7000 Ultrabook Dell XPS 13 HP EliteBook Folio HP EliteBook 1040 G3 Lenovo ThinkPad T460s Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Lenovo ThinkPad P70 The 18 months of support matters because running an aged OS running on cutting-edge hardware requires some finesse. Windows 7 was released in 2009, well before Intel even began designing the Skylake chips. That means Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 has certain expectations regarding hardware power states and interrupt processing, and any tweaks to the device drivers or firmware can cause issues, according to Microsoft. The support Microsoft and its partners will offer includes special testing to accommodate those quirks, as well as tools to help update the OS and BIOS once the customer decides to upgrade to Windows 10. Myerson said Microsoft worked together with its PC partners, including Intel, to create the list of approved PCs, as well as to jointly test BIOS updates and drivers. So far, theres no indication that the list of Skylake PCs will include consumer models. Support of the Skylake Windows 7/8.1 PCs will include validation of Windows Updates to reduce regressions like security concerns, the company said. After the 18-month support timeframe ends on July 17, 2017, only the most critical Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 security updates will be addressed for those PCs, and will be released if the update does not risk the reliability or compatibility of the Windows 7/8.1 platform on other devices, Microsoft said in a blog post. Windows 7 remains on extended support until Jan. 14, 2020, and Windows 8.1 until Jan. 10, 2023. City of Riverside residents may be spared the bizarre spectacle of another nonemergency ambulance hearing in City Hall for the foreseeable future. On Tuesday, after an excessively contentious debate over whether or not to allow Premier Medical Transport to operate in the city, the Riverside City Council narrowly voted 4-3 to permit the company to transport patients. Councilmen Mike Gardner, Chris MacArthur and Jim Perry were opposed. The councils angst over allowing a company that has already been operating in the city under a subcontract with American Medical Response is puzzling, if not concerning, because it shows many on the council still see themselves as the great central planners of the city. We keep having the same discussions over and over again, for the last seven years on these issues, said Councilman Paul Davis at the meeting. Its bizarre, said Councilman Mike Soubirous of the reality that this hearing was virtually identical to the last hearing in December. Across multiple hearings since October, the Fire Department made it clear that the company met all requirements by the city, that competition was beneficial to the city and that it was recommending the city allow the company to operate in Riverside. There were only so many ways Deputy Fire Chief La Wayne Hearn could reiterate this, and he is to be commended for his patience and clarity. Those opposed to allowing the company to operate in the city were primarily concerned with transports the company engaged in, in years past, that were concerning only to the council members who voted against the application. Mr. Hearn explained that there were neither complaints nor any apparent breach of the law related to the transports. Theyre being put through the wringer for, who knows why? I cant see any reason not to approve it. This sounds like the old discussions we had a year and a half, two years ago. I think its time to move on, in my opinion, said Councilman Andy Melendrez. Weve got to get this past this council, its about the people, not us, said Mr. Soubirous. Fortunately, the swing vote on this matter, Councilman John Burnard, who also had seemingly been concerned about PMT, heeded these calls from his colleagues and voted to approve the application. Still, its a shame that some on the council felt it necessary to keep the saga of the nonemergency ambulance dragging into 2016. Going forward, we hope to see the council review its ambulance policies and put an end to the charade that what its doing now is even necessary. NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. The mutually beneficial campaign detente between Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) came to an end on the debate stage here Thursday. The two Republican presidential candidates, locked in a tight race to win the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses, argued over whether Cruz meets the constitutional requirements to serve as president and whether Trump is a trustworthy conservative or is tainted by what Cruz called New York values. Theirs was far from the only battle that broke out in the sixth GOP debate of the 2016 campaign season. Sen. Marco Rubio (Florida) had intensely personal clashes with both Cruz and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Rubio and Christie are both hoping to emerge from the crowded Republican field as the establishments champion against the forces of insurgency that Trump and Cruz represent. Until recently, it was in both Trumps and Cruzs interest to avoid a direct confrontation. Cruz was leery of alienating Trumps supporters who might come to him, if the incendiary billionaire were to self-destruct. Trump, for his part, did not consider Cruz much of a threat. On Thursday, they went so far as to question each others fitness to govern. Multiplier Trump contended that Cruzs birth to a U.S. citizen in Canada might disqualify him from becoming president because the Constitution decrees that only a natural born citizen may hold the office. Theres a big question mark on your head. And you cant do that to the party. You really cant, Trump told Cruz. The senator from Texas retorted that Trump was motivated more by his political prospects than any constitutional concern. I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling in Iowa, Cruz said. But the facts and the law here are really quite clear. Under long-standing U.S. law, the child of a U.S. citizen born abroad is a natural-born citizen. Then it was Cruzs turn to go on offense. Repeating something he first said in a radio interview, Cruz charged that Trump had New York values invoking that citys reputation, particularly in red-state America, as the bastion of the liberal elite. I can frame it another way, Cruz said. Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan. Im just saying. Trump responded with indignation, saying New York City is home to loving people, wonderful people. He recalled the fall of the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001, noting the smell of death that pervaded the city for months. I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York, Trump said. He added, That was a very insulting statement that Ted made. As Trump and Cruz argued over the latters constitutional qualifications to be president, the other candidates struggled to get a word in. Rubio drew applause when he interjected, I hate to interrupt this episode of Court TV, but I think we have to get back to what this election ought to be about. However, when Rubio and Cruz got their chance to go at it, theirs turned out to be an esoteric back-and-forth over the consistency of their Senate votes, particularly on immigration. After Rubio ticked through votes that he described as flip-flops and political opportunism on Cruzs part, the Texan said: He had no fewer than 11 attacks there. I appreciate you dumping your oppo research folder on the debate stage. Rubio insisted: No, its your record. At that point, former Florida governor Jeb Bush interjected: This latest back-and-forth between two backbench senators, it explains why we have the mess in Washington, D.C. Christie, who has often dismissed the Senate as nothing more than a debating society, interrupted another argument between Cruz and Rubio over taxes, saying: Youve already had your chance, Marco. You blew it. The disputes that broke out during the debate, which was sponsored by Fox Business Network and included the GOPs seven leading presidential hopefuls, have been simmering on the campaign trail in recent days. The event gave the candidates a chance to confront one another face to face, rather than through their stump speeches, surrogates and allied super PACs. Among the Republicans, several battles are going on at once. Where Trump and Cruz are each looking to win the caucuses by claiming to be the one who can slay the old order, the field also includes a host of current and former governors and senators. Nearly as important as which candidate comes in first place is the question of which will emerge from what is being called the establishment lane. Rubio repeated his charge that Christie, the governor of a heavily Democratic state, has a record too liberal for a conservative party. He noted that Christie once supported Common Core educational standards, backed some gun-control legislation and supported Obamas nomination of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Our next president has to be someone that undoes the damage Barack Obama has done to this country, Rubio said. It cannot be someone that agrees with his agenda. . . . Unfortunately, Governor Christie has endorsed many of the ideas that Barack Obama supports. Turning to face Rubio, Christie accused the senator of being loose with his facts and manufacturing indignation because Christie has emerged as a political threat. He reminded Rubio that he had once called him a conservative reformer that New Jersey needed, but that hes changed his tune. Christie recalled Octobers debate, when Rubio responded to an attack from Bush by saying someone had convinced him that Bush had to hit his onetime protege. It appears that the same someone who has been whispering in old Marcos ear, too, Christie said. As the leading candidates feuded, Ben Carson the mild-mannered retired neurosurgeon who briefly topped the polls urged civility. We have to stop this because, you know, if we manage to damage ourselves and we lose the next election and a progressive gets in there and they get two or three Supreme Court picks, this nation is over as we know it, he said. The call did not stop Bush from going after Trump, describing his rival as unhinged for his policies on immigration and Muslims and misguided in his plans for high tariffs on Chinese imports. This would be devastating for our economy. We need somebody with a steady hand being president of the United States, Bush said. Trump responded with an attack on Bushs personality. We dont need a weak person being president of the United States, Trump said, returning to an old insult that Bush is low-energy. We dont need that. We dont need that. Trump brushed off criticism of his demeanor, saying, I will gladly accept the mantle of anger. Our military is a disaster, he said. Our health care is a horror show. Obamacare, were going to repeal it and replace it. We have no borders. Our vets are being treated horribly. Illegal immigration is beyond belief. Our country is being run by incompetent people. And yes, I am angry. The debate came just 48 hours after President Obama delivered the final State of the Union address of his presidency, which included sharp condemnation of the angry GOP rhetoric over Muslims, immigration and other issues. At the debate, the candidates flung zinger after zinger in an attempt to outdo one another in delivering the most visceral condemnation of both Obama and Clinton, his first-term secretary of state and the leading Democratic presidential candidate. Christie called Obama a petulant child and likened his State of the Union to storytime because it painted, in Christies view, too rosy a picture of the country. We are going to kick your rear end out of the White House come this fall, Christie said of Obama. The language was just as strident in discussing Clinton. Bush suggested that she might be going back and forth between the White House and the courthouse because she is under FBI investigation for her email practices. Then Rubio stepped up the rhetoric and charged that Clinton was disqualified from being commander in chief. When co-moderator Maria Bartiromo asked Cruz about a New York Times report Wednesday that he failed to properly disclose loans from Goldman Sachs and CitiBank during his 2012 Senate campaign, Cruz used the moment to slam the mainstream media. Yes, I made a paperwork error disclosing it on one piece of paper instead of the other, Cruz said. But if thats the best the New York Times has got, they better go back to the well. Although Ohio Gov. John Kasich did not figure in the more contentious exchanges, he sought to appeal directly to frustrated middle- and working-class families. People are upset, he said. Youre 50 or 51 years old and some kid walks in and tells you youre out of work and you dont know where to go and where to turn. Do we have an answer for that? We do. The Washington Posts David A. Fahrenthold in Washington contributed to this report. A Fontana man was arrested Thursday night, Jan. 14, after a body was found in his back yard. Fontana police officials, in a news release Friday, said the body was that of a 27-year-old Alejandra Carrion Gutierrez, of San Diego, who was reported missing New Years Eve; and that Cesar Rosales, 40, admitted to killing her. The Police Department later sent a corrected news release, saying that the body had not been identified Friday. Officers served a search warrant at Rosales home in the 8200 block of Reseda Avenue on Thursday, the news release said. Cadaver dogs were brought onto the property, and the body was found. Police had been investigating the disappearance of Gutierrez since her vehicle was found empty Saturday, Jan. 10, in Fontana. In the earlier news release, authorities said Rosales knew the victim, but the nature of their relationship is still unknown to authorities. The case remained under investigation Friday. Anyone with information about her can call police dispatchers at 909-350-7700. A San Bernardino County judge denied a request to throw out charges in the Colonies corruption case Friday, Jan. 15, finding that prosecutors did not withhold crucial evidence to a grand jury. Defense attorneys made that allegation in a motion accusing prosecutors of misconduct when they brought the case to a grand jury that indicted Rancho Cucamonga developer Jeff Burum and three former county officials in May 2011. But Judge Michael Smith found that the district attorney and state attorney general satisfied their burden in providing evidence that could point to the defendants innocence and were not required to provide additional information defense attorneys believed important. If that evidence had been presented, there is no reasonable likelihood in my view the result of the grand jury would have been different, he said. There was signficant independent evidence to support the grand jury indictment that bribery occured and the other defendants participated and aided in that bribery. Burum, co-managing partner of Colonies Partners, is accused of paying $400,000 in bribes to sham political action committees controlled by four county officials to win supervisorial votes in favor of a $102 million settlement. The county paid Colonies that sum in November 2006 after the company sued over flood-control issues on property it was developing in Upland. Burum, former county Supervisor Paul Biane, former Assistant Assessor Jim Erwin, and Mark Kirk, former chief of staff to former Supervisor Gary Ovitt, were charged with multiple felonies, including misappropriation of public funds, and aiding and abetting in the commission of bribery. All four have pleaded not guilty and deny wrongdoing. Bill Postmus, a former supervisor and assessor, pleaded guilty to accepting a bribe and other charges and has been cooperating with prosecutors. After the hearing, Stephen Larson, Burums attorney, indicated that he would continue to pursue allegations of misconduct against prosecutors. He said he plans to seek subpoenas of two former proseucutors and two attorneys that were part of the countys civil team in the Colonies case. We maintain that the Grand Jury in this case did not receive a fair presentation of the evidence, Larson said in an emailed statement. He said the court ruling did not distinguish between grand jurors being misled and being lied to and does not do justice to the governments responsibility under law. Prosecutors said they would not comment on the ruling but a spokesman for District Attorney Mike Ramos released a general statement. It is important for the citizens of San Bernardino County to know that we are ready and have been ready for trial, Ramos said. We look forward to opening statements and presenting the facts of the case. Since the outset of the case almost five years ago, prosecutors and defense attorneys have battled back and forth over the charges with challenges appealed twice to the California Supreme Court. Meanwhile, a trial, expected to last two months and call several current and former county officials as witnesses, has continued to be delayed. It is now tentatively set for October. In the latest motion, defense attorneys accused prosecutors of rigging the grand jury proceedings by failing to provide exculpatory evidence that pointed to their clients innocence. Smith had already rejected the same allegation after a series of hearings in the summer of 2014 but defense attorneys said they had fresh evidence to bolster their case. At issue was the countys shifting views on whether the $102 million payment to Colonies was justified. During the four-year legal battle between Colonies and the county, county officials long maintained that the companys demands which reached $300 million in damages were excessive and unsupported. After the November 2006 settlement, the county began supporting the $300 million figure and citing it in its own lawsuits against its insurance company and three other agencies to recover parts of its damages. Smith said the record shows that the grand jury was presented with information on the countys shifting view and the defense arguments were essentially the same as the motion he rejected previously. However, the judge said he did have some concerns about how prosecutors questioned the countys lawyers about the settlement during the grand jury proceedings. Defense attorneys contended that prosecutors narrowed their questioning to the time period before the settlement, failing to show how county officials later came to support the settelment amount as reasonable. While I dont think it was the best practice, I dont think it rises to the level of sanctions, Smith said. The judge said the reasonableness of the settlement was only one element of the case. He cited the prosecution argument that if it was a result of a bribe, the defendants are still guilty of the crimes charged. Contact the writer: 951-368-9558 or ighori@pressenterprise.com Shlomo Rechnitz, who on Thursday evening was being credited with purchasing Powerball tickets in Chino Hills for his employees, is one of the leading philanthropists in Southern California, but his large chain of nursing homes has been under scrutiny from federal investigators. Every Saturday night, according to the Jerusalem Post, Rechnitz opens his Los Angeles home to the needy. He has established a program to solve what he calls The Shidduch Crisis, the Post said. If a woman is older than 25 and trying to marry for the first time, the Eishes Lapidus program pays $10,000 to the matchmaker to give her incentive to find a man the same age or younger. RELATED: POWERBALL: Store owner announces plans for $1 million winnings Rechnitz provided financial assistance to rebuild Jewish day schools wrecked by Superstorm Sandy on the East Coast. Rechnitz has also pledged $10,000 to the families of every California police officer killed in the line of duty, the Post said. But Rechnitz, whose 80 nursing homes ares believed to be the most in the state, drew unwanted attention in the Inland Empire in October, when FBI agents raided and removed evidence from the 99-bed Alta Vista Healthcare & Wellness Centre at 9020 Garfield St. in Riverside. The FBI has not said what agents were looking for. Sallie Hofmeister, a spokeswoman for Rechnitz, said then that the raid did not involve patient care. The Sacramento Bee wrote in 2015 that Rechnitzs nursing homes were tagged with nearly triple as many serious deficiencies per 1,000 beds as the statewide average in 2014, according to the latest figures from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Dyckia sp, what does this mean? ...and what else? Dyckia sp is the very same as Dyckia species, in fact short for Dyckia species. It refers to an unnamed Dyckia species. A Dyckia sp can not be a hybrid Dyckia and never a Dyckia you do not know the name but a nameless Dyckia species. The fact that you do not know the plant it does not mean a nameless one. A new Dyckia species must be published in order to have its name valid. This obligation doesnt counted on Iternet publications as The World Wide Web didnt exist and publication meant : journals, books, magazine, scientific report magazines. Nowadays nothing is better published than in the WWW. Publishing means getting public and there is nothing equal nor close to the WWW. Public means everybody not just a bunch of selected guys. These are mates, collegues, fellows not public. Here people publish new Plant species on very restricted magazine or very specialized magazines and assume as published. Publishing means everybody who is willing to know of it. Also the world doesnspeaks Portuguese, nor spanish and less than this doesnt understand old Latim ( Not even those who publishes a new species. They rely on claves and many mistakes are made.) Today publishing means WWW!!! Today it means English!! If a new species is published here in Brazil it must be in Latim as in any other place on the Earth, Portuguese and for Gods sake also in English and entirely not a sinopsis only. Publications with a very restrictec and exclusive public is out of question. Publications with on purposal omitted data is also out of question and not valid. A bunch of readers is not public. A group of readers are collegues never public!!!Public is WWW and your reader may be in Reykjavick or Auckland, Rio or Tokyo and everywhere in between. Portuguese is a lovely sounding language. It makes feel home...but who is going to undertand me in ...in...everywhere else besides people which countries speak Camoes language? English, English for Godssake. Also there is no sense publising without precise data. Preservation means showing, educating not hidding an less yet iluding. What Light is for if it doesnt Brighten up high above everything? Light is to iluminate or it is not Light and if it isnt Light it isnt Science! Lobbyists in Sacramento talk about the inside game and the outside game. The inside game is the one they play under the Capitol dome: testifying in committee hearings, meeting with legislative staff, nabbing lawmakers in the hallway on the way to a crucial vote. The outside game is aimed at you. It tries to get ordinary Californians riled up about an issue so youll pressure lawmakers to do what the lobbyists want. Think of ad campaigns, noisy rallies, pleas to call your legislator. These tactics have become a growing part of the way the biggest interest groups work to influence state officials as they adapted to the imposition of term limits in the 1990s, which changed the relationships between lobbyists and legislators. It was a sense that we just didnt have the relationships that we once did with (lawmakers), said Jim Cassie, a longtime Sacramento lobbyist who retired in 2013. So you had to find a way to influence them, and one way was to build a campaign. Now its just a way of life. The change in the lobbying game, however, hasnt been reflected in Californias lobbying rules. Even though interest groups must file detailed reports about which lobbyists they hire, which bills they lobby on and how much they spend to entertain government officials, the growing outside game has gone largely unreported to the public. Thats because weak disclosure rules allow lobbying groups to report a huge amount of expenses under a catch-all other category that has created a cloud of secrecy around some lobbying efforts. Now the states political watchdog agency is poised to vote on a rule that would catch up with the times. It would require groups that lobby state government to publicly report who theyre paying and how much for publicity blitzes, consultants and other efforts to influence decisions that go beyond the narrow definition of lobbying. The way theyre allowed to report now has blocked the goal behind disclosure, said Jodi Remke, chair of the Fair Political Practices Commission, which is scheduled to vote on the rule Thursday. The whole purpose of this is to make sure we can track whether there are improper influences over public officials. But if we dont know who theyre paying to influence, how can we track it? Spending on the vague other category has grown significantly among the 10 interest groups that spend the most on lobbying. In the first nine months of 2000, they attributed 46 percent of their $15.4 million in lobbying expenses to the other category. In 2015, that portion rose to 77 percent of the $37.7 million they spent on lobbying in the first nine months of the year. Interest groups can hide a lot in that other category. While they have to disclose the lobbyists they hire, the other category can include anonymous consultants, who are often well-connected former politicians. They also can sponsor advertising campaigns that mask their funders. In 2014, for example, a group called the California Drivers Alliance launched a campaign asking people to sign a petition opposing the expansion of an environmental program that could raise the price of gas. One of the online videos described the group as a coalition of small-business owners, elected officials and working class families without mentioning that its a project of the Western States Petroleum Association, the oil industrys advocacy group. An online link from the video did identify the affiliation between the California Drivers Alliance and the petroleum association. But that disclosure was not required, nor was any detail about the $4.8 million the group spent in other payments during the second half of 2014. The campaign extended to the Inland Empire as well. Assembly members Cheryl Brown, D-San Bernardino and Jose Medina, D-Riverside, were the focus of intense lobbying over a provision of a climate change bill that would have cut petroleum use by vehicles in California in half by 2030. Their constituents received mailers urging them to oppose the new caps. The reluctance of Brown, Medina and other moderate Democrats led to the petroleum use language being removed from the climate change legislation, a major setback for Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic leadership. Afterward, Medinas constituents got a mailer thanking him for standing up for Southern California. This campaign-style approach to lobbying wasnt common in the 1970s, when Bob Stern helped write Californias Political Reform Act, the law that requires interest groups to disclose their lobbying activity. But he said he expected lobbying tactics would shift over time. The big change was the grass-roots or astroturf lobbying urging citizens to contact their legislators, Stern said. Its much more sophisticated, and much more money is being spent now than 40 years ago. So its time to look at this . And make sure youre getting the information that is really important. Staff writer Jeff Horseman contributed to this report. CALmatters is a nonprofit journalism venture dedicated to exploring state policies and politics. For more stories by Laurel Rosenhall, go to calmatters.org /newsanalysis. University of Redlands to honor Disney legend REDLANDS The University of Redlands will confer upon Disney legend Richard Sherman the honorary degree of Doctor of Music Saturday, Jan. 16 in the schools Memorial Chapel. The evening, A Spoonful of Sherman, will include a musical tribute to Sherman, who will take questions from the audience, as well. Richard Sherman and his brother Robert wrote a slew of songs for such classic Disney movies as Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, Winnie the Pooh and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. They also penned the Disney theme park song, Its a Small World. Admission is $25 for the general public, $20 for Town & Gown members and $10 for students. Tickets are available at bulldogconnect.redlands.edu. Information: 909-748-8011. Staff report HEMET Piano player Barnaby Finch will perform with his jazz band at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 17 at the Diamond Valley Arts Center. Admission is $20 for members and $25 for non-members. The price includes two glasses of wine or other beverage, appetizers and access to the Fiber Arts Exhibit. Tickets are available at the arts center, thedvac.org and purplepass.com. The arts center is at 123 N. Harvard St. Information: 951-652-3822. Staff report REDLANDS California Bling! Minerals from the Museum Collections opens Saturday, Jan. 16 at the San Bernardino County Museum. The exhibit features mineral specimens, most from San Bernardino County and surrounding regions and some never before seen by the public. The exhibit continues through July 31. The museum is at 2024 Orange Tree Lane, Redlands and is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. Admission is $10 (adult), $8 (military or senior), $7 (student) and $5 (children ages 5 to 12). Children under age 5 and Museum Association members are admitted for free. Information:sbcountymuseum.org. Staff report TEMECULA A low cost microchip clinic for cats and dogs will be held 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., or until supplies run out, Sunday, Jan. 17 at Natural Pet Foods & Supplies, 39650 Winchester Road, Suite D. The cost is $10. I.D. tags will be available for $5. Information: FTAspay at 951-200-4224 or ftaspay.org. Staff report MENIFEE Mt. San Jacinto College students and community members are invited to audition for the schools production of The Great Gatsby. Auditions are 6 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 20 in Room 207 on the Menifee Valley campus, 28237 La Piedra Road. Anyone auditioning should prepare a monologue no longer than two minutes and bring a picture and resume. Rehearsals begin Jan. 21 and will be held Monday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings. The play will be performed four times between April 14-17. Information: Christopher Kiser at 951-639-5791 or ckiser@msjc.edu. Staff report Send items for possible inclusion in Community Notes to community@pressenterprise.com. UC Riverside forward Michael Salazar fell out of the first round in Thursdays MLS SuperDraft, but the first team All-Big West pick was snapped up by the Montreal Impact in the second round, 24th overall. Salazar, who had six goals and three assists for the Highlanders this season, had been targeted by Montreal, which was looking for depth at striker. Some reports had suggested the Impact would take Salazar with its first pick, 14th overall, but the club instead selected Clemson defender Kyle Fisher with that pick. Salazar, who began his collegiate career at Cal Baptist before transferring to UCR for his junior year, has also played for the Belize national team. UCRs Norberto Ochoa, second in the Big West in goals this past season with seven, is also eligible for the MLS draft, which goes two rounds Thursday and two more rounds Friday (81 total selections). UCR now has had at least one player drafted in either the MLS SuperDraft or Supplemental draft in each of the last five years: Otis Earle in the first round last year by Dallas, Aaron Long in the second round in 2014 by Portland, Jose Diaz in the first round of the 2013 supplemental draft by now-defunct Chivas USA and Cesar Diaz Pizarro in the second round of the 2012 supplemental draft by San Jose. In all, Salazar is the seventh UCR player to be drafted by MLS. Idyllwild shops enjoyed and survived a new level of crowding last weekend when thousands of flatlanders flocked to the San Jacinto Mountains village to play in the massive snowfall that recently arrived. Josh White, the operator of the popular Idyllwild Inn, said he has never seen the village with more visitors. It was like Disneyland on a crowded day only busier, he said. With snow-frosted Tahquitz Rock towering above, the whitened woods around Idyllwild looked like a winter postcard scene in Yosemite. The stunning mountains drew the multitudes from below. There were people everywhere, cars everywhere, White said. It took an hour to drive from Mountain Center to town. It normally takes five minutes. He said there were many more people than Idyllwilds traditional big Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day weekends. Idyllwild experienced the usual snow day mess. Cars without chains lost traction and blocked Highway 243. Drivers halted to put on chains in roadways. In Idyllwild, drivers seemed to park anywhere they felt like stopping. Although, to be fair, many parking places were buried beneath berms of snow plowed off the roads. People sled everywhere, including private property, and too many left trash in the snow, reported Idyllwild photographer John Drake. The invasion of snow-seeking visitors gave a big boost to the tourist villages economy. It could take more than an hour to claim a table in a restaurant. Higher Grounds, a popular coffee house, had lines out the door. White said the onslaught probably benefited restaurants and shops more than lodging facilities. He said he only had a couple of rooms vacant before the snow thanks to the Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema. They quickly were taken. Other inns were sold out too. We probably turned away 100 people, he said. Jennifer McKee of the Candy Cupboard said she enjoyed about a 65 percent increase in chocolate, ice cream and shaved ice sales. Sunday was no holds barred, she said. People pulled over wherever there was the slightest slope to sled. It was wall-to-wall kids. Despite the bedlam, she was glad to see cash registers busy in the village and welcomes more snow weekends. Her wish will be granted this three-day weekend, which honors Martin Luther King. There still is snow in the village and more in higher Idyllwild areas like Humber Park. White said the Idyllwild Inn nearly was sold out in advance of this weekend. He said he was glad to see the boost in business in town, but he wouldnt mind a little less snow zaniness. I am glad it is not like this all the time. THIRD MEMORIAL SET A memorial service for Anthony Flores will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 16, at Miller-Jones Mortuary, 1501 W. Florida Ave., Hemet. He was among a trio of Hemet High 2004 grads who perished in a New Years Eve traffic accident. Services for his classmates who died in the crash, 29-year-olds Matt Pusateri and Jeff Willey, were last weekend. His girlfriend, Monica Marie Flores, 37, of Arcadia, also was killed when their car was broadsided on Vineyard Avenue in Ontario by a fast-moving vehicle that lost control exiting Interstate 10, according to the California Highway Patrol. Contact the writer: bpratte@pressenterprise.com California legislation introduced Thursday Jan. 14 would add semi-automatic rifles that accept detachable magazines and centerfire ammunition to the states banned assault weapons firearms list. Two such weapons were used in the San Bernardino terrorist mass shooting. Attorney General Kamala Harris and Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, announced the bill AB1663 saying it would close what Harris called the bullet button loophole for weapons currently legal in California. This is a common sense solution that closes a dangerous loophole in Californias assault weapons ban, Harris said in a statement. We simply must do everything we can to keep dangerous, high capacity firearms off of our streets and out of our communities. However, a gun rights advocate said Thursday that criminally-minded shooters will create workarounds including using more weapons in their attacks that will set the stage for another cycle of restrictions which also will fail. I think its pretty clear that this ban will have nothing to to with stopping mass public shootings, said John Lott in a phone interview. Lott, who has a Ph.D. in economics from UCLA, is founder of the Pennsylvania-based Crime Prevention Research Center. If the California legislature was serious about trying to stop mass public shootings, they would make it possible for victims to defend themselves by getting rid of gun-free zones, he added in an email message. The bullet button refers to the mechanism manufacturers added to certain models of assault-style rifles after California passed laws in 1989 and modified in 1999 that made it a felony to manufacture previous versions of such weapons. But the bullet button magazine release exempted the guns from the restriction. It makes the user pause during reloading to use a tool such as the tip of a bullet to depress a recessed button near the magazine in order to eject it. While Harris claimed Thursday the button allows a user to quickly detach and replace a magazine, gun makers have successfully argued that since a device was needed to eject the magazine thereby slowing the process Californias assault-weapon restriction laws did not apply. A number of tools and devices, some legal and some not, have been devised to either modify the button or make it work more quickly. One such set of illegal devices was allegedly purchased by Enrique Marquez Jr., charged with conspiracy to aid terrorists in the Dec. 2 shooting at the Inland Regional Center that killed 14 and wounded 22. Elements of the conspiracy count say Marquez was the illegal straw buyer in 2011 and 2012 of two semi-automatic assault-style rifles, which he handed over to Riverside neighbor Syed Rizwan Farook, according to an FBI affidavit filed in the case. Those rifles were used by Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik in the San Bernardino shooting. The couple were later killed in a shootout with police. Marquez has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges, and FBI agents have said there is no evidence Marquez knew about the San Bernardino attacks. We must close the loopholes in our assault weapons ban so that guns like the ones used in San Bernardino, Newtown and Aurora cannot be bought legally in our state, Chiu said in a statement Thursday. Detachable magazines cost lives, and it is more important to save lives during future mass shootings than to be able to reload assault weapons in the blink of an eye. The state also bans the sale of ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. The issues addressed by Chius newly proposed law have not passed muster in recent years. Legislation that addressed bullet buttons stalled in the state Legislature two years ago. And Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill in 2013 that sought to ban the sale of semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines, saying that he didnt believe it would enhance public safety enough to warrant this infringement on gun owners rights. The Associated Press contributed to this report Contact the writer: rdeatley@pressenterprise.com or 951-368-9573 Following Hemet and other California cities, Wildomar is responding to a legal challenge by changing the way it elects City Council candidates. Council members decided this week to scrap the at-large voting system and conduct elections by district, rather than risk losing a huge sum in defending the previous method against a lawsuit. The city will be divided into five zones, and voters will choose from among candidates who reside in their district. The process, including demographic studies, should cost from $50,000 to $75,000, Mayor Bridgette Moore said. To save the taxpayers money, we chose to go to districts because we could wind up spending hundreds of thousands of dollars defending the city against a lawsuit, she said. Its very frustrating, but we thought it was the best decision for the city. Hemet council members made the same decision the night before Wildomars council met on Wednesday. The cities received similar letters from the Malibu law firm Shenkman & Hughes, accusing their at-large formats of handicapping minorities chances of getting elected. It is our belief that Wildomars at-large system dilutes the ability of minority residents particularly Latinos to elect candidates of their choice or otherwise influence the outcome of Wildomars council elections, attorney Kevin Shenkman wrote. In lawsuits in which the firm levied state Voting Rights Act allegations against cities and school districts with at-large systems, the agencies have had to pay large amounts even if they won the case because of the way the law is written. The letter cites the case against Palmdale, which lost and had to give Shenkman & Hughes $4.5 million. Whittier won its case, but had to pay $900,000 to the plaintiffs. We cannot afford to fight a lawsuit like that because even if you win, you still have to pay out all the money, Wildomar Councilman Tim Walker said. Conceivably, Wildomar might have evaded the allegations if Moore and Walker had chosen hyphenated names when they married, as research on Latinos in elections is often based on names. Moore is of Mexican American descent with a maiden name of Montiel. Walkers wife is a Cuban immigrant. Shenkmans letter states that no Latinos have ever been elected in the city, which is about 35 percent Latino. In nearly eight years as a city, Wildomar has held four council elections; Moore won a council seat in the first election, in 2008. Of 29 total candidates, one, Israel Leija, had a Latino surname. He ran in 2014, but did not actively campaign and finished last. The challenge to Wildomars at-large voting is not the first. During the cityhood election, voters decided to divide the city into council districts. Wildomars newly seated council, however, put the issue back on the ballot and a majority voted to go at-large. A lawsuit challenging the validity of the election lost in trial and appellate courts. Contact the writer: 951-368-9690 or michaelwilliams@pressenterprise.com Beloved thespian and owner of some of the most velvety vocal chords known to man, Alan Rickman, passed away late last night from cancer, age 69. Alan touched the lives of millions through his work as Hans Gruber in Die Hard, Jamie in Truly Madly Deeply, Sheriff Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and, of course, as Severus Snape, Potions Master in Harry Potter. Today, some of those lucky enough to work with the actor are paying tribute to the man. In-between takes on The Goblet of Fire. Daniel Radcliffe, who played his most hated and secretly loved student: Alan Rickman is undoubtedly one of the greatest actors I will ever work with. He is also, one of the loyalest and most supportive people Ive ever met in the film industry. He was so encouraging of me both on set and in the years post-Potter. Im pretty sure he came and saw everything I ever did on stage both in London and New York. He didnt have to do that. I know other people whove been friends with him for much much longer than I have and they all say, If you call Alan, it doesnt matter where in the world he is or how busy he is with what hes doing, hell get back to you within a day. People create perceptions of actors based on the parts they played so it might surprise some people to learn that contrary to some of the sterner (or downright scary) characters he played, Alan was extremely kind, generous, self-deprecating and funny. And certain things obviously became even funnier when delivered in his unmistakable double-bass. As an actor, he was one of the first of the adults on Potter to treat me like a peer rather than a child. Working with him at such a formative age was incredibly important and I will carry the lessons he taught me for the rest of my life and career. Film sets and theatre stages are all far poorer for the loss of this great actor and man. Rickman and Thompson in Judas Kiss. Emma Thompson, whose career intersected with Alans numerous times, including playing opposite him in Sense and Sensibility and Love Actually, and joining him in Harry Potter as Professor Trelawney. (Published by Dave Itzkoff.) Alan was my friend and so this is hard to write because I have just kissed him goodbye. What I remember most in this moment of painful leave-taking is his humour, intelligence, wisdom, and kindness. His capacity to fell you with a look or lift you with a word. That intransigence which made him the great artist that he was his inedible and cynical wit, the clarity with which he saw most things, including me, and the fact that he never spared me the view. I learned a lot from him. He was the finest of actors and directors. I couldnt wait to see what he was going to do with his face next. I consider myself hugely privileged to have worked with him so many times and to have been directed by him. He was the ultimate ally. In like, art and politics. I trusted him absolutely. He was, above all things, a rare and unique human being and we shall not see his like again. Rickman and Rowling at a Lumos Fundraising Event in 2013. J.K. Rowling, who chose him to play the role of Snape, and shared with him secrets as to his character to convince him that Snape was more than just a one-dimensional bully: There are no words to express how shocked and devastated I am to hear of Alan Rickmans death. He was a magnificent actor & a wonderful man. J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) January 14, 2016 My thoughts are with Rima and the rest of Alans family. We have all lost a great talent. They have lost part of their hearts. J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) January 14, 2016 Various Harry Potter actors, including Emma Watson (Hermione), Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood), James and Oliver Phelps (Fred and George Weasley), and Matthew Lewis (Neville Longbottom): Rupert Grint: I am devastated to hear about the passing of Alan Rickman, I feel so privileged to have had the opportunity to have had the opportunity to work with him on numerous occasions Even though he has gone I will always hear his voice. My thoughts are with his friends and family at this time. Am not prepared for a world without Alan Rickman. Such a beautiful soul. He was so kind & generous in the moments he wasnt Snaping about.?? Evanna Lynch (@Evy_Lynch) January 14, 2016 Ill also never forget how scary it was to accidentally bump into him as Snape. And how he made us love Snape so much!??Rest in peace, Alan. Evanna Lynch (@Evy_Lynch) January 14, 2016 Shocked & sad to hear Alan Rickman has passed away. One of the nicest actors Ive ever met.Thoughts and prayers with his family at this time James Phelps (@James_Phelps) January 14, 2016 Terribly sad news about the passing of Alan Rickman. A funny and engaging person who put a shy young actor at ease when I was on HP. Oliver Phelps (@OliverPhelps) January 14, 2016 I was at Leavesden Studios today when I heard the news. As I walked through the canteen I thought of Alan queuing up for his lunch with us mere mortals. I recalled the trailer in which he offered me some of the greatest advice I ever received about this mad profession we shared. Being back in those corridors made me remember a lot of things and I will treasure those memories all my life. He inspired my career more than he ever knew and Ill miss him. A photo posted by Matthew Lewis (@realmattdavelewis) on Jan 14, 2016 at 7:07am PST And finally, this one from Ian McKellen, who isnt from Harry Potter but is another of the British acting greats and has words worth reading: ALAN RICKMAN (1946-2016) There is so much that is matchless to remember about Alan Rickman. His career was at the Posted by Ian McKellen on Thursday, 14 January 2016 Well leave you with this clip of Rickman reading Shakespeares Sonnet 130, so that you can marvel in his voice, his passion, and his richness he brought to any role even reading a sonnet once more. Vale Alan Rickman, 19462016. Photo: Ian Gavan / David M. Benett / Getty. Sir Elton John paid tribute to the late David Bowie during a special two-hour performance at the Wiltern Theatre in LA last night. Mid-way during his performance which was a mix of tunes from his upcoming album Wonderful Crazy Night with his old classics, for an audience of paying industry insiders Elton dropped in a little show-biz trivia, telling the crowd that hed hired Gus Dudgeon to produce his self-titled 1970 album after hearing another Dudgeon-produced work, Bowies Space Oddity. I have David Bowie to thank for that, said Elton, before breaking into an extended instrumental performance of Space Oddity that seamlessly blends into his own Rocket Man, dedicated to the Starman. And look, were very well aware that this might be too much for any human being to listen to right away, but ICYMI, Sarah Blasko reduced an entire triple j-listening Australia to tears this morning with her cover of Life on Mars. *sobs uncontrollably* Photo: Larry Busacca. Bea Gyger of Hummelstown is a faithful Pennsylvania Farm Show visitor. For the 85-year-old, the show is about taking in the sights, eating the foods and checking out the crafts. This year, she captured first place in a stuffed animal sewing contest and second place in a watercolor contest. Nothing - not even the Farm Show's higher $15 parking fee this year - prevented her from making her annual trek to the state fair-like agricultural extravaganza. "Those who are interested in it, it's exciting," Gyger said. This year's edition of the Farm Show was advertised to be one of the biggest in recent history, a 100th celebration that promised to honor the blue ribbon history of the largest indoor agricultural event in the nation. The show runs through Jan. 16 at the Pennsylvania State Farm Show Complex and Expo Center. In many ways the show delivered - a new limited-edition "Centennial" strawberries and cream milkshake was unveiled, the butter sculpture carried the 100th theme and visitors poured through the complex's doors to see exhibits, food demonstrations and longtime friends as they do every year. The weather held out. Although, it was somewhat of a roller coaster of extremes from mild temperatures and rain on opening day to a below freezing temperatures and a fast-moving minor snow squall midweek. Of course, the show didn't go off without some hitches. It operated as legislators at the Capitol continued to iron out the workings of a final 2015-16 state budget. If that wasn't enough drama, animal rights activists on Saturday disrupted Gov. Tom Wolf's opening speech, and were escorted out of the complex by Pennsylvania State Police. Early in the week, a complaint prompted the Farm Show to ask vendors to remove Confederate flag merchandise from their stands. Some Farm Show regulars also complained about the $5 parking rate hike which raised the fee from $10 to $15 per car. But, as they do every year, close to half a million visitors from all corners of the state and beyond gathered in the confines of the 24-acre complex during the week. "It's amazing. It's blue ribbon. It has been a great show. Every day has far exceeded our expectation of the Farm Show - of the attendance, of the variety of shows and of all of the great competitions we have come to expect from the Farm Show," said Russell Redding, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. He added they anticipate strong attendance on the show's final days, especially on Saturday for events such as the Penn State Berkey Creamery 150th anniversary celebration and rodeo. It's too early to tally official attendance figures but early estimates indicate the 100th Farm Show could possibly go down in the record books as one of the highest attended shows. "I don't know what the final numbers will be but it will be at least equal last year," Redding said. The Farm Show gauges attendance by the number of cars parked, a rather unofficial way to estimate the official number of visitors through the complex. There are a total of 8,957 parking spots around the complex. The Department of Agriculture said the 2015 show saw the largest number of parked cars in comparison to other years including the highest-attended show in 2013. Over this year's opening weekend, the Farm Show said 20,993 cars parked in the lots Saturday and Sunday, a 4.7 percent drop from the 22,008 cars parked on opening weekend in 2015. Vendors at the show selling everything from soft pretzels and hot dogs to venison jerky, fudge and Western wear so far, say they have no complaints about the 2016 show. "We are the same amount of sales as last year so we have not gone down but we expected to do better," said Patti Brown, co-owner of Down Home Homemade Pudding near the Main Hall. Mainly, expectations of a 100th Farm Show celebration indicated it might be a banner attendance year. But Brown said she suspects the $15 parking fee put a dent on multiple visits for families. As well, she said, they have noticed people spending less in general in the past year at state fairs where they've sold their signature rice puddings in flavors such as plain, coconut and blueberry. "I'll tell you everyone has been happy and friendly but they do comment on the parking," she said. Dolly George of the Rolling Hills Red Deer Farm stand in the Main Hall's PA Marketplace, echoed the same comments about parking. She said friends and regular customers have voiced concerns about the price of parking and inability to pull into some of the parking lots which filled to capacity over the weekend. Still, despite the complains, George had positive remarks about sales of Rolling Hills venison products. "I think we have been a little above (in sales). The weather has been fantastic," she said. Nearby, G's Popcorn & Fudge stand owners Jeff and Sharon Gundel from Millersville reported sales were ahead of expectations. They said business at the Farm Shows in the past couple of years has been strong. They sell fudge, popcorn and a new homemade bread in zucchini and banana nut. "Last year was excellent so we're matching last year's excellent numbers," Jeff Gundel said. Food is a big draw during the Farm Show. Milkshake sales are always a good barometer of a show's success. Dave Smith, executive director of the PA Dairymen's Association, said milkshake sales in the complex's food court surpassed expectations with chocolate, vanilla and strawberry running nearly neck-in-neck in popularity. Last year, the Dairymen sold 165,000 milkshakes at the show. "We're a little bit ahead of where we've ever been," Smith said. "Sales are a little bit ahead." Visitors such as Michele McAlpine of Carlisle said the animals and the food such as the milkshakes are the main reasons to come to the show. Her group was a little thrown off by the $15 parking fee but it didn't send them turning around to go back home. "It's certain foods you get at the Farm Show. It's just a yearly thing you do," she said. Britain Anglicans Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, right, demonstrates with others against the decision by Anglican Primates to punish pro-gay equality churches in North America, in front of the Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, England, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. Anglican spiritual leader Justin Welby is set to lead a task force that will focus on rebuilding relationships after religious leaders temporarily restricted the role of the Episcopal Church in their global fellowship as a sanction over the U.S. church's acceptance of gay marriage. Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is expected Friday to explain the decision to bar Episcopalians from any policy-setting positions in the Anglican Communion for three years. The decision avoided a permanent split in the 85 million-member communion, though it dismayed liberal Anglicans. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein) (Frank Augstein) Bishop Audrey Scanlan writes that the temporary sanctions leveled against the Episcopal Church of the U.S. in protest to its gay marriage bylaws amount to a toddler's "time out." Bishop Audrey Scanlan compares it to a "time out" - the parenting technique whereby the offending toddler is forced to sit in a chair in the corner for a brief duration to reflect on his or her violation and arrive at proper behavior. That's how Scanlan, head of the the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania view's this week's reprimand from the mother church - the Anglican Communion - for her church's acceptance of gay marriage. "We've been put in the corner by a majority vote of the Primates and will sit there, on our little painted chair, while the world continues to spin," Scanlan writes in her blog "Compass Points - Mapping the Way," which appears on the diocese's website. Anglican leaders on Thursday voted to temporarily restrict the role of the U.S. Episcopal Church in their global fellowship as a sanction over the American church's acceptance of gay marriage. Episcopalians have been barred for three years from any policy-setting positions in the Anglican Communion while a task force is formed that will try to reconcile conflicting views over sexuality in the 85-million-member family of churches. The Episcopal Church is the Anglican body in the United States. "I do believe that this sanction against us has allowed for the de-escalation of what might otherwise have ended up in a complete abandonment of the Communion... but I don't think that we will, as the Time Out process begs, spend much time reflecting on the error of our ways," Scanlan wrote. "(And, for the record, I don't know too many toddlers who spend their time on that little painted chair dwelling on the error of their ways, either.) One of the most interesting things for me, about all of this, is to consider what, exactly will happen in 3 years' time : It is no accident that the Time Out will conclude just at the convening of our next General Convention at which point we are supposed to... change our minds? I doubt it." The Anglican Communion made its announcement near the end of a weeklong meeting in Canterbury, England, called by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, to heal rifts over same-sex relationships and keep the Anglican Communion from splitting apart. Welby, the Anglican spiritual leader, does not have the authority to force a compromise. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, addresses the media during a press conference in Canterbury, England, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. Anglican spiritual leader Justin Welby is set to lead a task force that will focus on rebuilding relationships after religious leaders temporarily restricted the role of the Episcopal Church in their global fellowship as a sanction over the U.S. church's acceptance of gay marriage. Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is expected Friday to explain the decision to bar Episcopalians from any policy-setting positions in the Anglican Communion for three years. The decision avoided a permanent split in the 85 million-member communion, though it dismayed liberal Anglicans. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein) In a report from Canterbury, England, Religion News Service on Friday reported that Welby sought to project a sense of unity as the week-long conference came to a close. According to RNS, Welby said: "The decision that we would walk together was unanimous," adding that any meeting of leaders of a church of 85 million members in 165 countries and 38 provinces "is bound to give confused messages." The Episcopal Church, part of the Anglican Communion of the Church of England, this summer held its triennial general convention. The denomination, which tends to lean more progressive than other Anglican members, three years ago instituted a trial liturgy for the blessing of same-gender marriages for churches in states that had legalized such unions. At this year's convention, the church approved the three new trial rites for the blessing of such unions. Scanlan, who was installed in September and is the first female bishop to oversee the diocese, at the time said of her church's action: "That's really significant for us. It talks about recognizing and respecting the dignity of every human person, and recognizes that we are all made in the image of God and the desire to be inclusive. It's also a justice issue. It's not just inclusivity issue." The denomination also changed the canons of the church to expand the definition of marriage: It no longer defines it as being between a man and a woman but two persons. The decision will be revisited in three years at the next convention. Episcopal Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, who attended this week's meeting, told the other leaders their vote "will bring real pain" to gays and lesbians and to Episcopalians "committed to following Jesus in the way of love and being a church that lives that love." Still, he said he was committed to the Anglican family. The Global Anglican Future Conference, which represents theologically conservative Anglican leaders worldwide, had sought sanctions against the U.S. church. Ugandan Archbishop Stanley Ntagali walked out of the conference in protest. In a statement Thursday, the conference known as GAFCON said their leaders were pleased by the outcome of the meeting, but "this action must not be seen as an end, but as a beginning." Anglicans, whose roots are in the missionary work of the Church of England, are the third-largest grouping of Christians in the world, behind Roman Catholics and the Orthodox. The Anglican Communion is made up of 38 autonomous national and regional Churches plus six Extra Provincial Churches and dioceses; all of which are in Communion - in a reciprocal relationship - with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is the Communion's spiritual head. There is no Anglican central authority such as a pope. Each Church makes its own decisions in its own ways, guided by internal recommendations, including that of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The fellowship has been fracturing for decades over gay relationships, women's ordination and other issues. Those rifts blew wide open in 2003 when the New York-based Episcopal Church consecrated the first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, in New Hampshire. Last year, the top U.S. Episcopal legislative body, or General Convention, voted to authorize gay marriages in their churches. The most vocal protests to the Episcopal embrace of gay rights came from Africa, home to some of the fastest-growing churches in the Anglican communion and the deepest opposition to gay relationships as a violation of Scripture. Many African countries have criminalized gay relationships. Scanlan wrote that while the issue will undoubtedly command significant attention, she prefers to dwell on the ecumenical work of her churches, including feeding the hungry and comforting the sick. "We're not sitting on little painted chairs in the corner in Time Out," she penned. "We're active and engaged. We are caring and compassionate. We are spending Time In... living the Gospel Truth of Love and Service and Ministry." The top body of the Anglican Church of Canada is scheduled to vote in July on a proposal that would authorize gay marriage. The Associated Press contributed to this report. HARRISBURG- Two companies have agreed to relocate to Harrisburg inside the Capitol View Commerce Center, providing the first tenants for the long-vacant behemoth along Cameron Street. Geneia, a health care company, will be the anchor tenant, bringing 150 employees or more from its current building in the suburbs, according to Doug O'Dell, Capitol View's marketing manager. The company will take over two floors, or 43,000 square-feet, inside the five-story center in mid-summer, O'Dell said. A second tenant, the World Trade Center Harrisburg serving central Pennsylvania, also plans to move its headquarters from York to the commerce center in early April, bringing its executive director and staff. A graphic identifying the building as Geneia's corporate headquarters will be visible from the Cameron side of the facility, O'Dell said. Lettering proclaiming the center the "World Trade Center-Harrisburg" will be emblazoned on the Herr side of the building. As part of the center's resurgence, the developer is planning $2.5 million in road and drainage improvements. Specifically, the developer has engineering plans approved by PennDOT to add a center turning lane along Cameron from Herr Street to the bridge. A traffic signal also will be added at Cameron and Goodwill Drive. Improvements to address surface drainage and requirements by the Americans with Disabilities Act are also expected. Eventually, Cameron Street will be resurfaced too, O'Dell said. PennDOT, meanwhile, plans to replace the small bridge near the facility on Herr Street, he said. The roadwork is expected to begin in the spring and take about six months. Drivers may experience some delays during the renovations. World Trade Center Harrisburg is a private, non-profit, membership supported organization, according to its website. The organization was founded in 1991 by area companies interested in promoting international trade. Over time, the organization applied for a World Trade Center license and changed its name to World Trade Center Harrisburg in 2002. The Capitol View center late last year obtained temporary permits for occupancy and highway. It opened its doors in December to a public meeting by city officials about the city's comprehensive plan. The owner of the center is currently using some of the warehouse space for overflow for his other operations under Moran Industries. When John Moran bought the building in November 2013, it was 85 percent complete and had been vacant for five years after falling into bankruptcy. Workers walked off the site in 2008 after they were not paid. David Dodd, the previous developer of the site, was sentenced in 2014 to 87 months in jail for money laundering and misappropriation of funds. Prosecutors said Dodd diverted money owed to contractors, engaged in double billing, made false statements on loan documents, sold two printing presses on the sly and committed fraud during a bankruptcy proceeding. The future of the giant unfinished building remained in question for years until Moran picked it up and promised to invest millions of his own money to finish the project. HARRISBURG- The criminal case against a Harrisburg firefighter accused of pointing a gun at 10 police officers last year has ended in a diversion program. Now he wants his job back. Harrisburg police charged Matthew Duvall, 42, with public drunkenness, disorderly conduct, receiving stolen property, and 10 counts of recklessly endangering another person after an incident in his back yard in May. Matthew Duvall, mugshot Last month, the Dauphin County District Attorney agreed to allow Duvall to enter the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition Program, which does not require an admission of guilt and could eventually expunge the charges from his record. The program is designed for nonviolent first offenders, but assault cases and other crimes can be considered, said District Attorney Ed Marsico. On Monday, Duvall squared off against city officials in a union arbitration hearing to get his job back. The independent arbitrator will weigh evidence and testimony from the all-day hearing and eventually issue a ruling. Duvall began working for the city fire department in 2001, but was fired on July 10, 2015, after the gun incident in the 1900 block of North Street. Although police initially charged Duvall with possession of a stolen gun, they later determined he had purchased the firearm legally. This Masterpiece Arms 45 ACP is similar to the one police recovered after the May 24 incident. The original gun owner had different gun that was stolen and reported the wrong one, Marsico said. After police dropped that felony charge, Duvall was left facing 11 misdemeanors and one summary offense. Marsico said Duvall fit the criteria for the diversion program. The investigation showed Duvall was "very intoxicated," and "did not initially know that it was police" coming into his fenced back yard, Marsico said. Prior to the incident, Duvall had a good work history. He has since completed inpatient treatment and continues outpatient treatment, Marsico said. Brian Perry, Duvall's attorney, said the incident stemmed from Duvall drinking too much and arguing with a neighbor. After returning home, Duvall heard voices in the alley behind his home and went outside with his gun to investigate. "He had flashlights pointed in his face and he heard yelling," Perry said. "When he realized it was police officers, he put the gun down." Perry noted that the police officers were standing on the other side of a 6-foot privacy fence during the incident. "The reality is, he had too much to drink," Perry said. "Fortunately, no one was injured." Police recovered the gun, which was identified as a Masterpiece Arms 45 ACP. Harrisburg midtown meter.JPG The recently approved 2016 parking budget for Harrisburg cuts a promised payment to the city by about $1 million, said Mayor Eric Papenfuse. HARRISBURG- The budget for Harrisburg's parking system this year shortchanges the city by nearly a million dollars but pays full bonuses, including 5 percent increases, to parking managers. The budget also pays more than $212,000 to the Pennsylvania Economic Development Financing Authority, whose board approved the budget last month. That represents a 3 percent increase over last year. The 2016 budget has infuriated Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse who is demanding the full $3 million that was promised to the city during negotiations over the sale of the city's parking assets in 2013. Papenfuse sent a letter to the authority board chairman Monday objecting to the bonuses and raises for parking officials while the city takes a 30-percent haircut. The city's payments outrank the bonuses and PEDFA's payment according to the asset transfer agreement and bond indenture from the sale. A violation of the priority payment schedule in the bond indenture without prior consent of all parties might constitute a default, according to a bond expert who examined the documents. Harrisburg City Council President Wanda Williams said the city negotiated the terms of the parking agreement in good faith and deserves top priority. "Consideration for bonuses should be secondary after fulfilling their obligation," Williams said. Officials from the state's Department of Community and Economic Development, which oversees the financing authority, declined to address city officials' complaints about the 2016 budget. Instead, a spokeswoman released a statement that said: "As the (Act 47) Coordinator, PEDFA, and the department have always done, the mayor's latest concerns will be reviewed and responded to accordingly when properly vetted." At the heart of the mayor's case for the money is a payment schedule that was agreed upon as part of the 40-year lease. The authority financed the deal with tax-free bonds. The asset transfer agreement and bond indenture both spell out specific, increasing annual payments due to the city. The schedule called for the city to receive $3 million in 2016. The 2016 budget created by the parking managers and approved by the financing authority included only $2.1 million for Harrisburg. State receivers fought hard in 2013 for the city to be listed at the top of the payment list, or first in line, for any surplus cash that was left in the parking system after operating expenses and debt obligations were paid. If money is left after the city's payments, then it is supposed to flow down for parking manager bonuses and the finance authority. John Gass of Trimont, which manages the parking system, told Papenfuse that he had to reduce the city's waterfall payment this year to better account for lagging parking revenues, according to Papenfuse's letter to the authority. Gass did not address why parking managers received their full bonuses and the financing authority received its full payment in 2016 in light of the same lagging revenues. The 2016 parking budget also includes a one-time $800,000 repayment to SP Plus for an accounting error last year. Gass told the mayor the reductions would continue through 2019, but that the city would eventually be repaid, according to Papenfuse's letter to the authority. When PennLive asked Gass about the budget, he said he could not comment because "these matters are under discussion at the moment and I will provide an update when appropriate." Papenfuse's letter made it clear that the city did not agree to reductions or alterations from the schedule of payments negotiated in 2013. "In short, the city believes that it is lawfully entitled to these monies and expects payment" Papenfuse wrote. The 2016 parking budget didn't address about $1 million that the city believes it is already owed from last year's payment that fell short of the budgeted amount of $2.5 million. The 2016 parking budget calls for $21.1 million in net revenue, $4.6 million in operating expenses and $13.24 million in debt obligations, leaving about $3.3 million in surplus cash. If the city received its $3 million payment, there would not be enough money left to repay SP Plus for its $800,000 accounting error or to pay Trimont and SP Plus their combined bonuses of about $121,000. The "bonuses," paid to parking managers, aren't really bonuses in the true sense of the word. When state receivers were structuring the parking deal, they reduced the parking managers' operating fee by 20 percent. They then placed 80 percent of the fee under operating expenses, while leaving the final 20 percent as a performance fee, or bonus, toward the end of the waterfall as an incentive to ensure the city got its payments. The payments represent a portion of the overall cash that the city receives from the parking system. The city also earns 20 percent of all garage parking revenue as a parking tax. The parking tax for 2016 is estimated to generate $3.8 million. Overall, the parking system is generating about $3 million more annually for the city to use for services than it did before it was sold, officials said. That includes freeing up debt that was soaking up about $1.5 million in annual parking taxes and introducing new revenue streams totaling about $1.5 million. -9946fe51c9236b4b.jpg Metro Bank Park, home of the Harrisburg Senators, will get a new name after the ballpark's namesake merges with another banking company. What the name with be, remains in the air. (File) Metro Bank Park, home of the Harrisburg Senators, will get a new name after the ballpark's namesake merges with another banking company. What the name with be, remains in the air. On Thursday, shareholders voted to merge F.N.B. Corporation with Harrisburg-based Metro Bancorp Inc. As a result, all of Metro Bancorp's sponsorships, including the minor league ballpark on City Island, will be changed. Senators' GM Randy Whitaker said F.N.B. Corporation has agreed to sponsor the park through 2018, which fills Metro Bancorp naming contract. It will be a few weeks, he said, until a new name is announced. "As far as the naming rights of the ball park, that is already locked in for three more years," Whitaker said. "There's a lot of real estate that going to need to be rebranded, that's not something that's going to happen overnight." The merger of the two banking companies was negotiated last year. The combination of the companies has received all needed regulatory approvals and will close on Feb. 12. Metro Bancorp secured the naming rights to the ballpark in 2010. Previously, the ballpark was called Riverside Stadium from 1987 until 2004 and then Commerce Bank Park from 2005 to 2009. Jalil Aziz - multimedia main Jalil Ibn Ameer Aziz as provided by Dauphin County prison. A federal judge has rescheduled the trial for a 19-year-old Harrisburg man accused of trying to aid the ISIS terror group. U.S. Middle District Chief Judge Christopher C. Conner this week ordered the trial for Jalil Ibn Ameer Aziz to begin on April 4. Magistrate Judge Martin C. Carlson had scheduled Aziz's trial for February when he arraigned Aziz in December on charges of conspiring with ISIS and trying to provide material support for the terror group. Conner moved the trial date after Federal Public Defender Thomas A. Thornton filed a motion seeking more time to review evidence and prepare for trial. The U.S. Attorney's Office concurred in that request. Aziz is being held in prison without bail. He was arrested during an FBI raid at his Fulton Street home on Dec. 17. Investigators claim Aziz used the Internet, including Twitter, to spread ISIS propaganda, including calls to mount terror attacks in the U.S. Also, Aziz made online threats, including a threat to behead President Obama in the White House, and tried to aid potential ISIS recuits who wanted to travel to the group's "caliphate" in Syria and Iraq, authorities contend. Aziz pleaded not guilty during his Dec. 23 arraignment before Carlson. Juvenile male reported to have died of a gunshot wound in Hummelstown Hummelstown police report a boy died of a gunshot wound in a house in on West Main Street in Hummelstown, Pa., Thursday night, Jan. 14, 2016. (Mark Pynes | mpynes@pennlive.com, file) A crisis intervention team is available in the Lower Dauphin School District after a high school student was fatally wounded in a Hummelstown home Thursday evening. "It is with deep regret that we must inform you of a recent loss to our high school. On Thursday night a student passed away," a statement posted to the district's website reads. "This loss will undoubtedly raise many questions, concerns and feelings among our entire school community, particularly among our students," the letter continues. District officials did not indicate the nature of the shooting, and police have withheld the identity of the victim pending notification of family. Police also declined to comment on the circumstances surrounding the shooting. An autopsy will be scheduled for next week, police said. Law enforcement and the Dauphin County Forensic Team were called to a home at about 5:30 p.m. in the 200 block of West Main Street Thursday after receiving a report of a male with a gunshot wound. Officers gave emergency medical care until EMS arrived to the scene, but the Dauphin County coroner's office ultimately pronounced the minor dead at the scene. District officials encouraged parents and guardians to contact the high school for assistance or guidance at any time. The full statement reads: It is with deep regret that we must inform you of a recent loss to our high school. On Thursday night a student passed away. This loss will undoubtedly raise many questions, concerns and feelings among our entire school community, particularly among our students. Lower Dauphin has established a crisis intervention team made up of a variety of professionals trained to respond to the needs of students and parents at a time such as this. This is a sensitive issue for adolescents and we suggest that you talk with your children about their feelings. Counselors will be in school during the inservice time on Friday afternoon and also on Monday. They will be available to see families and students if needed. We are especially concerned about youth in our community who are experiencing strong emotions. Sudden death is painful to understand and your child may be experiencing signs of stress. Please be alert to the following signs that may indicate the need for special attention: Difficulty sleeping Changes in sleeping Inability to concentrate Absentmindedness Irritability Excessive thoughts about death or dying Isolation Withdrawing from normal activities/friends Guilt Fearfulness and worry Use of alcohol/drugs Risk-taking behaviors If you are uncomfortable speaking with your child about this issue or have questions or concerns, we encourage you to contact any of the following services: Lower Dauphin High School Guidance Office 566-5330 Keystone Mental Health Services 482-8500 ext. 208 Teenline 763-2345 Contact Helpline 652-4400 Dauphin County Crisis Intervention 232-7511 Please keep in mind that dealing with loss is a process that is unique for each affected person. Some students may express their grief quickly and openly, others quietly and not until some time following the event. Pay special attention to your child over the next several weeks and please feel free to contact the high school at any time. Shareholders of F.N.B. Corporation and Harrisburg-based Metro Bancorp Inc. today gave their approval to an agreement under which F.N.B. will take over Metro's 32 locations in central Pennsylvania. The merger, negotiated last year, has received all needed regulatory approvals and will close on Feb. 12. The merger would make F.N.B., Pittsburgh-based holding company for First National Bank, the largest regional bank in Pennsylvania and the second-largest headquartered in the commonwealth. Metro Bancorp shareholders, meeting Thursday in Harrisburg, voted to approve the merger agreement as F.N.B. shareholders, meeting in Pittsburgh, approved the issuance of common stock for the merger. Shareholders of Metro will receive 2.373 shares of FNB common stock for each common share of Metro, a deal worth $474 million. Once the merger is completed, Metro Bank will cease to exist. F.N.B. in December notified the state Department of Labor and Industry that about 230 Metro Bancorp employees would be laid off early this year. Here's a quick comparison of the two companies: Metro Bancorp Inc., owner of Metro Bank Headquartered in Harrisburg 32 banking offices in Berks, Cumberland, Dauphin, Lancaster, Lebanon and York Counties. $2.997 billion in assets at the end of 2014. $2.38 billion in total deposits at the end of 2014 878 employees F.N.B. Corporation, a holding company of First National Bank pa media group PA Media Group, parent company of PennLive and The Patriot-News, is seeking applicants for paid summer internships in central Pennsylvania and other major markets across the nation. (PennLive.com/file) PA Media Group is seeking applicants for paid summer internships in journalism in major metro areas around the country, including central Pennsylvania. This internship program is conducted in conjunction with Advance Local, the national affiliate of PA Media Group. In addition to a position in Harrisburg, the program offers opportunities with PA Media Group's affiliate companies in Alabama, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New Orleans, Ohio, Oregon and Syracuse, N.Y. PA Media Group, based in Mechanicsburg, prints The Patriot-News and Central PA Magazine, and its digital operations run PennLive.com. The journalism intern would be expected to report and write news stories, as well as take photo and video to support these stories. Ideal applicants have strong writing skills and familiarity with web-publishing tools. This intern will work directly with PennLive writers and will focus on journalism in a digital environment. Applicants must be full-time undergraduate or graduate students pursuing a degree in journalism, communications or related fields. Interns will work in a local market for eight weeks and then attend a national summit in the New York City area with fellow interns. In the Harrisburg market, the internship will be 12 weeks instead of eight. Intern position descriptions are available at advancelocal.net. Applications will be accepted until February 28, and candidates will be notified by March 14. Applicants must supply a resume, references and up to three work or writing samples. Students interested in more details should email advancelocalinfo@advance.net. pa-newspaper-lost-70-million-a-year.jpg Some intriguing and alarming details on the sorry state of the newspaper business have surfaced from a court battle over the estate of western Pennsylvania publishing magnate, Richard Mellon Scaife. (screen shot/KDKA) Some intriguing and alarming details on the sorry state of the newspaper business have surfaced from a court battle over the estate of western Pennsylvania publishing magnate. Richard Mellon Scaife, former owner of Trib Total Media, including the Tribune-Review newspapers in Pittsburgh and Greensburg, apparently lost a $450 million family fortune to his money-losing media company. It turns out that running those newspapers as a rival to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was a costly and money-losing venture for Scaife and a $450 million family trust fund created in 1935, according to published accounts. The Post-Gazette reports that glimpses of the media mogul's finances have come to light at an ongoing court battle being waged by Scaife's daughter and son. The heirs are seeking records would help to show that the newspaper was propped up "to support [Mr. Scaife's] vendetta against the owners of the Post-Gazette, [of] which he himself said, 'I wanted to put those bastards out of business,'" the Post-Gazette writes. Then came this bombshell from attorney William Pietragallo, representing daughter Jennie Scaife: "The Tribune-Review is probably losing an order of magnitude of $10 million in the early years," the Post-Gazette quoted Pietragallo as saying. "That went from $10 million to $70 million in those later years." That trajectory should have influenced the trustees' decisions, he said. Background from the Post-Gazette: The court fight pits Jennie Scaife, 52, of Palm Beach, Fla., and her brother David Scaife, 49, of Shadyside, against three trustees who allowed their father to drain a family trust fund created in 1935. The balance would have gone to the daughter and son upon their father's death. But over 20 years, the trustees approved disbursements of about $450 million, mostly to subsidize the publisher's media holdings. The balance was zero upon his 2014 death. A judge is set to decide the case soon. Meanwhile, lawyers for Trib Total Media argue that releasing the records would end up in the hands of "competitors to my client, who have intervened." But the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette noted in the story that it has intervened in the case, but only to ensure that its rights to gather news are not infringed. pa-teacher-says-girl-was-18-when-they-had-sex.jpg Former Plum (Pa.) High School teacher Jason Cooper, 38, accused of having sex with a student had his bail revoked Thursday after an Allegheny County judge determined that he violated a "no-contact" order by driving past his victim's house. (Courtesy of TribLive.com) An alleged 'slow drive' past his victim's house has landed a western Pennsylvania high school teacher accused of having sex with a student back in jail. TribLive.com reports that former Plum High School teacher Jason Cooper, 38, had his bail revoked Thursday after an Allegheny County judge determined that he violated a "no-contact" order by driving past the girl's house. Cooper is awaiting trial on sex charges of institutional sexual assault and witness intimidation. He resigned from the district last year, before police filed charges. He is accused of having sex with an 18-year-old female student. At yesterday's hearing, a teen neighbor of the alleged victim testified that she saw her former teacher drive past their houses Dec. 23, TribLive.com reports, adding: "He was looking over his left shoulder at (the alleged victim's) house," the 17-year-old Plum High student testified. This is not the first time Cooper has been accused of trying to contact the alleged victim. After the sexual assault charges were filed last Feb. 11, he called the victim at her home Feb. 20, according to a criminal complaint. Witness intimidation charges were added Feb. 24. A district judge reiterated to Cooper that the no-contact order remained as a condition of his continued freedom. Cooper and two other former Plum teachers are accused of having sex with as many as eight female students over eight years in the district. Cooper is scheduled for trial next month. Police seized ammunition and multiple firearms from the Perry County apartment where investigators claim Donald Meyer Jr. squared off against a Pennsylvania constable, resulting in the death of the man's 12-year-old daughter. Ciara Meyer suffered a single, fatal gunshot wound Jan. 11 after the round fired by Constable Clark Steele, 46, passed through Meyer's arm and struck the 57-year-old's daughter, according to state police. The Perry County coroner ruled the girl's death a homicide. Police said Meyer had pointed a loaded semi-automatic rifle at the constable during an eviction, and Steele then fired his .40 caliber weapon at Meyer. Investigators waited at the shooting scene on Monday for a search warrant, which was ultimately approved by Magisterial District Judge Daniel McGuire, to re-enter and search the apartment. Police collected firearms, ammunition, shell casings, blood, DNA, fingerprints, gunshot residue, hair and expended bullets from the Rebecca Drive apartment's kitchen, bedroom and living room areas. According to the search warrant, police collected the single spent casing fired during the incident, as well as five weapons, three magazines, five specified types of ammunition, a box of assorted ammunition and another with spent ammunition. Emergency medical responders flew Meyer to Penn State Hershey for treatment for a shattered upper arm bone. He faces an aggravated assault charge, among other offenses, related to the incident. Perry County District Attorney Andrew Bender has said the shooting is under investigation by his office and state police. One of Ciara's aunts, Steff Gehman, established a fund in the girl's memory to cover funeral expenses and establish a Susquenita School District scholarship in the her name. As of Friday morning, $9,534 had been contributed toward a goal of $50,000 on GoFundMe. Visitation and services for Ciara Meyer are scheduled for Jan. 16. A man was ordered held without bail in the Cumberland County Prison after he attempted to stab another inmate with a weapon he fashioned out of a plunger, according to Middlesex Township police. Raliek Aminkal Chambers Raliek Aminkal Chambers, 19, of Carlsle, had been in the prison since Dec. 31 on $100,000 bail after being arrested on theft, fleeing from police and other charges in Dickinson Township, according to online court records. The incident with the plunger occurred on Jan. 7, according to Middlesex Township police. "Chambers created a 'shank' from a plunger and attempted to stab another inmate with it. He was unsuccessful in his attempt thanks to the quick action of the guards," according to a news release from the police. Chambers has been charged with assault by a prisoner, four counts of simple assault, four counts of recklessly endangering another person and other charges. Chambers was denied bail by District Judge Paul M. Fegley because he is a "danger to others," according to online court records. A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for Feb. 1. John Toledo Vazquez.png John Toledo Vazquez, who police said is in his early 20s, forced open a side window and broke into a house in the 400 block of Route 422 between 8:30 a.m. and noon on Jan. 11. He later was spotted at Wal-Mart in Palmyra, where the surveillance pictures shown above were taken. (Cleona Borough Police Department. ) Police are searching for a Lebanon man in connection to a residential burglary in Cleona on Jan. 11. Police said John Toledo Vazquez, no age given, forced open a side window and broke into a house in the 400 block of Route 422 between 8:30 a.m. and noon on Jan. 11. Vazquez, who police said is in his early 20s, stole cash and jewelry from the home, according to police. He later was spotted at a Wal Mart store in Palmyra, and Cleona police shared surveillance images of him shot at the store as he cashed in coins there that were posted on the department's Facebook page. Vazquez has connections to the city of Bethlehem in Lehigh County, police said. He is on probation for a prior burglary conviction, and police said he is a person of interest in a series of unsolved burglaries in the Cleona area. Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Vazquez is asked to contact the Cleona Borough Police Department at 717-272-2054. BAMAKO (Reuters) - Armed men attacked a food convoy in northern Mali on Friday and four attackers and two soldiers were killed, as Islamist militants step up a violent campaign. The convoy was transporting food for people displaced by insecurity in the West African state. Three soldiers were wounded and three attackers were arrested, military sources said. "While vigorously fighting back, the FAMA (Malian armed forces) killed four terrorists and wounded three," a Ministry of Defence statement said. "One of their vehicles was taken." Militants based in the desert north killed 20 people in an attack on a luxury hotel in the capital on Nov. 20, 2015, and kidnapped a Swiss citizen from a house in Timbuktu on Jan. 8. Tuareg separatists seized control in the north in 2012 before ceding power to Islamist militants. French-led forces drove the Islamists out of the cities a year later, but militants continue to stage attacks. The government and rebel leaders signed a peace accord in June 2014 intended to address the separatists' grievances but it is yet to be implemented in full. Mali's army has frequently been attacked, with 82 soldiers killed in 2015. (Reporting by Tiemoko Diallo; Writing by Makini Brice; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Andrew Roche) Zhaire N. Dekeyser Zhaire N. Dekeyser (Dauphin County Judicial Center) A Dauphin County prosecutor urged a jury Friday to "reject the freak show" put on by some of his own witnesses and convict Zhaire Dekeyser for a drug-related December 2013 robbery/slaying in Harrisburg. While two key prosecution witnesses, both felons, lied when testifying during the four-day trial, prior statements they gave voluntarily to police inescapably show Dekeyser shot and killed Dailyl Jones, Chief Deputy District Johnny Baer said. The trial testimony of those witnesses, Danzelle Chase and Cody Thomas, that the cops coerced them to implicated Dekeyser, 19, in the killing is bogus, Baer contended in his closing argument. Defense attorney William Shreve, meanwhile, advised the jury to discount Chase's and Thomas' testimony that Dekeyser is the shooter. "They are convicted liars and they are convicted thieves," Shreve said. "These are individuals who are not to be believed." Besides, he argued, "There is no physical evidence linking Zhaire to this crime. No gun, no drugs, no gunshot residue." Dekeyser didn't testify and Shreve didn't call any witnesses. The jurors are to begin deliberating after Judge Scott A. Evans instructs them on the law. The stakes are high for Dekeyser. In August, another jury convicted his co-defendant, George Brown, of second-degree murder, but was unable to reach a verdict regarding the charges against Dekeyser, prompting this week's retrial. Brown is serving a life prison term. Baer is seeking murder, robbery and conspiracy convictions that would also send Dekeyser to prison for life. Much of Baer's case hinged on statements Chase and Thomas gave to investigators months after Jones was killed at North Fourth and Woodbine streets. The prosecutor claims Brown and Dekeyser tried to rob Jones, 32, of drugs Jones had hidden in his prosthetic leg. Dekeyser shot Jones on Brown's order when Jones fought back, Baer said. Jones had lost his right leg in an earlier shooting. Chase said he saw the robbery while he was on a nearby corner selling drugs. He named Brown as one of the robbers in his first statement to police, then identified Dekeyser as the shooter in another statement a month later. On Wednesday, Chase testified that police forced him to implicate Dekeyser. Thomas, who told police Dekeyser admitted to him that he shot Jones, made the same coercion claim on the witness stand. Baer urged the jurors to accept Chase's and Thomas' original testimony to police, noting that both came to the authorities with information about Jones' slaying and independently implicated Dekeyser in the crime. To understand their waffling, he told the jury, one must understand the "subculture of guns, drugs and violence" in Harrisburg where people will kill over narcotics and it is perilous to be labeled a "snitch." "You have to be open to a different set of values, a different set of beliefs," Baer said. "This is a very dangerous world in which these guys live." "You're talking about a world where this," he said, pointing to police Detective Richard Iachini," is the enemy." Rachel Bunn | rbunn@pennlive.com 6 Things to Watch Don't Edit Things to watch With new councils and boards settling in after reorganization meetings early in the month, here's a few issues local governments might tackle this year. Don't Edit Power shifts At least three municipalities will see a prominent shift in leadership in the coming year. Middletown not only ousted several sitting council members in the 2015 primary, bringing in familiar faces on council; the borough also lost four key staff members to resignations in December. It's very likely the changes will be noticeable from the start, with the new council planning to open the 2015 budget next week to align with the new council's priorities, the Middletown Press and Journal reports. In Swatara Township, residents will have fewer commissioners for now. The former board of commissioners voted to move from a ward to an at-large council system, reducing the number of board members from nine to five. There are seven board members as the board transitions. However, the at-large system may not stick. Power shifted in favor of pro-ward commissioners before the November election, and the majority voted to hire a consultant and possibly restore wards by 2017 in December. In Cumberland County, Carlilse will transition into home rule this year. Though most changes are small, the most noticeable move is Mayor Tim Scott, who is now the borough council president. Other changes will take time. The tax collector position will be eliminated in 2017. And residents can now bring petitions for the ballot, though it could be years before they choose to do so. Don't Edit Merging departments With tight budgets commonplace among local government, municipalities are looking for ways to save money while still maintaining essential services. Fire companies in East Pennsboro Township and Mechanicsburg are in the process of merging, as fire companies struggle to grow the volunteer base and rising equipment prices. Without mentioning specifics, Rob Brady, of the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, said several fire companies are eyeing mergers but haven't made any public moves. And Dauphin County police departments could save millions by merging and/or regionalization of services, according to a county-wide report. Several municipalities have begun the process to look into possible regionalization. Don't Edit Changing demographics Pennsylvania is getting older and more diverse, particularly in the midstate. The midstate is also home to the fastest-growing population in the entire state, which brings additional problems for governments, including the one mentioned in the next slide. It's not clear yet what immediate effect the changing demographics might have, though local governments are seeing the beginnings of prolems as the population changes, including an ever-increasing need for affordable housing and public transportation. Schools have their own sets of problems, facing overcrowding and an increasing number of students on free and reduced lunch. Don't Edit Don't Edit Rural versus urban Though it's a problem around Pennsylvania, Cumberland County is facing a difficult choice: protect more farmland or encourage more growth and development? County economic development counted encouraging agriculture, particularly agri-business, among their priorities in a new county plan. But some residents say this may be too little, too late with a good deal of former farmland now home to warehouses. Cumberland County has preserved less farmland than many of it's neighbors, but as commissioners recently pointed out, the county is also seeing more growth than all other areas in Pennsylvania which could have played a role. Still, with no expected slowdown in population growth for the foreseeable future, the county and municipalities will be asked time and time again to choose: rural or urban? Don't Edit Sewers and sinkholes Nobody spends a lot of time thinking about what's beneath the ground, but municipalities have had a lot of problems with things just underneath the surface. In Palmyra and Harrisburg, the ground is literally disappearing as sinkholes have opened up. Both municipalities applied for grants from FEMA; Harrisburg's was initially denied while Palmyra's moved along. Harrisburg and PEMA asked the federal agency to reconsider. Other officials are worried about the pipes underneath the ground. More specifically, the ones that carry sewage. Fairview Township sold its system to a private company officially in December and Middletown leased its in 2014. Wastewater treatment is becoming increasingly expensive, due to regulations requiring municipalities to bring aged systems up to new environmental standards. New Cumberland and Lemoyne could be among the next municipalities to sell of the public utilities. Don't Edit Cumberland County versus CAT In 2015, the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners decided to take actions against organizations one of which will continue into this year. Though the board didn't officially cut ties with Capital Area Transit, it did promise to withhold the transit's funding, giving it until July to make moves toward regionalization. The board will then re-evaluate the funding. Should Cumberland County remove it's funding the transit service would lose roughly $149,000 for the second half of the year, a blow to the large deficit it already faces. Don't Edit Is there something we missed? Let us know what you think the biggest issue for local government will be this year. spurned-boyfriend-kills-pet-and-threatens-woman.jpg A Pennsylvania couple's bad breakup turned into criminal charges after the spurned boyfriend, pictured here, allegedly took out his frustrations by killing a pet and threatening the woman's life. (screen shot/WPXI) A western Pennsylvania couple's bad breakup turned into criminal charges after the spurned boyfriend allegedly took out his frustrations by killing a pet rabbit and threatening to do the same to his ex-girlfriend. WPXI in Pittsburgh reports that Christopher Brown, 23, upset over the breakup, allegedly broke into his ex's house, spread gasoline throughout and threw one of her two pet rabbits down the steps, fatally breaking its spine. Police tell WPXI that Brown also called his former girlfriend's mother and left a voicemail bragging about the animal killing and threatening to kill again. The Allegheny County man was jailed on various criminal charges, including animal cruelty, the station reports. He is also accused of violating a protection from abuse by entering his ex's house. On Jan. 15, 1991, President George Bush committed the United States to battling Saddam Hussein - the Iraq dictator who invaded Kuwait. Operation Desert Shield began in August 1990 when the United States participated in the defense of Saudi Arabia in case of an attack by Iraq. Hussein had been issued an ultimatum - get out of Kuwait by Jan. 15, 1991, or be attacked. On Jan. 15, Desert Shield became Operation Desert Storm. Bombs pummeled Iraq's military targets. Thousands of soldiers nationwide were deployed in 1990 and 1991. In Pennsylvania, we watched as our soldiers went off to war. We celebrated and cried and mourned. We prayed and strung yellow ribbons. And on Feb. 25 of that year, we were stunned when an Iraqi Scud missile attack on a barracks in Saudi Arabia killed 13 Pennsylvania soldiers - members of the U.S. Army Reserve 14th Quartermaster Detachment - a water purification unit - stationed in Greensburg. That unit had been in Saudi Arabia only six days. In all, 28 reservists were killed in that attack. Stacey (Akra) King of Swatara Township served in the 14th Quartermaster unit and survived the attack. She was wounded and received a Purple Heart. With these galleries PennLive pays tribute to those who served in the First Gulf War that began 25 years ago. Diplomat Glyn Berry in an undated photo contributed by his family. Ten years after a suicide bomber took the life of diplomat Glyn Berry, newly released documents depict a frustrating -- and fruitless -- search for justice in what proved to be the first shot in Canada's long, bloody combat mission in Kandahar. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO The United States welcomes the announcement of the Haitian Presidential Decree calling on the people of Haiti to participate in the second round of the presidential election and remaining legislative elections on January 24. A Haitian commission created by President Michel Martelly on December 22, was tasked with probing the country's disputed October 25 presidential election. While the commission's report noted that the first-round vote was impacted by irregularities, it indicated that a final run-off could still take place. The report called for greater transparency, including a national dialogue, an analysis of the vote to determine the extent of the irregularities and fraud, and changes in the electoral process. A number of these recommendations were also noted by other international electoral observation missions during the course of the current electoral cycle. According to official results, government-backed candidate Jovenel Moise received 32.76 percent of the vote after the first round of voting, and Jude Celestin, the former head of the state construction agency, garnered 25.29 percent. U.S. State Department Spokesperson John Kirby said, the U.S. "looks[s] forward to the completion of the electoral process and encourage[s] all Haitians to participate peacefully and calmly in the vote. This is the opportunity for the Haitian people to have their voice heard regarding the future leader of their country. To that end," the U.S. "urge[s] everyone to ensure transparency and credibility in the fundamental democratic process." The United States and Haitis other international partners urge state institutions and political actors to take all steps necessary to ensure a free and fair process that results in a peaceful transfer of power to a newly elected President by the constitutionally mandated date of February 7. The United States reaffirms its commitment to working with the Provisional Electoral Council and Haitis international partners in support of fair, credible, and secure elections that reflect the will of the Haitian people. The United States looks forward to working with the next democratically-elected government on the many challenges facing Haiti and its people. Thousands still without power following Monday, Tuesday winds Great Lakes Energy said less than 3,300 members are still without power as of 9 a.m. on Wednesday following stormy and windy conditions this week. YPF signs $500 mln shale deal with American Energy Partners CEO de American Partners LP, Aubrey McClendon (l) y el presidente y CEO de YPF. BUENOS AIRES Petroleumworld.com 01 15 2016 State-run energy firm YPF said on Thursday it had signed a preliminary deal worth more than $500 million over three years with American Energy Partners LP (AEP) to explore for shale gas in Argentina's vast Vaca Muerta formation. Argentina sits atop some of the world's largest shale resources but is a net energy importer after years of under-investment in the country's energy sector. YPF says $200 billion over a decade are needed to reverse the deficit. That task has been made more complicated by the rout in global oil prices. The foray into Argentina by American Energy's Aubrey McClendon comes months after the former CEO of Chesapeake Energy Corp hired investment banks to shore up the finances of his Oklahoma-based oil and gas venture. In a statement, YPF said the joint venture involved a pilot project in the Bajada de Anelo block, located in Argentina's Neuquen province that would run until mid-2018. If the project is continued, Pluspetrol and the province-owned Neuquen Oil and Gas would join the venture, exploring the southern zone of another bock Cerro Areno. A company affiliated to American Energy Partners would take up to a 50 percent stake in both blocks. McClendon co-founded Chesapeake Energy in 1989 and turned it into a top U.S. gas producer. He resigned from the company in 2013 following a corporate governance crisis. McClendon went on to form AEP, whose financial backers have included Houston-based private equity firm Energy and Minerals Group. Patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy will be disappointed with news that US regulators have rejected BioMarins experimental therapy Kyndrisa, dashing hopes of access to the first treatment specifically approved for the condition. The US Food and Drug Administration has issued with the firm with a Complete Response letter after concluding that the standard of substantial evidence of effectiveness has not been met. Kyndrisa (drisapersen) is an investigational antisense oligonucleotide drug being developed for the treatment of the largest subset of Duchenne muscular dystrophy amenable to single exon skipping, acquired by BioMarin via its $840-million purchase of Prosensa in November last year. The drug has somewhat of a mixed history, having had a stint at GlaxoSmithKline until a failed Phase III trial spurred the drug giant to hand back rights. In the trial, Kyndrisa missed the primary endpoint of a statistically significant improvement of distance walked in six minutes compared to placebo. However, subsequent analyses of data from the entire clinical programme showed a 49-metre difference between those on continual treatment (n=52) and those who had been on placebo for 48 weeks followed by active drug (n=31), re-igniting confidence in the drug. BioMarin said it is now reviewing the FDAs response and will work with the agency to determine the appropriate next steps for the application. The drug remains under regulatory review in Europe. MEDIA QUESTIONNAIRE Name of Publication Established (Give exact date) ADDRESS TELEPHONE FAX NO NAME OF EDITOR Name of Printer Language Frequency Please attach a copy of declaration certificate Off Days Please specify whether morning, evening or state the date of issue Date on which the first issue was brought out Any special edition Price per copy Annual subscription Editorial Objectives and policy Appeal to any special community, class or section News services subscribed to Special regular features (i.e Womens or Children page etc) & when appearing Nick "FU_15" Maimone Eliminates Everyone to Win 2016 PCA $25K High Roller for $996,480 January 14, 2016 Chad Holloway Executive Editor U.S. The 2016 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $25,000 High Roller began with 225 entrants (173 unique players + 52 re-entries) who created a $5.4 million prize pool, and after three days of intense play, it was Nick "FU_15" Maimone who eliminated every player at the final table to walk away the winner for $996,480. Known primarily for his online exploits, Maimone, who hails from North Carolina but now resides in Honduras, managed to eclipse his live lifetime earnings, which previously stood at $881,218. The win was a big cherry on top of a successful 2016 PCA that saw him finish 87th in the LAPT Bahamas Main Event for $4,120 and fifth in Event #42: $5,300 No-Limit Hold'em 8-Handed Turbo Bounty for $10,580. That money will certainly come in handy as Maimone and his wife are expecting their first child in May. Final Table Results Place Player Country Prize 1 Nick "FU_15" Maimone USA $996,480 2 Sean Winter USA $914,580 3 Dario Sammartino Italy $542,160 4 Josh Beckley USA $439,560 5 Brian Yoon USA $347,760 6 Andrey Zaichenko Russia $264,060 7 Chance Kornuth USA $192,780 8 Ben Heath UK $116,640 9 Anton Astapau Belarus $116,640 The day began with nine players returning to action, and it took nearly two hours for the first elimination to occur. That is when a huge three-way all-in pot developed between Maimone, Dario Sammartino and Anton Astapau. All three players held pairs nine through jacks in fact with Maimone out in front. The fishhooks held and Maimone more than doubled into the chip lead while sending Astapau to the rail in ninth place $116,640. From there, Ben Heath was bounced in eighth when his pocket sevens failed to hold against the ace-eight of Maimone, and Chance Kornuth followed him out the door, the low man on the totem pole in a three-way all-in hand. From there, Maimone eliminated both Andrey Zaichenko and Brian Yoon in sixth and fifth place respectively. The former ran his weak ace into Maimone's ace-jack, while the latter lost a standard coin flip. In the first hand back from the dinner break, Winter raised to 180,000 under the gun and Maimone called from the button. 2015 World Series of Poker Main Event runner-up Josh Beckley, who began the day as chip leader but fell to the short stack, came along from the small blind, Sammartino folded the big, and three players took a flop of , which they all checked. When the hit the turn, two checks inspired Maimone to bet 300,000, Beckley called, and Winter got out of the way. The river put four spades on board, and Beckley checked to Maimone, who bet 525,000. Beckley then check-raised all in for 1.225 million. "This is a tough one," Maimone said sarcastically before putting in the chips. Beckley confidently tabled the for an ace-high flush, but it was no good as Maimone held a straight flush with the . Beckley, who earned his seat via $2,700 satellite, was shocked, shook his head, and made his way to the payout desk to collect $439,560 for his fourth-place finish. Maimone then eliminated Sammartino in third place the result of the Italian's failing to get there against Maimone's and took a slight chip lead into heads-up play against Winter. That is when the two opted to strike a deal that saw Maimone lock up $966,480, Winter $914,580, and $30,000 plus the trophy left on the table. Maimone quickly pulled out to a healthy lead, and in what would be the last hand of the tournament raised to 250,000 from the button and then snap-called when Winter three-bet all in. Maimone: Winter: Winter had a major kicker issue, and it failed to resolve itself as the board ran out a clean . By finishing as runner-up, Winter surpassed his previous best score of $562,772, which came last summer when he emerged victorious in the $10,000 Bellagio Cup. What's more, Winter admitted he had numerous side bets tied to the result and he is primed to head back to Florida with quite a bit more than what's reported. Congratulations to Nick Maimone, winner of the 2016 PCA $25,000 High Roller! Want to stay atop all the latest in the poker world? If so, make sure to get PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and find us on both Facebook and Google+! Sharelines Nick "FU_15" Maimone eliminated everyone at final table on way to 2016 PCA $25K HR win for $996,480. Mike Watson Defeats Tony Gregg To Win 2016 PCA Main Event for $728,325 January 14, 2016 Donnie Peters Mike Watson has done it, winning the 2016 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $5,300 Main Event after he topped a field of 928 entries, including an extremely tough heads-up match against three-time final tablist Tony Gregg. After he and Gregg worked out a deal, Watson took home $695,325. Gregg locked up $612,175, and the two left $33,000 to play for. Watson won that additional prize to take home a total of $728,325. Final Table Payouts Place Player Country Prize 1 Mike Watson Canada $728,325 2 Tony Gregg USA $612,175 3 Phillip McAllister UK $356,020 4 Toby Lewis UK $267,340 5 Vladimir Troyanovskiy Russia $207,940 6 Randy Kritzer USA $153,920 7 Ken Demlakian Australia $110,220 8 Timothy Ulmer USA $78,540 For Gregg, his finish was bittersweet. Yes, he took home $612,175, but once again he finished as the bridesmaid in the event. It was his third trip to the PCA Main Event final table, and, even though he did not win, proves just how successful he is in this tournament. Also at the final table on Thursday were Randy Kritzer, Vladimir Troyanovskiy, Toby Lewis, and Phillip McAllister. Kritzer, the neurosurgeon from North Carolina, was the only amateur player at the final table, and he finished in sixth place for $153,920, and then it was the well known Russian Vladimir Troyanovskiy falling in fifth place for $207,940. In fourth place, Lewis was eliminated, falling just a few spots short of landing his second European Poker Tour title to earn $267,340. In third, it was the blossoming upstart McAllister who took home $356,020. Heads-up play began with Watson in the lead. He and Gregg took a dinner break, and upon their return, they agreed to the deal. Despite just about a 2-1 lead going into the heads-up duel, Gregg pulled back to even with Watson in a match that would last over two hours. In the end, though, Watson proved too strong for Gregg to overcome, and the final hand of Level 34 saw Gregg take a big hit before the two got all the money in shortly after Level 35 began. The final hand took place on the flop, where Watson called Gregg's shove with the for a draw. Gregg had top pair, top kicker with the , but he didn't have a heart. The turn was the to give Watson some additional outs, and then the river delivered the final blow with the . Watson had made a flush, and that was all she wrote. For Watson, the win pushed him over $9 million in live tournament earnings and he added another trophy to his case. Want to stay atop all the latest in the poker world? If so, make sure to get PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and find us on both Facebook and Google+ Photo: Jimmy Hatch Three days after a Norfolk, VA, police dog was shot and killed in a standoff with a man who'd barricaded himself in his home, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper has donated enough money to outfit the Police Department's entire K-9 unit with ballistic vests, similar to those used by military dog handlers, reports the Virginian-Pilot. Sources familiar with the incident said it's likely the dog, Krijger, would have survived the shooting Monday morning had it been wearing a light-weight Kevlar vest. Retired SEAL Jimmy Hatch, a former military dog handler who runs the Norfolk-based charity Spike's K9 Fund, dedicated to helping military and police dogs, launched a campaign in Krijger's name to raise money to buy bulletproof and stab-resistant vests, which cost about $2,200 apiece. Cooper had interviewed Hatch last year about the night in 2009 when he was wounded on a mission to rescue Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in Afghanistan. Cooper saw a social media post about Hatch's new fundraising effort this week and decided to donate the speaking fee from his upcoming "Norfolk Forum" lecture at Chrysler Hall. Portfolio English Edition's premium content is available only for subscribers Learn about the hottest news of the day, along with immediate follow-up analyses and 1000's of exclusive articles with full access to the premium content. Register and apply for a 14 days free trial period. The GOP presidential debates are like a typical television series. The quality of actors doesnt vary much from episode to episode, nor does the general nature of the characters they play. What varies is which character[s] they come into conflict with in a given episode. In the debate context, this variable is driven by which candidate poll data tells a candidate he (or she) must try to smack down. Early on, for example, Donald Trump went after the two presumed frontrunners Jeb Bush and Scott Walker. Later, he was more interested in taking down a surging Carly Fiorina. Jeb Bush has consistently been gunning for Trump. However, in one debate he went after Marco Rubio because polls showed Rubio gaining traction in what Bush considers his lane. Tonight, with Trump and Ted Cruz running neck-and-neck in Iowa polling, and that states caucus less than three weeks away, the situation seems finally to demand a clash of these titans. Will we see it, and if so, what will it look like? If CNN, say, were hosting the debate, we could expect the questioning to set up a true food fight at the outset. But Fox Business Channel is hosting. Judging from the previous debate on this network, the questioning may well be focused on economic policy, rather than personality. Thus, to the extent that Trump and Cruz want to have at each other, they may have to go out their way. If so, will one or the other (or both) want to pick a fight? The answer, I suspect, depends on what their latest polls say. Assuming a clash occurs, what can we expect it to look like? Substantively, Trump presumably will want to re-raise the natural born citizen issue against Cruz. He may also peddle a New York Times story accusing Cruz of failing to make proper disclosure of a Goldman Sachs loan during his Senate campaign. Its also possible that he will accuse Cruz of being soft on immigration, as Rubio has done. If Cruz goes on the attack, I may well cite the best instances of Trumps non-conservative positions (of which there are many to chose from). Lately, he has also ridiculed Trumps self-declared reliance on Sunday talk shows for his information on foreign and national security policy (something Bush used in the last debate). And if Trump brings up the New York Times story, Cruz will likely attack the Times, perhaps tying it into Trumps past embrace of New York City conventional wisdom. Sounds like a potential standoff in terms of substance. In terms of performance, Cruz may have the edge. Hes an experienced debater and, more importantly, has shown himself to be extraordinarily disciplined throughout the campaign. Nothing is likely to come out of the Texas Senators mouth that hasnt been carefully calculated. Trump can be a loose cannon. He may not be able to calibrate his attacks on Cruz. Thus, we may get the equivalent of another hes not a war hero, or blood coming out of her whatever, or look at that face moment. (To be fair, though, none of these moments occurred during a debate). So far, Trump has been able easily to survive moments like these. But he did fall from frontrunner to co-frontrunner (at best) in Iowa in part, perhaps, because of his abrasiveness. Its definitely possible, then, that a clash with Cruz tonight might produce a setback for Trump. It seems less likely to set back Cruz. However, a standoff seems more likely than not. UPDATE: Having watched the debate, it seems to me that, contrary to my expectations, Trump set Cruz back. About this business of the navy patrol boats captured by Iran. As Scott and Investors Business Daily point out, theres something off about the official story that a navigation error caused the boats to stray into Iranian waters. I dont believe this story for a moment. (And the initial explanation that the boats drifted there after engine trouble has already been withdrawn. Why was that put out or not disavowed immediately?) One hopes that boat crews would navigate by means in addition to GPS since GPS could be taken out in a serious conflict, but unless our sailors have become incompetent or there was some extraordinary failure on these boats (unlikely I think), this navigation error sounds like either a deliberate mission that the Pentagon cant acknowledge*, or the Iranians captured the boats in international waters, and were not willing to dispute their claim because of the Iran arms treaty agreement. My conclusion: were being lied to by the Obama Administration (I knowshocker). By coincidence, the other day I ran across a quotation from Eleanor Roosevelt from back in 1948, when American liberals were starting to come to grips with the fact that the Soviet Union was being run by a bunch of gangsters. ER criticized American concessions to the Soviets as follows: Instead of looking at it as a gesture of good will, they look at it as a gesture of weakness. I suspect Iran understands this just as easily. You know things are bad when Eleanor Roosevelt can be held up as a model of clear-minded toughness compared to todays liberals. YesEleanor Roosevelt better than John Kerry. The only thing swift about Kerry is the boat he once scratched his finger on. (Purple heart? No, noI meant purple haze!) * Another odd detail in some news reports is that that boats lost communication with the rest of the fleet in the area. Both boats? No backup radios? Why are we running those kind of boats in the Persian Gulf anyway? Im no expert in navy force configurations, but those boats look like the kind you might use to infiltrate some special forces into Iran. Hmmm. (Just how do you pronounce Tonkin Gulf in Arabic?) PAUL adds: This story broke on Tuesday. That evening, at a special Washington, D.C. showing of the movie 13 Hours, several high-ranking former military men expressed deep skepticism about the official story that was emerging in regard to the two boats. Questions abound in the case of the two ships and ten sailors captured by the IRGC in the Persian Gulf earlier this week. We can be grateful that the sailors have been released by Iran, but the groveling exhibited by the Obama administration is a matter of profound national embarrassment, which seems to be exactly what the Iranians intended. The administration, of course, prefers to present the matter as a triumph of diplomacy. Twas a famous victory. Recalling the great Jeremiah Denton, Seth Lipsky writes: Its too soon to say how our sailors were treated when they were in the hands of the Iranians who seized them and held them overnight. Its not too soon to say that it is nauseating to watch our state secretary, John Kerry, himself a former sailor, gushing thanks to the Iranian regime, over to which he is preparing to turn more than $100 billion as part the Iran deal. The spin the administration is putting on this incident is one of the most cynical exercises in memory. Yesterday Secretary Carter asserted that the boats stray[ed] accidentally into Iranian waters due to a navigation error. An IBD editorial raises questions about the purported navigation error, but this is far from the only unanswered question. IBD quotes Christopher Harmer, retired operations commander for the U.S. Navys Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. Harmer told CNN there was no reason for a small vessel to be out that far and especially without escorting ships around it, and the Navy has to explain why you have small ships transiting 300 miles of open ocean. IBD notes that Iran claims the IRGC seized the boats GPS gear and that it revealed U.S. espionage: As reported in Defense News, House Armed Services Committee member Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a Marine who served in the Iraq War, claimed there was no way the Iran military didnt reverse engineer, or look at and copy everything that they possibly could of the two commandeered boats high-tech equipment. Video released by the Iranians shows the sailors surrendering abjectly on their knees with their hands over their heads. In another video one of the sailors meekly extends his apology for their transgression. It was a mistake, that was our fault, and we apologize for our mistake, said the sailor, who was identified by the Iranian interviewer as commander of the crew detained Tuesday. Seth Lipskys reservation to the contrary notwithstanding, Aaron MacLean takes up this aspect of the incident in the Washington Free Beacon column Standard nautical malpractice. He observes: The bad news isnt only at the top. There are so many unanswered questions about this incident, not least regarding the uncomfortable fact of one American sailors on-camera apology to his captors. When I was being trained as a Marine officer in Quantico in 2008, a similar incident had just occurred wherein Iran had taken 15 British naval personnel prisoner for almost two weeks. We studied the affair and I remember having the Armed Forces Code of Conduct, which we had to memorize, stressed by my instructorswho took a dim view of the performance of the Brits. The Code includes passages like I will never surrender of my own free will. Those boats were sovereign American territory. Were the sailors ordered to give them up? The Code also includes the injunction to evade answering further questions beyond the usual name-and-rank stuff, and to make no oral or written statements disloyal to the servicemans country. Regardless of the applicability or terms of the Code of Conduct, the spirit of resistance was conspicuous by its absence. What happened? As Seth writes, its too soon to answer the question, but its certainly not to soon to ask. We must insist that question be answered lest the question be suppressed in the service of the Obama administrations continuing abasement of the United States. I think back to the capture of the USS Pueblo. The case of the Pueblo seems to me to provide a useful contrast with the events to which we have just been witness. Because my memory of the events is so vague, Ive taken the following accounts from the Wikipedia entries on the Pueblo and on LLoyd Bucher. Ive also revisited Steve Haywards account of the events in the first volume of his Age of Reagan books. While monitoring North Korea on January 23, 1968, the Pueblo came under attack by North Korean naval forces. North Koreans boarded the ship and took her to the port at Wonsan. For the next 11 months, Pueblo Commander Bucher and his crew were held as POWs by the North Koreans. Initially, they were treated relatively well, with good food and living accommodations. However, their treatment turned harsher when the North Koreans realized that crewmen were secretly giving them the finger, which they explained as being a Hawaiian good luck sign, in staged propaganda photos they had been taking of the crew. From then on they were regularly beaten by the North Koreans. Bucher was psychologically tortured such as being put through a mock firing squad in an effort to make him confess. Eventually the Koreans threatened to execute his men in front of him, and Bucher relented and agreed to confess to his and the crews transgression. Bucher wrote the confession and the North Koreans verified the meaning of what he wrote, but failed to catch the pun when he said We paean the North Korean state. We paean their great leader Kim Il Sung. Following an apology, a written admission by the United States that the Pueblo had been spying, and an assurance that the United States would not spy in the future, the North Korean government decided to release the 82 remaining crew members. On December 23,1968, the crew was taken by buses to the demilitarized zone (DMZ) border with South Korea and ordered to walk south across the Bridge of No Return. Exactly 11 months after being taken prisoner, Bucher led the long line of crewmen, followed at the end by the Executive Officer, Lieutenant Ed Murphy, the last man across the bridge. The United States then retracted the ransom admission, apology, and assurance. Following his release, Bucher was subjected to a court of inquiry by the Navy for having given up the Pueblo without a fight (as Steve Hayward notes at pages 181-182 of the first of his Age of Reagan books.) A court martial was recommended. Secretary of the Navy John Chafee then intervened on Buchers behalf to foreclose action against him. Bucher seems to have followed orders not to start any international incidents. Bucher continued his Navy career until retirement in the rank of Commander. The Pueblo, incidentally, remains in the hands of North Korea. The much awaited movie, Diary of a Lagos Girl, is set to be premiered in February in Lagos. The film, which features veteran actress, Liz Benson, among others, is directed by Jumoke Olatunde. It a romantic hilarious movie that tells a story of a covetous young lady, played by Television host, Dolapo Oni. Other actors that feature in the film include OC Ukeje, Alexx Ekubo, Linda Ejiofor, Paul Adams and Adunni Ade. The film is produced by Nike Erinle. Watch first official teaser here ELKO City Councilman John Patrick Rice kicked off the opening of presidential candidate Hillary Clintons campaign office last week in Elko by sharing his New Years resolution with attendees. I made a New Years resolution to only say nice things about people, or to say nothing at all, Rice said. My tongue hurts from biting it because the truth is, I am appalled by the direction these Republican campaigns have taken. I truly believe that there is only one candidate who can stand up and win for our nation, and that person is Hillary Clinton. In formally endorsing Clinton at the ribbon cutting of Clintons Elko campaign office, Rice encouraged Elko voters to get engaged with the campaign by asking supporters to sign up for more phone banking and door-knocking shifts. He also discussed the importance of Hillary Clintons policies on education, health care and community development for communities like Elko. We Democrats can be proud of the high road we are taking in the discussion of the needs of the nation, Rice said. Its the same high road most of us in Elko take when it comes to issues close to home. Hillary is the only candidate who has talked about the needs of rural communities, he explained. Her staff drove across the state, taking input from communities like ours, and made sure our voices were heard. This summer, the Clinton campaign rolled out policies for a vibrant rural America, that included components addressing specific concerns from Elkoans about broadband access, education and health care resources. Fresh off of Clintons appearance at the Battle BornBattleground First in the West Caucus Dinner, Hillary for Nevada campaign staff at the Elko office opening encouraged supporters to participate in the campaign process. The new office aims to serve as an organizing hub for the community ahead of the Nevada caucus on Feb. 20. Volunteers can come here to make phone calls, knock on doors, and work with their neighbors to prepare Nevadans for the caucus, said Hillary for Nevada Elko Organizer Evan Welty. We have seen an overwhelming outpouring of support from Elkoans, and we are going to be ramping up our get-out-the-vote efforts as we approach caucus day. Clintons Elko office is located at 423 Fifth St., and is the campaigns seventh organizing office in the state. The campaign has been organizing in Elko since the early summer, hosting both caucus trainings for local supporters and community events such as a World Mental Health Day celebration on Oct. 10. In this interview with PREMIUM TIMES Ben Ezeamalu, the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, spoke about his time as an opposition spokesperson, the war against insurgency, and the governments proposed 2016 budget. PREMIUM TIMES: For years, you served as the spokesperson for the opposition party. But now youve moved to become the spokesperson for the ruling party. Whats the major difference between the two positions? Lai: Of course there are major differences. As the oppositions spokesperson, you speak majorly for the opposition and you speak, also, within the information available to you. And you speak with the perspective of how youll do things better if you were there. Now as the government spokesperson, youll be speaking not just for the government but the whole of the country. And you are expected to know everything about everything and whatever you say, the government could be held accountable to it. So it has its challenges. It could be quite exciting but its also full of challenges. In other words, you must at any given time be very abreast of the governments policies, programmes, and you must be able to explain to the average Nigerian why things are being done in certain ways or why some things are not being done at all. Yes, its a much more onerous responsibility in the sense that even the outside world will rely on you for information and news about your country. So it means then that you must know exactly how government works, what is happening, what are the reasons for what policies government is taking. PT: But with you now being on the government side, when you look back to your days as the opposition spokesperson, do you feel there were things you unfairly criticized the then government for the way they handled them? Lai: No, I dont think so. Because Ive gone back, we criticized based on information available to us. Even today I often revisit some of my positions. As at the time those issues were addressed, even with my position in government today, if the opposition today should raise the same issues, I wouldnt fault them. Unless you can be specific and tell me that look during Boko Haram you said this, today are you not saying a different thing? And you find out that theres nothing I said all through my years on the position of Boko Haram that cannot be defended given circumstances on ground then. PT: In your time as opposition spokesperson, you had people who admired the way you carried out your duties, as well as those who criticized them. Why is your party, the APC, finding it difficult to get your replacement? Lai: Well, I think, on one hand, its flattering to hear that one is missed at his former position. Again, I believe that there are many Nigerians that can do better PT: (Cuts in) Like your deputy, Timi Frank? Lai: However, the fact of the matter is that positions in political parties are not usually on merit. Or put this way, are not usually entirely on merit. There are other factors. They are not usually based on qualifications and, at times, it might be based on expediency or balancing. So it might be a bit difficult if you are now sourcing for your replacement. By the time you juggle the various political factors and all these things, you might not be able to find the right person. Let me give you a practical example, and I want to look at it from this perspective. We have an 18 member National Working Committee, there are three from each geo-political zone. So if one resigns from one geo-political zone, because he has been a minister or a commissioner or he takes another political office, he must be replaced by somebody from that same geopolitical zone. You can see where the problem lies. Yes, my deputy can act for me only until the next national convention of the party. But at that national convention of the party, my zone north-central, which is now left with only two members will expect that the next replacement must come from that zone. So that creates problems a bit. Two, the occupier of the office also brings a few things to that office. And with all sense of humility, I think Ive been in that office for quite a while. I was the pioneer national publicity secretary for the AC in 2006, in Benin, Edo State, I was elected. And for almost 10 years I held that office. So think it helped a lot. From the AC to the ACN and to APC. So whoever is going to succeed me may not necessarily have that kind of experience, but he could have some qualities that might even make him better. PT: As spokesperson for then opposition party, a lot of people saw you as a Master of Propaganda. Some even said your first name Lai was synonymous with lie. How does it feel being seen in that light? Lai: I think the democratization of the media space has brought a lot of changes, a lot of developments. Today you must have the capacity to absorb a lot of irritation. You must have the largeness of heart to tolerate a lot of insults. But the important thing is for you to remain focused. Most people react to you based on emotions. Because Ive always challenged those who called me a propagandist to come out with just one of the thousands of press interventions I have made and say this is propaganda, this is not true. Ive always challenged them. PT: But the last time, you said the fuel scarcity would last for a few days. It ended up lasting for weeks Lai: No. Number one, I did not say that in my position as the spokesperson for the opposition, I said that as a minister. And what I said was that the payment would be made in a few days time and that will improve the situation. And the payment was actually made a few days after. And Ive had occasions to explain to the world the complex issues surrounding fuel scarcity. The immediate cause was the fact that we owed marketers lot of arrears and we went to National Assembly and we asked for supplementary budget of N674 billion. Out of it, N532 billion was dedicated to payment of arrears. Nobody can deny these facts, they are there. You see, people react to you based on emotion. And the truth of the matter is that these arrears date back to August 2014. These facts are there but you see people cant handle hard facts. Two, Ive explained that in addition to the backlog of payments which actually led to marketers to the fact that marketers refused to bring in products because banks also refused to extend their credit facility. Weve always had challenges with the distribution network. We have 5,120 kilometres of pipeline, 24 depots, 21 pump stations, with this network we ought to not to have any problem with administration. But unfortunately the pipeline vandalization has rendered our pipeline networks ineffective. Before now if you are in Ilorin, Ibadan, Mosimi, Satellite, or Ore, you did not need to bring your tankers to Lagos to get products. But because these pipelines have been so vandalized, trucks from Ilorin, from Ibadan, from Mosimi, from Satellite are all now queueing up at the Atlas Cove jetty. It is only about a week or so ago we were able to secure the pipeline, that is the Atlas Cove, that you can see a lot of improvement. Again, another factor why the queue has been lingering is that the tackney is not good for this kind of scarcity. Because as you approach the winter, most refineries in the world, they would have switched over to LP not PMS they are approaching winter so they are now refining more of the heavy oil for the heaters and for the homes and they are refining less for PMS for automobiles. Again, we need to address the issue of enforcement and implementation by the regulatory authorities like PPPRA and DPR. So to go back, I did not say fuel queues will disappear in days. I said well resolve the matter in a few days time. And we did. Because the budget was passed and we were able to pay all the arrears. But then its like resetting your television, it takes a while because its a chain of supply and distribution. PT: On this issue of petrol, it appears the government is hell bent on removing fuel subsidy, but they dont want to come out to say we are removing fuel subsidy. Theyve used words like price modulation and so on. Is the government going to remove fuel subsidy? Lai: I think the president answered that question. That with the present price of crude today, the issue of subsidy does not even arise. Because the cost of crude is the major component in arriving at the cost of PMS, and as of today if the price of crude remains at under 40 ($40 per barrel), then you can sell petrol at N85, without any element of subsidy. Of course we are not praying that the price of crude will remain as low forever, but while that is happening, there are two things we need to do. First is to revamp our refineries, make them to work. If our refineries are working, no matter the cost of crude we will be able to sell at a much more competitive price because everyday 445,000 barrels of crude are allocated for domestic consumption. Thats about 60 percent of our total consumption, even if you use 40 million litre as the benchmark for daily consumption. So we are going to do three things throughout this period. One, is to really get a realistic and accurate data of supply and distribution. Right now we are not comfortable with the 40 million litres that we were supposed to be consuming everyday. Two, within that period, ensure that our refineries are working optimally. Thirdly, clean up all the rent-seeking components in the template that is being used by the PPPRA at arriving at the landing cost of fuel. So that irrespective of whether the price of crude goes up or down, well be But I think the key really is, one, making sure that our refineries work. Two, all our pipelines are firmly secured. And thirdly, make sure that PPPRA, DPR, and other regulatory agencies also live up to their responsibilities. PT: Will this government consider using groups like the OPC to help secure pipelines? Lai: Well, I do not know. But what I can say is that when we were faced with these challenges, we turned to the Nigerian Corps of Army Engineers and I think we were quite satisfied with their performance. Two, the Minister of State for Petroleum had also assured the nation that we are also going to look into more of high tech surveillance, rather than manual surveillance. 5,120 kilometres of pipeline is quite complex and long for you to manually monitor. But I think he also even spoke of drones being used to monitor these pipelines. But I think well probably go the way most countries are going to, that is leveraging on technology to monitor pipelines. PT: You held a press conference last month where you said the government had already met the December deadline on combating Boko Haram insurgency. Days later, the terrorists struck with series of suicide bombings. Do you still believe that the December deadline had been met? Lai: I have no iota of doubt in my mind that government met the deadline. You see, at times, Im worried and quite shaky by the sheer amount of deliberate distortion, mischief at times, at times even ignorance, by many commentators. Number one, what did the government mean by meeting the deadline? What the government meant by meeting the deadline was that by December 31st, the Boko Haram insurgents would have been so decimated, they would have been so dispersed and so weakened that they would not be in control of any territory in Nigeria. Now cast your mind back to a year ago where at least 30 local governments, 20 in Borno State, four in Adamawa, six in Yobe, and they were operating from Bauchi, Gombe on the side also to today where they cannot say this local government is in the control of Boko Haram. They might be operating from one or two in Bornu, but its not the same as six months ago when they had their headquarters in Bama, and from Bama they were installing and removing Emirs, collecting taxes, dispensing justice in those areas where they are in control, to today. So when you look at that, you will understand what we mean by the army having met the deadline. Two, I said clearly that meeting the deadline does not mean the end of Boko Haram attacks, not the end of suicide bombings, not the end of attacks on soft targets. Because these are not things you can stop overnight. But, Boko Haram today has lost the capacity to stage cavalry attacks like they used to do before. Before they marched into Abuja and blew up the United Nations building. Before, they went to the headquarters of the police, our barracks, and our garrisons. Theyve lost that capability and that capacity. Now, as for the attacks on soft targets, no military in the world can secure all the soft targets markets, parks, churches, mosques, cinemas, restaurants. Even France that officially has no insurgency, its security was humiliated a month and half ago by terrorists. Columbia that was supposed to have dealt with insurgency more than a decade ago still has occasional attacks by terrorists. You see what happened during Christmas does not take away from the fact that Boko Haram has been dealt with and decimated. I would have been more worried and concerned if for instance during this Christmas period, Boko Haram was able to retake one single square metre of territory from the Nigerian army. That is when I would have been worried. And like I explained to some of your colleagues, the fact that armed robbers ambushed you on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, does that mean that the armed robbers are in complete control of that road? These are cowardly attacks, and we expected it, that as the deadline approaches they want to prove to you that you have not succeeded. They want to prove to you that they are relevant. But these are cowardly attacks, like the one that was detected even by the civilian taskforce where on the Mawlid an-Nabi which is a religious day, for any Muslim what we do on the day of the Prophets birthday, we all go to the mosque and everybody will send food to mosque and then we all call children to eat. Now when you decide to go and put IEDs in food flasks and you now take them to mosques, that is a cowardly attack. That does not mean that you are still relevant or you are in control. Thats why I said I hope people will understand when this deadline was given, where we are today and let them make an informed judgment, hasnt the army met its objective. PT: As opposition spokesperson, you vehemently criticized the then governments attempt at Internet surveillance/spying on citizens. Now that you are in charge, will you dismantle that? Lai: You see, I want people to be specific. What we criticized was their engagement of an Israeli firm that will pry into my email and your email. We said no. And we dont intend to do that now. We criticized specific attempts PT: (Cuts in) You dont intend to do use a foreign firm to do that? What you criticized was the use of a foreign firm? Lai: No. What we criticized was the attempt, whether its foreign or local. We said no. My privacy must be respected. And Im saying we still stand by the same thing today and Im not aware that this government is thinking of tampering with anybodys privacy. PT: Part of the issues we had during the previous government was a seeming disconnect between government policies and public perception. We had a recent example of that during the social media bill debate. Is there a possibility of re-inventing the National Orientation Agency to have more grassroots visibility, just like the MAMSER of those days? Lai: I think the NOA would be the flagship this government is going to use to change, not just to popularize and make sure that the grassroots know government policies and their intentions which is what they do now. But even the governments change mantra would leverage heavily on the NOA to re-orientate the way we do things. Fortunately, the structures are still there for the NOA. They have structures in each local government of the federation, but unfortunately they are very poorly funded. What we met were, in some of the local governments they did not even have a laptop. That particular agency would be revamped and would have to meet its mandate which is to bring to the grassroots information about government activities and also act as a vehicle to let the government know about the feelings of the people. Today, I receive regular weekly reports from NOA as to how people perceive not just the policies of government, I receive from NOA on a weekly basis today the pulse of Nigerians about virtually every issue that has to do with the economy, policy, and social issues. PT: In November last year, you came out to criticize the Nigerian Television Authority, Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, News Agency of Nigeria, and other government owned media organizations for their lack of profesionalism, particularly the role they played in the run-up to the general elections. How are you going to ensure the independence of these government-owned media organizations? Lai: I think I have said it several times. When I addressed the DGs of government owned media, that is NTA, Voice of Nigeria, FRCN, NAN, I told them very clearly that the opposition must be given equal access as the government in any of their medium. I told them very clearly that a situation where government owned media companies will see themselves as just giving bulletin about government would not work. And that many of them have lost credibility because of the way they carried about and that many of them are not viable today simply because they dont have credibility. I told them that in this business content is key, content is king. That people will rush to where they can get credible information. So its left for the opposition to take the gauntlet. Nobody today, either at the FRCN or NTA will have any reason not to allow the voice of the opposition to be heard. So let the opposition approach them, on programmes like Good Morning Nigeria. I was in opposition I went to NTA, on two or three occasions at least I was allowed to have my own say too there. So I think the ball is in the court of the opposition. But for me as minister, under my watch, by the grace of God, I will not allow the opposition to be shut out. And even in terms of survival of all these government-owned, that they must be credible, and they must become the first station of choice by everybody, including the opposition. PT: Are you saying that even when these media are used by the opposition to consistently criticize the government, you are going to tolerate it? Lai: If I dont allow them to criticize me, how then do I know how to react to what the people feel about us. You see, if for instance, I say NTA, FRCN, NAN, VON, dont take the views of the opposition, does that save me from the other media? Does that save me from the social media? For me, the way I look at these platforms, they are just platforms, available to everybody. Nigerians are not very stupid. They can know who is making sense and who is not making sense. For instance, I was reading one of these blogs today, a young man criticizing the budget. I was quite ashamed by the level of ignorance or mischief, I dont know. Saying that why would the federal government allocate N39 billion to the Ministry of Information. I said these are the kind of critics, the kind of commentators that because they have a smart phone then they become experts. Anybody who goes through the budget will know that my ministry have only N5.9 billion. The N39 billion hes talking about refers to the salaries of all the workers in the ministry, which is not even domiciled in my ministry. And these are the people who are influencing the minds, so its important that we are not found missing also in any of these platforms. But I will not, no matter the reason, Im not going to clamp down on the oppositions use of government media as long as the editors use their sense of judgment and their editorial independence, thats all that is important. PT: On the budget issue, we are seeing that the present government is proposing to spend more on the State House than the previous government. A lot of people have criticized that, that its not the change they had expected. Lai: You see, when you take issues out of context, its very misleading and very confusing. I heard the president, when they asked him about the cars he wanted to buy, the president made it clear that when he was given the State House asked him to approve N400 million budget to replace his cars, that he told them that the vehicles he is using, they are the vehicles he has inherited from his predecessors were good enough. And he turned it down. He did not only save Nigeria N400 million, but I can tell you today that there is no minister who has been able to purchase new vehicles either. We all inherited the vehicles that our predecessors were using. But I had the privilege and honour to have been appointed the chaperon to the Ghanaian president in the last ECOWAS 40th anniversary and meeting of Head of Governments. And as the chaperon, my duties included receiving the Ghanaian president at the airport, and seeing to his welfare all the time he was in Nigeria, ensuring that he does not get late to these meetings and the like. And I know that he was riding a Mercedes Benz which is the standard thing for heads of states. So like the president explained, the vehicles they were probably referring to were the vehicles they needed in the VIP Protocol Unit of the presidency. I can tell you one thing, no government in the history of Nigeria can be as prudent as this particular government. We do self-censoring ourselves. By the time this matte is going to be defended at the Senate, it will be clear what is, the cars you are referring to PT: I wasnt talking about the cars. I was talking about the N18.1 billion State House feeding budget Lai: (Cuts in) Until and when this matter is defended, you will never be able to justify it one way or the other. You see, for those who have not been in government before, they dont even understand the sheer number involved. Every minister for instance today, has a minimum of about six policemen and SSS which we did not ask for, but were given to us. And well have to be responsible for their maintenance also PT: (Cuts in) And you cant review that? Cut down the number? Lai: Well. these are things many of us even want to reduce but they said security does not allow you to do so. But what Im saying is that before people go to town making criticisms, let them because this budget is a zero based budget. Which means you dont just give a figure, if you say I need N10 million and you say Im going to feed x number of people per day, x number of people at this cost, so let us see what exactly is the budget. PT: Premium Times had done several stories about corruption in Radio Nigeria, especially the present Director General, Ladan Salihu. Is the government aware of that and is there any plan to investigate further? Lai: Nobody has given me, as minister of information, any document as Im speaking to you today. You can go and check your office. I dont want to act on the basis of an online story. But theres no petition on my table, with documentary evidence I can act on. PT: Let me go back to the issue of Boko Haram, I know that the president spoke about not yet having any credible intelligence as it relates to the Chibok girls. So there is nothing? Lai: I think the president was quite frank, he was forthright, and theres nothing you can add to that. That does not mean the government has given up on the search but he was asked, you heard him, where they are because we have been unable to even identify the authentic leadership of the Boko Haram, and he said that if today he identifies the authentic leadership of Boko Haram, he would give no condition, that he would negotiate with them unconditionally, just for the purpose of these Chibok girls. Theres nothing more I want to add to that. PT: After the presidential media chat, a lot of people criticized the president on how he responded to questions about the continued arrest of former NSA, Sambo Dasuki, and the Biafra agitator, Nnamdi Kanu. Didnt his response take us back to the military era? Lai: Well, you see, I read it in a different light. My reading is that people are also not reading the real import of the presidents response. In the case of Dasuki, he was talking about human rights. Which one is more important? Is it the human right of one individual or the human of right of hundreds of thousands, millions of Nigerians. Thats the import. And I think thats the conclusion many of you fail to arrive at. He said somebody gives approval to give another person N40 billion. That fellow is now before a court of law, and the lawyer says we want to know how you spent that N40 billion. This N40 billion was meant for purchase of arms, we found out that you had given the money for other things. In the process, many people, soldiers could not be provided for, many lost their lives in the process, many deserted in the process, we lost territories in the process. And you are now saying that that man should be given a bail, and if that guy is given a bail and he doesnt come back, my case collapses. Now is that persons human rights, is it bigger than the human rights of hundreds of thousands of people that have suffered. Thats what the president was saying. PT: But hes still presumed innocent until proven guilty. Lai: I have asked you a question, you have not answered me. What is the end of justice? The end of justice is not just the jurisprudence, the end of justice is to ensure there is no miscarriage of justice. And the question you should ask yourself is that would there be a miscarriage of justice if one person who can explain how my own right, your own right was abridged, is allowed to escape justice? Im not passing any judgment, Im just saying that this is the import of what I read from Mr. President. Thats all Im saying. Because well reach different conclusions from the same thing but thats my own conclusion. Will the end of justice be better served by giving him a bail? I might be wrong, but thats my reading. PT: Does the government have any plan to engage the Biafran agitators? Lai: He said it, he said whatever is happening anywhere in Nigeria the government has an obligation to engage them. But you see, these issues have become so emotive and in the process we are often blinded by emotion. My personal opinion is that you can ask for your right, but you must ask for them within the context of the Constitution. Otherwise where my own rights stops might be where your own liberty begins. We can all make demands. Agitation in democracy is an accepted norm but it must be done within the Constitution and the legal framework of the country. PT: The Information Ministry has been merged with that of Culture and Tourism. Do you have any specific plan on how to showcase Nigerias culture? Lai: Of course, I do. You see, culture today has gone beyond showcasing. The world today has gone beyond showcasing of culture. What people do with their cultures today is that they turn their cultures into veritable ways to provide employment for their people. What people use culture to do today is to look at the cultural industry and leverage on them to create a viable economy. How do you do this? There is no community in Nigeria today that does not have a craft or cultural industry. It could be cloth, dye, fishing, drumming, pottery. What I intend to do, and I have made my consultations, is to ensure that each state gives me at least 10 communities with their cultures and festivals, including the Federal Capital Territory. So Im going to have a calendar of 365 festivals and cultural activities. So at least there will be one festival or cultural activity per day throughout the year. Do a compendium of that calendar and post it on the Internet, in our embassies and everywhere so if you are coming to Nigeria youd know this is the festival Im going to meet. Two, on the back of that, I want to see how we can revive the cultural industries in those communities. In Ikorodu, for example, what are the cultural industries in Ikorodu. What are the crafts and arts that people use to make? Is it mats? Is it cloths? How can we help them to revive it? Fortunately, in this years budget, the government has made available about N500 billion which it called Social Interventions. How can these people be trained? How can they access this fund to start this kind of business. And Ive been told that some of these businesses, you can start with as little as N20,000. Basket weaving, raffia mats weaving, you dont need N10,000 to start this. And then create markets, enabling environment for them, get in every centre an auction centre, an exhibition centre. That is what we intend to do with our culture. Former President Goodluck Jonathan was on Thursday honoured by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. He was awarded the Presidential Award in recognition of his leadership in advancing human rights, social justice and the fight for universal freedom. The SCLC, founded by the late American civil right leader, Martin Luther King Jr, in January 1957, is currently led by Charles Steele Jr. The event was part of activities leading up to the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, January 18. Mr. Jonathan, the first African leader to be so honoured, also received Martin Luther King Jrs sister, Naomi King during the event. Before his remarks at the event, Mr. Jonathan met privately with the president of the SCLC. The president of the SCLC, Charles Steele Jr., proposed to work with the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation to advance the cause of peace around the world and to bridge the gap between people of colour in the Diaspora. Mr. Jonathan responded that his vision was to help stabilize and promote democracy and peace in Africa. He said there wont be economic progress without peace. The former president said that was the reason he pushed for Nigerias intervention to ensure peace in various African nations such as Cote dIvoire while he was in office. The former president expressed gratitude to the SCLC for inviting him, saying it was virtually impossible to separate this worthy body from its founder, the late great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, or from epoch making landmark events of the American Civil Rights movement. My personal takeaway from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, is service to God and the brotherhood and equality of all men before their Creator, he said. In keeping with that, I have learnt not to look up to any man, except he is taller than I, or to look down on a fellow mortal, except I am admiring his shoes. Washington D.C. Fifty years after the first coup detat in Nigeria, David Koren, an American Peace Corps Volunteer who flew in from New York that Saturday January 15, 1966, recalls the normalcy of life outside Lagos as the reins of government changed hands that day. Mr. Koren, who first arrived Nigeria in 1964, was returning from holiday to his teaching post at Ohuhu Community in Amaogwugwu, a town in present day Abia State. He first became aware of the coup dtat when the Captain of the Nigeria Airways/Pan Am flight he was on announced that the plane had been denied permission to land at what was then known as Lagos International Airport. In his book; Far Away in the Sky: A Memoir of the Biafran Airlift, Mr. Koren quotes the Captain as saying Nobody knows who is in charge down there. Nobody will make a decision about what to do with us. In a recent interview, Mr. Koren who was a youthful 24-year old back then, describes the same vacuity of authority when the plane, a Boeing 707, was finally allowed to land. I dont recall seeing any officer around, I do remember the soldiers lining up along the path for us to walk into Customs, he said. The absence of any authority figure infused panic into what was already, for Nigerias expatriate community, a shocking turn of events, or, as Mr. Koren describes it, the utter surprise that there would be a military coup, in spite of their awareness of political differences and problems and stuff like that in the country. International passengers who were scheduled to take connecting flights out of Lagos that day were stranded since there was no official on hand to authorize domestic flights. When domestic flights resumed the next day, Mr. Koren had to forgo Enugu, his destination, because Nigeria Airways found a pilot who would fly a DC-3 to Port Harcourt, but no one would risk going to Enugu. He was however glad to be in Port Harcourt because there were no soldiers on the streets or other overt signs of the coup that he saw in Lagos. Recalling his trip from Port Harcourt through Umuahia to Amaogwugwu, Mr. Koren said he was surprised to see that people werent acting any differently, people were not jumping up and down the street, they were just going about their business as if nothing really happened. He said the normalcy of life in the East after that first coup surprised him because he was in a very heightened state of alertness after seeing the line of soldiers in Lagos and because he had never witnessed a coup before. Mr. Koren, who left Amaogwugwu in December that year, said the normal pace of life he witnessed in Eastern Region after the January coup, disappeared completely after the July coup. I became wartime airlift worker because of my students INTERVIEW: On Saturday, January 15, 1966, David L. Koren was in a Nigeria Airways/Pan Am flight to Lagos. They were being prepped to land when the captain announced that there had been a coup and the plane was denied permission to land. A coup? In Nigeria? That happened all the time in South America. But not Nigeria. It was indeed true and it was the beginning of four year strife which Koren variously experienced as a secondary school teacher and as wartime airlift worker. In this interview, he talks about the immediate days after the 1966 coups, his initial departure from Nigeria before he returned as relief worker during the Civil War. On January 15, 1966, how many hours had the plane flown before you were informed that you cant land in Lagos? Well we were all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, we flew directly from New York to Lagos without stop, I would say that we were along the coast of Africa, maybe somewhere in the vicinity of Robertsfield, Monrovia, we were almost there before the captains announcement. Do you remember the Captains name, the flight number? No, I dont. It was a combined Nigeria Airways/Pan American flight, the aircraft was a Boeing 707. We departed from Kennedy Airport. I guess the captain must have been American It sounds like it, I didnt see him but I heard his voice, I recall that he was American. When you were finally allowed to get out of the plane, can you recall, like, the highest ranking official, civilian or military who, maybe, interacted in anyway with all of you, anybody at all? I dont recall any officer around, I do remember the soldiers lining up along the path for us to walk into Customs. They were just standing there with their rifles pointed down, you know, with military discipline, they were not just lounging, they looked like regular military. And we walked in, I think I saw a couple of soldiers standing near each door, they were standing there a lot but nowhere along these procedure was anyone of them threatening, there were no threatening postures or the guns up or mean looks or anything like that. So they were very professional? Yes. And when you got to Port Harcourt the next day, was it more or less the same thing? Let me think, emh, I dont have a specific memory of that, I dont. In your book, you said that a bus came to the terminal where the plane was and you guys got off the plane and on the bus Yeah, I think that was it but I dont recall military standing by, that is what I am trying to think of. The coup happened in Lagos and other capital cities but I didnt see overt signs of it in Port Harcourt, I guess thats the impression Im trying to get across. It was more or less like a Lagos affair? Yeah, it was something that was happening in Lagos and other capitals. Thinking back the way your question was worded, what was the attitude of people in the Eastern Region; you know, people werent acting any differently, people were not jumping up and down the street, they were just going about their business as if nothing really happened. I was a little surprised at that I think but emh Why were you surprised at that? Well, you know to me, I had never been in a coup, it was not an ordinary thing, it was kind of, I was in a very heightened state of, I dont know what youd call it, curiousity or alertness or what not, walking along this line of soldiers going into the building (in Lagos) and, as I also described (in his book) later at night when the lights went out and we were in the dinning hall, not knowing what was going to happen. So to me, it was kind of a big event you know but compared to that feeling I had, I didnt see anything of that sort when I went to Port Harcourt and later, on to Umuahia. I guess it was like a distant thing, it didnt touch peoples lives directly, it didnt calm anybody, they didnt seem to be acting any differently. And you know one thing, if you go back to when I was in Lagos and going through Customs, someone tried to elicit a bribe from me I read that, yes and I thought that was a really calming kind of thing just because it was so ordinary, even with the soldiers standing over there at the door, supposedly the coup was about changing corruption, you know the people in the Customs were not actually paying attention to that at all the corruption thing was one of the big issues with the January Boys, you know Nigerians now call those soldiers the January Boys, it is the mixed feelings we have about them the January Boys, I havent heard of that I think it is one of the ways that we have tried to absorb it and get on with our lives in spite of the big change they wrought on us corruption and ten percent (kickback) was one of their issues and to think that you had this experience on the day they struck yeah. Did you feel unsafe at any point, did you feel like your life was in danger? I know you talked about when the lights went out, did you feel at any point like that, this was a threat to your life? No, what I felt was a powerful sense of uncertainty, I didnt know what was going to happen. Like I said, I had never been in a situation like this, I was very far from home, everything was unfamiliar but there was no point, not one point at which anybody threatened me directly, made a threatening gesture or any kind of threatening statement. Everything throughout the whole process, me landing, walking through Customs, going through all that, it was all very calm. I could say that I was worried and I think the other people in the dinning hall shared looks of apprehension because of the uncertainty but we heard no sounds of gunfire, we didnt see any people running around, everything would seem to be proceeding as normal, just the really massive uncertainty was kind of unsettling but no threatening thing happened directly to me or anybody else I saw. If I may ask, if you dont mind, how old were you then? I was twenty-four, so Im fifty years older now. I take it you never communicated with your parents the details of your experience that day, because as a mum I would have said come home. Actually, I wanted to get back to my station in Umuahia, that was my main concern, to get there and back to my school. After I was at the school, within the first week or so, I sent my parents a letter home, the airmail, there was no faster communication, there was no phone or internet or anything like that. And I have the letter, my mother saved all the letters that I wrote to her and she gave them to me in a bundle and she said you need to write this story. I read the letter and I was able to get what I said back then and the tone of it. Basically I was saying, dont worry, that things are peaceful around here, that most people are relaxed within a couple of weeks afterwards. We really didnt hear an awful lot of news but there was enough coming through the local newspapers and radio that we can kind of get an idea of what that was all about. But locally, everything went on as it was going on, people were not in a state of anxiety. You described in your book that before the coup, you use to see political thugs all over the place, how bad was that? These thugs would come into town on the back of pick-up trucks, I presume they were high on indian hemp, they were there to intimidate voters I guess. I didnt see them on a regular daily basis, they came out during election times, they would have been going out after opposition parties or supporters but I never personally saw anything like that in our neigbhourhood, our village, our school, that would have been bigger towns, in Umuahia but we all knew about them and we heard reports about how they would intimidate people but there was a lot inflammatory language and things going on in the media, very much like it is today in the United States of America, people saying shameful things so yeah, that kind of intimidation was going on and that stopped after the coup and so people thought that was a positive thing. The sense Im getting is this; back in the village, everything was largely peaceful, people went about their daily lives yes in which case, what came after, the pogrom, must have been quite a shock. Yes, that was a very different thing, the second coup and all the killing. Then people started to be fearful and to be angry, that was a way different experience but the first one wasnt. In other parts of Nigeria, I suppose it played out differently but thats the sense that I got from Eastern Region, two different experiences. What you seem to be telling me now is that within months, the easy going, peaceful, homely life you knew in the village began to change Yeah, it began to change even though the events were still, sort of, far away Yeah, yeah, I know that the kind of overall sense that those of us from the American Peace Corps felt over there you know, one thing I have to say is that, there has been no Peace Corps in there since the war but we still have this organization called Friends of Nigeria yes, I do know about it you do? Okay and the thing is that we all still feel a strong common sense of, you know, that being like the greatest experience of our lives. We still meet over that, we talk about it and things like that. I guess what this goes back to is that the feeling we all had when we were over there, before the coup, before the war started, was very positive experience. We felt that there was a sense of vibrancy and enthusiasm about the people and the country being newly independent, growing and it was really uplifting time. In spite of the political differences and all that kind of stuff, the general feeling was really upbeat. In our school, the students were all very enthusiastic, they wanted to learn, I mean this was very important thing, for people to learn and get ahead and all that. I was interviewed by another journalist, Ndeayo Uko, and following up, he went back to my school, it is still there. And he said it was really disappointing. Although it was there and they were still holding classes but the enthusiasm was completely gone, it looked desolate and almost deserted. It was still functioning at some level but all sense of vibrancy was gone from it, that was really sad to hear. Well, if its any consolation, I should say that experience is not limited to your school. My next to final question to you is, did the embassy, I mean your embassy, at any point, give you a choice within the year, between the two coups, give you the choice to depart if you want to? No, by the time I left in December 66 that had not come about. Later, it did after the Biafra declaration of independence and the looming war. This was right after I left, then the Embassy started contacting volunteers and talking to them about leaving and how they would do that. I didnt experience that, I could see that things were getting very bad, scary and I talked to my students and the staff of the school about it, about the possibility of impending war and all these things. There was a palpable sense that things were getting bad. As I traveled with my load up to Enugu to get a flight out, there were military checkpoints on the road all over the place and people going through and soldiers looking for contraband, whatever they were looking for, I dont know but it was getting very tense. The village where you were, you said the school set up by one of the politicians, Michael Okpara, while all these was going on, Okpara didnt show up to talk to the school, talk to even folks like you who came to help with the school effort, to sort of give any re-assurance? After the first coup, he was in jail but later on he got released but he didnt come to our school until the send-off party that they had for us. That was the first time I had seen him before the war. Although he was the head of the Ohuhu clan and that was Ohuhu school, he didnt show up, I dont recall seeing him. Tell me a little bit about your students. I know you said they were eager to learn and youve talked about them, there is actually a list of their names in your book, and one or two you ran into when you were in prison during the war. What is it about them that inspired you so much that you came back to join the airlift? There are a lot of trouble spots around the world and today we have things like Syria and all that. Im never motivated to go and do that kind of work, relief work, anywhere else. The only reason that I went and did that in Biafra was because, emh, these are people I know because I had such a powerful experience over the three years and I kind of felt really close to the people. That was the only reason why I went back and did that, it is not something that I naturally do in my life, you know. The students meant a great deal to me. I put a list of them in the book hoping that I might someday hear from them, to what happened to them. This past summer I got a call from one of them, he is in Toronto, Canada, working as an IT professional. He contacted me, that was an emotional time for both of us because he was just a little boy out of the bush back then. He told me he thought that most of the other people had passed away by now, a lot of them died during the war and other just from aging, I guess. If you could sum up your experiences that of day, that January 15, in two sentences, how would you put it? First of all the utter surprise that there would be a military coup, as I said in the beginning of the book, that was not something we expected at all, I certainly didnt. We were aware of political differences and problems and stuff like that in the country but never imagined that it would result in a coup. The big surprise was first part of my day there. But by the end of the day, I think I summed it up when I said completely unable to form a sense of what the future would be, I had no idea whats going to happen next and just went forth into whatever is going to come and tried to get back to my own village which was the source of familiarity and comfort and safety even. That was the place I knew, that was the place that I belonged I felt. I really wanted to get out of Lagos and get back to my school. Those were probably the two most powerful feeling I had during that time. I cant imagine, for you as an American, I cannot imagine anything like that happening, anything even close to that happening here and some official will not come out and say something to the people. Nobody from the police [came to reassure people], not even the soldiers who were supposedly in control, not even the old politicians, nobody. Thats why I asked, who is the highest ranking official, military or civilian [who spoke to the public that day], nobody, it seems, talked to anybody that day. Yeah, you are right, its almost unimaginable. Certainly during that day, there was no official announcement, nothing over public address system, nobody came in uniform or in person, you know virtually no information at all. Then back in the village, we got information from the radio or newspaper but that was all indirect. I did not ever see someone come around and make a speech, say what is going on, what this is all about and be calm , you know that sort of thing, I didnt see it. In other places, people did come out and say something, it wasnt in my experience but I couldnt say that didnt happen elsewhere. Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court, Abuja, on Friday ordered the spokesperson of the Peoples Democratic Party, Olisa Metuh, remanded in Kuje Prison in the Federal Capital Territory, while his trial for alleged money laundering offences continues. Mr. Metuh pleaded not guilty to the seven-count charge of fraud levelled against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC. The EFCC is accusing him of receiving N400 million from the former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, believed to be part of a $2.1 billion meant for arms procurement but which was allegedly diverted by Mr. Dasuki. After pleading not guilty to the charges, the counsel to the EFCC, Sylvanus Tahir, moved that the court decides a date for the continuation of the hearing, but requested that Mr. Metuh be remanded in prison while trial in the case continues. But Mr. Metuhs counsel, Onyeachi Ikpeazu, asked the court to discountenance the request for his clients further detention, describing it as illegal and unconstitutional. He said the EFCC had a legal obligation to provide them (the respondents) with a seven-day notice before the arraignment of Mr. Metuh in court. Mr. Ikpeazu cited Section 158 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015, which states that: When a person who is suspected or accused is arrested or detained, appears in court, he shall, subject to the provision of this act, be admitted to bail. He therefore prayed the court to grant his client bail on liberal terms. Responding, Mr. Tahir said the application for bail was oral and should therefore be refused. He noted that the court was one of record keeping, stressing that an order be given for the application to reflect the status of the court. Mr. Tahir asked the court to demand a written application so that the defendants grounds for the application would be put on record, as well as the prosecutions ground for opposing the application. He also added that Section 158 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act mentioned by Mr. Ikpeazu dealt mainly with written application, a claim vehemently objected to by Mr. Ikpeazu. After hearing the arguments of both parties, Mr. Abang noted that the matter for determination by the court was whether or not the oral application for bail should be granted. He ruled that it was not out of place for the court to grant oral application for bail, stressing that section 158 and 162 of the constitution argued by both parties did not state whether an application for bail must be written or oral. He however added that the court was not in a position to decide the prosecutions ground for opposing the application for bail on Friday. Mr. Abang added that where the prosecution is objecting to bail, it should be allowed to place on record the grounds on which it is objecting. He also noted that the defence counsel should also be allowed to place its facts before the court to back its application for bail, arguing that both parties cannot place such facts before the bar. Mr. Abang therefore refused the oral application for bail and directed that Mr. Metuh be remanded in prison, He also gave the defence counsel six hours from the time of ruling to file its application for bail before the court, while the persecution had 24 hours after receiving the same application to file its brief of argument against it. Mr. Abang further said the defence counsel was expected to submit its response within five hours of receiving prosecutions brief of argument. The matter was adjourned till January 19 for consideration of Mr. Metuhs bail application. The trial of the substantive case was scheduled to start January 25. On the recommendation of the committee established to audit the procurement of arms and equipment in the Armed Forces and Defence sector from 2007 to 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to carry out further investigation into the misconduct established against the following retired and serving officers of the Nigerian Air Force and Nigerian Army: (1)Air Chief Marshal AS Badeh (Rtd) (2)Air Marshal MD Umar (Rtd) (3)Air Marshal AN Amosu (Rtd) (4) Maj-Gen. ER Chioba (Rtd) (5)AVM IA Balogun (Rtd) (6)AVM AG Tsakr (Rtd) (7)AVM AG Idowu (Rtd) (8)AVM AM Mamu (9)AVM OT Oguntoyinbo (10)AVM T Omenyi (11)AVM JB Adigun (12)AVM RA Ojuawo (13)AVM JA Kayode-Beckley (12)Air Cdre SA Yushau (Rtd) (13)Air Cdre AO Ogunjobi (14)Air Cdre GMD Gwani (15)Air Cdre SO Makinde (16)Air Cdre AY Lassa (16)Col N Ashinze (17)Lt Col. MS Dasuki (Rtd) Following the submission of the audit committees second interim report, President Buhari has directed the EFCC to investigate the roles of the officers and the following companies and their directors in fundamental breaches associated with the procurements by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) and the Nigerian Air Force (NAF). (1)Messrs Societe D Equipments Internationaux (2) Himma Aboubakar (3)Aeronautical Engineering and Technical Services Limited (4)Messrs Syrius Technologies (5) Dr Theresa A. Ittu (6)Sky Experts Nig Ltd (7)Omenyi Ifeanyi Tony (8)Huzee Nig Ltd (9)GAT Techno Dynamics Ltd (10) Gbujie Peter Obie (11) Onuri Samuel Ugochukwu (12)Spacewebs Interservices Ltd (13)Oguntoyinbo Tayo (14) Oguntoyinbo Funmi. (15) Delfina Oil and Gas Ltd (16)Chief Jacobs Bola (17)Mono Marine Corporation Nig Ltd (18)Geonel Intergrated Services Ltd (20)Sachi Felicia (20) Mudaki Polycarp (21)Wolfgang Reinl. The breaches identified by the Audit Committee include non-specification of procurement costs, absence of contract agreements, award of contracts beyond authorised thresholds, transfer of public funds for unidentified purposes and general non-adherence to provisions of the Public Procurement Act. Furthermore, the procurement processes were arbitrarily carried out and generally characterized by irregularities and fraud. In many cases, the procured items failed to meet the purposes they were procured for, especially the counter insurgency efforts in the North East. A major procurement activity undertaken by ONSA for NAF was that concerning the contracts awarded to Societe D Equipment Internationaux (SEI) Nig Ltd. Between January 2014 and February 2015, NAF awarded 10 contracts totalling Nine Hundred and Thirty Million, Five Hundred Thousand, Six Hundred and Ninety US Dollars ($930,500,690.00) to SEI Nig Ltd. Letters of award and End User Certificates for all the contracts issued by NAF and ONSA respectively did not reflect the contract sums. Rather, these were only found in the vendors invoices, all dated 19 March 2015. Additionally, some of the award letters contained misleading delivery dates suggesting fraudulent intent in the award process. The observed discrepancies are in clear contravention of extant procurement regulations. The SEI contracts included procurement of two used Mi-24V Helicopters instead of the recommended Mi-35M series at the cost of One Hundred and Thirty Six Million, Nine Hundred and Forty Four Thousand US Dollars ($136,944,000.00). However, it was confirmed that the helicopters were excessively priced and not operationally air worthy at the time of delivery. A brand new unit of such helicopters goes for about Thirty Million US Dollars ($30m). Furthermore, the helicopters were delivered without rotor blades and upgrade accessories. Additionally, the helicopters were undergoing upgrade while being deployed for operation in the North East without proper documentation. It was further established that as at date, only one of the helicopters is in service while the other crashed and claimed the lives of two NAF personnel. The Committee established that ONSA also funded the procurement of 4 used Alpha-Jets for the NAF at the cost of Seven Million, One Hundred and Eighty Thousand US Dollars ($7,180,000.00). However, it was confirmed that only 2 of the Alpha-Jet aircraft were ferried to Nigeria after cannibalization of engines from NAF fleet. This is contrary to the written assertion of the former Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal AN Amosu to the former NSA that all the 4 procured Alpha-Jets aircraft were delivered to the NAF. The non-militarisation of the Alpha-Jets made them unsuitable for deployment to the North East and they are currently deployed only for training at NAF Kainji. Furthermore, the procurement of the Alpha-Jets was contrary to the recommendation of the assessment team. The Committee found that the conduct of Air Marshal Amosu was deliberately misleading and unpatriotic. The contract for the procurement of 36D6 Low Level Air Defence Radar for the NAF was awarded to GAT Techno Dynamics Ltd in April 2014 at the cost of Thirty Three Million US Dollars ($33m) and was funded by ONSA. The Committee established that the radars were excessively priced as a complete set of such radars (comprising 6 radars including the Control Centre) goes for Six Million US Dollars ($6m) averagely. The Committee observed that the radars were delivered without the vital component of Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) that distinguishes between own and adversary aircraft, which has significantly degraded the operational capabilities of the NAF in the North East. It was further observed that the sum of Three Million, Three Hundred Thousand US Dollars ($3.3m) was fraudulently included in the contract agreement as VAT and With Holding Tax and subsequently paid into the bank accounts of Spacewebs Interservices Ltd and Delfina Oil and Gas Ltd. The Committee further established that Two Million US Dollars ($2m) from the proceeds was transferred to Mono Marine Corporation Nig Ltd, which is jointly owned by principal characters in this deal. The Committee opined that the infractions of extant regulations by these companies were clearly intended to defraud. It was established that between September 2009 and May 2015, the NAF expended about Fifteen Billion Naira (N15bn) on the maintenance of its Alpha-Jets, C-130H aircraft and Mi-24V/35P helicopters. Out of this amount, Four Billion, Four Hundred and Two Million, Six Hundred and Eighty Seven Thousand, Five Hundred and Sixty Nine Naira, Forty One Kobo (N4,402,687,569.41) was paid out for contracts not executed. It was also observed that in carrying out these maintenance activities, contracts worth over Two Billion, Five Hundred Million Naira (N2.5bn) were awarded to Syrius Technologies, a Ukrainian company that was not registered in Nigeria. Regrettably, in spite of these expenditures, the status of NAF fleet remained operationally appalling as only 3 Alpha-Jets, 2 C-130H and one each of Mi-24V and Mi-35P were serviceable as at 28 May 15. In October 2013, NAF awarded contracts to DICON for the supply of weapons and ammunition at the cost of Five Hundred and Ninety Nine Million, One Hundred and Eighteen Thousand Naira (N599,118,000.00). However, only 2 of the 7 items contracted were delivered to NAF while the outstanding 5 items remained undelivered despite repeated requests to DICON. The Committee also found that the delivered ammunition were about 40 years old, thereby casting doubts on their shelf life. The failure of DICON to fully execute the contract and the delivery of aged ammunition diminished the capacity of the NAF in North East operation. The Committe uncovered insider dealings by military officers in procurement activities undertaken by ONSA and the NAF. The officers were found to have misused or abused their offices for personal gains by influencing award of contracts to private companies in which they have substantial interests. For instance, an officer serving in the ONSA used his office to secure 2 contracts for his company, Geonel Integrated Services Ltd, for the protection of 20 Dams and Presidential Air Fleet security at the cost of Six Billion, Two Hundred and Fifty Million Naira (N6,250,000,000.00) and Five Million US Dollars ($5m) respectively. Furthermore, some NAF officers used their companies to collect VAT and With Holding Tax that were never remitted to FIRS while another officer was found to have cross transferred about Five Hundred Million Naira (N500m) between a NAF company, Aeronautical Engineering and Technical Services Limited, SkyExperts Nig Ltd and Huzee Nig Ltd, companies in which he had personal interests. It would be recalled that in its First Interim Report, the Committee on Audit of Defence Equipment established that the sum of Six Hundred and Forty Three Billion Naira (N643bn) and Two Billion, One Hundred Million US Dollars ($2.1bn) interventions were received for defence procurements by DHQ and the Services between 2007 and 2015. In continuation of its assignment, the Committee has so far established that the nation spent about Twenty Nine Billion Naira (N29bn) and Two Billion US Dollars ($2bn) on NAF procurement activities alone. Garba Shehu SSA to the President (Media & Publicity) January 15, 2016 The Nigerian military has warned the public of a new tactic in use by the extremist Boko Haram sect to move Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) around in order to unleash deadly attacks on the public. A statement by the acting director, defence information, Rabe Abubakar, said the military found that members of the terrorist group now disguise as legitimate fruit and vegetable sellers to smuggle IEDs within groceries to crowded areas. Mr Abubakar advised the public to be on the alert of this tactics by the terrorists and not to hesitate in reporting any suspicious persons to security agencies. The Nigerian government insists Boko Haram has been effectively defeated and that the group is unable to hold territories and stage military style attacks like it used to do. The sect has, however, continued to carried out intermittent suicide bombings mostly in crowded area. The military describes these places as soft targets. Read Mr. Abubakars statement below: TERRORISTS NOW HIDE IEDS AMONG VEGETABLES In continuation with the sensitization of our citizens on the devilish strategy of the terrorists, the Nigerian Military authorities have discovered that the Boko Haram terrorists are determined to continue letting off bombs and have resorted to masquerading as fruits and vegetable vendors wheeling Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) as groceries into crowded areas. The terrorists now hide IEDs under vegetable wares in carts and wheelbarrows and move to crowded places where they detonate them for maximum casualties. The recent terrorists attack in the North East is a case in point. Having been effectively dislodged and decimated the BH terror group has begun some systematic isolated attacks mainly on soft targets in their desperation to remain relevant. The Defence Headquarters hereby advises the general public to constantly be alert to this latest terrorist tactics and to report promptly any suspicious persons or objects to the nearest security agency. While commending the general public and the media for their continuous support so far, all citizens are once again reminded that security is everybodys concern therefore, they should join hands with the security agencies to eliminate the remnant of the terrorists. The Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, on Thursday said the North would not allow its past leaders, especially those killed in 1966 coup, to be abused and denigrated. The emir, whose position was corroborated by the 19 Northern governors, issued the warning at the 50th anniversary of the commemoration of the assassination of the Premier of defunct Northern Region, Ahmadu Bello, held at Arewa House, Kaduna. Mr. Sanusi II said the history of the 1966 coup is being re-written, noting that even if the North and Northerners had forgiven and forgotten what happened, they would not allow the history to be distorted. Tomorrow marks exactly 50 years to an incident in the history of this country in which a number of leaders were killed. Sir Ahmadu Bello was one, Sir Tafawa Balewa was another, Chief Akintola was another, Chief Okotie Eboh was another, including a number of generals that hailed from this part of the country and from the Western part of this country. Now this has happened, and the events that followed are known but sad. We have gone over them. We have moved on to become one country. But 50 years later, before our very eyes, this history is being re-written and those who killed are claiming to be the victims. It is important that we keep history truthful. Even if we forgive and forget, we should never allow history to be re-written. This is because what is happening in Nigeria today is a new story, a new narrative. Sardauna was not a victim, Tafawa Balewa was not a victim, they were the cause of the problem we cannot accept this. The North and Northerners would not want to open old wounds as everyone has been hurt, offended, marginalised, lost people, produced good and corrupt leaders, and no one has the monopoly of power, corruption or oppression. So people should learn from history. He noted that like every human being, the late Sardauna and Balewa had their shortcomings but they were heroes and better than anything that this country has produced. Mr. Sanusi II said anyone who had a problem with the late Sardauna should bring his own Sardauna and compare. He said that Nigeria had moved on, and so there was no need drawing sectional, ethnic, regional, religious and secessionist battle. I think we owe it to the memory of these gentlemen who were murdered to protect them from insult. And so long as we are alive, we will defend their honour. We are calling for peace, we are calling for unity, we are calling for tolerance, but we are insisting on respect we would not be disrespected, he added. Speaking on behalf of the Northern governors, Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, said all governors present on the occasion agreed fully with the speech of the emir. As Northern governors, we want peace in Nigeria. We want unity in our diversity. We want progress and development in Nigeria, but we will not accept a situation in which our parents, our forefathers are being insulted. We would not accept any revisionist attempt to re-write history and discredit those whose legacies we enjoy, he warned. In attendance among the nineteen Northern governors were the governors of Kebbi, Atiku Bagudu; Taraba, Darius Ishaku; Sokoto, Aminu Tambuwal; Borno, Kashim Shettima; and Zamfara, Abdulaziz Yari. The Supreme Court has upheld the election of Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State. Mr. Ortom is a member of the All Progressives Congress, APC. A seven-man panel of judges led by Justice Nwali Ngwuta, dismissed the appeal by the Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Terhemen Tarzoor, on the grounds that his party lacks the locus standi to institute the suit. The judge held that Mr. Tarzoor was not a member of the APC and therefore could not contest the nomination and sponsorship of Mr. Ortom. Mr. Ngwuta said it was only a person who contested the primary election against Mr. Ortom that could challenge his nomination by the APC. Mr. Ngwuta also awarded N150, 000 fine against Mr. Tarzoor, as cost in favour of Governor Samuel Ortom and his party, the APC. Mr. Tarzoor had approached the Supreme Court in December, 2015, to challenge an Appeal Courts ruling which upheld the decision of the Benue state election tribunal in his (Mr. Tazoors) case against the emergence of Mr. Ortom as candidate of the APC for the April 11 governorship election in the state. Mr. Tazoor had in his petition to the Appeal Court held that the APC did not conduct any primary election known in law and therefore failed to legally select a candidate for the said election. He prayed the court to dismiss the judgment of the Benue state election tribunal, and discountenance the results of the election of which Mr. Ortom emerged winner of the Benue State governorship election in April 2015. Members of the public, pressure groups and politicians in Oyo State, have continued to mount pressure on the police to arrest a suspected rapist, Oluyemi Ojebode. Mr. Ojebode, who allegedly heads the Isale-Oyo based Gbafoba gang, was accused of raping a 15-year old secondary school student (name withheld) on December 6 last year. The Oyo Global Forum and Oyo Progressive Assembly condemned the gang violence in Oyo town, urging the police to investigate the rape case and arrest the suspect. Also, the National Association of Oyo Students, in a statement on Wednesday, condemned the rape, asking the police to ensure the suspects arrest. They urged the state government to bring an end to the gang violence in the city. Narrating her ordeal on a Splash FM programme, Voices, on Thursday, the victim explained how she was threatened with gun and eventually raped. The girls explanation suggested she had to unwillingly submitted herself to the alleged criminal action of Mr. Ojebode. The Divisional Police Officer of Atiba Local Government Area confirmed to PREMIUM TIMES the crime was reported to the police six hours after the commission of the crime. The Oyo State Police Public Relations Officer, Adekunle Ajisebutu, also confirmed the case, saying they were making efforts to ensure the arrest of the suspect and justice made to the victim. As the protest in Oregon carries on, we should look into the legitimacy of the protest. A significant issue that sparked the protest is the double incarceration of the Hammonds. The Hammonds admitted to starting fires on private land that eventually burned 140 acres onto BLM land. Thirteen years later the Hammonds were judged as terrorists and incarcerated for five years each. The judges justified their decision with The Supreme Court has upheld far tougher sentences for less serious or, at the very least, comparable offenses ... [They are] upholding a sentence of fifty years to life under Californias three-strikes law [*885] for stealing nine videotapes. [they are] upholding a five-year sentence for arson of a building. Arguably, under the Judges opinion those who even burn sagebrush (federal property), in an unofficial camp fire (for fun), are terrorists and need to spend 5 years in prison. How many federal employees whove burned sagebrush are protesting the Hammonds sentence? How many of these employees will present themselves into prison for 5 years each? The Judges decision does not mean the 5-year sentence for the Hammonds is not cruel and unusual. Nor does it mean the punishments used to justify their decision are not cruel and unusual. However, the judges are also comparing apples to oranges; they are not the same. For the Hammond case, comparable offenses would be fires that burn BLM ground without BLM permission. Un-permitted fires regularly burn BLM ground were no permission nor authority was given and they are often started by BLM employees. Unlike the Hammonds the BLM employees face little if any punishment. This is the case with prescribed or controlled burns that become out of control. Often these fires destroy federal, state, and private property. Many sources of these unpermitted fires can be found online. Video of BLM damaging multiple property can be viewed online at the following; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_iT7EPBeNk . They actually intentionally burn living cattle, fences, and buildings! Comparable punishment for the Hammonds would be almost nothing. The BLM employees carrying the drip torches are not condemned to prison for 5 years. Nor are their managers who make the decision to burn, sent to prison. The BLM and employees even refuse to pay for damages caused. Un-permitted and out of control controlled burns cost the taxpayers millions and millions. Meanwhile the Hammonds paid an additional $400,000 to the BLM for the 140 acres they burned. Its examples like this the protesters in Oregon find worth protesting. For the Hammonds 5 years each (10 years collectively) in prison and a $400,000 fee is cruel and unusual. Why have the judges done this? Congressman Greg Walden professionally points out similar infractions of laws done by the BLM, seen here: http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2016/01/post_227.html. Yet there is no prison sentence for the law offenders, the BLM employees. In addition to the above, the judges determined that punishment was needed for the Hammonds due to the threat of human life. Yet the judges ignore basic range management principles and the fact that BLM manages or mismanages land in a way that often increases the threat to firefighters and the public when fires do start. The BLM often promotes fine fuels and heavy fuel loads via their management decisions, yet the Hammonds are sent to prison for attempting to protect their property, and endangering perhaps only themselves. There are countless examples of BLMs mismanagement and lack of accountability that damage America every day. Millions and millions of acres of local ecology are lost to us through the management practices of the BLM, and yet the BLM has the gall to choose to persecute the Hammonds. The implications of the Hammond Case will add to the shear ineffectiveness of bureaucratic land management throughout the West. Although this is why I dont work for the BLM nor any Federal department for that matter, I hope current BLM and other Federal employees become accountable for themselves and do whats right. On a side note; the Oregon protest may show the FBI how BLMs law enforcement is as incapable and degraded as their land management practices. Hopefully the FBI will support removing law enforcement from the BLM. If we need more law enforcement lets get more (third party) state level game wardens, and brand inspectors in the field. By PrintWeek Team All eyes are on the Awards Night of the 12th edition of the PrintWeek Awards to be held at the Grand Hyatt (Santacruz East, Mumbai) on 2 Nov... 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. Web Design Island Brings Your Business Ideas to Life Online. By: Web Design Island Media Contact Chicagoans In The Desert, LLC Mary Romano, Founder mary@chicagoansinthedesert.com 702-525-4499 Chicagoans In The Desert, LLCMary Romano, Founder702-525-4499 End -- Las Vegas, NV - Today, the Island and the Desert have come together to bring you phonominal business services. Former Chicagoan Tori Jones owner of Web Design Island has signed a 1 year Business Membership with CITD. Web Design Island is a highly efficient and organized web development company that brings business ideas to life online. As a leader in website management and design since 2008, Web Design Island has perfected a streamlined process in which tasks are completed in phases. The Company builds its websites with cutting-edge technology and tests them on all of the Internets browsers (Firefox, IE, Chrome, Safari, Opera).We offer more than 30,000 types of website products and all of our sites are mobile ready, said Tori Jones, the Owner of Web Design Island. Our specialty is stand-alone e-commerce websites where you own your entire online store. It is not a service on some other website, therefore, you have full control over all search engine optimization.SEO is more powerful than social media. As a good web designer, it is my job to teach my clients about it because it is stronger than ever.Web Design Island can extend a business reach and the life of its website with a host of custom services. Life Service. Web Design Island is a life service and they will maintain your website software weekly with updates to plug-ins, modules or anything that expires within it which extends the life of a website. One Stop Shop- One Point of Contact. Web Design Island has developed a team of experts in content creation, social media, SEO graphic design, web photography, videography and radio advertising. The team works together in a seamless process to fulfill all of their clients digital marketing needs. A la Carte Pricing. All websites begin with a powerful foundation including newsletter service and a copywriter to create content. Additional web pages and products can be purchased a la carte style as needed at flat rates. Free website maintenance. Changing the content on a website is critical for its success. As an exclusive offering, Web Design Island provides changes to your website content FREE FOR LIFE. Global Reach. With stellar communication through video and screen sharing, Web Design Island can reach clients all over the world. Clients can schedule free appointments online anytime and ask unlimited questions.We are here to help you with whatever you need to know, Jones said.As a new offering, Web Design Island clients can purchase websites in 3 easy monthly payments. Each package is designed to include all of the vital elements that are required for an effective web presence.Websites are not going away, Jones said. They are the meat of everything online and Web Design Island is willing to fulfill the challenges of building them for our clients.For more information about Web Design Island, visit their website webdesignisland.com. Leading Direct-to-Consumer Auto Finance Company hosts a Puppy Play Day and adoption event. Contact Don Chapman ***@openroadlending.com Don Chapman End -- OpenRoad Lending, in cooperation with the Tarrant County Animal Shelter recently held an event at its corporate offices in order to raise awareness of unwanted pets and more importantly increase adoption rates of homeless animals impounded in city rescue shelters. OpenRoad hosted the puppy play day event for its employees, their families and shelter animals in need of homes.Our employees work hard each and every day helping our customers save money by refinancing their current car loans and we wanted to provide an interactive event that would be both fun as well as good for our community said Chris Goodman, President and CEO of OpenRoad Lending.The Fort Worth Pet Project brought several shelter puppies to OpenRoads offices for the puppy play day. Many of the puppies were adopted plus, OpenRoad made a donation of both cash and supplies to the shelter. We are excited to see these shelter animals find new homes said Goodman. Adding the Fort Worth Pet Project is a great fit to go along side our current efforts to support other community initiatives including the North Texas Food Bank and the Battered Womens shelter.OpenRoad Lending, headquartered in Fort Worth Texas, is an online Direct-to-Consumer auto finance company. Recognized by Inc. Magazine as the 37th fastest growing private company in America as well as a Best Place to Work company by the Dallas Business Journal, OpenRoad Lending offers auto finance solutions to consumers with all types of credit in 38 states across the USA. OpenRoad Lendings online application and approval process enables consumers to apply for financing in the comfort and privacy of their own home at OpenRoads website www.OpenRoadLending.com . OpenRoads auto finance products include refinance, cash-out auto refinance loans and new and pre-owned vehicle purchase. Customers who refinance with OpenRoad Lending save an average of more than $100 a month. Fund Focuses on Value-Add, Western U.S. Multifamily and Residential Properties By: Pathfinder Partners Contact Sydnie Moore ***@gmail.com Sydnie Moore End -- SAN DIEGO (January 14, 2016) Pathfinder Partners, LLC, a San Diego-based company that has been acquiring value-add, opportunistic and distressed real estate since 2006, has closed Pathfinder Partners Opportunity Fund V, L.P., the firms fifth fund focused on acquiring real estate assets in mid-tier cities throughout the western United States. The firm received $87 million in commitments for the fund.According to Mitch Siegler, senior managing director and co-founder of Pathfinder, the fund, which held its initial closing in January 2015, had its final closing late last month. With seven acquisitions closed to date and two properties under contract and scheduled to close during the next month, we have already deployed about one-half of the fund capital, Siegler said. With an emphasis on multifamily and residential investments, the funds recent investments total nearly $30 million and include Cedardale Apartments, a 126-unit apartment complex in Seattle; Red Tail Townhomes, 75 townhomes in Portland, Oregon; Sky Condominiums, 64 condos in Las Vegas; and apartments and developable land comprising an entire city block in San Diegos Pacific Beach neighborhood. Pathfinder Fund V additionally has a property in Phoenix and another in Las Vegas under contract both are expected to close during the next several weeks.Focusing on smaller properties below the radar of large institutional investors, Pathfinder has acquired or sold about $1 billion of properties since its inception in 2006, Siegler said. Pathfinder V builds on the companys impressive investment track record and is a strong validation of the firms investment strategy. Our deal flow remains robust and we expect to deploy the balance of Pathfinder V capital this year.In addition to raising and managing four prior broad-based opportunistic funds, Pathfinder has also raised separate funds targeting single-family rental aggregation and luxury home repositioning strategies.Headquartered in San Diego, Pathfinder Partners was founded by Lorne Polger and Mitch Siegler in 2006 to make opportunistic, value-add and distressed investments with a focus on multifamily and residential real estate projects. In addition to seeking opportunities to add value by providing liquidity to liquidating funds, fatigued owners and financial institutions, Pathfinder also seeks to maximize value through property enhancements, improvements in operations and marketing, property repositioning and other strategies. For more information, visit www.pathfinderfunds.com or contact Siegler at msiegler@pathfinderfunds.com or 858-875-4485 Mumbai pips Delhi to host the grand finale of Indias leading SME support and recognition program. Entrepreneurial spirit of the city key reason behind locating the awards that will support the Make In India Initiative Contact Foresighted Alliance For Corp Emp Pvt Ltd PS Sathe ***@faceor.com Foresighted Alliance For Corp Emp Pvt LtdPS Sathe End --The grand finale of the SME MaXX 2016 annual awards will be held in Mumbai in the month of November 2016. The grand finale will cap a series of regional award ceremonies in New Delhi, Ahmedabad, Pune, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Indore and Kolkata.SME MaXX awards are presented to small and medium businesses in India that have shown exemplary performance in any of the five key areas* that are known to contribute to organizational success and key predictors of future performance. The awards are a respected national recognition of SME and entrepreneurial success and a prestigious quality mark for both companies and individual nominees.Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in India have seen exponential growth over the last decade. According to the latest reports by the SMB Chamber of Commerce and the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, India currently has more than 48 million SMEs. These SMEs contribute more than 45% of Indias industrial output, 40% of the countrys total exports and create 1.3 million jobs every year.The main reason for selecting Mumbai is the entrepreneurial spirit and drive and the can do attitude that the city represents.said Dr Kiran Reddy, CEO of SME MaXX. While Delhi would have been logistically easier, given the expected political participation, we chose Mumbai as its closer to the theme of the awards.The event is expected to be attended by all the zonal finalists and graced by key dignitaries from the business and political world.###SME MaXX is a one stop shop for SME Success. As a SME focused e commerce company, we provide solutions to the most common challenges faced by small and medium sized businesses (5 crores to 500 crores).We maximize the success potential of SMEs by enhancing employee effectiveness, providing technology solutions, saving costs and time, while connecting them with an ecosystem of partners who can contribute to their success. More details could be had from www.smemaxx.com *. The five key areas include Growth, Innovation, Organizational excellence, Globalization and People policy January 15, 2015, Davao City - New year, new office. Digital CB Solutions, or CoffeeBot, has moved to a bigger, better location in the heart of downtown Davao City to better serve its clientele in 2016. Contact Coffeebot Solutions ***@caffeinerobot.com Coffeebot Solutions End -- The transfer happened last December 18 with a blessing ceremony followed by the staffs Christmas party. Operations officially started in January 4 of this year. Coffeebot is now located at Amalgated Capital Inc. Bldg., Inigo Street, corner J.P. Laurel Ave., Davao City.Amalgated Capital Inc is one of the few PEZA - certified buildings within the city. PEZA buildings were mainly design to be friendly to start-up companies and business process outsourcing. They come with amenities like generators and high speed internet to ensure continued operations year round.With the bigger office space, Coffeebot can now house their growing staff. The expansion would also house the company's growing services, specializing in business innovation.Coffeebot Operations Director Jessica Madrazo has high hopes for the new office.The transfer isn't just moving locations physically, it also signifies a change in how we do work. We have sharpened our systems, learned from previous mistakes, and foresee the team stepping up to heavier responsibilities and bigger projects.The fact that we are moving to a PEZA accredited building shows that we are more than ready to surpass our quality of work from the previous year, work more efficiently, and grow bigger in number.Coffeebot Team Leaders are optimistic about the new location and what it can do for the company this year.I hope that our transfer to the new office is a sign of things to come, Content Development Team Lead, Julia Jasmine Sta. Romana said. I expect our department to grow and for CB to be known for quality content, she added.Virtual Assistant (VA) Supervisor, JR de Castro, is more direct in his enthusiasm over the transfer and what his plans for his department come 2016. Keep clients happy on a steady basis. Expand the team by the end of the year, he said.This enthusiasm is shared by Coffeebot Managing Director, Peter Perez.Our primary goal was to be able to provide service to clients more efficiently and without interruption as much as possible. Knowing that one's work environment has a significant impact on a person's work output, we continue to do our best to provide our employees the best situation for them to be in.We do have expansion in our minds for this year, gradual expansion, making sure that quality will not be compromised as we grow in numbers he added, after citing the amenities of the new office: bigger space, better equipment, and location easily accessible to everyone.Hopefully we will be able to add more services aside from what we have now that can make the team far better and whole, and to able to instill a culture that will exceed clients' expectations.True to its mission, There's always a better way to do business online, Coffeebot is now bigger and better than ever. This fresh start brings new confidence for bigger and better things to come in 2016.Digital CB Solutions or CoffeeBot specializes in business development through search engine optimization (SEO), paid campaigns, data entry, lead generation, as well as business administration and organization.For more of about Coffeebot and how we can jumpstart your business, check out our website, www.caffeinerobot.com, or call us at 305-6001. Palmer Park Preparatory Academy (Detroit, MI) & Durand Middle School (Durand, MI), have been awarded the Spring 2016 Online Professional Development Grant provided by Teach n Kids Learn (TKL) & Michigan Educational Consulting Services (MECS) By: Teach n Kids Learn (TKL) TKL's Michigan Grants Awarded Contact Jodi Slonaker Director of Operations at TKL jodi@teachnkidslearn.com Jodi SlonakerDirector of Operations at TKL End -- We are pleased to announce that two Michigan Schools: Palmer Park Preparatory Academy (Detroit, MI) & Durand Middle School (Durand, MI), have been awarded the Online Professional Development Grant provided by Teach n Kids Learn (TKL) & Michigan Educational Consulting Services (MECS). Each school will receive a package of 30 MDE-approved comprehensive online PD courses or the equivalent to $5,000 in an effort to support their School Improvement Plans.Asked about the first school selected, Jodi Slonaker, Director of TKL Operations, said that: We are excited to help Palmer Park and Durand teachers in the manner that we have been helping educators since 2009: with comprehensive professional development focused on identifying the fundamental factors needed within todays classroom instruction. Our extensive professional development experience has led us to the development of easy-to-use comprehensive online courses which are accessible for teachers as time permits in their busy schedules.Michigan was the first of the three states considered for the online PD grants offered by Teach n Kids Learn. TKL will be awarding additional professional development grants targeting School Improvement Plans in Ohio, and the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). This grant program, developed by TKL, aims to provide schools the opportunity to accomplish their Professional Development requirements. Laura Frelich, School Counselor for Durand Middle School said: Since the focus of our SIP goal is to help students become proficient in multiple areas on the state assessment, we feel that many of the courses in the MECS course catalog fall directly in line with that goal.In addition, it will give teachers the chance of experiencing the difference in how a quality comprehensive online professional development program can support teachers with their overall professional growth. Teach n Kids Learn growing course catalog offers engaging and transformative course work for teachers. Over 85% of teachers who have taken our courses report to have had a positive and beneficial experience. This is the value Larry Key, Lead Teacher for Palmer Park Preparatory Academy sees in winning this grant: Courses that the Palmer Park Preparatory Academy staff will enroll in, will enhance the academic learning and help accomplish the goal of all students becoming proficient in reading."Slonaker explains that TKLs supportive process guides teachers in continuously fine-tuning their knowledge and skills. We work with teachers to achieve their professional goals as well as meeting the demands of todays student. We want to give teachers the opportunity to do this effectively through our growing Individualized, Reflective, and Transformative online course offerings.The Professional Development grant applications for Ohio and the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), should be submitted no later than January 29, 2016.To review the application process please visit us at http://www.TeachnKidsLearn.com About TKLTKL is a dynamic and innovative professional development provider. Since 2009, our products and services have focused on combining job-embedded professional development practices within our online, blended, and face-to-face offerings. Our services and products are built on: an integrated foundation of research, an experiential job-embedded approach, interactive content, and with a sharp focus on todays learners.Our goal is to provide opportunities for continuous professional growth to educators across the world. We share the desire to ensure all students meet high academic standards while learning the practical skills necessary for the 21st century.Twitter @TeachnKidsLearnFB https://www.facebook.com/ TeachnKidsLearn/ Instagram @TeachnKidsLearnFor More Information, contact:Teach n Kids Learn (TKL)Jodi Slonaker / Jodi@TeachnKidsLearn.com(855) 498-4400 Jan. 13 Shelby L. Broderson, 25, of Elko was arrested at 1353 Rosewood Way for failure to appear after bail for a misdemeanor crime. No bail listed. Brandon J. Cardoza, 25, of Battle Mountain was arrested at the Lander County Jail for failure to appear on a traffic citation. Bail: $495 John D. Carey, 33, of Lamoille was arrested on Lower Lamoille Road for second-offense DUI, giving false statement to or obstructing a public official and failure to give information to an officer at a vehicle accident. Bail: $3,920 Brice J. Ehlert, 20, of Elko was arrested at Northside Drive for failure to appear after bail for a misdemeanor crime. No bail listed. Leon D. Hall, 63, of Elko was arrested at the intersection of Lincoln Avenue and Seventh Street for failure to appear after bail on a misdemeanor crime. Bail: $1,000 Cael D. Healey, 53, of Wells was arrested at 1800 Mountain View Drive for domestic violence, assault and child abuse or neglect. Bail: $1,500 David B. Hernandez, 44, of Salt Lake City was arrested at 680 Wendover Blvd. in West Wendover for trespassing. Bail: $355 Constance J. Levao, 30, of Bountiful, Utah, was arrested at the Elko County Jail for failure to appear after bail for a misdemeanor crime. Bail: $905 Stephen A. Linam, 22, of West Wendover was arrested at the Elko County Jail for destroying the property of another. Bail: $1,140 Lonnie Martinez, 59, of Evanston, Wyoming, was arrested at 1045 Wendover Blvd. for domestic battery, false imprisonment with a deadly weapon, and possession of a controlled substance. Bail: $33,000 Carlos A. Nunez, 22, of Elko was arrested at the intersection of Third and River streets for carrying a concealed knife or weapon without a permit. Bail: $2,500 John C. Shaw, 49, of Elko was arrested at 2065 Idaho St. for failure to appear after bail for a misdemeanor crime. Bail: $1,270 Athena L. Smith, 36, of Spring Creek was arrested at the intersection of Gilia Drive and Gilia Place for DUI, possession of less than one ounce of marijuana, and speeding 11 to 15 miles over the limit. Bail: $2,112 Taylyr A. Smith, 19, of Elko was arrested at the Elko County Jail for failure to appear on a traffic citation. Bail: $940 Bruce P. Stevens, 61, of Wells was arrested at 1715 Ridgecrest Drive in Wells for assault and domestic violence. Bail: $1,000 Joel S. Varnum, 45, of Elko was arrested at 1335 Cherrywood Way for possessing or receiving forged instruments or bills and a warrant for a probation violator on suspension. Bail: $5,000 Entries for One World Medias prestigious annual awards close next month on Thursday 4th February 2016. By: One World Media Contact Media Moguls ***@mediamoguls.com Media Moguls End -- Did you spend 2015 reporting on the refugee crisis from the Calais Jungle or the shores of Kos? Were you at the frontlines up close and personal with Boko Haram in Nigeria or IS in Syria? Has your work helped focus the worlds attention to where it was needed the most? Has your reporting been a catalyst for change? If this sounds like you or a colleague dont miss the chance to enter theNow in its 28year of celebrating journalistic excellence in international media coverage of the developing world,is calling for journalists and media industry professionals from around the globe to submit their ground breaking, original, and engaging work for the annualby, with entry open to staff, freelance and student journalists, and media professionals.Focused on highlighting the vital role journalists and filmmakers have in increasing cultural understanding and supporting equality and justice worldwide, the One World Media Awards have set an industry gold standard for media professionals reporting in, on and from the developing world, throughout Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East, Russia and the post- Soviet states. Entries are judged not only on the basis of production and editorial values, but also the originality of content and the accuracy, impact and reach of their reporting.Last years winners includedby, which followed the work of MSF in Sierra Leone during the height of the Ebola outbreak. The Leonardo Di Caprio produced anddocumentary filmwon both theand thefor casting light on the struggle to protect the home of the worlds last remaining mountain gorillas from poachers, corporations, and armed militia and rebel forces in the Congo. Egypts only network of independent local newsrooms,, took home the coveted Special Award.Hosted by Jon Snow, the prestigious One World Media Awards attract top decision makers from the media, and from education, government, and international development. With the addition of two new categories in 2015, theand the, the One World Media Awards now boast fifteen different categories covering digital, print, radio and broadcast journalism, as well as both short and feature length documentary film.Hopefuls can enter the Awards online at http://www.oneworldmedia.org.uk/awards and by sending five copies of each entry by post. The deadline is. To be eligible, entries must have been published, broadcast, launched or screened betweeno International Journalist of the Year Awardo Refugee Reporting Award -o New Voice Awardo Radio Awardo Television Award -o Press Awardo Digital Media Award -o Short Film Awardo Womens Rights in Africa Award -o News Awardo Popular Features Awardo Documentary Award -o Student Awardo Corruption Reporting Award -o Special Award -Winners will be announced at the awards ceremony in June 2016 held at BAFTA in London.To find out more about the One World Media Awards please visit: End -- New on the Personal Projector stand this year are an impressive range of new brighter portable LED projectors from Pico Genie with more wireless connectivity allowing you to connect more of your devices in a simpler way. Projectors purchased at the show will be available withCome and see how schools are able to connect classrooms withiPads, tablets, smartphones, laptops and much more using just a small, lightweight projector from Pico Genie, Vivitek & Casio.Portable LED projectors with an inbuilt rechargeable battery can help turn any space into a work space. This can maximise ALL your indoor and outdoor spaces including corridor walls, staff rooms or special needs areas.Pico Genie projectors are renown for their high specifications and great value and are very popular in schools for multiple applications, ranging fromto creating artwork, displays, PE, music, gaming as well as a back-up whiteboard projector, to reduce any classroom downtime.The new Pico Genie (P55)have now been much improved with a much higher image quality and higher brightness and include SD, USB, HDMI and 854 x 480 resolution in a very small package for as little as 125. Meanwhile a variety of higher lumen models have been introduced with wireless options to suit every need (P130, P150w).New top of the range portable LED projectors this year are the Pico Genie M550 and M800.- The Pico Genie M550 is the brightest portable HD LED projector with inbuilt battery and wireless connectivity (Apple + Android Devices). The M550 is 500 lumens with Android built-in, Bluetooth, 2 USB ports to control keyboard/mouse and a wealth of other useful features.- The Pico Genie M800 is a great value portable HD LED projector and one of the brightest portable projectors (800 lumens) on the market at a great price. with multiple inputs and will retail at only 416 ex vat.Head Teacher Clare Kelly, Dane Royd Primary School said, Benefit from huge savings at special1. NEW: Pico Genie P55 share content anywhere with the tiny P55. Connect via USB, SD or HDMI at over 100. Ideal for small groups2. NEW: Pico Genie P85 wirelessly stream your Apple (iPad) or Android device in meeting rooms or to small groups. Project PowerPoint with the built in Microsoft Office Reader.3. NEW: Pico Genie P130 a simple projector designed for ease of use and quick connectivity. Durable and a great value at 130 lumens.4. SPECIAL OFFER Pico Genie M400 Pro 23% discount at the show. Wireless streaming and inbuilt battery from the new Pico Genie M400 Pro ( http://www.personalprojector.co.uk/ index.php/m400- pro.html ), an upgraded version of the popular M4005. SPECIAL OFFER Pico Genie P100 - 23% discount at the show 85 lumensof brightness on battery, connect to any HDMI device and project at 1006. NEW: Pico Genie M550 500 lumens of LED brightness with built in battery and wireless streaming to Apple (iPad/iPhone)and Android Device, Bluetooth compatible and a 2 hour battery!7. NEW: Pico Genie M800 superbright superlight new 800 lumen portable projector at great value 416 ex vat8. NEW: Vivitek Qumi Q6 / Q7 - the new Qumi Q6 with an amazing 800 lumens of brightness + built in Wi-Fi. Qumi Q7 Plus with a super bright 1000 lumens and optional wireless streaming.9. Casio New Range- XJ-V1 Core is Casios latest ultra bright projector. With 2700 LumensIts a bargain at only 399 plus 50 cashback (358 exContactVisit the Personal Projector stand C440 www.personalprojector.co.uk | enquiries@personalprojector.co.uk | Call 0845 121 8800 Contact Danny Edwards Partner, World Wide Teachers ***@wwteachers.com Danny EdwardsPartner, World Wide Teachers End --World Wide Teachers, a company created by educators to assist those seeking overseas teaching positions, has announced the beginning of its 2016 recruiting campaign. Teachers seeking both ESL and international school positions are urged to register at the companys website http://www.wwteachers.com. Registration for schools seeking teaching candidates is also being accepted.World Wide Teachers is unique in that teachers are walked through the foreign teacher recruitment process by experienced Western educators who have lived and worked in China, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates and Mexico as well as having taught in American schools. The company strives to make every step of the recruitment process transparent, a process that can be difficult to navigate when dealing with companies based in Asia and elsewhere. Additionally, the company can seek out positions for teachers not from native English countries, such as Russia, Philippines and Malaysia as well as those living in African and Eastern European nations.The goal of World Wide Teachers is to aid and assist teachers from all countries to find the teaching position they desire. World Wide Teachers will also actively seek employment for over-age teachers, which is an issue in various regions of the world, said Alan Cranford, managing partner of World Wide Teachers.Specializing in qualified teachers with teaching certifications and experience in their home countries, World Wide Teachers follows up with the educators throughout the school year to make sure living and working in a foreign country is a pleasant experience.When World Wide Teachers places a teacher at a foreign school, we remain in contact, Cranford said. Were ready to help out on for any problem they may experience.World Wide Teachers was created by teachers for teachers. Its founders are experienced teachers committed to helping others reach their goals. Contact Omoalukhe Omo-Abu Executive Director ***@africaonlinefilmfestival.com Omoalukhe Omo-AbuExecutive Director End -- TheAfrica Online Film Festival (AOFF) is pleased to announce that it will start accepting submissions for the 2016 1quarter Digital Media and Film Competition. AOFF is a platform that has been designed to encourage and celebrate African cinematography from up and coming filmmakers and AOFF competitions will be a springboard for aspiring screenwriters and filmmakers eager to break into and monetize their works in the international cinema business.While AOFFs Digital Media and Film Competition is in its infancy, it will become one of the most acclaimed contests within the industry for launching the careers of up-and-coming African writers and filmmakers.AOFF is an IMDB qualifying film festival and as stated in our mission, we hope to draw attention to and raise the profile of African films with the aim of contributing towards the development of African cinema, boosting and celebrating African cinema at an international level.AOFFs Film Competition will also be an invaluable platform for filmmakers to showcase their craft among industry professionals, aspiring screenwriters, filmmakers, and film-lovers with access to other industry resources.AOFF will feature submissions from categories like 1 minute film, short narrative, short films, middle length films, and feature films in all genres. Jury Award winners will be decided each quarter with an annual award in the 4quarter of 2016 by esteemed and celebrated judges. Mark your calender, entries open for submissions on January 15, 2016. Notion Technologies, a premium website designing company, is all set to launch its brand new mobile website development services for giving your business a fresh boost. Contact Faraz Sayyed sales@notiontechnologies.com +91 22 2654 0071 Faraz Sayyed+91 22 2654 0071 End --, which happens to be one of the most trusted names when it comes to providing web solutions, now takes pride in announcing the launch of their latest mobile website designing and application development services. Their new range of services will not only include designing of websites that are mobile friendly, but also a range of allied services such as technical modification of existing websites so that they can be easily accessed using mobile phones or tablets, the improvisation as well as the maintenance of functional mobile websites. The team of highly skilled and experienced professionals at Notion Technologies is striving with their utmost efforts to develop mobile websites of unquestionable standards to their esteemed clients.Such top quality Responsive web design company will be delivered keeping in mind each and every crucial aspect of web development of mobile phones, especially the feedback received on the basis of user experience. The core aim of Notion Technologies is to provide a comfortable, hassle free internet experience for all the users with due emphasis to the most essential features such as quick loading without wasting time on buffering, optimizing images and appreciable clarity of display in case of tablets as well as smartphones with all the different kinds of browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, Opera. The experience should be equally pleasurable in the case of any operating system, be it Android or iOS in the case of Apple iPhones or iPads.Notion Technologies is expected to come up with smart, extremely productive and user-friendly mobile apps for Android, iOS as well as Windows operating systems by making use of coding language that is platform specific. In present times with more and more people switching from traditional desktop PCs and laptops to smaller, more compact portable devices such as tablets and smartphones, the development of attractive yet useful apps for mobile phones seem to have become a bare necessity. Getting a unique mobile application designed by specialized experts in the field, immensely helps you in bridging the gap with your customers and building a huge client base thus increasing your flow of revenue. Mobile apps serve to increase the efficiency of your business by a number of times that automatically results in the enhancement of the satisfaction index of your valued customers. You also end up saving your precious money since mobile apps help in reducing the overall operational costs.With the mobile app development industry gaining momentum with every passing day, competition among web developers too appear to be soaring steadily. Notion technologies promises to deliver the best innovative solutions on the basis of their thorough research on the various mobile platforms. Since customers depend on their mobile phones and tablets for almost everything under the sun including shopping for essentials, to browsing for information, carrying out business processes, marketing their range of products and staying in touch with loved ones through social networking sites, well designed and efficient mobile apps are always in great demand since they make life so much easier for them.Mobile application development has reached its zenith and almost every business organization is showing a keen interest in tapping the maximum benefits and reaching out their potential clients. Companies are getting websites developed exclusively for mobile phones. Designing websites for mobiles have become a very significant aspect of the IT industry today. Notion Technologies believes in paying attention to minute details for achieving the desired levels of perfection. Their focus is on creating quality content, easy navigation facilities and uncomplicated designs when it comes to mobile websites.In a recent press meet, a representative of the company was quoted saying we are about to launch our range of web development services for mobile devices very soon.Visit for more details: http://www.notiontechnologies.com/ responsive-webdesign is one of the most renowned web designing companies in India, based in the city of Mumbai. They provide you with the ultimate web solutions in order to ensure that your website is attractive enough to stand out in the huge crowd, drawing the attention of customers so that your business flourishes rapidly. Have you ever wondered how great it would be if your students had a way to easily keep track of opportunities (clinicals), and labs on the go with their phone or device? Well that time has come with the release of the Platinum Planner mobile app! By: Platinum Educational Group LLC Connectivity = Productivity Contact Jeremy M. Johnson (Director of Marketing) Platinum Educational Group LLC ***@platinumed.com Jeremy M. Johnson (Director of Marketing)Platinum Educational Group LLC End -- Platinum Educational Group, the Testing, Scheduling, and Skills Tracking Experts, has launched their first mobile app. This mobile app offers all the features of the full website from the student experience of PlatinumPlanner.com. PlatinumPlanner.com was released in 2012 and was created with the goal of bringing students, instructors, preceptors, school administrators, and clinical sites together for stress free scheduling, reporting, and skills tracking. PlatinumPlanner.com started with Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and has evolved to offer scheduling and skill tracking for the Nursing and Allied Health fields.You can find the Platinum Planner mobile app by going to the Apple Store or Google Play Store on your device and searching for Platinum Planner. Students are able to input their information no matter where they are and have their information sync up when internet is available - perfect for hospital or lab settings where internet is sketchy or not available at all.Other features that the Platinum Planner mobile app offers students include:View, sign up, and create clinical or lab opportunitiesView current classes along with detailsUpload and attach images from mobile device cameras View progress reports and overall skill statusView upcoming labs, document current labs, or review documentation from completed labsSign up for any additional classes available for a students courseComplete any and all forms necessaryAnd much moreWe are tremendously excited to offer this mobile app to our customers. Other companies have spent years trying to create this platform and have not succeeded indicated Platinums CEO and co-founder Doug Smith. He also stated, It may be even more years before anyone else can duplicate our Platinum Planner app. So, why wait when you can have it all now?For further information, contact Platinum Educational Groups Director of Marketing, at marketing@platinumed.com or go directly to www.platinumed.com.###Platinum Educational Group is a global leader in online testing and scheduling. Our markets include the Emergency Medical Services, Allied Health, Nursing, and Fire Science industries. We provide the most valid and reliable online testing for EMT/Paramedic and Registered Nursing educational institutions. Our scheduling software programs include the EMS, Nursing, and all allied health fields. With more than 75 years of combined education, testing, and scheduling expertise we service several thousands of individuals, businesses, and organizations globally via our main office in Jenison, Michigan, and affiliated agencies located throughout the United States. End -- Lake Genevas Cornerstone Shop & Gallery is hosting its annual Winterfest Open House on February 6 & 13, 2016 from 1-5 p.m., featuring art and book signings, special guests and offers, treats and refreshments.On Saturday, Feb. 6, from 1-5 p.m., Author Clyde Deighton will sign copies of his popular locally based novel, Murder at the French Country Inn. This tale of modern crime mirrors local gangster history, with colorful characters and echoes of the Roaring Twenties.Artist William Nelson will sign his limited edition Winterfestprint, which commemorates the annual National Snow Sculpting Competition, from 1-4 p.m. on Feb. 6. Nelsons work has been featured in major exhibits around the world, including the Smithsonian Institution and the National Gallery of Art. Hes completed paintings for the private collections of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, Burt Reynolds, Mortons Steakhouse, Universal Studios and others, but Lake Geneva remains one of his favorite subjects to paint.On Saturday, Feb. 13, the store welcomes Illustrator Neal Aspinall, who is known for his illustrations of popular Lake Geneva locations and events, including Black Point, Yerkes Observatory, the Riviera, Antique & Classic Boat Show, Venetian Festival and others. He was the commissioned artist for last years 20th Anniversary Winterfest poster. Aspinall will sign posters and his book, "The Iconic Poster Artwork of Neal Aspinall-Pure Genuine Lake Geneva," from 1-3 p.m.Local artist Gabby Jensen will personalize her hand-painted Lake Geneva ornaments from 1-4 p.m. on Feb. 13. Jensens ornaments feature lake scenes and landmarks and are available in winter or summer versions that can be personalized with names, dates, pier numbers, wedding dates, or other information.The public is invited to attend. Visit www.cornerstoneshoppe.com for more information and store specials each day throughout Winterfest, which runs Feb. 3-13.The Cornerstone Shop & Gallery is a lifestyle store specializing in home decor including furniture, unique accessories and accent pieces; womens clothing, jewelry and accessories;artisan products including paintings from local and regional artists, hand-blown glass and ceramics; fine tabletop, linens and giftware; and gifts for all occasions. The store is located at 214 Broad St., in the heart of downtown Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. (262) 248-6988. www.cornerstoneshoppe.com By: Les Brandt Media Contact Artist Management + Publicity Partners gillian@amppup.com Artist Management + Publicity Partners End -- Les Brandt debuts in the highly anticipated premiere of CARTEL, premiering January 17, 2016. Brandt's intense portrayal of Mexican Cartel leader Chava Reyes is powerful and riveting. CARTEL was written and directed by Cassius Corrigan and produced by Marcus Yves of Vibrancy. Described by Yves, CARTEL captures the story of a Mexican Millennial who travels to Los Angeles with a dream of protecting and supporting his family. It is a modern day interpretation of, focused on the Mexican Cartel. For more information about the film you can cut-and-paste the following link: vimeo.com/vibrancy/cartelthefilmBrandt has been an award winning, internationally recognized actor for more than 20 years. He has appeared in numerous movies and television shows throughout his career and is best known for his 3-year contract role on the New York-based NBC soap opera ANOTHER WORLD as Rafael Santierro.Brandts commercial work includes some of the most highly identifiable brands, advertising agencies and directors including Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Toyota, AT&T, Best Buy, IKEA and Miller Light. His most recent commercials include print and multimedia campaigns for Can-Am, Dodge Ram, Yoplait and Nissan where he appeared alongside music superstar, Blake Shelton. Later next month, he is slated to appear in several new national ad campaigns for a leading mens grooming product.For more information on Brandt please visit www.imdb.me/lesbrandtPhoto Credit: Stuart Palley Mesa County named first Rural Jump-Start Zone by Gov. Hickenlooper; Up To Eight Years, No Taxes for Startups and Expanding Business By: Grand Junction Economic Partnership Contact Cilia Kohn ***@gjep.org Cilia Kohn End -- In his annual State of the State address yesterday, Gov. John Hickenlooper proclaimed Mesa County Colorados first Rural Jump-Start Zone, enacting Senate Bill 15-282. The initiative, led by the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT), will establish tax-free zones in rural areas across the State of Colorado to encourage new business and job growth.It's exhilarating to know that we are the first and currently only county in the statenation that can offer this type of robust tax holiday to businesses,said Kristi Pollard, executive director of the Grand Junction Economic Partnership (GJEP), which will help new and expanding businesses navigate the new tax credit. Six companies have approached GJEP to begin the application process and, per Gov. Hickenlooper, three are already a shoe-in (OEDIT will officially accept applications starting January 19):Three companies Colorado Clean, TSW Analytics and ProStar Geocorp have already applied, said Gov. Hickenlooper in his address. We look forward to working with them, and with Colorado Mesa University President, Tim Foster to enhance the competitiveness of Colorado's rural communities.Jump-Start is a joint effort between counties, municipalities, higher education institutions and business communities in the state of Colorado to grow jobs in industries such as advanced manufacturing, aviation, food processing, biotech and other technologies.The Jump-Start Program requires businesses to create a minimum of five net new jobs in Mesa County in exchange for relief from Colorado state income and sales & use taxes; county and municipal personal property taxes; and state income taxes for their employees for up to eight years. Additional requirements for businesses include that the core function of the business cannot compete with existing businesses in the state, and the business must establish a relationship with Colorado Mesa University, as the official higher education institution sponsor of the program.To further enhance the program, Mesa Countys local jurisdictions added a number of other local tax incentives to the program. Softengi Affirms ISO 9001 Certification, Proving High Standard of Services it Delivers. Contact Olga Rusnak, Softengi Marketing Specialist ***@softengi.com +380 (44) 222 6035 Olga Rusnak, Softengi Marketing Specialist+380 (44) 222 6035 End --Softengi, a global software development company, announced that, having fulfilled the Quality Management System requirements, it has once again affirmed its conformity to ISO 9001.According to TUV SUD Management Service company, Softengi has established and applies the Quality Management System for: software development, information system implementation & support, IT resources supply, Business process outsourcing and other IT services.The ISO 9001 certification proves Softengi to be a software engineering services provider, dedicated to delivering high level quality products and services. In addition to compliance with the international standards of quality management (ISO), we build our internal business processes based on CMMI methodology,stated Viktoriya Sladka,. Therefore, seeing Softengi demonstrate high performance in every area of its activity, a customer can rely on our expertise and trust the opinions of international experts in quality.The company performs audits, surveilliances and validation, as well as certification of management systems. The services comprise the following areas: quality, environmental, and safety management systems for all kinds of branches and companies or organizations.Softengi is a global SOFTware ENGIneering services provider, whose goal is not only to develop code and meet technical requirements, but also to become part of the clients team, bringing its expertise and valuable contributions to the project. With over 200 professionals located in Ukraine, the USA, and Western Europe, Softengi applies individual approach to create top-notch software solutions for your business. Included in https://www.iaop.org/ Content/19/165/ 4129 ) list compiled by The Association with Collaboration at Its Core (IAOP), Softengi is officially recognized for its excellence in global performance. Learn more athttps://twitter.com/softengi_uahttps://www.linkedin.com/company/softengihttps://plus.google.com/+Softengi/https://www.youtube.com/user/softengi The page may have moved, you may have mistyped the address, or followed a bad link. Visit our homepage, or search for whatever you were looking for By: Kontras Quartet LLC Contact Francois Henkins ***@kontrasquartet.com Francois Henkins End -- Northeastern Illinois University brings the critically acclaimed Kontras Quartet back to its popular Jewel Box Series for a concert featuring the music of Rejean Collier, Schumann, Haydn, and Shostakovich. The Kontras Quartet performs with NEIU faculty artists Susan Tang, piano, and Robert Heitzinger, baritone. Tickets are $25 or $17.50 and can be purchased at the door or online atThe "superb Chicago-based ensemble" (Gramophone Magazine) has been praised for its "crisp precision" (Palm Beach Daily News), "enjoyable musical personality"(Fanfare Magazine) and "superlative artistry" (CVNC Arts Journal). The Kontras Quartet has established an international following for their compelling performances and colorful repertoire that spans centuries, genres, and continents. Kontras recently released two critically acclaimed albums:, for the MSR Classics label; and, a commissioned work that treads the line between classical music and American folk and invigorates Kontras' ongoing collaboration with the esteemed Kruger Brothers trio. Kontras' performances have been heard on, NPR'sPBS, TED, and the, and they have recently performed to sold-out crowds at the Utah Arts Festival, Merlefest, the Farnsworth House, and Thalian Hall in NC. Kontras is currently in residence at Western Michigan University and Elmhurst College.NEIU's Steinberg Fine Arts Center is located at. The hall is wheelchair accessible, and free parking is available in parking lot F or levels 4 and 5 of the parking garage. Call 312-513-8317 or visitfor more information. Media Contact Chessie ralston cralston@capfs.com Chessie ralston End --Scott D. Sorrell, CLU, ChFC, AIF, RICP, CASL, CLTC (http://www.scottsorrell.net/),a financial professional with Capitol Financial Solutions, a member of Signator Investors has qualified as an ACE Inner Circle member which honors being within the top 250 financial representatives in Signator Investors 10 times. In addition to this prestigious achievement, Sorrell has just achieved ACE Gold Award, one of the highest honors that Signator bestows on a financial representative. Signator honors the leading financial professionals and advisors across the national network through the ACE Top Producer Program. The name ACE, which stands for Achieving Client Excellence, reflects Signators belief that achieving your vision of success depends on the professionalism, respect, integrity, and value you deliver to clients every day.According to Robert C. Turner, AIF, CLU, ChFC, CEO and President of Capitol Financial Solutions, these ACE Awards serves as a confirmation of Scotts exceptional abilities. It is a testament to his level of professionalism, respect, and value he delivers to clients and the community every day. We are very proud Scotts high level of achievement,he said.Sorrell is also a three time ACE Platinum Award specifically recognizes the top 50 financial representatives across the country. For additional information about Scott please visit http://www.scottsorrell.net . Scott may also be contacted at ssorrell@capfs.com Capitol Financial Solutions is an independent financial services firm with a team of experienced professionals who are licensed and trained to help their clients achieve their financial goals. Headquartered in Raleigh, NC, the firm represents $1.1 billion* in client assets with offices in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. The firm's reputation is based on the strong relationships formed with clients in combination with a commitment to service excellence. Capitol Financial Solutions provides clients with a dynamic opportunity encompassing value-added support services, an open architecture of financial services offerings, and a strong, ever-growing team of financial professionals. To learn more, visit www.capfs.com.* Assets include annuities, brokerage, advisory, retirement plan assets, and life insurance cash value (as of February 2015).Signator Investors, Inc. is a broker dealer serving 1,600 financial professionals in over 350 branch offices across the U.S., collectively known as the John Hancock Financial Network. With an open product platform including a comprehensive range of investment and protection products from leading carriers, Signator helps financial professionals meet client needs. And with a wealth of resources to support business and professional development, Signator gives entrepreneurial financial professionals the power to effectively build unique businesses, based on their own vision and market opportunity. Representatives have the ability to brand themselves with a unique name or as a member of John Hancock Financial Network. Meals On Wheels of Tampa delivers new program, Produce On Wheels (POW), in partnership with Feeding Tampa Bay, to increase senior and homebound access to fresh produce for second time ever. Media Contact Lauren Vance Director of Communications l.vance@mowtampa.org 8132388410 Lauren VanceDirector of Communications8132388410 End --TAMPA, FL, Saturday, January 16, 2016 Meals On Wheels of Tampa launches for the second time ever, a new program, Produce On Wheels (POW), in partnership with Feeding Tampa Bay, to increase senior and homebound access to fresh produce. Over 100 individuals, businesses and community groups will volunteer their time, vehicle, and gas to deliver pre-packed bags of fresh produce to 700 home delivered meal recipients (HDM) tomorrow morning, Saturday, January 16th. Produce bags are free of charge to HDM recipients.Groups helping to deliver produce on Saturday morning include the USF College of Public Health, Suncoast Credit Union, BJs New Tampa, Temple Terrace Womens Club. In response to this program, partnerships have developed with the following groups: Feeding Tampa Bay, University of South Florida, Tampa Bay Network to End Hunger, University of Florida Extension Office, Next Stop Produce, and others.This is very exciting for Meals On Wheels of Tampa whose mission is to nourish, enrich, and strengthen the independent lives of the homebound and seniors in Tampa. POW was developed in response to results collected from a survey that was sent out to all 700 HDM recipients in August.Bringing us fresh fruits and vegetables is a blessing. The closest grocery store is over 3 miles away from my house and I can't drive...even if I got a ride, I can't stand long enough to shop... so fresh is hard for me to get. I know I have lived this long because of good health and good nutrition- I am certain that fresh fruits and veggies are the best medicine and have helped kept me alive this long," said Barbara, HDM recipient.In addition to increasing access to produce, this opportunity has increased volunteer opportunities for those who may not be available to deliver meals during the week.Recipients will also receive an educational handout that highlights the nutritional advantages of the items in the bag, tips to reduce waste, recipe ideas, and produce safety. Feedback will also be collected from recipients and volunteers to evaluate the program launch so we can continue to improve the program. Professor Lauri Wright from the University of South Floridas College of Public Health will assist Meals On Wheels of Tampa staff in evaluating the effectiveness of this program on Tampas seniors and homebound. Pre-test surveys are currently underway; post-test surveys will begin in March.Future POW/Saturday delivery dates are: February 20, March 19, and April 16. We hope to expand the program later this year.Interested in volunteering or want to learn more about Meals On Wheels of Tampa? Please visit www.MOWTampa.org/ volunteer or call (813) 238-8410.If you would like to start receiving meals or if you know someone in need, please visit www.MOWTampa.org or call (813) 238-8410 today. By: Howfaris.it Contact Norma Heinen ***@howfaris.it Norma Heinen End -- For those in need of a deeper understanding of the world around them, especially distances between countries, continents, and even physical features, the howfaris.it website provides a freefor students and travelers alike. A student interested in the distance between two continents, like Antarctica and South America, can simply enter the two locations in the search bar. Regardless of actual travel distance, the straight-line calculator provides an as the crow flies distance so that said student can better comprehend how big- and sometimes how small- the planet really is.A traveler can do a similar search to better understand how large a continent is. If a traveler wishes to visit Europe, using the straight-line calculator will better orient him or her with how far each country, or parts of a country, really is. Though it does not provide detailed times for actual human travel, it does provide a quick travel planning tool to better lay out an itinerary that matches the time and resources available.Also on the site are resources any traveler might need. Knowing the time zones of specific countries is beneficial for anticipating when to contact a business or hotel, as well as coordinating flight landing times with business hours. The time zone map provided by howfaris.it also provides current local time for travelers who go in and out of time zones. It also provides a time difference calculator between two locations. All this helps the traveler on the go as well as the planner.A traveler trying to contact businesses or a person attempting to contact a traveler can use the sites phone code guide to better help contact via phone. All codes appear simultaneously for each letter group. For example, in a quick search, one will find that the country code for Australia is 61 and American Samoa is 1-684. Every country is available with the codes, which helps when one has a local number, but not the international code.Whether student or traveler, howfaris.it offers a variety of tools to help either deepen their understanding of the world around us. Whether it is distance, the current time, or even how to telephone a country, howfaris.it is the first and only stop for information. Western Michigan University brings the critically acclaimed Kontras Quartet back to its popular Bullock Performance Institute for a concert featuring the music of Borodin, Haydn and Shostakovich. By: Kontras Quartet LLC Contact Francois Henkins ***@kontrasquartet.com (269) 387-4704 Francois Henkins(269) 387-4704 End -- Western Michigan University brings the critically acclaimed Kontras Quartet back to the Dalton Center Recital Hall for a concert featuring Haydn's witty "How Do You Do?" quartet; Shostakovich's dark and subversive Quartet No. 9; and Borodin's romantic and sweeping Quartet No. 2. Tickets are available at Miller Auditorium or Dalton Center ticket office: $12 adults, $10 seniors, $5 students.The "superb Chicago-based ensemble" (Gramophone Magazine) has been praised for its "crisp precision" (Palm Beach Daily News), "enjoyable musical personality"(Fanfare Magazine) and "superlative artistry" (CVNC Arts Journal). The Kontras Quartet has established an international following for their compelling performances and colorful repertoire that spans centuries, genres, and continents. Kontras recently released two critically acclaimed albums: Origins, for the MSR Classics label; and Lucid Dreamer, a commissioned work that treads the line between classical music and American folk and invigorates Kontras' ongoing collaboration with the esteemed Kruger Brothers trio. Kontras' performances have been heard on Performance Today, NPR's Concierto, PBS, TED, and the David Letterman Show, and they have recently performed to sold-out crowds at the Utah Arts Festival, Merlefest, the Farnsworth House, and Thalian Hall in NC. Kontras is currently in residence at Western Michigan University and Elmhurst College.WMU's Dalton Center is located at 1903 W. Michigan Ave, Kalamazoo, MI 49008. The hall is wheelchair accessible, and parking is available nearby. For more information, please visitor call (269) 387-4704. Joseph Federico has officially registered NJ MET Inc. Clifton, NJ as a corporate sponsor to aid the American Red Cross for fiscal year 2016. By: NJ MET, Inc. Contact NJ MET, Inc. ***@goldbergconsulting.com NJ MET, Inc. End -- Joseph Federico, Director of NJ MET Inc. has officially registered NJ MET, Inc. of Clifton, NJ as a corporate sponsor to aid the American Red Cross for fiscal year 2016. The goal of the drive is to help support U.S. military members and their families.It is our sincere pleasure to inform our valued customers that a portion of proceeds from testing and procurement projects will be presented to the American Red Cross on December 31, 2016, said Joseph Federico of NJ MET Inc., headquartered in Clifton, NJ.The American Red Cross is a lifeline for deployed military members enabling their loved ones back home to communicate with them during emergencies. Gifts to the Red Cross can provide social services, emergency travel, financial assistance and mental health support for our returning troops and their families.This annual project is one of several charitable efforts at NJ MET, Inc. Other recent projects through the American Red Cross included support for efforts in Oklahoma, Japan and, Haiti. NJ MET, Inc. also provides scholarships and engages in other charitable efforts in the NJ area. Joseph Federico supervises these efforts. To learn more about NJ METs charitable efforts visit: http://www.josephfedericonj.org Visit the American Red Cross website for more information about their programs.For nearly 40 years, NJ MET Inc. has been a pioneer in the Commercial Military, Aerospace, Industrial, Automotive and Medical fields providing worldwide quality electronic component screening and qualification testing. NJMET, Inc. is AS9100/ISO9001:2008 certified and is registered with GIDEP, SAE International, ERAI, ASTM, and ITAR.Please call Joseph Federico at (973) 546-5393 or visit NJ METs website http://www.njmetmtl.com for more information about NJ METs Electronic Testing and Procurement Services headquartered in Clifton, NJ. End -- Teens in the Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Monicas Keystone Club (http://www.smbgc.org/programs-2/) are bringing awareness about the citys homelessness issue through a safe overnight sleep-outon Jan. 22 from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m. on Jan. 23 at their Clubhouse in their enclosed outdoor recreation yard at 1238 Lincoln Blvd. The event aims to educate teens and the community about the issue of homelessness, and raise funds and donation items to aid the local homeless.About 150 teens, ages 13-18, are expected to participate in this rain or shine event. Youth will sleep outside on the Clubs fenced in black top along with adult staff. Each participating teen will represent nearly 5 homeless people. According to the City of Santa Monica, in 2015 the number of homeless men, woman and children in Santa Monica was 738 (http://www.smgov.net/Portals/Homelessness/content3Column.aspx?id=25157). The city will conduct the next homeless count on Jan. 27.Teens will hear from guest speakers including representatives from the Santa Monica Police Department, Ocean Park Community Center (OPCC) and St. Joseph Center. Teens will also participate in team building, watch movies that feature issues on homelessness and more.Participants are asked to wear warm clothing and outerwear and to bring a sleeping bag, yoga mat or padded mat and a warm blanket.Its also requested that teens bring a $5 donation and items for the homeless including outerwear (beanies, gloves, scarves), new or unopened toiletries such as shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrushes, mouthwash, razors, shaving cream, soap, and feminine hygiene products. Donations will be given to OPCC.According to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, the total of homeless person in Los Angeles County in 2015 was 44,359, including thousands of children.Many do not receive the help they need to break the cycle of homelessness,says Tim Blaylock, president & CEO of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Santa Monica. Homeless kids have high rates of acute and chronic health problems, and the constant barrage of stress and traumatic experience has profound effects on their development and ability to learn. We are proud of our Keystone teens helping to bring this issue to light through this overnight experience.The Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Monica serves many homeless children, and works to break the cycle of homelessness. No child is turned away from the Club for lack of ability to pay the $20 membership fee. Members are provided resources and mentors to help them succeed in school and in life. Those who are in need of housing are connected with services to help with sustainable housing and self-sufficiency.Founded in 1944, theworks to inspire and enable all young people to reach their full potential as caring, responsible and productive citizens. Through membership and outreach, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Monica currently serves approximately 8,000 youth across its 10 sites throughout Los Angeles County. Members come from 131 different ZIP codes, with the majority of members coming from Santa Monica, Culver City, Venice, West Los Angeles and Inglewood. For more information, visit www.smbgc.org or follow them on Facebook (facebook.com/smbgcfan) and Twitter (twitter.com/SMBGC). Houston Artist John Ross Palmer has vacationed at Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina every summer for more than a decade with his extended family. The Founder of Escapism is honored to unveil an art series that features this picturesque family beach. Contact Ryan Lindsay ryan@johnpalmerart.com 713-861-6726 Ryan Lindsay713-861-6726 End -- On Friday, April 29, internationally acclaimed artist John Ross Palmer will unveil a dynamic art series,, at the Museum of Coastal Carolina in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. Palmer, a native of Houston, Texas, has been traveling to Ocean Isle every summer for the last ten years to vacation with his husbands extended family. The series is inspired by their gatherings, fun time on the beach and iconic imagery from this beautiful family beach destination.In the summer of 2013, Palmer, the Founder of the Art Movement of Escapism, visited the Museum of Coastal Carolina and was enthusiastic to learn about the museums mission and operations. He presented the staff with a painting,, that now hangs in the museums entry. Although the primary purpose of the museum is education related to maritime life on the coast of North Carolina plus astronomy through its planetarium, Palmer, in typical entrepreneur fashion, lobbied for an unveiling of his original artwork. Two summers later,by John Ross Palmer will run from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend with an initial unveiling coinciding with the museums annual Wine Fest fundraiser.will feature between fifteen and twenty original Palmer paintings created with acrylic on canvas. The smaller paintings show the time-honored pier, playing in a tide pool, a storm rolling in from the Intracoastal Waterway, walking to the beach with supplies in a wagon and many more classic Ocean Isle visuals. Palmer is thrilled with the opportunity. Ocean Isle is one of my favorite places on earth. I work constantly, and, it is my only true vacation each year. Its a tremendous honor and pleasure to honor Ocean Isle with my artwork.If you have any questions about Artist John Ross Palmer or his unveiling at the Museum of Coastal Carolina, please contact gallery co-owner Ryan Lindsay ( Ryan@JohnPalmerArt.com ) at 713-861-6726 or Museum Executive Director Terry Bryant at 910-579-1016. Sales from all of Palmers paintings and prints from theart series will have a dedicated percentage that is donated to the Museum of Coastal Carolina. Experienced Team Leverages Range of Expertise to Deliver Quality Results fabricated steel, custom parts by Badger Sheet Metal Works End -- Companies searching for a manufacturing team capable of producing high-quality fabricated steel and custom parts are turning to Badger Sheet Metal Works as a trusted partner.Quality can be a subjective term, said Sam Thomas, Vice President of Operations at Badger Sheet Metal Works. However, there is no question our customers value the high level of craftsmanship our teams deliver.Badger Sheet Metal Works teams have experience in guiding projects through the often-changing demands faced when fabricated steel or custom parts are included in the order. With expertise ranging from pre-planning and cost estimation, through the design, project management and shipping phases, Badger Sheet Metal Works can take a fabricated steel or custom parts job all the way through to a flawless installation.Every project starts with our team focused on helping customers solve their specific challenges and becoming more successful,Thomas said. That focus is evident to a higher degree with the unique nature of fabricated steel and custom parts.Badger Sheet Metal Works excels at delivering high-quality, fabricated steel projects as well as custom parts for applications such as conveyors, medical devices, and uses in the food and dairy industry.In addition to manufacturing to customer-supplied designs, Badger Sheet Metal Works teams make suggestions based on manufacturability and cost savings to help customers maximize value.The companys welders secure custom welding qualifications when required by customers to supplement their standard AWS D1.1 qualifications. This results in the ability to manufacture virtually any kind of custom part or fabricated steel component.Badger Sheet Metal Works is headquartered in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and employs approximately 100 people. Badger teams specialize in welding and metal fabrication, custom metal fabrication, aluminum sheet metal fabrication, large fabrication projects, heavy plate fabrication mining industry fabrication and stainless steel projects.For more information about Badger Sheet Metal Works fabricated steel and customer parts manufacturing capabilities, call Sam Thomas, Vice President of Operations, at (920) 435-8881, or visit https://www.bsmw.com/View original post on fabricated steel (https://www.bsmw.com/badger-sheet-metal-works-excels-fabricated-steel-custom-parts/), custom parts (https://www.bsmw.com/badger-sheet-metal-works-excels-fabricated-steel-custom-parts/) here. An illegal tobacco factory dismantled by Spanish customs. Seeing a demand for cheap cigarettes in crisis-hit Spain, organized criminal gangs are importing tobacco, paper, filters, machinery and even labor to produce hundreds of thousands of packs of cigarettes each day, say police. Authorities have dismantled eight factories around the country in the last two years, they add. Around one in 10 cigarette packs sold in Spain is illegal, and up to 90% of them are produced by gangs based in the country. The rest are imported illegally from the likes of Gibraltar and Morocco. The people on the machines are working pretty much under slave conditions Spanish customs office source They bring the machines in from Poland and Belarus, taking off the identification plates so they pass as agricultural equipment without being inspected, says a source at Spains customs office. The quality of the packaging is very good, despite the fact that the people working the machines are working pretty much under slave conditions. Illegal cigarette factories are typically located on industrial estates or, as in the case of the one most recently dismantled, on a remote farm in Seville province, where criminals had brought in their own diesel-powered generators fitted with devices to avoid the smoke they produced being detected in the outside air. But the police say they have begun to notice a decline in contraband tobacco. After five years of growth during which time illegal tobacco came to represent 12.5% of the total Spanish cigarette market, last year it fell to 10.6%. The figure was calculated on the basis of a weekly study carried out in May that gathered 14,983 empty cigarette packets from garbage bins in 58 towns and cities throughout Spain. The popularity of contraband cigarettes is largely explained by their price. Somebody who smokes two packs a day now faces a bill of up to 300 a month: buying illegally can save them up to a third of that figure. In Spain, around 80% of the price of a pack is made up of taxes. Those found guilty of trafficking tobacco or producing illegal cigarettes typically face prison terms of less than two years. Multinational tobacco firm Phillip Morris, which produces the Marlboro brand, works with the Spanish and EU authorities to pursue illegal cigarette sales, supplying detectives, auditors and lawyers. But its an uphill task: In my village there are more than 10 people who sell cigarettes for 3 a packet, says Maria del Mar Gonzalez, who lives in the small community of Aznalcollar, in Seville province, which has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., Jan. 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The following is by Dana Sargent Vice President, North American Regulatory Affairs: With hundreds of studies conducted and a history of safe use on farms, lawns and landscapes across the world, we know more about neonics and honey bees than any other pesticide group. Honey bees and other pollinators are responsible for one out of every three bites of food. As a mom and someone responsible for feeding my family, I know the importance of having ready access to safe and nutritious food. As an employee of Bayer working with our regulatory agencies, my job is to ensure that the technologies we develop can be used by farmers to safely produce the crops that feed our nation and the world. A preliminary risk assessment for imidacloprid from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Canadian Pest Management Regulatory Agency, brings everything full circle, and shows that we can, in fact, grow safe, nutritious food in an environmentally sustainable way. Imidacloprid is the first of several "neonic" insecticides that have helped revolutionize how farmers protect their crops from pests. Neonics have been widely adopted by growers because they are effective and because they can be used in many different ways which helps growers minimize harm to beneficial insects, for instance. In short, they are exactly the type of technology we need to help feed our families and protect our environment. You may have heard of neonics in the context of bee health as some have raised concerns that these insecticides might kill these beneficial insects. Bees are critical to agriculture. They help pollinate many of the fruits and vegetables that we eat every day. It might sound obvious, but, as one of the largest agriculture companies in the world, Bayer believes bees are a pretty big deal. And that's where these new reports from EPA and PMRA come in. Regulatory agencies constantly review these products based on the latest scientific data to ensure they pose no undue risk to people or the environment. In these assessments, the agencies wanted to determine if these pesticides posed a risk to honey bees. With hundreds of studies conducted and a history of safe use on farms, lawns and landscapes across the world, we know more about neonics and honey bees than any other pesticide group. Even so, the new field studies conducted as part of EPA and PMRA's current reviews may be the most comprehensive ever. More than just being comprehensive, the science conducted in these assessments is very sound. The agencies have spent years overseeing these studies and should be applauded for that work. So, what did they find? In general, the assessment is good news for bees and for farmers. Let's look at a few key areas: The agencies set a level where honey bee colonies can tolerate being exposed to the neonic, imidacloprid, for extended periods at or below which no effects would be expected to the colony. That level is set at 25 parts per billion which might not mean too much until you consider that typically bees are exposed to below 20 ppb when that pesticide is applied into the soil and even less (lower than 5 ppb) when crops are grown from a seed treated with the pesticide. In their everyday lives, bees just aren't that likely to encounter amounts of imidacloprid that would come close to posing a threat to their colony. EPA and PMRA found, whether spraying, applying to the soil or treating seeds by and large imidacloprid did not pose risks to honey bee colonies, particularly on common crops like corn, potatoes, tomatoes, cabbage, broccoli and berries. The agencies said they are continuing to work on crops like soybeans, stone fruits, melons and tree nuts. EPA concluded that when used on citrus and cotton imidacloprid might pose a risk. Note that they didn't say they are a risk to honey bee colonies (like many media headlines stated). That's because there are many ways farmers can use these neonics on cotton and citrus crops in ways that don't pose a risk to honey bee colonies. In fact, there are many restrictions in place that already do this and Bayer has proposed several more to EPA to consider that would put in place additional protections for bees. I'm looking forward to working with them further on this. EPA and PMRA note that this assessment is still preliminary and similar assessments are on-going for other neonics. We are also continuing to review the reports in more detail and we will continue to provide data to the agencies as needed and look forward to seeing the results of this rigorous, science-based approach. As an employee of an innovation company, it is absolutely critical that we support and maintain a science-based regulation over political whims, allowing us to continue investing in newer, better and safer technologies. And as a mom, I want to know that I'm doing the right thing for my family. Ultimately good science should matter to everyone. We need to produce more food as the global population continues to grow and we'll need to do it by using less resources and protecting the ones, like bees, that we have. The only way we can do that is if we continue to push the scientific boundaries for new technology while ensuring effective environmental stewardship. This post originally appeared here. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160114/322448 Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160114/322449 SOURCE Bayer Corporation Related Links http://www.bayerus.com SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 15, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National AIDS Memorial Grove has awarded six outstanding undergraduate students each with a Pedro Zamora Young Leaders Scholarship for their commitment to active roles of public service and leadership in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160115/322724 Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160115/322725 The Pedro Zamora Young Leaders Scholarship, named in honor of AIDS educator, activist and reality television pioneer Pedro Zamora, who passed away more than twenty years ago from an AIDS-related illness, has helped support the education of young people who today are engaged in a variety of HIV-related work in their schools, communities and chosen academic fields. The scholarship program began in 2009 and is funded primarily through grants provided by UnitedHealthcare, Wells Fargo and Project Inform. This year marks the largest distribution of funds from the program with a total of $40,000 awarded to six undergraduate students, two of whom are two-year scholarship recipients with $5,000 awarded in 2015 & 2016. The six recipients will each receive $5,000 to support their educational goals as they continue to provide much needed leadership and community service in HIV/AIDS public awareness and prevention, public policy, and treatment and support for people living with HIV/AIDS. "We are pleased to see the growth of the Pedro Zamora Young Leaders Scholarship and see first-hand how our support is helping the next generation of leaders who are actively engaged in AIDS-related work," said John Cunningham, executive director of the National AIDS Memorial Grove. "This couldn't be done without the strong support and funding from UnitedHealthcare, Wells Fargo and Project Inform." The scholarships recipients are from six states and include: Raymond Jackson is working on his associate's degree in Business Administration at Essex County College in Newark, N.J. Raymond's goal is to work with the Centers for Disease Control in their Global Health Economics Department, the financial resources to help individuals in third world countries with HIV/AIDS. In addition, he is working as a peer educator at Project (WOW), where he has the opportunity to share his personal story of living with HIV and educate his peers of the importance of protecting themselves. Adrian Nava is a second-year recipient and third-year student at the University of Denver. He plans on completing his bachelor of arts in International Studies and Sociology. Adrian plans on working in the nonprofit sector, focusing on health and access to health services for LGBT people and people of color. Adrian has worked in the sexual health field for five years and continues to do work around sexual health at state and national levels. Uzo Okoro is a senior at Brown University in Providence, R.I., majoring in Public Health. Upon graduation, she will attend The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University to pursue her medical degree. Uzo was selected by the nonprofit group Advocates for Youth to be a Youth Ambassador for NYHAAD (National Youth HIV/AIDS Awareness Day) to promote a message of prevention, treatment, care and youth empowerment. She also uses events, forums and social media to amplify the voice of HIV+ survivors. At Brown University, she is a lead coordinator of the Sexual Health Awareness Group (SHAG), where she participates in sexual peer education. Abdon Orrostieta is a two-year scholarship recipient and junior at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Fla. He volunteers with Latino Salud, a nonprofit community- and minority-based HIV agency that provides HIV rapid testing and linkage services making Ryan White support and other medical services accessible to HIV-positive individuals. He is also a member of the Health Awareness and Prevention Society, which promotes increased awareness and healthy living through education and prevention, and plans to incorporate what he has learned through his involvement with HAPS and Latino Salud into his future professional endeavors. Shira Smillie is a sophomore at the University of Richmond in Richmond, Va., where she is double-majoring in American Studies and Latin American Latino and Iberian Studies. Her concentration in American Studies focuses on the intersections of identity, poverty, power and privilege in the United States. Shira works at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Nursing on an HIV/STI prevention program for black youth with mental illness. Manuel Venegas is a two-year scholarship recipient and first-generation Mexican-American college student. Receiving this award will help him finish his undergraduate studies in Latin American & Caribbean Studies with an emphasis on Global Health. His background in public policy, community organizing and mobilization are just some key factors that come into play when he advocates for HIV & AIDS at the community, state and national levels. Manuel, who was also selected by Advocates for Youth to be a Youth Ambassador for NYHAAD, is a third-year student at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he serves on the City of Seattle LGBT Commission and hopes to strengthen his voice as a community advocate, and leverage his perspective as a person openly living with HIV. "UnitedHealthcare is grateful for the opportunity to continue providing funding and support for this important scholarship program, which is helping students pursue their education and active involvement in AIDS-related careers and community engagement," said Chanel DeLaney of UnitedHealthcare. "As a long-term supporter of the National AIDS Memorial Grove, Wells Fargo is impressed with the caliber of students offered scholarships through the Pedro Zamora Scholarship Program," said Mark Ng, Bay Area Regional Sales & Marketing Manager for Wells Fargo. "They will be excellent ambassadors to continue carrying the torch for Pedro." The Pedro Zamora Young Leaders Scholarship is open to current high-school seniors and college undergraduate students who have demonstrated an active commitment to fighting AIDS. Applications are accepted during the winter and spring of each year. Interested applicants are asked to write personal statements and an essay detailing their HIV/AIDS-related community service, and provide proof of current academic status. As part of their application, scholarship recipients must demonstrate an active commitment to HIV/AIDS-related community service. Scholarship recipients are eligible to apply for ongoing educational support connected to both their chosen field of study and related community work, helping support future leaders in the HIV/AIDS arena. Through a reapplication and qualification process, the National AIDS Memorial and its funding partners will have the opportunity to follow these individuals on their path to becoming leaders in the fight against AIDS. To learn more about the Pedro Zamora Young Leaders Scholarship and other National AIDS Memorial programs, visit www.aidsmemorial.org or call (415) 765-0497. About the National AIDS Memorial: The National AIDS Memorial received the honor of being designated the official national AIDS memorial in 1996, in large measure because of the leadership of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi who helped pass legislation that was signed into law by President Bill Clinton, elevating the Grove to join the company of the nation's other 43 federally designated memorials. The National AIDS Memorial is located in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park at the corner of Nancy Pelosi Drive and Bowling Green Drives. Contact: Kevin Herglotz HPA Strategic Communications 415-874-9650 Email SOURCE National AIDS Memorial Grove Related Links http://www.aidsmemorial.org HOUSTON, Jan. 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Superior Energy Services, Inc. announced today that its Board of Directors has declared a regular cash dividend of $0.08 per share payable on its outstanding common stock. The dividend will be paid on February 23, 2016 to all shareholders of record as of the close of business on February 1, 2016. About Superior Energy Services Superior Energy Services, Inc. (NYSE:SPN) serves the drilling, completion and production-related needs of oil and gas companies worldwide through its brand name drilling products and its integrated completion and well intervention services and tools, supported by an engineering staff who plan and design solutions for customers. For more information, visit: www.superiorenergy.com. The press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Generally, the words "expects," "anticipates," "targets," "goals," "projects," "intends," "plans," "believes," "seeks" and "estimates," variations of such words and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. All statements other than statements of historical fact regarding the Company's financial position, financial performance, liquidity, strategic alternatives, market outlook, future capital needs, capital allocation plans, business strategies and other plans and objectives of the Company's management for future operations and activities are forward-looking statements. These statements are based on certain assumptions and analyses made by the Company's management in light of its experience and prevailing circumstances on the date such statements are made. Such forward-looking statements, and the assumptions on which they are based, are inherently speculative and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from such statements. Such uncertainties include, but are not limited to: the cyclicality and volatility of the oil and gas industry, including changes in prevailing levels of exploration, production and development activity; changes in prevailing oil and gas prices or expectations about future prices; operating hazards, including the significant possibility of accidents resulting in personal injury or death, property damage or environmental damage for which the Company may have limited or no insurance coverage or indemnification rights; the effect of regulatory programs and environmental matters on the Company's operations or prospects, including the risk that future changes in the regulation of hydraulic fracturing could reduce or eliminate demand for the Company's pressure pumping services; risks associated with the uncertainty of macroeconomic and business conditions worldwide; changes in competitive and technological factors affecting the Company's operations; the potential shortage of skilled workers; risks inherent in acquiring businesses; risks associated with business growth outpacing the capabilities of the Company's infrastructure and workforce; political, economic and other risks and uncertainties associated with the Company's international operations; the Company's continued access to credit markets on favorable terms; the impact that unfavorable or unusual weather conditions could have on the Company's operations; and the risks inherent in long-term fixed-price contracts. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, the Company can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Investors are cautioned that many of the assumptions on which the Company's forward-looking statements are based are likely to change after such statements are made, including for example the market prices of oil and gas and regulations affecting oil and gas operations, which the Company cannot control or anticipate. Further, the Company may make changes to its business strategies and plans (including its capital spending and capital allocation plans) at any time and without notice, based on any changes in the above-listed factors, the Company's assumptions or otherwise, any of which could or will affect its results. For all these reasons, actual events and results may differ materially from those anticipated, estimated, projected or implied by the Company in the forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any of its forward-looking statements for any reason and, notwithstanding any changes in the assumptions, changes in the Company's business plans, our actual experience, or other changes. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Paul Vincent, VP Investor Relations, (713) 654-2200 SOURCE Superior Energy Services, Inc. Related Links http://www.superiorenergy.com Carles Puigdemont during the interview. The new Catalan regional premier, Carles Puigdemont, left puzzled looks on several faces after stating that we are standing between post-autonomy and pre-independence when he was voted in last Sunday. Four days later, the separatist leader sought to clear up the meaning of his words on regional television station TV-3, where he gave his first interview since taking up the post. Puigdemont said pro-independence forces would achieve a majority once Catalans get their own constitution Do we have enough strength to proclaim independence with the current parliamentary makeup? Not yet, said the man who was mayor of Girona until last week, when his name suddenly came up as a replacement for acting premier Artur Mas at the helm of the Catalan government. His last-minute nomination narrowly averted new elections in the region following more than three months of feuding between separatist forces over who should be the next premier. After addressing the issue that has been uppermost on many peoples minds in recent days, Puigdemont told the interviewer: We will not make a unilateral declaration of independence. It is not on the program. But he also warned that this does not mean that the Catalan executive is changing its plans to prepare Catalonia to proclaim secession 18 months from now, based on the separatist motion passed by the regional house in November. We have the strength and democratic legitimacy to begin this road and I wont accept this point being contested, he said. This legitimacy has been contested by unionist parties in Catalonia, which note that the pro-independence Junts pel Si coalition and Candidatura dUnitat Popular (CUP) did not attain a majority of votes at the September 27 election, even if the voting system granted them parliamentary superiority. Aware of this fact, the new premier said that pro-independence forces would achieve a majority once Catalans get their own constitution and drafting one is included in the 18-month road map. The goal is to get a majority of the people who would have voted no at a referendum [on self-rule] to vote yes to a constitution that they can relate to much more than the Spanish one, he said. Puigdemont does not foresee any options for reform within Spain that would preempt the need for independence, but says he is still open to dialogue with Madrid over any measure involving Catalonia. English version by Susana Urra. Romeva meets with outgoing Catalan foreign affairs secretary Roger Albinana. Albert Garcia For the first time, Catalonia will have its own foreign affairs commissioner after the new government decided to create a specific department. The office will be headed by Raul Romeva, who ran as the top candidate for the pro-independence Junts pel Si bloc in the September regional election, but immediately stepped aside to let Artur Mas attempt to get himself reinstated. The upgrade sends out the message that the Catalan government wants to multiply its efforts to attract international support for independence Until now, international relations were tasked to a secretary general, a title that falls below that of the new position. The upgrade sends out the message that the Catalan government wants to multiply its efforts to attract international support for its independence bid. Romeva said Catalonia was in a position to find partners in the world even though this mission has not proved especially fruitful in the past. Catalonia already has seven foreign delegations in New York, London, Brussels, Paris, Berlin, Rome and Vienna and plans are underway for a new office in Lisbon. Romevas efforts will be watched closely by the Spanish foreign minister. In 2015, Catalan diplomatic visits to the US, Ireland, Belgium, Sweden, Uruguay and Paraguay resulted in protests from the Spanish embassies there. English version by Susana Urra. The average rent in the UK reached an all-time high of 970 in August, up by 2.4% on the same time last year, according to the latest lettings index. When London is excluded, the average rent in the UK is 802, this up by 2% year on year while in the capital rents increased by 3.5% to 1,689, the data from the HomeLet rental index shows. All 12 of the regions monitored by HomeLet showed an increase in rental values between August 2018 and August 2019. In Scotland rents increased by 1.1% to 671, in Northern Ireland by 0.2% to 664 and in Wales they increased by 3.1% to 636. A breakdown of the regional figures shows that in the North West rents increased by 3.3% to 741, in the South West by 3.1% to 852, in the East Midlands by 2.5% to 655 and in the West Midlands by 1.7% to 720. In the East of England rents increased by 1.9% to 930, in Yorkshire and Humberside they increased by 1.6% to 655, in the North East by 1% to 531 and in the South East by 0.9% to 1,064. In times of uncertainty people tend to defer major purchases and it is still unclear how long the Brexit uncertainty will continue. This could be positive news for private landlords as more people choose to rent rather than risk entering the property market at the wrong point in the cycle, said Martin Totty, chief executive of HomeLet. Recently released annual results from a number of major quoted property agents point to a resilient private rented sector in contrast to a subdued sales market. With a still unclear outcome of the current political impasse and the increasing prospect of a further extended delay in the UK exiting the European Union, the contrasting fortunes of the two main segments of the housing market seem likely to continue for some time, he explained. As well as the long term trend underpinning the private rented sector, recent months have produced growth towards the upper end of the inflation range observed over the past few years. This is perhaps no surprise, at least not to most informed participants in the sector. Indeed, many had predicted this as the inevitable consequence of banning letting agents and landlords from charging up-front fees to tenants. Faced with higher expenses, higher taxation and greater regulation, savvy property owners were always likely to seek to recover these increased charges, he pointed out. Thanks to strong demand for rental stock, continued wage growth and a near all-time high level of employment, landlords hold some pricing power and seemingly are now beginning to exercise it. Property professionals pointed out at the time, the fees ban could result in tenants actually paying more, albeit in a different way and over a period of time. Perhaps after all that was an acceptable outcome for all sides. Intended or unintended, it does start to appear to be the consequence, he added. BNG Holdings Inc., a Fargo-based payments processing company recently launched a case study highlighting a specific business case which was solved through eliminating the outstanding accounts receivables for a small, yet growing, flooring business. In this case study, BNG Holdings Inc. showcases how they were able to help a Los Angeles-based flooring business tackle their most frustrating business issue, which was collecting payments. In this case study, BNG Holdings Inc., highlights how D&R Flooring benefited from reducing their outstanding accounts receivable by 60%, eliminated typical wait times for payments, and increased customer service by offering convenient payment options for their clients. About D & R Flooring: D & R Flooring is a Los Angeles-based flooring company that started in 2009. Owners Carlos and Azalea Rodriguez jumped at the opportunity of entrepreneurship when the housing/financial market crashed in 2008, and theyve since grown, now employing 11 full-time employees. About BNG Holdings Inc: BNG Holdings, Inc. is a directly registered credit card processing and business solutions company based in Fargo, North Dakota. To learn more and download this case study, visit http://www.bngholdingsinc.com/case-studies/ Program Manager and Information Services expert Mary Beth Weaver has been appointed as Cadence Groups Director of Services for Washington, D.C. Ms. Weaver possesses over 15 years of professional experience as a contractor to the Federal Government, providing records management, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) processing, library reference, and managerial support in various capacities (FOIA Analyst, Records Manager, Librarian, Hotline Information Specialist, Docket Supervisor, Records Facility Storage an Project Manager). I am profoundly honored to join Cadence Group and very much look forward to working with them to continue to deliver records and information solutions that are tailored to customer needs and requirements, offered Weaver. I have long admired the innovation and impact Cadence Group brings to the Library, Records and Information Management disciplines and am excited to help contribute to the companys continued success and leadership in these fields. In addition to her vast experience, Ms. Weaver also brings a degree in English from Meredith College, a Masters in Library Science from UNC Chapel Hill, and a variety of certifications including CRM (Certified Record Manager), PMP (Project Management Professional), and AIIM ERMp (Electronic Records Management Practitioner). I am excited to welcome Mary Beth to the team, says Cadence Group President Tina Teree Baker of the new hire. Mary Beth has has managed very large contract teams and brings practice leadership, a local's understanding of D.C., and experience with both large and small federal services companies to the Cadence Group team. Cadence Group enthusiastically welcomes Ms. Weaver to the team and looks forward to the federal experience and managerial prowess she will bring to the table. About Cadence Group Cadence Group, a certified woman owned small business, is a user-centric information management consulting firm with 25 years of experience in information management services. Headquartered in Atlanta, GA, with an office in Washington, D.C., Cadence Group provides services to corporate, non-profit, and government clients. By creating structured, compliant, and sustainable information management strategies for web and content management, records and information management, libraries, collaboration and knowledge management, and information technology, Cadence Group helps clients easily acquire, organize, and disseminate information. With the help of our Information Governance expertise, clients optimize information assets, maintain compliance, and acquire information experts through our consulting and placement services. http://www.cadence-group.com Cadence Group 1095 Zonolite Rd NE #105 Atlanta, GA 30306 Phone: (404) 874-0544 http://www.cadence-group.com D.A. Amberson, a mother, grandmother, devoted writer and author, has completed her new book Ronan Island: a gripping and potent story of crime, death, justice and truth. Published by New York City-based Page Publishing, D.A. Ambersons profound work will leave the reader on the edge of their seat! FBI Special Agent Boston Jones has mixed feelings about his transfer from Lubbock, Texas to San Francisco. A promotion, for sure. But he's leaving behind the comfort of a familiar job and colleagues - not to mention the rich sunshine and endless blue skies of West Texas. But before he can even unpack, Boston is sent to investigate the murder of a corrupt Fish and Wildlife Commissioner in a Northern California fishing village by a supervisor who's decided a murder investigation is beyond the abilities of the small-town sheriff. When Boston arrives he finds the sheriff is more than capable of helping him, but has a good reason not to. Fighting a viral illness, Boston struggles to make sense of multiple suspects, including the victim's widow, members of a seal saving group and the sheriff's seductive wife. Boston must unearth who is who in this isolated coastal town without losing his moral compass - and his life - in the process. Readers who wish to experience this thrilling work can purchase Ronan Island 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. Numerous processes have been completely transformed using PerfectForms, from the contract review process to recreation administration. With PerfectForms, The University of Tennessee (UT) Martin has announced they have saved eight million dollars since 2008, by automating inefficient, manual workflows. In doing so, UT Martina campus of 7,000 students in the northwest corner of the statehas set the standard throughout the University of Tennessee system, inspiring other campuses (including the flagship in Knoxville) to replace outmoded workflows with streamlined, automated ones using PerfectForms. Not only are the automated electronic workflows more efficient and easier to use, UT Martin saves $1.1 million per year in direct and indirect costs, having acquired 48 on-demand licenses from PerfectForms that support 1,200 forms and nearly 300 report types. A large percentage of the cost savings is realized through employee time saved, with everyone from department chairs to department supervisors to students having access to sleek, electronic processes that have replaced cumbersome, error-prone, paper-based processes. This is particularly significant for a public university. Were partially evaluated on how our personnel time is spent, notes Mike Abney, Effectiveness and Efficiency Facilitator at UT Martin. PerfectForms has liberated personnel from slow processes that involve handing papers back and forth and manually tracking down mistakes. Two processes that have particularly benefited from automation are the student ID creation process and the dual enrollment process, the latter involving local students attending both high school and classes at UT Martin. Student IDs used to be created with the help of six manned digital cameras, with students waiting in line for long periods both when photos were taken and when it was time to pick up IDs. Now, the entire process can be initiated online, as students upload their own photo and collect their ID when they arrive on campus. The dual enrollment process, which often was completed after a deadline that helped determine funding levels, is now consummated in a timely manner. Not only are students enrolled more quickly, but the school is able to maximize funding levels based on enrollment. Numerous processes have been completely transformed using PerfectForms, from the contract review process to recreation administration, Abney notes. Since 2001, organizations the world over have used PerfectForms to automate forms and workflows, adds PerfectForms CEO Paula Selvidge. We serve a diverse customer base with a simple, remarkably powerful Web-based development platform. About PerfectForms: With over 200,000 customers, PerfectForms provides cloud-hosted or on-premises solutions that allow easy creation of fully customized electronic forms and workflows with drag-and-drop simplicity and no programming required. Schools, healthcare providers, and insurance companies are just a few of the businesses that have simplified, streamlined, and automated forms and workflows quickly using PerfectForms. Users can expect increased productivity, efficiency gains, monetary savings, and a lighter environmental footprint when paper forms and manual processes are made electronic. Founded in 2001, PerfectForms began with a focus on forms, but quickly expanded to include more complex workflows and integration with legacy systems. For more information, follow PerfectForms on: Twitter: https://twitter.com/perfectforms Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PerfectForms LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/perfectforms Or contact: PerfectForms Sales 866-900-8588 sales(at)perfectforms(dot)com We anticipate that China will become our largest market within five years. We are excited about launching this joint venture in China with our partner Xintai Electric. Coherix, Inc., a global leader in three dimensional (3D) machine vision, today announced the formation of a joint venture in China with Dandong Xintai Electric Co., Ltd. The move will combine the two companies resources to further expand service in China and other Asian markets, and eventually create a regional manufacturing hub. We have worked in China for the past five years, assessing the size of the market for Coherix products, said Dwight Carlson, CEO and chairman of Coherix, Inc. We anticipate that China will become our largest market within five years. We are excited about launching this joint venture in China with our partner Xintai Electric. Xintai Electric is a new investor to Coherix. Based in Liaoning, the company specializes in the research, development, manufacture and sales of power equipment in China. Initially, the joint venture will focus on marketing the existing Coherix Robust 3D machine vision products to the automotive industry in China and throughout Asia. The product line will include Predator3D, Tru3D and ShaPix3D systems. Coherix and Xintai Electric intend to expand operations into the semiconductor, precision manufacturing and aerospace markets as well as other industries. In addition, the companies jointly plan to refine the 3D machine vision products to better suit the needs of local markets. The manufacturing industry is shifting to 3D machine vision technology for error proofing, which is more robust and reliable than the traditional 2D solutions, said Dr. Zhenhua Huang, General Manager of the joint venture. In China, 3D technology is still fairly new and less available, but theres a growing demand for advanced machine vision technology, and we are excited to bring it to market. Its an exceptional opportunity for both Coherix and Xintai Electric and will bring a great deal of benefits to manufacturers in Asia. Coherix and Xintai Electric signed an agreement to launch a China-based joint venture in September 2015, when Xintai Electric agreed to invest $12 million in Coherix. About Coherix, Inc. Coherix, Inc. develops and manufactures high speed, high definition 3D machine vision products used to help customers manage precision manufacturing processes. The company's products are designed for error-proofing in the automotive, semiconductor and electronics industries. Coherix is committed to producing the highest performing 3D machine vision products possible. Coherix customers and partners include global end users, system integrators and distributors. Headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the company has offices in the United States, China, Germany, Sweden, Singapore and Japan. For more information, please go to http://www.coherix.com. With over 20 years of collective experience, and a commitment of service, our approach to lead generation in the legal industry is proving to be a game-changer. Past News Releases RSS Attorney lead generation startup Empowered Legal, LLC based out of California has joined a select group of first year businesses by surpassing $1 million in revenue. Co-founders, Dave Aarons and Jhaura Wachsman, made the announcement of $1 million in sales precisely on the ten-month anniversary of their company's launch. Empowered Legal LLC's core product is Unbundled Attorney (https://www.unbundledattorney.com/), a unique attorney-client business model which allows their affiliated provider-attorneys to capture an expanding market of prospective clients who are not always able to afford a full menu of attorney services during legal emergencies. It's all about lead generation with a purpose, in the very competitive attorney services landscape. "With over 20 years of collective experience, and a commitment of service, our approach to lead generation in the legal industry is proving to be a game-changer" says Co-Founder & CEO Dave Aarons. Empowered Legal LLC's growth in lead generation and provider-attorney networks is on track to double in 2016. The company's affiliated provider-attorneys include Tera Lee, a Riverside, California lawyer who uses Unbundled Attorney lead generation services. Tera says, "I have a consistent stream of leads that allow me to grow my business, hire new staff, and affect my overall profit margin." Aarons and Wachsman connect those seeking attorney services to their network of provider-attorneys through their Unbundled Legal Help (https://www.unbundledlegalhelp.com/) service. Maurice, a single father of a young daughter in Owings Mills, MD., used Unbundled Legal Help to connect with a provider attorney, and he had this to say about his experience, "I will always be grateful to my provider attorney. Thanks to his dedication, determination and professionalism, I now have legal rights over my daughter's well-being." The team at Empowered Legal LLC along with their nationwide network of provider attorneys, are on track to make a significant improvement to the affordability and accessibility of legal services in North America. Empowered Legal LLC's early success has been forged in the family and immigration lead generation space. Their business plan for 2016 has the company expanding into additional areas of law, creating strategic joint venture and industry partnerships, and giving their provider attorneys access to innovative new technologies that will enable them to effectively and efficiently deliver service to each of the leads they receive. Aarons and Wachsman are establishing Empowered Legal, LLC as the "legal lead generation business model for the future." About Empowered Legal, LLC Empowered Legal, LLC offers qualified, exclusive leads delivered in real time to attorney-clients. Leads are pre-qualified for quality and cost competitiveness, and are exclusive (never sold to or shared with any other firm). Their web-based, mobile-ready software allows clients to manage leads from any device, anytime. Empowered Legal says, "Let us handle the marketing so you can focus on serving your clients." Altep, Inc., a pioneer in the fields of eDiscovery, data forensics, and litigation support today announced that William Wei has joined their Data Forensics & Investigations team as the Associate Director of Data Forensics. A retired Lieutenant from the Monmouth County Prosecutors Office in New Jersey, William commanded the data forensic lab and has led complex investigations involving multiple units and specialized task forces during his time in law enforcement. He holds a Masters from Rutgers in Adult and Continuing Education, and has achieved a variety of certifications including EnCE, CFCE and CPM. William has great experience, not only in data forensics, but in leading highly-qualified individuals, said Warren Kruse, Alteps Vice President of Data Forensics. We are excited to have him on our team, and look forward to utilizing his impressive skills in the course of the multi-faceted and sensitive work we perform for our clients. Williams career in law enforcement spans more than 25 years, during which he served as a liaison with Federal, State, and local agencies. His broad experience includes matters involving computer crimes, Intelligence, and Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC). He was the first person in the state of New Jersey to achieve both the CFCE and EnCE certifications, and is the co-author of EnCase Computer Forensics: The Official EnCase Certified Examiner (EnCE) Study Guide. The importance of Data Forensics has grown exponentially over the years, said Wei. In both the public and private sector, it is imperative to remain not only current, but to continue innovating new methods and procedures in this field. Altep has a history of leading the way in these areas and I am happy to be joining their team. About Altep Altep, Inc. is a Relativity Best in Service Orange Level hosting provider, with certified Experts, Administrators, Analytics Specialists, Reviewer Specialists, Assisted Review Specialists, Infrastructure Specialists, and Sales Professionals on staff. The firm assists Fortune 100 and AM Law 100 clients with digital forensics, discovery management, and compliance risk assessment. E-Discovery services include early data assessment, ESI and traditional paper processing, and secure hosting. Alteps data and process management experts hold a variety of certifications and credentials, including Project Management Professional, EnCase Certified Forensic Examiner, Certified Forensic Computer Examiner, Licensed Private Investigator, Certified Information Systems Security Professional, Certified Information Privacy Professional, SNIA Certified Storage Professional, and Content Analyst Advanced Analytics Certification. Find more information about Altep, Inc. at http://www.altep.com. Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. Gorka Lejarcegi They call it Plan B against austerity and for a democratic Europe, and describe it as a call to build a European convergence space against austerity and for the construction of a real democracy. This initiative is backed by hundreds of politicians, intellectuals and activists from Greeces ex-finance minister Yanis Varoufakis to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, British filmmaker Ken Loach and US linguist Noam Chomsky. In Spain, supporters include Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau, the deputy premier of the Valencia region, Monica Oltra, the Eurodeputy Miguel Urban and the leader of Podemos in Andalusia, Teresa Rodriguez. In July 2015, we witnessed a financial coup executed from the European Union and its institutions against the Greek government Plan B manifesto Organizers, which include social movements, want to hold a European conference in Madrid on February 19, 20 and 21 to discuss the future of Europe and set the groundwork for an international network of critical thinkers. The premise of the manifesto, which is scheduled for release on Friday, rests on the Greek debt crisis and the face-off between the Syriza government headed by Alexis Tsipras and the European Union a confrontation whose outcome led to Varoufakis resignation. In July 2015, we witnessed a financial coup executed from the European Union and its institutions against the Greek government, condemning the Greek population to keep suffering the austerity policies that it had already rejected twice through the ballot boxes, reads the manifesto. Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau. Andreu Dalmau (EFE) This coup has intensified the debate about the power of the EU institutions, their incompatibility with democracy and their role as guarantors of the basic rights demanded by Europeans, it adds. The Greek example, say the initiative promoters, proves that in order to deal with the current situation it is necessary to pool efforts from all member states and spheres: political, intellectual and civil society. The movement, however, will not organize into a party, but create a common space where people who oppose the current EU model can draft a common agenda of goals, projects and actions with the ultimate goal of breaking the EUs austerity regime and radically democratizing European institutions, putting them at the service of citizens. Barcelona mayor Colau, herself a former social activist who won the May 2015 election with a citizen platform, said that she has spoken with Varoufakis and that they want to exchange opinions. English version by Susana Urra. In order to ensure safe loading/unloading of Foshan dock containers, China Docks in association with Guangdong Youway Crane Co., Ltd has designed and launched a sturdy and efficient loading and unloading container bridge crane in the month of January in 2016. Talking about their latest container bridge crane, a spokesperson at China dock shared, The exiting workflow required both the GQ 40T cranes as well as JMQ 40t cranes to function together. But the containers used to crash at the time of being stacked, they caused damage to them and slowed down the entire process, which is why we resolved to create an efficient workflow system for the purpose of loading and unloading. It must be noted that the dock, which is situated in the inland river of South China, operates on a medium scale. Ships with a containing area of 275m2 and 25m long on an average basis carry 6-8 ties on three to four rows of containers. The fresh berth has been installed on a 30m shoreline and a bridge crane system with cantilever capable of working beyond river has been created to help workers better handle the containers. The bridge cranes spreaders have been designed to deliver maximum efficiency. The whole mechanism has been designed to offer better control through frequency control systems. The bridge moves at 82m per min; trolley moves at 40m per min, the hoist moves at 25m per min with empty container and at 17m per min when rated loading. The modern Port Machinery installed on the machine cancels any frequency jamming thus allowing the machine to work at higher efficiency. As a result, it is now working at A6 level. The crane comes with two-in-one set of hydraulically powered spreaders each at 20 and 40 feet specification. Additionally, switching between the two spreaders has been simplified and cameras have been mounted on the trolley, which enables the crane driver to better control the machine. The advanced electronic system of the machine makes it more reliable and effective. Due to its design and efficiency, the bridge crane is now capable of tackling more containers in comparison to other workflow systems. With loading speed at 25 containers per hour, the crane stacks more containers within a specified time frame. The Rainforest Alliance proudly announces that Nigel Sizer has been named as its new President, effective as of 1 February 2016. Sizer brings with him 25 years of international experience in natural resources management, most recently as Global Director of the Forests Program at the World Resources Institute. During his tenure at WRI he led a hundred-person team located in Africa, Asia and Latin America, launched pioneering partnerships including the Global Restoration Initiative and Global Forest Watch, transforming access to information about forests for everyone everywhere. Sizer has also served as Vice President for Asia-Pacific with Rare, where he developed grassroots efforts to link impoverished communities in Indonesia to global carbon markets, and pioneered community-based fisheries and marine protected areas efforts. In 2008, he served as lead advisor on climate change and energy issues in Asia to former US President Bill Clinton and the Clinton Global Initiative. He has also worked with UNEP in Nairobi and established The Nature Conservancys Asia-Pacific Forest Program. A globally recognised authority on forests and landscape management, Sizer holds Bachelors, Masters and Doctoral degrees in natural sciences and tropical forest ecology from the University of Cambridge, and has served on many boards and advisory groups, including the Tropical Forest Alliance 2020, UNEP, the Andean Centre for Sustainable Development, the Rainforest Foundation and the Coalition in Support of Amazonian Peoples and their Environment. With the recent Paris Agreement underlining the crucial role forests play in fighting climate change, the world is keenly aware that we must work together to ensure forests are conserved and carefully managed for the survival of people and our planet, said Daniel Katz, Rainforest Alliance founder and board chair. Nigel has seen first-hand the vital connection between sustainable land-use and forests. Now is the ideal time for a leader with his track record to lead the Rainforest Alliance at this critical point in our history, as we resolve to build on our mission to protect biodiversity and ensure sustainable livelihoods around the globe. Nigel has made extraordinary contributions at WRI, building Global Forest Watch into a worldwide partnership that empowers people, companies and governments everywhere with the information they need to better manage and conserve forest landscapes said World Resources Institute President and CEO, Dr. Andrew Steer. We are delighted that he will be assuming the leadership at the Rainforest Alliance, an exceptional organisation although we will miss him greatly! We look forward to a close partnership with the Rainforest Alliance and with Nigel in the years ahead. A dual national of the UK and USA, Sizer speaks five languages, including French, Indonesian, Portuguese and Spanish, and has also spent nearly 15 years living and working in Brazil, Kenya and Indonesia. His appointment was approved by the Rainforest Alliances Board of Directors after an extensive search. He will be based in the Rainforest Alliances office in New York City. It is a great honour to be asked to take the helm of the Rainforest Alliance, said Sizer. Hundreds of companies have listened to customers and are embracing commitments to deforestation-free and responsible coffee, cocoa, rubber, palm oil, soy, beef and paper. Millions of small farmers and communities could be big winners from these commitments or be excluded and impoverished. The Rainforest Alliance sits squarely at the intersection of these challenges. Inspired by a vision of responsible consumption and land management, I have no doubt that with more creative partnership, innovation and technology, we can build on the organisations impressive track record to further green forestry and farming and lift millions out of poverty. # # # The Rainforest Alliance is a global nonprofit that works with people whose livelihoods depend on the land, helping them transform the way they grow food, harvest wood and host travellers. From large multinational corporations to small, community-based cooperatives, businesses and citizens worldwide are involved in the Rainforest Alliances efforts to bring responsibly produced goods and services to a global marketplace where the demand for sustainability is growing steadily. For more information, visit http://www.rainforest-alliance.org. Media Contacts: UK: Christina Cullen, Media Consultant - +44 7985 440 238 / ccullen.consultant(at)ra(dot)org US: Donita Dooley, Sr. Manager Global Media Strategy/Communications - +1 (646) 863 8693 / ddooley(at)ra(dot)org Phil "Right Click" Valentine on Mount Katahdin I believe people in recovery from alcohol and other addiction go on and do extraordinary things. I am just one example. Phil Valentine, 55 yeas old, in recovery from alcohol and cocaine addiction since 1987 and a CCAR employee for the last 17 years was known as "Right Click" on the Appalachian Trail because of his clicking right knee. Valentine started his trek exactly 5 years from the day he received a stage 4 cancer diagnosis. While recovering from an aggressive and successful chemotherapy and radiation treatment regimen, Valentine sensed a call to hike the Appalachian Trail, a feat that ultimately would take 189 days to achieve. Two years prior to his start, the CCAR Board of Directors had the unusual yet inspired foresight to fully support the walk. Valentine has earned an international reputation as a leader in the new recovery advocacy movement. A plan was launched for Valentine to use this adventure to put a face on recovery, one of the movements central themes. He raised funds for the organization, generating more than $20,000. Valentine framed it this way, I believe people in recovery from alcohol and other addiction go on and do extraordinary things. I am just one example. His progress up the east coast was well tracked through Facebook, twitter and Instagram and on a dedicated website http://www.AT4Recovery.org. When he reached Connecticut in July, his story was featured on Fox 61, WFSB TV3 and in the Hartford Courant. Vermont Public Radio also ran the story. By Valentines account, the trail itself was extremely difficult. He drew on his recovery experience to accept the trail as it came and in the most trying circumstances, advanced just one step at a time. Valentine endured snow, sleet, rain, lightning, wind and high summer heat. He saw his share of wildlife and sighted 15 different bears and 4 moose; theres a photo on Instagram of Valentine, a mother bear and 2 cubs with a caption of The elusive 3-bear selfie! I heard Valentine speak at a recent event. A gifted public speaker, Valentine artfully recalled many adventures. From miraculous healing to treacherous traverses, he endured the physical toll on his body that included weight loss of 56 pounds, aching muscles, throbbing joints, rashes, blisters, sprains and scrapes. He highlighted the talk with marvelous photographs that emphasized the sheer beauty of the Appalachian Trail. Valentine had the support of his family. His wife Sandy provided trail magic along the way. His 18-year-old daughter Samantha hiked 280 miles in Virginia with him and earned the trail name Tough Love. Matthew Riptide Valentine (age 13) did more than 100 miles with him in Vermont. Valentine also talked about the emotional and mental stress of living on the trail for 6 months. Near the end, my soul was constantly at war with two competing desires the desire to finish and the desire to go home. Standing on Wildcat Mountain in New Hampshire with only 300 miles left, I wanted to quit. In fact, in my head, I did quit. I called Sandy to come pick me up. But he did not. Through what Valentine described as divine intervention, he found the courage and the will to continue. The hike culminated on September 23rd, 2015 on a brilliant, perfect, sunny day when he climbed Mount Katahdin in Maine. For Right Click, the emotional conclusion was not on the summit but when he collapsed into Sandys arms waiting at the base. I didnt feel an overwhelming sense of achievement or accomplishment. All I felt was relief; I finally got to go home, Valentine said from the comfort of his home. When asked how he did it, Valentine mused, Im not sure. Three months later, I still have a hard time believing I did it. First, credit has to go to God. Second, I never would have made it without my crew, people I grew to love. Third, I believe recovery makes all things possible. Valentine is currently working on a book about his adventure. In the meantime he speaks about the journey whenever he can. B2B Cloud Solutions, an IT Network Support and Cloud Integrator for businesses worldwide, today announced it has been named a Top 100 Champion in the 2015 Small Business Influencer Awards in the category of Experts. The Small Business Influencer Awards honor those who are influential to small businesses in North America through the products, services, knowledge, information or support they provide to the small business market. "Its such an honor to be named to the top 100 and be among such big names as American Express OPEN Forum, Cisco Small Business, Entrepreneur, said German Lopez, Partner of B2B Cloud Solutions. B2B focuses on providing a comprehensive suite of managed technology solutions that make the most of your existing investments. We realize that technology changes daily and it is our goal to assist all small businesses to maximize its advantages and assist them to be successful. The awards are designed to recognize the unsung heroes of small businesses those who support and encourage entrepreneurs and small business owners, and help them achieve success and stay successful. The champions are chosen based on a combination of voting by the small business community and a panel of judges who considered the contributions of the nominees over the past year toward: Advocating on behalf of small businesses; Providing products or services that address the unique challenges faced by small businesses; Revolutionizing how small businesses do business or how they solve business challenges; Helping small businesses grow; Impacting small businesses in a significant way. Says Anita Campbell, CEO of Small Business Trends and one of the co-founders of the Awards along with Ramon Ray of SmallBizTechnology.com, "Influencers are those who play crucial roles in the small business ecosystem, but who often are in the background. Many of the nominees are themselves small business owners, entrepreneurs or small businesses. The impact of the Awards goes well beyond nominees, however the awards also encourage and excite the nominees employees. The Awards are intended to provide that added little boost in motivation and morale that can make a big difference in results. Being nominated also distinguishes the nominee from competitors, and in that sense can lead to competitive advantage." For the complete list of Top 100 Champions and honorable mentions, visit http://influencers.smallbiztrends.com/news/2015-top-champions-and-honorable-mentions/ About B2B Cloud Solutions B2B was formed with the small business in mind. Clients rely on us to design, implement and manage all of their computer network services and provide proven solutions with dedication, professionalism and responsiveness. We also exist to assist small businesses in the migration to a Cloud environment and have been successfully migrating clients to the Cloud since 2008, saving them thousands of dollars in equipment and onsite support. For more information, visit http://www.b2bcloudsolutions.com About the Small Business Influencer Awards The Small Business Influencer Awards, now in their fifth year, enable the small business community to nominate and show their support for those that influence and support them. The Awards have an open nomination period, with community voting, and then a judging period by a group of industry-knowledgeable judges. The Small Business Influencer Awards initiative is produced by Small Business Trends, an award-winning online publication, serving over 7,500,000 small business owners, stakeholders and entrepreneurs annually, and SmallBizTechnology.com, a media company that produces online content and live events educating small and mid-sized companies on how to strategically use technology as a tool to grow their businesses. The Awards can be found on the Web at: SMBInfluencers.com. 13 July 2016 http://www.worldsmartcity.org/ #worldsmartcity2016 A specialized online community and one-day event for city planners, architects, consultants, utilities, transport planners, safety/security/data specialists, standardization specialists While we often hear about smart, sustainable cities, adding smartness to an existing urban environment or developing a Smart City from scratch is a mammoth undertaking. To help city stakeholders worldwide make their cities smarter, the first World Smart City online community will launch on 18 January. This new community aims to identify top pain points that are holding city development back. Given that by 2050, an estimated 66% of the worlds population will live in urban areas, supplying these populations with basic resources like safe food, clean water and sufficient energy, while ensuring overall economic, social and environmental sustainability, will be a major challenge. Cities need to substantially increase the efficiency in which they operate and use their resources. Major efficiency improvements could be achieved by horizontally interconnecting individual systems such as energy, water, sanitation and waste management, transportation, security, environmental monitoring or weather intelligence. However, many of the systems used today in cities originate from different suppliers and they are maintained by various agencies, sometimes working in isolation. To connect them both physically and virtually, standardized interfaces need to be put in place. The community launch is part of the lead up to the first World Smart City Forum, which is organized by the IEC, in partnership with ISO and ITU. The Forum will be held in Singapore on 13 July 2016, co-located with the World Cities Summit http://www.worldcitiessummit.com.sg/ and Singapore International Water Week http://www.siww.com.sg. Says Frans Vreeswijk, IEC General Secretary and CEO: Cities are giant systems with countless subsystems. All of them depend on electricity and hardware to move people and things, collect data and exchange information. Already now, IEC work impacts all of them. More than ever before, many different organizations will need to collaborate to help make cities smarter; technology integration is a special challenge that requires partnerships and alliances. Thats what the online community and Forum is trying to achieve. Says Kevin McKinley, Acting ISO Secretary-General, Smart cities make sense: they waste less, offer better quality of life and ensure a brighter future for the next generation. But cities face many challenges in their quest to improve. ISO Standards help cities measure and improve their performance, for example with standards for city indicators, sustainable communities and city infrastructures. These Standards provide best practices and harmonized solutions that can be used everywhere, and allow city planners and decision-makers to benefit from global expertise. Says Chaesub Lee, Director of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau: The information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure of a Smart City should ensure openness and interoperability, achieved by coordinated adherence to common standards. Smart cities will employ an abundance of technologies in the family of the Internet of Things (IoT) and standards will assist the harmonized implementation of IoT data and applications, contributing to effective horizontal integration of a citys subsystems. ITU collaboration with city leaders builds on cities requirements to develop standards that leverage IoT technologies to address urban-development challenges. About the World Smart City community http://www.worldsmartcity.org This online community will gather relevant city stakeholders globally and engage them in value-add discussions and high-level networking. This will help to crystalize some pain points of Smart City development in areas such as mobility, water, energy, cybersecurity and privacy. The community discussions aim to both break down barriers and encourage communication to support faster Smart City development activities, as well as shape the final programme of the World Smart City Forum in Singapore. In addition to high-level VIPs, the community aims to attract professionals such as city planners, architects, consultants, utilities, transport planners, safety/security/data specialists, standardization specialists, and industry (solution providers). Register here. About the World Smart City Forum, 13 July 2016, Singapore Everybody wants to build Smart Cities but what is needed to make them come true? Which city pain points are hindering Smart City development and how can they be best overcome? The Forum will explore how this can be accomplished and point to some of the tools that are already available to help cities reach their objective faster, more efficiently and with better outcomes. The Forum is free of charge for all people who register on the http://www.worldsmartcity.org website, members and invitees of IEC, ISO and ITU, as well as registered participants of the World Cities Summit and World Water Week. IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission), ISO (International Organization for Standardization) and ITU (International Telecommunication Union) are the three global standards bodies. Further Information Gabriela Ehrlich IEC Mob: +41 79 600 56 72 Skype: gabriela.ehrlich Email: geh(at)iec(dot)ch Larry Feipel joins Taylor Reach Mr. Colin Taylor, The CEO and Chief Chaos Officer of The Taylor Reach Group, Inc. today announced that Larry Feipel has joined the customer experience and contact center consulting firm effective immediately. Larry brings over 20 years customer service, contact center experience to the Taylor Reach Group, with the past 12 years spent consulting with companies in United States, Canada, Latin America, and Western Europe. Larrys vertical experience includes: telecommunications, manufacturing, retail, insurance, credit card, medical precertification, public utilities, e-commerce, and outsourcing. Prior to embarking on his consulting career, Larry held positions as a Process Control Engineer for the Cadillac Assembly Division of General Motors, Senior Manager of Operations for Walt Disney World Central Reservations Office, and was Senior Vice President of Operations for Ross Roy Communications. A hands-on executive, Larry has deep experience in expertise include Contact Center Optimization, Technical Guidance and Advisory services, Operational Management, Project and Vendor Management, Workforce Management, Customer and Employee Satisfaction, Reporting, Business Process Redesign, Training and Communications. We are excited to have Larry as a part of Taylor Reach, his experience and competencies add further depth to the Taylor Reach team and his Orlando location will help us service our clients in the southeast more effectively, said Taylor, Larry is a leader in the contact center industry with a proven track record for implementing contact center restructuring, relocation and builds, both domestically and off-shore. Larry is a significant, positive addition to the Taylor Reach team I am confident in our team, our methodology and our capabilities. Larry adds more depth and breadth to Taylor Reach, says Taylor, Since 2003 we have helped hundreds of clients achieve their customer experience and contact center objectives, Larry will help us keep this growth continuing for years to come. Taylor Reach has recently signed new agreements with clients in the eCommerce, financial services, not-for-profit, utility, and, publishing sectors, Taylor said. About The Taylor Reach Group, Inc. With four offices in North America, Europe, Australia and China, The Taylor Reach Group, Inc. (Taylor Reach) a is leading Call/Contact Center, Customer Experience and Customer Service consulting firm. This award winning company founded in 2003 by Colin Taylor today boasts a stable of Fortune 1000 companies. The consulting staff at Taylor Reach each possess more than 20 years of hands-on Call/Contact Center, Customer Experience, Customer Service and Customer Satisfaction experience in delivering effective and significant benefits from Operational Innovation. The Taylor Reach Group, Inc. Leaders in Call Center and Customer Experience consulting Its All We Do For more information about The Taylor Reach Group, Inc. visit http://thetaylorreachgroup.com or phone Colin Taylor at 1 877-979-8692 ext 102 Theres a huge market opportunity waiting for a company that is interested in owning a complete solution, 3200 km wireless Wi Fi supporting tens of thousands of devices using the HaLow standard. Greg Waite, CEO of InventionShare, announced today that 5by5 Wireless has created a Wi-Fi HaLow partnership program to support future IoT product developments through large area wireless coverage for a variety of Internet of Things applications. Speaking from InventionShares Ottawa office, Mr. Waite said that the Wi-Fi industry has ambitions to make Wi-Fi the dominant wireless technology for the Internet of Things (IoT). The Wi-Fi Alliance recently announced a new wireless standard that extends Wi-Fis reach down into the 900 MHz band which will keep the 802.11 family at the center of the developing IoT. It calls this HaLow. Mr. Waite said that 5by5 Wireless and its large area hot spots make perfect sense for supporting HaLow applications. He supports the theory that Wi-Fi is, for a number of reasons, still the most attractive option for the emerging IoT market. It is more IP-friendly than any of the alternative wireless technologies, it supports higher rates, and the chip industry backs it with high volumes and low prices. If new versions of Wi-Fi for IoT maintain commonality with current MAC and PHY designs and familiar interfaces it will allow easy integration into devices - and that should be attractive to all IoT developers. A 5by5 Wireless installation provides significant value to HaLow and IoT partners; it provides five times' greater wireless internet coverage and economical wireless internet connectivity, and it uses the UHF 300-1000 MHz frequency spectrum. Developed by a team of experienced technology entrepreneurs with many years experience in wireless communications, the full duplex wireless communications system is a 100% hardware solution. It affords greater data throughput and wireless coverage up to 25 miles (32 km) - for a total circular coverage area of 1,250 square miles or 3,200 square kilometers from one low cost base station. The 5by5 Wireless circuit also can provide full duplex over all spectrum to all wireless communications devices; it is platform agnostic, providing reliable communications support wherever and whenever it is required. InventionShare also represents the Circuit Seed analog in digital invention family which will allow chip manufacturers to reduce the size, increase the power and reduce heat in applications for small circuits that can be embedded within IoT devices. Circuit Seed will also extend RF communications and quality, within a smaller size and with lower power requirements. Mr. Waite said that 5by5 Wireless is a perfect complement to those manufacturers looking to support the use of their devices throughout the home and through smart city/rural applications. A 5by5 Wireless installation can also guarantee wireless support for those devices through the creation of large area hot-spots where all devices and circuits can communicate over large distances. Mr. Waite said, Theres a huge market opportunity waiting for a company that is interested in owning a complete solution, 3200 km wireless Wi Fi supporting tens of thousands of devices using the HaLow standard. We are basically saying hello to HaLow, and that we have a solution that will support the Wi-Fi Association's new future IoT standard. Mr. Waite stated that he is looking for product companies and manufacturing partners to consider partnering with 5by5 Wireless to provide large area hot spot connectivity for the IoT from base station to HaLow and IoT devices in the smart rural, smart city, smart home and precision agriculture applications marketplace. About InventionShare InventionShare provides inventors with funding, talent, expert processes to accelerate innovation, patent creation and monetization. Respecting that each of our inventors is the architect and the mastermind behind the invention, we work with our inventors in a professional manner as partners helping them take their inventions to market by partnering with leading corporations. About 5by5 Wireless 5by5 Wireless is a patent pending family of inventions that provides a unique solution in delivering internet services to the entire world. Technically it provides full duplex over wireless and high signal strength with very low noise. It is a low cost hardware solution that delivers on the promise of extended range wireless on UHF and on all spectrums and it delivers full duplex to rural, remote, metro, office, smart city, industrial and home applications. For more information, or to get information on partnering with InventionShare and 5by5 Wireless, contact Kensel Tracy, VP Invention Catalyst at InventionShare at ktracy(at)inventionshare.com or 613-225-7236 Ext 116 The LightABLE 40G SR4 is a 4-lane full duplex transceiver operating at 10 Gbps per lane offering the following features: small SWaP, operation under industrial temperature range (-40C to 85C), storage temperature from -57C to 125C, and operation with a bit error rate (BER) as low as 10-15. The optical fiber interface is a standard MT ferrule directly attached to the module for compatibility with standard die mounting processes. The LightABLE products can be surface mounted or plugged in close proximity to high-speed electronics and support high temperature reflow process; a unique feature for such products. Mr. Jocelyn Lauzon, Product Line Manager at Reflex Photonics adds: This milestone demonstrates Reflexs unique expertise in the development and fabrication of embedded parallel optics transceivers with the required level of ruggedness to be deployed in the field for multiple Defense & Aerospace applications. The LightABLE product family has been designed by taking into consideration all the requirements of the industry for practical, surface mountable, highly efficient, high-speed electro-optic components. It is quite an accomplishment to demonstrate such a high level of ruggedness from a product compatible with volume production processes. Reflex Photonics will complete the qualification of its other LightABLE products, including the 12 channels, 10 Gbps per channel SR12 transmitters and receivers by Q1 2016. About Reflex Photonics Founded in 2002, Reflex Photonics is an advanced developer of high-speed, parallel embedded optics and MSA modules for Aerospace, Defense and Data Center. The company addresses the growing demand for high-speed interconnects for high performance embedded computers, enabling equipment developers to design smaller, lower cost and low powered systems resulting in higher fidelity and faster connectivity. For more information on Reflex Photonics and its technology, please visit http://www.reflexphotonics.com or email sales@reflexphotonics.com. InterBOARD, LightABLE, Light on Board, ReflexPhotonics and the Reflex Photonics logo are trademarks of Reflex Photonics Inc. Dr. Kent Millard Mr. James Tharp, chair of the Board of Trustees at United Theological Seminary (United) in Dayton, Ohio, announced today that Dr. Kent Millard, former senior pastor at St. Lukes United Methodist Church in Indianapolis, has been chosen as Uniteds interim president. Dr. Millard received a bachelors degree from Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, SD, a Master of Divinity degree from Boston University School of Theology and his Doctor of Ministry degree from McCormack Theological Seminary in Chicago. He has authored books on church renewal (The Passion Driven Congregation), leadership (Lead Like Butler) and stewardship (The Gratitude Path). He has also been chosen as Evangelist of the Year by the Foundation on Evangelism and served as a delegate for General and Jurisdictional Conferences of The United Methodist Church. Dr. Millard has taught courses on leadership and stewardship as an adjunct faculty member for Garrett Evangelical Seminary in Evanston, IL, and is a retired elder in the Indiana Conference of The United Methodist Church. Dr. Millard follows Dr. Wendy Deichmann, who has served as Uniteds president for the past eight years. Under Dr. Deichmanns leadership, the seminary was named by the Association of Theological Schools as one of the 12 fastest-growing seminaries in the United States. United has a current enrollment of 444 full- and part-time students and is among the most diverse theological schools in the United States in its racial, ethnic, gender, denominational and theological make-up. United has been a leader in online theological education, and hundreds of students throughout the nation are receiving theological education experiences from the diverse faculty in Dayton, Ohio. After taking a sabbatical leave, Dr. Deichmann plans to return to the classroom at United as Professor of History and Theology. United Theological Seminary is a graduate professional school of The United Methodist Church offering masters and doctoral theological degrees and continuing education with programs offered on campus and online. United's goal is to educate dynamic, Spirit-led leaders who will renew the church for the mission of Jesus Christ in the world. Legal professionals face increasing challenges in the areas of compliance, eDiscovery, confidentiality and software integration while they seek remote access to files anywhere and anytime. eMazzanti Technologies, a New York City area legal IT consultant and data security expert, announced today that it will be attending and exhibiting at Legaltech New York, February 2-4, 2016, at the New York Hilton Midtown. eMazzantis Legal IT experts, together with representatives of WatchGuard Technologies, can be found in booth #225 located in Rhinelander, level one. WatchGuard Technologies is a network security industry leader and technology partner to eMazzantis legal profession customers in the Northeast. Legal professionals face increasing challenges in the areas of compliance, eDiscovery, confidentiality and software integration while they seek remote access to files anywhere and anytime, stated Carl Mazzanti, CEO, eMazzanti Technologies. Our attendance at the Legaltech event demonstrates eMazzantis commitment to solving those issues, improving collaboration and increasing customers revenues while reducing costs. Legaltech exhibit floor hours will be 10:00 am 5:00 pm, February 2-3, and 10:00 am 3:00 pm, February 4. The New York Hilton Midtown is located at 1335 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York. Office 365 and Managed IT for Law Firms As Office 365 experts in the legal industry, eMazzanti Technologies has proven success in providing Office 365 and cloud solutions to ensure confidentiality, security and compliance while sharing sensitive information with colleagues, teams and clients at a moments notice. Attendees at the 2016 New York Legaltech can learn about Office 365 configuration, monitoring and management services from eMazzanti, as well as governance for multiple devices, both onsite and at remote locations. The companys Legal Managed It experts ensure secure, instant access to data 24/7, data encryption for eDiscovery and client protection and automated business continuity processes, as well as providing secure system integration for time management, billing, litigation and document management software. With eMazzantis eCare IT Network Management Services, firms enjoy comprehensive IT security, support, implementation and maintenance for one flat fee per asset per month. Improving Practice Management Participation at the Legaltech event strengthens eMazzantis position among leading legal technology vendors. The meetings and exhibits offer a unique venue where law firms and legal departments go to get hands-on practical information for improving their law practice management. Legaltech events provide close-up opportunities for legal professionals to evaluate new and updated technologies to enhance their practice. Over 100 exhibitors showcasing products and services designed to meet evolving legal technology needs draw professionals from a wide area. Legaltech attendees can learn about the newest advances in technology to help meet law firm or legal departments needs as well as participate in networking opportunities with industry leaders. Legaltech is part of ALM Conferences and Trade Shows, a leading producer of educational and networking events for business leaders and professionals. Related resource information: Loyalty, the Law and the Cloud What does it mean to have the best legal technology available? About eMazzanti Technologies eMazzantis team of trained, certified IT experts rapidly deliver security, cloud and mobile solutions, multi-site implementations, 247 outsourced network management, remote monitoring and support to increase productivity, data security and revenue growth for clients ranging from professional services firms to high-end global retailers. eMazzanti has made the Inc. 5000 list six years running, is a 2015, 2013 and 2012 Microsoft Partner of the Year, and a 5X WatchGuard Partner of the Year. Contact: info(at)emazzanti(dot)net or emazzanti.net Twitter: @emazzanti Facebook: Facebook.com/emazzantitechnologies. Guatemala's new President Jimmy Morales, with his wife Gilda Marroquin. JOHAN ORDONEZ (AFP) Promising more honesty in government and asking his constituents to work with him in the fight against corruption, Jimmy Morales Cabrera was sworn in Thursday as Guatemalas new president following a serious political crisis last year that resulted in the countrys last leader going to jail. Morales, a former television comedian, was swept into office after a major corruption scandal involving payoffs at customs houses across the country led to the downfall last September of his predecessor, Otto Perez Molina, and former Vice President Roxana Baldetti, who are both in custody awaiting trial. Morales takes over a country emerging from a major political crisis, which saw the downfall of a president Facing severe shortages in hospital supplies and medicines, thousands of Guatemalans took to the streets when they learned about the customs fraud case, known as La Linea (the line), early last summer. The new president has pledged to reduce his countrys malnutrition rate by 10% and expand public healthcare for Guatemalans, including the construction of more hospitals. Without contributions from society as a whole, Guatemala cannot move forward, Morales said during his inaugural speech. But the 46-year-old newcomer to politics will have to deal with another political crisis that is just starting to simmer. Last week Guatemalan authorities arrested 18 former military leaders on human rights crimes allegedly committed during the countrys 36-year civil war. One of the officials facing charges is Colonel Edgar Justino Ovalle, a co-founder of Morales FCN-Nacion party. Ovalle wasnt arrested because as a deputy-elect he enjoys immunity. Nevertheless, prosecutors are seeking to strip him of his parliamentary privilege. The arrests of the military officials are a direct message to the president-elect, especially the charges filed against Colonel Ovalle, who was a key figure in the party that has now come to power, said Raquel Zelaya, president of the Association of Research and Social Studies (Asies). US Vice President Joe Biden, who attended the inauguration, met privately with Morales to discuss the recent influx of illegal migrants from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras who have arrived in the United States in recent months. Pressured by Democrats on Capitol Hill, the Obama administration has announced a new plan to make it easier for migrants who would face danger if deported to apply for amnesty. It wasnt immediately clear if Biden also expressed Washingtons growing concerns about the rampant political corruption in Central America. It seems right to me if Washington is raising its voice. The warning is clear, even though it may have been given to late. The new president must be aware of the type of people he should associate with, said independent analyst Hector Rosada. English version by Martin Delfin. Impact Pediatric Health, the SXSW Interactive pediatric healthcare innovation pitch competition, today announced that applications are now open for interested startups to submit their information. From all applications, 10 finalists will be selected to pitch their business at SXSW Interactive, Monday, March 14, 2016. Applications will be accepted until Friday, February 5, 2016. For more information or to apply to present, go to http://impactpediatrichealth.com/ Boston Childrens Hospital, Cincinnati Childrens, Texas Children's Hospital, and The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia came together to create Impact Pediatric Health, a one-of-a-kind pitch competition to help showcase, and support, the best pediatric healthcare innovations. These four childrens hospitals lead the U.S. News and World Report Best Childrens Hospitals rankings. SXSW Interactive is working with the founding hospitals on this event which is part of Startup Village, http://www.sxsw.com/interactive/startup-village, at the Hilton Downtown Austin. In its first year, 2015, Mark Cuban emceed and was one of the judges that selected CareAline as the best of 10 finalists. This years emcee and judges have not yet been announced. CareAline, a company offering innovative PICC and Central Line management sleeves and wraps which keep lines covered and off of the skin, reducing the risk of dislodgment and infection, went home with a great set of prizes, and invaluable visibility for its business including coverage in CNN, Forbes, MedCity News and Xconomy, among others. Another finalist, Owlet, raised $7M in new funding following the event. We are so excited to host Impact Pediatric Health officially as part of SXSW Interactive, said Hugh Forrest, Director of SXSW Interactive. It speaks volumes that these four hospitals are collaborating to support, encourage, and foster innovation for pediatric solutions in a rare alignment. How amazing to see the best pediatric health care and research institutions in the world helping next generation companies accelerate their businesses. Initiatives like this will help ensure our smallest patients always get the very best care. Companies interested in being selected as one of the ten 2016 finalists may submit an application on http://impactpediatrichealth.com/ anytime from now through February 5, 2016. Startups both digital health and medical device focused on the pediatric market are encouraged to apply. Ideal candidates for the Impact Pediatric Health pitch competition are companies focused in the areas of: Health and Wellness, specifically patient safety, population health and management, prematurity, remote care, or hospital to home transitions Precision Medicine, specifically genomics, Med Tech, specifically robotics or minimally invasive surgery, 3D printing or artificial intelligence. Impact Pediatric Health showcases technologies that will deliver solutions specifically created for young patients. Startup CEOs have three minutes to pitch how their company is solving unique healthcare needs of children, from babies to teens. The Monday, March 14 stage presentation is followed by questions from the emcee and judges. A winner among the 10 finalists will be announced at the end of the event and receive a set of prizes. All participating companies will have the opportunity to meet one-on-one with the presenting pediatric hospitals. You must have a SXSW Interactive, Gold or Platinum badge to attend this March 14 event. For more information or to apply to present, go to http://impactpediatrichealth.com/ About Impact Pediatric Health: Now in its second year, Impact Pediatric Health is a one-of-a-kind pitch competition held annually at SXSW Interactive dedicated to showcasing and supporting the best pediatric healthcare innovations. Four of the largest and top ranked (according to US News and World Report) childrens hospitals in the U.S. came together to create Impact Pediatric Health. Boston Childrens Hospital, Cincinnati Childrens Hospital, Texas Children's Hospital, and The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia collaborate to help next generation pediatric healthcare companies, especially those focused on digital health and medical devices, accelerate their businesses. For more information see http://impactpediatrichealth.com/ About SXSW Interactive The 23rd annual SXSW Interactive Festival returns to Austin from Friday, March 11 through Tuesday, March 15. An incubator of cutting-edge technologies and digital creativity, the 2016 event features five days of compelling presentations and panels from the brightest minds in emerging technology, scores of exciting networking events hosted by industry leaders and an unbeatable lineup of special programs showcasing the best new websites, video games and startup ideas the community has to offer. From hands-on training to big-picture analysis of the future, SXSW Interactive has become the place to discover the technology of tomorrow today. Join us in March 2016 for the sessions, the networking, the special events, the 18th Annual SXSW Interactive Innovation Awards, SXSW Accelerator, the SXSW Gaming Expo, the SXSW Trade Show, the SX Health & MedTech Expo, SX Create, The Job Market, cross-industry conversations with attendees from SXSW Film and SXSW Music, and, most of all, the unforgettable inspirational experiences that only SXSW can deliver. SXSW Interactive 2016 is sponsored by Esurance, Mazda, Monster Energy, Capital One, Bud Light, Deloitte Digital, McDonalds, Ten-X and The Austin Chronicle. First Team Real Estate is California's largest independent brokerage Orange Countys market growth has been healthy for all segments in 2015 and we look forward to progress being made across the board with a balanced market between buyers and sellers, stated Terry LeClair, Sr VP, Sales, First Team Real Estate As the Orange County market for executive and luxury homes continues its consistent growth year over year, the Orange County Register turned to First Team Real Estate Christies International Agent Dean Lueck to provide practical insight to their January 3, 2016 review of emerging market trends in 2016. Deans practical experience and professionalism made him a great resource for the year-end report, says Terry LeClair, Senior Vice President, Sales, First Team Real Estate Christies International. His insight that the mid to upper level luxury markets will continue to power overall market growth in Orange County identifies that this market is extremely strong with substantial opportunity to find values and experience growth. In the in-depth report by the Orange County Registers nationally honored real estate reporter, Jeff Collins, Dean Lueck discussed that one of the hottest segments of the residential real estate market will be homes that are priced from above market median to approximately $1 million. Often this segment of the market is seen as key to power the above $1 million luxury market. Orange Countys market growth has been healthy for all segments in 2015 and we look forward to progress being made across the board with a balanced market between buyers and sellers, explains Terry LeClair. With particular strength in the mid-market luxury segment, we expect the growth in the number of luxury estate buyers to continue locally and from around the globe. For more information on the Orange County Register feature on 2016 market trends from Sunday, January 3, 2016 http://www.ocregister.com/articles/percent-698172-year-orange.html. ABOUT FIRST TEAM REAL ESTATE CHRISTIES INTERNATIONAL First Team Real Estate Christie's International specializes in selling Orange County's most unique and exclusive properties. As part of the luxury division of Southern California's most trusted real estate company, First Team Real Estate has been recognized for its unparalleled level of service for luxury buyers and sellers. In 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and now 2015, First Team Estates Christie's International was recognized as Best of OC for Real Estate Companies by the annual Orange County Register survey of 100,000 Southern California households. We can be reached at (888) 236-1943 or at firstteam.com. Social networking and peer-to-peer fundraising Through a partnership with raisin, DonorPerfect hopes to inspire nonprofits to utilize peer-to-peer outreach as an effective way to fundraise. As peer-to-peer fundraising grows to be among the most popular fundraising formats, DonorPerfect online fundraising software is proud to announce their partnership with industry leader, raisin. raisin is an innovative solution that enables DonorPerfect clients to adopt peer-to-peer fundraising as a way to more effectively engage and expand their donor network and generate revenue. Peer-to-peer fundraising allows nonprofits to harness the enthusiasm of their donor networks by inviting donors to participate in promoting fundraising campaigns via social media, email, events, and more. This practice of nonprofits converting donors into fundraising champions results in a greater reach and in turn, higher revenue. Jon Biedermann, Vice President of Fundraising Products for SofterWare says, We're thrilled to partner with raisin. After an exhaustive search, we feel their technology and solution are the best fit for thousands of DonorPerfect clients. More importantly, their vision and philosophy match our own: providing robust and innovative yet affordable solutions that meet the needs of small and medium-size nonprofits in North America and beyond." Through a partnership with raisin, DonorPerfect hopes to inspire nonprofits to utilize peer-to-peer outreach as an effective way to fundraise. Their peer-to-peer Pledge module offers beautifully designed, intuitively formatted event sites with the ability to add individual and team pages. Through these pages, donors can promote fundraising campaigns and collect donations. Additionally, raisin integrates with DonorPerfects payment processing services, so all donations and donor information collected through raisins event, individual, and team pages are automatically reflected in DonorPerfect. This integration also allows funds to be directly deposited to clients bank accounts. Donations are instantly acknowledged and categorized in DonorPerfect as peer-to-peer to simplify tracking and reporting progress. DonorPerfect looks to the suite of tools raisin offers as a way to transform donors into digital promoters for their cause. Their tools include social media integration, email management, follow-up communications, and more. raisin complements their intuitive solution with excellent customer service, so DonorPerfect clients can approach peer-to-peer fundraising knowing theyll be supported throughout their efforts, from initial setup to social media marketing efforts. "We're excited to be chosen as DonorPerfect's preferred partner for peer-to-peer fundraising, Assadour Kirijian, CEO at raisin says. We share their passion of helping nonprofits succeed and fulfill their unique missions. It's great to partner with an industry leader that devotes so many resources to ensuring their partnerships succeed." DonorPerfect is confident that through this partnership with raisin, DonorPerfect clients will be encouraged, equipped, and empowered to embrace peer-to-peer fundraising in the new year. Columbia Southern University (CSU) and Ivy Tech Community College are working together to assist students in the Indiana community college system in pursuit a bachelors degree with CSU. An articulation agreement focuses on Ivy Tech students in the associate degree programs of business administration and criminal justice administration to help them move seamlessly to the corresponding online bachelors programs at CSU. Any student or graduate of Ivy Techs criminal justice or business administration program can participate in this effort. We are ecstatic about this unique opportunity to connect with students and graduates of Ivy Tech, said Joe Manjone, Ph.D., assistant provost for Special Programs. Our flexible, online degree programs in criminal justice and business administration can help students broaden their education while preparing them for a rewarding career. Vice President of Academic Affairs and University Transfer Division Russell Baker, Ph.D., echoed Manjones excitement about the agreement. This provides our working students another avenue to further their education at a supportive university with versatile online degree programs. CSU has excellent customer service and we expect great things from our students as they grow academically with CSU, he added. CSU, a pioneer in online education, offers online degree programs at the associate, bachelor and master degree levels. CSU features a student body of adult learners with more than 40 percent of them active-duty or veteran military. Ivy Tech graduates are encourage to visit http://www.columbiasouthern.edu/ivytech to learn more about transferring to CSU. Established in 1993, CSU was created to help individuals with hectic work and family commitments pursue their educational dreams. CSU offers online associate, bachelors and masters degree programs in various fields including criminal justice, occupational safety and health and human resource management. To learn more about CSU, please visit http://www.ColumbiaSouthern.edu Ivy Tech Community College is Indianas largest public postsecondary institution and the nation's largest singly accredited statewide community college system. Ivy Tech has campuses throughout Indiana. It serves as the state's engine of workforce development, offering affordable degree programs and training that are aligned with the needs of its community along with courses and programs that transfer to other colleges and universities in Indiana. The vast majority of patients that have received KAMRA inlays can read without the aid of corrective lenses. Dr. Andrew Holzman now offers KAMRA inlays at his TLC Laser Eye Centers located throughout the Washington, DC area. With the placement of one KAMRA inlay, patients can experience improved near vision and may no longer require reading glasses. By eliminating the need for reading glasses, patients can enjoy life with fewer worries and inconveniences. The First DC Metro Practice to Offer KAMRA Inlays Dr. Holzman is the first ophthalmologist in the Washington, DC metro area to offer KAMRA inlays. Dr. Holzman and his practice in Rockville, MD were chosen as the first TLC Laser site in the country to perform this life-changing procedure. It was FDA approved in April 2015 and over 15,000 inlays have been placed worldwide. About KAMRA Inlays Developed by AcuFocus, a KAMRA inlay is a miniature ring with a pinhole in the center. The KAMRA inlay is carefully placed into the cornea of a patient's non-dominant eye. By placing just one KAMRA inlay, a patient's near vision is enhanced. How KAMRA Inlays Work KAMRA inlays work in a manner similar to monovision laser vision correction surgery, which is a method of addressing the farsightedness that develops later in life. However, unlike monovision, the KAMRA inlay does not disturb the distance vision of the eye in which it is implanted. It is also removable if for some unlikely reason the patient does not like the effect. The KAMRA inlay is surgically placed into a small pocket that is created in the cornea using a laser. The inlay helps train light as it enters the patient's eye, ensuring that it is properly focused on the retina, which is the light-sensitive tissue located at the back of the eye. With just one eye corrected, patients are able to see clearly without their reading glasses. The overall KAMRA inlay surgery takes just 20 minutes to complete. Who Can Get KAMRA Inlays? Ideal candidates for KAMRA inlays have healthy corneas and experience poor near vision as a result of the normal aging process. Patients tend to be between the ages of 45 and 60 years old, as that is when the reading problem (presbyopia) is prevalent. Candidacy needs to be considered on a case-by-case basis, which is why it's important to schedule a consultation with Dr. Holzman. This allows patients to ask questions about the procedure and get detailed information about pre-op and post-op concerns. The procedure is not for everyone, and a careful screening process at Dr Holzmans office is necessary. KAMRA Inlays Are Safe and Highly Effective Ultimately, KAMRA inlays have proven to be safe by the FDA and are highly effective. The vast majority of patients that have received KAMRA inlays can read without the aid of corrective lenses. Small print and very fine print may still require the aid of magnifying lenses, and certain patients with extreme near vision issues may still require reading glasses. A Commitment to State-of-the-Art Eye Care Dr. Holzman is proud to be the only eye care specialist in the DC Metro region to offer KAMRA inlays to patients. It is part of his commitment to state-of-the-art eye care, using the latest techniques and technologies to enhance the vision and total wellness of every patient. Schedule a Consultation with Dr. Andrew Holzman For more information about KAMRA inlays and other options for advanced eye care treatment, feel free to contact the vision correction centers of Dr. Andrew Holzman and TLC Laser Eye Centers today. There are multiple locations in Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia. These offices can be reached directly by using the information provided below. Rockville, MD Office 11200 Rockville Pike, Suite 150 Rockville, MD 20852 (301) 881-2021 Washington, DC Office 1801 K St. NW, Suite 500L Washington, DC 20006 (202) 785-2435 McLean, VA Office 7930 Jones Branch Dr, Suite 250 McLean, VA 22102 (703) 556-9155 Charlottesville, VA Office 630 Peter Jefferson Pkwy, Suite 180 Charlottesville, VA 22911 (434) 817-5275 Gainesville, VA Office 7538 Limestone Dr Gainesville, VA 20155 (703) 753-7224 Originally posted by Dr. Andrew Holzman. Designing apertures into our VCA family is a recent example of how BEI Kimco continues to develop products to meet emerging OEM needs. In order to simplify assemblies and save space, the number of OEMs looking for a way to insert their equipment directly through a Voice Coil Actuator (VCA) is on the rise for medical, scientific, and analytical laboratory instruments. In response to this increasing demand, BEI Kimco has introduced a family of linear unhoused VCAs with aperture sizes of 15mm, 20mm, and 24.9 mm. The through-hole design allows an OEM assembly to pass directly through the middle of the actuator, resulting in reduced weight, fewer parts and a more compact product overall. Available in three standard models, the new military and medical grade actuators offer the ruggedized quality and durability critical to many types of industrial applications. Auto focusing equipment to support medical and other lab equipment that use lasers, lights, wires, lenses, or tubes filled with gas or fluid can be inserted directly through the VCA aperture to save valuable space in tight designs. With capabilities for low out-gassing, these VCAs are also well suited for optical instruments where it is important to prevent film from building up on lens or glass. Additional space-savings beyond the through-hole design is achieved with actuator sizes that measure as small as 1.5 (38.1mm) in diameter and 1.56 (39.6mm) in length (at mid-stroke). Other product performance features include total strokes ranging from 0.25 to 0.45 and peak forces of 14 Lbs. to 45.2 Lbs. respectively. Designing apertures into our VCA family is a recent example of how BEI Kimco continues to develop products to meet emerging OEM needs, says Jim McNamara, BEI Kimco Application Engineer. BEI Kimco provides further fine-tuning customization of our standard products to enable even more precision in exactly matching specific OEM design requirements. For more information contact BEI Kimco, Tel: (760) 597-7042; Toll-free: (800) 572-7560; Fax: (760) 597-6320; email: sales@beikimco.com; or visit http://www.beikimco.com. About BEI Kimco BEI Kimco specializes in the design and manufacture of high performance rotary and linear motion components, including Brushless DC Motors and Voice Coil Actuators. These products are designed for applications where performance, precision, and reliability are critical. Using proprietary magnetic design methodologies, BEI Kimco has the ability to produce custom, cost efficient products within multiple manufacturing locations. BEI Kimco is a leader in medical, industrial, aerospace & defense markets. BEI Kimco is a brand of Sensata Technologies. http://www.beikimco.com If you are new to iQ you can schedule a demo and learn more about this opportunity. PSFK iQ - Where Innovators Turn for Research. Our professional-grade research platform is designed specifically for Retail and CX leaders who want to know whats next. Whether youre staying current on trends or need a real-time research partner to help you get ahead, count on PSFK iQ to deliver the info you need to make your next move. Jean-Claude Juncker speaking at the European Commission on Friday. YVES HERMAN (REUTERS) With Spain still struggling to form a new government following inconclusive general elections on December 20, the message from the European Union remains the same as it was in early January. In a press conference on Friday, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said he would like to see a stable government in Spain as soon as possible. Juncker refused to comment on movements in certain regions, an unequivocal allusion to Catalonias separatist challenge But the EC leader also insisted that he does not wish to interfere in the specific makeup of this government. In a long address that included mentions of Poland, Britain, the refugee crisis, terrorism and the economic crisis, Juncker refused to comment on movements in certain regions, an unequivocal allusion to Catalonias separatist challenge. Toward the end of his speech, Juncker delivered an obscure sentence that is difficult to interpret. He said that the speed in forming this stable government obeys the fact that Spain is part of the euro zone. This might suggest that Juncker is concerned about interference between political instability in Spain and the fragile recovery of the euro zone. I want Spain to be up to the task, he added, without specifying what task he was referring to. If Spanish parties are unable to come together in a governing coalition, the country will face new elections this year. So far, Belgium holds the record for most number of days without a functioning government: 541. English version by Susana Urra. Cookies What are cookies ? How do we use cookies? How to control cookies? Managing cookies in your browser see what cookies you have got and delete them on an individual basis block third party cookies block cookies from particular sites block all cookies from being set delete all cookies when you close your browser X A cookie is a small text file that a website saves on your computer or mobile device when you visit the site. Cookies are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site.Website use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. ("Google") to help analyse the use of this website. 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You can delete all cookies that are already on your computer and you can set most browsers to prevent them from being placed.Most browsers allow you to:If you chose to delete cookies, you should be aware that any preferences will be lost. Also, if you block cookies completely many websites (including ours) will not work properly and webcasts will not work at all. For these reasons, we do not recommend turning cookies off when using our webcasting services. Greek officers lead Spanish volunteers from Proem-aid to a police van following their arrest with two Danish nationals in the Aegean Sea. EFE Three Spaniards have been arrested along with two Danish nationals in Greece on illegal human trafficking charges after they tried to offer help to a group of migrants who were attempting to reach European shores, officials have confirmed. The Spaniards three firefighters from Seville are members of the NGO Proem-aid and were working alongside two Danes from a similar organization called Team Humanity. The Greek Coast Guard intercepted their boat near the port of Mitilene on the island of Lesbos early Thursday morning. They probably will be charged with helping boats carrying migrants to illegally enter the European Union Frontex source The Spaniards were identified as Julio Latorre, Jose Enrique and Manuel Blanco, according to Efe. All five defendants are expected to go before a judge on Saturday, lawyer Jaris Petsikos told the Spanish news agency. The incident comes one day after another Spaniard was reportedly arrested on alleged espionage charges by Greek authorities, who accused him of being a member of a radical leftist group, sources said. Proem-aid spokesman Jose Amor said that his colleagues face one count each of illegal human trafficking. The Spaniards and Danes were picked up at around 3am Thursday in the Aegean Sea. According to European officials in Greece, the recreational boat they were using didnt comply the requisites to be identified as a rescue vessel. They were just navigating at sea, said Mirlinda Arisi, 26, a member of Team Humanity, which has been helping the Syrian refugees in Lesbos for the past five months. We always work in coordination with the port authorities, add Amor. They know we are here, and when they approach, we identify ourselves. He explained that members of his NGO always work in Greek maritime waters and approach vessels carrying refugees that may need assistance. However, sources at Frontex the European border control agency said that the vessel was very close to Turkish territorial waters. The volunteers, who had come to the aid of three rubber boats carrying possible asylum seekers, tried to reach land when they were approached by Coast Guard officials. Authorities reportedly found no danger in any of the vessels, including the ones carrying the migrants. They will probably be charged with helping boats carrying migrants to illegally enter the European Union, said one Frontex source. The three Spaniards, who arrived in Lesbos two weeks ago, are receiving legal assistance from the Spanish Embassy in Athens. We know of no reason why the Greeks have had a change in policy. Maybe it has to do with the latest terrorist attacks, Amor said. They arrested them, threw them handcuffed in a van and took them to police headquarters. Right now they are in jail. On Wednesday, Greek authorities reportedly arrested a Spaniard, who lives in the Netherlands, on the island of Chiros. They identified him as being a member of a radical leftist group and said they caught him secretly taking pictures with his cellphone of one of the boats docked at port. After they arrested him, they accompanied him to the apartment where he was staying with his girlfriend and two Swedish friends who are members of an NGO. Authorities found large quantities of prescription medicines and a can of pepper spray. Neither the Spanish Foreign Ministry nor the embassy in Athens have confirmed the arrest. English version by Martin Delfin. New bookstores are coming soon to Claremont, Calif., Ankeny, Iowa, and Philadelphia. Openings & Closings Mirrored Society Books Opening in Claremont, Calif.: Julian Lucas and Kathleen Graulty are opening a 600 sq. ft. bookstore focused on the arts. Plot Twist Bookstore Coming to Ankeny, Iowa: Mary Rork-Watson plans to open the store in April. Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse to Open in Philly: Founder Ariell Johnson wants to create a space that is welcoming to people of color, women, and the LGBT community. Long Beachs Apostrophe Books to Close: The 23-year-old bookstore announced on Facebook that slow business for it and neighboring businesses for over a year is forcing it to close on February 8. Other News Indie Bestseller List Reporting Stores up Over 10%: In a letter in Bookselling This Week, ABA CEO Oren Teicher reported that the indie resurgence continued again in 2015 with sales in the low double digits for many stores. Binc Accepting Applications for Higher Education Scholarship Fund: From now through February 29, the Book Industry Charitable Foundation will accept applications for 27 higher education awards totaling $109,000. The awards may be used for tuition, fees, books, supplies, and room and board. Lake Forest Book Store to Move Four Doors Down: At the end of February the bookstore will move into slightly larger digs with a better layout. Amazon Adds New Locations on Campus: The online retailers newly opened pickup location at the University of California, Berkeley campus is its first to feature an interactive Amazon device experience where students can use Kindle e-readers, Fire tablets, and Fire TV devices. It will also add a 3,558 sq. ft. pickup location at the University of Pennsylvania this spring. Parnassus Books to Double in Size: The Nashville bookstore owned by Ann Padgett, which has come to symbolize the indie revival, will double in size in March when it takes over a neighboring space. Click Here to go to PublishersWeekly.com Student honors: - Two graduate students from the College of Liberal Arts are recipients of the 2016 K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award. Nusta Carranza Ko is a doctoral student in the Department of Political Science and Jasmine R. Linabary is a doctoral student in the Brian Lamb School of Communication. The Cross award recognizes graduate students who show exemplary promise as future leaders of higher education; who demonstrate a commitment to developing academic and civic responsibility in themselves and others; and whose work reflects a strong emphasis on teaching and learning. The award, which is presented by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, will be given at the association's annual meeting Jan. 20-23 in Washington, D.C. Linabary also is a teaching assistant and graduate certificate holder in the Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program. Her research emphasis is on organizing, new media, and social change, with particular interest in gender and participatory methodologies. She also is a research assistant with the Purdue Peace Project, a locally led peacebuilding initiative in Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and El Salvador that aims to reduce the likelihood of political violence. Carranza Ko focuses on the influence of international norms on state behavior, especially in the area of human rights. She conducted field research in Uruguay, Peru, and South Korea while on a Purdue Research Foundation Fellowship during 2014-15. She earned a Graduate Teaching Certificate from Purdue's Center for Instructional Excellence in 2014 and is currently completing the Advanced Graduate Teaching Certificate. She also has been inducted into the Purdue Teaching Academy as an associate fellow. FORRESTON Inside a long barn next to rolling fields, Rod Wubbena looked out over 12,000 or so brown hens scratching in the wood chips and fluttering onto perches. The chickens have always been cage-free at Phils Fresh Eggs, headquartered in the small farming town of Forreston 85 miles northeast of the Quad-Cities. It's one of the first commercial egg farms in the U.S. to market and produce cage-free eggs. Now that niche is vanishing. I always felt as long as there was caged egg production out there, there were going to be consumers that would buy Phils Eggs, said Rod Wubbena, 58, who bought the family business from his father, Phil, in 2002. Now the challenge is how do I make Phils Eggs different from everybody else thats jumping into the pool? Almost every week, it seems, a major food company Dunkin Donuts, General Mills and Taco Bell recently announces its transition to cage-free eggs, amounting to a monumental shift in the industry. Hens shouldnt be kept in cages that allow less space per bird than a piece of notebook paper, a familiar refrain from animal rights activists thats resonating with consumers and driving companies. Getting to this point hasnt been a matter of simply opening the barn doors and setting the birds free. The movement has pitted the egg industry against animal rights groups, with both sides flinging accusations of bias and wielding science to support their viewpoints. Cage-free hen housing systems can carry their own challenges, according to some research, like the birds propensity to peck and eat one another. For companies making the switch, theres also the feel-good public relations angle to consider, which is far simpler than the science. Enriched colony (another type of hen housing) doesnt mean anything to our customers, but they know what cage-free means, said Marion Gross, senior vice president of supply chain management for McDonalds. Gross cited customer sentiment as an important factor that led McDonalds and its 2 billion-eggs-a-year purchasing clout to make the cage-free leap in September when it declared it would transition fully to cage-free eggs over the next 10 years. It was like a giant doing a cannonball into the pool. The ripples are still being felt. The biggest earthquake in the egg industry was the McDonalds announcement, said Paul Shapiro, vice president of farm animal protection for The Humane Society of the United States, which advocates for cage-free hen housing among many other animal welfare causes. Shapiro called McDonalds decision the strongest signal yet to the egg industry that the future is without cages. Despite the recent headlines, cage-free eggs still represent a small slice of the industry. Commercial egg-laying hens laying organic and non-organic cage-free eggs accounted for 8.6 percent of the 274.3 million commercial egg-laying hens in the U.S. in September, according to data from the Agriculture Department. Thats almost double the number of cage-free hens from just five years ago. Today, Phils Fresh Eggs now a subsidiary of Pearl Valley produces about 350,000 eggs per week, cleaned, weighed and packaged in a small plant in downtown Forreston. Beyond its own flocks, Phils also contracts with farms in northwest Illinois and southern Wisconsin, Wubbena said. So here's Michael "Transformers" Bay directing the guy who played the likable and goofy Jim on "The Office" in a gritty film based on the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, and though that might sound like the premise for an article in the Onion or a satirical trailer on "Funny or Die," this is a solid action thriller with well-choreographed battle sequences and strong work from the ensemble cast. Of course, this being a Michael Bay movie, there are moments when deadly battles are given the glorious, slow-motion treatment and lit like fireworks displays, and if you think Bay's camera will linger on the American flag more than once, well, you've seen your share of Michael Bay movies, haven't you? Sporting a full beard and layers of muscle, John Krasinski is nearly unrecognizable as Jack Silva, the newest member of a small team of CIA contractors in Benghazi acting as security for a CIA outpost manned by about 30 operatives tracking the movement of weapons in post-Gadhafi Libya, where the situation is unstable on the best of days. (The name has been changed, but Krasinski's character and the rest of the team are based on real-life former military men who fought the terrorists who stormed the American diplomatic compound on Sept. 11 and 12 in 2012.) Jack is married with two little girls, with a third child on the way. (A scene in which Jack inadvertently learns the news while on a phone call with his wife, who is at a drive-through at a McDonald's back home, isn't exactly subtle, but it's effective.) In fact, each of the six Annex Security Team members is a father. When they're not risking their lives in the Middle East for country and cash, they work in insurance or selling homes. Some are in Benghazi because they need the money; others are there because they are soldiers through and through, and as one of them puts it, warriors aren't meant to retire. Although there are a few tense encounters right from the get-go, with the Americans trying to figure out who's friendly and who's against them, Bay and screenwriter Chuck Hogan take a comfortable amount of time establishing characters and giving us a lay of the land, geographically and politically, before we're plunged into the nightmare of the continued assaults on the U.S. diplomatic compound. James Badge Dale delivers charismatic work as Tyrone "Rone" Woods, Jack's best friend and the leader of the team. Max Martini, Pablo Schreiber, Dominic Fumusa and David Denman (who played Roy, Jim's rival for Pam's affections, on "The Office") are all believable as former Navy SEALs and Marines who comport themselves with great swagger and bravado -- and back it up when the stuff hits the fan. David Costabile is Bob, who heads the CIA team. Of course Bob is a fussy, arrogant desk commander who has nothing but disdain for what he calls "security guards," and of course Bob is indecisive and weak when gunmen storm the compound. You need a Bob in a movie like this. "13 Hours" isn't interested in introducing us to any of the terrorists who attack the compound or in explaining their motivation other than they want to kill Americans. When the first wave of attacks hits the building (often and unofficially referred to as the consulate) occupied by Ambassador Christopher Stevens (a well-cast Matt Letscher), the annex men are about a mile down the road, at their assigned post protecting the CIA operation. They have no authority to join the battle, even though the small unit assigned to protect the ambassador is hopelessly outmanned. In fact they're told to stand down, while Bob makes some phone calls to determine when and how the U.S. can send reinforcements. Even though they're private contractors, the team members are American soldiers to the core, and they refuse to stand by while countrymen are under attack. From that point forward, "13 Hours" is one extended battle sequence after another, with the consulate going up in flames, harrowing chase sequences and multiple shootout scenes back at the CIA compound. The body count soars, with dozens upon dozens of Libyan gunmen taken out by the Americans, who suffer casualties of their own. There's very little politicking in "13 Hours," other than a moment when one of the Americans notes the mortar attack had to have been planned weeks in advance. This was no spontaneous demonstration gone horribly wrong, as we were initially told at the time. And of course there's an unspoken but quite loud indictment of the Obama administration and in particular then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Not only did we not see this coming, but for 13 long hours, it was up to a half-dozen civilians to protect American lives. Highly trained former military, to be sure, but civilians nonetheless. This is no "Zero Dark Thirty" or "The Hurt Locker." Lacking in nuance and occasionally plagued by corny dialogue, "13 Hours" is nonetheless a well-photographed, visceral action film, and a sincere and fitting tribute to those secret soldiers. When I reviewed "Lazarus," the new David Bowie musical at the New York Theatre Workshop, we ran the headline "Space Oddity" on the report about what turned out to be one of the great man's final creative acts. That felt right. The show, a sequel of sorts to "The Man Who Fell to Earth," a 1976 movie that starred and seemingly defined the undefinable Bowie, surely was odd. Bowie was odd, otherwise he would have remained David Robert Jones of Brixton, South London, a child of the gray skies of post-war British austerity. Self-evidently, odd was a term he embraced: it was a twisting of a pejorative, an anti-conformist bit of existentialism. In Bowie, oddness was a gateway to true eclecticism, the key to his mastery of music, acting, art, fashion, literature, lyrical poetry ... you name the cultural endeavor at which humans have striven. Had Bowie not been odd, the Vatican would not have been issuing a statement of condolence Monday, nor would an astronaut have tweeted a tribute from space, arguably back to art's ultimate Major Tom, but more accurately to a man always floating in space away from the many grabbing fingertips. The transformer, a nouveau Elephant Man, could not belong to just one thing. Social media -- a suddenly prosaic cultural development that seemed weirdly incapable of expressing the cosmic complexity of feelings of Bowie's admirers Monday -- would not have been filled with near-infinite versions of the same basic assertion: We all were fortunate to occupy the same performance space as Bowie, for our lives are merely brief appearances under the lights before we turn to dust. We could have missed him. Dust awaits us all; Bowie, in his oddness, just decided to make it his life's work to point out that performance and what passes for reality are one and the same. Most rock and pop musicians develop an interest in theatricality only after they get sick of expressing some youthful emotion of love or alienation in song after song. They crave bigger narratives, or decide their arena shows should mean something more, that they should strive to tell bigger stories. Rarely is that theatricality inherent. Rarely does it ever risk actual transformation. In Bowie, those qualities were there from the start. Everyone knew that. Oddness did not mean he could not sing "Let's Dance," which can help with anybody's lousy night. Putting on one's metaphoric red shoes is a pretty good avoidance tactic, and we need 'em. The man sang with Bing Crosby in what would have been the ultimate parody of the Christmas song, had "Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy" not sounded so sincere. He included the name President Nixon in a lyric without seeming political. He was always intimidating and yet he grieved with New Yorkers at the Sept. 11 tribute concerts. His baritone, the voice of the ordinary dude, touched virtually every musical genre. He was omnipresent and, of course, never really present at all. Many who have released themselves from the confines of gender perception feel like Bowie, who embraced femininity when British boys from Brixton were scared of being beaten up for doing that. He unlocked the door. His strength was fueled by being untouchable -- thanks to talent, self-esteem and an early realization that all these tribes into which we divide ourselves are trivial. Bowie, it always seemed, was on a more important planet. And yet he was an evangelist for self-actualization. One month after "Lazarus," it now feels like we should have had a different headline. Not "space oddity," but "space epitaph." Clearly, the show was about Bowie's own death. "Lazarus" was his final and most beautiful act of performance and one experienced by very few people. How could those of us who got lucky have not seen that? We all partially understood the central character, played by Michael C. Hall, was a version of Bowie, a sensualist, a lover, a thinker, a persona blessed and cursed by belonging to no one planet, a floater in space. The young angelic figure in the show, pushing and pulling her man to the other side, wherever that may be, seemed of a piece with the Bowie oeuvre, although the vividness of their presence now makes a lot more sense. So does the central character's obsession with the earthbound; his reluctance to go home. God, that was stupid not to see. As you can see from Bowie's last video, released just a few days before his death, the journey itself was going to be painful. That pain was what made "Lazarus" seem so odd, even to a Bowie fan. For every other Bowie trip, each successive transformation, had been fun. But not this one. Why not? Well, now we know. There was a villain stalking "Lazarus," a character played by Michael Esper, who made no sense at all on that December night in the East Village, just about a month ago. He was a marauding super-villain whose purpose seemed to be to mess everyone up, to take lover from lover, to wreak corporal havoc, to end things. He seemed wildly out of place. I did not know why he was there. Who was he? Well, now we know. He didn't win in the show, just as cancer has merely helped Bowie morph from one form to another, a transformation ultimo, devoutly to be wished. He helpfully provided the lyrics. Farewell, Lazarus, transformed. "Look up here, I'm in heaven / I've got scars that can't be seen / I've got drama, can't be stolen / Everybody knows me now." Juliana Logan has a powerful purpose in life -- making music -- which makes her heart sing. The 17-year-old junior at Davenport Central, who attends the Creative Arts Academy, and her band will play tonight at the Col Ballroom (1012 W. 4th St., Davenport) in a special sendoff with some of their musical mentors. Juliana & A Soul Purpose will travel to Memphis later this month, where they will perform at the International Blues Challenge Youth Showcase on Jan. 29. "I'm just really excited," Ms. Logan said Wednesday at her second home, Davenport's River Music Experience, where she's spent countless hours practicing and performing the past five years. She performed at the Iowa Blues Challenge last year in Fairfield, and The Central Iowa Blues Society invited her to go to Memphis this month. "For Julie, it's a great thing," said Ellis Kell, RME's director of programming and community outreach, head of the local Rock Camp USA, and noted bluesman who will perform tonight. "When she first came here, when she was shy, I saw all that, but the coolest thing, after you started playing, the first couple years, I noticed she was trying to sing what she was hearing. ... It wasn't bad, but it wasn't you," he said of Ms. Logan. "The last couple years, I started to hear you singing, in your own style. Some people can never do that." "When you do original songs, you don't sound like nobody but you," Mr. Kell added. The International Blues Challenge showcase is for musicians younger than 21, displaying talents for record labels, media, festivals, managers, talent buyers and fans. At the Col, Juliana & A Soul Purpose will play their new original set which will be used in Memphis. "Music is a big thing for me," Ms. Logan said. "These people are pursuing their dreams and they keep going further and further each day." She and her band of six other teens practice their blues covers and originals nine hours a week, in addition to their performances. Ms. Logan wants to work in the music business as a career, in event planning and recording studios. "I know who I want to be now. I know what I'm stuck on, and it's definitely music," she said. "When I'm making these originals, I want to relate to somebody, feel what someone's been through, and I want them to relate to what I'm writing." Ms. Logan participated in four summers of Rock Camp, in which students study with adult musicians, the kids partnering on putting a set together, and perform at a Redstone Room concert. She said of Mr. Kell: "He took my soul and gave me a new one." She mainly plays acoustic guitar, was nervous to start and didn't want to sing at her first Rock Camp. Ms. Logan said after her first RME open mic, "I knew this is what I want to do, this is where I'm supposed to be." She went on to do several open mics, and took part in the RME's Songwriters in the Round, getting feedback on original songs. "I've always wanted to write a good song. It just makes me feel good about myself, as a musician or anybody," Ms. Logan said. Other songwriters (many veterans) helped her. "It made me boost my confidence up." While she grew up at RME, her mother Pamela was going through a divorce, and she said, "This place saved us; there was so much support. It was an outlet." Ms. Logan loves The Judds, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Alicia Keys, Adele and Ray Charles. "I love the blues, love being soulful, but I also love pop," she said. "I can put them all together." Her first real band was the Winter Blues All-Stars at RME last year. In September, she formed A Soul Purpose, and they played at Kavanaugh's and Mama Compton's in Rock Island, at a Figge fundraiser and a CAA showcase at the Adler. At their last show at the Redstone Room on Jan. 2, the band made some people cry, her mom said of "Do What You Love" and "Dear My Best Friend," two of Juliana's originals. Juliana & A Soul Purpose includes students who come as far as Muscatine, New Windsor and Galena, and the guys especially are pumped about tonight's show, because Jimi Hendrix played the Col. "This is the coolest place in the Quad-Cities you could play," Pamela Logan said. The band includes Matt Fuller and Nick Dicklin on guitar; Matthew Dilulio on drums; Cloey Johnson on bass; Ethan Good on keys; and Haley Teel on tambourine and vocals. A Soul Purpose isn't the first youth group from the Quad-Cities to participate in the Youth Challenge at IBC, Mr. Kell said. Last year, Sarah Hanson and Levi Craft -- also RME Rock Camp/Winter Blues alums -- were invited as a duo. While in Memphis, the teens will visit Graceland and perform other places, Ms. Logan said. "We all have a purpose. Everyone has a purpose, not just me," she said. "If I get that message out to people, they think, 'I should do this, I shouldn't be afraid. If I do this, I know what I'm capable of.' It gives confidence to so many people." Tonight's concert (admission $10) starts at 7 p.m., and features Natty Scratch, David G. Smith and members of Los Mocambos, a 50/50 drawing and raffle prizes, with proceeds going toward the Memphis trip. For more information, visit asoulpurposeband.com. A friend of alleged stabbing victim Jacob Woodard testified Thursday that he feared for the teen's life after a car chase and fight between Mr. Woodard and Drew Romkey. Mr. Romkey, 18, is charged with willful injury-causing serious injury. Scott County prosecutors allege Mr. Romkey used a knife to stab Mr. Woodard, also 18, multiple times during an April 11, 2015, altercation. Both boys were Bettendorf High School students at the time. On Thursday, during the third day of trial testimony, Mr. Woodard's friend, Jackson Gallagher, testified he felt "terrified" April 11 watching Mr. Woodard "stumble" to his car and shout about needing medical attention. Mr. Gallagher said he did not see the alleged fight between Mr. Woodard and Mr. Romkey, but did see Mr. Romkey drive away afterwards and heard another friend, Brandon Alpern, 18, yell about seeing blood. "I got him in the backseat of my car as quickly as possible," Mr. Gallagher said. "He just kind of slouched in the back of my car. "I looked back over my right shoulder and I saw a lot -- a lot -- of blood all over my car," he continued. "And then I knew that something really serious had happened, and I started driving to the hospital really fast." On Wednesday, a doctor testified Mr. Woodard's injuries may have been fatal if not timely treated. Mr. Gallagher said he was scared to see Mr. Romkey also arrive at the hospital and alerted a hospital security guard. During lengthy testimony Thursday, Mr. Gallagher said hadn't known Mr. Romkey but was aware he was dating his ex-girlfriend, Abby Weyman. Mr. Gallagher said two days before the incident, a disagreement with Mr. Romkey ended in a challenge to fight after school. Mr. Gallagher said he later chose not to go. Mr. Gallagher said he spent much of April 11 with Mr. Woodard, Mr. Alpern and another friend, Josh Walls, 17. All but Mr. Woodard have testified and, other than slight variations in the sequence of events, they offered similar testimony about playing video games, visiting McDonald's, going to a bonfire and going to a skate park where they yelled obscenities at skaters from a car window. They also testified about getting a paintball gun at Mr. Gallagher's home and returning to the skate park. Mr. Gallagher said he later arranged to meet his then-girlfriend in the 6100 block of Lakeshore Circle, Davenport. In earlier testimony, Ms. Weyman said that, at about that same time, Mr. Romkey was dropping her off at her home, several blocks from Lakeshore Circle, and saw Mr. Gallagher parked outside. She also said Mr. Gallagher had sent her cruel messages after their breakup, something Mr. Romkey knew. During questioning by Prosecutor Steve Berger, Mr. Gallagher denied "lurking outside" Ms. Weyman's home. He said he was trailed from the area of Utica Ridge Road and East 56th Street to Lakeshore Circle by Mr. Romkey in an "intense and scary" chase that included Mr. Romkey trying to run him off the road. Mr. Gallagher said that, after the cars were parked, Mr. Romkey asked him about not showing up to their fight. Mr. Gallagher said he yelled to Mr. Walls about Mr. Romkey being interested in fighting him, but otherwise felt "uncomfortable" and tried to ignore the situation. Mr. Gallagher said that, although partially distracted by friends, he saw Mr. Woodard get out of their vehicle and walk to Mr. Romkey's car. Other classmates have testified to seeing Mr. Romkey and Mr. Woodard punch each other, but none have said they saw the alleged stabbing. Ms. Weyman testified Wednesday that Mr. Romkey was in the driver's seat of his vehicle during the punches. On Thursday, Mr. Gallagher said both teens were standing. Mr. Alpern testified this week that he recorded the altercation on his cellphone but deleted it moments later because he did not want to be "involved." On Thursday, Davenport Police Cpl. Richard Nahnybida, a forensic computer examiner, testified he examined Mr. Alpern's phone but could not recover the deleted file. Mr. Romkey is the son of Dispatch/Argus associate managing editor Mike Romkey. Mr. Gallagher is the son of Bettendorf Mayor Robert Gallagher. Trial testimony is expected to resume this morning. SUBSCRIBERS OF UCOMS ALL TIME BEST OFFER TO ENJOY ADDITIONAL BENEFITS Armenia-Azerbaijan: EU sets up monitoring capacity along the international borders PACE co-rapporteurs on Armenia concerned by reports of alleged war crimes or inhuman treatment perpetrated by Azerbaijans armed forces There is still 35% gender pay gap: Sona Ghazaryan Google Ad Global Finance Names Ameriabank the Safest Bank in Armenia Mikayel and Karen Vardanyans provided 136 million AMD support for the overhaul of the Myasnikyan statue, which was in unsafe state of disrepair Believe me, as a representative of a country which uses the Schengen system very often, it is quite important. Vardanyan I really look forward to having answers from the Azerbaijani side for these alleged gross human rights violations: Secretary General I call on Armenian and Azerbaijani parliamentarians to use this Assembly as an agora of opportunities President Tiny Kox UCOMS SPECIAL OFFER OF THE UNLIMITED INTERNET IS NOW TERMLESS There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol Armenia and Azerbaijan to do so without delay An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan". UCOM AND PES-PES CONTINUE COOPERATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF EDUCATIONAL PROJECT The statement of the meeting between Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Aliyev, President Macron and President Michel of October 6, 2022 Largest Corporate Bond Program at the Securities Market of Armenia Completed Successfully Google Ad The statement of the Defender on the video of the execution of Armenian PoWs by the Azerbaijani armed forces LEVEL UP ONLY FOR STUDENTS: UCOM OFFERS X2 AND X3 MORE INTERNET STATEMENT BY SECRETARY ANTONY J. BLINKEN This criminal act is another proof that the Armenophobia policy. Tatoyan Nikol Pashinyan, Nancy Pelosi discuss a number of issues related to the Armenian-American agenda and regional developments Delegation by Nancy Pelosi Accompanied by Alen Simonyan Visits Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi Arrives in Yerevan Armenian Revytech, global technology leader SAP and financial services software specialist SAP Fioneer sign a cooperation agreement With 120 million drams donated by Mikael Vardanyan, the defenders of the homeland will be treated in a new building OSCE Chairman-in-Office and OSCE Secretary General call for immediate cessation of hostilities along Armenia-Azerbaijan border Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh USA Embassy Message for U.S. Citizens ANCA Issues National Call to Action to Stop Taxpayer Funding of Aliyevs Aggression Quintonio LeGrier was killed by officers responding to a Dec. 26 domestic disturbance who said he was "combative" toward police. A neighbor not involved in the disturbance, 55-year-old Bettie Jones, also was killed by police. Autopsy reports prepared by the Cook County medical examiner's office say LeGrier was shot in the chest, back, buttock and left arm and two suffered graze wounds. It was determined the Northern Illinois University student had marijuana in his system. The medical examiner determined the bullet that struck Jones severed her heart, aorta and esophagus. The county prosecutors has asked the FBI to investigate the shooting. ROCK ISLAND -- In a fast-changing, competitive global economy, with thousands of baby boomers retiring every day, Illinois and the nation face a pressing need to fill manufacturing jobs. How to close the skills gap in manufacturing was the topic as U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-East Moline, held her third annual regional economic summit at Augustana College on Thursday. "They are jobs of the future. They're good jobs, where men and women can support their families," she told an audience of 150, representing local education, manufacturing, government and business. Many small manufacturers today can't fill these jobs until we build "a pipeline to connect students and people who need help getting new skills, with the businesses that need these workers," Rep. Bustos said. In the U.S., employers need to fill three million manufacturing jobs over the next 10 years, she said, noting, "This is an opportunity. The problem is, right now, we're only prepared to fill one out of every three." "I think we ought to launch the next Industrial Revolution right here in western Illinois, central Illinois and northern Illinois," Rep. Bustos said. "There's no question in this region, and the state of Illinois, we've seen some challenges. "Manufacturing has taken a hit; that's why we're focusing on this today," she said. Illinois' 5.7-percent jobless rate in November 2015 the most recent data available, is higher than the national rate. The Quad-Cities had 5.8 percent unemployment, including 6.9 percent in Rock Island County. Rep. Bustos said. The ability of communities is react is hindered, she said, by the lack of state education funding in Illinois, the Congresswoman said. "Community colleges now are taking a tremendous hit. The governor can't seem to be able to sit down and get a budget passed," Rep. Bustos said. "So we've seen layoffs at community colleges throughout the state of Illinois, exactly at a time when we need to be focusing on getting our students educated and ready for the workforce." She said Carl Sandburg College in Galesburg is an example of what can be done. The school meets needs of BSNF Railroad, the largest employer in Knox County, by adding a locomotive lab to train students to fill BSNF jobs. "This is a challenge that has been with us for a long time," said Thursday's keynote speaker, David Boulay, president of the Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center, a public-private partnership working to transform manufacturing across the state. The public and private sectors must partner to spark interest in manufacturing careers with youth, raise career awareness, and find a new way of marketing manufacturing. "We owe it to ourselves to keep improving," Mr. Boulay said. "The quality of our workforce efforts, our people, our processes, are what's going to ensure we maintain a competitive advantage in this community on a global stage." "We're at such a critical moment," he said later, noting Illinois is the fifth-largest manufacturing state in workforce. "This state is a powerhouse. We don't celebrate that enough." While value and productivity in the industry are at all-time highs, technology is constantly changing, and companies around the world are seeking the same competitive advantages, Mr. Boulay said. The U.S. attorney's office says 21-year-old Cedrik Bourgault-Morin was apprehended early Wednesday after he crossed the border from Quebec along a railroad line into North Troy. Prosecutors say Bourgault-Morin was wearing white camouflage and Border Patrol agents were alerted to his presence when he triggered a sensor. Prosecutors say agents found 300 vacuum-sealed bags of Xanax pills in a duffel bag on the sled. Xanax is an anti-anxiety medication. They say the pills had a street value of $1.6 million. Bourgault-Morin was being held Thursday in a Vermont prison. His attorney didn't return a call seeking comment. Press release submitted by Augustana College Augustana to show Estlin Feigleys The Stream, brought to you by kids learning the art of filmmaking Set at the height of the original Star Wars craze, The Stream is a comedy about a group of middle-school friends and their adventures during the summer of 1981. Directed by Augustana alumnus Estlin Feigley 93 of Dreaming Tree Films, The Stream involved more than 160 middle- and high-school students working behind the camera or in the editing bay for the film. The Stream also features some big names: Mario Lopez from Saved by the Bell, Kelly Rutherford from Gossip Girl, Christopher Gorham from Once Upon A Time and Rainn Wilson from The Office. In the film, Ernest Terry, played by Jacob M Williams, obsesses over George Lucas Star Wars saga, like most boys his age. In the woods outside Ernests neighborhood, capture-the-flag contests escalate into sprawling Jedi battles, with bright yellow Wiffle bats substituting for light sabers. But when a bully snaps Ernests already-damaged weapon in half, Ernest and his friends accept a mission: follow a nearby stream to the town mall, buy a new bat and return home before their parents realize theyre missing. The film will be shown Saturday, January 30 at 1 p.m. in Centennial Hall (3703 7th Ave.). Tickets are $6, available at 309-794-7306, augustana.edu/tickets or at the door on the night of the event. All ticket proceeds will benefit the Augustana theatre department. Estlin Feigley is co-owner (with his wife Kelli) and creative director of Dreaming Tree Films of Chicago, which was nominated for a 2015 Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Childrens Programming for Moochie Kalala Detectives Club. Their companys non-profit division, FRESH FILMS, has been putting teens behind the camera since 2002. Following the Janurary 30 showing, students of all ages can learn about special effects, sound demonstrations, stunt choreography and more during an interactive film session. MOLINE -- Cordova's Raymond Shackelford says he is touched and humbled, a hard thing to be when you have packed plenty into 88 years of living. Ditto for Davenport's 95-year-old George Fenno. In an upcoming ceremony, the two World War II United States Army veterans will be honored with lifetime memberships to Cordova American Legion Post 1033. It is the first time in 1033 history that lifetime status has been awarded to any member for dedication to the post. "I'm honored as I can be,'' said Shackelford, a laugh-a-minute sort, in a recent sitdown. "I'm grateful they are honoring me, I'm grateful to be part of the post and I'm grateful for guys like George. "We are not the biggest group going (with 48 members), but our post understands its mission and how important it is to give back. It's a tremendous group.'' Fenno is a 70-year member of Post 1033. Shackelford, a retired instrument engineer, has served the post for more than four decades. Post members say Shackelford is the driving force behind the group. In 2004, when he finally stepped away from a 55-year business career, he went to work on the Post 1033 membership. He served as chapter chaplain and historian, but made an all-out effort to get members involved. He was the push the 1033 train needed to get, and stay, rolling. "There was a low point,'' Post 1033's Fred Genung said. "It was tough getting people to meetings and involved. "It's understood how busy families are, but Ray took it upon himself to get everyone involved, Genung said. "Membership is strong, but the great thing is, membership is active. That's huge for us, and we have Ray to thank for it. We are so proud to honor these two fine men.'' Post 1033 is a whirling dervish of service to the community. It shares honor guard duties with Port Byron and Hillsdale American Legion posts and has subbed for the ever-busy Moline Post 246 honor guard. It serves meals to the less fortunate, assists in the local Stand Down program and is a guiding force in a number of Cordova-based community events. Calling it busy is understating Post 1033's willingness to serve. "It's a basic responsibility to do what we can to help in the community,'' Post 1033 commander Mike Seevers said. "Three days after I returned home (from his tour of duty) my father had my (American Legion) application ready for me, way back when. It's a natural way to be involved and continue to serve.'' For a grateful Schackelford, his work with the Cordova American Legion keeps him motivated. "Feb. 24 (2016), there is a spaghetti dinner at the Baptist church in Cordova,'' he said, throwing the event to the public. "I'll be there, and so will many others. "The social end of being involved is still great and I need that," he said. "But dinners to raise money allow us to go out and stay active in the community. Being active is great for me and being involved with people I like and respect is also important. Long after George and I are gone, there will be people in Cordova doing lots of good work for others.'' I despair when I continue to read letters and op-eds in local newspapers expressing their views of Muslims and Islam. The ISIS (or Deash) are not recognized by the majority of Muslims, the world over, as practicing the tenets of Islam. Former judge, thespian and regular columnist John Donald OShea continues to vent his xenophobic tirade against Muslims. He joins presidential candidate Donald Trump in distorting facts and calls for barring any Muslim Syrians and other Muslim immigrant from entering our country. They base their fears on the assumption that we cannot determine if some of them are potential terrorists. OShea lists (using Wikipedia as a source for his information) a number of recent murders by American Muslims. He does not make a comparison of killings by American Christians. Perhaps because the number overshadows those he lists. OShea fails to see any potential terrorists in the numbers of Christian immigrants entering the country. In what category should the organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), Aryan Nation, and others, which use the Christian Bible to spew their hateful doctrine? The Southern Poverty Law Center (splc.org) lists nearly 1,000 such hate groups located throughout the country, including Iowa and Illinois. Some people argue that these groups are not really Christian, even though they use the Bible as a basis for hating non-whites, non-Christians, Jews and even Catholics. The number of black churches burned, mosques and synagogues desecrated, people shot, lynched, maimed and other hate crimes perpetuated by members of these groups is so numerous that for the most part the incidents are ignored by the mass media unless it is spectacular. And, of course, none of perpetrators are identified as being Christian. Even though I despair, it is necessary to speak up against the continuous flow of hate against Muslims expressed in the media. Because if we dont who will? Incidentally, are those real Christians occupying federal property in Oregon? Amenian Prime Minister visits Synopsys Armenia Company Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan visited Synopsis Armenia. The Premier toured the training and production departments of the Armenian IT industrys leading enterprise to inspect the ongoing and future projects aimed at developing new initiatives. In particular, Academic Department Head Vazgen Melikyan briefed the Prime Minister on the ongoing industry-university cooperation-based educational programs. Implemented in collaboration with Armenias Polytechnic University, the project seeks to provide Armenias labor market with highly skilled IT professionals. Synopsys Armenia CEO Hovik Musayelyan said their graduates have a job in the Company, as well as in other IT enterprises operational in the region. He noted that most of the students at the Academic Department are employed in Synopsys Armenia. Addressing the students, Hovik Abrahamyan assured that his government will continue to back any development-oriented initiative. As he called at the production department, the Prime Minister was briefed on Synopsis Armenias activities, achievements and future plans. The Premier talked to the staff getting familiar with their achievements and expressing his appreciation of new ideas and approaches. A round table-discussion was held afterwards to discuss new programs and development opportunities. The participants dwelt on the current trends and market specifics in Armenia, the prospects of the Armenian Technological University and other issues of topical interest. At a briefing with journalists, the Prime Minister stressed that Armenias IT industry boasts great development potential that needs bolstering. The Government will be consistent in its effort to underpin the development of information technologies. We are currently discussing the possibility of having a national program, and will use all our capabilities to implement it, Hovik Abrahamyan pointed out. Highlighting the model of industry-university cooperation, the Head of Government considered it effective in terms of quality training and went on to note that his government will be seeking ways of promoting cooperation with other universities. The thing that stood out for me last year was that the people, brands and organisations that had extraordinary success in 2015, were the ones who delivered on Authenticity. The ubiquity of celebrity, meaningless content, and hypocrisy at all levels, has led to a strong disillusionment for many people in the established norms. There has been a notable shift from many consumers to those people, performers, companies, events and organisations that shared themselves, walked the talk, did what they promised, and connected with us on some real credible and authentic level. Jennifer Lawrence is now the biggest female star in Hollywood. Finally an actress who burps, farts, falls over, swears and tells it like it isher roles are honest, real characters that audiences fall in love with. But off screen she is the anti celebrity who bucks the system (or at least plays with the system!). Its the realness that people connect with you cant fake that. Whilst she has been much talked about already, Adele had the biggest smash album of the decade with her November release of 25. It could end up being the biggest selling album of all time. Is it that good an album? No way! The actual album is not that ground breaking or necessarily incredibly great. but, it is the whole real package we buy. Adele refused to put out the first version of the album she put together some two years ago. Her producer Rick Rubin said it felt pale and asked if this was the best she had to give. She realised she had rushed it, and buckled to the pressure to churn a new album, trashed the album, went back to the drawing board, and let the new album come through her true life experiences. Some songs are not f.g not good enough and I think thats where a lot of people go wrong thinking that people will buy any old shit from you. And have you seen her since its release, on the promo trail, Adele when interviewed tells us about crying, getting drunk, being stupid with her friends, the pain and struggle of motherhood, and the fact she rejects celebrity because its not the world to raise her child in. This is a real woman who speaks from the heart. Brands can learn a lot from people like this already some of the brands Australians love for walking the talk like Google, Carmens food, Bega Cheese, Bunnings, Vittoria Coffee, Apple and many more have discovered that being more real, not over-hyping, and connecting on some kind of authentic level makes commercial sense as well In a world of beige ten second repetitive sound bites, the fake smile and the Kardashians, many of us are crying out for things that are more authentic. Things we can feel are true. Personal authenticity and the road of being authentic is not always an easy one. Many people dont want to hear how you really feel and, you can lose friends. But those that are with you, will love you for it. Authenticity and opening up makes you vulnerable to those around you, but that vulnerability can bring you closer than ever either to those around youor for a brand, closer to your consumers. Report this About Sean Pickwell: Sean Pickwell is the Director of Waterfront, which he started 13 years ago after a long career with Austereo working with some of Australias biggest marketers, radio stations and talent. Since then he has worked with some of Australias biggest brands like AAMi, Toyota, LG, Pharmacare and Optus, and stars like Oprah, Pink, Simon Baker, Ewan McGregor and Jane Fonda. Brandon, Manitoba-based Cando Rail Services is expanding into British Columbia with the recent purchase of an 89-acre site in Kamloops for a new terminal. The terminal will have the capacity for 1,000 railcar storage spots, in addition to providing transloading, material handling, engineering and track and mechanical services. The site, the former Weyerhaeuser Co. sawmill site, is located at Mission Flats Road approximately 10 minutes from Kamloops city center. Cando selected it for its ready access to the CN and Canadian Pacific main lines, both of which run through Kamloops. It is a prime location as the last major center before heading west into the busy Port of Vancouver, and also provides access to the growing Port of Prince Rupert, the company said. The new Kamloops terminal will serve as the companys headquarters in B.C. Our long range plan is to build an extensive rail terminal at the location that includes 80,000 feet of track and transload areas, as well as engineering and mechanical servicing areas, said Cando Rail Services CEO Brian Cornick. Well start with storage tracks first; were building to have the first 250 spots ready by this June. This is an important step for us as we expand into the B.C. market. We recognize Kamloops already has a sizable amount of rail traffic. It makes sense for us to build our regional hub here as we expand our services right across the country. The Kamloops land acquisition and development of this hub of Cando services opens up future business growth and development opportunities within Kamloops and the province. Were excited to move to the community of Kamloops. The city and Venture Kamloops have been great to work with. We cant wait to get started. Cando currently operates railcar storage at six other Canadian locations across Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. The company, employee-owned and established in 1978, provides industrial rail services at more than 18 sites across Canada and the U.S., managing several facilities and terminals and serving a wide variety of industrial clients ranging from Class I railroads to automotive, forestry and mining companies. Cando also has a large engineering and track services division with more than 15 mobile engineering and track services crews, and operates three short line railways. Cando serves many industries including railway, oil and gas, refineries, fuel distribution, automotive, agriculture, potash, forestry products and intermodal. Welcome to Railway Gazette. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. By continuing to browse this site you are agreeing to our use of these cookies. You can learn more about the cookies we use here. OK ECtHR accepts case of torture and ill-treatment of Mamikon Khojoyan The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has accepted the case of Mamikon Khojoyan, a 77-year-old Armenian citizen who inadvertently crossed the border into Azerbaijan in 2014, the Foundation Against the Violation of Law reports. Khojoyan was held by Azerbaijani authorities for over a month, and subjected to torture and ill-treatment by a group of unknown persons on the basis of national and religious hatred. He died two months after he was handed over to Armenian authorities and returned home. The applicants in this case, Khojoyans three children, are represented by the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre, based at Middlesex University, and the Foundation Against the Violation of Law, Yerevan. Khojoyan lived in the village of Verin Karmir Aghbyur in Armenia, close to the border with Azerbaijan. On the morning of January 28, 2014, he told his family that he was going to collect grapes in the field. The state border in the region is not marked. Later that day, video footage surfaced of him surrounded by a group of people, including someone in Azerbaijani military uniform. Khojoyan looked unharmed. Two days later, Azerbaijani news service conducted an interview with him, in which his arm appeared broken. It was reported that Khojoyan was in detention, having been apprehended for being part of an Armenian sabotage group. A news report broadcast on the following day showed that he had difficulties standing up and that his left eye had been injured. Over a month later, on March 4, 2014, Khojoyan was handed back to the Armenian authorities at the border, as a result of mediation by the International Committee of the Red Cross. When his children visited him in the Armenian hospital, he was incoherent and extremely frightened. He told them he had been taken to Baku, where he had been beaten, forced to sleep on a concrete floor, had salt poured into his wounds, received injections and had his head burned with incandescent metal. A forensic examination showed traces of petroleum and psychotropic (perception-altering) drugs in his blood and urine. Khojoyan died in his home on May 20, 2014, six weeks after he was discharged from the hospital. The applicants complain that their father was subjected to physical violence and was injected with drugs during his detention, which constituted torture and degrading treatment, and posed a danger to his life, serious breaches of Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECtHR). They argue that this treatment eventually led to his death. They also claim a violation of the procedural aspects of both Articles as there was no investigation by Azerbaijan into the circumstances of Khojoyans detention and treatment. With regards to their own mental suffering, they claim that seeing their fathers injuries on television and the internet both during his detention and after his release constitutes an additional violation of Article 3. Moreover, Khojoyans children argue that their father was unlawfully deprived of liberty during his five week detention, nor was he informed of the reasons why he had been detained or brought before a judge. With regards to this and the above-mentioned violations, they maintain that they did not have an effective remedy (Article 13 ECtHR). Finally, they claim that their rights, and the rights of their father, were violated by the Azerbaijani authorities because of his ethnic Armenian origin, a violation of the ECtHR Article 14 on prohibition of discrimination. The Azerbaijani government is due to respond to the Courts questions by March 8, 2016. Last August, one man in a focus group of Syrian refugees in Lebanon said he grieved every day as he watched his three school-age children spend their days outside working instead of in a classroom learning. I have three children selling tissues, he said. I want a better future for them. The civil war in Syria is in its fourth year, with no end in sight. Four million people are now refugees. Countless families are struggling to meet even their most basic needs. An unfortunate casualty of this desperate situation is the education of many of their children. More than 700,000 Syrian refugee children are not receiving formal education, according to the United Nations. Our recent RAND Corporation study on refugee education in the three countries hosting the largest number of refugees (Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan) considered four aspects of educationhow it is accessed, the quality, its management model and its role in society. The study found many reasons that refugee children are absent from school. Key among them is that host countries are struggling to create enough spaces to accommodate the additional children in schools, and there are no formal programs to teach children who have missed years of instruction. Children have difficulty adapting to language or curriculum differences, and many are simply too traumatized by events to focus long enough to learn. In addition, child labor and early marriage conspire to keep children out of the classroom. The quality of education for Syrian refugees, as well as for the children of the host countries, is seriously threatened. The steady influx of refugee children has strained existing school systems, driving down quality for everyone. Teachers are overwhelmed and many are not prepared to deal with overcrowded classrooms or to address the complex needs of traumatized refugee children. Stable funding for teacher salaries for the refugees is also lacking. History reminds us that many refugee crises tend to be prolonged, spanning decades. Even after Syria's civil war ends, it will take time to emerge from the rubble of war and rebuild homes, hospitals and schools. Yet host country governments, donor countries, U.N. agencies and private nongovernmental organizations have had to focus on short-term management solutions to address the education crisis. These stopgap measures include increasing class sizes, decreasing the length of the school day to accommodate multiple shifts, offering part-time tutoring programs and establishing schools for refugee children that are separate from the existing school system and uncertified. This is not the first time that Band-Aid solutions have turned into the long-term norm. More than half a century after the Palestinian refugee crisis began, 500,000 Palestinian children still attend separate United Nations refugee schools. At first, a separate system was necessary to ensure Palestinian children received an education, and the system has endured as a political settlement has remained out of reach. Today, these schools continue to depend on donor funding for survival, and young Palestinian graduates face unequal economic and social opportunities in their host countries. History risks repeating itself regarding the education of Syrian refugees. Half of the Syrian refugees who are enrolled in school are educated apart from host country children, whether in separate schools or shiftsa readily visible difference that has the potential to exacerbate seemingly growing divisions between citizens and refugees. Management of the Syrian refugee education crisis must take a longer view that recognizes the protracted nature of the problem. We recommend developing a 10-year regional strategy to address education for Syrian refugee children. The international assistance community, which has already helped enroll many refugee children in school, should leverage its knowledge and resources to help host countries manage the refugee education crisis going forward. This would include a plan to expand educational access to out-of-school children and investment in additional school infrastructure. It would require a multi-year donor commitment as well as other innovative and sustainable efforts (such as public-private partnerships) to pay for construction of additional facilities, teacher salaries and development of host country capacity to oversee the day-to-day important aspects of managing education over time. This crisis of education will affect the future society, stability and economy of the Middle East for at least a generation. Monetary aid alone won't fix the problem. Approaches that recognize both urgent and long-term needs are needed so that refugee education does not continue to be a casualty of war. Shelly Culbertson is a policy analyst at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation, and the author of The Fires of Spring: A Post-Arab Spring Journey Through the Tumultuous New Middle East, due to be published in April. Louay Constant is a policy researcher at RAND. This commentary originally appeared on Newsweek on January 14, 2016. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis. The Spanish channel Divinity, which is aimed at a female audience, is to premiere the Nickelodeon-produced telenovela Grachi which has already aired across Latin America. The Mediaset DTT network aims to repeat Grachi's success in LATAM, where it aired for three seasons on Nickelodeon Latin America.Produced by the Viacom company and shot on location in Miami, the telenovela won several Kids Choice Awards, leading to the production of Every Witch Way, an English-language adaptation, for Nickelodeon US & International.The series follows Grachi, a young girl who must learn to use her new-found magical powers while coping with school, boys and growing up.Grachi is distributed by Comarex as Nickelodeon Latin Americas distribution partner. The series has been sold to more than 50 countries including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela and 36 French speaking territories including France, Belgium and Switzerland.Mediaset and Comarex have been working together for over 12 years, and recently announced their partnership extension to represent the media group's catalogue in Latin America. Balaji Telefilms digital arm ALT Digital Media Entertainment has appointed Ekalavya Bhattacharya as chief strategy officer. Bhattacharya was previously AVP and head of digital for Viacom18s MTV India, where he was responsible for expanding the channels digital footprint.He will now help define the ALTs corporate strategy for ensuring wider acceptability and success of its digital initiatives for online video Ekalavya comes with very strong pedigree having done some amazing work at MTV in building their digital business. We believe his disruptive attitude and business smarts are a wonderful addition to the eclectic diversity in the fast growing ALT Digital Team, said Sameer Nair, group CEO, Balaji Telefilms.ALTs CEO Nachiket Pantvaidya added: We welcome Ekalavya to ALT his experience and diverse skill sets will help us formulate and drive our strategy across our business operations. He will enrich the already strong team at ALT as we prepare to launch our service in India and globally.Following his appointment, Bhattacharya said: Recent digital consumption patterns have made it necessary to introduce changes in the way content is created and offered to consumers and screenagers. As Indias leading production studio, Balaji Telefilms is in a unique position to utilise its creative capabilities for a digitally savvy audience. I am glad to be a part of ALT that stands for the alternate alternate content and alternate screens. The Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network (HITN) has premiered Salsa & Flavors from Puerto Rico. HITN, a pay-TV network that offers educational content for US Hispanic audiences, kicked off the new year with the show, set stunning locations around the island. The original production features PRs traditional cuisine, exotic vistas and cultural aspects of the Island of Enchantment.Its a treat to present audiences with a programme in which every episode features scenes of extraordinary natural beauty as well as culinary tips from renowned chefs, said Florentina Almonte, programming director, HITN Puerto Ricos delicious cuisine is a Caribbean cultural treasure. It is a legacy that reflects the different cultures that have influenced the islands history and it remains just as vibrant today, with the power to bring everyone around the family dinner table.Each episode of Salsa & Flavors from Puerto Rico features a special guest chef prepares Puerto Rican dishes and gives information about different aspects of the islands culinary heritage.The audience will enjoy our Spanish, African, Taino and North American influences through an exquisite flavour of all these cultures which express themselves in our traditional cuisine, said Francisco Zamora, HITNs programme producer. In each episode the audience will appreciate and fall in love with the wonderful and enchanting views. Definitely, this new series Salsa & Flavors from Puerto Rico will be a taste of paradise.This is the latest food show for the network. It recently announced an agreement with Mexican chef Alfredo Oropeza and Spain's AMC Networks-produced Canal Cocina to work on a show to promote healthy eating habits among Hispanics. Sakhalin Energy appeals Supreme Courts refusal to review companys dispute with Rosneft MOSCOW, January 15 (RAPSI) Sakhalin Energy, controlled by Gazprom, filed an appeal against the ruling of Supreme Court of Russia not to review dispute between the company and Rosneft over the Sakhalin-II pipeline, RIA Novosti reported on Friday. The appeal has not been reviewed yet. In December 2015 the Supreme Court dismissed appeals by Gazprom and Sakhalin Energy against the ruling of the Far East District Commercial Court. In these appeals companies asked the special commission of the Supreme Court to review the dispute with Rosneft. Sakhalin Energy is the operator of the Sakhalin-II oil and gas project in the Russian Far East. Rosneft wants to get access to the pipeline to reduce spending on the liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, which it is implementing jointly with ExxonMobil. Gazprom turned down the request, saying that it planned to expand its own LNG plant within the Sakhalin-II project. Rosneft said it needed access to the pipe to transport up to 8 billion cubic meters of gas annually from its fields in northern Sakhalin to an LNG plant it planned to build jointly with its partners on the south of the island. Sakhalin Energy rejected the request on the grounds that it lacked the extra capacity. In February, the Commercial Court of the Sakhalin region dismissed Rosnefts lawsuit against Sakhalin Energy. However, this decision was overturned in September by the Far East District Commercial Court. The court said that while Sakhalin Energy is not obliged to transport 8 billion cubic meters of gas, it should provide Rosneft an access to its pipeline that would allow transporting of 2 billion. Sakhalin-II is one of the world's largest integrated oil and gas projects. It includes the Piltun-Astokhskoye oilfield and the Lunskoye natural gas field off Sakhalin Island in the Sea of Okhotsk and onshore infrastructure. Russian national gets 13 years for alleged participation in Ukrainian conflict MOSCOW, January 15 (RAPSI) A court in the Lugansk Region of Ukraine has sentenced a Russian national to 13 years in prison with asset seizure for participation in aggressive war against Ukraine, RIA Novosti reports Friday. The name of the convict is unknown. The court found the Russian citizen guilty of entering a temporary occupied territory , illegal weapon handling, creating a terrorist organization, conspiracy to commit crimes as well as planning and waging of aggressive war. An armed conflict in the southeast of Ukraine began in April, when Kiev launched a military operation against the self-proclaimed federalization supporters in the region. The overall death toll now exceeds 9,000 people since mid-April last year, according to the latest UN report. Moscow has repeatedly claimed that it has had absolutely no part in the events in southeastern Ukraine and does not supply the self-defense forces with military equipment and ammunition; that it is not a party to the domestic Ukrainian conflict and is interested in Ukraine overcoming the political and economic crisis. Afghannews.com.af, January 14, 2016 Man executed publicly in Badghis. (Photo: Afghannews.com.af) Man executed publicly in Badghis. (Photo: Afghannews.com.af) Taliban have publically executed a man on adultery charges in northwestern Badghis province. The incident took place in Nakhjiristan area of Qadis District earlier this week after reportedly a Taliban desert-court announced the punishment to Abdul Ahad, the man killed. Mirza Ali, Governor of Qadis while confirming the incident said that Abdul Ahad was shot dead by Taliban two days before. He added that security agencies have launched an investigation into the incident. This is not the first time a man is being executed by the order of a Taliban desert court but the group kills dozens of people on similar charges every year. At this years Insurtech Connect conference, Insider Engage spoke to Pranav Pasricha, Swiss Re's global head property and casualty solutions, Reinsurance, to discuss why the protection gap is the biggest challenge the reinsurance industry faces today and how Swiss Re is using technology to support clients to respond to new and emerging threats. If headlines from the United States and Europe are to be believed, old democracies will be eclipsed by so-called benevolent dictators who will do away with all the tiresome "yes, but..." discourse and confidently make necessary decisions. If believers in true democracy don't act up, this may indeed describe a near future. What binds many European countries and the United States? These days it appears to be a yearning for a "strong man," a benevolent dictator of sorts who will ignore the wishes of troublesome minorities -- political, ethnic, or combinations of both -- and who will carry out the wishes of another, larger minority without bothering too much with the arguments of others. Many people appear tired of subway democracy: an arrangement in which successive administrations, when taking office, seem to simply jump on a moving train of government whose schedule and stops are already set. They see leaders preaching that There Is No Alternative, and whose sole power appears to be speeding the train up or slowing it down -- the direction is always a given. Disillusionment then awaits those who expected the train to veer radically off course. An example of this is Greece, where the radical-left Syriza party took office by promises of finally moving the train of government in a different direction. Yet the eurozone subway system provided no alternate routes, and Syriza in the end chose to stay the predetermined course. As a result, many a former Syriza voter stayed home when the next election came, opting not to bother to vote. Syriza gathered enough votes to stay in power to form a new government, but with a smaller mandate. As with revolutions, people usually know who they want thrown out of office, but they often have little idea of what is to come after the bums are out. This is where opinions invariably start to diverge, often culminating in a minority of minorities somehow (but often enough through force) seizing power and foisting their radical minority opinions onto the divided majority. That divided majority then invariably rebels to spark another revolution at the ballot box. Examples beyond Greece abound. They take different shapes and forms. In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has actively done away with a range of the institutions that remained to give voice to minorities, taking harsh action against the opposition, the judiciary, and the media. In Poland, the recently elected Law and Justice party, or PiS -- vilified for its corruption and extremist practices during its first stint in office -- is doing the same. It even went so far as to send a team of soldiers to a NATO intelligence-gathering operation to remove the leading Polish member of the leadership, thought to be a political opponent of the PiS. In The Netherlands, the Freedom Party, with its promises to throw the bums out and make the country great again, is leading the polls, while in France the popular Front National of Marine Le Pen vows to do the same. The irony is that this wish to return to some shape of greatness points to moments in time when the country was doing just fine under the leadership of the so-called bums. Take Donald Trump. It's difficult to pinpoint exactly to what timeframe he wants to take his country back. Should he be referring to the 1950s, for instance, when the United States economy was growing fast, then his voters should know that those years were the epitome of what they appear to be opposing now: the years of compromise and consensus under President Dwight Eisenhower. That, and a progressive income tax that topped out at a 91 percent rate. The 1960s, then? Hardly a nice, quiet, and safe society. The 1970s, perhaps? Like the '60s, that was a time of great societal and political upheaval. The 1980s? The current Trump or European supporters who lived then may remember the Me'-society they hated. OK, so how about the 1990s? Oh no, that's Clinton country. So perhaps a timeframe from long before that? Maybe the years of Franklin D. Roosevelt are a popular reference. He pulled the United States out of a depression, creating jobs, successfully fighting poverty, and restoring pride. Sure, government expenses during World War II helped to ensure that everyone had a job. But that was still the government at work for the people. Perhaps it is time that voters in the United States and Europe took a long, hard look to understand when they were happy, and when they were not. Turns out, they were most happy at times when they had jobs and were assured that their children and their grandchildren saw the promise of an equally rich future. And so here lies the challenge to the bums: to reroute the subway democracy. Instead of accepting the subway schedule as it is, or promising to take the train to where it cannot go, tear up the schedule altogether and build new subway tubes. Franklin Roosevelt did that. And the facts show that a leader like Barack Obama has done just that. Perhaps listening to someone like Ron Haskins is worthwhile. Haskins is a lifelong Republican working for the Brookings Institution think tank. He recently wrote a book about evidence-based policy that works -- so not policies based on expectations or assumptions, but literally on returns on government investment as instituted by the Obama administration. Democracy-loving politicians in Europe would do best to take a page from the Obama script. (AP photo) 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 SUBSCRIBERS OF UCOMS ALL TIME BEST OFFER TO ENJOY ADDITIONAL BENEFITS Armenia-Azerbaijan: EU sets up monitoring capacity along the international borders PACE co-rapporteurs on Armenia concerned by reports of alleged war crimes or inhuman treatment perpetrated by Azerbaijans armed forces There is still 35% gender pay gap: Sona Ghazaryan Global Finance Names Ameriabank the Safest Bank in Armenia Mikayel and Karen Vardanyans provided 136 million AMD support for the overhaul of the Myasnikyan statue, which was in unsafe state of disrepair Believe me, as a representative of a country which uses the Schengen system very often, it is quite important. Vardanyan I really look forward to having answers from the Azerbaijani side for these alleged gross human rights violations: Secretary General I call on Armenian and Azerbaijani parliamentarians to use this Assembly as an agora of opportunities President Tiny Kox UCOMS SPECIAL OFFER OF THE UNLIMITED INTERNET IS NOW TERMLESS There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol Armenia and Azerbaijan to do so without delay An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan". UCOM AND PES-PES CONTINUE COOPERATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF EDUCATIONAL PROJECT The statement of the meeting between Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Aliyev, President Macron and President Michel of October 6, 2022 Largest Corporate Bond Program at the Securities Market of Armenia Completed Successfully Google Ad The statement of the Defender on the video of the execution of Armenian PoWs by the Azerbaijani armed forces LEVEL UP ONLY FOR STUDENTS: UCOM OFFERS X2 AND X3 MORE INTERNET STATEMENT BY SECRETARY ANTONY J. BLINKEN This criminal act is another proof that the Armenophobia policy. Tatoyan Nikol Pashinyan, Nancy Pelosi discuss a number of issues related to the Armenian-American agenda and regional developments Delegation by Nancy Pelosi Accompanied by Alen Simonyan Visits Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi Arrives in Yerevan Armenian Revytech, global technology leader SAP and financial services software specialist SAP Fioneer sign a cooperation agreement With 120 million drams donated by Mikael Vardanyan, the defenders of the homeland will be treated in a new building OSCE Chairman-in-Office and OSCE Secretary General call for immediate cessation of hostilities along Armenia-Azerbaijan border Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh USA Embassy Message for U.S. Citizens ANCA Issues National Call to Action to Stop Taxpayer Funding of Aliyevs Aggression , We're sorry, this article is not currently available There is no stopping the development of lavish Malaysian residential homes across the country. According to Malaysia's Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Minister Abdul Rahman, the Malaysian government will never be able to stop property developers from constructing lavish residential properties. Rahman cited that this is impossible to prevent because Malaysia is not a communist country, an article from Malaysiakini.com disclosed. Rahman said in a statement, "We can't do like that -- preventing them from building houses. This is not a communist economy this is a democratic country." He added that property developers have the right to develop real estate or have the right to do what they want. There is nothing that they can do because Malaysia is an open country. Rahman was a part of a recent press conference in Putrajaya. A lot of luxury properties have been recently developed in Malaysia, the most amazing ones can be seen in Malaysian regions such as properties in Kuala Lumpur. According to a popular online Malaysian real estate site, kiluxuryproperty.com, there are quite a number of luxury residential properties in Malaysia especially in Kuala Lumpur that will simply exceed customers' expectations. The site is just one of the many property developers in the country with local clients as well as international customers coming from countries such as USA, UK, Australia, Middle East, China, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Singapore, an information from Kiluxuryproperty.com stated. Kiluxuryproperty.com specializes in leasing and the selling of luxury residential properties such as condominium units, semi- detached homes and detached bungalows at Kuala Lumpur's business district. One of the company's prized properties is the Sky Bungalows which is described as "a worthy lifestyle investment." The high end property is loaded with top amenities such as spacious units, skyline view access, relaxation amenities and so many more. The City of Atlanta has chosen Atlanta-based real estate investment firm JMG Realty, Inc. to manage the development of the 164-unit mixed use City Plaza. "We look forward to working with the City of Atlanta to continue providing high quality housing and retail opportunities in the heart of the city," said Jean Woodworth, Executive Vice-President of JMG Realty, Inc. The City Plaza was originally built in 1996 to house the Georgia State Patrol during the Atlanta Summer Olympics. The building contains 164 residential units and six individual retail "bays." The mixed use residential/retail building was acquired by the City of Atlanta on Dec. 29, 2015. The city plans to use the "bays" for a pharmacy and a fitness & wellness center that will be conveniently located for city employees in the nearby Atlanta City Hall. "Acquiring the City Plaza complex provides us with an important opportunity to enhance services for city residents," Mayor Kasim Reed said. "I am excited about this opportunity and believe residents and employees will benefit from this acquisition for years to come." According to the press release of JMG Realty, Inc. in PR NewsWire, JMG has already started a major renovation project in the City Plaza that totals to $1.5 million up-to-date before the change of ownership. These upgrades and improvements include: the removal of ceiling and carpet in all interior hallways to be replaced with modern sealed cement, updates to the lighting and loft style open ceiling; upgrades of all units with stainless appliances, new wood inspired laminate flooring, brush nickel lighting fixtures, refaced cabinets, tiled shower surrounds, and full color change; and 100 percent modernization of all amenities with fresh electronics and aesthetics. JMG Realty, Inc. is an Atlanta-based real estate investment firm that provides redevelopment, financial, investment and management services for multi-family real estate, including conventional and student housing, for both private and institutional owners. At present, the firm manages 25,000 units across the United States and has over $2.4 billion in assets. Several landmarks and a luxurious hotel in Yosemite National Park will soon be known with new names, as there is an ongoing legal trademark battle on intellectual property rights. The Ahwahnee Hotel and Curry Village at Yosemite National Park will be changing its name to Majestic Yosemite Hotel and Half Dome Village, respectively, Yahoo reports. The move was made after Delaware North lost a $2 billion bid that would have renewed its contract to operate Yosemite's facilities such as the hotel, restaurants and outdoor activities. Delaware North reportedly applied for the trademark for the names "when it prepared to open bids for the concessionary operation." This includes the name used by the park itself, Yosemite National Park. In the company's lawsuit, Delaware North demanded $51 million for the use of the names at Yosemite National Park, according to the same report. The park's spokesperson Scott Gediman stated that they are currently in a legal battle with the company for the rights of the park's name and other iconic landmarks. "We're clearly in disagreement with Delaware North. We're taking this action to ensure the seamless transition," he stated. Aramark, the company which Yosemite awarded the 15-year contract to, is set to begin their operation of Yosemite facilities on March 1. Gediman explained that the decision to change the names is in line with Aramark's transition as the new concessionaire. The move would also avoid potential disruptions in hotel bookings for visitors. He also indicated that while other park facilities and landmarks may soon change its name, Yosemite National Park will be retained. However, the park's name is also included in the Delaware North trademark dispute. Meanwhile, one of the steps that the court is expected to make would be to assess the validity of Delaware North's trademark claim, according to a Los Angeles Times report. This includes reviewing whether the $51 million intellectual property payment that the company demanded is legitimate. Initial assessment made by the government has pegged the intellectual property to be around $3.5 million. Other Yosemite landmarks to be affected by the name change include the Yosemite Lodge at the Falls, which will be renamed Yosemite Valley Lodge; the Wawona Hotel, which will be renamed Big Trees Lodge; and the Badger Pass Ski Area, which will be known as Yosemite Ski & Snowboard Area. Foreclosure is a word dreaded by many house owners and it has plaguing the United States for a while now. Some states have recovered, with housing markets actually booming, while others have a shortage of supply. In Florida and New Jersey, however, it is another story altogether. CNBC reports that the two states, as well some of their metropolitan areas, have topped the list of foreclosures last year, based on a data released by RealtyTrac. Of the two, New Jersey recorded the highest activity rate, at 1.91 percent of homes foreclosure filings, while Florida had the second highest rate at 1.77 percent, followed by Maryland third at 1.60 percent. On a national scale, the rate was 0.82 percent, and overall foreclosure activity dropped to a nine-year low in 2015, which may still be considered good news, although it may hardly be so to those highly affected areas. Foreclosures in many markets were expected at the turn of 2015 but economic problems have hit the local areas which resulted to more foreclosures and this time it particularly hit Atlantic City, New Jersey's distressed gambling hub, according to Daren Blomquist, RealtyTrac vice president, the report continues. Among the metropolitan areas hit hardly nationwide, Atlantic City and its surrounding area recorded the highest rate in 2015 at 3.43 percent. It is due to the casino layoffs in 2014 in the seaside's resort in town. Trenton, New Jersey's capital city, ranked second at 2.14 percent. Meanwhile, Florida metro areas around Tampa Bay, Jacksonville and Miami rounded out the top five. Daren Blomquist, RealtyTrac vice president, told CNBC in an email, "Both of those states had the unfortunate combination of a massive volume of foreclosure activity spawned by the housing bubble burst along with a dysfunctional foreclosure process resulting from lenders and servicers cutting corners when it came to foreclosure documentation." He added that "The combination of volume and dysfunction "led to a long tail of distress in those states that is still being worked through." Even in Texas, Oklahoma and North Dakota, foreclosure activities are rising because lower oil prices have hit other housing markets. In her three years at the University of Georgia, Hayley Vaughan has spent a tremendous amoun A full year at the University of Georgia comes with a price tag of $9,364 in tuition for undergraduate students and an additional $1,129 in fees. But that $10,493 is just the baseline cost of education at UGA. Or he looks for any opportunity not to buy the book at all. How we got the story: -The Red & Black requested in fall 2015 the full list of textbook prices from the University of Georgia Bookstore for courses offered in fall and spring of 2015, along with the full list of lab fees per course from the same year. -Using this data, The Red & Black analyzed the price disparities between different majors, based on the amount students pay in textbook prices and additional fees. The Red & Black averaged the textbook prices of nearly 20 majors and incorporated the amount students pay in course lab fees and other costs, in order to determine which majors pay the most. UPDATE: Crews make progress on 10-acre Clear Fire southeast of Igo Firefighters were gaining access at the Cloverdale trailhead at the Cloverdale Recreation Area. SHARE YMCA hosts community day The Shasta Family YMCA is hosting an open house and community day 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday. The event will feature several activities for children and adults. There also will be free fitness and swim assessments. The Y is at 1155 N. Court St. in Redding and features 40,000 square feet of space. For more information about the YMCA and the open house, go to www.sfymca.org or call 246-9622. What medical expenses are deductible? The Internal Revenue Service has published information on itemized deductions for medical and dental expenses that taxpayers can claim on Schedule A (Form 1040). The publication discusses what expenses you can deduct and explains how to treat reimbursements and how to figure the deduction. It also explains how to treat impairment-related work expenses and health insurance premiums if you are self-employed. The health-coverage tax credit also is discussed. Go to https://www.irs.gov/uac/About-Publication-502 for more information. Reporter David Benda can be reached at 225-8219 or at david.benda@redding.com. SHARE By David Benda of the Redding Record Searchlight Hope Seth came away from Thursday's North State Economic Forecast Conference in Oroville feeling reassured about the work she's doing for the Economic Development Corp. of Shasta County. Prior to joining a panel to discuss innovative strategies to encourage entrepreneurial development, Seth listened to Prem Chand, CEO of Milestone Technologies Inc. in Fremont. Chand grew up in Chico and moved to Silicon Valley where he eventually started his company, which today has more than 900 employees who work at three locations, including Chico, where it has a call center. So many rural areas like Shasta County boast about their resources such as timber and water, Chand told the conference, but rural communities need to listen to the "pain" that can come from doing business in urban areas like the San Francisco Bay Area. "We need to create solutions to those pain points, which can be a real opportunity" to grow rural communities, Seth said she heard from Chand. It's something Seth, as director of entrepreneurial development, has been working on since she started at the Shasta County EDC nearly three years ago. Examples are the recently opened Shasta Venture HUB and SAGE Angel Group, a group of local business people who to date have invested in four new startups. Thursday's event at the Gold Country Casino was presented by the Center for Economic Development at Chico State University. Kick-off speaker Robert Eyler, director of the Center for Regional Economic Analysis at Sonoma State University, talked about how the North State's economy is steadily coming back with moderate growth in manufacturing and housing, Seth said. "He did mention how San Francisco is really a huge economic engine for the North State," Seth said. Shasta County's housing market has been boosted for years by equity refugees, who sell their homes in the Bay Area and Southern California and move to Redding and surrounding communities. Benefitting from housing starts, Anderson-based Sierra Pacific Industries is one of the largest employers in the North State and among the largest lumber producers in the United States. The company operates sawmills in California and Washington. SPI spokesman Mark Pawlicki said there is a significant supply of lumber in the United States and that is driving down prices. "2015 for us was not as good as 2014 from our standpoint," Pawlicki said earlier this week. He did not speak at Thursday's conference. Exports to Asia have been decreasing while Canada has increased its shipments into the United States. "There is a substantial amount of wood in the marketplace given the demand," Pawlicki said. "Demand is relatively flat to where it was a year ago. Prices are low." The year 1859 was a very dark year for Shasta County native people. By then, any semblance to their former way of living off the land in their native ways had disappeared. Massacres, extermination attempts, loss of their ancestral land and loss of their food sources had taken their toll. By the winter of 1859, American Indians had nowhere to go, no food to eat and no way to stay warm. They were beginning to die in large numbers from starvation, the cold and sickness. In desperation, many went to Fort Crook, where they were given rations of food and blankets and told to wait until they would be taken to a reservation. They had given up. They were not alone. Other eastern Shasta County native people were being rounded up by the military and held as prisoners in anticipation of an eminent forced march to a reservation. Gen. William Kibbe was in charge of the march. Stories of the march were written in detail and published in all the local newspapers. The settlers, the gold miners, the ranchers and the business owners were all happy the native people were leaving. But the natives were not happy in having to leave their homeland, where they and their ancestors had been living for thousands of years. The following is taken from a story printed in the Shasta Herald newspaper on Dec. 3, 1859 when General Kibbe was leaving Millville with about 600 American Indians. It was titled "The Indian Exodus." The article stated that Gen. Wm. Kibbe, having about 600 American Indians in charge, left the neighborhood of Millville on Cow Creek for the Tejon Reservation. "We have always doubted the propriety of gathering up Indians and placing them on a reservation," the article states. "We are opposed to the Reservation system; however, since it is in operation, it may be as well to convey these Indians to one of them ...". The article continues, "The Indians heretofore captured have been taken to the Mendocino, on the sea coast. Why a change of policy has been adopted and these Indians are to be packed off about 500 miles to the Tejon Reservation, we are not informed but presume it is thought the further they are conveyed away the better, and the least probability of their returning." The article said moving American Indians to reservations "is a prolific subject for reflection." "We know scores of these Indians. They have dug gold for us in the Pit River mines." It continues, "A love of one's native land is the most powerful sentiment of the human heart, home and native country... Every one of these 600 Indians, who now take the departure, was born in these hills. To them, every hill and little valley, every meadow and wild nook in the mountains, and even the trees of the forest, have a familiar name known from childhood, and with them are linked the association of their whole lives, as also the legends that have come down from all the generations who here lived and died." On the same date of Dec. 3, 1859, the short story shown below appeared in the Shasta Courier newspaper. The Shasta Courier was a weekly paper as was the above mentioned Shasta Herald. Since it would have been impossible for General Kibbe to have traveled with 600 prisoners on the same date from Millville to Cottonwood, I'm assuming the Shasta Herald wrote its story a week after the march began. "General Kibbe arrived in Cottonwood on Thursday with his company in charge of upwards of 400 Pit River Indians. The war is ended. The Indians are by this time at Nome Lackee (in Tehama County)." Dottie Smith is the former instructor of Shasta County History at Shasta College, the former curator of the Shasta College Museum and currenty a part-time instructor at Simpson University. Contact her at historydottie@gmail.com. SHARE By Lauren Forcella of the Redding Record Searchlight Dear Straight Talk: Im a junior and small for my age. I would like to ask this girl to prom, but she is quiet and I cant tell if she likes me or not. Ive never asked a girl out and dont understand how guys get up the nerve. My friends are hopeless geeks and no help. Is it OK to ask her on Facebook? I dont have her phone number. How have other less-popular guys handled asking a girl out? Shy guy in Lodi Taylor, 17, Santa Rosa: If shes shy, dont make it a big production. Do something quiet but meaningful. Bring flowers, or send a note to her class asking to excuse her. If you arent sure she likes you, you can still ask and go as friends. Its an opportunity to get to know each other. Good luck! Chuck, 19, Toledo, Ohio: The first time asking a girl out is incredibly hard! I remember hiding in my closet, shaking as my hand held the phone to my ear. That this absolutely requires courage cannot be overstated. I cant stress enough, DO NOT USE FACEBOOK! It seems easier, but that night you have to face her and the awkwardness from contacting her through text. That said, if you absolutely cannot ask her verbally, write a note, decorate her locker, build a website, do something that shows creativity. Warren, 24, Nashville, Mich.: I had trouble just talking to girls. What helped was reminding myself: Shes a person, just like me. Definitely ask her in person. Its harder but it means more, I promise. Just be upfront. Ask if she has any plans for prom. If she doesnt, ask if shed like go with you. If she says no, or shes busy, no big deal. There will be more proms and dances. Chris, 25, Washington, D.C.: I still get nervous asking some girls out! Keep perspective: For every girl who says no, 10 will say yes. Dont overthink it. Keep it simple and do it! Definitely ask her in person. Shell either say yes or no. After hearing no over and over, you pick up little tricks. Flashback: Middle school. Im rollerskating. The DJ calls Couples Skate. Im shy and scrambling to exit the rink when this girl asks me! We must have skated 10 laps in complete silence, as I could not form a single sentence! Moral of the story: Build some sort of relationship before asking her out. Christina, 21, Marysville: Ask her when shes alone in a public place where people arent standing around. Its scary, but itll be easier next time. I love thoughtful stuff. Have a pretty flower (doesnt have to be a rose or her favorite) to give when you ask. Dont go all out, just something sweet and thoughtful. Girls: Be considerate of the courage it took the guy to ask you. Sarah, 16, Monclova, Ohio: Definitely dont ask over text or Facebook! Its too impersonal. If youve been talking, incorporate something you know she likes into the invite or put it in her locker. Dont be extravagant, something small and personal is best! If she says no, dont beat yourself up. Prom is fun without a date, too! Dear Shy Guy: You heard the unanimous verdict: Ask her in person. You wont die, I promise! In fact, you will have faced an important challenge, and regardless of outcome, you win just by doing it. Avoid a note if you can they can leave you wondering if they were received. You can do this! Keep it simple (shes quiet), sweet (add flowers), and straightforward (Warrens script). Breathe deep... and go for it! Lauren Ask a question or go deeper in todays conversation at www.StraightTalkAdvice.org or write PO Box 1974 Sebastopol, CA 95473. Straight Talk Advice.org is a 501c3 nonprofit. If todays column has been useful, please consider a donation. Andreas Fuhrmann/Record Searchlight Shasta High School's main campus was evacuated while authorities responded to a bomb threat. The students moved to the school's gymnasium. SHARE Andreas Fuhrmann/Record Searchlight Shasta High School students return to school from the school's gym after the main campus was evacuated while authorities responded to a bomb threat. By Staff Reports Redding police responded to bomb threats on Thursday at Pioneer and Shasta high schools. A bomb threat was called into the school office at Pioneer High School late Thursday morning, according to the Redding Police Department. Students were taken to a the Shasta High School gym. As police officers searched Pioneer High School, a second bomb threat was called in to Shasta High School. Shasta High students also went into the gym and officers searched both campuses. No devices were found and students were back in class by noon. Police continue to look into the threats. Stethoscope wrapped around hundred dollar bills SHARE By Amber Sandhu of the Redding Record Searchlight A San Francisco court ruled against a Redding woman's request for postpartum tubal ligation at Mercy Medical Center, a Catholic-affiliated hospital, which operates under Dignity Health. Represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, Rebecca Chamorro, 33, of Redding is scheduled for a Cesarean section delivery Jan. 28. In September, she discussed the sterilization procedure with her obstetrician, Dr. Samuel Van Kirk, who requested to perform the procedure at Mercy, but instead was sent a denial letter that stated the procedure was not in line with the hospital's Ethical and Religious Directives. The directives, also known as ERDs, deem sterilization "intrinsically evil," and not permitted at a Catholic healthcare institution. On Wednesday, San Francisco County Superior Court ruled that since the ERDs do not permit sterilization among both women and men, it does not constitute sex discrimination. The suit was filed in San Francisco because that is were Dignity Health is headquartered. "We are pleased by the court's decision to deny the ACLU's request for a preliminary injunction, which will allow Dignity Health to continue to operate consistent with the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services," Chad Burns, Dignity Health spokesman, wrote in a prepared statement. "When you're discriminating against pregnant women, you're discriminating against women," Elizabeth Gill, senior staff attorney at ACLU, said about the decision. She said that men can get a vasectomy during an outpatient procedure, while women can't. "That's why there's harm here," she said about the ruling. "It's frustrating that my needs as a patient seem to be less important than the religious directives especially because tubal ligation is such a routine, safe procedure," Chamorro said in a prepared statement through the ACLU. "Dignity Health is a big organization that's providing health care to the broader population so I am confused as to why we haven't progressed to a point where patient care is standard, especially where there are so few options." The ACLU also represented Physicians for Reproductive Health, a national nonprofit that advocates for comprehensive reproductive health care policies. Gill said that while they're disappointed about Chamorro's case, the underlying lawsuit would move forward. Gill said with the rapid expansion of Catholic hospitals, it's becoming a bigger issue not just in California but the country. "It's something that clearly has struck a nerve," she said. Catholic hospitals such as Mercy present "a huge conflict of interest" by using religion to discriminate and deny women basic healthcare, Gill said. For Chamorro, her only other choice would have been to deliver and undergo tubal ligation at a hospital more than 70 miles away from her home with a different obstetrician. In December, the ACLU sent Mercy a demand letter on Chamorro's behalf citing sex discrimination and stating that ERDs were not a legal basis for denying her tubal ligation. But, with Chamorro's impending due date, the ACLU filed for a temporary restraining order against Mercy stating that the ERDs interfered with the doctor-patient relationship. Earlier this month, the judge denied that order too. It's not the first time Mercy has denied a woman postpartum tubal ligation. According to court records, Kirk stated he's had to turn away 50 women over the course of eight years who wanted postpartum tubal ligation. In August, Rachel Miller, 32, contacted the ACLU when she was denied the procedure. But in her case, she was granted the procedure after ACLU sent over a demand letter. A Caltrans traffic camera shows the backup caused by a big rig wreck on Highway 299 near Buckhorn Summit in Trinity County. SHARE Highway 299 is closed at the Buckhorn Summit due to a big rig accident and winter weather conditions, a spokesperson for the California Department of Transportation. Chain controls in the area are also in effect. Chains or traction devices are required on all vehicles except four-wheel-drive vehicles with snow tires. Elsewhere, chains or snow tires are also required on Highway 299 from three miles west of Montgomery Creek in Shasta County to six miles west of Burney. Additionally, chains or snow tires are required on Highway 44 from three miles east of Shingletown to Viola. SHARE Rick Lynn Turner Shasta County sheriffs detectives are investigating the mysterious disappearance of a 51-year-old Millville man. For although his car, complete with blood stains inside it, has been found, the whereabouts of Rick Lynn Turner remain unknown. Sheriffs authorities say Turner apparently drove away from his Millville home in his black 2006 Dodge Charger around noon on Christmas Eve. But his family reported him missing on Dec. 28 when he failed to attend any family functions over the Christmas weekend, sheriffs officials say. Authorities say, however, his car was pulled over on Jan. 3 by Red Bluff police during an enforcement stop. But the two people inside it - a man and a woman - were definitely not Turner. Sheriffs officials say the driver, who was not identified, told police he purchased the car from a man, but that he did not know of his whereabouts. That man who sold the car, Shasta County Sheriff's Sgt, Brian Jackson said, was not Turner and his identity is unknown. The driver of the Charger, as well as the unidentified passenger, were subsequently arrested on unrelated charges and the car was towed and placed into storage. Detectives with the major crimes unit then took over the investigation and began conducting follow up regarding the new circumstances, Jackson said in a news release. He said a search of the Dodge Charger revealed suspicious blood stains inside the passenger compartment. Detectives conducted follow up interviews with the two who had been arrested, who are not suspected of any wrongdoing in connection with Turners disappearance, and the investigation revealed that the Charger was found abandoned with the keys inside on Dec. 24 by the side of the road near the north end of Shasta View near College View Drive. As of today, Jackson said, Turner has not been seen or heard from by his family and friends, and detectives have been unable to identify any type of electronic footprint of him through social media, nor through telephone and bank records. Sheriffs authorities are now seeking the publics help in trying to find Turner. Anyone with information are asked to contact the Sheriffs Office at 245-61355 or by email at mcu@co.shasta.ca.us

Greg Barnette/Record Searchlight A Chinook salmon rests in a seasonal creek near Swasey Drive in Redding on Tuesday. Recent rains brought water to creeks that have been dry for several years due to the drought.

SHARE By Damon Arthur of the Redding Record Searchlight For endangered winter-run Chinook salmon, 2015 was a bad year as nearly all of the fish recently hatched in the Sacramento River died before they got as far south as Red Bluff. It was the second year in a row that low water levels and high temperatures in the Sacramento River killed off at least 95 percent of the young winter-run salmon, raising concerns among federal and state agencies trying to prevent the fish from going extinct. "That's of high concern to us," said Maria Rea, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration assistant regional administrator for the Central Valley. Nearly all of the winter-run salmon in the Sacramento River originate north of Red Bluff and most of those spawn in the stretch of river that winds through Redding. But the drought has left water temperatures in the river higher than normal and deadly for the salmon eggs and recent hatches, officials said. This year, 98 percent of the salmon eggs and recent hatches died before they could be counted in fish traps in the river in Red Bluff, Rea said. Jim Smith, project leader for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service office in Red Bluff, said his numbers show about 4 percent of the young salmon survived to Red Bluff. Even with the slight increase in the number of winter-run counted, the low survival rates are unprecedented, he said. "This is the lowest we've seen," Smith said. Typically, about 26 percent of the young fish survive to Red Bluff as they make their way to the ocean, where they live for three years before swimming back upstream to spawn and die, Rea said. Rea blamed the low survival rates on the drought, which has left Lake Shasta at historically low levels. The low lake levels have reduced the amount of cold water available in the reservoir to send downstream. Fisheries officials say salmon eggs begin dying off when the water temperature gets above 56 degrees. In 2014 the cold water pool in the lake was exhausted by the fall and there was no way for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to get cold water to help the fish. In June 2015, federal and state officials decided to reduce the amount of water coming out of Lake Shasta and Keswick Reservoir in an attempt to preserve cold water in the lake and get it to stretch through the fall. The winter-run isn't the only species of salmon suffering because of the drought. There are four runs of salmon in the river fall, late-fall, winter and spring so named for the time of year when the adults pass under the Golden Gate Bridge on their way back upstream to their spawning grounds. The commercial and recreational salmon fishing industry mainly relies on the more plentiful fall-run Chinook. But the fall-run has also suffered during the drought, said John McManus, executive director of the Golden Gate Salmon Association. "We had a very poor 2015 season," McManus said. Commercial and recreational salmon fishing regulations are affected by the winter-run, he said. For example, after the winter-run leave San Francisco Bay, most of them head south when they get out to the Pacific Ocean, placing greater restrictions on fishing in those areas, McManus said. And generally, conditions in the river that hurt the winter-run also are not good for the other salmon runs, he said. Every winter, Fish and Wildlife Service officials release about 175,000 winter-run salmon into the river in the Redding area. To compensate for the higher death rate this past year officials plan to release about 425,000 later this month or in early February. Those winter-run fish are raised at the Livingston Stone National Fish Hatchery near Shasta Dam and are released in Redding. Last year, fisheries officials released some 600,000 fish into the river at the boat ramp near Caldwell Park. Plummeting numbers of winter-run salmon in the Sacramento River also highlight the need to implement programs to re-establish the fish in other streams, Rea said. Federal and state agencies are working on a project to truck winter-run salmon around Shasta Dam and plant them in the McCloud and Sacramento rivers above Lake Shasta. Before Shasta Dam was built, the winter run would spawn in the cooler waters of the McCloud River and upper reaches of the Sacramento River. That project probably won't get underway until about 2017, she said. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. are also removing barriers and installing fish ladders on Battle Creek to re-establish winter-run in that stream, Rea said. PG&E operates numerous dams and tunnels in the creek for hydropower generation. SHARE A 40-year-old Yreka man has been arrested by police on suspicion of kidnapping, torturing and sexually assaulting a woman, the Yreka Police Department announced today. Shane Ashby was arrested at his W. Miner Street residence and booked into Siskiyou County Jail, police said. Officers said they were called Tuesday to Fairchild Medical Center in Yreka after receiving reports of a possible assault victim. The womans horrific story of abuse sparked an extensive investigation, culminating in Ashbys arrest, police said. In addition to kidnapping, torture and sexual assault, Ashby was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, false imprisonment and stealing a vehicle, police said. SHARE Again and again on the campaign trail, the presidential candidates have been faced by Americas rising concern about addiction, particularly to opioid painkillers and heroin. And from Hillary Clinton to Chris Christie, the politicians have responded by pledging their support for drug courts. This bipartisan reaction is correct, in principle: Drug courts, which now exist in every state, can motivate people to overcome their substance-abuse problems more effectively than punishment can. But to make the courts work in practice, states need to see that theyre adequately funded and properly run. Typically, states offer drug courts as an alternative to prison for addicts who are arrested for nonviolent crimes only: In exchange for pleading guilty, a defendant can spend a year undergoing assessment, treatment and monitoring. Crucially, this opportunity is offered under the threat of sanctions (including jail time) for not following the program. Theres good evidence that the strategy works: Recidivism rates among people who have participated in drug courts are as much as one-quarter lower than for those who have not, and lower still for those who complete the programs. For every $1 spent on drug courts, a state saves about $2.21 on its criminal justice and corrections systems. But states and counties have struggled to pay the courts upfront costs mainly salaries for the case managers and coordinators who ensure that defendants get treatment. And with funding limited, drug courts have too few spaces to accommodate all the people who might benefit. The federal government has pitched in by offering grants to plan, start or expand drug courts. But that funding has been minimal, and usually temporary. For the next president to truly expand access to drug courts, he or she will need to make more federal money available. Restrictions on eligibility further reduce the reach of drug courts. One study of recently incarcerated inmates found that more than 80 percent of those who could benefit from the courts were excluded. Many drug courts also need better management. Consider that judges, rather than physicians or other medical professionals, determine peoples treatment. And very often judges fail to appreciate the value of so-called medication-assisted therapy in addiction treatment the use of methadone and other alternatives to help people avoid the drugs to which theyre addicted. Indeed, a 2013 study found that two-thirds of drug courts prevented those who had been using illegal opioids from being treated with methadone or similar medication, often on the mistaken belief that such drugs prolong addiction. As a result, many people fail to complete their programs who otherwise could, and even face a higher risk of overdosing. The federal government said last year that it would deny grants to courts that ban such treatments, but court budgets are mainly funded by states. And they wont provide effective treatment unless doctors are in charge. Drug courts can be a good strategy for treating the U.S.s twin epidemics of substance abuse and mass incarceration. But they need to be used more often, and more carefully. Bloomberg News In the wake of the nuclear test conducted by North Korea several international bodies are priming to impose severe sanctions on the Hermit Kingdom in the hopes of dissuading the dictatorship from any further proliferation. However, such sanctions could have serious repercussions and may prove disastrous for all the players involved, says Debalina Ghoshal. Early in January, news reports emerged that North Korea had successfully conducted a miniaturised hydrogen bomb test. With this, North Korea has conducted its fourth nuclear test defying United Nations Security Council sanctions to conduct such tests. The hydrogen bomb is more powerful than its plutonium-based cousin and is viewed by North Korea to take them to a higher level of nuclear power (external link). The nuclear tests are a sheer breach of global non-proliferation efforts. In early 2003, North Korea withdrew itself from the Non Proliferation Treaty which it had signed in 1985. Thereafter, Pyongyang conducted its first nuclear test in 2006, while the second one in 2009 and the third one was conducted in 2013. However, this nuclear test should not come as a surprise. North Korea, over the years, has vehemently conducted missile and artillery test firings as a mark to oppose the military exercises conducted between the US and South Korea. On several occasions, it had conducted test firings of SRBMs prior to a military exercise. In 2013, North Korea also adopted a policy of Byungjin Line (external link) that linked the development of the economy to the development of its nuclear weapons arsenal. In fact, in August 2014 (external link), a North Korean official was also quoted as saying, 'Given that the US and the puppet forces of South Korea continue staging nuclear war exercises against us in particular, we will take countermeasures for self-defence which will include missile launches, nuclear tests and all other programmes.' Conducting frequent missile and artillery test firings and four nuclear tests despite the sanctions imposed on North Korea only makes it clear that sanctions and moratoriums are unlikely to deter Pyongyang to make its presence felt and display its discontent and dissatisfaction to the international community. For North Korea, its missile and nuclear capabilities are not only a tool of deterrence but also a tool of coercive diplomacy. In 2015, North Korea also expressed its desire to open negotiations with the US on signing a peace treaty but ruled out any possibility of giving up its nuclear weapons. Thus, such nuclear and missile tests are also a message to the US to seriously consider a peace treaty with the Hermit Kingdom to end the Korean war once and for all. So far only an armistice exists. Only in August 2015 did South Korea and North Korea make efforts to reduce tensions between themselves. In fact, in October 2014, reports emerged that North Korea had called on the US to negotiate a peace treaty. It is also clear that North Korea views its nuclear weapons as a medium to coerce the US to negotiate the peace treaty between the North and South. North Korea believes that this treaty (external link) is the only way to ensure that a nuclear arms race is prevented. Pyongyang had also conducted peace talks with Seoul in November 2015 (external link) to reduce tensions between the two countries. North Koreas immediate neighbours, Japan and South Korea, are apprehensive of Pyongyangs growing nuclear capabilities. Japan has already declared the test as a clear serious threat (external link) to its security. South Korea, on the other hand, has condemned the act and demanded stricter sanctions for violation of the UNSC resolution. Reports also reveal that South Korea expects China to take a stringent stand on North Korea's nuclear activities. The US has assured its allies of strengthening its security commitments towards them in the region while also making it clear that it would not accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state. In fact, just days after the nuclear test, the US flew its B-52 (external link) nuclear capable bombers over South Korea in response to the nuclear test as a demonstration of the US commitment to South Korea and Japan and for the defence of the US homeland. China, Pyongyangs closest ally, has also not supported this nuclear test, with Beijing assuring its commitment towards achieving a denuclearised Korean peninsula. However, Beijing at the same time is not in favour of any stringent actions against North Korea and believes that this issue should be resolved through dialogues. Any stricter sanctions on North Korea could only coerce Pyongyang to sell its nuclear weapons to terrorist organisations or to States like Syria which support terrorist organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah in return for hard currency. On July 23, 2014 (external link), a US court ruled that North Korea in 2006 transferred (external link) rocket and missile components to Iran where they were assembled and shipped to Hezbollah in Lebanon via Syria and were in fact used by Hezbollah to carry out rocket and missile attacks against Israeli civilian targets. North Korea could also sell its nuclear weapons to Pakistan which also funds terrorism. Stricter sanctions against North Korea will only annoy Pyongyang to the extent of conducting more nuclear tests and thereby challenging not only the global non-proliferation order but also threatening global peace and stability. Image: People take part in mass rallies held across the country vowing to carry out tasks set forth by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency in Pyongyang. Photograph: Reuters. A British mother who is accused of taking her 14-month-old baby to Syria to join the Islamic State terrorist group has gone on trial in the United Kingdom. Tareena Shakil, 26, told her family she was leaving for a holiday in Turkey in October 2014 but instead travelled to the city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of IS in northern Syria, Birmingham Crown Court was told this week. She is believed to be the first British woman to return from the IS heartland to face terror charges. "Although she booked a return flight, she was not going to come back, and this was no spur-of-the-moment decision," prosecutor Sean Larkin told the jury. "She was given a house to live in. She was provided for. She was given access to firearms, and there were images of her child wearing clothing with the IS logo and posing by a firearm," he said.Shakil was arrested by British police at Heathrow airport in February last year after arriving on a flight from Turkey.She told officers she was kidnapped and taken to Syria but had managed to escape. The prosecution believes that was a lie.In a message to her father, who was back in the UK, she allegedly wrote: 'I can leave, but I don't want (to). I want to die here as a martyr.'She also told her family: 'If you don't love ISIS I don't want to talk to you anymore.'Her defence lawyer, Timothy Moloney, told the court: "Her marriage had ultimately broken down and she accessed websites about life in Syria. The issue is whether she intended to encourage terrorist acts or was reckless. Her case is that she did not and was not reckless. The second issue is whether she became a member of IS and her case is that she did not." Shakil's trial is expected to last three weeks. The Indian Army on Friday celebrated the Army Day in recognition of Lieutenant General (later Field Marshal) K M Cariappa's taking over as the first Commander-in-Chief of the force from General Sir Francis Butcher -- the last British Commander-in-Chief of India, on January 15, 1949. Addressing the Army Day parade in New Delhi, Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag complimented the soldiers for giving a befitting reply to the enemy at the Line of Control which has been "active" due to cross-border firing and continuous infiltration attempts. Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted: "Saluting the indomitable valour, determination and dedication of our Army on Army Day." Here are some glimpses of the celebrations: Army soldiers participate in the Army Day parade in New Delhi on Friday. Photograph: Atul Yadav/PTI Photo Army daredevils perform at the Army Day parade. Photograph: Atul Yadav/PTI Photo A tableau on display at the Army Day parade in New Delhi. Photograph: Atul Yadav/PTI Photo An Army paratrooper performs during the Army Day parade. Photograph: Atul Yadav/PTI Photo Army soldiers display their combat skill during the Army Day parade. Photograph: Atul Yadav/PTI Photo A marching contingent during the Army Day parade. Photograph: Atul Yadav/PTI Photo General Dalbir Singh, Chief of the Army Staff, Navy Chief R K Dhowan and Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha after paying homage at Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate. Photograph: Atul Yadav/PTI Photo An army contingent marching during the Army Day parade. Photograph: Atul Yadav/PTI Photo Army chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag pinning decorations on a soldier. Photograph: Atul Yadav/PTI Photo Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag honours a martyr's widow. Photograph: Atul Yadav/PTI Photo Hindu Sena chief Vishnu Gupta was arrested on Friday by the Delhi police in connection with the vandalism of Pakistan International Airlines office in New Delhi by the members of the outfit. Gupta has been arrested under Sections 120B (being party to a criminal conspiracy), 147 (rioting), 149 (being the member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 427 (mischief causing damage to property) and 452 (house-trespass after preparation for hurt, assault or wrongful restraint) of the Indian Penal Code, said police. "The police are still looking for the other Hindu Sena members who were involved in the vandalism," deputy commissioner of police (New Delhi) Jatin Narwal said. On Thursday, four members of the Hindu Sena, a fringe right-wing group, ransacked the fifth floor office of Pakistan International Airlines at Narayan Manzil in Barakhamba Road around 3.15 pm, damaging computers, furniture and other items. Police later arrested one member of the group, who was identified as Lalit Singh, while three others fled. The members also left pamphlets which said, "There should be no talks with Pakistan unless they take stern action against people who have caused damage to India and hand over people like Dawood Ibrahim and Hafiz Saeed to India." The incident prompted Islamabad to take up the issue with the ministry of external affairs. Owning responsibility of the incident, Gupta had vented anger at Pakistan holding it responsible for the attacks at Pathankot air base as well as at the Indian consulate in the Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif recently. Gupta was also arrested last October, days after his complaint that beef was being served at Kerala House canteen in New Delhi was found to be false. The Indonesian police has arrested three suspects in connection with the attack in Jakarta on Thursday that killed seven people including five attackers. The three men were arrested at dawn from the outskirts of Jakarta, the police said. The three are suspected militants, and are being currently questioned, they added. In an assault that bore the hallmarks of the Paris attacks, five extremists detonated explosives and shot at people in a district packed with malls, embassies and United Nations offices. The assault left an Indonesian man dead and 20 other people injured, and a police post destroyed, in what the country's president dubbed "acts of terror". Hours after the attack, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility, saying it was carried out by "soldiers of the caliphate" who targeted a gathering of citizens from the "crusader coalition," referring to the US-led alliance combating the jihadists. Starbucks said it was shuttering all branches in the Indonesian capital until further notice "out of an abundance of caution" after the attack. The area is home to several embassies, including those of the United States, France and Spain. A number of United Nations agencies are also housed nearby. "We know that ISIS has the desire to declare a province in this region," said Kumar Ramakrishna, a counter-terrorism analyst at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. Regional terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna said the assault bore the hallmarks of the Islamic State group. "The only group that has the capability and the intention to mount coordinated, simultaneous attacks in Jakarta is the ISIS network," he said, using an alternate acronym for the group. Image: Indonesian policemen stands guard in front of a blast site. Photograph: Oscar Siagian/Getty Images Mayawati vows to storm back to power in 2017. Sharat Pradhan reports. Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati celebrated her 60th birthday on Friday, January 15, with a big bash in Lucknow where she emphatically declared her resolve to trounce the ruling Samajwadi Party and return to power in 2017. The celebrations were not like what they used to be during her years as Uttar Pradesh chief minister. When she was chief minister, her birthday was declared as Arthik Sahyog Diwas (financial support day). This time, it was celebrated as Jan Kalyankari Diwas (people's welfare day). Mayawati, who usually displays her diamond-studded necklace and earrings, wore a high-neck long coat over her usual pink satin silk suit. The birthday girl didn't cut a cake either. Instead, gajar halwa was served with a lavishly laid out lunch which she did not herself join. The celebrations may have been subdued, but her tone and tenor was clear and unflinching. Taking on Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav at her customary birthday interaction with the Lucknow media, Mayawati said: "The kind of samajwad (socialism) that Mulayam is practicing would have invited the wrath of Ram Manohar Lohia in whose name he swears without following any of the latter's ideals." "And if Lohiaji were to see the outlandish manner in which Mulayam celebrated his birthday, he would have exiled him from samajwad," she added. Flaying the Akhilesh Yadav government for discontinuing several welfare schemes launched during her regime, Mayawati warned, "I wish to inform Samajwadi Party leaders that they will pay for such vindictive actions once I return to power in a few months from now." "The people of the state have suffered enough on account of the complete breakdown of law and order, largely because of the Samajwadi Party's blatant patronage to goons and criminals. They have also been taken for a ride by the corrupt governance." "Everyone can see that neither the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) nor the Congress are in any position to bring the people any relief," Mayawati said. "Therefore, they will repose their faith in the BSP which alone will rid the state of goondaism and corruption." Mayawati cited past examples when, according to her, both the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance and the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance governments had failed to do anything for the uplift of the downtrodden castes of whom she alone claimed to be a "true messiah." In a bid to woo the upper castes, she advocated reservations for the poor among the upper castes. She also lashed out at the Narendra Modi government for its "failure to keep various election promises as also for fuelling communal disharmony across the country." "Modiji rode to power by promising the poor that each one of them would get Rs 15 to 20 lakh after his government retrieved India' black money parked in foreign banks within 100 days," she said. "But all those promises have been proved hollow and false." IMAGE: Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati addresses the media in Lucknow on her 60th birthday. Photograph: Sandeep Pal Tamil people across the country and other parts of the world are celebrating the harvest festival of Pongal and the first day of Tamil month Thai on Friday, preparing the traditional food and offering prayers. Devotees prepare ritual rice dishes to offer to the Sun God as they attend the Pongal celebrations in Mumbai on Friday. Photograph: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters People prepare sweet pongal, made of jaggery with rice and milk, in traditional mud pot or in brass cookware, with ginger tied on the top, and offer prayers to Sun God, along with a piece of sugarcane. The food is shared with relatives and neighbours after being offered to lord Sun. Priests cook during the Thai Pongal festival at a temple in Colombo, Sri Lanka on Friday. Photograph: Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters Cows and bulls would be worshipped, particularly in the southern districts of the Tamil Nadu, for Mattu Pongal on Saturday, while people visit relatives on the last day Kaanum Pongal. Since the Supreme Court has banned the bull-taming sport of Jallikattu, normally conducted on Mattu Pongal day, the festival is expected to be low-key in Madurai and neighbouring districts, where it is widely popular. For the Kannum Pongal festival, security has been beefed up at several places in Chennai, including at the Marina beach, where people throng in very large numbers. Tamil Nadu Governor K Rosaiah, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M Karunanidhi and other leaders have extended greetings to the people. The Supreme Court on Friday had a word of caution for the government that any deviation from its stand that the issue of Indian Prisoners of War languishing in Pakistani prisons cannot be taken to the International Court of Justice, will have its own ramifications. "The government of India's stand has been that the issue cannot go to the ICJ. Can it change the stand now? It will have its own ramifications," a bench comprising Chief Justice T S Thakur and R Bhanumathi observed. The remarks came after the bench wanted to know from the governments counsel R Balasubramanian whether the ICJ has any jurisdiction to go into the issue. He said the Centre has taken a stand that the ICJ has no jurisdiction on the issue. The bench was told that in the past, Pakistan had taken some of the issues to the ICJ. The bench was hearing a batch of petitions raising the issues of POWs, the brutality meted out to Saurav Kalia during the Kargil War and the beheading and mutilation of bodies of two Indian soldiers in 2013 by Pakistani army, for a direction to the union government to move the ICJ. It was also hearing an appeal filed by the Centre challenging the Gujarat high court order directing the Union government to move the ICJ on Pakistan illegally detaining 54 Indian armymen in breach of an agreement between the two countries after the 1971 war to exchange all POWs. The bench on Friday admitted the appeal of the Centre against the high court order. The apex court had in 2012 stayed the Gujarat high court order. The bench, on September 1 last year, had expressed concern over the status of 54 Indian POWs languishing in Pakistani jails since 1971. The court had directed the government to pay the salary and retirement benefits to the dependents of the PoWs, to which the law officer had said this was being done. During the last hearing, in response to a query as to why India cannot take the matter of the PoWs to the ICJ, the government had said India has not submitted itself to the jurisdiction of the ICJ if the matter relates to armed conflict between it and Pakistan. Moreover, India had once successfully blocked such a bid by Pakistan, the government had said when the bench referred to the fact that once the water dispute between the two countries was taken up before the ICJ. The Centre had said Indian authorities had tried from all channels to ascertain facts about 54 PoWs, but Pakistan was not accepting that they are in their country. The Ministry of Defence, in its affidavit last year, had informed the court that it has no details regarding 54 missing POWs in Pakistan jails after 1965 and 1971 wars. It had also said it cannot even identify three such army personnel since their service records, unit and family details were not known. Of the 54 missing personnel, 27 were from the Army, 24 from the Air Force, two from the Navy and one personnel from the Border Security Force, it has said, adding that while 48 out of the 54 were missing since the 1971 war, three had gone missing in the 1965 war. The affidavit was filed in response to a query by the court which wanted an updated status on the PoWs languishing in Pakistan jails following the two wars. The court had referred to the case of Pakistan raising in the ICJ the issue of downing of its spy aircraft in August 1999 by Indian forces despite New Delhis objection which was upheld by the international tribunal. The government had said it cannot refer these cases to the ICJ as India is governed by a bilateral agreement with Pakistan based on the 1972 Shimla agreement. This weeks collection of stories that prove we live in a truly mad, mad world. 1) Mr Magpie smokes before work This bizarre photo of a magpie appearing to smoke a cigarette has taken Twitter by storm. A Twitter user posted the hilarious picture on the social media site on Wednesday morning, claiming the bird was from Manchester. The bird apparently picked up the cigarette in its beak after finding it on the floor. More than 2,000 people have retweeted and favourited the image, captioned Meanwhile in Manchester. 2) What's up, Doc? Drugs, that's what! The US US Customs and Border Protection forces arrested smugglers who tried to bring more than a thousand kilograms of marijuana across international borders after stuffing the contraband inside fake carrots. The police caught two pick-up trucks loaded with the pretend vegetables in Mexico and taken to the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge -- the US-Mexico Border -- on Sunday, according to US Customs and Border Protection. The truck was scanned by security cameras and then specialist dogs were brought out to sniff the cargo. A search uncovered 2,817 packages of marijuana, wrapped into carrot shapes with orange plastic, in amongst the real roots. 3) Everything is better in 3D... even bugs! Insects are being provided with tiny 3D glasses that are showing scientists how complex data is being processed by a brain no larger than a pinhead. Blobs of harmless beeswax are being used to fix green and blue lenses to praying mantises in experiments at Newcastle University. When the insects are shown simulations of their favourite food on a screen they only try to catch it if the video is shown in 3D. Professor Jenny Read said her team's research is a breakthrough that could lead to new ways of using three-dimensional vision in computers and robots. She explained: "An insect's tiny brain, just a few millimetres across, is very useful to scientists because it is so stripped-down and simple," she explained. 4) Street side samosas to be taxed as luxury items Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar imposed a 13.5 percent tax on "luxury items" during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. The tax will apply to items such as mosquito repellent, sweets priced more than $7.48 and salty snacks, including the very popular street food, the samosa. There's progress for you. 5) Thief fed 48 bananas to retrieve gold chain... now that's bananas. Gopi Ghawre snatched a gold chain in a market but was caught by stunned bystanders who pinned him down and beat him before cops arrived. An X-ray found the gold chain in the Ghare's body, who had swallowed the jewellery in an attempt to avoid getting caught. The officers ordered a basketful of bananas and forced them down his throat until the early hours of morning. Police then took Ghawre to the toilet where the chain slipped out of his behind. 6) This man sends police a 'better photo' after being dissatisfied with his mug shot This Ohio man wanted by police sent investigators a new picture because he was dissatisfied with the mug shot being circulated on social media. The Lima Police Department said in a Facebook post Donald A. "Chip" Pugh, 45, is wanted on a failure to appear charge and is a person of interest in crimes including arson and vandalism. The post includes a picture "sent to us by Mr. Pugh himself. We thank him for being helpful, but now we would appreciate it if he would come speak to us at the LPD about his charges." 7) This Star Wars fan built an AT-AT from 6,000-piece Legos A Lego-loving Star Wars fan followed instructions posted online to build a more than 6,000-piece Star Wars AT-AT in 26 hours and posted time-lapse footage online. Charlie of the BrickVault channel stars in the YouTube video and spends 26 hours building the AT-AT walker from instructions posted online by custom Lego builder Peter Brookdale. The BrickVault team said it took thousands of dollars to procure all of the supplies from website BrickLink, far more than the $218.99 price tag for Lego's official 1,137-piece AT-AT kit. Charlie attempts the first several hours of building on his own, but eventually brings in help from other members of the BrickVault team. 8) Couple struggles to sell killer house from Silence of the Lambs A Pennsylvania couple is struggling to sell a house used as the home of psychotic killer Buffalo Bill in the 1991 film 'The Silence of the Lambs'. Scott and Barbara Lloyd listed the house last summer, but they've dropped the asking price from $300,000 to $250,000. The foyer and dining room were depicted in the film but sadly there's no dungeon pit in the basement where the killer played by Ted Levine kept his victims before killing and skinning them. Those grisly scenes were filmed on a soundstage. Anthony Hopkins won an Academy Award for playing Dr Hannibal Lecter, a crazed, cannibalistic psychiatrist whose macabre clues help rookie Agent Clarice Starling track down and kill Buffalo Bill in his home. 9) Need emotional support, bring along your turkey How would you feel if you boarded a flight, took your seat and then noticed the person next to you had brought a turkey onto the plane with them? That's apparently what happened to one traveller on a flight last week, when these pictures were posted on Twitter. An 'emotional support animal', says the National Service Animal Registry, is 'a pet that has been prescribed by a person's licensed therapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist. The animal is part of the treatment program for this person and is designed to bring comfort and minimize the negative symptoms of the person's emotional/psychological disability.' The bird in the photograph appears to be quite well mannered. 10) Up in the sky, its a bird, its a plane Mysterious objects were captured hovering above Santiago, Chile, in a fascinating five-minute video. The video -- labelled Fantastic UFO sighting in Santiago -- starts with a girl becoming startled by the sight of four glowing orbs consisting of four lights floating high above skyscrapers. The UFOs each move away from the formation before the footage cuts to eight singular balls of light hovering in a circular motion. It has since been viewed thousands of times on YouTube. 11) It smells like President Putin in here A perfume, whose creator says was inspired by Russian President Vladimir Putin, has gone on sale in Moscow. The Leaders Number One scent, created by Belarussian-born perfumer Vladislav Rekunov, is sold in a black bottle featuring Putin's profile at Moscow's luxury GUM department store as well as online for 6,500 rubles, or approximately Rs 6,000. UN chief 'deeply concerned' about intensification of airstrikes and ground fighting in Yemen Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 8 January 2016 Cite as UN News Service, UN chief 'deeply concerned' about intensification of airstrikes and ground fighting in Yemen, 8 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/569802917cc6.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today said he is "deeply concerned" about the intensification of Saudi-led coalition airstrikes and ground fighting and shelling in Yemen, despite repeated calls for a renewed cessation of hostilities. The United Nations recently reported that civilians are suffering a "terrible toll" in the fighting, with casualties now topping 8,100, with nearly 2,800 of them killed. "The Secretary-General is particularly concerned about reports of intense airstrikes in residential areas and on civilian buildings in Sana'a, including the Chamber of Commerce, a wedding hall and a centre for the blind," a statement issued by Mr. Ban's Spokesperson indicated. "He also has received troubling reports of the use of cluster munitions in attacks on Sana'a on 6 January in several locations. The use of cluster munitions in populated areas may amount to a war crime due to their indiscriminate nature," it added. Meanwhile, the Secretary-General is reminding all parties of the utmost necessity to respect their obligations under international human rights law and international humanitarian law, which prohibits attacks directed against civilians and civilian infrastructure. The UN chief is also calling on all parties to the conflict in Yemen to "engage in good faith" with his Special Envoy for Yemen in order to convene a new round of peace talks as soon as possible. Mr. Ban's concern for civilians in the war-torn nation follows his condemnation yesterday of the Yemeni Government's decision to expel the UN human rights representative, who was accused of being "impartial" in assessing the situation in the country. This was echoed today by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, who urged the Government to reverse its decision. Calling state of besieged Syrian town 'horrendous,' UN seeks humanitarian access Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 8 January 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Calling state of besieged Syrian town 'horrendous,' UN seeks humanitarian access, 8 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/569802d44b3f.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. As the United Nations and its partners struggled today to gain humanitarian access to the Government-beseiged Syrian city of Madaya, amid reports of people starving to death or being killed while trying to leave, UN officials called the situation "horrendousghastly," and a potential war crime. They also voiced concern at the "very alarming situation" in two nearby Shiite villages besieged by opposition forces for many months in a country where five years of fighting have killed over 250,000 people, including tens of thousands of children, displaced more than half the population of 17 million, and left 4.5 million people in hard-to-reach areas, 400,000 of them under siege. Today was the second straight day that the UN has raised the alarm over Madaya, where almost 42,000 people are at risk of starvation. "The situation in Madaya is ghastly," Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights spokesperson Rupert Colville told a news briefing in Geneva, noting that Government forces were preventing aid getting into Madaya while opposition forces prevented access to the two nearby villages, making both sides culpable. Deliberate starvation of civilians amounts to war crimes under the international human rights law and international humanitarian law, he stressed. At the same briefing, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesperson Adrian Edwards said negotiations on a humanitarian convoy to Madaya were continuing but no date had been set. His agency would send in non-food items for 40,000 people. UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson Christophe Boulierac, whose agency is also involved in planning the convoy, said half the 42,000 people in the town were children in need of urgent life-saving assistance. While unable to confirm Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) reports that six of 23 persons who starved to death in Madaya in December were children, he voiced great concern at the devastating humanitarian situation, particularly the lack of food for children and of basic supplies amid a harsh winter. The tragic situation of children in Madaya was an example of the dire situation of the 4.5 million people, over two million of them children, living in hard-to-reach and besieged areas, he said. Yesterday UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria Yacoub El Hillo and Regional Humanitarian Coordinator Kevin Kennedy issued a joint statement calling for unimpeded access to people in hard-to-reach and besieged areas, with only 10 per cent of all requests for UN inter-agency convoys to these areas approved and delivered in the past year. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), a 53 year-old man reportedly died of starvation on Tuesday while his family of five continues to suffer from severe malnutrition. Last month, the UN Security Council demanded that all parties, particularly the Government, immediately open routes across conflict lines and borders to let in vital aid. It also authorized the UN to play an enhanced role in shepherding the opposing sides to talks for a political transition, endorsing a timetable for a ceasefire, a new constitution and elections, all under UN auspices, and demanded that all parties, particularly the Government, immediately open routes across conflict lines and borders to let in vital aid. Ban congratulates Sri Lanka on first anniversary of political transition Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 8 January 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Ban congratulates Sri Lanka on first anniversary of political transition, 8 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/569803eb5244.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today congratulated the President of Sri Lanka, the Government and its citizens on the first year of the country's political transition. A statement issued by Mr. Ban's Spokesperson said he is "encouraged by the Government's commitment to a broad reform agenda that aims to realise durable peace, stability and prosperity for the Sri Lankan people." "The Secretary-General acknowledges the initial steps the Government has taken to strengthen good governance, advance reconciliation and implement the resolution of the Human Rights Council of October 2015," the statement indicated, noting that Mr. Ban urges continued progress in these areas and emphasises the need for inclusive consultation processes to address issues of transitional justice. "The Secretary-General supports the Government's efforts to advance a nation-wide dialogue to achieve a long-term political settlement acceptable to all. In this regard, he welcomes the Government's announcement to commence constitutional reform. He calls on all stakeholders to cooperate in a spirit of inclusion and good faith," the statement added. In addition, it highlighted that the UN chief remains committed to supporting Sri Lanka's reform initiatives to secure long-term peace, prosperity and respect for human rights, including through financial support from the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund, launched in 2006 to support activities that seek to build a lasting peace in countries emerging from conflict. "[The Secretary-General] also commends Sri Lanka's leadership in working to transform the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals into reality on the ground," the statement concluded, referring to the 17 goals and 169 targets adopted by UN Member States in 2015 to wipe out poverty, fight inequality and tackle climate change over the next 15 years. Saudi-Iran tensions will not hamper efforts to resolve Syria conflict UN special envoy Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 10 January 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Saudi-Iran tensions will not hamper efforts to resolve Syria conflict UN special envoy, 10 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/569804c76054.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. The United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, concluded today his regional consultations with meetings in Tehran, where he received assurances from his interlocutors that regional current tensions would not affect Iran's engagement in facilitating the holding of upcoming Geneva talks on ending the crisis in Syria. According to a note issued by the Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Mr. de Mistura told a press conference in the Iranian capital that he had useful exchanges with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Deputy Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian. Mr. de Mistura updated his interlocutors on preparations for the upcoming Geneva talks on Syria. Like he had done when he visited Saudi Arabia on 5 January, he asked and obtained the assurance of his interlocutors that current tensions in the region would not affect the engagement of their Government in supporting the Vienna process and facilitating the holding of the Geneva talks. "That is my main message [] in Riyadh I got that type of assurance, and that reassures me and the Secretary General. In Tehran, I got the same assurance that tensions, which are unfortunately ongoing, are going to affect neither the Vienna momentum nor the Geneva talks," Mr. de Mistura told reporters. The Special Envoy is now going to debrief the Secretary-General and seek his guidance in view of the beginning of the talks. He looks forward to the International Syria Support Group and the Security Council continuing to provide serious and consistent engagement, in order to ensure the beginning, on 25 January, of genuine political discussions aimed at resolving the Syrian crisis. Mr. de Mistura's regional consultations follow the Security Council's adoption last month of its first resolutionfocused on the politics of ending Syria's five-year-long war. The measure gave the United Nations an enhanced role in shepherding the opposing sides to talks for a political transition, and endorsed a timetable for a ceasefire, a new constitution and elections, all under UN auspices. According to the resolution, the upcoming Intra-Syrian talks will be held in line with the 2012 Geneva Communique and consistent with the 14 November 2015 statement of the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) on the issue. UN special envoy continues regional meetings ahead of 25 January intra-Syrian talks Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 9 January 2016 Cite as UN News Service, UN special envoy continues regional meetings ahead of 25 January intra-Syrian talks, 9 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/569807d8ac25.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Continuing his regional consultations ahead of United Nations-facilitated talks on resolving the crisis in Syria, UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura had a useful meeting today in Damascus with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of the Syrian Arab Republic, Walid Mouallem. According to a note issued by the Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in the meeting, Mr. de Mistura outlined preparations currently underway for the intra-Syrian talks, to be held in Geneva starting 25 January, per the statements adopted in Vienna by the International Syria Support Group and UN Security Council resolution 2254 (2015). That resolution, the Council's first measure to focus on the politics of ending Syria's five-year-long war, gave the United Nations an enhanced role in shepherding the opposing sides to talks for a political transition, and endorsed a timetable for a ceasefire, a new constitution and elections, all under UN auspices. According to the note issued today, while in the Syrian capital, Mr. de Mistura had further exchanges with Mr. Mouallem relating to the preparations for the upcoming talks. The Special Envoy is looking forward to the active participation of relevant parties in the Geneva talks. He will be continuing his consultations in the region, the note concluded. Challenges in Mali need to be 'urgently defeated' UN peacekeeping chief Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 11 January 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Challenges in Mali need to be 'urgently defeated' UN peacekeeping chief, 11 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/56980b122d35.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Despite considerable progress in Mali, the United Nations peacekeeping chief today warned that the peace process in the country remains fragile, and stressed the need to urgently defeat political, security and humanitarian challenges. Last June, a peace agreement was signed by the Coordination of Movements of Azawad (CMA), following its signature in May by the Government and a third party, the Platform coalition of armed groups. "Since the last consultations in October, [] efforts by Malian authorities, parties signatory to the agreement, international mediators and MINUSMA [the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali] have helped reinforce the dialogue between the Government and [the movements]," Herve Ladsous, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, told the Security Council. The country's Government has been seeking to restore stability and rebuild following a series of setbacks since early 2012, including a military coup d'etat, and renewed fighting between Government forces and Tuareg rebels. Mr. Ladsous noted that the Government has now initiated a series of confidence-building measures, such as the liberation of some detainees and the organization of a meeting last September between President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and representatives from the Coordination and the Platform movements. "Unfortunately, the fact that the monitoring bodies are functional did not fully translate into tangible progress toward the implementation of the agreement over the reporting period," Mr. Ladsous informed the 15-member Council. "The process has continued to encounter important delays over the past few months." He warned that these delays bear the potential to unravel the "hard won" confidence built so far between the signatory parties, as illustrated by recent concerns expressed by the movements. "In addition, it is important for the parties to prepare in earnest the local elections that were postponed in October last year, and to proceed with revising the electoral law as provided for in the agreement," the peacekeeping chief added. Highlighting that one lesson from the past six months is that the various pillars in the peace agreement are "strongly interrelated," Mr. Ladsous said their implementation needs to take place in a "parallel and synchronized" manner. "As we all know, there will be no lasting peace in northern Mali without peace dividends for the most vulnerable," he stressed. "I welcome in that regard the continued engagement of international partners who pledged over 3.2 billion euros during the international conference for the economic recovery and development of Mali held in Paris last October," he said. According to the UN official's report, progress has already been made, notably in the field of education, thanks to the concerted efforts of the Malian Government and humanitarian actors, including for the symbolic reopening of the schools that same month. In the three northern regions, 89 per cent of the schools that were operating before the crisis are currently functional. Yet, one in five schools remains closed in areas affected by insecurity, mainly due to the absence of teachers. Access to a quality education for about 400,000 children continues to be hampered by a lack of qualified teachers, infrastructure and school materials. "Since June, MINUSMA has scaled up its support for communities in the North by 30 per cent, supporting 36 new quick-impact projects for approximately USD 1.3 million," Mr. Ladsous underlined. New projects reportedly include the provision of potable water in Kidal region, equipment for health centres in Kidal and Mopti, the refurbishment of social care centres in Gao and social reintegration projects for women, youth and internally displaced persons in Gao, Kidal, Mopti and Timbuktu regions. "But much more remains to be done to meet the needs of the people. We hope the Government and the movements will soon finalize the development strategy for the north in accordance with the peace agreement and the commitment made in Paris," he added. Finally, Mr. Ladsous said the last months have shown the extremist groups' determination for the peace process to fail; he reported that armed groups who are parties to the agreement have been targeted as well as MINUSMA personnel and infrastructure. Syria: UN and partners get relief convoy into besieged town of Madaya Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 11 January 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Syria: UN and partners get relief convoy into besieged town of Madaya, 11 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/56980b5c35ae.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. A humanitarian convoy has finally reached the besieged Syrian town of Madaya with life-saving health and food supplies from the United Nations and its partners for the 42,000 desperate residents after reports of people starving to death under encirclement by pro-Government forces. "Crowds of hungry kids around," Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative Sajjad Malik said via text message this evening from the isolated town as the first four trucks of the 49-truck convoy unloaded in the dark to help relieve a situation that UN officials last week called "horrendousghastly," noting that deliberate starvation of civilians amounts to war crimes. "It's heartbreaking to see so many hungry people. It's cold and raining but there is excitement because we are here with some food and blankets," he added of the town, where the UN has received credible reports of people dying from starvation and being killed or injured while trying to leave the area, which last received UN humanitarian aid in October. UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria Yacoub El Hillo said today it has taken long and patient negotiations with many parties to facilitate the convoy. At the same time trucks have left Damascus for Kafraya and Foah, two towns under siege by opposition forces near the Turkish border in northwest Syria, where 20,000 people are also in desperate need, cut off from humanitarian and commercial access since October, as the war between the Government and a whole spectrum of rebel forces nears the start of its sixth year. The inter-agency convoy to Madaya brought life-saving items, including health, nutrition and food supplies, blankets, shelter materials, and soap for the people. The non-government group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has said 23 people starved to death in the town in December, six of them children. Additional convoys to the same locations will take place over the coming days, carrying UNHCR aid including blankets, winter clothes, jerry cans, household items and diapers. Partner agencies are providing food and medicine through the convoys organized by the UN, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. Mr. Hillo noted that while there is much focus on Madaya, where the situation requires an immediate response, the UN and its humanitarian partners are equally concerned about the 4.5 million people living in besieged and hard-to-reach area across Syria, including nearly 400,000 in 15 besieged locations without access to the aid that they desperately need. In the past year, only 10 per cent of all requests to access these areas were approved and delivered. "We continue to call on all parties to the conflict to facilitate sustained and unimpeded access to all people in besieged and hard-to-reach areas in Syria," Mr. Hillo stressed. On the political front, UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, who is preparing the ground for political talks beginning in Geneva on 25 January in an effort to end the fighting, concluded a new round of regional consultations on Sunday, meeting in Tehran with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and his deputy. He updated them on preparations for the talks, and as did when he visited Saudi Arabia last week, obtained assurances that current tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia would not affect the engagement of their government in supporting the Geneva talks. On Saturday, Mr. de Mistura also had what was described as a useful meeting in Damascus with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem, and will now report back to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and seek his guidance ahead of the Geneva talks. UN chief condemns attack on Yemeni hospital supported by Medecins Sans Frontieres Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 11 January 2016 Cite as UN News Service, UN chief condemns attack on Yemeni hospital supported by Medecins Sans Frontieres, 11 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/56980c0f4712.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned yesterday's attack on a hospital supported by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Sa'ada province, Yemen, which killed at least four people and injured many others. In a statement issued by his Spokesperson, Mr. Ban expressed his sincere condolences and deepest sympathies to the families of the victims and to the Yemeni people. This is the latest in a series of attacks on health facilities, following those in 2015 on the MSF-supported Haydan Medical Hospital in Sa'ada and a mobile health clinic in Taiz. "The Secretary-General is extremely concerned about the increasingly limited access to essential health care services for Yemenis," the statement underlined. "He emphasizes that hospitals and medical personnel are explicitly protected under international humanitarian law and that any intentional attack against civilians and civilian infrastructure is considered a serious violation of international humanitarian law." The statement further called for this incident to be investigated "through prompt, effective, independent and impartial mechanisms to ensure accountability." "The Secretary-General again repeats his call on all parties involved in the Yemeni conflict to immediately cease all hostilities and resolve differences through peaceful negotiations facilitated by his Special Envoy," it added. This attack comes just days after the UN chief voiced his "deep concern" about the intensification of Saudi-led coalition airstrikes and ground fighting and shelling in Yemen, despite repeated calls for a renewed cessation of hostilities. The United Nations recently reported that civilians are suffering a "terrible toll" in the fighting, with casualties now topping 8,100, with nearly 2,800 of them killed. Syria: UN officials give first-hand accounts of 'horrible, terrible' desperation in besieged towns Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 12 January 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Syria: UN officials give first-hand accounts of 'horrible, terrible' desperation in besieged towns, 12 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/56980cd910039.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. As United Nations officials gave on-site accounts of the "horrible and terrible" situation in the besieged Syrian town of Madaya, from 400 critically ill people facing death without immediate medical care to a kilo of rice costing $300, the first emergency evacuation took place today - a five-year-old girl rushed through pro-Government roadblocks for urgent surgery in Damascus. "We saw thousands of people in desperation, thousands of people who are severely malnourished, older people who were in clear dire physical condition because of lack of regular access to food," said UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria Yacoub El Hillo, who was with the first aid convoy to get through to Madaya, under siege by pro-Government forces, since October. "We saw people who seemed to have lost hope that the world cared about them," he added by telephone from Damascus on his return from the town of 42,000 people, where the 44-truck convoy of life-saving items, including health, nutrition and food supplies, blankets and shelter materials was unloaded into the early hours of today. At the same time, a 21-truck convoy delivered similar items to 20,000 people in Kafraya and Foah, two towns under siege by opposition forces near the Turkish border in northwest Syria, also cut off from humanitarian access since October, as the war between the Government and a whole spectrum of opposition forces nears the start of its sixth year. As the first reports were coming in from the besieged towns, UN humanitarian and development agencies gave details of their $7.73-billion appeal, in vital new funding for 2016 to help 22.5 million people in Syria and across the region. The appeal comprises two main elements: help for an anticipated 4.7 million refugees in neighbouring countries by the end of 2016 as well as four million people in communities hosting them, and support for 13.5 million displaced and conflict-affected people inside Syria itself. The aid convoys are the result of tortuously negotiated local ceasefires between the UN and its partners, Government and rebel forces, even though the UN Security Council three weeks ago demanded immediate humanitarian access across all battle lines. "Of course, there were a number of terrible examples of emergencies for intervention, to evacuate 400 critically ill people who are going to die if they don't get fast to a medical facility that has the capacity to deal with their complicated condition [] These people must get out today before tomorrow if we are going to save their lives," Mr. Hillo said of the people in Madaya. The UN and its partners hope to send in new convoys to the besieged towns on Thursday with mobile medical clinics and emergency feeding centres for children "who are at a very advanced stage of malnourishment," he added. He stressed that sieges must be lifted throughout Syria, where the UN and its partners are equally concerned about the 4.5 million people living in hard-to-reach areas, including nearly 400,000 in 15 besieged locations without access to the aid that they desperately need. "The sieges can no longer be tolerated," Mr. Hillo declared. "Many people have lost their lives while waiting. Many more will die if the world does not move faster [] There are many, many horrible and terrible human stories." According to the non-government group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), 23 people starved to death in Madaya in December, six of them children. "We were pretty horrified," said UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative Sajjad Malik, who was also with the first convoy to reach Madaya. "Most of them have not had bread, rice or vegetables for quite some time. They were desperately looking for something while we were offloading cars kids and everybody around the cars were asking for anything (to eat) we could see how desperate the situation is. They have been going around looking for grass or herbs and they use a bit of spices and make soup," he said. The few meagre supplies of food that remained in the town are being sold at exorbitant prices - with $300 sought for a kilo of rice, said Mr. Malik, adding: "Reportedly someone sold a motorbike to get five kilos of rice." "If we are not able to sustain this support to these communities, even this effort [] with all these trucks now is going to be another band-aid, because within a month, they will run out of food and medicines. What we saw in Madaya should not happen anywhere in this century, it should not have happened now," he said. Libya: senior UN relief official condemns attacks on Benghazi power plant Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 12 January 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Libya: senior UN relief official condemns attacks on Benghazi power plant, 12 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/56980d1c69c.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Strongly condemning the recent attacks against a major power plant in Libya's eastern city of Benghazi, the top United Nations humanitarian official in the country said today he is "deeply shocked by these actions that directly affect civilian life," and warned that such "ignoble" attacks may amount to war crimes. In a statement the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Humanitarian and Resident Coordinator of the UN in Libya, Ali Al-Za'tari, expressed serious concerns about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the country. He highlighted that these ignoble attacks put additional pressure on the already strained service delivery mechanisms as they further deteriorate the living conditions of people affected by the conflict and internally displaced persons (IDPs). "I am deeply shocked by these actions that directly affect the life of civilians. Attacks against civilian objects and service delivery institutions are attacks against the ordinary people and prohibited under international humanitarian law and may amount to war crimes," Mr. Al-Za'tari said. He emphasized that the citizens of Benghazi are now without electricity for more than four hours a day, and added that "the repercussions of these power failures on hospitals, community services and households are severe and expose the local population to further distress and deprivation." Against that background, the Humanitarian Coordinator called on all parties to ensure the safety and the security of service delivery institutions to meet the basic need of all Libyans. UN condemns 'despicable' terrorist bombing in Istanbul's Sultanahmet District Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 12 January 2016 Cite as UN News Service, UN condemns 'despicable' terrorist bombing in Istanbul's Sultanahmet District, 12 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/56980e0a348a.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today condemned the terrorist bombing in Sultanahmet Square in Istanbul, Turkey, calling it a "despicable crime targeting the heart of Istanbul's tourist district." The attack reportedly claimed the lives of 10 people and injured at least 15 others. In a statement issued by his Spokesperson, Mr. Ban said he expects the perpetrators to be swiftly brought to justice. "He sends his heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims, as well as to the people and the Governments of Turkey and Germany and other foreign citizens impacted by the bombing," the statement noted. "He wishes those injured a speedy recovery." Meanwhile, the High Representative for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, Mr. Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, condemned the suicide bomb attack in the strongest possible terms. "Mr. Al-Nasser expressed his profound sadness over the outrageous attack that targeted innocent people," said a statement issued by his Spokesperson. It added that the High Representative reaffirmed that such "heinous acts" are clear threats to peace and security and run contrary to the values of tolerance, peaceful dialogue and mutual respect that constitute the core of the mission of the UN Alliance of Civilizations, of which the Government of Turkey is a co-sponsor. In addition, Mr. Al-Nasser said that in the midst of such a "tragic event," the international community should remain united in their stand against terrorists and in countering all forms of violence and terrorist acts. Yemen's war-weary children face 'new year of pain and suffering' UNICEF official Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 12 January 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Yemen's war-weary children face 'new year of pain and suffering' UNICEF official, 12 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/56980e485901.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. The ongoing deadly violence in Yemen has left nearly 10 million children facing threats of malnutrition and disease, lack of education, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) representative to the country warned today, calling for unhindered humanitarian access to all those in need and an end to the conflict. "Continuous bombardment and street fighting are exposing children and their families to a deadly combination of violence, disease and deprivation," UNICEF Representative Julien Harneis said, sounding the alarm on behalf of the conflict's most vulnerable. According to the UN, more than 700 children have been killed, with more than 1,000 injured since last March. Additionally, about 700 had been forced to become child soldiers. Children, who make up about half of the 2.3 million people in Yemen displaced from their homes, are also struggling to get water on a daily basis, and facing the risk of acute malnutrition and respiratory tract infections. They are also without access to education. "The longer-term consequences of all this for Yemen - which was already the Middle East's poorest nation even before the conflict - can only be guessed at," said Mr. Harneis, adding that "public services like health, water and sanitation have been decimated and cannot meet the ever-increasing needs of a desperate population." In response, UNICEF and partners are doing the best they can in an extremely hazardous working environment: they have provided vaccinations against measles and polio to children under the age of five, as well as treatment for malnutrition. Moreover, over 3.5 million affected people were provided water and sanitation, with vulnerable communities receiving humanitarian cash transfers in the cities of Sana'a and Taiz. "But so much more is needed. The children of Yemen need urgent help and they need it now," Mr. Harneis stressed, calling for unhindered access to areas where civilians are dying without functioning hospitals, where medicines are in short supply and children are at risk of dying from preventable diseases. Ongoing conflict in Yemen wreaked havoc on the country, inflicting damage on civilian infrastructure, straining depleted resources and exacerbating an already precarious humanitarian situation. Despite some progress in identifying a framework for negotiations and defining a set of confidence-building measures, UN-facilitated peace talks in December 2015 had to be adjourned until a ceasefire could take hold. Regarding current status of the talks, Ahmad Fawzi, interim Director of the UN Information Service in Geneva, told the regular bi-weekly press briefing today that the UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, was still in the region. Following intensive talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the Envoy was to visit Sana'a in Yemen. Responding to a question about the resumption of talks, Mr. Fawzi said 14 January had been mentioned as a preliminary date, but the Special Envoy's preference was now to hold the next round of talks in the region, and he was working with the parties to agree a location that was acceptable to all, with a provisional start date after 20 January. Switzerland remained an option for the Special Envoy, and the Swiss authorities were supportive in every way and happy to host such a meeting. The host Government continued to offer to facilitate such political processes in an efficient and generous manner, added Mr. Fawzi. African UnionUN mission calls for restraint in West Darfur as tensions rise over recent violence Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 12 January 2016 Cite as UN News Service, African UnionUN mission calls for restraint in West Darfur as tensions rise over recent violence, 12 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/56980f40889.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. The African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) expressed concern over continued tension in El Geneina town and around Mouli village, 15 kilometres south of El Geneina, West Darfur, after an armed attack on Mouli village. "Receiving reports of continuous unrest and sporadic firing across El Geneina and in Mouli with an undetermined number of casualties, UNAMID calls on the government authorities to exert their utmost efforts to contain the situation and investigate the incidents," the Mission said in a press statement issued yesterday. Tensions developed on 9 January after an unidentified armed group attacked Mouli village. A large number of inhabitants were displaced to El Geneina, where the next day they demonstrated in front of the Wali's office - leading to the closure of schools and commercial businesses in the town. "UNAMID emphasises the importance of restraint by all parties and stands ready to assist the state authorities as well as the Darfuri people in their efforts to arrive at a peaceful resolution of the situation," concluded the statement. Mali: UN Security Council calls on all parties to fully implement the peace agreement Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 13 January 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Mali: UN Security Council calls on all parties to fully implement the peace agreement, 13 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5698103ecb31.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Following a briefing on Monday on the situation in Mali by UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous, the Security Council has stressed that all parties signatory to June's peace agreement bear the primary responsibility for achieving lasting peace in the country. "The members of the Security Council welcomed in this regard the first positive steps taken to implement the Agreement on Peace and Reconciliation in Mali and urged the Government of Mali, the Plateforme and Coordination armed groups to continue to engage constructively with sustained political will and in good faith to fully and effectively implement the Agreement without further delay," indicated a statement by the 15-member Council. The country's Government, with the support of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), has been seeking to restore stability and rebuild following a series of setbacks since early 2012, including a military coup d'etat, and renewed fighting between Government forces and Tuareg rebels. "The members of the Security Council urged the Government of Mali, the Plateforme and Coordination armed groups to prioritize the implementation of key provisions of the Agreement [] in order to bring concrete peace dividends to the populations," the statement further noted. It also urged them to take the necessary measures to advance the deployment of joint security patrols in the North and the cantonment, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of armed combatants, as well as to advance the decentralization process. Meanwhile, the members of the Security Council expressed their appreciation to Mongi Hamdi, the Special Representative and head of MINUSMA, for his "tireless efforts" in supporting the Malian peace process and his personal initiatives to defuse intercommunal tensions. They similarly expressed their full support to the newly appointed head of Mission, Mahamat Saleh Annadif, who takes office tomorrow. In addition, they requested that he play a key role in overseeing the implementation of the Agreement, notably by heading the Secretariat of the Comite de suivi de l'Accord (CSA), the body dealing with the implementation process. Encouraging the Government of Mali and MINUSMA to further strengthen their cooperation, the Council called on the members of the CSA and other relevant international partners to coordinate their efforts with the United Nations. "The members of the Security Council expressed their concern about the security situation, including the expansion of terrorist and criminal activities into central and southern Mali," underlined the statement. "They noted that the full implementation of the Agreement and the intensification of efforts to overcome asymmetric threats can help to contribute to improving the security situation across Mali." Finally, the members of the Security Council called on the UN Secretary-General and all MINUSMA troop- and police-contributing countries, as well as bilateral donors, to continue their efforts to ensure that MINUSMA contingents have the necessary equipment and training to fulfil their mandate. They stressed the importance of ensuring adequate protection of the Mission's personnel, in the light of the evolution of security threats it faces, to effectively implement its mandate. New UN emergency funds seek to aid 1.7 million Africans uprooted by Boko Haram violence Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 13 January 2016 Cite as UN News Service, New UN emergency funds seek to aid 1.7 million Africans uprooted by Boko Haram violence, 13 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/569810a97473.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. With the Lake Chad Basin now the fastest-growing displacement crisis in Africa as 2.7 million people, 1.5 million of them children, have been uprooted by Boko Haram terrorists, the United Nations emergency fund has announced new grants of $31 million to four countries in the region. "Many people have lost everything. Hundreds of thousands of women and children continue to bear the brunt of the Boko Haram violence," UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O'Brien said of the grants to support humanitarian partners in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger. The funds from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), set up 10 years ago to provide immediate financing for both sudden-onset and long-festering crises, will provide life-saving aid to almost 1.7 million people who are in urgent need of food, drinking water, shelter, health care, protection and education. "Saving lives and protecting people in the region is at the centre of the humanitarian response," Mr. O'Brien said earlier in the week. Some $10 million will bolster relief efforts in Nigeria, while humanitarian partners in Cameroon, Chad and Niger will receive $7 million each. "Aid agencies in region have warned that living conditions for the affected people in the region are dire, giving rise to serious protection and health concerns. The $31 million CERF allocation will provide a much-needed injection of funds for partners to provide for the most basic life sustaining needs in the Lake Chad region." Women and girls kidnapped by Boko Haram have been subjected to physical and psychological abuse, forced labour, forced marriage and sexual slavery. Boys have been forcibly enrolled as combatants. Humanitarian agencies will use CERF funds to support urgently needed protection including prevention of and response to sexual and gender-based violence in the four countries. In Nigeria, CERF funding will also be critical for providing emergency shelter, health care, safe drinking water and sanitation and nutrition for people living in overcrowded camps in the north east of the country. In Cameroon, Chad and Niger, it will allow improved access to shelters, reproductive health care, safe drinking water and sanitation in camps for displaced, host communities and schools. The region also suffers from chronic food insecurity and under-development, and the funds will provide food, supplementary feeding and nutritional support to people facing severe hunger as insecurity continues to have a negative impact on livelihoods, food security, and nutrition. Since its inception in 2006, 125 UN Member States and Observers, private-sector donors and regional governments have supported CERF, which has allocated almost $4.2 billion in support of humanitarian operations in 94 countries and territories. Election in Cote d'Ivoire opportunity to 'start a new chapter,' UN envoy tells Security Council Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 13 January 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Election in Cote d'Ivoire opportunity to 'start a new chapter,' UN envoy tells Security Council, 13 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/569810e31d66.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. The top United Nations official in Cote d'Ivoire today highlighted that the peaceful conclusion of the presidential election provides the country's citizens with the opportunity to turn the page, start a new chapter in their nation's history and consolidate achievements towards long-term stability. "Cote d'Ivoire was put to the test through the holding of the presidential election," Aichatou Mindaoudou, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and head of the UN Operation in Cote d'Ivoire (UNOCI), told members of the Security Council during an update on the latest developments in the West African country. On 25 October, the people of Cote d'Ivoire re-elected President Alassane Ouattara to a second term in office. Ms. Mindaoudou said the results were validated by the Constitutional Council "in an atmosphere of calm and order, in stark contrast to 2010." She noted that all observation missions - national, regional and international - concurred that the results of the vote reflected the will of the voters, and that the organization of the election was "transparent and credible." "Cote d'Ivoire is now the second largest economy in West Africa, a remarkable recovery since the post-election crisis of 2010/2011," the head of UNOCI underlined. "National reconciliation, however, lags behind reconstruction and economic recovery. In this regard, I welcome President Ouattara's inauguration statement where he indicated his determination to make national reconciliation a priority of his second term," she added. Meanwhile, she said progress in the prosecution of alleged perpetrators of crimes committed during the post-election crisis remains slow, and urged the Government to expedite investigations and prosecute all those alleged to have committed atrocities regardless of political affiliation. Ms. Mindaoudou also said she was encouraged by the participation of women in many public forum and seminars, whether representing their political parties or generally voicing their concerns on matters of national interest. "It augurs well for an increased participation of women in future elections and ultimately in decision-making positions," she insisted. "I note, in this regard, the President's intention to make women's empowerment a priority during his second term." Turning to security issues, she said the electoral process was a test for the Ivorian security forces, and that despite some short-comings, the national police, gendarmerie and armed forces met the challenge. "The security situation in Cote d'Ivoire remains stable with violent crimes still on the downward trend since [the] last report," Ms. Mindaoudou informed the Council. "During the electoral period, no serious security incidents were reported by the population, or the candidates. Armed robberies and banditry, however, continue to be a challenge, as well as threats of terrorist attacks." Regarding the border with Liberia, she reported that it remains closed as a precaution against the Ebola Virus Disease, but information-sharing between the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) and UNOCI has continued. Humanitarian corridors were also opened on 18 and 22 December to allow for the voluntary repatriation of Ivorian refugees from Liberia, facilitated by the UN refugee agency. Noting that the authorized strength of the UNOCI Force stands at 5,437 and that of the Police at 1,500, the head of the Mission said it is ready to further reduce the Force to 4,000 troops by 31 March. To this end, she said a strategic review team will deploy in February to develop recommendations on the further downsizing of UNOCI military and police, and the future of the mission. "Challenges remain in Cote d'Ivoire notwithstanding the successful holding of the presidential election and the improving security situation on the ground," concluded the UN Special Representative. "Progress to advance national reconciliation, the strengthening of the security sector, [] and further improvements in the human rights situation and in transitional justice are all key challenges facing Cote d'Ivoire on the path to durable stability," she explained. Recalling that legislative elections are expected next December, Ms. Mindaoudou said these elections are "crucial," and should involve the full political spectrum in Cote d'Ivoire, as it will be an opportunity for the opposition to participate and secure seats in the National Assembly, as per a "vibrant democracy." Donor support helps UN agency continue Humanitarian Air Service across Sudan Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 13 January 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Donor support helps UN agency continue Humanitarian Air Service across Sudan, 13 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5698112f9555.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today welcomed significant contributions from donors towards the operation in Sudan last year of the UN Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS), which serves as a vital aid link in the country. "We are very grateful to UNHAS donors who have been keen to see it continue its services to humanitarian workers who need to reach remote communities they serve across Sudan," said WFP Representative and Country Director Adnan Khan in a statement. Timely contributions from the Common Humanitarian Fund (CHF), the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO), and the governments of the United Kingdom, Sweden and Switzerland ensured that WFP, which manages UNHAS, continued to provide a "vital service" to humanitarian staff in the country until the end of 2015, the agency underlined. UNHAS is primarily funded by donor contributions in addition to nominal fees paid by passengers. In 2015, UNHAS was also supported by funds from the governments of the United States, Germany and Canada. The service was established in Sudan in 2004 to provide reliable passenger and light cargo service to the humanitarian community there. Currently, UNHAS serves 100 organizations, including UN agencies and humanitarian partners. The humanitarian air service relies on a fleet of six aircraft - two fixed-wing aircraft and four helicopters - based in Khartoum, Nyala, El-Fasher and Geneina. While the fixed-wing aircraft provide air shuttle services from Khartoum to the three Darfur state capitals, the helicopters facilitate humanitarian travel to areas that are inaccessible by road, either due to insecurity or to poor road conditions. On average, UNHAS transports 3,500 passengers and 20 metric tons of light cargo each month to more than 40 locations in Sudan. It also provides medical and security evacuations when needed. Pakistan: Ban condemns suicide bombing near polio eradication centre in Quetta Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 13 January 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Pakistan: Ban condemns suicide bombing near polio eradication centre in Quetta, 13 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5698116a291c.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned today's suicide bombing close to the premises of a polio eradication centre in Quetta, Pakistan, reportedly killing at least 15 people, and wounding 25 others. "The Secretary-General reiterates that nothing justifies terrorism," according to a statementissued by a UN spokesperson, in which Mr. Ban urges the Government of Pakistan to take all necessary measures to swiftly bring to justice the perpetrators of such attacks. The UN chief also extended his condolences to the families of the victims and wished the injured a speedy recovery. He expressed his sympathies to the people and Government of Pakistan. Final provisional results for legislative polls in Central African Republic announced UN mission Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 13 January 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Final provisional results for legislative polls in Central African Republic announced UN mission, 13 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/569811bc50.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. The United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) today reported that the final provisional results for the legislative elections have been announced by the Autorite Nationale des Elections (ANE), with 21 candidates, including three women, being elected by an absolute majority during the first round. "A second round of the legislative elections will be held in 113 constituencies," noted UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, briefing reporters in New York. The UN has played a major role in seeking to restore peace in the Central African Republic, with military and police units from the 11,000-strong MINUSCA joining soldiers from the French Sangaris force and local security teams last 30 December at polling stations to ensure a peaceful vote. Over the past two years, the country has experienced a major political crisis, with violent conflict between ex-Seleka and anti-Balaka armed groups that has affected nearly the entire population. "The Mission continues to reinforce security in Ouaka Prefecture, with illegal ex-Seleka barricades dismantled and several weapons seized," the Spokesperson added. "In Dekoa, peacekeepers secured the release of one of two teachers who had been abducted." The Mission also reported that ex-combatants this week surrendered grenades and military uniforms in Bouar, Nana Mambere prefecture, within the framework of the pre-Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration programme. The Mission also registered 22 new anti-Balaka fighters and collected a number of weapons in Bambari in Ouaka prefecture. "The Mission continues its efforts to raise awareness and prevent sexual exploitation and abuse," stressed Mr. Dujarric. "Yesterday, a team led by the Secretary-General's Special Representative, Parfait Onanga-Anyanga, visited eight Formed Police Unit locations in Bangui and reiterated the UN's 'zero tolerance' policy towards sexual exploitation and abuse." UN chief condemns deadly suicide bombing at mosque in Cameroon Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 13 January 2016 Cite as UN News Service, UN chief condemns deadly suicide bombing at mosque in Cameroon, 13 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/569812081038.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today condemned a deadly suicide bombing in the village of Kouyape, in the Far North region of Cameroon, during morning prayer at a mosque. "The attack, perpetrated by suspected Boko Haram elements, resulted in the death of an estimated 13 people, including the imam, and numerous injured," indicated a statementissued by Mr. Ban's spokesperson. "The Secretary-General extends his heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and to the Government and people of Cameroon, and wishes a speedy recovery to those injured in the attack," it added. The UN chief also reiterated his call for a comprehensive approach to preventing and countering the scourge of terrorism, and addressing its root causes, in compliance with international humanitarian, human rights and refugee law. Meanwhile, Mr. Ban welcomed the holding of the African Union's Donors Conference to mobilize resources for the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) to combat the Boko Haram terrorist group, to be held on 1 February in Addis Ababa. "He encourages full support for this initiative," concluded the statement. Congo border town helps Central African neighbours in need Publisher UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Publication Date 14 January 2016 Cite as UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Congo border town helps Central African neighbours in need, 14 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/569815b011.html [accessed 20 October 2022] When Congolese mother Blandine Ngeki fled for her life across the Ubangi River in 1999, she was taken in by Josephine Servis and her family in the Central African Republic. Now it is Ngeki's time to return the hospitality. Driven out of the CAR capital Bangui last year after their house was burned down, the Servis family slipped across the broad, fast-flowing border river by canoe to this town in DRC, where Ngeki opened her small tin-roofed home to them all. "We are Congolese. We always offer shelter to someone who had to flee," said Ngeki, who is among many in Zongo who are reaching out to share their homes with the refugees and provide access to key services including medical attention and education. Since 2013 when rebel groups overthrew then-President Francois Bozize, some 110,000 people have fled war in CAR and sought shelter in DRC, primarily along the Ubangi River which constitutes the border between the two countries. Most of them live in refugee camps, but about a third of the refugees stay with the local population. As well as taking in Servis and her family, Ngeki is also looking after three orphan children. Meanwhile a neighbour, Mariam Youssuf, cares for two children from CAR, a boy aged one and a three-year-old girl. They were left in her care by their mother, who then went to recover some belongings from Bangui, where a tense calm has been punctuated by periodic clashes between rebel groups and government forces. "The small one is often asking for his mom, he wants to see her. To make them happy, I sometimes buy sweets for them," Youssuf said. "If their mother does not come back, they can stay here. We will always have a few manioc leaves. We'll eat together," she said. Zongo is far from unique. There are many other communities along the Ubangi River where Congolese residents are offering shelter and support on an ongoing basis to refugees from CAR, a third of whom have arrived during the past year. The number of new arrivals now outstrips that of the local population in some places, particularly in remote zones which have only a few schools or health posts. UNHCR has been moving some of the refugees from far-off border areas to the five refugee camps in northern DRC, and also welcomes the Congolese help. "The support shown by Congolese for the neighbours from CAR is exemplary. We should remember that this is one of the poorer regions in sub-Saharan Africa. Many of the hosts already live below the poverty line", said Stefano Severe, UNHCR's Regional Representative for Central Africa. While the Refugee Agency's appeal for CAR is severely under-funded, "UNHCR is doing its best to help local communities in this situation, including those near the border and next to the refugee camps," he said Among schools in Zongo that have stepped up to the challenge and taken in refugee children eager to continue their education is the Mohamad Primary School in Zongo, which has set up six new temporary classrooms. "UNHCR gave us some plastic sheeting and benches. We have eight teachers," the school's manager, Abdulaye Livana said. "Only finding money for their salaries is not easy." Meanwhile, at a health centre for children in the border town, refugees from CAR are among the mothers with infants waiting in line. Common diseases like malaria and diarrhea can easily kill a child if they are not treated, and the centre frequently subsidizes costs to help those in need. "Sometimes, the refugees do not have much, and it can be less than the treatment would normally cost," said Jacob Wakanza, the manager of the centre, explaining the staff's motivation. "We try to help in the first place. We need to show solidarity. They are human beings." By Andreas Kirchhof in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Greece: Limit 'Stop-and-Search' Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 13 January 2016 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Greece: Limit 'Stop-and-Search', 13 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/56981a095d1a.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. The Greek government should take formal steps to limit overly broad police stop-and-search powers, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter and briefing paper to the alternate minister for citizen protection, Nikolaos Toskas. Greece's government told Human Rights Watch in December 2015 that it will amend a police circular governing the procedure for taking someone into police custody following a stop, for further confirmation of the person's identity. But the government has not addressed gaps in the law that lead to groundless and sometimes abusive identity checks. "The government has made important commitments to change its approach to policing in the center of Athens, but further reforms are needed to end widespread stop-and-search abuses," said Eva Cosse, Greece specialist at Human Rights Watch. "The minister should seize this opportunity to make sure that the changes have the legal and policy framework to make them effective." Human Rights Watch research has documented abusive stops and searches by Athens police. In many cases, the police confine people in police buses and police stations for hours, sometimes moving them and then releasing them far from the city center, without any reasonable and individualized suspicion of criminal wrongdoing. The briefing paper to Toskas, the alternate minister, outlines the concerns. Human Rights Watch urged him to make necessary reforms to ensure that police stops are conducted in accordance with national and international law prohibiting discrimination, including ethnic profiling, ill-treatment, and arbitrary deprivation of liberty. These reforms should be accompanied by adequate training of police officers, a functioning independent complaints mechanism, and accountability for police abuse. Copyright notice: Copyright, Human Rights Watch China: Persecution of Labor Activists Escalates Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 13 January 2016 Cite as Human Rights Watch, China: Persecution of Labor Activists Escalates, 13 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/56981a554d0c.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. The Chinese government should immediately release four labor rights activists who were formally arrested in Guangdong province on apparent politically motivated grounds, Human Rights Watch said today. "These formal arrests of labor activists signify a significant escalation in the Chinese government's assault on civil society since President Xi Jinping came to power," said Brad Adams, Asia director. "Under Xi, the authorities are showing increasing hostility toward those whose activism wasn't considered a threat just a few years ago." On January 8, 2016, police in Guangdong province formally arrested Zeng Feiyang, director of the Panyu Migrant Workers Center, and two other staff members, Zhu Xiaomei and Meng Han, as well as He Xiaobo, director of Nan Fei Yan, another labor rights group. The four were among over a dozen labor rights activists from four workers organizations taken into custody on December 3 by police in Guangdong province. Police also apprehended Tang Jian (also known as "Bei Guo"), a former employee of Panyu Migrant Workers Center, who was in Beijing, and Peng Jiayong, director of the Panyu-based Laborer Mutual Aid Group. Guangzhou police also took away staff members of Guangzhou Hai Ge Workers' Services Center on December 3, though they were later released. On December 4, police formally detained Zeng, Zhu, and Meng for "gathering crowds to disturb social order." On the same date, police formally detained He on unspecified grounds for "embezzlement." Peng's lawyer believes that he has also been formally detained. Under Chinese law, following formal detention, the police can hold criminal suspects for up to 37 days before the procuratorate, the state prosecution, makes a decision to either release or formally arrest them. Formal arrests signal another step in the criminal proceedings and in practice those formally arrested are very likely to proceed to trial and conviction. The formal arrests of the four activists followed increased harassment of nongovernmental labor organizations in the past year, including beatings by unidentified individuals and threats by local Bureaus of Civil Affairs to cancel registration of some organizations. This harassment may be related to a reported record high number of labor disputes in 2015, which include strikes and protests by workers coming in the context of China's economic slowdown. According to the Hong Kong-based worker's rights group, China Labor Bulletin, most of the 2,774 incidents reported in 2015 concerned unpaid wages. The targeting of labor rights groups appears to be part of the Chinese government's broad assault on civil society, including such key pillars as the media, Internet users, lawyers, and academia. It also includes the government's promulgation and drafting of laws in the name of state security to restrict civil society groups from engaging in advocacy. For example, the Chinese legislature has released a draft of the Foreign Non-Governmental Organizations Management Law in May 2015 that, if passed, will give the police an expansive role in approving and monitoring the work of nongovernmental organizations and severely restrict their ability to seek resources from and cooperate with international organizations. "The Chinese government is shooting itself in the foot by persecuting labor activists who have played an important mediating role between workers and companies," said Adams. "The authorities need to stop seeing anyone who disagrees with them as an enemy to be jailed and start working with these pioneering labor rights advocates who have done so much to maintain industrial calm in China's factories." Copyright notice: Copyright, Human Rights Watch Turkey must lift broadcast ban on Istanbul attack and allow public debate Publisher Article 19 Publication Date 12 January 2016 Cite as Article 19, Turkey must lift broadcast ban on Istanbul attack and allow public debate, 12 January 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5698abcc4.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. ARTICLE 19 strongly condemns the fatal attack which took place today, in a busy tourist area of Istanbul. At this time, the Turkish government must guarantee freedom of expression, including by ensuring the media are able to report on issues of public concern, as obliged under international law. "ARTICLE 19 is horrified by today's bombing and expresses condolences to all those affected and to the people of Turkey" said David Diaz-Jogeix, Director of Programmes at ARTICLE 19. "At the same time, we are concerned about the imposition of a ban on media reporting on the bombings. Transparent and timely media reporting is absolutely necessary in emergency situations, as it allows people to follow security advice and engage in an open debate on issues of public concern." At the present time, it has been reported that ten people have died and 15 people have been injured in the attack, with local residents and tourists among the victims. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Just one hour after the explosion, the Higher Council for Radio and Television, a government body, issued a ban on reporting on the attack. The broadcasting ban was issued under Article 7 of Law 6112 'On the Establishment of Radio and Television Enterprises and their Media Services', which states that in circumstances where possible serious deterioration of public order or national security expressly require it, a temporary publication or broadcast ban may be issued. International law ARTICLE 19 is concerned that the ban is not compatible with Turkey's obligations under international law. Freedom of expression can be limited for the protection of national security and public order, however the circumstances of the limitation must be narrowly and clearly defined so as not to allow abuse. Furthermore, even when justified on the grounds of national security or public order, the limitation on expression must be proportionate. It is unclear how broadcasting or publishing information on the attack could cause the deterioration of public order or national security, and indeed the banning order itself does not provide any clarity on this, simply stating the ban is deemed appropriate in the circumstances. The order states that the ban is temporary, however there is no specification of the duration of the ban. As the justification is far from clear and sufficient, the ban is in contradiction with international law on freedom of expression. In any case, a total ban on broadcasting on an issue of public concern is never a proportionate response. ARTICLE 19 is further concerned that a ban on reporting on the bombing could intensify public alarm about the attack. Accurate and timely media reporting during emergency situations is important to provide the public with reliable information, ensuring people are able to follow relevant security advice and engage in open debate on issues of public interest. Turkey has previously issued similar media bans. On 10 October 2015, there was a ban on reporting on the bombing in Ankara. At the time, many news agencies defied the ban and continued to report on the events in Ankara, risking prosecution. Once again, despite the ban this morning, many news agencies continue to report on the attack in Istanbul. ARTICLE 19 calls on the Turkish government to immediately lift the broadcasting ban to protect the space for free and open debate in the aftermath of these attacks. Copyright notice: Copyright ARTICLE 19 Kazakhstan: Raid on Nakanune.kz aims to silence critical reporting Publisher Article 19 Publication Date 18 December 2015 Cite as Article 19, Kazakhstan: Raid on Nakanune.kz aims to silence critical reporting, 18 December 2015, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5698ac674.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. ARTICLE 19 is deeply concerned by today's raids on Nakanune.kz, one of Kazakhstan's few remaining independent news sources, and calls upon the Kazakh authorities to respect their obligation to uphold freedom of expression. On 18 December, police in Almaty conducted searches of the offices of Nakanune.kz, which is well-known for its investigative journalism around allegations of corruption between the Kazakh authorities and the business elite and its outspoken criticism of the Government. Earlier that morning, police also searched the properties of Guzyal Baidalinova, the owner of the site, and Yuliya Kozlova, a journalist working for the site. "The Kazakh authorities are afraid of the power of independent media to expose government wrongdoing and corruption. We fear that today's raids on Nakanune.kz might be a politically-motivated attempt to silence critical reporting and prevent genuine investigative journalism in the country," said David Diaz-Jogeix, Director of Programmes at ARTICLE 19. A warrant provided by police stated that the searches were part of a pre-trial criminal investigation concerning a group of people, involved in "the dissemination of knowingly false information that posed a danger to public order and inflicted heavy damage to Kazkommertsbank JSC, to the amount of KZT 144,235,090 (approx. 300,000 GBP)." Those involved are alleged to have conspired to use media outlets and online portals, specifically www.respublika-kaz.info and nakanune.kz, to disseminate deliberately false material. While it is not yet clear whether further action will be taken, the warrant suggests that Baidalinova and Kozlova could face charges of 'dissemination of knowingly false information' under Article 274 (4) of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, punishable by up to seven years' imprisonment. This is not the first time that Nakanune.kz and its journalists have come under pressure from the Kazakh authorities: in September this year, Nakanune.kz lost a libel case brought by Kazkommertzbank, regarding an article about corruption in the construction industry. In the case, the plaintiff claimed that the article had damaged the bank's reputation, resulting in a loss of profits. An Almaty court ordered Baidalinova, the owner of the site, to pay approximately 70,000 in compensation, a decision Baidalinova is currently appealing. She maintains that the information published in the article was in the public interest, and should have initiated a police inquiry. Meanwhile, her lawyer argues that the court did not establish evidence of any material loss resulting from the article, which might have served as a basis for compensation. A number of Nakanune.kz's journalists worked previously with Respublika, an independent newspaper which was highly critical of the Kazakh authorities, until its closure was forced in 2012, on charges of extremism. Following this, in April 2014, an Almaty court ruled that the Assandi Times, where a number of former Respublika journalists were working, was an affiliate of Respublika, and ordered its closure. Respublika is now operating through a Russia-based site, Respublika-kaz.info. This site was implicated in the Nakanune.kg libel case, for having distributed the article in question. ARTICLE 19 has condemned the Kazakh authorities' harassment of Respublika on numerous occasions, including in December 2012, when the publication was first suspended on charges of 'extremism', following its coverage of the Zhanaozen strikes, which resulted in security forces' indiscriminate shooting of unarmed civilians; and in April 2014, following the closure of the Assandi Times. In both incidences, the actions of the prosecution demonstrated a clear attempt to ensure political control over the media within Kazakhstan, resulting in the restriction of the flow of information. Given the history of harassment of the independent media in Kazakhstan, in particular persecution of Respublika and Nakanune.kz, and their journalists, ARTICLE 19 fears that the recent raids on Nakanune.kg are politically-motivated, and part of a wider pattern of intimidation, aiming to prevent investigative journalism from exploring and exposing corruption, and silencing critical reporting within Kazakhstan. We remind Kazakhstan of their obligation to protect and promote freedom of expression and call upon the Kazakh authorities to cease threats and intimidation of those who exercise their fundamental right to freedom of expression. Copyright notice: Copyright ARTICLE 19 Country Report: The Right to Information in Taiwan Publisher Article 19 Publication Date 16 December 2015 Cite as Article 19, Country Report: The Right to Information in Taiwan, 16 December 2015, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5698acb44.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Constitutional Framework Taiwan's Constitution of the Republic of China was adopted on 25 December 1946 and has been amended seven times since the adoption.It does not contain any specific provisions on the right to information. Nevertheless, it guarantees freedom of speech and freedom to impart information in Article 12, which states that the people "shall have freedom of speech, teaching, writing and publication." Right to information Act The Freedom of Government Information Law (RTI Act) was promulgated and entered into force on 28 December 2005. Little information is available about the legislative efforts and background. A professor from the National Taiwan University, College of Law, participated in drafting the RTI Act. Provisions of the RTI legislation PRINCIPLES The purpose of the RTI Act according to Article 1 is to facilitate sharing and "fairly" using government information, protect the public's right to know, enhance the public trust and civil oversight and encourage public participation in a democratic society. There is a presumption in favour of access to information, although the provisions of other laws prevail in case of a conflict of laws. The requester needs to state the purpose of requesting government information, which is a serious limiting factor for exercising the right to information. SCOPE Only nationals registered as residents in Taiwan, legal persons established by these nationals and nationals of Taiwan who reside overseas are entitled to seek information. This is a rather narrow definition, although the law contains a reciprocity clause for foreigners. They are entitled to request information if the law of their countries of origin does not restrict Taiwan citizens from obtaining information from the respective country. The RTI Act applies to the government agencies at central and local level as well as institutes for experiment, research, education, culture, medicine, and management of special funds that are established by those agencies. Private entities vested with state authority are also subject to the provisions of the Act. The law applies to the president, the judiciary and to the legislature since the central government consists of the Office of the President and five branches (called "Yuan"). The law does not apply to state-owned or controlled enterprises. The law defines 'government information' as "information which a government agency produces or acquires within its respective authority" and is saved in any possible form. It is only possible to request specific documents and not information in general. PROACTIVE DISCLOSURE Public authorities are required to publish a wide range of information summarised in ten categories, including details of the services they provide, their organisational structure, their decision-making norms and rules, budget and audit information, information on public procurements and meeting records of collegiate agencies. Taiwan established an open data portal in April 2013. The RTI Act enables the authority to only inform the requestors where and how they can access information sought if is already available through means of proactive disclosure. DISCLOSURE UPON REQUEST The request should be made in writing; electronic requests may only be made with an electronic signature. The law does not provide for a possibility to submit an oral request. The request must include identifying information of the requester. In addition, the requester is required to indicate the purpose for requesting the information and provide a short description and number of the requested document. There is no obligation for the authority to comply with the preferred form of access. If the requested information is under copyright protection or it is hard to make a copy, the requestor may only be granted the right to consult the information without making copies. There is no specific requirement upon the authority to assist the requestors. It may, however, demand that the requester corrects the request. In case the authority does not possess the information it shall transfer the request to the competent authority and notify the requester. Within 15 days the competent authority examines whether to approve the request (Article 12) and this term may be extended by not more than another 15 days. Even if the authority needs to consult third parties for their comments, the decision on the provision or the refusal of access to the information shall be taken not later than 30 days following the submission of the request. Provision of the information is subject to payment of a fee determined pursuant to the Duplicating or Copying the Government Information Fee Standard Table. The authority may charge a fee "according to the purpose of requesting" the information and the fees may be reduced or waived if the applicant requests information for academic research or public interest use. EXEMPTIONS The law enumerates the exemptions from free access in Article 18, some of which are subject to a public interest and harm tests. Secrecy provisions override the RTI Act according to Article 2. Moreover, the Act provides that information classified as state secret or any other classified information by secrecy laws, regulations and orders is exempted. The protection of on-going investigations, the enforcement of the law and the guarantee of a fair trial are other legitimate interests which are protected under the law. These exemptions are not subject to the overriding public interest test. Preparatory and internal documents are only protected before the adoption of a final act and they can be disclosed even before the adoption of a final decision if there is overriding public interest in their disclosure. Another common ground for refusal is the protection of personal data and privacy and the protection of trade secrets. Both of these exemptions are subject to overriding public interest test, and protection of trade secrets is also subject to a harm test. There are other exemptions subject to the harm test. Information on enforcement of tasks of supervision, management, investigation or ban is protected if disclosure would "make difficult or disrupt the purpose of such works." Less typical exemptions relate to information about cultural heritage and to information about state-owned companies, both subject to the harm test. In case the need for a restriction ceases to exist or the situation changes in another way, the authority shall "accept the request." If the requested information relates to third parties, the authority shall notify the affected person and seek his/her comments. The third party needs to submit the comments in 10 days. The RTI Act also includes a provision on partial access: if only parts of the information sought are restricted, the body shall make other parts of such information available to the public. APPEALS The requester who wishes to challenge the decision of the authority may file an internal administrative appeal. The requestor can also complain to the administrative courts pursuant to the applicable procedural law. The law does not envisage an independent administrative oversight body. SANCTIONS Article 23 stipulates that sanctions can be imposed on civil servants that violate the provisions of the Act but refers to special laws. PUBLICATION / REPORTING MECHANISMS / PROMOTIONAL MEASURES The Act does not provide for special duties to oversee the implementation of the law nor to promote it. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE RTI LEGISLATION While Taiwan ranks top in Asia for general press freedom, the RTI Act itself is limited. Civil society reports that the implementation of the RTI Act has been unsatisfactory. Transparency International Chinese Taipei urged the President's Office in 2009 to push for the establishment of a central agency, capable of enforcing the law and to impose strict sanctions for breaching the right to information. While the government requested from the Ministry of Justice and other competent bodies to present policy proposals that would implement such recommendations, the RTI Act remains unchanged until this day. While there is no centralised agency that would report on the statistics of the use of the RTI Act, individual bodies regularly publish information on approvals and rejections on their websites. For example, the National Immigration Agency received 300 requests in the first three quarters of 2012; it approved 37% of the requests fully, 39.33% partially and rejected 23.67% of requests. Surprisingly, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported it has approved all 2,070 requests in full. The Taiwan Supreme Administrative Court seems reluctant to decide against the refusal decision of the authorities; out of 41 cases that reached the court from 2005 to 2010, only three have been successful. There appears to be low awareness of the Act among journalists, limiting the use of the Act. There is no agency specifically in charge of promoting the law and conducting awareness-raising activities. On the other hand, there is a lively open data community and both central and municipal open data portals. There appears to be low awareness of the Act among journalists, limiting the use of the Act. Related legislation STATE SECRETS ACT The Classified National Security Information Protection Act (2003) provides for three levels of classification as confidential, secret and top secret with periods for protection respectively for 10, 20 and 30 years. The Act specifically provides that classification shall be kept to the "absolute minimum". Information cannot be classified if the aim of classification is to conceal wrongdoing, restrain competition, prevent embarrassment, or is not necessary to protect the interest of the national security. Declassification is automatic at the expiration of the period of protection. The Act does not provide for regular review but provides that declassification before the expiration of the protection may be solicited by interested parties. PROTECTION OF WHISTLEBLOWERS Taiwan does not have a comprehensive whistleblower protection law. Nevertheless, the Anti-Corruption Informant Rewards and Protection Regulation (2011) provides for whistleblowers with confidentiality in reporting acts of corruption, and compensation for the whistleblower. The Regulation only applies to the public sector. The Agency against Corruption under the Ministry of Justice was established in 2011 to tackle corruption and investigate complaints from whistleblowers. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION LEGISLATION The Environment Protection Act (2002)413 provides for access to environmental information. It states that all relevant government entities shall collect and analyse environmental information, build an environmental information system and make it available to the public on a regular basis. The Environmental Impact Assessment Act (1994) also provides for publication of the EIAs and requires public discussions to be held. International Framework RELEVANT UN TREATIES Taiwan is not a part of the UN system. Taiwan ratified the ICCPR in 2009, but the UN rejected its deposit based on General Assembly Resolution 2,758.416 However, Taiwan continued to implement the ICCPR into its legal order by way of passing the Implementation Act in 2009. Taiwan cannot be a signatory of the UNCAC, as this Convention is only open for signature and ratification by UN Member States. However, Taiwan continued to pass a bill with "measures for implementing UNCAC-related laws" in 2015." Taiwan is not a participating country in the Open Government Partnership (OGP), although the government announced plans to attempt to join the OGP in 2013. It is also not part of other notable inter-governmental transparency initiatives. There is a general lack of aid transparency in Taiwan, which has transformed from an aid receiving country to a donor country, both due to the failure of the government to publish such information and the fact that Taiwan is not included in the majority of international databases. Copyright notice: Copyright ARTICLE 19 Gambia: Deyda Hydara, a journalist silenced by the gun Publisher Article 19 Publication Date 16 December 2015 Cite as Article 19, Gambia: Deyda Hydara, a journalist silenced by the gun, 16 December 2015, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5698ad0f4.html [accessed 20 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Deyda Hydara, founder of the Independent newspaper The Point was an authoritative voice of Gambian media. He was gunned down in December 2004 in an orchestrated plan to silence him forever and spread fear within the media community. Before his killing, Hydara had received many death threats, harassing and pressuring him to stop his popular column 'Good Morning President', where he highlighted areas of concerns in the country. Hydara fought against oppressive laws enacted to muzzle the press and restrict freedom of the media. His most notorious fight was a challenge to the Media Commission Bill put before the Supreme Court, in early 2004. Despite the threats and harassment, he continued to enlighten the public and stand up for press freedom, an endeavour that sadly cost him his life on the 16 December 2014. Hydara had a vision of an independent press when he set up The Point in 1991. He was an active Executive member of the West Africa Journalist Association (WAJA) and later co- founded the Gambia Press Union (GPU) with a view to having a platform for the media community to speak with one voice and create professional solidarity. Gambia is regarded as the most repressive country in West Africa. Journalists and human rights defenders continue to be targeted by the oppressive machinery set up to close all avenues for public engagement and the emergence of independent voices. Hydara's killing had had a major chilling effect on the media and has opened the doors for a new era of repression. Repression has increased, punctuated by the adoption of draconian laws, arbitrary arrests, secret detentions, torture, and enforced disappearances. These human rights violations remain unpunished: the judiciary is subordinate to the Executive power of the President and the government has a blatant disregard of its basic human rights obligations. Today marks the eleventh anniversary of Hydara's killing. Eleven years of impunity. Eleven years of legal battles by his family. Eleven years of justice denied. The Gambian government continues to refuse to release the autopsy report and conduct an independent inquiry into Hydara's death. Faced with such a denial of justice, Hydara's family pursue any and all avenues as they seek redress for their loss. However, the government and has systematically refused to pay attention to the recommendations of the African Commission on Human and People' Rights (ACHPR). In June 2013, the court of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) found that the Gambian government had failed to investigate Hydara's murder and ordered the government to compensation to the family. The government continues to defy the ruling. ARTICLE 19 reasserts its demand for an independent and impartial investigation into the killing of Hydara and an end to the oppression against journalists and human rights defenders. Copyright notice: Copyright ARTICLE 19